This is an exciting time to be in the woods, and any information gained now will prove exceptionally relevant to opening day. Chances are very strong that the roosting areas, woodlots and fields in which you locate birds now will turn out to be the same places in which they'll be on opening morning.

Two additional reasons to wait to start scouting until about a week and a half before the season begins: First, unless you're retired or independently wealthy, you have job and, probably, family responsibilities; if you're limited in your scouting time, it'd be better to save it until it'll do the most good. Second, if you're a turkey fanatic, the fatigue factor shouldn't be discounted; spend six weeks scouting and (unless you limit out earlier) two months hunting, and you can get worn down by the process.

LOW-IMPACT SCOUTING
Yet another mistake that spring gobbler hunters often commit besides scouting too soon is scouting incorrectly. Some individuals even brag about calling in birds before the season begins. This is a huge mistake, as all this does is educate gobblers, making them less likely to be duped again in the same area and with the same calling strategy.

My basic pre-season scouting plan is to venture onto the land I plan to hunt well before dawn. In mountain and hill country I go to the highest points available; in flat and swamp habitats I seek out places enabling me to hear for long distances. Then I just wait for dawn. I don't call at all at this time, and that includes using locator calls such as owl or crow calls. Ideally, a gobbler or gobblers will sound off on their own -- mission accomplished.

If, however, a silent dawn comes and goes, I'll then employ a barred owl call and perform the "who-cooks-for-you" refrain. If that fails to elicit a response, I move on to a crow and sometimes to hawk or pileated woodpecker call.

Is there ever a situation in which you should utter a few hen clucks or yelps? One case comes to mind: If you have to travel a long way to scout a place that you'll be unable to return to until the season begins, I think it'll be necessary to vocalize some hen talk so that you can definitely determine if a place is likely to have birds when the season starts.

MIDDAY SCOUTING
Sometimes work or family commitments limit our early-morning scouting trips, or weather conditions, such as heavy rains or high winds can prevent you from going as many mornings as you'd like. For happenings such as these, consider going afield in the middle of the day.

A wealth of information can be gained from midday scouting. For instance, I once arrived at a hunting property around 10:00 a.m. one pre-season morning. No birds responded to my crow or other locator calls, but the habitat -- a pleasing mix of mature forests, creek bottoms and regenerating clearcuts furnished with a spring, a stream and old logging roads -- indicated that turkeys should be present. So I began walking one of the logging roads, and soon located a dusting bowl; there, fresh feathers and wingmarks were in evidence.

Traveling on, I noted some "J"-shaped droppings of gobblers, as well as some of the popcorn-like scat of the hens. I entered the forest and soon found numerous areas in which scratchings dotted the forest duff. Importantly, the scratchings were of various ages, indicating that turkeys had been using the area for some time.

Several weeks later, I was able to hunt the area for the first time and heard four gobblers sound off. As a result, a tom traveled to a check station with me that morning.