So, you wanna be a turkey hunter...

ryanwhit said:

Tags : learn, how, hunt, teach, call, new, beginner, beginning, start, young,

So, you wanna be a turkey hunter. Great! Hopefully you’ve found this thread in a search result, so you’re off to a good start. There’s a tremendous amount of turkey knowledge on this forum…you just need to know how to access it. I was in you’re shoes not too terribly long ago, so let me share my story to you.

I grew up doing things out of doors, but turkey hunting was not one of them. I have been familiar with and comfortable in the woods for some time, but like you, I just didn’t come up turkey hunting. Prior to 2006, I went 3 times with people who may or may not have known what they were doing. In 2006 (after several years of saying that I was going to go this year) I went. I emailed a friend, who I knew had some turkeys on his property and had invited me some time earlier, and asked him if I could come one day on a particular weekend. He gave me the go ahead, and I did. I went and killed a bird. Nothin to this stuff…said the guy who lucked in to his first turkey.

I went the rest of the year without seeing another turkey. I hunted the next season and didn’t close the deal. I made lots of mistakes in front of lots of turkeys. I walked miles of private and public property, scouted 5 months out of the year, etc. I worked birds, I called some in to range, but I consistently did dumb stuff. The next year was more of the same. Dumb stuff in front of smart birds. Finally, the second to last weekend, I killed my second turkey. The next weekend I killed my third – my first jake. 2009 was much better, with 4 gobblers, and the first year that I really felt like I was a real turkey hunter. 2010 was better still, with 5 longbeards.

I’m not here to tell you that I’m a great turkey hunter. I’m not. I’m not even going to give any advice on turkey hunting tactics, because I think I am mostly unqualified to do so. I am however going to tell you what I did to change from someone who wanted to hunt turkeys to someone that does hunt turkeys…sometimes even successfully.

The first thing I did was decide that I wanted to do it. When I did that, I, like you, came to this board as a resource. I read recent posts and old posts about turkey hunting, calling, setups, guns, shells, etc. I read hunting reports from successful turkey hunters and gleaned whatever useful information was in the post that led to the demise of that particular turkey. I talked to the people that I knew that turkey hunted. But I did not ask to go with someone. I just went. I went to an area that had turkeys and listened, called, made mistakes, and learned from them. Take my first bird out – since it was a fluke – it took me 2 years to kill a bird. That one happened to be on public land.

Which brings us to where to hunt. Please don’t ask on the forum where to go hunt. If you don’t have access to private land with turkeys, do like many of us and go to some public land. Learn it, hunt it, and kill turkeys. Every WMA that I can think of has turkeys. You have access to it. I’m sure there’s a couple that don’t, so don’t go to those. There’s plenty of NF land that has turkeys too. Go find you 400 acres, learn it, and hunt it. When you’ve learned it, go find you another. When you’ve got that one down, go to another. After a few years you’ll have more places to hunt than you have time. Having no place to hunt is no excuse. You have plenty. Maybe they are not close…my closest of this type of public land spot is 1 hr 45 minutes away…but you have them. Remember you either want to do this or you don’t. I admit, I had (and still have) some good private land to make my mistakes on. They are all 3 hrs away from my house.

Everything you need to know to get you going is on this forum. Pay attention to people who know what they’re doing, and you’ll learn something. That brings me to my next point…who knows what they’re doing? The internet is a funny place. Everyone is an expert. But in all seriousness, there are people here who are true experts. There are people on this forum (and others, I’m sure) who know a lot about turkey calls. There are some that know a lot about callmakers. Others know about guns. Patterns. Reloading. Calling. Camo. Some know a lot about hunting because they’ve read it, but have not had the pleasure of bloodying the back pocket of their pants from a turkey head hitting it every step for ¾ of a mile...not more than a time or 2 anyway. All of this is good. It’s all good info to have. A few – FEW – have knowledge in all of these aspects of the game. I try to pay particular attention to them. I may defer to the others if I’m researching something directly in their zone of expertise…but when it comes to turkey hunting in general, I want someone who has lots of pictures of them with dead turkeys. Sometimes these guys can be tough to find on the forum, because some of them don’t post a lot. But some of them do. Pay attention and learn. If you’re interested in something particular and would like their advice, send them a PM. In my experience, most are very willing to help.

So you see, you have everything you need. You don’t need someone to go with you, you don’t need someone to take you. If you have that, then great. Your learning curve may be a little shorter…but you don’t need that to get started. You just need to read, listen, pay attention…here and in the turkey woods. Learn from your mistakes. Stick around and you’ll meet some great hunters, and you’ll still have plenty to learn from them.

I hope this has been useful. Again, I don’t think I’m God’s gift to turkey hunting. On some other threads, you’ll see me interject my observations and/or experiences in some subject matters. Many others, I sit back and read…just like I’m encouraging you to do. Turkey hunting is a fun thing – quite addictive, really. I enjoy it, I spend a good bit of time at it, and the past couple of years I’ve had some good success. There’s some on here that have had that type of success for the past couple of decades. Maybe they’ll chime in here with anything they may have to add.

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