Before you can start hunting turkey in the Spring, you have to be able to find them first, and that’s half the battle. On some days, the turkeys will be plentiful, while on other days, you won’t be able to find even one. In order to make your hunting experience a lot easier on yourself, here are five important tips to keep with you in order to find turkeys during the spring season.
1. Using Owl Calls
When looking into hunting during the spring Minnesota turkey season, one really good tool for you to use is an owl call. Because owls are returning during the spring in order to hunt and nest, their presence is going to get stronger. Owl calls are known to cause a “shock gobble” from turkeys, which is where a turkey gobbles in reaction to a loud sound. An owl call has the long-range sound waves that are needed to shock a turkey into gobbling.
2. Using Crow Calls
Crow calls are great to use in the middle of the morning or the afternoon when turkeys are most likely to be silent. An owl making a sound during these times isn’t really going to work, so you have to resort to other means, and that is a crow call. Crows caw throughout the day, and can shock a turkey into gobbling as a response. It can help if you’re familiar with the normal travel routes of birds so that you can use your crow call in a normal area and see if any turkeys respond.
3. Finding Turkeys With Trail Cams
Although trail cameras are usually used to locate deer, they can also be put to good use to find turkeys as well. There are some affordable trail cams you can set up to see if there are any turkeys in your area, which directions they’re coming from and heading in, as well as how many turkeys are traveling together. You can set it to run all day or you can choose a time-lapse mode that takes several photos over time if you want to save on battery life.
4. Glassing
Glassing is another term for using binoculars in order to find turkeys. This can save you a lot of time trying to trek through the woods, waiting and listening for turkeys. If you can spot them beforehand, then you can create a plan to set up some blinds to hide in so that the turkeys in that area won’t spot you.
5. Returning To The Same Spot
Lastly, one of the tips to your advantage is to return to a spot where you last heard a turkey call. It could be a male circling back to where he heard a number of females. You could also return here and use a hen call of your own in order to attract a male.
Learning how to locate gobbling turkeys can be tricky business, as you can go days or even weeks before you hear another bird. But sticking with it and maintaining your patience will pay off in the end and make all of your efforts worth it.