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Gobblers in the northern U.S. are cranking up and coming to calls and decoys. Image by Clayton Worrell

Freezing temperatures and a snow-covered landscape finally gave way to clear ground and more seasonal temperatures recently in central Wisconsin. Turkey flocks are busting up, and the gobblers are cranking up. I live where I can observe turkeys daily, and the toms are firing off a lot from the roost, immediately after flying down, and again in the mid-afternoon. They seem to stick with the hens in the morning, then break off from the hens and roam around midday.

Several evenings ago, I witnessed four gobblers fighting. I have a Time Period A tag, which opens the day this report posts. Based on the aggressive behaviors I’ve witnessed, I’ll hunt 200 yards from the roost with a jake and laydown hen decoy. If the morning hunt doesn’t pan out, I’ll float around during the mid-afternoon and get on the gobbling toms when they’re out looking. I’ll call aggressively using mouth calls both in the morning and afternoon. After 25 years of doing this, I’m confident in my strategy.

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Speaking of calls and decoys, my brother-in-law, Ivan Flannery, took his son, Braxton, on the Wisconsin youth hunt last Saturday. Calling and decoys sealed the deal on a nice late-afternoon gobbler.

“We had to play him a bit,” Flannery said. “He was out in the field about 300 yards away with two other toms and eight hens. I finally got him to break away and start strutting closer. Once he saw our breeding hen and jake decoys, he closed the last 120 yards in 30 seconds. Overall, they don’t seem to be really aggressive yet. The toms seemed to be cool with hanging out together and feeding with the hens.”

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This gobbler played hard to get, but eventually caved to Ivan Flannery’s (behind the camera) calls and decoys, and his son, Braxton, (left), anchored the tom while his younger brother, Douglas, was there for the show. Image courtesy of Ivan Flannery

Out in South Dakota, another brother-in-law, Andrew Marshall, found success Sunday morning with his bow, although he said that the toms didn’t really want to interact with his decoys. But they gobbled hard from the limb, making for a fun hunt.

Of the several toms that Marshall was working, “Only one came to the decoys,” he said. “He didn’t want to stick around, and he didn’t attack the decoy like they usually do. He started leaving, and I shot him at 15 yards out of the small rectangular side window of my blind.”

Jeff Ravenscraft, regional director for the NWTF in Illinois, went out to put birds to bed on Sunday evening. “The toms didn’t make a peep from the limb,” he explained, “but it was raining, so maybe that had something to do with it. A couple of volunteers texted me success pictures on Monday morning. They reported that the birds were talkative until they flew down, then came in quietly.”

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Let’s wrap up this first Strut Report in Kansas, where NWTF Regional Director Nate Watson said the weather has been nice and warm, and the birds have been highly active.

“The weather has been warm for about a month now,” he said. “I’ve been pretty tied up with banquets, but some buddies who’ve been out for the archery hunt have said that the gobblers are very active, but not insanely vocal. They did get birds using calls and decoys. Out in western Kansas, one of our chapters did a youth turkey hunt, and five out of seven youth hunters got their birds. All five were killed over decoys.”

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The action should continue to improve, but parts of the Great Plains and Midwest will be subject to some fairly severe storms this week, and fluctuating temperatures toward the weekend. All said, the hunting should be great during the breaks in the weather, and decoys and calling should produce results, since birds have seen minimal pressure across the northern region.