Calling strategy

[jdime]

I am a first-time hunter and I'll be hunting in early May. I have been practicing with mouth calls and I am getting the hang of it.

I am now wondering what the best strategy is for calling. Cutting early and then shutting up? What if I see a tom in the distance?

If anyone can refer me to a web site that'd be great.

[goblueM]

There are so so so many variables that it is absolutely impossible to answer them in the forum or even in a week's worth of talking. Experience is the best teacher by far!

However, the best advice I can give you is call FAR less than you think you should. Calling is the fun part of hunting, you want to call a bird in. But too much calling is far worse than too little calling, IMO.

If you call too much the birds will get suspicious, and as a new caller every time you call you are increasing the odds you will make a mistake

Hope this helps, I'm sure a few others will chime in

As far as a HSOforum...

Let Me Google That For You

[minnesotahusker]

Just a little something from my experiences, make sure that the gobbler is answering to your call, not vise versa. If you are answering to the gobbler, he's not going anywhere, but as stated above, experience is the best teacher. It also depends on what time of the year you are going. If you're going earlier in the year you can get away with more calling, but if you go later in the year, the birds are more educated to the calls that they've heard for the past month, so later in the year less is more, just from personal experience.

[jdime]

Ok. Less is more seems to be the most important.

I appreciate the googling for me. Now I have 18,500,000 web sites to go through and no idea what is bull and what works.

[Cheetah]

no idea what is bull and what works.

Everyone will tell you something different. It all depends on the birds in the area you are hunting. Where I hunt in SD they are very vocal. My area in SE MN they are super quiet and will shut up and walk away if you call to them at all it seems. Other guys I have talked to that hunt only a short ways away on private land tell me how vocal their birds are. Nothing like what I hear.

Once you get out there and hunting you'll learn what they are like, hopefully you can find an active and excited tom to put on a good show for you.

[walterman]

Trail and error is the best way to learn. Turkeys will tell you a lot. If you can call in hens, you are doing a good job calling. I would learn to do a fly down cackle and work on cutting and your standard yelps and purrs. Just never try to sound like a nervous hen. Turkeys will go running the other direction no matter how hard they are hunted.

[goblueM]

Ok. Less is more seems to be the most important.

I appreciate the googling for me. Now I have 18,500,000 web sites to go through and no idea what is bull and what works.

everyone has different strategies. you can't expect to get a single answer on what works in all situations, hence why I suggested you take a look around.

as far as not knowing what's bull and what isn't, the same principle applies to advice given to you on this forum and websites found googling. ultimately the burden lies with you to determine if the advice makes sense or not. I can't help you with that aspect

i'd start with the first few hits and use your b s detector to tell you what you think

[jdime]

Great. I was hoping a human being who lives in Minnesota could steer me in the right direction.

When I started deer hunting I found a web site that said finding acorns meant finding deer. It turned out to be good advice for southern hunters but not so much here.

[DonBo]

I listen to the toms in my area. If they are very vocal, I try to be vocal as well. If they are silent, I'll call spareingly. All advice here is good on some days, and all advice here will be worthless on other days. There is no secret stratagy.

I would HIGHLY recommend you get a few more calls though. Diaphram calls are nice-some days. Some days they will only answer a box call. Some days only slate, or glass, or aluminum, or......you get the idea.

Good luck and enjoy. And BTW, if you find that one secret strategy, please let us know, cause we ALL want to hear what it is.

[jdime]

if you find that one secret strategy, please let us know, cause we ALL want to hear what it is.

Ha, I wasn't looking for one perfect strategy, I was just hoping to piece together some sort of plan. A barely adequate strategy will be fine by me. I am new to turkey hunting.

I have accumulated a few good rules of thumb so far and I will keep searching:

-Less is more (don't overcall.)

-Do what they're doing.

As for tools, due to budget contstraints I will just be using the mouth calls.

[DHost21]

I listen to the toms in my area. If they are very vocal, I try to be vocal as well. If they are silent, I'll call spareingly. All advice here is good on some days, and all advice here will be worthless on other days. There is no secret stratagy.

I would HIGHLY recommend you get a few more calls though. Diaphram calls are nice-some days. Some days they will only answer a box call. Some days only slate, or glass, or aluminum, or......you get the idea.

Good luck and enjoy. And BTW, if you find that one secret strategy, please let us know, cause we ALL want to hear what it is.

+1

[bassphish2005]

Call little,camo yourself too the max,and stay still.

oh and be in an area turkeys use ,as in feeding or strutting areas,or my best option....travel routes.....hunt them like deer.

[FrontenacPike]

All above advice is great. One thing I always do is start off soft and work my way louder. I like to see if I have one nearby or closer than I expected. If he is close, keep it soft.

One call that hasn't been mentioned isn't a call at all. When I have a visual on a bird and struggling to get him to close the last few yards I will grab a stick and rake the leaves. I mix that in with a few soft purrs and have had good results. Another thing I use is swatting my hat against my leg as a fly down. (google: flydown cackle)

The biggest advice I can give is to figure out the Tom's comfort zone. If you can figure out where he likes to be, very minimal calling is needed. Just a few calls to let him know you are in his zone and he will be all over you.

If you get a bird that starts coming to you but for some unseen reason get hung up, it probably wasn't your calling. More than likely met a hen along the way or there was a physical barrier that he didn't want to cross (fence, hill, creek, road, ect the list goes on and on). What I like to do is figure out the direction he headed and to relocate ahead or parallel to him. It it was a hen, she will eventually leave him and once again he will be on the prowl.

Every bird is different, some need constant reassurance, other only need to hear a few clucks....I guess that's whey its called hunting and not shooting.

BTW: When a Tom goes silent that was previously vocal with you, go quiet and get ready he's on his way.

[jdime]

Thanks for the info.

So, to get more specific, should I be doing more cutting? Clucking? Start with cutting and then cluck?

[sticknstring]

I'd probably stick with series of yelps. If birds are close... switch to clucks, purrs, & scratching. You'll learn the most from field trial & error!

[Borch]

I'd probably stick with series of yelps. If birds are close... switch to clucks, purrs, & scratching. You'll learn the most from field trial & error!

I'd agree 100% This has killed more birds than cutting and it isn't close.

I hold off on cutting for a last ditch effort to pull them in.

Gotta save something. IF you start there you've got no where to go.

[jdime]

Thanks again for all your help everyone.

I was out the weekend of May 8th and I chatted with many birds. Even near my campsite there was a tom up on the bluff that I could talk to.

I had a hen walk by me at 15 feet. I worked on a tom from 120 yards away over the course of 20 minutes. he ducked into the woods at 50 yards.

I had a couple smaller toms work by me at 50 yards. I couldn't get anyone in those few yards more to within my (crappy) range.

Awesome time though. I bet a few times I over-called, but I tried to keep it sparse when nothing was happening.