More Turkeys

[woodsman2230]

During turkey season I have nobody to hunt with but myself, so I had to learn all the specifics myself. I have only taken one bird, which happened to be a monster for where I live. (PA) It was 23lbs with a 10 and 1/2 in beard and 1 in spurs. I was wondering if any of you guys out there could give me some tips on how to take more birds.

[buckifan21]

the best advice I can give is get out there as much as possible and learn as much as you can about the birds. Although each bird is different, there are some generalities...

Learn how the birds use the terrain old logging roads are great to key off of as well as saddles, ridgtops and points. read/hunt the sign and be sure you have a good set up.

hope these help you get started

[woodsman2230]

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

[rockefeller66]

spend ALL the time you can in the woods and I learned to do more HUNTING than CALLING, you never know when one is going to walk by or fire up!

[buckifan21]

nice tip rockefeller. It seems like that is a mistake that EVERYONE makes.

another tip that i thought about... think like a turkey would think... not like a human. When you look at a place think "if i am a turkey, would i use this area"

Hope these help. hope you get a big one.

Orrin

[Rhino]

Sounds like you started learning about the same way I did. Only difference is I started a loooong time ago. Long before blinds and decoys were around. I don't use much of either one of those. To be honest though the best teachers really are the turkeys. Real hens and loud mouth gobblers will tell you a lot about themselves. While hunting I prefer to sound more like a real hen with my calling than an entry in a calling contest. Also, if your don't already know try to learn the lay of the land you're hunting almost as good as your own back yard before the season begins. You want to learn how to avoid getting any obsticles between you and where a gobbler is before you're hunting him.

Before the season starts head out to the woods at least several times to listen for where the gobblers are roosted and leave all your calls at home. You're scouting and you don't need calls until you're hunting them. The birds will usually gobble on their own on the roost anyway. Keep your distance so they will fly down and go wherever they want to undisturbed and try to figure out where they are going or prefer to go from their gobbling on the ground. That will help you to pattern them for the early morning hunts. When the season opens you should have a feel for where a gobbler (or more than one) is likely to go. Plan to be where he's headed coming off the roost before the crack of first light so you don't spook him on the roost. Once the season begins continue to be observant about what the birds are doing. Even though you're hunting you still want to learn all you can about their movements.

That's sort of the beginning to patterning turkeys in the early morning hours of the hunt. You can also glass them from a distance to get an idea where they might like to be during the day. Also look for tracks, scratching, dusting and droppings (preferably the J shaped ones dropped by gobblers). If you don't already know, learn the difference between gobbler and hen tracks.

There should be a lot more discussion about tukey hunting in the coming weeks so stay tuned in to those discussions too. You'll probably pick up some more ideas from other coming post.