Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 643: How to Kill Tough Turkeys No Matter Where You Hunt with Brodie Swisher

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Ep. 643: How to Kill Tough Turkeys No Matter Where You Hunt with Brodie Swisher · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the White Tailed Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand Saddler Blind, First Light,
0:12
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:18
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your guest host,
0:21
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with Brodie Swisher about
0:26
Speaker 1: all things Turkey hunting. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast,
0:43
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. Yep, you
0:46
Speaker 1: guessed it. This is not Mark Kenyon's voice. It's old
0:49
Speaker 1: Antonio keeping the lights on again while Mark is off
0:53
Speaker 1: in France, of all places, trying to win a breakdancing
0:57
Speaker 1: championship with a belly full of croissants. Now, I know
1:01
Speaker 1: he looks like he'd be pretty awkward on the dance floor,
1:03
Speaker 1: but Marcus actually got some pretty good moves and he
1:06
Speaker 1: got bumped up from the amateur category to professional, so
1:10
Speaker 1: be sure to wish him luck. I hope he comes
1:13
Speaker 1: home with some hardware for his man cave. Today I
1:16
Speaker 1: have Tennessee hunter Brodie Swisher on Brody is the editor
1:21
Speaker 1: for bowhunting dot Com and the host of the Hunting
1:23
Speaker 1: Roots podcast He also happens to be one hell of
1:26
Speaker 1: a talented deer hunter and of course a turkey hunter,
1:29
Speaker 1: which is what we are talking about today. This is
1:32
Speaker 1: the one show a year where we break from white
1:34
Speaker 1: tails to talk about gobblers. But the truth is we
1:37
Speaker 1: do mix in a little bit of deer hunting conversation
1:39
Speaker 1: as well. But basically, if you're a casual turkey hunter,
1:43
Speaker 1: a diehard turkey hunter, or even just remotely interested in
1:47
Speaker 1: starting out, I think you're going to really enjoy this episode.
1:50
Speaker 1: Brodie Swisher, do you know how special of a guy
1:53
Speaker 1: you are? Always? Man that's always always feeling special when
1:58
Speaker 1: I get to hang out with you for a few minutes.
2:00
Speaker 1: We get we do one turkey episode a year for
2:03
Speaker 1: Where to Hunt, and you are the guy this year,
2:06
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk all kinds of turkey today.
2:09
Speaker 1: Good deal, man, That's one of my favorite pieces, So
2:11
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity. Man. Always good to catch up. Yeah,
2:14
Speaker 1: I love talking turkey and other stuff because we spend
2:17
Speaker 1: so much time each year talking about deer, how to
2:19
Speaker 1: kill a deer, and where to find big bucks, how
2:21
Speaker 1: to plan hunts, and turkeys are just fun and it's
2:25
Speaker 1: just it's I was telling you, you know, this is
2:28
Speaker 1: this is a late March episode, but I was telling
2:30
Speaker 1: you back in February, I saw my first bird strutting already,
2:34
Speaker 1: you know, through thirty inches of snow up here in Minnesota.
2:37
Speaker 1: And man, the first time you see that just you know,
2:40
Speaker 1: just get you pumped. And you were saying that you
2:42
Speaker 1: were duck hunting at the end of the season down
2:44
Speaker 1: there in Tennessee and heard a bird gobble at first light,
2:47
Speaker 1: which he was obviously a little bit confused, But man,
2:50
Speaker 1: it's it's getting close now, that's right. Yeah, you know,
2:53
Speaker 1: whether it's passing by fields, seeing one strutting, whether just
2:56
Speaker 1: those early birds popping off, whatever. I mean, it's just
3:00
Speaker 1: little encounters. They're just enough to keep tugging at you
3:02
Speaker 1: to get you through, and so those are always appreciated.
3:05
Speaker 1: And yeah, man, it's it's right here looking forward to
3:07
Speaker 1: it's ton be awesome. Do you do yeah, because you
3:09
Speaker 1: got a whole passle of kids there that you're taking
3:11
Speaker 1: out at hunting. Do you do a lot of scouting
3:13
Speaker 1: before Turkey season? You know, that's kind of evolved over
3:17
Speaker 1: the years and anymore, I really don't, just because a
3:21
Speaker 1: lot of the scouting I do. You know, somebody says, oh,
3:23
Speaker 1: I saw your truck up there at whatever place, you know,
3:26
Speaker 1: and they and um, you know, I end up giving
3:30
Speaker 1: myself away, you know, if I'm part somewhere and start
3:32
Speaker 1: listening for birds before season or whatever. And so I've got,
3:35
Speaker 1: you know, the spots that I know where they've produced
3:38
Speaker 1: in the past, and um, I might go listening to
3:40
Speaker 1: week up, but I don't do a lot in advance.
3:43
Speaker 1: I usually know, man, this place, but public or private
3:45
Speaker 1: has produced, uh you know for years, and so I
3:49
Speaker 1: know they're gonna be there. And like I said, I
3:51
Speaker 1: mean a lot of times when I go start listening
3:53
Speaker 1: on public, man, I'll see somebody's got my truck park
3:55
Speaker 1: that you know, see see my truck part of the gate.
3:57
Speaker 1: And then I start getting some of that competition. And
4:00
Speaker 1: then the next time I go, there's a truck ahead
4:01
Speaker 1: of me, you know. So I just try to be
4:03
Speaker 1: subtle and uh that little sneak attack you know for me,
4:06
Speaker 1: I start taking your wife's vehicle out there, that's right. Well,
4:10
Speaker 1: I did sell them. I had a jeep and jeep
4:11
Speaker 1: Cherokee was pretty. It was a cool looking jeep. I
4:14
Speaker 1: picked up a couple of years ago. But it was
4:15
Speaker 1: it was you know the old school Cherokee box chaerokee
4:18
Speaker 1: from years back. And I had a little lift on
4:21
Speaker 1: thus with good mud tires. I mean, it's really good
4:22
Speaker 1: looking jeep. But I had everybody like, oh man, I
4:24
Speaker 1: saw your jeep. But there, you know whatever, So I
4:26
Speaker 1: started That's why I think I went back to the
4:27
Speaker 1: suburban and drove you know, my little boy's Toyota camera,
4:30
Speaker 1: you know, sneaking there with with the car. They don't
4:32
Speaker 1: have a clue what's going on, so it's whatever takes. Yeah,
4:35
Speaker 1: you don't. I mean it's scouting for turkeys. Is weird
4:38
Speaker 1: if you're if you have enough land and you know,
4:41
Speaker 1: if you're get a running gun with a shotgun, it's
4:43
Speaker 1: really like kind of unnecessary. It's fun, you know, get
4:47
Speaker 1: out there and hear him sound off, but you really
4:49
Speaker 1: don't need to. But I found, you know, being stuck here,
4:53
Speaker 1: especially here in Minnesota, on some smaller properties where you
4:56
Speaker 1: know you're not you're not going to just go chase
4:58
Speaker 1: every gobble because most of them are to be across
5:00
Speaker 1: a fence line that you know, scouting, you know, running
5:03
Speaker 1: cameras looking for some scratching and tracks and glassing when
5:08
Speaker 1: I can has really changed the game for my bow
5:11
Speaker 1: hunting turkeys and for taking my little girls out. That's right, Yeah,
5:15
Speaker 1: I think exactly that. The majority of my scouting is
5:19
Speaker 1: is where where can I get one in the field
5:21
Speaker 1: for my kids? Like you said, you know what food
5:24
Speaker 1: plot are they hitting and what time are they hitting?
5:26
Speaker 1: And that's what you mentioned. Trail cameras, Man, that's where
5:29
Speaker 1: that is so vital for me. Uh, and just that
5:32
Speaker 1: process taking intel. You know a lot of guys go
5:34
Speaker 1: pull the cameras deer season over me, pull my camera.
5:37
Speaker 1: But it's like, man, now it's the time to have
5:39
Speaker 1: that camera out. And I don't think people utilize that,
5:42
Speaker 1: you know that that trail camera enough to uh you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: they just overlook it for a scouting tool for turkeys
5:47
Speaker 1: and have it out there. Man, I've got a landowner
5:49
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, he's got to sell. He's always
5:51
Speaker 1: sending me pictures. Don't sell you to the camera. He's like, hate,
5:53
Speaker 1: he's turkeys, come kill him. It's like February, you know
5:55
Speaker 1: what I'm like, dude, you know you can't you can't
5:57
Speaker 1: do in February or it's March. Man, go ahead, No,
5:59
Speaker 1: we got another uh whatever it is, but they're popping
6:02
Speaker 1: up on his you know cell, you're a camera and
6:04
Speaker 1: he'll show me, you know, pictures of you know, half
6:07
Speaker 1: a dozen gobblers out there whatever, and so that kind
6:10
Speaker 1: of intel's huge. And you know, so you realizing him
6:13
Speaker 1: the landowner, he hates turkeys. He doesn't hunt him, but
6:15
Speaker 1: he wants them dead. And so I think, you know,
6:18
Speaker 1: just like I said, trail camera getting out there. Um,
6:22
Speaker 1: And I'm bad about that too. You know, I get
6:23
Speaker 1: kind of lazy after deer season. But then you know,
6:25
Speaker 1: realize me and that that trail camera needs to be
6:27
Speaker 1: in place. So I know, like you said, um, you
6:30
Speaker 1: can find tracks in the field. So okay, we got
6:32
Speaker 1: turkeys using this field, but where they've coming into that
6:35
Speaker 1: said they flying down in that field. Uh, you know,
6:37
Speaker 1: us hunting with our kids, we need that shot. I
6:39
Speaker 1: don't want them taking a forty fifty yard shot or
6:42
Speaker 1: whatever and they're shooting a cross bow. I want them
6:44
Speaker 1: in there, you know at ten you know, so I mean,
6:46
Speaker 1: no one where in that field they're gonna be, where
6:49
Speaker 1: in that food plot they're gonna be. Just to maximize
6:51
Speaker 1: those opportunities, um, because we do we had so many
6:53
Speaker 1: times where it happened. A couple of years ago, we're
6:56
Speaker 1: hunting a little food plot. Turkeys were in there every day. Uh,
7:00
Speaker 1: but many went wide. You know, they went forty fifty
7:02
Speaker 1: yards from us, and I wanted them closer for my boys.
7:03
Speaker 1: And one little bit of intail, one little bit of
7:06
Speaker 1: scouting watching that field the day before, the week before,
7:08
Speaker 1: whatever would have showed us. Ey, they're kind of cruising
7:10
Speaker 1: down the other side of that field and you need
7:12
Speaker 1: to be able to there and they've been done deal.
7:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, the timing thing with turkeys. You know, you
7:17
Speaker 1: really learn this when you start doing some fall turkey
7:19
Speaker 1: hunts and see how patternable they are throughout the day.
7:22
Speaker 1: But when you start getting the spring and you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: people are like, oh it busted loose. There's two year
7:26
Speaker 1: old birds running all over. It's not that random. And
7:30
Speaker 1: you started running trail cameras on some logging roads and
7:33
Speaker 1: field corners and stuff, and you start to see, you know,
7:36
Speaker 1: especially for me, you know up here in Minnesota and
7:38
Speaker 1: Wisconsin where I hunt a lot, if you're out there
7:41
Speaker 1: early season, I'm always trying to get my girls birds
7:43
Speaker 1: like opening day, just to get out before everybody else.
7:46
Speaker 1: Starts going and you see, like, you know, you want
7:50
Speaker 1: to be there on opening morning, but they're all locked
7:52
Speaker 1: up and they got an agenda. They're gonna go fill
7:54
Speaker 1: their bellies and strutt in the sun. And it's just
7:57
Speaker 1: but you know, ten o'clock in the morning, eleven o'clock,
8:00
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock. Then you get that afternoon and it's all
8:02
Speaker 1: of a sudden when you start watching them a little
8:04
Speaker 1: bit and you start getting those trail cameras out there,
8:06
Speaker 1: you're like, man, there's been a long beard through here
8:09
Speaker 1: by himself, you know, every day between one and three
8:12
Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, just cruising. You start you start
8:15
Speaker 1: seeing those patterns, and those birds are the ones that
8:17
Speaker 1: you can just work and kill. Yeah. Absolutely, that's again
8:22
Speaker 1: the same form this guy had been sending me photos.
8:25
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about scout now. I remember going
8:26
Speaker 1: out there. That was the first year I had it
8:28
Speaker 1: and went out there and did that just out listening,
8:31
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out, hey, where where the birds
8:33
Speaker 1: coming from, where they hanging out, where they roosted, all
8:34
Speaker 1: that stuff, and went out there. Never heard a peak.
8:37
Speaker 1: You know, this guy's like, dude, I got birds everywhere,
8:39
Speaker 1: and uh, never heard a bird off, you know, off
8:41
Speaker 1: the roofs. You never heard a bird gobble, you know,
8:43
Speaker 1: hung out for thirty forty five minute an hour or whatever. Nothing.
8:46
Speaker 1: You know, I go back to gusta, dude, I've never
8:48
Speaker 1: heard anything. Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, whatever it is. He
8:52
Speaker 1: shows me. He sent me a picture. He's like, here's
8:53
Speaker 1: your birds, man, And they were in the exact field
8:55
Speaker 1: that I was standing listening that morning. You know, they
8:57
Speaker 1: just they weren't talking that morning. You know. Um, whether
9:01
Speaker 1: we busted him whatever, you know, you gotta those cameras
9:04
Speaker 1: are so huge because those birds showed up midday, never
9:07
Speaker 1: made a sound off the roofs, but they showed up there,
9:09
Speaker 1: and so um, that is it's just a different beast.
9:12
Speaker 1: When when you get that turkey, that's like I said,
9:15
Speaker 1: the morning time comes, you got all the hustle, the bustle,
9:18
Speaker 1: everything's crazy. But when you get that ten to two time,
9:21
Speaker 1: you know, eleven to three, whatever it is at midday,
9:23
Speaker 1: stuff at a different animal. It's a different bird, and
9:26
Speaker 1: he can he's much more inclined to play the game
9:30
Speaker 1: then you know when he finds himself lonely. So yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: if you can if you can pin them down when
9:34
Speaker 1: they're using using some area in the middle of the day,
9:37
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm starting to see you know, last
9:40
Speaker 1: year was really interesting for us because on our opener here,
9:43
Speaker 1: I pulled the girls out of school for the afternoon hunt.
9:47
Speaker 1: And we we've been doing that a lot in the
9:49
Speaker 1: last couple of years, but it was it was bitter cold, snowing, nasty.
