Ep. 177: Good Phil Hunting: Endgame

In the final episode of The Hunting Collective, Phil the Engineer becomes a hunter.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Clean, You're gone, and tune your bowl. Where the Hunt
Collected show calling Hunters new and all the Hunt Collected
show working pig and shovel or working bening hand. We
confregate nice lovers of the lake, my ball, and we're focused.
We're just living for the search of dreaming of the

(00:25):
fire and a salty gild burn. But we ain't coming
back till it's colden lake. Taking it slow so we
can shoot straight clean, You're gone, Tune your bowl. Where
the Hunt colective show calling Hunters new and all ain't
no cold, iime told, we're knowing too good. We're all good. No,

(00:49):
we got feel to eineer calling any shooters blow hard
times calling and bitter vegans crying Revember, there's always been
old Brian ruined by reasons are collected by taking it
slow so we can shoot clean your gun, Jen your bow.

(01:11):
Where the uncollective show I'm calling Hunters new and all
uncollective show with thanks or fanks and opinions are subjective.
You're listening to the whole collecting. Hey, everybody, Welcome to

(01:34):
the last episode, the final episode, never gonna be heard
or seen again. Phil the Engineer and Benjamin Patrick O'Brian, Phil,
how are you, sir? I'm doing great, I am, I'm
I'm refreshed after our our weekend. Yeah, we had quite
We had quite the adventure. Tricky hunting in May in

(01:58):
Montana requires lots and naps and there's a little sleep.
We went through many, several i'll say days and nights
where we went to bed at eleven and got up
at what three thirty? Yes, so it leaves you a
little loopy, It leaves you a little strong out. Yeah,
well it's it's not just it's not just the couple
hours asleep. It's then the you know, twelve hours of

(02:20):
hiking that happened in the days after that. Yes, it's
it's you know, thirteen hour days rolling around, uh, trying
to find turkeys, finding turkeys, doing the dance. Everything we
love about hunting. We've been doing it this week and
and it's been it's been awesome. Even though Phil and

(02:40):
I do this show together, we didn't really haven't really
spent that much time together. You know, you don't really
spend that much time together with anybody outside of your family,
your close friends, you know that much time, you know,
twelve thirteen, like you said, pretty much an entire day
going through the ups and downs. And so it's been
fun man's planning getting to know you. And as I'll say,
as you'll hear a lot on this podcast, Phil, Phil

(03:03):
came out strong. I tried my best. I knew, I
knew what we were doing out there, making making some
making a good podcast. And you know, this was my
first Hunt. I wanted to I wanted to get know.
I didn't want to slack. Yes, you did not slack.
It's very impressed after all the talk about what would happen.

(03:24):
It's very impressed. But I also was impressed by you know,
obviously weeks ago, roughly a month ago, we announced the
end of the show, and and over time, you know,
a lot of great commentary has trickled in and we've
been thankful for that. We've been thankful for that our
final show can be Phil's first Hunt. It means a
lot to me, it means a lot to a lot
of people. Um but last week I threw up a

(03:47):
post on Instagram just to thank everybody, and I think
that reinvigorated the commentary around the end of the show.
And I was very appreciative of of all the well
wishes and very appreciative of everyone that you know, spent
all this time with us over over the last three
years and roughly five four months. Long time in my

(04:07):
life and an important time in my life. So we're
gonna read a couple of important emails with people that
wrote in with best wishes and thank you's, and then
we're gonna get to part two of Phills First Hunt.
So we got a good ending for you. I think
you'll like what we have in store. But before we
get to that co stuff, ote Dr Gus. Now, Dr
Guss has written in a bunch of times, but he

(04:28):
wrote a great email to see us out, and he's
a doctor, so smart man. Dr Guss said, first of all,
have your Mother's Day to your wives and your mother's
I hope you all had a great time with family today.
As I sit here and eagerly await the conclusion of
Phil's First Hunt, I wanted to express my sincere appreciation
to both of you for the last couple of years

(04:49):
on the THC podcast. By now, I'm sure you have
both received tons of emails and d ms, but I
had to write you before the finale to share with
this podcast and this cult has meant to me. I'm
a vascular surgeon Houston, Texas, which means I don't have
a lot of time in the outdoors a vascular surgeon film. Wow,
this is the upper crust talking about attracting the best. Here,

(05:09):
Dr Gus trying to manage a busy practice in a
family I adore, leaves little time for me to pursue
my passion of hunting. In fact, before I listen to
your podcast, I really didn't know that hunting is conservation.
I had no idea what the Pittman Robinson Act was,
or how serious c w D is public land access
hunt recruitment, or the pillars of the North American model

(05:31):
of conservation. I joined b h A and TRCP and
donated to the Army F because of th HC. I
didn't know who Valerious Guy Easter Shame My Honey were
and how vital they are to preserving our hunting traditions.
I didn't know that just a few hours away from me,
out in the big empty as he describes it, lives
a poet, cowboy and trapper Wyman Menzer, who takes the

(05:52):
most breathtaking pictures of the Texas Plans. I didn't know
Charles Rodney, an African American man who grew up in
jim Crow, Louisian in a hunt rabbits with hounds in Maryland.
Hearing his story of how he grew up in segregated,
rural Louisiana had a profound effect on me. What an
amazing man. I didn't know who Colonel Tom Kelly was,

(06:12):
and that there are people who are more crazy about
turkeys than deer. I even bought The Tenth Legion because
of you and read it twice during Turkey season, but sadly,
I have yet to go on a turkey hunt. I
didn't know Canadian bear biologists could be so damn sensitive.
Every Tuesday morning, when I walk out my door, I
make sure the latest episode is downloaded so I can

(06:33):
listen to it on my drive to work and back home.
I called it Tuesday's with th HC. Well that's nice, Phil,
Tuesday's with HC. Why didn't you think of that? I
didn't think that was great. It was my It was
my hour and a half of outdoor education. To me,
it was a time where I could escape the rigors
of my job and all the stressers that come with
life and learn about fellowship and humanity and the appreciation

(06:54):
of this beautiful world we live in, no matter how
ugly society gets. To me, the podcast us was my
virtual bar where we can congregate once a week and
hear stories in different perspectives. It was fun and beautiful
and I am so sad to see it go. Nonetheless,
I am excited for you and your new opportunity with
Meat either. I just want to thank you and Phil
for giving so much of your time to this and

(07:17):
truly incorporating your audience to help shape this podcast, this
beloved cult we all hold so dear. I hope one
day we can cross paths and shake hands and tell
stories and who knows, maybe end up on the same
public land going after elk or a mule deer or
even maybe a turkey. But if not, I say to
you God speed, keep fighting the good fight and keep

(07:38):
telling your story. You never know where you might who
you might inspire, even old grumpy surgeons like me. After all,
I can always tell my kids that I wrote a
part of the podcast theme song. Maybe then they will
think I'm cool all the best. Dr Gus Missouri City,
Texas pretty cool or philm what's your reaction to that one. Yeah,

(07:59):
that's great. Um, we were we spent some time talking
about just people's reactions to the end of the show
out there. Uh, we're hunting this weekend, and um, it's
those kinds like the one one you just read that
just just affirm everything that you've been doing here for
the last couple of years. So it's always that's just

(08:21):
you know, it's really moving and and sometimes it's it's
easy to forget after you know, you get some a
lot of responses on the Internet and then you get
some that like that one that just kind of tell
you that you're doing the right thing. So yeah, that's
really it, man. It's it's emails like that that make
that have made this show worth doing, and we'll have

(08:42):
we'll keep it going. You know. It's folks like Dr
Guss and everybody that has joined our cult over this time.
It's the ways that it will have shaped me and Phil,
but more importantly, the ways that I'll have shaped to
you that you take forward into the future, uh and
do good with. So I'm happy, uh to have have
read that email and gotten to know Dr Gusfie email

(09:04):
and gotten to know so many of you via email
over time. I mean, I can't if I had to count.
Right now, there are two thousand three emails stuck in
the old inbox, and there are eight hundred and fifty
three that I had to read in the last two
and a half weeks. It's been a big part of
this show. And that's that's a fantastic email to end on.

