The Case For and Against Turkey Decoys

It’s rare to find a turkey camp these days that doesn’t have at least a few decoys stashed away somewhere.  In fact, many of the questions I get on turkeys every year are all about them.  Annually, I’m presented with a full spread of decoy inquiries regarding the whats, whens, wheres, hows, and whys of their use.  Most people are surprised when I say that I rarely use decoys unless I’m bowhunting.  Still, there are quite a few reasons and scenarios to drag them along, provided you use them appropriately.   

I’ll never forget the first time I hunted over a strutting tom decoy.  I was setup in the bottom of and open, shallow draw that toms love coming to.  It was to be the perfect bow-setup, as I could shoot nearly all directions here, and anything in the “bowl” was within range.  I couldn’t hunt until mid-morning, which was fine, as I grew up here, and knew that toms would be loafing within earshot on some nice oak flats all around me. 

The response after my first string of yelps nearly scared me.  A triple gobble, then another one 100 yards closer less than a minute later.  Could it be the same bird?  If it was, the thing must’ve heard the call and came right at me.  Seconds later I saw him at about 50 yards heading down into the bottoms with me, only to recoil like he’d been gutshot before ever making it to the bottom.  That bird’s demeanor went from fiery white and closing, to deathly afraid and side-stepping, as it circled my entire position no closer than 50 steps, curiously gobbling the entire way.  After a full 360 degree surveying of my position, he walked straight back to where he came from, gobbling the entire way.

It was an odd encounter, but certainly not the first time I’ve spooked birds with decoys.  Early in my turkey hunting career, several birds of all sexes spooked on open-field setups with full sun and an old, beat up hen that looked more like a foam finger from a sports event than a turkey.  Eventually, I made my way to some higher quality hens that did a far better job of tricking the eyes of an old tom, especially when I hid them a bit and didn’t plop them out in a plowed field.  Today I rarely use them when gun hunting, unless sitting over a strut zone or hunting bigger groups of birds early out west. 

However, with a bow in-hand, I think of them as almost a requirement, as they can be crucial for keeping the attention of a tom while you’re doing your best to draw on him and release an arrow.  Breeding hen with jake and tom combinations continue to be my favorites when hunting with a stick and string, but this is more true during later season when alfalfa, clover, or shin-level grass can hide some of the stakes and other gadgetry.  That said, at least where I hunt, decoy effectiveness wanes throughout the season.  I’ll either put the dekes at a 7-yard chip-shot away from the blind, or put them behind it such that any tom approaching only gets bits and pieces of the decoys with the blind in the way.  Hiding your decoys, no matter which weapon you have in your hand, has proven effective in enticing birds in for a closer look.  

For the average turkey hunter that wields a shotgun though, often decoys can be a hindrance more than a help.  Not only is your mobility affected by a bag of dekes in that they are simply more to carry, they’re often loud and cumbersome.  Worse yet, they can help a tom pinpoint your location and then have him use it against you.  While turkeys are not known to be curious, the goal of any turkey hunting session should be to arouse interest via calling, then hide out in a pre-determined setup while the tom hunts YOU.  Whether you call too loud or long at the wrong time, or you drop a decoy too far out in the open, the effect it has on many toms is to hang them up.  By their ears or eyes they know exactly where you are as they get close enough to show off, but stay too far away for a shot.

Instead, I have more confidence in the form, flexibility, and options my calling provides me over a decoy in many situations.  A decoy is somewhat of a binary play, in that it’s out there or it’s not, and once it is you’re certainly not going to strip it from the field with a tom out there.  That said, when you’re calling from a concealed position and stay motionless, that tom is still hunting you.  You can vary everything from cadence, volume, and frequency, to the direction you throw the call while keeping him guessing the whole time.  On several occasions I’ve been able to steer a tom around obstacles that may have hung him up, make a gobbler think I was leaving just by turning my head and muting the call, or attract a different tom coming from another direction simply by using my hand to “throw” the sound from a mouth-call. 

I think the key, no matter where you fall on the spectrum, is to use them when they make sense and use them well.  Whether you love them, hate them, or fall somewhere in between, don’t rely on decoys alone to be a cure-all for turkey woes.  Instead, dig deep into your bag of turkey tactics as you utilize them to compliment your approach rather than be the highlight of it.   

The Anatomy of a Miss

Missing flat hurts.  Re-living it in your mind again and again, you vow never to tell your upland or waterfowl-hunting friends about how you missed a stationary target that was standing on the ground, while you were concealed and the bird was un-alerted to your presence.  That pain likely pales in comparison to what the turkey might’ve felt in the form of some stray pellets.  I’ve seen the effect of what poorly placed shots can do, and more than we’d like to think the turkey eventually dies from the encounter.  Though we understand it’s our goal to always make a clean and careful killing shot, there are a number of obstacles in our way.

