Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
Speaker 1: we're live here in Kansas. My guest is a very
Speaker 1: special guy. I've been able to turkey ount with him
Speaker 1: here in Kansas. Dirt Durham, some may consider you a
Speaker 1: turkey hunting pro, expert, aficionado.
Speaker 2: Don't forget fitness model and fitness model.
Speaker 1: So no, we were here in Kansas. It's what's become
Speaker 1: a yearly trip for us. Anybody listens to the podcast,
Speaker 1: it's usually one of our two or three turkey o trips.
Speaker 1: So here's talk about turkey hunting Kansas a lot. So
Speaker 1: we're here. It's been awesome. Brandy and his buddies they
Speaker 1: did it for the last fifteen twenty years. They did
Speaker 1: a big turkey camp. All of his college buddies come
Speaker 1: and it was a great time. We got to experience
Speaker 1: that for a few days and now we're here on
Speaker 1: our own trying to finish it up. I was fortunate
Speaker 1: to kill a herd last night. And Dirk is hunting
Speaker 1: for a monster, not just gonna kill any turkey. He's
Speaker 1: looking for a big one, so.
Speaker 2: Not just any turkey, basically Moby Dick of the turkeys.
Speaker 1: Giant. Yeah, we actually Uh, just we had to run
Speaker 1: my bird into a taxidermist here and we're on our
Speaker 1: way back and we're what half a mile maybe quarter
Speaker 1: mile from the.
Speaker 2: House, almost a stone's throw, and uh.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you know what we're we're out dinking around the
Speaker 1: middle of day. It's pretty windy here today and just
Speaker 1: a rope dragging across the main county road here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this big old tom comes walking across the road,
Speaker 2: just casual as can be. And his head was the
Speaker 2: size of my fist, and his neck was longer than
Speaker 2: my forearm and about the same thickness. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not a little guy, but I'm not no muscle bound
Speaker 2: guy either.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe some would say you are multiple.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm more of you know, I'm more you know, proportionate.
Speaker 2: I am a fitness model.
Speaker 1: So no, it's it's always been good here in Kansas,
Speaker 1: and I think since we've been coming to Kansas is
Speaker 1: probably the best year for turkey numbers that they've had
Speaker 1: in a while. Yeah, it seems to have bounced back
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of turkeys here on the property. It's been good.
Speaker 2: We saw seven jakes this morning in one spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, different this year they've been going through a drought
Speaker 1: here and so normally we don't have a whole lot
Speaker 1: of vegetation. Boy, you step inside the shade line here
Speaker 1: and you can't barely see a turkey's head over the brush.
Speaker 1: It looks a lot different than years past. But turkey
Speaker 1: hunt's really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like the woods are just like about
Speaker 2: a month ahead of schedule. Things are in bloom. All
Speaker 2: the little bushes and brush are leafed out, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's tough to see a turkey coming through that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. April twentieth, me and Randy were down spraying one
Speaker 1: of his food plots, getting the grass and the broad
Speaker 1: leaves out of there so the clover can pop through.
Speaker 1: And there was a nest and when they mowed it down,
Speaker 1: the winter wheat was so high the cover crop. They
Speaker 1: had to mow it so they could spray it effectively.
Speaker 1: And they noticed there was a hen sitting on a nest.
Speaker 1: Already in April twentieth she had eleven eggs. I believe,
Speaker 1: like April eighteenth she had nine or ten. I think
Speaker 1: maybe she laid one more since they had been in there,
Speaker 1: so and she was sitting all day. She wasn't leaving
Speaker 1: that nest. So I mean it's seems to be really early.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure people that know more or the
Speaker 1: biology of turkey you say that's completely normal, but seems
Speaker 1: pretty dang early. And they're you know, they're they're more
Speaker 1: advanced this year. You know, it's more like hunting them
Speaker 1: in early May to mid May, these guys felt like
Speaker 1: this year more so.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I've noticed in pretty years past, a
Speaker 2: lot of times years past, and we're we've hunted this
Speaker 2: saying late in May, even middle to late May, and
Speaker 2: we'll see groups of hens together and Golber's following them around.
Speaker 2: I mean, they won't leave those hens. And this time,
Speaker 2: like I'm seeing a lot of single hens out, you know,
Speaker 2: in the middle of the day or early evening by
Speaker 2: themselves for a little bit. They'll come out in the
Speaker 2: field and eat a little bit and then go back.
Speaker 2: So they're probably coming off the nest and gonna go eat.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yea real quiet hens. They're all by themselves. And
Speaker 1: you know, this morning we were on a bird, we
Speaker 1: were trying to be on a bird that was roosted
Speaker 1: all by himself. No hens around anywhere in sight. Just
Speaker 1: seems a little weird, you know, but uh it's been good.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna roll into our typical cutting
Speaker 1: the distance when I'm the host. We're gonna roll into
Speaker 1: listener questions first. And I do have to apologize. I
Speaker 1: had me and Chris Parish recorded an awesome episode if
Speaker 1: you guys could all hear it. The sad reality is
Speaker 1: we had some technical difficulties and Chris decided the audio
Speaker 1: didn't upload. So what I mean, you go from Chris
Speaker 1: Parrish in the Turkey Hunting World to Dirk Duram, You don't.
Speaker 1: You don't drop too many you don't miss a beat.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna roll some of the same
Speaker 1: episode I recorded with Chris. We're gonna try to redo it.
Speaker 1: I may share a little bit of his answers added
Speaker 1: in with me and Dirk's answers. But I really wish
Speaker 1: we could have got that dang episode out. But uh well,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll circle back and meet up with him, you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere else, but you know, another time, and we'll ask
Speaker 1: him these questions. But once again, you have any questions
Speaker 1: for me or my guests, email them to us at
Speaker 1: ct D at Phelps Game Calls dot Com or feel
Speaker 1: free to send us a message on social media and
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to get him included here. So
Speaker 1: I have to thank the Washington State Wilde Tricky Hunting
Speaker 1: Club for this group of questions. The first one comes
Speaker 1: from Tyson Gray. We would love to hear you, guys
Speaker 1: compare your approach on Easterns versus Mariams versus Rios in
Speaker 1: the West and how they differ from each other. See
Speaker 1: if Dirk wants to take a crack at that, if
Speaker 1: you hundred rios before or just just Mariams and Easterns.
Speaker 2: So the Meriams in Idaho, there's Miriams and Rios, and
Speaker 2: they seem to be crossed up a lot, if not,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any pure, pure lines on
Speaker 2: either one, but so I feel like it's kind of
Speaker 2: just a hybrid at that point, and so I'm not
Speaker 2: really sure how to compare that. Definitely, the difference between
Speaker 2: you know, Western birds and Eastern birds are definitely a
Speaker 2: big contrast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these Easterns here, you know, in Kansas, I've got
Speaker 1: the the luxury back when Easterns were doing pretty decent
Speaker 1: around my hometown of pl I've got to hunt a
Speaker 1: lot of Easterns, you know, just similar to you. We
Speaker 1: have Rios that are kind of mixed in more so
Speaker 1: in the blues, and we got our Miriams that are
Speaker 1: more of those mountain birds and Easterns just more hard headed.
Speaker 1: They don't want to talk as much. It seems like
Speaker 1: you can almost let your watch to it. Like on
Speaker 1: this trip, it's eight seventeen and forty three seconds at
Speaker 1: that time of the day right now, like they're done
Speaker 1: talking for the most part. They're just done. They be quiet.
Speaker 1: They're hard headed. You can't you Multiple times on this
Speaker 1: trip we've known their birds in an area. You go
Speaker 1: out and hit them with an owl. Scream a hawk,
Speaker 1: scream a crow, call your loudest yelps, and they're just
Speaker 1: not going to talk. They're just not gonna let you
Speaker 1: know they're there. You know, the birds the bird I
Speaker 1: killed last night did not make a sound. We're hen yelp,
Speaker 1: And there was a live hen that came out in
Speaker 1: the food plot with them. They didn't care. It was
Speaker 1: it was just it was it's been difficult and it
Speaker 1: was tough to get them to, you know, to make
Speaker 1: a sound, and so Mariams a lot more talkative, you know, Miriams.
Speaker 1: They don't like the rooseness in the same spots. These
Speaker 1: birds here seem to want to roost in the same
Speaker 1: general They got their favorite roosting spots.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We'll follow a group of birds and they may roost
Speaker 1: in one or two, you know, spots, but it's the
Speaker 1: same spots typically every night. You know, they've got the
Speaker 1: trees they want, you know. But other than that, I
Speaker 1: know Parish had kind of alluded to, you know, pressure,
Speaker 1: these Easterns have been hunted for longer most you know,
Speaker 1: most of the time than some of the transplanted Merriams
Speaker 1: and rios in certain areas. So he feels like they've
Speaker 1: they've got an edge, are a little smarter sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's some of the reasons we we think
Speaker 1: that they're they're more hard headed. But well, they have
Speaker 1: a bigger head, like they definitely do.
Speaker 2: The head size. Head size on an Eastern is way
Speaker 2: larger than a a Mirriam or rio. They're in Idaho,
Speaker 2: and maybe they have a bigger brain, you know. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's not the size of a chili bean. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: the size of a tangerine. I don't know, but they
Speaker 2: seem a little bit more where intelligence, a little smarter
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they've they're survival and stints seems to be
Speaker 1: at a at a heightened level compared to Miriams and rios. Uh.
