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
Roosted vs Unroosted Turkeys | A Few Good Stories on Hunting Them
With the holiday season now behind us, it's finally time to prepare for spring turkey hunting season. Join us as we relive of a pair of solo turkey hunts and detail the changes we made in respect to whether or not we had roosted the gobbler at hand the night before. We're also thrilled to bring you news about an exciting piece of literature releasing in January, with all the details on upcoming events like the Turkey Tailgate and Callmakers Showcase at Mossy Oak in West Point, Mississippi.
Reflecting on the challenges of getting in tight on a roosted turkey, we share insights into the behavior of these fascinating creatures. From the unexpected silence of a turkey on the limb to the impact of predators like owls, each day in the turkey woods offers new lessons.
You'll hear about memorable hunts in special spots and the nuances of interpreting turkey calls amid complex terrains. Whether navigating ridges, gullies, or fields, the strategies shared provide valuable knowledge for both the seasoned hunter and those new to the sport.
Finding success in turkey hunting often involves a strategic approach, and our stories emphasize the importance of patience and adaptability. From the decision-making process of choosing the right spot to the tactics needed to outsmart lone gobblers (and the groups of jakes or hens with him) every hunt is a unique puzzle. Sharing personal experiences, we highlight the art of reading nature's signals to impact the outcome. With a blend of humor and humility, these narratives capture the essence of the hunt, offering inspiration and practical tips to enhance your turkey hunting adventures.
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.
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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.
Speaker 2:that's actually quiet, you can check out their entire line of leafy suits today at northmountaingearcom.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Spring Leisure Podcast, Episode number one for the year 2025.
Speaker 1:And another milestone. We have reached closer to the best time of the year, being spring, turkey season, and, if I'm not mistaken, the plans for the remainder of this afternoon are going to be taking down Christmas decorations, which is a milestone to me, because that means that's like the first thing I really just find a very stretched point of view for looking forward to turkey season is taking down Christmas decorations, because that's one of the first things that you do in your preparations. So I know it's not going to be far. There was one more, I can't remember what it was. Something starts rolling in that kind of lets you know it's not far away, um, but yep.
Speaker 1:So we're going to try to start this, uh, new year off with a couple of a couple of stories going to be a subject on roosted versus non-roosted turkeys and hunting them. Both of them, I want to say, were solo hunts. I hunted one by myself and Chase hunted one by himself, right, and they were kind of opposites, you know. Yeah, we'll dive into them, going to be quick, with a couple updates for some folks who care to hear them before we dive into the actual subject of discussion, one being the book I mentioned on a prior podcast I think it was last week's possibly is going to happen. It's going to be here before NWTF.
Speaker 1:That was the main kind of parameter I had to make sure of. It's not going to be a new book, it's going to be a new piece of literature. I guess you'd say that will be on the book collection of our website and stuff. Just a little, something special. That a little project I've been working on and I'm going to give y'all a lot more detail on that, probably next week. So I don't want to spill over too much on the detail side of that project right now.
Speaker 1:Now, other than it's going to happen, it's going to be available on amazon and spring legion. Um, the projected release date is going to be january 19th. It could be anywhere between 19th and the 27th. So I encourage you next week to see when that actually is. It's going to be at 6 pm central time, regardless, and there's going to be a numbered special edition side to it that will be available. I've got to figure those details up too. But something a little creative for the collectors and stuff like that, which is a big market. You know and I'm very good friends with a lot of folks who are in the collective realm of you know, old camo and calls and books and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So a little something special for them Other than that y'all will have to go to the website to see all the new gear we got for 25, unless you know of anything else we've gotten since last week.
Speaker 2:The only thing I know that's come in was car tags.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:We have what three options for that Yep Green, black and white.
Speaker 1:Green, black and white license plates. So of that, yep, green, black and white. Green, black and white license plates.
Speaker 2:Been waiting a long time for those. Oh yeah, they took a little longer than expected.
Speaker 1:Well, they actually got here. They were covered up by all these other boxes I'm getting like a going through the editing stuff a million proof boxes and they're the same size as those. You know, a book and a license plate aren't that much different in size, so they've been kind of camouflaged in a big pile of book boxes. But yeah, they've been here for like a week or two. I just finally got them to you. So my bad on that.
Speaker 1:Oh good, I wanted to say a little note here. The Turkey Tailgate. Did you get that email?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, when is that? March 8th, I believe, Yep, so the mossy oaks.
Speaker 1:Uh, turkey tailgate march 8th, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that thing, oh yeah, that's, it's at the mossy oak store in west point. Yep, big, just mainly just a big hangout, it's just just. Yeah, I mean they have some booths there. We normally have a little booth there, right just selling like books and stuff, really just a very small booth kind of deal, a bunch of call makers, bunch of uh, good food normally and yeah it's just a big hangout of a bunch of like-minded individuals talking about turkeys getting fired up for it.
Speaker 1:So yeah it's a really good time it's one of those things I look forward to every year it's in that little sequence of events to get you fired up for turkey season and I think that the full name of it is the Turkey Tailgate and Callmakers Showcase. That's what they call it, and so I think this is the third annual, and it's always been on Youth Weekend of Mississippi so it would be.
Speaker 1:March 8th weekend, pump for that, because I mean you have folks like Red Beard and stuff like that there that just make you know high dollar, high in demand. You know box calls, buy calls, stuff like that, those scratch boxes you all see me use he's there A bunch of trumpets.
Speaker 1:Trumpets, you're right. So a cool little gig there. We'll keep reminding you all as it gets a little closer. But other than that, I think we do have one giveaway we wanted to do. Remind you all, there's going to be a bunch of sporadic giveaways throughout the season. This one's going to go to a guy by the name of chad james and he left a review, a five-star review, on the new turkey pants.
Speaker 1:So we've done something for, like apple podcast and and on spotify or youtube channel and just folks who are giving us shout outs. We want to give y'all shout outs and give y'all something in an exchange. So, chad james, he uh he. He left the review on the the pants on our website saying that he's been taking a long time, absolutely the best pants for turkey hunting he's found, and that he looks forward to many uh morning spent in them. So, chad, we appreciate you and I will be sending a well, we'll do a license plate headed to you, um, if you can reach out before you know, next week or so, we'll be able to probably pick you a color.
Speaker 1:I think we should still have all three options before you know next week at least. So, Chad, if you listen to this, shoot us a DM on any of our socials or email podcast at springlegendcom and you'll get to at least pick your color of license plate to be headed your way. And we greatly appreciate everybody who does leave reviews. And also shout out to all the folks who send in inquiries. As far as retail stuff goes, we got a lot of.
Speaker 2:Did they get a few? Yep yeah, good bit of them actually.
Speaker 1:So we're going to be working on those in the coming days and, um, might, uh, might, be sending out some hundred dollar gift cards or some of them, if we can, you know, kind of get getting connected with some of these retailers across the south and, uh, we will definitely let y'all know which ones those are so y'all can check them out if, uh, if, if it does happen. But, um, yeah, without further ado, let's roll into the topics. So I'll let you roll in first. So mine, um, my side of stuff is going to be on rooster turkeys, which I don't think either of us really do often. Right, roost turkeys before we hunt them.
