Speaker 1: I'm joined today by my very good buddy, the marketing
Speaker 1: manager here at POLPS Game Calls, Dirk Durham Um. For
Speaker 1: everybody out there kind of wanting to know his turkey
Speaker 1: calling credentials, he has one exactly zero turkey calling contests.
Speaker 1: He's been in exactly zero turkey calling contests. But he's
Speaker 1: a day good elk hunter. And and one thing that
Speaker 1: we're going to kind of explain here is we love
Speaker 1: turkey hunting. We may not be the best at it,
Speaker 1: we may not know everything about it, but we're going
Speaker 1: to dive into why it's just got this bad image
Speaker 1: amongst the Western hunters, why it's not as cool as
Speaker 1: calling in you know, maybe an eight hundred pound bull
Speaker 1: elk um, But then maybe why they should consider it cool,
Speaker 1: and why it is a bunch of fun and something
Speaker 1: to do in the spring. So welcome Dirk. Oh hey there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have been at some turkey calling contests. Oh
Speaker 1: you have all right, I'm gonna correct meself, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: the real judge, Yeah exactly, Okay, So we've got to
Speaker 1: chase elk all over you know, every fall. We also
Speaker 1: love the turkey hunt. You know, I wouldn't say as much,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely fun. It's something to go out there
Speaker 1: and do every spring. And so that's what we're gonna
Speaker 1: dive into. But first we're gonna jump into a few
Speaker 1: of our listeners questions here um that we've got. So
Speaker 1: the first one is, I've never hunted turkey before. What
Speaker 1: are the must haves? So I'm taking this question is
Speaker 1: I don't need to go out and buy everything, but
Speaker 1: what are the must haves. I'll let you take this
Speaker 1: derk and I'll see if I can add to your
Speaker 1: list at all. But you know, I I feel we
Speaker 1: should keep the list simple. You know, whatever it is
Speaker 1: for calls, whatever it is for gear, you know, shotgun, um,
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, like what's the minimum you can
Speaker 1: go out with in the spring and be successful? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you're a diaphragm guy, um or a girl,
Speaker 1: you can definitely get by with just diaphragms. You can
Speaker 1: locate with diaphragms, you can call them in with diaphragms, um.
Speaker 1: But I will say there are some days that diaphragms
Speaker 1: sometimes just don't cut the mustard. I call as loud
Speaker 1: or as different or as soft as I want, And
Speaker 1: sometimes I just don't get any response. But man, you
Speaker 1: break out a box call and wow, I mean it's
Speaker 1: just a game changer. Um. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: just that sharp pitch of a box call or what,
Speaker 1: but I feel like that's like I gotta have. Like, Um,
Speaker 1: they're easy to use, especially for new callers. They're just
Speaker 1: super easy to use the versatile and uh, it's a
Speaker 1: great way to mix it up. Yeah, and and I'll
Speaker 1: take it. You know, as far as what weapon you need,
Speaker 1: if you're an archie hunter, you you can just take
Speaker 1: your normal archery setup. Um, if you're gonna go out
Speaker 1: there with a shotgun, any twelve or twenty gauge will work,
Speaker 1: especially with the day's ammunition, some of the TSS loads
Speaker 1: and some of the crazy stuff they have out there,
Speaker 1: Like you can dang your take a four ten though. Um.
Speaker 1: And they became a viable option now that there are
Speaker 1: TSS loads and you can get so many pellets out there. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, any shotgun with with the right ammunition. Um,
Speaker 1: you know a couple of diaphragms, Uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: pot call with a couple of strikers. But you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say they're there, must have. It's just nice
Speaker 1: to have because, like Dirk said, some days those turkeys
Speaker 1: won't answer one versus the other. Pot call is just
Speaker 1: like the box called, very easy to use. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and I would say it's not an absolute must have,
Speaker 1: but it makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Some sort of seating pad or a seat. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily need decoys. They're nice to have, but
Speaker 1: as far as the must have, you know, some way
Speaker 1: to locate the bird, um, and then some way to
Speaker 1: call it in and then somebody to kill it, so
Speaker 1: you know, your your bower, shotgun, a couple of calls,
Speaker 1: whether it's a diaphragm, a pot call, and then um,
Speaker 1: you know, most importantly you need some birds on the
Speaker 1: property you're hunting and have them you know, fairly well
Speaker 1: scouted out. Man. I couldn't agree more like on that
Speaker 1: seating the seating pad. You know, I've been the tough
Speaker 1: guy all these years, and you know, you sit out
Speaker 1: on the ground and it's cold and it's wet and
Speaker 1: or sometime uncomfortable. And last year when we were hunting
Speaker 1: with our good buddy Randy Milligan in Missouri, not Missouri,
Speaker 1: in Kansas. Uh. He had these little seats, He's super
Speaker 1: low profile, uh seats for hunting, for turkey hunting. And
Speaker 1: to me that was a game changer. I man, it
Speaker 1: was so comfortable. You could sit there motionless comfortably for ever,
Speaker 1: Whereas the other option is sit on the ground and man,
Speaker 1: your butt gets cold or tired, your legs go numb
Speaker 1: or whatever. So yeah, I mean I noticed, Dirk, you
Speaker 1: you didn't fall asleep at all on that first night
Speaker 1: when we didn't have the season. Once we had those seats,
Speaker 1: you were like three for six on knaps. So it
Speaker 1: was that the comfort level definitely rose. Um when we
Speaker 1: now it is it's just a more time. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have very much patience, but the more patient
Speaker 1: you can be in gear like seats or a good seat,
Speaker 1: UM can definitely add to you know, the the fun
Speaker 1: and and the comfort of it, but also the success
Speaker 1: if if you have the ability to sit in an area,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as you need to without getting
Speaker 1: ants here, like Dirk said, your legs fall asleep, Um,
Speaker 1: is gonna lead to a lot more turkeys being killed. Um.
Speaker 1: The second question we have will jump into this before
Speaker 1: we jump into our discussion. My question for Dirk is
Speaker 1: what do your go to turkey locator tactics, which will
Speaker 1: play right into how we locate elk and the way
Speaker 1: we like to do it. But as far as locating
Speaker 1: turkeys and I there it's probably a two part question, Dirk.
Speaker 1: I would say, how do we locate turkeys while we're hunting?
Speaker 1: And then how do we try to light locate turkeys,
Speaker 1: you know, either for the roost or using you know,
Speaker 1: non turkey sounds to locate turkeys. So for for years
Speaker 1: and until actually last year when we came out with
Speaker 1: that new crow call um the mediator x Phelps crow call,
Speaker 1: then UM, I just used my voice. I would either
Speaker 1: use al hoots or um or crow calls, so I
Speaker 1: would are more of a more North Idaho. We don't
Speaker 1: have crows really, we have ravens, right, so UM, I
Speaker 1: would just use my voice. You always kind of feel
Speaker 1: weird doing it too, you know. Um you start going,
Speaker 1: like especially if you're with somebody who's a new turkey
Speaker 1: hunter and they don't know anything about it, my wife
Speaker 1: or kids, and and you get out of the truck
Speaker 1: or you hike around and you're going, I mean, it gets,
Speaker 1: it gets kind of weird if like, whoa there, take
Speaker 1: it back? Yeah, why are you scaring these things away? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And in fact, um elk cutting before in the fall.
