How did you learn?

[davisd9]

Been giving some tips to a friend the past few weeks that is new to turkey hunting.  I owe it to him cause a great turkey hunter did it for me.  I do not know much, but the little I know I am willing to give to others cause my mentor did it for me.

Got me to thinking how I was lucky to have a gentleman take me under his wing and teach me how to hunt.  He hunts old school, no decoy and soft calling overall.  Told me many times that aggressive calling is great when it works but soft calling always kills. 

Before the gentleman took me under his wing I was on my own.  No one I knew really turkey hunted and the one fellow that I did know that did told me you will learn more on your own.  That was true to an extent, I learned what not to do pretty quick, lol.  I had some rough times in the beginning, but that first time I heard that gobble on the limb I was hooked.

My mentor is about 15 to 20 years older to me. He has helped me greatly. When I first started turkey hunting I was on my own and had no clue what I was doing. I had a pot call that I could yelp on but was not confident in doing anything else even though I practiced other calls. I killed two birds off of just yelping on the pot call, lol. First bird was a jake and the second was my first long beard. I did not kill a bird until my 3rd year hunting and it was my 5th year before I killed a long beard.

My mentor is a member of an SC hunting forum and we started talking and he invited me to hunt with him on public land. I had always admired him on the forum and followed his post so when he extended the offer for me to hunt with him I was overly excited. We hunted a full day together, he killed a nice longbeard cause it came out of his side of the tree. I learned more in that day than I had in the first 5 years of hunting. After that I would send him questions and he would answer them. We started texting back and forth. I would send him a call over the phone and he would tell me what I was doing wrong or what would make it better. Last off season I was determined to learn how to use another call besides the pot call and I decided to learn the mouth call.

With his patience and help I killed 2 birds with the mouth call and called up a few others where things did not come together. I had the best season I have ever had and I owe it to him. We hunted together again last year and I learned even more. It is amazing what all you can learn even if the teacher does not exactly know they are teaching, we have made our hunt together an annual thing and I plan every other hunt around it.

My mentor is not only my mentor, but a great friend and a great man. He went out of his way to help me and I am forever in debt to him for it. I also try to follow his footsteps by helping anyone that I can with the little knowledge that I have.

It is amazing the relationship we can build from hunting!

How did you get started?

[dirt road ninja]

I learned thru many mistakes. I got started when I was in my teens, with little help from anybody. Nobody I knew turkey hunted and when I'd meet someone who did they were pretty tight lip. The birds have taught me most of what I know. As a result, I will share what little knowledge I have with anyone that shows a interest in turkey hunting.

[JVA54]

  Learn to turkey hunt on my own, when I started to get interested in turkey hunting there wasn't any turkeys in the county that I live in. The state started to release them and said that we would have a season in about three years, so I got ready to hunt them, but they got poached hard and it was 5yrs. before we had turkeys to hunt so I hunted the National forest for 3 years then a county north of me open, it has some public ground so I hunted there. I killed the first one take with a bow in that county.

[davisd9]

  Learn to turkey hunt on my own, when I started to get interested in turkey hunting there wasn't any turkeys in the county that I live in. The state started to release them and said that we would have a season in about three years, so I got ready to hunt them, but they got poached hard and it was 5yrs. before we had turkeys to hunt so I hunted the National forest for 3 years then a county north of me open, it has some public ground so I hunted there. I killed the first one take with a bow in that county.

That is pretty awesome right there!  Never tried with a bow but have heard that it is quite the challenge.

   We had birds here long as I can remember but up until about 15 years ago they were rare to see in the county I am from.  Had a buddy that had an uncle that had land with birds on them and always wanted to hunt them, but never did.  They started popping up around my county.  At first you would see a hen/gobbler hanging around in a field, and then in 4-5 years, they were all over.  I am blessed in the fact that my father in law has about 500 acres that is slammed packed with birds and state land butts right up to his land that is about 2000 acres that can only be hunted on Wednesday.  After 9-10 am the place is empty until about 4:30 pm.

[Turkeykiller12]

I learned from my dad and trial and error! Many many mistakes along the way.


Sent from this thang that takes pictures, calls people and gets on Internet hunting forums.

[boomer]

I learned from hunting videos or magazines. When I started hunting them when I got home from the service nobody I knew hunted them.

[Bustabeak]

I worked with a fella that turkey hunted. He always told me I should try it. We always talked about it and he got me all fired up about going and I had no idea what was going on. So I bought a call and a palmers hoot tube. The only thing I could do was hoot on the  Palmers hoot tube pretty good. He finally took me with and the morning we went, we got out of the truck. A whip-poor-will was going crazy right at the truck. The guy I went with, now a good buddy said, "hit that hoot owl and shut that thing up". When I let out that last note the woods fired up with gobbles! I've been hooked ever since! He actually killed a bird that morning. I got so caught up in everything that I laid my gun between my legs and he kept telling me to shoot but I didn't dare want to move and risk the bird seeing me. The bird topped the hill and the sun hit him just right as it was strutting and my heart literally almost stopped. I still remember it to this day. It was like nothing I've ever seen. From that day forward my favorite hunting has always been turkey hunting.

[trkehunr93]

My brother-in-law's oldest brother is a turkey nut, with 40 years chasing these birds this coming spring.  He was hunting turkey's in the early 70's when you would be the only hunter in the woods.  He took me under his wing in the early 90's and with his knowledge passed onto me I finally killed my first bird in the fall of 1995 on my own, it was 2 1/2 more years before I killed my first spring bird, again on my own.  We hunted together alot and I listened to every story and added some trial and error stuff that I learned would work as well.  He is definitely old school in his style and you could say I am too.  I have killed plenty of birds just sitting in one spot all morning and every once in a while with a yelp or a cluck to let a gobbler know I am still there.  Works 9 out of 10 times but I like to run and gun as well.  I learned early on from him that patience kills turkeys more than anything.