Loud or Soft Calling

[NCL]

A while back I read a post that mentioned soft calling. This made me start to question which is best loud or soft calling? Or maybe a better question is when, where and why would you use one or the other? This might be one of those "it depends" questions but I just had to ask. Thanks

[Greg Massey]

If you have already struck the bird, i see no reason to get louder calling to him, soften up your calling and if he's reluctant to respond or come to your calling i would try to add some louder exciting calls to him, but again it's all about what your receiving him in response to your calling.  A wish turkey hunter told me years ago, start off soft and you can always get louder with your calling if you feel the need. I sometimes don't do enough soft calling myself. I think a lot of it has to do with our excitement that hey we have struck a gobbler, now what do i do... But if it's mid-day i will try my best to get pretty loud in trying to strike a gobbler with some loud yelps and cuts etc. MOOD of the gobbler with trying to kill him is the best part in learning to kill these gobblers with your calling and being patient. A lot of us have bumped gobblers just because we think he has lost interest , but remember your trying to call him to you using all your tricks. I've messed with them and got so frustrated that i wanted to throw my gun down, all my calls and cry all the way back to the truck.. LOL...  SO again MOOD / soft / loud... but i think less and soft calling is the ticket most of the time.. I think we all over call sometimes regardless.

[GobbleNut]

Great question,...and great response. 

I think the right answer depends a lot on where each of us hunts, as well as how we like to hunt.  Personally, I have mostly hunted large tracts of public land that have had widely scattered flocks of turkeys.  I completely agree that calling loudly out of the gate in an area where turkeys may well be pretty close by is not a good idea. A good axiom is always "start softly and get louder if needed". 

However, quite honestly, under those conditions under which I have hunted most of my life, I have found more often than not that I generally strike distant gobblers with loud calling much more often than I strike closer birds with softer calling, even though I adhere to that axiom.   I have had gobblers respond more often on the far edge of hearing, even after starting softly.  I am confident many of those birds would have never heard my calling had I not called loudly,...and in turn, I would probably have never known they were around.

Having said that, I have also hunted some places where loud calling was unproductive,...and probably quite likely counterproductive. I firmly believe the trick is having the experience/wisdom to make a somewhat educated guess as when to do one or the other based on the circumstances you are faced with. And often times, the right guess is to do a little of both in the proper measure.

[Tom007]

Greg nailed it right there. I am a very soft, light, and infrequent caller. Most of the time this brings them in to "the dance". HOWEVER, A turkey's mood is kind of like a thermometer, it cam read hot or cold. If you interact with a "hard gobbling" turkey that is just hammering back at you, raise the temperature and turn up the heat. He is in the mood, ready for love. This in my experience doesn't happen as much with the 3-4 year olds. I wish it happened more, but it just doesn't where I hunt. Opposite of this, if he's reluctant to answer, but he stays in the game with you, keep it "cooler". Soft calling(a little leaf scratching), and infrequent answering just might drive a hung-up gobbler crazy, forcing him to break and waltz in. Curiosity kills these guys, these are the most rewarding trophies for me. Great post, great info hear....

[mountainhunter1]

I won't try to restate what has already been pretty well said, but I have learned throughout the years that most of us are a little louder in the woods than we realize. I am still blown away over three decades later at just how far a turkey can hear our calling. Mind boggling really how good their ears are.

The only time I generally get on my calls really loud is on windy days when the trees are rocking. But there are exceptions to everything as no two gobblers think alike. I don't think that turkeys have such a huge issue with loud calling in their natural state, but that it becomes an issue on all the heavily hunted land where they hear so much loud calling, and often calling out of character with what a hen turkey generally does. Last year for example, a guy way down the ridge was doing fly downs cackles at midday and the Tom I was on shut up promptly. Not only was he using it at the wrong time of the day, but his runs were way too long and sounded like a hen flying out of a 500 foot tall pine and to the turkey that was just not natural. So, it is not just volume, but also knowing what sound to use and when.

[NCL]

Thank you all for your very inciteful comments, Certainly learned a few new tidbits

[ScottTaulbee]

The way I look at it, for what it's worth, if you listen to real hens some are loud, some are soft, some are obnoxious, some are timid, I'm gonna be whatever hen that he wants that day. As far as the loud, soft debate, 90% of the time I'm going loud. You can't call him or shoot him if he doesn't know you're there .


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[Paulmyr]

All the comments above are great. I would add if I strike a gobbler with soft calling I'll keep it soft, elevating intensity as hopefully needed. If I strike him with aggressive calling like cutting I'll get on him right away and hard. If I'm standing at the time I'll be running for the tree I picked out while calling.

1st I want to see if it's was a shock gobble. Second if not a shock gobble and he responds again I want him to stay interested and fire him up. If I take the time to set up and get ready I might miss the opportunity to trigger him, so to speak, and have him elevate his level of interest. If he does get fired up, it leans towards being  over pretty quick.

