Speaker 1: Today, I'm joined by a man that may have forgotten
Speaker 1: more about wild turkeys than I may ever know. Mike Chamberlain.
Speaker 1: He's a wildlife researcher at the University of Georgia's Wild
Speaker 1: Turkey Lab. Since writing his dissertation on turkeys and Predation,
Speaker 1: Chamberlain has studied the birds for almost thirty years. Well,
Speaker 1: he has learned about turkeys has made him a better hunter.
Speaker 1: We're hoping by having him on the show today it
Speaker 1: will help you out as well. Thanks for joining me, Mike,
Speaker 1: not a problem. Good to be here, Yeah, thanks, thanks.
Speaker 1: You have any big plans for the spring? Yeah? I do. Actually, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm making the kind of annual swing. I'll go
Speaker 1: to Florida lighter in March, and um hit Texas for
Speaker 1: a week and and then Buddy and our making a
Speaker 1: swing out with us. I think we're gonna do South
Speaker 1: Dakota and Montana and Wyoming and um then I'll I'll
Speaker 1: probably be divorced at that point, so I'll have to
Speaker 1: have to come home. Yeah. Yeah, you have a pretty
Speaker 1: full plate there for spring. Um. You know, similar to
Speaker 1: our falls, you you guys load up in the spring
Speaker 1: to chase turkeys and and uh, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: get out there and chase turkeys. I think I'm only
Speaker 1: gonna go to two states. We're gonna go back to Kansas,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna hunt kind of the area I
Speaker 1: cut my teeth on here in northeastern Washington. That'll be
Speaker 1: my two trips. So yeah, we're gonna start this podcast
Speaker 1: off with a few questions um from the listeners. The
Speaker 1: first question, how much should I call to a gobbler
Speaker 1: on the roost. I'm gonna give you my answer, and
Speaker 1: then Michael go ahead and give you the right answer. Um.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, getting closer to that tree is maybe
Speaker 1: even more important than the calling. But the question was
Speaker 1: about the calling. So what I will typically do is
Speaker 1: I want to to get that bird to recognize me
Speaker 1: or acknowledge you know, that that he's heard me. And
Speaker 1: that's typically you know, done by a gobble that follows
Speaker 1: my soft tree. ELPs, I know he's responded to me.
Speaker 1: And then as the morning continues on, some of the
Speaker 1: other hims start to wake up and talk to the turkey.
Speaker 1: He starts to get more excited. I tend to let
Speaker 1: him know where my presence is, but ideally I would
Speaker 1: like to call as little as possible, but enough to
Speaker 1: still be recognized by the tom um. I've I believe
Speaker 1: I've had the worst luck ever hunting turkeys out of
Speaker 1: the roost. Um. It never seems to go to plan.
Speaker 1: But what do you typically do, Mike, as far as
Speaker 1: like how much should you call to the gobbler, why
Speaker 1: they're on the roost and maybe why you know why
Speaker 1: you do that? Yeah, I don't call much, man. I
Speaker 1: I usually if I know he can hear me, which
Speaker 1: you know, if you're within a few hundred yards of
Speaker 1: the bird, he knows exactly where you are. I'll usually
Speaker 1: only call once, um maybe twice, and then I even
Speaker 1: if he doesn't respond, I don't continue to call because
Speaker 1: I know he's heard me. Uh. If I get a
Speaker 1: response like your and like you know, if he cuts
Speaker 1: me off one time, that's it, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm done for that until he until he
Speaker 1: hits the ground. And sometimes I won't call until they
Speaker 1: fly down. It just it just depends do you do
Speaker 1: you change based on if you've been able to pattern
Speaker 1: those birds are kind of seeing what they've did the
Speaker 1: last couple of mornings, or will you just wait until
Speaker 1: they hit the ground to deer calling or is it
Speaker 1: because you know they're typically gonna you're set up in
Speaker 1: a good spot and they're gonna come your direction. Mostly
Speaker 1: usually when I don't call when he's in the tree.
Speaker 1: It you know, I've got some some knowledge that Okay,
Speaker 1: when birds are in this location and they fly down,
Speaker 1: they typically will do this or that. Um. But I've
Speaker 1: also hunted some birds before that. You know, you you
Speaker 1: called to him in the tree, and they they shut
Speaker 1: up and they fly down and head away from you
Speaker 1: and gobble, and they expect you to come to them,
Speaker 1: which is in their world is supposed to happen anyway.
Speaker 1: So um, sometimes I'll just if I think I've got
Speaker 1: everything on my side, there's no hens around him, he's
Speaker 1: by himself. Sometimes I'll let him hit the ground and
Speaker 1: then give him a call, and um, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes it almost elicits elicits a responsible waite a minute.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear her over there, and now she's on
Speaker 1: the ground, and and uh, I've even you know, done
Speaker 1: flat ounds and take you know, my hat or the
Speaker 1: wing that's in my in my jacket. And really, you know,
Speaker 1: once he hits around really makes some racket. And I've
Speaker 1: had some birds responding pretty favorably to that too. Gotcha,
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying, is in the tree, I should
Speaker 1: resist the urge to keep calling that bird, keep getting
Speaker 1: him the gobble to me, and just he knows I'm there.
Speaker 1: I've already established that, and then just be quiet. Yeah, okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna add that. Yeah, yeah, And I agree. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I like to call as little as possible,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's tough, like, well, he's gobbling on all
Speaker 1: these other hens. I want him to acknowledge me or
Speaker 1: re acknowledge me, um as the morning goes on. So
Speaker 1: all right, the second question from our listeners is one
Speaker 1: of turkey gobbles but heads directly away from us. What
Speaker 1: should we do? Or or directly away from your setup
Speaker 1: that initial setup or you know, if you're I guess,
Speaker 1: if you're locating early in the morning, you get a
Speaker 1: turkey to gobble, but he continues to head away from you.
Speaker 1: What should you do? And so I always it makes
Speaker 1: my decision tree a little better. I always assume that
Speaker 1: that bird's in toe is something. You know, he's got
Speaker 1: some hands, he's in toe, and so I'm just assuming
Speaker 1: that he's got hands. He may just be wandering, he
Speaker 1: may just want to go to a different direction. But
Speaker 1: I always try to just think that he's got hands,
Speaker 1: he's going in a different direction. I always want to
Speaker 1: know are there other birds around? Are there other good
Speaker 1: options for us to go hunt that morning? Or is
Speaker 1: that your only play? Is that the only bird in town?
