This will be mine and my son's first ever spring turkey hunt and we've been scouting quite a bit. We're scouting in the foothills of mountainous terrain and each time we're out, we cover a lot of ground. But we always find the same big rafter of about 30 or 40 turkeys in the same spot, plus or minus about a quarter of a mile in a fairly narrow canyon. Most of the mountain sides are covered with junipers, but there are some big old cottonwoods in the bottoms that they are roosting in, and very few open areas.
We're worried that since these seem to be the only birds around (at least in this drainage), and since it is public land, that the birds are not dispersed at all and anyone hunting turkeys in that drainage will all be hunting the same birds at the same time.
We've had a very long winter and it is not over yet with several inches of new snow today (April 7th). We also wonder if the mating season would be a bit later than the second week of April, since the birds have not dispersed at all and spring has not quite sprung.
My real question is, shouldn't they be more dispersed? Any advice would be very much appreciated.
