Little response to hot calling this spring

[Pygmy]

I had an exceptional spring  and killed 4  longbeards in 12 days of hunting...I have not done that very many times in my 45 years of gobbler hunting...

One thing I noticed...I had very few, if ANY  responces to  excited yelping or cutting this spring.....

Generally, if a gobbler is at all interested in responding, I can trigger a gobble to some cutting or hot yelping..He may not COME, but he will gobble at it...

Not this spring....All my  gobbles came to clucking, purring, and soft conversational type yelps....Just an observation...Might not mean anything...

[TreeGuy]

I will wait for the god of gobblers to answer.... But I think it's your witty humor and charming good looks.

 

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[Pygmy]

You are probably right, Andrew....Point well taken.... Why didn't I think of that..?...

[kpkot]

9 minutes ago, TreeGuy said:

I will wait for the god of gobblers to answer.... But I think it's your witty humor and charming good looks.

 

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

Moog?

[ATbuckhunter]

All I know how to do well is are basic 5-7 note yelps. Thats whats been "working" for me over the years. 

[Uncle Nicky]

2 hours ago, ODYSSEUS said:

 My take and, I have to rush out the door soon is that the decendants of Gobblers who did not Gobble much are with us today. The More wary gobblers of the late 90s who did not come in to the Calls-- their genes are in the Turkeys of today and that includes  mature Hens in the Fall. Throw in hordes of great Turkey hunters and more and more Dawn Hikers,mountain bike riders,joggers, evening dirt bike riders, strings of ATVs on State Land out the back doors of 450 thousand+ Homes bordering State Land and you have what Alabama has. Super Wary wild Turkeys faced with more human and coyote hunters. The 1 Tom, I took this Spring on Tough Public Land is the new normal for me. Just happy to be out there though. That's my take. Again- not a expert and never will be. 

Bill, I really think there IS something to what you are saying here. I didn't get out nearly as much this spring as I have in past  years due to family obligations, but as usual, there wasn't the amount of gobbling I heard even 10 years ago in the morning. I got a couple to gobble late afternoon, but that was mostly shock responses. I do a lot of turkey hunting in southern Georgia, birds just DON'T gobble much there, that's just how it is; I feel blessed to know that it IS possible to kill birds that are tight-lipped (but definitely not as fun as playing with a screaming tom).

 

[LET EM GROW]

I think a lot of these birds just get a ton of pressure. Whether its us, the neighbors, the people driving by, calling at a bird we know we cant hunt just to get a gobble out of, the predators that are attracted when a tom gobbles and gives off his position. I think some of these birds can most definitely tell the difference between the hens they are around all year long. Ever have a tom answer to only the live hen and not you when you are trying to pull in one or the other? I can say these birds arent getting easier to hunt. Not sure if any predators can climb trees or not, but turkeys have predators all over the sky, and even more on the ground.. 

Ive had so much more luck the last 5 or more years when the hunting began getting tougher at my camp.. Just by scratching the leaves, and some soft clucks or soft yelps. We all know hens can get roudy in the woods, but its typically farther and few between when this happens. IMO. And everyone wants to call in a hot gobbling red head.. theyre the fun ones! 

Maybe its just me, but Turkeys have predators in every direction they go, more than anything else in the woods and the odds are not in their favor. I think they just adapt to their surroundings... Ie pressures

I got the birds we doubled on, to goblble 5 or 6 times around 10 am to some more aggressive calling, since they decided to gobble on their own. the only times they gobbled all morning, and they only gobbled once or twice when I missed them 2 weeks earlier. To close the deal.. the scratching in the leaves in a perfect position did the trick.. Again I could be way off from others ideas.. but this is what I gather from my experience at my camp.. So i try to do things the opposite I believe my neighbors to be doing.. 

Edited May 29, 2019 by LET EM GROW

[dbHunterNY]

i'll cut and string yelps at a good cadence.  not necessarily together, as if i'm a boss hen throwing out an assembly yelp. most of the time though its filler with clucks, purrs, and a short string of soft yelps on occasion. if you've ever had hens around you that's what they mostly do. on rare occasion you'll get a hen that won't shut up.  i'd rather have a chick speak to me soft and sweet then loud and never ending. lol  i feel like some people throw calls that should be quieter but aren't. like the hearing a hunter cluck and pur from the next mountain top over.

God i wished I could've gotten out more and didn't have so much going on that trumped my turkey season. this year i got hosed.

[turkeyfeathers]

I’m a purr and cluck , scratch leaves with 3-4 note yelps caller.  Sometimes in desperation I’ll cut  

I’ve gotten zero shock gobbles with hoot tube and zero with crow call this year. 

