My strategy for hunting turkeys is different than most professional turkey hunters. It is different than most guys who travel to hunt turkeys in far-off destinations. It is different than a guy who hunts public land. My situation has determined a lot of my strategy.

Back in 2001, I acquired 200 acres of prime turkey land in Bracken County, Kentucky. It has about 40 acres of pasture and the rest is second-growth Oak Hickory savannah and red cedar thicket. My land is on a long ridge that falls off into the Licking River flowage. I limit myself to just those 200 acres. I am very intimate with my birds. I watch them all year round. I have been watching them for over a decade

In this situation, there is a lot of important things to remember. First off, I am dealing with the same birds all through season. When my birds get wise to me, that is usually it for the season. Second, I have hunted multiple generations out of the same flocks. You will find me always referring to gobs like Mister Natural, Silent Bob, Mister Moto. These started off as individual birds, but over time, I have found that really it is the terrain that makes the bird. I may be hunting the Great-Great-Great Grandson of Mister Natural, but a bird that makes a mid-afternoon strut in a certain field ends up being one I can hunt basically the same way as I did his fore-bearer, a decade ago.

Run and Gun is not a strategy that is going to work in this situation. If you walk twenty minutes in any one direction, you will be off my property. The trick has been finding out the patterns of movement of these birds and finding good places to set up.

Ambushing? Well, that is one way to look at it. I do not call all that much, but I do call. Ambush does not quite cover what I do. I know birds tend to certain pastures or certain section of woods. Over time, I have found the terrain that best exploits those patterns. If you want a fishing analogy, I am fishing structure. Birds tend to go to east-facing pastures when it is cold and sunny to warm up. For example, If it is windy, they stay close to the cedars. If it is a cold windy mid-morning, I set up where the cedar thicket shields an east-facing pasture from the wind and wait for birds. You get the idea.

There are honey holes in turkey hunting. I am not adept enough to look at a topo and point to a spot and tell you, but over the past decade I have found some good spots to sit. That is what I recommend doing if you are in a situation like mine. Minimize your walking-around time. Find a good spot to sit and wait for turkeys to show up and then call them into shooting range.

Stop Pestering Birds at Fly-Down

About half way through my time at the farm, I figured out that I was doing it all wrong. I had been following the great pioneers of the sport to my detriment. That is not to say guys like Ben Lee or Ray Eye were wrong, but they never hunted my place. Most of these fellows did the bulk of their work on Southern birds on vast tracts of land. I have also seen countless articles on how hard it is to hunt birds in Kentucky. A lot of good turkey hunters come up here into the Trans-Bluegrass between Cynthiana and the Ohio River and get their butts kicked.

Several years ago, I realized I was getting my butt kicked too. I would find a roost, hunt the birds the way I had been told. Nothing would happen, and then I would spend the rest of the morning flailing about trying to make something happen. I started the next year afresh, determined to hunt the birds a new way. At the time I did not know what that was, but it came to me over the next season.

It was also about that time that I had a bit of a scare with my health. I was in my mid-40s. My boss, a year older than me had just had a heart attack, and I realized that I too was getting chest pains and a sore left arm. I vowed to visit the doctor after season, and stayed on top of the ridge the whole season, rather than schlepping up and down hill chasing the birds.

Let me tell you the good news: despite warnings from my boss it was not my heart. I had just popped a rib doing chores around turkey camp. The sore arm was from sleeping on the wrong kind of mattress. However, that was a watershed year for me– filled both tags. What that year taught me was that I was relying too much on flydown. For whatever reason, my gobblers were generally not in the mood to hop down off the roost and run over to that strange hen. My staying up on the top of the ridge, I was now hanging off a good 100 yards or more from the roost at flydown.

I would let myself be known at flydown– never the first to call, never the loudest. I just made sure the gobs knew I was there. Then I sat back and read a book for the hour or two between sunrise and when they got done doing their early morning business. Along the way, I would occasionally pick up my box or grab a pot call and give them a little to let them know I was still there.

Sometimes it would take until 9 or 10, but eventually, the birds would start working themselves towards me. Then something would happen and all of a sudden I would have gobblers coming from every quarter.

That is the morning strategy I have kept up for several years now. I have filled a lot of tags, and I believe the main trick is being where the birds are going to be when they get receptive rather than chasing them around the woods trying to put them in the mood.

Kentucky lets you hunt turkeys dawn to dusk. It took me the better part of a decade to figure out that there was over a half a day’s hunting when the clock struck Noon. If gets to be afternoon and I have not had a shot, I go hang out at the tips of the finger ridges or on the edges of certain pastures. Again, I am not chasing birds around. I go where I have seen birds before. I make myself known. On the windy afternoons we have in the spring, I generally crank on my box call or a loud pot call and let them know I am out there. Eventually, they come.

There are several morals to draw from all this. First off, do not take what you read and see on TV as the only way to hunt birds. You need to find your own style, whatever it is. Second, what is catechism down South ain’t always going to fill your tags elsewhere. Third, and most important is scout.

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