Ep. 71: Best of Turkey Hunting Stories

On this week's bonus episode Reid and Dan share some of the best turkey hunting stories from God's Country. Tune in to hear Luke Combs talk about chasing a Tennessee Tom, Dylan Marlowe getting a single season Grand Slam, Neil Thrasher tug heartstrings with his favorite turkey hunting story, and the haunting tale of Rattlesnake Ricky that saved Dan's life when he was on his way to hunt turkeys.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yo, what's up.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
You're off in God's Country with Reed and Dan is Born,
also known as the Brothers Hung, where we take a
weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the
great outdoors, brought to you by Meat Eater and to Covis. Hey,
little special drop for y'all. A Turkey episode. Yeah, man,
you should be excited about it. Got some of your
favorite clips, some of your favorite stories that have happened

(00:22):
on God's Country so far.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
The zoomba pants story, Yeah, it's in there.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
It's real funny.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Dyln Marlow killing turkeys all over the place.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
He got nailed with like a real hardcore you know
story that was pretty nice too. And then we'll sum
it up with Old Rattlesnake.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's kind of become a like a like a legend
of the folklore around God's Country stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
What that story is out of st ricky. It's a
bazillion percent. I can't even describe to you how true
that story is.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
This is gonna pair with a Mediator's Turkey Week. We
got Turkey season coming up real soon. I'm getting excited.
I'm seeing them strutting all over the place, ready hearing
some goblin so y'all check that out. Thanks for thanks
for sticking around and the sticks with us for this
turkey episode.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Thanks for sitting on the roost tree with this, Thanks
for backs against Oaks and watching this podcast fly down
on opening morning.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
But the sunrise behind it.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Checking related.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
The way my property works is it's there's you know,
the Tennessee Hills, and I'm sure a lot of folks
are familiar with that, so may not be, but there's
a lot of mountains is the wrong word, but profoundly
steep steep hills, little mountains, little tiny mountains, and lots
of them. Right, These big pronounced ridges and stuff kind
of set set amongst these, uh these valley floors. Right,

(01:52):
so my property is kind of this one big valley
floor that is kind of sandwiched by these two big, major,
major ridge lines. And so the way that works is,
you know, that kind of funnels these turkeys down into
into this bottom come spring. I just got my first
turkey pictures on my trail cameras this week.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Hadn't seen any. I mean, they disappeared, dude, I don't
know where the hell they go.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
I mean they're gone, and I've got again, I got
running twenty trail cams or something, dude. I mean they're gone,
and then all of a sudden they're there and there's
twenty of them. It's not like there's one here.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Where they mixed up already. Like we're getting pictures of
birds strutting with like.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
I hadn't had any strutting pictures yet.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
But so the way it works, or it seems to work,
at least it worked last year, was that I had
all these birds, four or five toms and you know,
a gaggle of hens, dude. And as the season started,
I started seeing all the toms were on my neighbor's

(02:54):
place and I'm like, well, it's not hunting pressure because
nobody's hunting yet, same season yet, right, So as the
season comes closer and closer, and every morning I would
drive out there they are four or five of them
blowed up in my neighbors spot. I'm like, damn what.
And he's like, this guy's not a hunter. He don't
have any food plots out, he's not doing anything. His
land is not that much different than mine.

Speaker 5 (03:16):
Why are they there?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (03:17):
Right? Well, I realized that I got the guy is
on my place.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah, and he has kicked all these times off onto
my neighbors. He's the guy, the head, the head hauncho
cat is My place is his place, and he's the bird.
And I realized that that was what I began to
piece together. You know, I'm like, well, that's what's going on.
He's bullied all these other times out of my place.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
It's again just a sign. That's a sign of learning of.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
What's going on.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, And there's no way you understand that or know
that until you actually see it going down in front
of you. And that's what was going down, and he's.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Definitely going on.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
So then in my mind, I'm going and another to
your point I think, is I go, Okay, well I've
got to get this bird out of here in order
to have more in order to have more times at
my place, I gotta I gotta shoot this true you
know what I mean, I gotta get I mean, he's
probably you know, he's probably peeking dude, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Years old, whooping everybody down. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
And so my whole Turkey season last year was spent
trying to get this this particular bird.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
That's awesome. The bad way that it was like going
after a mature deer.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, sure, it really felt that way in a lot
of ways. And so I would you know, I had
some friends coming.

Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was. I was decently busy.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
During during turkey season last year, but I did have
a bunch of time to go out in the mornings
and stuff and chase this guy. And I had one
instance where I go, okay, I had a friend of
mine who had never hunted turkeys before and wanted had
never killed a turkey, and wanted to really bad. And
I was like, all right, man, come over. He came

(05:03):
up it with Drew Parker. He came over with Ray
and you know Raisman hunting turkeys forever and me. You know,
me and Ray are close. We've founded a bunch of
turkeys together. So they come over one morning and I said,
here's what's going to happen. I said, We're going to
go out to my yall been to my place? So
where that that creek that run of runs through that

(05:24):
pasture there, we crossed it. And so I had him
gobbling back in this holler back on the right.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Side of box. Collin's like going mouth calling.

Speaker 5 (05:34):
No, we're going out, We're out. I'm doing alocols.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Oh is He roofed in the same area kind of back.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah. But that morning, I was like, I'm hitting the
alcohol and I'm like, I hear him, dude, that's him.
He's back in this I know exactly where he's at,
and he's back deep in this thing.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
And I said, we're going to cross this.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
Creek to get on the right side of the creek
where he is. Pop this hind decoy right in the
middle of this cut cornfield right yep.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Popping in there. Sit down. Then I start, you know,
soft calling with my mouth call, you know.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
And he's hammering, hammering, and he starts just he's hammering.
He's in the trees just a I'm like, I'm gonna
do it like Drew's gonna get his first hurd. It's
gonna happen and stuff. And I was like, Drew, here's
what's gonna happen, dude. He's gonna fly out. And we're
sitting thirty forty yards from the steacoy and I said,
he's gonna land right here, dude, and just blow up

(06:32):
right here, and we're just gonna be awesome, like perfect hunt.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
It just felt like it's perfect. Weather's perfect.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
He's hammering, and I'm so proud of like I've already
in my mind this bird's already on the ground. This
is the first Oh yeah, dude, And I'm just gonna
be like, you know, I'm basically a hunt guy at this. Yeah,
you know what I mean, I'm like super excited about it,
and you know, get my buddies, a good friend of
mine's first turkey and stuff on my place and memory.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Sure, we talked about it all the time, like you're
happier now seeing somebody else get something.

