Early season decoying

[jims]

Where I've been hunting in Nebraska the turkeys don't seem to want anything to do with decoys early in the season when they are in large flocks of 20 to as many as 100 birds). They seem to go on a daily routine and even decoys set up where they are headed seem to make the nervous and move away.  During the early season the toms seem similar to elk bulls where they take their group of cows and leave with any sign of aggression from outside of their large flocks.

I've tried pretty much every scenerio with jakes, tom, and hens.  One thing I have considered is possibly putting out a as many decoys as I can with even a couple strutting toms in the spread to mimick their large groups.  The only strategy I've found when they are doing this is to leave the decoys and either stalk them or get in front of where they are going.  I was wondering if anyone has any decoy strategies when they are like this? 

[Marc]

My experience is not all that extensive... 

Early in the season can be tough for me as well...  Mid-season when the groups are split up, and the hens leave the toms mid-morning is when I tend to have success...

But, early in the season, both the toms and hens are establishing dominance...  The jake and hen combination has worked for me in two ways:

1. Dominant hens trying to establish dominance get worked up and come in to beat up the hen decoy...  Hopefully leading a dominant tom or two with her.  When I hear a vocal hen early in the season, I cut her off every time she calls (one of the few times I will use the call aggressively)...  Seems to make them mad.
2. Dominant tom sees the jake with a hen decoy, and comes in to establish dominance with the jake...  Calling here is far less aggressive and limited to clucks and purrs.

Every area is a bit different, and birds will behave differently...  If something obviously does not work, I then try something different the next time out.  That frustration is what seems to keep me going out.  Lots of frustration...

[jims]

The turkeys were pretty much in winter mode when I was hunting last year.  Tomd didn't leave their large flocks all day.  I don't know how many times I tried the jake and several hen set up and never had 1 turkey come into that setup in 2 1/2 weeks of hunting!  I finally dropped the jake and had a few straggler jakes and hens wander into the setup several times.  The toms didn't want anything to do with decoys and remained with the hens.  The lead hens definitely didn't want anything to do with a small group of decoys and headed the other way.

The only thing I can figure out that would work is if I could somehow coax the lead hens to wander towards a setup.  I'm not exactly sure if this is possible when they were in groups of 20+.  Every evening the groups of 20 to 50 would come together to roost.  As mentioned before a jake and hens definitely didn't work but it was impossible to coax the large groups of hens and toms to a small group of decoys.  I guess I'm wondering what would get the attention of those hens....possibly a large group of decoys or a large group of hens with a couple strutter toms.  I pretty much got laughed at in my other post when I mentioned this but I'm always willing to try new things!

I'm not sure if last year was just a funky year or what....the flocks really didn't start breaking up where I was hunting until the 2nd week of shotgun season.  Once they did that everything changed in a good way!

[Bowguy]

Maybe the decoys are scaring the birds because you're using the funky chicken n the turks don't wanna catch that?

[Marc]

Maybe the decoys are scaring the birds because you're using the funky chicken n the turks don't wanna catch that?

Actually, I would put up a Funky Chicken in this situation...

Looking at that thing, my first thought was what a piece of poop...  It was an insult to the intelligence of anyone purchasing a turkey hunting product or anyone that turkey hunts.

But...  I have yet to run across someone that has used one with poor results...  Turkeys are curious critters, and if nothing else has worked, I would certainly give it a go...

My buddy hunts with exclusively DSD decoys, and this season for fun will be adding the Funky Chicken...  I am very curious to see which jake decoy the birds go to first in his spread, the DSD jake, or the Funky Chicken?