Turkey activity during the past few weeks has been somewhat suppressed due to cold and windy weather with several precipitation events. This means that a break in the clouds is all the birds need to progress with their annual spring ritual. While it’s difficult to predict exactly which stage of the breeding cycle, if at all, the turkeys in our regional area are in, one can maintain tabs on several flocks to see how things are moving along in the life of the spring turkey.
It’s important to remember that there is quite a bit of variability over the entire region. Birds in different areas, with different food sources and strut zones, are acting differently throughout the region. That said, the birds I’ve been watching are itchy to get into the full-swing of things. There’s plenty of gobbling, and an intense amount of competition and fighting amongst all sexes and age classes. This, along with the limited/rare hen-breeding I’ve been seeing tells me that the bulk of the primary breeding phase has yet to occur.
While it may mean that the weather has pushed things back just a tiny-bit, it does make for some good drama, and quite a bit of turkey sightings. Hens are doing plenty of talking within the flocks, establishing their own pecking order. On the other side of the fence, gobblers are often too busy chasing one another to pay mind to jakes that are allowed to fully strut. However, in one of the flocks I’m keeping tabs on, there’s few gobblers and quite a few hens. In this flock, the jakes are taking a serious beating!
What does this mean to the hunter? Depends on when you’re hunting! However, I think it’s safe to say that the heaviest actual breeding phase (initial) is yet to come. It’ll likely land smack-dab during my early MN season, with the end-result being incredibly henned-up gobblers that roost with the hens and don’t say a peep save their early-morning gobbles from the roost. That’s why it’s good to have a few different birds in your back pocket when the group you’ve been watching all spring decides they don’t want to play.
Good luck!
Joel
Excellent update Joel!
Very good points. I like to say that turkeys are not always doing the same thing at the same time. It changes daily out there and from location to location and from one flock to another flock.
What is everyone else seeing out there?
i see dead turkeys in the near future
good read joel
wish i had more mornings to scout darn fish and stupid work
this one was new to me had a buddy out this am scouting for this weekend never heard 1 gobble but had 3 toms fly down in the field with 9 hens
do they sometimes not gobble at all from the roost??
Great report Joel!
Only one more week!
It’s rare, but I’ve had it happen most often during poor weather (when flydown is much later). It’s also happened to me when the toms were roosted in the same tree or immediate area as the hens if the hens fly down early. When they can maintain visual contact, I guess there’s no need to gobble? This sounds like the scenario that your buddy found.
I’ve also had subordinate or satellite gobblers not make a peep while the big dog is a hundred or more yards down the line tearin’ it up. Those lesser birds, which can be great gobblers in their own right, just pitch out of the tree and pick through the woods/field without making a single gobble.
Joel
Joel, theres a saying down here that the first birds to make any sounds while still on the roost are hens, is there any truth to that, do you ever hear any toms gobble first?
My experience is usually that the toms gobble far before the hens actually. While it’s true that there are days when the toms refuse to gobble, or few of them do, and hens will be yelping “earlier”, I find that during heavy gobbling periods the toms will crank up when it’s barely getting light!
Some studies done by T.R. Michels in southern MN confirm this thought, see attached graph.
In fact, I think that calling too early, too loud, and too proud, before the real hens start talking is a major error on the part of many hunters. Start soft and give the morning time to develop.
Joel
Thanks, good to know. I’ll be listening if I make it out this year.
Excellent graph Joel!
Thanks for posting! 
Thanks for the info Joel.
Only two more days!