If don't get him to respond again I ease up, calling sporadically and see if he lets me pinpoint him or where he might be headed so I can move on him. When I get to my new set up I'll  start from scratch. Trying to get him going with the soft to aggressive routine.

One thing I have a tendency to do after hunting an area for a while and if I'm not planning on coming back to the spot in the near future is tearing the woods up with calling before I head to the truck. It's far from fool proof but  It works enough to keep me doing it.

[NCL]

Scoot and Paul

Thank you for more great comments. Both approaches make sense

[Brillo]

Paul,
By "tearing up the woods", are you going out like an obnoxious hen?  Loud clucking and cutting vs. purring and whitting?

[Paulmyr]

Paul,
By "tearing up the woods", are you going out like an obnoxious hen?  Loud clucking and cutting vs. purring and whitting?

Loud obnoxious cutting and clucking, with some whitts thrown in for good measure. I have pulled a out pot on occasion and thrown in fighting purrs as well. I'll thrash  the leaves, snap some sticks, flap my hat, and generally try to make it sound like a real ruckus is going on.

Some on here will say "I could kill dumb 2 year olds too if I didn't mind spooking the old gobblers with that loud calling." I'm here to tell yah that ain't the case. The birds that respond to this type of ruckus are looking to see who the new birds are making all the fuss in their territory and  they come quick. That is if it happens at all.

Now, I only do this as a last resort when my hunting time during the season or on the trip is drawing to end. If if had my drothers and the time I'll generally work the birds slow and easy possibly over a matter of days, possibly weeks depending on the situation. If that fails I'll let my hair down and have some fun before it's over so to speak.

[trad bow]

Heavy pressured public land turkeys I hunt, I have more success with soft calling and less calling. Loud calling does work for me opening week but even then I tend to start off with calling softly.

[Paulmyr]

Heavy pressured public land turkeys I hunt, I have more success with soft calling and less calling. Loud calling does work for me opening week but even then I tend to start off with calling softly.

People keep telling me you can't kill pressured  public land gobblers with loud aggressive calling and I used to believe them. In fact the, the 1st public Tom I ever killed some 30 plus years ago came running to pot calling so soft I could barely hear it let alone the turkey 150yds away. Been chasing them on public ever since. Never felt the need to ask to ask somebody for permission. There's plenty of action on most public areas to keep me interested.

After that, soft calling was it for me. Until, that is, I got better as a hunter in more confident in my calling ability. Being as calling to gobblers is the reason I get up at 2am,  or drive 18 hours to make to a roost before sunrise, I started pushing the envelope with my calling. Throughout this process what I learned and am still learning is loud and soft calling can be equally effective on public land depending on the situation. Doesn't matter if your in the deep south hunting them hard pressured southern birds, Northern Mo where I can guarantee you had the most heavily pressured public land birds back in the day, or Northern Mn. The trick is figuring out the what, where, when, and why to calling turkeys and that only comes from experience.

The loud aggressive obnoxious calling comes out as a last resort. One last hurrah before I hang my hat up on the them birds for year/trip.

[Sir-diealot]

As I am getting better and getting them closer I am finding that softer seems to work better once they have shown they are coming to you. Only time I am seeing that louder can be better is if they hang up, and even then not to much of it or they seem to want to leave right away. These other guys know more than I do overall, just what I have noticed in my dealings.

[GobbleNut]

A good question at this point in the discussion is what each of us defines as "loud" (or aggressive) calling as compared to "soft" calling.  As Paulmyr decribed as his calling style, what is yours,...and what have you found to work the best where you mostly hunt?

My loud/aggressive calling is almost always a combination of cutting and yelping,...and that is almost exclusively done starting a while after the birds are off the roost and throughout the day, especially when I am trying to strike a gobbler.  Again, where I hunt, I would say probably 80 to 90% of the gobblers I strike are responding to that sort of calling rather than what I would describe as my softer stuff.  Also as Paul has stated, that percentage has pretty much stayed constant whether I am hunting lightly-hunted, private properties or highly-pressured, public stuff,...although I admit that the number of responding gobblers on the lightly-hunted stuff generally is much higher, whether public ground or private.

On the other hand, my "soft" calling is generally a combination of low-volume yelping with clucks (and short, low-volume cutting) thrown in here and there.  That sort of calling is primarily reserved for early-morning just-off-the-roost birds, late-evening going-to-roost birds, and for turning down the volume on birds that have responded (again, mainly to my louder calling) and are closing the distance between us. 

Other associated calling discussions might be what each of us does with roosted birds, what kind of calling is used on small, confined properties as compared to larger tracts, calling to "field birds" that are visible as compared to "woods birds" that are not, terrain variations, and that sort of thing.  Each of those conditions impacts my personal calling strategies to some degree.