Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. I've
Speaker 1: been following today's guest for about the past four years
Speaker 1: or so, and I've got to watch his skill set,
Speaker 1: his knowledge base, and success kind of blossom into something
Speaker 1: that is truly impressive. I have a ton of respect
Speaker 1: for him. Somong Yang. He's from my home state of
Speaker 1: Washington and owns someone Outdoors YouTube channel where he documents
Speaker 1: his journeys and educates viewers along the way. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: he's wise beyond his years. He's a young man that
Speaker 1: is well spoken and burst and he's a great asset
Speaker 1: to the hunting community and kind of showing what we're
Speaker 1: all about as well as a reaching future hunter. So
Speaker 1: I'm really stoked to have him here on the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Somone. Thank you so much, Jason.
Speaker 1: It's an honor to be on this podcast. I have
Speaker 1: to ask how old you are? I don't even know
Speaker 1: how old you are, but I'm going to ask that
Speaker 1: one to start with. Yeah, I'm twenty five, born and
Speaker 1: raised and currently still living in Spokane, Washington. Gotcha? Uh
Speaker 1: your little background? What what got you started? Um? In hunting? Um?
Speaker 1: Is it like the you know, the rest of us
Speaker 1: that it was kind of passed down, um, you know,
Speaker 1: through the lineage and from one generation to another. Kind
Speaker 1: of what's your backstory there? Yeah, that's pretty much Italy,
Speaker 1: you know, simply put, I don't know my life without hunting.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's always been something that I've done. And
Speaker 1: when I was born, my dad had already established hunting
Speaker 1: in the household, so I was born right into it
Speaker 1: and it's just stuck ever since. Yeah, real real similar
Speaker 1: you know to to our story. It's like nobody can remember,
Speaker 1: you know, up to a generation where we didn't hunt, um,
Speaker 1: you know, or we didn't hunt for food. Um, and
Speaker 1: my family so so real similar. And then um, you
Speaker 1: know you took your your family's passion for hunting and
Speaker 1: kind of that lifestyle. Um and similar to what a
Speaker 1: lot of us do. You wanted to start to share
Speaker 1: that experience, um with others. You know, you picked up
Speaker 1: a video camera. In my opinion, you do a very
Speaker 1: good job of sharing your adventures. But what kind of
Speaker 1: got you into filming those and wanting to share those adventures?
Speaker 1: Kind of what sparked that? Yeah, the very start of
Speaker 1: it is like way back in twenty eleven, when I
Speaker 1: first received an iPod Touch for Christmas, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: anything fancy, but you know, growing up in the nineties,
Speaker 1: you know, social media, none of this stuff existed, so
Speaker 1: like having a camera was just like you're on cloud nine.
Speaker 1: So I was like, what fourteen years old when I
Speaker 1: got this iPod Touch and I figured out that there
Speaker 1: was a camera on this thing, and I just found
Speaker 1: that it was like the coolest thing to be able
Speaker 1: to take pictures and record stuff and just be able
Speaker 1: to watch it back. So back around this time, I
Speaker 1: really had no interest in filming my hunting and fishing stuff.
Speaker 1: It was just I was just filming whatever. And we
Speaker 1: were actually raising like backyard chickens back then, and so
Speaker 1: that's primarily what I did. I just went out and
Speaker 1: I just filled my chickens, basically washed them from the
Speaker 1: moment they were hashed to when they were grown up.
Speaker 1: And I just thought it was the coolest thing to
Speaker 1: be able to watch what your chicks used to be
Speaker 1: and then watch them grow up to what they looked
Speaker 1: like in adulthood. And so that wasn't even really hunting.
Speaker 1: That was just the idea of where I got started
Speaker 1: with filming. And then This is also around the time
Speaker 1: when YouTube really started to pick up. And you know, naturally,
Speaker 1: like I said, I was born and raised into hunting,
Speaker 1: so naturally you just want to start watching hunting videos
Speaker 1: on YouTube. And I think I think you can attest
Speaker 1: to this. Back then, there was like hunting videos and
Speaker 1: hunting channels all over the Western States besides Washington. Like
Speaker 1: I struggled to find any videos on YouTube that showcased
Speaker 1: Washington hunts. You always had Utah, like those limited entry
Speaker 1: Moss backed videos way back then. And so the one
Speaker 1: channel that I came across very at the very beginning
Speaker 1: was actually Primetime, my Primetime Outdoors by none other than
Speaker 1: Jason Phelps. You're digging way way back into the past
Speaker 1: in the history. But yeah, that's that's cool because we
Speaker 1: didn't know how many people we were reaching or what
Speaker 1: we're even doing back then. We started back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and it was just some buddies that
Speaker 1: got some you know, some video cameras, some mini DV
Speaker 1: cameras and just started like over the shoulder, no production quality,
Speaker 1: you know. But uh no, that's funny to hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny. But then like that's actually like how it's
Speaker 1: kind of started for me, right, like you basically, like
Speaker 1: long story, sure, what you did back then when you
Speaker 1: were still active on primetime outdoors, You basically did what
Speaker 1: I did, right. You just went over the state of Washington.
Speaker 1: You just filmed whatever you were hunting, deer, black bear,
Speaker 1: turkey and stuff like that. But as we all know,
Speaker 1: if they're they're familiar with it, you kind of just stopped,
Speaker 1: right And so when you stopped, it's just like there
Speaker 1: was no more Washington Hunts, and so I was like, well,
Speaker 1: nobody's really doing it. And I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: really want to watch Washington Hunts, so why don't I
Speaker 1: just start right Yeah, So soon after that, I started
Speaker 1: following this man by the name of John Wake, which
Speaker 1: today he's known as Northwest spur Chasers. And I found
Speaker 1: out through his channel because he's actually like probably the
Speaker 1: biggest turkey hunter in my neck of the ones in
Speaker 1: northeast Washington. And like I said, it was so bizarre
Speaker 1: because out of all the states and all the places
Speaker 1: that YouTube videos at that time were, it was so
Speaker 1: crazy to me to know that this man John was
Speaker 1: filming like in the same areas I was hunting. And
Speaker 1: so That's really what drew me in, just to watch
Speaker 1: him hunt local turkeys basically the same area as I hunted,
Speaker 1: and aside from John, because he really stuck to that
Speaker 1: niche of turkeys which will be getting into later, there
Speaker 1: was really no big game content at all in terms
Speaker 1: of Washington. Yeah, like you get like you're one in
Speaker 1: a thousand, like limited entry, Blue Mountains, elk hunt here
Speaker 1: and there, But it was just like a one one video.
Speaker 1: There was no series. There was no consistent uploads to
Speaker 1: those channels, and so I was like, you know what, like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna start doing this on my own. And
Speaker 1: the start of it wasn't even the idea that I
Speaker 1: wanted to share this to people or to build a brand.
Speaker 1: It was simply the fact that I just wanted to
Speaker 1: watch it, right, So I'd go out, I film whatever
Speaker 1: we hunted that day, and I would just come back
Speaker 1: and I'd just watch it. And it quickly turned into
Speaker 1: not just my personal entertainment, but my family's entertainment and
Speaker 1: long long story short, over time, it just kind of
Speaker 1: evolved into the platform today, and you know, you get
Speaker 1: like sixty thousand people that I've never even met before
Speaker 1: just watching the channel yeah, yeah, you're you know, your
Speaker 1: YouTube channel has um definitely you know, grown to a point. Um,
Speaker 1: you know it's got great traction. Um, you put great
Speaker 1: material out and so yeah, super happy for you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad it got to where it is. But let's um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna jump into the podcast. Just like we start
Speaker 1: these all, We're gonna jump into some questions from some
Speaker 1: of our listeners. So these your questions we get from
Speaker 1: either social email, past episodes. If you want to submit
Speaker 1: your own questions, you can email us at CTD at
Speaker 1: Phelps Gamecalls dot com, and myself and our guests we
Speaker 1: will do our best to answer those. Um. So the
Speaker 1: first question we're gonna we're gonna throw at you U,
Speaker 1: which we actually just kind of um went over. We're
Speaker 1: gonna a little more technical into your gear. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we get this question a lot. You probably get a lot.
Speaker 1: I want to start filming my own hunts. What equipment
Speaker 1: do I need? And what was your approach You've already
Speaker 1: kind of mentioned you started with, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: an iPad. Um, what what would you recommend somebody that's
Speaker 1: you know, and I think we maybe need to preface
Speaker 1: this because I didn't get any other information. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: somebody's just trying to share stuff to YouTube. Um you
Speaker 1: know what do they got to spend? What do they
Speaker 1: got to invest? Um? You know what do they need
Speaker 1: to do to learn how to edit and so on? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think, uh my, my biggest advice is dive in
Speaker 1: and start filming. I think there's a misconception that you
Speaker 1: need this camera and you need that camera. But the
Speaker 1: most important act is to just start. I think the
Speaker 1: best way to learn and improve on video production is experience.
