Editor’s note: Here’s the second installment of the fall hunting series from our friends at Best Turkey Decoy, featuring a video and the wisdom of Dave Constantine.
Finding the Sign of a Group of Fall Turkeys
When the leaves start to turn, turkeys flock together in groups of like birds to spend the winter together. Hens and their young join other similar groups, and toms and jakes group up and populate other areas. You will often find them feeding together, but one thing is constant: They leave a lot of sign.
The easiest sign to identify is scratching. When turkeys feed on waste grain, seeds or acorns, they are constantly scratching the ground with those powerful feet and legs. While scratching, they flips leaves and other debris aside to expose items they want to eat. All that scratching leaves patches of bare ground we identify as a turkey feeding areas. Find fresh scratchings, and you will find turkeys.
Back off and Watch
Our first inclination is to set up and hunt, but that is not always the best course of action. If you back off and observe the area, you can figure out the time off day your turkeys are visiting, and whether they are hens or gobblers. Trail cameras can also get the job and can be a real time saver. By learning when the birds are using the area, and where they were before and after, you can often set up a better plan for that first sit.
Fall Turkeys Are Creatures of Habit
Barring a hard frost that changes food sources or a substantial change in the weather patterns, fall turkeys become very predictable. What they did yesterday is likely what they will do today and tomorrow. If we take our time to unravel the turkeys’ comings and goings, we can set up the best plan to intercept and hunt them. Scattering and calling birds works as well, but if we take advantage of this predictable fall nature, we are almost assured action when afield.
Does anyone out there feel like fall turkey hunting has a negative impact on the population? As we all know the short time the poults have to grow, can create some rather small hens to hunt during the fall season. Does the deer quote, “let ’em go, let ’em grow” apply to fall turkeys. Should we be letting the spring hatch develop a full year before putting flocks under hunting pressure? I have purchased a fall tag since I have been of legal age to hunt, and I enjoy the chasing fall birds, however I have often wondered if the season is detrimental.
Cut and Run it isn’t the season that is necessarily damaging but the ethics of individual hunters and ethics like opinions mean different things to different people. There are plenty of turkeys out there in the fall to be harvested without it creating a problem for turkey populations as long as hunters hunt only those birds that are mature. I personally won’t shout a young jake or hen in the fall even though I have plenty of opportunity to so. I always select a mature bird.
shoot not shout LOL