JORDAN'S TURKEY CALL
There is one objection to the box, slate, or similar calls: they make quite a noise near by but can not be heard any distance. The instrument I make can be heard a half or three quarters of a mile away.
This call is used by taking the flat bone end between the lips and by measured sucking motion the notes are produced. The cluck is produced by placing the tip of the tongue on the end of the mouth-piece, and giving a sudden jerk and suck. This, according to my opinion, is the most natural cluck that was ever made by any instrument, and it can be modulated so as to seduce or alarm at the will of the operator.
It is necessary to practise the use of a caller until proficiency is attained, the same as you would do in playing a flute or violin. Calling, in my opinion, is the most important thing to be considered when in quest of the turkey, and the knowledge of how to do it is difficult to impart to others.
There are four distinct calls of the wild turkey one should become familiar with to become an expert turkey hunter; these are the call of the young hen, the old hen, the young gobbler, and the gobble of the old male bird. The latter is almost impossible to learn, and I have seen but two or three men in my life who could imitate the gobble. The sound is made with the throat, and I know of no way it can be taught. The notes of the hen turkey consist of a variety of quavering sounds such as are given by the domestic fowl, but which require study and practice, with the best devised caller, to imitate. The plain yelp or "keow-keow" are the chief notes to learn, and once mastered and employed in concert with the cluck, will usually be all that is necessary in calling turkey, be it a flock of scattered individuals or an old gobbler (in the gobbling season), but it would avail nothing on the latter at any other time. "Keow-keow-keow," or "keow-kee-kee," "cut," "cut"—these are the variety of notes, and each has its meaning, however singular that may appear. The turkey has no song, and the notes it employs are either conversational, call, distress, or alarm notes.
Early morning, when they are dropping down from their roost, is the best time to study their language as well as their habits. If you go near a flock of tame turkeys and begin to yelp and cluck, they will reply and keep it up as long as you do, so you can soon learn their language. If the turkeys be wild ones, keep well out of sight, for they will stand no familiarity. I am not, however, a stickler about keeping out of sight when calling. I prefer to sit in front of a tree that is on the side from which the turkey is expected to approach, rather than to get behind it. I sit in front of the tree in such a manner that a turkey with the keenest eye in the world will not identify me, if properly fixed, clothed, and motionless. The explanation of this is that the gobbler is not looking for a person, but for another turkey; and as it can think of but one thing at a time, it sees nothing that does not resemble that which it is in quest of; but if you move, its keen eye will quickly detect you.
The turkeys seem to have no special power of smell, so if the hunter's clothes are gray or drab, he may sit at the base of a tree, and by keeping quiet, the turkey will many times come within ten or twenty feet, and, although looking directly at him, will fail to make him out and walk leisurely away.
I once had a flock of wild turkeys come very near me, and some of them jumped up and stood on the log I was resting my back against; one hen was within three feet of me, and she stood for a few minutes purring and looking me over, finally leaping off. Then a young gobbler came in front and took a good look at me. He seemed to have a suspicion that I was not a stump, for he walked back a little and stopped to meditate. Not being satisfied with his first investigation, he came up again and took a better look; after satisfying himself he walked leisurely away. He looked so quizzically at me that I could scarcely refrain from laughing. At the same time these inquisitive birds were looking me over, my rifle was trained on an immense gobbler within eighty yards strutting in plain view. Upon him my attention was chiefly fastened, and in a few minutes the old fellow came to bag. A dead grass colored suit is not so good for a turkey hunting suit as one gray or brown.
If the game you seek be an old gobbler, and the time spring, you will employ the call fully as much as when calling the scattered brood in fall or winter. I generally use the plain, quaint, easy measured yelp or quaver and cluck of the female; this same call has a hundred variations, but it is not necessary that you employ all of them. The simple "cluck-cluck-cluck" and now and then plain "keow-keow," when properly done, is generally effective. I have called as loud as I could, so as to be heard a mile away, while an old gobbler was standing near enough for me to see the light of his eyes without alarming him. Again I have called very low, just as a test, with the same result. Sometimes the old bird is unusually cautious; then the less calling the better; then, after you have engaged the attention of the turkey so that it will stop and gobble and strut, the less you call him the better, for the reason that in gobbling and strutting it is using all its own persuasive power to draw you to him, thinking you are a hen. Under these conditions so long as you continue to call or reply he will remain and gobble, and insist on your coming to him. But if you have commanded his attention and stop calling and wait, he will make up his mind to come to you, as he has come to the conclusion that the hen is indifferent to his company and is moving away from him; this will excite his anxiety and cause him to make haste toward you.