sour01

I feel sure everyone learned something...or at least had an old lesson reinforced. Name a couple of lessons you would pass on.

For me:

1. Just because a bird doesn' t gobble on the roost does not mean they aren' t there. Twice I bumped birds off the roost by moving---thinking that there were none around or already on the ground. They were there---just not talking yet. I found fly down times vary a great deal depending on a lot of factors.

2. I used to get super concealed in brush or cover---even to the point of sacrificing good shooting lanes. I trusted my camo much more this year and it worked. No movement was the key.

3. To switch tactics. The birds weren' t always excited about coming to my calls this year---so I tried something else. Figure out where they are going and be there when they arrive.

4. It is often very hard to predict where they are going.

5. That birds move around a bit. Even though a gobbler was not in a promising area today is no sign he won' t be there tomorrow.

6. Persistence eventually pays off.

Not many surprises there---but what about you all. Any special trick work or any good lessons learned? Pass it on.

MOTurkeyTamer

This year I learned that starting to scout (going out at daybreak) 7 weeks before our season opened, twice a week, weather permitting, payed off handsomely with gobblers on opening day of the first two weeks of our season. I had birds located in 4 locations and only had to utilize one of these spots to fill my tags. I can' t stress enough about the importance of going out and listening to them on the roost and after flydown well before the season opens. Before season, I had a plan and 3 backup plans and I was very confident going in. And it payed off.

Moral of the season is.........scout, scout, and scout some more before season, that way you' ll know where they are or aren' t before the season opens and you won' t have to waste precious time during season floundering around looking for birds that you should have already patterned!

FroMan

There is hope for the hopeless!

trapper T

Pretty much all the above plus a few more:

What it is actually like to set up, call in, watch him in full strut, and throw him over my shoulder.

That no matter how close to the edge of the ridge you set on so he can' t come in from behind, he will and he will gobble @ 10 ft behind you.

And how high I can jump from a sitting postion when the above happens.

That the more I hear a gobble in the woods, I feel like a kid at Christmas

Plus we need longer seasons, because I' m itchin to go Turkey hunting already


I need to be more pateint and not call as much, trust the fact he can here the soft stuff and he is usually close enough to hear it.

Scout Scout Scout, man how that bit me in the pants more than once in 2 days

huntnma

i learned that i had to relax more...it was becomin a mission to get a bird, i wasnt having as much fun.......when i changed my attitude is the day i got my longbeard.....

and another thing....i was afraid to shoot through a palmetto, i could see red through the leaves on the palmetto, i should of taken the shot , but i was worried i' d wound it....i wouldnt of.....went back and relived that hunt, after the hunts were over and i would of nailed him......but it is better to be cautious, then sorry......

RIStrutStopper

Don' t forget to fly down! No response at all this season to locators in the morning, but I know generally where a few birds like to roost. In the woods before first light, decoy set up and ready to go. At first light, had a gobbler responds IMMEDIATELY and rather urgently to some soft tree calls. I never did hear him fly down, but then again he never heard me fly down either. Talked to this bird (estimate maybe 50-60 yards from me) for a good half hour, then hear him gobble considerably further away and that was the end of that. Not that flapping my hat on my leg would have definitely done the trick, but it just might have...

Trust your shooting ability (and practice practice practice). I had a chance at a bird strutting behind me, and I could have taken the shot left handed but was second guessing my skills. Also, had a chance at the same bird very quickly right handed, but didn' t want to cripple the bird. The more I think about it, the more I realize I could have made the shot. Had I done so, the fly down lesson above would not have happened cuz my tag would have already been filled...

Nothing happening? Move! I spent too much time calling to nothing but crows and woodpeckers. Was afraid to get up after 15-20 minutes of not hearing turkeys to move, thinking as soon as I stand up I' d see them taking off to the next county. Instead of waiting 30 - 60 minutes after no action before moving, go find a bird!

snowdog2

How very true, but I learned that lesson a few years ago when I had a tom nearly knock my hat off with his gobble, after I' d locator called with no response, set up anyway, and was just tree yelping and clucking probably an hour after sunrise.

