In the spring you are trying to get a gobbler to come into your calling by making him think he is coming in to a receptive hen.

In the fall you hunt turkeys by covering ground until you find and break up a flock of turkeys. That flock is usually going to be hens and birds of this year. If you locate a flock you want to run into the flock trying to get them to fly in all directions. Once they are well broke up sit down near where you broke them up, pull out your favorite calls and then call in a bird by using a combination of old hen assembly calls and the kee-kee run calls of young birds. The birds don’t like to be separated so they will call back and forth to one another in order to get back together as a flock again. You are trying to make one or more of them think they are coming back to a part of the flock. I use different calls to make them think several turkeys are already together and they should come to join them.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with harvesting a hen or even a young bird in the fall. The seasons are structured, in length, to assure the turkey populatoins aren’t being over harvested.

R.S. Bodenhorn