When to start calling? Call on roost?

[bigriverbum]

This morning was cold. 32 degrees out, sunny, dead calm. I heard more gobbles this morning than 10 days hunting combined. 4 birds were on the ridge and hopefully workable. I called quietly twice. I think they stayed on roost longer cuz of the cold and I'm still a novice at telling when they're on the ground. Our topography is so rugged it can be hard to tell.

At about 630 a hen came within 10 yards and eventually spooked and flew off.

Do you guys think the toms heard this and equate it with danger? Nothing developed hunting wise. I saw another hen so maybe they're just henned up? Thought I could at least work one of the birds

[rgref522]

I always do a flydown cackle and beat a wing for the roost hunt.  very subtle calling once he hits the ground.

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[Wasp]

I've always subscribed to the theory of using soft tree yelps until he flies down.  Unfortunately that never works for me.  Every time I do this, I never hear or see the Tom fly down until after 8:30 or so.  Since my results couldn't be worse I had nothing to loose I started doing a fly down cackle and started cutting.  I then shut up and hope for the best.  It hasn't worked every time but is better for me than waiting until he flies down.   This year I'm thinking I might throw in a jake Yelp and see what happens.

[shaman]

Imj ust starting to get serious about turkey hunting and can use your guys advice.  I live in southern Indiana and our season just opened the 22nd.  I went hunting the last 2 days and right at daylight the birds were gobbling like crazy, had one to my left and one to my right gobbling.  My question is should i call back to these birds at this time? if so what call should i use? I assume they were on the roost but it was visible daylight. after about 30 minutes of daylight i didnt hear a gobble the rest of the morning. It was like this the last 2 mornings.  I set up a blind on the edge of a field  so i just stayed put. I cant go out and find where there roosted the night before do to my work schedule. Where do you guys go once you leave the truck? Do you guys just listen for that first gobble and go in that direction or do you guys call back to him once he gobbles first thing in the morning?

This is an old thread, but it's a good one.  I'll put my oar in.
Gobblers are going to do this, whether they're serious about breeding or not.   
I'm never the first to call. I usually wait until a hen or two has sounded off.   When I call, I try and make it as innocuous as possible.  I ratchet it up over a bit.  I'm taking the gobblers' temperature.  Mostly, I'm letting whatever hens are in the vicinity do the work for me.  Mostly, all I am doing is letting the gobbler(s) know I'm out there.

The best way to gauge a gobbler's interest is whether he interrupts my call.  If he "walks" on my call, that usually means he has turned his attention to my call and is telling me he is interested.  At that point, I want to dial things back. I may also hear him turn directly towards me to gobble.  When the gobbler focuses on you, the quality of the gobble changes, much like a gunshot pointed directly at you sounds different. 

A much more likely scenario is that the gobblers will gobble their heads off for a bit and then go silent.  That does not mean you are defeated. It just means you lost the first round. My general strategy at this point is to make one loud rauckous run of cackles and then shut up.  The gobblers are disinterested.  They are going to fly down off the roost and go about their business. However, they still have you in mind.  You can crank your call every 15 minutes or so, and when they get in the mood, they will circle back towards you. I've had this take a half hour. Mostly, I find that it may be 2-3 hours before they show up.

You may go to that same spot a week later and hear nothing.  I used to think that was a sign the gobblers had been hunted, or the weather had given them lockjaw, or. . .
The  truth is that even if they were hunted and spooked, those gobblers may come back within a day or so and act like nothing has happened.   They may also have moved their roost to another spot close by, but they are still feeding on the same stuff.  A lot of it is weather related, but I'll be deuced if I can predict from one day to the next what's going to happen.  I have flocks that have been roosting in the same place for two decades.  One day they're there, the next day they aren't.  I find them roosting on the west side of the ridge.  Two days later, they're on the east side of the ridge and it's been warm and dry throughout.

One thing that I have noticed is that if I camp out  day after day in roughly the same location, I will eventually find a day where the gobblers will suddenly turn on.  My first tree call will be met with thunderous approval.  Another thing I'll see is that at mid-morning, after dead silence for several days, all of a sudden one or more gobblers will fire up and start coming in on a string. 

[GobbleNut]

One of the best learning tools you can use is to find where turkeys are roosting and go there early in the morning before daylight and just watch and listen to what happens.  Get in as close as you can (without risking being detected), and then just sit there and pay attention. 

Most of the time, this is what you will see/hear happen:
>  At some point, the gobbler (or gobblers) will start to gobble.  This will generally be long before any hens that are there will make a sound.
>  If there are multiple gobblers in the area, they will gradually increase their gobbling, and in response to each other.
>  At some point, you will hear hens start to yelp/cluck softly.  This will generally be quite a while after the gobblers have started gobbling and at a point where it is getting light enough for the turkeys to see "things" from the roost.
>  As it gets lighter, gobbling will continue and hens will gradually ramp up their calling.  You will also begin to hear/see turkeys beginning to move around on the roost and position themselves for flying down.  Point being that they will make assorted noises in the tree such as wing adjustments/flapping.
>  When it is time for them to start flying down, if you are close enough you will very likely hear them fly down.  That will be in the form of beating wings, or possibly "soaring sounds". Once that first turkey has flown to the ground, the rest of the group will also begin to fly down and start assembling on the ground.  Very often, turkeys that were very vocal on the roost will quit talking when they hit the ground for a bit as they analyze their surroundings for "trouble". 
>  After this point, they will begin their habitual, morning routine.  That may include lots of turkey talk,...or practically none at all.  That all depends on a bunch of factors and circumstances. 

