Difference between Rio's and Eastern's

[AUTiger]

Have a chance this spring to hunt a lease outside of Walters, OK.  All my hunting up to now has been in Alabama.  What do I need to know about Rio's before I get there?  What is the best week to go?  I'm trying to take in as much info as I can before I make this trip.     

[GobbleNut]

You will probably be hunting in much more open country than you are accustomed to. Often the birds will roost in exactly the same trees night after night and follow similar routes to and from the roost every day. Creek bottoms typically offer the best roosting habitat, and they tend to associate with creek-bottom cover and roosts.

They typically gobble well on the roost and often quite early, and probably gobble a bit more often during the day, as a rule.  Depending on where you are hunting and conditions, they can be very frustrating to call in.  Then again, when you find one that wants to play, he will often come in without much hesitation.

I don't think that calling tactics are all that much different from Easterns.  If they are hard-hunted, you will generally want to be conservative in your calling, and if they are not, you can probably be more aggressive.  In open country, visual aids can play a big role in if they come or not.

[honker22]

I would also add that rios tend to move quickly and pretty far distances from the roost site.  I've hunted Tx a few times and a lot of them will travel miles in a day and come right back to the same roost in the evening.  So you may need to be way more aggressive/mobile in your setups if the initial one doesn't pan out off the roost.  I've also tried to leave those roost areas as undisturbed as possible.  If the property has 1 big roost area and you bust it up, your birds may move miles away and you be SOL.

[dirt road ninja]

They gobble more! If you kill birds in Bama, you'll kill birds in OK. I would go earlier in the season.

[Dr Juice]

I would also add that rios tend to move quickly and pretty far distances from the roost site.  I've hunted Tx a few times and a lot of them will travel miles in a day and come right back to the same roost in the evening.  So you may need to be way more aggressive/mobile in your setups if the initial one doesn't pan out off the roost.  I've also tried to leave those roost areas as undisturbed as possible.  If the property has 1 big roost area and you bust it up, your birds may move miles away and you be SOL.

Well said, X2.

[tha bugman]

I would also add that rios tend to move quickly and pretty far distances from the roost site.  I've hunted Tx a few times and a lot of them will travel miles in a day and come right back to the same roost in the evening.  So you may need to be way more aggressive/mobile in your setups if the initial one doesn't pan out off the roost.  I've also tried to leave those roost areas as undisturbed as possible.  If the property has 1 big roost area and you bust it up, your birds may move miles away and you be SOL.

Well said, X2.

X3  better get you a good pair of running shoes!

[Macbee25]

Yeah That Rioscare pretty much all I hunt, because I live in Texas. Like everyone said when they decide to come, you have little time. They move extremely fast.  Most of the time I will set up first in areas that I know they frequent, then call. I try to set up in tighter places with decoys facing me.  Otherwise in more open areas they might hang up way out of range. If you get one that will not come in, just shut up for 20 or 30 minutes, it works alot. They are normally extreamly vocal, but watch out for the satellite tom that nay sneak in unannounced

[AUTiger]

 So it sounds like I need to set up a little closer in the morning than I'm used to.  If nothing works early what am I looking at strategy wise?  Doesn't sound like I'm getting in front of them. The place has been described as wheat fields with creek bottoms. So I can only guess I stay close to those bottoms all day and just try a few setups? I would think dekes are kinda important since its open? Its hard for me to picture hunting in open terrain like that so I appreciate the input.

[Macbee25]

Creek bottoms is where i would be if it is really windy. Some tines it is hard to get them to cross a creek, or a barbed wire fence believe it ir not.

[Marc]

I am shooting Rio's in the California foot-hills.  Fairly brushey terrain with a mixture of oaks and digger pines...  Our turkeys have a strong preference for roosting in the pines...

They often do not roost in the same trees...  The birds I have been chasing the last two years were never in the same tree.  Generally in fairly close proximity though.

I cannot compare them to easterns as far as how vocal they are, but at times they are quite vocal, and at times I can hear crickets chirping...  Often the bigger birds come in silently.  You might get a single gobble in the distance, and then hear nothing, and suddenly here he comes...

Rio hens are awful...  I have flat seen them run in and cut off a tom that is coming in...  And then lead him the opposite direction. 

Only time I have been successful at pulling in a tom with hens, is pulling in the hens for a fight...  (and advice on that end is always appreciated).

[Tail Feathers]

Don't bust a Rio roost!
They tend to use them for years if nothing runs them off.  The landowner will probably tell you not to get too close in the mornings.
They tend to gobble a lot and you can get away with calling a lot.

[Crawl79]

Rio hens are awful...  I have flat seen them run in and cut off a tom that is coming in...  And then lead him the opposite direction. 

All hens can be awful at times but with Rio's I have seen this more often. I have had a hen in my decoys, heard a gobble a few hundred yards away and the hen takes off running straight to the gobbler like he was a celebrity and she was a gawdy teenager. I guess that is what is supposed to happen..

[vagrousehunter]

  This has been said but it's really,really different terrain than what we have back east.  You have to be extra careful when you move because it's so open. Those Rios really use their eyes and seem to be able to see a long way. I think that good binoculars may be more important than calls sometimes. Use the first day or so to try and pattern them. You do not want to get involved in a tail-chase. 
   What's funny is that, when I get home, I feel really closed in when I hunt in the forest. It takes me a while to re-acclimate to hunting back home.

[Jay Longhauser]

I've hunted rios in Oklahoma and Nebraska in the last couple years.  Most notable differences for me from easterns were less roosting areas available by limited trees and more open areas, lots of birds in one small section of trees, several hundred birds.  Also in my experience easterns seem to stay in a smaller area all day often a couple hundred acres if not bumped, rios strutted by the roost for 30 minutes or so once out of the tree then went in a straight line to an entirely different area.  sometimes a mile or more away fast.  If you weren't in the direction they went you might not see them back on the property they roosted on until the last hour of the day. 

[turkeyfoot]

you can often see the Rio and tell what he is doing or how he reacts henned up or not, Easterns are over a ridgs behind some laurel and you never really know if he has ladies of or he is coming or going when he shuts up