this yr im making my first effort at some serious turkey hunting. i spent opening day(yesterday)learning to yelp and cluck. this morning i tried purrs and clucks. now i have to ask. how long did it take you not to look like a drooling blithering idiot? :biglaugh: i know it takes some practice but i wasnt counting on the drool factor. everytime i put the diapram call in my mouth on comes the drool factory. i have to laugh at myself its actually funny , but im still trying to reproduce lifelike calls. maybe this afternoone i can come up with a small vid to get your opinions. ruddy
I have the opposite problem. Mouth calls make me go dry. I have to bring gum or hard candy with me.
But, umm... I think I speak for everyone when I say I don't really want to see your drooling videos. ;)
As for the calling itself, it didn't take very long to get good enough to kill turkeys. Maybe a couple days to get the basic calls. But I wouldn't enter a calling contest. Not that good.
Just keep on calling, on your way to work, while your mowing the lawn anytime you can. You'll soon get used to it in your mouth and the calls will get better. And after calling for more than 25 years still sound like an idiot, but then again so do some real birds!
ive tried the moth calls and afer a year or two of frustration i said forget it and went back to my slate calls. i still use mouthcalls for preadators though. i had the drooling problem too. usd to drive me crazy. now i have a second person with me to call while i shoot and vice-versa
my advice is to try multiple calls. i have bought alot of calls and out of the many i have bought thiers only 2 i use now since they fit me the best and i can use them well. and practice ALOT.
after that dont over call. once you get him to gobble call a few times then stop. he will know your location and if he wants to come he will. i will give a call every 20 minutes if things get quiet. this works extremely well for me, i use to call like crazy and they always hung up out of range until i switched to this.
ive been working on the different calls off and on all day. i think im starting to get the hang of it, its actually kinda fun. i know my neighbors are lookin at me a little funny, but i think they know what im up to. i came across a great vidhttp://youtu.be/ObCUbHGe6Qg this is great to watch
Focus on mastering medium and especially low sounding clucks and yelps first. Learn cadences from sublime to excited yelps. Number one is to develop extreme patience. The birds are not on our schedule.
Many learn many types of different calls and just call and call and call. In all serious, an acquaintce of mine one three state calling championships before he was able to harvest his 1st bird. We would relocate to another area if he was in there since even with his great sound. calling every 5 minutes was a recipe for disaster. We end up learning just enough to be dangerous. Low impact calling is advantageous to the trad bowhunter.
Calling is only a small part of being consistantly successful.
I have been calling since the 80's and can do the dance. The majority of the birds I call in are with just what I have prescribed you to learn 1st. Even once called in a gob at ~150 yards with one cluck. He gobbled then walked the field edge all the way to me silent and he was arrowed at ~10 yards.
Keep it up good buddy!
I will second what Friend said. You need to learn very soft calling. I once had two long beards come over 300+ yards when I gave only a couple soft purrs. The turkey has very good hearing and can pin point your location especially if you call too loud/too often.
Like previously stated DON'T OVER CALL! If you want to learn what to say and when Just go in early and listen but more importantly watch as you listen. Watch what the hens are doing when they call watch their body language and how other hens as well as gobblers and jakes react. Iv'e sweet talked hens in to work as decoys and I've made boss hens mad to come my way which got gobblers interested. If you listen to some "pro" callers and real hens they don't sound to much alike. I personally use my vocal chords to call more than a call itself.