VT Outdoorsman

I am getting into turkey hunting and i have used slate calls before. I just got some diaphragm calls today and i was messing around with them. From what i can tell they are going to take a bunch of practice to get good with them for this spring. Anyone have any tips on using them...and what turkey sounds should i concentrate on for this spring? Thanks.

Gamblinman

Concentrate on the soft stuff. Purrs whines, clucks, and soft contented yelping. Diaphrams make excellent closing calls because they don't require movement. You can learn the other calls, but concentrate on the soft stuff, because it kills more big turkeys than all the rest put together.

Take care of your diaphrams. Water is the only refreshment to drink whlie using them. Everything elsewill stain, eat or stick your reeds togther. Rinse your calls after use, place a flat toothpick in between the main reed and the others, set them on paper towels to dry. Once dry, store them in an air-tight container in the fridge.

MKMGOBL

Practice practice and practice more. Practice them all! From the tree call or tree yelp, the fly down cackle, hen yelp, cluck & purr, gobbler yelp, kee kee.

Learning to use the mouth really isn’t all that hard if you stick with and follow the first advice I posted. Making a call is a piece of cake once you do it. All that practice is in reference to rhythm, tone of your calling, controlling the air you use to make a call and learning to relax when calling. That last part will come into play when you’ve got a hot gobbler screaming his head off at you and your heart’s racing a mile a minute.

Once you’ve got all that down, the fun begins. Knowing when to make a call or finding the right tone for the bird your working is where all your practicing will be put to the test. Best of luck with it and I hope you do well this spring

Mr. Longbeard

Well it's one of those things were all I can say is... If you want to do something bad enough you'll figure it out... I learned from watching lots of video's!!! I'm mean lots of video's!!! And just a lot of plain ol practicing!!!! It took me about 3 years before I really felt like I was making good quality turkey sound with a diaphram... You have to relize that your goiung to have to try a lot of diferent brands of mouth calls till you find the ones that sound best... Just when I thought I had it, I would try another mouth call and then relize that that call sounded better than the one I thought was the s!@#

I've learned a lot from Steve Stolts, and Mark Drury

VT Outdoorsman

Thanks for the tips guys...sounds like i have a lot of practicing ahead of me.

Bobgobble2

Ive known some fellas who sounded terrific with a diaphram...at home...but were lousy turkey callers in the woods,good advice fellas.I also would focus on the softer stuff and let my friction calls do the more aggressive stuff.To many fellas try and get to fancy with a mouthcall whenone really doesn't need too, and end up doing more harm than good,"particularly overcalling and being to aggressive".Keep it simple and it will work great for ya...