Ep. 468: Bugling for Bulls and a Decoy Genius

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless,
severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to podcast,
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(00:31):
it out at first light dot com. F I R
S T L I T E dot com. All Right,
Dave Smith this year from DSD. Dave Smith decoys hates
doing podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm glad to be here. I thanks so much for.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Guy knows a lot about hunting.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
He knows a lot about hunting.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Yeah, every time I talk to him, I've learned something
new that I've never learned in the whatever thirty one
almost thirty two years i've.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Been Yeah, he's an artist. Yeah, an artist, decoy designer,
built a great business. Dave Smith Decoy's likes.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
To hunt comfortably.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Likes to hunt comfortably, self deprecating, funny, well more could
you ask? You're already married though? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, I mean, I'm just jealous of all you guys
that can actually move around the mountains and everything like
that and are physically fit and everything. So I just
hunt the way that I have to. And also I've
noticed that I'm old. I'm like easily the oldest person
in this entire organization.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Oh yeah, you might have beat Brody.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Whoever he is, I'd call him a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
How old you?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I just turned sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, you might be the oldest person.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's right. So you guys, I expect to be treated
as such exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
We also got Jason Phelps joined to remotely. He's gonna
tell you with with the Elk bugle coming up, Elk's
Heason't coming up, Elk Archie Phelps is going to share
with you our esteemed listeners. Three I I asked him
three things that people are to keep in mind, and
he's going to share three things that people ought to
keep in mind. We got a chaster here, Uncle Chastey

(02:16):
seth Krin's wearing her headphones today. Mm hmm, fills over
in his little corner. Everything's great. We got a couple announcements.
Make up top. We are re kicking off playing on
his phone, trying to plug stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
Me too.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Listen, We're re kicking off the auction House of Oddities,
which comes and goes, as you know. But holy smokes,
the lineup this year? So, uh, when when's it start?
Krinn this week?

Speaker 5 (02:53):
Oh it does this week?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
How's that possible? Oh? Yeah, this week? I'm with you.
We have I'm holding a couple lels for one of
thing I'm not holding. I don't know if Sunday it
might wind up on the auctionsvanities? Is we finally after forever?
So we bought a punt gun at an antique auction
for way more money than I'd care to admit. But

(03:17):
the barrel, I'm only holding the action. The barrel takes
a couple of people to hold. Yeah, if you watch
it on if you're listening on YouTube, you can see
what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
You.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
It takes two people to pick the barrel up. It's
a one hundred pound barrel. Yeah, it's seven feet it's seven
feet long.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
Is there going to be a raffle for who gets
to hold the barrel when we shoot it?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, because I think the liability You don't hold the
barrel when you shoot.

Speaker 5 (03:45):
Yeah, two people don't hold it.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
The way a punt gun works. You had a little vessel.
You had a little boat picture like a little canoe
that just basically accommodates the punt gun. It's well, no,
it's on a frame and it's on a slide. It's
on a frame. You don't move the punt gun, you
move the boat. It's on a sliding block filled with

(04:12):
bags of sand. Or they would use sea oats to
absorb some of the recoil because that boat when you
pull the trigger, that boat's going backwards. The shell. I'm
holding the shell right now, this shell, so it's a
two gage shotgun, but this is the shell is nine
inches long. This thing throws over a pound.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Let made forgetting things.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And you would go up often at night. You would
go up on rafted ducks, aim your boat at them,
cock it and pull the rope. So well, you're safe
right now. So almost had an accident this morning. So we

(05:01):
had to go to an engineering firm to get AMMO made.
I'm holding an original casing. It's a two gage shotgun,
gauge being inverse like wire and whatnot. They don't sell
it as such, but it's basically a two gage shotgun.
We went to an engineering.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
Meaning that if you took a pound of lead and
split it into two balls, one of the balls will fit.
Is that how it goes?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well the way yeah, I shouldn't say yeah. So what
we did is, yes, gauge traditionally comes from A twelve
gage shotgun means twelve It takes twelve leads spheres that
diameter to comprise a pound. A twenty gage shotgun takes
twenty lead spheres that diameter to comprise a pound. A

(05:52):
four to ten is obviously a measurement four tenths of
what does it hold true for the two gauge? So
this is just extra affilated up on board diameter. But
I haven't correlated it to lead spheres. But I'm assuming,
I'm assuming, so they didn't sell them as such. But yeah,
and it also the other thing about it is the

(06:12):
casing is I'll do that. I'll make a lead sphere
with my micrometer. Perhaps we sent it to an engineering
firm and they made us a partial shell with a primer.
And I needed to test the punt gun. So I
have here, I'm cocking it. You can hear that's the cocking.

(06:35):
Here's the rope pull. Now when you hit it on
your finger, you could feel the firing pin. But we didn't.
We wanted to make sure before we went through all
this hassle, we wanted to make sure that the mechanism
was still good in it. So these guys loaded up
a primed practice shell today in demonstrating how a shotgun

(06:56):
shell normally worked, I wasn't really thinking clear. First off,
I cut the shit I'll open, poured the shot off,
pulled the wad out, dumped the powder out on my
work bench, and I wanted to knock the primer out
of there, but I had it upside down and I
was trying to push out and couldn't get it. So
I eventually took a Phillip screwdriver and put it through

(07:16):
the shell against the primer and was trying to push
it out, but wouldn't come. So I picked up a
pair of bullnose plyers travers plyers and whapped the end
of that thing going the wrong direction, but it's still activated.
That summer bitch scared the ship out of me that
primer off with all that powder land there. Man, Oh

(07:38):
my god, man, I could have hurt my eyeballs. That
would have been the thing is. It would have really
hurt your eyeballs because it was right in my face.
It's probably and that was even the moment I took
At the moment I took those bullnose plyers and was
kind of coming down on that handle that screwdriver. I

(07:58):
was second, does it work in reverse? That powder was
like what eighteen inches away? But it could have just
as well. I would not have done anything different if
that powder was like right in a pile below.

Speaker 5 (08:12):
The But you think that it would have been the
flash that would hurt your eyes or just a debris.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Can we just a oh yeah, just a debris from
that primer hurt my eyes. Yeah, it was loud. That
Spencer's like I need some hearing protection. Yeah, you need
some eye protection. So we screwed it in. You see
it like this thing, So this punt gun action threads
in right the like you know, you'd kill twenty ducks
with a shot with this thing, and a good that'd

(08:40):
be good. I we have a whole book. We have
a book called The Outlaw Gunner. It's about punt gunners.
And he was like, people get the wrong idea. Twenty
is a good pole, nine is a good poll. It's
people weren't killing whole flocks of ducks with a single
shot from a punt gun. But mile Man, who was
old when he had me. Mile Man remembers seeing punt gunners,

(09:01):
legal punk gunners that had three punk guns stacked one
off the water. Then you pull the next rope and
it hits them as they're get taken flight, and the
third shot hits them a little higher. He said, they
had three of them stacked at different angles. I don't
know where the hell he was when he saw that.

Speaker 6 (09:17):
How wide does the spread?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
I don't know yet. So you remember Gallagher, the comedian Gallagher? Okay, wow,
I'm out. Do you know about Gallagher?

Speaker 5 (09:30):
What about you?

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Two?

Speaker 5 (09:32):
Too young for Gallagher? I know Gallaer's young.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Striped shirt and the.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Husky. Remember when you were a kid and if the
word husky if you were like a chunky kid pants pants, Yeah,
you like and it met It was meant for like
kind of chunky kids.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
I remember my mom brought me home a pair of
husky pants one time by accidentally, and I thought she
was saying I was like fat.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Kind of tore me up a bit. But so Gallagher
there is Gallagher. Imagine weird al if he was husky
and bald but still had all the long hair, so
like it's the kind of long hair, and it's kind
of a sweet look when you go bald on top
of you grow real long that little half moon toilet

(10:23):
seat deal, but you grow that out long. But I'm
gonna do it and slick it back.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Man.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Anyways, Gallagher had two Gallagher had two groups. He had
two lines of comedy and they were very different, but
he'd combine them into one set. One of his things
was how ridiculous in the English language was, so he
get a lot of mileage. How could there be like
there th h e r e, you know, but then

(10:56):
there's there th h e i r And he got
tremendo amount of mileage out of the idiosyncrasies of the
English language how things spell. And then he started to
lose people or whatever, and he'd get out in huge
sledgehammer and fruit and he would proceed to smash fruit
with a sledgehammer. And people in the know would buy

(11:19):
tickets to Gallagher and they would wear raincoats and get
viscueen and whatnot to protect themselves. And Gallagher would set
up a watermelon or whatever and hit it with a hammer,
point being that's what this punt gun is for.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
So when you were saying you were asking me if
I knew of Gallagher. I was just sitting there thinking,
like the first thing that came to my mind was
that dumb comedian. And I was sitting there trying to well,
that can't be it, Like, who's this person knows all
about waterfowl lore? You know, I'm trying to think, who's Gallagher?
Who's Gallagher?

Speaker 6 (11:52):
You know?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
We want to shoot stuff like watermelons and whatnot with
this punk gun.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
But one of the things I want to do is
just put out a couple of sheets of plywood at
fifty sixty yards whatever and see what kind of pattern
you get out of those.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
We can put out a whole flock of Dave Smith Decoy's.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Well, I'm going to round up I'm going to round
up people that have old faded out like I have
some in my collection. I have some old faded out,
you knows. I get old flambos or like they like
they paint the beak and the wrong spot on them
and whatnot. Get some of those and line them out

(12:31):
and maybe shoot at them. When we do want to
put a pound of let out into a pond, is
the problem?

Speaker 5 (12:35):
Yeah, when we do that, we should paint the decoys
in such a way that the shot would really read well.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Or fill them with that stuff that people fill decoy
targets with nowadays.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Then you know with the ones that blow up, you
know that they got hit.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
I know the perfect guy that you got to talk
to Worth Matthewson.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Is he a punt gun man?

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Well, he knows all about him, and he does. He
still hunts with an eight age. It goes to Scotland
every year and hunts. And he's he's a heck of
a great guy and just a water fell and mentor
of mine. And he's been around a long time.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
So really and he knows about he'd be able to
share with us some info about punt.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Gun absolutely punk gun. He he might. I'll check with him,
I'll send it, I'll call him up. He might. He
talks about him all the time.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
You see how this is it Holland and Holland h
and h punk uh huh. And the barrel you couldn't
see it. I mean, the the this part's beautiful, it's
very ornate, it's all inscribed, but the barrel just looks
like a cannon off of warship and someone had painted
a gunship gray and I drembled off the I drembled
off some of the paint. You can see the old

(13:45):
address that London street, the address for H and H
in London. It's cool man, but that's that. Well, I
talk about auction House of Oddities. That's not in it.
But sorry, if you got your hopes, yeah, you got
your hopes up well, point being, it might someday be
there Auction House of Adities. This year you could do

(14:08):
an opening weekend deer hunt at Doug Dirt at the
Duran family farm. Or you can go on a turkey
hunt at the Durham family farm and get a tour
of the Duran family farm. And when you're there, ask
Doug if you will take you to the spring House
and depending on your age, ask for the spring House story.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
M hmmm. Is that the odd part about it?

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Because I'll make a house of odd Yeah, Doug's a
odd guy. Okay, He'll probably take you down to get kurds.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yeah, you'll definitely go for a over the Carr.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
Valley you'll take You'll take Duran Road and Doug will
drive around real slow and tell you like stories about
murdering mayhem and cousins and who owned what and what
that guy this and that right and that tree one time,

(15:05):
and you know one time he urinated all over the
top of that stop sign, but his friend tried to
do the same and shat his.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Pants, Like, I don't know, that's pretty odd.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then you'll get to do You'll get to do
a hunt on the Durham farm where we filmed hunts
and have done hunts, and I take my kids there
every year for spring turkey or a deer hunt in
the Durham farmers for three hundreds. So that's in the
auction house of Hoonities. You you bid, win the package,
and then pick what you want and you get a
tour of the Durham family farm. The oddity part, I

(15:39):
don't know.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's what you just said, Oh that spring house.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Go to the spring House and depending on age and everything,
Doug might tell you the spring house tail.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I don't think i've heard that one.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well I have not, kids have not. Maybe you should
have bid on that chester a handmade log home from
Naughty log Homes. Real, really, I'm not kidding you. Twelve
by twenty trappers cabin they're donating they have donated to
our Land Access Initiative. A log home, a twelve by

(16:12):
twenty two hundred and forty foot square trappers cabin, four
foot overhang off the front, shipped anywhere?

Speaker 4 (16:17):
Wow, what do you mean anywhere when you auction?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
When you buy it at auction, you'll have to pay
to have it shipped. Oh, but they're in Idaho.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Say I could use one of those up at the shack.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Better dig Yeah, factor that in better dig D.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
I think you're meant to say, because I need one
of those in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
You need to talk to someone with a Chinook helicopter. Yeah,
and get it dropped in where you want it. Twelve
by twenty. I wish I had that damn thing. Yeah,
a lot of art so people might have seen can
we can we put? We don't have? I wish I
had this in here from Jamie Wild Art. She did

(17:01):
the commission to painting of mine of the wolves disemboweling
device and eating it alive. She also does a lot
of canine art. So we have a print of my
commission to painting, which hangs just outside our studio door,
of the wolves eating a bison alive while still staying
there and disemboweling it, a print of that that Jamie

(17:24):
and I will both sign, and then a piece of
custom work from Jamie. We have custom artwork from Kelsey Morris,
Seth Morris's wife, Kelsey Morris of Studio Gallery. What's it called? Yeah,
the Studio Studio Gallery and three Forks Montana. Dinner for
four at my house. That's an auction item. You three

(17:47):
friends come to my house and we will serve you
many courses of phenomenal food at my house. Yannie's going
to join in, I believe, I don't know if he
knows it yet, there to serve.

Speaker 5 (17:59):
This is separate from a big giveaway dinner at your
different dinner.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is there.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
That one? Yeah, if you want it to be vegan,
I'll make it vegan. If you win the auction, that
you win the auction, it's up to you. No, we
have another giveaway dinner that we're doing here at the office.
This is a dinner at my house. You and three
friends come to my house. I will cook you dinner.
Yani will be there to help serve. We'll get a
whole bunch of our crew down there to help with
the meal. A fob Harness an f O b f

(18:26):
HF harness called the Fur Trappers Edition, where we're gonna
Paul Lewis from f HF is going to face one
of his fob inyl harnesses in furs that I caught sweet.
If you want it done and mink, will do it
in mink. If you want don Martin, will do it
in Martin. If you want done in Beaver, will do
it in Beaver. So you get a fur fob harness
one of a kind that's up for auction. The elk

(18:50):
Bugle tube that Phelps used on the hunt where he
and I hunted in New Mexico signed scrolling down. I'm
holding right now. If you're watching, you can see this.
I'm holding an arrow that says Ted Nugent ninety one.
Now check this out. I gotta put my spectacles on,

(19:13):
gearing up ready. We had a while ago, long time ago,
Uncle Teddy Teddy Nuggets, as Cal calls him. We called
him Uncle Ted growing up. We had him on the
show and he talked about doing a show and rock.
He talked about doing a show in northern Michigan where
he missed a target. A guy wrote it in and said,

(19:36):
I had to be working backstage security for that concert
up at the Castle in Charlolavoyle, Charlavoy. After the shot
and subsequent missed, Ted's assistant came back and set Ted's
bow and arrow down on a table that was just backstage.
Long story short, they asked the security guy to keep
an eye on the bow until they come back and

(19:58):
retrieve it after the show. Just left it on a table,
Bye and bye. Here comes the guy that comes and
grabs the bow and goes to walk off with it.
Teds like, or the guy the scary guys like, tell
you doing? He goes, they told me to grab the bow.
He said, no, no, no, no U. Someone told me to
wash the bow till Ted comes gets it. You ain't him.

(20:20):
I'm holding the bow. Another guy comes up and says,
what's going on? He said. This guy says he's supposed
to pick up the bow? Why not being the guy
who was trying to steal the boat. Now the arrow
that Ted had missed with was broken. When Ted found
out that the guy saved his bow from getting stolen,

(20:40):
he said, let me know if there's ever anything I
can do for you. The guy said, yeah, you could.
I would like to have that arrow. Uncle Ted then
signed the arrow. We have the full in art. This
is called the provenance. The provenance, we have the provenence
of the arrow. I then emailed Uncle Ted and said,
check this story out. His reply was, damn cool. Huh,

(21:09):
this will be in the auction House of Audities a
lunum shaft Ted Nugent ninety one. That's cool checks out.
And the one freaking story.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
You might have already said this, but he missed the target?
Is that the one where he missed a target and
then he decided to get down on his hands and knees.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
And no I shared that story with him. That was
at a whiplash bash. He missed a target and then
got down on his knees and he missed the target
of a white buffalo before doing great white buffalo got
down on his knees and bowed before the white buffalo target.

