Want to take your understanding and knowledge of wild turkeys to another level? Cellular trail cameras can help. (Shutterstock photo)
March 25, 2025
By Scott Haugen
A big tom walked by a cell trail camera placed on a timbered ridge. Twenty minutes later, it popped up on another trail camera a quarter mile down the ridge. Knowing which game trail the tom was traveling, I wasted no time.
I was already in the field, less than 10 minutes away. I got ahead of the tom, hiked down a hill, across a creek bottom and up the other side. I sat against a fat Douglas fir tree where two trails met and made subtle hen yelps. No decoy was used. Fifteen minutes later, the big tom came strutting in; the shot was simple.
Nearly every year for the past decade, big toms have shown up on that ridge during the last week of the season. They’re new birds, random ones I’d not seen before. They cover a lot of ground in the mountains, searching for straggling hens to breed.
I used to run non-cellular cameras on this one-mile-wide, three-mile-long timbered ridge. I caught toms on camera, but by the time I discovered them while scrubbing through SD cards, it was too late.
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Cellular trail cameras will teach you a lot about tom numbers, their movements and even how to hunt them, all season long. (Photo by Scott Haugen) Two seasons ago I started running Moultrie Cellular trail cameras for turkeys. It took my knowledge of birds in the area, and my hunting success, to another level.
Turkey Numbers and Movement
For the past 25 years, I’ve been a full-time outdoor writer and photographer. Prior to that, I was a high school science teacher for 12 years, with a background in biology. I currently have more than 130 trail cameras set out. I run them year-round. Nearly half of these are Moultrie cellular cameras targeting turkeys in three states. Other than being afield and physically scouting, nothing has increased my understanding and knowledge of animals and animal behavior like trail cameras. This includes turkeys.
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Trail cameras are our eyes in the field when we’re not there. I get serious about trail cameras for spring turkey in late January. The goal is to locate big winter flocks of hens, jennies and jakes, along with bachelor flocks of toms. Birds are predictable and easy to pattern at this time. Then, it’s all about finding as many birds as possible.
As winter flocks begin to break up and move, try following them. Cellular trail cameras allow you to quickly see if birds are working an area or not. Predict where birds will travel–into the hills, along a river valley, or across farmlands–and set trail cameras there. Hens will eventually separate, and toms will follow.
Set on high-definition video mode. Moultrie cellular trail cameras can capture a lot of valuable information that will help turkey hunters. (Photo by Scott Haugen) Some toms will stay put, establishing small territorial strutting grounds. Some hens will stay around, too. The more places you can find birds, the more hunting options you’ll have. Come opening day, you don’t want to be looking for a place to hunt. You should already have multiple places lined up.
Turkey Behavior Even before winter flocks break up, toms are establishing a pecking order. Younger toms are quickly displaced by older toms. The most mature toms fight for dominance. Two- and three-year-old toms often move off by themselves, still hanging in the same age class groups. Older toms often stick around the same area they’ve been all winter. Jakes and two-year-old toms typically cover a lot of ground in late February and all through March to look for a place where big toms won’t pester them and where hens are present. It’s hard for them to find both.
Setting two cellular trail cameras on one tree—facing down different trails—will help quickly learn where turkeys are traveling. The author hangs his trail cameras low to the ground to capture videos that help him learn the sounds of turkeys and even identify individual birds. (Photo by Scott Haugen) The more hens you can locate, the better the chances of finding toms throughout the season. Mature toms aren’t often far from hens, but the more hens in an area, the more wandering toms I’ve picked up, which has created more hunting opportunities. When a solid number of hens are nesting in a small area, toms often come and go all season long.
The first week of March marks the start of the breeding season in many places I hunt. By the mid-April season opener, most of the breeding is complete. Hens lay one egg every 24-32 hours and don’t start sitting on their nest until the last egg is laid. An average of about 11 eggs are laid. The process takes around two weeks. This explains why hens still roost with toms early in the season, though they’re in egg laying mode and still feeding heavily to prepare for the 28 days they’ll be sitting on the nest.