Speaker 5 (07:04):
I feel like I've already reached that.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's a dad thing.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
But anyways, I said, this bird's gonna he's just gonna
soar in man out of this little holler and just
pop right here. And here he comes you see him, sorry, yeah,
off the ridge.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
And then you're just like the is he goes like this,
and he's just goes and just right over our heads
and the lands on the other side of the creek,
Like you are kidding me, You've gotten to be kidding.
And he just stays out there and he's skirting this
tree line and I mean he's seventy yards from us. Okay,

(07:43):
so now I mean obviously we're shooting tss so, but
a guy that's never shot a turkey is gonna shoot
this bird. So I'm like, we have to, like, and
he's just chilling on the tree line behind him, yeah,
doing the thing, doing the thing. And then here comes
three four hens down it's not from the same harbor,

(08:05):
from a different part of my property, and land on him.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
They land on him, not your oh.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Not on not on my hand. They land on him somebody.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
He's the guy, bro, this is the guy.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (08:17):
And so turn around, crawl, we crawl down the end
of the creek, go across, crawl up the bank, and
Drew's there.

Speaker 5 (08:28):
Drew's the only guy.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
That comes up like smart, able to shoot. I'm like,
heyn just tell me what's going on. Like he's like,
he's just not coming any closer. He's not coming any closer.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I said, how much ground of y'all gained on him?

Speaker 5 (08:40):
Is none?

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Hard because he's kind of going he's skirting the tree
line out into the bigger as the field opens up,
he's wanting to get out into the spot.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
You're just kind of watching it go down.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
He kind of in a smaller bottleneck of the field
and then it goes to open up, and I'm like, well,
dream in, I said, just I mean, if you're confident
in the shot, take it. But I was like, it's far,
it can be done. But I also don't want you
to have a bad experience. So if you're not comfortable, don't, like,

(09:12):
don't try to impress me, or we're going to be
more impressed. If you don't shoot this bird because you
don't feel confident in it. Then if you shooting and miss,
or if you feel uncomfortable or wounded or whatever, it.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Is such another like point in the maturity of a hunter.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Many I mean, like most people are like, dude, shoot
that bird.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Try Yeah, And so that day I'm thinking, man like,
if that's me out there, like I'm putting this bird down,
I can put this bird down if that's me by myself,
you know. And but it was so cool, I mean,
it was so cool to get to go with Drew,
and you know, we continued to kind of you know,
try to find another bird whatever, and we heard some
a god will deeper into my place, and so we
try to.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Do that in the same area.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
And it is the you know, if well there was
one deeper he was waiting, he wouldn't have dared them
out into that.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Field, right, Yeah, you're gonna have to find in the woods.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
And that's what there was another one way back, you know,
in the back.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Ain't nobody getting it.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
And I see brock Lesner eating a sandwich. I'm not
gonna try to take it from him, you know what
I'm saying. For sure he's got he's got.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
That's a sandwich.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, Bronck Closer take us hunting in Saskatchewan, I think so.

Speaker 5 (10:20):
I don't know, Bronck Closer never met him. I would
love to.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
He loves this podcast, so we're good.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
I would love to come shoot awesome deer in Saskatchewan too.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, that's kind of like so if you like, maybe.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
If you overway guys and one not overweight guys and
you know, holler at.

Speaker 5 (10:37):
Us for that, that'd be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Matter of fact, anybody that lives in the Sketchwan was
preferably brons, but would settle for any kind of famous
just and we'll ride up there with you.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Not really even if you just got a nice or maybe.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
If you just mega rich and have a lot of land.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Or not, or you just have land, you just have
a lot of land, yeah, we can figure there.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Preferably crop with some bedding kind of on the edge
or anyways, So long story long is we finished this thing.
I appreciate the laugh on that, and we're like, Okay,
it didn't happen. So probably the next two days I
decided to go out and I knew I kind of

(11:23):
figured out where he had been.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Landing.

Speaker 5 (11:26):
Two three days after this kind.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Of continuously once you cross the creek, I have the
other corn on the left there right, Well, he had
been hammering this field. He'd started last yes, yeah, and
so he's been going in this field. So I get
I'm like, I get up, get dressed, Bubba, and get
out there. Try to beat him to the spot and
get out there. And by myself. I get out there,

(11:50):
and I've got my my trustee eight seventy you know,
killed a bunch of birds with and I get out
and it's kind of this hill you got to go
up once you come through the creek before you can
really see what's out in that field. And so as
I start to go up, I just see him and
he's already there on the ground.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
I'm like.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
Out, I'm like, he's here, my commy, he's here.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
And so I'm like, I don't have this really great
cover anywhere. So I kind of just like as he's
you know, he's struck around, and when he gets his
back to me, I just kind of creep back down
and get a little bit closer, and I come up.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Just you and him.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
There's nobody around. It's me and the guy. It's rumbling
the dru the box, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah,
I'm Ali Boo and this cat dogging dude and there's
people behind the chair and move on, you know, And uh,
I got my mouth called me. I taught myself had

(12:51):
to mouth call last year.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Metaphorically we were all cheering in spirit, were we all
knew about this turkey?

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, this is my this is my my Ted talks
on you know. And I taught myself how to mouth
call last year because I'd always that was.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
My biggest gap.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
I feel like that I had to bridge to be
able to to for that moment to happen.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
Was that.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Okay, I love a slate call more than anybody love.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
A box call.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
But you can't do that thing that I was about
to do with either of those things.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
That's a great point.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
You can't if you want to. I'm not saying it
can't be done, but if you need to get that
turkey to take the twenty yards in close.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
To you, you feel like mouth calls away, you have to.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
How old are you going to do it? Because what
are you going to put.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Your call down when he's thirty yards from you and
pick your gun up? What are you going to do?
So it's like you can't sit there and go, Okay,
well he's now he's thirty yards for.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
Me, so let me get my gun up, Like.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
He's not going to run away.

