Fall - Best Time to Hunt Turkeys

Fall – The Best Time to Hunt Turkeys Bill Cooper “The colors alone make it worth the effort,” my wife Dian, said. She had hunted fall turkeys with me before and she knew what she talked about when she referred to effort. There is no better time to hunt turkeys than in the fall – period. “Fall is the season when all new turkey hunters should begin,” says Ray Eye, the most well known turkey hunter in the sport. “Birds are far more vocal in the fall. Most people will tell you that turkeys are more vocal in the spring, but there are not enough hunters out in the fall to know what is going on. Everyone wants to hear gobbling and males do gobble more in the spring. However, fall is the season of plenty and that is when the turkey population is at its highest. Fall not only gives a new hunter more opportunities to take a turkey, but fall is also the time when a new hunter can best educate himself about turkey vocalizations. The noise can be almost deafening at times. Birds group up in the fall and winter. The noise they make when they fly up and down from the roost is tremendous. All the hens are calling their broods and all the poults are trying to find mom. Flocks run from a few birds up to 300. You get that many turkeys talking at the same time and you have got a lot of noise on your hands.” And turkeys do gobble in the fall. “Turkeys gobble and struggle for position in the pecking order every day,” says Eye. “I have video footage of gobblers strutting and gobbling in July. They were jockeying for position in the pecking order. The better a hunter understands this, the better he can take advantage of it and kill more turkeys.” I hunted with Eye a few falls ago and witnessed an amazing scene. He used gobbler yelps and called aggressively. He worked five adult gobblers into a fighting frenzy. And all five raced to the call to find the new turkey in the woods and put him in his place. One went home with us. The brilliant fall colors along the Current River in Shannon County provided the backdrop for our fall turkey hunt season. Dian and pitched a tent camp far back in the woods not far from the river. We drove out early each morning to a neighboring farm which provided a remote and beautiful setting. We arrived at the farm about 1 pm the first day. Fall turkey hunting is an all day affair, which makes it even more appealing. The land owner had seen a couple of large flocks of birds, giving us an extra sense of confidence. Dian and I first checked out the usual places where we had found turkeys on previous hunts. Primarily, we spent our time walking and glassing the fields and corners. Dian had a new pair of Alpen binoculars which had been given to her by a company rep at a women’s turkey hunt in Arkansas. As a result of owning the fine glasses, Dian became the lead scout. To our surprise, an hour into the hunt, we had not yet found birds. I suggested we start climbing. That brought a frown from her. The Current River hills are steep and rough, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that the turkeys were in the woods. I lead the way up a sharp spur leading to a heavily wooded ridge top which the turkeys liked to frequent. “Besides,” I said, “The climb will allow us to check out the valley on the other side.” Thirty yards up the slope I motioned for Dian to stop. “I just saw a gobbler walk behind a bush in that pocket field 200 yards away. Let’s backtrack, drop into the dry creek and close in on him.” Ten minutes later we were in position to ease up over the creek bank for a look. What we saw caught us off guard. “Turkeys”, Dian whispered. “How many?” I asked. “Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Twelve adult gobblers.” The birds fed into a slight dip giving us a chance to crawl over the lip of the creek bed and make our move. We set our sights on a small cedar tree 75 yards out and in the direction of the turkey flock. One of us crawled while the other kept an eye on the birds. By the time we reached the cedar tree the birds had moved slightly away from us. I gave a few hoarse gobbler yelps and the birds turned towards us almost immediately. Dian and I laid our plans. We hoped for a double. We all know about the greatest laid plans. The birds stopped their advance just out of gun range. Dian wanted to belly crawl a few yards to the right to put her into gun range. I suggested we rush the birds, scatter them and call them back in just like you would do with immature birds. I got a good scatter on the birds with the majority of them going straight up the hill. “I definitely do not want to go after those birds,” Dian said. “OK, let’s head after the three that scattered to our left.” Within five minutes we both settled by a walnut tree in a flat where two dry creek beds came together. We were 75 yards from where we first scattered the flock. Dian and sat 30 yards apart. I waited five minutes and gave three gobbler yelps on my Hunter Specialties mouth call. Immediately, I heard the faint yelp of a gobbler. I raised the bar a bit and became a little more aggressive. Two gobblers responded. The first bird was advancing from straight in front of me and seemed to be coming fast. The other yelped from a spur just above us. The first bird to respond covered ground quickly, but walked through thick, bottomland cover. I would have to shoot him at about 25 yards as soon as he broke from cover. That only took 15 minutes from the time I sat down. A load of 3-inch Winchester number sixes put the bird down cleanly. “Nice bird,” Dian said, but I still think I should have crawled on them. You just didn’t want me to kill the first bird!” “So, what is wrong with that thinking,” I asked. “You’ll find out soon enough,” she quipped. “The brilliant fall colors really do make it worth the effort, doesn’t it baby……….?”