Question: Rick, what’s the toughest turkey you’ve ever tried to call?
White: I’ve hunted Easterns, Osceolas, Merriams and Rio Grande turkeys throughout the United States. Without question, the swamp turkeys of the southern U.S. are some of the hardest turkeys for me to hunt. If you can learn to hunt turkeys in the South, you can hunt and take turkeys in any other section of the country.

The toughest turkey I’ve ever hunted was in the swamps of south Georgia. I’ve found that swamp turkeys generally don’t gobble a lot. Remember that hunters aren’t the only predators looking for these turkeys. Bobcats, coyotes, foxes and other type of critters that live in the swamp also enjoy having turkeys for dinner. Too, remember that these birds live in a thick terrain and a wet environment. So, there are more places for a predator to sneak up on him than in areas of the North or the West.

The toughest turkey I’ve ever hunted gobbled one time just at daylight from the roost. I knew where the bird was located; I set-up on him and started giving hen calls. That bird never made another sound. But 2-hours later, he finally came in silent through the palmettos. Most people would have left that turkey after not hearing from him for 2 hours. But when I hunt swamp turkeys, I know I’ll have to call a little and sit a lot, if I hope to take a bird.

Turkeys have short legs and normally walk slowly. In a swampy region, those slow-walking, short-legged turkeys oftentimes have to walk around water, briar patches, cane thickets and other places where predators may be hiding. Therefore, a turkey you hear at 150 to 200 yards won’t be walking a straight line to reach you. Because the turkey’s walking around thick-covered areas and water, the gobbler actually may walk 800 yards to reach a place only 150- to 200-yards away. Remember, he’s walking with short legs. So, the only way to take that bird is to give him the time required for him to dodge water and thick-cover places and finally reach the spot where you’re calling.

Too, with swamp turkeys, whether they’ve had heavy hunting pressure or not, they act like they’ve been hunted hard. Some southern states never have had a closed season on turkeys. So, as long as there have been hunters hunting turkeys, the turkeys that gobble the most die first. And, the turkeys that gobble the least and walk the slowest, live the longest and breed the most hens. These turkeys not only are very cautious, but they may be genetically predisposed to have certain traits that allow them to survive hunter pressure.

Besides hunters, the swamp homes plenty of predators that have learned that when a turkey gobbles, they can locate him and set-up an ambush to take him. Most predators generally will be in thick cover where they can ambush a gobbler without being seen, which explains why turkeys try to keep from walking close to thick cover. Every hunter in most parts of the country thinks his turkeys are the most difficult to take. However, from hunting all over the country, I know southern swamp gobblers are the baddest of the bad. I think I even may have seen one of those old gobblers with hunters’ scalps on his belt.