Speaker 1: I know everybody today I don't. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're old or you're new. We all have a phone
Speaker 1: of some sort that has a camera. And the cameras
Speaker 1: on our phones today are way better than some of
Speaker 1: the actual cameras like ten years ago, and the phone's
Speaker 1: pretty limited. But like I said, you've got to just
Speaker 1: start because I think like there's really no better way
Speaker 1: to start than now. Like you can go on YouTube
Speaker 1: and you can search up like tips and tricks of
Speaker 1: little things you can do to improve your video production
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But in my opinion, in my experience,
Speaker 1: the most important aspect is trial and error. Right, you
Speaker 1: go out there, you come back you learn what you
Speaker 1: did wrong or what you could do better, And it's
Speaker 1: just this, it's this constant cycle of going out there
Speaker 1: film and coming back, reevaluating, going back out there and
Speaker 1: repeating that cycle. And so it's obviously good to have
Speaker 1: good cameras because it will just help your content that
Speaker 1: much better. But I think it's the idea of you
Speaker 1: give someone who's really experienced a cheap camera, and you
Speaker 1: give a rookie with no experience a very expensive camera.
Speaker 1: The person with experience will most likely outproduce a higher
Speaker 1: quality video than the guy that just picked up a
Speaker 1: super expensive camera. Again, I'm not saying that if you
Speaker 1: if you can't afford a good camera, get it, clearly
Speaker 1: like it'll help you in the long run. But I
Speaker 1: think it's it's just the idea that don't wait on
Speaker 1: certain camera or think that you need a certain camera
Speaker 1: to get into it, because a lot of people today
Speaker 1: they just film on their phones and they're way more
Speaker 1: successful than I am. Yeah. No, and that that's my
Speaker 1: advice is if you want to do it, just just
Speaker 1: get started. Get what you can afford. You know, you
Speaker 1: start reviewing cameras and everybody will say, you know, the
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars, you know the new canon, you know
Speaker 1: R eight or you know this or that, and you're like, well, shoot,
Speaker 1: I can't afford that. I'm not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: tell my hunts. Go get the cheapest DSLR, or like
Speaker 1: you said, even if we've all got a phone, like
Speaker 1: use your phone, you know, if that's your plan and goal,
Speaker 1: just just get started and then you'll learn along the way.
Speaker 1: When you go to edit your stuff, you're like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 1: I should have gotten knee shots, or I should have
Speaker 1: filmed more at camp, or I should have did this
Speaker 1: and that, and you'll just learn and eventually come up
Speaker 1: with your own style. But a little off topic question,
Speaker 1: but something that we get ask a lot, and I
Speaker 1: thought you might be able to add your own, you know,
Speaker 1: two cents in and I think we're on the same page.
Speaker 1: Get something, get some sort of camera, get some sort
Speaker 1: of editing program, and just get started. Um is the
Speaker 1: most important. Then you can change and upgrade your gear
Speaker 1: at a later point. Yeah. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of that route through trol and error, is it
Speaker 1: really makes you learn about yourself, your style and what
Speaker 1: works best for you. You know, there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: hunting channels on YouTube now, and almost all of them
Speaker 1: are different style, but they've all really achieved success with
Speaker 1: their own unique style, right, Like you just watch my
Speaker 1: stuff compared to like other hunting channels. I have my
Speaker 1: own style, but we're all relatively success in our own ways. Yep,
Speaker 1: yep for sure. So we're gonna we're gonna switch gears here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go back into our topic today. Um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk turkey. Turkey's um, you know, uh, we'll shoot.
Speaker 1: It's only two months away, um from our youth season
Speaker 1: here in Washington, so it's it's getting a lot closer
Speaker 1: than you know that we think we're. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: jump into some questions. Um, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: times we get uh, you know, roost questions. UM, my
Speaker 1: question for you, do you roost birds at night? And
Speaker 1: if so, what's your go to method? Um as far
Speaker 1: as calling and how you go about roosting birds and
Speaker 1: figuring out where they're at. You know, like this is
Speaker 1: all depending on the hunt and living in Washington. I
Speaker 1: don't get to say this very often, but we have
Speaker 1: some amazing turkey hunting like with high turkey numbers I
Speaker 1: hardly roost nowadays because I know I can find them
Speaker 1: at almost any time of the day and still kill one.
Speaker 1: I can't really say that to any other species in Washington.
Speaker 1: Exhibit A elk. I can't really say that with elk,
Speaker 1: but with turkeys, Like dude, there's so many turkeys, at
Speaker 1: least in the Northeast region. I'm not talking about just
Speaker 1: Washington in general, Northeast Washington particularly. I mean every year,
Speaker 1: like over seventy percent of the total harvest in the
Speaker 1: state comes from Northeast Washington, right, And so I live
Speaker 1: pretty much in Northeast Washington. That's my backyard. And so
Speaker 1: when it comes to roosting, if I do roost because
Speaker 1: I feel like I just want to do it for fun.
Speaker 1: It's actually a lot more simple than people think, because one,
Speaker 1: there's so many turkeys to go around and it's hard
Speaker 1: to miss them. But my most common method is I
Speaker 1: just get to an advantage point, whether it's on a
Speaker 1: ridge or just on a logging road where I can
Speaker 1: hear distance, and I actually don't call. I'll just sit
Speaker 1: there and I'll just listen because turkeys are very vocal,
Speaker 1: so as they're flying up to roost or they're just
Speaker 1: hopping from branch to branch to go to roost. They
Speaker 1: will actually gobble on their own and so you really
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything. You just let them speak
Speaker 1: for themselves. But in the case when you deal with
Speaker 1: slightly more pressure turkeys, which often occurs in the later season,
Speaker 1: like let's say like mid May to late May, if
Speaker 1: they're not vocal, I will often resort to an owl
Speaker 1: call just to give them a little bit more kick
Speaker 1: if they're not responsive or the other thing I will
Speaker 1: do is I will imitate a roosting hen. But the
Speaker 1: only time I imitate a roosting hen is if I
Speaker 1: know that where I am standing right there is a
Speaker 1: good spot where I can set up for the morning.
Speaker 1: Because turkeys, they're as dumb as they might seem, they
Speaker 1: can pinpoint your location to your step like you throw
Speaker 1: out a call, and they will know exactly where you are.
Speaker 1: So the only time I will imitate a roosting hen
Speaker 1: is if I know that I can set up that spot. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if there's a gobbler across the ridge and
Speaker 1: I'm on a ridge across from him, I'll just tell him, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm a hand I'm roosting here on this ridge tonight,
Speaker 1: I'll come back in that or I guess I'll come
Speaker 1: back the following morning and pretend that I'm that hand
Speaker 1: that roosted the night before, waking up flying down, Because
Speaker 1: when you do that, it just lowers the suspicion of
Speaker 1: a turkey. Right if if you didn't tell him you
Speaker 1: were there the night before, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the next morning, there's, all of a sudden, there's a
Speaker 1: turkey there. Sometimes it can throw up the red flag,
Speaker 1: especially if you're dealing with pressured gobblers. But in terms
Speaker 1: of roosting, that's pretty much like the whole nutshell about
Speaker 1: how I go about roosting birds got you and some
Speaker 1: of that research that our buddy Mike Chamberlain at the
Speaker 1: University of Georgia the Turkey Lab there. Some of the
Speaker 1: research he does does is that you call um and
Speaker 1: that turkey may not come into your setup then, but
Speaker 1: he will come back to that exact location you know,
Speaker 1: in three to four hours. That turkey has a decent
Speaker 1: memory and he's got pinpoint accuracy on where you were at.
Speaker 1: And many times Mike Chamberlain's research has shown that that
Speaker 1: that turkey knows where he were. He's busy with hins,
Speaker 1: but he will come back later. So I think the
Speaker 1: same can be said. Like he's you know, on the roost,
Speaker 1: he will know if there was a hen that should
Speaker 1: have been there the night before, and he'll know if
Speaker 1: she should be in that tree when he wakes up,
Speaker 1: you know. And to add two year roosting birds at night,
Speaker 1: I like to do it just because it makes me
Speaker 1: feel a little bit more like I'm in the game
Speaker 1: or I'm being you know, I'm interacting with the turkeys. Um.
Speaker 1: I always refrain from using a coyote yip or a
Speaker 1: howl in the morning because I feel like it can
Speaker 1: you know, disrupt birds, make them very weary and cautious.
Speaker 1: But at nighttime, when they're in the tree, we use
Speaker 1: a lot of kyote, howls, alcohols like you said. Um.
