My Hunting Buddy Swore Foxes Could Call in Turkeys

This story, “How Foxy Can He Get,” appeared in the May 1952 issue of Outdoor Life.

Can any animal, or bird, imitate the call of another animal, or bird, for the purpose of luring it for a kill? My friend Bill, one of the best turkey hunters I know, had an experience that leads him to believe there may be something to it.

Bill drove into town one morning during the Missouri turkey season, and held up a very dead gray fox for me to look at. Having scattered a flock of turkeys the afternoon before, he told me, he’d gone out that morning to try to call up a tom. He got an answering call, and kept on coaxing. Finally out into the open came — not the bird he was expecting, but the fox.

“Are you sure there wasn’t a turkey somewhere around?” I asked. “Do you think the fox actually answered your call?”

Bill looked at me sharply. I realized that I’d offended him by questioning his word.

“Warn’t no turkey,” he replied.

I apologized. “I just wanted to be sure I understood you right. If you say the fox answered your call, that’s enough for me.”

It was enough for other turkey hunters thereabouts, too, for none of them questioned Bill’s story.

But it bothered me, and the more I thought about it the more concerned I got. If a fox can answer a turkey call, it can call a turkey, too. Thus, it would be possible for foxes to use the same hunting tactics as sportsmen scatter, wait, and call. Foxes hunt the year round. They take young birds before they can fly and they also hunt during the mating season for birds, when calling is most effective. If what Bill said was right, how long could the wild turkey survive in that country?

I’ve since told many sportsmen about Bill’s experience. None ever heard of such a thing before, but all agreed it might be possible. Foxes are smart, and, judging from the sounds made by some small dogs, it is conceivable that they might be able to duplicate a turkey’s yelp.

My wife, with whom I’ve fished and hunted a lot, didn’t go along with this line of reasoning. She felt there was something missing from Bill’s story. After a while I was transferred out of the turkey country, and my wife and I became interested in rifle shooting. One fall I got an urge to return. “How’d you like to run up to Bill’s place for the opening of the turkey season?” I asked my wife.

“I’d like it,” she said. “I want to get a turkey with the Winchester.”

A Model 52 match rifle with sawed-off barrel, custom stock, and hunting scope, it’s a very accurate squirrel rifle. But as I reminded her, that .22 long rifle load has a pretty curved trajectory.

“You killed a gobbler with it, didn’t you?” she countered.

I told her I’d write Bill. In due time the long, lanky mountaineer replied he’d be expecting us.

The day before we left, my wife sighted in the sporter for fifty yards. That meant the bullet would first cross the line of sight at about fifty feet, and give a fairly flat trajectory up to sixty yards. Beyond that she had to compensate by holding high.

In the Ozarks the shotgun is the usual weapon for turkeys, since the terrain makes long shots rare. Besides, leaves hang on the scrub oaks all winter, making it difficult to see beyond shotgun range. I prefer the .22 Hornet cartridge, however, so I zeroed the scope on my Winchester Model 70 at 100 yards, to give a flat trajectory up to 125 yards. It packs plenty wallop at that range, though it’s not unduly destructive at shorter distances.

We had a perfect day for the drive up to Bill’s place and, when we arrived, Bill was in high spirits. “By doggie,” he said, looking up at the sky, “hit shore ought to be a fine day for hunting tomorrow.”

We turned in early, and it seemed I’d hardly dozed when Bill’s rap on the door announced breakfast.

“Did you ever get Old Whitey?” I asked Bill, between sips of freshly brewed coffee.

“Shore did,” he said proudly. Whitey was an old, snow-white tom. Refusing to travel with the flock, he made the hens come to him. And even during the mating season there was no such thing as calling him. Bill had stalked the bird unsuccessfully for two seasons.

“Musta been the year after you-uns left,” Bill related. “Spotted him up the valley the day afore the season opened. Figured somebody would chase him out next day, so I went down to the turkey crossing and waited.”

If unmolested, turkeys will feed over a circular or oval path day after day up one valley, across the ridge, and down the next. Though this path may vary, the birds usually cross the ridge at the same place. If scared out of one valley, they instinctively head for the crossing in attempting to make their escape.

“He didn’t show up the first day,” Bill continued, “so I went back the next. ‘Bout the middle of the morning, here he comes. He walked right up to me, and I got him. Weighed a mite over thirty-five pounds.”

It was still dark when Bill picked up his 12 gauge pump and said we’d better start. About two miles from the house, he told ·me to park the car and said that it would be better to make the rest of our journey on foot.

I was getting the Hornet out of the case when Bill walked over to my wife. “You’ll have better luck with a shotgun,” he told her. “Want to trade with me?”

Bill had never seen her shoot a rifle. She thanked him for the offer, but held onto the sporter.

We went a little way down the hill and took stations about thirty yards apart. Bill, who was to do the calling. was in the middle, my wife on his right and I on the left. As dawn began to break, I found my position particularly good. I could see downhill for about 100 yards. There was a clump of scrub oak some thirty yards in front of my wife and also of Bill.

Just after the first crows began cawing there was a great flapping of wings below me, and I caught a glimpse of a turkey as it wheeled and set its wings for a sail down the valley.

Bill waited long enough to let the turkey hit the ground. Then he cupped his hands around the wing-bone caller. He can make that thing talk. An answer came after his second call, then a rustling of leaves. I shifted my position toward the sound, slipped on the sling strap, and brought the butt of the Hornet to my shoulder.

