Turkey Tactics - "Become Water My Friends"

The famous martial artist Bruce Lee once said that water takes on the shape of it's environment. In a bottle, it takes on the shape of the bottle. Pour it from the bottle into a glass and it takes on the shape of the glass. Bruce Lee then said, "become water my friends". In other words, be flexible in your tactics to meet the current situation. Of course Bruce was talking about applying the water tactic toward martial arts. This philosophy of becoming water can be applied very effectively toward hunting, specifically turkey hunting.

After hunting for many years it is often easy to get set in your ways and become non-flexible. Although it is unwise to forget about the tried and true tactics that have brought you success in the past, it is also unwise to not try new things that may bring you more success quicker. I learned many of my skills from my father Fred Abbas and from reading. I was fortunate enough to have a great hunter and above all a great father as a teacher. Reading taught me a lot of common and general tactics. They were good and necessary building blocks, but time in the woods was the best overall teacher. I remember when I was younger and had experienced a few years of success in a row, I got a little over confident in my skills thinking that I had these birds down to a science. Of course it didn't take long for them to quickly humble me and bring me back down to earth. This was perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned, and the motivating factor that drove me to learn these crazy birds inside and out. When I felt that I was good enough, I started guiding people professionally, putting in 40 out of 40 days a year in the turkey woods (not counting days scouting) this really taught me the ways of the woods, and how to become water. What I was learning from my full time job in the woods wasn't in any books.

At first you will probably rely mostly on your calling skills when hunting. Secondly, and most importantly, you will start learning and never stop learning woodsmanship. When you get good at both, you will experience good success. When you build on from that, you will experience great success. Be flexible in your calling. There is a time to call a lot, and a time to call very little if any. As a general rule, I like to get the gobblers fired up with aggressive cuts and yelps when the birds are off in the distance. I want to convince them that this is the place to be for the sexiest hens. Sometimes I use two calls at one time to sound like multiple hens. This is usually done with a pushbutton call and a mouth diaphragm call. As the gobbler closes the distance, I lower the volume to meet the situation and call less and less. I eventually want him to believe that the sound he hears is coming from behind my position. As many of you have found out, it is easy to call a gobbler to within 80-100 yards, the hard part is bringing him from that distance into gun range without him hanging up on you. Nine times out of ten, the reason he hangs up out of gun range is that the hunter has called too loud and too often. The gobbler has now pin pointed where the sound is coming from. When he doesn't see the hen moving around where he thinks she should be, he gets suspicious, stays put just strutting and gobbling, but not coming in any closer. Eventually he loses interest and walks off Most hunters at this point try calling more and more to no avail, and then they too give up and leave the woods. To narrow down or overcome these hang ups, I quit doing any cuts or yelps when I can physically see the bird. From this point, I lower the volume (if using a Turkey Trooper 2000 pushbutton call) and point the call behind me to throw my voice so to speak using soft clucks and purrs. This usually fools the gobbler and pulls him through me. Learning to change your calling tactics to meet the distance is a successful way of becoming water. There are also times when you want to do very little if any calling. These are times when you have the birds travel patterns down, and/or while hunting over a dusting bowl in late morning or early afternoon waiting for the birds to come by. Such was the case last year when I took out a father and his son. Above all, I wanted the young man to have a great time and experience the thrill of an up close gobbler. We worked very hard the first day doing a lot of walking in the morning. At about 10:30 A.M. I took my two hunters to a spot on state land where I knew the birds usually dusted between I I A.M. and 12:30. 1 set the father up by a dusting bowl about 100 yards away while I took the young hunter with me and sat over a clearing with several dusting bowls. Since these birds were called to by many hunters, I knew that they were very call shy. I set my decoy in one of the dusting bowls and just sat and waited for their arrival doing no calling. It was a warm day and the sun was beating down on us. When 12-30 rolled around, I figured they weren't going to come so we stood up. As I stood up I noticed five red gobbler heads just starting to peak out of the wood line. They seen us and of course took off. The next morning found us on some pretty good private land. Unfortunately the gobblers were banned up and we had no way to out maneuver them without trespassing so we had to give these birds a rest. I was very confident that we would get the other gobblers back at the dusting bowls if we headed there, but the father had other commitments and had to give up at 9:30 A.M. I felt so bad, I really wanted to get the young man a bird. The next day two new hunters came in and doubled up over the same dusting bowls. It ended up that the father and son was the only party I took out last year that didn't get a crack at a bird. Knowing when not to call was the key to becoming water this time although one to three soft clucks probably would've worked in this case too. There are those who are very aggressive in their calling tactics, doing a lot of walking and talking (calling), while others sit in one spot all day and do little calling. I've had success using both methods but find a combination of the two to be best depending on time of day. At first light I like to be set up against a tree 80- 100 yards away from the bird's roost. It's best to set up in the direction that the birds want to be when they fly down. The hens will usually head toward a food source when they fly down. Of course the gobblers will automatically follow the hens. It is ten times easier to call in a bird if you are set up in the direction that they want to be. This is where endless scouting pays off. By finding the scratchings left by turkeys when they scratch leaves out of the way in search of food, you can determine the direction of travel. The pointed end of the scratching's "V" will
always point to the direction they travel. Once set up and daylight starts to peak, the gobblers will start gobbling on their own. This is my cue to start doing soft tree yelps. Once the gobbler responds, and he will, I wait another 10 minutes before repeating the sound again. Once on the ground, I give aggressive cuts and yelps. As the gobbler approaches 80 yards, I lower the volume and give out a soft cluck or two. From this point, as long as the gobbler is coming in, I don't say any more unless he wanders off course. My next sound will be a cluck to raise his head when he is in gun range, thus exposing a larger head/neck target area for my hunter. If the initial set up fails, this is when I will use the walk and talk technique. I like to use this technique during the first few hours of daylight while the gobbler is still gobbling. Walking through the woods using a locator call, (sand hill crane call preferably, or owl #2), is very effective for this time of day. I will walk about 70 yards, stop, call, and listen for a response. Once a gobble is heard, many hunters (experienced ones too) tend to sit down right away and hope for the best only to be caught out of good position. By taking time to look over the lay of the land first, you can get in the gobblers path more times than not. If I see a thicket, I know the gobbler probably will not go through it in his approach. He is more likely to follow a ridge on high ground in his approach. He is also likely to come in 60 yards or so off to one of your flanks instead of making a beeline for you unless he is a young excited Jake. Once I recognize his likely approach, I will make my way there and set up shop. There will be times however when the bird is too close when you hear his initial gobble and you must sit immediately, but in most cases, take your time and pick a good spot. Again, you become water to fit the current situation. Later in the morning when the gobblers talk very little or none, I change my tactics to follow their natural communication level. If I were to be loud and aggressive in my calling, it would be unnatural for this time of day, thus alerting the gobblers to a human scam. This is the time to sit in one spot hunting the dusting bowls and cool river bottoms talking very little. Set up a decoy or two 15-20 yards away, sit back and relax. If a gobbler is around, he is likely to approach silently, keep your eyes open! The soft talk tactic is especially effective on state lands where the birds get hammered by aggressive calling day in and day out.

