Editor’s Note: Avid outdoorsman Jerry Lambert of Battle Creek, Michigan, has been hunting turkeys for 15 years and has been a Mossy Oak Pro Staffer for 7 years.
I'm often asked, “Why do you still use the push button call?” I use the push button call quite a bit, because it’s really easy to use. All you have to do is push the button, and the little box will make a yelp. My push button call has a really-raspy yelp. Too, making a bad call with the push button is difficult. Most other turkey hunters, especially veteran turkey hunters, don’t or won’t use the push button call. They think it’s too simple or easy to use to call in gobblers. This little call also has its own unique sound. I feel like many gobblers haven’t heard calls coming from a push button caller, and perhaps that’s why toms respond.
I don’t use any diaphragm turkey calls, because I just don’t feel like I have the talent to blow those type calls. Besides the push button call, I like a slate call, a glass call and a box call. My theory on calls is: if the calls are working, why change? I’ve been very successful calling in turkeys with friction calls. I'm a little bit of a maverick also. If you're going to call in a gobbler, most turkey hunters believe you have to use a diaphragm call. But I don’t like to do what someone tells me to do. I've proven to myself that I can call in a gobbler with friction calls without having to use a diaphragm call.
I just interviewed Michigan’s President of the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), Tony Snyder. He makes a handmade wing bone call, and I hope to learn to use that call soon. Once I totally depended on my push button call to call in gobblers. But recently, I've been using my slate call. Right now, I use the slate call more frequently than I do the push button call. I started my turkey hunting career with two calls - a push button call and a box call, since I think they’re the easiest to learn how to use and call in a turkey. On windy days or when the turkey is gobbling a long ways from me, I’ll use the box call, because the box call can produce a loud yelp or cluck that cuts through the wind and reaches out a long way to speak to a gobbler. However, I've harvested the most turkeys with my push button call.
I really like to take other people hunting with me and share the sport of turkey hunting. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I go on the youth hunts every year and try to guide youngsters to their first turkeys. I've also taken my brother and several other people turkey hunting. This season I hope to take my daughter Lindsey with me. She’s 14-years old, and this turkey hunt will be her first. She’s never hunted with me before, but this year when I asked if she would like to go turkey hunting with me, she told me, “Yes.” I asked her, “Why would you go turkey hunting with me, but you wouldn’t go deer hunting with me?” She came out with a really funny answer. She said, “I don’t want to go deer hunting, because deer look too much like pets after they’ve been harvested. I don’t really mind turkeys being dead, so I’ll go.” She’ll be shooting a Remington 12 gauge. She’s already been patterning the gun, and she’s gotten accustomed to shooting it.
Day 2: The Turkey That Taught Me the Most about Turkey Hunting
