Anyone here do any Turkey hunting?

awbuzz

Helluva Manager
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Marietta, GA
Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Gobble... [emoji884]

[emoji6]

Give me some counter double/triple option runs for 20+ yards!
 

684Bee

Helluva Engineer
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1,599
I feel like the only thing people enjoy around here is making graphs and excel spreadsheets of CPJ's play calling stats... let's talk turkey....

We had one in our front yard here close to Bobby Jones golf course 2 days ago. That was pretty surprising.
 

awbuzz

Helluva Manager
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11,423
Location
Marietta, GA
Seriously though, I don't hunt but have great appreciation for those that do. Especially now hunting. Have to be a lot closer and is a hel1 of a lot more difficult than firing a rifle/shotgun.

Seem to be seeing more turkey around East Cobb and southwest Cherokee counties.
 

awbuzz

Helluva Manager
Staff member
Messages
11,423
Location
Marietta, GA
Seriously though, I don't hunt but have great appreciation for those that do. Especially bow* hunting. Have to be a lot closer and is a hel1 of a lot more difficult than firing a rifle/shotgun.

Seem to be seeing more turkey around East Cobb and southwest Cherokee counties.

The quote above has been fixed..

*bow hunting... Not now hunting...
 

91Wreck

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
356
I have gotten two nice toms this season. Both had spurs around 1.25 inches.

Unfortunately with the warm spring I am afraid the hunting is about over where I live.

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Gtbowhunter90

In Black Bear Country
Contributing Writer
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2,620
Location
Cartersville, GA
I have gotten two nice toms this season. Both had spurs around 1.25 inches.

Unfortunately with the warm spring I am afraid the hunting is about over where I live.

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Congrats on the great season. Kentucky just opened yesterday. I worked two different groups of birds right off the roost but they wouldnt fully commit. Got one to respond around 1030 but the hens pulled him away. I'll keep trying
 

91Wreck

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
356
Congrats on the great season. Kentucky just opened yesterday. I worked two different groups of birds right off the roost but they wouldnt fully commit. Got one to respond around 1030 but the hens pulled him away. I'll keep trying
They are strange birds. Until this season I hadn't killed one in 5 years. I haven't done anything different this year. They are just responding to my calls.

The last on I killed was called in from over 200 yards. The last 50 he came running. He was probably a 4 year old bird.
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4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
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4,616
I got started hunting turkeys sometime back in the early to mid 80's with an old timer in south Ga. I had never seen a turkey and was dubious about the whole thing. We would sit in a single spot for hours on end and he would give 3 soft little yelps about every 20 minutes on an old slate call he must have gotten sometime around the great Depression. If we heard 3 birds gobble in a season it was a "good year". Finding tracks or feathers was a "successful hunt". I hunted hard for 8 years before I killed one. Hard to believe with today's populations.

Moved to Tennessee in the 90's and it was turkey hunting paradise....lots of birds with not much pressure. I had more farms to hunt that I could reasonably hunt well. I would hear 8 birds gobble in a single morning and would move to a different spot if I didn't see or hear turkeys within an hour or two. Knew where they would roost and travel patterns on each farm. Physically, it was much harder hunting the hills than the flat land of SoGa but I enjoyed that as well.

Like all good things, my personal "golden era" faded....the farms sold over time. Or the landowners families started hunting them and I was crowded out. Still had access to quality public land hunting but that is a different beast as you hunters know. Still managed to shoot birds every year but did not always limit out.Started spending more and more time fishing instead.

Moved again a few years ago. Have not located any places to hunt close by and have not put much effort into tbh. I haven't been in the woods on a spring morning since. There is nothing like being there about 30 minutes before the all the various birds starting stirring, especially on a clear morning. I think my future is going to be limited to once a year and paying $ to hunt at a hunting lodge but I have resisted that so far.
 

Gtbowhunter90

In Black Bear Country
Contributing Writer
Messages
2,620
Location
Cartersville, GA
I got started hunting turkeys sometime back in the early to mid 80's with an old timer in south Ga. I had never seen a turkey and was dubious about the whole thing. We would sit in a single spot for hours on end and he would give 3 soft little yelps about every 20 minutes on an old slate call he must have gotten sometime around the great Depression. If we heard 3 birds gobble in a season it was a "good year". Finding tracks or feathers was a "successful hunt". I hunted hard for 8 years before I killed one. Hard to believe with today's populations.

Moved to Tennessee in the 90's and it was turkey hunting paradise....lots of birds with not much pressure. I had more farms to hunt that I could reasonably hunt well. I would hear 8 birds gobble in a single morning and would move to a different spot if I didn't see or hear turkeys within an hour or two. Knew where they would roost and travel patterns on each farm. Physically, it was much harder hunting the hills than the flat land of SoGa but I enjoyed that as well.

Like all good things, my personal "golden era" faded....the farms sold over time. Or the landowners families started hunting them and I was crowded out. Still had access to quality public land hunting but that is a different beast as you hunters know. Still managed to shoot birds every year but did not always limit out.Started spending more and more time fishing instead.

Moved again a few years ago. Have not located any places to hunt close by and have not put much effort into tbh. I haven't been in the woods on a spring morning since. There is nothing like being there about 30 minutes before the all the various birds starting stirring, especially on a clear morning. I think my future is going to be limited to once a year and paying $ to hunt at a hunting lodge but I have resisted that so far.
I love hearing about how hunting was back in the day. I've been told many times that animals were scarce and we have it made these days. Especially when it came to deer, one deer a year was an excellent season and now in Georgia you get 10 does and 2 bucks. Crazy.
 

91Wreck

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
356
I love hearing about how hunting was back in the day. I've been told many times that animals were scarce and we have it made these days. Especially when it came to deer, one deer a year was an excellent season and now in Georgia you get 10 does and 2 bucks. Crazy.
My father has an old newspaper clip from the 60's about the Georgia DNR releasing Wisconsin whitetail deer on his father's property. There were virtually no native deer left in Georgia at the time.

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4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
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4,616
My father has an old newspaper clip from the 60's about the Georgia DNR releasing Wisconsin whitetail deer on his father's property. There were virtually no native deer left in Georgia at the time.

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As I child, we were driving down a country road one evening near dusk. I spotted a deer standing in a field. as we drove by. It was incredible!! Most people back then had never seen a deer in their entire lifetime (mid 60's timeframe). can you imagine that? I teach HS now. I tell them the world is going to be so different for them in ways that they cannot begin to imagine. If you had told us as children that deer would become as common as seeing a rabbit we would have laughed that off. Same with eagles, hawks, turkeys, etc.

What has changed for the worse is the hunting of small game...quail, rabbits, squirrels, etc. as habitat changed and predators increased. Killing a rabbit is now difficult and even worse for quail. You could shoot small game so easily back then nobody really thought of it as sporting. You just went and harvested them anytime you felt like eating rabbit or squirrel or quail. My dog and I can hunt for days now and not flush a quail and we hardly go anymore. Although we never see anyone else trying to hunt them when we do go. It's a sport that is slowly fading from sight. It was common for people to own and breed pointing dogs and/or beagles. When I got my setter a decade to go, I had to drive to Minnesota to find a puppy. They just aren't around here anymore.

One thing that is significantly different is the influence of money. Used to be, hunting was thought of as an activity for the poor or lower middle class. Now, with leases, licenses, etc. it is like it has reverted back to medieval times...it is a past time for the rich or the landowners.Sadly, I belong to neither group, especially with the recent events in the market.:facepalm:
 
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