Once I began turkey searching, it was run-and-gun or nothing. We didn’t have hub-style blinds, and we didn’t even take into account sitting in a single spot for hours upon hours. The aim was to slide right into a gobbler’s orbit, work him in, and that was it.
If he screwed up, we’d kill him. If he didn’t, it was time to maneuver. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
That technique nonetheless works and is a viable transfer you probably have the land to roam and the itch to roam it. However there’s a counterargument value contemplating, the place a less-is-more perspective can work in a turkey hunter’s favor. It’s a patience-first method, that’s backed up by turkey analysis.
Turkey Analysis
Wildlife analysis can present superb insights into recreation habits, however many of the heavy lifting on this enviornment facilities on ungulates and apex predators. The lowly wild turkey has been largely ignored as a subject of analysis, however not by Dr. Michael Chamberlain, a earlier visitor on the MeatEater Podcast.
Chamberlain, a professor and wild turkey researcher with UGA, is a wealth of information on turkey predation, habits, and the way they view the hours of their day. In accordance with Chamberlain, a few of his analysis reveals that hunters are simply too fast to surrender on gobblers when they need to in all probability dig in and wait.
“We routinely see that toms will go to locations the place hunters known as to them, hours after the hunters have left the sector,” Chamberlain mentioned. “To me, that speaks to the thought we might discover extra success as hunters if we had been keen to be extra affected person.”
Tips on how to Play the Ready Recreation
The simplest strategy to be affected person within the turkey woods is to not have any actual choices to roam. This occurs throughout small-property hunts, in addition to some turkey bowhunts the place the mandatory gear is an obstacle to mobility. For those who aren’t resigned to twenty acres or obsessive about the satisfying thump of an arrow hitting a longbeard, then persistence comes all the way down to self-discipline.
Let’s say you had a gobbler reply an hour after dawn, and through that point he was scorching and heavy. However he wandered off, as they typically do, and it has been an hour because you heard him gobble. The satan in your shoulder whispers that it’s both time to go discover him or name it quits.
In spite of everything, what are the percentages the fowl will come again? Who is aware of? I don’t. Neither does a turkey researcher like Chamberlain, however the sensible cash is on persistence. Determine a strategy to sit for one more half hour, or an hour, on the very least. Possibly you may’t pull an all-day sit together with your again to a tree and your shotgun throughout your lap, however including some further time to every setup can put you on extra birds that weren’t into committing initially.
This can be a laborious factor to do with out confidence, although.
Turkey Endurance Classes
Once I first began bowhunting turkeys like a fiend, I needed to rethink my shotgun technique. As an alternative of going to the birds, or at the very least making an attempt to slide in shut sufficient to speak them in, I needed to discover a great spot and belief my calling and decoys.
The primary all-day sits had been brutal, completely brutal. They had been additionally enlightening. I watched birds with hens early within the morning that always instantly confirmed up, solo, hours later. Regularly, it could be a particular fowl, or a bunch of birds, that was identifiable sufficient to say with confidence they weren’t simply new randos.
Experiencing that just a few occasions does wonders in your confidence. You notice that the birds that really feel like they’ve walked out of your life for good, typically haven’t. They’ve simply obtained higher prospects for the time being, but in addition a ok reminiscence to know proper the place you—their Plan B—is. Or at the very least, was.
Now, for those who’ve obtained different birds hammering away and the power to get nearer, ready round may not be the perfect concept. However for those who don’t have that, and you probably did have some constructive interactions earlier within the day, giving it some actual time is an effective way to reconnect with these not-so-long-long toms.
Conclusion
It appears easy, like doing all-day rut sits for whitetails. Scratch that; it’s easy, however easy isn’t at all times simple. Tacking on an additional hour to every run-and-gun setup, or grinding out a dark-to-dark bowhunt in Could, isn’t simple. However it may be essential to fill your turkey tag, particularly for those who’re searching pressured birds that aren’t suicidal. Simply keep in mind that they’re not working off of your time or your schedule.
They’re working off of theirs, and they’re often in no hurry.
