Turkey hunting is a game that typically depends a whole lot more on hearing than seeing, especially at the beginning of any effective encounter. The point of hunting adult male turkeys in the spring is the verbal, audible interaction to be conducted between hunter and prey after all. Finding the general area where an excited, gobbling turkey may be is the usual start of any hunt, but making a turkey gobble for the purpose of having him reveal his location can be tricky.
Male turkeys gobble to call female turkeys to them during the spring breeding season. Once someone is hunting a specific turkey, the hunter will be making hen turkey sounds to try to induce a hormone-charged gobbler to get anxious and make his way to them, and gobblers will typically gobble while doing so. With that in mind, the most natural idea for locating a gobbler would be to make aggressive hen sounds, and that will often work, but it also sets into motion a number of other steps in the process the hunter might not be ready to take. It’s entirely possible to make hen sounds — cutting, cackling, yelping, clucking and purring — too much, making the gobbler too leery to proceed. In areas that see a good bit of hunting pressure, as well as in areas where predator populations are strong, turkeys may make few natural sounds once they’re on the ground. Therefore your calling can work against you.
Furthermore, walking silently down a logging road or ridge line making turkey sounds is unsafe thanks to other, less-disciplined hunters. Anytime you’re making turkey sounds, especially on public land, it’s important to be situated with your back against a tree and set up ready to see a turkey. If you crow call and a turkey gobbles 75 yards away, you have a few moments to collect yourself, find a place to sit, then get ready to call. If you yelp and a gobbler cuts you off from 75 yards away, there’s a good chance he’ll see you before you’re ready to see him and the hunt will instantly be over.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to get turkeys to gobble, and these come with effectively no strings attached. In the spring, adult male turkeys are driven to gobble by biochemistry and instinct. Something inside them builds up more and more during long spaces between gobbles, and they can be triggered to gobble at something other than a hen turkey sound. They won’t be lured into approaching the source of such sounds, but they won’t be spooked by them either, and their gobbles at such sounds can give the hunter his first, best card of the day to start things off. Once a turkey is located, giving a hunter an idea of both direction and distance, a quick plan can be made and the calling, moving game can be played.
During the spring, when their intentions are running high, male turkeys can be made to gobble at any quick, sharp, loud sound. This shock gobble, as it is called, does not seem to adversely affect their mood or their willingness to play the game. A slamming truck door will make one gobble, but of course that’s not how any hunt would ideally begin. Turkeys can be harmlessly induced to gobble at the sound of owls, crows, woodpeckers and a variety of other natural sounds that don’t typically otherwise put them on their guard.
In areas of the West, many turkey hunters use a coyote howl to induce shock gobbles, but most eastern hunters are shy about telling the bird they’re hunting a four-footed predator is nearby.
Owl hoots can work any time, though the very earliest minutes of the break of day seem best.
One key go-to is a crow call. These work, if they’re going to, almost any time.
Of course, the key lesson in all of turkey hunting is that there are no absolutes. Gobblers may gobble at just about anything, or they may gobble at one locator call but not another. Or they might ignore every sound you make, owl, crow, turkey or otherwise, and come silently to investigate the source of the sounds, or not, as their tempers may choose. There are no absolutes.
In any case, any turkey hunter should have two or three different locator calls in his vest, the better to be ready to play the game.
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