The "old way",,,,,

woodmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
I hear this all the time,,,,hunting turkeys "the old way",,,,,,,

read Herb Mclure's book about mountain turkey hunting in the mountains of GA in the 50s,,,,,,,fellow used all manner of ways of killing a turkey,,,run and gun,,,a blind (expedient as Double Bull hadn't started yet),,,and other ambushes,,,he called the blinds and ambushes "wild cattin'" the birds as he had seen a bobcat lay in ambush on turkeys,,,,,,

that man found no fault with any legal method to hunt turkeys,,,and he enjoyed them all,,,,,,
why do folks now claim that only run-and-gun is the "old way" of turkey hunting? why?

I've used a bunch of methods,,,,personally I PREFER run-and-gun,,,,but I don't prefer it becuase it's supposedly an "old way",,,just the way I enjoy,,,,,

so educate me,,,,,,what is "the old way"?
 

Part-time hunter

Ten Pointer
I think if you did all the homework and thought you had it figured out where and when turkeys were likely to be then by all means set up some kind of blind and have at them. If you just can't sit still then get out there and walk til your legs give out, calling and cutting the whole way. I do both depending on lots of issues, terrain, time of season, time of day, and if you hunt public land walking in the woods with full camo making turkey sounds might not be the smartest thing to do. And for the record I have taken birds both ways. However, I will say that locating one and getting close enough to call it in give me more of an adrenaline rush and when it pays off with a nice gobbler well I guess you guys know what I'm trying to say. Bottom line is do your own thing and there's no need to be critical of others.
 

woodmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
I think if you did all the homework and thought you had it figured out where and when turkeys were likely to be then by all means set up some kind of blind and have at them. If you just can't sit still then get out there and walk til your legs give out, calling and cutting the whole way. I do both depending on lots of issues, terrain, time of season, time of day, and if you hunt public land walking in the woods with full camo making turkey sounds might not be the smartest thing to do. And for the record I have taken birds both ways. However, I will say that locating one and getting close enough to call it in give me more of an adrenaline rush and when it pays off with a nice gobbler well I guess you guys know what I'm trying to say. Bottom line is do your own thing and there's no need to be critical of others.

oh, I agree,,,,,trying to figure out this "old way" mantra,,,,,


or I'm being a curmudgeon,,,,,,,,,,,,

one or the other!
 

Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
My Granddaddy used to ease into the Florida swamps , sit behind a palmetto clump and bump a two sided Lynch box every once in awhile, never yelped, never cut, just bumped it .Those Easterns in Florida aren't very vocal so often he sat and waited to hear a frond rustle to let him know Tom was sneaking up on his unsuspecting galfriend. He killed turkeys most of the time he went out but dang if I could do it, and I tried.
The "old way" was just too dern boring for me.
 

nccatfisher

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
The "old way" in Fla. was a bunch of old pharts baited a place in early fall and then ganged around it before daylight. When the whole brood of yearling poults would come in they would cut loose on them hoping to get the bunch of them. Yes it was relatives on my mothers side, I can remember my father telling them that they were going to jack the jail up and throw them under it. But it was a tradition around there.
 

strut buster

Eight Pointer
I think there were two different old ways. Old timers who hunted for food (and nearly sent the turkeys into extinction) and those very few who hunted for sport (Old Pro Turkey Hunter is a great read on the latter). I would never use a blind, but could not care less if someone else does. However, I believe that full strut decoys or fans are completely unfair to the turkey, and so did Kenny Morgan (the guy was the real deal). He studied bird biology early on and in one of his books explained what sign stimulus was and how birds could have responses hard wired in them upon being exposed to such stimuli (see any number of youtube videos of gobblers rushing at an idiot in a field hiding behind a fan). He felt that gobblers fans were basically kryptonite for gobblers, especially dominant ones. Here's the wiki version of that, which is called a Fixed Action Pattern. I am not a biologist and don't know how extensively this has been studied in turkeys, but I believe I'll just go along with Kenny on this one. I think the first and last sentences are telling.

FAPs, or inflexible behaviour patterns, are significant in animal behavior because they represent the simplest type of behavior in which a particular stimulus nearly always results in an invariable behavioral response. FAPs have been said to be "hard-wired". They are unusual in that they are relatively un-influenced by the environment, once the behaviour has been elicited.
The existence of FAPs is rather unusual in that a fixed response can lead to maladaptive results, whereas flexible behaviors are generally more likely to be adaptive by increasing fitness. Because of this, most behaviors which are both FAPs and occur in more complex animals are usually essential to the animal's fitness, or in which speed (i.e. an absence of learning) is a factor. For instance, the greylag goose's egg rolling behavior is so essential to the survival of its chicks that the fitness of the parent bird is increased by the behavior being relatively invariant. A stickleback will attack any male fish who enters his territory while the female is sexually receptive, reacting to their red colour, while the female stickleback triggers behavior in the male resulting in the fertilization of her eggs.[8] Relatively invariant behaviors are also predictable, which can lead to their exploitation by humans or other animals.
 

woodmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
Herb McLure hunted them for sport,,,,ate them too,,,,but his time was when turkeys where coming back,,,,,
 

shadycove

Twelve Pointer
I cut my turkey hunting teeth in the Sumter NF in SC. Those were [and still are] the hardest hunted birds on Earth. You had to "run n gun" to stay ahead of the crowd of other hunters who would be running toward any gobbling turkey as fast as you were.
They were as wild as any animal I have ever seen. If they saw you move, they were gone.
But then as now, a tom turkey has one weakness, if you convince him that a hen in heat is near, he's coming. The trick was and is to call just a little better/louder/at the right place and time than the thousands who have called to him before you tried.
The birds who were so call shy that you could not kill them, you schemed them.
Call it ambushed or stalked but back then we had plenty of birds and lots of WMA lands to hunt. And we hunted it hard too and the same in north central NC too.
The "old way" was to do whatever it took to kill'em and kill'em we did.
Further on this, the folks who are still successfully hunting those same highly pressured woods today are doing the same things.
 
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turkeyfoot

Old Mossy Horns
The way people have hunted buds really varies over years and as much as anything else has to do with population levels in years when turkey numbers were down 3 yelps and shut up was what most talk about sitting in a blind would have been really tough like neede in haystack with few gobblers and not the long distance shooting shotguns like today unless you used rifle lot people would simply run/gun and pick them off with rifles legal in many states. Also the old way really varies as far as regions where I grew up in Mtns of Va baiting was always turkey sin but rifles until last 15 years were acceptable decoys were not looked upon well but in Mtns who needed them in eastern Va decoys were much more popular. When I started turkey hunting we didn't use vest or decoys and I had single shot Winchester lightweight and kicked your teeh out with 3 inch shell lot older hunters still don't own a " Turkey vest " . It is very interesting to talk to people at different ages to get their thoughts on how turkys should be hunted
 

BoonDock

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Have fun, take care of the land, take a child, be respectful of your environment and fellow hunters, and do all of this within the legal rules set forth by NC. This should've been the old way, the current way, and the future way. Hunters have enough opposition as it is to fight among themselves about who does it the "right" way. Enjoy the blessing you have in land and animals to hunt, keep being divisive, and we may lose them both.
 

hawglips

Old Mossy Horns
The way that caused turkey hunting to become the unique sport it is was to call one in to shotgun range by mimicking a hen. That meant he'd come looking for that hen and the hunter would have to be able to sound somewhat like a hen turkey and take extra care not to be spotted by Mr. Tom. And that's still the best way to do it, if enjoyment of the hunt is the goal.
 
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