Speaker 7 (13:55):
You have to You have to be silent if you're
doing the calling thing where they're the calin responds to
the thing that everyone wants. Yeah, you gotta do a
mouth call in my opinion, and not that my opinion matters,
but in my mind that was the thing that was
holding me up from.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Ever getting my first solo turkey. I've killed a bunch
of turkeys with you guys with buddies. It's awesome. Yeah,
but like you still want to do that thing by yourself?
Do you want to be able to do it? I
can't teach my kids to do it if I can't
do it by myself. Yeah, And so I got my
mouth call in man, I'm so proud. I spent hours

(14:32):
and hours anytime I was in my truck driving anywhere.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Mouth call on the bus, mouth call driving.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
People coldy Remember when, Yeah, I mean I'd be in
the Yeah, I mean we were.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
In that sub stadium. Somebody took a video of being
Luke on the bus just and uh, Chris Money's over
in the corner.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
He's just he's just like, he's like, this is horrible.
It's like hearing someone practice the violin or something like your.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Kid for years that it was a.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Big jump for you. And I can see how intimidating
it is because you literally haven't been taught how to
blow a mouth call, and you're arguably hunting with like
dudes have been doing it for forever their whole whole life,
and it is a challenging I would say, the thing
about a mouth call is not making the sound. The
challenging thing about a mouth call is knowing when to

(15:22):
make the correct cadence at the volume you need to
make no doubt, it's not.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
Just it's more subtle than it's not going to work.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
If pretty riggy right here is at thirty, you can't
just hammer you got it.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Sometimes it's just when when to call is way more
important on how to call.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
I feel like because I feel like thee the tone
of your call is the least important thing, like making
it the perfect like oh yeah, like that thing that's
the least important in that whole thing. But being in
the woods and hunting enough teaches you how like when
to do.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Not call absolutely absolutely just as important as.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
And when you just go this turkey is he's coming
this way anyway, Well I mess it up. So anyways
I'm there and I get into the position, I feel
like it is going to be the most advantageous for me,
you know. So I'm up man, like I'm working this.
I'm going up, dude, he's working. I'm telling like he's
gonna he's coming, this is gonna happen. And my mouth
calling he's responding, there's no hens. So he's hammering. Dude,

(16:27):
he's obviously ready to roll and he's coming in, and
I'm like, I think in that moment, I'm just kind
of again, I get ahead of myself. One I've never
missed a turkey at this point in my turkey hunting career.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Very proudtat for you, very very proud that he was
not scared to let it be known that he hadn't missed.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
Yeah, for sure, So that's coming into factor. I'm doing
the mouth call thing, and I'm also kind of intoxicated
by that call and response saying that that we're.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
Having at the moment.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
So what happens is ultimately he plays the game exactly
like I want him to, and I think I really
just allowed that to go on too long. So when
I made the shot on him, he was probably ten
yards away, too tight, too tight. So my pell's friend
was just it was still like this, and so he

(17:22):
took off and I was like, you've got to be
kidding me, this bird, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
You call me?

Speaker 3 (17:31):
He faced on me.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Actually, oh yeah. I'm like, what happened? You got him?
You got him? And he was like, bro.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
But it's like that's a lesson that you can't learn
unless it happens to you.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Man.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
People can tell you one hundred times. People can tell
you when you have a kid. Dude, you read a
book and it says when your kids crying, do this,
but until your kids crying, it don't mean.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
And sometimes that don't work.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
Until you get you know, until you get pete on,
you don't learn to keep the diaper over.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Him until the same thing.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
You'll never get pet in the face again if you
if you're doing it the way you're supposed to do
it correctly.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
I remember him flying off and just being like, God,
you are kidding me, dude. I'm like, this bird and me.
I mean, I'm gonna write a kid's book called this
Bird and Me.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
You know.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
But it's like it was just but it honestly, it
felt kind of like So then I went out. I
went out with a with another friend a few weeks
later to try to get the same bird. And it
was like a guy that doesn't even really turkey hunt
and he's just kind of sitting with me, you know,
and stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
And.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
Same deal.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
I get this bird in, man, I get him in
the same field, same field, and he's.

Speaker 5 (18:57):
Hammering, and I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna happen.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
I mean, shot this guy. And he comes in and man,
he hung up at.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, he knew the game.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
He hung up at seventy. Dude, he stayed in that field.
I mean he hung up at seventy.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
I'm sitting there watching him just and I had corn
was kind of starting to starting to kind of you know,
my grass was tall and my corn was starting to
come up just a little bit, so it.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Was just right, and so it's just.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
Enough where he's behind it, and so he's kind of
around his corner and I'm like, god, dang, like i'd
seen him. He's hung up there forever. So we have
and this is another. This is another like this was
a year of lessons for me in the woods, from
deer to turkeys, everything, and it was a year that
I really needed for my own egos. That's probably my

(19:49):
favorite year I have had hunting in the least successful.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Year i've had.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
Okay, come on, man, right, it really was.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yea, so it was.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
And so here's another of the same thing. So bird's
in My buddy's there, and I can see him. He's
coming in the field and my corn's kind of up
and he goes back behind it. And so where he's at,
I'm on the other side of this corner and I
can't see him. He's hammering, calling, hammering, calling, and he
shuts up. He doesn't do anything, and I'm like, shesh,
I'm like, weird, man, He's hanging up.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
He's not here.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Well, then I hear him again and he's way.

Speaker 5 (20:24):
Up on this ridge over here, and I'm like, god damn,
because he hadn't made a sound for about half hour.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
So I'm like, well, he's just slipped off down into
this creek where I can't see him, and he's just
the road that ridge up there up to the top.
And so he's hammering. And then he's back in the
next holler over.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
I can hear him. He's still hammering. He started this
is I mean, we've been sitting there.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
An hour and a half, two hours at this point,
because I'm like, working this bird, How can I get
him to come in here? And he's just back and
forth in this ridge, back and forth in this ridge. Okay,
So eventually I'm like, all right, man, this bird's me. Dude, Look,
I'm not getting this bird. He's one. I mean, this
hen that I am is going to have to come
to him to make it happen. And that ain't happening, right,
So I get up walk over. Dude, guess who's standing

(21:10):
right there in the same spot.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
Wasn't the same bird.

Speaker 5 (21:16):
Just standing in that field for an hour and a half.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Not God, I couldn't.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
I couldn't see him, and I walked around the corner
and he's just like this, and I'm like, I'm.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Just like, it's your kneeds.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
I was just like and it.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Was like, so I just that field and that bird,
and it's just and there. Here's the thing, there's no
way to know if you'll ever get that bird. He
might still be there. He's probably still there. But turkeys
are all but turkeys are also similar. There's no signifying,
you know, he's not like the deer. You can go
what scarface the turkeys, they all kind of a lot.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
Of ways look the same.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
You'll know if there's only if there's only.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
One bird in my place, I don't know. Ye sure
it's still him, But I've.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Got that bird. I've got that same kind. I've got
that same bird. I hunted literally all season long, same
exact thing, roosted on the same ridge, flew off in
the same place every day. And that was the season
for me, Like you said, like probably one of my
favorite turkey seasons I've ever had, because I ended up last.
It was like the last week of season, missed him
at like fifty five yards, watched him fly off, but

