Plan "B" Property - Why You Need One!

If you’ve turkey hunted long enough, you’ve likely gotten settled in to a rut of sorts.  You hunt the same spots, the same way, and you do it because it’s brought you success in the past.  Far be it from me to ask anyone to fix what isn’t broken, but has your “honey-hole” ever dried up?  Has it let you down on occasion?  Even the best properties, loaded with birds, during the best times of the season can experience lulls in the action, for any number of reasons.  Here’s an argument for getting out there and securing another spot or two before turkey seasons are upon us and it’s too late.

I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up hunting the same ground I did when I was younger, but therein lies part of the problem.  Whether it’s land you own, or ground that you’ve had permission on for years, it’s too easy to get comfortable with the idea that there’ll be birds there in the spring.  You always seem to pull it off, but sometimes it’s with a stroke of luck, and why leave it to chance?  On numerous occasions, I’ve had prime spots of the past fail me when I seemed to need or rely on them the most.  For youth hunts, or when trying to help someone get their first turkey, it’s nice to have an “old-reliable” that you can stroll into with little scouting, show up, and drop right in on the game.  That said, no property or group of birds is a guarantee, and there’s a pile of reasons and scenarios which can change your turkey spot for the worse.

The first and most common culprit is usually just plain timing.  While I do have properties that hunt better earlier, mid-season, or later, we’re hunting birds that can at times be quite nomadic.  Especially in the early season when birds roam in larger groups, there’s simply a larger percent chance that the ground you’re on, is not the small area that most of the birds are frequenting.  Even if your scouting has been filthy with sign and sightings, unless you can scout right up to the day you hunt, birds can be here one day, and simply gone the next.  Don’t hold out hope that they may return, or keep trying to call them over from adjacent properties, have another spot or two in mind.

Another reason for reduced activity in your favorite spot is quite simply, change.  Spring is dynamic.  Food sources are changing daily as fields which once held waste grain, are plowed under the following day.  Birds and the progression of their breeding season, male pecking order, and population demographics can affect how often birds roost together, visit strut zones, and generally interact with other birds and ultimately, your calling.  Spring weather gives rise to even more variability in turkey behavior, with everything from wind and rain, to calm and sunny conditions driving them to frequent some places more than others.  Put these scenarios together, along with a whole bunch more and you’ve got a virtual Rubik’s cube of combinations to sort through in order to solve the puzzle. 

Lastly, pressure by other hunters can certainly change the game, and the unfortunate part is that the cause can be on neighboring property, and going on without your knowledge.  It’s rare in many areas for turkeys to spend an entire day or especially an entire season, completely within the confines of the property you have permission to hunt, so you need to be mindful of other hunting activity going on in the area.  When I see a truck parked at a field road or along a ditch, I assume it’s a turkey hunter, and adjust accordingly.  More than anything turkeys don’t like the disruption caused by people on-foot, walking around out in the open and spooking them out of strut zones, feeding areas, or loafing spots throughout the day.  They will naturally assume areas where this type of disruption is more rare. 

Perhaps I’ve convinced you to start looking into other places to hunt?  Well before you go and secure permission all over the county, keep in mind that this should be done within reason in order not to block your fellow hunter’s ability to get out and find some land as well.  Still, it’s a major part of the philosophy I have as a turkey hunter, in that I’m not too proud to pull off of a group of birds, and try my luck in another area.  What I look for is typically a few adjacent parcels, or a large individual one, totaling a hundred acres or more.  If I’ve got 2 or 3 of those, spaced at least a few miles apart, I hunt much more aggressively and confidently.  I know that if birds on Property A are henned up and uncooperative, the flock structure of birds on Property B is likely different, and toms might be more numerous and willing, while being less locked-down with their hens. 

