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
Traveling for Turkeys: Part 1 - A Series of Wildly Unforeseen Events + Hunting the Heartland
Of the many wild antics we encountered during spring turkey season, none compare to those Hunter experienced spending a week in the heartlands. Join us as we unravel our hunting tales, from the challenge of coaxing turkeys across roads to sleeping in trucks and the unexpected company of bees by the swarm and stray dogs. We're also throwing in some wisdom from our adventures, including why you can't always trust your gut on true north and what to do when faced with a seemingly carnivorous critter in the dead of night.
Ever had a swarm of bees turn your turkey hunt into a slapstick comedy? We've been there, dodging the buzz and missing chances at gobblers, all while juggling the demands of hunting the open fields of Nebraska's vast wilderness. But don't fret, we also talk about the triumphs, like the strategy behind nabbing a longbeard that strutted its way along an oddly deep cattle trail. Hear about the precision and patience required in these thrilling moments, and revel in the eccentricities that make each hunting trip an unpredictable journey.
To top it all off, we've got a gem of a story that's so dense with suspense and hilarity, we had to carve it into two parts—but don't worry, you won't be left hanging for long. The wilderness's peculiar challenges, like navigating entrenched cattle trails, add layers to our narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
We're grateful for your company on these escapades and invite you to visualize the chase through our video clips if you're tuning in on YouTube in the coming days to watch the hunts unfold for yourself.
Check out the SPRING LEGION YouTube Channel to watch the hunts referenced on our show, as they happened and as real as it gets.
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What's going on everybody? Welcome to the Sprinley's podcast yet again. Today I'm joined with my buddy, my brother Chase Ferrier. My name is Hunter Ferrier and I'm good to have you back, glad to see you as we kind of prepare for the upcoming spring turkey season, which is right around the corner and the anticipations are building by the minute. I'd say, and got a lot going in a thousand different directions right now, but one constant seems to remain, and that being the anticipation for spring turkey hunting, which is not far off, wouldn't you say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I agree, Mine's starting to shift, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if your mind hasn't shifted yet, it's in the soon forecast. But we've got a couple things we've been working on. These are a couple new things that'll be hitting Sprinley's website, sprinleylegioncom. You'll be able to get them at. Hopefully we'll have them by the NWTF convention up in Nashville. If this thing is air before the end, it should be around that week. I'm going to get a favor here and now. It's going to be in the green leaf pattern Moss Yook's green leaf and then Moss Yook's new bottom land. Some of these meshback, unstructured caps. That is kind of what I prefer to wear. Actually hunting I'm a big meshback guy, especially if I'm hunting and walking through the woods. I'm not a fan of the full coverage on my head. I think you, you, you wear both. I feel like yeah turkey hunting.
Speaker 1:I wear the original, the solid bottom land.
Speaker 2:The first hat we ever made. That was the only one we had for a little while. We had a camo one and one that kind of looked like this we had a casual and a camo and then now we seem to have about 108 different styles. But this will be the first year. Finally we're able to do something like this. We wanted to let y'all see those. That's what we've got several boxes of them. We picked up the day from the source in West Point me and Moss Yook, so that's always a fun trip up there, about two hours from here, and bring them back here, and then we get to line and add a bunch of other things before they actually get stitched.
Speaker 1:That was kind of the thing.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm not about to go into this process in front of everybody. We'd be here all night. But today's episode, chase and I were sitting here trying to think of some stuff to kind of mull over in front of these cameras and on this mic and we believe that we're going to head in towards the end of the season when it comes to the storytelling. Want to remind everybody, if you are listening to just the audio version of this, that it's available on YouTube. The vidcast if we have decided to call it Just the video version of the podcast Got a couple different features in the video part that aren't going to be available in the audio part, which is on the apples and the Spotify's and stuff like that. If we can figure it out, we're going to be throwing in a bunch of clips of some of the stuff that we're actually talking about and able to put a visual to the audio. So instead of just your usual mental illustrations, you'll have something to watch and hopefully it'll make some of these rambles make a little more sense. I don't know, I'm not promising you that, but we've got some cool videos, I know at least one of the ones we're going to talk about today is a really cool video. It's one that we'll get into it. I don't want to spoil nothing, but the video side of it is the actual funny part for it to capture some of the stuff that it captured between two brothers hunting together.
Speaker 2:If you all know me and Chase personally, you all know that we do hunt a little different and a lot of folks can't tell us apart and we're a lot of liking a lot of ways and we're a lot different in a lot of ways. We have been since day one. Chase was kind of one of those moments called on film and happened to be right before a turkey made his presence known. Thankfully the cameras were rolling then. Usually we don't chase. Actually he's hunting with a camera a lot more than I have. If you've ever put our final product next to each other. I think it's pretty evident, because the story I've got to tell I was trying to film as much as I could with the GoPro that, of course, is attached to a vest that's laying on the ground 300 years from where I wind up pulling a trigger. But Chase is a lot better at keeping up with them and making an actual something worth watching out of without having to go back and find it. That's for sure. Most of my hunts is very good for a podcast. Without video side. It's good audio. If you're here, please, crunching in Turkey's goblin and calling and gunshot and flopping or flying off, but video side doesn't change much. But Chase is a lot better.
