Zen and the art of turkey hunting

[Pheroze]

Back in the late 1980s the the Turkey was successfully reintroduced into Ontario. This initiative brought back a missing piece of the biodiversity here. Predictably, hunting organizations had a hand in the reintroduction. Since then, Turkey have thrived presenting a great opportunity for hunters and a nuisance for farmers. I personally believe that turkey hunting is one of the most underappreciated forms of hunting available to us. These creatures are incredibly difficult to hunt and present an opportunity to practice the techniques you need for big game hunting. When you get one home the breast meat is very good but you could use the legs as a lethal weapon.

I am no expert but enjoy hunting Turkey very much. In the past we have had some success hunting from blinds. If you know where they are roosting this can be quite a good way to go. However, still-hunting, or spot and stalk, is the most fun and probably necessary considering the quarry you are after. Also, one has to be adept at using various types of calls to entice these massive birds into range. A unique aspect of this type of hunting is that the female often goes to the male during the mating season. So the trick is trying to pull in the Tom when often they hang up waiting for the female to come to them. To make matters worse, they have wickedly good eyesight and they seem to hear everything! Thank God they do not have a powerful sense of smell as well LOL

Turkey season opens in a few weeks and I am taking the boys out to scout some fields we will be hunting this year. I am experimenting with a mouth call and I am thinking I need more training. I took the opportunity to call to a flock of turkeys I saw in a field behind my house and you would have thought I had dressed up as a golden retriever and run across the field towards them! However, I changed to a different sound and I noted that the Tom stopped at this. Very exciting. Gives one hope but my son says I am not getting anything this year

Does anybody else out there take the opportunity to hunt these birds? If so, have you found particular techniques are more successful than others? For anyone who has not tried it yet, I highly recommend it.

 

[BRICKBURN]

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to hunt wild Turkey in South Dakota on a property where there was absolutely no pressure.
It is quite different than the flocks that are constantly hunted.
We were actually able to walk them up in the long grass just like Pheasants. I actually got a double on one flush. These were younger jakes.

The older guys took a lot more effort and were much closer to hunting an Elk. They knew where they were not hunted and would watch you from the neighbours property.

Try and sneak up on a roosting tree doing a leopard crawl! Lots of exercise and no birds.

Wish I could help you more, but that is my entire tale.

Good luck with the calling. It is an art.

 

[Diamondhitch]

Next spring I will be able to draw a tag here in Alberta, it will be my first time and am looking quite forward to it.

 

[adgunner]

Pheroze, I pit myself against the turkeys every spring here in Ontario. I started on simple box calls, progressed to slate pot calls and now use a mouth call. Every year I scout and put up the blinds and have done well with this method, but would wholeheartedly agree that nothing beats run and gun tactics on these birds. I have gotten birds with and without decoys, but the calling and your ability to mix calls up seem to substantially up your odds of finding something to put on the plate beside the cranberry sauce.

 

[Pheroze]

Diamondhitch, I bet you will love it - it really is challenging. When they spook it is amazing how far they go, but I would not call it graceful More like watching a loose bag of cement soar through the air. I could not imagine what it was like to flush them up!

Good luck this year adgunner! I was reading somewhere that they tracked Toms during a hunting season, and apparently they will totally change their territory when the hunters enter their area. One has to be very careful when the birds know they are being stalked.

 

[kathy]

Pheroze, been hunting turkeys for quite a few years. I run and gun . strike a bird with a owl or crow call and go from their. DO NOT call to turkeys before the season. you are just education the birds. be patient they don't always gobble when the come in. old birds will come in silent behind you a lot of the times. learn to use all types of call, but more important no what the call mean. Forrest

 

[Diamondhitch]

...DO NOT call to turkeys before the season. you are just education the birds...

A lesson far too many Elk hunters need to learn around here. By the time rifle opener rolls around they are well educated by meatheads. This goes for the road warriors that jump out of their truck with grunt call or rattling antlers in hand to stop a running buck, makes it way harder for the rest of us once they see that kind of crap. My .02

 

[Pheroze]

The field behind my house is a green space witin city limits, so no hunting allowed. Didn't want to be labeled a meathead no way would I do any practicing in the hunting areas!

Cluck, yelp and purr are all I know out of the box/slate calls. Yelp being the one that seems to get the most response. I am going to get a crow call, thanks!

 

[Pheroze]

My oldest boy will be hunting phusically separately from me for the first time this year, although we will be fairly close. I was thinking we could actually set up a call sequence between us to make it sound like a dialogue. I am wondering what you guys think of this idea. Any thoughts on appropriate calls? Like a cut then respond with a yelp or cluck?

