Shock Impulse

Most books on turkey hunting discuss the use of locator calls to stimulate gobbling when scouting or early in the morning while hunting. Gobblers sometimes seem to gobble at almost any loud sound. Why is that?

Why gobblers respond to loud noises by gobbling is a bit puzzling, but it is certainly a fact of wild turkey life. Anyone who has spent time scouting, observing or hunting wild turkeys can testify to the fact that gobbling can be stimulated by loud noises ranging from crow calls to thunder, coyote howling to car horns, far-off blasting to tires crunching gravel on a country road. Gobbling is much more common in the spring breeding season than at other times of the year, but I have heard wild turkeys gobble every month of the year to various stimuli. Locator calls are helpful, but none guarantee a gobble on any given day. Among the best are barred owl calls, crow calls, peacock calls, pileated woodpecker calls, hawk calls and coyote howlers.

Vocalizing in response to sudden, loud noises is well known among wild turkeys, but it is not unique to the species. Male ring-necked pheasants, male guinea fowl, domestic roosters and crows exhibit similar responses to loud, sudden noises at times. It may occur in other birds, too, but seems to be a more common behavior among birds that communicate with loud vocalizations. Birds are capable of almost instantaneous responses to stimuli. Anyone who has participated in live capture of wild turkeys with rocket nets, cannon nets or drop nets has witnessed wild turkeys on the move the second that net is fired or dropped. The gobbling response of male turkeys to loud noises or the gobbling of their cohorts appears to be almost simultaneous with the noise, perhaps with a delay measured in tenths of seconds. We humans usually cannot react to sudden stimuli that quickly. Instant response to a situation is essential for survival for prey species like wild turkeys.

The gobble is what we as turkey hunters love to hear. On a clear morning in the right terrain, a gobble may be heard for a mile or more. All of us who pursue these phenomenal birds wish we could predict which mornings turkeys will gobble best. That way we could sleep in on mornings with a low percentage of hearing that sound. A number of studies have tried to pinpoint factors that affect gobbling and the advance of technology may provide methods to evaluate the effect of weather and other factors. The placement of auditory recorders can provide data on gobbling activity over time and shed light on which factors may influence behavior. However, I suspect we might never know exactly what drives gobbling behavior well enough to predict which days we should hit the woods. The solution is to hunt every day you can!