Ep. 37: Mountain Gobblers with John Weik

This week on the show, Jason is joined in the field by guest John Weik as they discuss their recent turkey hunt. They discuss separating themselves from other hunters in the area, both in terms of distance and strategy. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Cutting the Distance today. I'm live from the field.
I'm joined with John Wyke of Northwest s Purchasers. He
served thirty five years in the military and military aviation work.
He's originally from the Northwest Hardwoods of Connecticut, where he
started hunting at the age of ten. He moved to
Washington about twenty eight years ago. From there, he started
hunting turkeys shortly after and he's never looked back. To

(00:33):
describe the way John hunt's turkeys, He's a mountain turkey
hunter who would rather sit at home and watch TV
than hunt turkey's out of a blind. He has a
running gun style, chasing and setting up on goblin birds,
and that's his only style. Today's episode, I want to
give a quick recap on the Kansas turkey hunt as
well as the hunt we're on right now here in Washington.
So welcome to the show. John's hey, it's good to

(00:53):
be here.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Jason.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
We're two weeks in the season, and are you tired
of it yet? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, no, no, right, how can you get tired of
doing this?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's been fun. I get
tired during the season. It's long days. This morning we
got up at what three forty five, I think to
try to get past the bird, and yeah, you go
to bed at ten. But uh, long long days. So
we're we're physically tired, but I'm not tired of tricky
hunting yet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
No, try not to be anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yep. So we're gonna start this episode, like every episode
of Cutting the Distance, we are going to take questions
from our listeners. If you have questions you'd like to
submit to myself or guests, email them to us at
CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com. I have to laugh
at this question before I get ready to give it
to you, because we've we've both got this question on

(01:44):
this hunt. As we're hunting, people are messaging us this,
do you have a spot for me to hunt? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, that's that's a question I never hear. Never. Yeah,
we don't hear any of that too much, y'.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
So, uh, because because we all know that that's all
that matters when it comes to killing the tricky right.
If you have the right spot, then everything else is
going to be a gimme.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Oh yeah, it's golden. You just pick the right spot
in the woods. You're gonna kill birds. It's it's really easy.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So let's let's elaborate on that question a little bit.
And rather than give them spots, how would you prepare
somebody to go investigate, look, find e scout whatever it
may be good hunting spots you know here in Washington,
and I know you hunt Idaho, Montana other places, like
what's a what's a good recipe for figuring out where

(02:27):
to hunt?

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, first thing for us always, you know, we jump
right on on X and then mix on X with
Google Earth at the same time, and we're looking for
you know, state land that has a lot of variation
in it. We like the higher elevations. Our birds tend
to move up pretty quick. They'll follow the snow line.
They'll chase it right up to whatever elevation and you
want to go up to Not that you can't find

(02:49):
them down low as well, but you know, we just
we like prefer to hunt the upper stuff, so we
find the birds up there as they're chasing up the snow.
But yeah, you get on on X and start looking
at Timberland. You got all kinds of different timberlinds out here.
You can get into some i EP stuff as well,
and it's just pretty easy to find. If you're using
on X, it's going to identify it for you, and

(03:11):
then mix it up with Google Earth at the same
time and say, you know, are there farmlands and aren't
that far away that the birds probably wintered in and
known After that as stuff starts greening up and some
of the lower shrubs start leafing out, the hands are
going to start nesting and you're going to find the birds.
It's not that complicated if you're able to look yep.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And that's one thing you touched on there a little
bit is a relationship to ag. One thing I love
about the birds we've been hunting the last couple of
days is they have no real like, no real requirement
to go back down there, right I. One thing I
don't like is hunting a bird that would rather run
down to a field or run down to you know
where he'd been getting you know, chicken scratch all winter.

(03:52):
These birds are mountain birds, but you still have to
look at that ag or those farms to figure out
like where they came from this winter, and they're going
to be in you know, somewhat close relationship to those yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Just some degree.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, granted, there are some places we've gone to
where it's so deep and dark and there's no egg anywhere,
there's no fields, there's no people. I mean, I can
think of some places that we've crawled into just to
el Khunt and in the middle of nowhere, you're looking
at your on actually like where do these birds live?
And there they are staring at you.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
So it's not the ones you really want to hunt, probably,
but yeah, yeah they're there.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, you had we were hunting the spot last night
and you had made mention that you have a buddy
that lives there, and you know at the time when
he says the birds leave, yeah, his his yard. They're
now up in the mountains. So it's like, you know,
and then maybe that's why Washington's doing so well right now,
is because we do have a lot of ag winter
ag that supports those birds, and so our populations are
staying real high, even though we did lose I think

(04:47):
a few hens this year with the winter.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I think so too.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I mean, we had a really cold winter, but on
top of that, we had powder, and powder is just
not something that happens out here. You talk to the biologist,
they say that's one of the reasons that we have
such great popular relations is that we have snow that
the birds can stand on top of walk around and
still get a lot of feed. But this year we
had cold right up front, and we had powder for
a long time, and the hens they were pushing through it.

(05:11):
And people even gave reports where like, man, we're watching
these hens struggle just to move through the snow and
find food unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
So yeah, so just quick recap, get on on X,
figure out where you can hunt. Find an area that's
somewhat adjacent to ag and you're most like, especially in Washington,
you're gonna find birds. Yeah, and we're gonna get into
it a little bit later, and it's like, just let
your boots, you know, burn up some boot leather and
go figure it out.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Absolutely carry lots of water with you.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah. I have question number two, which we've lived a
little bit here already. In the first couple of days
of this hunt, birds are gobbling really hard on the roost.
They fly down and goble a little bit. They'll gobble
up my calls, but about thirty minutes later they haven't
committed to my setup or my calling, and they've completely
shut up. What should I do or why is that happening?

(05:59):
You know? And the question was what should I do?
But I think more importantly is why is that happening?
And what can you do to take you know, you
really can't take advantage of it, but what can you
do to maybe turn that into a positive or what
do you do with that information to maybe get that turkey?
You know, and you know later that day or the
following morning.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Right, Well, first thing is take note as to what
their pattern was when they did it, because you know,
maybe you're not going to be successful today, but you're
creating a setup for understanding them better in their movements,
so you can put that in your pocket and come
back in the next time and get in front of
them rather than behind them. And a lot of the
birds are just going to be hand up because we're

(06:38):
we're like two weeks behind still in our season. Honestly,
some friends I know found a couple of nests. I
found one too, with one egg in it only, and
that was just a few days ago. So you know,
with this weather we had and the snow just leaving
the wood still, things just greening up, we're just behind.
So they're going to be pretty hand up still. Which
is not normal so much right now. That's that's one

(06:58):
of the biggest reasons they're moving away from me because
they're following a hand. They're gobbling. Say, yeah, come join us,
we're heading this way. Yep, we have it in mind
where we want to be. You're not there.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yep. We're going to get into the nine am spark
or whatever that we do, and we can use some
of this information. We've did it already. The oh they're
gobbling there, but let's let's keep in mind where we
last heard them, like where that ideal spot for them
to be was, because we are early in the in
the nesting season. But that hen's eventually going to break
off around eight thirty nine, go lay that egg, absolutely,

(07:30):
and he's going to probably reverse that trail back to
where you started on it that morning. So I mean,
it's great to start on a bird because it's obvious
they want to be in that area. They're comfortable there,
there's what they need there. But yeah, I think a
lot of people get discouraged. The bird stops goblin by
shoots around here is getting lights so early six thirty seven,
and they're like, I'm going to go in for breakfast,

