Missouri Spring Turkey
Misosuri Turkey Field Snapshots
Same tom top and below. While live turkey pictures show a lot this text will add much context. Open range Eastern Turkey without big timber - a new turkey hunting experience for many. These turkeys are in a bean stubble field before the fields are worked to plant. Pictures were taken the first week of April.
Missouri spring turkey hunting as reported by our newest self guided hunters is an attractive option within MAHA’s approach to paid hunts on private lease land.
Many cite the national reputation of the Missouri high harvest rates. These harvest rates are of actual state conservation department counted birds surveyed from the state-wide check-in stations.
The belief is that with as many wild turkeys as there are that the chances for success are the greatest in Missouri than in other states. Our approach to Missouri spring turkey hunting is different from that of “playing the odds”. But, first a quick review of why the Missouri is as good of a turkey hunting state as it is, is often questioned by many new to MAHA hunts.
Missouri spring turkey season is as good as it is due to the large concentration of wild turkeys throughout the state. A seemingly simple statement until examining why turkey populations exist to high numbers within one locality of the USA.
The most common Missouri snow accumulation. Typical winters are a series of cold and thaw periods that prevent deep accumulations. This picture comes from a during winter land run. North Missouri will receive more snow fall than south, however Missouri overall is sufficiently south that winters are shorter and have less ground accumulation than northern states and more farm/grain crop ground than southern states. Turkey will graze/forage farm fields year round. Wood patches attract turkey for roost and in mid-September when the Bur Oaks drop their acorns. In the case of roost trees turkeys prefer them close to open flydown crop fields. Bur Oaks will be found along any of the wooded creek bottoms that connect many small wood patches cutting through crop fields.Why Missouri turkey hunting is the way it is due to many environmental limiting factors. Far more than I can accurately describe from the many turkey biology based studies read and turkey hunting and behavior seminars attended to over the years. However, the first of the two key turkey environmental factors that I do remember specific to Missouri spring turkey hunting and made a great deal of sense to me was that chick in the egg reproduction is enhanced or degraded by humidity far more so than any other condition. Missouri's geographic location it turns out has the right humidity that ensures the highest Eastern Turkey hen egg production potential.
One of the facets why this makes so much sense to us locals is that in this part of the country the largest cattle feed lots, the ones that hold tens of thousands of animals, are from central Kansas and west. Any farther east and the feed lots are small and infrequent. The reasons is that from central Kansas and west the humidity is low allowing for healthy cattle when confined in large numbers in a small space. This same region of low humidity that allows for these large cattle yards is the same region where the Eastern Turkey range drops off and the Rio Grande Turkey occupies. Contrasting the Rio does not survive reproduction in Missouri where the Eastern Turkey does very well. This level of boots on the ground observations and effects on animals is the interesting point that motivated further study. The issue is that for any animal there are optimized conditions for enhanced survival/reproduction and other areas of less quality conditions, be they cattle or turkey. Knowing what those conditions are and their effects simply makes us understand why Missouri turkey hunting is as good as it is for the Eastern Turkey and why Rio Grande Turkey are where they are and so on.
The second factor is Missouri's mild winters do not stress the turkeys with cold temperatures and snowfall as occurs in other locations. This allows for more effective winter food forage due to the lack of snow cover. This factor further contributes to the egg hatch potential by allowing higher year round survival of more turkeys of the year to reproduction maturity. This turkey survival string effect continues further with the young and the old hens being physically stronger after winter allowing for further enhanced egg reproduction potential in terms of the higher number and health of the individual eggs that are laid. Simply more food, less severe environmental conditions, most notably weather effects, makes for strong adult turkeys that produce strong offspring.
This effect is often expressed by our non-resident do it yourself turkey hunters that the turkeys they harvest during the Missouri spring season being of heavier body weight, typically between 22 and 27 pounds, than any tom they have earlier harvested turkey hunting in their home state. This chance for a "trophy" tom or a refinement of a hunter's turkey hunting experience, is one more attraction. This is the result of the two facets of high egg hatch rates and strong turkeys makes Missouri spring turkey hunting as good as it is in terms of sheer turkey numbers and good scoring toms by weight, beard and spur.
