Speaker 1: Welcome back to cutting the Distance. I met today's guest
Speaker 1: about fifteen years ago on our local hunting forum, a
Speaker 1: hunting Washington dot com. I was just getting into turkey
Speaker 1: hunting and his tag name was Yelp, and so after
Speaker 1: kind of exchanging turkey hunting information with them for a
Speaker 1: few years, we had finally just decided to go on
Speaker 1: a hunt together, you know, mentor us a little bit,
Speaker 1: and so UM ended up joining up with Eric Broughton,
Speaker 1: great turkey color, great turkey hunter from here in Washington.
Speaker 1: Works for fish and wildlife, is out in the field
Speaker 1: a ton just really had these Northeast turkeys kind of dialed.
Speaker 1: Another cool fact about Eric is his turkey camp. They
Speaker 1: share probably one of the most famed turkey camps on
Speaker 1: the East Side. A ton of history, a ton of knowledge.
Speaker 1: I got to actually go back and hunt with Eric
Speaker 1: last year and stay at their turkey camp, and it
Speaker 1: just can tell when you go in there. You know,
Speaker 1: all the posters, all the lists on the wall. It's
Speaker 1: just rooted deep in uh, you know, turkey hunting um,
Speaker 1: you know. And and there's been a lot of camps
Speaker 1: that have shared that. So welcome to the show. Eric,
Speaker 1: Thanks Jason, great to be here. How are things looking
Speaker 1: over there on the east side this year? A lot
Speaker 1: of snow this year, things are starting to hopefully get
Speaker 1: closer to spring. But up north we have a lot
Speaker 1: of snow. So but birds are active. I watched a
Speaker 1: group this morning, a bunch of jakes strutting around with
Speaker 1: some hands. So the birds are on the right schedule.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if the weather is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little little extra snow over there, more so than normal.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna before we jump into our typical podcast here,
Speaker 1: I gotta go back and kind of relive a short
Speaker 1: moment on the first turkey hunt we ever had together.
Speaker 1: We were hunting a piece of ag that we had
Speaker 1: some permission to against, a piece of public we had
Speaker 1: been hunting on even more so. But we found ourselves
Speaker 1: that day out in the agg and we had to
Speaker 1: kind of get across the field and the only one
Speaker 1: problem and our our approach was that swamp that was
Speaker 1: between us and the timber lion where the birds just
Speaker 1: walked into. And I'll never forget the day where I
Speaker 1: think you started handing me some stuff out of your vest,
Speaker 1: or maybe you handed me your whole vest. And I'll
Speaker 1: let you finish the story from that point, but I
Speaker 1: realize your dedication to killing birds at this very moment
Speaker 1: is you continued on after that bird. That hunt was
Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal. We we had a hard time finding birds
Speaker 1: that day, and we finally saw that big tom strutting
Speaker 1: over there on the other side of the pond, and
Speaker 1: we kind of approached from the most cover side and
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, there was we were kind
Speaker 1: of at a at a point that we could not
Speaker 1: even get close enough for a shot. But the only
Speaker 1: way was to basically give you my wallet and I
Speaker 1: think my vest and anything I didn't want to get wet,
Speaker 1: And I took my shotgun and slithered down down into
Speaker 1: the edge of the water. We had a you know
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighties, you know guy grown up in high
Speaker 1: school and graduated eighty seven. You know that all those
Speaker 1: Rambo movies. I think we're in the back of my head.
Speaker 1: But I just kind of tried to get as close
Speaker 1: as I could and and uh, you know, got wet,
Speaker 1: but you know it was it was just trying to
Speaker 1: get a good close shot to try to get that
Speaker 1: bird down. And I can't remember did we get we
Speaker 1: got pretty close, but I don't know if I got
Speaker 1: close enough. Yeah, I can't remember. I know we didn't
Speaker 1: kill the bird. I can't. I couldn't remember if you
Speaker 1: had shot or not. But all I remember is we
Speaker 1: had you know, it was one of those hunts where
Speaker 1: we struggled early on this This is one of those
Speaker 1: times where you were going, you know, through the swamp.
Speaker 1: But later on it was one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's just you keep hunting, right, it's hunting, and then
Speaker 1: towards the end we we ended up all three finding
Speaker 1: a ton of success there at the end, which which
Speaker 1: turned out to be a great hunt. So we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit more. So typical to all
Speaker 1: Cutting the Distance episodes, we're going to jump into questions
Speaker 1: and answers from some of our listeners. And you have
Speaker 1: questions for me or my guests, feel free to reach
Speaker 1: out on social media message us. You can email us
Speaker 1: at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com, and we'll do
Speaker 1: our best to get to get your questions in here.
Speaker 1: And I pulled both of these from emails this week,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually gonna give some credit to the questions
Speaker 1: on where they're coming from. So the first question we
Speaker 1: have today, Eric is I'm a first year hunter. I'm
Speaker 1: looking to turkey hunt in southern California's Cleveland National Forest,
Speaker 1: which is chaparral and wood from eight hundred foot elevation
Speaker 1: all the way up to six thousand feet. Some friends
Speaker 1: say a turkey vest is the best way to carry
Speaker 1: all of your calls in gear. Others say stick with
Speaker 1: a pack. Question for us for this terrain, which do
Speaker 1: you feel is the best hike into the woods and
Speaker 1: for hunting practicality? And this is a question given to
Speaker 1: us by David Marino. You know, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: good question because you know when you're when you're trying
Speaker 1: to cover ground and then you're also changes in elevation.
Speaker 1: You know, if you got half your vest full of stuff,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult. So there's a few sling packs, UM
Speaker 1: that I would recommend. I think the new FHS Chest
Speaker 1: pack for turkeys that would be perfect on this hunt
Speaker 1: because it's it has enough things that you have in it,
Speaker 1: your calls, enough enough room, but it doesn't weigh you down.
Speaker 1: It gives you the mobility to go up in elevation
Speaker 1: and try to find those birds. UM. There's lots of
Speaker 1: turkey straps and totes and that that ability. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of guys using packs too nowadays, Um
Speaker 1: with the being able to carry a little bit more gear.
Speaker 1: But if you're you know, that's a lot warmer climate.
Speaker 1: You know, I think less is better and I think
Speaker 1: that if it was me, I would go with something
Speaker 1: simple and lightweight. Yeah, I'm I'm in that same boat. Um,
Speaker 1: we've been using the new FHF UM. You know chest harness. Um.
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would like it. I was always
Speaker 1: growing up, I had a vest that had you know, everything.
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out if I had just a chest
Speaker 1: rig on, Um, how am I going to carry my
Speaker 1: decoys and how am I going to carry this? And
Speaker 1: I realized I was carrying a lot of extra stuff.
Speaker 1: So that that chest rig. I can carry a couple
Speaker 1: of pot calls. I can carry my box call attached
Speaker 1: to the bottom if I need to all my diaphragms,
Speaker 1: my shotgun shells, you know, my my small pair of buynos.
