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For the best spring turkey hunting land the habitat elements we seek are nesting cover, roost trees, food source and water that combined in a small area makes for the best wild turkey hunting. Having all these environmental limiting factors in a small area and in the right region of the state is how we are able to fill all the tags we care to hunt for. In short the best turkey hunting habitat and in this case of this article for spring turkey hunting season. Prime hen turkey nesting cover is composed of tall grass and weed areas especially such habitat along a lightly brushed in tree edge. The value of this habitat is that after flydown, servicing and crop filling or drinking the hens head to their nest frequently dragging a tom along that may be called or decoyed to a more responsive appearing hen decoy set up. Several times we are convinced the single jake decoy was all we really needed to distract the dominate tom from a hen. On this farm the flock's boss toms clearly were out to maintain their dominance. They spent as much time strutting for each other as for the hens.
These pictures were after the season, taken in hind sight of the article written during the summer. The value this lease brings is that the flock has had its roost, strutting and nesting area all on the same acreage for six continuous seasons.
The tall nesting grass appears as the brown strip in the far ground. On this side of the tree line is a cut hay field where right after flydown the flock went to grazing, toms to strutting and hens to be serviced. On the heavy dew or any wet morning the birds would range out farther and stay longer rather then head into the tall grass and brush too quickly.
Farther down from the roost and flydown area is the year round water source. It was not required this spring as the creek bottom had a flow, however this pond is where we see all the turkey tracks in the fall and probably begins to see a lot of turkey visits once the creek dries up during the summer.
Across the same tree line as the first picture by the road is a rather large crop field. For spring season turkey hunting the crop field was never productive, however I suspect it serves to help anchor the flock to this farm year round. We have seen varying numbers of birds feed on this field well after harvest while we were deer hunting farther down the creek. The last time out the flock numbered 38 birds, that we could see at one time.
A long range panoramic shot of our deer spot that is father down from the roost and the pond on the backside of the property. Observing deer and turkey both during the fall and spring is probably why we have done as well as we have on this property. I no longer turkey hunt it for myself. It is almost cheating as the last two springs I hunted the hunts did not go past 9AM. I now save hunting this farm for when my son can join me during spring break. It is a great thing that we can fill his tags in one morning and then spend time together fishing or fall deer scouting, two activities I waited too long for us to get started on probably more so for the talking we do than the hunting part. This turkey habitat article was motivated and mostly written by long time member and website guest author Harry Oreintseen. He has another article in the deer section. Harry has been a self guided turkey hunter in Missouri first on public lands and then as a MAHA member longer than we can remember, moved onto Kansas some 15 years ago and started turkey hunting Iowa the from the first year we had the leases. While he concentrates on deer and turkey he also provides unbiased observations on quail covey counts covering three major regions of MAHA lease land. We certainly appreciate his non-competitive attitude and willingness to share what he has seen. Thank you Harry for sharing with the rest of us a different perspective that we are sure most will agree with helps to put spring turkey hunting into a better perspective.
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