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| Aggressive Moves For Early Bird Gobblers |
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| By Donald Devereaux Jarrett |
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Originally published in the February 2010 issue of AON
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The author and his 17-year-old son, Devereaux, with a gobbler they took on the 2009 turkey opener using a soft, but “first-to-speak,” type of aggression. Donald said the hunt will always stand out as a hunt where minimal calling was required. Sometimes the gobbler will pitch out to the first “hen” he hears at daylight.
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Opening morning of the 2009 turkey season had arrived, and I couldn’t think of a time when I was more eager to get the season going.
I had scouted the area I would be hunting a couple of days earlier and had found four mature gobblers and a wad of hens roosting on the edge of a wide, flat hardwood bottom. I had set up within 75 yards of the roost and listened as the spring woods came to life. The birds were gobbling well that morning, and at one point one of the gobblers had had me in a tizzy, strolling past me at 30 yards. I eventually saw four good gobblers and watched as seven or eight hens bailed out on top of them.
Two days later, on opening morning, my oldest son, Devereaux, and I were easing into that area to set up. It was a chilly morning, but I was shivering a little more from the anticipation than the temperature. Devereaux was just a few weeks shy of turning 18, yet he had never killed a turkey. I believed this was going to be his best chance yet. I barely slept the night before and had played out numerous scenarios in my mind concerning our hunt, but I have hunted enough to know that the birds, more often than not, usually seem to come up with one I haven’t thought of.
We were seated by a big pine tree about 75 yards from what I hoped to be the gobblers’ landing strip, and I hoped to be able to pull one in from there. We sat quietly for the next half hour.
Eventually daylight began its push into the eastern horizon, and Devereaux asked me if I planned to owl hoot. I told him we would just wait for the old boy to wake up on his own. Within five minutes, a bird gobbled from a monster pine tree down in the oak flat.
That is when my mind went into rewind mode and ended up all the way back some 12 years earlier. I had been experiencing a bit of bad fortune on my morning hunts. It seemed every bird I set up on always lived to see another day. I had gotten myself into a rut by letting every bird on the limb dictate my every move. I vowed to change things up on that particular morning 12 seasons ago.
I had managed to set up on a creek across from a flat just within a hundred yards of the boss hen. All the gobblers were a good 100 yards down the creek. Normally I would be overly cautious to avoid upsetting the hen, but that day was different. I decided to throw caution to the wind, and the minute she opened her mouth, I hammered her. I could see her on the limb as she turned to face me. She began cutting profusely in my direction, and I answered each of her profanity-laced yelps with a vulgar serenade of my own.
The gobblers down the creek were tearing it up, and within 30 seconds she pitched to a spot 25 yards in front of me. She carried on for the next 10 minutes as I watched seven longbeards approach from down the creek. Five minutes later, there were six gobblers retreating into the creek bottom while their buddy lay flopping wildly 30 yards in front of me. When they were out of sight, I eased over to my prize and was elated to wrap my hand around legs sporting spurs of 1 1/4 inches.
I could have easily run in the ditch from this point of my turkey-hunting career and started aggressively calling on every morning setup, but past whippings warned me. I did, however, begin to incorporate this style of early morning aggression in more hunts, and when used in the correct situation, it has often been deadly. Remember that in turkey hunting, the words “always” and “never” don’t apply. However, this technique has worked great for me, after years of fine tuning.
This isn’t the only way to show aggression on a turkey hunt. Your willingness to be aggressive in the turkey woods starts weeks before the first turkey gun ever roars.
Pre-season Aggression: Never, ever take a turkey call in the woods prior to the season. However, be aggressive in trying to find birds before opening day ever arrives.
Prior to the beginning of every season, I spend three weeks to a month in the woods scouting. It’s hard to slip in on an opening-week bird if you don’t have any idea where one is. There’s nothing wrong with going out and trying new morning spots occasionally, but if you’re planning on trying to achieve an ideal setup and an early season score, it’s best to plan ahead. Your goal should be to know the area and the birds that live there before you hunt.
When I scout birds in a roost area, I try to watch the birds and pick up on things I might be able to use later on a hunt. It might take two or three trips to pick up on any habits or patterns a gobbler has. When you discover something as valuable as a particular direction he goes when he leaves the roost or where he prefers to pitch down, you’ll want to hunt this bird opening week. These patterns are very likely to change, especially on public land where pressure is high.
In my pre-season scouting, I don’t try following a bird when I’m scouting for fear of spooking him and messing up everything I’ve learned about him. I think you can learn enough by sitting, watching and listening at the roost sight to kill a good number of birds.
I watched a gobbler on three separate mornings one spring just before opening day. He had a habit of pitching to the same little hump on a side hill about 75 yards from his roost tree. There wasn’t a good place to set up on the hillside, but that didn’t matter.
Once the bird pitched to that spot, he would go to the bottom where the hens flew down. He always traveled around a large patch of plum bushes. There was a big oak tree about 40 yards from the end of the plum thicket. It was a perfect spot to work the bird the morning I went in to hunt him.
