Turkey calls and what they mean: a beginner's guide to yelps, clucks and purrs

How turkeys talk, and how much of it you need

Wild turkeys don't have a big vocabulary, and a first-season hunter needs even less of it. This guide, part of our turkey calls hub, walks through each sound a turkey makes: what it sounds like, what it tells other turkeys, and which kind of call a beginner can use to copy it. The NWTF's beginner advice is to “learn the basic sounds like cluck, purr, putt and yelp, to start,” and that is the right order of business. You can fill in the rest over a few seasons.

Where this comes from: we haven't recorded these sounds or judged any call by ear. What a live turkey sounds like, and what each sound means, comes from two National Wild Turkey Federation guides, The Sounds of the Wild Turkey and What Does a Turkey Say? What a call can make comes from its maker's own product page. Where the two NWTF guides disagree on a detail, we show you both.

The turkey vocabulary at a glance

Every sound on this page in one table. The third column is what the sound tells other turkeys. The last column shows which of the three calls we pick further down (a box, a pot and a mouth call) lists that sound, according to its maker.

Read down the last column and a pattern shows: the everyday sounds (yelp, cluck, purr, cutt, cackle) are exactly what mainstream box, pot and mouth calls are built around. The specialist sounds (kee-kee, gobble) need a specific call or a specific skill, and a beginner can safely leave them for later.

The four sounds to learn first: yelp, cluck, purr and cutt

The NWTF's starter list is cluck, purr, putt and yelp. We swap the cutt in for the putt in your practice time. The putt is an alarm call, and the NWTF's own advice is to have your shotgun “ready and on target” before you make one, so it belongs at the very end of a hunt. Cutting, on the other hand, is simply clucks run together fast, so it grows straight out of the cluck.

The yelp: “where are you?”

The NWTF calls the plain yelp “a basic turkey sound” that is “often delivered in a series of single note vocalizations,” and says it is “commonly used by a hen to communicate with a gobbler during mating season.” Its second guide boils the meaning down to “where are you,” a call that “can be used any time turkeys are separated.” Two variations are worth knowing by ear. The excited yelp is the same notes but “much more excited, rapid and with more volume.” The lost yelp “increases in urgency from note to note, with a perceptible rise in pitch.”

On a box call, Knight & Hale's instruction for its own two-sided box is to “slide the paddle across the body's lip in longer strokes in succession.” On its Slate Hammer pot call, the maker's yelp is a short oval or circular stroke in ½ in lines, 5 to 7 times, “producing a two-tone yelp.” On a mouth call, the NWTF's instruction is to make a whistle, then “slowly drop your jaw and/or tongue pressure.”

The cluck: “come here”

A cluck, per the NWTF, “consists of one or more short, staccato notes” and is “generally used by one bird to get the attention of another.” The plain cluck is “usually given singly or in a short series of two or three,” and both sexes use it to signal “come here.” For hunters, the NWTF says the cluck helps “reassure an approaching gobbler” and is worth trying when a bird “starts to hang up” out of range.

On a box: “Pop the paddle off the body's lip with short strokes” (Knight & Hale). On a pot, Knight & Hale says to move the striker very quickly in straight ¼ in lines with a popping motion. On a mouth call, the NWTF says to “huff a quick, forceful blast of air across the reeds.”

The purr: a relaxed bird

“Purring is a soft, rolling call turkeys make when content,” the NWTF writes: “a low vocal communication designed to keep the turkeys in touch and often is made by feeding birds.” Put a cluck in front of it and you have the cluck and purr, which the NWTF links to “flock talk or the feeling of contentment” and calls “good for reassuring turkeys as they get close to your position.” One exception: “Loud and rapid purrs may signal aggression as turkeys battle for dominance.” That's the fighting purr, a specialist sound Quaker Boy builds its Double Easy Yelper for (“great for fighting purrs”).

On a box, Knight & Hale says to “slowly slide the paddle across the body with little downward pressure.” On its pot call, a slow, straight 1 in line, and “hold striker higher for more consistent sound.” On a mouth call, the NWTF describes a “gargling sound in the back of your mouth as you huff air.” Note that Primos doesn't list purrs for the True Double mouth call we pick below.

The cutt: an excited bird

Cutting is “loud, sharp clucks that are often mixed with yelping,” and the NWTF is clear that it “is a sign that turkeys are excited, not alarmed.” Hunters cutt back at a cutting hen “in an attempt to bring her to you,” or use it “when you have tried soft calling to a gobbler that is hung up.” On a box, Knight & Hale simply says to “cluck repeatedly in fast numerous bursts.” On its pot call, the same quick ¼ in strokes “with broken rhythm (ex. 3 notes, 2 notes, 4 notes).”

Step-by-step technique for each call type lives in our how-to guides: how to use a box call (holding it, chalking it, the strokes), how to use a slate or pot call (striker angle and surface care) and how to use a mouth call (placement and air).

