spring turkey help
 

so here in south jersey near salem county the way our turkey hunting works is through a lottery. you put a request in for up to only 2 permits for a zone and time period (say like the week of april 18th is one period and the first week of may is another etc etc) . then a lottery is held and you are either awarded the permit or declined the permit. I don't know if any other states are like that or not but anyway...the question I have is I have been turkey hunting for about 5 years now and have a few small beards and one12" beard nice tom. but for the last 2 years I have really had a hard time getting a nice tom or even calling in birds at all. I wouldn't say my calling is great or bad. I can def call a bird in. that doesn't seem to be the problem. its either I call them in and they are just out of range or I don't see or hear anything at all. its never a problem with the calling it seems. Should I be putting in more time "treeing" the birds at night or being in the woods looking and watching before the season starts? or should I be setup facing north south east west? or any tips on how to make a better setup while im hunting? any info on how to help bag this spring gobbler would be great. thanks guys

well imo putting the birds to bed is ALWAYS a big plus and i do as much scouting as i can. as far as the east west ect imo it depends on what the birds do after flydown or there may be obsticles somewhere you may not be aware of hope this help good luck this year:D

one thing that helps is to use a crow or owl call to "shock" gobble them. normally a few blows on a crow or owl and they will give up they're location. other than that my best advice would be to get some decoys and maby try usin a mixture of box, slate and mouth calls all three and see what they respond to the best. good luck

If i get birds hanging up just outside of my range, i sometimes start doing a light purr and scratching in the leaves. Seems to add a bit more realism to the whole scenario.

Do you put out decoys? Which kind, as in, hen, a couple of hens, a jake or a gobbler?

Scouting is the best way to improve your odds. What cammogunner is saying is so true. If you go scouting and you find a fence line, a creek, a hill, a large downed tree, a ditch... could be anything. Some birds will hang up and not come in all the way, because of these things. Also if the bird will not come all the way in, scouting will help you know where the bird is heading, so you can try and get around in front of him and ambush him.

thanks for the tips guys. so I have been reading on here and in magazines and all and it doesn't seem like to many people are fond of or use a nice big Tom decoy. my setup is two hens and one tom decoy caus that's all I have. am I doing something wrong?

[QUOTE=NjHunter85;4126723]thanks for the tips guys. so I have been reading on here and in magazines and all and it doesn't seem like to many people are fond of or use a nice big Tom decoy. my setup is two hens and one tom decoy caus that's all I have. am I doing something wrong?[/Q

you should be fine with that setup just keep the decoys 20 yards away so if some hunter thinks that tom is real you probly wont die

turkey hunting
 

If you can roost birds you have your starting point and by looking at sat. images you have a good idea of where they may go. It's best to scout and watch where the birds go or shock call to find out where the birds go after fly down and getting an on the ground idea of the lay of the land can help you run and gun when you need to greatly increasing your chances of killing another good gobbler.
Staying in the woods longer can get you a lonely gobbler that's not hened up and going back to the roost area in late afternoon can get you a gobbler coming in fast.

This has been my tactic for years and has been very rewarding.