Turkey Hunting: A Whole Song and Dance

I’ve hunted turkey for over a decade. What started as an excuse to spend time in the woods during the spring has evolved into an obsession. The call and response, the allure of the decoys, and the heart-pounding excitement add up to an intoxicating experience. A song and dance that has been around for millennia.

Turkey hunting begins, like most hunts, well before the sun rises. A proper turkey hunt actually starts the night before. Right after dark, you’ll find true turkey hunters quietly sneaking into the woods to “put the birds to bed.” The goal is to locate where the turkeys are roosting for the night so you can get close to where they’ll fly down during the morning hunt. The most primal way to locate sleepy toms (male turkeys) is to use two distinct bird calls as you move through the woods, which you can make with only the tools God gave you at birth. One is the barred owl’s call – if you say, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” out loud in a falsetto voice, you’ll get a sense of what it sounds like.

The other call, that of a screech owl, pretty much lives up to its name. Turkeys seem to be locked into some eternal feud with owls and can’t resist gobbling back in an angry response. These gobbles are what turkey hunters dream about all year. If the elusive pure strike of a golf ball is what brings an amateur golfer back to the links over and over again, a thunderous gobble is what does it for turkey fanatics. It is addictive.