(07:51):
you know, and it's the better hunting is still ahead. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Sit down and take a nap if you need to. Yeah,
yeah yeah. Go to what you think is the best
looking you know, where you've seen the most droppings, where
you know that they're feeding on the greenest grasses of
the greenish shrubs, and hang out and take a nap
and wait for them to come back. So one thing

(08:13):
we get asked a lot, me personally, is, you know,
we make an alcochol, we make a crow call, we
use a woodpecker call, we use you know, different locators.
The question we got is when and how should I
use the different locators, and so all that you kind
of kind of roll into that. You know, me personally,
you've seen what I've used. It's an alcohol, use a

(08:34):
crow call, we use a woodpecker. But kind of give
us a little a little bit of how and when
those should be used. I don't think you should be
blown on an alcohol in the middle of the day,
and I don't think you should be cranking on a
woodpecker call, you know, before first light. So absolutely, so
give us a little bit of you know, how you
think they should be used and what typically works the best.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, well, I mean we experienced that in the last
couple of days hunting together too. You know, early morning obviously,
get into an alcol and just to get a lowcate
hater on them, and they're usually going to gobble back
pretty good. So you know, practice that up, you know,
make it realistic. You want some realism, but obviously noise
is what it's all about. And that works really good.
And then we move into the day a little bit

(09:12):
and Jason proved really well, how we'll get the woodpecker
call worked, and they were really answering that really well,
that was a great call.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I love that call.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah. And then crow, in my opinions, real similar to
that woodpecker, like, don't use it. I mean, crows start
calling early in the morning, but they're already doing the
work for you. Yeah. I feel like a crow is
more of that same thing, you know, a couple hours
after daylight through the middle of the day, and then
you know, start to tone it down towards the towards later.
And a little quick side story. Yesterday the first morning, me,

(09:43):
you and Simone, we're hunting together. We we were hiking
up we hadn't really heard we heard a few birds
off in the distance. Yeah, and the bird we thought
was there just isn't there. And we I won't say
we get frustrated. You're just a little like scratching our
heads and.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, we're only six miles into you at that point.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, you're in mixed company. So you're like, I don't
really know if you want me to use my alcohol.
But we kind of all agreed, like, yeah, I go
nothing you can hurt with the owl. And we blew
on that thing, and he was what seventy yards up
the hill on a tree. Right then we're able to
set up and he did his thing, and then so
we thought we had that bird today did where he
had went, same thing. We got a little nervous, like
every bird on every other ridge top mountain draw was

(10:19):
gobbling up there. You know, we were hearing, we were
pointing different directions. We got a bird there, we got
a big sound, and bird over there, we got a
jake over there, and our bird never gobbled. And we
were starting to debate, well, we got birds hammering to
our left, and we got a ridge there, we can
get behind it and slip in, and same thing. We're like, well,
there's nothing to lose if you blow on the alcohol again.
Blew on it this morning and he finally answered twenty

(10:40):
reddits after. You know, so it's early morning. You know,
use those alcohols. But but locators are important because, in
my opinion there we weren't close enough for a tree
yelp to be heard. He may have heard it, but
it's like the alcohol, there's no real harm that can
be done, and it kind of let it. Maybe it
actually worked against us because we stayed at that tree
for another half an hour. He got got around us.

(11:01):
But yeah, use your locators. You know a lot of
I used to be similar, you know, go out and
only use my hint calls. But there are times we've
seen it here where a hint call doesn't work in
the hammer at that woodpecker, and it's just that that
shot gobble aspect that I think, you know, it doesn't
hurt if they're not answering a hint call followed up
with a woodpecker, or if you think you're getting in close.

(11:23):
We did it a few times here like well, we
don't really want a turkey call again, like let's hit
him with the woodpecker. See if we're you know, if
we're in a spot to set up. I don't know.
I in my mind I maybe overthink it. I always wonder,
like our turkey smart enough to know that there's a
woodpecker and a turkey hint call him from the same spot.
But I don't know. I don't know if they're that
smart we actually just put them on top of each other.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
We don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I mean, I've definitely used locator calls, not a lot, honestly,
but definitely if I'm trying to get into an area
that I don't know really well exactly where he is
at that time, and I just want to get his
location so I can maneuver to it in an area
to create a setup and then pull him in. So yeah,
I mean, you definitely want to have one you're going to.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Use and then not necessarily located call. We'll talk about
a little bit later. Box calls specifically on this hunt,
whether it's pressured birds, whether it's something different, has has
been working really well when maybe our you know, neither
of our mouth calls might be working, right, you hit
that box call and it's just something about it. So
we're going to jump into that a little bit more
when we when we get into part of the Washington recap.

(12:23):
So once again, if you have a question for me
or my guests and you want to submit them to us,
send us a social message, email us at ct D
at Phelps game Calls dot com. We'll do our best
to get him here on the show. So now we're

(12:45):
going to jump into our discussion. The discuss I want
to ask John some questions, So I'm gonna start out
with the question. I think I already know your answer.
But we always talk about patterning birds as maybe being
and knowing your birds in that area and what they
like to do is maybe more important than your ability
to call or you know, understand turkey. So if you
had to take one or the other, a pattern bird

(13:07):
that you've watched for three days do its thing, but
you'd have to leave your calls in the truck or
a brand new area, but you could take your calls.
Which one are you picking?

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh my gosh, this is about actually killing a bird.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Or just what you personal probably for you. And then
I'm gonna switch a question up here and asking in
a different context.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Okay, personally for me, I want my calls.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
So so once again, this is just and we've we've
talked lots on this hunt as we walk up and
down the roads. I believe it's because you're out here
for a certain reason, right, you want to work the bird.
You want to get them to gobbles. So if you
left your calls here, you know, once again you're back
basically blind hunting. We mentioned earlier you'd rather not hunt.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, this is not my choice.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
I mean I want to I want to go out
here and play play turkey chess, and I can only
do that with the calls. And I'd rather walk away
from a bird that's just in a pattern, doesn't want
to talk, and go find a bird that does want
to talk.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So, yeah, there is though, after getting your butt kicked
for a day or two, that you're about to the
point where it's like, all right, I'm willing to sit
on this bird and just out of spite at this point, But.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, there are those birds.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
There are those times just getting your butt, the birds
that you start giving names to.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, yeah, all right, So let's switch that question around.
Let's say you're a newer hunter and your main concern
was just killing a bird. Would you change your answer?
Would you take that pattern bird overcalling?

