As March rolls around, it signals the beginning of the wild turkey breeding season when folks of hens and gobblers begin to mix. I’ve been seeing that mix over the past few weeks, and I’ve seen at least three large groups of turkeys, gobblers included, in several different locations.
It’s that time of year when gobblers begin to wage verbal and physical battles in the hopes of gaining the hens’ attention.
It’s also time for turkey hunters to keep a serious eye and ear out in hopes of locating a potential gobbler since the opening day of spring gobbler season isn’t far away — May 3.
If you’re an experienced spring gobbler hunter, you are probably already prepared and equipped with the turkey calls you plan to use and the different sounds or calls you plan to make.
If you’re somewhat new to the sport of spring gobbler hunting, you may get a little frustrated with all the calls available today and the different kinds of calls to add to your inventory.
I’ve been hunting gobblers for a good many years, and I’ve called in my share of birds, but I’ll be honest, I don’t consider myself to be an expert turkey caller. I suspect that’s true of a lot of other turkey hunters as well.
Maybe you don’t have to be an expert, but becoming fairly proficient with a few calls is very likely to put some gobblers within shooting range. These days, there are a ton of different calls available, and there are a lot of different sounds to mimic, including yelps, tree calls, clucks, a purr, putts, whistles, kee-kees, and a gobble.
Do you have to be proficient with all of these calls? Not necessarily.
Often, if I’m trying to locate a gobbler when I’m off on an early morning hunt, I use a very different call; I will actually use a crow call or a Barred Owl call. Gobblers will often respond to these calls, thereby giving you a good idea of their location. Once located, of course, it’s time to try to coax your prey close enough for a shot.
When it comes to calling devices, there are a lot of designs and brands to choose from. There are two basic types of calls: those that produce sound through friction and those that move air through a device.
When it comes to friction calls, I suspect most hunters use a hinged-lid box call or possibly a slate call. I depend mostly on a hinged-lid box call, but I also put my diaphragm mouth call to good use.
I use the box call to produce a yelp which can be loud enough to bring a gobbler in from some distance. The yelp is a good basic call to learn since turkeys use it to try to locate or associate with each other.
Once I get my gobbler fairly close, I’ll switch to my diaphragm mouth call and make some content-sounding clucks. One of the reasons I switch to the mouth call from the box call is I don’t want the gobbler to see any movements like you have when working a box call. Most of the good turkey hunters I’ve talked to and much of what I read suggests that you limit your calling — don’t overdo it.
Sometimes, as the spring season progresses, calling a gobbler can be challenging. While the gobbler may be with his group of hens, he may be hard to pull away, but once a number of those hens get perched on nesting sites, he may be more willing to head out in search of another willing hen, and calling might produce again. Occasionally, a gobbler call may produce some action as well since a dominant gobbler may be quick to drive off any competition.
