Speaker 1: My name is Clay Neukleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h
Speaker 1: F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
Speaker 1: we explore.
Speaker 2: Sounds good, I love Yeah, my wife gets mad. I'd
Speaker 2: say a probably rather turkey out and breathe. There.
Speaker 3: Nobody that's married and turkey hunts. They've all heard that.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 4: That's pretty good. Bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds good. Beard, Welcome to the Bear Grease Render.
Speaker 4: It's Turkey Week.
Speaker 1: It's it you guys may not have known it, but
Speaker 1: it's Turkey week at Meat Eater. That's what I heard,
Speaker 1: which means all turkey, all day, all week.
Speaker 4: Non stop turkey action.
Speaker 1: Non stop. Tune in for non stop turkey action. Sound
Speaker 1: like a nineteen The turkeys don't stand a chance. We
Speaker 1: are going to talk about turkeys today and it's time.
Speaker 3: Holy cow.
Speaker 1: Down here or depending on where you're at, we could
Speaker 1: be up here for some people, but down here for
Speaker 1: a lot of the country. In Arkansas, Man the Red
Speaker 1: buds or budding. Did you notice that on the way
Speaker 1: here came?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Whenever I started on the interstate south, it was just
Speaker 2: like green. Yeah yeah, it's not as green back home.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Well it's uh, there are red buds out there.
Speaker 1: What's happening? And it's a mess.
Speaker 3: It's the same scenario when you get this south here,
Speaker 3: back towards Riley, of towards Mountainburg. From there on south,
Speaker 3: it's even twice as green as it is up this way.
Speaker 1: I've heard somebody say that for every I believe it
Speaker 1: was every ten miles south you drive, spring comes a
Speaker 1: day earlier.
Speaker 3: That's probably about right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's I don't know if that
Speaker 1: distance is right, but I know you drive fifty miles
Speaker 1: south of here and it is spring is way, and
Speaker 1: you get you know, it just keeps amplifying whether you go.
Speaker 1: But it's time, man. Uh, the when the red buds
Speaker 1: start to pop, Turkey start to gobble. Have you heard
Speaker 1: of turkey gobble yet this year?
Speaker 5: Mo?
Speaker 3: No, but I haven't been out to listen.
Speaker 1: It hadn't been out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well we we have with us today. I've got most Shepherd,
Speaker 1: longtime bear Grease favorite Turkey.
Speaker 4: He's real greasy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's greasy. I've got Josh Lambridge, filmmaker Bear John Newcomb,
Speaker 1: and Cameron Tidwell. Yes, sir from Missouri, Yes, sir, very
Speaker 1: southern Missouri. You're almost Arkansas.
Speaker 2: I'm almost Arkansas. Yep, yep. Grew up in pe Ridge, Yeah,
Speaker 2: peer Ridge, Arkansas.
Speaker 3: And then he left the state.
Speaker 2: Then I left and found I left for the turkeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And my wife's from Missouri, the fact that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, just as a little introduction, Moe and Cam are
Speaker 1: arch rivals at the annual Black Bear Bonanza al Hoodolph.
Speaker 2: I'm happy when he doesn't show up.
Speaker 1: They know, for multiple years y'all competed against each other,
Speaker 1: and there's there's always this big pool of people that
Speaker 1: are doing a natural Voice alhu which we have with
Speaker 1: the Natural Voice Alhoot competition at the Black Bear Bonanza,
Speaker 1: and the it's a blind judging panel, and they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have to move me off the panel because I
Speaker 1: did so much. I know who's calling. But there'll be
Speaker 1: new people up there every year, and it's always the same.
Speaker 1: It's been the same three.
Speaker 3: Except when I wasn't there last year and the year
Speaker 3: before Moe and Brian were not in it, and then
Speaker 3: it was like taking candy from a baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I won.
Speaker 1: The second time, Yeah, so you've won that content.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have beat Mo and Brian once. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: then the second time they were not there.
Speaker 3: I think I think read you beat me though that
Speaker 3: year before that is because after it all, I was
Speaker 3: talking claim he said, I kind of recognized your al
Speaker 3: went there and.
Speaker 1: I was penalizing you.
Speaker 3: No, no, that's not true.
Speaker 1: But Mo, you've come in second place like multiple.
Speaker 3: Times, yeah, three times, three times.
Speaker 2: That it's pretty consistent of won twice.
Speaker 1: And then what's Brian's last name? Cobb Cobb, brianbb and.
Speaker 2: He's won, He's won two times. I've won twice and
Speaker 2: coming and three times.
Speaker 4: And Moe's always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Speaker 3: But you got to be pretty good to place the
Speaker 3: same time every year.
Speaker 4: True.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, uh no, bears getting a pretty good ol
Speaker 1: hoot getting there, getting there. Maybe one day you'll be
Speaker 1: up there on the stage.
Speaker 4: But if you just cruise down the road in your truck,
Speaker 4: just hooting, just.
Speaker 1: About I'll tell you the most like developmental time in
Speaker 1: my owl hooting journey was whenever a bunch of owls
Speaker 1: flew up to me and they just started like hooting
Speaker 1: in a circle, and I just listened to him. And
Speaker 1: then every now and then I would jump in and
Speaker 1: they would all kind of stop and look at me.
Speaker 1: I mean, they like knew I was there, but I
Speaker 1: was just like replicating them. Yeah, I would say my
Speaker 1: ole hoot like got a lot better. Progressed quite a
Speaker 1: bit just from listening to real owls, oh one percent.
Speaker 1: I mean they're easy to call in. We've had an
Speaker 1: owl that's actually been coming to our house.
Speaker 5: Mo.
Speaker 3: That's that.
Speaker 1: I just stepped out of the porch the other night
Speaker 1: and heard him about three hundred yards away, and I
Speaker 1: owled and came back in the house, and you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, he's in one of these trees like
Speaker 1: right here, and uh yeah, we had we had the
Speaker 1: windows open and you could hear him and I'd owl
Speaker 1: at him and we had a little fun little deal
Speaker 1: this morning.
Speaker 2: I called it an owl listen for turkeys. Really yep, yep.
Speaker 2: I actually have it on video on my phone. But
Speaker 2: he started hooting turkey's goblin and I could hear him
Speaker 2: getting closer, and he, I mean he flew, he just
Speaker 2: landed right above me this morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where the turkey's answering him?
Speaker 2: Uh, they were answered me, and then they'd flown down
Speaker 2: and by the time he was amped up, they'd stopped goblin.
Speaker 1: How many did you hear this morning too? Too? Did
Speaker 1: they gobble pretty good?
Speaker 2: They gobbled really well this morning. Actually it's crisp and uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: they gobbled good today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what's the earliest you've ever turkey hunted? Mo
Speaker 1: legally legally.
Speaker 3: Serious? Think?
Speaker 1: No, have you ever hunted Mississippi?
Speaker 3: I've never hunted Mississippi, but I've hunted, Uh, I've hunted
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma's every year ago the season opened the it
Speaker 3: was a twenty something of March, and then the earliest
Speaker 3: I've ever hunted darkest all I used to open all
Speaker 3: the time on April the first. So that's the earliest
Speaker 3: dates I've ever turkey hunted is Yeah, is April the first?
Speaker 3: And other than youth hunts, now I have I'll member
Speaker 3: back that up years ago when I and I still
Speaker 3: take youth hunts out. But uh, there's been a time
Speaker 3: or two where the youth hunt was a full week
Speaker 3: ahead of our season. We don't in April the first,
Speaker 3: So the youth hunt was, you know, the twenty March
Speaker 3: twenty sixth, twenty fifth, twenty sixth something other of march.
Speaker 3: So I have I have taken youth youth kids out
Speaker 3: on that hunt during during the march.
Speaker 1: Have you ever hunted Florida?
Speaker 2: Never hunted Florida, But I have killed turkey Mississippi hunted
Speaker 2: there one time. It's the only place I've ever hunted
Speaker 2: where I the gobbler. Never heard of Gobble, called him
Speaker 2: up cold, no seen him, put the stock on him.
Speaker 3: Killed, Yeah, bush com Oni, sure did.
Speaker 1: Sure, there's man, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have any shame in bushwhacking one.
Speaker 2: If it if it's just what it takes, that is well,
Speaker 2: I don't know how you'd have killed one. There was
Speaker 2: a flock of him and they wouldn't do nothing. So
Speaker 2: I just there was literally so like it was a
Speaker 2: public place and you could tell they, uh, they lo
Speaker 2: would like flood it for waterfowl hunting. So it was
Speaker 2: huge levees and there was one tree out and that
Speaker 2: I could see from the bottom, and that turkey was
Speaker 2: standing underneath that tree. So I just ran and got
Speaker 2: to the climb where I could see that tree popped
Speaker 2: up and I couldn't see him, and I looked and
Speaker 2: he was right here, and he took off run and
Speaker 2: I shot him about thirty five yards, got him, got him.
Speaker 3: Got him.
Speaker 1: Well, Josh, you've you've you've never had it out of state,
Speaker 1: not out of state. No, yeah, hey, I gotta show
Speaker 1: y'all this. I gotta show y'all this. Uh hey, mo,
Speaker 1: you see that picture on the back.
Speaker 4: Of that who whoo?
Speaker 3: Who is that? Looks like mister Clay Newton.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, this is the Phelps Prime cuts.
Speaker 3: Uh Diephram probably gonna tell me next that was named
Speaker 3: after you or something that.
Speaker 1: I'm choking up over here that my name's on that call.
Speaker 1: Me and Jason Phelps we really worked on he sent me.
Speaker 1: I told him what I wanted in a call. I
Speaker 1: basically wanted the best of both worlds, which which was,
Speaker 1: to me, a call that I could purr on real
Speaker 1: light perr and KICKI run, but also had like some
Speaker 1: real raspy yelps. And I'm not the best caller in
Speaker 1: the world. I mean, I'm really the best caller here.
Speaker 3: But ford's your sharkout throwing around that way chair.
Speaker 1: I don't glam to be the best turkey collar in
Speaker 1: the world. But uh, but I I like to call
Speaker 1: turkeys and I used to. I probably used to be
Speaker 1: a little more serious about it than I than I
Speaker 1: am today. But uh but I wanted I wanted one
Speaker 1: that I could really let me. Let's see see how
Speaker 1: this translates to podcasting.
Speaker 5: Ah h yeah, let's hear some soft pearse.
Speaker 2: Now that's a soft as I got there, you go.
Speaker 1: I like it, though, And I like that it's a brown,
Speaker 1: a brown call. I don't. I don't like a call
Speaker 1: that's uh colored like a turkey's head.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, all these really bright calls, and and you know,
Speaker 1: we make some of them, uh and I I told,
Speaker 1: I told Jason that we need to make them.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: They're harder to see if you lose them on the ground.
