It was a crisp April morning. The songbirds had started to sing when they were interrupted by the thunderous sound of a turkey gobble on the next ridge. After an hour and a few turkey calls made by my dad, I had harvested my first gobbler. From that day forward I was hooked.
I was 7 at the time. It wasn’t until a few years later when I started turkey hunting by myself that I truly understood how much work my dad had put into those hunts. He wasn’t winging it. He’d scouted that ridge, prepped his gear, studied how gobblers behave in the spring, and picked a setup that used the terrain to keep us hidden. Those four skills, scouting, gear preparation, understanding turkey behavior, and woodsmanship, are what separate hunters who consistently fill their turkey tag from those who don’t.
Scouting for Wild Turkeys
If you’re not hunting an area with turkeys, odds are you’re not going to kill one. This is where scouting comes into play.
When hunting close to home, my scouting starts several weeks before the season. I prefer the method of glassing fields and listening for gobbling in the mornings before work. If I cannot physically observe an area, I rely heavily on trail cameras located in areas where I believe turkeys are likely to visit. The goal is simple. Find as many toms as possible before opening day.
In instances where you can’t get out before the season or you’re hunting unfamiliar ground, digital tools can fill the gap.
E-Scouting
Mapping software, like the OnX app or Google Earth work extremely well for this type of scouting. Use the aerial imagery to find and mark areas with good habitat diversity that provide turkeys with food, water, and roosting.
If you live or are planning to hunt east of the Mississippi, food, water, and roosting are often abundant resources. In these areas, focus on habitat diversity while e-scouting. This could be a clear cut in a wooded area, where a hardwood river bottom meets pines. Or, it might be where ag fields meet a stand of timber.
When e-scouting areas west of the Mississippi, you will start to see that food, water, or roosting could be limited. For example, in several areas of Kansas and Nebraska, roosting is the limited resource. Find the creek bottoms with water and trees and you will often find a pocket of turkeys. When you find areas with all three in these situations, more times than not, you’ll find turkeys.
Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of pre-season scouting. That’s okay.
Armed Scouting
By the time season rolls around if you’ve only had the chance to e-scout an area or are going in completely blind don’t feel discouraged. This is when “armed scouting” comes into play.
Armed scouting is essentially scouting while you hunt. Armed scouting differs from hunting a known turkey spot because I cover ground much faster. To do this, I travel along long ridges, creek bottoms, or logging roads. Once I hear a gobbler or find fresh turkey sign like tracks, scratching, or droppings, I’ll slow down and be more methodical with my approach. The goal with this type of scouting is to determine whether there are turkeys in the area without wasting a lot of time.
Once you know where turkeys are, make sure you’re ready to hunt them.
Make Sure Your Gear is Dialed In
You’ve done your research on the wild turkey, have several birds pinned on OnX, and season is right around the corner. Now is not the time to get complacent, it’s when you need to start making sure all of your equipment is in working order and ready for opening day.
Most importantly, make sure your gun or bow is dialed in. If you plan on turkey hunting with a shotgun, pattern your gun with the same choke and load combination you plan on hunting with.
For bow hunters, make sure your sights are dialed in and start practicing at 20 to 30 yards on a consistent basis. The kill zone on the wild turkey is small meaning you have limited room for error. I’ve witnessed plenty of hunters miss turkeys because they hadn’t picked up their bow since deer season. Shooting three to four times a week leading up to opening day builds the muscle memory needed to take the shot under pressure.
It’s also a good idea to make sure your other gear is in order. I can say from experience that there is nothing worse than getting into position on a bird opening day, reaching for a call, striker, or other piece of equipment and realizing that it’s not where you thought it was. Take the time to go through your turkey vest and make sure your calls, strikers, extra shells, rangefinder, facemask, and gloves are where they should be. Put each item in a specific pocket so you can reach it without looking or thinking.
With your gear squared away and birds located, the next step is understanding what makes turkeys tick.
Understanding the Wild Turkey
Consistent success in the turkey woods requires more than just grabbing your shotgun, favorite call, and heading to the family farm or local piece of public. You need to have a basic understanding of wild turkey behavior to make informed decisions during the hunt.
Fall vs Spring Behavior
Wild turkeys behave very differently during the fall and spring. During the fall, hens and their offspring from the previous spring are grouped together in large flocks. Adult gobblers and jakes on the other hand split off into their own groups. During the fall and winter, turkeys are primarily focused on survival and food.
Fall Turkey Hunting Field Note: When hunting turkeys during the fall, focusing your efforts in or around food sources is a good place to start. If you are trying to bag a gobbler, jake and gobbler yelps can be a good bet. Assembly yelps and kee-kees work extremely well when trying to call in a group of hens and juvenile birds that have just been scattered.