Speaker 1: And you have to make a play? Um, I've had
Speaker 1: very very little success, way better success, you know, trailing
Speaker 1: elk than I have turkeys. Um, If I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to make a plan that turkey, it's got to
Speaker 1: be a big loop. It's got to be you need
Speaker 1: to take the time, put in the effort, get way
Speaker 1: out in front of that bird, and then also understand
Speaker 1: the risk of doing that is you know what what
Speaker 1: speed did he travel as you had to make your loop?
Speaker 1: Are you still on pace? Are you gonna you know?
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a pretty good likelihood that I
Speaker 1: may bump that bird if that's the play I'm gonna make. Um,
Speaker 1: So ideally I'm gonna go hunt a different bird. If
Speaker 1: he continues to gobble as he heads away from me. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the second of all, if that's the only
Speaker 1: bird I've got to hunt. I'm gonna make a big loop,
Speaker 1: try to get in front of him and then either
Speaker 1: ambush or or some light calling out in front. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything to add to that, microor just a
Speaker 1: completely different strategy. Yeah, well no, I I usually, Um,
Speaker 1: it really depends on the bird and where I'm at.
Speaker 1: You know, like if I'm in Merriam's country and they
Speaker 1: start heading away from me, I'm doing what you're you
Speaker 1: know what you just described. I'm getting up and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where they're headed. Same with rios. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, they can they can they can book it
Speaker 1: and head to a different county. It seems if I'm
Speaker 1: over here in my neck of the woods, um, where
Speaker 1: it's really thick and and these you know, these Easterns
Speaker 1: can be a little bit different birds to hunt. I
Speaker 1: will often just sit tight, believe it or not, because, um,
Speaker 1: if I know that he knows where I'm at. We
Speaker 1: have a lot of data showing that sometimes these birds
Speaker 1: will circle back to these places from which they've heard
Speaker 1: calling two or three or four hours later. And I
Speaker 1: know nobody wants to sit there listening to a bird
Speaker 1: gobble and walk away from you. But sometimes that is
Speaker 1: the right play. Um. I think if if I know
Speaker 1: that he's got hands with him, then that's one thing.
Speaker 1: But if I think he's alone and I'm just not
Speaker 1: on his agenda when he hits the ground, I will
Speaker 1: often just sit tight and see if I become on,
Speaker 1: you know, part of his agenda later in the morning,
Speaker 1: or I will maybe try to track, you know, trail him, track,
Speaker 1: follow him a little bit and just kind of keep
Speaker 1: the location I started from in my back pocket, and
Speaker 1: if I need, if he just veils completely and he
Speaker 1: shuts up, I'll a lot of times I'll go back
Speaker 1: to where I started and sit tight and call blindly.
Speaker 1: And I've had birds, but I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was the same bird, but I've had birds that showed
Speaker 1: up doing that. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. That's a great
Speaker 1: segue into into the discussion and some of the questions
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, Mike, is I believe I
Speaker 1: was on the Meter podcast and and I think we
Speaker 1: had a phone call with you and some of your answers,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the most fascinating. You know,
Speaker 1: that's why science is kind of cool, is is you
Speaker 1: there's no you can think things, but once we've got
Speaker 1: the data from you. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: was kind of amazed by is that the research that
Speaker 1: you have, um, like you said, you call from an
Speaker 1: area maybe early in the morning, and you guys have
Speaker 1: got you know, caller or tract birds that will come
Speaker 1: back to that exact point two to three hours, you know,
Speaker 1: four hours later to to you know, once the hens
Speaker 1: go to nest to come back and and look for
Speaker 1: that that hin that was calling to him earlier in
Speaker 1: the morning. Can you can you go into some of
Speaker 1: that data and some of the you know, whether you know,
Speaker 1: percentages and whatnot, and kind of dig into that information
Speaker 1: a little bit more for the listeners. Yeah, sure, sure, yes.
Speaker 1: So what we've done on some study sites is we've actually,
Speaker 1: you know, we captured Tom's and in the winter and
Speaker 1: we put GPS units on them. But we also asked
Speaker 1: cooperating hunters to carry a GPS unit in their pocket.
Speaker 1: And it's just you know, like a garment e treks
Speaker 1: or something, just something simple. We turn it on, it
Speaker 1: gets a location every minute, stick it in their jacket
Speaker 1: and and when they're done with their morning hunt, they
Speaker 1: drop it off with us. And and what we've seen
Speaker 1: pretty clearly is situations where a hunter knew he was
Speaker 1: on a bird. He or she was on a bird,
Speaker 1: the bird was in the tree gobbling, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the hunter was not on the agenda when he flew down,
Speaker 1: and that that's real common with turkeys. They had they
Speaker 1: know where they're headed, and sometimes you're not where they're
Speaker 1: planning to head when they fly down. But then they
Speaker 1: get curious, and if you think about it, it makes
Speaker 1: it makes sense from their perspective that, um, hey, I
Speaker 1: know she's over there, but my first agenda item is
Speaker 1: this place where I interacted with some hinge yesterday, and
Speaker 1: I know they're going to be there, so I'll go
Speaker 1: there first. And then as the morning wears on, he recalls, hey,
Speaker 1: I remember hearing something there. I'm going to go check
Speaker 1: her out now and see if she's still in the area.
Speaker 1: And we have seen numerous instances where a hunter will
Speaker 1: will sit in a spot, presumably just by you know,
Speaker 1: calling to the bird. The bird flies down, cuts their track,
Speaker 1: goes behind them, walks off whatever. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: their GPS coordinates are the same. The hunter is back
Speaker 1: at the truck and gone, and that bird is standing
Speaker 1: exactly where he or she was sitting. Uh, And it
Speaker 1: just speaks to being patient. And that's to your point,
Speaker 1: that's exactly why I I'm one of the most impatient
Speaker 1: pe fold that's ever walked this planet. Yeah, I'm right
Speaker 1: there with you. Yeah, I just can't. I'm busy body
Speaker 1: and answer my pants, you know. And and the more
Speaker 1: I've gotten, the older I've gotten in the more data
Speaker 1: I've seen, the more patient I've become, because I do
Speaker 1: realize that sometimes it is going to pay off that
Speaker 1: that bird is going to come back, not every time
Speaker 1: to your question, And you know, percentage wise, it's not
Speaker 1: a high percentage, but there's a percentage, and that to
Speaker 1: me is relevant because sometimes it will work out for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a strong enough correlation that sometime later in the
Speaker 1: day that that bird is likely to show back up
Speaker 1: at that spot that it's it's worth the play than
Speaker 1: than going to find other birds. Is maybe to hold
Speaker 1: tight and you know he will come back. And now
Speaker 1: with that said, Mike, is there is there any varying data?
