Northern Cold Spring Turkey Tactics

Hi,

This is my first year going after spring turkeys. My wife and I have tags. We are in North Dakota and it has been a very late spring. It is April 17th, the ground is still mostly frozen frozen, we are walking through snow about half of the time, and their is not a single piece of green flora outside. I am wondering how behavior of the turkeys changes on years like this, or if it does at all.

So far I am having trouble just finding the birds. We have access to a few spots of private land that are known to have turkeys in the past. I am finding sign in some areas, mainly in the deep wooded draws and in some of the stubble fields which is what I expected. Although, none of it has been very heavy or fresh. In a lot of these areas there is very little cover besides the trees because the grass was grazed very short last year.

I have heard a couple reports from friends saying they have seen turkeys in the area, but they are still in bunches of 15-20. Is this normal this time of year? Will they even be breeding yet, and coming to calls?

What kind of habitat do turkeys nest in when there is no new growth? Am I wasting my time hunting areas that have very little grass? What should I be looking for to find the turkeys?

Any advice is much appreciated. The wind is whipping 30+ today so I decided to stay in and get some things done around the house. I will be going out the next two mornings though.

Forget about the cold and hunt them like u normally would. This time of yr breeding is going to start regardless of the temps. Its regulated by photoperiod i.e amount of daylight not temps. So they are in the mood. Try to birds locate with owl or crow calls just before dawn. If that doesn't work drive and glass for bunches

Big winter bunches can be tough. The can be hard to locate. My two suggestions

1-Get right in as close to the roost as u can and call early and often. You want to get a one of the more competitive toms to bail out before any hens do. More than likely a tom will bail early trying to scoop you up before the other toms can.....in fact I have never seen it not happen if there are several toms roosted with the hens.

2. Hunt the afternoons if legal. the subordinate toms are getting kicked out of the flock and looking for love.

wind sucks...look for them in the creek bottoms where they can get out of the wind

phutch30 said:

Forget about the cold and hunt them like u normally would. This time of yr breeding is going to start regardless of the temps. Its regulated by photoperiod i.e amount of daylight not temps. So they are in the mood. Try to birds locate with owl or crow calls just before dawn. If that doesn't work drive and glass for bunches

Big winter bunches can be tough. The can be hard to locate. My two suggestions

1-Get right in as close to the roost as u can and call early and often. You want to get a one of the more competitive toms to bail out before any hens do. More than likely a tom will bail early trying to scoop you up before the other toms can.....in fact I have never seen it not happen if there are several toms roosted with the hens.

2. Hunt the afternoons if legal. the subordinate toms are getting kicked out of the flock and looking for love.

wind sucks...look for them in the creek bottoms where they can get out of the wind

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Thanks for all the advice. Hunting like normal means nothing to me as I have never hunted spring turkey before. I kind of figured that their breeding habits would not change because of the weather, but was most curious about habitat for nesting, beings there is no new growth at all.

How do you hunt in the afternoons? I have been covering some ground through the wooded draws, looking for fresh sign, stopping to call every few hundred yards hoping to hear a gobble. I have no idea if this is a good tactic, but not sure what else to do at that time if I don't know where they are at.

Locating is only half of the hard part. Trying to contact land owners and get permission is more work than the hunting. It is hard to get permission ahead of time if I don't know where the turkeys are, and it is harder to get permission the day of hunting if I do find them. Living an hour away from where I am hunting doesn't help. I can enjoy walking around a parcel of land with four day old turkey sign, but I loathe calling people just to get phone numbers, then call landowners to maybe get permission.

Early hunting in bad weather for me means finding spots where they can get out of the wind. Lee side of hills, windbreaks, and gulleys/canyons (trying to think of Dakotas....who am I kidding about canyons in Kansas?) And when it is windy/gusty they also feel the need to be more in the open, as one major defense mechanism is disabled (hearing), so sight becomes doubly important.

Locating a flock traditionally is done by "roosting" the birds. Just at sunset the birds will already be underneath their roosting spots. Most times they will cackle/gobble as they rise up into the branches. And they are prone to respond vocally to loud sharp noises....owls, coyote, turkey gobbling and even peacock calling. If you can hear them, or make them respond to your calling, then you know where they are sleeping. This gives you a good starting spot for tomorrow.

I find that on cold days, the birds will stay on the roost longer, and when they fly down, will head for sunny spots to look for breakfast, and to feel a bit of warmth, and of course if possible, out of the wind.

Finally, one reminder.....you don't have to be the one doing the scouting. Coffee shops and Co-ops can be your friend here. But you might have to play the part well. City slickers may not get the best info from farmer John, if you know what I mean. If you are getting permission from resident land owners, they can steer you in the right direction. Ask for permission and ask for areas that are likely to hold turkeys.

