Today was the Va opener. Heavy winds, cold, and even some snow!
Morning started off extremely promising, I never had a chance to scout this new area so just going off the areas available (base hunting) I picked the one that looked to have everything turkeys need. I parked the car and popped the trunk and birds started sounding off all over! I though man this is great no way I don't score one today. These gobblers where hot! I had 6 in all different directions except for 2 that roosted together. All where within 400 yards.
Long story short, all Toms headed off in their own direction. 2 where obviously together and gobbled in sync. They had hens I could hear, and the hens pulled them away from me after I did a series of yelps. The other 4 all did about the same, one was fired up and replying to every Yelp series I made. So I shut up and hoped he would come, he flew down and went the opposite way. I did not head toward any one bird, I setup on the edge of a field (the only field around) and setup a couple decoys.
Anyone got tips on how to handle birds like this? Just a couple yelps and shut up? Get aggressive until they fly down and then shut up? Get aggressive and stay aggressive? Pick one gobbler and try to move in closer? I setup in the middle of all the gobbling instead of trying to isolate one.
Still can't believe I had 6 spouting off all around me and not 1 came in to the calling. Going back to the same spot Monday morning before daylight and going to try and get within 100 yards of one roosted. Hopefully they are still there.
If they got hens with them it will prove challenging to get them to come to you no matter what you do. Try scratching in the leaves, fighting purrs, etc. Just stay after them and as soon as the hens start nesting, it should get better.
Get off the fields and the decoys. As a matter of fact, leave the decoys in the truck.
Get right on the bird and play that bird. 400 yards is 300 yards too far and god knows how many real hens between you and the gobbler.
Additionally, when a bird flies away from you he has just told you what he wants to do and what you need to do to kill him. Use a crow call to keep tabs on him and maneuver ahead of him.
Turkey hunting is an exercise in real time strategic analysis. Start thinking more while you're in contact with the bird; every decision you make is either helping you seal the deal or decreasing your odds.
First of all if you popped the trunk n birds were sounding off already you were too late to be near them. I understand you didn't know area but now you know where some are go in much earlier n start near them
Quote from: Bowguy on April 09, 2016, 08:22:12 PM
First of all if you popped the trunk n birds were sounding off already you were too late to be near them. I understand you didn't know area but now you know where some are go in much earlier n start near them
True, the road was blocked and I had to find an alternative route that took about 20 additional minutes not to mention I was 15 minutes later than planned to begin with.
If he has hens then you gotta play the hens. This is where good realistic calling comes into play. As mentioned before get in as tight as you can without bumping them and work the hens. If you can get them yelping back and cutting then give it right back to them. Make the boss mad and she will come. Big boy bringing up the rear. Usually anyways. Hennessy up toms are always a challenge but they can be killed.
Quote from: VaTuRkStOmPeR on April 09, 2016, 08:13:10 PM
Get off the fields and the decoys. As a matter of fact, leave the decoys in the truck.
Get right on the bird and play that bird. 400 yards is 300 yards too far and god knows how many real hens between you and the gobbler.
Additionally, when a bird flies away from you he has just told you what he wants to do and what you need to do to kill him. Use a crow call to keep tabs on him and maneuver ahead of him.
Turkey hunting is an exercise in real time strategic analysis. Start thinking more while you're in contact with the bird; every decision you make is either helping you seal the deal or decreasing your odds.
Hey man,
Yeah you are right. Halfway through the day I packed them up because they slowed me down. I pulled out the crow call and could get responses. But that stopped around 8:30 when the wind started gusting and all went silent. Today I didn't think about positioning myself on a bird. I have learned a lot this year but getting out of the car and immediately hearing more gobblers at one time than I have heard since I started hunting got me so excited all the learning I did went out the window and I just reacted, and with the wrong decisions. Monday I'll try to move in tight, lots of steep ridges and creek bottoms here.
As somebody said earlier, get there much earlier. When you set up set up in the general direction they were heading today. If they're on the ridge, set up at their level or higher. Good luck, be patient. You'll smack a good one!
If you have no luck early, when the birds move off get into the roost area and camp out, he will show up late morning. I like to look for concentrations of scratching in the hardwoods. Call sparingly and be still, he come in quiet!
Each day will be different, the longer the season goes the more hens will start to nest, and birds will get hot late morning!
Remember this advice too since you have steep ridges is to try to get above them as well its nearly impossible to call them downhill but they'll come uphill... I never understood why until Will Primos explained it on this year's truth video in Colorado. They are hard to come downhill because they don't have an escape route for predators like they would moving uphill. I only one time got a pair of gobblers to come downhill but was because they could see my Jake and breeding hen decoy setup.
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I always want to be as close as possible, if you can identify some ridge tops using topo and where you heard gobbling Id get right up in there well before light.
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Thanks for the tips fellas. I plan on being out there at 5:30 on top of the ridges where they where. Can't wait for the morning!
Good advice given. Get there early (as in "in the dark". If the birds are roosting in the same locations, set up where they flew down to before. Call smart. Kill gobbler. Easy as pie!
Except,...when it doesn't happen that way. Your situation reminds me of one I was in many years ago. Found a spot where there were birds everywhere,...and nobody else around except for me and a couple of buddies. We thought,..."this is going to be a piece of cake". Long story short, we hunted three weekends there and never killed a bird. They just would not play.
