Sound advice: take your time and take your tom
      by Dan Small  

Patience kills turkeys. Patience and silence. Lenny Heisz taught me that lesson on my very first hunt back in 1987, but it didn't sink in until many years and many busted hunts later.

Turkeys, especially older gobblers, are the wariest of critters. Even when they come readily to your calling, it doesn't take much to spook them off. A gobbler doesn't grow a long beard by trotting after every quavering yelp that sings out from the shadows.

Hens are supposed to come to a gobbler's call in spring, not the other way around. Why do you think hens are so drab, shy and quiet most of the time, while gobblers rattle their heads off and prance in circles out in the open, shiny as a new pick-up truck that just rolled out of a ten-dollar car wash?

In trying to call a tom to a stationary gun, you are attempting to reverse the normal order of things. It's a wonder calling works as often as it does. And it should come as no surprise when calling doesn't work, when instead it sends a gobbler high-tailing in the opposite direction, or shuts up a bird that has been sounding off all morning.

Still, how do most turkey hunters get ready for a hunt? They buy a couple new calls and maybe a tape or two, and they practice calling. Today's abundant call makers, pros, seminars and videos have seduced hunters into believing that if they make enough of the right noise with the right call, the biggest tom in the woods will trip over his spurs in his haste to make love to their plastic jenny.

Of course, you should carry a couple calls. And of course, you should know how to make a few basic turkey sounds. But you don't have to yelp like Will Primos or cutt like Dick Kirby to turn a jaded tom's brain to jelly and bring him in on a dead run. Even champion callers who wow judges and audiences often strike out when they aim their yelps at gobblers.

If you can yelp, cluck, cutt and purr well enough to get a gobbler to answer you at least once in awhile, you call well enough to kill one. Successful hunters will tell you the most important thing to know about calling is when to shut up.

On my first hunt, Lenny Heisz called so quietly at dawn that I swore nothing could hear him, but several gobblers answered. Later, he called so infrequently I thought he had fallen asleep, but he spotted a tom that tried to sneak in silently before I did.

The case for patience

"A turkey may take an hour or two to make up his mind to head your way," Lenny says. "If he answered you once, he knows where you are. Your best bet sometimes is just to wait him out."

It's one thing to understand that, but another to practice it. A gobbler has no clock to punch, no deadlines to meet, no traffic lights to beat. He's got nowhere in particular to go and all day to get there, as Lenny puts it. Your job as a caller is to get his attention and suggest to him that there is a hen "over this way." Subtle calling, the kind that nudges a tom gently in your direction, is often much more productive than aggressive, in-your-face calling that challenges a bird.

Aggressive calling is best reserved as a fall-back measure when all else fails, or when you're competing with a live hen. Loud, frequent calling can chase off both the tom that hesitates and the one that's on his way to you. Soft, infrequent calling rarely spooks a bird. More often, it makes him curious to know where you are and why you're not going to him.

The case for silence

The more you call, the more likely you will give away your exact location. If a tom does come in, he will be looking for a hen at the very spot where you are sitting and may see you. It's easier to get a shot at a tom that wanders in your general direction than one that's coming in on a string, eyes glued to you.

A tom that gobbles in response to hen yelps expects the hen to come to him. If she keeps yelping from the same place, he is just as likely to stand his ground and keep gobbling, which lets you and everyone else in the woods know where he is. A vocal tom may call in a live hen or another hunter, either of which can ruin your chances of bagging him. I'd much rather work a tom that gobbles just often enough to let me know he's still around. If each gobble sounds a little closer, no matter how much time elapses between them, put down your call and get ready to shoot. Once you know a bird is on the way, you're usually better off simply waiting for him to show his knobby head.

When and how much to call

You'll know you did it just right when you're standing over a flopping bird. Often, though, a tom you were working just melts away and you are left wondering if you called too much or not enough. That's what makes this game a hunt rather than a shoot and calling an art, not a science.

There are a few rules of thumb, however, starting with locator calls. Use a locator call to get a tom to gobble once. Any loud noise will work, but Lenny Heisz prefers natural sounds like an owl hoot or crow call. Maybe that's because he's a former state champion owl hooter. Avoid gobbling or yelping unless nothing else works.

If you're roosting a bird the night before your hunt, once you know his location, stop calling and sneak out of there. The morning of your hunt, use a locator call only if you haven't roosted a bird. If you had one roosted the night before, he is probably still there. Stay quiet and get set up.

Locator calls also work in the middle of the day, if you hear no gobbling. Non-turkey sounds are safer to use as locators because they will only elicit a gobble, they won't attract turkeys or other hunters.

"Never make a hen sound unless you are set up and ready to shoot," Lenny warned me years ago. I break the rule now and then, and I've seen him break it, too, but it's sound advice. If you yelp and a tom is close, he may be on top of you before you can set up.

Lenny likes to greet a roosted tom with a tree call, a series of three or four soft yelps. Sound travels well on a quiet morning. If a tom responds, shut up and let him fly down before you yelp again. If he gobbles too much, you may have live hens and hunters who didn't roost a bird to contend with.
Once a tom is on the ground, yelp a few times to let him know where you are, but wait 10 or 15 minutes before you do it again. If he is close and you think he is coming in, that may be all the calling you need.

If your first set-up fails to produce, you have the choice of staying put or looking elsewhere for a bird. If you are on or near a travel corridor or if you hear gobbling, stay where you are. I once worked three toms over the span of two hours along a ridge and logging road they were using as travel routes. Two came in silently along the ridge behind me. The third came strutting down the logging road in front of me. I didn't kill any of them, but that's another story. The point is, they came to intermittent calling and I didn't have to go to them.

I shot my second tom with Lenny when we had run out of prospects and were just waiting for shooting hours to end. We had set a decoy along the edge of a pasture and were sitting against a huge oak, when a hen approached the decoy and started scolding it. We never called once, but after the hen walked away, a tom sounded off behind us. I had just enough time to turn around before two toms popped out of a ravine 20 yards away. I shot one when they separated enough to prevent me from killing them both with one shot.

The best way to learn to use cutts, cackles and purrs is to spend time in the woods listening to turkeys. A purr will sometimes calm a nervous tom and bring him in close enough to shoot. Turkeys cluck when they see each other, so if a hen clucks at your decoy, cluck back at her. She may come in with a tom in tow. Use a cackle when nothing else works.

Lenny called in my third tom after it had spotted us trying to cross a pasture. We hunkered right out in the open, while he cut loose with a loud barrage of cutts and cackles. I thought he had lost his mind, but that tom came sneaking along the edge of the pasture and I managed to drop him just as he saw us again and started to run.

"I knew he had seen us, but I was gambling he didn't know what we were," Lenny told me afterward. "He was gobbling so much, I figured he might be lonely enough to check us out."

That gamble paid off and convinced me that just when you think you know the basics of turkey calling, a bird comes along that lets you get away with breaking the rules. Hunt after hunt, though, you'll find patient calling spiced with silence will get you more shots than most other strategies.

Sound advice: take your time and take your tom
April  2004