(22:34):
I learned more about turkey hunting and how to react
and interact with a Tom during that season. Then you
could read a book and you could watching the show anything.
You just just being out there and getting stumped over it.
I mean, it's just like writing songs. You got to
get in the room and write a bunch of bunch
a bunch of bad songs to get the.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
One that you read that every Tom Kelly book and
if you ain't in the woods, it don't mind her.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
That's as close as it gets. Tom.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
The book is as close as it gets actually doing it.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, but you're right, there is no substitute for doing it. Yeah,
for the Woods education for sure. So me and Luke said,
we're gonna go turning outing two years ago. He calls me,

(23:24):
hey man, come spend the night of the house. We've
gotta be up at five. I was like, cool, fly over,
spend the night, get up the next morning.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
Oh you mean bas I don't know what they call.
It was like a dance class.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
Don't give it, give it, so get over there and
uh kind of similar. It was the end of season,
so we were like, Luke was basically just like, hey man,
let's just try it. Who knows it was like cool,
Get up, go sit on the tree. I had worn
my stuff that I had been I had sprayed up
for methrone down by the way. If anybody's wondering, I

(23:55):
had Rocky Mountain spoted fever twice and it was awful.
I should just crawl through the woods and get ticks
all over me. It happened all the time. But since
I started spraying down with Sawyer's promethrone two days before season,
let it sit outside all my dry I rarely pull
ticks off me legit rarely.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
I'm telling you when I when I, when myself is treated,
I've never had one.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Top.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I don't know that it's a game changer.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Is now. Look, it may give us cancer, but it's
definitely keeping.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
I don't give you rockymounted Spotify. They don't give you
a tick in your beard that gives you rocking amounted
spoti fever, because that's what happened.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
I've never been more mad at you when you smash
that tick in my beard. Anyway, I couldn't find Tweezers.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
I used flyers.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
He was I was like, give me some tweezers to
pull this tick on my beard. I can't do it.
I'm standing there. We used to we had a house,
we had a rent house, and I was like, hey, man,
and I told him this.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I was so, I don't even think it's like needle
le face.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
It was need No.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
I think it was just like regularly. I think it's
like wrench, like a wrench, I mean wrenched it out
of there.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
No flyers.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Oh, so I said, read, there's a tick in my beard. Man,
I need you to not smash this tick. You're gonna
put the tweegers on it, twist at slowly pulling out.
He comes back with a pair of plots and mashes
it into my face. And I'm pretty sure that's the
tick that gave you. If we're being honest.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Which is like just mashing.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
One can't give it to you like it just knowsn't
get on you and you get it. It's got to
be in so like you already had it. It wasn't
me that gave it to you.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well, there's just there's an argument out there that it's
actually the mashing of the tick that's debunked.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
It's it's it's a it's in the it's in there
like saliva or whatever.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
You guys need scientists fact checking right now.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
But here's here's here's about this.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
I like when there's a fact check.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Here's here's a fact right here.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Only you can only get rocky mounted spotted fever from
a tick that has gotten it from a deer.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Like a tick.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
A tick that has been on a deer has to
get on a deer get blood from it.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
We're gonna find how well that's it. Rocking spot fever
is spread by the BT of an infected tick or
by contamination of the skin with tick blood or.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
Feces, so it can be tick blood.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
I don't think that's right.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said. You have
just close enough.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
I listened to a podcast.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
All right, we're inception three stories of deep right now.
So let me just get through this. So Reed gives
me spot of fear because he mashes it with the Plyers.
Two years later, Man the Turkey count and I go
to his house. We get out there, we're on the
tree and all my stuff has been sprayed. Right.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
Stuff is usually spread.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, one was because you just moved. Yeah that's right.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Late season. You usually have to do it like a
couple of sprays.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
He was using stuff that he wasn't using that wasn't sprayed.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
He had moved to the untreated care.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
We're sitting the same tree, same tree. Hand flies in.
Not no goblin, right, I don't think there's any goblin.
It was just really dead.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
It's really two hens flew over us.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Start pretty late, really late. Some are up. It was
just kind of a dead. Yes, Luke pulls his pant
leg up like this, and when he does, there is
like an army of seed ticks.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
It's got to be thirty at least.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
I'm serious, Like I was panicked.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
I started worrying about my future royalty chicks because I
was like, this guy's gonna die. So I started picking
them off. My myf He's swapping them on, like this
guy can't die right now, I gotta have more cuts
on it. Look at that tight.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Cad and the.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Cramping, seriously.

Speaker 5 (27:43):
Problem athlete.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
Start picking ticks off right So I'm like, he's like,
hey man, what do we do? I was like, we're doing.
This is a terrible morning. Let's go. So he we
go back to the house. He immediately goes straight to
the shower. I don't have the ticks on me, so
I just changing mind. Jim shorts, T shirt, flip flops,
cross whatever, bro Let's hit the Let's hit chifil A, sick,

(28:08):
go to Chick fil A, ill of eating breakfast, meet
too almost as I couldn't decide if I wanted't needed
to run anyway. So we're coming back the house from
Chick fil A and low hole behind his barn in
the two track, we see a turkey and he's like, dude,
is that a And I was like, I think so,
I don't know why there's a lone gobbler at the

(28:28):
second week of May or whenever the last season.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
At like ten thirty it.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Was later, and I was like, dude, let's hop in
the ranger and scoot down to this other thing. We'll
put some Bino's on him and we can check him out.
Sure enough, we do that without thinking to get our
calls or our camo will be. I have on like
a black T shirt and some jim shorts. He has
on zubas, which give.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
They were very popular in the eighties, So give us
a on down. What very billowye zebra pajama styles zebra print.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
In Carolina blue right in.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
The colors of your favorite team. So mine were Carolina
Panthers z bas So he.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Has on Zoo Baz pants and some shirt. I don't
know what shirt he had.

Speaker 5 (29:18):
I did have a camera shirt.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
I did have a camera shirt. So we hot. We're like,
I'm like, dude, this.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Is short sleeve, short sleeve cameras.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah in tick tick time, yep it is.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
And I just had forty just had forty minutes before this.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
So there's a dry creek wed that runs parallel to
this field that this turkey is in, and I'm like, hey, man,
it's last. It's it's fourth quarter. I'm gonna be last.
Ton of like, let's just give it a shot. So
he's out there, just not really godflin, just kind of
strutting around every now and then doing the thing. But

(29:53):
all hens were nesting at this point, so.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Ins of what he can to get one out there
though exactly.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
So I'm like, man, I don't know if we can
make this happen. You did have your gun with you,
Thank goodness. I said, let's just try to parallel this
bird on this creek. So get in the bed creep bed,
start walking down through there, and we can't catch up
to him, right like, every time we get twenty yards,
he moves thirty. Every time we get forty yards, he

(30:18):
moves sixty. And he's just making this way northward down
the valley that Luton so eloquently described he lives on.
It was a great job. You did a great job.
And he goes all the way back with trees hedged
around it. So he's making his way north of this valley,
away from the house, away from us. So last ditch effort.
I'm like, oh, oh, portant important point he had. I

(30:39):
didn't have his shoes on. He had on some crocs.
So he's rolling down this creep bed. I am like
every step in my old dad feet, right, yeah, So
he like dusts me like I can't keep up with it.
So he's somewhere north of me. The turkey is somewhere
north of him. I'm struggling to catch up. I only

(31:00):
have socks on them by this time. They're wet. It's
gross everything, it's awful, it's hot everywhere. I was like,
all right, I'm gonna just with my mouth make the
closest thing I can do. A call, not a mouth call,
not a mouth cause I didn't have any calls. I
reached my pocket, and I was like, you gotta be
kidding me.

