Page 34 - Outdoor Oklahoma Magazine Mar-Apr2023

DONNY WILLIAMS/READERS' PHOTO SHOWCASE 2018 beat the poop out of the bird on the
ground. However, I keep my shotgun on
the one I just shot. If he lifts his head, I
didn’t get a good shot. If he pulls his
legs under him, he may try to fly when I
stand. I’ve lost a bird when it flew after
I stood up.

“If the tom has hens with
him, he’s not about to leave
several good-looking girls
to go after one that he can’t
see . Get aggressive with
cackle calls only after he
gets hot .”
This one is fun but seems to work only
about half the time. I worked birds for
an hour only to see them moving left to
right with hens about 150 yards away. I
used aggressive assembly calls and had
their attention as they lifted their heads
and looked in my direction at every call.
The assembly call is a series of 10 or so
yelps in a demanding fashion, much like a hen calling to her chicks. That usually
draws gobbles, and it did. Immediately I cut off the gobble with an excited cackle,
which brings another round of gobbling. Then I repeated.
It’s important that I already had the birds hot. After the third set of these calls,
JERICK HENLEY/READERS' PHOTO SHOWCASE 2018 a dead bird on the ground.
I saw the birds say goodbye to the hens and start running in my direction. Rather
comically, at this point, they were sure of love and it became a race that ended with

The other half of the time when I try this, the birds seem to say, “Hey, I’ve got
pretty hens already here, but I’ll come back later.” If they do leave, I try to be patient
in case they come looking later.

“If they are close, in strut, and following hens, call the hens
and not the toms .”
Sometimes I’ll switch my calling to attract hens, not toms. If the hens come, the
toms will follow as if on a string. The cackle call tends to run off the hens, so be careful.
To learn how to call a hen, I spent many hours sitting close to roost trees and lis-
tening without any calling. I’ve also done this in a turkey barnyard. Contented flock
talk is a bunch of purrs, clucks, and very soft yelps, and it’s steady. So, I softly start
talking to them. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s neat.
The lead hens are listening, but they don’t really show me they are. They just sort
of turn and head my way slowly. I like to use decoys for this situation. I have three
hen decoys and a jake. I’ve created my own tom decoy with a real tail but am reluc-
tant to use it close to me for safety reasons.

32 OUTDOOR OKLAHOMA