The rustling stopped. Bill gave a couple of yelps on the caller. It was answered, and there was more rustling of leaves. Then I saw something move — a fox! A gray fox was moving up, keeping the scrub oak between it and Bill. The fox stopped. The rustling stopped. I waited. The fox had only a short distance to go before coming out in the open where Bill would be able to see it.

There came a long e-e-e-e-e-e-e and one yelp from Bill’s caller. Again there was an answer, and the fox moved ahead. Had the fox actually given the answer? I couldn’t be sure. There was something about the whole performance that struck me as phony. Just then my eye picked up another movement farther down the hill. It was a young gobbler.

I picked the bird up in my scope, and as I did so it stopped. I knew the fox must be out in the open by this time, and figured Bill would shoot it. So I had to get my shot off fast. Quickly bringing the post to bear on the butt of the wing, I squeezed the trigger. Simultaneously with the crack of the Hornet came the boom of the 12 gauge. The gobbler went down, flopping violently. I watched through the scope, having thrown a fresh cartridge in the chamber, just in case.

Convinced the bird was dead, I got up and turned toward Bill. He and my wife were examining the fox which, as I expected, Bill had shot.

“This is twice I’ve shot a fox like that,” he was telling her.

“Yes, I know,” she replied.

“Are you convinced now,” I asked her, “that a fox can answer a call?”

“Shore he can,” Bill stated flatly. “You-uns just heard him do it.”

“You win,” she said to me.

“Did either of you see or hear a turkey?” I asked.

They hadn’t. I walked downhill and picked up my gobbler.

Bill’s mouth dropped. “Where you get that?” He came over to look at it.

“I shot it.”

“Funny — didn’t hear you shoot.”

“Neither did I,” my wife chimed in, “though it struck me there was something peculiar about the sound of Bill’s shotgun.”

After we put the bird in the car we held a council of war. Bill was to go down the ridge on one side of the valley. I was to take my wife up to a turkey crossing, leave her there, and continue around the head of the hollow and down the opposite ridge.

“Jest follow the lay of the land down to the creek,” said Bill, “and I’ll meet you there.”

I was to come back up the valley in the hope of driving a bird out over the crossing so my wife could get a shot. But it didn’t work out that way.

Just before we reached the crossing I saw a turkey fly down the valley and land on the ridge. It had evidently been flushed by Bill.

“Come with me,” I told my wife. “Let’s see if we can call up that one.”

We sat down and waited for the turkey to get over its fright. I then took out my cedar-box caller and put some chalk on the slate. I moved the tongue of the caller slowly across the slate and produced an e-e-e-e-e-e-e. A circular motion without lifting the tongue of the caller made the yelps. Three yelps, a pause, then four more.

I can’t use a wing bone because it makes my nose itch, and that’s no good for turkey hunting. The box call also affects my nose, or so my wife claims. She smiled as my nose twitched with every yelp.

The smile faded quickly as a young gobbler answered the call and came toward us. He headed up a draw and, as nearly as I could tell, would come out in the open some fifty yards from where we sat. When he stopped I glanced at my wife to see if she was ready, then gave three yelps on the caller. There was an answering rustle of leaves and a whole string of yelps. It sounded as if the turkey was having hysterics.

The instant he came into sight there was another call from higher on the ridge. Bill, who had seen the turkey fly, had worked his way over. Hearing Bill’s call the gobbler stopped, turned broadside to my wife, and stretched his neck. She couldn’t have wished for a better shot.

The sporter spoke, and down went the gobbler. My wife jumped up and ran toward it. I reached for the Hornet and waited, but it was an unnecessary precaution. She picked up the bird and yelled to me:

“Got him right in the eye.”

“You what?”

Sure enough, instead of aiming the butt of the wing, she’d shot at his head. I was about to tell her she’d used poor judgment — that there wasn’t a chance in a thousand of a turkey holding his head still long enough to get off a shot — that she couldn’t hope to estimate the range and trajectory of that hollow-point bullet on such a small target, and that—.

“I got him with the sporter,” she said.

Aw, what the heck. She wasn’t any luckier than I’d been years before when I shot a running gobbler at eighty yards. I was proud of her.

Bill came by just then and looked at the gobbler’s head, partly torn away.

“That’s fine shootin’,” he told her. “I been huntin’ all my life with a shotgun but, I’d shore like to have a rifle like that. Never get enough money for one, I reckon.”

My wife handed the rifle to Bill. He looked it over and squinted through the scope. “It’s a nice one,” he said, starting to hand it back.

“No, Bill,” I told him. I want you to keep it. I made it up in my spare time for you. We want you to know we appreciate all your hospitality.”

We went back to Bill’s place for lunch, and, after showing him the sight adjustment on the sporter and thanking him for a swell hunt, we took off for home.

Since then I’ve learned a thing or two which may help to explain that peculiar business about the fox. Humans, I’m told, can concentrate only one of the senses at a time on a given object, though the attention can shift with amazing rapidity from seeing to hearing or to feeling, and from one object to another.

Perhaps Bill was focusing so intently on the fox that the presence of the turkey simply didn’t register with him. In the still morning air a turkey’s yelp can travel quite far. And when it comes from the direction of a fox — as in Bill’s case — you can see why the call might be attributed to it.

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Bill was convinced the fox did the actual calling. My own hunch is that the fox, supposing that two turkeys were calling, was merely trying to slip between them in the hope of catching one or the other.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.