Ep. 136: Turkey Talk in the PNW with Chuck Carpenter

In this episode, I sit down with NWTF biologist Chuck Carpenter to talk turkeys in the Pacific Northwest. From tough mountain hunts to population trends and harvest models, we cover what it takes to sustain healthy turkey numbers—and how understanding their biology can make you a better hunter. We also dive into hunting during the “henned up” phase, calling strategies, and how pressure affects gobbling and decoy effectiveness. If you like mixing science with strategy, you’ll enjoy this one.

Connect with Jason, Dirk, and Phelps Game Calls

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop Phelps Merch

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Damn
here with Chuck Carpenter. He is the National Wild Turkey
Federation District biologist for New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho.
A funny story about Chuck before I let him talk
is our relationship started out with him harrassing me at
the Western Hunt Expo. I didn't know him at the time,

(00:32):
and I don't take any offense. I didn't remember you
harrassing me, but he would always swing by the booth
and ask us why we didn't bring any turkey calls?
And I back then and it was turkey season about
that time, right before, and so I took some lumps
from him. But now fast forward to eight years and
we're hunting here in the Pacific Northwest, and yeah, it's
been fun. Welcome to the show, Chuck.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thank you, Jason, And yeah, I was the guy that
harassed you. Did you bring any turkey calls? No? And
onto helping out ELK customers.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's now we do bring turkey calls
to the Northwest Hunt Expo in case here or not,
the Northwest the Western Hunt Expo. But yeah, we're currently
here in the Pacific Northwest on a turkey hunt. You know,
we're kind of hunting the way that we like to
do it. You know, there's there's and there's no wrong
way to turkey hunt. You know. Some people prefer pattern birds,

(01:23):
they prefer ag land, they prefer pasture birds, they prefer
whatever it is. We're doing it in the mountains, getting
a little exercise in chasing, you know, sometimes a loon gobble.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, I mean whatever floats your boat.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Some guys are teach their own. They can hunt however
they want. I don't know if we're hunting how each
of us wants to hunt. But we are putting on
the miles and we're going after public land birds and
hard birds. We're not chasing the easy birds.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, even within our camp. Right, we got team well,
they dubbed themselves Team Maverick. I think really they they're
hunting a different way. They're having success as well, right,
And yeah, we've you know, the day not a spoiler,
the day you killed your bird? Wed what did sixteen miles? Yeah,
killed your bird. So, like you say, there's lots of

(02:13):
ways do it. I enjoy turkey hunting, you know, all
the different ways, but this is the way I prefer
to do it. It's like you're in the mountains, there's terrain,
there's you know, and and you're chasing public land birds
and it's it's it's a lot of fun. I do
if I could change one thing about turkeys as they
would rut during not the faulks, I'll getting away a

(02:33):
big game, but like not when the days are so
dang long. This camp, I think we've got very little
sleep and a lot of you know, ey eyes open time,
and it's starting to wear on me.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, we were talking this morning and one thing that
I appreciate about this camp is most camps, like we're
in day four and as you go along, it's like
every day people are a little slower to get out
of bed. You know, those alarms, the snoozes get hit.
And this camp, every day we've gotten up earlier and earlier.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Well, I think this that's us becoming better hunters because
we've screwed up the roost a couple of those days.
We're learning and we're like, if we're gonna go that
far or if we're driving that far, and we got
to be in this area. Yeah, so yeah, it was
by necessity if we wanted to try to kill some
more birds.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, no, I mean, and there's some birds just hanging out.
You might hear them gobble here. They're hanging out in
a field right next to our little lodging that we're at,
and nobody's h even thought about going after them.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, they just And that's I mean, we've talked about
this a lot. I wish we could have recorded all
our conversations if we're walking around the woods, sitting there
or bs. And but like, is a guy that is
out there trying to kill a turkey, I'm also the
same guy that's rooting for the turkeys, right, And so
it's like, I kill not one in the field that's
been there every morning, every night we've been here. It's
just it's not not what we're after now. I wouldn't

(03:54):
if somebody wanted to do it that way and they
had access to it, then by all means.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
But yeah, and then we're all pretty experienced turkey hunters here.
You know, Like if there's somebody new, absolutely that it
would probably be in play. But I think everybody here
wants to have interactions with birds. I know, Uh, you've
been making them gobble like crazy. We've heard lots and
lots of gobbles, and those birds for us right now

(04:17):
just aren't gonna yep yep.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
And uh yeah, we're we're recording midday. I think we've
we've put on five or six miles and came out
of a pretty deep canyon and uh we were on
we were on pace to really put on a big
loop today. But I pretend to hear gobble back up
the hills we had the reverse direction?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Is that happy?

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So no, anybody that's listened, you know,
to this podcast knows that I'm you know, I like
this technical tactical stuff like I if I feel that
like talking to a biologist, understanding why the birds do
what they do and the data that's behind that. You know, yourself, Chamberlain,

(04:55):
you know some of the people that are out there
doing the boots on the ground work so that we
understand these things better, we understand everything about them. I
like to try to bridge and then a lot of
guys are bridging it. But I like to talk about,
you know, almost a little bit selfishly, like, well, how
can I use some of the information you guys know
way better than I do. I'm just a hunter, But
how can I use that when I'm out there hunting
to maybe maybe you know, up my odds of success.

(05:19):
And so yeah, I'm ready to jump into it. One
thing we're gonna we're gonna walk through is we are
here in the Pacific Northwest. You know, me being from Washington,
I hunt Washington a lot. You know, Idaho, Oregon, kind
of those Pacific Northwest states. You know you're in Utah.
We may be at our high point right and I
don't know, I'm I'm not getting factual, but like we're

(05:40):
close to the high point.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
We're on that trajectory. Yeah, for sure, we're.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
We're there, lots of birds, healthy populations, but I think
we need to be careful. Once again, We've talked about
this throughout the week, like do I want to just
have an amazing experience or do I want to be
able to kill three for a couple of years? And
that experience starts like slowly dwindle.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, And there's a lot to unpack there. We've seen
that everyone in the Turkey world kind of knows. Hopefully
you do. If not, we'll kind of give you some history.
But in back east we are seeing some Turkey declines,
kind of the southeast and they're slowly moving their way west.
And what's kind of been noted and documented is we've

(06:28):
seen the high point in Turkey numbers about thirty years
after reintroduction win some really heavy translocations were happening. If
you don't know, Turkey's at one point were around two
hundred thousand turkeys in North America and right now we're
sitting at six point five million. So even with declines,
this is one of the greatest success stories in hunting period.

