Learn To Call

[silvestris]

not from people as many people don't understand the language or are too nice to tell you that you sound like crap.  There are recordings of actual Wild Turkeys available to help you develop a proper signature and inexpensive recorders to tell you how close you are getting to your objective.  I try very hard not to listen to the signature calls of other hunters for fear that I might unintentionally incorporate some of their calls into my signature.  The wild birds always know what they are saying.

[MK M GOBL]

Guess I was lucky, I had a dozen hens or so and an old tom and each years young to teach me. We had some bronze breasted turkeys on the farm when I was learning to call, I'd listen to them bird as much as I could, call to them and listen and see their response. Those hens would roost in the trees in the barnyard and that tom could only get about 6-7 feet up so we made him a roosting branch to get on at night. I'd listen to everything they would say and how that tom would talk to those hens and the hens back. They taught me how to talk turkey!!

Had to laugh a bit when I first seen the squealing hen call come out, yup heard them hens make the sound but if you weren't within 20ft or so you would have never heard it...

MK M GOBL

[bbcoach]

Start off with a box call and or pot call.  Get really proficient with these before going to a mouth call.  Listen to Live birds or recordings of live birds.  Get a small hand held voice recorder and listen to yourself.  When you hear yourself on a recorder, you will be able to hear yourself as the birds hear you.  Not the way you think you sound.  And Practice, Practice, Practice.

[GobbleNut]

From my personal experience, when you sound good to a gobbler, he will let you know it,...and what sounds good to him is not necessarily what YOU think he should respond to.  There are folks that think they have it all down and are the "turkey whisperer" and want to do all of the calling.  Admittedly, I went through that stage a couple of decades ago.

It wasn't until I decided that me doing all the calling was not particularly fun for the guys I was hunting with and started telling them to call as well that I got a big ol' dose of reality.  Turkeys respond to sounds that they decide sound good to them,...and that ain't necessarily what we humans think they should respond to.

To the beginners, get you a few calls, learn to make turkey sounds similar to what you hear from turkeys and turkey hunters, and then get out there and start calling to them (during the season!) and find out what they like to hear.  Over time, you will begin to focus in on a few calling techniques that work better than others, but the spectrum of what might work in any given situation is pretty darn broad.

[Bowguy]

From my personal experience, when you sound good to a gobbler, he will let you know it,...and what sounds good to him is not necessarily what YOU think he should respond to.  There are folks that think they have it all down and are the "turkey whisperer" and want to do all of the calling.  Admittedly, I went through that stage a couple of decades ago.

It wasn't until I decided that me doing all the calling was not particularly fun for the guys I was hunting with and started telling them to call as well that I got a big ol' dose of reality.  Turkeys respond to sounds that they decide sound good to them,...and that ain't necessarily what we humans think they should respond to.

To the beginners, get you a few calls, learn to make turkey sounds similar to what you hear from turkeys and turkey hunters, and then get out there and start calling to them (during the season!) and find out what they like to hear.  Over time, you will begin to focus in on a few calling techniques that work better than others, but the spectrum of what might work in any given situation is pretty darn broad.

This post is on the money! There was a time a friend used a Quaker boy twin call, he sounded too flutey for my liking. Even ran his yelps together. Birds sure liked it. I still don't think he's a great caller yet every year he gets birds. The birds like his calling

[boatpaddle]

Learn to communicate with turkeys.....

     Understanding what call(s) (Yelps, clucks, ect) to use, when to use them, and at what volume to talk with turkeys is so important for a new turkey hunter......

     I highly recommend using one call and one call only when starting out......Here's why.

     If you have a general understanding of turkey talk.....What yelps, clucks, purrs & cutting mean in the turkey world, your ahead of game. The reason for using one call is that you must learn where each sound is on that type call. The confidence level for calling turkeys comes with MASTERING one call completely....Learn to call softly at first....That helps with learning control over the call & the volume of your calling....The only way to get good with one call is play it and play it and play it some more, while listening to live turkey talk, trying to match your sound (s) to that of the turkeys... Focus and direct concentration are key elements.

    Practice with your gloves on....Gloves change the feel of the call, when calling....

   Add in to many calls and you become a master at disaster, in MHO....To many choices, adds frustration, when learning to call....