(09:24):
So thank you, Dr gust. Thank you to everybody that
ever wrote in to h C at the media dot
Com that, as we said last week, that will continue.
You can get at me and even at filled by
proxy through that email inbox, So keep them coming. But
I think people came here filled it to hear a story,
the particular story about your turkey hunt. Now we're gonna

(09:46):
take it. We're gonna continue to take it linear where
we left off. If you haven't listened to last week,
go listen to it now We'll wait. Welcome back. Now
you're you're salvating after that cliffhanger of last week, right, Phil,
we went out hunting, we train you up on the
on the shotgun, we ran into a mutant Turkey. And
if it turns out that the only video I had
at the mutant Turkey is the best like most mysterious

(10:09):
video of said mutant turkey. So if you didn't see
it on my Instagram stories, I'll put it back up
there for you. It was fantastic. It was a shadowy,
just glimpse at the mutant Turkey. But we left you
at a moment where we had just stepped out into
the woods for the first time and after a couple

(10:30):
of years of waiting to get filled out there, and
we had a little bit of we were crestfallen, at
least I was. I was immediately in despair, immediately in
despair that we that I took you to a place
where turkeys live and no turkeys. We're a goblin Phil.
And And as as we tracked through this story, you'll
you'll see that I have my emotional ups and downs

(10:50):
are very exaggerated, but Phil stays pretty consistent the entire time.
Tell him about that. Phil, You're happy to be here.
The weather is nice, and I'm over there going I
don't even know if I can live. I don't even
know if you know the step forward. You have years
of context and experience to kind of, uh, you know,
put put this hunt into perspective, and I do not.

(11:13):
So I'm just out there. I think I said in
one of those videos that you posted on your Instagram that, like,
if there was a blizzard happening and we're pouring down rain,
if there were forty mile winds, I might have been
looking at my clock and looking at you, like staying
out here. But it was just nice to be outside
and you know, hearing all that, just all the wildlife

(11:35):
wake up in the morning. Um, so I was not.
You know, we weren't hearing any gobbles that morning, but
I was. I wasn't itching to get out of there. Yeah,
I was in the game. I was in a different
game than you were in. Yes, we're trying to relate
to each other because the game I was in was
a game success of failure. Yeah, it was a game
marked by things I had done in the past and

(11:56):
experience that I had done in the past. I pretty
consistently would be like Phil, last time I was here,
the turkeys were over there and they did this. You
kept trying to justify being there. I don't want to
say make excuses, that's not what it was. But you
were trying to really, Yeah, but it was it was unnecessary.
Desperately provide context so you can understand why I was

(12:17):
doing the things doing. But we stepped out. You know,
we explained to you guys that we stepped down. It
was kind of a for me, a very desperate situation.
I wanted to have that first morning kind of crescendo
for Phil did not happen. But we continued as we
continue the story, we continued, we'll take you into the
field now. We continued to discuss what it was like

(12:39):
on that first morning. So, Phil, we're taking a little break.
We haven't heard of gobels. So for your first daid
Turkey hangever. We built this up. We talked about it
for years, and we have, you know, a little false start. Okay,

(13:00):
that's that's fine. You were you were kind of expecting this.
I think a little bit at least a little bit
of a you know, slow start. Yeah. The Turkey poversations
around here locally aren't great, um, and the opportunities for
public land which we are sitting on right now are
not particularly abundant in terms of Turkey habitat, and so

(13:25):
it's a little tougher. It's a little tougher equation than
than other places. And I'll also add Phil that I
have a curse m. Montana. Yeah, you talked about this.
I was hoping to help you break that curse. So far,
I haven't had much luck, but I just want you
to know that I'm I'm trying. You and I have

(13:46):
killed the same amount of turkeys in Montana. Oh great, Wow,
that makes me feel pretty good. All right, Well we
have to talk about the curse, the Montana turkey curse
that I have going now. Is it do you think
that contributed to of the final like that that contributed
to this hunt that I kept talking about the turkey curse? Yes,
because I would say whenever we I'm not gonna spoil anything,

(14:07):
but whenever we ran into any bad luck or something
happened that wasn't great, I think you would mutter something
under your breath, like God, Curtana. I will give that.
The context I'll give it there is that I've hunted
the last couple of years, no more than two days

(14:29):
in any other state to fill a tag, no more
than two and any other state. And when I say
any other state, I'm talking six states total. I've traveled
to and got tags, and each one of those six
states I'll field attack and under two days or right
at the two day mark and sometimes multiple turkeys Montana,
I'm going on. I gotta be going on day by

(14:53):
the time me and you get to day two and
other other days to come. And so really this story
is about can we break that curse. I keep bringing
it up because I'm just it's like, that's the baggage
I'm bringing to this event. Yeah, I'm bringing a lot
of baggage. You could feel my emotions. I'm sleep deprived.
I could, and I'm sure the audience can as well. Yeah, yeah,
sleep deprived. I'm not really I don't understand what I'm doing. Uh,

(15:16):
even in that audio from the field there, you can
hear that it we're just both like, I'm just like, oh,
it's sounds so tired. And so at this point, we're
just trying. I'm just trying to keep it going. I'm
trying to keep pushing forward and be positive. But the
emotional strain is clearly taking its toll heading into morning
number two. And and to put a bow on day one,

(15:38):
no gobbles were heard on day one, no turkeys were seeing.
Nothing happened of note. Day one was a bus Now
here we go with morning number two. All right, morning
number two, it is five oh two in the morning.

(15:58):
Is you can hear my voice? Is will tore up.
I'll play with the kiddos up early with Phill the
engineer pulling into the parking lot here, or we'll hike
out of to meet old Phil. He's on time, fills
an on time turkey hunter, which I appreciate, and I'll
see how he's doing this morning. One of the secrets

(16:22):
of turkey hunting is every time you hear a train,
we can't figure out if that's the train. Is that
a train horn? What do you call that the train whistle?
I think we did that idea. Yeah, listen for the
che choose. It's technically a whistle. Okay, technically the train whistle.
If hunting your train tracks, you really got a key

(16:42):
in on that train whistle. Important musing. But we're on
this day, day two, and Phils, you have to hear
a gobble in the wild other than some nuclear turkey

(17:03):
in somebody's front yard. We need again, we need at
least hear one. That's it. Just hear one. That's all
all right. We just heard her first gobble ever and
fills the first turkey on as I feel it feels
pretty good. The the descriptive skills of Philly engineer. The

(17:28):
emotional depth is on full display right now. So we're
set up in a little blind that I made with
my son, and we're feeling these birds are just about
where I thought they would be on their right, tucked
up on the river. It sounds like last time we

