Speaker 1: Today we are joined by my good friend, fellow me
Speaker 1: eater and a guy that just loves to hunt turkeys.
Speaker 1: Be honest, but tell us. First, we're gonna dive into
Speaker 1: a few questions from the listeners. Then we're gonna dive
Speaker 1: into a conversation with Joannice going over decoying versus running gun,
Speaker 1: his picture perfect turkey hunting scenario, as well as his
Speaker 1: favorite seven days to be out in the field during
Speaker 1: the spring. Alright, we're gonna jump right into the Q
Speaker 1: and A from social email and past episodes. The first
Speaker 1: question we have today is how far can a turkey here?
Speaker 1: Your call? Um? You know, whether we look at like
Speaker 1: the scientific research versus like what our experience tells us
Speaker 1: out in the field. Um. A lot of scientists say
Speaker 1: that they can hear at least a quarter mile. Um.
Speaker 1: Some say imperfect conditions, they can hear up to a
Speaker 1: half a mile. You honest, what would you say just
Speaker 1: from your experience hunting? You know, getting responses? Um? How
Speaker 1: does terrain matter? You know, calmness of the day, fog
Speaker 1: versus windy? Um, kind of give us give us your
Speaker 1: opinion and then all kind of you know, use some
Speaker 1: of my examples to decide how far they can hear.
Speaker 1: I think the quick answer would be, yeah, that quarter mile,
Speaker 1: half mile, you know, bad conditions versus great conditions. That
Speaker 1: sounds about right. But I do think that, um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of uh nuances that you know, I am
Speaker 1: constantly thinking about when I'm you know, calling two turkeys
Speaker 1: if I don't know they're there, you know, if I
Speaker 1: haven't heard them. Ah, And certainly probably even more than terrain,
Speaker 1: I'd say it's foliage, like the amount of foliage on
Speaker 1: the trees, the amount of trees in general that are
Speaker 1: between you and the turkey, you know, because out west,
Speaker 1: you know, we're mostly hunt coniferous forest. Right, it was
Speaker 1: just needles on the tree, a little more open, no
Speaker 1: real leaves. Now obviously thick evergreen could I think soak
Speaker 1: up some sound big time. But like this past springing
Speaker 1: I was in Wisconsin. We were there pretty late in May,
Speaker 1: and it was way leafed out, like when you were
Speaker 1: in the woods, you know, you could barely see fifty yards,
Speaker 1: you know, and I felt like they're like at best,
Speaker 1: you know, we were here in a gobble at like
Speaker 1: they were, so they're pretty much right on top of
Speaker 1: you at the point you can hear yeah, totally, yeah,
Speaker 1: And now you've got some pet turkeys that you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to like walk farther from your house and like range,
Speaker 1: find back and you can get an answer, and then
Speaker 1: we'll maybe get a better answer to this question. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: the second question. Early in the season, I had a
Speaker 1: particular area in the morning, the birds are gobbling their
Speaker 1: heads off, hit the ground and shut up. What would
Speaker 1: your strategy be, Um, I'll take a crack at this
Speaker 1: and we'll see if you have anything to add Um.
Speaker 1: So it's very tough. I mean, hopefully you have some
Speaker 1: idea where these turkeys are going. They're going, you know,
Speaker 1: where they're strutting zone is where those hens want to be,
Speaker 1: where the hens want to feed. You can try to
Speaker 1: set up down there. You know. One thing that I
Speaker 1: have an issue with is if I can I can
Speaker 1: watch a turkey for five days, pitch out of a tree,
Speaker 1: out of the roofs hit a spot, do the same
Speaker 1: thing five days in your own If I go sit
Speaker 1: in that spot on the sixth day, they're gonna do
Speaker 1: something different. But I would just try to figure out
Speaker 1: where those birds are going. Um. You know, it sounds
Speaker 1: like and we don't have all of the context of
Speaker 1: this question, Like maybe the person scared to you know,
Speaker 1: chase chase gobbles. Maybe the person is scared to you know,
Speaker 1: go bump the bird, which is you know, completely normal,
Speaker 1: but maybe be a little more aggressive. Um. The other
Speaker 1: thing is one of the things I had heard. I
Speaker 1: believe Mike Chamberlain brought it up on a podcast I
Speaker 1: was on on the met Eater a year ago, which
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that Turkey, they they've got a pretty
Speaker 1: good memory, like they knew where maybe they've heard you
Speaker 1: called from three or four or five hours ago. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not necessarily that patient to to call
Speaker 1: from an area and then wait three to five hours
Speaker 1: see if he loses his hens, maybe comes back. But
Speaker 1: those are some options. Either get aggressive, um, you know,
Speaker 1: try to stay with that bird and that's how I hunt.
Speaker 1: You know, Turkey's a lot is you know, chasing gobbles,
Speaker 1: and then try to get just close enough to set
Speaker 1: up without them seeing me. And then usually you're back
Speaker 1: up trying to reset up. But those would be the
Speaker 1: two options. What would you do in that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't have all the context of this question, but sure,
Speaker 1: but I've been in that position, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you're hunting a place that you haven't been before, so
Speaker 1: you don't really know where you're they're going. You know,
Speaker 1: you have an idea. UM. I do feel like we
Speaker 1: often forget that. Like most turkeys, like they unless they're
Speaker 1: getting bunked, they're probably not ranging that far. So yeah,
Speaker 1: being patient and hanging out in that zone. UM. But
Speaker 1: I had heard it that turkeys will, when they lose
Speaker 1: their hands, come back to where they heard you call
Speaker 1: in the morning before, and I've had it payoff where
Speaker 1: you can never know if it was the same bird.
Speaker 1: But I know that one morning I called back and
Speaker 1: forth at a bird that was way too far off.
Speaker 1: I think it was on a neighboring property, and we
Speaker 1: did it for maybe minutes and I could hear hands,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, it ain't gonna happen now. But
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, we're like at one pm, we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's swing by that same point and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: And we peeked out and it's a big, like a
Speaker 1: high lining cut and we could look down it and
Speaker 1: like yards down this cut, there's a gobbler out shutting.
Speaker 1: Can't see any hands with him. We made a few calls,
Speaker 1: and that soccer was like about face and just coming on. Yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: good good points. And I'm just never patient enough to
Speaker 1: see if they'll come back. I've either moved on or
Speaker 1: wouldn't chase the bird that was, you know, still talking,
Speaker 1: but no good advice. And then um a question that
Speaker 1: Joanni brought from a listener or cousin. I can't remember
Speaker 1: what he said, my cousin, does your decoy approach changed
Speaker 1: during the course of the season. I only want to
Speaker 1: carry two decoys the same with me. I usually carry
Speaker 1: a hand and and a breeding jake my decoy approaches.
