No one in my family turkey hunted when I was growing up (we hunted pretty much everything else), so I've pretty much been self taught on gobblers. Just wondering who else taught themselves to turkey hunt?
Quote from: BlakeJ on March 10, 2013, 12:41:05 AM
No one in my family turkey hunted when I was growing up (we hunted pretty much everything else), so I've pretty much been self taught on gobblers. Just wondering who else taught themselves to turkey hunt?
No one in by family hunted, period. So I guess I am self taught as well.
My dad always took me deer hunting but he never really got in to turkey hunting but he took me because he knew I enjoyed it. He had no idea how to do it but we still managed to get lucky a few times and kill a few when I started out. Since I was really the one interested in it, I was the one learning to call and trying to really "learn" all the rest of the ways to hunt and he was just kind of there to drive me to and from the hunt and make sure I was safe. I really appreciate that, looking back, because he dang sure wasnt getting up early because he liked it but really just there to support me with it.
Never really had any friends that were in to turkey hunting growing up either. I got a few of them in to the sport along the way and, over the years, have found one or two that I enjoy hunting with and that I'd say I learn stuff from.
I hunted just about everything except turkey until I was 46 years old. That's when my 21 year old son told me "Let's go turkey hunting". I told him that I knew nothing about turkey hunting and to be honest a turkey did not excite me in any way. He said so what, let's go anyway. The upcoming weekend was the final weekend of turkey season so we headed to camp that Thursday night, stopped at Cabelas on the way and bought some turkey shells and a pot call.
The next morning we headed out well before daylight (we hunt public land) and walked 2 miles back and waited for daylight. Just before daybreak one gobbled on the roost not too far away and every hair on my body stood up......I was hooked at that point! We chased gobblers all weekend from daylight to dark each day but never did see any. Just about everything that I have learned from that point has been from trial and error (with lot's of errors), read on this forum and a few pointers from my friend that is a member of our camp and the only other turkey hunter in the camp. So I guess I am self taught and learn something new every hunt.
The area we hunt has a very short season which consists of one 2 day youth lottery hunt, three 2 day lottery hunts and a 7 day regular season that opens on Monday following the last lottery hunt. We have been fortunate enough to get drawn for lottery hunts the last 3 seasons and I got drawn for the weekend lottery this year that is just before the Monday opener which we have vacation through Thursday.
I am self taught as well, I could write a book about what not to do while turkey hunting.
I learned with my Dad and Mom who both knew nothing about it either back in the 60's.n They both know a little bit about it now.
I think your better off being self taught versus being taught by someone. Self taught you learn to hunt your way and you develop your own style so to speak . Taught by someone else and your learn how they hunt, which may or may not be the way you would hunt had you learned on your own.
I taught myself as well. Although every trip out is still a learning experience.
Me, myself, and I.. I grew up in a die hard hunting and fishing family, but no turkey hunting..
Self taught here also. No one in my family hunts at all, and a friend sold me an old bow and started me deer hunting. Thats where the madness begins...
I grew up hunting with whoever would take me. One time a couple that was friends with my mom invited me to their cabin during turkey season. Their place was in the ozark hills. I was given a few pointers and sent off on my own. To this day, 20 some years later, I am still teaching myself lessons. With the help of mr. Tom that is.
Nobody ever took me either. I started about 20 years ago. I too, could write a book about how to screw up. That's the only way to learn in my opinion.
I grew up around some turkey hunting legends, but they were a tight lipped old school crew. My Dad took us deer hunting, but he knew nothing about turkey hunting.
I guess attitudes were different back then about taking kids hunting, because I was on my own other than listening to Dick Kirby calling cassettes and listening to some of the old school hunters talk.
I did learn to keep my mouth shut about where I hunted and where I heard a turkey gobble. Back in those days, the only time anyone ever admitted to hearing a turkey gobble was when it was taking a ride in the back of the hunters truck.
Even to this day, one of my pet peeves is folks giving up specific information to public hot spots on the internet--especially places that are largely undiscovered.
Hunting family, but not Turkeys. Learned on my own, and put down a Jake, but really wasn't doing that well until I was mentored by an old school callmaker. After that my hunting really took off.
As many other stated on here, my family were die hard deer and small game hunters. I knew a couple older guys around here that loved turkey hunting so I went with them once. No luck.
The next weekend I had bought a Primos box call, can't remember what it was, and headed out on our land.
I sat down and made a couple yelps. Yeah. They were awesome! Lol. About 10 minutes went by and I heard a noise that made my hair stand up and my heart beat outta my chest. It was a gobbler spitting drum and ever since then I was hooked.
