Huntinman23

Alright, I'm new to turkey hunting and I was wondering when to use certain calls (ex. cluck, yelp, purr) and what kind (ex. Diaphragm, Box, Slate) and why. I guess what I'm trying to say is in certain situations like a turkey coming in what should I do? I don't want to get a turkey coming in and then screw it up with doing the wrong call sequence or using the wrong call.

Thanks for any help!


[align=left] [/align]

SwampCollie

The first thing you need to firmly plant in your mind is that calling in a turkey is not like reeling in a fish. If you have hooked a fish.. you have keep reeling to get it to come to you. However, you do NOT have to keep calling in order to get a turkey to come to you. Infact, the more you call... the less likely it is you'll even see a turkey.... oh you'll hear them alright... you'll hear them all morning long.... gobbling their heads off... waiting on you to come to them.

If a turkey is coming to you... actively searching for you (the hen).... then you should do absolutely nothing but get your mess right to shoot him. The situation cannot get any better for you... the bird is coming.... the game is all yours to lose at this point. Don't risk it. Turkeys have excellent locational hearing. If the bird is in sight... and espeically if he is within about 150 yards and in sight... I will NEVER touch a call. If a turkey hears a call coming from that tree 80 yards away.... and doesn't see a hen there.... he isn't coming any further.

In the wild, the turkey game is played opposite of the hunting game.... meaning that the hen goes to the gobbler about 90% of the time. It is basically the rut in reverse.... rather than bucks seeking and chasing does... hens are seeking and actually wrangling up gobblers. Its a good situation to be in if you are a guy..... don't have to chase it... don't have to catch it... don't have to feed it... it just comes a running to you. Probably about what its like to be a rock star.

Anyway.... what turkey hunters are trying to do is to reverse that natural order. When hens get all twitter-payted like they do in the spring, they get to yelping and clucking and putting and carrying on. When a gobbler gobbles... he is letting them know where he is at, and letting other gobblers know where he is as well. The hens yelp and he gobbles and then they go to him... its like a big game of marco polo where the hens are always 'IT'.

So when you start calling agressively.. and calling A LOT.... in a gobblers walnut sized brain..... that means the hen is coming to him.... and all he has to do is find a nice open spot to show off... keep gobbling... and no obstacle on earth is going to keep her from coming to him.

What YOU need to do is be subtle... and be where that gobbler wants to be or needs to be anyway. If you know where a bird is strutting every day... meet him there for an early morning appointment... he will likely figure that the hen is already there waiting for him... and he will pitch off the roost and glide right into your lap. Doesn't always work that way of course, because lots of times in the early spring the hens will roost with the gobblers and they will lead the gobblers away from another actively calling hen.

I've written enough of a manifesto for one post. if you have any questions.... just ask.... I've got a little spare time on my hands lately and its too cold outside for my southern blood.

Huntinman23

Swamp, thank you very much that helps alot actually I really apperciate it! I have heard that the certain call you use that day depends on the Gobbler is that true? Different sounds for different birds?

SwampCollie

Ah who am I kiddin'. I got nothing going on and its too early for bed.

Anyway... there is a sticky at the top of the turkey hunting page called the Guide to Pot Calls. I wrote that thing a year or two ago and it is a pretty complete and fairly broken down guide to pot style calls (which include slate, glass, crystal, aluminum and a host of other materials that are played with a peg or striker).

A pot style call is what I would recommend you start with. Everyone has their favorites... I'm a woodhaven and budnbetty's man. There are as many small makers of turkey calls as there are counties in the country... and your state probably has at least 20 or 25 active call makers and probably another 20-25 who make a few on the side when they take a notion too. These calls are quite often as good or better than anything you can buy in a store. I use woodhaven's and BnBs and recommend them simply because anyone can find and buy them pretty easily and they offer a custom sound (with a semi-custom price of course) with a hand made craftsmenship.

