Turkey Scouting

Scouting for Spring Gobbler Season can be an arduous, thankless process of slogging through the cold woods looking for sign. Or then not. I have a system. I get up before sunrise and pour myself a cup of coffee and then step out onto the front porch. I owl a little in between sips, and if the gobblers over on the next ridge are ready, I get a gobble in return. Some years I get it on the second weekend in March. Sometimes I get it on the third. When I can get a gobbler to answer, I know season is on it way.

Then I can go around to the back of the house. The weekend after the gobblers start answering on the front of the house, I can be pretty well assured that I will be getting gobbles out of my backyard turkeys. As the flocks come out of the bottoms and work their way up onto my ridges and hollers, they come up into the oak grove directly behind the house and shortly thereafter, they’ll be into Hootin Holler, Gobbler’s Knob and the rest of my spread.

Sure enough, at first light this morning I had coat on and a cup of coffee in hand. Into the darkness I gave a single “Who-cooks-for-you-“ Before I could get to the second part, a gobbler was answering. It was time to venture to the back of the house.

I tried three times to no avail, and I was about ready to go in when a gobbler over on the neighboring property sounded off in answer to a hawk. It’s a bit early. The temperature is down in the mid twenties. I give them another week.