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Forgive me if this question is stupid, it's my first season chasing turkeys. So far it's been a blast. We've got 5 flocks of birds that we put to bed each night, they all roost within 300 yards or so of each other and take the same trail in the morning to where they go feed. Our strategy opening day was to get as close to the roost as we dared on the trail itself and set up. We hit the slate call once the birds left the roost and had a good grundle of jakes and hens at 20 yards for a good 10 minutes or so. The big tom walked by at about 40 yards in strut, but we could never coax him into us. We had 1 strutting tom and a submissive hen decoy out. He didn't want to come into us so we just let him and all the other birds pass by, and had the same thing happen with the next group. The jakes and hens came in, but the tom stayed out about 40 with his hens and kept going.
So yesterday morning we braved the storm and decided to go set up where they've been going to feed instead of on the trail itself and had the same results. Plenty of jakes and hens in the decoys, but the strutting toms just wouldn't commit. We called pretty aggressive to him to try to get him riled up but it didn't work.
Long story short, my question is what else do we need to be doing to get the big toms to peel away? I highly doubt they are seeing us, we are full camo, face paint, and have plenty of cover in front of and behind us. I'm certainly not against shooting a bearded jake if it comes down to it, but it'd be nice to get a mature tom doing his thing at 20 yards. Thanks.
So yesterday morning we braved the storm and decided to go set up where they've been going to feed instead of on the trail itself and had the same results. Plenty of jakes and hens in the decoys, but the strutting toms just wouldn't commit. We called pretty aggressive to him to try to get him riled up but it didn't work.
Long story short, my question is what else do we need to be doing to get the big toms to peel away? I highly doubt they are seeing us, we are full camo, face paint, and have plenty of cover in front of and behind us. I'm certainly not against shooting a bearded jake if it comes down to it, but it'd be nice to get a mature tom doing his thing at 20 yards. Thanks.