frankw - well I'm glad I'm not the only one in the area that struggled with the birds last year haha. I managed to take two nice birds but down in the Hudson Valley area where they seemed much more cooperative. The last couple years I've had some luck hunting the birds hard at the end of the season. It seems like when I first started turkey hunting about 12 years or so ago the first two weeks were the best and the last two weeks were really slow. As of late it seems like that has reversed and I haven't had nearly as much luck the first two weeks, but the last two weeks the birds were much more active. My best guess would be that the couple mild winters we had meant more hens survived and with so many hens to go around the birds don't have to respond to calls, they just gobble up some hens off the roost and go to strut zones. As the season goes on and more and more hens start to go to nest I think all of a sudden the Toms start to get lonely and are easier to work.

This is why i think early in the year you have to hunt them almost like deer by getting into their natural travel routes because they usually will not leave hens to come to your calls (hen in the hand is worth two in the bush i guess, haha). Then if you still cant get them close enough start working on the hens. I have come to think that calling to the hens is even more fun then calling to the toms, because once you get those hens fired up it turns into a real pissing match haha. I've found this strategy to be very effective because very often the hens will come matching in to find you, especially if you have a real mouthy boss hen in the flock. Invariably the gobbler will follow them right in, usually pulling up the rear locked in a strut (I guess they like chick fights just like us, haha). The difficult thing about this strategy is that when the hens come in you have that many more eyes looking for you and you have to be extra careful with your movement. If you have one a decoy is often killer here because it gives the birds something to focus on.