snapper1982

yes i read it all and it sounds like you are basically blaming it all on coyotes and the fact that one hunter in maine was bitten by a yote doesnt mean much. every year everywhere coyotes approach and sometimes attack decoys. they even kill turkeys all the time but it has never stopped the birds from gobbling. i am not saying that every now and then the yotes wont quiet them but it is a very short time. as in minutes or hours not days and weeks. when birds stop gobbling it is known as a gobbling lull. it happens everywhere and is not because of any predator. you are entitled to your opinion. as is everyone else. you should write lovett and ask him what his expert thoughts are on the subject.

thelukai1100

I'm not sure i had a really strange day today
I had one gobbling every 20 seconds or so, that one didn't work out, to impatient and spooked it on the way out.

Then i found one in the field across the street from my house (not legal shooting hours)
that wasn't gobbling at all but was full strut with a hen.
the night before in the same place i used a owl hoot call and didn't get one gobble.

Pretty strange, the even stranger thing is where the turkey WAS gobbling there was more coyotes than where the turkey wasn't gobbling

Uncle Nicky

I too agree...I've seen all of this happen before. As far as the gobbling lull, a buddy of mine has a theory that seems to make sense, he believes that trees & brush leafing out during the middle of the season (usually early-mid May here in PA and NY) confuses the birds and makes them ultra-paranoid until they adjust to the new foliage in their surroundings, causing them to clam up. The last 2 weeks here are often the best.

Had a strange occurence yesterday, drizzly morning, we set up in a field where the birds usually go to feed right after fly-down. Everything seemed perfect, bird gobbled a couple times about 100 yards away from the roost to let us know he was there. Right at dawn we heard the hens heading our way, figured it was going to be a slam dunk. Heard a shot about 400 yards off, the tom shock gobbled twice (from the ground), and we never saw or heard him the rest of the day. The hens milled around in the field for over an hour ( I believe they were waiting for him to show), but it never happened. Seems odd to me that a shot 1/4 mile away would cause a bird to turn the other way & run, it didn't faze the hens, but there you go.

snapper1982

uncle nicky. that sounds like a very good possibility for a gobbling lull. i have seen it happen here many times but i never paid enough attention to remember if it coincided with leaf up.

the bird you mentioned may have been shot at before. or he might have just decided to leave those hens. who knows when it comes to these birds.

Phil. i am interested in knowing if this is just in your area or if it is the whole state. do you know people in other parts of maine and are the birds around them not gobbling as well?

Phil from Maine

I can only say for this area.. The only birds we can get to stay vocal for any length of time is the jakes. The jakes will sound off almost every time you see one. Other than that we might get a gobble while on the roost and then it stops from there on. This has not been going on just during leaf growth so I am not sure what is up with that. I watched birds from Easter Sunday on and not much luck getting them to gobble. I watch to toms battle it out on Easter Sunday while waiting for the dinner to cook. I came across them while going to check on a trail cam. The odd thing is when moose hunting if the yotes are around. You call the yotes will get howling and all that. Turkey hunting everything is silent here so it is a different year. I have tagged out so for me it is not such a big deal. Others are having the same kind of luck I had have. No answering the calls. Maybe they will once they start leaving the hens? They had only open this area up last year so I do not think it is because of pressure. I travel quite a ways to stay away from the pressure areas. With the same results nothing answering the calls. I do know a guy at work that I should be able to bump into this coming week sometime that travels half way down state and ask if he had the same results. He was on vacation as well as I was this past week.

snapper1982

phil. you say jakes will sound off. is there an abundance of jakes this year.

Phil from Maine

Not in the areas where the bigger birds are they have drove them off already. Only in one area has there been some jakes with the hens. Last year there were jakes every where.

snapper1982

ok. i would have said that the jakes could have them tight lipped. jakes can and will team up and run toms off. people dont think they can but it happens alot. i have seen it. in the new primos video they actually talk about it and show it. the toms dont like to gobble because it attracts the jakes which in turn run the tom off and take the hen.

pipes18079

BIrds wont gobble after the flydown here in NH either but they come in quite other than an ocasional clucking. pretty vocal on the roost though but forget it after that its really agravating

neb

I see that every year where I hunt. The tom's are tight lipped and the jakes make the noise and I believe that is a normal thing in my area. The tom's are still very huntable and will come in with no gobbling. If you know that there are birds where you have set up keep doing your thing.