My family have all become die hard turkey hunters now except my dad who doesn't have time to hunt anymore, but I've learned through many many mistakes and reading whatever I could on this crazy bird.
My dad and i always hunted deer, turkey, ducks and geese and small game .. now i just hunt the birds no time for deer anymore . but it i really did not learn much as i thought i did about turkeys, till i got older and got off on my own and after failing many times, i started to learn my way in turkey hunting, well the way i like to hunt .now i have Lot's of time to scout my birds learn the new runways, most of them stay the same year after year .and it fun getting to watch turkeys grow from year to year .
More like, I've taught myself how NOT to turkey hunt. ;)
Started hunting the birds at 50. Hunted small game and waterfowl most of my life. The turkey fever hit me and I haven't been the same since! Self taught and thankful for the great people of turkey forums like OG. Always learning and relearning.
Count me as self taught. No one in my family hunted. At16 a buddy and his dad started taking me dog hunting (deer). I loved it, but at 20 decided to try still hunting. From there got into turkey. But pretty much self taught. I've tried to learn something from everyone i hunt or fish with.
I started on my own. Where I live there were no turkey hunters that I knew about. Very few actually turkey hunted. I started in '83 and finally killed a turkey in '85. I finally heard of a guy who was a turkey hunter and I went and introduced myself to him. He was a great guy but had only killed fall turkeys. So I taught myself how to kill turkeys. I learned from my mistakes. I finally met a guy in 1990 that knew how to turkey hunt. I had probably killed 10 turkeys before we met. We were inseparable from that time on in the spring. Now I am passing the torch. Nothing wrong with learning the hard way, good and bad but you can learn alot quicker with a little help.
TRKYHTR
No one in my family hunted, and I was in my 20's and started deer hunting and later in started hunting birds. Dove, quail, and pheasant. Pretty much stopped deer hunting because I found I liked chasing birds more. A series of life and job changes put hunting on the back burner for a couple decades. A few years ago I started up waterfowling and have just started getting the itch to try turkey hunts. Like all my other hunting it'll be self taught but the benefit of living in these times of information and guidance at your fingertips via the web makes the learning curve much easier. Im 57 and figure with any luck I'll have time to enjoy another type of hunting.
We had no turkeys in this area when I was a kid. I took it up about 13 years ago when my hunting lease opened turkey hunting up after stocking some a few years earlier.
I had great success early on. Unhunted turkeys come to a call in a way you just have to love!
I've been addicted since hunt one. :funnyturkey:
My uncle was a huge turkey killer. I went the first time by myself when I was 11 and killed one. After that he started taking me but we split up as soon as we left the truck. He always said boy the best way to learn to turkey hunt is make your own mistakes. So I learned on my own and am so glad I did now. The first year or 2 I managed to kill a few but I screwed up a lot. I use to bump a lot of birds by trying to get in to close. Part of that was because I was young and impatient. I called in a few birds later on for him and I swear if I let out a 4 note yelp he would lean over and say don't call to much lol.
He broke almost every bone is his body when a load of logs rolled off a truck and over him. He's in his 60s now but those injurys have came back to haunt him now plus logging over 40 years has took a toll on his body and not able to climb these mountains like he used to.
The last hunt we went on was about 5 years ago. I had scouted some new national forest that had held some birds and walking wasn't to bad. We get out of the truck and hear 4 or 5 all in the same direction. I let him take the closest bird and I went to one on out the mtn. By 8 they all had shut up then one fired off bout an hour later between us. I thought it was the bird I was originally on that had worked his way around there.
I get setup on him within about 100 yards. I purr and he double gobbles. I hear a light content hen yelp over near the bird. I thought great hes got hens. I would purr and lightly scratch the leaves and be would go nuts. A few minutes i see him strutting about 80 yards away on the side of the ridge. There was a slight hollow between us. He breaks strut, gobbles, then KABOOM and I see him flopping down the ridge.
I see a man stand up and ease down there and gather his prize. I wanted to see the bird so I gathered my stuff and walked down there. It was my dag gum uncle lol. I thought he was a real hen and when he heard me he thought they were some hens feeding so he figured he would let the "real" hens bring the gobbler by him and it worked. That was a great hunt i will never forget. Sorry for getting off track ;D
My grandfather was a turkey hunter, I remember a few stories from him but never went hunting with him. started on my own in 1979 took me 4 years to kill a turkey, still learning.
I was taught lots of things by others, like you can't call them downhill, and you can't call them across a creek or fence. The rest I learned on my own. Things like you can call them downhill and you can call them across a creek.
I guess you could say I'm self taught too. I hunted 7 years on public land before I killed my first turkey. I learned lots of things not to do in those 7 years.
