Figuring Out Wild Turkey Behavior: Difficult But Not Impossible

Understanding wild turkey behaviors is multi-faceted. Large-scale differences, such as variances in subspecies, contrasts with spring and fall flocks, daily movement patterns, and more, are all important pieces of the turkey hunting puzzle. Thus, here’s a multi-step process for understanding wild turkey behavior and recognizing wild turkey patterns.

Wild turkeys, like all animals, exhibit behaviors, habits, and tendencies. Turkey hunters who learn these stand to benefit, and their successes tend to increase after becoming fluent in wild turkey behavior and body language.

Differences Between Subspecies: Turkeys are turkeys. However, there are slight differences in each subspecies. Oftentimes, these things are influenced by habitat type, terrain, topography, and more. For example, due to limited forested areas, Rio Grande turkeys tend to be more loyal to roost sites. Merriam’s are known for a higher-pitched gobble. Easterns are commonly touted as the most challenging subspecies to hunt. The Osceola has a reputation for gobbling less often. These and more are examples of how each subspecies is different. Furthermore, each subspecies must be hunted slightly differently.

Fall and Winter Flock Dynamics: In the fall and winter, most turkeys group up by gender. Usually, gobblers run in flocks together. Hens operate similarly. Jakes tend to join gobbler groups, occasionally mix into hen flocks, and sometimes form their own crews.

Spring Flock Dynamics: In the spring, turkeys move into their primary breeding ranges. They spread out and inhabit different areas. Usually, male and female turkeys alike break apart from the winter flocks. Early in the season, flocks remain larger but continue to get smaller as spring progresses. Gobblers will be singular or run with another tom or two. Hens tend to be loners, travel with another hen, or move with a small flock of hens. Of course, male birds are constantly vying for their female counterparts’ attention.

Daily Movement Patterns: Turkeys operate on cyclical patterns. They move from the roost to feeding areas and strut zones and then back to roost sites.

Home Ranges: Wild turkey home ranges can vary from a few hundred to 1,500 acres. The quality of the habitat, density of habitat quality, and distances between roost sites and feeding areas influence home range sizes.

Daily Behaviors: Turkeys exhibit routine behaviors each day. Some of these include dusting, preening, sunning, and more. Of course, turkeys gobble, strut, fight, and do other turkey things, too.

Personality Traits: Turkeys exhibit varying degrees of dominance and land somewhere along their local hierarchy chart. Some birds are more passive, and others are more aggressive. Similarly, some gobblers are loners and others run in groups.

Communication Methods: Wild turkeys communicate verbally and non-verbally. According to the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), they produce 28 distinct vocalizations. You can listen to some of these here, courtesy of the NWTF.

Gobbler and Hen Interactions: Nature is quite specific in how gobblers and hens interact. While many hunters don’t realize it, in most cases, hens actually go to the gobblers, rather than the gobblers going to the hens. Hunters must remember that when setting up and attempting to call in turkeys. Be patient, because you’re attempting to reverse how Mother Nature operates.

Breeding Season Behavior: Breeding is driven by photoperiod (daylight length). As the breeding season kicks off, the segregated flocks break apart, settle into spring ranges, and begin courting. Of course, much of the turkey hierarchy was settled in fall and winter. That said, gobblers are still vying for dominance. Jakes make feeble attempts to get in on the action, too. Gradually, hens become more receptive and begin mating. Then, they begin transitioning into the nesting phase. If they lose the nest to predation, they might breed again and re-nest.

Temperature and Weather Impacts: Temperature and weather commonly impact wild turkey behaviors. For example, colder weather with more rain, snow, and wind routinely decreases how vocal and responsive gobblers are to calling and, sometimes, decoying. Overall, they tend to seem less interested in breeding activity when the weather is poorer.

While the above is a great starting point, there are many other wild turkey behaviors and tendencies to know. The more you become aware of these, the better off you’ll be.