Speaker 1: So our second question comes from case and can't uh
Speaker 1: do you need multiple different types of calls or can
Speaker 1: one or two calls get the job done consistently?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I consider any kind of animals I'm calling. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like going fishing, right, I want to have
Speaker 2: a handful of different different calls in my in my
Speaker 2: pouch or bag or whatever. And no, and that's no
Speaker 2: different with turkey hunting, though, I will say I've got
Speaker 2: a I've got this one buddy who considers himself quite
Speaker 2: the turkey caller, quite quite the turkey hunter. And his
Speaker 2: only call he owns is an old it's an old box,
Speaker 2: a friction box, right, And and he runs that thing
Speaker 2: with no finesse. He just he runs that thing just
Speaker 2: wide open. Just he just starts just hatchet in that thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, oh man, you gotta put a
Speaker 2: little finesse on that thing. And he gets them coming
Speaker 2: and and and Idaho so and you know, so we're
Speaker 2: hit hunting those mirriams or hybrids and those those toms
Speaker 2: will come in to it really well. I mean I
Speaker 2: don't even think he can even run a turkey diaphragm.
Speaker 2: So with that said here, well, sometimes we throw the
Speaker 2: whole the whole book at them. You know, we just
Speaker 2: kind of run through our gam into different calls and stuff,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they're just so hard headed. You're not you're
Speaker 2: not getting an answer for nothing, or one one call
Speaker 2: is not drawn it in better than another one. It
Speaker 2: seems like when they want to come, they want to
Speaker 2: come to and it doesn't matter which one. But same
Speaker 2: to be said about diaphragms. To my experience I've had
Speaker 2: sometimes I can't get a get a turkey to answer
Speaker 2: me at all with a diaphragm, and I pick up
Speaker 2: a box or a pot and it's like bam, now
Speaker 2: everything's changed and they're answering and they're coming.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're gonna get to our best dump here
Speaker 1: in a little bit. So I'm not gonna talk about
Speaker 1: every call that I carry, but as far as like
Speaker 1: I think, you can get it done consistently with one
Speaker 1: or two calls. You know, to answer Casen's question directly, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: one or two calls, you're going to probably kill ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the birds. Ninety five percent of the birds
Speaker 1: you would kill. But you know, just like any good tradesmen,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, if you have a circular saw,
Speaker 1: a table saw, and a you know what, a receip saw,
Speaker 1: you can do a lot more work, a lot faster,
Speaker 1: and a lot more efficient at times, or do the
Speaker 1: job right instead of having one saw trying to make
Speaker 1: it work on all of them. So, just like any carpenter,
Speaker 1: any tradesman, the more tools and the right specific tools
Speaker 1: you have it at certain times. And what I would
Speaker 1: say I would equate that too, is sometimes there are
Speaker 1: birds that just want to gobble at a diaphragm, or
Speaker 1: they just want to gobble at that box sound, or
Speaker 1: they want to gobble at the sharp pitch of a
Speaker 1: crystal you know, over iluminum call, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: with a certain high pitch striker. So I would say
Speaker 1: there are times where having more calls maybe to your advantage,
Speaker 1: but you can definitely get the job done with you know,
Speaker 1: being being efficient with any of them. But you know,
Speaker 1: ideally diaphragms are well suited for for turkey hunting. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going to a pot caller, a
Speaker 1: box call, you can definitely make make it work. And
Speaker 1: then Case's had a follow up question, are decoy's worth it?
Speaker 1: We've went back and forth on this one. Yesterday I
Speaker 1: had to crawl out to our decoy to get the
Speaker 1: jakes off of them. They thought that that Dave Smith
Speaker 1: decoy's hen was real and was it was inappropriate what
Speaker 1: they were doing with with the decoy. But I crawled
Speaker 1: out multiple times to beat them off of it, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was obviously effective. Those jakes were locked. They were
Speaker 1: convinced it was real. And then there are times where
Speaker 1: you know that Tom just comes strutting right in, and
Speaker 1: there are times where I think, especially we we hinted
Speaker 1: at it already. These birds are a little bit finicky
Speaker 1: right now, a little bit wary, you know, if you
Speaker 1: throw a posturing hint out there and not like an
Speaker 1: uprighter breeding hin like sometimes a hen. You know, we've
Speaker 1: seen it in calling right where you're you're that hen
Speaker 1: doesn't want to you guys are in a battle, and
Speaker 1: then she'll eventually take the tom away from you. She
Speaker 1: doesn't like if you put a posturing hint out there, like,
Speaker 1: it might not be the right move at the right time,
Speaker 1: you know, So decoys are definitely worth it. We've been
Speaker 1: packing around all week and in certain settings where maybe
Speaker 1: we need to put some visual out there at the
Speaker 1: you know, at the edge of a long cut or
Speaker 1: the edge of a long field so they can get
Speaker 1: a visual and maybe have a reason to come down.
Speaker 1: But there are times like last night, we were a
Speaker 1: little concerned with if these you know, on a night
Speaker 1: time hunt, if these turkeys come out in this field
Speaker 1: to feed and the hinges are they are they going
Speaker 1: to be you know, have a care in the world
Speaker 1: that it's there. So I'm I'm kind of on both
Speaker 1: sides of this one. But we we always packed the
Speaker 1: decoys and they work pretty effectively. Yeah, next question from
Speaker 1: John Hicks. After you spook a bird or shoot his buddy,
Speaker 1: how long do you have to wait to get back
Speaker 1: After him, he mentioned his son had missed a nice
Speaker 1: tom yesterday. Today his whole flock wouldn't even react to
Speaker 1: any amount of calls.
Speaker 2: I had a several several years ago. I had a
Speaker 2: morning where I was on these two gobblers and they
Speaker 2: were just going crazy in the on the roost, and
Speaker 2: I get as close as I can. They fly down
Speaker 2: and they come towards me, but I could not get
Speaker 2: them to break fifty yards. And that was back when
Speaker 2: I had a you know, I'm just shooting a kind
Speaker 2: of a full choke, and the turkey loads of the time,
Speaker 2: I think there was like a combo of like fours
Speaker 2: and sixes and stuff, and it wasn't nothing like the
Speaker 2: turkey loads we have these days. And I'm like, I
Speaker 2: think I can reach out and touch that that turkey
Speaker 2: of fifty yards. So when the time was right, I
Speaker 2: put the old shotgun beat on the turkey's head and
Speaker 2: I missed bigger than can be. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: I don't even know where the pellets went, but they
Speaker 2: took off running. So discouraged, I walked back to the pickup, which,
Speaker 2: by chance, the turkey's kind of walked kind of ran
Speaker 2: off back towards the pickup. So I got back to
Speaker 2: the pickup is probably about a half mile walk. I
Speaker 2: get it pick up. I'm like, well, I'm I'm gonna
Speaker 2: crow call here and see if I can hear anything.
Speaker 2: And I crow call and I am immediately I get
Speaker 2: an answer, and it kind of sounds like kind of
Speaker 2: where those toms had went to. So I grabbed my
Speaker 2: shotgun and went back over there in the woods and
Speaker 2: slipped in and sat down, and I made like four yelps,
Speaker 2: and those toms could not get to me quick enough.
Speaker 2: I shot the one at like five yards or something.
Speaker 2: It was. It was incredible. It was like he'd for
Speaker 2: they'd forgotten about what had just happened completely earlier. They
Speaker 2: wouldn't hardly come in close enough. But also I was
Speaker 2: in some heavier timber when they did come in this
Speaker 2: next time, but they were gobling and just running in
Speaker 2: as fast as they could. So I don't know how
Speaker 2: long their memory is. So I would I would think,
Speaker 2: don't give up too quick on him.
Speaker 1: Yep. And I think it's just we've seen it here.
Speaker 1: One morning they'll be on fire, you get a little
Speaker 1: weird weather change, or like one night they'll be on fire,
Speaker 1: and next night they don't make You know, we've heard
Speaker 1: we know their birds around us. Well, we'll go back
Speaker 1: the next morning and oh they're gobbling the roofs. Next
Speaker 1: morning they didn't gobble it all that night, you know,
Speaker 1: real bad morning, you know, there's mornings where the guys
Speaker 1: all said, for opening morning here, everything was cranking. The
Speaker 1: next morning, nobody heard a bugle or a bugle a
Speaker 1: gobble besides besides the one guy, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: like it's the birds were real temperamental, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: equate you know, not hearing them or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because of the miss I would say, they're they're pretty
Speaker 1: short memoried. You know, they're they're gonna they're gonna recreate.
Speaker 1: That's what they're out there for. They're gonna do their
Speaker 1: their their stuff. And so I would just say it
Speaker 1: was more of a coincidence that, you know, the day
Speaker 1: after they maybe quieted down. You know, we've we had
Speaker 1: some neighbors here that shot at some birds and it
Speaker 1: quieted them down and moved them for a day. But
Speaker 1: eventually they came back to their preferred roost and you know,
Speaker 1: settled down. So yeah, we appreciate that. That question. John.
Speaker 1: Next question from Ryan Clark, best calling techniques for early
Speaker 1: season birds when they're hand up. He says sometimes he
Speaker 1: feels like any calling he does is doing more damage
Speaker 1: than good and and maybe sometimes he feels like you
Speaker 1: should be silent and try to sneak in. What's your
Speaker 1: opinion on that.
Speaker 2: I think in the last few years we've we've run
Speaker 2: into that a lot here in Kansas, and I feel
Speaker 2: like as we're calling, then those sins are leading those
Speaker 2: those toms away. But if we kind of kind of
Speaker 2: go over to where they kind of went and then
Speaker 2: set up again and start doing some calling and just
Speaker 2: and not overdo the calling, just call a little bit
Speaker 2: just to let them know, hey, there's some hens over here. Well,
Speaker 2: those gobblers will get kind of tired or spun out
Speaker 2: or whatever they're trying to do with those other hens,
Speaker 2: and there'll be a lull and whatever they're doing, and
Speaker 2: they'll come back and they'll be like, you know, I
Speaker 2: remember there was some hens over here. I'm going to
Speaker 2: go check those out. So it's a major game of
Speaker 2: patients at that point. So you just have to sit
Speaker 2: patiently and have your head on a swivel and be
Speaker 2: very you know, mindful of movement. But we've had that,
Speaker 2: you know, an hour later, maybe two hours later, bam,
Speaker 2: you hear a gobble and that that gobbler's right there
Speaker 2: at twenty yards from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Randy's bird. On opening day here, we actually got
Speaker 1: in maybe a little late, didn't know exactly where they roosted,
Speaker 1: maybe miss planned it, and we actually bumped some birds
Speaker 1: off the roost, and that morning had a bunch of goblin,
Speaker 1: three big long beards behind us, goblin some out in
Speaker 1: front of us. You know, it's just one of those mornings.
