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
Tough Turkeys to Hunt: Part 1 | Creek Crossing Gobblers + Alabama Hammers
Our first multi-episode week of podcasts starts off with a couple stories of unique Alabama turkey hunts. This episode is packed with the kind of tales that make you lean in closer. Chase tells us about a whole flock of turkeys flying across a creek, landing in their lap. Sills has a beardless gobbler strut in to 14 steps in the big Alabama hills.
With the NWTF convention just around the corner, we're excited to share our latest project releases and shake hands with fellow turkey hunters at Booth #609 and invite you to join us, alongside our friends at OnX, at Rick's Cafe in Starkville, Mississippi, for a live recording of our 100th episode.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or someone who gets a thrill from outdoor escapades, this episode promises to take your mind to the spring turkey woods.
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
Follow us on Instagram:
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@chasefarrior
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What's going on y'all? Welcome back to another episode of the Supreme Legion podcast. Got the whole gang here together finally, for the first time in a little while. My name is Hunter Farrier, austin Seales over here and Chase Farrier All three with us today and for the first time in a while actually first time ever that I know of we're gonna have a multi-episode week.
Speaker 2:As everybody's kind of gearing up and getting the mind right for the spring turkey season, we thought it'd be something pretty cool to kind of compile a bunch of stories and stuff from the past season and cram it all into one week. So I'll wait until the following Monday. If we're in here kind of recording them in bulk, might as well start releasing some in bulk. So gonna get some of these stories knocked out in the next hour or so and hopefully I have a good feeling a good folks, a good bit of folks, gonna be listening to these on the way to Nashville, tennessee. If all goes well, we're able to get them out in time. So we'll have a little bit of a driving material for those who are making the long haul to Nashville on February 15th to the 17th to that NWTF convention.
Speaker 2:That's coming up quick, yeah, and that's gonna be here, as the time of this recording is coming up quick, so that's when you really know and we're gonna be crams-essed when it comes to what we're gonna hopefully be releasing there. Things are looking good to get some big projects released. That's all I'm gonna say on it. And it's a good time, and we always have a good time there at the Opryland. Is Opryland a great old Opryland?
Speaker 1:It's.
Speaker 2:Opryland it's.
Speaker 3:Opryland, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Opryland, we're not going to Grinnell, opry guys.
Speaker 3:We're going to Opryland. Yeah, I think J Lord Opryland, j Lord Opryland. Yeah, so, and I just remember Delta Ballroom or the Delta and Cascades Delta Ballroom, and then we're not getting on this team.
Speaker 2:And then it's just a bunch of firms, furns and waterfalls after that.
Speaker 3:I know the Delta stay in, the Cascades stay.
Speaker 2:That's where we all get sidetracked, oh yeah, it's a fun place to get lost at and you're gonna get lost at it if you are staying there, we're going to get on X and mark our track from our hotel room to our to the ballroom.
Speaker 2:I've literally ran a tracker from my room to the. I mean I have to go back and kind of take some sections out because they were wrong. All right, don't go back again this way, because I wind up, you know, making a good old detour too. But once I find it right, I'm glad I did it. And I've definitely pulled up on X, walking down the little bridges and stuff, trying to figure out where, like just to see which way I'm pointing. I have no idea, oh no.
Speaker 3:I mean, I walked. I walked last year. We were running late. Imagine that, yeah, and I walked, thinking I was walking straight to the ballroom. Any second you go there, I walk out in Valley Park. I'm like, yeah, that is the complete opposite way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but so if y'all show up to booth 609 and we're not there, just know we're trying to get there. But do hope y'all swing by the booth. We're gonna have some some cool things. Got the gators and everything, got some stuff that'll kind of tie in with them. Gators Gonna be releasing there as well as a good bit of casual stuff.
Speaker 2:And best way I can explain it if you walk in, hook a right at registration or once you get your on of his wristbands or tickets, however they do it. But once you hook a right, you know, walk underneath the little arc that you first come into, hook a right and you'll see the mausoleum down there on the corner. And we're between nomad and mausoleum, right there in the middle of it, towards the bottom right corner of that first little atrium you get to. And aside from that, we got the live podcast at Rick's Cafe in Startwell, mississippi, on February 21st. Pretty much as soon as we get back home from Nashville. We're gonna probably keep the podcast stuff in the truck and just hop back in it. No day or two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nwtf is like the kickoff to turkey season, but the I don't know something about being in Startwell and that's the last leg before turkey season. So you got NWTF and you're almost there and then you go to, we go to Startwell, did the Rick's for the last two years, did the Rick's podcast. When you come out of there it's like it's time to get full throttle.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. You know you have your preparation season and then you have your there's like a very small kind of it's not even preparation. You've already prepared your mind and everything for turkey season. The anticipation's kind of been there and kind of gone back. Now you're just kind of just been, you know, focused on it you know, you're actually planning stuff, you're actually scouting stuff, you're actually doing things, instead of just daydreaming about doing these things it's go time.
