How smart can they be?

[Bigspurs68]

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.

[GobbleNut]

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"....

[Gobble!]

Best way I have heard it put, "Turkey ain't smart, they just live with one foot on the panic button".

Spot on

[tomstopper]

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.

Yep!! That would be like a guy walking up to a mannequin, and saying, "Heeeeyyyyyyy baby!!! Wanna get a drink?"
Hmm, then again, I've seen a lot of guys in bars that wouldn't be above doing that. 
But seriously, obviously critters don't have the intellect to reason. It's more instinct, reaction and going into survival mode.

Key word is instinct....

[silvestris]

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.

[guesswho]

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?

[g8rvet]

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.

[Muzzy61]

Thank goodness, they aren't that smart. Might never kill one if they were.

[willy8457]

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.

[guesswho]

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. 

[wvlimbhanger]

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.

Take this quote and add that we, as hunters, overthink the situation and that creates a "smart" turkey.

[born2hunt]

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.

[theroaddog]

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.

[Ihuntoldschool]

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.

[TauntoHawk]

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.