“Run & Gun”, a commonly used hunting Technique?

[Greg Massey]

I had the runs while turkey hunting once. I propped my gun against a tree and went about 20 yards down hill and dropped my drawers and let it rip. I had just made a call when the belly pain hit. Just as I finished I looked up to see a big old Long beard staring at me with a curious look about 30 yards from my gun. I pulled my pants up to my thighs and waddled towards my gun. Amazingly I made it and I had to drop my britches to shoulder my gun. So there I stood pants at my ankles free swinging and slowly raising my shotgun. I got it to my shoulder and just as I clicked the safety that bastard run away. I hunted that nasty bird for the next few days like a hound dog, yup I got the last laugh. Is this what you meant by runs and Gun?

Now you all gotta wonder if this is a true story or not, playing game show music

I just hope you use some toilet paper ...

[crow]

The phrase "run and gun" is just used because it is a clever play on words that rhymes

"Driving around on State Forest roads and calling out the window" doesn't sound as romantic, 

LOL... running and gunning the engine.

Hey, I'm just repeating what Crow told me 

You forgot the part where you shut the motor off and just coast down hill

[Zobo]

I literally was running and gunning once.
I set up on a noisy bird, did my best to call him in, but after a while decided to move.
So when I stood up to my surprise, he was right behind a small knoll in range.
Unfortunately, I took a rushed offhanded shot and wounded him.
I knew I hit him poorly and as I started after him he bolted.
I ran after him but he was moving just a little faster than I was. So I paused and took another shot but grazed him.
I keep running at him and as he reached the property line I chambered my last shell and finally leveled him.
I swear I almost had a heart attack afterwards I was breathing so heavily. I also lost two good strikers and glove in the incident.
Served me right for taking that stupid first shot. 🙄

[eggshell]

The story I posted is totally true....

[Dougas]

Running and gunning to me, means being moble. No pop-up blinds and no decoys. Just me, my equipment, woodsmanship, the woods/fields/meadows and the turkeys.

[MK M GOBL]

Run & Gun to me is my "Keep Mobile" Hunts, it's positioning, and re-positioning on a bird as I work him. Yes, and sometimes I move as quickly as I can to get into position but there is also the sneak/crawl to where I sit down. There is also what I call "Walking & Talking" where I am slowly moving about the fields/timber doing some calling and just trying to strike a gobble. They all have their time and place, just like my Blind Hunts, I don't only ever stick to one "Hunt Style" it always just depends on the hunt I am on and who I am with.

I have a few versions of the Run & Gun Gear I take; all work for me!

1)  Hunt Pack/Seat/Gun

2)  #1 PLUS DSD Jake/Hen Decoy

3)  #1 & #2 PLUS Double Bull 3-Panel Stakeout Blind

4)  #1 & #2 PLUS Double Bull T2 Blind


MK M GOBL

[shaman]

Run and Gun has some bad connotations for me, but it has to do with where I am and how I'm set up.  I don't mean to throw shade on the R&Gers.  I've got 200 acres in SW Bracken County, KY.

A number of years ago, I had a couple of "big time" turkey hunters come out to the farm for an afternoon hunt.  Where they came from, afternoon hunting was banned, so this was like some sort of guilty pleasure.

The left after lunch and were back before 5, all tuckered out.   They'd set up on the edge of one of the fields and gotten some action, and when a gobbler came in on them, they'd spooked it.  From there, they decided to run and gun.  They had spent several hours chasing a flock around one of my creek bottoms trying to get a shot.   It never occurred to them that they were just being impatient.   If they were only waiting 10-15 minutes for birds to show up, they were never going to get them in all the way.  They left frustrated.  This was their first Northern KY hunt and they were convinced  KY birds were impossible.

I gave up on R&G as a tactic a few years after I settled in at my farm.  The reason was simple:  If I set off from the house in any direction, I'd be out to the property line within 20 minutes.    Furthermore, the more experience I got at the place showed me several important points.

1)  The turkeys roosted in the same places and moved to the same feeding areas and loaded in the same spots season after season.
2)  There are only so many good setups.  I found myself putting my back to the same trees year after year.


There's a similarity in the neighboring hunters as well.  The 200 acres I've got adjoins half a dozen other properties, and over the years I've found there's a type of hunter that goes all the way out to the limit of his property, walks the perimeter calling as loud and as often as he can.  He never shoots anything, but his calls are incessant.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at the center of the property, about 100 yards from a roost.  I know that, if something doesn't plop down and run my direction at sunrise, there'll be a bunch of them coming out into one of the pastures around me sometime in the mid-morning.  All I have to do is sit and wait.  No, I'm not an ambusher. I just know my turkeys.

My sons spent several years hunting with me, and when they got off on their own, their first idea was to run and gun.  That lasted just a few years. They'd come back with desperate stories of surprise encounters with gobblers and hasty setups and such.  Eventually, the pieces fell into place and turkey hunting became more like a chess game and they each found a good spot to sit their butt down and do a little bit of calling.  They learned a gobbler might honor your call at 0700, but not show up until 1100.

After 40 some seasons, 25 of them at the farm, I can say that R&G is a valid means of hunting birds, and it especially makes sense when you're faced with an endless tract of strange land.    It just loses efficacy once you start hunting a static patch of ground over successive seasons.

