With the Spring Turkey season coming up soon, it won’t be long before the gobble of the Tom turkey will echo across the location I plan to hunt.

  I’ve already gotten permission to hunt the land, and according to the brothers that work the land, there’s a good number of mature gobblers in that area.

  This weekend, I’ll do my initial scouting, figuring out their roost sites, their travel lanes and where they’re feeding.

  This will be off the road, or on a high vantage point using my binoculars, so not to spook them and between now and opening day, as several of their pattern might change.

  As the season nears, I should have their patterns figured out, where before sunup, I can quietly go in and set up, awaiting sunrise.

  I carry everything that I need in my hunting vest, which includes my blind, numerous types of calls as you never know what the gobblers might respond to, these include diaphragms, slates, box calls, push button calls and locator calls.

  The easiest call for a new hunter to master is the box call, you’ll need to get the rhythm down, which you can do by listening how the hens are calling, once you have the rhythm down, all that’s needed to produce a realistic hen call is to slide the lid along the side of the box.

  The next thing I need to checked is my diaphragm calls as they’ll dry up and be useless, so I test several, getting rid of, those that don’t sound right.

  I rough up my slate calls and strikers and chalk my box calls, then test all of them to make sure they have just the right tone.

  Over the years if you followed my blog and columns, you know I believe in fanning gobblers, using one of my, old turkey fans to bring a gobbler in and to sneak up on the Toms, when used at the right time can be very effective, with the only problem being how quickly the fans become beat up.

  Since fanning has become so popular, there are several manufactures now making the oversize one-sided gobbler decoys that can be put in the ground or used to get close enough for a shot.

  Many of these have through netting, giving the hunter a place to look through without exposing themselves.

  I’m testing the Fanatic Reaping Decoy by Montana Decoy its lifelike size and its ultra-realistic appearance, it can be used like a standard decoy or to stalk a hung-up bird, with the see through the mesh window, allowing the hunter to keep an eye on the gobbler.

 When set up it measures 29” by 29” and folds down to the size of a paper plate 11” By 11” that easily fits into your vest pouch.