Gobblers roosting sites

This is fascinating to me. This is the guy that was on the meateater podcast the other day. It’s eye opening to me to see how varied and far apart one Eastern gobblers roost sites were.

That's good data! Pretty cool to see how far he travels.

Yeah looking at the scale about 2 square miles, or 1280 acres.

Yep just like PCP's Dam Turkey story. Turkeys move around constantly in the spring and it's likely not the same turkey you are hunting week after week and may not even be the same Turkey the next day

For anyone interested he replied to a question I asked and said he had some published works he would send me. When I get those I’ll post them.

Come on Ben! Don’t be messing up anyone’s story about that gobbler they’ve been hunting from the same tree for several years!

He roosts in that same big pine on the edge of the creek 😀

And he’s at least 5 yrs old.

According to his spurs!

Wow. Thanks for sharing

Interesting

I've seen them stay in small areas until all the hens were bred and I've seen them roost in different areas a good distance apart. Different gobblers act differently.

Hey now....they cut the timber off us in sumpter county...and errrrrrbody around us...so they wudnt just an abundance of places to roost....but not only did a gobbler and turkeys in general roost in the same massive oak tree....but we kilt him ever year for boout five years straight....an theys still turkeys roostin in that tree.

Yep

Would like to see data from several different birds as well as roost data for hens. Maybe hens tend to roost in same areas due to nest? And maybe the gobbler is hanging close to hens? Maybe they are like bucks and tend to search less as they age? In other words, what if that data is based off a less dominate gobbler that keeps getting pushed out and is in search for different hens? I will say that birds I fool with tend to roost in the same areas every year, but that may be due to the terrain and trees the more I think about it.

I could see a more established pattern possibly outside spring season. Really would like to have a fall season myself for that reason.

Hard to argue with the hard data. In the area I hunt there are spots similar to the clusters on the map. It may or may not be the same turkey but more often than not there will be a turkey roosted in the same locations. My new theory is that turkeys are more comfortable gobbling in certain locations.

Can"t count the times I have seen a gobbler in a field in the afternoon and was sitting very close to his roost tree the next morning. Not because I roosted the bird but because I hunted a spot where they normally gobble in the morning. I'll just keep hunting the clusters and avoid certain spots where the roosted gobbling bird seems unkillable.

I need to listen to the podcast. Did it have actual dates associated with each roost site? I know it hints the clusters aren’t on consecutive nights, but would like to know more

the best we can do is hunt classic roost areas — year over year, there are certain spots i’ve hunted that consistently produce a bird - i could care less if its the “same” bird ... just spots/areas just setup good for a gobbler’s comfort zone

i also frequent often known "scratch areas" where hens like to congregate & be a hen ... at the right time, it's money in the bank ... it's thrilling to deck one right off the roost - but it's no less thrilling to bust one in other areas/spots, as well - they don't have to gobble & act a fool to die - altho i prefer it

yankee

can’t be trusted

It doesn't look like there's any clear roosting over water features. I always heard they did that too.

I am with BD. I would like to know the dates of those. I at least strongly feel to have figured out. Some turkeys tend to stay in same area for first few weeks of season. Then in my opinion when they breed all the hens around start bouncing around often in search of more. Seems when the "always there" turkeys start the moving around the actual calling one up season is basically over in a week or two. Other turkeys that I would guess are the more subordinate birds are just hit or miss all over the place at any given time. Either that or just quiet for a few days after being put back in there place. These seem to be the ones that are more the Ready to die turkeys when you find them. I think they run in quick trying to get a hen before they get caught by the boss.

I think that just has to do with the particular turkey and his area. I have flushed a bunch of turkeys out of trees that hang over sloughs in the Alabama river while bowfishing at night. Even had one big ol gobbler freak out and fly off into the darkness only to hit another limb, fall into the slough, and had to swim to the bank.

I saw that too. he also had some good graphs showing turkey movement relative to hunter movement.