A box call is pretty easy as well. Box calls are a little bit more fragile and certainly more cumbersome to carry than a pot call, but they have a sound that is pure death in the right hands. They carry and cut the spring wind better than anything else. With 15 minutes of practice, just about anyone can use one with enough proficiency to get the job done.

Mouth calls are kinda like... well I don't know a good analogy (which is odd for a Virginian cause we love our descriptive comparisons). Mouth calls are pretty much grad school turkey calls. They are what I learned on, so it is really what I use most and probably what I use best. They are fairly cheap and to a neophyte fairly frustrating. You'll want to stick with simple, proven designs... no more than three reeds (and two is better). My all time favorite is the Quaker Boy Old Boss Hen. Simple and deadly. My personal favorite is Woodhaven's Sadler McGraw Signature Ghost Cut. It'll do anything but gobble well... and does the best Kee-Kee short of the genuine article. For gobble calls (which are really just a novelty... I use a Woodhaven Classic V3 or a Single V).

On to the noises they make;

The worst thing to ever happen to turkey hunting was forums like this and the onslaught of 'semi-experienced advice'. Now you might could contend that I'm contributing to the problem... but I've been around just long enough to know when to type and when to just move on and ramble about something else. Archerytalk.com is the worst thing ever to happen to new archers... take a kid with talent... put him under a good coach... you'll have a world champion by the time he is 25..... take that same kid... let him on AT... and he'll be chasing his tail the whole time. Soap box off.

There are a lot of things written, spoken and lied about when it comes to turkey calling. You are going to hear about putts and purrs and cutts and sequences and simulating fights and fly downs and cackles andall that other good for nothing but scaring turkeys crap.... and as a new turkey hunter I beg you to please IGNORE IT ALL!!!! Yes I mean it.... leave it JUST FOR NOW!!!! You need to learn to standup before you can dance.... and you need to learn the beat and the rhytm of spring.

The basic turkey noise is the cluck... I don't care what anyone else says. Its not the putt... its not the yelp.... its a cluck. All putts and yelps amount to are sharper and carried out variations of that single cluck. A cluckcan mean a lot of things.... I'm happy... I'm nervous.... Oh Chit.... Run Away.... I have food.... lots of stuff. What it means depends on where you are and the frequency you use.Just like George Carlin explained 'The F Word' and its many uses... its all about context. The sharper the cluck... the sharper the meaning.The amount of clucks let out in rapid succession can mean danger or excitement... depending on what its mixed with.

Yelps are used for a couple of things.... mostly to address other turkeys (usually multiple turkeys) over a broad area. They are used as locator calls... letting other birds know where they are and what they are doing or where they are going. Its a simple language really that is complex only because we over think it.

What you need in order to kill turkeys at this stage (from a calling standpoint)is a cluck and a yelp. Clucks also work well with purrs.

Yelps are what you'll hear most turkey hunters using.. which in my mind automatically is some what of a procede with caution sign, espeically if you hunt in a pressured area. Yelps, as I wrote above, are used often as locator calls. If you are in the right spot.. a yelp or two is all you'll ever need to get a birds attention. Just don't over do it.. because remember... we are being subtle.... yelps are like chili powder or bay leaves... you need some for sure, butyou can go from just right to WAYYYY too much in a big hurry. We are playing 'hard to get' here... DON'T FORGET IT!!!!!

When it comes to making yelps... cadence is important.... and really the only thing you can do wrong (other than making too many yelps) is to yelp too fast. Drag them out... make sure they come out sounding decent... cut them off cleanly....stick to four or five.... no more than six notes per yelp. Thats what the real birds do.... and thats what I do too. You can kill birds in other parts of the country with some pretty extreme calling... Rios will run under cattle, fly creeks, go through fences to get to you... but the easterns you'll be hunting in WI are the major leauges. You have to bring your A game every day.

