4 Great Turkey Hunting Tips to Kill a Tom

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As anticipated, the tom traveled down a well-used game trail. It came in silent, not gobbling one time at the seductive hen calls I offered. It broke into a semi-strut once but cautiously withdrew its wet feathers. Its pace was slow, but when its head transitioned from a drab flesh color to red, white and blue, I knew it was game over.

Slowly the tom kept coming my way, head up, searching for the calling hen amid the tall brush. When it hit a creek in the bottom of a draw, I called one more time. The tom emerged, continued down the trail, and walked right into my lap. At 13 yards, a payload of size 7 TSS fired from my .410 put the tom down.

It was opening morning. Temperatures were in the mid-30s. It had rained much of the night. A slight drizzle was falling when the tom came in. I’d been catching the lone tom on trail camera for nearly a month. Five other toms owned the big timbered ridge, running off jakes and other toms that infringed on them. But the lone tom wouldn’t leave. Instead, it withdrew into the timber, courting hens that traveled deer and elk trails and roosted in the towering Douglas fir trees, above.

If you want to trick a tom, sometimes you have to beat them at their own game. I had little confidence in calling that tom out of thick cover, so I went in after it. No decoy was used. I wanted the tom to keep looking for the calling hen and moving closer to where I sat against the base of a fat fir tree.

Hunt The Timber

When my turkey hunting career commenced 39 years ago, I religiously focused efforts on open habitat. I struggled to pull wise toms out of meadows and across fields. Then, nearly a decade later, it rained for most of the spring season. Due to the amount of rainfall, turkeys were sticking to heavy cover. That’s when I started hunting them in the trees and brushy habitats amid river bottoms.

Since that season, hunting turkeys inside cover has accounted for numerous birds of various subspecies in multiple states. It’s also increased the number of days I hunt. I used to wait for sunny days to hunt turkeys, as that’s when toms seemed to be most cooperative. But where I live in the Pacific Northwest, rain, high winds, cold temperatures and even snow will be encountered at some point in the season. I wanted to hunt turkeys on my time, not theirs.

Knowing adverse conditions force turkeys into wooded areas, brush, and protected hillsides for relief from the elements, it only makes sense to hunt them there. Fortunately, turkeys have a poor sense of smell, so on windy days, hunt with the wind. Your calls travel far with the wind. The drawback is you won’t hear a tom gobble in high winds, especially if it’s a long way off. Call and be ready to shoot, as toms in these conditions can come in fast and alert, searching for the hen.

I don’t often use a decoy when it’s windy or raining in thick habitats. The goal is to keep a tom looking for a hen, and the closer it comes to you, the higher the percentage of connecting on the shot.

On calm days, I often use a hen decoy when hunting in trees and brush. A Dave Smith Decoys Preening Hen decoy has been my go-to choice when hunting in cove. Hens in many of the areas I hunt spend a lot of time preening each day under forest canopies. Placed on a deer or elk trail, or in small openings on the forest floor, this decoy can be a magnet for big toms. Two seasons ago I tagged all three of my Oregon toms in big timber using this decoy.

Strutting Decoys

The goal of many seasoned turkey hunters is to draw toms in close, not to see how far they can kill them with amped-up loads, extra full chokes, and turkey guns that pack a powerful punch. “I use a hen decoy with a strutting tom decoy all season long,” shares noted guide Jody Smith (jodysmithguideservice.com) of Elkton, Oregon. “I set them no further than 20 yards from the blind and ask clients not to shoot until a tom is at the decoys.”

Smith hunts private lands where tom to hen ratios are high. This has been the best scenario for my using a strutter decoy, too. When toms are prevalent, competition to breed runs high, and this big, puffy decoy sends a specific message.

I like using strutting tom decoys in fields, meadows and coniferous and hardwood habitats offering good visibility across the forest floor. The goal is for a tom to see it and come running in to meet the challenge. If they approach through thick cover and are suddenly confronted by a strutting decoy, they sometimes turn and run. Put it where they can see it from afar.

If toms are leery of strutter decoys in your area, turn to a hen and jake setup to pull them in close. Last season, buddies and I took multiple toms using the new Final Approach Live Jake Decoy with a flocked back set alongside their Live Breeder Hen Decoy. One morning this setup pulled 13 toms within 15 yards of our blind over the course of four hours.

Be Mobile

When hunting turkeys throughout the West, being mobile is one of the biggest keys to success. Oftentimes mountains, steep ridges, thick cover, and even sudden weather changes keep toms from moving to you. This means you have to go to them. Think deer and elk hunting, with hiking boots, good binos, proper clothing and a day pack that affords mobility.

When running and gunning, I like Sitka’s Turkey Tool Belt. It holds all the calls I need, including water and a cushion to sit on. No blind is necessary, and often I leave the decoy behind.

If you locate a tom at a distance and it’s not budging, sneak to within 100 yards and start calling. Start with light yelps and get more aggressive if a tom is reluctant to budge. Having multiple calls can be the ticket here. I like Slayer Calls complete line of diaphragm calls, both for their range of sounds and durability. This will be my fourth season using them, and the reeds and tape are still in perfect condition, and I use them a lot.

I also like having two pot calls: one slate, one glass. With four strikers this equates to eight different sounds that can be generated from the two pot calls. A box call rounds out my mobile call arsenal. If a tom is gobbling at every sound you make but not getting closer, and there’s no way for you to move in, going through all the calls until you find what the bird likes, is sometimes the only way to fool them.

Trail Cameras

Trail cameras can be one of the most valuable tools at a turkey hunter’s disposal. I currently have over 130 trail cameras set out, nearly half of which are Moultrie Mobile cellular cameras. Trail cameras are your eyes in the woods when you’re not there, allowing you to be many places at once, all day, every day.

Set them pointing up and down trails, on the edges of meadows and fields, near creeks, on dust bathing sites, and anywhere else a turkey might travel. I like setting them one to two feet off the ground to not only see how turkeys are behaving but to hear the sounds they’re making. They’re also a good gauge of predators in your hunting areas.

Trail camera operations for spring turkeys intensify in February. Much of the breeding where I hunt begins around the third week of February. Knowing this, my goal is to capture tom and hen behaviors and monitor the arrival of new toms. As winter flocks of hens split up, follow them and cover their spring feeding and nesting grounds with trail cameras because wherever hens go, toms will follow.

Set all trail cameras on video mode, as a 15-second video captures much more than a still photo. The number of times I've caught one hen or tom on camera, only to hear numerous toms gobbling and fighting off-camera, is surprising and has led to many successful hunts I otherwise would have missed.

The art of turkey hunting is to draw toms in close. Set your standards and shot distance and stick to it, doing what’s necessary to pull a tom within that range. Doing so will make you a better turkey caller and build your hunting skills. If you botch it, so what? That’s how you learn. There’s always another day in the turkey woods.

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