How to Call a Turkey
Buying a turkey from the grocery is easy as pie, but hunting turkeys is a lot more difficult. If you’re hunting for a live turkey, imitating its call can have it come near you to make things easier. Here’s how to call a turkey.
Wing Bone Call
A wing bone call is an instrument made from the bones of a turkey hen. When constructed correctly, it can mimic the natural sounds that attract turkeys. Highly effective and relatively easy to use, the wing bone call is the instrument of choice for most turkey game hunters.
Materials
Turkey hen carcass
Sharp knife
Wire
File
Pot and water
Sandpaper
Plastic wood
Spray paint
Lanyard
Procedure
Use a knife to cut the wing from the turkey hen where the joint is attached to the body. Once the wing is is off, cut the joint apart where the two middle bones meet with the joint attached to the wing tip. Be careful not to break the bones, and get rid of the wing tip.
What you’ll be working on are the first and second section of the bone that remains on the wing joint.
Use the knife to remove the meet from the bone shanks and the tips of the smaller bones.
Cut off each end of the largest bone, just enough to expose its marrow. Use a thin wire to clean out the marrow, making sure that you do this carefully as not to break the bone web inside.
Examine the smallest bone and locate one end that is slightly flat and the other end that is round. Cut off the round end.
Use a file to file off the flat end of the bone until you’ve reached the pith or the marrow of the bone. Only a small part of the enlarged flat end should remain.
Clean out the bones carefully using a thin wire.
Boil the bones into a pot of water to get rid of any remaining marrow.
You can now assemble the bones. Get the largest of the two small bones and insert one end in the smaller end of the large bone. If it doesn’t fit in perfectly, you will need to sand it a little at a time until it can get inserted.
Insert the smaller bone up to half an inch, and pack the joint with plastic wood to create an airtight seal.
Locate the round end of the smallest bone and insert it around half an inch too into the next larger bone. Seal with plastic wood.
Leave to dry for 24 hours.
Paint with spray paint.
Add a lanyard to enable you to carry it around your neck. The wing bone call can produce the cluck, the yelp and the kee kee run, all calls that attract wild turkey.
To use this, place the tip of the bone off center of your lip. Suck in air as if you were kissing.