Turkey Season Memories And Preparations

It’s March 14th and we’re almost a month away from Missouri turkey season! Most people who know me know that I am absolutely obsessed with spring turkey hunting! I love the months of March, April, and May for many reasons: the fishing is picking up, the woods are greening up, the morel mushrooms are popping out of the ground and most important the turkeys are doing their spring rituals! One of the biggest reasons I love chasing turkeys every year are the memories from past years that resurface every time I’m out there.

My first turkey with my father (on what is now my favorite place in the world to chase turkeys), my first turkey taken when hunting and calling by myself, my four bearded turkey killed moments before getting completely soaked in a thunder storm and so many more. Reasons for having so many memories are due to the fact that I was turkey hunting with my dad years before I was a deer hunter. 

Thinking back to the early days of turkey hunting, I can’t help but look at the amount of change that has occurred. Early in my career you went to locations where turkeys were known to roost and you waited to hear a gobbler then you made your move. It’s 2013 now, and although season is over a month away my scouting has already started, thanks to our trail cameras. Yesterday we began setting our cameras to time lapse. We do this so we can scout over fields where turkeys may be active, but still out of range of our motion sensors. Common trail cameras without the time lapse feature would most likely miss an old tom that was strutting a hundred yards away in the field. We position our cameras to overlook our food plots and then set the time lapse interval to every 15 minutes. Once this is done we now are scouting our food plots without even getting out of bed in the mornings.

With our cameras set up with time lapse on our food plots we are officially scouting and preparing for the first day of turkey season. When that first day arrives we will hit the woods with complete confidence on where and when to go!

Turkey seasons are already open in some states and are soon to open in others. Always stay safe and best of luck to all!

Daydreaming of long beards and long spurs!