Tactical turkey scouting tips

By: Ron Hustvedt

The more extra time and scouting a hunter can do before the season the better. Pattern the birds so you know where to find them on a regular basis including where they roost, feed, and strut as well as the paths they take along the way. I like to walk through the woods and fields I plan on hunting either to hunt for sheds or break in a new pair of hunting boots. Whatever excuse you can find to get out there is a good one because turkey tend to stick around the same general area throughout the year. Spring turkey scouting can be a lot of fun because there is often a lot of sign around that is easy to spot. A common method of locating turkey hunting spots is to find large roosting trees. These trees are frequently the tallest or densest ones in any given area. The way to tell if it’s a roosting tree is to look for white streaks running down the side of it. These streaks are evidence left behind by roosting turkeys much like what you find on your car windshield after parking under a particularly well-used tree. Roosting trees can be difficult to spot for the untrained eye or if weather conditions keep the trees relatively clean. Turkey tracks are usually easy to locate in the spring because the ground is both wet and muddy or there’s still snow around. Look for the middle toe of a turkey track because if it’s more than two inches long, chances are there’s a decent sized Tom in the area. Fresh tracks are most easily found in fields, along creek, old roadbeds or by feeding and watering areas. Don’t be surprised if you find a feather or two as well Where the ground is dry you can also find a lot of sign in the form of wallows, which are shallow bowls on the edges of fields or creek bottoms.

Much like other bird species, turkeys take dust baths to keep mites off of them. A series of these bowls in a particular area could mean it’s a hen nesting area and might be prime strutting ground for Toms once the mating rituals get going. Most any experienced turkey hunter will tell you that the best scouting is that which you do before the season begins. A primary reason for this is that you don’t want to scout an area once the season is open even if it’s not your particular season. Because turkey are so elusive and so easily spooked, it’s best to stay away from the general area being used by other hunters (unless you hunt your own private land). The kind of scouting that should be done during the season can be more difficult with recent regulation changes. It used to be that hunters would quit hunting at 5 p.m., grab a bite back at the truck and then head back to the field just before sunset to “put a tom to bed.” Find the tree he’s roosting in and you have a great location to sneak into before sunrise the next morning. Speaking of which, one of the biggest challenges of spring turkey hunting is waking up early enough to sneak into your hunting area. Deer hunters are fortunate in that their season runs three to six months after the summer solstice. Turkey hunters, on the other hand, only have a month or two before the longest day of the year meaning wake up calls that begin with the number three are not uncommon. Weather is also a big factor in the spring and any hunter with a few seasons of experience will have plenty of stories involving blizzards, sweltering heat, thunderstorms and extreme wind—often in the same season.The weather is not to be ignored because every year when the harvest results are published, there is a strong correlation between the lowest success rates and the worst weather conditions. It’s not that the turkeys stopped coming off the roost in bad weather, it’s usually that the hunters either wasn't willing to endure the conditions or didn’t adjust accordingly.

Scouting with data

Surveys aren’t known for being thrilling reading material, but the spring turkey hunter survey report is actually a very interesting document that can be used to learn a lot about the habits of other hunters. Knowledgeable turkey hunters can use this information to their benefit and improve their odds of success by planning around what the “average” Minnesota hunter does each year. The survey showed that Minnesota turkey hunters spend an average of 2.7 days on their annual turkey hunt. With some of the seasons lasting five days and others lasting seven days, it shows that hunters are not spending their entire season in the field. As far as the weapon of choice, the vast majority of hunters prefer a shotgun to archery. Actually, saying the vast majority is an understatement since 92 percent said they shotgun hunt, 4 percent said they bowhunt and the rest say they use both methods throughout the season they are allowed to hunt.

In the survey, hunters were asked about how many turkeys they observed and the statewide average was 12. Combine that with the number of days hunted, and it shows that the “average” turkey hunter sees four to six birds a day. The averages vary widely throughout the state so that average could be as low as one to two birds a day and as high as almost 20 birds a day. Another interesting statistic from the survey shows that 75 percent of the harvest came in the morning. The challenge behind this figure is wrapped up in the history of the hunt. For the first two decades of Minnesota’s hunt, shooting hours ran from half and hour before sunrise to noon. That was expanded to the late afternoon until last year when it changed to sunset. The question remains as to whether or not that morning hunt has become a part of the tradition of turkey hunting or if it truly is the best time to bag a turkey. The ever-pressing issue of land access is another issue the survey examined. The news is good considering the amount of development and the fact that the majority of Minnesota’s turkey hunting habitat is in the southern and western two-thirds of the state where public land is in short supply. Almost 86 percent of the surveyed hunters said accessing land was very easy or at least somewhat easy. A similar number said they mostly or exclusively hunted on private land and less than one percent reported being denied permission by a landowner. Hunters reported observing very few other hunters in the field other than those in their hunting party and only 13 percent saw more than one person. Interference caused by those other hunters was also reported as being very rare.

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