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Closing the deal

lothar said:
A lot of these posts sound like liberalism at its finest! I don't use decoys, so I don't think you should either. I don't like ground blinds, so I don't think you should either. I'm sure everybody complaining about season opening up too soon don't start hunting until the last 2 weeks of season. I'd guess they only shoot one turkey and they're done for the year. If it bothers you that much, take a camera instead of a gun. Use a blade of grass instead of a man made call. I've killed turkeys about every way you can kill one. Some with and some without decoys. There's excitement either way. To each his own!
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This is absolutely the best post in the the longboards forum
 
timberjack86 said:
Yep go ahead and keep taking the shortcuts. Shame on us for trying to teach anyone how to hunt traditional!
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Teach? Are you certified, have a degree, or something else that behooves you to teach anyone anything? Whose to say you are right besides your own opinion?
 
Southern Sportsman said:
Yep. The age old liberal mindset of encouraging people to accomplish things through work and dedication to a craft rather than rather than shortcuts.

This is not a political issue. But if we're drawing comparisons to liberalism, one group realizes that many people aren't skilled enough, and don't want to put in the years of effort required to clear the traditional learning curve, to kill turkeys with woodsmanship and calling. So they insist those people should be able to use an alternative means to reach the same result without the same skill and effort. Sound familiar?
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Woodsmenship? Wouldn't that be like knowing the lay of the land and using it to kill a turkey? Get to where he wants to be and kill him when he gets there?
 
Setterman said:
I've hunted all over the Southeast, and I mean all over It. 500 acre Alabama ag fields, Miss River bottoms, rolling hills of west Tn, palmetto swamps of South Georgia, Sand Hills of central georgia, rugged eastern TN mountains and many more.

for decades now I've adhered by my rules of engagement and for decades I've killed 12-14 birds a year. Each and every one gobbled to my call, and came to my set up.

I haven't killed a private Land turkey in TN, Ky, VA, or NC in almost 20 years.

I would suggest reflecting on your tactics, early season methods etc.

Sorry to come across as arrogant, but there's nothing you can throw at me that I haven't dealt with from high pressured, to low bird numbers, to henned up lock jaw, whatever you got I've dealt with. In every instance a bird will gobble if hunted the right way at the right time. You just have to shelve the must kill now mentality.

There's a place near my house called Loyston Point, it has a few birds and every day they get hammered by countless hunters. Within a week of the season opening they go silent from the pressure. 90% of the hunters vacate after the second week. I can go in there the first week of May every single year and call a gobbling bird to my gun. These birds have seen and heard it all, they've been shot at, bumped, spooked, wounded etc. But by hunting them smartly and at the right time they still play the game.

Catoosa is very similar, I've seen a lot of birds die in a very hard hit weird place to hunt

Its you and your hunting mentality is my point. You want instant gratification. you don't want to learn, hunt smart, and adhere to anything other than filling that tag as fast as possible. In your mind it's dang he won't gobble, so I'll sneak up and ambush him. In my mind, he's not gobbling today I'll come back in a week or so, and see if he's ready To play my game.

please don't think every time I walk in the woods they just come running gobbling all the way. There's lots of days, where I get my butt handed to me, nothing gobbled, I setup poorly, made a dumb mistake, or A bird gobbled twice and vanished. Those days are far more common then the dead bird days, but that's what makes this fun. My tags are precious and too valuable as well as the chess match to cheapen the experience by employing some bs tactic
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I've been huntin with this man once, he knows every trick in the book to make one gobble. if there is one thing listen to this man. he can tell you anything you need to know.
 
artwork001 said:
Here in East Tennessee like I said I see Toms blown up with hens all around them for the last two weeks so there has to be breeding going on right? I'm asking that seriously because I'm not a biologist and haven't really studied the matter so if somebody can enlighten me I would appreciate it thanks.
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Yes, breeding goes on all the way into June if there are males available to breed. Most of the matings after the season has ended are hens that have lost their first nest and are renesting as well as the jennies who have just become sexually mature enough to ovulate and produce eggs.
 
hbg1 said:
Woodsmenship? Wouldn't that be like knowing the lay of the land and using it to kill a turkey? Get to where he wants to be and kill him when he gets there?
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Yeah that's woodsmenship and its a fun part of the hunt, don't confuse woodsmenship with ambushing a turkey. IMO if you don't have to call to get a turkey within gun range you have ambushed him.
I'll admit when I first started turkey hunting I ambushed a few birds just like I killed year and half old bucks when I started deer hunting but you tend to grow as a hunter and appreciate the difficulty in calling in the birds... there's more to the hunt than being able to point a gun and pull the trigger.
 
hbg1 said:
Teach? Are you certified, have a degree, or something else that behooves you to teach anyone anything? Whose to say you are right besides your own opinion?
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If you think hiding behind a fan is woodsman's ship your beyond teaching anyway! No I don't have a degree in turkey hunting. Neither did my mentor who showed me a few tricks to turkey hunting. This is the attitude that's wrong with millennials today. They get all upset when somebody tries to teach someone. Typical millennial.
 
artwork001 said:
Here in East Tennessee like I said I see Toms blown up with hens all around them for the last two weeks so there has to be breeding going on right? I'm asking that seriously because I'm not a biologist and haven't really studied the matter so if somebody can enlighten me I would appreciate it thanks.
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Some breeding, yes. Most breeding, no. It's a little like deer. The males get ready before the females. They are currently establishing dominance and strutting to impress hens. But the actual breeding takes place when the hens are ready, which is based on photoperiod and generally coincides with spring green-up. Hens need good vegetation in which to nest.

