THIS MONTH'S BOOK EXCERPT -- FEBRUARY, 2000
From Turkey
Hunting - A One Man Game, by Ken Morgan (color hardback, 194 pp., 1987)
From Chapter 9, “The Art of Calling Springtime Gobblers”:
The vocabulary of the wild turkey needs to be examined so at
least we can be together on our terminology.
I will list only those calls of the wild turkey with which
I am familiar. There
may be some rackets of the bird not listed.
Some folks describe sounds and make noises with turkey
callers which I have never heard.
I would strongly suggest that you listen to real turkeys at
every opportunity – wild turkeys if at all possible.
I have heard recordings which were clearly tame turkeys.
Sometimes, word descriptions of the various calls are
inadequate, but I will try to give you an idea of what the sounds
are like. I will also
include a rough idea of how the sounds fit into calling plans.
Yelping
Yelping is the most common form of communication among
turkeys. There are
several kinds of yelps and they may be recognized after you hear
them a few times.
Tree Yelps are short nasal yelps with a quick
little tempo having three to eight notes per series of calls.
These soft yelps are emitted by turkeys very early in the
morning, often while it is too dark to see the ground. Hens,
especially, use this sort of communication to reassure themselves
that there are indeed other members of the flock close by.
In a hunting situation, it is a good call to use after you
have roosted a big gobbler the evening before.
I like to make the tree yelp about three or four times just
about the time the towhees begin to sing at dawn, but only when I
know exactly where the gobbler is roosting.
I used to make the sound every morning, but I found that it
is tough to start your calling before good light only to learn all
too soon that a big gobbler is roosted right over your head. You
will find that gobblers do not answer the tree yelp as readily as
some of the other calls, but they most assuredly will come to
where you make this call. Be
prepared at all times when you imitate the tree yelp.
A gobbler may swoop down on top of you.
Conversational Yelps are exchanged among members of a
moving, feeding flock.
These flat monotoned yelps are usually accompanied by some
contentment purring as the flock keeps in close touch with each
other as they feed along. If
I am well hidden and a group of turkeys moves by, I will use the
conversational yelp to try to entice the whole band to swing by
closer to me. In the
early part of most spring turkey seasons, you may see five or six
hens leading a big old gobbler around.
The conversational yelp probably does not work that much
better than any of the other sounds for getting the whole bunch
close to you, but I have a lot of confidence in it and it can be
imitated with a number of types of callers.
The Lonesome Hen Yelp is also known as the plain hen
yelp. It is a five to
ten note call which has an inquisitive or plaintif tone as if to
ask, Where are you? This
is the call turkeys use if they do not get together immediately
after flying down from their roosts and starting toward the
feeding grounds. It
is still the standard call to make at any gobbler at any time when
hunting.
The Assembly Yelp and The Lost Yelp are very
similar in sound. The
assembly yelp of old hens proceeds with each note being the same
as the notes preceding; whereas the lost yelp seems to increase in
urgency and there is a perceptible rise in pitch in each
succeeding note. The
lost yelp of young turkeys is often accompanied by the Kee Kee Kee
whistling types of sounds. The
assembly yelp is usually raspy and loud; both calls are demands
upon other members of the flock to gather close by the sound
producer. Loud
assembly calling early in a turkey season is very effective in
calling unseasoned gobblers.
Gobblers get wise to this type of calling in a hurry, no
matter what kind of device you may choose to imitate the sound
with, simply because the entire flock knows the voice of the
assembly hen of that group.
Quavers are extremely soft yelps which are very slow in
rhythm. For reasons
unknown to me, most series of quavers contain exactly three notes.
The call is used by turkeys which have lost visual contact
with their companions in dense cover.
It is a quiet “come here” sort of sound.
It is a deadly call to use on a gobbler which may have hung
up just out of sight.
Clucks/Putts
These important communications sounds are poorly understood.
While each variety of cluck and putt does have a slightly
different sound, it is the sequence and circumstance of their
use which tells other turkeys what is going on.
Clucks and putts may best be described as sharp sudden
call notes akin to the sound of an acorn falling into water.
Assembly Clucks are single notes less than one
half of a second long. The
pitch is slightly higher at the end of each note.
The assembly cluck of a mature gobbler sounds like a stick
striking a hollow log. Both
hens and gobblers use the assembly cluck to signal a “come
here” disposition to unseen partners of the species.
When using this cluck or any other, it is a safe bet to put
other turkey sounds with it, i.e., a cluck followed by a quaver,
or a cluck followed by a purr.
Identification Clucks are very similar to alarm
putts and usually contain only a couple of notes. Turkeys use this sound to demand upon the intruder to
identify itself. Alarm Putts are even
sharper than ID clucks and there may be several notes of alarm.
The alarm putt can change into ID clucks and back to alarm
putts again at the whim of the turkey making the sound.
The ID clucks accompanied by warning purrs are not nearly
as serious as a couple of putts followed by silence.
A couple of these ID clucks or putts will make smart
gobblers several hundred yards away stand up and listen and look
for as long as an hour.
Pitts are like mini putts, but have no resonance and are light textured.
These sounds are usually heard coming from nervous turkeys
on the roost. Pitts can change into cutts when these nervous turkeys are
about to fly down.
Cackles/Cutts
Cackles
are staccato series of sharp clucking sound which go up and then down
again in pitch. Usually
only one or two yelps follow the rapid series in a flying up to
roost situation. Sometimes
fifteen or twenty full fledged yelps will follow the cackle series
in a flying down from the roost situation.
The fast cut-cut sounds associated
with yelping indicate impatience on the part of the turkeys.
There are times when agitated, nervous, or worried turkeys
will make a series of cutts which sound like putts, clucks, and
pitts, all rolled into one series.
