Speaker 1: I am Jason Phelps, and I'm a new host of
Speaker 1: Cutting the Distance. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I've
Speaker 1: been hunting for about as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long, though, for my love of hunting
Speaker 1: to turn into a love of calling animals in This
Speaker 1: obsession ultimately led me to starting Phelps Game Calls back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. Since then, I've learned, damn
Speaker 1: there everything there is to know about building calls, as
Speaker 1: well as how to use them effectively in the field.
Speaker 1: Get them close. That's always been my mantra. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: there isn't a more exciting way to hunt. So in
Speaker 1: this podcast, we're going to cover everything about using the calls,
Speaker 1: everything about the hunting tactics that surround using the calls,
Speaker 1: as well as times when using calls just isn't the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. So how do we get there?
Speaker 1: We get there through questions from you. We get there
Speaker 1: by leveraging my own personal experience, which is going to
Speaker 1: include a lot of failures and a lot of success,
Speaker 1: And we get there through conversations with experts on topics
Speaker 1: we are tackling and discussing. Now, without further ado, let's
Speaker 1: dive right in. Turkey season is right around the corner.
Speaker 1: So in this first episode of Cutting This Ince with
Speaker 1: Jason Phelps, it's all about turkeys. Today. I'll be discussing
Speaker 1: a project my good buddy Stephen Ronella and I have
Speaker 1: been working on for the past year, as well as
Speaker 1: dive into some of Steve's personal tips and tactics to
Speaker 1: help you harvest turkey this season. All right, one of
Speaker 1: the big components of this podcast is going to be
Speaker 1: your questions, the users, the listeners. Um. Since this is
Speaker 1: the first episode, we're gonna go to Steve for a
Speaker 1: user januated question. Okay, I got a question about the
Speaker 1: questions though. How do people submit questions? So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sumith stuff all time. You're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: just do it again, you know, like on Facebook, I
Speaker 1: get like number one top fan or like the top user.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna you're gonna have that at Okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: That's how I'm fine. That's how I gonna finale. I'll
Speaker 1: be like, so we're gonna scour all of our social
Speaker 1: media channels Instagram, Facebook, Um, We're gonna also have an
Speaker 1: email set up. See t d at Phelps Game Calls
Speaker 1: dot Com. If you have any specific questions, you want
Speaker 1: us to try to hit hit on and then they
Speaker 1: can put feedback in there too. Yeah yeah, if you
Speaker 1: really like I mean, it's stupid. Yeah, but no, we're
Speaker 1: we're wanting just more positive negative feedback. You can send
Speaker 1: it to Steve. You don't want you don't want Jameson
Speaker 1: to get deflated. Yea. So here's my question. Ready, Ready,
Speaker 1: I'm not sending, I'm not emailing. I'm just gonna tell
Speaker 1: you right now. Mike to Mike, it's a two it's
Speaker 1: a three part, but they're quick. What's the longest you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a diaphragm call? Last? How do most people
Speaker 1: ruin them? And like, how do you take care of
Speaker 1: him in storm? Okay? Number one? I can remember. I
Speaker 1: can remember this call. It was a purple piece of
Speaker 1: tape had a star on it because that was my
Speaker 1: number one call and I took I babied that call. Um,
Speaker 1: I think I got four or five years out of
Speaker 1: competable competition calling in everything. No kid, yeah, babie, I
Speaker 1: thought you were gonna say, like eighteen months. No, No,
Speaker 1: when this call, when I knew it just it hit
Speaker 1: and it did everything was supposed to without me having
Speaker 1: to try too hard. Put a star on it. I
Speaker 1: would take it out of the fridge, take it to
Speaker 1: my contest, use it, take it home, wash it with
Speaker 1: some cold water, let it dry on the counter, put
Speaker 1: it back in the fridge. Um. So that one call.
Speaker 1: So that sort of answers how you take care of
Speaker 1: a little bit? Yeah, but there's um. Well then then
Speaker 1: it hit me with like, how do what's the most
Speaker 1: besides setting No, it could be because I've I've cooked
Speaker 1: a couple leaving him on your dashboard board? Is I
Speaker 1: mean because you get the you know the window you
Speaker 1: know basically turned into magnifying glass hitting your latex um
Speaker 1: even without the glass. I mean, you put that thing
Speaker 1: in the sun for two or three days and it's shot. Um.
Speaker 1: You put it in front of the glass on a
Speaker 1: ninety degree day and it's it's done in it. What
Speaker 1: about washing you ran through a washing washing machine? It
Speaker 1: just depends. Sometimes it'll just toast them. Sometimes they're perfectly
Speaker 1: fine about clothes dry clothes drying no good and that
Speaker 1: heat if you run it through a clothes drying as well,
Speaker 1: pitch it. Yeah that he It usually separates the glue
Speaker 1: on the tape as well as the heat just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of tears up that it might survive
Speaker 1: washing machine. It could. Yeah, we've had calls survive the
Speaker 1: washing machine that fall out the bottom. Pick them up
Speaker 1: and just because they have. Have you ever seen one survived?
Speaker 1: Like a dude, uh leaves his in his bino harness
Speaker 1: or whatever the hell, I don't know, leasing is Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it leasing his Turkey vest. So late May
Speaker 1: comes around, Turkey vest goes into a corner of the closet.
Speaker 1: Next year, he's like, where's my Oh, there it is.
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's probably gonna be goodly no sun and
Speaker 1: then as long as you don't put it through like
Speaker 1: extreme heat cycles. Um, they're usually pretty good in a
Speaker 1: shaded like room temp closet. It's not a death center.
Speaker 1: So Turkey calls are different though, because usually they're made
Speaker 1: up of multiple layers, two, three, sometimes even four layers.
Speaker 1: You get your saliva all stuck between the layers, and
Speaker 1: if it kind of dries in there, you you get
Speaker 1: some different issues. Um. You know a lot of people
Speaker 1: make you know, to toothpick or they make reed spacers,
Speaker 1: so you can get like a little bit of airlift
Speaker 1: in there to let all those layers dry out. Um.
Speaker 1: So tricky call. As long as it's kind of allowed
Speaker 1: to dry properly, Um, it should be fine in your
Speaker 1: turkey vest over you know from year to year, and
Speaker 1: you do want to get this bit off them. Yeah, ideally,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just bacteria and stuff in your mouth
Speaker 1: that breaks out latex down. Um, you know, sugars, coffees,
Speaker 1: you know, choose, you know, snooze whatever, maybe in your mouth.
Speaker 1: It just creates a bad environment for that latex. Buddy mine.
Speaker 1: He always my neighbor. He always, I don't know why
Speaker 1: or how he always brings atomic fireballs hunting. Yep, it's
Speaker 1: just his thing. You gotta you don't walk along ways
Speaker 1: he pops into atomic fireball. So I was out with
Speaker 1: him and I was feeling like, I feel like an
Speaker 1: atomic fireball is not good for your diaphragm. No, No,
Speaker 1: the cinnamon, you know, I've got to imagine that's gonna
Speaker 1: tear you down. Good for your tongue, dude. I haven't
Speaker 1: did a specific study on atomic fireballs, but it can't
Speaker 1: be good. Um. Store in the fridge, Store in the fridge. Um,
Speaker 1: wash it, dry it off on the counter for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours away from a window, away from the sun,
Speaker 1: and then don't lay in the window. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: cold dark place is the best. Um. You know. We
Speaker 1: even recommend if it's gonna be a while and you
Speaker 1: get throw in the freezer, it's not gonna hurt it.
Speaker 1: Act you freeze m kills back terry that way too.
