Do you have a "Go To" spot?

[Cut N Run]

I usually start the season in the same piece of woods, sometimes in the same location I hunted on Opening Day last year & the year before that. Matter of fact I have hunted the same sawdust pile on the opener for 4 years straight and managed to take a longbeard on opening day there in 3 of those four years. Sometimes it is just tradition of starting in the same place, more likely it just happens to be a place that the turkeys like to hang out or pass through often.

How about you, do you have a Go To spot? Tell us about it.

Jim

[retranger]

I have a spot that I have hunted every year for about 7 years. I return every year and most of my toms have come from that area. I do have a couple other areas that I hunt and sometime productive but I keep going back home. If you're having success why change!?!?!? Go back to your spot Jim[;)][;)]

[WillowRidgeCalls]

I've got an area that I like to start out in. It's a very small piece of puplic that gets over looked by most hunters, it's only 5 acre woods on the edge of a 15 acre wheat field, it's so thick that you can't hardly walk through it but it holds birds.

[mark hay]

Seems like the turkeys change roost ridges daily in my hunting area . And with the roost change so goes the ''hit the ground and walk''. But it's part of the thrill and fun for me to find that bird or birds that won't give up a certain holler or ridgeline . Oh , they get bumped and move around but somehow get back in there the next day .
 
 I like the challenge and the whoopin's too.

[SpitnDrum]

I have a couple (honey holes)One of my best spots to hunt is accually on public National forest land.I just happened to luck up and find this place.I have been in there going on 5 year now and have already heard em in there this year.I've been lucky with this area in particular no one else has walked in on it.I start my Ky season out in this spot every year just in case someone does stumble up on it I'll still have my other go to spots ready.Two year ago we took 3 birds out of this area within 150 yrds or so apart.

[kygobbler]

My honey hole was a true honey hole. I have sat under the same tree for the last 7-8 yrs. The birds would fly straight down from roost and walk within 30 yds and in the evening they would come back taking the same path. From that one spot I have killed 90% of my birds and never once had to use a call. Oh how sweet times it was untill the man who owned the land passed away 2 winters ago.[:(] The person who inherited the land decided to cut every flipping tree down last year and to make it even worse he had to start cutting the day before opening day last spring[:@][:@][:@] Hopefully I will find a new one this year.[8|]

[shaman]

I am glad to see other people on here believe in honey holes.  I've been getting scolded about mentioning the concept for years.  However, the fact that they can exist is undeniable once you've seen one. 

Turkey hunting is odd, because we start off putting one hand behind our back on several counts.  We only hunt them just so.  Okay.  A lot of it is state law, and we all agree on it.  However, so much of this sport is the blind following of the catechisms of a few old masters.  Most of them never saw a honey hole.  Most of them did not believe they existed.  Therefore most of us fail to see them.

The reason most big name turkey hunters never saw a honey hole is that they were traveling too fast and too far.  If you hunt 5 states a year, you will not see it.  If you hunt with guides, you  will not see it.  If you scout from a truck you won't see it.  On the other hand, if you are stuck on your same family plot  year after year hunting the same flocks, you may.

Turkey are not much different than largemouth bass with wings and legs.  Nobody doubts the ideas of structure fishing anymore.  Turkeys do pretty much the same thing.  They follow certain structures from their roost to their food  to where they loaf and back to where they roost.  My farm probably has not had significant changes to the basic structures for 150 years.  Probably the turkeys on it have changed their patterns of movement and feeding at about the same pace. I have been on the same family plot for a decade now. Of the birds that befuddled me the first season,   I am now hunting their great grandfathers and beyond.   In ten years, these birds have coughed up a few secrets.

What is a honey hole?  It is basically a spot where a hunter knows he can plunk himself down and probably intercept turkeys during the course of their daily business. It is a spot where it all comes together.  You have birds. You have cover. You have. . .

.  . . Alright, this IS ambushing the birds. Okay?  But what of it.  After a few years, you cannot help noticing you are putting your butt down in the same spot and leaning against the same tree.

More later.

[Cut N Run]

I used to have another honey hole on the same property I hunt. It was a strut zone on a terraced hilside along a powerline opening, which is the only place that a turkey can see or be seen for 500 yards in two directions. It still exists, the trouble is that I took the landowner there and called birds for him to shoot at that location twice and now it has become "his spot". Unfortunately, his calling is not what it should be and he can't sit still for long periods of time to save his life. What ends up happening is that he scores on a gobbler on opening day in spite of his calling (only because the turkeys love using that place). Then, they get wise to his calling and movement and generally avoid the area. You are liable to hear Putts rather than gobbles in that location after the first week. Whoever says turkeys don't get call shy ought to try hunting from this spot by the second week of the season. Just sayin'.
He also over-hunts that spot. I used to leave it alone for 5 days to a week between hunts and stood a good chance of getting two birds in two trips there. He'll hit it every day until the hunting gets too difficult (read: the turkeys are on to him). I also saw some serious gobbler fights there. The turkeys taught me a lot about their calling & behavior patterns by being able to observe them in a key social area. I never missed a turkey that I shot at from that spot either. Every bird I dropped the hammer on got carried out by the feet.

Jim

[eggshell]

I have hunted one particular property off and on for 40 years and it has three or four honey holes within the 1,000 acres of land. Opening day usually finds me in one of those honey holes. After I kill my first bird I will often branch out and try any new spots I've gained access to, but if those don't pan out I'm headed back to a honey hole. I do like to hunt new area and enjoy the challenge of figuring out birds on new ground. That's one reason I like to go to different states. It sure makes me feel good to succeed on new ground and I feel being able to kill them where I find them is a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong I'll head right to the spots that I have an advantage in, but a little extra spice in your chilli is good at times too.

This, my turkey murdering friends, is what woodsmanship is about, figuring out the woods and what happens there. I personally feel this is as much an accomplishment as good calling technique. I would never fault a person for sitting in one spot so many times they're but print is permanently formed in the earth. Of course that's assuming it's successful for you. I did know a guy who went and sat on a ridge point year after year and it was a horrible set up, but he killed his first bird there so it was special to him. Every year he'd complain they always hang up on that bench below me (slap up side the head dude, get on the bench, LOL).

[retranger]

Bryan that is a good honey hole!!!! I guess you will have to hunt turkeys now [:D][:D] I have one similar but not that good. I would think they will still be around.