Speaker 1: And then nowadays, if I'm using uh, you know, like
Speaker 1: a Dave Smith decoy, they come in their own carrying
Speaker 1: bag where you can just kind of sling him across
Speaker 1: your shoulder if you need to, and if it's more
Speaker 1: of that running gun and I elect to leave my
Speaker 1: my decoy back at the truck or the side by side,
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing one of my chairs kind of over
Speaker 1: my shoulder. We'll talk a little bit about that later too,
Speaker 1: is when we're setting up some of the things I
Speaker 1: like to do. But yeah, I think those chest riggs
Speaker 1: where if you'd asked me ten years ago where I was,
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to have the latest and greatest, most
Speaker 1: updated turkey vest. That chest rigg is pretty vialable and
Speaker 1: you can keep a lot of your stuff in it,
Speaker 1: especially when you're gonna be doing running and gunning. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're gonna find turkeys from eight
Speaker 1: hundred to all the way up to six thousand feet
Speaker 1: or anywhere in between, or if you're going to be
Speaker 1: hunting a section of that, but I'm going to assume David,
Speaker 1: that you're going to be you know, running and gunning
Speaker 1: and change in elevation. I want to go light and quick,
Speaker 1: and you know that that chest rigging and your gun
Speaker 1: is plenty. The next one comes from Greg Laravier, and
Speaker 1: I apologize if I mispronounced your name. But he was
Speaker 1: wondering tips and tricks for cleaning and storing our turkey
Speaker 1: mouth calls. I'll let you go first there, Eric, how
Speaker 1: you get extra life? I was just doing it the
Speaker 1: other day. I had some old Phelps mouth calls that
Speaker 1: were kind of crusty that I forgot to store right
Speaker 1: and pull them out and did the old you know,
Speaker 1: mouthwash trick, just kind of there's and you know, the
Speaker 1: alcohol is good for killing stuff, but they make some
Speaker 1: mouthwashes I found out that don't have alcohol, and I
Speaker 1: think they're they're better on the latex. So I have
Speaker 1: some of that and it's alcohol free like listerine or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I put that in old dixie cup, throw my
Speaker 1: mouth calls in there, and then I'll take some toothpicks
Speaker 1: or something, separate them, make sure they're dry, and then
Speaker 1: I'll storm in a plastic bag and get them ready
Speaker 1: for this year. It's critical that you do that. I
Speaker 1: mean when I'm on turkey hunts, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get through those because we get
Speaker 1: a month and a half here in Washington and you know,
Speaker 1: you're hunting and all kinds of weather and it's easy
Speaker 1: to pick up a chest cold or a running nose
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you don't know, you know, if you
Speaker 1: have germs on any of those calls that you're using
Speaker 1: last year. So it's either safe bit just to buy
Speaker 1: some brand new ones or or if you're going to
Speaker 1: reuse them, you know, make sure that you use that
Speaker 1: anaseptic and dry them out and keep them clean and fresh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the same with me. I've always been real hesitant,
Speaker 1: um to use mouthwashing. A lot of the recommendations online
Speaker 1: same out you know, say to use mouthwash, which is
Speaker 1: great for killing all the bugs and and stuff, and
Speaker 1: on a lot of these turkey calls, most turkey calls
Speaker 1: or triple reads if not a double reed, and there
Speaker 1: are a few single reads out there, but you've got
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of you know, saliva and stuff
Speaker 1: that makes it down in there and gets trapped. And
Speaker 1: so that's really that toothpick goes in and allows air
Speaker 1: to get down in between those layers and at least
Speaker 1: dry those out, you know. But the mouthwashing, if I
Speaker 1: did use mouthwash, I would quickly then rinse with water
Speaker 1: and then dry the water out. Um, you know, even
Speaker 1: even on a hunt. A lot of of times I
Speaker 1: like to separate that top read from the bottom two reads,
Speaker 1: or that top read from the bottom read, just because
Speaker 1: when they stick together, you don't get the rasp that
Speaker 1: you the call was designed for. So there'll be times
Speaker 1: where they make read separators or just a dull toothpick
Speaker 1: in between them just kind of keeps them separated so
Speaker 1: when they dry that the calls functional. Otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 1: find when you're out in the woods. A lot of
Speaker 1: times I have to throw a call in my mouth
Speaker 1: for a minute or two and kind of let it,
Speaker 1: you know, awaken or come back to life. Is it
Speaker 1: sits in your mouth, those reads will kind of separate
Speaker 1: again and then you'll get the rasp back out of them.
Speaker 1: And then you know, for long term storage, I like
Speaker 1: to let them just sit and dry on a counter,
Speaker 1: you know, no extra heat anything, Just let them dry
Speaker 1: over a couple hours on the counter with the two
Speaker 1: picks and them take the toothpicks out, put them in
Speaker 1: a bag, make sure they're completely dry though, and then
Speaker 1: just throw them in your fridge if you want the
Speaker 1: longest life out of them. I'm very fortunate now where
Speaker 1: you know I just go grab another handful of calls
Speaker 1: here from the shop and ghost. I'm always using fresh ones.
Speaker 1: But if I'm trying to get you multiple years out
Speaker 1: of them, which you can out of Turkey calls with
Speaker 1: ELK calls, it's a lot more difficult with single reads
Speaker 1: and calls, it gets stressed a little bit more. But
Speaker 1: you know these double and triple read turkey calls that
Speaker 1: are stretched tighter, Um, you can get a couple of
Speaker 1: years out of you. Take care of them and put
Speaker 1: them away. So um, no spot on advice, Eric, and
Speaker 1: appreciate that. And once again, you have questions of your
Speaker 1: own for us here or either my guest or myself
Speaker 1: here on the show, please email us at CTD at
Speaker 1: Phelps Gamecalls dot com or feel free to hit us
Speaker 1: up and with the social message uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: get a hold of us and we'll do our best
Speaker 1: to get it on there. So we really appreciate the
Speaker 1: questions there, David and Greg on today's show. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump into our normal discussion, but before that, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna jump into a conversation about calls. I got asked
Speaker 1: in a bigger email if if before turkey, you know,
Speaker 1: the Turkey podcasts were over, if we can jump into
Speaker 1: what does what with calls? And so I'm going to
Speaker 1: take the time and go through diaphragms to start with,
Speaker 1: and then we'll go into pot calls, and then we'll
Speaker 1: go into kind of some box calls and and I know, Eric,
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, the very first thing that I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about, um, you know, you order our
Speaker 1: calls typically in a larger frame, which you're like our
Speaker 1: pair of signature calls. Everyone's mouth, mouth shape, tongue shape,
Speaker 1: the way that they add pressure, their lung capacity is
Speaker 1: all different. And so where I might prefer call A,
Speaker 1: you might prefer call X, you know. And it's it's
Speaker 1: really tough, and it's I don't want everybody to go
Speaker 1: out and buy everything we have, but you really need
Speaker 1: to go through a little bit of trial and error
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, what type of caller you are,
Speaker 1: what type of rasp you want out of your calls,
Speaker 1: and all of that. You know, Eric, he calls on
Speaker 1: the pair of signature calls because they're built on more
Speaker 1: of what I would consider your old school wide frame,
Speaker 1: you know, the frame sizes that night Inhale and Hunter
Speaker 1: Specialties and all the the UM, what I would call
Speaker 1: your more traditional frame size is what Eric prefers for
Speaker 1: the most part. Yeah, So I use uh, I use
Speaker 1: those those larger frame mouth calls because it I have
Speaker 1: a larger palette and it allows me to you know,
Speaker 1: get that air across it. UM. And it some people's
Speaker 1: palette is more narrow, you know, or high roofed or
Speaker 1: high pit you know, high kind of a high ceiling,
Speaker 1: and so they need that smaller frame UM, similar to
Speaker 1: you know, the the elk calls UM. And I can
Speaker 1: use some of the other ones, but it seems like
Speaker 1: just the way I hold my mouth, I can't do
Speaker 1: all the calls. You know, everybody's different, you know, and
Speaker 1: so and how they blow UM. And I'm still learning myself.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that's that's where UM. You know, it's
Speaker 1: maybe what you're more more familiar with. Like I used
Speaker 1: to use those all of the time, and then once
Speaker 1: I started using these medium frames that we now build
Speaker 1: a majority of ours out of, and like me, eater line,
Speaker 1: they're more comfortable for me. But then guys like Chris
Speaker 1: Parrish and some guys that they say that you can
Speaker 1: actually articulate the larger frames a little more because there
Speaker 1: is a wider distance for that latex. So there there's
Speaker 1: lots of reasons. And then so first off, we have
Speaker 1: to find something that's comfortable. The second issue we need
Speaker 1: to do. We need to be able to steal the
Speaker 1: air off from the call and we use the tape
Speaker 1: for that and everybody, once again, everybody's mouth is different
Speaker 1: shape the tape lays and they're different. So we need
Speaker 1: to be able to steal that off. Number one to
Speaker 1: get clarity, and number two to get the volume out
Speaker 1: of the call um. You know, if you're taking a
Speaker 1: diapragm out of your mouth and you've got big folds
Speaker 1: along the edges or wrinkles, we either need to narrow
Speaker 1: up your tape. We need to cut those wrinkles out
Speaker 1: so that we can get like a smooth you know,
Speaker 1: get get the edge to lay down smooth, so no
Speaker 1: air is going up above and we're getting all the
Speaker 1: air to transfer over the latex between the latex and
Speaker 1: your tongue. So that's that's kind of the second part.