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Definitely, you know, I think back to the earlier days
of learning all of this.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
You wanted to fill that tag.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean that that's a that's a big pull for
every new turkey hunter, especially you know, they put the
money and they bought the license, they got the tag,
and they want to fill that tag. So that makes sense.
So definitely, if you can pattern a bird, you know
what he's gonna do. You've watched them, dude, a few times.
They really do get hooked into a pattern within reason.
And so yeah, in that case, I'm going to go
sit on that pattern and take that bird fill that tag.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
I figured that was going to be your answer, and
that's the honest answer.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, and we're going to talk. Remind me to talk
a little bit about patterns and then what what your
opinion versus what we've seen out here. When you add
some hint calling to your their pattern, it disrupts it
a little bit. Even though we want to call, we
want to do this, I feel that calling in a
spot where maybe the hin doesn't want to take her

(15:14):
tom by or there. You know, they didn't hear your
hint there last night like we I think there's also
a little bit of chance to bug her up the
setup just from calling. So we've we've looked at each
other multiple times like should we just stay quiet and
let the birds do? You know? It's like trying at
least until it gets closer more committed. So remind me
to pick back up on that one when we get
to the gap. So as we're walking down the roads,

(15:38):
as we're you know, let's say we locate a bird
on this hunt. Many times we have said this, don't
do what a typical hunter would do, Like we're there's
a bird there, and you know we see boot tracks
as we're on public ground here, there's other people hunting this.
You know, some some birds are pressured. Some birds you
can walk and get to a spot where maybe they
haven't heard as much. But we we've said that, don't

(16:00):
do what a typical hunter would do. So you look
at a bird, it's like, oh, the easiest path of
resistance to walk down the road, get there and call
where we've we've mentioned this, and I believe it's important
to not necessarily overthink it, but just put some thought
into it. Like this, these turkeys aren't dumb. They've they've
been called to from this road or that spot. They've

(16:20):
they've heard it all. What do you in your opinion?
What do you what are we doing? We've talked about
like fading away with our calling, we bushwhacked to my bird,
you know some of this stuff, Like, yeah, what are
some things people can can think about as they're out
there and do a little bit different, Like don't be
afraid to hit the bridge. Like, let's just elaborate on that,
because there is so much stereotypical calling from roads, you know,

(16:43):
setting up on bends.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
In the roads right right?

Speaker 1 (16:46):
You know, how do we break that that habit and
make ourselves a little more successful?

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Well, yeah, I mean depending on how much pressure is
in an area, that can be hard to figure out.
Sometimes it takes a little while. So you're gonna have
to figure out what's going on in the area that
you're hunting. And then as far as pressured birds are concerned,
it is important. I found they get conditioned. They get
conditioned by us. You know, what are all the hunters doing?
Are they calling from the same spot? Are they using

(17:12):
the same calls all the time? And that's why it's
important to keep a bunch of different calls. Yeah, I
love mouth calls, but I know, dummy, I keep other
calls with me too, and sometimes you get to try
different ones and move to a different spot. We've already
seen that happen ourselves. Another great tactic, you know, when
it comes to that type of scenarios, if you're hunting
with a partner, especially, get the bird interested but he's

(17:33):
holding up, or he's actually moving away, but he's still
talking to you, then you can take the other caller
and have him start walking away from you the shooter
and just pull that bird in. I mean, and it
works great. We've done it numerous times.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yep. Yeah, that bird only wants to if he's with hims,
only go come back so far, or.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
He just doesn't believe it.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Maybe so he's like, oh, she's walking away, maybe I
can walk over there safely now and take a look,
you know, is she really real?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
And then he's in front of the shooter.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Or even the loan toms just aren't comfortable leaving their
you know, their area where they've got good visibility or
a lot of this area we're hunting. There might be
a road system and some of the ridges are very clean,
but then they may not want to be they might
not be willing to go through the jack straw, just
the garbage either and so you're not gonna get him
to cut that right, you know. So we ran into
a little bit of vegetation really cause and you know,

(18:21):
some some impediment on the on their travel paths. And
then same thing. I don't necessarily we had got that
bird this morning going we thought, oh, he's gonna come
down the road. So we did what a typical hunter
would do. We ran down to the edge of the road
and squawked on our hen call and the next time
we heard him gobble. He was literally walking down the creek,
which we never thought he would do. And so it's

(18:42):
just one of those things like is that one of
those times where we did what we thought was right,
but that's what every other hund would do, Like, oh,
we're gonna go set up on the side of the
road and then that whether it is or not, it's
just one of those things that goes through my mind
as I rethought this morning, like we did exactly what
a hunter would do. Did that affected or maybe not?
Maybe he was gonna get drug down there by hint anyways,
but it always makes you think, could we have multiple

(19:03):
times even this morning, like we've and yesterday we would
try to get like one move ahead of the turkey
right right. Yeah, I'm The more we do this and
the more it keeps like we should we need to
almost be like we need to guess like two or
three moves ahead right to get us some more because
it seems like we're always playing like, oh that makes sense,

(19:23):
we think we can, but then they beat you there
or they do something different. It's like, well, shoot, we
knew that that second or third you know that second
or third idea, like they were going to a Look,
we should have just went there versus trying to cut
them off in the middle or right.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, And that's another good thing for having on X.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, trying to Yeah, we were in an area today
we didn't really know the clean way through, and we
had those three or four different birds gobbling and finally
we oh, shoot, there's an open ridge in here. We
got in there and it was the most beautiful turkey
ridge ever had everything they need.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
He never would have known there if you didn't flip
on X and you're like, look, this is open in there.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, we got in there. I want to live here.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeaice it was, and it was literally the only way
we could get through this area without you know, just
you know, bushwhacking horribly.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
So, but now you know where they were set up
and where they were gobbling from in the morning. You
know they're fly down area, and you know the pattern
to get out of there.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
So yeah, now the hard part will be setting up
in there in the morning and not touching a call. Yeah,
like we say, sometimes you can get in there and
buger them up. I think. I I'm very very confident,
you know, we we always joke as we sit down
on our setups. This morning we had to go to
a three percenter Yeah at one point, and that's why
I'm sitting here. You know, mid afternoon, I would go
into that spot with an eighty percent chance of killing

(20:35):
the bird there.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah seriously, Yeah, this morning we're like thirty percent chance
of this being successful. Yeah, turned to zero.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
But that's okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean they're And
the reason you need to ask this question is we
walked our road to some today, just trying to explore
the area, and we've seen two dead birds, you know,
two somebody had breasted them out and taken the legs,
you know, basically cleaned up birds and it's like, man,
there are a lot of birds getting killed near Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
We didn't realize how much pressure was in here until
we started finding the carcasses.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
I'm like, no, wonder.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
This is happening.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, and is now we know we got to change
their tactics.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah. Yeah, one predator, i mean, one was so fresh
a predator hadn't even got to the other one been
picked on a little bit, but both real, real, yeah,
fresh kills. So yeah, don't do what a turcula would do.
And then that doesn't I mean you have to take
that with the grain of salt, like there are things
that are just the right move but don't typically do
the same thing. You know, we talk about seven to
nine note yelps. I'm gonna get into the culling a

(21:31):
little bit. Yeah you hear what, Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, somebody's just gonna do their normal yelp. Yeah.
You listen to me and you call it's like two loud,
one quiet, three, you know, and throw a bubble cluck
in there, and it's like and if you listen to
real hens, that's what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
They're yeah, they're raising their tone up and down, facing
one direction, turning and facing the other direction, versus monotone
with a straight note.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah. And these turkeys, I mean, I don't want to
give them too much credit. They're not the smartest bird
on the planet, but they're also not dumb. They're there,
they get conditioned their turkeys. They're doing what turkeys are doing.
So calling different. You know, we're not afraid to purr,
We're not afraid to cluck, you know, bubble cluck, mix
it up. Yeah, just sound like a realistic can. And
there's times where and we also escalate our calls. I

(22:21):
think we start with a low volume and then nothing answers,
and then our second set of yelps and clocks will
be a little louder. It's just you don't typically hear
a hint out here, just yeah, yeah, got jack. You know,
she's just just not doing that. And I think ninety
five percent the hunters that come out here that's how
they call. Yeah, so yeah, all right, we're gonna diverge
off of that. Don't do it a typical turkey hunter

(22:41):
would do. But it's important to think about out there,
like can I get this bird to work somewhere besides
down this road where he's been called you know, it's
it's just changing the game a little bit or by
little decisions. Can I get you know, can I call
them up a ridge versus a road? All of that.