Speaker 1:Um, I did realize this year is very advantageous to do that yeah um, in a couple instances, and I've been pretty not mad at it, I just I'm just kind of like you. I don't, I don't do it much right, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:If I make it out there, you know, I don't really expect much and and I found myself crossing off more spots than crossing one on, or whatever you want to say, because you know Mississippi growing up, where we grew up a lot of birds. Don't gobble on the roost in the evening.
Speaker 2:And they may one time, you know, if they do, I've seen some that blow it out of the water. It just depends on how they're feeling. But you know, I've gone places where I think turkeys are going to be and then not hear one, and then I kind of debate my whole situation the next morning and then I don't like I don't want to go there because I think, man, there probably wasn't a bird in there. And then you know, a bunch of those times I've gone to that same standing in my same boot tracks from the night four and there's three goblin in earshot, you know.
Speaker 2:So it just you know it's kind of one of those things like it happens. It's good to to know, but I also don't. I'm like you.
Speaker 1:I don't trust that that bird's gonna be on that same limb in the morning you can tell me the exact twig he's, he's standing by you up a little little more than it helps you, especially when they throw the kink of not gobbling in there right and then you've had it so many times you have nowhere else to go, so you still come back the next morning and two are in there. You're thinking well, I'll never trust a roosted bird again.
Speaker 2:Right, or you do roost one and you don't gobble the next morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when it really is. Then what? Yeah, what do.
Speaker 2:I do now yeah.
Speaker 1:You're just frozen at that spot and really I mean I know turkeys will move at night, remember? Oh no, yeah, I almost hit one one night by 1130 at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, running across the road, you were on the phone with me, I was. Yep, I forgot we talked. I think we've talked about that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean I've seen a few people like over the last year. I've seen probably two or three Walking around, looking around wide-eyed. You can tell they're a little uncomfortable normally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do know there was a study. I'm not going to say a study. I don't know what the purpose or point of doing so was, but it was a biologist of some sort, of some nature, to whatever degree it was. I mean, I don't know if it was Dr Chamberlain or someone like that, but they did. I don't know if it was Dr Chamberlain or you know someone like that, but they did they. I don't know how they figured it up, I don't remember, but it was a lot to do with owls and the predation of owls against turkeys, which is pretty. It's higher than a lot of folks think and literally I think it's like sniping them off the roost. So I mean, there is some instances where I'm like I wonder if that turkey just died last night, what if something came and got it? What if something attacked it, something just nocturnal, and he wasn't roosted good enough or anything?
Speaker 2:could happen. I mean, I would think you know, even just having bobcats and stuff around them, if they know they're up there, if they gobbled before going to roost they know where to be If you're quiet enough.
Speaker 1:I mean a sleeping lion's still asleep. Anything can happen when you're asleep.
Speaker 2:Right, but yeah, owls are a huge predator of turkeys and. I didn't know that until about two years ago.
Speaker 1:I had no clue of that. Now I don't know the specifics of species and stuff like that if? That matters. But I do know owls are a factor. But going into your story, you know you'll be hunting a bird.
Speaker 2:You didn't, didn't know it wasn't, you didn't hunt them off the roost, I wouldn't say no. So so, yeah, I dropped in this little permission spot we have and uh, me and breck had hunted it probably two to three weeks before this, yeah, and he ended up missing one. He, he clipped a pine tree and just clearly gap wasn't quite right, you know whatever, but I knew there was a knoll in here that I kind of wanted to get to, and it's kind of the one little five-foot inclination I think is the right word of change in that spot. So I get, you know, I get a couple hundred yards from it and uh, I started hooting and whatnot and I ain't wanting to call which I'm running a few minutes later, and I wanted to be starting to break day. You know, things can kind of see me moving around, but I hear nothing off the off the limb and pretty much just there could have been one sitting right there beside me.
Speaker 2:That just wasn't got one. You know, it was kind of odd. I expected to hear at least one, either on our this little property we had permission on, or at least a neighboring property of some sort or something somewhere in the earshot in other words. But um, didn't and uh, so anyways, I ended up making my way to that big, that five or ten foot inclination of what is it? What's the word? I'm looking for Ground.
Speaker 1:Elevation.
Speaker 2:Elevation yes, sorry, anyways, get there. And so I just kind of, you know, don't have anything else planned and this is really like the last day I can hunt Mississippi or the last two days I can hunt Mississippi before I go out of town. So I'm just like I just want to sit in here and hang out for a little while and so I'm calling every you know five, ten minutes, just whenever I felt right, but all the birds are fired up. You know, not turkeys, but ground birds or whatever you know.
Speaker 1:So the turkeys should be gone, tweety birds.
Speaker 2:And you, the turkeys, should be got tweety birds. Turkeys were in the areas. Yes, should be. Nothing happens. This last time you were there, right, right, and I think breck had heard some in there like two to three days before that. You know something another. But um, either way, you know I'm sitting here thinking there ain't a bird in here because I mean everything else is making noise, but it was also making it hard to hear far off stuff. Crows were were going crazy, geese were going crazy. I mean it was almost like road noise in the woods. You know from nature.
Speaker 1:And I almost I hate high, high, high pressure days as much as. I hate low pressure days. Because of that reason, it's almost like I'm in an airplane and everything is just I almost can hear and this will actually tie into my story in a minute unrelated, but the day after the same exact thing happened. Just a high pressure, and I swear I could hear. For too much, too far, almost. And you're hunting late season, right? So everything is muffled. Something that's 15 yards away, can still be muffled by leaves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, foliage is thick at that point. But pretty much sum it up. You know I set up shop, go to call in every couple minutes just trying to, you know, kind of hang out and see if one's passing by, remind them that I'm over here and whatnot, and um, out of nowhere, one gobbles 20 yards behind me on this little rise and so, you know, I have practically a panic attack of oh goodness, here we go. I am set up against like a brush top where I know I can't really turn to shoot that side. Even if I do get turned around it's going to be hard to hard to shoot, which I finally cut my eyes far enough I can see them and it's like four jakes had done moved in there, which surprised me that they weren't gobbling even, you know.
Speaker 2:And they didn't gobble coming in or anything, and I mean they had to be roosted pretty close to where I walked by and was hooting at earlier, which I mean they may have seen me or something, I don't know, but I don't think so. It's hard for me to believe. Even jakes, I don't know, come back right.
Speaker 1:So they, and they still wouldn't come up there to me, but I I think there was something to do. How close were you to where you missed one along before that?
Speaker 2:oh, really like right yeah so, but that's like the one strip I knew yeah hey, this is the one. There's two big ridges that they can be on the other side of, and you probably wouldn't hear them yeah but like if they, if they can get, they're gonna come up that draw and then it's like just it's flat for a long ways, but for some reason I'd found those turkeys in brexit instant with that thing. They were way comfortable getting on that little knoll it's just.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just a few feet difference, just subtle. But for you know 100 yards it's pretty flat yeah it's lower, so they can get on that one little knoll and see a long ways. Um, but you know, one thing leads to another and you know, I kind of, I kind of just assume that'd be the best place to shop. So I think so because I don't like setting up shop that often. But this is not a big piece of property, so I kind of can hear everything that I.
Speaker 2:I can hear all the property lines from here.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of in the middle yeah, you know at least know which direct they're on another property, you know which direction to turn towards and if you got to move 30 yards, move it right and pull him off of it, which is ended up.
Speaker 2:What would end up happening? I had to pull him off of a neighbor neighbor property. So the jake's gobble a time or two. I'm trying to remember if I heard. I heard one eventually yeah way off, you know, but it was like where I could barely tell I'm like that sounds like a gobbler, but I'm not a thousand percent sure.