(21:45):
Me and my late friend Eric Kern. We didn't catch
that one. But me and my late friend Eric Kern
went to the whiplash bash and Uncle Ted threw out
jerky and me and Eric picked up some jerky off
florin ate it.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Rock and roll Nice Times has some rock and roll
right there.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's in the auction House of aodities, my personal weather
be Mark five chambered and three hundred win mag Left Handed,
which we fillmed a bunch of media episodes is in
the Auction House of Oddities. And also if you've if
you watched the show, you've seen a hundred times the
singer a moose gets up and charges me, and I
go something like that that gun. Now, if you watch

(22:26):
that episode, you'll see that the gun appears to misfire.
So a lot of people have asked about the misfire.
It didn't. I shot at the moose that ran off,
and I changed. I immediately instinctively chambered around, ran after
the moose and forgot that I had chambered the round
because I had hit in the brisket and it went
down and got up, and I knew it was probably
not mortally wounded, so it wasn't like, oh well, wait,

(22:47):
let him run off and die. So I ran after
him to try to get another one in him the
minute I started running. Later, reviewing the footage, the minute
I started running, I rechambered, so I had three in
the I had three in the magazine, none in the chamber,
chambered shot the bowl, two shots left spit the empty out,
put a live in started running forgot spit the live out.

(23:10):
Put live in shot at the moose again as it
ran through the brush, chambered again. Now I'm empty. I
walk up to the moos to dispatch it and click.
So people are like, oh, gun miss fired. The gun
didn't miss fire. That gun's fine. I still own it today.
It is a Carolina custom rifle chambered in three hundred short.
Make that gun from that moose charge and those episodes

(23:33):
will be in the auction house of Aodities.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
I have a quick question. You just said, you just
referred to that moose as charging, Like I just watched
an episode not too long ago of a six hundred
pound grizzly bear running at you and cal as fast
as American run and you called it false charging, And
I'm just kind of curious what does charging look like?

Speaker 1 (23:57):
And if he made contact with me?

Speaker 4 (23:58):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (23:59):
So I was like, it was like you come home,
you know, from somewhere, and your your truck is riddled
and bullets and stuff, and what do you say to
your wife, like, oh, I got false shot at Like
none of the bullets actually hit me, So I got
false shot at like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Krin, I'm holding up another item from the auction as
about it. These come from these are from some a pair.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
Of Steve caught Martin's is past year.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Had a hat made for my wife. We had the
tails left over. Wow, Krina is fashioned. He's into gorgeous earrings. Yeah,
describing Grin.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
So there Herkimer quartz diamonds from a podcast listener, Herkimer
her herk diamonds and uh the mink this oops, pardoned
me the Martin tails from Steve's Martin's and then a

(24:55):
sterling silver wire wrap. So it's all sterling silver stone.

Speaker 5 (25:02):
I did, but I think it might have closed up.

Speaker 6 (25:07):
This is this is like an adorning costume for the
Latvian eagle. Martin tails.

Speaker 5 (25:17):
So sweet.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
So the Auction House of Oodities back better than ever.
All of the money raised in the Auction House of
Oodities goes to our own land access initiative. With the
land access initiative, we've done so we contributed on a
land access a public land purchase in Maine. We participated

(25:41):
on a public land access purchase in northwest Montana cala Is,
eyeballing one along the Yellowstone River right now. And plus
we will use some of the items. Another item I
should throw this in. You know the Missouri corner crossers.
This is kind of freshest morning. Yeah, the famous Missouri

(26:02):
corner crossers. They have donated their ladder. So you can
buy a piece of American history at the media or
auctional sdvice. You can buy the device that has now
been covered by every news agency on the planet, still
working its way through the courts. You can buy the

(26:23):
ladder used in the Wyoming corner crossing case. The stipulation
there is the revenue from that, and this is part
of land access. The revenue for that will go in
illegal defense fund, which has been mighty successful thus far,
a legal defense fund for the corner crossers who have

(26:44):
been putting a Regardless of how you feel about whether
corner crossing should be legal or not, these guys have
been placed in an extremely unfortunate position after getting very
mixed signals from multiple law enforcement and land management agencies,
and they are at this point they have come victims
of a system that is whacked.

Speaker 6 (27:05):
And there's many more items than that, many more items.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
I have something I could donate, but it's really there's
nothing compared to those things. But I just thought of something.
I have an owl coughing and one of the and
there's an exposed bone and it has a leg band
on it.

Speaker 6 (27:25):
That taxidermy coughing.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, out pellet. So it ate a bird that was
banded and it coughed up all the feathers and bones,
and right on the outside of all of.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
It is let me get it clear, for an owl pellet,
is is a coughing. So an owl eats.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
In our in our book Catching Crayfish Count the Stars,
we have a thing about We have an instructional about
how to dissolve and dissemble owl pellets in order to
see what all they've been up to. So when owl
will eat its food whole and then digest food and
regurgitates the bones in these little balls. And you'll look

(28:14):
at these little balls and like a standard thing to
see in these little balls is mouse jaws. They stand
out real good mouse molers.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
But you'll answer my question, is another word for an
owl pellet and owl coughing?

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I've never heard him. I never heard that word.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
So the reason why that we've used that term before
us a lot of people know that it's it's that
they're not pooping. It it's not.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Because they might think it's gross.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
If you shat it out, it wouldn't be quiet, as
the auction value would definitely go down, will shift. It
wasn't Yeah, if it was a piece of owl shit.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Man, We've had some see we've had some auction House
of Oddities donations that we've had lawyers prevent us from selling.
This is one of those things.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's like me showing up at his house with Luke
Comb's guitar and like playing him a song on one
of them that they.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Next, Yeah, that brought up liability problems. You could be
lured into his sorted, some kind of sorted.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Put the lotion on the skin.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, it was gonna be we had one of those.
Chester is gonna show up like you could have them.
He'll wear whatever you want, right down to right down
to his his thong.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Said that I never agreed to that, even.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Like I'm on there at midnight. The thong.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
One got nixed with Spencer and I getting tattooed.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Oh yeah, that got mixed. You were gonna be able
to pick whatever tattoo you wanted on Seth and Spencer.
That got mixed. A lot of things get mixed, so
he just gets better, just like do you remember when I
was a little boy, they would do a fundraiser. Jerry Lewis,
the actor Jerry Lewis would do fundraiser for ms. Remember

(30:00):
Jerry's kids. He would do a fundraiser and he would
do it for forty eight hours, just get delirious at
the end. I feel like that right now. You can't
even tell what he's saying at the end of it
was a whole part of the event that he would
stay up that long.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
But this is like that because it just keeps getting
better and better. Dave Smith has now donated and I
will pell it with a banded bird foot sticking out
of it. Did you lacker it to hold it together?
Is it pretty good?

Speaker 5 (30:25):
No?

Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's it holds together really well. It's just in a
little plexa glass case. I might have to come up
with a more decorative case or something to put it in.
But it's just sitting, you know, it's just sitting at
my house. It's it'll be there till the next glacial
period if I don't do something, you know, with it.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
So do you know what kind of bird it is?

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I think it was a pigeon.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Pigeon.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, that makes sense, all right. The auction's
about it. He's coming soon, better than ever. All the
money goes to land Access your initiative. We will be
using the funds primarily for land access purchases, enhancing and
improving public access. One other little money thing. This is

(31:10):
kind of a convoluted story. There's these animal rights activists
that in Nevada the target bear biologists. Oddly, they target
Nevada state agency bear biologists. One of these animal rights
activists actually had a restraining order against her for harassing

(31:33):
and targeting a female biologist with a Nevada State wildlife agency.

Speaker 5 (31:41):
There are Facebook pages to give a little more context
around them. Says that this page is dedicated to monitoring
and publicizing the actions Nevada Department of Wildlife and the
why is it cut off? Sorry, I guess they just

(32:02):
fail to write a full sentence, but gives you an idea.
They're like they're watching everybody animals there.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
At a state agency at bear biologists could be engaged
in a ton of different things. They could be doing
and monitoring. They could be doing disease research, they could
be doing population demographics distribution. But inevitably they're going to
get rolled into dealing with problem bears as well, and
oftentimes in states that have really high black bear populations.
I'm not even saying this is going on here. I'm
just clarifying for people in states that have really high

(32:33):
black bear populations, it is so expensive in all times,
oftentimes futile to relocate black bears. Oftentimes problem black bears
will get euthanized because you could spend you could send
someone on an eight hour drive in some direction to
drop off the bear, but the once the bear is
habituated and tuned into human food sources, there's nowhere you're

(32:53):
going to put it where you're taking it out of action.
It's also very expensive, consumes tons of time. You have
very stable bear populations, so a lot of times someone
has to make the calm the bears get euthanized. Okay,
it's not work that anybody likes to do, but a
bear biologist can get They're doing a lot of stuff
to help enhance improve bear populations. They're also sometimes involved

(33:16):
in lethal control. I'm not even that sits outside of
what I'm talking about now, but this guy, Carl Lackey,
So these guys start this Facebook page and targeting this individual,
Carl Lackey. He sues him for defamation. The animal rights
activists spend one hundred and fifty grand defending themselves on

(33:39):
free speech grounds, okay, meaning that they host a Facebook
page and people are making threatening remarks on this page,
but ultimately, because of free speech issues, they can't be
held responsible for what other people are saying. I'm not
weighing in on, you know, I'm a free speech advocate.

(34:00):
I'm not weighing in on that it was a right decision,
wrong decision. What I'm weighing in on is that here
you have a state bare biologist doing his job, okay,
getting threatened and harassed by animal rights activists. And the
long and short of it is they won their free
speech case. Okay, they won it, that's fine, But now

(34:22):
this biologist is personally liable for the one hundred and
fifty k that has been found liable for the one
hundred and fifty k that the people he was suing
for defamation and harassment had to spend in their legal bills.
Does it GoFundMe for the guy? If you can help out,

(34:44):
he needs to make up this one hundred and fifty
grand that he owes these people and again not weighing
like I understand a platform isn't responsible for comments to
get posted on their platform. Okay, who cares so much
to help this guy out in his line of work
and trying to defend him and his family from online
harassment has incurred a massive bill.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah that's that's shitty.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah, that's right, and doing state wildlife work, Yeah, doing
your job. It's insane that he's just supposed to suck
it up and have these people start like trying to
broadcast as whereabouts his image calling on people to do
acts against him.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
I wonder if people like that feel good about themselves
after giving this dude threats or whatever they did, and
then making them pay him, you know, back one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. I wonder if they're like, yes.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, probably because they've already arrived at some kind of
mental calculus that an individual bear's life is more valuable
than an individual human's life, or an individual not even that,
and that a bear, the individual bears life is more
valuable than the life of a public servant working on
behalf of wildlife. So yeah, I imagine they've gotten their mentally,

(35:59):
the o fund me is uh www dot go fund me,
dot com. Here's where it gets complicated, sorry, dot com,
slash f slash, Carl dash, lackey dash, bear dash, biologists
type some.

Speaker 6 (36:17):
Version of that, go fund me and google his name.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well, and one thing we got to remember is we
need good people in the world to become biologists. And
you know, this will de incentivize people to become biologists
who would want to become a biologist. It'll be the
situation we are with politicians, like, oh, the good people
of the world don't want to be politicians. We need
good biologists.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Oh yeah, and have yeah, and and uh, you know,
in our neighborhood right now, we're dealing with a bear
that is really pushing people's tolerance. Like our whole neighborhood.
We've got this whole tax exchange going and he's now
in people's garages, you know, and like the bear is

(37:01):
pushing people's tolerance. And at a point that bear is
gonna wind up not alive. If someone from the state
agency needs to come out and trap that bear. It's
not like they're like, yippie, I get to go, you know,
I mean, it's just like they're like they've tried with
this bear. They have tried their hardest to button up
the situation and make the bear not a problem. They've

(37:23):
at this point, they've got months into the into trying
to help people help this bear by stop the cause.
But at a point, probably maybe the way it's looking,
something's gonna need something's gonna happen. And the fact that
that person would become like an online target because they
get sent out to do a thing a public safety issue,

(37:44):
it's ridiculous. But again I'm not speaking to the particulars
of why this guy got targeted. Go ahead and read
up on that on your own. I'm just pointing out
the complex and he's a whole thing.

Speaker 8 (38:01):
Phelps you ready, Yeah, yep, Okay. So I was asked
to come on talk about since September's right around the
corner Archie, ELK kind of consumes September, at least in
my life. So we're gonna talk about ELK bugles and
kind of what they are, when to use them, and

(38:22):
what I think about when we're trying to make those.
So the first up is location bugles. This is a
call when we're out in the woods. We're gonna use
that ninety percent of the time while we're hunting and
we're just looking to get a response from another bowl.
I like to think of it as kind of that
that game of Marco Polo. Right, I'm going to make
a sound, It's it's non threatening. I'm just trying to

(38:43):
get a response. So after my morning lasting session throughout
the day, as I'm walking ridgelines trails, when i get
to a new spot that I feel bul can hear me,
I'll bugle.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
I in my.

Speaker 8 (38:56):
Opinion, it can't do much harm. And a lot of
times people say you bogle too much, and and a
lot of times I'll get six to eight hundred yards
away when I was just two or three hundred yards
away from a bull, and I'll finally get him to respond.
So there's sometimes not any rhyme or reason when a
bull here is here whin he'll elect to respond? And
so what is a location bugle? And do the people

(39:19):
that say you call too much? Do they kill more
bulls than you?

Speaker 6 (39:24):
Not?

Speaker 8 (39:24):
Usually I don't want to. I don't want to be
that guy. But you try not to not to talk
about that, And like there are times, there are times
where you don't bigle a lot, but that's kind of
our our go to so a location bugle, and some
people we've in my opinion, we've coined terms that that
we use to describe and Elk's vocals, you know, and

(39:47):
so location bugle might be one thing here. This is
kind of what we call it. So it's a a
two to three note high pitched bugle that you're just
trying to elicit that response. And so being high pitched,
we're gonna apply a little bit of pressure if you're
using a diaphragm, if you're using like our Easy Bugler system,
you're gonna start with more pressure than you would on

(40:07):
say a challenge bugle or a moan or you know,
a deeper tone, and you're gonna just kind of blow
into it very shortly two to three seconds. I want
to be able to listen. A lot of times a
bull is very quick to respond or and you may
not hear it, you may not be able to tell
what direction is, or you may miss it all together. So,
in my opinion, a two to three note high pitched

(40:27):
bugle lasting three seconds maximum. It's a clean bugle, non threatening.
You don't add any groul, you don't add any resonance
into it's just a high note looking to get a response.
And you know you're doing a location bugle right when
the volume and the tone and the resonance kind of
rings your own ears, you don't. You know a lot

(40:49):
of guys are like, I'm not getting as many responses.
I like to be as loud as possible. I want
that bugle to reach as many elk as possible, high
pitched and short. And that's really the extent of it.
And as much out calling as we do, and all
these different types of bugles, grunch chuckles, challenge vehicles, you know,
all the cow calling. I would say that once again,

(41:10):
ninety percent of the time. This is the call I
do all year long until we locate able. You want
to rip one out for us, yeah, I'll turn away
from the mic so I don't blow it out.

Speaker 9 (41:19):
But this is where our location beagle sounds like, tell
us what you're using.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
This? That was a bad Uh.

Speaker 8 (41:27):
This is actually a new call that we're we're bringing
out in twenty three, So it's going to be in
a in our freedom pack. So I'll just I'll leave
it there. But I had it sitting on my desk,
so it's a brand new it's it's our amp diaphragm.
It'd be really similar to like the Maverick in our lineup.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
And then you got what in your hand.

Speaker 9 (41:43):
So this is our metal Beagle tube. It's the one
I've been using the last couple of years.

Speaker 8 (41:47):
We do have our new unleashed V tube, but this
one had a cover on it and I didn't have
to run downstairs and grab one.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
That's a well thought.

Speaker 8 (41:55):
Yeah, as you can tell, I'm a little I was
a little bit lazy.

Speaker 9 (41:58):
I had a diaphragm on my desk and I had
a tube on my.

Speaker 8 (42:00):
Dead nice and quick, just yep, just real quick. There
were times like I've got examples like in the Bob
Marshall and in some places where I would get a
response like I couldn't figure out how the bull could
hear me that quick decide to make a call and
then end it almost at the same time I was.

(42:23):
And there's there's lots of examples where if I hadn't
have been like a short bugle, I would have missed
it all together.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, I think it's a similar, dude, just trying to
locate turkeys where you want something so fast and abrupt
that you can go from making the noise to listening
mode real quick.

Speaker 8 (42:39):
Yep, yep, missing it all together or a lot of times,
and I talk about this a lot of like not
buggling too much at them. There are times where if
I can't tell the direction off of that first bigle,
I'm like, dang it, now I got to call again,
you know, so I know which direction to go or
get the wind right. So I really want to try
to get as much information out of that first bigle,

(42:59):
like it back as I can without screwing it all up.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
So that's the next thing to keep mine. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (43:08):
And then this next bugle, which actually challenge.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
Ask a quick question, Jason, what do you hear uh
bull elk doing location bugles?