(23:10):
Let's talk a little bit about the style of turkey
hunting we're doing here. You know, a typical day in
the Turkey woods, you know, for most might be a
couple of miles, maybe a couple setups to get on
some hot birds and you're done. This is these sort
of you know, Miriam's Rios type hunts. They're completely opposite.
Like we've talked about it multiple times. You might as
well be hunting elk or you know, mountain meal deer

(23:33):
or whatever. Yesterday when we killed, well we both killed
our a bird. Yesterday we got back and I pulled
out the iPhone. You know, it's like twelve plus miles, yea,
a hundred foot of elevation gain. Like we're we're working
our tail off. And I think a little a little
bit of it relates back to pressure in area.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah. Yeah, these they've moved further out of it.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah. And the birds that you there are birds. There's
no denying there. Birds from here to mile marker one
and a half in this area. There there are birds there,
but you can tell when you call to them that
they've been worked or they've heard a.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Call before, they've worked hard versus.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
I joked yesterday you should never see a mile marker
more than three, why you're a turkey hunting. But we
started to see those mile markers deep in there. Yeah,
you get in there, and now those turkeys maybe have
only heard a handful of calls from guys, or maybe
haven't got bumped, and they start to react like they should,
like a tom without a hen. You know, yesterday this

(24:33):
this chunk that we are hunting. Now we literally touched
all four corners of aside from one big peak on
the opposite side. But we could hear up there. We
put in work and and.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Oh it was hardcore. I mean yeah, we were digging
deep to get out there. But and we knew what
Reggie was on and we're looking at our round X
as well. Man, we're gonna have to crash through thick,
thick timber just to avoid being seen on a point
and play the game all the way over to the
other ridge. And we knew we're gonna it's going to
be a twelve mile day, But we're going to get
near that bird, yep.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
And I mean there were decisions made throughout yesterday where
we could have taken we I'm almost don't want to
admit it, and I think I still think it was
a wild turkey. But he was a domesticated wild turkey.
I have some sorts he was. He was just very
comfortable living off the edge of this public So we
got drugged down there and we hiked up maybe a

(25:23):
couple hundred feet, hit a road system. We could have
just easy taken that road system back towards the truck
or two in a different area, we elected to go.
We got to a beautiful basin. We knew it was
gonna suck because we had to walk up through a
fairly steep clear cut, but it gave us the ability
to sound check an entire canyon amazing looking Turkey country,
and when we finally did get to the top, we

(25:44):
were able to locate my bird in a different bird.
And if we hadn't have put in that extra effort,
we wouldn't have had that opportunity.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, and he heard that sound too. I mean he
heard it from an area that another hundred probably would
never be on it as well. Yeah, so as that
sound got close to him, it created realism.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yep. And we'll talk a little bit more about once
we located that bird. Kind of our approach, and it
ties back into the don't do what hunters would do either,
the way we had to approach him just to guarantee
that he hasn't you know, seen or heard something that
he didn't like. So, yeah, a lot of miles. It's
it's in an effort. I feel like you can control

(26:24):
the outcome a little better when you're putting in that
many miles finding birds that haven't been messed versus if
you're always leaving it to chance trying to hunt these
pressured birds. They're doing sporadic turkey things. You know. We
talked about like how smart can something be with that
little pea brain of theirs. But they and I don't
know if they're smart or if they're just have an uncanny
ability to do what just random thing they need to
do not to get killed.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, they're very instinctive. You know, they've dealt with enough pressure.
They figured some things out.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Educated birds.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, So I'm gonna diverge a little bit from our
conversation just give a quick update on our Kansas. I'm
sure you'll have some stuff to interject with the way
that the things were going so out there in eastern Kansas.
You know, we're hunting easterns. We'd been hunting early May.
Typically that's typically when you start to get your hands
with full nests. They're not near as interested in feet
in as long you're like, all right, money, you know,

(27:12):
we've got loan toms, and so we were always told
that they're more callable early. So we decided to go
there April twenty, April twentieth. We fly out there to Kansas,
and everything is is a little bit late, and so
or it actually seems to be a little early in Kansas.
Whatever it is that those toms are completely handed up

(27:36):
all day long, like they there were some toms we'd
see that would still have hans out in the field
with them at one or two o'clock, which I don't
It may be extremely late, like they haven't even started
laying their first egg. But I almost can't believe that,
you know, April twentieth by then, especially being that far south.
But or she had just went later egg nested for
a little bit and then popped right back up a

(27:57):
little bit earlier. But we could not call those birds
off very easily. Do you have any And I've always
said Easterns are more stubborn, They're more difficult, They're more
hard headed. When they fly down. They don't mind if
they live in the bottoms. They don't care if they
ever gobble at you the rest of the time, you know,
goblet of the roost a little bit, but.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Way more frustrating. I mean, it requires a lot more finesse.
You know, a lot of different type tact calling than
what we do out here. Our birds out here don't
really want to hear a lot of cutting, whereas you
know Easterns they do.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
They want to hear it excited. Yeah, yeah, And that's
sometimes the only time we could get them to do
and get a call or get anything out of them.
But they were very, very content just doing what they
wanted to do and not dealing with you at all.
As a hunter. They had their you know, seven eight
ten hens, all with an eyes sight. They were all
roosted together every night. You know, they roost a little

(28:50):
more I would say typical in a typical spot every
night there, and they knew all their hens showed up.
We sat close to a roos tree one night, all
the hen show up. Tom's being I don't know why
they didn't fold their hands out. They come in from
a completely different direction, but they all meet at the
same rooster. It's just very difficult to hunt.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
A lot more tactics of crawling, a lot of moving
and trying to sneak in and get in the right positions.
There's there's so much more you got to put into it. Easterns.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
And just like you had mentioned earlier, you don't like
to sit in the blind, and I don't necessarily. We
all know when we go to Kansas, if we just
sit in a spot, we will kill a bird. Yeah,
you know, they're very very patternable. But we don't like
to hunt that way. So what they do is they
get us running ridge to ridge with gobbles and then
they would be on the opposite ridge by the time
you got and you're just like, it's almost like you
have to sit still to kill them. But who wants

(29:40):
to hunt them that way? Yeah? Some birds?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
That's you have no choice. If that's the kind of
air you're gonna hunt in, I mean, you got you
gotta do.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yep. I was uh. I was able to kill my
bird on the first morning there. We didn't really roost.
We don't roost those birds in Kansas like we do,
and I guess you don't roost here a whole lot.
I usually roost pretty you know.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, No, I don't do much of that. We just
go out and listen in the morning and get in tight.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, which is awesome because every morning's kind of a
new morning. I've always liked just that excitement, Like no,
when I'm seventy one hundred yards on a bird and
I liked I always like to look at and like, oh,
he's gonna pitch here, and like guess, and I guess
ninety percent wrong, But I still like that game. But
there I was able to We went out listen. We
had a couple of different birds. We had one close,

