It’s crunch time, the fat lady is warming up and she is dressed for the final curtain call. Whatever grandiose battle plans you may have, the moment of truth shall be revealed in the remaining seven hours and two minutes. Not that anyone is counting…
Apply what you have learned during the course of the past four weeks, play it old school, add in a dose of good fortune and you’ll send the fat lady packing before show time. With exceptions noted, late season is in general more about conservative tactics, having very recent sightings, and locations of birds willing to talk.
Gobblers here in CNY are acting like mid June birds with the hens long since bred off. There are pockets of hens reported back with the gobblers,. In the thousands of acres I check on frequently in Cortland County, I’m seeing bachelor groups of longbeards, bands of marauding jakes and single hens out and about later morning grabbing a quick meal before returning to their nests. I’ve been seeing bachelor groups and single gobblers without hens the entire season this year.
With a very late green up and a suppressed population of wild turkeys, running and gunning has in my opinion schooled a lot of the birds. The tactic has been less fruitful for the past several decades as the population declined in my experience. It has been a relatively quiet season in Cortland and the tendency to get antsy and move with very little cover makes for smarter birds. If you follow my musings you know I like my gobblers without an advanced education in hunter tactics and maneuvers.
You are appealing to social gatherings of less than forty yards for turkeys. Confidence calling, feeding purrs, whips and whistles light clucks, and very soft yelping. If one drowns out your call with a more than insistent gobble, get ready as they may not gobble again and come in silent. Late season encounters often conclude in minutes not hours. Both of the two birds I won over started and finished this way with minimalist calling this season. The only clue I had one coming for my second tag was a single cluck then a jake yelp when I responded with a cluck and too very soft half yelps. The jake stayed back, and longbeard came straight in.
Woodsmanship plays a big roll in late season success, the scouting you did last June may yield the clue that puts you in close to where bachelor groups hang. When chasing hens no longer overrides their need to eat and replenish their fat reserves you’ll find them at likely food sources. Creek bottoms offering shade in the increasing temps are often a place to find them late season. All the scouting you did in March and April gives you a database of choice roosting trees, dusting bowls, and strutting areas. Most of the seasoned hunters I know actively scout as they hunt through May. Weeks old Intel has limited use as they are either moving to find receptive hens or hanging with other gobblers. If you can sight a gobbler going to roost tonight you have a crucial clue for the morning. I normally would say listen for gobbling on the roost, but there has been precious little of that in the evenings this season.
If you do get a hen that challenges you, match her and if she goes all in, add one more note, it either escalates quickly or whimpers out. Girlfriend mouthing off gets the boyfriend in trouble far more often than not.
Turkeys have been chased for four weeks and any mistake you make will in most cases result in a hasty exit. Attention to details on anything you wear or carry that makes an unnatural sound, the way you walk through the woods, calling too loudly, snapping twigs underfoot, are all subject to the scrutiny of a very wary bird. It is this scrutiny that amplifies what you can employ to your advantage. Using your fingers to imitate scratching for food in the leaves, using the brim of your hat to imitate a hen stretching her wings and scratching it on the tree bark is a far more effective call than you might first think.
Should you get a bird to gobble it should be noted that what you thought was two hundred yards three weeks ago is well under a hundred yards and closing. They often won’t gobble until very close, nearly in range the last week of the season, and if you aren’t focused and ready you may miss the opportunity.
As they are not talking much now, any sightings are key tactical data. If you can get out and roost tonight, it may be the final and most useful clue for the last day. With the foliage fully out you can get in close but you’ll have to be there very early tomorrow morning. Hunt all the way to your spot, and all the way back to the truck, the entire hunt can turn around in seconds and the action can be fast and furious. Stay sharp, safe, and alert.
Best of luck the final remaining hours of the season. Now if I can get this lady off my damn shoulder…
-MJ
© 2020 Mike Joyner- Joyner Outdoor Media
RSS - Posts