Tennessee Guys

[Tom Foolery]

What are the birds doing in your areas? 


Roost gobbling here with very few gobbles when they hit the ground, they seem to be henned up good.

[turkey_slayer]

Hardly any gobbling at all on the national forest. I would have killed another one Wednesday that had a pile of hens with him. Had the bead on him when all of a sudden turkeys busted out everywhere. Some jack wagon had walked right into them then commenced to do a 100 note yelp as soon as they did. For the next 3 hours he wore out at least 5 different mouth calls, box call, and a slate.

[magicman]

Birds are gobbling their heads off on the roost, but when they hit the ground your lucky to hear five gobbles the rest of the day. When you do hear one gobble it is followed by yelps fading off. It's tough here in east Tennessee.

[unclerick]

Not worth a crap were I hunt, gobbleing on the roost then get tight lip on the ground and henned up, the hens ain't even answering callling.

[cannonball]

It's tough hunting right now. I didn't hear a single gobble this morning.

[whiskey]

In Clarksville, we had great gobbling on and off the roost for the youth hunt weekend, birds were still gobbling good on roost for the opening weekend. Then this little cold snap hit and shut them up on and off. Friday morning I didn't hear a single turkey sound. This morning was better. A couple gobbles on the roost. The boss didn't gobble on or off, just got his hens and pranced around. I had a jake gobbling good and then at 9am I called in a 2 year old that gobbled all the way too me for a couple hundred yards. He got his head busted when he arrived.

[JWC07]

Heard several on the roost and they gobbled a couple times after they hit the ground in Sumner Co. this morning. They shut up for a while. About mid morning i was set up calling and 2 fired off and came in. They were gobbling everything for a few minutes, me, a train, what i assume was a bushhog hitting a rock, etc.

Then they kinda hung up. One drifted off, one stood at 60yds or so without moving for 30 minutes. He eased closer to where I was comfortable shooting and I misses him.

[ground control]

Here, just west of Nashville, birds have been gobbling like crazy. This past tuesday I couldnt have had my head in a turkeys throat and heard more gobbling. They were a little late getting started yesterday but once they did they were hot. Both on and off the roost.

[Tom Foolery]

We seem to run a week or so behind you guys to the west, ours should be better next weekend I hope. 


It makes it hard to hoof these mountains for birds that gobble 1-2 times and won't come in because their old hens drag them away.

I laid down 4 miles yesterday on some sparse gobbling birds.  Luckily the terrain was nice and flat, it looked like this:  V   


Well, the sides were flat. 

[turkey_slayer]

We seem to run a week or so behind you guys to the west, ours should be better next weekend I hope.  


It makes it hard to hoof these mountains for birds that gobble 1-2 times and won't come in because their old hens drag them away.

I laid down 4 miles yesterday on some sparse gobbling birds.  Luckily the terrain was nice and flat, it looked like this:  V  


Well, the sides were flat.  

We must be hunting the same spot cause I'm on a ridge top right now and if I stand at the edge and peak over the side I still can't see below me   Heard 3 birds on the roost that gobbled 4 times combined. Haven't heard anything since.

[MouthCaller]

Turkeys are henned up in the next county over from you Tom. Yesterday morning I got on one on TVA property that only gobbled maybe 5 times before fly down and not one of those were until it was about flydown time about 7:15 AM. I tried to hang with him and he shut up. Finally about 9 AM he started firing up again but wouldn't come in to a call (that part could be from it being public land).

[Tom Foolery]

Just a couple roost gobbles and then nothing the rest of the day.

[Wingbone]

I have a couple spots that the birds are getting fired up around lunch and are pretty easy to kill. The other spots are like mentioned above, couple roost gobbles and then nothing on the ground. Just that period of the season. I usually don't see it like this till arounfpd the third week of the season, though.

[gtrjames]

I hunt in both west and middle Tn...southwest is usually about one week earlier than north middle....I've hunted the same middle Tn. bird three times....He gobbles around 30 to 45 times on the roost, then gobbles every hour almost on the hour til noon.
by then I'm off to work.
So far he has failed to go the same way once he hits the ground, as far as 200 yds from the tree...but he will gobble.
In west Tn. they gobbled like crazy opening day, but were loaded down with hens...Wednesday of that week we caught them with no hens and they gobbled non stop for an hr...never heard so much gobbling...then my buddy hit his slate once and shot one of them in self defense.

[gophert]

Here's some MRI (most recent info) for my area in Middle TN:

Yesterday (4-10-2012) they gobbled more than I have heard all year.  Both in the tree and on the ground.  They were very henned up but gobbled heavily until about 7:15 then went silent.

At 8:15 they gobbled again and this time the hens had left them.  So...I would say stay patient until at least mid morning cause it seems the hens are leaving them around 8:15-8:30.

We were able to have success once those hens left.