By Drew Simon | April 17, 2011

With opening day just around the corner here in Missouri, things are starting to get fired up for me. This will be the first time that my dad and I will get to hunt opening day together in about 7 or 8 years so there is a lot of work for me to get done so that we will have a successful hunt. Here are a few things that I do in my prep work that helps make me successful in the turkey woods and hopefully they will help you.

         First things first, I like to look and walk around the property to get a feel for the land. The lay of the land has the power to make or break a hunt. Knowing where things like fences and creek or other likely spots to hang up a tom are valuable pieces of information to know. There have been several times that I have slacked off on leg work and got burned when I set up on a tom and had him hang up and walk off to only later find out that there was a fence or a creek between me and the bird. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to call a bird across a creek or get him to crawl under a fence because I have called them across both. It’s just easier to work a bird when you know there is nothing to stop him between you and him.

         The second thing I like to do is go out several mornings and evenings before I plan to hunt to listen to where the birds roost at and where they fly down to. I like to spend a little time after they fly down and before they fly up to see where they are going and where they are coming from. I take a map with me and I try to pinpoint them every couple of minutes. I mark where they go and it allows me to pattern them. My success rates go up a lot when I know this little bit of info. It’s probably the hardest part of scouting because you don’t have the drive to get up every morning like you do when you can hunt. I also pack my map with me when I am hunting, it seems to me that every once in awhile that I get lucky and find strut zone where the birds like to go. By having the map with me, I can mark it down and add it to my mental map. Spots that you know birds are going to and want to be are spots that you can ambush birds. You don’t have to be the best caller to kill these birds. When you can call a turkey to where he wants to go, your job just got a whole lot easier.

Drew Simon- Call Master from Reality Driven Pursuits on Vimeo.

I know these first couple of tips seem elementary and probably a no brainier for most people, but they are the two most important steps you can’t afford to miss. I travel and a lot of the times don’t have time to do these steps but I can promise you that if you take the time when you hunt to jog these mental notes about where a turkey goes each time and set up there you will be more successful.

         Now on to my specialty, calling turkeys. As some of you may have seen on the Master of the Calls segment, I can run a turkey call fairly well. Being able to call has its definite advantages but it’s not the only calls that I use turkey hunting.

         As far as the calls I use, it’s mainly yelps and a few cuts and clucks and purrs. I know there are a lot of calls in a turkey’s vocabulary but those are the ones that you tend to hear the most. I personally don’t do a whole lot of cuts; I usually will add one in here and there but my bread and butter is yelps. For all the time I spend in the woods listening to turkeys, it seems that is what the majority of the talk is. Granted there are times that you have to get a bird fired up and that usually means that there is some cutting in order.

         Usually for me, if I know the tom has a lot of hens, its time to get dirty. I usually try to get the hens fired up with some cutting and a few kee kees and try to bring them in. I usually stop paying attention to the toms knowing that where the hens go the toms wont be far behind. Once I get a hen to start answering me, I just mimic what she does. If she yelps three times and then cuts, that’s what I do.

         When things go right and I don’t have to do all the other stuff, just a few simple yelps and one of my most secret weapons will do the job. Soft yelps a few scratches in the leaves has killed more turkeys for me than anything else. It’s the only call that I use that isn’t made from a call. Scratching the leaves is one of the best confidence calls that you can make in the woods. For me, it makes the tom think that hen is over there feeding and usually means that he needs to be there soon. My dad is the one who taught me this trick and he has killed more turkeys than anyone I know with just a few soft yelps and scratching in the leaves. I personally know that at least the last half of the turkeys he has killed since I have been born were from about a half dozen yelps and then until the bird was in sight, scratching in the leaves. He tends to use this little tactic more than me but it rates high on my list of things to add realism to my set up. If you can make that tom think that the hens are ignoring him and just hanging out, he can’t stand it. Usually that leads to the death of him.

         Those were a few of my family secrets that have led to the death of many turkeys. Hopefully they will help you this spring to bag your next big bird.