Speaker 1: Does it? Is it different earlier in the year where
Speaker 1: not as many you know hens, or maybe going to
Speaker 1: nest versus later in the year that this is likely
Speaker 1: to happen sooner or more often or is there any difference,
Speaker 1: But mean, like you know, earlier in the spring till
Speaker 1: later in the spring, not that, yeah, not that we've
Speaker 1: not that we've been able to see it. You know,
Speaker 1: I ultimately think it boils down to his options that
Speaker 1: that day, and you know, you know as well as
Speaker 1: I do. And these birds know where they're likely to
Speaker 1: interact with hens, and that those are the places that
Speaker 1: if they don't have hens with them or they're not
Speaker 1: following hens, that's what they're going to do. That they're
Speaker 1: either going to fly down and go to a call
Speaker 1: that they think as a bird, or they're headed somewhere,
Speaker 1: often quietly or even gobbling while they're walking, heading to
Speaker 1: a place where they they think they're likely to see
Speaker 1: some hens um. So sometimes that just doesn't include us.
Speaker 1: You know, that spot is not what we're sitting, and
Speaker 1: that's why they seemingly ignore you. And you know common
Speaker 1: you know, logic dictates we call louder and we get
Speaker 1: up and track them, and we do. And in reality,
Speaker 1: if you called, it's as loud as a whisper from
Speaker 1: several hundred yards away, he knows exactly where you are,
Speaker 1: they're they're hearing is a cute. They know exactly where
Speaker 1: you were calling from and are capable at any point
Speaker 1: of walking to that expect to that spot. So times
Speaker 1: just sitting tight is is a good play, as hard
Speaker 1: as it is to do it. Yeah, for sure. Right
Speaker 1: hunt in eastern Washington, very very steep canyon country, and
Speaker 1: we did kind of the impossible the one day, working
Speaker 1: a burden a couple of hens, and they pitched off
Speaker 1: of the adjacent mountain and they landed, you know, ten
Speaker 1: yards from where we were calling. You know, they flew
Speaker 1: all the way across the canyon and hit and landed,
Speaker 1: and it's like their ability to know exactly where you
Speaker 1: were was was demonstrated that day and I couldn't believe it, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, they could have landed dirty yards off, but
Speaker 1: they literally landed no decoys right where we were, you
Speaker 1: know that the two callers were calling from and just crazy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's a great tip. And like I say,
Speaker 1: it was something I didn't know as a turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: Um and then your guys data kind of showed it
Speaker 1: is that those birds they know where you were at,
Speaker 1: they remember where you were at, and there is a
Speaker 1: a you know, better than than random chance that they're
Speaker 1: going to come back and visit that location sometime throughout
Speaker 1: the day. Um, which, which, like I said, being being
Speaker 1: the busy body, you know, the guy that can hunt
Speaker 1: from a tree stand because I will go nuts. Um,
Speaker 1: it's something I definitely want to add kind of to
Speaker 1: my um you know, tree stand for deer. But you
Speaker 1: know something I want to add to my my turkey
Speaker 1: hunting arsenals, Maybe a little more patient and if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go back to camp and take a nap, might
Speaker 1: as well just take a nap under that tree and
Speaker 1: you know see if something shows back up? Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: what better way? Doesn't I mean enjoy the spring, would
Speaker 1: you know? Sit there and yep, yep, yep for sure.
Speaker 1: So this next question kind of comes from once again
Speaker 1: my own, my own question. UM, as I grew up
Speaker 1: hunting Easterns here in western Washington, which you know some
Speaker 1: say like those South Carolina birds or maybe the toughest
Speaker 1: birds to hunt, like our Easterns here in Western Washington.
Speaker 1: Maybe the toughest bird I've ever had to chase, just
Speaker 1: because of the low densities. I always say, if you
Speaker 1: can find one bird Um, you're doing good for the year,
Speaker 1: let alone trying to kill it. Um. You know, we
Speaker 1: may find one to three birds, max um, and then
Speaker 1: we go over to eastern Washington and get to chase
Speaker 1: Miriams and Rio's around and me not me growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, as a high schooler that would jump in
Speaker 1: my Honda Accord and drive across the state just so
Speaker 1: I could go hunt a different bird and hunt higher
Speaker 1: density of birds. I was. I felt like I was
Speaker 1: hunting different different, a different creature. You know, they were
Speaker 1: both turkeys, but they acted completely different. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to just go into you know, whether I'm hunting Easterns
Speaker 1: in Kansas, whether we're hunting Merriam's and Idaho or Eastern
Speaker 1: Washington and and every other bird, Like, what are the
Speaker 1: stark differences between let's say the Easterns, the Miriams and
Speaker 1: Rio's um, and how you would use some of their
Speaker 1: their distinct differences to maybe hunt them different because you
Speaker 1: know the first day I showed up Miriam's, I sat
Speaker 1: into the tree watched him, you know, go away from me, gobbling,
Speaker 1: and and I didn't get up and chase him. I
Speaker 1: just I kind of sat there like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: like an Eastern, He'll he'll be around, He's gonna hang
Speaker 1: out for a while. Um, not have a big you know,
Speaker 1: not have a big loop. And then I might as
Speaker 1: well laced up my running shoes that morning and just
Speaker 1: took off after him. It was, it was a completely
Speaker 1: different setup. So kind of with that question, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you hunt you know, Miriam's and Easterns differently
Speaker 1: kind of some of their habits and how you can
Speaker 1: kind of use some of that against them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Eastern's you know that I'm hunting over here. You know,
Speaker 1: their home range size is only let's just say, on average,
Speaker 1: you know, during a spring week, maybe a few hundred
Speaker 1: to a thousand acres or so, so they're not going
Speaker 1: far from you. Um. I tend not to move a lot,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm not one of these running gun scoot
Speaker 1: and shoot whatever you wanna call it. I tend to
Speaker 1: just uh try to figure out where the bird is
Speaker 1: headed and what's his daily agenda, what are the options,
Speaker 1: and then try to to be as patient as I
Speaker 1: possibly can. Um, And that I think has worked for
Speaker 1: me there. Yeah, there have been some scenarios where I
Speaker 1: got lucky and just called bird up and boom it
Speaker 1: was over with. But a lot of the time I've
Speaker 1: had to work and um, and realized that maybe just
Speaker 1: sitting tight and kind of you know, being really really quiet,
Speaker 1: calling subtly not often has worked. Um. When I go
Speaker 1: out west, I'm like, what you just said has exactly
Speaker 1: been my observation with Miriam's. Yeah. Hell, if he flies down,
Speaker 1: he's in the opposite direction I'm running. I mean, they
Speaker 1: cover some ground. And Rio's can do the same thing too,
Speaker 1: you know, they fly down and they get the booking it,
Speaker 1: and UM, yeah, I'll never forget. And I was hunting
Speaker 1: in Kansas one time and and we followed these words.
