Gobbling Activity Picking up Following Cold-Weather Funk

The toms have been getting with the hens early, but with nesting activity building, some gobblers are getting lonely around mid-morning. Photo by jadenide.

Now that the Northeast’s spring turkey seasons have commenced, I touched base with Realtree pro-staffer Anthony Virga. “We have been in New York filming for Realtree Spring Thunder the last few days,” he said. “The gobbling action has been spotty on the limb, but the gobblers seem to be with fewer hens each day. I’m thinking we are at the mean incubation rate.

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“This week and next should be great as long as the weather cooperates,” Virga continued. “We’ve had success with getting on birds by hitting up high vantage points on large public-land tracts in the mountains. Light calling and scratching the leaves led to this week’s success. We have also worked a few field birds by getting into the woods about 25-30 yards off the field, then yelping them up to the field edge. That tactic is effective on stubborn gobblers that don’t want to leave the field.”

Cody Kelley of Small Town Hunting said that the hunting last week was great while hunting with Triple H Outfitters near Lincoln, Kansas. “It was very easy to strike birds,” he explained. “They were very responsive. We heard lots of gobbling on the roost and throughout the day. The weather was tough, but it didn’t stop the gobbling. Some longbeards were henned-up, but they still gobbled, allowing chances to move on them. The toms we hunted that didn’t have hens responded well and came straight to the call. We found that a strutting decoy and a hen decoy worked well. Larry McCoy, SmallTown host, and Donovan Huehl, Triple H Outfitters’ owner, doubled to start off the trip. I killed one that came to us right off the roost on the second morning.”

The weather conditions were on and off in Kansas last week, but that didn’t stop the Small Town Hunting crew from scoring on some Sunflower State gobblers. Photo courtesy of Small Town Hunting.

Joe Conyers of Conyers Outdoors in Cuba, Kansas, said that “a couple of rainy cold fronts have recently rolled through. The turkeys are in small groups. The rain quieted them down, but the gobbling is picking back up. Some hens are starting to nest, but most of the hens are still with gobblers. The toms haven’t been very responsive to hen calls. Gobbling on the roost is pretty strong now that the weather has improved.”

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Midwest Whitetail’s Josh Sparks talked on the changes happening in the Iowa turkey woods now that it is May and the landscape is greened up. “May is my favorite time to be a turkey hunter,” he said. “Right now, the hens are shifting priorities to nesting, and that leads to gobblers on the search and being very receptive to calling. Strut zones are changing with increased vegetation in the woods, but don’t miss out on these last days of the season. In my experience, this is the best time to hunt in this region.”

While Bryan Dawes of Brushy Fork Outfitters in Ohio found the earlier part of the season to be tough, it’s getting better now. “They were tough to call in,” he said. “We almost had to intercept them right off the roost or cut them off early, as they only gobbled for a quick 30 minutes. Things are improving, and now it seems like the hens are nesting steadily. Those 9 a.m. gobbles are leading to nothing but productivity. I’d rather sleep in and hit multiple farms to find that one bird gobbling at 8-9 a.m. that wants to tango. It takes two to play the game, and it seems like we are finally there!”

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Based on what these folks have said and what I’m seeing here in Wisconsin, the birds are gobbling fairly well on the roost, but are still getting with hens right off the bat. The mid- to late-morning hours seem to be when you’re likely to strike a receptive bird and call him in. If you’ve been going at it and are getting worn out, sleep in, as Dawes said, and hunt the mid-morning shift. That very well could be your ace in the hole.