Let me start off by saying that this is not intended to start a debate about decoys.
After several years of studying and really putting a lot into deer hunting, I have become a pretty good deer hunter. One thing I have come to realize is that as smart as deer are, they are not, by any means, mythical creatures, so to speak. I think we tend to put them up on a higher pedestal than maybe they should be. Now, there is no denying that a deer can smell, hear, and sense things much better than us humans, but they are, after all, just animals.
I can't help but see turkey in the same way. They can see real well, and hear real well, but how smart can they really be? I mean if you think about it, some people put out decoys that do not even move. Shouldn't that set off an alarm to a turkey that something isn't right? I mean, if you walked into a building and there were some people standing around, but not moving at all, wouldn't you start to think something isn't right?
Not smart at all. Great eyesight. Good hearing just not able to tell real calling from some bad imitation. No reasoning ability. Survival instincts are hyper alert.
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
if you walked into a building and there were some people standing around, but not moving at all, wouldn't you start to think something isn't right?
No, I'd just freeze and not move. I'd be afraid I'd set of a bomb or something.
Lot of hunters give a turkey's brain way to much credit. Their eye's and ears are what keeps them alive. Turkeys react to what they see and hear, they don't think about. I've seen hog wire outsmart them. I've watched them walk back and forth trying to get through it. But let something scare them they immediately react and go up and over. Sometimes I feel bad for shooting a critter like a turkey that's not very smart, but that only lasts for a second or two.
Survivors not rocket scientists!
Something has wanted to eat them every day of their life, even in the egg.
They aren't so much smart as the are st good at not being killed and eaten.
Best way I have heard it put, "Turkey ain't smart, they just live with one foot on the panic button".
They are not smart but paranoid as (expletive deleted) about sudden changes in the environment. They see or hear something odd and they are gone. It is what keeps them alive. Why the blast from a 3 1/2" shell doesn't scatter then like you'd think it should is beyond me but my guess is loud booms and a flopping flock mate doesn't resemble a fox or other predator they managed to survive before humans began using guns.
Unlike deer, turkeys do not have a curious bone in their body. If anything looks out of place they are gone and I mean right now. They spend their entire life scared to death. They take no chances. IMO their eyesight is far better than any deer especially when it comes to movement.
Quote from: warrent423 on February 23, 2015, 10:50:24 PM
Coming from a long line of sure 'nuff turkey hunters, we've always considered them to be the smartest critters in the woods. I personally couldn't respect a so called true turkey hunter who thought them to be stupid. Then again, we've always made it a point to hunt truly wild turkeys and not the "pets". ;) To each there own though.
I was not trying to say that I think turkeys are stupid. All I was getting at is that it baffles me as to how a turkey can see and hear so well, and sometimes be so elusive, but doesn't have a problem coming into decoys that aren't even moving.
If a turkey spend its life scared to death of any change around them, why doesn't another turkey that isn't moving, and does not move while they are walking around it, scare the live bird?
I guess maybe it is the same principal as a buck during the rut. It is so love struck that it tends to throw caution to the wind just to mate.
Quote from: guesswho on February 23, 2015, 08:43:27 PM
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
if you walked into a building and there were some people standing around, but not moving at all, wouldn't you start to think something isn't right?
No, I'd just freeze and not move. I'd be afraid I'd set of a bomb or something.
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny:
QuoteLot of hunters give a turkey's brain way to much credit. Their eye's and ears are what keeps them alive. Turkeys react to what they see and hear, they don't think about.
Yep!! That would be like a guy walking up to a mannequin, and saying, "Heeeeyyyyyyy baby!!! Wanna get a drink?" :lol: ;D
Hmm, then again, I've seen a lot of guys in bars that wouldn't be above doing that. :lol:
But seriously, obviously critters don't have the intellect to reason. It's more instinct, reaction and going into survival mode.
Quote from: Spurs on February 23, 2015, 10:07:43 PM
Best way I have heard it put, "Turkey ain't smart, they just live with one foot on the panic button".
This is true. Very true. However, I have hunted
Gobblers in heavily pressure areas that
You just Wont likely kill in a traditional
Manner or with a "Cheap A-- Decoy"
Use a stuffer with movement or different
Calls like Jake yelps have helped me bag
Several tough Old Spurred Birds tho!!!!
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
Let me start off by saying that this is not intended to start a debate about decoys.
After several years of studying and really putting a lot into deer hunting, I have become a pretty good deer hunter. One thing I have come to realize is that as smart as deer are, they are not, by any means, mythical creatures, so to speak. I think we tend to put them up on a higher pedestal than maybe they should be. Now, there is no denying that a deer can smell, hear, and sense things much better than us humans, but they are, after all, just animals.