Speaker 2:You'll be sure to check those out. Hopefully we'll have those uploaded in time. If not, it'll be shortly there after See, if you all subscribe to the YouTube's and stuff, you'll be able to see it, but you'll get a little treat to get into it. We're telling wise a little early. If that be the case, I guess I mean you came up there a little later. We're going to be talking about going out west. Let's start there. So I was already out west, and from Oklahoma to South Dakota in that region is about all I had on my agenda and that was kind of where I was. And if you ask me where I was, that's what I tell you, because I didn't know at the time where I was going to be hunting in the morning for a lot of them. But I had made my way to Nebraska, and this is May, I would say At least, wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to say it was like the 17th or 18th of May when I ended up up there somewhere in that area, so that week or so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so mid to late May and I decided let's see. At the time I don't think there was any plans for y'all to come up. It was you chasing dad I mean you chasing that you break and dad Right, our youngest brother break and they wanted to meet me down in Kansas for a little while and then came up there to Nebraska where I've been hunting. But before we even made it that far I was in Nebraska. So I actually came back down to Kansas to meet y'all.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. And then, as they had Kansas tag, I mean, you had Nebraska tags. So they didn't necessarily or they didn't have tags for Nebraska. So we had intended to just go to Kansas and then if you had killed before the end, Nebraska was going to be written off. And then, luck had it, we ended up getting the Darkies in Kansas. We ain't going to go any more detail of that and then we were like heck.
Speaker 2:We got two more days.
Speaker 1:Let's go to Kansas and try and fill my tag.
Speaker 2:Yep, we already had the tags to hunt in Nebraska and I had them, yeah, so I had more than one and then you had at least one. I can't remember how many we want. I'm getting you before. Before you all have Mississippi, we had them Right, so glad we got to. You know, go up there and give it a shot. But no, I was.
Speaker 2:I headed up there from Kansas and I don't remember how long of a drive it was, but I got to the spot I wanted to get and it was a little piece of public in the northern part, I'll just say that, the northern part of Nebraska. So it was a good little chunk of a drive coming from where I was coming from and pulled over and I got the whole little camp shell set up and parked not far from where I suspected to be the best option. This is the early. I hadn't really seen anything. It was dark driving in, so I don't really know the terrain, the country I'm in more than a topo map on my phone and I pull in there and get a little bit of a nap, so to speak, for an hour or so, and first morning I wasn't hitting on much. First morning, I don't think. No, I'm sorry, I wasn't.
Speaker 2:I was at very first I was, and I walked a good bit trying to find a turkey and lo and behold, kind of got on a high point at the far back corner of this little in a huge little plot. I can hunt just a big square and I start if I met the, I'd say, the northwest corner. I wound up walking to the southwest corner, kind of around the whole border of it. Get back there and that's where I thought the turkeys would be this big creek running through the middle of big, like a real big creek bottom and they want to be having a bunch of like springs and stuff in it and it was like just, I mean, sink to your hip and mud and just holes in the ground. So it was pretty cool but not fun to step in. But it was. It was cool, it was pretty and it was wide, freaking open up in there. But getting up in there they got those cedars and stuff that they're very unforgiving. So if you're trying to sneak through any of that, trying to sift through it, it's going, it's going to punch you back. So once you got up in there it was really nice. But there was actually some good looking woods on the on the far other corner, whatever corner that would have been. So I kind of headed straight for it, calling as I went. You know, I kind of let it get a little daylight out here, nothing. I parked and slept on a pretty high spot on the public and made my way around and I'd say I hunted until about nine, 30 or so and, yeah, I started, started making my way kind of back.
Speaker 2:I was going to go check a couple of places and hold here Turkey gobble and I'm kind of I've got the thing on your piano. Next You've got the. I use it a lot as a point. You know, if you're point this way, it shows you the direction Once it's calibrated, because sometimes they calibrated right and it'll point you to the absolute wrong direction. If you got a twist, you're falling around and stuff.
Speaker 2:But once I get that kind of straight and I hear a gobble over here and I kind of point back towards it and my well, you know, kind of towards truck. And so the point being of those creaks is though I was talking about there really ain't no, just straight up crossing those. It's several, it's an intersection of it and there's a bunch of little other ones that shoot off of it and connect them. So just because you cross this big one, don't mean you're not going to have to cross like six more just to get out of there. So I learned that as soon as I woke up didn't hear nothing. Went down in there try to cross it, try to cross it, try to cross it. I got playing bumper cars up in there Everywhere I tried to cross.
Speaker 2:I couldn't put my way out and went around it. So I did make my way back around. I didn't even try with it here and when we're in Miriam's Rio country kind of hybrid-y little gray area there, so the cobbles ain't just necessarily just blow your ears off because it is open, there's not a lot to it, unless they're down up in there, which I might have heard later on.
Speaker 2:But this one was in the open. Lo and behold, he is kind of near where my truck was parked. The closer I got to him and you might have been across the road in the private place. Obviously. It actually had like a barn and stuff there and a farmer was out there messing with his cows. He's done these turkeys right in the middle of them.
Speaker 2:Right in the middle of them. I mean that's pretty typical right there. So I sit there and try to call him across the black top and we'd actually been together before and called one across the black top.