(30:22):
and so we didn't He didn't only gobbled once. Early
we had to go set up in the dark, and sure,
sure enough, as it started to get daylight, he was
sixty yards away in a tree. We had already set
our hen out there, not in the right spot for
what we wanted, and three jakes fly down first. I'm like, oh, no,
he's just holding up up there like maybe he doesn't
want to fly down because of these jakes. He doesn't

(30:43):
want to get bullied around. So we sit there for
twenty minutes. We're just gobbling up there in the tree.
And we sit there for forty minutes after the jakes
have flown down, gobbling in the tree, and at about
I'm guessing fifty fifty five minute mark, and these jakes
are just at full strut under his tree. So it

(31:04):
almost looks like they're waiting for him to come down
and they're gonna whip his butt. You know, we had
that hen decoy. I don't know exactly what's going through
their head, but so they were just puffed up under
his tree for fifty minutes, fifty.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yards from shutting in the tree basically.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
So all of a sudden, two hens fly down and
hit the jakes. We're like, oh boy, it's about ready
to happen. And what I think happened is why we
were setting our decoys up, and I was being a
dummy because I didn't think that that bird was that close.
I had like a spidercum land and I was trying
to like move my gun barrel around and loaded my shells,
and I think he just got nervous like he wasn't.

(31:37):
We didn't spook him enough that he just flew out it,
you know, and just fly away. But we knew something,
and I think even his hens knew something, even though
they were even deeper than the Jakes. And those hens
flew down and I was keep my eyes on her.
They flew into the jakes, and then you could see
they kind of like, did the scurry walk away from us?
Dead away from us.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I'm like, oh boy, they just knew someone.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, and that bird it's the ground. I let him
take about two steps and clear everything. I'm like, I
know what's going to happen. And so was shot that bird.
So I you know, if it wasn't for an hour
of him hanging up in a tree, you I wouldn't
have huntred for very long. But we were able to
get that one killed. And then we actually we went
and did a cold sit on a on a field

(32:18):
where we know two big birds had been frequenting and
we only been we only been set up for half
an hour. Set it just to Dave Dave Smith decoy
a hand out there maybe forty yards from us, a
little bit further, but we wanted him to pull our
attention off of the edge, and all of a sudden
and they're coming, two big giant birds, like old old birds,

(32:38):
big old paint brushes.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
On him, and the sire.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
To be able to get him coming to decoys. But
then the bird, the non strutter, he came over and
started to mess with the big bird, and he did
it at the wrong time. He needed to do it,
like ten yards later, because as soon as they started
to tussle up and wrap next and kind of messed
with each other, they just went straight to our left
at sixty yards and a little too far to shoot,
and so we had to let that bird go. They

(33:04):
were active in the morning, but you needed once again,
you really needed to be in the way where they
wanted to go. Later in that hunt, we got some
really good action. A tom actually pulled off of his hens,
came into us, but once again saw something that decoy
he didn't necessarily like and exited at about fifty yards
and just not quite The guy I was hunting with

(33:25):
wasn't quite comfortable shooting there. But yeah, we don't need
to tell the whole entire hunt, but it was just
one of those things where Easterns are stubborn, and I'm
starting to really unlike them, especially now that you know,
I only had a two day break and was able
to come out here and hunt Mariam's I'm like, man,
this is way better for the most part. You know
the answer. They're more huntable. You can, you know, get

(33:47):
back on him at three o'clock in the afternoon and
they'll stip, you know, typically start gobbling.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Again, versus we have to train you enjoy being in
two Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
And those birds in Kansas, they would just gobble half
hour in the morning, half hat night. That was all
you're getting out of them all day. So real, real frustrating.
So we're gonna jump more into a Washington focus. Now
let's do a little update here. First thing we need
to mention is it is hot. Yes, it is hot.
We we're hitting what mid eighties.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, we're only a couple of days into this high
pressure and it's had its effect for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yep. And give us a little of your I'll call
it your opinion, but it's also probably pretty factual. Since
you've been out here doing this enough, you talk about
like three days in a row is what you like
to see, no matter what it is. But it needs
to be three days and then maybe not this hot.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I mean, I've experienced this so many different times over
the years. It's not even funny and it's realistic to me.
So we'll call it my science if you want. But
anytime we've seen a pressure drop or pressure change, whether
it's going into a high pressure or a low pressure,
if it's extreme like this is. You know, we just
went from fifties to low sixties at the most, and

(34:56):
then we jumped straight into this high pressure of upper
seventies and hitting eighties. And what I've always experienced when
that happens, whether it's either direction, you know, it usually
takes a good three days minimum before things really get
back to normal and birds start becoming extremely workable. You
can still kill a bird. Obviously we did it, but
it took a lot of work. It took more work

(35:17):
than it normally does. Now we've been trying to tell Jason,
this is not normal, this is not what we normally
experience it.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
It's got to get better.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
And what I found, it's always about a three day mark,
and that's just way. Whether it's bad weather, you can'
three days boom, doesn't matter. If it's still bad as
long as you slipt into it for three days or so.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, it's and we'll roll into that a little bit
not what I'm used to, So I hunt a different
area typically, I haven't been in this area, and I'm
a little I'm a little shocked at how much contrast
there is to my normal spot and in the way.
So I still think this is pretty dang good hunting.
These guys are telling me this is nothing like it

(35:57):
normally is. So I'm excited to see if maybe this
high pressure holds for a couple more days and we
can experience that, you know, third and fourth day, even
the fifth day before we head out a camp, and
see if those birds really turn it on.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, I hope. So we're hoping too.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
On this hunt. The nine ams and this is we've
always talked about this. If you listened to almost any
Cutting the Distance podcast, you know we always joke about
the old timers saying, you you young guns, young guys
can go go hunt those birds off the roofs and
I'll go kill them. At nine o'clock. You know, I'm
gonna eat breakfast. So nine AM and the three paid

(36:35):
the three pm kind of the spark, you know, Yeah,
it's the time to be out there. It really is.
Get on those critters. And the nine am to me
makes a lot of sense. You know, hens are gonna
go lay on their nest, go lay their eggs, and
those toms find themselves lonely.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
The three pm spark is a little bit more interesting
to me. It's like, I don't know if it's a
temperature thing. If it's a the sun's getting low enough. Finally,
like why three pm? Because I'm not going to lie
Like my sweatometer says that three pm is still damn hot.
It's the hottest it's been all day at three pm,
and these birds are starting to fire off at three
three point thirty.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Well, the other good thing about when you have this
kind of a high pressure is we can kind of
predict they're not going to go sit in it. So
look we did yesterday, we moved to a different area.
I knew that area is going to be a little
bit cooler in general. But that three o'clock timeframe has
just been golden for a lot of years that I
can always think of it. Birds are usually out and
they've spent their day eating, and now it's heading towards

(37:33):
their thought process, in my opinion, is you know, we're
going to be start starting to gather up, and a
lot of times you're just going to see Tom's out
there by themselves and they've lost their hands for most
of the day, but they want to gather back up
with them so they can you know, have their way
first thing in the morning. And if you're a hen
that's kind of starting to talk around that time of day,
you're probably looking to gather up with them.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
And so then were't have to come in.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah, we've had great hunts. Well, I killed my bird
about nine am years was a little later than three
m But we got on a bird and worked the
bird yesterday for hour and a half. Yeah, probably yesterday,
right at three o'clock, I think, I yeah, yeah, I
think I got picked off. You know. It was it
was some up and down cliffy country, you know, a
little bit steep elevations, and it was I think we

