May 4, 2021 • 53 mins
Follow along as Phil the Engineer heads out on his first turkey hunt.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Clean your Gun Jr. Bow Where the Uncollective show Colin
Hunters new and all uncollective show with thanks or fancs
and opinions are subjective. You're listening to the Collecting. Everybody,
(00:29):
Welcome to the pen ultimate episode of The Hunting Collective.
I am as always been O'Brien and I'm joined in
studio by Phil t engineer Phil. How are you, sir?
Everybody knows that the pen ultimate episode is usually one
of the best of a TV show, like a series
(00:50):
or a season. Um, we'll see if that's the case here,
you'd never know. It could be the second the best
episode ever of this program right out. So strap in.
I don't know if you're in a place where there's
any straps around, but get one and strap yourself to
wherever you're sitting. I don't know, you know, don't move
and lock in because you're about to get You're about
(01:13):
to get regaled with one of light like one of
the nation's most riveting coming of age tales, and that
is the tale of Filthy Engineers First Turkey Hunt. It's
gonna be I will say this, and I say much
about what happens, other than to say it's a two parter.
There are two parts. This is of course the first
(01:35):
of two parts, and we will reveal at some point
along the way whether Phil killed a turkey or not.
But more importantly than that, a few days back, I
shared a photo of Phil the Engineer on Instagram and
Facebook where he was holding his turkey target. Now we'll
(01:58):
get to what happened. How that turkey. It came to
be full of tiny little holes. But Phil, the reaction
was broad and it was interesting. People, you're a hero,
you are an inspiration. People love you. Hundreds of comments
(02:20):
poured in from across the world. They the globe. People
love it. Man greatest, somebody's the greatest character arc of
all time. Phil is way less of a nerd than
I originally anticipated. Still stoked on him, though, hashtag legend.
I've never I've never wanted someone I've never meant to
(02:43):
shoot a turkey more than I want Phil to shoot
a turkey. Good luck. Don't forget the t P Phil,
just in case. It's a good poop callback. Yeah, it
really is. It's a good it's a good call back
to the show. A lot of good lucks, a lot
of yeah boys, a lot of people talking about how
you looked. Ah, what do you think about hundreds of
(03:07):
people commenting on your looks as opposed to your voice
because we did the voice face contest back in the infancy. Yeah,
of th HC. I totally understand the fascination because I've
had the same experience. Yeah. Yeah, you you listen to
a radio show or a podcast, and you haven't You
just build up an image of somebody in your head
and then you actually see them, and it's usually disappointing.
(03:28):
It's This guy says, Phil looks like Steve and Yanni
are his dad's. That was a good one, and I
see it. I kind of see it. Phil looks a
lot less nerdy than I imagine. That's a compliment. I
imagine Phil is some nerdy early thirties chubby ginger with
a beard. Do you think about that? I mean, I'm
(03:49):
I'm offended for chubby gingers everywhere on their behalf. Yeah,
I mean, nothing wrong with the chubby ginger support for
those folks. So there there's a lot of people. Uh.
This guy says, this is the first picture I've ever
seen of Phil. Phil is not the character I drow
up in my head. Well, people actually drew you up,
and I don't think you look like what they drew
(04:10):
the whole point of it. My favorite comment um was
something along the lines of Phil looks less masculine than
he sounds, and he doesn't sound very masculine. This guy said,
I'll take it. He is like a small infant child,
sweet boy. I hope he has fun in his first
first time out. So thanks for all those comments. Yeah,
(04:32):
I I could go on because there is hundreds of them.
People from across the country sent us d m s.
They sent us emails to t ac the meter to
have wasting you well and hoping that you would get
a turkey. So this is by far other than I
don't know. I think this is by far the biggest
thing we've done as a podcast, and that that it's
(04:53):
the last thing we'll ever do, so why not be
the biggest. People are into it, Phil, People they want it.
Can you feel the pressure? I can feel it, but
it's surprisingly not weighing on me as much as I
thought I would. Know you were pretty I'm kind of
brushing it off. Excuse me, I'm kind of brushing it off,
But I don't mean that. I don't mean that I'm
(05:14):
brushing off the compliments as well. I hear all the
compliments and it's it's I want to thank you, yeah, um,
because I I am. I am glad you're invested in
my in my in my arc, in your character, but
the greatest character arc of all time, which is essentially
just hey, Phil, have you ever gone hunting? Nope, We're
gonna take you hunting. And that was the ark. But
people love it. Yeah, well that's it. If you stretch
(05:36):
any small storyline now for two years, it seems like
an epic tale. Exactly where we are now. We got
a message from our friend Eric Hall. He had something
to say to say something or signing of failt Engineering
on Facebook that what's not a big siding? Yes, very rare,
(06:00):
you don't see it often. His numbers going up. So
looking forward to Field Turkey Hunt, the last two shows
coming up. There kind of a build up to feel
a Turkey Hunt being the last show. Yeah, that's it,
(06:22):
He's right, The man is right, Yes, siting a filthy
engineer like the big Foot, the lore of old Maybe
you'll will once are the show is over. Your your
legend will continue and people will continue to see you
in places where you don't exist or maybe I will
just retreat to the woods. Yeah, and a lot of
check exactly, grow a beard, yeah, grow skip pop, we
(06:44):
stashould come back. So let's let's lay out, Phil, what
we're gonna do here. Uh, we have it. This is
a lot of work to tell this story. And again,
as we mentioned, quite the build up. So we're going
to tell the story and its totality. We're going to
lean into a linear tale of one man and another
(07:06):
man and a truck in the Turkey hun and yeah, okay,
I was gonna say, like in some decoy and some
decoys we could just list there in your truck, a
cup of coffee. We're gonna lean into. We're gonna tell
you the whole story, and we're just on a little
bit different Phil and I have decided that we're going
to play our audio and and and do some color
(07:28):
commentary of what was happening at the time was happening. Yeah,
we're gonna do some live commentary with some probably minimal
editing from me. I'm gonna I'm talking about I'm thinking
about future me right now, several hours from now when
I sit down edit this podcast. I don't know, I
don't think I'm gonna do a lot of editing. We're
just gonna do it kind of on the fly here, yep.
And if you don't like it, cancel us, get rid
(07:52):
of us. It doesn't matter. We do whatever we want.
At this point, we get the worst thing could happen
has already happened. And so we're pretty much flying by
the seat of our paints that we're weren't already before.
As I've been saying, what kind of building a roller
coaster while we're riding it? So this is this, this
is Phil's first hunt hashtag if you're going to post
(08:13):
about this online hashtag Phil's first bird, okay? Is that
it was that the final hashtag on landed on Phil's
first bird? Okay? Because I think you've gone through several
of this. Have you seen the video that I took
a slow a video of you jumping over Yes, I
saw it before I came over here today. What do
you do you have any of ficial comments about it?
I look fantastic. I mean a lot of people, a
lot of people love it, dude, A lot of people
(08:35):
are into it. Do you want to tell us a
little bit about your strategy while jumping over this My
first strategy was watching you so I can learn from
your mistakes. And you you shorted it barely. I put
a foot in the wall. Yeah, there was a foot
in the water. If if, if you guys aren't haven't
seen you gotta go to my Instagram. But any of
B three or when I took a slow mo video
of Phil leaping majestically in his new shnays boots, which
(08:58):
we'll get to, yes, over this ditch that had filled
with some runoff, so it's full of water, and at
first Phil didn't know if he could make it over
the dish, and I said, well, let me jump over
first and then film you in slow moo for posting
online later. So that's what we did, and it is
it's pretty majestic, uh people. One guy said, it's like
(09:20):
watching poetry. Such grace. I can't disagree. How are your
a c L s feeling? Somebody wants to know My
legs feel great to show you how how not in
shape I am? I think I actually overextended my arm, somebody.
My arm was sore for like a half hour after
I made that jump. Somehow, don't know how, but that's
how my body works, all right. Well, All the highlights
(09:42):
from the hunt are going to be on my Instagram
as you listen to this, they'll be there video B
three oh one on Instagram, So you could see some
of the visual highlights. But we have the audio highlights
of this hunt. And let me just tell you a
lot of stuff happened. A lot of things have happened,
and we're gonna lay them out over the next two episodes,
the final two episodes th HC. And I can't wait
(10:06):
for you to see how it ends. Okay, Phil, you're
ready to go, let's do it. Here we go. Now
play some sort of awesome intro music right here. I
believe in the Turkey and uh so we struck out.
(10:35):
First thing we had to do was we had to
strike out too what we'll call site in the shotgun,
to pattern this shotgun. The weather be eighteen I that
we had selected fulfilled for his first hunt. We went
out to some local public land to site in this shotgun. Now,
what happened on the way there is I think emblematic
of this entire story. We didn't really get this on
(10:57):
video or audio, but we're driving up a gravel road
to this kind of what we'll call a public land
shooting range close to to to my domicile here, and
we're driving past a set of homes and there's kind
of a rancher style home tucked in this little you know,
(11:19):
the bosom of this litwer ridge. And in the yard
is many things. Many things are there, rusty farm implements.
There was chickens, a few chickens. It was not unlike
some some places a hobbit would live. It was like
tucked into a hillside, it really was, with a bunch
(11:39):
of just animals and random stuff scattered, gentle smoke coming
from the chimney um. And there in the yard was
a turkey. First first first turkey sighting as a as
a part of Phil's first hunt hashtag hashtag Phills first bird.
The first turkey we saw was really emblematic of the
(12:06):
rest of our journey. Let me try to describe this
turkey to you, Phil, and you help me out here
if I'm getting this wrong. This turkey. First picture some
sort of goblin from the depths of Hades, and then
a turkey, and then mix those two things together and
that's what you get. This turkey could barely walk. It
(12:28):
had maybe six or seven of its tail feathers. It
could barely. It was. It was shaking uncontrollably. Its head
was like the size of a cantalope. And it was
just kind of like wandering around this yard like a
zombie were somehow, but somehow it was. But it was
(12:51):
walking like it could barely. Yes, if I had just
punted it in the cloaka, it looked like it just
it was in massive amounts of pain. It had like
gyrating wing feathers, like a palsy of some kind. I'd
like to think this turkey has had seen better days
earlier in its life. I hope so. I hope it did,
(13:12):
because it was. It was infirmed in a way that
I've never seen any any wildly creature in my life,
but we it was. It was. It was almost like
a sign that this was going to be weird. But
this tale, this coming of age tail, was just gonna
be strange, and there's not a whole lot we can
(13:33):
do about it. I've never seen a turkey like that.
I got out my call, I hit the diagram a
few times, and it let out this sad, dust filled
gobble that could only be described as depressing. You could
barely hear it and it was only ten yards away
(13:54):
from the truck. So wherever that turkey is today, and
it's probably right under that same tree he was. It
is now the mascot for this whole two episode run.
