Turkey Opener
Well it came and went. I headed out yesterday morning and had a good time, but the hunting was disappointing. The birds were very tight lipped in the morning, and I stayed as patient as I could, but never had any come within about 110yds of me. I even tried to cut a few off that I saw strutting in a field, and it almost worked, but they chose to go down a different trail and it was just too far.
Jeff saw 13 birds last night, but wasn’t able to get a shot either. I honestly think that his property has a better chance of producing a kill then the one I am hunting. He’s been seeing a lot more and his property is much more open. Our dad and him saw a ton of birds last night, but they just couldn’t quite close the distance either.
I will be heading back out this evening after work, and trying to catch a tom coming back in to roost. I have a plan in my head and hopefully it goes like I want it to.
I guess that is why they call it hunting after all, because a lot of days you don’t get to kill anything. This turkey hunting is tough. I’m not giving up yet though. I will be out every night the rest of this week along with heading out both days this weekend.
There is still plenty of time, and hopefully I can figure them out eventually.
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Good luck to you and Jeff. Our season here in Connecticut opens May 7th. and this will be my first season of turkey hunting so I am getting quite excited.
Sorry you guys didn’t have a better hunt for opening day. You did get to see activity tho, so that’s a plus! Hope you all have better luck through the week.
Good luck!
Good luck! You’re right, that’s why they call it hunting, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if the birds just sat there and let you shoot them.
You have plenty of time yet, I know a big old Tom will come your way.
Keep at ‘em! Not sure about where you are, but around here the season didn’t kick in until the second or third week… but they’re off the hook right now!
Good Luck, I was driving around yesterday morning checking a job out and saw three cruising a field way back off the road, I also saw a hunter coming out of a field around 1:00pm with no bird. Hopefully you will have better luck. My Michigan hunt is for the last three weeks of May, we never see any presure and see birds, maybe they are getting pressured here early this year with the good weather and all the scouting. We are leaving tomorrow for Ohio for our 4 day turkey hunt there.
That’s turkey hunting for you. However it sounds like you were doing the right thing by trying to move on those birds that you could see since the others were not gobbling.
I would keep trying that approach if you can. Where I used to hunt, I could climb up in some of our stands that were on the property line and look out over in to the neighbor’s fields. Often I would see strutting turkeys, and then I would try and figure out what they were doing and where they were going. Then I would try and cut them off. It worked several times, but even when it didn’t, it still made for a more exciting hunt than just sitting for hours on end with no gobbling.
This approach also kept me from losing my faith that there were turkeys nearby, which is easy to do when you don’t hear any. So just by being able to see some, even if I couldn’t get to them, reassured me that I was doing the right thing by hunting all day… Turkey hunting is really all about mind over matter – even if you don’t see or hear them, they ARE there. So it is important to believe that and not lose hope, because then you head home. And you definitely can’t kill one from inside your house!
As for late afternoon hunting (I guess that is what you meant by “night hunting”, unless I am wrong, then I just suggest a bright light haha) I would set up about 100 yards from their roost; that way you can get out without bumping them. That will also put you very near where those gobblers are looking to finish their day out. I would not call very much, if at all… maybe just some clucks and purrs to let them know that you are there. However if you happen to have one respond, give him a chance to work. But if he doesn’t I would crank it up a notch. It doesn’t happen often, but I have had late afternoon birds get fired up like they just came off of the roost.
But more than likely I would just try to figure out exactly how they are getting to their trees and then set up to cut them off. If you are in the right spot, you may not even need to call. And depending on how skittish they are acting, calling may actually make them go around you.
So take your best guess at how they are going to their roost, set up, get comfortable and hang tight until dark. Even if you don’t kill one, you should at least hear or see them going to roost. Then you will have one more piece of the puzzle for your next afternoon’s hunt. My guess is that if you do that every afternoon, you will keep getting closer and closer to picking the right spot until you catch one close enough to shoot.
A couple of years ago, I was trying desperately to get my friend his first turkey. We were not having much luck in the mornings and the season was almost over. I knew a spot that the turkeys generally passed through on their way to roost, so we set up a blind there and hunted it for 3 afternoon’s straight. On the 3rd hunt (and last day of the season) we had three jakes come by at sunset. My buddy managed to kill one, and he could have got another one if he had been paying attention. But he was too busy trying to get to the first one after the shot! It was not the biggest bird in the woods, but he didn’t care. He had a turkey and that was all that mattered.
We wouldn’t have gotten him a bird if I had not scouted so hard to find their travel routes and just relied on calling… the pressure had gotten to them and ambushing them was the only way to go.
Hope this helps. Good luck with the rest of your week’s hunts!
I forgot… I actually have some video of the hunt I am talking about. And while I didn’t get the shot on camera, I did get some hilarious footage during and after the shot. If I could ever get it transfered, I would put it up on my site…
I had some fun last Sunday fore-noon. Heard some gobblers on the southside of our property.
It was fun for me just to have them respond. I had a camera but they didn’t present to get a picture.
Didn’t have any decoys. Decided to try out my mouth turkey calls… No visualizations, just calls from 2 individual Toms. By their gobbling I could gauge the movement. Had one really interested…it didn’t take long for the mouth calls to get to wet. Lost the ability to call and the Toms probably found some activity closer to them.