I can't help but see turkey in the same way. They can see real well, and hear real well, but how smart can they really be? I mean if you think about it, some people put out decoys that do not even move. Shouldn't that set off an alarm to a turkey that something isn't right? I mean, if you walked into a building and there were some people standing around, but not moving at all, wouldn't you start to think something isn't right?
I live in Colorado. We have lots of buildings with people sitting around and not moving - marijuana dispensaries.
Hmmmm...maybe the breeding season has something to do with something??....
Decoys not moving? I've seen live hens stand still for 20+ mins...
I hope someone tells the birds how dumb they are!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
:OGani: Not dumb, they are wary. Almost everything in the woods will eat either their eggs, young or the biguns. Their survival instinct is keen. Their eyesight and hearing is acute. Just because we fool them once in a while doesn't mean they don't know we are there. I don't think they have any higher reasoning than a rock but they know their woods and are survivors. Al Baker
Hogs are a lot smarter than turkeys!!
Lot of the old timers said anyone could kill a lovelorn gobbler in the spring!
I'll just keep telling myself that they are at a higher level of intelligence than we think. It makes me feel better when they kick my butt. :toothy9:
How smart can they be? I guess, compared to some of us humans, they can be pretty darn smart!
A short story:
We have a five -gallon, hanging feeder at our cabin in the mountains where we hunt. We only get up there occasionally, and so the feeder gets empty sometimes before we get up there to refill it. One time we went up for a weekend and the feeder was empty enough that it was not throwing out any feed when it activated, but had some feed left in the bottom.
We were sitting inside one morning and a group of about five mature gobblers came in to check the feeder. They looked around on the ground for a minute and then, while we watched, one of them flew up on top of the feeder and started shaking it back and forth. Some of the loose feed in the bottom was shaken out, the gobbler flew back down, and all of them began to pick it up.
...If had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. Now don't tell me that they don't have some capabilities to "reason"....
Quote from: Spurs on February 23, 2015, 10:07:43 PM
Best way I have heard it put, "Turkey ain't smart, they just live with one foot on the panic button".
Spot on
Quote from: RutnNStrutn on February 23, 2015, 11:02:09 PM
Quote from: guesswho on February 23, 2015, 08:43:27 PM
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
if you walked into a building and there were some people standing around, but not moving at all, wouldn't you start to think something isn't right?
No, I'd just freeze and not move. I'd be afraid I'd set of a bomb or something.
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny:
QuoteLot of hunters give a turkey's brain way to much credit. Their eye's and ears are what keeps them alive. Turkeys react to what they see and hear, they don't think about.
Yep!! That would be like a guy walking up to a mannequin, and saying, "Heeeeyyyyyyy baby!!! Wanna get a drink?" :lol: ;D
Hmm, then again, I've seen a lot of guys in bars that wouldn't be above doing that. :lol:
But seriously, obviously critters don't have the intellect to reason. It's more instinct, reaction and going into survival mode.
:agreed: Key word is instinct....
You sell them short at your peril. You sell them long and nothing is lost. They reason very well; they just happen to have a strong sex drive and an inability to overcome it at times.
Quote from: warrent423 on February 23, 2015, 10:50:24 PM
we've always made it a point to hunt truly wild turkeys and not the "pets". ;) To each there own though.
Who's hunting non "truly wild turkeys" and pets? Also what is the difference between a "truly wild turkey" and a wild turkey? I know a lot of folks think their local home grown turkeys are the hardest turkeys in the country to kill. Is this what your referring to?
I guess you will have to define what is smart.
Turkey's have zero ability to reason in the sense that humans do. They don't see cause and effect. You can give anecdotes where that seems to be the case, but they are not intelligent beings in the human sense. They are cognitive-experience can tell them that a certain yelp yelp yelp cadence has a negative reward. They can't think "I have never heard that sound before and there may be a hunter there so I will avoid that situation and do this instead". That is anthropomorphic. They learn, they do not reason.
What they are is wary and random. The reason you can't figure out what he is gonna do in the morning is because he does not know what he is gonna do in the morning.
Thank goodness, they aren't that smart. Might never kill one if they were.
I don't put out decoys if the wind isn't blowing a little to move them. It happens but very rarely do you see a turkey stand still for very long. If they are standing still and looking usually they think something is wrong and are about to show you tailfeathers.
Quote from: warrent423 on February 24, 2015, 02:34:40 PM
Surely you know the difference between highly pressured and non pressured turkeys.
Absolutely. But when you said y'all don't hunt pet's and that y'all only hunt truly wild turkeys it kind of confused me a minute. I thought you were in some elite club or something. So I'm guessing you hunt local home grown public land turkeys or small acreage high member leases, just like the majority of members here. You were referring to large tracts of private land with few hunters, and paid guided hunts where they feed the pet turkeys and let people shoot them.
