This 1-minute video should get you fired up for spring wild turkey season. It was posted to the YouTube channel of Backwoods Life (222k subscribers).
In my experience, this roosted gobbler’s behavior is rare. As you’ll see, the longbeard gobbles many times from the limb — this is common, of course. What is surprising, at least to me, is the tom pitches down and lands in the decoys. The youth hunter then drops the hammer soon afterward. Good shot!
I call this behavior rare because I’ve tried a similar setup — sneaking in close to the roost and placing decoys within sight of roosted gobblers — dozens and dozens of times in my hunting career. Some of those instances I’ve called a bunch, mimicking the nearby roosted hens with yelps. At other times, I’ve remained totally silent — not a single yelp from my ambush location — and hoped that the mere presence of my decoys would do the trick.
Never have I had a tom pitch down and land in my decoys. Not. Once.
My 42-years of turkey pursuits have taught me that no two toms behave the same way; they all have their own personalities. With this in mind, you’d think at least once in my career that I would have run into one bird that would read the script like the tom shown in this video.
Most of my attempts with this “sneak in close” strategy have taken place in a particular South Dakota river-bottom. The birds often roost in the same trees night after night, so sneaking in close to the roost is often an available option. So, what have I been doing wrong? I have no idea.
- I’ve sneaked in 2.5 hours before flydown time, so early in the morning that I must wait a full 90 minutes in the dark before a hen makes her first soft yelp.
- I’ve cleaned the trail to my ambush location of leaves and twigs so I can sneak in without making a sound.
- I’ve never used a headlamp light.
- I’ve left decoys at the spot (hidden behind logs), so I don’t have to make noise in the morning assembling them.
- Instead of walking from my specific ambush location to the decoys, I’ve crawled, trying to mimic a feeding deer.
- I’ve used the best lifelike decoys money can buy, everything from Avian-X jakes and hens, to Dave Smith Decoys jakes and hens, to taxidermy stuffers.
- I’ve tried a lone standing hen; lone bedded/breeding hen; jake with hen combo; single strutter; multiple strutters; even an injured strutter decoy.
- I’ve tried setting up within 30 yards of the roost tree, 40 yards, and 50 yards.
The only reason I can think of to explain my lack of success with this technique is because my river-bottom has too many turkeys. In the video below, it appears this is a lone tom; I don’t hear any other gobblers, and I don’t hear any hens.
In every case I’ve tried sneaking in close to the roost in South Dakota, there’s more than one gobbler, and there’s always numerous hens. In fact, much of the time in my river-bottom, especially during early season, there’s dozens of toms and dozens of hens — literally — roosted within 75 yards of my chosen ambush location. The reason for my lack of success with this technique might be because there’s simply too much real-bird competition.
I should also mention the fact that I’m bowhunting and placing decoys only 7-12 yards from my ambush location. If I were gun hunting and trying this same “sneak in close” strategy, I could set my decoys at 27 yards instead of 7 yards, which means I wouldn’t have to sneak so close to the roost tree.
Note: I have killed birds from my ambush location after toms have been on the ground for a while — 30 to 90 minutes. Sometimes all the hens and toms will stay in the river-bottom instead of immediately leaving the forested bottom and heading out onto the prairie and ag fields. When this happens, there’s a good chance that a tom will wander over to check out my decoys. But I’ve never had one fly into my decoys.
Whatever the case, I’ll keep trying. Even though I have yet to kill a tom immediately off the roost, it’s tremendously fun watching them strut on the limb and gobble their heads off!
