The Case For and Against Turkey Decoys

It’s rare to find a turkey camp these days that doesn’t have at least a few decoys stashed away somewhere.  In fact, many of the questions I get on turkeys every year are all about them.  Annually, I’m presented with a full spread of decoy inquiries regarding the whats, whens, wheres, hows, and whys of their use.  Most people are surprised when I say that I rarely use decoys unless I’m bowhunting.  Still, there are quite a few reasons and scenarios to drag them along, provided you use them appropriately.   

I’ll never forget the first time I hunted over a strutting tom decoy.  I was setup in the bottom of and open, shallow draw that toms love coming to.  It was to be the perfect bow-setup, as I could shoot nearly all directions here, and anything in the “bowl” was within range.  I couldn’t hunt until mid-morning, which was fine, as I grew up here, and knew that toms would be loafing within earshot on some nice oak flats all around me. 

The response after my first string of yelps nearly scared me.  A triple gobble, then another one 100 yards closer less than a minute later.  Could it be the same bird?  If it was, the thing must’ve heard the call and came right at me.  Seconds later I saw him at about 50 yards heading down into the bottoms with me, only to recoil like he’d been gutshot before ever making it to the bottom.  That bird’s demeanor went from fiery white and closing, to deathly afraid and side-stepping, as it circled my entire position no closer than 50 steps, curiously gobbling the entire way.  After a full 360 degree surveying of my position, he walked straight back to where he came from, gobbling the entire way.

It was an odd encounter, but certainly not the first time I’ve spooked birds with decoys.  Early in my turkey hunting career, several birds of all sexes spooked on open-field setups with full sun and an old, beat up hen that looked more like a foam finger from a sports event than a turkey.  Eventually, I made my way to some higher quality hens that did a far better job of tricking the eyes of an old tom, especially when I hid them a bit and didn’t plop them out in a plowed field.  Today I rarely use them when gun hunting, unless sitting over a strut zone or hunting bigger groups of birds early out west. 

However, with a bow in-hand, I think of them as almost a requirement, as they can be crucial for keeping the attention of a tom while you’re doing your best to draw on him and release an arrow.  Breeding hen with jake and tom combinations continue to be my favorites when hunting with a stick and string, but this is more true during later season when alfalfa, clover, or shin-level grass can hide some of the stakes and other gadgetry.  That said, at least where I hunt, decoy effectiveness wanes throughout the season.  I’ll either put the dekes at a 7-yard chip-shot away from the blind, or put them behind it such that any tom approaching only gets bits and pieces of the decoys with the blind in the way.  Hiding your decoys, no matter which weapon you have in your hand, has proven effective in enticing birds in for a closer look.  

For the average turkey hunter that wields a shotgun though, often decoys can be a hindrance more than a help.  Not only is your mobility affected by a bag of dekes in that they are simply more to carry, they’re often loud and cumbersome.  Worse yet, they can help a tom pinpoint your location and then have him use it against you.  While turkeys are not known to be curious, the goal of any turkey hunting session should be to arouse interest via calling, then hide out in a pre-determined setup while the tom hunts YOU.  Whether you call too loud or long at the wrong time, or you drop a decoy too far out in the open, the effect it has on many toms is to hang them up.  By their ears or eyes they know exactly where you are as they get close enough to show off, but stay too far away for a shot.

Instead, I have more confidence in the form, flexibility, and options my calling provides me over a decoy in many situations.  A decoy is somewhat of a binary play, in that it’s out there or it’s not, and once it is you’re certainly not going to strip it from the field with a tom out there.  That said, when you’re calling from a concealed position and stay motionless, that tom is still hunting you.  You can vary everything from cadence, volume, and frequency, to the direction you throw the call while keeping him guessing the whole time.  On several occasions I’ve been able to steer a tom around obstacles that may have hung him up, make a gobbler think I was leaving just by turning my head and muting the call, or attract a different tom coming from another direction simply by using my hand to “throw” the sound from a mouth-call. 

I think the key, no matter where you fall on the spectrum, is to use them when they make sense and use them well.  Whether you love them, hate them, or fall somewhere in between, don’t rely on decoys alone to be a cure-all for turkey woes.  Instead, dig deep into your bag of turkey tactics as you utilize them to compliment your approach rather than be the highlight of it.   