I learned this year that turkeys in the rain would rather walk in the mud of a plowed field than the grass along the edge, so setups should be close to the plowed field edge.

I learned that hindsight is always 20-20.

I learned that you can get busted even if you sit 100 % totally, absolutely still, but with no facemask. (This happened when I was scouting/roosting for the next day--no gun, not calling. I had a tom walk to within six feet of me, putt once and fly. I could see he saw me, even though I was hugging a tree, sitting motionless, squinting, not breathing, had my camo jacket and pants on (but no mask) and was partially concealed by a fern.)

I learned that you might as well not hunt, unless you regard yourself as awfully lucky, if you don' t know your habitat.--Twice I had hot gobblers hung up because of fences I didn' t know were there. Had I known, I' d have relocated, instead, I called till they walked off--big mistake, came from not knowing the habitat.

I also encountered a " migration" of sorts in four consecutive days hunting the same big block of woods. Each day the birds moved farther south along the west edge of the block. Roosting farther south. I' d learn this in afternoon scouting.

ironranger

First of all, one thing that was drove home again this year to me is about calling. I' ve been working hard on the length of my yelps by listening to hens and mimicking as closely as possible. I was practice calling in an area close to home where there are turkeys but no hunting is allowed. It' s a large wildlife area and I was setup one morning at the edge of a field. The gobbler was sounding off as I approached and setup. Then a hen started in next to him. She was raspy and my MAD super crystal with acryllic striker was matching her sound. I adjusted to match her length of yelp and as she got louder I got louder. Then she got pissed and flew right down within 5 yards of me. Then the gobbler flew down right next to her. She knew my outline didn' t look right and flew off but the gobbler sat there and gobbled. Man, was that cool. Then while hunting MN I had a jake come by clucking and purring for awhile. Just hearing them and being aware of the volume, length, and pitch was an invaluable lesson.

Secondly, one of my hunting partners had seen on a TV show where the hen was set down close to the ground and then a jake decoy was set behind her as if he was getting ready to mate. So I tried it on the Wisconsin hunt and the gobbler slowly approached down a hillside in the field and then proceeded to stomp on the jake decoy. Fatal mistake on his part and it brought back somewhat my faith in decoys after having many gobblers hang up on them in the past. Earlier in the hunt I had constructed another jake decoys out of a Carrylite jake decoy where I cut off the tail section, filled the body cavity with sheets of that shipping airfilled material, inserted a piece of cardboard to cover the end of the tail, and then glued and velcroed a real turkey fan onto it. It worked on those two gobblers but after a day of rain didn' t look so good!!

Third, I learned on my first hunt that I still need some work on my setups. I called in two gobblers for my buddy into the decoys. I had chosen a tree because it was the only one wide enough (Safety factor) but where I setup the decoys there was some brush in the way and my partner couldn' t take the shot when they were butting heads with my homemade decoy. So on my 2nd hunt I deliberately took more time to figure out where to setup and made a much better choice allowing me some foliage between me and the bird when he flew down and I was up higher than the field there and it allowed me a better view.

I' M DONE RAMBLING NOW

determined

i learned in my first year after months of watching videos,audio tapes,patterning,assembling equipment and expert advice from this message board,that i could make it happen non-guided by choice.i learned to enjoy the woods and that the harvest was secondary.i learned that when a gobbler flies down to hens or has hens with him,has to be the toughest scenerio in turkey hunting.i learned to call sparingly and softly to birds on the roost,scratching the leaves can be big.a big thing i learned after hearing so much gobbling was distance,how far am i from that bird?on my last day of hunting,i did not give up and harvested a big beautifull bird,never,ever,give up.be motionless,be quiet.decoys are great,he walked into mine.locator calls are overated,never got a response from a half a dozen of them.im a new turkey hunter,but thats what i learned.

snowdog2

I also learned that I know a faster, better way to breast a turkey than my buddy, who has successfully hunted them for many years more than I have.