2 questions

[Vermin93]

I'm new at this and I have 2 questions from my experience yesterday morning.

1. I was in the woods at 6am and it stayed quiet until 7:15am. I couldn't take it any longer, so I made 3 soft yelps on my pot call and all of the sudden there were turkeys all around me making all kinds of noise from the treetops. Did I wake them up? I thought turkeys woke up before sunrise? One thing I noticed is that even though these turkeys were making all this noise there were no gobbles to be heard. All of these turkeys were just going crazy making all this noise and there wasn't one single gobble that I could hear. Why is that? Don't gobblers usually roost near groups of hens this time of year?


2. About an hour later I saw a hen walking towards me on the next ridge over. She stopped in some brush and I couldn't see her for a few minutes. I thought she had vanished, so I made a few clucks on my pot call. The hen suddenly came out of the brush and just started going crazy putting around non-stop for about 10 minutes. She didn't run away. She just stayed on the top of the ridge and walked around putting uncontrollably while I occasionally responded with my call. Eventually she calmed down and went back over the ridge the way she came. What the heck was that all about?

 

[Scud]

Question 1. Who knows why turkeys do what they do. If a gobbler has hens close by sometimes they don't gobble because they don't need to. The hens are already there. Was it foggy? On several occasions on foggy mornings I've had birds stay in the trees way up in the morning.

Question 2. Sounds like she may be on nest in that brush.

 

[Setterman]

1. I see you live in Loudon, so I am assuming that you are hunting in the eastern time zone. Turkeys usually begin to wake a few minutes after the horizon begins to lighten to the east. However, there are ZERO rules with turkeys, and they don't always vocalize at daylight or ever during the day. If there were hens every where, but no gobbles, it doesn't mean there are no gobblers. They gobble to attract hens, and this time of year if there are hens there are gobblers. Even if they remain silent.

2. Was the hen putting or clucking? Huge differences in the 2, my opinion was she was clucking trying to get you to come on over, when you didn't she left to rejoin the group. This is extremely common, as turkeys will often communicate back, but when another turkey fails to reveal themselves they leave.

 

[Vermin93]

Thanks, your comments are helpful. I listened to the sounds on nwtf.org and it was cutting that she was going, not putting.

A couple more questions -

What time do you try to be in the woods and set up in the Knoxville area?

What time do turkeys usually go to roost? I saw some turkey hunters going in the woods at 6:30pm. Is that too late?

I hunted until sunset a few days this past week, but some people told me I was wasting my time hunting them so late in the day. I didn't see many birds late in the day, so I wonder if they were right. Has anyone here killed birds near sunset?

 

[catman529]

I hunted until sunset a few days this past week, but some people told me I was wasting my time hunting them so late in the day. I didn't see many birds late in the day, so I wonder if they were right. Has anyone here killed birds near sunset?

If you know where they like to roost you can usually see them in the area in the evening. I almost killed a bird about a week ago shortly before he flew up. I made one call too many, and being on public land, that spooked him for some reason (probably because he didn't see the hen he thought he heard) and he started putting and walked away.

Putting is the alarm sound they make kind of like a staccato cluck and warns of danger nearby. Cutting is not an alarm and I usually hear them do that up in the trees when they start getting vocal in the morning. Also if I call and a hen sneaks in close, she will often cluck and purr and look intently for the hen she heard. I've had them do that at usually less than 10 yards so you gotta be still and dont blink too much because I never know if there's a longbeard nearby who's on the tail of the hen.

 

[Setterman]

Thanks, your comments are helpful. I listened to the sounds on nwtf.org and it was cutting that she was going, not putting.

A couple more questions -

What time do you try to be in the woods and set up in the Knoxville area?

What time do turkeys usually go to roost? I saw some turkey hunters going in the woods at 6:30pm. Is that too late?

I hunted until sunset a few days this past week, but some people told me I was wasting my time hunting them so late in the day. I didn't see many birds late in the day, so I wonder if they were right. Has anyone here killed birds near sunset?

I usually get to where I am going to listen from about 30 mins before the first gobble should happen. The reason I say should is because many times birds will start way earlier than they are supposed to, and I want everything to be settled down by the time first light comes, including me.

I never hunt until sunset, I usually try to be out of the woods no matter where I am by 5. I want the woods to settle down, and want the birds to travel to roost without any harassment. I do not hunt roosts, and would not recommend it, unless your goal is to have very few turkeys on the property you hunt.

Most of the places I hunt the birds change roosting locations daily, so patterning them is almost impossible.

 

[J-WO]

Most of the places I hunt the birds change roosting locations daily, so patterning them is almost impossible.

Amen to that. This time of year hunting the same roost the birds have been in for the past few months is pretty much out of the picture. Gobblers move with the hen's,and the hens are constantly on the move looking for somewhere to nest.