I kill turkeys with what I like to call "Happy Turkey Noises." Imagine if you walked into a bar and everyone was yelling at each other, or if everyone stopped talking and looked at you, or if everyone was whispering.... you'd know something was up.... but if everyone was talking, laughing and just carrying on as normal... you'd think nothing of the situation at all. Thats the frame of mind you have to be in. Turkeys are always making noises of some sort. Little clucks and purrs and they never hold still.... to me, happy turkey noises are feeding clucks and soft purrs and raking the leaves.

Leaf raking is the single deadliest call in the woods. Coupled with wing beats to simulate fly downs right at first light... they just ought to be illegal.

Here is a tip (while I write plenty... I don't come off tips like this very often... I'm feeling generous)that I was told by a very experienced turkey hunter who I actually waterfowl hunt with. He has a couple yard birds (best teachers in the world), and two years agohis boss hen threw a clutch of about 12 real late (they hatched in like September) and 5 made it through. This was along about January and I think we'd shot a bunch of geese that morning. We'd take a handful of chicken feed and throw it out in the yard and watch the fray. The boss hen he has is extremely vocal... even for a turkey. I'd like to bottle her if I could.... I'd make ten million dollars. Anyway... as we were watching her beat up the chickens that were trying to dart in as her poults were feeding... Robbie made a point I'll never forget.... he, like I knows that raking leaves is a deadly call.... but what I didn't know is that there is a method to the madness. Frankly, in years past I have just raked the leaves at random.... thinking nothing of it. He told me to watch that hen scratch. Turkeys... for some reason... damn near ALWAYS scratch in patterns of three.... two with one foot... one with the other. Scratch, scratch, Scruff.... feed..... repeat. Since he told me that... I've noticed a ten fold 'pick up' in response from birds.... they can hear it quite a ways off on a cold spring morning... when you have a bird gobbling at leaf raking.... you'd better take the safety off.

Now, to totally un-do what I just told you... every situation is unique. And every turkey is unique. The only way to learn is to do it. It took me ten years to kill my first bird.... ten years. And now all I do when I am faced with a situation is revert back to a similar situation from my past and think about what I did and why it did or didn't work... I take into account where I am, where he is and where I think he wants to be... I think about a route to there that will not spook him.... or sometimes I hang it up so that I won't spook him and fight it another day... and i go from there. The good thing about turkey hunting is that it is sort of like black jack.... you know what your odds are with what you have... and you can hold or draw a card... and you get immediate feedback on your choice. Sometimes you can win by making what would typically be a bad choice... even a blind hog finds a few acorns... but the odds are always with the house... and you'll learn that soon enough.

The best thing you can possibly do is know where you are going to be hunting like its your own house. You need to know where the birds are, and more importantly where they are going to be. Turkeys are pretty reliable creatures, even in the spring time. At some point in the spring... everything will just seem to shut down... and just like the lull in the rut... the birds are henned up. Figure out how to consistantly kill henned up turkeys without bait or a rifle and you'd probably be the only man in the world that can do it. Key to succeeding is to treat him like a deer.... meet him at the water or at the feeding grounds.

SwampCollie

I think it depends more on the weather and the time of year.

In the early season when the air is cold and the mornings are still... it doesn't take very much sound to travel a long way. A gobbler, believe it or not, can hear you call further away than you can hear his gobble (I'm a bad example because as duck hunter I am hard of hearing prematurely... and since I'm a good duck hunter and take lots of people duck hunting... I'm extra deaf from having shotguns go off in front of my face 30 times a season).

As the spring springs into warmer weather and vegetation starts to emmerge, you get the baffling effect. All those new dense, moist and succulent leaves will soak up your calls like sponges. Wind is another important factor... harder calls cut wind better.... crystal is my favorite surface on windy days. Box calls cut wind better than anything else, and they carry forever. Turkeys hate heavy wind... so look for them on the lee sides of hills or in protected bottoms. Don't expect a heck of a lot of gobbling either.. but there again... you never know.

