Ep. 761: Foundations - How to Truly Learn to Talk Turkey

turkey week going on right now. What that means for you is, if you're like, hey, I'd like to see some more turkey hunting content, or read about turkeys, or listen about turkeys or whatever, you can head over to the meat eater dot com and find all kinds of content. You'll also see that we are having one hell of a sale on a lot of our best turkey hunting gears, So if you're thinking about loading up before the season gets here, this is a good week to do. It

because we have some deep discounts over there. Now, I want to talk about calling probably my favorite part of turkey hunting, especially when you combine it with good decoys. You know, and I know that most people would probably say calling them is you know, favorite part of turkey hunting, which is no surprise, it's just pretty cool. You know.

That goes for l hunting too. The thing about calling turkeys is that you can be pretty bad at it and have it work sometimes, but it won't consistently work well unless you know you always hunt unpressured birds. If you don't, but you still love to try to work in birds in the spring, then understanding what calls to make and when to make them is I don't know, like seventy percent of the battle. It's also what this

whole podcast is all about. Back in my high school days, I was not what you would call a model student. I'm really more of a season b's with an occasional DS in there kind of guy, you know, if you get my drift. I don't remember when exactly this was, but I think I was a sophomore maybe a junior doesn't matter, But in high school I ended up taking a Spanish class missus Laver was the teacher, and she did not like me a whole lot. She had good reason,

so I'm not going to hold that against her. It had to be frustrating for her since she was trying to teach a foreign language to a bunch of kids who lived in a town of two thousand people, many of whom probably couldn't find Mexico on a map let alone any of the other nations that speak Spanish. If it wasn't bad enough teaching those kids that some inanimate objects have a gender in Espanol, I personally just wasn't

great at learning the language. I did. After venting to my older sister about my struggles in missus Laver's class, find out that she had kept all of her old tests from the same classes. So I used those as my study guides, and let me tell you, it made things a hell of a lot easier because they were the exact same test that I had to take. They consisted of several parts, multiple choice true and false, and

an essay portion. Now I aced the first two parts, but got dinged pretty heavily on my essay portion, even though what I wrote was nearly a word for word. What my sister had written and she had received a's for it. It was one of the first times I realized how even a little bit of power can be used to punish someone else. It was also a tricky situation. I couldn't call her out for giving my sister a's and me ses when our work was nearly identical, because well,

I was cheating in a way, so was she. Though In the end, I took two Spanish classes with her and we both moved on with our lives, and it wasn't until quite a few years later that I spent any time in countries where Spanish was the language. On trips with my wife, things are pretty easy because she's fluent in Spanish, and we'll show you that anytime there's a remote opportunity to flex her linguistic muscles. Now. When

we traveled together, that was great. But I had a crazy work trip to Argentina one time to hunt doves and ducks where the missus wasn't along, and I found myself with three other people trying to navigate the streets

of Buenos Aires and one nightmare airport in Cordoba. I had the most Spanish speaking skills out of the four of us, and it quickly became apparent that I could just barely read and speak enough to keep us some on the right track and somewhat hold the conversation with the locals, provided they spoke really slow and deliberately and they pantomimed a lot. That trip showed me that you can hobble and limp your way through if you have a cursory understanding of a foreign language, but it takes

work to be fluent, truly fluent. I know you know where I'm going with this, and the best part is that it's a hell of a lot easier to speak Turkey than it is to be able to divine the exact location of your flight's gate in a crazy busy airport while talking to an excited Spanish speaking person who has had just about enough of slow, dim witted Americans. Turkey talk is mostly pretty easy, but it's also something that is really hard to learn by listening to some

dude blabber away on a podcast. Since that's what we have going on, I'm going to give it my best shot anyway, So I'll say this, the first and most important call is you guessed it the quadruple gobble. Just kidding, it's the yelp. This call, which is like a subtle two note call that occurs usually in sequences of three to maybe seven, is the hey, where are you call of turkeys, and it's also the I'm right here call

of turkeys. Hens keep track of each other with yelps, and when toms do it, it's usually because they've been separated from their buddies, often in the fall, although probably all year long. The yelp is generally what we use to get tom's to gobble and come in now. Back when turkey hunting was just spreading from the Deep South to the rest of the country, it was pretty common for hunters to yelp three times and shut up for

an hour. That's dumb, don't do that. Real turkeys don't yelp three times and shut up, so why would you. In fact, real turkeys actually talk a lot. They just often get a little quiet when they dealing with plenty of hunters or plenty of non human predators. The ability to produce soft, subtle yelps and all out where the hell are you yelps it's really the cornerstone of calling in birds. If you can't produce quality yelps, you are

