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Realtree Camo Guide
Pots and pegs and other friction turkey calls are easy to use right out of the package, and they just might keep you from calling too much
Mouth turkey calls are fun to yak on. So much so that most hunters yelp way too much and way too loud on a diaphragm. I’ll go out on a gobbler’s roost limb and say this: If we would keep our mouths shut and run a mix of box, slate, glass, and aluminum calls this spring, we’d kill more longbeards.
Eastern, Osceola, Rio Grande, and Merriam’s, I’ve heard and studied them all. Regardless of the subspecies, most hens call with a melodious, trilling tone. Those are the pretty ones. But some gals, the nasty ones, have low-pitched, gravelly voices. Any day in the woods, you’re apt to hear hen yelps and clucks that fall somewhere between the extremes.
Your goal is to mimic this wide range of turkey talk. Friction calls have those natural hen sounds built right in, from the trilling notes of a cherrywood pot to the raspy hen talk of a walnut box.
To me, scratching lines or ovals on a pot-and-peg call, or stroking the lid of a box, is the best way to reproduce hen yelps. Pop a peg on slate or glass, or tap a box-call lid for realistic clucks. Purring? No-brainer — most people purr the best by skipping a wooden peg across a piece of sanded slate. A high-pitched glass or aluminum call, or a big wooden box, cannot be beat for reaching out and striking strutters with the loud, sharp cutts of a traveling hen.
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One April I flew to Texas to hunt with a buddy. My shotgun made it, but the airline lost my duffel. My pal lent me some camo, boots, and shells. We drove to Walmart and I bought the first slate call I saw. I don’t remember what brand.
Easing through a grove of live oaks an hour later, I pulled out the slate, sanded it for the first time, and sent a sweet yelp through the trees. A bird cut me off with a booming gobble. I sat down and floated some tiny clucks and purrs. The sharp-spurred Rio gobbled and strutted all the way into shotgun range.
If you have a reasonably musical ear and good dexterity in your fingers, you can call in and kill a turkey with any friction call right out of the box. That’s not so easy with a mouth call, which generally takes some break-in time and practice.
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Realtree turkey hunting editor Steve Hickoff has chased gobblers all over the United States and Mexico. He was born and raised in northcentral Pennsylvania, and now makes his home in Maine. Hickoff was named the NWTF Tom Kelly Communicator of the Year for 2019, a prestigious award reflecting his longtime work promoting hunting and conservation as a turkey hunting writer, editor and book author.
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