VAUGHN — When Al Prante talks, turkeys listen.
Prante, president of the Narrows Strut Busters chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, is a turkey hunter, a wildlife conservationist and a champion turkey caller.
His secret? An intimate understanding of the male turkey brain.
“You want to call like a sexy female,” said Prante, who demonstrated the comforting cluck, the provocative purr and the titillating yelp.
“That gets them kind of excited,” Prante said. “That’s like saying, ‘Get over here, and get over here right now.’ ”
Prante is a certified turkey fanatic. With only a little coaxing, he’ll imitate the dance of a tom turkey, his arms stretched out like wings, quivering with ardor.
To imitate the more than 30 types of turkey vocalizations, Prante uses a diverse collection of devices. You’ve got your pot calls, your box calls, your scratch boxes and your push pulls. Though they look different, all of them produce noise with friction, kind of like nails scratching a chalkboard.
Others make noise with vibration. The tube call, for example, resembles a small bicycle pump. It has a diaphragm inside so that, when shaken, it makes the classic turkey gobble noise.
Prante’s personal favorite is a small disk-like diaphragm placed in the mouth and blown with a “huff” of air for a wide variety of sounds.
Prante has honed his skill through uncounted hours of practice, in the car commuting to work, in idle hours of the evening and on vacation road trips.
“Sometimes it can be annoying,” said his mostly patient wife, Cheryl. “He carries them every place he goes. We went to a party the other night, and that was the first time he didn’t have them with him.”
Prante’s dedication has earned him a place among the top turkey callers in the NWTF’s annual state championship over the past five years.
Wild turkeys can weigh up to 35 pounds, run up to 30 mph, and fly up to 55 mph. They have excellent hearing and eyesight, which makes them more challenging to hunt than elk or deer, Prante said.
In the field, he reads his subjects’ body language to see what techniques are working, and he’s not afraid to change it up.
“They go through a lot of moods,” Prante said. “They’re just like us, one day they might want to listen to country, the next day they might want to hear the blues.”
He also does the classic “gobble,” a male-only noise, which translates to throwing down the turkey gauntlet. It attracts the males who want to fight.
“All of a sudden he feels a challenge,” Prante said. “ ’There’s some turkey over there trying to take my ladies, and I’m going to go over there and kick his tail feathers.’ ”
A turkey caller should use the gobble with great caution, however, as nearby hunters with loaded shotguns could mistake him for the real thing.
Prante gives calling clinics at sporting good stores and other venues, and he visits local classrooms to let students try their hands at calling. Imagine 30 first-graders with squawking, clucking noisemakers. But it’s worth it in Prante’s mind, if they develop an appreciation for an icon of our country’s heritage.
Prante notes that members of the National Wild Turkey Federation are some of the most ardent conservationists around. Since its founding in 1973, the federation has worked with government officials and private groups to bring the magnificent native bird back from the brink of extinction.
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