Turkey Fever Research Paper

Turkey Fever

There is no wonder so many folks have caught the turkey fever across America. Turkey fever has become the remedy for cabin fever for many outdoors people and for good reason. There are very few things greater than to see a big gobbler strutting along a ridge-top on a cool spring morning especially if they are heading your way. The woods are greening up and the birds are singing as you hit the slate lightly to keep them coming and two of the old strutting toms let out a gobble and swell back up to display those tail feathers. One of the gobblers begins to spit and drum as they slowly approach your decoys. Ahhh, spring turkey hunting can sure wake you from a long winters nap. Getting outdoors after a long winter can be exhilarating,

Shock calls, also referred to as locator calls, can be your best friend when finding turkeys on those pre-season scouting trips. There are owl calls, crow calls, and gobble calls and any of these will shock a turkey into gobbling and it is important to carry all of the above calls. One of the calls may fail to work at all and a turkey will just stop responding to that call if you use it too often, but a different call might fire them back up. I use a crow call, a gobble call and a big flashlight as my shock calls. Yes, you read that correctly, my favorite shock call for locating gobblers is a big flashlight that I hit on the side of my aluminum jon boat as I search along the shoreline for active birds. I usually always hunt public land and most have lakes around them so I use a jon boat to access the turkeys. The flashlight method works great and I have used it during all times of the day and it will get a gobble when other calls won

There is one trick that works well when you think the turkeys are decoy shy. Sometimes after the turkeys have seen several decoy set-ups and barely survived a couple, they can really shy away from decoys. If this is happening in your hunting area, try using a burlap sack or camouflage material to cover the decoys until you need them. Tie a length of fishing line to the sack or mesh placed over the decoys hiding them from the turkeys you are calling to. If you have the gobblers coming in without showing the decoys then great, but as soon as they hang up out of gun range just slowly pull the string uncovering your decoys to see if they will come on in. If you use a stationary blind this is also a great way to leave your decoys set up for the next hunt. You don’t want turkeys seeing your decoy set while you 're not there so just cover them when you leave. Now you can ease into your blind and pull the string to uncover your decoys without exposing yourself to nearby roosted gobblers. You might need to place a couple rocks on your cover to keep the wind from blowing