re: Turkey Hunting

Yep, definitely need some more burning to take place and the fur prices up. I think that’s 90% of the problem

Some great advice in this thread.

All I can add is that once you get it, it is hard to get rid of it.

I love turkey hunting. I used to obsess over it. I would still obsess over it if I had access to the land I once did, but I just don't have access like I once did, and I don't have the time to scout public enough to really find turkeys on public.

Turkey hunting can be really easy. You can set up on a bird and call once and it will fly straight to you and be dead in 5 minutes.

Or you can set up 8 different times over hours on a single bird and listen to it gobble hundreds of times and never even see it.

God I miss it.

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Some great advice in this thread.

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I’ve really enjoyed reading all the advice so far. Honestly, I’ve never been hunting before. When I was younger, I always wanted to get into hunting but nobody in my family is really into it. Also I didn’t have anywhere to hunt. Always had the desire too but never had the resources. I’m 41, I’m at good point in my military career, I have the time and resources to finally start. I got a lot to learn but I’m really excited.

Keep at it with the mouth call--it'll work out eventually i promise. Mouth calls are so versatile and using them when hunting is best option, in my opinion as you are not moving your hands/arms as much as with a box/slate. (remember: dont blink)

And haha, yeah you are a way away. Just keep posting on here if anything comes up that you want advise on--this board is great about helping people out unlike most Facebook Groups.

Only way to learn how to kill turkeys, is to hunt turkeys. You'll learn more by "ruining" hunts that you will from the hunts where the birds lands straight in your lap from the tree.

And in all honesty--i rememeber the birds that got away/made me work for them way more than the ones that came right it.

I was just listening to a podcast that made an interesting point that I bet we thought was wrong. They tagged a bunch of eastern turkeys and discovered not only do the Toms basically never roost in the same tree twice consecutively they rarely even roost in the same area on consecutive days. Andy and the other guy went into how they have seen turkeys roost same tree before and they said that’s what they thought too but it almost certainly different turkeys, as good roosting trees are good roosting trees. Apparently it’s a self defense mechanism or something.

I am going to get shite for saying this, but i typically carry a chair blind with me, or have one staged and i have already set up 6 blinds on my property on well known strut zones.

Run and gun doesn’t work well in the swamp, at least for me. (I am legally blind in one eye and old and could probably get a disability license) Tried it for years and could only get Jake’s.

I carried one of those shooting sticks with a build in half moon blinds for years that I really liked but a swamp bird didn’t like it once, even though he was in range and I should have shot him. Anything you can cover your movement with like that see through camo fabric can help. They see and hear any movement at all. Those pop up half blinds etc are light and can help. Of course, most of them limited your vision but that doesn’t matter to me.


Also, although I am going to do it too, gettin up at 3 am to get to your spot before any resemblance of daylight is overrated. I have never shot a turkey right off the roast, (I could have shot a few in the tree) they always go to a live hen. That said I have killed within a few hours of that.

We all like to hear them gobble to an owl locator call, and know the area they are roosting so I can try to cut them off. But no one can out call a live hen and they are going to the live hens first, which is why the vast majority of Tom’s are killed 9 am to 11 am. (When they have finished with the real hens nearby)


That said if a Tom gobbles to you a few times when he hits the ground but goes the other way, it’s always a good idea to stay put until 9 am unless you hear a hot bird

Don’t know the terrain our newbie is hunting but I’ll add that if it is like the places where tuthill and I hunt in lower Alabama, don’t expect the birds to flock in the spring into the green patches planted for deer near as much as they do in the fall. I hunt hilly terrain with pine tops and hardwood bottoms and most of the green patches are on the ridges. Spring turkeys, gobblers in particular, seem to do most of their strutting and relations with hens in the oak bottoms or along little streams. Sometimes they come out into the deer green patches, but setting up for that to happen lowers the overall odds at least where I hunt. Exception is if you plant chufa. They come into those patches. But not so much in the spring into the wheat/oats/rye green patches on deer hunting grounds. If you find an obvious strut zone with wing drag marks and feathers that’s where you need to be and occasionally that might be in a deer green patch but it’s usually not.

Another good point man. I think I am actually going start on Tuesday as Monday looks like a rain out, and like to give it a few days break between hunting. What about you ?

I have cameras on 6 strut zones and so far nada, but my local guy has been hearing some gobbling and we have some beautiful days next week. Good luck brother. I am sure I will screw it up somehow. The only good thing about being old is I am patient now as don’t have the energy to chase them all over the place. (We have swamp and hills, )


If you are Alabama Turkey hunter here is the OG podcast.

The Turkey Hunter Andy Gaglaino

The Turkey Hunter

Sounds like you may be south of the red hills but on the Alabama or Tombigbee River. Get one before the bugs get too fierce!

Tombigbee runs right by us. We have about 40 acres we call the sand ridge which I am sure used to be the river.

You are absolutely right about the bugs. I have an entire box of bug sprays and thermal bug units. That says the absolute worse is the damn buffalo gnats. They don’t bite but the locals say they run the turkeys off because they kill the pulps, (I assume by choking them to death) They come in huge swarms like some kind of biblical locust plague and they get in your eyes, your ears, nose, and so many will fly into your mouth they actually choke you. They are usually in mid to late April.

Good luck to everyone and stay safe, have fun, don’t let them get into your head, they are just a bird. They are just a bird, just a stupid bird, they aren’t really an evil demon creature intent on embarrassing you at each and every turn. (No matter how much they seem like it every day) lol.

I always tell myself the average turkey hunter in bama kills a bird once every ten hunts, or takes 10 hunts to kill a bird, so I don’t sweat until about 15-20 hunts, if I get to hunt that many.

Or read the 10th legion. They were happy to just hear a turkey.

Is it legal to shoot them from my back porch?