WEBVTT - Ep. 48: The Trouble with Lovin’ Gobblin’ Turkeys with Will Primos and Dr. Mike Chamberlain 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.119 You're here in turkeys. You're chasing turkeys. They're responsive. I 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.959 kill birds every spring. Fast forward to when my son 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.080 was born. By the time he got to be the 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.479 age of I'm going to become a fanatical turkey hunter 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.919 like my dad, there just weren't that many turkeys, and 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.599 there had been ten years before. On this episode, we're 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.560 going from the creek bottoms to the ridge tops to 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:34.000 contrast two eras of turkey hunting. We'll look at goblin 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:38.120 turkeys through the lens of legendary turkey hunter Will Premost. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.880 I'm interested in examining his passion for spring turkeys, which 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.879 shaped his life, and how the timing of their resurgence 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.479 gave him a limb to roost on. But the energy 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.960 will swing hard when we talk with University of Georgia 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:58.200 turkey biologist Dr Mike Chamberlain and hear his message which 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.880 has been brought to the forefront of the turkey world. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.479 We're exploring the fascination and excitement of spring turkey hunting, 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.720 the passion that drives innovation, and the challenges the wild 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.119 turkey is facing. What the plan is to help them. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.280 We'll even here from my friend and callmaker Jason Phelps. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.160 These are all incredible folks, and I doubt you're gonna 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.920 want to miss this one. This is what books are 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.360 written about. This is what forms companies, this is what 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.840 makes friendships. This is what God gave us to have 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.520 the intensity of what he wants to have in life. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:47.880 That's a turkey right there, man ha ha. My name 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.200 is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.760 where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.560 and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.960 a Marykins who lived their lives close to the land. 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:09.200 Presented by f HF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.760 and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:33.880 the places we explore. I've always loved turkey hunting. The 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.920 emerging energy of spring, bringing the hardwood timber back to 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.080 life is euphoric for the micro windows you're immersed into it. 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.840 I love the charismatic flowering trees like red buds and dogwoods, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.080 and the intricate early growing plants like crested iris and mayapple, 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.359 all indicators of one thing. As a kid watching VHS 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.480 videos in the nineteen nineties, I remember Old Harold Knight saying, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.959 when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrels ere, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.480 the turkeys will be goblin. And there in lies the 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.600 crown jewel of the spring. The reason we love it 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:19.440 goblin turkeys. I love the audio sensation created by unseen gobbles, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.480 which enlivens the imagination. The act of turkey hunting is 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.400 implanting yourself into the ancient and natural system of a 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.079 spring morning. And maybe what I love most of all 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.280 is the amount of roving across the landscape you've got 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.800 to do to find one. This is Dr Mike Chamberlain 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.200 of the University of Georgia. His passion has ignited a 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:45.160 widespread interest in wild turkey biology, as he and others 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.360 have sounded the alarm of concern specifically for turkeys in 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.440 the southeastern United States. Let me know if you agree 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:59.680 with my sentiment here. Have you ever been heartbroken, Dr 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.680 chamber I have. I have a life philosophy that I 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.680 would like to share with you goes way back in 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:09.160 Newcomb lineage, and it's that you cannot trust a ground 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:14.000 nesting bird. Okay, if you put your heart into a 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.839 ground nesting bird, you're gonna get burned. Okay, My grandfather, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.320 Lewin Knewcom. He died in he was ninety four years old. 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.320 He was a bird hunter, just the epitome of a 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.880 Southern bird dog trainer. You know. I was born in 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.960 nineteen seventy nine, which would have been about the time 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.680 that quail, the quail demise came, and I spent my 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.160 whole life bird hunting with him, and he lamented the 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.760 loss of quail. My grandfather had this love of this 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.080 animal and this thing that he did and invest his 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.920 life in, and the last thirty five years of his life, 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.840 the bird just wasn't there. And then I grew up 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.080 and loved turkey hunting. And when I was in high 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.440 school in Arkansas, we had a good turkey hun I 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.159 learned to love it, killed turkeys, and then all that 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.240 just kind of dissipated. And that's when my philosophy came. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.440 Do you think this is reasonable if you're from Arkansas? Yes, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.680 the same challenges that Arkansas has faced. There are many 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.640 many agencies facing throughout the species range, not just in 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.360 the Southeast, but in other parts of the country as well. 