The Spring Legion Podcast
Welcome to a year-round discussion on the wild turkey and those who hunt them. Hosted by Hunter Farrior, founder of Spring Legion and author of Ballad of a Turkey Hunter, the weekly podcast is geared for all outdoor communities and dives deeper than the usual tactics and calling tips. Holding true to the brand, topics are built upon respecting the heritage and challenges of hunting, with a never-ending appreciation for all that the spring season provides. Enjoy insight from special guests like Dave Owens of Pinhoti Project, Cuz Strickland of Mossy Oak, our friends at NWTF and Muscadine Bloodline, and so many more widely known for their impact in the turkey hunting community, as well as the deer, duck, and waterfowl realm, who exhibit the obsession of which only a real turkey hunter may truly understand. Thanks for listening.
The Spring Legion Podcast
Hunting Turkeys After a Rain - When and Where You Should Be | Scratching vs. Calling + 2 Untold Hunt Stories from Last Spring
This week, hosts Hunter Farrior and Austin Sills are recollecting multiple hunts from this past turkey season, with some in depth theory on woodsmanship, scratching, and timing the rain just right.
We share insights on how a spring thunderstorm can be your secret ally, revealing why those post-storm moments are prime time for calling in a lone gobbler. We also unpack the nuanced tactics of hunting on various terrains, be it the familiarity of family-owned private land or the unpredictability of public land. Plus, we delve into the tactical dance of hunting while respecting boundaries and avoiding overharvesting, ensuring the future of the sport and the land we cherish.
Whether you're a seasoned turkey hunter or a curious listener, join us for a conversation that's all about learning the woods, a burning passion for the pursuit, and an overall respect for the game we s dearly love to play this time of year.
Thanks for listening, and be sure to check out all that's new for Spring 2024 Turkey Season at springlegion.com!
Check out the SPRING LEGION YouTube Channel to watch the hunts referenced on our show, as they happened and as real as it gets.
New Bottomland Woodsman Series Shirts and Pants are HERE for Spring 2024 at spring legion.com
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Alright, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Spring Legion podcast, or slash vidcast. Now that we've incorporated this video format into the Spring Legion podcast, it's usually available on the Spotify's and Apples and all that good stuff. I don't know what episode this is that we're getting into, but I think we're kind of getting the hang of it. I'm going to host a fair year with Austin Seals here. I forgot to mention that. How's everything going? We're without Chase today because we've decided it is dang near impossible to get all three of our schedules aligned Some of these stories. If we're going to hit 20, something like we planned on doing, I don't know if we're going to be able to get all of them on the same schedule. So we'll have a couple with just me and Chase, a couple with just me and Seals and a couple with just Seals and Chase, probably.
Speaker 2:Try to get together all three of us as much as we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we make a very viable effort towards it, but you can only do so much. There's only 24 hours in a day and we're maxed out on all of them, it seems like. But yeah, so we are. Some of these are pre-recorded. If you all didn't know, we're recording as kind of in a bulk.
Speaker 1:The plan was to record as many of these stories from this past spring in a bulk and kind of go over some of the videos that we've shared on YouTube the past season which was uploaded.
Speaker 1:All of them that we uploaded during the spring was uploaded really on a very serious whim.
Speaker 1:First time it was just a clip that actually had the hunt in it and the battery and SD car permitted.
Speaker 1:We could have a whole hunt and we just uploaded immediately, you know, since we got back home or wherever we were at, and some of that stuff needs some explanation. Because that's why this podcast comes in handy, because we can kind of talk to the mentals and the reasonings and the reasons why we sat on this tree and the reasons why we should not have sat on that tree and, hindsight, why we would have sat on a different tree or wouldn't even been in the first place. So I think that's the best way to learn the turkey woods is through hindsight of past experiences and lessons learned the hard way and you know on a lot of turkeys, you get a lot of those opportunities to learn from them and that's kind of all we're trying to do is talk about it and if folks are able to get a little bit of a upper hand the next time they're in the woods because of something we messed up or looked up and did right.
Speaker 1:Looked up, yeah, I think. Well, you know we did our job, I guess so, and if we don't do our job, this is still fine and we're going to do it anyway. But, yeah, we're going to dive into a couple of hunts today we might be able to get two or three in there Seals Seals going to tell us a little bit about one he killed up in Baltimore, mississippi, and then during the 2023 turkey season, I was still living in Georgia, so and I got a one or two there that are that are worth telling us. Pretty cool hunts, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, and I don't think we've hardly talked anything about this, vaughan Well. I know we haven't, and nobody was with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know I called you all right after and told you I killed a turkey and the reason being is to preface the whole story. I killed the turkey. I believe it was April, the second it was.
Speaker 1:And it was the opening day of the second way of turkey season. That's right.
Speaker 2:And I had been in a slump. You know back where we talked about the Delta turkey one that I was in line to shoot just because of the previous year finished it didn't work out. Had several more hunts in Mississippi, I know me and our buddy Jordan had been on one and it just was on the verge, Didn't work out. I know me and you had gone back and it was always something it had been. It was a slump and it had been as many years I can remember that I had gone that long into a season and I was getting I mean, you like to, all our buddies were messing with me and you got to have to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1:So, april, I mean it's one of those things like nobody's going sugar coated, we want to kill turkeys. I mean there's no getting around that. I mean I love seeing other folks kill turkeys and I love being there and then you know the turkey wins and you don't kill one. I love those Almost just as much. Kill one, but I mean I want to kill one. So you know, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:And it was, and I was part of several, several kills. I just hadn't actually pulled the trigger, so I was. You know I was getting it. She has getting aggravated. Whatever April it's kind of like I was like April 1st it's like you know I get one. It's a beautiful morning Like this. Today's the day and it didn't happen. So April, the second it was a minute was raining.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about yeah, and I and I got up and like I'm going back to bed, like I was in that, like I'm not even going to get up and go laid back down and like I'm going. So I drove to Vaughn to about an hour drive which is in what?
