Patience

[grunt_doc]

Patience has been my problem this fall.  Not jst any old patience...but TURKEY patience!  This is my 1st fall season, and I was suprized at the difference between fall turkeys and spring.  They are nearly different animals.  It took me forever to find them, and now they are gone.  I have no idea where they went off to.  I guess I'll just have to keep roaming around looking for them. Oh, darn [;)].  I've heard that as the weather sours, they find the think bottoms to hide out in.  Makes sense to me.  Last week I sat under a tree in what I thought (based on the day before) was a perfect ambush site.  Too bad it snowed and screwed everything up. 
 
Gonna have to reasses things and go at them again.  At least I limited out on ducks yesterday.  In about 25-30 min.  I couldn't reload fast enough! 

[mark hay]

hello  grunt-doc
been wearing out boots and legs trying to find them rascals myself. someone on the forum said [can't recall who] take your time ; don't get in a rush. i read it but it didn't soak in . when i saw the word PATIENCE it jumped right out and slapped me a good one ,,,,,,,,,and well deserved. i see where i haven't given any of the birds that i heard or talked to the proper amount of time .
i been doing most of my calling with a mouth call . SO,i think i'll get off here and go put some tape on that call box and write the word PATIENCE on it. good luck to you.  later             ''ostt''

[allaboutshooting]

Hey Matthew,

Fall hunting can really test your patience. When you locate them, it can be easy but when you haven't located them...then that's when patience will pay.

The weather here has been terrible and both Doris and I have been fighting an upper respiratory infection for the last 2 weeks. It's left us very weak and both of us also have reduced hearing due to a continued blockage. I can't hear anything out of my right ear currently, so hunting has been pretty much out of the question. Yesterday, however, we both just had to get out of the house.

It was very cold and windy, as it had been for the last 3 days. We hit the bottoms in hope of finding some birds there. No luck. We went to a know soy bean field but it had not been harvested, no birds. There is no winter wheat on this property, so we just spent some time sitting, calling, sitting...

We had 2 beautiful deer walk into one section of woods and come within 15-20 feet of us without ever seeing us or catching our scent.

We'd walked a lot, sat a lot, called a lot and no luck, so we moved to another location where our neighbor has seen birds going into the woods to roost for the last month.

I sat in that area until after dark and not one bird decided to roost there that night! Patience. There's really nothing else that works in the fall.

I also agree with Mark that sometimes in the fall a box or some other friction call can be quite beneficial, especially when the wind is blowing. Those calls can make sounds that will carry further than mouth calls.

Lastly, even though our neighbor's information did not pay off last night, I'd sure ask anyone who's near the land you're hunting if they've been seeing birds. They may just be able to help you out.

Thanks,
Clark

[grunt_doc]

I have one more area that I haven't gotten a chance to hit up yet.  I'm going to hump down into a wide gorge that is near my usual deer stand.  It's WAAAAY down there.  No one wants to go down there and deer get flushed in during shotgun season, so we have great success there.  The drag out is absolute hell.  No motorized vehicles allowed, posted land down the hill with no hope to drag through.  Some other hunter ruined it for everyone! [:@] Uphill at 40+ degree deer drag is not fun!  I'll do a combo deer scout/turkey hunt.  I have had some initial luck with a glass pot call, but couldn't seal the deal.  I just have to keep reminding myself...patience...patience grasshopper.....

[hoosierhunter]

Sempre Fi Doc, good luck with that patience thing your strugglin with, I too get awful itchy feet an fingers somtimes. I love to hear people talk about using a box call, as they are my passion when it comes to turkey calls, yet, I don't use one in the fall as a locator call. I will use one only sparinglyand will muffle the sound boards with my fingers, and then only from a blind. Here is my reasoning. A mouth call in the fall will do all I need as far as volume is concerned as Im sure that any turkey I.m after can here me when I can't hear him or her. Most of the time its her. Its been my experience that inthe fall a hen isn't very loud at all when she is vocal, and that the odds of a gobbler shock gobbling in the fall are not very good either. I have had some luck however with jakes tryin to gobble back though and quite often that will give up a toms location. I have found that in the fall when a flock of birds here my calls without a recent disturbance to the flock, they will call back softly for a short while and when the lost hen doesn't show up they will begin to feed away, although if you keep calling and pursuing they will continue to answer as they feed away giving you a chance to catch up or move ahead for the interception. Remember I pursue hens 75% of the time in the fall and the rest is the luck of finding a tom to move on, or finding Jakes and looking for the dominant bird of the flock. Also if I find hens I'm reasonably sure the males aren't too far away. The farthest I've heard a hen in the spring is 400 yds. when she was mad and cuttin. The farthest in the spring has been 200 yds with an assembly yelp and the wind was blowin in my direction, and she only came 100yds. and stopped after a break up. Hope that this has been a little help.
 
                                                          GOOD LUCK, GOD BLESS, AND STAY SAFE!
                                                                            L.K.LESLIE
P.S. HEY CLARK, HOPE YOU AND LOIS GET  TO FEELIN BETTER SOON!