I recommend a standard approach to calling a roosted gobbler. Let him know you're a hen just waking up and looking for company. Play a little hard to get to start off.

Begin with a few soft tree yelps, a cluck or two and purrs...just what he expects to hear from a hen on roost.

If he answers with a gobble, wait 10 minutes before calling again. Repeat the call if he's still in the tree after 10 minutes.

If he answers again, put the call down. You'll know that he's still in the tree by the sound of his gobble. It will sound strong, clear and all from the same location.

Don't call too much to him when he's in the tree. You want him to come down. By calling too much, he generally prolongs his stay on roost, making him gobble more, which attracts hens or other hunters and lets him know precisely where you are. He expects you to come to him.

When you see or hear him fly down or if the next gobble sounds muffled but in the same general direction, you should assume that he is on the ground. Immediately make a fly-down cackle, followed with a short series of yelps or cutts.

If he gobbles at that, you have his attention. What you want to hear now is his gobbling getting closer and closer as he moves towards you. And sometimes it actually happens that way!

If you hear him spitting and drumming, he's almost in gun range. Make a few soft clucks and purrs to let him know you are close too. That is what he expects to hear.

There is no secret call or tactic to drag him in, despite what the call manufacturers tell you. Each situation is different. Each bird is unique and will respond to different calls in different ways.

Turkey calling is very much an art. It helps to have a lot of experience. But be patient if he doesn't prance right up to your location.

If he's getting closer, but not coming in very fast, make no move. Keep calling patiently about every 5 minutes or so. Try to sound like an excited hen with snappy, yelps, clucks and cutts with an occasional cackle. Don't give up on a slow moving gobbler for at least an hour.

Call only loud enough for him to hear you. If you call too loudly, he will think you should move towards him. Keep your calls low at this point...make him curious.

Call often enough to keep his attention. If he is gobbling several times a minute, and some will first thing in the morning before they join up with hens, it's a mistake to answer every gobble.

I like to answer him about one time per minute. But, if he's gobbling only about once per minute, I'll answer every gobble early in the morning.

And I suggest you wait to hear him gobble and then answer him. In this way, you know exactly where he is and it will help you make the decision on how to respond. It's fun to call and have him answer, but I prefer to know his location before I call, because he may have approached and be in my lap and a loud call to him at that time may cause him to hang up.

As long as he is still gobbling I remain in my position unless I know I'm too far away or there is an obstacle between the bird and my location. Then I'll move quickly to a better set up before proceeding to call more.

Assuming you think you are located correctly, which is the real SECRET to calling, be patient with your calls. Be adaptable.

Try soft calls like purrs, whines, and clucks and yelps to try to fool the bird into thinking you have moved farther away.

If that doesn't work, try to sound like an obnoxious, excited hen with loud yelps, and cutts. I'll try to sound like more than one hen. Use a mouth call and a friction call to imitate two birds talking to each other. Sometimes this drives gobblers crazy. I don't call when a bird can see me, unless I'm trying to coax him in the last few yards. I'll use soft clucks and purrs mostly.

There are many reasons why a gobbler won't come to your calls and most of the time it's not your poor calling. The best callers in America will have no better luck calling gobblers than you will. It mostly depends on the situation.

For example, if he has hens with him, it's doubtful that you can drag him away. Or even if he's alone, he may hang up. I usually try a period of the "silent treatment" on a gobbler that has been answering me and won't come in.

And later really crank it up and call almost constantly for a minute or so to sound like a lost, excited bird to try to get him stimulated to gobble and make him move in.

No matter what you do, many gobblers will simply slip away and you'll feel defeated.

Don't be discouraged this happens to all of us. The same calls that failed today may work nicely tomorrow on a different bird or the same bird.

Try these three tactics for any silent gobbler or one that hangs up or won't come to you after an hour of calling.

Give him the "silent treatment" for about 20 minutes. He's been hearing you call every 5 to 10 minutes for an hour. Now shut up. He may get curious and come over to investigate.