Part of patterning turkeys is using the right hunting gear. Of course, patterning involves listening at daybreak, glassing from afar, running trail cameras, and more. Hearing where turkeys are roosted at dawn, glassing them from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, and running cams to pinpoint daily feeding and travel routes are all important elements of understanding turkey behaviors.

Regarding gear, a good trail camera can go a long way. For example, a traditional SD-style camera, such as the SPYPOINT FORCE-24, or a cellular camera, such as the FLEX-DARK and FLEX-S-DARK, are solid choices.

Knowing where turkeys roost is a vital piece of the turkey hunting puzzle. It isn’t vital to success, but it’s the starting point for the day’s hunt. If you hope to shoot an early-morning, or maybe even a mid-morning turkey, finding the roost is necessary.

Roosts are highly influenced by region. For example, due to more abundant roost tree options, Eastern turkeys are less loyal to specific roosts. Where trees are more limited, Rios and Merriam's land on the opposite end of that spectrum. All said turkeys tend to choose certain tree species within their environment more often than others. Examples include cottonwoods in the Upper Midwest and pines in the South.

Food drives most of a turkey’s daily schedule. They eat forbs, fruits, grains, grasses, insects, seeds, nuts, and sometimes very small amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. That said, they’re commonly drawn to ag fields (especially key species and plowed ones), cattle pastures (bugging), open fields (insects), oak flats (remaining hard mast), and other key areas.

Turkeys exhibit certain nuanced behaviors. A few examples include dusting, strutting, etc. Turkeys tend to create dust bowls where they repeatedly visit and “dust” their body. This assists with external parasite protection against mites and is loosely attached to the preening process. Furthermore, gobblers commonly hit strut zones, which is where they go to remain visible to passerby hens while strutting their stuff. Hunters who know these locations commonly intercept turkeys.

Once you understand and learn most of the puzzle pieces outlined above, it’s time to assemble them. That includes building general timelines with scouting discoveries from listening to roosted turkeys, glassing birds during the day, and studying trail camera photos. Divide a property’s typical turkey movement into windows, and it’ll help you make hunt plans no matter the time of day you’re able to hunt.

Early Morning: Generally, turkeys spend the early morning closer to their roost sites. The exception is when they pitch from the roost and glide long distances before landing. This is more common when turkeys roost on large field edges and in areas with fewer trees and less cover. Regardless, turkeys fly down, begin feeding, and exchange verbal and non-verbal communication within the flock. Generally, turkeys remain out in open fields.

Mid-Morning: By mid-morning, turkeys are drifting off in various directions. On warmer days, turkeys tend to slink back into cover quicker, and on cooler and milder days, remain in the open for longer periods. All said, food sources drive where birds go throughout mid-morning. Some turkeys hit dustbowls, strut zones, etc.

Midday: Oftentimes, midday finds turkeys within cover, such as open timber. Hotter days might even push them into lower-lying areas with water, which are cooler. At times, birds might hang out and strut along the edge of fields, but if it’s warm, quickly dive back into cover to find reprieve from the sun. Even so, they’re still focusing on food sources.

Mid-Afternoon: As the afternoon wears on, if turkeys haven’t already, they turn toward their planned afternoon roost site. They’ll take routes that satisfy needs, such as those with food, water, and protection, to reach the general area where the roost is located.

Late Afternoon: It’s late afternoon, and turkeys are drifting back closer to the roost. This should place them within a couple of hundred yards of where they plan to fly up for the evening. They’ll hang out around fly-up zones closer to dark.

Wild turkeys constantly change patterns throughout turkey season. While some scouting intel will remain viable throughout the season, some of it is only good for shorter periods. Continue to scout turkeys and adapt to changing patterns throughout the season and throughout the hunt.

With any luck and a good bit of preparation, you’ll get your bird. Oftentimes, we create our “luck” with quality effort. By understanding wild turkey behaviors, and learning their patterns, turkey hunters can be better equipped to fill their turkey tags this spring.