Speaker 1: And I just love to get close to a roost tree.
Speaker 1: And so by not using you know, the hint calls
Speaker 1: like you said, because you don't want to maybe throw
Speaker 1: that red flag. If I use a locator call, I
Speaker 1: can then you know, pinpoint that bird try to get
Speaker 1: within you know, seventy two hundred yards of its roost
Speaker 1: tree and make a make a play in the morning.
Speaker 1: I haven't killed a whole lot of birds out of
Speaker 1: the roost us. We kill them, you know, when they've
Speaker 1: been on the ground for a while. But I still
Speaker 1: love that that excitement I get when you're sitting near
Speaker 1: a roost tree first in the morning, waiting for the
Speaker 1: fly down to see if you, you know, made all
Speaker 1: the right decisions. But yeah, so predator um, you know,
Speaker 1: Kyle Howell's at night seemed to work really good in
Speaker 1: Northeast Washington. I would hesitate to use them any other
Speaker 1: time besides night roosting. And then the only reason I
Speaker 1: like to do it is so I can, you know,
Speaker 1: get closer to their tree in the morning, be part
Speaker 1: of the action. Yeah, I'm right there with you, man.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the birds that we set up
Speaker 1: on a root, like most of the time, it's like,
Speaker 1: we don't kill that bird for some reason. At this point,
Speaker 1: I just like to call roosting false confidence, because it
Speaker 1: makes you feel like you're gonna kill them the next morning,
Speaker 1: and then they just you don't kill a bird, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. You know, you just think that
Speaker 1: you had it died. But then I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: like most of my birds, like I said, or like
Speaker 1: you said, I kill them midday when they've already been
Speaker 1: on the ground for a couple of hours. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get that whole pattern of you know, nin's the
Speaker 1: hens start to go nest um, you know, get it,
Speaker 1: leave those tombs and then they're more callable. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that, you know, the subspecies of
Speaker 1: the merriam's up in the northeast corner maybe or a
Speaker 1: little bit tougher off the roost where it seems like
Speaker 1: some of the eastern we've got to hunt and some
Speaker 1: of the other species um are a little more huntable
Speaker 1: off the roost there. Their roosts are a little bit
Speaker 1: more um, you know, concentrated to too good roost areas
Speaker 1: where these days, Miriams they seem to just you know,
Speaker 1: they do have you know, roost sites that they like,
Speaker 1: but they can hop up at any given spot in
Speaker 1: any given night, you know, as long as there's trees around,
Speaker 1: and um, they're they're not as uh um you know, patternable.
Speaker 1: I guess it seems maybe that that adds to it
Speaker 1: or not. But so if you roost a bird that
Speaker 1: you haven't patterned, how close do you like to set
Speaker 1: up and um, kind of what's your decision making? You know,
Speaker 1: in the dark, are you looking at some mapping software
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where to you know, pick the
Speaker 1: tree where you think he's gonna go on the ridge top? Um,
Speaker 1: what's your play once you've roost roosted the bird and um,
Speaker 1: you know figured all of that out. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: would say that most of them, my birds that I roost,
Speaker 1: I don't pattern them. I'll just go out the night
Speaker 1: before and wherever they roost, I'll just make a game
Speaker 1: plan based off of where they are. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I am mapping software is huge nowadays. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: like I've also just hunted here enough to the point
Speaker 1: where like I generally understand the landscape and a lot
Speaker 1: of the places I hunt today, like I've hunted for years,
Speaker 1: and so you just understand typically how they go. But
Speaker 1: in the event where I don't know the pattern of
Speaker 1: these birds, typically where they flew up from, that's typically
Speaker 1: where turkeys will pitch. So if you knew where they
Speaker 1: flew up from, there's a good chance they're gonna fly
Speaker 1: back down to that same exact spot. And so ideally
Speaker 1: for me, when it comes to the range. Seventy five
Speaker 1: yards is about the magic range for me. It's not
Speaker 1: so close where like he can just pinpoint you and
Speaker 1: you're just in his comfort zone. But it's also not
Speaker 1: so far where he just has to feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got to make this hike to get to him.
Speaker 1: So seventy five to one hundred yards that's ideally what
Speaker 1: I would set up, and how I set up it
Speaker 1: really depends on the terrain, because I mean, dude, these Merriams,
Speaker 1: they'll roost right next to a creek, they'll roost on
Speaker 1: the ridgetop, they'll roost right next to roads. Like you
Speaker 1: really can't predict where they're going to be, and so
Speaker 1: it's really hard to narrow how I would set up
Speaker 1: because it's really so situation dependent. But the idea is
Speaker 1: how I set up is I just want to be
Speaker 1: able to set up in a way where the turkey
Speaker 1: can't see me until he's within range. So that often
Speaker 1: means that I also can't see the turkey. Right If
Speaker 1: I can't see the turkey, that then that means the
Speaker 1: turkey can't see me either. So it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: how you do it. I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: that by the time he can see me, he's already
Speaker 1: in range. Because if he does see me at that time,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because he's not going to outrun a shotgun.
Speaker 1: The shotgun's way faster than he is. Right. And so
Speaker 1: the one situation that I will bring up regarding Northeast,
Speaker 1: specifically Northeast Washington is roads because ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: my turkeys probably come from a set up on a
Speaker 1: road because there's just logging roads everywhere up here. And
Speaker 1: so one, roads are easy for us as hunter's hikes,
Speaker 1: so it's easier to cover ground, and roads are very
Speaker 1: easy to use to how to predict how the turkeys
Speaker 1: will come in. I mean, if you're on a road,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance if the turkey's coming in he's
Speaker 1: walking the road. And third, it's just what turkeys love,
Speaker 1: you know. They love to use roads as strutting grounds,
Speaker 1: travel corridors, and even feeding grounds. And so typically how
Speaker 1: I do is I throw my deco on the road.
Speaker 1: I would either get up off the road or I'll
Speaker 1: go below the road and I'll just let the turkey
Speaker 1: turn a corner. That's typically how I set up on
Speaker 1: a road. I want to set up next to a
Speaker 1: turn in the road. That way, the turkey has to
Speaker 1: turn that corner to see my setup or my decoy.
Speaker 1: And usually by then, like I said, by the time
Speaker 1: he can see the decoin, he can see me, he's
Speaker 1: already within range. Right, So that's how I typically set
Speaker 1: up when it comes to a road. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to like you're just on a random side of
Speaker 1: the ridge, man, it's just you really can predict it.
Speaker 1: You really just got to go based off of what
Speaker 1: he's feeling and what he's giving you. Yep. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's it seems to be a complete guest at that point.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I seem to guess wrong a lot.
Speaker 1: Under the roose tree, you know, it's like you see
Speaker 1: him try to pitch to a flat spot. You see
Speaker 1: him try to pitch out to where you know it's
Speaker 1: more open when you know the tree they're in, and
Speaker 1: for some reason, they always do the opposite. And then
Speaker 1: I've even tested it, like all right, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to touch a call all morning, just like let him
Speaker 1: naturally pitch where he wants. It doesn't work, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, next time, I'm gonna call real lightly. He
Speaker 1: still doesn't pitch and just yeah, just real, real limited
Speaker 1: luck out of the roost. But no, I appreciate answering
Speaker 1: those listener questions. If you have a question of your
Speaker 1: own you want me or my guest answer, please email
Speaker 1: them or submit a social message, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: Email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com. We'll
Speaker 1: do our best to get those answered here live on
Speaker 1: the show. So for today's episode, I've got my own
Speaker 1: questions to ask you here and specifically about you know,
Speaker 1: hunting Merriam's you know, you've mentioned Northeast Washington, Idaho, some
Speaker 1: of that open country, more mountainous country probably compared to
Speaker 1: what the majority of the country gets when it comes
Speaker 1: to wild turkey hunting. It's where I grew up turkey
Speaker 1: hunting in that Northeast Washington corner um. And it's a
Speaker 1: ton of fun because you know, I why I love
Speaker 1: the big thunderous gobbles of the Easterns compared to the
Speaker 1: you know, the Merriams little wheat gobbles, and some of
Speaker 1: the differences between between the birds. Like I love that
Speaker 1: it's you get up in the morning and you gotta
Speaker 1: lace your boots a little tighter when you're hunting merriams.
Speaker 1: You know you gotta you gotta maybe, um, you know,
Speaker 1: bring a little more water with you because you're gonna
Speaker 1: run and gun these turkeys pretty good. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be necessarily you know, sitting why I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say this, for me hunting public land, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get to necessarily sit on a on an agg field edge.
