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Patience & over calling.....

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RussellvilleRob

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I think I am struggling a bit with patience.... Setterman speaks of over calling alot in his posts and I think he has hit my nail on the head...

I worked birds five different times over the last few days with the same ending...The birds got close for a little while, then turned and went away...
It seems that 100 yards or so is the magic distance...

How long do you call after you get a gobble? How often? How loud? Do you use cuts? Purrs? yelps? Wil somebody come and show me how to play this game? J/K :grin:

I wore em out over the last couple tears....I thought I had this thing figured out.....I am covered up with the beasts all at once...They are so much smarter!

Thanks,,
 
man that is a very hard question to answer.

I always try and make them REALLY want to come and take a look but i tend to try and use the terrain as an advantage when setting up like a small crest or knoll so he has to come over and look and at that point he is within range.

field birds you dont really have that option most of the time though. I try and not call aggressive if i dont have to. I personally think aggressive calling is part of the issue for most people and that can really drive a gobbler off or make him draw the line (same as us men, how many really like aggressive women lol)

Every hunt is different and every bird is as well so there is no true answer but personally i try to call soft at first. If he likes it i stay with it. If he gobbles at first call i just sit quite for 10-15mins and then hit it again, if he has not made up any ground by that point i may try and raise the bar a bit.

another tactic for when they hang up is to use purr some and move some leaves around, sometimes that can do the trick. also to try and point your calling sound away from the tom like you are leaving the area.

again there is no true answer but there definitely are some tricks you can try depending on your set up and calling style.
 
REN said:
man that is a very hard question to answer.

I always try and make them REALLY want to come and take a look but i tend to try and use the terrain as an advantage when setting up like a small crest or knoll so he has to come over and look and at that point he is within range.

field birds you dont really have that option most of the time though. I try and not call aggressive if i dont have to. I personally think aggressive calling is part of the issue for most people and that can really drive a gobbler off or make him draw the line (same as us men, how many really like aggressive women lol)

Every hunt is different and every bird is as well so there is no true answer but personally i try to call soft at first. If he likes it i stay with it. If he gobbles at first call i just sit quite for 10-15mins and then hit it again, if he has not made up any ground by that point i may try and raise the bar a bit.

another tactic for when they hang up is to use purr some and move some leaves around, sometimes that can do the trick. also to try and point your calling sound away from the tom like you are leaving the area.

again there is no true answer but there definitely are some tricks you can try depending on your set up and calling style.
Click to expand...

Well said and some good advice. :)
 
Re: Patience & over calling.....

Hard one to answer as every situation is different.

If I set up on a roosted bird, I never call loud. I use very low 3-5 note yelps and very sparingly. No matter how crazy he is on the limb, and no matter if I hear hens with him or not.

If I strike a bird shortly after flydown and he rips my call immediately after I finish then I may be a little more agressive, using excited yelps with double clucks on the front end to jazz him up. As soon as he starts my way, I tone it down, and really cluck or double cluck every minute of so to check his progress. No more yelping unless he hangs up.

I could write a book on this stuff and how it could be done but here is a little more concise answer. Use cutts and cackles very sparingly. I will cutt at a bird which I have been on for a little while who won't budge, usually I will plain yelp, he blows it up, and I come right back at him immediately with a short cutt (pop, pop pop, pop) with a mouth call. 99% of the time he will climb all over it. Put your calls down after that for 5 minutes. Plain yelps of 3-5 notes with varying cadences and varying volumes in a sequence are key. Start low and end slightly louder, or start with a long drawn out yelp and end with short yelps in a series.

Silence is huge as well, when birds are inside of 75 yards, use subtle cluck, low yelps to seal the deal, but silence is very important.

And most of all be patient, turkeys have zero sense of time, be aware of that, and understand that you might be in for a 4 hour battle before he finally breaks.

