Speaker 1: If this is the me Eater podcast, coming at you.
Speaker 2: Shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening toast,
Speaker 2: you can't predict anything.
Speaker 3: Presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel from
Speaker 3: Marino bass layers to technical outerwear. For every hunt, First Light,
Speaker 3: go farther, stay longer. Okay, everybody, we're coming at you
Speaker 3: from Kansas Union Town. Not well, kind of new Walnut
Speaker 3: Union Town. Yep, that's the voice of Jason Phelps. Seth
Speaker 3: Morris is here. We're on Phelps that had been to
Speaker 3: this property before and Seth yep. Uh doing a bit
Speaker 3: of logging, little timber felling. I had to show Phelps
Speaker 3: out of feltree. Yeah. Then we got tacked by chiggers. Yep,
Speaker 3: ticks tiggers and then uh and now we're back. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So two summers ago, two summers going ye sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, July two summers sold them last year, remember falling
Speaker 2: here chiggers man.
Speaker 3: So yeah, this Chiggers story is worth telling. So we
Speaker 3: came and we selected a big walnut tree. We're on
Speaker 3: the front of your How did you how do you
Speaker 3: know Randy.
Speaker 2: So mutual friend Chris Parrish. Oh, he talks about him all, yeah, yeah, great,
Speaker 2: one of the best turkey colors of all time. Got
Speaker 2: got to know Chris really well, and we were just
Speaker 2: trying to plant a turkey hunt together, and He's like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I think I got a one of
Speaker 2: my buddies in Kansas, might let us do that hunt here.
Speaker 2: So we came out met Randy three years ago turkey
Speaker 2: hunt and got to be good buds from God. And
Speaker 2: then so we had an idea where we wanted to
Speaker 2: make turkey calls but cut the trees down and just
Speaker 2: kind of go through the whole thing and you'd get
Speaker 2: all the raw timber a lumber.
Speaker 3: Yes, yep. So we came out here to Randy's place
Speaker 3: and got a walnut tree not far from what we
Speaker 3: later I didn't know at the time, but not far
Speaker 3: from Walnut, Kansas. And we had some walnut experts come out.
Speaker 3: We picked a walnut tree, sawed it down, picked an
Speaker 3: oceage orange.
Speaker 2: Barberchared it.
Speaker 3: Barbecared another dudes from like the twelfth generation of loggers,
Speaker 3: and then and the barber chared.
Speaker 2: We don't cut trees. I'm not making any excuses. I
Speaker 2: barbarer schared it. But they with this whole like little
Speaker 2: teeny front cut, enter your saw halfway and cut your
Speaker 2: way out the back.
Speaker 3: That was special to cut. That's why I still screwed
Speaker 3: it up. Yeah, they got away of felling. They got
Speaker 3: away of felling walnuts where I never I wasn't really
Speaker 3: familiar with that. No, like high end, like high end
Speaker 3: veneer logs. They're basically taking that thing down to the
Speaker 3: dirt yep and not cutting a wedge, because you could
Speaker 3: be cutting hundreds of dollars. You could be cutting like
Speaker 3: hundreds of dollars out of that tree yep, cutting the wedge.
Speaker 3: So what do you even call that little process?
Speaker 2: So yeah, they cut maybe a three inch face cut,
Speaker 2: and then they just dog their saw in burrow hole
Speaker 2: through it. You dog the tip of the bar in
Speaker 2: behind that hollow it all out, get yourself squared up
Speaker 2: to that that notch, and then you just cut your
Speaker 2: way out the back.
Speaker 3: And uh yeah, when you're done, dude, it's like it
Speaker 3: looks like paving stones. Man. I mean that thing is
Speaker 3: you haven't wasted anything. But I like that method. But
Speaker 3: I was like the whole time, I was like, so
Speaker 3: does the tree come down on me? Where's the tree go? Cut?
Speaker 3: The wallet down, cut some osage orne down, and I
Speaker 3: remember when we got the walnut I think we had
Speaker 3: in our head. We're like, we're calling it a thousand
Speaker 3: pot tree, and I want to be pretty close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a little slightly over, but yep.
Speaker 3: And and made these calls with that, made strikers with
Speaker 3: the osage range. I haven't tell you I lost my
Speaker 3: striker I got. I might have excell but I also
Speaker 3: have a striker with sentimental value. So anyways, and then
Speaker 3: we made all the walnut pots and what we wanted
Speaker 3: to do. But on this podcast, I'm I was joking
Speaker 3: about sweep steaks and raffle law, being like, if I
Speaker 3: could go back in time and take another career path,
Speaker 3: I would go into sweep. I'd become a lawyer and
Speaker 3: specialize in sweep steaks and raffle law. We wanted to
Speaker 3: have them be that they all had a number. It's
Speaker 3: called the line one call, and they all have a number.
Speaker 3: We wanted to be that we'd sell them and then
Speaker 3: get all those ping pong balls with numbers on them
Speaker 3: and it blows them in the wind. We're going to
Speaker 3: make our own the leaf bloor and then you grab
Speaker 3: a ping pong ball out and whoever that number has
Speaker 3: that call. We were then going to take them back
Speaker 3: to the same property to hunt turkeys. We just thought
Speaker 3: it'd be fun, and we went through it the whole
Speaker 3: plan until we realized that according to the to the
Speaker 3: Vagaries of sweep Steaks and Raffle law, you can't do
Speaker 3: that or it's very cumbersome, like free entries and all
Speaker 3: of this just every time you go to it's like
Speaker 3: a every time you go to give something away and
Speaker 3: a lawyer looks out like, you can't do that. So
Speaker 3: instead what we did is we just did it. But
Speaker 3: and then later after the fact picked someone and called
Speaker 3: him and took him turkey Hunt, but he still out
Speaker 3: Turkey Hunt. Me and Phelips are tagged out. Guy, This
Speaker 3: looks bad, dude that we're tagged out, but our guy
Speaker 3: hasn't gotten one yet. He's gonna be like, so I
Speaker 3: won this, like Turkey Hunt and the guys that were
Speaker 3: supposed to be taking these shots and I didn't. You
Speaker 3: had to get on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't sound as bad
Speaker 2: if we were to explain.
Speaker 3: Well, no, we did because I went so I went
Speaker 3: out with him. I went out with the winner opening
Speaker 3: morning and the landowner. So you got like the landowner
Speaker 3: advantage and.
Speaker 2: The spot that hadn't been hunted all year yet.
Speaker 3: So like the spot that hadn't been hunted landowner who's
Speaker 3: a very good turkey hunter, very serious hunter, owns the place,
Speaker 3: it's been hunting here for decades, went to right, stacked
Speaker 3: the deck in the winter's favor. Phelps got one, so
Speaker 3: then we moved him over. Yeah he got to a
Speaker 3: crappy guy and yeah, but then we had like the
Speaker 3: landowner's buddy even making sure that everything's like we can
Speaker 3: go there, can't go there, just bad luck. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and to be fair, he has had a terrific time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and some great hunts and he learned a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hopefully he'll close the deal.
Speaker 3: I got Jake.
Speaker 2: He might not want Jake. I think Jake's are hoping
Speaker 2: for him today. I mean, yeah, he's I think he's been,
Speaker 2: like he said, he'll remember this morning for like the
Speaker 2: most picturesque turkey hunt ever. It was was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just you know, I think we got
Speaker 2: a couple of couple of good birds within sixty yards.
Speaker 2: It's not real comfortable taking the which is fine. Like
Speaker 2: I have a ton of respect for you know, he
Speaker 2: wanted him forty and in. But yeah, Turkey's being turkeys
Speaker 2: and doing what they want to do.
Speaker 3: I told you about my kid. I kind of like
Speaker 3: bad mentoring. That worked out good, but he I still
Speaker 3: he killed her g at seventy yards, you know, poke
Speaker 3: and well, I don't know if I told you, but
Speaker 3: he's like, he said, I'm gonna he's gonna take He's
Speaker 3: like he wants to take the beard and fill that
Speaker 3: shell full of hot glue and stick the beard down
Speaker 3: in the empty shell. And he said, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to write the yardage on that shell. He's like, listen,
Speaker 3: tell him, I said, listen, man. Usually people drag bag
Speaker 3: about how close the turkey friend about No, he thinks
Speaker 3: it's great now. He thinks yeah, he already thinks he's
Speaker 3: invincible because he one time, like we're going down a
Speaker 3: big hill hunting deer, and I got out ahead of
Speaker 3: him and he was just lolly gagging behind me, and
Speaker 3: we're kind of like done doing what we're doing, and
Speaker 3: we're just kind of in the regroup phase, you know,
Speaker 3: headed back down the hill. But we'll figure out what's next.
Speaker 3: We blew it, and all of a sudden, we jump
Speaker 3: buck and I turn around, I like register the buck's presence,
Speaker 3: and I turn around to see that he's up and
Speaker 3: his buck is running. And as I'm going no, as
Speaker 3: I go yeah, drops it, I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: So now he's like, you know, he just thinks he's
Speaker 3: He's like John Wayne Now, man, I think it's John
Speaker 3: Wayne now, dude. It's like he just thinks that just
Speaker 3: this whole everything he's been told about distances and running
Speaker 3: is you're to slow him down.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: It's everybody trying to slow down.
Speaker 2: People without the skill set he has can't do it.
Speaker 3: Also joined by Craig Harper, professor of Wildlife Management at
Speaker 3: University of Tennessee and Knoxville. I assumed you were from
Speaker 3: Tennessee for some stupid reasons, but you're not.
Speaker 1: No, from North Carolina. Tenth generation. Family has been there
Speaker 1: a long time, just west of Winston Salem. A good
Speaker 1: place to be from.
Speaker 3: What does that go by? Tenth generation? What's that mean?
Speaker 3: When'd your family get.
Speaker 1: There in the mid seventeen hundreds. Dang, really long history,
Speaker 1: been there a long time, used to have a lot
Speaker 1: of land now it's whittled down to a postage stamp.
Speaker 1: With all of the generations so carving everything up, there's
Speaker 1: still a heavenly piece of early successional vegetation right there
Speaker 1: in the middle of all the suburban development and Winston
Speaker 1: Salem expanding, where all kinds of wildlife that enjoy that
Speaker 1: type of vegetation are very happy. They still hang out there.
Speaker 3: You were talking about after you fell out of that.
Speaker 3: You told us a great story about falling out of
Speaker 3: a tree stand and getting all crippled up. Yes, and
Speaker 3: then you went out to hunt your favorite holler. That's correct.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't from my uncle and dad and cousin,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't have happened. I couldn't get around, so they
Speaker 1: essentially helped carry me and get me in position. And
Speaker 1: there I sat, and a deer walked up late in
Speaker 1: the evening and I was able to shoot it, and
Speaker 1: of course I couldn't go get it. They had to
Speaker 1: do all of the work. But that was a real
Speaker 1: blessing from God right there. Number one to live and
Speaker 1: number two to be able to get some of my
Speaker 1: sanity back after laying in the bed for months, not
Speaker 1: knowing if I'd walk again, you.
Speaker 3: Know, we have a guy. We have a friend who's
Speaker 3: an emergency room doctor in Michigan, and he's a hunter,
Speaker 3: and he's taken a great interest in tree stand accidents.
Speaker 3: I was in a point in the direction because he's
Speaker 3: actually published tree stand accidents and what happens, why it happens,
Speaker 3: the suite of injuries that comes.
Speaker 1: So much of that can be prevented. In my case,
Speaker 1: I was not hunting, as we talked about. I was
Speaker 1: actually checking cameras and I came upon this stand that
Speaker 1: I had not hunted in four years and had forgotten
Speaker 1: that it was there. And I knew the straps would
Speaker 1: be bad. So you know, I climbed up to take
Speaker 1: the straps off and take a stand down and figured
Speaker 1: i'd come back later, and you know, put the stand.
Speaker 3: Back up in new straps.
Speaker 1: But the straps appeared fine, and so you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty dumb.
Speaker 3: Even took them off, even took them off and looked
Speaker 3: at them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I took them off, and everything looked good. They
Speaker 1: weren't afraid, didn't look like squirrels had chewed them, whatever.
Speaker 1: They seemed just to be perfectly fine. I put them
Speaker 1: back on it with the ratchet strap and thing, you know,
Speaker 1: banjo string tight.
Speaker 3: All was good.
Speaker 1: But and there was a big limb and grabbed hold
Speaker 1: of the limb and you know, felt the stand before
Speaker 1: I got in it, and then got in it and
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, put all my weight on it,
Speaker 1: jumped up and down, et cetera. It was solid as
Speaker 1: a rock, the bottom strap was. But then when my
Speaker 1: butt hit the seat, it's just like a twenty two
Speaker 1: rifle going off and down I went, you know, like
Speaker 1: a trap door straight down.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Yeah, it was that spot was that.
Speaker 1: Don't climb without some type of safety harness and something
Speaker 1: keeping you up there. It's a pretty simple thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's easy to climb up without it because we're all
Speaker 1: in a hurry, you know whatever.
Speaker 3: But that's it's risky. Tell people real quick, Craig, what
Speaker 3: you do, what kind of research you do, then we'll
Speaker 3: get into it. Have you duty in a little bit.
Speaker 1: I've been at the University of Tennessee since nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, I'm a professor of Wildlife Management and
Speaker 1: the Extension Wildlife special List. So my primary responsibility is
Speaker 1: developing wildlife management programs, especially for the extension agents throughout
Speaker 1: the state and helping them with concerns with wildlife that
Speaker 1: come in from clientele in the counties, but I work
Speaker 1: in lots of other states. I work very closely with
Speaker 1: state wildlife agencies. Obviously, I conduct research I have since
Speaker 1: I got there. Although my primary responsibility, of course is extension.
Speaker 1: We also have the freedom to do research or to
Speaker 1: teaching the classroom if you wish, But all of my
Speaker 1: research is directed towards applied land management the vast majority anyway,
Speaker 1: So how can you manage land to better wildlife? Obviously
Speaker 1: create better wildlife habitat for various species. And something else
Speaker 1: concentrate in that I've gotten into over the past several
Speaker 1: years is how to manage land for better hunting? You know,
Speaker 1: how can you set up your property such that the
Speaker 1: hunting is better, you're more successful. So that that's been
Speaker 1: very rewarding to work with landowners all over the place
Speaker 1: and help them with some of that.
Speaker 3: God, and you do a bunch of work on turkeys.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have been a part of several turkey studies
Speaker 1: and we have one right now. It's still going on.
Speaker 1: We're in the seventh year. It's been very very interesting.
Speaker 3: What's that really just tell me the real quick snapshot version,
Speaker 3: and we're going to we'll get back to it.
Speaker 1: We have looked at the survival habitat use of wild
Speaker 1: turkeys in an area of Tennessee that had experienced a
Speaker 1: population decline, and we involved counties where the decline was
Speaker 1: happening as well as adjacent counties that there was no decline,
Speaker 1: and so we were able to do that for four years,
Speaker 1: looking at all of the reproductive parameters, survival, habitat use, movements,
Speaker 1: et cetera for four years. And then the Tennessee Wildlife
Speaker 1: Resources Agency their commission voted in a two week season
Speaker 1: delay and that was implemented in those counties where the
Speaker 1: population had been declining, and so we were able to
Speaker 1: follow that for two years. So we have before and
Speaker 1: after data upon implementing that delay in both treatment counties
Speaker 1: where the delay occurred, as well as control counties for
Speaker 1: the delay did not occur. So that's been very interesting
Speaker 1: to see if the delay influenced reproductive reproduction in any way.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to talk about that a
Speaker 3: whole bunch because because folks might not yet appreciate the
Speaker 3: significance of what you're saying, so we get into it
Speaker 3: a little bit more, but people had to freaked out.
Speaker 3: If you tell a bunch of people that they're going
Speaker 3: to hunt turkeys, that turkey sees is going to be
Speaker 3: delayed by two weeks. So some scientists can do some research.
