Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs I am going to Nebraska

To hunt Turkeys


I am a little uneasy about the entire ordeal, but I have heard alot of good things. We are staying at Medicine Creek campground in Cambridge, NE.

Anyone who can feed me some information that might expedite me or my hunting party shooting a turkey, I would be extremely grateful.

My plan is to find some trees. It does not look like there are many of them on the landscape at all. I would think that trees= turkeys since that is the only place to roost but I do not know.

Someone please steer me in the right direction

Wish I was going and wish I could help you.

I think BC has been several times in the past.

I would love to have you.

Unfortunately, me and my hunting party had to all jump on the phone the day NR tags went on sale and had to be the first in the queue to purchase the tag.

Tags went on sale at 1pm. I called at 106pm and wound up getting tag 4800/10000

NE recently limited NR tags to 10k and at only 6 minutes into the sale I was 4800th in line. unreal

I am thinking about seeing if i can find a last minute Merriams hunt. Killed the other 3 already this year, wouldn't mind a chance at a single season slam. Ive killed several slams and 3 several times in a year, never in one season tho.

You hunting in the WMA or on private ground? The WMA has a lot more timber and is a completely different animal than the surrounding farm land.


If you are hunting private land find your birds and put them to bed from afar. It's so open you won't have a problem with this. Bring binos!

Go in early the next morning and get right under them.... back against the tree they are roosted in. People think I'm crazy when I tell them this but it's what you need to do. I've literally had them jump out of a tree and hit the ground 8 feet from me after listening to them drum and gobble 15 feet above for 45 minutes.

Trees in the farmlands only exist on the creeks for the most part and there's usually a steep bluff close to them. General rule of thumb is when they come to roost they will enter from the high side of the bluff and when they fly down they will fly down to the low side. They love to jump off a bluff directly into a roost.

If you don't kill them in the morning time off of the roost DO NOT chase them because you will 100% spook them. Let them walk off and then hunt them that evening as they return to their roost area. Nebraska turkeys fly down from their roost and act like they are trying to break in a new set of Reeboks every day. They will hit the ground and do the strutting and gobbling thing and then they will be gone. I bet they walk 100 miles every single day.

I cannot stress enough......... on the farmlands...... TREES, TREES, TREES! Where there are trees there are turkeys. You will see them on fields a lot but they will always be in fields that are close to trees. If you are in the middle a bunch of farmland and can only see fields as far as you can see then you are wasting your time.

If you are hunting the WMA up by the lake it is a different story. Lots of timber for them to roost in so you will just have to jump in with the rest and hunt them like Alabama birds (albeit dumb Merriam/Rio hybrid versions of Alabama birds).

100% public land.

There's tons of trees on the Medicine Creek WMA. I've been on it multiple times but never hunted it. There's a lot of timber around Harry Strunk Lake and you will employ a lot of the same tactics that you do at home. Just remember that you can get away with a lot more with those birds than you can with the ones at home within reason, especially prior to daylight.

I took a buddy of mine up there many years ago and showed him a roost tree where I knew there were going to be birds in the following morning. I told him to go put his back against the tree. He didn't argue with me but didn't listen either and tried to set up 200 yards from them and call them to him. He wasted 3 mornings doing that before he finally listened and the next morning he did what I told him and killed 2 longbeards, one of which was a gorgeous white tipped pure Merriam which is rare in that neck of the woods. He had convinced himself that I was trying to keep him from killing a turkey lol.


I've talked to a lot of hunters from about every state you can imagine that were in town hunting the management area. I've seen some whoppers drug into town off of the WMA but mostly 2 year olds and jakes. Those guys that come from Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, and any of the Western states will shoot a jake in a heartbeat. Most of them carry bows and sit in tents all day. N2Deer and I laughed so hard because we ran into one in town one night who was so excited to tell us his story that he was nearly hyperventilating. He kept saying the turkey was "chirping" at him and we finally stopped him and asked what "chirping" meant. He was trying to say the bird was gobbling at him. When we asked him to elaborate what a chirp was he held up his fist like a turkey head and started bouncing his arm up and down while mimicking the worst gobble imaginable. I about lost it and N2 and I sat on the curb for 45 minutes laughing at that guy.