Speaker 1: And then the next part is what type of color
Speaker 1: are you there? The old school color we say, are
Speaker 1: kind of like those Huffer style callers. They want thicker latex,
Speaker 1: they want to blow harder into the call um that
Speaker 1: there's not as much uh, you know, control over those.
Speaker 1: And then there's like this new age light profum, more
Speaker 1: intricate calling that that seems to be UM kind of
Speaker 1: taking off because people want to be able to do
Speaker 1: little light bubble clucks and nice little you know, very
Speaker 1: quiet yelps and two to three note yelps, but then
Speaker 1: also be able to turn that call around and do
Speaker 1: your loud cutting and seven to nine oh yelps. So
Speaker 1: there's there's kind of two different calls, um, and and
Speaker 1: you're you're really gonna have to find what type of
Speaker 1: color you are to figure out what type of diaphragms
Speaker 1: you like this. But real quick, I'm just I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna run through kind of the rules of diaphragms. UM.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have an aluminum frame that will in case
Speaker 1: or keep latex or prophylactic stretch to a certain spec.
Speaker 1: And by spec that means we're stretching it sideways from
Speaker 1: like side to side in your mouth, and we're stretching
Speaker 1: it front to back. So we will typically stack up
Speaker 1: two to three pieces of prophylactic or latex together and
Speaker 1: intermix them based on what the result is that we want,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to contain that within this aluminum frame. Um.
Speaker 1: The tightness of that latex um in combination with the
Speaker 1: thickness of that latex will then control the tone in
Speaker 1: pitch of the call um. It's all determined by the
Speaker 1: how that latex or prof vibrates and the and the
Speaker 1: resonant vibration that we get back. And so we're a
Speaker 1: lot of this can can kind of affect itself. Right,
Speaker 1: if you go, you know, too thin and too tight,
Speaker 1: then you're going to be really high. But if you
Speaker 1: go thick and too tight, then you might be right
Speaker 1: in the right spot. So there's a lot of trial
Speaker 1: and errors. We're sitting here designing calls, um, you know,
Speaker 1: similar to what I do for you Eric back. I
Speaker 1: think three or four years ago, we kind of just
Speaker 1: figured out what calls you liked. I think I Ha's
Speaker 1: you know, built twenty or thirty different ones and sent
Speaker 1: them to you. UM. And it's really we're just doing
Speaker 1: for the customer what we find to be like the
Speaker 1: most average call. But there are guys we can build
Speaker 1: for that. Like it's really like custom fitting you for
Speaker 1: a call, and you know, we can't do that for everybody,
Speaker 1: but um, when you when you boil it down, like
Speaker 1: you can really get nitpicky and really get calls designed
Speaker 1: for what people are specific you know, specifically looking for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the difference between between your calls UM and
Speaker 1: some of the you know, store bought ones is the
Speaker 1: ability to um the standard you know that you've that
Speaker 1: you've built into the call. So like I might have
Speaker 1: to buy two or three of a different brand, and
Speaker 1: I might get one of those that I like, and
Speaker 1: when I pick up yours, you know they're very similar.
Speaker 1: So you so I can buy a couple of them,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm gonna be able to use all
Speaker 1: of them, and so it's really really great. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish I could take credit for that, But that
Speaker 1: goes back to my team, UM our builders, our builders.
Speaker 1: You know, I get to come up with the specs
Speaker 1: and you know, I work with Chris Parish really closely
Speaker 1: and some of our other um you know groups like you,
Speaker 1: and we figure out what people want. But then our
Speaker 1: builders are just top notch. They're not willing to sacrifice. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I tell them all the time, like, don't
Speaker 1: worry about turning around and throwing a call in the
Speaker 1: garbage if you feel that there's any question that it's
Speaker 1: not going to work like we're not. We're about producing quality,
Speaker 1: not necessarily quantity, so um that that all goes to them. UM.
Speaker 1: But as a generality, like these intricate colors, UM prefer
Speaker 1: thinner reads, you know, the new profs UM. They'll require
Speaker 1: a little bit less error to run. UM. But as
Speaker 1: a result, typically the pitches higher UM for a similar
Speaker 1: stretch thicker reads, they demand more airor to call on
Speaker 1: them and to get the same um you know, pitch
Speaker 1: and tone. But a lot of times if you don't
Speaker 1: overstretch a thick piece of latex, the tone's going to
Speaker 1: be lower and deeper. UM. So we're kind of playing
Speaker 1: with all of this stuff. UM. As we're designing calls.
Speaker 1: I want to get into a little bit on asp.
Speaker 1: You know, that's one thing that that is determined by
Speaker 1: typically on our calls, the top read. Um, we we
Speaker 1: stack this latex and then when we go to we
Speaker 1: we build a call and they come out of the
Speaker 1: press with three straight reads. Right. We haven't taken our
Speaker 1: scissors to them yet at all, And that over that
Speaker 1: top read overhangs just slightly, or it could be a lot,
Speaker 1: or it could be just a little bit. Um. We
Speaker 1: then go and take our cuts out of it, you know,
Speaker 1: a typical cuts like the combo cut. Um, we have
Speaker 1: a ghost cut, we have a cutter's cut, we have
Speaker 1: a bat wing. And all that is trying to accomplish
Speaker 1: is you're leaving just a little bit of latex or
Speaker 1: prophylactic overhanging the bottom two reads. And as you imagine,
Speaker 1: we're running that air underneath off of two you know,
Speaker 1: two flat or straight reads that have no cuts in,
Speaker 1: and that air comes under the latex and turns that
Speaker 1: corner and it hits those pieces of latex that are
Speaker 1: now cut overhanging, and that's what creates that buzz and
Speaker 1: creates your rasp. So that's where your rasp comes. Well,
Speaker 1: now you can start to think, well, if I was
Speaker 1: to cut a thicker back a bat wing, or if
Speaker 1: I was just to put like online our sassy split,
Speaker 1: be if I just put two V cuts and leave
Speaker 1: all the latex there, that's obviously going to be your
Speaker 1: highest rasp call. Well, I can make that latex thicker,
Speaker 1: which gives you a deeper rasp. I can make that
Speaker 1: latex thinner, which gives you more of a high pitch rasp.
