Have you ever...

[Spitten and drummen]

Have you ever had a call that you thought sounded really good but on a average the birds just wouldn't respond to it well and vise versa a call you thought sucked but they really like. I'm not talking about shock gobbling. I'm talking about call them to the gun. Also I'm not talking about just once but , a few times at least. I know the birds may like something one day and not the next. I have a box call that sounds pure turkey and once in a while it gets them to gobble but never have had one to commit to it. Also I have another box call that really sounds bad to me but have killed a handful of birds with it. Share with us your findings.

[Bowguy]

My buddy many years ago had a Quaker boy twin.,sounded not real good. His calling was worse. No break in the sequence. Birds gobbled at it n came in. It was horrendous

[Spitten and drummen]

My buddy many years ago had a Quaker boy twin.,sounded not real good. His calling was worse. No break in the sequence. Birds gobbled at it n came in. It was horrendous

lol. that's what im talking about. me and my uncle was sitting on a ridge one day cold calling. I had did a couple of series about 10 min apart. it sounded really nice I thought. my uncle took out a glass call , put the striker in the middle of it and made some yelps that was horrendous. a gobble emerged about 60 or so yards away. he then started tapping on it like he was trying to cluck.i mean it was hollow and sounded like a wood pecker. turkey waltzed up to about 20 yards and got hammered. my uncle wasn't really a turkey hunter and could not call worth squat. this is the truth. to this day I think about that day and still shake my head. and this was on heavy pressured nf land. turkeys drive me insane. especially when they do stuff like that.

[TauntoHawk]

Every time my father calls.. But I hear a lot of hens that don't sound any good either.

[West Augusta]

I made a Cherry over Sassafrass short box that none of you will ever see.  It's that bad and that high pitched.  I called in a fine gobbler in a rain storm with it.  Kept it in a plastic bag and every time it stopped raining for a few seconds I'd take it out and yelp a few times.  He couldn't stand it and came right in.

[born2hunt]

My buddy many years ago had a Quaker boy twin.,sounded not real good. His calling was worse. No break in the sequence. Birds gobbled at it n came in. It was horrendous

lol. that's what im talking about. me and my uncle was sitting on a ridge one day cold calling. I had did a couple of series about 10 min apart. it sounded really nice I thought. my uncle took out a glass call , put the striker in the middle of it and made some yelps that was horrendous. a gobble emerged about 60 or so yards away. he then started tapping on it like he was trying to cluck.i mean it was hollow and sounded like a wood pecker. turkey waltzed up to about 20 yards and got hammered. my uncle wasn't really a turkey hunter and could not call worth squat. this is the truth. to this day I think about that day and still shake my head. and this was on heavy pressured nf land. turkeys drive me insane. especially when they do stuff like that.

I guess the moral of the story would be that gobblers are allot like men. Some days their not looking for a perfect female just " A"  female.

[WillowRidgeCalls]

Boys I have to admit, this post is making me smile. It proven that the more time your spending in the woods is teaching you something. The human ear and mind has a turkey sound it loves and we tend to judge every call we hear to that sound. We all want that Holy Grail turkey sound out of our calls, that's why we buy call after call after call. This old boy has put his time in building calls and sittin under trees and has learned from many years of doing so, that there isn't a Holy Grail turkey call. More time than not if that call is stuffed full of feathers, it'll never see time in the woods in my vest. I'm getting to old to spend all day or all week sittin trying to call a bird to the gun. Give me call that everyone is shaking their head no at, it'll put more birds in your truck than that Holy Grail ever will.

