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By Shirley Grenoble
For the Mirror
Spring gobbler hunters face two hunting scenarios: birds that hang out in farm fields or flocks that feed and breed mainly in forests, usually State Game Lands or State forest Land.
How turkeys interact among themselves, and with hunters, is usually dictated by which of these two habitats they live and love in.
The main difference between forest turkeys and field turkeys is that forest birds do a lot more talking among themselves than field turkeys. It's a necessity. Since forest turkeys cannot keep track of one another by sight, they do it by sound. The smart gobbler hunter takes advantage of this aspect.
Forest birds constantly listen for birds calling from afar. A decent-sounding call, made under the right circumstances, is what persuades one turkey to look for another. Hunters of forest birds are forced to operate by sound more than by sight. Hunting them requires hunters to think "Why is he not coming to my calls? What does he want to hear?" If he hasn't gobbled back to my calls for 30 minutes, I don't know if he is coming or going because I can't see him.
Getting a gobbler to pay attention is your goal. You know he has to approach you to check out a calling hen because he can't see her. He is much more apt to do that if he isn't overly suspicious of your calls than is a field gobbler.
One tactic I use is to carry several types of calling devices so I can offer various tones and pitches of yelps, clucks, cutts and cackles. Most gobblers I've dueled with preferred a particular sound -- raspy, shrill, soft, loud -- and my first task is always to find out what he prefers.
I determine this by offering him a few calls, say on a box call. If he doesn't answer that heartily, I switch to a mouth call or a slate call. I keep offering him various sounds and pitches until he lets me know by answering immediately which one he likes. That's the telling clue. I don't analyze what he does or does not answer, I keep giving him what I discern that he likes. It's a big mistake to try and force a gobbler to respond to a favorite call, rather than to his.
How do you decide whether you are successfully persuading a gobbler you cannot see? It is not, as so many think, by how many times we get him to gobble. We love to hear those wild, thrilling gobbles; listening to that raucous talk is half the reason we are out there. But if he stands 150 yards away and gobbles wildly for an hour but never comes to you, you are not having much success. You'll have a tale to tell of the bird that "gobbled 150 times but wouldn't come to you" but you won't have a bird for the oven.
Success is measured by whether or not he is coming toward you. How many times he gobbles is irrelevant. If a gobbler answers lustily for a half hour, but does not come toward you, you are going to have to do something different. After the 75th gobble, it's time to change.
Perhaps switching to a different sounding call will help, or perhaps changing your position. Perhaps falling silent, making him think you have lost interest will do it. I'd try first one, then the other of these tactics until I find the one that gets him moving.
A habit of woods gobblers is that often they do stand out there and gobble, waiting for you to show up. When you don't and they decide finally to find you, they often fold their wings against their body and come in quietly. If a gobbler has been talking a lot then suddenly shuts up, a battle of nerves begins. You don't know if he's looking for you or is walking away. And you have no option but to wait quietly and see.
If the vocal bird goes quiet, he may come in quickly or not for an hour. How long it takes usually depends on how much hunting pressure he's had. If he's been spooked a time or two or even shot at, he'll be super-wary. He'll take one or two steps, then stop and crane that long neck and peer around before he takes another couple steps. It could take him an hour to come 100 yards. Woods gobblers delight in sneaking in silently.
One advantage of hunting woods gobblers is that you can move on them, that is, change your position to a more advantageous one and get away with it. You can't do that in a field. You can circle and set-up, perhaps several times until you finally persuade him to come on in. You can creep a little closer or perhaps back up a bit, making him think you are walking away. No male I know likes to think his hen has lost interest.
Once in the Poconos, my buddies Charlie Dix and Buck Alt and I dueled with a gobbler that had a strange habit. He would almost run to calls, gobbling all the way but about 80 yards out, he would stop short. He'd stand there, gobbling and waiting, but when no hen showed up, he'd whirl and retrace his steps, gobbling as he retreated.
I was calling for Buck one morning when that very scenario took place. He raced to us, stopped short 80 yards out then simply backtracked. "We call him "Walkaway Joe," Charlie told me, "because he does it every time we run into him.
On my morning to try for him, we decided to utilize a standard trick. He didn't gobble at dawn so Charlie and I began walking and calling, hoping to raise him. Sure enough, he marched to us so Charlie backed up about 40 yards behind me and set up.
When he got to about 100 yards from me, I stopped calling and Charlie picked it up. The bird came to what he thought was his safe zone and stopped. He was perfectly in range for me, however. He weighed about 18 pounds. He didn't walk away that time!
When you get a bird gobbling in the woods, you can often work yourself in quite close to him before you set up, a big advantage. I staunchly believe the closer you can get to a gobbler before you begin to work him, the better. The shorter the distance he has to travel to find you, the more apt he is to do it. If you can work yourself close to a bird before you begin to call, often the hens will edge over to check you out and he will simply come with them. A short distance between you and the bird also means much less chance that real hens, coyotes or other hunters will get between you and spook the bird.
Since everything depends on both you and the gobblers interpreting sounds the other is making, be sure you know the difference between a gobbler yelp and a hen yelp. Hen yelps are faster paced and usually higher-pitched than gobbler yelps. This is a vital difference. While gobblers don't do much yelping in the spring, they are listening intently for hen yelps. If you sit around in the woods making gobbler yelps, you won't be impressing gobblers much because, unless they are gay, they don't want to hear it. They may answer back to gobbler yelps but they won't bother heading toward them.
To learn the difference, get a CD that demonstrates it. When trees and brush separate you and the gobbler, what you say and how you say it means success or failure.