In the past, I would try to get permission on a large, contiguous group of parcels, but that strategy didn’t always serve me well.  Now, rather than putting all my eggs in one flock’s basket and securing as much adjacent property as I can, I’m looking for clusters, separated by space, such that I can hunt different birds with different attitudes when the going gets tough.  This way, I can much more effectively nullify the effects of timing and season, changes in food sources and breeding phase, as well as hunting pressure on that property and nearby ground.  It’s a luxury to have that much ground to hunt, but especially if you’re part of a group with multiple tags and toms you’re after, it can really pay dividends.  Keep it in mind as you prepare for your turkey season, as quality ground and multiple options is just as important as scouting and calling practice in my book.    

When to Shoot? - Why Your First Shot is Usually Your Best

Most shooting decisions when hunting turkeys come after many long weeks of preparation, days of scouting, hours of setup and calling, and long-minutes of heart-pounding; all culminated by the pulling of a trigger.  After all the anticipation, the most critical moments of the hunt can come down to rushed judgments, muscle memory, and “gut-feelings.”  Dynamics such as decoys, calling, and shooting pellets as if they were bullets make this an entirely different game than much of the hunting experiences in your current game bag.  Speaking of, experience has been a good teacher for this student, mostly in the form of countless hard lessons in frustration caused by these same last-millisecond choices, forever etched in infamy.  These unhappy endings come in many forms, from plain misses to no-shots taken, or worse, birds that pick you off and head the other direction with haste, alerting everything in the woods to your presence.

TV hunting shows teach us that all birds run to your calling, climb on top of the decoys, and crane their necks out at full length for you to simply point the gun and shoot them dead with ease.  I have found this not to be the case on most hunts.  On a more typical hunt, the bird responds then as part of a process over time, eventually makes his way to you and your setup.  Along the way are long moments of pause across multiple distances, many of them out of range, and each one of them make you want to jump out of your skin.  With each passing moment, you obsess over the only question that now matters, “when to take the shot?”

Turkey Body Language

It so happens that turkeys do have some tells when it comes to the strutting game, though many hunters go all-in and succumb to the haze that is turkey-fever long before they have the chance to recognize them.  The first of which is strutting itself.  A bird in strut is generally satisfied with the situation and not going any long distances quickly.  This is your safety zone.  It’s a chance for you to move, if only a little, to get situated, line-up on the bird, and generally buy some more time until ready to shoot.  Birds with heads held high are another matter.  They are often equally eager, but twice as wary as a strutting tom.  These birds won’t hesitate to turn on one foot and march away from you, but before they do, they’ll almost always perform the “double-wing-tuck.”  When you see a bird tuck one wing behind itself, then another in rapid succession, the only truth you need to know is that this bird is ready to move and you have mere seconds to shoot, especially if it’s already towards the edge of your range.  Birds with heads down walking almost always have a pre-determined destination in mind.  These are birds that you’ll also need to draw a bead on quickly, as once in range, unless they drastically change their mood/behavior, you’ll have precious few moments with which to take them down.

Open Field Setups

Birds coming across large openings present many advantages to you the hunter, but also quite a few challenges.  While you can see them and read their every move, you also can’t do much moving yourself unless tucked inside of a blind.  For young and inexperienced hunters especially, this view presents the optimum in planning and taking the shot.  However, especially with decoy setups, sooner or later you’ll get birds that hang-up in the wide open, temptingly flirting with the edge of your range plus 10 yards.  Here is where a rangefinder, where legal, is an invaluable piece of equipment.  I’ve seen talented bowhunters and other experts at judging distance convince themselves that an 80 yard shot on a longbeard is very possible because it “looks closer to 40.”  The biggest temptation in this scenario is shooting too soon, and a day at the patterning board will lock in a maximum range that you should force yourself to stick to no matter what.    

