Through the years I have learned so much about turkeys it would be impossible to condense it down into a single column. Turkeys are incredibly intelligent animals seeming almost psychic at times. They more often than not seem to zig when you zag. Because of their uncanny ability to avoid capture, turkey hunters need to learn a lot more about a turkey’s language and habits to be regularly successful at harvesting mature birds in comparison to mature deer. I have found that the ability to locate gobblers/male turkeys seems to be the biggest nick in a hunter’s armor. Locating a gobbler is the first thing I do on a hunt, so that’s where I will start.
I began spring turkey hunting when I was 13 years old with my father. We struggled for years trying to figure out how to harvest a bird. We started – as most did back then – as turkey hunters, but turkey spooking is what we actually did. This was before the time of hunting videos and tutorials, so if you weren’t lucky enough to have an educated old timer around, most would just bumble until they got lucky or gave up.
I became infatuated with the sound of a gobble, and made it a personal goal of mine to see the animal that made such a a hair-raising call up close. I spent years studying and listening to the calls being made until I was able to understand what was being said. It took me five years to call in and actually make the shot on my first bird. For the past 18 years, I have called in at least one gobbler that eventually took a ride in the back of my truck - although most were taken by other hunters.
The one common link in these successful hunts was the use of calls. Of all the spring turkey hunts I have been involved in, I can only think of one that didn’t include calls of some type. The secret is that around 30 percent of birds I harvest did not hear a turkey call from me. I have learned to locate birds on the roost or ground, and set up in their expected path of travel in hopes of intercepting them on their way to a strut zone or food source.
When spooked or alarmed, a turkey gobbler will sound off in what is typically called a shock gobble. Simply put, it’s like a person screaming, gasping or swearing upon being startled. I do this by using natural sounds that startle or cause some form of territorial response in the birds. Seasoned turkey hunters tend to give an owl hoot at the break of dawn to evoke this reaction. Crow, hawk, and pileated woodpecker calls work equally as well, but most find them to work best after sunrise.
For the educated caller, the non caller or the seasoned pro giving a hoot should start your day. Using a turkey call to locate birds is a double no-no in that the bird may arrive before you are able to set up, or worse, you can be shot!
Locator calls cause the bird to give up his location, and can give you time to set up before starting a conversation. They also prevent bumping birds from the roost by enabling you to set up one 150 to 200 yards away from them as not to be seen.
