Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs Question for those of you who had a bad year

We hunt public/camp ..... ^

That's impressive that you are consistently having that kind of luck on public land. I suspect that you hunt hard and enjoy doing it.

One tip I'd give to hearing turkeys is to focus on places as far away from human disturbance as possible. My observation thru the years is the less human disturbance, the more gobbling you are likely to hear. I have a very few turkeys around my house, but they never gobble, and I mean never. But drive 15 miles and they gobble every morning.

I think many AL hunters would be better off to forget their club land and switch to public.

Where to begin? I had 3 properties to hunt. 2 of them had birds prior to season and then my club.

My Macon county tract is perfect habitat and I had pics of 3 different gobs on it. Come March 15, they were gone and never to return. As y'all read, they had migrated across 2 property lines and a paved county road. They would answer me and I just kept hoping that one morning they would be on my side. It never happened. This tract was also my closest property and enabled me to hunt it during the week and still go to work.

The Butler county tract had mature gob tracks and I saw hens and jakes every time I went. It was a 70 minute drive one way so it was a weekend spot. I heard birds on each visit but again, off the property. I would go hoping "today would be the day" that I'd catch one of them on my side. It never happened.

My club land is 6000 acres of good habitat. It has a decent population of turkeys but an even greater number of hunters. It got hunted every single day of the season. It's an hour one way drive so again, it had to be a weekend spot. There are a few darn good turkey hunters in this club and as of yesterday there had been 10 total birds killed. That's tough considering this property has produced 30+ gobs killed in years past.

I had put so much preparation (and MONEY!!) into the private property I just couldn't not hunt it. If I had to do this year over again, I would cut my losses and try some public land a morning or two just to see if there was anything going on. I just kept thinking the luck would change as I've had some lean seasons before but ended up doing good. My best example was the year I went the first 10 mornings of the season and didn't hear a gobble. I ended up killing 4 birds in April that year and it was a great season.

I just didn't have the encounters or the opportunity to kill a bird this year. I've had years where I've worked bird every single day I hunted so years like this are almost more frustrating than fun. I worked 2 birds on the roost and both snubbed me and kept on trucking the other way.

I'm so grateful I got to live to see another spring arrive. I got to hear a few gobbling birds. I got a lot of exercise that's for sure! I'm glad this season is over but like the rest of us, I'll be fired up and ready to chase 'em again March 15, 2017.

Dr. B

In NORTH and Central ALABAMA?

thats where we are feeling the crunch...

Noones complaining about South Alabama.

Yea..I killed my limit for years hunting on great ground. However, that ground has been sold to mines and I hunted land in 4 counties up here where there wasnt crap for birds.

Alabama is a big state..comparing 4-5 hours away to here is like comparing here to Kentucky. Thats the same distance.

They must have learned Tom killing tactics from the Outdoor Channel.

Very much a lack of birds here. (Chambers) Not even many hens. I look for more of the same for a while.

Similarly, I was hunting a new place this year, and had seen turkeys during deer season, others had seen turkeys, I kept hoping that something would change, in hindsight I would have tried to hunt public land as well. I was on 2000 acres + or -, had spent the $$ on my membership, prime habitat, and was really surprised not to hear ANY gobbling except for one morning out of 12, and those birds were way off. I heard lots of hens just about every time I hunted...Saturday the 30th I was in the woods well before it started to get light, heard about 6 or 8 hens between daylight and about 10:00 a.m. I tried everything I could think of, owling at daybreak, not owling, calling, not calling, walking and yelping, yelping and staying motionless for a LONG time, nothing. Still considering giving up on this place, very frustrating season.

I don't think my bad season had anything to do with amount of birds on our property. Opening day I had one come in behind me. Couple weeks later called in three gobblers together and could not make a move, and they never thought about walking in front of my gun.

The weather did not help either on the days I got to go.

I did, however, look and hopefully found an additional place for next season.

Only worked 2 birds all year and hunted 2 traditionally prime properties. I didn't get to hunt as much as I usually do because of t-ball but there were just a lack of workable birds this year. Most days I might hear one bird gobble once or twice on the roost then they'd be done. I tried every trick in the book and hunted every part of the day and just couldn't make it happen this go around. I think I only hunted 12 times and probably only half of those were non hurricane force winds or rain. Just one of those years I reckon, last year I killed 3 in the first 3 days and missed 4 more and called in another 5 for buddies so this year was the extreme opposite, such is turkey hunting. Next year I'll be going back to my Tennessee places.

I did kill a crippled jake that couldn't walk or fly so not all was lost ha ha

This was the first year that I have been hunting turkeys that I didn't kill one. It wasn't that I didn't have encounters. I managed to miss my third turkey ever at 52 yds and heard birds and set up on birds almost every hunt, and we don't have a big bird population where I hunt.

