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Post by Dutch on Apr 18, 2024 14:01:29 GMT -5
My brothers 410 at 30 yds with tungsten
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Post by rusty on Apr 18, 2024 14:08:44 GMT -5
Why tote around a heavier gun if you have one of those?
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Post by Dutch on Apr 18, 2024 14:10:58 GMT -5
It's a Stevens single shot, doesn't weigh much and recoil is very light. Got it for our great niece to hunt with, but I think Jase is gonna use this as his primary gun
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Post by ridgecommander on Apr 18, 2024 14:17:24 GMT -5
No need for heavy 12's these days. I shoot a 12 for turkey but have had it for 30 years, before the newer shot technology today. If I were to buy a new gun for turkey it would be a 20 or 410.
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Post by davet on Apr 18, 2024 14:53:06 GMT -5
Agree. My "Turkey" shotgun is a 12ga Encore smooth bore ribbed barrel with a Carlson turkey choke. I have killed a gobbler at 50 yds using Hevi-Shot.
I've looked around at and for Encore smooth bore shotgun barrels and I never see any for sale. Rifled ones....yes. But not smooth bore.
In any event I always figured I have one shot to take the bird....and if I miss, I'll likely not have a second chance anyway.
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Post by rusty on Apr 18, 2024 16:25:01 GMT -5
Every turkey I have killed, including the spring gobblers has been with 7 1/2 shot from a 311 stevens 12 gauge or a.22 long rifle.
In the spring, if I can't get the bird withing 30 yards, I figure he has won the day and deserves to continue being a turkey. I do know a couple guys who take a real blow to their egos if they don't kill a long beard every year. I don't think I know anyone who care more about taking their game as those guys do. If a gun can kill them at 90 yards, they will hunt with that gun.
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Post by Loggy on Apr 18, 2024 20:53:34 GMT -5
Nice short range pattern!! I cut my teeth on a single barrel 410 hunting squirrel.
I exclusively hunt big mountain turkeys where many shots are pushing give/take 50 yards due to nature of terrain coupled with thinner foliage which affords more open visibility and a longer shot. I’ll always favor the heavier payload that a stout 12 guage will deliver. Recoilwise…a gas semi automatic is really mild compared to many centerfires. Weight….toting my Browning Gold semi doesn’t bother me at my age & current physical condition even on multi mile hunts.
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Post by dougl on Apr 22, 2024 11:07:46 GMT -5
A 20 gauge with tss will flatten a turkey at distance in excess of 50 yards.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 22, 2024 17:15:01 GMT -5
A 20 gauge with tss will flatten a turkey at distance in excess of 50 yards. No need for a 12 anymore, if one is buying a new gun
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Post by acorn20 on Apr 22, 2024 19:40:19 GMT -5
In the spring, if I can't get the bird within 30 yards, I figure he has won the day and deserves to continue being a turkey. I do know a couple guys who take a real blow to their egos if they don't kill a long beard every year. I don't think I know anyone who care more about taking their game as those guys do. If a gun can kill them at 90 yards, they will hunt with that gun. I could have written this exact same post, Rusty. I've got a few buddies that have been screwing with gobblers for two months and then they wonder why they won't come in during season. They're so call weary because people won't leave them be.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 8:00:59 GMT -5
I don't believe for one second that turkeys become call shy.They have no ability to reason.When they become tight lipped,it's just a fuction of what phase the breeding season is in.
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Post by Loggy on Apr 23, 2024 8:09:43 GMT -5
I don't believe for one second that turkeys become call shy.They have no ability to reason.When they become tight lipped,it's just a fuction of what phase the breeding season is in. Must have something to do with their geographic area gene pool!! I fully agree that at least in areas I hunt.....call shyness is a reality.
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Post by rusty on Apr 23, 2024 8:12:22 GMT -5
Turkey in areas that see a lot of hunting pressure certainly seem less like to move to a stationary caller. They may answer, as if to say: "You know where we are. You come to us." but after a few close calls they are in no hurry to find new friends. I don't know if that is because of reasoning, or an instinctive trained response from past experiences.
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Post by ridgecommander on Apr 23, 2024 8:21:55 GMT -5
I believe that gobblers also gobble less than in years past in areas were coyotes and bobcat numbers have increased. In 2A and 2b where I do a lot of turkey hunting, there is no doubt that gobbling is less than it used to be overall. One thing that has changed is coyote and bobcat numbers. We had few, if any, 25 years ago. Now, they are everywhere. Especially coyotes. In my mind, that is a sign of reasoning abnd learned behaviors.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 8:31:51 GMT -5
Turkeys are paranoid birds who are afraid of everything but they have no ability to reason what so ever.Pressure will certainly change their patterns but they can't reason and say that a hunter is making that call.This morning,I was out listening in an area where I'm close to 100% confident has recieved no pressure.This was the first morning I didn't hear a single gobble.Year in and year out,the best week for me is almost always the last week in areas that get pounded hard.The reason it's good is because most of the hens are done breeding.Many times I've called in a gobbler that was either missed or wounded the day before.The majority of those time,I called the bird in to the exact same spot,from the exact same tree.Everything a gobbler does is dictated by what the hens are doing.They can't reason,which is why blinds and decoys are so effective.
