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
Choosing a Successful Set Up in Turkey Hunting // Where to Be and When to Call
Ever found yourself outsmarted by a turkey? Yeah, me too. Let’s take a journey through the unpredictable wilderness where strategy meets spontaneity. We share gripping stories from the field, revealing how the right setup can make or break a hunt. Discover the art of patience, the thrill of unexpected encounters, and the lessons learned from navigating challenging terrains. From camouflaging tactics to strategic positioning, this episode is packed with insights into the subtle dance of turkey hunting.
Our tales don't stop at strategy—they delve into the heart of teamwork and trust. Explore the dynamics of communication as we recount a moment when effective camouflage almost turned into a missed opportunity. With anecdotes of box calls and familiar terrains, we reflect on the balance of leading and following in the field, ensuring a successful and cohesive hunt. The importance of recognizing familiar birds and the excitement of blending into the environment with dark camo are just a few highlights of our conversation.
As the holiday season approaches, these hunting adventures remind us of cherished memories and the importance of community. We celebrate the launch of our new turkey hunting tops and engage our listeners with an exciting giveaway. With Christmas around the corner, we reflect on past hunts and look forward to connecting with you once more before the joyful transition into 2025. Join us for a captivating blend of strategy, storytelling, and a shared passion for the wild world of turkey hunting.
Save 15% on your next round of Houndstooth Turkey Calls with code SLP25 at checkout. Click Here to shop Houndstooth Turkey Calls
Click Here for NEW Spring Legion Gear for Spring 2025 - available in Original Bottomland and Greenleaf
Check out the SPRING LEGION YouTube Channel to watch the hunts referenced on our show, as they happened and as real as it gets.
Follow us on Instagram:
@springlegion
@hunter.farrior
@chasefarrior
Huge Thanks to the following for making this podcast possible:
North Mountain Gear
Apex Ammunition
Houndstooth Turkey Calls
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If you followed along on the Spring Legion YouTube channel these past few seasons, you've probably watched us hunt turkeys in a variety of North Mountain Gear's leafy jackets. Y'all should also know by now that we wouldn't be wearing one if they didn't absolutely work. Available in a number of camo patterns, with or without a hood, and either a full zip or half-zip option, North Mountain Gear has combined all-day comfort with the groundbreaking leafy concealment. That's actually quiet. You can check out their entire line of leafy shoots today at northmountaingearcom.
Speaker 3:All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Spring Legion Podcast. We are back. My voice is not and we're now in the second week of December and I'm not sure if it's going to come back, but we're going to keep popping a podcast out either way and hopefully it'll be back for a long time. It's kind of a little better. My name is Hunter Farrier and I'm joining you today with the pretty usual co-host, chase Farrier.
Speaker 3:Here Got a pretty good episode for you today and we're going to get into it in here just a little bit.
Speaker 3:But wanted to cover a couple things real quick before before you hopped on into the discussion, which is going to be kind of the uh, the macro side of setups as far as turkey hunting goes, and we got a couple stories that'll kind of uh, relate to that that we can use as good examples and kind of the whys and the why nots that we kind of went about them. We actually have probably up to five good examples of the importance of where you set up that are going to be illustrated mentally via stories, but I doubt we get into all of them, but we're going to try our best. But before we get into it I wanted to send a huge thank you to all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers over at SprintLegendcom. We have been working our butts off, specifically Chase, filling all the orders and stuff and we've got them out the door finally. So I feel like that was a good little rush you had there, because you you had a a tall task ahead of you, I would assume oh yeah, well, it uh.
Speaker 3:It took a little bit of time, but we got it knocked out, yeah and um, and we had a whole trailer full of stuff we got dropped off yesterday. So y'all, uh, y'all, thank your local uh, thank your local postal worker today if you, if you run into one, because they had a a lot to handle this uh this week and, and our daddy actually, he's worked for the uh us postal service since, uh, since I was not long after I was born, and and and uh from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas. I don't know if he's ever not worked that I can remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely their busy time, for sure. I mean, heck, we walked in the back of the post office yesterday and it was stacks on, stacks on stacks of you know, you could tell it was Black Friday stuff. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And I stood behind someone today getting a overturned exchange package or something like that, um, and and I heard a lady telling explaining to somebody like everything's a little haywire right now. Like I know it was supposed to be here yesterday and it's not there now. But you know, fedex hadn even, like, given us the package yet I can't tell you what's going to happen because obviously it's not in our hands. You've got that damn kind of deal. So, with that being said, I want to remind you all, if you're doing Christmas shopping, if you want to get a set of the new pants or the new gaiters or the new mask and stuff like that, go ahead and get those orders in by Decembercember 16th.
Speaker 3:That's kind of a good rule of thumb to uh, to make sure that it does arrive on time and gives you a little margin of error or whoever's handling the package a margin of error there, a day or two to to get those in um, but we I mean I would say those, the new gators which are now available in original bottom land and, uh, my green leaf, as well as the new bottom land and the solid loading color, uh, those were the probably the biggest hit, of course, with the with the uh, the new, the new turkey hunting pant too, now an original bottom land. But I mean, I don't even know how to estimate how many we sent out, but I'd say it's pretty good bit, don't you think it was a?
Speaker 2:bunch. It was a whole lot. I don't, yeah, I don't know a specific number, but it was a pretty good bed, don't you think it was a bunch. It was a whole lot. I don't know a specific number, but it was a lot yeah. We're very thankful for it. You know, obviously and all that, but had our work cut out for three days of nothing but packing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean from the time you wake up until you go to sleep, which I mean we're not going to sleep at 9 pm, we're going to sleep at midnight earliest, you know um, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Uh, yesterday I started at 8 am and and packed the last order at I don't know. It was 11, 30, 12 really.
Speaker 3:So um, well, I got some bad news for you, chase. Um, good news for the listeners, but bad news for chase. Chase, good news for our listeners, but bad news for Chase here that we kind of hit on the thought of the new turkey hunting tops coming in potentially early, and they did Right. Remember, last week I mentioned UPS had dropped something off. I was thinking it was kind of the remainder of the pants, but it was actually the jackets. So awesome, that rarely happens. Rarely do you get it, you know, substantially earlier than what you're you're planning to do, especially during the holidays. But we were able to get the, the entire shipment of these new turkey hunting tops in, and we will. By the time you listen to this, they're on the website. Um, and it's something that I'm very excited about. This is probably my favorite item of all and, um, it's really cool. We really had a lot big hands on kind of um, kind of, when it comes to designing this joker. It's really cool.
Speaker 3:A lot of folks have asked about it because it was in the product pictures of the gators in the pants, kind of trying to knock two birds out one stone there. Right, it's um, it's it's pretty slick and it's it's very thought out. It might look like a normal piece of you know, a normal wearable for for turkey hunting, but it, every little detail I wanted to make sure it was. It was something I wanted to wear and it was something that I always kind of wanted to have and, um, but it's, it's, it's. I like it a lot. It's, um, it's kind of designed to complement a leafy suit or something worn under it. Um, because you know, as I mean, if I'd say, a majority of turkey hunters at least have a leafy suit. We use north mountain gears and always and always have. When I was younger I had one that wasn't a north mountain gear.