9:55
Speaker 1: But those birds. You know, if I if I'm working
9:57
Speaker 1: a big winter flock in the morning, I feel like
10:00
Speaker 1: I got, you know, like a five percent chance you
10:03
Speaker 1: might get somebody to peel off or you know, a
10:05
Speaker 1: little trio of Jake's or something. But that same flock
10:08
Speaker 1: in the afternoon or the evening is you can call
10:11
Speaker 1: the whole thing in a lot of times if you've
10:13
Speaker 1: got them kind of pinned down and know where they're going.
10:16
Speaker 1: And it's it's to the point now, I mean, we
10:18
Speaker 1: killed three birds last year in the first three days
10:20
Speaker 1: of the season here. All of them were in the afternoon,
10:22
Speaker 1: and it was just because you know, I don't know,
10:25
Speaker 1: they're just they're just more workable, and I think people,
10:27
Speaker 1: you know, it's you want to be out there when
10:29
Speaker 1: the sun's rising, just because it's freaking awesome. But if
10:32
Speaker 1: you want to figure out how to kill one, especially
10:34
Speaker 1: if you're bow hunting or trying to get kids on
10:36
Speaker 1: a bird, man that time, you know, when you're not
10:40
Speaker 1: running and gunning and you're not you know, like with
10:41
Speaker 1: my girls, they're not comfortable enough carrying the gun around
10:44
Speaker 1: to go. You know, we hear a gobble on that
10:46
Speaker 1: end of the farm, we're gonna sprint there. That's not happening. Like,
10:48
Speaker 1: we're gonna call them into our laps if we can.
10:51
Speaker 1: And man, it's it's pretty fun when you get them
10:53
Speaker 1: figured out that way. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, like you
10:57
Speaker 1: said that percentage of birds killed the morning, I don't
11:01
Speaker 1: know I've heard it before, but I mean it's it's
11:03
Speaker 1: pretty slim. That's what we always hope for, we strive for.
11:05
Speaker 1: We're like, hey, I got this bird gobbling. You know,
11:08
Speaker 1: we all dream about the bird that pitches down and
11:10
Speaker 1: you shoot him off the roost, and that's kind of
11:12
Speaker 1: that textbook deal. We still have some of those, you know,
11:15
Speaker 1: had a few of those this past spring, but more
11:17
Speaker 1: times than not, it's it's like you said, it's that
11:19
Speaker 1: bird it's up in the day, that afternoon bird. It didn't.
11:22
Speaker 1: He's he's a different animal. And um, like you said,
11:26
Speaker 1: many he's just so much more workable. And even when
11:29
Speaker 1: he's got I don't know, I noticed it, Even even
11:31
Speaker 1: when he's got hens, you know, like in the morning,
11:33
Speaker 1: it's like when he's ended up, not a chance, not
11:35
Speaker 1: a chance. But then in the afternoon, I don't know,
11:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's just trying to add to
11:40
Speaker 1: the add to the flock or what, but he's much
11:43
Speaker 1: more inclined to come and investigate, comes, try to swoop
11:45
Speaker 1: up another hen or whatever, and just ach much more
11:48
Speaker 1: doable bird, workable bird in that afternoon. And I think
11:52
Speaker 1: things are just a whole lot more chill. Like you said,
11:54
Speaker 1: if you can be in that right spot and that
11:55
Speaker 1: food that food plot filled, whatever that's it's in and
12:00
Speaker 1: route back to his you know, stomping grounds back to
12:02
Speaker 1: his bedroom, I'd say your your chances are so much
12:06
Speaker 1: more better, more better than in the afternoon. Um, just
12:11
Speaker 1: like I said, it's just a workable bird, you know,
12:13
Speaker 1: at that time of day. So when is the opener
12:16
Speaker 1: down there for you guys, dude, this year we got
12:18
Speaker 1: bumped back. It's crazy. It's gonna be interesting to see
12:21
Speaker 1: we've got our whole seas got pushed back two weeks.
12:24
Speaker 1: So it's just they're digging at any kind of answers
12:28
Speaker 1: for our decline. See we've here in the South man,
12:30
Speaker 1: it's the numbers are supposedly the numbers are down. Uh,
12:34
Speaker 1: we had our best spring we've ever had in twenty
12:36
Speaker 1: twenty two. So I mean I got new you know,
12:39
Speaker 1: got on some new farms, and it's just good for
12:41
Speaker 1: my family, my kids. We had our best year yet.
12:43
Speaker 1: But a lot of guys will tell you that. You know,
12:45
Speaker 1: the Turkey population is way down, and so Tennessee's one
12:49
Speaker 1: of the number of states they're just taking chipping away
12:52
Speaker 1: some different you know, variables to see. Uh, they're saying,
12:54
Speaker 1: let's bump it back, not interrupt any you know breeding
12:57
Speaker 1: it's going on, give them a chance to do their
12:59
Speaker 1: breeding and push it back a little bit. Um. So
13:03
Speaker 1: they did that. They moved it from the first weekend
13:05
Speaker 1: in April to mid April. So yeah, you know, it's
13:09
Speaker 1: when I was talking to guy earlier today, it's like
13:12
Speaker 1: I would like to see him maybe let's you know,
13:14
Speaker 1: the first year, let's maybe try one week. Let's just
13:16
Speaker 1: instead of such a drastic you know, half a month,
13:18
Speaker 1: as it's a lot of time there, and then you
13:20
Speaker 1: you move it back, you're moving into the end of May.
13:22
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I mean there's a good chance you've
13:24
Speaker 1: got hens and poles running around at that point, you know. So,
13:27
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, it's a it's gonna be interesting. But
13:30
Speaker 1: uh used to be. Last weekend in March was uh
13:33
Speaker 1: the youth season. Uh, first weekend in April was you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: the opener. So it's gonna be it's gonna be a
13:39
Speaker 1: different deal because I mean a lot of those birds,
13:41
Speaker 1: like I said, the first part of you know, these
13:43
Speaker 1: next few weeks, first part of March, excuse the end
13:45
Speaker 1: of March. Uh, those new youth hunts were just flocked up,
13:49
Speaker 1: crazy birds everywhere talking, you know, just big bunches, your
13:53
Speaker 1: big groups. Um. By mid April and things are breaking
13:56
Speaker 1: up pretty good and um, so it's gonna be interesting
13:59
Speaker 1: to see what no pressure does and if it's gonna
14:02
Speaker 1: pay off and be worth such a drastic move, you
14:05
Speaker 1: know for a two week swing. Yeah, I mean that's
14:07
Speaker 1: something you're gonna see. You know, you mentioned that in
14:09
Speaker 1: other states where they're you know, Numeraska's dealing with us
14:13
Speaker 1: a lot of Southern states. Are you know, where the
14:15
Speaker 1: hell are our birds? And you know, if you talk
14:18
Speaker 1: to Chamberlain and some of these guys who are real
14:20
Speaker 1: Turkey researchers, I mean, one of one of the thoughts
14:23
Speaker 1: behind it is we've gotten so good at killing dominant birds.
14:26
Speaker 1: And it's not you know, at least the way I
14:29
Speaker 1: understand it. It's not just you shoot the dominant tom
14:32
Speaker 1: and the next guy in line gets to breed all
14:34
Speaker 1: the hens. They have to sort everything out again and
14:37
Speaker 1: figure out who's the dominant bird. And so it's it's
14:40
Speaker 1: delaying or or even shutting down the breeding in some situations.
14:45
Speaker 1: And you know, which seems crazy that we could affect
14:49
Speaker 1: it that much. But when you start looking at like
14:52
Speaker 1: Dave Smith decoys and some of these high end decoys
14:54
Speaker 1: that are I mean, they're they're like a game changer,
14:58
Speaker 1: and people have this stuff figured out pretty well with
15:00
Speaker 1: blinds and like we've we've got a lot of advantages.
15:03
Speaker 1: Now you go, okay, maybe that is the reason the
15:06
Speaker 1: resource is suffering. But you're you're seeing those kind of
15:09
Speaker 1: situations where they're bumping the season back to let some
15:11
Speaker 1: breeding happen, and you know, changing things, cutting down on
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, instead of three tags, you can buy two
15:18
Speaker 1: or you know, you're you're seeing a change out there. Yeah,
15:22
Speaker 1: and that's it for us, the swing in the season. Uh.
15:25
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned the fanning, and I don't know
15:27
Speaker 1: if we want to go there and get into that one,
15:29
Speaker 1: because that's as a topic in and of itself, that's
15:31
Speaker 1: hot as anything. But you know, they for Tennessee anyway,
15:35
Speaker 1: they said no more you know, reaping of turkeys on
15:38
Speaker 1: public land, um, which to me, that's kind of a
15:42
Speaker 1: you know, that ought to be a no brainer, I guess.
15:44
Speaker 1: I mean, really, you know, some of these public pieces
15:46
Speaker 1: of the ground, wildlife management areas, and you're the number
15:49
Speaker 1: of hunters that are out there and you're crawling behind
15:51
Speaker 1: a strutting fan. I mean, that's just it goes against
15:55
Speaker 1: everything we ever taught right and hunter education, you know,
15:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's asking for trouble, people getting
15:59
Speaker 1: shot every year doing that stuff. But so they taken that.
16:02
Speaker 1: There was a lot of talk whether just to band
16:04
Speaker 1: the reaping, you know, the full struck you deal altogether,
16:07
Speaker 1: the knocked it out of public land hunting for twenty
16:10
Speaker 1: twenty three. Uh, there's that, and then there was also
16:14
Speaker 1: the there's a Jake sticulation, there's a Jake regulation. You
16:18
Speaker 1: can only shoot guys. I'm gonna make something up if
16:20
Speaker 1: I try to tell it, but it's it's something like
16:22
Speaker 1: you can only shoot one Jake or you you know,
16:26
Speaker 1: something like that your first bird of the year can
16:28
Speaker 1: be or you know, you shoot one Jake the year
16:30
Speaker 1: or something of that effect. And um, I don't know
16:33
Speaker 1: that it does. Man. I was crushed. I was crushed.
16:38
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, hold up. You know
16:40
Speaker 1: you're killing me now, you know, you take my spikes
16:42
Speaker 1: and you take my Jakes, and we're gonna have problems
16:44
Speaker 1: you know, here and you know, any anywhere. So um so, yeah,
16:49
Speaker 1: I don't. Like I said, it's some variation of that.
16:52
Speaker 1: It's a limitation on the jokes you can kill, which
16:55
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at it, Mississippi. I think, you know,
16:56
Speaker 1: down the road is I think it's got to be
16:59
Speaker 1: a five or six inch beard or something like that.
17:01
Speaker 1: And then you know, maybe the kids can you know,
17:04
Speaker 1: maybe it's under sixteen can shoot a Jake or Jake.
17:06
Speaker 1: You know, kid can shoot one Jake or something in
17:09
Speaker 1: his lifetime, you know, But I don't. So they've got
17:12
Speaker 1: that I mean, it's not like it's unheard of. Um,
17:16
Speaker 1: but you know, it goes against you know, it goes
17:18
Speaker 1: against the whole thing of who you know, some guys
17:20
Speaker 1: just want to shoot a bird, you know what I'm saying,
17:22
Speaker 1: And um, now you're gonna make him wait on a
17:25
Speaker 1: long beard or what. I don't know. It's a lot
17:27
Speaker 1: of that stuff. I get it. Um, opportunities. I like
17:31
Speaker 1: for you know, anybody to have opportunity, you know. I
17:33
Speaker 1: get the things saying, well, kids can shoot a jake.
17:35
Speaker 1: What about the first time or that's twenty five, you know,
17:38
Speaker 1: and he or she wants to go out there, and like, dude,
17:40
Speaker 1: I just want to shoot one of them. I've never
17:42
Speaker 1: done it before. Here comes a whole gaggle of you know,
17:44
Speaker 1: Jake's coming up there in your business and to tell
17:47
Speaker 1: that person, Hey, I know you've never killed one before,
17:49
Speaker 1: but you can't shoot that one, you know. And so
17:51
Speaker 1: I don't know some of those those rules and regulations.
17:54
Speaker 1: I think that you know, oversee some stuff that you
17:56
Speaker 1: know probably shouldn't be there. But I think Tennessee's doing
18:00
Speaker 1: if I understand it correctly, you can still shoot one.
18:02
Speaker 1: You can have that you have that ground shrink and
18:04
Speaker 1: gets you in the uh and still it away with
18:06
Speaker 1: one bird. So we'll say, yeah, I mean they're all
18:08
Speaker 1: just you know, some of those chipping away, trying to
18:11
Speaker 1: chip away some of those different issues to help you
18:13
Speaker 1: figure out what what might work, you know, And they
18:16
Speaker 1: that was the other thing. They liberalized the take of
18:20
Speaker 1: trapping of coons, you know, made it pretty much a
18:22
Speaker 1: year round instead of you know, whatever it was, you know,
18:26
Speaker 1: November to February. Now it's pretty much year round trapping
18:28
Speaker 1: and coons. So those some good steps from that kind
18:31
Speaker 1: of stuff. You know, could we do I mean, the
18:33
Speaker 1: coons that issue and you know coon skunks, possible, any
18:36
Speaker 1: of that stuff. I mean we quit trapping those when
18:38
Speaker 1: the fur prices went down the market shot and nobody
18:41
Speaker 1: wanted to trap them, and here they are exploded. So yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: the next predator things a big deal. And you know
18:47
Speaker 1: it's tough right when you when you talk about some
18:50
Speaker 1: of those regulations and talk about not being able to
18:52
Speaker 1: shoot a jake or whatever, it doesn't make me feel
18:55
Speaker 1: all that good. You know, we have enough. We have
18:58
Speaker 1: enough issues with dear man management and quality deer management
19:02
Speaker 1: stuff and whatever side of the fence you fall on that,
19:04
Speaker 1: and then you think about turkeys, and one of the
19:05
Speaker 1: beautiful things about turkey hunting was it's like no trophies,
19:09
Speaker 1: like not really, you know, and just to go out
19:12
Speaker 1: and enjoy it. But you know, I don't mind state
19:16
Speaker 1: game agencies trying stuff like that if it's for the
19:18
Speaker 1: resource and they go, you know, this is a three
19:20
Speaker 1: year thing or whatever, and if it's if it doesn't
19:23
Speaker 1: make a difference, we're going back or we're gonna try
19:25
Speaker 1: something different. What I hate is when you get stuff
19:27
Speaker 1: like that that's supposed to be for the resource and
19:30
Speaker 1: then it's just like that's just the way it is forever.
