ADDISON – Arlin Alley’s goals were reasonable enough.

“We might not get a turkey, but we’ll all learn something together,” the talkative lobsterman said at 4:30 a.m. as he drove to the turkey blind he and his cousin, Daniel Thibodeau, had built for their first wild turkey hunt.

Such are the thoughts going through the minds of many of the 7,000 wild turkey hunters who are calling gobblers this month in Maine. And at least that much is true: They’ll learn something.

As an additional 3,000 hunters enter this year’s spring hunt with the hope of fooling their cautious quarry, many misconceptions will lead them astray in their pursuit of the wild big-game bird, which was successfully reintroduced here 24 years ago after a hiatus of more than a century.

One of the most commonly held beliefs among hunters is that bagging a bird requires one to go hunting in southern Maine, where turkeys are thriving. Harvest numbers statewide so far indicate many hunters have gone south, despite the fact the hunt has been expanded into two new hunting districts.

It’s true it will be more difficult for hunters in the new zones. One is in Oxford County (Wildlife Management District 12) and the other stretches from Dedham to Mount Desert Island and along the coast to Machias (WMD 27), where Alley and Thibodeau were hunting last week.

State biologists say there are fewer birds there than in southern Maine because the habitat isn’t as good and their stocking program has only reached as far as the town of Hancock. But this was not Alley and Thibodeau’s problem.

The cousins from Jonesport did a lot right in preparing for their first wild turkey hunt. They just lacked one critical element necessary for success: the code of silence.

After Alley learned in April his name had been drawn for the May hunt in the state’s annual lottery, he studied wild turkeys on outdoor television shows, read about them, asked around where the birds had been seen.

For his part, Thibodeau gave himself a crash course in calling, a skill needed to draw in the male birds, the only ones it’s legal to hunt.

Then together the cousins scouted out where flocks had been seen, in an area just off the Addison Road where they knew there were deer, a good sign.

Tom Schaeffer, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist for the Down East region, said that along the eastern Maine coast there is a lot of landscape made up of spruce and fir trees, which is not suitable for turkeys. But there are also patches of land with fields, brush and hardwoods, which the birds prefer because that’s where they find acorns and other types of nuts.

Alley and Thibodeau found a wooded area that was near blueberry fields within a mile of Bells Brook and next to a field with some hardwood cover. That’s good turkey habitat from what they learned, and Schaeffer said they were right.

But turkey hunting is a slow dance with nature. You have to know when to keep still. You have to know when to let the birdsong from the treetops be the only sound heard, save for an occasional cry from your calling device. And that’s where Alley went wrong.

“Think there are any turkeys in this area now?” Alley, 26, asked Thibodeau, some time after he had lapsed, without prompting, into the tale of the two bucks he’d taken, the first at age 13.

The key to a successful hunt according to DIF&W birds study leader Brad Allen is to find some areas where there are turkeys in good densities, to get landowner permission, to go before the hunt and locate birds, and then, when the hunt begins, to keep your mouth shut.

A common assumption made by first-time turkey hunters, and one made by Alley and Thibodeau, is that if there are no gobblers answering the hen call, there are no gobblers in the area. Not so, says Allen.

“They could be sneaking up as you’re chatting about deer stories,” Allen said. “I’ve sat hunting turkeys for an hour and had deer quietly walk in and thought, ‘Nothing here.’ Then I stood up and there’s a turkey.”

The biologist said what happens during the May mating season is that while the dominant male birds are gobbling away locating hens, the smaller toms are stealthier in their activity.

“Other male birds have needs and hormones. But they don’t want to tip off the dominant tom,” Allen said. “They sneak breeding in on the side. If they advertise themselves, the dominant tom will come and thrash them.”

So there very well might have been toms nearby after Thibodeau had called for an hour or so, about the time when the gregarious Alley started in enthusiastically on the tale of his childhood hunting success.

Birds also might have been scared off well before that by the red squirrel that appeared on the scene.

The squirrel, which worked its way down the tree line chattering away above the song birds, was what got Alley talking, telling how during deer season squirrels have come right up to his foot, unaware of his presence.

“Then you kick them and they run off,” he said bemused.

Alley said the noisy critters also have tipped him off to approaching deer. He said the squirrel above him last week could have been offering the same indication about a nearby turkey.

But Brad Allen of DIF&W said it works both ways.

“If I had a squirrel above my head chattering, I’d be hoping it would go away. I would be thinking it was telling the turkey I was there, yelling, ‘You guys, the game is up,”’ Allen said.

Alley and Thibodeau did a lot right in their first turkey hunt. But Schaeffer said, the further east you go, the greater the challenge for the turkey hunter.

As of Wednesday, there weren’t any birds taken between the town of Hancock and Machias. According to registration stations, most of the birds taken in the new district came out of Surry, further west in Hancock County, where nine turkeys were tagged.

“You really would have to do a lot of scouting here to locate them. Even in southern Maine, you have to do your scouting,” Schaeffer said.

But for Alley and Thibodeau, the outing was not empty of adventure, and it only made them more interested in hunting turkeys, if not in Washington County.

“I had a good time,” Alley said, but offered a confession later. “I’m disappointed my brother, Allen, and [Thibodeau] didn’t get a permit. If even one of them had gotten one, we’d have gone to Buxton. I have a cousin who lives in Scarborough.”

Allen believes as the hunt grows and more hunters gain experience, areas with fewer birds, like Washington County, will become more popular, even if it means fewer birds to call. He drove an hour to scout birds in Waldo County at the end of April. But as the number of hunters in that area increases, he said the potential for conflict among hunters will also increase.

“Too many hunters can ruin the hunt,” Allen said. “They can interfere when you’re working a bird. Until the novices learn about turkeys, there are going to be some unknown stumbling in and ruining a hunt.”

Schaeffer is certain hunters will find their way to Washington County, just as the birds have, even if the hunt there presents more of a challenge.

“It’s not for the novice. But you have to start somewhere,” he said.

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation for the NEWS. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.