Dealing with Silent Spring Gobblers
Spring turkey hunting for most means listening for gobblers and trying to call them in to range to harvest them. In light of that, no challenge can be more frustrating than dealing with quiet toms. It can humiliate world-champion callers and beginners alike.
You know for a fact that birds are there — you’ve seen their sign, spotted them at a distance, or perhaps heard them call feebly once then clamp their mouth shut. The joy you felt on hearing that first gobble disappears as the woods grow quiet, replaced with an almost palpable silence.
When faced with this situation, purists might head home and try again another day. But you can kill toms on days when the birds won’t talk. You just need to change your tactics and enjoy the new challenge. Silent gobblers can be fooled as easily as a loud-mouth – they just don’t regularly sound off to give away their position.
Like most challenges in turkey hunting, though, there is rarely one easy, clear solution. Rather, it pays to keep a variety of strategies in your bag of tricks and try one or the other depending on the conditions you face.
Why Do Gobblers Go Silent?
That’s the approach Matt Kline, Supervisor of Virginia’s Big Woods Wildlife Management Area, uses. That flexibility has allowed him to consistently harvest birds when other hunters would have left the woods downcast because the toms got quiet.
Before getting into tactics, let’s take a quick look at five reasons why turkeys sometimes won’t gobble. Kline has some insights on that as well, having hunted turkeys for two decades.
“One factor may be bad weather,” he says. If it’s sleeting, snowing or raining hard, it’s fairly obvious why toms aren’t talking. Bitter cold and extreme heat can also slow gobbling activity, as can a sudden drop in barometer.
Another possibility is that hens may be roosting near the gobblers or have hooked up with them right after fly-down. If the ladies are close by, or sometimes in sight, a gobbler has little reason to sound off.
Heavy hunting pressure may also have subdued a tom’s urge to sound off as a survival move. Says Kline, “Toms certainly become ‘tight-lipped’ once pressure is added in heavily hunted areas. And the most vocal birds are often harvested early in the season.”
Some gobblers may be subordinate two-year old birds and will not want to challenge the boss. The turkey’s “personality” may also be an issue, says Kline. “Not all toms gobble a lot. Just like humans, some birds seem to talk more.”
11 Tactics for Hunting Silent Gobblers
With advice from Kline and the author’s multiple-decade spring turkey hunting experience, here are eleven possible solutions to the quiet tom challenge.
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Pattern the Birds’ Movements
Hunt them much like you would a deer. This takes time and lots of listening, watching, and searching for sign to determine what routes a gobbler usually takes. Use your trail cameras to help you with the scouting.
“If you know a bird is in the area, but he doesn’t respond well to calls, your best bet might be to figure out his travel pattern and get between him and his hens. Then you can just let him walk to you,” advises Kline.Search for watering holes and feed areas such as grass pastures and clover or wheat fields. Look for tracks, leaves pulled back where birds have scratched for food, dusting areas, and strutting zones. These are often found at small openings in forests, field edges, logging roads, or benches and saddles in mountains.
The idea is to predict the turkey’s movement patterns, then get on that route and wait. You can call lightly with soft clucks and just a couple of quiet yelps, or simply wait.
Be prepared not to hear the gobbler sounding off as it approaches. We’re talking “quiet toms” here. Some of these birds will slip in like a wisp of fog. Be keenly alert. Watch intently, without moving. I waited patiently for two hours before a tom slinked in silently while I was using this tactic on a recent hunt in Oklahoma.
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Give Locator Calls a Shot
Some hunters hoot occasionally at dawn with an owl call, others never use locators at all. But a variety of these calls can be valuable for “startling” or “shocking” a gobble out of quiet toms.
Once you know where the bird is based on that one give-away gobble, then you can move in close and use your best calling efforts to lure him in. Alternately, you can judge by your knowledge of the terrain where the bird is likely to head, then move there and wait for him.
Good locator calls include woodpecker, crow, hawk, predator, “shock,” and coyote calls. Blow them loud and hard, especially from mid-morning on, to draw out a response from any gobbler within hearing range.
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Try Cutting
Most hunters yelp, cluck and purr. But the best turkey hunters also use a fourth call quite often — the cutt. It’s a series of sharp, loud, strident yelps in quick succession. A good mouth caller can make excellent cutts on a diaphragm. Even a novice, with a bit of practice, can make great cutts on a box. Hammer the paddle against the box with sharp, short strokes in quick succession. Attack the call instead of gently stroking it.
The aim is to sound like an excited or scolding hen – loud and forceful. You may just elicit one faint gobble. Other times the bird will be so excited he’ll come running. But the cutt should get him talking.
