How To HUNT TURKEYS: Basics With Jay Maxwell

[Music] [Music] alright guys welcome to another episode of sequin today we're going to be talking about the basics of turkey hunting I want to start off with you guys by telling you kind of what turkeys do and why we have there's two different seasons for turkeys there's a spring season which we have here in Georgia and there's a fall season the reason we have this season is we're going into a mating season and that's similar to deer going into deer season with a rut and the Bucks chasing the dough's and you get the separation and that's the same thing in turkey season so the spring time the gobblers are wanting to come out and show off they want to strut around the hands and display themselves and make them look bigger so the fields are very good obviously the thicker woods you get the more foliage it grows up more greenery it's thicker the birds can't quite see his farm so they can't here's good so they'll they love to get into more of a hardwood bottom Creek bottom where they can see they can hear pine trees are great but pine trees that have been burned cut nice and clean and pretty turkeys love get in and same thing goes for four fields I'll say when they're clean cut they love get out there and look for those insects they love to show off I mean those those habitats with definitely what you're looking for when you are looking for her Turkey's roost every night just like we get a bit so we're gonna call it sunset when that Sun Goes Down behind that tree line that Turkey is gonna want to fly up into a tree yeah because he can't see what's going on nighttime he's been on the door all kind of creditors they love to roost in big trees they like vertical horizontal limbs not vertical horizontal limbs that get a flat out the flatter the better a lot of times they roost in the same areas sometimes they roost in the same areas in the wintertime and then they may change it when it comes to springtime to be a vocal in for the hens and again in the morning time they're obviously gonna come down out of the tree early screen when there's no leaves on the trees at all like the let's say a gal there's 40 feet up in a tree and it's mating season he wants to gobble to let the hens know that hey Here I am over here you girls come on and I'm gonna try to gobble and call as many hands as I can to me and then hopefully he can see one to fly down to her so they can start the mating process well early in the springtime there is no leaf on the trees at all you can see two or three hundred yards down through the woods in certain areas so when you're approaching as a hunter early springtime you can't get nearly as close as you can as you can right now and we're full foliage right now tomorrow's May first this one he leaves everywhere and that gobbler you can get you could probably cut the distance in half and getting close to him now he'll also later in the year as we are now he could possibly sit on the limb a lot longer also and the reason they do this is he can't see his farm right so he's gobbling he's wanting to see a hand well he can't see the hand that he could have a month ago she maybe 200 yards coming in she may have to get all the way to him like 50 yards before he actually sees her to get the visual especially an old bird an old bird will sit in a tree way longer than a two-year-old that is just ready and excited to jump out of the tree and go get a girlfriend he will sit there until he actually lays his eyes on her some states say a legal bird to kill is a bearded turkey well not here in the state of Georgia it has to be a gobbler it used to be a bearded turkey that has to be gobbler and the reason being just because hands have beards too some of them do it's rare I would say probably one in 10 hands has a beard you may have seen one you may have not just because it has a beard you can't pull the trigger so your look when you're looking for a gobbler obviously you're hopefully he'll be gobbling and strutting and whatnot and uh you're looking for a long beard if you're looking for an adult bird now an adult bird can have a long beard at two years old in two year old bird is nothing wrong with hunting a two year old bird technically you're not gonna know whether he's two years old three years old four years old five years old until you walk up there and flip him over and see what kind of Spurs he has on a two year old bird is gonna have Spurs probably less than an inch anywhere between a half an inch to an inch I would call a three year old one inch to maybe an inch and an eighth running that category I would call a three year old somewhere around the inch and a quarter range and higher now once you get over an inch and a quarter everybody wants to break the inch and a half mark okay once you break an inch and an inch and a quarter I don't think you can accurately judge that age of a turkey I'm not saying that you might not kill one it's two inches that might be a seven or eight year old bird you might but I believe you can also kill a four or five year old it has the ancient record Spurs on it we and obviously the youngest bird which is one year old will be a Jake now the Jake beards they'll stick straight out it's very very clear you can't miss it now you guys know a little bit about the basics of Turkey's the patterns the roosting the age of differences between the birds what we want to talk about now is the location the scouting and some of the gear that we'll be using to go after these things as you guys know we hunt turkeys on multiple different properties we cut a lot of