(17:50):
didn't hear a gobble. Something good to hear the want
to roost goblin. Now we gotta make decision to stay
here or do what I've done that asked and bomb
right up to the private fans there. Let's see what
we get. We'll keep listening. I have a hard time
judging distance because this is new to me. How how

(18:12):
far away do you think that gobble was? Well, that
rooster's right behind us. That gobble, you know, a quarter
of a mile, not far from us. I only know
where where there's another one, back further in the river. Oh,

(18:33):
it's kind of hard not to go over there. It's
back where I thought they would probably be. Keep listening, Okay, Phil,
do you remember what it was like just to hear
those first distant gobbles in this case, one a couple
of distant gobbles, but one pretty clear. There was one

(18:53):
where I was like, Oh, it's happening. Yeah, because we
had tied those distant ones. You had kind of said,
it's probably across the river over the chances of them
coming over from that over from over there pretty slim.
But then we heard that one that was that sounded
really close. Yeah he was, I said a quarter a
mile there, like in in hindsight, Man, he was close
way five yards maybe less. And at that point you're thinking,

(19:18):
I mean, we're in the right spot. So we talked
about it, and we decided we're gonna stay here. As
I explained in a couple of these clips, Um, we
just I just feel like these turkeys are in a
spot where they're either going to filter towards the river.
They're not going to casually just fly across the river.

(19:39):
They're either gonna hang out basically where they're roosted, or
they kind of have to come our way. There's no
other there's there's really two directions they're gonna go. So
feeling like we, as we talked about through this entire thing,
we want to be where they want to be, right
if we're in a position to be calling from an
area they're headed to. Anyways, we have a we have

(20:00):
and I, you know, we can speed up that process,
and we're just catching when they're gonna get there anyways. Yeah,
and so we decided to stay right where we were.
And then this happened. So as as often happens, we
got on the fly down. We got the bird flew

(20:20):
down as my guess hit the ground, gobbled once. It
sounded like he flew down closer to us. And then
when when quiet, So I kind of predicted that, I
think a little bit. We haven't haven't heard of goblin
several minutes. So basically, Phil, we're gonna sit here the way.

(20:42):
We got no other options. We'll sit here and wait
and just be ready because you know, turkey's coming in quiet.
They got great eyesight. They're gonna come and look at
We'll just hope that when he gets in and tight,
I'll hit it, you know, just hit him with a call.
He's tight and kind of shock gobble at us for beating.

(21:03):
Really be fired up when he's in tight. But we
got you sit here a while. I just hope that
he wants to filter this way, check us out. We'll
call every five ten minutes. I hope to catch his attention.
It sounded like he was roosted either by himself or Yeah,

(21:24):
I would say he was either rooster by himself or
what is some less than vocal hands, But I would
guess he was by himself. Okay, birds go quiet. This
often happens. This happens, especially this time of year, pretty

(21:45):
often more often than i'd like. Where the birds hit
the ground, they're just being completely quiet. Then you're you're
in a deer hunting situation. You gotta sit there. You're
gonna be quiet, you gotta be still, you gotta be vigilant,
you gotta wait. But we were kind of we went
from no gobbles to Gobblesville. That's really the underlying clarity
that we need to be like, you got some cobbles

(22:07):
and that that when when that bird hit the ground,
the gobble was close but then quiet. So what are
you thinking at this point, Phil, where does your mind? Dad?
We're sitting in that blind I'm trying to remember. I
honestly think I was starting to lose hope at this point.
You're finally you finally on my level. Okay, Well, you

(22:32):
know it's hard to say. It's hard to understand kind
of like the ups and downs of things like this
because as we talked about later in this in the story,
everything in hunting is fiction. The story you've drawn up
in your head is fiction until it becomes fact. Right.
It's it's like you've drawn up I drew up a
story that, like this turkey flies down, he's by himself.

(22:53):
I don't know if he's by himself or not. He
could be with I have no idea. I only heard
one gobble, right, So in my head I've drawn up
this story that there's a single turkey he heard us,
he flies down. I hit him as soon as he
I didn't. We didn't really talk to him while he
was in the tree. I don't think we talked to
him't make any noise while he was in the tree.
But as soon as he hit the ground, I started
calling him, hoping that that would draw him our way,

(23:16):
and hoping he wanted to come our way anyways. And
I made up the story that it was just one
turkey and he wanted to come over. We just had
to sit and wait for him. And so I had
made up this what essentially he is a fiction about
this story h And I think that's what all hunters do,
That's especially what all turkey hunters do. You make up
a thing, you say like, this is based on my experience,

(23:36):
this is going to happen. You know. It's like setting
out a strategy and then you do actions have to
marry up the strategy until in case you want to
change that strategy, then you gotta change your actions so
that all that makes sense. Feel I'm always was always
rationalizing these things in my head. You have to. You
have to, yeah, otherwise you just as I often do,
feel like an idiot. So we're sitting here. We haven't

(24:01):
heard a gobble since fly down. It's now seven thirty,
so it's been you know, an hour, and so you know,
over an hour and hour and fifty minutes, almost two
hours now, and we're talking about what goes through your

(24:22):
mind at times like this when you know there's turkeys around.
So there's a few things we know, Phil. We know
that there's turkeys around, right, at least a couple we
heard several gobbles coming from different places within five yards
of our location. There was plenty of turkeys to just
wander through this meadow that we're sitting. So we know

(24:44):
that there's turkeys, right. We also know that they're not
making any noise. But in our minds. In my mind
and my turkey under mind. Every minute I'm like, well
what if I when if I just if I went
over there and I just made a call and I
got my fan out, I'm trying to fan them over.

(25:05):
I'm always thinking about other things that I could be
doing while sitting here, absolutely zero action. And what we
were talking about is Phil had a good analogy for that. Yeah,
I am terrible at this. It's like when you're in
line at the grocery store, like you're at a costco.
It's busy, and then you notice the line next to
you is moving really quickly, so you're like, oh, let

(25:28):
us hop over into that line, And as soon as
you get into that line, the other line starts moving,
so you hop back into that line. Like when you're
trying to change lanes during a traffic jam, it's probably
best to just stay where you are. In this case,
the same. But you know this, this podcast, now that
we're actually out here hunting, is really going to be about.

(25:50):
I said, I like where we're at, Phil, because I
think it's emblematic of a lot of turkey hunts. It's
not emile back of all of them. Because sometimes you
sit down and you all and when comes in and
you shoot it, it's like, well that's easy. But two
most turkey hunters like this is a huge part of
the game where you're unsuccessful, and it's sometimes it seems

(26:14):
really hopeless, like there's not like today the sun is
about to come out from behind the cloud. It's fifty
degrees maybe degrees. You know, it's it's the first day
of May. It's there should be some things happen. We've
heard every other type of bird that you can think of,

(26:35):
and um, it might seem hopeless for turkeys, but it's
just never. It's never hopeless. So it all turns. It
turns in like a moment. It takes one weird moment.
Like I was telling you this year in Texas, we
were sitting in a spot like this, I told the

(26:56):
story in the podcast, and then all of a sudden,
there was a turkey there and I shot it. Like
it felt really good to be able to pay off
that patience. And I hate to be hyperbolic, but it's
kind of a nice life lesson, always trying to find

(27:16):
life lessons in the woods. Phil. Now we're back to
the present time and you couldn't tell by the step,
the sound quality. Sound quality, that's the only way to
track two people in different you know, jumping through time.
I can make it sound like like we're still outside
and just trying to check them out. Don't put any
gobbles in the know. They'll know it's not real. Um

(27:42):
as you can tell if we were let me just
say this, if we had been in Turkeys this whole time,
we would have never had this, these back and forth,
these rationalizations, this back and forth like what is turkey anting?
What are we learning? Why are we here? What's life about?
We would not we'd have been we'd have been talking
about how to coax these silent tom's or in this
case nonside times over. But here we are, so we ride.

