How long before moving locations?

[nbadger23]

Siwash... your patience is a good thing.  If you are able to sit in one spot for 6 hours or so you're going to be successful.  It just may be that now you're going to need to learn more about turkey behavior itself so you can pick the right spot to sit and the right duration. 

I am by no means an expert but what I've noticed is that turkeys are going to fly down from their roosting spots and have somewhat of a pattern the rest of the day, until they return to the roost.  If you choose to sit next to a roosting spot you're likely banking on being able to call a bird in after fly down or catch one coming back to roost.  It's not to say that they won't mill around the roosting site for a while in the morning or wander by it at various time throughout the day but I'm guessing your scouting is going to tell you that there's a couple hour window in the morning and in the night that the spot near the roost might be successful. 

The fun starts when trying to figure out where to sit after they move away from the roosting site.  I've had some opportunity the past few years to just kind of sit watch a very large expanse of open field with woods around it and I've noticed some patterns over time as to entry and exit into the field and general movement.  There is definitely a spot on that field where I'd have no problem sitting all day because it's a pinch point of sorts for travel, has a small waterway near it, is shaded at various points, and provides a great vantage point for a large area (I'm thinking along the lines of being able to see birds and calling them).  Unfortunately I don't have permission to sit in that spot    But if I did, it would be a great all day, or long duration spot.

On the flip side, the spot I've killed birds from the past two years is one a fence line that is very near a roosting spot.It's been a very successful evening hunt spot but past observation has told me that I probably don't need to be there much earlier than 3 hours before dark as they are likely going to mill around, feed, and strut in the larger field and not get close to the edges until they head to bed. 

There are lots of "what if's" to your question but your answer is really going to come down to learning what the birds do and making a decision based on that. 

[redleg06]

My first piece of advice would be to stop pre-determining how long you are going to sit in one spot and let the birds dictate where, when and how long to choose a random spot to set up and blind call.

I'm other words, it's not as simple as just saying " I'm going to sit a spot for 6 hours" or "if that's too long, I'll hunt it for two hours".

If the party is not happening where I'm at, I'm usually EASING along trying to find where birds are...if I come to a likely spot with good fresh sign or an area that I've scouted and feel good about, I might hang around and call for half an hour- 45 min and then continue easing along.

Run and gun can work and I'll eve do it from time to time in certain situations but only when time constraints or something else dictates it's the best course. The biggest reason I don't do it all the time is cause I don't like to risk bumping birds and would rather take my time and slow it down. If you can move and move quietly (and keep an eye out for birds while you do it) moving is not a bad thing and can, in alot of cases, help increase your skill and odds of success.

There's a number of ways to skin a cat and the more flexible/adaptable  you can learn to be, the better turkey killer you'll be.

[Siwash]

I am relatively confident about the patterns of these birds... I am thinking several hours within the same woodlot but moving from time to time.. i think u need to pre-dertmine to some extent...

i got my bird last year and I am not saying i'm some pro, but that bird was killed b/c i put in my time scouting... i new it would be there late PM and it was when I snuck up to him.

I think the learning never stops

cheers and good luck

[redleg06]

I am relatively confident about the patterns of these birds... I am thinking several hours within the same woodlot but moving from time to time.. i think u need to pre-dertmine to some extent...

i got my bird last year and I am not saying i'm some pro, but that bird was killed b/c i put in my time scouting... i new it would be there late PM and it was when I snuck up to him.

I think the learning never stops

cheers and good luck

You do need to scout and know the property,  and the birds patterns, no doubt.   

When i'm talking about "pre-determined"- I'm talking about locking in on a specific plan or specific spot, to the extent that you start to miss out on opportunities to kill birds because you decided how you THOUGHT the hunt was going to play out and wouldnt adjust your plan, when you probably should have.

[MG150]

Redleg06's advice in action.I too thought I had a gobbler patterned.I knew where he was roosting,step up on him ,when he flew down he went away from me.hopped a fence crossed a pasture to the woods on the other side.Set up to ambush on my side of the fence.He responded to calls the next morning only to cross that fence up above me out of range.Next morning moved up closer to cut him off.He only moved up his crossing spot,jumped the fence crossed a 250 yard pasture,jumped the fence on the other side and gobbled until 10:30 that day.Went this morning with my son set up so no way he could cross the fence without one of us getting a shot .Heard two gobblers on the roost, when they flew down heard them no more.Sat for 2 hrs before decided to work our way back along wood line and call every so often.Walking a tractor road back to an old homeplace where we had parked, my son called,gobbler responded no more than 75 yds away in a field,just enough time to conceal ourselves,few more yelps and clucks and I shot him at 30 yds.Sometimes things never work out as planned.My son tells me he will do the calling,all I have to do is shoot.Can't argue with that!Great to share that hunt with my son!