(06:52):
Maybe whitetail deer is another good example of that. But
so these declines we're seeing, like thirty years after interduction
pole production, they're not having as many offspring and it's
concerning and we want to understand why this is happening,
and it's slowly moving less And so here we are
in the Pacific Northwest, and like Jason alluded to, it

(07:15):
really is kind of the good old days for us
right now. And so are we just going to take
advantage of that and just blindly be happy or should
we kind of start evaluating do we need to look
at this and start planning ahead for the future, Like
and that's a big thing right now, and this has

(07:38):
it's multifaceted. What's going on with that and how we
get to that? We don't know if if honestly some
of these populations that we're just hitting a carrying capacity.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, and that was a question I had for you
if you know or maybe you don't know this answer,
but like let's say Missouri for instance, like you know,
the huge upswing and then the big downturn is the
goal can't be to always grow, but the goal is
to get to that high point and then maintain or
or did they shoot past their carrying capacity because it
was that introduction and they you know, they need to

(08:09):
kind of like fall back into a plateau like that
would be the goal, right, is to just maintain that. Now,
maybe not always that it's all time high, but somewhere
close to that.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, So when you have let's say, any animal,
when you look at the population when it's introduced into
a new area and it actually takes off, it's going
to have almost exponential growth until it hits the carrying
capacity and it's going to overshoot that carrying capacity and
then it's going to go down and it's going to
oscillate back and forth around that carrying capacity. But a

(08:39):
big thing that I think doesn't get thought about enough
and probably should be, especially in the Pacific Northwest and
me being over Idaho, Idaho, it really needs to be considered.
Is that carrying capacity. It's it's a moving metric. It's
not just stagnant. Idaho is the fastest growing state in
the nation. So that in and of itself you have

(09:00):
people moving in converting habitat to homes and now that
carrying capacity that is reduced, and so you're probably gonna
overshoot it, and it's gonna undershoot then afterwards and oscillate
around this and maybe some significant swings because there's other
metrics even beside the population dynamics and habitat.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
And we're going to talk about a little bit. Well
we'll just jump in now that's a good segue. So
we're talking about carrying capacities. You mentioned habitat already. You know,
is it gives or take You know, where we're hunting
is industrial timberlands, right, for lack of a better word,
private ground that is open to the public. We've been
looking as we go like it almost in itself, just

(09:49):
the process of that, whether you're anti logging, prologging whatever,
it creates great fringe habitat, it creates great nesting habitat,
it creates great food source, creates great nest you know,
a roosting. So you got that habitat. So are you
thinking or saying within like just developed areas, like just
putting a house out in the country, does that ultimately

(10:10):
affect it? Like because me as the hunter, I'm like, well,
when I go find a house and if they got
some livestock or they got some chickens, like that place
is loaded with turkeys, you know, So it's like, in
my mind, well, that created but in reality it probably
did take some habitat away.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, it definitely takes some away. And honestly, your rural
house is probably creating more than it is taking away.
But really what it boils down to is public opinion
and and nuisance birds are sometimes the limiting factor, especially
with agencies they don't they don't like to get calls

(10:45):
on nuisance birds. And that social acceptance factor might be
more of a carrying capacity cap than habitat in some
of those areas.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
So in that thirty years where you got introduction to
somewhere around the peak, we'll talk about this a little
bit you think Idaho, Washington organ are probably gonna take
a little bit longer than thirty just because of some reasons.
But in that thirty years, is that do we feel
like predators are becoming better at catching? Like is there
is there some thought there or is it like is

(11:15):
it truly just maximizing capacity and then is there you know,
some of that predator issues or is that always happening
from the day of introduction until.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's gonna happen from day introduction? Like it's the classic
case is the hair and the links. I think the
hair and the links and how they how those populations
feed off of each other. You know, if if you
really do have some popular some predators that are fundamentally
just eating turkeys, they're going to raise in population in

(11:48):
direct relationship with turkeys increasing.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
So I know, we've talked about some colored animals that
were like specific turkey killers, like cougars, bobcats that were like,
you know, skilled and specifically feasting on turkeys versus you know,
other ones that eat deer and elk, and but yeah,
that's that's probably the anomaly. They're not not every cougar
out there's chasing turkeys around.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
They got no, No, it is the anomaly. But there are
there's been cougar through history that specialized in bighorn sheep
and other big game animals, and sometimes in wintering flocks.
There are cougars that specialize in turkeys and they decimate them.
I'm not saying that cougars anyway, shape or form number

(12:28):
one PREDATORI of turkeys, but it's just an individual instances. Yeah,
they can, they can be a factor.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, nobody. The one nobody wants to talk about as
much that's affecting this this number or this population is
youth seasons. Right. Nobody wants to tell you know, young
Johnny who's twelve years old, like your your youth seasons
may be going away. But you know, Chamberlain's got some research.
We talk about it like the process of quote unquote

(12:54):
turkey breeding is too long, where it should be done
in what you sixty days is now one hundred and
twenty day because we you know, we start hunting them
early in April, sometimes even in March, you know, in
the march on these youth seasons. In your opinion or
not in your opinion, that's that don't ever tell a
biologists in your opinion that does the data support that
youth seasons are having detrimental effects on some of these populations.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
So this is a tricky one because yeah, no, no
one like, yeah, we're all for youth hunting, and it's
not about youth seasons, And honestly, I'm not gonna say
I haven't seen Mike's data, but it's more about when
those youth seasons are, so you could switch those youth
hunters out with any other hunter. But it's the fact

(13:38):
that generally youth seasons are one of the earlier seasons,
so that means they're hunting these birds pre hens incubation
and so, and we definitely see when hunting occurs before
incubation there is an effect on breeding, and definitely breeding
timeline gotcha.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, so so youth season, youth get the bad rap,
but it's really just that season's too early. So if
we gave them the first week of our general season
April fifteenth to the twenty second, then that would be
in a lot better place. They would still have a
head start and maybe, as much as I don't want to,
you know, you'd maybe give up if we want the
youth to have the opportunity another really controversial thing. I

(14:19):
don't know we should bring up, but it's just a conversation, right,
We've talked about like youth season for a lot of
people is turning into you know, a guy getting to
spend time out on the field, Like you know, is
the kids still get to but the kids still a hunter,
Like should they just go out and join us on
the on the opener and and get a shot before
their dad? You know?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, and that's that's probably something above my pay grade
that I'm not going to dive into. Yeah, but yeah,
and definitely in Turkey, youth season I think is let's
say it's it's heavily used because the adults get to
take the kids out and they get a scout for themselves.
You know, there are some states that now allow the

(15:01):
person that's hunting with the used to hunt as well,
which is that's not for me to decide. Somebody else
can debate that, but yeah, like a lot of guys
do use you season as scouting for their own hunt,
you know, which is deah fair enough.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
And it is, but you know, like I say, you're
rooting for the Turkey a little bit, Like it's great
to get youth out there. I'm not saying they shouldn't,
but I think there's a lot more youth hitting the
field to check a box for the adult that's with
them than it is maybe for the youth like being
stoked to go.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, and that might be more we're looking at maybe
what what intent was, you know, like any state would
have to evaluate that on their own, like if the
intent is actually being performed yep.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, And so we're talking a little bit about population management,
you know, carrying capacities. It seems like it would be
a more difficult task for turkeys than maybe dear elk,
maybe because they're such a fickle lifespan, right, it's a
four year lifespan. You can't necessarily control you're to your
hatches based on weather, predation, all of that. So like

(16:11):
what are how what's the approach the managing turkeys? Like
you can't control the weather, you can't control these things,
but like how are you how do you manage such
a fickle timeline? That's it's real tricky.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
So really with managing turkeys because like you said, they're
not a short lived species. They're not a long lived
species by some of our metrics, like with big game,
and they have. Their reproductive potential is way higher than
big game, right, so they can swing. You know, they're
having decent clutches when nesting is great and brood bearing

(16:46):
habit has great. You know, we see big fluctuations in
the population, but then they can also crash as well,
but they can come back a little bit faster. So
really it's about looking at trends, Like you can't just
look at like one years worth of data. You need
to look at three to five to see what's going on.
And a lot of it with turkey success in breeding

(17:09):
is due to precipitation. Those polts need a lot of bugs.
The first couple of weeks, that's the that's like the
scariest time to be a pole is the first twelve
to fourteen days when they're on the ground and not
roosting in a tree. They need to get as much
protein as they can so they can fly up and
roost in a tree, and then we see their survival

(17:30):
rate go way up. So really, I know, a professor
of mine used to say, kind of the old adage
of April showers bring mayflowers, and mayflowers make june bugs,
and june bugs make birds. Yeah, and that's really how
it is. Maybe a little bit a little bit quicker

(17:51):
on the Turkey end, but yeah, I think that's really
what we got to look at, and we're going to
see probably this year some decreases in production and some
the lower states in Arizona and New Mexico because of
the drought going on.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Gotcha, So you've you've got this, Let's say you're you're
managing it perfectly to maintain that. How are the fish
and wildlife agencies maintaining that balance? You know, how many
toms can be killed in order to like maintain that
that population to where you need.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
So the kind of number that everyone uses is you
don't really want to see harvest rates of over thirty
percent of toms of breeding birds. A lot of people
think that jakes do breeding. They really don't. Maybe towards
the very end there's a couple, but jakes really don't
do anything as far as breeding goes. So thirty percent,

(18:44):
if you're shooting over thirty percent, generally you're having some
kind of negative population effects due to hunting pressure and
really with management in the West, because we don't have
a great way of counting birds because we have topography
back East, they do a lot of male carrier surveys,
so like postman, they drive routes and then they'll mark

(19:08):
down when they see broods and hens. But out west
we just don't have that, and so really they go
off of management is really based off of like hunters success.
So like they're looking at those numbers and that they
see it's some kind of dramatic decline, they're probably going
to it's going to trigger some kind of management activity

(19:30):
to happen.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Gotcha, And so let me ask you a dumb question,
not a biologist. So the toms alone will dictate the
population based on breeding? Or how do the hens play
into the like could those can all the hens be
bred by less toms and your population or is it?
Is it? Am I not thinking about that correctly? That
made any sense? It did?

Speaker 2 (19:51):
So the thirty percent really is what you're saying is
if you are left with seventy percent of the toms,
those seventy percent can still will breathe the hens that
want to be bred so they can service the entire population.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
But if you drop below thirty, then you might start
having some hens that don't have aren't being bred.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
No, if you increase harvest above thirty, then you're probably
going to be left over with some hens that weren't bred.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yep ye.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
But even when you hit that thirty percent, really what
you're you're also talking about is you are harvesting so
many toms that maybe you are harvesting the fittest individuals
and the ones that are getting bred maybe weren't the
best ones. They weren't the ones that you wanted to breathe.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, yeah, So I look at turkey as a spring hunt.
We've been talking a little bit about fall and the
take there is that thirty percent of the toms on
all hunts starting you know, like on a calendar year.
And then how does the fall seasons the ability to
start to take hens effect. And you've talked about it
like the nuisance really kind of controls what has to

(20:54):
be managed. How does the fall season affect like the
overall take of turkeys and that overall popular.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, that thirty percent number is kind of just the
spring is what's what's out there to service hens in
the spring to make sure everybody was bred and fall seasons.
So fall seasons are definitely contentious. It like it or not.
It was a traditional way to turkey hunt. There's a
lot of old timers you'll read old literature, and those

(21:21):
guys didn't like spring hunting. You know. It kind of
goes back and forth, we all have. But fall hunting
out here really is used as a tool for fishing
game agencies to reduce populations that our nuisance birds are
getting complaints, so it just allows them instead of trapping
and translocating them. And a lot of times though, you know,

(21:43):
like there's risk involved in that, and there's time and money,
it's just easier to allow hunting to occur. Then you're
also harassing the remainder of the birds and hopefully they'll
leave the premises and you've solved the problem easily and
you allowed some opportunity at the same time.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yep, yep. And we had a conversation about like how
to manage that. Should they you know, should somebody go
out and kill three toms with their fall tags or
should it be like two hens and then you know
one any you know, either sex, because the toms are
getting hammered in the spring. Then if you're just truly
trying to accomplish population control, like do you really need
to go take the three fifty bowls out of the herd,

(22:20):
you know, like that is that really helping the population
or would you be doing better to take hens? And
how do how are the the game departments kind of
adjusting to that? Are they? Are they making changes to
what you can shoot in the fall versus? You know? Three?
Any any sex tags? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Some of them are. They They've kind of very by state.
Some are either sex, some of them are a couple
or beardless only, and like one tag could be bearded,
others are Every tag is either sex. But you're right,
it is a contentious thing of like what's nuisance versus
or did you harvest this because of a nuisance issue

(22:55):
or did you harvest it because of the trophy potential?
Like you said, sometimes it is would you allow who
knows farmer Joe to shoot every giant bull that comes
down on this property and claim that they were the
ones eating the hayst down?

Speaker 1 (23:11):
I'm almost confident if it did happen that way, there
would be everybody be up in arms and pictures. Yeah,
there'd be somebody be throwing a fit, and legislators and
politicians would be contacted. It wouldn't be good. I know

(23:32):
you had mentioned thirty percent. But I thought you had
some data that you were a little I don't know
if you're nervous about, but you're like, oh, Idaho, weren't
they at forty by the data showed that like forty
five percent of the toms were killed last year.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, so in Idaho specifically, And I actually have to
give them a hand because they are trying to to
the they're doing some research to try to understand the
all the nesting and the actual production sidees not just
the harvest side, but look at an actual production data

(24:07):
instead of just harvest, and they did. We put a
bunch of units GPS transmitters on some birds. We put
a bunch on hens. We put thirty transmitters on hens,
and they did great on their nesting attempts, like well
above average Idaho, like and that's the things like Idaho, Washington, Oregon.

(24:29):
Really their poltz per hen is kind of through the roof.
It's it's incredible the production that's happening right now in
this area. But we also put a bunch of units
on on male birds. We put out let me see,
I'm actually looking at the data right now, so I
get it right. We got sixty seven males that were

(24:51):
banded and had units. Oh no, actually these males just
were banded. We put bands on thirty one toms and
thirty six jakes, and last year, forty five percent of
those toms and six percent of the jakes got harvested.
So that I mean that it's definitely concerning, and it's
great to like finally have this data and it's like
the first year of it, and we're gonna put out

(25:11):
more this year to try to get, like I said,
to get that trend to see what's going on because
forty five percent of jake's or forty five percent of
toms is high.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah. And me always being a skeptic, I'm like, but
were those let down like ad country like easy to
get to? Are those the ones that like climb to
the tip top of a mountain and like escape everybody,
even us?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, I think they were definitely easier to get to.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, So maybe it's a little bit of it's still data.
It's it's good, it's a good data point, but you
always wonder, like, are those birds climb to the tip
tops these mountains that we're chasing around, are they maybe
you know easy more? You know more heavily pressured, more
heavily hunted. You just wonder, like I say.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, but it also shows you some preference in harvest
for those toms versus a jake.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
It wasn't just about a nuisance bird or opportunity. It
really was at that point a little bit about the
trophy potential. And I mean, I can't blame the folks
like big Tom versus a little sitting there.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
We've had the spoder out multiple times looking at spurs. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
is that a good bird? Or you know, we we're
pretty excited about a couple of birds we've we've been
chasing around this week that you know, just a little
bit better than your We're assuming it's a little bit
better than our typical two year olds. But uh yeah,
just just those birds that you pick a fight with
or they win a couple of times and you want
to try to even the score with them. But uh yeah,

(26:25):
it's funny. You know, people talk about trophy turkey and
it's just like finding the one that that gets you
going and you know, gets you out under the tree
at four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, And it's generally, I think for most of us
here it's the ones that, uh, the kind of juke
you and and make you come back for more. It's
not the easy birds.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
For yep, yep. And you gave kudos to Idaho already.
They started doing a brood survey last year, right, they
got their first dat and they're they're finishing up their data.
For July of this year, they'll have the second round
or the second year of data.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah. So so Idaho specifically is asking people that it's
citizen science, so they want people to go out. You
just have to look on Idaho's website. It's just the
brood Survey and it's a survey one two three app.
You get on there, you say, there's a button that
says like you not a member, you don't have to
have an account to do it, and then you just