Speaker 8 (31:16):
I didn't any calls, so I literally just god, yeah,
he gobbles so hard.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Man. It had a little Chick fil had chicken grease
in there, so it's probably yea, yeah, it sound like.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
An old hen.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yep. Yeah. So he he gobbles, and I'm like, now,
as as a hunter, we all know this is not normal.
Product this Normally that bird would have just right. For
some reason, this turkey was so hot he gobbled, and
I was like, this is working.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
But also as a hunter, you know, if you can
get a bird to gobble at you at ten o'clock
in the morning, there's a good chance that bird's gonna.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Come ck, especially if he's within range of a gun.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
And he was so he god was, well, I don't
necessarily know where Luke is because he's somewhere north of
me in this creek, but I know the turkey is
now coming to me. So I'm like, I mean, now
he's he's double on triple Godwin, and I'm like, I

(32:23):
gotta see what's happening, right, So I like poke my
head over this creek and bab mean, when I get
about right here, I can see his full fan Dude,
he's just doing this, just coming to me. And I
was like, man, I hope Luke knows that this is happening.
And I think as an unexperienced owner you would have
you wouldn't have known what to do, But as an

(32:46):
experience hunter, you knew that joker was on a string.
Oh yeah. So as I'm calling, I'm like, man, I
don't know if if this is going to happen. All
of a sudden, I was like, oh, snap shot, and
I jump up and all I can see is him
running through the field and that turkey.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Is flopping out there in the middle of panther. It
was like it was.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Slam wind. And so we're like, I go run, I
have no shoes on, in shorts, run through the field.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
We're like hug turkeys, flyop.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
We took pictures in Zuba's iconic iconic picture and I
was like, hey, man, I was like, listen, I know
we killed this turkey the correct way, like we call
that turkey in Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Everything about it was leg You're in.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Zuba's pants and I have on shorts, Like maybe don't
post it that day. He's like, got my turkey, baby,
like it's just us and the Zuma. He wasn't should
have been proud of it. I shouldn't even have said that.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
It was awesome to great.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
But it was the thing that saved us. Was the
the creek bed man.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Oh, no way we could have done because he couldn't.

Speaker 5 (33:58):
When you get down that creek bed, you can go
along that.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
What is it probably six foot it's probably six foot of.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
That is the perfect case scenario for that scenario, for
that bird being there.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
Anytime there's a turkey that I can see, I'm in
that greek bed.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, because you can move on.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
As I can move up, I can get to them
without you know what I mean. If that wasn't point,
that would be an almost impossible field.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, it would.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Let's get into turkey hunts since y'all or we're dying
to talk about it. Twenty twenty one, you're going you're
on tour and you did a single season Slam. Yeah,
let's get into album the first one where it was
and then your track to the.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
To the last one.

Speaker 6 (34:44):
I started in Florida. Uh, I did the Oscilla. I
was in a mocholely and I was I had it
in my head. I was gonna go hunt this place
called Big Cypress, which is like this insane WMA that's
like hard as hell to hunt, like you have to
be like I think that the week opening weekend i went,
there was like probably three thousand hunters out there.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
Oh my god.

Speaker 6 (35:06):
I mean that it's like it's like a giant It's
like a hundred something thousand acre And there was like
twenty turkeys killed.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
And their season opens the first of March. Yeah, first,
first one and uh so they killed yeah three.

Speaker 6 (35:23):
Numbers could be off a little bit, but it was
something of that.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, is it is it tough hunting or is there
just not birds there?

Speaker 6 (35:30):
Like like walking it's all swamped, so you feel like
I'm walking in like you know, this deep of water.
There could be a gator, a freaking I mean you're
south south south yeah yeah, so like could be yeah,
and I'm just like by myself twenty miles back in
this thing. Like it was tough. So I hunted that

(35:52):
for like four or five days. I saw one hen
and then an you hear to go no, no, and
uh so.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
What's your playing like you have a show on Saturday Friday.

Speaker 6 (36:02):
Well, this one actually was before I was on tour.
I think when I did this it was I think
it was the year, like we had tours lined up
right after Turkey season, and I was like, I know,
if I'm going to get to do this Grand Slam
probably in the next five years, this year is the
year to do it. And so we did that and
I called Dallas. I was like, you know anybody, and

(36:23):
Mochley like I'm trying to kill like I really need
to kill this. Mockaley is like a city down there.
It's like right under Fort Myers.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
It's like a city named Monchayley. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:35):
Yeah, So that I called Dallas and Dallas calls me.
He's like, let me make a phone call, and he
calls me back by those guys in five minutes later,
he goes Happy Birthday and I was like, what he's
like be at this address at six am. He said,
call Michael Wadeo and got you on something. I said,
all right, so I appreciate you. Six am. This dude
takes me to his like private like his ranch, I guess.

(36:57):
And there was so many turkeys and we called one
in shot one And if I had planned better, I
might or if I'd have done some more like mobile scouting.
Maybe I could have killed one at that, but I
watched a h the hunt public. They posted a video
going down there and it took them like eight days
to kill one in that same w may that which

(37:19):
made me feel good about myself. And then after that
I went up to Georgia and shot one. This was
actually crazy. Ill I got out of the truck. I'd
been hunting for like three days in Georgia. I got
out of the truck and I was walking in the woods,
like you know, you can go into like two PM
and get just a random if you get one of
goblet two.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
No doubt, absolutely that ten to two windows.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (37:41):
And I walked in and I heard like I was
just walking like brushing by these leaves like a field edge.
So you got a field and like thick woods yea.
And I brushed this thing beside me, a turkey gobble
twenty yards in the woods.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
At you brushing something at me?