Speaker 2:It was cool but it was loud oh yeah, I hated mine I had one, my whole vest was right, and I remember there were several turkeys. You know that was when I was hunting my dad and whatnot he was big yeah, but like it was he's like I hear one drumming or something and I can't hear nothing because it's right all the little things are flapping in the wind, which you know, it took me a minute to get it, get on the north mountain gear train. But when I did I looked at you about halfway through the first hunt with it and I was like goodness yeah this is nothing like what I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:This thing is amazing you know I was.
Speaker 3:I was so pumped to tell y'all about it because this was back. I mean 2019, maybe 20, not even 20, probably 2019, because I'm an old school guy like wearing old school stuff. But I don't know what talked me into it some kind of sale or something.
Speaker 3:But I went ahead and got one and and I was like I gotta tell dad and james about these, because it was quiet and that was the first time I was like they didn't figure something out. I don't know what it is, but that was the first time I was like they done figured something out. I don't know what it is, but this jacket quote unquote jacket I don't even know what to call it.
Speaker 1:That's why we're calling it a turkey on top, because it's a little bit of a shirt, a little bit of a jacket.
Speaker 3:It kind of compliments that, it goes over that and it knocks the draft off.
Speaker 3:So a lot of times I'd be wearing my North Run gear you know, pullover, it's got a hood on it and stuff like that and I'd be wearing it and it's awesome after 9am. But when it's, you know, 49 degrees and the wind blows a little bit and it's kind of humid outside, it's pretty cold if you're just wearing a t-shirt underneath something that's got a ton of holes in it. So the theory behind the construction of the turkey hunt top that we're releasing is more so a multi-layered mesh design. So it's got an inside layer of mesh and then the outside has a two-way stretch material going down the side and under the arms. So it's ultra-breathable but at the same time it just kind of holds tight. It blocks off all the holes of having a leafy suit underneath and it does really well without a leafy suit underneath. Um, we just kind of made sure it didn't have a hood so you're not wearing two hoods if you are wearing something underneath. Um, I wore mine over my sweatshirt yesterday and it completely kind of just knocked that draft out.
Speaker 3:But somehow and I'm not saying I know what I'm doing when it comes to, like you know not aerodynamics, but thermals, I guess it really does allow you to breathe and you don't get the whole sweaty feeling, constricted and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Because that's the only other problem I have wearing a jacket over my leafy suit or especially underneath something, if I have a long sleeve underneath, whether it be a three-pocket or even just a button-down something, if I have a long sleeve underneath, whether it be a three-pocket or even just a button-down shirt, if I got a long sleeve underneath there, I'm going to have to take it off and I'm going to have to take my vest, the top shirt off and then undo the underneath stuff to cool off and then put everything back on. So I was like I'm going to make something where it's a full zip, you can take it off immediately and not have to undo everything else underneath it, but it's enough to knock the draft off and then, if you ever need to you know you can you can wear it just with the t-shirt underneath and still have that ventilation. That, uh, it's not gonna be as much as a leafy suit.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's not completely mesh but, um, but it's got enough mesh in it to allow you to breathe yeah, and I'm actually wearing it right now while we're doing this podcast.
Speaker 2:Um, got me one yesterday and uh, big thing, I like this bottom zipper that's my favorite thing about it uh, yeah, the bottom zipper. So it's got two zippers on it pretty much. If y'all don't see a clip of it or see the pictures of it, the bottom zipper. So like, if you're, you know you do get warm or you know need to get in your hoodie pocket or something underneath it, if you got whatever it may be, you can just zip that bottom zipper up halfway and, you know, allow your pockets to fall over your legs, or however you want to when you're sitting down.
Speaker 3:That's the main thing. That was the kind of main point of it is if y'all have ever obviously all of us, obviously all turkey hunted if you listen to this podcast, probably I know there's exceptions, but when you sit down and you've got a full zip something on and it's zipped, you're gonna have this bend in the zipper usually, right. You don't get that with stuff with buttons and primarily because the buttons stop before the end of the garment and also you have the option of unbuttoning you know, I wear a three pocket jacket a lot and I don't button the bottom ones.
Speaker 3:So when I sit down it spreads apart and it's not constricting at all and it's just. I always button just one or two buttons right in the middle of my body to where it's unbuttoned at the top, one button at the bottom. It's just kind of connected, kind of like an hourglass. So this, this jacket, will have that option. You can.
Speaker 3:You can zip it all all the way up, pull it down a little bit at the top, let you, you know, reach in underneath, get your face mask, whatever you got to do. If you're wearing a shirt underneath, you can reach your chest pockets easily, but also you can unzip it from the bottom so only the middle parts zip, like a three-pocket would be, which is really cool. So when you sit down it falls naturally and doesn't, you know, bunch up, doesn't kind of get in your way and you don't have to, like you know, do this underneath reach to grab anything that you might have inside of it. Um, so that's my favorite part, but other than that it's kind of, you know, the usual zipper pockets, right, stuff like that, a chest pocket and whatnot.
Speaker 2:That's what I was thinking of earlier the kangaroo pouch on the on the mountain deer, I was thinking hoodie, but you probably wouldn't want to put a hoodie under here unless it's sure enough cold.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I mean, if you got a camo when you can right, and it did pretty good yesterday because the whole camo one was it's gotten or something like that, or a blend, and it it's got a little draft to it, but this, this, it kind of keeps it from doing that and in that mesh inside of it keeps that from like hugging too tight and really just smothering, you Must it breathe, yeah, so I'm stoked about them. The only bad thing is I don't think I ordered enough.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:I was kind of hoping to get them in time, and so I didn't want to overwhelm the manufacturer with a ton. I was like, well, I'll get some If we sell some before Christmas. If they're able to get here, awesome, I might be able to reorder some for spring.
Speaker 3:I don't know if we'll be able to with the way holidays work. They're out. If they're still there, I hope they are. I hope y'all are able to get one. I encourage y'all to check it out. This is my most favorite item that we're going to be having. I'm pretty stoked about it because a lot of it was kind of I didn't expect it to work as good as it did.
Speaker 3:You know, it was kind of I've never had something like this and it really did. So those are available. I want to encourage you all to check it out. We still extended a few of those Black Friday sales for the little hole out with the new and with the old sale. We kind of got going on with last year's turkey hunting pants and shirt and I think it's only like largest, extra largest. Maybe some two X's left in those, but I mean 40, maybe 50% off of them, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's a select few left but yeah, go ahead and knock them out. Help us get some shelf space back. Yeah, some shelf space right now. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we need. We got a lot of stuff coming in, but we cleared a lot this week.
