Using a partner (one hunting and one calling) greatly reduces a main drawback of handheld calls like box calls: The caller doesn't have to put it down and pick up the gun after the turkey arrives. Photo by Terry Madewell

Talking turkey is something I'm quite passionate about. After 20-plus years of hunting, scouting and calling to the boss of the spring woods, I am still easily transposed into "turkey only" mode at even the mention of turkey talking.

I especially love to talk to newcomers who are caught up in the apparent complexities of turkey hunting. When talking to these guys and gals, invariably one question will ring from their mouths near the beginning of the conversation.

"What's the best turkey call to use?"

To which I reply with my premeditated response, after leading them into the turkey-talking trap, "The one that sounds like what he most wants to hear."

After I allow them to mull that over a moment, I then attempt to clarify that confusing comeback with an offbeat anecdote.

When I was young, my parents had me take piano lessons. I learned to play this musical instrument, and to this day, it's my favored type of music. But other people equally prefer the sound of the guitar. Others perhaps prefer the drums . . . you get the idea. You can play many of the same songs on any of them, but different folks prefer the version played on different instruments.

Turkey calls can be considered musical instruments in the same sense. Having learned timing and rhythm as a child on a musical instrument does help me when calling now to a turkey. I pay attention to pitch, tone, cadence, rhythm and other characteristics of the call I'm using. Different calls have different sound capabilities and qualities with different tones, pitch and volume. Some calls simply perform better under some conditions than others.

I certainly did not figure this out by myself; several of the best turkey hunters I've ever hunted with have noted the connection between turkey calls and music. Plus, every turkey hunter that I've hunted with that I consider a truly outstanding caller/ hunter has something in common. They all have one call that's their bread-and-butter call, but they also have at least two, sometimes three or four more they have quickly accessible and will use effectively and without hesitation. On nearly every full-day hunt with these top hunters, I have watched them use every call in their bag of tricks multiple times. And they use them with confidence.

You can get by with one call, and I know some productive turkey hunters who have a single call and are successful. But they'll sometimes hit the proverbial brick wall on a stubborn gobbler or tough weather condition. If you want to expand your abilities and have the capability to deal with whatever Mother Nature, or a hard-hunted, late-season, wary gobbler can dish out, versatility in your call selection is a key to success.

In my humble opinion, there is no single call that's generically best. If there were, there would be 200 versions of that same call on the market and precious little else to choose from. With any call, or more appropriately any type of call, there are pros and cons. Add to that the almost infinite variety of challenges that a hunter will face during a season (or even during a single morning sometimes), and the need for variety and versatility becomes more obvious.

There are many varieties of calls. The first one many hunters think of is the mouth diaphragm call. But actually it's only one type of an entire series of "air" calls. In addition to the mouth diaphragm calls, there's the tube call, of which there are many versions where you force air by blowing over a fixed reed on a tubular device. Then there's the wing-bone style where you suck the air through the actual wing bones of a turkey or a manufactured product that is similar in design.