Too many thoughts on this stuff to put it all in a post. Biggest mistakes people make, are long yelp series with no tone change or "yelp inflection". Using one call, and poor sounding calls as well. Being too freaking antsy and wanting to relocate. Wanting to hear themselves call far too much. Doing the same series of calls over and over and over. Yelp yelp yelp, cluck cluck cluck, is what I hear others do continuously throught out a sit down with a gobbler. Mix it up, yelp for a while, then only cluck, then yelp twice, cluck once etc etc. Purrs are worthless. Learn to whine on a friction call, it is deadly especially on the front end of a yelp series.

One last thing, buy quality calls. Folks usually only think about how the call sounds right there, they never think about what that call sounds like at 100 yards or further. 90% of the stuff at Wal-mart or sold in stores is not worth the money even the cheapest of the cheap. Save your money and buy high quality calls, it is the link between you and the bird. For example plastic pot friction calls sound hollow and unnatural past 75 yards, while wood pots resonate and carry a tone forever. Not saying you can't kill birds with cheap calls, but saying high quality calls are far better for consistently killing lots of turkeys.

JMHO
 
Take his temperature so to speak, every bird is different and some like certain calls and cadences over others, let him tell you what he likes! Silence is golden, if he ever answers you TWICE, he is absolutely killable. Might take some time but you can kill him!
 
Some really good advice above. I might add, some that I need to hammer myself with. Think about the situation with that particular bird, right then. IMO, he knows exactly where you are the moment you call the first time. I think that the average hunter(I being one) tries to do too much. The tough part is sitting tight and silent. I, and I'm sure most, have spooked many birds that you should have killed by not following that advice. But ain't it fun!
 
Some very good advice here. One thing i might add is to learn to call with some emotion. Setterman kind of hit on that when talking about using different cadences..
 
Dang! Thanks for all of the great advice....

I have always been a deer hunter....I just got into turkey hunting a few years ago....

I lucked up an a real hot gobbler last year that gobbled his head off the whole way in....He even flew across a little stream to get to me..... I could even pass a little gas and he would gobble and speed up...

It seems that ever since that day, I have been looking for the same type bird....
It is time for me to get back to reality and do the same things that brought me success the first few years that I hunted...

Thanks again for all the info.. And I will learn to shut up...
 
Learn their patterns, set up early in the general direction they usually go and give him about 2 good calls just to let him know your there. Then hush. I have found that when they are gobbling like crazy and then shut up, they will most definately do one of two things. Come in silent or leave the country silent. If they are coming, it might take minutes to even an hour. If they leave on you, the next thing you know he is gobbling a half a mile away. Try to set up where there are no obstacles (fences, deep gullys etc). Also try to set up just over a small hump or roll in the terrain. If you have 100 yds wide open territory between you and the birds they will come as far as they need to to see where the hen is doing the calling. If they cant see anything within that wide open 100 yds then they are gone. I like to set up where as soon as they pop their heads up over the hill I instantly have a kill shot. You always want to be where they will have to search for you. You can kill just as mant turkeys hunting the terrain as you can with calls. I had 2 within 70 yds just on the other side of a ditch the other day. That was strike one. They could see plum to where I was calling from. Strike two. I got anxious and let out a yelp too loud. Strike 3. They left and I aint seen em since.
 
I call a lot and loud.if most "experts" were with me they would probably try to take my call away.Loud yelps and cutting is what I do most of the time.i get a lot of turkey to gobble that soft calling didn't.

when they start getting close i call softer and even stop calling to them but the rest of the time I hit them hard and I have really good results with calling loud and often.
 
I love calling! Its fun. However, I agree you can call to loudly...sometimes. I like to gauge each hunt. Take the birds temperature. Are hens involved. Listen to the hens. They are loud sometimes too. I believe the closer the bird gets the less you call. Curiosity will kill that bugger. Patience will kill em fo sure. if he gets to a point and stops cold, try a little leaf scratchin. That really works. And if you have to call try calling toward the opposite direction. Cup your hand away from the bird. Just realize this. The more ya move the worst things can get. If ya flat out have to do something like move and your hunting with a partner. Send that partner off in opposite direction and you stay put and dont call. Have you partner call walking away about 50 yards. Seen it work a bunch. Also, you can learn to purr. Purring is a signal of being content. Most of all have fun and dont give up..ye ha.
 