Speaker 3:It's almost like like a big game, like you're prep for it, prep for it, prep for it. You go to your walk through NWTF's, you walk through, then you're there yeah and it's just a relax. It's like relaxes the nerves kind of dive.
Speaker 2:When you're out there warming up, you know they nothing even fit changing out what you are, what you're gonna be, yeah. But so we're gonna dive in a couple stories today. Hopefully we're not gonna ramble on too long. You have a few minutes on each one of them. They're all gonna have to do with Alabama lawn beers from this past season, or shortbeards, oh okay, I forgot about that yep, so Cills is gonna be talking about Alabama gobbler with uh.
Speaker 3:I mean like an inch beard, or maybe they didn't even have one.
Speaker 2:Were you able to get it out of him, or I?
Speaker 3:was able to get it out of him, but I got. I told Chase this the uh, the spurs were longer than the beard, really.
Speaker 2:Well, he has some hooks, or a short beard one, I don't know, I've never seen a nine inch spur A little bit of both.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we're gonna dive into them and and just really roll on with it. And I hope y'all subscribe to the channel, subscribe to the podcast and everything, because this week especially is gonna be a good one for talking turkey hunt. We're gonna have more than this one coming out in the next day or two and some days might have more than one come out, I don't know. We uh we got a good bit to release and, chase, you want to kick us off and give us a, you know, not a shortened version, but a condensed version of kind of the the time you had down and what part out. It was More southern Alabama than I guess we were at, or I guess it was it wasn't central.
Speaker 1:It was central just across the Mississippi line, central Alabama, pretty much straight shot across from flow wood. I mean, I don't really know the name of the little town, but is there around like York area? I Really don't, I have no idea.
Speaker 2:I don't know, butler, butler, it just hit me.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, buddy, gray, scott, and Really nice, his first time that Gray, we had talked on the phone, you know, through Instagram, whatnot I think he talked about the all at some point. You know, we kind of knew he's pretty good guy, I'm pretty good turkey on, or not everything in between. So he had invited I think us One you know, either me or seals me and you to go and somehow, or another was I was only available.
Speaker 2:We were hunting, being able, I think. I mean, we were hunting at a, we were somewhere public land, yeah, yeah, we were.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I think we were.
Speaker 3:We were hunting on some public land and Something. We had something going on, as do I.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I don't know. We weren't there.
Speaker 1:Y'all weren't able to go to Alabama with me and I mean it wouldn't be like two hours over there and I thought it was a way further. So I mean I just put in GPS, I said hey, I'm gonna be there in the morning, or tonight and he said let's go in the morning.
Speaker 1:I got, you know, I kind of know where some birds should be on this private block and so, anyways, I ride over and get there right after dark and you know pretty much shake hands, eat something real quick and Go to sleep. You know we've known each other, or you know we've met each other for 45 minutes before we Set out turkey hunting.
Speaker 3:It's crazy how the turkey world can do that though. Because if I mean if somebody randomly cajins that, hey man, come spend the night and hang out, we're gonna fish in the morning, what's the chance you're gonna be?
Speaker 2:right. 45 minutes is longer than I've known some folks Well I went to her home with. I've met them at the gate.
Speaker 3:And but it was almost almost like don't even introduce yourself that extra trust that, yeah, right he does. He shares the same passion. Yeah, he's got a bigger guy, he's good.
Speaker 1:He good, get his good enough you know, and, and he really was he's a great guy and you know, I consider him a good friend now, especially after that, you know, and I Don't think I stayed in his place 24 hours by the end of it that was funny thing.
Speaker 1:But anyways, you know, we, I go to sleep, we wake up and I just jump in the truck with him. You know, you had my stuff together night for. And we went to a place and he says you know, I got bird on the back side, his property was here yesterday. Couldn't, couldn't work him out, all right, perfect, let's go. We get out of truck. No sooner we, you know, rack one in our gun and in stuff, trying to get all our stuff together.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I mean 200 yards from we're like, oh crap, you know, we, when you see what, what the chips, look how the chips lay real quick, I think we hooded and I mean I Boom to gobble right there and we're like he's like there's a food pot down here, let's, I bet you on the edge of it. Let's, let's slip down there. We set up on edge at food plot and the turkeys were roosted over a big chunk of water.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm and we couldn't. You know, I've never seen this place ever. Yeah, I mean, it's dark and I'm set out on a tree.