On that particular morning, the gobbler pitched into the bottom instead of on the hill. I called a few times, and before the hens that were roosted in the bottom could fly out, he was working his way up the hill toward me. I believe he thought a hen had pitched to his normal fly-down area, and he felt comfortable traveling toward me on his usual morning route.
That routine travel route cost the 3-year-old his life. When you get there on the morning of the hunt, you’ll have some options for setting up that will allow you to get in the best spot to work a bird, depending on which tree he spent the night in — or where he decides to pitch out.
Some good pre-season scouting put this bird in the freezer.
Early-morning Aggression: There are two types of aggression where turkey calling is concerned. The first type is the kind we all think of when we think of aggressive turkey hunting — loud cutting and yelping. Then there is the other type of aggressive hunting that simply means being first.
We have all heard the old boss hen cranking it out at first light. Knowing this, we often strive to let out the first “hen” yelps of the morning. Often, a cutt is the first sound we want to make. However, cutting is not as common as we would like to believe. It is a great way to get a bird fired up sometimes, and it’s about a given the boss hen is going to give you a lashing if you use it around her. Your cutting will either aggravate her enough to make her come over with a big gobbler in tow, or it’s going to tick her off enough to pull the plug on the whole show.
I have had a tremendous amount of success by being the first one to speak to a gobbler at the morning setup without ever “raising my voice.” Gobblers wake up ready to go, and I have had gobblers get very interested very quickly, just because I grabbed his attention first. This early morning aggression of the soft variety brings me back to the 2009 opening-day hunt with my son, Devereaux.
When the bird gobbled, I immediately decided to let him know I was there. I scratched out three soft yelps on a slate. He hammered back. Within five minutes we watched as the big bird glided into the landing strip below. Five seconds later another gobbler lit within 10 yards of the first gobbler, followed by a hen that landed next to him, as well. The birds strutted briefly and began walking straight toward our setup. I soft yelped two times to steer them into a shooting lane. Within 60 seconds, Devereaux dropped his first bird. The other gobbler and hen quickly retreated.
As long as I am blessed with a memory, I will never forget the seconds before Devereaux shot or the emotional celebration that followed. It will always stand out as a hunt where minimal calling was required. In fact, I can’t think of another hunt where I called less to a turkey that ended up going home with me.
Just because you hear the word “aggression” in turkey hunting it doesn’t always mean loud, wild calling. Taking an aggressive approach to simply be the first bird to speak to a gobbler can often put him over your shoulder.
Aggression on Far-off Gobblers: A few days after the hunt with Devereaux, my good friend Bobby Knight and I ventured to a favorite WMA. We would be hunting a particular creek bottom where our preseason scouting had given us reason to believe we would be toting a bird to the truck that morning.
When we reached the end of the roadbed that overlooked the creek bottom, we opted to stop there and wait for the birds to crank up. We probably heard five or six birds over the next 10 minutes, but nothing was really close to us. In fact, the closest birds we heard were a couple of hundred yards away and on the opposite side of the creek. We decided to drop into the wide, flat bottom and set up.
As mentioned earlier, if the bird is close, I will generally start softer. However, on this morning with the closest birds 200 yards away, I decided to start with a little more volume and sass. By the time we got set up, the gobblers were on the ground, so I immediately did two fly-down cackles on my best box, and the two gobblers across the creek went ballistic. A couple of hens in the proximity of the gobblers woke up then and began to shout their disapproval, but it was too late. The gobblers had already begun making their way toward us, and within minutes they were just 100 yards away but still on the other side of the creek.
Things got quiet for a couple of minutes as Bobby and I hoped the birds were navigating a place to cross the creek. Sure enough, within five minutes two longbeards appeared on our side of the creek. They cautiously approached our position as they strutted across the wide creek bottom. They began veering to our right, and when they got in range I dropped one.
It was another case of aggression paying huge dividends. It’s a tactic that won’t work every time, because no tactic ever does, but it is another piece of my arsenal I resort to quite often.
Quiet Aggression: I used to set up at least 125 yards from every bird I had on a limb in the morning, even after pre-season scouting. I’m not sure why, but I rarely got closer. I think that is why so many birds I thought loved me ended up losing interest instead of running over me. I’m a firm believer in giving yourself a chance, so if you can get tight on a bird without blowing him off the roost, it’ll up the odds of rolling a bird. The key is go early, be quiet and get tight.
If I’m hunting pressured birds on a WMA, which I usually am, I like to get within 100 yards of a bird. This can be tricky, especially by the time the season gets into its second week. It doesn’t take long for a gobbler’s preferred roosting area to go from a remote spot on a creek bottom to anywhere up and down that same bottom for a mile and a half. Pressure will scatter turkeys all over creation, and haphazardly strolling through the woods toward where you think birds are roosted can sometimes result in flushed birds and a ruined morning hunt.
However, you can avoid bumping birds on the way to where you think they are roosted by watching for birds silhouetted against the morning sky. This is especially effective during the first weeks since the leaves aren’t in full foliage yet.