I'm self taught. :bike2:
I taught myself to turkey hunt. I've made lots mistakes in the 20 years I've been hunting these birds and still do make mistakes, but I try to learn from the mistakes and spend as much time in the woods as I can. I'm pretty confident in my turkey killing abilities (although I still have a LOT of room for improvement), but confidence plays a big part in being a successful turkey hunter. The big problem though is I live close to an hour and a half away from where I hunt, so I don't get to the woods nearly as often as I would like to.
I am a self taught turkey hunter. This will be about my 6th season of turkey hunting. The first few seasons were a struggle, but I guess the only way to learn by yourself is to make mistakes. Boy I made plenty of them. I am to the point now to where I feel like I am good enough to call and kill a turkey every time I go in the woods. We all know it doesn't work that way, but I am know how/what to do and I am capable of it. Its kinda funny "now", not then, when I think back about some of the stupid things I done back in the day.
One that gets me every time was my very first season it was mid day and I slipped up to a huge field on some public land. As I rounded the last corner before the field there was a HUGE gobbler all my himself in the middle of the field looking hard for a hen. For some crazy reason I figured I could go into ninja mode I guess and slip out to the field and just shoot him. Well, you can guess how that worked out, you would have that turkey had a rocket strapped to his back got out of there so fast. LOL!!! No doubt in my mind looking back if I had of sat down as soon as I peeked around the corner and seen him it would have only took a few soft yelps and he would have been in my lap. I just shake my head chuckle every time I think about that. LOL!!!
Yeah I learned it on my own and hunted with an old friend one day and started killing birds after that.
Self-taught.
Wish I could have some of the gimme birds I messed up on back in the day all over again.
I am also a self taught turkey hunter. My parents never hunted when i was growing up. My dad had done a little bit of rabbit hunting when he was a kid but that was about it. I had a couple cousins who hunted quite a bit but because of there limited time off work to hunt they never had a chance to take me. I grew up on about 20 acres of good land and knew several people in the community that had more land that was willing to let me hunt. I started deer hunting when I was 13 and killed my first deer, a doe, that year. I started turkey hunting two years later but didn't have any luck until 3 years later when I was 18 I finally killed my first gobbler. Hunting, especially turkey hunting is an ever learning experience and I'll never know even half there is to learn but I'm always looking forward to trying.
I learned everything on my own,trial and error
Can't say I'm 100% self taught but I did get in to it on my own and killed my first couple on my own. Learned a ton from some very good friends from NC, A father, son team. You won't find better people and better turkeys hunters anywhere.
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My dad took me deer hunting as a kid, but he was not really into it. Now, rabbitts and squirrels, dad is a master hunter. We always had turkeys around the farm, so I taught myself how to call and killed my first gobbler when I was 14 and was hooked.
As fare as being self taught, I guess I did, but I still feel like I'm learning how to hunt them!
I was lucky. I had an experienced turkey hunter take me under his wing..... so to speak and show me the ropes. Then I met some "modern day" self taught hunters. The Old School guys that were around who would offer no help had no affect. I was killing turkeys on my own I had no need for them. I started going to calling contests and the new group of "young guns" were actually shaking up the "Old Masters" secrets that were not secrets anymore. In fact I was lucky because the information became "profitable" for the NWTF and Call Companies. More turkey hunters was more members and sold more turkey calls.
I remember being told not to expect to kill a turkey for 3 or 4 years by some of the Old School crowd that thought in order to be a turkey hunter, you had to be accepted into the Fold and worthy....lol. That pretty much was dispelled after I killed and called up turkeys myself the first year.
Today...... information is just a click away on the internet. There are more call makers than turkey hunters now....lol.
For the most part it's always good to hunt with an experienced hunter. My so called "style" has come form hunting with a lot of great hunters over the past 30 years and doing what all of us have to do.......... which is log in our own hours and burn a lot of shoe leather. Personal experience is something that you can't get from a book, video or "turkey story".
Self taught.
Self taught too.
Neither one of my parents hunt. Luckily my grandfather and uncle took me deer hunting and dove hunting. I tried turkey hunting off and on for about 10 years growing up but was not very successful at it. Finally, when I was a senior in college I decided to get serious about turkey hunting. Started hunting a lot and had a lot of bumps along the way. Mostly learned by trial and error and started meeting some good turkey hunters along the way that started helping me out. Now I try and take newbies when ever I get the chance.
All self taught here too. Lots of trial and error in the woods and plenty of reading books and magazines. Nothing better than hands on experience.
Steve
I hunted ducks, phesants, grouse and deer with my dad but tahght myself to turkey hunt.
I learned to call from a Penn Woods record (45) that I bought along with a call.