Speaker 2:You know where it starts, where it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have no idea, and he's far, 10-15 feet behind me, far enough where we can't really sit there and discuss. You know, one of those things that we we didn't really talk about how he hunts and how I hunt you know we didn't have any kind of idea.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if he was gonna get out there and call as much as I do if I needed to shut up If he said something. That's what this meant. You know, we were just, you know, kind of singly hunting together, you know, and we, you know, we sit down on these birds and I'm telling you they gobbling their head off and they get to go in. And you know, we we call very minimal and it was kind of a weird thing. The there was a creek down there and he said I know there's a creek down there and turns out it it flooded out like that. I got a bigger rain over there than we had at home, or whatever it may have been. So it was a pretty big body of water.
Speaker 1:These turkeys are roasted over and so about 40 yards to my left it's a drop-off, you know, 20 feet drop-off. It's a big bank for that creek and I Don't really know that at this point. I think you know, maybe water just is up to there, but it's a bank, then it's a Dennis water, you know, 50 yards down there. Anyways, these birds are gobbling. We finally did figure out there on the ground whatever it may be, and we realized the sounds bouncing up that bank and I think they're 40 yards this whole time, just about to pop. I mean I'm sitting there locked in for a good minute. I mean it may have been 30 minutes or 45 minutes, I don't know how long it was, but um Just locked in, ready to go and he knows all this, so he's relaxed, hanging out back there.
Speaker 1:Just, you know, we're just yelping once or twice and shutting up and Heck, you know just the short end of it. You know the turkeys get fired up. We'd caught a few times and he says they're across water. I see, and there you know, 150 yards on the other side of this break of water. Did you water? They pitch down on the other side of water.
Speaker 1:They, they were roosted over it. We didn't know if they were roosted on the edge of it on our side and we're gonna fly into that food plot. Or and now, knowing there was a bank there, I was thinking, you know, I would have been, you know, bet my bottom dollar that would have flown into the edge of that bank on our side and Popped right up the hill and you know, been over with.
Speaker 1:But for some reason they pitched away from us and and sat down on the other side of water and you know, sound was playing tricks on me a little bit and I thought they were like closer than they were and then he finally called a glimpse of them across the water.
Speaker 2:That water will make you sound a lot closer to me. Yeah, I mean I'm here in drumming and stuff and he's out there. Yeah, at least 150, 200 year old. It's like metal, you know. It pops the sound right over to you.
Speaker 1:It skips across that water and hits that bank and then it sounds like he's on that bank on our side. And I can't see over it.
Speaker 1:So I'm like I'm saying I'm locked in ready to go the whole time and the birds are there 200 year old and I don't know that. And then finally I catch wind. You know he kind of Mows enough, whisper to me that he I hear across the water Mm-hmm, and I kind of reposition a little bit. You know, kind of know I can move a little bit and relax a second and Anyways, I think we up a few more times and we're like all right Silent. You know we both agreed to it, like make him want it.
Speaker 1:You know kind of thing, and she one of them decided to pitch across and he says flying water, flying water, flying water.
Speaker 3:Like just said it, a hundred times pitched across the water to you, to me, from the ground, not from the ground.
Speaker 2:I thought he had pitched to you out of the tree, so he flew.
Speaker 3:No, he, they were on the other bank.
Speaker 1:Strutting up and down the edge of the like, like you would occur. I mean, it's a creek, but it was. You know, two feet deep water flooded out and then a creek was somewhere in the middle of it. Yeah, right, the channel. Yeah, the channel, yeah the channel.
Speaker 2:You hope you don't find any trying to cross it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what we knew.
Speaker 1:We couldn't go across to get on and we couldn't back out. You know we would have had to walk Back to the truck, drive across the creek, which would have been. The bridge is only like 150 yards from where they are, to the right of them, to the left of them for me. So we're kind of like we either got a call, you know a tent, let's attempt calling them across. We had heard another bird down there in the back of the property that we had intended on hunting, so we were like you know, if this, let's try him wait if it goes sour and then?
Speaker 1:30 minutes an hour, we'll go hunt the other side of the property or the back of the property. But when that first one pitched he said, oh, we're going flying, once flying water, once flying the water. And so, you know, I go ahead and spin and um Think he'd already kill once. So he wanted me. You know, and I'm all for. You know, first option, first person gets the shot. Take the shot, you know. And so now he's to my left instead of kind of behind me, and when that first one pitched across I caught a glimpse of him. Then I hadn't seen him this whole time and because he had a little different angle and I Remember looking over there catching the glimpse the one halfway across the water and then shoot. It looked like Ducks, just one after the other, I mean it probably 15 Birds flew across the creek the creek all at once.
Speaker 1:When that first one decided they get into the other side, All his hands came with him. I mean it was probably mm-hmm. I mean I think it was about 15 turkeys, pretty cool. And I don't think I have any of that really on camera because you know.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I never expected that to happen.
