From Quora:
What is the best time of the day to hunt wild turkey?

I’m going to limit my answers to Spring Gobbler Season as I seldom hunt in the fall.

Gobblers can be taken at any hour during legal hunting times. However, several things impinge on this. A lot of states used to make it illegal to hunt turkeys after noon. I don’t know if any still do, but there are still a lot of old farts running around that think hunting birds in the afternoon is bad. It isn’t. I’ve had some good afternoon hunts in Kentucky. I’ve also hunted in the early evening as the birds are coming back to their roosts. It’s all really good. It takes different tactics, that’s all.

Most TV hunts like to show early morning hunts, because they are the most exciting. Calling birds off the roost is ripping good fun, and it makes for ideal video. It was also the preferred method of a lot of early turkey hunters. When I had the pleasure to hunt with some of the old guard, morning Flydown was the pinnacle of the sport. Everything else was kind of second-rate. One old guy I hunted with called it “Raking up the leavings.” For a lot of years, that stuck in my head, and it did nothing to help me as a turkey hunter.

What is the best time of day for me? I have a 200 acre farm in SW Bracken County, KY. I have been hunting the same birds for 20 seasons, and I pretty well have them pegged. I get out right after first light and get settled into one of my favorite spots. Right about the start of legal hunting (half-hour before sunrise) I will hear gobbling. I’m usually starting out within earshot of at least a couple of roosts, and I start tree calling. I try not to be the first or the last hen to get started, and I am not real aggressive. I just want to let them know I’m there. Once in a while I get a gobbler hooked, and they pitch down off the roost and come straight for me, but I’m not really expecting that.

The real action for me is mid-morning. By this time, the gobblers and hens have all flown down off the roost and started their morning routine. I try to be at a location close to where the flock is heading to feed. I get there ahead of time and wait. I start doing my calling there, and now the birds are already heading my way. This is about an hour or two after sunrise. The gobblers have already had their way with the hens in their immediate vicinity and are looking for more. They are more likely to respond. A majority of my birds are taken in this period.

It’s funny, but early on, I was lousy at calling birds off the roost. My best guess is that I was being too loud and aggressive. It took being successful at mid-morning with the tactics I just described to get me comfortable with what I was doing and build up confidence. As a result, over the past 20 years, I have ended up taking an increasing number of birds, calling them off the roost. Flydown was always a bum time for me, but that is slowly improving.

The next best time I have found for me is after lunch. I go out to a place where I know my calls will carry a long ways and send some long excited yelps and cackles out every 15 minutes or so. I bring a book to read, and I often times take a nap. What I’m doing is letting distant gobblers know I’m available and ready. Sometimes I will get an answer 300–600 yards distant. It may take the gob a couple of hours or more to get to me, but eventually, he does.

So many of my answers on Quora are prefaced with “If you gotta ask. . .” Let me say this if you are asking the question about when the best time of day is, you’re probably at the beginning end of your turkey hunting career. My advice is to pay more attention to mid-morning. Don’t give up on morning Flydown, but don’t make it your only focus. Mid-morning will be a much better time to hone your skills as a beginner. Also, don’t walk in at Noon if you aren’t required to do so. Afternoon and evening hunts can be just as productive, and most guys are not hunting then, and you can have the woods to yourself.

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