BRUNCH-TIME GOBBLERS
Mid-Morning Gobbler Tactics
 EDITOR'S
NOTE:You’ll find several techniques and situations
highly productive for mid-morning gobbler hunting. Let’s
look at some.
If You Snooze, You May Win:
When you hunt turkeys in a hunting camp with buddies,
usually you'll spend the first night talking about the
good ole days, the people you've known and hunted with,
and what's gone on in their lives since you've seen
them last. Often these conversations will last until
the late hours of the night or the wee hours of the
morning. When your alarm clock goes off at 3:00 or 4:00
a.m., you’ll wake up tired. However, after eating
a big breakfast and finding a gobbling turkey to work
at daylight, my enthusiasm for turkey hunting usually
supersedes my need for sleep. But by 9:00 or 10:00 a.m.
in quiet woods, I've  learned
a tactic that generally pays gobbler dividends. I try
to go to the last region where I've heard a turkey gobble.
I pinpoint a productive place to take a stand and sit
down against a big tree. I'll give four or five series
of clucks and yelps for the first minute or two after
I've sat down. Then I close my eyes. Usually within
a minute or less, I fall sound asleep. When I nap while
turkey hunting, I don't think about moving. I'll sit
still for a much longer period when I sleep than I will
when awake. Usually I'll wake up in 15 or 20 minutes.
If I don't see or hear a gobbler then, I'll cluck three
or four times and yelp one or two times softly. Then
I'll go back to sleep. Using this tactic, many mornings
the sound of vrrrrrrrrrm-vrrrrm will awaken me, and
I'll open one eye to see a gobbler strutting in front
of me. Then I'll open the other eye to confirm that
the first eye hasn't lied. Watching the turkey carefully
until I become fully awake, I'll start studying how
and when to get my gun up to get the shot.  Many
a morning at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., I'll bag a gobbler
that has dodged me since he's come off the roost by
simply taking a nap and letting the bird come to me.
You've Bumped The Bird Off The Roost- Now What:
Sometimes you'll go to a turkey gobbling in the morning,
think the bird has gobbled further away from you than
he has and spook the turkey off the roost. When this
happens, note your location, and plan to return to that
same spot later in the morning. Since many times I hunt
in unfamiliar woods, I carry a GPS (Global Positioning
System) receiver with me when I hunt turkeys. If I spook
a bird, I sit down and wait two or three minutes for
the GPS to get a fix on the satellite and lock in my
position. Next I'll mark that site as a waypoint and
give that waypoint a name like Spooked  Gobbler
or Roost Tree. Then I'll play with my GPS for two or
three minutes, checking to see how far I've traveled
from the car, camp and home. I want to spend at least
five or 10 minutes sitting quietly by the roost tree
where I've flushed the gobbler. Next I'll give three
or four loud yelps and a fly-down cackle before getting
up to leave the area. I want the gobbler to think that
a hen has flown into his roost site after he's spooked.
Then when I return in the mid-morning, that tom also
will come back to the same area looking for that hen.
TOMORROW: MORE ON MID-MORNING
GOBBLERS
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