Turkey Hearing Frequencies

[CrankyTom]

May be truth to what you are saying but I know for a fact turkeys hear waaay better than people. I call soft and I call extremely loud and have been killing birds doing this over 40 years. I do not for one minute believe that a gobbler going the other way is due to vall frequency. Its hens leading them off or a strut zone they want to be in. Blow a dog whistle. We cant hear them but a dog can and thats some serious frequency. I believe a turkey hears better than a dog. In the end , I just try to sound like a hen as natural as possible. No doubt high pitched sounds cause shock gobbles but I have heard hens that had a high pitch screech in their voice. Now I have never heard a hen get as high pitched as some calls like aluminum but they must because plenty of birds are killed with them. To me thats more proof that cadence is king compared to pitch. Just my 2 cents.

I'm no expert on sounds or frequencies I'm just posting what the studies show.  Check out the attachment from one of the studies.  Every study says the same.

[mspaci]

http://www.turkeyhunting247.com/Article/the-truth-behind-high-frquency-calls-Page1.htm

[CrankyTom]

http://www.turkeyhunting247.com/Article/the-truth-behind-high-frquency-calls-Page1.htm

That is the article that I referred to at...

http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,98910.msg974116.html#msg974116

[gdc23]

Very interesting... Does this mean I have to purchase more turkey calls ?

[CrankyTom]

Very interesting... Does this mean I have to purchase more turkey calls ?

Only if what you have isn't the correct frequencies.  There are plenty of audio spectrum analyzer apps that will show you the frequencies of your calls.

[Greg Massey]

May be truth to what you are saying but I know for a fact turkeys hear waaay better than people. I call soft and I call extremely loud and have been killing birds doing this over 40 years. I do not for one minute believe that a gobbler going the other way is due to vall frequency. Its hens leading them off or a strut zone they want to be in. Blow a dog whistle. We cant hear them but a dog can and thats some serious frequency. I believe a turkey hears better than a dog. In the end , I just try to sound like a hen as natural as possible. No doubt high pitched sounds cause shock gobbles but I have heard hens that had a high pitch screech in their voice. Now I have never heard a hen get as high pitched as some calls like aluminum but they must because plenty of birds are killed with them. To me thats more proof that cadence is king compared to pitch. Just my 2 cents.

X2 .. I so agree , it's called turkey hunting ... cadence , cadence ....

[NCbowjunkie]

I'm no musician or an sound engineer. But here is my take on sounds and frequency. Every sound produces a frequency ( pitch)  this is measured in hertz (Hz) The intensity of sound is (volume). This is measured in dB. You can produce a sound at a certain frequency at low volume or high volume and the frequency (pitch) will still read the same frequency or Hz   It don't matter if your calling soft or loud on a call the frequency will stay the same unless you change the pitch  example. The key f on a piano produces the same frequency if played soft or hard.  With this I do tune the calls I build by using a electronic guitar tuner. I can see what frequency the call is putting out. And I can play a live recording of the bird or animal  the call is build to reproduce and see what the real animals produce on the tuner
That is the sound I'm looking for  with in the range of frequency that the bird or animal communicates with   I believe that is the reason you may be calling with a pot call and no response but you switch to a diff striker and all of a sudden he goes wild over it. Just by changing the pitch or frequency is all the bird wanted. Not softer or louder

[GobbleNut]

When all is said and done, I think is the very rare turkey call that does not produce sounds that turkeys can hear.  In my opinion, if us hunters can hear a call, there is a very high percentage chance that turkeys can hear it.  Now, that does not necessarily mean that because a turkey can hear it that he is going to respond to it.  I believe, in the vast majority of cases, a lack of response is due to a lot of other factors besides the frequency of the call being  beyond a turkeys hearing range.

[CrankyTom]

When all is said and done, I think is the very rare turkey call that does not produce sounds that turkeys can hear.  In my opinion, if us hunters can hear a call, there is a very high percentage chance that turkeys can hear it.  Now, that does not necessarily mean that because a turkey can hear it that he is going to respond to it.  I believe, in the vast majority of cases, a lack of response is due to a lot of other factors besides the frequency of the call being  beyond a turkeys hearing range.

I'm sure there are some free audio manipulating software programs out there.  I have an audio program and have put real turkeys calling and recorded turkey calls into it. 

I removed everything below 290hz and everything above 5,250hz.  The real turkeys calling doesn't sound like what we hear.  Some calls that sound great to the ear, sound terrible when everything below 290hz and everything above 5,250 are removed.

If the multiple studies are correct that turkeys can only here between 290hz to 5250hz then what you hear and what they hear are two different things.

I attached a pic of some ceramic casting crucibles and a 1"×3" piece of aluminum tubing.  They all sound great and many would use them as calls but when everything below 290hz and everything above 5,250 is removed you hear little to nothing from the aluminum tubing.  The crucibles sound much closer to the real turkeys calling but still aren't right.

[mspaci]

can you share the articles or studies you reference about turkey hearing?

[CrankyTom]

can you share the articles or studies you reference about turkey hearing?

One is in print and does not belong to me.  Another can probably be found searching the titles and authors shown in the screenshot. 

I have another but I will need to search thru the files in my tablet to find it.  All three basically say the same thing about what frequencies turkeys can hear.

[West Augusta]

All my the pot calls that I carry are far above that frequency.  Haven't had any issues with calling in long beards.

[GobbleNut]

This entire discussion begs the question as to how the researchers determined that all turkeys can, or cannot, hear certain frequencies?  As others here have stated, there is a lot of non-scientific, circumstantial evidence that suggests that maybe,...just maybe,...the study does not reflect reality. 

Now, don't get me wrong,...I really don't have a dog in this fight either way.  I think the entire concept of turkeys and hearing ability is interesting,...but I am personally not going to put much stock in it in terms of how I go about calling turkeys.  For me, they either answer or they don't,...and they either come or they don't.  I'm not going to try to make it any more complicated than that. 

[Pluffmud]

I'm going to use this study to present my case to my wife for more turkey calls.

[BigSlam51]

This entire discussion begs the question as to how the researchers determined that all turkeys can, or cannot, hear certain frequencies?  As others here have stated, there is a lot of non-scientific, circumstantial evidence that suggests that maybe,...just maybe,...the study does not reflect reality. 

Now, don't get me wrong,...I really don't have a dog in this fight either way.  I think the entire concept of turkeys and hearing ability is interesting,...but I am personally not going to put much stock in it in terms of how I go about calling turkeys.  For me, they either answer or they don't,...and they either come or they don't.  I'm not going to try to make it any more complicated than that.

That's about where I'm at with it lol

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