Speaker 3:No kidding, they're not empty shelves, but we at least got a shelf to put stuff on now. But anyways, I had a couple notes here to mention and I wanted to do the main ones to let y'all know. If y'all do get orders, I advise December 16th is a good rule of thumb, so get those in, and I wanted to. We're going to do a giveaway again this week and kind of an unannounced one is going to go to a review that was left on Apple Podcast. Told y'all this was going to be sporadic, so y'all don't, you know, think this is a once a year thing. We're doing giveaways. This is going to be for free. One of these free jackets. You're going to get one of the first jackets. I'm calling them jackets. They're turkey hunting tops on the website for free, and your name is Lupus444. So if you listen to this, lupus444, I want to first of all say we appreciate your feedback and obviously reach out to us and let us know how to get in touch with you. Lupus444 wrote.
Speaker 3:As a passionate turkey hunter, I listen to quite a few podcasts. Hunter crew do a great job of keeping you interested and wanting more Knowledgeable guests. Help even an avid turkey hunter learn a thing or two about areas where most never even consider. So that is the point of this podcast is to just offer points of views, stuff that might have gone unconsidered, because I am a very good product of that. That.
Speaker 3:I learn stuff from folks who have turkey hunting much less than me, obviously, from some gurus that I'm fortunate enough to share a table with, or something like that, and I'm always trying to learn, and folks like this fella here you know kind of understand that same mindset of you. Know, even listening to a story, you can pick up on something you might never, never thought of, and um, and, and that's, that's all we're trying to do. We're not trying to necessarily preach to nobody and tell them how to do it. We're just going to tell you what has happened and then um, and some stuff we've picked up along the way, and if you're able to get value out of that, well so be it. You don't know, it's nothing.
Speaker 3:You know, but a good review does help and and we, we hope we'll call that even for sure. So, lupus444, reach out to us, we'll get you your stuff. All the previous giveaway winners did exactly that within an hour of our release of that other podcast, and we got them their stuff on the way as well. So, chase, do you know what the topic is today? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:To some extent I think we're good. What is it? Something about some macros on the setup.
Speaker 3:You have to define the macros, Tim. That's true, Chase, I was like you know we're going to talk about setups. He's like, okay, the macro version of it. And he's like, hold on now, yeah, hang on.
Speaker 2:We talking setups like what I wear or where I sit, or the sound system in my truck, Like what are we talking about here?
Speaker 3:What do we set up here? No, so what I believe is and very avidly believe, that your setup as far as turkey hunting goes, where you're sitting, is what I'm talking about in respect to the turkey, and what he may or may not do is obviously crucial, but it's the foundation of a successful turkey hunt, whether or not you win or lose this battle you're about to endure. If you're in the wrong spot, it don't matter if you have a turkey in your pocket calling for you. It don't matter if your gun can shoot a trillion pellets through trees, it you know, it doesn't matter. Um, even you can have a million turkeys to hunt on three acres.
Speaker 3:If you're on the wrong tree, there's a way they can get around you. There's, there's, there's areas or pockets and bubbles in that you know, select few acres that they're not going to get because they don't have to get. So what I wanted to kind of dive into was just some examples of that, and we're going to. You know, we took a trip Chase and I did at the latter part of the season and just a real good road trip honestly Made a good loop, hit some good weather, you know, got into some turkeys here and there and was able to, you know, get a good group of stories to tell from that endeavor. We were blessed to get on some turkeys the entire time, at least one a day and provided some good stories, theories and schools of thought.
Speaker 3:I guess you would say that we wanted to relay back to you all as we recall them. But the first one of the entire trip was an afternoon, not an afternoon, but an early afternoon I'm talking 1 o'clock maybe. We knew a turkey was there. I want to say correct me if I'm wrong on any of this and chime in whenever you want to, but we knew of a turkey that we had seen earlier that day, um and and kind of let it move off, walk off. We weren't in a position to kill it at the time and um kind of came back after I was, you know, know, confident it wasn't even within eyesight which I always act like a turkey's there, but at least you know kind of just logic of. It's been an hour and a half, two hours. I don't think he's really paying attention.
Speaker 3:We hadn't called to it, we didn't even act like humans in the world. He doesn't know we exist at all. So I was like we can move in, we can use this little hedgerow, we can get down and I'm gonna get where we're gonna get, before making a noise and we were able to do that, um. But but I I recalled it right before we press record, kind of just thinking back on some stories and it's gonna go perfectly with you kind of the theme of the topic. But you were wanting to get to illustrate in your minds there's a small field, say on the left head row of trees like thick stuff.
Speaker 1:You've got to walk behind.
Speaker 3:There's a gap in that head row and it connects to a larger field that we were kind of in at the time. And when we see this turkey way down here in this little bottom field strutting around with one hen, that plays a factor. If it was 11 hens I don't know if we would have you know.
Speaker 3:Entertain that thought, but one hen right several hours, you know sure he gonna accomplish his goal eventually you know there's not much waiting on the other side of that one hen that we knew of at least, and so gave it a while, went down there, and I'm not going to say it was easy, it was very obvious the spot to get, which would be in the brick of them trees.
Speaker 2:Right in that, between where the hedgerow gap is right, which is, you know, it's not a large gap and it's pretty thick the whole way yeah, from one end of the field to the other it's pretty thick, except for this small little gap, right and we we don't know what the woods are that he walked in.
Speaker 3:I mean, right, topo wise, they look pretty open and pretty and creek was in there and he could be in a different county, but now we don't know. But if he, you know, be hung around, if we get to this pot and call, we're all right, right and we're on the opposite side of the field.
Speaker 2:That he correct.
Speaker 3:We assumed he went in we were keeping that brush in between us, um, and get all the way down and it's. I mean we're trying to like peel back some, some cedar branches and trying to look and see, make sure, sure he's not out there, make sure he's not out there over and over again. Very, very quiet. Turkey's in the big field on our right where we've been doing.
Speaker 1:You know they can see us playing this day.
Speaker 3:We're up in kind of the ag field country at this time of the year and he's down in these woods, we're assuming, and we get to this spot and I'm like, you know I'm a pusher, I push it, I get to the absolute limit, the absolute closest I can get, then I'm comfortable and then I'll just cut it. You know, that's it. We have reached it. I'm not gambling no more until he plays one of his cards, until he gives us a tip on where he might be or what he's doing. So we got there and I'd say it took us 15 minutes maybe to get there.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many hundred yards it was, but I knew that's what I wanted to get and this this little honestly maybe longer than 15 minutes to walk down there probably.
Speaker 3:I mean, we were, we were tipping we, we, we passed where we saw him a good ways, like where we. Where that opening is is not an eyesight of where we saw him, I just knew. But the woods funneled down and kind of, and got closer and closer and closer to this hedgerow as the as the field kind of teardrop, and then there was, there was a big opening between it. But right, you know, if he, if he wanted to act like a turkey and stay in the woods the whole way he could, he could get right there and then they would be close enough to maybe see him if she was on this side of the road but not on the other side and he'd have to walk across it.
Speaker 3:And he'd feel very comfortable allowing him a route that he'd feel comfortable If we tried to pull him across the main chunk of that field. That's kind of gutsy on his part.
Speaker 1:That's a long way.
