mid day strategies

[longbeard10]

Since I've joined here I have been reading old threads and relized that a lot of you kill a lot of birds between 8-lunch and I've never done much mid day hunting but am finding myself spending more time in the bush during mid day. So for those of you who have goodluck these times of the day what is your strategie, calling intervals, how long in one location, how to get the birds fired up, decoys etc.  Thanks in advance

[nantzh]

I dont have huge tracts of ground so i prefer to get in a known miday strutting area and set up and call every 20 mins or so.  This has produced a couple birds for me in the past.  sometimes i sit in one spot the entire morning, other times i will move to another known strutting/ loafing area.  Just depends on my gut feeling for the day.  If i hear a bird gobble I will make a move on him if i think he is to far to call into my location.

I would love to have a huge chunk of ground where i could do some run and gun hunting, but i just think with smaller pieces of property it hurts your chances of killing a bird more than it helps. 

[mikes]

I usually try to have a couple of different properties to hunt on so I will usually start my day on a property I have roosted birds on and stay there if I have active birds.  About 8:30ish or so, If I don't have any birds going, I'll make a slow loop of the property, calling every 100 yards or so.  Always have a tree you can setup on very close by in case you get a gobble close... I've made that mistake in the past..  I'll listen hard after each call.  If a bird answers, I'll either move toward the bird or setup depending on distance of the bird and property lines.    If not, I'll continue on slowly and repeat (for a time frame, it's probably about 10 or 15 minutes between calling).  Once I get back to my starting location, I'll do it again in the same order.. I know it sounds weird, but I can't tell you how many times I've got a bird to gobble on the second trip around.  I think they heard me the first time and started working their way toward the calling.  I either didn't hear them, or they came in silent.  By the time I've made my loop, and I'm back to that point (or one near there) they're much closer.  If after my second trip around I still dont' have an active bird, I'll pack up and move to another property and do the same thing.  It's kind of like running and gunning, but I think a bit slower pace and works good on smaller properties (avg. property size i'm on is 100 acres or so).  I have bumped birds doing this.. it's a risk you take "running and gunning", but I've killed plenty too.  Have fun!

[WildTigerTrout]

It depends. Sometimes I will get into an area I know turkeys frequent and just sit and listen. I may call every 15 or 20 minutes. I listen alot more than call though. This works fine if the wind is not blowing hard and you can hear farther away. Other times I will cover ALOT of ground. I stop every so often(maybe 75 or 100 yards) and use a crow call or my "Copper Pot"  to try and locate one. Once I locate one the game is on. The bird in my avatar was bagged using this very tactic. I killed him on 4/30/12 here in Pa. at 1151 am. I only had nine minutes to spare! We have to quit at 12 noon.

[redleg06]

Depends...

If i'm on a tract of ground that I have access to all season (especially a small tract), then i'm going to be more cautious so I dont bump or pressure birds, because I have to hunt them the rest of the season and dont want to disturb them much.  In this case, Ill have scouted more and am likely to stay in likely areas and blind call for a little longer period of time. No set rule on how long....just depends on how much time i have to hunt that day and how many good set up spots I think a particular tract might offer.

If I'm on ground that  that I wont be able to hunt often (like maybe a friend invites me or I'm on a hunt outside my normal hunting areas) then I probably dont know much about the area beforehand and I'm going to be on my feet more, covering more ground, looking to get a visual on a bird or hear one sound off.



The only certain thing that I do midday is I take note of the general location any bird i've heard earlier in the day and I'll ease in to those areas to hunt them. A lot of times, I'll already have been following one around that i heard at first light. Sometimes you lose them or something happens and, when that's the case, I ease on over to the other area's I heard birds in earlier.... key word in that sentence being EASE! Mid day birds arent as vocal, a lot of times and the last thing you want to do when moving into a likely area is bump one and the hunts over before it starts.

[Michigander]

In my part of Michigan, there are a lot of fields around woodlots. I do a lot of mid day hunting from the truck until I find a bird. I key in on corn stubble that hasn't been hit with a disc yet. If a there is a woodlot with several different fields next to it, 90% of the time birds will be in the corn stubble. Especially if there is one that is tucked back in the trees or with a corner that is hidden by a hill.

[Kywoodsman]

I usually start my day at a spot where I have beards roosted or where I have a good feeling that I might be able to get one right after flydown. Usually I'll stay there for a couple of hours after flydown time and if the actions not good then I'll leave and head to one of my other spots. Once there I'll head quietly and as easily as possible to a pre-determined listening point and do a little calling to try and locate a bird to set up on. After that I might head to another listening spot on the property and try again, so on and so forth until I've covered several spots on the property. The important thing is to try to have listening spots evenly spread out across the property as to call to more possible birds in fewer number of spots that can be traveled to and from each other with the least possible chance of bumping silent birds. Another good thing to remember is before moving from spot to spot to quick alot of birds might come in silent during that time of day so don't be to quick to move.