Lessons my first year

[Tidewater Tom]

As our seasons draw to a close I'd like to reflect on my lessons my first year of turkey hunting.

1. Pattern your shotgun.  My son missed two birds by the time we realized it may be the gun.  I've always shot doves, deer, and ducks with shotguns with good success.  Never considered zeroing-in a shotgun.  I'm very particular about my deer rifles, making sure they are zeroed before hunting with them each year.  I'm embarrassed that I did not do that with our shotguns before turkey hunting.

2.  Decoys don't mean much.  I use decoys with good success duck hunting, and ducks drop in on us each week using decoys.  Turkeys, not so much.  I saw a range of behaviors with turkeys attacking my decoys and then some avoiding them like the plague.

3.  Scouting the day before is essential to success.  The veteran turkey hunter that helped us put us on turkeys that he roosted the evening before.  Each time a shot was taken, and we did get a turkey.  I'd go plop down where I'd seen turkeys a day or even a week before and it was a crap shoot.

4.  Knowing how to call helps.  I saw my buddy call turkeys and they'd come in looking, some times they'd come in hot.  I sent more turkeys the other way than I did my way.  Knowing the right sounds at the right time is critical.

5.  Turkeys are smart.  I've told several people this year that if turkeys had guns there'd be more dead hunters than turkeys.  I've not hunted anything else that made me feel that way.

6. Comfortable seats are important.  Can't sit still very long (especially my 13 year old son) if your butt hurts like you are sitting on nails.  A good seat is a game changer. 

I've got plans to make good on all my lessons from my first year of turkey hunting.  Hopefully we'll have better luck next year.

[GobbleNut]

Good list of things learned in year one.  Can't say I disagree with anything on your list.  I would say you are well on your way to being a consistently successful turkey hunter (assuming you have good places to pursue them). 

[g8rvet]

Excellent points that show you have learned a whole lot in your first year.  I only disagree with one, but on that one I think you are completely wrong.

5.  Turkeys are smart.  I've told several people this year that if turkeys had guns there'd be more dead hunters than turkeys.  I've not hunted anything else that made me feel that way.

I believe turkeys are random, wary, panicky and have very keen hearing and eye sight.  Everything in the woods that eats critters wants to eat them.  They are not smart though.  They don't learn like we do (I guess if a human is smart).  They will do things that just seem so dang smart (had one circle me in a field on the last day I could hunt - circled me in a way I could not see him).  I think that was just him being random.  You can't figure out what a turkey is gonna do in the morning, because he doesn't know what he is gonna do.  If you accept that, it will shorten your learning curve and also let you know if you are a second guesser like me, that sometimes, no matter how perfect your setup is, how perfect your calling is, etc. he just won't come in.  If everything you know tells you that setup was just right, it may have been and he just did not want to play that day.  Since we are reversing nature (tom to hen instead of hen to tom), sometimes he just is not willing to walk the extra dozen steps. 

[Tidewater Tom]

Excellent points that show you have learned a whole lot in your first year.  I only disagree with one, but on that one I think you are completely wrong.

5.  Turkeys are smart.  I've told several people this year that if turkeys had guns there'd be more dead hunters than turkeys.  I've not hunted anything else that made me feel that way.

I believe turkeys are random, wary, panicky and have very keen hearing and eye sight.  Everything in the woods that eats critters wants to eat them.  They are not smart though.  They don't learn like we do (I guess if a human is smart).  They will do things that just seem so dang smart (had one circle me in a field on the last day I could hunt - circled me in a way I could not see him).  I think that was just him being random.  You can't figure out what a turkey is gonna do in the morning, because he doesn't know what he is gonna do.  If you accept that, it will shorten your learning curve and also let you know if you are a second guesser like me, that sometimes, no matter how perfect your setup is, how perfect your calling is, etc. he just won't come in.  If everything you know tells you that setup was just right, it may have been and he just did not want to play that day.  Since we are reversing nature (tom to hen instead of hen to tom), sometimes he just is not willing to walk the extra dozen steps. 

