"Call shy" and "Educated" - Fact or Fiction?

[jakebird]

Im not sure how anyone could pretend to have the definitve answer on this topic. Even the real "experts" are divided on the topic. All i can say is i live and hunt in an area that is traditionally recognized at turkey hunting at its most difficult. Pennsylvania, with its public land and a whole slew of turkey hunters. These birds get hammered by calls and some are just plain bad. They get shot at, busted off the roost, and just plain harrassed during turkey season. Yet they still gobble as much as turkeys i hunt elsewhere, depending on timing and weather, and i manage to find a few kamikaze ones every year. I dont always have to call like an old timer once in two hours, scratch in the leaves or bushwack one. They still come to the call and i'm certainly no pro circuit calling champion or an indian in the woods. All i can say for sure is it makes a handy excuse if i fail. 

[redleg06]

Here's my arguement....

I think that there are some turkey that are just born to be less aggressive/responsive to calling than others, just like some are naturally more dominant and some are naturally more submissive. Some are NATURALLY, less vocal and some are naturally more cautious.

Even if you were talking about a wild flock of turkey that NEVER seen or heard another human during their time on this earth, there would be some that are just born less vocal, less dominant/more dominant, less spooky/more spooky.

My theory is that by the end of the season on public ground or hard hunted private, there are NATURALLY more of the subordinate, less vocal, less agressive turkey still walking the woods because the ones that sound off and charge in to calls tend to get shot more quickly due to the number of hunters in the woods.  So by seasons end, every one say's  YEP, they have been educated...and maybe some have but from a numbers standpoint, it might have more to do with the fact that the loud ones got themselves thinned out early on and you're stuck hunting what's left.  Same thing with the ones that make it to be 3 and 4 year olds on hard hunted property....YES they are harder to hunt than a loud mouthed 2 year old but is it because they have had so many encounters that they have been educated or because they, again are just naturally quieter than some of the other birds you might find? 


Everyone wants to use public/hard hunted birds as an example so I'm going to do just the opposite. I got on a lease about 6 years ago that was loaded with turkey and hadnt been hunted (according to the land owner) in 6 years prior to us getting on the lease. I mean it was 5000 continuous acres of turkey hunting heavan.... I can just about guarantee that NONE of these turkey had ever heard a turkey call from a human prior to me stepping foot on the property.   Anyhow, the second day of the first season, I killed the biggest bird I've ever taken in my 20+ years of turkey hunting and he came in completely silent after what must have been an hour of trying to circle/check out the situation and looking like a whipped dog watching for something to jump out and whoop his azz. He had to be a 4 year old with the hooks he had.  Point being, if I had killed this bird on public land and told the same story, a lot of guys would have told me about how this bird had been educated in to acting like that because he was call shy. 

In this particular case, I can dang near promise you that no one had hunted this bird during his time on earth and I would almost be willing to be that the reason he was acting the way he was is as simple as him being the low man on the totem pole in the area and he didnt want the ol boss gobbler to jump out and beat on him for trying to get some action.  As big as he was, he was naturally submissive acting and less vocal than 90% of the rio's that I've taken and I doubt education had anything to do with it.

[redleg06]

Also, i'm not saying birds CANT learn after some amount of repetition... I just think that most of the time it's just turkey being turkey.

We hunt these things by calling and then shooting what comes in so naturally, the ones that are more willing to come to the call get culled out first. The ones that are naturally more cautious/less aggressive live longer....educated or not.

[jakebird]

Great post!

[guesswho]

Well, on hard pressured land,  if turkeys are so stupid as to not know something is going on after seeing and hearing so many hunters walking around making turkey noises...a lot of turkey hunters need to take some feathers out of their hats.

Some have earned those feathers, others get them just like a lot of people aquire a lot of things, they buy them

I know a lot of fellows who have no trouble killing big old toms on low pressured prime land but can't cut a feather on well hunted public land. Ditto for deer. They are as smart as you make them.

Agreed.  I know roughly ten or twelve people who turkey hunt around here.  Two of them are going to kill birds if there are birds on the property be it prime private or hard pressured public .  The others are going to kill birds early when theres more of the two year old class running aroung begging to die.

I can take some of my buddies who only hunt private land to some hard hunted areas here in OK and they can't kill squat.

That sounds more like uneducated turkey hunters than educated and call shy birds.   I'd bet my next paycheck that the two guys I mentioned above could go in there and spend three days and each would kill a bird if the place actually has birds.   Out of the ten or twelve that I know who turkey hunt around here two of them will tell you call shy and educated birds is nothing more than an excuse or an ego bandaid.  The other ten will be in complete agreement that there are call shy and educated turkeys.  Dang, I'm starting to see a pattern.  It's not a 100% but I've noticed more less successful turkey hunters on the call shy side of the fence vs. visaversa.