(27:22):
report how many hens you saw, how many poults you saw,
And really they're looking for that data in July and August,
and that kind of coincides with a lot of the
other brood data with other states. And honestly, it's it's
kind of set in July and August as well, because
in June a lot of times this polts are tiny
and people aren't going to see him. So but yeah,

(27:43):
we had great success. I think we had over fourteen
hundred observations on the first year. That was huge. And honestly,
there's a piece of that that like when people go
out and they look and they're looking for these broods,
they kind of they have some ownership over them, and
then they they like, Turkey's more because it's then they're
there turkeys.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yep, yep. And and you had mentioned the four point
nine was highest in the nation.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Is that correct or I'm not sure if the high,
but that is getting up there. So if you're looking
for like the metric of production in a turkey population,
it really is. We kind of look at the polts
per hen how many polts we see per each each
hen and right now kind of the the number that's
out there as a population that's not growing or decreasing

(28:32):
is two polts per hen. It's probably a little lower
one point eight, but that's what's what's considered like a
stable population. And so for Idaho to be four point nine,
like there's other states that, I mean, everybody there, all
the fishing game agencies, i mean, jaws hit the floor
like it's pretty incredible.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, And once again knowing that there's diverse. Yeah, turkeys
can live in a bunch of diverse terrain and habitat
are people? Can you guys tell like geographically, like where
the data was taken, like is it up in the
mountains or is it down in the in the passion
like is it a good sample set or is it
mainly confined to where people are most of the time?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
So that one I can get on the app, but
that one will just ask for counting, gotcha? Okay, So
we definitely see and I'm sure all the listeners as
well as myself knows, like it is weird sometimes when
people ask you for like a GPS location data because
nobody likes to give up their spots, so it's easy
if it's a county wide kind of location.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Okay, now the and uh, like I say this, I'm
gonna ask for your opinion if you want to. If
you don't want to, you don't have to. So sitting
here in Washington wanting to make sure that the Turkeyhunton
is always as good as it or we're sitting in Idahoe,
but being a Washington resident, like seeing how good the
Turkey Canton in my opinion is right now, how do
we prevent the downturn that these others Like we've talked

(29:52):
about all of this stuff, but in your opinion, like,
do we need to just monitor and as long as
the population doesn't turn down, we're okay with how many tags,
We're okay with the seasons where they're at, or like,
how do we just make sure we're head of this
because I'm sure all these other agencies thought that they
could sustain two three tags, you know, one tricky a week,
whatever it was, for as long as they needed to,
and then they kind of got whipped by some issues

(30:15):
that were out of their control or whatever it was,
the carrying capacity, and now they're in these positions where
they're like, man, you should have seen how good this
was twenty years You know, everybody knows. We go back
to Kansas on our good buddy Randy's place, and it's
really good when we're there. But he's like, man, you
should have seen it twenty years ago. And that's all
you ever hear in your opinion out here in the

(30:35):
Pacific Northwest. Why we're kind of riding this high, Like
how do you maintain it?

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, it's that you should have been here yesterday thing.
I mean, we all hear it, We've all heard the stories.
That's a super tough question. I think the biggest thing
is is a lot of these state ergencies are finally
kind of looking at it, because you do have to
look at turkeys a little bit. Let's just say in

(31:03):
these three states and in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, they're
non native, so they're brought here as an opportunity. So
it's really about maximizing. Uh well, it's a balance of
opportunity and stainability, sustainability. So how do we sustain what
we are right now? I don't know if we can
because I don't know if the production will sustain, and

(31:24):
it will it will be Really the biggest thing I
think with the to prevent a fall off is making
sure that we respond to a fall off quickly and
the best way for that because we all know in
the West, I'm a Western guy. You know, Antler's and
Horn's rule, and they rule the money and they kind

(31:45):
of rule the agencies and a little bit if people
are concerned about it as you are, Jason, it's kind
of like the squeaky wheel gets the grease, Like engage
with your commissions with your state agency and tell them
like you have concerns and be an active participant in
game management.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, and it's tough because you know, our good buddy
Eric Broughton's at camp this week, you know, he he,
you know John is here at camp this week. Those
guys live for turkey hunting, and you know, they buy
their three tags and they go out and do their thing.
And so it's like I always have to kind of
put myself in check and be like, man, these guys
love this and like nobody wants to raise their hand

(32:24):
and be like, you know what, I would take one
less tag or I would take two less tags. And
so it's it's a tough deal because you're I'm always
really careful. You don't want to create division with it,
and there's so much infighting and you know, it's like
all we need to do is argue over how many
turkey tags. But like you said, as long as they
react more quickly, more nimble, you know, and they can

(32:45):
they can make adjustments. I would just hate to be
like they depend on that revenue to a point where
they're like we're just gonna keep three tags and let
it ride, you know, because it is a quick, you know, like, oh,
we'll bounce back, these things grow back quick, you know,
and and it just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, and some of that, like I said, might be
like environmental factors too, like oh if we don't you know,
if we have a drought, like we need to look
at this and and kind of hold back. No, and
it is hard. How do you balance the opportunity with sustainability,
because yeah, I want to hunt turkeys just as much
as everybody else. Like we're we're having a great time.
And honestly, like when you do have a state with

(33:25):
multiple multiple tags, though a lot of those guys they're
not filling that third tag. So a lot of times
like that third tag doesn't matter that much, and I
think people forget about that.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yep, yep. No, that's like I say, I just trying to,
you know, look out for the birds, like you say,
you want them to win as well. You want to
have absolutely because without them there is no opportunity or
or the opportunities not as good as is now. You
wouldn't have near as much fun. You know, we're hunting
areas with fairly low densies now, and you're like, man,

(33:54):
I wish this canyon had ten birds in it instead
of two. You know, it's just the more birds, the
better the hunt, the better experience. And when you look
back to like those epic turkey days, they don't line
up to off them, but it's like, man, we got
into them. You know, twenty five birds roosted around us,
and you know it was just those days where it's like,
guess what, you need lots of birds to be able
to do that or an awesome piece of price, which

(34:14):
is the other downside. But it's like, if you're doing
it up on this public ground where we're at, we're
hunting one or two birds per I don't know, I'm
throwing dad out there, which a biologist probably hates, but
it's like maybe one or two gobblers perb square mile.
I mean, I'm just saying basically on where we're driving
in roosting kind of what we're hearing.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, well and right now too. You got to know
that the hunt's been going on for a few weeks
and a lot of these birds are kind of changing
up their strategy. A lot of them are not gobbling
as much. Like there's some hidden ones and Jason has
definitely found a bunch hidden in deep dark corners with
with woodpecker and owl screeches, Like we've definitely like, oh

(34:54):
that one we didn't know was there and now we
know there's one there, but can we get them to
do anything? So yeah, So it's hard because honestly, like
I think what we're doing the grind this week has
been pretty epic and that's something in and of itself.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah. No, And we're going to get into the hunting
side here in a little bit. Like we've tried, Like
we looked at each other, so we just shock an awe,
Like they'll answer a shock call, but they won't answer
a tricky call, So like we're just gonna get them
to sound off and go go on them. But it's
like we've talked about it multiple times, and this may
be a good segue into the hunting side. There's lots

(35:31):
of different ways to do it. There may be way
better ways to actually kill birds than the way we're
doing it. Right, Yeah, we've talked about like as much
I'm gonna say this and I found it and run
a call company, Like we've talked about it, and I
recognize it. Like we may have killed more birds if
we never touched a call and You're like, why would

