Ep. 33: A Deep Dive Into Turkey Calls and Strategy with Eric Braaten

Eric Braaten is a great turkey caller, great turkey hunter, and has done a lot for turkeys here in Washington. On today’s episode Jason and Eric take a deep dive into  turkey calls. They discuss the materials used and how they affect the tone and pitch of diaphragms, pot calls and box calls. Their discussion then turns to strategy where they talk about hunting small sections of public land, how to utilize private agriculture to your advantage and using a “progressive” calling strategy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome back to cutting the Distance. I met today's guest
about fifteen years ago on our local hunting forum, a
hunting Washington dot com. I was just getting into turkey
hunting and his tag name was Yelp, and so after
kind of exchanging turkey hunting information with them for a
few years, we had finally just decided to go on
a hunt together, you know, mentor us a little bit,

(00:34):
and so UM ended up joining up with Eric Broughton,
great turkey color, great turkey hunter from here in Washington.
Works for fish and wildlife, is out in the field
a ton just really had these Northeast turkeys kind of dialed.
Another cool fact about Eric is his turkey camp. They
share probably one of the most famed turkey camps on
the East Side. A ton of history, a ton of knowledge.

(00:54):
I got to actually go back and hunt with Eric
last year and stay at their turkey camp, and it
just can tell when you go in there. You know,
all the posters, all the lists on the wall. It's
just rooted deep in uh, you know, turkey hunting um,
you know. And and there's been a lot of camps
that have shared that. So welcome to the show. Eric,
Thanks Jason, great to be here. How are things looking

(01:20):
over there on the east side this year? A lot
of snow this year, things are starting to hopefully get
closer to spring. But up north we have a lot
of snow. So but birds are active. I watched a
group this morning, a bunch of jakes strutting around with
some hands. So the birds are on the right schedule.

(01:42):
I just don't know if the weather is. Yeah, yeah,
a little little extra snow over there, more so than normal.
And I'm gonna before we jump into our typical podcast here,
I gotta go back and kind of relive a short
moment on the first turkey hunt we ever had together.
We were hunting a piece of ag that we had
some permission to against, a piece of public we had

(02:04):
been hunting on even more so. But we found ourselves
that day out in the agg and we had to
kind of get across the field and the only one
problem and our our approach was that swamp that was
between us and the timber lion where the birds just
walked into. And I'll never forget the day where I
think you started handing me some stuff out of your vest,

(02:25):
or maybe you handed me your whole vest. And I'll
let you finish the story from that point, but I
realize your dedication to killing birds at this very moment
is you continued on after that bird. That hunt was
pretty phenomenal. We we had a hard time finding birds

(02:46):
that day, and we finally saw that big tom strutting
over there on the other side of the pond, and
we kind of approached from the most cover side and
and I thought, you know, there was we were kind
of at a at a point that we could not
even get close enough for a shot. But the only

(03:07):
way was to basically give you my wallet and I
think my vest and anything I didn't want to get wet,
And I took my shotgun and slithered down down into
the edge of the water. We had a you know
in nineteen eighties, you know guy grown up in high
school and graduated eighty seven. You know that all those

(03:27):
Rambo movies. I think we're in the back of my head.
But I just kind of tried to get as close
as I could and and uh, you know, got wet,
but you know it was it was just trying to
get a good close shot to try to get that
bird down. And I can't remember did we get we

(03:48):
got pretty close, but I don't know if I got
close enough. Yeah, I can't remember. I know we didn't
kill the bird. I can't. I couldn't remember if you
had shot or not. But all I remember is we
had you know, it was one of those hunts where
we struggled early on this This is one of those
times where you were going, you know, through the swamp.
But later on it was one of those things where

(04:09):
it's just you keep hunting, right, it's hunting, and then
towards the end we we ended up all three finding
a ton of success there at the end, which which
turned out to be a great hunt. So we'll talk
about that a little bit more. So typical to all
Cutting the Distance episodes, we're going to jump into questions
and answers from some of our listeners. And you have

(04:29):
questions for me or my guests, feel free to reach
out on social media message us. You can email us
at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com, and we'll do
our best to get to get your questions in here.
And I pulled both of these from emails this week,
and I'm actually gonna give some credit to the questions
on where they're coming from. So the first question we

(04:50):
have today, Eric is I'm a first year hunter. I'm
looking to turkey hunt in southern California's Cleveland National Forest,
which is chaparral and wood from eight hundred foot elevation
all the way up to six thousand feet. Some friends
say a turkey vest is the best way to carry
all of your calls in gear. Others say stick with
a pack. Question for us for this terrain, which do

(05:13):
you feel is the best hike into the woods and
for hunting practicality? And this is a question given to
us by David Marino. You know, that's a that's a
good question because you know when you're when you're trying
to cover ground and then you're also changes in elevation.
You know, if you got half your vest full of stuff,
it's really difficult. So there's a few sling packs, UM

(05:38):
that I would recommend. I think the new FHS Chest
pack for turkeys that would be perfect on this hunt
because it's it has enough things that you have in it,
your calls, enough enough room, but it doesn't weigh you down.
It gives you the mobility to go up in elevation
and try to find those birds. UM. There's lots of

(06:01):
turkey straps and totes and that that ability. You know,
there's a lot of guys using packs too nowadays, Um
with the being able to carry a little bit more gear.
But if you're you know, that's a lot warmer climate.
You know, I think less is better and I think
that if it was me, I would go with something

(06:22):
simple and lightweight. Yeah, I'm I'm in that same boat. Um,
we've been using the new FHF UM. You know chest harness. Um.
I didn't think I would like it. I was always
growing up, I had a vest that had you know, everything.
I couldn't figure out if I had just a chest
rig on, Um, how am I going to carry my
decoys and how am I going to carry this? And

(06:42):
I realized I was carrying a lot of extra stuff.
So that that chest rig. I can carry a couple
of pot calls. I can carry my box call attached
to the bottom if I need to all my diaphragms,
my shotgun shells, you know, my my small pair of buynos.
And then nowadays, if I'm using uh, you know, like
a Dave Smith decoy, they come in their own carrying
bag where you can just kind of sling him across

