How to Make Realistic Hen Turkey Calls
With turkey hunting, your success can often come down to how realistic your turkey calling is. If you’re squawking away on a box call, it can be a clear signal for a gobbler to stay away. But when you learn how to speak the language and make realistic hen turkey calls, you have a much better chance of sweet talking a tom into shooting range. But how do you learn how to mimic those sounds? Here are some tips you should keep in mind.
How to Sound Like a Real Hen Turkey
You can watch all the turkey calling videos and tutorials on the internet, but nothing beats watching actual turkeys in the wild and replicating what they’re doing. Wild turkeys have many ways of communicating, and hen turkey calls have a lot of variability when it comes to tone and cadence. Some hens are higher or lower pitched than others, and some are aggressive callers, while others are quieter. By observing those differences and trying to mimic them on your own turkey calls, you can become infinitely better at calling turkeys.
In the video below, Michael has a close encounter with one of the most talkative hens around. If you haven’t ever been in a similar situation before, pay attention to how this hen acts and how she respond to Michael’s calls.
How Real Hen Talk Helps You
When you can sound like a real bird and mimic the hen turkey calls perfectly, you have a much better chance at pulling that tom into shooting range, especially when facing a wise old longbeard who’s heard a lot of crappy calling before. But one of the biggest advantages to calling a turkey like this is that even when gobblers are henned up, you may still get a shot. If you can ruffle the hen’s feathers by mimicking her calls, she may just get irritated enough to come check you out and bring the tom with her.
After hearing some hens, you should practice repeatedly until you can easily replicate a call. In some cases, you may want to respond to turkeys during practice to gauge their reaction – they’re the best judge of your calling ability, after all. But it’s best if you can get proficient at a few different types of turkey calls for different hunting scenarios. For example, friction calls work well for striking a hen or gobbler off in the distance. They have plenty of volume and variability so you can get a bird’s attention. The Bone Collector Lonesome Lady pot call features a slate over glass surface to produce loud, raspy hen yelps. As the turkey gets closer, it’s better to shift to a mouth call so it frees up your hands for holding your shotgun. You can’t go wrong with the Lucky Lady 3-Pack by Bone Collector, which has three different hen turkey calls – the Bombshell, GA Peach, and Knockout. Learn to make better hen turkey calls by observing a real wild bird, and you’ll have a much better shot this spring.