Sad as a mascot though it maybe you know, r
I p that turkey because it's gonna die soon. I
(14:16):
mean it's probably from natural causes or unnatural causes. I
was looking around for like a power plant, a nuclear
power plant, share like some some neon news was coming
out of a pipe, and it was the turkey was
eating it. There's this thing wearing an eye patch, like
hasn't been shanked by one of these other turkeys. I'll
(14:36):
never forget it as long as when I closed my
eyes just now I can see it. I can see
its face staring into my face. Um. Anyway, that's a
I don't even think it had a beard. It was
just it was a grotesque. It was just grotesque. So
right into THHC at the Mediator dot com and name
(14:57):
that turkey Skippy mc no beard, whatever you want to
name that turkey, but he will be the mascot for
the rest. We'll go back and give video because here
he couldn't go far like physically he couldn't. He's there,
he's got to think he roos in it. He can't
fly up in a tree. He just lays down on
the ground when he goes to sleep, just lays on
(15:20):
the ground. Sayway, that's that's kind of my first and
most searing memory from our journey, Phil, Yeah, was that
we uh it was an omen an omen from the
Turkey gods to watch the funk out. She was about
to get western, Okay, and what happened after that it
was completely unbelievable. No one would believe it, but you're
(15:44):
about to hear it. So we moved past this mutant
Turkey and shocked in all you know, kind of twitter
painted a little bit, and I we move up to
the shooting range. And the shooting range portion of this
certainly was all about education, right Phil. Yeah, I mean
I I had never fired a shotgun before, so this
(16:05):
was Yeah, this was it. So we get out there
and we are preparing and I need to go through
what the gun is, what it does. Imagine your thirty
two three my age, Yeah, thirty, I am thirty thirty. Yeah,
I got it right on the first try. You're thirty,
Your three year old man, you've done a lot of
things your life, but you've never shot shotgun, you know,
(16:27):
pulled the trigger. I got very into air soft in
high schools. As far as that's as far as I got.
I met, not yesterday or well yesterday, a couple of
days ago, I met a fellow that had never tried pineapple.
I've never had pineapple. To watch this human, this full
grown adult human, eat this pineapple's amazing. So this is
(16:50):
a lot what it was like for Phil. And so
we get out there and um, I want to say,
hilarity ensues, but it was pretty normal. And so here's
here's me teach and Phil a little bit about the shotgun. Okay, Phil,
are you ready, sir? Yes, I've had my my ice coffee.
Of course, you've had your This is the this is
(17:12):
what most people at the range do. They talk about
their caffeinated beverages. Any anything, you want? Any questions before
I go through the shotgun and task here? Uh not yet. No,
I'm I'm ready to learn. I have some more Turkey
specific questions for later, but right now I think I
just need to like hold a gun in my hands.
Probably all right, Well, here's the gun here. So this
(17:37):
is a weather B eighteen. It's a semi drun. We
gotta be honest. It was very windy. So we went
into my truck and I didn't actually have the shotgun. No,
I was my man the whole time, so just let's
just keep going. It was sad. Uh. This thing that,
this big piece in the back is the whole thing
(17:59):
is the stock, Yes, a big silly And there's a
recoil pad on that that helps to to cushion that
recoil that you're gonna feel from the I'm trying to
be the expert of experts here. I'm super worried that
people we'll think that I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah,
(18:21):
so you're you're going over every little part of the gun. Yeah,
I think I was even reading off something on my phone.
The shot when you pull the trigger, so there's the
trigger guard. Put your finger right there. You see that
it's totally never put your finger on the trigger and
even inside that trigger guard until we're ready to go,
(18:43):
all right, and then when here's the safety, so you
can push it back and forth and see as as
the action is open, you can see that there's you
can push that back and forth and see safety was
when the red indicators showing, and on safe is when
the red indicators and here at the range, we won't
do this in the field, but here in the range,
(19:05):
when that safety clicks off, you just say fire in
the hole, which means I'm preparing to shoot, which lets
me know that you're getting ready to send some shots.
So now you're educated, Phil, educated. I was holding the
gun in my hand, yeah, inspecting all the parts you
were showing me. It was kind of like an air gun.
It's made of air. There you go. But we did
we actually did later than you know, inspect. It's the
(19:26):
magic of the magic of audio. Here. We're just letting
you into the creative work that goes into the show
like this. You should be grateful. And then was so
honest with you. He's really he's really opening up. Yeah,
in these last episode and then you know, we did
other stuff. Okay, it's it's it's getting a little window
out here. We're out in them. We're on America's public lands.
Obviously America's public lands. There'd be somewhere else. I'm gonna
(19:49):
show you what you're what you're doing here, Phil, You're
gonna be shooting these federal TSS loads. These heavyweight t
SS Sponsorler Tungsten super shot. These are three inch shells.
They have nine shot and it's one and three year
quarter ounce of shot inside of there. So we're gonna
put these babies right in here, and then when we
(20:11):
hit this button, it's gonna go. It's gonna be chambered right,
we're gonna be ready to fire. Okay, safety there like
I showed you, and then this is the magazine or
you'll be able to insert the extra shells that which
will be cycled through when you pull the trick semi automatic. Okay,
got it. Now onto the next thing. We recorded all right,
(20:37):
eyes and ears safety, see, we're yes, we're doing it right.
We made sure to about how far do you think
that's your guests, Probably about fifteen yards? This turkey as
a turkey's head. And you're gonna put the bed look
down the barrel here real quick. You're gonna put that
bead see the rip of the shotgun here. You're gonna
(21:00):
bed that bead down in the ribs. So you just
see like a half moon, and that bead is going
to go right on the turkeys. Major curruncles are right
in the middle of its neck. There. As you can see,
there's a bull's eye on the target, and so you're
gonna place that that bead right on top of that
right and then you're gonna shoot him in the face. Good,
So it's gonna go okay. Commentary Philip, No, it's a
(21:22):
lovely day. Um. I couldn't ask for better, better weather,
better situation. I'm excited. We're gonna we've got about We're
gonna try it. We're gonna run through this once. Let's
just let you feel it and then get your reaction,
and then we'll start to look at accuracy and kind
of play a little bit around what we need to
(21:43):
do in the field. You were thrilled at this point,
phil Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I
was a little I mean, it was very much out
of my element, so so you know, I was, I
was I didn't really know what to expect, um, and
I was just trying to take in what you were
telling me. Yeah, I mean, I think all seriousness. I mean,
I think being a mentor is about that feeling out process.
(22:05):
Of course, we know each other from sitting around in
the studio a lot of times, but those of you
that are out there mentoring folks. You may not know them,
or you may know them from other you know interactions.
You may know him professionally even or from work. You
may know from church. You may know him who knows
you know, from the corner store, you don't know. Um,
it's this going to the range of someone one is
a good way to kind of set the precedent for
(22:26):
how you're going to communicate, you know, whether you trust
that person, whether you're really going to take on the
mental roles like I'll handle the firearms, I'll make sure
we're safe, or you're gonna see some trust over to
that person that you're working with. And and these these
early interactions are a way to kind of get to
know each other but also to set a cadence because
you have to to to do this successfully. To mentor
(22:47):
someone successfully, you have to be able to communicate with
them and understand them and they have to understand you. Uh.
There's a lot of you know, even non verbal communication
in the woods, a lot of whispering, a lot of
fast action. And so this is to me, is like
a good way to say, like, this is how we're
going to communicate each other. That's how we're gonna be safe.
This is this is setting a precedent for when we're
out there, making sure we understand, you know, kind of
(23:10):
the step by step process of how we're going to
handle some of these more intricate actions out there in
the field. So that that's my what I was, what's
going through my mind, you know, to see how comfortable
you are. I think immediately you were pretty comfortable with
the weapon, like it wasn't something scary or you didn't
feel like you were nervous. You were nervous. You want
to be accurate, you wanted to do it right. But
(23:32):
I don't think you were nervous at the idea of
felt recoil, were you No? No? No, I mean I
think you'll hear um. After you kind of gave me
the go ahead to fire, there is a long gap.
I was kind of I was really trying to like
remember all the things you told me, like three points
of contact, like where where's where's the where's the site pointing? Like?
Am I level enough? Like am I holding the gun
(23:55):
too close to my body and holding it too tighten?
Or am I holding it too loosely? Like am I
am leaning too far? Back to go forward and then
all that kind of stuff I was trying to process,
like fire on the exhale, just like all that stuff,
um and so like I think there was some trepidation there,
but I was never I was never like uncomfortable or
nervous like in that way. No. No, So here we go.
(24:16):
All right, we got Phil all figured out here. He's up.
We're using a hydro sled and a Caldwell shooting table
out here in the middle of this kind of really
flat aired public land. Peace. So you're all set up there,
fils that feel pretty comfortable? It does, Yes, We've We've
finagled it, and now I'm feeling pretty good. Okay, I
forgot the target stand, so we're using a piece of
(24:37):
wood and a bungee cord, much like his tradition in
the Turkey uming space. Okay, I'm gonna load this up
for you. Phil. As soon as this action closes, it's
gonna be ready to fire. Now, when you're ready to shoot,
all you gotta do is push that safety and then
when you're ready to fire, put your finger inside the
trigger guard and just tell me, you know, ready to go. Okay, sound.
(25:04):
So here's the momentble pause like thing that I'm gonna
have my hand under the magazine like no, no, you're
opening the further up on the flour ends. You can
get it the better. If you hold it right here,
you'll be just fine. And this is very natural. Well, well,
like what's happening here, You're trying to get comfortable, I think,
(25:25):
and you tell me if I'm wrong immediately when I
load a shot shell and I say it's loaded, it's
ready to go. But your mood changes a little bit.
I mean, like your understanding now for a big loud
thing could happen at any time. Yeah, well even just
looking at that that the trigger and the trigger guard,
how how close the trigger is to the back of
(25:47):
that trigger guard area where I was like, oh, like
this is like a hairpin, like you barely have to
squeeze for it to go off. So it's I mean,
it's you know, um, like I told you I did.
You know, I didn't grow up with guns, so all
all this stuff, you know, being handed a shotgun when
you're thirty, it's it carries a little bit more weight
and like the context as as as an adult, more
(26:10):
than it would if you were you know, eight, years old,
So like it just kind of you know, I was
trying to be extra extra careful. Yeah, I mean all
the time, we've talked about this and thought about this,
and we talked about mentoring a lot on the show,
and we've we've kind of thought through what this this
would be. But this is one of the main points
to remember if you are mentoring an emergent hunter is
as a child, you're kind of you're pretty locked in
(26:32):
on whoever it's mentoring you, whether it's your dad, you
generally have a relationship with that person, right, uncle, father, friend, whatever, um.