(07:03):
your shoulder if you need to, and if it's more
of that running gun and I elect to leave my
my decoy back at the truck or the side by side,
I'm just throwing one of my chairs kind of over
my shoulder. We'll talk a little bit about that later too,
is when we're setting up some of the things I
like to do. But yeah, I think those chest riggs
where if you'd asked me ten years ago where I was,

(07:25):
you know, wanted to have the latest and greatest, most
updated turkey vest. That chest rigg is pretty vialable and
you can keep a lot of your stuff in it,
especially when you're gonna be doing running and gunning. And
I don't know if you're gonna find turkeys from eight
hundred to all the way up to six thousand feet
or anywhere in between, or if you're going to be
hunting a section of that, but I'm going to assume David,

(07:46):
that you're going to be you know, running and gunning
and change in elevation. I want to go light and quick,
and you know that that chest rigging and your gun
is plenty. The next one comes from Greg Laravier, and
I apologize if I mispronounced your name. But he was
wondering tips and tricks for cleaning and storing our turkey
mouth calls. I'll let you go first there, Eric, how

(08:07):
you get extra life? I was just doing it the
other day. I had some old Phelps mouth calls that
were kind of crusty that I forgot to store right
and pull them out and did the old you know,
mouthwash trick, just kind of there's and you know, the
alcohol is good for killing stuff, but they make some
mouthwashes I found out that don't have alcohol, and I

(08:30):
think they're they're better on the latex. So I have
some of that and it's alcohol free like listerine or whatever,
and I put that in old dixie cup, throw my
mouth calls in there, and then I'll take some toothpicks
or something, separate them, make sure they're dry, and then
I'll storm in a plastic bag and get them ready
for this year. It's critical that you do that. I

(08:50):
mean when I'm on turkey hunts, you know, and I'm
you know, trying to get through those because we get
a month and a half here in Washington and you know,
you're hunting and all kinds of weather and it's easy
to pick up a chest cold or a running nose
or whatever, and you don't know, you know, if you
have germs on any of those calls that you're using
last year. So it's either safe bit just to buy

(09:11):
some brand new ones or or if you're going to
reuse them, you know, make sure that you use that
anaseptic and dry them out and keep them clean and fresh. Yeah,
that's that's the same with me. I've always been real hesitant,
um to use mouthwashing. A lot of the recommendations online
same out you know, say to use mouthwash, which is
great for killing all the bugs and and stuff, and

(09:33):
on a lot of these turkey calls, most turkey calls
or triple reads if not a double reed, and there
are a few single reads out there, but you've got
you know, all kinds of you know, saliva and stuff
that makes it down in there and gets trapped. And
so that's really that toothpick goes in and allows air
to get down in between those layers and at least
dry those out, you know. But the mouthwashing, if I
did use mouthwash, I would quickly then rinse with water

(09:55):
and then dry the water out. Um, you know, even
even on a hunt. A lot of of times I
like to separate that top read from the bottom two reads,
or that top read from the bottom read, just because
when they stick together, you don't get the rasp that
you the call was designed for. So there'll be times
where they make read separators or just a dull toothpick

(10:16):
in between them just kind of keeps them separated so
when they dry that the calls functional. Otherwise you're gonna
find when you're out in the woods. A lot of
times I have to throw a call in my mouth
for a minute or two and kind of let it,
you know, awaken or come back to life. Is it
sits in your mouth, those reads will kind of separate
again and then you'll get the rasp back out of them.
And then you know, for long term storage, I like
to let them just sit and dry on a counter,

(10:39):
you know, no extra heat anything, Just let them dry
over a couple hours on the counter with the two
picks and them take the toothpicks out, put them in
a bag, make sure they're completely dry though, and then
just throw them in your fridge if you want the
longest life out of them. I'm very fortunate now where
you know I just go grab another handful of calls
here from the shop and ghost. I'm always using fresh ones.
But if I'm trying to get you multiple years out

(11:00):
of them, which you can out of Turkey calls with
ELK calls, it's a lot more difficult with single reads
and calls, it gets stressed a little bit more. But
you know these double and triple read turkey calls that
are stretched tighter, Um, you can get a couple of
years out of you. Take care of them and put
them away. So um, no spot on advice, Eric, and
appreciate that. And once again, you have questions of your
own for us here or either my guest or myself

(11:22):
here on the show, please email us at CTD at
Phelps Gamecalls dot com or feel free to hit us
up and with the social message uh, you know, and
get a hold of us and we'll do our best
to get it on there. So we really appreciate the
questions there, David and Greg on today's show. Now we're

(11:51):
gonna jump into our normal discussion, but before that, I'm
gonna jump into a conversation about calls. I got asked
in a bigger email if if before turkey, you know,
the Turkey podcasts were over, if we can jump into
what does what with calls? And so I'm going to
take the time and go through diaphragms to start with,
and then we'll go into pot calls, and then we'll
go into kind of some box calls and and I know, Eric,

(12:13):
you know, for instance, the very first thing that I'm
going to talk about, um, you know, you order our
calls typically in a larger frame, which you're like our
pair of signature calls. Everyone's mouth, mouth shape, tongue shape,
the way that they add pressure, their lung capacity is
all different. And so where I might prefer call A,

(12:35):
you might prefer call X, you know. And it's it's
really tough, and it's I don't want everybody to go
out and buy everything we have, but you really need
to go through a little bit of trial and error
to figure out, you know, what type of caller you are,
what type of rasp you want out of your calls,
and all of that. You know, Eric, he calls on
the pair of signature calls because they're built on more
of what I would consider your old school wide frame,

(12:57):
you know, the frame sizes that night Inhale and Hunter
Specialties and all the the UM, what I would call
your more traditional frame size is what Eric prefers for
the most part. Yeah, So I use uh, I use
those those larger frame mouth calls because it I have
a larger palette and it allows me to you know,

(13:17):
get that air across it. UM. And it some people's
palette is more narrow, you know, or high roofed or
high pit you know, high kind of a high ceiling,
and so they need that smaller frame UM, similar to
you know, the the elk calls UM. And I can
use some of the other ones, but it seems like

(13:38):
just the way I hold my mouth, I can't do
all the calls. You know, everybody's different, you know, and
so and how they blow UM. And I'm still learning myself.
So yeah, and that's that's where UM. You know, it's
maybe what you're more more familiar with. Like I used
to use those all of the time, and then once
I started using these medium frames that we now build

