Y'all Turkey Hunt

[Catt]

Atfer 30+ yrs I'm thinking about getting back into hunting.

 

My buddy that killed that 6 point has lots of turkeys on the lease.

 

I'll probably buy an 870 pump & set it up.

 

My question is calling, which types are y'all using. I have experience with duck & goose calling.

[Mobasser]

Catt, I'm thinking about doing the same thing. My son in Turkey hunts, and likes the mouth calls the best. He likes to keep his hands free. When I hunted turkeys before I always liked the box calls. I thought they sounded the best. The slate calls sound good too, and some guys around here use them for everything. I never could get the hang of the mouth type calls. And yes the 870 is my fave also, or a Mossberg model 500 12ga. Both are good pump guns

[gim]

Calling and decoys don’t usually work in the fall since the strutting season is in the spring. I have only hunted spring so I can’t offer any advice on hunting turkeys in the fall. Maybe just set up on a daily travel route and wait?

[Catt]

@gimruis our season don't start until the end of March but I thought it might be wise to start learning now.

 

Can't believe only one person on this site Turkey Hunts!

[TnRiver46]

I don’t hunt anything but I have several buddies that chase turkeys. There’s a short fall season here but the spring is the traditional season. One buddy of mine just makes the sound of a barred owl (sounds like “who cooks for you, who cooks for y’aaaaaallllll”) when they are charged up strutting And the gobblers will answer back. I’ve heard them answer back to a barking dog as well. One key that I haven’t heard mentioned is find a tree or trees they are sleeping in and watch them fly down after sunrise. After a few days you will know a good spot to set up around where the fly down lands. And of course the eyesight of a turkey is excellent so they will bust you a lot of times, they are dumb at times and impossible at others from what I understand 

[Ski213]

I’m kind of in the same boat as you. We have a lot of turkeys. I spend a lot of time out in the field (except for this year) but not hunting them. I’m planning on starting after doing some scouting to make sure their numbers are still good. Lots of coyotes out here this year and I’ve seen them dent the population in the past. 

 

I know a lot of folks that turkey hunt and they usually have a lot of calls. Mouth, box, and pot calls. Usually one or two pots, one box, but several mouth calls. They have many more they’ve tried and shelved over the years. 

 

Unfortunately I can’t offer you any experienced advice but I’ll for sure be watching this thread for info. Where Ive started was this. I bought a slate pot call that I’ve been messing with some and added truglo

sights and a turkey choke to

my 870. I bought some 3” mag rounds for it and I stated to pattern the gun yesterday with limited time but hope to finish it tomorrow. 

[12poundbass]

I just got back in to turkey hunting a few years back. I always used a slate and a box call. Since getting back into it I’ve started using a diaphragm call as well. It takes a lot of time to get down pat. Our season starts in April so I’ll start practicing in early March. I do a lot of driving for work so I’ll practice in my work truck going from job to job. No matter how hard I try I for the life of me can’t get a good purr down, that’s where the slate call come in handy. For slate calls I have a glass and a stone slate call. Hope this helps. 
 

What kind of turkey you guys have down there? Osceola? 

[Catt]

21 minutes ago, 12poundbass said:

 

What kind of turkey you guys have down there? Osceola?

 

Mostly Eastern Turkey  ?

[Jig Man]

I used to hunt them with a bow and shot gun but I would rather fish.  I don’t care much for the meat and they are harder to release than a fish.?

[gim]

On 11/28/2019 at 5:29 PM, Catt said:

@gimruis our season don't start until the end of March but I thought it might be wise to start learning now.

 

Can't believe only one person on this site Turkey Hunts!

I didn’t realize you were referencing the spring hunt already. The key for me has been scouting and finding the roost area. Once you find that and have seen where they go, you can almost always plan on them doing the same thing at the same time the days after that. Once you’ve patterned them, you’ll greatly increase the odds of success. Don’t get too close to the roost because if you bust em, they won’t roost there again. Calls and decoys might work depending on how pressured they are but watch their reactions to it - I’ve seen over hunted turkeys completely back off from calls and decoys. When that happens, all you can do is wait for them to come close enough. Then it’s mostly just a waiting game like deer hunting.

