Anyone Turkey hunt in Idaho? Help lol

[HillSlick]

Me and my buddy are over in Post Falls Idaho on some private property. And I'll be honest, we jus can't seem to do anything right. Just can't seem to get on any turkeys, the few we've gotten to gobble at us replied once and then disappeared. We've even been in some good spots where we heard them on the previous evening.

EDITED:

Here's what we've been doing:

 1st day we are out at 6am- we hiked over to a spot we know they have frequented, it's a little clearing up on in the hills a little ways, wait for a few minutes for everything to quiet down, then let out a gobble to see if anyone's home, nothin, do we sit and wait for a while, intermittently calling with both hen clucks and gobbles to see if we can get anything to say hello. We do this until around 8 or 9 and then We headed back to rest and have lunch for a bit, come back around 11ish and try another spot, its a clearing on a hillside that's not far from the first clearing. We wait a few minutes then let out some hen clucks, and there's no reply, and continue to call every few minutes with hen clucks letting out the occasional gobble. This goes on for an hour or two with no response, so we head back and decide to try in the evening, since we saw a bunch on the way in the previous evening. We go back out around 5/5:30 and we just sit and listen, we let out a few hen clucks but nothing much. After a little while we hear a gobble way off in the distance, so we pack up and head in the direction, we walk a short ways and listen for a while, nothing, so we let out a gobble, nothin. We decide to sit and wait, finally just before sunset we hear a single gobble down the valley from the hillside we are on, we have our destination for the morning!

This time we got up at 4 and we were In a good spot not too far from where the gobble sounded like it came from well before sunrise. It struck us as odd that there were no vocalizations as the sun rose, not a single one that we heard, and when we let out a gobble (probably and hourish after sunrise) like I said we actually got a reply or two. I couldn't convince my partner to go after said turkeys so we sat and waited for two hours, letting out hen clucks every 10ish minutes and another gobble. Nothing. So we head back. After a suggestion by one of you wonderful fellows and talking to a lady at Cabelas that Turkey hunts, we were told to try from 10-2 and that they'd henned up already and wouldn't really locate for us, so we just headed back out to our spots to try and do our best. We saw multiple turkeys on our way to and from our spot but it was all on private land/someone's yard. We essentially repeated the same process by checking our couple different spots and letting out calls here and there.

Maybe we just got skunked? The spots we were in showed evidence of recent turkey activity. But no cigar. Not sure what we are doing wrong, if you have any tips or advice please comment. And as always I hope you are all doing very well and having much better luck than I lol, any and all help is always appreciated!


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[HillSlick]

Update: we had to make a trip to the store for his folks and we saw a big Ole Tom with some hens on the way down in someone's yard, threw a couple gobbles at him and he didn't even run around to investigate, they're henned up, that's why we aren't hearin em.


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[270Shooter]

Update: we had to make a trip to the store for his folks and we saw a big Ole Tom with some hens on the way down in someone's yard, threw a couple gobbles at him and he didn't even run around to investigate, they're henned up, that's why we aren't hearin em.


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i was going to say sounds like they are henned up. Typical one gobble and leave type of thing. Try to strike a bird from 10-2 that's when the toms will be the most vulnerable. Some or all of the hens will leave the toms by then.

[HillSlick]

Do you by chance know if they change elevations or prefer different elevations during different times of day?


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[270Shooter]

It's really hard to say. From my limited experience they may travel up hill during the day to some degree. But that's not always the case, in my opinion turkeys are where you find them.

[dune]

If you get them to answer  once try to figure out which way they are going cut them off if you get a hen fried up keep her talking and wait.

[wastickslinger]

Leave him alone until 10 am then relocate him. Personally i never use a gobble to call ever. Several reasons. Are you using it to locate only or attempting to call them in with it?

[HillSlick]

Leave him alone until 10 am then relocate him. Personally i never use a gobble to call ever. Several reasons. Are you using it to locate only or attempting to call them in with it?

We are just trying to locate them with the gobble, and if one were to come a runnin' we wouldn't have complained lol that's kindof what's killed us I think, we couldn't locate any of them, and the one time we did get a response, I couldn't convince my partner that we should go after him because they won't come to us. I should probably edit my post to explain in more detail about what our method has been.



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[inlandnwbow]

Depends on how far off your gobble is. If it's faint, it's worth getting closer and trying to call again. Maybe try another locator call, crow or owl.

[HillSlick]

Depends on how far off your gobble is. If it's faint, it's worth getting closer and trying to call again. Maybe try another locator call, crow or owl.

Yes I should invest in a different locator I think too, but I'm not sure what it should be. During the day there was actually a lot of crow activity, and they never responded to the crows goin off either, which also kindof threw me for a loop,


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[wastickslinger]

Truck door my go to locator. Close second to my horn. Lol

My 10 year old sneezed the other day. It worked too.

But really, add some locators to the bag. Honestly i typically run and gun all day with just my hen calls. Stop and call often. Once located determine if you have time to close the gap. I always try a least a little. Unless they are right on me.

Gobble scares me. Too many idiots shoot at sounds. Aa far as one running in to a gobble, 15 years chasing turks and plenty have hit the dirt, i have never seen one come to a gobble. My 

[inlandnwbow]

^ good advice!

Truck door my go to locator. Close second to my horn. Lol

My 10 year old sneezed the other day. It worked too.

But really, add some locators to the bag. Honestly i typically run and gun all day with just my hen calls. Stop and call often. Once located determine if you have time to close the gap. I always try a least a little. Unless they are right on me.

