Dave Richey OUTDOORS

They were young birds, regardless of beard length, and they were full of themselves. They would stop,  spin like feathered tops in the field, fan and strut and gobble. They were lusty voiced, but they didn't have that deep timbre of a fully mature bird.

The birds dallied just short of the dirt road, and then took their time crossing. No cars came toward me, none came from behind, and I was the only person who saw them cross the road, which I considered a good thing. There's no sense in revealing a potential turkey hotspot, even if my opener is still two weeks away.

The birds didn't seem concerned  by my car unless I would step out or open the door, neither of which would happen. I'd been driving the opposite direction, saw them 150 yards away, strutting out in the field, and then drove down the road. I did a quick U-turn, creeped back up, and sat alongside the road with the motor turned off.

Inspect gobblers for good beards.

The gobblers came prancing over a hill, stopped, looked for a long moment at my car, pecked around in the gravel and eventually crossed the road and disappeared into the woods. My car windows were down, and there was no gobbling and no hens were within sight.

Our on-again, off-again, spring is doing some odd things with our local turkey flocks. It seems the birds are moving, as they usually do, but the only gobbling I hear is first thing in the morning. The birds, in this soggy and water-soaked fields of cold or warm mud, aren't gobbling very much.

I've got a basic idea where those Mesick-area birds roost. They've roosted in much the same locations as they used 20 years ago, but the area continues to build up. There's a bit of state land in that location, and if a hunter hits it right, they can take a bird.

What happens is the gobblers gobble a bit from the roost, fly down, gobble once or twice and then they shut up. They move through the strutting areas, and head for the woods. They aren't moving very much or very far.

Finding birds wiil become a bit easier as the weather stabilizes. Cool and crisp mornings are great times to locate birds. Two tools — your ears and a car or truck — are the two best scouting tools although binoculars can help. Here is what I told a guy who wasn't seeing birds.

The trick is to be out in your car an hour before daybreak. Drive to within a half-mile of where you think a bird will be found, stop the car, roll the windows down but don't turn on the interior light. Listen for any distant gobble of a bird sassing back at an owl.

Move on, and keep checking out trusted spots, and listen. If birds are heard, stay in the car with binoculars or spotting scope, and see if the birds can be found. If possible, try to locate them from the road by scanning the trees as it starts to lighten up.

Look for a limb-walker on a big limb. Don't call from the car but just study those beards. It's important that you are not heard or seen.

Try to find hotspots on state land. Private-land access is iffy.

Locate two or three key sites (more if you can find them) and see which way the birds head after flydown. They may move through thick woods, pine tree plantations, but they will soon be in an open field shortly after they pitch down from the roost with great crashing of limbs.

Note how they approach these early-morning strutting zones during scouting sessions prior to the hunt, and figure out how to set up on these birds so you will be between the roost trees and the strutting zones. Often this will put the birds fairly close to you.

Daytime scouting follows  once the hens and gobblers disperse. Some hens will have already be bred and will be sitting on their nests. The gobblers may poke around in the woods but a patient hunter who doesn't have any early morning success may find good fortune in the early afternoon as they sound off occasionally as they remember hearing a hen at dawn. They often come back, but here are some tips to follow later in the day once the season kicks off.

Hunters can check sandy places where birds come to dust on a warm spring day. Look for feathers on the ground or wing drag marks, and scraching in the oak woods where birds look for some good acorns from the previous fall.

Check the area two or three more times every day or two, but a hotspot may be found in one of those little areas where two people is one too many. I know where I can park and where I can't, and I often try to roost one or more gobblers just before dark.

I've got another spot where thick pine trees hold some birds. I'll check that out later this week, and see if I can spot some birds working the pines. It's a great place to hunt, but it's not for novices.

Here's a tip that many savvy turkey hunters never pass on. Given the opportunity, turkeys prefer to roost in an area where they are in hardwoods near water. It may be a stream, tiny bog pond, lake or a wet spot at the back-end of last year's corn field. Birds often will roost 100 to 200 yards from a field with a key strutting zone, but nearby water can be a key to your success.

Gobblers seldom sound off, or if they do gobble at dawn, it's one sound and then the birds shut up. I've seen birds come to the call in such situations, and almost every time they move in without making a sound. The area is empty of turkeys one moment, and suddenly a gobbler or two will be out in front of the hunter. A hunter must figure on a silent gobbler coming to the call … that is, providing a bird comes at all.

Another spot is a mix of farmland and patchy woodlots, and these birds often gobble from the roost, and then shut up. They often circle the call, stopping at a distance to study the area for danger, and keep moving through fairly thick cover. However, birds steer clear of extremely thick cover because it's too difficult to run through or fly out of.

Find the food, like acorns, and you'll often find the birds.

On occasion I've had an excited jake reveal his presence as a gobbler and the youngster travel through an area, but it's not something that I plan on happening. One spot I hunt is quite hilly, and backs up to a thick swamp. Most of the birds roost along the swamp edges and fairly close to the creek that runs through it.

Once the season opens, hunters who get a gobble from a roosted bird should get within 100 yards of the bird without being seen or heard, and call sparingly. Take you cue from the gobblers.

If they gobble like crazy, keep working them hard. Vary calls, and degrees of loudness, and as long as the birds continue to gobble, a hunter can try calling although it frequently pays to shut up and let the gobbler hunt for you. This tactic is a knife that cuts both ways: some birds respond to excited calling, and others cue in on an occasional soft call. Don't be afraid to try both tactics if one appears not to work.

Hunters can try, if the gobblers appear henned-up or hang up near a fence or water, to work closer. Change direction a little bit, and keep moving slowly, and then stop to call. Sometimes a gobbler will move to the stationary call, and it's usually the hunters best bet. A moving bird, that seems to be approaching the gobbler, often makes those bearded birds sit tight and wait for the approaching hen. Moving and stopping can pay big dividends on a spring longbeard.

All of the calling stuff comes once a bird or birds have been located. I try not to call too much during the late season, and cue in on any gobbler that answers. It's my intention to be coy and fairly quiet, with minimum calling, and hopefully it will drag in a bird looking for a hen.

The trick now during scouting time is to cover some ground, and my travels may mean covering 60 miles every night to put gobblers to bed. Knowing where a gobbler is roosted in the morning can wind up being one of the major elements of a successful hunt.

Just remember: cruising the roads and listening at dawn can be the two best turkey scouting tactics of all.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors