Ep. 1: Starting Fresh - Where Does Your Turkey Call Come From?

Get them close. That's always been my mantra. In my opinion, there isn't a more exciting way to hunt. So in this podcast, we're going to cover everything about using the calls, everything about the hunting tactics that surround using the calls, as well as times when using calls just isn't the right thing to do. So how do we get there?

We get there through questions from you. We get there by leveraging my own personal experience, which is going to include a lot of failures and a lot of success, And we get there through conversations with experts on topics we are tackling and discussing. Now, without further ado, let's dive right in. Turkey season is right around the corner. So in this first episode of Cutting This Ince with

Jason Phelps, it's all about turkeys. Today. I'll be discussing a project my good buddy Stephen Ronella and I have been working on for the past year, as well as dive into some of Steve's personal tips and tactics to help you harvest turkey this season. All right, one of the big components of this podcast is going to be your questions, the users, the listeners. Um. Since this is the first episode, we're gonna go to Steve for a user januated question. Okay, I got a question about the

questions though. How do people submit questions? So I'm gonna I'm gonna sumith stuff all time. You're gonna be like, just do it again, you know, like on Facebook, I get like number one top fan or like the top user. But you're gonna you're gonna have that at Okay, perfect, That's how I'm fine. That's how I gonna finale. I'll be like, so we're gonna scour all of our social media channels Instagram, Facebook, Um, We're gonna also have an email set up. See t d at Phelps Game Calls

dot Com. If you have any specific questions, you want us to try to hit hit on and then they can put feedback in there too. Yeah yeah, if you really like I mean, it's stupid. Yeah, but no, we're we're wanting just more positive negative feedback. You can send it to Steve. You don't want you don't want Jameson to get deflated. Yea. So here's my question. Ready, Ready, I'm not sending, I'm not emailing. I'm just gonna tell you right now. Mike to Mike, it's a two it's

a three part, but they're quick. What's the longest you've ever seen a diaphragm call? Last? How do most people ruin them? And like, how do you take care of him in storm? Okay? Number one? I can remember. I can remember this call. It was a purple piece of tape had a star on it because that was my number one call and I took I babied that call. Um, I think I got four or five years out of competable competition calling in everything. No kid, yeah, babie, I

thought you were gonna say, like eighteen months. No, No, when this call, when I knew it just it hit and it did everything was supposed to without me having to try too hard. Put a star on it. I would take it out of the fridge, take it to my contest, use it, take it home, wash it with some cold water, let it dry on the counter, put it back in the fridge. Um. So that one call. So that sort of answers how you take care of

a little bit? Yeah, but there's um. Well then then it hit me with like, how do what's the most besides setting No, it could be because I've I've cooked a couple leaving him on your dashboard board? Is I mean because you get the you know the window you know basically turned into magnifying glass hitting your latex um even without the glass. I mean, you put that thing in the sun for two or three days and it's shot. Um. You put it in front of the glass on a

ninety degree day and it's it's done in it. What about washing you ran through a washing washing machine? It just depends. Sometimes it'll just toast them. Sometimes they're perfectly fine about clothes dry clothes drying no good and that heat if you run it through a clothes drying as well, pitch it. Yeah that he It usually separates the glue on the tape as well as the heat just you know, kind of kind of tears up that it might survive washing machine. It could. Yeah, we've had calls survive the

washing machine that fall out the bottom. Pick them up and just because they have. Have you ever seen one survived? Like a dude, uh leaves his in his bino harness or whatever the hell, I don't know, leasing is Okay, I got it leasing his Turkey vest. So late May comes around, Turkey vest goes into a corner of the closet. Next year, he's like, where's my Oh, there it is. It's gonna it's probably gonna be goodly no sun and then as long as you don't put it through like

extreme heat cycles. Um, they're usually pretty good in a shaded like room temp closet. It's not a death center. So Turkey calls are different though, because usually they're made up of multiple layers, two, three, sometimes even four layers. You get your saliva all stuck between the layers, and if it kind of dries in there, you you get some different issues. Um. You know a lot of people make you know, to toothpick or they make reed spacers, so you can get like a little bit of airlift

in there to let all those layers dry out. Um. So tricky call. As long as it's kind of allowed to dry properly, Um, it should be fine in your turkey vest over you know from year to year, and you do want to get this bit off them. Yeah, ideally, you know, it's just bacteria and stuff in your mouth that breaks out latex down. Um, you know, sugars, coffees, you know, choose, you know, snooze whatever, maybe in your mouth. It just creates a bad environment for that latex. Buddy mine.

He always my neighbor. He always, I don't know why or how he always brings atomic fireballs hunting. Yep, it's just his thing. You gotta you don't walk along ways he pops into atomic fireball. So I was out with him and I was feeling like, I feel like an atomic fireball is not good for your diaphragm. No, No, the cinnamon, you know, I've got to imagine that's gonna tear you down. Good for your tongue, dude. I haven't did a specific study on atomic fireballs, but it can't

be good. Um. Store in the fridge, Store in the fridge. Um, wash it, dry it off on the counter for a couple of hours away from a window, away from the sun, and then don't lay in the window. Yeah, and then cold dark place is the best. Um. You know. We even recommend if it's gonna be a while and you get throw in the freezer, it's not gonna hurt it. Act you freeze m kills back terry that way too.

