Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 761: Foundations - How to Truly Learn to Talk Turkey

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Ep. 761: Foundations - How to Truly Learn to Talk Turkey · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host,
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Late. Today is
0:25
Speaker 2: another extra special extra episode dedicated to learning how to
0:30
Speaker 2: speak turkeys, which is something that almost everyone thinks they
0:34
Speaker 2: can do, but it's actually a little trickier and more
0:37
Speaker 2: nuanced than it seems. I know you've heard about it,
0:50
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you anyway. Meat Eater has a crazy
0:54
Speaker 2: turkey week going on right now. What that means for
0:58
Speaker 2: you is, if you're like, hey, I'd like to see
1:00
Speaker 2: some more turkey hunting content, or read about turkeys, or
1:03
Speaker 2: listen about turkeys or whatever, you can head over to
1:06
Speaker 2: the meat eater dot com and find all kinds of content.
1:10
Speaker 2: You'll also see that we are having one hell of
1:13
Speaker 2: a sale on a lot of our best turkey hunting gears,
1:17
Speaker 2: So if you're thinking about loading up before the season
1:19
Speaker 2: gets here, this is a good week to do. It
1:21
Speaker 2: because we have some deep discounts over there. Now, I
1:29
Speaker 2: want to talk about calling probably my favorite part of
1:33
Speaker 2: turkey hunting, especially when you combine it with good decoys.
1:37
Speaker 2: You know, and I know that most people would probably
1:39
Speaker 2: say calling them is you know, favorite part of turkey hunting,
1:43
Speaker 2: which is no surprise, it's just pretty cool. You know.
1:46
Speaker 2: That goes for l hunting too. The thing about calling
1:50
Speaker 2: turkeys is that you can be pretty bad at it
1:52
Speaker 2: and have it work sometimes, but it won't consistently work
1:56
Speaker 2: well unless you know you always hunt unpressured birds. If
2:00
Speaker 2: you don't, but you still love to try to work
2:02
Speaker 2: in birds in the spring, then understanding what calls to
2:05
Speaker 2: make and when to make them is I don't know,
2:08
Speaker 2: like seventy percent of the battle. It's also what this
2:11
Speaker 2: whole podcast is all about. Back in my high school days,
2:14
Speaker 2: I was not what you would call a model student.
2:18
Speaker 2: I'm really more of a season b's with an occasional
2:21
Speaker 2: DS in there kind of guy, you know, if you
2:23
Speaker 2: get my drift. I don't remember when exactly this was,
2:27
Speaker 2: but I think I was a sophomore maybe a junior
2:29
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, But in high school I ended up taking
2:31
Speaker 2: a Spanish class missus Laver was the teacher, and she
2:36
Speaker 2: did not like me a whole lot. She had good reason,
2:39
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to hold that against her. It
2:41
Speaker 2: had to be frustrating for her since she was trying
2:44
Speaker 2: to teach a foreign language to a bunch of kids
2:47
Speaker 2: who lived in a town of two thousand people, many
2:50
Speaker 2: of whom probably couldn't find Mexico on a map let
2:53
Speaker 2: alone any of the other nations that speak Spanish. If
2:57
Speaker 2: it wasn't bad enough teaching those kids that some inanimate
3:01
Speaker 2: objects have a gender in Espanol, I personally just wasn't
3:06
Speaker 2: great at learning the language. I did. After venting to
3:10
Speaker 2: my older sister about my struggles in missus Laver's class,
3:13
Speaker 2: find out that she had kept all of her old
3:15
Speaker 2: tests from the same classes. So I used those as
3:19
Speaker 2: my study guides, and let me tell you, it made
3:21
Speaker 2: things a hell of a lot easier because they were
3:24
Speaker 2: the exact same test that I had to take. They
3:27
Speaker 2: consisted of several parts, multiple choice true and false, and
3:31
Speaker 2: an essay portion. Now I aced the first two parts,
3:36
Speaker 2: but got dinged pretty heavily on my essay portion, even
3:39
Speaker 2: though what I wrote was nearly a word for word.