Speaker 3:There's no woods to get closer to that field. He has to walk a long way to get there. So we got to a point A where he'd have to walk around something. Obviously, he's got an easy route to cross over he doesn't have to walk through this thick stuff but, more importantly, enabled him to walk in the woods and be very, you know, concealed the whole way, and I assume he ain't going to gobble. He's going to walk to the very edge and look first if he ain't got a gobbling going to.
Speaker 3:Um, that's kind of what he did, kind of not what he did yeah if you remember, um, so that was the theory behind it and and I didn't, I didn't know. Until after I called I said we get there, I'm like you good, jason's, I'm good, I'm gonna call. And when we call, you know, it's kind of of my rule whenever I'm hunting with somebody or by myself, is when you call you're there for a little while, right Because you're about to move a chess piece without having him move a chess piece.
Speaker 3:So I call and just you know I don't remember probably my slate call or something a couple cuts quick, yelp nothing. No, gobble nothing. Let it ride for 15 seconds or so. Another louder yelp no, gobble nothing, let it ride for 15 seconds. So another louder yelp, kind of reached around and then try to get that that sound to throw off into them woods. Um, we're in the open, so it's going to sound like we're in the open. He's going to know that's not in the woods, but I wanted to throw the sound as far as I could in there. Um, he's going to know. Let it be easy for him to figure out where you're at and I'm big on landmarks. You know if there's a gap there, you know if a turkey's walking by and they're obviously curious what's on the other side, they might call it this spot you know.
Speaker 3:You know, instead of trying to call through a bunch of trees, they're going to call in the open.
Speaker 2:Kind of cast their sound multiple directions or the whole direction, if they can, yeah.
Speaker 3:And have we sat there and just wailed y'all y'all, y'all, y'all? No, that ain't really natural A but that leaves him with no wonder. He knows where you're at, he doesn't have to wonder. So you do it once, maybe twice, let it be, you know, kind of emulating him walking by calling a time or two. Keeps on walking, he just don't know which direction have we called walking up.
Speaker 3:He knows which direction we're going, so he's going to try to meet us at the very top. You know he's going. Those woods connect eventually. Oh yeah, he probably knows this is walking this edge or she's going in the woods. You know she's not just walking around in a big circle, she's headed towards something which would probably be the creek bottom he's in. So, calling there, left the door open, for he doesn't know if we're walking down it or if we're walking up it left or right.
Speaker 3:So he doesn't really know at the time, and without we would have called on the other side of the trees. He knows which side of the trees we're on. So we got to where there was no trees in the one spot and called, and he called twice, but we didn't move in between them calls. So he's he's got to sit there and go. I don't know if she was going up or down and I don't know she was on my side or the other side. I ain't gobbled and he didn't gobble.
Speaker 2:Wind's blowing pretty hard too, by the way I feel like I remember hearing something, one of the last time you yelped and I was like that. You know I can't put my finger on it, it was 100 of gobble, but I've heard the break of something. Yeah, you know that direction a little time. You know something, yeah I feel like I remember saying that to you. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not guaranteeing, I just heard it, but there's a chance that I heard one, you know, I think I do remember that and I and, but you didn't hear it, or you know, one of us heard it, or there was something we, you know.
Speaker 2:I remember having a conversation, a mild conversation, like maybe or maybe not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and that might have been the tip to you know you're talking about moving. You know let's get in the like this event, it's not far to get in the woods.
Speaker 2:It's very easy for us to just, you know, get in the woods right but that whole field, the, the wood line on the other side of that field can see that gap. Yes, to a good extent.
Speaker 3:Except what's on the other side of the trees. More importantly, if he's in those woods he can see us crossing.
Speaker 2:Period. If he's in those woods anywhere, he's going to see us two humans walk across this wide open field Right and if there's a hen in the field that he's looking at on his side of the hedgerow, he probably wouldn't have done what he did, correct? You know, I'm saying so like yeah. So if you cross that gap, yeah, he's either gonna see you, he's probably looking for her to cross that gap, because we're right there by, you know, should cross that gap should cross that gap at some point yeah, the fact that we didn't, or the fact that a real hen didn't, is what made him have to come out, right.
Speaker 3:He actually didn't use the woods the whole way. He definitely used them from the time we saw him to there, you know he used them to get down a pretty good bit and then it was about 10 minutes maybe, which it seems like a year in turkey time, but I told Chase, you know hold on. You know, I think.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure Hang tight.
Speaker 3:Because we've got a good little scenario going for us right now. If he's in there, we could be calling no ghosts.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, we still don't know he's still there or not.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I pick around my, there he is. Yeah, you're like, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Honestly. I mean I could see a good chunk of the field. Right, you just got where you could see a little bit around the curve or something you know. You took one step.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could see a little bit. I'm standing up.
Speaker 2:You're kind of halfway set up kind of half knee, you're crouched or something. And uh, it was funny because you said I think I see a hand you know, yeah, I remember you said as a hand and I'm like okay cool, like well, there went the curiosity factor. If he's in those woods, he's going to see that hen and he's going to think oh, that's what I heard. Right, call it a day, you know, with her. Yeah, and it wasn't. Two seconds later you went never mind. That's a long beard.
Speaker 3:Nope, beard. Oh, that's a gobbler. Yep, oh, I guess it picked up his head or something. He finally saw it. You know, whichever is a little. He was walking directly at us. I remember that and I couldn't you know. I just see a head. It was just kind of a silhouette, and I think he turned and pecked to the ground like you know that's him um which, of course, I kind of repositioned myself a little bit.
Speaker 3:You're like turning around like I don't know yeah, I don't know where he's going quite yet. That's something I don't like to do is to set up on something that there's still a good distance. It's probably 150 yards at least.
Speaker 2:Oh, at least. Yeah, you know there's a lot of routes he could take that.
Speaker 3:If you're kind of, I like to stand Like if I was one on the gun I'd still be standing. Yeah, you know, I don't like setting up. Setting up If I can be on my feet and eliminate having to get up and get on my feet if he starts leaning or veering or whatever, I'll get to where I can shoot that spot. But you wind up not shooting him. In that gap he wound up coming down closer to the head row. I guarantee he was going to get there and then walk down. He was taking the path of least resistance, the quickest path, getting out of the open, as dangerous as it could be, he gets seen, he gets shot. In this case he got shot. That's why they don't do that often.
Speaker 3:I thought that was a pretty good example of being where you're going to be and holding tight. If you put a scenario out, if you set a table, be patient, have confidence in what you're doing. As long as you got confidence what you're doing, you're not going to second guess yourself, you're not going to make a bunch of unneeded mistakes. Um, I've heard that from from some old pros saying if you're not confident in what you're doing, don't do it. You know, don't.
Speaker 3:Don't do it, because all you're going to do is open up a can of worms in your head that I should not have called in. I should have waited. You know, whatever, if you think that might happen, don't do it. Don't call. Still be nothing. Be nothing as long as you can be nothing. And you know, a lot of times a trigger will gobble in that period of you waiting and trying to figure out what you should do. It seems like overwhelming and analytical, but a lot of times I go goblin. Let you know what you should do real you know well, that makes it easy, you know he's way down there.
