Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light, Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by first Late. Today is
Speaker 2: another extra special extra episode dedicated to learning how to
Speaker 2: speak turkeys, which is something that almost everyone thinks they
Speaker 2: can do, but it's actually a little trickier and more
Speaker 2: nuanced than it seems. I know you've heard about it,
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you anyway. Meat Eater has a crazy
Speaker 2: turkey week going on right now. What that means for
Speaker 2: you is, if you're like, hey, I'd like to see
Speaker 2: some more turkey hunting content, or read about turkeys, or
Speaker 2: listen about turkeys or whatever, you can head over to
Speaker 2: the meat eater dot com and find all kinds of content.
Speaker 2: You'll also see that we are having one hell of
Speaker 2: a sale on a lot of our best turkey hunting gears,
Speaker 2: So if you're thinking about loading up before the season
Speaker 2: gets here, this is a good week to do. It
Speaker 2: because we have some deep discounts over there. Now, I
Speaker 2: want to talk about calling probably my favorite part of
Speaker 2: turkey hunting, especially when you combine it with good decoys.
Speaker 2: You know, and I know that most people would probably
Speaker 2: say calling them is you know, favorite part of turkey hunting,
Speaker 2: which is no surprise, it's just pretty cool. You know.
Speaker 2: That goes for l hunting too. The thing about calling
Speaker 2: turkeys is that you can be pretty bad at it
Speaker 2: and have it work sometimes, but it won't consistently work
Speaker 2: well unless you know you always hunt unpressured birds. If
Speaker 2: you don't, but you still love to try to work
Speaker 2: in birds in the spring, then understanding what calls to
Speaker 2: make and when to make them is I don't know,
Speaker 2: like seventy percent of the battle. It's also what this
Speaker 2: whole podcast is all about. Back in my high school days,
Speaker 2: I was not what you would call a model student.
Speaker 2: I'm really more of a season b's with an occasional
Speaker 2: DS in there kind of guy, you know, if you
Speaker 2: get my drift. I don't remember when exactly this was,
Speaker 2: but I think I was a sophomore maybe a junior
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, But in high school I ended up taking
Speaker 2: a Spanish class missus Laver was the teacher, and she
Speaker 2: did not like me a whole lot. She had good reason,
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to hold that against her. It
Speaker 2: had to be frustrating for her since she was trying
Speaker 2: to teach a foreign language to a bunch of kids
Speaker 2: who lived in a town of two thousand people, many
Speaker 2: of whom probably couldn't find Mexico on a map let
Speaker 2: alone any of the other nations that speak Spanish. If
Speaker 2: it wasn't bad enough teaching those kids that some inanimate
Speaker 2: objects have a gender in Espanol, I personally just wasn't
Speaker 2: great at learning the language. I did. After venting to
Speaker 2: my older sister about my struggles in missus Laver's class,
Speaker 2: find out that she had kept all of her old
Speaker 2: tests from the same classes. So I used those as
Speaker 2: my study guides, and let me tell you, it made
Speaker 2: things a hell of a lot easier because they were
Speaker 2: the exact same test that I had to take. They
Speaker 2: consisted of several parts, multiple choice true and false, and
Speaker 2: an essay portion. Now I aced the first two parts,
Speaker 2: but got dinged pretty heavily on my essay portion, even
Speaker 2: though what I wrote was nearly a word for word.
Speaker 2: What my sister had written and she had received a's
Speaker 2: for it. It was one of the first times I
Speaker 2: realized how even a little bit of power can be
Speaker 2: used to punish someone else. It was also a tricky situation.