[Siwash]

Redleg06's advice in action.I too thought I had a gobbler patterned.I knew where he was roosting,step up on him ,when he flew down he went away from me.hopped a fence crossed a pasture to the woods on the other side.Set up to ambush on my side of the fence.He responded to calls the next morning only to cross that fence up above me out of range.Next morning moved up closer to cut him off.He only moved up his crossing spot,jumped the fence crossed a 250 yard pasture,jumped the fence on the other side and gobbled until 10:30 that day.Went this morning with my son set up so no way he could cross the fence without one of us getting a shot .Heard two gobblers on the roost, when they flew down heard them no more.Sat for 2 hrs before decided to work our way back along wood line and call every so often.Walking a tractor road back to an old homeplace where we had parked, my son called,gobbler responded no more than 75 yds away in a field,just enough time to conceal ourselves,few more yelps and clucks and I shot him at 30 yds.Sometimes things never work out as planned.My son tells me he will do the calling,all I have to do is shoot.Can't argue with that!Great to share that hunt with my son!

Geez, these buggers are so damn unpredicatble.. a few posts up everyone and his mother was telling me they won't cross barriers like the one you described.. which i find hard to believe

[dlquinn]

Geez, these buggers are so damn unpredicatble..
[/quote]

That might be the best thing to remember when hunting turkeys 

[Turkey Call Maker]

 
You might want to try do a shock gobble (owl hoot) on them or a tree yelp, to see if there is a turkey around. If not, I would do a fly down cackle to bring in anything around. If I still don't hear any thing, I would do a series of loud yelps to see where the toms are and move toward them and set up!

[redleg06]

Geez, these buggers are so damn unpredicatble.. a few posts up everyone and his mother was telling me they won't cross barriers like the one you described.. which i find hard to believe

You gotta stop taking everything so literally....there are no absolutes with wild turkey or any other wild animals for that matter.

I've seen times that they will hang up at a barb wire fence when they could easily fly over or cross under (and probably have done just that, a thousand times earlier in the year) and i've seen times when they were so hot that they flew large creeks and rivers. 

People are giving you advice about barriers because, generally speaking, the best thing to do is eliminate as many POTENTIAL obstacles, between you and the bird because the reality is, you have NO IDEA what will or wont hold him up on that particular day, under those particular circumstances.

No one ever said they absolutely wouldnt fly a creek, cross a brush patch, cross a fence etc.... what we are saying is that you have to do the little things, like making it as easy as possible for the turkey to get to you, that get you in the best position to kill a turkey on any given day. 

[gunnerj]

I may spend a couple hours, but that's it! No gobbling is no fun. 

[lonnie sneed jr.]

Good god, dude..... LOL  LOL  

I love that!
I can watch grass grow, but I can't set for 6hr. unless I am in a treestand with a bow.  Stay about an hr. and move on. Walk and call, walk and call. Do be ready to set up quick when you do this. Also late in the year I cluck alot with soft yelps. Once in a while I will gobble. I love to cut but back off on loud calling the latter it gets in the year.

[ttcustomcalls]

I agree with the majority of opinions here. Just about every time you think you know something about turkeys for sure they go ahead and do something that makes you realize otherwise. I will give credit to siwash for patience though. There have been many times where if I had the patience to sit around for that long I would have killed nice birds. This year I was hunting a property that was a perfect funnel between two other properties that the birds loved. So sitting wasn't a bad thing here, birds funneled through this small field all day long and with enough patience you were bound to get ones attention eventually. I actually left there after sitting for 4 hours in the morning and only getting some toms hung up at about 150 yard. Later I came back to find that there were birds right where I had been sitting 4 hours earlier.

[stinkpickle]

... I actually left there after sitting for 4 hours in the morning and only getting some toms hung up at about 150 yard. Later I came back to find that there were birds right where I had been sitting 4 hours earlier.

BINGO!!!  That happens to me all the time.  In fact, it took me nearly five hours from the time I first struck a tom one morning this year until the time I killed him.  During that time, I got up and only moved once...about 100 yards.  The layout of the farm didn't allow me to move around much without the possibility of being spotted, so I stayed planted in my gobbler lounger.  I was so glad that he finally showed up, because I had to take a leak real bad.