Speaker 1: If I'm in thick foliage, thick vegetation, I usually don't
Speaker 1: set up a decoy or have time or want to risk,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on how close we are to the bird. Um,
Speaker 1: if we're cold calling, you could set up you know,
Speaker 1: birds in that you know situation, even if you're in
Speaker 1: the dense, you know, just to get the eyes off
Speaker 1: of you and and maybe attract you know, pick up
Speaker 1: you know, on the turkey's site, um, to keep them
Speaker 1: off of you. But normally throughout the year, I'm really
Speaker 1: only setting up decoys if we got good visibility, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm across the field or across the meadow. UM
Speaker 1: got good visibility where a turkey can come out and
Speaker 1: see the decoys, and I'll set them up typically on
Speaker 1: the edge of the edge of the foliage. But I
Speaker 1: guess I wouldn't say I don't typically change my decoy
Speaker 1: approach out this season. It's usually always a jake behind
Speaker 1: a hen. How about you. You're honest, you know, I
Speaker 1: love using a strutter decoy just because I feel like
Speaker 1: it's faun, you know, because that strutter really like entices
Speaker 1: a big gobbler to come in and strut for you,
Speaker 1: and you get to see the whole show and all that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've never like used the strutter and then
Speaker 1: thought I should have been using something else. You know,
Speaker 1: I might him off, um, but I'm with you. It
Speaker 1: seems like for running gun the decoys can almost get
Speaker 1: in the way more than they are helpful, because you're
Speaker 1: you're constantly like setting up and then setting up for
Speaker 1: the decoy placement, right, And if you didn't have the decoy,
Speaker 1: you just set up so that you know when the
Speaker 1: bird comes over the horizon to come check you out,
Speaker 1: you shoot him right, Instead, you're kind of setting up
Speaker 1: so that he's gonna have an opportunity to see the decoy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do feel like for running gun it's
Speaker 1: not as it's just better to leave him behind. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's no doubt in my mind that like on
Speaker 1: a like an open field set up like a big spread,
Speaker 1: definitely can just be the actual little bit of realism
Speaker 1: that you need to bring in the bird for sure.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna add on to that question, Um, do you
Speaker 1: feel I mean, we've all seen you know, Gabbler's takeoff
Speaker 1: running across the field at a foam decoy, you know,
Speaker 1: just a cheap decoy. Do you feel there's any need difference?
Speaker 1: Are turkeys smart enough? The wildiest turkey? Can you fool
Speaker 1: him like with a stuff for decoy, which is you know,
Speaker 1: somebody's taken the you know, a real turkey taxidermy it up?
Speaker 1: Or do you think it matters that much between would that, ever,
Speaker 1: you know, be the difference in calling the bird and
Speaker 1: having a stuff for decoy versus you know, you're cheaper
Speaker 1: film options. Yes, I think I feel like I've seen
Speaker 1: it in action where I'm just like that bird could
Speaker 1: tell from two yards away that something was in this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We've we've had birds coming in like instantly, like all
Speaker 1: of a sudden lost interest and you're like, what, you know,
Speaker 1: what did it pick up? What wasn't right? Um, I've
Speaker 1: got to hunt behind a few stuff or hands before,
Speaker 1: and it seems like the birds you know, could tell
Speaker 1: at times that you know, it was more real life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: real life. I like to run those uh Dave Smith decoys.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've probably used those two, and I don't
Speaker 1: know of others that are as realistic or more realistic.
Speaker 1: That being said, I've had birds turn away from those two.
Speaker 1: I feel like if it's like the same field, the
Speaker 1: same corner where in the last week, you know, five
Speaker 1: out of the seven mornings there's been a decoy set
Speaker 1: up and somebody even maybe shot round off at one point,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter what you got going on, and
Speaker 1: they're just like, no, not into it, you know, yep, no,
Speaker 1: I'm And then a lot of times, you know, the
Speaker 1: quality of decoys, whether it's Dave Smith if you're hunting
Speaker 1: you know, Kansas flat Lands versus if you're in eastern
Speaker 1: Washington and Canyon Country like you know, and then and
Speaker 1: then you're the decision run through your head, like is
Speaker 1: it actually gonna hurt to pull out these smashed up
Speaker 1: foam decoys that the paints ripped off their heads? You know?
Speaker 1: And some of that stuff always runs here and I
Speaker 1: don't know what the right answer is, like is it
Speaker 1: does it actually do more harm than good? But what
Speaker 1: I'm in here, I'm excited to try this spring is Uh,
Speaker 1: I got a whole batch of those uh Montana decoys.
Speaker 1: They're doing some turkeys now and uh it's like they're
Speaker 1: like spring loaded, so they still pop out three D.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a very like compared to a Dave Smith,
Speaker 1: it's a very crude representation. But like and when we
Speaker 1: hunt eastern Montana, we cover miles every day, and packing
Speaker 1: around those bigger Dave Smiths, man, you just get gets
Speaker 1: old after a while, exactly. And so I'll let you
Speaker 1: know next time we do this next spring. How the
Speaker 1: just super pacable, you know, not as realistic looking, want
Speaker 1: to do perfect some of the questions that I had
Speaker 1: pretty honest. Um, you know, I think he spends maybe
Speaker 1: more time than anybody in the spring Jason turkeys, um
Speaker 1: quite a bit. He's frowning at my cross table there,
Speaker 1: so he spends quiet, he spends more time turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: I think on it on any given spring than I do.
Speaker 1: So I've got some questions for him, um and and
Speaker 1: uh coincidentally, the very first question I have for him
Speaker 1: is on decoying. Um, you know, I wake up every
Speaker 1: morning ready to kind of do run and gun, you know,
Speaker 1: after we sit at the roost tree, see how that
Speaker 1: pans out, which is almost always in the turkey's favor
Speaker 1: versus you know, setting up decoys, figuring out you've got
Speaker 1: a good spot, Like what do you wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning, what the plan doesn't depend on you know,
Speaker 1: where the roost tree is, where they've been typically flying down,
Speaker 1: Like you go out there with a plan the decoy
Speaker 1: in the morning, or do you go out with a
Speaker 1: plan like to move and then if decoying works that
Speaker 1: you'll set them up. Oh boy, I mean I would
Speaker 1: certainly say that I'm never gonna pass up trying to
Speaker 1: have a bird roosted and trying to go for that
Speaker 1: move just because it gives me more time to hunt.