What MAHA has done is taken Missouri spring turkey hunting and combined it with un-pressured private land leases where every turkey hunter hunts alone.
The success of our turkey hunting approach has been routinely demonstrated by comparing Missouri's state wide spring harvests compared to licenses sold to that of MAHA hunters to their reported total Missouri MAHA lease turkey harvests. The rate difference is that routinely Missouri public and knock on door hunters statewide have a harvest rate of 0.5 toms per license sold and that of MAHA turkey hunters ranging from 1.1 to 1.4 toms per hunter over the last several years. However, this turkey hunter statistical comparison is skewed.
Spring Turkey Season Snapshot
This wooded creek bottom, not river but creek, has the large roost trees and softer edge that is attractive to turkey flock.
To the left is a crop field that serves both for food and the strutting grounds.
This farm lane was a bonus as the flock right after flydown would break up like they do and individual turkeys would walk up and down it before exiting to the crop field at points we could not predict. The extra little lane walking did present additional setup, call and shot opportunities. One little nuance that made a difference.
Evening roost scouting showed similar behavior at returning to the roost with the turkeys walking down the lane to their preferred trees. Had this been in Kansas it would make an excellent late in the day return to roost turkey hunt.
While it cannot be denied the MAHA turkey hunter has the advantage of hunting controlled private land and the state wide hunter is hunting the entire range of available public, knock on door and lease land. It is the MAHA turkey hunter that makes the substantial difference in the harvest rate success statistics. The key factor is that he is a self guided hunter. Self guided turkey hunters that seek that added advantage of our do it yourself hunter approach as a group are more dedicated and correspondingly more skilled at turkey hunting than the average hunter.
To test this self guided turkey hunter idea any turkey hunter can compared all the turkey hunters he knows to where they hunt and their turkey harvest success rates. Most will agree those that hunt public lands are those turkey hunters that may exert less effort and having lower total turkey harvests as well as successive years of success.
The MAHA turkey hunter is screened for his ability to hunt on his own based on his primary and secondary hunting interest. This aspect means he is an accomplished hunter. Noticed we did not state he must be an accomplished turkey hunter, just a hunter that understands the perils of self guided hunts - the no guarantee peril.
The few inexperienced turkey hunters we gain each season are typically the crossover type hunter skilled in one discipline and trying a new hunting discipline for the adventure of exploration. This type of hunter always finds success as he is in the hunt for the hunt and not that success is instant. This hunter also has an advantage with the MAHA buddy hunt program where he can team up with an experienced MAHA member/turkey hunter for mentorship.
Missouri Spring Turkey Habitat
Two sides of the same creek bottom on the same lease that has been a long time good turkey hunting farm.
The field the flock flew down into.
This farm works for us due to the water in the year round creek, the heavily wooded sections of this creek bottom at tributary intersections and the crop rotation all fit together to make this a good turkey lease. Take out one of these elements and we will probably drop this lease for another. It is a matter of not standing still with the land. We will always seek that which is productive and delete that from inventory which does not yield a good hunt. By that means the leases will change over the years.
The do it yourself turkey hunter is frequently drawn to the many rivers of Missouri "The Rivers States" not just due to the Missouri River, as well as the Grand and the Osage which are very large river systems in their own right and places where we hold leases.
Overall, the Lower Missouri River Basin, well known for waterfowl, is composed of three individual sub basins that covers 2/3'd of the state. Many turkey hunters seek out these river bottoms for the better habitat the create. These bottoms can be pretty bleak places and the one pictured above is but a tributary.
Knowing the right habitat is as important as knowing the wrong places to turkey hunt. The better bottom turkey habitat is that which has large roost trees and on crop field feeding areas with nesting grass. It is not this particular spot pictured here.
All of these advantages further inflates our turkey hunting success rates.
