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Not
Quite Close Enough
Why Gobblers Hang Up And How To Deal With Them
© By Othmar Vohringer
(Originally
published in Canada’s
Outdoor Sportsman magazine, February / March issue)
Any
person that is hunting North
America’s most popular game bird for a season or two had to
learn
to deal with the frustration of a big tom hanging up just outside the
effective shooting range. The majority of these birds are the older
wiser toms, the ones we hunters respectfully refer to as
“Boss
Gobblers”. They are masters at surviving and that makes them
one
of the most challenging game animals to hunt. In my opinion, shaped my
many years of observation and hunting turkeys, there are three main
reasons why a tom hangs up and for each scenario there’s a
solution. Lets look at each and see how we can outsmart these Boss
Gobblers.
1. The
tom comes in but then doesn’t
see what he expected to see.
If a tom comes to your calling he naturally fully expects to see a hen.
If he doesn’t he instantly knows that something is not quite
right and he will hang up to check it out from a distance before
advancing any further. A common mistake some hunters make is to set up
where they can see for a long way. While it is nice to watch an
approaching tom from lets say 150 yards it is worthwhile to remember
that if the hunter can see that far then so can the gobbler. Turkeys
know what to expect when they hear another turkey. Moreover, turkey
ears can judge distance quite accurately and the location where the
call is coming from. With that said the tom knows where and when he can
expect so see what he came looking for. If he doesn’t he gets
suspicious. Wouldn’t you if you hear someone calling you but
don’t see that person anywhere?
While decoys help to give a visual stimuli to an approaching bird and
might even fool him into coming a little closer it also needs to be
said that turkeys, especially older, smarter gobblers, have become
quite wary of seeing other turkeys standing motionless around in the
landscape. A much better approach is to set up in such a way that the
tom has to walk within shooting range to see where the calling is
coming from. There are always features within the landscape that let
you choose a set up that will force the tom to come close.
One of my all times favourite features is a woodland or field corner.
Also setting up just below a small crest or on the tip of a thicket
will work just as well. Anywhere a turkey can’t see without
approaching to within 30 to 40 yards to the decoys and your calling
station is a good spot. A few years ago I guided a hunter and remember
that he was not very happy when I placed him around the corner of an
overgrown logging road that the turkeys used as route from their
roosting tree to an alfalfa field. “How I am supposed to see
when
a tom comes down the trail?” He complained. “Trust
me.” I said, “You will see him when he is close
enough to
shoot.” Sure enough a half hour into my first calling session
the
hunter almost grabbed his heart when a big tom came walking around the
corner looking for that hen he heard a half mile away. Had we set up
where the client wanted the tom would have seen from several hundred
yards away that there was nothing where he would expect to see a hen.
He would have stopped in his tracks and waited for a while and then
probably would have walked away. Toms know that turkey hens are not
invisible or just sit around motionlessly.
Another tactic I often employ works very well with two hunters. One
hunter is situated on the shooting set up and the second hunter who
does the calling takes up position behind the first hunter about 20
yards inside the woodlot or similar cover. When the tom approaches the
caller gets up and carefully walks in a straight line away from the
approaching tom into the cover. Every few steps the caller stops and
makes a few soft yelps and clucks, nothing to aggressive. Nothing
frustrates a gobbler more then coming to a hen only to find that
she’s walking away from him. With this set up I had toms
falling
over themselves running after the hen that dared to walk away. By doing
so they will run right in front of the gunner. Just make sure you have
plenty of good cover available while employing this tactic otherwise
the gobbler will detect you and the proverbial jig is up.
2. The
gobbler is already in the company of
hens.
This is without a question the toughest situation. Coaxing a tom away
from hens to follow another one is next to impossible. Since the
gobbler already is in lovely company there is no plausible reason why
he should risk loosing what he has by looking for another hen that
might or might not be interested in him. You can produce the most
enticing turkey love talk but the tom will not be swayed to leave his
hens. What to do?
