Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Turkey call recommendations?

Wow !!! Must be Christmas in the air............. But I'm agreeing with a whole lot of what Luther just said.

People sound like people. Dogs sound like dogs. Turkeys sound like turkeys. In every case.......not all of them sound alike. Different voices.

The old "a turkey could never win a calling contest" is cute. But it's also wrong. I've stood and listened to the VERY BEST competition callers over the last 30 years. For the most part, these guys are PERFECT. That's why they don't exactly sound like turkeys.

But, the fact remains............the better you sound in the woods.......the better you'll do. ANYTHING that you can do to add to your realism in calling puts you a leg up on the guy who's calling from the other side of the bird. Or the guy who tried him yesterday. I know lots of guys who sound..........bad.........that kill turkeys. But how many MORE would they kill if they upped their calling game ???

I've travelled around a bit, myself. I've taken at least 2 of all 5 sub-species. Henned up gobblers are henned up gobblers no matter WHAT color their tail feathers are. Some birds are hard just because of the terrain you have to hunt them in. Pressured public land birds usually always suck. But, as a rule........ Easterns are probably the hardest ones to call in.

It's not so much about what you say as when you say it...

When I say I fall hunted with my turkey dog Buster for 10 years we hunted an average of 3 to 5 days a week or more (weather allowing) from October to mid January.

For the last 20 plus years Ive hunted every day I wanted to go of the spring season from March 15 th till the end of May. Before that I took 4 weeks vacation in the spring and turkey hunted.

I think it fair to say that most of the calling people hear in the spring is by jakes, jakes can sound weird they can all sound weird...a hen by natures design in not very talkative in the spring mating/nesting season.

I've always felt sorry for the weekend in Warrior....

Yep.


As with most anything else in life...........what you get out is reflective of the effort you put in. The guy who goes all year never practicing his calling til a day or two before season......... He'll get out of it what he's earned.

You really shouldn't be talking to me Donnie.....

I had hopes that the two of you were getting along. It looked to me like you were agreeing on the same things.
Guess defeat got snatched from the jaws of victory yet again.

It was a jOke...

I know there's lots of inflated egos on the internet.

Thank goodness, now y'all can send each other a Christmas Card and all will have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I've been at it now for over 40 seasons. I write for the outdoors, I've been a pro-staffer, and I've made a bunch of calls.

Let me let you in on a basic truth: turkey calls are there to mostly attract hunters and not turkeys.

I'm not going to say that a top-notch turkey hunter can't make magic out of a high-end call, but most turkey hunters aren't in that top notch. Furthermore, you take away his $200 call and give him a $20 call and he'll still make magic. It ain't the call.

Let me clue you into another basic truth: The most important part of turkey hunting is what's going on between your ears.

When I am working with a beginner, the biggest part of making a winning sound is the rhythm and the reasoning of why the hunter is making the call. The sound the call makes after a certain point is somewhat secondary. If the hunter can make the right call at the right time, he may quickly get in a shooting opportunity. If he is not able to produce the right rhythm or makes the wrong call at the wrong time, he is going to mostly get goose eggs.

That good rhythm can be accomplished with a box, a pot, a push-button, or a mouth call. However, it is driven by what's in the hunter's head.

I have seen some freaky, other-worldly sounding turkeys that did not sound like a turkey. I've seen hen's that yelped like someone had kicked them in the throat. I've seen hens and gobblers that sounded like dogs. If I had not seen them with my own eyes, I would have not believed they were turkeys. However, they all had the rhythms. Those are hard-coded in their brains. They're born with it. You've got to learn it.

The best way to get that rhythm is to get out with the birds and listen to them and get the sound in your head, and then work with a call to repeat it. Those calls need to become part of you. I produce podcasts every year for guys to listen to wild turkeys. It is an outgrowth of my yearly pre-season wanderings, going out to listen to the birds. I started making the recordings so I would have something to take home and listen to in the car.

My advice to a fellow just getting started is to buy a box, buy a slate, buy a push-pin and work with a few mouth calls. However, most importantly get out in the woods and listen. Those calls can all do a variety of turkey sounds, and they will all produce birds in trained hands, but it is what is in your head that drives that training.

Let me leave you with one other basic truth: learning to shut up and just sit there is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Most days I can go out to a spot within earshot of roosting gobblers and I can lay down a few calls and then shut up. Hours later one of those birds will remember what he heard and come around. I give him a few more calls and then shut back up. A half-hour later, I have him in my lap. Most hunters, even the more experienced ones, are already back to the truck and drinking coffee by the time I close the deal.

Lordy lordy lordy......

You don't remember me from Turkey and Turkey Hunting forum do you ShamAn ?

One of the time is right bOys....believe it or not there are people that can make the time right.