Speaker 1:Right, I've been done for me to call up here, you know so that's just one of the you know kind of little things.
Speaker 3:And then, and then you remember the, the the following morning, I think yeah, it was following morning um, kind of the where we wind up heading to the place I had hunted before, don don't you know?
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Speaker 2:Did we see some birds or something on that area, or you just knew?
Speaker 3:they were there from the previous. I'd hunted it the year before.
Speaker 2:That's what it was Okay.
Speaker 3:So this spot and this was a full circle moment, a really cool day for me personally, Because this is where I almost wrapped up my season in 2023. This was the wind up, not being the last stop, but I thought at the time it might have been up not being the last stop, but I thought at the time it might have been, and I had two turkeys that I wind up seeing and got permission to hunt this little. I mean 40 acres tops, Six acres of it might be wooded. I'd say Kind of a gully.
Speaker 1:It had a bunch of rocks and stuff.
Speaker 3:It had like trash dumped in it too. I remember that Like wire, fence and stuff.
Speaker 3:Like somebody had dumped a bunch of stuff in it, a bunch of rocks Kind of had a horseshoe of a field going around it and it wasn't a big, big one. You could be in them woods and call, and anywhere in that field they can hear you call and anywhere in that field they can hear you. And anywhere in the woods around in that field they can probably hear you. And um, and I was in there, I'm talking about the year before. I'm not talking about the actual story, but the year before to kind of set this up.
Speaker 3:I'm just telling you this that I've gotten in there and I did the most sensible thing which would be setting up. You know, at a point where they're gonna have to get down here and they're to walk up, there's an opening in there that they can easily access this little gully. Walk down it, walk right up to where I'm calling. And it was one of them things where I was trying very hard not to let them know I was there, but I called way back there enough to get their attention to walk that direction without me knowing there was a turkey there, I don't think, and then I hear a turkey gobble back.
Speaker 3:I'm like you know where you called no, in front of me I called behind me. I'm kind of I'm just trying to get to where I can see up in there, and then I was going to kind of really set up for for whatever might be up there and evaluate there, but he, um, they gobbled and this is very, very, very loud leaves so I'm and I'm walking and they're gobbling and they're getting closer and I'm like they can hear me walking and I done messed up.
Speaker 3:I can walk quiet now, but it don't matter. They've already heard a hen call. The wind's blowing directly at them.
Speaker 3:They've already heard a hen yelp, and now they hear me, you know, and this is, I mean, the loudest leaves ever walked in and I wasn't really trying to be quiet at the time, I didn't really know right, and I was like they hear me, and then it, and then they wanted to get close, they wanted to come to that edge and I had to sit down, you know, and I'm, I'm where I wanted to kind of get. If, once I heard them gobble, I'm like, well, I know what the best, you know best setup can be is right there, 30 yards, getting at 30 yards, though I was trying my best, I almost just rolled, it just not sound like footsteps. I'm like what do I do? Because every time I take a step, the goblin, goblin. I'd stop, they'd stop going, I'd take one step gobble again.
Speaker 1:You know, they're getting.
Speaker 3:They're getting around right and I'm like if I don't get closer I'm going to be in a really bind, really big bind. So I get up there and then that's kind of. You know, I wanted to obviously get. I would have loved for them to have not approached it that fast. I would have gotten up there and go, oh, I can get closer.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:They're walking here, they're going to look down in here, and you can definitely see down in here from the edge of those woods. I didn't get there, but I didn't think that was enough to keep them from coming in there because, I had not crossed that gully yet, so they probably can't see where I'm sitting.
Speaker 3:If I recall and that's what I did I sat there and called. They got, I mean, 70 yards maybe, mm-hmm, 70 yards straight across, like eye distance-wise, 70 yards, probably 120, going downhill, coming back uphill, and they're about eye level with me, and they gobbled 4,000 times right there 70 yards. I could see them yeah. And they're looking in there and they're throwing them gobbles down in that gully.
Speaker 3:And I'm like and I'll call every now and then and you know I didn't call for a while thinking like I'm just going to let them keep walking to where I was. And they didn't. That's the only reason I called. I was like they've hung that up. You know, they heard something coming closer to them.
Speaker 3:So they know I'm in here, they know kind of where I'm at, and so I'm in a bind. Honestly, I'm in a decent spot, but definitely not the best spot, and I can't do nothing because they can see me, but it just wasn't enough to really pull them in there. And so I sit there and I think I mean very and so and I sit there and I think I mean very confident that they're eventually gonna break. You know, if I, if I just shut up and they don't know where I went, and they didn't, they gobbled 400 more times and they went all the way down, gobbled all the way down, gobbled all the way back up, gobbled all the way down. I'm like, okay, next time they go down I'm busting it across this, you know, hopping through this little gully of canyon rock and crap like that, and I'm coming up on the other side and popping one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at that point you ain't. I mean it's 50 chance. You're either going to spook them off or you ain't going to kill them. They're not coming in these woods, Right?
Speaker 3:I know that I didn't have time, but I'm like I figured that out.
Speaker 2:I'm like they're set on this.
Speaker 3:I mean not surprised completely, but you know I was kind of like I figured they'd at least be in two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at least give it 20 yards or so.
Speaker 3:You know, that's all I really needed. They'd bought probably 30, 40, honestly, oh yeah, but they didn't. But the time they walked down and I crossed over, I'm like okay, I got them. Nope, they gobbled all the way down the other side of the creek and I'm like they think that's just banished and went all the way down there, but they ain't getting in the woods. Yeah, which is usually the opposite. If you've got the open in between you, they don't get out of the woods. They don't want to walk out of the woods in the open. Right, they might get on the edge or get to where they can see, but they're gonna. They're gonna evaluate the situation from the shadows and the, the dark spots and stuff like that. We more often, they're gonna stand in the wide open looking in there and say why don't you walk out here in the open with us?
Speaker 3:and I called something. I was silent. You know I was doing, and then I started scratching again. I'm like crap yeah, I like scratching. I'll give us more scratching. Nope, they're like yeah, we hear you. We weren't wondering where you're at or if you're, you know, in there, we just want you to come here, and we're not coming there, so went on. I was like that's it I watched him walk off in his sunset hammer. That's it, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think I remember you telling me. You know I called me that night or something.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm I can't, I can't end it this way. You know, you were upset, you were upset about it.
Speaker 2:That's a tough one. Yeah, you got whooped yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean I just and it sucked because I was like I did what I would have probably done. I didn't regret anything. I wish I would have known they could hear me and I would have maybe walked in the rocks and gotten way closer before walking in leaves. It just surprised me. I didn't think they'd hear that. But it wasn't nothing I could do at that point. I might could have sent one through the whole gully at 70 and hope a pellet hit them.