Speaker 2: I couldn't call her out for giving my sister a's
Speaker 2: and me ses when our work was nearly identical, because well,
Speaker 2: I was cheating in a way, so was she. Though
Speaker 2: In the end, I took two Spanish classes with her
Speaker 2: and we both moved on with our lives, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't until quite a few years later that I spent
Speaker 2: any time in countries where Spanish was the language. On
Speaker 2: trips with my wife, things are pretty easy because she's
Speaker 2: fluent in Spanish, and we'll show you that anytime there's
Speaker 2: a remote opportunity to flex her linguistic muscles. Now. When
Speaker 2: we traveled together, that was great. But I had a
Speaker 2: crazy work trip to Argentina one time to hunt doves
Speaker 2: and ducks where the missus wasn't along, and I found
Speaker 2: myself with three other people trying to navigate the streets
Speaker 2: of Buenos Aires and one nightmare airport in Cordoba. I
Speaker 2: had the most Spanish speaking skills out of the four
Speaker 2: of us, and it quickly became apparent that I could
Speaker 2: just barely read and speak enough to keep us some
Speaker 2: on the right track and somewhat hold the conversation with
Speaker 2: the locals, provided they spoke really slow and deliberately and
Speaker 2: they pantomimed a lot. That trip showed me that you
Speaker 2: can hobble and limp your way through if you have
Speaker 2: a cursory understanding of a foreign language, but it takes
Speaker 2: work to be fluent, truly fluent. I know you know
Speaker 2: where I'm going with this, and the best part is
Speaker 2: that it's a hell of a lot easier to speak
Speaker 2: Turkey than it is to be able to divine the
Speaker 2: exact location of your flight's gate in a crazy busy
Speaker 2: airport while talking to an excited Spanish speaking person who
Speaker 2: has had just about enough of slow, dim witted Americans.
Speaker 2: Turkey talk is mostly pretty easy, but it's also something
Speaker 2: that is really hard to learn by listening to some
Speaker 2: dude blabber away on a podcast. Since that's what we
Speaker 2: have going on, I'm going to give it my best
Speaker 2: shot anyway, So I'll say this, the first and most
Speaker 2: important call is you guessed it the quadruple gobble. Just kidding,
Speaker 2: it's the yelp. This call, which is like a subtle
Speaker 2: two note call that occurs usually in sequences of three
Speaker 2: to maybe seven, is the hey, where are you call
Speaker 2: of turkeys, and it's also the I'm right here call
Speaker 2: of turkeys. Hens keep track of each other with yelps,
Speaker 2: and when toms do it, it's usually because they've been
Speaker 2: separated from their buddies, often in the fall, although probably
Speaker 2: all year long. The yelp is generally what we use
Speaker 2: to get tom's to gobble and come in now. Back
Speaker 2: when turkey hunting was just spreading from the Deep South
Speaker 2: to the rest of the country, it was pretty common
Speaker 2: for hunters to yelp three times and shut up for
Speaker 2: an hour. That's dumb, don't do that. Real turkeys don't
Speaker 2: yelp three times and shut up, so why would you.
Speaker 2: In fact, real turkeys actually talk a lot. They just
Speaker 2: often get a little quiet when they dealing with plenty
Speaker 2: of hunters or plenty of non human predators. The ability
Speaker 2: to produce soft, subtle yelps and all out where the
Speaker 2: hell are you yelps it's really the cornerstone of calling
Speaker 2: in birds. If you can't produce quality yelps, you are
Speaker 2: in trouble. My go to calls are mouth calls and
Speaker 2: slate calls, although I think pretty much every call on
Speaker 2: the market will let you make a yelp. That's just
Speaker 2: what I use for a variety of reasons, mostly because
Speaker 2: I think you can get more inflection in a mouth
Speaker 2: call than anything else. It's also the most convenient, and
Speaker 2: I like slate calls because they're just a nice compliment.
Speaker 2: When you need subtlety or extra sounds. When you're using
Speaker 2: a mouth call, you know a box callar a push
Speaker 2: button call will work for this too. If you're just
Speaker 2: looking to get a bird to fire up, start quiet,
Speaker 2: do a sequence of yelps. Pay attention to your cadence.
