Fall Turkey Hunting 101: Shaking Things Up for Better Success

Every day of the year, turkeys form groups in the morning, seek favored food sources throughout the day and roost in trees in the evening. But how and where they do these things can vary dramatically from spring to fall, and there are three main factors that drive these variations.

The first is food availability in the relatively wet spring versus the relatively dry fall. Second is a change in the kind of habitat hens seek. During spring they’re focused on locating ideal nesting sites, while in the fall they search for feeding areas where their young offspring can fuel up to make it through winter. The final factor involves the way turkeys interact with each other during the spring breeding season versus the fall feeding season.

Hunters who recognize and adapt to the changes fall brings to turkey behavior tag more birds. Here’s how to hunt through the day to do just that.

DAWN PATROL

Turkeys always start the day in roost trees. They have a strong preference for trees surrounded by relatively clear ground since they fly down around dawn when ambush predators like bobcats are active. Turkeys do not want to land right next to brush concealing a bobcat.

In the coastal ranges of western Oregon and Washington, they will often choose big firs next to a recent clearcut or farm field. In more arid, open areas, such the side slopes of the Rockies, they will often choose ponderosa pine stands with little undergrowth.

Preferred roosting areas change from spring to fall. In the spring, turkeys gang up in small breeding groups, with one or two roosting trees providing enough room for each group.

In the fall turkeys can form much larger groups, depending on the local population. No longer concerned with too many other hens competing for “their” gobbler, older hens actively seek out other turkeys, especially other hens with young-of-the-year offspring. Where turkey populations are strong and the country open, such as some parts of the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon, as many as 80 hens, jakes, first-year turkeys and a few toms may roost in the same area, spread out among many trees.

I’ve come to believe that you lose more than you gain by trying to set up close to such a large group of roosting turkeys in the fall. There’s too high a likelihood that one or many of them will spot you, and all the turkeys will fly away from you at fly-down. A better tactic is to stay out of sight, but within hearing range of the roosting area.

Large hen groups of turkeys, even those that have attracted some satellite gobblers, are led by an older hen that guides the flock through their day. Not only do large flocks of turkeys make a lot of noise when they fly down, several older hens may contend for dominance each day, and they are very vocal. You can hear them when they fly down and determine what direction they are headed to feed for the day without crowding them.

The idea is to be between them and where they want to go. Usually, it’s easier to scout out where fall flocks are feeding than it is to precisely decipher where they are roosting. Get set up between them and their feeding area, sit tight and wait for them to filter their way to you, and you’ll have a shot.

MIDDAY MAGIC

While most spring turkey tags are filled within a couple hours of fly-down, when unattached gobblers are most likely to come to a hen call, your chances of success in fall remain good into the middle of the day. The turkeys are relaxed now, and they often adopt stable roost-travel-feed routines that may not change for days.

Hen groups will almost always spend part of the day feeding in openings, on bare hillsides, in Douglas fir clear-cuts or in irrigated pastures, depending on the habitat. The main reason for this is that the hens are herding around rapidly growing poults. Those growing young birds need lots of protein.

In the fall such openings have large populations of cold-doped insects well into the morning, as well as an assortment of grass and weed seeds. These constitute a rich and easy-to-catch food source for young turkeys racing to gain weight before winter.

In most jurisdictions hens are legal game in the fall, so if you know which opening the turkeys are using, get there before they do in the morning. Pick a spot at the base of a tree inside the woods leading to the opening where you suspect the birds will pass, and wait.

Fall turkeys like to move through semi-open stands of trees as they head to feeding openings. Stands of trees that give them some cover from the eyes of distant predators, but also allow the turkeys to move easily and see any predator from 30 or 40 yards, are preferred. In western Washington, Oregon and California, turkeys will also feed as they move through oak tree stands, and they’ll scrape pine needle duff for grubs and pine nuts in ponderosa country.

In fall, using calls to convince groups of turkeys to move to you is difficult. Toms have no reason to go to hens, and groups of both hens and toms will expect single turkeys to come to them.