Speaker 1: Right And Uh, it's like great to be sitting there
Speaker 1: in the dark and the bird fires off and you're
Speaker 1: like sweet, he's like less than seventy yards away in
Speaker 1: the tree. Like it's a fun, Like the anticipation is high,
Speaker 1: and even though we know that it doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: probably more than half the time, Like, it's fun to
Speaker 1: be in that position. And that's why I'm out there,
Speaker 1: is to have some fun, you know. So you're the
Speaker 1: guy out there at like four am, like crawling out
Speaker 1: to get your decoys kind of set up up and
Speaker 1: and uh in place and then crawl back to your tree.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, if I have a bird roosted, you know.
Speaker 1: If not, Um, you know, it's trying to be on
Speaker 1: a high point in the dark and you know, listening
Speaker 1: making some you know crow calls or or you know,
Speaker 1: olo hoots at the right time of the morning and
Speaker 1: hopefully here one fire and off somewhere, and then it's
Speaker 1: a sprint to get within range. You know. But I'm
Speaker 1: definitely more cautious at that point, like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: risk them seeing me so I can get closer. Um,
Speaker 1: when I know that it is better, I think just
Speaker 1: to like let it happen. Maybe you call them in
Speaker 1: first thing, Maybe you don't. If you don't, at least
Speaker 1: they haven't seen you, they fade off, I have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to make another move. How many I guess that
Speaker 1: brings up another question. How many days do you go
Speaker 1: out in the Turkey woods with birds rooster? What do
Speaker 1: you say, I mean, is it is it vital to
Speaker 1: your success or? Or? I mean, because we when we
Speaker 1: hunt a northeast Washington growing up, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was in high school just starting to trick out, like
Speaker 1: we were in an area that fortunately for us, on
Speaker 1: public ground somewhere like we could drive around after dark
Speaker 1: and locate a bird. So we always started on on
Speaker 1: a roosted bird. But I honestly have never killed one
Speaker 1: that we've had. I mean, we maybe killed them later
Speaker 1: in the morning, but we've never killed them technically off
Speaker 1: the roost um. What would you say your percentage is like?
Speaker 1: Do you like the I mean, ideally we all go
Speaker 1: into the morning right having a bird roost and knowing
Speaker 1: exactly where they are. I mean, I mean I know
Speaker 1: some people that have quit doing it. I read some
Speaker 1: article recently, I can't remember who wrote it, but they
Speaker 1: said that they kind of quit doing the roosted bird
Speaker 1: thing and just went out there sort of with a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a blank slate and when they'd
Speaker 1: hear bird, they'd go and you know, make their setup. Um,
Speaker 1: But is the question, what's my like success percentage of
Speaker 1: like like killing them off the roost? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean what would you say, like is it are you
Speaker 1: killing you know, ten percent of birds off the roost?
Speaker 1: Or are you killing? Yeah? I think if I have
Speaker 1: a bird roost in, I think it might go up
Speaker 1: to one out of five birds that I know where
Speaker 1: they are, I could probably kill. I would think that's
Speaker 1: about right, even though mine's way less. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because I start to you know,
Speaker 1: do the soft tree helps and you just want them
Speaker 1: to keep going or like to recognize you. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just overdo it on the calls, um, first thing in
Speaker 1: the morning. But it just never seems to work out
Speaker 1: for me. I mean I'll and you know, I'll definitely
Speaker 1: run if I have a bird rooster and I feel
Speaker 1: like it's in a good spot to set out some decoys, Um,
Speaker 1: I'll run that for sure. Like you know, a hand
Speaker 1: and a strutter, it's hard for that strutter, that the
Speaker 1: real strutter to be up in a tree and see
Speaker 1: that going on down below him and not come over
Speaker 1: and have a confrontational Last year, you had some interesting
Speaker 1: things happen at your decoy setups. Um, one coyote and
Speaker 1: then three cougars and come into your setups with decoys.
Speaker 1: Well the uh, trying to think if we even had
Speaker 1: I don't think I had. We were just calling when
Speaker 1: those when the lions came in. Actually I don't, I don't. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't think I had decoys set up for either
Speaker 1: of them, or they were just because the kyote came
Speaker 1: and got the bird you had just shot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that in both instances, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I believe. I think that in both instances the predators
Speaker 1: were there for the same reason. I was like, they
Speaker 1: could hear gobbling, they could hear turkeys, they were sneaking around,
Speaker 1: they were sneaking in, and it just so happened that,
Speaker 1: you know, they went right by me or in the
Speaker 1: coyotes case, like he watched my bird start flopping, And
Speaker 1: it's still odd to me that that was, you know,
Speaker 1: a half a second after a gunshot went off, and
Speaker 1: he had not a care in the world. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't care about he had a crippled bird. There that
Speaker 1: he thought was an easy meal and didn't care that
Speaker 1: a gun had literally just did that. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: on the cougars, you just called those into your set up, right,
Speaker 1: they kind of well, again, I don't know, like we
Speaker 1: were set up on the side of a pretty steep mountain,
Speaker 1: like like in a full on mountain, like a mountain
Speaker 1: that took us a solid thirty forty minutes to climb
Speaker 1: up out of this creek bottom to get up to
Speaker 1: where these turkeys were. And uh, we're kind of on
Speaker 1: like a draw on the side of this mountain and
Speaker 1: turkeys were on one side. Later we learned once we
Speaker 1: kind of went up there to see where they were,
Speaker 1: they were. They were on this sort of a bench,
Speaker 1: uh you know, land type, you know land feature, but
Speaker 1: the cougar So we were calling to them back and forth,
Speaker 1: and the cougars basically came up this draw that was
Speaker 1: between us and the real turkeys, and you know whether
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they heard my calling, but they
Speaker 1: were like on a direct path to go to where
Speaker 1: those turkeys were, you know. Yeah, and once they went
Speaker 1: by us, those turkeys where Goblin. That was the end
Speaker 1: of that morning. A lot of excitement at Janice is setups.
Speaker 1: You know for sure last year was intense, you know,
Speaker 1: and I can't believe that both times we had the
Speaker 1: presence of mind to whip out a camera and uh,
Speaker 1: take a little video perfect perfect or switch gears of
Speaker 1: here a little bit um this one. You got to
Speaker 1: be a little creative. Let's say you, uh, you have
Speaker 1: a clean canvas hunted acres, and you can paint your
Speaker 1: perfect turkey hunting setting. Um, give us a little bit
Speaker 1: of what that would look like as far as streams, vegetation,
Speaker 1: agg trees, ridges, Like, what what would your ideal turkey
Speaker 1: hunting spot look like? And you're asking me ideal as
Speaker 1: in just what I like to hunt? Or is it
Speaker 1: or is more of like what I feel like is
Speaker 1: a this is the best landscape to kill a turkey? Yeah? Kill?
Speaker 1: You can pose it anyway want um hunt and kill?