19:33
Speaker 1: You know. We we dealt with that. And maybe I'm
19:35
Speaker 1: a little spicy over this, but you know, one of
19:38
Speaker 1: my favorite hunts that we used to have was the
19:39
Speaker 1: January grouse season and northern Wisconsin because nobody was there.
19:44
Speaker 1: I mean, we my buddies and I would go over
19:46
Speaker 1: there like two weekends a year in January and hunt
19:49
Speaker 1: those birds on public land and I never saw another
19:52
Speaker 1: hunter in like a decade. And then they you know,
19:55
Speaker 1: they had some grouse population issues and so they go, well,
19:59
Speaker 1: they you know, an easy win is to get rid
20:00
Speaker 1: of this and it's like, well, where the January hunters
20:04
Speaker 1: killing that many birds? Like where's the data on this?
20:07
Speaker 1: Like is there is there a way we could address this?
20:09
Speaker 1: And then when you see it go away because there
20:11
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot behind that. It was just like
20:13
Speaker 1: kind of a politically easy win. It wouldn't piss off
20:16
Speaker 1: too many people. But there's that opportunity's gone forever and
20:19
Speaker 1: you're like, well, did it did it work? You know,
20:21
Speaker 1: like where do we end up with a sacrifice? Because
20:24
Speaker 1: it's gone. So we lost a hunting opportunity, But did
20:26
Speaker 1: it matter? And if it did, like you know, I mean,
20:29
Speaker 1: if the if the numbers improved and it was linked
20:31
Speaker 1: to that, great, But if it was just one of
20:33
Speaker 1: those things where they're like, well let's just do this,
20:35
Speaker 1: that that bothers me a little. Yeah, it's like, show
20:38
Speaker 1: me some show me some research, show me some data,
20:40
Speaker 1: all that stuff, because I'm all four. Whatever helps out,
20:44
Speaker 1: you know, I'm all four. You know you're telling me
20:46
Speaker 1: that this, you know, this tactic is going to help
20:48
Speaker 1: us get our population by whatever percentage by the next
20:50
Speaker 1: couple of years. We'll shoot, let's do that. If we
20:53
Speaker 1: need to drop a bird, if we need to, uh,
20:55
Speaker 1: you know, out of the bag limit if we need
20:56
Speaker 1: to not use this, do use this whatever. If you
20:59
Speaker 1: tell me that's to boost things up, and here's your
21:01
Speaker 1: your research and the facts that are going to back
21:05
Speaker 1: that up, that's great. Let's do that. And then after
21:06
Speaker 1: three or four years and not show me some more
21:09
Speaker 1: data you know that this, this did you know? But man,
21:11
Speaker 1: I see so much listening to podcasts earlier today, you know,
21:15
Speaker 1: from Turkey biologists, and it's like, my gosh, man, the
21:18
Speaker 1: more I listen to these guys that are the scientists
21:21
Speaker 1: of biologists on stuff, the more I feel like, I
21:23
Speaker 1: don't think we know. I don't think they know, you know.
21:26
Speaker 1: I mean so many times they say, well, we really
21:28
Speaker 1: don't have the information we need. And that's kind of
21:30
Speaker 1: what I hear a lot. You know, it's kind of scary.
21:33
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I think we're kind of
21:36
Speaker 1: being reactive and stuff a lot of it instead of,
21:39
Speaker 1: you know, stuff we should have been kind of tracking
21:40
Speaker 1: the last ten or twenty years, you know, when things
21:43
Speaker 1: were good. I think everybody just loved the heyday of
21:45
Speaker 1: Turkey population and now we're kind of reactive to the fact.
21:48
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, something's going on, and nobody seems to know.
21:51
Speaker 1: You know. Like I said, when I see these questions,
21:53
Speaker 1: they're like, Hi, we just really don't have the you know,
21:55
Speaker 1: we just want the information we need or the research
21:57
Speaker 1: we need. And I'm like, well, when are we going
22:00
Speaker 1: to get that? You know? I mean we've been talking
22:03
Speaker 1: last three or four years now, Okay, we're almost you know,
22:05
Speaker 1: in five years now, wondering what's up with this stuff?
22:08
Speaker 1: Five years you could probably have gotten some pretty good
22:10
Speaker 1: data collected there. And um, but yeah, like you said,
22:13
Speaker 1: I mean you start getting to where you take something
22:16
Speaker 1: out and say let's just try this, and it's gone.
22:19
Speaker 1: You don't usually get those things back, you know what
22:20
Speaker 1: I'm saying. You don't get that bird back, that that
22:22
Speaker 1: extra bag limit, that season, that extra weekend, whatever it is.
22:26
Speaker 1: They take it out, and most time it's that slippery slope.
22:30
Speaker 1: One time's gone, it's not coming back, and then it's
22:32
Speaker 1: that much easier for them to say, well, let's just
22:34
Speaker 1: hatch away next one, you know, And so anyone, it's tough.
22:38
Speaker 1: It is. It's a lot of political bullcraft that goes on.
22:41
Speaker 1: And Tennessee, are our folks here pretty good? I know
22:44
Speaker 1: some of the commissioners here and making the rules regulations.
22:47
Speaker 1: But man, it's a lot of politics in it that
22:51
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to slide the right way. Yeah, I
22:54
Speaker 1: mean I wish I used to have to do a
22:56
Speaker 1: lot of interviews with you know, dear biology and wildlife researchers,
23:01
Speaker 1: and you know, how do they count deer and how
23:03
Speaker 1: do they count wolves? And you know, how do we
23:05
Speaker 1: know from year to year that we have this number?
23:06
Speaker 1: And where do the estimates come from? And it really
23:10
Speaker 1: it's really like a lose lose situation because they counting
23:15
Speaker 1: wild game populations is hard, like I mean, impossible really
23:20
Speaker 1: to be all that accurate a lot of times. But
23:23
Speaker 1: I always look at it, like over in Wisconsin, when
23:25
Speaker 1: you register a deer, you have to answer this little
23:28
Speaker 1: survey on you know, how many deer did you see today?
23:32
Speaker 1: How is it the weather? How do you rate the weather?
23:33
Speaker 1: How much? How many hours did you put in? And
23:36
Speaker 1: I look at that and I go, Man, if you're
23:37
Speaker 1: if you're worried about turkey populations, if you know, if
23:40
Speaker 1: you have people register them online, they could create any
23:44
Speaker 1: kind of survey they want and at least track you know,
23:47
Speaker 1: it's anecdotal but it would be such a large sample
23:49
Speaker 1: size that you could say, wow, you know, two years
23:52
Speaker 1: ago people were reporting seeing you know, six turkeys per hunt.
23:55
Speaker 1: Now they're seeing three. You know, and you know, of
23:58
Speaker 1: course you've got to bias there with successful hunters and whatever,
24:01
Speaker 1: but at least I think we could be gathering more
24:03
Speaker 1: information from the people all over your state who are
24:06
Speaker 1: out there, sitting there in the spring or sitting there
24:09
Speaker 1: in the fall, and at least get some of these
24:11
Speaker 1: trends down and go, okay, is this because because you
24:14
Speaker 1: always wonder, you know, I mean, you listen to people
24:16
Speaker 1: bitch in certain places, like well there's no deer left,
24:19
Speaker 1: and then you go hunt there and you have an
24:20
Speaker 1: awesome hunt. You're like, okay, well who am I hearing from? Like,
24:25
Speaker 1: and those some of those voices are really loud, and
24:28
Speaker 1: sometimes when you meet those people, you're like, well, you
24:31
Speaker 1: just really don't know what you're doing. Like it's it's
24:34
Speaker 1: too small of a sample size and too vocal of
24:36
Speaker 1: a you know, of a little segment there. And so
24:40
Speaker 1: I'd like to see that because that would be that's
24:42
Speaker 1: a really small ask for hunters to have to fill
24:45
Speaker 1: out a little survey or something that's already you know,
24:47
Speaker 1: it comes right up on your phone when you or
24:49
Speaker 1: you know, to buy your next license. Okay, well we
24:52
Speaker 1: see you bought turkey license. You were unsuccessful? What happened?
24:55
Speaker 1: And just fill it all right there and we could
24:57
Speaker 1: be gathering some real data and at least using that. Yeah, now,
25:03
Speaker 1: I'd be huge. You not hear them talking about you know,
25:05
Speaker 1: some of these bologers talk about purchasing with some of
25:07
Speaker 1: these funds that have been raised for different fundraisers for
25:10
Speaker 1: you know, NWTA for Turkeys for Tomorrow or whatever it is,
25:13
Speaker 1: and they're buying these I don't know what they calm
25:16
Speaker 1: song meters or whatever. It's basically just you know, some
25:19
Speaker 1: kind of device that they're hanging up in the woods
25:21
Speaker 1: and the trees, and it's basically gathering if from what
25:24
Speaker 1: I understand, you know, the number of gobbles, you know,
25:27
Speaker 1: like it's just a recording device. I had all the
25:29
Speaker 1: recording device and sticking it up out there. Of course,
25:32
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder like, okay, that's the best we
25:34
Speaker 1: can do for researchers, have a you know, audio recorder
25:38
Speaker 1: out there recording gobbles, and I mean, I know all
25:41
Speaker 1: that different stuff comes in and the data there and
25:43
Speaker 1: they can figure out whatever. And they they're smarter with
25:45
Speaker 1: that than I am, obviously. But just like you talk about,
25:48
Speaker 1: you take a survey and then and everybody becomes a
25:52
Speaker 1: recording device. Right, how many turkeys did you hear this morning?
25:55
Speaker 1: How many turkeys did you know? What's the most you heard,
25:56
Speaker 1: what's the least you heard? You know, whatever? Did you hear? Turkeys?
25:59
Speaker 1: You know, goblin every hunt, like you said, now, every person,
26:03
Speaker 1: every hundred and the spending of the spring turkey woods
26:05
Speaker 1: is somebody collecting data, you know, and so that would
26:09
Speaker 1: be huge and like you said, him, you're talking five
26:10
Speaker 1: minutes survey. You know, you talk about the number of
26:12
Speaker 1: birds they saw, a number of birds that you know,
26:14
Speaker 1: the number of Jake's number of you know, all that stuff.
26:18
Speaker 1: It could be, like you said, a real simple ask,
26:21
Speaker 1: but huge data for them just to work off of.
26:24
Speaker 1: And then you know, just kind of get across the
26:26
Speaker 1: board because like you said, you you can't go by
26:28
Speaker 1: what you hear somebody griping about on Facebook, Like you said,
26:31
Speaker 1: the loudest, the loudest voices that guy that's ticked off
26:34
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have anywhere to go. Yeah, ever sees
26:36
Speaker 1: a turkey. If he does see a turkey, can't kill it,
26:39
Speaker 1: you know. And he's just a horrible hunter, but he's
26:41
Speaker 1: gonna be the one that's gonna be riping the most,
26:43
Speaker 1: the loudest voice out there. The reality is he just
26:46
Speaker 1: sucks at playing the game. And so here's you know,
26:49
Speaker 1: that's not you know, you can't figure that into the averages,
26:52
Speaker 1: you know, as far as that goes so well, and
26:54
Speaker 1: you would have the opportunity too. I mean, I was
26:56
Speaker 1: out the other day in my driveway. One of my
26:58
Speaker 1: neighbors walked up and he's a he's a big Upland hunter.
27:01
Speaker 1: He's got English setters and really good dude, and so
27:04
Speaker 1: he came up to talk to me about last pheasant
27:06
Speaker 1: season and we were bsen and he hunts probably, you know,
27:12
Speaker 1: maybe an hour and a half kind of from where
27:14
Speaker 1: I like to hunt, so a little bit different part
27:16
Speaker 1: of the state, but not real far. And he knows
27:18
Speaker 1: his stuff, He has good dogs, hunts hard, and he's like, man,
27:22
Speaker 1: we really struggled to find birds this year, and you know,
27:24
Speaker 1: we shot some roosters, but it wasn't it wasn't great,
27:27
Speaker 1: you know. And I was like, and he's asking me
27:29
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, I had an amazing year.
27:31
Speaker 1: We were covered in birds. And if you had enough people,
27:35
Speaker 1: you know, filling out a survey or whatever, you could say, well, geez,
27:38
Speaker 1: this region seems to be hopping. This one seems to
27:40
Speaker 1: be on a decline. Why what's the habitat? Like, what's
27:44
Speaker 1: what's the predator situation like? And it probably could allow
27:46
Speaker 1: them to tweak you know, some management strategies around you know,
27:51
Speaker 1: high and low populations. But you know, it's easy. It's
27:54
Speaker 1: easy to sit here and solve all these problems without
27:58
Speaker 1: having to do anything. You when you're going to start
28:01
Speaker 1: out there down there in Tennessee, what's your decoy situation like?
28:05
Speaker 1: Because I I have people ask me all the time
28:08
Speaker 1: about my my setups, and I'm I'm real particular about decoys.
28:12
Speaker 1: What do you what do you go with? Like opening morning?
28:15
Speaker 1: What's your setups? Your setup? Yeah, so my routine has
28:19
Speaker 1: typically been and if I can, if I can carry
28:22
Speaker 1: a few decoys. Um, I've got a laid down hen
28:28
Speaker 1: um or we call them the breeder. It's just a
28:30
Speaker 1: hen and um it's on the ground like she's laid
28:33
Speaker 1: down ready to be bred. I'll have that and I'll
28:36
Speaker 1: have a jake standing behind. I use the avan X decoys. Um,
28:39
Speaker 1: and so yeah, that little breeder hen laying on the ground.
28:42
Speaker 1: I've got this Jake decoy and I don't know what
28:44
Speaker 1: they call it, Jake deco, but it's just a crazy
28:46
Speaker 1: good looking Jake decoys. Not strutting. Is it like a
28:49
Speaker 1: quarter strut? Maybe a quarter strut um, Yeah, maybe that
28:54
Speaker 1: quarter strut. He's just got a little boat up look
28:56
Speaker 1: about him or you know whatever. I can't remember which
28:58
Speaker 1: one it is, but I put that right behind it,
29:01
Speaker 1: like he's ready to step up on her. And then
29:03
Speaker 1: I use that feeder. So I use a reader, the feeder,
29:07
Speaker 1: and then that jake and the feeder. To me, it's
29:09
Speaker 1: just a head down. She's got her head down kind of,
29:11
Speaker 1: you know, like she's pecking away, you know, bugging across
29:14
Speaker 1: the field. But that one, to me, and if I
29:16
Speaker 1: had just one, I'd probably use her because that one there,
29:20
Speaker 1: to me, it works as a confidence because that you know, um,
29:23
Speaker 1: that bird whatever it be hens a bit a gobbler.