Mouth calls are actually the quietest of the bunch. They are good for close in work... hands free. Great on still days... early mornings... in the woods. Lots of folks in my part of the world hunt fields.... field turkeys are damn hard to kill once they get smart too.... and I hate sitting in fields all day looking at nothing but winter wheat, dead corn stubble or bean straw.

I haven't ever heard that different gobblers like different calls... and frankly I wouldn't really know how to find out.... I guess the ones I have killed have liked the calls I have used good enough anyway.

What I think you are getting at is this (correct me if I'm wrong): You are askingin a nut shell if you use one call (say a slate) on a turkey and don't get a result will a different call (say a mouth call) make him gobble?

Assuming said turkey heard both your calls.... the answer in my experience is almost always no. (with ducks and geese the answer is yes.... but not with turkeys). Turkey calling is not nearly as exact a science as duck and goose calling is... it is way way easier in my opinion to call turkeys.

Now, sometimes you can get what I call a courtesy gobble out of one... say you yelp.. you might be able to get him to gobble at a hard cutt or a kee-kee... doesn't mean he is coming to you though... lots of variables there. Changing the call you make rather than the call you use is what you should do.

Let me give you a practical example since I've already written way to freakin' much in the this thread anyway:

I remember sitting on a ridge in the mountains one morning and hearing another hunter walking along calling like a damned old fool. Sounded like he was farting in a beer can... terrible screetches and missed notes coming from him. He walked right up on me too.... and from a blind spot whereI couldn't see him. I could hear hisfootsteps and I was starting to get nervous because some turkey hunters are loose cannons. I whistled sharply and he stopped and putted. "What the hell???"I said outloud and involuntary... damned if that turkey hunter didn'tputt again and fly off making all kinds of commotion.... of course it was a real hen turkey. Point is this... there is nothing in the woods that sounds scruffier than a real live hen turkey. So don't really worry too much about what call you are using or trying to sound like one hen versus another hen because they all sound like crap compared to what most people "think" turkeys sound like (in reality... if hen turkeys sound like crap.... then so should we... follow?), just make the right noises at the right times and in moderation. Real live hens are not very loud.... don't ever be louder than you need to be. Keep it simple.... start off low... call softly at first... wait a while.... next time step it up an octave or so. Birds don't always gobble... in fact... there are a couple of general rules I follow when it comes to working birds... but I'm going to make you wait for that. I've worn my fingers out.

johnnybravoo77

Swamp, after a year of lurking, and over a year of being a member of this forum; this has to be the MOST informative post on any kind of hunting I have ever read. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Gamblinman

Swamp has led on to one of the best tips thereare to turkey hunting, and that is the scratchings ofa hen when feeding. The actual cadence of scratching is known as 1-3-2. One scratch, followed by three scratches with the other foot, followed by two scratches with the first foot. Most, but not all turkeys start the cadence with their left foot.

I agree...if you have a turkey gobble to your scratching in the leaves..be ready,'cause most likly he'll be heading you're way.

mfd1027

Whew! I'm worn out! Good job-Swamp! Now with all that knowledge all you gotta dois keep your cheek on the stock and squeeze the trigger.

Dan

JW

Fantastic Article Swamp! We need to have you put this all together and we will PIN ya once again!

Only thing to add is getting your ear turned to what the Turkeys are saying out there in the woods and fields. By tuning your ear you can properly use and tune your calls to mimic the tonessounds to what you hear.

The best REAL Wild Turkey voices and a narative description to lsiten to and use calls to practice against (which is always in my truck's CD) Are the Real Voices of Wild Turkeys III & IV CDs by non other than Lovett Williams. Google his name and you will find where to order. Money well spent.

JW

Huntinman23

wow swamp, For a first time hunter this is really hard to soak in at once, i will have to re-read this thread about 20 times before i get half of it lol. Again thank you very much for everything...everything was great. Very informative and very helpful. Thank you very much again.