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Speaker 2: What my sister had written and she had received a's
3:46
Speaker 2: for it. It was one of the first times I
3:48
Speaker 2: realized how even a little bit of power can be
3:51
Speaker 2: used to punish someone else. It was also a tricky situation.
3:55
Speaker 2: I couldn't call her out for giving my sister a's
3:58
Speaker 2: and me ses when our work was nearly identical, because well,
4:04
Speaker 2: I was cheating in a way, so was she. Though
4:07
Speaker 2: In the end, I took two Spanish classes with her
4:10
Speaker 2: and we both moved on with our lives, and it
4:12
Speaker 2: wasn't until quite a few years later that I spent
4:16
Speaker 2: any time in countries where Spanish was the language. On
4:21
Speaker 2: trips with my wife, things are pretty easy because she's
4:23
Speaker 2: fluent in Spanish, and we'll show you that anytime there's
4:27
Speaker 2: a remote opportunity to flex her linguistic muscles. Now. When
4:32
Speaker 2: we traveled together, that was great. But I had a
4:34
Speaker 2: crazy work trip to Argentina one time to hunt doves
4:37
Speaker 2: and ducks where the missus wasn't along, and I found
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Speaker 2: myself with three other people trying to navigate the streets
4:43
Speaker 2: of Buenos Aires and one nightmare airport in Cordoba. I
4:49
Speaker 2: had the most Spanish speaking skills out of the four
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Speaker 2: of us, and it quickly became apparent that I could
4:55
Speaker 2: just barely read and speak enough to keep us some
5:00
Speaker 2: on the right track and somewhat hold the conversation with
5:04
Speaker 2: the locals, provided they spoke really slow and deliberately and
5:07
Speaker 2: they pantomimed a lot. That trip showed me that you
5:11
Speaker 2: can hobble and limp your way through if you have
5:14
Speaker 2: a cursory understanding of a foreign language, but it takes
5:18
Speaker 2: work to be fluent, truly fluent. I know you know
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Speaker 2: where I'm going with this, and the best part is
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Speaker 2: that it's a hell of a lot easier to speak
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Speaker 2: Turkey than it is to be able to divine the
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Speaker 2: exact location of your flight's gate in a crazy busy
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Speaker 2: airport while talking to an excited Spanish speaking person who
5:37
Speaker 2: has had just about enough of slow, dim witted Americans.
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Speaker 2: Turkey talk is mostly pretty easy, but it's also something
5:46
Speaker 2: that is really hard to learn by listening to some
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Speaker 2: dude blabber away on a podcast. Since that's what we
5:53
Speaker 2: have going on, I'm going to give it my best
5:55
Speaker 2: shot anyway, So I'll say this, the first and most
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Speaker 2: important call is you guessed it the quadruple gobble. Just kidding,
6:04
Speaker 2: it's the yelp. This call, which is like a subtle
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Speaker 2: two note call that occurs usually in sequences of three
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Speaker 2: to maybe seven, is the hey, where are you call
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Speaker 2: of turkeys, and it's also the I'm right here call
6:20
Speaker 2: of turkeys. Hens keep track of each other with yelps,
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Speaker 2: and when toms do it, it's usually because they've been
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Speaker 2: separated from their buddies, often in the fall, although probably
6:29
Speaker 2: all year long. The yelp is generally what we use
6:33
Speaker 2: to get tom's to gobble and come in now. Back
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Speaker 2: when turkey hunting was just spreading from the Deep South
6:40
Speaker 2: to the rest of the country, it was pretty common
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Speaker 2: for hunters to yelp three times and shut up for
6:46
Speaker 2: an hour. That's dumb, don't do that. Real turkeys don't
6:51
Speaker 2: yelp three times and shut up, so why would you.
