Rules of turkey hunting
03-23-2009 | 06:23 PM
#11
Typical Buck
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 919
Likes: 0
From: New Hartford, NY
RE: Rules of turkey hunting
Great list! These are my favorites:
- You can’t be too early, but you can be five minutes too late.
- When you think you’ve sat long enough, sit another half hour.
- They’re always closer than you think, except when you’re shooting.
- A turkey is a 20 pound eyeball.
- They don’t evaporate after 9:30 am.
- It’s always easier to call a turkey if he’s going there anyway.
Although I respectfully disagree on a couple of your points. The first one being forgetting everything you know about deer hunting. When you are deer hunting the goal is to pattern the deer on your property, figure out where they feed, where they bed, where they look for does, etc and find the routes they travel between all those places. Turkeys are very similar, you should find where they bed, where they feed, where they like to strut and how they travel between those places. At the end of the year after the birds have been pressured and heard every yelp, cluck and cutt out there the only way to get one is to ambush one with minimal calling (if any at all) almost as you would a deer. The other rule was the one on calling too much, and while I don't disagree necessarily I think there are certain situations where you really need to pour on the calling or you don't have a chance. The one that comes to mind is a gobbler with hens. Often times the only way to get him to come is to call the hens and often times the best way to do that is to pick a fight. Once you start to get on that old boss hen's nerves I've found the best thing to do is pour it right on, call louder and faster then her, mimic her (if she's yelping, cut her off in the middle and yelp louder, etc), and just be super aggressive. So I would say when it comes to calling the rule should be "call only as much as you have to, but when you have to, don't be afraid to call." But other then that I think this is great list of rules for all turkey hunters to keep in mind
- You can’t be too early, but you can be five minutes too late.
- When you think you’ve sat long enough, sit another half hour.
- They’re always closer than you think, except when you’re shooting.
- A turkey is a 20 pound eyeball.
- They don’t evaporate after 9:30 am.
- It’s always easier to call a turkey if he’s going there anyway.
Although I respectfully disagree on a couple of your points. The first one being forgetting everything you know about deer hunting. When you are deer hunting the goal is to pattern the deer on your property, figure out where they feed, where they bed, where they look for does, etc and find the routes they travel between all those places. Turkeys are very similar, you should find where they bed, where they feed, where they like to strut and how they travel between those places. At the end of the year after the birds have been pressured and heard every yelp, cluck and cutt out there the only way to get one is to ambush one with minimal calling (if any at all) almost as you would a deer. The other rule was the one on calling too much, and while I don't disagree necessarily I think there are certain situations where you really need to pour on the calling or you don't have a chance. The one that comes to mind is a gobbler with hens. Often times the only way to get him to come is to call the hens and often times the best way to do that is to pick a fight. Once you start to get on that old boss hen's nerves I've found the best thing to do is pour it right on, call louder and faster then her, mimic her (if she's yelping, cut her off in the middle and yelp louder, etc), and just be super aggressive. So I would say when it comes to calling the rule should be "call only as much as you have to, but when you have to, don't be afraid to call." But other then that I think this is great list of rules for all turkey hunters to keep in mind
03-24-2009 | 10:24 AM
#12
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,760
Likes: 0
From: SOUTH Carolina--I've moved!
RE: Rules of turkey hunting
ORIGINAL: dog1
The one about 9:30 a.m is so true, I've many a bird between 10:00: and 2:00 p.m. I carry a sack chair with me and leave it in the truck. If nothing is happening, I eventually go back to the truck, get my chair and thermos and just sit and listen. You will be amazed at what you hear. Personally, I believe when the hens go to nesting and leave him, and he starts gobbling during the middle of the day, this is the easeast bird to kill. Some times it pays to shut up and listen.
dog1
The one about 9:30 a.m is so true, I've many a bird between 10:00: and 2:00 p.m. I carry a sack chair with me and leave it in the truck. If nothing is happening, I eventually go back to the truck, get my chair and thermos and just sit and listen. You will be amazed at what you hear. Personally, I believe when the hens go to nesting and leave him, and he starts gobbling during the middle of the day, this is the easeast bird to kill. Some times it pays to shut up and listen.
dog1
03-25-2009 | 01:34 AM
#14
Thread Starter
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,284
Likes: 3
From: west central wi USA
RE: Rules of turkey hunting
The sport isn't shooting them, it's calling them in. No matter what you carry, the sport is getting theminside 40 yd. I have as much, or more, fun calling them in for someone else as I do when I'm doing the shooting. I can concentrate on the calling and not worry about shooting.
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