You can believe this or not, if I had not been there I do not think I would.
In December 2 years ago I was quail hunting with two birddogs, both were wearing Sonic beeper collars. These are very loud low tone collars that beep every 7 seconds and then every second when the dog points. I kept hearing a noise at a distance, I could not recognize the noise but at first I thought it was someone working a gravel road about 3/4 miles away with a blade. Dogs went over a rise in the cutover next to some very large pines that go down to a creek and then came back to heal. My dogs will NEVER heal when hunting. They insisted on staying with me as I went across the rise.
By now the collars have switched to point mode and both are beeping every second, did I mention they are very loud. when I topped the rise the noise was coming from inside the large pines. When I got about 100 yards away I could recognize some individual turkey sounds. There were two distinct group of long beards that were in some kind of major fight and all were calling at the same time. Birds were strutting, no gobbling but a lot of purring and clucking. A turkey would fight with one for a few seconds then blow up and fight with a different bird. I counted 23 long beards and I am sure there were more. These turkeys let me walk close enough to them with two bird dogs at heal with beepers going off that I could have shot one of several. I could not have shot each of them because they were spread out over a little less than an acre and I was carrying my 16 gauge open choke bird gun with 7 1/2 shot. It is a double barrel and I know I could have killed one and would bet that I could have killed two. The turkeys that were closest to me flushed and lit again about 40 yards away, then the battle continued at a leisurely pace through the woods with groups of birds flushing to fly a short distance then others flying to them and fighting. They broke into two separate groups as they left but both groups continued to fight but not so aggressively as they had been originally. An old man stood with two bird dogs at heal with beeper collars blasting and watched them for about 3 minutes as they left. The dogs were not the same the rest of the day.
Now the part that is really hard to believe. The first day of the following spring season I went to that cutover sure that I would hear turkeys in all directions and did not hear a peep.