In spring, the fall and winter flocks start to bust up. Hens separate and begin focusing on nesting and breeding while gobblers shift from traveling in groups to competing for access to hens. Gobblers will start to establish a dominance hierarchy through strutting, gobbling, and fighting. The competition pushes the weaker gobblers and jakes to the edges, while the dominant toms stay with the hens.
Spring Turkey Hunting Field Note: Spring is the time of year the majority of hunters associate with turkey hunting. This is the time to play on a gobbler’s eagerness to breed by using hen calls. Excited yelps, cutting, etc.
Knowing the seasonal differences helps you plan. Reading body language helps you execute.
Wild Turkey Mannerisms
During a spring turkey hunt a few years ago I was working a gobbler that I had roosted the night before. Everything was going according to plan. The gobbler flew down in my direction and had just strutted into view at around 70 yards. I knew the bird was calm based on the brilliant red, white, and blue colors of his head along with the way he was strutting and drumming while he closed the distance.
The tom made it to roughly 45 yards when I noticed a sudden change. He broke strut, his head went up and changed to a dull red color. At that moment I knew the gobbler was nervous, so I clicked my safety off and took the shot.
That hunt is a good example of how reading a gobbler’s body language can aid you during a hunt but it doesn’t stop with knowing when to take the shot. Understanding turkey mannerisms can also aid in knowing when to call or when to go silent. If you’re working a bird and can tell that they are starting to lose interest or drifting the opposite direction, this could be a good time to pick up the calling. On the other hand, if a gobbler hangs up but is gobbling frequently trying to get the hen, aka you, to come the rest of the way, going silent is often the best course of action.
All this knowledge means nothing if you blow your approach.
Woodsmanship
Understanding wild turkey behavior, scouting, and having your gear ready for opening day is all important. However, none of this matters if you are unable to get into the correct position without spooking the tom you’re after. This is where woodsmanship comes into play.
Woodsmanship is the ability to move through an area effectively by using the terrain, staying quiet while moving, patience, and the ability to make informed decisions in real time based on what’s currently happening around you. For turkey hunters, this means knowing how to approach a tom without being seen or heard, picking the right place to set up, and reading each situation as it unfolds.
Moving Through the Woods
Getting into position on a roosted bird or closing the distance on a gobbling tom without being seen requires patience and awareness of your surroundings.
Don’t rush these situations. When you need to close the gap between you and a gobbler, use the terrain to remain unseen. In hilly or mountainous terrain, you can move along the backside of a ridge. In flat terrain, keep some form of thick cover between you and the tom while moving into position. The key is to keep a visual barrier between you and the bird while you move into position.
As far as noise is concerned, avoid stepping on sticks and walking with your normal cadence. The snapping of sticks under your boot and the sound of someone walking through dry leaves at a normal pace is unnatural. In situations where the noise made by walking through leaves is unavoidable, mimic how a turkey would walk through the woods. Take a couple steps, stop, scratch in the leaves, and slowly repeat as you move into position.
Getting into position is only half the battle. What happens next rarely goes according to plan.
Adapting to Each Situation
No two hunts are the same. Just because a gobbler did something the day before doesn’t always mean he will do it again. Good woodsmanship means being able to adjust on the fly.
If a gobbler hangs up don’t immediately go into panic mode, you have options. You could go silent and see if he gets impatient and breaks in your direction. If that doesn’t work, try a different call or mix in some jake yelps to play on the jealousy factor. In situations where nothing seems to be working from your current position, slowly back out and reposition to try and work him from a different angle.
Experience helps tremendously in these situations. The more time you spend hunting turkeys, the better you get at recognizing patterns and adapting quickly. If your a new hunter, start building your experience by staying observant and analyzing each hunt to determine what worked and what didn’t.
Woodsmanship ties everything together. It’s where preparation meets opportunity.
Putting It All Together
Looking back on that April morning when I killed my first gobbler, I understand now what I didn’t then. My dad had scouted that ridge weeks before the season. His gear was ready. He knew that tom would fly down toward the field edge based on the bird’s pattern from previous mornings. And he picked a setup that used the terrain to keep us hidden while the gobbler closed the distance. I thought we got lucky. We didn’t. He’d stacked the odds long before we sat down against that tree.
That’s what these four fundamentals do for you. Scouting puts you in the right area. Gear preparation keeps you from fumbling when it counts. Understanding turkey behavior tells you why a gobbler does what he does. Woodsmanship ties it all together and puts you in position to make the shot.
None of this happens overnight. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll bump birds, call too much, set up in the wrong spot. Every hunt teaches you something if you pay attention. Start building that experience now, and one morning you’ll hear a gobble on the next ridge and know exactly what to do next.