Speaker 1: I've had turkeys answered my bugle in the fall. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they don't typically bugle or gobble a lot in
Speaker 1: the fall, but um, I've had him answer me from
Speaker 1: the roost tree in the fall. Yeah. I don't like
Speaker 1: to use kyo house and stuff when the turkeys are
Speaker 1: on the ground or when I have to hunt them,
Speaker 1: so like in the morning and stuff. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of our go to locator at night, once they're up
Speaker 1: in a tree, if you give a good yep, um
Speaker 1: and get those turkeys so we can locate him in
Speaker 1: the rus for the next morning. But once they're you know,
Speaker 1: let's say it's it's early morning and we actually have
Speaker 1: to hunt the birds. I don't want to put any
Speaker 1: extra pressure concern on them that there's a coyote on
Speaker 1: the ground in my direction. So we use a lot
Speaker 1: of crow calls similar to you. I cut my hands
Speaker 1: and do kind of a who you know, an al
Speaker 1: hooter sound that we use, um you affiliated woodpecker. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of times once we get going on
Speaker 1: the hunt. We're just using our turkey calls. You know.
Speaker 1: It seems like a hen yell or a little bit
Speaker 1: of cutting seems to get them going, maybe more so
Speaker 1: than than the straight locator. But we kind of just
Speaker 1: play to what they're responding to. If we're getting them
Speaker 1: to answer O crow call, will stick with it. If
Speaker 1: they're answering you know, hand calls, then then we'll stick
Speaker 1: with them. But yeah, we reserve that kyote hal for
Speaker 1: roost him at night, which seems to be you know,
Speaker 1: our our best tactic as far as nighttime locating. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's how we go about locating turkeys. Why we're
Speaker 1: hunting while we're putting them to bed and roosting them.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to roll into to our discussion and
Speaker 1: we appreciate all you guys as questions and keep them
Speaker 1: rolling in, but um, we're gonna dive in fairly deep
Speaker 1: or as deep as we can. We're gonna kind of
Speaker 1: keep it light. Um. You know, there's just been this
Speaker 1: big you know front that that turkey hunting isn't cool,
Speaker 1: don't compare it to elk hunting. You know, like all
Speaker 1: these little rules from these Western guys on on how
Speaker 1: it's not cool to maybe turkey hunting, And so we're
Speaker 1: gonna go through compare and contrast, he seeing, and then
Speaker 1: the end kind of like what's our verdict? Is it
Speaker 1: very similar? Are these guys just you know, trying to
Speaker 1: maintain status by not turkey hunting? And why? I think
Speaker 1: ultimately we're gonna be able to say why you should
Speaker 1: be turkey hunting every spring if you like to call
Speaker 1: animals in Yeah, I think there's some weird bravado or something.
Speaker 1: Us Westy's, as the East Eastern folk call us as Westy's,
Speaker 1: have a lot of us, you know, are like turkeys,
Speaker 1: they're stupid or whatever. They're dumb. It's a dumb bird
Speaker 1: or whatever. But um, it's nothing like elk hunting. But
Speaker 1: there there are some definitely some crossovers and similarities. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know a lot of us out west
Speaker 1: we're just not that good at it compared to the
Speaker 1: folks that just live and breathe it so and it
Speaker 1: can't be frustrating. So I think there could be some
Speaker 1: of that too. It's some animosity towards turkeys from US
Speaker 1: guys out in the West. Yeah, I've said it before,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody likes the label turkeys as a dumb bird.
Speaker 1: You know, I could drive down the road and shoot
Speaker 1: him on my window, and which is true until you
Speaker 1: have a shotgun in your hand and like step outside
Speaker 1: your door, and then they become maybe the smartest bird
Speaker 1: you know on the ground. And so it's it's why
Speaker 1: they seem very um, you know, not very intelligent. Uh
Speaker 1: quick glance like when you try to hunt them, and
Speaker 1: and as long as you say that, you you know,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna shoot him off the road, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna shoot him as you drive by. You're not going
Speaker 1: to shoot him out of a tree. And and go
Speaker 1: and hunt them. Um, they become you know, fairly fairly challenging. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm not so sure if they're super intelligent. I
Speaker 1: don't believe that. But they are like the next level tricky,
Speaker 1: like they want to they have a will to survive,
Speaker 1: and they're a master of avoiding danger. Um with his
Speaker 1: eyes and they're just they're just really good at avoiding danger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just just they're like daily timeline of you know,
Speaker 1: they'm all flying out of a tree, the tom staying
Speaker 1: with the hen Why we want to be out there
Speaker 1: and call him in and then just the the I
Speaker 1: guess their daily routine makes them very you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: difficult to kill because he's not gonna leave the hens
Speaker 1: that he's with until they go to nest. And by
Speaker 1: that time we're ready for a salunch and we're heading
Speaker 1: in for lunch. So there's just things that are in
Speaker 1: place that just you know, turkeys are just doing what
Speaker 1: turkeys do, but it seems to make them tough to
Speaker 1: to hunt at times, or to or to get that
Speaker 1: tom to break off. Yep, I agree, yep. So let's
Speaker 1: compare how we like to locatel compared to how we
Speaker 1: typically locate turkeys and kind of walk through that process. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we've always said, you know, elk hunting, you
Speaker 1: can either locate with a location bogle or you can
Speaker 1: locate using your binoculars. The same can be said for turkeys.
Speaker 1: You can locate them by glassing them up. But a
Speaker 1: lot of times I would say, you look, we locate
Speaker 1: more turkeys by being audible. They're a little tougher to spot.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna sit across the canyon necessarily you can
Speaker 1: and look for them. You're mainly going to hear them
Speaker 1: talking to you or you're gonna spot them it like
Speaker 1: the back of an agg field or something. The one
Speaker 1: major difference which we can jump into is turkeys can
Speaker 1: be located with shot gobbles. We can use other sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's crows, peacock, some of their natural
Speaker 1: predators out there, some of the animals or birds they
Speaker 1: don't like. Um, you know, doors, slamming, elk, bagles during
Speaker 1: the spring, you know, almost any loud sound we can
Speaker 1: use to locate them, which does give us a little
Speaker 1: bit of an advantage on locating turkeys because you know,
Speaker 1: when you locate with an elk call, you've now announced
Speaker 1: yourself as a cow or a ble and and their
Speaker 1: attention is now drawn to you versus if you're using
Speaker 1: the turkey call, you can locate them what they call,
Speaker 1: or you can use a shot gobble, which now they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily as concerned or paying as much attention to
Speaker 1: the direction that your crow call came from, because not
Speaker 1: you know, as focus. So let's walk through, Dirk, like
Speaker 1: you know a little more in depth how we locate
Speaker 1: elk and then how we go about locating turkeys as
Speaker 1: far as like take us through a day. You didn't
Speaker 1: have an elk body. We're just gonna go run ridges
Speaker 1: versus you don't have you know, turkeys. Root said, how
Speaker 1: are you going to go locate? And how those you
Speaker 1: know compared differ? Well, I think folks who are big
Speaker 1: turkey hunters they call it running, gun running and gunning. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're basically covering a lot of ground quickly and
Speaker 1: you're just you're just trying to pick up a bird
Speaker 1: with your locate locator calls. Um. You may stay in
Speaker 1: one spot and call for just a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a minute or two, and if you don't
Speaker 1: get a response, you move on to the next spot.
Speaker 1: And you're just trying to cover as much ground as
Speaker 1: you can to find turkeys. And we do the same
Speaker 1: thing with elk cunning. Um it's uncanny, really, um covering
Speaker 1: a ridge system, calling into every little nook and cran
Speaker 1: of a draw or or up onto a ridge. Um.
Speaker 1: It goes to the same thing with turkeys. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: if if you have a terrain feature in between you
Speaker 1: and the turkeys, sometimes you have to get to the
Speaker 1: top of that that train feature. Let's say it's a ridge,
Speaker 1: maybe you're gonna have to climb to the top of
Speaker 1: that ridge. Even even the most subtle of ridges um
Speaker 1: on the back side could be a little hollow or
Speaker 1: something or a draw where a turkey's at and you
Speaker 1: couldn't hear him, and maybe he couldn't even hear you.
