With Kentucky’s Spring Wild Turkey season opening this Saturday (April 16), now is the time for hunters to formulate a game plan. Here’s some details to finalize and thoughts to consider:
* Get your gear organized
Turkey hunters have a lot of gear to keep track of so make sure you’ve got everything you need.
This includes camouflage clothes, from head to toe. Don’t forget a hat, gloves, and face mask (or face paint). Other essentials include turkey calls, sturdy boots, a handkerchief (for sneeze suppression), and an eyewear cleaning cloth and a small bottle of anti-fog liquid, if you wear glasses while hunting. In warm, damp conditions, it’s easy for glasses to fog up.
Decoys work great when hunting a dominant gobbler that flies off the roost and heads directly for a big open field. Position the blind where the gobbler wants to go and put our a hen and jake decoy. The idea is to convince the older tom that a juvenile interloper is stealing his hen (Photo Provided)
Turkey vests are ideal for storing all the gear you take afield. They have plenty of pockets, and usually have a cushion to keep you dry and comfortable while sitting on the ground.
Store all your gear in a duffle bag or large plastic storage tote, and put your gun in a gun case. Everything is in one place, and it’s worry free to transport gear to and from the hunt.
* Shoot your shotgun
If you haven’t already done so, make sure your shotgun is on target.
The turkey shotgun is carefully aimed like a rifle, and must be able to deliver a tight swarm of about 15 pellets to a relatively small target at 30 yards or farther. A turkey’s vital area is its head and neck, which is about the size of adult’s clenched fist and wrist.
It’s surprising how many shotgun barrels aren’t straight, and as a result they throw shot patterns that may imprint high, low, left or right of the aiming point.
The easiest, most economical way to correct this problem is to install high visibility sights on your shotgun’s barrel. They screw right onto the barrel’s vent rib. A practice shot will verify that the sights have not moved since the last hunt.
Check your shotgun’s point of impact by shooting at a paper target at close range from a steady rest. Chamber a low-powered target load (No. 6 or No. 71/2 shot), and shoot at a baseball-sized bullseye at about 10 yards.
* Final Scouting is about being a good listener
If possible, visit your hunting area at dawn or dusk as often as you can in the days leading up to opening day.
With clear skies and warming temperatures in the forecast this week, turkeys will become increasingly vocal. Listening for hen yelps and gobbling, early and late, will help you pinpoint areas that turkeys are using to roost, interact and feed.
Don’t go into the woods, keep you distance, so you won’t risk spooking birds. If there are big fields where you hunt, take binoculars to look for turkeys from afar.
* On opening day, get an early start
Arrive at your hunting in the dark, with plenty of time to walk to a listening point. Don’t be late. Shooting hours are 30 minutes before sunrise.
Early in the season, trees have not leafed out, so turkeys can see long distances in the woods. Use the cover of darkness to approach gobbling toms.
Later in the season, heavy leaf cover will be in the hunter’s favor when approaching birds in the woods.
* Think through your approach to a gobbling tom and what his most likely route to you will be
This is what often is the difference between bagging a bird or going home empty handed.
Smart, old toms seem to have a power of perception independent of the senses. They may do the opposite of what the hunter expects, or has observed during scouting (Photo Provided)
Turkeys have a infuriating habit of doing things that hunters don’t anticipate. That’s one reason why turkey hunting is so challenging and rewarding. In some ways a hunt can be like a chess match. What’s the next move going to be?
In nature, the hen goes to the gobbler, so the hunter’s challenge is to act like a hen, and get the gobbler to come within gun range.
As a rule of thumb stay on same contour or higher in elevation when anticipating a bird’s route. Turkeys don’t like to walk through thick brush, so they often circle around and come up to the hunter’s left or right.
Turkeys, like deer, take the easiest route. They like to walk on old roads in the woods. Yes, they will fly across creeks, but generally avoid crossing ditches and can be stopped cold by a wire fence.
Gobblers often walk to a point where they can see ahead and will not take one step further if they don’t see a hen, but they can “hang up” out of gun range for many reasons. Usually it’s because the gobbler is with hens, and they lead him around like he’s on a string.
Gobblers that go to a knob or ridge where they can be seen by hens and strut back and forth, are in what hunters call a “strut zone.”
Smart, old toms seem to have a power of perception independent of the senses. They may do the opposite of what the hunter expects, or has observed during scouting. As the season progresses you may be able to discern a daily pattern that can ultimately put you in gun range of the dominant gobbler.
* If you hunt the same ground year after year, vary your travel through your hunting area
Older birds are very wary and can figure out what hunters are doing as the season progresses.
Vary your approach by taking the long way. Turn the element of surprise in your favor. Never approach a gobbling tom the same way two mornings in a row.
* Get close
Once you find a roosted breeding flock — a gobbler and his hens — a good, but risky strategy strategy is to get between these two groups of birds, under the cover of darkness. When he flies down off his roost, he won’t have to move far to be in gun range.
* Hunt with a buddy
Buddy hunting is a tried and true way of method of getting a gobbler into gun range. Position one hunter out in front of the caller, as far as 15 to 25 yards, depending on the terrain. Even if the gobbler hangs up, the hunter out front is likely to get a shot.
* Put out a hen and jake decoy, and hunt from a pop-up camouflage blind
Decoys work great when hunting a dominant gobbler that flies off the roost and heads directly for a big open field.
Position the blind where the gobbler wants to go and put our a hen and jake decoy. The idea is to convince the older tom that a juvenile interloper is stealing his hen.
Another advantage of hunting with decoys is that the hunter can get away with some movement. The gobbler is focused on the decoy and that gives you better chance of not being seen as he approaches.
* Call softly
When calling pressured or older gobblers, too much and too loud, is a recipe for failure.
Try soft clucks and purrs, calls that reassure older birds. Friction calls are easy to master, sound realistic, and are the best choice for this type of subtle, quiet calling.
Using multiple friction calls (for example, a slate call and a glass call that sound much different) may convince the gobbler that the source of calling is a small flock of hens.
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Don’t call too much after you have the gobbler’s attention. The gobbler’s first reaction is to strut, and hold his ground. Test his patience, make him come to you.
If a hot gobbler (one that is gobbling continuously) suddenly shuts up, get your gun up and be ready to shoot. Older birds often come in silently, and fast, if they decide to commit.
* Change calling positions or simply walk away
Change calling position on a gobbler that hangs up out of gun range. Move slowly and carefully, using terrain to shield your movement. Another trick that works on gobblers that seem uninterested, or hang up, is to aggressively yelp or cutt on a call, as you walk away.
This imitates a hen that is actively searching for company, and leaving the area. Often times this will trigger a gobble from even the most closed-mouth bird. This tactic is especially effective when buddy hunting. The shooter stays put as the caller walks away.
* Hunt later in the day as the season progresses
At mid-morning while hens are laying eggs, the gobbler is all alone and may be vulnerable to calling. As the season progresses hens finish laying eggs and go on the nest to incubate their clutch.
A gobbler who was spent weeks with his breeding flock is suddenly alone, and may start to sound off at all times of the day. By hunting later in the day you’ll be in the woods to cash in on this desperate behavior.
* Be still. Be patient
It’s hard to resist the temptation, but sometimes it’s best to not call at all, after you’ve got the gobbler’s attention. Be still. Be patient.
If you have to swing your gun barrel, do so only when the gobbler’s head is behind a tree trunk. Turkeys can pick up the slightest movement, and will spook.
Harvesting a turkey gobbler is quite an accomplishment. You’re matching wits with one of the nature’s wariest creatures, worthy of the utmost respect and admiration.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
