I get the impression, though, that most fall turkey hunters here in Arkansas stay in their vehicles and drive backcountry roads until they find a flock. There's nothing wrong with locating birds by driving, provided you don't shoot them from the car or from the road. Indeed, using a vehicle for finding the birds can be a big help, as it lets you cover a lot more territory than you can cover on foot.

However you prefer to look for them, once you find them, the next step is to scatter them so that you can take advantage of their strong flocking instinct. Simply flushing a flock of turkeys isn't good enough. If they all fly off in the same direction, you haven't accomplished anything except to alert them to the fact that something's trying to get them.

Instead, your goal should be to get in as close as possible without being detected and, then, to charge them as if you were trying to catch one by hand, yelling, maybe firing into the air, to make as much noise and to inject as much panic into the moment as you possibly can. You want to send them in different directions.

Some writers advocate laying your gun down and charging the flock empty-handed for safety's sake. But you're out there alone. Who are you gonna shoot if you fall? And if you've ever spent an hour looking for a camo shotgun after a quarter-mile dash through the woods -- during which search your scattered turkeys are getting back together on the other side of the hill -- you know just how ridiculous that advice is. Keep the gun with you. Shoot in the air to make more noise.

Of course, you could just go ahead and shoot your turkey while you're charging them; sometimes you can get well within gun range before attempting the scatter. There's nothing wrong with this, either, since, as any turkey is legal in fall, you don't have to worry about gender identification. But given autumn's one-bird limit, I'd rather scatter them and call them back together, since that's the real fun of fall hunting.

Once you've made a good scatter, pick out a comfortable set-up spot near the point of the scatter that has good visibility. Sit down and wait, and as soon as you hear the scattered turkeys start yelping or kee-keeing back and forth, start calling back to them. Mimic their calls as closely as possible. Sometimes you won't hear any turkeys calling for an hour or more after the scatter. If you're dealing with mature gobblers, the wait may be several hours of more.

But in October, with young birds, you'll often hear them start calling before you get settled into your set-up tree, and when you call, they'll come trotting in like pasture cows when they see the feed truck. You can call them in repeatedly until they finally manage to get back together.

SPRING TACTICS FOR FALL LONGBEARDS
In recent years, though, turkey populations in many parts of Arkansas are becoming dense enough to make possible another hunting option: calling to them as if they were spring birds. This can work on hens or gobblers, on young birds or old ones. It works because, in turkey society, dominance and submission are expressed through a literal pecking order, and aggressive fall calling upends this order.

The technique works best in warm, clear, calm weather, the same type of weather that makes for good gobbling during the spring turkey season. If the weather is blustery or wet, and cool, stick with the scatter-and-call tactics mentioned above. But on Indian summer days, try this one.