Speaker 2:Um, and then I kind of confirmed, like, the timing of his gobbles where he was a gobbler, but he was across blacktop road, yeah, you know, on a neighboring property and had another neighboring property between up me and the blacktop road. So I was kind of in a bind as far as that one goes. So I'll wail on it a few times trying to get him curious, and I mean he starts hammering, he starts lighting up, fired him up, but won't cross that blacktop. You know, he's hung up, which is fine, um, and I think, I think that's when the jakes gobbled right behind me and I'm like, oh crap.
Speaker 1:You know, here we go. Anyways, want to know Really, making you wonder what in the world is around you then, because you're calling to a turkey that you know, you're just kind of really a Hail Mary there Then somewhere around you, even if there were jakes.
Speaker 2:now you wonder what else is around you?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's very much what it felt like.
Speaker 2:But anyways, I kind of was like I'm going to push this little point as close as I can get, within 20 or 30 yards of kind of the corner I can get to and try and call him up there. Well, I make that move and he stops gobbling. At that point I don't know if he heard those jacks gobbling and shut up, or I was kind of thinking that was going to go one way or the other. He was either going to come up in there because he heard another bird in there gobbling or he was going to say all right, brother, you can have it. Sorry, you know, I'm not crossing this blacktop road for that you're about to find out how I was about to.
Speaker 1:Yes, the morning is about to go within the next few minutes, right, right and it he shut up.
Speaker 2:So I move about 40 yards down that little higher strip of elevation. Yeah, words killing me today um, it's not a real.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what you're talking about it's not like significant.
Speaker 2:It's a mole hill size ridge, but turkeys do consider it. I think it's a bird thing you think?
Speaker 1:like why you put perches in chicken coops. It's like they they'll find it. They they need that, they want that and then almost one of the things like they can see stuff we can't see. They can feel elevation we can't feel right safety wise?
Speaker 2:I don't know hey, I don't know what it is, but I've seen them do it in fields.
Speaker 1:I've seen them do it. You know they'll be on one strip almost like a irrigation. I don't know know how irrigation works, but like a ditch was cut and this is just like a mound of dirt going around and they'll find it. Oh yeah, they'll stop Stand right on it.
Speaker 2:Yep, I mean literally like an ant bed. Yeah, An old ant bed they will find that old ant bed and stand on that one-by-one square they love it, yeah, but yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I work down just a little bit, you know, 75 yards down, trying to get a little bit closer to that bird that I heard gobbling a little while before, and I throw a loud call out and nothing. So I pick up my wing bone. I'm like, well, give this one a round. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. And I hear one gobble kind of to my right. This one was to my left, so I don't think it's the same turkey, but it was one of those situations, same situations like I can barely hear him, but you know he answered me yeah, he is the right time and I'm like I think that was turkey, pretty sure it was.
Speaker 2:Let me give it a minute or two. I hit the wing bone again and he's it was. It was a little clearer that time. So I'm like all right, he and he's it was. It was a little clearer that time. So I'm like all right he's, he's working this way. He's heard me calling probably for the last 10 minutes and I hadn't been able to hear him, you know, and um, so there actually was a, a draw or a ditch, not ditch.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's not ridges, but it's like the uh, the high spots of these other finger ridge looking things are the same elevation as I'm at, but there's there's lower elevation you're more on the you're, you're on the flat, and then there's a few inches, or reverse, it's a reverse fingers right, it's all flat, but there's a few spots that are lower. I mean yeah, but I mean there's a big ditches Like if you're in the bottom, it looks like you're looking at ridges.
Speaker 1:Yes, but if you're at the top.
Speaker 2:They're all level across the top three.
Speaker 1:You can see across it If you don't know they're there. You think it's flat. You think it's flat kind of yeah.
Speaker 2:So I figure out, where you know, another 15, 20 yards back, kind of towards where I was going. You know I've got 60 yards to the property line probably at this point so I'm like, all right, well, this is a little close, but as long as they can get in yeah you know, out of that field and over here on me. I know he's on my side of the fence so we're good um. So either way, you know bird starts lighting up. Pretty well, I can tell he's coming. I shut up on him.
Speaker 2:You know and that'll be kind of that'll be a little more understood in the video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Of this you know but it's it's.
Speaker 2:He starts gobbling on his own, coming in. He's starting to get fired up. So he comes up the let's see, not the ridge I'm on, but the next one down. So like, if you're like this, I've got one gully and then I ridge, and then another gully, and it comes out of that second gully, gets on the ridge out there 70 yards from me and walks it down to the flat that I'm on.
Speaker 1:So you position yourself into the palm of the hand Right, the palm of the hand. That makes sense of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, finger ridges work like a palm of your hand.
Speaker 1:You know you've got the ridges as your fingers, and the dips of your fingers are the downward slopes and then if you can find the palm part where they're all connected and it's easy to get to Right, that's where you want to get Yep.
Speaker 2:And pretty much two or three connected right there, I remember, and, um, I was within about you know 30 yards of that. So he came up, just perfect, strutted and drummed and gobbled one time right on that you know next finger ridge and uh, worked his way to the flat and started strutting and was, you know, I was pretty silent, I believe, if I remember right, and shot him like 35 yards, which you know had a little mini heart attack when I shot because I did clip a pine tree, very similar to how Brex was, and when he flipped over he kind of fell back or something and went behind a tree and I'm like, don't tell me I did this.
Speaker 1:I don't know. This was like one of the first ones you killed that year.
Speaker 2:That was the first one I killed this past season.
Speaker 1:yeah, After going through a ringer of a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was April 23rd or something like that, I think. Oh yeah, I've been getting my butt kicked all year. I mean, last year was a really tough season for me, you know which. You need one every couple years to humble you, but it was my humbling year. Yeah, about week two, I think. Me and you had a phone call or something was like I could tell you knew and you could tell I knew, yeah, and it was just so.
Speaker 1:You know one of those good advice buckle up, because it probably ain't over. It's not good, it's not gonna slack and nothing you can do yeah, I mean, and it just, you know it was one.
Speaker 2:It was a year of I made bad choices and they didn't pay off like they had in years past.
Speaker 1:Then you make the right choice and then something uncontrollable happens.
Speaker 2:I missed one at eight steps, and that was just by sure a panic.
Speaker 1:It's a change of action. I got overwhelmed. It's like getting in your opponent's head. When you're in your own head. That's just like the enemy or the opponent getting in your head before even playing the game. You're just everything. You start jerking triggers, you start.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't put my face on the gun on the one I missed earlier in the year because it had been, you know, several weeks in the season and I hadn't even clicked my safety off or watched anybody else do it. I think I watched Justin, my buddy Justin shoot one, which that was kind of a crazy mess at one time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2:Which that one helped me out. That one kind of eased my pain for a little while there. But yeah, that one I missed. Man, it was, you know, I think I've told the story before. He disappeared for a minute, popped up out of a ditch and I didn't know he was in the ditch, you know, and I rushed, popped up in a ditch, out of a ditch and I didn't know he was in the ditch, you know, and um, I rushed, I was like I gotta, I gotta shoot the turkey now before he gets back in the ditch, and didn't even think, I just like shot from the hip practically, you know, didn't take my time one second and um, tell you I'm gonna have a rough year in other words.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a compound effect too. You have a rougher year when you remember you're sitting there and all is right in the world, until you remember you're in a slump and all of a sudden everything starts going haywire in your brain and you start, you know, fidgeting, and don't mess it up. Don't mess it up. You're about to mess it up absolutely.