(28:04):
We're gonna show you the truth no matter what. And
we gotta transition now to uh the next day because
on that day we didn't have any action. We sat
there for a while and no gobbles, so we went
you know, we kind of went back through where the
one was roosted, did a little calling. Nothing not a gobble.

(28:25):
We didn't hear a distant gobble after the fly down,
we didn't hear I mean, we're in a spot where
we could have heard gobbles from just about any direction.
But after that initial fly down, you know, I think
the turkey that we were hoping to kill flew down,
hit the ground, gobbled once in the seconds after he
his feet touched the ground, and then silent, and every
other turkey so the credit of the one we thought

(28:47):
we might kill was silent as well. We didn't hear
another gobble at all. And so that's just as part
of the game. As we said, it's part of the game.
But now we gotta we gotta get to the next day,
all right, So now, uh, we made it. We made
a big change. We've hit our local spots. We had

(29:08):
to still manage our families and work, but we decided
to pack up our camp gear and go to a
spot where that is famous for guys killing turkeys, especially
people that work at meat eater. Yes, my curse is
now on the day like fifteen, and we're looking to
go to a spot where we can be sure that

(29:29):
there's more turkeys than their words in the places we're
hunting prior. Okay, so that's what we were doing. We
use about four hour drive from from Bozeman. We're gonna
camp overnight and We're gonna spend a couple of days
trying to kill turkeys, right, we keep going. Now. The
only limiting factor ful filling I is that we have families,
that we have jobs, and that we have real lives.

(29:51):
We can't just be out there for days upon days
upon days, but we can be out there for these
two very important days that we were out chasing turkeys.
I say they're important because we're we're in a good spot.
We had good weather the first day, and um, I
was very excited. We got there late. We couldn't find
any birds on the roost. We went to bed Phil

(30:13):
about eleven thirty. It was, yeah, close to midnight. It
doesn't get it doesn't get dark. Fly ups not till
after nine thirty or so. We get back to camp.
We crawl in our tents. I don't think you slept much,
did you, buddy. It was a cold night that was
there was no cloud coverage. Uh. I was fully dressed

(30:35):
in a sleeping bag and my zipper got stuck. When
I went to bed, I was like, it'll be fine.
So my zipp was only kind of like half not
a sponsor. No, I'm not going to mention the brand,
but they're not a sponsor. Um and about I wake
up about one o'clock and just this just cold air,
just sneak it into my sleeping bag. I got probably

(30:58):
like two and a half hours of sleep. Maybe, Yeah.
We got up at three thirty. Alarm hit three thirty.
The idea was that we had to drive a little
bit of ways. But this is a roost tree where
I had been during the aforementioned first like Turkey tour,
we had gotten on birds. They're not been successful, but
I knew, you know, I had been there twice and
birds were roosting in the same ridge both times I've
been there, and so we may I made the calculation

(31:20):
that we're gonna go to this spot because at least
I know we have a real good chance of having
birds roosted on this ridge. We're gonna hit it. We're
gonna hit it early. We're gonna get in there with
plenty of time to kind of explore the space and
be in the right spot for fly. Now. I'm excited.
At this point, we were very excited. I'm back on
the horse. I'm like, this is it, man. We have

(31:42):
basically have two days to get it done, and then
it's gonna be tough after that. Uh, these two days
that we were investing before we you know, before this
podcast aired, was really the time we had the pressure
was on. We needed to get a turkey for phil
Or I specifically would look like a fool. At least
that's how I drew it up in my head, right Phil, Sure,

(32:03):
I don't think you ever said that out loud, but
I knew that's what you were thinking. I made it clear.
I made it clear, so we're both like. I didn't
even I got out of my sleeping bag. I didn't
even I slept in my hunting clothes, I got my
boots on. I didn't even bother to do any you know,
really any hygiene work. I mean, I just was fully
immersed in turkeys I was thinking about I didn't think

(32:24):
about anything else. I think about anything, no work, not emails, nothing,
you know. I thought about my family a little bit,
but then it was like full onto turkeys, fully just
thinking about turkeys. There was nothing else, but like, where
are the turkeys? How am I going to find the turkeys?
If Turkey's come in, what are we gonna do? Trying
to plan out the days in my head, it was
very exciting and important to me. Phil, What were your

(32:48):
head acause I was in the Turkey? I love it
for that reason. Well, I was in I was in
a you know, I we're not gonna say where. Obviously,
I wasn't a part of the state I had never
been before. I was just like happy to be there.
It was more beautiful than I thought it was gonna be,
seeing all this new country. Um, you know, I I
don't own a truck and you do. So we were
on all these roads that I never would have been

(33:08):
able to drive on and just just getting out into
the back country and it was just fun being out there.
I could tell you were you were vibrating, you were
on a different plane. You were you were leading the
charge quickly on these trails, and I had to kind
of I had to kind of, you know, keep it up,
to stay on on on on your tail there. I

(33:28):
had to you you you were putting me into gear
and I was. I was there for it. You were
there for You're there for it. You know, sometimes when
you get it's just a mode that you get in
the woods where you're not even thinking about and it's
probably not a great thing to not have empathy for
the person behind you, or like you're just like I
gotta get that guy over there and go and if
you can't keep up, I'll stop maybe, but I'm definitely

(33:49):
gonna go hard. You know. We had a little bit
of a walk in the morning. We had to drive
in the morning. But we made it happen. Man, I was,
I was my on X really wasn't downloading the way
I wanted it to side know where the roads were.
It's pitch dark while since I've been there. We made
it in parked, the truck got out hiked probably had
probably about a mild hike in. We got there perfect timing,

(34:11):
I mean perfect timing. We were there about twenty minutes
before what I would say is fly down. We had
plenty of time to hear a gobble, to sneak in,
to set up the decoys, and to make love to
the turkeys and get him to come over. It was.
It was perfect, and it was kind of like a
very invigorating moment for me. Reinvigorating. And so we'll take

(34:33):
you there. Okay, Phil, We've now traveled very far to
find turkeys. What do you think, Uh, well, so far?
I mean, listen, I said it last time. I'll say
it again. Weather's nice. We we haven't had to this point.

(34:54):
We haven't really had any scenario where I would say
we've had anyhow well, someone's called luck. Well, we're in
a spot, another spot rough rooster turkeys were I know
they're at. Where have they been at in the last
a month or so? I haven't heard him go yet,
but we got plenty of time. We're in here kind

(35:16):
of perfectly in the morning, good friends, We're gonna do
some hiking, see who I can find. We didn't find anything.
Did we feel you're just cutting right to the chase,
right to the chase? Nope, nothing. Frustration is in the
name of the game. We didn't find anything. Nothing. Let

(35:37):
me just say, let me just say, I'm gonna ask
you something. Would you say my spirits throughout these two days?
Would you say my spirits? I'm not gonna say hi,
but would you say that they were like moderate? Two?
Good enough? No, you're you're you were there? Okay? Good?
Because I just want to because I just wanted. We

(36:02):
drove a while aways, We drove aways to a place
that I heard not just from you, but from multiple
people at this company. I mean, just turkeys you're you're
gonna find turkeys turkeys. And so, when we were hiking
through these woods in the dark and I had gotten
no sleep, and I was I was tripping over all

(36:23):
these rocks following you, I was thinking, this is great
because it doesn't it doesn't matter. We're gonna get it.
We're gonna I'm gonna hear. If I don't get them today,
that's fine. But I'm gonna hear turkeys. I'm gonna hear
some turkeys. I might even see some turkeys. I might
even call some turkeys in that didn't happen. Nope. So yeah,
I mean, like I've been out there when turkeys got shot.

