It’s the roar of a gobble that draws many of us to the woods each Spring. It’s been said that, but for the gobble, most tom turkeys would die of old age. The gobble allows us to locate and keep track of a longbeard’s movement toward or away from our location. Some hunters use the gobble as an effective locator call. Gobble on a box or tube, and many times a nearby tom will respond, giving away his location. However, a gobble call can also effectively lure a tom to within shooting range. It’s what I call the “pecking order effect.”
Much like whitetail bucks in the pre-rut, mature tom turkeys posture and fight in early Spring to establish dominance — a “pecking” order if you will — and the right to breed hens. Once a tom has established his dominance in an area, he will defend his rank against other toms.
Anyone who’s hunted turkeys long enough has experienced the pecking order effect. In the early morning half-light, several toms start gobbling. A particular gobbler sounds off and is maybe a bit louder and more boisterous than the others. Then, the choir becomes a solo as the dominant tom in the area is the only one gobbling! This the pecking order effect.
Here’s how you use the gobble call and the pecking order effect to bag the king of the spring woods. This works best (and sometimes only) in early to mid-season when the pecking order is being established or has recently been established. Wait until the birds are on the ground and a bird is gobbling to gather his harem. I gobble every time he does, sometimes double gobbling and sometimes emulating a jake’s gobble. To the boss bird, you’re an intruder competing for his hens. Often, the bird will come running toward your position to put down the challenge to his dominance. This is an especially effective tactic for a tom that is with a flock of hens. It doesn’t work every time, but it works often enough that it’s something to keep in your bag of tricks.
Good, realistic gobbles can be made on a two-sided box, a tube call, a gobble shaker or even a mouth call. Of course, making a gobble call can be dangerous, particularly when hunting on public land. Some hunters will move towards a gobble, not knowing it’s you, a hunter, making the call. Some morons will actually shoot at the sound of a gobble without first visually verifying their target. Therefore, use caution when gobbling. Know and trust who is in the area, and even then, you should sit against a tree wider than your back so that anyone approaching from behind cannot shoot you if they make a bad decision to shoot at your gobble.