Speaker 3: I can imagine people being pissed.
Speaker 1: Buying larger correct, But you know when it's couched in
Speaker 1: a way that hey, we're doing this to help turkeys.
Speaker 1: You know, turkey hunters and hunters in general, they want
Speaker 1: to do what's best for the resource. And so you
Speaker 1: might be surprised at the percentage of people. And we've
Speaker 1: done surveys every year within the treatment and the control counties,
Speaker 1: and about roughly half of them were perfectly fine with
Speaker 1: the delay. Probably a quarter didn't really feel one way
Speaker 1: or another towards it, and of course another quarter was
Speaker 1: very much against it. Sure, and that's largely remained constant
Speaker 1: through the period. And now we're in the seventh year
Speaker 1: and we'll have another round of surveys going out this
Speaker 1: spring because last year the Commission voted to implement the
Speaker 1: two week delay statewide, so all of Tennessee this year.
Speaker 1: The turkey season opened April fifteenth, which traditionally it opened
Speaker 1: on the Saturday closest to April the first God.
Speaker 3: All right, stay tuned everybody, because we're gonna get way
Speaker 3: into why. Like I said, you might be wondering why
Speaker 3: that matters, but we're gonna get into why all that matters.
Speaker 3: I think you'll find it interesting. But first couple of things,
Speaker 3: a couple promo issues. So Casey and Tyler from The
Speaker 3: Element have launched on our on the me eater YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: The Bock Truck series will drop every Tuesday through June
Speaker 3: thirteenth on YouTube and the meat Eater site. So tune
Speaker 3: in for those boys and so Element episodes of the
Speaker 3: Bock Truck on me Eater's YouTube starting now. And huge
Speaker 3: new giveaway. I don't even know about this. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: win this. We're launching a huge giveaway, so you get
Speaker 3: a chance to win three thousand bucks in hunting gear
Speaker 3: from all our brands, along with a personalized outfit and
Speaker 3: session with our very own Gianness. He tell us, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm doing one of these outfitting sessions. I'm actually going
Speaker 3: all the way down to Haley, Idaho, to the First
Speaker 3: Light Store because I agree to do one of these
Speaker 3: to the First Light Store to meet someone and then
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be like their personal stylist and set them
Speaker 3: up with all kinds of hunting gear at the First
Speaker 3: Light store in Haley, Idahog. We're gonna hang out and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be like, hey might want these and these.
Speaker 3: So for your chance to win three thousand bucks and
Speaker 3: gear from all of our brands, so FHF Felts, First
Speaker 3: Light and a personalized outfitting session with Giannis where Giannis
Speaker 3: goes over what you need, why you want it? Okay,
Speaker 3: what are your plans this year? You win?
Speaker 1: All?
Speaker 3: This runs now through May twenty one, so head over
Speaker 3: to the meaeater dot com slash giveaway to to enter.
Speaker 3: The winner will be randomly picked and contacted on May
Speaker 3: twenty second. Oh the other day I was drawn. I
Speaker 3: drew the hat for who wins next year's free Turkey
Speaker 3: Hunt t RCP Turkey Hunt. It's a dude out of Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: Is that all you're giving right now?
Speaker 3: It's all I know right now? Oh, they haven't made
Speaker 3: I mean some name that I forgot out of Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: Are you coming back here?
Speaker 3: Nope? We do it every year in Michigan. That's to
Speaker 3: raise money for TRSP and we raised a boatload of
Speaker 3: money this year. Nice, yeah, we did that. That that
Speaker 3: that rat that fundraiser did a lot, and then in
Speaker 3: a couple of days we're hunting with last year's winner.
Speaker 3: This here's the thing that came across that someone sent
Speaker 3: in and I didn't believe it, but we've verified that
Speaker 3: it's true. Remember, you know, everybody's all worked up about
Speaker 3: chat chat, GPT, end of the world and everything. Okay,
Speaker 3: first off, all right, so what everybody likes to do
Speaker 3: is is they like to go on these and the
Speaker 3: into the chat bots, you know, the chat GPT, and
Speaker 3: ask you a question and and then you know, use
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence to pull you up a model. What I
Speaker 3: always like to point out to people that as a writer,
Speaker 3: and everybody will tell me why I should be worried
Speaker 3: about this as around, it's not like it doesn't bother
Speaker 3: me because it's only harnessing what's already been done by people.
Speaker 3: So if you were already doing things that were original
Speaker 3: to people, it's not that much of a concern. It's
Speaker 3: like looking at what's been done, but it can't look
Speaker 3: at what's not been done.
Speaker 4: Maybe in the future, though it can take it can
Speaker 4: look at everything that's been done and predict things that
Speaker 4: could happen in the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, well I win that three thousand dollars packaging
Speaker 3: sign up. So they've coded in this one has where
Speaker 3: they've coded in an anti hunting bias.
Speaker 1: Imagine that, uh so AI.
Speaker 3: Artificial intelligence could be our so whole intelligence AI as
Speaker 3: an Okay, So this guy goes into this guy goes
Speaker 3: into chat chat GPT and says, what is the best
Speaker 3: way to hunt deer in Alabama? Got it? And the answer?
Speaker 3: It kicks back. As an AI language model, I do
Speaker 3: not encourage or endorse hunting or any activity that involves
Speaker 3: harming animals. Here's where Here's where it gets good. However,
Speaker 3: I can't provide some general information about hunting deer in Alabama.
Speaker 3: He types in what is the best way to hunt
Speaker 3: Eastern gobblers in West Tennessee near the Mississippi border. As
Speaker 3: an AI language model, I do not encourage or endorse
Speaker 3: hunting or any activity that involves hiring the animals. However,
Speaker 3: I can't provide some general information about hunting eastern gobblers
Speaker 3: in West Tennessee near the Mississippi border. And then it
Speaker 3: goes down to have like a lot of very Manila,
Speaker 3: Like a lot of very very Manila. Am I saying
Speaker 3: Manila like the place of the Philippines? I think it's Vanilla.
Speaker 3: It is, Oh, I'm saying Vanilla. I've been to Manila.
Speaker 3: That was a busy town in the Philippines.
Speaker 4: Says that the first step to successful turkey hunting is scouting.
Speaker 3: That's a great point, though, it is a great point.
Speaker 3: Then when you find a good spot, you set up
Speaker 3: your decoys and calls, and it says that Eastern gallers
Speaker 3: can be lured of the variety of calls, yelps, clucks, purrs,
Speaker 3: and gobbles. Important to be patient and stealthy, always follow
Speaker 3: the rules, wear blaze orange. So it's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: I know that we're just in the beginning of this,
Speaker 3: but but at this like with the amount of hand wringing,
Speaker 3: it's just, uh, if someone's gonna be satisfied by that
Speaker 3: answered that, that's about the level they're going to be
Speaker 3: operating on. Now, why they have to bake in their
Speaker 3: disapproval of hunting? You know, has anybody said, like what
Speaker 3: is a good way to get like, what's a good
Speaker 3: way to get drunk? Does it say, I don't condone
Speaker 3: getting drunk, but you might want to try liquor.
Speaker 1: Oh we could, we could see, we can type it in.
Speaker 3: So I didn't buy it.
Speaker 1: But then.
Speaker 3: Krinn had it checked out and someone else used, you know,
Speaker 3: another Ai language model, so as an Ai language model.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah, I hate hunting, and then and then
Speaker 3: it did a bullet pointed. They found a bullet pointed
Speaker 3: list of five things you should try hunt in the morning,
Speaker 3: use Decoy's scout call strategically, and stay still impatient. So
Speaker 3: there you go. Goy wrote in gouls Turkey not in
Speaker 3: the Grand Slam. He's from Egypt. Oh okay. I am
Speaker 3: a US Army National Guard member and a peacekeeping mission
Speaker 3: in Egypt. Okay. Why are Goulds Turkeys not included in
Speaker 3: the Turkey Grand Slam by the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Speaker 3: Their exclusion doesn't make sense to me. Objections to their
Speaker 3: inclusion in the Grand Slam don't seem to hold up.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I deleted this then put it back because I wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna talk about but I decided to talk about it.
Speaker 3: Since this person's in Egypt and everything they have a
Speaker 3: there's a million kind of slams. Right, there's grand super
Speaker 3: world in world. I think that what they're getting at
Speaker 3: is that gouls are Okay, gouls are mostly found in Mexico.
Speaker 3: The goules turkey's mostly found in Mexico, but it is
Speaker 3: found in you know, you can get him in Arizona
Speaker 3: and New Mexico, right, yeah, those two states. And he's like, well,
Speaker 3: if rarity is an issue, why is the Osciola turkey
Speaker 3: from South Florida that's only in one state. If it's
Speaker 3: a rarity or just a one or two state thing,
Speaker 3: then osciola wouldn't be in either. I think, and again,
Speaker 3: I'm getting into this because you're a service member and
Speaker 3: you're in Egypt, because you can you can hunt. You
Speaker 3: can buy an over the counter tag to hunt Ossiola turkeys. Yep.
Speaker 3: I think it comes down to the opportunity. But in
Speaker 3: Arizona you have to apply. I've been trying to draw
Speaker 3: and I've hunted gouls in Old Mexico. I have been
Speaker 3: applying for a decade in Arizona. Good look for gules
Speaker 3: and you can get two points a year.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's so many more Osceola's in the
Speaker 1: United States. Florida than there are gouls in the United States,
Speaker 1: and so the opportunities are exceptionally limited for gools in
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's like of the of the five,
Speaker 3: this is one of my questions. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: you have an opinion about this. Of the five accepted
Speaker 3: subspecies of turkeys, of the five subspecies of the America
Speaker 3: in wild turkey, there are East Osceola's, Easterns, Miriams, Rios,
Speaker 3: and Goulds, but it's questioned whether they're legit like whether
Speaker 3: they should be legitimately regarded as subspecies anyways, do you
Speaker 3: have an opinion on that rather than just phenotypes or
Speaker 3: you know, variants.
Speaker 1: There are differences between those groups for sure, and that's
Speaker 1: the case with many wildlife space as. It's very common
Speaker 1: to have subspecies or or races, uh, you know, within
Speaker 1: a species, and I think it's I think it's very
Speaker 1: interesting and it adds more flavor to turkey hunting for
Speaker 1: people to be interested in harvesting one of each subspaces.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but do you uh seeings how a turkey can
Speaker 3: in one day being Eastern or in Asceola depending on
Speaker 3: where he stands along an arbitrary line, right, I mean
Speaker 3: there's a little bit of make believe here. Oh well, sure,
Speaker 3: And obviously there's.
Speaker 1: Hybridism if you will, you know where the Easterns and
Speaker 1: Ossiolas come together, and you'll see characteristics of both and
Speaker 1: a blend. But once you get on down into Florida,
Speaker 1: you're definitely going to see a darker bird, doesn't weigh
Speaker 1: as on average as much, typically has longer spurs. There're
Speaker 1: certainly physical differences between the subspecies, but there's going to
Speaker 1: be gradation as they come together in those areas.
Speaker 3: Yep. Oh, you know. I keep wanting to tell people
Speaker 3: Boux We've talked about before. I want to talk about
Speaker 3: it again. The Merlin app by the Cornell Ornithology is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Have you been messing with that?
Speaker 2: I've just been hearing Chris talk about it on this hunt.
Speaker 3: Dude, It's unbelievable. I've been running it in the morning,
Speaker 3: you know, like when it's getting daylight out and every
Speaker 3: bird in the world's going off. I've been just turning
Speaker 3: on Merlin and uh, I had ten species going what'd
Speaker 3: you get? Let me see if I still have this
Speaker 3: one second, I'm gonna try to pull it up. I
Speaker 3: see I've been stupidly. I've been deleting all my recordings.
Speaker 3: So oh man, I got rid of it.
Speaker 2: I do know that it substantiated you and Randy the
Speaker 2: other morning though.
Speaker 3: Oh that's why I like to hit yeah, is every
Speaker 3: time someone calls, it'll bing on wild turkey, and sitting
Speaker 3: there in the dark listening for gobbles, it'll pick them up.
Speaker 3: It'll pick them up pretty distant. Now you can hear
Speaker 3: it better than your phone can hear it. But it'll
Speaker 3: pick it up an idea, and whenever someone when we're
Speaker 3: sitting there and someone calls, it'll punch wild turkey. So
Speaker 3: I'll sitting there. At one point I had red breasted woodpacker,
Speaker 3: northern cardinal American robin, American crow, a toe he red
Speaker 3: shouldered hawk, tufted tip mouse.
Speaker 5: Did you say goldfinch?
Speaker 3: I had a goldfinch, which surprised me. This is all
Speaker 3: one spot, Bartels. I had a flycatcher on there and
Speaker 3: as it listens and there's like a sound chart, and
Speaker 3: as it pings stuff, it just starts adding them to
Speaker 3: a list. And then anytime some particular birds going off,
Speaker 3: that bird turns yellow. And so then someone will call
Speaker 3: and they'll be like wild turkey, you know, and then
Speaker 3: you're a gobble and it'll bing wild turkey. But then
Speaker 3: there's a crow going off. It is amazing, man, it
Speaker 3: is amazing. Those guys do such good job.
Speaker 1: So it didn't say peacock when somebody was calling.
Speaker 3: No, But I keep wanting to make I keep wanting
Speaker 3: to make Chris Gill call he don't have, but he's
Speaker 3: just been trying to learn how to call turkeys. She's
Speaker 3: got him around his yard, you know, and so I
Speaker 3: want to see if, if, if, if he's good enough
Speaker 3: that Merlin will pick him up. Now, you know another
Speaker 3: interesting thing that about it is I didn't check this,
Speaker 3: but Chris said, I gotta look at this.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I almost don't want to say it's counting off. It's true.
Speaker 3: Chris said that when the woodpecker's going, it'll it'll I
Speaker 3: d that woodpecker on Cadence, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: that's true. That's good because you think like a like
Speaker 3: affiliated and then some of those things like yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: like they got the machine gun style he said it
Speaker 3: was picking up that. And then I had a squirrel
Speaker 3: get pissed at something. Well, a hawk flew through I
Speaker 3: watched the hawk come through the woods. The squirrel got
Speaker 3: all bent out of shape last night, and I turned
Speaker 3: Merlin on and you can see that squirrel in there.
Speaker 3: But that didn't do nothing. It didn't. It didn't. It
Speaker 3: didn't pull that squirrel out or misidentify it or even
Speaker 3: identify it. So it's only a bird out pissed off.
Speaker 3: A pissed off squirrel did not register on there, even
Speaker 3: though you could it was definitely picking it up because
Speaker 3: you could see its markings, but it didn't. I think
Speaker 3: it's an amazing app man.
Speaker 1: I think it's good that you bring it up, because
Speaker 1: if more people were in better tune with what's going
Speaker 1: on around them in nature, whether that be bird sounds
Speaker 1: or frogs, or learning a few of the plants on
Speaker 1: the property where they're hunting and trying to manage that,
Speaker 1: that really increases your enjoyment and appreciation of nature. And
Speaker 1: you know, just hardcore hooking bullet guys, if you know,
Speaker 1: and I know several who finally got into not necessarily birding,
Speaker 1: but at least being able to identify different bird species
Speaker 1: by their call or by their song. All of a sudden, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, and they start recognizing how many different species
Speaker 1: are on the property, and it just it edds to
Speaker 1: your enjoyment.
Speaker 3: The best, without a doubt, far and away, the best
Speaker 3: woodsman I ever spent time with, would be like in
Speaker 3: Amerindian hunters in South America, like indigenous hunters in South America,
Speaker 3: far and away in terms of like tracking ability, just everything,
Speaker 3: you can't what you get from. So where you you're
Speaker 3: hunting two hundred and fifty days a year in a
Speaker 3: let's say a fifty sixty mile radius of your home,
Speaker 3: and your dad hunted that me days year within that radius.
