Non Vocal Turkey Calls

Often a wily tom needs extra reassurance that it really is a turkey he is coming to.  You can create other turkey like sounds, besides calling, to give a suspicious long beard the confidence he needs to keep coming to your set up.  Scratching in the leaves is a great non vocal turkey call. But a lot of animals scratch in the leaves, squirrels and deer in particular, and they don’t all sound like turkeys.

Turkeys have a distinct rhythm to their scratching which they know and recognize when they hear it.  They scratch first with one foot, then twice with the other then once again with the first foot.  The rhythm goes scratch… pause… scratch, scratch… pause… scratch.

You can see the rhythm you need to duplicate the right sound in this trail cam video of a tom scratching in the leaves as he changes from one foot to the other and back to the first foot. Sadly I neglected to turn on the sound when I set up the camera so we have no sound, but you will see the rhythm as you watch him scratch.

Hens and toms all scratch with the same distinctive rhythm and sound.  Its the sound of turkeys calmly feeding and it’s one of the best calls to seal the deal on a hyper wary tom.