What's more important: calling or decoys? Is it more important to be able to call or have a good decoy setup? Looking for a bunch of opinions.
Calling is important BUT when they come in looking, a decoy takes the attention off from the sounds of calling.
Its hard to say really. Bad calling can scare them away and decoys can scare them away. I personally have had better luck with calling and not decoys, but that's just me.
Calling....And you don't need to be able to do all the fancy cackles and such....Yelps and clucks and you will do just fine.... Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
I going to have to say calling. What good is a decoy if you can locate them and get them to come to you???
I think calling is more important. I don't think you have to be a great caller. When my cousin was getting into turkey hunting I hooked him up with a spot to hunt. Sometime mid-morning (he was hunting alone) he started practicing on a slate call - he wasn't good at it. He says he scratched on the call for a few minutes...all of a sudden, a gobbler starts running to him. He smoked it...it was a DOUBLE beard! I was happy to help him out. There are situations when calling is more important (wood setting) and times where you can just have a decoy out (field set up).
It depends on how you're hunting them. You've got two choices.... 1. If you can set up on an area they normally roam around, I'd say a good decoy is better. 2. If you need to get them to come to you, obviously calling is how you need to do that. As well I think the time of day makes a difference too. In the morning they'll be following the hens they roosted with more so option 1 works better. In the afternoon, the toms and jakes are more likely to drift off from the hens and are more susceptible to calling so then option 2 may work better. This is all in my experience too. It's been warm enough around here the birds in my area are about a week from starting to breed and my season is still 3 weeks away.
Calling hands down. Hunt mainly public land and birds are decoy shy. My 2 cents. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
I do both and for archery hunting I'll even set the decoys out set distances for ranging. 20-30-40 yards. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Calling, no doubt IMHO. But, less is usually more..... Only experience will tell you, but volume and call selection is key too.... I kill more birds with a gobble than I do with hen calls in the first two weeks of our season.... Just be careful when and where you use a gobble.... Good luck, and have fun.
might be interesting to get assessments on the different species. haven't called eastern turkeys in a couple decades but recalled they seemed more tolerant of louder calls and were more vocal when coming in than the Osceola turkeys I'm hunting in Florida. Down here have had the best success using a slate call very softly.
I am truly torn on this issue. Through many successful hunts for myself, friends, family, and guided clients I have seen many successes with both decoys and calls by themselves, and also hunts where the duo paid off. Due to my main method of turkey hunting being the "Run N Gun" approach I would have to say calls all day long if I had to choose one. I tend to spot n stalk quite often while making lone hen yelps, clucks, and purrs to locate gobblers. Having a decoy in this scenario has hurt me before by having a tom "hang up" out of range since he spotted the decoy. Now I will say if you are ground blind hunting, and have scouted their "fly down" field then sometimes all you need is a proper decoy set up.
