I have amassed quite the collection of turkey calls over the years. Some of the calls I have acquired as gifts from friends that I turkey hunt with, some because they sounded great in a store or at a show, some because they sounded great outside, and some because I fell prey to an excellent marketer who thought I should sound like a peacock – I can honestly say that I didn’t buy one of those, and I would never tell you if I did. Although I would love to use all of these turkey calls each time I go into the woods, I cannot. Because I have limited space in my turkey vest and I can’t carry 45 pounds of turkey calls with me in the turkey woods, I have the very difficult task of choosing which turkey calls I pack into the pockets in my turkey vest. I almost always have all of my calls with me (not on me, but nearby) because I may break one, lose one, or get mad and throw one in the creek.
Because I own all of these turkey calls, I have the daunting task of choosing which calls to pack in my vest pockets on opening day. I typically will keep the “first stringers” in my vest until mid season because either I get tired of hearing them or the turkeys I hunt get tired of hearing them. I am no expert about how turkeys relate and remember turkey calls, but it make sense to me that if I used one call over and over again the turkeys that hear the call would grow to know that the hen they hear wandering through the woods is the amazing disappearing turkey. You know, the hen that is heard and never seen (hopefully). Eventually, I believe, the turkeys get sick of hearing the same tired, old voice of the disappearing hen and just think, “Forget her! I’m tired of her pleading and nagging me to come to her. She’ll just have to come to me!” I believe this because I’ve taken many turkey mind reading courses online, and because I give turkeys way too much credit for being smarter than I am. Mid way through the season, I’ll put in my “second stringers.”
My second stringers are definitely no weaker at making a turkey gobble than my first stringers are. The main difference is that my second stringers may not be as sexy as a certain first stringer or maybe the second stringer is a little older than my oldest first stringer. It could be that the second stringer got moved to second string because it is a little bulkier and doesn’t fit in my vest as well as a similar first stringer. Irregardless of the reason my second stringers got put on second string, they still get to play the game about mid way through the season, and they more often than not help me to limit out. Also, these second stringers often get to go on my out of state trips with me because I have discovered that Merriam’s and Rio’s turkeys seem to like a different sounding call than the Eastern’s that I regularly hunt.
My third stringers are the turkey calls that I have taken into the woods with me numerous times, and they just don’t seem to get turkeys to gobble. I still keep the third stringers in my hunting gear because they may make a Merriam’s or Rio gobble even though they send an Eastern or Osceola into a fit of hilarity.
Then I have my set of retired calls. These calls are the ones that I’ve broken, used too much, or just sound like a peacock mating with a turducken who is riding an elephant while playing the trumpet out of key. I’m deaf as to which tones it is exactly that makes one call sound so much better to a turkey than another, but I know when I hear a call that sounds like an out of key trumpet. I still keep these calls, however; and these retired calls have a special place in my hunting gear for two reasons. The first is that I have hoarder tendencies, so I can’t seem to bring myself to throw them away. The second reason is that they drive my wife absolutely crazy – crazier than the first stringer calls make her. My peacock turducken mating call collection can get my house emptied faster than 99% off sale at Kohl’s, which makes watching football much less talky talky in the Fall.
So, as football season nears its end and turkey season nears its opening, I get a little excited and a little nervous about the pending tryouts at my house. Soon I will pull out all of those turkey calls that I own, and I’ll start going through them to see who is going to make the first string, second string, third string, and who needs to be retired. After all, the NFL playoffs start this weekend, and I am going to need a nap as well.