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Break the Public-Land Turkey Hunting Rules

Five outside-the-box strategies for taking turkeys on public land.

Text and photos by Tony J. Peterson

Public-land birds require different hunting strategies than their private-land brethren. It’s easiest to think about this from the perspective of doing things differently enough from your competition, to elicit positive responses from birds that most folks would assume are unworkable. Photo credit Tony J. Peterson

When I started turkey hunting in 1994, in my home state of Minnesota, we had to draw a license for a five-day hunt. Worse yet, every day at noon we had to call it quits. That first season, and the suicidal 2-year-old that put me on the board after strutting into range of my 20 gauge, got me absolutely addicted to turkey hunting. It became clear that five half-days of turkey hunting wasn’t going to cut it for an entire spring, so I started looking for new opportunities.

Out-of-state trips to Missouri and Iowa opened up a whole world of extended hunting opportunities, but also exposed me to a new wrinkle in my obsession — access to hunting ground. At home, I had permission to hunt a variety of private parcels, but over-the-road it was public land or nothing. It didn’t take long to realize that my hunting style for one wasn’t so great for the other, which meant it was time to adapt or eat tag soup.

Since then, over the course of nearly three decades and a whole bunch of different states, public land has treated me and my hunting partners well. The hunts are vastly different from our private-land affairs, and often require us to forget the usual turkey hunting tactics and strategies to lure pressure-sensitive birds into range.

The following are five ways to do just that on land that is open to all of us.

Church Mouse Calling

If you think about most hunters who might set foot on the same public land as you, they probably aren’t great callers. They have also, probably, bought into the less-is-more calling style. We’ve had this engrained in us since the only good(ish) turkey hunting advice was coming out of the Southern swamps, way back when the Northern states didn’t even have viable bird populations.

Obviously a lot has changed since then, but it’s still common to hear turkey experts (and nonexperts) preach the benefits of conservative calling. When it comes to most of my public-land hunts, you could call me a contrarian on this front.

We’ve been told for decades that less is more when it comes to turkey calling, but that conservative style doesn’t always cut it on public land. Sometimes you have to ramp up a turkey party with a couple of different calls to convince pressured birds they are really missing out on something. Photo credit Tony J. Peterson

When I was in high school some Missouri longbeards on public land taught me that they’d fire right up at 11 in the morning, but only if my hunting buddy and I gave them something to get fired up about. We did, mostly because we were bored and didn’t know any better. Since then, I’ve developed an aggressive style of calling on public land, because it often feels like birds want to be convinced. A few hesitant yelps every half hour doesn’t cut it. Instead, using a mouth call and a slate or box at the same time to ratchet up the sequence from competitive yelping to all out cutting and purring, can do wonders on public-land gobblers.

I have to believe that is partially due to the fact that they are exposed to a lot of cautious calling. Of course, this rule is best followed if you’re not confident in turkey-speak and feel like you could do more damage with poor calling. If you know what you’re doing, let the gobblers know there is a party. If you don’t, learn to call, and then give them an earful.

Decoy Disasters

If you want to find out how good your decoys are, use them on public land during the late-season. Better yet, use them during a bowhunt on public land during the late season. Since you have to talk birds into close range and have them fully buy into your spread, you’ll see whether your fakes are fooling anyone.

A common, and frustrating, situation that often happens is that birds will work into visual range, spot the decoys and alter their behavior. You’ll see their mood shift after a long stare down, and while they might still give the shotgun hunter a fleeting chance as they give the spread a side-eye walk-by, they won’t lose their minds and strut in to fight or engage in amorous activity.

A lot of folks buy good-enough decoys, and then put out whatever they own. Instead, buy the best and then set them up to look natural. Start with bigger flocks in the early season and pare them down as the weeks pass. Think about how they are positioned, and what that says to passing birds. Or to put it another way, watch real birds. They tend to mostly move in the same direction — not walk straight away from each other like they are counting steps in an 1800s-style pistol duel. Private-land hunters can get away with less-convincing decoys set up in unnatural patterns, but public-land hunters mostly won’t.

So-so decoys and unrealistic spreads might cut it on private-land birds that don’t receive much hunting pressure, but on public dirt, you’ll see how jaded the birds really are with anything less than ultra-realistic decoys set up in a believable fashion. Photo credit Tony J. Peterson

Run and Run and Run and Maybe Gun

I spend more time bowhunting turkeys than shotgun hunting them these days, because I love the challenge of calling them into 7 yards and then thumping them with an arrow. The dark-to-dark blind sits with a bow in hand are pure torture in some ways, but they’ve also taught me the value of putting in the requisite hours in a good spot.

Instead of trying to run across a workable gobbler every half hour throughout the day, devoting more time to a well-scouted spot has put a lot of toms in front of my 12 gauge. This strategy involves patience, but it also involves the reality that there might not be a single bird on the property you’re hunting at any given moment, that will easily fire up and work in. Sometimes it’s not about sole proximity to the right bird, but instead is a long-game method that takes into account being someplace turkeys generally like to go.