I like to arrive in my general hunting area with plenty of time to creep slowly toward my expected setup place. Running behind schedule and hurrying to get set up generally results in another victory for the birds. I’ve had entire flocks of birds come out of trees before day, nearly sending me into cardiac arrest as they exploded from the roost.
You need to take your time, and the only way to do that is to give yourself plenty of it. You might still bump a bird, but it’s less likely if you slow down.
Once I arrive at my planned setup area, I’ll just wait for him to gobble. Even though pressure will cause the birds to start roosting in different areas, it helps a tremendous amount to at least be where I think he’s supposed to be roosted. Often I’ll hear him 100 to 400 yards away, close enough for me to still slip in quietly. Also, it’s usually still dark enough that I can get set up within 100 yards of him. Also, I can’t tell you how many birds I’ve heard gobble that I walked under in the dark, which is another reason to go early and be quiet. I don’t mind back-tracking for a gobbling bird.
I believe a turkey is generally comfortable where he roosts, and I believe the comfort zone around the roost is generally inside a 100-yard circle. So, go early, be quiet, get tight and settle in.
Aggression and Hens: I think there are more hens today than ever before, and as a result they factor into more and more hunts that end without a gobbler over our shoulders. We are accustomed to dealing with them in the mornings. I have put birds to bed in the evenings thinking they were all by themselves, only to return in the morning to find him literally covered up with hens. A general rule is we can expect a bunch of hens for the first several weeks of the season with fewer as the season goes along.
The number of hens will often determine how I will work a bird. I like my chances with a half dozen or fewer hens around. More than that generally ensures a long hunt.
The biggest decision you’ll have to make with hens is whether you plan to challenge them or try to get them to accept you. I generally let my decision rest on where the hens are roosted in relation to the gobbler. If they are close to the gobblers, I don’t get too aggressive. I believe if the hens are roosted close to a gobbler they will be more apt to take your presence as a direct threat if you start out too harshly.
I have had better results trying to get them to accept me by using soft calling. If they are closer to the gobblers than you are, they are more apt to go to the gobblers and head in another direction if you get too heavy on the calling.
So, when a hen goes the other way, it’s not always that they are trying to steal the gobbler and run. I think sometimes the hens are either intimidated or they just don’t like a loud-mouthed hen that they don’t recognize. He just ends up going with the hens he can see. That, to me, is why it’s so important to play it safe and go soft when dealing with a hen that’s close to a gobbler.
If the hens are a good ways from the gobbler, especially if they are farther from him than I am, I might be more apt to pour it on hot and heavy. I don’t mind calling a little louder or kicking up a fuss in this situation. If I am closer to a gobbler than the hen, I want to get his attention before he starts thinking too much about other options. I feel like I have a better chance of convincing him to come my way if I sound more interested in meeting up with him than the hens down the creek.
I was working a bird one morning that was probably roosted about 100 yards from me. He had hens roosted past him another 150 yards or so away. Even though I knew I was set up a little closer to him than the hens, I knew he could go either way. He stayed on the roost for 30 minutes or so, obviously trying to decide which way he wanted to go. He gobbled constantly at the hens and had answered my tree calling at daylight, but I was starting to get nervous and felt like he would soon be pitching down and heading to the real thing. I decided to ditch the plan of waiting for him to fly down. I gave a fly-down cackle and immediately did a loud assembly call.
He was in easy gun range within five minutes. He was either going to stay on the limb until the hens hit the ground or until a hen said something that made him want to fly down. Either way, getting loud and aggressive proved to be the right choice on that particular morning.
Evening Aggression: Aggression doesn’t have to be reserved for morning hunts. You can apply it to evening hunts, as well. I enjoy employing an aggressive approach to hunting birds at their roost sites. Here again, you’ll need to do some thorough scouting to determine where it is the birds like to roost. Of course, your morning hunts will tell you where birds like to roost. If you find birds in an area several different mornings, they are likely spots to try and evening-aggression setup.
I will often spend the last couple of hours of an evening hunt in a roosting area. It’s important to hang in there until dark. I have left areas thinking the birds weren’t coming, and I’ve bumped them as I was walking out.
Make plans to set up for at least a few hours. Turkeys can fly up as early as an hour or more before dark or as late as five minutes before good shooting light ends.
I’ll call every half hour or so, just to let the big gobbler know I’m in town. I don’t do much elaborate calling, just some yelps, clucks and purrs for the most part. Scratch in the leaves some to sound like a hen feeding.
Eventually a gobbler heading toward his roost area might come in early if he hears you calling. I have also had gobblers loafing in the area of the roost well before fly-up time. I believe they were planning on roosting there and had the same idea I did about getting there early in hopes of intercepting the first hen that showed up. I can think of a dozen evening birds right off the top of my head that never made it to the limb that night.
An evening hunt can be tough to stick out, especially later in the season. It doesn’t get dark until late, and the days are long. You’re worn out and thinking about supper. However, you need to be committed, or aggressive, in your approach to stay in the woods until fly-up time.
Season kicks off next month. This month begins the first stage of aggression as you start your pre-season scouting. And, the next time you have a little trouble killing a bird, you might want to get aggressive, one way or another.
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