Do successful hunters wait or chase?

HuntnMoon

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6 hunts this year for the first 4 hunts I never heard or saw a bird. I talk to many turkey hunters that are much more successful than I and they seem to be movng aroung much more than I am. That said My last two hunts have gone something like this Saturday me and a buddy who hasnever killed a bird spook them off their roost first thing in the morning must have been 5-10 birds nothing we vcould do we only moved a few feet ointo the woods and they were right there. We set up and eventually they returned and we had a coup;e of toms hang up at what im guessing is 80-100 yards. move or not? we decided not to move and i called him into what im guessing is 30 yards behind me , he gobbles once and never returns...Tonight i go set up on a field edge and begin to call softly and within 20 minutes im gettting 3-4 gobbles every 5 minutes or so sometimes closer, sometimes further. are they different birds? I play this game for 40 minutes and decide I done have much time left. I make a move, grab my decoys, head towards where the birds last gobbled. I move 100-150 yards or so let out a few soft calls and nothing. as im grabbing my stuffto move again a tome crosses the logging road 40 yards waay and im busted...Question and I know there is no perfect answer but is patience the key or moving on birds that are gobbling? any tactics or basic " rules" that im missing, Im not above any advice. Thanks looking forward to hearing what the experts have to say.
 

RUGER

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If you knew the answer to that every time you would be a genius. :D

Every case / bird is different from my experiences.

What I do know is if you don't bump a bird every once in a while, you ain't trying hard enough. ;)
 

WMAn

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First thing if you're learning to hunt, minimize the stuff you carry. One or two calls, shells, gun, extra gloves and mask, and a comfortable seat is all you need to carry. Decoys slow you down and cause you to move more.

Second, become a sponge of turkey behavior. Soak everything in. Note every sighting and gobble heard. The time and location they occurred. If you are lucky to hunt the same area over and over, patterns should start to emerge. Those patterns become your playbook and should influence how you hunt on a given day.

Great turkey hunters are like a Bassmaster Elite Series angler. He has to produce fish on any water, any day to be successful. He has strengths, but matches his fishing to the fish and the conditions. Learn to do the same with your turkey hunting.
 

Gravey

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I tell people patience kills turkeys. That said there is a time and place for sitting and moving and you just hope to guess which one is gonna work on that particular turkey. I hunt one place that's only 40 acres so I tend to sit longer there than when I have lots of land to roam.
 

HuntnMoon

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Awesome advice. Thanks for replying, This site is a great place to learn. I really appreciate it
 

HuntnMoon

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one other question do most guys "go into the woods", which is what i have been doing or is it wise to stay on the road and wait to hear gobbles before you move?
 

TeamMainStreet

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I have found out the hard way too many times that if a bird is gobbling his giblets out and just shuts up all of a sudden, you better sit it out until you hear him gobble farther away than the last gobble because more than likely he is putting a ninja sneak on you. When in doubt wait it out.
 

Boll Weevil

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HuntnMoon said:
Question and I know there is no perfect answer but is patience the key or moving on birds that are gobbling?
Yes.


Some portion of the equation to a successful turkey hunt is nothing more than a combination of the hunter's intuition and straight-up luck. I tend to err more on the side of caution these days. One can often recover from a decision NOT to move on a gobbler but a bumped bird is game over; plain and simple. Most times it means you're done for the day with that particular feathered fellow.
 

@fulldraw

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With a gun, I move quite a bit. I want to find an active gobbler. With a bow, I'm more patient. I typically use decoys while bowhunting not with gun. I like to wait until I hear a gobbler when going in blind. If he's gobbling and suddenly stops, he is on the move. If you hear one close and them a little farther and back close again, he's probably hung up strutting back and forth.
 

HuntnMoon

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that is exactly what was going on tonight... I moved and busted ... oh well hearing and seeing turks now so that is a good thing.
 

HuntnMoon

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Man I would like to get out there together sometime. Even if one of us was just a "caller"
 

Roost 1

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There really is no right answer....no substitute for experience. Main thing is to try to always learn from your mistakes.... Learn the area your hunting!!!! Turkeys generally have a routine after you learn the land and then there routine the puzzle starts coming to together... These things are much more important than when to move or when not to move or calling..... JMHO
 

LanceS4803

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Gravey said:
I tell people patience kills turkeys.

+1
That is why turkeys are VERY safe around me. I tell myself each day to be patient, but it never works. And what do I find, Mr. Tom just waiting for me to make that mistake.
 

AT Hiker

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You my friend are experiencing the great joys of turkey hunting, it is a game, not of cat and mouse but of hunter vs. prey vs mother nature.

Like mentioned before, no correct answer to any scenario, but Captain Hindsight might offer some advice..."I would not move in too close to the birds on roost, when they are gobbling they are awake, therefore they can see fairly well. If a bird hangs up, but is still gobbling he is likely henned up or stubborn, in which case aggressive calling usually works. If you hear a hen with hen, try to get her to come in to you. If no hen sounds, start cutting and yelping as hard as you can. Then back off a little, go back to soft purring and soft yelps/clucks. Another option, if you got a hunting partner, one of you could back away 50-100 yards max and start calling again. This might bring him in to the unexpected gun range.
 

catman529

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depends on the situation but there is no doubt that I usually do a lot of running and gunning. If I'm working a bird, I will sit for a long time if I have to, but if things aren't working out, I will be covering ground looking and listening for birds or stalking a bird that won't come to a call.

When I am moving in on a gobbling bird, I get as close as I can without getting busted (sometimes you will get busted, it happens) but I have found em gobbling in woods where the undergrowth and trees let me get to within 100 yards estimated of the bird. I will call as I am moving into position, listen for him to gobble, finish moving in and pick my tree, sit down and call again. I only call while moving if I am sure the bird cannot see me (terrain, thick undergrowth, etc). Keep in mind, if you can see him, he can see you, so don't call or he will pinpoint you. Once I have called a couple times and he's responding, it's time to wait, he's probably coming in. This has happened to me anywhere from late morning to evening, not off the roost. Yes you will find lone gobblers on roost especially later in the season but I tagged out too early to have the fun of that this year, and birds on the roost were either on other property, or had hens, and I had most of my luck with midday birds. When I was on a flock of hens, jakes and a tom, and could not get them to come in for hours, I finally snuck past the jakes and hens, bumped a hen, made it to the strutting tom with his hen and she led him past me at 35 yards for his final strut. So don't be afraid to stalk a bird if you have to, but it's going to be tedious and pretty tense, never knowing if a head is going to pop up and bust you.
 

woodsman87

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I like to wait them out rather than chase them. But It all depends on depending on what everything else depends on though, if that makes any sense haha. There are no absolutes in turkey hunting.
I don't have any great turkey hunting spots or thousands of acres to hunt like some people, so I tend to be more patient. If I were hunting a huge block of land with lots of turkeys I would be more aggressive.
I hate scaring them, it makes them smarter and more call shy. You hear these scientist say, turkeys have no real memory and are dumb, havent ever turkey hunted. How do they get more call shy as the season goes on if they have no memory?
 

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