Speaker 1: We were able to just kind of keep calling occasionally
Speaker 1: and then maybe more patiently we kind of stop for
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty minutes in the middle, kind of let
Speaker 1: things settle down and let that flock figure out what
Speaker 1: their morning routine was, and then started picking our calling
Speaker 1: back up, and slowly we heard two gobblers break off
Speaker 1: and come towards us. You know, he's able to kill
Speaker 1: one of those. So why it can be very you know,
Speaker 1: it can be discouraging as you're as you're trying to
Speaker 1: call these early hind up birds. But I say, you know,
Speaker 1: be persistent, stick with it, and then just kind of
Speaker 1: let the turkeys dictate. Like if if you know they're
Speaker 1: not hammering back at your calls, and if you can't
Speaker 1: tell that they're responding to you, maybe call more sparingly
Speaker 1: or more patiently versus you know, if they're hammering your
Speaker 1: calls and you can kind of keep them going and
Speaker 1: keep them excited. Then I would say stick with them.
Speaker 1: And and you know at times here when this hunting
Speaker 1: gets really tough early when they are flocked up or
Speaker 1: hind up, which they don't seem to be as much
Speaker 1: this year. You know, this is where you're scouting and
Speaker 1: patterning or listening, like, hey, that bird keeps going through
Speaker 1: this area, or he keeps you know, going off the
Speaker 1: point of this you know, meadow or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: whatever area you're hunting, you know, use use the patterning.
Speaker 1: It's not as fun of hunting, but you can definitely
Speaker 1: set up and you know, just kind of wait for
Speaker 1: him to come back through.
Speaker 2: I've also had you know, good luck after they they
Speaker 2: after the hens laid them off, almost said cows after
Speaker 2: the hens laid them off. Later on, if there's like
Speaker 2: an area close by that's kind of an open meadow
Speaker 2: area or maybe a little open knoll or something where
Speaker 2: where the tom's like to strut. Once those hens kind
Speaker 2: of get figured out what they're gonna do for the day,
Speaker 2: a lot of times those those those toms will go
Speaker 2: back out there in those openings and just strut around.
Speaker 2: Now the hens might be somewhere close by. But if
Speaker 2: you know about those kind of places, like you know,
Speaker 2: I've seen Tom strutting here a lot, it's super smart
Speaker 2: to go sit down in those places really, you know,
Speaker 2: within shot range of where they're going to strut, and
Speaker 2: just sit there and maybe make a few calls very
Speaker 2: sparingly and they just be quiet and just let let
Speaker 2: it unfold because a lot of times, you know, an
Speaker 2: hour or two later, those toms they want to be
Speaker 2: there anyway, they're gonna come back out and struggle, and uh,
Speaker 2: you can take that to your advantage.
Speaker 1: Yep. Last questions from Mike Zebco. Do you have any
Speaker 1: tips for dummy proofing the process of learning to use
Speaker 1: a diaphragm call. I've paid attention to fit, tried multiple
Speaker 1: types of diaphragms, and after twenty years of turkey and
Speaker 1: I still can't seem to get it. I'm totally confident
Speaker 1: with my box and state, but really want to figure
Speaker 1: out how to use his diaphragm call. What do you
Speaker 1: have for me?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, I'm gonna let you kind of jump on
Speaker 2: this one. I'm if you were asking about el calls,
Speaker 2: i'd have some advice, but I will say with this
Speaker 2: about any kind of diaphragm calls. It's all muscle memory.
Speaker 2: So if you're if you're trying to practice and you're
Speaker 2: just trying to get it down, don't have to do
Speaker 2: it for like an hour a day. It doesn't take
Speaker 2: that kind of that kind of a time commitment. What
Speaker 2: it does take is consistency. So maybe ten minutes a day,
Speaker 2: and after like after like two weeks of ten minutes
Speaker 2: a day, just throwing the call in every day, pretty
Speaker 2: soon your tongue and your your air pressure and your
Speaker 2: brain and all that stuff, we'll start getting muscle memory
Speaker 2: and you'll start up, they'll start working together better. But
Speaker 2: if you just try a little bit here and there,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to build that muscle memory. But just
Speaker 2: getting that thing in your mouth, and what can you do?
Speaker 2: Can you can you make a yelp? Can you make
Speaker 2: any kind of a noise? I like I look at kids.
Speaker 2: Kids will they'll take a diaphragm, they'll take any kind
Speaker 2: of a noisy noise maker, and they'll start blowing on it,
Speaker 2: and they will check test the boundaries of everything. They'll
Speaker 2: make every single every single noise they possibly can. One minute,
Speaker 2: they got a diaphram in their mouth. They're trying to
Speaker 2: talk like Donald Duck. The next minute they're trying to
Speaker 2: squeal like a pig. And the next minute they're making
Speaker 2: siren noises and just making weird noises, like get that
Speaker 2: diaphragm in your mouth, start and some noises with it. Understand,
Speaker 2: you know the parameters help, what kind of tongue pressure
Speaker 2: it takes to make different sounds, just any kind of
Speaker 2: a sound. And then start like trying to trying to
Speaker 2: do the exercises. We're trying to actually make it yell.
Speaker 1: So I actually had the I had messaged Mike after
Speaker 1: this comment and said, hey, I'm more than willing to
Speaker 1: help you out. First thing I asked him to do
Speaker 1: is put the call in your mouth, try to run
Speaker 1: what you think you need to do for five minutes,
Speaker 1: and take it out and send me a picture straight
Speaker 1: top down. I wanted to see because one of the
Speaker 1: things we struggle with right off the bat is getting
Speaker 1: these things sealed off. Me and you have seen it
Speaker 1: hundreds and maybe thousands of times. People that can't run
Speaker 1: a diaphragm. We can't get the air sealed off. Until
Speaker 1: you can get the air sealed off you're never going
Speaker 1: to make a clean sound, You're never gonnaet the volume.
Speaker 1: You never can get anything right. So when Mike had
Speaker 1: taken his call out of his mouth, sent me a
Speaker 1: picture he had. Usually we get a some folds at
Speaker 1: like forty five degrees from the center of the call,
Speaker 1: like if you come back on like a pizza shape,
Speaker 1: the corners of the U shape of the tape or
Speaker 1: typically have folds, and we're like, oh, there's too much
Speaker 1: material there. It's folding that we can't get sealed. We
Speaker 1: asked people to cut that material out, try it again.
Speaker 1: Mike had a very interesting fold on the right side
Speaker 1: of his mouth, like directly horizontal of the call, like
Speaker 1: a big major fold that the call was trying. Well,
Speaker 1: if you can't get that to seal off. So the
Speaker 1: first thing me and Mike started working with was cutting
Speaker 1: his tape more narrow, trying to cut material out, trying
Speaker 1: to cut little slits around that area so it can
Speaker 1: fold and become more malleable. So fitmentt and ceiling it
Speaker 1: and so one thing with fit Mint, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: about other brands because I used to use these, you
Speaker 1: know night Inhale Hunter Specialties. You know the zinc. Some
Speaker 1: of these old you know Quaker Boy, the old school
Speaker 1: Turkey calls, or what I call him old schools, that's
Speaker 1: what I used to use. They come on what's considered
Speaker 1: an adult small frame, but for me as a as
Speaker 1: a call maker, they're large frames. They're very, very big calls.
Speaker 1: The actual structure of them underneath the tape, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times they struggled to get him to fit
Speaker 1: my mouth or they'll they'll, you know, be can it
Speaker 1: a little bit left orright because they are so big
Speaker 1: and I've got a big palette. So one thing that
Speaker 1: we do, aside from the Parish Huckleberry kills on a manipulator,
Speaker 1: all of our other Turkey calls are built on what
Speaker 1: I would consider a medium frame that we've found to
Speaker 1: fit people a whole lot better. They may be a
Speaker 1: little bit different specs or stretches in those diaphragms than
Speaker 1: the larger ones, and you may be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: get better sounds or different sounds out of a large one.
Speaker 1: But one thing I would urge people to do is
Speaker 1: is all of our Turkey calls, aside from those original
Speaker 1: Parish three in our lineup, are built on a smaller
Speaker 1: frame could be the ticket just because of the actual
Speaker 1: structure they call be going to fit up, you know,
Speaker 1: up in your palate a little bit better. And then,
Speaker 1: like Dirk said, a lot of practice, you know, work
Speaker 1: on you know, the high note. I would start with
Speaker 1: a ghost cut. Try to get that kiky note down
Speaker 1: that get that if you can just hold them like
Speaker 1: the very high pitched mosquito noise, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: note you need to start with. Even for turkeys, you
Speaker 1: may not hold it near as long as you do
Speaker 1: on an olk, but then you'll drop your bottom job
Speaker 1: more so than than elk calling, where we tend to
Speaker 1: just move our tongue and pressure with our tongue. Turkey calling,
Speaker 1: you'll actually like drop your bottom jaw and that's what's
Speaker 1: going to give you your no articulation. You're high to
Speaker 1: low and so you know, find a good starting point.
Speaker 1: Work on that. And that's the best advice. You know.