    Lovett Williams has tapes available with great turkey talk to learn from and practice to....

    Spend time with seasoned turkey hunters learning to call from them....One of my greatest joys is helping younger/new hunters learn the sport of turkey hunting....

[Marc]

One of the mistakes I see from beginning callers is trying to get too complicated with their calling.

The vast majority of live birds are yelping, clucking, cutting or purring...  Learn to do these calls proficiently on their own,  before trying to string them together.  Cutting & Purring will be the most difficult to learn...  Practice these calls at home before trying to apply them in the field.

If you listen to birds in the woods, the vast majority are yelping and clucking when "we" hear them.  Granted, purring is not heard as much simply due to the fact that it is more difficult to hear, and the birds need to be rather close for us to hear these sounds.  But the bottom line, is if you can yelp and cluck like the birds you hear, you will likely get a positive response from the toms you are hunting.

Once you are proficient and comfortable doing these calls individually, try putting them together to a small degree (i.e. a bit of yelping with a cluck or two mixed in, or a bit of cutting with a yelp thrown in the mix).

Bottom line for me, is that I keep things as simple as possible while in the field. 

[I hate turkeys]

A few years ago I was set upon a field edge and heard some of the worst calling ever. I think its another hunter trying to break in a new mouth call and he needs to work on it.  What a racket well about 10 minutes go by and I see the other hunter that hunter had feathers with three other hens and a couple of jakes in tow. Learned what sounds good to me may not be right.
Go to the woods and listen.

[beakbuster10]

It's a tool for speaking turkey language not a call. The faster you figure that out, the faster you'll run out of tags.


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[NYlogbeards]

I have to divert the subject onto another track... Now I know I'm not the most experienced of turkey hunters nor a turkey calling champion but calling isn't everything in hunting gobblers, in my experience of hunting turkey the Hen most of the time if not all the time goes to the Tom. Knowing the basics of calling is all you need to know, you do not need to be a turkey calling champ. over calling will most definitely spook a gobbler too little calling they'll lose interest, most important rule to learn is pressured and experienced birds will be more reluctant and stubborn, a bird rarely comes in on a string and rarely gobbles to every call, but don't be discouraged after everything goes quiet and seems the woods are dead do not move on, often times a gobbler will come in silently your best tatic is to sit still don't move be alert and be prepared give content soft yelps and purring calls.

[silvestris]

No, you don't have to be a champion caller to kill turkeys.  But you do have to have the ability to communicate with turkeys to call them consistently.  They have a language and they employ it.  As Charles Jordan said, "I have put in my call and he understands it".

[NYlogbeards]

 

No, you don't have to be a champion caller to kill turkeys.  But you do have to have the ability to communicate with turkeys to call them consistently.  They have a language and they employ it.  As Charles Jordan said, "I have put in my call and he understands it".

Idk if this post was directed towards mine, but I agree to above statement if you are gonna call its best to have a good technique, I will also add like I said before even knowing how to talk turkey doesn't mean the bird is gonna come rolling in on a string,often times it won't but sticking with the set up is best cuz the stubborn birds will tend to come quietly... Never think its over after the bird had stop responding and get a feel for the turkeys mood is also viable.

[EZ]

It's a tool for speaking turkey language not a call. The faster you figure that out, the faster you'll run out of tags.


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Yep. It takes a bit of time in the turkey woods, but when you can take the temp of the situation and "talk" to the birds without any thought of it, you will pile 'em up.

[TRG3]

This will be the ninth year that I'll be using the same diaphragm mouth calls. They've probably accounted for 25+ gobblers over the past years while used in combination with my Primos gobble tube. At the end of the season, I wash them off with a diluted solution of mouth wash, drop them in a plastic bag, and put them in the refrigerator where they stay until the next season when they are removed, soaked, and the thin rubber reeds carefully pried apart with toothpicks. It works for me. I have a friend who never uses decoys, replaces his mouth calls every few days, and fills his tags annually. Do what works for you. 

[Rzrbac]

That's amazing you get that much use out of a mouth call.  I will wear a few out in 3 weeks, I buy new ones every year. It could be I don't spit my Copenhagen out when I'm using them.