Speaker 3: Your grandfather hunted that many days year within that radius
Speaker 3: back perhaps thousands of years. Any little noise of anything
Speaker 3: you hear, I don't care if it's a bug and
Speaker 3: it's and in the jungle, it's all noise. It's like
Speaker 3: it's it's there's so much noise. It's stressful. Any noise
Speaker 3: and you go like make the what was that thing?
Speaker 3: They know the answer. Yeah, like they got to think
Speaker 3: about you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're in tune with what's going on.
Speaker 3: No dude, any noise, any noise. We've talked about this
Speaker 3: bunch where there's a friend of ours, a writer Pat
Speaker 3: Dirkin and he used to be the editor at Deer
Speaker 3: and Deer Hunting magazine.
Speaker 1: No, Pat is a great guy.
Speaker 3: Oh you know Pat. When he was doing that Deer
Speaker 3: and deer hunting thing, he had to he would profile
Speaker 3: like someone to kill a big buck, you know, and
Speaker 3: he'd have to he'd have to report on someone killing
Speaker 3: a big buck, and he had to spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time with a lot of like very successful big
Speaker 3: buck killers. And he's like, man, there's just some guys
Speaker 3: that are phenomenal big bock killers. We said. A thing
Speaker 3: that would surprise me about them is that many of them,
Speaker 3: as good as they were, they couldn't tell you what
Speaker 3: kind of tree their tree standards are poked into. So
Speaker 3: there's some things you can do and not need to
Speaker 3: know that kind of stuff, but just for the general
Speaker 3: enjoyment and like like old school woodsmanship, man, yeah, knowing
Speaker 3: the sounds around you.
Speaker 1: I don't get into this, but one of my graduate students,
Speaker 1: Mark Turner, he tries to see how many tree species
Speaker 1: he can kill a deer from.
Speaker 3: That's like a different I got one out of a
Speaker 3: magnolia one time, did you so?
Speaker 1: Was it a southern magnolia in Alabama.
Speaker 3: Uh so, I guess that'd be Do you think that
Speaker 3: would fit under is the Merlin app? Does that fit under? AI?
Speaker 3: Of course it does?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Out, I wish so the Cornell Ornithology Lab or Lab
Speaker 3: of Ornithology, they're phenomenal, dude, they do so much cool stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I keep thinking they're they should send me like a
Speaker 3: hat or something promoting talking about the Cornell Ornithology that anyhow,
Speaker 3: if if they see that, they were not gonna do
Speaker 3: this because it's not birds, but I think that that
Speaker 3: should be developed. I would like to see that be
Speaker 3: developed into frogs, yes, toads, insects. Yeah, that'd be sweet,
Speaker 3: so that you could sit out and be like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's that frog.
Speaker 4: You know, or even that it'd be cool if there
Speaker 4: was like animal ones, because sure I've heard several different
Speaker 4: times I've heard like Bobcat mountain lion screaming. Most people
Speaker 4: are like, what in the hell, Yeah, someone's getting murdered
Speaker 4: up on the hill.
Speaker 3: We've had people send in crazy noises, you know, and
Speaker 3: you listen to it and you're like, that's something slowly
Speaker 3: killing a cottontail rabbit or whatever, right, Like, yeah, if
Speaker 3: it would just like be able to to pick off
Speaker 3: all those sounds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was in the Yucatan, Uh three weeks ago we
Speaker 1: were hunting oscillated turkeys and uh, some howler monkeys started
Speaker 1: going off. Now that's something that will get your attention.
Speaker 1: When those big males are up in the trees, Uh
Speaker 1: just growl and hollering at the females and young. And
Speaker 1: it was it was rather fascinating to say, Yeah, Phil,
Speaker 1: when you're putting this together, it is just a quick
Speaker 1: note to Phil. You can leave the note in Phil,
Speaker 1: play uh, play howler monkeys real quick going off in
Speaker 1: the trees, so that that is an intimidating noise. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're in.
Speaker 3: The dark, going through the jungle and dark and when
Speaker 3: it's just getting light out, those things going off right
Speaker 3: over your head. Oh my god. Man.
Speaker 1: And obviously I have never been confronted by one or whatever,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know they're said to be rather aggressive.
Speaker 3: I was with some guys that shot one and we
Speaker 3: ate it a red howler monkey.
Speaker 1: Really, you know, how was it?
Speaker 3: I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: You didn't eat the brains?
Speaker 3: Did you know?
Speaker 1: They did? Do you remember those videos from years back?
Speaker 3: What was it called eating the live monkey brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what was the faces of death? Yeah, where
Speaker 1: the monkey's head would be in the center of the table.
Speaker 1: And then people had these little like ball pin hammers
Speaker 1: and pop pop pop, you know, all the way around
Speaker 1: the table until they finally killed the monkey. And then
Speaker 1: they cracked his skull open, and all of them had
Speaker 1: spoons and would.
Speaker 3: Man, no, they didn't do that, but they uh, they
Speaker 3: they had. So they had a monkey. They'd killed it
Speaker 3: with a sixteen gage shotgun. Chaman. These guys were Chamane.
Speaker 3: Was there a tribe? They killed it with sixteen gage
Speaker 3: shotgun and man, they had like they cleaned the intestines
Speaker 3: and everything all to eat. One of them was walking
Speaker 3: around he had that it had a little it had
Speaker 3: a little baby, and he was just eating that little
Speaker 3: head like a little apple cooked.
Speaker 1: Man cooked.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was too much like eating folks.
Speaker 3: I hate it, but I thought it was a lot
Speaker 3: like eating folks. I had eaten. I had eaten, and
Speaker 3: I had had occasion overseas as well. I'd had occasion
Speaker 3: to eat domestic dog a bunch, and that bothered me,
Speaker 3: but I didn't bother me like monkeys. You know, well,
Speaker 3: both of them made me feel sweaty.
Speaker 1: We also saw spider monkeys, but they didn't have nearly
Speaker 1: as exciting of a vocalization. But you mentioned somebody shot one. Now,
Speaker 1: our guides when we were down there, they were very
Speaker 1: strict about, you know, not being able to shoot the mono.
Speaker 3: Yep, no monkeys. Yeah, I've been so. I was with
Speaker 3: the other group that it's taboo tabooed eat monkey, like
Speaker 3: they don't eat monkeys, tabooty iguana. But you know what,
Speaker 3: it's just different. We have all kinds of taboos. Like
Speaker 3: you might come with us and be like, well, there's
Speaker 3: this good looking animal right there. That's my dog.
Speaker 1: Dude.
Speaker 3: You know, everybody's got their table.
Speaker 1: That's one rule I have no problem in abiding by.
Speaker 3: It's easy to here's a good question that came in.
Speaker 3: If you're in New Richmond, washsen there's a piece called
Speaker 3: the ten Mile Water Foul Production Area. Okay, US Fish
Speaker 3: and Wildlife Service Land. There's a Okay, the just gonna
Speaker 3: read from what the guy has to say. Recently, a
Speaker 3: group of individuals in my neighborhood want to have the
Speaker 3: easement removed leading to US Fish and Wildlife Land. So
Speaker 3: there's a group of individuals in this individual's neighborhood who
Speaker 3: want they have an easement into the ten mile waterfowl
Speaker 3: production area New Richmond, Wisconsin. Their argument is they should
Speaker 3: close that easement because there's other easements anyways. Because what happened.
Speaker 3: A new landowner purchased some land knowing damn well that
Speaker 3: there was an easement there, and they want to build
Speaker 3: their quote dream home. Whenever you see someone's gonna build
Speaker 3: a dream home, it usually proceeds a problem. Do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? They're like, oh, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it wasn't any home. It was my dream home. So
Speaker 3: the land that is being accessed is not. So the
Speaker 3: people are saying we should close the easement because you
Speaker 3: can get there from other ways anyways. You can get
Speaker 3: into this area other routes, and this gentleman is saying,
Speaker 3: the other routes suck. You gotta go through a bunch
Speaker 3: of swamp and muck and wetland or across the river,
Speaker 3: and so it's not comparable. And he said, is my
Speaker 3: belief that the individuals fighting this easement and seeking to
Speaker 3: have it removed just want this land for their free
Speaker 3: use and to prevent hunters from walking through it. They
Speaker 3: have said hunters can request access through their property, But
Speaker 3: in my eyes, this defeats the purpose of public land.
Speaker 3: Why should I have to request access from a private
Speaker 3: party to use the public easement. He says that his
Speaker 3: position on this is so controversial in his neighborhood that
Speaker 3: his kids will lose friendships with neighborhood kids. If he
Speaker 3: were to bring this up publicly, what would you do?
Speaker 3: Would you stand up to the whole neighborhood. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I'd make it be like it was in the neighborhood's benefit.
Speaker 1: But I wonder why the other neighbors feel so strongly
Speaker 1: that the easement should be kapy.
Speaker 3: He'd be like, who's being the good neighbor here? I
Speaker 3: feel that all the people in our neighborhood can right
Speaker 3: now walk on over there. But if this guy builds
Speaker 3: his dream home, then the neighborhood's boned. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It seems like a real slippery slope to allow somebody
Speaker 2: the ability to say yes you can go or no
Speaker 2: you can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't get. I don't get. It's like he
Speaker 3: you know what he's doing, he's getting best. He's getting
Speaker 3: beat by someone who's better at rhetoric than he is,
Speaker 3: but someone's out rhetoric in him. The guy that wrote
Speaker 3: in he's getting out rhetoric, but he should he should
Speaker 3: have the upper hand here. If his kid's gonna lose
Speaker 3: buddies over this, Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna take his
Speaker 3: bike or something.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: We had a we had a podcast a while ago.
Speaker 3: On an episode, we talked about the ways turkeys get
Speaker 3: reported in the news, you know, like the idea of
Speaker 3: the the rabid, mean downtown turkey. We had a police
Speaker 3: officer from Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Mount Pleasant Police apartment. He
Speaker 3: rode in where they had a turkey that was viciously
Speaker 3: attacking people in the neighborhood. This turkey, he says, this
Speaker 3: turkey actually managed to knock a lady down and broker wrist.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to laugh at the knocked her down
Speaker 3: and broker wrist. Okay, they triudn't. They tried to catch
Speaker 3: it in the net gun. That couldn't catch it in
Speaker 3: the net gun. They eventually put together a coordinated approach
Speaker 3: to mobilize the turkey. Since they knew that the tom
Speaker 3: would routinely charge vehicles, they use an suv as a blocker,
Speaker 3: had officers hide behind the suv as it approached the
Speaker 3: tom When they executed the plan, they did not consider
Speaker 3: that a taser gun. Part of the plan fell apart
Speaker 3: when they forgot that a taser gun has a five
Speaker 3: second sequence that prevents a cop from overtasering people. They
Speaker 3: hide behind the vehicle and the turkey approaches the vehicle
Speaker 3: to attack, So an officer tases the turkey, at which
Speaker 3: point the other officers all run out to get it
Speaker 3: into a fishing net. He had to keep tasering it,
Speaker 3: but the five second thing made it that the turkey
Speaker 3: recovered and actually spurred up and injured an officer with
Speaker 3: its spurs. They eventually got it into a box from
Speaker 3: a cardboard pool, a large pool cardboard box. They then
Speaker 3: drove the turkey five miles out of town and let
Speaker 3: it go on a farm. Two weeks later, he was back.
Speaker 2: Even even if the turkey never came back, it seems
Speaker 2: like a big giant waste of Oh if people lose
Speaker 2: their mind turkeys, I mean, a twelve gage is a
Speaker 2: great cheap way to take care of that problem.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting here listening to all this and thinking.
Speaker 1: Of course, turkeys were not numerous in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: But had that problem occurred in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: What you just described would not have happened. No, oh,
Speaker 3: in the nineteen fifties of a turkey at tagged the
Speaker 3: lady and broke the wrist. Would they be then having
Speaker 3: like an eatings of the girls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would have a meeting to eat it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that evening, that's what they'd be doing.
Speaker 3: We did our big Chatticot episode, but the Chatticot questions
Speaker 3: keep rolling in, So we had a Chatticut episode. Luke Colmbs.
Speaker 3: We took care of a million Chatticot questions, but a
Speaker 3: couple keep coming in. This is an interesting one. So
Speaker 3: you guys gotta do a morality. This is a moral question.
Speaker 3: So this guy a few years back, he buys a house.
Speaker 3: He buys three acres out in the country. As he
Speaker 3: puts it and on it is a one quarter acre
Speaker 3: what he describes as a scummy duck pond. The neighboring
Speaker 3: property owner has thirty five acres with three other larger ponds.
Speaker 3: This guy takes a shine to the pond that he
Speaker 3: now owns. There's four ponds, three around the neighbor's place
Speaker 3: ones on his He takes a shine to this pond
Speaker 3: and he has it dug out and deepened. He has
Speaker 3: it treated with beneficial bacteria. He adds an air raider
Speaker 3: and he says, this pond turns out awesome. The neighbor
Speaker 3: that has thirty five acres with three ponds sells his place. Okay.
Speaker 3: The person that buys this new place now has these
Speaker 3: three ponds, and he decides to have it surveyed. And
Speaker 3: when he has it surveyed, it turns out that he
Speaker 3: owned the actually guy that the guy actually send in
Speaker 3: a little illustration, he actually owns a little bit of
Speaker 3: the shore of the sweet new pond. Now, the people
Speaker 3: that bought the three ponds with thirty five acres now
Speaker 3: camp out and hang out on their little sliver of
Speaker 3: the pond that he rehabilitated about one hundred yards from
Speaker 3: his kitchen window. Oh man, and he's wondering, sure, man,
Speaker 3: it's on their place, But really, what's the etiquette on that.
Speaker 3: That's a tough one. A tough one. It's a tough one.
Speaker 1: I would say, there just needs to be give and
Speaker 1: take on both sides, you know. I mean, the dude
Speaker 1: fixed up the pond it's unfortunate that it's actually owned
Speaker 1: a portion of by somebody else. But all parties involved
Speaker 1: should realize, you know, we have a little issue here
Speaker 1: and let's let's be nice to each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one because here's one thing
Speaker 3: I am, like, I empathize with the guy that duged
Speaker 3: the pine up. But at the same time, dude, you
Speaker 3: like you like you didn't survey your property line?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. The whole thing could have been fixed
Speaker 2: when you bought your property and not just and then
Speaker 2: you would have known. All right, at this point, do
Speaker 2: you want to put the money and effort into it?
Speaker 2: And so this guy buys the place and he gets
Speaker 2: to walk around. There's a sweet pond on his as
Speaker 2: far as he knows, just a sweet pond on his place.
Speaker 2: He may not know what all happened.
Speaker 4: Maybe if he just lets his pond go back to
Speaker 4: the scummy duck pond, the neighbors won't want to hang
Speaker 4: out by it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he needs to call the contractor be like, I
Speaker 3: want to put all that fill back in the pod.
Speaker 3: What if he What'm I gonna run my sewage out
Speaker 3: into that get it right back to way I found it.
Speaker 1: What if he paid to have one of the neighbor's
Speaker 1: ponds fixed up just like his pond, and in trade,
Speaker 1: we work out an agreement where he can purchase the
Speaker 1: land around his pond. Either way, it's gonna costume something, dude,
Speaker 1: that's the fix. It's costume.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy Craigs should be on all the etiquette episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, he says, you know, I got a proposal.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do just what I did that my pond,
Speaker 3: your pond. I'll make it better and then you'll see
Speaker 3: to me that little chunk of beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just be nice.
Speaker 3: Property bound adjustments. Okay, here's another one. This one's this one.
Speaker 3: That one was great. This one is not great. This
Speaker 3: is a horrible person. Fourteen year old kid Thanksgiving Eve
Speaker 3: is hunting a property with his uncle, who's his hunting mentor.
