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Taking Toms Is Tough In Fall

by Dan Small

Hunting turkeys in fall ought to be easy, right? Drive by almost any hayfield in turkey country and you'll see big flocks of them out cleaning up the last of the grasshoppers. Bowhunters claim they walk under their treestands all the time. These groups are mostly young birds - one or more broods, shepherded by an old hen or two. The classic approach is to locate a roosted flock before daylight or surprise them when they're feeding in fields or woods. Shout and clap your hands a few times and they'll scatter in different directions. Then you hunker down and start calling like a lost youngster. In theory, they come right in, talking to each other all the way, since they've never been alone in the Big Woods. Pick out the one you want and pop it. That technique works - some of the time, but it's hard to compete with Mom's voice, and she often succeeds in calling the brood back together out of gun range. Still, you will occasionally bag a bird this way. Make a serious effort to hunt adult toms in fall, however, and you'll waste some gorgeous fall days chasing frustration.

On a spring hunt, you go one-on-one with a gobbling tom, attempting to convince him you're the sweetest Jenny in the valley. In spring, gobblers have so much testosterone fanning their fire that sooner or later, even a mediocre caller like me will bring one close enough to shoot. In fall, though, Tom has no interest in Jenny at all. Wouldn't fall in love if she dragged her tailfeathers right under his beak. In fall, toms wander around together and fill their crops with acorns, waste grain and bugs. Their only conversation consists of an occasional yelp-yelp-yelp or a cluck or two. They don't care much where they're going or when they get there, as long as there's something to eat, and if you do manage to bust up a gobbler flock, they're in no hurry to get back together.

And so it was that I spent most of last week first scouting, then hunting, in hopes of bagging a tom. To further complicate matters, we tried to tape the hunt for Outdoor Wisconsin. I enlisted the help of expert turkey caller Randy Christensen, who manages the archery department at Gander Mountain in Wilmot. Randy and two camera crews and I set up blinds, roosted birds, busted flocks and sat and sat and sat. We saw plenty of birds, but could not get them to go where we wanted them to. The biggest slap in the face came when our camera broke down as we were wrapping up a morning hunt. We headed for town and lunch, and there were eight big toms casually feeding in a hayfield next to the woods we had been hunting!

Outdoor writer John Wallace, whose 19.25-pound tom held the state record when turkeys were first introduced in the Necedah area back in the 1960s, shared some advice when I told him the troubles we had been having. "I've come to the conclusion the only way to hunt turkeys in the fall," Wallace said, "is to guess where they're going and get in their way." Stay tuned as we keep trying!

One incident last week reminded me just how important it is to keep safety in mind while turkey hunting. When scouting one afternoon after the camera crew left, Randy and I had separated in a small wood lot. I came looking for him and saw what I momentarily took for a turkey's head bobbing back and forth. It was Randy's arm, beckoning me to come toward him! At first I had seen only his moving arm, as his camouflage blended perfectly with the tree he was sitting next to. I wasn't carrying a gun, but in that brief moment, I realized how easily an overeager hunter might have shot his partner.

September 16, '97: WCSFO taking a shot in the dark?
September 16, '97: More Online Fun!
September 1, '97: Hunt, Fish, Shoot, Scoot Online!
March '97: Sports Show!
January '97: Award Seeks Good Nominees

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