[870FaceLift]

  WRC

It's pretty wild, but we do tune our ears/minds to what we think they should sound like.  Two years ago I was hunting up top a ridge in WV.  I would call every so often and I kept getting a hen response from the bottom of the ridge.  I thought for sure it was a hunter trying out a mouth call for the first time.  I shook my head after a while and just before I got up, I ran one more series.  Low and behold, I got the same response, but a hen came out of the woodwork.  It was her the whole time.  I've never heard a turkey sound that awful at sounding like a turkey 

[pappy]

LOL....love this post, I remember about four Springs back when I took  a box out that I made for a friend of mine in Ohio, beautiful call ( to me ) and I decided to kill a bird with it before I sent it out. I had more time in the wood burning and painting on the call then time spent on building and tuning it. So, needless to say it wasn't the best sounding box, we went out, wet early Spring, foggy and some breezes, we set up, sat and waited for a small glimpse of daylight, we started yelping, or attempting to, LOL, it was less the a minute when that tom was screaming....I saw some hens, they were doing their thing, he saw and heard them, started their way, I thought all was lost to the horny old bird's appetite for lady love, so I clucked three times, I was so scared that I was shaking, and pop....he turns away from the ladies and heads straight to us, I was so excited I shifted in my seat and BOOM....he saw that what ever it was making those weird turkey sounds was not a hen.....and he took off back to those ladies like a lightning bolt...moral....it is not always the call or the caller but, the bird's attitude...that is it in a nut shell, good sounding calls - bad sounding calls, expensive verses inexpensive .... really does not matter, what matters is the bird's attitude and how lonely the ol boy is...LOL

[scoot12]

Great response WillowRidge,  guys Willowridge and my uncle are the two best turkey hunters I know and he is spot on.  Heck my uncle has an ol primos slate call and a homemade box call he made and he limits out every year.  Heck,  he hunts them with a recurve know and last year shot a 26 lb with it.  Much more challenging he says.  Very rarely does he yelp and mostly just clucks and purrs away to gob after gob.  I ran the slate he uses and his box call and lets just say most of us would not think of using these calls.  Scoot

[mgm1955]

LOL....love this post, I remember about four Springs back when I took  a box out that I made for a friend of mine in Ohio, beautiful call ( to me ) and I decided to kill a bird with it before I sent it out. I had more time in the wood burning and painting on the call then time spent on building and tuning it. So, needless to say it wasn't the best sounding box, we went out, wet early Spring, foggy and some breezes, we set up, sat and waited for a small glimpse of daylight, we started yelping, or attempting to, LOL, it was less the a minute when that tom was screaming....I saw some hens, they were doing their thing, he saw and heard them, started their way, I thought all was lost to the horny old bird's appetite for lady love, so I clucked three times, I was so scared that I was shaking, and pop....he turns away from the ladies and heads straight to us, I was so excited I shifted in my seat and BOOM....he saw that what ever it was making those weird turkey sounds was not a hen.....and he took off back to those ladies like a lightning bolt...moral....it is not always the call or the caller but, the bird's attitude...that is it in a nut shell, good sounding calls - bad sounding calls, expensive verses inexpensive .... really does not matter, what matters is the bird's attitude and how lonely the ol boy is...LOL

Boys I have to admit, this post is making me smile. It proven that the more time your spending in the woods is teaching you something. The human ear and mind has a turkey sound it loves and we tend to judge every call we hear to that sound. We all want that Holy Grail turkey sound out of our calls, that's why we buy call after call after call. This old boy has put his time in building calls and sittin under trees and has learned from many years of doing so, that there isn't a Holy Grail turkey call. More time than not if that call is stuffed full of feathers, it'll never see time in the woods in my vest. I'm getting to old to spend all day or all week sittin trying to call a bird to the gun. Give me call that everyone is shaking their head no at, it'll put more birds in your truck than that Holy Grail ever will.

Well said by both of you!

[ridgerunner]

The worst calling I ever heard was an ole boss hen..lol she wouldn't win no NWTF Championship calling contest..real birds are off cadence, start and stop calling abruptly, hit sour notes and at the same time they can sound spot on cadence, crystal clear yelps, everything we want to hear in a call...that's the great thing, trying to find out what that gobbler wants to hear on any given day/minute...no rhyme or reason..like they say," if you find a hot bird, you could call them with a old rusty bucket and a nail".

The fun is figuring out the right combination of sounds, in an undetermined amount of time...before he loses interest and wonders off.