Overall, when it comes to Missouri spring turkey hunting the hunter can expect a good hunt in terms of eyes on plenty of turkey with opportunity to hunt many of them. Most experienced turkey hunters report little difficulty filling both tags. New turkey hunters, those with three seasons or less experience, report it was not too difficult to adapt to Missouri spring turkey hunting with most harvesting at least one tom per trip. What may be of more interest are the disadvantages many of the new to MAHA and Missouri hunters identified about the Missouri spring turkey hunts when comparing it to their experience in Kansas.
While we identified these next topics as turkey hunting disadvantages, that identification itself is probably a poor choice of word. We use them as they are what was told to us and forward the thoughts as completely as we can in this multi hunter compromise of an article.
The two most common shortfalls were the limitation of one tom per hunter for the first week of the Missouri spring season and the short three week season. Again, this is comparatively speaking regarding their Kansas turkey hunting experience.
The most vocal were the hunters that went youth only turkey season and combined with the challenge of scheduling the youth turkey hunt during school spring breaks.
Most of the parents would not consider allowing their child to miss school for a turkey hunting trip and in the same discussion the parents choice of when to hunt was when the child had break time to include long weekend fly-in and hunt. How this overlaps with available state turkey seasons more often caused the selection of which state to hunt. For those that had the choice between Kansas and Missouri season it was more a view that Kansas was the turkey hunting state of choice.
The one tom per turkey hunter on opening week of the Missouri spring turkey season was a greater detriment to those that travel to turkey hunt and more so the greater the travel distance.
Those that travel to spring turkey hunt seek the most return for time spent which is more limited this first week of the Missouri season than the last two that allows two toms any two days. This causes the Missouri opening week to be largely a resident turkey hunter period. The non-resident hunter that turkey hunts this first week frequently does so incidental and after a successful Kansas turkey hunt as a means of expanding the return for cost.
The next turkey hunter group were those that had vacation scheduling issues and the shorter Missouri seasonal window too constricting compared to the need to sustain an income. These hunters simply chose to turkey hunt whenever they can find the time to get away from work. In this regard MAHA was a good fit with its system of allowing all to hunt on their schedule, not ours.
The optimum return for most of the wild turkey hunters in this group when to hunt is during the last two weeks of the Missouri spring turkey season and overlap that hunt with a quick road trip to Kansas and or Iowa for another turkey hunt. The effect of these hunters is largely on the eastern ¼ of Kansas with a continuing turkey hunt on Easterns leaving the farther west Rio Grande Turkey region the domain of those that seek the Rio as a first priority.
When to scout has been a more frequent discussion with more turkey hunters trying to balance a combination deer and turkey scouting trip. A preferred deer scouting period favored by a good majority of the deer hunters that do scout every year is in February and March. This is a time when the foliage is down, the weather cool and pleasant, rubs are visible as are trails and sheds may be found. The primary objective during this period is deer scouting and limited turkey scouting.
The turkey scouting during this time is location of hen flocks and nesting areas of tall grass or weeds. Finding such cover near a roost, crop feeding/flydown field and water makes for good potential spring turkey hunt spot.
Finding a bachelor turkey group of toms and jakes while interesting will most likely not be the place to hunt for turkey season. These bachelor groups will seek out the hens that will be in their, not the toms', preferred roosts come spring breeding season.
This seasonal turkey flock movement and cover preference pattern is frequently described to us by our landowners telling us when the see the turkeys on their farms. For the most part the farmers do not realize that turkeys change locations based on seasons. The landowner turkey observation comments are related to just the months when they have been observed that may be outside of spring season.
Overall, there is no way to deny the value of a Missouri turkey hunt to those that seek the best turkey hunting opportunity for the highest scoring trophy Eastern Turkey of their hunting career.
With this in mind the choice of where to spend the majority of one’s time may be split between those that seek the single best scoring tom they can harvest and those that seek the most number of hunter – tom encounters. If this is the decision criteria than it is easier to decide when and where to schedule a self guided turkey hunt.