Speaker 8 (43:19):
Yeah, yeah, if you if you go out in the morning,
don't make a peep and you're in a good spot
with you know, the bowl of Cali ratio is high,
or there's multiple herds that have joined into you know,
an overnight feed zone or whatever it is. You know,
we kind of call them those little bit of retfests.
They may be challenged back and forth, but you will
have bulls just locating. We've been in and It usually
happens at better units just because you're getting more action.

(43:42):
But we've heard bulls like running up and down ridgelines
obviously just looking for cows. When we've called them in.
It's been probably your semi mature bulls, not quite big
enough to have a heard, but but definitely you know,
five and a half years or older, and they'll just
run around looking for cows, locate bugleing, and they're very
very talkative, and they locate a lot and so that
that's really kind of what I relate that to, is well,

(44:02):
real elker out there doing the same thing we've heard
him do it. We've we've been across the canyon and
literally heard a bull walk up a ridge or out
a ridge line and beagle its way down. I'm just
trying to pick up cows.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
You feel like he's listening for bulls to respond or
cows to respond.

Speaker 8 (44:18):
So cows to respond or cows to come to him.
Like a lot of times when I've been able to
observe like an openings or across the canyon. You know,
the way that that nature works is that buwll of
bugle and then any cow that's looking, you know, because
the cow will choose the bull that she wants to
reproduce with. That cow will just walk to that bowl
and go check him out and see if he's you know,
if he's the one so so in nature, that's how

(44:41):
it's working. That bowl is running up and down ridges
or outridges, and those cows are going towards him.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Thank you. Yep.

Speaker 8 (44:51):
So this next bugle, once we've located a bowl, now
we're going to go into challenge beagles. And this is
where it gets a little bit fuzzy on like what
people consider a challenge bugle. You there's screams, there's you know,
there's chuckles, there's bark, screams, there's all of this stuff.
Elk will do to kind of show aggression. But what
I look at in the challenge bugles, when I get
in close, I've got the wind right I have. You

(45:12):
have to get within that that threat zone. Especially if
you're hunting herd bulls a satellite bowl, you've got a
little more leniency on how close you have to get.
But if you're gonna steal a bull or get him
to peel away from his cows, you have to get close.
So we're talking getting in within a hundred you know,
even closer if possible, wherever the train and the and
the vegetation allows. But then we're gonna switch the challenge, Bugles.

(45:32):
And and when I switch to a challenge, Bugle.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Just I want to comment, have time I spent hunting
with you? Is your location? Bugles. I don't want to
say you're flipping about them, but you're just kind of
looking for a good spot where you can hear, you know,
maybe see you around a little bit and do them.
But when you go into the mode of preparing to
do that challenge, Bule, Bugle, you do not take that lightly. No, No,

(46:01):
I mean you are like extremely thoughtful about the wind,
where you're gonna want to be, the topography probably where
exactly is that thing? How might it approach? Yeah? What shot?
What shot avenues do you have? How are you going
to be how are you going to move to cover

(46:22):
or utilize cover like plan B I mean you are
doing a lot of chess by that point. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (46:29):
I mean to you know something that everybody's maybe seen
our season ten episode in New Mexico. Both are bulls.
We got very very tight. We kind of pushed into
a spot on yours where we couldn't shoot, but we
needed to be that tight and we kind of readjusted,
you know, my bawl. We locate him and then we
really would we walk for an hour without making a peep,
like we put a spot on on X. We went
all the way around him to get the wind right

(46:50):
and then we literally didn't beagle at him or talk
to him again. He didn't make a peep either. We
just had to go on our gut. But we didn't
make a biegle until he was eighty yards away. And
I think you be agled a couple of times. I'd
be agle a couple times, and and that bowl literally
had to get up out of his bed and walk
thirty yards for me to get a shot. And so
it's very calculated before we go use these challenge beagles.
And like you said, I don't hold anything back. If

(47:11):
I did all of these other calculations right and did
what I and I feel like I've got a bowl
with that right temperament. Yeah, we we're gonna kind of
unleash everything we've got. And that's really what I'm going
with on this challenge Bagle, is I'm gonna have a
little more growl In the beginning of my my Bugle,
I'm gonna kind of open up my vocal cords and
really kind of get some rasp in the middle. I'm

(47:33):
gonna end and and kind of kind of scream at him,
and I usually add some grunts to the end of
my Challenge Beagle. It's really just kind of throwing the
entire kitchen scenk at them to let him know that
I'm here to kind of take over your area or
I'm in your zone and you're either gonna lose your
cows or you're gonna come check me out and see
if we're gonna, you know, if we're at.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Lockhorns, or we're gonna breed him.

Speaker 8 (47:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's really what we're going after
on the Challenge Bugle. And a lot of times, you know,
we could shock in awe whatever you want to call it.
A lot of times if you get close enough and
you you haven't made another call until you get there,
you really give that bowl no other chance besides coming
and you know, dealing with you. You've got too close

(48:16):
to his cows, he can't take him and run. And
that's what we typically will do when we go to
Challenge Bugle, and so I can I can demonstrate kind
of what my initial challenge bugle is, and a lot
of times this bull will answer right back. Or we've
painted the picture where we may let a cow call
out right prior to our challenge bugle to kind of
paint the scene that there's a cow that may be

(48:37):
one of his or a cow that came to his bugle,
but now there's this other bowl very close willing.

Speaker 9 (48:42):
To take care of her. So this is what my
typical challenge, bugle.

Speaker 8 (48:47):
Sound like, little bit more to it, a little bit
or ask and you're really not holding anything back. You know,
a lot of guys ask me, you know when when
we're at shows or when they're talking to me, like, hey,

(49:08):
I really want to a bull call that isn't as
threatening or it's a smaller bowl. And I've been around
a lot of great callers that are just as loud
as me. And when you're in the woods, the comparison
of somebody that's loud on an elk call that we
think versus a real bowl, like it's the the real
elk is always exponentially louder. So in my opinion, you

(49:29):
can't overblow these calls. You can't be too loud, So
we we just give it everything we've got. Where we're loud,
we're in their face, we're pointing the bugle tubes at them,
and that's kind of what I think is as a
challenge bugle. And those are the two that I probably
use ninety five percent of the time when we're out
there hunting. And then there's those what I would consider
kind of the third category, uh, which the first one

(49:50):
that I'm going to say is accessory bugles or accessory noises.
And raking is one of those sounds that isn't what
necessarily in you know, coming from a call, but it's
something that we can all do. And there's some great
elk hunters out there that rake more than they call,
and so we typically always add that in to our
calling scenarios. It adds a ton of realism and elk

(50:13):
just you know it. I feel it turns our temperature
up a little bit, adds some some of that aggressiveness,
and it's a sign of the bulls mark in his territory.
You know, he's put in his scent and marking those trees.
And so I think raking is something that should be
included in almost every call in and then you've got
all these other sounds that elk will make. You know,

(50:33):
and I'm not gonna get into the to the intricacies
of whether what I consider a chuckle is different than
a grunt. So you got like chuckles, which you usually
typically like very quick and almost ape like sounds. You've
got grunts, which what I just did it's more elk sound,
more of a of a slower paced, more elky. You've
got screams, so there's a lot of times where bulls
will get madder and like a screaming match, it's very

(50:55):
short burst to you know, two seconds max. Where it's
very raspy and just kind of a scream. Bulls a
lot of times if you do make a sound and
they'll see you, they'll bark at you, and then you've
got all those moans that that they'll make as there
is there following cows or even like glunking is those
bulls are right on a hot cow as they're pushing

(51:15):
the cal around, and usually if you can hear glunky,
you know you're within eighty two hundred yards. And those
are kind of those accessory sounds that we always throw
in the situations to add more realism.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Would you say, like, uh, I didn't hear you say
like a lip ball in there? Would you say, like,
that's like the most aggressive, like because I've heard that before.
You know what I'm saying, Like, is that like the
the high end of all this most being most suggressive
for calling.

Speaker 8 (51:45):
That's a that's a great question, And a lot of
times lip balls, I'd use a lot of mimicry. So
if the bull I'm calling at me is gonna lip
ball in this challenge bugle, I'm gonna do that. If
the bull that I'm calling in wants to, you know,
do a three second challenge bugle with four runts, I'm
gonna mimic him exactly. And one thing I really love
to do that really seems to get them more fired

(52:05):
up is if I start my bugle about halfway through
theirs and I don't let them finish their bugle. It
seems to be a way to just like, you know,
piss them off a little bit more. And so we
use a lot of mimicry. But yeah, lipball is a
great way to add to the challenge bugle. You know,
one thing I've noticed is the further south you go,
the higher percentage of lip bowling type bulls there are

(52:26):
the further north you are, it doesn't you know, there
may be more chuckles or grunts, Like can you crank
out a couple of these noises real quick?

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:33):
So I want to I want to tell you something
to that I don't know if I told you about yet. Uh,
you're talking about thrash and brush right, yep. One. I
was haunting Moose with Clay last year in Alaska. We
were going down a hill on the last day of
the season. We were going down a hill to go

(52:53):
to a bowl that was about a mile away that
we just saw, and we were going down the hill fast.
It was like evening on the last day. We're running
down the hill trying to get to a place, hoping
to hit an opening where we might be able to
call from. But it was just dense thicket, just like
just never ending aspen. As we ran down that hill,

(53:17):
We're making so much noise because it was just like
there's nothing to lose at that point. We ran down
that hill and stopped and realized that bowl we never
called that bowl was coming. Two bulls were coming up
that hill and met us dead on just because of
the noise we're making coming down that hill, yep, And

(53:38):
we were making a tell of a lot of noise
climbing over all this burned down junk, all this burned
down spruced it was growing back as an aspen. Just smash, crash, bam.
It probably sounded like a hell of a fight. And
we stopped to call and realized that they're standing there
like they're looking for us based off that noise. Yep.

Speaker 8 (53:58):
You know, when we were in New Mexico out at
a couple of days prior, and one day I was
trying to get through an area I knew there were
elk and just walking through the grass, I had to
hang out behind a tree for about fifteen minutes because
that bold chased me down the hill just hearing my
feet walk through the grass. And so my dad always
kind of joked with me. And we grew up in
a rifle hunting elk family, where you know, they go
out and hunting their white new balances so they can

(54:20):
be absolutely silent. You know, that's the type of elk
hunting I grew up with. My Dad's like, you know what, Jason,
you're not real quiet. You're meant to be an archvl hunter.
And it really did kind of play to my favorite
because I'm I'm stepping on sticks and cracking brush and
it just kind of works for an archvl hunter, you know,
cause an eight hundred pound animal in the landscape, they
can be whispered quiet at times, but for the majority
of the time they're gonna make noise, which you just

(54:41):
add that realism into it. And elk Elk definitely take
note on the noises that they're hearing.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Is yes, especially when if you've ever listened to a
half dozen of them playing grab ass on a steep slope,
it's loud.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Oh that's one of my favorite things ever. You're sitting
there eating lunch or something and you hear that, you
can I can just picture it that that downfall branch
go pop and you know, and you're like that was
a big animal, you know.

Speaker 9 (55:07):
Yeah, yeah, so raking.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
I can't make that sound in here.

Speaker 8 (55:12):
But you know, I always recommend you get a big stick,
and everybody wants to grab a little twig, Like, get
something that's robust, not going to break on you through it.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
And the other thing is like yeah before he sets
to it, Yeah yeah, I mean.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
Yeah, if you're your knuckles and fingers aren't bloody. You're
not making enough noise and trying.

Speaker 8 (55:32):
Yeah, and I like to I like to be as
realistic as possible. So I try to find a couple
of limbs, you know, from two feet up the tree
to four feet and you just kind of rattle back
and forth, you know, you hit the brush and you
hit the top limb, hit the bottom limb. I don't
know if it matters that much, MAYI There are times
where I want to break a bunch of small, small
limbs just.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
To add to it.

Speaker 8 (55:50):
You know, you can kick the ground, but you know raking,
that's that's it's easy. But yeah, like you really need
to get into it and and picking up a bigger
stick make sure that you can get through that. Chuckles,
like I said, are a little more ape like, So
a lot of times you'll get these on the end
of a bugle around here where I've got roosevelts in
my backyard. I grew up with a lot of our
bulls chuckling and grunting more so than like the high

(56:11):
notes that we're talking about. But here's what a chuckle er.
In my opinion, a chuckle sounds like so a little
less elk sound a little more ape like, where the
grunts are a little more drawn out. They get a
little bit more of that high pitch from from the bowl.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Man, and his belly gets into it. Yeah, yeah, like
his belly is like bouncing, you know, not his belly
might be bouncing. I know that's between him and his wife.
I'm talking about they have the bull.

Speaker 8 (56:47):
So so here's what I would consider a grunt. It's
a little more that elkie sound. Scream like I say,
two two and a half second, real raspy, real short.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
And usually when you get a bowld.

Speaker 8 (57:04):
To scream back at you, his temper is very high
and we usually have real good success with calling them
in and if they scream, I'll typically scream m So
it's a scream and then you got your barks, and
a lot of times you'll when you do hear a bark,
it's it's about my second least favorite sound to hear
in the elk wood, aside from wolves howling. But barks

(57:27):
usually they have seen seen something they don't like or
heard something they don't like, but they can't necessarily get
wind on you. So a bark's really a come show
me your you know, come show yourself or I'm out
of here, I'm on alert. But and then what we
will do in response is will bark back at him,
because you're basically saying, well, I seen and heard something
I don't like. You show yourself. And in twenty nineteen

(57:49):
when I was in Wyoming, I have a bowl bark
at me, and I bark back at him and he
kind of comes trotting out in the middle of open
and I was able to get a shot. So always
be if you get bark at, bark right back at him.
But it's just a quick blast of you know, it's
it's a come show yourself sound.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
So you get like he's nervous, and you might set
him at ease by by doing it back like oh
there's another help. Yeah, yeah, there's you can hold him
for a long time with their warning cry is you
can turn the tide on antelope big time on prong
horns with their own warning call back at.

Speaker 9 (58:28):
Him, get him to hang out.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
They'll they'll start coming more if you start. If you
hide and start doing it back at him, it just
really gets their curiosity.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
Can you do that? And that's a weird Yeah, it's
like a.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah, I mean I'm not good at it, but man,
you can you can take one. It's gonna be out
and and he'll start coming. He'll be he'll like turn
around and start going back your direction. I don't think
they hear it a lot from people, for sure.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
All that out phil idea, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (59:02):
Right, and then uh, you like the mones and stuff,
you know, but if they bark, usually what happens. If
they don't see what they like, they're gonna run out
the ridge and scare every elkre let, every elk in
the whole entire country know that they and they bark
for you know, until you can't see them anymore. So
it's best to get them calm back down. And then
mones are just those sounds as he's running his herd
as we get in tight, you know, you'll hear him

(59:23):
making little sounds that you can't hear from very far away,
and we just add those in for for realism. This
is kind of what a moan just real light on
the latex. So as they're pushing cows around, they're just
making small little noises that just at like I say,
just you're just adding to the realism. They're more accessory sounds.

(59:46):
But there are times when we'll throw those in just
to be part.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
I feel like I kind of hear that too sometimes, Jason,
when they're they're sleeping, when they're or they're just in
their beds right like almost like a moan. It's like
a real quiet like little yep.

Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:00:03):
One thing that they do. It takes a fairly trained ear.
But location bugles. We talked about him being high pitch
and sharp and to the point, like a betted bull.
To a trained ear, we can we can pick out
usually when it's a bedded boil. Yeah, the time of
day usually helps us do that as well. But you'll
know if a bull's on his feet versus betted, especially
if you fold that same bowl all morning, his his

(01:00:25):
bugle cuts to about half intensity. It's a real lazy bugle.
And so you can, you know, start to tell when
that bull's betted. Everything gets a little bit softer and
quieter and deeper.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
All right, Phelps you good man? Yeah, yeah, thanks for
having me on. Yeah man, So everybody as gearing up.
Check out Phelps game calls. Uh, just a true Elk
call and mastermind elk great elk call maker, great communicator.
He'll give you all of his hot spots. Just hit
him up. Off Jason, we're gonna have Auction Off Phelps

(01:00:58):
is on x password at the Auction House Bodies.

Speaker 5 (01:01:03):
If you want to listen to like full I don't
know how long the show is usually Jason forty five
minutes an hour. Cutting the Distance Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah, but you can go. Yeah, we're we're just getting ready.

