Once you have located some birds, your next step is to locate a food source close to where you heard them. Quite often, turkeys will root around through leaves and debris looking for grubs, insects, acorns and pine nuts. Once you’ve located their food source, you can follow their tracks to their overnight roosts. During the spring season, most birds won’t move too far away from their mating areas and will stay close to their source of food and water.

After locating the birds, look for their migration route from their roost to their food supply. Once you’ve observed the birds in the same areas for several days, it’s time to pick a calling spot or a spot for a blind.

If you’re hunting on private lands, erecting your blind and leaving it there for a week or more without visiting is a good way of doing things. When a blind’s built right, the birds will get used to it, so that when it’s time to hunt you can get into it, and the turkeys won’t be the wiser.

NEW JERSEY
One place where the wild turkey population has really taken off over the last 10 years is in the Garden State. Wild turkey restoration began here in 1977 when, after decades of not having any wild turkey population due to loss of habitat and over-hunting, the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) joined forces with the New Jersey Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation — and released 22 birds into the wild.

In 1979, biologists and technicians began to live-trap and relocate birds to establish populations throughout the state. By 1981, the wild turkey population was able to support a spring hunting season. Two years later in December 1983, a limited fall season was begun.

Since that small beginning, the wild turkey population has taken off like a rocket, and now there are lots of wild turkeys throughout the state. Because a lot of land in the Garden State is off-limits to hunting, the wild turkey population has exploded, just like the deer population. Turkeys are being seen in places they were never found before.