how to use a turkey mouth call
The Spring Legion 3 Pack by Rolling Thunder Game Calls
How and When to Use a Turkey Mouth Call
Author: James Moffitt
Bat-wing, cutter, ghost cut… if you’re not familiar with the lingo of diaphragm calls, it probably sounds like we’re talking about some questionable yoga poses. However, diaphragm calls have can offer some serious advantages in the turkey woods and with some practice can have you sounding like a hot hen looking for a boyfriend.
We’re going to break down how and when to use diaphragm calls and talk about the pros and cons of some of our favorite brands.
Diaphragm Calls Explained
These calls get their name from the way they’re made. Diaphragm calls are created by using a thin sheet of latex that’s been stretched tight and held in place by a u-shaped metal bracket or frame. The frame is then covered with tape, leaving the latex exposed and forming the diaphragm. The latex is then cut into different shapes and stacked to help you make different sounds like cutts, yelps, and purrs.
Diaphragm calls work by capturing and redirecting air blown over the roof of your mouth. The frame of the call is placed securely against the top of your mouth, then by blowing air out over your tongue, the latex vibrates to make the sound. Depending on how you move the air, hold your tongue, position your lips, and more–the sound will change.
For example, pushing your tongue up higher to create more pressure on the call will tighten the latex and create a higher-pitched sound, drop your tongue and the pitch will fall.
Benefits of Diaphragm Calls
Before talking about the benefits, we should note there’s one major con that should be considered–they take a while to learn how to use. As long as your housemates are okay with you putting, clucking, and purring while you fold laundry, using mouth calls can be learned quickly and yield some serious advantages.
The main benefit of diaphragm calls is that they’re hands-free. Unlike a friction call, you can sweet-talk a wild bird without tying up your hands. Secondly, they’re not affected by the weather. Humidity and precipitation can both play havoc on friction calls but don’t affect diaphragm calls at all. Lastly, they offer a huge range of versatility. With enough practice, you can mimic nearly every sound a turkey would make.
Types of Calls
For the purposes of this article, there are five main types of calls worth talking about. We did a side-by-side comparison of the Rolling Thunder Spring Legion Collection and The Hunting Public’s Woodhaven Collection.
W-Cut
Named after the ‘W’ shape of the latex in this call, the W-cut is a solid all-purpose call. It’s great for locating yelps and is a good call for beginners due to its ability to let callers easily control volume and pitch.
Bat-Wing
Another all-purpose call, the Bat-Wing adds a degree of raspiness that’s harder to generate with the W-Cut. It’s still pretty easy to control and is a great way to add another dimension to calling for beginning to intermediate callers. The Rolling Thunder set contains a 3-reed Bat-Wing that produced a nice raspy sound. By moderating airflow and tongue placement, we were able to get a good range of volumes and raspiness.
Cutter
Cutters are great locating calls for wide open spaces. This is a loud call that takes a lot of air pressure to generate sound. The Hunting Public set includes two combo cut calls that we would liken to a Cutter. They both use a 3 reed design, but the Delta includes a yellow reed over the prophylactic reeds resulting in more control and rasp when calling.
Split-V
The Split-V is designed to be a go-to call for yelps and cutts. It’s meant for soft to medium-volume calls and is perfect for convincing a wild bird to close that last bit of yardage needed to open up a shot opportunity.
Ghost Cut
Meant mostly for fall hunting, the Ghose Cut offers a wide range of tree yelps, kee kees, whistles, and even soft rasp. The Spring Legion set included an awesome two-reed Ghost Cut that generated a solid sound base without a ton of manipulation from the caller, ensuring that it will definitely have a spot in our fall kit.
Overall, both sets of calls performed incredibly well, and deciding which is best for you will come down to preference in some cases. For our testers, The Hunting Public Calls fit a bit better to the roof of their mouths, but the Spring Legion set generated a higher sound quality during the first few call sequences we tried.
Learning to effectively use mouth calls is an exercise in patience and practice. However, if you’re willing to put in the time, they can pay off big in the turkey woods.
Shop all of our calls right here, or learn more about improving your chances with wild turkeys on our blog.
