Patterning birds during the second peak can be more difficult, too. You might be able to pull it off in a small woodlot, but in the big woods that so many of us hunt, getting a handle on a late-season gobbler’s habits can be impossible. A second-season gobbler whose hens have all vanished is likely to abandon its favored early-season strutting zones and take to the road like a traveling salesman with a quota to fill. It’s looking for girls, and with girls in short supply, it’s likely to travel several miles in a day. You might run into one of these travelers at any stage of the spring mating season, but they’re more common late in the cycle.

WIND-DOWN TIME
The second peak of gobbling comes on fast and ends fast. The few birds that continue to gobble and respond to hen calls on into early summer are for the most part precocious jakes that until now were intimidated by mature birds. When the big boys give it up for the year, the jakes sometimes kick in for a while.

Mostly, though, the game of hunting mature gobblers trends conservative again, and the calls that get results mimic other gobblers -- hoarse clucks and yelps, and not many of them. The gobblers are forming their bachelor flocks, and will come to the calling of another gobbler.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Success in the turkey woods largely depends on your ability to identify the current stages of both the spring greenup and the spring breeding cycle and, then, to adjust accordingly.

(Editor’s Note: For more information on dealing with the various successional stages of spring turkey hunting, get a copy of Jim Spencer’s 336-page book, Turkey Hunting Digest. Send $24.95 plus $4 shipping to the author at P.O. Box 758, Calico Rock, AR 72519.)