Be prepared for him to walk in silently, like a ghost.

If that doesn't work, try calling a lot, you've got nothing to lose.

Try to fire him up with excited cackles, cutting, and yelps. Give this approach about 15 minutes. You're generally trying to simply stimulate him into gobbling so you know where he is and to excite him into doing something.

If he answers, work him normally.

The last resort is to move. But don't move if he's getting closer, even if it is very slowly. Don't move if you can hear spitting and drumming, he's very close, stay where you are. If you get him to gobble, even once, and he shuts up again, be on the alert for him to come to you silently.

You'll Eventually Decide To Move.

If you decide to move, make one more excited series of calls to try to stimulate him into gobbling so you know where he is. When moving, do it quickly, quietly and stay out of sight. Move into another, better position.

If he's been close...say 100 yards or so, move back 50 to 100 yards and try calling again. Make him think you are leaving.

If he's far away, try to cut the distance in half. Keep using the same calling patterns you did before.

If the bird is on another ridge or has been moving away from you, stay with him as long as possible. Move in closer but stay out of sight. Trying to get ahead of a gobbler to intercept him is often said to be the best policy, but I find it difficult to predict where he's going. I prefer to bring up the rear, and stay with him because eventually he will stop and set up shop in a new Strut Zone and then I'll make my final adjustment of position.

There are times when you need to move quickly.

If you hear gobbling from the other side of an obstacle like a fence, ravine, or heavy brush and he seems to be pacing back and forth over a hundred yard distance or so, you can get up and move to the end of his pattern when he's on the other end, but this is easier said than done.

If he's on a different ridge than you are, it's best to move to his ridge. Turkeys will come across obstacles, but most hunters don't have the patience to wait that long. If he's clearly leaving, every gobble getting farther away, get up and move so you can stay with him.

And...finally, after at least an hour of calling from one spot, you may want to move to another spot, especially if you heard gobbling from it earlier.

The best advice on calling strategy is to select the proper strut zone and stay there for several hours. I strongly believe that hunting in no more than two good spots each morning will produce more consistent results than moving every hour or so.

Source: http://www.turkeyhuntingsecrets.com

A Look At Some Creative, But Unfounded, Wild Turkey Tales

By Dr. James Earl Kennamer
VP Conservation
Nat. Wild Turkey Federation


We hunters have an almost uncanny ability to draw the wildest conclusions from the most obscure observations. The wild turkey rumor mill is a result of this skill, fed by the creative imaginations of a few hunters and armchair outdoors people. Let's take a look at some creative, but unfounded, wild turkey rumors I have heard over the years:

Rumor
Turkeys are so dumb that they will look up when it rains and drown.

Fact
This popular belief is simply not true. Even the domestic turkey does not look up at the rain and drown.

This rumor most likely started from farmers who had domestic turkeys that died during a rainstorm. But instead of drowning, the birds were probably scared by the lightning, panicked and congregated en masse into one corner of the pen, suffocating the unfortunate birds in the center.

This rumor also may have resulted from the observation that after a cold spring rain, turkey poults sometimes disappear and are assumed dead. Poults can die from exposure, or hypothermia, after several consecutive days of a cold spring rain. Biologists have seen this trend throughout the U.S., especially in the northern portion of the wild turkey's range.

Rumor
The wild turkey gobbler will follow the hen to the nest and destroy the eggs.

Fact
There have been no verified accounts of a gobbler destroying a clutch of eggs.

Let's examine the logical flaw; the wild turkey gobbler spends three months during the spring strutting, gobbling and otherwise acting like a freak-show attraction on steroids. After all, the sole purpose for mating displays is for the gobbler to mate with a hen and pass his DNA to another generation of turkeys. Now, why would a gobbler go and destroy this investment?

Despite the rumor's lack of logic, some people believe we must have a spring gobbler season to remove the gobblers so the toms don't destroy the hens' eggs. This rumor is definitely false.