Just returned from Missouri from a week of turkey hunting and could have killed truck load of jakes and should have taken one very mature double beards 12" gobbler but I got up three minutes too soon and walked back 60 yds to a tree my Dad was set up on and he comes in strutting not 10 yards from where I had been sitting for the past 2 hours. That sums up my season. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to hunt them this year, but I am damn glad its over now.

This is the first year in over 20years that I didnt kill a bird. Hunted the same land the whole time. There have been no changes in habitat to speak of. Large acreage and no pressure. The crazy thing is it wasnt gradual, Literally went from having birds last year to not having birds this year. Saw quite a few jakes but gobbler and hen numbers were waaaay off for some reason.

I hunted multiple places over 3 different counties and the results were pretty much the same no turkeys were gobbling on the places I could hunt, but I did hunt with some friends that had property within those same counties that had some gobbling turkeys on them. I covered a lot of ground in Alabama and heard very few turkeys gobble most of the places had some sign that they were present, but I'm just not into deer hunting turkeys. Nothing against anyone who hunts that way, but its just not for me. I did scratch out a couple along with a miss so its not the end of the world for me, just gonna be thankful for the opportunities that I had and get ready for next year.

I think your problem was my problem also. On the properties I hunted I saw groups of 4, 3, and 2 jakes... and ran across countless number of jake tracks on well pads. I may have run across a few jakes last year, but if I did it was an isolated bird and not anywhere close the number I saw this year. Couple those two things together... a lot of jakes and not many two-year olds and the result is probably poor gobbling.

This seems to be the year of the Jake in Alabama. 2017 is gonna be great and we can put all this foolishness to rest.
I've got lots of jakes on my places for the first time in 3 years. It was thin this year for us, but understandably so with the weather and the lack of acorns and the poor hatches for the past 2 years. Another great hatch this spring and it will be almost like the good old days again in 2018

I hunted three different properties in three different counties. The story was always the same except for one or two times. Either I heard nothing or I heard birds that gobbled once or twice and then nothing. I heard birds about 2/3 of the time, which is good. The problem was that if you heard him gobble once or twice, that was just long enough to go get in the general area where he was, not really set up on him close. Then, he would never answer you. In fact, only once did a bird answer me all season. My calling may be terrible, but it's been good enough to kill many turkeys in the past.

I tried hunting them in silence in the general area for hours in the morning, just calling softly maybe every 20 minutes. That never worked. I killed one in the afternoon calling on high ridge where I knew one had been strutting. He came in without ever making a sound.

It's hard to kill birds when they don't gobble unless you have the ability to do a lot of afternoon field hunting, which I don't. I don't know why they acted this way this year. I've hunted this properties in the past, and nothing has changed, so it's not that. The only thing I noticed this year was a huge number of hens. I can only guess that with that many hens around, gobbling once or twice in the tree was enough.

I was glad I got to hunt, but it sure was a frustrating year. Only things I didn't do where (1) try to go roost a bird and get right under him the next day (I don't have much time late evenings to do that), and (2) mid-day/afternoon hunt as much as I wanted. Seems like people who hunted up in the day this year where I am did much, much better.

I would've been thrilled to hear a gobble or two in the tree. It seems like the many hens I heard were really wanting to "hook up" bad, yelped a lot and often, and either walked off quietly or walked off yelping and I could hear them as they did.

I had an okay season, 3 kills but it was tough. I hunt 3 properties all private, 1 in Lowndes county and 2 in Coffee county. There just aren't any turkeys on the Coffee county tracts now. I don't really know why but its frustrating. My Lowndes place I never heard multiple gobblers the same morning and everyone that gobbled in the tree would only gobble on the ground a few times because they always had a couple of hens around. Cole did you hunt your granddads place on whitewater creek any. One of my Coffee county places I could probably hear any gobblers on his place from my place and the 2 times I went there I didn't hear a turkey gobble. A couple of years ago there would almost always be one or 2 on our place and you could hear 5 or 6 around on the neighbors places on a good morning. Not even any tracks on my Coffee county places anymore.

Wish I had the same hope, turkeys of any kind were just not present on the primary place I have to hunt.

Interesting observation. 2 proprieties I hunted last week. One couple thousand acres in Elmore county - most we heard through season was 4 and most gobbling was about 4 gobbles per bird. Last week, 8 in one morning and probably 200 gobbles. Another couple thousand acres in Dallas county, most hard was about 4 in one morning with very little gobbling per bird, last day heard either 9 or 10 gobblers and over 200 gobbles. Late part of season was pretty vocal.

Glad to hear some guys seeing jakes. I did not. I did have a lot of quick hunts with hard gobbling birds, and didn't spend a lot of time in the woods because of that. On the 4 successful morning hunts, I was at work before "normal" work hours. The property I hunt is also heavily wooded, with small food plots, that the turkey rarely use, and almost completely avoid. That cuts down on the ability to see jakes also.

Hens seemed to be fairly vocal at times, and already scattered around the property in singles by April 1st. No lack of hens - so that's a good sign. River hill pine ridges are highly favored nest sites - which is the key to the overall hunting in that particular area.