By Brandon Wikman
Often times, hunting turkey at daybreak can be a very challenging task if your tom is parading around with hens after fly down. We find ourselves battling the best competition in the forest – real hens. Instead of calling it quits for the day, you may find that going in for breakfast and charging your batteries for round two can be a very wise choice.
We’ve all witnessed the all too familiar scenario of us cranking yelps and the tom shouting back gobbles like they’re going out of style. He flies off the roost, and within the next hour he’s walking the opposite way with a harem of beauties.
A great tactic to try during midday when both sexes split is carrying your locator call and a loud box call to spark gobbles – the combination of Knight & Hale’s Hale Fire gobble call and Bloodwood Cutter box call are a deadly combination to pinpoint your adversary’s location.
You may want to slowly walk along logging trails or ridges and after every two hundred yards or so – crank out music and listen closely. Allow a few minutes for a response and slowly move on. I have found that beginning my calling sequence with a few soft yelps combined with clucks is a much safer approach than blasting instant cackles out, because the last thing you want to do is startle a gobbler that’s in spitting distance! This strategy is a great way to cover a lot of acreage and really comb the woods for feathers.
Mid-morning hunts can be very successful – just as good as daybreak. The window of opportunity cracks the widest when you can find your bird hanging solo searching for a playmate. A simple stroke of a yelp on your box call could very well treat you to a fascinating charm of gobbles.
Battling the king of the roost breeds troubles and tribulations, but with enough luck and persistence, you, too, will be crowned.
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