How patient should I be on a gobbler

[Old Gobbler]

 It's like poker .."you got to know when to hold em' know when to ....."

Experience , will teach you that you are to sit tight , or bust a move

Wait till they hit the ground , determine their motives and if they have hens - a couple of times hunting the same area will teach you what to do

Years of hunting in areas where I knew there were turkeys taught me , to use the terrain to my advantage ,  if I can get away with it , I will go into a very slooooow sneak , I stand straight up and move very slow , no moving arms .... No turning head .....just a smooth slow , slow , slow, walk  -  through a area I will walk at a near crawl of a pace , stoping to scan the area gun in hand , we are talking exceptionally slow pace like 10 minutes to go about 40- 60 yards moving at the pace of a sloth - you have to keep your body movement to a minimum and scan.... I'll slip into a area 150 - 200 yards away sit down .... Call wait 5 minutes get up drift to the next spot repeat -- let's say it's 10 am and your parked a mile away from your truck and quitting time is 1pm you can hunt  the entire area productively an the way back to the truck - you have to pass trough the area like " smoke " just quietly drifting , no loud sounds or movement - Its hard to emphasize how slow to move , about the pace that turkeys feed

The goal is to sneak up to within calling distance ( quietly ) to a gobbler and surprise him with hen calling and get him to shock out and gobble -- sit down , and by that no big ordeal slip up to a tree and sit down no moving branches , sometimes I'll sit In front of a bush or cypress knee and call him right in - you have to be a very quiet walker and scan, scan , scan

I'm not a big fan of cut and run because it does not work well in Florida , the birds sit in the tree for long periods and walking fast even walking at a regular pace makes too much noise , when your walking down a fire break or trail and a regular pace , a gobblers hearing is so accute it can hear you and see the movement hundreds of yards before you even thought he was in the area

[bmhern]

I once asked an old turkey hunter, How long should I stay knowing a bird was somewhere in the area? He said " Until  1:00". ( that's as late as we could hunt)

[ridgerunner]

I once asked an old turkey hunter, How long should I stay knowing a bird was somewhere in the area? He said " Until  1:00". ( that's as late as we could hunt)

Smart guy.. I sit all day quite often. These old time turkey hunters will tell, or you'll soon find out.."Patience is paramount in turkey hunting..."...If you're not patient or have ADD ADHD and can't sit still very long..you'll miss many opportunities. Kinda like the Old bull young bull story. You can run out there and try to force it to happen, or sit down and let it happen.

[Gooserbat]

My approach is simple.  If he's walking and talking away I move.  If he goes silent I get my gun up and wait. 

[memert116]

My approach is simple.  If he's walking and talking away I move.  If he goes silent I get my gun up and wait.

I like that approach a TON!!   

[Skeeterbait]

Exactly... unless you know he is moving away, wait on him.  If he is moving away and you can circle ahead of him move.  Don't just follow after him, calling him back to somewhere he has already been is low odds.  I can't tell you how many times I have had a subordinate bird come in silent as a boss bird moved away though.

[Garrett Trentham]

Some of the more successful turkey hunters I know won't work a turkey for more than 20 or 30 minutes. If he's not coming they'll keep looking until they find one that is. That works well and usually gets them tagged out before most.

But I'm like a lot of other turkey hunts in that I'm proud and don't like being whipped by a bird. I'll hunt a bird day after day and not give up. It can be an exercise in frustration, but looking down the rib at a bird on the fifth time you've hunted him is rewarding like few other things in life.

[surehuntsalot]

Patience has got more birds for me than running and gunning ever has.
I guess I just can't move fast enough to cut them off

[silvestris]

I mostly use the Charles L. Jordan method.  It works often enough and you're not queening every damned turkey in the County.

[redleg06]

Patient can mean different things.  I'd say you're decreasing your odds of success if you KNOW a turkey is in the process of leaving you (meaning you can hear him or see him leaving you) and you sit there.  If that's patience then I'm not sure that it makes you a better turkey hunter. 

I DO think being impatient at the wrong time of a hunt probably cost inexperienced hunters alot of birds. An example being that a bird is hung up but gobbling out or range and then goes silent. The inexperienced guy gets anxious and decides to make a move, and ends up busting the bird that was coming in.

I think experience allows you to make judgement calls on WHEN & HOW MUCH patience to exercise in a given situation.

Bottom line,  I'm not going to watch one leave me and just sit back & HOPE he eventually comes back. I'd rather go actively hunt him and try to re-engage him when I see the opportunity.  My odds are better like this and it's just more enjoyable to me. 

[stevewes2004]

I mostly use the Charles L. Jordan method.  It works often enough and you're not queening every damned turkey in the County.

What is the Charles L. Jordan method, if I may ask??

[L.F. Cox]

I mostly use the Charles L. Jordan method.  It works often enough and you're not queening every damned turkey in the County.

I believe you meant queering not "queening"

[ssettle]

It all depends on what I'm hearing. I hunt a few hundred yards from a gas line on state forest land. Most of the line is posted so I don't have access to it. But I've killed a lot of birds calling them off it. I do have access on the upper end but there is more hunter pressure there. I sit for about 2 hours after daylight and move back to another place I've had luck at before but I stay in the same area most of the time.

[Cut N Run]

When you think you have waited long enough, wait 30 more minutes.

^^This.

I had a henned up gobbler giving courtesy gobbles to my calls as he followed hen(s) onto a neighboring property where I couldn't go.  Rather than trying to get ahead of him, I held tight.  I'd scouted the area well enough to know he liked to hang out and strut close to where I was set up.  More than a full hour after my last call to him, he came in silent behind me (the direction he left) and almost blew my cap off my head with a gobble less than 20 feet behind me.  My insides jumped though I managed to stay still.  I busted him at 7 yards as he headed past me.

I have a bad back from a vehicle collision a number of years ago, so I use a comfortable chair (gobbler lounger).  Being able to sit comfortably for hours helps improve patience.

More than a few times I'd been considering moving because it had been too quiet and nature was calling.  I'll scan the area good, ease up to pee, then sit back down for another 30-45 minutes.  One day, I was preparing to move and had just relieved myself.  I was considering gathering up my calls when I heard wing flaps from some hens fighting about 80-90 yards in front of me.  There was four hens together with a stud gobbler following.  A few clucks and some leaf scratching brought them in easy range and the gobbler ended up wearing my tag home.

Jim

[turkey_slayer]

You can patience yourself right out of a kill if your not careful.

Very true