On The Hunt Being able to observe turkeys in your area will educate you on how to best hunt them throughout the season. One place I hunt, it’s almost always raining and cold the first two weeks of the season. Cellular trail cameras placed on deer and elk trails have revealed many hens preening for hours under the forest canopy. I’ve called in and shot many toms thanks to this information, with a preening hen decoy bringing them running in.
Where tom numbers are high and they seem just as content displaying and fighting one another as they do strutting to impress a hen, a strutting tom decoy can be the ticket. Aggressive, testosterone-induced toms are always looking for a fight.
Solar panels keep trail cameras running, and hunters out of the woods, meaning wildlife is less disturbed. (Photo by Scott Haugen) If young toms are running around in a bachelor flock, virtually any hen decoy will help pull them in. In brushy habitat, I often hunt without a decoy, as the goal is to keep toms searching for the calling hen.
As the season progresses, tom behaviors change. Recognizing when and why this change occurs is important. Maybe hens moved to brushy areas to tend their nests, and toms gave up on them. Perhaps a hen lost one or two nests or broods and is looking to breed again. Maybe a new tom has taken up residency in an established tom’s territory. Or maybe a bully flock of two-year-old toms think they can take over a mature tom’s domain. These are a few of the behaviors you can detect, thanks to trail cameras.
Two springs ago, I caught seven hens that hatched broods, all by mid-May. Over two weeks, all but four poults were killed by predators. Coyotes, bobcats, ravens and hawks appeared to have killed most of them. I even saw a bald eagle trying to kill a tom. Trail cameras often capture predators working an area, which can have a direct impact on when and how you hunt an area.
If brood success is high, toms may begin establishing a feeding routine before the spring season ends. This means they can be patterned. Place trail cameras on food sources, near water, roosts, and trails that connect them all, and set up, accordingly.
This marks author, Scott Haugen’s, 39th season of turkey hunting. He’ll be the first to tell you he still has a lot to learn, but that cellular trail cameras have greatly helped flatten the learning curve. (Photo by Scott Haugen) The most important lessons I’ve learned through running cellular trail cameras is how quickly turkey behaviors shift, how widely their numbers can fluctuate in any given area at any time and how observing them every day dictates how to best hunt them. Whether they are new arrivals or wise, resident toms, making the right move at the right time is key to filling a tag, and cellular trail cameras can be a game changer.
The Best of the Rest: Moultrie Edge 2 Pro Reliable in-field intel will up your chances for a big tom. Photo courtesy of Moultrie I’ve run every model of Moultrie cellular trail camera. For turkeys, the Edge 2 Pro is becoming my go-to choice. I set all trail cameras on video mode because a video reveals sights and sounds still images can’t. From the thumbnails, I request a video that looks most intriguing. A yelping hen on camera might set off multiple toms gobbling, off-screen. A strutting tom might get nearby hens to yelp, which triggers distant gobbles. The list goes on.
The Live-Aim feature allows perfect camera setup every time. I set a lot of cameras close to the ground to catch up-close footage that allows me to identify individual turkeys and capture sounds I might otherwise miss. Think spitting and drumming.
The automated GPS tracking system helps me keep track of where cameras are set and moved to. I often relocate trail cameras throughout the season, based on what turkeys are doing. I also rely on the Smart Zones option within the Moultrie App. In the spring, vegetation flourishes, and moving leaves, limbs and vines can trigger a trail camera. The Smart Zones allow you to block out unwanted parts of the screen where vegetation moving in the wind sets them off. The A.I. feature further allows you to reduce false triggering, which extends your battery life and even captures target species.
I run Moultrie’s rechargeable batteries in all cameras. Some places where I don’t want to risk spooking game, or on cameras that are set a few hundred miles from home, Moultrie’s solar panels keep the cameras working. Four cameras I have set in another state, I’ve not touched for 16 months. Nothing has saved me more time and gas money, as well as opened my eyes to what turkeys are actually doing every day, as cellular trail cameras.
