Locating Turkeys?

[NYDAN]

Moderators, if this post is inappropriate feel free to delete.

I only started hunting turkeys a few years ago and am still very much a novice. I have from one to three toms gobbling on the hill behind the barn. I can easily hear them from the house at dawn. The hillside is very steep but there are semi-level fields on the top of the hill. The turkeys tend to roost along the top of the hill. They walk over to the edge of the field and then fly pretty much horizontally or slightly down hill into a tree on the side hill.

When all goes according to the text book, I can get to top of the hill while it is still dark and set up in one of the three turkey hunting blinds I have scattered across the field. When the turkeys read the same text book as I do, they fly down into the woods below the top of the hill and then walk up the hill into the field. If I am really lucky, I am in the right blind.

I don't have good luck calling the tom's since they are usually "henned up" by May 1st when our season opens. They come up into the fields and just follow the hens. The hens don't respond well to me or my decoys. They don't stay long in my fields and cross over onto my neighbor's fields where he hunts them.

My real problem is that the turkeys could be roosted to the right, in the middle, or to the left. It is different each morning. My road up the hill branches with one branch coming out on the left and one branch coming out on the right. If I know where the turkeys are roosted I can take the "correct" branch. If I am wrong, I come out right underneath the roosts and bust them off the roosts. Then I may not see them again for a couple of weeks.

In the past I have tried being up in the fields in the evening to "locate" them, but I have had problems with either busting them out of the field in the afternoon, or getting stuck in field when they roost right over my exit road.

Do toms gobble enough just before dark that I could "locate" them from the bottom of hill the evening before the hunt? I don't recall ever hearing them gobble in the evening.

 

[truck driver]

The answer to one of your questions is yes, you can be in the area where they roost and they gobble when they fly up for the night but you need to be close enough to the roost to here them. You can Owl call in the mourning before sun up and they will gobble before they fly off the roost. When you here them fly off the roost you should start to call them using putts and purrs to entice them in just like a hen would. I hop this helps. As far as blinds I never used them and would dress in full camo from head to toe and use trees and boulders to break up my silhouette. I also stalked them just like you would a squirrel or deer. Some times they get hung up and won't go threw heavy brush, cross a creek or a log to get to you and you have to go to them.
I hope this helps. Remember a Turkey in tall corn is seldom seen and long gone.

 

[Darkhorse]

I would get a little further away late in the evening to listen. Sometimes the gobbler won't gobble, but you can often hear a hen give the locating call, a long string of loud yelps. The gobbler won't roost far away.
Go ahead and get in your best guess blind and do your calling in the morning as usual. You probably won't call anything in as the hens don't like competition but the gobblers, all of them, will hear you and mark you. Most likely they will feed away from you so when your sure they have gone you can sneak away to try another spot. About 10 am or a little later the gobbler will have bred his hens and they will have gone to nest and now he's alone. But he remembers hearing another hen earlier.
So you sneak back to your blind, better yet don't leave it, and begin calling again. Keep at it until at least noon. Very often you can either kill the old bird, or one of the other gobblers hanging around the edge, because they will come back looking for the bird they marked that morning.
You can start calling at noon or later and if one hears you he will come at a run. Be ready because sometimes you won't have time to put on your face mask or gloves depending on how close he is.
Trust me. I've hunted these river bottoms, swamps and pine fields for decades. Most of the time the best hunting is well after dawn.

 

[NYDAN]

Darkhorse, your advise rings true. Two years ago, myself and two friends were in the blinds in the field on top of the hill on opening morning. The turkeys went around all of us after coming off the roost. After a while, my older friend and I got discouraged and decided to go to breakfast. The younger friend decided to stay. When we came back from breakfast we found that the younger friend had bagged a large tom. The gobbler had done just what you said - he came back around later in the morning.

In NY we can only hunt until noon.

 

[SJB358]

Dan, I would get to a piece of terrain fairly even with where you think the birds are roosting, a solid hour before dark and just settle in. You should be able to see and hear the birds beginning to go to roost and as the others said, you may not hear the gobblers but you should hear the hens doing tree yelps right before and during their fly ups. I haven't used a blind turkey hunting. I know it's effective as all get out if you know right where the birds are, but I always used the run and gun like Rodger described. Being in the vicinity of the birds as soon as the first streaks of light comes across is very effective. You'll hear the yelping and the gobblers in the area sounding off in the roost. Usually, a few soft yelps will let the birds know your there and when they touch down, if your in the same area as the birds, they will come to check it out.