The Anatomy of a Miss

Missing flat hurts.  Re-living it in your mind again and again, you vow never to tell your upland or waterfowl-hunting friends about how you missed a stationary target that was standing on the ground, while you were concealed and the bird was un-alerted to your presence.  That pain likely pales in comparison to what the turkey might’ve felt in the form of some stray pellets.  I’ve seen the effect of what poorly placed shots can do, and more than we’d like to think the turkey eventually dies from the encounter.  Though we understand it’s our goal to always make a clean and careful killing shot, there are a number of obstacles in our way.

Personally, I’ve shot at and missed 5 gobblers in the course of 21 seasons.  With dozens of turkey hunts per year or more, I’ve been witness to many more misses while hunting with beginners and true experts alike.  Experience isn’t always the best teacher, as last season in Oklahoma, I missed two birds in two days before finally tagging out on a stubborn Rio Grande that was a bit too loud-mouthed for his own good.  Before last year, I hadn’t missed in a decade, but the last time I did, the pain also came in pairs while missing twice before 8AM that fateful Minnesota morning.

Of all the misses and close calls I’ve encountered, the common thread is that most of these are the result of bad decisions often made well before the safety ever comes off.  Fortunately, that means they’re also preventable.  Here’s a “greatest-hits” so-to-speak, of the most common causes for a miss, along with a few ideas on how to remedy to problem:

·         Too Far – More birds are peppered, maimed, and mortally wounded due to long shots than any other mistake from what I’ve seen.  That means it’s time for all of us to brush up on range estimation.  Rangefinders were a spendy contraption when I started hunting, but they flat out improve our ability to make a clean shot.  Have one handy and use it, but more importantly, when in doubt, wait it out.  

·         Poor Shot – Coming in at a close second is taking a hail-mary type shot to begin with.  Miss number one last year was a running bird at 40 yards, and miss number two was walking at the end of my effective range.  I’ve made these shots before, but ultimately knew better than to take them in the first place.

·         No Patterning – Speaking of effective range, if you don’t know how many pellets are in your pattern at various ranges, how sure can you be that a bird will drop at any range?  Shoot through as many chokes/loads as is reasonable to you to find a combination that puts more than 100 pellets in that 10” diameter circle at 40 yards.  Once you get to 100, strive to find a combination that will do 200 or better. 

·         Shooting Technique – Contorting around a tree, shooting from your belly, or flat dealing with the burn as you sit motionless as a statue can certainly contribute to a miss.  That said, hunters that use a ventilated rib and bead combination miss more than those that use other sights simply because they don’t keep their head down.  Unfortunately, I’ve had the over-the-shoulder view from so many of these hunter’s misses over the years, that I get to witness it first-hand.  Given that view, I also get to see quite a few flinches, which is understandable given how hard some of these loads can kick.  Prevent that effect by avoiding the long and bruising patterning sessions just before you’re ready to hunt.   

·         Equipment – Speaking of sights, I’ve seen a good number of malfunctions over the years.  From cracked and broken fiber optics, to front posts being completely ripped off the ventilated rib while dragging the gun through brush, sights can be vulnerable on a turkey gun.  Belly crawling through sand and even dry and dusty prairie grass can make semi-autos fail to cycle for follow up shots.  Keep your eyes peeled for these malfunctions before they ever have a chance to happen.

·         Too Close for Comfort – While I’ve only witnessed one miss because the bird was too close, it’s obvious why.  We patterned a buddy’s gun after the shot to find his load punched a baseball sized hole through paper at the 10 yard distance he missed from.  With how much a turkey’s head moves and how quickly he had to take the shot, it wasn’t a surprise.

·         Confidence – You’re trying to hit a sweet-spot here.  Practice builds confidence, and missing destroys it.  Four of my own misses came in pairs because I had a hard time recovering from the first one mentally.  Conversely, over-confidence leads to ill-preparedness and bad-decisions.

·         Faulty Expectations – This is a growing concern for the more experienced hunters.  The more you hunt, and the more success you encounter, the more likely you are to put it in “auto-pilot” during the last few seconds leading up to a shot.  Past experience can hamstring you here, as your mental programming over the last few dozen birds has falsely associated the act of leveling, aiming, and shooting with a dead bird.  In the back of your mind, somehow just making the gun go “boom” gives you the result you want.  Pause, then go through your pre-shot progression again before just making the gun sound off. 

·         Lucky Bird – Every once in a great while, I’ve seen a miss that defies logic.  You do everything right, line up the sights, go through the checklist in your mind and squeeze off a round, only to watch the bird rapidly disappear into a speck on the horizon.  Somehow, someway, that bird found a hole in your pattern.  More often however, our mistakes are obvious and correctable.