Speaker 2:We didn't get permission on the place and not too far from there I mean a couple of hours, I mean I'm not talking about down the road but didn't get permission on the place and went across the street and had permission from that place, Called him across the black top and shot him. So I was thinking, you know, maybe this will work out and that kind of method, but it didn't. I wound up going to a different spot after that once they kind of moseyed on over and you know it's one of those, I don't, it's I, because you don't want them, you want to hunt next to you know this is black top road. There's like a minimum maintenance road.
Speaker 2:There was minimum maintenance roads there that look just like a dirt road and you know it's kind of like a trail in the middle of your boys and stuff, but this was an asphalt on it so I didn't want to, you know, shoot, even though it wasn't probably with two cars come down there all day and I was probably both them going in and out. I didn't want to shoot back towards it or near it at all. Honestly, and I'm sure there's pretty defined boundaries on where the actual hunting area is starting stuff. So I got on back in there a little bit to kind of free myself from any you know great area there and he didn't budge.
Speaker 2:I could look at him through binoculars and hear him. He definitely might have been too. I'd lose him every now and then. It was a handful of hands and one strutting. I saw another one that kind of was closer and I thought it was him coming, but he had a much redder head and never strutted or anything. He didn't cobble at all and then he just kind of walked back. So it made me think it might be two up in here. Lo and behold, of course that's how it plays out. I don't know where they came from at this time.
Speaker 2:Which ones came from the turkeys how they got on this on the other side of this road because I had a thought out of hurt them you know they had to walk.
Speaker 1:They came from the public.
Speaker 2:They would have had to walk by my truck, so I had to head to another spot. I don't really remember what happens there, come back and I'm kind of like, once I find a good spot to park my truck and sleep, I like going back there If it's within an hour and I'm a good piece from a real hotel or anything that I would stay at. I mean up there when it's, you know, 64 degrees at night. You know it's about what you'd set a temperature to, their condition to, and as long as it's not, you know, nasty, nasty weather or freezing, freezing cold, I'm cold with staying there as long as I need to.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I got food to eat every now and then, but so so I just kind of leave the second spot I went to and come back here and again I stay in the same spot and I think a lot, a lot happened before I hunted again. I know that because I don't remember. I don't know if you remember this, but I had what I at the time I thought pretty dang sure was a some type of carnivorous animal come up to me being a wolf or a coyote or something, and I still just they don't know what it was. Have you never seen that? No, I thought I sent you a video of it. I mean, it had to have been a doll, but at the time I did not know this. So I'm sitting there and I'm I'm either changing out of my camouflage or putting my camouflage on. Sometimes I'll, I'll swipe, I'm real sweaty and stuff. You know, especially the late season. I'll swap it out and sleep in whatever we're in the next day and then I'll wash it.
Speaker 2:I just kind of redo it, let it dry out and then I'll swap it back the next night. Nothing happens. So I'm sitting there and I'm I don't remember, I don't get no headlight or nothing. I got my truck door open, I would say, and I'd say I'm brought, yeah, I think I'm changing clothes or something. I just know that the I can see it, see about the ground underneath my feet and that's about it.
Speaker 2:And this is pretty late at night and I am in the middle of nowhere, except for this barn kind of over here which I think folks it might have been one of them barn houses or something they were just parked there and they moved. Since I got back they were there but they were just parked in different spots. So I assume folks are kind of in and out of it. If they don't live there, they might live there, I don't know. But, um, but now I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm, you know, doing whatever I'm doing, and this is silent, it is dead night, it is in middle of nowhere, I'm expecting no breathing being of any sort near me at all and all of a sudden I hear something, something. It wasn't even like a Russell, it was like a dragon on the ground behind me, enough for me to go. What is that? And as soon as I said what is that, I feel it hitting my leg and I'm like there's something about and there's something you know touching me now and it's got fur and I can't see it and there is this black blob of something like we like just weaving in and out of my legs right now In his zone.
Speaker 2:I mean I still I don't know what this animal was, but it was there and I mean it was definitely a canine, it was a dog of some kind. I guess it was a mangy, looking, crippled up looking dog that hit dysplasia. I mean. I mean it was just like on proportion is all get out and like huge front end. The back end would not meet up with it. So that's what it was dragging. He was like literally just like walking on, like his toes on the back and on his front, like look like a. I mean, if I've ever seen a werewolf, that's what a werewolf would look like. I've had to guess. You know he had like some chow in it. If it is a, you know a domesticated animal, because he had a, you know, real big head and real big.
Speaker 1:You got a decent look at.
Speaker 2:Oh no, he stayed there for a while. Yeah, I mean, I was like, but at the time scared the daylight side of him. I didn't know what it was, I just knew it was a black animal and he's like between my legs now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where do I go and what do I do? There's nothing. I mean he's about to get me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever it is, I'm just like kind of sitting there and I like, of course, I hop in my truck and then I have to get in the back of my truck and this dog won't leave and I'm like, whatever you know, I was kind of use my door back open and I don't know if you've ever seen like dogs like kind of like just show their teeth when they're like happy, like they're like wagging their tail, but they're showing their teeth. So he's doing that and I'm like I mean I don't know if you're you're letting me know like I'm going to bite you if you get closer, or I wish you would pet me. It could be one or the other and I don't have the difference right now and I don't want to touch this dog because the man's is stuff it has on it.