Speaker 1: We I mean we had to get in a truck
Speaker 1: to to find them. I mean they just literally it
Speaker 1: was like they left the county and come and find out.
Speaker 1: That was their routine. Each day. They flew down across
Speaker 1: the road, went across two pastors, and before you knew it,
Speaker 1: they were three farms away and they were interacting with hens.
Speaker 1: And that's just what they did every day. And UM,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of the mindset I use. It really
Speaker 1: doesn't matter which subspecies I hunt. I try to scout
Speaker 1: a lot. I try to get as much intel as
Speaker 1: I can about where they want to be anyway, because
Speaker 1: calling a bird to a place he already wants to go,
Speaker 1: or near a place he wants to go, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is a lot easier than calling him somewhere he doesn't go. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm not the world's best caller, so so uh,
Speaker 1: I try to I try to be where birds won't
Speaker 1: want to be already. Yeah, and is is the old
Speaker 1: hunting guy? Um, you know that loves the turkey hunt?
Speaker 1: We knew something very very similar where if you can
Speaker 1: let that elk do exactly what he wants to do
Speaker 1: without you being involved, you've made your life a million
Speaker 1: times easier trying to call that that bowling or that
Speaker 1: elkin than trying to reverse or pull him three under
Speaker 1: yards in the direction he doesn't want to go. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, very very similar. If you can, if you
Speaker 1: can intercept that bird in his daily routine, it's gonna
Speaker 1: make your life a lot easier, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: call that birden versus you know, doing what he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to do. Yeah, no question, absolutely no question. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dive into something and uh, I don't have
Speaker 1: a great grasp and I was able to hunt uh
Speaker 1: eastern Kansas last year and got to hunt with Chris Parrish,
Speaker 1: who you know, I was really picking his brain because
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to know, you know, about nesting and
Speaker 1: more specifically, like you know, when a hand laser first
Speaker 1: egg to their last, Like what's that process? Like when
Speaker 1: does a hand lay on the nest? You know all
Speaker 1: day the majority of the day, do they ever lay
Speaker 1: on it? There's a lot of you know, misinformation out there,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to hear directly from you and then
Speaker 1: how that old mentally affects the hunting. You know, I
Speaker 1: know that April fifteenth in Washington, which is our opener,
Speaker 1: is not a good time to hunt one because everybody
Speaker 1: has taken that same time off to hunt. And number two,
Speaker 1: I cannot get those ding hands to ever you know,
Speaker 1: go away. I'm I'm dealing with, you know, what seems
Speaker 1: like a hand up gobbler the majority of the time.
Speaker 1: But when I go hunt that same piece of public
Speaker 1: ground or same area, say May five, May tenth, my
Speaker 1: job just became a lot easier and a lot of
Speaker 1: times later in that morning, if I can you know,
Speaker 1: find a bird or get one to to light up. Um,
Speaker 1: it's my job is a lot easier trying to call
Speaker 1: that bird in so and my understanding it all comes
Speaker 1: back to nesting. And if you can do kind of
Speaker 1: a nesting one on one here, um, i'd I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear it. Yeah. So, So basically, what what these
Speaker 1: birds do is they the tom's become receptive before the
Speaker 1: hands do. And that's why you see them gobbling and
Speaker 1: displaying and doing their thing before nesting ever starts. The
Speaker 1: hands become receptive. Uh. And the way it's supposed to
Speaker 1: work is everybody breathes pretty much at the same time. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then everyone should go to nest at the same time. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't always function. Uh. We see, particularly in heavily
Speaker 1: hunted populations, that doesn't always occur. It may be more prolonged.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the hen you know, she
Speaker 1: she starts laying, she lays about one egg per day. UM.
Speaker 1: Early in the laying sequence, they will go to the
Speaker 1: nest once a day, they'll lay an egg and they'll leave.
Speaker 1: As they get closer to the day they're going to
Speaker 1: start incubating, they will spend more time at the nest. Uh.
Speaker 1: During the laying process. So in other words, she may
Speaker 1: go on day eight and lay an egg and stay
Speaker 1: there for an hour and then she'll leave. And what
Speaker 1: she's doing is she's she's incubating eggs and she's synchronizing everybody.
Speaker 1: So the day that she starts incubating the last you know,
Speaker 1: the last eggs she lays, she'll start continuous incubation. And
Speaker 1: at that point, you know they're on the nest seven. Uh,
Speaker 1: they'll leave, as I think we're gonna talk about, but um,
Speaker 1: they'll leave and um take a break, defecate, eat, come
Speaker 1: back to the nest. Their clutch sizes really depends on
Speaker 1: the population, but it averages about ten to twelve in
Speaker 1: that range. So if you think about it takes them
Speaker 1: about two weeks to lay a clutch, and it takes
Speaker 1: them about a month to incubate you know, the hatch.
Speaker 1: So so they're really tethered to that nest site for
Speaker 1: about forty five days. UM. So she spends a lot
Speaker 1: of her life within a fairly small area. And from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of of um of hunting, what you see
Speaker 1: is that that tom's really ramp up compa titian amongst
Speaker 1: each other during the laying sequence. And that if you
Speaker 1: think about it makes sense because these birds can perceive. Um,
Speaker 1: there's research and mallards showing that they can perceive when
Speaker 1: females have eggs in the overduct. Drake's can when they're
Speaker 1: flying around in these courtship flights, they can. They can sense,
Speaker 1: they can tell that she's in her laying sequence, and
Speaker 1: if they breathe with with a female during the laying sequence,
Speaker 1: they have a very high probability of being represented in
Speaker 1: that clutch. So if you think about it from a
Speaker 1: turkey's perspective, all of his lady friends start laying eggs
Speaker 1: and his time is running out because she's about to
Speaker 1: be unavailable to him. She's going to be incubating the
Speaker 1: clutch and at that point she's not receptive to him anymore.
