Mid-Season Turkey Round Up from Around the Midwest

By Brandon Butler | Turkey season is in full swing across the Midwest. From the rolling hills of southern Missouri to the agriculture fields of Wisconsin and hardwoods of Minnesota, gobblers are doing their thing. Hunters across the heartland are crawling out of bed hours before sunrise, to be in position while the turkeys are still roosted. All chasing the electric moment when a longbeard struts into range.

Up in Wisconsin, Captain Patrick Kalmerton of Wolf Pack Adventures is gearing up for a whirlwind of a turkey season. He has outdoor industry folks from around the country coming in to hunt with him in the central part of the state. Pat likes to entertain, and in this case, that means putting gobblers on the ground.

“I’ll tell you what,” Capt. Pat said. “These birds up here are so ready to go. The other day, I’m putting up a blind, and a gobbler comes into the field, goes into full strut. I stop and stand still. He doesn’t care that I’m there. So, I start working on the blind again. He still stays in the field. Not 100 yards away. I’m telling you, it’s go time.”

Capt. Pat uses a lot of ground blinds popped up right out in the middle of a field. He hunts in both pastures and picked agricultural fields.

“I like to be right out there in the open. The turkeys don’t care. You put your decoys 20 yards out and those gobblers will come right in. Plus, you can see more. Kids especially like to look around and see what’s going on,” Capt. Pat said.

Minnesota is a new home to Indiana born and bred David Ray. Growing up with 400 acres of Hoosier hardwoods to hunt on the family farm in the southern part of the state, “Little Dave” cut his teeth on some of the weariest toms Midwest hunters can square off against. Up in Minnesota, where he’s living these days, he says, “turkeys just don’t seem as smart.”

No disrespect to the northern birds, but I do concur with the young man. The southernmost birds of the Midwest are the hardest to kill, in my opinion. The Missouri Ozarks, Eastern Kentucky, the Hills of Southern Indiana and Appalachian Ohio; birds in these locales are of the weary kind far more so than their northern kin.

David said, “Every day when I drive to work right now, I see gobblers strutting in fields with groups of hens. I’ll pull over and watch them. They spend a lot of their time running off subordinate gobblers and jakes. So to me, that means those birds should easily break off and respond to calls, even if the boss gobbler won’t. There is so much public land in Minnesota. If you’ll put in the time to scout, even if you just drive some backroads, you’ll find turkeys you can hunt.”

Ray Eye is a turkey hunting icon. The guy came up through the early days of calling contests, call making and videoing hunts. He was there for the birth of modern turkey hunting. He’s hunted turkeys in Mexico, Hawaii, Florida, Texas and just about anywhere else turkeys live, but the Ozarks are his home. He makes his hay hunting the toughest birds on our continent.

I checked in with Uncle Ray this week to get his take on the magic window of spring turkey season we’re in at the moment.

“I’ve had over 60 turkey seasons, and each one I get from here on out is going to be my favorite,” Eye said. “Across the Midwest right now, turkey hunters are waking up two hours before sunrise to go sit by a tree in hopes of tricking a bird with a brain the size of a pea into range. And most will fail. There’s nothing else like it.”

When asked for actual turkey hunting advice, Eye said, “Look, I say calling is everything. It used to be said, cluck three times and yelp once, then stay quiet for 15 minutes. Is that how turkeys sound? Have you ever listened to a flock of hens? Do they sound quiet to you? You’re up against the real thing. Thankfully a lot of calls today sound better than real turkeys, so you have an advantage. Use it. Call. And then call some more. Be aggressive.”

I asked Ray if he had any advice for a hunter looking for a place to hunt. He said scouting is the most important part of turkey hunting, but if you haven’t done it by now, you’re late to the game. Get yourself some maps for properties around water.

He said, “Anywhere you can find public land that is accessible by water but hard to reach by road, you have a potential honey hole. Most hunters are not going to walk two or more miles in the dark through woods without a road or a trail to follow. There are a lot of really remote stands of timber with no roads in or out, but you can pull a boat right up on shore.”

These places aren’t common, but they’re out there and if you can locate one, and have the means to access it, well, good luck.

See you down the trail…

Pic: Proud dad, Brandon Butler with Annabel Butler and her opening morning jake in Missouri.

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