How to Run and Gun for Late-Season Archery Turkeys

• Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.

I wasn’t confident it would work, but I couldn’t sit in the ground blind, hoping a gobbler would materialize out of thin air, any longer. The boss and his ladies were long gone. After pitching down in dawn’s glow, the girls led the boisterous tom up the canyon toward a sage flat littered with cow patties.

Hesitantly, I strapped a bow-mounted strutter decoy to my bow’s top and bottom limb pockets. The puddled creek snaking through the canyon’s bottom provided cover, and thanks to the echoing booms offered by the king of spring, the group wasn’t challenging to find.

My rangefinder told me I was 161 yards from the tom. He was strutting left and then right for a pair of gals I assumed he’d yet to share his genetics with. The other five hens in the flock were pecking through cow waste only 60 yards away. With sagebrush in front of me, I eased the full-strut decoy’s fan over the top of the brush and peered around the right side of my riser.

The tom was on a dead run for me. I was so shocked that I struggled to attach the open hook of my hinge release to my bow’s D-loop. When the hinge broke, the still-charging bird was so close he kicked sand in my lap.That was the last time I sat in a ground blind for late-season turkeys.

PICK A FIGHT

Thankfully, run-and-gun turkey tactics are no longer reserved for scattergun hunters. Bow-mounted decoys like those from Ultimate Predator Gear and Heads Up Decoys forever changed the stick-and-string turkey game.

Because 80 percent of my turkey hunting takes place west of the Mississippi, my go-to bow-mounted turkey decoy is Ultimate Predator Gear’s Stalker MerRio Turkey Decoy. UPG also makes a Stalker Eastern Turkey Decoy for those who predominantly chase birds with copper-tipped fans. What I love about the Stalker Turkey Decoy is that it weighs less than 11 ounces, folds up to an 11-inch-diameter disc and has a shoot-through window. Various mounting devices (sold separately) allow you to attach the decoy to the center of the top and bottom limbs. There are no side mounts; if you wear a black top, you can hide directly behind your bow.

By late season, many hens have been bred. The turkey pecking order is well established, and some 2- and 3-year-olds have been whipped multiple times by older, more aggressive boss gobblers. It’s common to see single toms with small flocks of hens, and it’s not uncommon to see young gobblers reunite and start running together.

Going bow-mounted during the late season is like walking into a bar, finding the baddest dude in the place and asking his girlfriend to dance. Depending on your stature, that dude might flee, but most of the time, a situation like that is going to end in a fight.

The same is true when hunting late-season turkeys. Boss gobblers with not-yet-bred hens want to keep those hard-earned girlfriends. Typically, they aren’t going to be fond of another strutter moving in on their party and will respond with aggression.

Other times, he may move his hens away depending on factors like hunting pressure and the gobbler’s general demeanor. Remember, going bow-mounted, just like sitting in a ground blind over lifelike full-body decoys, is a tactic. It’s not a magic wand, and it doesn’t always work.

The plan is to stay patient, scout and find late-season toms and hens. Use your favorite digital hunting app to drop pins where you see birds. I like to find areas where a tom and some hens are roosting, then sit back and use my optics and hunting app to watch and document morning movements. Plus, while scouting, you’ll gauge how aggressive or passive the gobbler you’re considering going after is. Once you’ve gathered all the info you need, it’s time to make your move. You have two options, and I’ve used both with great success.

Option 1: Host the Party

If the plan is to get on a gobbler shortly after fly-down, you can set up in the dark, push a few lifelike hen decoys into the ground, get back 10 or 12 yards, strap on your bow-mounted decoy and become part of the decoy set.

I always carry a lightweight chair like ALPS Mountaineering’s Weekender Seat or ALPS OutdoorZ’s Vanish turkey chair. To remain comfortable, you’ll want a bow stand or bow sticks so you don’t have to hold your bow out in front of you for extended periods.

If you’ve done your homework and know where the birds are going, set up before they get there and try not to call. Most late-season birds have heard it all. I want the live tom to first become aware of my bow-mounted imposter and hen decoys when he enters the field or steps out on a logging road I’m set up on. This keep-it-natural approach typically earns aggressive reactions.

