Turkey Hunting 101 - Part Two, by Joe NawrotTeam Renegade Pro-Staff
With its sharp eyesight, acute hearing and naturally wary, nervous manner, hunting the wild turkey is a challenge. But learning to successfully hunt this bird is not as difficult as it first appears… (Sometimes).
Turkeys are susceptible to good calling, respond readily to decoys and have predicable daily habits. A well-equipped, disciplined hunter with a good understanding of wild turkey behavior has an excellent chance of shooting a tom.
Locating Wild Turkeys
What I like to do for the first step in attempt for a successful turkey hunt is to find good turkey habitat. You have to scout adequately and know several spots that hold birds, don’t have just one or two “Honey Holes” picked out, have several.
Ideally, you’ll want to roost a gobbler on the evening before your hunt, which means you actually see or hear the bird in his roost tree. Return before first light, slip about 100-150 yards of his roost, wait for the tom to gobble, then give his a couple very soft tree yelps, and odds are the gobbler will fly down practically in your lap.
To “put a bird to bed” set up near a roosting site in early evening, but don’t get to close that the birds will know your presence. Turkeys feed towards a roost tree in late evening, usually fly into them around sunset, and settle in before dark. On a still evening, you can often hear their wings beating as they fly up. They make quite a racket while flapping from branch to branch, sometimes from tree to tree, before selecting the perfect “bed”.
If you cannot spot birds, listen for them. Occasionally, toms will gobble a time or two after roosting, and hens sometimes yelp. More often, you’ll have to make them gobble by using a locator call.
Walk through likely habitat, pausing every quarter mile or so to call. If a gobbler responds, move toward him, eliciting additional shock gobbles until you’ve pinpointed his location. On rare occasions, gobblers change roosts during the night, but in most cases they’ll still be where you left them if not disturbed.
In my hunting area of Central Wisconsin with agricultural areas, I like to scan fields with my Nikon 10x50 binoculars in early evening. If you spot a gobbler feeding during the last minute of day, you can be sure he won’t be far away come the next morning.
First Light
Whether or not you’ve roosted a tom the previous night, dawn is magical. At no other time will you hear so much gobbling. Your hunting tactic will vary, depending on whether or not you pinpointed a roosting tom.
If you did roost one, you’ll have the luxury of sneaking within 100-150 yards under the cover of darkness. Turkeys like to fly down in open areas if possible, so whenever possible, set up on the edge of a cleared area close to the roost tree. Decoys in the clearing can give you an advantage.
As day breaks, give a few quiet tree yelps. Chances are good that the gobbler will reply, but if he doesn’t, resist the temptation to call louder or more often. Overcalling while a tom is still on the roost is a common mistake that I see to often when taking new or “Experienced” turkey hunters to the woods.
Gobblers without hens are especially susceptible to excited yelping and clucking as they travel between the roost site and strut zone. They’ll use the same grounds day after day.
These are usually in relatively open areas, such as open timber, field edges, and pastures or logging roads, where toms can watch for approaching hens and hens can clearly see their strutting displays.
Strutting grounds can be difficult to find unless you actually see a bird strutting of find telltale wing-tip drag marks. But once you find these sites, you can hunt them productively for years, because turkeys return to the same strutting zones season after season. If one gobbler is killed another simply moves in. savvy hunters mark all strutting zones on a map.
My favorite part ... year after year it has worked
Once with the “Ladies” a tom fans out his tail, puffs his chest, and drags his wing tips and walks proudly, pirouetting to display his finery. From time to time he sticks out his head and gobbles, adding an audio advertisement to his show. He may gobble enthusiastically to your hen yelps, but will probably not leave the strutting zone to come to your calls; remember hens are supposed to go to him, and he knows it.
Hunters often make the mistake of yelping loudly and frequently in an effort to draw a tom closer, but this rarely works. I have 100% of the time found it is better to play hard to get…in more ways than one ... well back to turkey hunting. Call just enough so the gobbler knows where you are and immediately stop calling. I have found that over calling will result in a bird(s) to hang up just shy of shooting range or even turn and go in the opposite direction.
Most of you have had your spring turkey hunting season, and for some like myself are still in pursuit of these challenging birds that seem to elude us from time to time, either way I hope that you have a successful hunt, whether its bagging a big O’l tom, or the success in sharing the hunt with someone new to the sport.
I’ll inform you on the final results here from Wisconsin, and the turn out is already proving success, my Dad has taken his bird down using the “Mating Turkey by Montana Decoys”. And the most recent hunt was with my cousin Brandon Wikman ... check back soon for photos and stories for each hunt!
Joe Nawrot Team Renegade Archery Company Pro-Staff Professional Midwest Turkey Calling Champion