Speaker 1:No no, I had no idea it was about to happen. And which, of course, the turkey land. The first one's a long beard. And I think I asked him like he's like can you kill him? And I'm like I can't see him. He was in a little bit of a dip where he could see more On those side of that little bank than I could and he could see the turkey the whole time. And I'm like no, no, and he's saying wait, there's more coming and I'm seeing those ones coming. It's all I'm trying to wait to.
Speaker 2:That bird finally comes around the edge of a big pine tree at like 22 steps and he knew something wasn't right Instantly, especially if you got a greenfield and they know no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I shot. And you know he was sitting there. Wait, wait, wait, wait, another long beard coming. You know he we're trying to double up at that point, you know, getting a little greedy, but all four, we got four of them just flew a creek to us. You know we're fired up, plus a handful of hens. You know, couldn't believe it was happening all the same time. But you know, whatever it ended up happening and so I shoot, he'll the turkey and the they ain't got nowhere to go other than fly across the water.
Speaker 1:So he, you know, did a little Two or three times and got the other one to stop long enough and he shot him one and you know Both right there, 45 yards and or his was about 40, 45 probably, mine was a 20 something, probably, I'd say maybe 30 max and we just like. What in the world man?
Speaker 2:Pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And so I mean and this is 30 minutes after daylight- yeah, but it's not like having fast it kind of ended up.
Speaker 1:It felt like it was a long time waiting on them, trying to figure out when they were at. For me, yeah, he kind of probably knew, you know, knowing how that ditch does whenever it rains and whatnot me not knowing there was a ditch there when we sat down, kind of thing like it was. It probably took a lot longer in my head than it did his, but it was wild, you know, just see, seeing all of them fly across, which I mean it makes sense when I'm landed, and they knew it was good.
Speaker 1:I said he didn't get right, attacked instantly, because I mean he did land a Little ways down and walk up. You know he was. He was there for a minute. And then once he was there 30 seconds, the rest of them started like coming on, it was good. Yeah, and that the rest of them landed a little further back. Kind of more yeah on Gray's Swing of things, mine kind of had to be up there at towards front, which is where the first long beard landed. He pretty much came to the call. He was yeah.
Speaker 1:He was coming to look. The rest were just kind of doing whatever he did, I think pretty cool. And I mean I think they ended up being, you know, normal, pretty to you pretty much what you'd call a two-year-old bird, but I mean they, they had a gobble on them, that's all right I mean they were six gobbling a row one turkey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm rezanne's, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I, when we got home, I ran the clip back, since you a snapchat and you're like good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was. It was cool because I mean it felt like they were right. I mean we said it, we, we snuck in there. Good on, yeah, you know, really and honestly, it was you know pine, so you could you wouldn't make a lot of noise and it was dark still when they were goblin and you know we stayed off that green field far enough that Mm-hmm and I'm not a big fan on sitting on green fields.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, setting up on a green field in the dark, I've just never been Keen on it and I was set up pretty close to the edge. I'd slipped up four or five trees, you know, slowly right there at the end, but I normally like to set up at least 20, 30 yards in the woods. Yeah, give them something reason to come close enough to look, you know.
Speaker 2:I thought I might have killed one. I know of one, turkey.
Speaker 2:I've killed in like a planted food block my whole life and it wasn't in my buddy's place, yeah, and it was really there were crossing it to come to the woods we were in and I just happened to have a shot on them. But right, I mean, I just hey, probably we don't have a ton of you know, I mean I've never really just seen a bunch of food plots when a you know national forces, but there are some. I know for a fact. I hunted a bird on the opposite side of one when I was in college on a public spot and he wound up being, I mean, the most ridiculously Outlandish turkey ever hunted, just like would walk down the asphalt before he'd walked through that green field.
Speaker 3:You know there's no telling how many times.
Speaker 2:And I was not far from the asphalt, yeah, when I was hunting him. So I mean I've just, I don't know but um.
Speaker 3:I think I've ever killed one in a green field.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 3:I thought about it, I was trying to think back and I can't remember one.
Speaker 1:I think no. Either I've killed one or two, or in people that killed. You know, even being on a hunt where we killed one in a green field I think it's only happened for me one or two times, and it's normally a cutover bird- Come on, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:like a cut over. A cut over is a thick it there's a food plot on the cut over.
Speaker 1:There's a food plot on the edge of the cut over with like a bend in the road or something. The four-wheeler trail goes through it and goes up into the middle of the cut over, kind of goes into the woods If he, if he can't see in that thick it and and you're yelping out there in the thick it because you couldn't get in the woods with him, because it's too open.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:He can go walk full of the trail into that opening.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's probably a little bit to do it. I think you know Turkey's very aware of landmarks. They know where it's, even if it's a big rock, if you're gobbling by a big rock, and they know that that's kind of a.