Good luck buddy! Hopefully your able to get on the birds. I am hoping to get back home to NY to hunt the opener for turkeys as well. There isn't much better than getting up on those big ridges and hearing the gobblers sounding off in the morning!

 

[NYDAN]

SJB, where in NY do you call home?

 

[SJB358]

SJB, where in NY do you call home?

Schoharie County. Born and raised! :grin:

 

[JD338]

Dan,

Good advise from the guys. Put the Tom's to bed the night before. If its a clear night (no rain) they will gobble when they are in the roost. Due to their high roost position, they may be seeing you come in so you will need to get there in complete darkness to set up on them.

Afternoons are great because the hens are on their nest and the Tom's are lonely and looking for love. Sometimes they are not vocal and they will sneak in so make sure you are set up in the shadows and have some good visibility. If you see them coming in, you will have the jump on them.

The single biggest mistake turkey hunters make is calling too much. The less the better!
Off the roost, I mimic what the hens do. They yelp 7 times, I do the same. Once they fly down (the sound is muffled compared to when they were in the roost) I may call one more time. Usually, the hens come my way and I keep my eyes open for a blue/white head following.

Get yourself a Primos B Mobil strutting tom decoy. The big Tom's will come right into it strutting.
http://www.primos.com/products/decoys/b-mobile/
I use a real turkey fan on my decoy.

As for turkey loads, I am trying the new Winchester Long Beard loads. They are very impressive and half the price of Hevi Shot Mag Blend. This year I am back to my trusty 870 Magnum, 12 gage 3" and I'm using the #5 load. At 34 yds, it is a swarm of lead about 14" out of the Pure Gold .670" choke.

Best of luck this spring on tagging a nice long beard.

JD338

 

[DrMike]

I haven't used a blind turkey hunting.

I suspect I would do much better if I could find a blind turkey. In fact, I believe I need to do some blind turkey hunting, Scotty. :mrgreen:

 

[JD338]

I use a blind for new hunters t give them all the advantage for getting their Tom. I prefer to run and gun for turkey.

JD338

 

[NYDAN]

I haven't used a blind turkey hunting.

I suspect I would do much better if I could find a blind turkey. In fact, I believe I need to do some blind turkey hunting, Scotty. :mrgreen:

With my turkey hunting skills a blind turkey would be a definite advantage. If he were blind in one eye and half deaf it would least put him on par with me.........

 

[SJB358]

I haven't used a blind turkey hunting.

I suspect I would do much better if I could find a blind turkey. In fact, I believe I need to do some blind turkey hunting, Scotty. :mrgreen:

I knew when I wrote that I was going to get it!

Jim, I am going to look into one of the B-Mobiles and report back soon.

Also, what do you think of the Longbeards Jim? Pretty serious loads huh?

 

[truck driver]

I reload my own Turkey loads and I can't disclose the formula. I would consider them unsafe for most shot guns. I will tell you I use federal cases 1 1/2oz shot RP power piston wad with Winchester 209 primers and plastic buffering material that is settled in the shell with a electric razor. Printed velocity is 1400ftps.

 

[mtwarych]

I am not sure of your calling ability.
Instead of trying to call the toms to your position, aggressively call the dominant hen.
You should be able to hear the hens on flydown. Once they fly down they will congregate and enjoy the morning squabble.
At this point, you need to use kee kee runs, purrs and clucks and putts quickly and somewhat loudly.
Listen carefully and when a hen answers your call, call back loudly and quickly.
If you can hook the dominant hen by pissing her off, she will lead the entire flock to you.
It will be hard to move with however many eyes looking for the loudmouth hen so be ready to shoot.
At sunset, call loudly from your doorstep and the toms will gobble.
Before flydown, still in the dark, quietly kee kee to let the toms know that for some reason there is a lonely hen where you are. The dark kee kee should only be called once or twice.
Good luck.

 

[NYDAN]

Dan = 0, Turkeys = 3

I finally made it out this morning for the first time this season. The weather had been terrible so far since opening day or else I have been too tired to get going.