[bbcoach]

I literally was running and gunning once.
I set up on a noisy bird, did my best to call him in, but after a while decided to move.
So when I stood up to my surprise, he was right behind a small knoll in range.
Unfortunately, I took a rushed offhanded shot and wounded him.
I knew I hit him poorly and as I started after him he bolted.
I ran after him but he was moving just a little faster than I was. So I paused and took another shot but grazed him.
I keep running at him and as he reached the property line I chambered my last shell and finally leveled him.
I swear I almost had a heart attack afterwards I was breathing so heavily. I also lost two good strikers and glove in the incident.
Served me right for taking that stupid first shot. 🙄

THIS is TRUE running and gunning.  Right up to the part of almost having a Heart Attack for the wrong reasons.

[capecodmike]

I mostly hunt on a land lease in GA.  Same lease I deer hunt on.  We gave up R&G a number of years ago.
Now we set up a blind in the places where we see birds moving though out the year. 
The birds seem to travel the same routes in and out of season. 

Call every 15 minutes or so.  Have a cigar every once in a great while.

Sit tight and relax and enjoy the woods.  Patience....grasshopper.

It works.  Everyone has a style.

Good luck this spring.

[Yoder409]

The phrase "run and gun" is just used because it is a clever play on words that rhymes

"Driving around on State Forest roads and calling out the window" doesn't sound as romantic, 

 

[paboxcall]

Hey, I'm just repeating what Crow told me 

Why would you do that?

[mcw3734]

I'm fortunate in that I can hunt very large parcels of land. When I hear birds, or know they're close by, of course I'm going slow and waiting. But if it's late morning or afternoon and things are quiet, I do a lot of 'walking and squawking' along old logging roads or ridgelines. Just keep knocking on enough doors, and eventually one will answer.

Has a bird showed up quiet at one of my calling locations after I moved on? Sure, I'll bet my house on it. But I've had too much success by covering ground and finding a hot afternoon bird. And in my experience, once you find a mouthy afternoon bird, those hunts tend to be over pretty quick.

I really enjoy hunting them that way. But again, it's largely a function of where I live/hunt. If I were out east with smaller private parcels, I wouldn't have as many productive places to hunt like that even if I wanted to.

[GobbleNut]

I'm fortunate in that I can hunt very large parcels of land. When I hear birds, or know they're close by, of course I'm going slow and waiting. But if it's late morning or afternoon and things are quiet, I do a lot of 'walking and squawking' along old logging roads or ridgelines. Just keep knocking on enough doors, and eventually one will answer.

Has a bird showed up quiet at one of my calling locations after I moved on? Sure, I'll bet my house on it. But I've had too much success by covering ground and finding a hot afternoon bird. And in my experience, once you find a mouthy afternoon bird, those hunts tend to be over pretty quick.

I really enjoy hunting them that way. But again, it's largely a function of where I live/hunt. If I were out east with smaller private parcels, I wouldn't have as many productive places to hunt like that even if I wanted to.

Exactly. There is often a major difference in how to approach hunting large areas of public land and small areas of private stuff. The size of the area you have available to hunt plays a big role in how to approach hunting it. In general, R&G tactics are more suitable to hunting the large expanses of public land in the west, while less mobile hunting tactics suit those smaller tracts of private land typical of a lot of eastern-states hunting. ...Not always, but again, generally speaking.

Turkey population densities also come into play. Applying a less-mobile hunting style in a place where there might be a gobbler every five miles rather than one in every fifty acres is sure to result in a hunter sitting and watching the grass grow all day. Conversely, a western hunter that is used to covering country looking for an active gobbler will most likely be frustrated in applying that tactic on a private parcel of a few hundred acres somewhere.

Personally, as one who hunted those large public tracts in the west for the first couple of decades, when I started venturing back east and hunting those smaller parcels, it took me a while to understand that I could not apply the same tactics I had used for so long in my own bailiwick. In summary, whether you are a western hunter going east...or an eastern hunter going west...learn to apply the tactics that are best suited to where you are hunting.      

[shaman]

I don't "run" quite as fast as I once did, but I've always believed in covering ground on a turkey hunt. I can't just blind up and sit in one spot all morning. That's why I hunt public land so much, because it gives me room to roam. One thing I've had some success with, though, is going back over the same ground a few hours after I've gone through there calling. Lots of times a silent gobbler will drift toward where he's heard calling and just hang around, and when I come back through and call again, he jumps at the second chance. A friend of mine taught me that - he calls it "baiting the trotline."

It is illegal to hunt turkeys in Ohio after Noon.  However, I had a friend who used to go out before sunset and hike with a call.  He called it "sonic chumming."  The gobblers would be already roosting, but they'd hear the calls and figure there was a hen to be had in the morning.

[eggshell]

I don't "run" quite as fast as I once did, but I've always believed in covering ground on a turkey hunt. I can't just blind up and sit in one spot all morning. That's why I hunt public land so much, because it gives me room to roam. One thing I've had some success with, though, is going back over the same ground a few hours after I've gone through there calling. Lots of times a silent gobbler will drift toward where he's heard calling and just hang around, and when I come back through and call again, he jumps at the second chance. A friend of mine taught me that - he calls it "baiting the trotline."

It is illegal to hunt turkeys in Ohio after Noon.  However, I had a friend who used to go out before sunset and hike with a call.  He called it "sonic chumming."  The gobblers would be already roosting, but they'd hear the calls and figure there was a hen to be had in the morning.

They changed all that a few years ago. You can hunt all day after the first 9 days or the second Monday after opening. The first 9 days ends at noon.