Morel mushrooms are growing and the turkeys are gobbling.
That means Spring is here, and I could not be loving life any more than I am right now. Turkey season opens in a few days, so we invited turkey hunting legend Moe Shepherd to the show to share a few tactics.
He’s been hunting turkeys for 50 years and has bagged over 200 birds on public land.
In this week's edition:
Two pieces of common turkey advice Moe says are wrong
The one skill you need to be a great turkey hunter
5 tactics you can put in practice next week
Let's get to it.
— Kyle Plunkett
The Interview
00:00 — Welcome Moe Shepherd
04:30 — Question from the Holler
14:00 — Turkey hunting in the 70s
19:00 — Moe's public land philosophy
35:00 — Moe's calling strategy
47:00 — Mistakes turkey hunters make
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What Stood Out
I’m still relatively new to turkey hunting. I grew up on deer.
But I immediately fell in love with it. Walking the mountains at sunrise. Hearing birds sound off up on the ridge. Even when you don’t get the bird, it's still the best morning of the week.
But at some point… you want to get the bird.
I’m five years into turkey hunting and only have one bird to show for it. So when a guy who's been at it for 50 years says you're doing something wrong…
You listen.
And when he says turkey hunting really comes down to just one skill.
You listen real good.
Two things I’ve been doing wrong
Moe pushed back on some conventional advice we’ve gotten from other turkey hunters. And while you might disagree, it’s hard to argue with a guy who’s been at it for 50 years.
1. Calling birds uphill
A lot of good turkey hunters say you want to position above a bird and call them uphill to you.
Moe said no.
If you set up above them on a steep slope, you might get a bird fired up, but he’ll never put in the effort to climb the rough terrain. So set up on their level.
Call them horizontally, not vertically.
2. Calling too loud
When a bird hangs up, my instinct says get louder. Moe went the other direction. He told a story about calling so quiet his friends couldn't hear it 20 yards away.
But the turkeys did.
Again, you might disagree. But as one of member of The Holler put it: “If Moe told me I needed to stand on my head with my boots on the wrong feet to kill a turkey, I’d do it.”
I’m ready to test it out next week.
The Only Skill You Need
Both corrections really point to a single skill. And it’s not calling.
There's no shortage of calling advice out there. And getting good at calling matters. But what Moe demonstrated was something harder to build and something even a perfect hen yelp won’t make up for.
So what is it?
It’s discipline to sit still when everything in you says move.
To stop answering a bird and let the silence do the work.
To come back at midday when every other hunter has packed up and gone home, because that's when strutting birds show back up in their strut zones.
To stay on one spot for a full hour after a bird gobbled off the roost without hearing another sound. Then kill it.
It’s patience.
That may sound abstract, but Moe makes it really practical. Keep reading.
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Steal These Tactics
Patience may be a virtue. But it’s also a skill. Here are 5 tactics Moe shared that are really just patience in action.
Call softer than feels right. It's easy to ramp volume up, hard to pull it down once you've gone loud on a bird. Start soft, and change cadence or call types before you touch your volume.
When he gobbles, stop answering. Wait a full minute after each gobble. Constant call-and-response becomes a standoff. He knows where you are but has no reason to investigate. Let silence work.
Get high to listen, get level to kill. On top of a ridge, you can hear gobblers you'd never find in a creek bottom. Once you locate a bird, don't call him up a steep face; get down to his level and work him around the contour.
Read the hens before you decide to move. A bird that seems hung up doesn't always have hens with him. If hens are actually present, they'll be moving and won't stand still for 30 or 40 minutes. Watch for movement before assuming a bird is locked down.
Leave him hot, then come back. When a bird won't leave his hens, give him a rash of hot calls on the way out so he feels like he's missing something and walk away. Hens go to nest midday. So do most hunters. But toms go back to those strut zones. You should, too.
The patience Moe's talking about doesn't just apply to individual hunts.
You come back to a spot midday. You come back the next season. You notice tracks in March and remember them in April. Moe has hunted spots four consecutive years before they paid off. He said, “Every time you go and don't kill one, your odds are getting better.”
So I might be five years in and only have one bird to show for it. But by year fifty, I’m aiming to pass Moe’s 200.
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Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation with Moe Shepherd next week. He’ll be sharing more stories to keep you fired up for turkey opening week.
Till then, get outside.
— Kyle Plunkett