While we can’t always be perfect, we owe it to those turkeys to strive to be.  Every brutally cold wintry day, all I need to do is think about that spring’s tom up in some tree holding on for dear life while it contemplates how it’ll get through the next day.  That provides me with the motivation to practice with a purpose, such that every time I touch the trigger, the tom meets his end far more quickly than any other malady that Mother Nature would prescribe.        

Ice-Out Crappies

It’s been an odd spring, and for that matter, and even more peculiar winter.  Open water in the southern part of the state has been around for a few weeks, while in the north, there’s still ice, albeit a poor version of it, clinging to memories of a winter that wasn’t.  Early season panfish bites are a rite of spring, typically happening in mid-late April for most lakes in the state as a precursor to the May opener.  This year due to the unseasonably warm weather, I’m happy to say, we’ll probably have some bonus time, with crappies already snapping in the shallows of Southern MN.  Here’s a few things to keep in mind when tracking down a good spring crappie bite.

Water temperature is a key contributing factor to everything crappies in the spring.  Cold nights below freezing, cool-water runoff from melting snow, and heavy cloud cover can all contribute to the death of a seemingly un-killable bite.  As black-bottom bays and rock-laden shorelines store what solar energy they can, crappies flood to the shallows as water temps hit 45 degrees and above.  In most of the lakes I fish, this seems to be as close to a “magic number” as I can find in helping to predict not only locations, but mood of the crappies I’m after.  Anything south of that value, and shallow water crappies become much more rare and hard to find.  Even after locating them, you just don’t see the large congregations of fish that are willing to eat like you do in the 45-50 degree range and above.  That said, spring is a rollercoaster of conditions, full of false-starts, short intense feeding periods during warm weather, and then eventually spawn and post-spawn behavior.  Your best bet is multiple trips that allow you to track changes in water temperatures, such that you don’t hit before the front end, or after the spawn.

Regarding location, when warm water is scarcer in the early season, those shorelines that are even a few degrees warmer can be full of fish.  This is true even when they lack good cover, provided you’re fishing the warmest water in the lake and it’s still early.  Black bays on the north side of a lake are a good start, and don’t hesitate to fish shallower than 5 feet, especially in systems with poor clarity.  Even as water temps rise into the 50’s, fish remain shallow, feeding on baitfish drawn to the warm water and emerging life that’s brought upon by warm afternoons and an even more aggressive sun angle. 

Cover is king for pre-spawn crappies, and while any wood or timber is good for finding them, brush is better.  An isolated log or stump may hold a few fish, but large concentrations of fish will be found where they can bury themselves within and along brush piles.  Unfortunately, most anglers miss the bonanza by fishing only around the edges, rather than within the heavy cover.  Occasional fish are to be had this way, but to do well in these situations, you’ll need to be prepared to fearlessly fish inside of the heavy stuff, not just around the edges.  For that reason, especially in darker, more turbid water, I’ll fish 8lb test mono or heavier, as small jigs and small line are an exercise in brush-fishing frustration.  In northern natural lakes with broad and shallow shorelines, timber can be hard to find, so crappies focus on bulrush and pencil-reeds for cover.  Whether wood or vegetation, getting in the middle of it seems to pay dividends. 

What to use is an important factor during this time of year, with water temps again dictating presentation and lure selection.  Especially early, the temptation is to fish fast and cover water to find larger schools.  Just coming out of winter, locations can be a mystery, and bobber-fishing shallows is simply too slow for most anglers.  That said, especially during the early season, crappies will rarely chase to eat moving baits presented on the edges.  Fish with floats, and use meat.  Crappies are carnivorous little beings, and you’ll be surprised how savagely they’ll strike a minnow offered on a jig with hair, tinsel, marabou, or flashabou.  This larger profile requires some aggression, and hookups seem much more sure as crappies are required to fully inhale such a presentation.  Keep in mind however, that bluegills which can be found in the same areas this time of year, are less likely to be able to eat such baits.  I have been pleasantly surprised by large perch, especially when fishing backwaters bites, that will be more than happy to eat a 1/32oz jig with a minnow.

Plastics bites are still to come, but typically require warmer conditions yet.  It’s unfortunate that minnows are best fished when your freezing fingers would otherwise want you to use artificials-only, but it seems like warm weather and glove-less hands are about the best predictor on when to start looking to retrieved plastic presentations.  For this reason, bring bait until moving presentations readily out-perform more stationary live-bait options. 

