For the last five years, a stream of hopeful kids and grown men alike have filed on stage to compete in the natural-voice Owl Hoot Contest in Northwest Arkansas. In competition, these turkey hunters (both seasoned and aspiring) deliver performances that are much flashier than the calls they make when hunting. Still, even an amateur can learn what works, and what doesn’t, from listening to dozens of competitors hooting, cackling, and laughing like a fired-up barred owl.
2026 Grand National Calling Championships — Owl Hooting and Gobbling
The NWTF held its annual owl-hooting and gobbling contest last month with diehard competitors who put on impressive and sophisticated routines, usually with hand-held owl calls. What I like about this local competition, hosted at the annual Black Bear Bonanza, is that it’s a chance to hear from everyday hunters (most are from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri) who are usually just focused on striking up real gobblers with their tried-and-true voice hoots. It’s more approachable. That’s why I sat down with some of the winningest callers, competitors, and past judges to learn their advice. Here’s their advice for rookie owl hooters, the mechanics of a great hoot, and how to actually strike up a tom.
Practice Lots, and Preferably in the Woods
Mark Izard, a longtime public-land turkey hunter from central Arkansas, suggests calling in wooded areas. (Izard never entered the contest because he helped organize the earliest iterations of it.) Practicing in your treeless subdivision is better than not practicing, he acknowledges, but with the caveat that hoots echoing off houses rather than filtering through trees will sound unnatural.
“If you’re intimidated by the idea of hooting, my first piece of advice is don’t practice around other people,” says Izard. Unless you’ve got a buddy willing to coach you, hooting around other hunters during the turkey season can be a real confidence killer. Lower the stakes, and practice calling to real owls before you try striking turkeys.
Related: Why Do Turkeys Gobble at Owls?
“My second piece of advice is to practice where there are owls. When you hear that owl, just try and replicate the sound that owl’s making, and see if you can’t call that owl to come in. If you stand still and sound realistic, that owl will respond and even fly closer until you can see it.”
Barred Owls Shock Gobbling Wild Turkeys (Incredible Audio)
If you’re able to convince an owl you’re a fellow bird of prey, your owl hoot should sound realistic enough to shock turkeys into gobbling. Sometimes though, a gobbler might not be close enough or fired up enough to respond to your hoot.
“The key is to get other owls to start hooting back at you,” says Izard. “A turkey may not gobble at you, but he may gobble at those other owls that are all hooting. Say those owls are like four, five hundred yards away, and your owl hoot makes those owls take off or start hooting. Then that turkey might gobble at them instead of you.”
Barred Owl calling.
A barred owl calls and listens to a response. Note that the owl moves its body with each note.
Sawyer Cobb, a 12-year-old turkey hunter and one-time Owl Hoot Contest judge, says he watched YouTube videos of real owls when he was learning to hoot. Listening to owl tracks is a great option for down time, like when you’re driving or can’t make it out to a patch of woods to practice.
Keep It Simple, and Loud
All the hunters I spoke to say they prefer to keep their hooting routines simple in the woods. Hunters like Izard will occasionally throw out a simple “whooo” to kick things off, then progress from there, and most everyone leans on the basic “who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all” sequence.
Brian Cobb, a past Owl Hoot Contest winner, contest judge, and longtime public-land hunter warns against overly long or intricate hoots, since you need to be able to hear more distant gobblers that might respond to you. He usually starts with the first half of the “who-cooks-for-you” sequence, with just four notes, then builds from there. Short and sweet is the best approach.
“I’ll occasionally start out quiet, especially if I know there’s a bird nearby and I’m just kind of trying to fine tune his location. I usually go pretty loud — most of the time, the louder the better, as far I’m concerned,” says Cobb. “If I’ve done a full hoot and I haven’t heard anything, I might occasionally do a laugh just to see if that different, more excited sound makes them gobble.”
How to OWL SCREECH with Aaron Warbritton and Ted Zangerle
An example of an owl screech, which is more advanced, but can add realism and volume to a natural-voice call.
Volume is key for eliciting shock gobble. So is the pitch of your hoot, says Izard.
