Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting early and late decoy strategy help requested

I'm hunting season A next week and there is no green leaf out in MN yet so I'm more exposed.
If I don't tag out in A, I can hunt the last tw o weeks Season F (memorial day) and its fully green by then.

Im a sit and wait when I hear something close. I usually have a chair and fence blind and patienly wait & read a book to keep me sitting still.
I'm too twitchy to sit in the open. Plus I'm on WPA land that doesn't have any large trees and always a bit swampy.

The decoys are my training wheels and I'm keeping them on still. its nice to see birds coming into my decoys and I can set my book down.

So how many decoys in Season A, the mix, and the placement from me.
Then same thing for Season F.

Thanks in advance.

If public ground ditch the decoys. Every other hunter out there is using them so my opinion is birds become wise to this and wait til the hen comes to them once spotted since that is how its supposed to go.

I have killed a ton of birds since 1987 or so and only 1 has died over a decoy. Never seen an advantage to one.

A series of 3-5 very soft clucks every 15-20 minutes and keep your eyes peeled on the back door.

Yes public land.
This is the first season so they haven't been educated yet. Until Season F.
The place doesn't seem to get much traffic though and rarely another pickup at the approach.

So I pulled down my decoys and I have some primos hard shell ones and a bunch of foam.

I have one really lightweight foam feeding hen if I go down to mininimum decoys based on your guys recomendations. I've had to depoly decoys in late season to get birds to cross private land farm fields.
(training wheels or my security blanky... I may ditch the decoy)

Just my thoughts but if hunting fields, set up say 20 yards deep or so in the timber. Possibly a little deeper depending on cover.

Make that bird think the hen is back in the woods far enough he needs to come in there instead of staying out in the open.

Thanks. I'll try it.

To be honest, all depends on the bird and how he acts. May take a hunt or two to figure him out. He may respond to a decoy, he may not. Older birds have been there done that. Late season birds too.

To be honest, all depends on the bird and how he acts. May take a hunt or two to figure him out. He may respond to a decoy, he may not. Older birds have been there done that. Late season birds too. A territorial hen will certainly come in and beat up on a decoy, a lot of times he'll be right behind her. I love making a hen mad. I call to hens more than gobblers, get them in, he won't be far.

I hunt central and NE Wisconsin. I've found when hunting early, before any green up, to leave the decoys at home and use the terrain to set up in. I look for spots that the terrain hides me until a bird is in range. They just see too good! And as already mentioned, the natural order is for the hen to go to the tom. I'm sure we've all had decoys both help and hurt, so it's always a roll of the dice! Good luck and enjoy!

Best advice is to get uphill if there’s hills around there

Can you expand on that?

Is that so they dont look down on you and bust you? or see a large are with no hen decoy? or let them study your decoy and think something is suspect?

In my experience they’ll come up hill on a string no decoy needed.Downhill they’ll hang up and look 👍

I hunt them exclusively with a bow.
I use a blind, set a jake 10 yards in front of the blind and one or two hens at 5-7 yards in front of blind.
I hunt private land and set up on a field edge with my blind just inside the field edge and the decoys out in the field where they can be seen from a distance.
And I call sparingly.

High ground is definitely to your advantage.

I find a good hiding spot on the edge of a field where I have recently seen birds. I use a Jake decoy and one or two hens. I place the decoys 25 to 35 yards from my position. I call a little every 15 or 20 minutes. The jake decoy is the key. I think most gobblers would rather kick a jake’s butt than breed a hen. This is more like deer hunting than traditional turkey hunting, but it is effective. Most of the gobblers I kill never gobble.

I know what you mean about hunting pre-green up! Birds can see a long way...

I don't use a decoy on public land or in the woods, I do use a decoy on fields.

I like to use a two hen and jake set up. Seems to work pretty well, but I'm on private.