Merriam Turkey Hunting Early Season: How to Find Success

Merriam’s are the second-largest subspecies of wild turkey, behind the Eastern. Populations are spread across the West. Though pockets of Merriam and Rio Grande birds have mixed, creating hybrids, pure Merriam strongholds are sprinkled through the Rockies and canyonlands.

Merriam birds are known for boisterous but weak gobbles, short spurs (rocks wear them down), and willingness to come recklessly to hen calls.

Labeled by many turkey hunters as the easiest of the four wild turkey subspecies to call in, Merriam birds are far from dumb. Though well distributed across the West, predation in the mountains and cedar-dotted canyons these birds call home is high. Numbers in many areas are scarce. It's not uncommon for a tom to walk miles searching for love.

Merriam’s are nomadic, opportunistic feeders that roam, making them difficult to find and, at times, ultra-difficult to hunt.

Merriam's & Early-Spring Hunting

A resident of Colorado, I've chased Merriam's from grassy mountainsides at 10,000 feet to rugged, remote canyon systems that cut through the state's southeastern half.

I've learned, especially during early spring when morning temps are still frigid, that still-in-winter-flock birds have a knack for finding spring's first green-up, and for this reason, paying attention to where February and March rains and snow hit, whether you're hunting public or private land, is essential.

I fancy myself a bit of a weatherman. I pay for and study upgraded apps like NOAA and the Weather Channel that allow me to track storms in real time via radar. I want to know where moisture hits and how much.

In the Rockies, birds will congregate at or just below the snowline. Birds will favor south-facing areas that receive more sun and create shoots of green. These areas will also be where the first bug hatches occur, and since insects make up over 50 percent of a wild turkey's diet, birds will be in these areas.

If you're hunting the cedar-dappled canyonlands, which are rich throughout much of the West, snow may or may not be on the ground. In my neck of the woods, other than a few skiffs of white, we didn't have serious snow accumulations above 6,000 feet after March 10.

However, I knew exactly what areas were impacted by that snow and that two of those areas had received a pair of significant rainfalls. Those were the locations I'd concentrate on.

History With An Area

Merriam’s, like elk, are where you find them. However, I've strung some hot spots in my 25-year Merriam tenure. This was one of those locales. My 19-year-old son Hunter and I smiled as we rolled down the dirt road. Unmelted snow hid in the shadows of large cedars, and two prairie ponds we drove by were full of water. The prairie grass was turning green, and I spied strut marks across the dirt road where it snaked into the deep canyon.

I told my son that I'd never seen turkeys in this area in 10 years of hunting this 13,000-acre chunk of dirt. That is until we came around a corner and spied four toms and 12 hens.

I was shocked. Hunter was fumbling with the video camera, trying to capture footage. With nowhere to hide the truck and no play, we sat in the Chevy for an hour, waiting for the birds to work up the creek.

My goal as a turkey hunter is to be a continual learner. We parked the truck, slipped through the cedars, and went to the small sage flat where the birds were. As I suspected, it was all about the green. A small cut in the flat had collected water. The cut was only 80 yards long by 15 yards wide but loaded with vibrant green shoots. The area was pounded with tracks and droppings.

There aren't many food plots in the mountains and canyonlands. Small, isolated green-ups are the next best thing. When you find them, pin them on your favorite hunting app. If they get moisture, these areas tend to get green quicker than other locales year after year. This was the first time I'd ever seen birds in this area, but looking back on my notes, I found several inscriptions noting how dry the front half of the canyon usually is. Keep a turkey journal to help you remember things and bag more birds.

My history with this location and my February/March moisture-tracking missions had me pressing to check two locations: a massive sage flat off a south-facing slope that always gets green quickly, even in drought years, and an old field likely plowed in the early 1960s.

The current rancher has tried to plant the field a time or two since, but drought conditions and August grasshopper plagues killed that idea. The field has been dormant for over 12 years. Still, the dirt represents a semi-open area where birds can strut, and it follows a small waterway leading to sage flats. Like whitetails, Merriam birds love waterways. Waterways funnel their movements, and in the short tree (cedar and pinion) canyonlands, pockets of ancient cottonwoods thrive, providing roost sites. Keep that in mind.