Speaker 6 (37:57):
Ran out into the field. I laid down on my
back and shot it, and I was like, yeah, well,
like I just laid down flat on my back because
I heard something rustling out and I just kind of
like fell down. So that was my Georgia bird was
super lucky. I ended up killing one. I ended up
killing one in Tennessee too, because I was like, I
think I need to like put a little more work

(38:18):
in every one. So I ended up killing one of Nashville,
Florida at your East Eastern And then I went to
Wyoming and shot my Marriam.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
That was that was the picture with the bus right.

Speaker 6 (38:31):
No, that was the next year. That was that was
kind of sick and uh so I shot that one
that was pretty easier, just it was kind of just
like get in front of him out west and uh
then I shot my Rio, which was the hardest one,
and I shot that in Kansas. We went. I flew

(38:52):
to Kansas hunter for three days on like me and
somebodies went to public and it was late seasons and
they were just like my buddy shot one and I
couldn't get on one. And it's weird too, like when
you don't have your own truck, like when you're with
three other dudes. And I didn't know him that well,
but I just knew they were going and so I

(39:12):
couldn't really like do my do what I wanted to do.
I was just kind of with them the crowd. Yeah,
so then I flew back to Nashville and then I
was like last it was the last week there, and
I was like, I'm not like I got to kill this.
So me and Joe Fox drove out.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
You didn't kill in Kansas when you went, so you've
got all three except this one.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Last week it Turkey the real.

Speaker 6 (39:33):
So I come back to Nashville and then I drove
back to Kansas the next week, which was the last
week of the season, and UH hunted for like three
or four days on a bunch of public and that
every time you just drove by one on the road,
they ran because they were so skittish by this point.
And Uh, I actually posted on Instagram because I was like,
if I got some following on there, I'll hit some

(39:54):
people up. And so Kent and Bryant he knew it.
Dude in West Kansas. And I called the dude and
it was two and a half hours away from where
I was, and he was like, dude, I'm tagged out.
He runs like a little guy thing like not like
a guid's service, but he guides his buddies and they
pay him. Like he was like, dude, just come out

(40:14):
here on my farm and hunt. He said, I have
this massive turkey that I've been trying to kill for
three years that I haven't been able to kill. He's
like five or six. He's gonna die this year in
the offseason. There's no way. He makes it like, come
kill him.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
I can't.

Speaker 6 (40:29):
I'm out of taxs. I was like, hey, yes, im
me and Joe drive two and a half hours there,
and uh we sit like I wish, I wish I
had like a picture to show off, because this is
like insane. But if you can imagine like a dirt
road coming like this and then veer into the right
and on the right side of the dirt rods this
little cow pasture like cow like muddy dirt pit with

(40:50):
a little cow barn. Ye, the other side of the
road is woods, this dirt rope. And the guy told
me And in Kansas they come out of nowhere because
they walk those planes like they'll walk in the plane
during the day, like miles and miles of miles, and
so like, I.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Was like, there's no way there's a turkey right here.

Speaker 6 (41:06):
There's one patch of woods like we would have seen
them coming in. But we start sitting down and start
seeing this turkeys piling, piling, piling, And we sat down
at two.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
So this is like afternoon.

Speaker 6 (41:20):
Ye yeah, Like we sat down like one or two
and just waited all day. And then at like three
or four, we start hearing them gobling this little cowpit.
I'm like, no, crap. So they start.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Gobbling and this is the last day.

Speaker 6 (41:34):
No sorry, this is Saturday, Sunday is the last day.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Pressure.

Speaker 6 (41:40):
Yeah, the pressure's on. And I'm like, I've hunted so
hard for this freaking rio. I was like, I think
that Georgia Burr was so easy that it's like paying
you back. Yeah, And so I start calling, and the
where I'm at, like if you can imagine, like this point,
there's woods like this, the turkeys can cross the road
and come this road or go this little road on

(42:00):
the private property, not like a dirt road, but just
like a path or this path. And so we're calling
on this path and they crossed the road, and I
guess they went this way because we were like, man,
we've been here and we know they should have crossed
the road by now.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
And so at this point are they in the woods?
Are they still in there?

Speaker 6 (42:16):
They've crossed the road and they're in the woods. That's
where we are. But I got like, I wish I
could like show you off. So like if you can
imagine where my road starts. When they cross the road
to me, there's just like triangle and it's a triangle
like this, and it stops like this, and behind that
triangle is the river way back there five hundred yards.
That's where they're going to there, So they're going to

(42:37):
get through my triangle. They're gonna walk through this big
open field like that's huge back to the And I
was like, Joe, I'm gonna just I'm on this end.
I'm gonna stand up, and I'm gonna walk around this
way and just see if they're walking that way. And
so I picked the d koep out of the ground
and I got it and I got my gun, and
I'm walking around this way and I just see like

(42:58):
a giant redhead like a yards in front of me.
And and thankfully, like if it was early season, none
of this brush would have been there, but it's.

Speaker 9 (43:06):
All grown up.

Speaker 6 (43:07):
And I saw it and I was like crap, and
I just kind of dropped down in the ground and
I had the decoy. I had this decoy with me,
and I just it was. It wasn't like a strutter
decoy or anything. It was a it was like a
half struck little Jake decoy or like a half.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Like the half shill decoys where.

Speaker 6 (43:25):
Its tails down. Yeah yeah, And so I it's like
this big and I'm just like hiding behind it, and
this turkey, this dude has been hunting man worked for
me for four or five years, comes hollering at me,
just running like he's about the fist. He gets like
five ft away from me, and I smoke him. Really,

(43:45):
he's got like three beards on him. His spurs are
insanely big.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (43:51):
I'm still waiting to get him back mounted because I
have like the three things and then he'll go on
like a pedestal in the middle of But it was
a grind for sure, wasn't he The last laspar wasn't
pain in the butt?

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Yeah, but that makes the whole thing it was worth yeah,
worth it.

Speaker 6 (44:04):
And then Joe ended up killing one off that property
the next day.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
So a single season slam man.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
That's you can't do that with kids, Like, you can't
do that with young kids like you were in the
perfect scenario.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
We're married.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, like like, yeah, that's that's that's the twenties.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
I mean you were how old are you?

Speaker 6 (44:19):
I'm twenty six now, it's probably twenty three.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
I mean that's the time that we were doing the
same thing.