Speaker 8 (01:01:13):
Dirk's gonna jump on as a as a co host
here by time this drop, So we're gonna for the
next couple of months. You're gonna get as much elk
hunting information as you you want to do.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
That.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
That's that's a great heads up. So thanks for the reminder, Yahni,
go listen to Cutting the Distance so hosted by Jason Phelps,
Dirt Durham. There that that used to be bi weekly,
it's not weekly. And when these boys going to elk
mode this time of year, it's just gonna be all
elk all the time. So you'll you'll you'll learn more
than you can remember by checking that out. And again,

(01:01:45):
man like just lifelong elk hunter, grew up hunting the
hardest elk on the planet in the Pacific Northwest. Phenomenal calls.
Thanks a lot Phelps.

Speaker 9 (01:01:55):
Thanks, thanks guys.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
All right, Dave Smith, Yes, why uh give me the
crash course on how DSD came into existence.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
The short, not not so boring version. It's all boring.
The crash course is I was massively into goose hunting
and I didn't have any decoys. I couldn't find any
decoys that were working the way that I thought that they.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Should back up way more than that, Okay, I mean
I feel like I was born, I was an anemic child.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
I was born. I was born in Cottonwood, Idaho, and okay,
born in Idaho. Well, so yeah, I was born in Idaho. Yeah,
I mean my I had an older brother. I say
had because he did pass away when I was nineteen.
When he was nineteen, I was seventeen, and he and
I we dreamed about goose hunting our entire lives, Like
we used to literally like drop you know, pictures of

(01:02:53):
goose hunting with crayons.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
So when most kids have drawn army tanks and monster tracks,
you guys are growing goose hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Pretty much, and it's it's kind of a weird thing.
I mean, like our dad hunted, but then he was
a great, great archer, but he hunted mostly before we
were born. But my brother and I, we both had
the hunting gene, you know, for sure, we could just tell.
And for some reason we were just obsessed with geeese,
even though we didn't we didn't really have any exposure

(01:03:21):
to goose hunting, and we didn't even have any geeese around,
and so all of a sudden we started getting geese.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Because you're you're old enough that goose numbers weren't what
they are.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Yeah, So where I live in the Willammett Valley of Oregon,
there's they really the only goose was the dusky Canada goose,
so and those and so in the sixties, there was
an earthquake in Alaska that uplifted the delta where they
where they nest, and then all of a sudden, mammalion
predators could access it. So the numbers of Dusky Canada geese,

(01:03:56):
you know, really crashed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
So there was hunt a spot. I have haunted a spot.
Haunt I have haunted a spot in Alaska that was
hay Fields and it recessed and became marsh in the
same earthquake.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
That's oh, that's good to hear. It became a wetland
in the earthquake. Yeah, so what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
We're still equipment laying out there. Yeah, that things sunk.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Yeah, That's that's what I think with all this stuff,
there should be there should be an upside. That can't
always be a downside only you know, like and that
probably that probably helped cacklers, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
So so we had we did have geese in the
valley and we couldn't hunt them, and and there was
a while where we could. And when I was very young,
I I went to you know, quite a quite an
effort to hunt, to hunt them, and that's all we
could hunt is dusky Kennedy's I mean I built, I would.
I would dig pits with a shovel, big huge pits,

(01:04:52):
pits with a shovel, and build these really elaborate wooden
pits with like trap doors that you know, sprang open
and swivel chairs and everything, and going to off them
into those those holes. And I made homemade decoys out
of you know, I mean, it was dirt poor, So
I made decoys out of like, you know, canvas, bags
and anything I possibly could.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
And you know, uh, the first I have pictures of
me and my brother Danny in high school hunting geese
when they first opened the early goose season in Michigan.
And our decoys. We took five gallon buckets, cut them
in half length wise and then made plywood heads and

(01:05:32):
laid out all those five gallon buckets with plywood heads on,
and then sat smoking making corn cob pipes because the
corn was still standing, making corn cob pipes and smoking
corn silks. And they're trying to get a goose to
land in those buckets. Yeah, I mean, like for us
to get a goose to even fly by and range
was a big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Yeah. Well, and it's like, yeah, all those decoys were
working reasonably well, and then somebody had to come along
and make like an ultra realistic it's arms race, right, yeah,
it's exactly. And and and then it kind of had
affected the whole industry, you know, so and then everybody
had to make realistic decoys. So but in my in

(01:06:14):
my case, I got to the point where more and
more geese we were were wintering in our in our valley,
So they has numbers improved, Oh, they were just they
just kept coming up and up and up, and so.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
There was it was it changing agriculture practices or was
just geese numbers were increasing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
It was neither, honestly neither. So what was happening is
all the geese. So the dusky dusky numbers never really
came came up to levels that are like they're not
they're not huntable or anything like that. What happened was
all the geese that were wintering in the Central Valley
of California or northern California. It's just started just started

(01:06:50):
wintering in the Willhammette Valley.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Because of drought patterns or it's not well understood.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
I don't know, because that that changes, that that goes
in cycles, you know, every ten or twenty years, and
we're starting to get snows where we never had snows before.
Things like that has changed, and I don't really know
the answer, so that only the geese snow. But so
so now we had all these these geese and nobody
really knew how to hunt them, and they were trying
to work out a way that you could hunt them

(01:07:16):
because the farmers were, you know, kind of alarmed by this,
so they worked out a way where you could hunt.
You could hunt Canada geese. We had seven subspecies of
Canada geese in the valley.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
And but that was before they shrank, didn't it didn't
we go just because of lumpers and splitters in taxonomy.
Didn't we go from twenty eight geese down to three
or four? Well, because the Ornithological Society one day to said,
just scrap all that. It's just it's we're splitting hairs.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
Yeah, I mean there's definitely there's definitely some of that.
It went from twenty eight down to maybe eleven and
one that's extinct. But people still argue about that, you know,
like so there's isolating breeding, there's isolated breeding groups, especially
of lessers, and some people will say that is a
separate subspecies, and some people will say it's the same.

(01:08:07):
And that part is so confusing. I mean, nobody knows
the real, the real answer.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
But yeah, maybe because it's all definitional and just varies
on the person. It's just it's it's highly subjective, right yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Yeah, So what what we were most concerned I was
concerned about is just like from a legal standpoint, what
we could shoot and what we couldn't and everything. So
you had to take a course and pass the course
that proves that you would know how to hunt without
shooting a dusky Canada goose and tell me more.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
I don't know that I've ever laid eyes on a
dusky Okay, so tell me what, like, walk me through this.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
They're they're really pretty, they're really neat birds. They're they're
and they're sort of cool because they're sort of like
our are our original goose. They're kind of like like
co hosts am and our cutthroat trout or you know,
black tailed deer where I live. So they're medium large
goose and they're very, very very dark. So thank god
they're really dark, because otherwise, you know, in flight, there

(01:09:04):
wouldn't be any great way to are there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Do they still have a white cheek or is that
white cheek as duskier too, so that white cheek is white?

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Yeah, yeah, yep. All Canada geese have a white cheek
and some people call them in a white cheek geese
and everything. So yeah, they still have that, and it's
that believe it or not. Probably illusions have the lowest
amount of white on their cheeks, just mostly because it
usually doesn't cover the bottom of the throat. But but

(01:09:36):
dusky kenadedies have a pretty prominent white cheek patch and stuff.
But they're just really really really dark, and they have
they sound different, they act different, they they're in, they're
in certain sized groups. They fly around fairly low, and
they kind of keep to themselves. They don't they don't
mingle too much with other Canada geese. So you take

(01:09:57):
this test and then you get a a goose card
that's your permit to hunt, and you can only hunt
This is how it was originally. You could only hunt
between the hours of eight and.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Four, ok.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
And you had to check all your geese in at
a check station when you were done, and they would
carefully measure the Coleman length, which is the measurement of
the top of the bill. That was one of the
things that they would use, and then like the length
of the legs and the color of the breast. And
if you shot a dusky Canada goose, your card was
punched and you're done for the season. Really yeah, and

(01:10:34):
what year was this, Well, I don't know. This was
back in the Yeah, I'm terrible about dates. I mean,
this was all up until about eight years ago. So
then eight years ago what they did is a.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Yeah, this is all new to me. Yeah, I had
never heard this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Yeah, it was kind of cool because it just kept
out a lot of you know, the pilgrims, Like you
had to be pretty dedicated to this, and and you
had to you learned a ton about geese because we
would get set up before it would get light. Like
some people would go out and they'd start setting up
at seven and they'd be set up by eight. Well,

(01:11:13):
the geese are trying to get in, you know, they're
trying to get in, uh before that. So what we
would always do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Is the is the eight am restriction because they want
good daylight exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Yep. They won't you to be able to see to
see him. So but it was it worked for us
because we just learned so much about geese by being
set up and having to watch them for the first
hour hour and a half and having them come and
land in the decoys and seeing what, you know, what
works and what doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
And do you ever get your card evoked?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
What's that?

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Did you ever get your card punched?

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
I never did? I never did so one time. Brad,
you know my partner, Brad, he's a phenomenal goose hunter.
He's honestly, he's one of the best goose hunters on
the planet. One time he and and one of our
one of the other guys that we work with, they
got their cards punch because there there's there's also this

(01:12:07):
flock of lessers that hang out around was still like
our anchorage, and those birds were fairly dark and fairly large,
and so it was close. But we felt like we
knew those birds really really well, so we didn't have
any problem hunting those. And one time Brad and and

(01:12:29):
I think it was Brian Stone got their cards punched
because they shot They shot banded anchorage lessers and we've
done that several times, but usually so they have a
smaller band than the than the duskies do, so we
shoot those with confidence. And most of the checkers at
the chech station just know and they also have a

(01:12:49):
reference of band numbers, and so you're supposed to be
able to go into the tech station and they'll see
that it's a smaller band or they'll check the number
and they'll say, okay, you're fine, it's on a dusky. Well,
in one case they got their cards punched, and it
worked out great for me because they called me and
told me and they're like, yeah, we're getting bombed in
by all these lessers, and a bunch of them have

(01:13:11):
net collars and you know, radar transmitters and tarsus bands
and leg bands, and so I went and sat in
their blind. I got to hunt. The next day. They
just left all their decoys out and I got it.
I got some nice birds. And then they sort of
went to a review panel and found out that yeah,
they were Anchorage lessers, so they got their cards vindication

(01:13:33):
man and twice for me. Hunting on Willop a Bay,
I got to the check station and the checker was gone,
and assumed that everyone was done for the day, but
I was. I had such a good relationship with the
biologists and the state state Policies was in the state
of Washington, that they both times they said, okay, Dave,

(01:13:54):
well tell us what you got, you know, tell us
what your birds are. And I told him, They're like, okay, yeah,
we'll send you a new card. In the sent me
a new card right away, so that you know, I
was lucky in that respect. But I never got my
card punched luckily, Like not for real. I've come dang close.
I mean, I you know, I've had I've had some

(01:14:15):
checkers that you know, there's a big turnover of checkers,
and some of them really didn't know what they were doing,
and some of them did. And you know, I've had
some scary situations, but it's fine. I I survived it,
you know. And now it's to the point where there's
no more check stations. Now it's illegal to shoot a

(01:14:35):
dusky Canada goose. And the problem with that. It's good
and bad. But the problem with that is now everybody
goose hunts, every duck hunter shoots, you know, a geese
flying over and stuff, and so it's just changed the
goose hunting dramatically. Like I mean, I had some just beautiful,

(01:14:57):
you know, periods of time, several seasons in a row
where I just had just fabulous goose hunting, and a
lot of it was because of the difficulties and the
check stations. Almost I mean, the funnest hunting of my
life was six seasons on Willipa Bay. There were several
birds that were they were actually across between a well

(01:15:19):
western and a dusky. They called them whiskies, and the
bile just really wanted them gone, and so they would
put white neck colors on them, and so none of
the locals would bother hunting those birds, because I mean,
you know, you go down a tide flat and you're
hunting in this huge, this huge area, and it's a

(01:15:42):
pain in the ass to get out there, and you
got to figure out how you're going to hide once
you get out there, and decoys, getting decoys out there
and all that stuff. It was all difficult. And then
you get some birds to come in and there's a
very good chance that it's going to be a whole
bunch of big, dark birds, and none of them have
a white collar, so you can't shoot unless it has
a white collar. And so now the locals were bothering,

(01:16:05):
and to me, it was just paradise, Like I absolutely
loved that. It was just so much fun. And uh,
I love shooting you know, those collared birds, and everyone
of them had a leg band and I just started,
you know, accumulating those, and I it was just super exciting,
like every time I shot one, and that was that

(01:16:25):
was the funnest goose hunting I've ever had.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Do you got land you're pretty loaded up with bands?

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
I do, yeah, yeah, And I have over one hundred
net collars really yeah, really, and from from a lot
of different subspecies, so I can blame Brad Cochrane, I
think for that. So I tried to stick with mostly
mostly white collars, which doesn't disrupt anything any studies or

(01:16:53):
anything like that. But man, once you once you learned
how to spot a collar in the air, and you
would think that it'd be like you'd see the color
of it or something like that, and it's not it
at all. It just it just looks like a little
kink in the neck. It just looks kind of like
a broken neck. And once you get that down, you

(01:17:15):
can't help yourself but to shoot them. Like when you're
hunting cacklers or something like that, that's just the funnest
thing ever too. It's just you get a big grind
of cacklers going and just keep watching them, keep watching them,
and you maybe look at a block of four or
five at once and make sure that they're on a
line where you have that second that it takes to

(01:17:37):
sit up and shoot. And you know, I mean I
went like dozens of days where it didn't fire, shot
all day, just watch birds all day long. You wouldn't
see one, and once in a while.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
You'd see it was just looking for collared birds.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Yeah, it was fun. It was just something, I mean,
something that we wanted to do, and we've also so
you know, always felt like that's how we learned a
lot about geese. It is just well, for one, we
never wanted to shoot into big flocks. So like when
I was hunting those whiskies, I mean, there was only
so many of them and they were mixed in with

(01:18:15):
other birds, and I just could not shoot into big
flocks or I would have had it ruined, you know,
in one season. I wanted it to last and last,
and so I was pretty pretty patient. But I would definitely,
like on cacklers, I would definitely make that exception because well,
one thing about cacklers is they're so gregarious and they're

(01:18:36):
so loud, and they're in such large flocks that if
you have a giant grind of cacklers going and you
sit up and make one shot and drop a collared
bird and get back in your blind instead of getting
out and whooping it up and all that stuff whatever,
you back in your blind. Most of the time the
grind will keep coming because the birds that saw you

(01:19:00):
and saw the boogey man, they kind of freak out.
But the birds on the far side of this giant grind.
They haven't, they don't know what it is. And what
would you keep going?

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
What would you consider a in your mind? What's like
a giant grind?

Speaker 5 (01:19:13):
Like how many birds grind? I've never heard that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
I've never heard that. I know, the grind from just
being the daily grind of like getting up so early
and setting out decoys and pulling into decoys and just
like it's a frequently waterfoul. People will talk about the
grind of just how the drudgery of hunting hard.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Yeah, well that's a that's the real grind for sure.
And that's a grind too. Yeah, I mean like a
tornado or you know whatever. We've a lot of people
have different names for it, but I mean it. You know,
it's like we would still probably call it a grind
if it was two hundred birds, but but it could
be ten thousand, yeah, you know, and and a lot
of times it's a thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
You know, you're talking about just like an aggregation of
birds that is kind of on the same schedule and
they're coming through in a group. Uh there, they might
be spread apart by many minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
No, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about a flock. Yeah,
a big, a big giant flock. Sometimes other flocks are
joining at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
But so they didn't like it's a grouping that you
can like put your eyes on it one time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Tornado, it's like a snow goose tornado.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Yeah Tonado, Yeah, yep, exactly, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
All right, get me too, because I asked you a
bunch of questions got us off. So at a point
you you got into guiding, and then I want to
get to how you got into how you thought to
make your own decoy, which doesn't occur to everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Yeah, So I mean the the decoys came first, and
then the decoys worked so well that that's what got
us into guiding. So I was buying every every brand
of decoy that that was available, and and I was
I was just the birds just weren't landing in them.

(01:21:12):
And I just and I had everybody tell me like,
oh god, you know you're they're not going to land
in them. And I was reading like Dennis Hunt books
and stuff, and they were saying things like like, uh,
you know, decoys are you need them? But at the
same time, geese hate them. They're just used to lure
birds into gun range, and I just called yeah, yeah,
and I was like, I watched real birds land with

(01:21:34):
real birds all the time, and I just felt really
confident that that there just has to be a better way,
and that this that the whole industry was just really complacent.
And I heard people say things like, oh, geese have
a you know, a pie sized brain and everything, and
I just had way more respect for him than that.
So so I set out to sculpt. I did a

(01:21:56):
I do clay sculptures. I don't carve anything. I do
everything as a clay sculpture. And I set out to
sculpt the most accurate decoy I possibly could. And it
was a Taverner's Canada goose. That was my number one
goose that I hunted and loved to hunt and everything.
And now we call it a lesser because it's that's
way more common and people are more familiar with that term,

(01:22:17):
but that's really what the first one was.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
So if you look, when you say way more realistic,
I would think that you can correct me on this one.
I would think that there's a mad there's an issue
of size, there's an issue of contours, shape, say, and
there's an issue of coloration. Yep, what what is it
for real?

