HUNTING HIGH-PRESSURED PUBLIC-LAND GOBBLERS
Toms That Vanish
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: Have you ever scouted for turkeys before the season
on public lands and heard plenty of toms talking to
the timber, but then when you've returned to those same
woods two weeks after turkey season opens, you don't
hear a sound? This week we'll look at the best ways
to hunt high-pressured, public-land gobblers, especially
the ones that become silent.
Although you can search for those gobblers as much
as you want, you may not find any sign of them during
hunting season. However, probably the next year, you'll
hear and see plenty of turkeys in those same woods.
What happens to those gobblers? Do all those toms go
home in the backs of hunters' pick-up trucks? Or, do
these birds leave the property? How can you locate these
disappearing birds on public lands, and how can you
hunt them? We contacted Mitchell Marks of Cherokee,
Alabama, a wildlife biologist at Freedom Hill's Wildlife
Management Area in  Colbert
County, Alabama. Marks, an avid turkey hunter and a
longtime hunting-club member, has discovered that after
the first few days of turkey season on public lands,
many gobblers become call-shy and even seem to vanish.
"A few years ago, I spotted a large flock of about
40
turkeys on our hunting club," Marks explains. "Because
our
club kept accurate records, we knew exactly how many
gobblers
our hunters had taken during the last season. We also
realized that our members hadn't harvested the majority
of
the gobblers in the flock. Still, after about the second
week of hunting season, we didn't even hear a turkey
gobble
in the area where we'd seen the big flock." To
solve the mystery of the vanishing gobblers, Marks went
on a mission. He decided to walk every piece of ground
on his hunting lands until he located the
turkeys. Marks didn't believe the turkeys had left the
property and felt they had to be there somewhere. "I
started walking the entire region and noticed that when
I went into the thick-cover places that I'd never hunted
before, I spooked gobblers out of that cover,"
Marks reports. "After I spooked two or three gobblers,
I finally realized that the gobblers were holding in
this cover, which didn't make sense to me at first.
But the more I thought about it, the more I understood
that these turkeys had found sanctuary in the thick
cover because they knew that no turkey hunter in his
right mind would go in there to hunt them."
As Marks studied the turkeys' behavior in more depth,
he
reached an astounding conclusion that explained why
turkeys
would hold in heavy cover during hunting season. For
many
years, hunters believed that turkeys avoided thick cover
because of their susceptibility to bobcats, coyotes,
foxes
and free-roaming dogs in that cover -- more so than
in the
open woods. However, Marks learned that when turkeys
saw and
encountered more two-legged predators in the open woods
than
four-legged predators in the cover, the birds quickly
realized that the thick cover provided more safety for
them
than the open woods did. After Marks' discovery, he
tested
his theory on the public-hunting areas he managed.
"When I walked the property lines and checked
the licenses of turkey hunters, I walked through those
thickets where no one was hunting, instead of taking
the easiest routes from point to point," notes
Marks. "Consistently I spooked gobblers out of
those thick-cover spots late in the season. From these
experiences, I learned that the gobblers didn't vanish
or leave their home ranges - even when hunting pressure
intensified. They simply moved into heavy cover where
most hunters wouldn't hunt."
TOMORROW: PROOF OF A THEORY
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