(36:47):
And then pretty much the exact same spot we were in.
We walked past spots where I know turkeys have died
this season if we walk past spots, we walked past
way points I had to give other people that work here,
and they killed turkeys in the spots that I had
given them. Oh, that was your first mistake right there.
But yeah, but maybe would have spread the love. Um

(37:10):
and so, and we had some friends. I had some
friends from Texas in camp. They also heard no gobbles,
and so it just seemed like things were off again.
Let's let's be honest again. It was a nice morning,
Oh yeah, beautiful morning. Yeah. I mean I just want
to say, if anyone podcast needs a meteorologist, I'm here.

(37:31):
I'll pop up to say, hey, whether's motivation is pretty good?
Or else say yeah, whether it could be better motivational
speaker media both. But we continued on and there was some,
as I said, frustration. Okay, Phil, here we are, and uh,
roughly the third or fourth spot I've taken you to,

(37:51):
or I've said all the things a turkey hunter might
say to quit, you know, convince you that it's gonna
work out and there's turkeys, and that we're gonna get
into him. It's gonna be fun. And it's not happened.
It's not even close thus far. What What do you
gotta say the people out there? Well, I mean it

(38:14):
has been fun. I'll say that it's that we've been
getting some some hiking, hiking miles in. Um, there's nary
a cloud in the sky around here. Here we go,
and uh, you know it's it's gonna happen, then it's
gonna happen. Keeping I'm keeping my head up. I gotta

(38:36):
persevere in these cases. It just takes one moment, one gobble,
one second, one shot. You got one shot, one opportunity.
Something about moms spaghetti. Yeah, alright, we're back to present day.
Enough of that ship. Like at this point, you'll you'll
you'll see you'll understand that I was like getting a

(38:59):
little loopy. Yeah, this this is when the muttering about
a curse was as happening loopy, sleep deprived. No, nothing's
going right. The story marked by failure. Okay, so next

(39:23):
we hit another spot. Okay, with little hiking. Now it's
it's roughly oh eight thirty nine o'clock, and we decided
to hit another spot where I know that are turkeys
have been seen in the past, heard in the past,
a similar spot. It was actually the spot where I
had I was choosing between two historical roost areas and

(39:45):
I chose the one we went to, and there's no
turkeys there. So I was like, secondary, we'll just go
check this spot out. So we get in the truck.
We like back to the truck, do a lot of calling,
walking and calling back to the truck and getting the truck.
We drive over there and I should I get out
the ONYX, I say, Phil we're gonna walk up this
ridge and there's a park up here. There's a meadow,

(40:06):
there's that has a a knob of tip right in
the middle of it, and the park that surrounds it.
And I begin to explain to Phil that I feel
like these turkeys love to be in these parks. They're
wide open, there's a lot of grassy cover, and days
like this when the sun is shining, they can they
can eat pine seeds, they can eat like grasshoppers or
other bugs that they just do their thing. They love

(40:28):
to kind of be on the edges of these big
Ponderosa pine ridges that are kind of flat, that have
flat parks. So I explained that the films that we're
going with up this ridge, we'll call until we get
there and then we'll we'll see if there's any turkeys
they want to play. And so um, we get to
hike and fill and we hike up, up, up, up,

(40:49):
and we get right to the lip of the ridge
where the park begins with the flatness starts to grade eight,
Grade eight flatten out and I look, I'm looking, and
I see a stick and this stick it looks like
a turkey's face, And yeah, turkey yeah, weird. You know,
turkeys normally do where they're like moving around, right, They're

(41:11):
bobbing their heads, they're thinking about ship pecking, they're doing
their thing. This turkey was completely still. You know, spoiler alert,
is was a fucking turkey. Oh yeah, okay, you just
gave it away. It was a turkey stick. It was
a It was a turkey. And this turkey, I mean,
this turkey was like what ten feet away, it was
ten yards away. It was. It was fairly certain it

(41:32):
was a jake, just by the way its head looked,
but it wasn't. Tom was a male turkey. One we
would have shot if we had a chance. I mean,
we had called, we're ten yards away from this turkey.
We had just called like twenty yards before that, and nothing. Nothing.
We were like, okay, let's just keep trucking. So we
I was like, filky, damn, that is actually an actual turkey.
After like a couple of seconds, probably five to ten

(41:53):
seconds of looking at this turkey, and it didn't move.
It didn't move its head at all, and I thought
it could be a turkey stick, but then it yeah,
turkey headstick. And then it started to move slowly, so
I was like, get down, let's get up, And so
we crawled up this little ridge and we poke our
heads up. We crawl up behind a tree. We get
set up. I thought, well, maybe this this Jacerb will

(42:14):
filter down into you know, into this depression, and he'll
he'll calm down because he's clearly seeing us, or he
knows something's up, and then he'll come. We'll call him
back in. So we set up, we start to call
nothing that Jake has gone. But in the distance, feel
what happens? Well, as you were calling trying to get
this turkey, we just sawed back in. We heard was

(42:36):
that our first gobbles. It was a one of our
first gobbles on the ground. And we're now on day
out of the day four. I believe it's like one
of our first gobbles on the actual ground. And it's
in the distance. It's it's a ways away. But immediately
I was like Phil, I was like, I showed him
the onyx. I said, I know where this turkey is.
Like when I'm looking at this park, it's got this
knob in the middle and then on the on the

(42:58):
I guess with the south side of the knob were
on the northwest side on the south side of the knob.
It's gonna be out of the wind. This point, the
winds kind of kicking up. I know where these turkeys
probably are. Let's just go chase a gobble for once
in our damn lives. Let's go chase a gobble and
chase a gobble. We did, and we got a couple
of responses, and um, we ended up actually hunting. Yeah,

(43:20):
there was some there was some tracking happening. We were
we were, we were we were on birds, on birds,
that's what you say, right, Yeah, we're now on birds
and some birds for the first time many hours. Okay,
so like that, you have a face mask. I put
it on as quickly as I could, and so I
gave Phil forgot his head net that I gave him,

(43:44):
and I gave him my first like gator, a neck gator,
and he put it on. I'm looking at it, and
you kind of looked like you look a little bit
like a pilgrim. Well, here here's the thing, you this
is when, this is why, this is right after you
had seen that turkey from ten yards away and everything

(44:04):
just started happening incredibly quickly where I was like, oh shit,
it's going down. You started I like, because I had
the decoys, you had the rifle, right, and so then
I had shotgun. I had to put like carefully put
the decoys down without making any noise. I had just
unzipped my coat and it was like just kind of
flailing in the wind because it was getting hot. And
you were like, You're like, yeah, it's fine, So I

(44:27):
like put on the decoys. I'm trying to like zip
up my coat so I'm more covered in camo. And
then you were tossing me a gator. I didn't know
what a house, so, like I thought it was supposed
to go over my head as well as covering it was.
I thought it was more like like a balad quava.
But you know it was just a neck gator, you
know how. And like Et has the hood like he's
pecking his little face out of the hoodie riding the bus.