Speaker 1:Madison County, Mississippi, or is it yeah?
Speaker 2:it's right across the river from.
Speaker 1:Madison.
Speaker 2:County. So I got up there and actually where I parked my truck, I sat there in my truck till probably 730 or around there. It was well after daylight because it was raining so hard. And not to mention, this is the place we'd never hunted. This was my first time to go to this property and I had looked on on X and all that and I I've seen it had a creek running kind of along the north boundary and I found what a hundred. And if y'all, if y'all, y'all know what hunter calls an Omega symbol. Right, I'd found that you know something similar. It was more of like, I guess, a horseshoe. It didn't fully do like you did, but it was my best shot.
Speaker 1:It goes like this from the back up that's right. A hook in a creek or a bend or something Right.
Speaker 2:So once it stopped raining I eased in and I didn't want to push too far in because I didn't know. I didn't know much about the property. So I eased in and I slipped in. I slipped in originally probably 100 yards and I stopped and I hooded and I listened and nothing. We couldn't hear anything. But also when you watch the video you'll hear a constant hum and that is I-55 that you can hear the traffic going down. So you couldn't hear far. It had just stopped monsooning. So the woods, everything was wet, muffling, sound it was. You couldn't hear much.
Speaker 2:I'd sit still for probably 10 minutes and ease up another 100 yards. And finally I was just sitting there and I looking through social media and I thought I heard something gobble. I think that's not really a gobble. So I sat there again and it gobbled again and so I had my mouth called in. I called, I yelped a couple of times, started out soft, because I couldn't tell how far they were with the traffic, with the wet, you know, the rain's still falling off the trees, it was just a lot of obstacles. So I yelped a couple of times. I think I probably yelped three or four times before he finally heard me and he gobbled and I could tell he was down in the bottom, which ended up being that creek bottom, on the edge of that bridge. But I yelped and he gobbled and I thought he was getting closer and I couldn't tell. So he started moving towards me and finally I could tell he was kind of gonna skirt around to the right side of me.
Speaker 2:So I jumped up and eased around kind of to cut him off for sure but not getting in front of him, cutting him like he was walking around the edge of the tree and I was here. So I just kind of paralleled him and eased up and he was. When I sat down. I didn't call her anything, I sat down and I waited for him to gobble and he gobbled and that's when I started calling to him and what he did was he had walked and I looked at it after I killed him. He had walked that edge of that creek around and was coming back into my right and when I moved up and cut over it just made his path to me straight. So I sat down and I called probably two or three times. He answered every time and I just stopped and he gobbled two more times on his own and that I did a couple of soft, short yelps, clucking, and then I remember trying to use my hand to ruffle leave and I did it and it pulled my hand up and it was covered in mud.
Speaker 2:It didn't work. I've done that and you feel like an idiot and so I did that. Like I said, I yipped after he gobbled on his own two more times. I yipped once or twice and I just stopped calling and all of a sudden I thought I heard something drumming. And again, when you watch a video, I couldn't you know, I'd talk myself out. That's not really drumming, that's the interstate. I can't hear. I'm not gonna be able to hear good enough to get in the drumming.
Speaker 2:About that time I looked up and I could see him coming to me strutting and I believe it was five turkeys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember you telling me it was multiple, at least.
Speaker 2:Well, I looked up and they were coming and I couldn't see it first because they were kind of all over he all. You just see their red head, I can tell it was male turkeys. So I had to let him get probably 30 yards and before I could see that they were goblers or long beards and they eased up to me. And that's twice in one year it happened. But all of a sudden they one of them jumped.
Speaker 1:I was like whoa.
Speaker 2:I mean I know they didn't see me, I hadn't moved, and about that time the two of them to the left were kind of you can look at. They were kind of fighting. They jumped up and that's what it was, and then I let them ease in. I picked out the one that was in the in range, was, had nothing between us and I shot him and he fell and that was a, went and got him. That was a.
Speaker 2:it shows you that you can't kill them on the couch cause I got back in the bed and taught myself into going hunting, just because you wouldn't even and I sat in the truck till well after daylight just because it was pouring out rain and that turkey was when I carried him out. I remember when I got back to the truck I had to change clothes. He was so wet that from where I had him over my shoulder.
Speaker 1:My clothes were sopping wet, that's, and that's something I don't remember. Who I was talking to not long ago was talking about just being there when the time goes right. Yeah, you know it's. I will hunt in the rain Most times when I'm hunting in the rain. I was out there before it started raining and it started raining and you know it fits and not gonna be a monsoon and stuff like that. I mean I'm not, you know, just dumb to the fact of like, hey, you can go sit in the truck until it stops, at least to find some shade I mean a big tree or something and get under there. And I've stood in big culverts before and waited them out. But it's a big difference in being there when the rain stops and leaving your house and go hunting when the rain stops. You know what I mean being there and able to, because there I mean when I think of, you know, hunting in the rain, hunting right after rain. Usually it's front and the pressure's up and you know conditions are getting far better.
Speaker 1:And then you can throw in the fact that the rain has caused them their activity of breeding and stuff like that. Or I mean, I guess, eating, but I kind of gear strategy towards breeding. You know hens, really that's down, and so they're kind of, you know, really kind of bundled up, rare and go and at the same time, like they haven't been able to hear much. So they really don't know where the other triggers are. Especially, I mean, you catch them in April that's not necessarily the early season, in Mississippi, that's around the mid season but especially in the marches and stuff like that, the 15th through the 20th or whatever, when they're still really grouped up. They don't know where the hens are and you happen to be the first one to kind of let them know hey, everyone's over here and they just trust you.
Speaker 2:Well, that was my thing is, when I left, I was like I'm gonna lay down here and go back to sleep, and I'm gonna probably.