Speaker 1: If there was anything any residual on their versus in
Speaker 1: the fridge could potentially you know, continue on, let me
Speaker 1: I got one more than when you're is there anything
Speaker 1: like there's no such thing as a warranty on a diaphragm, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like it's sort of meant as not a
Speaker 1: thing that lasts forever. You had a warranty on a toothbrush. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we've always looked at diaphragms as consumable. So
Speaker 1: like it's even tough for somebody to say, I've had
Speaker 1: a call for a month and and it's the light
Speaker 1: Texas cracking. I don't know what that person did for
Speaker 1: a month, right, Um, you know, but there is if
Speaker 1: something's obviously you know, tape falls. We usually try to
Speaker 1: take care of people. We we listen. You know, story
Speaker 1: by story, I'm not giving anything, so you might look
Speaker 1: and be like, this is something that was wrong on
Speaker 1: our end. Yeah, this could be a manufacturing defect. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna lie. Like we look at
Speaker 1: that customer about a hundred dollars and calls and he's
Speaker 1: only complaining about one, you know, so it's obviously not
Speaker 1: the guy just trying to take us, you know. So um,
Speaker 1: whether people want to hear that or not, Like that's
Speaker 1: how we look at it. Like there it's obviously you know,
Speaker 1: or did somebody by one call and that one calls
Speaker 1: you know, mysteriously bad after two weeks, like you know,
Speaker 1: a here's a fort off code, like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. We we play a case by case. We
Speaker 1: never try to you know, decide before we hear all
Speaker 1: the all the information. Alright, So that could have been
Speaker 1: the listener right there. That could have been. If you
Speaker 1: have similar questions to Steve's, make sure to submit them
Speaker 1: to us cet D at Phelps Game Calls or any
Speaker 1: of our social channels will try to round those up
Speaker 1: and put them into the the next few podcasts and
Speaker 1: get an answered for you. Part of it all right.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about turkey calls for a long time,
Speaker 1: back ever since we started working together. And uh, your
Speaker 1: idea was probably like i'd say two or three on
Speaker 1: like my crazy ass ideas I either didn't want to
Speaker 1: do or didn't think we're gonna work when you at
Speaker 1: this to me, it was this idea that we were
Speaker 1: going to go somewhere find a tree, a tree that
Speaker 1: was perfect for making turkey calls out of We're gonna
Speaker 1: go cut that tree down. Not not somebody else, um,
Speaker 1: not you know, not the lumber yard, nobody's gonna source
Speaker 1: and it's gonna buy it. We're gonna cut that tree down.
Speaker 1: We're gonna tell the story of that tree, the property, um,
Speaker 1: the process of that tree had to go to our
Speaker 1: or go through um in order to become a turkey call, um,
Speaker 1: which I think a lot of you know, your idea,
Speaker 1: I believe I'm putting words in your mouth, But was
Speaker 1: the idea that people don't know the process that a
Speaker 1: tree goes through to become a turkey call and everything
Speaker 1: involved um and then tell that story. So you brought
Speaker 1: me this idea, I didn't like it. You know, I
Speaker 1: need to understand. I'll tell you why I liked it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't understand, um, what was the problem with it?
Speaker 1: It just disrupts my system. Right. So my idea as
Speaker 1: a game call maker was you go to the lumber
Speaker 1: yard or you you'd log onto you know, some specialty
Speaker 1: hardwood supplier. You order your one thousand board feet a
Speaker 1: lumber and it shows up perfect, ready to be building.
Speaker 1: You know, you're ready to make calls, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's me being lazy, whether whether whatever it was, like
Speaker 1: you just added like extra because if it's if it's
Speaker 1: a dud tree, it's not your problem. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would never make it to you. So you like you
Speaker 1: you vetted out like all of that by just you know,
Speaker 1: but it's also the lazy man's way. And and once
Speaker 1: we got into you know, this this idea, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say that I probably ate Crow a little bit
Speaker 1: and decided it was it was an awesome idea, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad I got got to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: But your idea was to show this whole process, and
Speaker 1: you would go cut the tree down. We were going
Speaker 1: to drive you know, we didn't literally drive the truck
Speaker 1: in the trailer, but we followed the truck in the
Speaker 1: trailer with the log on it to the mill. Um
Speaker 1: we pushed that, you know, band saw you know through
Speaker 1: the log. We made the decisions on the thickness the
Speaker 1: log needed to be based on, you know, warp and
Speaker 1: splitting and all this stuff that was gonna happen. Um,
Speaker 1: we made the decision on on you know, where this
Speaker 1: was gonna go. And so this was this was your
Speaker 1: idea that we kind of ended up partnering on and
Speaker 1: make it happen. Um. Uh, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: we ended up kind of coining at the line one
Speaker 1: turkey call. But I just wanted to to spend the day,
Speaker 1: uh you know, today's discussion and just kind of go
Speaker 1: over everything involved in this project, dive a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper and uh you kind of see if we can,
Speaker 1: you know, explain that project a little more to the
Speaker 1: use of the listeners. Yeah, I wanna. I want to
Speaker 1: touch a little bit of why I thought it was
Speaker 1: cool to do it. Um. Mile Man was a big woodworker.
Speaker 1: I'm not uh, but he was very talented and he
Speaker 1: um he's born during the depression. Now here, you know,
Speaker 1: there's all these places to sell like recycled wood and
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff and it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a thing. But to me, like the way he wasn't
Speaker 1: just seemed like very frugal. You know. He'd make knife
Speaker 1: handles which just junkie found laying around. Um. Remember he
Speaker 1: did a bunch of sighting and barn board from barn
Speaker 1: board he went and got from a barn. I remember
Speaker 1: they toured his brick building down and he got all
Speaker 1: the bricks and maybe my brother's chisel all the mortar
Speaker 1: off him so he could reuse the bricks. So he's
Speaker 1: just into that kind of stuff. But he built across
Speaker 1: when when he we built a pole barn ourselves on
Speaker 1: this piece of property that sat across the road from
Speaker 1: our house. And when we did that, we had to
Speaker 1: clear a couple of oak trees out of the way,
Speaker 1: and we remember we went through all the hassle of
Speaker 1: getting those oak trees, um to get a milled, and
Speaker 1: then getting all the planks, and we just dried him
Speaker 1: in the garage, but getting all the planks and putting
Speaker 1: the stickers in and keep them from warping them, turning
Speaker 1: them all the damn time. And then he died. And
Speaker 1: I eventually got that wood and worked out it myself
Speaker 1: and just cut it all into strips and laminated it
Speaker 1: all into these big oak tops. And so my desk
Speaker 1: in my office is from those trees, and my one
Speaker 1: of my smaller workbench is in my shop is made
Speaker 1: from those big pieces. And I just made these big slabs.
Speaker 1: They look like almost like a yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: a butcher block, or like a looks like you're looking
Speaker 1: at a bowling alley, whether the lane and the bowling alley.
Speaker 1: So I kind of appreciated that stuff, and I thought that, um,
Speaker 1: like with turkey call, just be interesting to see what
Speaker 1: all goes into it, you know, because before I did that, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't know about drying it, and you know, just
Speaker 1: out of the whole freaking process. Man, it was really instructional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're kind of um, as we're recording this podcast, we're
Speaker 1: kind of coming down the finish line. Everything's in production. Um,
Speaker 1: we're pretty damn excited about kind of what we're getting
Speaker 1: out of him. It's it's a really cool project. Um.
Speaker 1: And one thing I want to you got to see
Speaker 1: kind of the picture of this tree that we picked out.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll we'll get into this a little bit more.
Speaker 1: You know how, but man, this would's freaking beautiful, like
Speaker 1: compared to what you do get at the lumber yard
Speaker 1: versus what we got out of this tree. UM like that.