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Speaker 2: In fact, real turkeys actually talk a lot. They just
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Speaker 2: often get a little quiet when they dealing with plenty
7:00
Speaker 2: of hunters or plenty of non human predators. The ability
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Speaker 2: to produce soft, subtle yelps and all out where the
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Speaker 2: hell are you yelps it's really the cornerstone of calling
7:11
Speaker 2: in birds. If you can't produce quality yelps, you are
7:15
Speaker 2: in trouble. My go to calls are mouth calls and
7:19
Speaker 2: slate calls, although I think pretty much every call on
7:21
Speaker 2: the market will let you make a yelp. That's just
7:24
Speaker 2: what I use for a variety of reasons, mostly because
7:27
Speaker 2: I think you can get more inflection in a mouth
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Speaker 2: call than anything else. It's also the most convenient, and
7:33
Speaker 2: I like slate calls because they're just a nice compliment.
7:36
Speaker 2: When you need subtlety or extra sounds. When you're using
7:40
Speaker 2: a mouth call, you know a box callar a push
7:42
Speaker 2: button call will work for this too. If you're just
7:45
Speaker 2: looking to get a bird to fire up, start quiet,
7:48
Speaker 2: do a sequence of yelps. Pay attention to your cadence.
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Speaker 2: Don't go too fast. Way Too many turkey hunters yelp
7:56
Speaker 2: way too fast, and it just sounds unnatural. You almost
8:01
Speaker 2: can't go too slow with this, but it's very easy
8:04
Speaker 2: to go too fast. If you don't get a response,
8:08
Speaker 2: ratchet up the volume, don't change anything else, though. You're
8:12
Speaker 2: just looking to see if someone will talk. Often it's
8:15
Speaker 2: not a tom that will answer, but a hen. This
8:18
Speaker 2: is almost as good if a hen responds to yelping,
8:21
Speaker 2: which she will mostly by yelping on her own. It's
8:25
Speaker 2: time to have a conversation. Try to call her in
8:28
Speaker 2: instead of just calling to keep her talking what she says.
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Speaker 2: Say back to her, but a little more aggressively cut
8:37
Speaker 2: her off. Sometimes they're just letting you know they're over there.
8:41
Speaker 2: Sometimes they are open to coming in. I'm of the
8:44
Speaker 2: opinion that the more live hens I get around, especially
8:48
Speaker 2: if they're making noise, the better things are going to
8:50
Speaker 2: go for me. Plus, having hens around teaches you to
8:54
Speaker 2: call better than working a gobbler in and killing him. Now,
8:58
Speaker 2: you can keep yelping in a slow, drawn out sequence,
9:01
Speaker 2: which will keep the temperature of the encounter pretty low.
9:04
Speaker 2: Or you can throw some stank on it, which is
9:06
Speaker 2: what I like to do. While the yelp is the
9:09
Speaker 2: flour and eggs you need to make, the cake, cutting
9:12
Speaker 2: is the frosting. Now, you could kill Turkey's your whole
9:25
Speaker 2: life and never do anything other than yelp, but you
9:28
Speaker 2: won't kill as many or have as many really fun
9:30
Speaker 2: encounters if you don't learn to cut. This is the
9:33
Speaker 2: call that changes the vibe out there, mostly for the better.
9:37
Speaker 2: A cut is like an emotional call. Birds do it
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Speaker 2: when they were pissed off or excited or both. You
9:44
Speaker 2: want birds to cut, and the best way to do
9:47
Speaker 2: this is to cut. This is a call that takes confidence.
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Speaker 2: It's a somewhat rapid fire call that might start out
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Speaker 2: quiet in a sequence but should end up pretty Loud
10:00
Speaker 2: calls are great for this, so or pot calls and
10:03
Speaker 2: box calls. Whatever you use, learn to produce loud, crisp,
10:09
Speaker 2: sharp cuts. This is the best way to get a
10:12
Speaker 2: hen fired up, and if you can get a dominant
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Speaker 2: hen to start jawjacking you with cuts while you cut
10:18
Speaker 2: right back nearby, tom's are very very likely to respond.