Weather is going to have some effects on mating. After all, hens can't nest in the snow. We have been seeing breeding seasons in many passerines advance with changing climatic conditions as well. So it's not just photoperiod alone for most birds.

That said, there will still be some birds feeling the itch if not the ability to scratch it. Your conditions sound somewhat similar to mine, and I was successful on opening day (Monday) when we had a brief crack in the sky. I used wind and sun to sit and call on hillsides that got the most of the sun and the least of the wind. The birds were around scratching for acorns there because it was warmer and there was less or no snow.

They were also out in the field margins wherever they were somewhat protected from the wind and still in the sun. So, the harsh conditions, in some ways, made things easier as it concentrated birds in a few such locations.

They were NOT responding to hen yelps however. Even the jakes blew me off. But then maybe I'm a poor caller. I killed mine by spot and stalking to about 8 yards and being more lucky than good.

Not sure how much this helps but maybe if you try to think about where you would hang out in those conditions, you can get a good idea of where the birds are. They have to be out there somewhere.

Good luck.

Some good advice here. Like many said, forget about the weather and just hunt them the way you usually do in the spring. They are out there doing their thing just on time like they do every year. Good Luck Hunting!

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. We had some turkey action today.

It was dead calm 29 degrees F this morning with a fresh half inch layer of snow. I thought it was a perfect. We didn't leave the truck until two hours after day break. We walked near the draws where we thought the turkeys might be, stopping to make yelp calls with a diaphragm call trying to locate some turkeys. After my 3rd set of yelp calls GOBBLE-GOBBLE!

This is the first time we have heard a gobble while hunting and we got excited. It came from a draw about 300 yards away, so we got within a 100 yards and setup at the end of a tree row. I made some yelps, clucks, and purrs off and on for 20 minutes. He answered back with gobbles for 10 minutes, then went silent, but never moved. I got impatient and felt the need to see if he was still there. I caught a glimpse of a turkey and quickly backed out. We found a spot to set up down in the draw to see if that would work. Called again for 20 minutes, but didn't hear or see anything. I figured we blew them out, but we checked on them and they were still in the exact same spot. This time they spotted us and took off walking away. I saw six of them, and only one confirmed tom or jake. He had about a 3 inch beard. It was late morning by this time.

So what might I have done different to call that bird in? Did I call too much?

I am thinking I should have sat longer and called less, but maybe he just didn't want to come out of the draw or leave his hens.

Anyway, we had a blast and considered it a successful day. Unfortunately we could stick around to try to locate their evening roost, but we did get permission to hunt the land adjacent to our spot that the turkeys moved to. We will be out there at day break to try again tomorrow. I understood the joy of turkey hunting as soon as we heard that gobble.

Sweet successes already!! Finding land, finding birds, and getting them to talk with you is fantastic progress. It sure is mind boggling that you can get into a conversation with a wild bird, especially when its all new to you.

One option to consider next time might be to not call for a bit, and then hit him with an aggressive cutting sequence. Tell him that you are a hot hen, much hotter than any of those hags that he is currently hanging out with, and you are getting QUITE IMPATIENT!! with him for not showing up. And then the next cutting sequence you might use a different slate or striker to sound like there is more than one bird over there waiting on some hot hunk to show up. And then you may want to throw out a weak gobble after the next sequence to tell him that there is some snot nosed punk over there trying to steal his honeys.

Sometimes these birds will have routine strutting spots, used day in and day out. If you could find one of those and camp there, it makes it easier for you to pull birds towards a place that they are familiar with and use regularly. It has happened to me that I set up just out of range of these strut zones, called birds over towards my direction, but they stopped short and hung out at the strut zone. I shut up, and eventually they drifted away. Once they left, I ninja'd my way over to where they had just been happy to show off their fans, and then let him know that another hen had arrived for some attention. He couldn't get back to me fast enough, and happily for me, I got to take him home with me.

So if you can't locate the birds first thing, maybe the thing to do is go wait in ambush where you saw them today. They liked being there today, they probably will return tomorrow at some time, and you could be right where they wanted to go all along.

Rawmeat said:

I understood the joy of turkey hunting as soon as we heard that gobble.

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Now, you've got it. That's what it is all about. Plus, you still have that heart-pounding experience when you have a bird actually come in on top of you and start doing his thing right in front of you. I don't feel "buck fever" like I feel "gobbler fever". That is something special and I still haven't figured out why.

kansasdad's advice sounds pretty good to me. The one thing I might add to that list is that knowing where they are now, you may find that they are roosting not far away. If I can pin down that roosting spot - to within 50 or 100 yds - then I'll come in extra early, and set up something like 100 yds out in what I feel is the likely direction that a gobbler will want to go anyway. And then I wait without making a sound until I hear him wake up and gobble a little. I'll yelp softly once in a while and then when I think think he is close to flying down, I'll shut up. My hope is that he will come down and stroll over. Most of the time, he does. But sometimes, he has other hens already with him and he will stay with them. Once I know a good roost spot, I will be careful not to disturb it too much. They will use that area over and over again.

