A True Oldtimers Test

[Yoder409]

Started in 1978 or 1979.

Back then, I only knew 2 or 3 guys who hunted turkeys.  We didn't have any turkeys around our area.  Had to go to the mountains.  We'd drive close 100 miles out around Penn State Univ area to hunt.

My very first calls were Smith 2 and 3 reed diaphragms........which, after some practice, I still wasn't very good.  Listened to a Ben Lee cassette that my brother's buddy had.

Couple years later, turkeys had moved into our area.  I made a tube call from a 35mm film canister, a piece of rubber surgical glove and some black electrician's tape.  Killed my first bird with that call.

[Turkeybutt]

Yoder back then you couldn't buy turkey calls anywhere so we did what we had to do and made it work.
If you were like me you were always experimenting, trying to find something ya thought sounded good and would call a turkey in. Case in point you made a tube call out of a film canister and it worked! Congratulations on killing your first turkey way back when with that homemade tube call. Hope you still have it.

[guesswho]

Or cut river cane.   My Dad always made ours when we got to camp the night before.   After the weekend hunt we tossed them and he made new ones the following weekend.

[Marc]

Self-taught in college.

Grew up actively bird hunting, and shooting a bird on the ground was antithetical to everything I knew about bird hunting.  Bought a cassette tape and a VCR video about turkey hunting and calling.

First call was a Quaker Boy Grand Ol' Master...  Guy at the sporting goods store said that was the best one.

Soon got an H.S. Strut DD mouth call, and found out why they called these things "tongue ticklers."  Initially, I could not understand how anyone could overcome the discomfort of using these calls...  But being a duck hunter and understanding air displacement I rapidly became extremely proficient at making very realistic sounds out of this call...  Realistic if I were calling in seals that is.

I soon graduated to the H.S. Strut Raspy Old Hen...  Bought a multi-pack of H.S. Strut calls that came with a call tote (that I still use some 32 years later), but that Raspy Old Hen was my favorite.

[TrackeySauresRex]

Almost old timer,

Pretty much self taught, I started in the 80's listened to a cassette tape on calling. It could have been Lohman, don't remember. I patterned my gun on a pie plate at 25 paces with copper plated lead. First mouth call was a Quaker Boy and I was horrible at it, still am. We kept is simple back then.

[Turkeybutt]

Sometimes ya sit back, look something over a little bit,  maybe scratch your head, adjust this, adapt that then it hits you. 
Keep it simple!

[Howie g]

Many scoldings , lessons etc from the porch of a man named Mr . Ken Morgon , along with my grandpa who was a turkey killin machine . Other then that , trial / Error .  Most hunters back then wouldn't tell you anything.
My God how things have changed !!!

[silvestris]

But, Kenneth would tell you a lot and when you started to listen, your kill ratio would go up.  I miss him dearly.

[gobbler777]

This is my 59 Turkey season. My mentor taught me how to make diaphrams out of aluminum and dental dam. Then we would meet once or more a week and he taught me how to use what I made. They were crude but W Va gobblers would come to us. I listened to as many records and cassette tapes I could ... I still have them.

[Turkeybutt]

Dental dam!
Wow I remember using that as well.
Just got a few sheets from my dentist two or three months ago!
It was that or I was going to go buy some condoms.

[owlhoot]

Or cut river cane.   My Dad always made ours when we got to camp the night before.   After the weekend hunt we tossed them and he made new ones the following weekend.

Now that is very neat.
Started in 77-78. Leroy Braungart 33 records for instruction.
Years ago myself and a friend had a slate or two, store bought. One hunt we were crossing a ditch and ran across some slate so we would pick pieces up and try them, after doing this for 10-15 walking down the ditch we had some responses. We were thinking.......... What? We had been looking for turkey on this fall hunt all day in this large timber. Turned out to be a heck of a hunt, we got our birds, both toms.
Kept those pieces around for a few years an a few birds until they were no good.

[TRG3]

I recall some instructions on a Ben Lee tape concerning busting up a flock in the fall and then calling them back together in order to then shoot one. One mid-morning during the fall season some 40+ years ago, my buddy and I were driving down a gravel road and had a flock run across in front of us. We slammed on the brakes and bailed out of the truck, chasing them about 100 yards into the woods only to have them stop and look at us. Neither of us had thought to grab a shotgun as we were just following the tape's instructions of busting up the flock. We returned to the truck, got our shotguns, and waited for the flock to try to reassemble which they did all around us. Needless-to-say, our inexperience left us empty-handed.

[GobbleNut]

Yeah, I have a collection of those old turkey hunting recordings and videos from "way back when" stored away in some dusty location in the man cave.

I started "trying" to learn to spring gobbler hunt in my early teens back around 1965, as I recall.  The fact is that the tools and knowledge that were available back then are not in the same universe as what is available now. I can vaguely remember going to a couple of "spring gobbler hunting seminars" back then that were presented by some of the so-called "experts" of that time. (I qualify that statement by stating that, out here in the west, the term "expert" was pretty loosely defined  )

Simply put, those "experts", and the calling and tactics they promoted as being the "end all" in turkey hunting, would get laughed out of the room in this day and age.  There are few hunting strategies, calls, and calling tactics that they promoted back then that I personally see in use today by consistently successful turkey hunters.  That is not to say that those "old timers" don't deserve the reverence that we bestow upon them.  They most certainly do, as they were the pioneers of our passion, but the knowledge of spring gobbler hunting and the tools available for such was, in reality, pretty rudimentary compared to that in today's turkey hunting world. 

No disrespect intended to those fellows, but I look at them like I do when comparing professional athletes from that time with those of today.  When push comes to shove, there is actually no comparison to be made, and I say this knowing full well that to many here on OG, I fit firmly into that "old-timey dude" category.     

 

[Paulmyr]

Listened to a podcast this year with and old fella, I forget who the guest was, maybe Fox Haas. He said the reason all the old timers said yelp 3 times and sit for an hour was because all the calls were so crappy back then if you were able to get out 3 good yelps you didn't dare mess it up by trying again for a long while.

[CowHunter71]

Real Turkeys Cassettes from Mr. Williams, were a staple around here when they came out. Before that it was "Real Turkeys" in the woods, both Spring and Fall. Big Cypress Swamp and Fisheating Creek were where myself and several of my Kin and close friends learned to call up and kill Turkeys. Back then, around those old Men, if the turkey you killed was not called down the barrel of your 410 shotgun, to within 30 steps of the tree you were sittin against, without having to crawl, sneak, creep, or any other horsesh#t tactic, they did not want to here about it. Those of us alive feel the same about that to this very day.