How to Adjust Turkey Hunting Strategies Throughout Season

Listen to the tales throughout a turkey season, and you’ll hear the highest of highs along with the lowest of lows. It’s a tale of joy and sunshine early on, followed by hangdog gloom and doom weeks later. The protagonists and antagonists have not changed. It’s just that the roles seem to flip late in the season, often with Tom Turkey getting the best of hunters pining for those heady opening mornings of booming gobbles and showy displays.

Long ago in my earliest green gobbler years, like many beard-chasers, I thought that opening week and closing week should be the same. Maybe a little tougher with more vegetation, of course, and a few more snakes, but still with gobbling and chasing and all the festivities. Crack o’ dawn thundering! Strutting to a gaggle of hens! Such a learning process, those early years, when dew-eyed dreams get dashed with a slap of reality.

It wasn’t until a few days at the Westervelt Lodge turkey school in southwest Alabama that my real learning began. I was fortunate enough to hunt with Col. Tom Kelly, who was at the time chief instructor, tale-teller, brown water toaster and side-eye giver for those who might be impolite or offer a true rib-splitter story. Kelly, author of “The Tenth Legion” and other iconic turkey books, was at the time in his 60s, I believe, and had decades of experience chasing Cotton State gobblers.

Back in his younger days, turkeys weren’t as widespread in Alabama. They mostly were found in the southwest and southern part of the state, before relocation helped the expansion. Kelly gave us the goods each night on his experiences and turkey biology, one part of which has stuck with me. It’s good to remember for anyone, in any state, as the season moves along.

We all get giddy with the first weeks, he explained, as gobblers are mating the hens in their harem. But then, we hunters start seeing fewer hens, or a hen by herself here and there. That’s typically midway through the season. A gobbler still may have two or three with him, but the larger groups and older hens already are gone. They’re establishing their nesting areas, feeding, starting to lay eggs and then will sit.

By then, Kelly said, we’re in the late stages of the season. Lustful gobblers are still looking for a fertile hen. They may not thunder from the roost as well, but in the afternoon could sound like a record stuck on repeat seeking a lonely hen. That’s one reason, sometimes, that a patient afternoon sit or quiet walkabout can be productive.

Hunting strategies should coincide with the turkey biology going on at the time. It’s similar to hunting big bucks in the pre-rut, peak rut and post-rut periods, or targeting bass in pre-spawn, spawn or post-spawn periods. With all of these, there’s a ramp-up period, the big show and then “Hey, where did everyone go?” Here are some ways to take advantage of all three.

Early Season

If you’re a run-and-gun guy, and a lot of turkey hunters are, this is your time to shine. Mornings may involve hearing multiple gobbles from different directions. There! There! There! Over there! Down in that holler! Is that one on the mountain?

Your biggest challenge at that moment will be deciding which one to go hunt. The closest? How close is it? Is there an Ol’ Reliable that lives in a particular area but is challenging? New birds that may offer success but with less challenge? Having your woodsmanship skills nailed down, knowing the land and making the right decision can be critical.

While hunting with the late Bo Pitman at White Oak Plantation one early morning, we hightailed it across a dewy field to the edge of the woods. Pitman had heard one lone, warbly gobble down in those woods and double-timed it to the line of trees.

“Sit there, aim the gun between those two trees at that trail, and don’t move until you pull the trigger,” he told me confidently. He sat behind about 10-15 feet, scratched a few yelps on his cracked but reliable call, and we heard a gobbler. Somehow, my heart didn’t leap through my chest before I pulled the trigger and dropped the gobbler between the two trees.

Pitman’s knowledge of the woods paid off, just as it did for so many hunters over the course of more than two decades of chasing birds. It was an early lesson in woodsmanship, along with beating feet to get to the spot. Don’t dilly-dally. Have your stuff ready and get your butt moving.

Midwest and Northeast states are kicking off seasons now, so it’ll be a wide-open gobble party for the next few months. Enjoy these first few weeks and get after it.

Midseason Shift

After a few weeks of buildup involving gobbling, posturing and probably some good fighting to establish a pecking order, the main event takes place when the photo period triggers hens and gobblers to get jiggy.

Sunlight drives the train, whether it’s for turkeys and bass in spring or big bucks in autumn. There’s no “deer rut” based on a frost, no matter what Uncle Gooty said years ago. It may feel better to us to hunt in cooler temps, but deer don’t care. It’s about the diminishing photo period and raging hormones. For turkeys, it’s increasing sunlight and hormones. That trips their switch. When a hen is finally ready, she will crouch or lie down, and the gobbler will mount her.

After the intense couple of weeks of breeding, hens will begin to filter away to nesting sites. Younger unbred hens will get the side-eye from a gobbler. He and other gobblers may tolerate a few jakes hanging around, although not for mating purposes. That still will drive a gobbler absolutely bananas if a jake is squiring around with a hen. Pecking order, remember. There still is a hierarchy.