29:26
Speaker 1: He looks out there and he sees, oh man, she's
29:29
Speaker 1: over there, she's feed she got food, she's content, No
29:31
Speaker 1: no problems. It's just like waterfowl. You know, you got
29:34
Speaker 1: that old confidence equal to whatever it is you use
29:37
Speaker 1: for me. That's it. For the turkey, it's just that feeder.
29:39
Speaker 1: She's she's content, she's chill. But also the fact that
29:42
Speaker 1: she's got her head down and she's feeding, and that
29:46
Speaker 1: God refers many times that gobbler comes up and he
29:48
Speaker 1: just keeps pushing him to come on because he's like, hey,
29:51
Speaker 1: look at me, ship, you know whatever I mean, He's like,
29:54
Speaker 1: you know, look up. And so she's not paying hm attention.
29:56
Speaker 1: It's almost like she's playing hard to get and he's
29:58
Speaker 1: got to come on in. He'll strut you, come out
30:00
Speaker 1: of street and walk on the Hey look at me,
30:01
Speaker 1: you know if she's not looking, and he marches right
30:03
Speaker 1: in because he wants her to get her head up
30:05
Speaker 1: and look. And so I like those two. That feeder
30:08
Speaker 1: is a good is a good piece. That's kind of mine.
30:11
Speaker 1: I use those three if I can have the opportunity
30:13
Speaker 1: to haul him in using whatever the setup is. I'll
30:16
Speaker 1: usually start off with that. When the ground is, you know,
30:19
Speaker 1: not a lot of grass growing up, fields are still low.
30:22
Speaker 1: Um that breeder jake behind it again, man, No, No,
30:25
Speaker 1: Goblin's right mine's gonna put up with that little pump
30:28
Speaker 1: Jake stand up and getting ready to breed one of
30:29
Speaker 1: the you know hens. I mean, what is he missing
30:31
Speaker 1: out on? You know? So, I mean that one's pretty
30:33
Speaker 1: pretty strong and it just seems to work. I don't
30:37
Speaker 1: know that early season, well, I say early see, it
30:40
Speaker 1: seems to work all along, but early on, I mean
30:42
Speaker 1: once once everything gets up and you know, the field
30:45
Speaker 1: start growing up, that that you know, breed or laying
30:47
Speaker 1: on the ground is kind of out of the options
30:49
Speaker 1: because it's you know, just at it's laying down, they
30:51
Speaker 1: don't see it. But um, that's a pretty tough setup, man.
30:54
Speaker 1: That's kind of my favorite setup is ands using that
30:56
Speaker 1: just again, it's kind of pushing him. You try to
30:58
Speaker 1: take off that bird and let him know as a
31:01
Speaker 1: young punk in here hanging out with the ladies and
31:04
Speaker 1: he had a hard time handle that one. Yeah, that's
31:07
Speaker 1: that's typically what I go with. I'm using Dave Smith's
31:10
Speaker 1: but it's the same principle where you've got to lay
31:13
Speaker 1: down hand and you know, I try to get her
31:16
Speaker 1: on like a little golpher mound or something, just to
31:19
Speaker 1: get her up just a little bit. And then I
31:20
Speaker 1: pushed that jake decoy right down on top of her,
31:23
Speaker 1: so he's like five inches off the ground, because I
31:26
Speaker 1: see a lot of people put their decoys way up high.
31:28
Speaker 1: Looks a little bit unnatural. And then I'll usually do
31:31
Speaker 1: a feeder and then he's got a leading hand decoy
31:34
Speaker 1: it's called and she's always way out front, and if
31:37
Speaker 1: you string them in the same direction, they it just
31:40
Speaker 1: looks like that little flock following that lead hand she's
31:43
Speaker 1: going somewhere, and that you know, the jake's trailing and
31:46
Speaker 1: he so often, like you're talking about, where you kind
31:49
Speaker 1: of get that bird. You know, sometimes they just come
31:50
Speaker 1: barreling in and you're good to go, but you get
31:53
Speaker 1: that one that's like, I'm kind of looking I'm showing
31:55
Speaker 1: you my stuff. I get a lot of times, especially
31:57
Speaker 1: when i'm bow hunting him where that birdled. Get to
32:00
Speaker 1: lake forty fifty yards and he'll finally pick up that
32:03
Speaker 1: that breeder hen on the ground, and then his demeanor
32:06
Speaker 1: will change and he goes, oh, I'm not I'm not
32:08
Speaker 1: showing off anymore. I'm coming in. And you see that
32:11
Speaker 1: switch a lot of times. If you see it, you know,
32:14
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in like a lower spot in
32:16
Speaker 1: the field, like a corner. A lot of times will
32:18
Speaker 1: be a little lower and those birds will get there
32:20
Speaker 1: and they can see everything pretty good, but they get
32:22
Speaker 1: to a point where they catch that that little hen
32:25
Speaker 1: peeking up underneath that jake, and then it's just freaking over.
32:28
Speaker 1: Oh dude, you can see it in that body language.
32:31
Speaker 1: He's so pissed when he realized what's going on. And
32:35
Speaker 1: like you said, he goes from that kind of that
32:37
Speaker 1: looking and struttingto just that meanwalk he does and he
32:40
Speaker 1: comes in. You can just stiff leg and he's marching
32:42
Speaker 1: and you see them feathers bristled up and he's coming
32:44
Speaker 1: and he's just he's pissed, man. And it's like, like
32:48
Speaker 1: you said, he the switch is flipped and he's coming,
32:52
Speaker 1: and I mean, gosh, that's exciting when it happens. And
32:56
Speaker 1: you know he's coming in there to clean house, and
33:00
Speaker 1: do you know you're not tolerating that stuff. So yeah,
33:02
Speaker 1: that's a fun deal. Like Mike finally kept up limps.
33:17
Speaker 1: Let's say you around a just a typical field edge
33:19
Speaker 1: set up in the morning. You know those birds are
33:21
Speaker 1: gonna be walking out right, so I kind of set
33:24
Speaker 1: them up where, you know, whatever my shot is, I
33:26
Speaker 1: want that that jake there, you know that jake had
33:29
Speaker 1: that twenty yards or if I'm bow hunting at seven
33:31
Speaker 1: eight yards whatever, And then it looks like everything's coming
33:34
Speaker 1: out of the woods in a line, you know, like
33:36
Speaker 1: turkeys would do. Or I'll reverse it in the evening.
33:39
Speaker 1: But I always have my birds facing the same way,
33:43
Speaker 1: travel in the same direction. I see people, and I
33:45
Speaker 1: know they kill birds, so it probably doesn't matter. But
33:47
Speaker 1: you see people will put you know, like they're jake
33:49
Speaker 1: or they're strutter right in the middle, and then they'll
33:51
Speaker 1: put a hen on one side facing away and a
33:52
Speaker 1: hen on the other side facing away, and you know
33:55
Speaker 1: they're dumb birds, right, But you look at that and
33:57
Speaker 1: you go, I never see wild birds do that. They're
34:01
Speaker 1: always going the same direction. Yeah. Well, and when you
34:04
Speaker 1: do see them looking different directions of what is it?
34:06
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's you know, a coyote just came in
34:08
Speaker 1: the field and so all of a sudden, their heads
34:09
Speaker 1: up and they're all looking. You know what I'm saying,
34:11
Speaker 1: They're looking, and they're all different directions, like checking things out.
34:14
Speaker 1: To me, when I see different heads going different ways,
34:16
Speaker 1: something just spook them and they're looking for danger, you know.
34:19
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that's a good sign of something
34:23
Speaker 1: ain't right when you know, heads are just periscope and
34:26
Speaker 1: they're looking all around, and so yeah, that's definitely not
34:30
Speaker 1: a natural presentation. And if anything at all, it's a
34:34
Speaker 1: it's a sign of you know, of danger and them
34:37
Speaker 1: on alert and looking and trying to figure out something
34:39
Speaker 1: that's up, you know. So yeah, you try to keep them,
34:42
Speaker 1: like you said, at that lead hen, that lead hen
34:44
Speaker 1: decoy or whatever, just keeping that natural float. Man, they're
34:47
Speaker 1: falling somebody, you know, and she's going to be that
34:49
Speaker 1: hen out front and the rest of them just kind
34:51
Speaker 1: of picking along. You got that little string of birds
34:54
Speaker 1: lined out there. So that's a you know, very natural presentation,
34:58
Speaker 1: you know, to have that set up where everybody's doing
35:01
Speaker 1: that natural flow falling it that lead him. Yeah, I
35:04
Speaker 1: think it might all be in my head, but I
35:06
Speaker 1: think some of that stuff when you're hunting pressured birds matters.
35:09
Speaker 1: And I also think I've really gotten into uh set
35:14
Speaker 1: ups on like logging roads where I can I can
35:16
Speaker 1: catch him like mid morning where those birds, you know,
35:20
Speaker 1: they hear you. You can do some scratching and throw
35:22
Speaker 1: it in there and mix it up a little bit,
35:24
Speaker 1: but they gotta get pretty close to lay eyes on it.
35:28
Speaker 1: They don't get that stand two hundred yards away and
35:30
Speaker 1: check stuff out kind of thing. They're gonna have to
35:32
Speaker 1: get there to see it. But you don't, you know,
35:34
Speaker 1: you don't want to surprise them, but you want to
35:36
Speaker 1: get it where it's like he pops out forty fifty
35:38
Speaker 1: yards away and sees it, and then he's already in
35:40
Speaker 1: that red zone where when he catches that breeder underneath there,
35:43
Speaker 1: he's coming. And you get those situations with the right
35:46
Speaker 1: birds that you scout it out and it's like it's
35:48
Speaker 1: almost a guarantee. Yeah, yeah, that's fine, that's right, almost,
35:53
Speaker 1: unless you're hunting with me, and then it's it's I'm
35:56
Speaker 1: the should have been here yesterday, guy, I'm the small
36:00
Speaker 1: percentage that went wrong. That's that's my that's my hunts usually.
36:02
Speaker 1: But now it's it's fun like so when it when
36:06
Speaker 1: it happens, when it works, it's good stuff. But like
36:08
Speaker 1: you said, man, having them where they can see it
36:10
Speaker 1: from a distance, it's the key to me. Um, you know,
36:13
Speaker 1: having a let them see it, no big surprises, you know,
36:15
Speaker 1: they freak out and pop out and right on top
36:17
Speaker 1: of Oh, you know, he's a whole flock right here
36:18
Speaker 1: and didn't even see him here, you know whatever. Um,
36:21
Speaker 1: But I like when you're talking about, like they said,
36:23
Speaker 1: that situation where they see him from a distance, he
36:26
Speaker 1: gets a chance to, you know, in his terms, you know,
36:30
Speaker 1: see it and take a look at it, investigate it,
36:32
Speaker 1: and then march on in when he see what he
36:34
Speaker 1: likes or don't like it. I mean, if it's in
36:36
Speaker 1: a spot where they expect to see birds too. I mean,
36:38
Speaker 1: if you've got a scout at Elton, there's you know,
36:40
Speaker 1: birds going through that logging road at you know, seven
36:43
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, at ten o'clock in the morning
36:45
Speaker 1: and noon, and it's pretty consistent back and forth movement.
36:48
Speaker 1: It just seems like they're just like, oh, I've heard calling,
36:51
Speaker 1: I hear scratching, and now I see this little flock
36:54
Speaker 1: that I kind of expected to bump into. Uh do
36:56
Speaker 1: you do Do you do much bow hunting for him?
36:59
Speaker 1: Or you mostly shotgun hunting them? Shot you gun mostly?
37:03
Speaker 1: These days? You know a lot, It was a lot.
37:05
Speaker 1: There was a time when you know, back in the
37:07
Speaker 1: double bull days, you know, uh, that was like all
37:10
Speaker 1: I did. You know, I was doing some pro staff
37:12
Speaker 1: with those guys, and that's all I did, man and
37:15
Speaker 1: bow hunting them and just um, you know, ground blind
37:18
Speaker 1: and and that was that was it. And I enjoyed
37:21
Speaker 1: that time, you know, I enjoyed those days. And uh
37:24
Speaker 1: and I don't really know what changed for me other
37:25
Speaker 1: than maybe just coming back when we're in Montana. That's
37:27
Speaker 1: all we did. You know, we bow on them. You
37:29
Speaker 1: can only shoot one bird there, so kind and they
37:31
Speaker 1: were so easy. There was kind of like, you know,
37:33
Speaker 1: be a little silly to chaste them with a shotgun.
37:35
Speaker 1: You know, it's just a perfect deal for the bow.
37:37
Speaker 1: Moved back here chasing these Eastern birds again and just
37:41
Speaker 1: a challenge of it, but also hunting with my kids
37:43
Speaker 1: and whatever kind of transition back to toting that that
37:46
Speaker 1: shotgun now, I just I loved, you know, the running gun.
37:48
Speaker 1: I kind of got tired of sitting in a blind
37:51
Speaker 1: hearing birds do something, knowing I need to be over there,
37:54
Speaker 1: not right here. Uh and you know, wanted to bail
37:57
Speaker 1: out that line and take off and so and not
37:59
Speaker 1: a few can't run a gun with the bow, but
38:01
Speaker 1: I mean I love that crawling sneak and moving whatever,
38:05
Speaker 1: you know, just position. It's a chess match of turkey hunting.
38:08
Speaker 1: So these days, man, we've been talking the little twenty
38:11
Speaker 1: gage and even this last year we shot him all
38:13
Speaker 1: at four ten, you know, so it's been kind of
38:15
Speaker 1: cool getting back into that. But yeah, Karen, the boomsticks
38:18
Speaker 1: kind of been fun, you know, these last few years.
38:20
Speaker 1: I'll enjoyed it again. If you can't find any of
38:23
Speaker 1: those four ten turkey shells this year, it's because my
38:25
Speaker 1: daughters shot them all last year. We are We're not
38:30
Speaker 1: hunting with four tens anymore. We for the first couple
38:33
Speaker 1: of years they did really well with it, and then
38:35
Speaker 1: we had such an epic meltdown last year that it
38:41
Speaker 1: was it was something I've never seen before. I went
38:44
Speaker 1: out there with those little girls and we had nine
38:46
Speaker 1: shells and we got one bird and I had to
38:48
Speaker 1: strangle that pup at the end because we were out
38:51
Speaker 1: of shells, and I was just at one point there
38:54
Speaker 1: everybody in the blinds crying and I'm going, guys, I
38:57
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what we have going wrong.