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:19.800 I've heard it said it's kind of death by a 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.720 thousand cuts in some ways, there's no smoking gun. It 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:29.520 is death by a thousand cuts. Literally. I'm from Arkansas 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.080 and our turkey populations are currently down six from our 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.559 population peaks in the early two thousands, so it's easy 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.480 for me to see our problem. But it has wider 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:44.400 implications than just unfilled tags. I'm interested in how wildlife 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:49.280 affects the trajectory of people's lives, and this goes way back, 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.440 even to the very beginning. The Clovis hunters likely built 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.120 their culture around populations of megafauna like wooly mammoths, fulsome 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.479 hunters around bison antiquates the plains Indians tribes arose with 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.919 the buffalo herds. Daniel Boone made a living off bear, 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.760 deer and fur bears. My grandfather lived in the heyday 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:13.480 of southern quail hunting, and the flutter of quail wings 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.600 dominated his vacant thoughts. Wildlife can have big implications for 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.560 people who live close to the land. Things beyond our 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:26.240 controls shape our lives all the time, and in that statement, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.599 I want to make a big picture connection. So stay 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.640 with me. I am a product of the nineteen nineties. 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.960 I came into that decade age ten and left that 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.400 decade at age twenty, which is an important period. What 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.279 I didn't know is that I built my foundational expectations 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.680 on the peak Turkey numbers of the modern era that 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.480 some argue weren't sustainable. I wonder if the Clovis hunters 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.960 felt the same way as wooly mammoths slipped through their fingers, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.200 would they have had enough cultural men murray to recognize 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:06.760 the decline. I don't know. Interestingly, though, we do, and 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.800 it's in large part due to outdoor media in the 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.360 nineteen nineties that was television during that time. I was 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:20.840 influenced by a man named Wilbur Primos from Mississippi. He 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.480 lived about a hundred and five miles slightly northeast of 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:31.160 East Fork, Mississippi, where Jerry Clower lived. Interestingly, Jerry's outdoor 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.720 experience focused on coons and possums, not game animals like 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:40.240 deer in Turkey. Why, you might ask, because they didn't 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.680 have big game animals are very many of them back 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.680 in Jerry's early years. However, the Turkey reintroduction efforts of 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:53.920 the nineteen seventies eighties produced the nineteen nineties and you 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.000 can almost hear the Turkey eggs hatchen. It was an 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:07.320 incredible time to be a key hunter. Sain't bad. He's 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.120 got to come up with a bit to see us dead. 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.560 This is Mr Will Primos. I hit her at on 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:27.520 its chest, I did, dude. All of a sudden, we 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.440 had loads of turkeys. We had an explosion of turkey 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.319 call makers being successful and people rising to the top 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.920 through outdoor media brands. One of those people was an energetic, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:45.079 black headed man with a tightly trim beard name Will Primos. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.079 So when did you start turkey hunting? You know, back 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.920 you grew up with your family, your dad turkey hunter. No, uh, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.200 my my uncle's and all the family around me started 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.760 turkey hunting, and so I would watch them as a 0:08:57.840 --> 0:08:59.600 young man. I caret up quay Ol hunting with my 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.239 uncle us. But then the turkey started just coming everywhere 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.040 there weren't they weren't They were only on the river, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.679 way back in the Misssippi River, inside the levee, and 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.480 that's where most of the people turkey hunting. So finally 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.080 I got out of college. Things rolling, But I was, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.160 I was. You know, the first turkeys you killed, you 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.280 were deer hunting. Probably weren't you supposed to shoot them? 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.240 You know? But really springtime turkey hunting that started sometime 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.360 in my early twenties, late teens, and just a little 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.720 fire under me, you know, I just absolutely loved it. Okay, 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.520 would you tell me if this statement would be degree 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.199 with this statement that by the late sixties, early seventies, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.880 or or you know, some period of time in that time, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.040 World War two had happened, Baby boomers were in their prime, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.200 they had money, they had free time. I mean, that's 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.280 when a lot of the American hunting heritage. It didn't 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.559 start then, but a lot of the things that kind 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.600 of we have lived off of began then. I mean, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.640 just kind of with a revolution and widespread pop culture 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.000 nature of knowledge about turkey hunting. I definitely think it 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.920 was after the end of war two. War two almost 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.640 decimated the wild turkey, and it did so because everybody 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.240 was going to war, and depression was owned and in 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.360 the twenties that depression was hard on the Turkey too, 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.720 and people were humans killing them, humans killing them, filling 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.120 up a trough with corn and getting the one end 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:19.920 of it. And when enough turkeys got the heads and 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.960 that thing breaking and what have shot gun and feeding 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.160 the family. I see. So, you know, until game laws 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.760 came into being and seasons came into being. You know, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.040 they really didn't have a chance. You know, we were 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.720 over harvesting them, we were over killing them, and because 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:39.240 people were trying to survive. It's important to grasp that 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.320 we haven't always had a lot of turkeys. Humans show 