10:24
Speaker 2: If you don't have a live hen to work with,
10:26
Speaker 2: you can still create these cuts, but it's best to
10:29
Speaker 2: mix in some other calling to make it sound like
10:31
Speaker 2: multiple birds are mixing it up. Now. On a side note,
10:35
Speaker 2: if you hear a bird cutting somewhere near your decoys,
10:39
Speaker 2: get ready. Hens do this, of course, but toms often
10:43
Speaker 2: do this when they get eyes on the decoy. Solo
10:46
Speaker 2: birds don't seem to do this as much as pair
10:48
Speaker 2: it up birds or birds with multiple buddies. But if
10:51
Speaker 2: you're sitting out there and can't see a bird and
10:53
Speaker 2: suddenly hear one cutting, get ready. They are on the way,
10:56
Speaker 2: and they are not likely to take their time getting
10:59
Speaker 2: to you. This call is also a great way to
11:02
Speaker 2: save an encounter if you get busted by a bird.
11:05
Speaker 2: Now this doesn't work every time, but if you're in
11:07
Speaker 2: a blind reaching for your bow and a hen spots
11:10
Speaker 2: you and starts to put it's time to cut back.
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Speaker 2: As long as they only saw something that made them
11:16
Speaker 2: a little nervous, without seeing something that proved a big,
11:19
Speaker 2: nasty predator was right there, they will act a little boogery,
11:22
Speaker 2: but sometimes they just seem to forget why they were nervous.
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Speaker 2: This is the only call I've ever used that works
11:29
Speaker 2: this way, and like I said, doesn't work all the time,
11:32
Speaker 2: but I do it one hundred percent of the time.
11:34
Speaker 2: If I get busted and a bird starts putting at me,
11:38
Speaker 2: figure out what cutting really sounds like, and then work
11:41
Speaker 2: hard to be able to do it. I think this
11:44
Speaker 2: is as valuable as being good at yelping, and we
11:48
Speaker 2: all know how valuable that is. Now, you also have
11:52
Speaker 2: purring and clucking, which are not as popular, but they're
11:55
Speaker 2: valuable in their own right. A purring or softly clucking
11:59
Speaker 2: hen is a hen that is pretty content if you're
12:02
Speaker 2: only a shotgu on turkey hunter, you might not have
12:06
Speaker 2: as much experience listening to real birds make these two calls.
12:09
Speaker 2: This is a close game kind of call, and it
12:12
Speaker 2: really didn't hit home for me on how much birds
12:15
Speaker 2: make these two calls until I started fall hunting like
12:18
Speaker 2: crazy and then bow hunting spring birds. A lot. Some hens,
12:23
Speaker 2: when the mood is right, seem to never shut up.
12:26
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere coming from
12:28
Speaker 2: a guy who lives with three women, but I'll let
12:30
Speaker 2: it pass. Clucking and purring is a confidence signal that
12:35
Speaker 2: all is quiet on the Old Western front. When you
12:38
Speaker 2: have a hen around you that won't get into a
12:40
Speaker 2: screaming match, the best tactic is to sweet talker. I
12:45
Speaker 2: use a slate call almost always for this task. It's
12:48
Speaker 2: possible with a lot of other calls, but producing soft
12:51
Speaker 2: purrs and clocks with a slate is easy and it
12:54
Speaker 2: sounds so good. If you have a hen in the
12:57
Speaker 2: decoys and want to keep her around, this is your move.
13:01
Speaker 2: Near constant, low level chatter is ideal. Oftentimes they'll lay
13:06
Speaker 2: right down in the decoys and they almost always carry
13:09
Speaker 2: their half of the conversation. This is a great move.