Speaker 1: But like that coffee down on the.
Speaker 4: Ground and you're searching for it, that's Jill's.
Speaker 1: Gary Nucomb taught me when I was a kid not
Speaker 1: to use a blue mouth turkey call, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're carrying around your mouth. I mean sometimes, I mean, you,
Speaker 1: God forbid somebody do this. But it happens where you
Speaker 1: see color and you assume that it's a turkey head.
Speaker 1: But uh, anyway, I like the color of this call
Speaker 1: it's brown.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I see people I run across people out in the
Speaker 3: woods clay that and I've told them when I met him,
Speaker 3: they'll have like a they'll have on their hat and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I don't know whether they're going to put a
Speaker 3: whole head and down a lot of them just have
Speaker 3: you know, a face wrap around or whatever. And they'll
Speaker 3: have a hat on like a camo hat, you know,
Speaker 3: have a bright red or something other like a Turkey's
Speaker 3: emblem on it or something other. And I say, hey, man,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be wearing that with why And then I
Speaker 3: tell them why?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I've had friends. Have you ever, I know
Speaker 1: you've never been shot. Have you seen anybody or been
Speaker 1: like in close proximity to somebody being shot?
Speaker 3: Never been in close proximity. But I know of a
Speaker 3: couple of people that's been shot or shot at close
Speaker 3: and you know, not heard or anything. But had one
Speaker 3: time happened to me where a guy was was slipping
Speaker 3: up on me. It was actually crawling like Indian crawling
Speaker 3: on the ground, coming right towards me.
Speaker 1: Now, was he here in a real turkey gobble and
Speaker 1: you were just in between him or did he Yeah.
Speaker 3: He was trying to sneak up on the turkey and
Speaker 3: you thought I was a hen. But I'm saying when
Speaker 3: I seen him, I just stood up and hollered real
Speaker 3: loud at him, said, hey, man, I'm a hunt you know.
Speaker 3: And he kind of freaked out. He stood up and yeah,
Speaker 3: and I didn't get talked to him. He took off
Speaker 3: the other way.
Speaker 1: So he took off. Yeah, man, Bear, I'm Bear's hunting
Speaker 1: some places that have a lot of pressure.
Speaker 4: And I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and and I do too. But just in
Speaker 1: the last year, he he was hunting a lot of
Speaker 1: places and uh, man, did that makes me nervous?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: One time I was at at our turkey camp. I
Speaker 1: actually was off hunting, but my were you there, Josh?
Speaker 1: You were with You were with me probably and lost
Speaker 1: and we were we were off hunting and a guy
Speaker 1: had been shot and there was a doctor at our camp,
Speaker 1: John Mesco. And this guy came to our camp and
Speaker 1: because he knew that John Mesco was there, doctor.
Speaker 4: John Mescoe, and uh in seventeen pellets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he took off his shirt. Basically, it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: what do I need to do. I'm did John pull
Speaker 1: out his pocket knife and start plucking?
Speaker 6: He may have, but he said you could go to
Speaker 6: the emergency room, but they're probably not gonna do anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look, they would just leave the pelot in there.
Speaker 4: If they weren't lead.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the guy just finally was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just.
Speaker 4: He wasn't incapacitated or anything. He just has pelots in him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people get killed an older man.
Speaker 6: An older man had shot him, saw something white or
Speaker 6: blue on the back of his shirt and shot at him.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But these new heavy loads, boy, it seems it's Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like it could be more consequential.
Speaker 2: You know, are people that carry a fan on public land?
Speaker 2: I don't think that's very It's risky. It's pretty risky. Yeah,
Speaker 2: even on private land in as it's risky. But you
Speaker 2: don't always know what he's out there, especially on cam.
Speaker 1: What do you think about fan in Turkeys? Just like
Speaker 1: from you know, there's this ethical debate about whether it's ethical.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I've done
Speaker 2: it before and it's fun, but it ain't my number
Speaker 2: one way to do it. No way do I think
Speaker 2: it's unethical. Depends on how bad of a season you're having,
Speaker 2: but generally no, don't fan. Yeah, that's just I don't know.
Speaker 2: Normally just don't have to. I don't like carrying them,
Speaker 2: carrying around, don't like messing with the decoys very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm in the same boat as Cam. I don't.
Speaker 3: I've never used a fan on one and decoys I
Speaker 3: might use twice in a whole year, and it has
Speaker 3: to be a special situation. And usually it's like when
Speaker 3: I'm taking somebody else, like an elderly person or a kid,
Speaker 3: to try to keep a turkey's attention off of the
Speaker 3: kid moving or something other like that. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I read As far as myself, I hardly, I hardly
Speaker 3: ever use it.
Speaker 1: You're on thick woods, you're not a lot of field edges, and.
Speaker 3: No, no, I don't hunt hardly, unless, like I said,
Speaker 3: I sometimes I take you on some private name where
Speaker 3: I have permission to hunt. But I hardly every hunted myself. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like I've got a mother in law that she'll be
Speaker 3: eighty one this year. I don't know if she'll get
Speaker 3: to go this year, but I've took her in years past,
Speaker 3: and it's three or four year ago. I took her
Speaker 3: to friend mine's private place and set up some decoys
Speaker 3: and called in a nice gullar for and I think
Speaker 3: she was seventy six at the time, you know, and
Speaker 3: she was able to take it.
Speaker 4: S awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's there's there's an ethical question about
Speaker 1: fan and turkey.
Speaker 4: What are they?
Speaker 1: What do they call they do? They'll call it reaping,
Speaker 1: reaping turkeysping, where basically.
Speaker 2: It's what you crawl up on them. You know, he's
Speaker 2: a fan, you're a fan, and you advance on the
Speaker 2: turkey basically.
Speaker 3: When he's sitting out there in the middle of a
Speaker 3: than field or a cornfield or a big past year
Speaker 3: or whatever strutt and you just pull that front on
Speaker 3: the ground and crawl and crawl until you getting don
Speaker 3: andyth and to shoot them.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of people that really get worked
Speaker 1: up about it. Have you seen this bear people?
Speaker 3: People?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's illegal in a couple of states.
Speaker 2: It is, Yeah, and more states are making it illegal,
Speaker 2: especially on public land, because it is dangerous.
Speaker 3: Is it effective, dude, Yeah, it's effective.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's highly effective. That's part of the that's part
Speaker 1: of the I don't that's the reason they're making it illegal,
Speaker 1: but that's that's part of it. Is it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not turkey hunting. Yes, anytime people start talking about
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, with any kind of hunting, I
Speaker 1: always go, man, you better you live in a probably
Speaker 1: live in a glass house if you're not careful, because
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like mojo decoys on duck hunting. I mean,
Speaker 1: like like action decoys that like in duck hunting, there
Speaker 1: are no holds barred on what kind of decoys you
Speaker 1: can use. You're trying to just get them right on
Speaker 1: top of you, and it's legal and ethical and fine
Speaker 1: and no big deal for the most part. And then
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, what about putting up blinds and
Speaker 1: putting out feed TSS to long rain being able to
Speaker 1: shoot seventy five yards the average turkey gun, well I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true, but the average turkey gun being
Speaker 1: able to kill a turkey at fifty yards man, yeah.
Speaker 2: Fifty Well with TSS and three and a half inch
Speaker 2: twelve gauges or ten gauges even you can shoot a
Speaker 2: turkey way too far. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: that's where I wouldn't want to do that myself.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I like to call the turkey in, you know, that's
Speaker 2: where you beat him whenever he comes to you.
Speaker 3: I like to see their eyeballs.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: But does it not depend on how bad a turkey
Speaker 1: season you're having?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to judge you.
Speaker 1: Well, see, that's just the thing. I mean, it's it's like,
Speaker 1: there comes a point when when regulations affect harvest and
Speaker 1: I think the range of turkey. I mean, the reason
Speaker 1: we don't use rifles is because we're.
Speaker 3: Two reason safety and limit your range on how far
Speaker 3: you can shoot a turkey. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, is it even spring turkey hunting
Speaker 1: if you're shooting one at two hundred yards?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I mean at the same time, everyone's heard the
Speaker 2: phrase like ten percent of the guys are killing ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the turkeys. Yeah, most of those guys are
Speaker 2: not using this crutch or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: You know, let's say the vast majority aren't fanning or
Speaker 2: shooting you know, turkeys at seventy five yards. You know,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like the most of those
Speaker 2: people loved a turkey hunt. That's why they're part of
Speaker 2: that ten percent of people because they respect it and
Speaker 2: they love it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's really true, though, I belik you
Speaker 1: think ninety percent of turkeys are getting killed by ten
Speaker 1: percent of people. I mean, it's awfully convenient because that's
Speaker 1: a good fishing statement to mister Kanp, well.
Speaker 2: Maybe not. That's don't take it them. You know what
Speaker 2: I say.
Speaker 3: You know I do. I agree with him, but I
Speaker 3: think it's more in my opinion, everybody's opinions, but my
Speaker 3: opinion is it's the same scenario, but I think it's
Speaker 3: more of like especially nowadays, with all the extra stuff
Speaker 3: they've got compared to like when I started turking outing
Speaker 3: forty seven, forty eight years ago, the stuff help them
Speaker 3: like fanning or back at the back in the stone age.
Speaker 3: Mister nukeombe.
Speaker 4: Using an idle addle.
Speaker 3: But what I was going to say was, I think
Speaker 3: it's more in my opinion, a seventy five twenty five percent.
Speaker 3: I think twenty five percent hunters killed the majority of
Speaker 3: the turkeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: No that I know that was your even like YouTube,
Speaker 2: I mean my grandpa when he grew up, or even mo.
Speaker 2: You know you figured it out yourself. You know, there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of tips and really good stuff out there.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's what you guys do. You know, you
Speaker 2: put stuff out there.
Speaker 3: To make people to learn, people learn, you know, can
Speaker 3: move out.
Speaker 2: I mean it it definitely speeds up the process in
Speaker 2: my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah it is. It really is a different
Speaker 1: game with all the information. And I'm not it's always
Speaker 1: interesting conversation when you talk about reaping a turkey and
Speaker 1: then all these technological changes that that make turkey hunting easier,
Speaker 1: or make any any sport easier. I feel like, as
Speaker 1: long as we're meeting our management goals, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to regulate some of that stuff. But I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: never fan to turkey. But it's not because I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done it. I'm usually just hunting in woods where
Speaker 1: you're not like seeing them from four hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't be above it. Bo, what are
Speaker 1: your turkey plans for this year? Are you going out
Speaker 1: of state or you say you stay.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start my season out with the Arkansas Youth Hunt.
Speaker 3: I've got a ten year old boy I'm gonna take out.