Speaker 1: And so you can start to see how like the
Speaker 1: combinations are almost endless on a diaphragm. For beginners, we
Speaker 1: always recommend like a casper or like the Meat Eaters
Speaker 1: easy Clucker, real light prof with a big chunk cut
Speaker 1: out of the center, really easy to light up the
Speaker 1: trip in hand. The Meat Eater three pack like those
Speaker 1: are good beginner calls if you don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're after, those are gonna be easy to use, easy
Speaker 1: for you to get sound in the correct you know,
Speaker 1: amount of rasp. And that's kind of our little rundown,
Speaker 1: our one on one on diaphragms. And then we've already
Speaker 1: I had some you know, some care instructions here, but
Speaker 1: we pretty much went over most of that moving into
Speaker 1: pot calls, and we have a we have a story,
Speaker 1: you know, when when I first hunt it with you,
Speaker 1: I was still kind of new to the game and
Speaker 1: we had we were working a bird, and I've seen
Speaker 1: you almost roll out like this big rolodex where he
Speaker 1: rolled it out on the ground, and you must have
Speaker 1: had a little envelope of twelve fifteen strikers. And it
Speaker 1: was that day, at that moment where I realized that, hey,
Speaker 1: different woods, different strikers matter, because I think you'd went
Speaker 1: through three of your favorite strikers to start with, and
Speaker 1: the bird was just kind of disinterested and we were
Speaker 1: giving him a little bit of a break between calling,
Speaker 1: and then you hit I don't remember fourth or fifth striker,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that bird was hammer and hammering,
Speaker 1: and we called him right up to the road there.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that, but that was
Speaker 1: like a lightbulb going off in my mind. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: that fifteen. I probably have like twenty five now, but yeah,
Speaker 1: all those different materials, different thicknesses, different tips, you know,
Speaker 1: the tip of the striker. They all make it sound.
Speaker 1: You can use one call and have several different sounding hens,
Speaker 1: and uh and like you know that one that Tom
Speaker 1: might be out there, you know, infatuated with one sounding hend,
Speaker 1: you know. And I've done it several times where I
Speaker 1: just at my wits end and I just sit down
Speaker 1: and take a break, pull that thing out, and I'll
Speaker 1: let's start cranking out on a slate call or one
Speaker 1: of the glass calls, and and try different combos and
Speaker 1: then next thing, you know, I'll strike a bird just
Speaker 1: by doing that. But yeah, that that material and the
Speaker 1: hardness in the link. I mean, there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: little factors, um that go into it. Yep. So going
Speaker 1: through pot calls, it's it's very similar to what we
Speaker 1: just talked about on the diaphragms. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of factors and how they all affect each other is
Speaker 1: is sometimes unknown. There are some rule thumbs um. You know,
Speaker 1: I always attribute your playing surface, you know, your your
Speaker 1: turkey call, and this is going to be a horrible
Speaker 1: rendition if you imagine it is like key yolk. You
Speaker 1: have your top, which is your key, and then your
Speaker 1: oak is kind of is that call breaks over and
Speaker 1: you get to the deep end yuke, you know you
Speaker 1: got So I've always felt that, like the high note,
Speaker 1: the key is controlled by the playing surface, and then
Speaker 1: your your drop off, your rollover into the second note
Speaker 1: is controlled more by your soundboard, and then your wood
Speaker 1: density controls or contributes to both. Right. So within wood,
Speaker 1: one thing I want to say about anything that's made
Speaker 1: out of wood, and maybe even more so this is
Speaker 1: more specific to box calls, is wood is a naturally
Speaker 1: occurring material is as much as we try to get
Speaker 1: straight grained you know, walnuts, cherries, mahoganies, whatever wood we're using,
Speaker 1: it's natural and there's gonna be variations, and so there's
Speaker 1: always going to be slight differences from call to call
Speaker 1: because we can't control it. The same thing with naturally
Speaker 1: natural existing slate um you know, it's mined out of
Speaker 1: you know, minds in Virginia and New York or wherever
Speaker 1: it comes from. Slate you know, comes out of these
Speaker 1: naturally occurring materials are always going to have slight variabilities
Speaker 1: in them, and so that's one thing as a call
Speaker 1: builder I can't control. But we're trying to just kind
Speaker 1: of hit the middle and make sure that all these calls,
Speaker 1: you know, turn out. So back to that would we're
Speaker 1: going to adjust the sidewall thickness is on your pot
Speaker 1: calls are going to matter. Your base thickness is going
Speaker 1: to matter. How we cut your soundboard pedestals. Like if
Speaker 1: I'm when I used to turn them on a lathe,
Speaker 1: I would have a circle a circle pedestal, and then
Speaker 1: if I was to cut little notches in so that
Speaker 1: the sound can get into that center circle, or if
Speaker 1: you leave if you omit the center circle now, but
Speaker 1: now I have you know, potentially what looks like to
Speaker 1: toothpick sticks to the bottom. All of this matters way
Speaker 1: more than you can ever imagine. As we're designing these
Speaker 1: pot calls, right, how the grain lines up with these
Speaker 1: pedestals now matters. You know. All this stuff is is
Speaker 1: stuff that we're taking into account as we're building these calls.
Speaker 1: You know, the harder, more dense woods will tend to
Speaker 1: produce typically a higher pitched or a tighter type tone.
Speaker 1: Your softer, less dense woods will tend to produce a
Speaker 1: more natural, open tone. But then they're as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: there's all these combinations. If I throw a crystal, it's
Speaker 1: playing surface in or if I throw a slate, it's
Speaker 1: going to react a little bit differently. So crystal very
Speaker 1: high pitched glass slightly below it. You've got your aluminum,
Speaker 1: which seems to be very high pitched with a little
Speaker 1: bit of rasp in it. You've got your slate, which
Speaker 1: is really easy to kind of grab with your striker.
Speaker 1: It's a little more forgiving on your striker, but it
Speaker 1: also tends to be a little bit more I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is the right word. It's not as sharp,
Speaker 1: it's a little more dull. And then when you use
Speaker 1: gray slate as your soundboard, it tends to kind of
Speaker 1: dull your your rollover. Versus, if you put crystal over
Speaker 1: aluminium or alumin ouver crystal, you get a real sharp
Speaker 1: sound that maybe not everybody has. And so as a
Speaker 1: call designer, I'm working on how you combine all these
Speaker 1: materials to give you a unique sound but also still
Speaker 1: talks turkey. And then we just told the example of Eric's.
Speaker 1: You know, using multiple strikers, there are endless amounts of
Speaker 1: striker designs. You know, typically the denser the wood, the
Speaker 1: less woods needed on your striker. If it's a light,
Speaker 1: softer wood, you'll typically have a bigger striker. And it's
Speaker 1: amazing to me how certain strikers pair with certain calls
Speaker 1: or can bring a call that seems dead to life,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. So the moral of the story is
Speaker 1: play with a lot of pots, play with a lot
Speaker 1: of strikers. And one thing I want to mention is
Speaker 1: your location on the pot call. Like, I'm typically a
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock caller, so I like to set the pad
Speaker 1: of my thumb down on the bottom edge of the wood,
Speaker 1: and that kind of naturally puts a striker at twelve o'clock.
Speaker 1: But I can play a call at twelve o'clock or
Speaker 1: three o'clock and sound completely different. So play with different
Speaker 1: positions on the call, get those spots conditioned up, and yeah,
Speaker 1: just just find what works best for you. And then
Speaker 1: box calls. You know, everything seems no matter, but in
Speaker 1: its simplest form, you have a bottom block of wood
Speaker 1: that has a chamber out of it, and you have
Speaker 1: a paddle with the radius, and those are based Those
Speaker 1: calls are based strictly on friction. You need the top
Speaker 1: wood to grab the bottom wood, and as those create
Speaker 1: friction across they're they're going to make the yelp or
Speaker 1: the turkey sound that you're looking for. The wall is
Speaker 1: going to basically vibrate. So the taller the wall, the
Speaker 1: deader the vibration. The shorter the wall, the more shrill
Speaker 1: the vibration. The paddle typically will start to write on
Speaker 1: the outside of the wall, and then with that radius
Speaker 1: that's built into the box is it swipes over. You're
Speaker 1: now going from writing on the outside of the wall
Speaker 1: to the inside of the wall, and that's where you
Speaker 1: get your breakover on these calls. You know, we're going
Speaker 1: to use a bunch of different wood combinations. We typically
Speaker 1: like to have our denser, tighter wood as the paddle
Speaker 1: and our our softer, less dense wood is the base. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a ratio we kind of like to stick to.