I can think of at least a dozen times over the years where I watched a gobbler take a facefull of shot and his buddy or buddies jumped on him and started to flog him.That is not reasonable behavior.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 8:43:53 GMT -5
I don't believe for one second that turkeys become call shy.They have no ability to reason.When they become tight lipped,it's just a fuction of what phase the breeding season is in. Must have something to do with their geographic area gene pool!! I fully agree that at least in areas I hunt.....call shyness is a reality. Nope,it has everything to do with what phase of the breeding cysle the birds are in.If turkeys could actually reason that a turkey call is coming from a hunter,very few birds would be killed after the first day
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Post by rusty on Apr 23, 2024 9:16:49 GMT -5
I wonder the same kind of thing about the reasoning, or lack there of, of trout when they are feeding during a mayfly hatch. Often, especially when casting a dry fly on flat water, you will see a trout that has been rising consistently to the bugs you see floating in front of you. The fisherman ties on a fly that most closely represents the bug and makes a cast that drifts the fly right along the feeding lane the fish has been using. The fish will swim up to intercept the fly and sometimes drift along with it an inch or so from its's nose only to reject it and take the next natural that drifts by. What is that fish thinking? Is it a very small difference in size, a slight shade of color, the silhouette is just off?
In my early 20s having only flyfished for a year or two, I fish when an experienced old Fly fisherman(he was probably in his mid forties at the time). Hendricksons were in the air and their spinners were coming back to die. The guy was catching 2 or three trout to every one I caught. I thought he was joking when he said I should be using a pattern for the female bug. But it turns out that his pattern included a small yellow bit of dubbing that represented the insect's egg sac. He gave me one of his and it made the difference.
Were those trout reasoning when they reject my pattern? I would expect a turkey to be a more advanced thinker than a trout.... maybe not?
BTW, to the sticklers the male hendrickson adult is supposed to be called a "Red Quill" and the egg laying female is called a "Lady Beaverkill"
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 9:28:55 GMT -5
Turkeys live by instinct.They can't reason.When my son was 9,we struck up two gobblers on the way back to the truck around 11:00am.They had no hens and came in so fast,I had a hard time getting his set up in time.They jumped a creek and strutted strait in.The lead gobbler strutted straiyt into a log about 65 yards out and refuse to step over it.His partner was coming up from the real and looked like he was gonna skirt it and come strait in.Jordan couldn't take it and without my green light,shot,flipping the first strutter backwards before they both took off.Monday morning we went in at daylight,set up in the exact same spot and he killed one of them.I went in the next day and killed the other one.Both were big,mature birds and the one I shot,watched his buddy get shot twice.They can't reason.They simply do what the hens dictate.what made this so easy was the lack of hens with them.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 9:32:03 GMT -5
Here's two last day gobblers that were both shot late morning.Both were heavily pressured and both came in on a string because they didn't have hens.Both came in with another bird and we had to chase the second off in that last picture because it was flogging the dead bird.These aren't jakes or two years olds.They're older mature birds that we literally let go until the last week because of the pressure.
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Post by Loggy on Apr 23, 2024 10:25:42 GMT -5
Here's one that I know was call shy as 2 buddies were working him almost daily week before season opener. They'd roost him & then were out next morning calling at him. All I heard was them bragging on how huge he was. By the time opener came talked to them & they said he wouldn't budge...duh. My buddies said next year they won't repeat their pre-season calling per this experience.. This gobbler was roosting for weeks inside a clear cut that also had several jakes in the nearby area. Know this area like the back of my hand.....I gave him another week and finally got him in......silent all the way. . I've witnessed this many times in over 50 years hunting gobblers on heavily pressure public ground. Called it reasoning, getting smarter or whatever....it's a fact they do become call shy..... least the mature ones. 23lbs, 10" beard, 1.25" spurs
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Post by ridgecommander on Apr 23, 2024 11:32:29 GMT -5
We had a bird at the one farm I hunt that was basically unkillable. He always roosted on the same point, but no matter where any of us set up, calling was a no go. He went the other way every time. He hardly gobbled too.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 12:47:06 GMT -5
Nope,people confuse turkeys doing what they're supposed to do with being call shy and pressured.hunters assume that when they go silent,they're call shy.They're just being turkeys and doing as nature intended.
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Post by ridgecommander on Apr 23, 2024 14:10:08 GMT -5
They're just being turkeys and doing as nature intended. So, I guess what you are saying is call shy turkeys are just doing what nature intended? Not responding to calls. We set up on this bird in every possible direction and he would always go the opposite. Different calls. Different hunters. Two hunters in different spots.
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Post by dougl on Apr 23, 2024 14:59:16 GMT -5
Yep,nature intended for the hens to go to the gobbler.You don't have to take my word for it.Take some time and Talk to Denny Gulvas.I'm biased because he's a friend of mine but nobody knows more about turkeys or has studied them more than him.He lieterally calls them in and films them every day from Feb-September.He'll tell you the same things.They won't get call shy from hunters and they have no ability to reason what so ever.
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Post by Loggy on Apr 23, 2024 18:33:13 GMT -5
Yep,nature intended for the hens to go to the gobbler.You don't have to take my word for it.Take some time and Talk to Denny Gulvas.I'm biased because he's a friend of mine but nobody knows more about turkeys or has studied them more than him.He lieterally calls them in and films them every day from Feb-September.He'll tell you the same things.They won't get call shy from hunters and they have no ability to reason what so ever. I see Denny Gulvas has DVD re "HUNTING PRESSURED GOBBLERS". Why are they any different? Just curious on how a gobbler who has zero ability to reason or think can even realize that they are pressured?? One would think they would have no ability to realize that they're pressured.
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