A fallen fall turkey is a real trophy By Babe Winkelman Harvesting is lovesick spring gobbler isn’t easy. But the general strategy is. Think about it: you know you’re dealing with Toms that are on a quest to score with hens. So you gravitate to a favorable location close to known roosting sites. You set up a blind, put out a decoy or a combination of hen, jake and/or longbeard decoys. Then you make the calls of a lonesome hen in need of company to elicit a gobbling response. You stay still and coax the dizzy gobbler into shotgun or bow range. Bang. You’re done. Now, a lot can go wrong in this simple scenario. Even though gobblers are driven by a desire to breed, they still keep their wits about them. Their eyesight is just as keen, and their instinct to flee the scene if things aren’t right is just as strong. So even though you know just what’s in a big Tom’s head, he’s still hard to kill. In the fall, he’s harder to get. He’s not driven by desire. He’s driven by necessity to eat and not get eaten. Simple as that. So how in the heck do you go about harvesting a fall longbeard? There are generally four ways to hunt autumn birds: ambush, spot-and-stalk, scatter/call-back and flock calling. Ambushing is a great way to score, if you know the lay of the land and the behavioral patterns of the birds you’re after. For example, if you have a predictable roost site, and know that at some point during the day the turkeys feed in a certain field or scratch in the same places, then you can approach fall turkeys like deer hunting. Set up between bedding and feeding areas and wait. Spotting and stalking is a fun way to bag a bird too. This requires a lot of time spent glassing and studying birds. If they’re loafing on a field, hillside, ridge or whatever, you can creep within range. It’s tough, because their eyes are so amazingly good. Plus you’re typically dealing with flocks. A pack of 17 has 34 eyes – all on the lookout for you. Only the best stalkers equipped with great camouflage and a lot of patience can pull off a successful stalk. If you see a flock marching, then it’s time to put on the gas and get yourself in front of them to intercept a bird. The scatter & call back method is a very proven fall technique. If you’re after a mature Tom, this really isn’t the way to go. That’s because Toms are not terribly social in the fall. They don’t care about the hens and poults. They’re more likely to hang out with other Toms as they vie for their pecking order in the flock. When scattered, they take their sweet time getting back to other birds. But if you’re content with a hen or poult, go ahead and do the scatter technique. Find a flock, run into them making as much racket as you can and try to bust them up into as many different directions as possible. Then hunker down, wait a few minutes and make some standard yelps and purrs. If you get a response, or hear a turkey in the distance calling independently, mimic that bird. Give the same call right back to it. The turkeys desperately want to regroup for security, and if you imitate their language then you can’t go wrong. If it is only a longbeard you want, and if you want to get him by calling, then calling to a gobbler group is the way to go. The one thing that never changes among gobblers is their disdain for one another as they rank in the pecking order. And they’re always up for a fight – or at least to watch one and see how it unfolds. So here’s what you do: imitate a turkey fight. Fights are loud, so you need to make a lot of noise with fighting purrs, cutts and clucks. And remember that turkeys fight with their whole bodies, so mix a lot of wing beats, thumps and brush busting into the symphony. It’s helpful to have a buddy work with you as a team to accurately duplicate the sounds of a drop-down-drag-out fight. One guy can call while the other guy beats the wings and brush. For safety’s sake, make sure you know you’re hunting in an area where there are no other hunters while doing this. If you succeed on an autumn longbeard, then my hat is off to you. It’s quite an accomplishment, and we’d like to hear about your success story and see a picture of your bird at Winkelman.com! Good Hunting! Babe Winkelman