gobbler answers my calls but will hang up out of range

[JonD.]

Very interesting article! Hmm. I've been saying it for years, but everybody just laughs at me.

I would like to apologize to potter, the original poster. I did not intend to get your post side-tracked I was just offering what I think is advice, but some may not agree(and you may not either) but just trying to help. Anyway, sorry man.

[silvestris]

Eggshell's post (and link) provides some food for thought.  My thoughts are that turkeys have a primitive sense of smell as smell is not as important to their survival as the sense is in seabirds and vultures.

[eggshell]

I would agree silvestris, but on a given day with a given bird and the right conditions it may spook a gobbler

[JonD.]

I agree and I feel strongly that it's happened to me several times, and of course I couldn't prove it 100%, but now I try to set up with the wind in my face if I can. Has it increased how many turkeys I've taken or decreased the number of turkeys I've spooked? Who knows how you would prove that either, but I will keep doing it. One thing I believe I can say that I know for sure, is I started seeing a lot more turkeys after I quit smoking(and deer, squirrels) compared to when I smoked.

[TRG3]

Obviously, the gobbler wants to come in or he wouldn't have made the effort to come this far. He has his reason(s) for not continuing based on his past experience. By hanging up, it shows that he is most likely a subordinate gobbler that has had his run ins with those above him on the peck order. He's torn between coming on in and the possibly of getting his fanny kicked once again. So...there are some things that you might do in anticipation of a gobbler hanging up, one being to use a tom decoy that is not intimidating, like a Funky Chicken, or to use no male decoy at all. If only hen decoys are used and he hangs up, he's probably concerned that another gobbler higher up on the peck order is coming in or lurking in the bushes, just waiting for him to commit which will result in another butt kicking for him. In my experience, it can be very difficult to entice a gobbler that's very low on the peck order to take the chance of totally responding to a hen, regardless of the alluring sounds one makes. If this happens, it's just part of turkey hunting and that bird's caution may help him survive the season short of someone ambushing him, which could be accomplished with two hunters, one calling 50+ yards behind the shooter. Best of luck.

[rcleofly]

When they hang up I just take a nap. If they leave I follow. Eventually you'll get lucky and make the right move. Patience and woodsman ship and it'll come together. Just stay relaxed and keep your head about ya.


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[ggrue]

I think I made mistake last year as a gobbler was fired up on a ridge and I was in a creek bottom.  He wouldn't come down and I could go to him as I would spook him.  I should have looped around him and called, but I went right at him and he busted me.  Lots of good info on here.

[TRG3]

I posted earlier and would like to add that as turkey hunters, we are always trying to figure out what a particular turkey's rules are. What is it that can make this particular bird responsive? If we can figure out this turkey's rules, then we can play the game; however, turkey's rules always seem to keep changing since every bird has had different life experiences. As our turkey hunting knowledge grows through personal experience or from others, like this website, we gain a knowledge of what often seems to work and develop a game plan that boosts our confidence that we will eventually be successful. What keeps me hunting turkeys is the challenge of always learning and applying that knowledge to harvest a very wary bird. If it were easy, I'd soon loose interest in it. Over the years, I've come to realize that taking the gobbler is only the satisfying conclusion of the total experience.

[GobbleNut]

Personally, I am a bit sceptical about the "hang-ups being due to being a subordinate bird and not wanting to chance an unpleasant interaction with a dominant bird" theory.  From my experience, subordinate birds tend to be the younger gobblers,...and I have found little reluctance on the part of those birds to traipse right on in to a turkey call.

The exception to that,...again, in my experience,...is if they have had enough negative encounters with hunters and calling that they start altering that behavior of going willy-nilly to turkey calls they hear. 

It is my theory that gobblers "learn" that they should not approach too closely to turkey calling without actually seeing, or otherwise having some sort of confirmation, that there is a real, live hen turkey calling to them.  The behavior they adopt then is to approach close enough to the hen they hear to a point they think they should be able to see the hen,...and then stop. 

Give those gobblers visual confirmation that there is a hen where the calling is coming from and they will very often go ahead and approach without hesitation. 

The one other solution to that particular hang-up problem is to make the gobbler think that the hen is farther away so that he continues his approach to that imaginary line in the sand that they have the annoying habit of drawing.  The best approach to accomplish that is the "two hunter" solution where the shooter is place forward and the caller is further back.  That strategy works quite well for those that hunt in pairs and know how to implement it.

...At least, this is what I have found over the years...   

