Lets hear your tricks of the trade
03-04-2014, 05:44 PM
#1
Typical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: MT
Posts: 759
Lets hear your tricks of the trade
I have been hunting this bird for many years and seem to always learn something new about them. I for one have great luck very late morning and late afternoon.
What do you have to share???
What do you have to share???
03-04-2014, 06:19 PM
#4
Typical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: SW, missouri
Posts: 822
well i am far from being an "expert" turkey hunter but i have picked up on many things over the years.
1. don't over call. alo of guys call almost non-stop when they hear a tom gobblein. that almost never works.
2. CAMMO!!! the most important aspect of turkey hunting. camoflaugeing yourself good enough is the key to bagging that big tom.
3. use an assortment of calls. ive noticed that you might be calling a tom in on your box call when at 100 yds he holds up. and no matter how hard you try he just wont come in. thats where multipul calls comes in handy. switching over from a box to a slate or mouth call might be all it takes to lure in the wary longbeard.
1. don't over call. alo of guys call almost non-stop when they hear a tom gobblein. that almost never works.
2. CAMMO!!! the most important aspect of turkey hunting. camoflaugeing yourself good enough is the key to bagging that big tom.
3. use an assortment of calls. ive noticed that you might be calling a tom in on your box call when at 100 yds he holds up. and no matter how hard you try he just wont come in. thats where multipul calls comes in handy. switching over from a box to a slate or mouth call might be all it takes to lure in the wary longbeard.
03-04-2014, 06:27 PM
#5
Super Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Indiana
Posts: 7,182
Patience is a must for one. Now if I have a stubborn gobbler and he isn't budging much, I will get aggressive and hit him with loud yelps and cut at him, then throw in a couple gobbles from the gobble tube and here he comes. But Im real careful on when I use the gobble tube. I don't want to call in another hunter which will blow my set up.
03-05-2014, 07:29 AM
#9
Spike
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Western Maryland
Posts: 87
Most of these have already been said, but a few I've picked up on:
1. Don't over call. It will ruin the hunt every time.
2. Don't call when the birds are close. In the woods, I go quiet when they get to 50 yards or when they're in a clearing with direct line of sight to me. In a field, I go quiet at 100 yards. I don't see a need to keep calling when they already know you're there and have already committed themselves to coming in. If they hang up, then call again. Once they're coming in, you want their attention to be on your decoys, not you. And every time I've tried even a soft call when a bird is close and coming in, the bird will look from the decoys to me. They know exactly where that call is coming from, and many times I've had birds (though, usually jakes and young toms) completely forgo the decoys and make a bee-line for my blind. Going quiet always seems to work, so I stick with it.
3. Use a variety of calls, especially if you're hunting on public land. It make sound odd, but some birds will ignore say a slate call, but then come running to a box call. And even then, some might be more willing to come to a raspy mouth call vs a clear mouth call. The key is variety until you find something the bird likes and then avoid over using it.
4. Patience. That's prettymuch the key to every turkey hunt. At first it's a struggle to find birds, then it's a waiting game, then you have to know how to talk turkey and show him what he wants to see in order to get him to come in. It's easy to mess up, you just have to learn from your mistakes and apply your new found knowledge to the next hunt. Another thing with patience, you may hear or see a tom fly off the roost then go silent. Your biggest mistake would be to assume right away that he's moving away from you. More often then not the bird is coming towards you, he's just being very slow and quiet about it and waiting for you to mess up. There have also been birds that have gone quiet, circled around me, and the next thing I know there's a gobble not 30 yards behind the tree I'm up against. They're sneaky bastards, and they don't always want to talk. Just don't always assume you need to get up and move right away when birds go quiet.
