I have to be honest. I have done very little turkey hunting in the rain in recent years. A lot of it had to do with the camo job I did on my turkey gun. It had a fabric tape on the barrel, and I did not want moisture getting in underneath and rusting the barrel. A lot of the reason was that the house is no more than a half mile from the furthest extent of my property. If it rained, I could hole-up inside the house and wait for it to let up. I am a big fan of getting out just as the rain is ending-- that's when my turks head for certain pastures to feed on drowned insects, worms and so forth. I also have a few old barns that afford me a good place to go when it rains. I also love to get out just ahead of a line of rain. Some of the wildest gobbler action I've had has been where a line of storms is heading for the farm, and I can get out and hunt flydown and little bit beyond that before the deluge hits.
Having said all that, I still have an opinion on calling to turkeys in heavy fog, rain, and damp air. In those cases, the box calls stay home. All the wood-based pot calls stay home. So do the wooden strikers. Most of what I take out are either mouth calls or pot calls with a plastic base. Slate surfaces stay home as well. I stick with aluminum, glass, and plexiglass. I used to have a plastic-based pot call with a glass surface that I bought in the mid-80's from Quaker Boy that worked great, but I lost it in the divorce. I replaced it with a Triple-Threat 3-in-1 and I use a plastic or fiberglass striker.
The reason I leave all the box calls and such behind is that a single large raindrop can play havoc with a calling surface, and if a wooden call gets too much moisture on it, it may take days to get it dried out to where it's calling right again. One thing I do is pull a selection of calls out when I first get up in the morning and then go and put them out on a table on the front porch, under the roof. After breakfast, I try them out. Some calls and some strikers are just no good anytime the humidity gets too high, and having them outside for a half hour lets me know how the humidity and temperature are going to affect them.
I don't see a whole lot of breeding behavior when it rains. If rain comes in the morning after flydown everything just seems to shut down for a while. The hens stop calling; the gobblers stop gobbling. They get hinky for a while and then move somewhere where the noise of the rain doesn't bother them and then go back to what they were doing. I think it's a matter of moving out of close cover into more open woods. I think it's so they can see better.
When they settle back down, the turkeys seem subdued. I get the idea they don't like rain, but they get resigned to it and start going about their business of feeding and such. The gobblers that have been on their own seem to like to bunch up with hens. That's something I can exploit.
My rain strategy is this: If I can, I make for a barn or roofed blind when it starts raining, and leave a trail of plain yelping as I go. When I get to where I want to set up, I do some assembly yelping, maybe switch to a another call and Cutt a little and then settle in and do light stuff: a yelp here and there, a cluck, and some feeding sounds. I want to let a gobbler know there are hens where I am set up. Then I wait. It is so hard to pick up turkey sounds in the rain, and I am fairly sure it is hard for them too.
If he comes, the gobbler usually comes silently. I have been holed up under a cedar waiting for the rain to let up and heard a single deep cluck of a gobbler wondering where the party was and who'd brought the keg.
After several hours of rain, the turkeys go out into my pastures to feed. This can happen anytime after a rain-delayed flydown, but I usually see it start around mid-morning. There is a little bit of cluck and purring going on but little that will reach my ears. The trick here is to be in position-- this is where I like a portable pop-up blind-- and be ready to ambush a gobbler as he passes. However, I usually don't get a shot, because the gobs are well away from the tree lines out in the center of the pasture.
Over this Winter, I finally had enough of the old camo job on my shotgun and pulled all of it off and went back and spray painted on a new finish. It looks great and one of the big benefits is that I can go back to hunting in inclement weather more aggressively.
Having said all that, I still have an opinion on calling to turkeys in heavy fog, rain, and damp air. In those cases, the box calls stay home. All the wood-based pot calls stay home. So do the wooden strikers. Most of what I take out are either mouth calls or pot calls with a plastic base. Slate surfaces stay home as well. I stick with aluminum, glass, and plexiglass. I used to have a plastic-based pot call with a glass surface that I bought in the mid-80's from Quaker Boy that worked great, but I lost it in the divorce. I replaced it with a Triple-Threat 3-in-1 and I use a plastic or fiberglass striker.
The reason I leave all the box calls and such behind is that a single large raindrop can play havoc with a calling surface, and if a wooden call gets too much moisture on it, it may take days to get it dried out to where it's calling right again. One thing I do is pull a selection of calls out when I first get up in the morning and then go and put them out on a table on the front porch, under the roof. After breakfast, I try them out. Some calls and some strikers are just no good anytime the humidity gets too high, and having them outside for a half hour lets me know how the humidity and temperature are going to affect them.
I don't see a whole lot of breeding behavior when it rains. If rain comes in the morning after flydown everything just seems to shut down for a while. The hens stop calling; the gobblers stop gobbling. They get hinky for a while and then move somewhere where the noise of the rain doesn't bother them and then go back to what they were doing. I think it's a matter of moving out of close cover into more open woods. I think it's so they can see better.
When they settle back down, the turkeys seem subdued. I get the idea they don't like rain, but they get resigned to it and start going about their business of feeding and such. The gobblers that have been on their own seem to like to bunch up with hens. That's something I can exploit.
My rain strategy is this: If I can, I make for a barn or roofed blind when it starts raining, and leave a trail of plain yelping as I go. When I get to where I want to set up, I do some assembly yelping, maybe switch to a another call and Cutt a little and then settle in and do light stuff: a yelp here and there, a cluck, and some feeding sounds. I want to let a gobbler know there are hens where I am set up. Then I wait. It is so hard to pick up turkey sounds in the rain, and I am fairly sure it is hard for them too.
If he comes, the gobbler usually comes silently. I have been holed up under a cedar waiting for the rain to let up and heard a single deep cluck of a gobbler wondering where the party was and who'd brought the keg.
After several hours of rain, the turkeys go out into my pastures to feed. This can happen anytime after a rain-delayed flydown, but I usually see it start around mid-morning. There is a little bit of cluck and purring going on but little that will reach my ears. The trick here is to be in position-- this is where I like a portable pop-up blind-- and be ready to ambush a gobbler as he passes. However, I usually don't get a shot, because the gobs are well away from the tree lines out in the center of the pasture.
Over this Winter, I finally had enough of the old camo job on my shotgun and pulled all of it off and went back and spray painted on a new finish. It looks great and one of the big benefits is that I can go back to hunting in inclement weather more aggressively.
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2 comments:
Inspirational. That's what your ministry has done for me. I too had a sticky-tape camo job on my Rem 870 home brew turkey gun. Since I am the President of the "Order of the Blue Snood" here in Washington State, I felt it was time to give ol' Mister Remmy a makeover. A visit to the local Fred Meyer store and $28 bucks later I was spraying my way to the coolest do-it-yourself bubba gun I've ever done. (OK, it was only my second.) I will be proud when I address my brethren on opening day. I will jump with glee when asked to show the game officer my gun for 3 shell compliance. I feel like a kid again. I just wish I had more stuff to paint.
I'm glad I was able to light the way for thee. Send pictures of Mister Remmy, and I'll post them.
How does one apply for entry into the Order of the Blue Snood. I'm interested.
Sign the guestbook, become a follower or something so I know who you are. You sound like my kind of guy.
Write soon. Write often.
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