It seems like the birds by me shut up about an hour after flydown, and I’m often left wondering what to do during mid- and late morning. I don’t have enough ground to run and gun, but it seems sometimes like sitting and calling is often a waste of time. Help! — Andy Burdick, St. Paul, Minn.
Here’s some great advice from Ernie Calandrelli, director of public relations for Quaker Boy, and one of the finest turkey hunters in the country. “I like to take my best stuff and lay it around me in a semicricle, or at least where I can reach it all. I’ll start on one end of the circle and work to the other end. Especially later in the morning, I might start off a bit slow. But after that, I’m going to ratchet it up. In a lot of cases, it might be the first, second or third time through those calls when you strike a gobbler. Maybe he likes that pitch or call, or maybe he was so far away that he wasn’t gobbling at it at first. When I find that call, I stay with it because I know he likes it.”