Videos of Turkeys From First Scouting Missions of 2014

Man! you talk about some turkeys.....I found em baby!

It's the oddest thing, you go the entire deer hunting season in the fall and hardly see a turkey, as soon as spring starts to approach they begin turning up everywhere. It's almost like they have been living in a hole in the ground.

Sunday morning I headed to Bull Creek Ranch to see what was going on out there. I wanted to get to the pasture roost in time to see what flew down at first lightbut I was running a little late and the birds were already on the ground. It was quite a sight to see.....24 some odd Osceolas all in one wad! Strutting birds with white-blue heads everywhere. At least 6 mature gobblers and a number of jakes that were also offering to strut.

Since I was late I had to hold up at a small out building to video from. I couldn't resist calling at birds to try to get them to gobble on camera. It took a little coaxing but I got them to sound off a handful of times. The hens did a lot of calling also. It was a sight to behold.



Monday morning I went to another tract that is about 1,200 ac with some row crop fields on two sides. I did not hear a bird gobble on the roost but they were there!

After some loud aggressive yelping and cutting I had some hens begin to answer me in a wood lot adjoining a farm field. I moved down a woods road that bisected the wood lot and spotted a bird in a road to the west from a 4 way. Birds started calling from in the field. I took to steps and spotted strutters about 50yds into the field. There were 5 jakes there and 4 were strutting. I thought they were mature for a minute as most appeared to have full tail fans. After putting on a show they moved west to hook up with some more jakes and there ended up being a total of 10.

There was also birds in the field to the east, They were a long ways out but I could make out beards on a few. After reviewing the footage I realized it was a group of 6 long beards and some miscellaneous other hens and jakes.

I was ready to head out and stepped back into the intersection and spotted another bird down the east road.....another super nice long beard! After filming him for a minute I turned to the west and spotted a bird about 150yds and other turkeys started filing across the road.
At least 6 hens and 2 jakes there! One hen even sported a 6-7" beard.

It was one incredible morning of scouting. Check out this video...........

Larry S.

Florida Spring Gobbler Season Report - #7 -Fifth Week!

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Monday, Apr. 11, 2011-day #17

I took off for Monday and did not hunt today.

Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2011-day #18

Since I did not scout Monday I was forced to prospect this morning. I covered a number of roads without getting any response from a gobbler. I did call up a hen on the road near a spot we call the persimmon tree. It was a pretty slow morning.

Wednesday, Apr. 13, 2011-day #19

I started out on the North end of the creek road this morning and ended up going in to my stand at the west fence. When I got to within calling distance of the hammock I stopped and made an excited cut call. I was immediately answered by a hen cutting back at me. Since that was all I had to go on I thought I'd play it out and how there was a gobbler with them.

I needed to close the distance a little so I moved their direction. It was so think you couldn't see 10'. I never came into any place that was open enough to set up and call. Finally I was actually within gun range of them and there was just no place to call from. The hens were still aggressively calling to me but there was nothing I could do. I had just decided to go back when I heard one fly, then another. Amazingly, they flew almost vertically up into a big yellow pine. They had flown up for a vantage where they could look for me. One of the hens walked up and down the limb she was on calling and looking. She would hop up to another limb and do the same thing. It was a pretty interesting to see.

It was getting up in the morning so I decided to slip out of there and head for work. On the way out I cut some track sign in the road. It was a gobbler and a hen that had come from a big head where they had roosted and crossed the road headed to a pasture just up the hill. The gobbler strutted his way up a dim road and I believe this is the remaining bird from the duo I have been hunting.

This was an interesting discovery and I started making plans for an afternoon hunt.


Late that afternoon I got there in time to get set up between the pasture and the roost where the turkeys had roosted. The sign on the sandy knob indicated that a number of turkeys had been using this spot and there were plenty of big gobbler tracks. I was a little disappointed that I had not put 2 and 2 together and already figured this out.

Unfortunately, even though the plan was sound, the birds roosted elsewhere that night and I did not hear nor see any turkeys.

I decided to spend the night at camp and do some tracking with the head lights.

At the persimmon tree, I found where a gobbler had been in my wheel sign from that morning. His track entered the woods at the fork in the road but I found it again just down the road. I tracked down the road to a 4way intersection where he had gone left. I ended up following him a half a mile until he finally left the road at an old sink hole.

I did not know how late in the day he turkey had been there but I hoped he would be roosted on the hill not to far away.


Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011-day #20

I waited at the sink hole and did some calling but never heard a gobble. I did get a response from a hen roosted on the other side of the road but I pulled of and headed off to do some prospecting. That turned out uneventful as well and the turkey sign on the roads was weak.

Friday,  Apr. 15, 2011 - day #21

This turned out to be one of the best hunts in quite some time, a real classic! It's a pretty long story so I'll put it on it's own post to follow.

These turkeys were still finding low bush acorns!

The hen in this photo took advantage of an aggressive atv tire that had

broke up the clay in the road to get a dust bath! pretty smart!

Good luck,
Larry S.

Interesting Turkey Sign from this Weekend!

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I had a bunch of misc. pictures of tracks, feathers, dropping, etc. from my scouting this weekend so I decided to just put them together with some description of what it is your looking at.

I collected most of this while scouting from the truck. I covered ground you could not have walked in a week! If your hunting in an area with sandy roads its  T H E    B E S T,  Q U I C K E S T, way to locate turkeys, bar none.

The picture at the left is a gobblers left wing, primary feather. Note the heavy quill. A hens quill will be half this diameter.

                                                           Bear & Turkey Tracks!

Turkey hen dropping. When their green their real recent!

                                                             Extra large Gobbler Track!

This is some good sign I found from the truck. Hen dusting, gobbler and hen tracks.

A pair of gobbler tracks in the wet sand near a mud hole in the road.

Hens tracks!

Hen tracks and scratch sign. Notice, the scratching is in a "V" that points

in the direction the turkey is traveling.

Large gobbler track!

Pair of Jakes with huge feet walking together. Compare them to the hen track

in front of my left foot. Really the only way to know whether a big track is a jake is to  actually

see them make it which, I did! I ran up on them around the next curve in the road.

Big gobbler track!

Hen scratching and traveling to the left. It's a little unusual to see

scratching in hard damp sand like this. I expect she was looking for gravel for

her craw.

Pair of running Jake tracks!

Jumbo Gobbler Track!

Bear and turkey tracks!

A very small hen track. It's much smaller than it appears in the photo.

Hen tracks and scratching in the edge of a mud puddle in the road.

Gobbler tracks.

Gobbler and hen tracks! Gobbler in middle moving left to right.

Tracking from the truck!

Gobbler and hen tracks in a sand road.

Strut sign! That is the 3-4 closely spaced lines that parallel another

set of 3-4 lines. Note the gobbler track in the middle, moving

from right to left. The gap between the parallel wing drag lines

can vary between 5" and 14" apart. typical is 10-12" 

More strut sign from a gobbler strutting for a nearby hen.

A lot of turkey sign is very subtle and you need to really be paying attention to pick up on it. Once you

get you mind trained for what your supposed to be looking for you can easily pick out a turkeys toe nail sign on a hard road that does not take a foot track.

The picture I included here are all of pretty obvious sign otherwise you wouldn't be able to see anything in the picture. Successful hunters pay attention to detail that most people overlook so keep this in mind when your out in the woods, even in the off season.

Good Huntin'

Larry S.