private properties places that we've had permission for a long time places that we just knocked on the door you know a safe one we love knocking on doors we're not bashful at all from example yesterday morning my wife just killed her first bird y'all that bird was strutting in a field 5 miles from my house a week ago I saw him two times the second time I was like okay I need to buy that he's got this I found a 75 acre tract of land I want owned X using my maps got the name of the property started looking for phone numbers while I'm looking for my phone numbers on it in front this guy's house he comes out of the house I immediately took advantage of it jumping out of the trunk knocked on the door got permission she's just killing first bird on my very first one so pay off big down there we hunt a lot of public ground we float down rivers we walk properties we get all in place I'm about to get a Wisconsinite overlay I don't know where I'm going my first greatest tool that I could possibly use it on next I will pull that map out and it will tell me what's public what's private the land names and give me a starting point to where I know exactly what to do just like here just 75 acres I need the guy's name before I'm Eddie I said hey are you mr. so and so he said well yes I am that broke the ice immediately to help me get into the conversation so we use these tools daily when I'm turkey hunting to find out what we're doing so when I'm trying to find out a new piece of property and if it has birds or where I need to start at I immediately look for the highest point of the property that's my favorite place to start reason being because you can hear really well there I would like to know where all my creek drains are water on the property in the hospital three basic ones and I'm going to start mostly on the high point at daylight in the morning to see if I can hear a bird if it's spring time if you're just going scouting and walking a piece of property you can walk all these I love to walk roadbeds sandy roadbeds Creek banks looking for tracks strut marks and listen to the vocalization we can also locate birds on a new piece of property by going out late in the evenings and I love to do a fly down cackle or fly calculus of a very good vocalization there again you want to be in the highest point of the property you're still looking for that perfect day because rooster the turkey is extremely difficult just because you go there in the afternoon you try to roost a bird whether you're crow calling owl hooting to try to get him to gobble or doing these flies or fly downs doesn't mean he's gonna gobble he could be a hundred yards from you listen to you never say a word so try not to get discouraged about roosting turkeys that's difficult let's talk about gear for a second I'm not gonna go into deep detail on this but first of all camo a turkey can see and hear extremely well you need to be head-to-toe in camo I don't care what color you use but you need to be head-to-toe your hands need to be covered your arms long sleeves and most of all your face your face shines the Sun hits it in the mornings it'll shine it'll give off your location where you may be so after you get all your camo on I prefer to wear knee-high boots in the reason I wear knee-high boots all the time is because I get through a lot of water across creeks they go through drainages and swamps and all kind of stuff I'll be prepared so I get a good nice comfortable pair of boots because you may be walking for miles so they need to be comfortable and waterproof very important as far as a weapon goes doesn't really matter check with state local you know your state regulations make sure you know what you can hunt with here you're in Georgia my favorite gun is this little stephens in 301 410 a lot of people give me grief over fourteen I also had the same gun in a 20 but as you look at this gun I had this gun decked out you can't just go buy a gun at Walmart put a birdshot in it and pull the trigger on a turkey it doesn't work that way you're shooting a 20-pound turkey in the head with a shotgun so these are hand loaded special shells from a friend of mine and it's made to kill turkey with I have a this is a vortex venom sight I have a red dot inside here and it gives me precise location exactly to where that shot needs to be most people think oh I'm shooting a shotgun you can just point it and shoot and it's just gonna kill whatever's around it wrong right here most of you can pick it up pull the trigger on it and if you're not paying attention you'll miss a full-grown Turkey a 20 yard with it because it shoots such a tight pattern and of course I have a aftermarket token this gun this one's made by Compton choke just some good friends of mine down at Sylvania Georgia but uh can't be choked vortex TSS shells and the little single shotgun this is a two hundred dollar gun anybody can purchase this and it is a stone killer at 50 yards I can kill a 20-pound bird at 50 yards of this gun and they make it in 20 years and all kind of stuff Bonelli's pumps it doesn't matter what you shoot 2012 14 just make sure it's epical make sure you know where you're aiming a lot of guys aim for the neck on a turkey I love to put my little red dot on that vortex I love to put it right on his head and pull the trigger I love to knock that whole white cap run off his head I also got a boat here buy one got a lot of guys that are both hunters y'all know we love bowling I will kill you I make sure I kill a turkey every year with my bug I've been doing this since I was a teenager I would shoot