With another turkey season just around the corner, many hunters are dusting off the turkey calls so that they can begin practicing. Some hunters will be content with merely sounding “good enough” while others will try to sound as close to the real thing as possible, believing it will increase their odds of success in the turkey woods. The effectiveness of calling realism is a highly debated topic among turkey hunters and personally, I have to agree with those that believe it makes a difference.

Two of the biggest myths that you might hear from some turkey hunters is, “I've heard hens that sounded worse than a hunter's calling,” or “A wild turkey would never place in a turkey calling contest.” The origins of those blatantly false statements are most likely derived from hunters inexperienced in what real turkey calling actually sounds like. It might also be an attempt by some hunters to make themselves feel better about their sub par calling. At any rate, I've seen first hand how much of an impact realistic calling can have. As my calling abilities have increased over the years, so have my success rates. It's not just making a pretty sounding yelp either. Wild turkeys process a expansive vocabulary and the more of this turkey talk that a hunter learns to replicate, the more consistent his successes become.

The effectiveness of realism isn't limited to turkey calling either. When using locator calls such as those used to imitate the sounds of crows and barred owls, sounding as close to the real thing can increase your odds of striking a distant gobbler. Maybe the gobbler is far enough away that the faint sounds from your locator call is just not loud enough to illicit a gobble from him. By creating realistic locator sounds, you just might trigger a response from the real crows and owls and if one of those critters is in close proximity to that gobbler, it may just trigger him to gobble. I've experienced it numerous times and on several occasions, I filled my tag a short time later.

In closing, dust off those calls and practice whenever you get the chance. Although the debate over realistic calling will likely never end, your fellow turkey hunters will never tell you that sounding like a wild turkey is a bad thing.