Obstructed Views

Most turkey scenarios that I encounter have at least some woods, brush, or other obstructions in play.  Birds notoriously come from the wrong direction, cross vast thickets they’re not supposed to, and generally use elevation to their advantage while periscoping up to get a quick view, then ducking below a rise, never to be seen again.  These instances, especially the latter, play out in the turkey woods constantly, and you need to be ready to address them to fill your tag.  Birds also do a good deal of using brush to screenthemselves, all the while enjoying a great view in the distance without you being able to see them very well.  While I’m not advocating hasty shotgunning and brush shooting, these are common happenings that require decisive action, specifically in the form of taking the first best shot you have within range.  Ever patterned your shotgun through brush?  It’s amazing what a swarm of pellets will go through and still hit the board with terminal velocity.  That said, brush thicker than your fingers will stop pellets better than you can imagine.  The trick is riding that fine line between taking the best opportunity you have within range, and waiting it out for a better one.  I’m here to tell you that most often, a better one doesn’t present itself.  Get too picky with the birds, and they’ll rarely reward that patience.  Instead, focus on the first good look that tom gives you, and as long as he’s in range, you identify your target, and know what’s behind it, you’ll be amazed at how many more birds you’ll kill from this point forward. 

Achieving your Full Patterning Potential

I can vividly remember the first turkey I killed, and the equipment I used to take it.  In the mid 1990’s, the idea of using special loads for turkeys was just catching on.  Most shells were just heavy upland bird load disguised as turkey ammo.  For my first bird, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, as low-brass #8’s through a full choke at 20 yards likely could’ve killed that bird.  Which of course, sums up the opposing argument: “How dead do you need your turkey to be?”  Point taken, as birds that strut into the 25 – 35 yard sweet spot probably won’t make it out alive provided your aim is true.  That said, anyone who hunts turkeys long enough can come up with more than their fair share of stories as to how very killable birds at reasonable ranges end up living to gobble about it at a later date.

Like most turkey hunters, I care a good deal about how my gun performs on any given day with the proper load and choke combination.  It just so turns out, I’m a bit obsessive about it.  So much so, that when new shells hit the market, provided they have the potential to best my previous top-performer, I’m buying a box or two to run through my gun.  From there, I measure the amount of pellets that perforate a 10” circle at 40 yards.  That’s right, I take a marker and simply touch the holes in the paper until I have a firm pellet count.  To turkey hunters, web bloggers, and internet turkey forum junkies everywhere, this is the ruler by which you measure a load’s performance.  Through experience, I know that with factory loads, I can achieve nearly 200 hits in that zone, and I’m constantly looking to best that performance. 

Why you may ask?  Because I consider the wild turkey to be one of the fairest critters in the land, surely deserving of the cleanest and quickest death possible.  That, and a fellow named Murphy likes to hang out around the turkey woods from time to time.  Anything that can go wrong, typically does when the moment of truth is near, and that’s before your nerves even kick in.  Unseen brush, low light, poor aiming, and improperly ranged birds, among many other variables, lead to poor shots.  However, you’ll not find me tuning up my gun in the hopes that I can get a bird to topple at the 70 yard line.  Heck, I’m not even curious as to what my pattern does past 50 yards, but I am interested in putting as many pellets in a tight window at reasonable turkey ranges as possible for the many oddball shooting situations you can get yourself into.

So maybe I’ve talked you into maximum pellets per square inch, but you’re not about to drop $25 for 5 shots?  Think again, as it’s been my experience that for the most part, pricier loads like the Mag Blends I use are worth their weight in turkeys.  When Hevi-shot and other tungsten, nickel, and iron alloys came out advertising their “heavier-than-lead” performance, I was lost on the downrange energy part (though improved) because I was so enamored with the patterns.  Many ammunition companies load heavier-than-lead alternatives now, and although the price is high, so is the performance.  Pellet counts don’t lie, and they’ve improved so much in the past few years, that I’ve got a 20 gauge youth gun for my son that patterns far better than many 10 and 12 gauge guns shooting 3.5”es of lead.  Also, with denser shot types, the finer shot sizes (#6 and #7) provide enough downrange energy to kill your bird, allowing more payload and punch than your average #4 or #5 shot of old.    

