Originally Posted by
millingabout
We got back from our hunt last week, and I thought I'd give a recap of what we learned.
First of all, it seemed like any birds we found were in the bush. That was a big surprise as I expected to scout farmers fields in the area and see birds in fields. We found most of the birds just by luck as they were crossing the road in areas of bush. Our first night there we went to look for roosted birds, and sure enough we found a tom roosted next to the road on crown land. The next morning we set up ~150m away in the bush in the largest open spot we could find and sure enough we called him into within 10yrds of us but just on the wrong side and couldn't get a shot. He came in gobbling, strutting and drumming which was very cool to experience.
Next few days we did a lot of driving and hiking down roads hoping to strike up a bird with no luck. No responses ever from my crow call. Maybe the birds are just used to crows and don't shock gobble to them? We also had no luck in roosting birds at night, other than the one we stumbled upon the first day. I need to figure out how to find roosted birds for next year.
On the last day of the trip, we were set up in a field in the morning, and heard some gobbles in the field next to us up on a ridge as the sun was coming up. We decided to go towards the calls rather than sit and hope the bird comes to us. Good thing, because as we go to the base of this ridge, the tom answered my hen calls and started coming down the hill FAST. We had to quickly get hidden, and 5 mins later we had a gorgeous tom on the ground! It was a fantastic trip and this was my first Ontario turkey, I cant wait to go again next year already!