If there was anything any residual on their versus in the fridge could potentially you know, continue on, let me I got one more than when you're is there anything like there's no such thing as a warranty on a diaphragm, right, because it's like it's sort of meant as not a thing that lasts forever. You had a warranty on a toothbrush. Yeah, I mean we've always looked at diaphragms as consumable. So like it's even tough for somebody to say, I've had a call for a month and and it's the light

Texas cracking. I don't know what that person did for a month, right, Um, you know, but there is if something's obviously you know, tape falls. We usually try to take care of people. We we listen. You know, story by story, I'm not giving anything, so you might look and be like, this is something that was wrong on our end. Yeah, this could be a manufacturing defect. Um,

you know, I'm not gonna lie. Like we look at that customer about a hundred dollars and calls and he's only complaining about one, you know, so it's obviously not the guy just trying to take us, you know. So um, whether people want to hear that or not, Like that's how we look at it. Like there it's obviously you know, or did somebody by one call and that one calls you know, mysteriously bad after two weeks, like you know, a here's a fort off code, like you know, I

don't know. We we play a case by case. We never try to you know, decide before we hear all the all the information. Alright, So that could have been the listener right there. That could have been. If you have similar questions to Steve's, make sure to submit them to us cet D at Phelps Game Calls or any of our social channels will try to round those up and put them into the the next few podcasts and get an answered for you. Part of it all right.

So we've been talking about turkey calls for a long time, back ever since we started working together. And uh, your idea was probably like i'd say two or three on like my crazy ass ideas I either didn't want to do or didn't think we're gonna work when you at this to me, it was this idea that we were going to go somewhere find a tree, a tree that was perfect for making turkey calls out of We're gonna

go cut that tree down. Not not somebody else, um, not you know, not the lumber yard, nobody's gonna source and it's gonna buy it. We're gonna cut that tree down.

We're gonna tell the story of that tree, the property, um, the process of that tree had to go to our or go through um in order to become a turkey call, um, which I think a lot of you know, your idea, I believe I'm putting words in your mouth, But was the idea that people don't know the process that a tree goes through to become a turkey call and everything involved um and then tell that story. So you brought me this idea, I didn't like it. You know, I

need to understand. I'll tell you why I liked it, but I didn't understand, um, what was the problem with it? It just disrupts my system. Right. So my idea as a game call maker was you go to the lumber yard or you you'd log onto you know, some specialty hardwood supplier. You order your one thousand board feet a lumber and it shows up perfect, ready to be building.

You know, you're ready to make calls, you know, whether it's me being lazy, whether whether whatever it was, like you just added like extra because if it's if it's a dud tree, it's not your problem. Yeah, yeah, I would never make it to you. So you like you you vetted out like all of that by just you know,

but it's also the lazy man's way. And and once we got into you know, this this idea, Um, I'm gonna say that I probably ate Crow a little bit and decided it was it was an awesome idea, and I'm glad I got got to be a part of it. But your idea was to show this whole process, and you would go cut the tree down. We were going to drive you know, we didn't literally drive the truck in the trailer, but we followed the truck in the

trailer with the log on it to the mill. Um we pushed that, you know, band saw you know through the log. We made the decisions on the thickness the log needed to be based on, you know, warp and splitting and all this stuff that was gonna happen. Um, we made the decision on on you know, where this was gonna go. And so this was this was your idea that we kind of ended up partnering on and make it happen. Um. Uh, you know, and it was we ended up kind of coining at the line one

turkey call. But I just wanted to to spend the day, uh you know, today's discussion and just kind of go over everything involved in this project, dive a little bit deeper and uh you kind of see if we can, you know, explain that project a little more to the use of the listeners. Yeah, I wanna. I want to touch a little bit of why I thought it was cool to do it. Um. Mile Man was a big woodworker. I'm not uh, but he was very talented and he

um he's born during the depression. Now here, you know, there's all these places to sell like recycled wood and all this kind of stuff and it's sort of like a thing. But to me, like the way he wasn't just seemed like very frugal. You know. He'd make knife handles which just junkie found laying around. Um. Remember he did a bunch of sighting and barn board from barn

board he went and got from a barn. I remember they toured his brick building down and he got all the bricks and maybe my brother's chisel all the mortar off him so he could reuse the bricks. So he's just into that kind of stuff. But he built across when when he we built a pole barn ourselves on this piece of property that sat across the road from

our house. And when we did that, we had to clear a couple of oak trees out of the way, and we remember we went through all the hassle of getting those oak trees, um to get a milled, and then getting all the planks, and we just dried him in the garage, but getting all the planks and putting the stickers in and keep them from warping them, turning them all the damn time. And then he died. And I eventually got that wood and worked out it myself and just cut it all into strips and laminated it

all into these big oak tops. And so my desk in my office is from those trees, and my one of my smaller workbench is in my shop is made from those big pieces. And I just made these big slabs. They look like almost like a yeah, it looks like a butcher block, or like a looks like you're looking at a bowling alley, whether the lane and the bowling alley.