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Well, and one more thing is the finish, And the
finish is the biggest one of those of those four.
So yeah, the sculpture needs to be you know, anatomically
correct and in a pleasing pose. The pose has to
be I guess that's a fifth element, right there is
the pose. It's really important with turkeys. The pose has

(01:23:02):
to tell what you want. What you want the decoy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
You don't want to decoy of a scared ass turkey exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Yeah. But the finish, it turns out, the finish is
probably more important than anything, and that is it just
can't have the wrong reflections. I mean, you know, birds
can see colors that we can't see, and a lot
of decoys have you know, some reflection to them, and
and all that stuff. And and in some ways we

(01:23:31):
probably luckily stumbled on the right paint. But that that's
a big one. That helps a lot. But you know,
at the time, the decoys, the decoys that were working
the best for me before I made a decoy we're
bigfoots and carry light full bodies, and bigfoots were neat
because they were they really were.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
What's the funn about that?

Speaker 6 (01:23:53):
No, it's it's it's funny because Pat Dirkins sent me
a report from somebody, well because I mean it's not
a real report if you actually read its high substantiated,
but about bigfoot behavior of jumping into trees.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
So I just had that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Also, I'm talking about the brand Bigfoot decoys, which had
like a little pedestal to look like their feet. You
were thinking about bigfoots bigfoots. Yeah, sorry, pologies on behalf
of grint. I did see.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
We can edit that out, no problem that. Uh yeah,
I mean I had a ton of respect for Bigfoot
decoys because they were they were made in America, and
they really were really goosey. But the problem is they
were they were a a large race Canada goose. They
were a honker. They were a big, long neck and
most of our geese were really small, short necked, you know.

(01:24:50):
So that's why the carry lights looked a little more
like our gaze. But we I just needed to make
something that was more acculate, and the very first eco
that I made it actually had the tail was a
separate piece, and the wings were separate. The wing the
primary feathers, they were separate pieces that glued on separately.
So I had full separation in there. It was like,

(01:25:10):
probably way more than it really needed to be. We
made those and they worked so well. It was just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
How many did you make? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
I mean I started out with one pose, just arresting one,
and then I finally before I even hunted with that,
I realized I needed to make a feeder. And so
I had two poses and I went out with and
hunted with those, and I would make like eighteen total
decoys for my own hunting, and then I kind of
realized I need an upright, but that came along later.

(01:25:42):
But they were just they looked like the real birds.
So what I figured, what I learned. The biggest epiphany
I guess I had was when I was hunting and
I had I could have. I mean, I put out
twenty four dozen decoys before and if if if six
real birds came and landed one hundred and fifty yards away,

(01:26:06):
I any other birds that came would go land with
those six. So I realized right away, Yet it's yeah,
it's not a number thing. The numbers thing is. What's
most important is that they're convinced that those are real birds.
And so the beauty of our decoy right now is
the way that people have so much damn fun with
them is in places where you have normally had to

(01:26:28):
use you know, five dozen, you can use eighteen. And
even like on some of the places like the front
Range Colorado, where people feel like they have to use
twenty dozen, they can use six dozen, and so that
that really helps. It just makes it more enjoyable because
it's just not as much work.

Speaker 5 (01:26:47):
Less of a grind.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
Yeah, you're not out there and two of them more's
of a grind. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I can sleep in
and I love I love sleep.

Speaker 5 (01:26:55):
Can you take us through you just sort of casually say, oh,
I whipped up eight teen decoys, but what what does
that look like?

Speaker 6 (01:27:03):
And can we also get into like your carving or
the materials that you're using, and you know you're kind of.

Speaker 5 (01:27:11):
Giving away too much?

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Yeah, what were you when you say make them? You
had that you made a mold obviously.

Speaker 10 (01:27:16):
Yeah, so I mean in your garage yep, you had
to buy a lot of equipment, right, I had Uh Yeah,
I did. I had a I had a shop already
just because I've I've made fish replicas like my entire life.
My artistic was Ron Petter Is is the greatest fish
replica artists that ever lived, by far, and I just

(01:27:37):
was a complete I just bugged the hell out of
him for thirty years.

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):
Do you still do it the fish?

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
Yeah? I do, you know, a few. I do just
a few, like maybe maybe one a year.

Speaker 6 (01:27:50):
That's but yeah, that's maybe auction house, don't it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
I mean they're sounding.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
Yeah, I'm gonna do because of fish people caught.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
What's that look you do a little like like whatever
the hell they fish tax drmy is these days, because
there's no tax dermy, it's just replicas.

Speaker 2 (01:28:07):
Yeah. Yeah. So I do a lot of steelhead and
and I have a lot of molds of steelheads, so
and wild steelhead. You know, there's only a few places
where you can still keep wild steelhead, but I don't
encourage that at all. Wild steelhead are really low in
numbers and everything like that. So I have all these
molds of fish, you know, up to thirty pounds, and

(01:28:29):
you may I made or I inherited from Ron Pittard
either one. So and I've got like I'll be I'm
I'm finishing up three point twenty six pounds white crappie
for John Brown John, if you're watching, I'm I'm getting
it done. I'll have it done, and then I'm doing
a big thirty pound steelhead for a guide who's been

(01:28:50):
waiting eight years. He's been he's been really, really, really patient.
He's going to be really mad when he sees that
he did the Crappie. But so so I and then
I have lots of experience in sculpture, in industrial sculpture.
So I worked for Nike for seven years. I did
clay sculptures of footwear as part of the design process.

Speaker 6 (01:29:11):
You're like the guy in that movie Air My goodness
was at.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
A bad movie. I liked it, dude. We have to
talk about that sometime.

Speaker 9 (01:29:20):
I'll talk you fine, Okay, Oh there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
That had about every problem movie. We'll talk about a
You had a job there it did. What did you
carve shoes?

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
Yeah? Clay sculptures? Yep, seriously, Yeah, I did five. Now
I only did the midsol Altsoul, so I didn't have
anything to do with the upper. But I did get
to do five seasons of Air. Jordan's working with Tinker
Hatfield and that was a and my time when Nike
was really I'm super thankful for it, like it was

(01:29:53):
really good people. And I learned a ton about molding
and casting and and all that stuff. So that was
hard I got. I got headhunted from Nike to go
to FILA and I worked for And also I'm sorry
for any of my friends that work at Nike. And
I told you that I didn't get headhunted, that I quit,
and now you're just now finding this out, So I apologize.
I'm sorry I had to lie to you. And I

(01:30:16):
went to FILA and I was the manager of the
model shop there and did more clay sculptures and everything.
And before all this, I did class sculptures of taxidermy mannequins.
So I worked for research mannequins and did class sculptures
animal so so I had the clay experience. I didn't
have any training, I but I just winged it and

(01:30:37):
just you know, muscled through it or whatever. Like I'm
not I can't do it class sculpture like really well,
like really fast or anything like that. And I'm not
like a naturally talented at it or anything like that.
But I'm pretty good at looking at two things and
figuring out what the differences between those.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Well can tell you one of my favorite writing quotes.
I think it was RW You R W Apple. He
once said, I can write better than anyone that can
write faster than me, and I can write faster than
anyone that can write better than me.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
It's perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
Or you have to think of something like that for yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
Yeah, yeah, well it sounds like it's already been done.
Somebody beat me too it or whatever. But yeah, I mean,
I'm I'm slow, and there are some people that are
super talented and can do these things super super fast.
And and what I mostly have to do is I
have to assemble, you know, a blob of clay roughly
in the shape before I can. I mean, I more
or less have to build something wrong and then start

(01:31:39):
picking it apart. Rather than building something right the first time,
I usually just have to get it. I have to
get something going and then I can then I can
start to see what the difference is. So I got
to have really really good reference material I got to have.
I got to have that thing to compare it to,
so that could be amount or a bunch of photographs
or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:59):
It's great way to go about building something. You just
gotta gotta start it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
My dad was a wood carving and he said his
strategy was if he was making like an otter, he said,
I would just start taking away everything that doesn't look
like an otter.

Speaker 9 (01:32:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
Well, and that's another thing is I have a lot
of respect for wood carvers because you can only subtract material.
So in my case, I mean, you put it back
when you made a mistake all the time. Yeah. Yeah,
so so yeah, then I made I made molds of
those first decoys, and I finally had to buy a
rotational casting machine, which was a pretty big, pretty big investment.

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
And now but at this point, are you're like, you
know what, I'm gonna start selling these No, No.

Speaker 5 (01:32:42):
Hold on, We're get too far ahead of ourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:32:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:32:46):
Before it, when you just whipped up the eighteen that
you first started with, Yeah, how do you whip up eighteen?

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
You made the clay sculpture, Okay, made the class sculpture,
and then made a still cone rubber mold with a
fiberglass shell mold over the top of that to hold
it to shape. And then since I didn't have a
rotational casting machine, I had to rotate it by hand.
That was the workout portion of my of my life

(01:33:15):
and is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
Man, oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (01:33:20):
And the and the rotational part comes because once you spray,
so you've got your mold, and then what material would
you spray in there?

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
So it's liquid, You're a thane, So it's like two parts.
You mix A and B together, stir it up and
pour it in the mold and then close the mold,
and then you rotate it, keep it, keep it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:42):
Moving, griped to one side or the other.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Yeah, and coat the whole inside. And then you have
to keep rotating it until that stuff is hard, and
then you may have to do a second, a second
pore so and then I was like, screw this, this
is a lot of work. Like you know, I'm not
exactly Charles Atlas, and I guess I would have been
if I just would have never bought a rotational casting machine.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
D I like, it's like more than a way out
of date reference.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
So so I bought a rotational casting machine. And at
the time, I when I was working for FILA, like
everything that we would make for Fila, everything that we
would design for them, they would send it back to
the to the group in Italy and the ownership group
would say no, no, no, that's not what the Americans want,

(01:34:32):
you know, And and we were just pulling our hair
out of They were just turning down everything that we made.
And we were sure that we were making really, really
really good shoes, and most of the time they wouldn't
even make them. And we just I just watched our stock,
you know, go from seventy six dollars a share down
to five dollars a share over a course of a
very short amount of time. So then they finally said, hey,

(01:34:52):
we're going to close the Portland office. Your choices are
to move to New York City or Italy. And there
was about forty people in the off every single one
of us said where we take neither. So now I
was out of work, and I was tempted to go
back to Nike and stuff like that, but I just
I was so into goose hunting, and I as much
as I loved, you know, working at Nike and with

(01:35:14):
the people at least at FeelA, it wasn't related to
hunting and nature and stuff. So so I was out
of a job. In my sweet wife, Elda Smith, I
love her so much. Here we are we're just getting
married and right at that point, I'm like, you know,
lose this high paying job, and I'm just fully expecting

(01:35:36):
her to just, you know, ditch my ass. And she's
just like, she's just like, we'll be fine. Whatever you
got to do, you know. And I'm like working on
this sculpture for six months and I'm having a cash
in my four oh one k you know, a little
bit out of time to keep you know, keep the
roof over our head and stuff like that. And she's
just such a sweetheart. She was just like, I believe

(01:35:57):
in you and this will turn into something. And uh
and you know, you know, God bless her, but so
I did. So then I bought this rotational casting machine
and that made it way easier to make these decoys
and stuff. And then Brad Cochran and I we were
just like we were hunting a lot together. Brad is
a phenomenal, phenomenal goose hunter. He really is. He's one

(01:36:18):
of five people in the world that I would actually
hunt with these days.

Speaker 5 (01:36:24):
What makes a phenomenal goose hunter so.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Brad.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
So Brad is super super hardcore. He is. He is
so freaking into it, it's unbelievable. He just absolutely lives
for it. After all these years, he is just as
passionate about it today as he ever was so and
I can't match that because I need to go on.
I mean, I'm spade fishing for steelhead, I'm I'm archery
black tail hunting. I need to I need these tenure

(01:36:55):
at a time things, and I need new challenges and
stuff like that. He is absolutely stuck with it the
whole time. And he's just he's just accumulated so much knowledge,
and he has great instincts. He like, I rely on
my instincts one hundred percent when I'm setting up in
the morning, and he has instincts. Plus it's just an
incredible knowledge base. So and then he's a great shot.

(01:37:16):
That's important and that and he he can spot callers
really well too, and and so like so when you're
when you're collar hunting, you can only hunt with somebody
who's on the same page as you. You can't go
hunting with a bunch of guys. I I've done it.
I've shot collars when I've gotten invites, But it's usually

(01:37:38):
people you sit up and shoot, and it's usually everybody's
like what you know? And but if you're hunting with
someone else who's on the same page, and you're looking
at all the birds on the on the right, and
he's looking at all the birds on the left, and
you know that nobody's gonna shoot until he spot a collar.
It's just way better than than than you know, Like,

(01:37:59):
I knew so many people that were hunting big groups,
and they were sending me texts saying like done by eight,
done by eight, fifteen, done by nine, And then they
would say, man, I sure wish I could get a collar,
And I'm just like, okay, well I sat out there
all day long and I didn't shoot anything, But you know,
three or four days of that and you're gonna have
a caller, Like you can't you can't be dying to

(01:38:23):
get your limit as quick as possible and then complain
that you didn't get a caller because you got it.
That's how you get a caller, Why not shooting.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
It is kind of funny the the Waterfall hunters. You
hear that a lot done by yeah, done by this.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
That's like, yeah, is it so miserable? You really want
to be done so fast?

Speaker 5 (01:38:42):
Like oh yeah, you want to be at the cracker
barrel by nine or whatever. Chat your biscuits and gravy.
Yeah right, two questions like one. You can answer this
one quickly. If you guys gotten good enough to where
you can spot the leg.

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
Bands, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you set up for the lighting.
We had to that, especially on anchorage lessers, because there
was a lot of them that only had a leg band.
And so yeah, it's the lighting is everything. So in
Oregon we don't have a lot of sunshine, and on
a cloudy day it's it's incredibly difficult. So I don't
think I have ever gotten a band that didn't bling,

(01:39:19):
that didn't sparkle. I think some people have, and I've tried.
I mean I've I've got a giant grind of pintails,
and pintails they corkscrew down like swans do, where you
can see every one of their legs one after another
and stuff like that. I've never gotten, never gotten one
that way. And I have gotten several leg band only

(01:39:40):
geese by spotting the leg band and at least one
where I spotted the shape like while it's quartering away.
But I've gotten several that were the lighting was really
really good and as the birds are coming and landing
one at a time, you know they're dropping their feet.
You set up quick, you don't. You never let them land,

(01:40:03):
Like if a bird lands, our general rule is that
they're safe. Like and everybody assumes if we're shooting a
lot of bands and colors there. We hear people say
all the time, like, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna shoot
bands and collars. We just we just let them land
and we get out the buy notes. It's like, oh
my god, you can't do that because you would shoot
twenty five geese, you know, Like so you pretty much

(01:40:27):
have to shoot them out of there. Otherwise, you know,
you're just gonna have just too much, too many other.

Speaker 5 (01:40:34):
What is it with the waterfowlers and the collars?

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
In the bands?

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
There's no antlers, there's no there's no there's no age
group or anything like that.

Speaker 5 (01:40:43):
Like so that's how you guys found like the next
like the next level of difficulty where some guy might
say I only hunt four and a half year old
bucks year older. Yeah, you're like, well to get this
with geese, what are we gonna do? So shoot the collar.

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
Everybody looks at a different like Brad. Brad made a
comment a month ago, and I was just kind of
appalled by it. Honestly, he was like saying, like a
collar is equivalent to like a three forty ball, and
I was like, this is a this is coming. This
is definitely a guy who hasn't shot at three forty
bull so like, But in his defense, I think what

(01:41:21):
he means is.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
A thing of nature. A collar is a thing made
a human factory, exactly exactly. It's like you're handling a
bird that's been handled.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
I've always had a real like, I recognize it's cool,
and I have a couple of my little box of
like special things, but it's been You're not the first
person to lay a hand on that bird. Yeah, and
some of the magic's going. In fact, it was birds man.

