Setup position for toms can’t be ignored. Follow these tips to maximize your turkey hunt.

The background in the upland woods changes almost daily during gobbler season, from gray-brown, with no leaves, to green in the early going of the season.

Leaves pop out and give us one more thing to think about.

Besides camo, turkey hunters choose and consider loads, guns, hunting spots, boots, calls … the list of choices goes on and on.

All important.

But I would submit to you, that in order to tag that tom, one of the most important choices a hunter makes is where and how to set up for the optimal shot in a moment's notice when we’ve got one gobbling and coming in.

Turkey hunters can maybe get by with one gun or another, one load or another, one brand of camo or another. But in order to put that big old tom down for good, the choice of the right "setup tree" more often than not means the difference between success and tag soup.

And sometimes we only have seconds to decide.

Choose wrong and we are left shaking our heads all the way back to the truck.

What are some of the factors that go into choosing a spot for a "setup?"

Often we find ourselves prospecting along a ridge or hill, sending our calls down into the hollow. And then one sounds off!

An answer!

Close!

What do we do?

Indecision, hesitation in getting setup, means that the odds increase that the bird will see us move. So we have to think and act quickly.

We've gotten his attention.

He's looking and listening, bending every ultra-keen turkey sense in our direction. And he may actually be coming in on the run!

One thing that helps a turkey hunter in the above scenario is if the call was "run" at a possible setup spot in the first place.

Countless times turkey hunters have gotten that answer from a gobbler, but there's no good tree or stump handy to sit up against.

A “good tree” is one that is ideally at least as wide as a turkey hunter's shoulders, and in relatively open woods, back away from the lip of a ridge or hillside. Fourth, a good tree does not have a sapling right next to it that would impede the swing of the gun.

I like a big tree for a couple reasons. The first is for safety’s sake.

If a gobbling bird is being called in, you never know who HE'S calling in.

In our competitive woods, as soon a bird starts really gobbling and gobbling, I expect other hunters to be moving in on him too.

And secondly, a tree narrower than a hunter’s shoulders will allow the bird to more easily detect movement.

Hunters sometimes are forced to set up in thick woods and brush.

Problematic at best for the hunter, and the odds begin to swing to toward the tom.

Even if the tom does come in, often he's "unshootable."

A momentary black shadow, 20 yards away, off to the side.

Good luck.

Open woods allow us to see the big, black, red-headed rope-swinger coming in and get off a clear shot.

A common setup mistake is for the hunter to position too close to the lip of the ridge, thereby cutting down the shooting distance to 10 to 15 yards. All of a sudden the gobbler's head will poke up from downhill, like a periscope. And that's it.

Not much of a target.

Not much spread in the pattern at that distance, either.

Hunters should set up back a bit further and give themselves a better chance.

One caution: Be careful about peeking over the lip of the ridge to see better downhill.

If a turkey hunter walks to the edge of a ridge, the possibility is great of being "sky-lighted," seen by the bird from even 100 yards in the open woods.

Movement of the hunter's silhouette draws the ever wary and alert turkey eye against the brighter sky background. Stay back, run your call.

And if a sapling is next to the setup tree, invariably, it will be in the way of the shotgun’s swing.

Set up on the left side of the little tree and the birds will come in from the right.

Never seems to fail.

More: An old tom leaves turkey hunters empty-handed again: Outdoors column

One further caution: be mindful of blind spots due to terrain features, dips and low spots in the hillside.

A low gap in front of our setup spot one morning cost me big time, even I was though well within range.

A high spot on a slope hid a gobbler from me, keeping him out his reserved corner of my chest freezer.

My hunting buddy was off to the side and at a different angle and could see him fine.

The bird was in plain view for him, but a bit too far. Incomprehensively he wondered, "Why didn't you shoot? The tom walked right in front of you!"

Can't shoot what you can't see.

-- Oak Duke writes a weekly column.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Turkey hunting tips: Don't overlook your setup position