Speaker 1: I guess like if that was your hunted acres to
Speaker 1: hunt for the rest of your life, you had it forever,
Speaker 1: Like what would it consist of? You would have a
Speaker 1: barn in the back corner of the feel like you know,
Speaker 1: the just picture perfect turkey stuff, Like, what would what
Speaker 1: would that look like? Well? I tell you, man, I'm
Speaker 1: I really it's a tough question because I enjoy like
Speaker 1: the ponderosa kind of river breaks country of the West
Speaker 1: that I get to hunt that it's it's very savannah
Speaker 1: like you have big ponderoses, but you can see sometimes
Speaker 1: hundreds of yards you know, through the understory, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's just like beautiful park land to walk through its
Speaker 1: rolling hills. You're not trudging up and down you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand foot elevation, you know, gains and drops like
Speaker 1: you are l hunting. Yeah, it's just beautiful. But I
Speaker 1: also really enjoy hunting turkeys in the Midwest, which you
Speaker 1: know on hard hardwood oak ridges, um, with just beautiful green,
Speaker 1: super green spring colors going off, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you get lucky, you see something like the dogwoods
Speaker 1: bloom and you know, Um, so I would I would
Speaker 1: always prefer to hunt him like without any sort of agriculture,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like you end up like not
Speaker 1: at the field edge hunt is bad, but um, they
Speaker 1: just see it just seems to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more predictable. And there's a lot of the reason I
Speaker 1: love hunting turkeys is because they are on protectable and
Speaker 1: they're constantly like humbling me, you know, and what they're doing. Um,
Speaker 1: So I feel like just hunting them in the woods,
Speaker 1: it's a little more challenging. Um. And I would say
Speaker 1: like the defining feature between both of those landscapes that
Speaker 1: I would like to have to help me kill him
Speaker 1: would be some sort of roles in the terrain, something
Speaker 1: that makes like horizon edges that are you know, that
Speaker 1: I can set up behind, that I can use to hide,
Speaker 1: that I can use to move um. Because it's no
Speaker 1: different I feel like than from an elk. If you're
Speaker 1: calling and that elk can see a hundred yards to
Speaker 1: where you're calling from, and he doesn't see another elk there,
Speaker 1: they get suspicious. Yeah, And the turkey is the same way.
Speaker 1: And so if you have to force the animal to
Speaker 1: come around a corner or come over the horizon to
Speaker 1: come and check you out, or come through something thick
Speaker 1: to you know, come check you out. I use that
Speaker 1: as my sort of like if you want to see
Speaker 1: me going to come through here, and if you come
Speaker 1: through here, hopefully I get a shot, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I like to have some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go on turkeys on the planes
Speaker 1: of Kansas although I've done it and it was fun,
Speaker 1: but I remember being extremely difficult for that reason. Gotcha, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's we have a kind of what I
Speaker 1: would label as my picture perfect spot in northeast Washington.
Speaker 1: Of course it's a piece of private but you would
Speaker 1: drive by. It has you know, one major agg filled
Speaker 1: out in the middle, and then it goes up in
Speaker 1: the mountainous country. But then the draws would have like
Speaker 1: you know, semi parks and meadows and the bottoms of
Speaker 1: those and it kind of all fed to this agg.
Speaker 1: I just would love to go kill him back up
Speaker 1: on those parks and meadows. But it was just kind
Speaker 1: of like the ideal spot where they had big roost
Speaker 1: trees along the creek, they had their water they needed there,
Speaker 1: they had a bunch of brush around it for their
Speaker 1: nesting spots. So it's just like the perfect mix of everything,
Speaker 1: Like the hens didn't need to leave that piece you
Speaker 1: know later, you know, to to go find nesting um,
Speaker 1: tons of food, you know, tons of elevation for us
Speaker 1: to hear birds off of um. And so it's kind
Speaker 1: of that like mountain mixed in the agg. But then
Speaker 1: have you know, the creek and the brush and stuff
Speaker 1: was It's kind of always been like the ideal set up,
Speaker 1: and it seems like now, of course, any time I'm anywhere,
Speaker 1: you know, if we're in a Kansas spot that kind
Speaker 1: of looks like it, it it reminds me of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just you feel like you're in turkeys and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of my my ideal set up.
Speaker 1: But it's it's on the ground. It exists. We just
Speaker 1: don't have permission to hunt the private anymore. Never did
Speaker 1: we never did. We have the fringes, but you could
Speaker 1: like you know, you you do your morning hunt, maybe
Speaker 1: go back, you know for lunch or whatnot, and there's
Speaker 1: you know, birds everywhere on you know, every edge of
Speaker 1: that place, and it's just like dang, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like it was just perfect. Yeah. Well that's the cool
Speaker 1: thing about turkeys, man, They're so adaptable and they live
Speaker 1: I think now in every state in the country, right, um,
Speaker 1: dang near. I know that the Alaska population is like
Speaker 1: kind of like uh, you know, maybe a myth maybe not,
Speaker 1: but there there sometimes you know, Um, but yeah, they
Speaker 1: live everywhere, you know, so you can find like, in
Speaker 1: your mind perfect turkey have tet anywhere anywhere you go,
Speaker 1: all right, Um, aggressive setups for verse being patient and
Speaker 1: you know, coming as a you know, a die hard
Speaker 1: elk guy, Like I've just kind of taken what I
Speaker 1: knew about elk and transferred it to turkey hunting, So
Speaker 1: we keep a very aggressive set up. Um. The question
Speaker 1: I want to ask, how long do you wait before moving? Like,
Speaker 1: if let's say you're you're in a decent spot, you know,
Speaker 1: a hardwood bottom, you hear turkey three or four yards away,
Speaker 1: you call you guys play the game for a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, let's say five to ten minutes, a bird answers, answers,
Speaker 1: and it seems like either moved off or went silent.
Speaker 1: Like how patient is the honest patel us against the
Speaker 1: turkey tree? Or are you gonna go move two hundred
Speaker 1: yards ahead and see if you can strike him back up?
Speaker 1: Like you know, where the heck are you at? Yeah? Boy,
Speaker 1: it depends on It depends on the day and in
Speaker 1: the terrain big time. Um, Because again, a lot of
Speaker 1: times in the open country of the West, you might
Speaker 1: be able to see them, you know, and kind of
Speaker 1: see what their mood is or you know, if they're
Speaker 1: tending to head one way or another, you know, which
Speaker 1: makes it great for us because you can always sort
Speaker 1: of fall back on like a bush wax strategy, which
Speaker 1: is just like, Okay, they're heading generally east, let's jump
Speaker 1: on the north side of this ridge and boogie five
Speaker 1: yards get in front of them. Because I can tell
Speaker 1: you that it's you're always gonna be more successful calling
Speaker 1: a turkey the direction that he's already going or she's
Speaker 1: already going, then trying to turn them or pull them back,
Speaker 1: you know, the way they don't want to go. This
Speaker 1: past spring, when we were in Wisconsin, I was just
Speaker 1: telling you about when it was super leafed out, we
Speaker 1: had a great example of this where we snuck into like, shoot,
Speaker 1: three hundred yards of these turkeys like working this wide
Speaker 1: open chopped corn field, and it was like it was
Speaker 1: a hilly corn field, so you could see all the
Speaker 1: way up to the horizon. It was maybe five yards
Speaker 1: away in these turkeys. There was I don't know, three
Speaker 1: or four gollbers working back and forth, um, and we
Speaker 1: got the decoys set up without them seeing us. We
Speaker 1: got behind our decoys and and the chopped cornfield was
Speaker 1: on the neighbors, so we were like limited as to
Speaker 1: like how much we could actually chase them, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, we set up called worked um, called worked um.