(13:58):
a majority of ours out of, and like me, eater line,
they're more comfortable for me. But then guys like Chris
Parrish and some guys that they say that you can
actually articulate the larger frames a little more because there
is a wider distance for that latex. So there there's
lots of reasons. And then so first off, we have
to find something that's comfortable. The second issue we need

(14:19):
to do. We need to be able to steal the
air off from the call and we use the tape
for that and everybody, once again, everybody's mouth is different
shape the tape lays and they're different. So we need
to be able to steal that off. Number one to
get clarity, and number two to get the volume out
of the call um. You know, if you're taking a
diapragm out of your mouth and you've got big folds
along the edges or wrinkles, we either need to narrow

(14:40):
up your tape. We need to cut those wrinkles out
so that we can get like a smooth you know,
get get the edge to lay down smooth, so no
air is going up above and we're getting all the
air to transfer over the latex between the latex and
your tongue. So that's that's kind of the second part.
And then the next part is what type of color
are you there? The old school color we say, are

(15:01):
kind of like those Huffer style callers. They want thicker latex,
they want to blow harder into the call um that
there's not as much uh, you know, control over those.
And then there's like this new age light profum, more
intricate calling that that seems to be UM kind of
taking off because people want to be able to do
little light bubble clucks and nice little you know, very

(15:23):
quiet yelps and two to three note yelps, but then
also be able to turn that call around and do
your loud cutting and seven to nine oh yelps. So
there's there's kind of two different calls, um, and and
you're you're really gonna have to find what type of
color you are to figure out what type of diaphragms
you like this. But real quick, I'm just I'm just
gonna run through kind of the rules of diaphragms. UM.

(15:47):
You're gonna have an aluminum frame that will in case
or keep latex or prophylactic stretch to a certain spec.
And by spec that means we're stretching it sideways from
like side to side in your mouth, and we're stretching
it front to back. So we will typically stack up
two to three pieces of prophylactic or latex together and

(16:10):
intermix them based on what the result is that we want,
and then we're going to contain that within this aluminum frame. Um.
The tightness of that latex um in combination with the
thickness of that latex will then control the tone in
pitch of the call um. It's all determined by the
how that latex or prof vibrates and the and the

(16:33):
resonant vibration that we get back. And so we're a
lot of this can can kind of affect itself. Right,
if you go, you know, too thin and too tight,
then you're going to be really high. But if you
go thick and too tight, then you might be right
in the right spot. So there's a lot of trial
and errors. We're sitting here designing calls, um, you know,
similar to what I do for you Eric back. I
think three or four years ago, we kind of just
figured out what calls you liked. I think I Ha's

(16:55):
you know, built twenty or thirty different ones and sent
them to you. UM. And it's really we're just doing
for the customer what we find to be like the
most average call. But there are guys we can build
for that. Like it's really like custom fitting you for
a call, and you know, we can't do that for everybody,
but um, when you when you boil it down, like
you can really get nitpicky and really get calls designed

(17:19):
for what people are specific you know, specifically looking for. Yeah,
I think the difference between between your calls UM and
some of the you know, store bought ones is the
ability to um the standard you know that you've that
you've built into the call. So like I might have
to buy two or three of a different brand, and

(17:40):
I might get one of those that I like, and
when I pick up yours, you know they're very similar.
So you so I can buy a couple of them,
I know that I'm gonna be able to use all
of them, and so it's really really great. Yeah. Yeah,
I wish I could take credit for that, But that
goes back to my team, UM our builders, our builders.

(18:00):
You know, I get to come up with the specs
and you know, I work with Chris Parish really closely
and some of our other um you know groups like you,
and we figure out what people want. But then our
builders are just top notch. They're not willing to sacrifice. Um.
You know, I tell them all the time, like, don't
worry about turning around and throwing a call in the
garbage if you feel that there's any question that it's

(18:21):
not going to work like we're not. We're about producing quality,
not necessarily quantity, so um that that all goes to them. UM.
But as a generality, like these intricate colors, UM prefer
thinner reads, you know, the new profs UM. They'll require
a little bit less error to run. UM. But as
a result, typically the pitches higher UM for a similar
stretch thicker reads, they demand more airor to call on

(18:43):
them and to get the same um you know, pitch
and tone. But a lot of times if you don't
overstretch a thick piece of latex, the tone's going to
be lower and deeper. UM. So we're kind of playing
with all of this stuff. UM. As we're designing calls.
I want to get into a little bit on asp.
You know, that's one thing that that is determined by

(19:03):
typically on our calls, the top read. Um, we we
stack this latex and then when we go to we
we build a call and they come out of the
press with three straight reads. Right. We haven't taken our
scissors to them yet at all, And that over that
top read overhangs just slightly, or it could be a lot,
or it could be just a little bit. Um. We

(19:24):
then go and take our cuts out of it, you know,
a typical cuts like the combo cut. Um, we have
a ghost cut, we have a cutter's cut, we have
a bat wing. And all that is trying to accomplish
is you're leaving just a little bit of latex or
prophylactic overhanging the bottom two reads. And as you imagine,
we're running that air underneath off of two you know,

(19:47):
two flat or straight reads that have no cuts in,
and that air comes under the latex and turns that
corner and it hits those pieces of latex that are
now cut overhanging, and that's what creates that buzz and
creates your rasp. So that's where your rasp comes. Well,
now you can start to think, well, if I was
to cut a thicker back a bat wing, or if

(20:07):
I was just to put like online our sassy split,
be if I just put two V cuts and leave
all the latex there, that's obviously going to be your
highest rasp call. Well, I can make that latex thicker,
which gives you a deeper rasp. I can make that
latex thinner, which gives you more of a high pitch rasp.
And so you can start to see how like the
combinations are almost endless on a diaphragm. For beginners, we

(20:31):
always recommend like a casper or like the Meat Eaters
easy Clucker, real light prof with a big chunk cut
out of the center, really easy to light up the
trip in hand. The Meat Eater three pack like those
are good beginner calls if you don't know exactly what
you're after, those are gonna be easy to use, easy
for you to get sound in the correct you know,

(20:51):
amount of rasp. And that's kind of our little rundown,
our one on one on diaphragms. And then we've already
I had some you know, some care instructions here, but
we pretty much went over most of that moving into
pot calls, and we have a we have a story,
you know, when when I first hunt it with you,
I was still kind of new to the game and

