Thanks for the good Luck wish... I am thinking that they may have seen me on the way in and keep getting myself busted?? I am not really sure though.. On one of my hunts last year I got to my blind and discovered a bear had been in it over night sometime.. At first I thought someone had visited it until I saw a couple of claw marks that I had to pack up with camo duct tape.. He had knocked a couple of windows out as well. Once I got my bling back together and my decoys out I saw a couple of nice toms. While trying to get them to come in they turned and tried to go off the other way on me. Fortunately there was some large rocks i used for my cover to sneak up on them with. While trying to determine which tom was the biggest I was spotted and took the one that spotted me. He was a big bird for these parts sporting a 11 inch beard.. But lacks the weight of birds around the more southern areas.. No farmlands where I have been hunting them..Then for my second bird I took a jake because I was running out of time to hunt. It was a rainy morning with a lot of wind.. I was calling it quits and was walking back from my blind and a jake went running. As I hauled up another jake flew out in front of me and went running behind the other one. The first jake turned and started off to the side and when the other one tried to follow it I blasted that one.. I did not expect to have any luck that morning at all.. Hopefully with these longer hours of hunting I can get 2 big toms this year.. I surely saw them last spring so who knows what this year will bring??

Phil - one bad thing is over time having long hours does change the habits of these birds.

I have watched it change in 2 states now that went from daylight to noon to daylight to 3 pm to a half hr before sunrise to sunset. to a 5 day hunt to week long hunts back to back.

Gone are my scouting days of riding around in the truck and glassing fields. and seeing birds .
The birds just run now at the faint sound of any vehicle approaching - the sound :( and I am not kidding. I have witnessed it 1st hand many many times.
So I drive past fields that have held birds in the past and they are constantly empty. You might catch one running once and a while and it doesn't mean the population is down.
What you need is to change your tactics. May have to sit, wait, and watch more than drive around or glass areas from at a long long distance. Or go to scouting cams.
In all these years and people talk about honey holes. Well it is true, they are there, you just got to find them. Some areas are just a turkey magnet to which birds use year after year as long as the habitat does not change, i.e. logging, or no longer planted, etc.
One note I seem to find more sign in last yrs planted corn fields than bean fields. I key on cut corn fields a lot. And I walk more. I walk field edges looking for tracks.
I do have several areas I know I could go sit in today and get a crack at a good bird given I have enough time to wait them out.
So all day hunting will change things for you and you will need to learn them and then adapt.
Birds will loaf and sort of disappear around noon or on hot days. What they do is pick a shady spot and lay down or prene for a while. Birds will enter the field again to feed before fly up. find those feeding spots. that starts around 3 to 4 PM for me in MI and WI and will be later as the days get longer.
The last 5 minutes of daylight is my best time to get a shock gobble. I use in no particular order, duck calls, dog whistles, aerosol air horn, a gobble call, owl, crow, woodpecker calls or may a loud slap on a tree. I want to elicit a shock gobble. I do not use hen calls at that time. I want the tom to tell me where he is so I can get there in the morning. Or just go and sit one of my good spots for the day.
Hope I have helped but trust me you will see a change.

JW

Thanks for the heads up JW!

I have an area that is normally gated the first week of the season.. Not far from the gate is where a big tom and 12 hens kept fooling me.. I saw the tom a few times but not close enough to get a good shot on him. I will be on vacation that first week and will see if I can get my blind in there and all set up for opening day. Around a mile farther up was another huge tom that I could not get close to that had 3 hens with him. They were dusting in that area so I will be watching that when I can as well.

Those cuttings here are great for turkeys if they are from the summer before hand or made during the winter. I think because we lack those farm fields in this area so they choose to find bugs and new shoots to eat. But whatever it is they go all threw them. Just that they appear and disappear very quickly in them..

Our hunting times are from 1/2 before to 1/2 hour after sunrise and sunset respectively. I have no idea why the later being so late as it is illegal to shoot any turkeys that are not on the ground.

DITTO on this as well!!!! Best part is that a tom will gobble once or twice "before" he fly's up, and again after he is in the tree for the night. Just be there waiting for him to show up!!!

I know I'm probably saying something others have already posted, but here goes anyway! It's fun getting on birds at daylight, and having that bad dude fly down in earshot, and next thing you know....Boom! With that being said, I take probably 80% of my birds between 10am and 3pm. Hens have left him to nest and next thing he knows is that he's on the market again! In my experience, it's harder to strike a bird later in the day, but the odds of that bird working greatly increase! Good luck with the longer hours and have fun!

Thanks, I am hoping it works out great for me.. I am hoping if all else fails I can hunt right close to home with the bow as I am right in the middle of town. I currently have around a 2 1/2 acre field that turkeys have started coming to the las 2 years.. Hopefully a big tom will be moving in..