Speaker 1: So what we see in our research populations is gobbling
Speaker 1: activity really increases during the laying sequence. So when a
Speaker 1: lot of your hens are laying, you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of gobbling activity because competitions really high during that time.
Speaker 1: So from the standpoint of planning a hunt, just like
Speaker 1: you just said, um, you know it's April fifteenth, that's
Speaker 1: in Washington, it's super early. They're still in these big flocks.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get that bird away from those hens.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, most of those hens are incubating
Speaker 1: or they're laying eggs. At that time, they're in much
Speaker 1: smaller groups. They're dispersed across the landscape. He's super, super
Speaker 1: wound up, and you know, competitions high. It literally can
Speaker 1: act like a different bird, an entirely different bird, because
Speaker 1: he's he is different during that period. That's what I've seen,
Speaker 1: and I actually try to. I try to time my
Speaker 1: hunts if I can, if I'm going somewhere that I
Speaker 1: don't know, I try to time my hunts if possible.
Speaker 1: It's not always possible, but if I can close to
Speaker 1: the laying period, because I know that competition is going
Speaker 1: to be high, and that means birds are I want
Speaker 1: to be gobbling and all things being equal, that's what
Speaker 1: makes me go out there. I want to hear bird's
Speaker 1: talk and I want to be receptive. I'm gonna wind
Speaker 1: back and ask a couple more questions on some stuff
Speaker 1: you said there. So when you say, once the clutch
Speaker 1: is completely laid, she will lay on that seven so
Speaker 1: she she no longer those hens will no longer go
Speaker 1: to rust. They're sitting on those night and day except
Speaker 1: for to go feed and do the stuff you said, correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. We see a few instances of hens that
Speaker 1: maybe the first day she incubates, she may leave the
Speaker 1: nest that night and roost nearby. But within a day
Speaker 1: or two they're they're continuously incubating all day, all night,
Speaker 1: and they'll take a break. Usually we've seen from about
Speaker 1: eleven a m. To about four pm they'll take a break.
Speaker 1: It averages about an hour um. They will usually travel
Speaker 1: a hundred two hundred yards away from the nest and
Speaker 1: then they go back. And that's typically that lone hen
Speaker 1: that you see. She won't go join up with the
Speaker 1: flock or go find it tom that that hen will
Speaker 1: usually just leave her nest, go feed, localize, and then
Speaker 1: come right back to it. Yep, yep. And they they are.
Speaker 1: They are very secretive during their nesting period. Uh Turkeys,
Speaker 1: you know, they're very gregarious and they hang out and
Speaker 1: their social with each other year round, but when they're incubating,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't want to be around other hens.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason for that is they parasitize
Speaker 1: each other. They will lay eggs and other hens clutches um.
Speaker 1: So not only is she trying to avoid predation, but
Speaker 1: she's trying to stay away from other birds. And that's
Speaker 1: why you often will see those lone hens kind of
Speaker 1: you know, shaking bake. She You see her and she's
Speaker 1: going to the same area every day and she's only
Speaker 1: there for fifteen or any minutes and then she's gone.
Speaker 1: That that's what she's doing. She's she's got a routine
Speaker 1: and she's back to the nest. That makes sense. And
Speaker 1: then she gets bread daily or one time to make
Speaker 1: her whole clutch. And this might be a really dumb
Speaker 1: question because I don't know you know birds that well,
Speaker 1: but does she need to get bread every day for
Speaker 1: that egg or is it basically one time up front
Speaker 1: and then that the fifteen eggs you're created from that
Speaker 1: that breeding. They can breed once and produce a clutch.
Speaker 1: They're they're not designed to they're designed to breed multiple
Speaker 1: times to produce a clutch. And there's there's several reasons
Speaker 1: for that. They don't have to breed every day. But
Speaker 1: in an ideal situation, so turkey store sperm, so they
Speaker 1: will breathe, they'll copulate, and they store sperm and these
Speaker 1: tubules in their body, and then their body releases the
Speaker 1: sperm from those tubules, and when it does, that creates
Speaker 1: competition at the sperm level. The best, the most motile
Speaker 1: sperm wins, so the um the viability of that sperm
Speaker 1: decreases as it ages. So if you think about it
Speaker 1: from her perspective, in an ideal world, she'd breed multiple
Speaker 1: times across a number of days and store up the
Speaker 1: sperm because the best sperm is going to win. And
Speaker 1: she's not sure who that is, what tom it is.
Speaker 1: Usually it's dominant birds, but not always, so that's kind
Speaker 1: of how that works. They they should breed multiple times
Speaker 1: and what that results in if you look at clutches, um,
Speaker 1: the research has been done thus far shows that a
Speaker 1: number of clutches have multiple tom's represented in them. UM.
Speaker 1: So she's not only breeding with the same TOM over
Speaker 1: and over, she's breeding with multiple times. Gotcha, That makes
Speaker 1: that makes more sense. It wasn't a straightforward answers, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of a mix of you know, one time
Speaker 1: or multiple and then the the strongest wins out. My
Speaker 1: next question for you, and and this is more of
Speaker 1: you know during that that laying time. When laying one egg,
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever it is, fifteen days or or
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you know it could be a difference.
Speaker 1: But let's just say they lay one egg for fifteen days.
Speaker 1: How far are they going to travel from from their
Speaker 1: roost tree to where they're nesting? And I know the hints,
Speaker 1: you know, the hens prepare all their nests differently. Um,
Speaker 1: Yet they're all typically roosting next to each other. And
Speaker 1: I've always kind of attributed to why you know, the
Speaker 1: hens may walk the tom in a certain direction towards
Speaker 1: their nest or towards where they're all nesting. But how
Speaker 1: far are they typically gonna move? And I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna we already talked about it the subspecies, and it's
Speaker 1: it's different. But um, you know, do we have any
Speaker 1: data on how far they travel from you know, roost
Speaker 1: to nest typically? Um? Yes we do. I've I've got
Speaker 1: a student that's actually looking at this right now. UM,
Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't have an average for you.