Speaker 2:I know me, I'm gonna go hunting when it stops raining. That's what I told myself. Like I can just go ahead and get up there, take a nap in the truck when it stops raining, I'm there and luckily I did that because you were able to slip around in that bottom real quietly and all that. And when I heard one, I mean I'm from the time I heard him gobble until I had even my hands probably wasn't 15 minutes and it was just like you said being there at the right time when they rain quits like pressures up the front and just move through.
Speaker 2:It had, and I believe it had rained the whole day before all night, so I mean they were probably rain and yeah, yeah, you catch me.
Speaker 1:you know I love my favorite condition to hunt in is 48 degrees. You know that, 48 degrees with a bare match of pressure, 30.1 ish, you know, or higher. I mean, I've wanted a couple of times where I'm. I really think the pressure is too high. I'm like I feel like I can hear turkeys for seven miles and I don't know what's going on. Have I even hearing them? And like you know that, feeling like your head's, kind of like you're in an airplane almost and I don't, and I think they don't act nearly as cooperative they're.
Speaker 1:They're just they're moving a lot, I feel like, or else I'm just not able to hear as well. My ears are kind of funky at the time, um, but yeah, the higher the better on the pressure, and then you know if it rained the morning before kind of throw everything out of the window like I'm going to hunt because I feel like there's really, you know, held up and that's what they're there to do.
Speaker 1:They got a, you know, we get that. You know that anxious feeling like you were probably having. You know it gets to April. I hadn't you know more trigger yet, or hadn't thrown one over my shoulder and you get to. You know, you get a little itchy feeling.
Speaker 2:And now back up because I don't. I don't know how the videos will be released, but I had killed two in Texas. I had one in Mississippi, and that's where you know. Well, you know, I'm not sure Mississippi is where is my favorite.
Speaker 1:That's what was, that's what you know.
Speaker 1:When it gets to April, yeah Times getting you know you're through the trunk, the I kind of like you got the March and once that's over with, you know, you're like all right, I got a month to hunt and then it's like, you know, especially if you just hunt in the weekends we could hunt a little more, but when we were just on the weekends you got four weekend. I got like four opportunities left when it hits April 1st and I'm really, you know, by that point I feel like Turkish do the same. You know, if they're not able to breathe for two days, you know they're getting itchy too. They know this. This is a season to them, you know. So they're. They're rare and go and they're cooperative and they're pretty vocal A lot of times. I think they gobble a lot before you get there, if you leave your house when it stops raining instead of getting there and parking your truck and just waiting it out.
Speaker 2:And well, like you said too is by the time you know if you wait to leave your house when it stops raining. They not only are they probably have been more vocal, but they've gobbled up hands or they've found, they found who, where they're going to be and they're not, as you know, not going to come to you. You set the bar because they they're the first one they heard.
Speaker 1:And that's a good point to build off of is because I think a lot of times, if you do wait, there's a very, very fine night period right there after the rain that they are cooperative, but it's kind of a very steep slope after that.
Speaker 1:Cause once they I mean you think about I mean Turkish want to get in the open in the rain, or as soon as it starts raining or usually right after the rain, to a dry off to be to, to see, because the the pitter patter you can't hear in the woods. So that's their, you know, their mechanisms of survival instincts is to get where I can utilize my eyes more than my ears If I'm not unable to hear. Same thing goes for Wendy, you know stuff like that. Where the leaves are real loud, they want to get to where they can see better. But um, and they want to group, they want to get with other turkeys, because that's, I mean, that's how they kind of get in the winter. For you know, the reason is our chances of survival there's 48 eyes looking around, you know better off and four.
Speaker 1:So once they found that group, you know it's going to be hard to just make them curious enough to come walking into this kind of shadowy place where they can't hear anything, away from all the safety. So to be in there, you know, in that, in that, you know within an hour, I would say 30 minutes is better than an hour. But if you get there within an hour you don't want, your chances are, you know, substantially higher, I think, than they are an hour and a half or two hours. After, once they have found that group and stuff, Um, and that's nothing, they use their eyes, they see the other group. You know it's kind of going to be hard to call them off of it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But, but not when you, um, you, uh, you've, I think you FaceTime this because I was with Chase and hunting in Georgia and I just killed one in Georgia because that was the open. Georgia has a private opener and a public opener. A week apart, yeah, um, let's see, you were hunting on. I don't remember you. Sure it was April 2nd, not after that. I think, the turkey I'm about to talk about was killed on April 2nd, the one well that's what I was just telling you.
Speaker 2:I can't remember. It was April, the second I'd have to look.
Speaker 1:I'd have been a day after maybe. Maybe, the one, the turkey, that I was talking about. I know for a fact, killed on April 2nd because it was opening day that was the first?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it wasn't. Then it wasn't April 2nd, it was the second turkey you killed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which had to have been after April 2nd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'd have to look back at the days. It was them, because I got back from Texas Sunday and I killed him Monday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, it's probably the same within the week. Oh yeah, um, I was just thinking of that cause I was thinking about how to start, you know, kind of telling this story. I was like it was opening day of the private season, which is April 2nd. You called me. Yeah, and I was somewhere else with the different.
Speaker 2:You know I'd have to look in the I don't remember the exact date, but yeah, I remember walking out that um, and obviously the first thing I was going to do is call you when I got to the truck. But I had opened the snap chat from Chase and saw y'all killed one, so I just yeah, I just FaceTime.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah.
Speaker 2:And y'all we were both. We were both standing over a turkey, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the first time we've ever done that I feel like not together. Um, you know, several miles apart. I guess, yeah, that's pretty cool, um, but not we'll. We'll get Chase here to talk about that one, because he he saw a lot of the one that you mentioned. Uh, when you, when he called me after, um, he saw a lot that I couldn't see because he was behind me running the big camera or whatever.
