EFH

Heard 7 birds yesterday, no owls. First Saturday today, two turkeys, 30 tone deaf owls! Lol!! Still managed to get on one but he came in behind me and I never got a shot. Stayed out till 1:30. I've ate now and thinking about going back, but it's 86deg!!!!!! Dunno yet

blackheel

Blackheel signing in! Sorry was on travel all week!

bald9eagle

Congrats EFH. My father-in-law and one of my buddies doubled up on opening day down at Oakmulgee. Bad thing was they did it in one of my honey holes, lol.

My brother took a really nice sapling at Sam Murphy. It just happened to step in front of tom. He later found that his sight had come loose and had moved some.

bald9eagle

I'll finally get to the woods Wednesday. My first year of scouting has gone well. I've got 6 birds located and they haven't really fired up yet in north Alabama.

Question for you guys. When you scout, do you carry a call with you or not? I'm not a big believer in making birds "call shy" so I carry a little scratch call. I'm not as interested at hearing a gobble as I am looking for hens.

The area I am scouting is a huge WMA and walking through looking for scratching is kinda counterproductive. Even when I knew where the birds would be, scratching would be difficult to find. So far only two toms have answered, but not with gobbles. They walked up on me while I was calling to a hen. I had sat down in their bedroom just at sunrise.

EFH

Hey baldeagle, when I scout I never take a turkey call with me. I use a owl and crow call at daylight but even then I try to let them just gobble on their own. Soon as I hear a gobble, I'm headed to the next spot! I don't want to educate him on a call unless theres a shotgun waiting on him. Other than hearing him, I'm just looking for strut marks or dust bowls so I have a good setup on slower days. Remember it's always easier to call one of the birds you've located if your already where he wants to go. I wouldn't waste time looking for hens, go find big un and hope your the only hen around! Also, when im going out to listen I don't even want to be close, just within earshot so I don't disturb the daily routine.

Good luck Wednesday!!!! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Tell you bro congrats on the sapping! That's funny!!!

Arrowmaster

Hey blackheel. Glad your on the team.

bald9eagle

My thought on scouting is find the hens, find the toms. Hens will often answer a call when a tom won't gobble. Again, I don't think that you can truly educate a tom by calling to him. If I can get him to gobble once that is all I need.

Think about it. How many times have you called up a bird that you couldn't kill only to come back later and take that same bird?

Like I said, I am targeting hens much more than I am gobblers. If I can hear one on the roost, great. The problem with where I am scouting is that you have to put in a lot of leg work to get to some good areas and then the drive to the next spot puts you well past fly down.

The Black Warrior WMA is so large that you have to find where turkeys, not just gobblers, want to be. Of the six I have found only the two have been found by calling. The others were gobbling on their own.

What I have been doing is kinda different. I am using this little scratch box that I probably won't use when season gets here. I make an effort (for lack of better words) to sound like crap when calling. While I don't believe that you can educate a bird when he answers a few calls, I still don't want to take a chance.

Does any of that make sense or am I off my rocker?

blackheel

Arrowmaster - Glad to be on the team! Thought I had messed up and signed up too late! Might also sneak in a few other states due to work taking me out of state in turkey season.

Congrats to EFH!

BaldEagle - Your strategy sounds fine, I just don't want a bird sneaking in and busting me while scouting. I'll listen from a distance, I'll do a lot of window scouting, and then look for tracks, scat, dust bowls, and scratchings. Patterning birds from a distance is great too!

EFH

Baldeagle, How many times have you called and a gobbler come in and never gobble? I was just saying, if he answers a hen he's interested, if he dont answer he still might be coming to you and your just standing there! That's education! That's just my opinion. If that works for you who gives a crap what I think! I hope you get in there and tote em out one at a time!! Sounds like you already got some located and they might be in trouble come Wednesday. Again, good luck!

bald9eagle

Haha. Yeah, I'm a whatever works kinda guy. I have heard people say "Well he won't gobble again this year!" after a bird got missed but I have seen it myself where a bird that got missed flew off and when he hit the ground he was gobbling.

It's just a difficult place to scout. I've checked 15 or so green fields and haven't found the first bit of sign, and one of those fields just happened to have turkeys roosting around it.

I've walked miles of forest service road beds and have seen only one set of tracks. I know there are birds there but finding the sign is just hard. About the only way to scout it is by listening.

Some of the other places I hunt are tracts of cutover with hardwood bottoms. Finding sign and the birds is relatively easy. I've got those six pegged so maybe those birds will lead me to others once season opens up here.