Speaker 1: But that's the that's the fun of building calls as
Speaker 1: you can get those woods. You know, you can use
Speaker 1: real dense woods on both sides and see what sound
Speaker 1: that's gonna give you that real high pitch um more
Speaker 1: of the sound that's indicative of like a long box
Speaker 1: and you can get a real um, your raspy kind
Speaker 1: of a if you use too softer woods. So we
Speaker 1: play with that. But um, that's we're also weakening the walls.
Speaker 1: You know, you see a lot of our box calls.
Speaker 1: You'll see us with curves down the side or checkering
Speaker 1: in the side. That's in order to kind of thin
Speaker 1: and weaken that wall in order to get us to
Speaker 1: kind of dial in on that turkey sound. So um,
Speaker 1: that's that's a real quick rundown of what matters and diaphragms,
Speaker 1: pot calls and box calls. Do you have anything to
Speaker 1: add there? Eric on the on the box calls, you know,
Speaker 1: the there's different links, there's small you know, very small ones. Um,
Speaker 1: different materials, I mean, all those things. I mean I
Speaker 1: have thirty different box calls and and for different applications,
Speaker 1: you know, the old long box calls or the or
Speaker 1: great and like the wind windy days, you know, compared
Speaker 1: to maybe a cedar call or or like some of
Speaker 1: the some of the new calls that you came out
Speaker 1: with last year. You know, some of those calls just
Speaker 1: are really nice because of the types of materials that
Speaker 1: you put in them, and they're they're the right size,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But there's there's days where I'll grab
Speaker 1: the big old Quaker Boy or whatever because it's I
Speaker 1: got you know, ten mile an hour winds and that
Speaker 1: thing just cranks out some some good yelps, you know,
Speaker 1: and gets those birds to react to it. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those long boxes like to my ears, I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: playing them in my office or the ones I've played
Speaker 1: with in the past. Man, that doesn't sound exactly like
Speaker 1: I like, but the results are what's there? You get
Speaker 1: that long box out, like you said, this big Northeast
Speaker 1: country that we've hunted, you know, big distances, or you
Speaker 1: throw a little bit of wind at that big distance
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that shrill, um, ear piercing,
Speaker 1: overly loud call is what's going to get that turkey's attention.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm on board with with why you would
Speaker 1: use a long box. Um. You have you have short boxes,
Speaker 1: which tend to be a little raspier, a little bit
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to use the word hollow, but they have
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that hollow sound. Um. Most
Speaker 1: of our box calls are right down the middle. Um,
Speaker 1: we want it to be a universal call. Um, And
Speaker 1: like I say, we we've we've adjusted the sides. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: box calls are a great tool. They're the first ones
Speaker 1: though I feel that get thrown out of your vest.
Speaker 1: You know, is is if there's any chance of precipitation,
Speaker 1: box calls become pretty I don't want to say useless.
Speaker 1: There are there are treatments out there. You can treat
Speaker 1: your paddle, you can treat your edges. Um. I've always
Speaker 1: just liked wood on wood and I've got mouth calls
Speaker 1: or pot calls that will work in all weather. So
Speaker 1: the you know, the box calls kind of the first
Speaker 1: thing that gets tossed. Yeah, I agree. I use the
Speaker 1: box call probably more often on public land because you know,
Speaker 1: those turkeys have been here, and diaphragm calls and other things,
Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes having just an extra call, you know,
Speaker 1: to try sometimes that'll you know, get a bird to gobble,
Speaker 1: you know, they haven't heard it before. Something different. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: I'm And we'll get into that here. A little bit
Speaker 1: on some of this small parcels, small public type stuff
Speaker 1: that you kind of open our eyes to a little
Speaker 1: bit way back in the day, is you have to
Speaker 1: do something different. Like if everybody's got out of the
Speaker 1: truck on a certain corner and blown the same woodpecker call,
Speaker 1: like you've got to give that that. Maybe it'll work again,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll work for the hundred time, maybe it won't.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't have the ability to throw
Speaker 1: something different at them, and that's where I think, if
Speaker 1: you're as far as you know calls that make turkey
Speaker 1: noises or hind noises, that box call is sometimes your
Speaker 1: best bet. Not everybody's running a box call. A lot
Speaker 1: of the box calls sound quite a bit different from
Speaker 1: each other, um, and so you can use that to
Speaker 1: your advantage. So right now we're going to jump into
Speaker 1: to our discussion. Um, Like I said, I've got I've
Speaker 1: got the fortune to hunt with you. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we want two or three times we went over
Speaker 1: there and hunted together, and UM, I've learned a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of what I thought we knew because
Speaker 1: we had hunted the same area over there for quite
Speaker 1: a while. And UM, the first thing I want to
Speaker 1: kind of pick your brain on and have you talk
Speaker 1: about is what I would call like some small public
Speaker 1: parcels um and how you you hunt them, why you
Speaker 1: hunt them? And a lot of people just overlook these things.
Speaker 1: But what's your approach to um small public hunting? Um?
Speaker 1: And and give us a little insight to that. Yeah. There,
Speaker 1: we're really fortunate in Washington to have lots of public land,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's lots of opportunities to to find
Speaker 1: places to hunt. And you know there's there might be
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty acre quarter section, um that might
Speaker 1: be public land next to a big piece of BLM
Speaker 1: or whatever. And sometimes it's just to get you access
Speaker 1: to maybe a better piece of ground. But when I approach,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea in my in my approach is
Speaker 1: having lots of spots, you know, and with some of
Speaker 1: the online tools like on X and hunt on X,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's allowed everybody access to those and
Speaker 1: so a lot of the places that I thought I had,
Speaker 1: you know, to myself, now there's lots of people. But
Speaker 1: tried and true, Um, those early morning hunts um on
Speaker 1: public land are sometimes worth your time. But eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the time when I go back into those properties
Speaker 1: in the afternoon when people have left, those birds are
Speaker 1: more available. And it's just the cycle, you know of
Speaker 1: how those birds come off the roost and the hens
Speaker 1: you know, do their thing in the morning, and the
Speaker 1: toms are waiting for him to make a move, and
Speaker 1: then the hens take off and go to a nest
Speaker 1: and they kind of separate those tombs, and the toms
Speaker 1: will move off with the hens, and and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to call at them and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and you know, after a while, the hens lose the toms,
Speaker 1: and then the toms are wandering around trying to find,
Speaker 1: you know, the next available hen or try to regroup
Speaker 1: with maybe another tom. But you know, you show up
Speaker 1: at about eleven eleven thirty and everybody else is back
Speaker 1: at camp having a sandwich. You strike up a big
Speaker 1: old tom and so don't overlook you know, private or
Speaker 1: public land, because especially in the afternoon, and you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the lot of the locals, there's I
Speaker 1: hunt several pieces of public land. UM. One of one
Speaker 1: of the ones is pretty close to where we camp,
Speaker 1: and I built a blind on this one small parcel
Speaker 1: and I and I found this place and it's just
Speaker 1: a natural blind out of some sticks and limbs. But
Speaker 1: I found this spot within that piece of public land
Speaker 1: that my call carried to the north and to the south,
Speaker 1: and it just was a great spot to call from.
Speaker 1: And so being able to set up a blind in
Speaker 1: that area, UM, it turned out to be probably the
Speaker 1: one of the best spots where we've killed birds out
Speaker 1: of our camp. And I think we're at thirty plus
Speaker 1: tombs have taken out of that blind. And it's just
Speaker 1: the way that that call carries. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: not all public lands are are created equal. You know.
