Turkey Hunting Tips

[DonBo]

Lots of new turkey hunters out there. Many have no clue what a great ride they're in for. Lets get this thread going giving out your favorite tips for a successful season.

My best is, sit down and shut up. Few newbies ubderstand how good a turkey can see and hear. Most just don't sit still enough to fool an incoming bird. Turkeys can see you change your mind at 100 yards. You just can not move when a turkeys head is in view. He WILL see you.

[paceman]

when you set up to call. make sure your outline is broken. Sit by a tree, stump, heavy brush. Try to set up near the top part of a ridge above where you think the turkey come from.

[sticknstring]

Be patient & have confidence. Just because you don't see or hear a bird coming in, that does not mean birds aren't close and on on their way to come check you out, especially later in the season. A ground blind is a great tool for the novice & veteran alike.

1. Sit still

2. Break up your outline

3. Be patient

[Borch]

Scouting is so important!

If you know where the turkeys roost, travel, strut and feed you're much more likely to put you tag around one's leg.

[pureinsanity]

Don't use a crow call as a locator call! The veteran turkeys know the crow population goes up significantly in spring. And they know WHY

also if you have a turkey come in and check you out and he starts to walk away, don't give up, hes probably just circling you to try and make sure its safe.

I personally hardly call. Where I hunt there is a lot of other hunters out there. I typically RARELY call as I like to be the sneaky guy in the middle of the two guys trying to call a turkey in.

[eckum54]

I know this tpoic is for your best hunting tips, but here is a question along the lines of scouting...mainly to help out a fist timer. the question is, and its quite simple...

i drew this year for the B season and i am looking for some scouting tips, ie what to look for in the types of trees that turkeys would be roosting in as well as where to set up, meaning along fields, clearings, or do you work more ridge lines? also as for scouting etiquette i will defineately be out before the first season, but what im not sure of is how much of the habits of a turkey change between the start of the season, and i dont want to step on anyones toes that is hunting while i am trying to scout...any advise

thanks

[pureinsanity]

Go early....

Go out in the afternoon, try to find some turkeys and follow them from a distance. look to see where the turkeys are roosting. The next morning go back to that spot, the turkeys will fly down, and watch what they do all day, follow them around and find where they roost again.

odds are they are going to do the same thing every day, roost, fly down, eat, find a lady, and roost again.

[Borch]

When you narrow down a general area go there mid day and look for turkey feathers and dropping son the ground. In particular look for wing feathers as these tend to be lost in roost areas more than anywhere else. Ridges, river banks or swamp trees tend to be good spots to start checking out roosting areas. But really at times almost any tree will work.

[Shoot2Kill]

I know this tpoic is for your best hunting tips, but here is a question along the lines of scouting...mainly to help out a fist timer. the question is, and its quite simple...

i drew this year for the B season and i am looking for some scouting tips, ie what to look for in the types of trees that turkeys would be roosting in as well as where to set up, meaning along fields, clearings, or do you work more ridge lines? also as for scouting etiquette i will defineately be out before the first season, but what im not sure of is how much of the habits of a turkey change between the start of the season, and i dont want to step on anyones toes that is hunting while i am trying to scout...any advise

thanks

No better way to scout than to start hitting the woods you think you may hunt a few weeks prior to your season at sunrise. One of my favorite spring time activities is to fill up a thermos full of coffee and go sit on the edge of a field or timber for a couple hours each weekend morning prior to the first season opener - staying FAR away from them. They start gobbling well before the seasons open…you can pin point right where they are and listen for where they go once they come down off the roost. Then if I can, I come back at mid day when things have calmed down and head in the timber and snoop around to see what they are doing and where they are going. If you go back a few days in a row and the gobbles are coming from the same spots then there you go, you’ve found your target.

I absolutely love pre season scouting or “sitting” when the sun is coming up…zero pressure, just sitting there listening to the gobbles and the timber come alive with a cup of coffee.

I found my bird 3 weeks prior to killing him last year. He was about 400 yards away from a main group of toms that I was sure I was going to set up when my season opened but this loner changed my mind. He liked to hang out right in the middle of a group of big trees right in the middle of a pasture every night without fail. I could see him through the binos gobbling like a retard every morning and he was the last one to fly down every day out of all the birds I listened to (this farm is ½ mile from my house so I was out there about every morning I could prior to going to work). He was so predictable it was almost not even fair for him. As the season closed in I would drive the road next to where he hung out on my way to work and I would see him on the same little knob every morning strutting his stuff at 7:00 on the dot. No matter where I set up on him it was going to be close just by the way the lay of the land worked. I could get 90% of the way to my set up by walking on a quiet field road but the last 10% was through a 30-40 yard wide stretch of timber so I went in the day prior to my season opened with a rake and raked a path in the leaves in that last 10% that led up to where I set my ground blind up. Opening morning I went in WAY early, snuck in, set up my Pretty Boy and one hen because I knew he was a dominant bird and I just wanted to see if I could provoke a fight with the Pretty Boy. It just happened to be raining that morning and I didn’t hear a single gobble, but I knew that goofball was there. At 6:32 I saw a white Q ball coming over the rise in front of me…he was reading the script perfectly! As soon as he saw Pretty Boy all hell broke loose and he beat the living tar out of him! Haha! He finally cleared the decoy and BANG, done. It was too easy. I’m hoping to find another this year that is as predictable as he was.

So…moral to that story….go out there prior to the season and start listening as the sun comes up.

28 lbs, 1.25" hooks, 9 inch beard.

[Hoyt4]

The pre-scouting is huge. Every year I hunt a few states I might only get one day or two but I get to the areas i'm going to hunt. MN and WI I get to put more time in and know more of what the birds are doing and roosting.

Just as shoot2kill stated above get out in the mornings. Once you get that gobbling in the morning you going to be locked in. I do not think there is anything better then the birds gobbling on roost other then an elk buggle.

Another tip is safety use your turkey vest to haul out your bird or orange bag they sell. I also wear out a orange hat. I thought because of private land I was good. I have had a hunter come in on me walking out with a bird.

It's not about how good of caller you are .If you do your scouting and know the woods. Get out know the land and you can find were the birds are going and coming from.(woodsman)this will kill the bird more then any calling.

[Archerysniper]

When your hunting in a blind wear dark clothing black is the best, also wear gloves and a face mask the shine of your face or hands have saved lots of turkeys this is really important when useing archery equipment your bow hand is allmost out the window when at full draw easy for them to pick you off.

[rbs]

Might sound simple but please, PLEASE don't wear one single thing of Red, White or Blue! I had been hunting a field edge a couple years ago and had my blind set and my decoys out. I was impatient and decided to go down into a ravine and go after a Tom that absolutely would not come up to me. Needless to say I didn't get him. I was walking up the ravine towards my blind and was about 60yds away when at the top of the ridge I could see RED! At first glance I swore it was a Tom! Guess what! It was a guy and a lady up right around my blind and decoy picking up some barbed wire that the cattle had drug up onto their horse trail. I tell you what...I almost felt like puking after I actually saw what the red was (the old guys hat) A inexperienced hunter might have shot? God I hope not!

[DonBo]

Don't rely on just one call. Get several different types and get comfortable with as many as possible. Turkeys will usually respond to one call over all others on any given day. Day to day, even hour by hour the one they prefer may change. If you're limiting yourself to only one or two call, you're limiting yourself.

I usually carry two box calls, two or three different slate/glass/crystal calls with a bunch of different strikers and several different mouth calls.