Hen Behavior

[NCL]

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I had a new experience yesterday. Right after fly down I had a hen yelping close to my decoy setup. Within a few minutes she arrived in the middle of decoy setup. She appeared to be very at ease and proceeded to feed and stayed probably no further that 50 to 60 feet from the group. After about an hour I lost contact with where she was, I looked and saw her on the road, I then realized this was a second hen who then joined the group. The second hen, who I think was older, did wander a little further from the group but did stay in the general area. This second hen stayed for an additional hour. So to sum it up I had a one hen in my set up for two hours and a second hen for an hour. I have had hens come into a decoy set up in the past but they usually only stayed about 5 or 10 minutes. The first hen seemed to want to be with a flock. I did notice that often one or both hens, would stand in the middle of the decoy set up and just look around. Any thoughts on this behavior? Thanks

[GobbleNut]

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My thoughts are that, whatever you are doing in terms of your decoy set-up, it is good enough that live turkeys are comfortable with it.  That is always a good thing.  When turkeys avoid your decoys, well, that is the time to get concerned.   

[JonD.]

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 I agree, keep doing whatever your doing with your decoys. When you got real hens interacting in your decoys it don't get any better than that. Sooner or later ol' big boy is going to check out all the commotion.
What type of decoys are you using? Strutter/hen(s), jake/hen(s), or just hen(s)? All my decoys are cheaper, low quality(which I hope to change before next year) and if I'm hunting the strutter(with a real jake fan and real wing feathers attached on him) and a hen or hens combo, hens will come right in to him, but usually after they eyeball my hen decoys for a minute or two they don't hang around long. I've had them very softly put at them and move about 50 to 75 yards away and just feed around or move on off. However, a handful of longbeards that seen him has died coming to flog him. Some of these days I'm going to hold off and watch the show, if I can stand it that long. I'll say this too, I killed a gobbler on opening day this year with this set up, and he would have tore that decoy up if I hadn't shot him first, and then the next Saturday I hunted a different place with this same set-up and watched a gobbler 300 yards away stand in the same place for 2 hours(no exaggeration) and finally move away. If you could have drawn a 10ft circle around him, he would have never gone out of that circle for 2 hours. I did something I usually don't do and that is call to a bird I can see that I know has seen my decoys(hunting in a blind) but after watching him for so long I called to him. I let her fly boy, I used every call I owned, yelping, cutting clucks, purrs even tried to sound like two fighting turkeys. Man you talk about a turkey getting tore up. He paced back and forth and turned every way but wrong side out looking at my decoys bobbing that head, but he never made a sound and never got out of the "10ft circle" and eventually wandered on out of sight(and a great deal more educated LOL).

[NCL]

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I am using Avian X hens, three which came together as a package, with a half stutter jake. I purchased the hens at the end of last years turkey season as they were on sale at a really good price. I also went with HS Struts stands as where I hunt after about the first week of the season, or after a north wind, the ground becomes like cement. Ir was  a great experience to just watch the two hens interact with the decoys. At one point the two live hens were sparring with each other for a short time. I really thought I would get a gobbler to come into the setup but did not happen. I have hunted with particular property for about 10 years and to the best of my memory this is the first time I never heard a single gobble, which is what happened that day.

[JonD.]

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Sounds like you have an abundance of hens and the gobblers were busy. It makes it tough hunting. Same story for our season. I heard no gobbles from opening day until the next Saturday and then just two on the roost and then nothing. I believe our breeding cycle was put way behind by the late winter weather. Usually hens are either laying, or a lot of times they are already sitting on the nest all day when our season starts, and gobblers are gobbling their heads off looking for new hens. I believe that when our season opened this year they were just barely starting to breed and lay, which is about a month or so behind, and they had plenty of hens and no reason to gobble. The last week of our season is when it really started to get good, but the gobblers were very educated by then too. They probably heard twice or three times as much calling from hunters trying to get them to gobble as they normally would have.

I've read a lot of good reviews about the Avian X's and they do look good. Sounds like the turkeys like them too. I'm still undecided about which ones to get, I really like the idea of mounted turkeys for decoys, but they sound like a lot of trouble to keep up. I've been leaning toward DSD's but Deception is an awful good looking decoy too. One of these days I'll make my mind up.

[howl]

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Old hens or jennies? Jennies are retarded lost puppies just like jakes, except they don't hang in the shadows for fear of getting flogged like jakes.

[ShootingABN!]

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So how did the rest of your season go? That's cool to have the hens interact with the decoys.

[NCL]

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Old hens or jennies? Jennies are retarded lost puppies just like jakes, except they don't hang in the shadows for fear of getting flogged like jakes.

I would say one of each. The first hen was a young one, or at least that is what I felt at the time. The second hen seemed to be older/experienced and seemed to move away from the group more than the first hen. The first one appeared to want to be around the group. 

[NCL]

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So how did the rest of your season go? That's cool to have the hens interact with the decoys.

Unfortunately that was the last day of the season. I am anxiously awaiting next year.

[ShootingABN!]

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So how did the rest of your season go? That's cool to have the hens interact with the decoys.

Unfortunately that was the last day of the season. I am anxiously awaiting next year.

Yep we are all waiting till next season. Good luck

[Kylongspur88]

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From my understanding turkeys are social. I've had hens hang out with my dsd before. Tom's and Jake's have something else on their mind.