[bassh8er]

More important than the type of call is getting covered up.

 

I’d suggest getting a ground blind to cover up all of your movements.  You can then use any kind of call you want.  The box and slate calls are easy to learn as long as your movement is disguised.

[fishballer06]

Turkey hunter here, and I only hunt them in the fall. Luckily for us, PA lets us use rifles in the fall. So my weapon of choice is the 204, so that stretches my range a lot further than a shotgun. 

 

I could never get the hang of a mouth call. If I could, that's what I'd use. I like a slate call personally. My Dad is a fan of box calls. Find what works best for you and go with it. 

[gim]

20 hours ago, bassh8er said:

More important than the type of call is getting covered up.

 

I’d suggest getting a ground blind to cover up all of your movements.  You can then use any kind of call you want.  The box and slate calls are easy to learn as long as your movement is disguised.

A blind is the way to go. It may not allow you to be quite as mobile, but you can get away with some movement when your in it. I like to drink coffee, look through binoculars, etc inside the blind.

[Catt]

You guys are awesome!

 

Instead of buying a new shotgun I'm buying a barrel for my Ithaca model 37 featherlight.

 

Trying my luck with mouth calls which is interesting compared to duck/goose calling.

 

As for a blind I'm pretty good at disappearing!

[plawren53202]

I'm certainly no expert on turkey hunting but have done some, and have successfully called in a number of gobblers.

 

As someone else said on this thread, I don't think the particular type of call is as important.  More important, I think, is: (a) get good at whatever call(s) you use; and (b) get good and setting up and blending in correctly.  I would definitely want a diaphragm/mouth call in my arsenal.  When those gobblers get within eyesight, I don't want to have to move a muscle, so being able to have a call in your mouth and not move hands/arms is important.  

 

Besides that, I usually used a slate call til I could hear one getting close--seemed that I could punch out longer distances with the slate call.  Then switch to a mouth call when I thought one was getting close.

 

I got a couple of DVDs when I first started out that had lots of footage of turkeys in the wild, categorized by types of calls (yelps/clucks/purrs/etc.).  Then sat around trying to emulate what I heard on the DVDs.  You can imagine how much the family enjoyed that.

[5/0]

 

Yeah, turkey hunting's a blast. I like it better than deer hunting! It's a rush when that tom is coming in and gobbling his ass off. Of course they don't always do that so you gotta be on your toes!

Took this guy a couple years ago. I was calling on a box call and this guy appeared about a hundred yard away and not making a peep! He went out of sight in some trees going up a hill to my right. I quit calling and sat tight because I figured he knew where I was. About five minutes later he blew up at the top of the hill, startled the crap out of me, and started down toward where I was. I had to carefully roll over on my belly and aim for a spot on the hillside hoping he would walk into it and he obliged.

I can see why mouth calls are better, they free up your hands. I just can't seem to get the hang of them. If you move to set a box call down as they're coming in the jig is usually up! I've done that many times. They have really good eyesight and they will catch the slightest movement. Luckily the guy I hunt with is really good at using a mouth call and will set up behind me once we're into birds. 

[Way2slow]

First time I've been here is a while.  

 

GA does not have a fall season, but back when I lived on the farm, two fall wild turkeys were always part of our thanks giving diner.  The fall turkey taste sooooo much better than anything you can buy in the store.  Unlike the spring birds you can legally hunt that have been either starved all winter or been eating wild onions, the fall birds had had a rich diet of acorns and other berries and seeds.  

Now that I can't just walk into the woods, it's too risky to hunt get a fall bird.  

As for calling and hunting them, I started back in the early/mid 60's when GA first opened a season on them.  Never cared for killing the spring birds because they usually were not fit to eat, but have probably called hundreds of them.  Usually for other people, called up 27 in one season, and never took a gun with me because I was just calling for my bosses that season.  27 birds and they never carried one out of the woods, but left the woods full of feathers because the were insistent on hunting with 222's.  At the end of the season, they were using 30-06s and still having them run off to die after shooting them.  As for me, I've never killed but three spring birds, but have taken hundreds of photos and movies of them.  I'm not a trophy hunter and if I'm not going to eat it, I don't kill it.  I let the bucks with the big racks walk but will shoot one the size of a German Shepperd in a heart beat.  I've never mount anything other than one 10lb3oz bass my son caught when he was eight years old, and he wanted that one so bad.