So if you’re still unconvinced, consider this.  I’m about to pattern some quite pricey handloads out of Missouri through a custom Rhino choke tube designed for my gun and that shell type.  What’s more is that I can’t wait to do it.  These loads have the potential to put 300 or more pellets in that magic 10” circle at 40 yards, and from everything I’ve seen while hunting turkeys, max-pellets downrange is the premium no matter when or where you hunt.  Do you need a target stills champion gun to kill turkeys?  Absolutely not, but you might consider all of the money you spend on gas, tags, calls, camo, etc. and think of your ammo like good fishing line is to an angler; the most critical link between you and your turkey this spring.   

What You Can Learn From a Guru

My initiation into turkey hunting was like that of so many other first time hunters, a disappointment.  Though I was not legally able to drive a car to get to all the areas I’d seen turkeys while out and about, we had birds up the hill on our farm that we’d see occasionally during the previous few deer seasons.  In those days, turkeys were a wonderment.  Having not grown up seeing birds and recognizing them as a usual member of the local wildlife, it was fun just to sit and watch them work through the woods and pick out in the fields.  It should come as no surprise then that I had absolutely no idea how to hunt for them.

Walking around as we did to hunt squirrels, likely too fast and aggressive, led to sign spotted but no birds.  Holding tight and sitting on stand for them led to numbers of birds heard, but none seen.  Calling became even more frustrating, with birds initially answering from afar then shutting up as my less-than-hen-like repertoire was too frequent and probably too loud.  For the better part of 3 seasons, nothing I tried worked, and even when it seemed like I was near turkeys, I never came close to clicking off the safety.  Then one day, three years later when hunting with my cousin Todd and his friend Mark, we struck turkey-hunting gold.

From the precipice of a sun-lit hillside, we took a seat as both spectators and actors in the greatest show on earth.  As cardinals boomed and the countryside awoke, a bevy of toms gobbled for over an hour before flying down to the bottom corner of a pasture so green it almost glowed.  They fed with hens not 200 yards downhill, occasionally visible but always audible.  Eventually, one tom broke loose from the group, strutting zig-zags in the dewy pasture grass, all the way up the hill to our position.  The cheap slate call I used was a poor instrument, and when played by myself sounded even worse, but for some reason this turkey couldn’t get enough.  I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew enough to understand that he was liking it, whatever “it” was.  The last 50 yards of that bird’s approach, I felt more nervous excitement and anticipation than I think I’d ever be able to handle again.  We left the field that day, heads held high, a bird slung low over the shoulder, with still no idea what in the hell we were doing. 

The days before that one were full of good lessons, but I didn’t know enough at that point to understand what they were teaching me.  More importantly, I had no tutor to show me any different.  That’s when I met a turkey hunter that had guided in Illinois and throughout the Black Hills of South Dakota for nearly two decades, and he was gracious enough to take me out on a hunt.  One turned into several, and in a few short years, I’d amassed what felt like a lifetime’s worth of knowledge.  The next 10 years marked the formal beginning of my turkey hunting education, and something that has turned into one of the truest passions I’ve ever had. 

The term guru is a label easily handed out or self-assigned, but I’ve been lucky enough to hunt with some that actually are.  All of them have left indelible imprints on my turkey hunting identity, and their knowledge is something I do my best to channel in articles and online.  That said, for me, it all started as one-on-one interaction with someone who had seen more than a few birds hit the dirt.  From there, the tips, tricks, ideas, and theories were items I tested year in and year out in the turkey woods.  I spent more time than most out hunting and learning what those turkeys could teach me, and every year I have to relearn many of the same lessons of years past.

I’m indebted to those who have shared so much knowledge, so freely, such that I’m proud to pass along many of the true secrets I’ve learned to seminar crowds like the ones at this year’s Outdoor News Minnesota Deer and Turkey Classic.  It’s the best chance I know of to tap so much knowledge all in one place.  From well-known seminar speakers and vendors, to unassuming gurus walking the floor that you meet by happenstance, I was impressed last year with the sheer amount of outdoors experience that was so readily accessible.  Go.  Ask questions, and learn.  It’s really that simple, and far more rewarding than I can attempt to describe.