Speaker 1: Some of them have elevation, some of them don't. Some
Speaker 1: of them are right along highways, UM, a lot of
Speaker 1: them have public views. I've sat in that blind and
Speaker 1: watched people walk right by and they wave at me.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, and that's public land hunting,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, but we always kill birds in those
Speaker 1: areas because you know, we figured them out. And having
Speaker 1: that in the back of your head and just the
Speaker 1: you know, over the I don't know thirty years I've
Speaker 1: been hunting birds now, you know, having all those different
Speaker 1: memories and spots and hunts, it just adds to you know, what,
Speaker 1: what you're able to, you know, go to, you know,
Speaker 1: down the road. But um, yeah, don't give up on
Speaker 1: those those public land spots, especially in the afternoon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know when I say small parcels, like we're
Speaker 1: talking maybe a section on one side the road, in
Speaker 1: a section on any other and and I almost feel like,
Speaker 1: what you're not willing to say that that I can't
Speaker 1: kill a bird on that one little section where when
Speaker 1: I'm putting my morning plan together, I want to be
Speaker 1: able to maybe run or chase a bird or you know,
Speaker 1: chase it off the roost or hunt it off the
Speaker 1: roost where it wants to go. What I found I
Speaker 1: mean last year are we we showed up there, got
Speaker 1: to camp, unloaded, we went and bought our tags, and
Speaker 1: we rolled up to a spot and I don't think
Speaker 1: this will give it away. There was a parcel on
Speaker 1: the right that went down towards public and a parcel
Speaker 1: on the left. We showed up, hit the woodpecker call
Speaker 1: and had a tom just hammer right off the bat
Speaker 1: And I don't know how many people would have even
Speaker 1: stopped there to call, because you only had one parcel
Speaker 1: on either side of you. Albeit, we end up losing
Speaker 1: the battle. Right. We called that bird all the way
Speaker 1: into the barbed wire fence, but where that parcel we
Speaker 1: couldn't get him to cross the fence. We thought we
Speaker 1: were going to. But that was just one of those examples.
Speaker 1: Middle of the day, people driving around, nobody's stopping at
Speaker 1: these two small little sections and to have a bird. Um,
Speaker 1: we go set up and within what ten minutes we
Speaker 1: had that bird at twenty five yards, We just couldn't
Speaker 1: get him across the fence where we could finally Shyeah,
Speaker 1: we gave it everything we had too, but it was
Speaker 1: and you're you're right, you know that. The other thing
Speaker 1: to look at is how that those public lands are arranged.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, sometimes you'll have that particular one was
Speaker 1: next to a big field. You know where you know,
Speaker 1: a turkey would want to spend time, and so trying
Speaker 1: to pull birds off of other properties. Um, I've done
Speaker 1: that a lot. They might like the the next guy's
Speaker 1: land because there's water and cover, and but when the
Speaker 1: breeding's going on and those toms are looking for hims,
Speaker 1: those toms will sometimes go miles to find a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: So it's uh, yeah, we came really close that day.
Speaker 1: It was pretty awesome. We we gave him a show.
Speaker 1: We tried everything, I think every call we had yep,
Speaker 1: and and we're going to talk about it here in
Speaker 1: a little bit, but we actually he was gobbling a
Speaker 1: lot of our calls. But we also called us hen
Speaker 1: in ahead of him, right, which was something we'll talk
Speaker 1: to here in a little bit. Is calling to their
Speaker 1: hens um. So kind of staying on the same um
Speaker 1: small public chunks or you know, the public chunks we
Speaker 1: haven't kind of scattered all over here in eastern Washington,
Speaker 1: so we're not hunting I would say the best agg
Speaker 1: fields where sometimes it's clear cut, sometimes it's you know,
Speaker 1: mismanaged for us. Sometimes it's well managed for us. But
Speaker 1: a lot of our stuff is just being done off
Speaker 1: of public you know, we see what ninety It seems
Speaker 1: like they're all the birds are sometimes in the agg
Speaker 1: fields or on the private but yet we've kind of
Speaker 1: devised ways to take advantage of the public that surrounds it.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a little bit of the playbook
Speaker 1: on hunting the little public fringes around these private chunks
Speaker 1: and how you can make that payoff for you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the the looking back probably biggest tip is
Speaker 1: is if if you can get to the edge, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say that that piece of public, like if you're
Speaker 1: up in Stevens County, there's a lot of topography and
Speaker 1: a lot of those toms. You know, they'll they'll probably
Speaker 1: roost off of a ridge above those egg fields, and
Speaker 1: so knowing that they fly down into those fields to
Speaker 1: display and you know, strut around the hands and stuff that,
Speaker 1: and then those hands are probably going to go back
Speaker 1: up into the woods um to nest and so you
Speaker 1: know that they're going to come back up probably those drainages.
Speaker 1: So so try not to get impatient and try to push,
Speaker 1: you know, yourself into a situation where you're not gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna kind of get stuck and you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to move. You know, I always, I always
Speaker 1: create kind of this chess mentality, you know, I try
Speaker 1: to stay ahead of them and try to think about
Speaker 1: you know, okay if I if I don't give them
Speaker 1: the position and I stay above them, then they have
Speaker 1: to come up. It's easier to call it bird up
Speaker 1: than it is to or or at the same level
Speaker 1: than it is to bring them down. So UM, I
Speaker 1: always try to stay on the upward side of a
Speaker 1: field or an opening um and I try to you know,
Speaker 1: utilize the habitat, you know, like we did on the
Speaker 1: swamp bird. But you know, as far as where you
Speaker 1: have a place like that, usually you're going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of other hunters trying to do stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: in those areas too, because they see the birds, you know,
Speaker 1: just like we do when you when you can see
Speaker 1: them out in the open um. But knowing where those
Speaker 1: hands are going to nest and trying to stay ahead
Speaker 1: of those birds, uh and trying to outposition them and
Speaker 1: know kind of where that tom's going to be after
Speaker 1: you know that hands dropped off, um, is pretty pretty important.
Speaker 1: The other the other big factor that we have in
Speaker 1: turkey hunting in general is you know, the size of
Speaker 1: the population. If you have a lot of private land,
Speaker 1: you might have a higher Turkey population than you do
Speaker 1: on public land. UM. And knowing where you have that
Speaker 1: mosaic of public and private, UM, sometimes you'll have large populations.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty typical, you know, the first couple of
Speaker 1: weeks of the season to call in the satellite toms
Speaker 1: right and and get those you know, there's there're two
Speaker 1: year olds that leave, you know, the big tom, the
Speaker 1: dominant tom, he's got all the hands and and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're over here yelping, and you're you're
Speaker 1: calling in those two year olds. And it's easy to
Speaker 1: be successful even if you're not hunting those birds in
Speaker 1: the field. So when you're hunting sometimes smaller groups, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to be careful with trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where you're gonna set up so that you don't out
Speaker 1: position yourself. Yep, yep. I like that. And I feel
Speaker 1: one of my biggest mistakes early on when we used
Speaker 1: to hunt over there is we wouldn't try to figure
Speaker 1: out how to get back to that public behind the
Speaker 1: private until midday versus, like you had said, if you
Speaker 1: can get down in there, um, you know, early in
Speaker 1: the morning, get set up. Don't have to just the
Speaker 1: area when the birds are out in the fields and
Speaker 1: wait for those birds to come back up. Um could
Speaker 1: be one of your best players, So yeah, don't You
Speaker 1: may have to start there. There might not be a
Speaker 1: lot of action for the first couple hours, but this
Speaker 1: is a great segue into scouting. If you know that
Speaker 1: those birds are eventually going to go back up a
Speaker 1: certain drainage, you're up a certain fingerage or whatnot, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to patter to them through scouting, UM, it
Speaker 1: can pay off huge. So scouting, UM, you're over there
Speaker 1: a lot, You're out in the field, a lot working
Speaker 1: for fishing, wildlife, doing a lot of work out there.
