Eyes Wide Open: A Turkey's View

Written By Kendra DeBerry, Fall Obsession Field Staff

Taking the time to view your surroundings through the eyes of a wild turkey while you're scouting or forming a game plan this turkey season will better your odds for success when trying to tag a mature tom. Keep your eyes wide open and try to see things in the perspective of a savvy bird.

Turkeys have comfort zones the same as we do, or anything else that lives on this planet. You just have to learn to see them as clear as you see your own comfort zones. It’s time to get in the head of a turkey and pick his brain.

Pay close attention to the patterns you find when scouting those favorite roosting areas and their fly down directions. Turkeys in the Southeast love tall pines, but also roost in big oaks, especially on ridge tops or near creek bottoms. You may find droppings around roosting trees, or scratching in the leaves in close proximity to the roost area also gives away the direction they love to go, once they’ve landed.

Logging roads, old road beds, and lanes cut through forest all become meeting places for wild turkeys to get their strut on. Toms love to show off for the ladies and what better place than a runway for better visibility on an old road bed.

You may see them in the edges of fields at times, gathered together chatting things up and working out a match up date. But you’ll be more likely see them hit the middle of the fields for comfort. There’s a better chance for them to see what’s coming after them while they’re busy with the breeding season.

Rainy days and windy days you will see them get smack dab in the middle of a field and hold up all day. They depend on their eyes and ears to survive and locate hens. If they can’t hear with a gusting wind or rain on a given day, they’ll be dinner on a plate for approaching predators.

I like to walk the perimeter of a field and find where they enter and leave the fields from congregation of tracks. This helps me in my decoy placement and blind set up. You have to know the comfort exits. The decoys just give that extra little bit of confidence to a solitary bird that he’s not alone in the field edges. Turkeys normally have exit routes mapped out pretty close together on a field edge. That way they have an option A or B in the off chance they have to make a quick getaway.

If your tom gets henned up in the middle with a boss hen, you may have to make her mad enough to run her own competition off. Do that and she’ll bring all her suitors with her. Where she goes, they go!

Remember to mark your hunting apps with dusting areas you run across. That’s a big comfort area. A horse won’t lay down for a nap or back scratch roll any where it does feel it’s safe from attack. Same goes for the wild turkey.

I hope that some of these eye-opening tips help improve your turkey-ology this season and in seasons to come. Get out there and become one with the turkeys.

Stay Obsessed and continued blessings!