Missouri Outdoor

Pre-season scouting equates to consistent success in the spring turkey woods. Try these tactics to locate roosting trees, strut zones and other high-use areas.

Scouting Spring Turkey
Finding a lone tom like this one during the season is much easier in the afternoon when hens are on their nest.
Turkeys live everywhere these days — or so it seems. I see them roosting next to subdivisions. I see them hanging out by grocery stores and running in the road. I also see them living in the woods, roosting miles from the nearest road. Regardless of where they live, a turkey is a turkey. And while they may have a brain the size of a walnut, the slightest amount of scouting or hunting pressure can send them into hiding.

On more than one occasion, I observed the same flock of birds living in a suburban setting and decided to hunt them. I saw them regularly on the side of the road and figured I would have a nice longbeard hanging on the front porch on opening day. However, when opening day arrived, the birds were nowhere to be found. The regular routine was no longer a routine; the birds had vanished into thin air. What happened to the birds was good old-fashioned scouting or hunting pressure.

turkeys respond to human pressure, regardless of the place they call home. Making a few mistakes on or before opening day can send a cocky gobbler running the other way rather than running to the gun. Most hunters don’t think scouting spooks birds, but I’ve seen hunters make these scouting mistakes that, in the end, cost them a tom during the hunting season. Below are a few scouting and hunting tips to ensure that hunters will smile with a longbeard before the season ends.

turkey hunters love hearing a tom gobble. After all, that’s why we hunt turkeys — to hear them gobble and call them in! However, when trying to locate birds before the season opens, the last thing we want to do is use a locator call to provoke gobbling. Mick Bowman from Kansas knows the dos and don’ts of turkey hunting. Bowman is a Knight & Hale Pro Staff member who says that tooting on a crow call or owl hooter before the season starts is a big mistake. “Turkeys grow accustomed to hearing hunters calling on locator calls before the season opens. They quickly realize that those calls aren’t the real thing. By the time turkey season opens, gobblers clam up and quit gobbling to locator calls. The best way to locate birds in the spring is to get on top of a ridge at daylight and listen. Let them gobble on their own. If a gobbler hears a crow call from the same ridge for days on end, he will probably stop responding. I never use a locator call before the season,” Bowman noted. The best way to avoid using the calls is to leave them in the truck or at home when scouting so you’re not tempted to reach into your pocket and pull the call out.

Scouting Spring Turkey
Cameras are a great way to pattern longbeards before opening day.
Many hunters bring their favorite turkey call with them into the woods before the season opens and yelp endlessly until they hear a gobbler respond. It’s even worse when hunters call in birds before the season opens. “We all enjoy seeing long beards strutting around, but calling a bird in before the season opens can spook a bird to the point where he is call shy the rest of the season. All it takes to spook a bird is seeing movement or noticing something he doesn’t like,” Bowman added. To increase your odds of scoring on a bird, don’t call unless you have your gun in hand. I also see hunters who pull over on the side of the road, roll down their window, and call to a bird in a field. “When hunters call from a truck and a turkey can see the hunter calling, the bird begins associating people with turkey calls,” Bowman explained.

Some hunters wonder how they are supposed to locate birds and pattern them for hunting season if they aren’t supposed to call them before the season. There are a few tried and true methods to find roosting trees and afternoon strutting zones and feeding areas that don’t require using a call. When Bowman scouts, he waits for turkeys to talk first thing in the morning and then tries to pinpoint the tree they are roosting in. “Once I hear a tom gobble from the tree, I try to determine exactly where he is roosting. Sometimes I come back to that location multiple times and make sure he is still roosting in the same area. If I really want to know what tree he is roosting in, I will sneak in after the bird has flown down and left the area to check for fresh J-shaped droppings under the tree, indicating it’s a gobbler. I also look for feathers on the ground under the tree. By being sneaky and not calling, birds don’t know that I’m around and will stick to the same pattern,” Bowman said.

It’s often more important to know where a gobbler is spending his mornings and afternoons than where he is roosting. A wise old gobbler is often most receptive to calling in the afternoon when hens are on the nest and the tom is by himself. Knowing where he feeds and struts gives hunters a Plan B if they don’t get the bird in the morning. One way to determine where a tom spends his mid-morning and early afternoon is to look for wing drag marks on two tracks. Toms love strutting in open areas like long, narrow two tracks. If the tom frequents the same two track on a regular basis, hunters will see lines in the dirt from him dragging his wings as he struts, as well as lots of droppings in the dirt. Since a tom struts here, it’s called a Strutting Zone.

Scouting Turkey
Mick Bowman spends countless hours scouting in the spring to ensure he will bag a tom like this one during the season.
Hunters can also try to find afternoon feeding areas. As food plots have grown in popularity in the last several years, turkeys have grown accustomed to calling them home as well. A food plot provides a tom with a place to strut and feed on crops and insects. They often feel safe because they can see things coming as they approach a plot. If you don’t have a food plot or hunt near one, consider looking in fields, logging roads or clear cuts where power lines are located. These places can be great places to hunt in the afternoon if the morning hunt didn’t work out. I have had more success calling in gobblers in the afternoon than I have in the morning. I usually spend a fair amount of time before the season opens scouting in the afternoon. If I locate birds strutting in the afternoon, I remember those areas and come back to them after the season opens. This style of scouting doesn’t disturb the birds’ normal daily routine.

Another way to figure out exactly when a bird is visiting in the afternoon without disturbing his pattern is by hanging a scouting camera. If I see a lot of turkey sign and suspect a tom is using an area in the afternoon, I hang a camera. Most cameras tell the time and date the picture was taken. If you see gobblers in photos in the area about the same time on multiple occasions, you know where to be on opening day. Over the years, this tactic has worked especially well during the late season. Toms almost always have afternoon strutting locations. In the late season when birds are call-shy, I hunt these areas as often as possible. Most of the time I don’t call; I simply sit and wait for the tom to show up. It isn’t as much fun as calling them in, but when a tag must be filled, I know that an afternoon strutting zone is probably my best bet for filling a tag. By using the scouting camera to determine when the bird uses the area, I won’t spook him.

Turkey hunting is more popular now that it ever has been. Twenty years ago, hunters could make all kinds of scouting errors and hunting mistakes and still call in birds. Today, with so much hunting pressure, in order to be consistently successful, hunters must be like a private eye before the season opens — looking for as many clues as possible to locate birds. Once the season opens, it helps to sound as much like a hen as possible and slip through the woods like a ghost.
written by Tracy Breen

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