Hello all, I'm gonna hit the woods this spring for the first time in search of some longbeards. In addition to doing some reading, I was wondering if you guys could provide me with some seed information to get me started. I also have one question. i saw several turkeys this fall during deer season. A group of gobblers, one beard almost dragged the ground, and another group of hens. Will these turkeys frequent the same general areas I saw during the fall this spring? The areas I saw them in were loaded with acorns, so that kind of has me discouraged. I want to feel confident going into the woods and feel like I have a reasonable shot at downing a bird. But my concern is that i wont be able to locate them. Im afraid I wont be able to find where they roost and will go days without seeing a turkey. Also, what calls should I begin with?

They may be in the same area if it suppilies thier needs in the spring as well as fall. The flocks you saw will breakup in the spring and will be more scattered (which is a good thing). Get out early in the mornings (1/2 hour before sunrise) starting about a month before season starts and they will let you know where they are.

What resources should I be looking for that would be useful to them during the spring?

Hey congrats on getting into turkey hunting, hunting those gobblers in the spring is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. i'm from upstate NY so take any advice i give with a grain of salt when applying them to your hunting area, but i think i can provide you with some general guidelines/advice.
First of all, when it comes to finding them i think it is much easier to do in the spring then the fall. This is because the birds are much more vocal in the spring due to it being their breeding season and all. I would encourage you to do a little preseason scouting to try and determine where the birds are, but if all else fails you can get to the woods before dawn and wait for the gobbling to begin at first light. Hens are also much more vocal at this time and at times they cut and yelp aggressively, in fact i think it is a ton of fun to get in pissing matches with old boss hens. In fact if you find a gobbler that is all henned up and wont come to your calls, sometimes by aggrivating the boss hen you can get her to come to you (likely to teach you a lesson for sassing her) and will bring that longbeard with her. Also Birds are usually creatures of habit so once you locate where they roost, when/where they fly down, where they like to go, they usually stay pretty consistent. of course hunting pressure can change all this, but if you are careful turkeys will often return to the same roost sites day after day. As for calls, everyone has their favorites, i'm a pretty aggressive caller so i have a whole vest filled with different calls. I would have at least one locator call (crow call, owl call, etc), a couple friction calls (box call, push peg, slate call, etc) and a mouth call (the best for when they get up close). Like i said i'm pretty aggressive with my calling but everyone has different styles, the best thing you can do is to start softly and try to "take the gobbler's tempature". Meaning if he is gobbling at every sound you make and he's fired up, crank up the calling and keep him coming. If he isn't really responding to your aggressive calling you might want to tone it down and call softly, with soft clucks and purrs (try mixing in some leaf scratching like a feeding hen too). haha oh man i could go on and on, so i will stop here before this gets any longer, but if you have any more questions or any specific questions don't hesitate to ask

Thanks gmil, you have really gone out of your way for me. I think I follow you for the most part on everything. I have a crow call already (to hunt crows) so I'll use that as a locator call. What comes next in calling sequences. What call should be used for each situation. If i actually see one, what do I coax him in with In other words, could you elaborate a bit on the purpose and use of each of the calls you told me about (box call, push peg, slate call). Thanks so much, you're a true sportsman bro.

Also, a box call can be used as a locator call. I like to use a box call when I'm searching for a gobbler. The box call is probably going to be the loudest call you'll have. After I locate a gobbler, I'll scale it down a bit and use a slate call. Here's where you'll throw some purrs at him and some clucks. If he's still eatin' that up and coming my way I'll go to the mouth call. There's nothing like calling to a gobbler that's off to your left and have a gobbler sneak in from the right! It'll only take doing that once to learn that your head needs to be on a swivel most of the time. Hope this helps. Simp

thanks man i appreciate that, i love talking about turkey hunting so thanks for humoring me haha. I carry a crow and owl call for locating but i don't use them that much, i have hunted the same area for years so i usually have a pretty good idea where to find them. As a personal preference i really like slate calls because you can go real soft and sweet on them or really crank it up if you have to. I usually carry three of them along with a half dozen or so different strikers. This way i can mix and match them to get different tones and sounds. I can't tell you how many times i've been in the woods calling on one call and not hearing a damn thing, and then i switch to a different slate or striker and all of a sudden they start gobbling. Some days they might like one sound, some days another and having two slates and five strikers mean you can sound like ten different hens. I carry a box call as well, sometimes when its windy and you really have to turn up the volume nothing works as well as a good box, plus you can become reasonably good caller on a box call pretty quickly. I also carry a few mouth calls and i will be the first to admit i'm not real good with a mouth call, but i have one in my mouth at all times while i'm in the woods. You might be walking along and all of a sudden a long beard might gobble right in front of you and you might not have time to set up and pull your friction calls out, this way no matter what you will have a call ready to go. Another good thing about a mouth call is you can have your gun/bow at the ready and continue to call to bring him in those last couple yards. I think mouth calls are the hardest to master, so don't get to frusterated if you struggle with them at first, if can manage to get the basic "cluck" down pat you will be alright. Often times i will call them up with a slate and once they start getting pretty close, put the slate down, get the gun up and just keep throwing out a cluck or two like a feeding hen to keep him coming, or to get him to hang around if one approaches where i don't expect him. As for a calling sequence it really depends on the situation, early in the morning while they are still on the roost i call very little and very softly, kinda like a hen that is just waking up. once they hit the ground i might throw out a few yelps, if they respond right away i might get a little more aggressive and throw some more yelps at them and maybe cut at them a little. If the longbeards don't really respond to the aggressive calling i might tone it down and switch some soft clucks and purring, mixed in with some leaf scratching to sound like a feeding hen. Sometimes when a tom is henned up i will try to pick a fight with the boss hen and mimic everything she does, but cut her off and do it louder, to try to bring her in with the tom trailing behind her.

