Differences Between a Spring and Fall Turkey Hunt

If you’ve ever been on a spring turkey hunt or you’ve ever wanted to, you should consider turkey hunting in the fall, too. Most people think of spring but it’s a fall activity as well. There are some differences between a spring and the fall turkey hunt that the hunter should be aware of to be able to enjoy himself as much as possible.

First of all, the turkeys are different in the fall than in the spring. Spring time is mating season for the turkeys and they’re going to have a very different behavior. There going to be more restless and more animated because they’re trying to attract and find a mate. In the fall, turkeys have passed the mating season and are more interested in feeding and socializing.

So while in the spring you look for turkeys where they mate, in the fall you want to look for them where they eat. Where they nest is also a place to look in the fall not because they’re mating but because they’re going to be sleeping more with the change of the season.

In the fall, there’s a turkey hunting technique known as flock busting. A hunter finds a flock of turkeys and rushes toward them to break them up or sends a hunting dog toward them. This scatters the flock so that a turkey call like a young turkeys “kee kee” call can be used to attract them back. As the turkeys come back you’ve got a prime hunting situation.

Finding where the turkeys eat in the fall is really the key to a good autumn turkey hunt. To find this space simply look for turkey droppings and tracks. Very often these areas are close to water sources.

The time of day you plan your fall turkey hunt makes a difference, too. Before the sun goes down in the late afternoon turkeys will typically be apart but working toward gathering together. By the time the sun comes up, they should be flocked together. It’s a good time for flock busting if you choose to turkey hunt in the morning. Hunting in the evening means the flocks going to be broken up a bit and you’re going to be finding smaller flocks or individual turkeys.

One way to make your fall turkey hunt successful is to learn a few different turkey calls. The “kee kee” of the young turkey is a good option after flock busting because that’s the call that would be answered by a turkey’s mother. But other calls could also work like the gobbler call or hen call, depending on the turkeys you see when you rush the flock.

A fall turkey hunt might not be quite as easy as a spring hunt because they are not mating and not quite as reckless as when they are looking for a mate and driven by instinct to mate. But if you scout out their food and water sources and find where they rest, you’ll have a good turkey hunt.

Photo Credits: gerrybuckel

Originally posted 2010-04-10 03:26:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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6 Things to Avoid When Turkey Hunting

turkeyHere are a wide variety of little things that you need to avoid in order to turkey hunt successfully. Most turkey hunters learned these things through decades of turkey hunting, but now you do not have to.

1 – Limit movement.

When turkeys see movement, they immediately know that danger is afoot. Period. There is no way to move that will convince a turkey that you are not a threat so do not even bother trying to move when turkeys are afoot.

2 – Do not over call.

If you turkey call too many times, you are going to build up the ego of the bird to much to the point that he may stop coming, and may sit dead still waiting for you. You should have fun calling, but not too much fun.

3 – Sleeping in is another no-no.

Turkeys can see when it is light out, so you need to get into your position before it gets light in the morning, end of story.

4 – Prepare.

Poor preparation is not going to do you any factors. If you wait until the last moment to get all of your things together, then something important is going to be missed. Make sure that you have a list of things that you need, and make sure that everything on that list is within reach all the time so that you are properly prepared for the trek.

5 – Steer away from calling it quits far too early.

You can kill as many turkeys in the afternoon as you can in the early hours of the morning. They may make less noise, but they are certainly still out there, and potentially more vulnerable than they were before. If you can stick it out, do so, and your patience will pay off, especially when the other hunters give up and go in early.

6 – Do not stick with tactics if they are not producing.

By definition alone, this is an insane thing to do. If you keep doing one specific thing, and it is consistently not bringing you the results, stop doing it. Change your approach, change your strategy, try a different decoy, try a different location, switch your calls, or whatever else you have to do in order to get some variety. A change in your tactics may be exactly what was needed to land the kill. You are never going to know unless you manage to go the extra mile and actually make it happen.

Above all else, you are really going to have to want it in order for you to become a successful hunter of turkeys. You need to live and you need to hunt by that particular mantra if you want a wall of trophies and a mind that is full of some of the most exciting memories imaginable.

Photo Credits: Noma’s American Water…

Originally posted 2009-06-26 16:40:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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