Once hens begin laying, their clutch may contain 10-12 eggs. If raccoons, possums, snakes or floodwaters leave the nest be, she will tend to them for up to 28 days. Consider that. From about midway or later through the established season, a hen will incubate eggs for up to four weeks. If something happens to the nest, they may—a big word, may—establish a second one. I saw this in south Texas one year when floodwaters washed out many nests. The landowners said they had already seen hens scurrying to establish new ones. Anomaly? Perhaps, but it’s not impossible.

This season’s midpoint is often when gobblers start getting itchy. They’re losing their harems and still have raging hormones. Hunters can find fired-up birds throughout the day. Early mornings may start to be challenging, as the gobbler knows for sure he has a few hens nearby. Why leave them to chase another at first light? It’s not likely that he would, but it’s best to be prepared for everything. Turkeys do crazy things sometimes.

This is when a lone hen decoy, maybe two, could be a good option. If you’re hunting a field or road, place them where they are easily visible. Contented hen calls are good to start; get louder if you need to make a lovesick gobbler even more crazy.

Also, be patient. You might bump an early-season bird and be able to get on another. Midseason and end? Bite your lip, please, and stick around a little longer. A gobbler’s ramblings may be slow but determined. You don’t want to bump one because “nothing’s happened in a while.” Be cool, Honey Bunny, be cool.

Final Weeks

We were hunting unpressured property in early April this year in east-central Alabama, just a couple of weeks after the season opened. Yet some of the birds, including the one I killed, were already acting like what I’d call the late-season period.

We were fortunate enough to have had cellular access to the property’s Moultrie cameras. That gave us a glimpse of activity times. What I noticed was a lot of gobblers either by themselves or with other longbeards. A hen here and there. But not a gobbler or two with 8-10 hens. They already were breaking up. It was like late-season activity early in the year. I knew we’d have to shift tactics.

One other issue was that four days earlier, temperatures had hit almost 90 degrees in the area. Tuesday morning, when we stepped out of the truck, they were about 40 degrees. A cold front had zipped in behind a storm system. Typical spring in the Southeast. We were suited up in TrueTimber Tekari camo, including warm base layers. I thought those might be too hot, but they were perfect for the chilly morning.

What wasn’t perfect, and reminded me of late season, was that we heard nothing gobble on the roost. Others in our crew did, but we didn’t. The turkey’s Axis of Evil—crows, owls and woodpeckers—was sounding off, but nothing gobbled in reply. We began walking, listening, calling. We cruised logging roads through beautiful hardwoods. We slipped up to fields. By midday, we’d walked almost 6 miles. But my compadres were like-minded: we’d rather be trying to find something than back in camp.

However, our stomachs were growling. We decided to detour to a field on the way back to the truck. A gobbler had been seen on camera a few times at midday, so we considered a Hail Mary. On one side of the narrow field was a road. On the other, a woodsy amphitheater with a small pond at the bottom. Hen yelps were immediately greeted with a booming gobble. We scrambled to put butts and backs against trees. Once down, more yelps elicited more gobbles. It was going to be this easy?

No, Don’t Say That

And yet, there we sat 10 minutes ... 15 minutes ... 20 minutes later with a gobbler determined to make the hen come to him. That’s nature. But that’s not what hunters want. A Hail Mary was tossed as I hands-and-knees crawled across the field to get a peek. Thirty yards into the woods was a tom, strutting with a jake in tow. I was trapped, on my belly, trying to get to a tree, when the gobbler decided to pop into the field.

Exhilarating? Of course. There he was! Heart-pounding, frustrating—all the things. My buddies across the field weren’t sure if I could see him or had a clear shot. They were preparing to take one if I couldn’t. I was on my belly, Stoeger 12 gauge somehow shouldered, when the bird finally came out of strut and raised his head. I fired, expecting the flop.

He didn’t move, fly, run, fall over, dance a jig, spin, flip or flop. The jake ran away. Stunned, I somehow rose to my knees, put the Burris FastFire dot on his head and fired a second time. This one connected, and it went down. I’m still baffled at what transpired. But in the end, we had a bird in hand.

Midday and late-afternoon roaming is my go-to in late season (or early season if need be). If there’s no wind, I’ll call with determination but not aggressively unless I need to. If it’s windy, however, or a gobbler likes loud dirty talk, I’ll let it rip. The wind can play tricks. Don’t be afraid to hammer down if it’s windy.

One other great late-season tactic is a hen and jake decoy. Position them so the jake is mounting, or getting close to, the hen. Again, make them visible. Gobblers need to see this faux funny business going on and come to investigate. Have them within shotgun range and be ready. Shift your strategies as the season progresses, and you’ll have a better chance of success from start to finish.

---

---