It's almost turkey season: Scout right

Let’s be honest here: You have to be a little bit of a fanatic to tangle with those three-toed antagonists known as wild turkeys.

Those birds are are extremely sharp-eyed and wary. They can frustrate you to no end, which makes the satisfaction of success both well-earned and immense.

There are those hunters who make spring turkey hunting look almost easy. They tag a mature gobbler each spring and often assist many others in filling their tags. I’ve been fortunate to share some time in the woods with a few of these guys and I’ve learned enough from them along the way to feel like I’ve got a pretty fair chance at success each spring as well.

So what is it about these guys that make them so good?

Is it their calling?

Their shotgun skills?

Access to premium property?

Not really.

No, what separates the good from the great is something much more basic: Preparation.

The very best turkey hunters I know spend far more time scouting and learning the habits of their local flock than they do hunting. I’ve tried to pattern myself after them. Here are some tips that may help you this spring.

Scout now

Generally, mid-March and early April is the time to really start getting serious about your scouting efforts here in the Midwest. Of course, Mother Nature will dictate exactly when you can get going but my notes from springs past tell me that late March and early April is generally the first opportunity I’ll have to do some serious scouting and can reasonably expect to hear the first gobbles of the spring.

Will the turkeys gobble before that date? Absolutely. But I like to wait until the temperatures have warmed a bit, the snow is gone and it just feels like spring is really coming. There’s just something immensely enjoyable about greeting the rising sun during the early parts of spring. And for me, that feeling is spoiled when the wind is howling and snow is flying. So I’ll wait for relatively fair weather.

What to do

My initial scouting efforts are very basic and simple. The toughest part of this stage of the scouting season is forcing yourself out of bed before 5 a.m. During the early stages of the spring, you’ll hear the most intense gobbling while the birds are still roosted in their trees. As the sun starts to brighten the day, the gobblers will begin to sound off. For a diehard turkey hunter, there is nothing like the sound of gobblers greeting the day from the treetops. It is a grand experience indeed.

Because the actual breeding season is still a couple of weeks off, gobbling will generally cease once the toms hit the ground. It’s important to note that the turkeys will likely still be assembled in large winter flocks at this time. You will hear a lot of gobbling from multiple birds in one small area. But as spring and the breeding season draw near, those flocks will break up and the toms may relocate to different roosting areas. Keep that in mind.

Early in the spring, I’m simply waking up early and making a circuit around the areas that I hunt. I’ll pull in to any area that offers a good listening area and simply listen for the birds to gobble. There’s no reason to walk deep into the woods. In southern Michigan, you’re generally hunting turkeys that are roosted in fairly small woodlots. Those birds are easily heard from a long distance. You don’t want to spook the birds, so keep your distance. Just stay back and listen. I’ll keep track of what I hear and the general location of gobblers in a small notebook. For those hunting the big timber areas in the northern reaches of the state, two-tracks and logging roads make for excellent listening posts. Again, just keep your distance from the roost areas and let your ears tell you what you need to know.

Generally, the birds will gobble for about 20-30 minutes before flying down. If you hunt more than one property and those other properties are located in close proximity to each other, it’s quite possible to listen in more than one place each morning.

The goal here is to simply get a general idea of how many birds are in the area and what areas they’re roosting in.

Scouting, Part Two

As the spring grows closer and the hunting season draws tantalizingly near, it’s time to up the effort and pay much more attention to what you’re seeing and hearing. As mentioned, at some point in the early spring, the turkeys will begin to break up their winter flocks and establish their springtime roosting areas. You will notice a reduction in the amount of gobbling that you hear. It’s not because the birds are gobbling less. It’s because rather than having 10-12 toms roosted in one small area, there will now be perhaps two or three. The others will have relocated – perhaps they’ll remain nearby or perhaps they won’t. But your scouting efforts will tell you how many birds remain.

Now is also the time to be a bit more aggressive in your scouting efforts. I’ll still maintain a wide berth from the roost areas but I will stay in that area longer. If you’re able to hear the birds well enough from the parking area or roadside, then by all means move in no closer. Busting birds from their roosting areas, even this early in the spring, is nothing but bad news. You’ll be relocating the turkeys before the season even begins.

Rather than trying to listen to several areas in one morning, focus each morning on one individual area. You should be able to hear the birds gobble even after they fly down. Listen to the direction the birds travel and make note of it. They are likely headed to a feeding area or a strut zone. Knowing the direction the birds travel when they hit the ground is a huge step toward filling your tag when the season opens.

Groundwork

Notice that we’ve not yet entered the area where the birds roost. That’s by design. If you’re hunting an area you’re familiar with, there’s really no reason to move in that close before the season opens and plenty of good reasons not to go in there. But if you’re hunting a new area and don’t know the ground, you should take a day or two to familiarize yourself with it. Wait until midday. Don’t move into the area during the first few hours of the morning or the final few hours of the daylight. Doing so could lead to an unexpected encounter with the turkeys near their roost. Leaving the roost area unmolested is an essential part of a successful hunting plan.

So move in during midday and walk the ground. Familiarize yourself with the terrain. Take note of any possible obstacles that could hold up an approaching tom. Creeks, rivers, fences, ditches, thickets – anything that can hang a gobbler up should be remembered. Learn where they are and avoid them when settling in to work that gobbler during the hunting season.

A word about calls

It’s tough, I know. But you simply must not call to the turkeys you plan to hunt until you have a legal tag in your pocket, the hunting season is open and you’re prepared to tag the tom should he move in close enough.

Calling to turkeys while you scout is the quickest way to spoil your season before it ever starts. Turkeys can and do become call-shy. Sure, you can learn a lot by calling to turkeys and making toms gobble is one of the things I live for. But lessons in calling to live turkeys should be learned during the hunting season, not before. And that applies to locator calls such as owl hooters and crow calls as well. Blow those calls before the season opens and you’re simply asking to hunt educated birds.

Don’t take that to mean you shouldn’t be working on your turkey calling now. You should. My calls are never put away. I try to go through a few sequences each week of the year and that practice gains intensity as the season draws near.

Simply practice your calls away from the woods. I pop a diaphragm call in my mouth while driving to work and see how many weird looks I can get as I blow the call in my truck. Friction calls are exercised at home, much to the chagrin of my wife.

Practice does indeed make perfect. And perfect practice means keeping those calls away from the turkeys you want to hunt until the season opens.

Summary

Spring turkey hunting is a terrific way to enjoy the outdoors during one of the most beautiful times of the year. With a little effort spent scouting, your success rate will soar. The key is to simply locate the turkeys you plan to hunt without applying too much pressure.

Unpressured turkeys are a joy to hunt. Pressured birds, on the other hand, can get you thinking that perhaps chicken is a better choice after all.