(38:15):
just got caught guessing he was a little bit further,
but we still worked him for a bit and then yeah,
I was able to get into a different bird later.
So pressuring pressured birds here, you start to realize whether
you know, I know you're good. I think I'm pretty
good hit this thing. But we were starting to realize,
like pressuring pressured birds, no matter how good you are,

(38:38):
we're running into some struggles, right. They don't want to
play the game. They don't want to turn around. We
watched a couple of birds through the binos come down
a uh you know, by themselves, one really big bird.
It looked like maybe at a jake with them in tow.
They didn't gobble at all. Coming back nine o'clock, we
we did some calling. They did gobble once I take.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
The one back on their own. We didn't evene.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, as far away from one of my calls on
either side as it could get, just for sure literally
just gobbled on his own. But it's just weird. We
were we were I wouldn't say were in their zone,
but we were with an earshot where two birds without
a hen should answer any any hint call and nothing.
And and we tried resetting up, we went to multiple
different spots, just could not get a peep out of

(39:21):
them talk And so we've talked about it about this afternoon,
like we just need to go find a spot where
maybe somebody hasn't talked to a bird yet or a
bird that want you know, very very few people have
talked to. So, yeah, we're we're dealing with some pressured
birds here. Turkey hunting is very popular, and uh it's

(39:41):
it's you know, for for good reason. There's it's there's
some really really good turkey hunting here, but uh, there's
there's also a lot of hunters.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
We've seen quite a few boots on the road. That's
a good indicator. You got pressure.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, pressure. So we're dealing with that. And our way
to deal with that is we said, put a lot
of boot you know, boot in and try to get
to some birds or think a little bit outside the box, like,
you know, are there short little hikes that maybe don't
have good access or you know, little chunks you can
get into on ag edge, whatever it may be, like,

(40:13):
try to find that little you know, diamond in the Reugh.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, I'll look for the easy roads in look for
the stuff that's gonna take effort that yep, a lot
of people don't want to put that effort into it.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Let's talk a little bit. We we kind of started
going down that path about you know, we worked our
tail off to even locate my bird but then in
my in my mind, the approach to my bird was
a little bit different than what most people would have,
you know, do, and it goes back to don't do
what a typical hunter would do. So we were climbing
up a very steep, real good looking ridge. Turkeys had
been on that ridge, real grassy. Get to the top

(40:55):
located bird across the canyon, the big canyon. We were
climbing up. All right, he's there, gobbled a couple times.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
He was just on the ridge we were on too.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
He's been moving, yeah, and so we know we know
where he's at. We get up, we climb. Someone said,
there's a road up there another fifty yards. Yeah, we
get to the road, and at that very point, it
would have been very easy to walk that road directly
to his gobble.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Absolutely, yeah, it would have been the fastest, easy.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
And like most people would have got there and been like, oh,
this road leads right to the ridge that he's on.
You know, the only problem was you get down there
about four five hundred yards and you're going to be
completely exposed to the ridge that he was on, and
if he looks out there sees you anything's up, or
if you try to call to him and like, really
get his eyes over to that road anywhere in between. Yeah,
the gigs up. You're not going to call a burden

(41:44):
that's seen you.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
He might gobble, but he's probably not gonna come.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
He's not going to come in. So we look at
it and we're like, oh man, we got to climb
the next little knob and the next little knob, and
we got to stay rolled over so he can't see
us or hear us. And then we get to the
end and once again, it would have been very easy
to just track and hit the road just a little
bit further back, but yeah, we had to. You know,
it was put your hoods on everything, and it was

(42:08):
one of those just dry sticks snapping and crunching and cracking. Yeah,
but we did it on just enough, I think on
the backside that you know, it wasn't right in his face,
and we we took the absolute hardest route to get there.
But the nice thing was when we finally did hit
the road, we knew we were behind his ridge, we
were out of his eyesight, we were out of everything,
and we got to that point without screwing it up
exactly where we could have screwed it up real bad.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
And he heard our call on that other ridge yep,
and then he never saw anybody else, and the next
time he heard our call it was closer to him.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
So it was just I don't like, I don't want
to necessarily say we did something that not everybody else
would do. But I think a lot of people would
have just walked that road. And so it's just going
that extra step making sure that you don't screw up
the you know, the opportunity that you have and keep
it intact right. It's yeah, if you if you blow
it up early, then you might as well not even
walk over there. So keep it in tack.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I mean, look how many miles we put into it.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
I mean it's like, do we want to give up
going the best possible route after all these miles.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
No, let's give it every ounce we got ye paid.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Off, so we'll follow that up. So we get there.
He gobbles to the woodpecker call. We didn't we were.
It was that's one of those times where not blowing
a turkey calls like one of the few good times,
Like we want to ye a little bit of that
shock and awe. You don't want to necessarily disclose your location,
because he doesn't know there's a hin here right now.
We would pick her call from the road answers, some

(43:29):
of them has been there, so he we didn't have
to look at on X or anything. We just know
go down there. We got on his ridge, get set up,
and we're going to talk a little bit about certain
calls here on the box call on your bird, but
on this bird. I think I yelped a little bit
on my my mouth call and I'm like, huh nothing,
nothing well John, and John starts the olp, and sometimes

(43:50):
I think he does this just so he can say
a bird answered, maybe not you, but no, we we
call a little bit. We call a little bit different,
different pitches different, I mean, and the bird hammers back
at him. I'm like, all right, I'm not calling for
my bird, own bird in you know. It's like I
didn't want to, but it's like I'm just done calling it.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
We want to kill this bird.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we set up at a tree,
we get all set up, we put the we didn't
have to, so we get all set up. Someone drops back.
So we were at a weird spot where this ridge
line trail split. So we set up.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
This is sharp ridge too. There was a lot of room.
Now this is a.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Great segue into my next point, but we might as
well rolled in. We set up at an angle, right yeah,
This bird was not gonna walk a lot of a
lot of people, even myself. The first your instinct is
to set up right here because you can see down
the ridge. But guess what, when that turkey gets visible
and you can see it, it can see you, and
there's a lot of chance for stuff to go wrong.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
After he's gonna pick.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
He's gonna pick something out. So we've set up at
an angle. Set up at an angle that gives you
the ability to shoot both trails, both angles, and keep
his eyes off of you.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Right yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
We want to try to get that ninety degree angle
if we can possibly somehow. If you're using the decoy,
it's even better. And you know, putting that decoy out
where if he's gonna see it, he's also shootable at
the same time, but just don't have him coming straight
into you with his eyes.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
And one thing we've did with the decoy the first
the first evening and then this morning we brought one
is set that decoy up so that you don't believe
you're gonna be in it's its line of sight when
it does see it, because if you're behind it, the
idea of the decoy is to take his eyes away
from you, right. But I've seen a lot of people
set up where they're like straight line with their decoy

(45:38):
where they expect that bird to come. It's like, no,
set that thing off at a forty five degree to
your left from where you think the bird's gonna come,
and let it see the decoy before it sees you.
That way. Is he comes around, it gives you a
chance to move your gun whatever it may be. But yeah, yeah,
don't don't set that bird up.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Line up.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
But that's that's a good point. Don't line up with it,
and that does happen. I've had people send me a text, man,
I just made a classic mistake. I lined up right
behind the deep Yeah busted.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
So it's instinctive though a little bit right, And if
you don't think about it, you're like, well, the bird's
coming this way, I want this decoy towards him. And
then you go straight behind it and you're just in line.
And I think a lot of people get picked off,
and you know a lot of or a lot of
people say like, oh, I didn't you know, like I
just told the story. I didn't like my decoy. It's well,
maybe didn't like seeing the you know, your face behind it,