Speaker 2 (01:41:47):
Yeah, it was one of the number ones. Because I
got caught, right, I can't speak to that. Well, what
what Brad was getting at, what he was meaning is
waterfowlers want a collar as as bad as as big
game hunters want a three or fording bowl.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
All right, So at what point did you say to yourself,
this has all been great, Johnnie, but we got to
move along.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
When you started making them, and here you gotta be honest.
You start making decoys for yourself and your garage. You
have to in your head, unless you're gonna lie to me,
you have to in your head be thinking. I could
see going into business making these and selling them.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
I mean that that came about fairly quickly once I
realized how expensive the like the materials were and the
moles were, and I had I was I really didn't
want to because I just wanted for myself because they
were working really good. And I am like super super
secretive with with so much of my hunting and fishing,

(01:42:54):
and I don't post a lot or anything. I don't
have any stickers on my truck and I once in
a while I'll take my wife's car so that nobody
knows where I'm at or what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (01:43:04):
How secretive though, you did just give us a ton
of antelope information.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
But we're family, right, you know, Like yeah, and I
and he doesn't know this, but I held back some
pretty important I mean, just the reality set in that
I've got a lot of money in these molds and
everything like that, and then and so many people we

(01:43:29):
were asking for them. And then when we started guiding,
I was like, well, that's how make the money that's how.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
Make the money back being a successful guide.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
But when you're guiding, more more people than ever asked
wanted to buy decoys. So and we were having fun guiding.
Brad and I were guiding together, and we were remembering
the other day. On one season, we limited out with
our clients every single day of the entire season except
for two days, but we still killed fifty six geese

(01:43:59):
and the two days. So we were we were doing
really well and we were having a lot of fun,
and life was good, and gas prices were fairly low
and everything like that. But more people ask for for decoys.
Gas prices started getting high, more people started hunting. Some
of the places that we that we hunted were getting
leased out from under us, even by clients and stuff.

(01:44:21):
And Brad, you know, Bradd with an accounting major. The
last thing in the world that he wanted to do
is go become an accountant. And he was just like,
let's let's start making decoys, and and I was all
for it. So that's that's what we did. And and
it's it's not a super lucrative business, that's for sure,

(01:44:43):
but it's a super fun business. The people, all the clients,
all the customers are are great, and everybody that you
work with are all super super fun, really really cool people.
So I I mean, I could have done a lot
better if I'd just stayed at Nike and kept, you know,

(01:45:04):
hammering on my four to one K, I wouldn't be
here right now, and i'd be retired, retired. But I
have no regrets whatsoever. And I mean, I would just
encourage anybody that is just thinking about you know. I mean,
I don't want you to quit your job necessarily, but
I mean, I mean, it's it's very doable. If an
idiot like me can, can you know, scratch out a

(01:45:28):
living and doing something that you just absolutely love. I
just encourage people to just go for it.

Speaker 6 (01:45:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
So at what point did you go from like the
Goose decoys to like Turkey decoys or the Buck decoy.

Speaker 1 (01:45:44):
Yeah? I got turned on you guys years ago because
of Turkey decoys. And that was through Yanni. Yeah, Yanni
got turned on to them.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
Yeah. And I know, and I feel so bad because
you know, my hearing is so bad. In one of
our first conversations, you mentioned that, but I didn't hear
what you said. You were telling me that it was Yanni,
and and I didn't. I didn't hear what you said,
and I feel feel really bad, so I apologize, but yeah,
I I do. I do kind of recall that and
everything like that. But yeah, we so we made Goosey

(01:46:14):
coys for and the the years of all this stuff
is kind of hard for me to keep track. I
think I started the first Goosey coy in nineteen ninety
eight and I finished it in nineteen ninety nine. And
uh then Turkey's didn't start until, like I roughly ten
years later.

Speaker 1 (01:46:33):
And how did you get turned down to me? Yannie?

Speaker 2 (01:46:35):
Jay Scott? Oh yeah, Jay Scott. We love Jay Scott. Yeah,
he's a great guy.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
I got a turkey shooting No, he's a watching people
shoot turkey son of a gun.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
He likes turkey hunting man.

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
Yeah he does. He likes he loves turkey, and he
loves here.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
He has got you know, he likes being you know,
he doesn't surprisingly small amount of hunting himself, I mean
as a guide.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
Yeah, he's in on.

Speaker 1 (01:47:00):
An extraordinary amount of turkey hunts. Yeah, not behind the
trigger on the calls, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:47:06):
Yeah, it's it's funny. He has these incredible opportunities for
Elk and cous Dere and you talk to him and
he's just so passionate about turkeys, you know, more so
than almost anything. But yeah, and so Turkey's it was
just we had a lot of our customers talking to
us and just saying, my gosh, like, if you guys
can make a goose decoy like this, the turkey, the

(01:47:26):
Turkey market, the turkey hunting is ready for an ultra
realistic turkey decoy. And there were so many people that
didn't like to use Turkey decoys, but a lot of
the reasons because most of the turkey decoys were just terrible.
And so we you know, I did I did the
sculpture of an upright hend and Brad took it to
the NWTF show and the I mean, it was just

(01:47:52):
overwhelming support and demand for that. Like we were like
kind of like scared if we if we would have
had the product, we could have sold so many thousands
upon thousands of turkey days over the next five years
after that, because it took five years before other companies
kind of caught on, like crap dsd is selling the

(01:48:13):
ship out of Turkey decoys. We got to make one,
and so we had, you know, we had five or
six years of before the rest of the industry caught up,
and we were making them as fast as we could
make them, but you know, we couldn't catch up. And
now now everybody has an ultra realistic turkey decoy and
some of them actually looking an awful lot like ours,

(01:48:34):
and that you know that happens, it's a great compliment.
And then the Dirty okoy was kind of the same way,
though Dirty cooy was kind of a weird thing. So
this guy, Randy bird Song how I've actually never met,
but he hunted a lot with Lee and Tiffany. He
was kind of sending messages through our you know, I

(01:48:55):
don't know, through through through phone calls or our website
or email or whatever, saying you got to make a
buck decoy. It's got to be in this posturing position.
So so I make it. I agreed to one hundred percent.
I think he was dead on and I agreed one
hundred percent, and I just started on it right away.
And I love deer, love deer hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Where can people go to watch what you let video
you show me of bucks working over your buck decoys?
Where is that video? Live.

Speaker 2 (01:49:20):
Yeah, so I have a whole bunch of them.

Speaker 1 (01:49:22):
I just down one day a bunch of them. Yeah,
I want to. Okay, but you guys had a montage
put together.

Speaker 2 (01:49:27):
Oh oh yeah, so that was that was just all
our customers. You know. Melissa Bachman, she's she's she's very good,
very good hunter, and she's very good at decoying. And
you know, decoying is a little different, you know the key.
It's like, if you're just a really really good white
tail hunter, you're not necessarily a really good decoy hunter.

(01:49:48):
Like it's it's just a little bit of a learning
learning curve to it. But she's very good, she's very
very good, totally knows what she's doing, and she provides
a lot of footage for us.

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:57):
Yeah, I always remember seeing the art Lambeau Hunter guys
have like wicked footage of using that decoy.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
Those guys are great.

Speaker 5 (01:50:05):
But is that montage available on your website maybe or
or somewhere. No, you just made it the montage.

Speaker 1 (01:50:13):
No no, No, it's like branded DSD in them. But
it's all those bucks doing that same head motion, yeah,
smashing a decoy, and they all do that little tip
of the head. It's so wild, man.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
Yeah, they rolling their eyes, Their eyes are rolling around
in their head, and they lick, They licked their nose.

Speaker 1 (01:50:28):
They cocked their head. They're always cocked their head at
that weird angle. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:50:31):
Yeah, when you see that there's an explosion getting ready
to happen, you're lucky enough to see two mule the
or do it. I was just like kind of in
and out of Bino's. But my daughter got to watch
it through a spotting scope and my brother in law
through another spotting scope. But just came in, you know,
two big herds of does behind them each and heads

(01:50:52):
almost upside down, and like you're saying, you can see
the eyes just doing these weird things. And I mean
seconds later, it's like the dog.

Speaker 1 (01:51:00):
It is like someone putting their hand on their pistol. Yeah,
on your pistol.

Speaker 3 (01:51:07):
When he cocks his head, their blood is just starting
to boil and boil.

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
And yeah, it's amazing watching deer interact with that thing. Well,
some ways, this guy comes what's his name bird Song.

Speaker 2 (01:51:17):
Yeah, Randy Birdsong, And I just feel like it's really
important to point that out because I could not get
a hold of him. I wanted to give him a
decoy afterwards, and I wanted to tell him thank you
and and and all this stuff or whatever, and he
just disappeared off the face of the earth. And it's
just like no, I mean, he's around somewhere and he

(01:51:38):
just deserves credit for that, and and I want to
give him a decoy.

Speaker 1 (01:51:42):
Well, hopefully someone could pass this along to him.

Speaker 4 (01:51:44):
Yeah, yeah, I remember, I remember watching that guy's hunting
stuff back in the day, Randy Bird song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
he was on TV shows and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
Yeah, he seemed like a great hunter, and obviously he knows,
you know, about white tael behavior and.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
Everything like that. So, so describe the deer's in Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:52:01):
So, I mean, first of all, all their you know,
all their hair is bristled. It's it's raised in the
same way that an animal would do for heating and cooling,
and it's just to look big, just to look as
large as possible. And then what happens with the deer
is when that happens, there's not this this perfect division

(01:52:23):
of hair, so it ended up it'll end up with
a bunch of vertical cracks along the side and then
vertical cracks along the neck and that's kind of important.
And that's on the decoy and everything, and the ears
are pinned back as far as they go, and that
I think is to make the the the the neck
look big and the antlers look big. And so, you
know I first made that pose. It's like like with

(01:52:43):
a lot of poses, we had a whole bunch of
people saying like, that is the goofiest thing I've ever seen.
You'll never sell. It looks like a donkey, blah blah blah.
And then people do just a little bit of research
and next thing, you know, they find out that we're
not so far off. And then the back is just
slightly arched, you know, in the head is raised a

(01:53:05):
certain amount, and uh, that's really all it takes.

Speaker 5 (01:53:09):
Did you choose a specific age class of of buck
to mimic?

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
Yeah, So all these decoys, because I love blacktail hunting
so much, I cheat them just a little bit and
I'm I'll make the I'll make the the snout, the
muzzle just a little bit shorter and and lean them.
This is a terrible thing to admit to all heart.

Speaker 1 (01:53:32):
You change the decoy for your own blacktail hunting, your
own esoteric.

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):
Well not as specific like like for the actual production decoy,
like so every and we sell them all over the Midwest,
like that's where they get used like crazy, and and
so all you Midwesterners that are using, you know, a
DSc pastoring book, I'm sorry that it looks a little
bit like a black tail, but that's just what I did.
But yeah, it's but the but there is some c

(01:54:00):
things that it doesn't look. It has to look old
enough and mature enough to be a threat without being
too much of a threat. So it's not going to
work in every region. I mean you you know, there
are certain parts of the country where that buck would
be way too big.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
It's some three hundred and fifty pound one hundred and
eighty inch buck. A lot of bucks might be like,
yeah he can, I'll let him handle this situation, and.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
They and it brings him down off the bluffs and
stuff like that, like in broad daylight.

Speaker 1 (01:54:28):
Like I.

Speaker 2 (01:54:30):
My friend Paul Minew He's got five hundred acres in
Buffalo County, Wisconsin, and this is a magical place and
it's super fun to go and and that decoy has
brought big bucks out, you know, in the daylight that
I don't think would have otherwise otherwise come out, and
we get reports of that all the time. So I'd
say the hardest thing is knowing when to shoot, and

(01:54:53):
you don't always get a perfect shot with that. With
that buck, you know, like like if you can get
him to to be coming and he'll be walking slow,
and if you can get him to quarter, you know,
a quarter away or a broadside like that. Honestly, is
is usually the time to shoot. If the buck crashes
the decoy, there's no guarantee you that you're gonna get

(01:55:15):
a shot and at what distance because he'll jump away.
Sometimes he keeps running and never stops, and sometimes he
jumps away twenty yards and all of a sudden, if
you have the decoy at twenty yards, now you got
a forty yard shot and you don't know what angle
he's gonna So.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
In that video, it's amazing how many of those deer
eat it because they're expecting resistance. Yeah that's not there. Yeah,
So they're like running into this thing so hard, and
you know, they're assuming that there's something that's gonna stop them.
But then that thing goes and then they go ass
over tea kettle and just get like this totally like
but not like if views their toylet like take that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
Yeah, the then they look back at it like what
did I just do?

Speaker 5 (01:55:56):
Like a level that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:58):
Yeah, I'm good at that. But that's also why we
encourage people to use the stand instead of the steak,
because the deer can actually hurt hurt himself on the steak,
you know, as they crashed the deco. So the stand
breaks away, everything breaks away, and that's that's the best system.
And I thought that's all we were selling, is the stand,

(01:56:21):
and those were mine wishes and my instructions. And then
I just found out at the GTM that like, no,
it comes with a steak, and I'm like, ah, yeah, yeah,
like i'd really hold now the steak is fiberglass. But
you know the problem is is that they they could
hurt their you know, they can hurt their stroke. Crote

(01:56:42):
them on it, and then then you have one heard
it scroll them. Yeah yeah I did. That's kind of
he became my own fault. Yeah. Well that one was
a that was a big four point, like a one
hundred and forty inch four point And then what did
he do? He grew the next year he grews. I

(01:57:03):
can't remember exactly the the timing of all that, because
he crashed the gear in the fall. And then it's
like he grew antlers the next year, and they were
in velvet and then they that was it. That's that's
that's the uh. They never he never came out of
velvet ever again. He had his antlers year round and

(01:57:25):
they and over the years they crumbled. They got shorter
and shorter and shorter. And he just got gigantic because
he didn't go through the rigors of the rut. He
just ate all the time and he had didn't have
to put, you know, any of his eating into dealing
with the rut, you know, So he just got gigantic
and and he never came out.

Speaker 5 (01:57:47):
But his antlers didn't get gigantic, only his body did.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:57:50):
No, Well, his antlers never grew again, and they actually
got shorter every day because they got so brittle that
they would just crumble, the tops of them would crumble down.

Speaker 4 (01:57:58):
So he hit that decoing. God is nuts caught on
the steak.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
Well, we are assuming that I've got some videos. I've
got lots of videos of blacktail bucks crashing the decoy.
But it happened so fast that I can't tell for sure,
but it could have been a barb bar fence or something.
We don't know for sure. It was just one of
the things that we sort of assume may have happened.

(01:58:24):
We don't unless anybody knows of any I don't know
for sure of anything real bad happening, but it looks
like for sure something could.

Speaker 1 (01:58:34):
And then you're working on a female and you're talking
about her posture, but you kind of you don't want
to make it that her posture is like too much
of a good thing, because then a buck might not
buy it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:43):
Yeah yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
Like herd is standing on the open like just ready
to roll, it's not what you're after.

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
Yeah yeah. So and the same thing we had to
worry about age too, because if we made her, you know,
a big giant mature dough, then you know, there are
a lot of does would would you know, blow out
her and and that could cause a lot of problems

(01:59:11):
and stuff like that. So so she's she's also supposed
to be she's supposed to look like she's just of
breeding age, like just old enough to to breed without
being like a big old, you know horse face like
you know, dominant dough and then yeah, her body posture,
she's mostly standing and relax and stuff. But but yeah,

(01:59:33):
just a little hint she's dropped down in the rear
a little bit kind of look you know, kind of
look like it could happen here. Yeah, and maybe yeah
it's where the and you know those bucks like they
like blacktail bucks. I can't wait to use on blacktails
because blacktails if I mean one of the primary areas
that I had blacktails that I think last year there
was like twenty twenty two bucks and two dos. So

(01:59:56):
if you if you use a but a you know,
a buck decoy hasn't been very effective there, but a
dough decoy, like any blacktail buck will just come running
right up to it, because if they see a dough,
I mean, they just come running up up to it
right away. Like there. You know, it's like we've all
been there. You know, it's like you get desperate.

Speaker 3 (02:00:14):
So it's like Bosman twelve years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:00:17):
Yeah, and she you know, I've had some some people
tell me that I've seen her like like, oh my gosh,
you should have had her in the full squatting position,
you know, like and I don't one hundred percent agree
with that. Just because you know, the dough stands. He

(02:00:37):
the dough stands to be bred really only when the
buck is right right on her. So so for her
to be standing, you know, standing to be bred, it
might not look so much standing almost squatting. Yeah, it's
it's a little low. It's lower than our than our decoy.
And you know, like what we were saying is it

(02:00:57):
could end up looking like she's just like taking a
ship or whatever. And so if she's out in the
middle and like, oh, there's a dope, Oh she's taking
a ship, It's like, I don't know, I mean, that's
might not be the most appealing thing or whatever, but
I know a black seal buck would charge heright in there.
You sell what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (02:01:13):
You sell the pelletsers on.

Speaker 2 (02:01:15):
She can't ship, she can't ship forever.

Speaker 5 (02:01:27):
Two questions earlier, you said in Buffalo County, it would
make these bucks come out that otherwise would not have
come out in daylight. Yeah, can you explain that a
little bit more because I'm trying to figure out, like
how do they get the like did they place them
where the buck could see the.

Speaker 3 (02:01:43):
Bluff?