Any of these excited sounds may bring a response from a big
tom at any time of the day. They
may also make a big tom skedaddle.
These sounds, the cackle and the cutts, also are picked up
on quickly by gobblers. For that matter, I guess any sound can be picked up on by a
wise gobbler.
Purrs
There are several kinds of purring
noises emitted by turkeys in several situations.
Each purr is unique and has a different meaning.
Contentment
Purrs are very high pitched sounds
lasting about one second each.
The beginning and the end of this purr has the same pitch.
A true contentment cannot be heard by a human more than one hundred feet.
Of course turkeys make purrs a little louder at times, but
this is normally a very quiet communication among turkeys which
are together. A cluck
followed by a purr is a deadly call to use on springtime gobblers. I like to vary the resonance factor of my clucks and purrs so
that the calling seems to be moving around and sounds like more
than one turkey.
Warning
Purrs or Investigative Purrs are louder and longer than
contentment purrs and the pitch at the end of each note is higher
than that of the beginning. Turkeys
which have spotted something out of the ordinary will emit this
warning purr and they will couple that with ID clucks, not so
urgent purrs, and even yelps.
As their source of agitation increases, so will the urgency
and loudness of this type of purring.
Aggravated
Purrs are even louder, longer, and much
harsher than the warning purrs.
This call denoted anger.
It too is accompanied by clucks, cutts, and all sorts of
noises. Gobblers in
particular, sound off in this fashion when a fight is in the
making. An imitation
of the aggravates purr followed by the imitation of a young
gobbler’s gobble will sometimes make an old boss gobbler come
right to you.
Kee Kee Notes
Kee-Kee-Kee is an apt
description of the call notes of very young turkeys of the year.
Even after turkeys mature, especially hens, they may retain
these whistling sounds as part of their calling.
Kee Kee notes are often heard prior to all sorts of yelps.
Kee Kee sounds ahead of your imitations may add a little
flavor to your calling if you are proficient at making them.
Singing Sounds
Turkeys make a wide variety of little noises when they are
loafing, dusting, and feeding.
They are invariably soft little rackets with no set
pattern. One of these little sounds can be described as the phrase
“yew—yew----yew—yew----yew—yew” in a high nasal voice.
If you can imitate one of these sounds exactly like a wild
turkey, it will be helpful in assuring an old monarch that you are
the real McCoy.
Gobbling
Gobbling is the sound which we go to the woods to hear.
It is well known that turkeys gobble just because they feel
like it. They also
use the gobble to alert hens of their whereabouts. The gobble is also a vocal challenge to other gobblers within
hearing or sight. Each
age group of gobblers can be identified by their gobble calls.
Jakes or one year old gobblers can be best be described as
having a guttural gobble with all the notes running together in a
jumbled fashion. Jakes
are sporadic gobblers; they gobble when the mood strikes them.
When jakes become aroused, they can be among the noisiest
creatures on earth. They
are very stupid during their first spring and it is a sin to shoot
one of them.
Two Year Old Gobblers have a gobble which has a
very distinct first note, a sort of CUTT! at the beginning of the
call. These birds are
not usually dominant in an area, so are constantly jockeying for a
better position in the peck order.
They gobble aggressively and are easily led to a caller.
When two or more gobblers of this age group are together,
they will sometimes gobble simultaneously.
I don’t know how they accomplish this.
Assembly calls are deadly on two year old birds.
I have seen two year old gobblers with eleven inch beards
and with spurs more than an inch long.
Three
Year Old Gobblers or mature gobblers have gobbles
which have distinctly separate notes throughout the call.
You can hear each note individually.
Some four year old gobblers sound like this and some two
year old toms also have this kind of gobble.
The gobbling of mature gobblers is usually loud.
The mature birds are on top of the peck order in their part
of the world. They
may accept younger birds in their presence during the spring if
the younger toms show no threats or signs of mating behavior.
Mature gobblers can often be enraged by imitating the
sounds of another gobbler.
Old
Monarchs more than four years of age have
been lucky or real good at what they do.
These turkeys are real sharp, their gobbles being shrill
sounds with rattle effects on the end.
Six year old birds and older sound like a shaking can full
of ball bearings when they gobble.
The quiet approach is best on these turkeys.
Unless you have a pair of old buddies who have been
together from day one, the old monarch does not normally accept
stragglers or intermediate aged gobblers at their sides in the
spring or winter. You
will find that these old birds will have a set pattern to their
daily activities most of the time.
They can be extremely difficult to call and getting one of
these longbeards is quite a feat.
Squawking/Screeching
The screeching or squawking of a
wild turkey is a wild sound.
It sounds something like a startled Great Blue Heron.
The sound is made by toms who have been waiting for that
elusive little hen to show up and have grown tired of waiting. The impatience shown by a screeching gobbler is not to be
taken lightly. These
gobblers are among the slickest you will ever encounter.
My pulse rate quicken when I hear a gobbler squawk, because
I know that he must be a dandy turkey.
Some veteran hunters consider the screech to be an aborted
gobble or just the high frequency portion of a gobble.
Drumming/Strutting
The “Pfffft!”
“Vvrroooooom” sound emitted by a male turkey is an amazing
sound. The “Pffft!”
portion is completely independent of the “Vvrroooooom” part
and the two different sounds are sometimes made independently of each other.
Sometimes an old gobbler will only make one of the two
sounds. It is not
necessary for the gobbler to be in the strutting posture for him
to make either of these sounds.
At times the gobbler will emit the “Vvrroooooom” sound
while he is just walking along.
Maybe they use this sound to attract hens—I don’t know.
A hunter with good hearing can hear a turkey drum about one
hundred yards away.