Speaker 3: It's never been turkey hunting before. I'm gonna take him.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'll probably just get taken one of
Speaker 3: those two days, and then that's on like the twelfth
Speaker 3: or thirteenth, and then I'm going to out into Oklahoma
Speaker 3: on the sixteenth and hunt the sixteenth, seventeenth, and maybe
Speaker 3: the eighteenth if I don't have any luck the first
Speaker 3: couple of days, I'm gonna stay a third morning and hunt,
Speaker 3: and then I'm gonna come back for Easter here at home.
Speaker 3: They are Easter thing at home, and then I'm gonna
Speaker 3: hunt a couple of days opening our season here. So
Speaker 3: that's my plans right now. So nice, good on public land.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I am going to Kentucky to hunt some
Speaker 6: turkeys with a with a couple of guests we had
Speaker 6: on here for the renders from the Tobacco Wars. They
Speaker 6: were generous enough to invite me to go hunting. And
Speaker 6: then on the twenty sixth, I'm gonna be hunting a
Speaker 6: Missouri turkey with mister Cameron todwell Man.
Speaker 1: Josh is getting all the invites now ever since ever
Speaker 1: since I mean Horizon with my mustache, people coming in
Speaker 1: and they meet uh, they meet Brent and Josh, and
Speaker 1: Brent and Josh get all the invites and everything.
Speaker 3: Play don't get invited for nothing.
Speaker 4: No, he just has to go to Alaska the hunt goats.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, so you're going with Cam going to camp,
Speaker 4: going to camp. Fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Last year Demi who got second now contest I
Speaker 2: had with her and her husband and called in a
Speaker 2: turkey for her. That was fun last year. I like,
Speaker 2: you know, that's one of the good things in Missouri.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the good things about that event
Speaker 2: is meeting people. I like to see the same people
Speaker 2: every time.
Speaker 1: Like, well, you know, could well I'm kind of changing
Speaker 1: the subject just a little bit. What would be what
Speaker 1: do you think let's go around the let's go around
Speaker 1: the room here. What is the epicenter of American turkey
Speaker 1: hunting in terms of a state, Like if you just
Speaker 1: had to say this is not not the best, not
Speaker 1: the place you'd go to kill a turkey, but the
Speaker 1: cultural epicenter, Like if you just had to pick one state,
Speaker 1: where would it Where? Where would it be?
Speaker 3: Mo On everything I've read or watched or heard over
Speaker 3: the years, Uh, I would probably say Missouri.
Speaker 1: Missouri, they have Uh and.
Speaker 3: I've never hunted, but I'm just saying if I took
Speaker 3: my mother to be no turkey's left, that's right, he'd
Speaker 3: kill them all.
Speaker 1: Missouri.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say Missouri because I've heard of good hunts,
Speaker 3: great hunts in Missouri when I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: for even and I started turkey hunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think they had They have some of
Speaker 1: the biggest harvests in the country. Yeah, Bear, what do
Speaker 1: you think, Well, I've only ever hunted in Arkansas, but
Speaker 1: from what I've heard and what you said on the podcast,
Speaker 1: you've probably indoctrinated me. But I think Mississippi. Mississippi. Now,
Speaker 1: why why would you think such a crazy thing? Well,
Speaker 1: all the turkey hunters I know from Mississippi seemed to
Speaker 1: be pretty are really good. Yeah, it's like a seems
Speaker 1: to be like a religion. Yep, yep. And that's my
Speaker 1: only that's my only real exposure to any other state.
Speaker 1: I mean, other than I guess Missouri. Didn't have a
Speaker 1: father that took you all over the country as a kid.
Speaker 4: You just made him Arkansas public. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's what my dad did too. No, my dad took
Speaker 1: me to Missouri when I was a senior in high
Speaker 1: school in Mississippi, I killed a turkey. Well, I wasn't
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. I hunted Mississippi. Uh but what about what
Speaker 1: about you cam?
Speaker 2: Where is so? I think there's two different ways to
Speaker 2: think about it. Missouri is one of them. You know,
Speaker 2: that's where a lot of reintroduction happened came from. Missouri
Speaker 2: started out there. It started out there, you know. But
Speaker 2: you hear a lot of people talk about Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I've never hunted Alabama. I've hunted Mississippi.
Speaker 2: But down there, you know, along that line, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of good turkey hunters and people that love it
Speaker 2: get it, you know what I mean? Ye yep, down there, yep, yep.
Speaker 6: Josh, Well, just in the you know, having been the
Speaker 6: producer part of the Bear Grease podcast and interviewing people
Speaker 6: in Mississippi, everybody talks about turkey hunt.
Speaker 4: I mean it's like they deer hunt.
Speaker 6: They you know that, you know, we got got they
Speaker 6: got a bear program down there, but everybody talks about
Speaker 6: turkey hunting. And so I feel like, of all the
Speaker 6: people I've talked to, that's where the that's where it
Speaker 6: seems to be ingrained in outdoors Min's turkey hunters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well and that and you're right, Bar, That's what
Speaker 1: I've always said, is that I feel like Mississippi is
Speaker 1: the cultural epicenter. That doesn't mean that that's true. I
Speaker 1: just I think if you looked at the number of
Speaker 1: people that have written turkey books and write about it
Speaker 1: and just the way it's kind of handled down there,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's uh. I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like Mississippi has a run. But I think it'd be
Speaker 1: between Missouri. Are you in Mississippi? And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that there's not as good as turkey hunters or people
Speaker 1: love them just as much in Alabama and Georgia and
Speaker 1: even in Arkansas. But those two I would say those
Speaker 1: two places Mississippi.
Speaker 3: If I picked the second state, I would have said
Speaker 3: Mississippi because, like I said, before I ever started turkey
Speaker 3: hunting and got interested in hunting, all you could do
Speaker 3: is just read books about stuff, and in Missouri and
Speaker 3: then a lot of stuff from Mississippi. You'd read about
Speaker 3: hunters from Mississippi, and then and then it just seemed
Speaker 3: like those two states were, like you said, there, that
Speaker 3: seemed like the you hear more. I did when I
Speaker 3: was growing up, way back in the Stone Age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the place to seene Moe was once calling up
Speaker 1: a turkey and a groundsloth walked up on him. Had
Speaker 1: to shoo it off.
Speaker 3: I shoot it off. I didn't want to shoot it,
Speaker 3: you know, because there was only two three up left.
Speaker 1: Uh. Well, Mo, what was the best hunt you had
Speaker 1: last year?
Speaker 3: I gotta think for a minute. Probably the funnest time
Speaker 3: I had, because it was tough last year, But probably
Speaker 3: the funnest time I had didn't involve killing a turkey.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: I took a friend of mine that had never turkey
Speaker 3: hunted before, and we got out and it was the
Speaker 3: second day we'd went. It was opening the season, and
Speaker 3: we'd heard birds the first day but never got any
Speaker 3: within shotgun range, Javis. And second day, we make a
Speaker 3: long story short, we got on a bird. He answered us,
Speaker 3: and it was you know, it wasn't early of mornings
Speaker 3: on up in the day, And so we walked towards
Speaker 3: him a wayst and I called again. He answered again,
Speaker 3: and so I got us to spot and I said,
Speaker 3: let's set up here. And there was an old like
Speaker 3: an old fence or something O there. I think it
Speaker 3: was like an old web wire fence or something other,
Speaker 3: but it was just pieces and parts of it. And
Speaker 3: I looked at that and I seen where I said.
Speaker 3: I thought, well, I'm in the range of that, and
Speaker 3: I put my friend about ten yards in front of me.
Speaker 3: I said, let's just sit right here, and I backed
Speaker 3: up there and started calling. It didn't take this few minutes.
Speaker 3: I seen the gobler come and he come in. He
Speaker 3: strutted right up to that fence, and I was waiting
Speaker 3: for my friend to shoot it. I couldn't see what
Speaker 3: he was doing other than he had, you know, the
Speaker 3: gun up on his knees. He didn't shoot anything. Finally,
Speaker 3: the turkey quit strutting. He just kind of ducked under
Speaker 3: that fence and stepped out on those side and puffed
Speaker 3: up again right there and just you know, struted out
Speaker 3: and everything. I thought, okay, it's time to shoot. It's
Speaker 3: time to shoot, you know. That put that turkey about
Speaker 3: probably thirty five yards of him, and and he kept
Speaker 3: sitting there, and it turned and started strutting kind of
Speaker 3: I think, to our right, and so it was moving
Speaker 3: and past him, and I thought, well, if it gets
Speaker 3: far enough away from him if for some reason he
Speaker 3: didn't shoot it, I think I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 3: take the turkey. Well, it stopped in and kind of
Speaker 3: run its head up like they did, and looked around,
Speaker 3: and then it just dropped its head and took off,
Speaker 3: walking straight away like that. And after the hunt was over,
Speaker 3: I got up and he's down there to where he's sitting,
Speaker 3: and I said, hey, what happened? He said it was
Speaker 3: close enough, wasn't it. He didn't think it was close enough.
Speaker 3: And but that was a that was a really fun hunt.
Speaker 3: Because we're we're good friends now and stuff. We worked
Speaker 3: together for a few years and and it was a
Speaker 3: fun hunt. And and he's hooked on turkey hunting now,
Speaker 3: so that he's.
Speaker 1: Going, were you did you? How did you handle that?
Speaker 1: Did you kind of chuckle about or did were you
Speaker 1: kind of upset about it? I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: weren't mad at him. I just laughed at him, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we would have bothered me, man, it be all mad.
Speaker 3: It didn't bother me at all.
Speaker 1: Watched it walk off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just watched it walk off and everything, and
Speaker 3: I said, hey, we'll get another and and then we
Speaker 3: got we went Then the next morning, the last day
Speaker 3: of our hunt that was hunting together and UH got
Speaker 3: two birds of goblin and they were coming right to us.
Speaker 3: This comes back to what we've talked about. The first show.
Speaker 3: I hadn't heard no other calls. I hadn't heard no
Speaker 3: hens or anything that I could tell was and these
Speaker 3: turkeys were just out of our sight, kind of a
Speaker 3: cross a draw, and they were just you know, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Speaker 3: gobble at each other or gobbled us. That about that
Speaker 3: time I heard one of them pert real loud and
Speaker 3: then boom, boom boom, like three shots, and two guys
Speaker 3: were running towards them. Had snuck up in on them there.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they hadn't heard us or what
Speaker 3: they're doing, but anyway, they shot at them on the run,
Speaker 3: didn't kill kill the turkey's eight turkeys running flew off
Speaker 3: and that hunt was over. So but but that that
Speaker 3: second day, I'll tell you on that that was probably
Speaker 3: my favorite favorite hunt of the of the year. Was
Speaker 3: out there. I called in several young birds last year
Speaker 3: that I passed up. I was just had my mindset
Speaker 3: because our turkey numbers are low, that I was only
Speaker 3: gonna take one of it as a big mature. I
Speaker 3: could tell it was a four or five year old gobbler.
