How patient should I be on a gobbler

[Spurbuster]

I've always been told by friends that if I had patience I would be a lot better turkey hunter. The problem I run into is if a bird gets henned up but still answering my calling, do I hang around or leave. And if I stay for how long and do they typically come after they are finished with the hens they are with.

[guesswho]

I take one of two approaches.  I'll fall in behind them and try to keep tabs on where their at by their vocalizations.  Then you'll see a direction that they seem to be headed.  I'll make a wide circle and try to get in front of them and then locate them.  Once I locate them again I'll get close and try to posistion myself where I think they will come.

Option two is walk away and try to find another bird.  Give it two or three hours.  If no luck go back and try to find the first bird again.  You may catch him at the right time.

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

[talltines]

Depends.  If a bird will continue to talk to me I will usually keep messing with him.  If you know he has hens with him my favorite thing is to try to get the hens to start calling back to me.  I will call real aggressive and get them fired up and "sometimes" they will come in to investigate and bring mister Tom with them.  Sometimes by staying patient and calling to a bird I have had other gobblers sneak in that I didn't even know were there.  I can tell you one thing for sure though I have spooked way more birds by getting up and moving around than I would have if I would have just sit tight and been patient.

[redleg06]

If he keeps being vocal (with or without hens) then I'll stay with him because I can keep tabs on him and feel like I can probably get in front of them at some point or at least stay within ear shot of him to try and work him again if his hens leave or if his mood changes and he gets lonely. Sometimes they will come off the roost and just have something else besides my calling on their mind but that can change throughout the day.

When they commit to going the other way, I've never had much luck changing their minds by calling them back so I usually figure it's time for me to get my walking boots on. Patience comes into play when they are potentially working toward you. When you get confirmation they ARE NOT coming to you, its time to make a move.

[jakebird]

If a henned up gobbler stays vocal, i may hang with him if theres no other game in town. His courtesy gobbles mean hes interested in hooking up but he has to get away from the mrs first. Ten am seems to be my lucky window. Usually sometime before that i'll catch a cat nap while givin him time. If he gobbles on his own after ten am, its usually a really good omen and things can happen quickly from that point. It pays to be patient, keep tabs on his movement and wait for those hens to slip off to nest. If nothing else is gobbling or youre limited in hunting spots, etc its about the only chance u have.of course you could slip in close, scatter the flock and reel that tom in when he's anxious to get with his girls again. More effective than youd think, most folks are just afraid to try it. Goes against the grain of how we think were supposed to hunt in the spring.

[jakebird]

A buddy and me were workin a tough henned up bird one year and we decided to get aggressive and get close to the roost. Unfortunately we walked under a bunch of hens and flushed them in the dark. We thought the jig was up, but the boss started gobbling, still in the tree less than sixty yards. We flopped down and that old bird couldnt stand the loneliness. The hens must have flushed really far, or were just that spooked they never made a peep.  He must have gobbled a hundred times. When it got light, i clucked twice and the gobbler almost landed on top of us. After frustrating us for two weeks, it was too easy. Another thing i can tell ya is if you r ever set up and see hens sneaking by you on their way to the gobbler and u can get away with the movt, scare them away, usually just takes a wave or two of the arm. Play dirty against the real competition like a girl in a beauty pageant who pushes the girl in front down the stairs. 

[hoyt]

I use to walk and run my butt off trying to get ahead of a gobbler that walks off in the other direction with or without hens or unknown to me. I finally learned one thing. If he answers my call and is about the same distance away every time, even after I run and try to catch up. I quit.

If after about 3hrs I don't have anything going, I'll come back to the area I started with him and set up and call to see if he was with hens and came back to check the one (me) he had heard earlier. Has worked quiet a bit for me.

[WildTigerTrout]

As long as he is still talking I will hang in there. Even after he shuts up I'll wait a bit before giving up. Maybe he is coming in silent. Another trick is to call to the hens. Get her mad and she may try to confront you and the gobbler will more often than not follow her.

