Selecting a turkey call these days can be confusing. There are many variations of slate calls, diaphragm calls, tube calls and box calls available. All are effective when used properly. When all else fails, plan “B” could feature the barrel of the ball point pen in your shirt pocket.
From the time turkeys hatch, they are fair game for coyotes, bobcats, foxes, great horned owls and almost any other feathered or furred predator. The very moment one quits looking over its shoulder, its brothers and sisters might witness another bloody example why they better stay alert.
As a turkey matures and survives one attack after another, it learns to question everything that moves in its realm.
Modern human impacts on Missouri’s wild turkey populations started in 1960 with the opening of its first legal turkey season in 23 years. 698 hunters killed 94 gobblers. In 1989, 80,000 hunters killed 35,617 Spring birds. That Fall, they added another 20,000. Figures for 2006 documented 51,018 spring firearms, 3694 youth firearms, 11,927 fall firearms and 2939 archery kills for a grand total statewide annual take of 69,578 birds.
Obviously a multitude of Missouri turkey hunters practice calling to a lot of wild turkeys.
Wild turkeys learn to recognize calls from different birds of their own species. A hen knows the voice of all of her own poults. Poults learn to distinguish the sound of their mother’s voice from other hens.
When hiding from predation attacks, surviving poults learn not to move until mother’s voice urges them to her. Those not learning this quickly become part of the wild’s food chain.
Calling to a turkey unsuccessfully, alerts it’s suspicions to the sound of
that particular call if used again too soon. It pays to master several types of calls. Or, acquire several calls of the same type that feel comfortable. They should have different tonal qualities.
I once raised wild turkeys in a flying pen. I saw first hand that they are extremely social creatures. They talked to each other constantly. Mostly crooning in musical tones so low you could hear them only when standing close to the wire walls of the pen.
They purr and whine contentedly while feeding. They chatter and cluck excitedly when startled. They use a different language strolling 
around the pen passing the time of the day with each other.
The point is: They never shut up until going to roost at the end of the day.
However, their conversation involves much more than just a hen’s love yelps and challenging mating-gobbles from the toms.
Listening to penned birds taught me to incorporate more clucks, purrs and whines that duplicate feeding turkeys in my calling repertoire.
When getting a response to a love yelp from a box call, yelps are seldom used on that bird again. Instead: Clucks, purrs, whines and feeding chatter are used after that - and sparingly. When a gobbler starts moving in close, I’ve learned to just shut up and get the barrel into position.
I also use the assembly cluck and lost call when the timing of those
“conversations” fits the situation. The latter two calls are deadly in the fall after busting a flock and then calling them back together. I’ve also used the “lost” hen call on a gobbler hung up on a bevy of hens he is reluctant to leave. “Birds in hand” - so to speak. However, wild hens are particularly gregarious. They often react to a lost hen call by going to the “lost hen.” Guess who tags along when they do?
A conservation agent demonstrated many years ago how to use the barrel of a common ball point pen to cluck, purr and whine when imitating wild turkey chatter. I collected several that my ear values their tones. Cheap too!
Anybody with a modicum of hand-eye coordination can use a box call, but many times it will not bring in a call-wise gobbler when used only by itself. Additionally, it is awkward to handle when gobblers come into view due to the hand movement necessary to operate it.
I am improving with diaphragm mouth-calls but still prefer to
“chuckle” at them with purrs, whines and clucks on yelpers similar to the ball point pen barrel.
I usually let an initial love yelp or assembly cluck from a box call stir up a gobbler. IF and when he acknowledges that, I usually maintain “limited” social conversation with him involving nothing more than clucks and “chuckling” from yelpers - often including the ballpoint pen barrels.
It is the same treatment females historically accord men early in a relationship. They get you to hang around by adopting an attitude of not appearing too eager - just slightly interested.
One of the best turkey callers I know takes the opposite approach. He starts calling and never shuts up till he walks it down his gun barrel - literally works a gobbler into a frenzy with his calling. But, I’m not too proud to admit he is that good a caller. I’m better off imitating a coy potential “date” instead of a “lustful slut.”
An easy to operate box call is the push-rod variety. It is operated by tapping a small wooden rod with a fingertip. A chalked striker inside the box rasps across a thin cedar edge of wood. They are simple to operate and easily can be made to duplicate a wide repertoire of social chatter of wild turkeys (chirps, purrs and whines) as well as a hen’s love yelps. Fighting-purr calls are also made in this unique construction. I keep mine rubber banded to the shotgun just in front of the firearm’s forearm when coaxing a tom down the gunbarrel.
I’ve crafted wing-bone yelper calls from previously bagged turkeys’ wing bones. They function the same as the pen barrels described above. To my ear, they also have the most authentic sounds of the two. After dinner, boiling them in water and then carefully reaming the marrow out of the bone with a thin wire is all it takes to add a new call to your collection.
Calling tapes are an excellent way to learn the varieties of calls comprising a wild turkey’s vocabulary.
Counting all the two footed “turkeys” roaming the woods squawking on box-calls these days, successful hunters must become more sophisticated callers if they intend to fool a call- wise gobbler.