That may be.  I do know they have more survival instincts than domestic turkeys, basically from the time they come out of the shell.  I've raised domestics and eastern wild turkeys side-by-side and as chicks they act completely differently. This spring I had one particular gobbler I was hunting one afternoon and I placed two Avian X feeder hens directly in his path to where I knew he wanted to go (I had patterned him, or so I thought).  I wanted him to stop and flirt a bit but at 200 yards he locked up like a statue for what seemed forever.  I started thinking he was a fencepost that I had not seen earlier.  He eventually turned and went the other way.  I think he figured out they weren't moving and concluded (which may be giving him too much intellectual credit) that it was a trap to be avoided.  That was my read on the situation.  I was hidden, I was still, I wasn't calling that time.

[g8rvet]

Great example and unless there was something wrong with your setup or decoys, he was probably just being a turkey.  May have had his butt whipped the day before by another bird or a gang of jakes when he went to a hen.  What I am sure he did not do is think, "hey, that there seems unusual and there could be a hunter near there".  They will booger off for any number of a thousand reasons, most of which we never know.  They the next time, they come in on a string.  I always assume I did something wrong and try to figure it out, but I think a lot of time it is just their randomness.

[Tidewater Tom]

Great example and unless there was something wrong with your setup or decoys, he was probably just being a turkey.  May have had his butt whipped the day before by another bird or a gang of jakes when he went to a hen.  What I am sure he did not do is think, "hey, that there seems unusual and there could be a hunter near there".  They will booger off for any number of a thousand reasons, most of which we never know.  They the next time, they come in on a string.  I always assume I did something wrong and try to figure it out, but I think a lot of time it is just their randomness.

Well that makes me feel better.  I can accept randomness better!

[GobbleNut]

Anybody that hunts wild turkeys would be wise to recognize that they have at least a rudimentary ability to "think".  Selling them short in this regard will ultimately make you less successful in hunting them. 

My son and I have personally witnessed three occasions where turkeys have clearly demonstrated problem solving ability.  The three incidents have occurred over a period of several years and involved gobblers that have learned to fly up and shake feeders that were almost empty to shake the last remaining feed out of them. 

At no time were these gobblers conditioned to do that.  They figured it out all on their own.  Is it such a stretch from turkeys doing something like that to the possibility that they can learn to associate such things as non-moving decoys, or invisible turkeys calling to them, with danger? 

[g8rvet]

Yes they can associate things with danger, but not because they are smart.   I am actually trained in animal ethology, so my opinion is not without some degree of education and reading on this subject.

You example is perfect to prove my point.  Let me explain.

The turkey in your situation learned through positive reinforcement (operant conditioning).  There is absolutely no possible way that turkey walked by and considered its actions before hand in the way a human would.  That turkey did not think to itself "hmm, lets see, I can fly up to this particular spot, lets see, right there, and bang that feeder in such a position and the corn should come out and I can eat it".  Not even close.  The turkey did observe what was the source of the corn and just reacted.  Flew up and hit the thing and some corn came out.  Then shook it and more came out.  It was instantly reinforced and learned this behavior.  That is not reasoning, that is learning and there is a massive difference. 

Turkeys learn from positive punishment as well. I come to this situation (calling, setup, etc) and I get chased by a coyote or shot at by a hunter or whatever and then they learn through negative stimulus that they should avoid that situation.   There is no reasoning though, only learning.  They learn through reinforcement and repetition, they do not learn through reason-they cannot take a series of steps and come to a conclusion.

Smart to me implies intelligence and reason, not reaction and learning.  If you ascribe them intelligence, you will overthink yourself.  They are not smart.  And don't teach them!   

[GobbleNut]

Reasonable response, g8rvet,...but you are basically stating exactly what I said.  The only difference is semantics and definition of terminology.  To many of us, the terms "thinking", "reasoning", and "learning" are not so clearly delineated with specific, and different, meanings as apparently they are to others such as yourself. 

Your statements on positive and negative reinforcement are exactly what I have been stating on these forums for years.  There are those that claim, ad nauseum, that turkeys are incapable of "learning" to associate certain things,...such as turkey calling, decoys, etc.,...with danger and "learn" to avoid them.  They most certainly are capable of that learned behavior. 