[cahaba]

Explain this senerio. You call a turkey over a ridge so you can see him at 30 to 40 yards. When he comes over the ridge you have seconds to kill him or he is gone cause he dont see a hen.  How does he associate this with danger if he has no concept of humans,calling etc.

I believe turkeys can learn to some degree. Call shy I dont believe exist.

[hoyt]

I'm probably talking more about gobblers that quit gobbling from the roost than call shy per say. But I know for a fact they will shut down on one WMA I hunted in Fl..not all of them, but it would get to where you were lucky to hear a gobble from the roost towards the end of the season. It wasn't because they were nearly all killed out or henned up either, because as I posted earlier you would see fresh strutting sign every morning on the sandy roads and most of the hens are on the nest late in the season. Gobbling should be more instead of less at this time.

The place I'm talking about was bombarded with locals close to the area every day starting way before the season, blowing every kind of shock gobble call made.

It has so many woods Rd's you can't get 300yds from one and they all get vehicle traffic even on into the season.  But it's a jam up place to turkey hunt if you get the first wk of quota hunts...lots of turkeys.

Far as public and private...it's just how hard the place gets hunted. Don't take but a few hunts close together to make killing turkeys harder.

The best example I know of is on another WMA in Fl. late in the season gobbling would get real slow. However, every time I wanted to make about a 5mi. bike ride into a no vehicle area that butted up to a no hunting area..it would sound like a barn yard over there with all the gobbling going on.

[guesswho]

When I lived in Florida all I hunted down there was WMA's.  From the mid 60's until I moved in 93, so roughly 25 years or so.  I noticed a decrease in gobbling toward the end of the season as well.  I always wrote it off to there being less birds, plus their breeding season being over for the most part.  You would see strut marks ect.  but most of the birds I killed during this peoriod would ball up for a couple steps then come out of strut and grab a bug or something.  Food at this point in the season pretty much took priority over breeding.   They were more interested in eating and getting back together in bachelor groups than they were the hens who had very little interest in them as well, thus less gobbling and less responsive to hen talk.   

[redleg06]

 Anyhow, the second day of the first season, I killed the biggest bird I've ever taken in my 20+ years of turkey hunting and he came in completely silent after what must have been an hour of trying to circle/check out the situation and looking like a whipped dog watching for something to jump out and whoop his azz. He had to be a 4 year old with the hooks he had.  Point being, if I had killed this bird on public land and told the same story, a lot of guys would have told me about how this bird had been educated in to acting like that because he was call shy.  

Basically (IMO) you are relating an experience just like I was talking about when I said earlier in this thread that "subordinate tom behavior is often times percieved/blamed on "call shy" or educated". Size doesn't always matter with turkeys, it's the meanest bird who is the boss. I raised turkeys as a kid, yeah they weren't wild strain but they still possessed many of the same characteristics as wild turkeys when it comes to pecking order.

I've also hunted private land turkeys that were tough as hell to kill, sometimes harder than public land birds. Generally speaking though, private land toms gobble a heck of a lot more where I hunt in upstate SC.

When folks start appying human thought processes, emotions and reactions to turkeys they are only "outsmarting" theirselves. When they start talking about how "dumb" they are I have to start questioning their  experience hunting truly pressured birds. Sure you can kill kamakazi toms on public land, there's a regular turn over rate of uneducated birds as long as there is recruitment. A 3+ year old tom is generally gonna be the hardest bird to kill on pressured land and I don't think anyone will deny that. You take that same bird and find he only squeezes out a few gobbles because every time he does three hunters run at him or he's caught a load of 6's in the arse a time or two and you've surely found one that can be "call shy" and "educated".

Much of my opinion has been formed around the fact that most of the hardest to kill turkeys I've taken over the years turned out to have healed over pellets in their rump or breast. Again, my experience has been limited to the piedmont of SC over 30 years hunting turkeys.

I think some of the arguement comes in because it looks like I'm trying to argue that private/ unpressured birds are just as tough to kill as highly pressured birds and that's not the case. I think the pressure DOES make it much more challenging and I've hunted both private and public and even some private that has more pressure than most good places.  

My talking point is really WHY is it that high pressured birds are more difficult to kill?  Is it largely because of "education" by hunters because turkey are more intellegent than we give them credit for OR is it because Mother nature and the good lord naturally made some turkey to be born more cautious, less vocal, less aggressive etc than others so it turns into a numbers game over the course of a season or two on hard hunted land?  

