Turkey Hunting Season
Turkey hunting season topics raised through the years by many of the Association self guided hunters discussing hunts, skills and techniques.
Safety is a recurring and often over written topic about spring hunts, nonetheless our spin on private land safety has different value over public land hunts.
This is the one type of hunt that the most accidents occur and some have been fatal. None to date on MAHA private land, however they have occurred on public and other lands every year.
Hunters access Association land by a mandatory telephone reservation system that limits guns on the ground and have been set for each farm to allow ample acreage for each hunter to hunt all day long each day throughout the entire season. This eliminates the common spring season factor of not knowing where other hunters are such as happens on public land or land given permission by knocking doors or hunting on family or friend's land.
While turkey hunting Association land we encourage hunters not to hunt right on the fence line because we do not have control of the neighbor's land and do not know what type of people they are. If you choose to hunt next to the boundary be especially cautious and careful.
We also encourage all hunters to wear a blaze orange hat or vest when re-locating, entering or exiting the woods, especially if you have a tagged tom in your possession. Not a common practice on a turkey hunt for most, but a safe one.
Turkey During The Hunting Season
Our core product is habitat. This picture of three birds is the best possible example of what our early spring season habitat looks like during the hunt. All the birds in this flock lived to be hunted again.
Compare the picture above to the one below of the late Missouri/middle Kansas spring season in terms of crop field growth and cover foliage, a big difference in a short period of time.
Each do it yourself hunter may hunt the portion of any of our turkey seasons as desired from heavily hen following early season toms to late Kansas season bachelor group toms.
While using a gobble call always be cautious of another hunter sneaking up on your location. If you encounter a hunter sneaking up on your call do not make any sudden movements. Use your voice to communicate.
Expect the unexpected when on a hunt not just with the turkeys, but also for the weak hunter that may be maneuvering on your call.
A productive method of spring turkey season scouting is to glass a flock and small groups from ridge line to the next ridge as well as individual turkeys and follow them from a distance to pattern their route and to roost at dark. Others look for turkey sign such as scratching, droppings and tracks.
Once a spring flock is located it is good to return to the same location and listen from a distance to the birds gobbling from the roost trees and move in to about 300 to 400 yards and let them fly down and take their course. Once the turkey have moved on try to pin down their roost location and make a decision on where to set up in the morning.
For the run and gun spring turkey season hunter the big timber of south Missouri is attractive where a gobble in the distance can be heard and maneuvered in on. However, in the agricultural heavy north Missouri, all of our Iowa ground and more so in Kansas the open farm fields prevent concealed hunter maneuver. The value of learning more effective turkey hunting patterns based on cover and food habitat differences than past experiences shows again during fall deer hunts. This is the case where the hunter must accept the conditions as they are in reality rather than come with pre-conceptions of how he wants the hunt to be. That one aspect of hunters basing future hunts on prior experience under different conditions accounts for more failure than any other piece in this self guided hunter organization that does not have a guide controlling the hunter's behavior relative to how to hunt in terms of terrain.
Overall, when scouting in preparation for a spring turkey season hunt we do not allow ATV's or any type of vehicles to drive on or across Association land to scout or hunt. All hunts and scouting are by foot only and as such planning a walk-in route to a setup should always be part of any successful find of a roost. Those thinking of driving into a spring turkey setup amaze us to think that would work.
There are 2 basic types of spring turkey season hunters, the patient hunter and run and gun hunter and both spring season methods while effective are not always effective on open country turkeys.
Missouri Turkey Hunting
A snapshot at a Missouri river bottom, or a wooded dry drainage cutting through grain fields connecting small wood patches. Prime turkey habitat of roost trees and grain fields. That is the advantage of our turkey hunting plenty of survival cover and food habitat. The disadvantage is there is plenty of this kind of habitat repeated many times over in a region covering half the state of Missouri. Finding that one wooded drainage that has a roots over pothers that do not makes the turkey hunt more of a turkey scouting trip with the hunt the easiest part.
Some of the most successful spring season hunters in the country use the run and gun technique, which is seen on the majority of TV shows and videos. Run and gun takes very large acreage and several days for the area to recover after it has been hunted by this type of hunter.
Several of our hunters like to call and move all day long. We don't have a problem with this, but we do not encourage this on a large scale. We have observed our most consistent spring season success comes year after year from the hunter that takes the patient approach. The birds are not educated as much and the hunts are just as good at the end of the spring season as it was the first couple of days.
