Editor’s Note: Bob Walker of Livingston, Alabama, hunts turkeys every day of the season as a guide at Bent Creek Lodge (http://www.bentcreeklodge.com/ – 205-398-3040) in Jachin, Ala. This week Walker will tell us the most-productive ways to hunt turkeys.

I’ll tell my hunter before we leave the lodge to go hunting that day that if we see a turkey, and he shoots the bird, I’ll jump up quickly, grab the hunter’s gun, start running toward the tom and get my foot on the tom’s head to make sure he can’t run off. I don’t think that I’m in a safe position when I have my back to a hunter, he has a shell in the chamber, and the safety’s off his shotgun. If that turkey jumps-up before I can get to him, the hunter’s natural instinct will be to shoot the gobbler. If I’m running to the turkey, the hunter may not be able to shoot because I’m in the way, or he may forget about me being in the line of fire. However, if I’ve got the hunter’s gun, we don’t run the risk of me getting shot. If the turkey does start to get up, I’ll be closer to the gobbler than the hunter and will be able to put the turkey down.

When you hunt by yourself, you miss all the excitement that you have when a buddy shares the hunt with you. Too, you can share with each other what you’ve learned. You may see something that your hunter hasn’t seen, and he may see something you haven’t seen that causes the turkey to do what he has. Sharing those aspects of the hunt really means a lot to me and has made me turkey hunt better. I’ve been fortunate enough to hunt with many great people and share those hunts with new people every year. That’s why I like to guide and take people to the turkeys.

To learn more about turkey hunting, check out John E. Phillips’s book, “Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting,” at http://amzn.to/1fpP4Qu, available in Kindle and print.