Speaker 2:There's big oak tree, there's acres there, there's whatever they're eating is there and you call around that they feel a lot more comfortable coming to that than just Turkey would be there or you know something like that, or if you're gobbling on this quadrant of a cut over, and that's where the they know where you're at and it's easy to get to, and they don't have to, like you know, peek up and look around and like, oh, that Turkey's in that big food plot.
Speaker 1:That's something I wish we would hit on in the Nebraska podcast of my Turkey. The tree we set up on you remember it? Was a dusting spot where it was a low hanging branch that cows had been scratching their back on and I guess the bulls had wallowed up some mud at some point and dried out and it was just a spot of bare dirt and there was six or eight hind tracks with dust spots. I mentioned.
Speaker 2:I said if we're going to pick a tree with no gobbles, they know where this dusting spot is, I guarantee you because there's probably very few of those around that area. If you're going to call about a six hole dusting spot, they're going to know. Oh, that's where that ends, and you see, that then Turkey you're talking about, came down and walked almost on us.
Speaker 2:He knew exactly where it was at. You didn't even look. He didn't ease in or nothing. Walked down straight across and was crossing about that. Walk on top of us when you shot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we shot him at like 10 steps.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we'll go into seals as all right. Well, there's, both of y'all were on it. I was with a buddy, will Shackford, shackford Lane, fell us a place down in Autogoville.
Speaker 3:That's what I was trying to think of.
Speaker 1:I was trying to think of it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give myself, yeah. So they're awesome time to hunt with the Shackford boys and I know country outdoors is the little video with them and stuff and they just fun dudes to hang out with fun dudes to sit around kitchen table and trailer and just talk for five hours. I feel like every time I go down there and it's always a good time and got some good land too. They farming stuff and some good old boys and we're appreciative of their friendship and we talk pretty. It's like February rolls around. Get to getting a few more Snapchat and sending a few more Snapchat to Will and folks like that who are like I know they're getting ready for it and they'll send me one of a turkey. They see, and everybody's kind of starting to click again and picking right back where you left off last time you talked and all that good stuff. But we were down there and it's I mean, it's some. I know I got whooped physically by some of these hills by the end of it.
Speaker 2:I know you had to jet out a little early but, I, don't know if it was first or second day, first or second morning, I mean when you and Chase went.
Speaker 3:It was the first morning it was and we had yeah, I had to jet out because me and Jason just got back from Florida. Right, that's right, I went home, slept for two hours, hung out with my wife and then I left. So I was in a pinch to get home. But I know we got there that evening and we all met and it was 30 minutes before dark. Yeah, it was right at dark and Will had just said y'all you know, go ahead you know, go listen to me, or whatever you know.
Speaker 3:So we went to actually the place that I'd killed the year before with Jay and we just parked in that driveway and just listened and I don't know. We heard what probably three or four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at least one or two. I mean, I know it was more than one bird. I don't remember how many, I think it was three or four.
Speaker 3:There were a few on this side of the road, a few on that. Hunter would go down and get even with one. Yeah you were with us in. Yeah, Hunter would hear one, he'd go down and get even with it and one would gobble down. So we ended up picking Hunter up like two miles down the road Right.
Speaker 1:And so did we go there after the Auburn podcast, or did that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think I'd go there.
Speaker 1:No, that's right. That's right. I came from Georgia or something. I was Will you're already. You're already you do. I think I followed you. I think that's what it was.
Speaker 2:No, because we were riding back together home when we decided to turn around, or something like that. Oh, you did follow me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it was.
Speaker 3:But anyway. So the next morning y'all started out. We started out on the same track of land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so y'all. Which is not the land we heard them at. If it's the same spot that I walked down the road a long way, that's not the same spot.
Speaker 1:That's where we started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it is yeah.
Speaker 3:I know exactly where that. So that was the first time you'd ever hunted that bird, right, that's right.
Speaker 1:So me and Chase went in and we knew there was one bird close and one bird deep and I think, y'all went to the deep bird and we went to the one closest. Cause we, we sales, has hunted there a little more than or period, I think and we hadn't or something I know. I've never been on the place.
Speaker 3:Well we, stuck with the top side because that's where Ikea, that's where we knew.
Speaker 3:So we, and then you were with I was the wheel who knew, and we obviously knew all yeah so anyway, me and Chase got on a bird and where where we had to sit down. We were on him early and got in there dark and where we had to sit down it was like I mean, the turkey would have had to walk 10 feet for me to kill him just cause it was so thick. But we had moved off to the opposite side of where I'd been before. So Turkey gobbled and we it was pine trees. We were originally set up like younger pines. We set up and Turkey was goblin goblin. He was just, it's like he was just cruising in the opposite way never checking up.
