Greatest show in the woods opens Monday ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Spring turkey season opens Monday, a day turkey hunters have been awaiting since the 2019 season closed on April 23.

Many of us have been preparing for several weeks, sitting in our trucks before dawn with the windows down, sipping coffee and listening for gobblers. We don’t expect gobblers to roost in the same places they did in mid-March. We just want to hear them.

For turkey hunters, the song of spring is a multipart harmony. Cardinals sing the intro and are joined by wood thrushes, finches and, of course, nightjars. Where I hunt in the northern Gulf Coastal Plain, the chuck-willswidow is our nightjar. In other places, it is the whippoorwill. Barred owls sing on the backbeat, but the wild turkey tom sings the aria.

For the casual listener, a gobble sounds like a quiet chuckle. It is so subtle that it can go unnoticed. For turkey hunters, it makes hearts race and spirits soar. The rehearsal period ends tonight. When the curtain rises in the morning, the gobbler aria will make thousands of rational adult men and women take total leave of their senses, almost like Beatlemania.

For adults, the season bag limit is two adult gobblers, but the daily limit is one. All tail feathers of an adult gobbler are all the same length. When the fan is outstretched, it forms a perfect arc. An immature gobbler, or jake, has three feathers in the center of the fan that are longer than the rest. If a gobbler does not display its fan, look at its beard. The beard is a fibrous growth that extends from its chest. A legal gobbler must have a beard longer than 6 inches. If the beard curves downward, it is almost certainly legal. If it sticks out like a pencil, you’ll need to see the fan.

Many hunters will go to the woods this evening in hopes of seeing or hearing turkeys fly up to their roosts. Knowing where a gobbler roosts enables a hunter to set up in a place where he or she can call a bird when it leaves the roost in the morning.

If you fail to bag a bird at dawn, you still have a good chance between 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Gobblers and hens separate in the mid-morning, and gobblers go searching for new hens to breed. Failing that, you can also call up birds in the early evening. Some of my best hunts have occurred between 4 p.m.-6 p.m, when gobblers are feeding but still receptive to gobbling.

For years, a 12-gauge shotgun was considered requisite for turkey hunting. However, advancements in shot materials, shot wads and shotgun choke tubes have made even the lowly .410 bore a lethal turkey hunting option. A light-kicking .410 or 28-gauge is ideal for youngsters and older adults that have surgically repaired retinas and shoulders.

With the proper load and choke tube, it is possible to kill turkeys at distances up to 60 yards. The joy of turkey hunting, however, is calling up a gobbler as close as possible, seeing him display and strut, hearing him spit and drum and provoking him to gobble. It is the greatest show in the woods, and you’ll cheat yourself out of immeasurable satisfaction if you distill the experience down to merely killing a turkey.

You must be invisible to a turkey. Cover every part of your skin with camouflage pants and long-sleeve shirt. Wear a facemask and gloves. I also recommend wearing sunglasses to remove the possibility of eye contact.

You must also sit still when a gobbler is near. A pop-up blind can make the experience easier for fidgety, restless youngsters.

Download the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s mobile app on your smart phone. When you kill a gobbler, check it online immediately so you don’t forget.

Be safe. Do not stalk a call because it might be another hunter, and there is no reason to stalk a hen call anyway. Don’t shoot at sound, and make sure your target is indeed a turkey. If you are hunting on public ground, resist making gobbling sounds and using fan decoys. These are gobbler masquerades, and while you don’t stalk calls, the other guy might.

Don’t shoot anyone and don’t get shot.