(44:48):
What it looked like. It was just like that. So
then we went back to feel describing what's happening back
to the future. Clearly I did not do it correctly, Okay,
we ut. We just had a little jaker right out here,
probably spooked him. We were walking up into this park,
but we got a gob but probably say about three

(45:09):
d yards away, and he got but three times and
then he's kind of shut up. But it is windy.
So Phil, should we go over there and potentially bump
him or stay here the whole titan see if he'll
come across this this park and come see us. You're
asking me, Yeah, I'm asking me based on your experiences.

(45:30):
There's no wrong answer. Based on my experience, I say,
we go up there. Damn right, Phil, You damn right, Phil.
So um, at this point we're in the game. Finally
we're about to go try to kill this turkey. So
we hoof it over there. We get up on a knob, call,
call call, We get up on top of the the

(45:51):
tip that's in the middle of the park, just to see.
I love to have turkeys in this country, especially these
piny ridges come up to you. You always want to
be above him when you're calling to him. It's just
this a better way to go in my experience. So
we get above them a call and they're respondent like
we got I don't know four or five, half a
dozen responses from from these bird, this bird, or these birds.

(46:13):
So I'm thinking, man, if they'll keep goblin at least
we're in the game. It wasn't. I told you they
were kind of courtesy gobbles the way I explained them
to you, Like, this is not I'm coming like, let's
have a conversation. This is like I hear you, but
I'm gonna stay in my zone here. I'm not. This
is not an interaction where I'm excited about you because
I'm I'm it's the courteous thing. I hear you over there. Um.

(46:34):
So we kept going, but at this point, like it's
the wind kicks up, I'm not. I've been in these
situations before. I know we don't have a fired up gobbler,
but we have a gobbler that's better than nothing. And
so but I think we're feeling feeling a little bit loopy.
I don't know that. I mean one of the things
you deal with phil a lot when you're tricky hunting.

(46:56):
Because my foot is completely asleep right now. M this
is a common turkey hunting issue. They call it turkey foot. Okay, well,
I can't say I'm having the same problem. I got
these new snais bear tooth o ge just got a
lot of circulation coming through like zero gez no, it's

(47:20):
zero zero g and expect people not to call it. Yeah,
well thanks for laughing at my dad jokes. They call them.
I think zero GE's but you do what you gotta do,
all right, Here we go zero ge sounds like they'll
make me some loop, that's true, Yeah, which at this

(47:41):
point would be preferable to walking. So here, Ah, we're
silly bitches. Uh. At this point, we're feeling a little loopy.
We decide we gotta keep on truck and get over
these turkeys because they're basically every gobble that we get
is either in the same spot or a little bit
further away. It seems yeah, they were moving, it was there,

(48:05):
it was getting further away. As I said, these are
courtesy gobbles, and so we're gonna cut the distance. And
we decide, you know, after understanding that we're in a
place where we explained where we think there's a lot
of turkeys. You know, as has been described to me,
there might be a turkey down every road or every
two track. I know other places where we've seen and
heard turkeys in the past. So I just want to

(48:25):
give them that. We don't have a lot of time.
I want to kind of get like, are these turkeys
gonna commit I'm not gonna spend all day on these things.
Then we're gonna do the best that we can. And
so we we go at them. A lot of crow calls,
a lot of hard yelps, a few cuts, big time clucks.
We're gonna go. We're gonna cut cover this country. Get tight.

(48:46):
See what happens. Okay, Phil, we're back in the truck.
It feels good. I would I didn't have any water.
It's probably stupid, but now I have water. It is,
it's new and we've been hunting. Oh we hit I
think we hit the woods about four five in the

(49:07):
a m. It's noon, five hours asleep. Oh you got five?
Good for you? Yeah, about five and Um we started
out with no gobbls this morning in a spot that
that I have roosted birds in the past. Hit a

(49:27):
second spot where we have been into birds in the past,
and there was turkeys in there. Spooked to Jake and um.
Then proceeded to spood four times. That's right, you you Uh.
We talked about your spiral and how how you just
you you get into this pit of despair. Um, you

(49:48):
sound like you're there now, but I don't know. I
just saw some turkeys, So I'm not too disappointed. They
were big that last time, that big Yeah, he was
a big, big, beautiful white tips. Now I'm spiraling right now.
You know, when you get in a situation like that
and you screw it up, or you're making a decision
that results in spooking turkeys, I don't think I think

(50:10):
those are the first turkeys I spook this whole year.
Us The thing I'm gonnaok, on the bright side, here,
we we needed to eat. We're we're both getting kind
of tired, and so we made a play and I
think it's a I don't know, maybe not a win win,
but but we we needed to get back to the
truck anyway, and and uh, you know now, and now

(50:31):
we know where there are some turkeys. I don't I
don't think it's a bad, bad deal. No. And the
decision I made was basically, listen, you know, we gotta
we gotta cover country. We gotta find birds that are workable,
that are responding, that are firing up, that will come
to the call. You know, we gotta Yeah, these ones
were these ones are slippery, for sure. We gotta find birds.

(50:53):
These birds I think had been we've been hunting quite
a lot, and to that end, weren't really They would
give us a courtesy gobble when we got tight and
they felt they needed to, but they really just weren't
gonna weren't gonna play, They weren't gonna come to the decoys.
They weren't gonna really get fired up and come see us.

(51:14):
So I figured, well, where either gonna spook them, I'm
not gonna see here for four hours and wasted really
the only full day of hunting we have on a
set of turkeys that, yeah, marginal at best in terms
of my prediction that they'll come within range. So that's
the decision we made, and boy did it work out

(51:35):
the way I thought it was. All right, Well, we're
back into present, and as I played that back in
my mind, I feel the same way. I feel like,
fuck this, I really do. Um. It was a struggle.
It was a struggle, um, for anybody who's ever built

(51:56):
something up in in your head and and had it
go the opposite of the way that you thought. We
kept running into situations that just didn't feel like we
were on the right track. Um. As we've said many
times on this show, there's some days you wake up
and you are a confident turkey hunter, and a lot

(52:18):
of those days the turkey, as Tom Kelly would say,
it takes that confidence and breaks your neck with it.
At this point, I felt broken, Phil, broken, Phil Um
is it okay? If I say that later in the
day it gets even worse. Then later the day it

(52:41):
gets even worse, and we continue to just talk about
how bad it is. So here we go, you know, I, Phil,
I'll say this to you, even though right now we're
a little bit down, You're you're a little bit down.
You're up. Yeah, you've done great. You've really done great.
You're kicking at thank you. I you know, I'm just

(53:04):
trying to just I'm just doing what you're telling me
to do. Oh you're punctual, well dressed, and um man,
you're we're hitting it hard and you're right there ready
to go. Every single time, Phil, Phils, You've You've stayed
positive through all this, Phil, you stayed positive. You were

(53:26):
in it with me the whole way. And I think
the listeners of this show have seen your evolution, and
they've seen you kind of be more excited about video
games than hunting. But I think something even from the
very beginning something had to have changed in your perspective,
like you had to have started to like really understand

(53:48):
the game of hunting. It felt like it felt like
you were starting like gradually understanding the game. Yeah, I
would say, I mean, i'd say they were they were
too specific moments that happened on this hunt where I
understood it more. That was the first one. When we
were those we were calling at those birds and like

