A dying breed

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Setterman

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Out of boredom yesterday evening I wasted a bunch of time watching DVR recorded turkey shows. When I was fed up I turned it off and wandered off to bed, which found me unable to nod off thinking about how this sport has changed in the last few years.

It made me wonder if guys who hunt like me are a dying breed in the turkey hunting community. Guys who go to the woods with a vest and a shotgun, move until they find a willing participate and then set up on said bird. If nothing is talking we either go to the house or go sit somewhere to wait, not blind call, but wait for a bird to crank up.

I'm not criticizing any style of hunting just really wondering how few hunt with no decoys, rifle like shotguns, blinds, sitting blind calling etc etc? It seems that 99% of turkey hunters these days hunt entirely different than we did only 10 years ago.

As I said it doesn't bother me but are the "traditional" turkey hunters a dying breed for a newer age and maybe more efficient hunting style?
 
I really think (and hope) that most of the turkey hunting community isn't like what we see on tv. I for one, though not that much of an old timer (I'm 28) love nothing more than a battle of just me and an old tom on some hardwood ridges. I suppose I do use a little of the modern technology as I shoot shells that aren't just lead and will occasionally use a decoy. That being said, the "infomercial hunting shows" are reaching out to a few opening-weekenders and maybe some guys who aren't patient enough to put in the time to rely on skill and a turkey's hormones. Don't give up hope people yet, because the snake oil tactics will surely someday come to an end.
 
I hear ya brother and had this same conversation with another buddy the other day. As I've told you before i grew up hunting bama with no decs where allowed so thats just how i learned to hunt. I got caught up in the rifle like patterns of a shotgun and have moved somewhat away from that but still like a somewhat tight pattern just due to the places i usually hunt.

I will hunt 6 days a week for the month of april and they are all the same, head out with a vest, a pot call and 2-3 mouth calls looking for a participate. If i don't find one willing to sound off or take the bait i head on back home or to work. if it is a weekend I may come back a few hours later and start the whole process over again. I don't care to ambush them and don't really care to sit and blind call..not a thing wrong with that just not what gets me up in the mornings.

Id say there are more of our style hunters then you think but times are different as is technology and access to information. Most guys our age (I'm 35) i would guess where taught by someone who was a traditional hunter that learned out to do it over years of experience. Today there is a lack of fathers that hunt anymore and access to youtube and other video type stuff to allow a person to learn by that way rather then getting out and making mistakes all day. Again nothing wrong with that at all just a difference in generations is all.

Land is less and less these days and people are packing into smaller areas which makes it hard to move around and find birds anymore, you sometimes are just stuck in a field or 2 and have to wait and see if they show up. I have a few spots like that but I will go check them and if i don't strike one up i move on to the next spot period.

Im sure the guys before me had these same conversations saying how us young kids where changing how they hunted with all this 3d suits and camo etc.....sometimes change is good and ok and sometimes it goes to far.
 
I for one am one to get out of the truck (new spot) and hit the locator call and find the closest one and go get on him. That's just me though
 
Normally drop 5-10 lbs and burn some boot rubber every spring! I struggle at times with patience especially if I am not hearing birds because I know somewhere there is a bird gobbling! I guess you could call my hunting style "aggressive", sometimes it hurts me but lots of times it pays off! Would not have it any other way, bring on the spring!!
 
It really depends on where I'm hunting on how I hunt. I have one place that is 40 acres so not a lot of room to move around. Its usually later in the season before they move in and i sit up near their roosting area and go from there depending on what they do. My lease is 3100 acres and has some birds but not a ton plus its an hour and a half away. I will do a lot of walking there although in 2 years ive hunted it less than a handful of times due to my son's baseball.
 
TV Hunting is changing not only turkey hunting, but all hunting. Its all about the money, the fame of killing the big bucks with the newest latest greatest bow and arrow, all about seeing how many gobblers you can ambush sitting in a blind with a full strut gobbler decoy right in front of you.