Speaker 6 (44:23):
I knew that too. I even told you. I was like,
this is probably my last year for a while. If
my career gets busy, like I wanted to that, I'll
be able to do this for sure.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
We've heard if you've listened to the if you listen
to the Brothers Hunt podcast, you've heard this story.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Oh I told it on there.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Oh dude, this is a great story.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
But but for our new listeners, man.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
This is this is one million percent true. And I
just co write this story with me because it's been
ten years at this point. Probably so helped me get
through it. But the abbreviated version is me and Randy
were going hunting. We were going turkey hunting, and on
the way to the camp, we stopped by a gas station.
I don't care to even say where it was. It

(45:02):
was on the corner of the main intersection in Columbia
where you take that right on those coordinates, Ruanella, Yeah,
they got great gas station, chicken. I'll tell you to
drop you a pen. I will share those where the
best gas station chicken strips are anyway, you know what
I'm talking about, right there on the left or that shell. Yeah,
all right, we go in there. We walk in the

(45:25):
entire way down sixty five. We had been talking about
rattlesnakes and getting bitten by rattlesnakes. I don't know why.
We were just yeah, right, we were talking about it,
turkey out. It was on our brain. So we pull
up into this gas station. We get out, I'm like, hey, man,
a couple of chicken strips. This place is awesome. Let's
knock it out. You know. We walk in, we go in.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
There is this chicken strip at like four thirty in
the morning.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
It was not before.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
It was night before. That's right, chicken strips.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
It was like, so we roll in there and we
can't even make this up. Du I can't. This story
is so crazy. It doesn't sound real, but I promise
this is real. We walk in and straight out of
nineteen eighty five is a guy behind the counter with
feathered blonde Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Hair, what is feathered?

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Me?

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Like blonde?

Speaker 10 (46:21):
It was like it was like flat iron straight but fixed.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (46:27):
He just looked like the guy that was in a
kind of a white He was kind of ripped. Was
he was a white It looked like he was in
a white Snake video.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
White Snake with snake Rattle and even.

Speaker 9 (46:35):
Super Tan Switch think about it.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
It was April.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
How was that guy?

Speaker 3 (46:41):
I still think he was an angel or me to
mit could have been either angel or ghosts.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
I can't make this up, dude.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
I can't make this up, dude. He had an ear
ring that looks beautiful, just a diamond ear ring. Maybe two,
I don't know, but definitely one. One. No, it was one.
It was just one.

Speaker 9 (47:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
And so we walked in and uh, this noticeably I
guess we were in Camo or something. He recognized we
were are going hunting. Yeah, he had a a skin graft.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, he was like ripped and I remember, but.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
There was a giant like the entire top of his
arm was grafted, obviously not regularly born with skin so
much so you can see like hiss ten ins and stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah, something went down.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
We walk up to the thing to pay for our strips.
The guy goes, we don't see anything. He goes, you
boys going hunting. We were like, oh, well, we're headed
to camp tonight, you know, and he goes, watch out
for them rattlesnakes. Didn't he we had just been talking
about for an hour. Yeah, he goes watch out for
them rattle snakes, and me and Randy look at each
other like, wow, what happened. I'll give it to you.

(47:54):
You take this bar the story. How did he tell us?
It's just a lot of my line.

Speaker 5 (47:57):
Well, he was just like, yeah, he started telling us
his back.

Speaker 9 (47:59):
I was seventeen years old.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
He just thought I was bulletproof.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
And he says, I picked up.

Speaker 11 (48:03):
He goes, there was one, you know, on the ground
or whatever. Somebody dared me to pick him up, he says,
So he picks it up, and he just like and
then he points at that big skin graft up his
arm and he goes, and that's what happens. That venom
runs up yarm, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Like it's something he's telling us this, and we're just like,
no way, this is.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
After we've just been talking about just looking at this.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
We're just staring at this.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Ten Angel Slash ghosts.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Out of a nineteen eighties music video, The Venom Runs
Beyond Bull. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (48:31):
Yeah, but it was real nice about it SERI sweet.
So just didn't fit. It just didn't fit. It's we're like,
that's weird. Hit the truck, drive to Western Cee, spend
the night, get up the next morning. It was that
bird that lived on top of that hill.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Oh yeah, about five years.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Five years, so me and Randy getting there super early.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Probably that bird had probably we put him to bed
twenty seven.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
We put him in bed.

Speaker 10 (48:57):
Yeah, we put him in to bed, okay, and then
from the bottom and then we're like, we'll walk the
ridge in the morning.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Call this bird up. Bird stays at what eighty not
shooting range.

Speaker 11 (49:09):
Oh, I've never seen a bird hit the ground in
like less daylight than that bird did.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
And it was super early, super early. He's fanning, strutting,
I mean, gobbling everything you want him to do, will
not hadn't even been haunted that year. I think that
was early. And so we sit there and toy with
his bird for hours until we're like, dude, that he
ain't coming. Let's go get on another one. We turn,
we get up. We're walking back up the ridge to

(49:35):
the truck and I see Randy pick his right foot
up to go to step over a log and ask
the morning after we see rattlesnake Ricky. The morning after
we meet that, he raises his leg, goes there he is,
or he goes there she is? And I said what
he was like? He puts his foot back down. I

(49:55):
stepped over and cold up is the biggest peace? Yeah,
probably four and a half five foot, you know, not
super long. But I'm telling you, like a Louisville slutter due.
It was this big and and the craziest thing about rats.
And this was the thing I always I tell this
when I tell the story, I always think about this.

(50:17):
Every snake I've ever ran up on copperhead, any of
that stuff. During both season or whatever, We'll see you
and kind of dip. This rattlesnake like literally looks up
at us and it's like square up.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, what do you go about the problem?

Speaker 3 (50:29):
What we're gonna do? Man? How are we gonna do?
I'm moving, y'all have the thing in these woods and
I have been for thousands of years? What's up? How
are we going to handle this?

Speaker 5 (50:40):
So true man?

Speaker 3 (50:41):
And the jaw. I just remember, did.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
You immediately think of rat snake Ricky when you saw it?
You're so much so.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
That when we came back through. We were like, dude,
we gotta stop in there. Never seen him again. It
wasn't working there. He didn't work there. Weeks after he
has never been seen again. If that guy listened to
this podcast, hit us up, dude, because I would like to.

Speaker 13 (51:00):
See you as a kid running by my window when
I was growing up.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Bro rattlesnake Ricky.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
What that kid?

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Ricky?

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Though? You said, Michael Olads, Oh man, that's.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
A true story.

Speaker 13 (51:14):
When when you have a gobbler goblin or two or
three or four and they're just over a ridge and
you can't see them, but they're right there and you
can hear them spitting the drumming. That is a different
kind of heartbeat. That's a different kind of adrenaline. And
all turkey hunters know exactly what I'm talking about. And
it doesn't matter where it is Tennessee, Missouri, Turkey.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
It's just hot goblin in front of you.

Speaker 9 (51:40):
It doesn't matter where it is.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Can you walk us through one of your favorite turkey hunts.
I'd just like to hear turkey hunting for a set.
I haven't I haven't even broke the seal on this.