So I kind of appreciated that stuff, and I thought that, um, like with turkey call, just be interesting to see what all goes into it, you know, because before I did that, no, I didn't know about drying it, and you know, just out of the whole freaking process. Man, it was really instructional. Yeah, we're kind of um, as we're recording this podcast, we're kind of coming down the finish line. Everything's in production. Um, we're pretty damn excited about kind of what we're getting

out of him. It's it's a really cool project. Um. And one thing I want to you got to see kind of the picture of this tree that we picked out. You know, we'll we'll get into this a little bit more. You know how, but man, this would's freaking beautiful, like compared to what you do get at the lumber yard versus what we got out of this tree. UM like that. We're pretty excited about just beautiful call. It's it's different than just your straight gain you know, straight grained walnut

that you get from the lumber yard. I'm having a guy's making me a chef's knife, and that's why I'm stealing a little piece of acts and have a chef's knife off it too. Yeah, we're getting no skills sent out to you today, actually, I think. But he wants he wants a piece with a lot of character. Yeah, we we were searching for some swirl and some some edges and some crotches um out of it. So we'll get some some good pieces. I want the real yea,

the crazy parts. Perfect. So the release of this line one kind of was hinged on the meat Eater x Phelps release of Turkey Calls last year. Um, we released a full line of calls. UM did very very well. So some may ask, you know, you know, and we maybe already answered this is why would we we do this line one? Turkey call? What's a need for line one? Turkey call out there and I'm gonna I'm gonna see if you can answer that, like why do we need

this call? Oh? Because I think would just be I don't know if I had you know, you can you buy something, You get like a little thing with some

pictures of you know, whatever, you buy it. You get a catalog I don't know from whatever the hell comp you like, and there's pictures of like the people make and stuff and that you kind of like meet who works there and you see everything as like why not have if you could have a call that you could refer to um like a video that showed this walnut tree growing in Kansas, I'll point out not far from Walnut, Kansas, and you can kind of like see every aspect of

the tree in its context and have like drone footage of the tree dropping out of the canopy and then see the whole thing made. It would be like you like really understood every bit of it. The same way. I think that one of the things I've always done with the stuff I make is we show an animal and then later we show things that came from it to eat, and people like people love seeing the transformation.

So it's not like I would come and say, like, you know, I don't have the technical expertise to come and be like, oh, there's something about the harmonics of this world. It's just like it's a cool thing to look and get a numbered to get a numbered call where you know there's a finite number of call as it could come from a tree, get a get like a video product showing everything about how it was made. And in the end you're holding the thing like a

great hunting tool. You're holding a thing and able to hunt with it, and you have its whole history right down to the location of where the stump is. Um, it's just like it's it's a fun thing. I think that anything that comes with sort of more awareness and knowledge, you know. I remember my mother in law had this this floor in a house that was an old the wood from a sheep shearing shed and it had all the landel in like mixed in the you could feel

it on the wood. Right. I thought that was a cool last floor because it's just like there's like something about it. It's just made it like cool. Yeah, that's acceptable. In my office, I have a brick. Um you'd look at it think as any old brick happens to be a brick that came from Jim Bridgers General Store when it was dismantled. Anyone else like he's got a red brick on his desk. I'd like this, dude, that was from Jim Bridges store. Man, if you if I died

and didn't tell anybody, no one would know. But it just has like a thing about it that gives it substance. I think these calls have like I don't know, just it's cool. Man, I'm gonna have to borrow it one day yours. Don't build it into something. It's somewhere in this house. So we flew to Kansas shortly after the fourth of July with the intention. At that time, I believe the intention was just kind of black walnut tree down.

Um went on the ground. We decided um to also take an O Sage Orange also known as boat Arc also known as Hedge arts boy boy d R. It's like b O I s apostrophe d literally by definition would for bose Um. So we decided, hey, that they got a bunch of heads here just as well they've got a great walnut tree. Oh can we can we talk about hedge for a nurse? Second, sure these guys, Uh, I didn't really that's about hedge makes the hell of a fence post. Oh yeah never r It's like yeah,

and it's like a pretty fixed market value. And these guys were these guys we were with and on this mill, was like, if there's nothing else to do, you can always make some money cutting hedge fence post. It's kind of like they're like talking about throughout their lives, like various times when it's like you just can cut it. You can get it from owners because it's it's otherwise

not a high value tree. Um, it's like always in the background and be like if you need to make a couple of bucks, you can always cut cut or cut boat art hedge fence post. Another interesting fact about fence post hedge, like some of the when the osage or the hedges used as a fence post for years and it's able to like basically wick or absorb some of that mud, some of that mud stained osages like some highest value timber out there. All right, Yeah, like

it's super sought out. So I'm gonna start a business where I just go around and like replace old farmers fence posts with like a piece of walnut, so I can grab that hedge post out like a fence post relocation business. Clay uh Clay nucom says it outlast the fencing. Yeah.

