Calling turkeys across creeks

[J Hook Max]

It is not at all impossible to call gobblers across a creek. I have done so quite a few times. That said, it usually doesnt happen. After you have tried all your best calls, go quiet for a few minutes. If that does not work, then try some fighting purrs. Main advice, stay with them for at least an hour or more before moving on.

[backwater]

Fire him up and then shut up.  It is pretty much the only consistent tactic to bring them across.

This has worked for me as well.   

[shaman]

This all reminds me of trying to hunt Pity Creek.  It's a branch off a branch off. . . well, it all ends up at the Licking River. They call it Pity Creek, because somewhere up near the head there are the ruins of an old shack were a widow raised 12 kids way back. The guy who told me the name of the Creek is 85, and it was before his time.  I spent my first few seasons on my farm trying to hunt it and gave up.

The thing of it is that there are lots of turkeys roosting on that creek, but in three years of trying, I never got one to come  to me.  What would happen is the light would come up. The turkeys would all sound off for a bit and then they would all hop down and go up the hill.  I was positioned overlooking a grassy bottom, sure the turkeys would eventually make it there, but it just never happened.  I had one gobbler come down to the stream one morning and even flop across, but I saw him looking for a way to get under the fence on my side and he eventually gave up.  However, that was one just one example over three seasons.

What I finally decided to do was position myself on the ridge overlooking the  creek, and that is when I started having better luck on the place.  The turkeys on both sides of the creek roosted in tall oak trees with limbs that overlooked the bottom. They would flop down hill into an open space and then take off up hill.  Hunting them from the bottom just was not going to happen. I figured this out during fall bow season.  My one buddy ladder stand is situated overlooking Pity Creek, about halfway up the hill, and the turkeys frequently use it for a roost.  I've been scared more than once having turkeys launch themselves off the shooting rail as I come up the ladder.

There is one thing about Pity Creek that still fascinates me even though I strike out every time I go down there.  There is a phenomenon  that happens a few times a year, and if you are a turkey hunter and able to witness it, you will remember it the rest of your life.    The mouth of Pity Creek is just below my place, and extends another mile or so up to the north.  All upon its length turkeys will roost, and when the weather is right and there is enough of them the gobblers will sound off in waves.  You have undoubtedly heard one gobbler set off another and possibly one or two more in succession.  Imagine this extended along a creek nestled in a forgotten hollow with gobblers stacked up about as dense as it can get for as far as a hunter can hear.

Now imagine settling into a blind in the cedars on a rise about 6 feet off the muddy bottom. The creek is so far down that sun does not show for an hour and a half after the local sunrise.  The sky above starts to lighten, and you bring out your first call and  pull the softest possible tree call.

With that one call I have set that bottom off like a match on tinder. A gobbler across the creek sounds off, and then another up the creek and another down the creek.  Within a minute, the entire bottom is lit up and waves of gobbling are rushing up and down the bottom and the waves intersect each other  and the rippling of the gobbles continues for a full hour.  It is truly breath taking.

It may happen only a few days in a year, often times before season starts, and then it stops and will not hear it again for another year.  Some years, I do not hear it at all.  In fact, I have not heard it in the past five.  I have yet to hear it while I had the recording equipment out, though I doubt you would be able to discern the waves.  It would all just sound like a jumble.  You would have to be there.

[Bigspurs68]

Shaman, I have been there. I understand the wave you speak of.

[bamagtrdude]

This all reminds me of trying to hunt Pity Creek....[snip] What would happen is the light would come up. The turkeys would all sound off for a bit and then they would all hop down and go up the hill.  I was positioned overlooking a grassy bottom, sure the turkeys would eventually make it there, but it just never happened.  I had one gobbler come down to the stream one morning and even flop across, but I saw him looking for a way to get under the fence on my side and he eventually gave up.  However, that was one just one example over three seasons.

Ha; I've got 3 gobblers doing this to me, and this will be my 3rd season hunting the stupid things.  Mine are roosted, up on a knoll, off the creek, and the knoll is the CORNER of my property!!  And, of course this is swamp/creek bottoms in between the pasture & the knoll so it's grown all up with GRAH-DOO making an approach to these jokers nearly impossible.

