What are your thoughts on calling afternoon/evening birds? Wisconsin just upped quiting time from 5:00 p.m. to sunset. My job situation is dictating that this year I will only have late afternoon hunting.
Does anyone have ideas that might help?

I called this one in at 6 oclock last night here in north east WI. I saw him in the morning and couldn't budge him with his 12 hens. I new his pattern and caught him coming back for the evening. Soft yelping and some clucks got him charged up.



Just pattern your birds and settle in. This evening hunting is almost like cheating.

Like I said in another post, late afternoon hunts are sometimes better than morning hunts. I usually don't go back out til 4:00.I have killed several birds after 5:00. One of the birds I killed this year was at 5:20. Look at the earlier post on this topic.

Agreed. I don't hear near as much gobbling in the afternoon as I do in the morning, but I seem to have much better luck in the afternoon. Yelps and clucks seem to work best for me. I try to make the sequence a little longer in length in the afternoon.

Find 'em in the mornings---kill 'em in the afternoon. They're usually not as vocal, but they tend to respond to the call a little better.

If you can get one to answer in the afternoon he isusually alone and will respond. My buddy put it to practice yesterday when he killed a bird at 2:30. He had hunted that bird a couple of mornings but he always had hens with him. Caught him alone in the evening and closed the deal.

I ended not even hunting during this past week, but instead called for a buddy on his first hunt. We were only able to hook up two evenings, Wedneday and Sunday. Each time it was 5:30 before we were out in the woods. Wednesday I had two toms all worked up and 40 yards away. My buddy didn't shoot. He was about 10 yards from me and could see their heads and necks, but having only seen turkey hunting on TV was looking for that "full strut in the open" shot. They bugged out after about 20 minutes. Sunday night I got a Jake to come in at 7:15 and after "clicking" on an empty chamber, my bud was able to chuck in a shell and make the shot just seconds before it started to downpour. I guess evening calling does work!