Turkey time in Northwest Montana

Wow, in the last week I have been lucky to experience two great outdoor events. Last week we had 11 turkeys strutting around in our back yard. They were feeding on lawn and garden debris. The toms, males, were in a romantic mood, trying to breed the lady turkeys.

There are lots of turkeys in the Flathead Valley. They can be fun to watch, but can also become a real nuisance, leaving behind big piles of turkey poop on your porch or patio. They quickly become accustomed to your yard and take up residence. They are what some legal folks might call an attractive nuisance!

The other big outdoor event of this past week was the temperature getting up to 75 degrees on Monday. In spite of other higher priority work, I had to dust off a lawn chair and sit in the back yard and soak up some of what has been very rare sun and heat for the last six months. I hope permanent spring is just around the corner!

With the weekend just a day or two away, I am planning a little turkey hunting. The spring turkey season opens this Saturday morning, April 15. The season runs for six weeks until May 31. The limit is one male turkey for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 1 or Northwest Montana. Methods of take are shotguns or archery equipment. If you haven’t shot a wild turkey, don’t expect to find huge plump breasts that are common with domestic turkeys. But these smaller wild turkey breasts are very good eating.

For decades, wild turkeys in Northwest Montana were mostly limited to the Flathead Valley. The prevailing biological opinion was that turkeys could only live in the Flathead Valley where turkeys had a chance to survive tough winters by feeding on the food available from local farms. Then, for some reason that no one has explained to me, wild turkey populations expanded to many corners of Northwest Montana. Somehow, turkeys learned to survive outside the more favorable climate and source of food from valley farms.

A few years ago, my wife and I were driving on a remote timber access road on the Kootenai National Forest, at an elevation of 6,000 feet. We were surprised to see a large turkey strutting down the road. I can’t imagine what any self-respecting turkey was doing trying to live at 6,000 feet!

This same expansion of wild turkey habitat has occurred throughout the United States. When I was a young man growing up in Minnesota, the only wild turkeys were in the southeast corner of the state. That corner of Minnesota has nice hardwood forests and a milder climate. Now wild turkeys are found all over the state!

A couple of years ago I was spring fishing on a Minnesota lake, 300 miles north of the traditional turkey range, when my morning fishing experience included hearing turkeys gobbling in the nearby forest. Very nice! Many wildlife experts believe there are more wild turkeys in the United States now, than when the Mayflower landed. This is a real wildlife management success story.

There are two ways to hunt wild turkeys in Northwest Montana. The highest or most dense turkey populations are in the bottom of the Flathead Valley. So, one way to fill your spring turkey tag is to find a farmer or rural friend that has a turkey problem and help them thin the turkey population. That can be more of a turkey shoot than a real hunt.

The more fun way to fill a turkey tag is to hunt public land or corporate timber land open to public hunting, outside of our valley. Those turkeys are harder to find, more wild and difficult to kill. I like to drive low elevation roads, especially along stream bottoms with brush and hardwood vegetation. I also hunt south facing slopes near streams where the snow has melted. I drive a short distance, get out and listen for a turkey gobble.

I sometimes give a crow call to stimulate a gobble. Male turkeys like to be the dominant bird in their neighborhood, so when they hear a crow call or turkey call, they will generally respond with a challenge gobble. If I hear no responsive gobble, I move on. If I hear a hear gobble, then the real hunt begins. The hunting challenge is to get within shooting range of a tom or male turkey. The spring limit is just one male turkey.

Once you have located a gobbler, the challenge is to get him to come to you. They have very good eyesight, so it is difficult to sneak to them for a shot. You should be decked in camo clothing, including a face mask. Then you start calling, trying to lure the gobbler to you.

There are many types of turkey calls, but I like my slab of slate, similar in size to a hockey puck. You hold this object in one hand and have pencil like device, called a striker, in your other hand. You rub the striker tip against the slab of slate to make a variety of sounds called clucks or yelps. These and other sounds are meant to call a male turkey or gobbler to you, imitating a hen ready to mate.

If the gobbler already had a group of hens, he may be less likely to come to your call. In that case, you may need to sneak in for a close shot at the gobbler. Turkeys can be extremely wary, so sneaking in is easier said than done.

Perhaps the number one reason to go spring turkey hunting is an excuse to get outside and roam the spring woods after a winter of spending to much time inside. So, get outside and enjoy some spring turkey hunting or hiking. Sure beats lawn work!