The rest of the vocabulary

Tree yelps and the fly-down cackle: the roost pair

The tree call is “a series of soft muffled yelps given by a roosted bird,” and the NWTF says hunters can use it “to let a gobbler on the roost know you are there.” Its second guide says tree yelps are “given by both sexes in all seasons from the roost” and calls them “excellent to use with a roosted gobbler at first light.” Keep them quiet: that's the whole point of the sound. Among the calls in our registry, H.S. Strut says its Push Button Yelper replicates “tree talk,” and WoodHaven lists tree yelps for its Ninja Ghost mouth call.

The cackle is the noise of a bird leaving the roost. The two NWTF guides count its notes differently: “three to 10 irregularly spaced notes, loud and staccato” in one, “10-15 irregularly spaced notes given as turkeys fly down from roost, cross stems or fly over fences” in the other. The NWTF calls the fly-down cackle a “good call to tell a gobbler that a hen is on the ground.” ESH lists “fly down cackles” for its All Weather box, and Knight & Hale's pot-call cackle is quick, straight ¼ in strokes, 7 to 10 times.

Assembly and lost yelps: gathering the flock

The hen assembly call is “a series of loud yelps, usually a little more emphatic and longer than a standard series of yelps,” used “to assemble her flock or young poults.” The NWTF says poults learn this “raspy call” within their first two days after hatching, that it works “in the fall when trying to call a scattered flock back together,” and that “loud assembly yelping in early season is very good on unseasoned gobblers.” The lost yelp is the answer from the other side: adults of both sexes give it “as they attempt to reassemble after being scattered.”

The kee-kee: a lost young bird

“The kee kee is usually a three-note call that lasts about two seconds,” the NWTF writes, and a kee-kee run “is merely a kee kee followed by a yelp.” It is “the call of lost young turkeys,” described in the second guide as “high pitched whistling notes.” It's mostly a fall sound: an NWTF fall-hunting article says a hunter who is good on a mouth call can add “kee-kees that are so popular with jakes in the fall.” None of our three picks lists it. In the registry, WoodHaven says its Fusion Aluminum pot call makes kee-kees with the included carbon striker, and Phelps says the Casper call in its Hunter's Select mouth-call pack makes “easy kee-kee runs.”

The putt: something is wrong

“The putt is a single or several sharp notes,” “generally associated as an alarm,” and it “usually means the bird has seen or heard something and is signaling danger.” The NWTF adds a useful shade of meaning: “Sharp clucks followed by purrs are not as serious of a warning as putts followed by silence.” If you hear putting as a bird comes in, the likeliest cause is something you did, usually movement. Our list of common first-season turkey hunting mistakes covers the usual culprits.

The gobble: the sound you're hunting

The gobble is “a loud, rapid gurgling sound made by male turkeys,” “used primarily in the spring to let hens know he is in the area.” The second NWTF guide says it serves to “attract females and repel competing males.” Some box calls can gobble: Primos says its Hook Up box, used with the included Gobble Band, makes gobbles, and Knight & Hale publishes a rubber-band shake technique for its HD Long Range Hen box.

Spring talk vs fall talk

The same birds use their vocabulary differently across the year. An NWTF fall article sums it up: “In the fall, turkeys are more interested in finding food, whereas in the spring, their thinking revolves around breeding.” In spring, hunters lean on hen sounds (yelps, clucks, purrs, cutting) to pull in a gobbler, and the gobble itself is mostly a spring sound. In fall, the flock sounds matter more: the assembly yelp, the lost yelp and the kee-kee, all built around scattered birds trying to find each other. Our fall vs spring turkey hunting comparison covers how the rest of the hunt changes, including which birds are legal.

Knowing the words isn't the same as talking

One more thing before you buy calls. An NWTF column on common calling errors describes callers who are “just making every sound they can think of without trying to communicate to the turkey.” The same column says “a smart hunter should call just enough to keep the bird gobbling.” A big vocabulary is useful for reading the woods: a putt tells you you've been spotted, a fly-down cackle tells you birds are hitting the ground. When it comes to making sounds yourself, a few right ones at the right moment beat all of them at once. Our guide to how often to call turkeys covers the timing side.

What to look for in a call that speaks the basics

• A maker that names the sounds. A call whose maker lists yelps, clucks, purrs and cutting tells you what it was built to do. “Makes all turkey talk” tells you nothing, and our published scoring rubric gives it the “not published” band.
• A call type you can run on day one. The NWTF says “beginners usually find a box call the easiest to get a consistent sound.” Our rubric scores the learning curve for push-button calls at 9, box calls 8, pot calls 6 and mouth calls 5 or lower.
• A soft end and a loud end. The purr and tree yelp are quiet; cutting is loud. A call that can do both covers the whole morning.
• A plan for rain. Traditional chalked box calls and slate pot calls carry no weather claim. Mouth calls don't mind rain, and some box calls carry a maker's rain claim.
• Skip the specialist sounds for now. You don't need a gobble tube or a kee-kee striker to start.

Want more options in each type? Our rankings cover the field: the best box calls, the best slate and pot calls and the best mouth calls for beginners. If you only buy one call this year, make it the box.