One of those days

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gobblinfool

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I have hunted a small farm 1 mile from my house for a few years now....last year due to deployment and being stationed at Ft Jackson, I only got a few times. This year I am teaching in VA, so I come home on weekends....but have commitments on 9 & 16 May...so this weekends it for me.

The farm is a few hundred acres, the farmers are very nice people...I always offer meat from critters taken. The birds roost on their property 95% of the time....over a creek, and fly down to a field that borders it....where I don't have permission to hunt (maybe this weekend if the guys relatives don't come up). I got to within 75 yards of the roost yesterday...bird was hammering hard! I decided to do a fly down, but not real agressive, as he had hens, within 30 seconds I see a big body fly down 75 yards out...but not to the field, I get excited, but he seems to go up the hill. The dominant bird was still hammering...and eventually flew down with his hens...to the field where I don't have permission to hunt. I picked up my gear and worked my way to the top slowly, nothing was in the field, so I called..nothing, set up, called a bit, nothing...well I don't do well with nothing...most of the time, so I set off for another spot....assuming this bird that flew down had met up with a smooth talking hen. Nothing panned out in the second spot....so I started making my way back to start point....when the bird I saw fly down on my side....gobbles...where I had set up in the field originally :bash: He gobbles twice, so I use lay of the land and when I get there he is gone...so I set up, figuring I can call him back....he starts hammering....sounds like he is a 1/4 mile away...and I start to wonder if this is a differnt bird...how could he go so far, so fast, so I pick up my stuff and circle around....now he is louder, he was in the bottoms, much thicker....wasn't hard to figure out where he was at, he gobbled just about every minute....so I figure he doesnt have hens...then all of a sudden he shuts up??? I hear a 4 wheeler....those relatives evidently think that you use the four wheeler to find the turkeys before you call them in :bash: :bash: Well I go back to my starting point and listen to the four wheeler move out....and guess what, bird starts hammering again?? So now I take a different avenue of approach...get to within 100yds of him again, he hammers, I set up, call quietly....nothing for 15 minutes.....and then he hammers again....thats right...back in the field where I first started....so I circled again, use lay of the land so I can't be seen, I see his fan...covering his head, I got to within 60 yards....set up, called...he had 2 hens and they didn't like what I was selling....so they took him away....here's to next Saturday and hoping I can get permission to hunt those bottoms!! But if not, here's to getting a bird to stay on our side of the river! :pop:
 
It's great to be successful. After all, that's what we're there for. But many of my favorite memories are the moves/counter moves made between me and the turkey without him coming home with me. Good luck next trip.
 
But, you got to play with one most of the morning, and see some shows, so it was a good day as well.

A very wise old mountain man that was killing turkeys in TN back when the annual kill was less than 200 gave me some advise that I have found over the years to be spot on. He told me that if a gobbler ever answers your call, that he will be close to your calling spot sometime that day. It may be 5 minutes, or it might be five hours later, but he will check it out. I don't know how many times that I've moved to reposition on a bird only to have him gobble his head off where I had been.

It is almost impossible to be patient when you are trying to get a quick hunt in before work or school, or needing to get back home to cut the grass. But, the old school, patient approach can get you some old birds.

I've been fooling with an old bird for the past couple of weeks. I've sat down on him on both early and midmorning gobbling four times down in a hole that took some effort to get in and out of. He WOULD NOT answer a call, but would stay in his strut zone and occassionally gobble. I've backed out to keep from bumping him when he wouldn't work any closer. The woods were just too open for any manuvering.

I checked with my turkey guru, Setterman, who advised patience and continuing the light and soft approach. That bird was my third stop yesterday morning (after being in there before daylight the day before and never hearing a peep from any turkey) . I heard him gobble as I got close to the hole. I was able to slip in a little closer to his strut zone due to the greenup. I sat down and made my first call at 8:15. He would not answer, again. But, he did work closer. He totally shut up for about 25 minutes at one time. When I finally made one more soft call, he cut me off. It still took him another 10 minutes to come in slow. I whacked him at 18 yds at 9:30. He had worn spurs, a 11 1/4" beard, and weighed 25#s even, by far the heaviest bird I've ever killed.

I share that because years ago i wouldn't have killed him. I would have tried to get too close to his strut zone and bumped him. I think the aggresive approach works well on younger birds, but the old ones have seen it and walked away. Sometimes it takes a good seat and some patience on them.

Good luck with those birds on your next hunt. It sounds like you didn't bump anything, so hopefully they will be there for you!
 
This is just me but, if I call at a bird on roost I will not move from that spot for several hours. In my experience this late in the season, he will come back to where you called at once those hens leave him. Like Roost said, patience will kill more birds than any pot, mouth, box or whatever call you can put in your vest.
 
As others have said be patient Saturday. My rule is if I'm in a good setup and a bird should be able to get to me easy, once he answers I'm not moving unless he starts moving away. If he stands his ground I dig in and try to break his will to survive, if he goes quiet I will sit motionless until he gobbles again on his own, or some period of time that's usually lengthy.

The most important part to me is picking the best set up possible the first time you call to him. The first set up is always your best chance to kill them, so make sure it's right and you'll be amazed how many worked birds you'll kill rather than close calls experienced when setting up over and over again. Keep in mind hens don't hopscotch all over the place, and calling here and there is unnatural
 
I am not sure that the theory of, "if he answers you he will be there sometime that day" is still true today as it was years ago... Harold knight told me this very same thing years ago but we both agree today that, that was a time when there wasn't as many hens as there are now.... Now-a-days an ol gobbler can keep hens until June.. Not saying that tactic won't work but Id say it's not as sure as it used to be.... However once you learn to read a bird he will let you know how to kill him..... You just have to know what to watch for.....
 
I appreciate the responses....I guess that's why they say that a good nap kills more turkeys!! Good news is that my wife is open to going out with me on Saturday morning.....my only goal, was for her to here and see what I do....hoping that she might understand why I am so passionate about it....now i just have to hope the birds are there....kill on Saturday would be a huge bonus....her hearing what happens on the roost is what it is all about for me.
 

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