Speaker 2:So I'm not, I'm living up petting and that option's out the window. And he almost I mean he almost just caused a hard attack. So I'm not fond of it, so to speak, and you definitely don't want to stick around till morning. Yeah, and that's another thing, and I've had that happen before yeah, you don't want to be friend of? Yeah, I get real nice with a stray dog and he don't leave. I wake up and he's still there, yeah. And then when I go hunting, he's 30 rolls around.
Speaker 2:He's kind of like smelling where I went looking for his buddy. I'm like you know, I've had that happen before. Yep, me too, so I don't. I would really like him to just move on with his night and I wind up just kind of getting out and kind of just ease and on to the back and making sure I got my pistol with me and stuff, just in case.
Speaker 1:Still uneasy yeah, so so, lo and behold.
Speaker 2:I've said that five times. I never say lo and behold. That's my word today. I guess. Lo and behold, he does leave and I sleep, wake up the next morning and this is where it gets good. Somehow or another I leave my phone in the truck, I guess. Yeah, Obviously why you know I'm pretty rattled. I'm just trying to get back there, hurry up and get back there, so he'll leave. I don't get eaten All that good stuff, so I don't have my phone, which would have been in my alarm clock, and I'm not great at waking up. Anyway, I usually have to have like seven alarms if I've been hunting for a couple of days, and so I don't have my phone at all.
Speaker 2:I don't really realize I don't have my phone. I just go back there, go to sleep, kind of get my mind right from the morning. I'm going to hunt you. You're still in the back.
Speaker 1:This is next morning.
Speaker 2:This is before you go to sleep. No, this is I'm talking about. I did go to sleep without my phone because of that dog being there, right, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, not necessarily, I didn't. If I remember, I wanted to get out and went and got my phone before I fell asleep, but I fell asleep and didn't have no alarm clock. So I wake up the next morning to the smell of smoke, oh God, and I'm like, well, this is not ideal, because that is definitely smoke and I, kind of, you know, open my eyes and first thing I see is smoke by my windows, there in the camper shell, and I'm. It's a nice smell of smoke. It's not like a wood smoke, it's like somebody's burning something and it hits me. I'm like I know what that smell is. That's beekeepers, okay, and I'd parked and have been staying by a bunch of bee boxes that you know they'll put out there and there's just be just stacks of boxes with beehives and they're making honey and the beekeepers were there to collect the honey.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, and I would have loved to have woken up when they drove in, not after they had started spraying on this, because now, hey, I mean I don't want to just hop out, you know, right have to talk to me and then really get caught up and have to talk to these beekeeper guys who look like really friendly fellas.
Speaker 2:But I'm like I'm already pretty pissed because I'm late, you know, I don't I mean it's not like 10 o'clock late, but it's definitely sunrise and the turkeys definitely on the ground. And now I'm trapped by this beekeeper guy who is two or three of them actually and they're doing their thing, getting the honey and stuff, Full hazmat suits or no, they had like on. They were wearing white clothes, that's about all I got from this. I did wonder that. I was like I wonder what they're wearing.
Speaker 1:But that would be my concern.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when they walked back to the truck they were not wearing one. So I don't know if they were wearing one and they took it off. But I mean they were wearing white clothes, but that might have just been their regular tire, I don't really know.
Speaker 1:That'd be my concern. All right, they went over there and ticked off the bees.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's what they did. So when they left, I waited for them to leave. I mean, they have like a huge drum, like a trailer hitch welded to everything, doesn't even you know, came to take it off. It's got like valves and stuff and you just kind of you know transparent. You see the level of honey up in there and it's like I mean gallons and gallons and gallons of honey. Goodness Attached their truck and they kind of you know they. I wait for them to leave, and then there's bees everywhere.
Speaker 2:So I'm like son of a. You know, now this smoke stuff's kind of worn off and now there's a bunch of pissed off bees and I'm stuck in my camper shell and then the turkey starts gobbling that I hunted the day before and it's in the front of my hood. So it's on public.
Speaker 2:No, it's still in private but much closer than it was Right and a much smoother route. I think I could have called him, you know, being on the other side, on the right side of my truck, than I was the other day, and they're hitting a farmer out there messing with his cows and stuff that he'd have to walk past and wean through, and stuff, you know, and the trees actually get a lot closer and stuff.
Speaker 2:Much more callable scenario would be calling him from the opposite side of my truck than when I was the morning before. So now I'm stuck in my truck cabs camp. I mean, I'm stuck in my camper shell. I'm late because my phone's in my cab, in my truck, because I almost got eaten by my main dog the day before and the beekeepers woke me up, thank God. But now I'm surrounded by bees and there's a turkey gobbling and I can see it very plain as day from that camper shell and I'm just sitting back there with nothing, no vest, no gun or nothing, can't even slip out and slip down there.
Speaker 2:I got to make a scene. Get out and make a scene, get off stuff from the front of the truck. I'm a phone, I'm a gun, you know, load it. I don't kill this turkey. I mean there's not even a. I didn't even go get on it. You know, by the time I got out I mean I waited as long as I could for it to leave and I'm like crap, I'm wasting the whole day, might as well bumping. I mean by himself everything. I'm just like sitting there and, yeah, I don't have none of the cameras that I do have in the truck charging, I'm like at least I could pull it out and video. I might have them on my phone. I might throw it in here.
