It happens every season. For some reason or another, the birds that you spent weeks scouting, have trail pictures of and even heard sound off days before May 1, have shut down. It’s what some have called a bad case of lockjaw.

For many of us, it seems this season started with and continued with silent birds. I have many theories, but haven’t pinned down a single answer. I have been chasing these pea-brain critters around for more than 30 years and every season I learn something new. Oftentimes these lessons come by me making mistakes or by observation, but the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out is why birds I know are there aren’t sounding off.

This lockjaw period may last just a few days, a whole week, a month or an entire season. You wake up in the morning hopeful and you go to bed discouraged and ready to quit, but you don’t because you know tomorrow is going to be the day your birds turn on. Then tomorrow comes and goes with no gobbles. These no-gobble times can be some of the most frustrating for turkey hunters. It’s tough to hunt a bird if you don’t know where it is, but it can be done.

Being successful in no-gobble times requires special skills and a mind-set few hunters have developed because they haven’t encountered the situation before. From what I have heard and witnessed first hand, the 2019 spring season looks to be one that is going to be a tough one, because of the lack of gobbling. Personally, I have had birds coming into by setup, mill about for a while and then move on their way, never saying a word. Heck, a few days I ago a longbeard work his way across a field, only to stand in full strut in front of my single-hen decoy, never saying a word. While I got some great video of this 18/8, I never pulled the trigger.

Some would ask, ‘Why didn’t you shoot?’ It’s hard enough putting together a good video segment when the birds are talking, so when the birds come in silent there isn’t much I can do with that footage. The one thing that seemed to work on this longbeard was a fighting purr. Working a fighting purr throughout the morning seemed to have worked in bringing this lockjaw bird into range but he still didn’t say a word. Over the years, I have come up with several things have worked when hunting lockjaw longbeards. Hunt where you know there is a gobbler or where one has been taken, seen or heard in the past. Soft clucks, most of the time, are preferable to loud yelps. You don’t hear hens calling loudly very often after fly-down and seldom hear yelping like so many novice turkey hunters get locked into doing.

A turkey can hear farther than you can, so call softly. It goes to back to letting the turkeys tell you what they want to hear. The rule about patience is well known and talked about by turkey hunters, but it is quickly overlooked and forgotten when there is no gobbling. I do not believe in run-and-gun tactics when there has been no gobbling over a number of days. More times than not, I have gotten up to move only to spook a silent bird. Move only after a long time of patient and deliberate calling, and when you move, stay within some proximity of your earlier calling. If you have recorded the contents of the craws of prior year’s gobblers, hunt in the vicinity of those plants you recorded when you see them in bloom or growing. Chances are good turkeys are looking for the same food at the same time each year.

Older hunters should make an effort to take a young person with them. Not only is it great to pass your wisdom on to younger hunters, but younger hunters also hear better. Often, when there was no gobbling, young hunters I have taken heard feeding clucks and soft purrs that I did not pick up. Try hunting from a pop-up blind with decoys set up in front of you. For those long sits while hunting quiet birds, this allows you to shift a little bit without a bird spotting you. Do more listening and less calling. Forget fancy calls after the first few, if you must make them at all. Put that mouth call in your pocket and resist the urge to call. Using your scouting during these times will give will give you peace of mind, knowing that it’s not you making a mistake, it’s just turkeys being turkeys.