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Turkey Hunting
- Thread starter gmitch214
- Start date
You needed to be scouting like 3 weeks ago to find birds and a spot to hunt. You needed to be practicing your calling as well. I suggest you find someone to tag along with who knows what they're doing and watch & learn for a season. Safety in the woods during turkey season is paramount as well as good manners to other hunters. Can't tell you how many turkey hunts I ve had ruined by some rookie stalking my decoys, shooting my decoys, walking through my set up, making camp 50 yards away from me over calling birds. Dont be that guy.
Your best bet is start scouting now for the fall season.
Here are some scouting/hunting tips: Best way to find birds is by scouting woods and fields where they have been seen. Roosting a bird or "putting it to bed" is the most sure fire way to be on them in the am. Go in at dusk and find them in the trees with an owl call or crow call. Set up within 100 yards of that roost the next day under the cover of darkness and be very quiet. The next part is the most difficult for new turkey hunters; don't over call. You're asking a Tom to do something against thier nature, to come to a hen call. In nature, the hen goes to the Tom so over calling will result in the Tom getting "hung up" and will move on. In calling, less is more. When the Tom gets closer, your calling gets softer like the hen moving away to draw him closer. Turkey have exceptional eye sight in the woods in order to survive, so keep your movement to a minimum. A tent blind is great to start with as it conceals any movement. Do not stalk a hen call in the woods, its probably another hunter and turkey loads probably hurt a lot! Finally, get a turkey choke and pattern it at the range before you even think of shooting a bird. You need to know what that shot does with that choke at 20, 30, 40 and 50 yards. If you skip this part, you will miss or even worse, cripple a bird and not recover it, you owe it to the bird to have a properly patterned gun. Most of all, have fun and enjoy being out and be respectful to other hunters.
