This Spring our goal is to harvest the North American Wild Turkey with Archery Tackle. In my regular column "North American Game Species" you will find three additional informative articles on the Wild Turkey. The first article of this three part series covered Species/ Subspecies Typical to North America & Ranges in which they maybe found and Species Anatomy & Physiology. The second, Species Behavior & Habits and Species Habitat Requirements & Preferences with special attention to Diet. The third article reviewed Hunting Tips & Techniques particular to Wild Turkey.

• the location and identification of Strut Zones
• the use of Decoys - NEXT
• and use of Calls (complete with Sound Files) - NEXT

During spring turkey season the predominate advantage the hunter has is the fact gobblers are preoccupied with the business of mating. This allows the hunter to convince some gobblers to come inside shooting range in the pursuit of a hen. One of the most common tactics is to establish your blind within a relatively short distance from a gobblers strut zone and attempt to lure him in for a shot.

Establishing more than one blind at several strut zones is a good idea.  If one position is unproductive or hunting pressure interferes, you can move to other locations. One group of toms may have as many as five or six established strut zones. Proper scouting will allow you to find these and set up accordingly.

Obviously, in order to employ this tactic we first need to be able to locate these zones prior to the hunt.

A strut zone may be a wheat field in Kansas, a river-bottom swamp in Alabama, a ridge top in New York, or a shelf on a mountainside in Missouri.  A strut zone is a place in the woods or in a field where a tom turkey likes to strut.

Hunters will always be able to see a tom in a strut zone during sometime of the day, since that zone is his hangout. Sometimes he'll be fighting other gobblers there. This strut zone is where he likes to be and where he'll do a great deal of gobbling.

Usually a turkey will be in a strut zone at a certain time of day. He'll generally gobble, but he'll rarely come to calling when he's in the strut zone. It's a place where he likes to show off and display himself, because he feels safe and comfortable there. And he'll usually mate many hens in the strut zone.

In most cases a turkey will have more than one strut zone. For instance, he may have a strut zone 15 or 20 feet from his roost tree, where he likes to fly when he leaves the roost. He'll meet his hens, mate, and do some strutting there.

This tom may also have another strut zone along the edge of a creek, where he walks to get a drink of water after he leaves his roost strutting zone. This second strut zone may be 1/4 to l/2 mile from the first one.  But again this is where the turkey likes to meet his hens, mate, and display.

After a gobbler leaves his watering site, he may like to walk up the side of a hill to a little terrace and strut there. After he's been therefor a while, he may go down to a strut zone in a field. So a turkey's having one to six strut zones is not uncommon at all.

If left undisturbed, that turkey may make the same walk every day, going to each one of his strut zones in the morning and coming back through them in the evening, until he ends up close to his roost tree. Then he can fly up to roost just before dark.

If a turkey isn't interrupted he'll set a pattern of going to these different strut zones at the same time every day during the spring mating season. If you know that the turkey is going to show up in a strut zone, then all you have to do to kill him is be in the strut zone when he appears.

Strut Zone Of A Wild Turkey Gobbler

So the trick to successful turkey hunting is to locate the strut zones.  And one of the best ways to do this is to spend a lot time in the woods.  In disturbed pine needles or leaves on the forest floor, look for a figure-eight pattern made by a turkey dragging his wings as he struts. Also search for broken feathers and gobbler droppings in the area. The gobbler dropping will be shaped like a fishhook, while a hen dropping will be more elongated.  When you find a place like this, you can be pretty certain you've discovered a strut zone. And with no other information, you should be able to sit there either in the morning or in the afternoon and have a better-than-average chance of seeing a gobbler walk up on you.

If you find that strut zone on the eastern side of a mountain, then you will pretty well know it's a morning strutting zone, because turkeys like to fly down in the morning on the sunny side of a hill, to warm up as soon as possible. They do most of their morning strutting on the eastern sides of hills, and most of their afternoon strutting on the western slopes of hills.

But there's a better way to find the strut zone than simply walking through the woods looking for a figure-eight pattern on the ground. Go into the woods a week before turkey season comes in and get on a high ridge that may have finger ridges running off it. Give an owl hoot or a crow call or whatever you do to make a turkey gobble, and then listen for the turkey to answer back. Using a flashlight to see by, write down on a piece of paper the time of day that the turkey gobbled. Then try to move to within 100 yards of him. If you get within 100 yards and hear him fly out of the tree, put that information on paper.

As the gobbler moves, keep up with his location by either owl-hooting to him or climbing on a ridge above and watching him. Listen for the hens clucking as they come to the gobbler after he leaves the roost. Use a compass to determine which way the hens are coming from, and write that fact down, along with the time. Your entries may look like this:

6:06 A.M.- Tom turkey gobbles 6:15 A.M.- Tom flies down out of tree 6:25 A.M.- Hens come to tom from southwest. Carry a topographical map with you. As you determine these different directions with your compass, mark on the topo map where you first heard the turkey gobble, the direction he flew down from, the direction the hens came from, the approximate place he met the hens, and other pertinent information. Plot all of these facts on the topo map so you begin to have a diagram of the turkey's daily routine.

Generally continue to follow the gobbler a while. He may go to a creek, get a drink of water, and then begin to do a lot of gobbling and strutting.  So on your topo map note the strut zone and, just as important, what time the gobbler arrived there and how long he stayed. Also note how far this strut zone is from the closest road.

Once you have mapped the strut zone locations plan your hunt accordingly.  Be prepared to adjust your hunting plans to hunting pressure. By knowing the location of more than one strut zone, you should be able to compensate for this.

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Please feel free to email me any questions, comments or suggestions.