Speaker 1: There's lots of good YouTube videos out there, but.
Speaker 2: In fact, we not to interrupt, but in fact we've
Speaker 2: got two different YouTube videos of Chris Parrish kind of
Speaker 2: walking me through like from the very basics. Video number
Speaker 2: one is the very basics of diaphragms, and video number
Speaker 2: two is advanced, so you know how to purr and
Speaker 2: cut and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So, hey, I don't even know about our own YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: Dirk says, Head over to the Phelps Game Calls YouTube
Speaker 1: channel and check out the Chris Paris series on running
Speaker 1: a diaphragm. Phelps, Hey, yeah, I got I wear a
Speaker 1: lot of hats. I'm not a YouTube video manager. Do
Speaker 1: you have them set up for people in the specific playlist?
Speaker 1: So like Turkey educational.
Speaker 2: I think they're I think they're in how to's and
Speaker 2: also I think track me if I'm wrong. I think
Speaker 2: if you and the barcode or not the barcode the
Speaker 2: QR code on the back of the any of the
Speaker 2: Phelps diaphragm calls, it will take you to a place
Speaker 2: where you can watch on how to use the diaphragms,
Speaker 2: whether if Turkey calls Chris Parish or if they're l calls.
Speaker 2: You can see me my smiling face. They tell you
Speaker 2: how to run it out.
Speaker 1: So hey, if you don't want to waste your time
Speaker 1: searching for YouTube, just go ahead and buy a package
Speaker 1: of our calls and scan that QR code. It'll be
Speaker 1: way easier. So wow, a heck of a salesman. We'll
Speaker 1: get your right to it.
Speaker 2: Hey, I've I think I have a tick on my back.
Speaker 2: Do you like I just got bit by a tick?
Speaker 1: I would let people know, I would tell you I'll
Speaker 1: check for it here after the podcast, but they're yeah,
Speaker 1: we're you can use the mirror some good lighting. Well,
Speaker 1: once again, thank you all for your questions. Here gives
Speaker 1: us a nice little segment here for cutting the distance.
Speaker 1: If you have questions from me or my guests, uh
Speaker 1: ctd app phelps, game Calls dot Com, or send us
Speaker 1: a message on social and we'll do our best to
Speaker 1: get them included. So now me and Dirk are going
Speaker 1: to jump into the converse. Let's start with a little
Speaker 1: hunt recap here today. We've got a couple of days left.
Speaker 1: You've got a turkey tag in your pocket. You know, Kansas.
Speaker 1: It was started pretty slow. I think they talked about
Speaker 1: just seven to eight days ago, prior to the opener.
Speaker 1: Their trail cams are just loaded flocks and flocks, you know,
Speaker 1: big flocks, hens, you know seven, eight, ten hens, multiple gobblers.
Speaker 1: They show up here on the seventeenth of the opener,
Speaker 1: and everything had changed in that short week, they went
Speaker 1: from you know, the big groups of hens to you know,
Speaker 1: toms running together and hens being all singled up. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody we've seen I've seen three
Speaker 1: hens in one field at one time, but they were
Speaker 1: all kind of independent. They just happened to be there.
Speaker 1: They all came out separate. They weren't all feeding together,
Speaker 1: running together. Last night, hens separate. This morning we had
Speaker 1: a single hen. You know, we had multiple single hens
Speaker 1: this morning. Just seems to be at a weird stage.
Speaker 1: And maybe these hens are all laying you know, all
Speaker 1: day already, which seems crazy because usually we come in
Speaker 1: early May, you know, May fifth to tenth and they're
Speaker 1: still flocked up, which now they're already seemed to be
Speaker 1: kind of out of that phase a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Randy, Randy thinks all those single hens that were
Speaker 2: saying her, they're they're laying, you know, laying on eggs there,
Speaker 2: sitting on their nest, coming out and getting a little
Speaker 2: quick bite to eat. And then because they'll come out
Speaker 2: in those those meadows or those fields and eat, scratch
Speaker 2: around and eat a little bit, and then bound there
Speaker 2: they disappear and go and they they're not if they
Speaker 2: see another hen, they'd avoid them. They're not like chumming
Speaker 2: around with them.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, and uh, we've had some a lot of jakes.
Speaker 1: I mean, credit to Randy and his management of his property,
Speaker 1: he is loaded up with jakes, which any of you
Speaker 1: that have hunted Tom's long our turkeys long enough and
Speaker 1: you're trying to kill a long beard and let the
Speaker 1: jakes go can realize. And some of you may not know,
Speaker 1: maybe you haven't experienced this yet, but I think the
Speaker 1: ratio is two to one. The Tom wins two jakes
Speaker 1: to one Tom. The Tom will still kind of do
Speaker 1: his thing, but you start to get to that three
Speaker 1: to one, four to one show, and that Tom becomes
Speaker 1: very nervous around that many jakes, right, any of you
Speaker 1: that's seen it, you'll, I may be telling some of
Speaker 1: you something you already know, but these jakes will bully
Speaker 1: that Tom right and still his hand or run them
Speaker 1: off for And so we're we're dealing with lots of jakes,
Speaker 1: which makes sometimes trying to call these Toms in, you know,
Speaker 1: these single toms a little bit more difficult. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're wary. So we we actually have stopped putting
Speaker 1: our jake decoy out in the field right because they
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the only jake, if there's more
Speaker 1: jakes on the edge. And uh, it's just it's been
Speaker 1: tough the the long beards. For the most part. We've
Speaker 1: seen a few singles, but for the most part, these
Speaker 1: long beards are all running together a little bit. And
Speaker 1: it's been an interesting year. Lots of turkeys around, which
Speaker 1: which helps, but but calling birds. We've called a few in,
Speaker 1: we've patterned a few birds, and we've just got lucky
Speaker 1: on a few birds.
Speaker 2: I'd say it's like the turkeys are living a gang
Speaker 2: mentality right now. You got the long beards versus the
Speaker 2: the jakes, and like last night your your turkey, you
Speaker 2: got there was three long beards together. You know. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's funny they're running running these little groups and
Speaker 2: you would think, you know, having a Hindi koy or
Speaker 2: some some running some calls would just be a slam
Speaker 2: dunk anytime. But it just hasn't been a slam dunk
Speaker 2: every single time. One time I'll see some jakes, we'll
Speaker 2: have a decoy out. Well, we'll see a group of
Speaker 2: jakes walk by you do some calling, they'll look over
Speaker 2: at that, at that decoy and just keep going like
Speaker 2: they have zero interest. And then the next one, like
Speaker 2: the next day, you're out there and the jakes are
Speaker 2: molesting your decoy. We've been getting kind of mixed signals
Speaker 2: from you know, Jake's and and long beards. So it's
Speaker 2: been kind of a weird, weird, weird week.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, once saving Grace. There's just a lot of turkeys
Speaker 1: around for the most part, you know, even though they're
Speaker 1: being quiet or sometimes real real uh, you know, quiet
Speaker 1: quiet and uh living in the woods, they will fly
Speaker 1: off the roost and you know where I come from.
Speaker 1: Birds we'll like to go to ag go out in
Speaker 1: the open. These birds are completely content living in the
Speaker 1: timber all day long, not getting out of there, so
Speaker 1: you sometimes don't see them. We've, like I say, we've
Speaker 1: called the multiple birds. They just don't answer. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. We're having a lot of fun, like always here,
Speaker 1: but you know, kind of beating our head against the
Speaker 1: wall at times, and not everything's going our way. But
Speaker 1: we've had pretty damn good success. I am curious, what's
Speaker 1: your tick count? Have you been keeping track of these
Speaker 1: Kansas ticks.
Speaker 2: I think through yesterday I've picked five of them off me,
Speaker 2: like they were embedded, and we're like latched on. And
Speaker 2: yesterday afternoon, I think we like thumped and swept and squished,
Speaker 2: I don't know, probably twenty each. Yeah, I was crawling
Speaker 2: on us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was really starting to question if a turkey
Speaker 1: was worth the amount of anxiety and just I just
Speaker 1: don't like ticks. They kind of freaked me out. They
Speaker 1: just they're all over, like you could not if you
Speaker 1: waited twenty seconds and look back down, you'd have two
Speaker 1: or three seed ticks crawling up your boot and a
Speaker 1: couple the big one. I don't If you know the answer,
Speaker 1: please email me at CTD at Phelps Game Calls, or
Speaker 1: figure out how to email Phelps game Calls. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna put my email out there, but I want somebody
Speaker 1: to know. The big ones. We have permethrone on everything,
Speaker 1: and we re upped our game last night. We did
Speaker 1: a second application because I was tired of ticks. The
Speaker 1: big ones, the full size adults. They will crawl up
Speaker 1: get they don't get halfway up my gator and they'll
Speaker 1: tip off, dizzy, drunk, poison whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: They're they're done. These seed ticks will start up my
Speaker 1: boot and they're faster and they will make it through
Speaker 1: my gator no problem. That permethron doesn't seem to bother them.
Speaker 1: And then they're cruising up my leg and then you
Speaker 1: have to flick them or you know, get them with
Speaker 1: your fingernail. I want to know if there's something to
Speaker 1: that and seed ticks are permethron doesn't work on them,
Speaker 1: or something weird's going on. But uh, yeah, I've had
Speaker 1: I had one one lone star, one big one in
Speaker 1: my shin, and then last night I had a little
Speaker 1: seed tick that wasn't really in. But as we're recording
Speaker 1: this podcast, the big loan star tick bite has a
Speaker 1: big bump and itches. That's an extra. That's a new
Speaker 1: development in the tick bite. Gotta hate these things. If
Speaker 1: I could figure out a way to just I've looked.
Speaker 1: I spent two hours last night before my turkey came
Speaker 1: in trying to research tea tree oils, if I eat
Speaker 1: lots of garlic, if I was I'm ready to try anything.