However, if you can tell that a group you are after is going to pass just out of gun range, you can make contented feeding noises and some of the turkeys may come to you to get in on the food. If you can run a hand-held call and a mouth call at the same time, so you sound like more than one feeding turkey, you’ll be that much more convincing.

If you are determined to tag a tom, you have two choices: You can attempt to kill one of the satellite males traveling with a hen group, or you can try to find and ambush a smaller group of older males that feed by themselves.

To pick off males traveling with hen groups, use terrain to your advantage. Toms associated with a hen group often clump together outside the flanks of the main body of hens and poults. They also seem to like to be on the uphill side of hen groups when traveling sloped terrain. So, if I think the group will travel across a slope or approach a field through a saddle, I’ll position myself well up the side of the hill (though obviously within gun range of most of the slope).

Small groups of older toms are the other option, but they are harder to find. Toms have recovered from spring breeding season and leisurely feed on a wide variety of foods, which allows them to stay in cover more than hen groups.

If you do find them, first figure out which way they are going. Once you do, stay well away from them and try to get in front of them. Your call tactics—either silence or contented feeding—are the same as when hunting hen groups.

LATE-DAY ACTION

For hunters who have patterned a turkey group, the late afternoon can afford an excellent opportunity to kill a bird as the group loops back to their roosting area after a day of feeding. For hunters who are still looking for turkeys, the afternoon presents a chance to spot them in an opening and track their movements to the roost, either for a quick set-up or simply to figure out where the turkeys will be the next morning.

If I need to look for new groups of turkeys to hunt mid-season, I usually do it during the midafternoon when turkeys are moving and feeding. I try to cover a lot of ground and spot the turkeys in the distance rather than use the slower stop-and-call strategy spring hunters employ.

Changes in habitat since spring can also help narrow the search. The widespread green-up in spring allows small breeding groups of turkeys to scatter across the landscape because food and water are widely dispersed. But in the fall, dry weather and heat will have eliminated many tender plants and forbs and reduced the moisture content of the foods turkeys are eating now.

In the fall it’s a good bet the home range of any group of turkeys will include some water—spring seeps, creeks, stock ponds, irrigation ditches and irrigated farm fields or orchards. Water not only allows a drink, but the greenest plant food sources in fall are likely adjacent to water. Often, their morning route from roost to feeding areas will pass or cross water. Water has another benefit for hunters. Turkeys can’t swim and they usually won’t fly across even narrow streams unless they have no other option. That means culverts, hiking bridges, and stock-road and fire-control-road bridges all funnel turkeys.

Tagging a fall turkey depends on finding them and understanding how they use and move through their habitat. From start to finish, tagging a turkey can take 12 minutes or 12 days. Stay focused, look closely and hunt smart.

FALL TURKEY HOT SPOTS

The West’s best locations for chasing birds in autumn.

In many parts of the West, turkey populations are stable or even growing, and multiple states have generous fall seasons. If you are looking to expand your turkey hunting horizons, perhaps while on the road for a big game hunt this fall, add one of the following stops to your itinerary.

Washington: Pend Oreille, Stevens and Ferry counties in northeast Washington has topnotch Merriam’s hunting, with a mix of private land and large public lands in a forested and somewhat wetter climate than most of the inland West.

IDAHO: Turkeys are huntable in much of the Gem State, but consider focusing on the Panhandle and the southeastern part. The Panhandle might be a great choice for multi-state hunters, because it is adjacent to and shares the quality of the northeast corner of Washington.

OREGON: Two regions stand out here: the southwestern and northeastearn parts of the state. Some of the highest success rates occur in the Melrose, Rogue and Applegate units in the southwest, but the highest public-land success rates occur in the northeastern Blue Mountains.

CALIFORNIA: There is a string of counties in the north-central part of the state that boast the top harvest numbers. Moving roughly north to south, these include Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Yuba, Nevada and El Dorado counties.

MONTANA: This is a big state with a big turkey population. In the southeast part of Big Sky Country, a good bet is the Custer National Forest. In central Montana check out the Charles M. Russell NWR. In the western part of the state, focus efforts in the Intermountain Valley regions.