This is from the last available Summer Poult Survey prepared by TWRA.

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There are always a few outliers that breed in mid-March, but the great majority of breeding starts around the second week of April. The biggest spike in nest initiation is actually in May. I'm pretty sure it's higher because it includes re-nesting adult hens and initial nests for jennies.

I'm not arguing for delaying things until May. But offering some protections until mid-April is badly needed.
 
timberjack86 said:
If you think hiding behind a fan is woodsman's ship your beyond teaching anyway! No I don't have a degree in turkey hunting. Neither did my mentor who showed me a few tricks to turkey hunting. This is the attitude that's wrong with millennials today. They get all upset when somebody tries to teach someone. Typical millennial.
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I'm 51 years old, prob been turkey hunting before you were born and forgot more than you know
 
timberjack86 said:
If you think hiding behind a fan is woodsman's ship your beyond teaching anyway! No I don't have a degree in turkey hunting. Neither did my mentor who showed me a few tricks to turkey hunting. This is the attitude that's wrong with millennials today. They get all upset when somebody tries to teach someone. Typical millennial.
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When someone disagrees with you you assume you know all about them, assuming makes you something, figure it out
 
hbg1 said:
If so, woodsmanship wouldn't be approved as an ethical way to kill a turkey by some hardcore hunters around
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I have no idea what you are talking about.

People who are consistently able to call turkeys into gun range do so by maneuvering in proximity to turkeys, knowing the terrain, setting up in a place a turkey is willing to go and where he'll be in gun range when he comes into sight, reading the bird, and knowing when to call. How do you think any of that happens if not with woodsmanship? Do you think that traditional turkey hunting with a gun and a call is done without woodsmanship?
 
Traditional turkey hunting? You mean the way the native Americans did it?
 
hbg1 said:
Traditional turkey hunting? You mean the way the native Americans did it?
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hahah I love when this gets pulled out. Should just hunt them with stick and string with no camo. Thats the way the Indians did it or the way my great great grandfather did it.

I have yet to find or see a reply as to why decoys are a GOOD thing for the sport. Why should they be legal and how do they help the sport and resource.

I also always love the "if its legal" comments. Legal does not always run in parallel to ethical or good for the sport. Most game laws are not based around proper game management, more toward license sales and money set by a panel of people who have other motives in mind. I mean its "legal" to shoot turkeys with a rifle in some states, doesn't make it ethical to do so.

I get it though, some find it a rush to watch a turkey strut into a decoy. Some cant mentally handle the handicap of not using them, due to limited time they want to maximize their success rate as much as possible. But that IMO leads to a more kill mentality then a hunting mentality. I can only speak for me but Id much rather be unsuccessful 50% more of the time but played the game and learned more on each hunt then maximize my hunt using an unfair advantage but learned very little along the way.

Ive learned a long time ago you cant change peoples minds on a message board and thats even more true for hunter for some reason. Some let the laws mandate what is ethical and others choose a harder path to follow. Again IMO one of those groups of people care more about the hunt and the future of the resource then the other which focus more on success. To each his own
 
hbg1 said:
Traditional turkey hunting? You mean the way the native Americans did it?
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If you are subsistence hunting like the Native Americans were—or even the early settlers—then you definitely should not worry about sporting methods of take. A bait trench for shotgun work and a .22 mag for field turkeys will keep your family fed. Personally, I don't know anyone subsistence hunting for turkeys. But it is always fun to see the ol' "Native Americans used decoys" argument come up in these discussions.

But if we are hunting turkeys for sport—as I am—I think we should have rules to keep the game sporting. The traditional rules for the SPORT of turkey hunting developed decades ago, long before you or I. They require woodsmanship to be successful.
 
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Southern Sportsman said:
If you are subsistence hunting like the Native Americans were—or even the early settlers—then you definitely should not worry about sporting methods of take. A bait trench for shotgun work and a .22 mag for field turkeys will keep your family fed. Personally, I don't know anyone subsistence hunting for turkeys. But it is always fun to see the ol' "Native Americans used decoys so decoys are 'traditional'" argument come up in these discussions.

But if we are hunting turkeys for sport—as I am—I think we should have rules to keep the game sporting. The traditional rules for the SPORT of turkey hunting developed decades ago, long before you or I. They require woodsmanship to be successful.
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Agree, that's all it boils down to is woodsmanship. Some people have it and some people don't. The people that don't tend to look for a crutch which is what I think is going on here.
 
I've said this before. Allowing hunters to use decoys and fans is akin to a socialist government. "Let's make it easy for the lazy guy so he can kill one while the other guy works for it and earns it."
It is also detrimental to the population because it helps the lazy hunters kill one that otherwise would go unmolested.


It isn't a hate decoy thing to me. It's a hate the type of hunter that uses them because he can't do it the right way. It's a hate for the total disdain of a precious resource that we are blessed to have. It's a hate of the argument that decoys don't really work that good.
 
woodsman04 said:
I've said this before. Allowing hunters to use decoys and fans is akin to a socialist government. "Let's make it easy for the lazy guy so he can kill one while the other guy works for it and earns it."
It is also detrimental to the population because it helps the lazy hunters kill one that otherwise would go unmolested.


It isn't a hate decoy thing to me. It's a hate the type of hunter that uses them because he can't do it the right way. It's a hate for the total disdain of a precious resource that we are blessed to have. It's a hate of the argument that decoys don't really work that good.
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Full of hate sounds like
 

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