Typically, the patient spring season hunter is just as patient with his call as he is with relocating. There are definitely times when a hunter needs to move on birds and increase the frequency and volume of his calls, but excessive calling and too much moving can do more damage than good.
Here is the data we collected from several successful roost hunters:
First, the spring turkey season hunter must scout the night before and have the toms pinned to the tree they roost in. It's best to wait until it is pitch dark to leave to avoid disrupting that roost. On the way out become familiar with the terrain for the next morning to know what everything looks like in total darkness. Before it is totally dark the hunter has to mark a spot 100 to 75 yards from the roost tree, but no closer. To increase odds of the bird not flying the other direction it is best to rehearse the hunt a day in advance to know where the potential flydown area might be. Guessing decreases the hunters odds by 50 %.
If flydown time is 6 am plan on making your move in at 4:30 am allowing 30 minutes to get to your spot for every 1/4 mile traveled. If the moon is not covered by the clouds, start 30 minutes earlier.
Before walking in make sure all of your gear is tight and nothing squeaks or makes a sound. Some even wrap tape around the top of their rubber boots to avoid noise when walking. Load or chamber your gun before entering, but have safety on your mind at all times.
Do not walk across an open field directly to your spot to avoid being spotted by the roosted flock. If necessary, walk around the field and use the edge of the timber to avoid being spotted. Walk very slowly and softly to avoid making noise in the leaves or snapping tree branches with your boots.
Once you locate your spot, crawl out 15 to 20 yards and place your decoy. If you don't use a decoy take a seat and don't move and don't break any tree branches. At this point, comfort is not an issue. All you care about are the turkeys and not giving them cause to avoid flydown or movement toward your setup. Relax and close your eyes and wait for the toms to gobble.
If the toms gobble and he is alone your odds are greater. If he is with a hen or group of hens the hunter then has one of the greatest spring turkey season challenges - to pull that tom off of hens. Most cannot pull a tom off of a hen so the next best technique is to coax the flock's boss hen toward the hunter. Doing so will bring the rest of the flock, toms and all. Being able to accurately read such spring turkey season birds and flocks is a nuance most take years to master.
To try to determine who the boss hen is watch which hen turns and leads the others, it is not necessarily the first hen to move. It will be the hen that moves in a direction with most of the flock following and she will be making a flock call of some type. The hunter's challenge is to imitate her call.
If she immediately responds, let her call a couple more times before you call again. If she answers again, keep imitating her calls. She should start to work toward you with the gobbler following. Continue to gauge your calling to the reaction of the boss hen. A slight more frequency and volume of the same type call will usually bring her in. Too much calling and she may shy away. Watching her reaction will tell to call more or less.
Nothing is precise in the decoying and calling arts and it is an art not a science. Keen observation skills make the difference between for the truly skilled spring season hunter. Those that do not recognize this difference are not ready to spring hunt. Those that do know this value point and do not known how to make it happen are on the road to a career of successful spring season hunts.
For that golden spring turkey season hunt when the gobbler is alone let him call a couple of times and try a quiet tree yelp. If he responds, let him call a couple of times before you call again. If he responds again, quit calling and play hard to get. Chances are he will flydown your way and you will have the hunt of a lifetime watching that tom seek out your sexy call.
An excellent example of the spring season conditions during the last week in May.
This hen shows well the decoy hiding height of grass in a fallow pasture. Using higher stakes makes the difference and toms do not seem to recognize the higher decoys being wrong.
A small point about the value of being out on the land 12 months of the year are these pictures of hens and fledglings. In this case both a late hatch, late summer birds we accidentally found on the road allowing for a clear picture of the young birds of the year. Knowing where we see the most birds and the timing of those birds certainly helps us give recommendations of where to hunt.
A constant topic of debate amongst many spring turkey season hunters is the use of decoys. Some hunters live by decoys and others think decoys cost them more birds than they are worth.
The spring season hunters that don't believe in decoys are usually the turkey hunters that call and move a lot. If you are that type of hunter the extra movement of placing the decoy can blow your cover and cost you birds.
Others that don't believe in decoys are hunters that hunt areas with a lot of pressure. Spring turkey season birds that have been pressured and have encountered an ambush or two can become decoy shy in a hurry.
Our observation with spring season hunters in the Association is that the majority of the hunters use decoys and don't have a lot of problems with birds spooking from decoys.
This collection of self guided spring season turkey hunter topics are meant as a jump start and not solely as the only spring season techniques to apply. The links at the bottom of state specific topics contribute a variety of increasingly greater details specific to the spring hunters that have hunted Kansas, Iowa and Missouri within their Association ass well as in their home states around the country.
