Welcome to the sport. You are in for an exciting spring whether you tag one or not. My advice would be to stay on these forums all through the season and ask alot of questions. There are alot of experienced turkey hunters on hear to learn from. I've been hunting turkeys for 10 years now and with relatively good success but I seem to learn something new every year from these guys.

I will jump to one of your questions and give you the best answer I know how. Should you use decoys...Yes.......and No...... This is a loaded question and you will hear different from everybody. I own more turkey decoys than I know what to do with but dont use them like you would think. I ALWAYS have some in the truck and 98% of the time carry at least one into the field with me. I dont use them nearly that often. I do generally however use a hen decoy. Not always needed and 80% of the time doesn't hurt. You are pretty safe with using 1 hen and at times it will make all the difference in the world. Jake decoys is another matter. It can either bring them in running and send them running and anywhere in between. I really try to get to know the birds I'm hunting and what mood they are in before bringing out the jake. Example, one year we killed 2 birds on consecutive mornings in the same setup, I would say strictly because of the jake decoys we had out. We had many dominant birds in the area and we knew this from hunting them the week before with no success but being able to watch them. The next year in the same area I had a bird going nuts and coming right in and watched him pop out, see the jake decoy, shut up, turn around and walk straight away. Any way hope this helps and good luck.