Speaker 1: Thought we had one or two pretty fired up. They
Speaker 1: kind of came down the hill across the chopped corn field,
Speaker 1: but eventually it went silent and we couldn't see any
Speaker 1: more birds, and we could we had seen a couple
Speaker 1: of fade away, but I kept telling my buddy Miller
Speaker 1: that I was hunted with. I'm like, man, like we
Speaker 1: saw it. For whatever it was four gobblers total. We know,
Speaker 1: two faded away, but the other two we don't know
Speaker 1: where they are. Like, let's give it some time. Let's wait,
Speaker 1: let's wait, let's wait. And because for sure they had
Speaker 1: seen the decoys. For sure they had heard us. They
Speaker 1: had been answering us, and it probably seemed like a
Speaker 1: lot longer than it was. I'm guessing it was five
Speaker 1: to ten minutes. But all of a sudden, like we're
Speaker 1: looking at, you know, our equoy, and right next to it,
Speaker 1: here comes the redhead. I mean he was in range
Speaker 1: when and it was just like the role of the
Speaker 1: terrain or whatever. He was able to, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of sneak in on us. But we very easily could
Speaker 1: have been standing there and been you know, their heads down,
Speaker 1: like thinking about the next plan, and just those five
Speaker 1: or ten minutes made it pay off. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to think that, you know, all, at least when I'm
Speaker 1: like in a rush, I'll be like, okay, dude, just
Speaker 1: give it five give a tent, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like that Turkey's, like I said, most of them just
Speaker 1: really aren't covering that much country in a day, So
Speaker 1: they're not going that far, you know, And so give
Speaker 1: it ten minutes if he's sure. If he was, he's
Speaker 1: walking directly away from you, maybe he's gonna be fifty
Speaker 1: yards farther than he was earlier, right there, just slowly
Speaker 1: feeding their way around. Yeah. One thing I noticed this
Speaker 1: year on the bird I killed um in Kansas. We
Speaker 1: think he was like a two year old, maybe a
Speaker 1: young three, But there were some big, big Eastern birds
Speaker 1: on that property, like a lot bigger than he was,
Speaker 1: and we got to watch him, similar to that story,
Speaker 1: come corner to corner across the cut corn field that
Speaker 1: was just you know, left, and he approached so so slowly,
Speaker 1: like made up zero ground and like fifteen minutes to
Speaker 1: come across that field, maybe two hundred yards and you know,
Speaker 1: we were hunt with Chris Parrish and he's like that
Speaker 1: bird had been beat up. You know, he was super
Speaker 1: nervous with the situation. You know, kind of as he
Speaker 1: approached that hind decoy all by itself, like just he
Speaker 1: was waiting to almost be ambush. He's waiting to you know,
Speaker 1: approach with extreme caution and so you know, but it
Speaker 1: just lets you kind of see, like, well, if that
Speaker 1: would have been where I thought that bird was four
Speaker 1: hundred yards away and he had to cover that like
Speaker 1: it could have been thirty to forty five minutes before.
Speaker 1: Because I inevitably I get super impatient, Well the damn
Speaker 1: thing hasn't answered me. Obviously he left. Let's walk towards him.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you're, you know, two hundred yards away,
Speaker 1: you meet the turkey and it's just an explosion of
Speaker 1: feathers and you know, him bombing out of there, and
Speaker 1: it's like he was still there. He just for some
Speaker 1: reason or another had crossed the lying in the dirt
Speaker 1: that said all right, I'm not gonna talk anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: close enough. Um. You know, maybe he's waiting for that
Speaker 1: him to come see him, like I don't know what
Speaker 1: the thing is, but it seems like more times than not,
Speaker 1: when I get in patient, you end up, you know,
Speaker 1: busting that bird um as you get up moving in
Speaker 1: his direction. Yeah, totally, so I think it happens with
Speaker 1: you know, with elk dude. We had one last year
Speaker 1: that I think we already caught him, or maybe we
Speaker 1: had set up. He came feeding out of the timber
Speaker 1: and there's this giant oak tree in the middle of
Speaker 1: a child. I think it was like I think it
Speaker 1: was corn again, maybe it was like half corn half beans. Anyways,
Speaker 1: he comes out, goes around this big old oak tree,
Speaker 1: starts coming towards me, and then veers off, just keeps
Speaker 1: on feeding, goes all the way around this giant oak tree.
Speaker 1: It took him fifteen twenty minutes and he's just feeding, feeding, feeding,
Speaker 1: and he'd already made like emotion to come towards me,
Speaker 1: but he just had to go all the way around
Speaker 1: this oak tree again. And then the second time around
Speaker 1: he came, and then he came to but it was
Speaker 1: still it wasn't like the dominant bird that's just come
Speaker 1: and running where you can just see his you know,
Speaker 1: breast shaking as he's running towards you. It was just
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna feed slowly. And then when he finally
Speaker 1: got within that you know range, when he's looking at
Speaker 1: my Jake Decoit going like all right, I know I
Speaker 1: can beat you up. That was the first time he
Speaker 1: came into strut and he was already within range. You know.
Speaker 1: So let's dive a little bit into how Janice would
Speaker 1: tell us calls turkeys, Like what his strategy is? What
Speaker 1: your technique is? Um? You know there's Kluck's purrs, cackles,
Speaker 1: you know, cutting yelping, Um, is there a and I'm
Speaker 1: sure most of us have a go to Like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you're you're set up in a good spot,
Speaker 1: everything's working, the birds a hun fift yards away, Like,
Speaker 1: what's your calling? You know, strategy? I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other factors, but let's just say on um,
Speaker 1: you know your general calling setup, Like how are you
Speaker 1: going to speak to the burden? Where are you gonna
Speaker 1: what call you gonna use? Is gonna be on a
Speaker 1: pot call box, a mouth diaphragm? Like can you explain
Speaker 1: that situation? Kind of what your go to is? Go
Speaker 1: to geez? It used to be a diaphragm. Like I
Speaker 1: always felt like if I could, if you're gonna make
Speaker 1: me just have one call, it would be a diaphragm.