[shemp]

I encounter a LOT of hangups and a LOT of birds that go quiet then magically appear 15 yards behind me

If they're hung, I cluck and scratch leaves

If they're hung and have hens with them (often the case where I hunt) you are sorta stuck unless the hens will come over.  More leaf scratchings and hopefully you can hear a vocal hen to mimic.  If you can move and set up in a slightly different location without getting busted that may be the best bet

IF they're hung and doing that whole gobble in a wide circle thing, if you can time when they are at the edge of the circle away from you and quietly scurry in to range of the close end of the circle, it's a matter of time.  Hard to do but always awesome when they come gobbling by themselves right at you oblivious to your position

[eggshell]

Again I agree with Gobblenut. Henned up birds will stay with the  girls and you can get him if you tempt the hens your way. Aggressive hen purring will do that at times. After nearly 50 years of this I am convinced they become call conditioned. I ran a check station for 30 years and the area kill was highest the first three days of season. That was a function of more hunters, more birds and gullible birds. The kill those days was dominated by two year olds and jakes, with a few old longspurs mixed in. Young birds don't shy away from going to hens they will try to steal a quicky if the can. What they do if the boss is around is not bread and just strut and mill around. It's not a butt kicking they fear it is death. Why do you think outfitters manage the pressure in their areas? when your bread money comes from something you learn what matters. I Green birds are easier to kill, period! I even think birds get used to mouth calls quicker than any other. I start out with all mouth calls and as season goes I start using different pot and slate calls. I also never hunt a spot more than three days in a 10 day period (I have the luxury of a lot of private land I exclusively hunt ). I also do not scout and call preseason during peak periods. I will scout late mornings or afternoons. Two days before season I will walk the ridges and listen, but never go in the woods. I used to scout a lot and call to birds and then wonder why I had trouble getting them to come all the way in. Since I knocked off the shenanigans it is not uncommon for me to kill my two birds rather quickly. The last couple years I have just helped other people early and then hunt my birds later. There are some situations where birds have select strutt zones and if he has hens coming to it on a regular basis he will go to it or roost over it and camp out....you won't budge him until the hens quit coming. I have seen birds even shut up soon as they hear a call. The problem is we get in the habit of chain calling. The same notes and sequences over and over....they learn that. If you have a bird that gives you fits try sending a kid in with an old box call and no coaching and don't be surprised if that tough old bird dances right to him. We need to learn how to vary our approach as well. When you walk in and call from the same places you are conditioning birds. It's not intelligence on the birds part, it's habituation from repeated  behavior of people that they learn is danger. Mouth calls tend to have more of a musical note and they condition to them quicker. In ending there are a lot of things that can make a bird hang up but often it's just us being dumbarses

[Paulmyr]

 Sometimes people forget that's what they are supposed to do. It's in their dna. They gobble and hens come to to them. It's evolution. Hens want to breed with dominant Tom's who have the the best genes. When he gobbles they come running. He don't have to go looking. Subs know this they hang around trying to get some scraps.  Some hang with the boss. Others in the porifery trying to find an opportunistic hen. I think ridge runners are wanna be dominant but just don't have it yet. Either way the dominant gene usually gets passed generation to generation. That gene is to gobble hens in. When a Tom hangs up it's because of his dna. He's waiting for hens to come to him. The trick is to get him to ignore this trait  by playing on his sexual urges. The previous posts have some great ideas on doing this. Sometimes they work. Of course that's just my opinion. Others May and probably do disagree.

[Marc]

I think that one of the most appealing aspects to turkey hunting, is that the learning curve never ends...

This season I finished on a nice bird in a duo that I planned to perfection...  I do not think I have ever been as shocked turkey hunting, as I was by the fact that these birds did exactly what I expected/hoped they would.  It is the only time I can ever remember that a turkey hunt went exactly as planned...

Outside of this event, it is tough for me to recall many birds that came at me in a straight line...  Hunting with my young daughter last season, we had 4 birds 80 yards right below us with a several acre pond/lake to one side, and a steep embankment to the other...  I set up behind the log, cause near as I could tell those birds only had one possible direction to approach from...  Instead, they walked all the way down and around that little lake and approached us from the open side (at which point my little one went nuts, and I was holding her with one hand and the gun with the other).

Second to last bird this season, approached below me to my left across an open meadow (I at the time was surrounded by hens and jakes and dared not move or call).  He hit a brush line and came out above me to my right???  Had I not seen the approach, I never would have known he was even there (as he never made a sound).

I have had birds come within 70-80 yards, hang up calling, and wander off...  I move, they come back and hang up again?  Is there a gully they do not want to cross, are they waiting for the hen to come to them?  Moving off to find another bird is a sure way to make them go stand exactly where you were just sitting though...

Besides birds not cooperating, I have had cows, horses, coyotes, dogs, trucks, people, and Canada Geese all interfere with birds coming in.  I am fairly certain that there has been a time or two when humming birds have probably blocked me from getting a turkey....

[NCL]

Marc,

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? To add to your list I have had a hen that came out of nowhere interrupt an incoming Tom along with a fence on a Tom that had come across a significant distance only to hang up in the brush on the other side of the fence. That Tom walked away gobbling and I never did see him