turkey etiquette. yea i looked etiquette up

The gate attendant is going to become a flag man, "Gentleman, start your engines". Lol 🤣.

I’m at the point where I now believe nothing ties up public land. It would be stupid for one hunter to walk up on another and refuse to yield
to the one that got there first. But “got there” means being in the woods at the spot. But otherwise everyone is free to go where they want when they want.

That’s a 180° from where I used to be. I used to be the guy that slept in the truck. But I never had to fight with anyone. No one cared enough about my spots to fight with me over them. They probably just slipped in when I wasn’t there.

My one rule, besides be safe, is don’t sit in someone else’s stand. Sit next to the stand or under the stand but not in it. The WMA land is everyone’s property for the purpose of utilizing it. But the stand still belongs to someone else.

I politely tell them I appreciate the info and I’ll be as quiet and courteous as I can on the way to my spot. I may mention that I scouted the area over the last umpteen years. I’ll also wish them luck and tell them to be safe above all else.

With me it is area drivin, unless ive roosted a bird.
I hunt this one trail head that has 2 fire rds Either road will take you into miles and miles of pine, cypress and hammocks.... I don't care how many trucks are parked, I park and go hunt. No one has ever tried claim the area as their spot. Rare to see any other hunters. Most walk up and down the roads with their slate/pot calls.

Most other parking spots I like to hunt, if someone is there I move on to some other spot.

Couple of men on this post... couple of not

        i did that exact thing bout 10 years ago, at dinner island.   i roosted 2 gobblers friday night,   made a little ground blind in the dark that night,  snuck in there at 4.30 am next morning had my decoys set up in a little burn 30 yds from my blind, decoys bout 80 yds from exact tree they where roosted in and at 6.am i could hear couple guys talking in spanish i think walking my way with there flashlights on,    i flashed my light at them, they stopped , talked to each other then set up 75 yds parallel to the tree birds where in and diagonally 125yds from me. if birds flew down into the burn we would be shooting each others direction so i got up walked directly to tree they were roosted in and spooked about 15 birds outa the tree ,   stood around talking to my buddy with headlamps on then when it got light out i walked into the burn grabbed my decoys and went to another spot after i wished them good luck so loud hunters a mile away could have heard me.     nice thing was we called one in at 11 am later that morning 2 miles away.   public land i still love it.

Sometimes sleeping overnight in the bush isn't even good enough!

This reminds me of the time everyone knew about a couple big gobblers that were strutting like clockwork every morning for weeks in the first field off tomato field grade. I went in there two days before the opener one morning and scared them away... then scared them some more... until I was sure they might not come back. I took note of where I last saw them calm down and snuck back out.

I went back the next morning and was thrilled to see zero birds on the first field and went back home.

Opening morning I got the story how a buddy I knew from Miami crept into the first field and went to sleep trying to be first in and first out. He told me two others came in before 0300 and he pushed them off the area since he was there first. As he settled in for opening morning glory he was strangely greeted by silence and no birds.

I know this only because his group told me the story in their camp when I stopped in to show them a bird I killed about a mile away. Likely one of the birds everyone from Dade to Martin County was planning on easily killing.

Sometimes a man has to know how to make lemonade out lemons.

Shit like this was why I stopped hunting public land in Florida. Waaaaaaaaaaaay to much bull shit to hunt shitty land. Started hunting lease and out of state public land and never had any issues. Florida is by far the worst state I've hunted in on public and private land. 


Only place I hunted in Florida that was worth a damn was Tampa Palms back in the 90's. 

It is amazing how hard people will work to mess with others when hunting FL public.  I had 2 cams up 10-12 ft in cabbage palms and both got spotted!  And messed with.  The joys of public land.  This year I'ma gonna put em higher with a steel box and cable around em.

Personally, I don't care for them. I've heard too many stories of birds being spooked by them, especially on a high pressured area. I prefer to have some sort of barrier between me and the turkey where they can't see where I'm calling from, like a bend in the road or little thick area. I hate to fool with birds in a field, yeah you can see them but they also see farther too. You would think decoys would solve that but it goes against their nature, the hen is supposed to go to the displaying gobbler. Anyhow, that's just my opinion and besides that a decoy is just one more thing to drag through the woods.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.