Interesting stuff, BC.

I've only hunted one farm in southern NE and had a bunch of trees, so it was about like hunting in AL. But I have hunted a couple of places in TX that were like you are talking about with very few trees. The first place I went was with a friend and I came home without a turkey, mainly because I wasn't aggressive enough in getting close to the roost. It took me a couple days to realize those turkeys were really dumb compared to AL turkeys regarding how close you can get. By the time I figured it out it was too late.

My next trip to TX I would have gotten closer to the roost, but the landowner told me that if I got anywhere near his roost he would ban me from ever hunting with him again. In fact, he told me that turkey hunters from AL were the worst about this and he almost didn't let me come just because of where I was from. I told him I understood and would stay away from the roost, and I did.

I always found it interesting to see how things are done in different places.

Wind. Wind. Wind. NEVER stops. And pack some cold weather clothes. It snowed the 1st week of May when we went several years ago.

Yes, and it will snow out there even without being in the forecast. That weather can go from 78 to 28 in minutes.

I can verify you have to hunt those birds one of two ways. Either sit UNDER them before fly down or know exactly where they’re going. They don’t respond to calling as well as woods birds but they can be much easier to kill if you’ll get amongst them close.

so...are there any positives to going out there? lol

You will be able to call much more than you do to a hardheaded Southern Eastern.

Make it a point to enjoy the trip whether you tag a bird or not. We took a trip out west last year, and even though we killed birds, it would’ve been worth it to me even if we hadn’t. I got to see some country I hadn’t seen in 40 years and loved every minute of it. We’re headed to KS in 11 days and maybe on to CO or OK if that works out. Some of the killers here may disagree, but the adventure is a big part of a trip for me.

You will see and hear more turkeys than you’ve ever seen in your life.
The people are friendly and just about everyone you run into will treat you like they’ve known you for years.
The scenery you will witness and the sunrise/sunsets you see in that open land will be amazing.
You will get to see critters that you rarely get to see. Things like badgers, mule deer, pheasants,

The entire trip is an event and you will enjoy every bit of it. Well….. maybe not the drive home.

I guess I will be the odd man out. I chase them…… and I kill them by chasing them. Most of the time they are going to haul azz right off the roost. But will gobble enough to keep tabs on them throughout the morning, if you are in shape….. I find that normally between late morning to mid-day they will slow down and often lose their hens/head to a strut zone. If it’s hot, noon to about 4pm has always been the toughest part of the day. They will hunker under a cedar and disappear.


But normally I’m hunting big tracts of public, without the ability to have a roost pinpointed.

Also, their gobbles sound gay, but you can hear them from way further away than you would expect.

Good luck. I’ve heard Nebraska has gone down hill a lot, been 7-8 years since I’ve been there.

I've not been to NE in several years either but agree with Atoler. I chase them as well and have success. I've heard some not so good things about the bird and hunter numbers in Nebraska but hopefully it is turning around.

Very good point. I will enjoy hanging out with my dad at a minimum. You are right, that is a given. I just really dont want this to turn into an armed hiking trip we drove 1500 miles to complete lol

Where I hunt it's mostly flatlands and there aren't any terrain features that allow you to do so unless there is a creek with timber on it close by. I've been all over the area Nightwatchman is going and unless you are on the WMA there just isn't anything but open fields and spooking them is guaranteed. If they don't cooperate that morning I just let them go about their business and it's a stone cold guarantee they will be right there that afternoon. There's not a lot of roost trees in the area and they are coming come hell or high water. I've shot the lead gobbler in a group and scattered the flock and they would run off 200-300 yards and stand around. When it started getting dark they would take off running trying to get to those trees knowing we were still there. N2 and I have found old roost trees with piles of turkey poop under the big limbs that were 2 feet high. Chasing them is just bad strategy there. Now if I have a good bit of hills or trees nearby that's a whole other ballgame.

BC check your PMs