I think it is a dying breed. I ain't that old, but I learned how to hunt turkeys in Alabama, no decoys, no blinds, just my dad and I searching for a vocal gobbler from daylight to dark. We ain't going to sit there in a food plot and wait for one to walk by. Not how I hunt. That is what I do in deer season. I will sit down and rest and see if one starts gobbling somewhere, but I am not going to just sit there and call and see if one shows up or walks by.

My most despised ever hunting show is the Dream Season by M.A.D. Seems like when they started up several years ago is when all of the new technology started coming out. There have been blinds, decoys, scent lock suits, and such for a number of years, but that just took it to a whole new level. I hated how they had them "pros" on there grading people on whether they wore a scent suit, how they focused the camera, and all of that other nonsense. I know that is mainly deer hunting show, but they turkey hunt some too, and all they do is sit in a freaking blind with 5 decoys 10 yards away to wait and see if some come by. If you have the best places in the world to hunt, you can be sucessful doing that because there is bound to be a gobbler walk by you at some point during the day. Most average hunters like myself do not have a spot like that. Not only do I hate hunting like that, I would be severly handicapping myself to sit and wait all day, while I could go around trying to fire up a gobbler or search for one strutting in a cow pasture somewhere.

If I had one of the best places in the world to hunt like the TV "pros", I would never use a blind. Think about it. All that land and all them birds to hunt. You could be as aggressive as you wanted, because if you bumped one you would find another. If you didn't kill one on a certain day, you would kill one the next.

Sorry for the rant. I don't talk bad nessacarily about these type of hunters, and you can hunt however you like. It just burns me to see hunting in general become the way that it is.
 
When I was a kid, I mostly sat on fields with decoys and killed quite a few birds that way. Now I just don't find that any fun anymore, its to much like deer hunting...just sitting and waiting. Now I carry my gun and vest with maybe 3-5 mouth calls in it and that's it besides some snacks. I do use Hevi 7's in 20 and 12 gauge and will continue to do so as long as they are available.
I think a lot of the sitting and waiting stuff is so popular now because land tracts are getting smaller and smaller and access is getting more and more restricted. Im lucky enough to be close to 160,000+ acres of public land and have several private places over 1000 acres at home but most people just don't have that anymore. For instance, in the area where I work, owning a 40 acre tract is a big deal and theres not a lot of public land.
 
I personally prefer to set up and call and get one to come to me but on the other hand I'm gonna go to a bird if I need to, if he acts like he ain't coming I'm not gonna waste anytime, I'm gonna move on him.
 
It's much harder to film a hunt like what you described than it is to film a hunt along a field edge with decoys. Additionally, there are far less products for a company to thrust upon the viewer if they did film a hunt with only a shotgun, a vest, and a handful of calls. Companies are driven by profits, profits are driven by sales, and sales are driven by making people believe they need a new decoy or new blind, or new [fill in the blank]. Thus, "hunting shows" have gone completely toward sitting in blinds, large decoy spreads, blind calling, trying to make people believe that if they spend $200 on the newest stuff, they can easily kill turkeys. There is no money to be made by showing people the chess match that turkey hunting can be, so they don't show it. That doesn't mean that those hunters aren't still out there in good numbers. The companies don't make much money from the hunters like you and me and many others, so they focus on the other crowd. Just because it's what they show on TV doesn't mean it all that's out there.
 
This is refreshing, to see that folks like REN and woodsman basically got started the same way I did in Bama and others who do still enjoy the traditional approach.

Roost1, I understand where you were headed. I think. I too have to be careful because it really frustrates me to watch the stuff on tv and know that a ton of turkey killers only know this approach. Notice I used turkey killer rather than turkey hunter. To each their own, but I just cannot fathom enjoying the new age approach to this sport. To me it takes every aspect that makes turkey hunting special and throws it in the trash

I think part of this new age comes from a huge influx of deer hunters who picked up the sport as populations expanded. While the traditional hunters turkey hunted and deer hunted, the two never mixed tactics or approaches. Jmo
 
Steven hit it on the head. Access to large tracts of land make it a necessity for a lot of folks. They either hunt that way or don't hunt at all.