Speaker 1: What we do see is that, uh, these birds appear
Speaker 1: to have different strategies. In other words, there appear to
Speaker 1: be some hens that have quite a few rush locations
Speaker 1: in there and their home ranges while they're laying, and
Speaker 1: others do not. Um if you think about it, it
Speaker 1: makes sense to not spend time at that nest while
Speaker 1: you're laying because you're not there to protect the nest,
Speaker 1: so it's unguarded, so you really need to stay away
Speaker 1: from there as much as you can. Um. So, we
Speaker 1: we typically see that birds spend a lot of their
Speaker 1: time elsewhere in their home range and then they run
Speaker 1: over to their nest, not literally, but they moved to
Speaker 1: their nest, they lay an egg, and they're gone. Um
Speaker 1: So there. I don't think there is a distance per
Speaker 1: se and average. I think it's it ultimately depends on
Speaker 1: when she's laying, you know, what time of day her
Speaker 1: body tells her, Hey, it's it's time. You know, you
Speaker 1: need to be moving in that direction. I think that
Speaker 1: dictates where she's adding her home range relative to that
Speaker 1: nest site and how far she is from it. But
Speaker 1: they do tend to stay away from that nest until
Speaker 1: the hour they're going to lay, and then they're then
Speaker 1: they're gone again. So that's that typical morning where you know,
Speaker 1: they all fly down together, they do their thing for
Speaker 1: that morning, and then you'll start to see that hen
Speaker 1: kind of break off, go lay that higg and then
Speaker 1: she comes and joins back up. Yeah, you see that
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, you've got five hands that are together.
Speaker 1: And then at eight o'clock there's four, At ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: there's three. At eleven o'clock, they're gone, and where are
Speaker 1: they at. You know, they're off doing their own things,
Speaker 1: staying away from each other. And you know, from a
Speaker 1: Thomas perspective, that's when I've had I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of luck at that time of morning. If if you
Speaker 1: can get those get those birds away from those hands,
Speaker 1: they become receptive. So one thing for me, we used
Speaker 1: to scout a ton, especially growing up here with very
Speaker 1: few birds. We would spend you know, every weekend in
Speaker 1: March trying to find birds. And then I was able
Speaker 1: as I started to hunt northeast Washington, made the drive
Speaker 1: over the past, started to scout birds and figure them out.
Speaker 1: But the only trouble I was running into is I
Speaker 1: was scouting them in mid March, late March, and I
Speaker 1: would get there and the birds seem to have dispersed um,
Speaker 1: you know, whether they were more comfortable early in the
Speaker 1: spring in the location and then they seem to have moved. Um,
Speaker 1: can you tell me a little bit. I know you've
Speaker 1: you've worked on this and and you've you've had some
Speaker 1: schematics on how birds move and and disperse and talking
Speaker 1: with my buddy, my good buddy Randy who owned some
Speaker 1: property in Kansas, like his his properties are loaded early
Speaker 1: in the season, and then his season gets late, like
Speaker 1: he loses his density of birds very quickly. Um, going
Speaker 1: to neighboring you know, so it's obviously I want to
Speaker 1: be there earlier in spring, but leave. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about like that natural cycle of
Speaker 1: you know, maybe white turkeys are loaded up in a place,
Speaker 1: you know in marches, is they're kind of you know elk.
Speaker 1: We would kind of say they're staging and kind of
Speaker 1: figuring things out, and then they slowly dispersed into smaller
Speaker 1: flocks and smaller groups. Um, and kind of what's going through?
Speaker 1: Are they just trying to go? Are the hens finding
Speaker 1: like they're their annual nesting spot? Like, what's the reason
Speaker 1: for that dispersement and how does how does that kind
Speaker 1: of play out? Yes, So what turkeys do is you know,
Speaker 1: what you're seeing in early March and some of these
Speaker 1: areas are just winter flocks. Those are flocks that they've
Speaker 1: been together, you know, since the fall, and you've got
Speaker 1: a lot of birds there there, and they're about that
Speaker 1: that flock is going to blow up, um, and it's
Speaker 1: going to become a handful of smaller groups that are
Speaker 1: more social groups than anything, and that will often cause
Speaker 1: a scenario you just discussed. Um, they're here in March
Speaker 1: and then April they're gone, or two thirds of them
Speaker 1: are gone. Um. What what they're doing is they're shifting
Speaker 1: their home range at that point, and they're moving from
Speaker 1: more of a wintering area to a spring reproductive area.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's not very far, and sometimes it's it's a
Speaker 1: long way. Uh So, for instance, in our easterns we
Speaker 1: see that, and you know, in some areas it's not
Speaker 1: they may go to the next farm, or they may
Speaker 1: I mean they're very close by, and other populations, like
Speaker 1: our pine dominated landscapes down in the southeast, they may move,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of miles from their wintering range
Speaker 1: to their spring range, and that causes them to literally
Speaker 1: disappear from private properties. You know, if somebody says, Mike,
Speaker 1: I had birds until February and then they left and
Speaker 1: then they had they don't come back until the summer.
Speaker 1: When you go to the western subspecies, you often see,
Speaker 1: like the research has shown with Miriam's, they will move
Speaker 1: a dramatic distance from winter to spring thirty miles you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and you see that, you know, I think less common
Speaker 1: in some of the prairie landscapes than you do in
Speaker 1: other places where they're moving, you know, to some degree
Speaker 1: based on elevation, but um, but yeah, they they can
Speaker 1: cover some ground between winter and spring. And that's a
Speaker 1: common scenario in all of the subspecies that shift from
Speaker 1: winter to spring. Got you that that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense because some places in you know, we're hunting
Speaker 1: Miriam's in eastern Washington, you know, real mountainous. You might
Speaker 1: as well just put your backpack on, and you know,
Speaker 1: because you're five six miles from a road where they're
Speaker 1: wintering down in that agg and then as the snow melts,
Speaker 1: they're almost following you know, that snow line kind of
Speaker 1: back up the mountain and they just end up where
Speaker 1: they're at. I guess as long as they have enough
Speaker 1: food and water and security, and that's where they want
Speaker 1: to nest and and you know, do their breeding then
Speaker 1: that they'll move up there. But I just always wondered,
Speaker 1: you know, like that dispersement, like why wouldn't they hang
Speaker 1: out on the agg um. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: you know, concentration of predators or what their reasoning was
Speaker 1: from from leaving where you know, it kind of feels
Speaker 1: like they got that that gravy life with a bunch
Speaker 1: of agg and a ton of bugging and kind of
Speaker 1: everything they need and they almost make life harder on
Speaker 1: themselves by going up into the mountains and and you
Speaker 1: know doing it that way. Yeah, Well, they're looking for
Speaker 1: you know, they're looking for habitat that they think they
Speaker 1: could hode in and they can take a brood too,
Speaker 1: and the brood is going to have you know, more success.