Define it by using any terminology you  would like.  The fact is, however, hunters that do not recognize that turkeys are capable of such are only hurting their own chances of success in hunting them by discounting their abilities to "learn". 

Perhaps, as Tidewater Tom stated, turkeys are not "smart",...but they sure as hell are capable of learning to avoid humans that use the same tactics over and over again thinking that, at some point, the outcome is going to change because turkeys are "dumb". 

[g8rvet]

Correct.  But new hunters sometimes, and I have heard seasoned hunters with the same opinion, say that turkeys are smart.  Meaning they can reason things out.  The key distinction is that while turkeys can most assuredly learn things, they have no ability to infer anything.  That seems like a subtle distinction, but it is not.  they don't know the difference between a golf cart or a tractor unless they are taught that a golf cart means human pressure and a tractor means no danger.  It would take a lot of reinforcement for them to learn that difference too.  My only point is that we can get away with a lot more if we think about how turkeys learn.  Getting called to a hunter one time is not going to teach a bird to avoid all calling - if so, they would never be able to breed in hard hunted public locations.  Just like the tree question on another thread.  Having a hunter under a tree a few times over the course of a couple of years is not going to cause the birds to avoid big trees. 

Case in point: my nephew and BIL called some birds in on our little lease and my BIL (new hunter) shot one of the jakes. 4 days later I called in and killed one of the longbeards that was in that group.  He was alone. My other nephew was avoiding that spot because he assumed the birds would not be there.  I told him one episode of hearing calling and a boom was not going to be enough to teach those birds that they should avoid calling, or even that general area.  They were boogered, but did not learn why they were scared. 

If we understand how they learn we can:
a)avoid teaching them
b)realize what we can and can't do in chasing them in the same general areas.

I was not disagreeing, but pointing out that there are some differences in learning and reasoning and how we can use those differences to our advantage. 

Good talk though!   

[GobbleNut]

Good talk though!   

Yes,...good discussion.  Except for the terminology confusion, I suppose we will just have to agree to agree.   

[Tidewater Tom]

Good talk though!   

Yes,...good discussion.  Except for the terminology confusion, I suppose we will just have to agree to agree.   

Correct.  But new hunters sometimes, and I have heard seasoned hunters with the same opinion, say that turkeys are smart.  Meaning they can reason things out.  The key distinction is that while turkeys can most assuredly learn things, they have no ability to infer anything.  That seems like a subtle distinction, but it is not.  they don't know the difference between a golf cart or a tractor unless they are taught that a golf cart means human pressure and a tractor means no danger.  It would take a lot of reinforcement for them to learn that difference too.  My only point is that we can get away with a lot more if we think about how turkeys learn.  Getting called to a hunter one time is not going to teach a bird to avoid all calling - if so, they would never be able to breed in hard hunted public locations.  Just like the tree question on another thread.  Having a hunter under a tree a few times over the course of a couple of years is not going to cause the birds to avoid big trees. 

Case in point: my nephew and BIL called some birds in on our little lease and my BIL (new hunter) shot one of the jakes. 4 days later I called in and killed one of the longbeards that was in that group.  He was alone. My other nephew was avoiding that spot because he assumed the birds would not be there.  I told him one episode of hearing calling and a boom was not going to be enough to teach those birds that they should avoid calling, or even that general area.  They were boogered, but did not learn why they were scared. 

If we understand how they learn we can:
a)avoid teaching them
b)realize what we can and can't do in chasing them in the same general areas.

I was not disagreeing, but pointing out that there are some differences in learning and reasoning and how we can use those differences to our advantage. 

Good talk though!   

It is a great discussion!

[Happy]

If you kill them the first time they screw up then it prevents them from getting any more wary. That's the aproach I take on anything with a full fan. More than one customer can cause a crinkle in that plan tho. 

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[Ihuntoldschool]

Yes, they are smarter than given credit for.  They can easily discern what is natural and what is not. They like to keep a tree on you when approaching or departing. They are as different as night and day from a domestic bird.

[guesswho]

Your list 30 years from now will look a lot like this years list.