An interesting night of scouting - and questions

[nbadger23]

I headed out around 5:45 last night to do some scouting. I spotted a large group of birds (20+) about 1000 yards off in the field shortly into my walk so I jumped over to the other side of the fence line to conceal my movements. After a slight delay in the mud ( I literally got stuck, had to step out of my boots and stand in the mud in my socks while I pulled my boots out) I got to my vantage point.

15 minutes or so pass and I start to hear yelping but can't seem them yet as they are behind a rise in the field. Soon I start to see heads pop over and for the next hour and 15 minutes I watched the group interact, "talk", and finally roost. It's the most turkey talk I've encountered and was pretty neat.

It looked like there was one tom in the group and 4 jakes. The Tom would push the jakes off whenever they got close to a hen but otherwise had no problem traveling with them. It was funny to watch the jakes strut by themselves in their group to the side and then back down when the tom came near them.

The tom strutted and gobbled and strutted and gobbled and as he got closer I realized he's a very large double beared (possibly a triple beard) tom! The hens and jakes were ready to cross my fencline to head to the roost and the tom left the group, headed 50 yards back out into the field and strutted and gobbled some more. The hens looked at him for a bit and I thought one was going to follow him, but after a few minutes they headed towards the roost. The tom seemed to get a look of "oh well, I tried" and he followed.

The tom finally followed them into the woodlot (around 8:00) and now I could sneak to the other side of the fence line and head back to the truck which was not an easy task because both of my big toes were numb and it was tough to walk. They hurt for almost an hour afterwards as they warmed up... what we won't do for turkeys!

Questions:

1)Would it seem like they are still a bit flocked up with that large of a group together and 4 jakes hanging out with the tom? He did run them off here and there but in general seemed ok traveling with them.

2)The Jakes were making a low pitched, sharp yelping sound which I hadn't heard before and I was curious if there's any particular meaning to it. I thought it was the hens until I could visually see it was one of the jakes

3)This scouting trip confirmed what I've seen before as far as evening tendencies but I'm wondering if I should wait until next week (I hunt season D) to do further morning scouting as I've never seen them in this large of a group at this time of year and I'm thinking the warm weather could change some things... thoughts? I just don't want to spook any birds. I haven't, nor will I, do any calling , just observing.

[Borch]

Tom's yelp as well and it's lower yet.

The group will likely break up and you may see different birds than you saw yesterday. When we have a spring like this I try to scout as close to my season as I can. I have a group hunting "C" season and last night was the first scout trip in a couple weeks due to the weather and the birds regrouping as a result.

[nbadger23]

Thanks Borch. I will likely not do anymore scouting until next week in the areas I have available to hunt. It was fun to hear them talk so much, I wish I could match up the noises they made with their actions. The "lead hen" yelped a lot in what seemed like an attempt to say "hey, everybody follow me and keep up" but there was a lot of other yelping when they were generally all just milling around together.

I did get to hear a hen cut which was a first and was interesting. The tom had been strutting in the field and she was about 50 yards away in the field and when she started cutting the tom took off in a full run to her, stopped about 5 yards short and puffed out again. She took one look at him and started walking the other way. I swear I could see the disappointment on the tom's face :-)