Editor’s Note: Turkey hunting is a game of options: A turkey has certain choices, and the hunter has other choices. And, although a hunter may be able to select several different strategies to outfox a wily woods wizard like the wild turkey, the purpose of the following test is to help you determine which is the very-best tactic to use. Let’s examine turkey-hunting situations you may encounter once you’ve gotten a tom to gobble, and determine which option may be best and why.

• You’ve worked a tom to within 50-60 yards. However, the bird’s hung-up in a strut and won’t come any closer. What should you do?
  • Let the bird cool down, and the turkey walk off.
  • Wait until the bird has his back to you, and then try to crawl in close enough to take a shot.
  • Shoot just over the bird’s head, figuring that the pellets will fall down from the sky and perhaps hit and kill the bird.
  • Change calls.

Answer: Let the bird cool down, and the turkey walk off is the best answer. Then circle the turkey, change calls, and call very little. (If you’ve answered (c), you need to bone-up on some shotgunning basics, as well).

• You’re hunting Ol’ Slewfoot, the bird that everyone in your hunting camp has tried to kill. Although the tom gobbles good at daylight, when he hits the ground, he gobbles walking away. What should you do?
  • Stay far enough behind the gobbler, so that he doesn’t spot you but close enough to him so that you can continue to call to him as he walks away.
  • Try to circle the turkey, get in front of him, and call to him.
  • Get in close enough to the tom to see him before he flies off of the roost, hoping you’ve positioned yourself in a place that you’ll be able to shoot from when the bird flies down.
  • Use four or five different calls to confuse the turkey, and make him think there are several hens in the area, hoping he will come to you out of curiosity.

Answer: Let the bird cool down, and the turkey walk off will work most often – particularly if you’re a good enough woodsman to stay behind the turkey without being seen, while continuing to call. Often a tom will stop moving and return to check out the hen that just has to mate with him. So, be sure to sit down, and be ready to shoot once you spot the gobbler. More than likely, he will come in silently.

Tomorrow: Hunt the Field Gobbler Early

Check out John E. Phillips’ 12th turkey book: “Turkeys: Today’s Tactics for Longbeards Tomorrow“

Expert Guidebooks on Turkey Hunting: Best Sellers

Turkey Hunting Tactics
This turkey hunting audiobook has entertaining chapters like: “How to Miss a Turkey”, “Hunting with a Guide”, and “The Turkey and the New York Lady”.

You’ll learn about all the subspecies of turkey across North America, how to use a turkey call, how to scout before turkey season, how to find a turkey to hunt, and what hunting gear you’ll need to put the odds in your favor to take a wily gobbler.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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How to Hunt Turkeys with World Champion Preston Pittman
You easily can take a turkey if you don’t make any mistakes, but you have to know what the deadly sins of turkey hunting are to keep you from making those mistakes. If you understand how to hunt a turkey, you’re far more likely to take a gobbler than if you just know how to call a turkey.

Of course, calling is important, and if you want to learn to call a turkey, Preston Pittman will teach you how to call turkeys with box calls, friction calls, diaphragm calls, and other turkey sounds.

You’ll also learn why Preston Pittman once put turkey manure all over his body to kill a tough tom.

When you have turkeys that strut and drum in the middle of a field, when you know there’s no way to get close enough to get a shot, Pittman will show you some weird tactics that have worked for him to help you hunt tough ole toms.

But the main thing you’ll learn in this book is how to become the turkey.

Using what he’s learned while hunting wild turkeys, he’s also become a master woodsman who can take most game, regardless of where he hunts. To learn more secrets about how to be a turkey hunter from one of the world champions of the sport, this turkey-hunting book with Preston Pittman is a must.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible
The quickest way to learn how to turkey hunt successfully is to either hunt with a turkey hunter with years of experience or a turkey-hunting guide. These two types of turkey hunters have solved most of the problems turkey hunters ever will face. 

Just as one size of shoes won’t fit every person, one style of turkey hunting doesn’t fit each hunter.  Each turkey-hunting guide interviewed for this book has his own style of calling, hunting, and outsmarting turkeys.  

While listening to this book, make a list of the new information you’ve learned, take that list with you during turkey season, and try some of the new tactics. Then you’ll become a more versatile turkey hunter and prove the wisdom from The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible.   

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting (2nd Edition)
This Audible book will help you learn how to call turkeys with two of the nation’s best, longtime and well-known turkey callers, Rob Keck, formerly with the National Wild Turkey Federation, and Lovett Williams, a wildlife biologist who recorded wild turkeys giving the calls that you’ll learn how to make on various types of turkey callers.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE & KINDLE