Speaker 1: We're pretty excited about just beautiful call. It's it's different
Speaker 1: than just your straight gain you know, straight grained walnut
Speaker 1: that you get from the lumber yard. I'm having a
Speaker 1: guy's making me a chef's knife, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: stealing a little piece of acts and have a chef's
Speaker 1: knife off it too. Yeah, we're getting no skills sent
Speaker 1: out to you today, actually, I think. But he wants
Speaker 1: he wants a piece with a lot of character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we were searching for some swirl and some some
Speaker 1: edges and some crotches um out of it. So we'll
Speaker 1: get some some good pieces. I want the real yea,
Speaker 1: the crazy parts. Perfect. So the release of this line
Speaker 1: one kind of was hinged on the meat Eater x
Speaker 1: Phelps release of Turkey Calls last year. Um, we released
Speaker 1: a full line of calls. UM did very very well.
Speaker 1: So some may ask, you know, you know, and we
Speaker 1: maybe already answered this is why would we we do
Speaker 1: this line one? Turkey call? What's a need for line one?
Speaker 1: Turkey call out there and I'm gonna I'm gonna see
Speaker 1: if you can answer that, like why do we need
Speaker 1: this call? Oh? Because I think would just be I
Speaker 1: don't know if I had you know, you can you
Speaker 1: buy something, You get like a little thing with some
Speaker 1: pictures of you know, whatever, you buy it. You get
Speaker 1: a catalog I don't know from whatever the hell comp
Speaker 1: you like, and there's pictures of like the people make
Speaker 1: and stuff and that you kind of like meet who
Speaker 1: works there and you see everything as like why not
Speaker 1: have if you could have a call that you could
Speaker 1: refer to um like a video that showed this walnut
Speaker 1: tree growing in Kansas, I'll point out not far from Walnut, Kansas,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of like see every aspect of
Speaker 1: the tree in its context and have like drone footage
Speaker 1: of the tree dropping out of the canopy and then
Speaker 1: see the whole thing made. It would be like you
Speaker 1: like really understood every bit of it. The same way.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things I've always done
Speaker 1: with the stuff I make is we show an animal
Speaker 1: and then later we show things that came from it
Speaker 1: to eat, and people like people love seeing the transformation.
Speaker 1: So it's not like I would come and say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have the technical expertise to come
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, there's something about the harmonics of
Speaker 1: this world. It's just like it's a cool thing to
Speaker 1: look and get a numbered to get a numbered call
Speaker 1: where you know there's a finite number of call as
Speaker 1: it could come from a tree, get a get like
Speaker 1: a video product showing everything about how it was made.
Speaker 1: And in the end you're holding the thing like a
Speaker 1: great hunting tool. You're holding a thing and able to
Speaker 1: hunt with it, and you have its whole history right
Speaker 1: down to the location of where the stump is. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just like it's it's a fun thing. I think
Speaker 1: that anything that comes with sort of more awareness and knowledge,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember my mother in law had this
Speaker 1: this floor in a house that was an old the
Speaker 1: wood from a sheep shearing shed and it had all
Speaker 1: the landel in like mixed in the you could feel
Speaker 1: it on the wood. Right. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: cool last floor because it's just like there's like something
Speaker 1: about it. It's just made it like cool. Yeah, that's acceptable.
Speaker 1: In my office, I have a brick. Um you'd look
Speaker 1: at it think as any old brick happens to be
Speaker 1: a brick that came from Jim Bridgers General Store when
Speaker 1: it was dismantled. Anyone else like he's got a red
Speaker 1: brick on his desk. I'd like this, dude, that was
Speaker 1: from Jim Bridges store. Man, if you if I died
Speaker 1: and didn't tell anybody, no one would know. But it
Speaker 1: just has like a thing about it that gives it substance.
Speaker 1: I think these calls have like I don't know, just
Speaker 1: it's cool. Man, I'm gonna have to borrow it one
Speaker 1: day yours. Don't build it into something. It's somewhere in
Speaker 1: this house. So we flew to Kansas shortly after the
Speaker 1: fourth of July with the intention. At that time, I
Speaker 1: believe the intention was just kind of black walnut tree down.
Speaker 1: Um went on the ground. We decided um to also
Speaker 1: take an O Sage Orange also known as boat Arc
Speaker 1: also known as Hedge arts boy boy d R. It's
Speaker 1: like b O I s apostrophe d literally by definition
Speaker 1: would for bose Um. So we decided, hey, that they
Speaker 1: got a bunch of heads here just as well they've
Speaker 1: got a great walnut tree. Oh can we can we
Speaker 1: talk about hedge for a nurse? Second, sure these guys, Uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't really that's about hedge makes the hell of
Speaker 1: a fence post. Oh yeah never r It's like yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like a pretty fixed market value. And these
Speaker 1: guys were these guys we were with and on this mill,
Speaker 1: was like, if there's nothing else to do, you can
Speaker 1: always make some money cutting hedge fence post. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like they're like talking about throughout their lives, like
Speaker 1: various times when it's like you just can cut it.
Speaker 1: You can get it from owners because it's it's otherwise
Speaker 1: not a high value tree. Um, it's like always in
Speaker 1: the background and be like if you need to make
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks, you can always cut cut or
Speaker 1: cut boat art hedge fence post. Another interesting fact about
Speaker 1: fence post hedge, like some of the when the osage
Speaker 1: or the hedges used as a fence post for years
Speaker 1: and it's able to like basically wick or absorb some
Speaker 1: of that mud, some of that mud stained osages like
Speaker 1: some highest value timber out there. All right, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: it's super sought out. So I'm gonna start a business
Speaker 1: where I just go around and like replace old farmers
Speaker 1: fence posts with like a piece of walnut, so I
Speaker 1: can grab that hedge post out like a fence post
Speaker 1: relocation business. Clay uh Clay nucom says it outlast the fencing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That it's amazing that it's just beautiful when the it's
Speaker 1: almost like just the um you know, the just streaks
Speaker 1: get sucked up into that hedge and so you get
Speaker 1: like a really beautiful you know, would lay up so
Speaker 1: that a little um, let's rewind a little bit before
Speaker 1: we went and picked up you know, the wall nut
Speaker 1: and the osage, Like, how do we come I think
Speaker 1: I to the decision that we're going to do a
Speaker 1: pot and the striker. I know the answers. I've talked
Speaker 1: to you a lot about what you use. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had we had the option to make box calls,
Speaker 1: you know, um you know pot calls, you know, slotted
Speaker 1: slotted pot calls. Like there's all these different ideas and
Speaker 1: we said we can do you know, basically, we can
Speaker 1: do anything within the Turkey coal line. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Steve's like, we're going with a pot I carry I've
Speaker 1: carried around box calls. For the first time I ever
Speaker 1: went in the woods of a Turkey call was a
Speaker 1: box called and I mean I remember this like, I
Speaker 1: remember knowing so little that we would be out and
Speaker 1: forget the chalk, And I remember sitting there with a
Speaker 1: leather man trying to pulverized sandstone to rum I'm not joking,
Speaker 1: pulverized sandstone and sort of a makeshift mortar and pastel
Speaker 1: as a way to try to like chalk the box.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing with me is, let's say you
Speaker 1: got your turkey best. Now, you got all everything in
Speaker 1: your pricking turkey best, right, you got your diaphragms, you
Speaker 1: got your box, um, you got a pottent peg, you
Speaker 1: got whatever the hell else your little hands, any whatever
Speaker 1: device you got. If I all of a sudden walking
Speaker 1: down the road, okay, walking down a farm lane and
Speaker 1: wow the gobbler gobble seventy yards away, I in that situation,
Speaker 1: I always always grab the pop. Yeah, I think every
Speaker 1: I think it's just like and I'm like, if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill this bird, this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: And in that situation, I bet you nine hunters aren't
Speaker 1: going to their box call you know that? So I
Speaker 1: think they got more utility, They get used a lot more. Um,
Speaker 1: so I just have like more. Um. Yeah, man, let's
Speaker 1: have more faith that it's enjoyable for me to do
Speaker 1: it too, Like like I enjoy that, you know, enjoy
Speaker 1: messing with one. And I know that like when I
Speaker 1: pull it out, I'm gonna like get what I want
Speaker 1: from it, you know. Um. And I see like, you know,
Speaker 1: I got a friend, one of the best turkey hunters
Speaker 1: I know, Robert Abernathy. He's been on the show with us.
