Published: April 26, 2008 07:27 pm         

Try no calling for gobblers

This column was first published in the Times-News in March 2001.

I’m not like some turkey hunting partners I’ve had who can make every imaginable turkey call using just their throats and mouths. I need help and that help usually comes in the form of a peg-on-glass friction call. Occasionally I use a box call and I can cluck on a mouth call.

I am not a great caller, but I am good enough to have put a slug of spring gobblers in the oven over the years.

The more I hunt, though, the more I realize that the gobblers didn’t read the book. Sure, you might get a textbook hunt here and there. That’s when you owl hoot and a roosted gobbler sounds off. This allows you to set up, give a call or two, probably some yelps, and then kill the longbeard after he flies down and struts into range; all in time to stop at the local restaurant for pancakes and sausage.

Along the way to those textbook hunts, however, a lot of other stuff happens.

What happened to me one morning a few years back is that I drove almost two hours to a hunting spot. Unfortunately my turkey hunting vest was still hanging on a wall peg at home. In it were my callers.

Luckily, I had my shotgun shells stored separately so I still had the most important item — along with the shotgun they go in — for harvesting a bird.

What are you going to do?

I went hunting.

Then I scratched in and killed a 19-pound gobbler with a 9-inch beard. The spurs were one inch apiece.

I heard the gobblers about an hour after daylight. My guess was that they were on a ridge across a small hollow about 300 yards away. The leaves were very dry so I began to use my hand to rake them.

My best success comes when I am very forceful in the raking maneuver. Don’t be bashful. A turkey scratching for food is not timid and you should take a clue from that.

At the first scratch, one of the three gobblers, the dominant one I would suppose, gobbled. They closed ground steadily as I continued to scratch. At one point I began scratching with both hands, attempting to sound like more than one turkey looking for breakfast.

I scratched as long as I thought reasonable before getting my shotgun in the ready position.

I could hear the birds in the leaves but they were still out of sight over a slight rise. I reached down with my right hand and scratched once more. A blue head popped into sight. Then the head dropped and the top of the gobblers’ fanned tailfeathers were visible. I sighted in on the tailfeathers and when the turkey traded his head for his tail one more time and stepped up so that I could see his beard, he was mine.

The first spring gobbler I ever killed, an 18.5 pounder with 1.25-inch spurs, thought I was a turkey walking through the woods.

I had missed another bird and was walking back and forth through the dry leaves looking for a sign of a possible hit. “Crunch, crunch, swoosh, swoosh,” the sounds of my footsteps went out through the early April morning.

To my surprise a gobbler sounded off just out of sight and came running in. I had just enough time to jump behind a tree and eventually shot the bird after he passed behind a large oak.

You can kill a particularly wise gobbler by just knowing where he is headed. In fact, to call to him can actually make him change direction if he is a graybeard as well as a longbeard.

Perhaps you have unsuccessfully called to the same bird for a number of mornings. You could determine that the turkey would drift off in the same direction each morning, away from your calling.

You would be wise to set up in that other direction on a future morning, but don’t call. Simply wait until you either hear or see the gobbler. If you are lucky enough you may be in range when the bird comes by. If you are somewhat out of range, just rake the leaves once and get ready.

I have killed three spring gobblers by simply walking logging roads. I wouldn’t recommend this as a No. 1 approach, but it is one more tactic in your bag. Two of the three times I surprised birds about the same time they surprised me and I was able to get off an accurate shot from the 12 gauge before they could exit. On one of those instances, I spotted a gobbler with four hens. They were below me on a steep hill and ran. So did I. When I got to the point that I could look over the rise the gobbler crossed the trail on the run and I killed it with a shot from the old Winchester Model 50.

The third time the gobbler never did see me. I picked him out as he walked slowly on the other side of some trees and was able to get the drop on him.

To be successful at walk-hunting for spring gobblers, you must be in uneven land and you must be quiet and constantly alert. To walk on flatland offers the birds opportunities to spot you while still out of shotgun range.

Windy and rainy days allow quiet movement and offer another advantage to the hunter on the move. This type of a hunt often works better in late season when the forest has more foliage to hide you from turkeys and turkeys from you.

I’m not suggesting you forget your turkey callers when you go afield. I’m not suggesting either, that scratching or walking is the best way to harvest a spring bird. What I can tell you is that there are a lot of ways to legally bag a longbeard gobbler in the spring and not all of them involve a yelp, a cutt or a purr.

If you find yourself hunting a call-shy gobbler, try one of these techniques. There’s no call not to.

Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com. His column and the Outdoors page will return May 11.