But you don't have a general like you have no
general knowledge of the social and cultural impacts of firearms. Right.
You also just don't have a general knowledge and ways
people might die, all right, just don't sit around reading
(26:54):
about gun accidents or reading about mass shootings. And so
I'm I know that those things are baked in and
I could I could tell, and I think this is
is very normal that like when when the finality of
that shot shell in the chamber and me saying like
it's one you now be safe, do this, right, So
(27:15):
you're immediately there's a question, Okay, what do I do?
Where do I go elbows, hands, cheek. Where does this
all go? You know? And that's pretty natural, right, I think?
So there we go. Yeah, just don't get your This
action is going to come back forward and this magazine
will work in that action will work that next round
(27:35):
into the chamber. But if you're there, you're You're just fine.
And the goal here where this first shot was just
to get just to understand how everything works. No expectation, no, no,
tell me when you're ready to say, fire in the hole.
Now we gotta, I gotta ready. I also didn't want
(27:57):
to shoot the gun whenever anyone was driving by. Yeah,
it was totally fine. The road was completely and it's
it was in a very safe zone. Yeah, yeah, but
you didn't want to. It was make I don't know,
I don't know if self conscious conscious is the word,
but something about it just made me slightly uncomfortable. Here
we go, see him say win driving out of Okay,
(28:26):
go ahead and get set up on it with that
cheek on the weld. Don't put that figure near the
trigger until you're set up and firm. Make sure this
is firm against your shoulder. Okay, you're good, Go ahead
and place that finger on the trigger and pull slowly
back towards you. It's a lot of power, it is.
(28:54):
You killed that turkey. All right, we're did that and
he didn't make it well done? What are you think they're,
Philly engineer. I that was exciting. Yeah, what a stupid
I don't I don't have a whole lot of words
right now. There. It was exciting a lot of pressure
(29:14):
on you to say pulling in things. Yeah, I gotta
say I did not like you running out to the microphone.
Shot shot the gun for the first time. I did that.
Every time you shot, I think, yeah, probably. Um. We
won't borrow you with the rest of the details, but
it suffice to say, like we'll talk through a little
bit of what happened, Phil, we that first shot would
(29:36):
have been in every shot you I think you shot
about five times or maybe seven. Think it was you
shot one. I shot one just to see. Everything was
a little bit low, a little bit to the left.
I think the first three or four shots you would
have killed the turkey. But you know, to understand, you
know where we had about an eighteen yard target again
(29:58):
a piece of wood bungee cord. It was kind of
on the ground. We started you on a Caldwell shooting
bench portable shooting bench that I have, and then a
hydro slid, which is like a lead sled. It's a
big shooting rest. So we started you there first, just
so you can understand the mechanics of the situation and
kind of mentally understand what's going to happen, just so
(30:18):
we all had that mutual understanding. And then we did
that a couple of times, took that away, brought in
a Caldwell shooting bag, just so now you could feel
the shotgun directly on your shoulder. We could talk about fit,
we could talk about points of contact, we could talk
about you know, really as as I think you could
talk about this a little bit. What came to I
(30:39):
think really help. He was like control of shotgun. Don't
let the shotgun control you bear down, Like make sure
you're on top of the gun, don't you know, don't
let it um, don't let her buck. I guess it'll
be a good way to say it. So talk to
talk people through how that progression went, because we went
from just trying to understand two, just trying to control
(31:01):
the shotgun, but then trying to shoot for accuracy. Then
we sat you up against the gate, you know, just
like you would be up against the tree in the field,
and did some more shooting. So talk to people through
how that all in your mind went. Yeah, I mean
I felt like my aim, I mean behind the gun,
I felt like I was aiming properly. Um And I
(31:21):
was pretty consistent with where the shots are ending up,
but it wasn't where I wanted them to end up.
It was always just slightly low and slightly to the left.
And um uh So then even even when I tried
to kind of compensate for that, which I don't I
don't know if it was the right thing to do, um,
it was still ending up kind of low and to
the left. Um So, so I think wait, and then
(31:44):
you came in and were like, well, I you was
I specifically doing something. I think you were telling me
that I maybe was kind of You're dumping the trigger
a little bit, which is completely natural, which jump in
the trigger just means you know, jerking it, pulling fat asked,
not smoothly pulling through right, So as you jerk the trigger,
that's going to create really a different kind of action.
(32:06):
And so I just talked about let's focus on other
things right, because there is there's a level at which
when you're instructing someone or something like this, you can
get in their heads if you give them too much instruction,
you know, if you have too many things to think about.
And then and so I could just to me, it
was like, okay, let's let's because we talked about you know,
getting that taking a breath in and then when as
you let that breath out, just slowly pulling that trigger
(32:28):
and the surprise shot. You know, we talked about that.
But as I was watching, I'm like, well, I think
if I just let's just talk, let's just get that
gun seated correctly in your shoulder and just control that thing.
They just just know that you're not you know, you're
not waiting for the recoil, not worried about the trigger.
You're just worried about controlling that shatkun. And then once
we kind of got there, then you're right on, you know,
(32:51):
And I think that's that was just you know, openly
through that process, just watching and trying to understand, and
there's never really no one way to do that. You
just gotta interpersonal. You just gotta figure it out together.
And again, if you're teaching somebody how to to go
hunt for the first time, especially they're an adult. This
is gonna happen. You have to like work with each other,
(33:12):
work as a team. It's not it's not boss employee.
It's two people trying to figure something out together. It's
really what this is. I was happy by the end
of the thing, and we got to go drive out.
We got to drive by the mutant Turkey on the
way back out. That's right, say goodbye, say goodbye, goodbye,
mutant Turkey, goodbye forever. So we when we were driving
(33:34):
out past the mutant Turkey, we did a little recording
just to talk about in the moment. So let's see
what you said. And you know, in reflection, because I
do not remember anything nice. That's what I'm saying that
I don't remember eating. So it's good. It's like, this
is a fun way to play it out. Maybe it's
not good for the audience, but for us, it's fun. Okay, Phil, Yeah,
uh all right, last shot he blew the turkey's head off.
(33:58):
Feeling good about that. Yes, it was a good note
to go out on. My best shot was my last shot. Um,
I just gotta remember to kind of you were telling
me to bear down a little bit, keep that gun tight,
tight to my my my shoulder, and uh and aim
a little higher. I guess that was kind of what
I did on that last last shot. So well, I mean,
(34:20):
that's it, man, That's why you come out here so
you can learn a little bit and experience it. And
if you all but one of your shots, you would
have killed the turkey. So for your first time really
doing this, that's that's like I said, I'm not worried
at all. I have no concerns about the turkeys and
what they'll do after Philly Engineer pulls the trigger, except
the real ones will be like presumably walking around and moving,
(34:44):
so that's that'll be another wrinkle. But I think I
think I'm ready. I think you're ready to what questions
you have about actual turkey hunting itself. It's kind of
going over it on the show a bunch of times.
But do you have any questions about like the scenario
for the morning? Yeah, I think so. I mean, so
we're gonna set up decoys, he said a twenty yards away.
Is there a specific moment that the turkey that will
(35:06):
the will the turkey be doing something specific when like
when it's when it's strutting or try and check out
the decoys? Am I waiting for it to kind of
stop and and you know, plant for a second before
I take the shot? I guess, I guess what's the
opportune moment to actually take the shot other than having
a clear sightline and and you know, knowing the target
(35:26):
and everything. Yeah, so it all depends on how it
happens for your first turkey hunt. If it doesn't go
the way we wanted to go, we're just not gonna
shoot like that. You know. If if he comes in
he gets nervous and starts running around the circles and
looks like he starts putting and looks like he wants
to roll out, we're just gonna let him go. You know,
We're not gonna rush anything. We're not gonna be unethical.
(35:48):
We're not going to force a shot if we don't
need to. So the perfect scenario is when we set
these decoys up, we're gonna set them up in such
a way that he has to come where we'll set
up I know, this little meadow where we're gonna go.
We're to set up the decoys where he basically in
almost all scenarios, probably nine out of the ten scenarios
where a turkey might approach, He's gonna have to come
(36:08):
past us to get to the decoys. Okay, and for
a for a myriad of reasons, but really because I
want him to be focused on the decoys and walk
and looking towards the decoys. And we're not on the
other side of those decoys, right, So we're gonna set
up so he has to come past us. So generally,
once it wants a full strut turkey or a gobbler
(36:29):
or you know, any turkey that's interested in decoys, once
they get full lock in on on a decoy, they
want to come. And I'm not gonna say you can
almost do You can't do anything, but you can move
around a little bit, you can adjust a little bit.
I mean people, you know, in those situations draw a bow.
So I have a full draw on a bow. That's
a lot of motion that you all need to have.
(36:50):
So when that turkey comes in, you're gonna be set
up already like we just worre. You'll be sitting on
against the tree, you'll have three points of contact, you'll
be ready to go. You'll be putting that site picture
in your mind and getting ready to literally just click
the safety off and when I tell you to shoot,
you let it go. What you're looking for turkey wise,
there's a couple of things we can do. He's in
(37:11):
full strut, his his feathers kind of fluff up right,
his his body kind of blows up, he lifts his wings,
his tail fan is kind of up in the air,
and his head is tucked into his body, right, And
so it's not a full you know that that target
we're just shooting at is just a full turkey's head,
and that's it in that case, when his head is
(37:32):
tucked into his body. Certainly I've shot turkeys like that.
What I would would like to do is I'll probably
throw out a few clucks or just like one noise
to get him to poke his head up, and then
I'll tell you to kill him. So when he puts
his head up to look around, like what was that,
then you have a full clear picture of that turkey,
hopefully a silhouetted head just like you had in that target.
(37:54):
And so that's what we're looking for now. If we
don't get that, if he's coming to the decoys, he
sees something weird and he skirts so and he's around
it like thirty or forty yards and he just won't
come in. We can talk about it. At that point,
I'll say you comfortable, Like thirty yards, I think you
can kill him, Like, are you comfortable? And in the
first time we go out like air on the side
of caution, air on the side of thinking it through.
(38:17):
And I will certainly tell you when I think that
you are good to go. That doesn't that doesn't necessarily
mean you have to follow that order, like you can
judge it for yourself. But I'll let you know when
I think you're good to go. But if the if
the turkey is in the decoys, if he is making
contact with the decoys, if he's doing a dance with
with where we set our decoys up, he'll be killable
(38:38):
range pretty shotgun. So that's really really what the consideration
is in terms of effective range and what we really
want to see. There is there is oh lord, there's
the chis. Those are those are farm turkeys. We I
(38:59):
don't even understand what to do with this turkey. That
is the craziest looking turkey that I've ever seen. Dude,
It's like oh man, that is the wildest. I gotta
keep my phone out. I don't know what to say
about it. It's like mutant turkey. All right, that's it,
(39:21):
Oh mutant turkey, right you once but again, I hope
for everybody's tracking here, I know that this is These
are the essential parts, you know, of of mentoring someone.