Speaker 1: He's like a turkey biologists, been hunting turkeys for a
Speaker 1: million years, Um, all over the place right, he's hunting
Speaker 1: turkeys seven state something like that. Uh. Man, That dude
Speaker 1: can locate turkeys with a box. Yea, Like he's got
Speaker 1: a signature locating. He's just loud, aggressive cuts and you're
Speaker 1: almost kind of like when he does it, you're almost
Speaker 1: like he's really off the distance, you know. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: that's what frustrates me. There's days, Um, I remember my
Speaker 1: wife's first turkey. Um would not answer anything else that
Speaker 1: pisces me off because I'm gonna die from caller. I'm
Speaker 1: a good on a popcom, good on the out, you
Speaker 1: know crow. And then he'd only answer this damn box call.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, I was using like the I
Speaker 1: think the Primost heartbreaker, you know. So I was just
Speaker 1: cranking on and nothing answered. And I literally had to
Speaker 1: like box call him all the way in the shotgun
Speaker 1: range because he would not answer any other call. So
Speaker 1: it was just it was was you know, I'm glad
Speaker 1: I had it in the Turkey vest, but it was
Speaker 1: just one of those things like there are times where
Speaker 1: it works, you know, Wendy mornings, you know, or just
Speaker 1: like a dense, voggy morning where sound isn't traveling, like
Speaker 1: when Nathy gets a strike. When he gets a strike
Speaker 1: off that box call though, you know, the first thing
Speaker 1: he does, what's up? What's the box call away? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was hand in that direction. Man. He like the
Speaker 1: box call goes away, it's not coming back out, and
Speaker 1: he's liked that way. So we fly into um Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 1: We drive a little ways. I think it was about
Speaker 1: an hour and a half, and we decided on Union
Speaker 1: Union Town, Kansas is where we're gonna cut this tree down.
Speaker 1: And and I'd like to tell some big story on why,
Speaker 1: but it was really I had a good buddy, um
Speaker 1: Randy Milligan, who I got to hunt with last spring. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we had advertised on a podcast like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're looking for somebody with a tree, and then I
Speaker 1: think I got like forty or fifty yet emails that
Speaker 1: came from Corey Caulkins here at the meat eating like
Speaker 1: everybody offering up their tree, and it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: it just didn't have the right feel, you know, you
Speaker 1: like you gotta come to somebody. Is that gonna be
Speaker 1: the right tree? Is it kind of pre scouted? And uh,
Speaker 1: my good buddy Randy had had reached out and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I got I got hedge, I've got you know, all
Speaker 1: kinds of black walnut hickory. You know, he owns quite
Speaker 1: a bit of property there on Union Town, Kansas. And uh,
Speaker 1: I think I shot you a message and yeah, that'll work.
Speaker 1: And it's no small thing to give away a walnut
Speaker 1: tree because um or to offer one up. Because one
Speaker 1: thing we learned about is you can have an expensive damn.
Speaker 1: I mean it takes like a perfect there's there's that
Speaker 1: I don't understand it well enough, but a veneer grade
Speaker 1: walnut where they're taking off like paper thin concentric circles
Speaker 1: off of a walnut. And when you get one of those,
Speaker 1: and there's no branches and no blemishes. You can have
Speaker 1: a tree that's were of thousands and thousands of I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact number. He had mentioned. Why
Speaker 1: we're there, like his neighbor had just sold like a
Speaker 1: black walnut for ten thousand dollars or stuff. It was
Speaker 1: because it was it was there's a they're building a bank,
Speaker 1: and the bank wanted walnut veneer on the walls of
Speaker 1: the bank in certain conference rooms and stuff. But they
Speaker 1: wanted it all to match, like, so they had to
Speaker 1: find they wanted like one walnut and and when you
Speaker 1: take that veneer off what we're talking. I remember someone
Speaker 1: saying someone handed us a business card and it felt
Speaker 1: like a pretty heavy duty business card. Builds a business card,
Speaker 1: And wasn't it like three or four layers laminated together.
Speaker 1: It's thin. Yeah, yeah, I think Joe the mill, the
Speaker 1: owner of the mill, handed us a business card because
Speaker 1: being a milk guy, you gotta have a business card
Speaker 1: made out of veneer um. But yeah, he told us
Speaker 1: like vineer centner than this. Yeah, it was, it was
Speaker 1: like a few of them. But yeah, anyways, so when
Speaker 1: they finally found like the tree that you could do
Speaker 1: the whole damn bank in it. Yes, valuable treat man
Speaker 1: half like half of a half of a truck, half
Speaker 1: of a used trucks. So we we kind of scouted
Speaker 1: the property. Um, Randy kind of pre scouted a little
Speaker 1: bit for us, and you know, there were some options
Speaker 1: he had, um, but we had went there, UM settled
Speaker 1: on a pretty good straight black walnut. Um. We'll talk
Speaker 1: here a little bit about kind of as we look
Speaker 1: at the tree, kind of how many you know, you're
Speaker 1: looking at that tree like that's a thousand plot calls
Speaker 1: worth or that. You know, we weren't looking at it
Speaker 1: like you know what what else we're going to get
Speaker 1: out of it or what? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And then
Speaker 1: we cut looking at a chicken and being like how
Speaker 1: many dry flies are in that chicken? Yeah? And that
Speaker 1: chicken sped Um found a good os of orange. And
Speaker 1: then UM me with us like I'm gonna blame it
Speaker 1: on their technique, this whole Eastern like sawing technique that
Speaker 1: I split the wooden half. Yeah, we won't get into that.
Speaker 1: So I wasted our first hedge. Well, but are you
Speaker 1: gonna explain the technique and why they do it? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. A little bit more so I
Speaker 1: wasted a wasted one osage. Um, we went to another
Speaker 1: one that actually probably ended up being a better option
Speaker 1: that was right next to it. Got it fell barbered,
Speaker 1: you barbered shared. Yeah, yeah, I'm blaming on their technique.
Speaker 1: Like I'm from the I'm from the coastal rainforest where
Speaker 1: we cut trees way different than this technique that I
Speaker 1: was scared working on a big tree like that. I
Speaker 1: was scared because I was an unknown territory. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that we were just kind of relying on
Speaker 1: them a little bit to walk us through the technique.
Speaker 1: So then we loaded these trees up on a big
Speaker 1: flatbed and we shipped them about an hour south to Walnut, Kansas,
Speaker 1: where we spent the next day um milling these you
Speaker 1: know logs up to our specs. We knew we you know,
Speaker 1: needed five quarters for some warping and some splitting as
Speaker 1: he's you know dried on the pallette and and um
Speaker 1: and then as they dried in the kim So we
Speaker 1: we set everything up to what we needed to build
Speaker 1: our ultimate pot calls out. I like the point out
Speaker 1: that was Walnut, Kansas was we we processed the walnut
Speaker 1: and Walnut, Kansas. And I can't think about that day
Speaker 1: without thinking about the chickers though, because we were like
Speaker 1: way dialed when we were out cutting the trees. You know,
Speaker 1: I did all that everything is supposed to do. I
Speaker 1: like did like Premethron on my clothes. I like pulled
Speaker 1: my pants down, did my waistline and ankles and deep
Speaker 1: like everything as textbook. They were like, well, we're going
Speaker 1: to the mill, you know, and I'm when I'm pictured
Speaker 1: in the mill, I don't know, I'm pictured like being
Speaker 1: in a building with a concrete floor. So I got
Speaker 1: like sneakers on, like don't do anything. And I get
Speaker 1: to the mill, is you know out in the yeah,
Speaker 1: the field, Yeah, just like equipment out in the field.
