I've been hunting my 81 acre farm in jo daviess county illinois since youth season now. When its time to pack up after the weekend, we drive our car to the blind. Will this hurt anything a week later? We were sitting in our blind on Saturday and we were calling and we had at Least 4 birds responding. After 20-30 ish minutes, we get out to call it quits when it was close to 1:00. I almost said, let's stay till 1:00 and we'll see what happens but I didn't. And so we got out and no more than 25 yards away was a tom ready to come in to our decoys in the brush. Obviously he saw us get out and ran to the next county. I've never bagged a gobbler in my life, and this time I was 30 seconds away from my first longbeard. Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend we didnt see anything....until, today when we packed up, I decided to move our blind. I went up the ridge where I've never been before, but we hear them gobbling up there about 300ish yards from our other blind all the time. First ever time Ive set foot on that ridge, See 7 turkey's and a deer including 2 gobblers and 5 hens. So naturally I set my blind up there. Will the car from this weekend mess anything up? Is it too late in the season? Im anxious to get one of these birds on the ground, and im worried its not going to happen AGAIN. I'm going back for 3rd and 4th season. Are they henned up yet? Any help or feedback is GREATLY appreciated. I posted this here in hopes that I might get more responses. Here are the pictures of our property. Black dot is the previous blind in the foodplot. The red dot is where I put my new blind.
I personally don't think it will hurt anything, but I'm also not a turkey expert. Saturday I drove my truck into the field and setup my blind in the wide open around 3 pm. Killed a bird out of it first thing the next morning.
I was told by someone who knows a lot about turkey hunting (I do not) That turkeys have very short memories. Like minutes were talking. He said if you shoot at a turkey stay where you are they might return a short while later if that's the area they really want to be in. Maybe other turkey pros can chime in on that. Also you probably know this but the key to turkey hunting success is going out the night before and use a locator call to find where they are roosting. Than sneak in well before daylight to set up your blind close to them between them and their feeding area. Some people have even said if a turkey sees you from their tree in the dark not to worry cause they won't know what you are. I have never been bold enough to try that yet though. Good luck! When you finally get one it'll be all the sweeter cause of the challenge it's been so far.
I would have to agree with these guys. Seems turkeys never leave the home range. We had a Tom come in Easter Sun early about 7am the youngster took a shot with his 20ga missed and within 20min we had more gobblers coming in. All I can say is be patient Turkeys are a tough hunt I have shot birds went trampling through the woods and had the other birds return to the area before I got back to the blind.