in trouble. My go to calls are mouth calls and slate calls, although I think pretty much every call on the market will let you make a yelp. That's just what I use for a variety of reasons, mostly because I think you can get more inflection in a mouth call than anything else. It's also the most convenient, and I like slate calls because they're just a nice compliment. When you need subtlety or extra sounds. When you're using a mouth call, you know a box callar a push

button call will work for this too. If you're just looking to get a bird to fire up, start quiet, do a sequence of yelps. Pay attention to your cadence. Don't go too fast. Way Too many turkey hunters yelp way too fast, and it just sounds unnatural. You almost can't go too slow with this, but it's very easy to go too fast. If you don't get a response, ratchet up the volume, don't change anything else, though. You're just looking to see if someone will talk. Often it's

not a tom that will answer, but a hen. This is almost as good if a hen responds to yelping, which she will mostly by yelping on her own. It's time to have a conversation. Try to call her in instead of just calling to keep her talking what she says. Say back to her, but a little more aggressively cut her off. Sometimes they're just letting you know they're over there.

Sometimes they are open to coming in. I'm of the opinion that the more live hens I get around, especially if they're making noise, the better things are going to go for me. Plus, having hens around teaches you to call better than working a gobbler in and killing him. Now, you can keep yelping in a slow, drawn out sequence, which will keep the temperature of the encounter pretty low. Or you can throw some stank on it, which is

what I like to do. While the yelp is the flour and eggs you need to make, the cake, cutting is the frosting. Now, you could kill Turkey's your whole life and never do anything other than yelp, but you won't kill as many or have as many really fun encounters if you don't learn to cut. This is the call that changes the vibe out there, mostly for the better. A cut is like an emotional call. Birds do it when they were pissed off or excited or both. You want birds to cut, and the best way to do

this is to cut. This is a call that takes confidence. It's a somewhat rapid fire call that might start out quiet in a sequence but should end up pretty Loud calls are great for this, so or pot calls and box calls. Whatever you use, learn to produce loud, crisp, sharp cuts. This is the best way to get a hen fired up, and if you can get a dominant hen to start jawjacking you with cuts while you cut right back nearby, tom's are very very likely to respond.

If you don't have a live hen to work with, you can still create these cuts, but it's best to mix in some other calling to make it sound like multiple birds are mixing it up. Now. On a side note, if you hear a bird cutting somewhere near your decoys, get ready. Hens do this, of course, but toms often do this when they get eyes on the decoy. Solo birds don't seem to do this as much as pair it up birds or birds with multiple buddies. But if you're sitting out there and can't see a bird and

suddenly hear one cutting, get ready. They are on the way, and they are not likely to take their time getting to you. This call is also a great way to save an encounter if you get busted by a bird. Now this doesn't work every time, but if you're in a blind reaching for your bow and a hen spots you and starts to put it's time to cut back.

As long as they only saw something that made them a little nervous, without seeing something that proved a big, nasty predator was right there, they will act a little boogery, but sometimes they just seem to forget why they were nervous. This is the only call I've ever used that works this way, and like I said, doesn't work all the time, but I do it one hundred percent of the time. If I get busted and a bird starts putting at me, figure out what cutting really sounds like, and then work

hard to be able to do it. I think this is as valuable as being good at yelping, and we all know how valuable that is. Now, you also have purring and clucking, which are not as popular, but they're valuable in their own right. A purring or softly clucking hen is a hen that is pretty content if you're only a shotgu on turkey hunter, you might not have as much experience listening to real birds make these two calls.

This is a close game kind of call, and it really didn't hit home for me on how much birds make these two calls until I started fall hunting like crazy and then bow hunting spring birds. A lot. Some hens, when the mood is right, seem to never shut up. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere coming from a guy who lives with three women, but I'll let it pass. Clucking and purring is a confidence signal that

all is quiet on the Old Western front. When you have a hen around you that won't get into a screaming match, the best tactic is to sweet talker. I use a slate call almost always for this task. It's possible with a lot of other calls, but producing soft purrs and clocks with a slate is easy and it sounds so good. If you have a hen in the decoys and want to keep her around, this is your move.