[dbHunterNY]

8 minutes ago, turkeyfeathers said:

I’m a purr and cluck , scratch leaves with 3-4 note yelps caller.  Sometimes in desperation I’ll cut  

I’ve gotten zero shock gobbles with hoot tube and zero with crow call this year. 

i have a crow call and a couple hoot tubes. rare the hoot tube works and never get the crow call to work. i could slam the truck door though and figure out where they are. lol

[Robhuntandfish]

same here .  I havent had a bird gobble to a single call this year. Had one in a field that i shot that gobbled but it had nothing to do with me.  Have heard maybe 4 gobbles all year total in the distance.  Even three years ago ive had them hammering back at me.  I know the birds are still there saw groups of Jakes in the fall several times.  Only reason i got the bird i did was cause i followed him field to field and got setup in the right spot.  

[Five Seasons]

have only been in the woods 4 times and 2 of those were post sunset. The 2 days I did get in on time I had good responses and went 1 for 2, and probably should have taken a shot at #2. 

[Pygmy]

10 hours ago, turkeyfeathers said:

I’m a purr and cluck , scratch leaves with 3-4 note yelps caller.  Sometimes in desperation I’ll cut  

I’ve gotten zero shock gobbles with hoot tube and zero with crow call this year. 

Never even took the crow call out of my vest this year, and in general, birds around me weren't gobbling to crows  much..

HOWEVER, I owe my first Canadian gobbler ( the one that beat me up) to a crow...He had not gobbled at all until a crow called directly over my head...He gobbled at that crow and alerted me that he was directly behind me...If not for that, I never would have known he was there, since my attention was focused on another bird that was gobbling about 100 yards in front of me...

BTW.. I'm still black and blue...<<sigh>>...

Edited May 29, 2019 by Pygmy

[stubborn1VT]

I only got out a handful of times.  I usually owl hoot with my voice to get a gobble on the roost.  That never happened this spring.  The birds either gobbled on their own, or not at all.  

I did get out one morning at the farm to call for my buddy.  We had birds gobbling all over the dang place.  Set up on a bird that was hot on the roost.  He hit the ground and went straight the other way.  I called to him but he just gobbled a few times on the ground.  While calling to him a bit another bird fired up in the field.  I moved to the field edge, but he wouldn't come in range..  Instead he circled us and went into the woods 200 yards away.  We backed up into the woods and he came in pretty quick.  I set up behind my buddy and the bird seemed to circle to the right.  My buddy shifted to his right and the bird must have doubled back because all the sudden he was there in full strut at 35 yards.  My buddy swung on him when he thought the tom's head was behind a blowdown.  He got caught and shot over the tom when he spooked.

While all of this was going on, I could hear a bird on the other side of the road, so we hoofed it straight down there.  I hit the slate on top of a hill and got a gobble right away.  It came from somewhere near a fast moving brook, so I couldn't tell how far.  We stood there looking for a spot to set up at the base of the hill and there was gobble.  The bird had cut the distance in half.  We jogged down the hill and found a big log to crouch behind.  I was fishing around in my pockets for my striker and here comes a red head and another bird behind that.  Right there, I told my buddy.  He shifted his gun and the jake caught him.  The jake didn't putt, just kind of tucked his head and slowly walked back into some small hemlocks.  The tom's view was blocked by the trunk of a spruce.  After a moment he stepped around the trunk into a completely clear lane.  BOOM.  My buddy flopped him at 40 yards.  It hadn't been 10 minutes since he missed the first tom.  

I guess my only point was that the birds WERE gobbling that morning.

The only bird I got aggressive with was the one that was in the field.  He was fired up and came into the woods with us instead of hanging up.  Once he was in the woods I clucked and yelped softly.  Wish I had got out more.  The wet weather has me so far behind that I can't afford to miss any opportunity to work outside.  I may try to sneak out for an hour or two on Friday.

[Five Seasons]

14 hours ago, Pygmy said:

Never even took the crow call out of my vest this year, and in general, birds around me weren't gobbling to crows  much..

HOWEVER, I owe my first Canadian gobbler ( the one that beat me up) to a crow...He had not gobbled at all until a crow called directly over my head...He gobbled at that crow and alerted me that he was directly behind me...If not for that, I never would have known he was there, since my attention was focused on another bird that was gobbling about 100 yards in front of me...

BTW.. I'm still black and blue...<<sigh>>...

same thing happened to me on a bird i passed at 35. Wouldn't have had a clue he was moving in silent if it wasn't for a loud crow buzz overhead. Pretty cool thing to experience.