It’s a great time of year to be on the water.  Wait till a warm afternoon, and pick apart the shallows until you find some fish.  Keep it simple, have fun with it, and save the ultra-serious stuff for later.                

Plan "B" Property - Why You Need One!

If you’ve turkey hunted long enough, you’ve likely gotten settled in to a rut of sorts.  You hunt the same spots, the same way, and you do it because it’s brought you success in the past.  Far be it from me to ask anyone to fix what isn’t broken, but has your “honey-hole” ever dried up?  Has it let you down on occasion?  Even the best properties, loaded with birds, during the best times of the season can experience lulls in the action, for any number of reasons.  Here’s an argument for getting out there and securing another spot or two before turkey seasons are upon us and it’s too late.

I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up hunting the same ground I did when I was younger, but therein lies part of the problem.  Whether it’s land you own, or ground that you’ve had permission on for years, it’s too easy to get comfortable with the idea that there’ll be birds there in the spring.  You always seem to pull it off, but sometimes it’s with a stroke of luck, and why leave it to chance?  On numerous occasions, I’ve had prime spots of the past fail me when I seemed to need or rely on them the most.  For youth hunts, or when trying to help someone get their first turkey, it’s nice to have an “old-reliable” that you can stroll into with little scouting, show up, and drop right in on the game.  That said, no property or group of birds is a guarantee, and there’s a pile of reasons and scenarios which can change your turkey spot for the worse.

The first and most common culprit is usually just plain timing.  While I do have properties that hunt better earlier, mid-season, or later, we’re hunting birds that can at times be quite nomadic.  Especially in the early season when birds roam in larger groups, there’s simply a larger percent chance that the ground you’re on, is not the small area that most of the birds are frequenting.  Even if your scouting has been filthy with sign and sightings, unless you can scout right up to the day you hunt, birds can be here one day, and simply gone the next.  Don’t hold out hope that they may return, or keep trying to call them over from adjacent properties, have another spot or two in mind.

Another reason for reduced activity in your favorite spot is quite simply, change.  Spring is dynamic.  Food sources are changing daily as fields which once held waste grain, are plowed under the following day.  Birds and the progression of their breeding season, male pecking order, and population demographics can affect how often birds roost together, visit strut zones, and generally interact with other birds and ultimately, your calling.  Spring weather gives rise to even more variability in turkey behavior, with everything from wind and rain, to calm and sunny conditions driving them to frequent some places more than others.  Put these scenarios together, along with a whole bunch more and you’ve got a virtual Rubik’s cube of combinations to sort through in order to solve the puzzle. 

Lastly, pressure by other hunters can certainly change the game, and the unfortunate part is that the cause can be on neighboring property, and going on without your knowledge.  It’s rare in many areas for turkeys to spend an entire day or especially an entire season, completely within the confines of the property you have permission to hunt, so you need to be mindful of other hunting activity going on in the area.  When I see a truck parked at a field road or along a ditch, I assume it’s a turkey hunter, and adjust accordingly.  More than anything turkeys don’t like the disruption caused by people on-foot, walking around out in the open and spooking them out of strut zones, feeding areas, or loafing spots throughout the day.  They will naturally assume areas where this type of disruption is more rare. 

Perhaps I’ve convinced you to start looking into other places to hunt?  Well before you go and secure permission all over the county, keep in mind that this should be done within reason in order not to block your fellow hunter’s ability to get out and find some land as well.  Still, it’s a major part of the philosophy I have as a turkey hunter, in that I’m not too proud to pull off of a group of birds, and try my luck in another area.  What I look for is typically a few adjacent parcels, or a large individual one, totaling a hundred acres or more.  If I’ve got 2 or 3 of those, spaced at least a few miles apart, I hunt much more aggressively and confidently.  I know that if birds on Property A are henned up and uncooperative, the flock structure of birds on Property B is likely different, and toms might be more numerous and willing, while being less locked-down with their hens. 

In the past, I would try to get permission on a large, contiguous group of parcels, but that strategy didn’t always serve me well.  Now, rather than putting all my eggs in one flock’s basket and securing as much adjacent property as I can, I’m looking for clusters, separated by space, such that I can hunt different birds with different attitudes when the going gets tough.  This way, I can much more effectively nullify the effects of timing and season, changes in food sources and breeding phase, as well as hunting pressure on that property and nearby ground.  It’s a luxury to have that much ground to hunt, but especially if you’re part of a group with multiple tags and toms you’re after, it can really pay dividends.  Keep it in mind as you prepare for your turkey season, as quality ground and multiple options is just as important as scouting and calling practice in my book.    

