What time of day do you kill most of your birds?

[Triple Gobble]

Called in the best ones midday

[mudhen]

I've killed them at first light & last light....

I guess maybe 10 am to 1 pm...

But in dark to dark states, I love late afternoons....


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[alclark2]

8-9 am.. I assume it's after they get done with their first hen usually. I'll take the sloppy seconds though. 

[Spitten and drummen]

9 t0 2. killed them all day at different times , but I think most have fell for me during this time frame.

[Garrett Trentham]

The lion's share of my longbeard kills, and particularly those on public land, have been in the afternoons. Know where the birds like to hang out. Bounce around from likely area to likely area calling aggressively, strike a bird, make a move, and call him in. No doubt, it's a fun and rewarding way to punch tags, and still one of my favorite ways to hunt public land.

The past couple seasons though, I've really focused on learning how to kill them in the mornings. Honestly, I hadn't figured out how to kill birds before noon with any consistency, and it frustrated me that so many people found this easy. "Just get close on the roost and when he flies down, call him in." Sounds simple enough right? 

What I learned is that secret to killing a longbeard in the morning is patience. Just let him know you're there and wait. Don't pay any mind to what he does after he flies down. Don't try to move if he goes the other way. Don't try to get him fired up, he'll almost surely gobble up a hen before he makes it to you. Just sit there and let him know you're there. If he hasn't gobbled in an hour, call a little. So long as he doesn't get shot first, he will eventually make his way to where you are before 9:00 and likely at or before 7:30. I watched gobbler after gobbler die last spring using this very method. I do think a portion of them were not the hot bird on the roost, but instead a satellite gobbler that was looking for hens outside of their buddy's harem. Either way, a longbeard in gun range is a win. 

Now, if you can consistently kill birds within half an hour of flydown, you are really doing something. That requires having your crap straight, and being in the right place at the right time.  I've done it a couple times and it sure feels good when it works, but I've learned that when it doesn't, just get comfy, get hid good, and sit tight. Curiosity is a damn fine call.

[UGAturkey]

I have killed most of mine between 10am-2pm.  It is an exercise in patience sometimes to withstand calling to hear them gobble their heads off in the morning.  If they are not headed in I'll wait until they gobble again later in the morning when they are looking for more love, and then it is on.  Call soft, rake the leaves around me, and wait for them to arrive.   

[turkeyfoot]

changes for me some years mid morning but last 3 years filled my tags with barely getting set up straight out of tree couple years before that long sits were required for Easterns. Now for Merriams I find them harder to kill straight out of tree killed some that way but most been between noon and dark

[maytom]

[Dr Juice]

Most of my kills are between the hours of "off the roost" to 9am. I rarely hear gobbling after 10am in southern NY, but my peers would give you different stories. I've only killed one bird near the deadline of noon many moons ago.


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[OldSchool]

We can only hunt til noon in the spring here in NY. I've probably killed more birds between 8 and noon than I have earlier, but I wouldn't miss being out there first thing in the morning for anything.

Bob

[buzzardroost]

I'd say mine are fairly even between right off the roost and around 9AM. Very rarely hear evening gobbling where I hunt.


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[GobbleNut]

Whatever time it is that I finally find one that is dumb enough to come to my calling....

[sixbird]

The places I hunt limit me since they're so small, generally. I'm forced to wait until they come to me (can't head them off or any of that).
Every so often, they'll be roosting close by and I can get them in early. Mostly though, I have to wait for the early morning flurry of activity to calm down before they'll come looking.
I can't tell you how many I've shot a couple of minutes before noon (stop time here in N.J.). I can recall a few that I pulled the trigger and looked at my watch and it was 3 or 4 minutes before noon. One in particular came in after a fairly long battle. I shot. Looked at my watch and the second hand was sweeping noon. I called a buddy while I was approaching the flapping gobbler and put the phone next him so he could hear it flapping...
Mostly I get 'em around 10 or so...

[TrackeySauresRex]

Ive had a lot of luck in last couple of hours of the hunt. Between 10/12. I've had a couple of buzzer beaters in my career as well.

[TURKEYWHACKER]

Earliest was right at legal shooting light, latest at 12:57, and 1:00 is our cutoff time. The majority have come between 10:00 and 12:00 though.