Speaker 1: You know that's kind of um. You know, your typical
Speaker 1: turkey hunts in some places, I just love that. It's
Speaker 1: almost like hunting the mountains for elk, for meal deer,
Speaker 1: but you're up there chasing turkeys on ridgetops and I
Speaker 1: absolutely love um that style of of turkey hunting. UM.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious to see if some of our where
Speaker 1: some of our strategies and UM techniques are similar, and
Speaker 1: then also to see if you have some different tactics
Speaker 1: that we um that you utilize in the northeast corner
Speaker 1: that I'm not currently using. But before we jump into
Speaker 1: my questions for you, it's always fun to kind of
Speaker 1: relive the past. Tell me real quickly about your first
Speaker 1: turkey and kind of your strategy you put it put
Speaker 1: on that turkey in and how you killed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the truth is I probably at this time didn't even
Speaker 1: have a strategy because I didn't know what I was doing,
Speaker 1: but I somehow killed a turkey. But I don't even
Speaker 1: know what year this was. This was well over a
Speaker 1: decade ago, But I'll go to the year before I
Speaker 1: killed my first one because that kind of leads up
Speaker 1: to the year I actually shot mine. So the year
Speaker 1: before I killed my first turkey, it was during youth
Speaker 1: season and I actually missed a tom at twenty five
Speaker 1: yards in this exact spot. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: missed it, but twenty five yards turkey just took off.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I did wrong, I just missed.
Speaker 1: And so the following year it was it was youth
Speaker 1: season again, and you know, you kind of go back
Speaker 1: to that spot because, first off, like that tom that
Speaker 1: I missed, that was a first turkey I've ever shot at,
Speaker 1: and when you shoot something like that, you just have
Speaker 1: this built up confidence in that little spot, and so
Speaker 1: naturally I was just like, I want to go back
Speaker 1: to that spot. So it was my cousins and myself
Speaker 1: and we again, like I said, we went back to
Speaker 1: that spot out of redemption because we also knew that
Speaker 1: that little spot where I missed that Tom, there was
Speaker 1: a roosting area like two hundred yards below where I
Speaker 1: actually shot the Tom. So we went the night before
Speaker 1: and this weekend was pouring rain like it was horrible,
Speaker 1: And so we got out before daylight and the rain
Speaker 1: was still gone and it was pouring. Everything was soaking wet,
Speaker 1: and we pretty much went back to that same general
Speaker 1: area where I missed it Tom last year. And so
Speaker 1: sure enough we get to that spot where we were
Speaker 1: last year, and we looked down below us, like two
Speaker 1: hundred yards and we spotted Tom and three hens, and
Speaker 1: like I said, like the rain is just pouring down
Speaker 1: at this point. So even we were miserable, but the
Speaker 1: turkeys looked like they were even more miserable. I mean,
Speaker 1: they just went through a whole night of rain and
Speaker 1: now they're trying to dry off, but then there's no
Speaker 1: sun because it's still pouring rain. And so turkeys were wet,
Speaker 1: We were wet, and it was just miserable conditions for
Speaker 1: a turkey hunt. And so at least you know, that's
Speaker 1: how it's looked at. Right. When it's often raining, people
Speaker 1: often refer raining conditions as poor turkey hunting, but today
Speaker 1: it was somehow the opposite for us. So anyway, we
Speaker 1: spotted Tom and three hens about two hundred yards below
Speaker 1: and this a little flat below us, and my cousin
Speaker 1: just starts calling, because that's that's what turkey hunters do.
Speaker 1: And so surprisingly, this Tom was actually really vocal, but
Speaker 1: he just wouldn't leave his hens. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like early April, you know, hens are still with Tom's
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And so we sat there for
Speaker 1: like an hour in the rain, just calling to this Tom,
Speaker 1: and he would he was very vocal, like every time
Speaker 1: we called, he would gobble, and he would even gobble
Speaker 1: on his own, but he just wouldn't leave his hands.
Speaker 1: And so my cousin David and I we eventually like
Speaker 1: just decided like let's let's goot a little bit closer.
Speaker 1: So we moved down like another fifty yards without him
Speaker 1: seeing us, and we were just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's set up here because there's no way we can
Speaker 1: get any closer. And so we scooped fifty yards closer
Speaker 1: and we sat there for like another thirty minutes just
Speaker 1: yelping away at this Tom, and this Tom again like
Speaker 1: just kept galling, but he just wouldn't leave his hands,
Speaker 1: and so I don't even know how long it was,
Speaker 1: but maybe like another hour on top of that, like that,
Speaker 1: Tom finally just decided like okay, like I gotta go.
Speaker 1: And so we literally watched this Tom break off from
Speaker 1: his three hands and he just starts walking up towards us.
Speaker 1: And he's not strutting because he's wet. He's just casually
Speaker 1: walking his way up towards us. And where we're set up,
Speaker 1: it's on a small ridge with just like small pine
Speaker 1: trees here and there, and so he eventually walks to
Speaker 1: the left. Basically he's going to walk up the spine
Speaker 1: of the ridge. But as he's coming that route, I
Speaker 1: can't see him anymore. And so he also stops gobling,
Speaker 1: because we also stopped calling because we knew he was
Speaker 1: on his way, so we didn't want to just keep
Speaker 1: calling for him. And so as a rookie hunter, not
Speaker 1: seeing a turkey and not hearing him gobble, you know,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of second thoughts in your head,
Speaker 1: and it just feels like forever and so little did
Speaker 1: I know this turkey he was actually drumming and spinning
Speaker 1: the whole way but at that time, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what drumming and spinning was, so I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what to listen for. So I kept bugging my cousin.
Speaker 1: I kept asking him. I was like, dude, is he coming, Like, like,
Speaker 1: where's this turkey? It feels like forever. My cousin like, dude,
Speaker 1: like stop, like he's coming, Like he's right there, like
Speaker 1: he's on his way. Because my cousin at that time,
Speaker 1: he knew what drumming and spitting was, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: And so he's like, dude, like just just wait, dude,
Speaker 1: like he's gonna show up. He's gonna show up. And
Speaker 1: so I'm sitting there drenched, fingers numb from the cold
Speaker 1: and what felt like an eternity. He finally pops out
Speaker 1: into this one shooting lane about twenty yards away, and
Speaker 1: we pretty much see each other right at the same time.
Speaker 1: But the difference was I knew what he was, but
Speaker 1: he didn't know what I was. So he stuck around
Speaker 1: just long enough to, you know, kind of poke his
Speaker 1: head out like what is that thing in the bush?
Speaker 1: But my fingers were so cold. I remember going to
Speaker 1: pull the trigger twice and the gun wouldn't go off,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at my cousin to ask him,
Speaker 1: why isn't the gun firing? And so I come back
Speaker 1: to the gun and this turkey is still just standing there,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to pull the trigger but I can't,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to lift this gun to the side
Speaker 1: to look at the the safety to see if it's
Speaker 1: on fire. The gun goes off. Yeah, as the gun
Speaker 1: goes off, I look at the turkey. The turkey just
Speaker 1: starts flopping. So I somehow miraculously got their turkey without
Speaker 1: really aiming at the turkey. White White twisting your gun
Speaker 1: over to look at Yeah, as I was twisting my
Speaker 1: gun like, the gun went off, and I just remember
Speaker 1: I looked up at the turkey and I just saw
Speaker 1: his right wing go up and he just starts tumbling
Speaker 1: down this ridge, and I just remember I just yelled
Speaker 1: I got him, and my gun stands up. He's looking
Speaker 1: over because he clearly saw that I wasn't aiming when
Speaker 1: I shot when the gun went out, so he looked.
Speaker 1: He jumps out. He's looking to make sure the turkey's
Speaker 1: actually down, and sure enough, the turkey was just flopping
Speaker 1: down the ridge. And so I don't know how I
Speaker 1: got it, but I saw him. I got him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A little a little bit of a story to your
Speaker 1: your first bird there for sure. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my first bird. I didn't even use a call, as
Speaker 1: much as I'd love to say, I called the thing in. Um,
Speaker 1: I was struggling. We we kind of were in that
Speaker 1: part of the season back then. Um, you know, late April,
Speaker 1: it seems like those toms just get on, you know,
Speaker 1: completely hand up, won't do anything. We don't have enough
Speaker 1: hens sitting all day and it's just that like that
Speaker 1: weird time where it's not early enough, it's no longer
Speaker 1: late enough, where all the hens are leaving and you
Speaker 1: just couldn't call to him. So I I just like
Speaker 1: shamelessly listened to gobbles and did the big sneak and
Speaker 1: used terrain and uh popped around a corner and shot
Speaker 1: my first tom. But no, your your story is a
Speaker 1: little more eventful than than mine, for sure. We're so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump into the questions I have for you now,
Speaker 1: someone and kind of kind of, um, just just go over.