Speaker 1: But you have to kind of eliminate ground by just
Speaker 1: covering as much country as you can, pitching your calls
Speaker 1: out there and kind of looking for those responses. Yep.
Speaker 1: And it's it's very similar for me as well, Like
Speaker 1: aside from Glassingham. If if we're you know, turkey hunting
Speaker 1: in eastern Washington, which is similar to some of the country,
Speaker 1: we all cut um, we're gonna jump up, get on
Speaker 1: a ridge. That way we can you know, utilize both
Speaker 1: sides of the ridge covered twice as much ground versus
Speaker 1: being down in the bottom or you know, half hill
Speaker 1: on one side. And then we're just gonna throw locations
Speaker 1: off of both sides, whether it's you know, loud yelps,
Speaker 1: whether it's crow calls, and you know, whether it's a
Speaker 1: location bugle for elk. We're just we're literally sound checking
Speaker 1: every little pocket, every little area walking down that ridge,
Speaker 1: and we're just looking for a response so we can
Speaker 1: get that game started as we walked down that ridge,
Speaker 1: um and run, you know, versus if we're where we
Speaker 1: were in Kansas last year, when we're you know, in
Speaker 1: a more flat area. You know, you're looking more of
Speaker 1: that fringe, are you know, you're you're on the edge.
Speaker 1: You may be calling down into those bottoms, Um, you're
Speaker 1: calling into to terrain differences, but you're not necessarily running
Speaker 1: ridges like that. So I'm real similar as far as
Speaker 1: how we locate them, how you want to get up
Speaker 1: Let the sound travel a little bit farther, and um,
Speaker 1: it seems to be you know, you know, I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about how I relocate turkeys, uh and elk.
Speaker 1: You know sometimes Um, maybe it's the first day you're
Speaker 1: there into a new area and you've just never been
Speaker 1: in that place. Um, you know, I'm driving all the
Speaker 1: roads and checking out the lay of the land. I'm
Speaker 1: checking out where all the other hunters are hunting. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't typically want to hunt elk or turkeys by
Speaker 1: everyone else, So I'm getting the lay of the lamb,
Speaker 1: seeing where everybody is is at. But you can also
Speaker 1: spot a lot of turkeys out of the truck, you know,
Speaker 1: especially when you know they're they're chasing, chasing hands from
Speaker 1: like the feeding area to their betting area, or from
Speaker 1: their betting area to their feeding area. UM, you can
Speaker 1: catch them crossing roads, you can see the mountain clear cuts,
Speaker 1: you can see them in the the fringe of maybe
Speaker 1: big meadows. UM. Just covering country if you just have nowhere,
Speaker 1: no idea where even where to start. You know, getting
Speaker 1: getting some glass, doing a little glass in here and there,
Speaker 1: but just covering a lot of ground with your eyes
Speaker 1: and then diving in from there and doing the running
Speaker 1: gun technique is just great. Yep, yep, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: You know, learn, learn the land, learn where you would
Speaker 1: want to be. You know, if you were a turkey,
Speaker 1: you know, if you use your past turkey hunting experience
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out the area and then, like
Speaker 1: you said, get away from people and focus on that.
Speaker 1: So let's let's assume we've located some turkeys, UM, similar
Speaker 1: to let's assume we've located some milk. We have a
Speaker 1: pretty good system dialed in for elk. You know, we
Speaker 1: we checked the wind, which we don't have to do
Speaker 1: for turkeys. We we move in close, use it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be really tough to kill of um, you know,
Speaker 1: but we we get the wind right, we we figure
Speaker 1: out kind of the terrain and the vegetation we're dealing with,
Speaker 1: We get close and then we you know, for us,
Speaker 1: we typically vehicle, but we might start with like a
Speaker 1: lower progression and work up what does your system or
Speaker 1: your turkey hunting script look like as far as all right,
Speaker 1: we've located them, now, what are we gonna do? And
Speaker 1: I would say after hunting, you know, with you getting
Speaker 1: turkey out with you, we've got a fairly you know,
Speaker 1: scripted system the same way like we're we're going to
Speaker 1: move in the same way Chris Parrish and you know,
Speaker 1: Randy and all the guys we've taken in with you're
Speaker 1: literally locating birds. The only difference is we don't have
Speaker 1: to check the wind now. Um, But how do you
Speaker 1: feel like that part of your turkey hunting like strategy
Speaker 1: compares to your elk hunting in where they made it
Speaker 1: for it's very very similar. Um. Once I have them located,
Speaker 1: I want to get close. I want to get close
Speaker 1: as I can without getting picked off by their eye sight.
Speaker 1: But with turkeys, I feel like I can't get quite
Speaker 1: as close. Sometimes even in like thicker cover um as
Speaker 1: I can with Elk, or if I do, I have
Speaker 1: to get super sneaky and just like really not get
Speaker 1: picked off Elk. I think you can get a little even.
Speaker 1: You know ELK a lot times. You know they're living
Speaker 1: and dying by their nose, but they rely on their
Speaker 1: their their first defense is their eye sight, and um,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta get pretty close to them. And
Speaker 1: sometimes I think a person can get away with a
Speaker 1: little bit more with Elk than you can with turkey.
Speaker 1: Turkeys just cannot. They're just so tough and they're so small.
Speaker 1: And then they have this little periscope head I call it.
Speaker 1: Their little head peeks up over a little little terrain features,
Speaker 1: over logs. Maybe they're standing in a dip and they
Speaker 1: peek over the dip and it's really hard to see
Speaker 1: that little periscope pad looking at you sometimes and they
Speaker 1: pick you off so easy. So I try not to
Speaker 1: get as aggressive or get as close as I do
Speaker 1: with ELK before I start calling on my setup. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the same way. And what seems to happen
Speaker 1: is every time I've tried to get super aggressive moving
Speaker 1: on the bird, they're harder to spot. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a twenty pound turkey versus an eight hundred pound yellow
Speaker 1: elk um. So a lot of times I get caught
Speaker 1: like not seeing them first. Where elk, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good chance of spotting them first
Speaker 1: because I'm looking for him and they're not necessarily looking
Speaker 1: for a person walking through the woods. So that was
Speaker 1: number one, Like a lot of times I bust turkeys
Speaker 1: a lot more than I do elk. And number two
Speaker 1: is even if you are moving super slow, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm probably guilty of not glassing enough when I approach elk,
Speaker 1: but with turkeys, I gotta really slow down use you know,
Speaker 1: your binoculars. I carry tens with me everywhere, but you know,
Speaker 1: back east eights might make more sense, but you know,
Speaker 1: really just glass everywhere you're walking to be a little
Speaker 1: more patient. And it seems like is we're approaching a
Speaker 1: lot of times turkeys, maybe even more so than elk,
Speaker 1: they just kind of shut up for no other reason
Speaker 1: than they just don't want to gobble for a second.
