cautious, watch for turkeys and try to keep out of wide-open spaces. Finding
roosts and strut zones can often be done from a distance with binoculars.
Look for black and white barred wing feathers and tail feathers to locate
roost locations in the spring. Favorite roosting locations vary according to
where you live, but turkeys generally like fairly tall, open trees with good horizontal branches they can easily stand on to roost. Birds have a unique physical
feature which allows them to sleep in trees without falling out. When they squat
down on their legs, their toes respond by closing up tightly, locking around the
branch and allowing them to sit in trees asleep at night without fear of falling
off their perch.
You won't usually find a turkey roosted very far from a water supply and if
they can find a tree situated over running water, that is ideal. In any area, look
first at large trees with good horizontal branches near water. In my neck of the
woods, that means large oaks and sycamores and further west, cottonwoods. If
the terrain is hilly, try and find trees right below the ridge tops that are on the
leeward side of the prevailing winds for that time of year. If they can, turkeys
like to climb up above the roost on the ridge top and fly down to their roosting
tree. They then usually glide below when they fly down in the morning. Many
times the turkeys in my area will utilize large cedars or occasionally pines, when
available, to further escape cold winter winds. It’s also possible to locate roosts
by doing lots of walking through an area and looking for large wing and tail
feathers which often fall out when turkeys are flying up or down from the roost.
You can also look for piles of droppings which can be quite large when a turkey
uses a roost tree consistently. Droppings usually last until they are rained on
which will also help you determine how long ago turkeys were in the area.
Perhaps the easiest and surest way to find roost trees is to get there either first
thing in the morning or at sunset and listen for the birds flying up to roost or
calling on the roost. Most people have heard of the term "roosting a bird," and
this means you have been out that evening and found out, by owl calling or just
listening, the tree where a gobbler has roosted.
Dusting areas are harder to find; but if you run across one, they can be unbelievably good setup areas since turkeys routinely dust during the mid to late
morning hours. Look for an open area with loose soil where the birds have
scratched out a "bowl" of loose dirt they can sit in and kick dust over themselves. There are usually a lot of tracks, droppings, and feathers nearby since
they do spend quite a bit of time there during the middle of the day just loafing. Turkeys are really very clean animals and dusting keeps them free of mites,
ticks, and lice.
One of the most intriguing aspects of hunting gobblers is each turkey hunting situation is unique. But, if you scout well and learn the turkeys' habits, the
odds will be further in your favor when hunting season comes along. Also, once
you learn an area well, those favorite strut zones, roosts, etc. will be used year
after year as long as the habitat stays the same. I've consistently killed turkeys
in the same strut zone area year after year. And, don't give up on an area once
you kill a turkey there. Most often, another bird will move right in and use basically the same key locations as the previous gobbler. After awhile, these prime
turkey locations will become more apparent to you even when you’re hunting
an unknown area.
Turkeys in the spring can be very unpredictable; but the point is, if you know
the area and the turkeys’ habits well, setting up and calling one in can be made
much easier.