When to Shoot? - Why Your First Shot is Usually Your Best

Most shooting decisions when hunting turkeys come after many long weeks of preparation, days of scouting, hours of setup and calling, and long-minutes of heart-pounding; all culminated by the pulling of a trigger.  After all the anticipation, the most critical moments of the hunt can come down to rushed judgments, muscle memory, and “gut-feelings.”  Dynamics such as decoys, calling, and shooting pellets as if they were bullets make this an entirely different game than much of the hunting experiences in your current game bag.  Speaking of, experience has been a good teacher for this student, mostly in the form of countless hard lessons in frustration caused by these same last-millisecond choices, forever etched in infamy.  These unhappy endings come in many forms, from plain misses to no-shots taken, or worse, birds that pick you off and head the other direction with haste, alerting everything in the woods to your presence.

TV hunting shows teach us that all birds run to your calling, climb on top of the decoys, and crane their necks out at full length for you to simply point the gun and shoot them dead with ease.  I have found this not to be the case on most hunts.  On a more typical hunt, the bird responds then as part of a process over time, eventually makes his way to you and your setup.  Along the way are long moments of pause across multiple distances, many of them out of range, and each one of them make you want to jump out of your skin.  With each passing moment, you obsess over the only question that now matters, “when to take the shot?”

Turkey Body Language

It so happens that turkeys do have some tells when it comes to the strutting game, though many hunters go all-in and succumb to the haze that is turkey-fever long before they have the chance to recognize them.  The first of which is strutting itself.  A bird in strut is generally satisfied with the situation and not going any long distances quickly.  This is your safety zone.  It’s a chance for you to move, if only a little, to get situated, line-up on the bird, and generally buy some more time until ready to shoot.  Birds with heads held high are another matter.  They are often equally eager, but twice as wary as a strutting tom.  These birds won’t hesitate to turn on one foot and march away from you, but before they do, they’ll almost always perform the “double-wing-tuck.”  When you see a bird tuck one wing behind itself, then another in rapid succession, the only truth you need to know is that this bird is ready to move and you have mere seconds to shoot, especially if it’s already towards the edge of your range.  Birds with heads down walking almost always have a pre-determined destination in mind.  These are birds that you’ll also need to draw a bead on quickly, as once in range, unless they drastically change their mood/behavior, you’ll have precious few moments with which to take them down.

Open Field Setups

Birds coming across large openings present many advantages to you the hunter, but also quite a few challenges.  While you can see them and read their every move, you also can’t do much moving yourself unless tucked inside of a blind.  For young and inexperienced hunters especially, this view presents the optimum in planning and taking the shot.  However, especially with decoy setups, sooner or later you’ll get birds that hang-up in the wide open, temptingly flirting with the edge of your range plus 10 yards.  Here is where a rangefinder, where legal, is an invaluable piece of equipment.  I’ve seen talented bowhunters and other experts at judging distance convince themselves that an 80 yard shot on a longbeard is very possible because it “looks closer to 40.”  The biggest temptation in this scenario is shooting too soon, and a day at the patterning board will lock in a maximum range that you should force yourself to stick to no matter what.    

Obstructed Views

Most turkey scenarios that I encounter have at least some woods, brush, or other obstructions in play.  Birds notoriously come from the wrong direction, cross vast thickets they’re not supposed to, and generally use elevation to their advantage while periscoping up to get a quick view, then ducking below a rise, never to be seen again.  These instances, especially the latter, play out in the turkey woods constantly, and you need to be ready to address them to fill your tag.  Birds also do a good deal of using brush to screenthemselves, all the while enjoying a great view in the distance without you being able to see them very well.  While I’m not advocating hasty shotgunning and brush shooting, these are common happenings that require decisive action, specifically in the form of taking the first best shot you have within range.  Ever patterned your shotgun through brush?  It’s amazing what a swarm of pellets will go through and still hit the board with terminal velocity.  That said, brush thicker than your fingers will stop pellets better than you can imagine.  The trick is riding that fine line between taking the best opportunity you have within range, and waiting it out for a better one.  I’m here to tell you that most often, a better one doesn’t present itself.  Get too picky with the birds, and they’ll rarely reward that patience.  Instead, focus on the first good look that tom gives you, and as long as he’s in range, you identify your target, and know what’s behind it, you’ll be amazed at how many more birds you’ll kill from this point forward.