The Turkey Hunter's Dictionary -- J's - P's

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've compiled a turkey-hunter's dictionary for this week to enable you to communicate your turkey-hunting experience to other sportsmen and understand what they're telling you. Today, we'll look at turkey-hunting words beginning with Js- Ps. You'll want to print out the entire week's dictionary to help you understand turkey language and the language of turkey hunters.

I love to hunt turkeys in the fall. You get to see numbers of jakes and hear plenty of kee-keeing. However, you'll rarely take a longbeard in the fall. You can use a Noble whistle to make the first half of the kee-kee call, but I prefer to do that with a mouth yelper. I'm learning how to use a peg and slate to kee-kee on also. Just to keep up with the turkeys, I'll often blow an owl hooter. But I like a push-button call the best for the fall. Then when the turkeys come in close, I can purr on it.

Jake: A 1-year-old gobbler.

Kee-kee run: A young gobbler's squeal and call. This is the call most often given by young gobblers before they learn how to gobble and the call that turkey hunters imitate mostly in the fall, through sometimes in the spring. In the fall the jakes (1-year-old gobblers) haven't matured enough to be able to gobble. So their sound resembles, "Peep, peep, peep, yelp, yelp, yelp," which is the kee-kee run. The jakes are usually what is hunted in the fall, because they are the easiest to call and bag. Older gobblers rarely come to calling in the fall, since spring was mating time. Besides, longbeards do not like to be around the juvenile birds, which prefer to flock with the young gobbler instead of a hunter in the area. In the spring, the kee-kee run is used mainly to fool an old gobbler into thinking that a young jake is attempting to mate with one of his harem.

Longbeard: A dominant or boss gobbler, usually more than 2 years old.

Lost call: A call given by hunters to pull a turkey flock together or to locate a gobbler. Another name for the lost call is the assembly call Mouth yelper: A diaphragm caller.

Noble whistle: Brand name of an English whistle used by policemen, basketball referees, and dog trainers. After removing the ball from this whistle, many hunters have found the whistle useful for making the kee-kee run sound.

Owl hooter: A caller that reproduces the voice of the barred owl. The owl hooter is used to locate turkeys, which will shock-gobble in response.

Owling: Hunter calls that imitate the sound of an owl.

Pattern board: A sheet of plywood or metal that catches the shot from a discharged shotgun shell. On the pattern board, the hunter can see the density and size of the pattern of shot extended from his shell. Shooting at a pattern board tells him how effective his shotgun will be at various ranges with different loads.

Pecking order: The social hierarchy of the turkey flock; the order of dominance of the individual turkeys within a flock.

Peg: A wooden stick or a round piece of plastic that is stroked across a slate box, a piece of slate, or an aluminum-covered box to imitate the sound of a turkey. The peg is a part of a friction call. Poult: A baby turkey.

Predator: An animal that feeds on other animals. Some of the predators of turkeys include wild dogs, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, eagles, coyotes, wolves, crows, skunks, and snakes.

Purr: A contented sound made by a hen, much like a woman's humming.

Push-button call: A simple friction call that requires the hunter only to push a peg with his finger to produce hen calls.

Putt: An alarm sound given by a turkey.

To learn more about hunting turkeys, order John E. Phillips' three turkey-hunting books by going back to Night Hawk's Homepage and then clicking on books; or, call (800) 627-4295 to receive a free brochure.

TOMORROW: The Turkey Hunter's Dictionary -- R's - S's