What is the best turkey call?

I am not going to be pretentious enough to tell a veteran turkey hunter what to take with him out in the field. However, if you’re still at the point where you are not sure what to use to call in a turkey, this may be your huckleberry.

I had a suitcase full of calls before I really stopped to think about this question. In about 2002, I found that I was getting myself weighed down by everything I was trying to shove in my vest. I decided to do without the vest and limit myself to a small shoulder bag. I forced myself away from the Kitchen Sink strategy and began thinking seriously about what had really worked for me. I have not used a vest since.

For a number of years, I would spend a lot of time every morning selecting calls. I would get up early and put a selection of calls out on the front porch, and wait until they had become acclimatized to temperature and humidity before making my final choices. That finally came to an end one year, when I just got lazy and took the same few calls out every day and managed to fill all my tags.

That was about the same time that I started making my own calls and got invited to be a pro-staffer for a company that made turkey calls. As a result, I now had to test out a bunch of calls every season, and the idea of one set of calls for the whole season went out the window.

Here it is 40 years in, and I’m just now getting settled into what I can recommend for turkey calls.

Before I begin this, let me just repeat a few basic truths about calls and calling:

1. It is less about the sound of the call and more about the cadence.  A rusty nail on a flower pot will bring in a turkey if a caller knows what he is doing.
2. Most turkey calls are made to attract turkey hunters, not necessarily turkeys. Keep that in mind.
3. As a turkey hunter, the calling is the least of your worries. The reason why it is the focus of everyone’s pre-season attention is that it the only thing you can practice without a live turkey around.

Mouth Calls

First off, let me deal with mouth calls. Yes! By all means! Do it. I do not mean to stop you. Mouth calls are by far the most natural-sounding calls out there– if you can master them. That can be a big “IF.” It took me about 5 years of trying. Angus, #3 son, picked it up on the spot. SuperCore has never gotten it. Moose is still struggling after a decade. They’re not for everyone. I carry about a half-dozen. I am not a real aficionado. I usually have at least one single-reed and a fairly simple double-reed, and then one of those whiz-bang super-viper-ultra-whizzits that look like whoever made it was on acid. I am not fantastic with any of them. However, I can often bring a bird in after a last-minute hang-up. I also keep one in my breast pocket when I am out and about. I never know when I might have to drop down and take cover. Some days, it is the only thing that works.

I look for pre-season specials on places like Amazon, and I’ll buy whatever is cheapest. Most of my mouth calls cost me around $3/apiece. I’m not big on expensive mouth calls.

Let me also get out of the way my feelings on wingbone calls. I don’t use a wingbone. I find the sucking motion to be obnoxious. However, I would be the first to say that it is a highly effective call. I would buy one and try it. Quaker Boy makes a nice plastic one. It is a fairly easy call to master. Turkeys seem to love them. I wish someone in the family would take mine. Snuff can calls are another one– great sound/nasty feeling.

 

Let me also warn you that I have a predilection for box calls and pot calls, but that is because I like to make them.

Box Calls

My first call was a Quaker Boy Grand Old Master. Dick Kirby himself pressed one into my hand.

 

There are a bunch of box calls out there that make a good sound. I make a call, the Shamanic MK I. It calls in turkeys just fine, but I still carry my Quaker Boy Grand Old Master regularly. Nearly 40 years ago, I pulled on that thing before sunrise, and a gobbler answered me, and I’ve been hooked on the sport ever since. I would say the box call is pretty near the easiest call to get a good sound.

There are two basic types of box calls. One type is a solid body. The other is fabricated from thin slabs of wood. You are going to ask me which is best. My QB GOM is the latter form, Quaker Boy switched to the solid one-piece design decades before Dick Kirby died. The absolute epitome of turkey calls, the Neil Cost style box, is a one-piece. The Shamanic MK I is a glue-up. I think the one-piece is easier for a machine to fabricate. For a hobbyist like me, the glue-up is easier. Both work. The real magic in a box is in the lips, the resonance of the body, and the way the paddle is drawn over the lips. To that extent, the rest is immaterial.

Material? the QB GOM is Cherry over Poplar. Others are various mixes of walnut, cherry, cedar, and other stuff. Each gives a different sound. In the beginning, pick one that sounds right to you and it will probably sound good to the turkey. It does not have to be expensive to work. I leave the box calls at home when it is raining. If I am going to be in anything other than dry conditions, I wrap the call in a plastic bag.

Friction Calls

 

My first pot call was a simple slate with a plastic striker. Over the years, I’ve amassed a large number of pot calls. Were I was beginning over again, I would still pick a slate for its ease in getting a proper sound– possibly with a hickory striker. Once I had things down well enough, I would add a glass (or crystal) and a slate over glass. From there it is wholly up to you. I’ve tried copper, aluminum, ceramic– whatever works for you. I have made all sorts of them. My homemade killer is a slate over glass– a thin pane of glass is suspended just under the slate surface. It brings a bright edge to the sound. I usually take 2 or 3 different pot calls with me.

Strikers: Now, here is where the art comes in. I carry a half-dozen or more strikers. They add next to no weight and each striker has a unique interaction with the surface of the call. I almost always carry a hickory and a purpleheart and a dymondwood. The rest is all just whim.

Push-Pin

I have a few push-pin calls. My favorite is a QuakerBoy. For a rank beginner, this is the absolute easiest call to operate. I always keep it on my right side in easy reach. My reason for carrying mine is as follows. First off, on its own, it can be an easy change-up. I’ll be yelping away and I want it to sound like there’s a second hen getting excited? I hit the push-pin. Second, when I’m doing a cluck and purr with a mouth call, I can do the same with the push-pin and it sounds like a small herd of hens. Lastly, I’m not real good on purring with a mouth call. If I get a hen in close and I want to warn her away, I’ll hit the push-pin and give her an angry purr. That is enough to get her to turn away without revealing myself to the hen or to any gobbbler in the vicinity.

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