Speaker 3:So me and Chase trailed him for a while and ended up trailing him across a ditch to the neighboring property. Yeah, and so we, we hit the fence. We had to yeah, we sat there for a little while to see if we could get him to work back.
Speaker 1:Which took a while. This is what no 10 minutes.
Speaker 3:Oh no, this is a, this is a three hour trek, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean some serious ravines and all this stuff. You know rough, rough terrain too.
Speaker 3:So we, yeah we, we followed him and Never could get him to come back. So we kind of just sit down and I guess regroup just took a break right honestly we sit there and drink some water and, like we just got a tea kicked in and kind of joked about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm regroup.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, funny how we got on the turkey. I killed, though, because we were looking at on X and the way we came in would have been like I Don't know. It would have been like three times the distance to walk out that way. Yeah, so we put up on X and we found the black top was like chase, if we can get to the black top. I Know the black tops flat. Yeah we'll get to the black top, we'll walk down because this is a big chunk.
Speaker 1:I mean that we could have walked this property and got to the black top was what we were doing, so we started back and yeah, so we came in like To the left and then we decided to straight line it Out and I'm gonna thank goodness that they were there because we they picked us up and gave us a ride back.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I got to the black top. But now so we, yeah, on our way out. We were, you know, we were hunting our way out, we were stopping and calling and we found a little road and they kind of dead ended down there, right? No it, yes it dead ended to come an end. But where we had hit, it was at the dead end and we were what we could walk all the way out. We were gonna walk that road out yeah so.
Speaker 3:So we're sitting there and walking, ease and calling and Nothing was going on. We couldn't you know? We've done that two or three times and which that road is in a bottom.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's. It's got two steep and it's like a. It's like a long funnel.
Speaker 3:It's not, yeah, it's a bottom but it's like a long funnel and then it shoots you out to a couple of ridges. You will top them, you, on the road. So we were walking and Chase was, we were drop both collar with the other kitchen sink. I like chase, see how loud you can get on that wing bone and chase hit the wing bone and I think we're both yeah About jumped out of shoes.
Speaker 3:I mean, when he gobbled and, like you said, it was that bottom, so he was going down to us and I mean, I don't know it was, it sounded like it was right there. So we're fidgeting, jumping around. There's really, keep in mind, we're in a funnel, so you set off on the side to get off that road. You're like lean down. So I hate doing that. I know it was horrible.
Speaker 2:I like getting on the bottom one. You lean on a tree or something.
Speaker 3:But you're trying to hold yourself up the whole time and also to so like if we were on the other side, we couldn't get to the other side if we had gone to the other side, you could almost sit and I know you can't see, but you could almost sit where you're leaning back on the tree going down the hill.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm shooting to your left. But the way we are feet the side, I know, but the side we were on was the opposite. So if you were to sit like that, I'd be shooting behind where the turkeys coming from. So it was a, it was a Train wreck there for a second. We finally got fidgeted around and sit down and I was like, alright, chase, let's start calling now.
Speaker 2:Yeah what's me. So take a deep breath and all right, we called Turkey.
Speaker 3:Answer. We call probably two more times and he answered immediately and I think one time on the video. I think he triple gobbled at us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our double or triple or something.
Speaker 3:So we just stopped and gave it. I don't know, like you were talking about earlier, that it may have been a minute. I may have been ten minutes we gave it a little time and he gobbled. I mean, it's anything, I Think. He gobbled one more time and we called, and we called, he cut us off. Yeah and he was. You could tell he was closing some ground.
Speaker 1:So and and. Then we had the, the famous sim card. That's what I was about to tell you.
Speaker 3:We got a, so the battery dies.
Speaker 1:one thing yeah, yeah, but a sim card filling up so whole another ball. I heard chase.
Speaker 3:I heard chase said Don't call, don't scratch, don't do nothing Okay do you see him?
Speaker 1:cards full.
Speaker 3:He's like no sim card for it, shut off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But the thank goodness you had a pocket knife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you got to. How you get one of them packets open?
Speaker 3:That's hard yeah but somehow he pulled through. He got it in there I.
Speaker 1:Think seals every day for putting that sim card in the closer pocket, because I normally keep it in that back pocket Just flopping around a bunch of John and he was like put it up here in this one. And I was like that's good idea.
Speaker 3:And so it was boom. Well, yeah, we got the sim card in and Called again and he answered and you could tell he had cut the distance in half. Yeah and um Came up and he got quiet there for a second again and I said chase next time, because it sounded like you remember it sound like he was kind of gonna try to skirt us.
