I’m on my phone so can’t copy and respond to everything you stated. But, I can say, I don’t use decoys. I have a few, but almost never use them unless I’m taking a youth that needs to be in a blind because they move too much. They work some, but not the best.

I’ve killed a bird or two yes.

I don’t fan turkeys. That is dangerous and stupid. Especially on public land. Great way to get shot.

You may have hunted all over the country, but you may have missed the north east. Have you hunted the state of Delaware? Have you tried fanning/reaping in the pine barrens of New Jersey?

You’re the one saying it’s a 80-90% chance of success with a decoy, not me. That is just an outrageous statement. Considering the national average of success is 25% or so. If it was so easy with a decoy everyone would do it.

But what do I know, nothing that’s what.


I will say, when it comes to turkey hunting you can’t say always or never.


I’m glad you have a 90% success rate with your decoys, I don’t use them. But good for you, it wouldn’t be any fun if I was just killing them all the time .

as fun as this thread is youth turkey is this weekend and I need to get up early and go locate some birds if I can. Going to check out a place we deer hunt a little and see if "we" ( the boys with my hearing I likely won't hear much) can locate several toms and see if this place may be better than our usual area that's 2x further away and had so much pressure last year on youth season it looked like it was deer firearms. in the parking lots.
good night all.

Heck yeah! Good luck finding some gobblers.

Missouri’s turkey population is way down, especially in my part of the state. We used to kill 700 to 800+ birds in the spring season in my county. Struggle to kill 300 for many recent years.

I’ve done a little turkey chasing. I’ve just never seen decoys be the slam dunk guarantee that you have. I don’t see them any more effective than good calling. Reaping, fanning, whatever you want to call it is another conversation altogether imo.
Woodmanship consistently kills more turkeys than anything else.
Personally I wish more people sat in blinds with decoys. They don’t bugger near as many as they do walking around.

I use the collapsible foam decoys. A jake and hen. They weigh nothing and can just stuff in a backpack. They definitely work. They do have small metal poles that stake into the ground, but they also weigh next to nothing. Tom's come running at them!

No one is judgmental. Just seems they don’t work for some folks I guess.
Yeah, Swamp, if a gobbler saw the decoys he was a dead bird…every single time. And again, just one example in that pic. I stated all the other WMA’s I hunted back then. Used to haul those jokers out of state as well. Get on the prairies of Kansas and let a gobbler see that and they’d come running.
I only thought decoys were the ticket, until I tried fanning or reaping. It was self defense shooting, lol. You learned quick when to drop that fan and get the gun on them.
Have things changed since I quit using them? Based on every video you see on social media, I don’t think so. It used to take us longer to drive straight through to Kansas than it did to kill a 2-3 man limit out there. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I was lucky an awfully lot, enough to let me know that wasn’t really hunting to me.
As far as decoys I’ve had a DSD hen and Avian hen out at the same time and a hen in the group came in and destroyed the DSD and acted like the Avian wasn’t even there. The gobbler came in and attempted to mate the DSD while it was laying on its side from the hen knocking it over.
If you travel out West in the mountains and don’t set up right that gobbler will never come in. He’ll peak over that ridge and if he doesn’t see anything the next gobble will be 200yds away. Turkeys are a “sight” bird. He heard something, but if what he hears doesn’t match what he can clearly see or doesn’t see, he’s gone. I’m real picky about where I call from and possible setups before making a call…getting too old to belly crawl and become one with the earth, lol.

I just purchased this AvianX HDR hen. I compared the DS's and went with the AX HDR....more realism.

Avian X offers another (cheaper line) of decoys...not as realistic as their HDR line.




Here is the Dave Smith hen I compared...

Headed to get a head start on getting chufa dirt ready today...

I mentioned to the manager about planting Chufa before, he said he tried it and it brought in more hogs than pigs at the time. We just planted about 8-9 fields in partridge pea. More beneficial for the quail, but the turkeys and deer make good use of it as well, cover and food.

Yeah that hen does look pretty sweet. They’ve come a long ways. I started out with one of those fold up things that was a general shape of a turkey more so than actually looking like a turkey. Even that thing would bring them in. As a joke I bought my son one the other day for him to take to the PNW so he wouldn’t get skunked.

Yeah...if you have hogs around...chufas are a no-go. Also have to plant them in large enough plots that squirrels, coons, and possums can't eat em all.

Partridge peas grows on the sand ridges here...thick in a most of the areas of full sunlight. Easy to see it when those yellow blooms are covering it.

I have a love- hate relationship with them.

I try really hard not to use them. Especially in the early part of the season. I would rather kill them with the call.

They tend to feel like an anchor to me once deployed. I do sometimes carry just a fan. I’ve pulled hung up birds the last few steps with a quick flash or two of an open fan.

My old hunting mentor called them dummies. Some days if we hadn’t been successful killing them the honest way, we’d go dummy hunting.

I would certainly like to hunt where some of you do and have the success rate that you do. I am a archery hunter so it is almost impossible to kill a turkey while not in a blind. I have done it once. With a gun, sure go chase them around and move to get in front of them, no blind or decoys needed. I use decoys ranging from a full strut Jake (I agree that a Tom decoy can scare most turkeys away) to a couple hens depending on how aggressive the toms seem that year. My success rate is around 50%, filling my tag roughly every other year. I am in an area with hundreds of turkeys with 2 miles of me at any given time. I was lucky enough to fill my tag this morning and had a prefect example of this. Right off the roost, a single tom flew down towards me, covered about a 1/4 mile straight at me gobbling every time I called before veering off at 150 yards to join a larger group of turkeys. He could see my decoys the entire time and paid them no attention. Just as a I was packing up I spotted a small group of turkeys coming from the same direction. It was 3 toms and 3 hens. I called several times but they never gobbled but the dang near ran the entire way, with the toms leading, right to 15 yards from my blind. They may have came closer but that was well within my kill range. I have no doubt that if I didn't have decoys out, I would have never harvested one of those turkeys. Since the season just started, I was using 2 hen decoys.



Here is a YouTube Short showing the turkey with measurements:
[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/BPsgIPPJp38?feature=share[/video]

Schmattz

I took my 11 yo son for Ohio youth turkey. While circumnavigating a cut corn field I called. I started to walk and my son started pointing. We set up and i called in 2 jakes. He unalived a triple beard jake! Since then I've been a blind/decoy hunter. Including yesterday when 3 longbeards came in. They left their buddy 24 1/2 pound 10.5 beard Ears way to bad to run and gun. Plus you can smoke an Ashton and they can't see!