Speaker 3: Big Buck pops out Big buck for North Carolina. He says,
Speaker 3: big eight pointer. He's a kid, he's fourteen. Bam, hits
Speaker 3: it in the leg, says he pretty much takes off
Speaker 3: the lower third of the deer's leg. Deer runs over
Speaker 3: towards the uncle. Bam, Uncle gets it. The uncle kept
Speaker 3: the buck. Oh wow, it's hanging in his house. Come on, dude,
Speaker 3: argument being you might not have found that deer. That
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. I would even if that uncle,
Speaker 3: if it wasn't his nephew, and it wasn't even the
Speaker 3: same property.
Speaker 1: Dude, give the person the deer that they made a
Speaker 1: whole movie called First Blood. Obviously I don't know the guy,
Speaker 1: but I don't like him.
Speaker 3: No, if he did it to a neighbor, I think
Speaker 3: he was right.
Speaker 2: So I was gonna change up the question if this
Speaker 2: was an adult that made the bad for a shot.
Speaker 3: When a kid got it.
Speaker 2: Oh no, like adult made it bad for a shot
Speaker 2: and then the buck roun you. So I made a shot,
Speaker 2: wounded a buck, bad shott and then you killed it?
Speaker 2: Or you giving me the deer back.
Speaker 3: Absolutely without question?
Speaker 2: Is there any wounding that doesn't count, like a hide
Speaker 2: wound or like, oh that's a.
Speaker 3: Good question, Well give it, give it to me. Like
Speaker 3: let's say you shot a tye off it or you
Speaker 3: keep it now, Okay, you shot a tye off it
Speaker 3: or you hit hair? What what if it?
Speaker 4: What if you like shot a deer with a ball
Speaker 4: that that would just win through muscle, That dear is
Speaker 4: gonna live, not one hundred percent, but.
Speaker 3: Because you never know.
Speaker 2: But I'd give it to the person you don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna can I twist the question one more time
Speaker 2: for you? So it's the new Michigan state record. Okay,
Speaker 2: I ding it in the lower in the knee joint,
Speaker 2: and it runs to you and you kill it.
Speaker 3: It's your buck.
Speaker 2: I don't believe you.
Speaker 3: Who else you're gonna ask what I would do besides.
Speaker 1: Me, Jason, That dude would be on my wall.
Speaker 2: See the ethics change a little bit.
Speaker 3: No, I think if the kids.
Speaker 2: Involved you, yeah, yeah, you specifically just yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: going home with the fourteen year old.
Speaker 1: Can I tell another story that's somewhat related?
Speaker 3: Oh please?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: Marcus Lashley at the University of Florida. He is on
Speaker 1: the committee of one of my current graduate students, Jake Bones,
Speaker 1: and Marcus was a graduate student mine years ago. So
Speaker 1: I have a long relationship with Marcus. Great guy, very smart,
Speaker 1: knows a lot about turkeys and fire and other things.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: Thinking about the etiquette, he was coming up to hunt
Speaker 1: with us and spend time to meet with Jake on
Speaker 1: his project et cetera, and it happened to be coincidentally
Speaker 1: in April during our turkey season. So of course Marcus
Speaker 1: wants a turkey hunt, and so Jake says, hey, I
Speaker 1: know where there's a couple of birds hanging out. It's
Speaker 1: on some public land. He said, let's take doctor Lashley
Speaker 1: and hunt over.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 1: And so Marcus and I had hunted a couple of
Speaker 1: different spots, and then on this third morning, we went
Speaker 1: to the public land that Jake was going to go
Speaker 1: to and I had not been there. And backstory a
Speaker 1: little bit. Jake had only killed one turkey ever in
Speaker 1: his life, okay, and so he's giving up this goblin
Speaker 1: bird to what's going to be his committee member, you know,
Speaker 1: which can be important when it comes voting time.
Speaker 3: So got.
Speaker 1: And so we drive to the spot. We get out
Speaker 1: and the bird is gobling literally within one hundred yards.
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, gosh, you know that's we're
Speaker 1: really close. And I did not know Jake that well
Speaker 1: at this time about his turkey hunting ability, savvy whatever,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, and so I just figured, you know,
Speaker 1: Jake's probably long time turkey hunter and he knows what
Speaker 1: he's doing. And so we're walking down the gravel road
Speaker 1: headed to this goblin bird. And you know, I'm I've
Speaker 1: been kind of hanging back the whole time. Let let
Speaker 1: Jake kind of take control of this situation. And but
Speaker 1: it dons on me. I'm going to have to do
Speaker 1: something because we're fixing to mess this up royally. And
Speaker 1: so I speed walk ahead to get up to Jake,
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, what's your plan here? And he said, we.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: And then and by the way, it's already plenty light
Speaker 1: enough to see. It's not like even gray light. It's
Speaker 1: after that because the places the ways off they had
Speaker 1: to drive to when we were a little late getting there.
Speaker 1: So anyways, you know what you're playing, He said, Well,
Speaker 1: I figured we'll just walk up here and sit down.
Speaker 1: I said, well, we need to get off of the
Speaker 1: road and get in the woods now, like right here, come,
Speaker 1: let's go. And so guided them into the woods. And
Speaker 1: so we get a little closer to where the bird
Speaker 1: is and it's next to an opening. It's a very
Speaker 1: good situation.
Speaker 3: We sit down.
Speaker 1: We certainly are within seventy yards of the bird's goblin,
Speaker 1: which is good. I was afraid it would spook differently.
Speaker 1: Hens are calling and I'm calling for Marcus and get
Speaker 1: a lot of response. You know, the birds just tearing
Speaker 1: it up. The hens fly down, they fly down near us,
Speaker 1: they ease out in the opening. So oh, this is
Speaker 1: looking really good, right, and so here comes the gobbler.
Speaker 1: But there was a little rise not far from us,
Speaker 1: and the gobbler got behind that, and so now he
Speaker 1: is at eight yards and Marcus does not have his
Speaker 1: gun in just the right position, and so he finally
Speaker 1: eases his gun over. The bird sees it. He's starting
Speaker 1: to walk a little you know, quick walk a little bit.
Speaker 1: Marcus shoots, hits the bird. The bird tumbles and rolls,
Speaker 1: and Marcus shoots again and again, and the bird jumps
Speaker 1: up and flies. And you know, I didn't have a shotgun.
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting, and Jake is sitting behind us, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, shoot, shoot, and Jake shoots, and
Speaker 1: the bird, you know, kind of does a slow dive
Speaker 1: and so he lands about one hundred and twenty yards
Speaker 1: out in this recent clearcut.
Speaker 3: Jake.
Speaker 1: Now, Jake's a tall boy, He's like h six seven
Speaker 1: or something and long legs. He is just striding out
Speaker 1: there chasing this turkey. And now the turkey's flopping and
Speaker 1: flying and half running and whatever else. And there's Jackie
Speaker 1: flops onto the bird. He was out of shells, uses
Speaker 1: the shotgun as a club to try to get the
Speaker 1: bird down. Finally wrestles with him. Feathers are flying everywhere,
Speaker 1: and he finally comes up with this bird in his hand.
Speaker 1: He's got this huge smile on his face. And we
Speaker 1: all meet and congratulating whatnot.
Speaker 3: So who gets the bird? The guy that shot it first.
Speaker 1: And so there's Marcus. Now Marcus shot it first. But
Speaker 1: here and I'm learning as the morning goes on, Jake
Speaker 1: has only killed one bird. You know, here's a new
Speaker 1: graduate student. And uh and I'm I'm Marcus. You know,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do here? What are you gonna do? Well?
Speaker 1: You know, I shot him, and uh, I said Marcus.
Speaker 1: I said, Jake's only killed one bird before. Long story short,
Speaker 1: They split the meat. Marcus gets the spurs and Jake
Speaker 1: got the bears DVD. I thought that was pretty man.
Speaker 3: It is good. A couple more quick things, but this
Speaker 3: goods has to do with turkeys. I got two more questions,
Speaker 3: a couple more questions for you. Here's when it came
Speaker 3: in from a guy and I just experienced the same things.
Speaker 3: Let me hit you with this. Let me hit with this, craig.
Speaker 3: My name is Luke Birch. I'm from eastern North Carolina.
Speaker 3: I have lived here my whole life. I love hunting
Speaker 3: in this great state. Recently drew a tag to hunt
Speaker 3: game lands here. I don't claim to be a wildlife biologist,
Speaker 3: but just have to ask your opinion on controlled burns.
Speaker 3: I am all four controlled burns, but can't understand why
Speaker 3: it seems the state always does them and nesting season.
Speaker 3: I just got an ear flip. Before you answer, I
Speaker 3: want to tell you what happened with me. I have
Speaker 3: discovered multiple scrambled turkey nests and these pine plantations that
Speaker 3: are under prescribe burn plants. Our states started planning long
Speaker 3: leaf pines sometime back and are also trying to bring
Speaker 3: back a healthier quail population. But I don't see that
Speaker 3: as being super efficient, considering prescribed burns seem always to
Speaker 3: take place during nesting season. When I was just down
Speaker 3: in Florida, out in Big Cypress, I was there. I
Speaker 3: was there before the turkey season open. We weren't hunting turkeys,
Speaker 3: but I was with a turkey hunter doing a little tour.
Speaker 3: They had stuff burning everywhere in there, and he says
Speaker 3: the same thing, Why do they got to burn it
Speaker 3: when they like they gotta be cooking turkey nests? True?
Speaker 1: How much time do we have?
Speaker 3: As much time as you want?
Speaker 1: Well, this is uh. I hate to say this a
Speaker 1: hot topic.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'd like to say.
Speaker 1: I'm not one with pun but it is of a
Speaker 1: very hot topic, and it's discussed a lot and has
Speaker 1: been a lot over the past few to several years.
Speaker 1: Some turkey nests very well may be burned up, but
Speaker 1: whether that is having a detrimental effect on the population
Speaker 1: or not is more related to the scale of burning,
Speaker 1: how often they are burning. So, if you're burning on
Speaker 1: a relative small scale, and relative can be defined in
Speaker 1: a little bit, but on a small scale, and you
Speaker 1: burn up a nest or two, whoop you do. That's
Speaker 1: not going to affect the population in that area per se.
Speaker 1: But if you're managing your property for turkeys, unlet's say
Speaker 1: you have one hundred acres or seven hundred acres or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you're managing it for turkeys, then I'm in agreement
Speaker 1: with the guy. I'm not going to be burning during
Speaker 1: the nesting season when I could destroy some nest and
Speaker 1: so I want to give the turkeys every bit of
Speaker 1: advantage I can, because it's very easy to do my
Speaker 1: burning earlier prior to the nesting season, or do my
Speaker 1: burning later. You know, one thing that should be considered
Speaker 1: among fire practitioners is that every day is a potential
Speaker 1: burn day. You don't just have to burn in March
Speaker 1: or April. You can burn in August, you can burn
Speaker 1: in September, you can burn in July, you can burn
Speaker 1: in December, whenever. Now, your timing of burning can have
Speaker 1: a differential effect on the vegetation. But if I'm managing
Speaker 1: specifically for turkeys, I'm not going to be burning during
Speaker 1: the during the nesting season. Now, I'm sure what he's
Speaker 1: talking about is probably on the Crouatan National Forest and
Speaker 1: in eastern North Carolina, and so they're doing their scale
Speaker 1: of burning is larger. They largely are managing for an
Speaker 1: ecosystem for which turkeys are a part of, but not
Speaker 1: managing specifically for turkeys. So fired during all seasons can
Speaker 1: play a role in that and should be done. But
Speaker 1: even for them and other federal and state agencies I
Speaker 1: would strongly encourage to burn at other times of the
Speaker 1: year also, even for you know, quote ecosystem management in
Speaker 1: various ecosystems, not just in March April. Chris Mormons a
Speaker 1: professor at North Carolina State University, and he led projects
Speaker 1: at Fort Bragg and one of those was was on turkeys,
Speaker 1: and I was on the committee for the graduate student there.
Speaker 1: And what we found was the preponderance of nests while
Speaker 1: turkey nests were in the drainages that did not burn,
Speaker 1: they were burning on a two year fire turn interval
Speaker 1: in long leaf pine and in the sand hills of
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and they're promoting endemic plants, especially wiregrass underneath
Speaker 1: the long leaf in many of those areas. And they
Speaker 1: conducted most of their fires during the early portion of
Speaker 1: the growing season, and most of that would be done
Speaker 1: in April May and some in June, for example, but
Speaker 1: most in April and May. And we did not document
Speaker 1: many turkey nests getting burned. I think it was like
Speaker 1: it was less than ten percent. I think it was
Speaker 1: like six percent or something like that that were disturbed
Speaker 1: or destroyed by burning, which would not in and of
Speaker 1: itself have an effect on the population. And so one
Speaker 1: message could be, oh, growing season, fire doesn't have an
Speaker 1: effect on wild turkey nests.
Speaker 3: But wait a minute.
Speaker 1: When you looked at the distribution of the nest where
Speaker 1: they occurred, the turkeys were avoiding that grassy understory which
Speaker 1: was very sparse with regard to cover, but concentrating their
Speaker 1: nests in the drainages which would not burn. And so
Speaker 1: you know, you can twist the results a little differently there.
Speaker 1: And so there's no doubt that the timing and frequency
Speaker 1: of their fire strongly influenced while turkey nesting, essentially forcing
Speaker 1: them to nest in other areas that were relatively small,
Speaker 1: oftentimes linear. You could make the argument that then you
Speaker 1: could have increased amount of predation on those nests because
Speaker 1: of how they were placed in range. So they had
Speaker 1: effectively removed a lot of what would be much better
Speaker 1: cover for nesting by their burning regime at that time.
Speaker 3: Man, here's another one from a listener. Well, no, it's
Speaker 3: just a thing. We it's just a piece of reporting,
Speaker 3: and it's apropos because we're in Kansas right now. Kansas,
Speaker 3: it looks like they're gonna do away fixing the du
Speaker 3: away of fall turkey hunting season, the number of fall
Speaker 3: This really surprised me. The number of fall turkey hunters
Speaker 3: across the state has fallen greatly since twenty fifteen, at
Speaker 3: a rate of twenty percent per year. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: they dropped fall turkey season dates, so they reduced a
Speaker 3: meaning they used to be open October one to January thirty. First,
Speaker 3: what the hell's out now? Four months of fall turkey season,
Speaker 3: So then you're figuring that they were at plus they
Speaker 3: were at it was basically close to six months out
Speaker 3: of the year's turkey season, like usually turkey season in Kansas.
Speaker 3: Right then they reduced it October one through November ten,
Speaker 3: so they asked off a lot. Right now, Fishing Game
Speaker 3: Agency staff are recommending that fall season be suspended all
Speaker 3: together in twenty twenty three. What's your take on shooting
Speaker 3: turkeys in the fall.
Speaker 1: That's a good question and something that we've thought a
Speaker 1: lot about in Tennessee here in recent years. You know,
Speaker 1: in Tennessee there's been a fall season for a long time,
Speaker 1: and for the longest time, and I don't remember when
Speaker 1: the fall season began and when either sex could be taken,
Speaker 1: but for many years you could shoot hens or males,
Speaker 1: females or males during the fall turkey season. That was
Speaker 1: changed a couple of years ago to mail only, but
Speaker 1: still today the regulation is you can kill a male
Speaker 1: per county in the counties that it's open, and it's
Speaker 1: opening a bunch of counties, Like there's ninety five counties
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, and I think it's seventy seven counties where
Speaker 1: you can fall turkey hunt now, so you were.
Speaker 3: Like the most cracked command on the planet. You kill
Speaker 3: seventy five gobblers in the fall.
Speaker 1: Well, there's not that many days in the fall season,
Speaker 1: but you theorytically kill one and every day of the man.
