I always called them drip clucks. Was 12 the first time I heard it and told Dad I heard what sounded like a water drip and he explained it was a soft turkey cluck. I still think drip cluck is more accurate.
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2023 Turkey Hunting Thread
- Thread starter peteherbst
- Start date
Well, I shot my first Jake today… I’m glad we get two gobblers in Tennessee but regardless I’m beyond pumped with the bird. It was my first time using a mouth call and was able to work him and another bird in after about half an hour. Then the ole Beretta SV 10 got to eat at 50 yards! I told myself I’d never shoot a Jake but it still feels special.
First TN bird of the season
Congrats @Reagan H. and @ericabbott
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I did 2.8 miles today and heard zero gobbles. Man, this is getting old. Two of my friends went to another property and heard one gobble on the roost and that was it.
R u hunting the same property? Sounds to me like u need a change bub!
Planning to take a couple mouth calls and the shotgun for a long hike this weekend and expect those same results. Pitiful what has happened with the population. I remember as a kid routinely seeing 2-5 different flocks while running the river on the weekend. There would commonly be 50+ per flock and groups north of 100 werent uncommon. It is a piss dribble now of what it was and we have lead biologist that thinks our turkeys go to nest April 17th because that's what his mentor Dr. Chamberlain preaches. I'm gonna go ahead and put myself in time out before I get all wound up and @redsquirrel gives me a vacation.
It is the story of mid-south turkey hunting. I am well over 50 miles of scouting this spring in the mountains and my truck would cover all of the scratchin I have seen, I have laid eyes on one strutter and have heard exactly 0 gobbles. You want to find out how good a turkey hunter you are come strap on AR public ground. THP tried it a couple seasons and said on video they werent ever coming back. LOL
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Yeah but it 52 thousand acres so I'm not exactly burning one spot out. The birds just are not there, or they have been pressured to death or both. The truth is there are just very few gobblers and they don't gobble much and are very call shy.
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You can apply the same to Mississippi public around central Mississippi. It is a night and day difference with public VS private. I hunted Monday, Tuesday and today on public. Zero gobbles. I went Wednesday to a hunting lease and was on one immediately. We ran out of property to chase him on, but we heard him and chased him. Night and day difference.
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I'd be interested to hear more about what you think is the cause of the decline. Hopefully it's not too controversial to discuss. I sort of think it has to do with fire ants but that is just a feeling. Also, I seem to think the season is timed wrong. Last year they were just starting to gobble when the buzzer sounded. I shot my one gobbler on the 27th last year and had been 8 days without a peep. They gobbled very little during the season. Also, a good friend of mine who is a very good turkey hunter and could find a gobbler in the Walmart parking lot says he thinks they were gobbling early, before season this year. Who knows.
But then again, I put about 50 miles of scouting in starting in February and heard zero gobbles while I was out and about and saw very little scratching. I revisited the scratched area during season and the sign was old and stale.
I am very tempted to get back in a club just for the turkey hunting and hogs. Can't hunt hogs on public except during another open season. If it's open season on something else I'm not hunting hogs, lol.
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Not meaning burning the spot out. I just mean maybe try another wma in a different area. Could even come back to that one. I made a trip down to Tennessee last year. Went the year before birds everywhere. Next year heard 3 gobbles in 5 or 6 days. If I could do it over again after day 2 of no birds I’d been down the road. Couple hours away even.
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Yeah, I get what you are saying but I am getting out there and parking at 4:30 AM as it is to get a spot and if I went farther out, I would have to leave the house at midnight, lol. Driving farther would be a deal breaker.
Cool how a little green patch becomes the S zone. Go get um!
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I’ve been doing some research on this. It appears it is not just one causal agent but a compounding of factors. In no specific order, my understanding is the abundance of nest robbing predators due to the decline of fur trapping so your coons, skunks and possums…. abound destroying nests and eggs. Declining nesting habitat…… I’m hearing that a lot of the CRP programs are decreasing or even drying up so more acreage that was once fallow and providing good nesting ground cover is being tilled and put back into crop rotation instead. Another factor may be the early youth seasons….. apparently there is more and more science to support that even though gobblers are somewhat dispensable compared to hens, it may have been a mistake to open up these earlier youth seasons. It appears that the gobbler is needed longer in the spring than was originally thought. In my mind with the increase in more nest robbing predators that makes even more sense. Hens can relay up to three times in a spring but if the gobblers are all gone early…. That may have a compounding effect in direct proportion to more nests being destroyed.
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Like is just the best option, that's not likeable news. It may be more appropriate for its own thread, I dunno, but I'm curious to learn more. Here in west/central MI we seem to have a comparably good population of turkey, and deer. It's always interesting to hear how things are else where. It usually makes me feel darn lucky to be honest.
