Studying maps in his home office is only the first step of the author's scouting system. The other half requires a little leg work.

The bird marched across 500 yards of open field with no hesitation. Boom! Stepping over the broken two-strand, my wife, Julie, and I ran to the fallen gobbler. High-fives and hugs--a pleasant benefit of hunting with my wife--made us all but forget about the three noncommittal longbeards we'd earlier worked for almost two hours not 150 yards from where we were kneeling.

"I wonder," I asked, slipping a diaphragm into my mouth. My first yelp was shattered by a cacophony of gobbling. "Those birds are coming!" Julie hissed, running in a half-crouch back to the fence line. Quickly we got seated, her 11-87 at the ready. "I see 'em," she whispered. I hadn't even had time to call. Mirror images of one another, all three marched out of the timber, the last in full strut. She never had to move the gun.

Eight-hundred miles later, another big Merriam gobbled. In the South Dakota twilight, I smiled. I'd watched the longbeard fly up, and couldn't resist a short scream on my coyote howler. "I know where he is," I told Julie back at the truck. "And I know exactly where we need to sit. This is gonna be good."

But knowing and shooting are sometimes two radically different things. Long before the sun crept over the Black Hills, the gobbler opened up on his own. I let him greet the day--once, twice, a half-dozen gobbles.

He cut my first soft yelp off instantly. To my right, I saw Julie lock herself into position. "He's coming," she whispered.

Like a wraith, the longbeard slinked toward us through the pines. Behind my headnet, I smiled. Then I cursed when the longbeard turned and wandered away, gobbling all the while.

"It wasn't his time," Julie said as we shared some shade. "Maybe this evening..."

* * *

Both of these hunts took place on public ground after weeks of in-depth preparation and multiple reminders that it takes patience, persistence and self-discipline to be a successful public-land turkey hunter. And what I've learned along the way may help lead you down that road.

Scouting
Anyone can call a turkey to within shotgun range. What separates those who consistently harvest gobblers on public land from those who don't is the former's ability to put himself in a location that gobblers frequent. When scouting public land, I take these four elements into consideration.