Speaker 1: And in those in areas where you see elevation chains
Speaker 1: like that, Um, what you just said is is spot on.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they literally almost looks like they're following snow melt. Well,
Speaker 1: what they're actually doing is they're moving up and down
Speaker 1: elevation based on resource availability. So as things are greening
Speaker 1: up and becoming more succulent, insect communities are thriving, they're
Speaker 1: they're going to shift around and use that. Um. And
Speaker 1: you don't see that is that shift is pronounced obviously
Speaker 1: saying Eastern's where you know, in most areas they're not living.
Speaker 1: Elevation is not a really big thing for them. Um
Speaker 1: it can be, you know, Appalachians in some areas it
Speaker 1: can be, but usually it's more pronounced than Miriam's. All right,
Speaker 1: So that just kind of covering that we talked about
Speaker 1: scouting turkeys so much that you know, if you are
Speaker 1: in you know, the western area is where these birds
Speaker 1: are going to maybe disperse. You know, the the Miriam's
Speaker 1: and the Rio's are gonna move a little bit farther.
Speaker 1: You know, just keep that in mind while you're scouting
Speaker 1: that there are birds there now, but they may not
Speaker 1: necessarily be there when you come back, or you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes time for season to actually open, you
Speaker 1: may need to go. You know, they'll hire a little
Speaker 1: farther to find them. Um. Okay. And then this this,
Speaker 1: this question isn't gonna necessarily fit in, but it's something
Speaker 1: I've always kind of wondered about. I've read a few
Speaker 1: articles on it. When I was growing up turkey hunting
Speaker 1: and getting really into it, you know, in the late
Speaker 1: nineties early two thousands. I was doing a bunch of
Speaker 1: reading because nobody in western Washington, you know, huntred turkeys.
Speaker 1: The the idiots around here. The only thing we had
Speaker 1: any interaction we had with weld turkeys, with somebody shooting
Speaker 1: him out of a field with a rifle when they
Speaker 1: seen him. And you know, nobody hunted these things. It
Speaker 1: was a bird they shot with a rifle. And so
Speaker 1: I was trying to learn, like how do we find him?
Speaker 1: How do we call them? In? Um? And you know,
Speaker 1: I can remember reading back when Missouri was like it,
Speaker 1: and I might be off by a few years, but
Speaker 1: you know, Missouri was in there heydays. You know, some
Speaker 1: of these states back in the Midwest where just you
Speaker 1: know loaded, and then now you fast forward one and
Speaker 1: some of the numbers that are coming out, like Missouri's
Speaker 1: in bad trouble. You know, As I was hunting turkeys
Speaker 1: in Kansas at the gas station, you know, you'd hear
Speaker 1: comments to to Randy and and Chris Parrish like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, turkey seemed to be way down this year,
Speaker 1: almost like they're they're at extinction levels almost, you know,
Speaker 1: compared to what they were twenty years ago. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the articles we read are really putting a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on the youth seasons, and you know
Speaker 1: some of the reasons why they feel youth seasons may
Speaker 1: have a bigger effect on the birds even though the
Speaker 1: numbers aren't that different. Can you maybe shed some light
Speaker 1: onto what your opinion is, whether it is youth seasons,
Speaker 1: whether it's maybe is predation like a lot bigger issue.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've talked before about you know, the
Speaker 1: price of raccoons. Um, you know, there there is no market,
Speaker 1: so nobody wants to go out and trap raccoons anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, and bobcats, coyotes. You know, it seems like possums.
Speaker 1: Everything's after after a turkey. But, um, do we have
Speaker 1: a good idea yet on maybe what's what's hurting these numbers.
Speaker 1: Are youth seasons to blame, is over harvest to blame?
Speaker 1: Is it predators or is it I mean we all
Speaker 1: kind of know it's probably a combination. But what's your
Speaker 1: what's your feeling on the biggest impact? Um, it really
Speaker 1: depends on where you are, and and I'll just say
Speaker 1: it depends although I know that's a cop out answer,
Speaker 1: but the bottom line is Uh, all of these things
Speaker 1: that occur on the landscape, habitat issues, predation issues, harvest issues,
Speaker 1: weather disease, all these things impact turkeys at at a
Speaker 1: local level. The contribution of each one of those things varies.
Speaker 1: So saying it's predation, no, it's not just predation, it's predation,
Speaker 1: and X y Z saying it's hunting, No, it's not hunting,
Speaker 1: it's hunting, and x y z, UH and PDQ and ABC.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just depends on where you are. The
Speaker 1: bottom line is from a turkey's pers effective if you
Speaker 1: look big picture, kind of use the coach's view of
Speaker 1: the of the US and the areas where turkeys live.
Speaker 1: You know, the big picture. You see that. UM. All
Speaker 1: you have to do is drive across the United States
Speaker 1: and look out your window and you will see compared
Speaker 1: to twenty years ago, habitat loss. You'll see, uh, habitat degradation,
Speaker 1: the existing habitats that we have left or not as
Speaker 1: the quality they were. You'll see fragmentation off the charts. UM.
Speaker 1: Things that interest you know that split habitat, roads, power lines,
Speaker 1: rights of way, you know, you name it. UM. That
Speaker 1: doesn't benefit turkeys, it benefits things that eat turkeys. You
Speaker 1: see um, you see a lack of management of properties.
Speaker 1: In the South, it could be lack of fire. In
Speaker 1: the West, it could be lack of prescribed fire or
Speaker 1: timber harvest. Things that increase early successional habitats. You you
Speaker 1: see predator communities are off. You know, they're they're more diverse,
Speaker 1: and they're more abundant than they were historically. There are
Speaker 1: more of these things out there period. And if you
Speaker 1: think about it from a turkey's perspective, if you have
Speaker 1: less habitat and what is there is has more predators
Speaker 1: in it. That it's math. It's basic math. So we've
Speaker 1: seen that successes is quite a bit lower than it
Speaker 1: was historically. We have disease issues that are popping up
Speaker 1: all over the country that we really don't understand. We've
Speaker 1: we've known that some diseases affect turkeys and half for
Speaker 1: years and years, and there are some new things that
Speaker 1: are emerging that we don't have a good grasp of,
Speaker 1: and we just it's hard to answer questions about disease
Speaker 1: because sick birds get eaten and we never know they're there.