(35:51):
I say that, I'm like, because it puts them on alert.
They've been called to these Republic birds. Potentially we've tried
to hike far enough to get away, but I'm sure
they've heard call. And we're out there once again for
a specific we want a run and gun, we want
to set up on a gobbling bird. We want to
call them back to us. Well, the reality is it's
not working very well this week. It's but if we

(36:14):
were just we as we walked down the road, you know,
the biologist and Chuck, he's looking for tracks, looking for
this just you know, like all good hunters do. We're
looking at what's on the ground. If we would just
set up in some of these heavily trafficked areas and
just sat instead of wanting to get up every forty
five minutes after we don't hear a gobble, we would
kill a lot more birds.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, we've definitely been on the aggressive side, and that's
because we're kind of looking for the last of the
aggressive birds out there. And to be frank, we're also
looking for an older class bird. We're going after like
the bigger gobbles, or at least you know, sometimes they
feel you. But we're going after what we think is
the big birds and a lot of times those are

(36:56):
the smart ones that aren't aggressive. They're going to come
in quiet, and so we might be I might be
kicking the can a little bit on that way. But
what we're just doing, we're kind of sticking to her
gun and just doing what it is. And I can't
sell like I mean, we've heard a lot of gobbles
and we've got a lot of action and interaction with birds,

(37:16):
and that's I think really what it's about is that interaction.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, and we're always we're learning from every every situation.
And then sometimes it would be we talked about this,
it would be no fun if every morning you went
and set up by the roofs tree and you made
a couple of soft tree helps. He pitched out and
landing your decoys. Now every once in a while, that's nice.
But it's nice to be humbled and and like you
know what they want to get, like all right, we

(37:39):
you know, you take your lists, but then it makes
it so much nicer when you do run your system.
You running gun and sit down and it works for
for that all all you know happen there.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, and at the end of the day, I'm rooting
for the birds more than myself because, yeah, because I
want it to be difficult, because it wouldn't be cool
if it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah. Yeah, you alluded to something there, and I'm gonna
I'm actually gonna change back. You talked about us chasing
the bigger, smarter birds. We had a little conversation. I
think it was today. Heck, they've all ran together. But
is there any data or science and you may not
have it of like us shooting the more callable more
you know, like, is there a genetic thing where like

(38:18):
hunters are killing all the birds that will gobble will
come to a call more so than like, No, I'm
gonna be the stubborn old bird that just gobbles and
then doesn't show up to me. The hell with you,
I'm not coming to you ever.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, there's a there's a lot of research on that.
Mike's done a lot of research on that. And honestly,
if you guys, Mike Chamberlain phenomenal researcher. He works with
us at n WTF. He's an endowed professor with us,
definitely one of the leaders. There's there's a few guys
out there, But you mentioned Mike, and Mike has a
website called let me Think It's Wild Turkey lab dot com,

(38:52):
and you guys can look at a lot of this
research and he does a great job like synthesizing like
what the actual paper was, because I'm not gonna lie
Eisen academia. It is not fun to read an academic article. Yeah,
like you know, and it's nice when you have somebody
like Mike that is really kind of like tearing it
apart and kind of giving you what. But yeah, like

(39:13):
if you go in I mean most birds, like there's
a lot of studies like seventy five percent of your
harvest is the first two weeks of any season with turkeys,
and really like you are shooting those birds that do
respond well to calls that are a little bit more aggressive,
and a lot of times you are shooting those two
year old birds and some of those older ones. There's

(39:34):
not as many online skip you're shooting more two year
olds because they're more two year olds. Yeah, but a
lot of those birds that they do different, they have
different strategies. As soon as at hunting pressures on and
we all know that like as soon as the hunting
season starts, like gobbling activity goes down. Hunting pressure is
one of the biggest factors in decrease and gobbling activity.

(39:57):
Like we've seen it over and over and over, and
it's hard because as hunters, the biggest tie with satisfaction
is hearing godless. So so that's a catch twenty two.
But yeah, like and a lot of turkeys that there
been units on different toms, and some of them wants
hunting pressure gets in an area, they go to a

(40:19):
deep dark corner and hide. A lot of them actually
reduce their range, and some of them increase and just
get out of town.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yep. Yeah, And Mike Chamberlain has some data. I don't
we I was looking for it, but he had like
four charts on like gobbling activity in a unit. It
doesn't ever get hunted gobbling activity in the unit after
the hunters get there. And it was basically like on
a on a March fifteenth, like a end of April
type scale, and it really showed you, like, all right,

(40:49):
hunting pressure truly does shut these birds up to some degree. Yeah,
and I think we're we're there well on this hunt. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well, and then I mean there's multiple factors of play
because when once you are taking toms out of the population,
competition for hens decreases, like all of a sudden, the
tom doesn't have to gobble and attract these hens because
there's less toms out there for each hen.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah, yeah, we're we're kind of in that lockdown phase
now where all of the there's a lot of hens
on the ground. Still we always forget the word. We
haven't seen a whole lot of the hens nesting all
day the old scat of a of a nesting all
day hen. There's only a clocker clock that I need
to remember that word, yeah, longer like six times, but like, yeah,

(41:38):
you're we're always just looking for sign and like very
few of those which starts and we're in you know,
some of the some of the better stuff with turkeys
in it. And so it's like there's not a lot
of hens that are nesting full full time, and we're
not getting that nine the two like normally at the
right time nine to two this time of May. Maybe

(41:59):
just maybe we're just a few days early, maybe a
week early. You'll get that big nine the noon or
nine the one o'clock push. And these birds are just
staying real quiet for the most part.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, and I think of I think there are some
hens that are definitely we're watching them. They're going to lay,
but I hope a bunch of them are incubating. But
you're right, there's not the whole kind of group of
hens definitely isn't out there incubating right now. We've been
definitely juked because of a few hens leading toms away

(42:32):
from us the other day. Yeah, or if you want
to go into what's happened hunting wise, yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Could, Yeah, definitely share. Like the last story, we just
uh the last story, the last hunt, we were just
on you know, road locating. It's just it's a it's
a way to do it around here. When you got
when you got some vertical advantage, got a bird to answer,
We figure out how to get in there, bump a
hen and I can't even make this up anymore. That's
how this week is kind of went. We've killed some.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Birds, but it's turkey hunting.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
We bump ahn. She takes off flying all right, the
tom's the other way. She literally we think this is
the best that we can put together. She lands by
the tom and runs him out of the country.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
The tom was strutting.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, and gobbling it every Yeah, we saw the shutting. Yeah,
and so yeah we can we can talk about all
of our hunts and and kind of what's transpired and and.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Well, I think I think I was alluding to one
of the hottest birds that we had. Was just gorgeous
and he was a monster bird. He's one that like
you should devote a few days too. He came down.
We called him back actually off of some private that
seems to be a common theme too, called him off
some private. He was coming in and he was just

(43:44):
spitting and drumming for I don't know, it seemed like
we could hear him forever. And and I didn't see
the Hen. Jason saw the hen. But yeah, hen kept
him right on the top and he didn't I think
what he maxed out at sixty five yards And.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
That was one of those tough things where I honestly
believe and maybe he was following her the whole time,
but the way in my head it put together like
he was answering every single peep we made right like
very you know, double gobbles, like very rash. And he
started heading towards us, and I don't know if he
just intersected that hen or what because once he found her,
he only gobbled two more. Well he gobbled going away,

