Normally our birds aren't henned up until about the end of this month. But I guess the real early hot temperatures around here have sped up the loving process. Lol. The farm I hunt is eat up with longboards. I've seen groups of 8 or 10 gobblers at once but every one of em always has hens. I've heard 2 gobbles in about 10 days of hunting. And that was on the roost. I can't get the birds to do anything. I'm stumped. What are some things I can do to try and fool some of these gobblers into straying from their hens and work towards me a little bit?
Man, we are in the same boat. I just hope to get lucky and catch one alone. Most of the time if I know he is with hens I try back later in the day. It hasn't worked for me yet this year, but has in past seasons.
Try them later in the morning. Killed a many a longbeard on up in the day that were by themselves. Seems the hens start to peel off throughout the morning and all of the sudden he's alone and horny as heck :D
10:30-2:30 in the day is going to be your best bet.
Im in the same boat as you in tennessee.Never in my born days :lol: I have hunted mornings,evenings and in betwween and still no luck pulling them gobblers off the hens.We got on a couple gobblers this morning and thought we were good but they turned the other way and was gone by the time we circled them they quit gobblin and dont know where they went.Its been like this from day one down there.We have been seeing a ton of hens and several jakes and could have killed some jakes but i dont shoot jakes.
We encounter this every year in NY and PA with how late our season is, by mid May its in the 80's pretty much every day and you can be lucky to hear a few roost gobbles and a shock or two mid morning.
here is what I've general tried with good sucess
1. Glass every evening and try and find birds that you can watch go to roost, slip in a solid hour before sunrise and get tight tight tight to the roost. even if they dont gobble much if you can see them on the limb once its light out you've got yourself some action and a good chance of tagging one.. do not over call or the hens will pitch the other way
2. pattern the hens feeding places and forget about the roost, start there and wait em out til they show up.. boring and I hate it but it'll work if they are going to the same place pretty much every day.
3. (haven't tried it before but might give it a whirl this year) - forget hen talk and gobble at them.
If you are hunting in Fields.. nothing beats a gobbler decoy on Henned up Birds.. doesn't work all the time.. but it will work ..
Last Wednesday I was hunting TN with a couple of friends.. found two longbeards with hens around 1:15 in a field.. they wouldn't budge .. snuck the B-mobile out where they could see it and they still wouldn't budge .. started gobbling at them and they broke and left the hens.. 1 .. 2 .. Boom ...two dead LBs at 1:30 PM ..
I don't know how you hunt, but here's a couple of things I've learned to do. Slow down and don't try to force anything. Hunt each set-up longer, even if you don't hear a gobble. When you do move to a new spot, don't move as far. Listen for more than a gobble. Just because he doesn't gobble doesn't mean he's not responding. I kill birds every year that respond only via drumming and walking. I promise you there are solo gobblers out there, and there's a reason why they don't have hens, it's the same reason they don't gobble much or any at all.
There henned up really bad right now. A roost gobble if your lucky then nothing rest of the day. This is in the far eastern part of the state
Quote from: Reloader on April 09, 2012, 03:46:03 PM
Try them later in the morning. Killed a many a longbeard on up in the day that were by themselves. Seems the hens start to peel off throughout the morning and all of the sudden he's alone and horny as heck :D
agreed!!! this might not happen everyday. really depends on the amount of hens with him. but if he finds himself alone he will be looking for company!!!
There not talking later on either. Ive stayed in the mtn till 430 and there just not talking hens or gobblers. Don't need to with the harems they have. These are public land mtn birds so the numbers of birds just aint there like private where you have better odds of finding one that wants to play. Much harder to find one when theres just a few small pockets of em over thousands of acres. It will get better but until then I need to listen at my Va spots for the opener Saturday. Good luck guys :anim_25: