I drew an “A” Week Tag (April 16th thru 22nd) for the kickoff to my 2025 Turkey Season, the first general weekend of the Wisconsin Spring Season. I had “A” last year as well and came in with similar expectations of cooler weather, limited foliage and cover in the woods and pre-breeding behavior with limited vocalizations.

Thursday April 17th

I arrived Thursday evening and drove around looking to see what field they were in and what woods they would likely be wandering back into. It didn’t take

long before I saw 8 black dots in the field with a Tom (mature male turkey) strutted out. I parked grabbed my gear and headed into the woods, I wanted to try and catch them coming into the roost (tree in which they sleep at night).

I setup on the north side of the hill on the other side of the property where I believed they would roost, just before 6. I tried light calling to see if anyone was around but didn’t expect much being that late in the evening. About 10 minutes later I heard some light leaf crunching, 30 minutes into the sit, I was watching a parade of 8 more deer heading out for the evening, as I raised my binoculars to admire the deer I caught a flash of white and refocused to see a turkey, likely a hen, flashing its wings on the bottom hill about 150 yards away. I lost sight of it and then at about 6:40 I heard the “WAP” and “CRASH” of a turkey getting to it’s roost. It is a not a quiet or graceful act, if you are not expecting it will cause your heart to skip a beat. Over the next 20 minutes I caught glimpses of three more fly into their roosts. They had not taken the path I had hoped but had come from the south side of the hill and launched from the top of the ridge into trees. Which when I thought about it was very logical, if I was a big bird that was not great at flying I would want to get as much height as possible before flying into a tree. Around 8pm I headed back to the the truck, I heard another “WAP” and looked up to see a startled turkey jump it’s roost and glide into the abyss. Not great flyers but solid gliders.

I was happy with night one, located some turkeys roost, saw some wildlife and knocked some of the rust off. I was really intrigued by the way the turkeys took advantage of the hill’s elevation to get into the roost, it just made sense but had not really thought about it before.   

Friday April 18th - First Half

I generally sleep terrible the night before the a hunt. My mind goes through countless plans, scenarios and plans, altering from visions of the woods to my On-X map, I can’t tell if I am awake or dreaming of it half the time.

Next thing you know its 4:03 and my alarm is going off, grab my gear, coffee and its time to go back into the woods. I arrive at 5am and hammer a crow call to try and hear a gobble (turkey’s dislike owls and crows and a call can elicit a “shock gobble”), no takers. I head to the bottom of the hill where I had roosted the turkey’s the night before and put out two hen decoys. I find a tree and start some light “yelps” on my mouth call…no response. At 5:20 I hear my first gobble,

probably a 150-200 yards away and then hear two other gobblers further away (never fails to get the blood pumping). I try calling again to try to get a conversation started…no takers. I try not to take it personally, its not you its them I tell myself. At 5:50 I hear the first bird take off from the roost, again loud not graceful, and catch it head towards the top of the hill. The toms seem to doing some light gobbling occasionally talking to no one in particular. Then around 6:30 I hear another “WAP” of wings and a flash head towards the top of the hill and don’t hear anymore gobbling. Again...not the way I hoped he would go.

A turkey essentially has 360 degrees of direction to choose from when its coming off the roost and can go hundreds of yards if they are a high enough up, so odds are slim they will land right by you but you begin to question why? Did I startle them getting to my spot, did they see my move at some point, or just the luck of the draw. The ones I saw headed back over the top of the hill where I saw them come from the night before. At about 6:50 it started raining followed by some convincing lighting and thunder. I headed to the comfort of one of the deer stands on the property and posted up. The rain intensified along with more lighting and finally around 9am I decided to make a run for the truck and regroup for the second half of the day. When I am driving away I make a lap around the block and there they are in the rain in the same field I saw them the night before. I was somewhat surprised to see them out in the open in the rain but again reminded of the resilience of the animals in general. Turkeys don’t have the luxury to eat inside when the weather turns poor.

Friday April 18th - 2nd Half

I came back around 1:00pm, did my lap around the block did not see them

out in the field yet but thought it could be a chance they ended up there later in the afternoon decided to make a move to the side of the hill by the field. I put two decoy out in the field in a highly visible position and crept into the treeline. I started calling and after 45 minutes decided to move down the hill further so I could see better if they worked to the field. After about a half hour and being chirped at by an unhappy squirrel I heard a scratch and caught movement to my right. I looked over slowly to see a Jake (young male turkey) 20 yards away and another right behind him, I slowly shifted my shotgun over hoping to see a longbeard among them but was a pack of four Jakes working their way quickly down the hill. They likely came to my calling earlier and went to check out decoys before losing interest. While not the birds I was looking for it was reassuring to see them moving around me. I knew that I was not likely going to be stay there as long as I wanted to as another storm was going to come through around 4:30pm. I got up and began walking out then caught a glimpse of something white on the forest floor, I walked over to check it out and found antlers and a deer skull

(deadhead) sticking through the leaf coverage. A cool memento for the visit.

I began walking to my hunting stand on the other side of woods, it was near where the birds had roosted the night before and was the spot where I got my big Tom last year. As I crossed an opening I looked up the hill and spotted three Toms about 300 yards on a different property. I worked toward the property line and hit some yelp calls and did not elicit a response or interest in return. I thought it was unlikely that they would come down the hill on their own so I kept working towards the stand. I got to the stand and got ready to wait, I didn’t expect much traffic until the golden hour (hour before sunset) which was two hours from then.

I listened to the rain, the squirrels and did slow 360-degree rotations looking

for movement. Finally at 6pm the first two hens walked in, and started scratching looking for food within 10 yards of my stand, I kept hoping to see a Tom appear behind them but was just them and then I looked behind through the other window to see Jakes appear from the ridge about 60 yards away, I pulled up the binoculars looking for a long beard but just the Soul Patch goatees of Jakes. About 8 birds maneuvered around me looking for a snack before heading to their roosts. And then at about 6:30 the first hen flew into her roost and was able to watch her land (not gracefully) in a tree about 40 yards away. Then one by one over the next 30 minutes the Jakes and other hen fly into the trees around. Watching turkeys roost is a fascinating experience, its loud and then you catch a glimpse of a black bowling ball fly onto a tree while hitting every branch on the way. And then they just hang out casually on a limb. Similarly to the night before they had all started on top of the ridge to give themselves the height advantage before making it their branches.

Just after 7 they had all roosted and then it kind of dawned upon me that I was not going to be make an escape without spooking any of them. I waited until sunset and the lights dimmed and made my way out of the stand, I started walking down the hill and “wap” there went the first one and another “wap” another bird gliding from the top of the hill hundreds of yards into the marsh. Impressive how far a 20 pound bird can glide a long way without flapping its wings.

It was an enjoyable day with numerous sightings and having them roost all around me but I was exhausted. I had spent about 10 hours sitting, crawling, stalking, looking and listening. I made it up my mind that I was going to head back to Milwaukee (1.5 hours away) sleep in my own bed, sleep in and come back in the evening refreshed and ready to go. I swung by my parents and had dinner then started the mental debate over again (abbreviated version below).

Pro-Turkey Luke “You only get 1-2 weekends a year to turkey hunt.”

Pro-Sleep Luke “I know but I didn’t get any sleep last night, I’m tired and we’ll be a lot sharper tomorrow night if we get our 8 hours.”

Pro-Turkey Luke “We can’t get a turkey if we are in bed…pack an extra red bull…You will be fine, caffeine is a healthy substitute for sleep.”

Sets alarm for 4:03am.

Saturday April 19th

Saturday morning it was time put the clues together and create a plan. Calling was drawing limited interest, vocalizations after they were off the roost were limited but I had seen a flock in the south field each day. I decided to position myself along a trail leading to the field down from the hill which they were likely roosting and plan to ambush them on their way. I arrived at 5am and walked the long way over and around the hill through the field (I wanted to limit my risk of knocking any birds off the roost by going through the woods) and come in near the edge the of the property line. I crept in and got to the trail in the dark I setup two decoys on the trail to be in a visible location and found a big tree 25 yards off the trail. It was greying light around 5:30am when I heard the first gobble maybe 200 yards to my left (heart rate instantly increases) and it was met with two separate gobbles coming from the hill likely 200-300 yards away. I was in the middle of three Toms, life was pretty great and had high hopes. Then I quickly became self-conscious of how I exposed I was in the open timber and began slowly grabbing branches and piles of leaves to build a haphazard blind of sorts.

The gobbling continued back and forth sporadically between the three Toms

and my gaze went back and forth trying to figure out which one was the closest. Around 6:15am at the top of the hill I saw a glimpse of movement and saw 3 or 4 hens gathering and heard them clucking amongst themselves and saw them head south on the ridge heading parallel to the field towards where the two Toms in front of me were gobbling from. I heard a “wap” of turkey coming off the roost and the two Toms in front of me went quiet as the other Tom to my left kept gobbling occasionally. Around 6:30 I saw two hens appear in the field coming from the opposite direction which I hoped they would, “crap.” They were followed by two more hens. Then hens gathered and playfully chased each other in the field. Then 15 minutes later I caught a glimpse of movement and knew it was something different, then he appeared about 60 yards away a Tom at the corner of the woods scanning and moving slowly. Toms like Bucks just have a different aurora around them, I won’t do justice describing it but they are very intentional and bring an intimidating energy that makes them feel 3x their size, like playtime is over things just got serious. He crossed the corner into the field just out of range.

I did not have access to the field so began to calculate different options, calling wasn’t working (or so I thought), the other two Toms were still in play and not yet in the field, I assumed the flock would most likely circle up the hill and maybe I could cut them off up there. The Stay-or-Go mental debate is one of the challenging hunters will commonly go through and often leave you second guessing.

I could still see the Tom in the field probably 100 yards out, so decided to hold tight and not risk getting spotted lurking through the woods (I strongly hesitate to get up and move when I can visibly see a bird even if they are 100-300 yards away). 10 minutes went by and I saw two hens exit the field the way they came (out of range) but optimism began to drop assuming the group would all follow suite. But the Tom moved slowly to the stone wall marking the property and began to work his way down the hill towards the trail I was on. I got ready incase he decided to cross the fence and brought the shotgun to rest on my

knee. The Tom kept working slowly down the hill never crossing the wall until he got to trail, he “drummed” as he entered his strut and my heartrate jumps. He must have spotted the decoys on the road on his way into the field and was coming back to take a closer look. He slowly crossed the opening of the stone wall and the property line to the trail to take a closer look. Heart pumping hard, I put my red-dot on him and waited for him to stop at 45 yards. With fully fanned out he slowly turned toward me and paused. “BANG”…without a kick or struggle he went down instantly (TSS rounds do not mess around).

He was a healthy looking Tom like 2-3 years old with an 8" beard and 1/2" spurs. Not the biggest Tom in the flock but I am not in the point in my turkey career where I am targeting specific Toms. An inch longer beard would not have changed my excitement level and I was able to harvest 8 lbs off of him between the breasts and legs.

A successful hunt will quickly make you forget your exhaustion and make you question why you ever thought about sleeping in. It felt great to put the clues together and exercise some woodsmanship to put myself in position to succeed. A great weekend with a great result.

3 Question and 3 Observations.

After some hunts I walk away with questions and some “learnings” (safer to call observations). So thought it would be fun to create a summary section.

3 Questions

1. What effect does rain and storms have on turkey behavior? I expected the birds to stay under the cover of forest but saw them out casually as can be in the field.

2. Group Roosting behavior? Do Toms stay separate from Jake and Hens or will they roost together. I did not observe any Toms roosting with the Jakes and Hens and makes me think they prefer distance.

3. Is there a better way to hunt Tom’s in the afternoon then waiting for them at the roost? In early season if there is no interest in calling is there a way to target them away from the roost.

3 Observations

1. The Turkeys used higher elevation to enter their roosts as if to make the task easier on themselves. Making me believe in future instances of trying to cut turkeys off back to the roost I am best to position myself on top of hills near their likely roosts.

2. Subtle Calling in cases where there is not a back and forth conversation or vocalization is not at a peak in the early season. Light locating clucks can create a point of interest for turkeys to come check out later.

3. Ladies First, I’ve seen this consistently in the past and was reiterated that weekend. Hens will likely be the first to roost in the evening, first down in the morning and first ones in the field or flock. Likely not chivalry but more likely the Tom using the hens to test for danger.