(21:11):
we had we were working a bird, and I've seen
you almost roll out like this big rolodex where he
rolled it out on the ground, and you must have
had a little envelope of twelve fifteen strikers. And it
was that day, at that moment where I realized that, hey,
different woods, different strikers matter, because I think you'd went
through three of your favorite strikers to start with, and
the bird was just kind of disinterested and we were

(21:32):
giving him a little bit of a break between calling,
and then you hit I don't remember fourth or fifth striker,
and all of a sudden, that bird was hammer and hammering,
and we called him right up to the road there.
I don't know if you remember that, but that was
like a lightbulb going off in my mind. Yeah, there's
that fifteen. I probably have like twenty five now, but yeah,

(21:52):
all those different materials, different thicknesses, different tips, you know,
the tip of the striker. They all make it sound.
You can use one call and have several different sounding hens,
and uh and like you know that one that Tom
might be out there, you know, infatuated with one sounding hend,

(22:16):
you know. And I've done it several times where I
just at my wits end and I just sit down
and take a break, pull that thing out, and I'll
let's start cranking out on a slate call or one
of the glass calls, and and try different combos and
then next thing, you know, I'll strike a bird just
by doing that. But yeah, that that material and the
hardness in the link. I mean, there's all kinds of

(22:38):
little factors, um that go into it. Yep. So going
through pot calls, it's it's very similar to what we
just talked about on the diaphragms. There are a lot
of factors and how they all affect each other is
is sometimes unknown. There are some rule thumbs um. You know,
I always attribute your playing surface, you know, your your
turkey call, and this is going to be a horrible

(23:00):
rendition if you imagine it is like key yolk. You
have your top, which is your key, and then your
oak is kind of is that call breaks over and
you get to the deep end yuke, you know you
got So I've always felt that, like the high note,
the key is controlled by the playing surface, and then
your your drop off, your rollover into the second note
is controlled more by your soundboard, and then your wood

(23:21):
density controls or contributes to both. Right. So within wood,
one thing I want to say about anything that's made
out of wood, and maybe even more so this is
more specific to box calls, is wood is a naturally
occurring material is as much as we try to get
straight grained you know, walnuts, cherries, mahoganies, whatever wood we're using,

(23:43):
it's natural and there's gonna be variations, and so there's
always going to be slight differences from call to call
because we can't control it. The same thing with naturally
natural existing slate um you know, it's mined out of
you know, minds in Virginia and New York or wherever
it comes from. Slate you know, comes out of these
naturally occurring materials are always going to have slight variabilities

(24:05):
in them, and so that's one thing as a call
builder I can't control. But we're trying to just kind
of hit the middle and make sure that all these calls,
you know, turn out. So back to that would we're
going to adjust the sidewall thickness is on your pot
calls are going to matter. Your base thickness is going
to matter. How we cut your soundboard pedestals. Like if

(24:27):
I'm when I used to turn them on a lathe,
I would have a circle a circle pedestal, and then
if I was to cut little notches in so that
the sound can get into that center circle, or if
you leave if you omit the center circle now, but
now I have you know, potentially what looks like to
toothpick sticks to the bottom. All of this matters way
more than you can ever imagine. As we're designing these

(24:48):
pot calls, right, how the grain lines up with these
pedestals now matters. You know. All this stuff is is
stuff that we're taking into account as we're building these calls.
You know, the harder, more dense woods will tend to
produce typically a higher pitched or a tighter type tone.
Your softer, less dense woods will tend to produce a

(25:11):
more natural, open tone. But then they're as I mentioned,
there's all these combinations. If I throw a crystal, it's
playing surface in or if I throw a slate, it's
going to react a little bit differently. So crystal very
high pitched glass slightly below it. You've got your aluminum,
which seems to be very high pitched with a little
bit of rasp in it. You've got your slate, which
is really easy to kind of grab with your striker.

(25:35):
It's a little more forgiving on your striker, but it
also tends to be a little bit more I don't
know if this is the right word. It's not as sharp,
it's a little more dull. And then when you use
gray slate as your soundboard, it tends to kind of
dull your your rollover. Versus, if you put crystal over
aluminium or alumin ouver crystal, you get a real sharp
sound that maybe not everybody has. And so as a
call designer, I'm working on how you combine all these

(25:58):
materials to give you a unique sound but also still
talks turkey. And then we just told the example of Eric's.
You know, using multiple strikers, there are endless amounts of
striker designs. You know, typically the denser the wood, the
less woods needed on your striker. If it's a light,

(26:20):
softer wood, you'll typically have a bigger striker. And it's
amazing to me how certain strikers pair with certain calls
or can bring a call that seems dead to life,
and vice versa. So the moral of the story is
play with a lot of pots, play with a lot
of strikers. And one thing I want to mention is
your location on the pot call. Like, I'm typically a

(26:41):
twelve o'clock caller, so I like to set the pad
of my thumb down on the bottom edge of the wood,
and that kind of naturally puts a striker at twelve o'clock.
But I can play a call at twelve o'clock or
three o'clock and sound completely different. So play with different
positions on the call, get those spots conditioned up, and yeah,

(27:01):
just just find what works best for you. And then
box calls. You know, everything seems no matter, but in
its simplest form, you have a bottom block of wood
that has a chamber out of it, and you have
a paddle with the radius, and those are based Those
calls are based strictly on friction. You need the top

(27:22):
wood to grab the bottom wood, and as those create
friction across they're they're going to make the yelp or
the turkey sound that you're looking for. The wall is
going to basically vibrate. So the taller the wall, the
deader the vibration. The shorter the wall, the more shrill
the vibration. The paddle typically will start to write on
the outside of the wall, and then with that radius
that's built into the box is it swipes over. You're

(27:44):
now going from writing on the outside of the wall
to the inside of the wall, and that's where you
get your breakover on these calls. You know, we're going
to use a bunch of different wood combinations. We typically
like to have our denser, tighter wood as the paddle
and our our softer, less dense wood is the base. Um,
we have a ratio we kind of like to stick to.

(28:05):
But that's the that's the fun of building calls as
you can get those woods. You know, you can use
real dense woods on both sides and see what sound
that's gonna give you that real high pitch um more
of the sound that's indicative of like a long box
and you can get a real um, your raspy kind
of a if you use too softer woods. So we
play with that. But um, that's we're also weakening the walls.

(28:28):
You know, you see a lot of our box calls.
You'll see us with curves down the side or checkering
in the side. That's in order to kind of thin
and weaken that wall in order to get us to
kind of dial in on that turkey sound. So um,
that's that's a real quick rundown of what matters and diaphragms,
pot calls and box calls. Do you have anything to
add there? Eric on the on the box calls, you know,

(28:50):
the there's different links, there's small you know, very small ones. Um,
different materials, I mean, all those things. I mean I
have thirty different box calls and and for different applications,
you know, the old long box calls or the or

(29:11):
great and like the wind windy days, you know, compared
to maybe a cedar call or or like some of
the some of the new calls that you came out
with last year. You know, some of those calls just
are really nice because of the types of materials that
you put in them, and they're they're the right size,

(29:31):
you know. Um. But there's there's days where I'll grab
the big old Quaker Boy or whatever because it's I
got you know, ten mile an hour winds and that
thing just cranks out some some good yelps, you know,
and gets those birds to react to it. So yeah, yeah,
those long boxes like to my ears, I'm sitting here
playing them in my office or the ones I've played

(29:51):
with in the past. Man, that doesn't sound exactly like
I like, but the results are what's there? You get
that long box out, like you said, this big Northeast
country that we've hunted, you know, big distances, or you
throw a little bit of wind at that big distance
and all of a sudden, that shrill, um, ear piercing,
overly loud call is what's going to get that turkey's attention.

(30:12):
So I'm I'm on board with with why you would
use a long box. Um. You have you have short boxes,
which tend to be a little raspier, a little bit
I'm hesitant to use the word hollow, but they have
a little bit more of that hollow sound. Um. Most
of our box calls are right down the middle. Um,
we want it to be a universal call. Um, And

(30:32):
like I say, we we've we've adjusted the sides. But um, yeah,
box calls are a great tool. They're the first ones
though I feel that get thrown out of your vest.
You know, is is if there's any chance of precipitation,
box calls become pretty I don't want to say useless.
There are there are treatments out there. You can treat
your paddle, you can treat your edges. Um. I've always

(30:54):
just liked wood on wood and I've got mouth calls
or pot calls that will work in all weather. So
the you know, the box calls kind of the first
thing that gets tossed. Yeah, I agree. I use the
box call probably more often on public land because you know,
those turkeys have been here, and diaphragm calls and other things,
you know, and sometimes having just an extra call, you know,

(31:16):
to try sometimes that'll you know, get a bird to gobble,
you know, they haven't heard it before. Something different. Yep, yep,
I'm And we'll get into that here. A little bit
on some of this small parcels, small public type stuff
that you kind of open our eyes to a little
bit way back in the day, is you have to
do something different. Like if everybody's got out of the

(31:38):
truck on a certain corner and blown the same woodpecker call,
like you've got to give that that. Maybe it'll work again,
maybe it'll work for the hundred time, maybe it won't.
And so if you don't have the ability to throw
something different at them, and that's where I think, if
you're as far as you know calls that make turkey
noises or hind noises, that box call is sometimes your
best bet. Not everybody's running a box call. A lot

(32:00):
of the box calls sound quite a bit different from
each other, um, and so you can use that to
your advantage. So right now we're going to jump into

(32:22):
to our discussion. Um, Like I said, I've got I've
got the fortune to hunt with you. I don't know
if we want two or three times we went over
there and hunted together, and UM, I've learned a lot,
you know, kind of what I thought we knew because
we had hunted the same area over there for quite
a while. And UM, the first thing I want to
kind of pick your brain on and have you talk
about is what I would call like some small public

(32:45):
parcels um and how you you hunt them, why you
hunt them? And a lot of people just overlook these things.
But what's your approach to um small public hunting? Um?
And and give us a little insight to that. Yeah. There,
we're really fortunate in Washington to have lots of public land,
you know, and there's lots of opportunities to to find

(33:10):
places to hunt. And you know there's there might be
one hundred and sixty acre quarter section, um that might
be public land next to a big piece of BLM
or whatever. And sometimes it's just to get you access
to maybe a better piece of ground. But when I approach,

(33:31):
you know, the idea in my in my approach is
having lots of spots, you know, and with some of
the online tools like on X and hunt on X,
and you know, it's allowed everybody access to those and
so a lot of the places that I thought I had,
you know, to myself, now there's lots of people. But

(33:52):
tried and true, Um, those early morning hunts um on
public land are sometimes worth your time. But eighty percent
of the time when I go back into those properties
in the afternoon when people have left, those birds are

(34:12):
more available. And it's just the cycle, you know of
how those birds come off the roost and the hens
you know, do their thing in the morning, and the
toms are waiting for him to make a move, and
then the hens take off and go to a nest
and they kind of separate those tombs, and the toms
will move off with the hens, and and you know,
everybody's trying to call at them and stuff like that,

(34:33):
and you know, after a while, the hens lose the toms,
and then the toms are wandering around trying to find,
you know, the next available hen or try to regroup
with maybe another tom. But you know, you show up
at about eleven eleven thirty and everybody else is back
at camp having a sandwich. You strike up a big

(34:57):
old tom and so don't overlook you know, private or
public land, because especially in the afternoon, and you know,
a lot of the lot of the locals, there's I
hunt several pieces of public land. UM. One of one
of the ones is pretty close to where we camp,

(35:17):
and I built a blind on this one small parcel
and I and I found this place and it's just
a natural blind out of some sticks and limbs. But
I found this spot within that piece of public land
that my call carried to the north and to the south,

(35:38):
and it just was a great spot to call from.
And so being able to set up a blind in
that area, UM, it turned out to be probably the
one of the best spots where we've killed birds out
of our camp. And I think we're at thirty plus
tombs have taken out of that blind. And it's just

(36:01):
the way that that call carries. And so, you know,
not all public lands are are created equal. You know.
Some of them have elevation, some of them don't. Some
of them are right along highways, UM, a lot of
them have public views. I've sat in that blind and
watched people walk right by and they wave at me.
And you know, I mean, and that's public land hunting,