Speaker 1: You're out in the field, so you know you're you're
Speaker 1: looking at hundreds, if not thousands of birds prior to season. Um,
Speaker 1: how do you take kind of a scouting plan and
Speaker 1: reduce it down to what you think your best hunting
Speaker 1: plan is going to be. You know, you've you've got
Speaker 1: a hundred different toms that you know of that are
Speaker 1: on public How do you figure out where you're gonna
Speaker 1: go and what you're gonna do? Is it based on
Speaker 1: where you think pressure is going to be where you've
Speaker 1: had success in the past, it's your favorite spots or
Speaker 1: what would you say, UM is the biggest determining actor
Speaker 1: on where you're actually gonna go set up on on
Speaker 1: the first morning. Yeah. I think the reality is that
Speaker 1: if I'm seeing that, most people are too. So you know,
Speaker 1: I try to I try to really look at maps
Speaker 1: and understand maps and understood in the lay of the land. UM.
Speaker 1: I think woodsmanship is so critical and being successful anymore, UM,
Speaker 1: depending on if you're hunting birds down in Lincoln County
Speaker 1: where you're you know that agg slash timberland interface and
Speaker 1: they're kind of intermingling and versus the you know mountains
Speaker 1: of you know, Northeast Washington. UM learning the road systems learning,
Speaker 1: you know, all the different access points. You know, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of things to learn about and uh and
Speaker 1: that all leads to UM. You know, we did that
Speaker 1: last year. We found a spot. We you know, we're
Speaker 1: able to get pretty close to some birds. But I
Speaker 1: took a I love mentoring new hunters and last year,
Speaker 1: just to give you a good example, I was handing
Speaker 1: a big chunk of DNR and I know there's the
Speaker 1: birds there but it's critical to know where you're gonna
Speaker 1: hunt in the morning, and so the idea. So I
Speaker 1: took him and I said, Okay, we're gonna go out
Speaker 1: right at dark, and we're gonna run a five mile
Speaker 1: area right off the highway. In every hundred yards, I
Speaker 1: was doing owl hoots, woodpecker calls, whatever I could to
Speaker 1: get them to gobble, and we located five different toms
Speaker 1: on public land, not knowing if we were going to
Speaker 1: be able to get close to him in the next day,
Speaker 1: but we had no problem finding those birds the next
Speaker 1: day and we had opportunities to get on those birds,
Speaker 1: and it was neat to show. You know, our typical
Speaker 1: hunters they run around and they don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: They just look at the birds in the field and
Speaker 1: then they try to make a plan for the next
Speaker 1: day and they sometimes it doesn't work out. I love
Speaker 1: setting it up for the night, you know, the night
Speaker 1: before and learning out where those birds are at and
Speaker 1: just trying to find you know, enough targets within the
Speaker 1: public land and you might cover you know, five miles
Speaker 1: before you know the birds shut up for the night,
Speaker 1: but at least you have some idea on where to go.
Speaker 1: The next day. And you know when this time of
Speaker 1: year is a good time of year to be driving
Speaker 1: around looking for birds on private or public and getting
Speaker 1: permission or whatever you want to do. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of its elevation and a lot of our
Speaker 1: you know, you know, the birds are low, especially like
Speaker 1: in a hard winter like this year, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of birds that are low. And you know with
Speaker 1: Miriam's they hugged that snow line as it you know,
Speaker 1: starts to dissipate from the high elevations down to the
Speaker 1: lower and you'll, you know, I used to hunt more
Speaker 1: of a higher type of bird compared to where everybody
Speaker 1: else is at down low. So sometimes i'll I'll use
Speaker 1: that intel, you know that I said before, you know,
Speaker 1: learning where the road systems are, trying to get up
Speaker 1: in there, trying to get a good vantage point. In
Speaker 1: the evenings, listening where there's birds trying not to you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to make a lot of calls to
Speaker 1: get them to gobble. They're going to gobble on their own.
Speaker 1: But and over the years, you know, even hunting into May,
Speaker 1: if you find these areas that they like to hang
Speaker 1: out in, and then the next year you know that
Speaker 1: that's where they're going. So I mean that the intel
Speaker 1: that you use this year is going to be valuable
Speaker 1: next year. And just adding that to your you know
Speaker 1: you're hunting repertoire, you know, is you're just trying to
Speaker 1: get more knowledge. And I think that you know, I've
Speaker 1: been able to say, you know, I'm out of here,
Speaker 1: there's just too many people. I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: this one spot and I'll get up in there and
Speaker 1: I'll find a bird and it doesn't take too long.
Speaker 1: If you just use locating birds in the evening, going
Speaker 1: back into those spots in the morning, knowing the lay
Speaker 1: of the land, I think that's your best best opportunity
Speaker 1: when you're talking about scouting and getting ready for your hunt. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Those are all great tips. So my next question, I
Speaker 1: know the answer to it because I've been there as
Speaker 1: you've did it. But do you ever call to the
Speaker 1: hens when they're answering and the gobbler isn't And then
Speaker 1: kind of when you're doing that, what's your strategy and
Speaker 1: your approach behind it? Yeah, the hens themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: if you know there's birds in the area, especially Tom's,
Speaker 1: you don't know if somebody harvested the tom that you
Speaker 1: were hunting earlier in the morning. You have no idea,
Speaker 1: but you know, when you get a hand to answer,
Speaker 1: especially during the early part of the season, usually means
Speaker 1: that they want some company they've been bothered by, you know,
Speaker 1: like this morning, I was watching a bunch of Jake's
Speaker 1: chasing all these hands all over the place. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with you know, tom's. You know,
Speaker 1: they especially if your population's got a lot of Tom's
Speaker 1: and them, they won't They're relentless. They'll just keep trying
Speaker 1: to get on top of a hen and get the
Speaker 1: breeding done and sneak sneak in with you know, the
Speaker 1: dominant tom will looking the other way. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: some some of those flocks are relentless, and so you
Speaker 1: know those hens they don't like being there the tom's
Speaker 1: and so um. But when you start talking to some
Speaker 1: of those uh more dominant hands, sometimes that can trigger
Speaker 1: you know, another tom to gobble and because you know,
Speaker 1: they sometimes get territorial, especially if they know that they're
Speaker 1: they're they're with a dominant tom. And you can actually
Speaker 1: strike up different conversations with hands and uh really have
Speaker 1: kind of um, a bitch fest, you know, back and
Speaker 1: forth with them to get them kind of agitated. But
Speaker 1: that can trigger a response from those gobblers to come in.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times, you know, I get that
Speaker 1: when I have you know, a decoy out or something
Speaker 1: like that, that they're they're kind of not too happy
Speaker 1: with it. It gives it realism. But but yeah, that
Speaker 1: the calling it hands sometimes can lead to you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like fishing, you know, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: just trying to drag those toms back to the boat,
Speaker 1: so um, but yeah, just trying to trying to get
Speaker 1: those hands excited enough that those toms are going to
Speaker 1: come come in. Yeah, And every every time I've gotten
Speaker 1: too a calling battle with a hand, it seems to
Speaker 1: be like a one upper or we're this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a something we talk about in a little bit
Speaker 1: on progressive calling. But it seems like we start off
Speaker 1: with like a cordial conversation, you know, five six seven,
Speaker 1: you know, yelps, clucks and she'll she'll respond, and by
Speaker 1: time you're done, it seems like you're in a screaming match.
