Call shy...myth?

[Boll Weevil]

A buddy and I were discussing this notion of birds becoming call shy as the season wears on. I told him in my opinion they don't get call shy so much as they get hunter shy (once they associate hen calls with humans). My thinking is that a gobbler hears a hen every day of his miserable life...even before he's hatched out of the egg as mama sets on the incubating eggs talking to them. When he hears a yelp, cluck, purr, or cackle he thinks it's a hen. Period.

But let hunters invade the hills throwing every type of call (competition and terrible callers alike) at the birds. Walking while calling in wide open timber where a bird can see you way before you see him. Run'n gun, and walking right into a silent bird that was headed your way without making a peep. Moving at the wrong time on a setup and boogering a tom or even calling in a pair of birds and killing one while the other lives to see another day. It's after these activities they become skeptical of calling; is it really a hen over the ridge or some fool trying to tote me out of the woods?

It's not the calling that made him silently head in the opposite direction, it's the possibility that in his paranoid walnut sized brain the calling might coming from a hunter.

What say ye?

 

[Southern Sportsman]

I agree, but it's a distinction without a differnece. Once a bird gets bumped a few times and gets wary, I'm sure he is also much slower and more cautious when approaching real hens, or becomes more likely to make the hens come to him. Probably also less likely to gobble. I've heard real hens that woudl be laughed off the stage at any calling contest, so I don't think "good' and "bad" calling plays that big a role (though calling too much may be a different story). But the result is the same. Turkeys get harder to call up, so "call shy" is as good a name for it as any.

 

[megalomaniac]

...

It's not the calling that made him silently head in the opposite direction, it's the possibility that in his paranoid walnut sized brain the calling might coming from a hunter.

What say ye?

I think they are one in the same... The bird has learned to associate hen sounds over the course of the season to be associated with hunters. And they DEFINETLY do become call shy if they have been worked several times with negative experiences.

I can recall one bird that I called in with his buddy early in the season. I shot his fat buddy (25lb'er) while he was 2 feet from him. It took almost 2 hours of off and on calling to pull them in. After that, he would never come to a call if he couldn't see a hen. He'd crane his head up, look for 30 seconds or so, then just sneak off in the opposite direction. That happened 6 or 7 times during the season.

Had another bird once that would fold up from strut and RUN away from any calling. Craziest damn thing I've ever seen. Worked him (or made a call at him, he never 'worked' ) at least 10 times during the season. That bird must have died from old age without ever spreading his DNA anywhere.

 

[Setterman]

Call shy is an bs philosophy. I'll explain later why I feel this way

 

[woodsman04]

I think they do indeed get wary of calling. I agree with pretty much everything Setterman has ever said on here too.

But birds that are hunted hard, and called to a lot, do get tougher to call in, don't understand why people think otherwise. I was fortunate enough to hunt in a county in Alabama that had its first turkey season ever in like 1995 or so, and they came running in suicide mode the entire five day season. It was like this for about 5 years, but then everybody decided they wanted to try turkey hunting, everybody started killing them, and now the birds have figured it out.

Yes there are still virgin two year olds killed on opening day.

When you call to a bird and you see him tuck and run, and dang if you can see him he can sure as heck see where your calling from, he sees there is no hen there and runs off.

When birds hang up, the expect the hen to come to them, not the other way around. This is natural, but going back to the suicide gobblers of the first open season, they didn't really hang up.

Also, calling to birds on the limb, will keep them up longer too.

I guess the definition of call shy must be different for everybody.


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['borohunter]

So when do hens stop "calling". Is this just a natural swing in the process and we don't have a better way to judge?

 

[REN]

So when do hens stop "calling". Is this just a natural swing in the process and we don't have a better way to judge?

hens "call" all year and toms gobble all year. Types of calls will be slightly different from spring to fall but they yelp, cluck, cut and purr all year. Kee Kee more in the fall but ive heard them doing it all times of the year.

 

[TheLBLman]

Yes there are still virgin two year olds killed on opening day.

Typically, the amount of gobbling we hear is directly correlated to how many 2-yr-old birds are within hearing range.
These younger birds are simply not as cautious as older ones.

On average, older Toms will gobble less, and be more likely to expect a hen to come to them, rather than for them to go to the hen. Also, older Toms may be finding hens just as much by utilizing their vision as their ears and voice.

That said, I have experienced older Toms stand on a ridgetop gobbling for hours, refusing to go to real hens, which of course always come to them when they're looking to be bred. We could call this gobbler behavior call-shy, but it's actually just more their nature.

Bottom line is when you have a good number of 2-yr-old birds, you will hear more gobbling, and "see" more action, including the gobbling 2-yr-olds often "firing up" the older Toms to both gobble more and be more likely to come in.

Somewhat like passing up a young buck when deer hunting, if you pass up a 2-yr-old bird, you may soon find an older Tom comes along behind, often silent, but sometimes he starts gobbling as well.

Call shy?
May be as much a function of age and other dynamics as hunting pressure,
but we certainly "see" what appears to be "call shy" birds.