Speaker 2:But that would. That's not. Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, but at the same time I'm like well, and I had to leave. I had to be in Tennessee that evening, so leave, I'd be in tennessee that evening so I could have hung with them that afternoon maybe, but I didn't have time so this is this. We've come back to this spot. This is the day after chase the shot one. Now we're back in, back in this past, spring story wise. So we come here.
Speaker 3:I'm probably have not shut up about these turkeys oh, the whole time, the whole trip up there, the whole drive and everything they weren't like just some mongoloid turkeys I'm like, but that is it's pissed me off for for 200 something days now, 300 something days now, yeah but yeah, hunters, you know he's been talking about the spot.
Speaker 2:Talking about the spot, talking about the spot. Are these turkeys really? And then we finally pull up there and I'm like this this is the yeah the turkey spot you're talking like, when I tell you it doesn't look turkey-ish from the outside. No, I mean, there's a trash pile, there's like a run-down car in the ditch.
Speaker 3:You know they've been wrecked or something Like a deserted cow pasture, maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like this is the place. You've talked to me for X number of hours on this drive. Yeah, I'm like, no, it's my turn to go to Turkey.
Speaker 3:I'm like hold on, get in the truck, we're going here, we're going straight there. I don't care about killing one of these turkeys, that's all I want to see if they're still there. That was just a very abnormal place for them.
Speaker 1:So we walked down and I'm like I'm, how loud these leaves are.
Speaker 3:You know, just really just consumed by this getting whipped.
Speaker 3:I love killing turkeys, but when I get beat by one like I just I think about that all the time and I think about that tree and I think about where they were and I think about why they didn't do this or that. And when I go exploring I've been like you know, I'm telling him like hold on, let me go see something, you go see something, you know, I just want to see if that ditch went all the way here. I've been wondering if that ditch went all the way here. I entered my mind back in, you know, november of last year what if that ditch in this place?
Speaker 2:didn't really go that far right. I actually did something different than I think it did.
Speaker 3:If I'm within you know six hours that place. I'm probably gonna swing by and walk over there and look and be like, okay, yeah, it did. Okay, then go back six hours. Now I'm good. Yeah, just to kind of ease my, my anxious mind, so we walk. We wind up walking pretty much the route they took. So we get across this little opening, I mean across this little um little gully thing, ditch thing across the other side.
Speaker 3:It's thick stuff too. Oh yeah, explains why they might not want to walk in there. I never I didn't do this that time. So I'm like, okay, this is way thicker than I thought I was looking over the thick you know, because I was higher, they were higher.
Speaker 3:I didn't enjoy walking through it. I ain't gonna lie, I'll kind of agree, I don't, and they probably knew. That makes a little more sense now. So we walked down this whole opposite side of that edge, go down there, that creek bottom that they kind of just eased off into at the conclusion of the year before, and I'm like I'm like I'm staying here, I'm waiting, I'm not just checking it and leaving, I'm like I'm gonna call a couple times, I'll hunt it. You wanted to go see something. We had seen some birds or something like that, and you're like I need to go. You know, ask this, you know family or this lady or whatever yeah, if we can hunt it.
Speaker 2:I left a note on their yeah, uh, carport or something and they tried calling me twice yeah, and I was like yeah let me run, handle this and you know they were yeah, it was looking like a good idea yeah, I mean we knew their turkeys that we didn't know turkeys were where I was at and I was like yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see one, rock on on it, whatever I'll stay here.
Speaker 2:yeah, I left you a, left you a camera and took one with me and we were like I'll pick you up when you get done, kind of deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just keep me posted. But yeah.
Speaker 2:Then you want me to tie into my side of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So you know we're up against a little field or whatever it is, and I don't know how far I had made it back towards the truck. You know, because you were like I'm going to set up shop here. It couldn't have been far and I may have made it 70, 80 yards from you, but I dipped down into a gully of some sort in that field, you know, and I was not doing the smartest thing. I was kind of walking on the edge of the field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's kind of like when you're hunting with somebody and you're not on the gun and there's no turkeys there and you're kind of like you start scratching off like rules of thumb real quick. You're like I'm going past, I'm going, I'm going to hunt a turkey.
Speaker 2:I'm going quickest route of that truck you know, to go find another turkey to hunt or whatever. If he was with me.
Speaker 3:So yeah, he's out of sight, I'm going to kind of do it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, um, I remember I got got hung up in some uh briars or something, and so I ended up, sure enough, cutting out into the little opening or field or whatever it is, to try and get around all the briars right there on the edge in the shadows. And I'm telling you, when I rounded that corner of that bunch of briars, you know I'm looking at my feet trying to untangle myself and whatnot, and I look up and all I can see is two huge fans right there on the edge of the woods, on the edge of the field, and I'm like you know I'm in a bind.
Speaker 2:I backtracked that boy and they were facing me and I mean it was like a knoll or something Like right as soon as I came around the briars. I topped that knoll and I mean I don't think nothing, but my eyes got over that knoll and I'm like I hit the ground and I went to calling and texting. You didn't answer the phone. I'm like, what do I do?
Speaker 1:You know I'm in a bind.
Speaker 2:I may not have. I don my gun. I think I had left it in the truck that day, yeah, or after. You know, since I killed one, it was your, your go, and I was like man, I'm talking I had the big camera. I'm like I ain't toting the gun. You know we end up calling in two we'll 100 times. Figure that out, you know kind of deal and um, so I'm without a gun. These turkeys are.
Speaker 2:They're still probably 89 yards from me I would think and so I hit the deck and crawl back through these green briars that I just went around, figured out a way to get to the woods, finally get a hold to hunter, and uh, anyways, yeah, you, you, you called me.
Speaker 3:You didn't answer. I did not answer, as always.
Speaker 2:You're like no.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I just don't ever look at my phone. It's always on silent.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And a lot of times it's on. Do not disturb especially on. Yeah, but I did look down. You texted me and said yeah to Something. Like I see them.
Speaker 2:I see some turkeys. See what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like somebody coming in on us or something Right.
Speaker 3:You know, you see the truck, or yeah, and then, like you sent another one after that, like two strutters in the field, I'm like I can see the field.
Speaker 2:I thought I could too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, they're not.
Speaker 2:It's a dip that you can't see that dip and they were in that dip.
Speaker 3:That. See that dip. And they were in that dip, that's what it was. I've ever hunted some of those like where they just round up the grass whatever they had growing. It's all just like a blonde, right, you know? And it ain't but four inches tall. It's not corn. You can't see dirt, almost it's very thick vegetation, but it's all the same color, it's all the same height and it's very hard to tell when that thing rolls down.
Speaker 3:You think you see across the whole field, but you really see two hilltops on that field and you don't know what's in the bottom. I can't see those. Turkeys were in there the whole time we're walking through there, just hadn't walked up enough or hadn't cleared over whatever the other knoll that they were on the other side of right in time. And so I'm kind of looking.
Speaker 3:I'm like where you know, um, but I didn't like doubt you. I'm like, okay, you know, I'm I'm undoing everything kind of getting undoing all the, the tracks. We just I'm walking in them same tracks, trying to get back get back back, and then I didn't ask where you were at.