QuoteWhat they are is wary and random. The reason you can't figure out what he is gonna do in the morning is because he does not know what he is gonna do in the morning.
:z-winnersmiley:
Take this quote and add that we, as hunters, overthink the situation and that creates a "smart" turkey.
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
Let me start off by saying that this is not intended to start a debate about decoys.
I mean if you think about it, some people put out decoys that do not even move. Shouldn't that set off an alarm to a turkey that something isn't right?
Every year there are decoys that get shot up by people, sometimes more than once in a row, so why would you think they shouldn't fool a turkey. ;)
Quote from: born2hunt on February 24, 2015, 08:24:04 PM
Quote from: deerbasshunter3 on February 23, 2015, 08:23:31 PM
Let me start off by saying that this is not intended to start a debate about decoys.
I mean if you think about it, some people put out decoys that do not even move. Shouldn't that set off an alarm to a turkey that something isn't right?
Every year there are decoys that get shot up by people, sometimes more than once in a row, so why would you think they shouldn't fool a turkey. ;)
or how bout those rocket scientist that shoot motionless deer decoys put out on the side of the road by state fish and wildlife officers. have seen clips of people shoot them two or three times before the game warden shows up to explain why the "deer" did not run away.
Turkeys have reasoning ability. Do not be fooled by all the reports to the contrary, they are sadly mistaken. Rely on your own observations and with experience you will see how well they reason. It took me a while to realize this as I used to believe all the false reports saying they lack reasoning ability- completely WRONG.
I've always experience that the by far the hardest part of killing turkeys is just finding them. If I know right where a turkey is gonna be he's usually pretty easy to kill.
Depends on how you define reasoning ability. They can't make logical steps in thought that (most) humans can. If you think they can, you are sadly mistaken. Your anecdotal evidence is meaningless.
An old timer told me that, "turkeys aint smart they are scared but they don't know what they are scared of".
Quote from: g8rvet on March 16, 2015, 08:15:24 AM
Depends on how you define reasoning ability. They can't make logical steps in thought that (most) humans can. If you think they can, you are sadly mistaken. Your anecdotal evidence is meaningless.
Okay, so if they don't have at least some rudimentary ability to reason, please give me a rational explanation for this behavior:
We have a five -gallon, hanging feeder at our cabin in the mountains where we hunt. We only get up there occasionally, and so the feeder gets empty sometimes before we get up there to refill it. One time we went up for a weekend and the feeder was empty enough that it was not throwing out any feed when it activated, but had some feed left in the bottom.
We were sitting inside one morning and a group of about five mature gobblers came in to check the feeder. They looked around on the ground for a minute and then, while we watched, one of them flew up on top of the feeder and started shaking it back and forth. Some of the loose feed in the bottom was shaken out, the gobbler flew back down, and all of them began to pick it up.
...If had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. Now don't tell me that they don't have some capabilities to "reason"....
Happenstance that they landed on the feeder ONCE, and corn fell out. They do have memory, but not the ability to reason beforehand that 'if I do this, then this MIGHT happen"
So what you're saying is, he smart enough to shake feed out of a bucket for his buddies, but dumb enough to walk up to a decoy that hasn't moved in an hour and a newly erected hut? Not to mention, slap said deke around a bit and receives not the first lick back in return and continues to do so!
Turkeys are just like a woman...subject to change at any moment.
Change their minds, do the opposite of what you expect.
I, as a man just accept it...
Sent from Gobblers Knob, NC
Quote from: M Sharpe on March 16, 2015, 10:29:42 AM
So what you're saying is, he smart enough to shake feed out of a bucket for his buddies, but dumb enough to walk up to a decoy that hasn't moved in an hour and a newly erected hut? Not to mention, slap said deke around a bit and receives not the first lick back in return and continues to do so!
I agree. If reasoning was capable by turkeys,nobody would ever kill one out of a blind. "Reasoning" turkeys would see a blind and realize somebody is in there trying to kill me. Same applies to the myth of learning to avoid calling because they've been with a bird(or birds) that got walloped when they went to a call.A turkey sound is just that to a turkey..........a turkey sound.They are by nature scared of their own shadows because everything,for the most part,in their world is trying to eat them.If a turkey becomes "call shy"(which does not exist) I would bet 99.9% of the time it was another factor that spooked the bird other than a call.
When all is said and done, each of us has our own perception of how turkeys behave and what they are capable of learning from their experiences in life. I hunt turkeys based our my accumulated experiences in hunting them, observing them, and seeing how they respond under varying conditions.
I have personally seen too much evidence over the years that turkeys will, without any doubt, change their behavior based on hunting pressure, and especially related to turkey calling, that I know I must change my hunting tactics at times to be successful.
Anybody that feels otherwise,...well, that is fine with me. If you have found something that consistently works for you, by all means, stick with it.