Speaker 1: And even though they're right there at a hundred hundred
Speaker 1: fifty yards, they just haven't gobbled in a while. And
Speaker 1: you get you know, I get impatient, I end up
Speaker 1: walking closer to where I thought the turkey wasn't, end
Speaker 1: up busting them somewhere either those turkeys were on their
Speaker 1: way or they did just clam up and be quiet.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to gobble um. And then ye have
Speaker 1: the beauty of turkey hunting. This is the you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you replace it. They can't smell versus elk
Speaker 1: can smell, but their eyesights so much better. So it
Speaker 1: is the thing I actually liked better about turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: and it isn't so much of a challenge. Is I
Speaker 1: can approach the exact you know, you know, as the
Speaker 1: crow flies. I can just go that direction out of
Speaker 1: turkey versus, hey, guess what, I gotta climb up around
Speaker 1: this bridge, I gotta drop over the other side dropped down,
Speaker 1: you know. An elk hunting, a lot of times we're
Speaker 1: trying to do these big, big gas loops to get
Speaker 1: around them or keep the wind somewhat consistent. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the most frustrating things. I think anybody that's
Speaker 1: you know, archery, elk hunted, or had to be close
Speaker 1: elk hunting. I think it's unanimous that the wind screws
Speaker 1: up that more than anything else. So I think you
Speaker 1: know their eyesight, you can trick it. Um. But it
Speaker 1: is nice hunting turkeys like, hey, we don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, get a wind checker out and mess with that.
Speaker 1: You can just go at him. Yeah, exactly. And another
Speaker 1: thing that's very similar though to elk too, um is
Speaker 1: when I try to set up for elk, I want
Speaker 1: to set up in an area to make it easy
Speaker 1: for a bowl that come to me, right, same with turkeys, Um,
Speaker 1: don't set up on turkeys where gosh, there's a nasty
Speaker 1: big brush pile between you and the turkey. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: know he's not gonna want to strut through the middle
Speaker 1: of that brush pile. Maybe he won't want to cross
Speaker 1: the creek, maybe it won't be offense. Maybe he don't
Speaker 1: want to cross across a fence. It's the same with elk.
Speaker 1: You know you want to set up tour it's just
Speaker 1: like super easy for them to come to you. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to make it as is desirable for them
Speaker 1: to come over and fight or breed as you can. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So all right, we we've we've got we've we've got
Speaker 1: our approach we figured out how we're gonna get close,
Speaker 1: you know, Dirk saying we're not gonna get as close
Speaker 1: because we can't be as aggressive. Let's say you finally
Speaker 1: got your your good setup. This is a spot it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. What what call are you going through? First?
Speaker 1: And then kind of what's going through your head on
Speaker 1: an elk? You know, we play the temperament versus what's
Speaker 1: going through your head on on a turkey? And then
Speaker 1: I'll follow up with kind of how I think about
Speaker 1: that as well, because we I think this is where
Speaker 1: it made the fur kind of a little bit from
Speaker 1: our elk cutting strategy to turkeys well as with elk.
Speaker 1: I'm usually experimenting with that elk to see what call
Speaker 1: he reacts to the best. Um some folks will say,
Speaker 1: oh man, there's a here's here's your go to silver
Speaker 1: bullet elk call, Like if you do this elk call,
Speaker 1: they're gonna come running. But gosh, I just haven't found that. Um.
Speaker 1: I just kind of called it this the disposition of
Speaker 1: the bowl and whatever he reply too and the one
Speaker 1: and you can tell when he really likes something, it
Speaker 1: really doesn't like something. You know, maybe he gets you
Speaker 1: can hear the change their tone in his voice. Um,
Speaker 1: so that makes it easy to kind of know what
Speaker 1: what he really likes. Now, turkeys, I don't know that,
Speaker 1: you know what, I haven't hunted him enough to tell
Speaker 1: the difference between when he's getting mad versus a regular gobble,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's no difference. I'm not sure. But but
Speaker 1: for turkeys, I'm I'm gonna give him the same, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give him some calls and whatever he reacts to, okay,
Speaker 1: he likes those, that will probably kind of what be
Speaker 1: what I stick with. But um, as I've learned, you know,
Speaker 1: just to call just to make him gobble a lot,
Speaker 1: that's maybe not what I should do. You know, it's
Speaker 1: fun to say, oh man, here he oh he gobbled again,
Speaker 1: Keep calling, keep calling. But sometimes, you know, once you
Speaker 1: kind of get him on the hook, less is more.
Speaker 1: I think, UM, let him start having to come seek
Speaker 1: you out, find you out, and maybe even just shut
Speaker 1: up for a while and let him get kind of worried, like, hey,
Speaker 1: did those hands leave? Um so that's kind of my
Speaker 1: mode of operation. Yeah, very similar. Uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: The one major difference I would say is, as you know,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking for you and me like our approach to
Speaker 1: el because a lot of times, I would say eighty
Speaker 1: to ninety percent of the time we're throwing in um,
Speaker 1: you know, bowl sounds. So it's it's you know, whether
Speaker 1: we want to call it bold bowl communication Versus on
Speaker 1: a turkey calling side, I would say it's the complete opposite,
Speaker 1: maybe five to ten percent of the time, or we're
Speaker 1: gonna actually gobble at a tom that we're trying to
Speaker 1: call in. So with that said, UM, in the out
Speaker 1: calling world, we will throw in more you know, cow sounds,
Speaker 1: calf sounds. But then I would say our calling system
Speaker 1: plays on the temperament of the of the bull we're
Speaker 1: trying to call in it, and we try to get
Speaker 1: him fired up, you know, through biggling most of the time. Um,
Speaker 1: we'll both agree that we would call an Elkin with
Speaker 1: cal calls any day of the week. It's not as fun,
Speaker 1: but um, we're not we're not above that. Versus on
Speaker 1: the turkey calling side, we're also playing to their temperament,
Speaker 1: but we're using hand sounds um the majority of the
Speaker 1: time and gobbling a lot less um. So you are,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of changing your tactic on bowld to
Speaker 1: bowl versus hand to hand to gobbler or hand to
Speaker 1: tom type speak. And you know a lot of times,
Speaker 1: like you said, be quiet, we use a lot of
Speaker 1: the same tactics. If that turkey is gobbling kind of halfheartedly,
Speaker 1: you know, we set out a seven yelps and that
Speaker 1: turkey gobbles, maybe ten seconds later, it's like, well, it
Speaker 1: wasn't really gobbling at me, but maybe we got him,
Speaker 1: you know, with his head up and he's seen another
Speaker 1: hand and he gobbled versus you know, the same thing
Speaker 1: with an elk. If if we bigle and he doesn't
Speaker 1: hit us right back, we're like, oh, he's not fired
Speaker 1: up at all. He's he's just kind of he's semi interested.
Speaker 1: And then similar to that, I think we're always trying
Speaker 1: to turn you know what we call turn the temperature
Speaker 1: up on the elk. It's like, if we can slowly
Speaker 1: work him into being a piste off bowler, if we
Speaker 1: can slowly work him into caring more about our calls.
Speaker 1: I think we do that with a turkey a lot
Speaker 1: as well, Like oh, he's he's slowly you know, gobbling,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, well he gobbled, then maybe it
Speaker 1: cut fairly quickly after, like you're trying to get him
Speaker 1: interested in what you've got going on. But the same thing.
Speaker 1: If if a bull seems you know, half interested, maybe
Speaker 1: we shut up. If a turkey seems half interested, maybe
Speaker 1: we shut up and just see if he comes, you know,
Speaker 1: over our direction. So as far as calling strategies, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of similarities. The main difference is,
Speaker 1: you know, we're the bull trying to fight with a
Speaker 1: bull for the chance that his cows. Versus on the
Speaker 1: turkey side, where a hand just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: calling him away from his hands or to come over
Speaker 1: and check you out, which um, And both instances go
Speaker 1: against kind of the way nature works. You know, a
Speaker 1: turkey gobbles so that a him will come find him.
Speaker 1: We're trying to reverse that and elk bigles so a
Speaker 1: cow will go find him. We're biggling so that he
Speaker 1: will come fight us so we can take his cows.
Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of how I look at what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do with our calls there. That's that's
Speaker 1: a really great point, Jason, Um. I could probably count
Speaker 1: on one hand how many times I've like gobbled at
Speaker 1: a turkey to try to call it in in the
Speaker 1: last years, you know, it's just not common. You just
Speaker 1: don't do it. And then you know, trying to get
Speaker 1: a call that replicates a good gobble it is hard
Speaker 1: to Yeah, there's there's lots of reasons, you know why
Speaker 1: it seems like gobbling has always just kind of been
Speaker 1: a last resort. Now let's go into more of the
Speaker 1: you know, how do we find them? Um, you know
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier like you know it's easy. I I
Speaker 1: like turkey hunting, and I'm not necessarily saying it's easier
Speaker 1: than elk hunting. But if we've did our job the
Speaker 1: night before, like a lot of times, I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to start within a hundred twenty yards of a
Speaker 1: roost tree. So every morning I go out turkey hunting light,
Speaker 1: I know there's gonna be action. Now, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, seventy five percent at the time, I know
Speaker 1: when I go out, oh hunting, I'm at least gonna
Speaker 1: be somewhere in the elk from either the day prior
Speaker 1: or we've just got ourselves into a spot. Um, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be good. But let's go into how we find
Speaker 1: you know, turkeys and make sure we're in the action
Speaker 1: versus how we go about, you know, finding elk, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, getting up on the highest point, glassing
Speaker 1: the most amount of country, you know, checking their feet areas,
Speaker 1: just knowing where elk want to be versus all right,
Speaker 1: let's say we've got him in the roost trees then,
Speaker 1: and this depends a little bit whether we're hunting Miriam's
Speaker 1: in eastern Washington, where they we're hunting Eastern's you know,
Speaker 1: back in the Midwest. Like, there are different ways and
Speaker 1: different strategies on where we're gonna go find um, you
Speaker 1: know those turkeys, but go through kind of and we
Speaker 1: have a little bit like the differences on you know,
Speaker 1: finding elk. So we think of things like, you know,
Speaker 1: open parks in the high country. You know where I
Speaker 1: live here in southwest Washington, clear cuts is where they're
Speaker 1: going to find their food. And then we go into
Speaker 1: like what I would almost consider like our subcategory. It
Speaker 1: would be like wallows, um, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: other places that we we focus on, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: passes through a ridge versus are there any similarities with turkeys,
Speaker 1: you know, like dusting zones some of some of those things.
Speaker 1: If you can go into that. Like as an elk hunter,
Speaker 1: we've got five or six types of areas that we
Speaker 1: love to go look for elk versus on the turkey side,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from the roost tree, like how are
Speaker 1: we going to go find these turkeys? And and and
Speaker 1: compared to the finding elk, some of the places I
Speaker 1: love to find turkeys, um. A lot of times in
Speaker 1: that in that afternoon for some reason, they I call
Speaker 1: them strutting grounds. Um. And these places a lot of
Speaker 1: times are like a fringe area. You know, they maybe
Speaker 1: and maybe it's a knoll, it's just a little higher
Speaker 1: spot um where they can see and can be seen. Um.
Speaker 1: Let's say these toms don't even have hints, but they
Speaker 1: like to go out and just kind of strut us.
Speaker 1: It's usually like two or three tom's, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like three buddies out there flexing in front of a mirror.
Speaker 1: I don't trying to impress some some ladies get some attention,
Speaker 1: but it's usually at the fringe with amber or maybe
Speaker 1: you're in a it's in a clare cut, but it's
Speaker 1: at the edge, you know. And and a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's maybe or a small a small meadow or something,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a small meadow that's not you know,
Speaker 1: you're not looking at a meadow that's a few hundred acres.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a meadow that's a five ten acres um
Speaker 1: where they feel like they can they can expose themselves
Speaker 1: without being too exposed, if you if you see what
Speaker 1: I mean. So I really love like trying to find
Speaker 1: those places. And sometimes you know, that's like I was
Speaker 1: talking before, when I'm trying to cover country and I
Speaker 1: haven't even found any turkeys, those are the kind of
Speaker 1: places I would look now. Comparing contrast, you know, you
Speaker 1: tend to find elk in the same kind of places
Speaker 1: like they like fringes. You know, you're typically at you know,
Speaker 1: in the evenings or in the mornings. You don't find
Speaker 1: them right smack dab in the middle of a thousand
Speaker 1: acre claire cut or a giant open hillside. A lot
Speaker 1: of times at dawn and dusk, they're gonna be in
Speaker 1: the edge, you know, getting ready to come out and feed.
Speaker 1: We're as turkeys, they're on the fringe, they're getting ready
Speaker 1: to go to bed. You know, they're trying to gather up.
Speaker 1: In the evening, they're gonna try to you know, hey,
Speaker 1: ladies were over here, are roost trees here, and then
Speaker 1: finally they'll they'll go to roost um. But those fringe
Speaker 1: type areas are great places to set up um in
Speaker 1: the past. You know, I've I've chased turkeys where I
Speaker 1: have a heck of a time in the morning getting
Speaker 1: them to come to me off the roost. You know,
Speaker 1: all they care about is chasing those those hens around
Speaker 1: and leave me in the dust. But a lot of
Speaker 1: times a great tactic I like to do is if
Speaker 1: I know they kind of like the strut their their
Speaker 1: little strutting grounds, I'll go set up near those places,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the afternoon, maybe it's in the evening.
Speaker 1: I want to get on their pathway to where they
Speaker 1: roost and then call them in on the on their
Speaker 1: path to the roost, because they're gonna come that direction anyway.
Speaker 1: And oh, hey, there's a hand right over here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just detour just slightly and get over at her
Speaker 1: and check her out before we go to bed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know we're we're we're checking you know, wallows.
Speaker 1: Compared to dusting areas or streading areas where they're checking
Speaker 1: you know, passes in the ridge for for elk movement. Um,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of There are a lot of similarities,
Speaker 1: maybe not the same areas where we're going to see
Speaker 1: if like a turkey's went through a pass you know,
Speaker 1: on a on a ridgeline, but um, you know, changes
Speaker 1: in terrain have have been you know, a spot I
Speaker 1: always go and look if it's a big steep hillside
Speaker 1: and there's a bench through it. Um, for some reason,
Speaker 1: turkeys just like love to sit at that kind of
Speaker 1: grade break or that difference in terrain. You know, the
Speaker 1: thing could be covered with the same vegetation all the
Speaker 1: way up, but if you put a little bench out there,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, turkeys don't necessarily need to be there,
Speaker 1: but it seems like they hang out there. In My
Speaker 1: ultimate favorite way to find turkeys in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day or you know, at a time where I'm
Speaker 1: not on anything. So rather than cold calling, it's just
Speaker 1: old two tracked roads kind of through the forest. Um.
Speaker 1: For whatever reasons, whether turkey like to be seen, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's Tom's like and display and be seen. Um,
Speaker 1: we've we've did, you know, I would say over of
Speaker 1: our birds, Um, in eastern Washington. They're even here in
Speaker 1: western Washington, have been killed off of old two tracks,
Speaker 1: you know, through the woods, like an old skitter road. UM,
Speaker 1: an old two track that you know might just have
Speaker 1: a couple of ruts in it and it's grass the
Speaker 1: rest of the way. Like those birds like to use
Speaker 1: the path of lease resistance as they move through. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't like to get wet, so they're just walking
Speaker 1: down a two track. Um. You know, they're kind of bugging,
Speaker 1: they're kind of feeding as they go along that and
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, walking those roads is more
Speaker 1: productive than than doing anything else. Um, you know in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day. Yeah, I agree with that
Speaker 1: a lot. Um. I find a lot of turkey signed
Speaker 1: turkey UM scat tracks and then just you find a
Speaker 1: lot of turkeys in those old two tracks, especially um
Speaker 1: in a lot of places in North Idaho, especially if
Speaker 1: it's if there the forest is pretty overgrown, and then
Speaker 1: then the road has been there a long time. You'll
Speaker 1: find like little little patches of clover. Um. You know
Speaker 1: that that's been planted by you know, whatever logging company
Speaker 1: or whoever whatever they plan in there, or maybe the
Speaker 1: deer planet. It just by you know, passing through seeds
Speaker 1: through their bowels or whatever. But uh, turkeys love that stuff.
