Thread: Skunked and befuddled

I know where they are Mr. Wire.
For the past three weeks all I've heard from upstairs in Bass Pro is "cluck-cluck-cluck" "gobble-gobble-gobble."
They must be roosting in the rafters cuz when I go up there all I see is a bunch of tired lookin old guys in camo holding the top of the gun counter down with their elbows.

Some of those ole girls sound pretty 'sickly' though (if you know what I mean)
Maybe you could swing by and put them out of their (our) misery ;-)

LOL j/k

Good luck turkey hunters!

Found 'em!

Still a little cool for them to be real active. If I was out looking for them in hill country in early morning I would be consentrating on points that face northeast. Another tactic I found useful this time of year was to wait until mid afternoon and sit on the edges of fields and call very sparingly, just clucks and purrs.

Most people call way to much. Once he gobbles to your call he knows where you are. Wait him out with soft clucks and light purrs. Those hens walk around all day scratching and purring and old long beard knows that. If you cut, cackle and yelp every couple of minutes he's not coming to vist. Just my humble opinion.

Originally Posted by Big Dawg

Still a little cool for them to be real active. If I was out looking for them in hill country in early morning I would be consentrating on points that face northeast. Another tactic I found useful this time of year was to wait until mid afternoon and sit on the edges of fields and call very sparingly, just clucks and purrs.

Most people call way to much. Once he gobbles to your call he knows where you are. Wait him out with soft clucks and light purrs. Those hens walk around all day scratching and purring and old long beard knows that. If you cut, cackle and yelp every couple of minutes he's not coming to vist. Just my humble opinion.

^ you nailed it. I think people like to hear themselves call more than the toms do lol.

Originally Posted by SNAKE

^ you nailed it. I think people like to hear themselves call more than the toms do lol.

+1
you should hear them in the store around duck season lol

LA birds get it on a few weeks earlier than their North Alabama and Tennessee cousins. I have seen strutters the first week of March in Union Springs in a year when we had a mild winter and an early spring. It is usually mid April before they cooperate up here.

Originally Posted by SNAKE

^ you nailed it. I think people like to hear themselves call more than the toms do lol.

Those turkey hunting videos are sponsored by people who make and sell turkey calls. I've killed a lot of turkeys by not calling at all.

Ok folks here is a turkey hunting story for you. When I was a young teenager in the 1950's I was taught to hunt turkeys by an old man in Pennsylvania. That state had turkeys and turkey hunting long before Rob Keck and the NWTF ever existed matter of fact Rob Keck learned to hunt turkeys there. Well my teachers name was John Medley, may he rest in peace. We hunted in the mountains of North central PA and only could hunt them in the fall and you could only hunt from sunrise until noon. The technique was to walk around, find a flock and scatter them to the four winds. We would then back ourself into a big tree and wait until the birds starting calling to each other trying to get back together. Mr. Medley would wait until the birds quieted down, then he would yelp a couple of times, if a bird answered he would put his call down by his side and not call again. If the bird or birds would hang up he would scratch the leaves and just purr very softly. More often than not a bird or two would show up and give us a shot. Hens were legal then but a gobbler was always the prize. Back then we hunted with single shot or double shotguns, no camo and box calls only. Mouth calls and glass or slate calls hadn't been invented yet. I've killed more than my share of turkeys over the years and spent years trapping, stocking birds and building food plots for them. I was a member of the NWTF since it's inception I ended my career there on the Tennessee NWTF State Board because politics in the organization was getting ugly and fund raising was more important than the Wild Turkey. Today there are more turkeys in the woods than sparrows and that's a good thing, but I have pretty much quit hunting them because in my mind the challenge is gone. However, I still go out before dawn to listen to them gobble and fly down which still raises the hair on the back of my neck.

The flush and hush works just as good if not better in the spring on henned up gobblers. The key is using the terrain to get close when you spook them so that they fly in several different directions. I used to be active in the NWTF and still keep an active membership. The Hunting Heritage fundraiser banquet in Foley:

South Alabama Beard Busters, AL

Event Date:	06/20/2015
Location:	Foley Civic Center
	407 E Laurel Ave
	Foley, AL 36565
Contact:	Jonathon Myrick
Phone:	(251) 747-8133

I'm a trucker by trade and finally got back on the roads today, driving a lot of AL back roads.

I saw a nice flock of turkeys today, could have shot one with my pistol just by slowing down.
They were picking through an area of undergrowth that'd been recently burned, right next to the road, no fear of me shown.
I also saw a fat gobbler, sucks he was road kill.