39:00
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. We got a reset
39:02
Speaker 1: and it was a it was a meltdown that. I mean,
39:06
Speaker 1: imagine shooting nine times at turkeys in your decoys and
39:10
Speaker 1: you kill one jake. And and that was a jake
39:13
Speaker 1: that got shot in the ass on the first shot.
39:16
Speaker 1: It was when I was digging in my backpack for
39:20
Speaker 1: that second box of shells, I was like, guys, we
39:22
Speaker 1: gotta get our ship together. I don't know, I don't
39:24
Speaker 1: know how to do this any other way. But then
39:27
Speaker 1: I took my one daughter, who didn't kill but missed
39:29
Speaker 1: a lot that day the next day, and I brought
39:33
Speaker 1: the twelve gage out and put it in the death grip,
39:35
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's gonna be a different deal here, honey, Like,
39:38
Speaker 1: just just put that on the base of his neck.
39:40
Speaker 1: And she after she shot her bird that night, and
39:43
Speaker 1: she said, I'm never going back to that other gun.
39:45
Speaker 1: I'm like, good, I can't find any shells for it anyway,
39:47
Speaker 1: Like yeah, right right, oh dude. And man, that is
39:51
Speaker 1: a special kind of panic when you know you just
39:55
Speaker 1: ran out of that you just shot your last shill,
39:58
Speaker 1: flung your last arrow. That sucker is still standing there,
40:01
Speaker 1: you know, standing there alive, and you're like, oh my gosh.
40:03
Speaker 1: And you're like you said, you're digging through your jacket,
40:06
Speaker 1: your pockets, your turkey vest and there ain't another shell
40:09
Speaker 1: that suckers out there still alive or flopping or running
40:12
Speaker 1: or whatever. And oh my gosh, I've lived that one
40:15
Speaker 1: out so many times, and that just the panic that
40:17
Speaker 1: sets in, thinking, oh my gosh, I'm out of shells,
40:18
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna still beat this thing with the gun,
40:20
Speaker 1: you know, and whatever and run down whatever. It's a yeah,
40:25
Speaker 1: I feel you, man, that's a that's a meltdown. I
40:27
Speaker 1: don't care if I with the girls, boys or whatever.
40:30
Speaker 1: That's uh, well, you've been there and experience that, and
40:32
Speaker 1: it's you're doing your best you can, you know, I am,
40:36
Speaker 1: you know, just to keep cool. I'm pretty bad about that. Like, yeah,
40:39
Speaker 1: me too, dude. Come on, you know, you're like, you're like, hey,
40:42
Speaker 1: what's out here to have a good time? And then
40:43
Speaker 1: that last shell goes and birds still stick? What do
40:45
Speaker 1: you do it? You come on, you get your crapping there.
40:48
Speaker 1: You gotta shoot the bird, shoot him in the net,
40:50
Speaker 1: come on, please, you know whatever, and just falling apart. Yeah,
40:54
Speaker 1: I was. It was a rough one. It was a
40:57
Speaker 1: rough one. And the worst part was is I mean,
41:01
Speaker 1: so my dad the first shot, you know, called in
41:04
Speaker 1: three jakes. She hit it. Not great, but not terrible,
41:08
Speaker 1: you know. I mean those tungs and shells they're gonna
41:10
Speaker 1: they do some damage. And he was he was showing
41:12
Speaker 1: some signs of having trouble. But by the time we
41:16
Speaker 1: were nine shells deep into it and we still only
41:19
Speaker 1: had that bird to go run down. I was just like,
41:23
Speaker 1: I never thought that could happen, you know. I mean
41:26
Speaker 1: they they killed their first birds when they were eight,
41:29
Speaker 1: smoked them, shot birds when they were nine, smoked them.
41:32
Speaker 1: And then we had that night and it was like
41:35
Speaker 1: it was crazy. I mean it pulled them out of
41:37
Speaker 1: school at two o'clock and we were we were out
41:39
Speaker 1: of shells at like four thirty. I mean, it's just
41:43
Speaker 1: what do you think happened? What did happen? What do
41:45
Speaker 1: you think? Man? I don't know, because we patterned that
41:48
Speaker 1: gun and it was, you know, fifteen yards. I just
41:53
Speaker 1: think I think they were they just picked their head
41:57
Speaker 1: up or they were they just weren't aiming. Like something happened.
42:02
Speaker 1: I don't know. And it was it wasn't because of
42:03
Speaker 1: the gun. It wasn't because the shelves. It was just
42:05
Speaker 1: they might have been flinching, and you know that kind
42:08
Speaker 1: of stuff when it goes wrong and it starts to spiral,
42:12
Speaker 1: you know, the pressure kicks in and you know, you
42:15
Speaker 1: just my one daughter, I know for sure, she just
42:18
Speaker 1: really rushes her shot. Yeah, and so she was just
42:21
Speaker 1: rushing it too much. And the other one she's usually
42:25
Speaker 1: really good, like she's been good on deer and turkeys
42:28
Speaker 1: and really, you know, the year before, made a great
42:31
Speaker 1: shot on a big tom and just I think it
42:33
Speaker 1: was just not when it didn't go right the first time.
42:37
Speaker 1: Then it was real downhill and you know, like you said,
42:40
Speaker 1: like I didn't handle it well, you know after because
42:42
Speaker 1: a single shot gun. Like after a while, I was like, guys, yeah,
42:46
Speaker 1: like we're not this is like a gift. I mean
42:49
Speaker 1: we're calling in birds like you're not gonna get this.
42:52
Speaker 1: You know, it's a first day you're hunting them, and
42:54
Speaker 1: but it's whatever. You know, they're they liked that little
42:58
Speaker 1: gun and it's a great gun for it can be,
43:02
Speaker 1: you know, real effective. But I'm like, we're going a
43:05
Speaker 1: little more horsepower next time, and we're just gonna do
43:08
Speaker 1: it differently. And you know, it happens. And then I
43:12
Speaker 1: took my brother in law and my nephew out like
43:17
Speaker 1: three days after we had that epic meltdown, and we
43:20
Speaker 1: got into the blind in the rain. I started calling
43:24
Speaker 1: and like twenty minutes later I looked up in seven
43:26
Speaker 1: redheads popped over the hill and here comes seven Jakes
43:29
Speaker 1: and you know, right into the decoys and he's like,
43:33
Speaker 1: I think he was twelve last spring, big kid. I'm like,
43:37
Speaker 1: just pick one, they're all whatever. And he shoots and
43:42
Speaker 1: they're all just standing there. So another shell in the chamber,
43:46
Speaker 1: and I said, just whatever one you want, buddy, And
43:49
Speaker 1: I watched him shoot that gun and I'll bet he
43:53
Speaker 1: didn't hold I bet that bead wasn't within six feet
43:56
Speaker 1: of those turkeys, just like just like pulled the trigger
43:59
Speaker 1: to get it over with. So I was like, well,
44:01
Speaker 1: we gotta stop this and reset because we can't be
44:04
Speaker 1: shooting up into outer space here, like we gotta and
44:08
Speaker 1: you know, so it's just you forget, you know. I mean,
44:11
Speaker 1: you take people who are pretty accustomed to carrying a
44:14
Speaker 1: shotgun around and they blasted a bunch of turkeys that
44:16
Speaker 1: turkey walks in Most of the time, it's like this
44:19
Speaker 1: is the easy part, you know, Like getting them there
44:22
Speaker 1: is mostly the hard part. But you take kids out
44:25
Speaker 1: and you realize like and you know, I mean it's
44:28
Speaker 1: it really kind of helps you shore up your game too,
44:31
Speaker 1: Like did they see us a little bit? Or like
44:34
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna have a more movement and less
44:36
Speaker 1: confidence in the shot. So you better you better have
44:39
Speaker 1: your decoy placement right. You better know how to call,
44:42
Speaker 1: like especially in the heat of the moment you get
44:43
Speaker 1: one shot at it doesn't bust away. You better know
44:45
Speaker 1: how to keep them birds around. And it's it's a
44:48
Speaker 1: high stress environment. Oh my gosh, I'm sweating just here.
44:55
Speaker 1: And you talk about it like this is kind of crafted.
44:58
Speaker 1: It's about this time of year. I'll start having Mayor's
45:00
Speaker 1: about this very thing you just describe in the last
45:02
Speaker 1: five minutes. Um, you know, just sat, you know, my
45:06
Speaker 1: kid just shooting, closing his eyes, shooting, you know, shooting
45:09
Speaker 1: out of Just get it over with, just send it
45:12
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, panic mode, um all that stuff. Man,
45:16
Speaker 1: don't let the social media photos fool you. I can
45:19
Speaker 1: be you know, go from Daddy of the Year too.
45:21
Speaker 1: He wrote his zero real quick, you know in that
45:24
Speaker 1: ground line or you know whatever. But it's just because
45:28
Speaker 1: you do we forget about the fact, hey we're dealing
45:30
Speaker 1: with the nine year old. You know, we're dealing with
45:32
Speaker 1: the nine year old and can't really comprehend or handle
45:35
Speaker 1: the crap, you know, load of crap we're putting on
45:37
Speaker 1: him right now, you know, I mean, I think about it.
45:40
Speaker 1: You know, my heart's racing so bad when that golber
45:43
Speaker 1: comes in there. You know, with a forty five year old, man,
45:46
Speaker 1: it's up more than I can handle. A lot of
45:48
Speaker 1: times I get so tore up and I think I'm
45:50
Speaker 1: gonna you know, it's gonna kill me. I'm gonna have
45:51
Speaker 1: a heart attack right here. I'm so excited these birds
45:53
Speaker 1: are coming, marching right to me. And then we dumped
45:56
Speaker 1: that onto a nine or ten year old. I'm like,
45:58
Speaker 1: come on, do what's your problem? I mean, you shot
46:01
Speaker 1: a whole box of shells that was sixty bucks. He
46:03
Speaker 1: ain't got a turkey yet. What are you doing? You know,
46:05
Speaker 1: like you're gonna pay me back for that crap? What
46:08
Speaker 1: are you doing? You know? And oh, but it's um
46:13
Speaker 1: that's what makes it fun. Like you said, we pull
46:15
Speaker 1: our hair out just just trying to get them there.
46:18
Speaker 1: But like you said, man, the biggest thing for me
46:21
Speaker 1: is like, dude, I watched you knock the crap out
46:25
Speaker 1: of one last year. You know, you you've you've been
46:27
Speaker 1: killing and then they had one of these meltdowns and
46:29
Speaker 1: they came hit the broad side of a barn in
46:30
Speaker 1: your one and like, what happened to you? Where'd my
46:33
Speaker 1: kid go? You know? And uh, you know. So it's fun, man,
46:37
Speaker 1: But you know what would be the best thing for
46:38
Speaker 1: guys like us in that situation if we could just
46:41
Speaker 1: look up into the sky and see or replay of
46:43
Speaker 1: like our last five years of hunting and all the
46:45
Speaker 1: mistakes we've made. That's true. I mean I think about
46:48
Speaker 1: that stuff all the time. I mean I I had
46:49
Speaker 1: a meltdown mussloader hunting deer this year. Really good opportunities
46:53
Speaker 1: slipped through my fingers, you know what. I pheasant hunt
46:56
Speaker 1: like a fiend, right, Like I love it. And they'll
46:59
Speaker 1: be days, you know, I'll go a whole weekend and
47:03
Speaker 1: maybe not miss a rooster, like and then I'll have
47:06
Speaker 1: a hunt where I'll have a bird get up and
47:08
Speaker 1: fly straight away and I'll empty both barrels and go
47:11
Speaker 1: never touched him. And then five minutes later I'll have
47:13
Speaker 1: another rooster. Do the exact same thing, and you're like,
47:16
Speaker 1: I think I could have got that bird with a
47:18
Speaker 1: sling shot and I can't get it with my twelve
47:20
Speaker 1: gage here, and it's you know, you forget. But I
47:23
Speaker 1: think part of it is, you know, you take your
47:25
Speaker 1: kids out, or you take a nubie out, you're like,
47:26
Speaker 1: I just I want it for him so bad, you know,
47:30
Speaker 1: and then you just lose your ship, and then you
47:31
Speaker 1: feel bad, and it's just it's just tough. It's tough
47:34
Speaker 1: being a idiot. I guess. Yeah. Well, there's been a
47:38
Speaker 1: lot of those times where I have I finally cool
47:40
Speaker 1: it off. I'm like, hey, dude, I'm sorry. I'm not
47:42
Speaker 1: sure what all I said back there. Oh, but I
47:45
Speaker 1: want to apologize for any of it. It It wasn't cool,
47:47
Speaker 1: and what's with most of it? But my old n
47:50
Speaker 1: well he just turned ten, ten year old Rambo heat
47:54
Speaker 1: he'll call you out of that stuff though, you know,
47:56
Speaker 1: he's he's the one that you know, I don't know.
47:59
Speaker 1: I mean, he's the one and he's want to shot
48:01
Speaker 1: the antler off off of the deer this year and
48:03
Speaker 1: that was you know, ending of himself. And he called that,
48:05
Speaker 1: He called me out to dad. Look, I was aiming
48:07
Speaker 1: right where I needed to. You just didn't aim. You
48:09
Speaker 1: didn't have a gun dialed in. You know, you didn't
48:11
Speaker 1: have a dialed in right, you know. And he was right,
48:13
Speaker 1: went back and shot and the gun was off, you know.
48:14
Speaker 1: And um, but he'll I can't remember what it was
48:17
Speaker 1: this season. Um, same kind of deal. Idem melt And
48:20
Speaker 1: then I'm like, you, man, I missed several of the
48:22
Speaker 1: rifle hunting. Just do meet, you know, no killing and
48:26
Speaker 1: miss several And he said, uh, he's in the blind.
48:28
Speaker 1: He said, Dad, you will men, you'll meet to shoot one.
48:30
Speaker 1: And like, I'm like, shut your mouth. If I won't
48:33
Speaker 1: want you shoot one, I'll hang you the gun, you know.
48:35
Speaker 1: And and he didn't. He didn't. He thought I was kidding,
48:37
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I tried to act like I
48:39
Speaker 1: was kidding. I was serious, Like you should you know,
48:41
Speaker 1: sit there and shut your mouth. Boy, you watch watch me.