The sage flat was green and beautiful as expected but had little turkey sign. We cut a tom track or two and found some old, dry droppings, but not what I'd expected.

On the other hand, the field was a vibrant golf course, no different from a short-grass mountain pasture. Heavy spring snows pushed down the heavy, desiccated weeds, and upon inspection, the low-lying green was freshly sprouted vine weed.

Ungulates love vine weed because it's incredibly high in protein. My son found a matching set of elk horns while we were scouting the field. Aside from the many deer and elk tracks, the field was a maze of turkey tracks. Tracks were going right, left, up the field, and down. There were strut marks and tracks on top of the tracks.

We'd discovered the most abundant spring food source in the remote, rugged canyon, and the birds were there. The field sits directly off the small waterway between one of the birds' favorite roosting sites and the small cut where we'd seen the birds strutting earlier in the day.

Time To Execute

Evening turkey hunts get a bad rap. In some states I've hunted, evening hunting is strictly taboo based on state laws. Always familiarize yourself with state hunting laws before making any trip.

You can hunt turkeys from 1/2 hour before sunrise to sunset in Colorado. I take advantage of every minute when I'm in the field.

It was only 11 a.m., Hunter and I had done some speed scouting, and were planning to hunt, camp, and resume the hunt the following morning if unsuccessful. I was confident my son was going to punch me. I thought about punching myself, but I wasn't ready to be done.

Knowing the birds would likely hit the vine weed groceries between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.; I placed a mixed spread of Avian-X and DSD fakes downriver. I didn't want to disturb the main flock or any other birds in the area and cripple our late-afternoon chances, so we walked to a location where two small canyons feed into the main canyon. I'd never hunted the area before but always wanted to.

As I sat out my jake and two-hen combo, I noticed a few tracks and some scratching in the area. Fifteen minutes later, a pair of two-year-old birds were in the decoys. The duo came in silent. One was missing some tail feathers. It was 11:45 p.m.

Don't buy into early-season myths that birds only follow the main flock of hens all day because breeding hasn't commenced. Many top turkey experts believe that most turkey breeding in areas across the U.S. happens before a given state's opening day.

I'm not sure why I didn't let the Maxus II loose. I was itching to test Winchester's newest turkey load—Long Beard TSS—but I also didn't want the hunt to end. The one gobbler I saw when Hunter and I were driving into the canyon was a beast. Plus, I'd never seen so much turkey sign in the canyon. There was a pile of hens, which meant many toms were in the area. I wanted to see what would happen on the vine weed field.

Time To Finish

By the time 4:30 p.m. rolled around, Hunter and I knew we had toms on the way. It was a gobble fest. It wasn't a matter of whether a tom would soon be in the decoys but which one.

We were tucked into the heavy shadows and branches of two cedar trees, which make great turkey hides. My Leupold BX-4 Range HD Gen 2 binos told me the distance to the fakes was 25 yards, which I figured was ideal for a 2-3/4-ounce payload of #9s.

A gaggle of jakes were first on the scene. They dinked around and acted tough with my jake decoy a few times before working off. The tom came on a run. A booming gobble echoed seconds after I let out a soft hen yelp. The bird was across the creek, but before I could blink, I heard a single wing flap, and then, he emerged from the cedars and violently attacked the jake decoy. His fan was white and beautiful, and I let him put on a show for three minutes. Finally, Hunter, who was tired of filming off-hand, said, "Dad, would you kill him already?" And just like that, my 2025 spring Ranching For Wildlife Tag, which allows me to hunt in Colorado in specific locations beginning April 1, was over.

I'll never know if this was the canyon king, but his thick, heavy beard and long-for-a-Merriam spurs told me the bird was old. He was heavy and beautiful. Adding icing to the cake was the fact that birds were still gobbling, my son was with me, and we'd done our job and done it well.

Final Thoughts

If you're craving a Merriam hunting adventure, the West is turkey-rich and loaded with public tracts of dirt. When Colorado's general turkey season opens, my two sons and I will make multiple trips into remote open-to-anyone canyons, follow the same game plan, and come out with white fans bobbing behind our heads. You can, too!

---