(46:23):
or the shine of your gun. You never know what.
So back to my spur. We get set up, Smoe
set up behind us. You're set up to my right.
I think you yellped a couple more times, and he
gobbles twice from down low and uh, me and you
were kind of besting at the tree, like wow, we
don't want to have to keep pulling gobbles out of him,

(46:44):
and you know, you're you don't want to have to
force everything. And I think we just get done finishing
up that conversation. And and he's right, He's he's in.
You can tell there's no more timber between him and us.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
He cut the distance in half that.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
You were like, all right, he's here. So I clicked
my safe and uh, we're waiting. Then I can see
he comes. I could see his head bobbing from the right.
We can hear him spinning drip yeah, sin, yeah, I
forgot yeah. We I I evidently assume everybody's deaf when
we're calling birds. And I'm like John, you hear him spinning, Yeah,
I hear him spinning. I just thought you might not

(47:17):
get loud. So he shows up, and we were hoping
he comes a little bit like straight down my barrel
like at twelve o'clock, which we just said we don't
want to do, but this is pretty.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Much we wanted to see him. His head come up
going towards it.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, but he comes up more like at my two
o'clock and works towards my twelve o'clock right, and I
see his head bobbing about three steps, and then he
gets to a spot and anybody a ton of turkey's
on if you just read their their mannerisms, and his
head goes blink straight up, turn to the left towards us,
and pow yep, And he was about thirty yards and

(47:53):
I knew he killed him. And then all of a sudden,
I hear John say, I don't know if I could
see him very well, and I'm like, oh, dang it,
because I I just soon because I had such a
good view that. But anyways, it was it was a
great hunt.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
It was a good setup.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
We did everything right, you know, and we didn't overcall him.
He did what a bird's supposed to do with everybody
hopes and yeah, I mean for filming wise, I was
on your right. If i'd been on your left, that
I would have seen him perfectly like you. But I mean,
we're still going to see him through the shrub. He
stopped right behind that shrub and stuck his head O.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah, great hunt. We couldn't have killed him at a
higher elevation. Yeah, the tippy top peak of the whole place.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
But it was cool furthest away highest top yep.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
That we Yeah, we talked about setting up at an
angle which I really wanted to cover, which simple did
a lot on this, And then last night on Your
Bird we jumped in an area we've already mentioned. It
was cooler, little flatter. We needed a little break after
getting my maps, my bird all the way back to camp.
I do want to don't call me a wop, but
I just want to say, packing a twenty ish pound

(48:50):
bird for four miles on a on a shoulder sling,
it becomes very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Sure it does.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
That's my complaint of the day. I'll take it every day.
I'd rather take that that complaining. But so we get
your bird located after you knew there was kind of
a little honey hole at the back end of this
public piece. We get back there, we got some birds
answering way down, like we're not going to make a
plan on them this late, and we just get to

(49:18):
the edge and we get hit by two birds.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
One just said too, wouldn't it be nice we could
kill a bird with this view? And I'm like, yeah,
that's it was. It was beautiful, that's the goal.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
We get hit by two birds to one of John's
and so remember this little point. John yelps with a
mouth call and we get a bird to answer straight
ahead and probably at nine o'clock to our left, and
just to set the scene, they're probably over a forty
five degree slope, like very steep. Yeah, it was very
very steep off the edge. And so we get set

(49:48):
up real quick and get everything ready and I didn't
have the greatest setup, and you guys kind of just
kneeled behind an old root wad that it fell over.
We may do. We thought it would be if those
birds can came in on a string, it would have
just been close shooting. We would have been able to
kill him when they showed up. Yeah, I believe the
bird that was straight ahead of us actually starts to
work to the right, but we cannot get this dang

(50:09):
bird to answer.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Yeah, he answered once to my original call. We knew,
and we had two of him because one was a
little left, one was a little right. Yep, And he
answered me that one time, and that was pretty much it.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
But we knew he was there.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah, And so we're set up and John's yelping on
his mouth call and I can kind of see the frustration.
You just shake your head. You're like, now they're dang
hind up bird or just a bird doesn't want to
play the game, and you kind of I'm always hesitanting
and I wouldn't have necessarily did this anyways, but you
look at me and kind of pointed my box call,
get your box call out like that. What so here
me being real nervous, I'm like, I'm just all just

(50:41):
call real quiet, just real light pressure. And I probably
I just did a real short, not a long, maybe
five yelps, pretty soft, and yeah, they hammered, like cut
the end of it off, and I'm that worked.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
They're almost going away, yeah, until you did that.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yeah, and then it pulls him up. It pulled him
up to our elevation. But now these birds were quite
a bit to our right. But we had a real
good like on the rim of this drop off, was
was real clean. We're sitting there and I accidentally kind
of squawked my box a little. You know, you're trying
to keep that thing box quiet, and you look at
me and shake your head, yeah, like go ahead and
do it. And that wasn't I didn't mean to ask you,
but I kind of in around about.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not whatever, it's gonna work.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Hits the box again and so swipe it again, same thing,
and then I think we'd be quiet. We we went
pretty quiet there because he's real close at.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
That yeah, at that point, and then.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
We start to see three birds, and and you had
made uh I'm either I heard you whisper to me
or something like they're going to see you before they
see me. And I'm like, so now I'm like tucked
way into my tree. I got like half fly hanging out.
But I do see three birds come in.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
I'm looking at the angle that we're set up. We're
set up at a good angle over us for filming,
and I look over at you and I'm like, dang,
he's yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Because the way I took the birds, if they would
have came in straighted to our left, I would have
never been picked. But they came to our right, which
now like exposed me way before that.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
You get way before I, soom get exposed.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
So we're sitting there and I start to see the
first bird come out, and I'm like, I don't see
a beard, but I And at that point it was
real sunny and shady and the sun was kind of
setting weird, and I'm like, jake. I thought it was
a jake, right, And then I see two birds come by,
and I'm like, whoa. I one had a really big,
you know, beard, and then the other one came by
and it looked really good. I'm all right, we got
two toms and a jake is what I thought the

(52:22):
whole time. Well, then they sit there and mess around
on that top for a bit, and that hen turns
towards like you know, they had heard a box call
five minutes ago, but she turns directly towards us. Yeah,
and takes off sprinting.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah. Right, oh boy.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
And there was a little dip between us about fifty
yards out a pretty good brushy dip and then he
got back up to that green grass and when she
took off, both those toms took off down to the brush.
And I'm like, man, I hope they don't turn left
in that little crick draw and get out of here.
I don't know why they're running. Are they scared? Are
they running towards us? Like? What's going on? You know?
I can start seeing heads bob over. Oh, here they come.

(52:58):
We're gonna be good.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, And it's like forty yard max to the minute
they were showing up and get better after that.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
And uh, first bird goes through, I'm like, oh, let
the jake go. And then the second bird I can
see and I'm like, it looks like the real, you know,
the good one. And I can hear. I could hear
you before that tell some among something about which bird
you were gonna shoot, but I couldn't hear. I can
hear you guys chatting, and uh, the bird I was watching,
I'm like, what's taking John so long?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Why is he not shooting with the big rope?

