So I was thinking of going to my friends house and practicing on his domesticated turkey Gobbletrot. What I want to know is will practicing my sweet nothings on Gobbletrot be of any good to me or should I let him be to look for love elsewhere?
You'll get reaction gobbles I'd think, but you won't gain much I don't think. I'd imagine you'll gain more sitting out of sight and just listen to them and how they communicate to each other. Just my. 02
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Thanks, had a feeling that might be the case.
So I can give you some real life experience with this, The answer is YES!
(Not just from a tom, I'm talking a farmyard "flock")
So when I first started to turkey hunt there was no one around to learn anything from, I was as green as they come. But what I did have was a way learn about turkey "hunting" calling as my dad had domestic/wild cross free ranging bronze breasted turkeys on the farm. But I also learned so much more from these birds. Now the gobbler really couldn't fly and would only roost about 6ft off the ground but those hens would get themselves up in a tree. So I learned a lot from these birds, I learned how to talk turkey from hen turkeys and I learned about rhythm, cadence and inflection. I learned what they said in the morning before flydown, learned what they said once they were on the ground I learned their language and when and how to use it. I learned about dominance in a flock both hens, toms and jakes. I watched how these birds interacted with each other on a daily basis. I learned how a tom displayed for the hen and when a hen was willing to breed and her body language. I picked up intricacies of their social interactions that have helped me understand their behavior. Those birds were my teachers and I was in school.
I would tell you there is a lot you could learn if you listen, watch and study everything they are doing, a turkey is a turkey in many ways and yes the "wild" birds do have some different instincts. But you will learn things that most never will...
Don't pass up the opportunity!
MK M GOBL
I disagree somewhat. You can still call to them and see what certain calls get the best response from them. You can also listen to them and mimic every call they make as Southern Leo suggested. I had a pet wild strain turkey gobbler as a child. He taught me a lot. And not just in calling. Granted a turkey that does not have a fear humans is a little more laid back but watching how they react to different situations is very informative. Now I would not put a domesticated turkey in the same class as a wild strain bird but there are a few traits that they share. One is curiosity.
Focus more on the hen talk than what a tame gobbler gobbles at. (which is everything btw)
Quote from: Sir-diealot on February 23, 2018, 12:21:42 AM
So I was thinking of going to my friends house and practicing on his domesticated turkey Gobbletrot. What I want to know is will practicing my sweet nothings on Gobbletrot be of any good to me or should I let him be to look for love elsewhere?
Don't waste your time. I grew up with tame turkeys and it had its benefits, but as far as getting a male bird to gobble at you.....its a waste of time. they will gobble at the snapping of fingers. they will gobble at anything.....getting used to turkey sounds is good....but it wont teach you much in reguards to actually hunting a wild turkey
You can shout at a domestic turkey and he will gobble. A tame turkey will gobble at any and everything non stop. If you want to get better find domestic hens to listen to. You will be surprised at how many different sounds they make. You will get nothing from calling a domestic gobbler as far as experience but you will get a truckload of confidence. Confidence kills birds so you be the judge.
Quote from: Cottonmouth on February 23, 2018, 06:19:33 AM
Focus more on the hen talk than what a tame gobbler gobbles at. (which is everything btw)
+1
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Kind of like practicing on your cousin.
Quote from: guesswho on February 23, 2018, 10:01:34 AM
Kind of like practicing on your cousin.
My cousins are too easy to call in. Just shake a pill bottle and wait.
I thought you were going to practice shooting... I'd say that would work just fine
My cousins? That's a bit excessive. I just avoid them and let the local law enforcement keep tabs on them. They seem to be on a first name basis by now.
Quote from: Happy on February 23, 2018, 12:12:27 PM
My cousins? That's a bit excessive. I just avoid them and let the local law enforcement keep tabs on them. They seem to be on a first name basis by now.
Trust me, I know. Most of my kin folk are from Boone county.
Alas poor Gobbletrot does not have a love, his owners just got a pair of hens for him but at this time they are still jailbait and of no use to him. In a short time he will find love as they mature from annoying little poults into full fledged hens and then I am sure there will be lots of :turkey2: going on.
Thanks for all the comments, very informative. and a few a bit scary (Cousins) and yet funny at the same time. I have a few of those cousins myself, that is why I keep my meds locked in the gun safe.
I will have to see if any of the Mennonites in the area have a turkey farm and if they will let me sit around in the wee hours of the morning.
Quote from: Sir-diealot on February 23, 2018, 02:15:05 PM
Alas poor Gobbletrot does not have a love, his owners just got a pair of hens for him but at this time they are still jailbait and of no use to him. In a short time he will find love as they mature from annoying little poults into full fledged hens and then I am sure there will be lots of :turkey2: going on.
Thanks for all the comments, very informative. and a few a bit scary (Cousins) and yet funny at the same time. I have a few of those cousins myself, that is why I keep my meds locked in the gun safe.
I will have to see if any of the Mennonites in the area have a turkey farm and if they will let me sit around in the wee hours of the morning.
You will learn that I like to joke with maybe some nuggets of truth sprinkled in. I grew up and worked around coal miners, steel workers and roughnecks you gotta have thick skin to survive that environment. So to clarify I have never been romantically drawn to my cousins, however I do have a few that are very well known to law enforcement. Heck one of them had an APB put out for fleeing from an officers car when he stopped at a stop sign about a month or so ago. My wife apologized for her extended family the first time I met them. I just chuckled and told her she had no clue what she was getting into. She gets it now.
I used to have barnyard turkeys when I was a kid, my gobblers were pretty much idiots and gobbled at anything. What I learned was to call to the hens, if I could get them talking/coming to me then I felt like I was getting somewhere.
That said, it's a hell of a lot of fun to put out a jake decoy and watch them beat the tar out of it :funnyturkey:
Quote from: Happy on February 23, 2018, 03:26:38 PM
Quote from: Sir-diealot on February 23, 2018, 02:15:05 PM
Alas poor Gobbletrot does not have a love, his owners just got a pair of hens for him but at this time they are still jailbait and of no use to him. In a short time he will find love as they mature from annoying little poults into full fledged hens and then I am sure there will be lots of :turkey2: going on.
Thanks for all the comments, very informative. and a few a bit scary (Cousins) and yet funny at the same time. I have a few of those cousins myself, that is why I keep my meds locked in the gun safe.
I will have to see if any of the Mennonites in the area have a turkey farm and if they will let me sit around in the wee hours of the morning.
You will learn that I like to joke with maybe some nuggets of truth sprinkled in. I grew up and worked around coal miners, steel workers and roughnecks you gotta have thick skin to survive that environment. So to clarify I have never been romantically drawn to my cousins, however I do have a few that are very well known to law enforcement. Heck one of them had an APB put out for fleeing from an officers car when he stopped at a stop sign about a month or so ago. My wife apologized for her extended family the first time I met them. I just chuckled and told her she had no clue what she was getting into. She gets it now.
I knew you were joking, I have a very warped and some say macabre/morbid sense of humor myself. My Pastor says I worry him, seems like I have heard that a lot in my life. :D
Quote from: jblackburn on February 23, 2018, 03:32:57 PM
I used to have barnyard turkeys when I was a kid, my gobblers were pretty much idiots and gobbled at anything. What I learned was to call to the hens, if I could get them talking/coming to me then I felt like I was getting somewhere.
That said, it's a hell of a lot of fun to put out a jake decoy and watch them beat the tar out of it :funnyturkey:
Hens do seem to make much more sense now that's ya'll got me thinking on it. I bet it is fun to watch them rip one up!
Quote from: Happy on February 23, 2018, 11:21:34 AM
Quote from: guesswho on February 23, 2018, 10:01:34 AM
Kind of like practicing on your cousin.
My cousins are too easy to call in. Just shake a pill bottle and wait.
Oh my.... that's brutal!!
My grandpa had tame turkeys when I was young. By the time he got them I was already decent at calling and killing birds. I did spend some time studying their behavior and their vocalizations. As most have said, a tame gobbler will respond to anything so that won't be of much benefit for crafting your calling. What will be of benefit is the intricacies of how they respond to one another and communicate both verbal and non-verbal. Grandpa just let his birds roam so I would follow them and watch them in his woods and pay attention to little things. Much of their behavior will go hand in hand with wild birds, nesting habits and feeding in the timber or field edges. The roosting and breeding will be a little different as they are just not wild birds. All in all, it will allow you to observe some things you may not have seen before if you haven't spent a lot of years chasing turkeys.
Thank you for the reply. No I have not spend a lot of time, it would have been a lot longer if not for my car accident in 2001 I had just started hunting turkey somewhere around 97-99 I am thinking it was 98 though. My first time out hunting them and that experience and one other has kept me wanting to hunt them all this time, I have just returned to being able to hunt going on 2 years ago this November so I lost out on a lot of learning time.
17 year recovery has got to be rough. It's good to hear ya can get back after them.
Quote from: dirt road ninja on February 23, 2018, 05:24:07 PM
17 year recovery has got to be rough. It's good to hear ya can get back after them.
Yes a lot of it was coming up with medication did not make me a zombie, Methadone and Morphine are horrible in my book, could not get off them quick enough.
Good for you for recognizing that. I was in a pretty bad wreck once myself. Ejected out the passenger side window. I was precribed oxy once I was released. Never took a dose of it. I hurt like you wouldn't believe for a week but I was scared to death of those drugs once I saw what they did to others.
Quote from: Happy on February 23, 2018, 05:46:24 PM
Good for you for recognizing that. I was in a pretty bad wreck once myself. Ejected out the passenger side window. I was precribed oxy once I was released. Never took a dose of it. I hurt like you wouldn't believe for a week but I was scared to death of those drugs once I saw what they did to others.
My doctor was really good with me on trying to find combinations that would work, we finally fell onto a combination of Oxycodone and Fentanyl along with some anti inflammatory meds that really do seem to do the trick. The odd thing is I can drive and all while taking the Fentanyl which is 100 X's stronger than Morphine but not the Oxy's, I won't even attempt to drive the 2/10ths of a mile down the road to the post office if I have taken the Oxy's but no problem at all with the others. Normally when it is hunting season I will not take them (Oxy's) when I am hunting either, I wait til I get home take one dose and that is it for til the next night. It is just not worth hitting somebody or shooting somebody. I will hunt for like say 2 or 3 days then let my body recoup for however many days it demands and then go back to hunting.
Oh how rude of me, very glad you are doing better now as well.
Nah. Not rude at all. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as yours
Quote from: Happy on February 23, 2018, 06:11:11 PM
Nah. Not rude at all. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as yours
Mine is all nerve pain, I almost wish I had broken bones or something because people look at me like there is nothing wrong with me and I am just lazy, even had a few say that to me, really upsetting at least, if I was in a cast or something maybe they would lay off.
I had a bad accident (fell off of a ladder) back in 98. I had two different military doctors and one civilian doctor all prescribing different pain meds. They swore it was safe to take all of them. None of them worked because my ulnar nerve was pinched off due to an improper elbow reconstruction. Ended up having a second surgery to fix it and the pain was gone but left permanent nerve damage.
The casts may sound like a good idea but I had them on both arms up to my shoulders, not cool. My wife was 8 months pregnant as well, those were some miserable times. Glad you can hunt again, that's what motivated me as much as anything.
Quote from: Rzrbac on February 23, 2018, 07:14:26 PM
I had a bad accident (fell off of a ladder) back in 98. I had two different military doctors and one civilian doctor all prescribing different pain meds. They swore it was safe to take all of them. None of them worked because my ulnar nerve was pinched off due to an improper elbow reconstruction. Ended up having a second surgery to fix it and the pain was gone but left permanent nerve damage.
The casts may sound like a good idea but I had them on both arms up to my shoulders, not cool. My wife was 8 months pregnant as well, those were some miserable times. Glad you can hunt again, that's what motivated me as much as anything.
Glad you were able to get relief. Back in 88 when I was 18 I was in a car that hit a tree at 90 MPH I am only alive by the grace of God. I spent a lot of time in casts from my feet to just below my groin on both legs and hands to elbows as well so I know it sucks. My comment was not to denote cool, it is just when people see me moving around at times I get both looked at and told I am faking. I even had more than one friend say "Come on man it is just us in the house, you can quit faking" I walked out both times. I just wish people understood just because you don't look like you are in pain does not mean you are not. My sister got to see me without meds 4 or 5 CHRISTmas' ago when I went to see her in OK I got my meds filled there because I did not want to carry narcotics through the airport. Problem was that the Patch they gave me there reacted very badly with my skin and I could not get them replaced so I could not take them. She said I looked like an old man when I tried to move. Anyway this is depressing and I pulled it way off topic, sorry about that everyone.
Oh CALLING practice! I thought I was still in the shooting area.
Oops! :D
Domestics gobble at EVERYTHING
Quote from: Brwndg on March 02, 2018, 05:46:31 PM
Domestics gobble at EVERYTHING
That seems to be the consensuses, thanks for the reply.
You will learn more from being quiet and listening
Quote from: BD on March 03, 2018, 09:50:00 PM
You will learn more from being quiet and listening
Has worked well for me in other things in life too :) Thanks for the reply.
I would think that domestic turkeys could give some real insight...
I would pay careful attention to the contented sounds that hens make on the low end while eating and resting.
I would pay extra careful attention to the sounds that hens make just before and during the actual breeding process.
I would pay attention to the cadence and inflection of calls during socialization, relaxation, and danger...
Sounds like a unique opportunity to learn a bit and have a little fun... Admittedly, whether helpful or not, I would call at those toms and try to work them up... Just for the heck of it.
I will have to find somebody else with turkeys, my friend only has the tom and 2 poult hens at this time.