Speaker 2: Don't go too fast. Way Too many turkey hunters yelp
Speaker 2: way too fast, and it just sounds unnatural. You almost
Speaker 2: can't go too slow with this, but it's very easy
Speaker 2: to go too fast. If you don't get a response,
Speaker 2: ratchet up the volume, don't change anything else, though. You're
Speaker 2: just looking to see if someone will talk. Often it's
Speaker 2: not a tom that will answer, but a hen. This
Speaker 2: is almost as good if a hen responds to yelping,
Speaker 2: which she will mostly by yelping on her own. It's
Speaker 2: time to have a conversation. Try to call her in
Speaker 2: instead of just calling to keep her talking what she says.
Speaker 2: Say back to her, but a little more aggressively cut
Speaker 2: her off. Sometimes they're just letting you know they're over there.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they are open to coming in. I'm of the
Speaker 2: opinion that the more live hens I get around, especially
Speaker 2: if they're making noise, the better things are going to
Speaker 2: go for me. Plus, having hens around teaches you to
Speaker 2: call better than working a gobbler in and killing him. Now,
Speaker 2: you can keep yelping in a slow, drawn out sequence,
Speaker 2: which will keep the temperature of the encounter pretty low.
Speaker 2: Or you can throw some stank on it, which is
Speaker 2: what I like to do. While the yelp is the
Speaker 2: flour and eggs you need to make, the cake, cutting
Speaker 2: is the frosting. Now, you could kill Turkey's your whole
Speaker 2: life and never do anything other than yelp, but you
Speaker 2: won't kill as many or have as many really fun
Speaker 2: encounters if you don't learn to cut. This is the
Speaker 2: call that changes the vibe out there, mostly for the better.
Speaker 2: A cut is like an emotional call. Birds do it
Speaker 2: when they were pissed off or excited or both. You
Speaker 2: want birds to cut, and the best way to do
Speaker 2: this is to cut. This is a call that takes confidence.
Speaker 2: It's a somewhat rapid fire call that might start out
Speaker 2: quiet in a sequence but should end up pretty Loud
Speaker 2: calls are great for this, so or pot calls and
Speaker 2: box calls. Whatever you use, learn to produce loud, crisp,
Speaker 2: sharp cuts. This is the best way to get a
Speaker 2: hen fired up, and if you can get a dominant
Speaker 2: hen to start jawjacking you with cuts while you cut
Speaker 2: right back nearby, tom's are very very likely to respond.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a live hen to work with,
Speaker 2: you can still create these cuts, but it's best to
Speaker 2: mix in some other calling to make it sound like
Speaker 2: multiple birds are mixing it up. Now. On a side note,
Speaker 2: if you hear a bird cutting somewhere near your decoys,
Speaker 2: get ready. Hens do this, of course, but toms often
Speaker 2: do this when they get eyes on the decoy. Solo
Speaker 2: birds don't seem to do this as much as pair
Speaker 2: it up birds or birds with multiple buddies. But if
Speaker 2: you're sitting out there and can't see a bird and
Speaker 2: suddenly hear one cutting, get ready. They are on the way,
Speaker 2: and they are not likely to take their time getting
Speaker 2: to you. This call is also a great way to
Speaker 2: save an encounter if you get busted by a bird.
Speaker 2: Now this doesn't work every time, but if you're in
Speaker 2: a blind reaching for your bow and a hen spots
Speaker 2: you and starts to put it's time to cut back.
Speaker 2: As long as they only saw something that made them
Speaker 2: a little nervous, without seeing something that proved a big,
Speaker 2: nasty predator was right there, they will act a little boogery,
Speaker 2: but sometimes they just seem to forget why they were nervous.
Speaker 2: This is the only call I've ever used that works
Speaker 2: this way, and like I said, doesn't work all the time,
Speaker 2: but I do it one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 2: If I get busted and a bird starts putting at me,
Speaker 2: figure out what cutting really sounds like, and then work
Speaker 2: hard to be able to do it. I think this
Speaker 2: is as valuable as being good at yelping, and we
Speaker 2: all know how valuable that is. Now, you also have
Speaker 2: purring and clucking, which are not as popular, but they're
Speaker 2: valuable in their own right. A purring or softly clucking
Speaker 2: hen is a hen that is pretty content if you're
Speaker 2: only a shotgu on turkey hunter, you might not have
Speaker 2: as much experience listening to real birds make these two calls.