For fall hunting, a good dog is fantastic.  My bird dog was great at tracking them and she was well trained at staying close when I wanted her to.  When we got close enough, I would send her into them and get them scattered.  Then move a couple hundreds yards in the direction they flew, sit down and start calling with the lost or assembly call.  Doing this, I was probably about 95% successful.

[Smells like fish]

Whose call did you choose? I'm a sucker for slate calls

[Way2slow]

If you are asking me, I use and assortment of mouth diaphragm calls and Lynches slate call that looks like and over size match box you cup in the palm of your hand.  I use the slate call for my initial calling and to get him coming, but use the mouth calls when he's close because I don't want to be moving around swapping the caller for the camera, gun or what ever.  I started with Lynches slate caller back in the early 60's before the mouth calls came along or got popular, got really good at talking turkey with it and that's still my caller of choice today.

[Shockwave]

I turkey hunt as well.  We have both fall and spring seasons but I only hunt the spring.  I never got used to a mouth call but I recently started trying again and am getting better so I'm hoping to get good enough to give it a try this upcoming spring.  I primarily use a box call and am pretty fluent in turkey language with it.  I'm actually looking to upgrade my shotgun after this upcoming season.  I have a Mossberg 590 but I'd like to move to a Benelli M2.

[browne762]

I haven't gone for a few years, but did always go in the spring as a group of four of us and we would travel down to Illinois. 

 

I cant get the mouth call down, so I would normally use box calls and slates. Box calls were my go-to in most cases. I had a couple I could really get loud with and also calm it down some when the birds were in close. If I could get the mouth call to work, I would have used those for up close.

 

I didn't have as good of luck with using a blind, all of my birds came when just leaning up on a tree. I always made sure to have my shotgun butt in my shoulder and the barrel on my knee to minimize moment. There are some nice "V" shaped pads that can be strapped around your leg to help hold the gun on your knee. 

 

Only firearm we could use would be a shotgun. My personal favorite was the Benelli Super Nova with some 3.5 inch Hevi-Shot and a rubber shoulder sling.

[TnRiver46]

@Way2slow, there’s still a fall season here for either sex turkey. I’ve also never heard of hunting turkeys with a rifle, maybe that’s why they got only feathers haha

[Way2slow]

This was back in the mid 60's, we had not had a legal season very long.  I think the state has limited it to shotgun only now.  I guess to protect the birds from idiots like that.  They both brought a 3" Mag, 12ga with #6 shot the first day like I told them, but also brought their 222's and insisted on using the rifles.

I used a 22mag for the fall birds because it was a lot quitter than a shotgun and since I was not legal, I wanted keep it low keyed.  I never lost a bird with it, but I guess there was a little difference in the person pulling the trigger.

[gim]

On 1/8/2020 at 11:00 AM, browne762 said:

My personal favorite was the Benelli Super Nova with some 3.5 inch Hevi-Shot and a rubber shoulder sling.

 

This is the weapon I use.  3.5 inch magnum turkey shells are brutal without some sort of recoil system in a shotgun.  Its like firing a cannon even if its only one shot.  I use Winchester's Longbeard XR and a specialized full choke which has extended my effective killing range out to 65 yards.  This ammo has shot-lok which is a layer of polymer around the BB's that holds them tighter at a longer range.  Traditional turkey ammo was only effective out to about 35 yards so this was a game changer when it was introduced a few years ago.  I've since harvested turkeys at 50, 57, and 61 yards when using it.

[GaryH]

On 11/27/2019 at 8:27 PM, Catt said:

Atfer 30+ yrs I'm thinking about getting back into hunting.

 

My buddy that killed that 6 point has lots of turkeys on the lease.

 

I'll probably buy an 870 pump & set it up.

 

My question is calling, which types are y'all using. I have experience with duck & goose calling.

 

Catt. did you ever get out turkey hunting?