Speaker 3: And I never called any in like that down here
Speaker 3: that I could get a shot at.
Speaker 1: But man talking about a turkey going under the fence.
Speaker 1: This actually happened two years ago. But I was hunting
Speaker 1: with Lake Pickle and Jordan blissed Done in Mississippi, and
Speaker 1: we we heard birds at daylight and we went after him,
Speaker 1: and we made three different On the third set up
Speaker 1: that morning, these birds were kind of just hung up
Speaker 1: in this this little pocket and really wouldn't move much.
Speaker 1: And we started on one side and set up and
Speaker 1: called and they'd answer us, but never comes. So we
Speaker 1: made a big circle around him and basically got to
Speaker 1: the edge of the property and we called, and you know,
Speaker 1: one of them cut us off, and he called it
Speaker 1: and he gobbled again, and we knew they were coming.
Speaker 1: So we sat down and I'm twenty yards from a
Speaker 1: fence line and a pasture that's not ours, So we're
Speaker 1: on our land, but you're.
Speaker 3: Twenty eight twenty yards from and we're twenty.
Speaker 1: Yards and we're looking into this kind of open field
Speaker 1: that we can't hurt.
Speaker 2: Turkeys live on property lines yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so as I remember it, Jordan was back behind
Speaker 1: us and he was doing most of the calling, and
Speaker 1: me and Lak a kind of set up, you know,
Speaker 1: right in range of the turkeys. But I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the shooter on this deal. And uh, sure enough,
Speaker 1: the turkey goes quiet after he cut us off like twice,
Speaker 1: and we know, we feel like he's coming. And sure
Speaker 1: enough I see him coming up the fence line on
Speaker 1: the other side of the fence, and so I'm just
Speaker 1: like fixated on that. Here's this turkey and I can't
Speaker 1: shoot it, you know. And he he comes to just
Speaker 1: like perfect gun rangement on the other side of the fence,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna shoot him, like period.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 1: And and I think that Lake clucked or Lake scratched
Speaker 1: the leaves he reached down, and I was fixated on
Speaker 1: the turkey looking and I just hear Lake behind me,
Speaker 1: and I hear leaves scratching, and I go, he's looking
Speaker 1: at us. Quit moving. I thought Lake was like just
Speaker 1: like moving around, and Lake was knew exactly what he
Speaker 1: was doing. He had his hand on the turkey, couldn't
Speaker 1: see him and was scratching the lead. I thought he
Speaker 1: was just like moving around, you know, and I'm like, like, credit, credit,
Speaker 1: well that scratch and turn that turkey and he dips
Speaker 1: under that fence and comes up on the other side.
Speaker 1: And somehow I my eyes were playing tricks with me
Speaker 1: still on which side of the fence he was is
Speaker 1: imagine a five strand Barbara fence in this turkey just
Speaker 1: like within three feet of it, And I was like,
Speaker 1: pretty sure I saw him go under it, but they
Speaker 1: just kind of just kind of glided under it like water.
Speaker 1: And so the turkey's just like right on top of
Speaker 1: us in Lake, and I go, is he on our
Speaker 1: side of the fence? And Lake's like, shoot, and I go,
Speaker 1: that's not what I asked you, Lake, I asked you,
Speaker 1: is the turkey you know? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, is he on our side of the fence?
Speaker 1: And he goes, he's on our side of the fence, shoot,
Speaker 1: you know, And the turkey's just he's just right there,
Speaker 1: you know, just right on the fence line, but on
Speaker 1: our side. And uh, anyway, Yeah, that that fence about
Speaker 1: got me about got me.
Speaker 4: Are you hunting with a twenty gauge turkey?
Speaker 3: Hunt with the twin guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mo out with the twelve hunt with a twelve,
Speaker 1: twelve hunting with a twenty last year, but usually with
Speaker 1: a twelve. Okay, what was your favorite hunt from last year?
Speaker 2: Opening day? Last year? I out with my best friend,
Speaker 2: my cousin Tanner every year, and uh, we've went into
Speaker 2: the same public piece three years in a row and
Speaker 2: killed four turkeys out of it. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: pretty good, but it's hard to get to. You got
Speaker 2: to float upstream and you can't get a big boat
Speaker 2: in there. And my brother and her other friend went
Speaker 2: further down and their story gets very interesting. My brother
Speaker 2: got bit by a snake, but they killed two turkeys. Wow,
Speaker 2: everything's fine. But anyway back to me and Tanner. The
Speaker 2: first turkeys that we set up on, you know, they
Speaker 2: were on the private but they typically worked back into
Speaker 2: this bottom. Because we've been there, we know the area.
Speaker 2: Boom right at daylight. That's like, crap, somebody's shut on
Speaker 2: the private land killed the turkey. First time I've ever
Speaker 2: heard private turkey land turkey hunters there. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: all right, so move down the creek bottom to the
Speaker 2: next knob. Turkey's goblin boom. Another Turkey gets killed, all right,
Speaker 2: start working further down the creek bottom and I call
Speaker 2: and Tanner said, Turkey answered you. I said, no, it didn't.
Speaker 2: He said, call again, He'll hit you again. Called sure enough,
Speaker 2: across the branch. Turkey gobbled up on a knob. So
Speaker 2: we start making our way. We cross the strike creek branch.
Speaker 2: I get to this flat's the prettiest like river bottom ever,
Speaker 2: lot of little trees. Call Turkey gobbles again, like okay,
Speaker 2: and we've killed a turkey on this exact spot before.
Speaker 2: It's a old cut road through here, and it's real
Speaker 2: thick on this side, and then it opens back up. Well,
Speaker 2: we get as close as we think we can get
Speaker 2: to him, and Tanner's supposed to shoot first, so he
Speaker 2: gets about sixty yards from me and gets so up.
Speaker 2: I back up, and the whole time we're walking in
Speaker 2: the leaves at Turkey just he's hearing us in the
Speaker 2: leaves and he thinks that, you know, we're a group
Speaker 2: of hens. I get sat down on this little sweet
Speaker 2: gum tree. Tanner's up there. I can hear the turkey gobble,
Speaker 2: and he's working his way back down into the bottom
Speaker 2: from that knob. Well, I'm watching Tanner and I'm calling.
Speaker 2: He's just sitting there and I see him start bearing
Speaker 2: down on his gun, so I'm like, this turkey is
Speaker 2: about to get smoked. Then I see him about a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes later, he eases off the gun and
Speaker 2: he looks at me and he does this very slightly.
Speaker 1: Like the.
Speaker 2: Have hunted together a ton a lot. I think he
Speaker 2: wants me to call. I think the turkey is drifting off,
Speaker 2: so I just right to my right, and I'm a
Speaker 2: right handed guy. I thought that is not what he
Speaker 2: wanted me to do. He's telling me, you shoot the turkey,
Speaker 2: So no, because it's too thick. But I can hear
Speaker 2: the turkey drumming, but sometimes it's hard to gauge where
Speaker 2: they're at exactly. So anyway, I start really looking, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden I could see him and he's
Speaker 2: slipping through here, coming right to me. Hm, whole way
Speaker 2: just drumming. He comes around there and he gets to
Speaker 2: about where you are from me, and he's about ten
Speaker 2: yards from me looking here. He goes, ah, right in
Speaker 2: my face and my gun sitting like this, and I'm
Speaker 2: just like.
Speaker 1: Oh, you didn't have your gun picked up no, and
Speaker 1: I can't move.
Speaker 2: And this is where experience helps. If I'd have been younger,
Speaker 2: i'd have just tried to swing. But I knew if
Speaker 2: I just wait, because he's strutting a lot, eventually that
Speaker 2: thing will turn and when he turns away from me,
Speaker 2: I can make a big move. So he gets, I
Speaker 2: mean like five yards from me, and he puts, And
Speaker 2: when he puts, Tanner calls at the turkey. The turkey
Speaker 2: calms right back down, and he starts strutting and then
Speaker 2: he turns completely away from me. And as soon as
Speaker 2: he turns away from me, I swing, and I have
Speaker 2: a red dot on my gun and the butt of
Speaker 2: the gun was on the center of my chest, but
Speaker 2: I got that red dot on his head, pulled the
Speaker 2: trigger and he was done at like fifteen yards. That
Speaker 2: was my best tant last year. Yeah, And last year
Speaker 2: was Yeah, last year was a good year. It was
Speaker 2: a little slow compared to normal, but it was good
Speaker 2: that That is a good story. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 2: good one.
Speaker 1: That is a good story.
Speaker 2: Bear.
Speaker 1: We know your best story from last year, as you
Speaker 1: told on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, Bushwhack Turkey was I
Speaker 1: was hunting public land. I'd found some turkeys on public land.
Speaker 1: You know, I scattered before I foundin Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you can't. You're gonna tell the story. Yeah, you better
Speaker 1: not tell this one because you're gonna you're gonna tell
Speaker 1: it for the actual podcast. Oh really yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well I'll tell a different one that happened last year.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I walked about two and a half miles into a
Speaker 1: spot that I knew was a big bluff and you
Speaker 1: could hear, like you can see way off there was
Speaker 1: you know, a big mountain off to the left, and
Speaker 1: there was a big mountain right in front, and then
Speaker 1: I was on kind of like the corner of another mountain.
Speaker 1: So it made it was like a river was flowing
Speaker 1: and then you know, creek met into it, mountains on
Speaker 1: all sides of it. So it created this like really
Speaker 1: big bowl that you could hear really good done into.
Speaker 1: But it was just like way back there. And so
Speaker 1: I hiked in there at like eleven o'clock at night
Speaker 1: because we had had to do something in town, and
Speaker 1: so I drove out there at night, hiked back in
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock, stayed the night, and then I woke up
Speaker 1: that morning and out hooted off this big bluff where
Speaker 1: you could see real far, you know, expecting to hear
Speaker 1: a turkey down there in the bottom. And I heard
Speaker 1: a gobble back behind me about maybe two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty yards and so, and I had the self bow.
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention that I had a self bow,
Speaker 1: and I was hunting with a decoy. So I had
Speaker 1: like a backpack with you know, Dave Smith decoy in it.
Speaker 1: And so I go back over to where I heard
Speaker 1: that gobble and I get about one hundred yards from
Speaker 1: where I thought I heard it. I set out the
Speaker 1: decoy and I called, and two gobblers just light up,
Speaker 1: like just right there. And so, I mean, I was
Speaker 1: thinking it's perfect. I got buried back in a cedar
Speaker 1: tree and I kind of broke some limbs and had
Speaker 1: the hind decoy out ten yards from me, and those
Speaker 1: gobblers were just like goblin. And I only called once,
Speaker 1: and you could just tell they were just out there
Speaker 1: strutting and they were just like getting upset, but I couldn't.
Speaker 1: They just wouldn't break, and after a little while they
Speaker 1: quit goblin, and so I just kind of sat there
Speaker 1: and was gonna wait them out. I actually think I
Speaker 1: texted you. I think you were on the Meat Eater tour.
Speaker 1: You're on the Live tour. Oh yeah, And I texted you.
Speaker 1: It was like, I've got some birds out here that
Speaker 1: I'm waiting out. And I waited for probably a good
Speaker 1: half hour and they didn't come, and so I gave
Speaker 1: just like a couple of real soft calls and scratched
Speaker 1: the leaves and I never heard them again. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the gobblers were gone. And I waited there for about
Speaker 1: a full hour never saw them. So I start walking
Speaker 1: back kind of towards my truck because it was just
Speaker 1: a one day hunt, and I get to this saddle
Speaker 1: that was just covered in turkey tracks and I'd seen
Speaker 1: deer going through there and I've seen bear tracks in there,
Speaker 1: so it's just like a good spot for critters to be.
Speaker 1: And uh, I called a little bit just to see
Speaker 1: if I could hear anything. And I set out the
Speaker 1: decoy and sat next to a tree and waited there
Speaker 1: for a while, and eventually I was like, well, i'll
Speaker 1: take an It was late morning, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll take a nap, and then I walked to the
Speaker 1: truck because you know, it's a long way, and so
Speaker 1: I fell asleep, and I don't know how long I
Speaker 1: was asleep, but I woke up because I was hearing
Speaker 1: something that I thought was like a woodpecker hitting my
Speaker 1: tree that I was on, And that's what I thought
Speaker 1: whenever I was like half asleep, I was like, I
Speaker 1: heard the recollection of this story, and uh so I
Speaker 1: kind of like wake up. And as I started to
Speaker 1: like kind of come to like you know, the transition
Speaker 1: from like sleeping and thinking you hear something to like reality,
Speaker 1: I realized, that's a turkey like right next to me.
Speaker 1: What was he doing?
Speaker 3: It was a hen?
Speaker 1: And so I like rolled over and there was a
Speaker 1: hen like three yards from me, just clucking, walking looking
Speaker 1: and clucking. And I had that decoy out there, and
Speaker 1: uh anyway, she just kind of walked on by and
Speaker 1: I went back.
Speaker 3: To the truck.
Speaker 1: Never heard the goblins and never heard the gobblers. Never
Speaker 1: heard the gobblers, but I took a nap into hen.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say that the hen
Speaker 1: was pecking on your o sage self, bow, I bet
Speaker 1: I know where where he was at. You recognize that
Speaker 1: spot why he described this and this and this and
Speaker 1: bear tracks and that sad though, ye.
Speaker 3: Your spot burned by most shepherd spot burned. That's really
Speaker 3: good turkey spot in the camera.
Speaker 1: What's your Do you have like a favorite story that
Speaker 1: you would tell that that like just to have to
Speaker 1: tell one.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of I mean I have turkey hunted.
Speaker 2: It's always involved my cousin Tanner, so I grew up
Speaker 2: turkey hunting. My uncle is like Panner's dad is like
Speaker 2: the best turkey hunter right now. Like whenever you think
Speaker 2: of someone who's killed a lot of turkeys and know
Speaker 2: what they're doing, woodsman, think of my own said, Well,
Speaker 2: Brian owns a dairy farm in Missouri, and that's where
Speaker 2: I cut my teeth and learn to turkey hunt first.
Speaker 2: And a dairy farm is not the public land that
Speaker 2: you guys start talking about. I mean it was good
Speaker 2: turkey hunting and I haven't hunted there in years, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of leave it for the kids. And like my
Speaker 2: wife and Tanner's wife, well, me and Tanner we were
Speaker 2: driving around the dairy farm one time and there's a
Speaker 2: big sycamore tree off the corner of this road and
Speaker 2: it's right before dark and we've seen some turkeys in
Speaker 2: that tree, and we said, we're gonna kill these turkeys,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to kill a turkey with my bow.
Speaker 2: Never killed a turkey with my bow. Don't recommend bow
Speaker 2: hunting for turkeys, but I wanted to. I was like,
Speaker 2: I think it was a freshman in college. So anyway,
Speaker 2: we get back to the house. We're like, we're gonna
Speaker 2: set up down here. Brian's like, are you sure those
Speaker 2: are turkeys? She said, yeah, that was turkeys, so okay,
Speaker 2: so he calls it a covert night mission. You go
Speaker 2: way after dark and we set up a blind for
Speaker 2: my bow. Okay, got the blind all set up. We're like, man,
Speaker 2: those turkeys are gonna fly down in this bottom and there,
Speaker 2: so they're gonna get it. Well. The next morning, as
Speaker 2: it started to get daylight, there were turkey buzzards. They
Speaker 2: were not turkeys, but happenstance down the creek there was
Speaker 2: two turkeys goblin. So we started calling lo and behold
Speaker 2: here these two toms come. I draw back and I
Speaker 2: shot its head off with my bow. That was cool.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we're like high five and everything's awesome.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: We go back to the house and in Missouri you
Speaker 2: used to have to stop hunting at one so Brian
Speaker 2: was like, hey, you guys, there's a lot of time left.
Speaker 2: You and ten or go try to shoot another one.
Speaker 2: So we just hung my turkey up in the tree
Speaker 2: by the house. We go and we go get set
Speaker 2: up over on the other end of the farm, and
Speaker 2: we fall asleep for like hours. We wake up because
Speaker 2: a turkey gobble. I heard a turkey gobblins. Wake up, Tanner,
Speaker 2: there's a turkey. There is no turkey.
Speaker 1: Now, y'all back in the blind.
Speaker 2: A different different spot, no, a different part of the farm. Gotcha, well,
Speaker 2: lo and behold a turkey starts gobbling his absolute brain off.
Speaker 2: I'm every breath. I've never heard a turkey gobble this much.
Speaker 2: Just Andy Brown would say, and oh what to goblin
Speaker 2: he'd done. And I'm telling you, Tanner, you know with
Speaker 2: he we grew up. You know, it's like, wait, we call,
Speaker 2: he knows where we're at. The turkey's gonna come up here.
Speaker 2: And it was like twelve forty five and I told Tanna,
Speaker 2: I said, Tanner, let's go kill that turkey. And he's
Speaker 2: finally he was like, okay, we'll go kill him. So
Speaker 2: we start off towards this turkey and we start going
Speaker 2: down this little path and I'm when I say he's
Speaker 2: gobbling every I mean legitimately, so we know right where
Speaker 2: he's at. So we keep slipping and so Tanners in
Speaker 2: front of me and he goes I see him, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you start hearing this, like, what
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 3: World is it?
Speaker 2: This bald eagle is dive bombing this tom And that's
Speaker 2: what that turkey's gobblin that the whole time. Just Tanner
Speaker 2: slipped up there and rolled that dude. We got a
Speaker 2: picture of both of us with them two turkeys. Really, yep, yep,
Speaker 2: his turk I'll never forget. The turkey's head was purple
Speaker 2: from from being frustrated. I guess it's full on purple.
Speaker 2: It was not red, white and.
Speaker 3: Blue with bald eagle dive was.
Speaker 1: I thought you were about to say you got a
Speaker 1: picture with both of them talking about the bald eagle
Speaker 1: and no, no, I actually thought the turkey that he
Speaker 1: shot the head off was going to like come back
Speaker 1: to life, said riding the tree.
Speaker 2: Nope, nope, that trust me, he was not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow, I've never I've never heard of a bald eagle.
Speaker 1: Do you think he was? I mean he was trying
Speaker 1: to catch that.
Speaker 2: Back same year, Brian Fat my uncle Brian. He found
Speaker 2: a dead gobbler with big towns in it. Huh a
Speaker 2: bald eagle. Yep, thanks a lot, America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hmm hmm. Mo, what's your what's your what's your
Speaker 1: best best story? And you've told us several on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but like if you just had to tell one, because
Speaker 1: I've only got I've got one turkey story that I
Speaker 1: tell and I've told it so many times I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna tell it today. But my lightning bird story, sneaking
Speaker 1: up on the bird and of pouring rain and just
Speaker 1: kind of you know, Bear was with me the night before.
Speaker 1: It's like everything was just perfect. Well, what's the best
Speaker 1: what's the best turkey story that you are? Your favorite?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: I got to think through about two hundred of them,
Speaker 3: so yeah, yeah, yeah, but I guess I guess one
Speaker 3: of them would involve another story of not killing a turkey,
Speaker 3: if that makes sense. It was on a youth hunt.
Speaker 3: I took a kid, a young man on the youth hunt,
Speaker 3: and we went into a spot we actually went into
Speaker 3: a walk in area where you had to walk in,
Speaker 3: and asked him if he could do it. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: can do it. I'm fine, you know. So we went
Speaker 3: into the walk in area, got in there daylight, heard
Speaker 3: a couple of birds, but they didn't respond much. So
Speaker 3: we walked and we walked and we called and we walked.
Speaker 3: I think we stopped and eat some snacks and stuff.
Speaker 3: And it was getting on up late morning, probably ten
Speaker 3: or eleven o'clock, and I said, let's go around into
Speaker 3: this big hollow around here, and there's a couple of
Speaker 3: short ridges runs off. I said, a lot of times
Speaker 3: they'll be in there during the middle of the day.
Speaker 3: And sure enough, we got around there and I called
Speaker 3: and I heard a turkey. Then I heard another one,
Speaker 3: then I heard another one, and they were all in
Speaker 3: the same area. And I said, well, let's get right
Speaker 3: here on this little point. I said, you sit right
Speaker 3: here in front of me. And I didn't want him
Speaker 3: out of my he was he was, he was. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, he had these hunter's head and all that,
Speaker 3: but I still want him right there close to me.
Speaker 3: So he was probably five foot in front of me
Speaker 3: against the tree, and I was right behind him in
Speaker 3: another tree. And I started working those birds, and then
Speaker 3: they congregated together like they do sometimes kind of together,
Speaker 3: but they were still separate on a couple of little ridges,
Speaker 3: and I'll forget. They just hushed up for a while,
Speaker 3: and I remember him kind of looking over his shoulders
Speaker 3: saying that. He said, where'd they go? And I said,
Speaker 3: they're still down there. I bet, I said, this way,
Speaker 3: we're gonna be patient. I don't remember how long it took,
Speaker 3: but finally one of them got fired up again, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, I heard, like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like three of them in a row, just ma'am.
Speaker 3: And they were sound like they were together then. So
Speaker 3: I was thinking, well, they made us be big Jake's,
Speaker 3: you know. I thought, well, still a Jake's, you know,
Speaker 3: legal for a kid here in Arkansas. And so I
Speaker 3: kept working them, and then I seen him come up
Speaker 3: on the ridge. Blow him down there, blow us. And
Speaker 3: it was three big old longbeards, I mean, dandy turkeys,
Speaker 3: and they just started working away. They'd kind of do
Speaker 3: like they do, they'd kind of pop at each other,
Speaker 3: you know, pop through. I know, everybody's turkey and see him,
Speaker 3: they'll popp at each other and they'll go back to strutting,
Speaker 3: and oh yeah. And it took a long time. Finally
Speaker 3: they got up there and I was watching him. He
Speaker 3: got his gun up on his knees and stuff, and
Speaker 3: they got closed. They was probably thirty thirty five yards
Speaker 3: of us, and they was right in front of him.
Speaker 3: I thought, he's got to have his gun right on
Speaker 3: one of them. And I waited till they kind of
Speaker 3: separated a little bit, and I thought, well, he's surely
Speaker 3: going to kill one of them, you know. And I
Speaker 3: just what I call I don't call it a putt
Speaker 3: or purd or whatever. I've done like three fast purse
Speaker 3: to make them raise their heads up. And I'd done
Speaker 3: that and they raised their heads up, and I was
Speaker 3: watching him this whole time, and I was ready for
Speaker 3: him to just go like that and shoot. Well, his
Speaker 3: gun was right there like this, and when I went
Speaker 3: pur purp like that, they raised their heads and I
Speaker 3: think they all three gobbled in unison, you know, and
Speaker 3: boom he shot. He did anybody's head down. He shot
Speaker 3: plum over the top of the turkeys, and they took
Speaker 3: off a flying run and took out of there. And
Speaker 3: I sat there for a little bit and I he's
Speaker 3: down their team, I said, I said, I guess you
Speaker 3: didn't get one of them, did you? He said no.
Speaker 3: I said, I don't know how I missed. I said,
Speaker 3: which one was you aiming at? And he said there
Speaker 3: a little bit, he said, I think the one in
Speaker 3: the middle. I said, where was you aiming at? He said,
Speaker 3: I think I never did look down.
Speaker 2: My sight.
Speaker 1: And you said, I think you're right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we laughed about it. But it was a
Speaker 3: good lesson for him. And then I took him on
Speaker 3: hunts after that and he killed turkeys and stuff, so
Speaker 3: that was kind of a lesson for him too.
Speaker 2: So you talked about that them turkeys goblin like that
Speaker 2: with me and Tanner went to Nebraska one time and
Speaker 2: got permission from this farmer. He said, there was turkeys
Speaker 2: in this creek bottom right before dark. And you know
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier. Al hooton, Man, I am just
Speaker 2: hooting my brains off at the top of this regie.
Speaker 2: Nothing turns out bart Alis don't live in Nebraska. I
Speaker 2: would have thought that a turkey would gobble at that,
Speaker 2: but man, I was hooting my brains out. They would
Speaker 2: not answer me. Al hooting, how'd you get him to
Speaker 2: how'd you get him to gobble? That coyote? Howled at him.
Speaker 3: It was just it was just that's why they wouldn't gobble.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad Mo's not a judge. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: but man, that I've never heard, so, I mean, it
Speaker 2: was just right on top of each other. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they've kind of gobbled weird out there. Yeah then Rio Mary, Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: I want I want y'all to give me your your
Speaker 1: your best tip. So there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of podcasts that you go and you'd get hunting tips.
Speaker 1: And I listened to some of those, and I like
Speaker 1: hunting tips. So we don't usually do a lot of
Speaker 1: like how to stuff on here. But uh, Cam, what
Speaker 1: would you what would you if you were just giving
Speaker 1: a turkey hunter just a nugget of wisdom? What would
Speaker 1: you say to him and don't give me this generic
Speaker 1: stuff like just be patient and.
Speaker 2: Well I'll tell you this. Okay, I got two things. Okay.
Speaker 2: Number one is boot leather equals beards. Okay, I gotta walk,
Speaker 2: you gotta go. If you don't go, you're not gonna
Speaker 2: get him. This only way you learn is to hunt
Speaker 2: a lot of turkeys.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Number two is pattern your gun. If you don't pattern
Speaker 2: your shotgun, I mean, my buddy Dusty, his dad, he
Speaker 2: missed like four turkeys in a row, So what is
Speaker 2: wrong with you? We shot his gun and it was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, you can't hit anything. What was it doing
Speaker 2: his choke to He was shooting like a modified choke
Speaker 2: and it was just too open. And at forty yards
Speaker 2: he just you know, wouldn't didn't have enough shot out there.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: But that's my two tips.
Speaker 4: What distance do you pattern your gun at?
Speaker 2: Thirty five yards is where I pattern my gun. I
Speaker 2: feel like that gives me the best uh room for it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I like a pretty more medium
Speaker 2: medium distance. Yeah, I like a pretty uniform, you know pattern.
Speaker 2: I shoot a red dot a lot of times, so
Speaker 2: it's pretty easy to side it in, and I like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, some people like shoot at
Speaker 2: the neck. I like to put that dot right on
Speaker 2: the white cap that turkey's head. And so it's like
Speaker 2: I'm splitting the difference where some of the pattern goes highest,
Speaker 2: some of the pattern goes low, but the dead center
Speaker 2: it goes right where that turkey's head is. M m yep, Okay,
Speaker 2: I agree with you on that.
Speaker 3: That's what I do is thirty five yards? Yep. Anybody
Speaker 3: that I haven't helped pattern their shotgun, I want them
Speaker 3: to shoot a thirty five yards yep yep.
Speaker 1: What's your tip?
Speaker 5: Mo?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: My main tip would probably be go when you can
Speaker 3: and don't do not go because of the weather. Do
Speaker 3: not not go because of the weather, because every time
Speaker 3: you're out there, that may be the time you get
Speaker 3: your turkey. You know, whether it's raining, whether the wind's blowing,
Speaker 3: no matter what's going on. You can get frustrated when
Speaker 3: you hunt in different kinds of weather. But believe me,
Speaker 3: if I had not hunting because of weather conditions, there'd
Speaker 3: be a lot less turkey beards at my house.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And keeps people out of the woods.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean a lot of times people don't go
Speaker 3: when it's so that's a good point there too. And
Speaker 3: then the other thing I agree with Cam on that
Speaker 3: is is don't be afraid, especially if you're hunting public land.
Speaker 3: You know, when you're limited private land, and like I said,
Speaker 3: I don't hardly ever hunt it. I'll take kids on
Speaker 3: it sometimes and stuff, but when you're on public land,
Speaker 3: just make plans to wear them boots soles out and
Speaker 3: just keep traveling, keep going and yep. And one other
Speaker 3: tip I will say is whether you're on private land
Speaker 3: or whatever, when you go into place. So many people
Speaker 3: I've hunted with or take with me. We'll go into
Speaker 3: a place, hunt our way all the way into place,
Speaker 3: end up place into place, and then I say, well,
Speaker 3: we you know, we ain't heard anything. Well let's go
Speaker 3: back to the truck. Let's go back to where we're at.
Speaker 3: I said, well, let's go back, But I said, let's
Speaker 3: hunt the same way we came in here.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: I don't have many turkeys I've killed come right at
Speaker 3: the exact same area I went in on.
Speaker 1: And a turkey maybe maybe heard you hur came in there.
Speaker 3: Later, had hens with him, wasn't interested at the time. Yep.
Speaker 1: That's good tip.
Speaker 3: And and in my opinion, that's what a lot of
Speaker 3: people make mistakes. They go into place hooting or doing
Speaker 3: some calling or anything. They just haul butt out of
Speaker 3: there and go right back to where and go and
Speaker 3: then go somewhere else. Like I said, I've killed a
Speaker 3: bunch of turkeys on my trips out.
Speaker 1: Great tip. That's a great tip. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: my I have two tips.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: The first all of me is uh, is go with
Speaker 1: Loe or cam or bear.
Speaker 2: No, it is uh.
Speaker 1: It's partially the bootleader of the thing. But half a
Speaker 1: turkey hunt is just finding the turkey that you can
Speaker 1: call in. Yes, So you know, you might be hearing
Speaker 1: a turkey gobbles head off and he won't work, he
Speaker 1: won't work, he won't come, he shuts up, he goes
Speaker 1: the other way, and you know, you might mess around
Speaker 1: with that turkey for forever. And depends upon how much
Speaker 1: land you've got to hunt, if you're on public and
Speaker 1: or whatever. Half the time it's it's it's no one
Speaker 1: when to just keep moving because you might find one
Speaker 1: that's real hard to work. But over two ridges from there,
Speaker 1: you call and there's one eighty yards away that's just
Speaker 1: begging to come in. So you know, just finding because
Speaker 1: there's some turkeys that you're just not gonna kill that day.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just you're just probably not gonna kill
Speaker 1: him that day, And no one when that turkey is
Speaker 1: that turkey is a hard one, you might come back
Speaker 1: the next day and kill him. Just find my second tip.
Speaker 1: And this this is more of a I mean, I
Speaker 1: think for like a new hunter that's just trying to
Speaker 1: understand turkey hunting is that it's all about positioning and location.
Speaker 1: And so if you hear a turkey gobble and he'll
Speaker 1: enter you, but he won't come, what you got to
Speaker 1: do is reposition yourself in another location and call at
Speaker 1: him there and see if he'll come. And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of times you might reposition two or three
Speaker 1: times and finally you get in a spot and a
Speaker 1: little time has gone by, and I mean, he just
Speaker 1: comes right in, but it's after you've messed with him.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's like if you were just explaining
Speaker 1: turkey hunting to someone, you would say, the turkey's gobling
Speaker 1: and making noise, and you know where he's at, but
Speaker 1: he won't come. Well, go to point B and try
Speaker 1: to call him there. Go to point C, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's obviously with a turkey that's being vocal
Speaker 1: but probably got hens or sometimes they don't have hens
Speaker 1: in there. Sometimes I'm surprised that the lone gobblers that
Speaker 1: either are hunted or for whatever reason just don't storm
Speaker 1: men like they're supposed to. But finally you get the
Speaker 1: right set up and bam, well.
Speaker 3: They're not supposed to storm in in the natural world,
Speaker 3: the hens come to them, right, That's what happened most time.
Speaker 3: But they they're in competition for those hens, so they
Speaker 3: may set that. I think that's why they sit there
Speaker 3: in a spot like a place they like the strut
Speaker 3: on a little flat or a glade or a saddle
Speaker 3: or wherever. They'll get in that spot after they fly down,
Speaker 3: and they'll sit there and gobble. How many times have
Speaker 3: you've done that? And they'll gob and God will never
Speaker 3: come in, and then eventually they come in. I think
Speaker 3: that's why they're sitting there. They're waiting for that hen
Speaker 3: that they heard it fly down to come to them.
Speaker 2: Another thing, if you hear turkey's goblin in one spot
Speaker 2: a lot and they shut up, and you're sitting there
Speaker 2: and you're trying to play the patient game, and you're
Speaker 2: just sitting there. Most guys, after a while, see I
Speaker 2: want to go know where that turkey was, And you'll
Speaker 2: walk up there and then you'll hear and the way
Speaker 2: he goes, now fly off, that didn't go anywhere? What's it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: You've I've heard tons of people say, like, what's the
Speaker 2: turkey got to do? Survive? Period? I mean, they're just chilling.
Speaker 2: They're doing their thing, you know. And like you said,
Speaker 2: you can reposition a lot of turkey hunting and killing
Speaker 2: a turkey is once that turkey gets interested enough, he
Speaker 2: becomes very vulnerable. And it don't matter what the way
Speaker 2: he said that, he becomes very vulgar. Yeah, it don't matter.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, every turkey has his day. It don't
Speaker 2: matter how hunted they are. If you can eventually he's
Speaker 2: gonna say, yeah, I'll go see what she looks like.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, don't. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 2: Moe might think something different, but that's what I kind.
Speaker 3: Of agree on that. And another thing is when when
Speaker 3: a turkey gets like you say, and when he sits
Speaker 3: there and says there and he shuts up a lot
Speaker 3: of times, I'll be patient. I'll wait, But then if
Speaker 3: he don't never open back up again. Say this is
Speaker 3: eight o'clock in the morning. Say you know it got
Speaker 3: daylight at six thirty or seven at eight o'clock. I've
Speaker 3: not hurt him anymore except right after daylight when he
Speaker 3: flew down. If I don't get him to respond to
Speaker 3: him a lot of times, what I'll do I'll get
Speaker 3: up from that spot, and I'll leave. I'll go around
Speaker 3: the mountain somewhere else if I've got the opportunity to
Speaker 3: see if i can get a good OBL fired up.
Speaker 3: I usually wait anywhere from two to three hours. Then
Speaker 3: I'll go back to that exact spot where I was
Speaker 3: sitting before, and I'll sit down and I'll just make
Speaker 3: a few soft calls. And I've killed a bunch of
Speaker 3: big toms. You do that still wouldn't gobble, And the
Speaker 3: next thing you hear is that'd be right on you.
Speaker 1: So he was hearing your call early but had hens.
Speaker 3: Or which you just didn't want to move yep. And
Speaker 3: then like where he was, like where he was staying.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. The big especially, I think them
Speaker 3: four and five year old toms have got places that
Speaker 3: they don't want to do nothing but destruct there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I've killed them that that is gobbled when I've
Speaker 3: made those soft calls. Yep.
Speaker 2: Soft calling kills a lot of turkeys. Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 2: that yeah, soft calling kills turkeys.
Speaker 3: And like I said, I've killed a lot of midday gobblers, midday,
Speaker 3: mid afternoon that I messed with that morning and they
Speaker 3: would never respond. They gobbled, but they would never come
Speaker 3: towards you or anything and go back to them places
Speaker 3: later in the day, whether it's at nine o'clock eleven
Speaker 3: o'clock to an afternoon whatever, You've got time to do it.
Speaker 3: But that's why when I go turkey hunting, turkeys don't
Speaker 3: have no timeframe. They got all day and the next
Speaker 3: day or the next day. We're on a timeframe. I've
Speaker 3: got to go back to work tomorrow, so I got
Speaker 3: to get this turkey called in today. Yeah, So I
Speaker 3: think of that, and I also think of he's talking
Speaker 3: about tips. So I'm going to spit this one out there.
Speaker 3: When I first hear a turkey gobble, and if he's
Speaker 3: close enough, I'm going to set up before I ever
Speaker 3: sit down. I look all around. I think, if I
Speaker 3: was a turkey, where would I want to come into
Speaker 3: and strut where this hen can see me? And that's
Speaker 3: where I set up facing and about halftime they come
Speaker 3: around behind you or something other. Bit. But it pays
Speaker 3: awful lot to think that way. I think, think what
Speaker 3: you think that turkey might want to do, because they
Speaker 3: don't like really thick stuff, and they'll they'll make you
Speaker 3: drive you crazy. They'll come through the briers and stuff.
Speaker 3: You can't even walk through something. Yeah, the majority of
Speaker 3: the tire, man, I think of that.
Speaker 1: So last year I learned a lot on one gobbler
Speaker 1: and it was because the woods were open and I
Speaker 1: kind of got lucky and saw it. And here's what happened.
Speaker 1: I'd hunted all day. It was in Tennessee. It was
Speaker 1: opening toy at Tennessee, and ITED been on birds that
Speaker 1: morning but never could get him in. And that afternoon,
Speaker 1: at four thirty in the afternoon, I was on the
Speaker 1: point of this ridge and called. At four thirty in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, one gobbled and you know, within two undred
Speaker 1: fifty yards, and I was like, that's encouraging. I thought,
Speaker 1: maybe you just shot gobbled at the hen and maybe
Speaker 1: wasn't that interested in coming. Set there for probably a
Speaker 1: minute and kind of figured to where I'd said if
Speaker 1: he answered again, but wasn't. Still wasn't that worried about
Speaker 1: didn't any of them? I call and you know, he's
Speaker 1: one hundred yards closer, and I say, man, I better
Speaker 1: sit down. So I sit down on the point of
Speaker 1: this ridge and it's just the most probably the prettiest
Speaker 1: spot I've ever killed a turkey because the ridge this
Speaker 1: point fell off in this big bottom and you could
Speaker 1: just see for a long ways and some big open woods,
Speaker 1: and uh, I called again. So he's got with three
Speaker 1: times now, and I'm set up and directly I see him,
Speaker 1: and he's about one hundred yards, but I can see
Speaker 1: him through the woods and he completely shuts up at
Speaker 1: one hundred yards, but I can see him. If I
Speaker 1: hadn't been able to see him, it's possible in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: I would have got Yeah, I just I would have
Speaker 1: lost interest it just thought it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: He absolutely quit gobblin. He got with three times, but
Speaker 1: I saw him, and he stayed out there and shrutted
Speaker 1: at one hundred yards for I'm gonna say twenty minutes
Speaker 1: and never said a word. And I even got to
Speaker 1: where I would I had a decoy set out there
Speaker 1: and just right in front, like five feet in front
Speaker 1: of me. You know, I really wasn't planning on using it,
Speaker 1: but I just kind of stuck on the ground, and uh,
Speaker 1: he strutted, strutted, strudded, strutted. I'd call, he wouldn't answer
Speaker 1: and find and he was strutting around where he was
Speaker 1: going to get out of sight of me and kind
Speaker 1: of get in behind me. And basically after about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of strutting, when he when when I felt like
Speaker 1: he was about to get away from me, I just
Speaker 1: felt like he came in from behind me, or if
Speaker 1: he just circled around, he was going to get away
Speaker 1: from me. I started calling real aggressive and uh, and
Speaker 1: he broke and just came in on a string after
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of being completely silent and uh. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I think if I hadn't seen that turkey, I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have killed it because I would have thought.
Speaker 3: He wasn't interesting and he's gone on I tried.
Speaker 1: To move in, I would have been like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: he's down there two hundred yards if we just get
Speaker 1: sixty yards closer, and I would have bumped him, because
Speaker 1: that's when you've heard it, yep, because he was just
Speaker 1: right there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But uh, but he struted t trut is threaded, and
Speaker 1: then I got real aggressive with him, this kind of
Speaker 1: a last ditch effort, and man, he just broke strut
Speaker 1: and just came right to me. And I killed him
Speaker 1: on that first st at four thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an afternoon. My whole life. I had
Speaker 2: to stop hunting at one in Missouri, you know, yep,
Speaker 2: traveling to turkey hunt, I've killed turkeys in like eight states,
Speaker 2: I think, the afternoons where you can hunt all day.
Speaker 2: I've killed more turkeys out of state in the afternoon
Speaker 2: than I have the morning. Really, yes, because they they've
Speaker 2: done their dance, you know, the girls have left, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just find more alone turkeys in
Speaker 2: the afternoon. Probably not as vocal, no, but whenever they
Speaker 2: are vocal, you can kill man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And probably eighty percent of the turkey hunters d
Speaker 1: out of the woods in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: Hundred percent. Yeah, it's funny. The one turkey I killed
Speaker 2: in Mississippi the first day, Tanner and I hunted all
Speaker 2: day on this public plan. We got back to the
Speaker 2: hotel we were staying at, and earlier that morning we
Speaker 2: had met these two guys from Arkansas who said, yeah,
Speaker 2: we hunt here every year. And we got back to
Speaker 2: the hotel and one guy was and that he was
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: Setting the hotel six hotails. Not advisable, No, no, don't.
Speaker 2: You don't want to get some sort of disease. But anyway,
Speaker 2: we got back to the room and he was standing
Speaker 2: outside his door and he said, where you boys been
Speaker 2: And Tanner said. Tanner said, well, we hunted. He said
Speaker 2: you hunted all day. Said yeah, that's the only way
Speaker 2: you can. I don't know, that's the only way I've
Speaker 2: dumb enough to get them. You just got to keep going,
Speaker 2: keep going, You're more likely to get them, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they were like, man, we do.
Speaker 2: At the ten o'clock he said, you hunted all day.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you don't realize what you uh, what
Speaker 1: you've got until you don't have it. I figure Missouri
Speaker 1: turkey hunters going out of state being able to hunt
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 2: Or like this is this is awesome, man, Yeah, one
Speaker 2: hundred yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, I like a turkey hunt when you are that's
Speaker 1: all you're doing. I enjoyed. I enjoy a local turkey
Speaker 1: hunt where you're just going out for a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: which I know you've done a lot of mode just
Speaker 1: just just going out close to the house a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you how much time, but it's still like fun,
Speaker 3: go when you can go.
Speaker 1: But it's also I love it when you are somewhere
Speaker 1: and you're there for three or four days and you're
Speaker 1: there to turkey hunt, and you can hunt all day
Speaker 1: and yeah, if you can just not need that validation
Speaker 1: of a gobble every ten minutes, you can kill them
Speaker 1: in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: Well, in Mississippi, we didn't hear any gobbles nothing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was just I think the day I killed the turkey,
Speaker 2: we walked eleven miles. Yeah, wow, I mean just but hey,
Speaker 2: we killed them.
Speaker 3: I give you another tip on public land.
Speaker 1: No, we don't want to give them too many tips.
Speaker 1: Let's start. Let's start killing our turkeys.
Speaker 3: That most of them don't hunt that hard. But like
Speaker 3: you're hunting on public lands and where and say you
Speaker 3: go in, go into the spot of the morning, you're
Speaker 3: driving down the roads and of course there's side roads
Speaker 3: and gated roads on public land everywhere. You know you
Speaker 3: see vehicles park people hunting. You know it's got there
Speaker 3: earlier or whatever. And something I've done my whole life
Speaker 3: is if I go in and place three or four
Speaker 3: days and I see a vehicle there, the same vehicle
Speaker 3: three four days, I will go back sometime another later
Speaker 3: in the season or whatever for these people were hunting.
Speaker 3: If there's no vehicle there, I'm gonna go in there
Speaker 3: because they didn't kill all the turkeys in there. They're
Speaker 3: hunting in there every day for a reason, because there's
Speaker 3: a turkey they let them do. You're scouting for you,
Speaker 3: some don't go in on somebody. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 3: I've killed a lot of turkeys that way by seeing
Speaker 3: where other vehicles were parked and then not even ever
Speaker 3: scattered in there and going there. And I've killed a
Speaker 3: lot of turkeys doing that, and especially going in there
Speaker 3: midday afternoon hunting like cams talking about it and then
Speaker 3: places and I've even done that where I went to
Speaker 3: another spot and come back in this vehicle, be gone
Speaker 3: at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, I was
Speaker 3: gonna go somewhere. Well, if they didn't kill a turkey
Speaker 3: in here, or if there's more than one turkey in here,
Speaker 3: I'm gona see what's going on going on, and I'll
Speaker 3: go in that place and hunt. And then I'm scouting
Speaker 3: it while i'm hunting too, so I know it better,
Speaker 3: especially when you're traveling somewhere on public land that you've
Speaker 3: never been before. Yeah, I've done that a lot over
Speaker 3: the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. When you're out of state going and it's
Speaker 2: like you know, you don't have permission anywhere, you're just
Speaker 2: hunting the public. Like he said, seeing where the cars
Speaker 2: are tells you a lot of information. Number One, you
Speaker 2: could say, like he said, there's turkeys here. You'd also say,
Speaker 2: let's go to another place find some. I don't know
Speaker 2: how many times just I mean you name the place Kansas.
Speaker 2: I shot a lot of turkeys in Kansas. You'll see
Speaker 2: cars parked at these walking hunt areas. You'll drive and
Speaker 2: drive for hours. Before you used to be able to
Speaker 2: hunt wherever. Now you had to draw a specific zone
Speaker 2: in Kansas. I mean not being afraid to just take
Speaker 2: off and go in any direction wherever.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So many times killed turkeys doing that, just getting away
Speaker 2: from the people, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Well, Mo, you just confirmed what Gary Nucomb always taught me.
Speaker 1: And if you were following Gary Newcomb's truck and you're
Speaker 1: trying to do that, you would have been guar hold
Speaker 1: because Gary neukemb would park. He would go out of
Speaker 1: his way, never park anywhere near where he was hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean like paranoia, like never park anywhere near where
Speaker 1: you're hunting. Park somewhere way off, or have like a
Speaker 1: secret trail that you can pull off the road like
Speaker 1: you know you brush. Yeah, well, hey this has been awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a Turkey Week at Meat Eater, A
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff for sale for.
Speaker 4: Sure, tree Line Turkey Vest.
Speaker 1: Oh, I gotta show him that Turkey best bear, go
Speaker 1: get that Turkey Best. It's hanging over there, First Light.
Speaker 1: It has a new Turkey vest and uh, these Phelps calls,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be lots of turkey stuff for sale, but uh,
Speaker 1: this is this is my new turkey vest. Cumbers there, yep,
Speaker 1: tree Lined Turkey Vest.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's it's kind of a slim down version
Speaker 1: of these big you know, back back in the day
Speaker 1: Turkey Best were huge and just were like big bulky things.
Speaker 1: This is like trim down. But it's also got a
Speaker 1: back where you can carry uh some water snacks or jacket.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like you know, you got a
Speaker 1: pretty good size back, put some TP in there. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's right. But you could also stuff a bird right
Speaker 1: right there in the back, or stuff a d coy.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't carry around very many of them. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's First Light's new tree Line Turkey Vest Inspector. It's
Speaker 1: got the little adjustable seat on it, and h I
Speaker 1: love that thing. Soe man, it's gonna be a good season.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it, guys. Karen, thanks a ton coming up, man,
Speaker 1: Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think of alhu would translate on the podcast?
Speaker 4: I think it's worth a try about turkey calls.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're gonna have a little We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a little little calling contest here. I don't know how
Speaker 1: we're going to decide who's the best.
Speaker 4: All that side.
Speaker 3: Let Josh be the judge, okay, and.
Speaker 4: Fade is in my hand.
Speaker 2: What do you want, like, uh, like a scenario the
Speaker 2: Grand Nationals?
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll start with camp.
Speaker 2: Oh you want me to do it? Okay? What what
Speaker 2: scenario you want me to do?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Waking up on the limb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, wake welcome hand on the limb the limb. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you understand scenario?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: And not?
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not a super experienced tree color, so
Speaker 1: I'm not super familiar with that.
Speaker 2: That's just like a tree yep.
Speaker 1: And then he flies down like what it would sound
Speaker 1: like if a hen was roostered over you and the
Speaker 1: sun started to come up.
Speaker 3: And she's waking up. The world knows pass the old
Speaker 3: big Tom over there where she.
Speaker 1: Saw few ELPs and then some big place. Tell me
Speaker 1: you're the artist. This is your canvas. Brother. Mmmm mmmmmm okay, great, great,
Speaker 1: Uh I need uh, I need something here, guys, hold
Speaker 1: on your second on a gray Beard.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get a wing.
Speaker 3: Come on, come on, gray Beard, nukes getting gray light.
Speaker 4: Oh the multimedia realism. Okay, all right, well you're up.
Speaker 3: You want my hat?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't need he doesn't need it.
Speaker 3: If you got to beat your head and you make
Speaker 3: him think you're turkey flying that.
Speaker 4: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: That was good, well, gentle beautiful.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna give that win. Drummer, Wait, have a drum
Speaker 4: roll here?
Speaker 2: Oh I thought we were gonna do.
Speaker 1: I can't remember multiple snaps I saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Scenario okay, this is like a hot tom coming in
Speaker 6: a hot time, a hend houlding.
Speaker 4: What's a good scenario?
Speaker 2: Good fall, gobbler flock, fall, gobbler flock, get into a fight,
Speaker 2: they break up, and they recon congregate. This is grand
Speaker 2: national stuff.
Speaker 3: Have you ever had in the fall play? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, hmmm, wow, so was that supposed to be uh.
Speaker 3: Gobbler, that's that's a group of goblins.
Speaker 2: That's a group of gobblers. Yes, they get into a
Speaker 2: fight that was good, and they kind of in the fall.
Speaker 2: You'll hear them do that key key run. That's like
Speaker 2: a lost turkey.
Speaker 3: And you'll hear you'll also hear that when they're breaking
Speaker 3: up in the spring, if they're picking order figure out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes they will that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, Yeah, I've heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah a lot.
Speaker 1: All that. I'm not sure I'm going to be much
Speaker 1: of a competition here. I mean, all that I've done
Speaker 1: is key key running them when you broke them up
Speaker 1: back when we had a fall season. I never killed one,
Speaker 1: but boy, I sure.
Speaker 4: Let me hear you that's good. Yeah you want in
Speaker 4: on this one.
Speaker 1: I can't do a Kiki run with this call.
Speaker 4: Let me hear the best you got.
Speaker 1: Let me hear you try that Clay New Coombe signature series.
Speaker 1: You got the Clay newkemb signature series. I got the package.
Speaker 1: We can't open shows. The winner gets this.
Speaker 3: Oh I'll be not. I'm gonna show that my wife
Speaker 3: when I get home.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me hear it, Let me hear you Kiki no,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Yeah. Oh so you just want
Speaker 3: the Kiki run just gobbler things.
Speaker 4: You can do that too. I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 1: I like kind of a core. Can you gobble it?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 1: Oh dang? What did you do?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Put it in front of your mouth?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What kind of calls up?
Speaker 2: This is my all time favorite call. Well. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you can. I talk about it on this podcast.
Speaker 2: It's a rolling thunder Kevin Taylor collection. Nice. So what
Speaker 2: would you do?
Speaker 1: You put it up?
Speaker 2: I put it on my well and I kind.
Speaker 4: Of blowing in or sucking in, be blown out or
Speaker 4: sucking in?
Speaker 1: Now what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Like he's just puffing air crossing there. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 3: do it, but I'm gonna.
Speaker 4: Can't do it.
Speaker 3: I gotta nephew, can do it?
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm sorry, I can't do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, And then a lot of guys though like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: do that, But I think it sounds better the other way.
Speaker 2: That sounds good.
Speaker 1: Can you gobble with one mo?
Speaker 3: Not very good?
Speaker 1: Can you gobble one not?
Speaker 4: With one of these?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 3: You really want to sound like a jake when you're
Speaker 3: gobbling one hundred percent. Yeah, weaker bird, weaker birds. So
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try if I get that this, I ain't
Speaker 3: never tried this. Call what he was doing or with
Speaker 3: the Gobbler scenario.
Speaker 1: Fight. Oh that sounds good. So it's hard to pick
Speaker 1: a winner.
Speaker 4: I bet Josh, it is hard to pick a winner.
Speaker 4: Everybody's a Winneray for real?
Speaker 1: Would you would you try these out? If I gave
Speaker 1: you pack up? Yeah, I got I got one for you. Well,
Speaker 1: i'll give mo I want you to have that you can, Uh,
Speaker 1: you tell me what you send.
Speaker 3: I'll send you a picture of got my hand on
Speaker 3: the pack I'll give you. I'll send you, I'll send
Speaker 3: you bring with one. I'm in my but I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna use that clay nuke and one. They don't look
Speaker 3: very good.
Speaker 1: Uh, Well, did you have a winner or no? I
Speaker 1: don't want to steal the winner, but it feels like
Speaker 1: it's kind of tough.
Speaker 6: I felt no offense. Second place, but that was pretty good.
Speaker 6: Cameron had a good one there.
Speaker 3: All right, he was really good.
Speaker 1: Where's our applause?
Speaker 4: On?
Speaker 1: There? It's the lower right hand button, didn't it? No? No,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, hold on the hunh good job, Camp, Congratulations, congratulations.
Speaker 4: The crowd just has gone wild the Bear Grease Grand.
Speaker 1: National Champion voting.
Speaker 3: If I was voting on him, get me, I'd vote
Speaker 3: him as a winner, and mainly because he was really
Speaker 3: good on that Gobbler pecking order stuff. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: done it perfect.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, thanks guys, good luck this season. Keep
Speaker 1: the wild places wild, because that's where the Bears do