These are not the exciting parts, but they are the
essential parts of of like I said, getting to know someone,
(39:42):
having them, getting to know you, you know, articulating yourself
in a way that they can understand. And also, hopefully,
Phil I made you feel like you could ask questions
and there was no dumb question hopefully. Uh yeah, I know.
And one thing you just said a few minutes ago,
it's about hell not you don't want to try to
overload someone with information. I never got that at all.
You kind of just let me feel it out through
in a tip here and there. But it was never
(40:03):
sort of like do this, do this, do this, do this,
because if if you if you had done that, I
would have kind of probably walked shut down a little bit.
I've been too worried about screwing up. So yeah, So
now we're headed out hunting the next day, so a
spot that I'd been and never killed a turkey, talked
it up a lot. This is it. This is the
(40:24):
moment that all of all of my talking and just
grandeur about turkey hunting was going to come to fruition.
There was gonna be gobbles everywhere. It would be an
early morning, just crisp morning birds everywhere. You get to
(40:45):
see that natural world come to life in the springtime.
You get to just feel the energy of the turkey woods.
And this was in my mind what was going to happen,
and that we were going to have this indoctrination into
this cult like mentality. Phil will is finally gonna be
(41:07):
a part of the tent legion. Okay, fail, what do
you think, buddy, h it's not it's not too cold,
which is great. That's a good commentary, first thought. Wom
in Montana. Yeah, that's a good thing. Well, we're going
right over here. Okay, there's a river which will go
(41:28):
un named, that goes obviously right here, and there's a
bunch of good roots and trees right on the river.
The situation is we gotta go about quarter of a
mile to get to where I think they'll be and
listen for him to be goblin in the tree. Big
problem here is they'll be in a tree of the
(41:51):
time on private land, so we gotta it sounds like
a turkey and have big plastic things that looks like
turkeys and get him to come to us on the
public which is pretty common. So it's not academic. I've
never killed a turkey in here before, but I've been
on him every single time i've been here. So okay,
(42:13):
we'll stop there. That's interesting commentary by me. We'll see
what happens. Phil. I will give you a compliment. Okay, ready,
thanks man. You were you were very punctual turkey hunter. Like,
you don't know how annoying it is for someone not
(42:33):
to be punctual and fly down situation. Okay, good. You
were flawless the entire time you were on point. You
were very willing, you were excitable. I think I feel
like your number was pretty high by the time that,
like we were talking strategy here at the truck. Hi. Yeah,
(42:54):
for sure, mainly because I was just I was just thrilled.
I was spring time in Montana can be a fickle bastard.
It could be a bit, it can be it can
be a foot of snow. It can be pouring rain,
it could be lovely, it could be very windy, which
it usually is. Um but these that first morning was
(43:16):
just it was perfect. It was it was perfect, and
so I was just din't agree, you know, I set
my alarm, woke up. I was, I was, you know,
I was. I was ready to go. And then when
I stepped out of my car in that in that
uh that a lot we were in. It just it
just felt I was. I was looking forward to it.
I was ready for the day. It felt good. Yeah,
I build it up in my own mind as well,
(43:37):
and it felt good. I was ready for that first gobble.
I was ready to like put my arm in the
air and celebration the first time we heard a gobble,
and to know where these turkeys are, make a plan
and show you kind of at least the interaction, right,
the game of cat and mouse. Yeah right, we were
(43:58):
gonna have a nemesis to key by the end of
the day, I thought. And again, a lot of build
up here, A lot of pressure, a lot of build up,
A lot of pressure on me to to create something here,
to to show Phil exactly what hunting is and what
it's like. And I put a lot of pressure on myself. So, uh,
(44:19):
a lot of things happen, you know, and in hunting,
we were heading out and then my kind of my
fatherly notion is to make sure that I have everything first,
and then to make sure Phil has everything he needs.
We got decoys, we got shotgun, we got calls, get
everything we need. And then I checked one last thing.
Phil forgot his license in the truck. We're going back.
(44:43):
It's only we only got fifty yards from Okay, he
forgot his license. Fine, it happens to the best of us.
It was where it was in your backpack? Yeah, yeah,
it was in my backpack. I didn't I remember to
grab it in the morning. Yeah that was good, right, Yes,
big lesson. Big lesson. Also to to go back a
couple of steps Phil when buying his license. This is
(45:08):
something everybody should know. Like in the state of Montana,
you can print out your license or they'll mail you
the carcass tags. There's an actual license itself and then
a carcass tag which when you fill your tag, you
notch it and that becomes the thing you attached to
the carcass hence the term carcass tag. Phil got his
license the night before the hunt, which is always what
I see most commonly people tend to do when it
(45:30):
is over the counter. He gets his license online and
then at the end, what happens phil you get you
get Twitter pay? Did you get confused? To ask you
a bunch of questions. One of the questions the bottom
was because I had already I had already printed my license,
and then there was one more step where it was like,
would you like to print your carcass tags now or
have f WP mail them to you? And just I, obviously,
(45:54):
if I had spent ten seconds thinking about it, I
would have thought, well, I need I'm going hunting tomorrow.
I'm going to knee these carcass tags as soon as possible.
But just I just was like check marks, I just
mailed me. I was not thinking. And then as soon
as like five minutes later, I kind of I was.
I had one of those moments, just like something went
off in the back of my head like, ah, maybe
(46:16):
I should call Ben and see if there's a problem.
I was like, that's gonna be a problem and you're
gonna need those. But luckily Ben made some phone calls.
I was able to go to the local sportsman's warehouse,
and they could not have been lovelier. They were very
lovely to me on the phone. I called him, I said,
I have this fellow and they said, is it a boy?
I said, no, it's a man. It's a fellow. It's
a fellow man. She said, is this a child? I
(46:37):
said no, it's a man. His first hunt and he
needs a license. So they took care of you, and
then now we resume our adventure. The one thing about hunting,
at least at my case, it's really about forgetting things
and then remembering them. We're losing things and then finding them.
Were wearing thousands of dollars of gear sponsor, and obviously
(47:02):
we need that. We wouldn't be able to fold this turkey.
Were about to go find that stage advice fill you
remember that for next time, So off we go. The
idea was to hit up a little clearing, a little
pocket amidst the brush in this riparian zone and listen
in glass. We were pretty early again, we were probably
(47:25):
thirty five minutes before fly down, so we had plenty
of time, and that was by design. We had plenty
of time to get in there. Here the turkeys get
set up do whatever we needed to do to draw
them for what I thought would be from private onto public,
Like this is the game. I'm pretty sure we're gonna play, um,
and then just all hell broke loose? See amazing? Do
(47:55):
you guys hear any gobbles? Well, Phil, we've heard a
lot of birds this morning, your first morning turkey hunting,
but no turkeys right as far as I know, no,
And by as far as I know, I mean I
I ask you and you say no. Yeah, We're standing
in a spot where, Um, I've been haunted. I've never
(48:19):
shot out to turkey here, but I've hunted it by
my six or seventh time being in here hunting, I think,
And I've never not heard of turkey on the roost.
And it is just about fly down here in another
five minutes or so. Now we have not heard a
peep from a turkey. It's very demoralizing because it's kind
of like, Wow, is you gonna go to this spot
(48:41):
where there's turkeys in there? You know, as a turkey
hunter you have certain spots, Phil where you're basically like, yep,
at least we're gonna get some action there. Well, Phil,
this is this is when you started a spiral. I
spiraled so quickly were it wasn't even fly down yet,
But I was wrold at this point. I was not
(49:03):
as bummed out as you, because I think you had
obviously had more expectations than I did. But I was
expecting to hear a turkey. A turkey. We heard no turkey, none,
not a turkey, no, knowing that there were turkeys there,
like I like the way that this sets up. Their
turkeys either fly across a river to go, which they
(49:25):
will do, but they I knew that. I know there's
turkeys here. They're just not goblin. And as we said earlier,
it's a fine morning. There's no excuses, lovely, lovely morning.
No wind, little to no wind, probably eight to fifty
degrees right around fly down. And this is like prime time.
(49:49):
We have done everything right. You you are punctual. We've
we've trained, we've got the shotgun, and we've talked about scenarios.
We've got our decoys, we've got thousands of dollars of gear,
and here we are the precipice of greatness. And the
turkeys aren't gobbling. No, there's nothing that we can do
(50:11):
to make them gobble. Did I make noises at him. Phil, Oh, yeah,
all kinds, all kinds of noises. Listen, and I've I've
been lucky enough to be to have been exposed to
and meet all kinds of incredible turkey collars. I saw
a bunch of at and n W t F. There
(50:31):
was like there was a g D competition. I saw
people there, competition. You sounded you sounded great. You were calling,
You're doing all all kinds of clucks. You you broke
out the crow call, trying to get them too, shock shot, gobble, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Nothing happened on the first Phil's first day of not
(50:55):
not like, oh did you did you have one of
It's far nothing, not a single one, nothing, And there
you know, what were we gonna do? There was nothing
we could do. It was pure and we've been hunting
for forty eight minutes and it was pure desperation. At
that point, I thought my entire life to that point
(51:18):
was worthless, and that these two years of hunting, of
knowing Phil and hunting and convincing him to go hunting,
was going to be in vain HM. Tune in next
time to hear what happened. In Part two of the
(51:40):
Coming of Age, tail of Phil t Engineer. Any parting
shots Phil before we head to the final episode. Cliffhanger. Wow,
I just want to ask you how this feels. You're
setting up the final episode of The Hunting Collection, fucking
with a fucking with the listeners a little bit. We
(52:02):
can tell the whole story if we wanted to, but
we're not gonna tell you the whole story. It's a cliffhanger.
Come on, we didn't hear any turkeys the first morning.
Eventually we heard turkeys. I can tell you that. Whoa
find out next time on The Hunting Collective. Say bye Phil,
goodbye Clean. You're gone to your bowl where the hunt
(52:24):
collected show and calling hunters new and all the hun
collected show working pick and shuttle or working ben in hand.
We call regate nice and over. I'm the land. We're focused.
