Editor’s Note: Turkey hunting is a game of options: A turkey has certain choices, and the hunter has other choices. And, although a hunter may be able to select several different strategies to outfox a wily woods wizard like the wild turkey, the purpose of the following test is to help you determine which is the very-best tactic to use. Let’s examine turkey-hunting situations you may encounter once you’ve gotten a tom to gobble, and determine which option may be best and why.

• A tom gobbles across a river that’s too deep to wade and too much trouble to swim. Although you realize that trying to call a turkey across a river is no easy chore, this gobbler is the only one you’ve had to work all day long. What should you do?
  • Take out your best call, and call aggressively for as long as the turkey will gobble.
  • Give some light calling – clucks, yelps and purrs – like a disinterested hen, thinking that maybe the ol’ boy’s ego will make him come to see you, if you won’t go to see him.
  • Call aggressively, and then begin to walk away from the bank and into the woods, simulating a hen that’s been asking for a date for so long that she’s finally fed-up with a gobbler that won’t come to meet her.
  • Use several different calls to imitate a flock of anxious hens ready to be bred. Give plenty of cutting, cackling and excited yelps.

 Answer: Either Call aggressively, and then begin to walk away from the bank and into the woods, simulating a hen that’s been asking for a date for so long that she’s finally fed-up with a gobbler that won’t come to meet her. Or, use several different calls to imitate a flock of anxious hens ready to be bred. Give plenty of cutting, cackling and excited yelps may work too. Often using several different calls will be your best option.

• A gobbler that won’t talk is so aggravating to a hunter. I know of nothing worse than going into springtime woods and not hearing a turkey gobble. What’s the best strategy to use if this happens to you?
  • Blow a crow, an owl or a hawk call to try to make a turkey gobble.  
  • Go to where you’ve seen or heard a gobbler before, take a stand, use natural foliage for camouflage, give several soft clucks and yelps, scratch in the leaves and wait.
  • Give excited cuts and cackles like a hen’s that ready to breed.
  • Use a gobbler call to challenge any turkey within hearing distance.

Answer: Go to where you’ve seen or heard a gobbler before, take a stand, use natural foliage for camouflage, give several soft clucks and yelps, scratch in the leaves and wait. Then when you think you’ve waited long enough, and no turkey has shown up, look at your watch and wait another 30 minutes by the watch to hopefully see a turkey in front of your gun’s barrel.

• Bonus Tactic – You’ve missed a turkey, and what do you do then? If that gobbler runs away or flies off, what do you do?
  • Yell and holler to relieve the frustration you feel after missing a gobbler.
  • Watch the direction the bird flies. Make a circle, attempt to get in front of the tom, change calls, and call lightly with soft clucks and purrs.
  • Sit still, and immediately start cutting and cackling like an excited hen that’s been frightened by the sound of the gobbler.

Answer: Sit still, and immediately start cutting and cackling like an excited hen that’s been frightened by the sound of the gobbler is the best answer. When a tom hears a loud noise, he often can’t distinguish between the report of a shotgun, a lightning strike or a tree falling in the woods. If he hears a hen giving exciting calls, he may assume that the hen that was calling to him before you fired was spooked, and that was the reason she called excitedly. If you’ll let the woods settle-down for 5-10 minutes, and then you begin to give soft calls like clucks, purrs or low yelps, that gobbler may return, looking for his sweetheart.

Add up your correct choices. If you’ve correctly answered 7-9 questions, you can expect a successful turkey-hunting season. If you got 5-6 right, your turkey-hunting skills are improving, but they’ve got a ways to go. If you were in the 3-4 correct-answer category, you need to step-up your YouTube and TV watching turkey-hunting shows and reading. Also listen to my turkey-calling Audible featuring longtime turkey biologist Lovett Williams and his live turkey recordings and the winner of turkey-hunting contests Rob Keck. If you fell for “give excited cuts and cackles like a hen’s that ready to breed” on the third question, don’t tell anyone!

Check out John E. Phillips’ 12th turkey book: “Turkeys: Today’s Tactics for Longbeards Tomorrow“

Expert Guidebooks on Turkey Hunting: Best Sellers

Turkey Hunting Tactics
This turkey hunting audiobook has entertaining chapters like: “How to Miss a Turkey”, “Hunting with a Guide”, and “The Turkey and the New York Lady”.

You’ll learn about all the subspecies of turkey across North America, how to use a turkey call, how to scout before turkey season, how to find a turkey to hunt, and what hunting gear you’ll need to put the odds in your favor to take a wily gobbler.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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How to Hunt Turkeys with World Champion Preston Pittman
You easily can take a turkey if you don’t make any mistakes, but you have to know what the deadly sins of turkey hunting are to keep you from making those mistakes. If you understand how to hunt a turkey, you’re far more likely to take a gobbler than if you just know how to call a turkey.

Of course, calling is important, and if you want to learn to call a turkey, Preston Pittman will teach you how to call turkeys with box calls, friction calls, diaphragm calls, and other turkey sounds.

You’ll also learn why Preston Pittman once put turkey manure all over his body to kill a tough tom.

When you have turkeys that strut and drum in the middle of a field, when you know there’s no way to get close enough to get a shot, Pittman will show you some weird tactics that have worked for him to help you hunt tough ole toms.

But the main thing you’ll learn in this book is how to become the turkey.

Using what he’s learned while hunting wild turkeys, he’s also become a master woodsman who can take most game, regardless of where he hunts. To learn more secrets about how to be a turkey hunter from one of the world champions of the sport, this turkey-hunting book with Preston Pittman is a must.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible
The quickest way to learn how to turkey hunt successfully is to either hunt with a turkey hunter with years of experience or a turkey-hunting guide. These two types of turkey hunters have solved most of the problems turkey hunters ever will face. 

Just as one size of shoes won’t fit every person, one style of turkey hunting doesn’t fit each hunter.  Each turkey-hunting guide interviewed for this book has his own style of calling, hunting, and outsmarting turkeys.  

While listening to this book, make a list of the new information you’ve learned, take that list with you during turkey season, and try some of the new tactics. Then you’ll become a more versatile turkey hunter and prove the wisdom from The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible.   

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting (2nd Edition)
This Audible book will help you learn how to call turkeys with two of the nation’s best, longtime and well-known turkey callers, Rob Keck, formerly with the National Wild Turkey Federation, and Lovett Williams, a wildlife biologist who recorded wild turkeys giving the calls that you’ll learn how to make on various types of turkey callers.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE & KINDLE