Not sure on the dates from the study above. He did mention in the podcast that his research shows that if you hunt a gobbler consecutive morning in the same roost area it is most likely different birds one morning to the next. He said the same bird will roost in the same tree once every few nights but it's not likely the same bird will roost in the same tree back to back nights.

I hunt one place where there is always a gobbler roosted almost every time I hunt there property. On the same little hardwood knob. It's hard to believe that it would be different birds back to back nights but he says that is what his studies suggest.
I really like listening to him because he is a turkey hunter and I believe he truly has an interest in preserving the resource. He has also been studying wild turkey for over 20 years in the southeast.

Gobbler has been telling us this for years, but a lot of folks wouldn't believe him. I thought studies from long ago showed gobblers averaging about 2500 acres during the spring. This turkey seems to have a smaller range than average if that is correct.

If I had a data map like that of the gobblers on our place this year, all the red dots would be across our property line. I hate a turkey.

I’ve had the same bird roost in a total of 3 trees, all within 50 yards of each other 15 of my 17 hunts this year. He died this morning

Some don’t travel.

Glad you got him! If I’d hunted one that long and he did the same, I would have long since cut them trees down.

Need to be careful what you read into his findings. I too have had plenty of occasions where I hunted what I believed was the same turkey off and on over the course of a multiple days. I can tell you when I killed him, the woods went silent.

Historically, if I had to put $ on a turkey being in a tree, it would be this one.

Can see 2 pastures to pitch to, and on a creek.

Just playing devil’s advocate here but how do you know for certain it’s the same gobbler and not different gobblers rotating through?

He’s jbc. He knows everything remember.

Just my opinion, but it’s a fairly contained environment

I could very well be wrong

You’re right Hoss Cartwright. Keep on keepin on

Of course you never know. But, if you go back a few times and fail to hear one in or near that tree, he dead.

Agreed. Multiple males over varying types of habitat would add a great deal of validity to this.

How do you know it was the same turkey? This is when PCP usually tells the Dam Turkey Story. We had one we called hilltop. For 2 years this turkey would gobble on the top of a hill about 500 yrs from where we parked the truck and he always gobbled more than every other turkey on our farm. Well dad missed him one day and I went back and killed him 3 or 4 days later. The next weekend he was back in the same place and gobbled more than any other bird. Some places are just the place gobblers want to roost no matter what
.

I’m no pro by all means but if you have hunted a location many times and have a little head sense you can tell by the gobble to an extent of its the
same bird... I know some will say they all sound alike but to my experience you can tell the difference if he’s got under your skin more than once..
I hunt a bird every 5 days and he’s within 100-150 yds of same roost of an evening and in the same hay field every day... he’s beat me for 2 years
But he stays there.... far fetched maybe so but I’ll agree with some don’t travel... and I’m positive some do..

some of ya'll would argue with a rock.......

So now we are identifying individual gobblers by their gobble.

Joey has that lil crackle at the end of his

I can not identify a turkey by its gobble

Ya man. Who needs science 😀

Most of the time if you listen real good he will tell you which way he’s going too wood

Wouldnt some of this most likely depend on dominance and hen roosting? As in if a bird is dominant in his area wouldnt he be less likely to travel around if his hen group usually roost in the same area most nights? Conversely subdominant males seem much more likely to travel a good bit looking for hens. But that's just how I've usually thought about it and could be way off.

Seems plausible but HIIK! In his podcast appearance, the “turkeydoc” said something about turkeys having a lek breeding system. In those I think the females pursue and select the males. I’m starting to think he was just screwing with everybody. Kinda like “hold my beer and watch this..,”

On my place we don’t have very many turkeys to hunt, never have. I’ve had one leave and show back up, but when you kill him, very rarely have I had another one take his place. Usually a jake or two will step up though. I believe they roost in the same place generally more than that example. I’m just going off of my own experiences. They may move from one side of a pasture to the other or may get spooked by a coyote right at dark and fly somewhere else but they like to strut in their core area imo. I’ve just seen it too much.