Speaker 1: But while that theoretically could be a problem, it's not
Speaker 1: because in Tennessee, I think there's only like four to
Speaker 1: five hundred birds harvested annually during the fall season. But
Speaker 1: in my opinion, a fall bird should count toward the
Speaker 1: statewide annual bag limit, and in many cases it does not,
Speaker 1: and in Tennessee it does not. I think that's something
Speaker 1: that could be improved. You know, it really matters as
Speaker 1: to how many are killed.
Speaker 3: But the.
Speaker 1: Thought of shooting females in the fall in areas or
Speaker 1: in a state that is suffering a decline in turkey population.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's smart. I would not agree to
Speaker 1: have a female harvest in the fall. If there are
Speaker 1: concerns about the turkey population and the harvest has been
Speaker 1: going down as it has in so many states. What
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 3: What do you to What do you attribute the general
Speaker 3: decline in turkeys that we're seeing in the southeastern US, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure other areas how widespread it is in
Speaker 3: other areas, but like to what I know, it's a
Speaker 3: very complicated question, But what do you think, like when
Speaker 3: you had to name the things that are going on?
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 1: It is a very complicated question. And we were discussing
Speaker 1: some of this over the past couple of days and
Speaker 1: with one of the guys that was asking me about
Speaker 1: it while we're walking around to property. You know, I
Speaker 1: mentioned think about what are the main issues or problems
Speaker 1: that could lead to a decline in turkey population. One
Speaker 1: is hunter harvest. You know that kills more males than
Speaker 1: anything else. Predators. Predators can be an issue. Disease obviously
Speaker 1: can be an issue, and then other things such as
Speaker 1: weather and so all of the there's an adage that
Speaker 1: you'll hear commonly death by a thousand cuts, and I
Speaker 1: generally agree with that. But some cuts are deeper than others,
Speaker 1: and some cuts are deeper in some areas than in
Speaker 1: other areas, and so nothing is the same over all
Speaker 1: the states or all the places where turkeys have declined.
Speaker 1: How many properties do you hear of? I know, I've
Speaker 1: visited many, and they might be seventy acres, or they
Speaker 1: might be seven hundred, or they might be five thousand acres.
Speaker 3: What have you?
Speaker 1: And they'll say, man, we used to have, you know,
Speaker 1: groups of one hundred birds, or you know, some properties
Speaker 1: even more than that, or it might be we would
Speaker 1: regularly see groups of thirty birds, and now we only
Speaker 1: see eight, or we only see twenty areas, whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be. And we used to kill ten gobblers
Speaker 1: a year, or twenty or forty, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: on these properties. Now we only kill eight or three,
Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be. Well, think about the
Speaker 1: productivity of turkeys, how it goes up and down.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 1: Typically now more relatively poor hatch years than good hatch years.
Speaker 1: But the hunter harvest, the hunter effort largely remains the same,
Speaker 1: and so if there's a certain number of gobblers on
Speaker 1: a property and you've been killing on average, you know,
Speaker 1: ten or twelve every year or whatever, and then you
Speaker 1: have a poor hatch year, or a couple of them
Speaker 1: in a row or whatnot, that's going to show up
Speaker 1: in a couple of years with regard to the number
Speaker 1: of goblin birds. And it might be that you, the
Speaker 1: landowner or one of the people who hunt, you only
Speaker 1: kill one, or maybe you try to kill your state
Speaker 1: wide limit on there or whatever, and there's other people
Speaker 1: who also hunt the property with you. Everybody's gonna try
Speaker 1: to get one, you know. Usually that's the case. And
Speaker 1: so the harvest intensity, the pressure remains the same, although
Speaker 1: the productivity has lowered, and I am confident that on
Speaker 1: many properties and likely in many regions and larger that
Speaker 1: has been problematic as the productivity of turkeys has gone down,
Speaker 1: but the harvest intensity has remained the same.
Speaker 3: But people have been told, and I've even mentioned this,
Speaker 3: maybe erroneously, that hens are going to get bred. So
Speaker 3: whether you have let's see you have, let's come up
Speaker 3: with some hypothetical population. You fill in the numbers. For me,
Speaker 3: we have a hypothetical population of one hundred breeding age females. Okay,
Speaker 3: and I don't know the exact numbers, but maybe you
Speaker 3: can help me with the exact numbers. There's one hundred
Speaker 3: breeding age females. Let's say there's sixty breeding age males.
Speaker 3: You'd be like, Okay, all those females are, they're gonna
Speaker 3: get bread, They're eggs will be fertilized. But then there's
Speaker 3: only forty breeding age males, right, all those females will
Speaker 3: still get fertilized. So, and perhaps I'm wrong, but but
Speaker 3: since all this hunter harvest is targeting males and not hens,
Speaker 3: they're still gonna get They're still gonna lay the same
Speaker 3: number of eggs they would lay. Is that not true?
Speaker 1: Well, there's still natural mortality other than hunting, which also
Speaker 1: is placed on the females.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: The ratio of males to females in the clutch might
Speaker 1: be biased a little bit towards males, but still then
Speaker 1: the number of females is gonna go down. Also with
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps a fifteen to thirty percent natural mortality
Speaker 1: rate on the females and males typically, you know, we're
Speaker 1: seeing twenty to thirty percent natural mortality rate on the males,
Speaker 1: but the hunter harvest is usually greater than that. In Tennessee,
Speaker 1: we've seen anywhere from twenty to forty five percent male
Speaker 1: harvest and any given year, yes, and so if that
Speaker 1: is continued and you have poor productivity over a couple
Speaker 1: of years or whatever, the number of mature gobblers on
Speaker 1: a property is going to go down. You're shooting them. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that has happened everywhere, but I'm confident
Speaker 1: that that has happened on many properties. The other issues,
Speaker 1: for example, with predation, I mean, I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: would disagree that the meso mammals have exploded over the
Speaker 1: past twenty thirty years. The coons, possums, skunks, armadillas in
Speaker 1: many places, and nobody is killing them. And we've identified
Speaker 1: that as the primary problem with regard to nest success.
Speaker 1: You know, most of the nests are being depredated, and
Speaker 1: you know, on average we're seeing about thirty to thirty
Speaker 1: three percent nest success overall, which is which is decent.
Speaker 1: But the main problem is the predation. One thing that
Speaker 1: we have not noted is disease as a problem. Now
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen blackhead and other diseases but not
Speaker 1: at any rate that would cause a population decline, and
Speaker 1: so we have not been able to identify disease. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about in the Tennessee study as a reason
Speaker 1: for the Turkey declares line. In those areas, predation is
Speaker 1: a problem. We have not been able to identify weather
Speaker 1: as a problem, and there's been some other projects that
Speaker 1: looked at that, but weather is one of those that
Speaker 1: is very difficult to get a handle on because most
Speaker 1: of the studies will rely on weather data from some
Speaker 1: nearby weather station that might be a mile, that might
Speaker 1: be five miles or whatever away. Well, a weather event
Speaker 1: can be relatively small with regard to intensity, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of that may not be captured. You know,
Speaker 1: we could see problems related to weather that we're not
Speaker 1: capturing in the data. But I would not doubt that
Speaker 1: weather in some areas in some years can be problematic.
Speaker 1: But it's difficult to quantify that and get a good
Speaker 1: handle on it. But we do know that predation is
Speaker 1: a problem, and we do know that hunter or harbor
Speaker 1: can be a problem, whether that be usually continuing to
Speaker 1: shoot as many as you can, and you're continuing to
Speaker 1: do that when the productivity has gone down at least
Speaker 1: in certain years. So there's a thing called adaptive resource
Speaker 1: management where you try to adapt the regulations according to
Speaker 1: what's going on. But there's no state that changes its
Speaker 1: bag limits, for example, from year to year based on
Speaker 1: POLP er hen surveys or anything else. And even on
Speaker 1: a WMA with quotas, more times than not things have
Speaker 1: to get pretty bad before they change the number of
Speaker 1: quotas issued, etc. So I think that can be a
Speaker 1: real issue with regard to a sustained hunter pressure. But
Speaker 1: in the face of lower productivity, we're shooting a lot
Speaker 1: of gobblers and they're not being recruited at the same
Speaker 1: rate that they're being removed.
Speaker 3: What are some of the extremes that you're aware of
Speaker 3: in terms of how many male turkeys out of a
Speaker 3: population are killed by hunters. I know you said like
Speaker 3: in Texas, it's really low.
Speaker 1: Texas is low where you have large properties and not
Speaker 1: that many people, especially large private properties, it's typical to
Speaker 1: have lower hunter harvest, as you might imagine, But in
Speaker 1: areas where the property sizes are smaller and you have
Speaker 1: a lot of hunters, it's not unusual to hardly ever
Speaker 1: see what you figure to be a three year old bird.
Speaker 1: Most of the goblin birds are two year olds. So
Speaker 1: what does that sound like. It sounds a lot like
Speaker 1: deer management, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: You know where? Well, let's back up for a second.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Joe Hamilton and al brothers, most deer hunters
Speaker 1: in the country practice what we call quality deer management,
Speaker 1: and that has lots of facets, but one of the
Speaker 1: main things is to let young bucks walk and let
Speaker 1: them gain some level of maturity before you kill them.
Speaker 1: We don't have that luxury with turkeys. We can look
Speaker 1: at body confirmation characteristics to be able to estimate the
Speaker 1: age of a buck. We can't look at a male
Speaker 1: turkey and estimate the age really beyond a jake versus
Speaker 1: a two or two plus year old, either a jake
Speaker 1: or a gobbler. If we can look at a turkey
Speaker 1: and know that it's a two year old, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people on a lot of properties that would
Speaker 1: let that one go. They'd like to see if they
Speaker 1: couldn't shoot more gobblers with inch and half spurs, for example,
Speaker 1: but we can't do that. I have hunted properties that
Speaker 1: are extremely well managed and calling birds might call in
Speaker 1: four or five birds in a morning, look at the
Speaker 1: spurs with a binocular and let them go until because
Speaker 1: I know there's some out there with really long spurs,
Speaker 1: and killing a bird on this property is not an issue,
Speaker 1: and so I can be very selective. But that's exceptionally rare.
Speaker 1: Few properties are that good. Few hunters are going to
Speaker 1: go to that extent to look at spurs before they
Speaker 1: shoot the bird. And that's not necessarily a reliable indicator
Speaker 1: of exact age anyway. But we don't have that luxury
Speaker 1: of being able to age turkeys like we can deer
Speaker 1: before we shoot them. But that only and if I
Speaker 1: can interrupt. And so what that means is we typically
Speaker 1: shoot gobblers like we would quail flushing up. You know,
Speaker 1: you're shooting whichever one you can get. So if a
Speaker 1: goblin bird comes in, oh yeah, here's a goblin and
Speaker 1: and you shoot it. And so we're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to allowing the aide structure to increase.
Speaker 3: Across a property.
Speaker 1: For example, with a number of gobblers that are there,
Speaker 1: you're shooting whatever comes in, and with a lot of
Speaker 1: heavy hunter pressure, it leads to more younger birds.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's the thing I've never understood. I get it,
Speaker 3: but trying how to express this. Let's let's take quality
Speaker 3: deer management for a minute. Is the objective with quality
Speaker 3: deer management is the objective to satisfy hunter desires to
Speaker 3: get bigger deer, or is the objective the health of
Speaker 3: the deer herd?
Speaker 1: I would strongly argue that it's the health of the
Speaker 1: deer herd. However, of course many hunters their objective is
Speaker 1: to shoot the biggest deer they can. But if you're
Speaker 1: allowing a balanced age structure, then you can see the
Speaker 1: behavior of the animals take place such that you have
Speaker 1: dominant animals that are doing a majority.
Speaker 3: Of the breeding, and that.
Speaker 1: Pretty much always for most of us, leads to a
Speaker 1: more exciting hunting opportunity.
Speaker 3: So why is there not a deer management strategy by
Speaker 3: which you only kill year and a half old deer
Speaker 3: and anything that slips through you don't touch. Mean, you
Speaker 3: kill spikes and forky's okay, But once something becomes a
Speaker 3: two and a half year old, never touch it because
Speaker 3: you are so committed, you're so committed to having these
Speaker 3: different age groups represented that in your management practice, no
Speaker 3: one is allowed to kill big, huge box because you
Speaker 3: just shoot the little ones that way, you got these
Speaker 3: big ones doing the breeding. That would take a lot
Speaker 3: of conviction.
Speaker 1: But this is not a thing that exists, no, because
Speaker 1: the hunting excitement is where the tire meets the road.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a hunting strategy where people will
Speaker 1: shoot a young deer like that, especially for meat, you know,
Speaker 1: because the meat in general is more tender with younger
Speaker 1: aged animals. But usually when that happens, the harvest is high,
Speaker 1: and you're killing such a high percentage of the bucks,
Speaker 1: you're not getting many into those older age classes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're not. I was kind of I'm asking
Speaker 3: a rhetorical question because I you know, at the where
Speaker 3: I grew up, at the time I grew up, throughout
Speaker 3: my entire childhood, I could tell you about the two
Speaker 3: deer that were killed within like an eight mile radius
Speaker 3: my house. I could tell you about the two deer
Speaker 3: that weren't one and a half years old.
Speaker 1: You know, they're both.
Speaker 3: Hanging on the living so this day, hanging on the
Speaker 3: living room wall of uh my mom's thoughts. And that's
Speaker 3: the two that in a lot of hunting, that's the
Speaker 3: two we saw.
Speaker 1: And to show how this is so widespread across the country.
Speaker 1: The National Deer Association, they put out the white Tail
Speaker 1: Report every year and Kip Adams is the principal author
Speaker 1: of the white Tail Report. And just here in the
Speaker 1: last year or two, we are killing few you know,
Speaker 1: white tail hunters across the country are killing fewer yearlings
Speaker 1: than ever before, and the number of three and a
Speaker 1: half plus year old deer that are killed is greater
Speaker 1: than ever before. So just to show how that practice
Speaker 1: is being conducted broadly among deer hunters all over the country.
Speaker 3: Uh, one of your one of your colleagues, I'm sure
Speaker 3: you know, Mike Chamberlain. We had talked with Mike Chamberlain,
Speaker 3: who goes We've talked a lot about his Instagram page
Speaker 3: wild Turkey Dot. He's been on the show. He has
Speaker 3: expressed concerns about killing turkeys too early in the year.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine, Robert Abernathy, who was a turkey
Speaker 3: biologist for a long time, has expressed concerns that about
Speaker 3: states allowing harvest early in the year. And I don't
Speaker 3: want to put words in these guys' mouths, but basically
Speaker 3: there's this management idea that let turkeys get through nesting
Speaker 3: at which point or initiate whatever the hell it is,
Speaker 3: at which point.
Speaker 1: I would allow most of the reproduction to take place
Speaker 1: before you open the season on the males.
Speaker 3: And then whatever you that then the idea being whatever
Speaker 3: you've taken from hunters up front, tack it on to
Speaker 3: the end, meaning shoot turkeys all through May. Like like,
Speaker 3: for instance, you go to I was just in Wisconsin
Speaker 3: for the youth turkey season. Okay, so you have a
Speaker 3: two day youth season, then you have season A, B C,
Speaker 3: D and those are all limited one tag, and then
Speaker 3: you get into the end seasons, have at it. You
Speaker 3: kill turkey to day. So you can apply for years
Speaker 3: to try to get an a season tag and you're
Speaker 3: gonna get one thing, or you go to Wisconsin for
Speaker 3: those last two and you can just have at it
Speaker 3: every day. What's your take on what's your take from
Speaker 3: from the research you've done and whatever anecdotic things you've
Speaker 3: picked up on. Is it actually detrimental to the resource
Speaker 3: to be gun in turkeys? And the dates change around
Speaker 3: the country based on day length and latitude and all that,
Speaker 3: But like, what's your take on the idea that if
Speaker 3: you're killing turkeys early, you're doing a greater harm to
Speaker 3: the resource than if you're killing turkeys later.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, for for decades turkey ball, I just have
Speaker 1: broadly pushed for opening turkey seasons once a majority of
Speaker 1: the reproduction has taken place. And certainly theoretically that could
Speaker 1: be an issue. For example, in Tennessee, nest initiation peaks
Speaker 1: on April the eleventh. That's what we've determined after six
Speaker 1: years of following round five hundred hens.