Speaker 1: These are kind of just the general um turkending questions.
Speaker 1: But see how we can kind of tailor this Northeast
Speaker 1: Washington and some of the tactics you use, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to be successful. You're in and year out. You're not
Speaker 1: only successful for yourself, but I know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: you take a lot of other guys and gals out
Speaker 1: and find them a bunch of success. So I'm really really,
Speaker 1: um you know, interested to pick your brain here. So
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, just like you said earlier, I've
Speaker 1: I've had the same results. I can typically go out
Speaker 1: onto most pieces of public in Northeast Washington and get
Speaker 1: a bird to gobble. So once you get that bird gobbling, Um,
Speaker 1: what is your approach? Are you going to get as
Speaker 1: tight as you can? Are you gonna sit down? Like
Speaker 1: what's the magic distance you like to get to? And
Speaker 1: then what's your progressions on calling? Yeah, it really comes
Speaker 1: down to just the mood of the gobbler, how far
Speaker 1: I am, and hunting pressure, Like that's the three factors, right,
Speaker 1: how what the turkey's feeling, how far I am from him,
Speaker 1: and what's the hunting pressure like in that area? And
Speaker 1: like I said, it's such a situation, don't think, but
Speaker 1: I'll just try my best to keep it like just streamline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the thing is lots of gobblers. Like when a
Speaker 1: turkey gobbles, right, even if he's gobbling a lot, it
Speaker 1: generally means or it can mean one of two things. Right,
Speaker 1: If he's gotten a lot, he's super interested, he's running
Speaker 1: and everybody wants that, right. The other thing is he's
Speaker 1: gobbling a lot, but he's hung up. And so one
Speaker 1: thing I've learned over the years is you really just
Speaker 1: have to learn to read the turkey. And there's really
Speaker 1: no good way to explain how to read a turkey
Speaker 1: besides just spending time out there, putting yourself in a
Speaker 1: bunch of situations and really just getting that natural feel
Speaker 1: for how you can make a move, because a lot
Speaker 1: of times when I go turkey hunt, I really just
Speaker 1: wing it. I don't really have a game plan. I
Speaker 1: just go based off of what the turkey's giving me. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if we work in a bird and I
Speaker 1: know he's come in and he's just pounding every call
Speaker 1: I make, I'll play around with him in terms of
Speaker 1: the call, because one I just like to hear them gobble, right,
Speaker 1: if he's hammering and he's running in, I'll just call
Speaker 1: a lot, because, especially if i'm taking somebody else who's new.
Speaker 1: Hearing that gobble gets them excited, and it makes them
Speaker 1: patient when the gobble goes. When a gobbler goes silent
Speaker 1: and you're taking a new guy out and they stop gobling,
Speaker 1: a lot of times they get very antsy and they
Speaker 1: get impatient. Which that's probably the number one factor where
Speaker 1: people don't shoot birds. They just get impatient. But when
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how the turkey's coming in, whether he's
Speaker 1: coming and gobbling his head off or coming in very
Speaker 1: very silent, very cautious, I will eventually stop calling when
Speaker 1: he gets close and let him come find me. Because,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast, turkeys,
Speaker 1: they might not seem smart, but every time you're making
Speaker 1: a call, they are pinpointing exactly where that call is
Speaker 1: coming from. And so typically what I do is I
Speaker 1: use a decoy, and so I make sure I stop
Speaker 1: calling before he's able to get visual of the actual setup.
Speaker 1: So what I do is I typically put a deco
Speaker 1: like twenty yards away from I am, so once I
Speaker 1: stop calling, if he pops up, he looks at the
Speaker 1: decoy because I've given him maybe like a minute or
Speaker 1: too of silence. It makes realistic sense for that hen
Speaker 1: to have moved twenty yards from where I last called,
Speaker 1: so it just makes it more realistic for him to
Speaker 1: approach it. But on the flip side, when it says
Speaker 1: do you call just enough or keep him over the top, obviously,
Speaker 1: if he's coming in, you can pretty much do whatever, right,
Speaker 1: but if he's very cautious, you really have to play
Speaker 1: around with how much you're calling in how you're calling
Speaker 1: to him, because, especially later in the season, when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with birds that have been shot at, they've been
Speaker 1: set up on before, you can't really just do whatever
Speaker 1: because they will read you and pick you apart. And
Speaker 1: so what I typically do is if if a bird
Speaker 1: is gobbling but he's not super over the top, like
Speaker 1: the first example I give you, I'll give him just
Speaker 1: enough calls to make him somewhat interested, but I won't
Speaker 1: always be calling enough to the point where he's just like, okay,
Speaker 1: you come to me. Because what I've learned over the
Speaker 1: years is when you as a hen, typically that's how
Speaker 1: I call im a hen. If a hen is more
Speaker 1: excited than the gobbler, a lot of times, what that
Speaker 1: leads to if that leads to a gobbler hanging up
Speaker 1: because if he if he wants you more than you
Speaker 1: want him, he will come running in. But if you
Speaker 1: want him more than he wants you, a lot of
Speaker 1: times what he's gonna do is he's going to force
Speaker 1: you to go to him. So you kind of have
Speaker 1: to play that balance between am I calling too much?
Speaker 1: Or am I calling not enough? And so again, it
Speaker 1: really is a situational thing, and that's just dependent on
Speaker 1: the situation of the turkey and whatever situation you get
Speaker 1: yourself into. Yeah, and early I've always figured that early
Speaker 1: in the call in like we're gonna you're gonna establish
Speaker 1: kind of the ground rules right of this call in.
Speaker 1: If he's hammering, you know, say you make a hen,
Speaker 1: you open, he hammers you, and then you maybe you know,
Speaker 1: go quiet for a minute, but he gobbles two or
Speaker 1: three more times, You're like, all right, is he excited
Speaker 1: where he's at or does that mean he's really excited
Speaker 1: and coming to me? And so now as a turkey hunter,
Speaker 1: we're now like, is he actually getting closer? Is he
Speaker 1: closing some of this distance? Or is he sitting there
Speaker 1: spinning around, you know, gobbling towards me. So it sounds
Speaker 1: like he's getting closer and then he's turning away like
Speaker 1: he may be hind up. And so you're trying to
Speaker 1: use like all of this information to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on, you know, And in the case where that
Speaker 1: bird's gobbling and getting closer, you're like, well, that's the
Speaker 1: easy one, right, we don't have to We can, like
Speaker 1: you said, you can call as much as you want,
Speaker 1: as little as you want. The thing's going to come
Speaker 1: pinpoint your location. Um. It's the ones in between that
Speaker 1: seemed to kind of hang up, that seemed to kind
Speaker 1: of answer you occasionally and seem to kind of gobble
Speaker 1: on their own occasionally and then don't answer your calls,
Speaker 1: or the ones that really kind of give us the
Speaker 1: fits where we're like, we'll shoot, what do we throw
Speaker 1: out him? Now? Do we need to go silent for
Speaker 1: five minutes and then does our our hind call work again?
Speaker 1: Or you know, do we need to get really excited
Speaker 1: with some cutting? And that's just where I think experience
Speaker 1: and then kind of just that gut fuel comes in
Speaker 1: at times, like all right, did the cutting work, did
Speaker 1: it not work? Did the silent treatment work? Did it
Speaker 1: not work? Um? And you have to make your your
Speaker 1: you know, your future decisions based on what you've you know,
Speaker 1: got from that bird. Um. You know, throughout the calling,
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to put all this information kind of
Speaker 1: into the pot and boil down what's going to work
Speaker 1: on this bird and and there are times where it's
Speaker 1: just not going to work. Exactly pretty much nailed it, yep.
Speaker 1: So and during the calling we've just talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: calling a lot, calling a little bit going silent um,
Speaker 1: you know that bird being able to I've always assumed
Speaker 1: before I get into this next question, I am going
Speaker 1: to throw this bit of information out in the instance
Speaker 1: You've mentioned it multiple times, but I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: reiterate it because it's it's important if you know that
Speaker 1: that bird answers your hidden call, like you let out
Speaker 1: a seven note yep, and that thing is right on
Speaker 1: top of you. You know that that was in response
Speaker 1: to your hidden calls. At that point, he knows exactly
Speaker 1: what true you're sitting under. UM, So don't be worried.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you can go silent and maybe that
Speaker 1: and we'll move. But at the time you make the call,
Speaker 1: he makes a call, I just assume that he now
Speaker 1: knows exactly where I'm at, you know, so I at
Speaker 1: least got that bit of information. I think it's important
Speaker 1: to know. And that the research you know, with with
Speaker 1: GPS callers UM and or GPS trackers on these birds, um,
Speaker 1: the research shows that that thing knows exactly where you're
Speaker 1: sitting and he will eventually go back to it once
Speaker 1: he loses his hens um. So when that bird goes silent, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm talking silent silent, how long are
Speaker 1: you gonna wait this thing out? Um? And I know
Speaker 1: it's always dependent. And then what's your play gonna be? Um?
