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John's Journal... Entry 168, Day 2

HOW TO HUNT FALL AND WINTER TURKEYS

How to Hunt the Young Birds of Fall

EDITOR'S NOTE: The birds of fall and the winter are both the easiest and the hardest to take, depending on the lengths of their beards and spurs. The longbeards of the fall are the most-difficult turkeys to bag at any time of the year. But the jakes, the bird less than a year old, are easy to take. The hunter's strategy for taking the turkeys of fall and winter is completely different from the techniques he'll use in the spring. Sex is no longer important to the gobblers. The birds already have passed through their mating cycles, and the hens have made their nests, laid their eggs and reared their young. Fall calling and hunting tactics are based primarily on the social order of turkeys more than on the sex drive of the birds.

The male turkeys, which are born in the spring, are called jakes in the fall. These birds are just learning how to become gobblers. They have not had any hunter encounters, are not nearly as wary as their longbeard seniors, have not learned how to gobble and have only two things on their minds -- finding something to eat and staying with their mother and the other birds from their flock. The flocking instinct is very strong in both young gobblers and young hens, and the boss hen's primary consideration is to keep her flock together and to warn them of danger. Most fall turkey hunters find a flock of turkeys feeding together and scatter the flock to have a chance to bag young gobblers.

Two words that sound similar but carry entirely different meanings when you're considering disrupting a flock are scatter and scare. When you scatter a flock of turkeys, you get as close as possible to the flock before surprising them and causing the individual birds to come off the ground and fly to all points of the compass. When you scare a flock of turkeys, you don't get close enough to them to create a scatter but instead force most of the birds to run or fly off in the same direction. If you scare a flock of turkeys, you greatly reduce the likelihood of being able to call the birds back to you. When you scatter the flock, you do have a chance of calling the birds in and bagging a young tom.

How to Scatter a Flock of Turkeys

Once you see a flock of turkeys, don't immediately run at them and try to scatter them. Wait patiently, and determine in which direction the turkeys are feeding. Once you know the birds' line of travel, attempt to circle to get in front of them, take a stand, and wait for the birds to approach. Let the turkeys come to you. Notice the makeup of the flock. Are any longbeards in the flock? Is the group of turkeys primarily a young flock consisting of hens and young jakes? Or, have you lucked into a bachelor band of gobblers comprised of male birds two years old or older? Understanding the age structure of the flock allows you to decide how and where to hunt the birds.

"If I can't get the turkeys to move, then I'll try and sneak in close to the flock, lay my gun down and run at the flock to scatter the birds," says Alex Rutledge of Birch Tree, Missouri, a professional hunter on Hunter's Specialties' Pro Hunt Team. "When you scatter turkeys, you want to make sure the birds go in all directions. If they all run or fly in the same direction, you'll have a much more difficult time trying to call them back together. The real secret to getting a good scatter is to get as close as you can to the flock before you start running at them."

If the flock you're watching is comprised mostly of young birds -- jakes and hens -- then you know your hunt will be over quickly. If older gobblers are in the flock, realize your hunt may last until the end of the day or continue for the next three days.

TOMORROW: HOW TO TAKE YOUNG GOBBLERS

 

 

Check back each day this week for more HOW TO HUNT FALL AND WINTER TURKEYS ...

Day 1 - How To Set Up on Fall Gobblers
Day 2 - How to Hunt the Young Birds of Fall
Day 3 - How to Take Young Gobblers
Day 4 - How to Hunt Longbeards in the Fall
Day 5 - How to Hunt the Lone Wolves of Fall


John's Journal