Speaker 1: And just because I was that was most comfortable with him.
Speaker 1: It's probably because I've gotten good with an elk diaphragm
Speaker 1: and so it's pretty easy to you know, when I
Speaker 1: switched over. Now, I've also feel like I could probably
Speaker 1: make more nuanced, softer stuff with a pot um. And
Speaker 1: it just depends, like probably for the nuance softer stuff
Speaker 1: slate and then if I want to get a little
Speaker 1: bit louder, you know, I'll go crystal, you know, to
Speaker 1: try to fire one up. But if the birds already there,
Speaker 1: and like I feel like I'm working him, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start with less and then work towards more. And
Speaker 1: that's something I've learned with my pet turkeys, and it
Speaker 1: might change as we come into the first breeding season
Speaker 1: here soon. But like, rarely do I hear those turkeys.
Speaker 1: I've got one jke and two hands right now. Rarely
Speaker 1: do they make more than like three to four notes. Rarely.
Speaker 1: It's that's what you hear five percent of the time
Speaker 1: out of my turkeys, And you hear just the little
Speaker 1: putts and purrs, but they're not sitting there. Yeah, got cock,
Speaker 1: yeah for seven or eight. Yeah, now everybody's seen now
Speaker 1: a YouTube video. There's some hand that you know does
Speaker 1: seventies to you know, yelps in a row. Um, but
Speaker 1: I would start with less and just think that, you know, again,
Speaker 1: just like percent of the time my turkeys are not
Speaker 1: doing a lot, it's probably similar in the woods, um
Speaker 1: five percent at the time there's probably some hend just
Speaker 1: going bonkers. You can always escalate to that and and um,
Speaker 1: you know, backing up to if the bird wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and if I'm just trying to find one, yeah, i
Speaker 1: might do a you know, ten notes real loud with
Speaker 1: some cutting and stuff just to get an answer, but
Speaker 1: then I'd probably immediately back it off, you know, and
Speaker 1: trying to just work into it. So um, yeah, it
Speaker 1: probably just depends on whether if I have a diaphragm
Speaker 1: of mouth or if I want to pull out the
Speaker 1: pot call you know, how much time I have, you
Speaker 1: know to set up and whatever. But yeah, starting just
Speaker 1: really micro couple three yelps, you know, maybe a little
Speaker 1: a couple of clucks here and there, and then you
Speaker 1: just judge kind of his response as he gobbled as
Speaker 1: he you know, are you or are you just doing
Speaker 1: it regardless? And then you gotta, you know, figure out
Speaker 1: how he responded and then kind of make your next
Speaker 1: play like all right, he like that will get Because
Speaker 1: a lot of times I feel like, even though you know,
Speaker 1: you think that you're getting him all fired up and
Speaker 1: he's gobbling in every call, I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: that bird you could probably quit calling and he's gonna
Speaker 1: keep coming and keep gobbling because he's fired up, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to get him all hot and bothered.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that some people are good enough to
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know if I am. It seems
Speaker 1: like most of the time like he wants to come
Speaker 1: to you anyways. I don't know if he needs like
Speaker 1: to hear you making more yelps to be like okay,
Speaker 1: for sure, I'm coming now, Like he's like, okay, there's
Speaker 1: a hen there, I'm coming, you know. Yeah. And that's
Speaker 1: where it's nice to be able to watch him because
Speaker 1: you know, if they kind of stop and then you
Speaker 1: call again and they start to move again, it's all right.
Speaker 1: He needs, you know, need some prompting to keep moving
Speaker 1: versus you know, like you said, if you make that
Speaker 1: first three or four note yelp, he responds to it,
Speaker 1: he might be on his way regardless of what you
Speaker 1: do from there on out. Um, I'm with you. I
Speaker 1: I I used to be a diaphragm junking because it's
Speaker 1: kind of a carry over from elk calling. But you
Speaker 1: get into turkey calling and I just love the sound
Speaker 1: that you get have a pot It seems like the
Speaker 1: birds are super responsive. My one big conundrum though, is
Speaker 1: all right, you're doing the calling, you're you're running a
Speaker 1: pot call, and the bird gets close or he's visible
Speaker 1: and you're not necessarily you know, tucked in right all right,
Speaker 1: now I've got to is me switching to the mouth
Speaker 1: dif I'm here at the end, you gonna mess it up?
Speaker 1: Is you're gonna notice a difference Like That's always the why.
Speaker 1: I wish you could just you know, have a have
Speaker 1: a caller ten yards back using a pot call shared
Speaker 1: in that way, you don't have to you know, the
Speaker 1: shooter can do what he needs to do or I
Speaker 1: could do. Um. Yeah, hey on top, you mentioned slate
Speaker 1: to bring this up. I just found out this morning
Speaker 1: before this podcast. There is evidently a a slate um
Speaker 1: issue across the country. Shortage, Like I'm having to decide
Speaker 1: now what I want for slate in the middle of
Speaker 1: and we haven't even sold calls yet and so um
Speaker 1: and I'm lucky that Phelps Game Calls was a big
Speaker 1: enough customer last year, thankful to the meter x Belts
Speaker 1: line and it's popularity that we made like that that
Speaker 1: we were like the bottom cut of being on the
Speaker 1: list of even being able to buy slate from the
Speaker 1: one manufacturer. So it's getting crazy out there. Um Like
Speaker 1: just it's not like glass or crystal or something that's
Speaker 1: like more you know, um man made. I guess it's
Speaker 1: being naturally produced stone, Like there's only gonna be x amount.
Speaker 1: And if you don't, if you're not part of the
Speaker 1: do you know if like demand his increase like in
Speaker 1: some other production that happens in the world. I just
Speaker 1: think that there was. It sounds like there was. It's
Speaker 1: been bad business for the last couple of years. So
Speaker 1: they're um raising the price up. And they basically said
Speaker 1: like well, you know, basically there was anybody else besides
Speaker 1: this group of of you know, people that have the
Speaker 1: slate could sell to you. But other than that, like
Speaker 1: we're no longer distributing slate to the smaller companies, Like, well,
Speaker 1: that puts us in a weird spot because you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're here probably you know, early March of you too,
Speaker 1: and I'm making the decision like what are are forecasting
Speaker 1: and and everything's gonna be for But it's it's such
Speaker 1: a it's such a good material for a tricky call.