You've received a lot of quality information so far. I typically hunt in pretty rugged terrain chasing easterns, and my success has increased substantially by getting more aggressive. If I can get out and find a tom gobbling on the roost, and sit up within 70 yards or so of him, I've got about a 90% chance I'm going to kill him. Also, when setting up on turkeys at fly down, I found it is important to be on the same elevation, or maybe slightly higher. It is more challenging to get him to fly down and walk downhill to your set up.

A lot of folks also say to be quite and reserved in your calling. I generally will do soft roost purrs and yelps really early, but I will make some really excited cuts and yelps right when I think it's time to coerce him from his limb. Also, if you listen to a lot of turkeys, they aren't the most quite critters. They're always making some sort of noise. I don't always believe in the old adage of call then wait 15 minutes before you do it again.

Other advice, if that Tom has hens with him after flydown, it isn't 100% that you're screwed like some will tell you. If I don't think I can maneuver to intercept them, I'll try to tick her off by mimicking what she does. A lot of times she'll come looking to whoop you, and there's ol' tom dragging behind.

Last piece of info that I have to offer at this moment is something I'm surprised I haven't seen yet in this post. When I read about you peeking over the draw, watching those birds just mosey around in there, and then not respond to you or your calls, all I could think about was FAN! Fanning birds, what some have called reaping, is an incredibly effectively and fun way to kill turkeys. I don't advocate this method on public ground, but the private spots you spoke about having would be a good place to try it out. If you take an old turkey fan (even a synthetic one will work), crawl up that edge to where the birds are hanging out, and hold it out there and kind of turn it side to side, like a tom that's just showing his stuff off. This should get his attention, and a lot of times they'll literally come in running. It's a good way to get his attention when he's otherwise occupied by his hens.

Anyway, glad to see you have caught the fever. To me, there is nothing quite as awesome as spring thunder.

WOW, you guys are awesome. I love all the advice and encouragement for a newbie turkey hunter.

Today was another fun, and action packed day without a kill. Slightly frustrating, but I learned a lot.

THICK fog this morning. Heard a gobble, set up what I thought was close enough, called off and on, started with clucks, moved to some yelps. Stayed 50 minutes, but started to hear him moving away. I am starting to realize I might not be as close as I think when I hear a gobble, but the cover isn't that thick and I am more worried about spooking them.

Fog was gone, and we got eyes on them moving up the hill in the same spot they where yesterday. Seven of them together. We tried to get ahead of them and setup, but they kept moving and basically made a square 3/4 mile loop. They actually seemed to do this morning and afternoon.

At around 11 am the tom and what looked like 2 jakes and 5 hens were hanging out on that same hill and the tom was a strutting fool! He was going nuts puffing up and gobbling for 10 minutes. It was awesome to watch, but they were in the wide open so we just had to guess where they might end up and we were wrong.

I can't hunt for a few days, but my next plan is to get their early and hope to set a decoy (ordered one yesterday) in the open on that hill side they move up every morning out of the draw. There is a small patch of bull berry bushes I will sit by. Not sure if they will be there in 3 days, but that is my current plan.

I am not sure if my calling is just not right or if it is other factors not bringing them to me. I feel my calls sound good, maybe just not the right sequence or timing. I found 2 groups today, one had 7 birds and the other 10. They always seem to be moving away from us after I call. Coincidence? or are they more likely aware of our presence and heading the other way? We never spooked them and sent them running, but I am sure they were aware of us a couple times. After 8:30 am they were constantly moving very slowly most of the time, but still moving. Is this normal or were they more likely bothered by us? I figured the only chance we had at that point was to try to get well ahead of them and hope for a sort of ambush, but they spent most of there time on side hills in the wide open.

Everyone makes it look and sound so easy. Hear a gobble, set up, call, dead bird. It has been much more challenging, but we are enjoying the experience.

Henned up legal birds (jakes and toms) can drive you batty.

Rizzo never wanted Kenickie to look at other girls (Grease reference) and those boss hens are no different. In a few weeks the girls will have nests started, so they will leave the flock to go lay their daily egg, and most days the boys will suddenly look up and find that most of the chicks have disappeared.

I find that the smaller the number of hens associated with a flock, the better the chances I have in pulling a whole flock or peel off a tom or two away from that group.

And of course, once you feel like you have them figured out, they will go and do something stupid and random, and once again you might find yourself on the wrong end of a field, but still having fun watching wild turkey behavior.