Speaker 1:You didn't have your phone. Oh yeah, yep, oh, I would have a video of it.
Speaker 2:But you may have got a video. No, by the time I got my phone he was long gone. I waited for him to kind of mosey on off and he did, but he could still see the truck and when I got out he definitely got out of the dodge. But yep, so that was an awesome morning in the wilderness of Nebraska. Not a good day to talk to me if you try to, and as far as I know, I did not know. Yeah, I think I did kill a turkey later on that day At that same spot I came. It was that it was. It was the afternoon and this could have been Kind of thinking back. I hadn't really thought, thought back about it enough, I guess. Yeah, this could have been the same turkey For some reason. I think it's not, though, and it might be because I heard another one while something this one I don't remember, but it's hard to put a visual on, and I probably do have a couple videos from that, from the actual point where I shot one. I got a lot of video stuff of this little three-day little spill. I stayed here because a lot happened. Yeah, just none of the stuff that I talked about is on it. I Think it was the same day.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I get on top of the bill hill. Now I'm in my truck and I'm kind of I find a good spot, a I have service, I can kind of do some work up there. So I was up there doing some work and then I realized, hey, I got service here. I can, you know, come up here and you know, check emails, do whatever I got to do, make a phone call when I go down there. It's very limited and so I Figure that out. But while I'm up there, you know, screwing with laptop and phone and stuff like that, I realized, hey, I can see a lot of the places that I hunted earlier the other day right.
Speaker 2:Um, from this spot is probably the highest spot there is and I can see over Some private land, but I can see the public pretty plain as day. All the high spots necessarily not. I mean, I got to use monoculars right but I can. If I just scan it with this, I can see something if it's on one of these you know bear areas and I just I got a drive to get to it. I can't, you know, go through this private to get to it, but it would be very far even if I could.
Speaker 1:No, this is. That was an eye-opening experience for me is how far you can see in Alaska. You can scout something from mile, a mile away.
Speaker 2:It's. It's pretty cool, it's really awesome.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, growing up where you can see 30 feet. Yeah, if you're lucky, turkey hunting.
Speaker 2:You know that I was like because that was my first time up there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been to Kansas before, but I've never been that north, yeah, and good.
Speaker 2:Where we went was a little. It was probably not as open as where I'm even talking about, so imagine that yeah.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, it was a little more wooded where you and I hunt it, so it's even more open. I can see these spots pretty pretty good and I wind up Land eyes on the strut and I had to have lucked up and just have my monoculars on it because even in the binoculars that joker is this big right and if it didn't Make a little route like that, like a turkey strut now would have assumed it was a cow or something like that. I'm like I think that's a the way he went. He would you go this way and come this way and I'm like that's a turkey strutting towards something.
Speaker 2:You know, there's something in that little tree line and he's trying to get their quick strutting like this back and forth and he, he folds and walks that way. I'm like, okay, I know where it's gonna be a minute. Fine, get over there. Oh yeah, but I know that there's one over there and no, I wind up getting down there and I get in this. And that's when I found out the hard way about all these Spring's and stuff up in here in this on Creek bed. It's very soft dirt, I mean, it's not even mud and dirt, it's like Practically Quick sand, but not quite as thick as quick sand. Like you see, you can get out a lot easier than you can quick sand, but you sink a long way, like up to your hip, and you're still in a bind.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I Done that almost a couple times. I'm like I'm not trying to ground up here, right, but um, get across the creek and I find this is when I find some morels. I had never seen a morale in my life and that is something that I've always wanted to do. Something I've always wanted to see is a morale mushroom, and I didn't even know you could find them up here Inside know they used to think you could find them everywhere. I thought that was just everywhere. So I'm I'm like man, I suck at this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trying to find them in Mississippi. Right, they don't exist here. And I'm like dude, I don't see how all these people I follow on Instagram stuff keep you know finding these mushrooms they're supposed to be so good and turkey season stuff. I'm either just suck it looking at the ground or Something. We ain't got a good crop this year, but this was like up until like five years ago. I thought my rails were everywhere. I thought it was just like a random mushroom and all of the whole continent right?
Speaker 1:No, I was the same way. You know what I mean very, very long yeah. I think until the day you realized it was the day. I realized it because you called me. Like you did, you know that we don't have them. Yeah, that's why we've been looking like not finding them.
Speaker 2:That's why we hadn't found anything. Cuz ain't there yeah but, um, but I found these and my my heart stops for a moment, oh, yeah. Very rarely do I say screw a turkey, but I kind of my head was like this turkey don't know I'm here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm about to look for these mushrooms. After I found one, I literally dropped my shell or something in the land. About one I'm. I was like oh my gosh. So I'm pretty ecstatic. I'm like a kid on Christmas right now. I'm like this is really happening and I'm talking about mushrooms, not turkeys and I found like seven or eight at least and I am focused now Scan that whole area, took pictures of them, like they do not feel anything, like I thought they were gonna feel like. Just I mean, mine is currently blown and I forget I'm taking hunting for a good 15 minutes and I go and find this tree. It's got a little bowl shape in the split of it and I'm like putting them in here to come back and get after I hunt and stuff.