Speaker 1:He just came up to visit and stuff and um, but the one that the first one I shot in Georgia this year was on the private land, um, to back up the. The one I killed second was also on private land but it ended up the public land, so I didn't hunt there until the public land opens. I guess that was the following weekend and following Friday or something like that. I don't remember Um, but the the first one was on it's on a piece I was familiar with. Actually I killed one on there that you're before and is actually my wife's, stepgrandad's, families or something I don't remember. Got permission to hunt it, yeah, good land and um, not a lot of it, though it um, it's kind of. It's definitely different than what we're used to around here and I've ever we would do buy it whenever you were visiting and stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, but I think they, we, where were we at? This was okay. So this was definitely the second, because I was coming back from hunting with you and Mississippi when I saw the bird there, cuz I then this is, this was within 10 minutes in my house in Georgia. When I live there and you know I'd take orders to the post office and I make that loop, go check. There's a big field out there, I don't know how many acres, but a big field that you would usually see them in.
Speaker 1:I don't know what they're planting in. I never quite saw it. I'd see it right after. They kind of would plant it and not know what's there. And then if I kill one, I don't want to kill two there, with it being a small spot and I never really hung around long enough to see whatever came up, but they planted every year and Then I'm around January I'll start kind of make them around and you know getting the Getting the it scratch and stuff like that, trying to see if one's out there and see what we're working with here and Stuff like that. But the year before quick dip into it. There's a, there's a mountain, say. If I'm looking at the property, this big field, I can't hunt, but there's a little buffer there that I can. There's not necessarily playing it, it's like I think I can hunt it, it's just I Don't have official permission from the guy who farms it right that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So I don't want to do that. I can hunt the the grounds up to a creek and then like where the woods start, I can hunt. Then it goes up 50 yards, 200 yards creek and then the woods in the mountain. I Usually just try to stay on the side of the creek, just to you know, that's where the triggers would be. If they're in the field and see him, I can call them over and shoot on the one or two. But More than anything I just ride by and see if there's one there period to hunt and then I can go in there and Hunt it in the woods right, and I just gonna probably be early in it, like well in the morning anyway yeah and then you know, I've never really saw him fly down in the field or anything like that, but um, but I want to say so this was my second season hunting there in the year before.
Speaker 1:I Know there was two there and I killed one of them and it had the longest pleasure I've seen in my life and it was the coolest experience if I ever had with a turkey, I would say, because I was talking about that creek Well, I'd been on him at this. Is it like 11 o'clock? This is the year before? This is 2022. He's with some hens. I worked in these woods, kind of came up this mountain. It's not a mountain, it's a big hill. Pretty much To us is a mountain there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but.
Speaker 1:I came down, I got within shotgun range of that creek and then I think he might not be across it like on, like on the woodside and there's a bunch, like I'm just a head right which is kind of just really random right there, you know, like really thick wall of just foliage, and I didn't I want this kind of hard thinking back that long but I Didn't know he was there. I'd walk past him, I'd called there. He answered he's with like seven hands, one turkey, seven hands, I mean one gobbler, seven hands. I Think I stopped there and called and he answered, but I thought there were nothing but courtesy. God was, didn't think anything of it. I don't, you know, chances aren't great. The hands didn't really. I mean, one might have looked up the first time and then they didn't pay me no mind. So I'm thinking, all right, they're not that inch, I'm gonna change it up and get somewhere else. So I kind of go back up or get on the other side of this big ridge or mountain or whatever and kind of worked down and come Back over and, lo and behold, they had started working that way. So I to undo everything, get back to where I was without calling.
Speaker 1:So you know, they didn't know I did all this, but I did and now I'm just really sweaty and tired and as humid. It was right after a rain, that's why I was. No, I'm sorry, this was right after rain, but I was kind of getting into the 2023 hunt. That was right after rain, like in the rain a little bit. But Now, to make long story short, I came back around and pretty much sat back on the same tree I called from and they walked up to it like they were coming to that call. But before he got there it was. It was funny because that hedgerows right there and I'm telling you when I'm I hadn't gotten to the tree yet, but I'm like within like One good jump again that tree and I have to stop cuz I'm like what is that? I couldn't. I didn't hear drumming, but I heard his wings on the ground. So I, once I got back up here, I could see that they were headed that direction. So I kind of just came back and came all the way down To go sit there and then, once I get down there, I can't really see nearly as much because that big hedgerows talking about. I Just know they're headed that way. There ain't no where they else they can really go Right, unless they just retreated back to where they were, which would be very typical, you know, just playing cat and mouse. But this was about a 70-yard walk for them and about a 350-yard walk for me by the time I got there.
Speaker 1:So I don't see them and I'm about to the tree and I just hear these wings scraping the ground and I'm like that's, that's what that is, you know, and I don't really know where it's at or anything, and I just see like a little glimpse of some feathers at the foot. You know, kind of a few yards there and I'm telling you like that turkey is strutting Six yards from me. Maybe, if that there's nothing I can do, I mean, and I know immediately he does not know I'm here Because the ground so wet and I kind of come up on top of this creek, walk down. This little is like a ravine, you know how, like you see roots and just dirt and it's just you just slip, which I know they're close, so I'm slipping, it's not like I'm just trying to hurry up and get there.
Speaker 1:So once I got back on it, in these woods or whatever, this little strip of woods on the right side of the creek. I'm kind of like slipping, and then I see him. I mean Closest I've ever been to a live turkey and I've been I mean you know the 12-yard step, shots away. But I'm talking like Could probably spit on him and he had no idea where. He's just doing this and doing this to the point I can't shoot him because I mean I'm, I can't move if he's gonna see me, but at the same time I know he doesn't know I'm here because of all this stick stuff and so I just sit there and watch him for like Five minutes.
