It ranks right up there with deer hunting. I have been cutting trees and counted 32 walking around the downed tops the other day. There's some really nice birds in that group.
Lol, not sure what that means. I find turkey hunting having a bigger expenditure of time and energy than deer hunting. Find a good buck during rut and you usually have a sleep walking deer. At the very least one with blinders on. A big tom turkey remains on high alert, he'll hang up if he hears an off pitch call, walk off if he hears but doesn't see a hen. Hens are the worst to compete against, they will call a tom away from you every chance they get and you can't shoot them. This is just my experience.
Really? I think it's easier since you can locate where the birds are and basically play marco/polo with them. Maybe it's just the interaction from them that makes it so much more enjoyable. Most of the time I can plop my butt down in one spot and call a bird to me, hence the lazy part. I did go two seasons without a bird, but mainly because they were just out of bow range, I have since taken a shotgun ut to get the first one in the freezer. And a little tip, I've killed more bird using a gobble call rather than a hen call.
I would have to suppose such opinion differences might be due to bird numbers and pressure around where you are. I might as well be on public here or at camp with the number of guys set up around my properties. Literally day light hits and I have guys 60 yards away on the border facing my property. At camp, I've had 3 birds shot coming to me . So close it made me jump. One morning I set up at home and next thing I know the tree tops on my place light up. I look over my shoulder and there is a guy standing on my line spotting for roosted birds in my woods! He's lucky the farmers land he was trespassing on to get to mine, was set up 80 yards away hunting. He grabbed him up just as I was about to get up. Not going to be gobbling any time soon...lol Tip learn to use ones natural voice and enjoy the action. Every bird I call in is with my natural vocals,not calls.
We start on May 1 here, I should start to hear them gobbling in the next week or two. The winter flocks were huge and the better half saw a flock of over 50 not too far away. They move up the hill as spring closes in. I'm hoping some of those make here. The Bear report came out down 20% in harvests. We were hit with early heavy snow. Since I literally walked into one last year,he was watching me from the brush as I cut up a tree I'd dropped. I'm thinking more elevated blind hunting this year, if more will be around. They are also showing up on cams more. Mamas with spring cubs, I'm thinking no thank you. They dont seem to afraid of humans anymore here. I was making a ton of noise and he just sat there as I walked toward him,before I looked up and stopped. Close enough to clearly see the flies on his nose a couple of yards. After a stare down my brain calculated a dash for the Gator. He just sat there watching me until I started the engine,then turned and walked away. I prefer viewing them in pics!
March 30th here, quite frankly, I have nothing ready to go. All my gear is still stored, I really need to check off some blocks on my honey-do list; damn rain really put a delay on it.