Speaker 1: And had no idea dude, but I suffered for weeks
Speaker 1: after that. I got lit up and I had them
Speaker 1: little baby ticks all over in my calf. It was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't good. No, Um, I always think of that.
Speaker 1: I can't like think of I honestly, I won't be
Speaker 1: able to look at these calls aout feel a little itchy.
Speaker 1: So everybody that gets one of these things, they should
Speaker 1: fee a little itchy when they think them like we
Speaker 1: we got tore up for these calls bad. So we're
Speaker 1: out in the out in the woods, um looking at
Speaker 1: these trees. I just want to explain a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know there there are board foot calculations. I know
Speaker 1: is the call designer, Like when I go in to
Speaker 1: build a call, I need about point to board feet
Speaker 1: per call, you know, And and just to go over
Speaker 1: the board foot calculation for everybody doesn't know, we're looking
Speaker 1: at however many inches thick this board is, by however
Speaker 1: many inches wide the board is, by how long it
Speaker 1: is in feet, and then we'll divide it by twelve
Speaker 1: and you ultimately get like forty four cubic inches makes
Speaker 1: a board foot. So if I called someone I still
Speaker 1: not totally clear on this. If I called a vendor
Speaker 1: YEP and said I want you to send me one
Speaker 1: board foot of walnut YEP, I would get in the
Speaker 1: mail what you would have to They would then ask you,
Speaker 1: how do you want that board foot? Do you want
Speaker 1: it in four quarters by four inches wide? Do you
Speaker 1: want it in four quarters by six inches? Why do
Speaker 1: you want it in six quarters by? And then your
Speaker 1: length with then depend on like how much you know,
Speaker 1: how long it was would depend on the width and
Speaker 1: the thickness of that board. But the volume, the volume
Speaker 1: of what I'm getting doesn't change. No, No, you can
Speaker 1: get one board foot in a perfect square block, or
Speaker 1: you can get one board foot and like a board
Speaker 1: I got you. Um so yeah, it's just a measurement
Speaker 1: of volume. Um. So we kind of knew that going in.
Speaker 1: Um and then uh, you know, we we got so yeah,
Speaker 1: you know why that I'm confused about that now? Now
Speaker 1: I remember you knew the thickness yep, So all right,
Speaker 1: I knew I needed I was always visualizing a board
Speaker 1: foot and what you were talking about, But I wasn't
Speaker 1: thinking that let's say you had to make a thing
Speaker 1: that was three inches thick, then your whole he damn
Speaker 1: sure not. Better send you a board it's one inch there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we knew we needed a five quarter by a
Speaker 1: four inch board that is our blank. And then the
Speaker 1: length just needed to be enough to get you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know all those calls. And then we could basically
Speaker 1: divide that by the point because because the end and
Speaker 1: the end the call is heal thick, the call ends
Speaker 1: up being right at just a hair over three quarters
Speaker 1: of an inch thick, and you go over by how much, um,
Speaker 1: So we went five quarters. We were actually cutting these
Speaker 1: boards to a true dimension at one point to five
Speaker 1: and that was the account for all the warp um.
Speaker 1: We have to plane all of these and even on
Speaker 1: some of these boards we got off, we're gonna actually
Speaker 1: lose the call at the end of the boards because
Speaker 1: by the time we plane them they got too thin.
Speaker 1: So it's just that's why we had to be. So
Speaker 1: you're literally giving up a half an inch um, you
Speaker 1: know on the board that that's gonna go to waste
Speaker 1: while you're milling it compared to what we're gonna get
Speaker 1: out of the out of the board. But when you
Speaker 1: buy it from like Joe's Lumber, you buy it the
Speaker 1: same way it comes. Well, we'll buy it four quarters
Speaker 1: in because it's clean. Yeah, we know that it's gonna
Speaker 1: be perfectly straight and we won't have any waste on that.
Speaker 1: So part of that was just no one you're getting
Speaker 1: into like yeah, yeah, we're not buying that's great at yourself. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, so we're doing a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: all of the measurements are like we brought Seth along
Speaker 1: to help us, you know, for a street degree, and
Speaker 1: but a lot of the dimensions are just taking it
Speaker 1: what's called breast height. You know, so on normal humans
Speaker 1: about four and a half feet um their breast height.
Speaker 1: You you take a measurement on what they think that
Speaker 1: diameter is. You know, those some of the guys that
Speaker 1: were working with us there, they're so experienced they kind
Speaker 1: of just hugged the tree kind of figured out, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's about a twenty four inch or and
Speaker 1: then you can kind of go to a chart. You know,
Speaker 1: there's two different dimensions. There's like a Doyle chart and
Speaker 1: then there's like a a quarter inch chart, and that
Speaker 1: kind of gives you an idea of how many board
Speaker 1: feet do you think they're gonna get based on like
Speaker 1: a sixteen ft straight section. Yeah, and those those dudes
Speaker 1: we were worth it dealing a lot of lumber. They're
Speaker 1: also looking at the big limbs, yeah, and they just
Speaker 1: kind of that's just like seriously eyeball. But he's just
Speaker 1: looking up in the tree and being like, oh, x
Speaker 1: more that limb, that limb is probably nothing. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: if they had a curve to them, like even when
Speaker 1: that dries, the board just gonna go completely crazy. And
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be usable anyways, you know. So they
Speaker 1: were they were walking through all that or that limb
Speaker 1: ten feet long, but I forgot that too, Like depending
Speaker 1: the limbs length and how it was oriented to the tree,
Speaker 1: he would gauge like how it's gonna dry, and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, you're gonna have a mess. You gotta think
Speaker 1: of that limb is basically a big diving board, right,
Speaker 1: So the bottom side of that trees happened to you know,
Speaker 1: it's under a bunch of stress compared or the top
Speaker 1: side of the tree's and tension the bottoms and compression.
Speaker 1: You know, so you're trying to you know, think if
Speaker 1: when that board dries, it's gonna want to settle out
Speaker 1: and it's gonna get all warped and messed up. So
Speaker 1: you know what I was down in the when I
Speaker 1: was down South America, they have a lot of those
Speaker 1: buttressed those big jungle trees that have like the buttress roots. Uh.
Speaker 1: And some of these buttress roots you could cut a
Speaker 1: tabletop out of them. It's huge. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: you're standing at the tree and the buttress, which looks
Speaker 1: like a descending ridgeline coming off the tree is taller
Speaker 1: than you, and it looks like it's like a position
Speaker 1: to sort of like block the tree up. But they're
Speaker 1: explaining that that's a cable pulling on that tree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like a it's not reading for it's not
Speaker 1: like it up. Yeah, it's not like I guess building
Speaker 1: a retaining walls pull down. Yeah, try to get it
Speaker 1: back where it should be. Yeah. That kind of like
Speaker 1: logging with the big yard and all those cables just
Speaker 1: kind of pulling, pulling that thing into being straight up. Um. Next,
Speaker 1: I want to get into like the crazy way they
Speaker 1: taught us to cut these trees down, and we kind
Speaker 1: of just you know, when you're in when you're in
Speaker 1: their ballpark, you played by their rules. So you know,
Speaker 1: I came in from I live in maybe the timber
Speaker 1: capital of the world there and in southwest Washington. You know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of come from a long lineage of tree followers,
Speaker 1: and we show up and and I think there was
Speaker 1: some wind damage or a big storm right before we
Speaker 1: got there, and they actually had to cut a tree
Speaker 1: down before we got Yeah, and they kind of I
Speaker 1: think I kind of stood there and kind of got
Speaker 1: out of the way, but kind of watched and like,
Speaker 1: what in the hell are they doing? It's it's zero
Speaker 1: because they're dealing with high dollar hardwood. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: mean that they have a zero waste cut. Yeah, their
Speaker 1: stump is literally flush with the ground and they don't
Speaker 1: knock a they don't knock a wedge out. No, just
Speaker 1: because you're thrown away. Yeah, a hundred bucks. I don't know.