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.920 up on planet Earth and think things are normal, and frankly, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.640 we just don't live that long. But a lot of 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.320 stuff happened before we got here. We can assume that 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.920 pre European settlement, turkeys were thick in the eastern half 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.000 of North America. Boone and his bros. Talked about incredible 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.840 of flocks of turkeys in Kentucky, but the gobblers took 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.240 a dive in the late eighteen hundreds to the mid 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.160 nineteen hundreds, but then in the seventies, eighties and nineteen 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:14.679 nineties they resurged in the East and Midwest. Interestingly, today, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.640 wild turkey is now thriving in much of the western 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.880 United States and places that historically never had turkeys. They're 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:26.679 pretty much an invasive species, but many believe that the 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.560 peak of modern turkey numbers in the East was in 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.480 the nineteen nineties. In early two thousands, but now we're 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.760 seeing a decline in many areas. It's not extremely clear 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.680 why other than there are a lot of reasons. Here's 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:49.120 Dr Chamberlain. What about this idea that populations just flux 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.360 up and down a lot. Is there any merit to 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.199 just this is a natural thing that we're seeing. Oh yeah, 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.120 And in fact, that's the point of open discussion amongst 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.160 researchers and managers is we know that when we restored turkeys, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.760 we probably overshot the point at which they were going 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.439 to sustain themselves. In other words, populations were just exploding. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.840 When we were moving turkeys all over the place and 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.640 releasing like the sixties, sixty seventies, eighties, even into the nineties, 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.640 you were putting turkeys into vacant habitats. There were no 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.559 turkeys there, Predator communities were different than habitat was better 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.520 than there, weren't as many human beings then all these 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.040 things that affect this bird. So populations just skyrocketed and 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.160 there were literally turkeys everywhere. We are now and what 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.840 I call a new normal. We are never going to 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.640 go back to where we were in n which is 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.040 not going to the peak of my turkey hunting career. 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.640 I distinctly. Remember, you know, when I was in grad 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.800 school in the early and mid nineties, I thought that 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.400 was the best thing ever. There were turkeys everywhere everywhere 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.480 I hunted. It was just amazing. Everywhere I went, in 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.679 every state, and I was so poor I couldn't go. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.560 I hunted in Mississippi, but every public clanned. I went 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.920 to the turkeys everywhere. And now I can go back 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.839 to those same places and they're not there. It's not 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.160 that they are just in lower abundance. There are places 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.720 on those properties they're not there. And that is a 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.400 social problem, a human problem, because until the day I die, 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.880 we'll talk about how good that was, and that was 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.560 something unnatural, and that is like almost impossible for me 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.600 to extinguish from my brain, you know. I mean when 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.880 you think about that, where these people that had this 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.720 connection to a wild animal that we love to hunt, unnatural, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.640 big populations of it. We build this culture around that, 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.240 we build norms around it, we build stories around it. 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.000 Of the turkey. I mean, I remember my dad talking about, man, 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.199 I've heard twelve gobblers from that one spot. I'll never 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.680 forget that. I'll never forget where he was. And then 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.559 that all of a sudden is the bar. That's what 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.640 I tell my kids about. I'm like, man, I remember 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.079 when your grandpa used to sit on that ridge and 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.280 here twelve turkeys. Now we maybe here one every couple 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.280 of years. That's kind of confusing. It's a concern for 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.360 me too, frankly, because when I was recruited into the 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.080 spring turkey hunting ranks, there were turkeys everywhere, and I 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.640 was successful. I could hear birds every morning, and that 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.920 caused me to become addicted to it. It's like a 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.240 candy or something. It's a drug, man, It's you know, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.880 you're hearing turkeys, you're chasing turkeys. They're responsive. I'd kill 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.640 birds every spring and and I was just infatuated with it. 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.960 And I fast forward to when my son was born 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.960 and there were still a lot of turkeys around. But 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.920 by the time he got to be the age of 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.280 I'm going to become a fanatical turkey hunter like my dad. 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.840 Where we live, there just weren't that many turkeys, and 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.400 there had been ten years before. And as it turned out, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.480 Austin was not a fanatical turkey hunter like I am. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.920 He'd do it and he enjoyed it, but he didn't 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.520 have the opportunities that you and I had to experience that, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.880 And so he could not reflect back on a day 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.080 when you heard ten birds standing in one spot. So 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.440 what he grew up knowing was that turkey hunting was 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.320 a lot of times you wouldn't hear anything. And so 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.680 his competing interest were deer hunts where he would see 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.480 dear every time he went he was successful, duck hunting, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.480 goose hunting where he was successful, and it pulled his 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:26.160 interest away from this turkey hunt. One thing is for sure. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.520 Humans gravitate towards success. This has kept us alive as 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.400 a species. Hunting turkey is most fun when accompanied by 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.440 reasonable odds of success, which produces engagement and excitement, which 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:46.400 helps produce something else, passion, which then produces something else, innovation. 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.160 I'm certain this is an ancient chain of events. The 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:55.000 resurgence of the wild turkey was an exciting time to 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.720 be a hunter. I'm on shoot him that minute, you 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:24.680 got him? Yeah, okay, true, my old twenty double. Hey, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.800 that's that's the man right there. Don't tell you what 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:36.320 this is what this passion, this intensity, This is what 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:40.720 books are written about. This is what forms cutanies. This 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:45.280 is what makes friendships. This is what God gave us 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.080 to to have the intensity of what he wanted us 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.720 to have in life. That's a turkey right there, man, 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:58.000 that's in Alabama, Mississippi state line, swamp turkey, that's right. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.800 And that would have been the time frame late sixties, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.800 early seventies when spring turkey hunting being a sport, a 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.560 thing that people mastered and perfected and called these birds 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.240 not just bushwhacked birds. That's kind of when it came 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.960 alive with calls, and would you agree with us? It 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.520 came alot a lot, but there are some old timers. 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.040 The first box call was patented in eighteen nineties seven 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.800 by a guy named Gibson from Arkansas, and a lady 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.639 gave me an actual original Gibson which I donated to 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.680 the Natural Turkey Federation Museum. Designed about like our box calls. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.960 There's a whole lot of similarities, but it's a very 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:43.800 primitive piece. Tinkers from seven forward learned so much changed 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.399 the wood. Put a spring under the lid around the 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.480 screw to balance the lid. But there were was a 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.080 lot you're you're you're saying about these people that really 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.520 it took fire people sitting down, putting their back into 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:56.120 the tree, and calling up a turkey. In the late 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.480 sixties seventies, there's a lot of that, but there was 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:00.439 a lot of it in the nineteen hunt slight thing 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.639 can't join about in the Ozarks. People who understood it, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.280 people who learned to yelp on a on a piece 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.080 of a leaf, a green leaf. In Alabama, they were 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.000 experiment with mouth calls. The story that I best I 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.359 could figure out A guy from Alabama, from Andalusia, Alabama, 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.800 was in New Orleans and he was walking by a 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.080 guy who was selling trinkets on the corner, and one 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.240 of the trinkets was a teeny tiny bird call. It 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.720 was a teeny tiny diaphragm as big as your thumbnail, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.359 and the lotok guy would put in his mouth and 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.280 make a little bird sounds. And that guy stopped and 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.080 heard that, and he goes, I think I can make 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.960 a thing yell. So he bought some him and started 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.119 experimenting with it. And later that's supposedly where some of 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.720 the beginnings of the mouth called really came about. Hands 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:49.080 free passion fuels innovation, whether making a new style of 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:54.680 stone point or developing projectiles slinging weaponry like adeladdles and bows. 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.280 The primary success of the human species has been using 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:02.240 natural materials as two rules. As humans had access to 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.160 more tools, materials, and time, people started figuring out ways 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.439 to replicate the sound of a hind turkey, which is 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.560 the siren call the Achilles heel of the greatest of 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:19.639 game birds, the gobbler turkey. Jason Phelps is the chief 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.800 call maker and founder of Phelps Game Calls. I want 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.080 to hear him nerd out on the development of the 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:32.399 box call and the innovation they're in on record to 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.960 the earliest that we know, Henry Gibson had the Gibson 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.600 box call patented back in I believe he held half 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.800 of the patent, and then there was a fella named 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.240 John Body who many speculator he was maybe the financial 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.040 backer as they kind of took this endeavor on. Henry 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.679 Gibson patented the idea, but he didn't patent any of 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:57.320 the specifications or any of like the important details, and 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.440 so why he patented the idea. It really let everybody 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.439 else go and make calls. It's pretty crazy when you 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.400 look at the original patent drawings of the Henry Gibson call. 