Here's a Hypothetical:
If you take 9 Gobblers (all of the same age, and all with the exact same level of "education", or lack their of,  and all living on the same piece of highly pressured land) and divided them into 3 categories, which ones will be likely to survive to next year and which are likely to die opening weekend to average joe turkey hunter?:

Category A)  Kamakazi Bird -  Extremely Territorial, Possibly the most dominant bird in the area and has first pick of breeding rights or at the very least not afraid to challenge for them....he is not afraid to gobble his head off, walk to find the ladies and generally isnt afraid to let his presence be known in the area. (This guy is the easiest to Kill In My opinion and about any decent hunter can bag him)

Category B)  Just your Average Spring Turkey-  Not overly vocal,  not afraid to go to a hen, but also not going to sprint in to the first call he hear's in the morning and just toss caution to the wind. He'll gobble but he's usually going to quiet down as the day wears on and will occasionally crank it up and get loud. (This is just your average turkey)

Category C) Subordinate Tom- afraid of his own shadow, doesnt want the other gobblers to know he's even in the world, MAY gobble a few times in the tree but rarely from the ground. Doesnt want to travel far to a hen and if he does, he's not going to be vocally letting his presence be known while he does it.  ( I think your average hunter either runs and guns past this turkey because he doesnt respond, gets impatient and bumps him because he did sit quite long enough, or bumps him while moving from set up to set up without ever knowing it because this turkey is quiet and on high alert most of the year anyway. Also, this bird doesnt gobble as much on the limb or during the day so, as a result, he draws less attention to himself from hunters.... all the hunters are running and gunning to try and find gobbler A.

I think NATURALLY (as in not a result of education or pressure- they are just born that way) there are going to be birds that fall under these categories just like some dogs, deer, humans, etc etc etc  all have a mind of their own  and as a result, on heavily pressured land, the bird in category A are the first to die and then category B because they attract the highest amount of attention to themseleves, while the bird in category C is going about his business without making much noise.  So, by the end of the season Group A is getting thinned out, group B is starting to take some hits and what you're left with is category C because they are the ones that didnt run in and get themselves shot as quickly.....  Well, then if my theory is right, it only makes sense that the category C gobbler is also the most likely one to become a 3 or 4 year old turkey because, again, he is the last one to get culled out.

That doesnt mean there arent some instances where a gobbler gets shot at enough to where they cant learn but I just generally feel like most quiet bird on highly pressured hunting land are as a result of survival of the fittest - in this case the fittest being option C because he didnt naturally draw as big of a crowd of predators to him during the season.

We hunt these birds for 6-8 weeks a year...  I just dont know that they have the capacity (in most cases) to put it all together in that limited amount of exposure.  Hell, I've watched turkey come to a barb wire fence (not even a high fence) and be absolutely baffled by how to get around it.... and they live there 365 days a year and have crossed it lord knows how many times before....maybe even earlier that same day. But they get to it and it absolutely blows their minds....  That's why, by and large, I just dont know how much of these birds getting call shy and educated is as much of a factor as some folks think. Again, not saying that it isnt more difficult to bag a bird on highly pressured land vs low pressured land...I just dont neccessarily agree with logic as to why that may be the case.


There are exceptions to every rule but there have been days (you can shoot all your tags in one day in Tx if you want to) where I've called in and killed turkey from the same group, using the same call, within hours of one another. If you guys have ever hunted in some of the plains states, you might have 5-10 or more gobblers all roosted in the same tree cause they dont have many to choose from so when the fly down, they usually come in in groups. If they were readily call shy, I dont know that we'd ever kill any after the second or third week of the season out there cause I got to figure that most of them have played witness to watching some of their buddie's heads getting blown off at least once or twice before...  

[hoyt]

This is from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and might explain why so much gobbling was going on across the fence in the "no hunting zone" during late season when not much was going on in the WMA.

By the first week in April the nesting phase of the wild turkey breeding period is underway. During this time hens will lay one egg per day until the clutch is complete. In South Carolina most of the laying is done in about two weeks, therefore, most hens begin incubation during the first half of April. When the majority of hens begin incubation gobbling begins in earnest. Remember, male turkeys gobble to attract hens. During peak breeding hens are available, therefore, little gobbling takes place. Once hens begin spending increasing amounts of time away from the gobblers (extended stays at the nest and ultimately continuous incubation) the longest and most consistent peak in gobbling occurs. This time frame offers the best opportunity to hunt gobbling birds.

[hoyt]

The only point I'm making is that gobbling from the roost in a couple of WMA's I hunted in Fl. almost stopped towards the end of the season and that it wasn't because they were dead. Also everything I have ever read about gobblers gobbling towards the end of the season when hens are scarce is that they gobble more.

However, I have never personally seen that to to be the case on hard pressured land...just the opposite...less gobbling.

