Best Spring Turkey Tips for Texas

Howdy y'all, I've been spring turkey hunting for 2 years now. I've killed two decent birds, but only by walking up on them. I want to get an idea on how to effectively decoy and call in a big boss Tom. I currently hunt in Hico about a mile from the Bosque River. I know they're are 4 resident flocks on my place. Any and all input appreciated! Thanks!

Patience. Think beginners try to move too much. If you know where they are then just get hidden and call every 30min or so. If one starts to play the game I'll generally let them gobble a few times before calling back at them. Once they're under a 150yds or so I rarely call.

Scouting is the best thing you can do. Know the lay of the land. Find out where your birds go when they come off the roost. Find out where he wants to be mid morning. This is done by scouting listening and glassing.

Roost a good one in the afternoon then set up on him early the next morning.

Be where the turkeys want to be..do your scouting and know their travel corridors. Set up somewhere along it and get covered up.

Let the turkeys dictate you're calling. If they're hot, you be hot. If they aren't responding, tone it way down. Call sparingly.

Face the decoys toward you. Might keep old tom from hanging up at a distance, and he'll have to turn his backside to you to face decoy, giving you that moment to make an adjustment if needed.

Scratch the leaves with your hand just like the hens do. I've harvested a ton of turkeys just doing this. Scratch...pause...scratch, scratch...scratch.

Good luck and good hunting. Nothing more fun than having an old loudmouth gobbler come struttin in.

Gman

I definitely plan on doing a lot of scouting starting in the next couple of weeks. My plan is to set up a pop up ground blind in a hot location and if that doesn't work out then get out and move around. Also, I currently have 5 usable decoys-is that too many? Any call recommendations? Camo recommendations? I want to get it right this year and not just rely on luck and walk up on a bird!

The birds could change their patterns a couple of weeks before the season begins, so keep that in mind and don't make any final preparations until just a few days before the season. This is SOP for turkeys in the spring.

I think the more decoys, the merrier. I like to use a strutter early season, and less as the season move on.

Nothing is cast in stone in turkey hunting and the hunters that adapt to changes are the more successful hunters.

Good luck, and good hunting

Gman

If you are going scouting, Don't do any turkey calling, use a crow or woodpecker call!!!

The easiest way as stated above is to watch them the evening before and put them to roost (watch which tree they fly to and mark for morning). Then, slide in early morning and set up about 50 yards from the tree without them knowing your there. Pretty easy to get a tom to fly down to your hen decoy. Not a lot of sport in the hunt, but tons of sportsmanship in finding them the day before.

As you get better at calling and decoying them, you can graduate to trying to get them on their way to and from bedding/feeding.

Be careful, turkey hunting can get very addictive.

Good advice above. The easiest turkey to call in is one that you are where they want to go or between them and where they are going. If you do not get one off the roost to you, hang in there, have killed lots of gobblers later in the morning. Once they get tired of the hens they are with early, often they will come to calls looking for other receptive hens.

Get several calls and learn to use them, some gobblers will like one call while others will like another. The worst hen turkey sounds I have ever heard in the woods were from a turkey hen. Get the cadence right and you are a long way to being able to call them in.

The more vocal the gobbler the more vocal you can be in calling him in.

Do your best to setup so there are no obstacles between you and the gobbler like fences, creeks etc. Things they will cross without thinking about it suddenly become huge obstacles when trying to call one in.

Turkeys are not that smart but are paranoid as all get out, bundle of nerves that everything is out to eat them. Have seen turkey out feeding walk up and down a fence for 2 hours before remembering it can fly over. After all they are working with Bird Brains and never heard that term as a complement or sign of great intelligence.

Sent you a PM

Kind of a random tip, but I learned this the hard way.

In your scouting, get a sense of where the low-lying areas are that might have sheet water after a good rain. As reference above, turkey's don't like crossing water and in my experience that includes soggy ground. If you have some standing water between you and a tom, no matter how interested he is, he probably won't go through the trouble of getting wet to come to you.

There are few things more frustrating that watching a big bird strut towards you like the world is about to end only to give up at 60 yards and turn away.

best spring tip, sleep in, 2 hen deeks between 8am and noon, cool crisp morning after storm

I've killed 75% of my birds between 9am-12pm after they break from their hens. Nothing like running and gunning through mid morning