Speaker 1: They put a little teeny face cut in, just a
Speaker 1: little one. Remember we we had just what I mean,
Speaker 1: It's like they you're losing a saw with yep in
Speaker 1: a core, so you always have to make like a diagram.
Speaker 1: So scary. I didn't. I felt scary doing that. So
Speaker 1: I'll do my best to describe it and you can
Speaker 1: add some details. Um, we cut a small face cut
Speaker 1: into the direction we wanted the tree to fall. And
Speaker 1: normally after you cut your larger face cut in like
Speaker 1: a Douglas fir tree around home, you then come in
Speaker 1: from the back side of the log and and steer
Speaker 1: your saw perfectly square to that direction, and you approach
Speaker 1: your your holding wood. Um. I can't remember if you're
Speaker 1: up you know, a little high or whatever, but you
Speaker 1: approach your your wood until the tree starts to tip
Speaker 1: and you get out of there. Well, here we cut
Speaker 1: our face notch in a lot shallower, um, not in
Speaker 1: the dirt, more offset towards the way you want. And
Speaker 1: then you came directly behind the holding wood and you
Speaker 1: dog the nose of your saw in and left that
Speaker 1: one inch. So now you basically got your sauce stuck
Speaker 1: through the center of the tree whole, you know, notch.
Speaker 1: Let's say to the right, and then you saw your
Speaker 1: way out the backside of the tree and hollow the
Speaker 1: whole thing out. Yeah, and then when you get to
Speaker 1: the end, they want you to kind of work a
Speaker 1: little bit quick and just kind of zip through and
Speaker 1: then the tree falls. Yes, you got Yeah, let's go
Speaker 1: away putting it. You got a face cut, you got
Speaker 1: a gap of wood. Then the whole damn tree is gone,
Speaker 1: and you got the other face just barely hold none
Speaker 1: And you just nicked that thing and then it worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean they literally, you know, at home, we
Speaker 1: we leave a two foot stump, you know. So you
Speaker 1: go to a clear cutting, there's all these damn stumps everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: this thing is that are like if if somebody didn't
Speaker 1: tell you you're walking through the wood that there's a
Speaker 1: tree cut down over there. I mean, you wouldn't know
Speaker 1: it was there. Drive Lawnmoor. Yeah yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: was flush. It was a kind of cool little way
Speaker 1: that they showed us. And like I said, we were
Speaker 1: in their arena. That's how they were comfortable cutting trees down.
Speaker 1: So I don't people, I know how people can learn
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. They don't need a diagram. The
Speaker 1: video they watched. Damn video, man, that tree you all
Speaker 1: I got. I had fifty ticks on my hand when
Speaker 1: I went to reach for that damn camera. They were everywhere. Um.
Speaker 1: So then we took him down to the mill. Well
Speaker 1: we'll fast forward to that, loaded him up with skid steers,
Speaker 1: you know, loaders, all of that got him, got him
Speaker 1: chained down on that we kind of into just whatever
Speaker 1: natural we don't We didn't buck it to length. No,
Speaker 1: we bucked it to three points where we were gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, things were getting curvy or we're gonna start
Speaker 1: to lose you know, two limbs and whatnot. Just what
Speaker 1: made sense for for good lumber. Um. And then we
Speaker 1: we mosied on down the next morning to Walnut, Kansas,
Speaker 1: down to the mill and the bandsaw out of the field.
Speaker 1: Ye up, And so we we loaded I think walnut
Speaker 1: on first. You know, they take their cuts, they start
Speaker 1: to see what we're actually you know, you don't know
Speaker 1: what you got until you start to open up the wood.
Speaker 1: And we could tell right away it was gonna be, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really pretty wood. And so we started loading
Speaker 1: the walnuts up, got those all cut up five quarters
Speaker 1: new for an osage, you know that you know, based
Speaker 1: on different woods, osage is really really hard. It's got
Speaker 1: like a specific gravity at point eight, so it's really heavy.
Speaker 1: V a matter of fact, I think I've seen a
Speaker 1: statistic it's got like one of the highest uh BTU
Speaker 1: ratings like for firewood, Like it's gonna burn the hottest,
Speaker 1: So it's got the most energy stored up in it.
Speaker 1: So it's a real dense one of the reasons it
Speaker 1: makes an absolutely amazing striker. Um. So we cut that
Speaker 1: four quarters, knowing that a striker was gonna end up
Speaker 1: being you know, right at three quarters of an inch
Speaker 1: on on osage by my my designs. And so we
Speaker 1: milled the osage up at four quarters, milled the the
Speaker 1: walnut up at five quarters, and then kind of just
Speaker 1: told them, you know what the optimum boards to ship
Speaker 1: to the kiln was gonna be. Yeah, I wanna. I
Speaker 1: want to add a thing quick about these dudes that
Speaker 1: we milled with. They used to have there was an
Speaker 1: old gas well on their property and the gas well
Speaker 1: went dry, but it has still has natural gas in it.
Speaker 1: They had their they had rigged up where they were
Speaker 1: pulling Get they're pulling natural gas like next to their mill.
Speaker 1: And then they had a natural gas whatever we saw Yep.
Speaker 1: They converted this old tractor engine to natural gas and
Speaker 1: that powered their old mill. Yeah, and they had like
Speaker 1: a totally self contained unit. And I think about the
Speaker 1: old mill, like I just I sit there and kind
Speaker 1: of scratched my head and then I kind of kind
Speaker 1: of walked away, Like, man, these guys just do what
Speaker 1: they need to do. Like they had this old tractor
Speaker 1: motor that was the drive train was hooked to an
Speaker 1: old rubber tire and that's what fed the logs. They
Speaker 1: pulled a lever of a spinning rubber tire that would
Speaker 1: spit the logs toge. Yeah, that would engage the blade
Speaker 1: and then it spun the log. Joe, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this can't be like Osha approved. But if you looked
Speaker 1: around a while, I think you'd find some limbs. You'd
Speaker 1: be like, there's a thumb bone. But I kind of
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, I don't know hopefully that comes
Speaker 1: out in the story, but like this is the way
Speaker 1: that some of this this stuff gets done, like just real,
Speaker 1: you know, down to Earth, people running mills out in
Speaker 1: their backfield. UM, that's how you get some of this
Speaker 1: This lumber. UM tipped it to a kiln. We decided
Speaker 1: to ship the green lumber, meaning wet, no drying at all.
Speaker 1: The green lumber got put on a UM semi truck
Speaker 1: and shipp to Addie, Washington, where we had it shipped
Speaker 1: to a kiln. UM and I think about a killing.
Speaker 1: So if I was just take those those boards that
Speaker 1: we milled up and say we wax the ends so
Speaker 1: we can control the way that the board actually dried out.
Speaker 1: We don't want the board to dry out the ends.
Speaker 1: We want the board to draw out like on its
Speaker 1: its face of a surface, so it doesn't crack. So
Speaker 1: you'd wax or paint the ends of the board let
Speaker 1: it dry. We usually say that it takes about a
Speaker 1: year per inch of thickness so we just don't have
Speaker 1: that kind of time, right, So you we use these
Speaker 1: kilns to speed up this process to get that's natural,
Speaker 1: that's yeah. Yeah. So if I was just to throw
Speaker 1: it in a in a shop and put a little doneage,
Speaker 1: you know, a little space or sticks in between it
Speaker 1: so you can get all around it, it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a year an inch. Um, we don't have that kind
Speaker 1: of time. Is to kill the different quality of drying
Speaker 1: or is it just you wind up with the same thing?
