Sound advice: More gobbles on horizon
Every sleep-deprived Texas turkey hunter walking down a dark two-track or slipping along the edge of a pasture an hour ahead of a spring dawn aches for the morning to be a perfect one, when everything follows the classic script defining this singular, mesmerizing game.
The universal vision goes like this: The night-hidden hunter stakes a hen decoy to the ground, then quietly snugs to a seat at the base of a tree by the opening perhaps 150 yards from where, the evening before, he’d heard long-bearded gobbler go to roost.
As dawn pinks the sky, the tom shakes himself awake and looses the first of a series of branchrattling gobbles. When the shadows of night evaporate from the opening, the hunter uses one of the dozen calls he carries to offer a few soft clucks and purrs, an imitation of a hen.
The gobbler thunders a response, flies down from the roost and gobbles again. The hunter answers with a perfectly pitched enticing yelp and hears the gobbler rattle another throaty announcement of his presence and intentions, this time closer. Another gobble followed by a double gobble. Closer.
Then he’s there, striding into the opening, tail fanned, blue/red neck and head tucked tight to a ballooned body shimmering iridescent bronze and gold and copper, strutting and drumming and gobbling, dancing toward the hen decoy and his fate. Rare event
It almost never happens that way. And, to hear Texas turkey hunters tell it, having a longbearded tom answer hunters’ calls in classic call-and-response fashion and make a beeline to what the hard-gobbling bird believes is an unattached hen has been an especially rare thing this spring.
Almost four weeks into the six-week spring Rio Grande turkey season in Texas’ South Zone and two weeks into the North Zone’s six-week session, a seemingly plurality of hunters across the state report gobblers have been unusually quiet, reticent to answer hunters’ calls, surrounded by hens they refuse to leave and generally exhibiting other behaviors that have made them most uncooperative quarry.
Jason Hardin has heard the questions, complaints and frustration from Texas turkey hunters.
“I’ve certainly gotten an ear-full in the past couple of weeks,” Hardin, turkey program coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s wildlife division, chuckled. “Hunters saying they’re not hearing gobblers, or birds aren’t acting like they should and asking, ‘What’s going on?’ ”
“It’s a lot of the same questions and frustrations I hear just about every season,” Hardin said. “Some of that (turkey) behavior is perfectly normal for early in the season. In some parts of the state, it could be tied to environmental conditions. Some of it might be that folks were hunting on a day when birds just didn’t gobble much; that happens.
“But we’re lucky in Texas. We have one of the longest spring turkey seasons in the country and more Rio Grande turkeys than anyone,” he said. “That’s a lot of opportunity, and it works to hunters’ advantage.”
During the first weeks of this season, hunters reported very little gobbling on roosts and almost no gobbling once toms hit the ground in the morning.
That’s not unusual early in the season, Hardin said. When Texas’ spring turkey hunting seasons open, the birds are starting or have started their annual mating/ breeding season. That can make things challenging and more than a little frustrating for hunters.
Rio Grande turkeys invariably roost in mixed groups, usually a dominant gobbler, maybe a couple of subdominant gobblers and, almost always, a bevy of hens. Those hens are the gobbler’s harem.
“It’s pretty rare to have a Rio Grande gobbler roost by himself. They’ll roost with hens almost every night,” Hardin said.
That dominant male and the lesser-stature “satellite” gobblers certainly usually gobble on the roost each morning and may be vocal for a short while when the flock hits the ground after dawn. But once a gobbler is with a group of hens, he has no reason to advertise for others or let potential rivals know his location.
“He’s tied up with hens, so he’s not interested in gobbling,” Hardin said.
A gobbler surrounded by hens isn’t much interested in pursuing a “bird in the bush” when he has a harem at hand. And even if the gobbler does answer a hunter’s imitation of a hen, his bevy of hens hold him to them.
Such “henned up” gobblers often are the bane of Texas turkey hunters during the first weeks of the season. And that certainly appears the case this season. Reports of gobblers hanging with flocks of hens and seemingly immune to even the most tempting blandishments of hunters, including gobblers ignoring or even avoiding decoys, have been ubiquitous during early weeks of this season.
So, too, have been reports of adult gobblers coming to hunters calls without announcing themselves with gobbles. This “coming in quiet” has been more common this season that most, several hunter reported. Most said the first auditory inkling they had of an approaching longbeard was when it was within 30 yards or less and they could hear the low, vibrating “spitting and drumming” of a gobbler in full-out, tailfanned mating display.
That quiet approach is most common early in the season, when subdominant toms try to gather hens without announcing their presence to rivals, or springs after a year of high turkey nesting success when mobs of jakes — year-old, sub-adult gobblers — that hear a gobbler conversing with hens swarm and hector the adult bird and hen.
The tide for Texas turkey hunters who have been frustrated this season by quiet, non-responsive, “henned-up” gobblers should be turning as April wears on, Hardin said.
In most of Texas turkey range, hens have been bred and are spending increasing time away from gobblers.
“By midmorning and through the day, hens will begin drifting away to nest or lay eggs,” Hardin said. “That leaves gobblers alone and they’re more likely to go looking for other hens.”
That means hunters who are willing to be patient and hunt longer stand an improved chance of striking a “hot” gobbler.
Mid-morning and early afternoon can be the most productive time for successfully calling a gobbler, Hardin said. And that’s especially true in the latter half of the spring season.
“Any time of the season’s a good time to go turkey hunting,” Hardin said. “We all want to hunt early in the season. But the last half of the season can be the best for getting gobblers to work.”
This spring is setting up to be one of those years when the last weeks of the season outshine the first few. Much of Texas’ best Rio Grande turkey range — South Texas, most of the Edwards Plateau and Cross Timbers — is in good condition, with good foraging and nesting habitat. There, turkeys are in good physical condition and breeding/ nesting is progressing on normal schedule.
There are regions — western Edwards Plateau, Rolling Plains and Panhandle — where months of drought have scorched the landscape and almost certainly are blunting the turkey mating behavior that is key to spring season hunting success. Shutting down
“Drought almost definitely is playing a significant role in turkey behavior in those places,” Hardin said. When range conditions offer little nesting cover, ground moisture crucial to egg incubation absent and lack of abundant forage leaves hens in poor body condition, the bird will forgo mating and nesting.
“They’ll basically just shut down and not show any interest in mating,” Hardin said. That can short-circuit hunter’s tactics, making for poor hunting success.
But Most of Texas Rio Grande turkeys and turkey range are in fine condition. Turkey populations are high. Most hens are spending more time building nests or laying eggs, and less time hanging around gobblers. Those gobblers are still in mating mode, looking and listening and responding to potential mates.
“Hunting should just get better from now through the end of the season in a lot of places,” Hardin said.
That season for Rio Grande turkeys continues through April 29 in Texas’ 54-county South Zone and through May 13 in the 101-county North Zone.
Hunters who have been frustrated through the early part of the season by a lack of gobbling or “henned up” long-beards that ignored their calls could well see their fortunes change during the season’s later days.
They might even have a morning when everything goes exactly as they’ve been told the classic turkey hunt should go.
But don’t bet on it.