How to gobble? Have you tried Yelping?

The question of how to do a passable gobble keeps coming up on various forums. Can you gobble with your slate? Your mouth call? Your voice?

Yeah, you can. I generally can’t. I have a 25 year old Quaker Boy Grand Old Master box call that gobbles just fine, so I did not do a whole lot of practicing on other stuff. The problem is why anyone wants to gobble in the first place. It’s a call, like the dominant buck grunt, that exudes the maximum testosterone. As such, either a gobbler is going to want a piece of it, or he’s going to run the other way. I had an experience last Fall where I grunted a little to butch and cleared out the forest. I am sure you can do the same thing with a gobble, and I don’t know anyone who has successfully plumbed the nuances of turkey talk to be able to describe the difference between a butch gobble and its sub-dominant variations.

What I do know is that gobbling in the late morning is going to bring every stinking turkey hunter on you like a squatting dog draws flies. This is something I do not relish. As a result, I recommend gobbler yelping as a substitute.

It is not quite as strong as a gobble. It does not carry as far. It also does not make the sub-dominant gobblers run away.

Small scratch pots won’t do it, and neither will thin-diameter strikers. A Gobbler is big, so the call that reproduces him has to be large. If you’re going to go looking for that gobbler sound, if it’s anywhere to be had, it will be in the center of the call. 3-4 strokes that are as raspy as you can make it will be sufficient.

The call that does it the best for me is a 1/8″ thick slate on a 3.5″ diameter custom scratch pot I made myself that is well vented out the back and using a 3/8″ diameter lucite peg. I do most of my gobbler yelps just from my natural voice, by trying to throw my voice high and saying “YeawcK, YeawcK, YeaawcK.”

What I’ve seen is that if a gobbler wants to be with other gobblers, he’s going to make a beeline for you. If he’s being dominant and you mix the gobbler yelp in with hen calls, he’s going to show up and want a piece of you. Otherwise, it is probably not going to hurt. I’ve thrown it in with hen yelps as a change-up in mid-to-late-morning with some success. When I’ve seen gobblers use it themselves, it has been in situations where they are trying to team up with other gobblers or a flock of hens, but are not excited enough to gobble.

It is certainly safer than gobbling on public land. Having been hunted before, I can tell you it is no fun whatsoever.

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