Speaker 2:I was all I'm thinking about is I don't lose these, just do not lose these. I got to take them back home and stuff wind up. I wouldn't got them, but they got bad by the time I got back on with two weeks till I got home they're just riding in like an old box and 180.
Speaker 1:Much of a cooker when he's on the road.
Speaker 2:No, peanut butter yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's. If you're lucky, you can get a granola bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes a granola bar, most times is about a 64 ounces of just peanut butter and that's, that's my diet at home and and on the road and if you forget your snacks.
Speaker 1:He's not a big, he's a germaphobe too, so he ain't sharing peanut butter we yeah.
Speaker 2:No. Food for the next three yeah, there's got a lot of calories in it. You only need a little bit. And keep rolling on the way sometime eating, or especially cooking. I think that's a stupid thing in the world.
Speaker 1:Say I enjoy it. I mean, I don't do a ton of truck camping as much as you do. I'm only maybe a time or two here, there just, and if I'm staying in the truck it's pretty rough for me. Yeah which I normally am better at planning a trip than you are.
Speaker 1:And I'm. You know, up until this year I hadn't traveled to too many different places that I needed to stay in a truck. Yeah, I'm almost hunting with a buddy or something of that nature, had somebody close that I could stay with, or whatever it may be. But but I do like cooking on the tailgate, and I mean, there's times at the house I like to break out the stuff and cooking the carport on the tailgate just to feel like I'm outside.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, be outside and enjoy it and stuff. Yeah, we've done it before, we're together and that's awesome, but I'm not. I'm not about to pull over and do this. I'm trying to get somewhere, and as soon as I get there is probably already later. No need to be there and I'm like if I can sleep For it's a hassle for me to have to transfer my body to the back. Yeah, and not feel like I'm wasting time doing that. I'm like I'm already here, just sleep here.
Speaker 1:You know, you know like and then wake up and go hunt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but um, that was a rabbit hole Anyways, yeah, but I'm with you.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna cook these mushrooms. I just wanted to show people what they felt like because I thought that was cool. But, um, but I finally got put them in this little bowl in this tree and, um, I Wind up going to get on this turkey and it takes a lot longer to get there than I thought, just the way the creek was winding and I call and Calling on answer, calling in on answer, and I don't know if he can hear it. If he's, he's moving the opposite direction the way I'm coming. There's a name. But one way and get to him and just trailing him and just hoping I'm feeling back, I do wind up getting on a ridge that gets higher and higher and higher and he wasn't being a call and I'm gonna go out on him and say this is the same turkey. I saw he came from that area. It was, just wasn't the exact same area.
Speaker 1:Right and um those turkeys other can cover some ground right, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:This turkey I saw could honestly be in another county and this kind of started in another county as much as they travel.
Speaker 2:Rio's and Miriam's I mean they they don't sit long. You know it's not like an eastern. That'll be there and if you wait him out, you know something's gonna happen. He'll. He might come up, peak over ridge and look at you dead in the eye and you not know it and slip off and you've sitting there hunting a ghost for the next two hours. He might do that two minutes after you call or two hours after you call. I mean Rio's, miriam's, out west. I found that they, they're moving. You better be on the right side of the direction they want to go.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah deal and um but, and you know kind, on the flip side, if there's nothing hitting One, you might have one traveling by the net and heard you call. Yet and yeah, or is later Right 10 minutes later you call and he, he hears it for the first time. He's moved. You haven't um so but no, he, he does hear this, turkey does, and I don't care which one, it is you know right at the time.
Speaker 2:Um, he answers it a couple times, I answer that a couple times and I kind of get back down. As big as a I'll put a picture up it's a, it's a perfect little. Know, like this. He had a bunch of nobles, just like Very symmetrical little, just high points like this, almost like a perch. Um, there, everywhere, there's like three of them, three, two real big ones and a little one. And I try to get on.
Speaker 2:And I told this story with seals the other day on a different episode, me missing one on one of these nobles In Nebraska, but in the same spot, a little ways away, but Kind of like it. Um, so I'm sitting at the foot of it and, um, you know, scared to top anything, because I'm scared he's gonna see me. So I'm at the foot and I'm keeping this tree line in my back and I'm able to work right, but I can't work left because then, because it, it, I'm at a corner. If I work left, I'm actually working and kind of directly at him and I'm just coming around one of the nobles, at that point he's gonna see me, I would think. So I can only work right because there's three back to back to back and he's on the other side of him and he's got one at this point.
Speaker 1:He's, he's answering me, he's answering.
Speaker 2:Okay, I missed that part pretty much what I have at my back is where I presume the other turkeys, if they were roosted on this creek, fly down around, could have definitely been the turkey I saw the first day. It was on this side of the property that they could they'd had across that road, but it's at least on the same half. Um, and I know turkeys roosted around this creek because it's a beautiful roost site and there was turkey tracks and feathers and crap everywhere. So, um, so that's. I walked through that a while back and and now headed what would be East, because I remember the way he came up, where the sun was.
Speaker 2:So I'm headed down this line Until I get to a point where I'm like I gotta cover some ground now because he is going as I'm moving. He's moving this way, but he's also. He's gonna come either way around me. I don't know what he's got. I don't know what his situation is. I don't know if he's got hens, if he's headed to something I can't see. He's answered me, but he is definitely missing his mark. If he's headed towards me Exactly and I'm nervous that he's gonna get down here level with me and then come, come down that wood line to me and he is definitely gonna see me where I'm sitting if he does come around all this stuff. So I'm trying to to beat him to a good intersection point where I might can shoot it and I don't. So then I have to get up and take the chance of him seeing me.
