By
Bob Chapin
All winter long friends, who know I enjoy hunting turkeys in the spring, have been regaling me with their sightings of 25 to 40 to 50 turkeys they have had under their bird feeders! I know, I know…I have seen them too.
And while it warms my heart to see them, I know that come May 2 they will be widely dispersed and doing most of their feeding and roosting in smaller family units and gender specific small flocks. Even now the males are forming up into 3 to 5 bird cohorts and beginning to test each other for dominance.
They scrap and display their feathered fans establishing the pecking order and breeding rights for what is coming. Their gobbling will soon fill the early morning air, a ritual similar to breeding elk and red deer. Hunters, intent on bagging such a worthy trophy will be rising well before dawn, gulping down a hot cup of coffee and foods with marginal nutritional value, and heading into the woods in an effort to pinpoint exactly where they are.
I once hired a coyote guide to speak to a group of rod and gun club members. He started his presentation with a statement I thought at first was too elementary.
He said,” First, hunt them where they are.” Seems simple enough but it makes a good deal of sense when you think about it. We are blessed with wide areas of publicly owned woods and farm fields and the turkeys could be anywhere.
Turkeys are like coyotes, widely nomadic and they could be here today and gone tomorrow. They tend to hang around areas that present favorite food sources but rarely use the same roosting trees for more than a few days. Our job as hunters is to find out where those areas are.
You can pattern a turkey for several days then the next day they don’t show up even though the weather and the food sources may not change, that’s hunting.
Before you invest your time in getting a kitchen pass, assembling all your gear, getting up well before dawn (*which means about 4 a.m. or earlier), traveling to the selected location on the property you have permission to hunt, you want to be reasonably sure there will be a male turkey in the vicinity.
Landowners, rural delivery drivers such as FedEx and UPS as well as your local mail delivery person can be of great assistance in keeping track of where they see birds and what times of day, particularly those times of day when you can’t be there.
Most are happy to share this information if you just ask them. Best times to do your own scouting are the times you plan to hunt and probably no more than a week before the season opens.
For Mainers this year it is a half-hour before sunrise on May 2.
Unfortunately, that means the very early mornings because that is when they are ‘flying down’ to start their day.
While hens and toms will roost near each other at night for safety they are often not in the same trees. But you can bet the boys will not be far from the ladies so they can follow them once they fly down.
My personal diary tells me the first sign I know for sure that gobblers are around is the gobbling they do from the roost before flying down. Typically, that is between 4:45 to 5 a.m. and it is still quite dark in the woods. That means you have to be in position ready to hunt at about 4:15 a.m. in order to let the woods settle down after your arrival.
If you are just scouting, not hunting, follow this timetable. Once you hear that first gobble your mission is accomplished and you should retire quietly from the field so as not to disturb their routine. Don’t be the cause of your own “bad luck.” Come back opening day and take one home with you.
If the dawn arrives with no gobbling sounds that does not necessarily mean there are no gobblers around. I was convinced one year that I was hunting a “dry hole.” At 9:30 a.m. hearing nothing, I started for my decoys (I use four to start the season: a gobbler, a breeding hen, anther feeding hen and a Jake or young male) when a gobbler sounded off close by.
As I was already up and moving, I tried to sneak closer and eyeball him. To my chagrin he was still roosted and flew down practically knocking me down. Fortunately, he glided past me into a thick patch of brush, and I don’t believe he recognized me for what I was. I backed out and came back the next day and called in a couple of hens that stayed among my decoys until he showed for his last rendezvous.
If you get through an early morning of scouting and see or hear nothing, the day is not a total waste. Use the time to drive around checking field edges, open fields and tree lines. Don’t overlook cemeteries, fallow farm fields, boys’ and girls’ camps not yet in business. Toms love strutting their stuff in areas where hens can see and evaluate them.
Have a number of these places in your back pocket just in case you strike out on your prime spot, you have a hunt busted by other hunters, or you make a mistake and lose a chance to shoot…it happens.
So is scouting worthwhile…you bet! <
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