Speaker 3:Right go to the right little hard right. And I said, chase, next time you call, throw it to your. You know you were kind of over my left shoulder, like throw it to your left and try to see if we can pull Him around. And when you you helped and I think you hear to the video you helped and he soon as you get up to gobble, and I said I see all the one like all at one breath.
Speaker 3:It was crazy and so that that and that was the second time a turkey did this to me last year. So he was walking in and he got to what probably 50 yards kind of to my right. I couldn't shoot him, so it probably saved us, to be honest with you, but that turkey jump. I forgot about that and kind of shot back towards us and I taste like probably snake, probably snake.
Speaker 3:I was just calm down, I know what you were probably thinking I was about to swing around and try to try to hurry it up the turkey.
Speaker 3:I killed and Vaughn did the same thing, right, and so that turkey, whatever scared him building back, straight back to the right he made a 90 to the right and with that he came up in front of me, or he was coming up to my right and I was on him and chase it. Make sure it's a long beard. I was like you know, I was thinking this. I said I didn't even, I didn't even thought to look at a beard. I've seen a full yeah.
Speaker 1:I know he's a full fan so.
Speaker 3:I'm. I know he's a legal bird, so he walked in. I went to shoot him like let's see what happens, let me know, let's see if we can see a beard. So he came out in front of me and I was able to switch over and he's a like, like he's close.
Speaker 1:I bet 26 yards maybe and chase, no, be a no they said do you see a beard?
Speaker 3:like no, or somebody.
Speaker 1:I said you see a beard.
Speaker 3:I asked you this is like no beard, like no beard no beard kind of throwing a wrench in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know he's got a full fan yeah because we watched him struck for 60 yards coming to us and see, I totally forgot about the fan roll at this point.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting here like no beard.
Speaker 3:No beard, like, be careful, like I'm freaking out like so, and if it tells you how close the turkey was when I shot him and you can hear it in the video. The turkey comes up. I think was 13 steps that's how my baby chase was looking in the viewfinder of the camera and said I see he's got good spurs, yeah, okay, but I mean, that was already made up my mind that fourth album shooting him that was all like that's.
Speaker 1:Only the whole fan thing had been out of my mind so much that it was like, see if I can see spurs on him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's and it's crazy to play your mind because you know normally a Jake comes in, you're gonna see one poking right yeah this turkey, I mean, was slick, it was it looked like a hen chest yeah, and they had a full fans. I shot him 13 steps and we went up to him and at first I didn't see a beard like because I'm pulled out right. I'm? Yeah, I was. I was trying to get him get my hands on him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, bag him and pretend it's got a beard if it's got a full fan yeah yeah, I'm a two-year-old, three-year-old, a legal turkey.
Speaker 3:I'm in yeah, and so anyway, I picked him up, came to chase and chase like yeah he don't have a beard and so, but it's been his.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good spurs oh yeah, you had good spurs and we got back and I started looking after things.
Speaker 3:That's calmed down and you literally had to peel his feathers back to see the beard. Yeah, and it was a it remember being. It was real, like bright red.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, red, but like a boss. All that I'm not with, tony was that word. Care to, not whether made of keratin, but what's the pigment, the? I thought I started with an EM. Some do it.
Speaker 3:The pigment, that, yeah, but it coloration and stuff yeah, but me it was like when I touched it it was it would break yeah, and it was real not bright red.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to explain it, but it was like a beard, kind of like a person's, like a burn, a brown hair burn orange, but it was a yeah bright.
Speaker 2:You'll see those beers that have the. It's a lacking, some kind of something is something like that. I can't pronounce it right, I guess, but it's several of the right letters, or in whatever you just said right, I figured I'd throw it out but um, but no, like that, like stripe on them or two stripes on them or something they, they had a you know deprived of something, some kind of nutrient yeah, but again, we're not doctors yeah, but yeah, that turkey and that I grabbed him, you know, brought him back shook hands whatever we got to look in, the spurs were legitimately longer than the beer I can't say that much.
Speaker 3:And he had a big pretty fan oh yeah, he's a pretty bird beautiful turkey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wasn't like messed up or something you know, something got into him or he was sick, you know.
Speaker 3:Nah, it was pretty cool that's something I was heavy, do they?
Speaker 2:have a name for somebody was talking about a bird down there, like something about a shortgob or something. Did they hundred several times, I remember it was.
Speaker 1:It wasn't real. It was his brother Russell. What hey?
Speaker 2:hey, I don't even know a Russell. Oh yeah, no, now I can't think of it. That messed me all up.
Speaker 1:Oh, it may be right it ain't Russell, we got that out, but yeah now I got to because I don't know what the correct one is best be all um somebody, so I wanted to call him Lane. I think it is. Yeah, we're not a willing Lane. Shackleford read, shackleford, read, read, read. There, it is okay, sorry, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm alright, he'll be real, real on out.
