From my experience the best success on public land is later in the day. It seems the majority of hunters will leave by 9am, some will not even leave the road if they do not hear any vocalization.
I would limit decoy use and like mentioned before, listen to the birds if you find them and cater your calling to how they sound. Usually a less aggressive sequence is used, lots of feeding purrs, soft yelps...try to limit our cutting.
Public land birds are usually more quite than private land birds and they learn quick. So be prepared for a silent bird to come in.
Getting far off the road will usually work, if you are hunting a large track that offers that. East TN should offer that, so I would locate some high spots on a map and go there before sun up, listen and go from there. If you hear no sounds, revert back to your map and locate the largest flat spots and head there and be prepared to wait. I would make a set up, give a few sequences of soft calling and wait about 30 mins or so. Then move to another flat a couple hundred yards away, but wait 15 mins after your last sequence to move, just in case a silent bird is coming in.
That tactic is what I call aggressive on public land, it can do more damage than good sometimes. It can educate the birds, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.