Windy Days

[NEStrut]

I know that high wind days can make turkey hunting a lot harder at times. But, I think it also has its advantages.

What does everybody else think? Do you hunt differently on really windy days? Anything specific that you do to help you overcome the wind, or use it to your advantage?

[tracebusta32]

I honestly hate hunting in the wind, I prefer a light drizzle next to a 70 ish sunny day.
The wind seems to shut them up in these parts, you can hear them scratchin,yelping,gobblin so your basically left to an ambush style hunt.
I will get in ravines or field edges and try to call them up, but for the most part  if it's high winds I'm mushroom huntin.

[singleshot]

i think windy days make it harder judging distance but makes it easier getting into an ambush spot. the best bird i ever took was on a windy day by ambush.

[shaman]

On my last windy day of turkey hunting-- and we have a lot of them here at the farm-- I went out in the afternoon, camped out in a barn, and used a high-volume box call and made contact with a gobbler.  It took him a good long time to get to me, but he walked right in.  If I couldn't hunt windy conditions, I really couldn't hunt turkeys.

We get a lot of wind here.  Sometimes it is the driving factor in the whole season.  Our ridge is not the highest point around, but we have nothing substantial between us and the wind for 50 miles in some directions.  Cincinnati may be getting 15MPH gusting to 20 while we're taking 25 sustained and 45 MPH gusts.  This is one of those mornings.    I try to get upwind of the gobblers so my calls carry the best.  Sometimes I call loud and sparse-- like the wind is only allowing a few calls through.  Sometimes I lay it on and call aggressively and continually.  Another thing I'm fond of is camping out in one of the wooded islands in the middle of the pastures and blind calling.  Sometimes that works when nothing else will.  If it's going to be windy for flydown, I'm prone to heading for the lee side of the ridge or the lee side of the big treeline, where the wind will be less pronounced-- that's where they're coming once they flop down.  If it's too bad, they hide out in the bottoms, but by then they're not particularly huntable.

Right now is extremely windy at the farm, but I have my eye out.  We haven't had any rain for a while, and I'll post if I see the flocks coming out to feed.

[Ozarks Hillbilly]

In my opinion periods of high wind are the toughest situation's to hunt turkeys in. I feel the biggest factor is it limits our ability to hear turkeys and the turkeys ability to hear us. Wind is something turkeys just have to live with in their everyday lives. They are still just out there being turkeys and doing what turkeys do as Ray Eye likes to say. I think in strong winds turkeys will move into places that are somewhat protected and out of the wind. Or move to more open areas such as a pasture, mowed hay field or crop field where they can rely more on there eyesight rather than their hearing to detect predators. As far as callers go use a box or any other caller you can crank up the volume on. High pitched calls seem to cut through the wind a little better. I will seek out the sheltered area's or a field edge where I know the turkeys like to frequent. I just sit and call every so often and try to stay at the ready for a bird to just materialize out of no wear.

[Cut N Run]

On windy days, I tend to go to small open areas near bottoms with heavy cover.  It could be a small field next to a low spot or a powerline cut through some thick woods. I also use a boat paddle type box call so the sound carries best. It seems that the higher the wind speed, the less likely it is to see or hear birds.
 
Jim

[Turkeybuster]

I hate high winds but I will be out there. I hunt the same as you do Jim and also use a high pitched long box. You have to be patient due to the fact that a turkey could respond and you don't hear him and be on his way in.

[trkynut54]

I like hunting windy days, they can't hear you coming through the woods when the leaves are dry. I just call between wind gusts. I've heard gobblers on windy days before, even on the roost.

[SamuraiTater]

Today was a very windy day and I had a plan to take advantage of it.  ....The plan failed miserably, but I tried to execute it as best I could.
 
I've set up on a field edge in the past few days and listened to a gobbler on an adjacent finger ridge sound off in the morning.  The field just doesn't seem to be part of his breakfast plan as he wanders off some other direction.  This morning, I figured with the high wind he'd likely head straight down the ridge for the creek and the hardwoods down there.  So I set up along that creek in the dark.  I'm sure I was withing 300 yards of his usual roost, but I heard absolutely zilch at dawn.  Didn't even hear any tree yelping or fly-down cackles.  My shooting lanes were terrible anyway, so after an hour of daylight I abandonned that for walking and calling some other hardwoods and dry creekbeds.  Didn't have no luck there either.
 
I might have kept that up after lunch but I opted for an ambush on some birds that roost right off a large field.  I set up 50 yards from their doorstep about 12;30 and waited it out, watching that field all afternoon.  Sunset came and that flock of turkeys never came home.  It's public land so they may have been bumped to a new nieghborhood or they may have just decided to stay out late partying since it is Friday evening and all.  Either way, it was as futile as waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
 
 

[turkeylimb]

on windy days i get the box call out and get on a high point and call loud as i can and hope for some action.