Speaker 1: You all need each other, you know, as you call
Speaker 1: that hen in we called a hen in last year
Speaker 1: and Kansas didn't have a tomb behind her like you
Speaker 1: had mentioned, they're not always going to be there. But
Speaker 1: by time she was dirty yards away, like she was
Speaker 1: just NonStop, like trying to override us. Um that bird
Speaker 1: that we called across the canyon. Um, the very first
Speaker 1: hunt that we ended up up hunt with you at
Speaker 1: the you know, um, you know we ended up we
Speaker 1: could hear the gobbler over there, but ultimately we ended up. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you open it her just as much. And
Speaker 1: when they before they flew the canyon. So I was
Speaker 1: another one where it seems like she would answer and
Speaker 1: then we kind of slowly switched like all right, we're
Speaker 1: no longer getting uh, you know, the gobbler to answer,
Speaker 1: We're just trying to get her fired up before they
Speaker 1: all pitched. I think in that case it was like
Speaker 1: safety and numbers. I think she was like, I need
Speaker 1: some girl tis. I'm sick of these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: because and I think that's what I think that's what
Speaker 1: it was, you know. Yeah, they were up there on
Speaker 1: the mountaintop. I think it was the big tom that
Speaker 1: you killed, one of the biggest toms I think I've
Speaker 1: still ever seen over there to date, uh that hand
Speaker 1: and then the jake. But I know she got real
Speaker 1: mouthy there towards the end before they pitched over. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just when you start to talk with a hand,
Speaker 1: I think you can almost expect the conversation to like
Speaker 1: ramp up as it goes on. You know. That's it
Speaker 1: brings up a good point because in nature doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like a calling class goodness all the time. A lot
Speaker 1: of times it's silence. Yeah, and you I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't hear it, just hands the help and you know
Speaker 1: early in the morning, you do when they come down
Speaker 1: off the roost. But turkeys are pretty quiet, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think we have a you know,
Speaker 1: as hunters, we tend to overcall. And I think that
Speaker 1: to provide that I kind of feed off those hens.
Speaker 1: So if she's like soft calling, I'll soft call. If
Speaker 1: she gets bitchy, I'll get bitchy, you know. And you
Speaker 1: just kind of back and forth trying to make it
Speaker 1: more realistic. And I think that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times where I'm out in the woods, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a turkey hunter, you know, boy, he's just going
Speaker 1: crazy over there. And then out walks his hand. It's
Speaker 1: wanting company, you know, And I'm like, man, I got
Speaker 1: surprised on that one, you know. So but yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's really important to kind of like just imitate what
Speaker 1: they're doing back to you. Yeah, so we get all
Speaker 1: set up on a bird. Um. I think as you
Speaker 1: just mentioned, I think it's all a great segue and
Speaker 1: it kind of rolls right into it is you know,
Speaker 1: turkeys are relatively quiet. Hens will typic at least ramp
Speaker 1: up their calling. But if you are calling to a gobbler.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it a bunch, is it's kind of
Speaker 1: that progressive calling or ramping up the calling. We don't
Speaker 1: want to come in, you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be you know, cutting cutting up a storm and you know,
Speaker 1: loud clucks and you know, yelping fifteen times in a
Speaker 1: row and never given given you know, the woods any silence.
Speaker 1: So why do why do you feel that we always
Speaker 1: approach it with it like a progressive ramping up style,
Speaker 1: And then why does that work? Yeah? I think it's
Speaker 1: just the nature of the breeding, you know. I think
Speaker 1: that Tom to get excited the more you know they're
Speaker 1: dealing with these hens, that have shut them off, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, there's this hot gall over
Speaker 1: in the corner, you know, just like, hey, come over here,
Speaker 1: you know, and so you're so you're kind of feeding
Speaker 1: off of his excitement and you're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: if he's responsive or not, and if he's not, you
Speaker 1: kind of back off. And then in a lot of times,
Speaker 1: what I like to do is just kind of get
Speaker 1: them worked up and then I just shut up. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably one of the trigger years to having
Speaker 1: a hung up Tom. Is we tend to, you know,
Speaker 1: the natural thing is for the hen to go to him,
Speaker 1: and so he's over there, gobblin. And a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's just if it's a two
Speaker 1: year old, he doesn't know better, he's probably gonna run
Speaker 1: right in, you know, and you're gonna get a bird,
Speaker 1: you know, or you're gonna get an opportunity. But if
Speaker 1: it's another Tom, and maybe he's got a nd, you know,
Speaker 1: he's over he's weighing things in his head and he's
Speaker 1: trying to be like, well, should I stay here with
Speaker 1: Sally or should I go over there and visit that girl?
Speaker 1: She sounds more eager. You know, so you never know
Speaker 1: what situation you're in. But you know, I think that
Speaker 1: by shutting up, you kind of play hard to get
Speaker 1: And I think I've killed more birds doing that because
Speaker 1: it just it breaks them from getting hung up and
Speaker 1: it makes it kind of gets him to the point. Now,
Speaker 1: if he gobbles and he's leaving and you can tell
Speaker 1: that he's gone away, then you know he's probably got
Speaker 1: a hid, you know. But if he if he gets closer,
Speaker 1: and I've had I've had a lot of times where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, yeah, he's coming, he's come, So I
Speaker 1: don't really have to make and I might give them
Speaker 1: a little teaser and just say hey I'm here, still here,
Speaker 1: and it'll fire him back up and here he'll he'll
Speaker 1: break him, you know, and he'll come in. So um
Speaker 1: sometimes uh getting him worked up and then kind of
Speaker 1: going quiet on him and uh letting letting them kind
Speaker 1: of think that they're missing out on So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's similar to our out calling style. You know.
Speaker 1: To relate that back to anybody that maybe hasn't turkey
Speaker 1: hunted as much, is just you don't want to come
Speaker 1: at him throwing the kitchen sink. You want to slowly
Speaker 1: get them. First, you want them to even consider you, right,
Speaker 1: so it's like, all right, they've now considered me. Now
Speaker 1: they're a little bit interested. Now they you know, the
Speaker 1: next step is do they like what they hear? Do
Speaker 1: they do? They seem to be you know, and you
Speaker 1: can you can figure that out really easily by is
Speaker 1: that turkey answering my every call? Is that turkey answering
Speaker 1: every fifth call? Um? So you start to really quickly
Speaker 1: put put things together. Um. You know last year that
Speaker 1: that bird we were calling to, um. You know, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: he was answering every gobble and then he went to
Speaker 1: answer in every you know, tenth gobble and then you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're losing him, you know. So then it's
Speaker 1: either you've got to be quiet you're gonna lose him anyway.
Speaker 1: So you're you're trying to just like be a you know,
Speaker 1: think on the fly. Um. But yeah, first thing, you
Speaker 1: get their interests. Second, you need to get them committed.
Speaker 1: And then third, like you said a lot of times,
Speaker 1: shutting up is what finishes him. Because once that turkey
Speaker 1: gets to eighty ninety yards, like he already knows exactly
Speaker 1: what tree you should be under um if you're not
Speaker 1: using a decoy, get the attention off of you. I
Speaker 1: think all you can do by calling is like racist
Speaker 1: suspicion that something's not right as they get close. So
Speaker 1: that's like that ramping up, get him, get him interested,
Speaker 1: get him committed, get him worked up, and then kind
Speaker 1: of turn it off there at the end. I agree
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, and your idea that you know, shutting
Speaker 1: up can can sometimes pr the best. All right. In closing, Eric,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate having you on here. But what is
Speaker 1: one tip you feel you could give turkey hunters that
Speaker 1: would give them better odds at finding success this year? Well,
Speaker 1: I think get out there and get work working with
Speaker 1: some of your calls. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: do say, oh you don't call early, but you know,
Speaker 1: at home practice, I think just getting out. It's been
Speaker 1: a long winter here and I'm anxious just to get
Speaker 1: out and get my legs back on me. But I
Speaker 1: think that just getting to a point where you know
Speaker 1: where there's some birds, you're getting ready for season, and
Speaker 1: you got everything ready, practice getting your gun ready. This
Speaker 1: last year I went to a four ten and practicing
Speaker 1: with that, because you know that's been a fun change.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, just take the time this March and
Speaker 1: locate some birds and get all your gear ready. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's great. Hip. UM really appreciate Eric. We're gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna head over there that direction, I think the
Speaker 1: twenty eighth or so, so maybe we'll have to meet
Speaker 1: up and spend a couple of days in the woods together.
Speaker 1: M really appreciate you having having you on and good
Speaker 1: luck if I don't talk to you before season. Thanks Jason,
Speaker 1: good talking to you again.