Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Things turkeys can teach hunters
Wild turkeys in five states have taught me a few things over the years, and not much of it applies across boundaries.
Since turkey season is open in Arkansas, observations about Arkansas gobblers are most relevant. First, beware of anybody that says, “A wild turkey always does this or that,” because a wild turkey doesn’t “always” do anything. They never respond to anything the same way, so a hunter should not ever try to settle into a pattern, which is really a rut. Adapt to whatever a turkey does and react to its behavior at the moment.
DECOYS
I have an uneasy alliance with turkey decoys. I know of one gobbler that I killed with a strong assist from a decoy, and another that I should have killed but didn’t. The latter was my first solo shot on a wild turkey, on opening day of Missouri’s 2001 season. That bird came to that decoy like a fish being reeled to the boat. I missed because I failed to pattern my shotgun before hunting. That’s probably the most important lesson that a turkey taught me, and also the most heart wrenching.
The second was a big mature Grant County longbeard in 2013. After I spent an entire afternoon playing a large selection of calls, he and his buddy walked out of a thicket and went straight to three decoys.
Every other time it seems like decoys have been, if not a liability, something I have to work around. For example, I’ve had four gobblers turn away from decoys out of range or behind cover. I believe it’s because a mature gobbler expects hens to follow him. It happened with two Madison County gobblers at once in 2016 and with a Grant County gobbler in 2017.
I got the Grant County gobbler because I persuaded him to come a little closer. I got the Madison County bird because I positioned myself between him and the decoy. He hung up about 30 yards from the decoy, but I was only about 15 yards from the bird.
I used the same strategy last week in Oklahoma to kill a dandy Rio Grande gobbler. Once that bird gobbled and told me from which direction he was coming, I moved toward the bird and set up about 50 yards ahead of the decoys. Sure enough, the gobbler stopped about 50 yards from the dekes and displayed, but he was only about 20 yards from me.
If there was a lesson to be learned, it was to get in a gobbler’s path well away from a decoy. He’s looking for the source of a call, and a visual element like a decoy lessens the chance of him looking too closely and seeing you.
CALLING
and sparingly. I agree if you know that turkeys are near. You only need to let him know a “hen” is near, and he will come looking. That doesn’t happen to me very often.
In the woods where I hunt, there aren’t many turkeys, they don’t seem to roost consistently in the same places, and they cover a lot of ground. For my Grant County birds, I consider myself the spinning light at an airport control tower. I call a lot, and I call loudly with a lot of different calls. If a gobbler is in earshot, he will come to investigate eventually as long as I don’t overdo it. Using different calls sounds like a lot of different hens, and I play them every 15-30 minutes. In this way I have killed four Grant County longbeards between 1-6 p.m. It took about an hour to finally coax the 6 p.m. bird into range, and it required calling him away from a live hen. I’ve only done that once. Some might say that I overcall, but I like the results. I’ve killed a gobbler in Arkansas seven of the last eight years, and eight Arkansas gobblers in that same span thanks to a tag-out in 2019.
EASTERNS VS. EASTERNS
Not all eastern wild tur- keys are the same. I learned to hunt wild turkeys during Missouri’s turkey hunting heyday in the early 2000s, when Show-Me State hunters annually killed more than 60,000 gobblers. Missouri gobblers were a lot more vo- cal and seemed more willing to come to calls. I believe it’s because there were so many of them. I often encountered flocks in the spring containing five or more gobblers, and I commonly called up competitive gobblers that tried to out yell the other.
I have never seen that in Arkansas. I often call up two gobblers at once, but it takes some provocation to get one to gobble. When he finally does, he is usually very close. At that point he often gobbles with gusto, but the second bird never gobbles. Arkansas easterns are just stealthier and more cautious than easterns I’ve hunted in Missouri and Mississippi.
The lesson is that Arkansas gobblers are unforgiving. They come in quietly, and if you blow it, your day is probably done. In other states, you often have a chance to
THE FEED CALL
Listening to my neighbor’s domestic turkeys has taught me a lot about subtle vocalizations. The most important is a social sound that I’ve heard described as a feed call. It is a very highpitched, two- or three-note sequence that sounds like a siren. Make it with a mouth diaphragm. Hold it loosely near the roof of your mouth, purse your lips as if whistling and blow softly, “WooWoo-Woo.” Follow that with a sharp, quiet cluck or purr.
It’s not a sound many hunters make, and a gobbler must be near to hear it. It is an authentic turkey sound, it’s often the ticket to melt the resolve of an insolent gobbler.