Speaker 1: And then like you said, they're bugging there's it seems
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of bugs on old two track
Speaker 1: roads and you know, maybe maybe it's a muddy road
Speaker 1: and there was a hard rain the night before. Probably
Speaker 1: find a lot of worms in that road, so it's
Speaker 1: in good place for him to feed. And it's they
Speaker 1: can move through easily. And you know what it's it's
Speaker 1: just quick and easy to get places. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: we're gonna I'm gonna move this point up a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about like finding sign and how you
Speaker 1: can use that to be more effective, just like we
Speaker 1: do elk hunting. Um, those two tracks are, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the best place to look for scat. Look for tracks
Speaker 1: like what kind of turkey numbers are around. You can
Speaker 1: see different ages of tracks, so it's like, oh, they
Speaker 1: were obviously here a day or two goo versus oh
Speaker 1: they were also here two or three weeks ago, m versus.
Speaker 1: The way we go and look for elks and you
Speaker 1: know we're looking for rubs, trying to age those based
Speaker 1: on you know, bark so One of the main differences is,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess it would be kind of in
Speaker 1: place scouting. You know, a lot of people look at scouting.
Speaker 1: Is is what you know for l hunting, what we've
Speaker 1: seen in July and August leading up to the hunt.
Speaker 1: You know the same thing with Turkey. We scout a
Speaker 1: lot in March, we got in locate, just listen, um.
Speaker 1: But during the hunt, let's say you didn't have a
Speaker 1: chance to go scout the area. By walking these two tracks,
Speaker 1: I feel you get a lot more information. Then let's say,
Speaker 1: you know Derek's example earlier of a thousand acre field,
Speaker 1: go out in a thousand acre field and try to
Speaker 1: figure out if there's tricky tracks or if they're scout.
Speaker 1: It becomes very very difficult. Versus walking down that two
Speaker 1: track that's either at the edge or the fringe of
Speaker 1: agg or you know, goes through a bench um you
Speaker 1: know on on forest service or what whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: Is I seem to gather a lot more information um,
Speaker 1: off of that two track. You know, we're finding dusting areas,
Speaker 1: everything we need to know about. Is this a good
Speaker 1: place to hunt for the next week or you know,
Speaker 1: at least the next morning can be found from that
Speaker 1: two track. Yeah, and a lot of times if it's
Speaker 1: you know, typically springtime is not a dry time, but
Speaker 1: some some years can be kind of dry in the spring. Um,
Speaker 1: if there's not a lot of ponds or creeks around, Um,
Speaker 1: there will be some puddles in some of these two tracks,
Speaker 1: and that's a great place to find turkey tracks. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times you'll see a lot of scat
Speaker 1: around those those puddles, So then you can determine you
Speaker 1: can tell an old turkey track or a really smoking
Speaker 1: hot fresh one in a little bit of mud there.
Speaker 1: So you're like, oh wow, they they're in here. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times you'll even pick up you'll see
Speaker 1: a feather or two in that area. So um, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: there's those two tracks that that's a that's a great
Speaker 1: place to to to find them. Yeah. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: a little bit about my past, like watching the Truth
Speaker 1: series from Primos. You know, you'd watch them like walk
Speaker 1: the two track through the old hardwood bottom and it's
Speaker 1: like it just seems like turkeys and two tracks are
Speaker 1: just meant to be. It seems like a great place
Speaker 1: you know, they were, and we've hunted off of them forever. Um.
Speaker 1: And then one thing, the reason I like just hit
Speaker 1: the two track is it lets me cut the country
Speaker 1: up really quick. Um, out here in eastern Washington, where
Speaker 1: I kind of grew up, cut my teeth. Turkey hunting
Speaker 1: is what we see in March. You know, where a
Speaker 1: landowner may say, you know, all the turkeys are in
Speaker 1: the backfield, whatever that may be. These is these flocks
Speaker 1: start to break up and separate. They merriams for instance,
Speaker 1: they move a lot greater distance. And so what might
Speaker 1: have been loaded with turkeys, you know, mid March, end
Speaker 1: of March, by time you get to you know, April
Speaker 1: and April, they've dispersed. And so going to what you've
Speaker 1: seen in March might not yield the best results. But
Speaker 1: by going and running these two tracks, covering a ton
Speaker 1: of ground, even if you can drive them yourself, UM,
Speaker 1: just look for sign it gives you. It just cuts
Speaker 1: that learning curve down really quick when you're there to
Speaker 1: hunt and make sure that your own birds. Yep, that's great.
Speaker 1: I talked with Chris Parrish a little bit last week
Speaker 1: about what he looks for in a set up. Um,
Speaker 1: but Dirk, tell me what you look forward and and
Speaker 1: an elk calling set up like, this is the place
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen. You know you had mentioned earlier. You
Speaker 1: know you're looking for for the elk have an easy
Speaker 1: way to come in. We're not trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: put any any roadblocks or hurdles in their way. What
Speaker 1: are you looking for when you go to set up
Speaker 1: on turkeys? Um? You know this is where you want
Speaker 1: to call to him. You're a hundred yards away. He
Speaker 1: seems to become in your direction. Like, what's the ideal
Speaker 1: set up um on turkeys versus elk for you? And
Speaker 1: then I believe these share day near in my opinion,
Speaker 1: every similarity. But I'll see if you can find any
Speaker 1: differences when you're setting up. Yeah, I'm with you. I
Speaker 1: I know where your head's at right now on this um.
Speaker 1: You have to kind of picture where the elk is
Speaker 1: going to first appear and be able to see you,
Speaker 1: wherever he could first appear out of the woods. I
Speaker 1: want to be very very close to that spot. And
Speaker 1: I have to say the same thing about turkeys, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be close to where the first place
Speaker 1: he could see me. Uh, turkeys. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to be super close to that spot.
Speaker 1: But I want to be fairly close with a shotgun range,
Speaker 1: which is it's pretty close, um for the most part,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But and that's similar to archery range
Speaker 1: for elk. You know, you want to be pretty close.
Speaker 1: But man, I don't know if I can pick a
Speaker 1: difference there. I want to just be super close. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, I will kind of maybe even bell
Speaker 1: be a little bit more concealed, um as a turkey
Speaker 1: hunter than I would be an elk hunter, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I would crawl in behind a bush with just
Speaker 1: enough room for my shotgun to stick out if I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to shoot one with a bow. Um. But
Speaker 1: for Elk, I want to get in front of you know,
Speaker 1: said bush or in front of a tree and try
Speaker 1: to let my camel work more than more than the surroundings.
