Opening day of spring turkey season had finally arrived, and I found myself standing on a ridge point patiently waiting for that first gobble of the morning. A few moments later, a tom fired off in the bottom below me. I eased in roughly 150 yards from the roosted gobbler and setup. Fast forward an hour or so and the gobbler had flown down in the opposite direction with a group of hens and gone quiet.
Hunting turkeys during the early season often means dealing with henned up birds. In my experience, it’s only in very rare instances you can pull a tom away from the flock by out calling the real thing. Instead, our most productive early season tactics work by exploiting a gap in that hen-gobbler bond, whether that means beating the hens to the punch at fly down, having them bring the gobbler to us, or playing on a gobblers territorial side.
Tips For Hunting Early Season Gobblers
While hunting early season turkeys can be challenging at times due to it coinciding with the early portion of the breeding cycle when compared to late season turkey hunting, turkey hunters can still find success in the turkey woods on opening day. The key is to adjust your spring turkey hunting tactics to breeding phase of the wild turkey.
Other than pre-season scouting, here are some of my favorite tactics to employ while spring turkey hunting during the early season.
1. Put Them To Bed And Slip In Tight The Next Morning
Roosting a gobbler the evening before can increase your odds of getting within shooting range during an early morning hunt. The key with this tactic is precision. Its not enough to go out the evening before, hit an owl call, and get a general idea of a gobblers roost area. I want to know what tree he’s in, what limb he is on, and if possible, where he flew up from.
Once you have a gobbler roosted and pinned, either on OnX or your preferred mapping app, it’s time to strategize. Without tipping the roosted bird off, scan the area for a possible place to set up, preferably either where the tom flew up from or within 80 yards of his roost tree.
Next, determine how you are going to access the area and get setup quietly the next morning. Loud, crunchy leaves or open woods that the early spring season is known for can make slipping in on roosted birds a challenge. Plan on getting to the woods well before first light, sometimes a couple of hours before depending on how far you have to walk. Just remember to take your time and keep the noise to a minimum.
This tactic worked extremely well a few years ago during the youth season here in Kentucky. My nephew and I slipped into position well before daylight on a mature gobbler and several hens I watched fly into their roost trees the night before. Our setup was 30 yards from where they flew up from. Ten minutes after legal shooting time my nephew and I were headed back to the truck about 20 pounds heavier than when we walked in.
2. Be The First Hen On The Ground
Turkey hunting henned up birds during the first week of the season can present a challenge. To combat this, I try to make the most of that small-time frame before a gobbler hits the ground and meets up with his hens by setting up as close as possible.
Once in position, and the woods start to wake up, I start calling with some lower volume tree calls to let the tom know that I’m there. After my initial calls, I let the turkey dictate what calling I do from then on. Many turkey hunters, my younger self included, make the mistake of overcalling in these situations because we want to hear him gobble. More times than not this will delay the bird flying down and increases the chance a hen comes to him first.
The overall goal is to get the gobbler on the ground and started in my direction before his hens fly down and go to him. One thing that will increase your odds using this tactic is setting up between the hens and the tom, if you know their roost locations.
3. Call to the Hens
Its mid-morning and you get a bird to shock gobble using one of your locator calls. You make your move to get into a better position, setup,, and start calling. The gobbler is responding, but the gobbles are sporadic and you’ve heard hens with him.
This is the perfect scenario to call to the hens. Start your calling out soft and attempt to get a response from one of the hens. Don’t start with loud, aggressive cutting and yelping. While this may fire up an old boss hen and bring her in to investigate it will likely send the flock the opposite direction if the hen(s) are younger birds. Call to hens the same way you would a longbeard, letting them dictate the volume and amount of calling you do.
Opening weekend of the 2014 spring turkey season I was hunting a piece of public land here on the Kentucky / Tennessee border that opened several weeks before the regular seasons. An hour after daylight I was working down a logging road, stopped, made a few calls, when a hen started cutting and yelping aggressively in the bottom below me. Knowing that the birds were in the early portion of the breeding season I figured the likelihood of a gobbler being with her were high.
I continued calling to the hen, matching her intensity, as I found a tree to sit against. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes when the hen stepped into view, still cutting and yelping. Behind her followed 3 other hens and a strutter. Soon after the strutter and I were headed back to the truck.
4. Make the Gobbler Jealous
During the early part of turkey season, birds are often still grouped into larger flocks. During this time gobblers establish the proverbial pecking order to determine who the dominant bird is. To play on this factor I like to incorporate specific calls like jake yelps in combination with hen vocalizations when calling to a gobbler.
For me jake yelps are easiest to make on mouth calls, and they play on the territorial and aggressive behavior of gobblers during the early season. When hen calling alone doesn’t cut it, adding in some jake yelps and caulking will in some instances get a tom to come those last few yards into gun range.
Using a jake decoy in combination with a hen decoy also works extremely well at provoking a gobbler during this portion of the season.
5. Stay With The Flock
When all else fails during the early season, I have found that if you are able to stay with the flock, at some point throughout the day they are likely to give you a window of opportunity to get within gun range.
With the decreased amount of gobbling that comes when a gobbler has hens, It’s important to pay close attention and listen for other sounds that will allow you to stay with a group of turkeys. These sounds include drumming, scratching in the leaves, and soft hen vocalizations. Analyze the terrain, their direction of travel, and the current weather conditions. This can provide insight into what the flock might be doing. If you think you know where they are heading, beat them to their destination.
The key is to stay within eyesight or earshot of them while remaining undetected. Eventually, an opportunity often arises to get within gun range.
6. Stop Hunting Turkeys That Aren’t Ready
I recently listened to an episode of The Southern Outdoorsmen Podcast where the guest, Dave Owens, gave some turkey hunting advice.
As Dave Owens puts it during the interview, hunters spend way to much time and effort chasing turkeys that aren’t ready to die during the early season.
Dave takes more of a season long approach that works like this: treat the first week or two as a scouting mission. Drive roads, hit high points to listen, and strike birds to gauge their reactions. . The henned-up, disinterested gobblers get a pin on OnX and nothing else. After a week or so, come back and check the birds mood again. A lot can change in a week.
7. Hunt The Subordinate Gobbler
Early season, pay attention to the edges of the main flock. A lot of times there’s a gobbler hanging out on the perimeter who doesn’t gobble much. He’s not quiet because he’s uninterested. He’s a subordinate bird that the dominant tom ran off. Every time he gets too close to the group, the boss kicks his butt and sends him packing. So he lingers on the outside, alone, wanting to breed but unable to compete with the bird running the show.
That’s exactly what makes him a great bird to go after. He’s already looking for a hen to keep him company. If you are able to get inside that subordinate bird’s bubble, make a few soft calls, more times than not, he’ll come running. The key is to sound like a lonely hen in an area where approaching you doesn’t mean getting run off by the dominant gobbler.
Final Thoughts On Early Season Turkey Hunting
Remember that gobbler on the ridge who flew down with his hens and went quiet? I didn’t leave. I stayed within earshot of the flock, listened for drumming and scratching in the leaves, and repositioned several times over the next two hours. When the hens finally drifted off to nest around mid-morning, that tom gobbled once on his own. Fifteen minutes later, he was dead at 30 yards.
Every tactic in this article works around the same reality: more time than not, you’re not going to out-call a live hen. Instead, exploit the gaps in the hen-gobbler bond, whether that’s beating the hens to the ground at fly-down, calling the hens to bring him to you, or just staying close and waiting for your window. The birds will tell you which play to make. You just have to be patient enough to listen.