At any rate, great post @woodsdog2
I would agree with about everything said here.
In the south it's logging practice changes and nest predators. In the midwest it's habitat and nest predators.
Rios and merriams are VERY precipitation dependant when it comes to poult success, so you cannot compare them to easterns.
I started trapping this year focused solely on coon and opossum. I trapped 30ish coon, 10 or so opossum, and a handful of skunks in a month's time. Just posting on Facebook of my trapping success I had a half dozen people near begging me to come trap their place. Why? Cause people don't want to do the work, because people only want to burn and do work thats "popular" in the eyes if the public?
We need more trappers, we need people to allow trapping, and we need more folks running coon hounds. The disdain for coon hounds and dog hunting anything other than birds is unreal.
Predators control isn't the singular answer but it sure helps along with being a step in the right direction.
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Here is my take on all the factors. I think land use and habitat is the #1 thing. That goes across board regionally. If timber and land practices are hurting turkeys statewide or regionally, that will have the biggest impact. Where I try to hunt turkeys they keep the place very open. In a lot of the woods you can see hundreds of yards. There is not a lot of understory and it is just hardwoods and pine monoculture. There is little to no agriculture either within 30 miles. It's just vast open woods for the most part. It's pretty but it's pretty empty.
Early youth seasons. This may have something to do with it also. I know around here there are a lot of folks who take kids turkey hunting, a lot of them whether the kid wants to go or not. Daddy wants to turkey hunt and Jr is going whether he likes it or not, lol. I had guys brag that they made their wives sit in the truck with a toddler before so they can be in the woods. How many of those youth season birds are actually shot by the youths? Don't know. A lot of guys treat it like a cheat to hunt early.
Predators. I'm not sold on the skunks, raccoons and possums since all those animals have lived side by side with turkeys in these woods long before the first people ever set foot on this continent. Trapping can dent a local population if someone keeps after them hard but if your neighbor doesn't trap and you quit it won't be long before the population balances out again. It's like dipping a cup of water out of the middle of the bathtub and expecting it to leave a hole. Fire ants make more sense to me from a predator standpoint. Fire ants came into the South through the port of Mobile in the 1930's and have spread far and wide in the last century. They love fields and CRP and powerline easements, just like turkeys. They are an invasive species that has really just been introduced.
Hound hunting. Around here I know a few guys who coon hunt with hounds. They tree the coons but don't kill them. There aren't many guys hunting legitimately with dogs anymore. Unfortunately, most dog hunters around here are pure poachers. One gang in particular only have about 60 acres they lease and there are about 30 guys. They start October 1st and run the roads and drop the dogs off to cross posted property they don't have permission to hunt. Then they post up on the opposite road and shoot anything (and I mean anything) that runs out. Then they haul butt since the sheriff's department and game wardens are always looking for them. To them it is a game of see what we can get away with and who we can take advantage of today. These are the sorts of folks that come to mind when the subject of dog hunting comes up around here. Dog hunters aren't policing their own.
All I know for sure is that there are a lot fewer turkeys than I would like.
Early youth seasons. This may have something to do with it also. I know around here there are a lot of folks who take kids turkey hunting, a lot of them whether the kid wants to go or not. Daddy wants to turkey hunt and Jr is going whether he likes it or not, lol. I had guys brag that they made their wives sit in the truck with a toddler before so they can be in the woods. How many of those youth season birds are actually shot by the youths? Don't know. A lot of guys treat it like a cheat to hunt early.
Predators. I'm not sold on the skunks, raccoons and possums since all those animals have lived side by side with turkeys in these woods long before the first people ever set foot on this continent. Trapping can dent a local population if someone keeps after them hard but if your neighbor doesn't trap and you quit it won't be long before the population balances out again. It's like dipping a cup of water out of the middle of the bathtub and expecting it to leave a hole. Fire ants make more sense to me from a predator standpoint. Fire ants came into the South through the port of Mobile in the 1930's and have spread far and wide in the last century. They love fields and CRP and powerline easements, just like turkeys. They are an invasive species that has really just been introduced.
Hound hunting. Around here I know a few guys who coon hunt with hounds. They tree the coons but don't kill them. There aren't many guys hunting legitimately with dogs anymore. Unfortunately, most dog hunters around here are pure poachers. One gang in particular only have about 60 acres they lease and there are about 30 guys. They start October 1st and run the roads and drop the dogs off to cross posted property they don't have permission to hunt. Then they post up on the opposite road and shoot anything (and I mean anything) that runs out. Then they haul butt since the sheriff's department and game wardens are always looking for them. To them it is a game of see what we can get away with and who we can take advantage of today. These are the sorts of folks that come to mind when the subject of dog hunting comes up around here. Dog hunters aren't policing their own.
All I know for sure is that there are a lot fewer turkeys than I would like.