Speaker 2:I don't think no, I mean, that was the thing I was trying to get you to come to me, because I had kind of gotten where the only place to get out of the you know little gap they couldn't see. I didn't want you to walk past me by accident and top the hill thinking that they were further down yeah, you know because they weren't far and I'm I remember you walk you walked right by me yeah and I'm like hunter, hunter hunter and I'm hunter going, and you know, and he, he was.
Speaker 2:Look, you were looking for me.
Speaker 1:I mean, you weren't not looking for me I saw you, I was like go, you know, yeah, me I saw you, I was like go on, you know go on, yeah, and then you, yeah, but finally I had to take two steps and you were like oh, hey, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I mean you weren't 10 yards from me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you were focused, you know, straight ahead looking for me.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, right, and so I see you. That shows you how good that camouflage can work? Oh yeah, no, it does, because, because I was crouched down face mask on, just in case they did walk my way by accident yeah, because I didn't know how long it was going to take you to get to me.
Speaker 3:You know, and we had we hadn't called when you told me and then I remember I text you that should I call at all you know to pull to let them know, like if they're walking away when you see them or something like that, like I might not get there in time and we're definitely not getting around them in the wide open, Like is there anything I can do to pull them back down? You know, and I think you said I'd rip it one time in this holla, you know, just put it in there and let it kind of turkey's in there.
Speaker 2:They're with a hen, or two or three, I don't remember. Yeah, I think yeah, two or three hens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, two of them strutting right there behind them. So I do let a couple of them. You know, box calls rip and that holla. I don't know if they hear them or not, but I believe they did. But I don't see Chase. And then I've walked past you and I literally could have tripped me probably, and I'm going, I'm going and I guess I got to wait on you to kind of get everything back up and I'm like no, no, no, you're kind of trying to tell me where they're at. I'm like I know where they're at Without knowing where they're at.
Speaker 3:I know exactly where they're at because of the year prior and I guess, like I mean I'm dead set on, like I remember this gully thing. Now I remember them not them kind of being in that, and when they left they kind of went back in it and I'm like I didn't know that was there and I'm like it all kind of started, like you know, kind of coming back in my mind. I'm like I know where to get, you know, and I know where I'm going to call and I know where I'm going to get. And you kind of round your stuff up and I'm trying to tell this to you, like as I'm walking at a pretty good pace through these rocks and jungle-looking stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at one point I finally was just like just hold a camera and let him play, let him ruin it. If he's going to ruin it, you know what kind of deal.
Speaker 3:I mean, I wasn't arguing.
Speaker 2:We weren't arguing about it at all.
Speaker 1:I was just you know you ain't got to explain it right, I'm here to follow you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw a turkey that direction. Yeah, do what you need to and so.
Speaker 3:So I do. I've heard a couple more down in the hollow, kind of where I would have been you know, I'm just adjacent to it, point in the same direction of where I was the year before. And then we find I was like I remember this little finger, little ditch comes off the main ditch and I remember them getting to that and having to walk around it. And they get to that and having to walk around it, there was kind of like a little speed bump they had to get over every time they crossed over it. And that's where 700 of the 1,000 gobbles they threw down in the hollow the year before came from. Was that one little finger thing.
Speaker 3:They were trying to throw it in that little gap and so I got in there and I shimmy down a little gap or whatever, and I didn't make no more calls right, but I got about might have get about 10 yards from the the end of the trees I could have. I could have definitely crawled back up out of that and gotten 30 or something like that. But very good chance I could have been seen and I'm peeking up every now and then I do see them. At this point. So I'm peeking up and see I'm seeing what they're doing. They're headed down and you're up every now and then I do see them at this point.
Speaker 2:So I'm peeking up and see them, seeing what they're doing. They're headed down and you're 10, 15 yards in front of me at this point. So we can't communicate?
Speaker 3:no at all, you're just right, you're under me, you're down below me in the ditch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm above you like the ditch, you know so yeah, inclines, yeah, I'm just like kind of filming your backside, right we're going the opposite way.
Speaker 3:Water would flow in this ditch right now, climbing up it, and they're kind of walking way to the right, which doesn't make sense because I'm like if you haven't been there before it's not going to make sense. I'm like they're going to get here and they're going to come down. I know it and we get up there. They haven't gobbled, but obviously they do here. They stopped the direction they were going. Now they're coming down into it. They're going to check it out.
Speaker 3:So I think, and again, that that other little dip and they kind of vanished for a little while and I'm I'm really banking on it happening at this point. And then I see a hand and they're now on the other side of that. You know they, they've retraced the direction they were walking, okay. So these hands come down, they kind of vanish into the low spot. I'm assuming they're going to pop up, you know, coming over. If they were to walk towards right, they walk down. They kind of vanish 60 yards to the left they walk back up. They're still hadn't crossed that gully. They just walk down, walk back up as they're. They're not really getting off that hillside right. I'm like that's uh zinger. You know they didn't think that's what they were going to do.
Speaker 1:You know kind of deals and that's 100 yards maybe yeah, a good 100 yards.
Speaker 3:And I see those hands. I'm like, oh, that's time to see the gobblers. But I'm like that ain't good. You know, I thought that the hands were in front of the whole time and I'm expecting to see a tailpan. I see the other one out there strutting with them, or whatever so it's now one gobbler out.
Speaker 3:There we can see one of the three hens, one of the two gobblers, and then those hens will trade and that cobbler will disappear and come back up and I'll see them. They're moving. They're moving to where I originally. When you text me or call me, whatever, they're moving towards that direction, not because of a call, there's just where they want to be yeah, they're not coming to the gully I caught in and I'm kind of focused on watching them move from my right to left, right to left, and they're here.
Speaker 3:I'm like oh, that ain't that turkey drumming you know and I look up and I hear like wings just going, and it is 10 yards.
Speaker 3:He had come down to the tip of it and walked all the way down. He followed that low spot all the way down and then walked back up the exactly how they did the. If I hadn't seen that hand on the other side, I would have been staring directly that way. That's exactly what the other one did, right, and I'm 90% positive. This is one of those. Could probably be both of them, honestly.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, because he had one of them, diamond tail fans, where the the middle three or four fans are just taller than the other ones that it almost makes a triangle. Look, it's not like a jake, where it's, like you know, a square it's just almost when he when he spreads them out.
Speaker 3:It's just a very, very subtle little point, you know the top three are a little more arrow looking exactly, yeah, almost, as if you had an odd number of feathers, like the middle one's the longest and the next two are slightly shorter than this kind of works this all the way down.