Speaker 1: Just you still end up I mean, ultimately are optimal
Speaker 1: moisture contents around seven landing in the same place. I
Speaker 1: need that moisture content so that board is done moving
Speaker 1: at the time we put a drill bit a you know,
Speaker 1: a mill lathe, anything to any of the process of
Speaker 1: that board is not gonna move or warp on us anymore. Um,
Speaker 1: so we're shooting freight percent. Now, what the kiln does
Speaker 1: is you put a bunch of steam vapor in there,
Speaker 1: so you're actually adding moisture to the situation. But then
Speaker 1: you can draw that moisture down and like a controlled process. Um,
Speaker 1: so you don't get all the splitting and warping as
Speaker 1: much you can control that a lot more by basically
Speaker 1: bringing up the moisture to what the board has and
Speaker 1: then slowly, inside of controlled environment, pull that out. Um,
Speaker 1: not to bore everybody with that process, it's just it
Speaker 1: took us about six weeks to get our mos age
Speaker 1: and walnut down to that seven and eight percent, and
Speaker 1: then from there we have to look at these boards
Speaker 1: that we now have ranging anywhere from eight to twelve
Speaker 1: inches and kind of pick out what's gonna give us
Speaker 1: our best boards. If we need two four inch strips,
Speaker 1: some of it's gonna go to waste anyway. So we're
Speaker 1: kind of looking evaluating the boards, where checks, where soft spots,
Speaker 1: where not you know, entered into that board, and we
Speaker 1: kind of just go back and and we're kind of
Speaker 1: doing our best to kind of grade the lumber or
Speaker 1: kind of cherry pick what we want out of it.
Speaker 1: So where you're at now, Um, how many do you
Speaker 1: think we're hiding in that tree? So we think and
Speaker 1: we you know, the I'm gonna give some of our
Speaker 1: tips away or tricks, but but we're completely transparent on
Speaker 1: this process. We think we can get about fifty pots.
Speaker 1: We're gonna say we're we're doing better than our are are.
Speaker 1: We're doing way better in our goal of that. We
Speaker 1: wanted a tree with a thousand in it, yep um,
Speaker 1: So I think we're gonna be around fourteen hundred, and
Speaker 1: that's to give us fifty extras. And because along the process,
Speaker 1: if you have a tool catch, you know, a pot,
Speaker 1: it blows up. Well, he's like, well all right, number
Speaker 1: one thousand two is missing, you know, like we got
Speaker 1: to replace it, and so you gotta kind of shoot
Speaker 1: for number lower than what you have my knife handle.
Speaker 1: So we keep getting these damn requests for knife handles
Speaker 1: and stuff that are cutting out that that's gonna be
Speaker 1: an extra, that's just basically gonna be scrap um. So
Speaker 1: we're shooting for fourteen hundred and what that's gonna end
Speaker 1: up giving us, and we haven't talked about it a lot.
Speaker 1: We've decided on a pure crystal surface, so not glass.
Speaker 1: We went pure crystal over a Pennsylvanian slate um toneboard
Speaker 1: inside of the walnut pot. And then we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a one piece custom O Sage orange striker one piece.
Speaker 1: We we ended up being able to make that happen
Speaker 1: after a lot a lot of I'm like, come on,
Speaker 1: pressures on guys like you need to just like so
Speaker 1: there's times where I'm not gonna lie super inefficient to
Speaker 1: like literally run we take a one by one one
Speaker 1: inch by one inch piece of osage, run it through
Speaker 1: a daling machine, so it basically spits out a broom handle.
Speaker 1: But normally you want to get like three to four
Speaker 1: ft broom handles. We're getting broom handles. But that's just
Speaker 1: to get one more striker out of out of the board.
Speaker 1: But do you think you're gonna be able to match
Speaker 1: it and strikers? Yeah, that's what that's where we get
Speaker 1: the number. The concern with the lower number was if
Speaker 1: we were to just if this is mass production and
Speaker 1: and uh like efficiency and time was involved, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have got that many. But since we said, all right,
Speaker 1: let's throw the efficiency away and just go hunt for
Speaker 1: every single striker and every piece of osage we have,
Speaker 1: they were able to go like pull these ones and
Speaker 1: two's out of boards where we would normally scrap and
Speaker 1: just say it's worth burning. When you when you watch
Speaker 1: the video, you'll see those age two. Yeah, you'll see
Speaker 1: where it came from. So we've got that all, I mean,
Speaker 1: just everything we're doing on this is the like Steve
Speaker 1: said earlier, just create an experience to go along with
Speaker 1: that pot calling. And I think, um, when everybody kind
Speaker 1: of sees the end product, they're gonna agree, like there
Speaker 1: there isn't a pot call with you know, this much
Speaker 1: thought put into anything, as far as even the day
Speaker 1: packaging that we decided to come up with, just you know,
Speaker 1: everything from from top to bottom on this is. We
Speaker 1: didn't you know, we didn't spare any expenses in the process,
Speaker 1: tried to make just a real one off. You know,
Speaker 1: the art on the call is going to be you know,
Speaker 1: um kind of one off. Nobody else's did this again,
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited. It's beautiful, man. Yeah, it turned
Speaker 1: out great. I mean, the whole thing is beautiful. And
Speaker 1: tell people when they're gonna be done. These line one
Speaker 1: calls should be available right now at them me eater
Speaker 1: dot com. You know the term line one. There's a
Speaker 1: line of cattle that they've been researching for a long time.
Speaker 1: It's called the line one Hervard and I always liked
Speaker 1: that and always you wonder about the line to Herford. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, well so we're thinking about I was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's the first one. It's the line one. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I love the name when you kind of I think
Speaker 1: we're in Kansas when you brought that up on my house,
Speaker 1: and I don't have any objections to that name. And
Speaker 1: you know, for a while there we had kind of
Speaker 1: like kind of coined it treated turkey since our intention
Speaker 1: at the end of this is for me and you
Speaker 1: to hopefully go back there one of these years, whenever
Speaker 1: our schedules line up, and kill a turkey from that property.
Speaker 1: And the funny still like this part, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it from the stump. You're gonna sit
Speaker 1: on that stump. So I mean a funny story id
Speaker 1: with Randy. This year, I literally killed my turkey within no,
Speaker 1: no more than a quarter mile from where there's the walnut,
Speaker 1: and no stage was cut down. Turkeys have definitely walked
Speaker 1: under that tree. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good piece of property.
Speaker 1: Randy does a good job. There has a lot of turkeys.
Speaker 1: All right. We went a little bit long there on
Speaker 1: the line one discussion. But what this podcast is meant
Speaker 1: to do is bring you tips and tactics, and we
Speaker 1: don't want to leave without asking Steve a question. Um,
Speaker 1: to kind of get some of his input um on
Speaker 1: one of these questions. So I'm gonna pose a situation
Speaker 1: for Steve. You're in an area with good bird numbers,
Speaker 1: all kinds of good turkey habitat. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: a good mix of agg roost, trees, feed cover everything
Speaker 1: a turkey needs nesting. Um. But the state you're hunting only,
Speaker 1: lets you get a tag that's good for two hours
Speaker 1: of the day. So you're gonna have to pick your
Speaker 1: time whether you want to be from the states an
Speaker 1: interesting state. Yeah, so it's you know, you can pick
Speaker 1: a time from let's say roost to seven thirty whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Um, what time are you going to choose?
