Turkey hunting success rates hover at 20-30% nationally, or to look at it the other way, 70—80% of all turkey tags go unfilled. That is a ton of unpunched paper. Sometimes our failure to tag a bird has nothing to do with us. Turkeys might be henned-up, or not gobbling, or simply not there. Often, we don’t shoot birds because we screw up one way or another.
Here are five major turkey hunting mistakes, and how to correct them:
1. You Don’t Scout Enough
For a lot of people, including me much of the time, scouting consists of listening for birds to gobble on the roost and going home. Stay out longer, and you can learn when and where toms meet their hens, and when and where they leave them.
A few years ago, I watched two toms strut and gobble with their hens in a cornfield two days in a row. At almost exactly 8:00 a.m., both days, they split off from the hens, shut up, and walked into the same spot on a wooded creek bottom. The next morning I slept in, got to the creek at 7:30 and picked a comfortable tree. I could hear the toms gobbling in the field with their hens, then they went quiet right on time. I called softly, and twenty minutes later, one of those birds came in silently. I shot it at 30 yards.
2. You Give Up on Birds Too Soon
Years ago, when northeast Missouri was covered with turkeys, I went running and gunning with a local. First stop out of the truck, he struck a bird. When he couldn’t make it gobble again, he said “That one’s not hot enough, let’s go.” We made a big loop in the woods, and when we got back to his truck empty-handed, there was a gobbler standing on the trail, right where my friend had first called. It ran away. That stuck with me.
It turns out this wasn’t an isolated incident. Turkey Doctor Michael Chamberlain has recorded plenty of instances of radio-collared toms returning two or three hours later to the exact spot where a hunter (also wearing telemetry and now long gone somewhere else) had been calling. Patience is boring. Patience also kills turkeys.
3. You Call Too Much
Who doesn’t like to hear themselves blow a call? We all do, so I am guessing it’s not just me who struggles with calling too much. Western turkeys and Rios have a higher tolerance for over-calling than do easterns. (I cannot speak to Osceolas, having shot exactly one, and that via ambush). Call a lot to an eastern, and it may stop and gobble at you and not come closer. My natural reaction when they stop is to call even more, which may make them gobble more, but won’t necessarily make them come. I hate looking back and thinking about how many hunts I wrecked this way.
All that calling and gobbling may attract other hunters, other turkeys, bobcats, or coyotes, any of which can put a damper on your hunt. Call just enough to keep the bird interested. A few years ago, I challenged myself to cut my calling by about two-thirds. It’s hard not to call when you feel the urge, but it works. I tell myself that staying silent and making the bird look for me is actually aggressive. Also, I have learned the hard way that if I can see a turkey, it can see me. Calling to a turkey that can see you is a great way to get busted.
4. You Quit Too Soon
When my kids were young, I would drop them at school, drive to the woods, and hunt until 2:00 or so, when I had to go back and pick them up. It was an easy schedule to keep. Turkey hunting didn’t turn me into a zombie. And, by the time I got to the public woods, most people had gone home. I shot birds in those woods for eight or nine years straight through a mix of spotting-and-calling, blind calling, and running and gunning. Especially in public woods, turkeys seem to relax later in the morning when the crowds thin. I remember one morning in particular, when I got to the woods late and found someone still parked where I wanted to hunt. I went somewhere else for a while, came back after those hunters left for the day, slipped into the woods, fired up the bird they had been calling to, and shot it.
5. You Use the Same Decoy Set Up All Season
The strutter decoy, or even the jake, that brings birds running early in the season can keep them away late in the year when turkeys are tired of fighting. Adjust your decoys accordingly. Often, a lone, submissive hen, or even no decoy at all, works best late in the season.
A couple of years ago, I joined a friend in Wisconsin for a late hunt. He had scouted a field that had a tom with hens using it, and he had also patterned a pair of two-year-old birds that walked up the hedgerow on the field edge every morning at the same time. We agonized over decoys or no decoys, and finally decided a jake and hen would provoke the tom with hens. So we set them out and tucked invisibly into the hedgerow. The tom with hens never showed, but the two-year-old pair did, and they were walking up the hedgerow just as they were supposed to, on a course that would bring them past us for an easy double. At 60 yards, they saw our decoys, stopped, and, deciding they wanted no drama, turned to leave. Sixty is TSS range, and my friend shot one of the two, while I was left to add my tag to the 80% that go unpunched.