 

[adgunner]

Pheroze, My wife and I doubled up on a pair of jakes yesterday morning. We had a nice Tom coming in but the two jakes sealed their fate when they pounced on my decoy and spooked the Tom. I like to use hen yelps only and listen for response. If I get a response I will give him a few minutes and then call again and then so on until he is in visual range at which point I go silent. If he hangs up I switch to a few soft clucks/purrs to get him in. As for the dialogue idea I have never used it knowingly although I have had other hunters respond to my calls unwittingly. Good luck!

 

[kathy]

Pheroze, double team the bird with your son. set your son up about 50 yards or so in front of you. you do the calling not both of you. if the bird hangs up at 75 yards he is dead. just make sure your son is positive of your location. also learn to cut to the gobblers, a live hen will do this a lot of the time going to a gobbler, will get him fired up. Forrest

 

[Pheroze]

Pheroze, double team the bird with your son. set your son up about 50 yards or so in front of you. you do the calling not both of you. if the bird hangs up at 75 yards he is dead. just make sure your son is positive of your location. also learn to cut to the gobblers, a live hen will do this a lot of the time going to a gobbler, will get him fired up. Forrest

we are hunting two areas this weekend. Unfortunately, he has to work Friday night so Saturday will be an afternoon affair. I actually plan to set up in a couple of blinds for the afternoon. The wooded area by the field we will set up along is roughly "L" shaped. If I get your advice properly I will get him to set up closer to the crook of the "L" and I will call from closer to the top of the area. Sunday will be an early morning hunt in another field. Sounds like a plan! Man I am stoked.

 

[Pheroze]

Pheroze, My wife and I doubled up on a pair of jakes yesterday morning. We had a nice Tom coming in but the two jakes sealed their fate when they pounced on my decoy and spooked the Tom. I like to use hen yelps only and listen for response. If I get a response I will give him a few minutes and then call again and then so on until he is in visual range at which point I go silent. If he hangs up I switch to a few soft clucks/purrs to get him in. As for the dialogue idea I have never used it knowingly although I have had other hunters respond to my calls unwittingly. Good luck!

. Congratulations!! Must have been fun. Do you use a Jake decoy?

 

[adgunner]

Pheroze, I use a hen and a jake for my decoy spread seems to work for us. It was super cool to watch the jakes get fired up and gobble right at the decoy while I had one eye on the Tom hoping he would edge in just a little bit closer, finally the jakes couldn't take the non responsiveness of the decoy and let him have it, at which point we dealt with the two jakes. Hope you and your son have great luck this weekend, seems to be a lot more birds out there this year!

 

[woods1126]

I'm not at all a great turkey hunter, just very lucky. Here are a few Upstate New York birds from the past couple years. I hope you and your boy share the same success I have been blessed with. Kevin

 

[Pheroze]

woods1126 those are some great birds! Nice job

 

[Witold Krzyżanowski]

Nice birds and pictures. You did have a good hunting Woods. Congrats.
Witold

 

[woods1126]

Thank you gentlemen. Yes that is a very nice woods for turkey and deer. I am blessed. Kevin

 

[dobber]

haven't hunted turkeys in a couple of years, moved for work so not as easy anymore to be up and out of the house sitting in a field within 30 minutes.
Try having a discussion with your calls, use a slate and a box, or box and mouth, basically you want to make it sound like 2 old hens yipping at each other, cutting one another off, and the 2 different calls gives the sound that its 2 different birds.
Biggest thing you need to remember about turkeys is they can see you change your mind, their eye sight is that good.
Now to wait for those Kiwi's to chat about how easy it is to kill turkeys and what a good laugh they have at us over here with our hunting methods for turkeys

 

[thriller]

My family and I have been avid turkey hunters for generations in south Alabama. This sport has been my favorite type of hunting in the U.S. since I started at age 10. Through the past 15 years I have had the opportunity to shoot about 1-5 birds a year. During this time I have found that box calls are by far the easiest to operate with the "lynch fool proof" being the easiest. This in combination with mouth calls, that are effective and easy to use, like the Preston pitman black diamond have always proven useful in my tool bag.
I have always considered turkey hunting as something that is best done right. In my opinion this means no decoys as the birds can appear foolish when they are otherwise very elusive. (This notion has been ground into me since I was a small child) I find the best technique is to get within 200-300 yards of where you think they will be roosted 15-20min before the first hint of daylight. If the weather is right he will gobble (at a crow, owl or free gobble). Then you try to move to 100yards without being seen or heard. About the time he should fly is when you should first start to yelp softly a few times (tree yelp), and if he responds yelp back after a couple minutes. Eventually, if everything goes correctly (somewhat rare on pressured birds), he should fly down and strut into range giving you a shot.