re: Strutters are moving! Where are you Turkey hunting?

Homochitto NF. Can be crowded in places, but I always get my 3.

Texas birds are ridiculous. No bugs, no cover, no sweating, very little blood, the damn things come running when you call them. My guide feel sleep my last hunt, yet i still called in over 3 dozen birds in hour and 1/2.

Here in South Alabama, around mobile, you sweat in gallons, get ripped apart by thorns, and briars, bugs can be so thick they choke you, poisonous snakes and spiders try to kill you, bears, gators, and giant bobcats track you, and one damn thing turkeys do not do is come when you call them. They will gobble at you for hours but they know to stay 100 yards away.

Funny you post this. We were in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge last week for spring break. One morning we did the driving tour through Cade's Cove in the national park hoping to see a few bears. Instead of seeing bears, we saw a ton of Turkeys and Deer and the Gobblers were strutting hard. 5-6 cars right by them didn't matter at all. Out of the 3-4 packs of Turkeys we saw, all of them had a few strutters in them.

Hey don’t judge. Have you priced meat at the grocery store lately?? Blame Biden not me

You tagged out yet?

Nope. Holding on to one. Can’t burn em all the first week.

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they spot me when i move

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Don't call to him if you aren't in the right spot. Very very few times can you not just wait until he's in a place he can't see you and you get closer (or sometimes farther) to get in the right spot. As long as you don't spook him you can keep hunting him. It's goal #1 when you drive onto the property you are hunting. Don't spook him, and you have a chance.

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nice 2-3 olds on camera

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I know you are just repeating something you heard someone else say, but you cannot age turkeys from cameras, spurs, or beards. This is just guessing. People who understand turkeys will laugh at you for saying this.

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maybe we have taken enough of the old 4-5 year old swamp birds out to leave us a few young birds to hunt.

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Old turkeys are not always harder to kill, and younger turkeys are not always easier. It's all about where they are in the breeding season. They are all killable at some point. I admire your perseverance though, however misguided some of your logic is.

My son(12 yrs old) got his first gobbler opening Friday of youth in MS, near Gloster. My buddy was calling for him. We heard three that morning and my son made the call to go after the one he got. Turkey came in with the quickness and then hovered around 50-60 yds for 29 minutes. He finally came to an opening at 38 yds, and my son squeezed the trigger, only to have the gun "misfire". I don't think the slide was all the way forward. Luckily instead of running off, the bird gobbled at the noise of the slide. Re-racked a shell, and the bird stepped out from behind another tree at 35 yds, and my son smoked him. 32 total minutes of pure excitement. I set my phone to video and laid it down when we got set up. Really cool audio of my buddy calling and the bird answering, and then of the gun misfiring and the bird gobbling. Memories we will share for a lifetime.

Thanks.

It is such an awesome feeling, and then to see the excitement and joy on his face afterwards. Nothing can beat it.
I've probably told the full story 20 times since, and listened to my video about the same. At the end of the video, you hear my buddy come running up the ridge we were sitting on and say, "Did the gun jam?" It was the first thing he said to us.

When I lived in BR I had access to a piece of private that was adjacent to Tunica. Loved that place. Killed a lot of turkeys. Good Luck