Simply put, during the spring the gobblers are going to tell you where they are once the mating season begins. If you don't know when that is where you are located, then start by being in the woods about two weeks before your season begins. Finding them is primarily about hearing them. Being in the woods at the right time is the key to finding springtime gobblers. The primary "right time" is right at first light in the morning,...roughly an hour before sunrise until sunrise. You will learn more about where your turkeys are during that timeframe than the rest of the day combined.
If you have a small, private parcel of land to hunt, be at the best spot on that property to hear the biggest area of the property during that timeframe. If there are gobblers around, you will likely hear them gobble. If you don't hear gobbling from a location, move to another vantage point and listen again.
If you are hunting larger tracts of land, stay as mobile as you can (using a vehicle is a good idea) and cover as much country as you can during that golden hour, stopping and listening for a few minutes at every location that you think you can hear a long ways. If the mating season has started up, and you are in country that holds gobblers, you will hear them.
You will learn over time that you can speed the listening process up and cover much more country by using an effective locator call during that same time frame.
Always approach spring gobbler hunting with the idea that your goal is to locate gobbling turkeys on the roost as your first course of action. Once you find them, then you start hunting them.
