Calling gobblers

[kygobbler]

This week I had a flock of 6 gobblers come walking by me. I'm guessing they were only 1.5 yos because they only had about 6 to 8" beards. I decided to bust them and have some fun calling them back. What I thought what would be fun turned into aggrevation. I got a good bust and moved down half way between where I busted them and where they flew. It didnt take but maybe 5 minutes and a gobbler started yelping. I tried to gobble yelp but couldnt get the just right but kept trying. The gobblers were staying on a dirt trail that ran on the edge of a cedar thicket. I sneaked down to a field and about 40 yards from where they were hoping to draw them to the field. No luck but the gobbler was still yelping and throwing out a few gobbles. After about 40 minutes the gobbler was giving me curtisy yelps as they went away from me and going to roost.

Now here is my question I have gone back to where Scott was talking about gobbler talk. I am doing something wrong and its driving me nutts. When you do the gobbler yelp do you do it in a straight line or in a circle like a hen yelp? Also, do you use less pressure on the call and/or the striker? I think I am close with a hand gernade but I need to be close enough with the shotgun.

Here is Scott's gobbler talk that Im talking about. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17231
Any help would be good and Scott did you do those gobbles with a pot?

[Dixie Belle]

Howdy kygobbler,
The gobblers I have heard working in the swamps around here use a broken cadence in their yelps when they are trying to find each other. Sort of like they are pausing for a brief instant to listen for a reply. It's sort of a yelp-yelp-pause-yelp, or a yelp-pause-yelp-yelp-yelp and they will pause in between series. Each series is short having maybe 3 to 5 yelps each. The pause between the yelps in a series is about as long as a yelp or maybe a tad longer.
A box call is ideal for doing the yelp and gobble series or a cluck and gobble series. I find holding the box vertical with my left hand (paddle end up) and working the lid between the first two fingers on my right hand gives me enough dexterity to do both the yelp and the gobble and cluck and gobble( didn't say I was all that great but that's how I do it).
I hope any of this helps. Good Hunting,
Ted

[WillowRidgeCalls]

I do both, oval and str8 line. I do 3 oval and finish with 2 str8. or 1 oval and 2 str8. The key to doing a good gobbler yelp is it needs to be slow, and raspy, the more rasp the better. When you do a hen yelp your oval is the size of a dime, with a gobbler yelp it's the size of a quarter. With that big of an oval, it slows you down and it gets into the deeper raspy part of your call. Yes the pauses in gobbler yelps are important, as Ted said it's like your skipping a yelp when doing a series, and they can be added in anywhere, oval-pause-oval-oval-pause-str8-str8. When you do a str8 line start about where you'd normaly start your yelps, then rip it down at about a 40 degree angle toward the center of your call, you want that little bit of a squeak at the start of it.
When I gobbler yelp I pinch the striker at the start and relax your grip as I finish, the striker is almost bouncing between my fingers as you finish. It sound terrible to our ears, but not to the birds.
The gobbles I did on a box call.
Hope that helps you a little?

[eggshell]

The best advice that has been repeated here many times is do what the birds are doing. On those gobbler groups, they can be a pain in the arse. I have had as many poor results as good, it's a coin toss to bust a flock of gobblers for me. The super jakes are usually more willing to reassemble soon after busting, but old gobbler groups are a big pain to try and bust and reassemble. I will usually try to hunt gobbler groups without busting first. The best bet on gobbler groups is right off the roost. I'm not even sure it's 50% success off busted gobbler groups, more like 25% for me. I have more luck on a single or small group. Just last week I busted a group of five mature gobblers in Ky, they had already seen me, and sent them in five directions. I was sure for once I had them widely scattered enough to work one. After over two hours of periodic calling and no response I started to move to three different ridges they flew too and wasted another hour with only a single cluck as a response and no bird showed from that. By the time I had given up I had blown 3 1/2 hours of a hunt with frustration. So don't beat yourself up, fall gobblers can be tough. They are creatures of habit though and once you figure their movements out or roost habits, you can kill em. Oh yeah, they love to fight or at least watch one....a good fight sequence will kill you some tough ole fall birds. I have done fights where it would make a hilarious video, I'm purring, gobbling, beating my chest with open palms, kicking dry leaves and slapping brush. I actually had one bird fly into me from an opposite ridge once with one of these mock fights. Another time I caught a group fighting and couldn't get them to even look my way calling, then it dawned on me that they weren't paying attention to anything in the woods. So I started walking right at them and got to 30 yards before they even noticed me. No I did not shoot one, it just didn't seem right so I then busted them and thought I'd have some fun, well they never made another peep and i wished I'd have shot one, LOL.

[kygobbler]

Thanks for advice gentlemen. Next week Im on vacation again for a couple of weeks and thinking of wiping the dust off the old High Country bow and attempt to get a bird.

I have done fights where it would make a hilarious video, I'm purring, gobbling, beating my chest with open palms, kicking dry leaves and slapping brush. I actually had one bird fly into me from an opposite ridge once with one of these mock fights.

Dana, I would love and just might pay to see a video of that.