48:43
Speaker 1: And he's like why I just and he didn't pick
48:45
Speaker 1: up on that, and he was like he took a
48:46
Speaker 1: step first. He said, I was just figured since you
48:48
Speaker 1: weren't hitting any I can try. Yeah. Uh. They's sitting
48:53
Speaker 1: him home, you know, get back to the truck. Boy.
48:55
Speaker 1: But my kids like it when I screw up to
48:57
Speaker 1: believe me. Yeah, and it yeah, you know, it just
49:01
Speaker 1: is what it is. What are you using for calls?
49:04
Speaker 1: What's what's your go to? Man? I I've got a
49:07
Speaker 1: little bit of everything, but I you know, I've got
49:09
Speaker 1: some mouth calls. I've just been last little a couple
49:12
Speaker 1: of years, been trying to figure out how to you know,
49:14
Speaker 1: just hand make my own calls. Mouth calls. Got a
49:16
Speaker 1: little press now use and so um I'll use you know,
49:19
Speaker 1: mouth calls. That's all my always my goal too. That's
49:22
Speaker 1: tell folks say you got to learn to use a
49:24
Speaker 1: mouth call. I mean, yeah, A box call. To me,
49:26
Speaker 1: I've got a box call sounds as good as anything
49:27
Speaker 1: out there. It's a little Premost uh tall timber Gabriel
49:31
Speaker 1: from Premost, and it's it's not you know, they just
49:34
Speaker 1: started it in the last five years or so, but
49:36
Speaker 1: it just sounds so good. I mean, it's just such
49:37
Speaker 1: a good sound. A box call. I love it. Um,
49:41
Speaker 1: you know, slate calls, whatever. But man, people, you gotta
49:45
Speaker 1: learn use that mouth call because that bird's gonna hang
49:47
Speaker 1: up out there in sixty to seventy yards and you
49:48
Speaker 1: need just a little more, need one little note whatever,
49:50
Speaker 1: let him know, and you reach over that slate call,
49:53
Speaker 1: reach over and wrap off in that box called that
49:55
Speaker 1: little movement that you busted. And so I try to
49:58
Speaker 1: make sure I've always got that mouth call my cheek
50:00
Speaker 1: and encourage people to make sure they know how to
50:02
Speaker 1: use it, just to hit that little note without moving,
50:05
Speaker 1: you know, be able to hit one more one more
50:07
Speaker 1: lick on the call without having to move and and uh,
50:09
Speaker 1: you know, put a call in your hands. So mouth call, uh,
50:13
Speaker 1: that box call is always close by. Again. It's like,
50:15
Speaker 1: you know, it's got so much more volume. On those
50:16
Speaker 1: windy days, I like to use it and just really
50:19
Speaker 1: want to crank out some volume. And man, I've been
50:21
Speaker 1: carrying a little tooth call. Um, I've got a little
50:23
Speaker 1: tooth call that I've been using and last a little bit.
50:26
Speaker 1: And it's just whatever I can. I can yelp on it,
50:30
Speaker 1: but I can gobble on it. One thing I use
50:32
Speaker 1: a lot is just doing at Jake Calcin you know,
50:35
Speaker 1: on it, you know, sort of that half gobble u
50:37
Speaker 1: or Jake Calcin sound whatever. And um, I think it's
50:40
Speaker 1: just fact. It's something different, you know, not many guys
50:42
Speaker 1: are doing it. It's a sound that you know, a
50:44
Speaker 1: lot of guys really may not know how to do
50:46
Speaker 1: or can't do, and so it's just something different. I'm
50:48
Speaker 1: always looking for something different than everybody else that's got
50:51
Speaker 1: the same old you know, same old call. You know,
50:54
Speaker 1: everybody the brothers got the same box call or you
50:56
Speaker 1: know whatever. Um, just something that will separate me from
50:59
Speaker 1: every other sound that they've heard from, you know, the
51:01
Speaker 1: players out there. So yeah, man, I agree so much
51:05
Speaker 1: on the mouth call thing. Like I think, if you're
51:08
Speaker 1: listening to this and you've never turkey hunted or you're
51:10
Speaker 1: you're you're new to it, you got to learn how
51:13
Speaker 1: to use a mouth call. I mean, there's just you
51:17
Speaker 1: know one. I know. I know a lot of people
51:18
Speaker 1: don't like bow hunting turkeys because you're stuck in a
51:22
Speaker 1: blind generally, but man, you really learn how to get
51:27
Speaker 1: birds in the decoys if you can't move and when
51:30
Speaker 1: you get close birds. You know, if you think about
51:33
Speaker 1: a bird that walks in when you're shotgun hunting, he's
51:35
Speaker 1: thirty yards away and you shoot him in the head
51:36
Speaker 1: and he's old, it's done. But you think about how
51:39
Speaker 1: often when you're bow hunting them where they're hanging up
51:41
Speaker 1: at thirty yards and the hens are in your decoys
51:43
Speaker 1: and you listen to that chatter and that back and
51:45
Speaker 1: forth and those content little purrs and clocks and stuff.
51:49
Speaker 1: There's you can do some of that stuff on like
51:51
Speaker 1: a slate call, and I mean you can make some
51:53
Speaker 1: of it happen with other calls, but man, a mouth call,
51:56
Speaker 1: there isn't a call that you can't make. I mean,
51:58
Speaker 1: you're talking about gobbling my locator call. Now. I gobble
52:02
Speaker 1: with a mouth call all the time, you know, Like
52:05
Speaker 1: you you want to get a bird to sound off
52:07
Speaker 1: on the roost, or you want to get a bird
52:08
Speaker 1: to sound off close, you gobble, you know, And I
52:12
Speaker 1: mean you got to be careful with that, you know.
52:13
Speaker 1: I don't do it nearly as much when I'm on
52:15
Speaker 1: public land obviously, but there's a lot of situations where
52:19
Speaker 1: I can find a bird with that, And it's like
52:22
Speaker 1: if I need to really go and like you said,
52:24
Speaker 1: you know, if you're running and gunning, like every other
52:27
Speaker 1: call requires some kind of movement typically that mouth call,
52:31
Speaker 1: doesn't you know. And I love for me, my go
52:34
Speaker 1: to is I carry a couple of slates and and
52:36
Speaker 1: some mouth calls, and then that way I can run
52:39
Speaker 1: a slate and I can kind of like back and
52:42
Speaker 1: forth yelp. You know you can do with a box
52:44
Speaker 1: call too. I just like using a slate but sounding
52:47
Speaker 1: like two birds. And then you you know, like if
52:49
Speaker 1: you if you call in a hand like a dominant
52:51
Speaker 1: hen and get her fired up and you listen to
52:53
Speaker 1: that interaction. I mean you almost never do that without
52:57
Speaker 1: striking up a bird somewhere. Like if you get a
52:59
Speaker 1: real hand that comes in and she's hot and she's
53:01
Speaker 1: pissed and you're going toe to toe with her, if
53:04
Speaker 1: there's a gobbler that can hear it, he's gonna gobble
53:07
Speaker 1: and you can. Yeah, and you can do that if
53:10
Speaker 1: you if you're pretty good with a mouth call and
53:12
Speaker 1: a slate caller a box call, you can make that
53:15
Speaker 1: sound happen that interaction. That to me is like ten
53:18
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock when you haven't had a gobble for a
53:20
Speaker 1: couple hours. Man, it can be be real good in
53:24
Speaker 1: a hurry. Yeah. Yeah. The first bird I ever killed
53:27
Speaker 1: back in college, had a guy with me from Louisiana.
53:29
Speaker 1: We're up in Virginia, hunt and he came all the
53:31
Speaker 1: way from Louisiana out there. Good, good, Turke hunting back
53:35
Speaker 1: there in late nineties, and um, that's what he did. Man,
53:38
Speaker 1: I've been hunt this place a couple of days and
53:40
Speaker 1: just not do any good. He comes to town and
53:42
Speaker 1: I'll go with him. Man, I'll hope you call an
53:44
Speaker 1: older guy. And sure enough, dude, he had a slate
53:46
Speaker 1: call on one hand, mouth call and he was just
53:48
Speaker 1: eating it up right off the roost. And I mean,
53:51
Speaker 1: we had this gobbler that I killed, marching up the hill,
53:53
Speaker 1: up to side the mountain, come from pitch down, comes
53:56
Speaker 1: marching back up and I shoot the thing. And he
53:58
Speaker 1: was just working that double that dual action calling, slate calling,
54:01
Speaker 1: mouth calling. It sounded so good, Like you said, that
54:04
Speaker 1: gyler got fired up and he wouldn't shut up. Man. Once.
54:07
Speaker 1: He just it's like he said, hey, I want in
54:09
Speaker 1: on this action. These hens are going nuts, and the
54:11
Speaker 1: sound of the calls and he just just as quick
54:16
Speaker 1: as he could go, just coming up the mountain. So
54:18
Speaker 1: it is, man, it's it's putting those sounds out there,
54:20
Speaker 1: keeping it real. Man, that's what folks really. You know,
54:23
Speaker 1: we make out this thing to be a whole lot
54:25
Speaker 1: more than it really is. I mean, you know, the
54:26
Speaker 1: name of the game is just keeping it real. You're
54:28
Speaker 1: painting a picture in that animal's mind. Whatever you do,
54:30
Speaker 1: whether it be scratching in the leaves, those soft subtle sounds,
54:35
Speaker 1: whatever it is you do, your your decoys, it's all
54:37
Speaker 1: painting a picture in that animal's mind. You know, what
54:39
Speaker 1: are you telling? That's the thing. If we're just keep
54:42
Speaker 1: that in mind, what are you telling that bird? You
54:44
Speaker 1: know when you put the decoys out, when you make
54:46
Speaker 1: those sounds, a lot of guys will you know, they
54:50
Speaker 1: think they're cutting at a bird and they're actually putting,
54:52
Speaker 1: you know, alarm, putting the sound, and you are something
54:54
Speaker 1: that's it's just knowing those different sounds and creating a
54:59
Speaker 1: picture in image in that bird's mind of this is
55:02
Speaker 1: where he needs to be, you know, And what are
55:03
Speaker 1: you gonna say do or show him? Make that happen.
55:19
Speaker 1: You know, when I was growing up, you know, I
55:21
Speaker 1: killed my first bird when I was fourteen, and all
55:23
Speaker 1: the advice was yelped three times and shut up, you know,
55:27
Speaker 1: And then I always hunted every back. Then I had
55:30
Speaker 1: a draw tag in the fall, but I started fall
55:33
Speaker 1: hunting as soon as I started spring hunting. And you
55:36
Speaker 1: call in a flock in the fall, and you're like,
55:38
Speaker 1: oh my god, these things are making noise constantly, and
55:41
Speaker 1: they're keeping track at each other, and they're getting territorial
55:45
Speaker 1: on their food, like they get real protective of their
55:47
Speaker 1: food sources. And you go, man, there's a whole world
55:49
Speaker 1: of communication going on here that we don't necessarily think about.
55:53
Speaker 1: And then, you know, in the spring, you get out
55:56
Speaker 1: there and you get those hands or kind of busted
55:58
Speaker 1: up and you're just like yop yo. Three times. They're like, Okay,
56:01
Speaker 1: she's just saying she's here. There's nothing to that, you know.
56:05
Speaker 1: But if she's starting to challenge that dominant hen over there,
56:08
Speaker 1: she's real fired up and she's cutting hard. And now
56:11
Speaker 1: there's another hen perr and the clock in or whatever
56:14
Speaker 1: that Now it's like there's something going on there. And
56:16
Speaker 1: think how often you know, you see this a lot?
56:19
Speaker 1: If you scout them, like right before the season opens,
56:21
Speaker 1: you get out there in like late March, and you'll
56:24
Speaker 1: see like that main flock of birds, and then you
56:25
Speaker 1: see that little flock pop out in the corner, and
56:28
Speaker 1: then when they meet up, there's all kinds of turkey
56:31
Speaker 1: sounds going on there. And basically what you're doing out
56:34
Speaker 1: there is you're saying, I got this little flock here,
56:37
Speaker 1: somebody else showed up, and you know how often that happens.
56:40
Speaker 1: Then you look and then there's the big guy in
56:42
Speaker 1: the corner, he's checking things out, or the jake's come
56:44
Speaker 1: running in, and like you said, you're selling something to them,
56:48
Speaker 1: and it's not that interesting. A lot of times to
56:51
Speaker 1: just hear an animal go yeah, I'm here, I'm scratching
56:54
Speaker 1: away like a big deal. Like they hear that all
56:57
Speaker 1: day long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they need to hear something
57:00
Speaker 1: that just listen that response. I mean, they need to
57:03
Speaker 1: hear something that, uh makes it worth leaving what they
57:06
Speaker 1: got to come hang out with you. And a lot
57:08
Speaker 1: of times just just kicking that in off. Some ask
57:10
Speaker 1: THEO the day in a seminar, like, hey, what do
57:12
Speaker 1: you do? You know when he's hind up, You've got
57:14
Speaker 1: you know, you've got hens over there. And I was like,
57:16
Speaker 1: you gotta you've gotta get her, you gotta get her
57:19
Speaker 1: to you, and then you gotta kiss her off. U.
57:21
Speaker 1: I just I started mimicking her. Whatever she said, I
57:23
Speaker 1: say it right back to her. And you know, and
57:25
Speaker 1: I mean, it's everybody loves a cat fight, right, we'd
57:28
Speaker 1: like to see chicks fights. We're gonna go to see that,
57:30
Speaker 1: we're gonna check that out, we're gonna follow that. And
57:32
Speaker 1: and you get her popping off and you just said
57:34
Speaker 1: it right back with whatever she says, and man, that
57:36
Speaker 1: just drive her crazy. And then, like you said, two
57:39
Speaker 1: flocks coming together and it's good stuff. Yeah, it's I
57:43
Speaker 1: think there's there's something to that too. With those dominant hens.