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.199 It looks identical to what you would find today in 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.959 today's box called. It has been improved upon, but it's very, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.359 very similar to what you see as a box call 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.679 today is what they were producing back in you know, 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:24.560 the the late eighteen hundreds. I can understand how a diaphragm, 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.520 a mouth diaphragm call with a piece of latex on 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:31.600 it can replicate the sound of a turkey as you 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.320 push air through the soft tissues of your tongue and 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.080 mouth over this latex read and it, you know, it 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.679 sounds like a turkey. What's kind of bizarre when you 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.679 think about humans just having this natural material trying to 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.280 imitate a turkey that you would ever dream that you 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.320 could take two pieces of wood and make it sound 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.320 like the soft flesh of a turkey. How do we 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.640 get the sound out of a box call that sounds 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.280 so good? Yeah? And I always kind of wonder the 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.520 same thing, you know, who was the first person and 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.080 how did they come across this? And if if these 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:07.800 things were never invented, would I be able to like 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.240 think of it or hear that sound? And wood on 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.399 wood makes a little bit of sense because we're, you know, 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:14.000 in our day to day lives. You know, whether it's 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.600 a wood drawer, a cabinet, or framing for a house. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.200 You know, wood out in nature, I imagine somebody had 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.359 taken fairly dry wood of different sizes and and it 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.560 replicated the sounds of a turkey, or it was similar 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.719 or close enough where you know, maybe they went back 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.720 and rEFInd it, but you know, you advanced today. Kind 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.520 of what we're doing is it's it's all acoustical. We're 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.600 taking very specific woods, typically a harder, heavier wood for 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.399 your paddle, and then you've got maybe a lighter, slightly 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.800 less dense wood for your your base, and by hallowing 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.720 out the center and creating your two walls, what we're 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.560 doing is is we run that paddle across one of 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.320 the walls. We're forcing it to vibrate. And that's why 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:57.879 the chalk is used. We need those two calls, that 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.440 coefficient of friction to kind of go up. We want 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.720 those two materials to kind of bite against each other. 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:04.800 The reason all of these paddles, you know, all the 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:06.960 way from Gibson's paddle all the way to what we're 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.479 using now have a have a radius on them. And 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:11.560 what that does is is you're is you're swiping that 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:13.520 paddle across one of the walls of the bottom of 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:16.520 the box. At one point you imagine you're you're writing 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.200 up on the wall, and then once you're over halfway, 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:21.280 you're starting to write down the back side of the wall, 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:23.919 and that idea gives us our high note going in. 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.200 And then as you start to break down the back side, 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.320 you get that break over and you get the second 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.159 part of a hen yell. Jason, I don't know if 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.480 this is the right platform to tell them about the 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:36.920 call that you and I are working on together, the 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.880 Gary Nucomb black panther scream call that we're making. Now. 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.760 My dad swears that he can tell the difference in 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:47.679 a black panther and a regular panther by just the 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.800 way they scream in the dark. Okay, so there's a difference. 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.320 He has ears that can can dissect the difference we 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.600 can differentiate between the two colors. I'm gonna move that 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:58.679 to the top of the priority list on calls that 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.639 need to be designed. When you think of humans as 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.960 natural predators on the landscape, which we've been in North 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.560 America for a minimum of fifteen thousand years, probably longer 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:13.800 our participation in the ancient hunt is no less legitimate 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.560 than a bobcat. However, the spark of consciousness, our ability 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:22.600 for self reflection as reasoning predators, our ability to make 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:27.399 tools has fueled creative strategies like squeaking chalked wood together 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:30.840 to make a turkey sound, which is pretty bizarre. The 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.639 only predator that impresses me more in the innovation department 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:39.679 is the great horned owl. Dr Chamberlain exposed this story 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.400 to many of us. Weighing in and around three pounds. 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.280 These gritty little suckers target goblin turkeys on the limb 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.200 and the pre dawned darkness and hit them flying it 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:53.200 speeds up to forty miles per hour, knocking them out 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:57.160 of trees and breaking their necks. Dad Gummant, those great 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:01.400 horned owls are some good turkey hunters. Here is Mr 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:09.040 Will talking about that predatory innovation. I was born into 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:13.719 a restaurant family. We had five restaurants, so I had 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.520 to keep doing that. As I figured out how to 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:20.120 grow an outdoor hunting primarily a game call and later 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.280 many other products how to do that. There was no money, 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.760 so I couldn't I couldn't sell enough calls to pay 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.080 me and somebody else to help run the place or 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:31.240 make the calls or whatever. So I didn't quit my 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:35.040 work until nineteen. I started the company in nineteen seventy six, 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:37.760 so I didn't I didn't quit having a full time 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:40.040 job until nineteen. So how old would you have been 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:42.920 in nineteen seventy In nineteen seventy six, I would have been, 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:45.359