Turkey hunter Marshall Collette said his approach to luring gobblers within gun or bow range has changed during the years.
“I don’t call as much or move as much as I used to,” Colette said.
The only time he uses his calls now is when a gobbler immediately responds to one of his calls. He’s also likely to sit for hours in one spot if he knows a gobbler has heard him.
“If calls are what he wants, I give him calls,” he said. “But it’s a matter of knowing what to do and when — experience.”
Collette said gobblers that are reluctant to investigate a hunter’s calls usually have a reason.
“If a gobbler stays in the same place, he’s usually henned-up — doing what nature tells him to do,” Collette said. “After all, when he gobbles, the hens go to him.”
As an example of patience paying off, Collette said last year he was near a creek and calling a Caswell County gobbler that was obviously with a flock of hens.
“When he left with the hens, I just let him go,” he said. “I didn’t get up and go after him. He eventually went out of my hearing, then, he came back gobbling after I’d call to him. He left, then he came back a third time.”
After the bird left a fourth time, it circled behind Collette.
“I heard him fly across the creek, so I softly clucked and purred with my call a few times, and he came to me,” the hunter said.
A shot from Collette’s 12-gauge eventually put the 18 1/2-pound bird — which had a 12 1/2-inch beard and 1 1/8-inch spurs — on the ground.
“It’s just a matter of trial-and-error,” he said. “If I’d been a beginner, I’d probably have gone after him or called too much when he walked off with the hens.
“But he knew where that hen was and never forgot. So when his hens lost interest, he came back looking for the hen that’d called at him three or four hours earlier.”
Collette noted this incident occurred late in the season when the bird had gotten wise to other hunters making moves on him.
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