Speaker 3:There's no real round to it, it's almost a triangle. Looking fan. Um, yeah, he, uh, he was strutting right there and I'm talking 17 yards maybe, and I was kind of face to the left and I kind of was able to. I'm good, I'm in the go, I am concealed completely. You know that bottom line is dark, you know, very dark, and I try to keep all my camo dark camo, not, you know, the white branches and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I don't like that, necessarily. The darker the better. And I'm in a dirt bank right now with some random vegetation, twigs, stuff like that. So I'm able to swivel very easily and get to where, when he rounds his one little corner he's going like the footsteps he'd have been standing in the year before when he sent all them. Gobbles is eight yards in front of me and I'm pointed at that eight yards and he drums one more time right there and he steps out and I might have went, you know, cut real quick to make him stay set up, but he could sit there and he went. Oh, he looked down and they're just like he was about to let one rip and I could have let him. I'm like you know it's about to scare, chase, death. I don't know if you can see or hear his drumming.
Speaker 2:I don't think I could barely see something.
Speaker 3:You probably see me moving.
Speaker 2:I can watch you and know about what's going on in front of you from as many times we hunt together. But you know, I knew you saw a bird and he was close and I didn't know if he was 50 yards up there, 10 yards there, whatever you know.
Speaker 3:But I could see your body language shifting towards get ready. Get ready for a gunshot, yeah and um, but I said what happened? He stood there and he was kind of like laying his feathers down. It was a free hammer.
Speaker 1:I'm like nah yeah, not 300 days of thinking about this.
Speaker 3:I ain't doing this. I know what you sound like. I've heard you before. They never got with that whole, that whole time that I know of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean at this point we've got two turkeys down that we don't think either one of them two gobbled at us. Yeah, For sure, but you always act like they did.
Speaker 3:I mean, especially if you're in hindsight, if you've been there before, if you knew what a turkey had done, there's always a reason. You'll rack your brain like I did for a year, wondering why. There's a reason. Sometimes you gotta accept that you're not a turkey and you don't have those instincts. There's very I mean, if you sat there and break it down, the the whys of why this turkey did this and all that stuff is. I mean, he, he got, he didn't have to. That's always the reason he did. If he doesn't have to cross this stuff, he's not going to. If he doesn't have to, that's always the reason. If he doesn't have to cross this stuff, he's not going to. If he doesn't have to walk in there open, he's not going to walk in there open. He's going to take the easiest and most comfortable route and if you're going to call, put yourself in a spot where it's comfortable for him to get into it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Get into range, I mean, you know, not get to where he can see it, because he can see it from 100 yards in some places. Right when you get there and and that's, we'll probably not have enough time to go into the latter part of these stores we'll pick up on it next week which are even more of a setup approach. That was kind of just a high. If I hadn't been there the year before I probably wouldn't have known. I probably done the same thing I did the year before and we wouldn't have turkey, right, you know, tomato, tomato, however, he's been it.
Speaker 3:But the following two mornings were very one didn't work. We set up in the wrong spot, yes, and then I think that afternoon or midday did work because we put a lot, a lot of time into creating that scenario. Before we called, we knew a turkey was there, we heard him, saw him, something, and we painted an entire picture scenario that would transpire soon after we called, assuming he would gobble. And this next week's episode he did gobble one time. Yeah, but had these gobbled, I wouldn't have done anything different. Probably, you know, it would have just reassured you, that's it. But we just set up and had the one the next week's episode not gobbled. We would have done the exact same thing, just being very disciplined. And hey, make this easy on the turkey.
Speaker 3:You know, don't make him do stuff that's going to risk his life, a risk, his, you know, time. They have all the time in the world, but they don't want to do unnecessary things, especially if you're competing with a real hand next to him. You know, right, free and immediate is way more feasible than further and at a cost of some sort. You know, I got to get hot. I gotta potentially walk through a jungle. I gotta, you know, maybe get eaten by a predator. I gotta expose myself to something I don't want to expose myself to being on a road or a high traffic area or something like that. You can, if you can, make it to where they can get around all that very easy on them.
Speaker 3:Year, year that you got the macro setup set up, completed. You know, then, what I have into some micros, which was the probably way more on. You know, the the following hunts was very I'm talking every twig mattered if this was going to work, and it did. And it would not have had we not paid very, very close detail attention to some of these very commonly overlooked things.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm looking forward to telling those stories too. They're pretty special.
Speaker 3:Yep, y'all remember Chase and I having them black knees. Yeah, y'all remember we might have them black knees. Yeah, y'all remember we might have put a few things on social about that. I mean, we were looked like we'd been crawling around in some black paint.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So on the fertile ground birds Mm-hmm, it was a whole other ballgame, yeah.
Speaker 3:We'll try diving that next week, barring a special guest or something not popping up and having availability.
Speaker 3:Then I'm going to forget. I'm putting it on the listeners to remind me. Hey, don't forget. You told us you all were going to continue that episode back in December. I will. I just mine's running 90 to nothing right now, but anyways, we ain't going to keep it too long. We appreciate you all, as always, want to encourage you all to go ahead and check out them.
Speaker 3:New turkey hunting tops Very excited about it. I am looking forward to hunting in them a lot and I haven't worn mine since I got here and Chase has since yesterday when he got here. So I've been fortunate to have the sample and it's slick. I like it a lot.
Speaker 3:It's the original bottom line. It looks really good. It's really flat, it's not shiny at all. It's going to serve as a very good complement and it folds up to about a square six inches. It's very light, yeah, and it'll fit in a bunch of pockets. So throw it under the seat of your truck, however you need to, but yep, I want to thank you all for listening. As the city truck, however you need to, but yep, I want to thank you all for listening. We, as always, we appreciate the reviews and stuff like that. Y'all help us out knocking down some shelf space on some of the extended deals of Black Friday, cyber Monday and get those Christmas orders in before December 16th. If you won't get it, you can flirt with the 16th and 17th and it might arrive If you live pretty close in the southeast or something. We're shipping them out every day until then, literally just to make sure that everybody gets what they want for the holidays and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And I want to encourage you all to spend time with your friends and family as we go into this holiday season. This is some folks' holiday seasons are not as enjoyable. You know there's people who aren't there anymore. There's reminders of you can be made again and stuff like that. Just being close to somebody who is in that position is invaluable. It means the world to somebody just being there and being present and paying attention. Being there and on your phone is a little different than being there and just spending company and stuff and understand that time is finite. Little different than being there and just spending company and stuff and understand that you know time is finite.
Speaker 3:And holidays are a time where I'd say 90% of my memories are made and as you get older, you start really reflecting on those and we're telling stories now, chasing off the set. You know, without a headset on, a lot of it is you know from past holidays from past. You know this week or two of the year is when a lot of these stories you know a lot of these stories happen, so make the most of them. I encourage you all to do that and we'll be back at least one more time before Christmas hits and then we'll be around in the corner into 2025. So again, thank you all for listening to the Spring Leisure Podcast.
Speaker 1:We will see you next week. Realism is all that matters in the spring turkey woods and the guys over at Houndstooth build their turkey calls with the consistent realism as a number one priority. Cut, stretch and press right down the road. In Tuscaloosa, alabama, a Houndstooth turkey call has become a familiar addition to a many a turkey vest across the southeast. Learn more about a variety of friction locator mouth calls today at houndstoothgamecallscom and be sure to use our special discount code SLP25 at checkout for 15% off your next round of houndstooth turkey calls.
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