the same setup that you shoot during deer season there's no sense I'm lowering the poundage on it or shooting some crazy turkey Brown head you just need to learn where the vitals are on the turkey take your time take a deep breath make a shot count and you will be extremely successful guaranteed also I love to have a good pair of binoculars no deer season I care a pair of 10:42 I love a 10 42 binocular nothing wrong with carrying this there in turkey season I got shoulder harness straps on them they stay tight to my chest right here but what I found out there was a few years I like a smaller pair of binoculars so now I've actually started carrying a pair of 1028 they're only 28 but they are so super light I can just pick them up really easy and look but are very good for locating to find out if it's a gobbler in the field or a hand you don't know what you're looking at scanning through you know hardwoods and whatnot good to have gosh there's also a ton of different calls you heard me earlier talked about I used to be a competition caller I am a mouth taller I love mouths calling I think it's the most versatile the easiest not the easiest it's actually the hardest but you can get away with it there's no hand motions or anything and I can become the most make the most realistic sounds possible with a mouth call that's me I've been blowing a mouth call probably since I was five years old so I haven't mastered it but I figured it out and I feel like I know how to make turkey sounds in the woods no I've got a bunch of mouth calls here these all these are a bunch of different ones these are time teasers I think I've got a link over here somewhere I like Tom teaser but they all have different cuts in they all make different sounds they all have four different tape on them it's very important just like you're going to buy a new boat or you maybe you're going to buy a new car truck you want to find something that feels good to you I prefer this tape I prefer those latex and I know what cuts I like there are a hundred different kinds of cuts latex is and tape you need to find one that you like I'm not gonna sit here and teach you how to blow a mouth call this is something you're gonna have to learn about it this is what I prefer now for a beginner Hunter if you just want to go out there and try to call a turkey in you can't be boss cause this is what the old-timers did no old Lynch 101 this is a zinc wicked you can take a boss call and there again I'm not gonna sit and teach you how to use it but you can call a turkey in with a box call any day of the week a beginner can learn this I can teach my nine-year-old daughter how to run this she already knows how to run it I can teach you how to run in five minutes simple then we yell process that's all you need just make sure you do it the right Oh slate call we have a glass link right here a friend of ours David Halloran made this for us this is actually uh yeah this is got our sequin logo on it another great way to learn before while you're trying to learn how to mouth call use the slate you can see the scratched out glass here I already have a location that I like to rub the slate on it's kind of like taking a piece of pen and drawing on a piece of paper and making a half C note so I'll make my little C's I saw yell here's a little bit of cutting slate call this is they make a slate slate like a chalkboard slate and then this is glass so bunch of different kind of they even make aluminum bunch of different colors and those ones I prefer the mouth cause you can't see it when it's in my mouth I like this better so I got my face mask on my gloves and I walked him it's better than sitting there with your hands tied up on a slate or a boxcar so this is why I choose these if you guys want to hear more advanced calling I'm in the link comment down below let me know we can do that a little bit later but it can get extremely advanced don't call it [Applause] [Applause] okay you guys see my decoy is sitting right here these are two of my favorites I don't care what kind you use if they look realistic look I killed my first bird in 1989 or 1990 I think and I was using a that's the first time I think they come out with a feather flex phone decoy that you pop out on the inside and pop it out at that point in time as a kid now I couldn't even afford on the court so my best friend and I went in made cardboard turkey decoys and paint on a black and the very first time we hunted off of we had three long beards running in and Jay King his name is Jay Jay killed one of them and it was just the most amazing thing we made some cardboard decoys and they weren't like a charm so that being said this right here what I use a lot of force truck decoys because it entices that bird it really gets him pissed off in his head he wants to come kick his rear in he does not want competition he does not want another gal there taking over his baby so this is a carry like pretty boy and the reason I love this call I have three of them on my bottom when they first came out they're discontinued then we'll make them anymore but I love the head on this bird and the fact that he's so big in the body so you can tell of course I hadn't painting him in a while but I have repainted the whole thing I have a lot of red and probably the most important thing my strutting decoy is this white cap right here I will bleach white that whole thing and make him white that's what catches the turkeys attention guaranteed when he's a long way off he sees that white cap and of course you can take like here this is one of my fans I got it