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, I'm like, that bird's just sitting there and uh,
maybe something's in his way. You know. I don't got
your perspective and uh, pow, and the bird I was
watching flew off. I'm like, what, John, There's no way
John missed. And Simona, even off camera, said I think
you missed bad.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Yeah, he's like he said, So I'm like, oh, man,
you missed. I'm like, I didn't miss anything.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
We walked out there and there was some miscommunication. You
had shot the bird in the back, which typically is
the biggest uh tends to be for me, and and
he got that bird in the middle to kind of
come out of strut a little bit. And so there's
you know, your bird was an old bird three years
plus but great bird. Yeah, great bird, just uh, you know,
he was a brawler, all tore up. But that was
what I want to I told the story there a
little bit, but really wanted to go back to Most

(54:12):
people use box calls for locating birds windy days, high ridges,
big country, and uh in that instance, I we've talked
about the bird. I called him my wife or in
for my wife, and click attap only would answer box call.
I had to literally box call the thing into our
lap and not necessarily box calls. But don't be afraid
to try something different, try your you know, your crystal,

(54:33):
your crystal pop call, Try your slate pot call, Try
a different striker, try a box call. Try you know,
if you have a diaphragm that you think is way
too raspy and and not high enough pitch, try that
and then go try your high pitched one. Yes, I've
learned from hunting with Eric brought now hunting with you.
Hunt with all of these guys that call different Chris Parrish.

(54:55):
There are times where the way Chris Parish, which is surprising,
you know, the way he calls, isn't what the want
to hear that day.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, he's a phenomenal call.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, yeah, I like it. He can do whatever he
wants with a call. But yet that bird wanted, you know,
somebody else's old raspy call, and that's a little slower
cadence and a little louder, and it's just it's one
of those things where just hit him with a lot
and see if you've got something in your toolbox or
your arsenal that's going to get him fired. That's right,
something different.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yeah, I was not shy to saying, hey, Jason, get
the BAX call.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, yeah, which I'm always has that there's you know,
everybody's rando a box call those but some of you
and you guys out there. One thing bad about a
box call is it's the absolute maximum movement in order
to get a turkey sound outs fact. Yeah, you know,
diaphragms very little movement. Pop call, like I really only
have to make a quarter inch circle with my fingers,
but a box call, I'm having to move a paddle
at least three inches minimum, and so there's a lot

(55:43):
of movement. So I always get a little hesitant. But
you either got to take the the little bit of
risk that you might get saw versus the chance that
none of your other calls are working right now on
this bird.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah you're about to lose him.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Yeah yeah, So it's it's pulling out all the stops
and yeah yeah, that was That was one thing that
like it reiterated what I learned back and click attack,
you know ten years ago my wife's bird is like,
there are times where a box call needs to be
oh yeah, be used, and and it can be.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
A very box calls because it's really hard to beat
a lot of times. I mean it wishould one with
a good drop and you know, of course Jason was
using a Phelps box call that kind of helped.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Yeah, that uh that that box is sounded really good
and we it They backed it up again this morning,
and it maybe goes back to a little bit is
don't be like all the other hunters. Yea, we use
that box call more this morning, and you were just
because it was something different. I bet you not everybody's
throwing a box call at these birds and apparently once

(56:39):
again the same as last night. I think it worked
better getting birds to answer when we were like searching
for that gobble or working down a ridge versus our
mouth calling. So it's just you know, don't I guess
the moral stories, don't be afraid to try something, you know,
all the calls in your.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Yeah, you may have a call you love to use,
and it may always work in the past, but yeah,
if a bird's not tune in into it and he's
just not answering, pull out the next one, move on
and keep trying.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
All right, So I'm gonna I'm gonna end up with
a everybody's gonna stereotype me is like the guy that's
definitely afraid of ticks. But I think you might have me.
That's what we're gonna close on this. I I put
a post on there on social media about promethrone and
got I probably haven't got more questions on a specific topic.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
And I'll tell you right now, I'm holding one in
my hand. I'm waiting for this to get you. I
could get rid of it.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, as I was getting all the podcast stuff set up,
you pulled one off of my leg and we are
to set the stage here. We're literally in a dirt
camping spot.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
There's no hass, nothing near but dirt.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
You went to toss your carcass last night, YEA had
six on the outside of your pants, and just I
shouldn't have said it because it probably made you more nervous.
But I'm like, man, if you have six on the outside,
image and then you trying to fall asleep. All I
could hear was John over there yelling about ticks in
his tent.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I was like that, drop my pants now.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
I was plucking them off for like I don't even
know thirty minutes. They were everywhere on my legs, and
I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Yeah, And you said you've never I've always gotten the
ticks bat over here, But you said you've never experienced
something like we've had the last couple of days.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
I've been walking through brush and always cutting the distance
through all kinds of junk, and I've you know, yeah,
randomly I'll get a tick, I mean with the permeter
and it's you watch them climb a little ways and
just fall off. But I'll tell you what, this is
a whole new game right here. And we're just sitting
on dirt and there constantly we're looking down like up
here comes another one walking up my legs.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, it's been so I'll just I'm gonna just do
a quick recap on you know. Some of the people
like where do you get it? What do you use?
The two brands that I use and I use them
interchangeably is repel or Sawyer. And I like to use
the aerosol. I don't like to use the spray or
like a squirt bottle. You know, I use squirt bottle.
So I just used the aerosol. It's I think it

(58:57):
usually comes and mix it like a half percent. Yeah,
And I'm I'm not here to give any advice, like
there is some you know, promethrone is a poison, so
do all your own due the euligence, like make sure
you do not put it on your Skin's right. It
needs to be put on your clothes and it needs
to be allowed to dry.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, your socks too, up socks.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yeah, And one thing I would just recommend. I know
you guys aren't hunting gaters, but like, I think I'm
faring a little bit better. You and smell have had
a few more on you know, get inside your pants.
Like the gators are hot when it's eighty five, but
I'm like, I'm just avoiding dealing with them up my
pants right now.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
You are, I'll give you that. I can't stand it
when it's this hot and wearing gaters all the time.
But yeah, and I'm definitely picking more ticks off the
inside of my.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
You are you? Oh?

Speaker 3 (59:44):
I got to tick crowl up my boot right now.
I'm telling you we're recording. I know I have one
inside my pants on my leg right now. I'm holding
it with my hands because I'm talking through a microphone
with the other one.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
All right, well, I that No, we're on day two
a day four of our washing the hunt. I appreciate
having you on, John balth and knowledge when it comes
to turkeys and uh, I want to I want to
recognize you do a lot with the veterans, a lot
with the youth. Can't thank you enough for for what
you do for people that want to get out and
experience an awesome Turkey hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
So really by giving back, you know, we have a
good time doing ourselves, but you get to a point
where you just want to get back, and that that's
important for all of us. So take a kid out,
take a veteran out, take somebody out that's never hunted.
Do whatever you gotta do to spread the sport.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
We need everybody out there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks for having Thanks for hunting
with me this week. It's been been a blast. We're
not even close to being done yet, so we're going
to thank If you want to find out more about John,
follow him on Instagram Northwest fur Chasers. The guy spends
a ton of time out in the Turkey woods and
knows this stuff. Thanks Sean and a