Page 36 - Outdoor Oklahoma Magazine Mar-Apr2023

MORGEN/FLICKR CC-BYNCSA2 like that can scare him off, so I try to be seductive (difficult for an old guy). I’ve had
birds not answer for 30 minutes, and so I stood up to move a little and there he was,
approaching silently.

“Walk carefully away from the bird to convince him you
are leaving .”

This can work well with two people, a caller and a shooter. The natural order is for
the hen to come to the gobbler. I’m trying to change that order. Thus, sometimes
the bird decides there’s no need to move and continues to answer and goes into
strut. But the bird isn’t about to come in. Some people gobble to add some com-
petition, but I don’t like to gobble as I can’t outrun another hunter’s shot. Thus, one
trick is to leave a shooter in place, and the caller can slowly back away from there,
putting more distance between the caller and the tom to simulate the hen leaving.

“Try again later when they’re alone .”
Typically around the second week of the season, the hens take off to nest about
mid-morning. Until then, the dominant tom has hens and is probably not interested
in pursuing another one. But sometimes lesser toms will break from the flock and
come in. I once had nine jakes leave the flock and fly across a creek to me; this is
highly unusual, but the dominant bird did not leave.
Another time, I called only twice when they flew down. My buddy didn’t have a
bird yet, and he was also calling to this flock, so I stayed quiet. About 9 a.m., a loud
gobble sounded off about 30 yards away. Sure enough, two mature toms came up
the creek looking everywhere for the hen that called only twice earlier. I think the
hens had all gone to nest and the toms were out looking. This also explains why
birds are often easy to call at midday. A
JOE CUMMINGS/READERS' PHOTO SHOWCASE 2018 “If you mess up calling,
lonely tom is usually very callable.

don’t go silent; call again
immediately .”

I once lived close to a large flock of
turkeys and spent many hours just lis-
tening to them. You can learn many
things by doing this and one of them
is that turkeys screw up also. People
sometimes choke or stutter when
talking to each other. Why are we sur-
prised to hear that turkeys do also and
that turkeys don’t all sound alike?
When I call and mess up, my natu-
ral reaction is to shut up and compose
myself. This is the worst thing I can do,
as it calls attention to my screwup. Thus, I continue calling and even call more right
after a screwup. I’ve had birds go silent when I screw up. But, I’ve also had birds seem-
ingly not notice if I quickly resume calling. If I continue to screw up, I know I should go
home and practice.

34 OUTDOOR OKLAHOMA