Speaker 1: Because turkeys are just so darn sharp eyed. Um what
Speaker 1: do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's it's real similar,
Speaker 1: you know. And Elk, I would say, the tree isn't
Speaker 1: is an important of a part of my setup versus
Speaker 1: like turkey, I always try to get my back against
Speaker 1: a tree that way, breaking up the majority of my
Speaker 1: outline versus elk Ideally I'd like to have a tree
Speaker 1: behind me to break up my outline. But I'm I'm
Speaker 1: letting my camera work maybe a little bit more on
Speaker 1: Elk and risking my setup because I do have to
Speaker 1: draw my bow. I do need to be able to
Speaker 1: get away with a little more movement where you know turkeys,
Speaker 1: Once I get my back set up, I've really just
Speaker 1: got to swing my gun. Um. But other than that,
Speaker 1: I don't want to set up behind a pile of
Speaker 1: brush for either. Um. You know, you've got an arrow
Speaker 1: hanging out at the end of your bow. You don't
Speaker 1: want to have to turn and get you know, thirty
Speaker 1: inches arrow tangled up and brush. You don't want to
Speaker 1: arrow to fall off your rest. Same thing with turkeys,
Speaker 1: Like if you have to swing your gun, you do
Speaker 1: not want to catch even the smallest little twig and
Speaker 1: make it move as you're moving your gun. So always
Speaker 1: in front of the brush. Let it break up your
Speaker 1: your background. Um, let your camera work, and then I
Speaker 1: guess the other difference is in turkeys, I feel a
Speaker 1: little bit um you know, hamstrung because my butts on
Speaker 1: the ground versus Elk, I can make more adjustments as
Speaker 1: he's coming in if I hear that he's you know,
Speaker 1: coming to my right, I can just turn my feet.
Speaker 1: I got more freedom versus I'm probably not when a
Speaker 1: turkey is coming in gonna like stand up and move
Speaker 1: my chair a different direction. So I feel like with turkeys,
Speaker 1: I've got to make a little more of a decision
Speaker 1: when I sit down, like can I ride this position
Speaker 1: out or is it can ultimately cost me? Um is
Speaker 1: the main difference. But yeah, very similar. Brush on your
Speaker 1: background and make sure you can move your weapon, and
Speaker 1: then you know, turkey's eyesight is gonna be a little
Speaker 1: bit better. But the nice thing about turkeys a lot
Speaker 1: of times is we're maybe we're not very smart for
Speaker 1: not using elk decoys. If we're in a spot or
Speaker 1: a situation where decoys makes sense, we can get some
Speaker 1: of the attention off of ourselves and onto that decoy,
Speaker 1: which gives you a little bit more flexibility. But you
Speaker 1: still I mean, if that turkey is sixty seventy yards
Speaker 1: away and you make any slight movement, even with a decoy,
Speaker 1: that hedges whips to your locks on you, and it's
Speaker 1: usually over. So yeah, really really similar. Um, when we're
Speaker 1: setting up, Yeah, I will say Um. One thing, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of camp you are, which can't
Speaker 1: be your in for elk setups. Um. Some guys are
Speaker 1: all about being on their knees on their set up. Um.
Speaker 1: I nine percent of the time, I will will not
Speaker 1: take my knees on a elk set up. Um, just
Speaker 1: because I want to. I want to be able to
Speaker 1: swing left or right. I want to be able to
Speaker 1: quickly move my position if I need to. I don't
Speaker 1: want my legs to fall asleep, or if the bull
Speaker 1: comes in at a weird angle I'm stuck facing the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. But typically you're not gonna set for turkeys
Speaker 1: on your knees. You're not gonna you're not gonna typically
Speaker 1: stand um unless you've had to, you know, to step
Speaker 1: for a turkey. You're gonna want to sit down comfortably
Speaker 1: so you can be there and then have your you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, be mobile with your with your shotgun,
Speaker 1: you know, be able to swing left or right. Yep, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1: And then as far as tactics at work, um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump. We'll kind of finish up with this cold
Speaker 1: calling and why I feel that I don't have great success,
Speaker 1: you know, ever sitting down in some random spot where
Speaker 1: I think there might be ELK and starting to like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, col call maybe bgle look occasionally versus why
Speaker 1: I feel if you're in a decent spot, cold calling
Speaker 1: works so much better for turkeys. Um. With that said,
Speaker 1: I will add the asterisks that we've did a lot
Speaker 1: of our own little like made up rep parties the
Speaker 1: last couple of years during ELK, and they've worked fairly successful.
Speaker 1: But I think we sit down knowing that there was
Speaker 1: a bowl around you know, four or five six yards
Speaker 1: within the last twenty minutes. So I would say those
Speaker 1: are like lukewarm calling setups. But where truly, if we
Speaker 1: don't know anything, it is is around and just sitting down,
Speaker 1: picking a spot and starting to call. Why I think
Speaker 1: that works so well, um, you know on turkeys versus
Speaker 1: why it doesn't work so well on Um. I'll let
Speaker 1: you take a take a crack at why it doesn't
Speaker 1: work so well on ELK and maybe why it works
Speaker 1: so well on turkey, and then I'll add to it
Speaker 1: if if we've we've got some some things to add. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think one reason it's a little bit weird for
Speaker 1: ELK is um we get back to that whole nose thing.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes that calling cold calling set up, you
Speaker 1: will get a reaction from an elk, but it won't
Speaker 1: be a vocal reaction. It'll be him a reaction by
Speaker 1: him coming and checking you out. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times they'll come in down wind and you may not
Speaker 1: even ever know it unless you hear a twig pop
Speaker 1: or something. You may hear a little bit of something
Speaker 1: and they never hear anything again that could have been
Speaker 1: a bullet came in to check you out, and he
Speaker 1: was smart enough to come in down wind. Um. Whereas
Speaker 1: a turkey on your cold call set up, they come
Speaker 1: in um as long as they don't catch your movement,
Speaker 1: eventually they're gonna give themselves away. They're not gonna smell you,
Speaker 1: you know, and they may not even be vocal. They
Speaker 1: may not um gobble, but you may you might hear
Speaker 1: him drumming, you know, you might hear him kind of
Speaker 1: wrestling the wrestle in the leaves or whatever as they
Speaker 1: as they strut in. So UM. I think I think
Speaker 1: there there's a kind of one big difference way why
Speaker 1: cold calling on on turkeys a little more a little
Speaker 1: more um works a little better and and sometimes like it.
Speaker 1: It seems like when i'm cold cold calling for turkeys,
Speaker 1: it's it's the middle of the day. Um, and I
Speaker 1: see a lot of tom's they're just out cruising the
Speaker 1: middle of the day. They're just they're just covering ground,
Speaker 1: you know, looking for hands. Uh, if they don't have
Speaker 1: a flocked at tend of their own already, Um, they're
Speaker 1: just out cruising. And I see that a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of just single toms out just looking, Whereas a
Speaker 1: lot of times the middle of the day for elk,
Speaker 1: they've already kind of did their cruising at night and
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning. Um. Now that's there's a
Speaker 1: big asterix by that too, because when it's when it
Speaker 1: the weather is not you know, nice and cold and
Speaker 1: maybe one of those old rainy days overcast days in September,
Speaker 1: and and they're really looking for love. Yeah, bulls will
Speaker 1: They'll cover a lot of ground in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day too, if they don't have any ladies. But um,
Speaker 1: a lot of times typically elk kind of want to
Speaker 1: bed down in the middle of the day and their
Speaker 1: little sanctuary catch up on their night's rest because they
Speaker 1: read it hard all night or whatever. So um, there's
Speaker 1: there's never how do I say this, there's never always
Speaker 1: never and there's never always always on either one of those.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make any sits to write that one down, Dirk,
Speaker 1: to try to decipher what that just meant. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I guess you can't ever you can't never say never,
Speaker 1: and you can't always say always. Right, there's so much variation, um,
Speaker 1: but there's there's some similarities through it. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I got it. And that's what that's what I've come
Speaker 1: up with, like trying to figure out why and how
Speaker 1: come is you know the main difference is you're I
Speaker 1: guess the similarities are first thing in the morning, I
Speaker 1: would call it like active calling. Typically you're on an
Speaker 1: Elk or you're on a Turkey and you're doing the
Speaker 1: you know, get ahead of them, chase them, try to
Speaker 1: get within distance. And then where the biggest change is
Speaker 1: is you alluded to, is the Elk are gonna go
Speaker 1: bed down? Like their their action is done at that point,
Speaker 1: and so we've all went through this active calling, the
Speaker 1: Elko and bed down. Now we've got to make it
Speaker 1: this vision, you know, whether we're gonna mess with them
Speaker 1: in better if we're gonna leave them alone and hunt
Speaker 1: them that evening or whatnot, and versus the turkeys are
Speaker 1: the opposite. Like typically what happens is the hens will
Speaker 1: leave to go nest, and now that gobbros left all
Speaker 1: alone and he's willing to cover tons of distance because
Speaker 1: he's not going to bed down. You know, he's gonna
Speaker 1: stay on his feet. He's gonna look for other hens
Speaker 1: and aren't on a nest, which we can be that
Speaker 1: perfect hen that he's looking for in that area. So
Speaker 1: I think that's the major difference, where you know, all
Speaker 1: of the out go to bed, only the hens go
Speaker 1: to nest. And then typically we're we're no longer in
Speaker 1: an active calling situation where we were done chasing birds.