Personally, I’ve shot at and missed 5 gobblers in the course of 21 seasons.  With dozens of turkey hunts per year or more, I’ve been witness to many more misses while hunting with beginners and true experts alike.  Experience isn’t always the best teacher, as last season in Oklahoma, I missed two birds in two days before finally tagging out on a stubborn Rio Grande that was a bit too loud-mouthed for his own good.  Before last year, I hadn’t missed in a decade, but the last time I did, the pain also came in pairs while missing twice before 8AM that fateful Minnesota morning.

Of all the misses and close calls I’ve encountered, the common thread is that most of these are the result of bad decisions often made well before the safety ever comes off.  Fortunately, that means they’re also preventable.  Here’s a “greatest-hits” so-to-speak, of the most common causes for a miss, along with a few ideas on how to remedy to problem:

·         Too Far – More birds are peppered, maimed, and mortally wounded due to long shots than any other mistake from what I’ve seen.  That means it’s time for all of us to brush up on range estimation.  Rangefinders were a spendy contraption when I started hunting, but they flat out improve our ability to make a clean shot.  Have one handy and use it, but more importantly, when in doubt, wait it out.  

·         Poor Shot – Coming in at a close second is taking a hail-mary type shot to begin with.  Miss number one last year was a running bird at 40 yards, and miss number two was walking at the end of my effective range.  I’ve made these shots before, but ultimately knew better than to take them in the first place.

·         No Patterning – Speaking of effective range, if you don’t know how many pellets are in your pattern at various ranges, how sure can you be that a bird will drop at any range?  Shoot through as many chokes/loads as is reasonable to you to find a combination that puts more than 100 pellets in that 10” diameter circle at 40 yards.  Once you get to 100, strive to find a combination that will do 200 or better. 

·         Shooting Technique – Contorting around a tree, shooting from your belly, or flat dealing with the burn as you sit motionless as a statue can certainly contribute to a miss.  That said, hunters that use a ventilated rib and bead combination miss more than those that use other sights simply because they don’t keep their head down.  Unfortunately, I’ve had the over-the-shoulder view from so many of these hunter’s misses over the years, that I get to witness it first-hand.  Given that view, I also get to see quite a few flinches, which is understandable given how hard some of these loads can kick.  Prevent that effect by avoiding the long and bruising patterning sessions just before you’re ready to hunt.   

·         Equipment – Speaking of sights, I’ve seen a good number of malfunctions over the years.  From cracked and broken fiber optics, to front posts being completely ripped off the ventilated rib while dragging the gun through brush, sights can be vulnerable on a turkey gun.  Belly crawling through sand and even dry and dusty prairie grass can make semi-autos fail to cycle for follow up shots.  Keep your eyes peeled for these malfunctions before they ever have a chance to happen.

·         Too Close for Comfort – While I’ve only witnessed one miss because the bird was too close, it’s obvious why.  We patterned a buddy’s gun after the shot to find his load punched a baseball sized hole through paper at the 10 yard distance he missed from.  With how much a turkey’s head moves and how quickly he had to take the shot, it wasn’t a surprise.

·         Confidence – You’re trying to hit a sweet-spot here.  Practice builds confidence, and missing destroys it.  Four of my own misses came in pairs because I had a hard time recovering from the first one mentally.  Conversely, over-confidence leads to ill-preparedness and bad-decisions.

·         Faulty Expectations – This is a growing concern for the more experienced hunters.  The more you hunt, and the more success you encounter, the more likely you are to put it in “auto-pilot” during the last few seconds leading up to a shot.  Past experience can hamstring you here, as your mental programming over the last few dozen birds has falsely associated the act of leveling, aiming, and shooting with a dead bird.  In the back of your mind, somehow just making the gun go “boom” gives you the result you want.  Pause, then go through your pre-shot progression again before just making the gun sound off. 

·         Lucky Bird – Every once in a great while, I’ve seen a miss that defies logic.  You do everything right, line up the sights, go through the checklist in your mind and squeeze off a round, only to watch the bird rapidly disappear into a speck on the horizon.  Somehow, someway, that bird found a hole in your pattern.  More often however, our mistakes are obvious and correctable.

While we can’t always be perfect, we owe it to those turkeys to strive to be.  Every brutally cold wintry day, all I need to do is think about that spring’s tom up in some tree holding on for dear life while it contemplates how it’ll get through the next day.  That provides me with the motivation to practice with a purpose, such that every time I touch the trigger, the tom meets his end far more quickly than any other malady that Mother Nature would prescribe.        

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.