Speaker 2 (02:01:44):
Yeah, so that's bluff country and in Buffalo county. So
it's a lot of there's ag and then there's you know,
rocky rocky bluffs all around it, and that the deer
all we don't go up into the and we don't
go up really, we don't go more than fifty yards
into that ever. I mean, not even for chad hunting
or anything like. Like literally there's so munch of that

(02:02:05):
that know human that's a sanctuary. Yeah, that's a sanctuary, yep.

Speaker 5 (02:02:09):
And so their cruise along that edge, they look down
in the field, they see the decoy.

Speaker 2 (02:02:13):
Yeah, but you know, those those cruising bucks don't look.
They are just they just do not know. Look. Yeah, yeah,
they'll yeah, they're all scent checking areas and stuff. And
sometimes they will literally be on the other side of
the top of the bluff then that the way that
the wind comes up the bluff and it curls and stuff.

(02:02:33):
It's it's kind of kind of crazy what they do,
but but they are betted, and they do get up
occasionally because they know they're in such a sanctuary that
they know that they're safe and everything like that. They
get up and feed a little bit, and they're betted
and stuff like that, and they might watch you set
up the decoy and then like I mean, and some
of that is assuming because you know you can't you

(02:02:55):
can't really see them up there. And then but you
are in a big, wide open field. Yeah. Yeah, you
drove up in a bad boy buggy and you get
get the decoy out and everything, and you do it
early enough in the in the afternoon, you know, And
then that's at the times and when they would be
able to see you. But otherwise it would be in
the in the mornings when it's dark. And but there's

(02:03:18):
times when we don't really want to do that either too,
because in the mornings, in the dark, those bucks are
moving or moving around and they're down on the bottom.
Just like with blacktail hunting, I don't even hunt mornings.
I give them the mornings. I don't. I do not
like going in my tree stand or ground blind and
bumping deer out or anything like that. I go in
in the middle of the day and sit till dark,
because I can get out of a stand with deer

(02:03:40):
around at dark, but I can't get into a stand
in the mornings with the dark. And I think that's
one of the biggest problems that people have with blacktails
and that's.

Speaker 1 (02:03:49):
How I've I want to come out and hunt blacktails
with you, man, man.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
Yeah, come on out, Like there's the the way that
I've finally cracked it the code is by getting permission
on good private properties, because some of the public stuff
is just kind of horrible or burnt to the ground.
But I spent six six years writing over one hundred
letters a year in the spring and ended up with

(02:04:15):
some with some pretty good properties. I just have to
kind of get the okay, the okay from the landowners
and stuff. But I mean, some of them are just
super great, great people. And yeah, blacktails are super fun.
They're not They're not as smart and cagy and difficult
as white tails, so they're not nearly as like those
Midwest white tails are crazy when it comes to human

(02:04:36):
scent and encroachment and pressure and all that stuff. And
they are just super super smart. And everybody that hunt
blacktails assumes and it always wants to believe that blacktails
are the smartest, most cage just thing. The thing about
blacktails is they're hearing is really really good. So the clothing,
you know, has to be unbelievably quiet to get your
get your bow drawn. And then the other thing is

(02:04:57):
that they just don't come out in the daytime, know,
like white tails do. But other than that they are
very forgiving, like I could like and I can't hunt
the same tree stand in the Midwest, you know, more
than two times probably for white tails and it's done,
you've burned it probably for the season. But with blacktails,
I've I've hunted the same tree stand like seven seven

(02:05:19):
days in a row. So you can get away with
murder with with blacktails, you just need you just need
them to come out during the day. That's the hardest.
That's the lot, that's really the difficult part about them.

Speaker 5 (02:05:32):
How do you deal with the scent issue around running
a deer decoy?

Speaker 2 (02:05:37):
Well, so the most important thing is that it's it's
been manufactured long long enough and it's aired out long
enough since it's been manufactured. So that's that's the biggest thing.
And then you don't touch it with your hands. So
your dear decoy will work. It'll work reasonably good. If

(02:05:58):
you buy one in July and then air it out
and everything, it's gonna work good. But it will work.
It's like a like a mink box or something. It'll
work better every year as it gets older, more earthy, yeah,
more earthy and and and scent free and everything with that,
and you just don't touch it with uh, don't touch

(02:06:18):
it with your bare hands, and you know, don't don't
don't breathe on it, and then don't you don't ever
put scent on it. You know, if you want to
use any kind of scent, you put it, you know,
under the decoy or near the decoy or something like that.
But you keep the decoy sent free because if you
put scent on it, you know that that'll get kind
of rancid over time and stuff. But you also don't

(02:06:39):
put scent all over the ground or anything like that,
because then then you can't pull that scent with you
when you leave. I mean that That's what's worked for me,
is I'll put scent you know, like in a in
a bottle or with you know, with cotton or whatever
you got to do, and just open it underneath the decoy.

(02:07:01):
That's when I do use scent. It doesn't matter that much,
I mean, Or I'll put tarsus, you know, tarsus glands,
tarsal glands from a from a buck. That does work
at times pretty pretty pretty darn well with black tails.

Speaker 1 (02:07:15):
If you were listened to Clay's Bear Grease podcast. No,
he had an episode called Deer Stories, and there's a
guy that tells a story about shooting the buck and
taking the glands off and tying the glands to his ankles,
and he gets his ass kicked by a buck.

Speaker 2 (02:07:30):
Yeah, I probably wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (02:07:32):
Realize this buck is coming down his trail and is
coming for him. Oh geez, it's a funny story.

Speaker 2 (02:07:38):
Well it could have. That could have been way worse,
because that could have been like dough dough in heat scent.
You know, like, as long as it the buck just wanted.

Speaker 1 (02:07:47):
To kill him, that's not as humiliating.

Speaker 2 (02:07:53):
Yeah, he can he can.

Speaker 4 (02:07:54):
Live, So David, when you're sitting like say, I'm sitting
in a tree stand facing a field and I want
to put decoy out, how do I place that decoy
for the best.

Speaker 2 (02:08:03):
Shot, I mean like maybe quartering away and but that
just that just depends like a quartering quartering away would
be with a dough and and and then possibly quartering
two with a buck.

Speaker 3 (02:08:18):
But I'll tell you what, right, wind dependent?

Speaker 2 (02:08:22):
Yeah, it's wind dependent. Yeah, they'll they'll try to they'll
try to get down window, try to get down wind
of it and stuff, and so with a buck, you know,
quartering two works pretty good, but there is no guarantee whatsoever,
Like anytime you think that you know how they're going
to approach it. Like people, the the idea of quartering

(02:08:43):
two is the idea of behind behind that is that
they'll come and come head on. They just don't do that.
I mean they don't. They definitely don't do that with
any major consistency because the the the way to do
damage is to ram one like completely on the on
the side in the root cage, and so there's just

(02:09:03):
a lot of deer Decoying is just super fun because
it's not a guaranteed thing. There's there's certain things that
it does for you, like you can get your bodrawn
so easily, like when you're using a buck decoy because
they're just so distracted. But there's also the downsides and

(02:09:25):
that is like you're not sure you're gonna gonna get
a good shot or whatever. But I think quartering two
is probably the best. And that's assuming that you have
the wind more or less in your face.

Speaker 1 (02:09:35):
Gotcha?

Speaker 5 (02:09:36):
Will you hunt them in like woodland, forested terrain or
you always sticking to more of an open fuel type
place where deer can see it as from far away
as possible.

Speaker 2 (02:09:49):
So I have I've set up for blacktails in old
growth timber, but not successful, not success. I've tried it
in the in the woods, but the best successes that
I've that I've had and I'm not majorly into deer decoying.

(02:10:10):
I will be now that now that we have a dough,
But the best successes that I have have been on
the edge of a where ag meets meets timber. And
that's the same with blacktails too. Meadowee Meadowee areas and stuff.
I'm old old a man and orchard that I hunt.
I've had success with the blacktail decoy there. But with

(02:10:32):
white tails, I mean I've had it to where they're
coming along through the woods and all of a sudden
they see it and they kind of it kind of
kind of startles them a little bit, because yeah, I mean,
it's just I mean, it's it's just like we were
talking about with the antelope blind and stuff. It's just
better if they can see it from a distance away.

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
But have you used it in conjunction with rattling where
they're expecting to find something standing there. That's what I
feel like the real value would be is he's coming in,
but then all of a sudden like oh there it is.

Speaker 2 (02:11:02):
Yeah, I mean I have but like my gosh, one
of my hunting partners justin Kasmar, he gets so mad
at me because I'll go sometimes the whole season without rattling.
Rattling is super fun. And I've rattled in some nice
bucks and shot some with my bow in the in
the upper Clackamus and that's public land blacktails. But I

(02:11:23):
like now that I'm hunting more down in the valley,
I treat all my goose hunting has taught me that everything,
everything about goose hunting is not educating animals. That's what
goose hunting. That's still that's the trick of the whole thing.
And so so now that's affected all my other hunting.
So that's why I mean, I've like on elk hunting,

(02:11:44):
I've shot some big bulls and I've even got some
you know, by by calling and stuff. But I've got
more auditory stand on ground, bline and everything like that,
like all, and I would be a way better elk
hunter if I was willing to move into those those
areas and move where I need to. But I'm just
so about staying on the perimeter, staying out of those

(02:12:05):
creepy you know Heidi holes, out of those bedrooms, and
giving them all kinds of space and all kinds of refuge.
Give him the mornings, give him, give them tons of
space and the the It bites me in the ass
at times, for sure. But what what I love about
it is if you don't if you don't kill one,

(02:12:27):
you have the next day and the next day and
the next day and the next day.

Speaker 1 (02:12:30):
You should write a hunting book like Dunk and Gil
Chris book Hunt High.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):
I've never knowing that.

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
Well I shouldn't say that, but anyway, what.

Speaker 6 (02:12:39):
Would it be called?

Speaker 2 (02:12:42):
Hunt the Perimeter?

Speaker 1 (02:12:44):
Well, see, the thing about Hunt High is just so
it's a lifelong hunter and it's just all these like
really just general pieces of information. One minute he's talking
about is can't how he likes there's that up as
camp stove next to me. He's talking about the way
mountain goats act. But just it's just gold all through

(02:13:07):
the whole thing, just random. He kind of accidentally writes,
like hemingway, it just it's just a page upon page
of just gold ruminations from a fairy seasoned hunter and
a lot of stuff. You're like, I haven't thought about
that that way before. I haven't thought about that way before.
You know, you got a lot of that stuff laid
up in you.

Speaker 2 (02:13:25):
I want to read it. I want to read that.

Speaker 1 (02:13:27):
What was funny? Man is?

Speaker 2 (02:13:29):
Yeah? Good?

Speaker 1 (02:13:29):
He's dead, So check this out. He's dead and he's
self published these books. And and when I started talking
about and I always put him on like favorite book
lists and all that huh high. And it got to
me where if you wanted to buy one, it was
hundreds of dollars because we'd driven a lot of interest.
One day I lent mine to someone and someone took
it and never gave it back. So I went online

(02:13:49):
and bought one for one hundred bucks from some dude
in Texas. And I just buy it on Amazon unused books,
and it comes with a sticky note on it that says, dude,
you're the reason I bought this book.

Speaker 2 (02:14:01):
Wow, that's cool. Yeah that worth worth. Matthewsons has lent
me a couple of books about the early Martin Trappers
and Wayne Nigs and Pouli Rossboro and Martin I have
known is one of them. And it's the same thing.
You go to try to find those books like Worth

(02:14:22):
lent me one of them and gave me he gave
me the other. But yeah, trying to find those books
on Amazon U this is next time possible. But I
sure would like to get more and more copies. Those
books are incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:14:36):
Let me hit you with one last one before we end.
If you not place in Turkey decoys properly, do you
think you'd be doing more damage than than good? Meaning
you got a gobbler, he's coming in right, Can you
ever have it be that it'd be just better not
even to use the damn thing than to have it
set the way you have it set.

Speaker 2 (02:14:56):
You mean because because he's going to be searching and covering.

Speaker 5 (02:15:00):
Do you know, because you would put your decoy out
in such a manner or in such a pose and
position that when he sees it, he's like, what that's
not what that ends supposed to be doing. I'm out
of here.

Speaker 2 (02:15:10):
Oh, let me let me.

Speaker 1 (02:15:11):
Phrase it a different way. How important is placement over
just having the presence be there?

Speaker 2 (02:15:18):
Well, I've only ever done it the right way, so no,
I don't. I don't know. I mean, I just you know,
you can. You can screw up goose decoys really bad,
really bad because yeah placement. Yeah, you can have them
all face into the wind. You can have them crooked

(02:15:40):
on their steaks, you can have them spread way too
far apart. And people do all of those things all
the time, and it can make a huge, huge, huge difference.
On turkeys. I mean, I haven't really found a really
wrong way. I I haven't seen any spreads from our
from our customers where I looked at it and just went,
you know, like I I think you know, because turkeys

(02:16:05):
are they're they're a little different than geese, and I
I'm sure there is a wrong way to do it, but.

Speaker 1 (02:16:14):
There's not as sensitive safe to say just basically what
you're telling me. It's not as sensitive as waterfoul placement.

Speaker 2 (02:16:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:16:22):
I mean you think it's as an end, But you
wouldn't say the same thing about deer. You think there
is a you found that there is like the wrong
place and wrong way to set deer decoys. Well, I
mean you don't like them in timber.

Speaker 2 (02:16:35):
Yeah, I don't like them in timber, but I probably
need to experiment more on that and stuff. So I
wouldn't consider myself to be an authority on that. And
I like to experiment a lot. And and the animals
always surprise me. You know. Every time I think that

(02:16:56):
there's a rule, they the animals show me otherwise.

Speaker 6 (02:17:02):
I know that.

Speaker 2 (02:17:03):
You know, there's times there's times when using a strutter
like a like let's see, i'd say there's times when
using hens only has helped me make some good shots
with my bow because the birds came in strutting. And
then there's times when when using uh, you know, a
gobbler decoys has made me miss some pretty important birds

(02:17:29):
like that would have really meant a lot to me.
And I couldn't get my boat my bow drawn, or
I couldn't came hot on it came into hot. They'll
also come in and just put off, and you're thinking
what I do wrong? And after a while, I didn't
do anything wrong. He saw that thing and didn't like it.

Speaker 1 (02:17:45):
You know, idea that happens, man, I know it does.

Speaker 3 (02:17:50):
I know I surprised him before. Where they come over,
you have your decoy up, They come over a little
knoll or something too close. They see that they don't
feel like duking it out.

Speaker 2 (02:18:01):
Yeah, oh yeah, totally. Well. And I've had I've had
blacktail bucksty that where they stepped out one hundred yards
away and saw the decoy and I was just like,
oh my god, it's it's happening. And I'm getting back,
putting my release on and everything, and I'm all excited,
and I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting, and I
look and I look and expecting him to be, you know,
real close, and now he's high high tailing it away. Definitely.

Speaker 1 (02:18:23):
I mean, you see a lot of them plow in
to beat that thing to death. But it does happen
where they put off and they, like I used to
think in Neville Ice, think that we spooked that bird.
Someone moves, someone spooked that bird. But the turkey bile
just Robert Abernathy, who's a very experienced decoy, yeah, has
been decoying for a long time.

Speaker 2 (02:18:42):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (02:18:42):
He's convinced too. He says, I think sometimes those birds
come in, they see that, they see that gobbler, and
they don't like it well, and they're putting off. They're
putting off or just ghosting out because of that presence.
He still uses it, but he says that's the thing
that happens.

Speaker 2 (02:18:57):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. And also you just
never know what what that decoy represents. It could be
could represent a bird that he's already familiar with and
is already you know, uh lower lower on the hierarchy level.

Speaker 1 (02:19:11):
Then like he hears a hen, he comes in and
be like, daw damn it, Gobbler's already here, Billy's here.
Last week.

Speaker 2 (02:19:19):
My answer to that is went in doubt. Well, for one,
you know, you use a lot of hens and a
lot of like praining hens and feeding hens. That always
looks makes everything look you know, relaxed and stuff. And
even if there's a gobbler there. And then also you know,
like our three quarter strut jake, which is actually a
half strut jake and somehow it got named a three

(02:19:41):
quarter shrut jake. But that's for another day. But but
that's a good decoy to use with a bunch of
hens because it looks a little less intimidating and and
it just looks like, well, I mean, I've had so
many times when uh gobblers will come in that I
know are even a mature tom that I know is

(02:20:01):
not really a dominant bird. And even with even with
the jake there, they just come in slow enough and
then before I know, they're mounting one of the one
of the decoys. And you can also put a submissive
Hannah distance away, like so he's not necessarily standing over
her and stuff. So it feels like there's always a
combination that will give you the best chance. But there's

(02:20:23):
always going to be situations for just you've slat and I'm.

