A snood is the floppy, fleshy appendage that drapes over a turkey’s beak. Toms, jakes, and hens all have snoods. However, a tom’s is longer and more prominent than that of a hen or jake. While it’s easy to dismiss the snood as a vestigial appendage on a turkey’s face, studying it can be a key indicator of a tom’s body language and current mood.
What Kind of Mood He’s In
Between dramatic color changes and changing snood length, a male turkey wears his emotions on his head. If you’re reading this article, you’ve likely witnessed the magic of a tom’s chameleon-like head, changing colors from pale red to an intense bright red, and to a starch white and blue combination.
By paying close attention to a turkey’s head, you can surmise a gobbler’s current attitude and likelihood of reacting favorably to your calls and decoy setup. A pale red head and a snood that is erect atop of their beak indicates a turkey in a submissive or passive mood. This gobbler is likely just going about his business without current intentions of breeding or fighting.
When the snood elongates, dangling well below his beak, paired with a brightly colored head, he is experiencing an increased blood flow to his noggin. Whether his head is an intense red color or bleach white, this gobbler is feeling good and strutting his dominance. This gobbler is likely looking to breed or pick a fight with a subordinate tom.
How Aggressive Your Calling Should Be
By visual confirmation and roughly understanding what kind of mood a gobbler is in, an informed hunter can cater their tactics accordingly. For example, a tom with an erect snood and exhibiting pale head colorations is not overly likely to bomb into your calling and decoy setup. This gobbler, or a bachelor group of toms, are more likely to react to subtle calling, paired with a jake or tom decoy.
In the case of a bachelor group of dormant toms, these gobblers are likely not hyper-interested in breeding. Rather, these birds are more likely to feel a sense of confidence that their group can whoop up on a lone jake decoy. In this scenario, a good calling strategy is to put out just a few mild yelps, purely to get the group’s attention and let them know the general whereabouts of a flock of turkeys.
Similarly, if a submissive tom is hanging out in a group of hens, this flock is likely more concerned with survival than anything. Matching your calling with the current vocalizations and emotions of the flock will likely fare better than overwhelming the loafing birds with every call in your turkey vest.
Conversely, a longbeard with a long snood, paired with a full strut and bright red head, elicits a different calling strategy. While it’s impossible to know exactly what call will work in any given situation, this strutting gobbler is likely interested in finding a receptive hen.
Giving this tom the impression that there’s a hen looking to be bred might be what it takes to call him in. In my experience, a good strategy is to start off with soft and subtle calling to take the bird’s temperature. If they respond positively, you should likely continue with subtle calling. If the birds aren’t overly interested in your calls, attempt to increase the intensity of your calls over time. The idea is to imitate an uninterested hen and over the course of a half hour or so, increase the volume, frequency, and intensity of your hen calls. If you play your cards right, you can effectively change the attitude of the flock and coax them into your setup.
If He’s the Dominant Tom
Studies show that snood length can have an effect on sexual selection. These studies have shown that hens show a preference to toms with longer snoods. Researchers believe that snood length is one identifier of a tom’s physical fitness and, in particular, the absence of parasite load and overall good health.
Along with snood length, the intensity of a tom’s head illumination is believed to be another sign of dominance. With this in mind, it is well known that the dominant tom in each flock does a disproportionately large amount of the breeding. With wild turkey populations starting to decline in many states across the U.S., one can’t help but wonder if targeting the most dominant bird in the pecking order is a contributing factor to the overall decline in some turkey populations. If you’re fortunate to have multiple birds in range, perhaps targeting the tom exhibiting more submissive behavior may not be a bad idea.
When He’s About to Leave
Every seasoned turkey hunter has witnessed a tom’s demeanor change as he begins to flee from your life forever. By watching his body language, you can easily tell when the gig is up. However, if you pay attention to the snood specifically, the gobbler will give you a forewarning about his intentions.
Before committing to running away from lurking danger, a tom’s snood will shrivel up and tell you that he’s uncomfortable with something he’s seeing. Think of it as a shot clock. When alerted to danger, his snood will go up first, but he will hang around for a few precious seconds to assess the potential danger. If the skeptical gobbler is within range, you now know that you need to take your shot immediately. By paying attention to the snood and clues that a gobbler’s demeanor is giving you, you’ll find yourself better informed of your next move.
