By Dan Groebner

Just when we think we’re going to miss an entire winter this year, we get a nice dose of cold moisture with more predicted on the horizon. Better late than never! But we’re still a long way from the start of any monsoon moisture, so we’ll need some more precipitation to help with the spring green up. Carry on with the snow dances, please!

If we get the moisture during the spring to support the bug and insect population needed to feed the young turkey polts following our mild winter, the area’s turkey population should be in great shape. There will already be quite a few one-year olds surviving the winter without any hunter experience, ready to respond to maybe even less than perfect calling attempts by hunters.

Fortunately for some of us less talented callers, hormones in turkeys during the spring can override common sense like it does in some teenagers, so even new turkey callers have a chance to fool a bird if they are in the right mood. Another helpful characteristic of spring turkeys seems to be that even though they might not be “in the mood” to respond one morning, they could change their mind the next day or you can easily find another gobbler whose hormones begin to peak at a different time.

For those folks interested in fine tuning their turkey hunting skills, and mastering the cluck, putt, yelp, cutt and purr calls of the turkey, the Sportsman’s Warehouse is presenting a free “Spring Turkey Hunting and Calling Seminar” at the Pinetop Regional Arizona Game and Fish office on April 5, 2025 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The office is located at 2878 East White Mountain Blvd, in Pinetop.

In addition to being free, the event will also have raffle prizes for attendees donated by Sportsman’s Warehouse, National Wild Turkey Federation, Cal Ranch and other local businesses. However, register early as seating is limited to 50. Call or email seminar leader Bill Waldron at (928) 368-3913 or Larswildu@yahoo.com or Jeff Pferdeort at (928) 242-6814 or JeffreyP48@yahoo.com. To register, you will need to provide the names, emails and phone numbers for all attendees to be eligible for any raffles and to reserve a seat for them.

Bill Waldron has been leading the seminar for years with long-time local hunter Jim Warren, who unfortunately passed away this past year. Jim’s knowledge and willingness to share his experiences will be missed, as will his endless stories of encounters with the elusive and wary turkey. Luckily Bill has found a local volunteer to help him carry on the tradition of the spring turkey seminar in Jeff Pferdeort.

Bill and Jeff will cover many different tips for bringing in more gobblers to shooting range and using the right equipment to fill your tag and harvest some healthy wild protein. One of the biggest draws for turkey hunting is the opportunity to “talk turkey” and increase your chances of seeing birds by calling them into your semi-comfortable blind setup.

You’ll probably have to do some hiking to get to that spot, but you could be rewarded with encounters that include a build-up of expectations as you can hear some gobblers responding from far away and then progressively closing in on you. Many mornings can include stereo and even quadrophonic calling surrounding you for extended periods if you’re lucky.

This pace of hunting might be considered more enjoyable and less stressful than the famous “buck fever” that descends upon hunters almost instantly when a buck or deer appears within shooting range. It can also be a good way to introduce new hunters to the activity without that sudden pressure to make a decision and shoot.

It turns out though that most hunters probably try calling in turkeys too much. They overdo the calling and have a hard time just letting the willing gobblers know they are there and let the birds get curious. Bill and Jeff will cover situations where you want to call a lot and when you might want to just sit back and look and listen. They will also show you how to use any of your calls most effectively, if you bring them with you (but refrain from practicing during the lecture portion of the seminar!!).

Along with their acute hearing, turkeys have amazing abilities to see even the slightest of unnatural color, motion, or shapes in the woods. A portion of the seminar will focus on effective camouflage used for turkey hunting and the importance of minimizing or hiding your movements. For younger or more restless hunters, this might require a portable blind with seating that can be set up near a responding gobbler. Although not actually seen, your base layers or underwear can be just as important as the outer camouflage to keep you warm, comfortable and not shuffling around because you get cold.

A successful hunt includes using the most appropriate firearm and ammunition. Bill and Jeff will discuss the need to pattern or sight in your shotgun prior to the hunt. Sight in a shotgun? Even though the load of pellets from a shotgun are not as precise as a single bullet from a target rifle, hunters still need to know how the density of pellets decreases at range, making it less likely that you will hit your target with enough pellets. Some younger hunters should definitely start with the lower recoil of a 20-gauge, instead of taking the macho route and developing a trigger flinch by using the higher-powered 12-gauge right away. The 20-gauge can be just as effective as the 12-gauge, and is more enjoyable to shoot a box of shells at clay pigeons for practice.

Health conscious hunters like to avoid accidentally ingesting any lead pellets from their harvest, so many have moved to the non-toxic steel, bismuth, tungsten or other inert alloys for their ammo. This type of ammo is not only more healthy for humans, but waterfowl hunters realized in the early 90s that lead shot is harmful to ducks, geese, and the environment as a whole. This motivated duck and goose hunters to lead the passage of legislation requiring non-toxic shot when hunting waterfowl.

Since turkey hunters must use camouflage because of the incredible vision and alert teamwork of turkey flocks on guard, they can often be mistaken for something other than a person, especially if turkey decoys are being used. That’s why Bill and Jeff will stress the need to positively identify any targets as definitely a legal bearded turkey, along with other safety tips.

As with most hunts, you need to make preparations before actually heading out at “0 dark thirty”, as it’s often called hours before sunrise. Not only do you need to get to your hunting spot earlier than most other hunts, but pre-hunt scouting the days and nights before can pay rich benefits. Scouting can reveal water holes with abundant tracks and large gobbler scats or night roosting trees, commonly old ponderosas, with concentrations of scats underneath.

The seminar will also describe how to find these roosts the night before the hunt opens, at least putting you near some known turkeys. And scouting this year is even more critical as some roads are going to be closed due to snow or the new Travel Management Rule being implemented on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests by the US Forest Service.

Remember that the use of remote game cameras applies to all hunting activities, so they can not be used for scouting purposes or during the hunt. This certainly doesn’t apply to the use of cameras to take the trophy photos once you harvest that long-spurred gobbler.

If you’re one of the lucky ones to get a permit through the draw this year, congratulations! But if that didn’t work out for you, there are other options. Although you need a draw permit for the Game Management Unit 3C Youth Hunt, the Youth Hunts in Units 1, 4A, 4B, and 27 are over-the-counter, non-permit tags, meaning you can pick one up at the Game and Fish office without entering the lottery process. Youth are defined as 10-17 years old, no matter how you act! Hunters under 14 are required to take a hunter education course.

For those of us over the hill already and without a tag this year, we can still dust off the bow and hunt units 1, 4A, 4B, and 27 from May 9 to the 22nd with an over-the-counter non-permit archery only tag. There are other units also open for non-permit tags, including Youth Hunts, but these listed are just for the White Mountains area. See the Arizona Game and Fish website for opportunities.

By attending this turkey seminar, you’re likely to pick up a new trick or feel more confident that you’re doing everything right so you can blame your lack of tags filled on the turkeys themselves. At the very least, you could go home with a new turkey call! Remember to register!!