Im my neck of the woods, fall turkeys and spring gobblers are two different propositions altogether. It's hard not to notice. I've killed more birds in the fall, many while hunting something else, than I have in the spring while specifically hunting gobblers.

In the fall, the birds are flocked up and I've had them foraging right up to my deer stand while I'm wearing blaze orange. I've shuffled my feet to see what would happen and watched them (a little less than hastily) wander off, only to come right back a half hour later to the same spot. Completely indifferent to the fact that there was a hunter in blaze orange right among them. My first bird of the 2022-2023 season I took with buckshot and it was close enough that the buckshot entered and exited as a single hole. No shot spread at all. That's how close they will get. I don't know why that is except maybe they just don't associate the fall with being as dangerous when they are all flocked up. I dunno.

Spring birds aren't like that at all, at least that I've seen. By the time the season here in eastern Virginia starts, the hens have been mated and are off on their own. The toms are alone and tired of fighting. I spent this spring season trying to get a tom to come into my call and they just weren't keen on it. It took me to the third-to-last day of the season to get a two year old bird to come in to see what was making sounds, and even he got no closer than about 30-35 yards or so and then started to wander off before I shot him.

There's a reason people shoot birds at 40 yards. Because getting a tom to come that close in the spring is hard. It's not as hard in the fall. They are completely two different types of hunting.

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