I learn something new each time I go out, now if I could only remember all the stuff I learn I would be a master.
Depends on what you consider self-taught. I grew up hunting game birds but got interested in turkeys on my own back in 86.There were no hunting videos, or internet or you tube to help me. Mostly a few magazine article here and there. I sought out a lot of advice from some very helpful people that were wise old turkey hunters and then went out and tried it out on my own. I could say I was self taught, but without the helpful advice from some great friends, I may have grown frustrated and given it up. I couldn't have done it without their help.
Started out by myself and was starting to kill one or two every season or so. Then a gentleman on a SC forum and I started talking. He invited me to hunt with him to give me some tips. Since then I have followed his style. He polished what I had learned on my own and added much more. After his mentoring I went from killing 1 or 2 to killing 4 or 5. Still learning from the turkeys themselves and learning from my mentor. Try offering the little knowledge I have to those that are wanting to learn.
It is all my fault, I got myself into this mess and have no desire to get out of it.
I have learned from my 33 years of making mistakes, and the funny part I still make the same ones every now and again.
Self tought also.Started three years ago.Have hunted Deer all my life.Thought there was nothing could beat deer hunting.Man was I wrong.I am addicted big time and love it.Still love deer hunting.But have a new passion.
Kevin
When I moved home after college 7 years ago, I decided I wanted to start turkey hunting since my cousins who did it loved it so much. I bought a box-call and a slate call and got a DVD that showed how to use the various calls.
I went 3 times with 3 different cousins the first half of that first season, learning things from each of them. Passed up a shot on a jake the first trip, missed a bird on the second trip, no action on the third trip. Went probably 5 or 6 times on my own the last half of that first season and managed to bag 2 gobblers.
I discovered this website I think a month or so before my third turkey hunting season and really enjoyed learning a lot from folks on here sharing different tips and strategies they'd tried.
When I started spring gobbler hunting I didn't know but one other person that turkey hunted and he lived about 150 miles from me. Most people didn't even know we had a turkey season and there wasn't one in most counties in Ga. back then ( early 60's).
I ended up buying a 45rpm record from Lynch Calls and a Fool Proof box along with a Jet Slate and went from there. Mouth diaphragm calls weren't out when I first started.
The most modern thing out was Knight & Hale's Tube calls. I called them one time and one of them told me they just came out with them and how good they were...ordered several of them...never did get too good with one.
One thing about it back in those days you had the woods to yourself.
My dad was a deer and upland bird hunter, and he taught me those two sports well but turkey hunting was foreign to him. I started on my own when I was maybe 12 or 13. Think I finally killed my first bird at 14 (jake) and been learning the game since (26 now). Still have a lot to learn though
I'm still teaching myself.
My buddy got me started. I'm still learning every time out. For that matter, everytime I visit here!
I've been turkey huntin' for 26yrs and still aint figured it out! :character0029:
I didn't start until I was in my 30s, nobody I grew up with including my father turkey hunted, it was strictly small game & deer.
I learned a lot by watching TV shows and by simple trial & error.
My dad took me to turkey camp in texas when I was 12, more so to hang out with the guys then turkey hunt. I managed to kill a jake by myself that year and have been hooked ever since. Dad really didn't know what he was doing, but did get a nice Lynch box that I have used to call in quite a few Rios. I read every article I could on turkey hunting because our high school has old Field & Stream and Outdoor Life. I learned by a lot of mistakes too and can still seem to for patience often. Since moving to NY i have learned a lot more chasing easterns. I have a pile of different calls and am headed to South Dakota with my good buddy to chase Merriams in about a month...CAN'T WAIT.
Nobody in my family hunts, so I got into hunting on my own with the help of the Internet. Hunting forums and YouTube have been a big help. This will be my 3rd solo spring turkey season. I am pumped
Self taught, mostly. My family, like others didnt Turkey hunt at all when growing up. My brother and I have only went once together as adults. Most of my learning has been from Mr Tom, the internet, and a few people willing to share information. Been at it around 6 years now (seriously) and am TOTALLY addicted. Ive killed 7 longbeards, and messed up 3x as many..lol
No better teacher than experience..
Note of extreme thanks to Boards like this one, and those willing to share information here..
Self taught, with no other option. There were no turkeys around these parts when I was a kid, therefore there were no turkey hunters around to teach me anything. Then, thanks to TWRA and NWTF, a small huntable population was transplanted into the county in the late 80s. By early 90s, they started spreading slowly and a couple made their way to my farm. I decided to hunt them that spring. That was 1994, and I'm still learning how to hunt them.
Quote from: MiamiE on March 10, 2013, 10:09:22 AM
I taught myself as well. Although every trip out is still a learning experience.
So true for me too!