Ambushers and Old Schoolers

It was well over a decade ago when I witnessed an online war on the Turkey & Turkey Hunting Forum between a faction of self-styled “Old Schoolers” and the rest of the turkey hunters online. One of the biggest issues was that of ambushing. By the Old Schoolers’ way of reading things, turkey hunting should be done “by calling alone.” There was even a section in several states’ rules that mentioned this. Pennsylvania was one of them.

At the time, I voiced the opinions that:
1) Fair Chase demanded that one obey the rules of the state. Since Kentucky did not have such a limit, I was not bound by it.
2) “By calling alone” was a proscription against stalking turkeys, not a proscription against ambushing.
3) If it were taken to an extreme sense, the PA rule would mean that once you heard a turkey gobble, you’d be breaking the law if you did not sit down immediately, since closing any distance at all was against the letter of the rule.

“Ambushing” in the terms of the Old Schoolers seemed to be anything you did that didn’t conform to their standards of pursuit. It was lumped in with decoys, baiting, and (in one fellow’s terms) sodomy and late-term abortion. Yikes! Even that got the most ardent anti-ambushers censure. Eventually the “Old Schoolers” began to argue amongst themselves and they all buggered off to go infest another forum, but that interaction left a distinct mark on my psyche. I ended up making good friends on that forum. Eventually, I became a pro-staffer for T&TH for the Ohio and Kentucky region. Now, it has been 12 years since that argument, a good 5 years since T&TH’s forum went toes-up.

I was thinking about that interaction this morning and went looking for the PA turkey rules. I found this:

PA Turkey Hunting Success and Safety

No mention is made of “by calling alone.” In fact, the document discusses decoys and only states the following:

Resist the urge to stalk turkey sounds. It is nearly impossible to sneak up on a turkey. It is also unethical and could lead to an accident.

Later, buried in another page, I did find a section where the rules are laid out a little more succinctly. The current verbiage is:

NO STALKING
Hunting by Calling Alone

PA hunting and Trapping rules 2018-19

Me? I’m still as much of an ambushing apostate as ever. I stopped chasing turkeys years ago. I’ve been hunting the same 200 acres for almost two decades, and after the first 5 years or so, I found myself putting my back against the same few trees every year. I call, but it is usually from one of just a few good spots. Is that ambushing? I don’t know. Do I care? Not really.

After 12 years, I’m still kind of wondering: what is “ambushing” and how does it relate to contemporary turkey hunting?

Let me begin by saying, I’m dead set against stalking. I’ve been stalked on public land. It’s scary to see a guy with a loaded shotgun creeping through the bushes– he and the gun both on a hair-trigger. Thankfully, I don’t hear much about that these days. I hunt in the middle of my own plot all season anyways.

As far as I can tell, ambushing is camping out in one spot and not calling. No, I don’t advocate it as a good method. However, I do sit in one spot a lot during the season, and I’m a fairly conservative caller. If that makes me a semi-ambusher, then fine. I also think that given the number of turkeys and turkey hunting land available now, folks can lighten up a little. If it is legal to do something in your state, it is not my job to sit in judgment. I have a hard enough time filling my own tags, and not worrying about how you are filling yours.

What I will say is that the gold standard of putting your back against a large tree and calling a gob in is about the best way I’ve found to hunt. I enjoy the esthetics of it. I also find that it is the most efficient means of doing a bird in. Turkeys have a hard time picking me out from the tree, but I can see them from a long way off. I have much better visibility than cooping myself up in a blind, and I have a lot of options. I’ve frequently scooted to the other side of the tree or laid down prone or whatever. I’ve also picked up and moved on the fly, sometimes with nothing more than my gun and a single call. That’s hard to do when you’re bogged down with a blind, decoys, and the kitchen sink.

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