5. If it didn't work the first time, it probably won't work the second or third time. This sort of goes back to using a variety of calls. Some birds want to hear different things. Some also want to see different things or be in different places. If you're after one or two specific birds, learn what they do and where they go. Try setting up in different places, try different decoys and arrangements, and again, call variety. Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
6. Don't move. Your blind is fairly irrelevant. You could sit naked up against a tree, you could park your truck out in the woods and sit in that (if it was legal), you could build a brush fortress out of branches and sticks and leaves and what-have-you or you could sit in one of those pop up blinds. It doesn't matter at all. Turkeys usually could care less what your blind is or what it looks like. The key is not to move. Obviously, camo is also key since solid skin color usually stands out against the greens and browns of the great outdoors, but it's movement that will ruin everything in a hurry. Make sure your gun is up and ready before you see the bird and if he managed to sneak up on you, just move slow and only when his head is behind something like a tree. Turkeys aren't predators, they're prey. That's why their eyes are on the sides of their heads, to give them almost 360 degree vision. Just because it looks like they're not looking at you, just remember, they can still see you and will pick up on even the slightest movement.
1. Don't over call. It will ruin the hunt every time.
2. Don't call when the birds are close. In the woods, I go quiet when they get to 50 yards or when they're in a clearing with direct line of sight to me. In a field, I go quiet at 100 yards. I don't see a need to keep calling when they already know you're there and have already committed themselves to coming in. If they hang up, then call again. Once they're coming in, you want their attention to be on your decoys, not you. And every time I've tried even a soft call when a bird is close and coming in, the bird will look from the decoys to me. They know exactly where that call is coming from, and many times I've had birds (though, usually jakes and young toms) completely forgo the decoys and make a bee-line for my blind. Going quiet always seems to work, so I stick with it.
3. Use a variety of calls, especially if you're hunting on public land. It make sound odd, but some birds will ignore say a slate call, but then come running to a box call. And even then, some might be more willing to come to a raspy mouth call vs a clear mouth call. The key is variety until you find something the bird likes and then avoid over using it.
4. Patience. That's prettymuch the key to every turkey hunt. At first it's a struggle to find birds, then it's a waiting game, then you have to know how to talk turkey and show him what he wants to see in order to get him to come in. It's easy to mess up, you just have to learn from your mistakes and apply your new found knowledge to the next hunt. Another thing with patience, you may hear or see a tom fly off the roost then go silent. Your biggest mistake would be to assume right away that he's moving away from you. More often then not the bird is coming towards you, he's just being very slow and quiet about it and waiting for you to mess up. There have also been birds that have gone quiet, circled around me, and the next thing I know there's a gobble not 30 yards behind the tree I'm up against. They're sneaky bastards, and they don't always want to talk. Just don't always assume you need to get up and move right away when birds go quiet.
5. If it didn't work the first time, it probably won't work the second or third time. This sort of goes back to using a variety of calls. Some birds want to hear different things. Some also want to see different things or be in different places. If you're after one or two specific birds, learn what they do and where they go. Try setting up in different places, try different decoys and arrangements, and again, call variety. Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
6. Don't move. Your blind is fairly irrelevant. You could sit naked up against a tree, you could park your truck out in the woods and sit in that (if it was legal), you could build a brush fortress out of branches and sticks and leaves and what-have-you or you could sit in one of those pop up blinds. It doesn't matter at all. Turkeys usually could care less what your blind is or what it looks like. The key is not to move. Obviously, camo is also key since solid skin color usually stands out against the greens and browns of the great outdoors, but it's movement that will ruin everything in a hurry. Make sure your gun is up and ready before you see the bird and if he managed to sneak up on you, just move slow and only when his head is behind something like a tree. Turkeys aren't predators, they're prey. That's why their eyes are on the sides of their heads, to give them almost 360 degree vision. Just because it looks like they're not looking at you, just remember, they can still see you and will pick up on even the slightest movement.
03-05-2014, 12:36 PM
#10
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Lutz, Florida. Turkey woods in the spring.
Posts: 1,143
Patience is a big part of it for me. I like to set up in a area that holds turkeys and let them do there thing. If I can't get a particular gobbler to come my way, I let him leave with the girls and he will often come back to the area where he heard me.