Spring turkey tips

[sharpshooter97]

Gonna give spring turkey hunting a try for the first time this year. Having never done it before is there any advice on a call and decoy to use? I have a ground blind I plan to set up on a good location, we get trail cam photos of them crossing one of the field corners quite often and plan to set up a the blind there. Hoping to get my dad his first turkey as well.

 

[Dsnow9]

Gonna give spring turkey hunting a try for the first time this year. Having never done it before is there any advice on a call and decoy to use? I have a ground blind I plan to set up on a good location, we get trail cam photos of them crossing one of the field corners quite often and plan to set up a the blind there. Hoping to get my dad his first turkey as well.

Where are you located and what is the terrain like?

 

[kenton]

As far as calling goes, when turkeys are headed your way don't interrupt them.

 

[sharpshooter97]

Where are you located and what is the terrain like?

This is SE ND farm country right outside of a river valley. Mostly fields with tree rows and some prairie grass

 

[kansasdad]

As long as I have chased turkeys, I've rarely had the first thing in the morning fly-down...BOOM scenario play out.

Knowing where they like to roost, feed, and the travel routes they use will put you in the right spot. Calling keeps telling them that there is a hen (or jake/tom if you gobble or gobbler yelp) present, and if there isn't a hen to come court or a jake to beat up visible when there should be one, you are telling them that something is "up".

The better you hide from prying eyes, the better. Movement will kill your chances, and the chances of having a "sneaky pete" tom come in silently means you have to be on your ninja skeeelz from the moment you decide to lay your ambush. Use terrain by setting up on the lee side of a hill from where you suspect they are, brush, trees or blinds to hide your presence.

Nothing better when a vocal tom is on his way, and comes all the way in to show off how pretty his feathers glow in the spring sunshine. Hope you get a great show.

 

[Dsnow9]

I would say to get a box call and a single hen decoy, you could always get more but I find the more I have to carry around the more of a headache. The box call is the quickest, easiest, and most consistent just starting off. I like to set my blind on a known travel path and like to set the blind under an overhanging branch so that the shadows help to break up the blind. After that call just before shooting light, and then every 15 min or so after that. Don’t call to much or to little. Finding that balance is up to you. I like to hunt with my bow, so anyone interested in hunting out of a blind with a bow needs to practice weird angles out of a blind. Kneeling, one knee, half standing.

 

[Mudranger1]

I've never had a decoy work just fyi so if you do get 1 or some and find that it just spooks your birds that would be the first thing to go for me. But like kansasdad said you really have to adjust your setup if your not using 1. Calling wont work out in the open with no decoy

 

[madtom]

If you're hunting open ag fields the birds move through and strut, a strutter decoy and a hen will be really useful. I would say the majority of the toms that have seen my strutter decoy have come within gun distance of it if not closer.

Box calls are probably the easiest to master, and being hands free isn't that important if you're in a blind, so I would start there.

 

[Hem]

Anybody who tells you there is only one way to hunt and kill turkeys hasn't hunted turkeys very long. You have to always be prepared to adjust your strategy. But as Kansas said figuring out where they are and where they want to go is key.

 

[NYyotekiller]

The best calling tip you can give a beginner is less is more When it comes to the amount of calling you should do.

Biggest mistake I’ve seen rookie turkey hunters make is calling too much.

 

[Mainer207]

Last season was my first. Shot a jake out of a blind over decoys on the first morning. I had an older fella calling for me and showing me the ropes. It was quite a goat rodeo of a bad hit, wrong shell size, chase the bird to finish it off scenario.
SO, first advice: always check the shell capacity when you’re borrowing someone’s gun
Day 2 I went solo and sat against a tree along a field...called in a beautiful Tom on my slate around 10:00am and got him to about 60 yds. I decided that morning that decoys are probably overrated and I didn’t want to carry them on the hike in: I was WRONG. The Tom was really fired up but without the visual confirmation he wouldn’t commit and ended up heading off the way he came.

 

[N2TRKYS]

Ditch the blind and decoys. A box call and practice with a mouth call. Call the bird in with your box or slate, then do your finishing work with a mouth call.

The key to killing turkeys is to: #1 have turkeys and #2 be where they want to be. That'll cover most of your situations.

 

[sharpshooter97]

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

 

[kansasdad]

A thought on safety.......

If you decide to use a decoy, check out the possible shooting lane some knucklehead might use if he were to rifle shoot or ninja close to use a shotgun. I make sure that I can see quite a distance beyond any decoy so that I'm not shot.

I have been known to spot and stalk turkeys, knowing that stealthy movement through the woods might increase my chance of a hunting accidental shooting. When I am doing this, I pay more attention to where another hunter might be waiting in ambush than I do to the bird in the woods.

The "reaping" decoys where you are sitting directly behind a fan decoy and wave it to aggravate a real tom to come in are a disaster waiting to happen on public land. I would be nervous to use it on locked down private land as well. (But boy oh boy are those videos amazing!!)

 

[Nicapopolis]

As long as I have chased turkeys, I've rarely had the first thing in the morning fly-down...BOOM scenario play out.

I shot a bird in that manner a few seasons ago.

Got out of the truck and heard the bird gobbling his head off. He was already so aggressive 45 minutes before shoot time when I sat down that I was worried he was going to fly down too early to even shoot. I waited until 5 minutes before shoot time to start some light calling on the slate. That is when a handful of other birds also fired off!

Right at shoot time the aggressive bird flies down and runs straight into my decoy. Time of death was 2 minutes after shoot time.

5 minutes later and go out to pick him up, 5 other Tom's come running into my decoy with me standing there. I had to scare them all away.

