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Just out of curiosity, what

Quit calling and go silent and pray he closes the distance for a shot...

Gobbler Yelping

Fighting Purr!

Back up 100 yards or make a big loop to get on the other side of him

Gobbler cluck

22-250

Good-looking and Platinum level member of the Elitist club

Quote from: Happy on March 14, 2024, 10:50:44 AM
22-250

Good-looking and Platinum level member of the Elitist club

Happy, don't forget reaping with a fan in front of your face alone with the 22-250

Good-looking and Platinum level member of the Elitist club

Let him walk off, dip outta sight, circle around. Try him again. Kill him.


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Calls I have used to break a gobbler. These were a definite...like he was hung up for quite a while and then came in within a minute or so of making the call.

Fight purr

Kee Kee run

Jake yelps coupled with soft hen talk

Aggressive cutting

Gobble(s)

And I have also tried some of the above without success.


Also have used repositioning (when possible) which had the gobbler come in fairly quickly after the reposition.

Silence has worked too but that takes a long time from going silent to the gobbler coming in.

Solo, back off 40 yards and yelp and gobble. If he responds, purring. With a partner, I will walk off 180 degrees from him with my partner in the original spot. Yelp and cutt. Z Success rate is 20-35% ish.

Depends on what hung up means to you.  I have had more than a couple of birds take over an hour to come 1-200 yards.  My most successful did not end in a kill.  Son was young and we struck a bird with about 2 hours to go.  Got in position and called him to about 100 yards.  He would not budge for an hour, but would not leave either.  We backed out, looped around out of the pines into a scrub oak flat and he broke and came to the first yelp. Got him to about 25 yards and son did not take shot with about 15 minutes to spare (long story). 

Write down every tactic for a hung up gobbler you can think of on pieces of paper and carry them with you when hunting.  When you get in a situation where you are confronted with a hung up bird, reach in your pocket and grab one of those papers and try that tactic.  Your chances are probably as good as any.   ;D
Point:  Gobblers are the ones who decide what they are waiting to hear, or not...and often if they have hung up THEY have decided there is a very good reason they have chosen not to advance closer,...and only they know what that reason is.  Take your best shot and hope it works...   ;D :D

The thing that works most consistently for me is going silent if time and place allows. I've had them take up to an hour before slipping in. You really have to be still and alert the whole time too. Other things I've had work have been changing up calls, Jake yelps, fighting purrs, and wrapping a good Ol rubber band around a box call and gobbling on it. Like all things in regard to wild turkeys, nothing is a guarantee and way more times than not it doesn't work out even after running through the whole bag of tricks

Quote from: GobbleNut on March 14, 2024, 06:17:09 PM
Write down every tactic for a hung up gobbler you can think of on pieces of paper and carry them with you when hunting.  When you get in a situation where you are confronted with a hung up bird, reach in your pocket and grab one of those papers and try that tactic.  Your chances are probably as good as any.   ;D
Point:  Gobblers are the ones who decide what they are waiting to hear, or not...and often if they have hung up THEY have decided there is a very good reason they have chosen not to advance closer,...and only they know what that reason is.  Take your best shot and hope it works...   ;D :D

I hope this post is in jest. I couldn't disagree with it more.

After all your  years of experience you must have learned something.

As the original post suggests, I have been working this gobbler for a while. In that time I should have learned something about him and the situation. Maybe I've seen something, maybe it's what I have heard or not heard. What phase of the breeding I think they are in....etc.

Certainly I don't KNOW exactly what call to make  but as I have become more experienced I make educated guesses. Sometimes I don't have a lot of confidence in my guess, sometimes I am pretty darn sure. Most times I am probably going to learn something from the encounter, success or failure.

I hear a lot of "don't over thin it" in turkey hunting. True enough. But don't under think it either. If you don't think about wahrs going on or what went on afterwards, then you won't learn much.

Quote from: Treerooster on March 15, 2024, 01:54:03 PM

Quote from: GobbleNut on March 14, 2024, 06:17:09 PM
Write down every tactic for a hung up gobbler you can think of on pieces of paper and carry them with you when hunting.  When you get in a situation where you are confronted with a hung up bird, reach in your pocket and grab one of those papers and try that tactic.  Your chances are probably as good as any.   ;D
Point:  Gobblers are the ones who decide what they are waiting to hear, or not...and often if they have hung up THEY have decided there is a very good reason they have chosen not to advance closer,...and only they know what that reason is.  Take your best shot and hope it works...   ;D :D

I hope this post is in jest. I couldn't disagree with it more.
After all your  years of experience you must have learned something.

;D :D  Yes, it was (partially) in jest...but then again, it wasn't.  :)   ...And to your point, sometimes gobblers make me think that I have learned nothing at all over the years.  :D
In my admittedly too many years of experience, the fact is that I have seen gobblers balk at coming to "tried and true" tactics only to then come marching in to something that I never thought would have worked,...and was at the very bottom of my list of things to try.  The point once again being that it is the gobbler that decides what flips the switch and that is not always what WE think should flip it.

Having said that, I suppose I should have also stated that it is best to stick with those tried and true tactics first before throwing caution to the wind and reaching down into the bottom of that bag of tricks.  As we always say, you can't take something back once you've thrown it out there.    ;D :icon_thumright:

Leaf scratch feeding clucks and purrs. Shut it down and be still.

 I will start by saying:
Over calling by the hunter is the #1 reason a turkey hangs up.
#2 is a poor set up, on the caller, again.
#3 Pressure.

If you eliminate #1 and #2, #3 won't be a factor.

#2 can be largely dependent on what mother nature gives you, I get that. Sometimes, is wide open woods, there's only so much you can do!

A caller must find out how to conversate with a turkey, each turkey. A lot of callers kill turkeys that are ready to die. This is great, this is the turkey I hope to engage every day I go into the woods. But, in reality, you only run into this guy 3-4 times a spring. The rest, you have to communicate with a little.

As stated over and over. Don't go full blown and tell the turkey your life story in one or two non stop sentences! Let him engage, communicate.

I think if people would slow down and communicate like a couple young teenagers this wouldn't be so hard for so many to understand.

Sometimes you do have a slow boy in the mix, sometimes the girl does have to tell him what she wants all at once. But, not every boy is this dumb!

Oh, I meant turkey.

First off, don't start with a conversation with a gobbler setting on the limb.

All I know, is that if we did not have hung-up toms, there would be a lot less turkeys after hunting season.

Me...  I generally move.  Sometimes I move towards them, and bump them.  Sometimes I move away calling, and they lose interest...  Sometimes I move (one way or another), and they come in on a string, and I hence become a turkey hunting superhero...

I've learned from YouTube that all that is needed is a load of #9 apex and anything within 100 yards should fold...


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I have had success with soft calling and slowly walking (sneaking) away. I'd walk (sneak)away until I was well away and out of sight, occasionally calling softly directed away from the tom as if I, the hen of his dreams, was leaving the area. Then I would go silent and head over to the left or right depending on the situation, about 40 yards and then sneaked back down where I was within 40 yards of my first calling station and waited. As long as I could hear him and he wasn't leaving, I'd silently wait him out. If he moves out, I'd get in front of him and use call tactics that where appropriate to that situation. This has worked more than once for me, shooting them almost in the same spot I was originally calling from.

It takes patience, and be careful about moving Sometime no matter what you do, they will not come in.Jyst move on.