Speaker 13 (51:47):
And I've got so many I have no earthly idea
one that it's just special.

Speaker 9 (51:53):
Turkey hunt, special turkey hunt.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
It could be anything, could be anywhere with anybody, could
be your by yourself. I always think about the one
I killed on public over here on the lake. That
was you killed one on public ground.

Speaker 9 (52:05):
That's always a good one.

Speaker 13 (52:06):
I killed a turkey where I used to live in
Leapers Fork. I had fourteen acres out there, and I
had one gobbler that would hammer across the black top
road from my ridge every day. And I knew he
was old because it was real high pitch, and I
just knew he was a new one of jake. And
because I've heard enough old old gowblers gobbled where you

(52:27):
think it's a jake and it's not a ja winds
up not being a Jacin's super old bird. But anyway,
this bird was over there and he would do it
like and it got to the point where I thought
he was teasing me, because I'd go on my ridge
and I'd shoot, you know, a handful of two year
olds of what from year after year or whatever, and
some decent birds, but that one bird, you could always
tell it was him by the way he gobbled.

Speaker 9 (52:47):
And I never could get him to come in. And
then I don't hunt May much because it gets so hot.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Yeah, snakes and spiders.

Speaker 13 (52:55):
And one morning it was it was one of those
tick hot mornings, and it was like and I heard
him over a goblin and it was in May and
said towards the end of the season.

Speaker 9 (53:04):
At the time, in the morning, and I don't even remember.
It wasn't it wasn't early, and it wasn't late.

Speaker 13 (53:09):
He was just he was just over there, just you know,
you know how they do after they're just walking circles
on the ridgetop, just.

Speaker 9 (53:17):
You know, for no reason.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
There's nothing.

Speaker 9 (53:18):
They don't have any hens with them.

Speaker 13 (53:20):
Everybody's bred out. But he's still over there, just hammering it,
getting what he can get. Yeah, So I said, whatever,
I'm gonna go up there. And you gotta climb a
steep hill to get up there. So I go up there,
and I'm across a blacktop from him, and we're two ridges.
He's a ridge over here, and there's a big there's
a black top it runs between us, and he's got
to go. If he ever came over, you have to
walk across the field, go across the black top. So

(53:43):
I go up there, and I just I went up
there and I said, I'm not just gonna regularly yelp
at him. I'm gonna I'm going to strike the band
up here, because I remember hearing Toxi hays it one
time when I was hunting with him. He got so
aggressive one time on one bird, and I never forgot it,
and I was like, I mean, the hat comes off,
he's got two push pullers in meach hand, he's got

(54:04):
his mouth CAUs and it sounds like there's one hundred
turkeys trying to kill.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
What you just did with your voice is kind of crazy.

Speaker 9 (54:10):
He just that's what you did.

Speaker 13 (54:11):
Yeah, that sounds like a well when you put a
when you put a mouth call in, you go.

Speaker 9 (54:16):
And you do all that's good, and you've got all.

Speaker 13 (54:18):
This going on in your hands, and you're and you
take a hat off your shop and you start breaking stuff,
breaks and stuff limbs, anything. You make as much noise
as you get. It sounds like one hundred turkeys trying
to kill each other. That's what I pulled out on.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
This joke.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Struck a nerve somewhere.

Speaker 9 (54:34):
And in ten minutes. It took him a minute to decide.
But he frick.

Speaker 13 (54:39):
And when I say ten minutes, ten minutes, it's a
short spirit. That's how far away this bird was from me.
He come down off that hill and he stopped goblin.
And I knew when he quit goblining, when he got
down to the bottom of his ridge, when he stopped,
he's coming.

Speaker 9 (54:53):
I knew it.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
I just knew it.

Speaker 9 (54:55):
Could you see the shut I shut up.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Could you see the bike?

Speaker 13 (54:58):
Now, it was a little thick, but I was on
top of the and it's so steep, but I was like, oh, frick,
he quick gobbling, he's coming.

Speaker 9 (55:05):
I know he is. And next time, next time I
heard him.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
He was right. That's awesome.

Speaker 13 (55:10):
He was right there about fifty yards from me, and
I'm like, oh, this is going to happen.

Speaker 9 (55:15):
I shot this bird, went over to him.

Speaker 13 (55:18):
He had his left leg, he had one spur that
grew out and grew back into his left leg.

Speaker 9 (55:23):
He had no spur on his right leg. It was all.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
It was just gone.

Speaker 9 (55:26):
It was like an old buck.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (55:28):
And he had this old, mangy looking beard that come
down And I never forgot that. That was probably the
most satisfying that I killed an old monarch like that.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah. Man, for sure, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
And he gets me fired up.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Just thinking about all the hunts I've ever had in
my life.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Turkey season special, that that first that opening weekend, first
morning in the woods and you've got birds gobbling around
and you're sitting on a back against a white oak.

Speaker 11 (55:55):
Man.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
They that that opening day moment is special.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Yes, that's something.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
And I think as we get older, like I kind
of fell out of love with turkey hunting for a
minute when I was getting into deer hunting so much.
But as I get older and love deer hunting more,
I find myself loving turkey hunting more just for what
it is.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Like my my one day is is sitting you know.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
In a tree standing Kansas, waiting for you know, rattling,
trying in the middle of November, trying to rattle in
a deer.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
But I appreciate turkey hunting and what it gives me
in the spring, you know, just.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Also kind of our social outlet hunt, right, like we
don't I mean, we deer hunt like crazy, but it's
kind of a solitary thing, like we don't hunt with
a lot of people, you know, deer hunting, and then
with turkey hunt man it's just like me and you,
or me and dad, or.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Running gun, just kind of trying to figure it out.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Talking. I think back to my one of my favorite
hunts was that we walked, We slept in can for
got up, walked all the way over to the new
least and you shot that bird in the in the rain,
and we had to walk back and started raining on
that rich The sun came out right, it was sun
and we were walking through all this like timber that

(57:04):
had been select cut and it's rain. It was raining
while the sun was out, and Reid had a turkey
on his back and there was nowhere to get out
of the rain. It was just soaking us and the
sun was out. And I remember walking across that oat
flat and you couldn't wipe the smart smile off my face.
It was just like it almost felt movie esque, you
know what I mean, Like you were it just felt
like you were in a freaking movie, man. And that's

(57:25):
the that's the thing for turkey hunting, that like you're
not gonna get that in deer hunting. If it's raining
on you in deer season, You're like, I gotta get
out of that ship.

Speaker 13 (57:32):
It's freezing because that God with anything, the goble thunder,
that thunder goblin.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
It's fun too, all right.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
We could do this all day