Contrary to some stories, there have been no verified accounts of a gobbler destroying a hen's clutch of eggs.

Rumor
If you sprinkle salt on a turkey's tail, you can catch her.

Fact
Yes, if you can get that close to a hen, you probably can catch her. A similar rumor goes that if you sprinkle pepper on a hen's tail, she will lead you to her nest.

If you could get that close, a predator would have beat you to it and already removed the bird from the population. I don't know how this old rumor started years ago, but there is no truth in it.

Rumor
The department of natural resources is stocking coyotes and rattlesnakes to control deer and turkey populations.

Fact
Several state wildlife agency biologists report they have been blamed for stocking rattlesnakes and coyotes to reduce wild turkey and deer populations. What is even more outlandish is the stocking techniques.

Biologists have been accused of placing rattlesnakes in balloons, filling the balloon with air to soften the fall and then dropping the package out of an airplane. Another version of this rumor claims that the balloons are filled with water, the snake placed in the balloon and then thrown out of an airplane.

There are two flaws in this logic. First, it would be much easier to release the snakes from crates than from the air. Second, who is actually going to put a poisonous snake into a balloon, much less put the balloon to their mouth and fill it with air. One agency biologist relayed this humorous story:

"Two guys came into the office the other day and accused me of placing rattlesnakes into balloons and throwing them out of an airplane; I said, 'Sure, and I'm looking for two guys to blow the hot air into them. Want a job?'"

Additionally, the DNR also is not stocking coyotes. One explanation for the rumor is the recent expanding coyote populations, especially in the eastern U.S. Coyotes are adaptable and don't need any help from the state wildlife departments.

Rumor
The reason grouse and quail populations have decreased is because the turkeys are eating grouse and quail young.

Fact
This may sound ridiculous, and it is, but we continue to receive calls and letters accusing turkeys of eating quail and grouse chicks and causing the smaller fowls' population to drop.

It is true that quail and grouse populations in some regions have declined over the last two decades. At the same time, wild turkey populations have dramatically increased.

Loss of quail habitat is the reason for their population decline, especially in the Southeast. The same holds true with grouse, which require young, early-successional forests. Currently, many of our forests are older and offer limited grouse habitat. Wild turkeys, in contrast, use all habitat types from early-successional forest to older, late-successional forests. The poor quail and grouse populations are a function of habitat, not wild turkeys eating their chicks.

Rumor
The turkeys are ruining the deer hunting.

Fact
Apparently, some deer hunters are even blaming their poor deer hunting success on turkeys. The story goes that turkeys are either, eating all the acorns and causing the deer to starve, making so much noise in the woods that the hunters can't hear the deer or spooking the deer with all their racket.

It just goes to show that turkey hunters aren't the only ones with a creative imagination. In case you're wondering, this rumor is also not true.

This belief is not limited to just deer. One state biologist relayed the following account:

"Four of us were fall turkey hunting and each harvested a bird. When we arrived at the check station the attendant walked over to our truck and saw our turkeys in the back. He actually thanked us for killing the birds and encouraged us 'to go back out and get some more because they're eating all the acorns and starving the squirrels.'"

Do turkeys make a lot of noise when they are feeding in the woods? Sure, but that should not interfere with deer hunting. In addition, turkeys rarely stay in one location for a long period of time.

Are the turkeys eating all the acorns and starving the deer? No. First, wild turkeys can't eat every acorn. Second, deer are browsers and use other foods in addition to acorns. We also need to understand that we had whitetail deer and wild turkeys co-existing in this country long before the European settlers landed on the east coast.

Rumors about wild turkeys grow, mature and eventually develop into new ones. Many hunters who know their wild turkey biology can begin to believe rumors if they hear the same rumor enough times. Unfortunately, some of these false tales, such as the coyote and rattlesnake stockings, are often counterproductive to state agency programs and hinder our ability to work together to benefit the wild turkey resource.

Material from the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Visit the web site at www.nwtf.com