Speaker 2:Which I mean I? I remember that day I killed that one. I kind of calmed all those nerves. I was like look, I'm doing this. This is probably my last hunt mississippi period it's either about to happen or not just enjoy it right, and I kind of forgot everything from the year and just hunting turkeys the way it is and only play the scenarios by the hand. I was dealt and you know wasn't thinking of, well, this one did this this year earlier. You know, kind of forgot this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And went back to other scenarios that kind of surprised me or whatever.
Speaker 1:So you had to restart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to reset, which. I mean that turkey did it very well, really really good. You know, normal Never knew what was up, read the script, kind of, but I didn't know who was in there. Yeah, and you know, just hanging out where I knew they'd probably end up, because the one we got on with Breck in there it was later in the morning, it was 9 o'clock or so whenever we heard him coming from that same direction.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:It's kind of one of those things like I don't think they're roosting very often on this property we have. But on this property we have, but you know, mid to late morning they want to get on these little high spots and see all the neighboring property so, and you know, taking effect time of year, nesting, setting on nesters, you know right or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that will kind of move them a little bit. So and another thing I do pay attention to going into the latter part of the season, especially in thick foliage and stuff is the actual foliage itself, where they could have flown up in early March might not be as accessible to their wings. And you know late April yeah, very much it's kind of harder to fly up in the woods and a lot of spots when all that stuff gets really, really thick.
Speaker 1:Where they want to be is, you know, if they got to cut like a, you know, a goose going through there. It's just not easy, and then it serves them no purpose to get up there and not be able to see the floor, the ground underneath them. So that's when you're going to find them a little more on field edges and utilizing the open spot to get up there to they will change their whole kind of regime of roosting, so to speak. It might still call it a roosting spot. There's all. There's always reasons for why they roost where they roost, and that's something I want to get a sure enough guru on.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know in the future.
Speaker 2:But my opinion on that too is is how open the floor yeah, of the woods is, because when all that stuff greens up with greenbrier and yeah you know all the leaves low to the ground have leaves on them.
Speaker 2:They don't want to fly into that because they can't see right. You know whenever they hit they can see from the tree, they can see what's around where they're going to land. But I mean the minute they hit the ground they're going to have to kind of get it about 100 yards before they. You know they'll know they can get to where they can see around them comfortably and feel safer.
Speaker 1:I don't know what those things are called. I know what you're talking about. It's almost like a second layer of ground. It's just a green canopy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Eight inches high, I guess. I know it's got a term. You know the understory.
Speaker 1:Something like that. Yeah, it's what.
Speaker 2:I've always called it. I don't know it's like one of those things like if you're deer hunting and you're sitting on the ground and you can't see because of it, oh yeah. But you get up in a tree stand and you can see it like a cutover. Right, it's all short stuff you can't see when you're in the cutover. I'm talking about the stuff that's like yay, high that.
Speaker 1:I don't like walking through because of snakes, because it's almost like up here, it might be some kind of oak or something like that, but they all touch and it's almost like there's got to be like a civilization under there. I mean it's solid. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and it's only late, late, late season Last week maybe it almost looks like elephant ears or something. Yeah, and you know I mean I don't like I where your feet are.
Speaker 2:You can't see at all yeah, I'm more eyes off saying stuff that's thick head height you know small saplings and trees and bushes get getting leaves on. They don't want to land yeah amongst that, because they don't know what's eight feet from them. You know they can walk down these trails and I mean I'm not saying that won't do it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know, that's my opinion on why they don't roost in the woods as deep right and and if you have a hard canopied block of woods, you know bigger oak trees with not a lot of sunlight getting to the ground through the day, they'll probably still roost in those woods, but it's the the stuff that you've, you've trimmed out, or whatever. That's. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 1:I mean this is a scientific fact behind this?
Speaker 2:I think so too but like, if, like, uh, you know, if you have gone through and thinned your trees or something and have a lot of sunlight getting to the ground now, yeah, they probably aren't gonna venture through there as much.
Speaker 1:I think you'll find them more on, like you know road edges, logging roads maybe, depending. I mean, they're probably grown up too, yeah, but but literal, you know, gravel roads, stuff like that, trails that are used lots and whatnot in the big fields that aren't grown up waist high which I mean I have called them through you know cutovers you know where they don't mind.
Speaker 2:You know it's four feet over their head. Briars and shadow grass not shadow grass, whatever broom sedge grass stuff. And all that in the forest, on top of that in the pines, I've caught them through the middle of it. Some don't care, but I'm just saying as far as where his feet first hit the ground. I've noticed that before.
Speaker 1:For a pursuit in which 99% doesn't always cut it. We've rested our liability in Apex's ammunition since they began making turkey loads in 2017. Their iconic TSS turkey shells are able to pack more shot into traditional payloads, resulting in more pellet scent, more consistent patterns and an increased pattern density. So, in other words, apex makes sure that the conclusion to those long-fought battles of spring are instant, absolute and ethical. Um, which is the one I'm. The story I want to dive into is for rooster bird. I was trying to think I only had. Of the turkeys I shot last year, even hunted last year, only two are quote unquote rooster. Just, I don, I don't do it often, right, but the one I was thinking about mainly the morning before that was the high-pressure morning I was talking about and I felt like 400 turkeys gobbling.
Speaker 2:And I know it wasn't.
Speaker 1:There was just so many and I'm thinking where do I even go? And I walked to the back edge of the property I could hunt and I never passed one. I never crossed the back edge of the property. I could hunt and I never passed one. I never crossed the path of one and I was just hearing them for miles it felt like, and I just get frustrated when I can hear too good sometimes. You know, I would much rather just have one turkey to hunt.
Speaker 1:But the next morning, I think so I kind of hunted that most of the day. And I want to say my wife Peyton was with me with me and yeah, because she had to stay in the truck and I went to go try to roost one at a whole new spot that I didn't hunt it all the day before. Um, I hunted across the road from it for a hot hour or two tops, got a hand fired up, cutting back and forth with her. She came in and she's on up, kind of up the mountain, and nothing ever happened. I never heard a gobble or anything like that. The wind was pretty stiff at that point, right, um, but one of those like hands around. You know, I hunted here this morning I think I went back to hunt kind of you know afternoon ish at the place.
Speaker 1:I hunted the the morning prior and I want to say I did hear a turkey up in there. It just wasn't really if it was on our. It was on the property I could hunt. It was not far on it and I did not want to risk messing nothing up because at this time I wasn't sure what I was going to do in the morning. Yeah, I opted into leaving. You know, I did not want to mess it up worse than I wanted to get an advantage on something that might not even be there right um so I hop in the truck and, um, she might have been with me on that, I don't remember.
Speaker 1:But um, we're going down the road and I'm thinking you know it's getting pretty dark, they've reached, they're in the tree at this time and and I'm gonna pull over here, you know and call into this hall. I didn't get to hear much. The mountains on the left and the the kind of valley-ish, the big creek bottom on the right and it's not many acres Right, I would say 60-ish tops on this little track and get down in there, park the truck and I walk down. I'm on the blacktop, you know, yeah, regular road, and call down in there and nothing happens, nothing happens. No, I don't call me, I hoot down in there, nothing happens, nothing happens.
