Every Hunt an Education

[MEbeardlover]

Well, Maine opener this morning...

I only had a couple of hours as I had to be at work. Roosted at least one bird last night and had a good bead on him.Got in this morning well before legal light and settled down. As the sky brightened, the first gobbles started. I waited, and gave just a few soft tree yelps to announce my presence and location. As the gobbling increased, I did it one more time. Suddenly, behind me and to my right, very close by, I start getting this loud, abrasive, obnoxious, cutting and yelping. It is so loud, and so rhythmic, and so BAD, that I am saying to myself that some idiot has crawled up my you-know-what and has started with one of those electronic calls. Once it stopped, I never heard another peep. Because I have never heard something like that in the turkey woods, I just cannot buy into the idea it is a hen. That and the fact that I am having a hard time believing that anyone who made that kind of a racket could not possibly stand to to shut up.

I decide to move forward, hoping to cut off and intercept the tom if it heads in that direction. I yelp a little when I resettle, and sure enough, the tom is moving around me in a wide arc arc towards the area of the racket. After an hour it is game over and I have to head to work. As I walk out, I begin to think that this could have been a hen. I see nothing to indicate another hunter in the area. I get to my truck and there is nobody else parked in the area. As I drive out I decide to swing around to a road that borders a field near a housing development, off limits to my hunting but surely accessible to those turkeys. Sure e enough, there is a big tom in full strut in the field with three large hens.

I am positive those are the birds I heard. What a lesson. A pissed off and jealous hen is LOUD. And not only that, despite the emotion, she is very rhythmic with her cadence. And, in hindsight, even if I believed it to be an electronic call, I should have started right in with my own obnoxious response. Lesson learned, be more aggressive in that situation.

[2eagles]

Your title is oh so very true!

[Cutt]

Not too often you hear them loud mouth hens, but definitely mimic her every call. Nothing to loose at that point which might draw her in, with a gobbler in tow.

[cornfedkiller]

Earlier this season, I hunted Nebraska and was set up about 100 yards from some roosted birds.  When they started gobbling, I let out a few soft yelps to let them know I was there.  A minute or two later, a hen started in and literally never shut up for 20 minutes.  I wont say that the yelping was "bad" like you described the hen in your situation, but her yelp cadences were easily 30+ yelps, then she would take a breath for 5 seconds, and start right back in with the yelping. 

Never heard a hen yelp so much in my life, but hey, the toms all flew down the opposite way of me and were never heard from again, so I guess it worked for her.

Every hunt is an education is an understatement! 

[TRG3]

It's probably been a decade ago or perhaps longer when, around 11 in the morning and on my last stop before heading the 1/2 mile to my truck, I decided to give some hen yelps and just see what would happen. It wasn't long before some "guy" started hen yelping, not only louder but not nearly as good as I was on the mouth call. He was coming my way, so I decided to just see who this guy was. A few minutes later, up walks a hen, making some of the "worst" calls that I'd heard, certainly not anything like the CD I'd used to learn from. She hung around for a while, yelping, and searching for the sound that had brought her to my location. After several minutes, she moved on and I gained a valuable lesson, that being that not all turkeys sound alike and cadence trumps clarity.  Perhaps that's why I'm still using mouth calls that just finished their 8th season. Raspy? You bet, but still helped bag two Illinois gobblers this spring. I've already got them tucked in the refrigerator in a plastic bag, ready for season #9.

[Rick Howard]

Good story.  I fear the day if NY allows for e calls in turkey hunting.

[mgm1955]

Your title is oh so very true!

Nothing like getting beaten to make you try and learn how to be a better hunter.

[Cut N Run]

About 15 years ago I was hunting a spot at my old lease where I'd seen a gobbler strutting one afternoon a few days before.  I decided to get in there extra early and see if he wouldn't come around first thing in the morning.  Sure enough, just past daylight he started gobbling about 150 yards farther up the ridge. I waited until he flew down to call and he responded enthusiastically with hot gobbles right on top of my calls.  No doubt he was coming my way.  Then I started hearing some awful sounding yelps coming from just across the property line also moving my way.  I was beginning to fear for my safety, because if those were the best calls that other hunter could produce, I wasn't sure what he might shoot like.  The gobbler kept coming to my calls, but the noisy hunter kept closing in on me too. I was expecting to see him or hear him walking on the leaves.  Pretty soon I realized the other hunter was actually a real hen and was looking to pick a fight with the hen he heard (me) and the gobbler didn't seem to care as long as he could get some action.  The hen was standing just a few feet behind me when I shot the gobbler.  She jumped up and flew over me so close that I could feel the wind from her wings as she went over.

I hear awful sounding crow and owl calls that I know are humans, but I never try to guess with hen calls anymore.  I also don't feel too bad if I make a mistake when I'm calling.  Just keep going like nothing happened and the gobblers will let it slide most of the time.

Jim

[Triple Gobble]

My thought has always been if your not
Learning something every time you go out,
Then your just wasting your hard earned money
And time

[zelmo1]

  If you can learn something every time you go out, your chances go way up the next hunt. Nobody will ever know everything. Good luck. I got lucky and tagged out in Maine, still have a NH tag and 2 for NY. Concentrating on NH now and getting my friends birds in Maine. Good luck, Al Baker