Scouting

[Cut N Run]

Scouting ahead of your hunt can help improve your chances by giving you something to work with and a better starting point. I can only go by what has worked for me and I hope some of this will help newer hunters.  I'm sure others here will have plenty of good advice to add.

The main objective in scouting the area you intend to hunt is to find the areas turkeys like to spend time AND places that can be used to your advantage to get them in range for a lethal shot opportunity.

Another advantage of scouting is learning the property boundaries, so you know where you can and cannot legally hunt.  All it takes is one time of somebody crossing property lines onto the posted land you're hunting and interfere with a gobbling bird you're working, to make you not wish it on anybody else. 

You can't know a piece of land too well.  Over time, you'll learn where the turkeys like to roost, strut, feed, and travel on that property. The sign they leave behind tells on them. It is satisfying and beneficial to be able to get out ahead of a gobbler and get a good shot at him, simply because you understand the lay of the land and how the turkeys like to use it well enough to know where he wants to go before he gets there.

If you have the luxury of hunting properties with openings like fields, meadows, powerline cuts, roadbeds, etc. that can be watched from a distance with binoculars or a spotting scope ahead of time, it can lessen the possibility of spooking birds, while you can get an idea of the gobblers who hang out in that area for the time being.

Pay close attention to elevated openings that might serve as a strut zone, where gobblers can see or be seen for a good distance. Sometimes they like to strut in the middle of big fields where they can see a long way and are next to impossible to get close to. If you can watch from a distance and figure which direction he roosts or enters the field from, it can help crack the code to your best chance to tag him.  You may notice a break in the fence line that turkeys will prefer to funnel through. 

Paying attention to tracks in mud, sand, or dirt can also give an idea where turkeys like to use or cross a roadbed.  The same goes for a sandbar in a creek.  I killed one of my best gobblers by recognizing the place he liked to cross a creek.  There was enough of a sand bar in the creek, where the gobbler would cross the creek in the same place going two different directions and keep his feet & feathers dry. I got between his roost and the creek and I shot him before he crossed.

Like most birds, turkeys are poop machines.  Clusters of droppings in the same group of trees says that multiple turkeys like to spend time in that area. Habitual roost trees are unmistakable when you find them.   

Dust bowls prove that turkeys feel safe and are comfortable enough to let their guard down in that area, even if it is just for a short period of time.  I had a couple of adult hens along with a gang of jenny hens loll around a cluster of dust bowls in the sun the morning after a rain for long enough that some of them even took a nap.  I hated to wake them up so rudely with a shotgun blast, but when the big gobbler waltzed into range later, I busted him.

Turkeys leave sign (feathers, droppings, scratchings, tracks, strut marks, vocalizations) with most things they do. By scouting ahead of time and being observant, you can hopefully piece together some of the sign you've discovered and help use it to interpret quality places to hunt.

Jim

[MK M GOBL]

Great Stuff here already, a few things I would add and this will depend on the terrain you hunt. (This works for me and the ground I hunt) And is more for "hunting" instead of learning the actual ground, roosts and opening and such...

This is some of my day to day scouting before season and maybe a few weeks before seasons start. Each year I will scout out about 20-25 gobblers for me and those I hunt with, my truck, my binos and a good set of ears every morning are put to use and on my days off I look for a few different things. (Now this is already some land I hunt and know and just checking annually for birds) I have some knowledge of where birds tend to be but as food choices change and are in different places each year here is how I keep up with them longbeards.

My morning starts off in the truck and will plan to hit a few spots every morning to check roosts and put a number to how many birds I hear gobbling, I make "pit" stops at listening points around each of "my" farms (I am in some hilly country, ridge and valley farm country with a good mix of timber and fields and cattle and the farms I hunt range from a couple a hundred acres up to 500-600 acres). As I hit these spots am making mental notes of these responses. I do this until birds hit the ground and then switch to more of a visual check, where those birds are using fields first thing in the morning and numbers. Then it's off to work, I do a bit of the same in the evening and look for where birds are entering back in to timber. I hit different farms on different days and if a "Hunt" is coming up I concentrate a bit more on one or two farms by what I am seeing in previous "scouting" trips. On my days off I will hit some 10a-2p spots and scout for birds in those locations.

Once we hit season I am keeping tabs on these farms and "rotate" where I am hunting to keep pressure off any given farm and how many birds  I/We take from them, now a couple of these farms are "Open" to taking every bird we can and will kill 6-7 birds a year off and other farms 2-3 birds is a good number. I am in a continuous "scouting/hunting" mode once season opens till seasons end still using some of those observations from early scouting trips but now applying hunting tactics in with scouting.

Like I say this is for ground I know/hunt and is just keeping tabs on birds on these farms.

MK M GOBL

[TRG3]

I envy you guys who are morning people. I'm in my 7th decade of life and have been a hunter since my grandfather took me squirrel hunting when I was around 5 years of age. For me, getting out of that warm cozy bed at an early hour is the most difficult part of the hunt! Once I've crawled out of bed and struggled to the bathroom to do what guys our age do it's off to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Within 10 minutes I'm mostly awake and am putting on my hunting clothes, watching the clock to make sure that I'm on schedule to walk out the door on time to make it to the hunting woods before daylight starts creeping in. As I drive toward my destination, I watch the sky, trying to judge from its pinkness how I'm doing. Once there, I hop out of my truck and do the bathroom thing again before gathering my stuff for the trek to my chosen destination in the woods. Once set up, I began to relax. I'm where I wanted to be at the time I wanted to be there. Now it's a game of waiting as the woods wakes up and the animals start to move. Am I glad that I got up and made the effort to hunt? You betcha! Will I struggle again in the coming days as I repeat this process? You betcha!...but for me it's just part of the hunt and something with which I know I'll have to struggle as part of my hunting experience. Best of luck this turkey season!

[fallhnt]

Not much need to scout areas you have hunted for years. New areas bring excitement and anticipation. Listen before daylight and get boots on the ground.

[quavers59]

I hunt on May 1st in New York. I have some Saturdays set up for scouting. I want to hit one spot in New Jersey. 1 scouting trip there and 2 new spots that I want to check in NY. I might scout 3-4 times this Spring. My 28th Spring Season is coming up and in my first 15 or so years- I scouted way too much and suffered some burn-out in the early hunting season . This is something alot of newer Spring turkey hunters have to really watch--scouting too much.
   I like Saturdays as I hunt Public Lands and I check the parking area when I come out to see how many other Spring turkey scouters are out.  I want to know how many other hunters may be hunting near the area I have selected. I may change my chosen area if I see too many scouters parked. This works for me. Luck out there for you.

[catman529]

Do your scouting of the land in the winter time so you don't chase birds off when they're getting hot. Then when season is close and they are getting hot, go to a high vantage point where you can listen at daybreak and find what areas the gobblers are roosted. You don't have to intrude on the birds if you can hear them gobbling from a distance. Then you know which way to go when season opens.


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