FANNING TURKEYS?

[turkey junky]

hey guys i know this may cause some people to think this is dangerous or un-ethical but i just want to see if anybody else is doing this or not??? im not a purest & or a i must call a bird to my tree every time i kill a bird type turkey hunter so im open to damn near tactic...

i have been seeing this tactic used more & more on TV shows & reading about it in more & more magazines lately the tactic is using a real turkey fan & or a decoy similar to if not the montana strut n silhouette decoy to lure gobblers in or close enough for a shot in the wide open county or prairie with no cover basicly the decoy is your cover & if you cant get close enough to the bird using the woods you pull out the fan & walk or crawl directly towards the gobbler you cant get close to otherwise...

i know i know its dangerous & u could get shot but like i said im hearing about it more & more & just want to know if it really works or not as my brother has 3 montana decoys & i will carry 1 if i think it dose work i guess im dumb but i only can hope some yahoo wont shot a man crawling around in the wide open!!! I WILL NOT USE THIS TACTIC IN SD WEAR RIFLE TURKEY HUNTING IS EXCEPTED im not that dumb!!! lol or in thick bluff woods type country wear u would not need this to move on birds...!!!

i know this i a big tactic in SD but on private land hunts with guide mostly but it mus work???

anybody been successful doing this??? or seen it done??? just curious about the tactic & if it works im not saying its wrong or write just saying...

[WillowRidgeCalls]

Yes it does work, given the right circumstance. I posted a vid of it being done, on page 3 in the Flextone Thunder Chicken Decoy post.

[Uncle Nicky2]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18151

I'm willing to give this a try, but don't think I'd try it on crowded public land.

[J Hook Max]

I would not try this at all , no matter how well it works. Maybe I am old fashioned but this sounds crazy to me. No turkey is worth the risk of getting shot. The same goes for strutting decoys and using gobble calls. I have turkey hunted a very long time and even on the most private of land, you never know who may be in the woods. I have seen some really stupid people do some really stupid things.

[dewey]

I heard about this practice the other day and I was kind of surprised that it works as turkeys have such excellent eye sight. I think I will keep it in the toolbox and maybe use it if the situation is right.

Here is a video I found on Youtube about a hunter fanning to get in close.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEjXB-Tzdo

Obviously safety is very important with such a manuever and there needs to be communication with your hunting partner that if they see any sign of another hunter they start yelling to get you out of there. This would not be wise in areas where you cannot see for very far or in South Dakota where rifles can be used.

I think I will bring a fake fan with to Kansas this spring and keep it with in case I run out of options. In an effort to improve the idea I am going to do the following things.
1. Cut two small holes in the fan so I can see through the fan without having to expose my head and to be able to range the turkey with my rangefinder.
2. Put some kind of steel stakes or something so that way I can keep the fan up while I am getting ready to shoot instead of dropping it and then taking a shot at a running gobbler.
3. Get a picture of a gobbler head and put it in the front so the gobbler thinks the other tom is walking towards him.

Dewey

[Duke0002]

Not my cup of tea. I saw an ad for a fake fan mount you can clip to your barrel. Might have been in one of the recent catalogs. It would take a pretty big fan to hide my carcass! :lol:

[turkey junky]

i like anybody else do not have a death wish but like dewey & i said you really should not use this tactic in the woods or in tight quarters as you have a good chance of take n a shotgun blast at close range...

call me macho or silly but i have been almost shot 4 times i lived in the city as a young dumb teen & a bad area & 2 were from hand guns & the other 2 were from shotguns in the pheasant field the 2 hand guns would of should of killed me the shotgun blast would of hurt but i would of lived so im not a rookie to close range gun shots in my direction believe me its not fun or funny to be shot at!!!

that said my mentality is with the fanning turkeys is if im out in the wide open field/prairie away from the woods wear most turkey hunters stay the only hunter that would seriously hurt me or shoot at me with a gun shot would be a guy with a rifle & or another guy crawling around doing the same thing i am doing in the wide open & i can only hope 1 of us 2 dummys lol realize its a guy crawling around & not a huge camo clad gobbler walking around? in states like KS you have to see a turkeys BEARD b4 you shoot so hope that helps me i wont have a beard on lol...

i to have seen some real dummys out in the turkey woods i would never ever think to do this in the deep south florida either you will be shot no doubt

[eggshell]

I have been on a hunt where this tactic was successfully applied. Last spring in Florida we were hunting private cattle ranch land and lots of close cropped pastures. we had three birds come in to 50 yards and turn and walk straight away back into the pasture. The guy we was hunting with asked if we wanted to fan them and I said, "What yo talking bout willis?". well he pulls out a fan and whispered for me to call hard and get them to look. So I cackled and one bird turned and looked back, when he did this guy pops this fan open and drops it and refans it two or three times. That old bird turned and ran right at us, my buddy shot him at 10 steps in self defense. The other two where on their way behind him and I waited about 2 minutes for them to show up to kick their dead buddies body and dispatched one of them. I was amazed this worked so well. Now this was closed private land and no grass over 4 inches high and we could see all directions. I have not had the nerve to try it in our southern Ohio woods....I been shot once turkey hunting and have no desire for a second near death experience!

I watched that Ok video....no freaking way that was safe, too much fog and vegetation. When fanning I thought you meant bringing the bird to your set up. The guy with us in Florida did say you could walk up on birds fanning too, but we both promptly said not with us you don't. I can do without a gobbler if that is what it takes.

[J Hook Max]

Turkey Junkey ,
I can relate to what you say. I grew up in Memphis and somehow I did not get shot at. However , that was a long time ago.

[turkey junky]

i was lucky & un-lucky i guess??? depends on how you look at it? lol

i guess im thinking of doing the latter eggshell? i dont think i would use the fan to only bring the gobblers in? i would use a decoy for that? i would be trying to move towards the gobblers that hang up out in the wide open fields with the fanning tactic thats what i have seen done on these videos & articles i read...

like you said with 4 inches of grass all around & with no chance of other un-known hunters on the land i would not think twice to fan towards the birds??? but im not the smartest guy in the world wither... guess i feel safer because i have a gun 2 at the time??? false sense of security i guess...