I had no idea where the turkeys would be. I haven't heard them gobbling for days and the wind was blowing hard last evening so I doubt I could have heard anything from the house, although I tried.

I walked up the tractor road and took the east branch and came into the east end of the field on top of the hill. I looped up around to the south and got into my middle blind. I chose the middle blind since it had the best visibility and is the most comfortable.

After I got situated I realized there were two skunks feeding in the field. I passed my time watching them. I never heard a gobble. Suddenly, I realized there four turkeys in the east end of the field about 240 yards away. I must have come within 50 yards of them when I came in that way. There were two small hens, a large bearded hen, and one gobbler. I could watch them nicely with my binoculars.

I heard a lot of yelping coming from that general direction but I couldn't acually see the hens calling. I was worried someone was up on the line fence calling them to the south. The three hens wanted to come west toward me but the tom held back. The big bearded hen, when back toward him and I thought they were going to head off to the west into the woods. I made a yelping call and all of a sudden, the bearded hen and tom started a fast walk right toward me. I was shocked.

The tom went wide on me, staying close to the woods and hillside. He got as close as he was going to get and I shot at about 50 yards. (This was a range I had patterned my gun on, and which I had killed birds before.) I hit him but he still flew. I tried to swing for a follow up shot (#2 shot) but hit the side of the window and missed that shot clean. Turkey = 1

I watched him back to the west and land just in the woods. I could tell he was hurt. Then I lost sight of him. I found where he had landed and there was blood and feathers everywhere. I tracked the blood for as ways and lost the trail in other scrapings. I still hunted around for a while and stuck my head over the bank and saw a turkey's head. The bird flushed and I would have had a great, straight away, shot but I held off shooting because I thought it was the bearded hen. When I looked closer where the bird had been standing, I saw blood on the leaves. It had, in fact, been the wounded tom. Turkey = 2.

After a short break, I went back to stalking in the general area where the flushed bird had flown toward. I had thought "be sure to check out the tree tops". But, apparantly, I couldn't keep the thought going. Sure enough, I flushed it out of tree top below me. Since the tree was down a steep hill, the tree top would have been a clear, open, within range shot, if I had seen it before it flew. But, I was too busy watching the ground. Turkey = 3.

I have to tell ya', I feel pretty embarrassed. I have never lost a turkey before. I know the 50 yards was a long shot but I was confident I could make the kill. It was a conscience decision, but apparantly, a bad one. The bearded hen was a legal bird and only about 25-30 yards away. I guess I should have shot that one, but I really wasn't interested in shooting a hen, bearded or not.

I am really not used to fouling up three times in one hunt. It is a bit humbling. I feel like a rank amateur and I feel bad for the bird.

 

[truck driver]

Don't feel too bad they are tough birds to kill. the first one I shot at I hit it three times with #2s out of a three inch magnum 12ga and it still got up and flew out of range while I was reloading.
One thing I have learned about bird hunting is that smaller shot penetrates the scaly body armor better. Yes the feathers are a form of scales left over from their dinosaur relatives and balls up around the shot to keep it from penetrating. I prefer #4s, you get more shot per load and a denser pattern.

 

[NYDAN]

My first shot was a heavy turkey load of #6's. I was trying for a head shot with a super full turkey choke. I use the #2's for follow-up body shots. The sixes has always given a dense pattern for the head shot.

 

[Elkman]

I had two large Toms cross through the yard yesterday. Gobbling and posturing, but no hens around. They went across the county road and up the hill on the other side. Really fun to watch, I am not a turkey hunter but like seeing them. And yes it is Turkey season.

 

[SJB358]

I had two large Toms cross through the yard yesterday. Gobbling and posturing, but no hens around. They went across the county road and up the hill on the other side. Really fun to watch, I am not a turkey hunter but like seeing them. And yes it is Turkey season.

Jeeze, might have to drop off a turkey call when I am out there next time.. I think you'd have a blast! It's like calling in a rutting bull elk, just a little smaller.. :lol:

 

[DrMike]

I had two large Toms cross through the yard yesterday. Gobbling and posturing, but no hens around. They went across the county road and up the hill on the other side. Really fun to watch, I am not a turkey hunter but like seeing them. And yes it is Turkey season.

That had to have been very neat, Bill.