Speaker 3:I think Reed had been hunting.
Speaker 1:He had seen a few times, yeah and he had a weird gobble, he said. He said, did he have a weird gobble whenever he came up to the camp after we had gotten back with it? And he said that's that turkey with that weird gobble? I think and I you know I played it back in my head that time that turkey double gobble it was like, and that's why that's what put Jake in my head was like a cut up.
Speaker 1:It sound like he attempted goblin oh yeah, and didn't quite get it out, and that's why I was like it may be two turkeys and maybe a Jake in there with them make sure it's a long beard. That's where the whole conversation of make sure it's a long beard came in so hard and you know, just had me worried the whole time. But you know, thinking back on hunt, we call it by a downhill. Yeah, you know, I kind of never really realized that until that's one not long ago.
Speaker 3:That is one disagreement, small disagreement me and Hunter. I have.
Speaker 1:Is it that bird?
Speaker 3:came down hill or not? No, is a calling a turkey up hill or downhill, is it Like? What do you mean You're? I know your theory is you would rather call one uphill. Uh yeah, I have killed more turkeys calling them downhill than I have. Uphill, really Like where we used to hunt in New Hebron, all the time was nothing but hills. Yeah, we would. Majority of the turkeys we killed were in those bottoms and they were walking down the hill to us and that's and that's kind of where I had to learn. You know, my dad taught me young how to, how to try to set up on those turkeys, because when they're on top of that hill looking down, they can see so much.
Speaker 3:Right and but yeah, I don't disagree of turkey would probably rather walk uphill but, I've killed more turkeys, calling them downhill.
Speaker 2:But he came downhill, but he was walking back up.
Speaker 1:He was about to walk back up.
Speaker 2:If you are sitting with your feet propping. You'll be all sitting on the downhill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were probably 10 yards up on the side of the hill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a that's a that's a different that's an asterisk. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we literally talked about this last night. I don't know if there's going to be air before or after, but getting not at the foot, like if you sit on the bottom of that hill, that's one thing that's going to be really freaking hard to do. You sit here, they'll walk down and then you're really. The hunt is here.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I'm just like seeing them coming up, seeing them come downhill like that than uphill.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'll do this before I see them come up the hill, come downhill, you know they'll do anything.
Speaker 3:But even if I'm hunting the bottom, and y'all know, and I still try to get 15 or 20 yards up the other side, right up on the side of the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're not at the very bottom you kind of? Have a dog in the home.
Speaker 2:I mean, imagine the stuff at the bottom is blocking everything and he can see that and you at least have a shot if you're the very bottom. Is number trunk, trunk, trunk tree, trunk, tree trunk.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the chances of that one turkey standing behind tree trunk the entire time he's doing this is very low. But if it's up there and he's got some leaves and stuff, he's still got to get down low and have to look right.
Speaker 3:I feel like yeah.
Speaker 2:But if you sit on the same side as him at the bottom, it would I mean he probably looking at you. That's one thing if he's looking at the bottom and you're right here, he's not necessarily just pinpointing you. But if he's looking at the bottom and you're in the bottom, you beat that.
Speaker 3:Me anytime you could be freaking still if he's actively looking for you, but shoot.
Speaker 2:I mean he about stepped on y'all coming back up.
Speaker 1:And I don't think he ever got nervous, I mean not really.
Speaker 3:I mean the last probably five seconds. We had to shoot him. That's why I mean he was walking and strutting, that's why I had to let him get his clothes. I was waiting for him to come out of strut. He was just. I mean, he was blowing up the whole time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he, I mean that was also like the tempo.
Speaker 2:That bird was red hot, you know he was coming and this was probably 930, at least a bit. I mean, it wasn't right off the roof, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:No, it was later and that's another crazy thing how he went from zero to 100, because where that turkey was.
Speaker 1:He could have hurt me. We could have heard him with ease and when.
Speaker 3:Chase hit that wing bone it was just something to change the frequency or whatever, and he got him it turned him on.
Speaker 2:Well, that's another that's going to lead into mine with his wing bone, and that's something that, if not for that moment, I might not have killed one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I know that place behind pretty often you know what I'm saying by some good hunter, yeah, so and they've heard a good bit of stuff. But just changing up that little bit is a big difference. We're coming up on 40 something minutes. We're going to cut this one because I don't think my get too long winded. It's pretty quick, but I got two hunts to talk about in order to make this make sense. So we have, with this being a multi episode week, we're going to cut this one right quick. We're going to hop back on. We ain't gonna miss a beat, don't? You know? Don't get up quite yet, but but we will see you in probably a few minutes here on the spring leisure podcast.
Speaker 3:We appreciate you listening and um yeah, we got a hurry, so don't forget.
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