The Great Turkey Debate Run & Gun Or Sit & Wait?

​There is no one best way to hunt spring turkeys, and getting locked into one approach may be the worst way. Consider the never-ending debate between those who run and gun and those who prefer to sit and wait. Either approach may work like a charm in the right situation. But neither will work in every situation.

- Judd Cooney

I would venture to say that many turkey hunters begin running and gunning simply because the turkeys won’t come to their calling and they don’t know what else to do. They hear a distant turkey gobble and call, but it won’t come within range. So they move in, set up, and hopefully call that first tom into shotgun range.

It works and may be the best option where toms are few and far between. When I took up turkey hunting decades ago, I logged many a mile chasing spring gobblers through the mountains.

Mountain-dwelling Western Merriam’s can be the most mobile of turkeys, covering considerably more territory in a given day than their Eastern cousins. The also roost sporadically wherever they find themselves at the end of the day. This means a hunter must cover considerably more ground to locate them and scout their movements. I learned long ago that even with a run-and-gun approach, scouting was needed to fill tags, and the scouting didn’t end when I got a roosted bird to gobble back to a locator call. I had to pattern that bird’s habits to the point I could anticipate where he was going when he left the roost.

This was equally true at mid-morning when the gobbler moved from a feeding to a loafing area or late in the day as he searched for willing hens or moved back to the roosting area.

It may seem like a lot of work, and I suppose it is if you consider time in the woods work. But it’s a lot easier to set up and call a tom a little ways off of where he is already headed than to turn him back 180-degrees to an area he is leaving or worse yet has already left. Figuring out where a bird will go next, and then setting up before it gets there, is where knowledge of turkey habits, scouting, patience and perseverance all come together.