(44:22):
but like during that call and he didn't care about
us anymore. He found the real thing, and it was
just like, gosh, dang it, Like if you should have
stayed put her win a different direction, Like I felt
like it would have changed that whole the whole scenario of.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, he kind of walked on the ridge and then
called back to us like, hey, come on, we're going
come on, you know. But once that hen kind of
led him over the next ridge, it was ye, game
over for us.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, you know last night you took me on a
boondoggled to start tonight. I think he just wanted to
get my legs warmed up. So we climb up a
mountain and that wasn't too bad, six seven hundred feet
maybe from the truck. It was a good looking spot.
Climb up there, and everybody, without saying it, is always
on the same page. I'm like, man, I ain't seen
a whole lot of Turkey sign And you get up
there and you're like, well, this is the road I
wanted to go on. I ain't seen any Turkey sign. Like,

(45:16):
let's just go back. So we get bebopping down there,
and I let a woodpecker call out right before the truck,
and I thought I heard a gobble. But I hate
being that guy that like, truck's got a pretty good
set of ears on him, and not not physically. I think, oh, yeah, yeah,
they're they're they're they're the right size. But he's got

(45:37):
a good good hearing. I'm half deaf this week. I
still got some issue. But so I've been relying a
lot on these guys because I've made some some pretty
bad calls. And I swear I heard a gobble and
he didn't say anything. I'm like, well, I'm just going
to keep this one to myself. And uh, we were
we got to the truck and you were going down
to the creek to do something, and uh, I was

(45:59):
sitting there dinking around, and I think I switched it
to the hawk scream and a hawk scream and you're like,
there's a gobble. I'm not. I didn't hear that one,
but I had heard the one before. I'm like, hey,
now I can tell you I thought I heard one
up there. And we we dink around and go down
to the rock pile and get them to look at.
I mean, they're right there yards and this is what

(46:20):
three o'clock thirty like prime time usually when we get
a bird to gobble, then like, all right, we're in
the we're in the we're in the beans. You know
the berries. We're in the berries. We go grab all
of our stuff, reallyoad the gun. Blah blah blah. Go
down there, sneak in real quietly, get set up, do
a couple of little series of yelps, nothing more, seriously, yelps. Nothing.

(46:41):
We get up, we see that you know, some toms
had or a tom had crossed the creek there, and
we're like, man, it's hot, and maybe they're in that
shade line. So we we kind of work that way,
stay out of sight, call some more nothing so long
story shorts. We kind of worked this whole little pine
flat ye all the way down. I'm beautiful. It opens

(47:02):
up along the creek, you know clover that was three
inches deep, like just perfect, all kinds of turkey sign
in there. We push it maybe even farther than we think, like, man,
we had to have passed them by now unless this
thing was just on the on the move, man, you know,
you just lose those birds. You know what they call it,
the vanishing toll. Yeah, the vanishing Tommy, do you need us?

(47:22):
And so we're like, gosh, you know, you lick your
wounds and you walk back to the truck where we
we were able to get advantage. We got in the
truck and we were going to continue running this road
system and looking for good stuff. And we get there
and we were like, maybe we'll just locate one more
time off of this corner, and uh, chuck spotted a
turkey down in the clear cut and then lo and
behold him and a hen were down there, not more

(47:43):
than one hundred yards from wore. We stopped our little
hike about trying to get.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Him a little roughly.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
And so that is like maddening as a hunter when
they're in this quote. I call it the lockdown, their
hind up, whatever you want to call it. You know,
I still the lockdown from the white tail world. But
it's like to be like we said, there's not not
saying we're walking forever for turkey. And we put some
sixteen mile days in fifteen mile days, and it's maddening

(48:08):
to know that you were that close to a turkey
and little hone yelps, little locator calls whatever, and they're
not going to talk. So it's like, how many birds
have we passed or we drove by or we've walked
by that just will not answer because they're so hinned
up right now.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah, and that one was wild too, because we looked
at that bird and you know, I had my binos,
I grabbed my binos out and he spotted us. We
are probably seven hundred and fifty yards away and he
spotted us, and he started ducking and jiving and going
through and then looking back at us. And he was
a beautiful specimen. I mean he was He's an old

(48:47):
bird and he just kind of knew the game.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yep, No, it was that was a tough one. We
we may we may give him our evening after after
this podcast.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Yeah, that's probably worth it.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
So as relating biology to to becoming a better turkey hunter,
what are I don't want to just put you on
the spot and say what what would you know? What
do we need to be thinking about? But like let's
just start through a normal day, like you roostered a bird, Like,
what's going on in that turkey? Said? Does that that
Tom knows? Does that Tom remember after sleeping that night

(49:20):
that there were hens at roosted next to him.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, so a lot of times it changes up. Tom's
a lot of times don't nest with hens, like real
close to hens. There are. I mean sometimes in the
winter flocks they are close. But even in the winter times,
a lot of times h Tom's kind of segregate themselves
and they'll they'll sleep in different trees. But right now,
let's just say, like a tom, you know, most of

(49:44):
them hens are starting to go off, hens are starting
to go lay. You're gonna start running into hens that
are roosting by themselves. And here some to some turkeys
have high sight fidelity to their roosts. They will go
back night after night. You know a lot of rio's
especially places where there's not many roosting options, but here

(50:07):
they're they're roosting options, yeah, unlimited. And so we're having
like we kind of their general area. They're going back
to the general area at least some of the toms.
Some of them are just gone, like they're just went
somewhere else. They're traveling. But so these toms, you know,
like they're they're up there and like this one this morning,
let's just go with him. He's up there by himself

(50:30):
and he's, yeah, looking for a hen. And a lot
of times I think, like with calling people, they don't
know what to do. Uh should we tree help to him?
You know, in the in the wee hours, Like he's
up there, he finally starts gobbling. Some people say, like,
you know, give him a little tree up, let him
know you're there. But a lot of times, especially in
this like big topography, Uh, the toms are like, Okay,

(50:52):
the hen's there. Like even if he thinks you're a
hen in a tree, that's fine. He kind of he
knows you're there. I mean, they can here phenomenal. I'm
one of the guys that's like they like I think
a turkey can hear somebody sneeze two miles away and
see a tick under a a leaf at three hundred yards.

(51:12):
I'm like one of those type of hunters. But so
they know you're there. But really, like this Tom this morning,
he bombed out of his tree, just set his wings
and went four hundred yards down kind of canyon. And
so really a lot of times it's not even beneficial
to call until they're on the ground because really then
it's like oh, I think those hens are also on

(51:35):
the ground, and that's like kind of they're they're loafing.
That's that's like where they're gonna assemble for the morning.
So if you don't call until that time, then they're
gonna come looking for you instead of like, I'm not
gonna go back to her tree because she's not there.
She flew somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Yep. So when when the other so let's say there
were hens around us. We didn't hear him this morning,
call it all. We gave one little off trio. He
I don't feel like you recognized it, but he definitely
heard it. Like he didn't say, you know, he didn't
gobble right on top. He obviously heard. It was a
quiet morning. He was only a couple one hundred and
twenty yards away, maybe from somewhere one hundred and fifty.

