If you want to kill a gobbler, hunt during the spring. If you want to hunt a gobbler, hunt during the fall. Let’s face it, there is a certain degree of easiness (for lack of a better word) associated with harvesting a Tom during the spring. Find a gobbling bird close to daybreak, set up 30-40 yards from him, do your best “hot hen” imitation, and wait for him to check you out. This is the same reason big bucks get taken every year. They let their guard down for the sole purpose of mating.
Scouting
Hunting in the fall for gobblers takes the game to a whole new degree of difficulty, but makes it all that more rewarding. The gobblers are not as vocal, if at all, in the fall, so locating them is going to be more time intensive. If you find yourself trying to find turkeys on opening day of fall turkey season, then you might as well go back home and crawl back into bed because you are wasting your time. Scouting your birds should have been done for the last two months at least to try to get some sort of a pattern down. I like to scout for turkeys the same time I am moving my deer stands seeing as how I am already in the woods. Pay close attention to where the birds are roosting each night. They are not guaranteed to roost in the same tree every time, but they should keep a relatively tight area as to where they roost. Perhaps the most important scouting factor in the fall is food. Where there is food there is going to be turkeys. Food is on the top of their priority list right now. Try and locate where and what they would be feeding on such as acorns. Look for areas that have scratch marks, droppings, and feathers. The amount of food that your land has to offer also plays a vital role in finding the turkeys. The more feeding areas that you have, the more spread out they are going to be, which makes it hard to target a certain longbeard.
Story continues below
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
advertisement
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calling/Tactics
If, by chance you have not been able to do any scouting, you can try the random call way by trying to visit some areas that you have seen turkeys in the past and try different variations of clucks/purrs in hopes you may catch a flock on the move. The fall is also a good time to try the kee-kee call that is very seldom used in the spring. Turkeys tend to be more social in the fall, so employing “lost” calls to your arsenal is always a good idea.
The “scatter method” is also another way to try and harvest turkeys. This is done by scattering a flock by running at them and sending them in different directions in hopes of calling them back to your position.
If you do happen to have a group located, then setting up close to where you know they roosted and doing some “social calling” once they flydown should pay big dividends.
On a closing note, perhaps the easiest way that I have found to kill a fall gobbler is by sitting in a deer stand. I have been lucky enough to take four gobblers in the last three years while sitting in the deer stand waiting on deer to come by.
Good Luck
Adam Hutchinson
Arrow H Outdoors