HOW TO HUNT PUBLIC-LAND GOBBLERS

How to Hunt Public Lands Effectively

EDITOR'S NOTE: Paul Butski of Niagara Falls, New York, hunts public lands in the North in his home state of New York and guides on private lands in the South during the early part of turkey season. According to Butski, public-land hunting for turkeys is altogether different from private-land hunting. This week he will tell us the differences between the two and the skills needed to bag that prize tom on your public land.

"When I hunt public lands, I do most of scouting from my truck," Paul Butski reports. "I may drive 50 miles in a day, stopping frequently to call to try to get a turkey to answer me. However, when I'm hunting private lands in the South, I seldom drive the roads.

Instead I spend most of my time walking and calling. In the South's heavy foliage, usually you won't hear a turkey gobble from more than 100- or 200-yards away. Also when I'm on private land, I must stay within certain boundaries, which are usually smaller areas than the public regions I hunt. So walking and calling is a more efficient way for me to scout."

Turkeys on public lands often will hear much more calling than turkeys on private lands since more hunters are trying to take them. For this reason, when you hunt public lands, you may want to change calls more often. Also learn which call is the most popular in the area you are hunting.

"My favorite call is the diaphragm call," Butski mentions. "However, when I'm hunting public lands, I'll use my box call and my slate call more often than my diaphragm call. On the public lands in New York where I primarily hunt, probably nine of 10 turkey hunters will use diaphragm calls. Turkeys may hear 10 diaphragm calls in three days. Because a box call and a slate call have a somewhat different pitch and tone from the diaphragm, and these calls are used less frequently in my section of the country, they'll be much more effective in calling gobblers than the diaphragm."

When you're hunting private lands, rarely will you have to compete with another hunter for the same tom. You can take your time, set up 100 to 200 yards from the turkey and wait as long as is required for the gobbler to come to you. But on public lands, you have to be much more aggressive and attempt to get closer to a tom more speedily than you do on private lands. Since you must hunt more aggressively, oftentimes you'll spook more turkeys on public land than you will on private land. There the quicker you reach the turkey you hear gobbling, the less your chances are of another hunter's moving between you and that bird.

TOMORROW: LESS IS MORE