Turkey hunting morning and evening....
 

This year our season starts April 28th and runs threw the month of May.. Now we have a first for hunting hours. We finally get to hunt from a half hour before to a half hour after sunrise and sunset. Is it any different to hunt in the afternoon and evening than just the mornings we are used to hunting? The season has always been a half hour before sunrise to 12pm.. So we have something new to us and I am guessing pretty much the same except I can be more selective on my early season hunting.. Not that I do not try to be as we have seen some nice toms after our hours has closed..

IMO hunting from non till evening has been very kind to me. I do nothing differant then how I hunt them in the morning. Many times I go out right after work and have great luck. I do use a blind and bow nunt them. If you know where the birds are at that will be the trick just like hunting them in the morning. You have to have birds no natter what. If you know where they sleep they always head that way at evening you will catch them. Good Luck!

Phil.

I've hunted states with Late closing times. The major
differences are the Toms can be very receptive
in the early afternoon 9 12-2pm range after those
hens have gone to their nests ( I have had great
luck in Maine hunting 11am-noon in the past
for the same reason ). Also, hunting near where you know
Tom likes to roost can be good during the last couple hours of the day ( I already can think of one Tom I had trouble with
last spring that may be in for a big surprise this year
as he makes his way towards his favorite roosting area).
Good luck this spring!

We have a noon limit here in NYS's spring season...but I know that it is 11am till around 2pm that the Toms are out and on the move I see and hear them as I work. Usually just see, for they are very quiet after May 1..but from mid April till May they wake me up any day I try to sleep in past 5am.

I knew where there was a few birds last year that I could not get because of the hens being with them.. Along with one big tom that was scared of the calls right from the get go. I got to see him up close after I had nailed a jake for my second bird. It was a real wet day after a big rain and wind storm had taken place. I was driving back with the jake when the tom took running right along side of my truck in some brush. I will be trying for him again as he had a nice beard on him..

I also noticed last year they were very quite during most of the season here as well. Now with our cold temps and heavey snow fall I am hoping they will treat me good our first week.. This fella is going to be on vacation that week so I will be finding out.. Thanks everyone for the input.. I was figuring it would be like using the same methods but was not sure..

You can probably gain an advantage next day...buy listening for the wing flaps and yelps/cackles, when the flock tree roost's in the evening; in order to help a hunter locate the roost.

Over the past 40 +/- years of hunting Eastern turkeys here in Alabama and several times in Arkansas, I'd say I have killed 3X as many before 08:00 than after 12:00. As for "afternoon" hunting, I do. And have had good luck in the time frame of 2:00 until they hit the roost. Most of the time when I hunt in the afternoon, I do what I call "field hunt" , set up on woods roads or very open areas of the woods or try to set up along routes that I have seen turkeys use regularly when headed to a roosting area.

My experience is that it is rather rare for a gobbler to be sounding off in the afternoon. They will very often react to a shock call. But for the most part my experience is that p.m. gobblers are quiet. But if you find a Tom that is gobbling in the afternoon ??? ... He is about as killable as it gets. I believe, though I cannot prove it, that a Tom that does a lot of gobbling in the afternoon is "henless" and actively searching for hens .... and therefore more apt to be called in.

The afternoon can get you a lonely gobbler and evening can get you a gobbler near the roost area looking for hens also a lonely gobbler.
I hunt all day maybe take a break from 11 till 2 just depends. I would not skip the afternoon and evening hunts!

Thanks everyone.. As stated I have never hunted in the afternoon before so that will be new to me.. I have shot most of my birds from 9 to 10 in this area. I have seen them early in the am but they almost always go the other way on me.. Most of my season it appears that they do not gobble that much except when they come down from the roost.. Normally the snow is gone by the first of April. This year the snow will be leaving late I am thinking. As we are still getting below 0 at night and in the upper teens to low 20s during the day.. That can change rather quickly though..

Again thanks for all the input..

Phil,

Two possibilities with those Toms that
are going the other way on you when they
come down. One they are with hens and the hens
are leading them away from perceived competition
---you or two your calling too much while they
are still on the roost and they are getting the
picture that your not believable. Try making
just a couple quiet calls when they are on the roost
then put the call away until you are positive
they are on the ground. Best of luck this
spring.

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..