To prove my point I used the scenario of birds gobbling their heads off on one side of the fence (no hunting area) and shut mouth on the other side (hard pressured). Even though on the hard pressured side of the fence there was fresh strut sign every morning. The roads are sandy and you could see tracks where they would walk out of the woods and strut in the roads. Lots of them.

[deerhunt1988]

The only point I'm making is that gobbling from the roost in a couple of WMA's I hunted in Fl. almost stopped towards the end of the season and that it wasn't because they were dead. Also everything I have ever read about gobblers gobbling towards the end of the season when hens are scarce is that they gobble more.

However, I have never personally seen that to to be the case on hard pressured land...just the opposite...less gobbling.

To prove my point I used the scenario of birds gobbling their heads off on one side of the fence (no hunting area) and shut mouth on the other side (hard pressured). Even though on the hard pressured side of the fence there was fresh strut sign every morning. The roads are sandy and you could see tracks where they would walk out of the woods and strut in the roads. Lots of them.

Well, from my Florida WMA experiences, if they keep gobbling much on the roost, they are going to get shot at on the roost. We probably hear more roost shooting down there than we do shots at birds on the ground. I imagine that along with a few stray pellets will give them the incentive to remain hush mouth most of the time.

[Duke0002]

Great thread -thanks.  I always learn a ton from this type of discussion.

I'm not offering any answers, just tossing my 2 cents into the discussion, asking for your thoughts and how it applies to hunting.

Here are my assumptions.

#1 priority of a turkey (or any organism) is survival.   

Under the umbrella of survival comes the general: food, water, shelter (this is a given).

Also under the umbrella of survival (in no particular order) comes: flocking instinct, reproduction, alertness to danger, individual traits (dominant, subordinate, etc).  IMO here's how I see flocking instinct, reproduction, alertness to danger, individual traits interacting with each other.

Flocking instinct.  Pretty straightforward (gregarious).  A member of the flock may signal discomfort or alarm at a situation caused by a hunter or other predator.  The hunter may not even see this bird, but others of the flock are put on the alert.  Tough to hunt this bird(s) at this time.

Reproduction.  The different stages of the breeding season, time of day and need to roam looking for available hens (as already mentioned).  Some individual gobblers are less careful than others in their reproductive manners and will sprint headlong into a face-full of lead.  Other individuals will be very cautious -circle out of sight from where the call originated or just move to a hidden advantage point to spy things out before committing to gun range.    PERHAPS (I can't say with any authority), but perhaps a cautious gobbler will wait and read the reaction of other turkey or wildlife to possible dangers.

Anyway... My premise is survival, under which the other categories fall.  If gobblers are not experiencing a bout of  uncontrollable  "hormone rage" or the competitive juices are not flowing (trying to out-shine his cousins) or not being just plain careless,   then even the "smell" of danger in the field (IMO) will cause shyness and beak lock when he's on the ground.

Anyway X2, I think the general theme is survival.  This is how I systematize the behavior of gobblers when I try to hunt 'em.  They are survivors.

Thanks for indulging me on this topic.  Any thoughts are welcome.

[hoyt]

The only point I'm making is that gobbling from the roost in a couple of WMA's I hunted in Fl. almost stopped towards the end of the season and that it wasn't because they were dead. Also everything I have ever read about gobblers gobbling towards the end of the season when hens are scarce is that they gobble more.

However, I have never personally seen that to to be the case on hard pressured land...just the opposite...less gobbling.

To prove my point I used the scenario of birds gobbling their heads off on one side of the fence (no hunting area) and shut mouth on the other side (hard pressured). Even though on the hard pressured side of the fence there was fresh strut sign every morning. The roads are sandy and you could see tracks where they would walk out of the woods and strut in the roads. Lots of them.

Well, from my Florida WMA experiences, if they keep gobbling much on the roost, they are going to get shot at on the roost. We probably hear more roost shooting down there than we do shots at birds on the ground. I imagine that along with a few stray pellets will give them the incentive to remain hush mouth most of the time.

If I didn't hear shots before daylight I'd think I was in the wrong WMA.

I'll tell you something else they do in the one WMA that doesn't have gates. Kids will get in there at night and turn their trucks at a 90 degree angle with the sandy main roads and just spin the tires and make a hole almost a foot deep. You really need to keep your eyes on the road.

[K9Doc]

I made this post in th General Forum, but will reply here as well.
MS !!
Got in tight this am with him gobbling like crazy!
75 yards out, I say nothing.  He pitches dow at 40 to 45 yards slight to my right.  He is walking with a purpose, but not spooked.  He goes behind some large pines and I ease my gun into position.  I find him in the scope, make a a 3-4 not soft yelp to stop him for the shot, and he is gone!!!       
BEEP BEEP!!!! 
Road Runner Style!!!    
But he's not call shy?  He's just not in the mood!!!