(36:22):
you know. Um, but we always kill birds in those
areas because you know, we figured them out. And having
that in the back of your head and just the
you know, over the I don't know thirty years I've
been hunting birds now, you know, having all those different
memories and spots and hunts, it just adds to you know, what,

(36:43):
what you're able to, you know, go to, you know,
down the road. But um, yeah, don't give up on
those those public land spots, especially in the afternoon. Yeah.
And you know when I say small parcels, like we're
talking maybe a section on one side the road, in
a section on any other and and I almost feel like,
what you're not willing to say that that I can't

(37:05):
kill a bird on that one little section where when
I'm putting my morning plan together, I want to be
able to maybe run or chase a bird or you know,
chase it off the roost or hunt it off the
roost where it wants to go. What I found I
mean last year are we we showed up there, got
to camp, unloaded, we went and bought our tags, and
we rolled up to a spot and I don't think

(37:28):
this will give it away. There was a parcel on
the right that went down towards public and a parcel
on the left. We showed up, hit the woodpecker call
and had a tom just hammer right off the bat
And I don't know how many people would have even
stopped there to call, because you only had one parcel
on either side of you. Albeit, we end up losing

(37:48):
the battle. Right. We called that bird all the way
into the barbed wire fence, but where that parcel we
couldn't get him to cross the fence. We thought we
were going to. But that was just one of those examples.
Middle of the day, people driving around, nobody's stopping at
these two small little sections and to have a bird. Um,
we go set up and within what ten minutes we

(38:08):
had that bird at twenty five yards, We just couldn't
get him across the fence where we could finally Shyeah,
we gave it everything we had too, but it was
and you're you're right, you know that. The other thing
to look at is how that those public lands are arranged.
You know, Um, sometimes you'll have that particular one was
next to a big field. You know where you know,

(38:30):
a turkey would want to spend time, and so trying
to pull birds off of other properties. Um, I've done
that a lot. They might like the the next guy's
land because there's water and cover, and but when the
breeding's going on and those toms are looking for hims,
those toms will sometimes go miles to find a girlfriend.

(38:52):
So it's uh, yeah, we came really close that day.
It was pretty awesome. We we gave him a show.
We tried everything, I think every call we had yep,
and and we're going to talk about it here in
a little bit, but we actually he was gobbling a
lot of our calls. But we also called us hen
in ahead of him, right, which was something we'll talk

(39:13):
to here in a little bit. Is calling to their
hens um. So kind of staying on the same um
small public chunks or you know, the public chunks we
haven't kind of scattered all over here in eastern Washington,
so we're not hunting I would say the best agg
fields where sometimes it's clear cut, sometimes it's you know,
mismanaged for us. Sometimes it's well managed for us. But
a lot of our stuff is just being done off

(39:35):
of public you know, we see what ninety It seems
like they're all the birds are sometimes in the agg
fields or on the private but yet we've kind of
devised ways to take advantage of the public that surrounds it.
Can you give us a little bit of the playbook
on hunting the little public fringes around these private chunks
and how you can make that payoff for you? Yeah,

(39:55):
I think the the looking back probably biggest tip is
is if if you can get to the edge, you know,
let's say that that piece of public, like if you're
up in Stevens County, there's a lot of topography and
a lot of those toms. You know, they'll they'll probably
roost off of a ridge above those egg fields, and

(40:18):
so knowing that they fly down into those fields to
display and you know, strut around the hands and stuff that,
and then those hands are probably going to go back
up into the woods um to nest and so you
know that they're going to come back up probably those drainages.
So so try not to get impatient and try to push,
you know, yourself into a situation where you're not gonna

(40:41):
you're gonna kind of get stuck and you're not gonna
be able to move. You know, I always, I always
create kind of this chess mentality, you know, I try
to stay ahead of them and try to think about
you know, okay if I if I don't give them
the position and I stay above them, then they have
to come up. It's easier to call it bird up
than it is to or or at the same level

(41:01):
than it is to bring them down. So UM, I
always try to stay on the upward side of a
field or an opening um and I try to you know,
utilize the habitat, you know, like we did on the
swamp bird. But you know, as far as where you
have a place like that, usually you're going to have
a lot of other hunters trying to do stuff, you know,

(41:23):
in those areas too, because they see the birds, you know,
just like we do when you when you can see
them out in the open um. But knowing where those
hands are going to nest and trying to stay ahead
of those birds, uh and trying to outposition them and
know kind of where that tom's going to be after
you know that hands dropped off, um, is pretty pretty important.

(41:44):
The other the other big factor that we have in
turkey hunting in general is you know, the size of
the population. If you have a lot of private land,
you might have a higher Turkey population than you do
on public land. UM. And knowing where you have that
mosaic of public and private, UM, sometimes you'll have large populations.

(42:05):
And it's pretty typical, you know, the first couple of
weeks of the season to call in the satellite toms
right and and get those you know, there's there're two
year olds that leave, you know, the big tom, the
dominant tom, he's got all the hands and and all
of a sudden you're over here yelping, and you're you're
calling in those two year olds. And it's easy to

(42:27):
be successful even if you're not hunting those birds in
the field. So when you're hunting sometimes smaller groups, you know,
you got to be careful with trying to figure out
where you're gonna set up so that you don't out
position yourself. Yep, yep. I like that. And I feel
one of my biggest mistakes early on when we used

(42:47):
to hunt over there is we wouldn't try to figure
out how to get back to that public behind the
private until midday versus, like you had said, if you
can get down in there, um, you know, early in
the morning, get set up. Don't have to just the
area when the birds are out in the fields and
wait for those birds to come back up. Um could
be one of your best players, So yeah, don't You

(43:08):
may have to start there. There might not be a
lot of action for the first couple hours, but this
is a great segue into scouting. If you know that
those birds are eventually going to go back up a
certain drainage, you're up a certain fingerage or whatnot, you know,
being able to patter to them through scouting, UM, it
can pay off huge. So scouting, UM, you're over there
a lot, You're out in the field, a lot working

(43:30):
for fishing, wildlife, doing a lot of work out there.
You're out in the field, so you know you're you're
looking at hundreds, if not thousands of birds prior to season. Um,
how do you take kind of a scouting plan and
reduce it down to what you think your best hunting
plan is going to be. You know, you've you've got
a hundred different toms that you know of that are
on public How do you figure out where you're gonna

(43:50):
go and what you're gonna do? Is it based on
where you think pressure is going to be where you've
had success in the past, it's your favorite spots or
what would you say, UM is the biggest determining actor
on where you're actually gonna go set up on on
the first morning. Yeah. I think the reality is that
if I'm seeing that, most people are too. So you know,
I try to I try to really look at maps
and understand maps and understood in the lay of the land. UM.

