RE: Hunting Pressured Areas
A few things to consider as you have been given some valuable advice.
High pressured areas in most cases present quiet woods as the birds become call shy and very wary.Because of this your movements and calling strategy must change unless situation or birds mood dictates something different.Scouting as mentioned by everyone here is an absolute must.Your time seems limited so you must make the most of your scouting trips.Theres more to your scouting than just seeing hearing birds.Tracks,feathers,scratching,strutmarks,turkey sign in general give you just as much info on your birds in a given area as if you had seen them or heard them there.Scouting helps you learn and know your own terrain which in turn should help you greatly when it comes time to set-up on a bird.Even your approach to a heavy hunted area can have an impact on the amount of gobbling activity in high pressured areas.Dont kid yourself that wood wise gobblers cant pattern hunters because they do and will.
Quiet woods make alot of hunters quickly lose patience which in turn causes them to move all over their/your turkey woods blowing or scraping turkey calls trying to strike a bird.All this does in these high pressure zones in most cases is make wise gobblers wiser.Patience.patience,patience and I say again patience.Heres where your scouting will help greatly.If you know theres birds in a given area,set-up in that areawith some low impact calling and wait em out.Often times these type of birds wont say a thing,they just appear out of no where,simply because they have been hunted,so you must pay attention.Also you must use your ears in these situations.Listening for the spit-n-drum of a gobbler,recognizing the steps and soft clucks of approaching birds,are all sounds you must have your ears tuned and listening for in this situation.I like to hunt late (in the day)in these areas,,,the reason why is many hunters have left the field and pressured birds because they have patterned this get more active late in the day than at dawn.The last few years around my own stretch of woods many days I have heard much more gobbling from midday to evening than from dawn to midday.So use your time wisely.IMHO One last thing I would stay away from the use of decoys in high pressure zones.Yes safety is an issue but more than that these type of birds have a way of staying just out of gunrange at the sight of a decoy and many times will not come out of the cover but stay just inside it and strut.Too much pressure can keep these birds tight to cover,I want the bird to find me not my decoy!!These birds present quite a challenge and test of patience.Often times you go home empty handed hunting these type of areas but when you put some time and effort into a hunt and it comes together its one of the most satifying experiences in the turkey woods!!!Bob