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Switch Calls or Use Multiple Calls at Once
Gerald Almy
Sometimes something different is all it takes to roust toms out of their silence. If you mainly use a mouth call, try a box, wingbone, slate, or push-pin call.
Even more effective at times is using several calls at once. A tom might be willing to ignore one lone yelping bird. But if he hears what he thinks are two birds or a small flock of hens yelping and clucking, it may prove more than he can resist.
The tom might sneak in silently to check out the commotion. Or he might just gobble back and at least give away his location. A longbeard did just that for Rob Keck, former Executive Director of the National Wild Turkey Federation, and me, on a recent hunt in South Carolina.
Keck knew there were turkeys all around us from previous scouting. But none would sound off. Then he showed his world-champion calling skills by using three calls at once.
We sat in that one position for an hour and right before we were ready to give up a big tom walked down a logging trail towards us in easy range. I won’t admit what happened next, but at least his multiple call approach had worked to lure in a stubborn, non-talking tom. (Nobody shoots straight all the time!)
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Go Soft and Quiet
The opposite approach can also be effective. Try low-volume, soft calling when toms won’t talk.
Walk 75 or 100 yards, and then call quietly like birds might do if they were spooked from heavy hunting pressure. A tight-lipped tom might not gobble back at you, but simply give his presence away with a coarse yelp or just by clucking. Continue working him with soft calls and you can often lure in such birds with a scaled-back, low-key approach.
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Mimic Other Turkey Sounds Besides Calls
This can go hand in hand with #5. If birds are quiet from hard hunting pressure, Kline likes to pull back or scratch leaves sharply to simulate a hen scratching for food. Also try flapping a turkey wing carried in your vest to imitate a hen stretching her wings. Be sure no other hunters are around when you employ these tricks. If on public ground, for extra safety place some blaze orange cloth near where you are setting up.
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Try Kee-Kee Runs
Sometimes you can get non-talking gobblers to sound off with this call, normally used by lost young turkeys wanting to regain contact with their group. It’s generally thought of as a fall call, but it will often draw answers from gobblers in spring, too.
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Roost Him
If you can hear a tom’s flapping wings as he flies up to roost or get him to gobble one last time before bed with a hen or owl call, your chances for taking a quiet tom improve dramatically.
Get in tight to the bird on its roost the next morning well before first light, setting up 50 to 100 yards away. Give him just one or two clucks or maybe a few soft tree yelps. Then remain silent. Show him you’re the same type of non-talkative bird he is, just a hen instead of a gobbler.
Often the tom won’t utter a sound but will fly down and land within range or take a few steps your way after he leaves the roost. That’s all it takes. This worked for me recently on a 20-pound shut-mouthed gobbler on my land in western Virginia.
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Approach from a Different Direction
All too often toms are quiet because they somehow sense that a hunter has moved into the area. They may not spook and fly off, but they’ll remain silent. Try taking a longer, more circuitous route than most hunters do, or you normally would, so you come in from a new direction.
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Put Out a Decoy
If a tom is quiet, he’s probably suspicious and wary. Fooling his sight with a hen decoy as he eases towards your calls will often seal the deal. I have generally found one lone hen decoy is best for these taciturn birds.
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Patience, Patience, Patience
This is Kline’s most important final advice for harvesting toms that aren’t talking. “Turkey hunting in general requires a fair amount of patience,” he says. “But when dealing with a shut-mouth tom, patience is the key. Patience has harvested more turkeys than any high dollar call.”
That advice, along with some of the other ten strategies revealed here, may be all it takes to solve the difficult challenge of quiet spring toms.
Tackling a Tight-Lipped Gobbler: A Real-World Story
Here is a story Matt Kline told me about hunting a quiet gobbler during a recent season.
“I was hunting with a friend on his property, easing along some hardwoods between a swamp and planted agricultural fields. We would stop about every 100 yards to make a series of calls, but never got a response.
Before turning back to the truck I made one more call, and in the middle of my call a gobbler sounded off. My buddy and I both agreed on the direction, but since the tom gobbled over my call, we couldn’t decide just how far the bird was from us.
We decided to sit tight in hopes he would gobble again. After a few soft calls and no response, my friend was getting antsy and wanted to go after the bird. I remember telling him, ‘let’s wait a little longer. He may be coming this way.’
Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw the tom easing our way, going in and out of strut. The tom got in behind some thick cover and moved just five yards in a period of 30 minutes.
He gobbled one time at a passing woodpecker. As he began to walk off, I made one soft purr and scratched in the leaves. His head immediately colored back up and he went into strut. He circled us at about 35 yards and presented a shot opportunity.
Having patience was the only reason I was able to harvest that tight-lipped gobbler.”
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