Bucky10, visit turkeyhuntingsecrets.com for a wealth of free articles that will bring you up to speed on spring turkey hunting. Armed with a bit of knowledge, you still have to get your boots dirty a few seasons. Experience and the turkey himself will be your greatest teacher. Hope this helps.

Being that I live in the big city, it takes considerable time and gas expense for me to drive 1.5 hours away and scout new areas, primarily public land. My biggest source of information to find new turkey areas this year are the people I associate with daily such as workers that live in the country, truck drivers and fellow deer hunters who see flocks of birds in the fall. I am builing a topographic map library of the general areas to get a picture of the geography before I will head out and search for turkey activity. I will then slip into the woods early spring moving quietly and concealed in camoflage searching for dusting areas, scratchings, droppings, prints ect. to verify that turkeys are using the general area. In one area I hunted the past couple of springs, the turkeys will gobble a bit on opening day and then completely shut up after the bombardment shock calls and hen calls that follow before and especially after the season starts. Sometimes I wish shock calls weren't sold as I think they make public land hunting harder. My tactics this year is to push deeper into the woods searching for birds that don't get hammered by calls close to convenient spots such as logging roads. I will try and get out onto high vantage points early and listen for gobblers on roost areas and maybe try alternative gobbler locators later in the day before the season starts such as my goose flute, gobble tube, coyote howler and my mallard drake whistle to recreate the screech of the red tail hawk.
God help me find more turkeys this spring as turkeys are strutting, haunting me in my dreams!!!

I guess my complete list would be something like this:

1)landowner information
2)visual sightings
3)physical obstacles (fences, etc.)
4)water sources
5)roost sites
6)dust bowls
7)strut zones
8)food sources

Hunting in the NorthEast, the breeding season is well underway. Food sources are changing daily in May, as new vegetation sprouts and new insect crops emerge. The other physical aspects are pretty constant.

If I can combine the roost sites, dust bowls and strut zones with known sightings and landowner information, then I can usually map out a pattern.

Once I develop a pattern, I start developing a plan. Living in CT, many of the parcels I hunt are small, therefore I probably only have access to a few of the physical needs. I must therefore plan accordingly.

Following example. I only have access to a clover pasture that serves as a food source and primary dusting spot. The roost site is a large mixed hardwood/hemlock grove 2 properties over. The adjoining property has some nice strut zones and a small creeklet running through the open oak/beech forest. The landowner routinely observes the turkeys dusting in his pasture around 10am.

Is there any sense in getting out of bed at 3:30 to sit at the pasture edge by 5 a.m.? Nope, I'll hunt this property mid-morning after going to the spots I can roost hunt.

More than likely, I'll personally save this spot for some late-season hunting when the birds are call shy, but headed in this general direction via their daily routine. I'll take a temperature and either wait one out or start hammering late in the morning, when most of the hunters are home taking a nap.

I've learned that honey-holes are great, but if I'm taking newbies then new properties are the only way to truly teach.

To me, taking the time to teach them how to thoroughly scout is probably the best advice an experienced hunter can give a rookie.

I hunt the same farm every year so things don't change much from year to year. The turkeys there roost and strut mostly in the same places each year. That is the advantage of hunting the same piece of property each season. I realize not everyone can hunt the same place all the time so that makes it all the more important to pre-season scout. My scouting consists of going out starting about 6 wks. or so before season opens and sitting in spots around the edge of the property where I can here good at daylight and listening for gobbles. I mark the spots I heard gobbles from on an aerial photo from Terraserver. When the gobbling quits, I try to get to a vantage point where I can see with binoculars and see if I can see birds strutting. All this is marked on the map or mental notes are taken to use later when the season opens. I check my aerial photo the day before the season opens and generally sit on opening morning closest to where I have heard the most gobbles. This type of scouting works well for me and by doing it from a distance, few if any birds are spooked. MTT