Success Rate Once You Get Him Gobbling?

[GobbleNut]

Here's my "bottom line" opinion on success rates:  I would bet certain "appendages" on my body that, all other things being equal, success rates in almost all cases are a function of the exclusivity of the property being hunted. 
The End.
   

[MK M GOBL]

So I haved looked at our states average success rate which just includes everything, and that is around 25% annually. Could be week of bad weather, inexperienced/novice hunters and what not. Years ago while I was guiding I kept track of every turkey and tag, it was part of the guides way of promoting the business, at that time I was running a 90%+ success rate. I have always kept a detailed ledger/journal of my turkey hunts/hunting.

Can't just measure success by kill numbers...

Making Memories

MK M GOBL

I've seen several of your Gobbler kills you've posted. Honest question without the blind/decoys and  hunting private crop fields do you think you'd still have a 90% success rate?I mean your obviously hunting some good private spots with good populations. The turkeys are going to the fields everyday regardless if you call or not. They see the decoys and at least a few will be aggressive enough to walk over to the Jake or strutter decoy. I think your averages would suffer  if you hunted public land woods Gobblers without the fields decoys or not.

Honest answer

I have hunted plenty of public in Missouri, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan and with no decoys or blinds, same as I have hunted public here too, results have been the same...


MK M GOBL

[BDeal]

So I haved looked at our states average success rate which just includes everything, and that is around 25% annually. Could be week of bad weather, inexperienced/novice hunters and what not. Years ago while I was guiding I kept track of every turkey and tag, it was part of the guides way of promoting the business, at that time I was running a 90%+ success rate. I have always kept a detailed ledger/journal of my turkey hunts/hunting.

Can't just measure success by kill numbers...

Making Memories

MK M GOBL

I've seen several of your Gobbler kills you've posted. Honest question without the blind/decoys and  hunting private crop fields do you think you'd still have a 90% success rate?I mean your obviously hunting some good private spots with good populations. The turkeys are going to the fields everyday regardless if you call or not. They see the decoys and at least a few will be aggressive enough to walk over to the Jake or strutter decoy. I think your averages would suffer  if you hunted public land woods Gobblers without the fields decoys or not.

Honest answer

I have hunted plenty of public in Missouri, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan and with no decoys or blinds, same as I have hunted public here too, results have been the same...


MK M GOBL

So hunting pressure has had no impact on your success? I'm sorry but I find that impossible to believe.

[Bay1985]

I wasn't trying to discredit your hunting abilities. But I know several that have made a career out of sitting in blinds on agg fields with decoys. Hunting woods Turkeys with or without a decoy is a whole different game. Like I said the birds are going to the fields rather your in the blind or not calling or not decoys or not. It's very much like hunting a complete different species. Just pointing out the success rates can be misleading. There's guys in Texas that hunt over feeders and have a 100% kill rate ...PER hunt! Every time they go sit in the blind they kill a Gobbler or two, they only hunt 2 days a season at most but claim and have a 100% success. Drop them off on any public spot in any state and see what happens. Numbers wise or photo wise how can you argue there not top notch hunters? There's the proof over hundred dead Gobblers. 9 year old girls 80 year old men ,wives in full makeup, first time hunters people in wheelchairs ,everybody gets a limit. Percentages mean nothing without taking into account were and how the success is happening.
I seriously doubt you or anybody has a 90% success rate in Alabama

[MK M GOBL]

So hunting pressure has had no impact on your success? I'm sorry but I find that impossible to believe.

Not saying this at all, I might put in 5 days to kill a bird/fill tag, not even close to killing a bird every time I go out. Even where I have the homecourt advantage in state I'm not even close, and hunt a lot of private ground, about 2200 acres. I'll hunt for 8 weeks and 4 days a week. That's 32 days hunting plus some evenings which might put me at 35-40 days a year and put down 14 birds this year.

[MK M GOBL]

I wasn't trying to discredit your hunting abilities. But I know several that have made a career out of sitting in blinds on agg fields with decoys. Hunting woods Turkeys with or without a decoy is a whole different game. Like I said the birds are going to the fields rather your in the blind or not calling or not decoys or not. It's very much like hunting a complete different species. Just pointing out the success rates can be misleading. There's guys in Texas that hunt over feeders and have a 100% kill rate ...PER hunt! Every time they go sit in the blind they kill a Gobbler or two, they only hunt 2 days a season at most but claim and have a 100% success. Drop them off on any public spot in any state and see what happens. Numbers wise or photo wise how can you argue there not top notch hunters? There's the proof over hundred dead Gobblers. 9 year old girls 80 year old men ,wives in full makeup, first time hunters people in wheelchairs ,everybody gets a limit. Percentages mean nothing without taking into account were and how the success is happening.
I seriously doubt you or anybody has a 90% success rate in Alabama

I would not have a 90% rate in Alabama either if that's where I lived hunted and only public... I have hunted the state and was successful when I was there on a Public Land Hunt.

I know I have some great hunting spots here, and why I have such great success. Not trying to play this that way, been out of state a bit and have always been lucky I guess...


MK M GOBL

[Bay1985]

I wasn't trying to discredit your hunting abilities. But I know several that have made a career out of sitting in blinds on agg fields with decoys. Hunting woods Turkeys with or without a decoy is a whole different game. Like I said the birds are going to the fields rather your in the blind or not calling or not decoys or not. It's very much like hunting a complete different species. Just pointing out the success rates can be misleading. There's guys in Texas that hunt over feeders and have a 100% kill rate ...PER hunt! Every time they go sit in the blind they kill a Gobbler or two, they only hunt 2 days a season at most but claim and have a 100% success. Drop them off on any public spot in any state and see what happens. Numbers wise or photo wise how can you argue there not top notch hunters? There's the proof over hundred dead Gobblers. 9 year old girls 80 year old men ,wives in full makeup, first time hunters people in wheelchairs ,everybody gets a limit. Percentages mean nothing without taking into account were and how the success is happening.
I seriously doubt you or anybody has a 90% success rate in Alabama

I would not have a 90% rate in Alabama either if that's where I lived hunted and only public... I have hunted the state and was successful when I was there on a Public Land Hunt.

