I had some more thoughts on this last night:

Bum weather– the cold wave made the turkeys come to the protected narrow east-facing pastures to catch sun. I knew where they were going to be.

Chest Pains– I had to be careful how I moved.

That led to the following strategy:

1) Scout extensively. Roost your birds, etc. Get their movements down cold.
2) First light would find you well back from the roost, listening, but still in contact with the birds
3) Maintain contact with the turkeys. Listen to them fly down, etc.
4) Make a few calls early– just let them know there are other hens out there. See if you can get a gobbler to honor your call.
5) After the turkeys have set their course for the day, move to ambush them at the spots you know they will be.

This is what I was doing this past year. I decided to stay off the steep hillsides where the turkeys roosted. In the past, I had gone all the way down to the creek bottoms, hunted the turkeys as they came off the roost and then ran back up the hill to do an end-around and ambush them in the fields. Now I was just going out, standing on top of the ravines, and mostly listening.
I was out at first light, but probably didn’t sit down and load up until an hour after sunrise. I deliberately held back, because of my ticker. The second gobbler I took on a day it rained cats and dogs, so I didn’t go out until 0900 and had the bird by 1000.

Another thing that dawned on me last night after I posted the beginner plan was that all the turkey kills I see on TV are taken in good light. Nobody wants to shoot a gobbler for a TV show that’s in the dark. The TV pros are all holding off and shooting in good daylight to suit their cameras. Maybe that’s the hidden secret of hunting like the pros on TV, and it took the bum weather and chest pains for me to figure it out.

Or to put it another way: Beginners, myself for years, and most others I talk to, throw all their energy into getting a gobbler to pitch down to them from the roost. However, this is a tactic that has low overall success rates, even with accomplished hunters. It also brings out the worst in the beginning hunter, whose calling skills and woodsmanship may still be developing. If you’re looking to bag your first bird, back off a bit and concentrate on what happens after flydown.

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