It seems to me the quicker one season ends, we start thinking and then planning for the next one. For some of us, there is never much of a break between the last day of the season and opening day of the next. It never really matters the species, but opening day is, well, just opening day whatever the season is.

Yes, it’s getting close to turkey season. The most wonderful time of year for those of us who are members of the THA or Turkey Hunters Anonymous. It seems no matter where one looks, it’s all about spring turkey. Isn’t life grand.

No matter your favorite hunting channel, social media platform or streaming service, everybody is talking about spring turkey hunting. It is truly a great time to be alive.

While some are starting their spring gobbler hunting in just a matter of a couple weeks — Florida opens in mid-March in sections — I will attempt to finish my slam off the first week of April, which will be the earliest I stepped into the turkey woods hunting, of course.

There are a bunch of little things I love about spring gobbler hunting, but nothing is more exciting than hearing a gobbler perched at the top of a tree in the distance sound off in the darkness. To heck with any other rush we as humans can get, that sound will bring grown men to their knees.

Many questions face spring gobbler hunters each season, but none is more important than fishing birds. All the calls, the best camo, the newest loads and fancy seats are for nothing if you don’t have birds/turkeys.

Each year we all ask the same questions, like where am I hunting? How will I find birds on this new property? When should I start scouting? How do I even scout?

This week I trust we can get you started on finding a place to hunt, as well as locating turkeys when you get there.

Turkeys love diverse habitats like other animals. They need a variety of landscapes to have successful nesting, food, water, roosts, and areas for toms to display for hens. So, when choosing a piece of property to explore, look for different habitats in the same vicinity. These can be almost any change in terrain fields, clear outs, open timber, creek/river bottoms, ridges, agriculture, cattle pastures or grown up patches. These are all areas that turkey love to hang out in. It’s like the different rooms of your house. You could not live properly if all you had was a bedroom or all you had was a kitchen. You need different areas to feel at home. Turkeys are no different.

It also does not hurt to ask farmers if they are seeing turkeys on their property and where and when they are seeing them. Chances are they will be more than happy to share information with you.

In our part of turkey country, our birds hang out in winter flocks from the end of summer until spring. They also cover different areas during this time. For this reason, I do not like to get out scouting much until a few weeks before opening day. Sure, you can go ahead and explore the area you plan to hunt. It’s an excellent idea to get the lay of the land and learn the terrain as much as possible. But for listening and searching for turkey sign, that will benefit you most on opening day.

While you’re doing your cyber scouting on the area you plan to hunt, fire up the topo feature. Whichever app you are using you need to find the highest point on that property, even if it’s just a hill. You’re looking for a location to listen from, and you can hear a heck of a lot better from up high than you can down in the bottom. Pick out a few, or several, of these “listening knobs” and drop some pins.

From these spots, you’ll hopefully be able to hear hundreds of acres at a time. Get to these locations well before daylight before the season and just wait. Closer to daylight, hopefully, you’ll start hearing gobbles. If you do, drop pins on those gobbles. What you’re doing is creating an inventory of turkeys to target.

There are also sounds to listen for other than gobbles. Hens yelping are very important to hear also, plus any jake gobbles, which are higher-shorter gobbler. Turkeys are naturally noisy critters and can give away their locations easily on a calm, clear day. It’s been said that a blind man would kill a turkey before a deaf man simply because of how important it is to hear turkeys.

If you go to a few spots, and don’t hear any gobbles, there’s a plan B for finding them. Some toms just might not be tuned up enough to gobble that morning and will remain silent on the roost. That doesn’t mean they won’t cover some ground and look for food and do their daily routines.

Start looking around the creek bottoms first, as that’s where the newest plants will green up first. Hens will work their way through here foraging. Look for tracks, droppings, and scratching areas in the leaves. Scratching will almost look like a deer scrape but there will be several of them in an area if there are a few or more turkeys. The bare dirt will be exposed about the size of a dinner plate or a little larger and the leaves will be bunched up to one side.

If you come across a good-sized tree that has a lot of droppings and feathers around it, it very well might be a roost tree. Remember this spot or drop a pin. While our eastern turkeys don’t always use the same roost every night, they’ll more than likely come visit that spot again to roost another time.

Dusting areas are another great find while scouting. Turkeys like to flop around in some scratched up dry dirt to keep the mites and other pests at bay. They’ll frequent these often, especially when the weather warms up.

The time we spend now will pay off in May. As always, the scouting we are doing now will let you know why birds are doing what they are doing in the season and where they are going and why they are going there.