bad weather hunting?

[woodshed]

How successful have you been hunting in bad weather. ie.. Thunderstorms and rain?

I'm in Missouri and tomorow I should be getting a lot of weather. I've hunted in it in the past with little success or activity.

Has your experience been the same?

[elnor]

The birds will be out there somewhere. My father always says "You can't kill one from the house", which in most places is true enough. So I usually decide whether to go out or not based upon how I feel and (if the weather's truly bad) safety, not how the birds might be acting.

If I do go out in rain, I expect less calling and that the turkeys will be moving into fields a bit more. On private land, I'd consider putting out a decoy or two in a field edge, getting well hidden, and then calling very little, maybe just a yelp or cluck once in a while. Basically rely on turkeys to find you visually via the decoys rather than respond to calling.

[Rhino]

It it starts raining before daylight at least some of the birds are apt to stay on the limb for a long time.

As far as thunder, that sound (at least down here) will shock most birds into gobbling at it. Don't know what it is about thunder but if that sound could be reproduced in a call it would be the best shock gobble call ever made.

If it rains hard birds that flew down will seek cover. Once the rain stops they will tend to go to fields to dry out. As you know, even once the rain ends water drips from the trees for quite a while.

[need2hunt]

I killed a 22#'r with 1"spurs and 11" beard today in Missouri. Weather was bad but if you know where the birds like to go in that type of weather it can be a great hunt. Where I am at they will hang out in the fields to blow dry their feathers as much as they can (even if it's raining still). Most of the crop fields had just been tilled in the last few days and they don't like to be in the soft mud so they ended up in the grass fields. I did get wet but I also got to fill my first tag for the season.