Becoming water also applies to your camo pattern. Owning a couple different patterns is a good idea for blending into your surroundings taking into consideration spring pre-green, and green once the new leaves appear. My favorite overall pattern and especially good for pre-green hunting is Mossy Oak Break Up. Real Tree Extra Brown is a good choice for hunting late spring when there is new green growth, Advantage camo which is very popular among hunters is not a good one to use on a wet day. When the woods are wet, they are also dark, Advantage sticks out like a sore thumb under these conditions. It is best suited for dry conditions. Some hunters will also mix. and match clothes to fit the current situation. They will wear Mossy Oak Breakup pants to blend in with the forest floor, and Real Tree Extra Brown jacket which has green in it to blend in with the new leaf growth off the ground.

Being that the turkey's eye sight is ten times better than ours, it is more important to keep still. You absolutely can't get away with movement, they will bust you every time. More times than not when a hunter blows his hunt, it's because he has moved at a bad time. Deer may forgive and forget movement, a turkey will not. He assumes that every movement in the woods is out to eat him, and he is usually right. When caught with the gun down, most hunters try to lift their guns while the turkey is 50 yards away. The gobbler usually catches this movement and vacates to premises in a hurry without the hunter getting off a shot. If caught with the gun down, wait until the gobbler's head goes behind a tree, then lift your gun. If there are no trees, let the gobbler approach to within gun range. No sense trying to lift the gun when he is at 50-60 yards in full view because he will see you and run away without giving you a chance at a shot. Once he is in gun range, you can try a slow lift if he is looking at your decoy, if he busts you, he will usually first lift his head up high to get a better look before running, this is your cue to lift and shoot. This way even if he decides to vacate, you should still end up with a shot.

Each trip to the woods should be a learning experience no matter what your skill level is. You can gain many years of experience in a single season by logging in extra days scouting. The average Michigan turkey hunter puts in only 4 days hunting a year and chalks it up as one years worth of experience, this is not a lot of experience. Spend your spare time in the woods, and you will be amazed at how quickly you learn how to read sign, and pick up good woodsmanship. You will learn how to walk, stop, and look around like the deer. You will learn how to walk quietly measuring each step like the bear. From the turkey you will learn how to keep trees and obstacles between you and danger when being chased the (not so quiet now) bear. You will also learn to listen to the birds and squirrels alerting you of the approach of a silent gobbler. Nature has a lot to teach when you become water my friend