Speaker 1:Him and these, he is this. He ends up knowing them here. I mean stupid clothes, and I pretty much kind of let them all turn this way and go walk backwards Kind of to the right, right and sit down and shoot him around this. When they come back and make a call and they, yeah, kind of make a U we can come back, and I shoot him at a good 20 yards. So but yeah, that was, and I picked him up and went oh my goodness, like that's probably the biggest bird I've ever seen in my life. They're Up there somewhere. Um, they're both over an inch and three quarters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember they were, I remember seeing, I remember in like the picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell how big they were. I picked them up before I looked on it. That's Abnormally big. You know, I hadn't. They looked and I looked down with me. I don't, I don't know if I've ever seen. I may have seen a few over inch and half, but I don't really get into like measuring them that much. I measure these. I was like I don't know this could be that come two inch first front, um. But getting in the story of the, the 2023 hunt same place I would Think the same situation. I'd I'd driven back by a couple more times and seen them in that field, seen them in these boys line, see them. You know, near that creek and stuff. It's pretty open. You can see through the open field into that. Into the open was when it is open for the leaves get there and seems scratching around and stuff and um. But most of 23 from january on I hadn't seen nothing. So I'm kind of like and they cut the timber on the opposite side of the field.
Speaker 2:Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about, because I remember we rode, yeah, and you were. You were telling me about the timber being cut.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I was pretty disheartened about that Because I think there was turkeys boosted on there. I don't know, I never hunted over on that side, but I can hunt both sides and on, and this ain't but about 80 acres or so I would say, on either side. I don't know if you ever take I don't really know um, but it but it held a turkey or two, it seemed so. I hadn't seen one anywhere. I was coming back from um hunting with you. Oh, you had a draw at a place down here, miss sippy. Um, you and jordan hunted it a day or so and then mean you went back because the regular part opened after that, I think, or something like that. I don't remember how missy these rolls went. Yeah, I'd have a draw.
Speaker 2:Now I think we had the draw, and the day we hunted was the first day it opened up to really public draw.
Speaker 1:It was something like that. Yeah, and um, pretty much. Uh, I think it was on the way home. I wound up taking a weird route to get home and I was like, screw it, might as well turn this into a 10 hour trip, you know, and I was like it was about 435 or so. That was later than that, I'm sorry, it was probably 630. I don't remember what time it was dark in the spring, but about an hour and a half from fly up time, I would say.
Speaker 1:And I'm riding down this field line and I'm on the black top, can I just look and look and look and I see a dang strutter out there. I'm like, are you serious? Because the opening day is tomorrow. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I am ecstatic at this point. And, um, because I really didn't think I didn't have nowhere to hunt because it public wasn't open. So I was like, I mean, what do you do? And um, so I'm sitting there and I go ahead and text the other guy who can hunt it. There's a family friend of theirs who I talked to before and he's got a son as youth weekend. And, um, I hadn't texted him since they went hunting to see if they killed anything or anything like that, cause we've been hunting and um, but I told him, you know I plan on hunting it open in weekend. As we're back in like February, I plan on opening and opening weekend. After that we're going to be traveling, so much I don't. I don't know, but I'll let you know regardless. Um, so they they've used hunted at once, um, and so I went ahead and text him.
Speaker 1:I was like I don't know, hunting near tomorrow and like I'm telling you there's no way he saw my text and then drove down the road but I'm like sending it and I see this little like side by side, right by this, where he's doing he's going to see if there's a turkey in the field too, cause apparently he knew there was, I just hadn't written by a good time to see it out there, and so he's. He's talking to me and he said something like I don't miss a little boy missed or something or something. The long lines they were. They weren't really planning on going out there anyways, but wound up sounding like and he has no idea, this turkey's. I mean it's 300 yards out in the field. It looks kind of like a dot, unless you're actively looking for it. So I'm kind of I try to he might be listening to this I try to like there's some dogs out in the field or something and I was like I don't know who the dog that is. I keep seeing it or something, and I kind of changed the subject completely, like before you can say what are you doing, what are you looking at or how you see anything. I'm just like immediately, like I'm trying to do this over here and I'm really really curb that. And so he drives on and he's like yeah, I'm already playing on hunting somewhere else in the morning. Um, you know no big deal, yada, yada. And I'm like okay, cool, you just do that. Um, so let them hold.
Speaker 1:It winds up monsoon in that morning. I wake up and it made it and I knew going to sleep that night is probably going to be a late morning on it, if anything. If I'm lucky and I don't remember what time it was, I get in this, but it's about 10. It's not even close. Um, after the rain stopped, kind of same thing got there, drove in the rain, got there and waited. Time is pretty good, Honestly, falling on, waited about 10 minutes or something. Get down in there and getting this little bottom part of it and go in there and have no idea this turkey's out there and I'm kind of just slipping, slipping, slipping, not really wanting to call until I can. You know, hopefully he'll gobble Um hadn't heard it, or whatever. And um, then he does sound off in the back back corner after a while on his own, or whatever, and I'm thinking all right he's here, we're good, you know.
Speaker 1:Avoid it, cause that you know you're running through so many thoughts You're mind like, what if he did wake up? What if he was headed to hunt late and he did see it in there and then he came in here and he shot it, and I don't know it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, and I'm wasting time hunting, the turkey is dead and um, all that stuff's going through my mind and I hear him gobble, and everything's good for you know, the rest of the day. I'm, I'm, I'm all right, I got something to hunt and um, 24 hours before I didn't think there was a turkey there to hunt period and um yeah, cause I do remember I had to go somewhere the next morning and I remember you were contemplating staying in Mississippi, and I wonder if it was Texas.
Speaker 1:Like cause you left, and then it may have came back to shoot that one, and that would have been the following week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it may have been um cause. I remember you were contemplating staying where we had that draw, just cause you said you didn't have anything in Georgia and you ended up and you ended up going home.
Speaker 1:Yep, so I yeah, and I was pretty blown about that, cause there was turkeys were hunting on the public land, but they've been hunting like four days in a row. I'm like, yeah, I'd hate to just not go home and make sure there's not a turkey on it.
Speaker 2:You know, I forgot about that.