gmil you are a savior! The more info you provide the more questions arise. I understand everything you say bout the calls 100%. Few questions: is there a particular slate call you recommend. I saw on tv the other day that Knight & Hale makes i think three? Yella Hammer being one of them.. is there a difference in any of them and if so what do you recommend. I understand what you say about the slate call, it seems as if it provides you with the most sound variations. What mouth call do you recommend as well? As i said in my first post i had seens easily 30 turkeys several gobberls and onehoss (evenbeing new to turkey hunting, I knew this dude's beard wasBIG)during the fall during deer season, mainly when the acorns were falling. when i asked if they would be in the same general areas during the spring RayC said they could or could not. Realizingthat acorns do not fall inspring, I'm guessing they wont be around for that reason haha. Since I have absolutley no clue as to whether or not there are turkeys on our property during the spring, what resources should I look for. What is their primary food source and etc. Thanks again, I'm sure I'll have some more questions after your next post!

Welcome to a new way og life Rockinchair. To try and answer your question I would not pay as much attention to their food sourse in the spring. But none the less they will key in on and seed source they can find, which is why i like open pastures. Depending on the size of your hunting area, in the spring open pastures with adjoining tree lines are my personal fav. Just remember that during spring turkey season the main thing in the breeding. To help locate the birds get up a little early walk outside and listen. The month before season I go out 1/2 hour before daylight and listen for birds. For a locator call in early morning I prefer an owl call. as I have never heard a crow before daylight. Another thing. If your out and you hear a flock of crows just goin nuts there is a good chance they are watching a flock of turkeys. If your flock is that big with that many gobblers you have a really good chance of hearing a gobbler during season.
With mouth calls it kinda depends on the caller. I personally like HS Strut mouth calls. but most of my friends use primos and Knight and Hale. The best way is to try a couple and see what works for ya. Now I dont want to scare ya but this s the reason i love turkey hunting so much.....Remeber in the wild that the hen goes to the gobbler, Not the other way around like we try to do. That is why it is such a challenge. But another note you don't have to sound like a perfect turkey you hear on every tape. like i have said before I have heard some really sick turkeys in the wild. After that I learned to relax and not concentrate on trying to be perfect all the time and it helped alot. I wasn't as nervous or worried that my call would scare them away.

My main thing is to have fun. Turkey hunting will get your heart pumping just as much as anything else if not more. When you have than mature longbeard in full strut, spitting and drumming, cutting off every yelp with a gobble. watching as he gets ready to attack your jake decoy. GOTTA LOVE IT! Good luck man.

Haha keep the questions coming i love it. I would agree with Mohunter that in the spring what's for dinner isn't really on those gobbler's minds. I always cut their crop open if i get one to see what they have been eating and around us (upstate NY) a lot of times its grasses, some bugs, maybe some berries or something, but that is def a secondary concern. As for any particular brand of slate, the truth is that they are all pretty good, and in fact i would agree with Mohunter again that often times the calls sound better then the actual hens (some hens sound like a toddler banging on a box call). As for what i personally have it is kind of a mixed bag, of primos, hs strut, quaker boy, and knight & hale. I actually had the yella hammer a few years ago (or at least it was similar, they called it something else then) and it worked real good, loaned it to my brother and never saw it again haha. Some of the sporting goods stores, and even walmart, around here actually put a bunch of calls out on the counter before turkey season that way you can try a bunch of different ones out before you buy one. Like i said though most of the calls out there are so good any of the major brands will probably work just find. i would stick to the basic slate surface to, as opposed to some of the new glass/aluminum/other weird surfaces out there. I think nothing sounds sweeter then just a plain of slate with a wooden pot, and i find it to be a little more forgiving then some of the other surfaces. Then I would pick out a few different kinds of strikers. They are fairly inexpensive and each one will have a slightly different sound. As for mouth calls, again they are all pretty good, and most are pretty inexpensive so you can experiment a little. I kinda like the smaller frame ones they have out now, i just think they are more comfortable but that is a personal preference. Since you are fairly new i would recommend getting a basic double reed as opposed to the triple/quadruple reed calls with all the cuts and stuff in them. a double reed mouth call is much easier to get the hang of and is much more forgiving.
As far as what resources to be looking for i don't really know the type of land you hunt, and how it compares to upstate NY. But as far as general things, look for tracks (we have snow up here so its easy to find them this time of year), look for roosting sites (around here this is usually hardwood ridges/hemlock stands) which will usually have a lot of feathers and droppings on the ground, and as for food sources they really each just about anything from grasses to bugs, to mast crops, agricultural crops, fruit, etc. take a couple mornings like a month or so before season starts and get out to the woods before dawn and find a nice spot to just sit and listen for them gobbling on roost, and hen yelping. I'm not sure how big your property is, but if you are seeing them in the fall chances are they wont be too far away in the spring.