wis_bow_huntr

Welcome to the great sport of turkey hunting. Let me first start out by saying patience is the key when it come to turkey hunting. I as well as many other vetran turkey hunters know this and will tell you the same thing. I have been turkey hunting for 18 years and have been very successful in the field. The second thing to do is to locate your flocks. Va. holds some great ops for turkey hunting and hope someday to hunt there myself. The Next thing you want to do is get a good setup. When you locate your flocks, pick a spot thats going to give you the best chance at bagging a long beard. Too many new hunters make the mistake by picking an area with too much cover, this eliminating their chance at success. Find a big tree wide than your shoulders. Face the way you will be calling the birds in from or from the oposite side you will be shooting from. (ex: if your right handed youll be shooting to the left, or if your left handed,youll be shootingright). This has worked out great for me. Also get youself more than one type of call and practice. There are many types of calls, choose what you like best. Its all personal prefrence when it comes to calls. (TIP: Never go into the woods before season and call, this may educate the birds of your location). Make sure you choose the proper weapon and ammo for your hunt. If youre using a shotgun, make sure you pattern your gun. Pick up 3-5 different brands, and shot sizes and find one that works best for you at differnt ranges. My setup consists of 12 Guage Winchester Black Shadow Speed Pump using a turkey choke, cant remember the diameter, with Winchester 3in. magTurkey Loads 6 shot. This set up is deadly accurate out to 40+ yards. During the spring I like to hunt the edges of fields along a fence row. Turkeys like these spots as it gives them a better view of things. Turkeys can see a long ways off so make your movements slow and minimal. Do not over call your turkeys. Too often I hear "I had him gobbling for 30 minutes but he wouldnt come in so I kept calling" Mistake number 1. Once you start your morning calling and you hear a tom has responded to your call be patient, he knows your there and may take a while to get to you. Once you have him responding to your calls, back off the call. If he stops responding, wait a few minutes and call again. He may be right on top of you so be aware. Decoys will also add reality to your hunt and may help pull a leary tom into gun range ifyou have the decoys setup properly.Again how you set them up is important and anyone here can tellyou decoy setup iscrucial if youuse them. I like touse 3-5 decoys. 2-3 hensand two jakes. Iplace them out in front of me but off to the oppsiteside Iam expecting them to come, so they have to cross out infront of me or hit them head on. I place a jake directly behind one of the hens as if it was going to breed the hen and space out the others. Nothing ticks off a mature tom more than a jake ready to breed a hen. Theres a lot of different decoys out there so be prepared to spend some money. Again its all personal prefrence. I hope some of my tips as well as others will help you be successful in the field and be sure to get into the 2008 turkey contest and post pics of you and your bird. Heres the one I shot back in 2005.( I took 2 years off of turkey hunting, im hoping to get back out there this year)Good luck to you this year. And be safe.

RockinChair

Thanks a ton for the info. and advice fellas. Couple more questions. First: About the first month (maybe less?) of our season here you are only allowed to hunt sunrise to noon, then after a certain date you can hunt the whole day, just curious as what the logic is behind that. Also, do you guys prefer sitting on the ground, makeshift blinds, portable blinds or what? Being such an amateur I'd feel too exposed just parking it up under a tree. I love making makeshift blinds, they are a hoot to put up and I had a couple gangs walk within gun range of one of my portbale blinds during deer season, so I was just curious as to what the pros and cons are. Aslo, what is and effective range.. 30-40 yards? And the last im actually quite embarrassed to ask, but would rather ask then not have any clue and end up hurting an aniaml. Where do you aim? haha[&:]. On tv you just see a big blast and then feathers go all over. Im sure you just dont aim for the body cause of the risk of ruining the chance of eating it. I apologize for my ignorance.

r33h

RockinChair...to find the maximum range you can shoot, you need to go out and pattern your gun...I can't stress that enough. Shoot at paper and look for holes to see at what range your pattern breaks. If you and I have the same exact gun, choke and ammo, our patterns can be completely different. This is the only way you will know your maximum range.

When you aim at a turkey, aim at the neck where the scales of the head start to turn into feathers.

Mr. Longbeard

Scales[:-]

