I have been hunting the same 200 acre farm in SW Bracken County, KY for 23 seasons. What I've found is that the turkeys are still roosting in the same spots and hitting the same pastures every year. We have a few honey holes that will produce gobbler sightings every season.
I'm still out for the month before season scouting, but I try and avoid direct contact. What I do is go out with an umbrella mic and record the birds on the roost and what they are doing at flydown.
Are there changes year to year? Yes. What changes most is when the gobblers start gobbling. That can come anywhere in March. The overall number of gobblers and the ratio of hens to gobblers also varies. Our spring season also starts on a varied day (Saturday closest to 4/15), so when the Opener occurs versus the turkeys themselves warming up varies considerably.
I like to get out as many days as possible before season and record them for my podcast. I also like to observe them in the pastures. I can really get a feel for their readiness to be hunted in this fashion.
I also hit the best listening posts before season. I'm the patriarch of our Turkey Camp and this pre-season recon gives me good intel for advising the other members of camp. I can usuallly tell them which hunting venues are going to be best for Opening Week.
Is this all necessary? Not completely. There have been years in which work or health kept me from a lot of pre-season scouting. One year, I developed cancer just before season. I signed the paperwork for chemo, left the hospital and went turkey hunting and managed to kill a bird on the first day. However, I was relying on years of scouting to inform me.