Speaker 2:And I think I'm walking back in one.
Speaker 1:You know, right in the back corner of it, I'm thinking okay, that's as long as they're close enough to hunt. You know I'm I'm pumped, but then, but if I'm, if I'm roosting one I'm trying to figure. I don't call him roosting unless I pretty much know the tree he's in and then more so the limb he's on in that tree.
Speaker 2:And I will.
Speaker 1:I'll say he's roosted, that's where he was and I know I can base a strategy off of it. Other than that, I'm basing an area I'm probably going to get maybe, and that's liable to change as I every step I take towards him in the morning after that. But most times he is not in the tree. You think he probably is in. He has turned the direction and it sounds like he's this way and he sounds like he's that way. He sounds like he's a lot closer. You don't believe that? Go get one fired up in the limb at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and start walking and and try to. You know, put your finger on, you know, pull out a map and say that's the tree he's in. You walk 60 yards down and then do it. It's going to be a different tree. You're going to think totally different when you change the, the perspective of your. You know the trajection he's coming from and I was I think I want to say this road kind of bent and I was able to. I might want to walk and take him half a mile down the black top to get around on the other side and see if I can get an axis deal going like he's this far this way and this far, this way, right in the middle, because usually it don't matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this this particular one kind of matter, because he's on the corner of the property and if I don't get him in the right direction, you know his interest pulling him to a direction it's going to be a really long morning trying to get him off of you know potentially three different properties that I can't hunt, to come on this one quadrant, I can't.
Speaker 1:So I just did not want him to go away. You know, if I could just figure out the best way to get to him, or if there's a chance I can get between him and the corner that would open up the door to him, just leaving, you know, all chances behind, that's the best. Then I can just shift. Ideally that would have been the case. I ultimately decided that probably wasn't going to happen. I would have had to have walked it, wound up being I mean to really get around him without risking bumping him, to even get on that ridge, the final ridge, I mean it would. It would have been well over a mile and a half, I think to to essentially get 200 yards in in there from where I was standing the the night before.
Speaker 1:But I had to make such a big loop. I'm like I don't know this place I've never hunted in there.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm not gonna do that. I think I would mess more up, honestly, um so opted into not doing that. The next morning came back and he was still there. Um, I was working my way down and I'll say this the the hunt chase is talking about is going to be on our youtube channel pretty soon, probably one of the first ones we're going to release in 2025. Hunt, you know videos, um, the one I'm talking about is already on there of the one or two that we released, kind of that day or that week or whatever we we did a few current, you know a hunt.
Speaker 1:That happened earlier that week in 2024. We released it by friday. This was one of those. This was in kentucky, I think yeah um the one I'm talking about um so he wasn't there he was fired up.
Speaker 1:There was, I mean, good weather, no rush to anything. I don't think had nowhere, had nowhere else to be, neither did he. And I'm getting down there and then to paint the picture, you know, mountains on the left side of the road, like I mentioned, part of my truck, pretty much where it was when I was trying to roost him, and it goes down a good ways into a creek bottom. I'm assuming I still don't. It should be a creek down there. I don't know if there's water in it.
Speaker 1:I don't know any of these parameters as far as this creek goes, how open it is, how cluttered it is, what's in there, nor do I know what the ridge he's probably going to be on looks like. If I could have my rathers, I'd have gotten on that ridge and caught him down the ridge he's on. That would have been really easy to do and turkey hunting easy if there were in such a thing. Um, but my only option if I didn't do that was to call him into that creek bottom and potentially back up to it close to a road, and that was, I mean, that's not easy you know, in comparison to just calling him down the ridge.
Speaker 1:He's already going to be on, so somehow or another, I wind up, you know, talking myself into trying to do that instead, instead of making that big loop and bumping him into Timbuktu. I wanted to keep my distance and he was on the ridge. He was on that corner and I did hear another turkey goblin. He was deeper into the neighbor's property and I'm thinking that's not a great sign.
Speaker 1:Right, because if I had to guess, although the turkeys are over there, I have not heard a hen, I have not heard anything like that, and he's getting pretty fired up. And I get to walking down and walking down and I'm trying to you know, I'm laying eyes on this area for the first time.
Speaker 1:If I can, can you know me? I'll get halfway down and I'll stop and I won't take a step for five, ten minutes almost almost too long and I will evaluate every drop, a square inch of this place I can find, and then I'll just boop that tree right there. That's it. Well, I did that. He's hammering. I ain't made a sound yet. Try and roll hard not to make noise. Walking.
Speaker 1:I'm probably I'll level with him, I feel like you know, I coming down the ridge and he's kind of halfway up the other ridge and I don't think he's going to fly into the creek bottom which winds up having rocks and water, very, you know, ankle-deep water here and there and there's some spots that wasn't water at all that I know he could have crossed. But more than likely he's going to pitch on top of that ridge and he will freeze himself himself there and all the hens and the county are going to come to him Right.
Speaker 1:Like a turkey should do. So you know, it is what it is. There ain't a plan B, I ain't got a plan B. Until the leaf flies down and I get all the way down to the bottom and I'm thinking about trying it. I'm thinking about if I get, if it, if a cloud covers up, what little sun we've got, I might, you know, roll the dice and see if I can get on up on top of that ridge without, and if I walk down this creek a ways you know, away from him and come back up and get where I originally wanted to get without having to walk in the two miles through everything, right, I?
Speaker 1:would rather that but I got down to the bottom and all of a sudden I started seeing like sky on the top of the ridge. So like all that understory canopy stuff you're talking about, he's above that. At this point I've gotten low enough to keep it up between us, and I always get too low and then I start seeing, you know, underneath it, the sky.
Speaker 1:I'm like he can definitely see me if I keep walking, yeah, yeah. So, um, and I also didn't want, and so I used myself back up a little bit and I almost sit down and I'm thinking this will be all right. But at the same time I'm thinking, if he does fly down and looks at this creek bottom, these calls are too low. He, yeah, I'm, if you're gonna give it a name, I'm in the creek bottom, so close enough, I'd probably be 15 yards from the ditch part of the creek.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So too far, honestly. And if he gets up there and looks down, he can probably see me. And then I look over to my left and I'm thinking, if he does decide to fly and a lot of times they'll do this they'll fly the creek without touching the ground. They'll, you know, if they think something's on another ridge, they'll fly across to that ridge and land into that ridge. Right, what you're on Right, and I'm looking around at areas he might can do that and find one I'm thinking, if he does this I mean you really talk about an oh crap moment is when you're waiting on him to fly down and all of a sudden you hear wings and then you hear wings again.
Speaker 2:And you hear like sound barrier breaking.
Speaker 1:He's coming to you, he's flying over you.
Speaker 2:I've had him fly over me before.
Speaker 1:Right setting up like that they'll get on the ridge you're on and call down to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah then you're in a bind big time behind you straight behind you and looking at the tree.
Speaker 1:You're calling on, yeah, and wondering where the hen is. Yeah, there ain't much you can do, so, um, so I opt into last second, going back up the ridge kind of where I just walked and just looked up and found a tree further up.
Speaker 2:Behind you currently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, not the ridge he's on.
