Guest
I haven't seen a lot posted on turkey hunting but wanted to share some techniques my late great-uncle used. Our family farm was settled in the Texas Hill Country in the 1850's and is still in the hands of a cousin. Turkeys were a constant source of food for the family - even when deer were scarce in the 1930's. My uncle lived on the farm his entire life and died some years ago at age 90. Anyway, he would often take me hunting and had a couple of tactics for turkey.
One thing he did was to build brush blinds all year long. If you are fortunate enough to hunt somewhere that can be accessed during the year, it helps to put them all over the place. Near natural trails is good but so is scattering a few in thick areas or spots that might be open after a frost. Since the soil was easy to dig, we would often excavate a small depression (like a shallow fox hole) and cover that with branches and other debris until it was almost rainproof, while leaving an access hole. This put the hunter very near the ground with little showing that could be spotted. The property had about 200 acres of fairly thick cover on a riverfront and the blinds were scattered everywhere. The river bottom was covered in pecans, so natural pruning and clearing throughout the year created plenty of material.
Another thing he taught me was to move toward a call reply. He'd walk out into the brush and "poooot" on a wingbone call - if he got a gobble in response, he would run toward the noise. Depending on how loud the gobble was, he might run 50, 100 yards or farther, then find cover and softly "poooot" one more time. At that point, it was a waiting game to see if a bird showed up. This is where all those blinds came in handy, because he knew where they were located and could usually find one in a handy spot. His reasoning on moving toward the bird(s) was that the "lone hen" was looking for a flock so would want to get there as soon as possible and the group would respond to help her. In addition, if it was spring and gobblers were courting, he believed they were more likely to chase a receptive female than one which just stayed in one place. He also thought that a wild turkey only needed one call to place your location pretty closely so multiple calls were pointless and probably harmful.
Uncle shot a 12 gauge, single-shot percussion shotgun until the 1940's when he finally bought a double barrel cartridge gun. I never saw him hunt with the frontloader and don't know the loading but I do recall being told he used #2 or BB and would aim for the juncture of neck and body, reasoning that a single pellet through the neck would bleed out and kill within a few minutes. Even after going to a modern 12 gauge, he never used anything smaller than #4 and usually stuck with #2 shot.
I put this under traditional ML hunting because I believe the tactics can help the primitive hunter - I killed a very nice gobbler one spring that dressed 23 pounds, with a borrowed 12 gauge caplock, using this "run at 'em" method. The gobbler was about 50 yards away when we first called but he started moving away and eventually we could barely hear him reply. My buddy and I got up and ran toward the last response, then called once and waited. About 10 minutes later, he came slipping out of the brush and I busted him at 15 or so yards. We were wearing camo so were sitting in the open next to two trees in plain view.
One thing he did was to build brush blinds all year long. If you are fortunate enough to hunt somewhere that can be accessed during the year, it helps to put them all over the place. Near natural trails is good but so is scattering a few in thick areas or spots that might be open after a frost. Since the soil was easy to dig, we would often excavate a small depression (like a shallow fox hole) and cover that with branches and other debris until it was almost rainproof, while leaving an access hole. This put the hunter very near the ground with little showing that could be spotted. The property had about 200 acres of fairly thick cover on a riverfront and the blinds were scattered everywhere. The river bottom was covered in pecans, so natural pruning and clearing throughout the year created plenty of material.
Another thing he taught me was to move toward a call reply. He'd walk out into the brush and "poooot" on a wingbone call - if he got a gobble in response, he would run toward the noise. Depending on how loud the gobble was, he might run 50, 100 yards or farther, then find cover and softly "poooot" one more time. At that point, it was a waiting game to see if a bird showed up. This is where all those blinds came in handy, because he knew where they were located and could usually find one in a handy spot. His reasoning on moving toward the bird(s) was that the "lone hen" was looking for a flock so would want to get there as soon as possible and the group would respond to help her. In addition, if it was spring and gobblers were courting, he believed they were more likely to chase a receptive female than one which just stayed in one place. He also thought that a wild turkey only needed one call to place your location pretty closely so multiple calls were pointless and probably harmful.
Uncle shot a 12 gauge, single-shot percussion shotgun until the 1940's when he finally bought a double barrel cartridge gun. I never saw him hunt with the frontloader and don't know the loading but I do recall being told he used #2 or BB and would aim for the juncture of neck and body, reasoning that a single pellet through the neck would bleed out and kill within a few minutes. Even after going to a modern 12 gauge, he never used anything smaller than #4 and usually stuck with #2 shot.
I put this under traditional ML hunting because I believe the tactics can help the primitive hunter - I killed a very nice gobbler one spring that dressed 23 pounds, with a borrowed 12 gauge caplock, using this "run at 'em" method. The gobbler was about 50 yards away when we first called but he started moving away and eventually we could barely hear him reply. My buddy and I got up and ran toward the last response, then called once and waited. About 10 minutes later, he came slipping out of the brush and I busted him at 15 or so yards. We were wearing camo so were sitting in the open next to two trees in plain view.