Well, one of several tactics that have proven to work well is rather
than calling the gobbler- call the hens. Given the toms jealous nature
he will follow the hens. For this tactic a good set up and proper
camouflage are very important because now you have not just one set of
turkey eyes looking for you but two or even three turkeys looking for
you. One suspicious move on your part and the game is over before it
begins. Turkeys have incredible eyesight and it often has been said
that if a turkey in addition to his eyesight could smell as well as a
deer it would become unhuntable. So how do we call hens? Forget all
about normal love talk now it’s chitchat time. Listen to the
hen,
and if more than one is present then listen to the boss hen and then
match her, yelp for yelp, cluck for cluck. To be successful it is
important that you exactly repeat every “word” she
says,
right down to the tone and frequency. Play that answering back game for
a minute or two until you get her attention. Once she is onto you
don’t wait until the hen is done talking: instead, be rude
and
interrupt her every time she’s starting to talk. Nothing gets
a
hen more fired up then another hen cutting her off in mid sentence.
Hens will get so angry that quite often they will come running looking
for that disrespectful intruder and the tom will waddle busily after
her. The rest is up to you to make it count.
If you can’t bring the hens to you the next option is to
ambush
the gobbler. Put the calls away and observe in what direction the birds
are traveling, using a good pair of binoculars if necessary. The
turkeys, like all animals, have a natural tendency to follow the path
of least resistance. Use this habit to your advantage and try to
predict what route the birds are taking considering the terrain
features. Carefully try to loop in a big arch around the birds and get
ahead of them. Be fast but as quiet as you can and use every caution to
stay undetected from the traveling turkeys. Set up an ambush that will
take the turkeys past you and within shooting range.
Another tactic that can also work very well is to rush the birds and
scatter the flock. These is a very common tactic used during the fall
season but can work great on spring turkeys too. If you can’t
get
any closer then 70 to 100 yards, charge the flock, or where legal, send
a hunting dog to scatter the flock. The idea is to separate the tom
from the hens. Watch where the tom is flying or running and then
following him as soon he is out of sight. After a while the gobbler
will try to reunite with the hens or go and look for new company. Set
up near where the tom settled and start calling. Since he lost his hens
he may be willing to pay attention to your calling now.
3. The
access to your set up is blocked.
Many hunters have witnessed turkeys behaving very strangely at times.
For example, a turkey doesn’t really mind flying across a
river
or ravine, walk across a small shallow creek, a road or slip under
barbwire fences, or navigate through a thicket to find food and shelter
but no matter how desperate a tom is for female company he will rarely
if ever cross an obstacle to follow hen calls. This has to do with the
fact that male turkeys are male chauvinists. They will go only so far
and then fully expect the female to come the rest of the way to them.
One time I watched a gobbler strutting back and forth along a field
edge getting more and more agitated as his head turned from a purple
red to a dark blue and back to fire red again. Each time I called he
answered with more anger and frustration added to his thundering
gobbles. But no matter how sweet my hen music must have sounded to his
ears he would not come one step closer and kept pacing back and forth
along that same path. About a half hour into that game and with no
result I eventually got tired of it and had to find out what made that
bird walk back and forth. There was a small shallow ditch he could have
easily crossed but to the tom that was an obstacle he was not prepared
to cross. Nobody knows why toms refuse to cross barriers, or even
perceive such obstacles as barriers. By nature turkeys are good flyers
and very agile on their feet. As mentioned before turkeys are used to
flying and sometimes for great distances but not when they follow a hen
call. Like I said, they are male chauvinists.
The best solution to this problem is to avoid having any sort of
barriers between you and the turkeys. Good pre-season scouting helps
you to pinpoint all possible barriers. When hunting on short notice on
unfamiliar land, survey your surroundings before setting up to call.
But no matter how careful you are, if you hunt turkeys long enough
you’ll eventually get into a situation of facing the
formidable
task of trying to call a tom across a barrier. If the tom refuses to
oblige despite your best calling, shut up. The tom will get either
curious about the sudden silence and cross the barrier in a last ditch
effort to get to a hen that, to his mind, has lost interest in him, or
in most cases he looses interest and walks away. When this happens
watch where he walks and then quickly and carefully move to a better
place ahead of him and on his side of the barrier and then begin to
call him again.
Hunting the wily turkey is a challenge at the best of times and as more
hunters take to the woods each spring in pursuit of North
America’s largest game bird it will become an even bigger
challenge. Turkeys are smart and by nature also highly paranoid. This
can mean only one thing. We will see more and more gobblers hanging up
just outside the effective range of a shotgun. Yes, they seem to know
exactly how far a shotgun can spit its load of pellets too and so we
have to come up with tactics that get us closer to the tom or him
closer to us. I hope that some of the tactics I outlined here will help
you as much as they have me.
----------------------------------
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