Speaker 1: I just want to enjoy the turkey hunt and not
Speaker 1: deal with these dang ticks. But all right, I diverged.
Speaker 1: We'll jump back in the podcast. But these ticks are
Speaker 1: giving us some fits, and Dirk, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: a tip. I don't know if you know this or not,
Speaker 1: but gators, when you have them, they are a great addition.
Speaker 1: You should probably wear them out in the field.
Speaker 2: Well I do have gators, and I forgot to wear
Speaker 2: them last night.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, so have them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so last night I was sitting there a paranoid
Speaker 2: picking ticks off my socks, picking ticks off my legs,
Speaker 2: picking ticks off my pants, off my boots, and see
Speaker 2: the seed ticks mostly and if you don't know what
Speaker 2: a seed tick is that they're like a miniature version
Speaker 2: of a normal tick. They're like tiny, and if you
Speaker 2: got bad ice sight like me, they're hard to see.
Speaker 2: And sometimes if you have one embedded on you, it's
Speaker 2: like is that a tiny little mole or a blemish
Speaker 2: or is that? And you have to kind of like
Speaker 2: kind of scratch at it and like see if it'll move.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, that that's like a latch. It's something
Speaker 2: latched on and then you have to get it off.
Speaker 2: And then then I'm like, but is it a tech?
Speaker 2: So then I'll put it on a white piece of paper.
Speaker 2: And if you're like me and stubborn, don't have your
Speaker 2: your readers with you all the time. Then I just
Speaker 2: grabbed my cell phone and came run it and zoom in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's icya legs, that's a tick. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you should definitely have have gators. Oh yeah, or you're
Speaker 2: gonna regret it.
Speaker 1: Yep. All right, we're gonna jump into our We got
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes here to finish up. We're gonna jump
Speaker 1: just into a normal discussion. Let's do a turkey vest,
Speaker 1: don't We've always we tell everybody what we have on
Speaker 1: our elk pack and what we take on multi day
Speaker 1: trips and single day trips. Let me know what's in
Speaker 1: your vest.
Speaker 2: First off, I don't have a turkey vest. Oh there's
Speaker 2: never been a real vest guy.
Speaker 1: If you look good on you, yeah.
Speaker 2: I probably would. I probably I'd make it look good. No,
Speaker 2: But I what I have is I have a FHF
Speaker 2: at chest rig so which if you're not familiar, it
Speaker 2: kind of looks like a biny harness, but instead of
Speaker 2: being more vertical up and down looking, it's more more horizontal.
Speaker 2: So you can you know I can store a pot.
Speaker 2: I'll just tell you what's in. I have a turkey pot,
Speaker 2: a striker. Sometimes I'll have a couple of pots, or
Speaker 2: a couple different strikers, different strikers because different strikers made
Speaker 2: out of different materials will make a different sound with
Speaker 2: the same pot. I also have a couple of locator calls.
Speaker 2: I have an owl hooter, and I have a three
Speaker 2: triple threat triple screamer. What do we call those same
Speaker 2: the triple locator. So the triple locator makes a owl stream,
Speaker 2: a hawk stream, and affiliated pecker, and I got that
Speaker 2: in there. I have a small pair of loophold binoculars.
Speaker 2: I also have some diaphragms. I have some stuff to
Speaker 2: scrub my slate with, you know, some ss pad and
Speaker 2: last but not least, I carry some little pruning clippers.
Speaker 2: TSA stopped me at tear part. They're like, oh, you
Speaker 2: can't have these. I'm like, what why not? They're like
Speaker 2: you might cut someone's finger off with them. But then
Speaker 2: they measured them. They were under seven inches, so they
Speaker 2: allowed it as a carry on. And you know, whenever,
Speaker 2: and I will say I think I had less ticks
Speaker 2: on me than Jason had on him last night. And
Speaker 2: the reason is why is I went through and I
Speaker 2: clipped all the little bushes and all the little brush
Speaker 2: and stuff around where I was gonna sit on my
Speaker 2: little seat there, and Jason did not do that.
Speaker 1: I I wanted to cover it was I needed to
Speaker 1: make sure the turkeys didn't see me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and then but the turkeys didn't see you,
Speaker 2: but the ticks did. And uh, anyhow I got those.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what I ran in my little
Speaker 2: vest there.
Speaker 1: You know what, I won't get in trouble for saying
Speaker 1: what I got through TSA. And it was on a
Speaker 1: complete accident. I don't think this thing.
Speaker 2: Can't stop you at TSA.
Speaker 1: Don't put me on the list. But so this is
Speaker 1: the first year we didn't bring shotguns. We had a
Speaker 1: great idea we were going to use our our bows
Speaker 1: and we're gonna try to kill turkey with a bow.
Speaker 1: We made it about two days until we realized that
Speaker 1: was real, real tough, and turkeys are meant to be
Speaker 1: shot with shotguns. But I didn't have to check a gun,
Speaker 1: so I didn't bring any AMMO. But I didn't usually
Speaker 1: I bring a check bag, but I just I took
Speaker 1: my FHF apex belt turkey system and just threw it
Speaker 1: in my carry on, not thinking anything about it. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what FHF also makes. They make a show holder
Speaker 1: that bel crows to the inside of your harness. And
Speaker 1: there sat to twelve gage shotgun shells number nine TSS
Speaker 1: Federal And I got here and I was thinking, as
Speaker 1: we're starting to switch to guns, and I oh even
Speaker 1: got my own ammunition to shooting, and it just instantly clicked,
Speaker 1: like how the heck did you get the ammunition here?
Speaker 1: And through security man and c Tack pulled all three
Speaker 1: of my bags like you watch that little flipper and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, number one go, number two goes. Because
Speaker 1: these podcast mics were talking on right now. Always he
Speaker 1: thought they were suppressors. Evidently you should keep your thumb
Speaker 1: release since it can be considered brass knuckles in a
Speaker 1: separate So I got almost got my thumb release taken,
Speaker 1: almost got my podcast MIC's taken because they thought those
Speaker 1: looked like silent supercans. And then thankfully the one guy
Speaker 1: didn't even open the bag with the shotgun shells in them.
Speaker 1: Gosh dang, Thankfully I don't have those shotgun. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave them here in Kansas. I'm gonna donate them to
Speaker 1: the Turkey camp. But yeah, that was a not what's
Speaker 1: in my vest. But I had to just let everybody
Speaker 1: know that I snuck some shotgun shells shots, I say,
Speaker 1: without any intention of doing so.
Speaker 2: It can happen.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what they would have did to me,
Speaker 1: Like it's not a weapon, but I probably would have
Speaker 1: gotten in trouble.
Speaker 2: They would have took you to the back room and
Speaker 2: you'd have got the special pat down.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I'm glad I didn't. So back to
Speaker 1: what's in my best I do run a vest. My
Speaker 1: left pocket has a nice little striker and pot. I
Speaker 1: usually keep two pots there with three strikers. Got a
Speaker 1: waterproof striker. I've got just our standard diamond wood peg
Speaker 1: with the maple top, and then I've got a one
Speaker 1: piece reverse taper striker that Steve Morgenstern worked with us on.
Speaker 1: I think we're all sold out. We sold out of
Speaker 1: them really really quick. So got those three strikers, and
Speaker 1: it's just weird, you know. With the certain times, whatever
Speaker 1: turkey call I think sounds the best, the turkeys want
Speaker 1: to answer you switch striker, switch calls, make it higher, pitch, lower,
Speaker 1: pitch more, rasp cleaner, and all of a sudden they hammer.
Speaker 1: So I like to have between those two calls and
Speaker 1: three strikers. Gives me the ability to sound like six
Speaker 1: different birds. On my right hip belt, I carry my
Speaker 1: box call. I'm testing a new box call for twenty
Speaker 1: five right now. Sounds sounds really really good. H moving
Speaker 1: to The APEX system has a drop down seat that
Speaker 1: folds so when you're walking around and it's not dragging around,
Speaker 1: slap it buckles up. I've got a little bit of
Speaker 1: a hydration pack on my back between and I keep
Speaker 1: a water or my extra coat there. And then on
Speaker 1: the front on the chest rig I've got and I'm
Speaker 1: probably gonna get the name of the pocket wrong. I
Speaker 1: believe it's an E two or an E one pocket
Speaker 1: on the front of the chest rig, so it gives
Speaker 1: me a lot of expansion. In the main pocket, I
Speaker 1: typically keep my alcohol, my binoculars, and my AMMO and
Speaker 1: the front one I'll keep my locator's call locator calls.
Speaker 1: I've also got the triple locator lamin it, and I've
Speaker 1: got a crow call, and I also keep all of
Speaker 1: my diaphragms in that front pocket. I don't carry a loppers,
Speaker 1: even though all these guys do, and sometimes I wish
Speaker 1: I had some. I usually I'm the guy that bends
Speaker 1: the stick in half and then does like seventeen twirls
Speaker 1: and try to like get the branch to break off,
Speaker 1: and that's how I usually create my shooting lanes. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I really wish I had some looppers. Brandy has
Speaker 1: a really nice pair of They're like ratcheting right, so
Speaker 1: even if you have to cut a big, big, you know,
Speaker 1: branch out of the way, with the small pair of pliers,
Speaker 1: you can just get a little leverage. It locks and
Speaker 1: it slowly just works your way through them. We need
Speaker 1: to get that not in my best but something we
Speaker 1: carry here in Kansas we don't carry in Washington do
Speaker 1: to the terrain is these low, very low sitting seats man.