Gobble scares me. Too many idiots shoot at sounds. Aa far as one running in to a gobble, 15 years chasing turks and plenty have hit the dirt, i have never seen one come to a gobble. My 

[HillSlick]

Truck door my go to locator. Close second to my horn. Lol

My 10 year old sneezed the other day. It worked too.

But really, add some locators to the bag. Honestly i typically run and gun all day with just my hen calls. Stop and call often. Once located determine if you have time to close the gap. I always try a least a little. Unless they are right on me.

Gobble scares me. Too many idiots shoot at sounds. Aa far as one running in to a gobble, 15 years chasing turks and plenty have hit the dirt, i have never seen one come to a gobble. My 

Thank you for the reply! Other locators will be my investment for next year. And are you kidding or serious about the door and truck horn? Lol


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[wastickslinger]

Truck door my go to locator. Close second to my horn. Lol

My 10 year old sneezed the other day. It worked too.

But really, add some locators to the bag. Honestly i typically run and gun all day with just my hen calls. Stop and call often. Once located determine if you have time to close the gap. I always try a least a little. Unless they are right on me.

Gobble scares me. Too many idiots shoot at sounds. Aa far as one running in to a gobble, 15 years chasing turks and plenty have hit the dirt, i have never seen one come to a gobble. My 

Thank you for the reply! Other locators will be my investment for next year. And are you kidding or serious about the door and truck horn? Lol


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Lol. I cant even count how many birds got killed because i didnt shut my door quietly. Use my horn when roosting at night. Or coyote howl

[Machias]

Crow call can be a good locator call, coyote howl.  Flushed a mallard once off of a pond and as he circled quacking, got a gobble response.  Ended up calling him in and killing him, my first WA turkey way back in 1995.  When they are henned up bad, I don't even hit the woods until 0830ish.

[dune]

Use a goose call

[HillSlick]

Truck door my go to locator. Close second to my horn. Lol

My 10 year old sneezed the other day. It worked too.

But really, add some locators to the bag. Honestly i typically run and gun all day with just my hen calls. Stop and call often. Once located determine if you have time to close the gap. I always try a least a little. Unless they are right on me.

Gobble scares me. Too many idiots shoot at sounds. Aa far as one running in to a gobble, 15 years chasing turks and plenty have hit the dirt, i have never seen one come to a gobble. My 

Thank you for the reply! Other locators will be my investment for next year. And are you kidding or serious about the door and truck horn? Lol


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Lol. I cant even count how many birds got killed because i didnt shut my door quietly. Use my horn when roosting at night. Or coyote howl

Well then, lol I guess my efforts at being quiet are somewhat counter productive then ain't they? Lol


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[kevinlisa06]

Crow call pilliated woodpecker peacock call coyote howler are all good locators.
Leave him alone until late morning to early afternoon. Roost them birds at night, put them to bed then sneak back in in the morning bout 45 minutes to an hour before the sun comes up then your ready for them when they pitch out of the trees.

[HillSlick]

Crow call pilliated woodpecker peacock call coyote howler are all good locators.
Leave him alone until late morning to early afternoon. Roost them birds at night, put them to bed then sneak back in in the morning bout 45 minutes to an hour before the sun comes up then your ready for them when they pitch out of the trees.

Thank you! We've been more or less just tryin to find em on the fly, clearly our method isn't working -_-


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[L8NITE]

Just got back from an Idaho Turkey trip...have to say it was a very tough hunt! We managed to get three birds but we had to work hard between the rain and hail storms. The birds were not talking much and even when they did they would not leave the hens. I was not much of a believer in gobbling but that was the only way we could keep them fired up and bring them into the decoys. They seemed to go crazy when they seen our spread of hens with a jake (bought the new avians for the trip...highly recommended). Watched three big gobblers on a hill side for over an hour and tried a few light hen calls and nothing...gobbled once and they went crazy. Tried locating them with different  calls  in the evenings and got zero responses. We seen lots of birds but they just werent talking much. Just my !!!
Good luck on your hunt and hope you get one!

One more thing we did see birds at both high and low elevations but the majority were down low

[HillSlick]

Just got back from an Idaho Turkey trip...have to say it was a very tough hunt! We managed to get three birds but we had to work hard between the rain and hail storms. The birds were not talking much and even when they did they would not leave the hens. I was not much of a believer in gobbling but that was the only way we could keep them fired up and bring them into the decoys. They seemed to go crazy when they seen our spread of hens with a jake (bought the new avians for the trip...highly recommended). Watched three big gobblers on a hill side for over an hour and tried a few light hen calls and nothing...gobbled once and they went crazy. Tried locating them with different  calls  in the evenings and got zero responses. We seen lots of birds but they just werent talking much. Just my !!!
Good luck on your hunt and hope you get one!

One more thing we did see birds at both high and low elevations but the majority were down low

Thanks for the reply man, that's very interesting, we only got one or two gobbles last weekend when we used our gobble call. Glad to hear that it's. it necessarily just me and my buddy havin a tough time though, little more encouraging lol. Definitely useful info man thanks again! And I'm glad to hear you had a successful hunt!!


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[Henrydog]

The reason Idaho birds don't talk is because Idaho ranks 49th out of 50 States in Education, most them just don't know how to form words properly.   When you live on the Liberal side of the State Line but do everything but sleep in Idaho like I do, I gotta take the cheap shot.

[HillSlick]

The reason Idaho birds don't talk is because Idaho ranks 49th out of 50 States in Education, most them just don't know how to form words properly.   When you live on the Liberal side of the State Line but do everything but sleep in Idaho like I do, I gotta take the cheap shot.

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