We're just living for the searching, dreaming of the fire
and saltic gilburn Bo. We ain't coming by to heallenge
(52:48):
colden Lane taking it so so we can shooes right. Clean,
You're gone to your bowl where the hun clegged show,
calling hunters new and all. The ain't no cold I
am told
Clean your Gun Jr. Bow Where the Uncollective show Colin
Hunters new and all uncollective show with thanks or fancs
and opinions are subjective. You're listening to the Collecting. Everybody,
(00:29):
Welcome to the pen ultimate episode of The Hunting Collective.
I am as always been O'Brien and I'm joined in
studio by Phil t engineer Phil. How are you, sir?
Everybody knows that the pen ultimate episode is usually one
of the best of a TV show, like a series
(00:50):
or a season. Um, we'll see if that's the case here,
you'd never know. It could be the second the best
episode ever of this program right out. So strap in.
I don't know if you're in a place where there's
any straps around, but get one and strap yourself to
wherever you're sitting. I don't know, you know, don't move
and lock in because you're about to get You're about
(01:13):
to get regaled with one of light like one of
the nation's most riveting coming of age tales, and that
is the tale of Filthy Engineers First Turkey Hunt. It's
gonna be I will say this, and I say much
about what happens, other than to say it's a two parter.
There are two parts. This is of course the first
(01:35):
of two parts, and we will reveal at some point
along the way whether Phil killed a turkey or not.
But more importantly than that, a few days back, I
shared a photo of Phil the Engineer on Instagram and
Facebook where he was holding his turkey target. Now we'll
(01:58):
get to what happened. How that turkey. It came to
be full of tiny little holes. But Phil, the reaction
was broad and it was interesting. People, you're a hero,
you are an inspiration. People love you. Hundreds of comments
(02:20):
poured in from across the world. They the globe. People
love it. Man greatest, somebody's the greatest character arc of
all time. Phil is way less of a nerd than
I originally anticipated. Still stoked on him, though, hashtag legend.
I've never I've never wanted someone I've never meant to
(02:43):
shoot a turkey more than I want Phil to shoot
a turkey. Good luck. Don't forget the t P Phil,
just in case. It's a good poop callback. Yeah, it
really is. It's a good it's a good call back
to the show. A lot of good lucks, a lot
of yeah boys, a lot of people talking about how
you looked. Ah, what do you think about hundreds of
(03:07):
people commenting on your looks as opposed to your voice
because we did the voice face contest back in the infancy. Yeah,
of th HC. I totally understand the fascination because I've
had the same experience. Yeah. Yeah, you you listen to
a radio show or a podcast, and you haven't You
just build up an image of somebody in your head
and then you actually see them, and it's usually disappointing.
(03:28):
It's This guy says, Phil looks like Steve and Yanni
are his dad's. That was a good one, and I
see it. I kind of see it. Phil looks a
lot less nerdy than I imagine. That's a compliment. I
imagine Phil is some nerdy early thirties chubby ginger with
a beard. Do you think about that? I mean, I'm
(03:49):
I'm offended for chubby gingers everywhere on their behalf. Yeah,
I mean, nothing wrong with the chubby ginger support for
those folks. So there there's a lot of people. Uh.
This guy says, this is the first picture I've ever
seen of Phil. Phil is not the character I drow
up in my head. Well, people actually drew you up,
and I don't think you look like what they drew
(04:10):
the whole point of it. My favorite comment um was
something along the lines of Phil looks less masculine than
he sounds, and he doesn't sound very masculine. This guy said,
I'll take it. He is like a small infant child,
sweet boy. I hope he has fun in his first
first time out. So thanks for all those comments. Yeah,
(04:32):
I I could go on because there is hundreds of them.
People from across the country sent us d m s.
They sent us emails to t ac the meter to
have wasting you well and hoping that you would get
a turkey. So this is by far other than I
don't know. I think this is by far the biggest
thing we've done as a podcast, and that that it's
(04:53):
the last thing we'll ever do, so why not be
the biggest. People are into it, Phil, People they want it.
Can you feel the pressure? I can feel it, but
it's surprisingly not weighing on me as much as I
thought I would. Know you were pretty I'm kind of
brushing it off. Excuse me, I'm kind of brushing it off,
But I don't mean that. I don't mean that I'm
(05:14):
brushing off the compliments as well. I hear all the
compliments and it's it's I want to thank you, yeah, um,
because I I am. I am glad you're invested in
my in my in my arc, in your character, but
the greatest character arc of all time, which is essentially
just hey, Phil, have you ever gone hunting? Nope, We're
gonna take you hunting. And that was the ark. But
people love it. Yeah, well that's it. If you stretch
(05:36):
any small storyline now for two years, it seems like
an epic tale. Exactly where we are now. We got
a message from our friend Eric Hall. He had something
to say to say something or signing of failt Engineering
on Facebook that what's not a big siding? Yes, very rare,
(06:00):
you don't see it often. His numbers going up. So
looking forward to Field Turkey Hunt, the last two shows
coming up. There kind of a build up to feel
a Turkey Hunt being the last show. Yeah, that's it,
(06:22):
He's right, The man is right, Yes, siting a filthy
engineer like the big Foot, the lore of old Maybe
you'll will once are the show is over. Your your
legend will continue and people will continue to see you
in places where you don't exist or maybe I will
just retreat to the woods. Yeah, and a lot of
check exactly, grow a beard, yeah, grow skip pop, we
(06:44):
stashould come back. So let's let's lay out, Phil, what
we're gonna do here. Uh, we have it. This is
a lot of work to tell this story. And again,
as we mentioned, quite the build up. So we're going
to tell the story and its totality. We're going to
lean into a linear tale of one man and another
(07:06):
man and a truck in the Turkey hun and yeah, okay,
I was gonna say, like in some decoy and some
decoys we could just list there in your truck, a
cup of coffee. We're gonna lean into. We're gonna tell
you the whole story, and we're just on a little
bit different Phil and I have decided that we're going
to play our audio and and and do some color
(07:28):
commentary of what was happening at the time was happening. Yeah,
we're gonna do some live commentary with some probably minimal
editing from me. I'm gonna I'm talking about I'm thinking
about future me right now, several hours from now when
I sit down edit this podcast. I don't know, I
don't think I'm gonna do a lot of editing. We're
just gonna do it kind of on the fly here, yep.
And if you don't like it, cancel us, get rid
(07:52):
of us. It doesn't matter. We do whatever we want.
At this point, we get the worst thing could happen
has already happened. And so we're pretty much flying by
the seat of our paints that we're weren't already before.
As I've been saying, what kind of building a roller
coaster while we're riding it? So this is this, this
is Phil's first hunt hashtag if you're going to post
(08:13):
about this online hashtag Phil's first bird, okay? Is that
it was that the final hashtag on landed on Phil's
first bird? Okay? Because I think you've gone through several
of this. Have you seen the video that I took
a slow a video of you jumping over Yes, I
saw it before I came over here today. What do
you do you have any of ficial comments about it?
I look fantastic. I mean a lot of people, a
lot of people love it, dude, A lot of people
(08:35):
are into it. Do you want to tell us a
little bit about your strategy while jumping over this My
first strategy was watching you so I can learn from
your mistakes. And you you shorted it barely. I put
a foot in the wall. Yeah, there was a foot
in the water. If if, if you guys aren't haven't
seen you gotta go to my Instagram. But any of
B three or when I took a slow mo video
of Phil leaping majestically in his new shnays boots, which
(08:58):
we'll get to, yes, over this ditch that had filled
with some runoff, so it's full of water, and at
first Phil didn't know if he could make it over
the dish, and I said, well, let me jump over
first and then film you in slow moo for posting
online later. So that's what we did, and it is
it's pretty majestic, uh people. One guy said, it's like
(09:20):
watching poetry. Such grace. I can't disagree. How are your
a c L s feeling? Somebody wants to know My
legs feel great to show you how how not in
shape I am? I think I actually overextended my arm, somebody.
My arm was sore for like a half hour after
I made that jump. Somehow, don't know how, but that's
how my body works, all right. Well, All the highlights
(09:42):
from the hunt are going to be on my Instagram
as you listen to this, they'll be there video B
three oh one on Instagram, So you could see some
of the visual highlights. But we have the audio highlights
of this hunt. And let me just tell you a
lot of stuff happened. A lot of things have happened,
and we're gonna lay them out over the next two episodes,
the final two episodes th HC. And I can't wait
(10:06):
for you to see how it ends. Okay, Phil, you're
ready to go, let's do it. Here we go. Now
play some sort of awesome intro music right here. I
believe in the Turkey and uh so we struck out.
(10:35):
First thing we had to do was we had to
strike out too what we'll call site in the shotgun,
to pattern this shotgun. The weather be eighteen I that
we had selected fulfilled for his first hunt. We went
out to some local public land to site in this shotgun. Now,
what happened on the way there is I think emblematic
of this entire story. We didn't really get this on
(10:57):
video or audio, but we're driving up a gravel road
to this kind of what we'll call a public land
shooting range close to to to my domicile here, and
we're driving past a set of homes and there's kind
of a rancher style home tucked in this little you know,
(11:19):
the bosom of this litwer ridge. And in the yard
is many things. Many things are there, rusty farm implements.
There was chickens, a few chickens. It was not unlike
some some places a hobbit would live. It was like
tucked into a hillside, it really was, with a bunch
(11:39):
of just animals and random stuff scattered, gentle smoke coming
from the chimney um. And there in the yard was
a turkey. First first first turkey sighting as a as
a part of Phil's first hunt hashtag hashtag Phills first bird.
The first turkey we saw was really emblematic of the
(12:06):
rest of our journey. Let me try to describe this
turkey to you, Phil, and you help me out here
if I'm getting this wrong. This turkey. First picture some
sort of goblin from the depths of Hades, and then
a turkey, and then mix those two things together and
that's what you get. This turkey could barely walk. It
(12:28):
had maybe six or seven of its tail feathers. It
could barely. It was. It was shaking uncontrollably. Its head
was like the size of a cantalope. And it was
just kind of like wandering around this yard like a
zombie were somehow, but somehow it was. But it was
(12:51):
walking like it could barely. Yes, if I had just
punted it in the cloaka, it looked like it just
it was in massive amounts of pain. It had like
gyrating wing feathers, like a palsy of some kind. I'd
like to think this turkey has had seen better days
earlier in its life. I hope so. I hope it did,
(13:12):
because it was. It was infirmed in a way that
I've never seen any any wildly creature in my life,
but we it was. It was. It was almost like
a sign that this was going to be weird. But
this tale, this coming of age tail, was just gonna
be strange, and there's not a whole lot we can
(13:33):
do about it. I've never seen a turkey like that.
I got out my call, I hit the diagram a
few times, and it let out this sad, dust filled
gobble that could only be described as depressing. You could
barely hear it and it was only ten yards away
(13:54):
from the truck. So wherever that turkey is today, and
it's probably right under that same tree he was. It
is now the mascot for this whole two episode run.