Speaker 1: Um you want to be on that list? Or Yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting decisions I gotta make. Yeah, yeah, I think we'll
Speaker 1: we'll definitely probably buy more than we need, just to
Speaker 1: make sure we have someone hand. Yeah. Um, soeah, just
Speaker 1: a little side fact on on the slate issue in
Speaker 1: the United States. Right now, we're gonna drop down to
Speaker 1: the question that I had for you is and then
Speaker 1: this is very dependent. I mean, if you're hunting Osceola's,
Speaker 1: you're obviously going to be in you know, March early April.
Speaker 1: Or if you're hunting Washington way up north, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be different. Let's take like your typical Midwest state, Um,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite seven days? I mean, you know you're
Speaker 1: hunting from April, you know, I think last year when
Speaker 1: you hunt from April early in April too, you know
Speaker 1: towards the end of May even you're kind of you know,
Speaker 1: scattered out like with with a ton of experience covering
Speaker 1: probably two different months. Like if you could pick a
Speaker 1: seven day period, you know, what would be your ideal
Speaker 1: time to be out there, and just top my head,
Speaker 1: I'd probably say like the fifth through the seventh or
Speaker 1: fifth or the twelfth of May. Yeah, elaborate a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your reasons are the same, um for mine,
Speaker 1: because my my days are very similar in Washington. I
Speaker 1: would like to be there, you know that probably that
Speaker 1: first weekend in May, and then hunt that next week.
Speaker 1: You know, if I had to pick a week time there, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll let you give your your answers why
Speaker 1: that's such a great time. Um, I'm fully on board
Speaker 1: and and all of your listeners don't hunt the same
Speaker 1: time as me and Yanni um are recommending you guys,
Speaker 1: still fill up opening weekend, get all excited, get it
Speaker 1: out of your system, don't come back in May. But
Speaker 1: we're gonna do our best to explain why we feel
Speaker 1: that that first part of mayze I mean, honestly, before
Speaker 1: we get into like the turkey, you know, tactics and
Speaker 1: behavior and whatever. A lot of it for me has
Speaker 1: to do it just the weather. I mean you can
Speaker 1: kill birds all April long long, but especially hunting out
Speaker 1: west and even hunting in the Midwest. Man, like hunting
Speaker 1: turkeys like in a light snowstorm. Yeah, it's still fun.
Speaker 1: I like hunting turkeys and any weather. But is it
Speaker 1: as good as when it's like a blue birds sixty
Speaker 1: five spring day and the birds are all going off
Speaker 1: and it's all green and pretty out there. No, it
Speaker 1: ain't the same. Turkey hunting in the rain is only
Speaker 1: better than work, like there's nothing else below it. Like
Speaker 1: I'd rather be turkey hunting in the rain. But it
Speaker 1: just sucks sitting under a tree getting soaked. Um, it's
Speaker 1: still pretty cold that time of year. Reason the reason, No,
Speaker 1: I've have been so cold sitting in exactly that. Man, Like,
Speaker 1: we had a bird he only gobbled to three times.
Speaker 1: I was with my wife, and uh, he came down.
Speaker 1: We kind of lost him and he popped over a
Speaker 1: little ridgie and I saw a hand with him. But
Speaker 1: they were just feeding our way. But they were like
Speaker 1: just feeding because it was just like cold and sopping wet,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't strutting, they were just feeding. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what kind of looks they're coming our way.
Speaker 1: Let's just wait it out. And we were there for
Speaker 1: a solid hour and sure enough, eventually here they come
Speaker 1: within range and we killed the killed the tom. But
Speaker 1: like it's just like yeah, you know, yeah, um yeah,
Speaker 1: same thing with my my wife's first bird. Big rainstorm,
Speaker 1: you know, middle April, all the creeks and you know,
Speaker 1: everything was was elevated. You know, small streams that weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to be there were there. And her bird just
Speaker 1: comes in soaking wet. You know, they're not near as pretty.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just yeah, she still I was stoked
Speaker 1: she killed her first bird, but man, did the experience
Speaker 1: isn't the same if it would have been and sunny. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to dive into the biology and maybe why
Speaker 1: or part of Yeah, well, I think what we're both
Speaker 1: probably hoping for is that And now after listening to
Speaker 1: Mike Chamberlain, there's even more reason to do this. But
Speaker 1: they well we're hoping for is that most of the
Speaker 1: breeding has happened and the big flocks um have broken up. Um,
Speaker 1: and you're hoping to catch that time period when like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a majority of the hens are sitting,
Speaker 1: but there's still plenty of hands out there that haven't
Speaker 1: been aren't finished breathing, and so all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the numbers skew where you know, every gobbler used to
Speaker 1: have I don't know whatever it is, the ratio of
Speaker 1: five to one, six to one, and now maybe it
Speaker 1: drops down to two to one or maybe one to one.
Speaker 1: And and those gobblers are they're like still very primed up.
Speaker 1: They're like still ready to breed. They're talking a lot
Speaker 1: and and if you just can catch that right, you know,
Speaker 1: that right time period, man, it can just be like
Speaker 1: you're just gonna fool him like no other time and
Speaker 1: fool them easily, and it just like, you know, the
Speaker 1: competition is a lot less if you're dealing with happing
Speaker 1: to beat one two hens versus you know, a flock
Speaker 1: of five or six. And I was told by an
Speaker 1: old timer, and whether it's true or not, is you know,
Speaker 1: those older hens are typically bread first, they start to fill,
Speaker 1: you know, their clutch of eggs up there, they're fully nesting,
Speaker 1: they're no longer being bred. And those are the hens,
Speaker 1: that kind of control those situations, Like they're more likely
Speaker 1: to tell that Tom, we're going this way away from
Speaker 1: this hen that's calling to you, which is us versus
Speaker 1: These younger hens no longer have control over him. So
Speaker 1: if you're calling to him, yeah, he might have a
Speaker 1: hint or two, but he's like, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: this way because the boss in is no longer they're
Speaker 1: like telling him what he's gonna do or where he's
Speaker 1: gonna go, which you know kind of has always stuck
Speaker 1: with me, whether it's right or wrong. I think about
Speaker 1: it that way that you know, early May, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and then that's the thing you even even in early
Speaker 1: you know, mid April, when our season's open up, you'd
Speaker 1: always still get those birds to gobble mid day, which
Speaker 1: you always thought you had a better chance. Um, you
Speaker 1: just seem to get more of them, you know, and
Speaker 1: may like you'll get more of that mid day gobbling
Speaker 1: because like you know, they're still fired up, they're still
Speaker 1: wanting to find a hand that wanting to be bred. Um.
