Never could master or even learn to use a diaphragm call despite having a good friend who is a call-maker who tried his best to teach me. I've killed nearly all my spring gobblers with my old Lynch box call, a few with wingbone calls I've made.

Every spring bird I've killed was in the morning, most of them prior to 8:00 AM.

Spring gobbler hunting is my favorite type of hunting. Most of the birds I hunt here in PA are pressured and call-wise. It's makes it very challenging and very satisfying when I succeed.

For me, nothing will beat the rush of crawling in before daylight to a roosted turkey.

The first time he gobbles you jump because he's so close. Give him some soft tree clucks and hope he pitches down your way. The times that it works and you hear those big swooping wing beats and all the sudden he's in your lap, well that's what got me addicted to turkey hunting.

Other times he pitches to the next ridge over and then it's time to lace up your hiking boots and take off after him

I have killed many in the middle of the day, but I want to start my day as close as I can to a gobbler

yeh the off the roost is best for me. I try to set up between the roosted toms and the roosted hens. Unfortunately it requires getting in at pitch black and yeh that part stinks. But watching them strut on a limb
is a great start to any day. We are allowed to shoot 1/2 hour before sunrise. The day I killed my bird that was 5:50, I texted my best bud at 6:16 but the hunt seemed like it took an hour. Yesterday while at my
cabin with wife, kids and momma there were two right down in a bottom of cut corn that gobbled from 1:00 to 3:00 back and forth. Those were very killable birds, most fired up my boy and I have ever seen.