On public land, where the run-and-gun crowd is thick and likely to bump birds every day of the season, devoting far more time to a few really good spots can yield birds. This is hard to do with a shotgun in hand and a lull in the action. But if you bowhunt birds enough like I have, you realize there is a solid play to be had when you believe in a spot and are willing to give it three or four hours, versus the amount of time it would take you to watch a “Simpsons” rerun.

The key to this is comfort and concealment, which is most easily accomplished with a hub-style blind. But they are totally unnecessary if you plan out your spots. A comfortable seat, backrest, and the use of natural foliage or a deadfall to really dig into the terrain can accomplish the same thing. Having a decent view helps here, too. If you can’t see anything, or your lower back is barking after a little while, you’ll talk yourself into moving. If you’re comfortable and have decent sight lines to watch for approaching birds, you’ll sit longer and work one spot more efficiently.

Less-than-Dreamy Habitat

A couple years ago a buddy and I drove down to Nebraska to hunt birds for a few days on public dirt. We planned to bowhunt the first two days, and then gun hunt the last two. I got lucky and arrowed a bird right away on a property we hunted on a whim, so the trip was off to a good start.

But it didn’t take long to start believing we had peaked early.

After hunting in some of the better wooded draws we could find, and focusing on the only agricultural field in the vast tract of public land, we ran out of birds. Or more likely, the birds ran out on us.

With nothing to lose, we loaded our packs and headed out to explore. It felt like a bad idea to leave the best-looking turkey habitat for rolling Sandhills and scrub cedars, but we also bumped into a group of jakes. With low standards and nothing else to work with, we laid down and glassed those birds as they regrouped half of a mile from us. When they settled down and started feeding, I started calling. Ten minutes later we were celebrating a public-land double.

The next morning, I went back and found two separate lone toms that got the best of me. While they were roosting in the obvious spots, they weren’t spending their days there. They were flying down and booking it out into the areas that didn’t look like they’d hold much more than jackrabbits.

There have been quite a few other birds in a bunch of different states that ended up wearing my tag, or teaching me a turkey lesson, that weren’t holding in the dreamy cover. They were, I can guess, responding to pressure and spending the daylight hours in places that hunters don’t frequent. This is a lesson elk learn quickly, as do whitetails, and yes, even turkeys. Hunt the likely stuff first, if you must, but then get on your maps or scouting apps and try to find areas that just don’t look like they’d draw the crowds. In those spots, especially during the back half of the season, you’ll find birds that have had enough of being harassed in the obvious spots.

So You’re Saying There’s a Chance

A lot of hunters are beaten before they ever leave their truck in the morning. Now, I don’t want to go full motivational speaker on you, but the reality is your mindset matters. There’s danger in what we believe that is not true, and this is obvious when it comes to public land. It’s so easy to decide that it’s nearly impossible to kill a bird on ground that has been hunted every day of the season.

Dreamy deciduous forests and cut cornfields might be the best locations to hunt private-land turkeys, but on public ground those areas will get pounded. To be successful, you just might have to rethink what you know about quality turkey habitat as it relates to public-land longbeards. Photo credit Tony J. Peterson

The key here is that there is a hell of a lot of daylight between impossible and just difficult. I don’t know how often I’ve seen this in the whitetail world, but it has happened hundreds of times where folks have told me there is no way anyone could kill a big buck on the public they hunt, or the public land in their state. Yet it happens, every year. It happens every season. It just happens.

Turkeys are no different, and to make the impossible possible, simply scouting, hunting harder than the competition, and staying out there longer can up the odds in your favor. Time in the woods is your friend, and the more you put in the more likely it is that you’ll run across a bird that just plays the game for you.

This happened to me a few years ago when I bought a last-season tag to hunt in Iowa. I wanted to scout some public land for deer, but I also wanted to run-and-gun turkeys for a few days. My pre-hunt research wasn’t encouraging, and the first spot I hunted looked like it had been absolutely pounded by other hunters. The parking areas were full of trucks, and it felt pretty hopeless.

But I knew the birds were around somewhere, and so I set out the second morning to get as far away from the easy stuff as I could. I never heard a gobble at sunrise, and finally set up mostly so I’d stop walking around like an idiot. After 10 minutes I got a response, and 45 minutes into it I was admiring a beast of an old bird, with a rope beard and serious spurs. He didn’t make much noise coming in, but he came in, which is the important part.

Figure out what you need to do to stay confident on your chosen ground, and you’ll kill birds.

Conclusion

Public land is all the rage these days, but the success you see on social media and on other platforms is a highlight reel. It’s not easy, and not likely to get easier as more of us choose to, or are forced to, hunt land open to anyone. The good news here is if that’s you, you have options, and a real chance to tag out on a pressured bird. Just remember that your success might hinge on a style of hunting that doesn’t match the typical private-land scenario.

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