Speaker 1: But it just seems like it opens up that midday
Speaker 1: gabbling opportunity. You may hear more of them midday, which
Speaker 1: you know, seems to result in a better, better kill
Speaker 1: odds for for us as a turkey hunter. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what talking about is getting me excited to go
Speaker 1: turkey Ready. Yeah, I was telling my kids it was
Speaker 1: time to start talking about turkey hunt and they're like,
Speaker 1: but it's months away. I said, yeah, you gotta get
Speaker 1: primed up. I told him. I said, all right, I said,
Speaker 1: I won't talk about it until February. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: February is in two weeks. I'm like, I know, that's
Speaker 1: all I'm giving you. What do you have on the
Speaker 1: docket this year for pretty uh pretty exciting and full spring.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think where we start. I want to
Speaker 1: say that the first hunt is California, where I'm hunting
Speaker 1: with my friend room map Um. So we're gonna hunt
Speaker 1: Rio's out there, like near Napa Valley, which I've hunted before,
Speaker 1: and I came away with one of the worst cases
Speaker 1: of uh poison oak I've ever had. So I've got
Speaker 1: that top of mind to hopefully do better. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna do. If I'm just gonna bring
Speaker 1: like five changes of clothes and never put on the
Speaker 1: same clothes, or just do a lot of scrubbing with
Speaker 1: hardcore soap. But uh, and then, um, let's see, we're
Speaker 1: doing the TRCP turkey Hunt. Steve and I are doing
Speaker 1: that in Michigan. Um, and that's in April two. I've
Speaker 1: got a fam my annual family turkey hunt in Montana, um,
Speaker 1: where we go on camp usually for four or five days. Um.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm missing something, but I'll probably get
Speaker 1: just some other you know days here and there in Montana. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be good. Oh, I almost forgot. We're going
Speaker 1: Steve and I are going to Central America for the
Speaker 1: oscillated which is kind of a turkey, not really a turkey,
Speaker 1: kind of a turkey. Um, it looks like just as
Speaker 1: much as like a peacock, because it does a turkey.
Speaker 1: They they don't, they don't. We're not gonna be doing
Speaker 1: any me. But this is where like the skill of
Speaker 1: getting up at four o'clock in the morning and slipping
Speaker 1: through the woods and getting under his tree, Uh, is
Speaker 1: gonna come in handy because I believe sure, but I
Speaker 1: believe that to kill one you have two options. Sit
Speaker 1: on a field that's got agging it away from the
Speaker 1: walk by which I'm not that interested in or slip
Speaker 1: through the woods in the dark and the coming dawn,
Speaker 1: and when he does, they make some sort of noise
Speaker 1: that will get that will give away their location and
Speaker 1: slip in there and then once you can see them,
Speaker 1: you shoot them off the roots, which I think is
Speaker 1: what Steve and I are gunning for. That brings up
Speaker 1: pulling another topic for a whole another podcast on you know,
Speaker 1: like it's probably acceptable to shoot him out of the
Speaker 1: roost down you know, that type of bird down there
Speaker 1: versus you know up in North America. It's kind of like, ah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to do it that way. No. I
Speaker 1: think some states it's even illegal. So closing this up,
Speaker 1: your honest if you had one tiper tactic to give
Speaker 1: to a turkey hunter out there that hasn't had success
Speaker 1: and this might be able to kind of turn the
Speaker 1: corner form, what would your your advice be, mm hmm,
Speaker 1: just one huh, just your one main one if you
Speaker 1: had to pick one. I mean, we all know there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, but just like one piece of
Speaker 1: advice that over the years has maybe helped you or
Speaker 1: you may help them. Yeah, well, I feel like when
Speaker 1: I see a lot of beginners the mistake that they
Speaker 1: make is, um, you know, I'm not gonna go into calling.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep it even simpler than that. Is, like movement.
Speaker 1: People just don't seem to understand how good the turkey
Speaker 1: turkey's eyesight is and then how little they will put
Speaker 1: up with when they catch micro movement. They might not
Speaker 1: know exactly what they saw, but they're like, man, there
Speaker 1: was a leaf that moved the wrong way over there
Speaker 1: in those bushes, and I'm just not sure, so I'm
Speaker 1: not messing with it, and I'm not gonna even run away.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kind of just veer and slowly feed away.
Speaker 1: And when that stuff happens, you might be like, oh man,
Speaker 1: my decoy set up was wrong. If you're like a
Speaker 1: beginner hunter, I can almost guarantee you that, no, it
Speaker 1: was because you thought that you can move your head
Speaker 1: three or four inches and look out of the corner
Speaker 1: of your eye, because you had to look at the
Speaker 1: turkey because and and he caught your the bill of
Speaker 1: your hat moving, or he caught your gilly you know,
Speaker 1: um head net, you know, moving a little bit, your
Speaker 1: gun barrel moving a little bit, whatever it is. But
Speaker 1: like they just won't put up with it. You've got
Speaker 1: to like the only time I move on a turkey
Speaker 1: is if I am sure that turkey's head went behind
Speaker 1: something that they cannot see through. And if it's like
Speaker 1: a bush, I'm probably not gonna move because I feel
Speaker 1: like they're going to see through the bush. And if
Speaker 1: it's like a solid tree trunk or baila hay or
Speaker 1: maybe even a fence post, like you have a half
Speaker 1: a second where you can just like you know, justust
Speaker 1: your gun two inches three inches whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: or just your butt because it's fallen asleep. But like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: just you gotta like you gotta sit so so still
Speaker 1: and literally let them walk in front of your gun
Speaker 1: barrel versus trying to swing on him. There's so quick,
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna say, Like, you know, the
Speaker 1: movement of guns even need to be like you know, sloth,
Speaker 1: Like we've thought like, oh, he's in range, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna move my gun from my knee now and point,
Speaker 1: you know, put the beat on him, and that you
Speaker 1: know that half a second it took me to get
Speaker 1: from on my knee to you know, maybe twenty degrees.
Speaker 1: He's gone and I can't get back on him. It's
Speaker 1: just like so he puts he puts ten yards on you,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, you went from
Speaker 1: having like a maybe okay shot and now it's very marginal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think you're moving slow enough, moved just a
Speaker 1: little bit slower or not at all. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like even head turns hunting with Chris Parris, who's did
Speaker 1: it forever, Like it might take him a minute to
Speaker 1: look from his right to his left. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: he'll move his eyes, but then his neck turned or
Speaker 1: his head turns on his neck, just like extremely slow. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, just making sure if there's birds close that
Speaker 1: you know, no, no fast movement. Well, um, well, good
Speaker 1: luck to you this year. You're honest on all of
Speaker 1: your spring turkey outs. I really appreciate, you know, taking
Speaker 1: the time to be on the podcast today and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. You got me all fired up.
Speaker 1: Now man, I'm gonna go home and bust out a
Speaker 1: pot call and start talking away at my and my
Speaker 1: pet turkeys and and up in my my language game
Speaker 1: perfect per have a good one. You're on his Thanks
Speaker 1: h