Speaker 1:Um, but yes, so so he sounds off in that back corner. And then, um, I'm all ecstatic and I kind of get as much of a ground as I can. And then I kind of see him walking. He's not in the field or anything, but he's in the woods with the fields behind him, so I can see silhouette pretty pretty good, and he kind of just busted on out there.
Speaker 1:I see a hen. I'm looking at binoculars and I see him kind of rumble on out there in full strut, kind of still wet and stuff. I'm like, all right, here we go. Um, so, and this is my first ever I've ever tried to attempt itself filming anything, and I y'all know I ain't no Mel Gibson or who, uh, steven Spielberg or whoever produces these movies. I'm far from that and I'm I'm good to remember the camera and remember to turn it on and remember where I put it after I threw it and um, but lo and behold, I remember to turn it on and all that stuff and um, got some good footage of leaves and my feet and all that. But it's on our YouTube and it turned out to be a pretty not informative but a good little clip of, you know, real, unaltered hunting. Yeah, real life stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, so I'm slipping down here and then, um, he kind of moves off his back corner and I try to. I think I I wind up trying to get the high ground on him getting up this mountain and see if I call him up there. I got in a little bit of a bind, I remember, because there wasn't, I couldn't hunt in a wide open but I could hunt, you know, as it goes down that little buffer area I'm talking about that, that we can hunt me. And that other guy I did verify with him like cause he had the same permission from the same people I did. It's like we just can't hunt the crop part. He's like, yeah we. He's like I hunt this all the time, Just don't get up out in. There is what they just don't. Folks out in the middle of the field Right, probably more so messing up the you know the crops and stuff, I guess I don't know. But, um, but as it goes down to the back corner that gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and further he kind of works this way, the better, further he works that way. No bueno, you know it's going to be tough to call him across the creek at that point because the creek kind of hits that corner and I can't shoot across the creek because at the very end our property, um, so so I'm kind of in the middle where it starts thinning down and I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to have to really call him, either over here quickly or, you know, keep him, he come down and they're going back and I know for a fact where they're coming out, because there's a crossing in that creek that's higher than anywhere else and the creek kind of does this, and that I know that because I got school by turkey the year before and I did not take a trick cross right there and it did, and it's saw me for a shooting man on. So I know for a fact where they were coming in and out at and I know they were between me and that point, so I couldn't get to their little crossing and so I'm kind of at a standstill and I called a timer to not much maybe twice. You know, just kind of a little bit of a hell, mary. Maybe I can just make it easy. Maybe they want to hear him or walk over here. But, um, they answered, or he answered, and he is kind of starting to move another way and so I get up on a high point and then that's a good.
Speaker 1:A good little chunk of time passes and I don't hear nothing and I've lost sight of them, I've lost sound of them and I don't know where they're at and I really don't want to bump them, cause it's the only one I got to hunt. So I'm kind of just sitting there hanging out, hanging out and thinking, hoping you know a crow or something sound off, and I want to say I actually even turned the camera. Little GoPro, whatever I had around, was like all right, update Cause I had none on of these and, like y'all just know, it's raining. Um, here's what happened, yachty, out of what I just said. And, um, I'm going to go to the top and see if I can hear down on the other side.
Speaker 1:Well, by halfway up, crow sounds off in the gobbels and he is exactly, you know, where I was about to walk, a which is would not have been great, but, um, but he's on top of this long ridge, is on top of this mountain. I'm assuming these with the hands, but he, he, he answered that crow. I don't think I call real, real quick. After that, I think I tried to let him go by the time or two so I can get a better pinpoint. I'm like calling if I don't. I like knowing what their possible moves could be Before I let them know what my possible moves could be.
Speaker 1:Let them give away their position before you do, and I got the range that he could be in now. But I would much rather have pinpointed. You know what he's doing which way. If you got was once, you know where he's at. If you got twice, you know it's where he's probably going. That's big difference when it comes to what you, what you're gonna do next. So, so let him gobble. He gobbled 34 times honestly. So he's my mind. He has bred a hen or two and he's trying to get some more.
Speaker 1:I'm like we're in a good spot. So I get up here and then we're not necessarily in the best spots, because he is very close to that crest and eventually I mean he's, he, I would say Hand full of steps away, walking right to see him, the whole side of mountain. I'm just gonna be sitting there looking back up at him. So I'm hoping he doesn't hear my footsteps, doesn't you know? Has no inclination at all that there's something enticing on the side. A pretty good handle yet, mom, because it's not gonna be good, because I'm still 80 yards from the top, why I'm getting within, you know 20 yards of it, safe and sound, he's. He's still there, hadn't bumped yet, that I know of. And then I sit there and I do think I call once, twice. Maybe I'm walking up after I got within 40. I'm thinking, you know, if he gets to the top and looks over, I at least got a chance to call in a little ways closer to take a shot If I need to. But I'm not gonna be necessarily. I'm gonna be real close to a tree and behind something if I do call, and I did a couple times the answer, which was good, but I had to hurry up because now he, if he's coming, he's gonna come home. So I use on up a little bit, kind of doing this weird little crouch deal, you know, trying to trying to go uphill and slow and not drop anything and not make a move but not be loud. Um and um, and this is the.
Speaker 1:The woods in Georgia are so much different than Mississippi that the leaves are huge. They're all. They're always drives, never a human up there, so it's always dry. Even though it just rained, these leaves are still somehow making noises. I'm thinking, okay, which, granted, about two hours has passed, so I mean, give or take, they might have dried out a little bit, but so I'm starting to make no, like he's gobbling.
Speaker 1:I think he's goblin at my footsteps and I'm like, all right, I need to hurry up and pick a tree at this point, pick a tree. I'm thinking no calling you know, just scratch, scratch these leaves. He's answering. Every time I scratch the leaves, you hammer. Now like maybe that's coincident, I do it again, he hammer. He's like all right, he knows he thinks turkey's on the side, so that's good. Um, wait it out. Never crest, still still on the same spot. He's just moving left and right.