(54:10):
you said, they're called you know, like you call them
courtesy cobbles. They're not. They don't have any interest in
coming in and checking you out. They're just kind of yeah,
like I hear you, I'm gonna go over here now,
have a have a lovely day. Um. And when we
were I don't think we we talked about exactly what
happened when we saw those toms. We had been calling
them and calling them the gobels kind of stuffed, and

(54:32):
we're like, okay, well let's just go down and see
if we can see them. We were walking along the
trail and you copped them out of the corner of
your eye to the left, probably like seventy five yards away,
and you turned you I saw you like, like do
the your freeze face at me and we turned to
the left and they had seen us and just booked
it away. And in my mind I was like, oh,

(54:54):
great turkeys over there. But my first my first thought
was let's go get them, and you you were like
that that can't happen right now. I'm sorry to disappoint you,
but we have to leave, which which I didn't really understand. Um.
But of course, if you know, if you're a wild animal,

(55:14):
when you see something foreign and possibly aggressive, you're going
to run away and be on edge. It's going to
be hard to to get them. Yeah. To me, this
is like a just a complete and utter despair moment, because,
as I said, I don't spooking turkeys is something that
haunts me every time it happens, and it gets in
my psyche and it stays in there. Um. But in

(55:37):
this case, it was windy, the birds were not gobbling
very much other than our courtesy gobbles, and we just
needed to go find them, and we needed to see
if we could get in tight and make them work.
But we got in tight and they just gave us
a slip. And the crazy part is that they're as
they are running away, I look and I see this

(55:58):
giant I see two times ago up the hill, then
another than the fourth one, and where I'm talking probably
a four year old bird, huge beard, just the beautiful
white tips, big old red head, just kind of like
the turkey that you would want anyone to get. You know,
we're not trophy hunting here. We'll take a jake, but
this is a big old mature time. And he was

(56:19):
with three other mature times, and so we we went around.
We went to the next pot where I said, hey, Phil,
you know this is the spot where I've heard turkeys before,
I've seen him before. Let's go there. We'll spend the
midday kind of just piking around. You had some lunch,
took like a thirty minute nap, and then spot a
fifteen hour day here. I'm like, let's just take it,
you know, Let's grab a ten minute power nap and

(56:41):
the sandwich and we go right back at it. We
get back at it. I take Phil to the spot.
We start driving through this meadow where we're gonna park
and walk on a road and kind of call down
in these two different um ravines. It's like you can't
really call him a drainage. It just kind of cuts
or turkeys like to hang out out of the wind.
It's now you windy. We start driving up this park

(57:03):
to get to where we're going to stop and do
some calling, and there right by the road is a
pile of fresh feathers from that morning. Someone had shot
at turkey there that day that morning. And so yet
again it's like, wow, okay, all right, that's another sign
it's not a great thing. Keep on keeping on. We go.
We don't hear a gobble um, and then we move. Well,

(57:27):
then we start to strategize. And at this point that
Phil starts to get into strategy with me, Like we're talking,
we're having a conversation where it's not just me saying
we'll go over here, Why, it's Phil starting to have
ideas about where we ought to go. Well, I just
knew that the clock was the clock was ticking. We
had the rest of the afternoon and then just a
few hours in the morning before I had to head home.

(57:50):
So you were kind of toying with the idea of
trying going back to the area that we went to
in uh in the the man, I tie, I'm the
time has just gone in my head. The very first
area we we went that morning. We're like, let's I'm
thinking about going back there, we'll scope it out again,
or you were thinking about one more new area, and
I in my head, I was just like, I think

(58:12):
we should go back to the place where we saw
the turkeys, because it's still in my head. I'm like,
I mean, that's the only place we know there are turkeys,
and and we don't have a lot of time left.
And you knew that that they were slippery, they were wildy,
they were not responding you. You like your theory was
that they had been pressured throughout the season. I mean,

(58:32):
there were big birds, they've been around a while, they
probably knew kind of what was up, and they did
not want to play game, play play ball. Um, but
I still was just fixated on going back. Yeah. We
had two other groups of hunters with us that were
in camp, were running around. None of them heard any gobbles,
none of them saw turkeys. And so I'm sitting and thinking,
this is the only turkeys that roughly seven hunters that

(58:53):
I know of that are around running around here, I
have seen or hurt. And we've been like we've been
we've been going between and all of us we had
like gone ted, like all all over the place around
cut every creek We've we've called up every creek that
we can think of, and so at this point it's
just not working out for anybody, let alone us. And
we got one spot with turkeys and listen, I've I've
killed hard turkeys before, you know, and I've I've been

(59:15):
able to make it work. So we're just gonna try
to make it work. And we're just gonna have to
be aggressive it just just because of the time. We
don't have time to pop up a blind and sit
in it all day and wait for these uh call
shy educated as we call it in turkey hunting birds
to come and decide that they're they're gonna play. So
here we are. Okay, Ben, Throughout this whole experience, you

(59:37):
have been very very gracious about You've just been very open,
like Phil, do you have any questions, like like anything,
just ask me anything You've I'm I'm an open book.
Have at it. One thing I never thought of and
just the one thing we just never talked about, because
throughout this whole trip, you you, I mean, you just

(59:59):
have the eyes that are tuned for this. You were
seeing things I never would have seen in a million
years signs tracks. You were seeing turkeys from just from
far away, and you you know you've done this before,
You've been doing this for you for for decades. One
thing we didn't talk about because throughout I've I've been
just I was walking behind you through a lot this trip.
One thing we didn't talk about was what happens if

(01:00:21):
I see a turkey? Yeah, and you don't and you're
in front of me. Yeah, so what happens next? It doesn't,
it doesn't form that it's but it's a bit chaotic. Yeah. Yeah,
we'll give you the we'll take you back in time. Okay,
So what just happened? We were walking along this ridge

(01:00:45):
looking for turkeys. Were actually just headed back to the
truck because it's getting a little stormy. And then I
saw a couple of a couple of Tom's puttering around,
I don't know, about a hundred yards away, and then
I got too excited and point it at them and
then yelled at back. So we decided to go back
to the area. It's now, you know, a couple of

(01:01:07):
three hours before fly down, we're gonna go back to
the area where we were before, and we know the
turkeys are, they're tough. They're not gonna gobble, But we're
gonna go and we're gonna see if we can't a
light touch hike around and very slowly work the country.
If we can't get them to gobble, at least try
to get them going back to the roost, you know,
and see what we can do. Because we got one
more morning to hunt, right, that's the plan. We're going

(01:01:29):
at it. We're not deterred. So we go back, go
up the go up the ridge. As we crest the ridge,
we look to the west and is a lightning storm
that looked pretty scary. There's it's black. Yeah, it looked
like it was coming our way, and the wind is
kicking up, and so we get to the top of
the ridge, like, man, we better just go to the

(01:01:50):
truck and ride this one out. It's not looking great.
We better at least work our way back to to
a spot where we can get down the ridge to
the truck pretty quickly. If we start, you know, we
getting hammered by lightning or something here. So we start
working our way back very quietly. I'm calling about every
hundred fifty yards and Phil has kind of starts to
flank me to my left as we are working this ridge,

(01:02:14):
and then I look over and feels like I see
two turkeys, Like Big Ben, I didn't not to get
your attention without turkeys, and so I let me just say,
I should have put together just by watching the way
you've been behaving throughout this whole trip, Like when we
saw that when we were ten yards away from that
turkey the first time, or earlier in the day, how

