It's been noted that "the early bird gets the worm." There is some truth to that in many endeavors, and one of those might certainly be the spring turkey season. Those hunters who have effectively done their pre-season scouting, located a gobbler, found his roost, and are sitting near it on opening morning have an excellent chance of success.

Hunters who understand the behavior of late-season toms are likely to "invite" one of those birds to dinner! Photo by William J. Bohica.

That doesn't always mean, however, that those who fail to score early must go home hungry.

Thanks to an abundant turkey population, and a season in the Central and North regions that runs into late April, there is ample opportunity for end-of-the-season hunters to score. All they have to do is alter their tactics.

It doesn't take much human pressure during the early part of the season to alter the behavior of turkeys. They quickly pick up on that pressure and respond to it. They won't follow their normal pre- and early-season routines. But they're still turkeys, and once hunters understand how pressure affects their daily behavior, the chances of scoring are still good.

RESPONDING TO PRESSURE
Just how a gobbler responds to hunting pressure depends upon how much of it he has received. If the bird is in an area that has received little, if any pressure, his behavior won't be much different than it would be on opening day. Nothing has happened to alter his normal behavior.

The only real change is that by the latter portion of the season, many of the hens have been bred, and that's good news for hunters. It means that with a lesser number of hens available, the gobbler has to move more to find those hens that are still receptive.

If there is a simple key to the latter part of the season, it is to locate good turkey habitat that has seen as little pressure as possible. That's not always easy to do, but some hunters who have access to private land with may be able to pull it off. They may have to move farther and deeper into the areas that aren't so easy to hunt, but it's worth it if they can find an unpressured bird.

If you're not that fortunate, and particularly if you hunt public land, you likely are dealing with pressured gobblers. There're several ways that they will respond to pressure.

One of the most common is for the bird to simply shut up. An unpressured bird may gobble furiously on the roost in the morning, and then continue when he hits the ground. A pressured bird seldom does. They may gobble a few times on the roost, but go silent after that. Once they hit the ground, they may talk very little at all, and that includes responding to hen calls. That can make them very difficult to locate.

They still are looking for hens, and move in the direction of any hen they hear. But they won't talk back and tell you they're there. It's not at all uncommon during the later season for a caller to be working, and just suddenly have a bird show up unannounced. That usually catches the hunter unaware and exposed. But, as we'll see in a minute, there is a remedy for that.