Speaker 2: Folding folding chairs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just little folding chairs that are four inches off
Speaker 1: the ground. Makes these long morning sits a lot more comfortable,
Speaker 1: a lot easier to sleep in than when you're sitting
Speaker 1: against the tree on the ground. And they're almost a
Speaker 1: little too high even though they are four inches to
Speaker 1: get your knee, but usually we can put a hand
Speaker 1: under your gun or on your knee and get like
Speaker 1: the right elevation to shoot out really makes your sits
Speaker 1: sits longer. And then not in our vest, but around
Speaker 1: our shoulders is typically always that upright hand decoy we're
Speaker 1: packing into all of our sets, and then we'll decide
Speaker 1: when we get there if it's the right setup, you know,
Speaker 1: or if it's things are happening too quick or the
Speaker 1: brush is too tall, what we're going to do there.
Speaker 1: So that's really you know, I carried an eight y
Speaker 1: thirty two pair of loop loophold b X fours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just pretty simple system. And then I probably got twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty different diaphragms that I carry around just because
Speaker 1: I I've got them. And you know, if I'm trying
Speaker 1: to you know, emulate a tree yelp or something real light,
Speaker 1: I might switch compared to a call that I want
Speaker 1: to cut down into, you know, try to locate a
Speaker 1: bird with. So I just I've got a handful of
Speaker 1: of diaphragms, and that pretty much rounds out everything that
Speaker 1: I carry. Pretty pretty simple. You know, sometimes a Washington
Speaker 1: bigger canyon country, I'll i'll grab a tube call just
Speaker 1: so I can you know, cut really loud and locate birds.
Speaker 2: Yeah those, I'll I have one of those folding chairs too,
Speaker 2: and their life saver here so you get you off
Speaker 2: the ground. I think with that you have a little
Speaker 2: maybe less texts on you or maybe it takes some
Speaker 2: longer to get on you. But also just the comfort level,
Speaker 2: because I feel like here in Kansas we do a
Speaker 2: lot more sitting and being patient, and being comfortable while
Speaker 2: you're sitting and being patient is paramount because if you're
Speaker 2: not comfortable, you're moving around and pretty soon Tom comes
Speaker 2: in and the spot you moving around or whatever. So
Speaker 2: those things are you gotta have them. They're they're really nice.
Speaker 2: But but what in Idaho or let's say you're in Washington,
Speaker 2: you're putting on a lot more miles in a day
Speaker 2: chasing turkeys. They're kind of a pain in the butt
Speaker 2: to carry.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're they're not fun. And uh, I feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, we could get in some long callings. We
Speaker 1: have to sit for a long time. I'll just make
Speaker 1: it do. But you know, the butt pad, the one
Speaker 1: inch foam or one and a half inch foam, three
Speaker 1: inches of film, whatever your best has like that typically
Speaker 1: will be good enough to get you through a sit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I want to thank you for
Speaker 2: getting me one of those cool Apex spelt systems. You're from, FAHF.
Speaker 2: And that was sarcasm because I don't have one. Oh,
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, Jason.
Speaker 1: Well, you just I didn't know you wanted one. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if I would have known, I could have tried. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, well no, now you know. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: why I was the guinea pig last year. I think
Speaker 1: me and Ranello were the first.
Speaker 2: Two to unund Yeah, you've got a prototype.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I probably should have just reached out and said, hey,
Speaker 2: can I get one of those? Yeah too, so it'd
Speaker 2: be cool, like Jason, Yeah, yeah, the Ultimate Turkey Hunter.
Speaker 2: You feel like the Batman and the Turkey Woods when
Speaker 2: you wear that like a superhero. It looks like a
Speaker 2: utility belt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah it is. It's I could I have so
Speaker 1: much more stuff I can add to that, just like
Speaker 1: the build on it. Put a couple more box calls
Speaker 1: on the back. I got all kinds of room. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. But I don't like vests, you know, there's
Speaker 1: I struggle with it. Because growing up, like turkey vests
Speaker 1: were the cool thing, right, It's like it's like if
Speaker 1: your basketball, you know, back when air Jordans were cool.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, to be a turkey hunter, Like that's
Speaker 1: the that's the thing. Yeah, I want a best because
Speaker 1: you gotta look the part. You gotta it's the.
Speaker 2: Just the quintessential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the quintessential turkey hunter has a vest. He can
Speaker 1: keep you know, his decoys, his old foam decoys were
Speaker 1: in the back pocket, and you know this and that
Speaker 1: and the drop down seat that hits you in the
Speaker 1: back of the knees, like that's what you wanted. And man,
Speaker 1: it would be tough to go back to a vest
Speaker 1: after having a more light weight belt system with just
Speaker 1: some shoulder straps, the chest trig like I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm stuck inside of a vest and
Speaker 1: doesn't add any warmth necessarily. It's a real nice system.
Speaker 2: That's why I don't wear a vest is because I
Speaker 2: just get so overheated a lot of times, like this
Speaker 2: week's been good, hasn't been very hot, quite a bit
Speaker 2: of win it's been fairly cooler temperatures, but man, when
Speaker 2: it when when we've been here in May, and it's
Speaker 2: it's humid and pretty warm out. Oh if you heard
Speaker 2: the clothes the Better Man, you just you get pretty sweaty,
Speaker 2: and a vest would just add to that. But I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people love them, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, you know, the Apex system, I'm I'm not.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even coming into this podcast trying to endorse it,
Speaker 1: but it isn't is a nice system right main the USA,
Speaker 1: by my good buddy Paul lewis great designer.
Speaker 2: He makes every single one of them, doesn't he No, No,
Speaker 2: he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Just he gets them scratched out and then we I
Speaker 1: think he passes those on. He'd probably like it if
Speaker 1: I told everybody that he built all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're just gonna run through a few scenarios to
Speaker 1: round out this. Uh, you know, the podcast is a
Speaker 1: lot of people. When I was when I was learning
Speaker 1: how to turkey hunt and reading all kinds of articles
Speaker 1: and watching this video. Nowadays there's there's so much YouTube.
Speaker 1: But I feel like a lot of new turkey hunters
Speaker 1: or people that are just getting into it or maybe
Speaker 1: haven't had a lot of success. They hear a sound
Speaker 1: in the woods and they don't know what to do, Like,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I just heard this, So I'm gonna run through some
Speaker 1: scenarios and just kind of get your take or what
Speaker 1: you would do. I may tell you why I agree
Speaker 1: with you or disagree with you, and then we'll go
Speaker 1: from there. So we're gonna call this the lost hen scenario.
Speaker 1: We're walking through some Randy's woods back here. Let's say's
Speaker 1: two hunderd acres of woods, but we got a little
Speaker 1: trail built through it. You hear a distant yelp of
Speaker 1: a lost hen echoing through the trees. What are you
Speaker 1: gonna do?
Speaker 2: I'm probably gonna start looking for cover immediately, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: where is this? Where's this head at? And where am
Speaker 2: I at in relation to it? Do I need to
Speaker 2: like hide right now? Is it? Is it far enough
Speaker 2: away where I'm not gonna get spotted? But anytime, anytime
Speaker 2: I hear any kind of Turkey vocalization, that's the first
Speaker 2: thing on my mind. Am I exposed? Can I Can
Speaker 2: I get down? Can I get a shooting lane? And
Speaker 2: and be ready? Yep, that's gonna be my first thing
Speaker 2: because you're gonna shoot a hen? No, but there may
Speaker 2: be a gobbler with her.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna get to that. So you're assuming,
Speaker 1: even though you just heard of lost hin, it's it's
Speaker 1: in April, you're gonna assume there's a gobbler there.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna assume it. Yeah, I feel like it'd be
Speaker 2: just like September and elk. Like if I hear cal
Speaker 2: Cals calling in late September, I'm like, oh, there could
Speaker 2: be a bowl.
Speaker 1: No, I wasn't saying you're wrong. I was gonna agree
Speaker 1: with that. I was just bringing that up instantly. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna assume almost any turkey noise I hear there's gonna
Speaker 1: be something I want to shoot with it a long beard.
Speaker 1: Whether that's a case or not, we'll find out later.
Speaker 1: But yeah, number one, assume there's.
Speaker 2: A The next thing to add to what I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, and I also like, then I'm gonna vocalize back.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call back to it, you know, depending on
Speaker 2: how far away it is, if it's not very if
Speaker 2: it's pretty close, I'm gonna be pretty quiet and make
Speaker 2: some really quiet yelps and very concerned, Like maybe you
Speaker 2: do three or four yelps and then just let it
Speaker 2: set like less is more in times like that in
Speaker 2: my opinion, yep.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I might do a little different
Speaker 1: than vocalized back. If I hear a hen yelping, I
Speaker 1: might just sit there for two or three minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on how far If I've got to sit down,
Speaker 1: I'll sit down, but I might just listen, like, what's
Speaker 1: going on? Is there? You know? Is is she going
Speaker 1: to continue to talk? Was it just a did she
Speaker 1: just kind of you know, make a sporadic sound and
Speaker 1: then she's back to feeding and content? Like why did she?
Speaker 1: You know? Maybe listen for distant gobbles, depending on how
Speaker 1: far out she is, and then, like you, I may
Speaker 1: yelp back. And one thing I like to do, similar
Speaker 1: to elk calling, is we try to match her intensity.
Speaker 1: You know, if a hen's out there just being loud
Speaker 1: mouthed and yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I may
Speaker 1: kind of going with that intensity. But if she's just
Speaker 1: milling around, the last thing I want to do is
Speaker 1: is try to to you know, tick off that hand
Speaker 1: and get her to go the other way. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'll match intensity and typically very soft call just loud.
