Preseason Scouting for Turkey Hunting Success Courtesy of the National Wild Turkey Federation
Preseason scouting will improve your chances for turkey hunting success.
Click image to download | Credit: NWTF
Planning for your upcoming turkey hunts will get you fired up for the season as well as improve your chances for success. Preseason scouting should be a key part of that plan.
“Scouting gives me a chance to spend time enjoying the sights and sounds of the woods around me while I’m looking for animal signs that can lead to hunting success,” says Rob Keck, CEO of the National Wild Turkey Federation. “But you can't scout effectively from a truck. You have to take your time walking through the woods over and over again if you’re going to do it right."
To make preseason scouting part of your hunting preparations, try following a few helpful tips.
Before daybreak, walk to a high point and listen for gobbling. Try scouring the woods for roosting areas by searching for feathers and turkey droppings. Do the same around field edges and along logging roads by checking for tracks, dusting areas and drag marks from strutting birds.
Spend several mid-morning hours listening and watching for turkeys near field edges or in open woods. Record your observations in a journal to determine patterns in the turkeys’ behavior. Including weather conditions and other factors in your notes may be helpful.
Many hunters enjoy getting a tom frenzied and are tempted to call while they scout. While trying out new or favorite calls is fun, calling too much during the preseason may ruin your chances of bringing in a gobbler during the open season.
“Leave the calls at home until opening day,” says NWTF Chief Operating Officer Carl Brown. “Birds learn quickly when they hear calls but never find a hen, or worse, find you. It only takes a single close encounter with a person to make a call-shy gobbler.”
For hunters who feel like they need to call to find a bird while scouting, Brown suggests using “shock’’ calls that surprise turkeys and usually make them gobble. Examples include crow calls, woodpecker calls and hoot owl calls.
Once you pinpoint where the birds roost, plan a strategy that places you along the birds’ travel routes. To locate these routes, first determine where the birds feed during the day.
"Early in the season, most of the birds stay in the woods because that's where their food sources are,” says NWTF Director of Conservation Field Operations, Scott Vance. "As turkeys feed on acorns and other nuts, they leave V-shaped scratch marks on the ground. Look closely at these marks to find the point of the V. Generally, this point is aimed in the direction the birds are moving.”
Later in the season, when days are warmer, a turkey’s diet changes from nuts to grasses, clover and insects. To locate these food sources, turkeys usually feed in open fields. Because there are no set rules for locating turkeys on any given day, experts say to pattern your birds so you will know when and where they feed.
Generally, turkeys feed in open fields late in the day once the morning dew has dried. "Turkeys don't like getting their feathers wet, so they avoid dewy fields in the morning,” explains Dr. James Earl Kennamer, NWTF senior vice president for conservation programs. “Midday hours can get very hot during the spring, so many hunters hunt open fields late in the afternoon. The weather is cooler and more pleasant, and the grasses help the birds digest what they have eaten throughout the day."
Kennamer also says mature turkeys are homebodies, which is another reason preseason scouting is so important. Most have their home range and will stay close to home unless they feel pressured to move.
Whether you’re searching for roosting sites, travel routes or food sources, a little preparation goes a long way. Scout during the preseason and you will enjoy the time spent in the woods learning your surroundings and searching for signs, and also enjoy seeing your time and efforts pay off.
Turkey Sign
While scouting in the preseason, keep your eyes peeled for these signs, evidence of turkeys in the area:
Tracks: Search areas where tracks will be noticeable, such as along field edges and paths clear of leaves. Tracks will confirm that birds are in the area and may help you understand where they like to travel. Turkeys have three long toes. A single track measuring 4 1/4 inches or more from the tip of the middle toe to the heel indicates a gobbler. Anything smaller means it’s probably a hen.
Droppings: A hen’s dropping looks like small pieces of popcorn while a gobbler’s droppings are larger and J-shaped.
Drag marks: When gobblers strut, their wingtips drag the ground, leaving two parallel lines in the dirt, sometimes with turkey tracks visible between them.
Dusting areas Turkeys bathe in dust to rid themselves of mites and other parasites, creating small, round dirt depressions in the ground.
Feathers: Turkeys will typically knock feathers loose from their wings as they fly up to and down from their roosts. Out West, tall timber areas littered with feathers and mixed with droppings indicate a good roost site. In the East, larger wooded areas make identifying roost areas a little more difficult because birds have more places to roost. Look for likely roost areas such as creek bottoms and wooded ridges.
For more tips about wild turkey hunting, call the NWTF at (800) THE-NWTF or visit www.nwtf.org.