RAFI said:
I call a lot and loud.if most "experts" were with me they would probably try to take my call away.Loud yelps and cutting is what I do most of the time.i get a lot of turkey to gobble that soft calling didn't.

when they start getting close i call softer and even stop calling to them but the rest of the time I hit them hard and I have really good results with calling loud and often.
Click to expand...

I have a question, because this is how I used to be, I laid it to them, and either killed them fast or not at all. But it did work, but I noticed I was rarely killing bigger birds, I killed mostly 2 and 3 year old birds, and rarely killed birds with hens. I adjusted my tactics after 10 years or so, to really begin to imitate how turkeys converse and interact in the woods. The next thing I know I am pulling huge flocks of birds in, killing hooked spur limbhangers and having success on birds that in the past would hang up or end up walking away following their hens. Same stuff still happens, but very rarely, usually if I can get a bird to answer me, and set up withing 200 yards he is in trouble. More times then not, he is dead, it is just a question of how long it takes. Hens or alone this is true.

Not knocking your technique at all, it works. Just wondering if you experienced the same things I used to.
 
I'm just the opposite.i usually kill big birds and not many of them come in fast.Most are atleast 3 year old or oldera coupkle this year have been 2 year olds but that is unusual.

I guess one reason I do a lot of calling is because of where I hunt turkey the most.Our lease is small and the turkey hardly ever roost on our land.They gobble all around us.They are on hills straight across from me.They could easily fly them but are where they want to be so they stay put. I call a lot and it sometimes gets them to come over to my ridge.Calling soft might work too but they don't gobble to soft calls where I hunt so I call loud and atleast hear them gobble to keep track of them.

The guys I hunt with call soft.I usually get 3 or 4 to every one they get.But I also hunt harder than them so I'm sure that has to do with it.I think the biggest factor is being where the bird wants to go to begin with.That is more important than calling soft or loud.
 
I agree with everything setterman says EXCEPT the part about buying calls from walmart, Ive used HS.Strut calls for years,and years, Probably killed a hundred or so birds with them the last 20 something years. Im talking on public lands, not private. They are good, if used right.
 
I think I will print this thread off, laminate it, and put it in my backpack....Great info....

If a good thread coild kill a bird, there would be two or three dead right here on my puter screen....Thanks
 
One more tip...

Remember you are not calling to a single bird in a vacuum... there are other turkeys out there (and other hunters out there).

I've had on many occasions, gotten on a single longbeard with no hens mid-season. This is the bird that will cut you off everytime you yelp, and start heading your way right off the bat. This is normally a slam- dunk kill... unless he gobbles up some real hens before he gets to you. We all love to make them gobble, but the more he gobbles, the more likely he is to call up hens to him, effectively ending the hunt. I had a lone gobbler last year that I was actually calling right to me from 800 yards away in a field. He got to about 200 yards on a beeline, then a real hen he gobbled up cut me off and led him astray.

Same way with a bird on the roost early morning. I want to locate the bird, move in, get him to gobble once to my call to be sure he heard me in the tree, then I hope he never gobbles again until flydown. The less he gobbles on the roost, the less likely another hunter is going to move in on my setup, and the less likely the hens will be to move to him.
 
RussellvilleRob said:
I think I will print this thread off, laminate it, and put it in my backpack....Great info....

If a good thread coild kill a bird, there would be two or three dead right here on my puter screen....Thanks
Click to expand...

LOL...thats funny. I can just see ya out there reading your sheet while a bird is gobblin at 100 yards.
 
RAFI said:
I call a lot and loud.if most "experts" were with me they would probably try to take my call away.Loud yelps and cutting is what I do most of the time.i get a lot of turkey to gobble that soft calling didn't.

when they start getting close i call softer and even stop calling to them but the rest of the time I hit them hard and I have really good results with calling loud and often.
Click to expand...

Same here. Hammering them works for me. I called three 600 yards this morning. To within thirty yards of me, but alas i wasnt good enough to make them fly the creek that is the property line. Oh well but it was fun.
 

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