I know I have some great hunting spots here, and why I have such great success. Not trying to play this that way, been out of state a bit and have always been lucky I guess...


MK M GOBL

When you named the states and said you had the same results I knew that was not right. If you hunted 40 days and killed 14 Gobblers that's 35% not 90% you'd have to have killed 36 Gobblers
Just pointing out the kill photos and percentages need to be taken with a grain of salt. New hunters that don't know the difference between hunting public woods and private crop fields could get the idea they should also have a 90% success rate which is redicoulous except in isolated instances with some very specific circumstances that make it possible.

[Southerngobbler]

Florida has around a 5% success rate and that is for the entire season, not just the days their gobbling good. To believe someone could squeeze out a 90% or even a 30% success rate out of that would be just ridiculous. The obvious exception would be private or well managed land where yeah-you might kill one the first day. I've seen on the news where people had to scare them away with sticks when they were retrieving their mail. I don't remember what state that was but maybe that's were some of y'all are hunting.
Just saying-different pressure rates and amount of turkeys in an area are gonna drastically influence success rates, probably even more so that hunters skill set.

[BDeal]

I wasn't trying to discredit your hunting abilities. But I know several that have made a career out of sitting in blinds on agg fields with decoys. Hunting woods Turkeys with or without a decoy is a whole different game. Like I said the birds are going to the fields rather your in the blind or not calling or not decoys or not. It's very much like hunting a complete different species. Just pointing out the success rates can be misleading. There's guys in Texas that hunt over feeders and have a 100% kill rate ...PER hunt! Every time they go sit in the blind they kill a Gobbler or two, they only hunt 2 days a season at most but claim and have a 100% success. Drop them off on any public spot in any state and see what happens. Numbers wise or photo wise how can you argue there not top notch hunters? There's the proof over hundred dead Gobblers. 9 year old girls 80 year old men ,wives in full makeup, first time hunters people in wheelchairs ,everybody gets a limit. Percentages mean nothing without taking into account were and how the success is happening.
I seriously doubt you or anybody has a 90% success rate in Alabama

I would not have a 90% rate in Alabama either if that's where I lived hunted and only public... I have hunted the state and was successful when I was there on a Public Land Hunt.

I know I have some great hunting spots here, and why I have such great success. Not trying to play this that way, been out of state a bit and have always been lucky I guess...


MK M GOBL

When you named the states and said you had the same results I knew that was not right. If you hunted 40 days and killed 14 Gobblers that's 35% not 90% you'd have to have killed 36 Gobblers
Just pointing out the kill photos and percentages need to be taken with a grain of salt. New hunters that don't know the difference between hunting public woods and private crop fields could get the idea they should also have a 90% success rate which is redicoulous except in isolated instances with some very specific circumstances that make it possible.

Yes I think some of us were looking at the % of time you call a bird into kill range once he is actively engaged in gobbling and MK was looking at % success in terms of filling the tag if I'm reading this right. Hence a little bit of confusion.

[MK M GOBL]

When you named the states and said you had the same results I knew that was not right. If you hunted 40 days and killed 14 Gobblers that's 35% not 90% you'd have to have killed 36 Gobblers
Just pointing out the kill photos and percentages need to be taken with a grain of salt. New hunters that don't know the difference between hunting public woods and private crop fields could get the idea they should also have a 90% success rate which is redicoulous except in isolated instances with some very specific circumstances that make it possible.

If you are talking every time you go out you kill a bird, I guess that's what your saying.... Days Hunted to killed bird.

So then I am at a .00435% kill rate.

So if i have a tag and fill it that's not considered 100% on that tag because it took me 2 days to kill said bird? By that math it would be 50%...

I had 15 tags/hunts for the year, filled 14 of them, regardless of time put in tag was filled, might have been a day or 3 days...


I guess to each his own, have a good day.


MK M GOBL

[MK M GOBL]

Yes I think some of us were looking at the % of time you call a bird into kill range once he is actively engaged in gobbling and MK was looking at % success in terms of filling the tag if I'm reading this right. Hence a little bit of confusion.

[Bay1985]

Yes I think some of us were looking at the % of time you call a bird into kill range once he is actively engaged in gobbling and MK was looking at % success in terms of filling the tag if I'm reading this right. Hence a little bit of confusion.

I full well understand the OP question was % called in that have answered ie Gobblers you have worked . But when your hunting a crop field with decoys there are many times no doubt the Gobblers were headed to the field anyway and saw the decoy spread and walked up or ran up and got shot without gobbling or answering a call,so the percentage numbers would have to killed per hunt otherwise there'd  be a percentage of killed Gobblers WITHOUT any calling lol. Who's percentages could compare to that on public land woods Gobblers. I see the Kill threads I know as well as he does how it's happening and never said a word, but when you start posting redicoulous percentage numbers something needed to be said.

[guesswho]

An over 40 guy, using a under 40 guys calculator.

[Bay1985]

An over 40 guy, using a under 40 guys calculator.

Lol... I'm wondering who's does these guys taxes cause they doing some creative math on this thread

[donjuan]

I'm 100% on the right bird at the right time with the right setup

0 on the rest