Speaker 2:So I leave, I throw my vest down, I'm like I gotta, I gotta get on the other side of this and hope there's something. If there ain't, it's probably over because he's gonna see me. There's nowhere I can get, but I can try to get up there and and look and lo and beholders that they're gonna push pile of Trees of stuff. Somebody had done worker work out there. I'm at a big pile of just brush.
Speaker 2:I'm like that praise, freaking Jesus. It's a good little chunk away from me, but I needed a game, a little chunk on him and he's kind of I can't see him at all at this point, which is good. I don't know that he has been bumped or something or passed me or anything like that, but I cannot see him as I'm making you know my way towards this stuff and I'm I'm not crawling, I'm crouch walking. I need to get there fast, cause it didn't even pull moment. Now he could pop up, and I don't. I don't think it would take long for him to see me in the middle of this wide open. This I mean just I'm not even in like tall grass.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he would definitely see me, and or or another trick, you could see me, cause I'm now on one of these high points I could see, right, so I'm not actually not far from where I saw that turkey strutting, so I guarantee it was. You know, at least very probably what was the same trick, cause I feel like I crossed the truck.
Speaker 1:You saw from the truck. When you're sending emails, yup.
Speaker 2:Cause now I'm kind of in that spot. I didn't realize when I was still in that part, but now I'm kind of where I saw him, cause I'm up high and I saw me from a half a mile away. I mean, I saw that turkey from a half mile away. I'm sure they can see me too. Um, not wanting to bump anything, I've been here already two days and I get, I get to this brush by and I get it at my back or there's a little, there's a, it's it's round in shape and there's a little bit that comes off and I'm able to get just enough around that to where I have this much overhang coming from my left to right and this covered me up enough on the back cover, I feel like, and and just taking me, and there ain't nothing.
Speaker 2:I can't sit on, I can't sit against it and I can't stand up. I can't squat down. I can't get good balance. I'm taking me and freehand it is all I can do.
Speaker 2:I got my mouth cause it. My vest is back there, my GoPro's on the vest. It rolls the whole time. You can hear it. I went back and listened to it. You can definitely hear the you know the gobbles. Him coming in closer and me calling, but that's it. And um, he, he. Then I can start seeing the white tips. He's answering. He answers a couple of times. He's. He's coming to me, he's coming to the brush pile and he gets in. There is a dad gum. I don't know what it is I found this out afterwards but there is a, to my knowledge, just some kind of cattle trail, and I don't think I never seen anything like this before in my life. But it is this deep. Oh goodness, it's about this wise, just to. I mean, it looks like you cut it out with a ditch, which, or whatever those call it, I mean it's deep and it is very straight going down to this creek.
Speaker 2:Looks like he's running a waterline.
Speaker 1:Somebody was running a waterline. If I had to guess.
Speaker 2:If you didn't tell me I would think somebody was getting ready to run a waterline there, but it was definitely matted with it was made by cows or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it is very, very deep and that joker gets hung up at it.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know like a creek, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it is very flush in now everywhere straight line. I don't probably normal to folks out there like the Murrells. I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm not used to that. But um, but I don't know. That's there, obviously, you know, looking at it from any angle except for right above it, you don't know. It's there, right, and he kind of gets it, he's still. He's higher than I am. He's stuck at it and he ain't walking, no more, and I don't know why I've stopped calling. He's just an extra and I'm like something's hanging him up and I don't know what it is. I might have called too much. I didn't call a lot and I started kind of reassuring myself Like I really don't think that's it, cause you haven't called enough to just really hang him up and make him stop Right.
Speaker 2:Um, he's got to go in one way or another and I don't see no hands behind him. I don't think I can't think of a good reason, but that's what it was. But, luckily, the angle of that ditch thing I don't know what it was it, it, it gained a little ground towards me as it went and he, finally I wish he'd have done it earlier, but he stayed out there and all I could see was the tips of his family. Well, he's a lawn beard, I can see, you know, a full fan.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, as he turned, I could tell, you know, I could see a good 80% of it here and 80% of it there, and I had had them up in my mind and that's, that's definitely full. And um, he works his way down, works his way down, works his way down, won't come closer, but he's, he's just strutting down and it winds up narrowing enough, narrowing enough. And it it was about a, I mean, it was about a 40 yard shot, you know about as far as I really would comfortably take one.
Speaker 2:But he comes up and he sticks his head up one good time and I'm trying to get back on him. He's working my right to left, thank goodness. It'd probably be a little harder if not Um, but I'm kind of shooting up heel and um, it's one of those that he can. He, he sticks his head up and A is this tall, but I can see his beard hanging. This is a definitely long beard. I know his long beard and put him on my shoulder but I could tell before I shot that it was a long beard but I couldn't see all, all of his body every now and then. But if he went in the strut it went, it disappeared. It was almost like kind of playing whack-a-mole type. I'm like, you know, if he pops up really to my left, I'm starting to get in the bind because he's kind of passed me and I'm going to have to move, move and he would probably see me.