(52:14):
If another hen starts the ope, are you competing? Are
you doing what she's doing now or are you trying
to compete? Or does it now? Do you start to
call more if she's involved, or you still just want
to be the hen on the ground.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Yeah, if that hen starts calling back, really at this point,
like you said, but some of these birds are hend up.
They're not in these I guess quote unquote like hend
up as in big groups of hens, but they are
like glued to a couple hens or one hen, and
really like a good thing to do right now is
to make that other hen mad because because some of
these hens too as well, or they're going off to

(52:45):
lay and they don't want other hens following them, so
they don't even really want that other hen in their vicinity.
So they're gonna go kind of bump you out of there.
And you hope if you if you kind of tick
this hen off and a lot of people, you know
that you just mimic them a little louder. Cut her off,
like when she starts helping, you just cut her off.
You know, you kind of walk all over her, and
you hope that you make her mad and she brings

(53:08):
the tom in toe yep.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
So that kind of that kind of goes through my
questions in the morning. So Tom pitches off, and then
if he doesn't gobble and he hits the ground, it's
almost an indication right away that he's got a hen already,
right because he's not he's no longer making noise. He's
got what he wants.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah, he's pretty occupied.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
So that bird this morning never gobbled again. He wants
to hit the ground. So he obviously either knew where
those hens were and or where they've met up for
the last couple of days, or like in your mind,
like do they have that routine? Could because he hit
the ground, never gobbled, and then later on we figured
out that there were two hens down in that general vicinity.
He pitched down joins them. And so as a hunter,

(53:46):
if you are sitting hunting the roost and it doesn't
go your way and that bird no longer gobbles, you
should assume that he's with hens. Yeah, Now that does
that mean? It's just information? Right? You may be the hunter.
It's like, man, I don't want to that bird. I
want to hear the gobble. Then go chase the one
across the canyon that's on the ground, or you know,
a different direction that's still gobbling, because that bird's obviously

(54:08):
still looking for a hand or more hens. Yeah, and
is more susceptive to quote unquote being called in or
playing the game.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, the safe play would be wait till he starts gobbling,
because he because at that point he's probably gobbling at you.
To like, hey, I'm down here, come to me.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Yeah, and then you can work your play, get some
vegetation or whatever you need. So we've told you what
our play was. We go and try to hunt the
bird that's not gobbling like he sounded big, he sounded healthy.
We didn't want the one across the canyon that was
still gobbling when he hit the ground. We wanted the
one that and so it's just tough, like we've already

(54:44):
mentioned it, Like if if you told me that, like
my life depended on it, or you know, there's a
five thousand dollars cash prize you can to kill out turkey.
I probably would not have pulled a call out just
the way he was acting today. Unless it was just
a locator and alcohol, an alice scream, a woodpecker, we
would have just been better off to go sit on
that old road that obviously it was a pretty brushy area,

(55:06):
but he had a couple of clean pass and just
sat like a bird that's that wise probably been hunted,
has hisns. You're just gonna have to wait for something
to happen. You know, we're throwing decoys out, we're calling
The reality is, if you really want to kill that bird.
Prbaight back up, get a really good spot, get comfortable,
and just wait for that thing to walk by.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, probably the best play, if I mean armchair armchair
quarterback this thing, would be to wait till he gobbles,
maybe give him two gobbles, and try to see what
kind of direction he's going on, you know, like what's
his vector, like his rate of direction as well, and
then probably run down the ridge and get in front

(55:47):
of him, yep.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
In which we did until he got what within one
hundred yards, and and this bird was gobbling every twenty minutes.
We were trying not to call. We would do a
little yelp series and then shut up for twenty minutes
and almost to the clock on our watch.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, nineteen minutes, and like forty five, nineteen minutes and
a half.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
He would gobble same thing the second week, so we
yelp after he gobbles a little bit, let him know
where we're at. Nineteen minutes. And then unfortunately we were
about where the ridge runs out, and you should run
into this grassy road like everything you're you know, you
couldn't have drawn it up any better. And he decides
to go back up the stinking mountain. That was his Yeah,
I mean, and in reality, he was trying to get

(56:26):
us to go to him. He was one hundred. He
came in my mind, I'm taking that turkey. He's like, dude,
or hey lady, I came all the way down here
and got this close deal out. Now you need to
come up here in this timber and go the rest
of the way.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Yeah, And I don't want to be like Arrior. We're
hunting the biggest, oldest, most awesome turkey ever because we
never saw him, but this guy had a gobble on
him like you wouldn't believe. And honestly, I think he'd
probably played the game and he's one of those birds
that you need to come to him and he will
never come to you. And he was staying in some

(57:00):
thicker stuff and so he knew what was coming at
him and he wasn't going to be surprised because he's
he's had the game played on him.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yep, gotcha. So we got birds like that that are
just they're they're tough. So normally in a day like
that low day, we we tend to wait and maybe
we're giving out too much information here. We we tend
to wait until nine or ten o'clock. You know, some
guys will get discouraged to go back to the truck
if you know there's a bird around there. Ideally you

(57:31):
should probably wait until that nine and ten to see
if they come back alive, right, or when I say
come back alive, they're gobbling again. They're huntable for a
short time, you know, tend to one. It's been really
really hot here this week, so after about one to
five they truly do shut down. We have I don't
think we've heard more than a couple goble just.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
One yet those yeah yesterday.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yeah, so we've and I've always just felt and I
think you know, most hunters that have hunted this way,
you get that bird to gobble midday usually have a
pretty good chance because he's most likely gobbling because he
doesn't have hisns at that time. Again, yep, yeah, so
that's typically our approach. And I was telling you guys there,

(58:11):
they're like one of the most satisfying things of Turkey
canting for me is not anybody can go here gobbles
on the roost. It's when you're putting in boot miles
and you're cranking a box call into these canyons, or
you're blowing and you finally strike up a bird after
three or four miles or nothing, and and that's like,
that's what is probably if you could pull one thing
out of this. It's like even if we don't kill him,
Like it's like every time you swipe that paddle, you're like, well,

(58:34):
high hopes, and then it's no, you know, but when
it finally cranks over and and that bird cranks up,
and you you feel like you got a good chance,
and you're you know, you're coming up with your plan.
Like that's that's the fun of it for me. And
then these birds have been getting active again around six o'clock,
so we we try to get into a what looks

(58:55):
like good turkey habitat typically is what you think of
turkey would like. Yeah, and so we've been trying to
just getting to the good stuff five by fifteen, and
you know, strike one up and then it's kind of
it's a race to the roost, right the hens are
kind of back on the ground or they're back with
the toms, but there's a chance to call them in

(59:16):
that what lasts two and a half hours.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Yeah, And I think a lot of times we probably
had it would have a little bit more timeframe there,
but it has been really hot for two days and
so it was like we're putting in the sweat equity
big time. And honestly, that six o'clock time, I don't
think it was so much about the timeline is fine.
It was finally cool, and so birds would start moving around.

(59:40):
Like one awesome thing about that bird that was was
spitting and drumming down to us the other day. It
was so amazing watching him because it was kind of
mid afternoon time and it was amazing watching him use
the shadows of the trees. He would go under them
and he would sit and spit and drum and display,

(01:00:00):
and then he would move to the next shadow and
then he would and he would perform the same thing there,
and it was it was like neat to watch him
like kind of use the shadow for for some thermal regulation.
It was it was super neat.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
To Yeah, we couldn't get him out of the shadows
for you didn't want to be on the camera. And
then we crossed over through the sun. It was real quick. Yeah,
didn't give us a very good look. Yeah, it's it's
been it's been tough, but there's there's a lot of birds,
you know, in and around, and then one thing we
we always do, and I don't do it so much
for Easterns because they're what used a fancy word for,

(01:00:37):
like they like to use the same roof trees like
rios site fidelity, yeah, site. So we're calling these marios though,
right A lot of them are, and they seem to
be I don't think. I mean, they've been in the
general same vicinity, but they're always kind of moving roosts
within a quarter mile or eight, you know, these birds
are always kind of kind of moving. So we always
like to go out and roosts because it just whether

(01:01:00):
it's the best chance of success or not. Like we
just love that morning, you know, listen to the woods,
and so we go out and roost. You know, we've
been using what Kyle howls woodpecker. We just kind of, yeah,
throw the gam at it. The only we've talked about
this before the only time in the entire Turkey call
woods I use is a night roost because I don't
want that bird thinking there's a kyo on the landscape anywhere,

