How smart can they be?

[dejake]

The point i was making is that they don't run because they don't equate coming into a non-existant hen, hearing a loud boom, and seeing their buddy flopping on the ground with danger.  It's the movement by the shooter that makes them skedaddle.
All that being said, I will confess that sometimes they're smarter than me.

[turkey_slayer]

Turkeys are stupid. Guesswho nailed it. Seen them do the same thing at fences. Have also found piles of feathers at fences. Must not have been smart enough. Another thing is if there's one in the road I swear l you can make em run a mile down it. Me I would just go off the side? Eyes and ears are all you have to fool. Eyes mostly

[CT Spur Collector]

Not smart at all. Great eyesight. Good hearing just not able to tell real calling from some bad imitation. No reasoning ability. Survival instincts are hyper alert.

And if they had the nose of a deer, we'd never kill one.

[M Sharpe]

Wait a minute now, if they had the ability to reason and think on logical terms, wouldn' t they realize there was not a cloud in the sky and suspect that it must have been a gun instead of thunder???
He is just one wary creature that has been fighting to survive before he was even hatched. I've seen them at a wire fence before too. Quite comical!!

[guesswho]

If they thought a loud boom killed Fred that day he decided to go to the invisible hen what do you think would happen on the night of a bad thunderstorm.  All we would have to do the next morning would be walk around and pick up our limit after they fell off the limb from a heart attack the night before. 

Turn the tables on some of these scenarios I've read.  I've read over and over about call shy gobblers.  Look at it from a hens perspective.  You know they probably have seen their share of gobblers get killed by the big boom right after he gobbled his head off.  So with the call shy syndrome you would think there would be no way a hen would go to a gobbling bird.   

[deerbasshunter3]

I have to agree with the comment that was made about a gobbler beating up a decoy.

Not only did the gobbler walk up to another gobbler/jake, that is in full strut, and it never moved (Still "strutting", by the way...), but when it attacks it, it stays in full strut and takes a butt whoopin...?

Something just does not add up there. Even a deer will run/walk off if it attacks a decoy a couple times and it never moves.

I am not suggesting that turkey are down right stupid, but to give them any more credit than being another animal in the woods that we humans have learned to outsmart is giving them more credit than I believe they deserve.

With all of this being said, we have all seen turkey, deer, etc... do things against the taught norms of their behavior. As a matter of fact, I shot a mature deer last year directly down wind of me. Not only did I shoot her, but I shot at her and missed at 30 yards with my first arrow. She then ran ten feet, turned around, walked right by the arrow (still directly downwind) and stopped at 15 yards. I then dropped her with my second shot.