How to Avoid Gobbler Gibberish and Actually Learn to Talk Turkey

Because of this, hunters will spot a buck, snort-wheeze at it, and then usually get a negative or neutral response. They’ll reason that the buck isn’t a fighter, or isn’t in a mood to scrap, and give up on that call. I’m not that smart, I guess, because I will snort-wheeze at a buck until he either leaves or I piss him off enough to swing closer. You can literally see their moods change sometimes, and it often takes me dozens of calls to get them to commit.

I’ve also snort-wheezed in a pile of basket racks who definitely weren’t the dominant buck, but that’s beside the point. To snort-wheeze at most bucks, you have to be confident and really say something to them. This goes for calling in turkeys, too.

When I started trying to arrow birds instead of shooting them as soon as they crossed the 40-yard mark with my shotgun, I realized that I needed to understand what I was trying to say to birds.

It’s a different beast attempting to put a tom and his girlfriends in your spread at 10 yards than it is to get a bird to check you out from nearly half a football field away. You have to have a conversation with all of the birds, and when you do, you sort of understand what they’re saying.

Emotion Matters

How often have you been sitting there, calling every half hour or so, and then gotten a response from a hen in the form of a series of yelps? You can yelp, and she’ll yelp back, but the conversation is slow and measured. She’s saying, "We are over here, come on over if you want.” She might wander in and take a look, but she often won’t mix right in with your decoys. There’s no urgency at stake, it’s just small talk.

But if you can cut that hen off and try to talk over her, you might get an emotional response. You can take the interaction from mostly neutral to something with more life. That can change the vibes of the whole setup, and often does.

This is one of the things that flies in the face of traditional turkey calling advice, but I believe it because it’s helped me watch a pile of birds die. Instead of constantly trying to take the temperature of the real birds and call like them, learn to call with real confidence and then use that to make something happen.

Timid calling can kill hyped-up toms, but mostly won’t. If you want to kill pressured birds, or just make something happen, learning to call with emotion matters. Then, try to double up your presence.

Dueling Calls

There are plenty of hunters who live and die by a favorite box call, or mouth call, or whatever. You could use one call the rest of your life and kill plenty of turkeys, but not as many as you would if you learned to use different calls, particularly in the same sequence.

Think of it this way. A lone hen is great, but at least two hens together is just something different, especially in the early season when they are more likely to still be hanging together in small flocks. My go-to sequence is to run a mouth call and a slate call because I can use both at the exact same time.

That move kills birds, but it’s not necessary. Giving them the impression that there are at least two hens in one spot, often is though. This requires calls with different tones. That might be two box calls if that’s your confidence style, or it could be a loud, raspy box call and then a slate call that lets you sound like a softer, less aggressive hen.

The key is to mimic how turkeys actually sound when they are together. They don’t just do a five-note series of yelps back and forth every time they talk. They purr, cluck, and yelp in a variety of ways like they’re having a conversation, because they are.

Too many hunters think that they just need to make realistic turkey sounds, but they don't think about what those sounds are meant to convey. But the truth is, the birds will let you know. If your calling isn’t getting the ladies to talk, it’s less likely to get the longbeards to commit. Pay attention to what you’re saying, and then pay attention to what the hens say back to you.

There’s a lot to learn there, and all of it will help you not only start up a turkey conversation but also hold it long enough to get a longbeard to spit and drum his way into range.

Close Calls

A common calling mistake that a lot of hunters make happens when birds get close. Traditional advice says to just shut up and let the encounter unfold. Look, if you have a tom that has closed the distance by a lot in a short period of time and gobbled at every sound you’ve made, then you most likely should shut up and get that shotgun to your shoulder.

But what if you have a hen or two stroll in? What if you have a bird that seems to hold up in the timber just off of the food plot or meadow, and he just won’t step out? My personal strategy is to keep calling, because I want to keep nearby birds engaged. When I started bowhunting turkeys, I couldn’t believe how many hens I called in that would hang out for an hour or two in my spread.

If you keep talking to those birds, even just soft clucks and purrs, they’ll keep talking. And they’ll stick around. This also works really well if you have a small flock with a tom or two in it that seems to want to orbit around your setup but not commit. If you don’t keep the conversation going, they’ll keep doing their thing. But if you do, you’re much more likely to elicit one of two responses.

The first is that they’ll finally just swing through, which is the goal. The second is that, when you have the opportunity to call to nearby birds who will answer, you’re advertising to the greater turkey world that good things are happening in your spot. Nearby toms or jakes who are looking for some action are very, very likely to swing through and check things out. But you have to be confident enough to keep talking to close birds without the fear of saying something wrong and spooking them.