Near constant, low level chatter is ideal. Oftentimes they'll lay right down in the decoys and they almost always carry their half of the conversation. This is a great move. If you have a hen in the woods with you but you can't see her, she'll keep you updated on her movements through her own purring and clucking and often soft yelping, and if you carry on long enough, will

almost always make a small move to show herself. She might have a silent gobbler on her tail, or might speak enough with you to bring in a nearby tom or jake. Again, having content birds near you that aren't afraid to have a conversation is what the whole thing is all about. As an added bonus, this is also

a great situation to mix in some scratching. If you're already trying to give off the vibe of a hen or two loafing away in an area, the sound of scratching in the leaves can add a much needed compliment to the whole thing. In fact, I kill a one time that gobbled at me while I scratched out a spot to sit down. He heard me scratch, he gobbled, and by the time I had my shotgun in my

lap and yelped, he was already running toward me. Scratching is an all clear signal, and it nearly always accompanies birds no matter where they are or what they are doing throughout the day. While most of the love goes to yelping and then cutting, if you hunt pressure birds a lot, learning to purr and cluck is super important. This is my go to for a lot of my public land hunts because I think that birds that have been called to a lot just kind of like the

soft cell approach. A lot of hunters out there, particularly the run and gun crowd, they don't do subtle tea very well. They do the same thing new elk hunters do, which is cover as much ground as possible while trying to get a critter to sound off. Sometimes it works, but as the season progresses, the ability to make it happen with if that method tends to diminish to the point where you're just praying to get close to an animal that is in the mood or that the conditions

will just put them in the mood. Mostly neither happens. This is also a good strategy for the midday when birds seem to have lockjaw, because if the real birds aren't talking too much, you probably shouldn't be either. Now, another call that's at least worth learning is a gobble. I honestly don't know if I've ever gobbled in a tom. I'm hesitant to gobble in most of my hunting situations because I'd rather not get shot in the face. I just don't want to sound like the thing that other

hunters are trying to shoot if I can help it. Now, there are situations where gobbling is totally safe and can work, but for me, it's probably the best locator call I've ever used. I use a mouth call and shake my head like a lunatic when I do it, but it sounds good enough. You can use a gobble shaker if you need to, or learn how to do it. On a box call. The goal is to be loud and

sound like a gobble. That's about it. For finding roosted birds in the pre dawn darkness, or to get some intel at night so you know where to set up in the morning. A gobble is as good or better than any locator call I've ever used. Coyote and owl calls will get hot birds going no matter what, but a gobble seems to get all of the birds to respond. Sometimes it's almost not fair. Now. It's also a great way to locate a bird at noon when you haven't heard a real gobble in four hours. But I always

use some other locator first, often a crow call. A crow call doesn't tell a nearby bird anything, so it's a free play. If he responds, he's not immediately going to run over the hill to see if a crow is in a tree, but when you gobble, he might. This means that you can use a crow or an owl call like crazy and not really change the dynamic around yourself as far as what unseen Toms might think.

A gobble is different. And while it's a hell of a good way to get a response, it's also, at least in my experience, a hell of a good way to not call in birds. I think it's kind of like a snort wheeze for whitetails. When you run into the right buck, it's almost like cheating to snortweeze when you run into most bucks, it's almost like the opposite.

Gobbling seems to work that way with Tom's, And of course there are other calls too, or variations of them anyway, bubble clucks the kind that pop at the end, or tree yelps, which I guess are kind of just soft yelps at first light mostly though. There are only a few types of calls you need to learn, but then you need to learn how to make them sound like they would if real turkey was making them in a real situation. This requires experience listening to real birds and

eventually talking to them. This is like the same beneficial level as winter scouting white tails. You know from January to let's say April. The more you do either, the better you get it. The whole thing. I don't know how to put it any differently, if I'm being honest, practice your calls when you can learn how to confidently mix up your Turkey language to make it sound like you're not hesitant or anxious to get the sequence over with. If you can't get something right, it's either you or

the call. This is a hard one to get across, but for some reason, some calls work well for some people while theres don't. If you're struggling, try something different and be sure to pay attention, because I'm going to drop one more turkey episode this week so that by the time April rolls around you'll be ready to work

birds in. Whether you hunt a banging spot no one else can hunt, or you have to spend your spring on public dirt trying to kill the same birds that everyone else is hunting, which is mostly what the whole next episode is going to be about. That's it for this show, But like I said, not this week, I've still got one more turkey episode coming your way here shortly. Like I said in the intro, I'm gonna say it again, we have a crazy Turkey Week campaign going on at

the medeater dot com. Tons of new turkey content, crazy sales on some of the best turkey hunting gear out there. If you're interested in adding a little bit to your spring kit, go check it out at the mediater dot com. And as always, thank you so much for listening, so much for watching, and just so much for your support. We truly appreciate it here at Mediator