gmil6184

hey Rockinchair, first i want to say i'm jealous your turkey season is over a month long, up in NY we only have the month of May, and i usually miss the first two weeks of it due to final exams. As for the logic of being able to hunt only the morning and then the whole day i dunno, in NY we can only hunt from sunup til noon in the spring but we can hunt them all day in the fall. I might just be because the first part of the season is during the peak of the breeding season and the gobblers might be especially vunerable to getting shot so if they let people hunt all day a ton of birds will get wacked? Kind of how in most places the peak of the whitetail rut falls during bow season instead of rifle season...i dunno that is just a guess so if anyone out there knows the real reason i would be curious to hear it. As for style of hunting, i kinda like to run and gun, so i usually don't use any kind of blind. Camo today is so good that as long as you hold still you will be shocked how close they can get without making you out. That being said since you are still pretty new to turkey hunting you might want to give blinds a try so that you can get away with making a little movement here and there. It also helps to use the lay of the land to your advantage and set up so that as soon as that bird steps into view he will be in gun range so he wont have a chance to really spot you. it is often much easier to get turkeys to come uphill to you then to get them to come downhill, so i like to try to get set up so that as soon as the bird comes up into view i have a shot. As for effective range the answer really is "it depends", i will assume you are using a 12 gauge because that is pretty standard, and have a full or extra full turkey choke. Next you have to choose ammo, you might want to pick out a couple brands and a couple sizes and see how you shotgun shoots them, some guns like some loads more then others. Personally i shoot Winchester Supremes 3 inch mags with 6 shot. shot sizes range 4 - 6, or some combination thereof. 2 3/4 inch shells will kill them just as dead with a little less recoil if recoil bothers you, the payload is slightly bigger on a 3 inch mag but you probably wont notice a big difference and neither will the bird. as for range it depends on how well your shotgun shoots/what your shooting abilities are, but with a 12 gauge, with a good load and choke you should be able to hit them out to 40 yards or so with authority. Some people/advertisers claim you can shoot farther and you can (I killed a hen one fall at 51 yards, but i wouldn't recommend that, i badly misjudged the range and had i known i prob would not have shot) but i'd rather get them a little closer and really anchor them. Where you should hold is the head and neck area, again check your pattern on your gun (maybe your gun shoots a little high at 25 yards and you will want to hold where the neck meets the feathers, maybe it shoots a little low and you will want to hold right on his eye etc.) and act accordingly. My personal setup is an 870 12 gauge with a turkey plex scope that i put right on the center of the head and it is vicious on turkeys. because of the pattern you are bound to get a pellet or two, at least, in the breast meat, just pick them out while you clean and becareful when you eat it .

RockinChair

Thanks again fellas. gmil, if you didnt live in NY, i'd invite you down here to hunt in Virginia! Just checked the state laws and it goes :
[*]April 12-May 3:
[ul][*]One-half hour before sunrise until 12 noon each day. [/ul][*]May 5-May 17:
[ul][*]One-half hour before sunrise to sunset[/ul]

So its not really much more than a month, but hey I'll take what I can get this early in the game!

gmil6184

haha well i appreciate the thought anyways RockinChair. That is cool you guys get to start in the middle of April though. We open may first but i really think the peak of the breeding season for us is mid to late april. Although sometimes i've found that by the end of May they aren't as henned up and respond to calls pretty good, almost like a "second rut" to use a whitetail term. When you can hunt all day you might want to try setting up at places where you know they return to roost and wait for them to show up on their own. That way you wont have to worry about calling too much and if you do have to call a little its always easier to get them to come to you if they are headed that way already. Another thing that i hear some guys are doing is scattering flocks when a tom is all henned up. Scattering a flock is traditionally a fall tactic, the theory being that turkey are flock birds and when you scare them into flying in every direction they will want to link back up with each other, usually in about the same spot that they were scattered. so you find a group of birds, intentionally scare them, hoping they go every which way, set up and wait. 15-20 mins later you should start hearing them call to each other to meet back up and you start calling and when one comes in to range, Bang. Now this spring if you find a tom with a big group of hens that wont respond to anything you do, try to break the flock up and seperate him from his hens. Now that gobbler that wouldn't respond to calls will be desperate to get back with his hens and might come running to calls. Just a couple things you might wanna try...

BuckRogers

If you have a gobbler in sight and hes coming in just shut up and let him do the rest. The last thing you want to do is mess it up by calling at the wrong time. Those birds can pinpoint where a call is coming from so keep that in mind. I cant wait for this spring! Feel free to ask any more questions as I have just seen this thread and also love answering questions

RockinChair

Thanks guys. I'm gonna brag for a second. I was bowhunting this past fall and watched a group of gobblers walk by the stand and watched them sun their wings for a little while. When I decided to get down I thought of puttin a stalk on them just for the heck of it. I used my range-finder and clocked them at 80 yards from the stand and actually snuck within 35 yards of them, but when I shouldered my crossbow they saw and took off. It was pretty fun though, and I was definitely excited. But it wasnt exactly a tough stalk. They were sunning their wings right at the crest of the ridge I was hunting on top of. That mixed with the fact that I really didnt have to walk far along with the notion that I came up empty handed kinda defeats the whole purpose! haha But it was fun nonetheless.

Turkey Fife

Well I must Brag also. I have had Great Sucess Calling them in to a Log. I'll Roost one and get in close, find a Log and Lay down and call Very Soft, and Purrrrrr, and when he Gobbles I give the Love Call Cluck, Cluck when he is Close enough I hear the Druming.....I jump up and make a face and Scream LOUD....This is called Uglying them to Death. I am the Second Uglyest Person in the World. It works!

The First and MOST Ugly person in the World is my Wife. Its sad, I can't take her along......

She Tears them up to bad! )

Turkey Fife