I'm hunting in E. Texas and our Eastern season is very late for the south. I still have 10 days left. I'm finding the gobbling is waning off badly.
The hens are almost all on nests and the toms aren't very interested. I need your best tip for the very late season please. Call less, call more? I haven't filled my tag here and it's the first time I've ever hunted this late to do so. Help!
Single decoy and gobbling on a box call ...just be really careful and safe...know who's hunting the land with you.
ambush time
Just gotta find that hot bird. They're becoming few and far between as the season ends. Hear is where being able to read a birds temperature is so important.
Gman
If possible set up tight on him, the less he has to travel the better. Ive never hunted Texas but here in late season birds start getting pretty patternable.
A couple of days ago, I filled my Illinois fifth season tag, the final one for the spring. I got the same gobbler, based on his habits (He was on the ground by 5:15 a.m.!!), that I'd been unsuccessful in bagging two weeks earlier because he still had hens with him. A couple of days ago when he went to his morning gobbling spot some 300 yards away and no hens showed up, he decided to check out the new hen that was making all of those yelps and the new intruder tom that was gobbling to them. After about 15 minutes when I quit calling and he kept gobbling without my response, things went silent. In a few minutes, he came charging in with wings dragging and making a low guttural sound. He immediately went face-to-face with my Pretty Boy set up over a hen in the breeding position about 20 yards out in a picked soybean field. A load of #5 shot out of my Remington 1889 hammer double barrel put an end to his aggression. Based on my experience, gobblers are more likely to respond to this type of calling since it's nearing the end of the breeding season and the peck order is always in force. I use hen yelps/gobble tube in this fashion during any of the Illinois seasons, taking a bird on the first day of the first season this year, watching him come running the last 100 yards straight for my decoys. It's just another technique that might work for you. Remember...the gobbler must win every time when it comes to responding to calls while you only have to win once!
Quote from: Tail Feathers on May 03, 2015, 08:07:47 PM
I'm hunting in E. Texas and our Eastern season is very late for the south. I still have 10 days left. I'm finding the gobbling is waning off badly.
The hens are almost all on nests and the toms aren't very interested. I need your best tip for the very late season please. Call less, call more? I haven't filled my tag here and it's the first time I've ever hunted this late to do so. Help!
Alot of folks struggle in the late season, personally I love it. Setup is more important now than ever ans with everything so green you can get in one's hip pocket.
If you don't have any luck with the bird and gobbling stops, sometimes I'll put the calls up and cat nap. Lots of times that turkey will wander off hoping to find a hen to come to him, up in the day late season it's more than likely not going to happen and alot of times he will be back. Not your typical textbook hunt but I have killed some birds like this.
Well guys ya'll hit it out of the park for me. I found THE one who gobbled his fool head off for me and I put him on the ground at 7:35 this morning. :toothy9:
I went to a different area and found a fresh bird, got set up close, used the heavy greenery to my advantage. I didn't use a deke or gobble on the box, but I used pretty much everything else you guys said.
Many thanks! :icon_thumright:
I would try and get me a bird roosted, and try to get in as close as I could with out busting him off the roost. And take you a jake decoy and don't over call. That's how i would do it, hope you get one.