Speaker 1:No, I reversed Okay, I hit the reverse and went back up another 20 yards or so. Now the creek's a good 35-ish 40 maybe I'm thinking you know if he'll Enough to call him back up it. He can't get on top and look down completely and write it off that there ain't nothing down there. He's going to have to if he really wants to figure it out. He's going to have to come back up my side, which is going to be not bad chances, but he's got to walk through a very small creek.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've seen turkeys walk in deeper water than what he would have to walk in, but you know, and it had a bunch of rock, a lot walking deeper water than what he would have to walk in, but you know, and it had a bunch of rock. A lot of rock is flat, you know. The creek bottom itself was kind of 20 yards wide maybe, with just a ditch of stream.
Speaker 2:Let's call it a stream. Yeah, it was more of a ditch, yeah stream. Yeah, I mean it was only you could step over it with your few little sand creek or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, you can, you can hopscotch, you can hopscotch across it.
Speaker 2:You can hopscotch across it is what I was trying to say. It's got enough rocks across it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Out of the water, like a turkey can walk across it without getting wet.
Speaker 1:But big enough where he can stay at the top and see the whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he can see to the creek Right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And a little on the other side of the creek, from the ridge he's on, so it's gonna be hard talking into the very, very bottom. So I reverse, you know, kind of turn around and find a good tree and I wait, and I wait, and I wait, and I set up and all, and this is one of those I don't get to do it often anymore and it's okay.
Speaker 1:But I don't get to hunt by myself as much as I used to, and I used to only hunt by myself and um, and I'll bring just a, a wing and a collar too and call it, you know, a simple hunt, um, which I enjoy more than you know really, you know, having a bunch of cameras and stuff, obviously, which we don't always have and and I did have my gopro on this time, but I wasn't worried about it necessarily, of course, the only one I wind up getting kind of on camera, um, the one I'm not worried about, um, had it on and um, and get up there and I don't know if I caught it.
Speaker 1:I might have did a tree yelp or two, but either I did or I should have, probably. Just I just flew down, you know, did a fly down, you know, and I don't remember if he gobbled at it or not, but I yelled a time or two there and I called up up that ridge, as far as I could try to make it seem like if I just I'm not in the creek bottom do not think I'm in the creek bottom.
Speaker 1:I flew up to the top of this other ridge and sure enough, he flies down on top of his ridge. Yeah and um, I don't think he doesn't gobble. So yeah, he doesn't gobble. So yeah, he doesn't gobble. From the time I flew down made any noise at all. I don't think he answered it, I don't think he caught it at all, and I'm thinking he's about to either light this hollow on fire or he's going to light the other hollow on fire and I ain't going to even barely hear him. So I'm sitting there and it's one of those e quiet moments when you start getting your gun up because you don't know what's about to happen.
Speaker 1:I don't know that he's flown yet, but he ain't gobbled in a good three minutes.
Speaker 2:In one way, that means they're getting ready to fly down.
Speaker 1:If they ain't flown down, they're getting ready to exactly. If they take a gap you kind of can expect them. You can bet about 120 seconds of silence after they fly down, plus about 120 seconds of silence after they fly down, plus a little more before, if they're doing that little wibbly wobbly stuff, right, don't fly down right and they just evaluate what in the world is going on, then they'll gobble again a lot of times. If they're by themselves, they don't gobble again because they flew down for a purpose.
Speaker 1:There's a reason all right, you know they flew down and they've already started walking. His next gobble will be faint or loud in comparison to what he has been, um, but I see him up there. I think I can hear maybe drumming or something, and I see way up there. It's one of those moments where I thought that was the top of the ridge and really that was the top of the ridge you know. So that was just a little little bit a little binge and then it really picked back up.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking okay, a little further. I thought, and I definitely could have made it halfway up.
Speaker 1:You know, kicked myself for that for a very few seconds and then I probably scratched or something to make sure he knew I was not in the bottom, that I was up top, sure enough. I mean, I watched him fold, come all the way down and he was on the beeline. That's why he flew down. He did not gobble at all and on the limbs as I called, I don't believe. Nor did he when he got on that rooftop, rooftop, bridge, top, um, but he did what he got by halfway down.
Speaker 2:He stopped and hurt. You know, I heard drumming first.
Speaker 1:Okay, I did not see him first. I did hear drumming first because I was nervous, because it sounded loud and I did not know where it was. But I'm thinking there ain't no way he pitched down into this bottom without me seeing him. I'm staring at this whole half like it's like a displayed, like a theater in front of me. The whole ridge he's on is in. You know, I level with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah and I didn't see no turkey fly down, but I heard drumming. It was at the very top of that. I'm thinking that joker's got a drum on him Once. I saw a little dot moving and he got about halfway down and he let it rip one time in that hollow and there's rock everywhere. It was loud, that GoPro, I promise you don't do it justice, it was very loud and it came on down, came on down, came on down. Usually it don't happen like that, calling a turkey down into something. But I mean, I firmly believe, because that 15 extra yards I got was the sole reason. Yeah, but I'm trying to think of a relation to having it roosted rather than unroosted. I'd say it's still going to change, don't ever. Just bank Pretty much how you hunted. It was almost like as if you were to hunt a rooster turkey.
Speaker 2:I feel like, and I'm in mind, as if he was all over the place by the end of it. Well, I mean, since we've been talking, I have a good, remembered story from four or five years ago of roosting turkeys. I was hunting with my friend Taylor and you may remember this story. But I walked this ridge top in this big calf pasture. We really don't own any of the woods, we can only hunt the field, so the birds are roosting in the woods. I hoot one time and like six turkeys gobbling one of the corners, and then you know they're hammering, hammering, hammering.
Speaker 2:I'm like good Lord, there's a ton of turkeys just right there in a wad, which you know, kind of thinking at the time, I see there are a bunch of jakes or something I'm not really kind of trusting. Then I hear hens cutting up in there with them. So I'm like, well, that's got to be more of a dominant turkey or something in there. I think so right, as I'm going to leave I hear one to the right one, lone gobbler by himself, and he gobbled like twice. And I, the right one, lone gobbler by himself and he gobbled like twice. And I get back to the truck and I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 2:I said there's no, is this one, one or two scenarios going on here? That's just a bunch of two-year-olds or and I'm just gonna get lucky, but yeah, where the hens are, the whole wad of them. You know, if I can get really close to that corner of the field I may have a chance. But I said the one I want to would be able to call in off the ridge into the field is probably that lone goblin, because he's either a lone Jake, you know which would be not ideal if I set up on him and these other ones are grown or the big wad is a bunch of Jakes and two-year-olds and younger more.
Speaker 2:Whoop your tail, gang up on an old turkey. You know this by himself and that's exactly what my opinion is had happened that bird had gotten pushed out by, you know, by all the younger turkeys or jakes or whatever, and he just was over there minding his own business. He didn't gobble right on the, on the first limb, but as soon as those gobblers shut up over there and I kind of just set up between the two of them, taylor had a turkey hunt.
Speaker 2:But like one or two times I'm like I don't really know what else to do here. This is before we were filming stuff. You know, I don't really know what to do. We're in this middle of this wide open field, you know, with some trees throughout it and some ridges and stuff. But I was calling to this group and you know they flew down and shut up. I mean, they got 30 hens in there with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would they go?