Now, if you are loaded with turkeys, that is an obvious proven method, but one that gets boresome rather quickly.
 
I very much look forward to the moving and stalking type hunting that many talk about. Right now we are hunting on a very small amount of acreage. We hope to get permission on a nearby larger tract. We want to walk and see where they are scratching, crapping, and so on.
Im not giving up on that method at all. Its hard for some people working many hours per week to find the time to scout.
Right now we are in a blind and we are also beginners learning but trust me when I say that last year both my son and I wanted to bust out of that blind so bad and go walking. Like I said we need more property, more acreage. We are not giving up on that style of hunting you mentioned at all. Its just going to take us some time.
I wish everyone the best of luck no matter the method. Just get out there in the middle of Gods creation and bring home some of his food.
 
PRB said:
I very much look forward to the moving and stalking type hunting that many talk about. Right now we are hunting on a very small amount of acreage. We hope to get permission on a nearby larger tract. We want to walk and see where they are scratching, crapping, and so on.
Im not giving up on that method at all. Its hard for some people working many hours per week to find the time to scout.
Right now we are in a blind and we are also beginners learning but trust me when I say that last year both my son and I wanted to bust out of that blind so bad and go walking. Like I said we need more property, more acreage. We are not giving up on that style of hunting you mentioned at all. Its just going to take us some time.
I wish everyone the best of luck no matter the method. Just get out there in the middle of Gods creation and bring home some of his food.
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Beautiful thing about turkey hunting is that scouting causes more problems than solutions. Usually they tell you where they are and will communicate.

PRB I'm not taking a shot at you and understand how limiting your situation is and dictates your style. But IMO the scouting stuff is a bleed over from deer hunting and generally not necessary because of the vocal aspect of turkey hunting.
 
PRB said:
Oh I see. So you scout by sound and communication and that dictates where you walk to and where you sit and hunt. Is that right ?
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Yes that is what he is saying. No need to go tromping through the woods looking for scratchings and stuff. They are usually vocal enough in the mornings to find out what areas they use the most. Now, they don't always roost in the same spot every night, but sometimes they do.

My kind of scouting is done by sound. A week or so before the season, I like to go to my places and listen for gobblers at daylight. Whatever you do, do not call to them with anything, I mean hen calls or locator calls. Don't even bring them, if you do Satan will tempt you and win into calling to them. No sense in it, because they normally gobble on their own if it is a good morning and they aren't spooked. Also, do not spook them. Listen from far off. Find a high point, or a good listening spot where you are fairly sure you will not spook any birds. Simply listen. Be there about 45 minutes-hour before sunrise. If it is a pretty spring like morning, they will start gobbling soon after the cardinals start singing. Do not waste your time or take chances of spooking birds if it is a bad morning. Go when its about 40 degrees, clear, no wind, heavy dew, and high barometric pressure.

Once you have done this I would stay out until you decide to hunt it. It isn't guaranteed they will be there but there is a good chance. Typically in early season they are roosted in the same areas daily, and when the hens start setting in the late season is when the gobblers break up, move around, and no telling where they will be any given day.
 
PRB said:
Oh I see. So you scout by sound and communication and that dictates where you walk to and where you sit and hunt. Is that right ?
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Exactly. If I am hunting a new place I usually go and look at it from a distance to locate what I think is a good listening spot, then I use aerial photos to understand how the land lays. First hunt I go to the listening spot, sit quietly and wait for the birds to gobble revealing their location. I then use the lay of the land to get close before setting up. Naturally there is a learning curve with this, as learning the land, timber types etc takes time. But I feel scouting can really damage hunting by spooking birds before the season gets here.
 
Money...it influences how we do a lot of things in life.

I unfortunately got into the game at age 34 (i'm 37 now). I grew up hunting everything in the woods but turkeys...that's because we didn't have them. That said, I have had to learn from the turkey hunting infomercials and You-Tube videos. I do respect the traditionalists but you got to understand everybody's baseline and how they got introduced to turkey hunting.
 

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