Speaker 3: And are you when you say initiation, I mean she
Speaker 3: lays the first egg.
Speaker 1: That's correct, she's initiating her nest. The peak of that
Speaker 1: is April eleventh in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: And then she's gonna just to walk people through this
Speaker 3: cycle that hen is gonna lay one egg a day, correct,
Speaker 3: for about twelve days, at which time she will then
Speaker 3: start incubating them and they'll hatch on the same day,
Speaker 3: even though they were laid perhaps ten days apart. That's
Speaker 3: eleven days apart.
Speaker 1: Now about about twenty eight days later, and there's another
Speaker 1: couple of days that is included in the lay in season.
Speaker 1: She might skip a day initially, And you're correct. The
Speaker 1: clutch sizes vary in some areas. It might only be
Speaker 1: eight or nine in some areas, you know, twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: and our study sites in Tennessee, we average ten eggs
Speaker 1: for the clutch size, and it varies a little bit,
Speaker 1: but that's the area.
Speaker 5: That clutch is just one. One tom fertilizes all those eggs.
Speaker 1: Good question. There are some data, and it's not much.
Speaker 1: There's at least one study with a fairly small sample
Speaker 1: size that does indicate more than one male can be
Speaker 1: involved in the clutch. In that study, I think it
Speaker 1: was about fifty percent of the eggs involved one male,
Speaker 1: or maybe seventy five percent of the nest involved one male.
Speaker 1: Roughly a quarter of them involved more than one male,
Speaker 1: and at least twenty five involved more than one female.
Speaker 1: And most times we figure what's called a dump nest
Speaker 1: and we see that, you know, fairly commonly that might
Speaker 1: have you know, eighteen or twenty some eggs in it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times many of them will not
Speaker 1: hatch because they.
Speaker 3: Weren't all incubated.
Speaker 1: Equally, interestingly, we had a nest and Tennessee that had
Speaker 1: twenty three eggs, obviously a dump nest, and twenty two
Speaker 1: of them hatched.
Speaker 3: So a bunch of different females finding that spot and
Speaker 3: lean and egg.
Speaker 1: On it, right, and so, but the other thing is
Speaker 1: this dump nest in occurs and there might only be
Speaker 1: nine eggs in the clutch. So it's extremely interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't know just exactly how another hen finds another one's nest,
Speaker 1: if you know they're they're walking nearby or what have you.
Speaker 1: But anyway that that happens more frequently than what you
Speaker 1: would imagine, I find that very interesting. And so obviously
Speaker 1: that's increasing the genetic diversity when you have multiple females
Speaker 1: and multiple males that are involved in a single clutch.
Speaker 5: Like, how do they determine who sits on that nest?
Speaker 5: Is just the hand that starts?
Speaker 2: Oh, that initiates it, gotcha, that's not a bad deal
Speaker 2: for those other hens. I don't really want to raise
Speaker 2: these things this spring anyway.
Speaker 1: And so to get back to your question about the timing,
Speaker 1: certainly the timing of the hunting season can be problematic.
Speaker 1: That's definitely possible, and a number of states have have
Speaker 1: set back their season dates because they perceived that that
Speaker 1: could be a problem. And studies are being done right
Speaker 1: now to look at that, and hopefully some data will
Speaker 1: be provided soon that substantiates that this is or is
Speaker 1: not happening in various states. In Tennessee, though, I can
Speaker 1: tell you that it is not a problem at least
Speaker 1: with regard to when the season opens in early May.
Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned that we had experimental two week
Speaker 1: delay in three of the counties and in the two
Speaker 1: control counties there was no delay. Well in those two years,
Speaker 1: the season opened on April the second and a third,
Speaker 1: and following the treatment counties both pre and post delay,
Speaker 1: and the control counties both pre and post delay, we
Speaker 1: found no effect on any reproductive parameter, whether that be
Speaker 1: the percentage of hens that nest, the timing of nesting,
Speaker 1: the clutch size, the hatch ability, or pulse survival. They
Speaker 1: were exactly the same with regard now they would vary
Speaker 1: year to year, but they would vary the same way.
Speaker 1: So if, for example, nest success, that would be the
Speaker 1: percentage of nest in which at least one egg hatches
Speaker 1: went up a little bit in the control counties. It
Speaker 1: also went up a little bit in the treatment county.
Speaker 1: So everything trended exactly the same way. And the delay
Speaker 1: at least through two years, and this is a two
Speaker 1: week delay, This is not a five day delay. It's
Speaker 1: a two week delay, and there was no change in
Speaker 1: any reproductive parameter which was which was telling. So I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that is not occurring in other states. I
Speaker 1: haven't you know, collected data in spots that in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: No that that the dudes out hunting, that's not preventing
Speaker 3: these hens from being successful nesters, or these eggs getting
Speaker 3: fertilized or whatever.
Speaker 1: I do not believe that in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: that dudes o hunting are causing a problem. Look look
Speaker 1: at look at the harvest rate what it did from
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties for example through the mid two thousands.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's going up exponentially in most states. And
Speaker 1: obviously hunters on the landscape did not cause a problem
Speaker 1: at that time. The turkey population was going up. There
Speaker 1: are more turkey hunters in some places now than there
Speaker 1: were in Tennessee. That number has increased, well, it increased
Speaker 1: about one thousand per year for a few years, and
Speaker 1: then of course twenty twenty happened with the problem with
Speaker 1: the virus and everything, and we went from like having
Speaker 1: ninety ninety two thousand hunters up to around one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten thousand hunters so that situation increased the number
Speaker 1: of hunters.
Speaker 3: In a lot of places. Has that dropped off now?
Speaker 1: I have not seen the data for twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: yet on the number of turkey hunters in the state,
Speaker 1: or at least the number of hunters who had a
Speaker 1: license that would enable them to turkey hunt. So to
Speaker 1: get back to the earlier point, we didn't have in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: the season opened on the Saturday closest to April first,
Speaker 1: which means some years the season can open on May
Speaker 1: twenty eighth. Well, during this experimental delay, we didn't have
Speaker 1: turkey season opening excuse me, on March twenty eighth, So
Speaker 1: we didn't have turkey season opening in March during the
Speaker 1: course of that experimental delay. So I would not propose
Speaker 1: Tennessee to go back to open the season on the
Speaker 1: Saturday closest to April first, when our peak nest initiation
Speaker 1: is April the eleventh. But I would feel comfortable if
Speaker 1: that season opened sometime during the first week of April,
Speaker 1: because that's when it happened during our experimental two week delay,
Speaker 1: and we found no issue surrounding that. And so if
Speaker 1: the season opened in Tennessee sometime during that first week,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, you could say the first Saturday
Speaker 1: in April. That way, it would vary from April first
Speaker 1: to April the seventh, and that could be, you know,
Speaker 1: on average, about four days later than it was traditionally,
Speaker 1: and from the data that we've collected, opening at that
Speaker 1: time is not having a detrimental effect on reproductive production.
Speaker 1: But again that's not to address other states, because you know,
Speaker 1: of course the timing of nesting is going to vary
Speaker 1: from from place to place, and states have different opening
Speaker 1: season dates.
Speaker 3: Of course, how far apart are the counties that you're
Speaker 3: separating with the opening dates they're touching. I know you're
Speaker 3: interested in turkeys more than turkey hunters, but that has
Speaker 3: you've changed where people are like more intent now and
Speaker 3: doubling up on the double opener.
Speaker 1: I would be yes, And we have surveyed some of
Speaker 1: that and that that is happening some So in those
Speaker 1: experimental counties they opened two weeks later. Well, some hunters
Speaker 1: in those counties, of course, they would go to other
Speaker 1: counties where they could hunt during that initial season, but
Speaker 1: that only happened during those two years. Now, of course
Speaker 1: it's a state wide delay. So the statewide. The season
Speaker 1: as of this season opens on April fifteenth, and so
Speaker 1: you can't do that in Tennessee now go from one
Speaker 1: place to another. But it does impact out of state hunters.
Speaker 1: I spoke with the executive director the other day and
Speaker 1: he mentioned how revenues from out of state hunters were
Speaker 1: down as of yet, but I imagine that will pick
Speaker 1: back up because now the Tennessee season will go through
Speaker 1: I think it's May the twenty eighth. I mean, goodnight,
Speaker 1: that's what you said, Jason. The turkey season is in
Speaker 1: Washington State April fifteenth through the end of May, so
Speaker 1: you better believe there'll be some hunters from Alabama and Mississippi,
Speaker 1: Georgia coming to Tennessee during the the last half of
Speaker 1: them night.
Speaker 3: But you're almost ready to start shooting off fireworks by then, man,
Speaker 3: the end of May. One time someone said this to me,
Speaker 3: and I've quoted it, and I worry that it's not
Speaker 3: that it's not accurate. They were saying, like, as here's
Speaker 3: a picture way to picture turkeys. As a rule of thumb,
Speaker 3: they're saying, seventy five percent of the eggs that hit
Speaker 3: the ground won't hatch. Of those that hatch, seventy five
Speaker 3: percent won't see their first birthday. Of those that do
Speaker 3: see their first birthday, seventy five percent won't see their
Speaker 3: second birthday. How close to accurate is that according to
Speaker 3: your understanding, I would say that is accurate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the other night you.
Speaker 3: Were talking about the other night you were talking about
Speaker 3: the possibility, even though it's hard to tell, you were
Speaker 3: saying that there can be turkeys out there that are
Speaker 3: four or five years old with males. So for a
Speaker 3: male to get that edge, he's defying, he is defying
Speaker 3: the odds.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is absolutely correct anywhere. But you're not going
Speaker 1: to see turkeys that are four or five years old
Speaker 1: on these heavily hunted areas. And it can happen, it
Speaker 1: does happen, but they are going to be exceptionally few.
Speaker 1: God on areas that are either hunted lightly or the
Speaker 1: hunting pressure is well managed, or on unhunted properties. Absolutely
Speaker 1: you'll see turkeys that are four or five, six, even
Speaker 1: eight years old males males were band recoveries or tag birds.
Speaker 1: Has indicated, you know, you know the exact age.
Speaker 3: What the hell kind of spirit they got it? Eight years?
Speaker 3: How long does that can grow.
Speaker 1: About the same as a four year old. Again, ever,
Speaker 1: you're going to see, for example, Eastern turkeys with spurs
Speaker 1: longer than an inch and a half, usually they're worn
Speaker 1: before then. And you know, you can take it with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt the length of the spur and
Speaker 1: the age. But that's not an accurate way to age
Speaker 1: the bird. I would not you know, somebody say, oh,
Speaker 1: that this spur is an inch and and eight so
Speaker 1: it's three years old. Now you only God knows how
Speaker 1: old that bird is, but you know it's not a jake.
Speaker 1: It's very unlikely to be a two year old. But
Speaker 1: you just you don't know.
Speaker 3: I wish you, I wish you did.
Speaker 1: I wish they had some you know, mark on their back,
Speaker 1: you know, two white feathers if if it's a two
Speaker 1: year old, and three if it's three or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you could tell the age very easily.
Speaker 3: Uh I if so.
Speaker 1: I think turkey hunters would manage the populations on the
Speaker 1: lands they hunt very very differently.
Speaker 3: Oh if they could tell absolutely, just like with deer,
Speaker 3: what that that it could happen and you could create it.
Speaker 1: On this property that we're on right now with a
Speaker 1: landowner that we have Randy, who's a tremendous guy and
Speaker 1: tremendous to allow us to come out here and enjoy
Speaker 1: the property with him. If there was a way to
Speaker 1: age turkeys, you know in Randy and you see in
Speaker 1: the deer that are around on these walls, I don't
Speaker 1: see any FOURK horns on the wall round there. I
Speaker 1: mean we're looking at one hundred and sixty to two
Speaker 1: hundred inch white tails. They don't grow that large at
Speaker 1: two or three years old.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know there have been some six three year olds
Speaker 1: that have been one hundred and sixty inches. But the
Speaker 1: point is he's allowing young bucks to walk so he
Speaker 1: can shoot them at five to seven years old because
Speaker 1: of their size. If you could age turkeys in the
Speaker 1: same way, they would be managed very differently. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that gets to the bag limit.
Speaker 1: I think the bag limit is a very important regulation.
Speaker 1: You know, for years in Tennessee there was a four
Speaker 1: bird statewide bag limit, but actually you could kill a
Speaker 1: lot more than that if you killed a bird on
Speaker 1: some federal lands land between the Lakes or Fort Campbell
Speaker 1: for examples of freebie b I didn't count towards your
Speaker 1: state bag limit, and then and this this drives me nuts.
Speaker 1: There were like fifteen plus WMA's across the state for
Speaker 1: which if you killed a turkey on it, it was free,
Speaker 1: a bonus gobbler. That's ridiculous. Any bird killed should go
Speaker 1: into the bag limit. And so in Tennessee for years
Speaker 1: you could and that didn't even count you fall birds.
Speaker 1: So you could easily kill well not easily, but you
Speaker 1: could kill eight, ten or more birds a year. But
Speaker 1: it really wasn't that big of a problem because very
Speaker 1: very few people did that. But these large bagline it's
Speaker 1: now you're seeing them back off dramatically on the bag limits,
Speaker 1: and in Tennessee it's it's down to two now. And
Speaker 1: I have been one of those who all into turkey
Speaker 1: hunting and I killed as many as I could because
Speaker 1: I absolutely love it going to you know, five, six,
Speaker 1: seven states every year to hunt. But you know, a
Speaker 1: bag limit of four that's too many in my opinion
Speaker 1: that that's that's too many. There was some interesting data
Speaker 1: in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: I want to live. I want to interrupt you for
Speaker 3: one second. Early on I was tide about hous gonna
Speaker 3: explain why this matters, and I want to back up
Speaker 3: for a minute, because I've failed to really do that
Speaker 3: effectively in talking to listeners about why why we're debating
Speaker 3: some of these issues, and I want to do like
Speaker 3: a quick American history through the wild Turkey. Okay, uh,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start with my favorite pieces. The Pilgrims. Almost
Speaker 3: certainly we're not eating turkey at the first Thanksgiving. They
Speaker 3: had to catch all word turkey, which meant big edible bird,
Speaker 3: probably a goose. They're probably eating geese. There's similar things
Speaker 3: we use. The term. You'll hear people use the term
Speaker 3: it's a game bird, and that's a catch all I've
Speaker 3: heard people use in Spanish. I think it was in
Speaker 3: the Spanish speaking areas. I've heard people use a word
Speaker 3: like Poe's in South America. It's like a big bird,
Speaker 3: it's good to eat. So you see when running along
Speaker 3: poies what one oh curs ow, but meaning a big
Speaker 3: bird good to eat. They threw that word around. They
Speaker 3: probably ate geese. However, if they also late dear yep,
Speaker 3: they definitely there's no doubt that the first thanks even
Speaker 3: ate deer. And so when I when we have Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: at the Bronella household, we always have deer mee I
Speaker 3: don't care about. So there are accounts from the long
Speaker 3: Hunters and the first Western Frontier of them describing areas
Speaker 3: where it seemed like this. It seemed that the forest
Speaker 3: floor was literally moving with turkeys. So at times and
Speaker 3: places there were like outstanding numbers of turkeys. By the
Speaker 3: early nineteen hundreds, we had really really depleted turkeys everywhere
Speaker 3: of the states. I can't remember what it is. I
Speaker 3: think that maybe I don't know what it was. At
Speaker 3: the time of European contact, we probably had wild turkeys
Speaker 3: in thirty four states. Maybe we had we had. By
Speaker 3: the early nineteen hundreds, they had been removed from over
Speaker 3: a dozen of those states all together. There were only
Speaker 3: a few little pockets. I think South Carolina maybe always
Speaker 3: hung out to some form of a turkey season, but
Speaker 3: most places turkey hunting ended. And then they started into
Speaker 3: through a lot of failed efforts and trying to get
Speaker 3: it right, they started to reintroduce turkeys. They initially tried
Speaker 3: to reintroduce turkeys by turning out pen raised birds, and
Speaker 3: it was a disaster. It didn't work. Then someone hit
Speaker 3: on the idea of capturing wild bread birds, and so
Speaker 3: they went to those little pockets like the deepest swamps,
Speaker 3: the worst mountains in the southeast, and they started catching
Speaker 3: turkeys and turning them out, and that those efforts really
Speaker 3: started to gain ground in the seventies and they pushed
Speaker 3: all the way up into the nine. So where I
Speaker 3: grew up, there weren't turkeys when I was a little kid.