(44:12):
I think woodsmanship is so critical and being successful anymore, UM,
depending on if you're hunting birds down in Lincoln County
where you're you know that agg slash timberland interface and
they're kind of intermingling and versus the you know mountains
of you know, Northeast Washington. UM learning the road systems learning,

(44:34):
you know, all the different access points. You know, there's
all kinds of things to learn about and uh and
that all leads to UM. You know, we did that
last year. We found a spot. We you know, we're
able to get pretty close to some birds. But I
took a I love mentoring new hunters and last year,

(44:56):
just to give you a good example, I was handing
a big chunk of DNR and I know there's the
birds there but it's critical to know where you're gonna
hunt in the morning, and so the idea. So I
took him and I said, Okay, we're gonna go out
right at dark, and we're gonna run a five mile
area right off the highway. In every hundred yards, I

(45:18):
was doing owl hoots, woodpecker calls, whatever I could to
get them to gobble, and we located five different toms
on public land, not knowing if we were going to
be able to get close to him in the next day,
but we had no problem finding those birds the next

(45:40):
day and we had opportunities to get on those birds,
and it was neat to show. You know, our typical
hunters they run around and they don't do that anymore.
They just look at the birds in the field and
then they try to make a plan for the next
day and they sometimes it doesn't work out. I love

(46:00):
setting it up for the night, you know, the night
before and learning out where those birds are at and
just trying to find you know, enough targets within the
public land and you might cover you know, five miles
before you know the birds shut up for the night,
but at least you have some idea on where to go.
The next day. And you know when this time of

(46:22):
year is a good time of year to be driving
around looking for birds on private or public and getting
permission or whatever you want to do. But you know,
a lot of its elevation and a lot of our
you know, you know, the birds are low, especially like
in a hard winter like this year, we have a
lot of birds that are low. And you know with

(46:43):
Miriam's they hugged that snow line as it you know,
starts to dissipate from the high elevations down to the
lower and you'll, you know, I used to hunt more
of a higher type of bird compared to where everybody
else is at down low. So sometimes i'll I'll use
that intel, you know that I said before, you know,

(47:03):
learning where the road systems are, trying to get up
in there, trying to get a good vantage point. In
the evenings, listening where there's birds trying not to you know,
you don't have to make a lot of calls to
get them to gobble. They're going to gobble on their own.
But and over the years, you know, even hunting into May,
if you find these areas that they like to hang

(47:25):
out in, and then the next year you know that
that's where they're going. So I mean that the intel
that you use this year is going to be valuable
next year. And just adding that to your you know
you're hunting repertoire, you know, is you're just trying to
get more knowledge. And I think that you know, I've
been able to say, you know, I'm out of here,

(47:46):
there's just too many people. I'm going to go to
this one spot and I'll get up in there and
I'll find a bird and it doesn't take too long.
If you just use locating birds in the evening, going
back into those spots in the morning, knowing the lay
of the land, I think that's your best best opportunity
when you're talking about scouting and getting ready for your hunt. Yep, yep.

(48:07):
Those are all great tips. So my next question, I
know the answer to it because I've been there as
you've did it. But do you ever call to the
hens when they're answering and the gobbler isn't And then
kind of when you're doing that, what's your strategy and
your approach behind it? Yeah, the hens themselves, you know,

(48:27):
if you know there's birds in the area, especially Tom's,
you don't know if somebody harvested the tom that you
were hunting earlier in the morning. You have no idea,
but you know, when you get a hand to answer,
especially during the early part of the season, usually means
that they want some company they've been bothered by, you know,
like this morning, I was watching a bunch of Jake's

(48:48):
chasing all these hands all over the place. And you know,
it's the same thing with you know, tom's. You know,
they especially if your population's got a lot of Tom's
and them, they won't They're relentless. They'll just keep trying
to get on top of a hen and get the
breeding done and sneak sneak in with you know, the
dominant tom will looking the other way. I mean, they're

(49:09):
some some of those flocks are relentless, and so you
know those hens they don't like being there the tom's
and so um. But when you start talking to some
of those uh more dominant hands, sometimes that can trigger
you know, another tom to gobble and because you know,
they sometimes get territorial, especially if they know that they're

(49:32):
they're they're with a dominant tom. And you can actually
strike up different conversations with hands and uh really have
kind of um, a bitch fest, you know, back and
forth with them to get them kind of agitated. But
that can trigger a response from those gobblers to come in.
And a lot of times, you know, I get that

(49:54):
when I have you know, a decoy out or something
like that, that they're they're kind of not too happy
with it. It gives it realism. But but yeah, that
the calling it hands sometimes can lead to you know,
it's kind of like fishing, you know, I mean, you're
just trying to drag those toms back to the boat,
so um, but yeah, just trying to trying to get

(50:15):
those hands excited enough that those toms are going to
come come in. Yeah, And every every time I've gotten
too a calling battle with a hand, it seems to
be like a one upper or we're this is gonna
be a something we talk about in a little bit
on progressive calling. But it seems like we start off
with like a cordial conversation, you know, five six seven,

(50:36):
you know, yelps, clucks and she'll she'll respond, and by
time you're done, it seems like you're in a screaming match.
You all need each other, you know, as you call
that hen in we called a hen in last year
and Kansas didn't have a tomb behind her like you
had mentioned, they're not always going to be there. But
by time she was dirty yards away, like she was
just NonStop, like trying to override us. Um that bird
that we called across the canyon. Um, the very first

(50:59):
hunt that we ended up up hunt with you at
the you know, um, you know we ended up we
could hear the gobbler over there, but ultimately we ended up. Um,
you know, you open it her just as much. And
when they before they flew the canyon. So I was
another one where it seems like she would answer and
then we kind of slowly switched like all right, we're
no longer getting uh, you know, the gobbler to answer,
We're just trying to get her fired up before they

