Are you talking about big woods public, farm country, or just locating properties that will hold birds to go ask permission on?
I start before I ever get to the property with aerial photos and look for several things in close proximity to each other. Naturally like deer and most game animals Food, water, shelter are the 3 things their lives revolve around.
I start by looking for all open ground on the property, fields, pasture, clearings, and low cut power lines, the more secluded the better. Then look if any of those open areas are near water, creeks, streams, ponds. If I get both of those I look for the nearest open hardwoods ridge and that's where I'm going to start my search for roosting sites. (droppings under large trees and lots of nearby scratchings).
I also look on the property for stands of Pines especially in places protected from the wind. The shield the birds during the winter and heavy snow as well as shade in the summer and offer easy scratching in dead pine needles.
Large stands of Oaks are just as important to turkeys as deer as they offer food, great roost trees, and generally the woods are more open because of the lack of light reaching the forest floor.
Nothing beats early mornings and hearing gobblers sound off, or glassing the actual birds but knowing the terrain is just as important as know the birds are there when it comes time to chasing them on their turf. If I know roost sites, food sources, where water is, and areas that offer protection from the wind and elements as well as the open places to strut then it becomes a lot easier to pin down where that bird you heard in preseason is going to be spend a lot of his time. I try and use maps and glassing to minimize the amount of time on foot I need to spend scouting but I still try and get a solid day of hiking the property and becoming familiar with things. Ditches, stone walls, fences, steep bluffs, thickets can be tough to see on a photo map but will affect how the birds move on a property.