13:13
Speaker 2: If you have a hen in the woods with you
13:15
Speaker 2: but you can't see her, she'll keep you updated on
13:17
Speaker 2: her movements through her own purring and clucking and often
13:21
Speaker 2: soft yelping, and if you carry on long enough, will
13:24
Speaker 2: almost always make a small move to show herself. She
13:28
Speaker 2: might have a silent gobbler on her tail, or might
13:31
Speaker 2: speak enough with you to bring in a nearby tom
13:34
Speaker 2: or jake. Again, having content birds near you that aren't
13:38
Speaker 2: afraid to have a conversation is what the whole thing
13:41
Speaker 2: is all about. As an added bonus, this is also
13:45
Speaker 2: a great situation to mix in some scratching. If you're
13:48
Speaker 2: already trying to give off the vibe of a hen
13:51
Speaker 2: or two loafing away in an area, the sound of
13:53
Speaker 2: scratching in the leaves can add a much needed compliment
13:57
Speaker 2: to the whole thing. In fact, I kill a one
14:00
Speaker 2: time that gobbled at me while I scratched out a
14:02
Speaker 2: spot to sit down. He heard me scratch, he gobbled,
14:06
Speaker 2: and by the time I had my shotgun in my
14:08
Speaker 2: lap and yelped, he was already running toward me. Scratching
14:12
Speaker 2: is an all clear signal, and it nearly always accompanies
14:16
Speaker 2: birds no matter where they are or what they are
14:19
Speaker 2: doing throughout the day. While most of the love goes
14:23
Speaker 2: to yelping and then cutting, if you hunt pressure birds
14:27
Speaker 2: a lot, learning to purr and cluck is super important.
14:31
Speaker 2: This is my go to for a lot of my
14:33
Speaker 2: public land hunts because I think that birds that have
14:36
Speaker 2: been called to a lot just kind of like the
14:39
Speaker 2: soft cell approach. A lot of hunters out there, particularly
14:42
Speaker 2: the run and gun crowd, they don't do subtle tea
14:45
Speaker 2: very well. They do the same thing new elk hunters do,
14:49
Speaker 2: which is cover as much ground as possible while trying
14:52
Speaker 2: to get a critter to sound off. Sometimes it works,
14:56
Speaker 2: but as the season progresses, the ability to make it
14:59
Speaker 2: happen with if that method tends to diminish to the
15:02
Speaker 2: point where you're just praying to get close to an
15:04
Speaker 2: animal that is in the mood or that the conditions
15:07
Speaker 2: will just put them in the mood. Mostly neither happens.
15:11
Speaker 2: This is also a good strategy for the midday when
15:14
Speaker 2: birds seem to have lockjaw, because if the real birds
15:17
Speaker 2: aren't talking too much, you probably shouldn't be either. Now,
15:21
Speaker 2: another call that's at least worth learning is a gobble.
15:26
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know if I've ever gobbled in a tom.
15:29
Speaker 2: I'm hesitant to gobble in most of my hunting situations
15:33
Speaker 2: because I'd rather not get shot in the face. I
15:36
Speaker 2: just don't want to sound like the thing that other
15:38
Speaker 2: hunters are trying to shoot if I can help it. Now,
15:41
Speaker 2: there are situations where gobbling is totally safe and can work,
15:45
Speaker 2: but for me, it's probably the best locator call I've
15:49
Speaker 2: ever used. I use a mouth call and shake my
15:53
Speaker 2: head like a lunatic when I do it, but it
15:55
Speaker 2: sounds good enough. You can use a gobble shaker if
15:58
Speaker 2: you need to, or learn how to do it. On
16:00
Speaker 2: a box call. The goal is to be loud and
16:04
Speaker 2: sound like a gobble. That's about it. For finding roosted
16:08
Speaker 2: birds in the pre dawn darkness, or to get some
16:10
Speaker 2: intel at night so you know where to set up
16:13
Speaker 2: in the morning. A gobble is as good or better
16:16
Speaker 2: than any locator call I've ever used. Coyote and owl
16:21
Speaker 2: calls will get hot birds going no matter what, but
16:24
Speaker 2: a gobble seems to get all of the birds to respond.