Speaker 2: This is a close game kind of call, and it
Speaker 2: really didn't hit home for me on how much birds
Speaker 2: make these two calls until I started fall hunting like
Speaker 2: crazy and then bow hunting spring birds. A lot. Some hens,
Speaker 2: when the mood is right, seem to never shut up.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere coming from
Speaker 2: a guy who lives with three women, but I'll let
Speaker 2: it pass. Clucking and purring is a confidence signal that
Speaker 2: all is quiet on the Old Western front. When you
Speaker 2: have a hen around you that won't get into a
Speaker 2: screaming match, the best tactic is to sweet talker. I
Speaker 2: use a slate call almost always for this task. It's
Speaker 2: possible with a lot of other calls, but producing soft
Speaker 2: purrs and clocks with a slate is easy and it
Speaker 2: sounds so good. If you have a hen in the
Speaker 2: decoys and want to keep her around, this is your move.
Speaker 2: Near constant, low level chatter is ideal. Oftentimes they'll lay
Speaker 2: right down in the decoys and they almost always carry
Speaker 2: their half of the conversation. This is a great move.
Speaker 2: If you have a hen in the woods with you
Speaker 2: but you can't see her, she'll keep you updated on
Speaker 2: her movements through her own purring and clucking and often
Speaker 2: soft yelping, and if you carry on long enough, will
Speaker 2: almost always make a small move to show herself. She
Speaker 2: might have a silent gobbler on her tail, or might
Speaker 2: speak enough with you to bring in a nearby tom
Speaker 2: or jake. Again, having content birds near you that aren't
Speaker 2: afraid to have a conversation is what the whole thing
Speaker 2: is all about. As an added bonus, this is also
Speaker 2: a great situation to mix in some scratching. If you're
Speaker 2: already trying to give off the vibe of a hen
Speaker 2: or two loafing away in an area, the sound of
Speaker 2: scratching in the leaves can add a much needed compliment
Speaker 2: to the whole thing. In fact, I kill a one
Speaker 2: time that gobbled at me while I scratched out a
Speaker 2: spot to sit down. He heard me scratch, he gobbled,
Speaker 2: and by the time I had my shotgun in my
Speaker 2: lap and yelped, he was already running toward me. Scratching
Speaker 2: is an all clear signal, and it nearly always accompanies
Speaker 2: birds no matter where they are or what they are
Speaker 2: doing throughout the day. While most of the love goes
Speaker 2: to yelping and then cutting, if you hunt pressure birds
Speaker 2: a lot, learning to purr and cluck is super important.
Speaker 2: This is my go to for a lot of my
Speaker 2: public land hunts because I think that birds that have
Speaker 2: been called to a lot just kind of like the
Speaker 2: soft cell approach. A lot of hunters out there, particularly
Speaker 2: the run and gun crowd, they don't do subtle tea
Speaker 2: very well. They do the same thing new elk hunters do,
Speaker 2: which is cover as much ground as possible while trying
Speaker 2: to get a critter to sound off. Sometimes it works,
Speaker 2: but as the season progresses, the ability to make it
Speaker 2: happen with if that method tends to diminish to the
Speaker 2: point where you're just praying to get close to an
Speaker 2: animal that is in the mood or that the conditions
Speaker 2: will just put them in the mood. Mostly neither happens.
Speaker 2: This is also a good strategy for the midday when
Speaker 2: birds seem to have lockjaw, because if the real birds
Speaker 2: aren't talking too much, you probably shouldn't be either. Now,
Speaker 2: another call that's at least worth learning is a gobble.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know if I've ever gobbled in a tom.
