Editor’s Note: Calvin Perryman from Troy, Alabama, has hunted many hardwood bottoms and upland pine stands for 25 years for gobblers, primarily on family lands in the Black Belt in Wilcox, Dallas and Butler counties in south Alabama. Much of south Alabama never has had a closed season for turkey hunting. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s, turkeys were revered there. Many large landowners protected their turkey flocks, so that they could hunt them in the spring and the fall. Also, that section of the U.S. had quality habitat for turkeys. Today many of the landowners around where Perryman lives and hunts do intensive predator control, which positively impacts turkeys, their eggs and their poults. That’s why hunters around this place are so effective in taking turkeys.

“On this particular hunt, I was hunting with my dad, Billy,” Perryman says. “We probably got too close to the roost tree when we set-up – only about 75-yards from the turkeys gobbling in the tree. Finally, the birds flew down, hit the ground and gobbled for 30 – 45 minutes without coming to any of my calls. Perhaps they were older turkeys gobbling to get hens to come to them, instead of their going to the hens. Soon, a hen and a jake were with the big gobbler, and they flew away.”

When Perryman called, the tom would come some closer before turning around and returning to where he’d first gobbled from when he hit the ground. Although Perryman couldn’t see the bird, he thought the gobbler was staying in the same place – gobbling and probably spinning – casting his gobbles out in all directions of the compass. Perryman and his dad eventually got glimpses of the turkey. However, this bird didn’t come to the Perrymans, but instead gobbled toward them, turned around and then gobbled away from them.

“The bird was at 60 -70 yards – too far for us to shoot,” Perryman explains. “Then my dad took out a trumpet call that he recently had bought and had been practicing with, and the gobbler answered that trumpet call.

The trumpet call is a suck-in type call that’s similar to a wingbone call. Perryman’s was made of wood, although some people make them out of acrylic.

“Dad got this call from Carlton Cannington from Morris, Georgia, at Spur Hill Trumpets, Perryman reports. “My dad and I have had trumpet calls for several years, but didn’t feel we’d learned enough about how to use them to try and call toms with them. But before the 2017 turkey season arrived, Dad had decided that he wanted to take a turkey with his trumpet call. Although I didn’t think Dad was very good with the trumpet call, he’d learned to use it much better than he had in the past.”

The Perrymans had gone through every call in their vests to get this gobbler to come to them, but nothing worked. Billy Perryman pulled the trumpet call out of his vest and sucked on the mouthpiece to make the sound of a hen turkey. After hearing the trumpet call, the longbeard gobbled. Then he became hushed-mouthed. The Perrymans couldn’t even hear him drum. He seemed to have vanished.

Two to three minutes later, the Perrymans heard the turkey gobble about 40-yards away, on the other side of the ridge from where the Perrymans sat. They still couldn’t see him. However, Calvin moved around the tree to face the direction from which the tom was gobbling. Thirty seconds later, that turkey’s head popped-up from over the ridge – only 25-yards away from Calvin. 

“I could see from the bottom of the turkey’s beard to the top of his head,” Perryman remembers. “I took the shot. To be honest, my dad and I were surprised that that trumpet call had caused the bird to come to us, since no other call had seemed to work. I guess the trumpet call made a different type of hen sound than any other call we’d used.

“Throughout the rest of that season, we called in several more turkeys with trumpet calls. I think that call worked because very-few turkey hunters knew there was such a thing as a trumpet call. Probably fewer hunters ever had tried it or used it with any degree of success. The trumpet call seemed to give out a lower-sounding hen yelp. However, we weren’t able to get any excited-type calls on the trumpet.

“But, I can say that this call works to bring in gobblers, even when all your other calls seem to fail. Plain yelps and clucks seem to be the sounds that will make the turkeys come in when we use the trumpet call.”

The Perrymans picked up the gobbler with 1-3/8 inch spurs and an 11-inch beard that probably weighed 20 pounds or more – a really-big turkey for an Alabama bird.

Tomorrow: Hunt Afternoon Turkeys Without Decoys

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