Option 2: Crash the Party

If your morning plan gets foiled or you just want to run and gun, use your optics, ears and locator calls to find the birds. Often, I’ll get on a high point that offers some visibility and sit and listen for at least a half-hour before blowing a locator call. I know I’m in the game if I can spy a tom or get lucky and have one gobble on its own. I never want to let a bird know I’m in the area until he sees my decoy for the first time.

If I don’t find birds with my glass and they’re tight-lipped, I use various locator calls, from a crow to a hawk screech to a coyote howl, to crack a beak. Once I’ve found a tom to go after, I use available cover and slip in close to, or ahead of, him. If the tom has hens, I try to get closer to the hens than the tom.

I aim to show the birds a portion of the decoy—not the whole thing—when I’m between 100 and 175 yards away. Think of it this way: You’re scouting for birds and see what you believe is a tom’s fan in the timber. You raise your bino and the fan is gone. Then, just as you’re about to give up on the sighting, the bird spins and the sun illuminates the fan. You tighten up on your bino and try to find the rest of the bird’s body before he slips away.

If you can show a gobbler, whether with hens or alone, the tip of the decoy’s fan, you can trigger his curiosity and prompt him to come and investigate. Sometimes this isn’t possible, and sometimes it doesn’t matter. If the tom is aggressive and is with hens he’s yet to breed, he will likely come on a run. If he’s a more passive tom or a younger bird with no hens and wants to avoid a fight but is curious about what he saw, he may wander in slowly if he can’t make out the entire bird.

If the bird or birds are coming, don’t do anything. Remember, you want them to see you. You are just another turkey in the woods, and they are coming to check you out. If the gobbler hangs up, move your riser slightly right and left, and if you’re fortunate enough to have a hill, bush or cut bank in front of you, make the decoy disappear entirely, then crawl to your right or left a few yards and make it reappear.

If you can draw your bow straight out in front of you and don’t have to point the riser up in the air or down at the ground because you’re pulling too much poundage, you’re more likely to be able to draw, settle your pin and execute a perfect shot.

GO BOW-MOUNTED

I have shot many birds using the bow-mounted method, and six have been at less than 6 yards. There is no more fun way to hunt turkeys than going bow-mounted. If you find heavily pressured birds, or try the bow-mounted tactic on a few with no luck but still want to run and gun, try going into elk-hunting mode.

Let the birds gobble and yelp on their own, use your glass to keep tabs on them and use the terrain to parallel the birds. If you can stay with the birds for a while, you’ll be able to predict their path of travel. Once a path is predicted, slip in front of them, set your full-body decoys between 20 and 25 yards, find heavy cover and position yourself so the birds must walk past you to get to the decoys. This will allow you to draw your bow without getting picked off.

Bowhunting turkeys is fun. Bow-hunting turkeys with no ground blind and using a bow-mounted decoy is a level of excitement you must experience for yourself. If you do, chances are you’ll never use a ground blind again.

GOBBLER GETTERS

• Three top broadheads for turkeys.

Turkeys have a vital zone about the size of a softball. If you go for a headshot, the kill zone shrinks to the diameter of a baseball, assuming the bird is in strut and its head is tucked into its neck. Otherwise, it’s smaller still. Because kill zones are small and penetration isn’t a huge issue, I always recommend a broadhead with a cutting diameter of at least 2 inches. A large cutting broadhead will save your bacon when your shot isn’t as perfect as you’d hoped. I have three go-to turkey heads.

SEVR TITANIUM 2.0

Available in 100- and 125-grain versions, this rear-deploy broadhead promises ultra-accurate flight and razor-sharp blades. The Practice-Lock feature allows you to shoot the same broadhead at the range that you plan to hunt with. Lock-and-Pivot blades lock open on impact and pivot to keep the arrow driving straight through. MSRP: $16.99

RAGE X-TREME

This 100-grain head features a monstrous 2.125-inch cutting diameter. The .035-inch-thick blades are tough, and the anodized aluminum ferrule is topped with a .035-inch-thick cut-on-contact blade with a “meat hook” on either side. MSRP: $39.99/2-pack

SWHACKER 207

This 100-grain head is an oldie but a goodie. The 207 flies with a compact in-flight diameter of 1 inch, but once fully open, it creates a devastating 2-inch wound channel. The hardened carbon steel point is tough and durable, and I like that the head must penetrate a bit before the pair of wings meet feathers and deploy the blades. MSRP: $45.99/3-pack

---

• This article was featured in the May 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

---