Turkey hunting public land in the spring is not always an easy task, especially if you hunt anywhere near where I do in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. The reason it can seem so difficult is because there are SO MANY PEOPLE doing it! The following ideas are my suggestions to help you be successful, and this comes after many years of being messed up by other hunters!
The first piece of advice is for you to have the right expectations. Sadly, this means, don’t expect others to respect your space. If you are working a bird, and he is fired up and on his way toward you, there are thousands of hunters out there who have no problem slipping between you and the bird to cut him off. Or, they will simply hear a bird gobbling and will start walking toward him and spook him off before the bird gives you a chance. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me!!!
The next piece of advice I have is to put a lot of energy into “putting the birds to bed.” Go to the areas you intend to hunt and sit quietly listening from a distance. Very often, even heavily pressured birds, will gobble a couple times as they get on the roost. Carefully plan out your approach very carefully to get close to that location for in the morning. I personally prefer to go in without a flashlight in the morning and give myself a very long time to make it to that area. I also try to position myself on the uphill side of where the birds were, because they typically pitch down to the uphill side of their roost. The only time I have not seen this is when they get spooked off the roost and simply fly FAR away in the opposite direction.
If you arrive at a location during hunting hours, and you see another vehicle and hear a bird going, chances are there is someone working that bird. I try to respect their space and position myself in the best location in case they mess up. This happened to me a few years ago. I had spotted some gobblers during daylight a few days earlier but didn’t have the ability to get back and hear them roost the night before. When I got there, I set up where I had last seen them, but they had clearly moved to the next ridge over. By the time daylight hit and they started gobbling, there were two hunters between me and the birds. I then flanked way out around the side of the both of them and set up on the side of the ridge about 200 yards from the birds. I could hear that they had hung up on the ridge and the hunters in the valley were not getting them to come in. I knew I had a 50, 50 shot of them coming my way if I set up at the same elevation on the side of the ridge. Based on my map reading skills, I chose the side of the birds that also had a slight saddle, which is close to where I set up.
Within an hour, I heard the birds getting closer as they continued to respond to the hunters down in the valley. Before I even realized they were in my lap, they saw me trying to turn on my video camera. It was a challenging situation because the whole area was thick with laurel so I couldn’t see them as they got close. They ended up heading back in the opposite direction, and one got shot by a hunter about a quarter mile away from me on the other side of the two hunters who originally had the birds going. The point is, you don’t have to go between hunters, and you don’t even have to call in that situation. Just use the topography to your advantage and ask yourself, “If these birds decide to leave the area, what would be their preferred travel corridor and why? Then go set up in that area and wait. You just never know what can happen!
The last tip I have for hunting pressured birds on public land is to hunt them like deer. Very often the birds will have somewhat of a pattern or preferred feeding areas. Sometimes the birds become extremely call shy on public land right away after being pressured by so many people. If you just go to the areas they like to hang out, and you sit and wait, they just might show up and give you a shot. Admittedly, that isn’t nearly as fun as having one gobbling and coming in to your call, but if you are stuck hunting public land like I am, sometimes your best odds are to abandon the excitement and hunt them like deer!
Thanks for reading my article, and God bless you.