Speaker 1: To eleven, nine eleven? Can you give me maybe ten? No,
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. I was vast lading between ten to
Speaker 1: twelve and nine nine to eleven. Here's the thing, if
Speaker 1: you gotta be there as since dad, like I don't
Speaker 1: like going out late. You hear about people to get
Speaker 1: older and they just get up, eat breakfast and going
Speaker 1: the woods. Like I like to be there. It's part
Speaker 1: of the package to be there from dawn. I like
Speaker 1: to be there daybreak. I want to hear him on
Speaker 1: the trees. I like all that, but it's a thing
Speaker 1: that happens where if I'm sitting there in the dark
Speaker 1: and I hear a turkey, I don't have overwhelming confidence
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna kill that turkey. But there's something about
Speaker 1: ten am. You're half thinking about taking a nap, you know,
Speaker 1: and you haven't heard anything in a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: It's been pretty slow, and at ten am all said, Wow,
Speaker 1: I was gonna like, we're gonna kill that bird. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that bird. Yeah, it's it's exactly yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: like he's like done. Dude, Like when he came out
Speaker 1: of the tree, he had like an agenda. He's like
Speaker 1: got his hands. He's just he's this guy. He's going
Speaker 1: to some specific spot, whatever he's going to, whatever he's
Speaker 1: gonna do. He just they seem to oftentimes like they
Speaker 1: know what they're gonna do when they get out of bed,
Speaker 1: and then it gets late morning and they seemed to
Speaker 1: enter there's fat there's variables like what where they're at
Speaker 1: in the breeding cycle and nesting all that, but you
Speaker 1: get birds that they get to be around that time
Speaker 1: of day. And also it's like he's got free time
Speaker 1: exactly yeah. Yeah, And when he hammers off there, You're like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a hint with him. If he does,
Speaker 1: he's not He's like, no, what I'm not gonna do.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I don't feel like he's laying
Speaker 1: around in dustin. I feel still got a little spunk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he sounds off, then I'd get real excited. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, So you're saying, if I could
Speaker 1: pare for it, you would be a spectator. You'd still
Speaker 1: go out. You just wuldn't carry your shotgun from daylight.
Speaker 1: That's how you're still gonna go out there for the experience.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna walk back to your your truck at
Speaker 1: ten and check the legs. I check the legs and
Speaker 1: make sure it's okay for me. Just go listen and
Speaker 1: then go back and get my gun. No, I'll go
Speaker 1: get my gun at nine o'clock because I wanted to
Speaker 1: be ready for ten o'clock. So you're trying to hit
Speaker 1: it like prime in the middle there. Yeah, I might
Speaker 1: even take a little nap. I might take a nap.
Speaker 1: I might take a twenty minute nap from like at
Speaker 1: nine sleep to nine thirty and then get ready for
Speaker 1: my ten am. Gotcha because this question stemmed from you know,
Speaker 1: me being you turkey hunter, you know high school. I
Speaker 1: would bomb jump in my car, bomb over to eastern
Speaker 1: Washing where we had all the turkeys, and and go
Speaker 1: and you know, we were up two hours before daylight,
Speaker 1: you know, hiking and we want to sit under the tree.
Speaker 1: We'd watched those birds for you know, a day or
Speaker 1: two do this and you'd go set up thinking you
Speaker 1: and then you would never kill him off the damn roost.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because actually made a noise,
Speaker 1: um screwed him up, or but the wind, or what
Speaker 1: I can pattern turkeys for twenty days in a row,
Speaker 1: do the same thing, and I sit under that tree
Speaker 1: on the twenty first day, and they will not do
Speaker 1: what I need him to do to kill them. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. I don't know if they've
Speaker 1: got like a censor. Maybe it's because I can't keep
Speaker 1: my damn call to myself while um. But the old
Speaker 1: timers there used to say, we'll let you young bucks
Speaker 1: get up and get the turkeys already for us. We're
Speaker 1: gonna sleep in, We're gonna eat a good breakfast. When
Speaker 1: you guys are now taking your nap, are coming in
Speaker 1: to eat breakfast or lunch. We're gonna go out and
Speaker 1: kill turkeys and kill all your turkeys, and well the
Speaker 1: real old timers would go out at night and crawl
Speaker 1: in under the tree. So I was just it's curious.
Speaker 1: I think I'm with you, especially as it gets you know,
Speaker 1: later later April early May, at least where I hunt. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that that mid day is just kind of
Speaker 1: you know that. That's like you said, that's the bird
Speaker 1: that when it gobbles, You're like, we got this one. Um, No,
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. So Steve, why we've
Speaker 1: got you here before we close? If you had any
Speaker 1: tipper tactic that you can give to a new turkey
Speaker 1: hunter to maybe help them find some success, Like what's
Speaker 1: the most important thing is in new turkey hunter? Um,
Speaker 1: that you would you'd share, you know, you'd care to
Speaker 1: share with them? Uh Man, so hard because what I
Speaker 1: want to say, like everything has exceptions. What I want
Speaker 1: to say is developing the ability until you start learning
Speaker 1: turkey behavior, develop the ability to control your impulses, like
Speaker 1: you're gonna make a you're gonna make more as the
Speaker 1: beginning turkey hunter you're gonna make more mistakes of moving
Speaker 1: too soon and being too aggressive early on, You're gonna
Speaker 1: move too soon to be too aggressive, a bump, too
Speaker 1: many turkeys eater. When you start learning a lot more,
Speaker 1: you'll learn like just how aggressive you can be. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't Things might not happen as quick as you
Speaker 1: want them to happen. And if you got a bird
Speaker 1: and you're calling to it, working it and he leaves,
Speaker 1: um learning when it's like, man, I would go in
Speaker 1: that direction, but I can tell by how loud the
Speaker 1: leaves are, by how open the country is. There's just
Speaker 1: no way that I'm gonna get up and he's gonna
Speaker 1: see me um so early on and be like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Admit yourself, I don't know a ton about birds.
Speaker 1: Yet every party wants to get up. But I also
Speaker 1: know that me that I'm being, I'm probably gonna blow
Speaker 1: it and just be a little more patient until you
Speaker 1: get good enough and you've watched enough turkeys to start
Speaker 1: being a little more adventurous. But I screwed up a
Speaker 1: lot by going too hard and then there he is
Speaker 1: staring at you. Yep. Yeah, So cautious patients a little
Speaker 1: more as a beginner until you kind of learn, you know,
Speaker 1: what you can get away with, yea, And that that's
Speaker 1: exactly right, like learning what you can get away with,
Speaker 1: you know, learning like I shouldn't. But in this like
Speaker 1: you'll you'll wind up saying this yourself, I shouldn't do this,
Speaker 1: but I know that right now it's okay, ye know.
Speaker 1: And and one thing, I mean, what you're saying is
Speaker 1: in order to learn that though you're gonna bump birds,
Speaker 1: I mean, even with being cautious. He's I think Steve
Speaker 1: telling you to be a little bit extra cautious on
Speaker 1: the side, but they're on the side of not moving.
Speaker 1: But then to ultimately learn what you can and can't
Speaker 1: get away with, you're gonna have to bump birds somewhere
Speaker 1: down the line. But to start with, just like you say,
Speaker 1: be a little more reserved. I really appreciate having you, hear,
Speaker 1: Steve Um. So what we're gonna say is go check
Speaker 1: out the meat eater dot com somewhere on or around
Speaker 1: line one Turkey call a really cool experience, they say.
Speaker 1: I I kind of joke with Steve as I thought
Speaker 1: his idea was wasn't great and I didn't like it
Speaker 1: to begin with. But um, I became a believer about
Speaker 1: halfway through the process, and I'm really excited to see
Speaker 1: this through. If you had to pick one time and
Speaker 1: you wanted to maybe see Steve out in the turkey
Speaker 1: wood under a tree, you're gonna want to go between
Speaker 1: nine and eleven because that was the time that Steve
Speaker 1: picked um for for being out there as far as notching,
Speaker 1: you know, his turkey tag on a turkey um Nother
Speaker 1: than that, if you're a new turkey hunter, um, maybe
Speaker 1: be a little more cautious until you kind of get
Speaker 1: the turkeys figured out what you can get away with him.
Speaker 1: As a friend of mine put it, when you feel
Speaker 1: like doing something, don't. Thanks a lot, Steve, a right.
Speaker 1: Thanks h