Improving your calling skills can increase the odds of bagging a longbeard. Arkansas turkey hunter Steve Stoltz runs a box call near a pond. Photo by Jim Spencer.

Despite less-than-impressive forecasts, your spring turkey season can still be successful in Arkansas. Employ a tactical alternative to improve your odds of harvesting a spring gobbler.

In April, thousands of Arkansas turkey hunters will trudge into the spring woods, scattergun or bow in hand, with the same mix of hope, excitement and anxiety they've felt each year for decades. Only this year, the exhilaration is apt to be dampened for many by a nagging addition to that repertory of emotions -- pessimism.

Reports of poor poult counts and declining turkey harvests across the state in recent years have cast a restless sense of foreboding over many of the Natural State's turkey hunters. It's as if many of them are defeated before they've loaded the first shell or nocked the first arrow.

Make no mistake: Arkansas turkey hunters will face a challenging task in 2008. But it's not one that can't be overcome with the right combination of attitude and strategy. Employ the following tips to maximize your chances of bagging a longbeard -- even when the odds are against you.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK: SCOUT YOUR TERRITORY
Face it: Fewer mature gobblers are likely to be in the woods this season, and those there will be harder to find.

After Arkansas hunters harvested a record-breaking 19,947 birds in 2003, a five-year string of poor hatches and a liberal hunting season structure began to translate into lower harvests. Hunters checked in 16,750 turkeys in 2004, down more than 19 percent from the record-setting harvest a year earlier. In 2005, the number of bagged birds fell yet again, this time to 14,183. The downward spiral continued in 2006 and bottomed out with a 2007 harvest of 11,069 turkeys -- slightly more than half of the annual harvest just four years earlier. That's why it is more important than ever to scrutinize your hunting grounds and plan out your strategy well in advance of entering the woods.

Realistically, it's getting pretty late to begin this aspect of putting together a successful turkey hunting strategy. If you haven't already spent some time on the ground you're planning to hunt -- not just driving the roads and listening for turkeys to gobble, but getting away from the roads and actually scouting for turkeys and turkey sign -- you're already behind the 8-ball. Talking to field biologists with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can yield valuable intelligence regarding turkey concentrations and food sources.

An additional benefit of on-the-ground scouting is that it helps a hunter become more familiar with the lay of the land. In fact, this may be even more valuable in improving your chances for success than learning about the habits of the birds you're going to hunt. It's not easy to fill your turkey tags if you don't know there's a fence, creek or gully between your calling position and the gobbler you're trying to work. Scouting your turkey hunting territory as often as possible will help you learn the landscape better. And the better you know it, the better you can hunt it.