Why Late Season Turkey Hunting Can Be Best

As turkey season passes the midway point for many hunters it can be both a positive and a negative. On the negative side, hunting pressure has educated many toms. They become call shy and leery of decoys. Just coming off a spring turkey hunt, I can attest to those aspects of the hunt. On the positive side, nesting is underway and that equals lonely toms waiting to hear your calls.

Even though hunting pressure may be intense, gobblers still have the urge to breed. By the middle of the hunting season, they must flip a coin. Do they shut up and hide from hunters, or cut loose and try and find a hen to breed?

Turkey hens lay an egg per day until the clutch of 10 to 14 is complete. Then she begins incubating them.

As spring progresses, more and more hens have filled nests with eggs and incubation of the eggs begins. The moment hens take on full-time mothering duties at the nest is when a gobbler has one less hen to court. Do not quit the hunt just yet if the toms have been dodging your calls. Great hunting could be just around the corner.

It begins slowly, but nesting picks up steam as toms fan for the ladies. Once hens have discreetly ascertained the location of their nest, they begin laying one egg daily. Breeding may continue throughout the two-week period it takes her to accumulate approximately a dozen eggs. Interestingly, hens can store semen for efficiency, thus avoiding extracurricular activities with toms. This frustrates the toms and makes them more susceptible to your calls.

As hens deposit eggs and spend less time with the flock, tom’s take notice of the dwindling numbers. A single hen’s absence may not be noticed, but after four, eight, a dozen disappear, a tom finds himself lonelier and lonelier. But remember, hens do not stay on their nests 24/7 until the last egg is laid. The flock slowly becomes fragmented. Hens may return to the flock or simply feed throughout the day solo, possibly returning to a community roost. But once their clutch is full and they start incubating, they are unavailable to the gobblers. The longbeards start feeling like Tom Hanks in “Cast Away.” Your odds go way up.

Kayser and friend Levi Duncan seemed pleased with a nesting season tom they fooled.

STRATEGY
Although it goes against the grain, a midday assault may be the answer. Toms may still court a few hens at dawn, but by midmorning they increasingly find themselves abandoned.

Sl0… sleep in and hit the woods right before the brunch hour. Troll the woods with a series of soft, lonesome yelps to fire up any unattached toms wandering without a hookup. Ramp up the banter if he turns up the volume for a fever-pitch meeting. Stay in cover. Make the gobbler hunt you until he appears within shotgun range. A decoy in a small opening could seal the deal.

Keep up your scouting duties, including the use of trail cameras. They can help you pattern a lonely tom visiting a field to fan or feed by himself. Look at the time stamp and you may be able to sleep in longer for a gobbler with an afternoon tendency to stroll edges.

Another bonus to hunting later in the season, lonely toms aside, is the fact that foliage in the woods becomes denser. This leafy veil allows you to sneak closer to toms that otherwise could spot you through the bare limbs. Whether you use the leafy cover to circle a tom, stake a decoy in an opening or do the “Kayser Krawl” to get in range, the increased density of leaves and grasses will provide camouflage.

Late-season toms can be a testy and trying bunch, but there are some bonuses to hunting past halftime.

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For more about Mark Kayser and ways to follow him on social media, visit www.markkayser.com.

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