cut up in the back so I can just take my fan here drop it right down in there and then you have the whole deal I can only carry that through the woods and I'm fine reason being I'm calling like a hand he's coming up they're looking for a hand but when he sees the gobbler all he wants to do is concentrate on the gobbler I don't care if you had ten hen decoys and you had one Jake decoy the gobbler is coming to the Jake every single time he's gonna whoop his tail first then go get the hands so if you really want to be proficient just take the gobbler decoy there again you have to check state regulations and laws because they're not legal in every single state if you're gonna take a hand this is an avian X I think they're extremely realistic for the money I think they're about 80 bucks both I've had this one for years you can see the legs off dangling on it but like I said my favorite decoy to use is a gobbler decoy I will take this truck decoy right here and if I'm just setting up with my boat to get a shot I love my decoy to be less than 20 yards I like that bird to be nice and close when I'm shooting with a boat so I can pick the right angle you know whatever neat movement on a decoy we just posted an episode here shortly a couple days ago if you hadn't seen it I think drew called it like five long beers with a bow or five long beaters coming in those birds were hung up at 40 yards when the shotgun no problem could've killed one immediately just sitting right where we were but I'm Bowman I prefer not to shoot one at forty yards and I really wanted them come well all they could see they attend the decoy previously but all they could see was about probably this much and up so they could tell that some was there but then I'm not really interested but if you can make this decoy move it triggers something in that Turkey's head he just got to come and I literally went out there pull the decoy up out of the ground and they saw it and they had already heard me I was calling and crawling at the same time I got there I picked up the decoy it triggered him y'all a light not to have gotten the decoy back in the ground before they ran me over I mean I drew the bow in there five or six feet away they spun around to you know 15 yards shot went through the back dead bird so I love to move the decoy if I'm guiding somebody I would love to just hold this decoy the whole entire time especially if I'm running a full strut decoy I will literally hold the decoy while the person is set up next to me behind me I'm constantly moving if I see the gobbler I'm moving the decoy here it is here it is I'm showing him how the birds fan struts the movement is deadly I can get more into that again advanced techniques of decoying there again if you guys want to comment below and you want to see more of that then I can do that as well but moving the D chord is super important all right guys we going over all the scouting all the gear such as the cause of stuff there's a lot of different options out there choose wisely choose something that fits you make sure you work hard at it practice does make perfect in this game now we're gonna talk about game day what do I do on when it's time to get and I call that game day so what time do you need to be where you want to be if you have a location like I've talked about before like the high point location on the piece of property maybe you've never been there maybe you know where you're going you need to get where you can hear everything you need to be at this spot just to be safe 45 minutes before sunrise go to your phone go to the weather Weather Channel app any a few have what it'll give you sunrise if you're on a new piece of property you don't know what's going on you don't know if there's any birds on it off let's say you're standing there and you hear a bird gobble okay you don't there again depending on what time of the year it is early spring reverse late spring which we are now know leaves versus a whole bunch of leaves you can get closer when there's a whole lot of leaves early in the year you don't want to push the buttons you don't want to get too quick so you need to hear him go two or three or four times sometimes to make sure you got your your pinpoint located exactly where you want to be early spring I don't think I would want to cross that 200 yard threshold unless there's some kind of now pine trees don't lose their needles so pine trees are fine you can use them as a barrier I like to have those barriers but 200 yards that's that's pretty close early in the spring tomorrow morning all foliage here we are in May first you can get as close as 50 60 70 yards depending on how loud you can actually walk through the woods if you want a good dirt road you can get pretty close however setup is very very key on this when you set up from a gobbler you want to set up where you think he's gonna want to come - he's not gonna fly down and go straight down to a creek okay most likely he's gonna want to get up higher he may pitch down on the ground and get to a higher piece of ground maybe even an open area a field he'll want to go to those areas too gobbling gobbling gobbling gobble because he is still trying to call hens in from their round surrounding areas now if you go to a property that you know house turkeys on it and you don't hear anything what do you do well I go to Waffle House but kidding if you have all day off work you've taken a day off work and you really do need to concentrate on trying to get a bird in the barometric pressure maybe off a little bit maybe the turkeys had a bad night maybe