I did Rambo one of 'em 2 season ago & *thought* I had shot the biggest bird in the head, but ...  actually had a buddy w/me, which made the approach even tougher (see pic, he's a big fella)  turned out, he had a gobblin' jake "friend" & that's the one I shot!    Last year, I tried the Rambo deal again & busted 'em all off their knoll/roost site, and that was the end of them for the remainder of the season...  *VERY* frustrating -- *BUT* I've got another plan this year!

hahaha...  I never quit -- never!  At this point, it's done got "personal" between me & them! 

[drenalinld]

Fly-down cackles sometimes encourage them to fly across.

[hunter22]

Big creeks can be frustrating. Last spring at my place here in Arkansas I had a gobbler hammering at every call I would make. He would come down to the creek and then go away gobbling. This went on for about an hour. I never could get him to come across. I guess he thought it was just as easy for the hen to fly across the creek as it was for him. I did catch him on my side a few days later and he came right to me.

[drenalinld]

I even do wing beats with my hat for encouragement.

[bamagtrdude]

One other thing I've tried that's had *some* success -- is a CRAPPY, GOD-AWFUL GOBBLE CALL, ie like a weak-arse jake, AFTER cutting/cackling like an excited hen.

*IF* a gobbler ever feels that a jake has moved in on his lady, they TYPICALLY can't stand that & will bust thru a brick wall to get to you...

YMMV.

[GobbleNut]

If they are on the other side of a creek and on another property that you can't hunt, then after you have tried the conventional tactics, then throw the book at them.  Try every combination of turkeys calls and noises you can think of.  What have you got to loose?

One almost sure-fire way to get them to come IF they get where you can see them is to use one simple "visual aid".  ...You can guess what that might be....

[TauntoHawk]

This all reminds me of trying to hunt Pity Creek....[snip] What would happen is the light would come up. The turkeys would all sound off for a bit and then they would all hop down and go up the hill.  I was positioned overlooking a grassy bottom, sure the turkeys would eventually make it there, but it just never happened.  I had one gobbler come down to the stream one morning and even flop across, but I saw him looking for a way to get under the fence on my side and he eventually gave up.  However, that was one just one example over three seasons.

Ha; I've got 3 gobblers doing this to me, and this will be my 3rd season hunting the stupid things.  Mine are roosted, up on a knoll, off the creek, and the knoll is the CORNER of my property!!  And, of course this is swamp/creek bottoms in between the pasture & the knoll so it's grown all up with GRAH-DOO making an approach to these jokers nearly impossible.

I did Rambo one of 'em 2 season ago & *thought* I had shot the biggest bird in the head, but ...  actually had a buddy w/me, which made the approach even tougher (see pic, he's a big fella)  turned out, he had a gobblin' jake "friend" & that's the one I shot!    Last year, I tried the Rambo deal again & busted 'em all off their knoll/roost site, and that was the end of them for the remainder of the season...  *VERY* frustrating -- *BUT* I've got another plan this year!

hahaha...  I never quit -- never!  At this point, it's done got "personal" between me & them! 

Before season this year cut a good trail right in to where that roost spot is, this has worked countless times for me where birds roost in little oak patches surrounded by nasty swamp thickets or against rivers and creeks. a few weeks before the season I cut and clean a really nice path right to the base of the tree I want. I can walk right in through the thicket without a flashlight and be right under them with ease.

As for getting them to cross streams Ive had decent results with getting aggressive for just 2 or 3min and than going completely silent just out of sight on my side. Pick a spot where there is a good place for them to fly across like a open or flat bank.

[Halfski]

It sometimes helps to know where they like to cross creeks, as they sometimes make a habit of crossing over a certain section of the creeks more so than others.   One of my favorite spots is in a corner of a field, and a small creek flows near the corner.  Turkeys like to cross the creek and pop out in that corner to check out the field.  I have called a good number of toms over the "corner creek."  (But I really don't think it was my calling that did the trick . . . I think they wanted to be in the field to begin with.)