57:47
Speaker 1: They you know, they're never alone. Yeah, I mean you
57:50
Speaker 1: just watch them. They've got the best food sources. Like
57:53
Speaker 1: they're they'll fight, you know. I mean you you don't
57:57
Speaker 1: see it in the spring. You do see it in
57:58
Speaker 1: the springs, sum you see it in the fall where
58:00
Speaker 1: they come in chest bumping decoys and they're they're just
58:03
Speaker 1: as nasty and ready to fight. And you shoot a
58:05
Speaker 1: bird like you arrow a bird in the fall, those
58:07
Speaker 1: other ones jump right on top of it, and you're like,
58:09
Speaker 1: this is only what Tom's they're supposed to do, but
58:11
Speaker 1: they're all savages and you you start you start thinking
58:15
Speaker 1: about that. You know, you're like, oh, I gotta what
58:17
Speaker 1: do I gotta do to get this Tom in. It's
58:19
Speaker 1: like most of the time, if you just know how
58:20
Speaker 1: to call hens really well, you're gonna win the game
58:22
Speaker 1: every time. Like you know, you get you get a
58:24
Speaker 1: hot bird. He's coming like, he's not that hard to
58:27
Speaker 1: call in that the hen that's just contentedly feeding over
58:30
Speaker 1: there one hundred and fifty yards away. If you can
58:32
Speaker 1: talk her and you win all the turkeys, that's right. Yeah,
58:36
Speaker 1: you just gotta get her fired up. And like you said,
58:39
Speaker 1: she'll come in there, she'll march in there, and she'll
58:41
Speaker 1: bump that decoy. She'll um. And I've seen him to
58:43
Speaker 1: this strutting. You know a lot of people think, oh,
58:45
Speaker 1: you know hen strutting. Yeah, absolutely, you know they're the
58:47
Speaker 1: little half strutt you set fan come out and um
58:50
Speaker 1: and she's ticked man, And she's like you said, she's
58:52
Speaker 1: bumping that decoy, she's raising up on it and just oh,
58:56
Speaker 1: it's a dominant thing. You know. She's not gonna be
58:58
Speaker 1: just like that gobbler's not gonna put up with another
59:01
Speaker 1: gobbler up in his business. She's the same way. You know,
59:04
Speaker 1: this is her stopping grounds and here comes this little
59:06
Speaker 1: hussy and you're talking big talk, and so come in
59:09
Speaker 1: there and straight in the situation out. Yeah, I mean,
59:12
Speaker 1: when you start paying attention to them. That's one of
59:14
Speaker 1: the reasons I love glassing them right before the season,
59:18
Speaker 1: because when they're breaking up and they're starting to fight
59:20
Speaker 1: and get ticked at each other, you just get just
59:23
Speaker 1: a crash course on like dominance and the hierarchy out there.
59:27
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget. This was a couple of years ago.
59:30
Speaker 1: I was hunting two two big birds are always with
59:33
Speaker 1: this flock on this farm by my house, and I
59:36
Speaker 1: knew these birds pretty well, and I finally called them
59:39
Speaker 1: in through this this kind of high spot in this
59:41
Speaker 1: swamp and they're on their way back to roost. I
59:44
Speaker 1: was bow hunting them and I shot at the lead tom,
59:48
Speaker 1: and he was the dominant one. He had one buddy
59:51
Speaker 1: with him who was subordinate, and that was it. They like,
59:53
Speaker 1: it was just like clear cut. He was he would strut,
59:55
Speaker 1: he wouldn't. And I hit that bird low and get
1:00:00
Speaker 1: him in the leg and so he started limping. And
1:00:03
Speaker 1: I mean the instant that that Tom started limping, that
1:00:07
Speaker 1: other bird puffed up and went over there and started
1:00:10
Speaker 1: bullying him around. I mean it was like it was
1:00:13
Speaker 1: like one second and that subordinate time said there's my
1:00:17
Speaker 1: window and I'm taking it, and I'll bet you that
1:00:19
Speaker 1: kind of stuff happens to Turkey's every day. I mean,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: not that specifically, but they're always looking for that look
1:00:27
Speaker 1: at that off too. Yeah, i mean I've seen it
1:00:29
Speaker 1: for years. You know how quickly they go from strutting together, buddy,
1:00:32
Speaker 1: buddy too, I'm gonna stomp your head in the ground
1:00:35
Speaker 1: now that you're laying there, you know, and they do.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: They stamp each other, so they're pack them, pick their
1:00:39
Speaker 1: head up and throw them after they're laying there dead.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: And it's a it's an interesting game, and you know,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: I'd love to see more of the science behind that.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: You know, can we talk about it earlier? When you
1:00:49
Speaker 1: take out that dominant bird? What happens? You know, can
1:00:51
Speaker 1: they handle it, can they produce? How long does it
1:00:53
Speaker 1: take them to get their mojo together and be able
1:00:56
Speaker 1: to breathe a hen and and be effective not be
1:00:57
Speaker 1: shooting lanks? You know, there's a lot of that of
1:01:00
Speaker 1: variables that they say has an impact. But man, it's
1:01:02
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to watch that happened, you know, to see
1:01:05
Speaker 1: that's the board, a bird step up and realize that,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: oh man, the moss sit down. Uh, here's my moment,
1:01:11
Speaker 1: you know. So it's good stuff. Yeah, it's it's it's
1:01:14
Speaker 1: pretty cool stuff to see. I wanted to ask you,
1:01:17
Speaker 1: so I've I've hunted southern birds some like a little bit,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: not not nearly as much as northern birds and birds
1:01:23
Speaker 1: in the middle of the country. But there's always this
1:01:26
Speaker 1: kind of uh and I'm totally stereotaping here, but it
1:01:29
Speaker 1: happens a lot. Southern turkey hunters talk a lot of
1:01:32
Speaker 1: shit about northern birds. And you you live down there
1:01:34
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, you've probably hunted north and south quite a bit.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: Like do you see a big difference in the call
1:01:40
Speaker 1: ability of birds north to south or not? I think
1:01:45
Speaker 1: for me, the biggest difference is m you know, you
1:01:49
Speaker 1: hear people say turkey's a turkey wherever. But I think
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the biggest thing is it's just a pressure that comes
1:01:55
Speaker 1: from the South, the pressure on those birds. I think
1:01:58
Speaker 1: you take those two birds and put them, you know, put,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: and everything was equal whatever. But I think just a
1:02:03
Speaker 1: number of turkey hunters in the South and the pressure
1:02:06
Speaker 1: that they get, that they get each year, I think
1:02:09
Speaker 1: that's the biggest thing. Those birds are just they've heard
1:02:11
Speaker 1: it all, you know what I'm saying. I think about
1:02:13
Speaker 1: some of the little places I hunt around town here,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: and any given day there's a different truck part there
1:02:18
Speaker 1: and that guy goes in there with his box call
1:02:19
Speaker 1: and his out his you know, his little hoo flute,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: and he does his rendition. Next to day another guy
1:02:24
Speaker 1: does it. And so those birds really get pretty tough,
1:02:27
Speaker 1: pretty call shop, you know, pretty quick. And I think
1:02:31
Speaker 1: between the tremendous pressure we've got young people talk about,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: oh I don't hear Turkey's goble anymore. I think we've
1:02:36
Speaker 1: got to built that in. I think we've conditioned them.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: They know. Man, every time I gob will day kyote show,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: you know, shows up down there. I got a you know,
1:02:44
Speaker 1: a pack of kyote showing up. Every time I start gobbling,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: less limb Kyle shows up, or there's a red neck
1:02:49
Speaker 1: coming down the trail, you know, what's this hoop flut
1:02:51
Speaker 1: dep You know, we've just got a lot of pressure
1:02:53
Speaker 1: on our birds, and so I think they're tougher from
1:02:56
Speaker 1: that standpoint. You know, a lot of guys say, oh, yeah,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: these southern birds are, they're tougher, smarter birds and what
1:03:01
Speaker 1: they've got in the Midwest or that you know, up
1:03:03
Speaker 1: north or whatever. And I don't think it's a smarter bird.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: I think it's just the fact we've made that we've
1:03:07
Speaker 1: built that in, you know, we've we've put so many
1:03:09
Speaker 1: hunters on top of them becoming You go to a
1:03:12
Speaker 1: private farm around here and you know, West Tennessee, and
1:03:16
Speaker 1: you know, I've got some places I'll go and nobody's
1:03:18
Speaker 1: touched him. And you know, it's the easiest thing the world.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: You need to go up there and you kill one
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that's not been messed with. He's not hurt anybody. You
1:03:25
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. It's, yeah, that's not a hard
1:03:26
Speaker 1: bird to kill. He's he's an unpressured bird. He's not
1:03:29
Speaker 1: been messed with. And so um, that's the biggest thing.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: I think it's a tougher, a tougher turkey, But not
1:03:35
Speaker 1: because it's a Southern turkey. I think it's just because
1:03:37
Speaker 1: it's so many rednecks running around down here, uh, that
1:03:40
Speaker 1: it's just put so much pressure on them. And I
1:03:42
Speaker 1: know some of my guys in the Midwest, you know,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: you know, they hunt around Illinois, Iowa or whatever, and
1:03:48
Speaker 1: I see some of these crazy hunts where there's forty
1:03:51
Speaker 1: or fifty birds come blowing in there, opening day and stuff,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, my gosh, what's the deal. But um,
1:03:57
Speaker 1: a lot of those guys, I see, they're they're set
1:03:59
Speaker 1: up in a blind and they're just if it doesn't happen.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: If they're blind and that food plot, they don't mess
1:04:03
Speaker 1: with them. So that's a lot less pressure, you know.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: They they let the birds go, they slip out of
1:04:07
Speaker 1: their blind, you know, if they kill them or not,
1:04:08
Speaker 1: they whatever. There's just a lot less pressure. Um, you know,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: all in that turkey, in that style of hunting, and
1:04:14
Speaker 1: so I think it lends it's gonna lend itself to
1:04:17
Speaker 1: birds are less pressure. You know, they're gonna be more callable. Um,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: So that's the biggest thing for me. Yeah, you're you're right.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: There's a lot of guys like, oh, we got tough
1:04:24
Speaker 1: turkeys down here in the South. It's like, no, you
1:04:26
Speaker 1: just you just molested them for the last you know,
1:04:29
Speaker 1: several years, and now they're you know, they're just call
1:04:31
Speaker 1: shy because of that, not because God built a tougher
1:04:34
Speaker 1: turkey in the South. You know, man, I'm so glad
1:04:37
Speaker 1: you said that because I feel, you know, you hear
1:04:40
Speaker 1: that in the deer world all the time, Like this
1:04:42
Speaker 1: state's awesome, and this state sucks. This is the hardest state.
1:04:45
Speaker 1: This is the easiest state. And I just look at
1:04:47
Speaker 1: that and I go, but on what property, Like, on
1:04:51
Speaker 1: what property are you basing that on? You know? And
1:04:54
Speaker 1: I really think a lot of the deer hunting and
1:04:58
Speaker 1: the turkey hunting opportunities we have now the number one
1:05:02
Speaker 1: factors pressure just and it doesn't matter if you're in
1:05:06
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania or Louisiana or Iowa or wherever. It's like, lots
1:05:10
Speaker 1: of pressure makes it real hard, and no pressure makes
1:05:13
Speaker 1: it pretty damn easy, you know, like relatively speaking. And
1:05:16
Speaker 1: it feels that way. You know. I hunt birds up
1:05:20
Speaker 1: here a lot in the late season, you know, between
1:05:23
Speaker 1: here and Wisconsin, and you know, you get a lot
1:05:26
Speaker 1: of those silent birds, or you get a lot of
1:05:29
Speaker 1: those birds that you know, you're just like they're just
1:05:31
Speaker 1: not really into playing the game anymore because they've been
1:05:34
Speaker 1: messed with a lot. And it's it doesn't feel any
1:05:37
Speaker 1: different to me than one I'm hunting public land white tails,
1:05:39
Speaker 1: or I'm hunt elcout in Colorado and over the counter
1:05:41
Speaker 1: unit and you're like, man, they're just not very callable
1:05:45
Speaker 1: here because there's people everywhere they're still killable, like they're
1:05:49
Speaker 1: still it's still doable. But it's a different game than
1:05:52
Speaker 1: being in a place where they just don't get messed with. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
1:05:56
Speaker 1: You know, I hear people say Alabama, Mississippi are the
1:05:59
Speaker 1: toughest start he's you know, anywhere, and um and again,
1:06:03
Speaker 1: I think it goes back to I mean, if you
1:06:05
Speaker 1: look at Mississippi, I mean you got timber in some parts,
1:06:08
Speaker 1: a lot of it's just a big delta, open country
1:06:10
Speaker 1: and it's just not not a lot of place for
1:06:12
Speaker 1: turkey to be. But but going back to pressure, man,
1:06:15
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like I said, I hear it
1:06:16
Speaker 1: all the time. Miss if you're toughest turkey as ever,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: well you think about it. I mean what dis Mississippi got.
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Mississippi has got tons of hunters, they got all the
1:06:26
Speaker 1: you know, all the major I mean Turkey, A lot
1:06:28
Speaker 1: of Turkey, the Turkey heritage and culture came from Mississippi.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Have massy oak, you got primos, You've got so much
1:06:35
Speaker 1: turkey business, you know, the whole you know, much of
1:06:38
Speaker 1: the industry around the Turkey world came out of Mississippi.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: So it lends itself to be a bunch of dudes
1:06:43
Speaker 1: that are passionate, religious about turkey hunting and that's life
1:06:47
Speaker 1: to them. And I get it. I'm right there with it.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: But it's all the breeding ground for turkey owners right there.
1:06:54
Speaker 1: And so that's what that pressure, that pressure is, you know,
1:06:56
Speaker 1: there's a lot of it. Now. I will say this
1:06:58
Speaker 1: I did. I did do a medium was Premost a
1:07:00
Speaker 1: couple of years ago and we hunted a place down
1:07:03
Speaker 1: their plantation in Mississippi and I killed a bird and
1:07:07
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, this is only like three this
1:07:09
Speaker 1: is like the third bird, second or third bird, and
1:07:11
Speaker 1: like five years have been killed off this place. And
1:07:14
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how much pressure, lack of pressure. Nobody
1:07:18
Speaker 1: nobody really hunted. They'd like, let a guy come in.