Speaker 1 (02:20:27):
Glad our body guys Uck's who's very seasoned turkey hunter.
He has a little rule. He like, he's not the
kind of guy that believes that everything is, you know,
one way or the other. But he has a little
rule for himself. He don't set a male decoy in
the evening because he's like, they're just not in that mood.
I don't think. Yeah, he goes, you're just less like
he finds in the evening. You're less likely to get

(02:20:48):
that I'm gonna kick that thing's ass response in the
evening and you're more likely to push him off. And
he likes hens in the evening because they're just more mingly.
You know, he might want to find them to the
roost whatever. But they're not wanting to deal with the
big old strutter at night. Yeah, that's just his take
on it. Right.

Speaker 2 (02:21:06):
So I have killed some some big mature toms, like
where it was like literally in the last five minutes
of shooting time, and and I've had them go one
hundred yards out of their way to come up to
the decoys. But the lesson that I've learned, and I've
got burned multiple times doing it, is they'll come up
and they'll jump on They'll they'll jump at the decoy

(02:21:28):
one time and then I'm like thinking, Okay, here we go.
It's gonna it's just gonna thrash the decoy for the
longest time and I'm gonna have this perfect shot. They'll
jump on the decoy one time and they're about done.
That's it. Like, it's just I agree with without one
hundred percent. And that's if they even jump at the decoy.
Sometimes they'll come up, but I mean there's in the evening, Yeah,

(02:21:49):
in the evenings, late at night, it's just and that's
only when it's a if there is a if there's
a tom that is the absolute boss and he's got
lots of hens and he's gonna go up to roost
and he sees uh, he sees a strutter with hens.
A lot of times they will come and check it out,
but they're not gonna be aggressive. And I've I've killed

(02:22:10):
some nice ones with my bow at real close range
that that way. But I've learned the hard way that
you don't have much time, you better shoot. You better shoot,
like as he's approaching the decoy, because you're not gonna
get get him. I've never had one just thrash the
decoy like crazy, like they do and like midmorn.

Speaker 1 (02:22:31):
I can't get in your head that like I'm gonna
have a big show and then sometime later shoot him. Yeah, yeah, yep,
that's the thing I still do hunting turkeys is now
and then maybe not. But I usually when I get
a shot, I take it.

Speaker 2 (02:22:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:22:46):
Yeah, you know, even though you will see where you know,
they come in and interact with the decoy for a
long time. Like if there's the one I want and
I get a shot, I'm shooting.

Speaker 2 (02:22:56):
Yeah you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:22:57):
Yeah, I just rather than expecting that it's gonna be
this crazy you know, fight and breeding decoys and all
that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:23:06):
Yeah, I mean, and some of that. It's just it's
just so weird. Like I mean, and Brad and I
have joked about like what what if humans did exactly
the things that turkeys has done, because we've had we've
had times when this this, this whole flock comes in
and there will be I mean, they're like humping the
decoys and they're fighting the decoys, and they're fighting each other,

(02:23:28):
and they're humping each other and and it's like some
of this stuff. And then we'll shoot one and sometimes
we'll use like a Magnus bullhead or and it just
shoots there to decapitates them instantly, and we feel like
sometimes that's a good way to get a quick, clean kill.
And then like this this turkey's laying there with no

(02:23:50):
head and it's flopping around and other ones are coming
in and jumping on top of it and trying to
fight it, and and it's just like it's just so bizarre.

Speaker 1 (02:23:58):
I got some bars I could remember that that might
have been a little bit of the groove, but that's
about it. Man. Yeah, it is way way different than folks.
And they can fly.

Speaker 2 (02:24:10):
I had a blacktail buck a few years ago that
came in and gave me a really good shot, and
I double belonged him and he went short distance and
betted down, and five minutes later a nice big blacktail
buck came in and and just went right over to that.
He just went he just knew right where that buck was,
just by scent really and kicked him up out of

(02:24:31):
his bed and what Yeah, kicked him up out of
his bed, and then he went and bedded down it
down again, and he went and kicked him up out
of his bed again, and I was like, I don't
know what to do. And so yeah, there's there's a
lot of strange things that happened in nature, and yeah,
I agree like that show. You know, it's like some
shows are better than others, Like a big grind of geese.

(02:24:52):
That's a really pretty show and it's really really neat
thing and it's worthwhile and if you don't shoot at all,
like that's just super fun and it's a totally successful day.
But you know, when turkeys come in, I agree, if
you get a good, quick, clean kill, you know that's
and you're there to kill one, and you know it's
like you take take take the shot. You don't have

(02:25:13):
to necessarily see him, like beating up a decoy for
an hour.

Speaker 1 (02:25:18):
Yeah, you know our buddy Parker Hall. He thinks that
if you kill a turkey over a decoy, you go
to Hell, which makes me wonder, where's the guy that
makes turkey decoys end up?

Speaker 2 (02:25:28):
Park Special Place?

Speaker 1 (02:25:31):
They got a real hot corner in the basement.

Speaker 2 (02:25:35):
Now it's I've had say that too.

Speaker 1 (02:25:38):
They that would be maybe that's Dave's book of hunting
tidbits called Hell's Basement in the old days. In the
old days, we would have named this episode Hell's Basement.

Speaker 5 (02:25:48):
Jay Scott's ripping what little Harry has left out here,
and you say you just let him, you know, shoot
him as you as soon as you can, because he
likes to him he likes to sit there and watch
the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:26:00):
Yeah, he likes to get him with me.

Speaker 5 (02:26:02):
He enjoys the show.

Speaker 1 (02:26:04):
I like to get him coming, all right, Dave Smith,
thanks for coming on, man, thanks for having me. I
know who told me you don't do you don't do podcasts,
may be really eager to have you on. Yeah, you know,
the guys that really want to do them to make
me leary.

Speaker 2 (02:26:19):
Now, the people that I work with are probably surprise
that I even you know, agreed to it, but I
just you know, things have changed now and I just
want to be as cooperative and helpful as possible.

Speaker 5 (02:26:30):
So well, listen, you did such a good job. I've
already told Karin and put you back on the put
you on the returning guest.

Speaker 1 (02:26:39):
Oh yeah, you got to join the all timers, man.

Speaker 2 (02:26:41):
You know, bring them, Bring Brad Brad Cochran and Mike Callian,
Greg Hogan, Scott Sprucker, those guys. I'm not kidding they
they have a lot of information. They're super fun, fun guys.

Speaker 1 (02:26:53):
And next time we next time you guys, I want
you to bring your whole team. Okay, we're just gonna
do where they got to think. We used to do
these things called hot tip offs, where it was like
a showdown of hot tips. We should revitalize hot tip off.

Speaker 5 (02:27:05):
Yeah, I was watching something the other day. I was
watching yesterday vitalizing him right now on the website.

Speaker 1 (02:27:12):
That's great, So hot tip off, you have a competition
who's got the hottest tip. You bring all your crew
in and you guys could have an hour long hot
tip off or just goes around the table and then
we'll score it and we'll wind up with a winner out.

Speaker 2 (02:27:27):
Of the hole just goes round and round and round
and round.

Speaker 1 (02:27:31):
And then we'll score the whole performance.

Speaker 5 (02:27:34):
How good are you in the kitchen?

Speaker 1 (02:27:35):
GSD? Hot tip off?

Speaker 2 (02:27:37):
What's that?

Speaker 5 (02:27:37):
How good are you in the kitchen?

Speaker 2 (02:27:39):
Terrible?

Speaker 1 (02:27:40):
You're married? Right?

Speaker 2 (02:27:42):
What's that?

Speaker 1 (02:27:42):
You're married or not?

Speaker 3 (02:27:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:27:43):
Yeah? Yeah, Luckily you.

Speaker 5 (02:27:45):
Guys will still be fun to play.

Speaker 1 (02:27:47):
Been married a long time? Yeah, yeah, I think you'd
be good at trivia man.

Speaker 5 (02:27:52):
Yeah, but if you're not, if you if you say
you're terrible in the kitchen, boy, that really that's twenty
five percent of the questions.

Speaker 3 (02:27:57):
Yeah, but I bet you he's got some hot tips
about it being in the kitchen, like get a frozen peat.

Speaker 2 (02:28:07):
It'll be twenty twenty five years of spring. And my
wife is of Mexican descent. She's a great cook. She
doesn't think that she is, but uh she Everything she
makes is amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:28:17):
So was your wife born in Mexico?

Speaker 2 (02:28:21):
No, No, she wasn't born. She's like think three generations
as Yeah, but twenty five years. Got the whole She's
got all the traditions down and everything, and that her
grandma didn't speak any English at all, and and where
her parents live in eastern Washington. It's just you know,
we go over there and make to Molly's and and

(02:28:43):
it's a lot of culture, Mexican culture.

Speaker 1 (02:28:45):
I once traded someone a bunch of a woman from
damn it Comish. I can remember where she's from. She's
from Central America. Either way. They make to Mollies slightly
different than Mexican Tomali's, I know, because they would put
like a dried fruit in them.

Speaker 5 (02:29:06):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (02:29:07):
Where was she from? Man? Maybe Columbia? Okay, So so
I gave her a bunch of muskox meat, the deal
being that she made Tomali's with that muskox meat, but
I got half of the yield, which she thought was
a screaming deal. I thought it was a screaming deal.

(02:29:27):
So whatever, she made like twenty pounds worth of muskox
meat Tomali's, which is a shitload of Tmali's, and then
I got half of the take.

Speaker 2 (02:29:36):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (02:29:37):
No, it was a phenomenal deal. I had them all
lined up like bars of gold in my freezer. Man,
but we went through them pretty quick. But they had
like dried fruit, which I thought was interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:29:46):
Yeah, I don't have to find out what that is.
But yeah, they our family doesn't do it like that,
just traditional with pork meat and all that.

Speaker 1 (02:29:55):
Give me your hottest piece of marriage advice. Give me
a hot tip off on marriage advice.

Speaker 2 (02:30:01):
I mean, I just I don't know. I just feel
like I just got so lucky and I'm just so
blessed and everything like that. I don't, I don't know what.
I just I think my wife is just the rock
of our of our family, and she's just a total
sweetheart and and you know, it's like she's the reason
though I guess why I don't do very many trips,
Like I feel like I found her sort of late

(02:30:22):
in life, even though we've been married twenty five years
or whatever. And so I love my home life so
much so it's turned me into a homebody like steelhead
steelhead fishing and bass fishing and you know some you
know a lot of stuff that I do or stuff
that's close close to home, because.

Speaker 1 (02:30:39):
I like you home, Yeah, eating them to Molly's and you.

Speaker 2 (02:30:42):
Never know how much time you'll how much time you'll have,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:30:45):
I got some marriage advice, find the right to buy.
Tony had this little tidbit one time. He said he
and I were both got in trouble with our wives
one time, which we didn't even deserve because we had
taken all of our kids claim digging. So you think,
how could you be in any trouble, Like normally, if
I take my kids to do something, my wife's very
very happy with me. Right if they're all gone, there's

(02:31:08):
nothing complain about. Anyways, on this trip, he Tony had
his kid in one of those kid carriers on your
back clam digging, but he didn't tire in there, and
he's out in the water and leans over comes right
out of that back back carrier because he was like
leaning over fishing around in the water for something. He's

(02:31:30):
on the way home, we got pulled over by post
like next thing. You know, it's like one in the morning.
It's just a whole late deal. Anyways, he said to me, Steve,
and I got yelled at, but my wife on speakerphone.
He got yelled at but his wife. He said to me, Steve,
if we were the way they wanted us to be,
they wouldn't like us. My wife she said, yeah, I would.

Speaker 2 (02:31:53):
Yeah, I think that's true.

Speaker 1 (02:31:55):
I don't think that's marriage advice. That's just funny, all right.
Maybe like a meat eater's guy, do marriage advice.

Speaker 3 (02:32:04):
I come up with a couple of tips.

Speaker 1 (02:32:07):
I don't know about you, Chester. I heard of Chester
get yelled at eastbound and westbound on the same highway.

Speaker 6 (02:32:13):
Man, But then he's just got to sing that beautiful
song that he wrote, and then he'll make everyone weep.
Just be forgiven.

Speaker 1 (02:32:24):
Yeah, I've been driving down roll of Chester. He's in
all kinds of trouble because he's late from getting home
from fishing. And I said, well, here you supposed to
be doing when you get home? He said, going fishing.
He was late for his second fishing trip because he'd
been going too long on his first fishing trip of
the day.

Speaker 2 (02:32:42):
That's yeah, it's always bad. You tell you, you tell
your wife are going, you're going for a half a day,
and you come home she's like, I thought you were
going for half a day, and you're like, well, twelve
hours is half a day.

Speaker 1 (02:32:53):
In Chester's defense, he was supposed to take his white
fish and she was pissed that he was at home
from his other fishing to do that fishing. All right,
Thanks coming on, Dave, Did you like it?

Speaker 2 (02:33:03):
Thanks for having me? I appreciate it. I was like
it or hate it.

Speaker 1 (02:33:06):
I liked it.

Speaker 2 (02:33:07):
I was kind of stressing it a little bit. I
didn't sleep much last night.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
Don't go on all kinds of other podcasts, you know
what I mean. Don't become one of them guys.

Speaker 2 (02:33:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, keep it tight, man, We'll keep it, yeah,
for sure, keep it tight.

Speaker 6 (02:33:23):
And everyone can find uh Dave's decoys at Dave smith
decoys dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:33:31):
We haven't.

Speaker 6 (02:33:31):
We'll merged that into the meat Eater site at some
point soon. But right now, it's he.

Speaker 1 (02:33:37):
Prefers DSD because he's he's so modest. He doesn't like
being such a showboat. That's why he always goes to DSD.

Speaker 6 (02:33:43):
I'm just I'm just giving the audience the u r L.
Well see the decoys are.

Speaker 1 (02:33:49):
To prefer DSD. I get, yeah, because he doesn't want
to detract from his co workers' efforts by Dave's Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:33:56):
That's the thing is like we and that's that's one
of the things that's we're having a hard time with
that adjustment of and everyone's having a hard time with
that adjustment. Is at d SC we've always operated as
a group, you know, and made all our decisions as
a group. And and a consensus and you know, discussing everything,

(02:34:16):
and so there's definitely not one person that is sort
of the you know, the north star of DSD a.

Speaker 1 (02:34:26):
Lot of muscle.

Speaker 6 (02:34:28):
You're so self deprecating.

Speaker 2 (02:34:30):
Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, I've just been
I've just been real like like like I I definitely
you know, I didn't do anything. I mostly just work
in my in my shop a distance away from the
from the decoy shop and do clay sculptures and everything,
and so you know, I just surrounded myself with people

(02:34:52):
that are really good at at all those other all
those other things, and I never wanted to be super
involved with the you know, with all the headaches of
the business side of it and stuff like that, and
so you know, we're just definitely we're definitely a team
and operate operate that way and stuff, and so you know,
that's take some adjustment for everyone to realize that I'm

(02:35:14):
I am not you know, I am not the the
the decision maker representative and you know of D of DSD.

Speaker 1 (02:35:23):
Well Decoys doesn't lend someone to think that that, Like
when you're talking to Dave Smith, you.

Speaker 2 (02:35:31):
Know, yeah, I get that, I get that and again
I tried, you're.

Speaker 1 (02:35:35):
Willing to see that?

Speaker 3 (02:35:37):
Yeah, okay, well you guys do make some really really
good realistic decoys. Like the other day when I saw
more of that full spread, I was very impressed.

Speaker 2 (02:35:48):
Oh thanks, Jess, I say that.

Speaker 1 (02:35:51):
You know, we didn't even get into we got to
wrap up, we didn't get into fur trapping.

Speaker 2 (02:35:55):
Oh yeah, you just have to come back.

Speaker 1 (02:35:58):
Maybe make a Martin decoy who for trapping.

Speaker 2 (02:36:02):
Is one of the things that helps me set up
ground blinds and tree stands. Like I think if like
if you, if you don't have that, I think you're you're,
you know, sadly missing out a tiny little bit unsetting.

Speaker 1 (02:36:16):
Oh, it's very educational. We'll save that for the next
time you're on.

Speaker 2 (02:36:19):
Sounds good, you'll come on.

Speaker 1 (02:36:20):
We'll do a hot tip off with you and your guys.
Then you'll come on, we'll talk for trapping.

Speaker 3 (02:36:24):
Sounds great, and then you win trivia.

Speaker 1 (02:36:28):
I think I'm gonna still beat them, maybe beat them
horribly bad. All right, man, don't go doing a bunch
of podcasts.

Speaker 2 (02:36:38):
Now, don't worry.

Speaker 1 (02:36:55):
Seal Gray Shine like Suit in the sun.

Speaker 2 (02:37:04):
Ride, Ride, Ride on along, sweetheart.

Speaker 3 (02:37:13):
We're done.

Speaker 1 (02:37:14):
Beat this damp horse to death, taking a new one
and ride away.

Speaker 6 (02:37:23):
We're done beat this damn horse today, so take a
new one and ride on.

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Steven Rinella

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 468: Bugling for Bulls and a Decoy Genius