he doesn't feel like gobbling in the morning maybe he already has hands so close to him he doesn't need to gobble so the best thing you can do here is put yourself in an area that you know they like to frequent there again scouting is important the tracks the scratchings the vocalizations maybe you know their travel patterns you need to be in that area 45 minutes before sunrise you need to start there have your decoys up make sure you're set back nice and tight you're going to be listening all the time roughly calling every 15 to 20 minutes until you want to get up and move and try it again it scares the daylights out of me to hunt like that I don't like to call not hear anything and get up and move two or three hundred yards and set down and do it again there's a fair chance a whole lot of people get busted this way they're not vocal they see you walk with you just off then they see you walking around like I said I'm doing I say I'm serious about going off house a lot of times if I can tell this is one of those mornings and they don't want to talk I don't want to be in the woods I don't want to mess up their daily routine of what they're doing if they're not gonna be bold when I can't figure out where they are just mid morning and I'm gonna call this let's go let's call it 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock a bird can die very easily during this timeframe however they're not always as vocal as you would like them to be if you can find a bird gobbling in the middle of the day keeping gobbling keep hammering on him if he's gobbling if he's gobbling back keep calling keep calling that birds about to die he's about to commit a suicide because he's already been with his hands all morning he's out roaming around he may be even in roman looking for a new hand and prime opportunity to kill him between 10:00 and 2:00 I've got a great friend of mine and he loves hunting public land between 10:00 and 2:00 it's favorite time now set up I love to set up at the base of a tree it's my favorite set up with a shotgun I love to get both knees up I love to be on my left knee with my with my arm I love to get comfortable you never know how long you're gonna sit there that bird may run from 200 yards into the end of your gun barrel in two or three minutes he may take 20 or 30 minutes so you need to get comfortable trying to keep your bucking getting this go to sleep a lot of people use pads I have some here I'll use a little butt pad you know for my rear end so it doesn't get wore out so get tucked in tight head net on gloves on down on the gun when the bird is actually getting into sight or you're about to see more you do seem you need to go ahead and be down you can't be sitting here like this I can't say you can't get away with it but you don't need to be down unprepared and then when he comes in you're like alright here we go and then you move that little bit of movement my wife got busted this year that way bird was 55 yards he's coming in she was down on the gun but she wasn't looking through the vortex and then she went mmm just that little movement he saw it didn't like it going with a boat you guys know I love bond I love to use the tree to sit behind the tree so basically I'm using the tree to hide me from the bird I'm right-handed so I love the tree on my left shoulder so I'll press myself up against the tree melt into it and then when the birds coming I'm looking at around the tree I can see him coming when I know I need to draw a lot of times I draw when he goes in behind something just like I talked about a second ago but I'll pull the bow back and then I'm still melted into the tree but I come up and then I'm waiting on him okay he's coming I use decoys a lot when I'm boating so a lot of the attention is off of me on the decoy so I can get away with a little bit and then of course he'll come in I'll take my shot hopefully game over hopefully you guys have killed one after we go over all this and you you know the next couple weeks hopefully you can put it all together you did kill a bird well what do I do with the bird once I kill it obviously we want to clean it need it you may mount it but you can still eat it even if you do that we clean and eat everything in this house I live out in the country we have we have frogs in our freezer that we eat frog legs we have deer meat turkey fish everything there you can clean them up the deep run by taking all the feathers off of them you can D breasts each breast there's two halves of breast in here you can have them out flying them out with a knife and their legs all obviously turkeys have big legs and a good old turkey fryer turkey legs pretty good D so there's different ways you can do it if you guys want to see that we can definitely do that just comment below thank you all so much for watching I know we went over a whole lot but if you want to see me use all these things that I just went over if you haven't already please subscribe to the channel we have several turkey videos already posted on there we have many more to come and even over the next few weeks the first of next year we're gonna just keep pouring in knowledge and you guys and hopefully this will help you out god bless me with a with this long enough now that I can use it to help you and I'm praying that a will and thank you for watching I really they're successful good luck to you Goblin [Music] you [Music]

Channel: SEEK ONE

Views: 49,050

Rating: 4.9458795 out of 5

Keywords: turkey hunting, hunting, hunt turkeys

Id: 8EmFjumJV8Y

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020