1:07:20
Speaker 1: You know, one of the Premost guys had gone in
1:07:21
Speaker 1: the year before and killed a bird. But it was
1:07:23
Speaker 1: just crazy how tough those birds were tough, very tough
1:07:27
Speaker 1: and just and there was there weren't a lot of
1:07:30
Speaker 1: people hunting it, like I said, So that was a
1:07:32
Speaker 1: tough place. But it was also being timbered, had logging
1:07:34
Speaker 1: operation going on. Some wonder okay, is it's because of
1:07:36
Speaker 1: the logging people are in there every day. What you
1:07:39
Speaker 1: know whatever. But um, I don't want guys to hear
1:07:41
Speaker 1: this and be like, oh, you know, you know whatever,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: because I have been on some places down there where
1:07:46
Speaker 1: we got a hend to us. Man. I mean just
1:07:48
Speaker 1: just Bud's kick and pressure was not a factor in that.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: Not hunting, not hunting pressure anyway, but buying large I'd say, man,
1:07:57
Speaker 1: you know you're looking. You see somebody say these birds
1:07:59
Speaker 1: are just touf it's it's most time. And I you know,
1:08:02
Speaker 1: from what I've seen over the years, is because somebody's
1:08:04
Speaker 1: made those birds tough. Somebody has been in there just
1:08:07
Speaker 1: run round and around, called at them. They've heard it,
1:08:10
Speaker 1: seen it done at whatever. And those birds don't they
1:08:14
Speaker 1: don't put up with that. They learn, they learn where
1:08:15
Speaker 1: to be, you know, when to say, you know when
1:08:18
Speaker 1: to speak and when to uh quit that goblin, you know.
1:08:21
Speaker 1: So it's we put a lot of just like anything.
1:08:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not only different deer, man, those deer. No, hey, dude,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: it's unting seeing here they are here they come again
1:08:29
Speaker 1: and they start laying low turkeys, turkeys, no when to
1:08:31
Speaker 1: hold them, when to fold them? Sure, dude, I think
1:08:34
Speaker 1: you know it kind of a piggyback off of that.
1:08:36
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that that happens so
1:08:39
Speaker 1: much in hunting is you hear that because I remember talking.
1:08:42
Speaker 1: I think I was talking to Aaron or Zach from
1:08:44
Speaker 1: the hunting public about hunting Mississippi and Alabama turkeys, and
1:08:48
Speaker 1: they're like, we're killing birds, like we're finding them, we're
1:08:51
Speaker 1: killing them. You know, it's not you know, you hear
1:08:53
Speaker 1: that these like they're like unkillable, uncallable. It's like, yeah,
1:08:57
Speaker 1: there's there's still turkeys. And I think what happens often
1:09:01
Speaker 1: in hunting is we get this general consensus in our
1:09:04
Speaker 1: head that it's going to be this way or it's
1:09:07
Speaker 1: going to be that way. You know, like you're never
1:09:09
Speaker 1: gonna kill like I don't know how many people have
1:09:11
Speaker 1: told me you'll never kill a big buck on public
1:09:14
Speaker 1: land in Nebraska. You know, we shoot them all in
1:09:16
Speaker 1: the you know, with the rifles, and I go down
1:09:19
Speaker 1: there and I'm like, oh my god, Like there's like
1:09:22
Speaker 1: this is so much better than my private stuff at home.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: And so you know, you get that. And that's just
1:09:27
Speaker 1: like one example, but you see this so often like
1:09:30
Speaker 1: regionally or you know, state by a state where it's
1:09:32
Speaker 1: like our hunting is the toughest, you'll never do this,
1:09:36
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, now you've made up your mind
1:09:38
Speaker 1: that you're never gonna do this, Like you mean to
1:09:40
Speaker 1: tell me that you couldn't spend the whole season down
1:09:42
Speaker 1: there in Mississippi you know what you're doing and calling
1:09:44
Speaker 1: a bird. Of course you could. But if you go
1:09:46
Speaker 1: into it and you think I'm not gonna make it
1:09:49
Speaker 1: happen because it's too hard, they're they're uncallable, they're never
1:09:52
Speaker 1: gonna gobble, they're gonna be okay, Well then it's a
1:09:54
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy. That's right. You've talked yourself out of it. Yeah,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's playing, and a lot of it is.
1:10:00
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it's an ego trip too.
1:10:02
Speaker 1: You know, you hear the same thing about about guys
1:10:04
Speaker 1: that use it as a crutch. Right, Oh, well, you
1:10:07
Speaker 1: know we're we're hunting the toughest bird. I didn't kill
1:10:09
Speaker 1: a bird in three years. But we're also hunting these
1:10:10
Speaker 1: these birds here in Alabama. They're the toughest birds on earth.
1:10:13
Speaker 1: So you know that's my reason excuse for not ever,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: you know, that's my cover up for being a sucking
1:10:19
Speaker 1: kirky hunter. We're hunting tough birds, you know, or same
1:10:22
Speaker 1: thing with you're hunting in a public lan. Well, I
1:10:24
Speaker 1: don't ever kill dear, but it's because I mean I'm
1:10:26
Speaker 1: hunting public plan. You know. It's like, well, you can't
1:10:28
Speaker 1: use that, you know, you can't, you know, I mean,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: just tell people you're not very good. But don't blame
1:10:32
Speaker 1: your lack of success on the fact that you're on
1:10:34
Speaker 1: the public piece of property. You know, that's that's not
1:10:36
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So I mean, um, people use that
1:10:39
Speaker 1: as a crutch. Yes, it's tougher. Yes, you're dealing with people,
1:10:41
Speaker 1: You're dealing with the pressure, a lot of that stuff,
1:10:44
Speaker 1: and don't don't use that as a crutch or just
1:10:46
Speaker 1: like you said, setting yourself up to have that easy
1:10:48
Speaker 1: out like oh no, I'm hunting you know, I'm hunting Mississippi.
1:10:52
Speaker 1: It's it's the hardest bird on earth. And you just
1:10:54
Speaker 1: get that in your mind right off the bat, like
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I can't you can't call these birds. And you you
1:10:58
Speaker 1: tell yourself that enough times and you'll you'll talk. Yeah,
1:11:01
Speaker 1: I remember a couple of years ago, I don't do
1:11:04
Speaker 1: you know what malax lake is? He ever heard of that?
1:11:07
Speaker 1: So it Malax in Minnesota is sort of like the
1:11:11
Speaker 1: smallmouth destination. It's like one hundred and fifteen hundred twenty
1:11:14
Speaker 1: thousand acre bowl that's crystal clear, and it is just
1:11:17
Speaker 1: a smally factory. But it has gotten really popular. They
1:11:21
Speaker 1: had a I think it was a bass Angler of
1:11:25
Speaker 1: the Year tournament or something there a couple of years ago,
1:11:27
Speaker 1: and a local kid that I used to fish against
1:11:29
Speaker 1: a lot who's just really gotten good at professional fishing
1:11:33
Speaker 1: named Seth Fighter won it with for three days, he
1:11:37
Speaker 1: had seventy seventy five pounds of smallmouth, so he had
1:11:40
Speaker 1: he had a five pound limit every day, which is
1:11:44
Speaker 1: you know, I mean when you bring in five fish
1:11:46
Speaker 1: in a day that are against the best anglers in
1:11:48
Speaker 1: the country, you know, like it's And so anyway, it
1:11:51
Speaker 1: got real busy, got a lot of publicity, and it
1:11:55
Speaker 1: was popular before. And so you see this in the
1:11:58
Speaker 1: fishing world where it's like, well the malac smallies get
1:12:02
Speaker 1: so much pressure that you got to go, you know,
1:12:04
Speaker 1: finase all the time and you know, six pound floral
1:12:07
Speaker 1: that they can't see and throw a little hair jigs
1:12:09
Speaker 1: and stuff. And I just we have a place pretty
1:12:12
Speaker 1: close to there, and I brought my daughter a couple
1:12:14
Speaker 1: of years ago, and it was pretty windy right away
1:12:18
Speaker 1: for my boat, and so it was kind of a
1:12:20
Speaker 1: kind of rough. But I'm I'm throwing swimming jigs just
1:12:22
Speaker 1: to throw something, and I'm catching Smally's. And I told
1:12:27
Speaker 1: my buddy about it, and he was like, I can't
1:12:29
Speaker 1: believe you were catching Smally's in there on swimming jigs.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, dude, there's small mouth, Like I
1:12:35
Speaker 1: don't you know. It looks kind of like a mento,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a crayfish, like you know what
1:12:40
Speaker 1: I mean. But you get it in your head that
1:12:42
Speaker 1: you're like, well, they're so it's gonna be so this
1:12:45
Speaker 1: way that I have to just like go into this
1:12:47
Speaker 1: little narrow lane and we see this, you know, you
1:12:49
Speaker 1: see this all the time. And the THHP guys did
1:12:51
Speaker 1: this really well in the Deer World, where they showed
1:12:53
Speaker 1: people like, you know, you think that you can't do
1:12:56
Speaker 1: this out there, We're gonna show up there and show
1:12:58
Speaker 1: you you can. And it's almost gone so far with
1:13:01
Speaker 1: public land way tails where it's like now everybody thinks
1:13:04
Speaker 1: they're going to go out there and shoot one hundred
1:13:05
Speaker 1: and fifty insurance, like, well, it's not that easy, that's right. Yeah, yeah,
1:13:09
Speaker 1: you still gotta be good. That's what people, you know,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: don't realize that. THP guys they're good hunters, you know,
1:13:17
Speaker 1: they're they're good at what they do. You know. They
1:13:19
Speaker 1: they go that put the time in, they leave home
1:13:21
Speaker 1: for an extended periods of time. They do stuff to
1:13:23
Speaker 1: make it happen. It's not gonna be you know, hopping
1:13:27
Speaker 1: down there, you first set, climb up a tree and boom,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: there's your one fitty. You know, you gotta work for
1:13:32
Speaker 1: you know, I talked to Aaron a few weeks ago
1:13:33
Speaker 1: two and said the same things. Man, you know, Mississippi
1:13:36
Speaker 1: is tough. You know we did, we work the butt
1:13:38
Speaker 1: off for a week and then you finally found them.
1:13:39
Speaker 1: But but they found them, you know. I mean it's
1:13:41
Speaker 1: it's you gotta do your homework. You watch enough YouTube
1:13:44
Speaker 1: and makes it think, makes you think you can go
1:13:46
Speaker 1: down there and just show up, you know, park at
1:13:49
Speaker 1: the gate, walk down the road and boom here it
1:13:52
Speaker 1: is the magic happens. But you still gotta work at it, man,
1:13:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you gotta put your time in and um,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: but it is doable. The bottom line, like you said,
1:14:00
Speaker 1: that's what the hunting could it is showing people that, yeah,
1:14:03
Speaker 1: you can do it. You know, you grab about your
1:14:06
Speaker 1: piece of property, your your state being the toughest whatever.
1:14:09
Speaker 1: They're still showing for Okay, we're strangers showing up and
1:14:12
Speaker 1: killing birds. I mean it happens, yeah, And I think
1:14:17
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems with a lot of
1:14:18
Speaker 1: the YouTube content and some of the other hunting content
1:14:21
Speaker 1: out there now is you really so you see the
1:14:25
Speaker 1: success on public Land and you go, that's like that's
1:14:29
Speaker 1: the keynote thing, right, Like that's the that's the scizzle reel.
1:14:32
Speaker 1: But if it took seven days and they condensed that
1:14:35
Speaker 1: down to a twenty minute YouTube episode, it's really easy
1:14:39
Speaker 1: to kind of not think about being there for seven
1:14:43
Speaker 1: days getting your butt kicked when you see you know,
1:14:46
Speaker 1: you know, two thirds of the shows devoted to the
1:14:48
Speaker 1: kill sequence or you know, half of the show, and
1:14:51
Speaker 1: it's like there might be whole days or you didn't
1:14:54
Speaker 1: you didn't get exposed to that at all where nothing happened,
1:14:57
Speaker 1: or you know, it's a lot of walking around looking
1:14:59
Speaker 1: for signs or a lot of you know, whatever, And
1:15:02
Speaker 1: so it's sort of a skewed view, but it's yeah,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: you know, it's totally do about out there. You know, turkeys, deer,
1:15:08
Speaker 1: public land, It's all so many good opportunities. Brody buddy,
1:15:12
Speaker 1: we are out of time here. Man. Uh. It's always
1:15:15
Speaker 1: a pleasure to talk to you. I wish you and
1:15:17
Speaker 1: the whole Swisher crew a whole bunch of luck this
1:15:19
Speaker 1: spring down there on those birds. I hope you guys
1:15:22
Speaker 1: stack them up. Yeah, man, I appreciate the opportunity, and
1:15:25
Speaker 1: I do. I look forward to seeing those girls and
1:15:28
Speaker 1: what they get into each year. So hopefully this year
1:15:30
Speaker 1: you got the meltdowns and the shot chills, miss shot
1:15:33
Speaker 1: tails out of the system. I look forward to soon
1:15:35
Speaker 1: as you guys come up with here in a week's ahead. Well,
1:15:37
Speaker 1: we're gonna, we're scouting, we're gonna, we're gonna get on them.
1:15:40
Speaker 1: Why don't before we shut this down here, why don't
1:15:42
Speaker 1: you let everybody know where they can find your stuff
1:15:44
Speaker 1: out there? Yeah? Man, we always got content rolling through
1:15:47
Speaker 1: at bow hunting dot com or work as editor for that,
1:15:50
Speaker 1: but also my own personal stuff is hunting roots dot
1:15:53
Speaker 1: com and so just opportunity there hounty roots dot com
1:15:56
Speaker 1: website and then the Hunting Roots podcast as well. So
1:15:59
Speaker 1: I'll be sure to check us out. I'd love to
1:16:00
Speaker 1: see him there. Yeah, and if you if you go
1:16:02
Speaker 1: dig deep on that Hunting Roots podcast, you can hear
1:16:04
Speaker 1: yours truly talking about how I almost left my nuts
1:16:06
Speaker 1: up on a fence post one time. If you want
1:16:08
Speaker 1: to hear hear a story about that, we still talk
1:16:11
Speaker 1: about that and about you every time we cross a fence. Ever,
1:16:14
Speaker 1: if I promise you I've always never had I never
1:16:16
Speaker 1: forget that one. So yeah, well I haven't forgot it either, Brodie.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, mana to appreciate you. That's it
1:16:24
Speaker 1: for this week, folks, be sure to tune in next
1:16:26
Speaker 1: week for some whitetail goodness. We won't be talking about turkeys.
1:16:30
Speaker 1: We will be talking about dear. This has been the
1:16:32
Speaker 1: Wire to Hunt podcast, and I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: As always, thank you so much for listening. And if
1:16:38
Speaker 1: you're looking for more whitetail content, be sure to check
1:16:41
Speaker 1: out the mediator dot com slash wired to see a
1:16:43
Speaker 1: pile of new articles each week by guys like I
1:16:47
Speaker 1: don't know Beaumartonic and Alex Gilstrom and Mark and myself
1:16:51
Speaker 1: and a whole slew of white tail addicts, or you
1:16:53
Speaker 1: can head on over to the wire to Hunt YouTube
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Speaker 1: channel to view the weekly content we put up