The main reason I think that it happened like this is because it was late season and all of their hens went to nest. They were all desperate.

 

[Old man bob]

Thats whats fun about Spring Turkey, All day hunting. and active animals all day.I have hunted them about 30 years now and killed em all hours of the day. 2 minutes into shooting time and 2 minutes before dark just this year! Shot them at all different hours of the day. Easy to get hooked on it. Good luck. And in My op. I rarely use decoys, and other guys were right in don't over call, or move..............BOB!

 

[JM77]

I second the notion to ditch the blind. You won't be a "turkey hunter" until you sit with your back against a tree or similar and call one to the gun. The level of skill required to hunt this way is ten fold, compared to sitting in a blind and much more rewarding.

Don't over call and if a gobbler quits answering , be patient and stay in your spot at least an hour.

 

[Nicapopolis]

I second the notion to ditch the blind.

Yes. Kids or archery is the only time that a pop up blind would be needed in my opinion.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Just some tips from my experiences.

When setting up decoys, make sure they are visible. I tried to be sneaky and put my decoys up in the grass along the treeline at the edge of a field last year. About 200 yards away, another hunter had set up a decoy out in the open part of the field. Sun comes up, the gobbler who was literally right above me, flew down and ran straight to his decoy and died. Looking back at it, my edge placement was a bad angle for the gobbler to even see my decoys. Had the other hunter not been there, it might have worked out, but...

When setting up decoys, put them in a good shooting lane. Once I set a jake up on my right side and a hen on my left, thinking that a gobbler would come in from the left and try to get to the hen to cut off the jake. I'm right handed so that would have been a nice easy shot. Well the gobbler came in from the left, but then circled around out of sight to come in to my right to confront the jake... And I had the jake set up so close to me that I was pinned down and couldn't get off a shot.

I have brought turkeys in to single jakes, single hens, groups of 2 (jake and hen), groups of 3 (two jakes and a hen) as well as multiple decoy sets with toms and jakes and hens. I also had a gobbler coming in on a sting to my calls until he saw my jake and then he hung up. I think he must have been at the receiving end of some abuse from another gobbler in the recent past.

Last one about decoys. Make sure you set decoys up in way that the real live turkey is distracted away from you. I once had a set up where there were two possible approaches, so I set up one set of decoys on one approach and the other on the other approach. Good old tom comes along to one set of decoys, but before I can react, he sees the other set of decoys, and in order to see them he has to be looking right past me. Sadly, I was locked down and couldn't move to shoot. If the second set of decoys hadn't been there he would have probably continued on to the first group.

As far as calls go, I have used box calls, slates and mouth calls. I will usually have all three with me because I can make them sound like unique and different birds. The box call is the easiest, but most limited. The slate is very versatile and not hard to use. I really like the mouth calls because I can use them without movement. I keep mouth calls in my truck and this time of year I will practice with them on my way to and from work. It is a good time to make all the stupid noises you want without risking spooking birds or having your wife hit you with a frying pan.

I am an overcaller. I know you shouldn't call all the time, but I just can't help myself. I should point out that I have called in 5 birds that I wouldn't have even known were in the world that way though. I was just yammering away to pass the time and all of a sudden I got a bird responding or showing up out of nowhere. Of course, once I knew they were in play, I stopped calling as much and tried to just play a broken up game of call and response with them. All 5 of those birds got a ride home in the truck.

In terms of blinds. If you have them well brushed in and/or in a good ambush spot they can be very nice. They can help with the temperature, they can disguise your movements and they can muffle your natural noises. However, they need to be really well brushed in or put up well in advance of using them. Turkeys notice changes to the environment and they will be leery of a camouflage tent that just appears overnight. If it has been there for a long time or it is obscured by a lot of brush, vegetation they may be less leery.

The other downside of a blind is that you can't really make a move. If you have been sitting in your blind and you can hear turkeys that just aren't coming to you, you might be able to move to a different spot to make a play on them. But not if you have to break down your blind, then set it up in a new spot and then rebrush it in. Too much time too much noise and movement.

If you have the ability to scout the area/turkeys you will be hunting you can get a good idea of where they will be during the day. Sometime you can even find out where a turkey has roosted for the night and slip in to be near that tree in the morning. That's not a sure thing. He will likely still be there in the morning, but he might not fly down and come over to you.

Good luck on your hunt. It is truly my favorite kind of hunting. I hope you have a fun and rewarding season. Be sure to share your stories and pictures.

 

[NEWHunter]

If you have birds patterned and they are entering a field in the same spot, 90% of your work is done. The other 10% is setting up the blind and shooting straight. In your case, a decoy and calls would not be necessary. I would set up your blind about 25-30 yards from the crossing and wait for them to show up.

If you’re brand new to turkey hunting your calling and decoy are as likely to spook them as pull them in, especially when they are on a reliable pattern. But calls, decoys, and learning and improving are part of the fun.

That said, a single hen decoy and a call you’re confident in can add some interest to your hunt. I would start with a decent decoy right away rather than buy a cheap one and upgrade later. Don’t over call if you elect to do so. Also, if you do go with a decoy, don’t set it up right in front of where you expect them to enter the field. E.g. if you’re set up on the edge of the field and the spot where they enter is 25 yards away at your 9 o’clock, set the decoy at about 2 o’clock at 20 yards. The decoy is your backup plan.

Your initial thought on the blind was the right one. Don’t hesitate on using one. Setting it up in advance and brushing it in will up your odds. They are extremely effective tools for good experienced turkey hunters that want to enjoy a hunt with family and friends.