Sportsmen's Choice Game Calls - Spring Turkey Tip of the Week March 26, 2012

The following tip is from Pete Plasmier of Sportsmen's Choice Game Calls. Check out Pete's website at www.sportsmenschoicegamecalls.com/. Pete is a long time hunting cameraman who has been creating hunting videos in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for 21 years. Check out his website for his full list of videos, calls, scents and gear. You can also see more tips and reports from Pete at The Buck Barn.

Spring Turkey Tip of The Week March 26, 2012
Sometimes, turkey hunting is a thinking man’s game.
Here’s the scene: It’s just after dawn. Your setup is perfect. You’re near a roost site which has multiple toms, and they’re gobbling on their own. Hens chatter as well, so you know the toms have female company. Daylight gets stronger; you realized that you’ve entered wild turkey heaven and you decide to announce yourself. With every call you use, the gobblers cut you off. Remember that in the spring woods, hen turkeys go to the toms; that’s what the gobblers are expecting you to do. All the birds fly down. What happens next?

Most hunters in such a situation will call at that ideal location for hours, trying to lure the toms to them but only succeeding in wearing out their welcome. It’s not always easy to kill a gobbler fresh off the roost. With hens already at hand, he may not be convinced that he needs to come your way.

If toms already have hens with them and won’t come to your series of calls; the birds are already set in their ways. You can try repositioning yourself and calling again, but don’t overdo it. If the longbeards still won’t come and surrender to your calls, don’t keep calling. You could just educate them for the entire season. The best thing is not to beat yourself up, thinking that you’re not a good enough hunter. Instead, tiptoe out of there knowing that you’ve found yourself some good birds to hunt later. Don’t grandstand in that one location.

If you’re confident that you are the only hunter aware of the flock, you can afford to be patient and rethink your approach. Come back in a few days in mid-morning, try to avoid the location where the birds wouldn’t come, and instead enter the woods cautiously from a totally different direction. Switch up your calling, and try putting more space between your series of calls. You want to avoid sounding exactly the way you did before. The idea is to convince the toms that you are a different group of hens wandering through their domain. The change of time and direction may give you an advantage, and a new chance to harvest a handsome longbeard.


If turkey hunting were easy, everyone could do it.

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