What time to be in woods sat

TheLBLman

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Jun 12, 2002
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Knoxville-Dover-Union City, TN
I'd like to be about where I want to start hunting by around 5:30 in most cases (Western Middle TN), but it also depends on the terrain I'm hunting, and just how I'm hunting. If I'm hunting on the higher plateau-like areas or higher ridgelines, I start about 30 minutes sooner than when I'm hunting in some of the valleys that come off an eastern ridgeline.

Keep in mind the woods are really open right now, and a roosted turkey may be able to see you several hundred yards away if you're moving after it's already light. Situation can be much different once we get some foliage.
 

de novo

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Jul 21, 2008
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Middle TN
Here's my Good Friday middle TN scouting trip:

I could hear hens when I turned my truck off at 6:20. First gobble was at 6:25. I saw two toms fly down at 632. A group of twenty or so hens hit the ground right in front of my truck at 642. Hens were going crazy in the trees and I heard a dozen or so gobbles. But after fly down not a sound has been made. There's three strutting toms silently following a group of hens. I'm not sure if parking under the roost trees affected their vocalizations or not but if I wasn't watching the birds I would say the woods are dead.
 

Andy S.

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Jul 26, 1999
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Atoka, TN
de novo said:
I saw two toms fly down at 632. A group of twenty or so hens hit the ground right in front of my truck at 642.
Good info. Did they fly down into a field (typically lighter earlier) or into big woods (typically lighter later)? There is usually a difference in the two, maybe not much, but some.
 

AT Hiker

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Jul 3, 2011
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12,916
Location
Clarksville, Tennessee
If you know where the birds are at, I would be there no later than 5:45 on private ground...shooting time is about 6:10 or so.

But it is not wise to go chomping through the woods if you have no clue where they are at.
 
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