Speaker 1: After that? So you know you're calling the bird he's
Speaker 1: gobbled six, eight, ten times, seems like he's closing the
Speaker 1: distance and he's interested. And then you just get the
Speaker 1: typical silent treatment that we've all, we've all been a
Speaker 1: part of, we've all we've all had to deal with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, Um, I think when you say silent treatment,
Speaker 1: I think you can draw like a like a bunch
Speaker 1: of branches under it. So I'll give a couple of
Speaker 1: different scenarios, right. So, one scenario, which is very common
Speaker 1: that people don't realize is he's come in he's goblin,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, a sudden, you just don't
Speaker 1: hear him anymore. So we would prefer that to you, guys.
Speaker 1: He's go signed that. What this often means is he
Speaker 1: sees your decoy, or he sees your general area where
Speaker 1: the sound is coming from, So that means he's made
Speaker 1: it there. He's just now poking his head up and
Speaker 1: he's just looking at the situation. Because the thing with
Speaker 1: gobbling is it's often a communication between two turkeys who
Speaker 1: cannot see each other. Once the gobbler shows up, and
Speaker 1: if you have a decoy out, if he sees your
Speaker 1: decoy or he sees a hen, he really doesn't have
Speaker 1: a need to gobble anymore. I mean, like the communication
Speaker 1: between a gobble and a hen yelping has brought them
Speaker 1: into one area. And at this point, if you're a tom,
Speaker 1: it's not about I'm gobbling anymore. It's about, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: the hen. How can I look as good as I
Speaker 1: can to this hen. So what happens is when they
Speaker 1: come in and they're silent, that means he sees your
Speaker 1: decoy and he's just trying to strut. He's trying to
Speaker 1: look as good as he can for the hen. This
Speaker 1: is what happens with a lot of situations is people
Speaker 1: who don't who can't identify drumming and spitting. This is
Speaker 1: where they screw up because the turkey's already here. They
Speaker 1: just can't see him and they don't think he's here
Speaker 1: because he's not gobbling. But like the like I will
Speaker 1: say later, turkeys are always drumming and spitting, no matter
Speaker 1: how pressure they are, they're always drumming and spitting. So
Speaker 1: if you can learn to identify that, even if he's
Speaker 1: not gobbling, when they're close, it's so distinct you can't like,
Speaker 1: you just can't not hear a drum and a spit.
Speaker 1: So that's one scenario of what happens when he quote
Speaker 1: unquote goes silent, he shows up, he sees your decoys.
Speaker 1: He's now just putting on a show. Another thing is,
Speaker 1: especially in the Northeast region we live in, we hunt
Speaker 1: in mountainous terrains and the landscape is so oddly shape
Speaker 1: that sound can just travel very weird. And so for example,
Speaker 1: if I'm on a ridge and there's a turkey on
Speaker 1: another ridge and he's gobbling, right, sounds like he's just
Speaker 1: hammering all my calls because a lot of times that
Speaker 1: terrain is so mountainous. What happens is a lot of
Speaker 1: times turkeys will have to take longer routes to get
Speaker 1: to your setup. So what I've had happened is I'm
Speaker 1: just standing face to face with the turkey. He's on
Speaker 1: another ridge. I'm on another ridge. But instead of coming
Speaker 1: straight down his ridge and up my ridge, he's just
Speaker 1: gonna take this logging road that's gonna loop all the
Speaker 1: way to the backside of the valley to get to me.
Speaker 1: So what happens is he's sounding like he's going farther away,
Speaker 1: which he is, but that isn't necessarily he's losing interest.
Speaker 1: He's just taking the path of least resistance to get
Speaker 1: to me, even if that means it's a longer route.
Speaker 1: So what happens sometimes is he gets into like this little,
Speaker 1: this little pocket where the sound just doesn't travel as good.
Speaker 1: So because you can't hear it, we just say, oh,
Speaker 1: he went silent on us. He's not really interested. But no,
Speaker 1: it's he's still gobbling. He's just on his way. You
Speaker 1: just can't hear him at that moment. I've had this
Speaker 1: happened so many times. Just last year, I took my
Speaker 1: buddy Steve out. This bird was hammering us. He was like,
Speaker 1: he was probably half a mile away, and it got
Speaker 1: to a point where we couldn't hear him anymore. And
Speaker 1: my buddy Steve was like, dude, like he's he's gone.
Speaker 1: And I told him, like, dude, with how he was
Speaker 1: hammering us, like the first fifteen minutes, there's no way
Speaker 1: he's not going to show up twenty minutes later showing off.
Speaker 1: There's Turkey shows up ten yards smokes him. Right. It's
Speaker 1: like it's things like that that go a long way.
Speaker 1: So when we say they're giving us the silent treatment,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways and a lot of
Speaker 1: different scenarios that you have to keep in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind. Yeah, for sure, Um, yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: there's always Yeah, it's tough, and that's where, like you said,
Speaker 1: you have to draw from the experience you've had with
Speaker 1: that bird prior to the silent treatment, and you've got
Speaker 1: to make some decisions on whether that bird is still
Speaker 1: coming or whether you know, he went away with a hen.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is, you know, was he was
Speaker 1: his last calls going away, was he coming towards you?
Speaker 1: And then you have to make your decision, you know,
Speaker 1: based on that. Um. Great great information there. UM. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about it. Most of the Northeast it can
Speaker 1: be very brushy, but in my opinion, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: it's fairly open, you know, mountainous. Like we've said, it
Speaker 1: kind of lends itself to that running gun style of
Speaker 1: turkey hunting. UM. I already know your answer to this
Speaker 1: because you mentioned earlier My question was do you use
Speaker 1: a decoy or not? And you've said use it in
Speaker 1: roads a lot. But but what's your thought process on decoys?
Speaker 1: Do you use them on every setup or other times
Speaker 1: where you won't use a decoy and kind of go
Speaker 1: into to that. For me, Yeah, I think I can
Speaker 1: definitely get away with with my experience. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I'm the most experience, but with how I can
Speaker 1: read turkeys, I can often get away without using a decoy.
Speaker 1: The reason why I still use a decoy now is
Speaker 1: it really just helps me on the filming side of
Speaker 1: things to be able to know where I can just
Speaker 1: leave the frame of my camera on the decoy. It's
Speaker 1: so much more like it's less stress on me mentally,
Speaker 1: rather than predicting where this turkey is gonna come. Because
Speaker 1: a lot of times I sell film. So knowing that, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a decoy, I just gotta put the camera on
Speaker 1: the decoy, just leave it on the tripod. It makes
Speaker 1: it a lot easier for me because I can really
Speaker 1: focus on just working this tom because a lot of
Speaker 1: times they're gonna show up to the decoy. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is I often only use a hend eoi.
Speaker 1: I know some people like to use like a Tom
Speaker 1: or Jake tkoy. I've never really found it to improve
Speaker 1: my chances. The other thing, too, is I just don't
Speaker 1: want to get shot by other people, you know, and
Speaker 1: so I just use one Hen decoy. That's typically what
Speaker 1: I do. But like I said, it's not really mandatory,
Speaker 1: but it really just helps me with my filming. Gotcha perfect,
Speaker 1: That makes makes a ton of sense. We've always we
Speaker 1: used to use them a lot more, you know, set out,
Speaker 1: you know, two Hens and a Jake on a lot
Speaker 1: of setups, and there were times where we would get
Speaker 1: picked off setting them up, you know, the turkey clothes
Speaker 1: too quick or whatnot. And I would say the majority
Speaker 1: of the time we do. But when we do go
Speaker 1: back out and hunt some aggs stuff and the turkeys
Speaker 1: can see for so long to get that like visual
Speaker 1: confirmation that all right, there are turkeys down at the
Speaker 1: other end of the field that are making you know,
Speaker 1: turkey noises. I feel as a little more effective versus
Speaker 1: like running gun um, you know, chasing turkeys around. At times,
Speaker 1: it seems like we've elected to we seem to not
Speaker 1: put out decoys as much. We've used some some live
Speaker 1: stuff for decoys times. Um, but you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: big and they're painting the butt to carry around. But
Speaker 1: but they are effective in the in the certain situations
Speaker 1: where that you know, Tom that you're trying to call
Speaker 1: in can make a visual um. It can you know,
Speaker 1: change a game for us a little bit. Absolutely. So
Speaker 1: it's different than the silent treatment um very often. Especially
Speaker 1: I kind of gave the scenario earlier. You know that
Speaker 1: that mid April to late April when birds are just
Speaker 1: on you know, lockdown, they're they're hung up, they're hinged up,
Speaker 1: very very uh you know, difficult to call in, but
Speaker 1: they will play the game for a bit and you
Speaker 1: know that bird hangs up. You know, we've we've seen
Speaker 1: him getting their strut zones. Um, you know, hour hour
Speaker 1: and a half after fly down, they establish where they
Speaker 1: want to be. The hens lead him to where they
Speaker 1: want to feed, and that bird kind of gets you know,
Speaker 1: hung up in his strut zone. Or he may come
Speaker 1: part way, but he's not willing to leave those hens
Speaker 1: complete league because you know, he's got the for sure thing.