Speaker 1:At this point, um, I'd be willing to bet he he ain't bred all the hands, he really, to leave him. He's just kind of just showing out and goblin at this point. And, um, so I use up, ease up, ease up. Now I can see the crest and now we're good, I feel confident and talking to the top more than talking him over the whole deck on thing. Um, get up there and kind of slip around this log and of course I leave. I do leave the camera On, which was a plus for me. Um, so you kind of barely see a boot or something. Kind of get over this log and get right where I'm talking about and, um, I got my gun up and stuff like that and I scratch a couple more times and I don't know if he answers, or you might drum to it or something like that. But then he I can see his head at that point just bobbing here and there and then go down for a while. I'm strutting him, assuming he'd come up and walk a little ways and more, more I did move or scratch or anything like that, the more he worked up, work up.
Speaker 1:At that point I know he, he knew about me, he knew where my location was and he was probably gonna, you know, come on over and um, he gets pretty dead on clothes and I can't. I hadn't seen the, the full beard. Yeah, I know the the hurricane saw in the field yesterday and that morning was a long beard. But I've had some wilder stuff happens. I wanted to make sure I saw a swinging beard and um, so he was walking right in line with a Lay down log or something. You can't see none of this on video or nothing, but I remember way he was walking. He was out of strut walking and I couldn't see. It stopped right where A jigs beard was stopped. So I don't really know if it's sticking out or hanging down or Really nothing. And then finally he moves aside or something. I see it on the bottom. All right, that's the long beard.
Speaker 1:And no sooner than I saw that, he started, you know, smelling a rat. He was like huh, you know. He's getting pretty close now and he hadn't seen nothing and he's starting to be able to see that side of the mountain and that and see that he ain't yet Not mentioned this kid. I don't know how hard they hunted this turkey, you know the week of these weeks and stuff like that, and he variable could have been there Watching me shoot his buddy the year four. I don't know. He wasn't stupid, that's for sure. But he started. You know the jigs is up pretty quick and it started kind of hurt a button.
Speaker 1:I went, oh lord, because he just now got to where I can see the upper half of his body. He ain't got to go far down for me to not see anything, and how much you can do at that point. Luckily he didn't run down, he just ran right. So he didn't run. He just, you know, started picking up. You know putting and looking at putting and looking and, and I picked the spot. I'm like he gets on this side of the tree and as long as he don't cut down the other side. You know it's wide open. No, luckily you. Just he's zigged when he should have zag, you know, but um but he hasn't taken this first two.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean every inch and a half something, I don't know, but it must be genetics in that little know and big foot hill. But he has some and me you don't want to win pretty pretty good, pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I remember seeing the picture back. I don't know that I can ever forget the picture of the one you're talking about, the same place. Two years ago or the year before the. Yeah, I don't know if it's the area or what, but and there's some different places that that we've noticed I know we've talked about it that the turkeys always have bigger spurs than others.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always found and I'm known about it just by all means, but the longest spurs I've seen, I mean heck, I've seen inch and a half ones in Texas when it just dries.
Speaker 1:I'll get up, but Not many. And but you know the sharp ones that aren't broken off. Usually you know swampy areas and stuff like that. You got those like pearly kind of looking spurs with the pearly toenails and you know it's got a white everything to it. See a lot of those. When I hunted up you know around, you know north central Mississippi and then even into North Alabama, I'd see a lot of those. Never it's on down here in south. But you see those, the blacker spurs or I'd say something, look almost pink and they have a black tip.
Speaker 1:I see a lot of those around the poor Gibson. They're like the southern part of Mississippi for some reason. I don't. I don't know, but it is almost like. I do remember Thinking back several years, probably over 10 years ago, killed Multiple at the same spot, like literally same little corner of the same property, two or three in the same year there's when you're late in that ant bed and all three almost had identical looking spurs. They're all like they're, they're good, I mean between inch and inch and a quarter, but they all look the exact same. They had the same little tip. You know had to have been something to do genetics, I would think the correlation versus causation.
Speaker 1:They're eating the same thing they're in the same habitat. You know they might not be genetically Right, so I mean I don't connect it at all genetic service terrain, but it's got to be one of the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I mean could be luck, I don't you know. Oh yeah, and it could be.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to do it. Look, you know, oh yeah, and it could be. I don't know how that works, but but I would definitely train plays part of it, because this shot and that I don't like them. Little inch ones, they're still short, that's the ones that caught up in your glove accident and I learned real quick a couple times. Well, I got one on each hand. That's pretty deck. I'm deep from those one inch that'll get up in there and start twisting that glove.
Speaker 2:I say you remember I dislocated my ring finger on one of our hunks. It was swollen bird. That come seven months. I know that I grabbed one like you're talking about and he got caught in my glove and the glove came off, everything but around my ring, and it pulled it down. I finally got that thing off of my finger. Stays swollen for probably seven months real.
Speaker 1:It really did. That's funny. I mean not funny, but that's funny. Now, well, does that what happened? But no, I've had some Some bad luck grabbing by the feet. When you think they're done flopping and they ain't, they have one more hurrah and they get. If you ain't wearing gloves, you let go, but if you're wearing gloves, you let go and they don't.
Speaker 2:They don't, they're still there.
Speaker 1:That's not a good feeling because you don't really know what to do. You can't really rewind it, Um, but now I was a good little place and you know I do. I was thinking about the other day. I was like I wonder if they've cut that or anything like that, or you know if there's more turkeys there, because I never really had time to go back and check. I think Me and Chase went back. It was the week After I shot that one we mentioned the very beginning which was the second one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's only two. Better limit Georgia. Second hunt Chase came up filming that one. Then he bought a license and I was like we're gonna check this place. I don't have no idea. I don't think we heard anything, but it went a good morning. Um, we actually checked the side they cut and Wasn't in there that we saw some tracks and stuff. But what not hitting that morning. But now this, um, that's been good hunts up in Georgia through to the bigger turkeys. The first shot was everyone had a 12 and a half inch beard and one had an inch and three quarter inch birds.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I ain't never seen neither of those until then. Same year, get two and that's two. I got pretty cool, yeah, but I'll be all right with some inch birds and nine inch beers till I die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. That doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1:I think the whole thing and you were horrible about it.
