Pre-Season Turkey Scouting with The Virtue’s TJ Unger

For the third installment of Nock Out® Lighted Nock’s Field Journals, The Virtue’s TJ Unger and Brady Miller reveal how they are active with pre-season turkey scouting. Scouting turkeys in the pre-season before Indiana’s opener on April 26th means that TJ and Brady have to spend some vital time in the field. This means spending time glassing food sources and strutting areas, installing and checking trail cameras, and scouting roosting areas for sign of activity. 

Bad weather including April snowstorms have plagued Indiana and the majority of the Midwest for the past two weeks. Luckily a break in the weather gave TJ and Brady just enough time to scout a property before the opener.

Glassing, trail camera photos, and scouting roosting areas all paid off for TJ and Brady. Glassing from the comfort of the truck is one of the easiest ways to scout turkeys. It also can be performed during bad weather. Glassing, in particular, can reveal where the flock and stutters spend most of their time. The most obvious areas in the Midwest would include large open agriculture fields. Specific places and travel routes in these fields can be identified by using trail cameras.

A recent card pull revealed travel routes that gobblers were taking between food sources and roosting sites. This lead to spending some time actively scouting the property. Turkey sign and feathers confirmed TJ and Brady’s suspicions of where the turkeys were roosting, the final piece of the puzzle they needed for opening day! Hopefully the latest turkey scouting Intel will lead to a successful season for crew!

Want to find out more about bow hunting turkeys? Check out our other tips and blogs on turkey hunting below!