Speaker 1: I always just want to assume that I'm calling just
Speaker 1: loud enough she can just barely hear me, or just
Speaker 1: aggressively enough that she can just barely hear me. See
Speaker 1: if we get a response, you know, if that doesn't
Speaker 1: work out, we don't get a response a lot of times,
Speaker 1: move in that direction a little bit, try again, get
Speaker 1: a little closer, and then we all know. Or or
Speaker 1: if you've been turkey it long enough, you know that
Speaker 1: if it is the dense forest kind of like we
Speaker 1: set up, you're probably not gonna go and sneaking in
Speaker 1: on this bird. So the last thing I want to
Speaker 1: do is like push too hard, you know, maybe different.
Speaker 1: This is where elkin and turkey deffer a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'll be a little more patient turkey hunting and be
Speaker 1: a little less aggressive and not walk in. I'll maybe
Speaker 1: skirt or just make a mental note on where that
Speaker 1: hen was at what time of day. If I don't
Speaker 1: hear a gobbler, you know, kind of continue on and.
Speaker 2: I might not even call. I might I might not
Speaker 2: do a turkey call. I may sit down, get concealed.
Speaker 2: I may blow a locator call like a hawk screamer
Speaker 2: or a crow call. Now we're we're now, we're checking
Speaker 2: to see if there's a gobbler there, right, so it's
Speaker 2: going to be a sound that's non threatening to the hen.
Speaker 2: And if there's a tom there, he may he may
Speaker 2: sound off lately here in the middle of the day
Speaker 2: and stuff, it seems like. And we can't buy a
Speaker 2: gobble no matter what. We're slamming the car door, you
Speaker 2: name it. I mean, you can't get on to gobble.
Speaker 2: But that's a good way to to actually see if
Speaker 2: there could possibly be a tom with her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great answers. You know, there's there's no right or
Speaker 1: wrong answer here. We're just kind of telling you what
Speaker 1: we would do. Next scenario is the tom in the field.
Speaker 1: You're hunting in an open field, or you pop up
Speaker 1: to an open field. We can envision like Randy's top today.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a long, narrow, flat top that kind
Speaker 1: of maybe drops into two oak bottoms on both sides.
Speaker 1: You pop up at one end and you see a
Speaker 1: tom strutting out there twohundred fifty yards away. What's your move?
Speaker 2: I'm a belly crawl out there and grab him. No, No,
Speaker 2: I'm probably gonna watch him for a little bit and
Speaker 2: see what's on his mind. Where's he going? Is he
Speaker 2: coming my way? Is he going the other way? Of
Speaker 2: course I don't want to get seen, but I'm gonna
Speaker 2: kind of I'm gonna kind of observe and see what
Speaker 2: he's doing before I do any calling to him.
Speaker 1: I like it, so I know, when me and Chris
Speaker 1: went through this, we talked a little bit of knowing
Speaker 1: that you have the ability to cut that distance from
Speaker 1: two point fifty to potentially one hundred yards. Would you rather,
Speaker 1: let's say you knew without getting picked off, you could
Speaker 1: crawl out there and put your decoy out and he
Speaker 1: would eventually see it. Would you try to call that
Speaker 1: bird from two and fifty yards away with your decoy
Speaker 1: or would you drop off the edge into the oaks
Speaker 1: and try to pop up at one hundred yards? Which
Speaker 1: one would you take? If you can only take one?
Speaker 1: I know Chris said he would always try to cut
Speaker 1: that distance down as much as possible. He'd much prefer
Speaker 1: one hundred yards and no decoy, but being really close
Speaker 1: to that bird then two hundred fifty yards and a decoy,
Speaker 1: And so that was one. I know. I wanted to
Speaker 1: add that in that, you know, if you can move
Speaker 1: same thing we talked about on elk all the time.
Speaker 1: Like you, your chances of calling something exponentially go up.
Speaker 1: If you can cut that distance, if they have to
Speaker 1: move their feet as a little as possible to get
Speaker 1: to you, your your chance is going to go, you know,
Speaker 1: way up.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. Anytime you can get within you know, their
Speaker 2: zone or whatever you want to call it. You know,
Speaker 2: like you say, two hundred fifty yards, you just may
Speaker 2: be background noise at that point. It's like, I'm content
Speaker 2: over here strutting around and doing my thing. If if
Speaker 2: if I'm goblin whatever, I want you to come over
Speaker 2: to me. But if you get over there and you're
Speaker 2: half that distance or even closer, and you you know,
Speaker 2: pop out a little a little closer than that and
Speaker 2: can do a little bit of calling, you're definitely going
Speaker 2: to be get more of his attention.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, that's that's like I say, that's that's
Speaker 1: what we would do, not saying it's the right or wrong,
Speaker 1: but that's how we're probably gonna run. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: probably run that system over and over and over until
Speaker 1: it works out. So now we're gonna picture ourselves in
Speaker 1: a wooded area and you hear an echoing, thunderous gobble
Speaker 1: off in the distance.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's tough because sometime we've we ran into that.
Speaker 2: This morning a little bit, it's like, Okay, which way
Speaker 2: is it? Is it that way? I mean, trying to
Speaker 2: locate those gobbles in the woods is tough. So if
Speaker 2: it's off in the distance a while, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get super quiet and listen. You know, I may
Speaker 2: just listen for a few minutes on my own without
Speaker 2: making any kind of noise. If it was only one gobble,
Speaker 2: then I'm After listening for a while, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do some calling, whether it's a locator call or
Speaker 2: a hen call, I'm gonna do some calling to see
Speaker 2: if I can hear it again. Like I really want
Speaker 2: to pinpoint this thing and determine how far away it
Speaker 2: is in the position of it. Am I going to
Speaker 2: have to get real crafty and like make a big
Speaker 2: circle because there's a field in between him and I
Speaker 2: and I'll get exposed or or is it good? Is
Speaker 2: can I can I quietly and quickly approach him without
Speaker 2: getting getting seenep that Those are the first things through
Speaker 2: my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the first thing we always do when we
Speaker 1: hear gobble, which you touched on, we all got to
Speaker 1: try to figure out in our heads where we think
Speaker 1: he is. Right. That's every time we hear a gobble
Speaker 1: like Olhwa's up on he's up in the corner of
Speaker 1: that you know lot, or he's down in that bottom
Speaker 1: where these two cricks intersect. You know, we're always trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where he is exactly, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: may take the second gobble. You know, we've all all
Speaker 1: listened to Tricky's gobble. We know they haven't moved, but
Speaker 1: just by them turning one eighty gobbling at, gobbling away,
Speaker 1: or like up birds in two different spots by half
Speaker 1: a mile, you know, sometimes we really need to pinpoint him.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, the same is just listen for a
Speaker 1: little bit. Are there hens with him? Are there other?
Speaker 1: A lot of times are there other birds? You know?
Speaker 1: And then once we can figure that out, typically unless
Speaker 1: they're coming in our direction by their their gobbles, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll we'll try to cut that distances, you know, as
Speaker 1: the terrain and vegetation allows, and try to get as
Speaker 1: close as we can do them. And then typically you know,
Speaker 1: if you had to pick a call to use, We're
Speaker 1: probably gonna sit down and you know, start with just
Speaker 1: your your typical yelping, your you know, see if we
Speaker 1: get a response, is he ended that or not? Maybe
Speaker 1: wait five to ten minutes, does the answer and then
Speaker 1: you know, figure out if we if we you know,
Speaker 1: a few clucks and you know, some more aggressive yelps,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe even throw some cutting in later on
Speaker 1: down the road, like just see if he's if he's
Speaker 1: into that. If not, we may need to just sit tight.
Speaker 1: You know, you've now made some some some you know,
Speaker 1: hint calls, and a lot of times I think we
Speaker 1: relate it more to elk where we'll get up and
Speaker 1: try to push the push the conversation and push the game.
Speaker 1: A lot of times these turkeys are they're just they're
Speaker 1: coming in slow. They're they're working at their own pace.
Speaker 1: So just be patient. As I think I'm a hundred
Speaker 1: times more patient turkey hunter than I'm an elk hunter.
Speaker 1: I've just i feel like I've seen it enough where
Speaker 1: it sometimes it just takes a little time to materialize
Speaker 1: and for things to happen like you want them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get as close as I can
Speaker 1: to that gobbling bird without being seen, be as very conservative,
Speaker 1: you know, as conservative as I can, and then try
Speaker 1: to get in tight.
Speaker 2: Another thing by sitting there and listening for a little while.
Speaker 2: I feel like this happens a lot. Like you hear
Speaker 2: one gobble and it's in the distance, and you sit down,
Speaker 2: you start being quiet, and you just listen, and then
Speaker 2: you start calling, and if you let it, give it
Speaker 2: a little bit of time, like five ten minutes. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you hear a gobbler, like really close to you that
Speaker 2: you might not heard before. It's like, oh, I heard
Speaker 2: a gobble, and then you just take off towards it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you'll walk away from one. Yeah, that would have
Speaker 2: been calling right right there. Sometimes the ones that are
Speaker 2: close to you, sometimes it just takes them a little
Speaker 2: longer to vocalize. Sometimes not. Sometimes they just hammer right away.
Speaker 2: But I feel like giving it a little I feel
Speaker 2: like everything with turkey hunting, if you can give it
Speaker 2: a little more time, Like I am the least patient
Speaker 2: person on planet Earth, and turkey hunting is teaching me
Speaker 2: patients and I'm exercising that a lot. Like just take
Speaker 2: your time, Just don't get in a rush, you know,
Speaker 2: just give a little time and and by waiting an
Speaker 2: extra ten ten minutes or something, you're you're not going
Speaker 2: to miss out on anything.
