Beginning turkey hunter
 

I want to start hunting turkey and have no idea on what to get. What is a good decoy to get and how many. I heard that Buckwing Bobb'n head LifeLite are good. what kind of call or yelper to get. Is there a dvd on turkey hunting that shows you how to hunt and not showing somebody else hunting. Any help would be appreciated.

Just my $.02, but if you want to cut the learning curve, the best thing to do is try to hook up with an experienced turkey hunter, and tag along on a few hunts.

If you want to be self-taught, I'd recommend reading as much as you can before the season starts, and try to do some scouting. I wouldn't get too crazy with gear until you decide if it's for you or not, a simple box or slate call, a shotgun with an extra full choke, and comouflage from head to toe, including gloves & a facemask.

Hope this helps, & good luck!

I agree with Ole Uncle, dont go hog wild yet. Read what you can and all you can. Turkey hunting videos are ok, but most turkeys dont act like that, their harder to kill than on video. Simplify your calls and your shotgun. Dont need a $1000 shotgun to kill a bird. Same on your decoys, if he's close enough to see your decoy isn;t real then its time to give him a dirt nap. Practice calling but remember sometimes its better to just shut up. Pick good locations for calling, dont over call, and learn from every mistake. Good Luck

And if you can't find a mentor, this book is a good place to start:
http://www.amazon.com/Turkey-Hunting...rkey+hunting#_
It's an easy read, informative, and interesting
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You asked about decoys. There's a lot of thoughts out there about them and no one right answer. I either use one hen, or a hen and jake. Or nothing. I think they can spook turkeys that have seen them before, something to consider if you are hunting heavily pressured public ground, especially later in the season. I guess the answer is, it depends.

Read all you can here and elsewhere. Do your homework! And then get out there and practice what you have read. Yes ,you will make mistakes but that is how we learn. But you certainly can learn lots of basics from the excellent turkey hunters who have posted their thoughts on this forum.
Pick up some Real Turkey Voices cds and practice using your call(s) of choice. Start with a box or pot call. They are the easiest to master. Learn how to make the simple "Yelp". That is really all you need. You don't need to be a Turkey Calling Champion and quite frankly a real turkey sounds no where near what those guys do. Learn to mimic what you hear in the wild of the Real wild turkey will help you call more birds in. So practice.

There is no sure fire method that will work everytime.
There is no secret decoy that will being them in every time and
there is no one shotgun better than any other.
What you need to learn is how to pattern and how to determine your effective range. Then you need to develop a set of woodsman skills. That being said learn how to blend in with your surroundings and how to step lightly. Knowing when to move and when not to move is the key to baggin a turkey. Goes along with when to call and when not too........And all of that is learned through trial and error as we hunt.

So get busy.... and read.
JW



And, I expect to make a few mistakes again this year and I have been turkeyhunting over 25 yrs now!

Also get organized join your local NWTF chapter meet other Turkey enthusiests and have a great time. Ive killed more turkey with my great gran dads old single shot 12g then most guys I know with 1000 guns. You dont need that crap personalty the number one reason for sucess is putting birds to bed the night befor. Get in 2 or 3 am sit down about 80 yrds out where you think they will fly out to. I do some real soft yelping right befor the fly down to locate my tom and soon as he flys down see if hes lonley or get him comming in befor any of the hens have a chance to wisk him away. Cause hes thinking Im in love and his hens arnt they will see the BS.

Good luck

Niccum

a few tips
 

get your land set up, do lots of scouting
pattern your gun, you don't need the super chokes starting out just know where your gun shoots
get your basic calls down, a good slate is fine, if you can get the mouth call basics down even better, you won't get busted moving as easy and mouth calls work in the rain, friction calls not so much
stratagy very important, and use good camo, faded and poor pattern camo will also get you busted.

For a beginer a call that is very easy to use is a box call. I'd recomend a Lynch Fool Proof. Really easy to get good yelps on it. Some folks will tell you can't call birds all the way in with a box call but those folks are full of it. I've killed many with just a box call in my younger days. A slate call is probably the second easiest. There are some good instructional DVD's out there and even some on youtube.

My standard advice is as follows.

1. Start with the right attitude. You may not have a lot of sucess at first. Forget the TV shows. It ain't as easy to kill them in the real world. Just enjoy being in the woods fooling with them and learning. Look at killing one as a bonus.

2. The best virtue of a turkey hunter is patience. It's great to have one fall off the limb at day break and run straight to you like a lost dog, and that happens sometimes, but patience has killed more gobblers than anything else. I can't tell you how many times when I first started out that I messed up hunts by giving up and moving too quickly only to bump the bird or even more frustrating hear him gobble back over at the place I just left. If he gobbles at your calling. STAY PUT! Even if he initially walks away. He may be with some hens and he may go breed them first but there is a chance he will rotate back to the other hen (you) that he heard earlier. And then sometimes he will really be gone for good and leave you sitting there like a fool. LOL! That's just part of it.

3. Don't call too much. Here is another area to ignore the TV shows. Most gobblers outside the stocked high dollar dude ranches do not like a lot of aggressive calling like you always see on TV. Remember most of those shows are sponsored by companies tryng to sell turkey calls so naturally they try to feature the calls and use them a lot. Normally the hen goes to the gobbler. In turkey hunting we are trying to accomplish the opposite, getting the gobbler to come to the hen (us). If you seem too aggressive with your calling the gobbler will very often hang up expecting the hen to come to him since she seems so hot and bothered. LOL! I try to seem casually interested with my calling and keep it to a minimum.

4. Pattern your shotgun so you know exactly what it's doing. Not all shotguns throw their patterns to the center of the bore. An adjustable sight of some kind may be needed to fix that problem. It is also amazing the difference in performance you can see with your patterns from one type shell to another through a given gun and choke. That's why it's so important to do some range shooting to determine what your gun and choke likes. I always fire at a red dot in the center of a large piece of poster paper. It lets you see what the whole pattern is doing and where the exact center of your pattern is. Just tacking a turkey head target on a tree can be very misleading. The center of your pattern may not even be hitting such a small target. A good rule of thumb for a dense enough pattern is 100 pellets inside a 10 inch circle. The farthest distance your gun/choke/shell combo will give you at least 100 pellets inside 10 inches is your maximum range.

5. Good camo head to toe is a must and be very, very still.

Thats a lot of good advice. This site will really help you get through the learning curve.

#1 Rule....woodsmanship. Learn what different turkey sounds mean. Leave the decoy at the house until you learn how to move quietly through the woods.

If you hunt public land please be respectful of other hunters.