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Five Methods to Read Turkey Clues or Signs and How they Help You Hunting Turkeys
Dragging Wings
- You'll have to look closely but a strutting Tom interested in mating often drags his wingtips through the dust and mud.
- Look for the tracks first and if you find them you'll see the wing drag marks and this is a clear indication that this Tom is in mating mode and might respond to calling
Observing Tracks
- Measure from the back of of the rear toe to the tip of the longest front middle toe
- Tracks around 4 inches are generally a hen and are more narrow than male Jake or Tom
- A mature morningmale or Tom claw is 5 inches or longer
- If you observe tracks moving in a straight line with no dragging of the wings or indications of feeding is probably a traveling Tom
What's the Poop? or Observing and Analyzing Droppings
- Not surprisingly a hand droppings are often smaller
- Male turkeys droppings are often in the shape of a large J
- Hen's droppings are more circular like a dog pile or in clump
- Depending on the diet I hands droppings are often more whitish and colors
Interpreting Feathers
- A male turkey breast feathers have an edge in black
- A hen's breast feathers are lighter in color a tannish or sometimes white
- If only hen feathers are located and no tracks or other indications of a Tom the hens are moving or there is a nest somewhere close
- A Tom is generally not interested in a TRULY (see "Eggs" ) nesting hen so look elsewhere
- Sometimes the Tom returns to a particular area for strutting so look for tracks lots of feathers
Dust Bathing is Cool, don't knock it until you try it
- Just like pheasants and quail turkeys like to give themselves dust baths
- It is theorized it helps them keep cool and controls parasites
- Look for indentations in the ground around trees,, stumps, and logs
- They often return to these areas in the spring
The Egg and the Nesting Areas and be thankful this is not like an "Alien" movie
- The average size of the nest is 11 to 12 eggs
- Turkeys breeding season generally runs from the middle of March to the middle of April unless higher elevations or severe weather - in which case it will be be delayed
- She lays an egg every 24 hours on average
- She only starts to sit on the nest after the last egg is laid and before that moves around a lot
- The problem is when she's moving back and forth, a Tom my hook up with her and be hard to call him away
- You have to wait till she finally sits on a nest to get him to come
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