Speaker 1: Yep. Okay, Next scenario will call the morning hen. We
Speaker 1: we roost birds lat or we know where these easterns
Speaker 1: like the roost, so we'll get in tight. You're set
Speaker 1: up near that roosting area, and you start to hear
Speaker 1: the soft clucks and purrs of a hen in a
Speaker 1: nearby tree, uh, followed by long beards or or you know,
Speaker 1: dominant bird gobbles. What's your play.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna start doing my tree tree yelping and soft
Speaker 2: clucks and stuff as well. That way, I want to
Speaker 2: let that that Tom know there's other choices besides the
Speaker 2: girls he already knew about. So that's how I'm gonna
Speaker 2: start things. I'm just gonna I'm not going to overdo it,
Speaker 2: though I don't. I think I think you can overcall,
Speaker 2: especially then, but I just want to like enter the
Speaker 2: conversation a little bit and just say hey, I'm over
Speaker 2: here too, and then just kind of let leave it
Speaker 2: at that and count and and like and and less
Speaker 2: that if that n she starts like firing up a
Speaker 2: lot then I'm probably gonna fire up a little bit more.
Speaker 2: But I don't. I don't want to just be there
Speaker 2: and be quiet unless I think if I know their
Speaker 2: path is going to just lead me, lead them right
Speaker 2: towards me, I may just say nothing. It just kind
Speaker 2: of depends on on the turkeys. If you you've been
Speaker 2: playing with them a little bit, and you know they're
Speaker 2: gonna fly down to this little narrow field and they're
Speaker 2: gonna walk right by it because they like to go
Speaker 2: feed in a certain spot, then I may just sit
Speaker 2: there and be quiet, because then if I start calling
Speaker 2: that hand when she gets out of the tree, she
Speaker 2: may laid that gobblet away from me.
Speaker 1: Yep, Now, I like to do you know that similar
Speaker 1: to what you said, I want to I want to
Speaker 1: hen you or tree yolp softly, some real light subtle
Speaker 1: you know clucks, you know, purrs in the trees. And
Speaker 1: I what I'm looking for is those toms do acknowledge me? Right,
Speaker 1: We've all been there, whether the toms are doing their
Speaker 1: own thing or gobbling their own versus when they hit
Speaker 1: your call right on a on a tree yelp, you
Speaker 1: know your second or third note? Yeah, yeah, you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, they know I'm here. That's all I've established it.
Speaker 1: I'm a turkey over here. And then as it gains
Speaker 1: more daylight, I start to get personally very worried that
Speaker 1: they they're looking for me, right, why the hecks you already?
Speaker 1: Is that hen already on the ground? What what's going on?
Speaker 1: Why is this happening? And I don't want to get
Speaker 1: picked off, especially if you like the two days ago
Speaker 1: when we set up next to those jakes and the
Speaker 1: one long beard was down the way. Those things were
Speaker 1: in a tree sixty seventy yards away from me, and
Speaker 1: by thankfully had really good cover. But I was worried
Speaker 1: that they're going to try to pinpoint us, and and
Speaker 1: you know, know that we're on the ground already without
Speaker 1: a fly down, and you know all of that, and
Speaker 1: one thing, it depends on our cover. Sometimes I'll omit
Speaker 1: to fly down. I'll just I'll show up as a
Speaker 1: hint that's already on the ground. You know, once once
Speaker 1: I can hear them all fly down. But if the
Speaker 1: cover allows it, and I can do it in a
Speaker 1: way where it's realistic and I know I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get picked off, we'll do a fly down, cackle and
Speaker 1: kind of let that bird know that we're the first
Speaker 1: hindle on the ground. You know, maybe grab his attention
Speaker 1: to that location, especially when you're trying to fight. You know,
Speaker 1: the real thing in the adjacent trees. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, soft soft clucks and purrs,
Speaker 1: you know, soft soft tree helps just make sure that
Speaker 1: those birds identify that that we're there. And in the last, uh,
Speaker 1: the last scenario is the silent woods. There's turkey sign,
Speaker 1: fresh tricky sign, there's birds around you're hunting area, but
Speaker 1: the woods are silence, you know, silent. What's your approach.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna go where I I think they're gonna
Speaker 2: be hanging out. Maybe we're not wear that right now.
Speaker 2: Let's say you know, you have broken meadows and woods
Speaker 2: or fields and woods. If they're they're quiet and they're
Speaker 2: not out in the fields, they're probably in those woods.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're down in a draw or something. But I
Speaker 2: know they want to come up in the field at
Speaker 2: some point. Sometimes mid morning, they're gonna want to go
Speaker 2: come up and strutt in those areas. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: maybe the the hens are gonna want to come up
Speaker 2: there and feed. But if everything's quiet, I'm not hearing anything.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna kind of be practice at patience again.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna set up, I'm gonna do some calling. I'll
Speaker 2: put a decoy out. I'm gonna start calling, you know,
Speaker 2: and real sparingly at first, and then maybe get a
Speaker 2: little bit louder, a little bit louder, and then I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna turn it off and let it set. And
Speaker 2: I may sit for an hour or two, depends, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it just takes that time, like they're eventually gonna
Speaker 2: come there, or you know, they're preoccupied, like we talked before,
Speaker 2: you know, with those hens, but but that doesn't work
Speaker 2: out for him, or they're they're ready to do something different.
Speaker 2: I heard Hans over, I'm gonna go check it out.
Speaker 2: So I think you know that it's almost like cold
Speaker 2: calling for elk, you know, you you know there's elk
Speaker 2: in the area. You know there's turkeys in the area.
Speaker 2: We're gonna do a bunch of calling, and then we're
Speaker 2: just to shut up and just kind of see how
Speaker 2: it unfolds.
Speaker 1: Ye, I think, well, Primus was he used to call
Speaker 1: it the MRI, right, the most recent information you've got,
Speaker 1: and so in the morning if we let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been fortunate here. Randy does a great job with
Speaker 1: his properties. Usually you can show up on the property
Speaker 1: even if it's not where you wanted to set up
Speaker 1: to start the day. You'll hear birds, right and if
Speaker 1: you don't hear birds, and you know where the birds
Speaker 1: were at the day before, where they like to frequent,
Speaker 1: so that's like the best information. Or hey, there was
Speaker 1: a tom on this field edge on a certain date.
Speaker 1: So you're you're trying to look at like do I
Speaker 1: have Number One, do I have live birds that are
Speaker 1: gobbling today? Do I think their jakes or longbeards? And
Speaker 1: then you know, and if I don't have any birds,
Speaker 1: then where have they been? And then if that's not
Speaker 1: the case, like I like to get as high as
Speaker 1: I can or on a ridge or get some elevation
Speaker 1: to my back, you know, on my side, and if
Speaker 1: that doesn't work, Just like we were talking this morning,
Speaker 1: we were able to actually, you know, hear better from
Speaker 1: down load just because the angle we could hear up
Speaker 1: on the tops versus if we got as we got
Speaker 1: to the edge of those hills, we couldn't hear as good.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to be able to listen,
Speaker 1: and then I will run those ridges, and in this
Speaker 1: time of year, all kind of alternate all you know,
Speaker 1: why we don't think there's trickys there. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: cranking through my woodpecker, you know, hawk scream, I'll scream.
Speaker 1: I'm cranking on the box call. I'm letting you loud yelps.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm being pretty pointed here because I will
Speaker 1: I will assume that if I don't hear a bird
Speaker 1: and the you know, right now, we've got it. We've
Speaker 1: got it coined. From about daylight to eight thirty, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna assume that there's not a bird there, because I
Speaker 1: should be able to get a gobble of some sort.
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna run. You're running the ridges or
Speaker 1: walk just like we did this morning after we had
Speaker 1: kind of a blown set up. We ended up walking
Speaker 1: around trying to get some elevation, trying to hear birds,
Speaker 1: and then reset up and and so I think you
Speaker 1: just got to cover ground. You got to kind of
Speaker 1: let your calls, your locators, you know, your your box calls,
Speaker 1: and even if you're not using the call, just let
Speaker 1: your ears do the walking, right, Just you got to
Speaker 1: find some some recent information. You've got to find a
Speaker 1: gobbler on its feet, and so I just cover ground,
Speaker 1: try to get a you know, an answer or response, listen,
Speaker 1: and then and then go from there. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's tough. Sometimes you'll find yourself in those situations
Speaker 1: where birds just aren't talking, nothing's answering. You just got
Speaker 1: to cover ground, see if you can find them, and
Speaker 1: if not, you know, call the morning hunting and come
Speaker 1: back out later. Or if you're patient, if you're more
Speaker 1: patient than me, you can go sit against the tree
Speaker 1: and set a decoy out or do some you know,
Speaker 1: spread it calling and go from there.
Speaker 2: So the great thing about either one of those tactics
Speaker 2: is they work. They both work really well. And depending
Speaker 2: on the size of property you gotta hunt, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you don't have a large tract. You know that
Speaker 2: that being patient and just sitting and you know, letting
Speaker 2: things unfolds the way to go. If you've got some
Speaker 2: places you can stretch your legs out and put on
Speaker 2: some put on some boot leather miles, then that's that's
Speaker 2: a great way to do it too, because just like
Speaker 2: you say, you know, they might be quite right here,
Speaker 2: but you walk over. If it's broken country, you know,
Speaker 2: you may walk over three hundred yards from where you're
Speaker 2: at and you can hear down into a little drawer
Speaker 2: or a little holler or something, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, bam, you can hear the turkeys. They're right
Speaker 2: over here. They've been calling the whole time, you just
Speaker 2: couldn't hear them because your location.
Speaker 1: Well, that about wraps it up. We're almost an hour
Speaker 1: into this. We got to go get ready to go
Speaker 1: back out turkey hunting. So I really appreciate the one
Speaker 1: and only Dirk Durham turkey hunting expert, expert in all
Speaker 1: things wild turkeys.
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh, that was probably the nicest thing you ever
Speaker 2: said about me and the most fictitious.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you having here. We're having a blossom, Kansas. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to cutting distance and lucked all of you
Speaker 1: out there chasing turkeys.
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody,