To Hoot, or not to Hoot

[TrackeySauresRex]

That is the question...

  So what are your thoughts on this? When do you? Or.. when don't you?

A day I was out last week resulted in, I wish I didn't. The birds decided to sleep in late and it was unfortunate they changed the roost location, not for the better.  We put out a Hoot only to have one gobble right on top of us. Long story short. You know the ending. We didn't get him.
 

[Greg Massey]

For myself I just let nature wake the woods up ... I don't carry a hooter. I do sometimes carry a crow call but I very seldom use it ...

[Spring Creek Calls]

I like to let it happen naturally, but if it doesn't I'm hootin' or crow callin'.

[Ranman]

I usually hoot once, and that starts up the real ones answering back.

[RutnNStrutn]

I let nature do her thing. If that doesn't work, I hoot. And if that doesn't work, I crow call.
The other morning I did exactly that. Nothing from Mother Nature or my hoot, so I hit the crow call and !!

[The Lung]

Turkeys around here get real tight-lipped. I think they here dozens and dozens of guys blowing away on the hooter. Very, very seldom do I get a response. I carry mine because it's a nice call and it looks cool, lol.
Generally if I'm in the right spot these Rios get fired up without help from me.

[Tail Feathers]

I don't carry a hoot call.  I sometimes do it natural voice.  Not well, but it occasionally works.
But if I'm hearing others in the area, I don't hoot.  Done well, I don't think it hurts your chances whether the tom responds or not.

[RutnNStrutn]

Where I hunt, everyone else hoots. I try to be less like everyone else as possible.

That's an excellent plan..... IF you are hunting public land. I learned to turkey hunt on pressured public land in Florida.
These days I avoid those situations like the plague. Where I hunt these days, I'm not one of a hundred guys hooting. I'm just another owl.

[Brillo]

I recently was after a specific bird but not really sure where in a 300 yard line he was roosting so I hooted.  I Got three responses from a much wider zone but not him.  I had heard him previously from the other side of a river so I knew he was roosting nearby but not exactly where.  I did know he was between two other birds so that gave me a clue about where to set up.  Did not see or hear him that day until around noon when he gobbled on his own.  When I go back after him again I will stay quiet until it is time for tree talking and I will do very little of that. 

[zelmo1]

For myself I just let nature wake the woods up ... I don't carry a hooter. I do sometimes carry a crow call but I very seldom use it ...

x2

[Lcmacd 58]

For myself I just let nature wake the woods up ... I don't carry a hooter. I do sometimes carry a crow call but I very seldom use it ...

x3

[Sixes]

Personally, I don't use one and I rarely hear a gobble with a real owl hoot. I don't use any locator calls and mainly rely on real crows to get them going in the mornings.

If I were to use a locator call, I would probably use a goose call. I hear more gobbles after a goose call then any other shock call.

It might just be the birds that I hunt

[POk3s]

I believe this is worth throwing out there...I don't hoot at owl "hooting" times very often. I hoot after flydown/mid morning usually but am not scared to use it mid day.

My typical hunting style is running and gunning on public land so there are times where a turkey has moved off and in moving positions myself, I need to know where that gobbler is without drawing attention to myself and being a "hen". I'll usually hoot in these situations just to get a shock gobble out of them.

I don't think it's at all unnatural, as they just gobbled to it a couple hours before, I'm not blowing their ears out, and I'm not trying to call them in. It's simply just a way to locate them so I know my next move.

Like anything else, it doesn't always work, but even if it doesn't work, I'm very confident I didn't spook the turkey with it. I do think turkeys are sometimes spooked when you blow their ears up with a loud, crow call. 

[deathfoot]

I've never been able to hoot. So I don't. I suck at it.

Like many have said, there's a lot of natural noises they will gobble to so I never saw the need to try to learn.

I do love listening to some others tho. Then I don't feel so bad about not being able to.

Funny story, I may have shared this before. I was in the black hills 20 years ago. At that time you had to quit at 6 pm (I think it was 6) so me and my buddy was just sitting there (guns unloaded) waiting to see if any gobbled at fly up. We hear a truck pull up several ridges over. We hear the door slam. We here him hoot 5-100 times, we here him coyote call about 5 times. He gets in his truck drives off. 10 minutes later about 8 birds sounded off not far from where he hooted from. I learned a lot by that. Mostly, just because they don't respond to you, doesn't mean they aren't close by. So I let nature do its thing