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