...Hope things are better for you....
It has been said,but is worth saying again. Get in there early get as close as you can without bumping them off the roost. If I can get within 50 or so yards of him in the tree the chances of killing him go way up. If you can get in the path that you think he will go even better. The problem is that once you think you know what direction he will be going,he will go the other way. I DON"T call at him while he is in a tree. Some have different opinions but thats my guideline. When the hens pitch out,scratch the leaves,when he flies out I call.
Not much to add to this other than good luck. When he's henned up, it's going to be a challenge. In a case like that, you'll have to get in front of the bird or call the leader of the harem. Aside from that, your only other option is to camp out and be quiet. If you've called to him early and he responded as he went away, there's a good chance he'll remember where you were eps hen his hens leave him. When that happens, he'll be coming back. Probably silently but never know.
Quote from: wvmntnhick on April 10, 2016, 05:30:49 PM
If you've called to him early and he responded as he went away, there's a good chance he'll remember where you were eps hen his hens leave him. When that happens, he'll be coming back. Probably silently but never know.
I am pretty sure that happened Saturday morning, around 8:45-9:30 one that was behind me and talking to me a little but ran off with hens came back in. He came back silent and would not gobble. I only knew he was there because he started clucking. I tried to re-position to the other side of the tree because he sounded further off, he was on top of a ridge already, but across the creek bottom on the other side from me. So when I got up I got busted. That was on me for not being patient...
I agree with some of what has been said, but think more about the set up than just uphill or downhill. Im mostly talking about a roosted bird in the next few sentences.
I've called them downhill but I hate that set up unless I'm somehow stuck with it, but it had more to do with how uncomfortable it is to look straight up a steep hill and I can't see the tom. Think about where the tom is willing to go. He can or may go around, up, down, or over anything but is a tom with hens going to work that hard unless he's following a hen? Getting ahead of where you think hes going is great but I've seen big timber birds randomly go from one direction to the next for no apparent reason. They don't always have a set pattern to their travels. So, Unless you've got a good reason to believe they are headed one direction or the other, just be sure to set up on the same ridge as the bird to make getting to you easy. He may well pitch down to the bottom, across to the next ridge, or up to the top. However, unless you know that he makes that a habit your guessing with that set up.
If the initial set up doesn't pan out, that is when you can start moving on him if the circumstances will allow. I understand the whole patience is a virtue thing, but hanging out on a ridge clucking and purring every 30 minutes because old timer wisdom says he'll always come back looking for you mid morning, "just be patient", absolutely does not always pan out. Learn when patience is called for and when it will give you nothing more than a sore rear end and a nap. If I had limited area to move and limited birds to hunt then that plan may sound ok, but it's not the sure fired method of killing turkeys that it's proclaimed to be, not to mention it's boring as heck. Keep him gobbling and move around him.
However, unless you can keep tabs on the multiple small flocks by their gobbling, this may be a case where moving too much is too risky. Youve got a lot of birds running around, so the circumstances may well call for sitting right for a while.
Turkeys, especially Easterns, like sweet talk...sweet seductive yelping. Clucks, purrs, whines, scratching, all are effective at convincing a tom you are the real thing, use them all, but learn to yelp covincingly from soft naisly tree yelps to loud obnoxious yelps and you'll be fine. A tom isn't counting the ratio of yelps to clucks. With that said, I typically start all eastern birds off a little on the quiet and reserved side, but that is a whole lot more than yelp a couple times every 20 minutes. When a hen wants something she lets the whole woods know it, so picking it up is not out of the ordinary. If soft seductive isn't getting it done, don't hesitate to give him more and more excited.
Typically for a roosted bird, I'll give him a few tree yelps and shut up whether he responds or not. He heard them. On occasion I'll call a little more if hens start talking a lot, but I'm calling to them for the most part and I dont want to get any more carried away than them. Too much call I g to a roosted tom may get plenty of response but I find that it keeps him in the tree longer and he waits for me to show up. When I think it's time to fly down, I imitate a fly down with my hat. If the tom is gobbling a lot I'll cackle as I do it. If he seems real reserved I won't cackle. I'll throw in a couple clucks and wait. I've had hens almost land on me and the toms follow, and I've had them ignore everything. After a while I may help a little, but I pretty much wait to see what the tom is going to do and work him as necessary.
There is no silver bullet. To become effective at killing turkeys, you have to read the situation and act accordingly.
As far as multiple birds gobbling. Like most guys probably do, I go to the closest one or the one gobbling the most, but neither of those guarantees anything. The blabber mouth will back off and the quiet guy will get wound up, it's a gamble.
You have to be careful with that many birds roosting around the area. Ive bumped birds more times than i care to remember because i immediately started down a ridge before giving the rest of the birds a chance to respond.
I have on multiple occasions set up on a ridge with a blabber mouth one direction and a reserved bird the other. The big mouth gobbled at everything but wouldn't budge and the tom that only gobbled a couple times slipped in quiet off to the side or behind me. It's happened enough times that I try to watch for it. My theory is the quiet bird is a little spooked by the dominant tom that is trying to assemble his hens so he's quiet and tries to skip in and grab the lone hen. He is often times as big, possibly bigger than the big mouth.