On Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 49 (How 2 Tuesday #14), I sit down with Graham Tayloe to break down turkey hunting strategy in part one of two. Graham is a former professional turkey guide who made the final round of the turkey calling world championships, and he is the best woodsman I have ever seen. I asked him a simple question: how do you kill a turkey? His answer was patience, terrain, and reading the bird, with calling as a last resort. This is the field-tested approach I keep coming back to.
Listen now: Spotify · Apple Podcasts · or press play in the player above.
If you have to kill a turkey, simplify and lean on woodsmanship instead of gear. Put one call in your pocket, get a good seat with a real butt pad, and bring patience. Do not break the golden rules and let the bird know it is being hunted. Use the terrain, figure out where the gobbler is headed, and make calling your last resort rather than your first move.
When you owl hoot and a turkey gobbles in daylight, the first thing Graham Tayloe says to do is sit still and think for at least five minutes. In that window another bird could fire off, or a hen could yelp right in front of you, and that changes your whole plan. Most hunters run straight at the gobble, but giving yourself time to listen and analyze keeps you from blowing the setup.
The bubble is the roughly 80-yard zone around a gobbling turkey where calling actually works in your favor, and it applies to hunting in foliage rather than open, naked woods. If you penetrate that bubble and fire him up, he will often leave his hens and come about 40 yards, which is a shot. Set up 150 yards out and the bird may take a few steps, lose interest, and walk the other way.
When the woods are naked with no foliage, Graham Tayloe says to throw the bubble away entirely. Turkeys can see you coming from 400 yards down a dirt road, so calling and pressuring them early only educates birds and thins out your area. The better move is to shadow them, leave them alone, and wait until the season matures enough to hunt them without depleting the herd.
Use your calling so sparingly that another hunter sitting in the same woods would not even know you are there. Loud crow calls or a worn-out box call give away your position to people and turkeys alike, while soft yelping keeps you hidden. If you can trick the person, you can trick the turkey, so calling should be your third resort behind terrain and woodsmanship.
A common mistake is hunting every turkey you hear gobbling at first light. Graham Tayloe says to only work one or two birds and leave the rest untouched, what he calls keeping them Virgil. Those undisturbed birds are cards in your pocket, so you can slide under one the next morning or slip into a roost site in the afternoon undetected, and your odds are far better on a turkey that does not know it is being hunted.
Here is the approach Graham Tayloe laid out for me, step by step, for the times you simply have to get it done.
Graham walks through every one of these in his own words, with the stories behind them, in the episode. Press play in the player above.
I have had the chance to go turkey hunting with some really good hunters, but Graham stands out from the rest. He has guided turkeys professionally, he made the final round of the turkey calling world championships, and watching him move through the woods convinced me he is the best woodsman I have ever been around. When I asked him how to kill a turkey, he told me there are really two answers, how to do it with a buddy and how to do it alone if you just have to. I wanted both, and he delivers them in the episode. Press play in the player above.
I went in expecting Graham to talk about calls and decoys, and instead he told me turkey hunting is one of the most overanalyzed sports in the outdoors. His point stuck with me: the bird is already trying to come to you, and most of the time people just get in their own way. He treats calling as a third resort behind terrain and patience, and he leans on putting himself inside the gobbler's head until he can see the woods through the turkey's eyes. Hearing how he thinks like the bird changed how I picture a setup. He explains the whole mindset in the episode, so press play in the player above.
What hit home for me is how much of this applies past the turkey woods. Graham talks about leaving birds undisturbed so they never learn they are being hunted, and he compared it to chasing tarpon that have not been pressured. The odds swing hard in your favor when the animal does not know you are there, whether that is a gobbler at 40 yards or a fish on the flat. That through-line is exactly why I wanted him on the show. He ties it all together in the episode, so press play in the player above.
The day after this conversation, the thing I kept turning over was how simple Graham makes it sound. Slow down, think for five minutes, read the terrain, and stay so quiet that neither the hunter beside you nor the turkey knows you are there.
This is part one of two, and next week Graham follows up with a lot more on calling and how to think and talk like a turkey. If you hunt turkeys at all, this is the foundation, and the rest builds on it. Press play in the player above.
Graham Tayloe · turkey calling world championships · eastern wild turkeys · the bubble · owl hooting · roosting and shadowing turkeys · woodsmanship · butt pad and patience · Alabama and Tennessee turkey hunting · How 2 Tuesday · Saltwater Experience
How 2 Tuesday is my weekly series where I break down one fishing skill at a time, from knots and casting to gear, tactics, and the habits that make you a better angler. Watch and listen to every How 2 Tuesday episode from Tom Rowland.
Graham Tayloe is a turkey hunter from the South who has worked as a professional turkey guide and made the final round of the turkey calling world championships. Known as one of the best woodsmen around, he approaches hunting by thinking like the gobbler, reading terrain, and using calls sparingly, an old-school, patience-first style he shares across this two-part How 2 Tuesday conversation.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.