Speaker 3: By the mid nineties there were turkeys because they had
Speaker 3: been reintroduced by and National Will Turkey Federation in conjunction
Speaker 3: with state agencies. And then they exploded and sore where
Speaker 3: you live. If you're a listener, where you live, you
Speaker 3: are probably sitting at some part of this like crazy,
Speaker 3: is it fair to call the bell curve? You're sitting
Speaker 3: at some part of this curve. You're probably at a
Speaker 3: part of the curve where you're you're not at the
Speaker 3: climb anymore. You probably are at the crest or you're
Speaker 3: on the falling edge of the crest of the saturation. Chris, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because they came in and it was like, like, admit,
Speaker 3: where I grew up, it happened kind of right when
Speaker 3: I moved out west, but all of a sudden it
Speaker 3: was like you could draw a turkey tag here and there,
Speaker 3: and then it was everybody was killing turkeys every year.
Speaker 3: My dad was just killing turkey every year, and it exploded,
Speaker 3: and I think people thought that it would always be
Speaker 3: that way, and it was like the turkey heyday, right,
Speaker 3: And then now you're having these these areas where we're
Speaker 3: coming out of it and it's dropping off, and people
Speaker 3: are people who love turkeys are wondering where's the where's
Speaker 3: the bottom, Like, where's the actual line gonna sit? So
Speaker 3: when I've on the show raised questions about fall turkey seasons,
Speaker 3: about being able to kill a turkey every day, being
Speaker 3: able to kill hens, it's not that it's like, it's
Speaker 3: not that I'm against I'm not against shooting hen turkeys.
Speaker 3: People like, well, you killed Doe dear, why it's okay
Speaker 3: to shoot hen turkeys. I'm not talking like a morality thing.
Speaker 3: It's not a morality thing in my view. It's like,
Speaker 3: as we go through this big experiment of turkey reintroduction
Speaker 3: and in certain areas in the northwestern US and introduce auction,
Speaker 3: they weren't there before, but they're there now, what is
Speaker 3: gonna be or is there gonna be a are we
Speaker 3: going to achieve a normal where turkey hunting is a
Speaker 3: normal part of our lives for decades to come, or
Speaker 3: will we look back fifty years from now at this
Speaker 3: kind of weird thing that happened where we had all
Speaker 3: these turkeys and then we're right back where we started
Speaker 3: because of various concerns. So when I say, like, why
Speaker 3: this matters, is there's no normal.
Speaker 1: To answer your question, No, I don't believe that will happen.
Speaker 1: I think states are making adjustments right now, especially with
Speaker 1: all the turkey studies that are going on, and we're
Speaker 1: learning tremendous amounts about all kinds of things that be
Speaker 1: seasons or bag limits or predators, disease, et cetera. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the turkey population is going up, and I
Speaker 1: mentioned that about the harvest from the eighties to the
Speaker 1: mid two thousands or whatever. And so when you look
Speaker 1: at harvest rates or as a proxy, you know, the
Speaker 1: population increase. How long can it do this? You know,
Speaker 1: at essentially a forty five degree angle? How long?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Not infinitely, No, And so we have reached infinity right now.
Speaker 1: And I believe that in many areas it reached the
Speaker 1: point where the area could not support any more turkeys
Speaker 1: than what it has because of various factors, and so
Speaker 1: then it begins to drop off, and then it begins
Speaker 1: to fluctuate. Now, if the harvest pressure remains the same
Speaker 1: as it's going down and the amount of habitat is
Speaker 1: deteriorated or reduced, then you're not going to get back
Speaker 1: up to some historic high. And I've brought this out
Speaker 1: with different folks. Think about what the landscape was twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. And I keep going back to Tennessee, in
Speaker 1: that area south of Nashville and south Middle Tennessee that
Speaker 1: had some of the highest turkey populations, if not the
Speaker 1: highest turkey population of anywhere in the country. In the
Speaker 1: late nineties early two thousands, you could see a winter
Speaker 1: flock of one thousand birds. That's like unbelievable. So how
Speaker 1: long is that sustainable. It's not going to be that
Speaker 1: sustainable for that long. We have more roads, we have
Speaker 1: more buildings, we have more infrastructure from humans. So many
Speaker 1: properties are quote lost with regard to it being turkey
Speaker 1: habitat because they're subdivisions. And so the amount of land
Speaker 1: that turkeys have to live on today in many areas
Speaker 1: is considerably less than it was twenty or thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: And so we had this steep incline of the population.
Speaker 1: It reaches the point where that cannot be sustained anymore,
Speaker 1: then it drops, and then it's going to fluctuate. And
Speaker 1: I think our change in regulations can have a strong impact,
Speaker 1: of course on leveling that out into what you know,
Speaker 1: you call the new norm. But over time, the human population,
Speaker 1: at least in the foreseeable future, is going to continue
Speaker 1: to do this, go up and up, and so conserving
Speaker 1: our lands is hugely important, as it always has been.
Speaker 1: But that can't be discounted when you think about how
Speaker 1: many turkeys were and are or will be killed in
Speaker 1: a particular county, for example, we can't expect to go
Speaker 1: back to historic highs in all areas.
Speaker 3: When you when you are talking to someone to get
Speaker 3: into your extension work, let's say a landowner, you know,
Speaker 3: let's say someone's got forty acres of glenn and they're like,
Speaker 3: I want to make it better for wildlife, just in
Speaker 3: a very general sense, wildlife being like, whatever the hell
Speaker 3: is available?
Speaker 5: What what are the.
Speaker 3: What are the top suggestions you have?
Speaker 1: Well, the the number one thing is you've got to
Speaker 1: define wildlife, you know, are you talking about chickadease? Horned owls,
Speaker 1: copperhead snakes, deer and what what what is it that
Speaker 1: you're talking about? So the landowner has to identify and
Speaker 1: that's very common. I want to make it better for wildlife.
Speaker 1: What okay, I'll say this, all okay, and all native identify.
Speaker 1: So I get here's my here's my thing. I got
Speaker 1: forty acres.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I just want to make as good as
Speaker 3: I can for all native wildlife, whatever assemblage of native
Speaker 3: wildlife I could hope to attract.
Speaker 1: Well, you're going to help a diversity of wildlife by
Speaker 1: having diverse conditions on the property, But that's not going
Speaker 1: to help all species. You know, if you're an Eastern
Speaker 1: metal arc, you will never hang out in the woods.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. And so there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as managing appropriately for everything. You've got to choose
Speaker 1: something because each species have certain requirements that have to
Speaker 1: be met, and they are very different among some species.
Speaker 1: And so that's why you know, and you know, like
Speaker 1: on two ends of the spectrum, think of an Eastern
Speaker 1: gray squirrel or an affiliated woodpecker versus a grasshopper sparra.
Speaker 1: You know that they will never be found in the
Speaker 1: same place. One requires forest at least wooded areas woodlands
Speaker 1: and as well, and the other one requires not just grassland,
Speaker 1: but vast amounts of grassland. And so there are different
Speaker 1: area requirements by different species. You know, some species, if
Speaker 1: you have the perfect conditions on ten acres, will never
Speaker 1: be found there because they require a much larger footprint
Speaker 1: than that. And northern bob White is a great example.
Speaker 1: So frustrating because so many landowners would like to manage
Speaker 1: for quail, but they only have seventy acres, and around
Speaker 1: the seventy acres is non habitat for bob white, and
Speaker 1: you know, you just got to tell them, Look, you
Speaker 1: can make your place absolutely perfect for quail, but you're
Speaker 1: never going to see a population response because of what's
Speaker 1: going on around you. And so with regard to your
Speaker 1: question about improving it, if they then identify the species
Speaker 1: and we kind of stick to turkeys, then you've got
Speaker 1: to meet their habitat requirements, and so you have to
Speaker 1: have or ideally you would have good cover for nesting,
Speaker 1: you would have good cover for brooding. Obviously, you would
Speaker 1: have roosting areas, You would have areas that provide good
Speaker 1: foraging during the summertime as well as during the fall
Speaker 1: and winter, and so you've got to meet their food
Speaker 1: and cover and water requirements as their requirements change throughout
Speaker 1: the year.
Speaker 3: What's the difference in nesting and brooding territory.
Speaker 1: Well, the cover that generally is selected by turkeys for
Speaker 1: nesting is going to be relatively dense. The visibility is
Speaker 1: not going to be that far. For example, one interesting
Speaker 1: thing that we found in the Tennessee study is that
Speaker 1: just less than fifty percent of the nest I think
Speaker 1: it's forty six percent of the nest occur in either
Speaker 1: what we call early succession, you know, like overgrown fields
Speaker 1: or shrubbling, you know, where there's a preponderance of small
Speaker 1: tree stems, you know, ten fifteen feet tall something like that,
Speaker 1: or shrubs or what have you. Forty six percent of
Speaker 1: the nest are in those vegetation types, but only seven
Speaker 1: percent of the landscape is represented by those vegetation types.
Speaker 1: So certainly you can see selectivity by the birds when
Speaker 1: there are different vegetation types available for them to select from.
Speaker 1: And so think of an overgrown field that can provide
Speaker 1: excellent nesting cover, but it probably won't provide good brooding cover.
Speaker 1: Because you know, if you imagine you're a poult, it's
Speaker 1: you know, three or four inches tall. You literally can't
Speaker 1: physically navigate through that dense vegetation at ground level. And
Speaker 1: even for the hens when they're nesting, they don't like
Speaker 1: to navigate through that either. And so with a number
Speaker 1: of studies, including ours, something that we find commonly is
Speaker 1: that the nest will be within twenty to forty yards
Speaker 1: of the edge of this dnse cover or you know,
Speaker 1: forty yards from some trail or what have you. So
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to walk through that dense, thick stuff
Speaker 1: to get to her nest, as she has to come
Speaker 1: off of the nest each day for at least, you know,
Speaker 1: usually at least one recess to go feed and defecate,
Speaker 1: what have you. And so that then gives rise to
Speaker 1: the notion of, hmm, what's the scale that I should
Speaker 1: be managing for with regard to nesting cover. And so
Speaker 1: if I'm managing a property specifically for turkeys, I don't
Speaker 1: want that nesting cover to be any more than about
Speaker 1: eighty yards wide, you know what I'm saying, Because in
Speaker 1: the interior of that she's likely right to not go
Speaker 1: in there. But for the for the broods, they may
Speaker 1: be around the edges of those fields because they can
Speaker 1: walk and get around, and that's caused lots of people
Speaker 1: to consider, you know, whether it be turkeys or deer
Speaker 1: or bob white or rabbits or whatever to be edge species. Personally,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that. If you find a species
Speaker 1: that is only using the edge, and the edge is
Speaker 1: defined as where two or more vegetation types or two
Speaker 1: or more successional stages join each other, if you find
Speaker 1: a species tied to that edge, then what that should
Speaker 1: tell you is not that the species likes the edge,
Speaker 1: but the species doesn't like the interior of one or
Speaker 1: both of the adjoining vegetation types. And what that means
Speaker 1: is you need to manage that vegetation type differently such
Speaker 1: that you can see use in the middle of it
Speaker 1: instead of just along the edge. And so when you
Speaker 1: see broods around the edge of the field, that immediately
Speaker 1: tells you the structure in that field is probably not
Speaker 1: adequate for the bruds to be using in there. And
Speaker 1: so that's when your management comes in to make these
Speaker 1: fields and your your woods better with regard to cover,
Speaker 1: whether it be for nesting or brooding. Or or even
Speaker 1: even roosting. So there's different things that we do to
Speaker 1: enhance an area to make it more attractive to turkey.
Speaker 1: Why they like that you can fix up all of these.
Speaker 3: They like to roost in certain spots and you can't
Speaker 3: always tell what it is about the spot, but like
Speaker 3: it's like you feel like if you took every turkey
Speaker 3: off and put new turkeys there, they're probably gonna go
Speaker 3: roos in that spot. Yes, absolutely, have you guys ever
Speaker 3: looked at like what is it?
Speaker 1: Well, one thing that is important is the visibility. And
Speaker 1: so when I'm managing specifically for a roosting area, I
Speaker 1: might choose and number one, you start where that you
Speaker 1: know birds are roosting, or if you don't know, or
Speaker 1: you want to make a roosting area somewhere, it's usually
Speaker 1: a place where it's up a little higher than the surroundings,
Speaker 1: or at least on the upper portion of a slope
Speaker 1: where you know, at least for a gobbler they can call.
Speaker 1: And I'm referring specifically to springtime and surrounding hunting and
Speaker 1: trying to make set up a property for better hunting,
Speaker 1: And so we manage that with fire, and we use
Speaker 1: low intensity fire, and we're preventing a dense mid story
Speaker 1: from coming up. We're keeping the understory. You know, mid
Speaker 1: story is those trees that are above four and a
Speaker 1: half feet and before they get into the overstory condition.
Speaker 1: And then the understory is that vegetation as defined as
Speaker 1: being under four and a half feet. We're keeping that low.
Speaker 1: We're keeping it open. We're killing trees that we don't
Speaker 1: want want and leaving the trees that we do want,
Speaker 1: primarily according to species or form for roosting, allowing a
Speaker 1: little bit of sunlight to come into the area, but
Speaker 1: not too much, because if you do, the understory is
Speaker 1: going to blow up and it's going to be more
Speaker 1: difficult to keep it open. So these roosting areas probably
Speaker 1: have anywhere from seventy to one hundred percent shade, no
Speaker 1: more than about thirty percent sunlight coming in. Now, before
Speaker 1: somebody screams, I fully understand that turkeys roost in more
Speaker 1: open areas. And you know, ever been to Kansas. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, individual cotton trees along a drainage, there's going
Speaker 1: to be turkeys there. But I'm talking about in forested conditions.
Speaker 1: If you want to enhance an area such that you're
Speaker 1: increasing the preponderance of birds to be roosting in a
Speaker 1: given area. Manage that where it's open, and what we do,
Speaker 1: what I prefer to do is leave it alone. I
Speaker 1: know people are going to think this is crazy, but
Speaker 1: on lands managed specifically for turkeys and turkey hunting, think
Speaker 1: of the roost area like you would a bedding area
Speaker 1: for deer. Do you go into the bedding area to
Speaker 1: hunt deer. No, that's kind of dumb. You're going to
Speaker 1: run that buck off and you know it might not
Speaker 1: return to the property for the rest of the hunting season.
Speaker 1: And so your roost areas to me, and this is
Speaker 1: just a personal view, it's kind of like your anchor.
Speaker 1: And you know, a gobbler is going to usually have
Speaker 1: three or four areas that they typically use for roosting.
