Embrace the challenges and rewards of wildland turkey hunting

Finding the flocks

When you’re scouting, the easiest way to locate birds is usually with your ears. Male turkeys have an almost irresistible urge to “shock gobble” when they hear certain noises, and there are many calls available to elicit a shock gobble, including hen calls. 

Getting a Tom turkey to gobble can help you locate flocks from a distance, and in areas where they’re not easily visible. Another option is finding a vantage point where you can view a lot of country and use binoculars, or a spotting scope, to locate flocks. While turkeys in a green pasture can be conspicuous, they blend surprisingly well into timbered or brushy terrain. 

When scouting, remember that in many parts of Idaho, turkeys may not remain where you spot them in early spring. Turkeys typically follow the snow line up in elevation as it melts and green forage becomes available, so if you scout too early, the birds may be gone when the season opens in mid-April. And where you found them in early or mid April, they may have moved on by May. 

You can also hike in the woods and look for sign, such as tracks, feathers and scat. Dirt roads, especially those gated, can be good places to find turkey sign in the spring and give you a clue where turkeys are feeding or passing through. Recently scratched up earth can show you where they’ve been feeding, lingering and dusting themselves. 

Turkeys tend to like areas that are a mix of trees, brush, and meadows, or grassy slopes. Logged or recently thinned areas are often magnets for turkeys because they provide a good combination of open terrain and mixed vegetation. 

Always be on the lookout for a roost tree, which can be the motherlode of turkey hunting because the flock will often return daily to that roost site unless disturbed. 

Daily patterns vs. seasonal patterns

Turkeys will often have a daily routine where they roost, feed, wander and return. They tend to be most active and vocal early and late in the day. 

If you understand their patterns, you can pinpoint an area to hunt them. But as earlier mentioned, turkeys also have seasonal movements, typically moving up in elevation during the spring similar to deer and elk as they search for fresh forage.

That migration may be slow and steady, so you may have a chance to locate flock again where you first spotted them, or nearby, but a little higher in elevation. Turkeys tend to return to the same general areas each spring, so you may find them again the following year if the snow has melted and weather conditions are similar.