One thing I always do before the spring turkey season opens, is to do some pre-season scouting, to locate some of the areas that held the flocks of birds in the past, with each flock having several adult gobblers, juveniles and mature gobblers.

    Turkeys, like all life, will generally choose the easiest travel routes, from their roost tree out to feed and unless something changes drastically, they’ll continue to use the same roost trees, routes, and feeding areas.

   One thing I’ve found that can really screw up a morning hunt, is getting too close to the roosts when setting up your blind and decoys.

  If you set up too close to the bird’s roost tree, alerting he birds, causing them to pitch out from the roost tree away from where you have set up.

  It’s known that turkeys don’t see well in the dark, they can detect movement, meaning, you’ll want to get set up long before the sun makes its appearance in the eastern skyline.

   When you start calling, call softly, letting them know that there are other turkeys around. 

 Generally, it’s the hen that responds first, making her soft purring sounds from the tree, which may get the gobbler to respond. as the birds come from their roost, some gobblers will fan out as they attempt to impress the hens, while others will move off to feed.

    Once the gobbler responds, letting you know what call he prefers, now you have to pull him your way and if he has one or several hens with him, it could take some time to before he comes your way.

  Once the hens go off to their nests, gobblers with travel around, seeing if they can find a lonely hen that’s holding him there.

  You’ll want to keep calling, imitating every call she makes, louder until you make her so mad that eventually the hen will come your way to kick the tail feathers out of the loud mouth hen.

   On one of our set ups on the Rosebud Reservation, team member Larry Myhre, Sioux City was set up on a ridge above me

 I’d call so long, to the hen; my mouth was dry and I needed to switch from my diaphragm call to my box call and as the hen appeared out in front of Larry, I called the hen by him and shortly there after the tom walked into Larry’s set up and he tipped him over.

  I’ve used Dakota Decoys turkey decoys for years, at times, they seemed too work, and other times the gobbler would hang up too far out for me to get a shot, when this happens, I back off my calling, switch to my diaphragm call, slowly and quietly move to another location, farther away from the gobbler, hoping to convince it that the hen is moving away from the gobble In order to not spook the gobbler, as most of my setups include a light weight camo that I set behind, allowing me some movement as the gobbler approaches my set up.

  I had my best luck using a fan from a gobbler, taken over the years, cutting off its fan, the putting it on board with nails, spreading the feathers, allowing it to dry and you should be ready to draw those hung-up gobblers.

  I’ve also used the fan in front of me, to crawl towards the Tom that wouldn’t come allowing me to cut the distant between the gobbler and me.

   If you’re, trying to outsmart a gobbler, use these tips, to improve your percentages, when hunting gobblers.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Using these tips, the author was able to pull these  two gobblers away from its hens. (Larry Myhre Photo)