Speaker 2:Ten goblin turkeys in there, all within 50 yards of each other. I don't even know what they're doing and I don't know what the woods look like. It was there on the ridge and all that stuff. Well, that bird gobbles by himself at a crow. He wouldn't answer my calls at first and he hammered at a crow like three times in a row and I'm like he just woke up. He's ready to roll. He thinks those other birds have moved off. He wants a chance at that hen right now.
Speaker 2:So ended up what I did we dip through one little ditch and I get probably 70 yards from the fence line was the closest tree, I can get in a straight line to him, and so we we get right there, which it's a dip, and there's like a little ditch of water right in the middle of the field which is very. Don't ever say a turkey won't do anything because this this is a prime example. He's on a ridge 100 yards over the fence. I'm 70 yards from the fence. Probably. You know give or take some right.
Speaker 2:On the other side of the barbed wire fence is a ton of briars and ticket junk I mean you can't even see five feet in there and then after that five or ten feet of briars, it opens up to the pretty huge big ridge that I'm about 90 positive. You can see that whole back corner of the field.
Speaker 2:Well, I called him and called him, called him and just I don't know exactly the call series or whatever I was doing, but I was very paying attention to when and how I was calling Ended up that turkey walked downhill off a pretty ridge and you can see the whole field through a thicket, through a barbed wire fence, across a ditch of water and 60 yards across that open field to 40. I think I shot him at 40 just because that was as long as I could take it.
Speaker 2:Him walking across that field, shutting and, uh, as soon as you know, he hung up at 40 and I'm like that's close enough for me, you know, and funny thing was taylor's over there moving the whole time and stuff and I'm sitting like you, gotta sit still this turkey they ain't gonna do this and I remember one time, I think I did something I scratched and she wasn't paying attention. I scratched and a limb hit her or something that I scratched behind me and she went ah, like loud and I'm like this is a show right here, goodness.
Speaker 2:But ended up being a very long-spurred and hefty bearded turkey. So I'm sure he was older getting his tail whooped by the mother ones. That's just something to remember, you know, if you hear a big wad of turkeys over here and then one lone gobbler gobble one or two times.
Speaker 1:You know 50-50 chance.
Speaker 2:That's the one I want. You know, 50-50 chance. He's an old bird. He might whoop your tail, but he's also probably alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you can get one alone in the morning. If he hadn't, been gobbling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean roll thumb on the turkey, the goblin well at that. But at the same time, if one gobbles kind of randomly, yeah and there is, you know, and this is an and not or, and there is a bunch of jakes in the area he's probably gonna come in.
Speaker 1:He might not gobble a lot more after that, but he don't want to attract them, but he wants to let you know he exists and if you respond to him kind of like I got you a lot of times, he's going to slip in there and pray to God them. Jakes didn't hear you, and that's when calling a lot after he gobbles does not help your case.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:The more you give him the reason to believe you might pull them Jakes in, or you legitimately do pull them Jakes in. That ain't going to be good, right, but by not calling you almost see his mind is. And if they haven't gobbled, they haven't acknowledged you or anything, and they didn't, they don't know about you and he only knows about you. He's going to be a lot more comfortable slipping in there. He's going to do it quietly, but he's going to do it.
Speaker 2:Which I think originally I called a lot whenever those turkeys flew down the big group trying to break off a satellite bird. You know, because I've done that before. Oh yeah, because if you call enough that back bird, that's not really in the action but he's there waiting on a chance. You know kind of thing, he hears one off and he can think hey, I can get over there for anybody else. They're going to do that and that's what I was hoping for, which the turkey, you know that I ended up moving and hunting he wouldn't gobble at me for nothing.
Speaker 2:But then once I went silent for 15 or so minutes, or probably longer, just sitting there talking with taylor trying to let these turkeys break up or something a crow, you know. He answered crow and I think it was because he was like wait a minute. I did have a hen on my side. I wonder if she's walking this way so did he gobble any after that?
Speaker 1:just one time.
Speaker 2:I think he lit up, he did. I mean he got on that knoll in there and gobbled and gobbled and gobbled, which silences what killed him. You know being there and by me not calling those, jakes never called.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and I may have called three times.
Speaker 1:He probably wanted you to come. He knew you were still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but having that little bit of a knoll I was sitting on, he couldn't see that behind that oak tree that I'm, I mean, it's just a ditch a little behind me, you know, just a four-foot hole that he knew was there. Dang, he's in that freaking gap. I'm going to have to get close enough that she can hear me or something she may not, can hear me in that hole. You know, yeah, and that's what he, he did, I mean, but he he didn't want to, but I mean strategic calling right there, yeah, made him couldn't stand it. He gobbled seven or eight times up there and I think I gave one call I don't even know what it was, but, um, you know, called one time and I pretty much told taylor, I said, from here on out, you don't move to us, you yeah close your dang.
Speaker 2:I don't care what you do, but do not flinch, because that bird's about to do it. Pop on up in here and you know, even after I killed it, she said you called the shot on that one a little bit Like what the heck? You know, it wasn't two minutes and we had the bird dead you know it seemed. You know it was pretty much like after he gobbles these four times in a row, I do this one thing. Whatever it was, I don't even remember you know what it was you pop off and cut him off.
Speaker 2:I think that's what it was. I think I, you know, answered his third gobble, and he was in the middle of his fourth and was like shit. I got to go find out and he was looking at the field the whole time. After I walked out there, where he you know, into the field, I could see plain as day the ridge he was on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, I guarantee you, he could see bits and pieces of that field and was just like how has he not crossed one of these? Things and is out here you know, by this tree.
Speaker 1:Neil Hayes put me on that a couple years ago He'd get fired up. They were responding. He chopped at one before he could get through gobbling and shut up, and it wasn't three minutes later he was that's that's more of what I think I talked on last week or the week before.
Speaker 2:You know, responding to a gobble versus calling to make one gobble, you know that's a.
Speaker 1:That's a huge difference and where it's coming from and when. Obviously and sometimes you gotta get fired up and sometimes you have that turkey flown down and stay on top of that ridge. I'd probably let it rip because I'm hail marrying it.
Speaker 2:He's about to go somewhere else and I can't go hunt him there and you know, not knowing about one hen's not good enough.
Speaker 1:Maybe he didn't know about four hens over here. I'm breaking out at all Right, which a lot of people you know Not if I ain't got to.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, a lot of people think I call way too much. And you do too, but I mean a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I think you call too much. I don't call too much, I'm saying Right. I do think so.
Speaker 2:No, I know, but it works. It works, you know. But a lot of you know and you know if he's gobbling and I can call while he's gobbling a few times, if I can get him to double gobble or triple gobble, I start getting a pretty good feeling at that point Like there's a dang good chance this is going to work in my favor. It depends on the turkey too, and they don't always do it Right.
Speaker 1:I'll over call certain scenarios a lot. I mean, it's just how you hunt versus how I hunt, and that's what both happens yeah, and that's what a lot of people don't understand.
Speaker 2:You know, growing up same house me and you same mentor, same places to hunt same birds? Yeah, we hunt very different, very differently. And uh, now, when we hunt together, it's kind of a combination of both. It's funny if somebody's got to be and it's so you know there's got to be like a chief and an indian there you know, because if we're both going there's chief.
Speaker 1:We're going bigger the whole time. We're both going there's indians. Not ain't nobody doing nothing right I'm like no, you do it.
Speaker 2:No, you do it yeah you know all right, you want to call 45 times go ahead and watch.