Sad as a mascot though it maybe you know, r
I p that turkey because it's gonna die soon. I
(14:16):
mean it's probably from natural causes or unnatural causes. I
was looking around for like a power plant, a nuclear
power plant, share like some some neon news was coming
out of a pipe, and it was the turkey was
eating it. There's this thing wearing an eye patch, like
hasn't been shanked by one of these other turkeys. I'll
(14:36):
never forget it as long as when I closed my
eyes just now I can see it. I can see
its face staring into my face. Um. Anyway, that's a
I don't even think it had a beard. It was
just it was a grotesque. It was just grotesque. So
right into THHC at the Mediator dot com and name
(14:57):
that turkey Skippy mc no beard, whatever you want to
name that turkey, but he will be the mascot for
the rest. We'll go back and give video because here
he couldn't go far like physically he couldn't. He's there,
he's got to think he roos in it. He can't
fly up in a tree. He just lays down on
the ground when he goes to sleep, just lays on
(15:20):
the ground. Sayway, that's that's kind of my first and
most searing memory from our journey, Phil, Yeah, was that
we uh it was an omen an omen from the
Turkey gods to watch the funk out. She was about
to get western, Okay, and what happened after that it
was completely unbelievable. No one would believe it, but you're
(15:44):
about to hear it. So we moved past this mutant
Turkey and shocked in all you know, kind of twitter
painted a little bit, and I we move up to
the shooting range. And the shooting range portion of this
certainly was all about education, right Phil. Yeah, I mean
I I had never fired a shotgun before, so this
(16:05):
was Yeah, this was it. So we get out there
and we are preparing and I need to go through
what the gun is, what it does. Imagine your thirty
two three my age, Yeah, thirty, I am thirty thirty. Yeah,
I got it right on the first try. You're thirty,
Your three year old man, you've done a lot of
things your life, but you've never shot shotgun, you know,
(16:27):
pulled the trigger. I got very into air soft in
high schools. As far as that's as far as I got.
I met, not yesterday or well yesterday, a couple of
days ago, I met a fellow that had never tried pineapple.
I've never had pineapple. To watch this human, this full
grown adult human, eat this pineapple's amazing. So this is
(16:50):
a lot what it was like for Phil. And so
we get out there and um, I want to say,
hilarity ensues, but it was pretty normal. And so here's
here's me teach and Phil a little bit about the shotgun. Okay, Phil,
are you ready, sir? Yes, I've had my my ice coffee.
Of course, you've had your This is the this is
(17:12):
what most people at the range do. They talk about
their caffeinated beverages. Any anything, you want? Any questions before
I go through the shotgun and task here? Uh not yet. No,
I'm I'm ready to learn. I have some more Turkey
specific questions for later, but right now I think I
just need to like hold a gun in my hands.
Probably all right, Well, here's the gun here. So this
(17:37):
is a weather B eighteen. It's a semi drun. We
gotta be honest. It was very windy. So we went
into my truck and I didn't actually have the shotgun. No,
I was my man the whole time, so just let's
just keep going. It was sad. Uh. This thing that,
this big piece in the back is the whole thing
(17:59):
is the stock, Yes, a big silly And there's a
recoil pad on that that helps to to cushion that
recoil that you're gonna feel from the I'm trying to
be the expert of experts here. I'm super worried that
people we'll think that I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah,
(18:21):
so you're you're going over every little part of the gun. Yeah,
I think I was even reading off something on my phone.
The shot when you pull the trigger, so there's the
trigger guard. Put your finger right there. You see that
it's totally never put your finger on the trigger and
even inside that trigger guard until we're ready to go,
(18:43):
all right, and then when here's the safety, so you
can push it back and forth and see as as
the action is open, you can see that there's you
can push that back and forth and see safety was
when the red indicators showing, and on safe is when
the red indicators and here at the range, we won't
do this in the field, but here in the range,
(19:05):
when that safety clicks off, you just say fire in
the hole, which means I'm preparing to shoot, which lets
me know that you're getting ready to send some shots.
So now you're educated, Phil, educated. I was holding the
gun in my hand, yeah, inspecting all the parts you
were showing me. It was kind of like an air gun.
It's made of air. There you go. But we did
we actually did later than you know, inspect. It's the
(19:26):
magic of the magic of audio. Here. We're just letting
you into the creative work that goes into the show
like this. You should be grateful. And then was so
honest with you. He's really he's really opening up. Yeah,
in these last episode and then you know, we did
other stuff. Okay, it's it's it's getting a little window
out here. We're out in them. We're on America's public lands.
Obviously America's public lands. There'd be somewhere else. I'm gonna
(19:49):
show you what you're what you're doing here, Phil, You're
gonna be shooting these federal TSS loads. These heavyweight t
SS Sponsorler Tungsten super shot. These are three inch shells.
They have nine shot and it's one and three year
quarter ounce of shot inside of there. So we're gonna
put these babies right in here, and then when we
(20:11):
hit this button, it's gonna go. It's gonna be chambered right,
we're gonna be ready to fire. Okay, safety there like
I showed you, and then this is the magazine or
you'll be able to insert the extra shells that which
will be cycled through when you pull the trick semi automatic. Okay,
got it. Now onto the next thing. We recorded all right,
(20:37):
eyes and ears safety, see, we're yes, we're doing it right.
We made sure to about how far do you think
that's your guests, Probably about fifteen yards? This turkey as
a turkey's head. And you're gonna put the bed look
down the barrel here real quick. You're gonna put that
bead see the rip of the shotgun here. You're gonna
(21:00):
bed that bead down in the ribs. So you just
see like a half moon, and that bead is going
to go right on the turkeys. Major curruncles are right
in the middle of its neck. There. As you can see,
there's a bull's eye on the target, and so you're
gonna place that that bead right on top of that
right and then you're gonna shoot him in the face. Good,
So it's gonna go okay. Commentary Philip, No, it's a
(21:22):
lovely day. Um. I couldn't ask for better, better weather,
better situation. I'm excited. We're gonna we've got about We're
gonna try it. We're gonna run through this once. Let's
just let you feel it and then get your reaction,
and then we'll start to look at accuracy and kind
of play a little bit around what we need to
(21:43):
do in the field. You were thrilled at this point,
phil Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I
was a little I mean, it was very much out
of my element, so so you know, I was, I
was I didn't really know what to expect, um, and
I was just trying to take in what you were
telling me. Yeah, I mean, I think all seriousness. I mean,
I think being a mentor is about that feeling out process.
(22:05):
Of course, we know each other from sitting around in
the studio a lot of times, but those of you
that are out there mentoring folks. You may not know them,
or you may know them from other you know interactions.
You may know him professionally even or from work. You
may know from church. You may know him who knows
you know, from the corner store, you don't know. Um,
it's this going to the range of someone one is
a good way to kind of set the precedent for
(22:26):
how you're going to communicate, you know, whether you trust
that person, whether you're really going to take on the
mental roles like I'll handle the firearms, I'll make sure
we're safe, or you're gonna see some trust over to
that person that you're working with. And and these these
early interactions are a way to kind of get to
know each other but also to set a cadence because
you have to to to do this successfully. To mentor
(22:47):
someone successfully, you have to be able to communicate with
them and understand them and they have to understand you. Uh.
There's a lot of you know, even non verbal communication
in the woods, a lot of whispering, a lot of
fast action. And so this is to me, is like
a good way to say, like, this is how we're
going to communicate each other. That's how we're gonna be safe.
This is this is setting a precedent for when we're
out there, making sure we understand, you know, kind of
(23:10):
the step by step process of how we're going to
handle some of these more intricate actions out there in
the field. So that that's my what I was, what's
going through my mind, you know, to see how comfortable
you are. I think immediately you were pretty comfortable with
the weapon, like it wasn't something scary or you didn't
feel like you were nervous. You were nervous. You want
to be accurate, you wanted to do it right. But
(23:32):
I don't think you were nervous at the idea of
felt recoil, were you No? No? No, I mean I
think you'll hear um. After you kind of gave me
the go ahead to fire, there is a long gap.
I was kind of I was really trying to like
remember all the things you told me, like three points
of contact, like where where's where's the where's the site pointing? Like?
Am I level enough? Like am I holding the gun
(23:55):
too close to my body and holding it too tighten?
Or am I holding it too loosely? Like am I
am leaning too far? Back to go forward and then
all that kind of stuff I was trying to process,
like fire on the exhale, just like all that stuff,
um and so like I think there was some trepidation there,
but I was never I was never like uncomfortable or
nervous like in that way. No. No, So here we go.
(24:16):
All right, we got Phil all figured out here. He's up.
We're using a hydro sled and a Caldwell shooting table
out here in the middle of this kind of really
flat aired public land. Peace. So you're all set up there,
fils that feel pretty comfortable? It does, Yes, We've We've
finagled it, and now I'm feeling pretty good. Okay, I
forgot the target stand, so we're using a piece of
(24:37):
wood and a bungee cord, much like his tradition in
the Turkey uming space. Okay, I'm gonna load this up
for you. Phil. As soon as this action closes, it's
gonna be ready to fire. Now, when you're ready to shoot,
all you gotta do is push that safety and then
when you're ready to fire, put your finger inside the
trigger guard and just tell me, you know, ready to go. Okay, sound.
(25:04):
So here's the momentble pause like thing that I'm gonna
have my hand under the magazine like no, no, you're
opening the further up on the flour ends. You can
get it the better. If you hold it right here,
you'll be just fine. And this is very natural. Well, well,
like what's happening here, You're trying to get comfortable, I think,
(25:25):
and you tell me if I'm wrong immediately when I
load a shot shell and I say it's loaded, it's
ready to go. But your mood changes a little bit.
I mean, like your understanding now for a big loud
thing could happen at any time. Yeah, well even just
looking at that that the trigger and the trigger guard,
how how close the trigger is to the back of
(25:47):
that trigger guard area where I was like, oh, like
this is like a hairpin, like you barely have to
squeeze for it to go off. So it's I mean,
it's you know, um, like I told you I did.
You know, I didn't grow up with guns, so all
all this stuff, you know, being handed a shotgun when
you're thirty, it's it carries a little bit more weight
and like the context as as as an adult, more
(26:10):
than it would if you were you know, eight, years old,
So like it just kind of you know, I was
trying to be extra extra careful. Yeah, I mean all
the time, we've talked about this and thought about this,
and we talked about mentoring a lot on the show,
and we've we've kind of thought through what this this
would be. But this is one of the main points
to remember if you are mentoring an emergent hunter is
as a child, you're kind of you're pretty locked in
(26:32):
on whoever it's mentoring you, whether it's your dad, you
generally have a relationship with that person, right, uncle, father, friend, whatever, um.