Speaker 2: I'm hesitant to gobble in most of my hunting situations
Speaker 2: because I'd rather not get shot in the face. I
Speaker 2: just don't want to sound like the thing that other
Speaker 2: hunters are trying to shoot if I can help it. Now,
Speaker 2: there are situations where gobbling is totally safe and can work,
Speaker 2: but for me, it's probably the best locator call I've
Speaker 2: ever used. I use a mouth call and shake my
Speaker 2: head like a lunatic when I do it, but it
Speaker 2: sounds good enough. You can use a gobble shaker if
Speaker 2: you need to, or learn how to do it. On
Speaker 2: a box call. The goal is to be loud and
Speaker 2: sound like a gobble. That's about it. For finding roosted
Speaker 2: birds in the pre dawn darkness, or to get some
Speaker 2: intel at night so you know where to set up
Speaker 2: in the morning. A gobble is as good or better
Speaker 2: than any locator call I've ever used. Coyote and owl
Speaker 2: calls will get hot birds going no matter what, but
Speaker 2: a gobble seems to get all of the birds to respond.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's almost not fair. Now. It's also a great
Speaker 2: way to locate a bird at noon when you haven't
Speaker 2: heard a real gobble in four hours. But I always
Speaker 2: use some other locator first, often a crow call. A
Speaker 2: crow call doesn't tell a nearby bird anything, so it's
Speaker 2: a free play. If he responds, he's not immediately going
Speaker 2: to run over the hill to see if a crow
Speaker 2: is in a tree, but when you gobble, he might.
Speaker 2: This means that you can use a crow or an
Speaker 2: owl call like crazy and not really change the dynamic
Speaker 2: around yourself as far as what unseen Toms might think.
Speaker 2: A gobble is different. And while it's a hell of
Speaker 2: a good way to get a response, it's also, at
Speaker 2: least in my experience, a hell of a good way
Speaker 2: to not call in birds. I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: like a snort wheeze for whitetails. When you run into
Speaker 2: the right buck, it's almost like cheating to snortweeze when
Speaker 2: you run into most bucks, it's almost like the opposite.
Speaker 2: Gobbling seems to work that way with Tom's, And of
Speaker 2: course there are other calls too, or variations of them anyway,
Speaker 2: bubble clucks the kind that pop at the end, or
Speaker 2: tree yelps, which I guess are kind of just soft
Speaker 2: yelps at first light mostly though. There are only a
Speaker 2: few types of calls you need to learn, but then
Speaker 2: you need to learn how to make them sound like
Speaker 2: they would if real turkey was making them in a
Speaker 2: real situation. This requires experience listening to real birds and
Speaker 2: eventually talking to them. This is like the same beneficial
Speaker 2: level as winter scouting white tails. You know from January
Speaker 2: to let's say April. The more you do either, the
Speaker 2: better you get it. The whole thing. I don't know
Speaker 2: how to put it any differently, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 2: practice your calls when you can learn how to confidently
Speaker 2: mix up your Turkey language to make it sound like
Speaker 2: you're not hesitant or anxious to get the sequence over with.
Speaker 2: If you can't get something right, it's either you or
Speaker 2: the call. This is a hard one to get across,
Speaker 2: but for some reason, some calls work well for some
Speaker 2: people while theres don't. If you're struggling, try something different
Speaker 2: and be sure to pay attention, because I'm going to
Speaker 2: drop one more turkey episode this week so that by
Speaker 2: the time April rolls around you'll be ready to work
Speaker 2: birds in. Whether you hunt a banging spot no one
Speaker 2: else can hunt, or you have to spend your spring
Speaker 2: on public dirt trying to kill the same birds that
Speaker 2: everyone else is hunting, which is mostly what the whole
Speaker 2: next episode is going to be about. That's it for
Speaker 2: this show, But like I said, not this week, I've
Speaker 2: still got one more turkey episode coming your way here shortly.
Speaker 2: Like I said in the intro, I'm gonna say it again,
Speaker 2: we have a crazy Turkey Week campaign going on at
Speaker 2: the medeater dot com. Tons of new turkey content, crazy
Speaker 2: sales on some of the best turkey hunting gear out there.
Speaker 2: If you're interested in adding a little bit to your
Speaker 2: spring kit, go check it out at the mediater dot com.
Speaker 2: And as always, thank you so much for listening, so
Speaker 2: much for watching, and just so much for your support.
Speaker 2: We truly appreciate it here at Mediator