Speaker 1: Is not going to go back to the same area
Speaker 1: every night. But if you know, okay, I'm managing these
Speaker 1: roots spots and I'm not disturbing the birds immediately when
Speaker 1: they come off of the roost. And how many people,
Speaker 1: you know, they call and they mess up the bird,
Speaker 1: they move they you know, when the birds are spooked
Speaker 1: at their roost site, that just damages your chances of
Speaker 1: them returning there and them going somewhere else instead. If
Speaker 1: you know where the birds are going to go, hunt
Speaker 1: on the birds on the way there, or you can
Speaker 1: even go there and wait on the birds. And for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, that means you don't have to
Speaker 1: get up, you know, two hours four daylight. You can
Speaker 1: go into the Turkey woods at nine o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning and have excellent hunting. One of my favorite times
Speaker 1: is like from nine o'clock to two pm. And so
Speaker 1: you're allowing the birds to do their thing early in
Speaker 1: the morning when they come off the roost, and then
Speaker 1: when they start to move out, that's when you know
Speaker 1: where they're going to go. And when you do that,
Speaker 1: at least in my humble opinion, your success rate goes up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but man, you might as well be asking people
Speaker 3: to quit. I really coffee and stuff, dude. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like the world's most powerful magnet. Like as Star Wars
Speaker 3: they called a tractor beam, you know, pulls you into
Speaker 3: that roost tree.
Speaker 1: You still can hunt near the roost where you're hearing
Speaker 1: the bird, you know, gobble off the roost, but you know,
Speaker 1: trying to crawl right there under the bird. You're you're
Speaker 1: you're risking messing things up if you don't kill him.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite things about turkey hunt know is
Speaker 3: is the when you get real close. I say, you're
Speaker 3: seventy yards from that roof tree, where you're like, it
Speaker 3: seems like there's no way we're not going to kill
Speaker 3: this turkey, but the other part of your brain knows
Speaker 3: you won't.
Speaker 1: I think this morning, I think I heard that very
Speaker 1: recently this morning.
Speaker 3: I was like, how would it like? Of course we're
Speaker 3: going to kill these turkeys, And then they hit the
Speaker 3: ground and they stop gobling, and in a while later ebody, God,
Speaker 3: want it's like something inch and a half. You're like,
Speaker 3: what happened?
Speaker 1: It is amazing how they can avoid death by us. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we have.
Speaker 3: These in our studio. We have various formulas up. We
Speaker 3: had an original one and people cracked at it. We've
Speaker 3: made it into a T shirt. Would be that if
Speaker 3: you get within seventy yards of a roose tree and
Speaker 3: don't do anything, creep in and don't do anything, don't
Speaker 3: put out a decoy, don't touch a call.
Speaker 1: Can I interrupt yep, you immediately have a twenty five
Speaker 1: percent chance of killing that.
Speaker 3: Bird thirteen, you have a thirteen percent chance killing that,
Speaker 3: according to which choked to you, we have right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: well we varied those, like it's hard to pin down
Speaker 3: because you get into certain brush types and stuff. I
Speaker 3: think we figured right. We tried to figure your seventy
Speaker 3: yards out and you got thirty yards. Okay, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's not a given, no, And I know it's
Speaker 3: and it's like, but I sometimes wonder if setting up
Speaker 3: on them is that much better than thirteen percent. And
Speaker 3: it's a little better, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's very similar to duck hunting. I love to listen
Speaker 1: to Phil Robertson and one of the things that he said,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure I'm not stating this verbatim, but you know,
Speaker 1: if the ducks are coming, don't call. If you know
Speaker 1: where the ducks are going to go, there's your best
Speaker 1: bet for being a successful duck hunter, not trying to
Speaker 1: call them into a place they don't want to go.
Speaker 1: Just be where they want to go. And the same
Speaker 1: thing is true for turkey hutting, which I found myself
Speaker 1: in that position yesterday. You know, it's how did I
Speaker 1: get in this position? I would never choose this position
Speaker 1: to try to call a turkey, but situations happen. Here's
Speaker 1: where I am, and I can't move. This is it's
Speaker 1: I can either just not call or I can try,
Speaker 1: and more time than not, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 3: We got this, this this t RCP fundraiser hunt. We
Speaker 3: got coming up. Me and Johannis. We have a spot
Speaker 3: where we agree. If you went there and didn't just
Speaker 3: crept in and didn't do anything, we have a few
Speaker 3: days to hunt. If you went there and didn't do
Speaker 3: anything and just sat there, you are absolutely you're gonna
Speaker 3: kill a turkey every day. Stay that. But he's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: what I was mentioning, But he's like, no one wants
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 1: If you set up the property correctly, you can take
Speaker 1: someone who is never turkey hunted and just say sit
Speaker 1: right here, sit right here, and be patient. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't put out a decoy. No, don't call,
Speaker 1: just sit They're going to come right through here.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: If you can't stand it and you want to scratch
Speaker 1: on a call a little bit, you know, give them
Speaker 1: a sleigh or a box call and just don't hit
Speaker 1: it more than three times and they'll feel like they're
Speaker 1: doing something and Okay, you're you're being active, but just
Speaker 1: sit here, you're eighty percent you're going to shoot a bird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are spots on this place. If you go
Speaker 3: where I think of a couple of them in particular,
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, there's just no if you had that time,
Speaker 3: there's no way if you just sat and ambushed and
Speaker 3: had a little shoot and hole out into an intersection
Speaker 3: every day, if every day. But no one wants to
Speaker 3: do that. Man, they want to get out, they want
Speaker 3: to make noise.
Speaker 1: But like I was saying, if you set the property
Speaker 1: up correctly, and if you have the luxury of having
Speaker 1: a property, private property where you can manage, and you
Speaker 1: just observe turkeys, just just observe them. And the same
Speaker 1: is true with with deer and other species. But you know,
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily hunting, but you're going out and you're
Speaker 1: observing and watching what they're doing, or when you are hunting,
Speaker 1: take you know, exercise some patience and just watch them
Speaker 1: instead of just trying to get in close or call
Speaker 1: them to you watch what they do, watch where they go.
Speaker 1: And then you can set up areas where there are
Speaker 1: some type of objects or funnels where the birds are
Speaker 1: going to walk through here, they're going to use this area,
Speaker 1: and then we will set up these specific spots to sit.
Speaker 1: And even if you're not a good caller, you're going
Speaker 1: to have excellent success because you know the property and
Speaker 1: you know the birds on your property, and you're not
Speaker 1: just setting up under the roofs tree trying to get
Speaker 1: them to come to you at first light, but you're
Speaker 1: allowing them to do their thing. You're not shooting too
Speaker 1: many of them, you know, instead of like there's five
Speaker 1: guys a hundred acres and the other properties around are
Speaker 1: also small, and everybody's trying to kill the birds. You know,
Speaker 1: back off of that where you know this property can
Speaker 1: only sustain so much hunting, so much harvest, and still
Speaker 1: have some of those older age turkeys out there. So
Speaker 1: I think paying attention to that is very important. And
Speaker 1: in those years where you're not seeing or hearing as
Speaker 1: many I realize private landowners, you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: polch for hand surveys or whatever necessarily, but at least
Speaker 1: your visual and auditory senses what you see and what
Speaker 1: you hear. If you're not seeing or hearing as many,
Speaker 1: back off of the kill some you know, stop trying
Speaker 1: to kill every goblin bird on the property and leave
Speaker 1: some so they can get into that older age group.
Speaker 1: And you're helping ensure that there's mature birds out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've mentioned that a couple of times. That's sticking
Speaker 3: with me that it seems like a thing you hear
Speaker 3: people say, like, are you saw always get my turkey
Speaker 3: the first day? Yes, now it takes me six days,
Speaker 3: I still get them.
Speaker 1: Or or we you know the group of hunters we
Speaker 1: used to kill twelve, Now you know we're lucky if
Speaker 1: we'll kill three. Well, look at how many of there
Speaker 1: are out there, and during those years of low productivity,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be that's going to show up in a
Speaker 1: couple of years once those birds would get to be two.
Speaker 1: And if you have really poor hatch years or really
Speaker 1: poor polt survival, you've got to meter your harvest along
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: How do people you have your services available? You do
Speaker 3: work for people and people can contact you. Well, is
Speaker 3: that not true? I have a day job.
Speaker 1: I work for the University of Tennessee and that keeps
Speaker 1: me extremely busy. I am on the road all the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if for some aspect, if you had
Speaker 3: clients that you went and worked with.
Speaker 1: I do, and I do a few of those each year.
Speaker 1: You know, we're allowed to do uh some consulting out
Speaker 1: of state, but I don't do much of that, and
Speaker 1: I don't advertise that also, although I just I guess
Speaker 1: I just said that to a whole lot of people.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so you don't want people emailing you their
Speaker 3: turkey questions.
Speaker 1: You know, email is like the bane of my existence.
Speaker 3: You just want to call, you want to call.
Speaker 1: It's like rules my life, man. I mean, that's my job.
Speaker 1: I've got to answer emails and there's just so much
Speaker 1: email pressure and we'll hit people with your cell phone.
Speaker 3: Would so, But if people want to look into if
Speaker 3: people want to see about let's say someone wants is
Speaker 3: so interested in wild turkeys, they want to start instead
Speaker 3: of listening to the guys at the bar, right, they
Speaker 3: want to are educating themselves about all aspects of turkey Okay,
Speaker 3: turkey behavior, turkey management, turkey biology. What do they do?
Speaker 3: What would you recommend someone does who wants to be
Speaker 3: on like cutting edge of turkey understanding.
Speaker 1: I think a great starting place is to look at
Speaker 1: your universities that are conducting turkey research, look at the
Speaker 1: products that they have available, whether that be written or podcast,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of those out there. At no time
Speaker 1: in the past have people been able to access scientific
Speaker 1: information and scientific information that has been written or delivered
Speaker 1: in a way that the layperson can understand than now.
Speaker 1: And so I would look specifically to those universities that
Speaker 1: are doing the research. Everything is online now and they're
Speaker 1: gobs of sources of not just information, but accurate information
Speaker 1: that isn't just someone's opinion, but this is science based
Speaker 1: and data driven.
Speaker 3: And when you crystal ball, when you look in your
Speaker 3: little your crystal ball, we're still hunting turkeys, and so
Speaker 3: my kids, my kids twelve, is he hunting turkeys when
Speaker 3: he's sixty two?
Speaker 1: Yes, I do think so.
Speaker 3: I do think so.
Speaker 1: I do not believe turkeys are going to crash everywhere.
Speaker 1: They're resilient birds. And we are taking giant steps ahead
Speaker 1: with all of the research that's being done to help
Speaker 1: find teune the the regulations and learn more about their
Speaker 1: needs and how management can make positive adjustments for all
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: You know what question I wish you could answer for me,
Speaker 3: is my kids twelve when he's thirty two? Is he
Speaker 3: hunting grizzlies in the lower forty eight. That's a political place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say, considering the political climate,
Speaker 1: that I would not guarantee.
Speaker 3: That's purely a political question. That question is completely divorced
Speaker 3: from anything I have to do with bio.
Speaker 1: I've heard, I've heard you have some opinions on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do, And like I said, I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't personally need to be I'm not personally asking or
Speaker 3: needing to be the one. In fact, if I could,
Speaker 3: I would. If someone said to me, I'm going to
Speaker 3: give you a choice, there's a choice here. We will
Speaker 3: follow the US Fish and Wildlife Services.
Speaker 1: We will.
Speaker 3: Follow their direction and follow what they've tried to do
Speaker 3: repeatedly and delist grizzly bears in some of the distinct
Speaker 3: population sect the Greater Yellowstone, the Northern Continental Divide populations
Speaker 3: that the US Fishing Wildlife Service has asked for the
Speaker 3: bears to be delisted. If people said to me, we
Speaker 3: will allow the Fishing Wildlife Services wishes to be carried out,
Speaker 3: and you have to agree that you'll never even try
Speaker 3: to draw a tag, I would say, no problem. Right,
Speaker 3: It's not like a personal thing it's not a personal thing,
Speaker 3: all right, tell people where you're at again, you don't
Speaker 3: want them to come find you though.
Speaker 1: The University of Tennessee.
Speaker 3: You can take gradual students. Oh, we've talked about that.
Speaker 3: You want people to come apply.
Speaker 1: For always look for good students. I have several really
Speaker 1: good graduate students right now. That that has been That
Speaker 1: has been my biggest blessing of this job, as having
Speaker 1: the graduate students that I have had. They have everyone,
Speaker 1: literally without exception, have been fantastic, fantastic people, fantastic workers,
Speaker 1: developed into find scientists. They're all over the country and
Speaker 1: every one.
Speaker 3: Of them has a wildlife job.
Speaker 1: I am very, very proud of them. It's the biggest
Speaker 1: blessing that I've gotten out of this job is my
Speaker 1: relationship with the graduate student.
Speaker 3: I got one. I do have one last question. What
Speaker 3: percentage of your graduate students are hunters or anglers? One?
Speaker 3: Is that right? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, every one of them. Now there's a couple of
Speaker 1: them that don't hunt much, but every one of them hunt.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a screening process, Steve. You know when
Speaker 1: when we're riding around during interviews and I asked them,
Speaker 1: where do y'all want to go eat. Uh, that's a
Speaker 1: tailing question right there. Oh you want to eat that? Well,
Speaker 1: I wish so bad. If I don't like fried fish
Speaker 1: and barbecue and whatnot, you know that we could have
Speaker 1: some issues. And number one, if you don't eat deer, mate,
Speaker 1: we got a big issue.
Speaker 3: I wish I could tell you who said this, man,
Speaker 3: But I know someone that gets a lot of grad
Speaker 3: students and technicians and stuff, you know, and they're saying
Speaker 3: they're walking me through. They're walking me through when they're
Speaker 3: looking at the applications and they're looking for you know,
Speaker 3: they're looking for the kid out of Minnesota that just
Speaker 3: did the crudiest jobs on the planet, you know, creole surveys,
Speaker 3: net surveys, you know what I mean. And he says, Man,
Speaker 3: the minute I see Costa Rica, that one's the tra
Speaker 3: you asked me. It's like people that can work.
Speaker 1: You asked me when I started about what I do.
Speaker 1: And I'll bring this back to the graduate student question.
Speaker 1: You know, when I finished my master's degree, there literally
Speaker 1: was no job even to apply for in wildlife in
Speaker 1: the region. There was nothing, And so I then looked
Speaker 1: at PhD positions. I had a couple of offers. I
Speaker 1: got into a PhD program, not because I necessarily wanted to,
Speaker 1: but I was married to the love of my life
Speaker 1: and had one daughter at that time, and I had
Speaker 1: to have a job, and so I was intrigued with
Speaker 1: the PhD possibility.
Speaker 3: So fast forward.
Speaker 1: I finished my PhD at Clemson, had a wonderful, wonderful
Speaker 1: experience at Clemson. But then I thought, now what am
Speaker 1: I going to do. You know, I'm not quote a professor,
Speaker 1: that's not me. I'm a manager. And I have just
Speaker 1: educated myself out of every job that I ever wanted.
Speaker 1: And it was at that time this position came open
Speaker 1: with the University of Tennessee in extension, and that extension
Speaker 1: responsibility fit me perfectly. And because I could have graduate
Speaker 1: student graduate students, I then decided, this is my goal
Speaker 1: for my professional life, and that is to produce Although
Speaker 1: I can't be an on the ground manager anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: I've just educated myself out of those jobs. But my
Speaker 1: goal is to produce the best managers that any state
Speaker 1: agency could possibly ask for. And that's what my graduate students,
Speaker 1: that's what they are. They are outstanding. They are managers.
Speaker 1: They become scientists while they're there and they've done a
Speaker 1: fantastic job.
Speaker 3: Good graduations. Keep pumping those hunters through the system.
Speaker 1: We are trying, all right, every bit.
Speaker 3: Professor, you can't call you professor, no, Doctor Craighart, Doctor Craighart,
Speaker 3: thank you for joining my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Ride on.
Speaker 5: On the seal, br shine like silver in the sun.
Speaker 1: Ride ride on alone, a sweetheart.
Speaker 3: Were done beat this damn horse today, taking a new drive.
Speaker 3: We're done beat this damn horse today, so take a
Speaker 3: new one and ride on.