Speaker 1: What do you have any out of the box, um,
Speaker 1: you know, strategies or tactics for that, or do you
Speaker 1: have just a strategy that works? When those birds hang up,
Speaker 1: they're still active, they're still calling, but they just will
Speaker 1: not break you know, either a certain train feature, a
Speaker 1: certain topo feature, or they just flat out won't go
Speaker 1: any farther away from their hands. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: most common technique when it comes to a gobbler that's
Speaker 1: hung up because of a hen is to start talking
Speaker 1: to the hen. Right that Like, the reason why that
Speaker 1: gobbler's not coming in is because he's hung up with
Speaker 1: the hand like he's he wants to stay with the hen.
Speaker 1: So if you can get that hand that he's hanging
Speaker 1: out with to come into you, I mean, like that's
Speaker 1: that's textbook right. So that's like the most common thing
Speaker 1: is like people, especially rookies and myself, including when I
Speaker 1: first started, all I wanted to do was talk to
Speaker 1: the tom. But it's like that's not always going to work.
Speaker 1: If if he's hung up with the hen, start talking
Speaker 1: to the hen. Because if you bring in the hen,
Speaker 1: that Tom's gonna be right behind her. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who you're talking to because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you just want that tom to be to be in
Speaker 1: range so you can shoot him. Yeah, But aside from
Speaker 1: the situation where he's hung up with the hand, if
Speaker 1: this is just a lone bird and he comes up
Speaker 1: to your setup, you're calling him, he comes up and
Speaker 1: he's just like sixty seventy yards just right outside choking ring.
Speaker 1: There's typically three reasons why a lone tom will hang up.
Speaker 1: First off, which is the worst one, is they see you.
Speaker 1: He's hung it up because he's looking at you, which
Speaker 1: oftentimes from there there's not much you can do. You
Speaker 1: can just hope and pray that he's gonna walk a
Speaker 1: couple more steps, but oftentimes he's just gonna turn away
Speaker 1: and walk around. The second scenario is he comes up,
Speaker 1: he doesn't see you, but he just doesn't like he
Speaker 1: just doesn't like what he's seeing, like it just something
Speaker 1: feels off to them. So when it's something like this,
Speaker 1: it's fifty fifty, he might close another ten fifteen yards,
Speaker 1: or he might just turn around and leave. The third
Speaker 1: one is they're not seeing what they're supposed to be seen.
Speaker 1: If you imitate a super hot hand in this open
Speaker 1: field and he comes up and you don't have a
Speaker 1: decoy out, he comes up, he looks at it, he's like,
Speaker 1: where's this hent, he's gonna hang up because he's gonna
Speaker 1: take his time, he's gonna observe where this supposed head
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. So those are typically the three
Speaker 1: reasons why a loan bird will hang up. So typically
Speaker 1: what happens when he doesn't like what he's seeing or
Speaker 1: he's not seeing what he's supposed to do or supposed
Speaker 1: to be seeing, is I just go silent. I want
Speaker 1: him to build up that that curiosity like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't see what I'm seeing. I don't really know what's
Speaker 1: going on here. I need to go investigate, because at
Speaker 1: this point there's not much you can do if you're
Speaker 1: gonna give a call out and he's already within sixty
Speaker 1: seventy yards. Again, he's gonna pinpoint your location and he's
Speaker 1: just gonna stare right at where the call is coming from.
Speaker 1: And if you're not a decoy, you don't have a
Speaker 1: decoin next to you, there's a good chance you're not
Speaker 1: calling him in. And so this is, you know when
Speaker 1: That's why it's such a hard topic, because when a
Speaker 1: bird hangs up, it's like there's really no right or
Speaker 1: wrong way to go about it. It really is you
Speaker 1: gotta go with your gut instinct in that situation. Yep, yep, No,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm with you on that one. And real similar
Speaker 1: to what we do there, we've we've touched on this
Speaker 1: a little bit too, a little bit in our earlier conversation.
Speaker 1: Most of the public land we get to hunt northeast Washington,
Speaker 1: whether we're you know, a mile from the gate, whether
Speaker 1: we're right along a country road, whether we're along a
Speaker 1: logging road. These birds get a lot of pressure. Why
Speaker 1: we do have a great turkey population that's thriving currently,
Speaker 1: they are, the birds still get pressured. Right, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of Washington State as a whole. Hash I
Speaker 1: don't want to misspeak. But we have a very high
Speaker 1: hunter count. You know, a very high number of hunters
Speaker 1: that's still hunt spring turkey. Um, so we do have
Speaker 1: pressured birds. Do you have any other tactics you like
Speaker 1: to use specific to pressured birds on this public land? Yep.
Speaker 1: So basically three tips. First one is I work them
Speaker 1: a little slower and I just give them more time.
Speaker 1: Pressured birds they take their time, they're more cautious. The
Speaker 1: second one is I worked turkeys from a different angle.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that gate that everybody parks at and goes
Speaker 1: in from one direction. You can use that as an entrance,
Speaker 1: but dude like loop around the mountain, come in from
Speaker 1: the backs that come in from the east, coming from
Speaker 1: the west, working from a different angle, because a pressure
Speaker 1: bird knows the most common entrance, which is through the gate,
Speaker 1: and that's typically where he's found the most danger. Right,
Speaker 1: if everybody's coming and calling in from the same direction,
Speaker 1: he already knows what's up. You come in from the
Speaker 1: back set or a different angle, he might be like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is actually a legit turkey. Or the third
Speaker 1: one is instead of full blown yelps, I just resort
Speaker 1: to Kluck's more subtle calls, you know, because at this
Speaker 1: point in season May late May, every turkey knows what
Speaker 1: a full blown yelp means. Yep, yep. That's That's one
Speaker 1: thing I was going to add, and I kind of
Speaker 1: had dialed up for pressured birds, is you know, everybody
Speaker 1: in the world can go out and use a seven
Speaker 1: to nine note yelp um. It's it's our go to
Speaker 1: calls for the most part. But that bird has heard
Speaker 1: every variation of a seven to nine note yelp on
Speaker 1: a mouth diaphragm, on a pot call, on a box call,
Speaker 1: they've heard it. And if you know those birds have
Speaker 1: heard it, let's go to klux, Let's go to some
Speaker 1: subtle purring. Let's go to some real, like, you know,
Speaker 1: real short two to three note yelps. And I learned
Speaker 1: this from my buddy Chris Parrish and Randy Milligan. It's
Speaker 1: just that subtle, realistic sounds can sometimes help you out
Speaker 1: on those pressured birds. And so that's what we like
Speaker 1: to do, at least from a calling tactic. And then
Speaker 1: I do like your point, like, all right, if there's
Speaker 1: a bird up a canyon, everybody's gonna approach halfway up
Speaker 1: the ridge because that's where the road's at, you know,
Speaker 1: So in that turkey's mind like, hey, guess what, you know,
Speaker 1: other hunters coming down the road. Let's let's cross the
Speaker 1: creek in the bottom and come at them and you know,
Speaker 1: get a top. Or let's go around the ridge. Let's
Speaker 1: approach him differently and just you know, change up the
Speaker 1: thing that the bird's seen, you know, multiple times throughout
Speaker 1: the year or last year or Whatnotum, so you're getting ready,
Speaker 1: Um it's opening day of season. What calls do you
Speaker 1: have on you? And what are the calls that are
Speaker 1: gonna get some use and what are the calls that
Speaker 1: are maybe gonna a little bit more specialty. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: go pretty simple, man. I have three calls on me
Speaker 1: all the time, and that's pretty much it. I have
Speaker 1: a crow call, I have a read diaphragms, and I
Speaker 1: have a slate or a pot call. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: That's all. I carry. A crow call. It's Natural's right.
