Washington Hunter

That he liked to set up on the west side of a Turkey' s roost because he believed that the Turkeys like to fly down in that general direction because they didnt like to walk to the east, towards the sun, where their vision was distorted and they had a hard time seeing predators. Do you beleive this is true? I dont generally set up near roosts, so I figured I might ask you what you thought. [:-]

Bobgobble2

WH,I' ve set-up on many roosted gobblers and all I can say is 99% of them hit the ground before sun-up!It' s a matter of circumstance in that once in the tree come morning he' ll pitch out in the most comfortable direction possible in many cases straight down!But if hens are present he may glide for a great distance into a field or strutting area!Often times pressure can dictate which direction he may pitch out also.As to pitching out generally in a western direction most of the time,well I' d have to say thats an " old wives tale" ,at least in my stretch of turkey woods!

snowdog2

The last ten flydowns I observed, as I can recall, went North, North, West, Southwest, North, South, South, Southwest, West, South. As I ponder this factoid, I am amazed to also realize that I cannot recall a flydown to the East, in all the turkey hunting I' ve done!! I' m not saying they don' t, and I tend to agree with BG2 that the attribution to Primos simply repeats an old wives tale, and that my experience is a statistical anomaly, but when I started recalling all the birds I' ve seen fly down, and realized I' d never seen ANY fly down to the East, I was amazed!!


I just remembered a hen that flew East!! Whew!! (She went to a gobbler already on the ground, and may have been spooked, as I' m pretty sure she spotted me, based on her sharp putts, rather than tree yelps before flydown. She was only 25 yards away as it grew light.)

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Bobgobble2

No doubt about it BB,paying attention to detail bags those birds that prove to be elusive due to a # of circumstances!IMHO you hit the nail on the head in your first statement here,as I quoted by mentioning there comfort zone!I set up on the average of 35 to 50 gobblers a year in the roost and thats exactly the case for the majority,hens,pressure,predators unatural sounds as you correctly say can definately play into this also,but with that said the fact that the sun comes up in the east has very little to do with my birds pitching out towards that direction simply because the majority of our birds hit the ground well before sun-up negating this blinded by the sun theory!Because of that, there' s more important factors/details in determining which direction he' s bailing out than where the sun is coming up!If he has a good landing/comfort zone to the east thats exactly where I' ll be before he hits the ground!!

snowdog2

BB I agree there' s a lot more to turkey sounds than just yelps and purrs and cutts and clucks and kee-kees. And I can blow nice whitts (though I always think of them as " whips" ) and chutts on my mouth diaphragms. I' m just never sure when to use them, so, in the wild, not my truck, I stick to the standards. Wish I knew when to use those other calls effectively, I' d like to incorporate them in my repertoire. Do you have a pattern or plan or time you go to those " other sounds?"

jalvja

A wise man once told me the only sure thing about turkey huntin is that nothin is a sure thing.

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Bobgobble2

BB,just a question for ya?I have found that the majority of the birds that leave the roost once the sun is up to be extremely pressured either by human hunters or predators.How about yourself?We dont get many that wait that long here on the west coast but the toms that do seem to carry this type of personality with them...

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