New turkey hunter only been 3 times. I have found 3 places on my lease where turkeys roost. Each one is further south than the other with the last about a mile from our main gate. Not sure if i can go the night before to see where they are roosting. My plan is to drive within 1/4 mile of first spot on 4 wheeler, walk to within 200 yards of spot #1 use my owl locator to see if i get a response. If i do, go there, if not walk back to 4 wheeler and go further south to spot 2 and use same approach.
My questions pertain to the noise of the 4 wheeler and whether you think my plan makes sense? if not how should i hunt these spots?

Leave your 4-wheeler at home. Drive your truck as far as you can and walk the rest. Personally, I'd leave the owl call at home too.

X2



Shane

Okay. walk and leave owl call at home. How then do I go about it? I want to learn from you guys on what to do, how long to stay in each spot before moving on, etc.
Remember i have only gone a few times

Don't have any pre-determined roosts picked out from where you saw them during deer season. Wipe your slate clean and find a good high place to listen from a few days before the season starts. Just be still and listen for a while and you probably won't need a hooter.
When you do start hunting them though, it won't take them long to figure out what a 4 wheeler is.

I'm with the other guys. Take your 4wheeler if you have to or truck in and park it as far as possible. It's all walking from there. You can learn a lot about a place if your feet are on the ground rather than riding around. You can also hear turkeys gobble, or hens that you never would have in a truck.

As for an owl call, just remember, you can't "make" a turkey gobble! If he's gonna do it, he'll either do it on his own or when you call to him after just before or at flydown. Just make sure you are in a place you can kill him when you call blind. As in a place you can sit down with some cover close by. Like said before, you need to go and find out what they are doing in the next week or so. They tend to change their "home" roosting areas and travel patterns in late February to early March.

"4 wheeler" and "turkey" shouldn't be used in the same sentence unless you are talking about how bad an idea it is to use one. Unless you are accessing a tract of land by 4-wheeler that is not accessible any other way then I would never use one.

Most turkey hunters use their truck to get to the area they are going to hunt and then walk. Electric buggies have changed turkey hunting though and have made it possible to quietly cover a lot more land than ever before. The next step is a hover craft like they used int Back to The Future...that would be awesome!

Most good turkey hunters don't owl unless it gets late in the morning and they haven't heard a bird yet. when I say "late" I mean if you haven't heard a turkey by the time they should be flying down then go ahead and hoot. IMO the other acceptable time to hoot is if you are in a big field or pasture and several hundred hards from any possible roost location. If this is the scenario then that means you probably don't have a clue where a turkey is roosting and your just trying to find one. Go ahead and hoot but not too much. Bottom line is if you know where a turkey is roosting (with in an 10-20 acrea area) get in early, pitch black dark, sit down and shut up. 9 out of 10 times he will gobble on his own. from that point use a few light purs and clucks and plat it by ear. That's when the hunting begins and you find out how hard they can be to kill.

I agree, they could associate the noise with danger.

I prefer to walk where I hunt.

Leave the 4 wheeler at home your truck is much quieter,the one call IMO that a turkey hunter needs besides a yelper is an owl hooter or learn to owl,the first thing I do is owl in the mornings to locate a bird,owls "hoot" most of the time early in the morning so I'll owl in the mornings,i dont hear many owls hooting on up in the morning so to owl at this time just sounds unnatural to me,if you need a locator call on up in the mornings use a crow call which they are fine to use anytime of the day,and you can "make" a turkey gobble.

I tend to agree with the other posters. A 4 wheeler is too noisy for turkey hunting BUT sometimes you have to do what is necessary to get to a bird. A mile walk is nothing to a turkey hunter. I also owl almost every time I go. I just like fooling him w my voice! Don't over do it though. Just enough to pinpoint him. One more hint, all the advice here is almost useless when compared to personal experience. Hunt them EVERY chance you get. Every hunt is different and presents new challenges. The more you go, the more you learn! Best of luck to you!

Dr. B

true on the crow call but some turkeys don't gobble at crow calls. I'll try a crow but if no response and I'm just trying to find a bird in the area (don't really know for sure where one is) I'll hoot as late as an hour or so after sun up.

as for owl hooters, not hooting unless you really have to is good advice. Most of the time if you can owl ok you will not spook a bird, BUT any unnecessary calling is unnecessary and potentially could ruin your hunt. Most birds will gobble on the roost by themselves. Like I said if you roosted a bird there is no reason to owl. Wait on him to gobble and if he doesn't since you are already set up go ahead and start calling to him before he flies down. If you didn't roost a bird and you don't know where a bird is then owl. JMO

I will find the bird and patience ,patience I walk don't ride.Listen to Brent.

You are right Truedouble,if you have a bird roosted and know where he is there is no need to use a locator call,and I will owl later in the morning as a last resort to try to get one to say something if they won't answer anything else.

IMO, whether a 4 wheeler will spook a turkey depends on the particular turkey. We had roosted a bird one time, parked the truck a long way off and walked up the steep ridge to get to where we were going to set up. When we get up there, a guy has rode his 4-wheeler to within 150 yards of the bird, not knowing that we had him roosted. He was just going to listen from that spot, didn't even know that he was that close to a roosted bird. After talking with the guy, we eased on by and set up. Well, there ended up being 3 longbeards roosted together and they didn't seem to mind the 4-wheeler! They must have gobbled 150 times altogether that morning! Would a different bird have reacted that way? Don't know. I guess the safest thing is to walk as far as you can, so that you take that out of the equation. Hunting them is hard enough without adding to the difficulties!

I will add that if you hunt public land, you'll have to get used to the 4-wheelers, because the next guy is going ride his past where you just walked in quietly so that he can park in the food plot that he wants to hunt! Now that's pretty dumb...

The less noise you can make in the turkey woods the better. Like some of the guys have said if you are slipping around on your feet you will hear turkeys you never would if you were riding.

Some mornings, maybe. But if he's gonna do it, MOST of the time he'll do it on his own. I'd just rather not take a chance on revealing my presence if I don't have to. If you think you can "make" a turkey gobble at any point, you should be extremely rich by now.

I didn't say I could make them gobble at any point but I have made them gobble,have you ever been listening for one and he won't answer a yelp, crow or owl or had a bird just shut up and you think he's done because he won't answer nothing,then get to cutting real hard and he gobbles,that's what I mean when I say make him gobble,getting him to say something when he doesn't want to.

Yeah, we were speaking of two different situations. I was speaking of the mornings you do good to hear a crow in the distance, much less a turkey.

If an old man like me can hunt Jackson county without a 4 wheeler yall can too,especially in South Alabama.

I've wondered about the need for carrying a crow call. Everywhere I've ever hunted seems like there are plenty of crows available to handle it naturally. Once in pike county I had crow called four or five times with no response. A crow flew over and let loose and two gobblers fired off practically on top of us.

"Making turkeys gobble", especially on the roost are early morning is easy. Calling them in to with in shooting range is what is challenging. I probably make and/ or hear 5-10 different birds gobble to every one that I actually kill. Nothing hard about getting a bird to gobble...