Games Turkeys Play

[Bill Cooksey]

I say it a lot, but most people sit down WAY too often. Heavy ground cover is one place you're usually better off to stand to the turkey, and behind any fold of ground (assuming it's well within range) is another. You'd be surprised how many of those birds that hang up just out of sight would be dead if you'd just been standing instead of sitting.

[M Sharpe]

Or, we could just move closer to the break....

[OldSchool]

I've had them do it but it's purely luck on their part.  They can be spooky as heck but still aren't capable of the thought process required to decide "hey, I'll just keep that tree between me and that hen just in case it proves to be a hunter".  You're giving them way too much credit.

Absolutely!  Turkeys are wary and great at surviving. But as much as we brag them up, they are not really intelligent. They have no ability to reason or to know that we imitate them to kill them!  If a turkey responds to your calls and comes toward you then he thinks you're a hen!  Even when we call in a bird and miss him, he doesn't think "wow, that thing that sounded like a hen just tried to kill me". As far as peaking up over a rise, they do that to check for waiting predators because it's an area they couldn't see. They don't do it to see if the hen sounds they heard were real or if it was a hunter.

I guess I gave the impression that I think turkeys have the ability to reason when I don't. I do think they are capable of being conditioned through negative experiences and after a certain amount of them, I've seen birds that didn't behave like average turkeys any more.

I've seen a lot of turkeys that wanted to see the hen where a call was coming from before they'd make an appearance and I think this was the case with the birds I mentioned. I don't think for a minute that these birds "thought" to keep a tree between us, but they know when they're out of site and when they're not. What are the odds that a bird would come from over a hundred yards out without stepping left or right the couple steps necessary in order to be seen? I'm not just talking about one instance and in each one, I was watching the area like a hawk.

I've been up on a hill in a place where I can see a lot of ground and watched turkeys responses to calling from other hunters. One bird in particular would have surprised you, I know it did me. The caller was just over the crest of a rise. The bird gobbled once from in front of him, made a circle    and popped out behind him. Nothing unusual there, but what he did next impressed me. He stayed just enough over the crest to be out of sight of the caller, carried his head down and stuck out in front of him til he got to a point where he could see where the call was coming from. Then he slowly raised his head and took a look. I assume he didn't like what he saw, because he turned around and snuck back the way he came. Believe it or not, I watched it happen through binoculars.

I agree that turkeys don't have the reasoning power to ask themselves if a call they hear is coming from a hen or a hunter and I've seen birds do similar things with hens. Staying out of site as they move towards them until they get to a point where they can actually see the other turkeys.

These weren't average turkeys that did these things. They were birds that were several years old, had been spooked repeatedly and shot at over the course of a few years. They'd had more than a few bad experiences going to hen calls and they didn't act like most other birds. Some didn't want to move toward a call period and others would pull this sneaky stuff. Call me crazy if you want, but I've dealt with enough of these birds and watched them while other hunters were fooling with them to realise that given enough bad experiences, turkeys are more than capable of pulling the stunts I'm talking about. Conscious thought, no. I think It's just a turkey's natural spooky nature, honed to a razors edge through conditioning.

Bob

[Farmboy27]

Not calling you crazy at all Bob!  Anyone with any amount of turkey hunting time has seen birds do things that make them look like rocket scientists. On the flip side, we've also seen them do things that make them look very stupid!  While past experience may make some gobblers reluctant to come to calling, I feel it has more to do with nature. Hens are supposed to go to the gobbler, not the other way around. A big old "boss gobbler" is used to having hens come to him. So he is much more prone to hanging out and waiting for the hen to show up. A jake or a subordinate gobbler has a bit more trouble getting hens and is more apt to come in a hurry to a hen. I have had lots of gobblers come in behind trees and stop behind trees but that's just because there are a lot of trees in the woods. The only way to keep a tree between you and something else is to know exactly where that something is. And if a gobbler knows exactly where you are and is smart enough to keep a tree between you, then why wouldn't he be smart enough just hang back and not even approach the danger? 

[ilbucksndux]

How do they just disappear and show up behind you ? Watch him come down a ridge, goes behind a bush at 30 yards, just waiting for him to stick his head out..........waiting,waiting,scratch the leaves a bit,still waiting.Then 5 minutes later he gobbles 50 yards behind you !HOW DID HE GET THERE

[Farmboy27]

How do they just disappear and show up behind you ? Watch him come down a ridge, goes behind a bush at 30 yards, just waiting for him to stick his head out..........waiting,waiting,scratch the leaves a bit,still waiting.Then 5 minutes later he gobbles 50 yards behind you !HOW DID HE GET THERE

I'm assuming he walked!  Lol!  But really ( I don't know if it's the terrain I hunt or what) in 23 years of hunting turkeys I've never had one circle me. I've had plenty that would have walked by beside me if I hadn't shot and some that walked by because they were searching for the hen and I hadn't called in a while but none that I can say truly circled me to investigate. Guess I'm just lucky or the turkeys I'm hunting are dumber.

