HUNTING HIGH-PRESSURED PUBLIC-LAND GOBBLERS
Techniques for Hunting Silent Gobblers
 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.
To take silent, thick-cover gobblers in your hunting
area, you must first locate them. But according to Mitchell
Marks, an avid turkey hunter and wildlife biologist
in Colbert County, Alabama, to successfully bag a longbeard
in thick-cover areas where most hunters won't hunt,
you'll find that woodsmanship far outweighs calling
skills in importance.
"When I hunt in thick cover late in the season,
I'll
sneak into the cover, walk a few steps, stop and then
scratch
in the leaves with the toe of my boot," Marks reports.
"Then
I'll wait about two minutes, walk two or three more
steps and
scratch in the leaves again. When the gobbler hears
me, he
assumes that I'm just another turkey in the brush. A
few
times I've been able to walk right up to a gobbler in
thick
cover, get off a shot and bag the bird before he spots
me or
I spook him. If I don't hear a turkey when I'm walking
into the cover, I sit down and listen. Many times I'll
hear a gobbler walking toward me in that thick cover.
Because the gobbler can't see me in that dense brush,
he'll often come right to me because he thought I was
a turkey walking when he heard me coming into the cover."
 However,
don't feel bad if you spook a gobbler in thick
cover. You haven't committed an unpardonable sin. If
you
spook a turkey out of thick cover, at least you know
where
he's living. You can return to that same place two or
three
days later and possibly call that tom to within gun
range.
Too, if you spook or take a gobbler in thick cover late
in
the season, more than likely you'll find another gobbler
in
that same thicket the next year. When Marks considers
his odds for encountering a hidden gobbler in the cover
where he plans to hunt, he'll think about whether he
has ...
* found a gobbler in that cover the year before,
* spooked a gobbler out of the cover and/or
* spotted gobbler tracks going to and from that cover.
But hunters will learn that hens too will move to thick
cover
when there's intense hunting pressure in open woods.
"I've watched hens come so close to me that I can
almost
feel them breathe," Marks comments. "Remember,
if a turkey
has never seen a hunter inside those thick places then
the
bird won't expect you to be there."
TOMORROW: LATE-SEASON HUNTING
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