(01:01:21):
no matter how close or far I am. I don't
want them nervous. Is there any I've I've left. We've
had hours of conversation. Is there anything like that where
the biology or anything that you've done or research that
like can can translate to to becoming a better turkey hunter.
I'm sure you could. Like we don't got ten hours
to talk about this, but like we're just talking about

(01:01:42):
like the real general nuts and bolts, you know, the
nesting times when when the toms should be susceptible. You
know what you should be thinking about, what that that
tom is thinking about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I don't know if I can link anything real like
directly back to research, but like you said, we like
to be out there first thing in the morning just
because it's fun to see the woods come alive. Everybody
loves that, you know. We don't love like waking up
so much at three twenty in the morning, but we
love that. But honestly, if you had to, let's just say,

(01:02:13):
what would you say, I don't know, put a gun
in your head or give you some kind of cash
prize for killing a bird. Honestly, that that nine to
one window, I would maybe even say ten to one
or ten to two. That's the time when birds are killable,
they're workable, and so it's a lot like stay out
in the woods. And we've been putting in a lot

(01:02:34):
of just dark to dark, which has been awesome. I
think we all appreciate the grind here and so that's
been super fun to do. And the old adage of
like you can't kill him from the couch. Yeah, you know,
like just go out and enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Yep. And one thing we've talked about a lot is
you know, we talked about putting the calls away, but
I honestly think you can still run the calls, like
let things you know, you're there. It needs to be subtle,
you know. Natural hen isn't out there just yeah, yeah
the whole time she's you know, you know, to be
a natural caller, don't overdo it, do it sparingly, always

(01:03:10):
kind of be ready. But patience as aggressive as we
are at times, the patience on the other like if
you can figure out when and how to be patient
and then when to be aggressive. We've talked about this
a lot. I think we would we would have killed
more birds or filled more tags. I mean we filled
you know, filled some tags, but I think being patient,
like and there's some data that supports like if that

(01:03:33):
tom answers you and acknowledges that you're there as a hen,
he will come I don't remember the number, like above,
fifty percent of the time he will come back to
that spot to check on you three hours within three hours.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Yeah, you're exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Something that I don't I'm not quoting it exactly, but
it's close to those numbers. Yeah, And so with that
in mind, like now, if you're out there for a
different reason and you only want to chase gobbles and
you're only going to kill a bird that you chase
down and call in and then by all means don't,
but yeah, be patients working patients into heavily traveled areas
where the bird acknowledges you, it's probably a better way

(01:04:08):
to notch tags.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah, And I think it's worth noting there's different strategies
based off of your area. Like if I only had
let's just say, a small tiny chunk of public or
even a small tiny chunk of private, and I did
have ample time to hunt, I wouldn't run in there
and start chasing everything around and being crazy aggressive because

(01:04:30):
in one day you can kind of screw that whole
area up and you're done. So patience is one hundred
percent your game. It's really your only option. But here
we have a lot of public land and we're just
kind of going around. Honestly, we're seeing new land. Like
it's about kind of seeing trophy country as well as

(01:04:51):
playing with these birds. So it's like if we run
and gun and we mess some stuff up, like one
hundred percent, we acknowledge we messed some birds up, we
just move on to the next area. We have that
ability to go to the next area. Yeah, and so
and but like you said, patients, it's been written about
patience kills more turkeys than anything else, period, full stop.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
And we talked about it this morning. Of course we
only got four days. We're on a you know, to hunt.
We're on a quick trip and you know we're killing birds.
But like this morning, the bird pitched out of the
roost the wrong way, Like we could have killed him
on the roofs not educated him obviously because he'd have
been dead. But like this morning, he turns pitches down.
So if we go, if we would have just picked
up the dcoy walked back to the truck and went

(01:05:33):
and frond a different bird, we now know where he's
trying to go in the morning. Now tomorrow we make
a change. We get down there before perform, you know,
set up the decoy where he wants to be if
he's in that general area, knowing that's where he's gonna go.
So like we don't have the necessarily the the advantage
or the luxury of like semi patterning slash scouting these

(01:05:53):
birds making adjustments to our plan. We're like, well, we
you know, last morning or it's you know, only got
two days left, we can go find some other birds,
Like let's just go pressure them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
Yeah, And like, I mean, everybody kind of has their
own strategy. I like playing that chess game of like
I just kind of work one bird for multiple days.
And here we're kind of splitting up into two different groups.
I guess the one group, Like he says, Team Maverick.
I don't know what that makes us, Like, are we iceman?

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
I think you tried to last night he had we're
the B team. I thought was disrespectful, but yeah, no, yeah,
and everybody's like the why they're the B team? I'm
changing anything absolutely, but Team Maverick is. I think they
the entire week have hiked as much as we did
in a typical morning so it's like different ways to

(01:06:42):
do it different but uh yeah, like we're we're just
out there covering, like you said, trophy country, you know,
the birds, the bonus where we're getting the se cool stuff,
you know, and trying to hunt them the way we
want to. But it's you know, getting whipped a little bit.
We've killed some.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
We we ran into a pack of wolves. Yeah, that
was awesome. That probably screwed up a bunch of birds,
but that was pretty sweet. Ran into a nice big bear, yeah,
big black bear. We've seen some lots of lots of deer.
It's just it's been it's been a good trip.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Yeah, and I appreciate, you know, getting the link up,
and I'm sure sure at some point we'll we'll share
share the Turkey Woods again together. How do you you
know what, how do we close this out? How people
find out more? But if you don't want people to
know more about you than biomeans share, how do they
find out more about NWTF or ways that they can
just be involved in these conversations, you know, around management

(01:07:34):
or around like stand up to date on on this
newest information.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Okay, let's do I guess the bigger, more important one first, yeah,
please look up the National Wild Turkey Federation. We definitely
were one hundred percent turkeys and hunting heritage. Our mission
is the conservation of the wild turkey and the preservation
of our hunting heritage, and we do a lot of projects.
We have a state chapter in every I think every state,

(01:08:00):
even Hawaii, and I believe we have one in Alaska too,
but there's no tur turkeys, but definitely in these states
up here in the Pacific Northwest, and you can kind
of engage with what's going on in the turkey woods
and also what we do on the ground habitat wise.
We do tons of landscape scale projects and we're also

(01:08:21):
very active in looking at legislation kind of getting that
information out to all of our members, you know, for
the hunting heritage side, and that's also like what we
work with. We advise. We don't do any of the
actual management. We just help state agencies and we advise

(01:08:42):
them on it. We also do a lot of turkey research.
We put over a million dollars I share in turkey research.
So we're definitely the leaders in that world. And yeah,
please look us up and uh yeah, I become a
member and just become just be involved. Like turkey hunters
are super passionate, and honestly, there's not a lot of
them that are kind of engaged in the West. We

(01:09:03):
have a lot of members back East, but in the
West we're kind of lacking, and so i'd been great
to see a bump in it. And as far as myself,
you can look me up on social media. I'm on
Chuck Carpenter, I I I and that's my Instagram handle. Stuff.
Just look me up.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Is your big giant buck on there? That it is?
That it is? He drew one of the probably the
single best meal deer take in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
That's another podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Yeah, that's another podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
We'll two podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
You go to your own research and figure out what
it was and then how big of a bucket? Gil,
But it's a it's a dandy. No. I really appreciate
having you on Chuck. It's been a blast this week.
And now that we we've sat through this and and
got the work out of the way, let's go out
and see if we can't find a bird.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Yeah, it's time. Thank you, Jason, thank you