[Rick Howard]

I love it when they are tracking right to you then at about 50 yards make a slight coarse adjustment to get out of site.  Then 20 minutes later gobbles 50 yards behind you. I partook in that game with my
Sunny Side Tommy 3 times last year.  3 different setups too.

[hobbes]

Scared of their own shadow.....yes.
Conditioned to run like heck every time something twitches....maybe. 
Imtelligent....no.
I'm not sure if you consider that calling them stupid or if I'm a "so called turkey hunter" but they aren't mythical.

[Farmboy27]

Scared of their own shadow.....yes.
Conditioned to run like heck every time something twitches....maybe. 
Imtelligent....no.
I'm not sure if you consider that calling them stupid or if I'm a "so called turkey hunter" but they aren't mythical.

Very well said!

[owlhoot]

One very hot day a tom quietly snuck in near to my position just on a the rise near a pile of brush.
I had heard him in the leaves a few times , but thought it must be a squirrel or a songbird.
After a very long 5-6 hour sit i turned my head slightly to catch a bit of the light breeze that blew occasionally, i spotted the red head and the probing eye of a very tall tom who had just came around the pile of brush.
Of course my slight movement was spotted by him and what was the interesting part is he took about 3 steps backwards around that pile AND LIKE A GHOST was gone.
It was a long walk back to the the truck for a cold drink.

[Happy]

I have seen enough to believe that a lot of hard hunted birds learn to be more cautious. I also believe that some are prone to incredible acts of stupidity. I don't believe in call shy and a hen yelp is not going to send a gobbler packing. But
If you bugger a bird enough he is going to keep a lower profile. Older birds are tougher because they know a hen is supposed to come to them. I think they get lumped into the call shy category a little to quickly. That being said I have hunted one old bird that I never did kill. He wooped me every way possible and then poured lemon juice in the wounds. I still don't know if he was smart or just lucky but he seemed one step ahead of me. He would gobble on the roost like a champ. The one time I called to him on the roost he never missed a beat and kept gobbling. The problem was it wasn't a reply. He fired off well spaced gobbles on his own and I didn't seem to exist. I would leave him and hunt elsewhere for a few hours, come back to his little knoll and yelp. I would always get a reply on the first set of yelps and then silence. I could sit for an hour and never make a peep. Nothing. After several attempts I said the heck with it and snuck within 50 yards of his roost tree. He didn't gobble that morning but he touched down about 45 yards from me. I gave a few soft yelps and watched him go to full search posture. He stood stock still for a good 20 seconds staring straight at me. Slowly he turned and walked off. Still don't know if he saw something he didn't like or just didn't see  a hen and didn't care. That was our last dance and I never saw him again. I probably could have killed him that day but for some odd reason I never took the safety off. It just didn't seem right and I don't regret it. All that to say I believe some birds are farther ahead of the curve than others. Old age and stubbornness doesn't help.

[Farmboy27]

One of the things turkeys do that's impressed me the few times I've seen it, is to put a tree between himself and me and sneak in close, unseen. The first one that I know of to do it to me came over a hundred yards from where I'd seen him last. He was in open woods and just disappeared. I couldn't understand where he went and a few minutes later there he was. A slight movement caught my eye at about 25 yards and there's half of a turkey's head eying me from behind a cherry tree. A second later it disappeared and I never saw the bird as he left either.

There were a couple other times too and they were all birds that had been hunted hard for a few years that pulled it on me. It makes me wonder how many other times over the years turkeys have done it to me without me ever knowing it. If I hadn't been looking almost at the spot where they peeked around the tree each time, I probably wouldn't have seen them.

Bob

I've seen this a lot myself. I hunt nothing but public land and it's amazing how well educated they can get. I say this often, but I couldn't take a "so called" turkey hunter seriously who thought heavily pressured gobblers to be stupid.

I've never hunted posted ground or exclusive access ground( other than booked hunts in Texas and Kansas). All of my 78 gobblers have come from public land and hard hunted private owned but open access land. I never said they are stupid but they are not smart, they are wary. They have no mythical powers, no super powers. They can't see you blink at a hundred yards or hear you breath at 50 yards. They are the same birds that were hunted to the brink of extinction in many areas by men with no camo, calls, or special turkey guns. They are animals. Grand and challenging animals yes. But animals none the less. Hunting them is a blast and addictive, but it's not a Jedi knight conquest!  Don't build them up to be rocket scientists, learn their habits and haunts, and go hunt them. If you don't kill one, it's not because they were too smart, it's because they were being a turkey!

[hobbes]

I'd prefer to not be taken to seriously anyway.  Enjoy your season.

[OldSchool]

We all have our own opinions based on our own experiences. We're all out there doing what we love to do and that's the important thing. In my opinion, of course. Good luck to all.

Bob

[Rick Howard]

I hardly think of them as mythical creatures.  Sometimes circumstance lands in their favor and makes us look foolish.  The poor visibility in many places I hunt sometimes makes them look like a genius.  When in fact it was just circumstance.  It is fun to have a laugh and talk about those experiences though.