Speaker 2:How long is beer? Nine inches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, maybe 11 it can be. 11 is beer. I'm like I don't give on nine and a half.
Speaker 2:I always go to the half. Nine and a half. Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't, neither one of us, if it's thick some reason.
Speaker 1:I think it's nice to you know, I don't, you know, don't measure. I'm just, yes, you know, measured. I measured that beard to measure those birds. I don't know if I'll ever get. I was curious. Most of them you've seen.
Speaker 2:You know that's a yeah, that's something you can tell a normal turkey.
Speaker 1:But if I see some, or if I that out of seven inch beard, I don't want to measure. See how short it was you know just an oddity um.
Speaker 2:But no, it's um. Yeah, I don't we just go generic. That's not enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's first but and then um, but I want to say both turkeys I shot up there had some some cool Coloration of the feathers too. One of them one I killed with Druze that had the real long beer was black black night. This um, which is fan, can't really tell, but it's had a cold tint to it, real flat black um. And then that one in the middle is the one that the long spurs. I remember he had that white on his tail fin. It's crazy, I don't. It's saying like a bracket dosh is why we just thought it'd be cool to make. But I See, I think you're helping me put it up and was talking about labeling on it. I was like brother, I know exactly which. Every single family is.
Speaker 1:I can tell you where I was, the date, which turkey that is, from that turkey and Every single one of them I know. Yeah, that's still one of my favorites, though it's from 34 years ago. It's like a hybrid looking one that's from out west, though we didn't have a whole series of just. You got a 10 minute story on these. What happened? And don't get down the rabbit holes and we'll talk about them.
Speaker 2:We're going to rabbit holes, going to be tough for us.
Speaker 1:We ever avoided them not that I know of, that's for sure. But without getting on another rabbit hole, you got anything else you want to drop in there? I just want to tell these two quick stories and remind you all that these are podcasts, but they're also video cast, so if you're listening to this in your car, you can also. I guess if you really want to watch us talk about it, you can watch us talk about it on the YouTube, but you can at least see the hand motion.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, if I'm talking about an Omega and a Creek, I mean doing this Might be hard to visualize that otherwise. Or if you're all starting to, if I trip my words up on the property I was hunting, just know that this was the. This was the site I could hunt, this was the site I could not hunt.
Speaker 1:I'm on this side, you know I got some hand motions to show. I don't know how it comes out whenever it's just audio, but but yeah, and another incentive is that it does release on YouTube first. So if you're watching this, you know, upon release you get a good, you know heads up on it and you get pretty conveniently watched what we're talking about. So everything we're going to be covering in these bulk episodes that we're recording me and seals, or me and Chase, chase the seals that we're talking about, these hunts, so far we've just dived into the ones that are already on there and the coming weeks we're going to be releasing the ones that aren't on YouTube and releasing those videos and those are a little better, more conscious of what we're doing.
Speaker 1:At that point. Some of these need a podcast to go with it, because there is no other way you would know what's happening, or putting them on there anyway, because that's how it really happened. But it definitely has a little an explanation goes a long way on some of them, I would say, but some of the later season ones that we haven't talked about at all yet, like I knew, we faced times on that one you mentioned, so I knew you'd kill one. I just didn't know many details.
Speaker 2:Some of these.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't even know if I've told anybody this yet you know Saying something that you've killed. I know you killed them, but that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot that goes into some of these. We're going to hit that. Yeah, I don't know that I've told anybody just because I'm not any negative, just because you normally me and you the ones that talk about it. And after we made our pact. Yeah, I understand and hadn't mentioned it.
Speaker 1:So some of these are gonna have the video come out. I don't know the order, but the video will come out within very close timing of the podcast that we're talking about it, and that's when it'll get good that's gonna be around the Januarys and stuff when folks are really focusing on Turkey hunting and we're getting to really talk about stuff that hadn't already been seen in some of these videos we're talking about already half a thousand views, you know. So folks listening to this might go well, I don't know that was gonna happen. Oh yeah, that was already up there.
Speaker 1:So what we're recapping this first half is stuff that's already been on the channel, but up there on a whim the whole hunt, and then we'll put a more condensed version for folks who have a timely schedule to attend. Then we'll sit there and watch all hour and a half of it. It'll be a quick one but nonetheless, you know I'm glad you're listening to this. We definitely appreciate it. I hope you're getting your mind right, just like we are, because it won't be long now. I might be the first time I've said that, but all year, I know, towards February, I'm saying it about 10 times a day and just tell them stuff it won't be long.
Speaker 2:You're talking to yourself to just calm down. It won't be long.
Speaker 1:Just hold on to it. We almost there. So the focus is shifting, the mindset is drifting and it won't be long now.
Speaker 2:I was right on your side.
Speaker 1:Yup, but anyways, thank you all for tuning in. We hope you all will share the word. Kind of tell other folks about our podcast. We definitely appreciate it. Each and every one of y'all who've rated it definitely appreciate that and sharing the stories whatnot? If you wanna learn more, check us out on social media at Spring Legion, across the page. And also we got a website, springleagentcom. We got some cool stuff coming out in the spring this whole new ball game from what we're used to. So we're enjoying it and some of us are acting our brain, but some of it is a lot of fun to think of with and design and stuff like that, stuff that we wanted to, that we would like to hunt with, that we now have the opportunity to make and produce and so far I think other folks are taking on pretty good and liking what we're doing. So check that out, springleagentcom. I ain't got nothing else. We'll see you next week.
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