“You could go out during turkey season and try to call up a turkey with a turkey call. And that bird may not like that tone you’re using on a particular type of call. But if you switch calls or switch strikers or whatever it is, and then all of a sudden — man, he’ll gobble. It’s like that with your owl hoot. It’s a certain pitch or frequency in your hoot that gets a turkey to gobble.”
Research backs this up. Noted wild turkey researcher Mike Chamberlain led a study that eavesdropped on GPS-collared gobblers with remote microphones attached to trees. The recordings revealed that toms would often gobble at sounds that fell within a certain frequency. (Frequency is another term for pitch. Lower-pitched sounds are deeper, and higher-pitched sounds are more shrill.)
“A coyote howl, a Canada goose honk, a barred owl, a crow … all these things stimulate a bird to gobble,” Chamberlain told OL in 2023. “…a lot of the sounds that prompt a bird to gobble [are] in the same frequency.”
Learn the Mechanics of an Owl Hoot
“What my dad always said is, ‘pretend like you’re the fat cartoon lady at the opera,’” says Sawyer, who is Bryan Cobb’s son.
The elder Cobb describes the mechanics of hooting like this: He lowers his tongue in the back of his mouth and huffs air over his vocal chords. “You’re kind of like opening, or relaxing, your throat a little bit and making an O shape with your mouth.”
The most realistic owl hooters (the Cobbs included) typically change their mouth shape with the notes. They also sometimes move their heads and even their chests. None of the finalists use their hands to cover their mouths or direct their calls. Instead, they keep their arms relaxed and simply face the direction they want to direct their hoot.
Realism Is Ideal, But Not Essential
While both Izard and Cobb like to incorporate the realistic fluttery, throaty sound an owl makes, both the Cobbs say they have a harder time replicating that effect at volume. (Sawyer achieves the flutter with an alveolar trill, which is a fancy term for rolling your r’s with the tip of your tongue; Bryan uses his throat.) Fortunately, the flutter isn’t critical — it doesn’t seem to matter enough to real owls or turkeys.
“I never do that in the woods because I try to go loud, and you’ll break your throat if you try to do that [flutter] at volume,” says Cobb.
Dave Owens’ Turkey Calling Tips: OWL HOOTING
Owl hoots are most effective at striking up turkeys when owls are naturally active, which is around dawn and dusk. But an unnaturally-timed owl hoot will sometimes get a tom to gobble during the middle of the day, too.
“I’ve noticed, especially in open country, a lot of times you can get turkeys to gobble way after dark,” says Cobb. “I’ve shown up to a place I wanted to hunt in the morning, like when I drive out to Oklahoma [after work]. Like, the sun’s been down for 45 minutes, you go out there, and throw a hoot out, and they might still gobble at them. It doesn’t always work, but it’s still worth a shot.”
You Don’t Need to Spend Money on an Owl Call
Many turkey call makers also sell owl hooters. They can be effective, but they can be expensive and one more thing to carry in the woods.
“If you have a very light, soft voice and have trouble getting loud with your hoot, I would work on using an owl hooter,” says Izard, who bought a physical hoot call a few years ago to experiment with; he never could get the hang of it. Now he’s selling it on Facebook marketplace and is back to using his naturally deep, resonant hoot to strike birds. “You could lose a call, and you just lost forty bucks out there in the woods. You’re not gonna lose your voice.”
Related: The Best Turkey Calls, Tested and Reviewed
Final Thoughts
If you want to strike up a turkey this season, start practicing whenever you’re outside and away from other folks.
- Practice a lot, preferably in the woods. Watch videos of real owls, and record your own calls to judge their sound.
- Try calling to real owls, both for practice and during turkey season. If you can’t strike up a gobbler nearby, calling to owls could create a chain response that triggers a gobble far off.
- Pitch, or frequency, is essential to striking up a gobble. Hyper-realistic calling is less essential, since research (and experience) shows turkeys often gobble in response to nonnatural sounds, such as gunshots.
- The volume and speed of your hoot are also important. Don’t deliver overly-long sequences, or you might miss a responding gobble.
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