How To Find A Gobbler On Opening Day part two
In Part One I covered a little about Pre Season Scouting up to your initial set up on opening day. If you haven’t read that you may want to go back and look at that before reading Part Two.
Deciding to Move
Well morning has broken and the birds are off the roost and the woods are alive with excitement. As the morning wears on you begin to have doubts in your initial set up. How long should you stay with your initial set up? That is often the $64,000 question I’ll tell you there have been times I felt that I stayed in the initial place to long and other times I’ve been busted by getting up to move to a new location. My thought is that unless I have a really good plan on where and what I want to do next I tend to linger a bit at the setup till I develop a plan of action. Review what happened in your mind and try to learn from it. Where did the gobbler go? Did he bust you? If so how come? How many gobblers did you have in the area how many hens? Process the information you have gathered so far and use it to formulate your plan.
Some important things to think about first off every gobbler does not sound off in the morning. There is a good likelihood that if he is not the dominant gobbler that he’ll keep quiet to avoid getting his tail kicked. Many of hunters have been surprised by a silent gobbler coming in on them if your ready you maybe back to your coffee real soon if not you’ll be caught flat footed and busted as he runs or flies off.
Mid Morning
This is a good time to find a gobbler that is lonely so I’m apt to begin moving through the woods and trying to strike a hot gobbler. Enticing a shock gobble is a good sign but if that is your only strategy you maybe missing some good hunting opportunities. Using some hen calls can also be very effective but I would caution you to be in position whenever you use a turkey call because you may have one come right in. Any areas that you have previously identified as strut zones are good bets to try to sneak in on.
A word of caution about moving around the turkey woods in full camo and turkey calling; many of the turkey vests have orange flaps and you may want to expose them while moving. The expectation is always that a shooter will properly identify their target prior to pulling the trigger but after the fact it maybe to late. Always think about safety.
Midmorning you are apt to catch Jakes, or gobblers who never had or had a hen that gave him the slip. They are often a little bit easier to call in but don’t take it for granted because one mistake and they’ll be gone in a flash. Usually some soft calling and scratching in the leaves will bring them in. A turkey’s hearing is phenomenal and for the most part the day-to-day communications turkeys make are very much softer then one would think. If you’ve never experienced it listen next fall when your sitting on a deer stand as a turkey flock goes by. They are heavy footed and make a lot of sound that way but their vocalizations are fairly soft. I’m a firm believer in softening up the calls in most situations to match nature. That doesn’t mean you should never be loud but just look at what’s happening around you and try to match the woods milieu.
Should you come upon a group of turkeys attempting to call the gobbler to you is often futile because he has company. In that situation call the hens if they come your way you can bet the gobblers will follow.
Late Morning Early Afternoon
Early in the season this is the time that hens begin breaking away to take care of their nesting duties. Every day this will get earlier and earlier until the hen lays a clutch of eggs. This will give you more gobblers without hens and this is the time of day I seemed to have my best level of success. This is not the time to call it a day and head for lunch. I will often cruise the woods like I posted earlier using some of those tactics.
I often will slip back to the area where I started my day out and try to do some calling there. It’s not unusual for the gobbler to return to this area where he met all his lady friends seeing if he can find them again. This is a time of the day I’ll often utilize a blind on a field. If I’m tired and need to eat some lunch and get off my feet for a little bit and do some calling.
Other areas that can be productive are dusting areas I sometimes will prop a decoy in the bowl with some small rocks to make it look like one is in there dusting. I’ll admit that other then other hens coming in I’ve not had much luck with this tactic thus far.
Afternoon
I’ll admit to me the middle of the afternoon seems to be the least productive time to hunt but you got to be present to win so stick with it. I reflect on what has happened so far maybe try to figure out a game plan for the late afternoon evening hunt. I’ll decide whether I want to continue to blind hunt or to strike out for a stroll. One good thing is that for the most part you’ll often have the woods to yourself. If you can get one fired up this time of day the odds he’ll come to you are pretty good.
Late Afternoon / Evening
This is the time to set up near the area you expect the gobbler to roost and try to intercept him before he goes to roost. Obviously areas you’ve heard them in your pre season scouting and your early morning hunting are great places to set up. I like late afternoon / evening hunting because if you know the area they like to roost then your apt to have an encounter that will lead to you calling 1-800 I Got One.
This is my basic hunt plan; now grant it location, weather, hunting pressure and a variety of other factors will weigh in on how I approach a day of turkey hunting. Talk to other turkey hunters and they’ll have other ideas on what you need to do to bag your bird. Well good luck on Saturday and I hope everyone has a safe fun day afield.
Cool story brotha. Wish you could have got one, after all the head ache. T.
enjoyed the tips in the post. Very informative.
Comment by Rex — April 13, 2007 @ 11:23 am
Thanks for the help, still trying to bag a gobbler before end of spring season!
Comment by Jesse — April 27, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
Keep at it Jesse You’ll get him. This morning was rough they began gobbling but shut when the rain hit shortly after day break. Then the rain got steady and hard. I was soaked. Hopefully the morning hunt will go better.
Comment by Moose — April 27, 2007 @ 4:04 pm