Speaker 1: And you factor in man, we like to hunt this bird,
Speaker 1: and you have a bird that is the only bird
Speaker 1: in the conterminous United States that's unted during their reproductive season.
Speaker 1: So we are hunting turkeys, you know, we're hunting the
Speaker 1: fall in some places, but by and large, we hunt
Speaker 1: this bird in the spring when they're breeding. And you
Speaker 1: throw all that in a blender and and it what
Speaker 1: you end up getting is is the recognition that you
Speaker 1: have all these complex issues that are facing this bird,
Speaker 1: and managers are trying to manage harvest, and they're trying
Speaker 1: to do that in a way where you and I
Speaker 1: can go out and hear birds and and the resource
Speaker 1: is sustainable and all that to say that, yeah, populations
Speaker 1: are struggling in some places, and it's got management agencies
Speaker 1: really really looking at, Okay, what can we do to
Speaker 1: change the playing field here? Because people like you and
Speaker 1: I complain because and we have every right too, because
Speaker 1: we we cherish this bird and we want to be
Speaker 1: able to hunt it. We want to be able to
Speaker 1: hear it and enjoy it with our families and our friends,
Speaker 1: and and we realize that we can't do that. It's
Speaker 1: frustrating to us. And and a lot of people are
Speaker 1: frustrated right now because populations are in many areas are declining.
Speaker 1: Not everywhere, but in many areas they are and and
Speaker 1: it really has agencies, um has agencies scratching their head
Speaker 1: as to what to do. Got you so to paraphrase
Speaker 1: that and hopefully not answer it wrong, is that youth
Speaker 1: seasons may have an impact, which is, we know for
Speaker 1: sure they do have an impact, but it might not
Speaker 1: be the you know, the major impact that some of
Speaker 1: these articles are seeing. You know, it's a combination of
Speaker 1: of all of these. I don't buy the argument that
Speaker 1: youth seasons are impacting Turkey populations, and the reason being
Speaker 1: if you look across if you look across the subspecies
Speaker 1: ranges and you look at what percentage of the total
Speaker 1: harvest is taken by youth hunters, it is a very
Speaker 1: small percentage. Um. Yes, it's typically early, it's typically before
Speaker 1: you know, the general season opens. It ultimately depends on
Speaker 1: the rate of harvest. In other words, if youth hunters
Speaker 1: are killing two thousand birds and that is three of
Speaker 1: the times and the population, then it's irrelevant. If they're
Speaker 1: killing of the times, well then that's more relevant. So
Speaker 1: it it these broad sweeping statements about hey, this is it,
Speaker 1: it's it's us seasons or its predation, or it's this,
Speaker 1: or it's that. I don't I don't lend a lot
Speaker 1: of credence in those because they there's not information showing
Speaker 1: that is the cause. And like we were just talking about,
Speaker 1: there is no single cause. It's a complex series of
Speaker 1: things that ultimately hinge on how many birds you have,
Speaker 1: how many you're harvesting, what you know, what the net
Speaker 1: success rates are. And that's why we do the research, honestly, man,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean we do the research because we
Speaker 1: tried to. We're trying to understand these these questions and
Speaker 1: and give people answers because we know, as human beings
Speaker 1: we want to answer you know. Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: close up with the question I've been asking everybody if
Speaker 1: you could give one or two small pieces of advice
Speaker 1: that you think would make a turkey hunter more successful?
Speaker 1: What would those what would those two things be? Um
Speaker 1: going into the spring, say, say you're struggling, you know,
Speaker 1: what are those like two little keys that you kind
Speaker 1: of you have? I tell myself every day, be more patient, um,
Speaker 1: be more thoughtful. In other words, don't be so reactive
Speaker 1: to the situation you're in. Sometimes you have to slow
Speaker 1: down to go fast. I don't know if you're well.
Speaker 1: I'm an old NASCAR fan. I don't watch Nascar anymore,
Speaker 1: but they'll Earnhardt used to say, sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: slow down and go fast. And in turkey hunting and
Speaker 1: in life in general, I think sometimes if you slow down,
Speaker 1: you end up being more successful. Analyze the situation, be patient,
Speaker 1: be willing to sit longer. And that kind of dovetails
Speaker 1: into my second piece of advice. And I tell people
Speaker 1: this every spring, and I do that. I try to
Speaker 1: do this myself. I don't. I'm not always successful. I
Speaker 1: do it with my deer hunting well. I love fanatical
Speaker 1: deer hunter. Sit longer, stay out there, fifteen minutes longer,
Speaker 1: thirty minutes longer. You know, I get out of stand
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock. I'm like hot hell with him. I
Speaker 1: ain't seen a deer in three hours. And I'm like, Okay, nope,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit until ten fifteen. I'll sit utill ten thirty.
Speaker 1: And by doing that, the worst thing that's going to
Speaker 1: happen is you're going to have an extra half hour
Speaker 1: in his creation, enjoying what's around you. That's the worst
Speaker 1: possible outcome of that, well, I'll say that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could get run over by a truck or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But the bottom line is you're going to
Speaker 1: spend more time in a place you cherish, and sometimes
Speaker 1: times that's successful for you. Be more patient, to be
Speaker 1: willing to sit longer, spend more time in the in
Speaker 1: the spring woods, and if nothing else you're going to
Speaker 1: you're going to be enriched by the experiences that you have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I completely agree with that. And you know,
Speaker 1: everything that we're chasing, whether it's you know, elk predators,
Speaker 1: you know, dear whatever we're calling to, I think that
Speaker 1: that advice can can you know underlie all of that that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you spend a little more time and and you know,
Speaker 1: good things are probably gonna happen, you know, during that
Speaker 1: extra time. So well, thank you very much, Mike. Like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, you're a wealth of knowledge. We
Speaker 1: could have talked about anything to do is uh spring Turkey,
Speaker 1: but I picked out a few of my my own
Speaker 1: personal questions I wanted to ask you, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking your time, and uh, yeah, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy the spring this year. It looks like you have
Speaker 1: a full plate and I wish you the best and
Speaker 1: good luck to Spring. Yeah you too, Jayson, best luck
Speaker 1: to you. Ou