How To Find A Gobbler On Opening Day part one
Opening day 2001 Brad & Jeff Get their Birds
A common question new turkey hunters ask is how to you go about locating a gobbler? Well there is a lot of tactics one can use but I’ll tell you what I do. In the spring the gobbler’s mind turns to love and if you find the hens you’ll find the gobblers. The basic method is to sound like a hen and to attract a gobbler in to your setup which is exactly the opposite of how it happens in nature. Gobblers don’t have to seek out the hens but the hens run right to them so the odds are already stacked against us because we are asking them to reverse roles.
Pre Season Scouting
Scouting the area you plan to hunt is a good way to get the lay of the land and to try to figure out where the birds are at. Glassing fields and open areas looking for strutting gobblers will give you some great information because often times the gobblers have favorite areas they like to use. Try to study the travel routes they use to and from the area this will help you to pick a place to try to set up.
Listening for gobblers especially at daybreak and sunset will give you some idea as to where they are roosting. There is a variety of shock gobbler calls ( Crow, Owl, Coyote, Woodpecker, and Peacock) that you can use to get them to gobble. I would caution you from using any turkey calls prior to the season because you are educating the birds and making them that much harder to call once the season comes in.
Although I don’t use them many people are using game cameras to help them scout areas too.
Evening Before Hunt
I like to try to help put some odds in my favor for opening day by going out the night before and trying to roost a bird. I have identified locations in my hunting area that border prime roosting areas and I take up a listening post for the evening in the area to see if I can’t locate a gobbler. Gobblers will often gobble a little before the go to roost or shortly after they get on the roost. You can also get them to shock gobble to one of the calls we talked about earlier. If you roost your bird the night before at least you have a good place to start in the morning if you weren’t so lucky at least you have eliminated a starting point in the morning and you can look else where. Also remember the saying “A roosted bird is not a roasted bird” the odds are still in his favor unless he makes a mistake.
Opening Day Pre Dawn
If you roosted a bird the evening before you should head that direction if not get to a place to listen for that first morning gobble. Once again you can use a shock call to help entice a gobble. I more often will allow the woods to wake up and let nature take her course to get Tom fired up. Once you have a gobbler sounding off you want to sneak in on him and try to set up. In the early season remember there is little foliage on trees and that Tom can see pretty far so you want to use the land as best you can and avoid bumping the bird. The more knowledge you have of the woods and the likely strut areas the better to help you position yourself to get a crack at the gobbler. Even with all that information it’s still a roll of the dice as to where that bird will go when he comes off the roost.
Calling to the Bird / Shooting Light
I hunt either on public lands or lands that borders public lands so often I limit my calling because it seems everybody and their brother is calling a lot. I’ll often do a few soft tree yelps, a fly down cackle using my hat to simulate wing beats, and some light scratching in the leaves to sound like a feeding turkey. Hopefully this works for you and you are filling out your report card before the coffee you left in your travel mug gets cold. If not Tune in here tomorrow and we’ll plan the rest of the opening day to hopefully help you locate and kill a gobbler.
Lots of Great Info on the Wild Turkey can be found at the NWTF and it’s a great organization to join.
[...] In Part One I covered a little about Pre Season Scouting up to your initial set up on opening day. If you haven’t read that you may want to go back and look at that before reading Part Two. Deciding to Move [...]
Pingback by Moose Droppings » How To Find A Gobbler On Opening Day part two — April 12, 2007 @ 11:28 pm