That it's amazing that it's just beautiful when the it's almost like just the um you know, the just streaks get sucked up into that hedge and so you get like a really beautiful you know, would lay up so that a little um, let's rewind a little bit before we went and picked up you know, the wall nut and the osage, Like, how do we come I think I to the decision that we're going to do a pot and the striker. I know the answers. I've talked

to you a lot about what you use. Yeah, yeah, we had we had the option to make box calls, you know, um you know pot calls, you know, slotted slotted pot calls. Like there's all these different ideas and we said we can do you know, basically, we can do anything within the Turkey coal line. And uh, you know, Steve's like, we're going with a pot I carry I've

carried around box calls. For the first time I ever went in the woods of a Turkey call was a box called and I mean I remember this like, I remember knowing so little that we would be out and forget the chalk, And I remember sitting there with a leather man trying to pulverized sandstone to rum I'm not joking, pulverized sandstone and sort of a makeshift mortar and pastel as a way to try to like chalk the box. But here's the thing with me is, let's say you

got your turkey best. Now, you got all everything in your pricking turkey best, right, you got your diaphragms, you got your box, um, you got a pottent peg, you got whatever the hell else your little hands, any whatever

device you got. If I all of a sudden walking down the road, okay, walking down a farm lane and wow the gobbler gobble seventy yards away, I in that situation, I always always grab the pop. Yeah, I think every I think it's just like and I'm like, if I'm gonna kill this bird, this is what I'm gonna do. And in that situation, I bet you nine hunters aren't going to their box call you know that? So I think they got more utility, They get used a lot more. Um,

so I just have like more. Um. Yeah, man, let's have more faith that it's enjoyable for me to do it too, Like like I enjoy that, you know, enjoy messing with one. And I know that like when I pull it out, I'm gonna like get what I want from it, you know. Um. And I see like, you know, I got a friend, one of the best turkey hunters I know, Robert Abernathy. He's been on the show with us.

He's like a turkey biologists, been hunting turkeys for a million years, Um, all over the place right, he's hunting turkeys seven state something like that. Uh. Man, That dude can locate turkeys with a box. Yea, Like he's got a signature locating. He's just loud, aggressive cuts and you're almost kind of like when he does it, you're almost like he's really off the distance, you know. Yeah, there's that's what frustrates me. There's days, Um, I remember my

wife's first turkey. Um would not answer anything else that pisces me off because I'm gonna die from caller. I'm a good on a popcom, good on the out, you know crow. And then he'd only answer this damn box call. Back in the day, I was using like the I think the Primost heartbreaker, you know. So I was just cranking on and nothing answered. And I literally had to like box call him all the way in the shotgun

range because he would not answer any other call. So it was just it was was you know, I'm glad I had it in the Turkey vest, but it was just one of those things like there are times where it works, you know, Wendy mornings, you know, or just like a dense, voggy morning where sound isn't traveling, like when Nathy gets a strike. When he gets a strike off that box call though, you know, the first thing he does, what's up? What's the box call away? Yeah?

That was hand in that direction. Man. He like the box call goes away, it's not coming back out, and he's liked that way. So we fly into um Kansas City, Missouri. We drive a little ways. I think it was about an hour and a half, and we decided on Union Union Town, Kansas is where we're gonna cut this tree down. And and I'd like to tell some big story on why, but it was really I had a good buddy, um

Randy Milligan, who I got to hunt with last spring. Um, I think we had advertised on a podcast like, hey, we're looking for somebody with a tree, and then I think I got like forty or fifty yet emails that came from Corey Caulkins here at the meat eating like everybody offering up their tree, and it's just, you know, it just didn't have the right feel, you know, you like you gotta come to somebody. Is that gonna be

the right tree? Is it kind of pre scouted? And uh, my good buddy Randy had had reached out and said, hey, I got I got hedge, I've got you know, all kinds of black walnut hickory. You know, he owns quite a bit of property there on Union Town, Kansas. And uh, I think I shot you a message and yeah, that'll work. And it's no small thing to give away a walnut tree because um or to offer one up. Because one thing we learned about is you can have an expensive damn.

I mean it takes like a perfect there's there's that I don't understand it well enough, but a veneer grade walnut where they're taking off like paper thin concentric circles off of a walnut. And when you get one of those, and there's no branches and no blemishes. You can have a tree that's were of thousands and thousands of I mean, I don't remember the exact number. He had mentioned. Why we're there, like his neighbor had just sold like a

black walnut for ten thousand dollars or stuff. It was because it was it was there's a they're building a bank, and the bank wanted walnut veneer on the walls of the bank in certain conference rooms and stuff. But they wanted it all to match, like, so they had to find they wanted like one walnut and and when you take that veneer off what we're talking. I remember someone saying someone handed us a business card and it felt

like a pretty heavy duty business card. Builds a business card, And wasn't it like three or four layers laminated together. It's thin. Yeah, yeah, I think Joe the mill, the owner of the mill, handed us a business card because being a milk guy, you gotta have a business card made out of veneer um. But yeah, he told us like vineer centner than this. Yeah, it was, it was like a few of them. But yeah, anyways, so when they finally found like the tree that you could do

the whole damn bank in it. Yes, valuable treat man half like half of a half of a truck, half of a used trucks. So we we kind of scouted the property. Um, Randy kind of pre scouted a little bit for us, and you know, there were some options he had, um, but we had went there, UM settled on a pretty good straight black walnut. Um. We'll talk here a little bit about kind of as we look at the tree, kind of how many you know, you're looking at that tree like that's a thousand plot calls

worth or that. You know, we weren't looking at it like you know what what else we're going to get out of it or what? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And then we cut looking at a chicken and being like how many dry flies are in that chicken? Yeah? And that chicken sped Um found a good os of orange. And then UM me with us like I'm gonna blame it on their technique, this whole Eastern like sawing technique that I split the wooden half. Yeah, we won't get into that. So I wasted our first hedge. Well, but are you

gonna explain the technique and why they do it? Yeah? Yeah, we'll get into that. A little bit more so I wasted a wasted one osage. Um, we went to another one that actually probably ended up being a better option that was right next to it. Got it fell barbered, you barbered shared. Yeah, yeah, I'm blaming on their technique. Like I'm from the I'm from the coastal rainforest where we cut trees way different than this technique that I was scared working on a big tree like that. I

was scared because I was an unknown territory. Yeah, yeah, I mean that we were just kind of relying on them a little bit to walk us through the technique. So then we loaded these trees up on a big flatbed and we shipped them about an hour south to Walnut, Kansas, where we spent the next day um milling these you

know logs up to our specs. We knew we you know, needed five quarters for some warping and some splitting as he's you know dried on the pallette and and um and then as they dried in the kim So we we set everything up to what we needed to build our ultimate pot calls out. I like the point out that was Walnut, Kansas was we we processed the walnut and Walnut, Kansas. And I can't think about that day without thinking about the chickers though, because we were like

way dialed when we were out cutting the trees. You know, I did all that everything is supposed to do. I like did like Premethron on my clothes. I like pulled my pants down, did my waistline and ankles and deep like everything as textbook. They were like, well, we're going to the mill, you know, and I'm when I'm pictured in the mill, I don't know, I'm pictured like being in a building with a concrete floor. So I got

like sneakers on, like don't do anything. And I get to the mill, is you know out in the yeah, the field, Yeah, just like equipment out in the field. And had no idea dude, but I suffered for weeks after that. I got lit up and I had them little baby ticks all over in my calf. It was, yeah, it wasn't good. No, Um, I always think of that. I can't like think of I honestly, I won't be able to look at these calls aout feel a little itchy.

So everybody that gets one of these things, they should fee a little itchy when they think them like we we got tore up for these calls bad. So we're out in the out in the woods, um looking at these trees. I just want to explain a little bit.

You know there there are board foot calculations. I know is the call designer, Like when I go in to build a call, I need about point to board feet per call, you know, And and just to go over the board foot calculation for everybody doesn't know, we're looking at however many inches thick this board is, by however many inches wide the board is, by how long it is in feet, and then we'll divide it by twelve and you ultimately get like forty four cubic inches makes

a board foot. So if I called someone I still not totally clear on this. If I called a vendor YEP and said I want you to send me one board foot of walnut YEP, I would get in the mail what you would have to They would then ask you, how do you want that board foot? Do you want it in four quarters by four inches wide? Do you want it in four quarters by six inches? Why do

you want it in six quarters by? And then your length with then depend on like how much you know, how long it was would depend on the width and the thickness of that board. But the volume, the volume of what I'm getting doesn't change. No, No, you can get one board foot in a perfect square block, or you can get one board foot and like a board I got you. Um so yeah, it's just a measurement of volume. Um. So we kind of knew that going in. Um and then uh, you know, we we got so yeah,

you know why that I'm confused about that now? Now I remember you knew the thickness yep, So all right, I knew I needed I was always visualizing a board foot and what you were talking about, But I wasn't thinking that let's say you had to make a thing that was three inches thick, then your whole he damn sure not. Better send you a board it's one inch there. Yeah, so we knew we needed a five quarter by a

four inch board that is our blank. And then the length just needed to be enough to get you know, uh, you know all those calls. And then we could basically divide that by the point because because the end and the end the call is heal thick, the call ends up being right at just a hair over three quarters of an inch thick, and you go over by how much, um,

So we went five quarters. We were actually cutting these boards to a true dimension at one point to five and that was the account for all the warp um. We have to plane all of these and even on some of these boards we got off, we're gonna actually lose the call at the end of the boards because by the time we plane them they got too thin.

So it's just that's why we had to be. So you're literally giving up a half an inch um, you know on the board that that's gonna go to waste while you're milling it compared to what we're gonna get out of the out of the board. But when you buy it from like Joe's Lumber, you buy it the same way it comes. Well, we'll buy it four quarters in because it's clean. Yeah, we know that it's gonna be perfectly straight and we won't have any waste on that. So part of that was just no one you're getting

into like yeah, yeah, we're not buying that's great at yourself. Yeah. Um, you know, so we're doing a lot of you know, all of the measurements are like we brought Seth along to help us, you know, for a street degree, and but a lot of the dimensions are just taking it what's called breast height. You know, so on normal humans about four and a half feet um their breast height. You you take a measurement on what they think that

diameter is. You know, those some of the guys that were working with us there, they're so experienced they kind of just hugged the tree kind of figured out, well, I think that's about a twenty four inch or and then you can kind of go to a chart. You know, there's two different dimensions. There's like a Doyle chart and then there's like a a quarter inch chart, and that kind of gives you an idea of how many board feet do you think they're gonna get based on like

a sixteen ft straight section. Yeah, and those those dudes we were worth it dealing a lot of lumber. They're also looking at the big limbs, yeah, and they just kind of that's just like seriously eyeball. But he's just looking up in the tree and being like, oh, x more that limb, that limb is probably nothing. Yeah, or if they had a curve to them, like even when that dries, the board just gonna go completely crazy. And

it's not gonna be usable anyways, you know. So they were they were walking through all that or that limb ten feet long, but I forgot that too, Like depending the limbs length and how it was oriented to the tree, he would gauge like how it's gonna dry, and he'd

be like, you're gonna have a mess. You gotta think of that limb is basically a big diving board, right, So the bottom side of that trees happened to you know, it's under a bunch of stress compared or the top side of the tree's and tension the bottoms and compression. You know, so you're trying to you know, think if when that board dries, it's gonna want to settle out

and it's gonna get all warped and messed up. So you know what I was down in the when I was down South America, they have a lot of those buttressed those big jungle trees that have like the buttress roots. Uh. And some of these buttress roots you could cut a tabletop out of them. It's huge. I mean it's like you're standing at the tree and the buttress, which looks like a descending ridgeline coming off the tree is taller than you, and it looks like it's like a position

to sort of like block the tree up. But they're explaining that that's a cable pulling on that tree. Yeah, it's just like a it's not reading for it's not like it up. Yeah, it's not like I guess building a retaining walls pull down. Yeah, try to get it back where it should be. Yeah. That kind of like logging with the big yard and all those cables just

kind of pulling, pulling that thing into being straight up. Um. Next, I want to get into like the crazy way they taught us to cut these trees down, and we kind of just you know, when you're in when you're in their ballpark, you played by their rules. So you know, I came in from I live in maybe the timber

capital of the world there and in southwest Washington. You know, a bunch of come from a long lineage of tree followers, and we show up and and I think there was some wind damage or a big storm right before we got there, and they actually had to cut a tree down before we got Yeah, and they kind of I think I kind of stood there and kind of got out of the way, but kind of watched and like, what in the hell are they doing? It's it's zero because they're dealing with high dollar hardwood. Yeah, so I

mean that they have a zero waste cut. Yeah, their stump is literally flush with the ground and they don't knock a they don't knock a wedge out. No, just because you're thrown away. Yeah, a hundred bucks. I don't know. They put a little teeny face cut in, just a little one. Remember we we had just what I mean, It's like they you're losing a saw with yep in a core, so you always have to make like a diagram. So scary. I didn't. I felt scary doing that. So I'll do my best to describe it and you can

add some details. Um, we cut a small face cut into the direction we wanted the tree to fall. And normally after you cut your larger face cut in like a Douglas fir tree around home, you then come in from the back side of the log and and steer your saw perfectly square to that direction, and you approach your your holding wood. Um. I can't remember if you're up you know, a little high or whatever, but you approach your your wood until the tree starts to tip

and you get out of there. Well, here we cut our face notch in a lot shallower, um, not in the dirt, more offset towards the way you want. And then you came directly behind the holding wood and you dog the nose of your saw in and left that one inch. So now you basically got your sauce stuck through the center of the tree whole, you know, notch. Let's say to the right, and then you saw your way out the backside of the tree and hollow the

whole thing out. Yeah, and then when you get to the end, they want you to kind of work a little bit quick and just kind of zip through and then the tree falls. Yes, you got Yeah, let's go away putting it. You got a face cut, you got a gap of wood. Then the whole damn tree is gone, and you got the other face just barely hold none And you just nicked that thing and then it worked. Yeah, And I mean they literally, you know, at home, we we leave a two foot stump, you know. So you

go to a clear cutting, there's all these damn stumps everywhere. Um, this thing is that are like if if somebody didn't tell you you're walking through the wood that there's a tree cut down over there. I mean, you wouldn't know it was there. Drive Lawnmoor. Yeah yeah, I mean it was flush. It was a kind of cool little way that they showed us. And like I said, we were in their arena. That's how they were comfortable cutting trees down. So I don't people, I know how people can learn

what we're talking about. They don't need a diagram. The video they watched. Damn video, man, that tree you all I got. I had fifty ticks on my hand when I went to reach for that damn camera. They were everywhere. Um. So then we took him down to the mill. Well we'll fast forward to that, loaded him up with skid steers, you know, loaders, all of that got him, got him chained down on that we kind of into just whatever

natural we don't We didn't buck it to length. No, we bucked it to three points where we were gonna, you know, things were getting curvy or we're gonna start to lose you know, two limbs and whatnot. Just what made sense for for good lumber. Um. And then we we mosied on down the next morning to Walnut, Kansas, down to the mill and the bandsaw out of the field. Ye up, And so we we loaded I think walnut

on first. You know, they take their cuts, they start to see what we're actually you know, you don't know what you got until you start to open up the wood. And we could tell right away it was gonna be, um, you know, really pretty wood. And so we started loading the walnuts up, got those all cut up five quarters new for an osage, you know that you know, based on different woods, osage is really really hard. It's got like a specific gravity at point eight, so it's really heavy.

V a matter of fact, I think I've seen a statistic it's got like one of the highest uh BTU ratings like for firewood, Like it's gonna burn the hottest, So it's got the most energy stored up in it. So it's a real dense one of the reasons it makes an absolutely amazing striker. Um. So we cut that four quarters, knowing that a striker was gonna end up being you know, right at three quarters of an inch

on on osage by my my designs. And so we milled the osage up at four quarters, milled the the walnut up at five quarters, and then kind of just told them, you know what the optimum boards to ship to the kiln was gonna be. Yeah, I wanna. I want to add a thing quick about these dudes that we milled with. They used to have there was an old gas well on their property and the gas well went dry, but it has still has natural gas in it.

They had their they had rigged up where they were pulling Get they're pulling natural gas like next to their mill. And then they had a natural gas whatever we saw Yep. They converted this old tractor engine to natural gas and that powered their old mill. Yeah, and they had like a totally self contained unit. And I think about the old mill, like I just I sit there and kind of scratched my head and then I kind of kind of walked away, Like, man, these guys just do what

they need to do. Like they had this old tractor motor that was the drive train was hooked to an old rubber tire and that's what fed the logs. They pulled a lever of a spinning rubber tire that would spit the logs toge. Yeah, that would engage the blade and then it spun the log. Joe, I'm just like, this can't be like Osha approved. But if you looked around a while, I think you'd find some limbs. You'd be like, there's a thumb bone. But I kind of

like that. I mean, I don't know hopefully that comes out in the story, but like this is the way that some of this this stuff gets done, like just real, you know, down to Earth, people running mills out in their backfield. UM, that's how you get some of this This lumber. UM tipped it to a kiln. We decided to ship the green lumber, meaning wet, no drying at all. The green lumber got put on a UM semi truck and shipp to Addie, Washington, where we had it shipped

to a kiln. UM and I think about a killing. So if I was just take those those boards that we milled up and say we wax the ends so we can control the way that the board actually dried out. We don't want the board to dry out the ends. We want the board to draw out like on its its face of a surface, so it doesn't crack. So you'd wax or paint the ends of the board let

it dry. We usually say that it takes about a year per inch of thickness so we just don't have that kind of time, right, So you we use these kilns to speed up this process to get that's natural, that's yeah. Yeah. So if I was just to throw it in a in a shop and put a little doneage, you know, a little space or sticks in between it so you can get all around it, it's gonna take a year an inch. Um, we don't have that kind

of time. Is to kill the different quality of drying or is it just you wind up with the same thing? Just you still end up I mean, ultimately are optimal moisture contents around seven landing in the same place. I need that moisture content so that board is done moving at the time we put a drill bit a you know, a mill lathe, anything to any of the process of that board is not gonna move or warp on us anymore. Um,

so we're shooting freight percent. Now, what the kiln does is you put a bunch of steam vapor in there, so you're actually adding moisture to the situation. But then you can draw that moisture down and like a controlled process. Um, so you don't get all the splitting and warping as much you can control that a lot more by basically bringing up the moisture to what the board has and

then slowly, inside of controlled environment, pull that out. Um, not to bore everybody with that process, it's just it took us about six weeks to get our mos age and walnut down to that seven and eight percent, and then from there we have to look at these boards that we now have ranging anywhere from eight to twelve inches and kind of pick out what's gonna give us our best boards. If we need two four inch strips,

some of it's gonna go to waste anyway. So we're kind of looking evaluating the boards, where checks, where soft spots, where not you know, entered into that board, and we kind of just go back and and we're kind of doing our best to kind of grade the lumber or kind of cherry pick what we want out of it. So where you're at now, Um, how many do you

think we're hiding in that tree? So we think and we you know, the I'm gonna give some of our tips away or tricks, but but we're completely transparent on this process. We think we can get about fifty pots. We're gonna say we're we're doing better than our are are. We're doing way better in our goal of that. We wanted a tree with a thousand in it, yep um, So I think we're gonna be around fourteen hundred, and

that's to give us fifty extras. And because along the process, if you have a tool catch, you know, a pot, it blows up. Well, he's like, well all right, number one thousand two is missing, you know, like we got to replace it, and so you gotta kind of shoot for number lower than what you have my knife handle. So we keep getting these damn requests for knife handles and stuff that are cutting out that that's gonna be

an extra, that's just basically gonna be scrap um. So we're shooting for fourteen hundred and what that's gonna end up giving us, and we haven't talked about it a lot. We've decided on a pure crystal surface, so not glass. We went pure crystal over a Pennsylvanian slate um toneboard inside of the walnut pot. And then we're gonna have a one piece custom O Sage orange striker one piece.

We we ended up being able to make that happen after a lot a lot of I'm like, come on, pressures on guys like you need to just like so there's times where I'm not gonna lie super inefficient to like literally run we take a one by one one inch by one inch piece of osage, run it through a daling machine, so it basically spits out a broom handle. But normally you want to get like three to four

ft broom handles. We're getting broom handles. But that's just to get one more striker out of out of the board. But do you think you're gonna be able to match it and strikers? Yeah, that's what that's where we get the number. The concern with the lower number was if we were to just if this is mass production and and uh like efficiency and time was involved, we wouldn't

have got that many. But since we said, all right, let's throw the efficiency away and just go hunt for every single striker and every piece of osage we have, they were able to go like pull these ones and two's out of boards where we would normally scrap and just say it's worth burning. When you when you watch the video, you'll see those age two. Yeah, you'll see

where it came from. So we've got that all, I mean, just everything we're doing on this is the like Steve said earlier, just create an experience to go along with that pot calling. And I think, um, when everybody kind of sees the end product, they're gonna agree, like there there isn't a pot call with you know, this much thought put into anything, as far as even the day packaging that we decided to come up with, just you know,

everything from from top to bottom on this is. We didn't you know, we didn't spare any expenses in the process, tried to make just a real one off. You know, the art on the call is going to be you know, um kind of one off. Nobody else's did this again, so I'm really excited. It's beautiful, man. Yeah, it turned out great. I mean, the whole thing is beautiful. And tell people when they're gonna be done. These line one calls should be available right now at them me eater