As to turkey hunting an area that had never before been turkey hunted,
I would presume the number of 2-yr-old Toms would be off the charts?
But then, so would the 3-yr-olds as well.
In this scenario, having great hunting might be much the function of having
a great male-to-female sex ratio, and again, high numbers of 2-yr-old birds.

Think about this:

Areas that have been heavily turkey hunted for years have relatively few males to females. The gobblers have less need to be vocal than those areas with relatively fewer hens. In other words, why come to your calling, why gobble, when you're already seeing, possibly already breeding a flock of hens you have all to yourself?

How often do you hear a Tom gobble when he's actually breeding hens?

 

[megalomaniac]

So when do hens stop "calling". Is this just a natural swing in the process and we don't have a better way to judge?

Turkeys vocalizations change throughout the year. Hens hardly ever yelp outside the spring unless they are separated from their flockmates. Feeding purrs and clucks they do throughout the year.

Having had pet Eastern Wilds for the past 4 years has taught me a LOT. Since my flock is kept together throughout the year, their behavior is slightly different than birds living in the wild, but it's amazing just how much more vocal the hens are right before and just into breeding season.

About to set my first batch of eggs in the incubator. Only 1 of 3 hens has actually started laying.

 

[Boll Weevil]

Only 1 of 3 hens has actually started laying.

Do you think this is maybe about where wild birds are too?

 

[MickThompson]

I got on a bird on public land last year. He ran me all over then flew the creek, gobbling and moving away the whole time. I later found out that the same truck had been parked on that bird for 20+ consecutive days.

Hunter shy, call shy, I don't care what you call it- dude rendered that bird unkillable except by random luck...and as luck would have it, my buddy was hunting across the creek and walked up on that turkey at 20 yards with his scope caps on. Turkeys can flush faster than you can shuck the covers off a scope.


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[Setterman]

Alright to expound on my call shy is bs statement. Turkeys are turkey, turkeys make calls all year round. If a hunter can make calls that replicate natural turkey sounds in tone and frequency a turkey has no way of determining if it's another turkey or a hunter. These are not highly intelligent creatures, they are weird and bizarre which makes people believe they get call shy.

Can they learn that an approaching atv followed by turkey sounds is danger? Yep, but that's not call shy it's googan shy.

Over the years I've killed or watch get killed countless birds that I know have been messed with day after day, have been shot at, have watched their buddies die yet March right in to the same call on the same tree.

We hunters try to make excuses for why turkeys act like turkeys. A critter that makes no sense can't be made sensical.

I set up on birds all season that will gobble like hell at everything except me, or shut up immediately when I call to them. I chalk it up,to hens interfering or I'm not speaking his language in the words of Will Primos

 

[Boll Weevil]

Yep, but that's not call shy it's googan shy.

This.

More and more, in my opinion its just plain old conditioning (and I've tied this back to my own hunting style which has changed appreciably over the years). In some areas when a hunter yelps...might as well be taking a call from a telemarketer on speakerphone that just pulled up to the end of the logging road on an ATV. That's what the bird hears.

Just a spit n whittle subject...nothing more. Gotta find some kinda way to pass the time when not in the spring woods!

 

[cowhunter71]

Although I'm the first to admit that turkeys will act like turkeys, I tend to give them more credit than most. A highly pressured Gobbler that has reached his fourth Spring, or more, I believe has more intelligence than most people I know. Only gobble when they have to, and don't go looking for every hen that yelps. More often than not, they are the Gobblers that end up having hens with them throughout the whole 6 week hunting season, on through the end of breeding season. Most hunters don't even realize these particular Gobblers are even there.

 

[megalomaniac]

Only 1 of 3 hens has actually started laying.

Do you think this is maybe about where wild birds are too?

No, not at all.... most wild birds here in South MS began to lay 3rd week of March. Most domestic turkeys here in south MS began laying 2nd week of March. I attribute my birds starting to lay later than others down here because they originally came from Pennsylvania stock. Combined with their natural genetic predisposition to lay a little later combined with the fact that my birds are penned up in filtered sunlight to full shade all the time has caused them to initiate breeding and subsequently laying later than other local birds.

The hens really started squawking in earnest mid March. That was immediately followed by an intense increase in gobbling by the tom. He struts year round since he's kept with the ladies, prob quite frustrated by them ignoring him for 10 months out of the year. But since I gather eggs, each hen will usually give me 45-60 eggs over the course of 2.5 months, so he gets to make up for it right now One hen likes to be bred every day.

Birds on my farms in TN normally start breeding in earnest on April 10th, with nest initiation around the 14th. For whatever reason (? extra wet February, extra warm 2nd half of February, significantly fewer hens... just grasping at straws, I have no idea) my birds started breeding a full 10 days early this year. The tom we killed at noon a couple days ago was actually alone because all his hens had left him to lay. I've never had that happen this early in the season.

 

[Boll Weevil]

Thanks mega. I haven't been back in the woods for several days but birds up here seemed behind a week or 2. Still in what appeared to be winter flocks and I observed very few lone hens in "nesty" looking areas later in the morning and on into the afternoon. I'm sure they're breeding like crazy and by now, laying should be well underway.

 

[catman529]

Well you basically just described the birds being call shy. If they associate calls with humans then they are call shy...if they see the hen to go with the calls they know it's a hen


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