I need some advice. This is the end of my third weekend of hunting here in Arkansas. The birdsare stillgobbling pretty good on roost each morning and then to a lesser degree for about an hour after sunup.They usually spark off right at daylight to just about anything (owls, crows, dogs barking, cars going by) and after fly down they seemto be gobbling randomlyor sometimes to crow calls for.Sounds good, right?
This is my problem: They don't seem to be responding at all to my calls (and no, I'm not that bad of a caller
. They don't seem to be responding to other peoples calls out at our place either). In fact they almost seem scared of the calls. For instance, a bird will start gobbling at daylight, gobblin to crows and whatnot, but when I move in closer and set up they quit. Admitedly, I might be setting up too far from them for fear of spooking them on roost, but on the second day of season I was within 100 yards of their tree and they never once gobbled back to my calls. I just had to watch them pitch out of the tree and go the other way.
At first, we thought they were justed henned up and the hens were calling them away, but that wouldn't explain why they don't answer our calls, would it?
I've tried every call I own, including a gobble shaker tube and nothing seems to work. I've tried calling blindabout every 10 minutes for an hour or more but...nothing. We hunt about 500 acres and they don't seem to roost in the same place twice so they have been hard to pattern. I don't know, maybe my calling really does suck. Maybe in turkey, I'm saying, "run away, I'm a hen with VD"
Any ideas would be appreciated.