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OUTDOORS: Spook a flock of wild turkeys, then call them back
By David Thompson
The hunting season that opens Oct. 31 will give hunters opportunities to put a wild turkey on the dinner table on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day if they can wait that long.
A turkey raised on acorns, beechnuts, wild plants, and grain remaining in farmland after harvest is a bit drier and less fatty than a supermarket turkey. The latter turkey is juicier, but a wild turkey dinner has been traditional among hunters ever since the early colonists in America gathered with Native Americans to break bread together.
Indians who provided turkeys hunted them with bows and arrows. Today, harvesting a wild turkey with a bow and arrow is a challenge that most hunters pass up and instead use a shotgun. Even then, there is no guarantee that a hunter will bring home food for Thanksgiving.
A turkey hunter needs to already know or soon find out while hunting where turkeys currently live. A squirrel hunter or archery deer hunter may have seen turkeys or heard them call earlier in October. If so, that area is a good place to hunt on opening day and later in the season.
If you don't know where to hunt, you must start from scratch and scout for turkeys. Look for turkey feathers on the ground, droppings, and places where turkeys raked leaves with their feet to uncover acorns or other food. Finding those signs, you can hunt with the confidence that turkeys are or have been in that area.
Most turkeys in the fall live in flocks when hunting season starts. They roost together in trees at night, travel extensively together to feed and drink during the day, and fly up to roost in trees again at dusk. If they are not roaming the woods looking for food, they linger to rest.
Most turkeys in a flock are the young that hatched last May, which makes them about six months old now. They are almost fully grown but not as large as mature hens and gobblers that are members of the flock. The mature turkeys constantly watch for danger. They won't allow you to approach them within shooting distance. Instead, you must call them to you.
It is to your advantage to be in the woods before dawn to listen for turkeys that call before or soon after flying down from their roosts. Using a turkey call, you can try to call one or more turkeys to come toward you. You'll need to wear camouflaged clothing, a head net or camouflage face cream, and brown gloves to avoid being seen.
Before calling, you will set up on the ground where you are hidden. With your back against a wide tree and sitting on a cushion or mat for comfort, you stay as still as possible after calling. If a turkey answers you, you respond by occasionally calling until it comes within shooting distance.
You can call a flock to you, and at other times, the flock will travel in a different direction. If a flock appears to be leaving, you can intentionally move quickly toward them and try to scatter the turkeys so that they run or fly in different directions. Spooked turkeys will want to regroup as soon as possible. If they are well scattered, you often can call some of them back to where they had been when they flew away.
Scattered turkeys that hear you call may return in 10 minutes, one or two hours or not at all. It pays to be patient.
Two calls that are worth trying to coax scattered turkeys to come are the "lost call" and the yelps and clucks of a mature hen. The lost call is a series of high-pitched whistles made by young turkeys that are lost or scattered. Find out what lost calls sound like and practice making them with a diaphragm mouth call or other manufactured call.
Mature hens in a scattered flock will call to other turkeys by yelping and clucking. Turkey calls available at sporting goods stores produce yelps and clucks. Practice making yelps and clucks until you are satisfied that they sound realistic. In the woods, any time that you hear a turkey call, pay close attention to the sounds. Then, imitate what you heard as best you can.
Turkey hunters are no longer required to wear fluorescent orange clothing for safety. However, the Pennsylvania Game Commission recommends that turkey hunters do wear blaze orange. You need to use your own judgment. If nothing else, you can carry a fluorescent orange hat and put it on when walking or if you see another hunter when you are set up and calling.
It is legal in the fall hunting season to harvest either one gobbler or one hen. The hunter looking for a real challenge will hunt specifically for a mature gobbler having a long beard on his upper chest. Such a gobbler sometimes hangs out with a flock and other times will travel alone. He is extremely wary. An old gobbler's yelps are louder and deeper than yelps made by mature hens or young turkeys. If an old gobbler answers your calls, answer him with a few yelps or clucks. Then wait, watch and keep still.
Due to land development, logging and changes in farming practices, the turkey population appears to be lower in some areas. You may need to look for different places to hunt that are farther from home. The alternative is to hunt for fewer turkeys at nearby hunting places, and finding them may take longer than before, or you may never locate them.
Turkey hunting in the different wildlife management units ends on different dates. Locally, you have until Nov. 15 to harvest a turkey. Farther north, the season lasts longer and eight units there have a bonus "Thanksgiving" season Nov. 25-27.
The fall turkey season overlaps with archery deer season and squirrel and grouse seasons. These hunters are in the woods at the same time. Turkey hunters and archers on tree stands will wear camouflaged clothing and be difficult to see. Small game hunters, who are required to wear fluorescent orange, will need to stay alert for hunters wearing camouflage. Squirrel hunters using .22-caliber rifles are not permitted to hunt turkeys. Only shotguns and bows and arrows are legal for turkey hunting.
A wild turkey of any size is big enough for a holiday meal. If leftovers are wanted for the next day, you'll want to bring home a mature turkey if the bird doesn't outsmart you.