However, for those new guys out there that are just getting started in this obsession, my advice is to understand that turkeys that have been hunted a lot are going to change their behavior, especially as it relates to turkey calling. If you do not learn to adjust your hunting tactics based on that phenomenon, you will be less successful, in the long run, than you will be if you do.
Turkeys are not smart but that doesn't make them dumb. Since they are prey, they are instinctively reactive to their environment and very dependent on their eyesight and hearing. More importantly, they taste fantastic as finger food with some bleu cheese!! I can't wait for the NY opener. :turkey2:
Very good point Gobble. But I think it is just as important for new hunters to not over ascribe logic to a turkey. If they were logical and wary and intelligent, they would be hunting us! LOL.
I am not saying they do not learn, nor interact with their environment. In your example, the turkey saw where the feed came from and flew up there to get it. In the process he observed corn came out when he moved. All learned. The bird most certainly did NOT think in his mind "Hey, I'm gonna fly up there and knock that delicious corn out of that barrel for me and my buddies".
Mostly, I think the disagreement is really about definition of terms. Unless someone actually thinks a turkey can follow a line of deduction and form a conclusion, through non-experienced suppositions. If someone thinks that, they are wrong. Period. Sorry.
Quote from: g8rvet on March 16, 2015, 12:16:57 PM
Mostly, I think the disagreement is really about definition of terms. Unless someone actually thinks a turkey can follow a line of deduction and form a conclusion, through non-experienced suppositions. If someone thinks that, they are wrong. Period. Sorry.
I agree with this completely. The operative phrase there being "non-experienced suppositions". They most definitely are capable of "learning" through experiences, however.
I agree, we had our terms a little mixed up maybe. We can all agree that turkeys learn from their experiences. They learn a lot from watching one of their own get shot immediately after approaching an unknown "hen" that was heard but not seen. We all agree on this, yes?
Then why would they stick around attacking a downed bird?
Quote from: dejake on March 16, 2015, 01:43:00 PM
Then why would they stick around attacking a downed bird?
Slow learners.
I wondered that at first but was told by some old hunters that why wouldn't they, because they are used to hearing thunder and could possibly be equating the boom of a gun blast to that and also equating the downed bird as injured (its a competition between the males for mates so its just doing what was natural). Again these comments were told to me by old timers who are just trying to rationalize the "whys" just like us.....
The point i was making is that they don't run because they don't equate coming into a non-existant hen, hearing a loud boom, and seeing their buddy flopping on the ground with danger. It's the movement by the shooter that makes them skedaddle.
All that being said, I will confess that sometimes they're smarter than me.
Turkeys are stupid. Guesswho nailed it. Seen them do the same thing at fences. Have also found piles of feathers at fences. Must not have been smart enough. Another thing is if there's one in the road I swear l you can make em run a mile down it. Me I would just go off the side? Eyes and ears are all you have to fool. Eyes mostly
Quote from: drenalinld on February 23, 2015, 08:36:33 PM
Not smart at all. Great eyesight. Good hearing just not able to tell real calling from some bad imitation. No reasoning ability. Survival instincts are hyper alert.
And if they had the nose of a deer, we'd never kill one.
Wait a minute now, if they had the ability to reason and think on logical terms, wouldn' t they realize there was not a cloud in the sky and suspect that it must have been a gun instead of thunder???
He is just one wary creature that has been fighting to survive before he was even hatched. I've seen them at a wire fence before too. Quite comical!!
If they thought a loud boom killed Fred that day he decided to go to the invisible hen what do you think would happen on the night of a bad thunderstorm. All we would have to do the next morning would be walk around and pick up our limit after they fell off the limb from a heart attack the night before.
Turn the tables on some of these scenarios I've read. I've read over and over about call shy gobblers. Look at it from a hens perspective. You know they probably have seen their share of gobblers get killed by the big boom right after he gobbled his head off. So with the call shy syndrome you would think there would be no way a hen would go to a gobbling bird.
I have to agree with the comment that was made about a gobbler beating up a decoy.
Not only did the gobbler walk up to another gobbler/jake, that is in full strut, and it never moved (Still "strutting", by the way...), but when it attacks it, it stays in full strut and takes a butt whoopin...?
Something just does not add up there. Even a deer will run/walk off if it attacks a decoy a couple times and it never moves.
I am not suggesting that turkey are down right stupid, but to give them any more credit than being another animal in the woods that we humans have learned to outsmart is giving them more credit than I believe they deserve.
With all of this being said, we have all seen turkey, deer, etc... do things against the taught norms of their behavior. As a matter of fact, I shot a mature deer last year directly down wind of me. Not only did I shoot her, but I shot at her and missed at 30 yards with my first arrow. She then ran ten feet, turned around, walked right by the arrow (still directly downwind) and stopped at 15 yards. I then dropped her with my second shot.