Good morning all,
A little background and context before my question to yall. I am 28 I have been turkey hunting hard since I turned 16 and could drive myself. Those first few years were rough as I did not have many places/turkeys to hunt. Through many years of trial and error I have gotten to where I kill 1-3 birds a season around my home states. The past few years have been much more consistently sucessful.
However, it seems every season there is a "lesson" that is the central theme of my season. Spring of 2024 I missed out on three different longbeards due to what I assume is "sitting wrong".
My first question is, when turkey hunters speak on "sitting down to a turkey" are they referring to the direction you are facing when you are working a bird? That is what cost me. I am right-handed and three different birds came in wide, and I was stuck and had to watch them walk on by. One instance two birds were ten steps from me.
As a right-handed shooter, should I put my left shoulder towards the gobbling? What if the bird swings way left at that point?
Also, is there another definition of "sitting down to a turkey" that I am missing?
As a right handed shooter, I try to setup on the right side of a tree with my left shoulder pointed where I expect the turkey to show up. This gives me the best chance to swing if he comes right of where I expected.
When I sit down to a turkey, the two most important considerations for me are: 1. Would a turkey want to be here if he wasnt prompted? 2. When I first see him (and he sees me/doesnt see a hen), will he be in range? If the answer to either is no, I adjust, if I can.
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Jim Spencer once wrote "sit down wrong, and you're beat." He was 100% correct.
I've often thought to myself that if one doesn't know the ground at that set up location, without luck that turkey will beat you every time. Guys like me who hunt large tracts of public rarely get to know the ground intimately, as in blow downs, root ball depressions, benches, rocks, water, beech or multi rose flora scrub brush, etc.
It all plays into his decision to come in straight to your set up, or peel off left or right along the way.
Too many times I've struck a bird mid morning, and without thinking it through, sit right down right there or get a little closer and sit, with my left shoulder facing the direction he might come if walking an imaginary chalk line between him and the tree at my back.
Its the stuff in between that more often determines the outcome of that interaction if the gobbler is committed to walking in.
"Sit down wrong, and you're beat." Sometimes you can influence that set up, other times you are at the mercy of the conditions on the ground. The more you know the ground, the better your odds are.