The point of the above is that you should try to fit into that general scenario as much as possible.  The more you deviate from doing so, the more likely you are going to be to put those turkeys on the alert.  Once they are "on the alert", you have just made your chances of killing one of them much more difficult.   

[High plains drifter]

That's spot on.Good comment.

[Mossberg90MN]

Gobbler stands on one end of limb. Gobbles. You yelp. Gobbler walks to other end. You cluck. Gobbles letting you know it has triangulated your position.

Flies down and circles you to high ground and gobbles "get up here." You call. Gobbles "still here." "Waiting." You call. Gobbles "come on dummy." You call. This goes on a while. Gobbles "bye, headed this way." Personally I feel the last gobble is more like laughing as it walks away, but that's probably just in my head. Anyhow, I don't let them do it.

You didn't have good odds on the roost hunt, to begin with. Now you have zero odds. Despite the amazing experience you can have pulling one down off the limb, it hardly ever works. Let the sonofagun fly down first. Then employ a higher odds tactic.

Haha this pretty much it for me as well. Almost to the T haha


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[TRG3]

Typically, I use my Primos gobble tube after all of the toms within my hearing have gobbled while still on the roost. I start off by shaking my gobble tube after the last real bird has sounded off, slowly moving up my gobbling to eventually follow the first one. To the other toms, my gobble tube is seen as an intruder, one that challenges the peck order of those still on the roost. Often after fly down, one or more gobblers/jakes will come to investigate the newcomer, presenting the opportunity to fill a tag. Once the gobbler is on the ground and his gobbling is closer, I quit my gobbling efforts and get ready for the shot. In my experience, the bird that comes in during the early season is not the boss but a subordinate two-year old. The boss has his harem of hens and usually will not risk leaving them to check out a strange gobbler. However, during the fifth and final Illinois spring season (early May) after the hens interested in mating have become few and far between, it's more likely that the larger boss gobbler will respond to a strange hen, but not after 30 minutes to 1 hour of him trying to coax the hen (my nail call) away from the intruder gobbler (Primos gobble tube). When he finally decides to come in, it's often on a dead run toward my jake decoy. Last spring, a gobbler that started barely within hearing distance finally came in around 8:30 in the morning after slowly gobbling his way to my decoys. It's an exciting way to hunt!

[CntrlPAlongbeard]

I think as others have already suggested, it's not very often that a bird will just fly right down to your calling from the roost.
Most often your pre season scouting will tell you where he likes to go after fly down, I.e. his strut zone. If you can put yourself in that general path it increases your chances greatly.

I will also reiterate the tactic whereby you make just a few soft calls, wait til he flys down and then move right into his roost tree. I usually go bizerk with cutting and yelping for a solid 20-30 seconds to really sound irritated that I made it to the tree and he's not there, and then I go dead silent. This is usually met with intense gobbling during my calling and very often he will come back to the roost tree, often gobbling on his own looking for me.

[TauntoHawk]

What most seasoned hunters will tell you is they choose wrong more than they do right and that's what keeps them coming back.

The good news is when he doesn't fly right off the limb to your gun barrel, you haven't lost just means you made it to the second inning and get to keep playing

To be honest I like calling to them a bit and usually only go the silent route if it's a bird I've tangled with before or I have a terrible set up and I just want to wait til he hit she ground so I get a plan together. Those times you slip a few sweet nothings into the air and they pitch right to you and practically hit the ground in strut make for some memorable hunts.

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[sswv]

get out of your truck just before first light, SLAM the door, walk about 50 yards into the woods and start calling and DO NOT stop until a gobbler runs you over or it's past legal time to hunt. Yep, that how most of the idiots do it around here on public land.   PLEASE, DO NOT BE THAT GUY :-)   

[GobbleNut]

get out of your truck just before first light, SLAM the door, walk about 50 yards into the woods and start calling and DO NOT stop until a gobbler runs you over or it's past legal time to hunt. Yep, that how most of the idiots do it around here on public land.   PLEASE, DO NOT BE THAT GUY :-)

I don't believe any of that!  You mean to tell me that the hunters there walk 50 yards into the woods?  That's just not believable...   

[Meleagris gallopavo]

Once in my spot I coyly announce herself once and shut up.


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[GobbleNut]

One problem that hasn't been mentioned here:  For me, even after so many years of doing this, I will pretty regularly THINK a gobbler has flown down when, in fact, he hasn't.  I will sometimes assume he has flown down by the sound of his gobbles, or hearing wing beats, or because it is light enough that he SHOULD be on the ground, or whatever,... and because of that mistaken assumption, start my typical on-the-ground calling routine.

Next thing I know, I am saying to myself,..."Darn it, I thought he had flown down!  He is still in the tree and I have been calling to him like he is on the ground!"  Sometimes it doesn't make any difference, but when he flies down and goes the other way, I always question whether I blew that particular encounter due to the way I approached my calling progression.

Point is, sometimes (at least for me) it is really hard to tell for sure if a gobbler is on the ground or still in the tree. That can lead to unintended consequences in a gobbler's reaction to the amount of calling done in any given encounter.  I personally tend to pick up the pace of my calling when that gobbler comes out of the tree, and that is not necessarily a good thing when he is still sitting up there on that limb wondering why the hen he hears is making a bunch of racket when it is not time for that!