16:28
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's almost not fair. Now. It's also a great
16:32
Speaker 2: way to locate a bird at noon when you haven't
16:34
Speaker 2: heard a real gobble in four hours. But I always
16:37
Speaker 2: use some other locator first, often a crow call. A
16:41
Speaker 2: crow call doesn't tell a nearby bird anything, so it's
16:44
Speaker 2: a free play. If he responds, he's not immediately going
16:48
Speaker 2: to run over the hill to see if a crow
16:50
Speaker 2: is in a tree, but when you gobble, he might.
16:53
Speaker 2: This means that you can use a crow or an
16:55
Speaker 2: owl call like crazy and not really change the dynamic
16:58
Speaker 2: around yourself as far as what unseen Toms might think.
17:03
Speaker 2: A gobble is different. And while it's a hell of
17:05
Speaker 2: a good way to get a response, it's also, at
17:08
Speaker 2: least in my experience, a hell of a good way
17:10
Speaker 2: to not call in birds. I think it's kind of
17:13
Speaker 2: like a snort wheeze for whitetails. When you run into
17:16
Speaker 2: the right buck, it's almost like cheating to snortweeze when
17:20
Speaker 2: you run into most bucks, it's almost like the opposite.
17:23
Speaker 2: Gobbling seems to work that way with Tom's, And of
17:26
Speaker 2: course there are other calls too, or variations of them anyway,
17:30
Speaker 2: bubble clucks the kind that pop at the end, or
17:33
Speaker 2: tree yelps, which I guess are kind of just soft
17:35
Speaker 2: yelps at first light mostly though. There are only a
17:38
Speaker 2: few types of calls you need to learn, but then
17:42
Speaker 2: you need to learn how to make them sound like
17:44
Speaker 2: they would if real turkey was making them in a
17:46
Speaker 2: real situation. This requires experience listening to real birds and
17:52
Speaker 2: eventually talking to them. This is like the same beneficial
17:56
Speaker 2: level as winter scouting white tails. You know from January
18:01
Speaker 2: to let's say April. The more you do either, the
18:06
Speaker 2: better you get it. The whole thing. I don't know
18:09
Speaker 2: how to put it any differently, if I'm being honest,
18:11
Speaker 2: practice your calls when you can learn how to confidently
18:15
Speaker 2: mix up your Turkey language to make it sound like
18:17
Speaker 2: you're not hesitant or anxious to get the sequence over with.
18:21
Speaker 2: If you can't get something right, it's either you or
18:23
Speaker 2: the call. This is a hard one to get across,
18:26
Speaker 2: but for some reason, some calls work well for some
18:28
Speaker 2: people while theres don't. If you're struggling, try something different
18:33
Speaker 2: and be sure to pay attention, because I'm going to
18:37
Speaker 2: drop one more turkey episode this week so that by
18:40
Speaker 2: the time April rolls around you'll be ready to work
18:43
Speaker 2: birds in. Whether you hunt a banging spot no one
18:45
Speaker 2: else can hunt, or you have to spend your spring
18:47
Speaker 2: on public dirt trying to kill the same birds that
18:50
Speaker 2: everyone else is hunting, which is mostly what the whole
18:53
Speaker 2: next episode is going to be about. That's it for
18:58
Speaker 2: this show, But like I said, not this week, I've
19:00
Speaker 2: still got one more turkey episode coming your way here shortly.
19:05
Speaker 2: Like I said in the intro, I'm gonna say it again,
19:07
Speaker 2: we have a crazy Turkey Week campaign going on at
19:09
Speaker 2: the medeater dot com. Tons of new turkey content, crazy
19:14
Speaker 2: sales on some of the best turkey hunting gear out there.
19:17
Speaker 2: If you're interested in adding a little bit to your
19:20
Speaker 2: spring kit, go check it out at the mediater dot com.
19:23
Speaker 2: And as always, thank you so much for listening, so
19:26
Speaker 2: much for watching, and just so much for your support.
19:28
Speaker 2: We truly appreciate it here at Mediator