We made a total of 4 scouting trips before the season opened in May. We knocked on doors, drove roads, studied maps and tried to understand where to concentrate our efforts. We saw a few birds on those trips, not many but certainly some. We did hear that a tough winter had taken their toll on Turkey numbers in some areas, but we tried to be positive and enjoy learning the country.
The other thing we did was try to learn about Turkeys. Lots of you-tube videos helped with that, but a lot of those are Eastern Turkeys hunted in fields. Merriam's Turkeys, and the area we were looking at, were certainly different. I have read that hunting Merriam's can be like hunting Elk - lots of hiking and climbing to find birds. That ended up being our experience.
We also got calls and tried to understand how and when to use them. In the Turkey world, so we read, hens go the the toms, not much the other way around. So, when using a hen call, it was best to set up where the tom wanted to go. Also, using loud calls (such as a Crow, Owl, Coyote howler) are apparently effective to make a tom shock gobble - that is respond to a loud noise and give away their location. Certainly was interesting to learn about. On one of those scouting trips, while hiking a ridge a mile from the road, I heard a tom gobbling all on his own. Pretty exciting to hear! I also saw one flying - a few hundred feet over my head while hiking. I knew they could fly, but this one was up in Eagle territory! At least we knew there were some in the areas we were looking at.
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