Where do you go to get your Turkey Hunting Tips?
Like a lot of people, you jump on your favorite social media platform and ask away. Do you trust the info you’re getting? Do you have a choice? Well, that’s what I did this turkey season.
When it comes to turkey hunting, I am about as novice as it gets. I don’t realize it’s turkey season until the day before and then I’m rushing to figure out what gun I’m using and if I even have any ammo. OK, it may not be the day before, but it’s pretty close. I am not a turkey hunter, but I’ll do anything to get out in the woods in the Spring after being cooped up in the house for a lot of the Winter.
When it comes to turkey hunting, I do turn to others who know a lot more than me. For that, I personally turn to Twitter. This past season I was at a loss. The rainy weather was something I didn’t know what to do with and even because of ammo shortage, I even turned to my friends on Twitter to get a few rounds of what I needed.
As I mentioned above, the weather was filled with rain. I’ve never turkey hunted in the rain and had no idea how to hunt. So I asked. I asked my friends online simply how to hunt turkeys in the rain. I’m so glad I did because I had planned to hunt that first day deep in the woods as most of our birds tend to hang out on the neighbor’s property. But, everyone that I know online told me to hunt field edges because turkeys prefer open easy to walk the ground in the rain which is what I did. I changed my plans at the last minute and set up in a blind on the edge of a couple of fields.
Now To The Hunt
Now I get to the blind early and have birds gobbling all around me and I’m getting excited. This is all before sunrise. But I think those turkeys were watching the same clock I was because the minute shooting light hit, they went silent. Not only did they go silent, but it seemed like it went for hours of silence. So I took to Twitter and asked “Why did these birds go quiet?”. To my surprise, it’s very common and everyone that responded from all over the country has the same issue and they had the same response. “Be patient and they will get vocal again.” Guess what. They were right.
After a couple of hours of sitting there and like every newbie, playing with my 47 different calls I thought I needed, I finally hear a gobble way off in the distance. I gave it a minute and let out some loud calls from my aluminum pot. I tried to sound like the calls I have in my turkey sound files library Wild Turkey Calls And What They Mean which I listened to while I was sitting there. Then all of a sudden I had a different gobble nearby in the neighbor’s field. So I stopped a bit and started some soft clucks and purrs. This is another thing I learned from Twitter. That same bird responded but was heading my way. “Ok, don’t call anymore” is what I kept telling myself over and over again. Sure enough, he gobbled again but he was closer. Now the heart is pumping and the buck fever has kicked in. That was must have been book’n across that field, because in no time, he was strolling to my decoys and the boom of the 12 gauge was echoing thru the valley.
Just like how pretty much all hunts go. It went from a low of doubt to the adrenaline rush of success in a matter of seconds. It might never have happened without asking questions and trusting who I was getting answers from. We’ll never know, but I credit this hunt’s success to social media.
