Image: ImageBy-John-Hafner-turkey-western

Trying to work a gobbler in a large early spring flock can be exciting yet frustrating. A smart, persistent approach can often put the odds in your favor. Photo by John Hafner.

Turkeys in the central and northern United States and Canada are often in large flocks as season openers kick off. Before green-up and warm temperatures, fewer food sources are available, so gobs of turkeys concentrate around them until the unpredictable weather — sometimes snow and ice-cold temps — relents and more food sources emerge.

If you have an early tag in your pocket and encounter large flocks this spring, try these tactics.

1. FOCUS ON FOOD SOURCES

As mentioned, food sources are often limited early in spring, and more turkeys are concentrated in fewer areas than later in the season. If you have access to a picked cornfield or soybean field with corn kernels or beans lying around after this past autumn’s harvest, you could have a big flock to hunt. Also, pay attention to feedlots, silage, and freshly spread manure, which are turkey magnets.

If you’re interested in knocking on doors, you can map food sources and find landowner information fairly easily in a mapping app. I use the crop history feature in HuntStand Pro. If you have another mapping app, such as onX Hunt, that works, too. Next, I drive by fields of interest at various times of day, but especially in early to mid-morning and late in the afternoon. The idea is to confirm turkey usage and detect tendencies the turkeys have regarding when and where they feed. If you cannot glass but have access to a field, quickly walk the perimeter when turkeys aren’t present and look for scratching marks, droppings, and tracks in the mud. Don’t hesitate to hunt if you find fresh sign.

2. USE AGGRESSIVE DECOYS

Early gobblers and hens can get rowdy after a long winter as they compete to breed and settle dominance disputes. I’ve witnessed many brutal gobbler and hen fights in early spring. Very aggressive jake decoys have annually yielded success for friends and me. The key is to put the decoy close enough to the gobblers’ daily routine to invade their comfort zone.

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If they see the jake and get fired up but don’t run in, consider issuing a few jake yelps or an immature gobble to add audible realism. If you’re close enough to the flock, many times two or three of the flock’s gobblers will peel off and come in hot.

I usually pair my jake with a realistic hen. Sometimes, hens have a bone to pick with a new “hen” in the area, and they’ll come swarming in, dragging gobblers and jakes with them.

3. TRY THE ROOST

The roosting habits of early season flocks can be quite predictable. If you pinpoint a roosting area with a large flock, you could be in for the dawn of dawns.

If shotgun hunting, try to set up where the birds tend to land, decoys optional. If you’re bowhunting, an aggressive jake decoy, as noted, could pull a gobbler or several within point-blank range. Turkeys in large flocks can move erratically, and without decoys, the gobblers might fly down and head toward other birds and out of bow range.

4. IF ALL ELSE FAILS

The first three tips are typically highly effective. But turkeys will be turkeys, and even the best plans don’t always work. That’s when you know it’s time to turn up the aggression dial. I’ve done this a handful of times to fill tags, including on a prairie hunt a few springs ago.

Late in the hunt, my wife and I got in tight on some roosted gobblers, and they were going nuts about my calls from the limb. When they flew down, the gobbles faded as the birds moved away. We retreated, drove to another parking area, and began our “spot-and-stalk” hunt. We glassed 12 adult gobblers strutting on a distant hilltop and used the terrain to close in.

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Too easy, right? Not so fast. We continued to get within shotgun range and show them a fan, but they weren’t in fighting mode and would head the other way each time. I couldn’t shoot because too many heads were together. The sixth time, I finally connected when we popped up and two gobblers were half-strutting 35 yards away. By the time we got back to the truck with that gobbler, we’d hiked more than 8 miles that morning.

PERSISTENCE

If fanning (where legal) or spotting and stalking aren’t your jams, you’ll have to revert back to the first three tactics and punch in for the long shift. When using conventional calling and decoying tactics with finicky large flocks, persistence is often the key.

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Finally, don’t miss the mid- and late-morning hours, as a gobbler or three sometimes split off the flock and then reassemble before roosting time in the evening.

If you’ve had minimal success with hunting large early spring flocks, put these quick-and-dirty tips in your tool bag to tip the odds your way.