Your six-step playbook for gobblers that won’t leave their hens for your calls and decoys.
by Darron McDougal
Four gobblers and several hens meandered around the pasture all morning. Wherever the hens went, the strutters followed. The closest they came was 125 yards. Despite my decoys being plainly visible and my calling excellent, the morning hunt was a bust. Late-morning winds swept the flock into the nearby river bottom, so I collapsed my blind, grabbed my decoys, and hoofed it 2 miles back to my vehicle.
After contemplating the morning’s hunt in bed that night, I elected to do something I seldom do: omit my jake decoy. I have almost too much success with a jake decoy. Still, it it hadn’t worked that morning, and it was time for a change. Rather than play the same beat, my new plan was to entice the hens.
The following morning, I planted my two Avian-X hens and used some aggressive calling to get them fired up. It took some time and beckoning, but they came right in. The toms were in tow and the hunt got interesting.
Hunting henned-up gobblers can be highly frustrating. Should you encounter one this spring, try these six deadly plays.
Stay In The Woods
At certain points of the season, gobblers will split away from the hens late in the morning and for several midday hours. Satellite toms and jakes are also out roving and looking for lone hens between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Fresh-off-the-roost success is great. However, if a henned-up gobbler won’t leave his hens for your calls and decoys right off the bat, there’s a chance that he will come right back to where he last heard your calling later in the morning. Resist the hot diner breakfast. Pack a protein bar and some other snacks. Keep hunting.
Get In His Wheelhouse
If you’ve had at least two consecutive hunts during which a flock didn’t come to your calling or decoys, it’s time to move in tighter to where the birds spend the first two morning hours. In some cases, that means setting up where they fly down. In other cases, it’s where they feed and strut.
If there isn’t any cover to hide in at that location, set a ground blind right there. I’ve bow-killed dozens of toms from blinds in wide-open fields. This tactic works extremely well.
If the turkeys are roosting off the property but are feeding on it, identify their preferred feeding locations. Again, if this is in the middle of a wide-open field, pop a ground blind up right there. One of the most effective ways to get a henned-up gobbler within shooting range is to set up where the flock will be rather than sitting 100-150 yards away and relying on your calls and decoys.
Lure The Hens
When turkeys frequent an area but do not exhibit a tight pattern, the previous tactic is less effective. In this case, two very realistic hen decoys were put out, and the jake was omitted. I’ve found that flocks virtually ignore cheap decoys. On the flip side, extremely lifelike versions, such as those by Avian-X or Dave Smith, get under a hen’s skin.
Sometimes, calling isn’t even necessary—just put the realistic hen decoys where the live hens will see them, and they’ll come in to fight, towing the gobblers behind. But, sometimes, it takes some audible coaxing to get this tactic to work. If the hens aren’t talking, I’ll fire off some sharp cutts and obnoxiously loud yelps. When the hens respond, I mimic what they say. As they call louder and more frequently, so do I. I even cutting them off. Often, they’ll get ticked and come into my hen decoys. I’ve even had hens peck the decoys and strut beside them.
Use The Terrain
If you’re hunting in the timber or rolling topography, there are often opportunities to move on birds that evaded your initial setup. This is where in-depth knowledge of the property’s contours, cover, and food sources becomes priceless. Before your hunt, study the property using HuntStand Pro’s Terrain base map or use the Hybrid base map with the Contour overlay engaged.
Use the Crop History overlay and the Natural Atlas base map to study the area’s food and water sources, including those on adjacent properties. The goal is to learn prospective ways that the turkeys will use the property and have some terrain plays in mind when a henned-up tom evades your setup.
Also, be prepared to reference HuntStand Pro on the fly during your hunt, especially when the flock takes an unexpected turn. It can help you peg where the birds are going and the terrain and cover you can use to get ahead of them so that you can ambush the tom as the flock passes.
Go Find Another Tom
I don’t usually suggest leaving turkeys to find turkeys. However, if you’ve put in several consecutive days and have used the tactics noted above without success, it’s probably time to go find a more receptive gobbler to hunt. This might entail driving around and looking for birds on private land from the road, then determining who the landowner is via HuntStand Pro’s Property Info overlay before asking for permission. I’ve left many unreceptive, henned-up toms and found ones that wanted to play.
Another viable option if you’re not the door-knocking type is to pop in and out of as many public land parcels as possible. Map your options using HuntStand Pro’s Hunting Lands and Public Lands overlays. Don’t overlook small parcels, especially during the middle of the day. Properties that were dead earlier in the day can become money as soon as a lonely tom wanders through. The nice thing about the door-knocking or public land angles is that you’re doing no harm to the original henned-up tom(s). If you don’t find more promising prospects, you can always return to hunt that original bird.
Wait Until The Last Week Of The Season
This one is tough, but if you have only one property to hunt and are uninterested in finding new places to hunt, waiting until the late season can turn the tables in your favor. As hunter pressure subsides and hens nest and even incubate, toms become incredibly susceptible to calling and decoys. My most drawn-out hunts are in the middle of the season (when toms are most henned-up), and my fastest hunts are always toward the end of the season. If I could pick only a few days of the season to hunt in my home state of Wisconsin, they would be at the end of May.
The risk you run with waiting is that the gobbler will move off your property where you cannot chase him. Maybe an adjoining landowner harvests him or he falls victim to predation. Still, if you’re not out there pressuring him like crazy when he’s henned-up, you might have the hunt of all hunts during the season’s final week.
Conclusion
I don’t suggest it due to safety concerns (especially on public lands). Still, I’ve also taken several gobblers that were henned-up and not coming in by stalking within 100 yards and presenting a fan or two-dimensional tom decoy to challenge them. They ran right in. If you try this tactic, you’ll do so at your own risk and accept any and all safety risks.
Hunting a henned-up gobbler day after day using the same tactics and expecting him to eventually come within range is what I call waiting for what might never happen. Sometimes, you must pull out the stops, get aggressive, try new things, or back off until he’s more receptive. These six deadly plays have the potential to turn your hunt from observing a flock from 100-150 yards away to putting a gobbler on the ground. Please give them a whirl on a henned-up gobbler this spring, and drop us some comments at Born Hunting. We’re here to help!