Speaker 1: We have crows here all the time. They're always they're
Speaker 1: very active in the spring. That's my locator call. And
Speaker 1: it's really good because one it's natural, but the downside
Speaker 1: with it is it's very loud. You can't really do
Speaker 1: a soft crow call. So the downfall with a loud
Speaker 1: crow call is if there's a gobbler that's really close
Speaker 1: to you and you just let them have it a
Speaker 1: lot of times, it'll just spook the turkey, which that
Speaker 1: isn't work in your favor. The second one is an
Speaker 1: actual turkey call, which is a diaphragm. It's more difficult
Speaker 1: to use, which is the downfall, but if you can
Speaker 1: get even just proficient with it, it's really good to
Speaker 1: have because your hands free, you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about not having your hand on the trigger when the
Speaker 1: turkey shows up or anything. The third one is a
Speaker 1: pot call. It's just easier to use, but the downfall
Speaker 1: obviously is it requires two hands, so to heading on
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. If I'm the hunter, i'm the camera guy,
Speaker 1: I'll have a read them amount all the time. If
Speaker 1: I'm just helping someone out poll call, because it's way
Speaker 1: easier and I'm personally better out of pow call than
Speaker 1: i am with a diaphragm. Gotcha. That makes Yeah, I'm fortunate.
Speaker 1: You know, we end up carrying probably more calls than
Speaker 1: we ever use. Very similar I will throw a box
Speaker 1: call in um, you know, in in areas where you
Speaker 1: know it's big country. I feel like sometimes that box
Speaker 1: call UM can carry maybe a little bit more. It's
Speaker 1: got more of that high shrill pitch. UM. And then
Speaker 1: once again, if if we are an area with pressure birds,
Speaker 1: that might be something they haven't heard as much of. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, similar to you, I carry a few a
Speaker 1: few diaphragms, UM, a pot call, and then you know,
Speaker 1: the only thing I may have. I found that affiliated
Speaker 1: woodpecker works really really good in that northeast corner. UM,
Speaker 1: and so I'll typically have some sort of a woodpecker call.
Speaker 1: It's just that real high pitch you know, startles them.
Speaker 1: It seems to get um, you know, at times when
Speaker 1: the crow call doesn't work that uh, that pilliated woodpecker
Speaker 1: seems to really get them fired up. So that's really
Speaker 1: the only difference. I might carry a box. But there
Speaker 1: are times where it's just like I don't want to
Speaker 1: carry the box round. I don't want to worry about it,
Speaker 1: you know, especially if it's raining. Um, you know, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with two different woods that if it gets wet,
Speaker 1: it's useless anyways, UM, I'll just elect to put that
Speaker 1: thing in the truck and leave it there. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know I would even be able to if if
Speaker 1: it's raining, I'm probably just gonna use my mount diaphragms
Speaker 1: anyways and leave. Might as well leave, you know, even
Speaker 1: the pot calls in the truck. M We've we've talked
Speaker 1: about I'm just going through our my questions here. We've
Speaker 1: we've hit this one enough on hind up birds and
Speaker 1: and that are hard headed. UM. Long distance locating in
Speaker 1: northeast Washington, You're you're hunting ridge top to ridge top.
Speaker 1: You're hunting what I would even consider like drainages. A
Speaker 1: lot of these walking areas that we hunt UM DNR
Speaker 1: walking areas there. It's big mountainous country ridges UM in between. UM.
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about this on our roosting.
Speaker 1: But let's say you strike up a bird on the
Speaker 1: opposite ridge. UM, how do you kind of make the
Speaker 1: decision to stay where you're at and try to call
Speaker 1: that bird to you or go after? What are some
Speaker 1: of those cues or kind of indicators that let you
Speaker 1: decide what to do? Yeah, the first thing is it's
Speaker 1: just how desperate I am. You know, if it's if
Speaker 1: it's been a struggle and that's the only bird I've
Speaker 1: struck up, Like, I'm going after him, But if I
Speaker 1: know there's other gobblers closer to me, I'll just I'll
Speaker 1: keep tabs on that bird. I just won't go after
Speaker 1: him right then and there, because I mean, if there's
Speaker 1: birds closer to you, obviously, why would you not go
Speaker 1: to close the birds. But the idea is like, if
Speaker 1: if there's a lot of distance in between us and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to gauge is it worth my hike to
Speaker 1: go over there? It really goes back to what I
Speaker 1: said earlier. You have to really get good at estimating
Speaker 1: the mood of a turkey. Right if he's far away
Speaker 1: but he's just hammering you, just showing so much interest,
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me to turn a bird like
Speaker 1: that down. But if he's far away and he's like
Speaker 1: giving me like half efforted gobbles and just not really
Speaker 1: showing interest, then I'm just I don't even go after him.
Speaker 1: I'll just find another bird, gotcha. Yeah, Then there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of times if you kind of like you said, desperation,
Speaker 1: if you know there are other birds in the area,
Speaker 1: like sometimes, especially if my approach wouldn't be good. Or
Speaker 1: if you know that thing could potentially pick me up
Speaker 1: and it's a risky move. Um, and I know there
Speaker 1: are other birds in there, I won't risk it at
Speaker 1: that point, but I'll keep it in the back of
Speaker 1: my mind, like, hey, there is a bird that's working
Speaker 1: that ridge over there. Um, you know you can always
Speaker 1: use it as kind of your backup plan. But yeah,
Speaker 1: similar to you, like, I don't want to bust over
Speaker 1: there potentially you know, not find the bird. That's just
Speaker 1: you're right around the corner on my side, Um, at
Speaker 1: the risk of losing it. So yeah, it depends on
Speaker 1: the situation and when you're gonna, h can't you go
Speaker 1: over there? In closing, if you had what's your one
Speaker 1: tip you feel would give a turkey hundred better odds
Speaker 1: in finding success this year? My one tip, if I
Speaker 1: had to tell them, is hunt all day. You know,
Speaker 1: I've killed birds from first light to last light and
Speaker 1: everything in between. In fact, I'd say I'd killed more
Speaker 1: birds midday when most hunters stuffleft the woods are napping,
Speaker 1: you know. Turkeys, Like I said, turkeys first thing they
Speaker 1: do when they fly down, The first thing they do,
Speaker 1: or typically do, is they breed, so when they're breeding,
Speaker 1: it's hard to pull a tom away from the flock.
Speaker 1: But you know, once they're done at first light breeding
Speaker 1: and tom's are alone because the hens are tending their nests.
Speaker 1: Like dude, like from nine to three o'clock, you just
Speaker 1: don't know when you're gonna strike up a super hot tom.
Speaker 1: So if that's the there's one tip I could give
Speaker 1: to them. Hunt all day. Yep, No, I'm I'm the
Speaker 1: same way growing up in you know, hunt over there
Speaker 1: in northeast Washington. I got. I got to hunt with
Speaker 1: some locals and hunt with some people that have been
Speaker 1: doing it for a long time, and it was even
Speaker 1: comical to the point where it frustrated me. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: get up, you know, at four o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and go sit on a roost tree and whatnot. They
Speaker 1: would hang out at camp, cook themselves nice breakfast once
Speaker 1: it got daylight, wait for all of us young guys
Speaker 1: that were full of pissing vinegar earlier in the morning
Speaker 1: to come back to camp, and then they would go
Speaker 1: out and kill the birds that we were hunting. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just it's just nature and the way it works, right,
Speaker 1: It's those those toms fly down with a group of
Speaker 1: hens that handel, go lay eggs, go sit on her
Speaker 1: nest and leave, and then that tom's a lot more
Speaker 1: callable at that point. And so now I'm with you
Speaker 1: with that said. I think you're still punching the time
Speaker 1: clock whether you're out there in the morning and night.
Speaker 1: And and we all know that you can kill a
Speaker 1: bird first thing in the morning, but you can also
Speaker 1: kill a lot of birds midday. So similar to what
Speaker 1: you said, you know, more time in the woods is
Speaker 1: always going to lead to more success. And I'm fully
Speaker 1: on board with what you said there, right. They appreciate
Speaker 1: having you on the podcast today. How can people find
Speaker 1: out more about even where can they find your stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I primarily operate on YouTube and Instagram. My YouTube
Speaker 1: is just some Long Outdoors sam lg Outdoors and on
Speaker 1: Instagram it's sy Underscore Outside Perfect. Well. Yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: you're doing cool stuff. I love your YouTube channel, you know,
Speaker 1: super humble, modest um in my opinion, doing the right
Speaker 1: way and representing hunters in the light that we need to.
Speaker 1: So no proud of you, like I said, got to
Speaker 1: watch it for the last four years. Really like what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Um, it's an honor to have you on here,
Speaker 1: and good luck to Spring. It sounds like we're gonna
Speaker 1: hook up and maybe do some trick hunting together, So
Speaker 1: everything we talked about here, maybe we'll be able to
Speaker 1: put it to use here, the Spring and the document
Speaker 1: and all. Absolutely, man, I'm looking forward to it.