Photo by D. Toby Thompson.

The fall turkey hunt is different from the spring season in many ways. The leaves are falling rather than emerging, the birds' habits have changed and the rules of the hunt are different. Actually, just about everything connected with the fall sport bears little resemblance to spring turkey hunting, except for the heart-stopping thrill of watching a big gobbler walk toward you.

Spring turkey hunting is so much easier than the same pursuit attempted in the fall. To paraphrase an old saying, "In spring, a young gobbler's fancy turns to thoughts of love." It is this burning desire to mate that brings about the demise of most of the longbeards killed in April and May. The big dummies gobble mightily in their roosts at dawn, they roar out romantic invitations during the day on strutting grounds, and they eagerly trot in to hen decoys without much encouragement required. None of the above applies in the fall.

In autumn, the turkey's principle interest is simply stuffing itself with nutritional goodies in preparation for the long winter ahead. They are not going to give you any help locating their roosts, and they will generally go about their daily business silently, leaving you few clues as to their whereabouts.

In Illinois during the fall turkey hunt, both toms and hens are fair game, which gives you some idea of the difficulty involved in bringing one of these critters home for dinner. This is the type of situation in which you would rather be lucky than good, because about all you can do is try to figure out where the birds are generally working, and then hope they show up on the days you hunt. Since fall turkey hunting hours stretch from a half-hour before sunrise until sunset, you will have plenty of time to try to cross paths with them.

Because most of our turkey hunting is done in small patches of woods, spring scouting is relatively easy. Often, a hunter can simply park near the property on which he or she plans to hunt, and then listen for the gobblers to give their location away at dawn. That isn't going to be the case in fall, however, because the big guys have no reason to sound off. The birds are not usually congregated in large flocks. The older males will be off by themselves, while the hens and their now-grown offspring will be roosted separately. They will be virtually silent both in the roost and on the ground later on.

Scouting for fall turkeys involves plenty of legwork, unless you have visually plotted their movements over time. If you have seen the flock moving through the same areas on a fairly regular basis, then you are in good shape. You can form a game plan around this information, and if necessary, adjust it as required in the field.

If you don't know for sure where the flock of turkeys is feeding, loafing, roosting and such, you are going to have to search for them. If possible, ask neighbors, the mail carrier or anyone else who regularly passes by your hunting spot if they have seen any birds there. With any luck, they can tell you where they saw them, and at approximately what time of day. This will give you a starting point.

Then you must get out into the field and look for turkey sign on the ground to confirm the exact spot the birds walked. If the ground is damp, there will be tracks, and in any case, you should spot some droppings and a few feathers, along with scratchings where the birds have been feeding. Once you have found evidence of the turkeys having been present, work their trail both ways, and try to develop as clear a picture as possible of their daily route.

If all these pieces come together, you can set up a blind and wait for the flock to appear. This is the part where you want to get lucky, because they have plenty of other places to wander, and they just may do that.

In spring, calling is very effective because the gobblers are consumed with the idea of finding a willing hen. By fall, all such randy behavior has dissipated, and the big birds form small bachelor flocks and ignore the ladies and their clutch of young ones. However, there is one instance when calling may yet save the day for you. The young turkeys, especially yearling males called jakes, aren't used to being on their own, and devotedly trail after their moms. When separated, these youngsters become quite frantic, and begin vocalizing in an attempt to reunite with the flock.

The call of the jake turkey is called the kee-kee run, and if you say those sounds in a very high pitch, you will have some idea of what it sounds like. If you are unfamiliar with the call, get an instructional tape and practice it until you can at least come close to imitating it. You don't have to be perfect, because the young birds probably aren't very good at it either, and within a few more months, they won't ever use it again.

If you should happen to come upon a flock of hens and jakes in the woods, your chance of stalking them is nil. What you must do is charge the birds while screaming and shouting like a crazy person to break that flock up and send them flying in all directions. Then sit down right there and wait five or 10 minutes. After the echoes of your maniacal performance have died out, begin calling with the kee-kee run. You may even hear real jakes doing the same thing as they try to reunite with the mature hens. If a jake comes to your call, shoot it. Fall turkey hunting is a tough proposition; so don't let any opportunity slip past you.