Hunters can still find opportunities to fill their spring turkey tags with a bit of patience and picking out those places where birds roost, and then intercepting them the following morning when they get active. Simonson Photo.
By Nick Simonson
While the weather has been a bit unstable for the front half of the North Dakota spring turkey hunting season, hunters have been finding some success and likely will still have opportunities to fill their tags with a bit of scouting and patience, according to RJ Gross, Upland Game Biologist for the North Dakota Game & Fish Department (NDG&F).
Gross details field reports of toms and jakes still hanging in groups, despite the onset of spring, and hunters are encountering numbers of birds still together. That’s a fact which is likely to change quickly as the hunting season plays out, as hens will most likely be on their nest incubating eggs, and the males, both young and old, will spread out. Toms will continue to seek out receptive hens, however, they may not be as vocal as they were at the start of the spring hunting season.
“They still can be in their winter groups. The next few weeks of turkey season that should really change. They should start moving in different directions. Those hens, they should be nesting by now, and if not, they’re starting any day. Those toms should start wandering around looking for other hens, because the [bred] hens should start laying their eggs and sitting on their nests,” Gross details.
Despite the unstable and windy start to the season – the latter often impacting turkeys activity and their receptiveness to hunters’ calls – sportsmen throughout the Peace Garden State have been filling their tags at a pretty good clip. This is thanks in part to more turkeys on the landscape, particularly along the Missouri River corridor and in those areas of western North Dakota’s breaks and badlands where the birds are doing well.
“The weather is only going to get nicer – well hopefully – one day it’s nice, one day it’s not, if the wind would ever stop blowing too, but the outlook looks good, and I’ve heard good things from people all over the state. I’ve been getting a ton of feather envelopes sent into me, so keep those coming,” Gross instructs.
Gross advises a pinch of patience entering the later stretches of the spring turkey season, as birds may be a bit more wary after a few weeks of hunting pressure. Seeking turkeys on their turf and identifying areas that hold roosting birds can provide a good inkling on where to start on a given day.
“Scouting is the biggest thing. If you can find a roost, that would be ideal. If you can tree a bird and make sure they go on the roost at night and go back there in the morning,” Gross suggests of hunters looking for active turkeys, adding “they’re going to be moving around. Just being out, being mobile, and in some places, like if you’re on public land, the birds are getting a little bit smarter to calling and tactics. Just be patient, birds will probably be a bit quieter, but if you hear them once, they’re probably coming. If they respond to you, they’re probably on their way, they just might not be as vocal as they are earlier in the year,” he concludes.
The 2024 North Dakota spring turkey hunting season opened on Apr. 13 and closes on May 19. This year 8,137 tags were made available to North Dakota’s hunters in the annual lottery, an increase of more than 700 over 2023.
Simonson is the lead writer and editor of Dakota Edge Outdoors.