His gobble about scared me to death! I sure wasn’t expecting to hear a turkey already very close to the spot I intended to set up — especially after spooking three deer on the way in that headed precisely in his direction just a few minutes earlier.

But he was there.

After relocating, I let things settle down for about 30 minutes before offering some plaintive yelps that immediately elicited a gobble. For another 40-or-so minutes, I’d yelp and he’d gobble — but neither one of us appeared to be moving. Rather than being patient, I tried to move again — to see if I could get a look at him — and he shut up. Frustrated at my own lack of patience, I slipped quietly out of the woods and headed home.

Listening to a calling tape on the way home, the host mentioned that he found turkeys to be creatures of habit. “If you see them at a given spot one morning, they’ll be somewhere close by the next morning about the same time.” That sentence hatched my plan for the next day. Instead of getting up a 3 a.m. to make an hour-long drive and be in the woods before sunrise, I decided to be in that same spot at the same time — about 8:30 a.m.

I slept in, arrived in plenty of time.

The previous morning, he’d answered my call around 9 a.m. It was 8:30 as I walked up to the tree I intended to sit against and heard him gobble before I’d even made a sound.

He was on the ground at 8:45.

Luck undoubtedly played a role, but so did preparation. That’s what this story is all about. You can have the best spring turkey season ever by preparing to have the best spring turkey season ever.

From here, three elements are more important than any others in preparing to have a great gobbler season — scouting, shooting and sitting. That might sound strange, but what follows will help you understand the importance of each.

SCOUTING
No hunter can downplay the importance of scouting. Many hunters consider it a rite of spring to “put gobblers to bed” by spending time in the woods near sunset, looking and listening for turkeys to learn where they’re going to spend the night. Carry a pair of compact binoculars, and try to find some spots that will enable you to glass fairly large chunks of land in search of turkeys.

You don’t need to — and shouldn’t — get close to turkeys when you’re scouting. Good binoculars will help you to locate birds and pattern their movements from a distance. You won’t be disturbing them or the habitat they’re using.

Another form of scouting involves predawn trips to the edges of the turkey woods with locator calls. Crow calls and owl hooters often will elicit shock gobbles from toms that are still on the roost. Once again, the concept with this kind of scouting is not to get on top of the birds, but rather to gain a general idea of the areas they’re using before the season opens.