But you don't have a general like you have no
general knowledge of the social and cultural impacts of firearms. Right.
You also just don't have a general knowledge and ways
people might die, all right, just don't sit around reading
(26:54):
about gun accidents or reading about mass shootings. And so
I'm I know that those things are baked in and
I could I could tell, and I think this is
is very normal that like when when the finality of
that shot shell in the chamber and me saying like
it's one you now be safe, do this, right, So
(27:15):
you're immediately there's a question, Okay, what do I do?
Where do I go elbows, hands, cheek. Where does this
all go? You know? And that's pretty natural, right, I think?
So there we go. Yeah, just don't get your This
action is going to come back forward and this magazine
will work in that action will work that next round
(27:35):
into the chamber. But if you're there, you're You're just fine.
And the goal here where this first shot was just
to get just to understand how everything works. No expectation, no, no,
tell me when you're ready to say, fire in the hole.
Now we gotta, I gotta ready. I also didn't want
(27:57):
to shoot the gun whenever anyone was driving by. Yeah,
it was totally fine. The road was completely and it's
it was in a very safe zone. Yeah, yeah, but
you didn't want to. It was make I don't know,
I don't know if self conscious conscious is the word,
but something about it just made me slightly uncomfortable. Here
we go, see him say win driving out of Okay,
(28:26):
go ahead and get set up on it with that
cheek on the weld. Don't put that figure near the
trigger until you're set up and firm. Make sure this
is firm against your shoulder. Okay, you're good, Go ahead
and place that finger on the trigger and pull slowly
back towards you. It's a lot of power, it is.
(28:54):
You killed that turkey. All right, we're did that and
he didn't make it well done? What are you think they're,
Philly engineer. I that was exciting. Yeah, what a stupid
I don't I don't have a whole lot of words
right now. There. It was exciting a lot of pressure
(29:14):
on you to say pulling in things. Yeah, I gotta
say I did not like you running out to the microphone.
Shot shot the gun for the first time. I did that.
Every time you shot, I think, yeah, probably. Um. We
won't borrow you with the rest of the details, but
it suffice to say, like we'll talk through a little
bit of what happened, Phil, we that first shot would
(29:36):
have been in every shot you I think you shot
about five times or maybe seven. Think it was you
shot one. I shot one just to see. Everything was
a little bit low, a little bit to the left.
I think the first three or four shots you would
have killed the turkey. But you know, to understand, you
know where we had about an eighteen yard target again
(29:58):
a piece of wood bungee cord. It was kind of
on the ground. We started you on a Caldwell shooting
bench portable shooting bench that I have, and then a
hydro slid, which is like a lead sled. It's a
big shooting rest. So we started you there first, just
so you can understand the mechanics of the situation and
kind of mentally understand what's going to happen, just so
(30:18):
we all had that mutual understanding. And then we did
that a couple of times, took that away, brought in
a Caldwell shooting bag, just so now you could feel
the shotgun directly on your shoulder. We could talk about fit,
we could talk about points of contact, we could talk
about you know, really as as I think you could
talk about this a little bit. What came to I
(30:39):
think really help. He was like control of shotgun. Don't
let the shotgun control you bear down, Like make sure
you're on top of the gun, don't you know, don't
let it um, don't let her buck. I guess it'll
be a good way to say it. So talk to
talk people through how that progression went, because we went
from just trying to understand two, just trying to control
(31:01):
the shotgun, but then trying to shoot for accuracy. Then
we sat you up against the gate, you know, just
like you would be up against the tree in the field,
and did some more shooting. So talk to people through
how that all in your mind went. Yeah, I mean
I felt like my aim, I mean behind the gun,
I felt like I was aiming properly. Um And I
(31:21):
was pretty consistent with where the shots are ending up,
but it wasn't where I wanted them to end up.
It was always just slightly low and slightly to the left.
And um uh So then even even when I tried
to kind of compensate for that, which I don't I
don't know if it was the right thing to do, um,
it was still ending up kind of low and to
the left. Um So, so I think wait, and then
(31:44):
you came in and were like, well, I you was
I specifically doing something. I think you were telling me
that I maybe was kind of You're dumping the trigger
a little bit, which is completely natural, which jump in
the trigger just means you know, jerking it, pulling fat asked,
not smoothly pulling through right, So as you jerk the trigger,
that's going to create really a different kind of action.
(32:06):
And so I just talked about let's focus on other
things right, because there is there's a level at which
when you're instructing someone or something like this, you can
get in their heads if you give them too much instruction,
you know, if you have too many things to think about.
And then and so I could just to me, it
was like, okay, let's let's because we talked about you know,
getting that taking a breath in and then when as
you let that breath out, just slowly pulling that trigger
(32:28):
and the surprise shot. You know, we talked about that.
But as I was watching, I'm like, well, I think
if I just let's just talk, let's just get that
gun seated correctly in your shoulder and just control that thing.
They just just know that you're not you know, you're
not waiting for the recoil, not worried about the trigger.
You're just worried about controlling that shatkun. And then once
we kind of got there, then you're right on, you know,
(32:51):
And I think that's that was just you know, openly
through that process, just watching and trying to understand, and
there's never really no one way to do that. You
just gotta interpersonal. You just gotta figure it out together.
And again, if you're teaching somebody how to to go
hunt for the first time, especially they're an adult. This
is gonna happen. You have to like work with each other,
(33:12):
work as a team. It's not it's not boss employee.
It's two people trying to figure something out together. It's
really what this is. I was happy by the end
of the thing, and we got to go drive out.
We got to drive by the mutant Turkey on the
way back out. That's right, say goodbye, say goodbye, goodbye,
mutant Turkey, goodbye forever. So we when we were driving
(33:34):
out past the mutant Turkey, we did a little recording
just to talk about in the moment. So let's see
what you said. And you know, in reflection, because I
do not remember anything nice. That's what I'm saying that
I don't remember eating. So it's good. It's like, this
is a fun way to play it out. Maybe it's
not good for the audience, but for us, it's fun. Okay, Phil, Yeah,
uh all right, last shot he blew the turkey's head off.
(33:58):
Feeling good about that. Yes, it was a good note
to go out on. My best shot was my last shot. Um,
I just gotta remember to kind of you were telling
me to bear down a little bit, keep that gun tight,
tight to my my my shoulder, and uh and aim
a little higher. I guess that was kind of what
I did on that last last shot. So well, I mean,
(34:20):
that's it, man, That's why you come out here so
you can learn a little bit and experience it. And
if you all but one of your shots, you would
have killed the turkey. So for your first time really
doing this, that's that's like I said, I'm not worried
at all. I have no concerns about the turkeys and
what they'll do after Philly Engineer pulls the trigger, except
the real ones will be like presumably walking around and moving,
(34:44):
so that's that'll be another wrinkle. But I think I
think I'm ready. I think you're ready to what questions
you have about actual turkey hunting itself. It's kind of
going over it on the show a bunch of times.
But do you have any questions about like the scenario
for the morning? Yeah, I think so. I mean, so
we're gonna set up decoys, he said a twenty yards away.
Is there a specific moment that the turkey that will
(35:06):
the will the turkey be doing something specific when like
when it's when it's strutting or try and check out
the decoys? Am I waiting for it to kind of
stop and and you know, plant for a second before
I take the shot? I guess, I guess what's the
opportune moment to actually take the shot other than having
a clear sightline and and you know, knowing the target
(35:26):
and everything. Yeah, so it all depends on how it
happens for your first turkey hunt. If it doesn't go
the way we wanted to go, we're just not gonna
shoot like that. You know. If if he comes in
he gets nervous and starts running around the circles and
looks like he starts putting and looks like he wants
to roll out, we're just gonna let him go. You know,
We're not gonna rush anything. We're not gonna be unethical.
(35:48):
We're not going to force a shot if we don't
need to. So the perfect scenario is when we set
these decoys up, we're gonna set them up in such
a way that he has to come where we'll set
up I know, this little meadow where we're gonna go.
We're to set up the decoys where he basically in
almost all scenarios, probably nine out of the ten scenarios
where a turkey might approach, He's gonna have to come
(36:08):
past us to get to the decoys. Okay, and for
a for a myriad of reasons, but really because I
want him to be focused on the decoys and walk
and looking towards the decoys. And we're not on the
other side of those decoys, right, So we're gonna set
up so he has to come past us. So generally,
once it wants a full strut turkey or a gobbler
(36:29):
or you know, any turkey that's interested in decoys, once
they get full lock in on on a decoy, they
want to come. And I'm not gonna say you can
almost do You can't do anything, but you can move
around a little bit, you can adjust a little bit.
I mean people, you know, in those situations draw a bow.
So I have a full draw on a bow. That's
a lot of motion that you all need to have.
(36:50):
So when that turkey comes in, you're gonna be set
up already like we just worre. You'll be sitting on
against the tree, you'll have three points of contact, you'll
be ready to go. You'll be putting that site picture
in your mind and getting ready to literally just click
the safety off and when I tell you to shoot,
you let it go. What you're looking for turkey wise,
there's a couple of things we can do. He's in
(37:11):
full strut, his his feathers kind of fluff up right,
his his body kind of blows up, he lifts his wings,
his tail fan is kind of up in the air,
and his head is tucked into his body, right, And
so it's not a full you know that that target
we're just shooting at is just a full turkey's head,
and that's it in that case, when his head is
(37:32):
tucked into his body. Certainly I've shot turkeys like that.
What I would would like to do is I'll probably
throw out a few clucks or just like one noise
to get him to poke his head up, and then
I'll tell you to kill him. So when he puts
his head up to look around, like what was that,
then you have a full clear picture of that turkey,
hopefully a silhouetted head just like you had in that target.
(37:54):
And so that's what we're looking for now. If we
don't get that, if he's coming to the decoys, he
sees something weird and he skirts so and he's around
it like thirty or forty yards and he just won't
come in. We can talk about it. At that point,
I'll say you comfortable, Like thirty yards, I think you
can kill him, Like, are you comfortable? And in the
first time we go out like air on the side
of caution, air on the side of thinking it through.
(38:17):
And I will certainly tell you when I think that
you are good to go. That doesn't that doesn't necessarily
mean you have to follow that order, like you can
judge it for yourself. But I'll let you know when
I think you're good to go. But if the if
the turkey is in the decoys, if he is making
contact with the decoys, if he's doing a dance with
with where we set our decoys up, he'll be killable
(38:38):
range pretty shotgun. So that's really really what the consideration
is in terms of effective range and what we really
want to see. There is there is oh lord, there's
the chis. Those are those are farm turkeys. We I
(38:59):
don't even understand what to do with this turkey. That
is the craziest looking turkey that I've ever seen. Dude,
It's like oh man, that is the wildest. I gotta
keep my phone out. I don't know what to say
about it. It's like mutant turkey. All right, that's it,
(39:21):
Oh mutant turkey, right you once but again, I hope
for everybody's tracking here, I know that this is These
are the essential parts, you know, of of mentoring someone.