[cahaba]

I use to walk and run my butt off trying to get ahead of a gobbler that walks off in the other direction with or without hens or unknown to me. I finally learned one thing. If he answers my call and is about the same distance away every time, even after I run and try to catch up. I quit.
If after about 3hrs I don't have anything going, I'll come back to the area I started with him and set up and call to see if he was with hens and came back to check the one (me) he had heard earlier. Has worked quiet a bit for me.

Same for me. I remember one hunt and we could see the gobbler and the hens. Every time I would call he would hammer. He would start my way and the hens would get in front of him like they were pushing him to go the other way. We tried to cut him off and he was always about 75 to 100 yards away. We finally lost track of him. Two hours had passed and we headed back to our original position. My pardner had left his gun sling on the edge of the greenfield we were in. I was scanning the area and saw the bird standing on or close to the gun sling. We didn't kill him but it taught us a valuable lesson. I tend to wait them ot most times.At 54 it seems like its harder and harder to chase them down.

[ridgerunner]

I think if you can be a little bit more patient you'll kill more birds. I look back when I first started hunting turkey 20 yrs ago, and most times i'd get up and move too soon and bust gobblers that were coming in silent..

I remember one hunt where i set a blind up on a cut milo field, put a few dekes out. This was an afternoon spot where birds like to feed before going up to roost. It 5pm in the afternoon ( Indiana), I didn't expect much gobbling being the afternoon..but I do call blindly on food sources int he afternoon, just feeding purrs and the occasional light clucks...after an hour of calling avery 20 minutes or so, i saw a nice longbeard skirt the corner of the field, he came out into the field looked up my way gobbled a couple times and went back to feeding and disappeared....I was thinking , crap!, there goes a nice bird!....15 minutes later he came out directly across from me and worked into my decoys and I killed that bird after a 3hr sit in a blind...28lb, 33 mm spur and 11 3/4 beard..after thinking about what happened and what actually transpired i concluded, the gobbler knew where he was headed, to a small creek below the field i was in, he skirted the corner headed to water, gobbled up to decoys saying I see ya, and after he got a drink of water, came back...my point is, sometimes those birds have a mission in mind, he was thirsty, if you're patient and observe the birds ad think about what they are doing and why, you may be surprised what you learn...My rule of thumb is....Whenever I feel like it's time to get up and move...Wait 20 more minutes...I killed alot of good birds waiting 20 more minutes.

[timberjack86]

Coming from a area that didn't hold alot of turkeys I would stay all day if thats what it took. I would get on a gobbler and stay and call at least till dinner. Sometimes I killed the bird sometimes I didn't. I figured out that if that gobbler had hens in the morning, the hens would leave midmorning he would come back and check the area he heard the hen calling earlier.Alot of times he would just come in silent. I always figured it was like deer hunting just setting up on stand and calling till its time to go home. It works when theres few turkeys in your area. Now that I hunt areas with good turkey populations I still tend to spend more time at one setup after a gobbling turkey than most of my hunting buddies. I once set up on a tom on the roost and called most off the day and finally killed him or another at 2 in the afternoon

[jblackburn]

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

[Trevor2]

I take one of two approaches.  I'll fall in behind them and try to keep tabs on where their at by their vocalizations.  Then you'll see a direction that they seem to be headed.  I'll make a wide circle and try to get in front of them and then locate them.  Once I locate them again I'll get close and try to posistion myself where I think they will come.

Option two is walk away and try to find another bird.  Give it two or three hours.  If no luck go back and try to find the first bird again.  You may catch him at the right time.

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

Exactly this! Also sometimes you can get him to answer you a few times and then you shut up and everyonce in a while you can get lucky and hell get mad and come investigate, why a hen has quit talking to him.

[catdaddy]

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

Very astute advise.

This is on a plaque in my office   " Patience has its limits--take it too far---and its cowardice"

[vaturkey]

  Please read the writing under my avitar ! 




    vaturkey