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What time of day do you kill the most turkeys?

Andy S. said:
When I was younger and could hear like no other, it "seemed" I killed more right after fly down, just in the first hour or so. I also killed more throughout the day, some late afternoon, as I did not have a family or other competing interests for my time. I suspect I was more aggressive and more careless as well, which resulted in me bumping them or killing them right off the bat. I had more birds to hunt back then as well, so if I bumped one, I could usually hear another gobbling off in the distance to go after. Now that I am older, and cannot hear as good in my left ear (closest to the gun barrel), with fewer birds to pursue, I'm more cautious and conservative than years ago. I definitely kill as many, or more mid to late morning, as I do in the first hour. Many times after they have left their hens, separated from the flock, or just settled down enough to call them to the gun. 99% woods setting for my hunting.
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Andy you bring up a good point in that you specified your typical hunting setting. That's probably pretty important for bird behavior. I too am almost always in the woods setting.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
Pretty much the same for me on all aspects. I mentioned all but one of mine were before 9am, but probably 75% were before 7am. Sure hope your right about the numbers creeping upward. Sure has been bad in our area the last few years.
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Yeah no doubt! I've been seeing two flocks of 30+ hens this winter which is a far cry above the 6-7 hens I've seen the last three, and one flock of 10+ toms which is way more too. Back 5 years ago it was a few 100+ flocks of hens and a couple flocks of 30+ toms in my area.
 
philsanchez76 said:
I've seen this discussed for deer quite a bit but never for turkeys. Watching @catman529 latest best of turkey video I saw him take turkeys at various different times of the day. Percentage wise, what times of the day do you shoot the most of your long beards? Here are my percentages:

First light to 9 am= 50%

10am to 1 pm = 50%

2pm to dark = 0%


how bout y'all?
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Same
 
Never crunched the numbers but have zero doubt the majority are in the morning...couple midday....zero in afternoon..... normally by midday if the turkeys aren't doing it.....we're hunting morels.
 
I really value being within 75-100 yards of a roosted bird, so probably 20% of my kills are within a few minutes of flydown. In other words, I won't shoot a bird late afternoon going to roost, because I want to hunt him off the roost the following morning. I also spend the last 1.5 hours of the day just looking for birds headed to roost. So, 0% of my kills are after 5pm.

If I don't get the bird right off the roost (henned up), it usually takes me 1-6 hours to get on another bird depending on where I'm hunting. Because I often hunt all day, the other 80% of my birds are fairly evenly spaced out the hour after flydown until 3pm. There may be a slight spike in kills around 10- 11am, seems like I do get on birds later in the season late morning that have had hens break off to lay.
 
This is one of my favorite things about turkey hunting that you can legitimately have a shot at killing one anytime of day.

Sitting in a duck blind I can't help but think as each hour passed my chances of getting them get slimmer, same for a deer stand.
 
It has been my experience that the best odds for taking a 3-yr-old or older bird actually occur between 10:00 & 12:00 Noon. Ironically, I can maybe say that about taking fully mature bucks as well.

I generally hear & see more turkey activity from dawn to 9am, and that may be the best time for killing 2-yr-old Toms (which are typically the most numerous "longbeards"). It's just when it comes to actually killing the older Toms, I've done better mid-morning to Noon.
 
I went back and looked at the times from some of my pictures. It looks like most were killed between 8 and 10am. But I have also caught them flat footed in late afternoon on the way towards their roost.
 
Dennis said:
I went back and looked at the times from some of my pictures. It looks like most were killed between 8 and 10am. But I have also caught them flat footed in late afternoon on the way towards their roost.
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Although I have killed several birds in the afternoons, seems for me they have been harder to call to the gun in the mid-to-later afternoon, as though they're most interested in staying on course to their roosting area. Probably just my bad calling.

Have had many experiences with Toms gobbling their heads off in the afternoons, being very responsive, but wanting me to come to them, refusing to come to me.
 
I have probably killed most of mine of the mornings but have killed several mid-day and evening. Most of the time if I can catch one gobbling of the afternoon he is on a mission to end up in my truck! I go quite a bit after work, I am obsessed and go every chance I get. I just love being out and chasing them. There is Nothing like turkey hunting!
 

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