Spring is in the air for turkeys
Toms looking for romance can make easy targets for hunters, but fun still lies in challenge
On April 4, when darkness gives way to the first gray light of dawn, another spring turkey season will be born across most of Texas. Time for turkey hunters to get their game faces on and steady their nerves for what can be one of Mother Nature’s most exhilarating shows.
Those who don’t share the passion for spring turkey hunting might call us April fools, but we know better. The only fools in this game are those who have never taken the time to play it on the colorful stages across Texas.
When spring is in the air, tom turkeys get in the mood for love. Texas turkey hunters take to the woods hoping to spoil the romance with dirty tricks meant to throw a mature gobbler into a breeding rage that results in a fatal mistake.
Spring is the mating season for wild turkeys. It is a narrow window of time when boss gobblers revved up on testosterone are prone to act silly and make dumb mistakes.
The birds communicate among themselves through signature body language and a wild symphony of distinctive turkey talk.
Many of the wild turkey’s sounds can be heard from a considerable distance on a crisp spring morning. Perhaps the sweetest music to the ears of a spring turkey hunter is the resonant rumble of a dominant male advertising his services to the ladies.
Male turkeys, called “gobblers,” engage in boisterous gobbling to attract hen turkeys that are receptive to breeding, and to discourage other gobblers from moving in on their turf. Gobbling often is followed by other pompous displays of self importance like strutting, spitting and drumming.
Gobblers may be vocal throughout the day, but they typically talk the most trash soon after pitching from their roosts at first light. With any luck, the tough-guy act will swoon all the girls in the area before any competition comes calling.
In the wild turkey’s world, it is common for receptive hens to seek out the guys, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes the gobblers go mobile looking for girls that are
playing hard to get.
Spring turkey hunters attempt to exploit the sexual urge. They use assorted calls to make seductive yelps, purrs and other sounds to simulate the language of other turkeys.
The idea is to fool a lovesick tom into thinking they are something they are not and ultimately lure the regal bird into shotgun range, 40 yards or less.
Not every spring gobbler winds up being an April fool, but a bunch of them do. The most recent harvest data from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department shows 42,543 spring hunters reported a harvest of about 18,000 birds in 2018.
My guess is there is a different story behind each one of those gobblers because no two turkey hunts
are the same.
Calling a mature gobbler into shotgun range can at times be so easy that doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. The gobbler falls for the trick and comes barreling in like a puppet on a string.
One shot. Lights out. End of story.
Other times, it isn’t so simple. Some birds may gobble once and never say another peep. Others might answer an invitation repeatedly, all the while heading off in the opposite direction.
Anyone who has spent much time chasing spring gobblers will agree. It is the mystery and the challenge that keeps most hunters coming back season after season.
Season forecast
While Eastern and Merriam’s populations continue to struggle across their
native range, Jason Hardin of Texas Parks and Wildlife says Rio Grandes are booming.
Texas’ Rio Grande populations typically cycle between 450,000-600,000 birds, depending on breeding and recruitment success during previous years. Hardin believes their numbers are pushing the high end heading into this season
“It should be a great year,” he said. “We saw good nesting seasons in 2014-16, and we saw another exceptional hatch last year that gave us another big bump.”
The biologist says there are a surplus of juvenile birds on the landscape from the 2019 hatch. Plus, there are still plenty of mature gobblers that carried over from the 2016-17 breeding seasons.
“Our harvest rates are usually super low, so there are still a lot of 3- and 4-yearold birds out there,” he said.
Adding to the banner spring hunting outlook are current range conditions that are pointing towards another successful nesting season.
“Things are setting up just like last year,” Hardin said. “We had an early green up that helped the
hens get in good shape. They started nesting early and poults were on the ground early. We’ll see another big bump in numbers if the conditions stay like this. There’s a lot of potential to grow the population.”
The best time to go spring turkey hunting is whenever you can, but Hardin thinks mature toms will be most vulnerable when hens are sitting on nests and incubating eggs in the latter part of part of April.
“Around April 21 is when a lot of the hens usually start nesting,” he said. “As soon the hens start sitting, the toms are going to start getting lonely. That’s when they’ll be the most willing to come to a call.”
Hardin added that early season hunts in the South Zone also can be fruitful.
“Toms are ready to go, but the hens are not,” he said. “That can make toms more vulnerable to calling and decoys. Once the hens become receptive around the end of March or early April, the gobblers become much harder to call. You can catch a hot tom at any time during the season, but the normal biology of the bird drives the toms to be more cooperative early and late.”