Speaker 1:Oh, you don't want to do nothing, we'll just sit here. You're gonna stand here and wait on this turkey to walk away all right but no and you know that it I take every situation as it is in that moment and and I try my best not to base it off of something a turkey did a long time ago or one did yesterday, even if it was the same turkey right you know chances or chances.
Speaker 1:Probability has to be considered in objective decisions period. You know you have to consider probability. That's how that's how the world works, that's how it operates is chances. So I mean just to, you got to weigh those and the only way you kind of get to handle those is experience more and more chances of it you know, more and more failures, usually more and more successes, sparingly, and then um, and then the, the probability aspect, you know it's 100 the right answer when it works.
Speaker 1:And then you've got to go back out there and do it again in a like-minded situation and it not work, and then your chance to go to 50. So now you're waiting, you've almost got to do it over and over again to build up which ones are going to be north of 50 and which ones are south of 50.
Speaker 2:Which ones, 60% of the time, are going to work 100% of the time? Yeah, which?
Speaker 1:ones 60% of the time, we're going to work 100% of the time. Yeah, which ones were the flukes? Because I've done some wild things. Go turkeys by them that I don't know if I ever tried again because I knew automatically that was a fluke. That wasn't me doing anything really spectacular, that was a rare situation. Yeah, and good place, right place, right time, along with some good weather, and I don't know it might have been somebody on the other side spooked him towards me. I don't think it was whatever idea, but I mean there is situations where I know for a fact that that that would not have happened had I been 15 yards closer, or probably stayed on top of that ridge top. That wouldn't. I don't think that would have made sense enough he would have caught on.
Speaker 1:I don't know if anybody had ever hunted this place for their life, but I don't think that would have been a real situation, being that close to a very low traveled road, but a road right um, I don't know why turkey would have reached there, um and I think he would he would have hung up on top of that ridge and expected me to walk down, because I sure as heck ain't walking the other way right kind of deal, which that's why I told that story is because you said you heard another bird further in there gobble a few times and that's probably.
Speaker 2:Well, you're thinking I would think heck, yeah, really, instead of crap. I mean it can go both ways yeah, you're on the other side of him. You almost want to be in between them if you can, if you have the option between two goblin turkeys. One of them's going to break right you know, in my opinion normally, but um what I'm.
Speaker 1:They move left or they move right. One of them got across your face right, exactly so.
Speaker 2:But like my assumption, when that bird gobbled further in there would think all right, that's his group and he got kicked out of it. You know, he's probably up here by himself he was by himself which I mean he didn't really act like he was by himself gobbled a ton trying to find another bird. Nothing, right that's wrong I think he did go a lot. No, he did not.
Speaker 1:No, I thought you were saying no. If he gobbles a lot by himself, he is lost and trying to find another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I'm saying, but he did not do that, he did not have lost. I thought you were saying the opposite that means they are lost.
Speaker 1:Hold on. Yeah, you said it right, I misunderstood okay okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was trying to understand what you were trying.
Speaker 1:No, you are correct okay.
Speaker 2:So yeah, whenever you do hear one on the roost, hammering is right. Don't think he slept it. It sounds like you get out of the truck. He's gobbling at 3 30 in the morning if he's gobbling like that at night too, I didn't think, or or the or putting them up. Yeah, that means he all of a sudden looked up and said oh crap, I was between two hens and I'm I ain't got no it's dark I can't see, I gotta get in a tree and I'm very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:He's asking for direction. Yeah, you'd be the first one to give it to him, and I've. I'll say this we'll get a whole episode on it one day. But I have went in there the night before and I don't care if I'm wearing blue jeans and what I wore to work, but, yeah, go in there and do a fly up and call and leave. Yeah, and come back and find out if he heard it not next day. A lot of times he's about 30 yards away hammering, and you know why he's there and he ain't probably around nothing else. Yeah, to isolate him on purpose.
Speaker 1:Um, it's just ballsy to do you don't know he's in there and you, you ain't gonna know where to hunt the next morning you can go in there and bump him out of there and not know it, because you're leaving. So, you're just anticipating nothing all night, and you get there and you go. Well crap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wasn't nothing here.
Speaker 1:He doesn't go home now, right, but no, we've got plenty of stories we're going to dive into as the season gets very, very close. Somebody has told me how many weeks it was the other day, and I could, but I do know that we are cutting it thin on getting some stuff in by NWTF, which I guess is still October in my mind. I don't know. I mean, I'm placing orders today, on a Sunday, that I'm going to be here the week of NWTF convention, so I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be an awesome convention. That is my favorite time of the year.
Speaker 1:I think it starts Valentine's Day, 14th or 17th maybe it's always the week of valentine's, the thursday friday saturday that valentine's day falls on. Usually it's then um. We'll be there. Obviously. We got a little more booth space.
Speaker 1:We had a we were proud to get as much as we could. They gave us 10 more feet, so we'll take it. I'm going to turn it away, so same spot as last year, across, you know, on the back of Mossy Oaks big booth. I know Nomad was on the other side of us, so we were between Nomad and Mossy Oak last year.
Speaker 1:You hook it right when you walk in the whole daggum place, you'll see us, we'll have signs, we're going to have everything there. So, and we'll hopefully, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we're going to have a little special edition literature there special edition literature.
Speaker 1:there, the guts of the book ain't no different, but it'll be a new cooler edition that some folks will be very delighted to have, and I'm looking forward to giving you a lot more details on that next week as we get those finalized and I'll probably have kind of a first look at it too. Then the proof is arriving tomorrow. I just don't want to tell you all nothing until I've given it the 100% okay. But yeah, we appreciate y'all listening. I want to remind y'all about Mossy Oak's Turkey Tail Gating Callmaker Showcase. It's going to be March 8th in West Point Mississippi.
Speaker 2:We should be there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it ain't going to be long before we're going to be really getting all gung-ho. We're going to have some. Youtube videos. So y'all, y'all check those out. Um, I bet you the first one's gonna be the one chase just got there talking about yeah and um, and the one I talked about is already on there. So y'all go watch it and subscribe, because they're gonna be coming out sporadically. We will try to get a little rhythm, you know, every tuesday, every whatever, but it might be a little chaotic there at the beginning, we might might get three episodes in one day.
Speaker 1:You might go a week or two without one, yeah, but as soon as we get them edited and ready to roll, we're going to pump them out as well as might do a little more content-sized stuff too.
Speaker 1:you know kind of best dump type deals going through some calls, a few more things like that. Because we do get a lot of folks who are hunting for the. You know, either they've been hunting a long time and never thought of something like that or they are just getting into hunting and they're asking way more 101 questions than 301, questions that I think are just as important because it's just like anything there is a process, the fundamentals of it, the foundation of it, is the most important. You know, the wood your striker is made out of is not nearly as important as which tree you sit on. I don't care what anybody says, 100% we can talk about the wood you strike and which ones I prefer and which direction I prefer to call and directional stuff.
Speaker 1:But you know, you wear the wrong boots and they're clunking around. It don't matter what happens after that. So there's a bunch of basics I want to cover and there's going to be guests on the show. So y'all shoot us some ideas for some good guests, some good topics, as we get. Uh, get ready to roll. They're going to be a couple of weeks. We're going, you know, might have more than one episode. We're going to get as much of it in as we can and and get folks I got. Unless you got anything else to mention, do you?
Speaker 1:that's about it for me all right, y'all appreciate y'all listening. We'll catch 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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