Speaker 1: We can now you know, cold calling is gonna work
Speaker 1: better because we just have a lot better uh you
Speaker 1: know recipient that that tom turkey is a lot more
Speaker 1: receptive to cold calling in the middle of the day
Speaker 1: versus a bull that's bedded down and kind of wait
Speaker 1: until the evening. Yeah, it's almost like they're they're complete
Speaker 1: polar opposites on their schedules. Yep, right, Elk loved to
Speaker 1: run around all night long. Turkeys us lay lay in
Speaker 1: a tree all night long. Yeah, you like to bed
Speaker 1: down in the middle of the day. Turkeys like to
Speaker 1: run around the middle of a day. Yeah. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, they kind of to wrap
Speaker 1: this up. You know, there are some stark differences in
Speaker 1: turkey versus ol cunning. But I would have to say
Speaker 1: there's you know, a lot more similarities. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as how you call them, as far as
Speaker 1: how you you know, move on them, as far as
Speaker 1: how you're gonna set up. Um. So, I I guess
Speaker 1: I'm still I'm still confused why there's so much hate.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't even know if it's hate, just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, um discussed with with turkey hunters or you know,
Speaker 1: people liking to get excited to go turkey hunting out West.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love it. I look forward to the hunting
Speaker 1: this year. You know, we're gonna head back to Kansas,
Speaker 1: if you can come up here to eastern Washington, We're
Speaker 1: gonna hopefully you know, hunt our northeast corner where I
Speaker 1: kind of grew up turkey hunting. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I just as much as I love to hunt bigling
Speaker 1: elk in the fall, I look forward to springing turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, just just a notch right below that. But
Speaker 1: but it definitely gets me excited. And it's the same
Speaker 1: same game in my opinion, to go out, locate, get
Speaker 1: as close as you can, and try to reverse nature
Speaker 1: and call this bird into your lap. Well, such a
Speaker 1: great time a year to be out there. You know,
Speaker 1: you've been cooped up all winter and finally got some
Speaker 1: pretty days, some some sunny days. Just you know what,
Speaker 1: even if the birds aren't playing the game like you want,
Speaker 1: it's sure as nice to get the heck out of
Speaker 1: the house. You know. It's just a great time to
Speaker 1: be out there. And one more thing I was thinking
Speaker 1: about um as far as similarities for elk and turkeys,
Speaker 1: UM shot placement, right shot placement. Elk are big tough animals. Um.
Speaker 1: Unless you shoot, you know, accurately, into the right spot
Speaker 1: right in the vitals, they're hard to kill and or recover.
Speaker 1: And same with turkeys. I mean, if you blast a
Speaker 1: turkey mid body with your shotgun, you're probably not gonna
Speaker 1: get it unless it's like point blank range. Right. They're
Speaker 1: just so tough. You know, you have to take ethical
Speaker 1: shots that are gonna kill him quickly. Uh, Sam's elk.
Speaker 1: You know whether and it don't matter whether you're our
Speaker 1: tree or or shotgun, you know. For for turkeys, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to fool them. You have to get them
Speaker 1: close and then like you said, make a make a
Speaker 1: great shot. So there's a lot of similarities just in
Speaker 1: like the the main overview, like the thirty foot view
Speaker 1: is you know, you're you're locating an animal, you're getting
Speaker 1: them close, and you're having to make a good shot. Um,
Speaker 1: which they carry a lot of similarities there. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I I agree with you, Derek. I absolutely love the springtime.
Speaker 1: I love the weather is changing and the days are
Speaker 1: getting long. Um, the day is getting long. I could
Speaker 1: do without, though, because it seems like by time you're
Speaker 1: done and rus and a bird, get the bed and
Speaker 1: then have to get up at four o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning to go sit under a tree that you you
Speaker 1: don't get a whole lot of sleep and then, um,
Speaker 1: the other thing I hate about spring Turkey, and this
Speaker 1: may be the only thing I hate about spring Turkey
Speaker 1: is them damn ticks. Um. I've tried spraying permethrin everything,
Speaker 1: and it still just seems like you're sitting there letting
Speaker 1: these things crawl all over you. We had I think
Speaker 1: we both ended up with a bunch of ticks last
Speaker 1: year and uh lines and eight of them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like them. Um, you know a couple. I
Speaker 1: think I was on a couple of different prescriptions for
Speaker 1: doxi cycling a couple of cycles last year. Um, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: But I absolutely look forward to turkey hunting every year. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's just a fun time. Um. And whether you
Speaker 1: can hate me, you can hate me for saying this
Speaker 1: or not, it's very very similar to to elk hunting,
Speaker 1: and uh, I look forward to it. Yeah, it's it's fun.
Speaker 1: You know. I know you, you know you you blow
Speaker 1: a pink call and you know, but you're okay with
Speaker 1: it and you're okay with love and turkey onto, So
Speaker 1: all right, you'll let both of those slide. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: let us slide. In closing, if you could give one
Speaker 1: piece of advice to turkey hunters out there that may
Speaker 1: add to their success, what would it be. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be might kind of go to for elk hunting,
Speaker 1: and it's be persistent, don't give up. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to give up on turkeys. And get frustrated. I think
Speaker 1: turkeys are way more frustrating than El cuban um. But
Speaker 1: you just gotta keep at it because I don't know
Speaker 1: how many times I've been frustrated beyond belief and then
Speaker 1: have it it turned around in the next hour to
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh wow, that probably the best color
Speaker 1: in the world after you know, that little performance. So
Speaker 1: you just you have to let your calls work. You
Speaker 1: have to give them time to work. And especially if
Speaker 1: you're a new hunter and you just haven't had a
Speaker 1: lot of interactions or success calling turkeys, it's okay. Just
Speaker 1: stick with it because you'll get it. You'll get it,
Speaker 1: and and then you'll fit. You'll start seeing all the
Speaker 1: nuances of like where it went right and where it
Speaker 1: went wrong, and then you'll be a lot more consistent
Speaker 1: in killing them out. Well. I really appreciate having you
Speaker 1: on the show here today, Dirk and uh play luck
Speaker 1: this spring and look forward to chasing birds with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds good. I can't wait.