Speaker 2:Um, but not I mean he. He hung out there for a while. I'm like I think that's close enough. I think it's close enough and he go down and God forbid he take a couple of steps the other way, cause then it's, then I know, if I call he just sticks his head up and doesn't move either way, and if it's, he took it. If he backtracked about three steps, it's definitely too far, cause that was borderline. Luckily, I don't remember if I called or not. He went. I call very while he.
Speaker 2:After I saw him, I had to call once and I think it was to to try to make him just walk one way or another and hope it was right. And it might've been right. He walked, you know, down that ditch closer to me and, um, then I'm stuck his head up it was, it was definitely close enough. So it was a poke in my book, but you know I was confident I wouldn't shout out for incompetent, but wound up being and he's one of the few non-easters up there, I don't remember, might be the top, I don't know. But yeah, long story to get to that, uh, that bird. A lot happened to one, even related to turkey hunting. Something happened over there.
Speaker 2:Something happened up there, but we got 18 minutes left. That one shut off 10 minutes in. Anyways, I don't know, but yeah, so we're back near this and I I hate to uh hate to end this episode but get on another one. We're at 40 something minutes, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we're gonna end this one I got stuff to say about yours too, right? Yeah, I think I might just have to be in my long wind in this part too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to cause, cause Chase. This is a good one. I hate to hate to do this, but I think we're going to have to have a part two on this, so, um, it might be in the same day. Right, we were late. We ain't gonna keep y'all waiting a week, but, yeah, y'all catch the next episode, cause, hey, this was a long trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that was what two weeks for you, three weeks for you.
Speaker 2:These next few are probably gonna be broken into parts because so much happened Right and I'm long winded you all know this and it's it's.
Speaker 1:You were hopskipping and jumping all at the same time and there's a lot to unfold here.
Speaker 2:We've been waiting that gun and five months to talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and and. You know we didn't talk about, if you, the hunts and stuff, but something we could talk about. You know we hit on that at the first episode of how we, you know, took the vow or whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Not telling the stories.
Speaker 1:We're not supposed to be talking about these stories but I remember most mornings I'd try to wake up, mask you where you were at and of course you know I would hear from you every three days and you were like, well, I was in Kansas and I'm in Nebraska, south Dakota, you know, I'm like mhm and that's all I know. And then I talked to dad and he'd hear something totally different and I'm like man, yeah, I just hope nothing happens to him, because we don't know what state he was even near at this point, which one of us probably has your location?
Speaker 2:You haven't. I think you have my location. You might not know it, but I went on your phone and shared through, just in case y'all at least come find my body if I need to, or come get my phone. Um, at least know where I was, if it happens.
Speaker 1:But no, no, well, that's, you're turning this door. Anyway, I was just saying like it's funny, cause man, anyways 100, you don't know where a hundred is going to be, and he's not good at communicating. Yeah. And he finally, I remember dad, dad told me that you had killed one at one point and I'm like Alters our plans for the next few days. Yeah because we were debating going. You know we were debating leaving Sunday or leaving Tuesday or whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that was a big deal going into us.
Speaker 1:We and I was supposed to come meet you. I remember that and dad and Breck were gonna come meet us later, since I had the tag for Nebraska, you know we were, and then we were like we don't want three trucks up there. They were like now we need three trucks up there. You know, we went back and forth all week without hunters input.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at all random. Parts that he got.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what I didn't know that one of us knew that that you know when we think you don't have service, all right, you're in a, you're in a ditch, you'll come out of it a minute. No, but up there when you don't have service, you may not get it till tomorrow or Thursday yeah you know it's, it's a it's very far between.
Speaker 2:Yeah, y'all don't come looking for me to a good three days after we still hitting on that. I'm gonna be gonna be mad if y'all show up and I'm alive and well. I just been known as Turkey for a while. Yeah no, we know. Y'all just trying to find my location treasured through the day gum. Well, it's bumping everything left and right.
Speaker 1:Now, now we, we might be turkey hunting alongside you. Yeah, if that's ever the case, but let's, let's hope that's not ever the case, like let's just, I just want to make sure y'all knew that.
Speaker 2:Give it a while. Yeah, I'm up there three days, thank you. When I'm Titches already high, yeah, that's a day.
Speaker 1:I would y'all ain't gonna do nothing. Y'all ain't gonna save me, that's a day I would hate to walk up. That's this sounds bad it. It almost probably would be worse if I did come find you and you were alive.
Speaker 2:You'd rather be the other.
Speaker 1:Not gonna say that, but you take that as you may. Yeah, oh, you better hope it's the other. Yeah if you've been on one come in there three yelling and I come yeah, for me cheese, we'll wrap we'll wrap this up before we get to.
Speaker 2:Hypothetical and Scenario is going left and right, because that took. That story took about 45 minutes long and I wanted it to, but we got a part two coming. We I'm not gonna make y'all wait a whole week to come out with it, we're just gonna divide it up for SD cards sake and stuff like that. So appreciate y'all listening. Y'all be sure to turn to the next one. If I can figure it out, I should just be able to add this on to the the end screen, so don't don't move, just following to the next one. And for audio listeners, appreciate y'all listening to the spring leader podcast. We'll see you in about five minutes.
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