These are not the exciting parts, but they are the
essential parts of of like I said, getting to know someone,
(39:42):
having them, getting to know you, you know, articulating yourself
in a way that they can understand. And also, hopefully,
Phil I made you feel like you could ask questions
and there was no dumb question hopefully. Uh yeah, I know.
And one thing you just said a few minutes ago,
it's about hell not you don't want to try to
overload someone with information. I never got that at all.
You kind of just let me feel it out through
in a tip here and there. But it was never
(40:03):
sort of like do this, do this, do this, do this,
because if if you if you had done that, I
would have kind of probably walked shut down a little bit.
I've been too worried about screwing up. So yeah, So
now we're headed out hunting the next day, so a
spot that I'd been and never killed a turkey, talked
it up a lot. This is it. This is the
(40:24):
moment that all of all of my talking and just
grandeur about turkey hunting was going to come to fruition.
There was gonna be gobbles everywhere. It would be an
early morning, just crisp morning birds everywhere. You get to
(40:45):
see that natural world come to life in the springtime.
You get to just feel the energy of the turkey woods.
And this was in my mind what was going to happen,
and that we were going to have this indoctrination into
this cult like mentality. Phil will is finally gonna be
(41:07):
a part of the tent legion. Okay, fail, what do
you think, buddy, h it's not it's not too cold,
which is great. That's a good commentary, first thought. Wom
in Montana. Yeah, that's a good thing. Well, we're going
right over here. Okay, there's a river which will go
(41:28):
un named, that goes obviously right here, and there's a
bunch of good roots and trees right on the river.
The situation is we gotta go about quarter of a
mile to get to where I think they'll be and
listen for him to be goblin in the tree. Big
problem here is they'll be in a tree of the
(41:51):
time on private land, so we gotta it sounds like
a turkey and have big plastic things that looks like
turkeys and get him to come to us on the
public which is pretty common. So it's not academic. I've
never killed a turkey in here before, but I've been
on him every single time i've been here. So okay,
(42:13):
we'll stop there. That's interesting commentary by me. We'll see
what happens. Phil. I will give you a compliment. Okay, ready,
thanks man. You were you were very punctual turkey hunter. Like,
you don't know how annoying it is for someone not
(42:33):
to be punctual and fly down situation. Okay, good. You
were flawless the entire time you were on point. You
were very willing, you were excitable. I think I feel
like your number was pretty high by the time that,
like we were talking strategy here at the truck. Hi. Yeah,
(42:54):
for sure, mainly because I was just I was just thrilled.
I was spring time in Montana can be a fickle bastard.
It could be a bit, it can be it can
be a foot of snow. It can be pouring rain,
it could be lovely, it could be very windy, which
it usually is. Um but these that first morning was
(43:16):
just it was perfect. It was it was perfect, and
so I was just din't agree, you know, I set
my alarm, woke up. I was, I was, you know,
I was. I was ready to go. And then when
I stepped out of my car in that in that
uh that a lot we were in. It just it
just felt I was. I was looking forward to it.
I was ready for the day. It felt good. Yeah,
I build it up in my own mind as well,
(43:37):
and it felt good. I was ready for that first gobble.
I was ready to like put my arm in the
air and celebration the first time we heard a gobble,
and to know where these turkeys are, make a plan
and show you kind of at least the interaction, right,
the game of cat and mouse. Yeah right, we were
(43:58):
gonna have a nemesis to key by the end of
the day, I thought. And again, a lot of build
up here, A lot of pressure, a lot of build up,
A lot of pressure on me to to create something here,
to to show Phil exactly what hunting is and what
it's like. And I put a lot of pressure on myself. So, uh,
(44:19):
a lot of things happen, you know, and in hunting,
we were heading out and then my kind of my
fatherly notion is to make sure that I have everything first,
and then to make sure Phil has everything he needs.
We got decoys, we got shotgun, we got calls, get
everything we need. And then I checked one last thing.
Phil forgot his license in the truck. We're going back.
(44:43):
It's only we only got fifty yards from Okay, he
forgot his license. Fine, it happens to the best of us.
It was where it was in your backpack? Yeah, yeah,
it was in my backpack. I didn't I remember to
grab it in the morning. Yeah that was good, right, Yes,
big lesson. Big lesson. Also to to go back a
couple of steps Phil when buying his license. This is
(45:08):
something everybody should know. Like in the state of Montana,
you can print out your license or they'll mail you
the carcass tags. There's an actual license itself and then
a carcass tag which when you fill your tag, you
notch it and that becomes the thing you attached to
the carcass hence the term carcass tag. Phil got his
license the night before the hunt, which is always what
I see most commonly people tend to do when it
(45:30):
is over the counter. He gets his license online and
then at the end, what happens phil you get you
get Twitter pay? Did you get confused? To ask you
a bunch of questions. One of the questions the bottom
was because I had already I had already printed my license,
and then there was one more step where it was like,
would you like to print your carcass tags now or
have f WP mail them to you? And just I, obviously,
(45:54):
if I had spent ten seconds thinking about it, I
would have thought, well, I need I'm going hunting tomorrow.
I'm going to knee these carcass tags as soon as possible.
But just I just was like check marks, I just
mailed me. I was not thinking. And then as soon
as like five minutes later, I kind of I was.
I had one of those moments, just like something went
off in the back of my head like, ah, maybe
(46:16):
I should call Ben and see if there's a problem.
I was like, that's gonna be a problem and you're
gonna need those. But luckily Ben made some phone calls.
I was able to go to the local sportsman's warehouse,
and they could not have been lovelier. They were very
lovely to me on the phone. I called him, I said,
I have this fellow and they said, is it a boy?
I said, no, it's a man. It's a fellow. It's
a fellow man. She said, is this a child? I
(46:37):
said no, it's a man. His first hunt and he
needs a license. So they took care of you, and
then now we resume our adventure. The one thing about hunting,
at least at my case, it's really about forgetting things
and then remembering them. We're losing things and then finding them.
Were wearing thousands of dollars of gear sponsor, and obviously
(47:02):
we need that. We wouldn't be able to fold this turkey.
Were about to go find that stage advice fill you
remember that for next time, So off we go. The
idea was to hit up a little clearing, a little
pocket amidst the brush in this riparian zone and listen
in glass. We were pretty early again, we were probably
(47:25):
thirty five minutes before fly down, so we had plenty
of time, and that was by design. We had plenty
of time to get in there. Here the turkeys get
set up do whatever we needed to do to draw
them for what I thought would be from private onto public,
Like this is the game. I'm pretty sure we're gonna play, um,
and then just all hell broke loose? See amazing? Do
(47:55):
you guys hear any gobbles? Well, Phil, we've heard a
lot of birds this morning, your first morning turkey hunting,
but no turkeys right as far as I know, no,
And by as far as I know, I mean I
I ask you and you say no. Yeah, We're standing
in a spot where, Um, I've been haunted. I've never
(48:19):
shot out to turkey here, but I've hunted it by
my six or seventh time being in here hunting, I think,
And I've never not heard of turkey on the roost.
And it is just about fly down here in another
five minutes or so. Now we have not heard a
peep from a turkey. It's very demoralizing because it's kind
of like, Wow, is you gonna go to this spot
(48:41):
where there's turkeys in there? You know, as a turkey
hunter you have certain spots, Phil where you're basically like, yep,
at least we're gonna get some action there. Well, Phil,
this is this is when you started a spiral. I
spiraled so quickly were it wasn't even fly down yet,
But I was wrold at this point. I was not
(49:03):
as bummed out as you, because I think you had
obviously had more expectations than I did. But I was
expecting to hear a turkey. A turkey. We heard no turkey, none,
not a turkey, no, knowing that there were turkeys there,
like I like the way that this sets up. Their
turkeys either fly across a river to go, which they
(49:25):
will do, but they I knew that. I know there's
turkeys here. They're just not goblin. And as we said earlier,
it's a fine morning. There's no excuses, lovely, lovely morning.
No wind, little to no wind, probably eight to fifty
degrees right around fly down. And this is like prime time.
(49:49):
We have done everything right. You you are punctual. We've
we've trained, we've got the shotgun, and we've talked about scenarios.
We've got our decoys, we've got thousands of dollars of gear,
and here we are the precipice of greatness. And the
turkeys aren't gobbling. No, there's nothing that we can do
(50:11):
to make them gobble. Did I make noises at him. Phil, Oh, yeah,
all kinds, all kinds of noises. Listen, and I've I've
been lucky enough to be to have been exposed to
and meet all kinds of incredible turkey collars. I saw
a bunch of at and n W t F. There
(50:31):
was like there was a g D competition. I saw
people there, competition. You sounded you sounded great. You were calling,
You're doing all all kinds of clucks. You you broke
out the crow call, trying to get them too, shock shot, gobble, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Nothing happened on the first Phil's first day of not
(50:55):
not like, oh did you did you have one of
It's far nothing, not a single one, nothing, And there
you know, what were we gonna do? There was nothing
we could do. It was pure and we've been hunting
for forty eight minutes and it was pure desperation. At
that point, I thought my entire life to that point
(51:18):
was worthless, and that these two years of hunting, of
knowing Phil and hunting and convincing him to go hunting,
was going to be in vain HM. Tune in next
time to hear what happened. In Part two of the
(51:40):
Coming of Age, tail of Phil t Engineer. Any parting
shots Phil before we head to the final episode. Cliffhanger. Wow,
I just want to ask you how this feels. You're
setting up the final episode of The Hunting Collection, fucking
with a fucking with the listeners a little bit. We
(52:02):
can tell the whole story if we wanted to, but
we're not gonna tell you the whole story. It's a cliffhanger.
Come on, we didn't hear any turkeys the first morning.
Eventually we heard turkeys. I can tell you that. Whoa
find out next time on The Hunting Collective. Say bye Phil,
goodbye Clean. You're gone to your bowl where the hunt
(52:24):
collected show and calling hunters new and all the hun
collected show working pick and shuttle or working ben in hand.
We call regate nice and over. I'm the land. We're focused.
We're just living for the searching, dreaming of the fire
and saltic gilburn Bo. We ain't coming by to heallenge
(52:48):
colden Lane taking it so so we can shooes right. Clean,
You're gone to your bowl where the hun clegged show,
calling hunters new and all. The ain't no cold I
am told
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