(01:02:36):
you we were so close and you were it was
with the game. It was about moving as slowly as possible,
like stop walking, get low but not too quickly, crouched down, slowly,
no sudden movements. But when I saw those turkeys after
we had been looking for so long all day, and

(01:02:57):
I was I was trying to get your attention and
bit and I like quickly shot my hand up and pointed,
and that got their attention. I don't know if that's
what spooked them at initially, but I think they stopped.
And then so that I got down, like because we
were walking through some tallish grass, I got low enough
where I couldn't see them anymore. But just because I

(01:03:19):
couldn't see them doesn't mean that they couldn't see me.
So then I lifted my hand again. It's over by
that tree. And then you were like, shut the You
didn't actually say that. I said no, no, no no, no,
You're like, don't wait at them. Yeah, I actually smacked
phils hand out of the air, and I think you
can hear it in my voice. And that last audio
clip that's that's when I was down the same pit

(01:03:41):
that that Ben had been in a few times. Because
I was walking around like I'm messing this up, and
Fils walking around like I'm happy to be here. And
then he got like once we got to a point
where up, I might have messed something up, we're both
kind of able to commiserate in the messing up, but
we're still on birds. I mean, this bird's kind of
just like the one bird that I saw kind of tried,

(01:04:02):
you know, he like tried it all. If he didn't fly.
I saw him kind of go down over the ridge
and I'm like, okay, let's just it's windy, the storm's coming.
We gotta go back to the truck. Let's kind of
work our way. I'm just depressed, but I'm like, let's
work our way and just see if he's gonna run
down in there. He's going to roost somewhere. We're an
hour and hour and a half before fly up. He's
gonna go down that hill and find someplace to roost.
These turkeys want to be in here. I mean, we're

(01:04:23):
a hundred yards away from where we saw the first
turkey earlier in the days. Like, this is a place
where these turkeys want to be. We have royally fucked
this up, but we're gonna stay on it because we
kind of we're here to roost turkeys. We still do that.
Like we bumped them down the hill. They they're fully
educated to our presence at this point. It's probably every
hunter and every call. So we just gotta get We
just gotta play the game that way. And then we

(01:04:45):
started working down the ridge a little further and this happened.
All right. We now spook that same turkey four different
times and one day within about thousand yards of it
each time. Philis when we're making the podcast, put yakety sacks,

(01:05:09):
and it's that kind of this, because that's what it's
kind of the time laps of us running into Yeah, basically,
you can tell he wanted to roost, and you're still
you didn't want to. I mean, these turkeys are so
educated that it's like I said, it's you hunt turkeys

(01:05:32):
like this, and there's just you gotta be delicate now
now that we've educated and don't forget, they're not gonna
go very far. We'll be over there roost We might
room in the morning on the roost um, but we
haven't really got a whole lot of choice. Got dance
with the ones that h burn the hand. I'd like,

(01:06:00):
don't bite the hand that took it to the dance.
That's a good analogy. You felt well done. So at
this point you can here it's windy. It's just that
storm is still rolling in. It's still rolling in. We
spooked this bird. Now this bird actually flew down. So
this was what five minutes after we spooked those three,
we were like, oh ship, well let's keep going. And
then there was one. It was just a single time

(01:06:21):
with I mean that it was. That was a gorgeous bird. Yeah,
he was the same one, the same one we were
describing early. It's the same turkey. Uh. We spooked him again.
He flew this time down the hill he went and
again I'm calling four fifty sixty yards from him, and
then we crested the ridge and there he is, and
I could have if I had a shotgun in my hand,

(01:06:43):
I could have probably took a running shot at him,
which I never would have done. But he was that close,
like they just were. These birds were locked down and
they was just to hunt it. A silent bird in
this way and wind like this, you just gotta get
so damn lucky to see him before they see you.
And we just we just didn't. Um, we just didn't.
But the storm moved through and we started to we

(01:07:07):
we worked our way down the bridge and we sat
on this ridge and it was a beautiful evening. The
storm moved to the north of us. There was it
was like a very unique orange light kind of like
working its way through the trees as the sun was
going down. The clouds have now moved past, the wind
is a little calmer, and after a pretty tumultuous day,

(01:07:29):
Phil I said, Phil, let's just sit down, man, and
let's just listen, and let's just enjoy where we're at.
Because we have endured uh an ass kicking, but over this,
over the times we've kind of been punched in the
gut by these turkeys and we've had this all this
failure I've been able to watch Phil have an understanding

(01:07:54):
of what's going on around him in a way that
only I think somebody failing that hunting can have, but
also somebody that's just immersed in the hunting experience. And
I think it's pretty unique. So we got to sit
on a ridge and talk about and think about where
we were, how we got here, and why it's important

(01:08:16):
to be in this place in this time. Well, Phil,
now we're in the strategy at least we're sitting here
talking talking turkey strategy. Yeah, I'm throwing out ideas like like,
I know what I'm talking about. I mean, it's like
we're talking about earlier. We talked about this in this

(01:08:37):
podcast for a long time. That, honey, is it's a
game like Pursuit Man, you other than the heroes and villains, possibly,
this is a strategy game. This is a a game
of cause and effect that being out here in a

(01:09:03):
wild place like this hunters downs acres, free to roam,
land of sunsetting right over here right now, and sitting
here talking about what a turkey is going to do
in the morning and what we need to do is
the essence of what sucks people in about hunting at least.

(01:09:23):
I think if we tell ourselves it's the food and
it's the culture, and we tell ourselves I think the
story about what truly draws us into hunting. But I
think what we're just doing, sitting on this hill thinking
talking about turkeys, immersing ourselves in their behavior in order
to find them, pursue them, and kill them is very

(01:09:46):
human endeavor. It always has been, and that is the
essence of what draws us in the rest of it
is very essential gravy, but gravy none less to make
any sense. Yeah, I'm with you. Listen, if we end
up this episode of the podcast ends and we don't

(01:10:07):
get a turkey, the truth of the matter is, the
truth of the entire thing is, I don't know why
we all hunt, right. I think we've invent reasons and
manufacture reasoning to kind of justify social norms or two

(01:10:31):
you know, further or concrete our connections with each other.
There's lots of things. But when you become a hunter
and you start to understand the pursuit of a wild animal,
I think you understand something pretty raw. It's about what

(01:10:52):
we are m hm and what we're capable of, and
that is that is essential? You know what would this?
This podcast started when I was sitting on a ridge
not so different from this one in Mexico Steve Rinella,

(01:11:13):
and we were asking questions like the ones will will
be asking forever. But at some level what fills learning
right now and what I know to be true is
that there is a primordial drawl to this chase, to

(01:11:42):
this pursuit, and there's human frailty. There's so many emotions
baked into it. Ego, all these things are paramount and
Hunt woods. It's hard to go, you know, it's hard
to ignore them. But the ups and downs of Hunter

(01:12:09):
like nothing else that I've experienced outside of my children
in those very human moments of being a parent and
loving someone. This is like a very close second to
that in terms of what it feels real in my life.

(01:12:31):
It feels important, essential, And if you can share that
with someone, even the little parts of it, even like
little shadowy corners of it, can be can can find
some light for someone else, and then one day they

(01:12:54):
can put that whole package together in a holistic way
mm hm for themselves. That it feels pretty good. I
still like to hear of Godblough, Phil I think we're
gonna have to wait until morning for that small, small,
slim possibility. M hm