(51:19):
all pitched. I think in that case it was like
safety and numbers. I think she was like, I need
some girl tis. I'm sick of these guys, you know,
because and I think that's what I think that's what
it was, you know. Yeah, they were up there on
the mountaintop. I think it was the big tom that
you killed, one of the biggest toms I think I've
still ever seen over there to date, uh that hand

(51:40):
and then the jake. But I know she got real
mouthy there towards the end before they pitched over. So yeah,
that's just when you start to talk with a hand,
I think you can almost expect the conversation to like
ramp up as it goes on. You know. That's it
brings up a good point because in nature doesn't sound
like a calling class goodness all the time. A lot
of times it's silence. Yeah, and you I mean, you

(52:00):
don't hear it, just hands the help and you know
early in the morning, you do when they come down
off the roost. But turkeys are pretty quiet, you know.
I mean, and I think we have a you know,
as hunters, we tend to overcall. And I think that
to provide that I kind of feed off those hens.
So if she's like soft calling, I'll soft call. If
she gets bitchy, I'll get bitchy, you know. And you
just kind of back and forth trying to make it

(52:22):
more realistic. And I think that there's a lot of
times where I'm out in the woods, I'm like, yeah,
that's a turkey hunter, you know, boy, he's just going
crazy over there. And then out walks his hand. It's
wanting company, you know, And I'm like, man, I got
surprised on that one, you know. So but yeah, it's uh,
it's really important to kind of like just imitate what

(52:43):
they're doing back to you. Yeah, so we get all
set up on a bird. Um. I think as you
just mentioned, I think it's all a great segue and
it kind of rolls right into it is you know,
turkeys are relatively quiet. Hens will typic at least ramp
up their calling. But if you are calling to a gobbler.
We've talked about it a bunch, is it's kind of

(53:06):
that progressive calling or ramping up the calling. We don't
want to come in, you know, you don't want to
be you know, cutting cutting up a storm and you know,
loud clucks and you know, yelping fifteen times in a
row and never given given you know, the woods any silence.
So why do why do you feel that we always
approach it with it like a progressive ramping up style,

(53:27):
And then why does that work? Yeah? I think it's
just the nature of the breeding, you know. I think
that Tom to get excited the more you know they're
dealing with these hens, that have shut them off, and
then all of a sudden, there's this hot gall over
in the corner, you know, just like, hey, come over here,
you know, and so you're so you're kind of feeding
off of his excitement and you're trying to figure out

(53:48):
if he's responsive or not, and if he's not, you
kind of back off. And then in a lot of times,
what I like to do is just kind of get
them worked up and then I just shut up. I
think that's probably one of the trigger years to having
a hung up Tom. Is we tend to, you know,
the natural thing is for the hen to go to him,
and so he's over there, gobblin. And a lot of times,

(54:09):
you know, I think it's just if it's a two
year old, he doesn't know better, he's probably gonna run
right in, you know, and you're gonna get a bird,
you know, or you're gonna get an opportunity. But if
it's another Tom, and maybe he's got a nd, you know,
he's over he's weighing things in his head and he's
trying to be like, well, should I stay here with
Sally or should I go over there and visit that girl?
She sounds more eager. You know, so you never know

(54:31):
what situation you're in. But you know, I think that
by shutting up, you kind of play hard to get
And I think I've killed more birds doing that because
it just it breaks them from getting hung up and
it makes it kind of gets him to the point. Now,
if he gobbles and he's leaving and you can tell
that he's gone away, then you know he's probably got

(54:53):
a hid, you know. But if he if he gets closer,
and I've had I've had a lot of times where
it's like, oh, yeah, he's coming, he's come, So I
don't really have to make and I might give them
a little teaser and just say hey I'm here, still here,
and it'll fire him back up and here he'll he'll
break him, you know, and he'll come in. So um
sometimes uh getting him worked up and then kind of

(55:14):
going quiet on him and uh letting letting them kind
of think that they're missing out on So yeah, yeah,
it's it's similar to our out calling style. You know.
To relate that back to anybody that maybe hasn't turkey
hunted as much, is just you don't want to come
at him throwing the kitchen sink. You want to slowly
get them. First, you want them to even consider you, right,

(55:37):
so it's like, all right, they've now considered me. Now
they're a little bit interested. Now they you know, the
next step is do they like what they hear? Do
they do? They seem to be you know, and you
can you can figure that out really easily by is
that turkey answering my every call? Is that turkey answering
every fifth call? Um? So you start to really quickly
put put things together. Um. You know last year that

(56:01):
that bird we were calling to, um. You know, it's like, well,
he was answering every gobble and then he went to
answer in every you know, tenth gobble and then you're like,
all right, we're losing him, you know. So then it's
either you've got to be quiet you're gonna lose him anyway.
So you're you're trying to just like be a you know,
think on the fly. Um. But yeah, first thing, you
get their interests. Second, you need to get them committed.

(56:23):
And then third, like you said a lot of times,
shutting up is what finishes him. Because once that turkey
gets to eighty ninety yards, like he already knows exactly
what tree you should be under um if you're not
using a decoy, get the attention off of you. I
think all you can do by calling is like racist
suspicion that something's not right as they get close. So
that's like that ramping up, get him, get him interested,

(56:45):
get him committed, get him worked up, and then kind
of turn it off there at the end. I agree
with that. Yeah, and your idea that you know, shutting
up can can sometimes pr the best. All right. In closing, Eric,

(57:05):
we really appreciate having you on here. But what is
one tip you feel you could give turkey hunters that
would give them better odds at finding success this year? Well,
I think get out there and get work working with
some of your calls. I know a lot of people
do say, oh you don't call early, but you know,
at home practice, I think just getting out. It's been

(57:26):
a long winter here and I'm anxious just to get
out and get my legs back on me. But I
think that just getting to a point where you know
where there's some birds, you're getting ready for season, and
you got everything ready, practice getting your gun ready. This
last year I went to a four ten and practicing

(57:47):
with that, because you know that's been a fun change.
But but yeah, just take the time this March and
locate some birds and get all your gear ready. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's great. Hip. UM really appreciate Eric. We're gonna
I'm gonna head over there that direction, I think the
twenty eighth or so, so maybe we'll have to meet

(58:08):
up and spend a couple of days in the woods together.
M really appreciate you having having you on and good
luck if I don't talk to you before season. Thanks Jason,
good talking to you again.