dot com. You know the term line one. There's a line of cattle that they've been researching for a long time. It's called the line one Hervard and I always liked that and always you wonder about the line to Herford. Yeah, I mean, well so we're thinking about I was like, no, that's the first one. It's the line one. Yeah, No, I love the name when you kind of I think we're in Kansas when you brought that up on my house,

and I don't have any objections to that name. And you know, for a while there we had kind of like kind of coined it treated turkey since our intention at the end of this is for me and you to hopefully go back there one of these years, whenever our schedules line up, and kill a turkey from that property. And the funny still like this part, but I think I'm gonna do it from the stump. You're gonna sit on that stump. So I mean a funny story id

with Randy. This year, I literally killed my turkey within no, no more than a quarter mile from where there's the walnut, and no stage was cut down. Turkeys have definitely walked under that tree. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good piece of property. Randy does a good job. There has a lot of turkeys. All right. We went a little bit long there on the line one discussion. But what this podcast is meant to do is bring you tips and tactics, and we

don't want to leave without asking Steve a question. Um, to kind of get some of his input um on one of these questions. So I'm gonna pose a situation for Steve. You're in an area with good bird numbers, all kinds of good turkey habitat. You know, you've got a good mix of agg roost, trees, feed cover everything a turkey needs nesting. Um. But the state you're hunting only, lets you get a tag that's good for two hours

of the day. So you're gonna have to pick your time whether you want to be from the states an interesting state. Yeah, so it's you know, you can pick a time from let's say roost to seven thirty whatever it is. Um, what time are you going to choose? To eleven, nine eleven? Can you give me maybe ten? No, nine to eleven. I was vast lading between ten to twelve and nine nine to eleven. Here's the thing, if you gotta be there as since dad, like I don't

like going out late. You hear about people to get older and they just get up, eat breakfast and going the woods. Like I like to be there. It's part of the package to be there from dawn. I like to be there daybreak. I want to hear him on the trees. I like all that, but it's a thing that happens where if I'm sitting there in the dark and I hear a turkey, I don't have overwhelming confidence that I'm gonna kill that turkey. But there's something about

ten am. You're half thinking about taking a nap, you know, and you haven't heard anything in a couple of hours. It's been pretty slow, and at ten am all said, Wow, I was gonna like, we're gonna kill that bird. Yeah, yeah, that that bird. Yeah, it's it's exactly yeah. I mean like he's like done. Dude, Like when he came out of the tree, he had like an agenda. He's like got his hands. He's just he's this guy. He's going to some specific spot, whatever he's going to, whatever he's

gonna do. He just they seem to oftentimes like they know what they're gonna do when they get out of bed, and then it gets late morning and they seemed to enter there's fat there's variables like what where they're at in the breeding cycle and nesting all that, but you get birds that they get to be around that time of day. And also it's like he's got free time exactly yeah. Yeah, And when he hammers off there, You're like,

he doesn't have a hint with him. If he does, he's not He's like, no, what I'm not gonna do. I don't feel like I don't feel like he's laying around in dustin. I feel still got a little spunk. Yeah, and he sounds off, then I'd get real excited. Yeah. And that's you know, So you're saying, if I could pare for it, you would be a spectator. You'd still go out. You just wuldn't carry your shotgun from daylight. That's how you're still gonna go out there for the experience.

But you're gonna walk back to your your truck at ten and check the legs. I check the legs and make sure it's okay for me. Just go listen and then go back and get my gun. No, I'll go get my gun at nine o'clock because I wanted to be ready for ten o'clock. So you're trying to hit it like prime in the middle there. Yeah, I might even take a little nap. I might take a nap. I might take a twenty minute nap from like at nine sleep to nine thirty and then get ready for

my ten am. Gotcha because this question stemmed from you know, me being you turkey hunter, you know high school. I would bomb jump in my car, bomb over to eastern Washing where we had all the turkeys, and and go and you know, we were up two hours before daylight, you know, hiking and we want to sit under the tree. We'd watched those birds for you know, a day or two do this and you'd go set up thinking you and then you would never kill him off the damn roost.

I don't know if it's because actually made a noise, um screwed him up, or but the wind, or what I can pattern turkeys for twenty days in a row, do the same thing, and I sit under that tree on the twenty first day, and they will not do what I need him to do to kill them. I don't know what it is. I don't know if they've got like a censor. Maybe it's because I can't keep my damn call to myself while um. But the old timers there used to say, we'll let you young bucks

get up and get the turkeys already for us. We're gonna sleep in, We're gonna eat a good breakfast. When you guys are now taking your nap, are coming in to eat breakfast or lunch. We're gonna go out and kill turkeys and kill all your turkeys, and well the real old timers would go out at night and crawl in under the tree. So I was just it's curious. I think I'm with you, especially as it gets you know,

later later April early May, at least where I hunt. Um, you know that that mid day is just kind of you know that. That's like you said, that's the bird that when it gobbles, You're like, we got this one. Um, No, I like it. I like it. So Steve, why we've got you here before we close? If you had any tipper tactic that you can give to a new turkey hunter to maybe help them find some success, Like what's

the most important thing is in new turkey hunter? Um, that you would you'd share, you know, you'd care to share with them? Uh Man, so hard because what I

want to say, like everything has exceptions. What I want to say is developing the ability until you start learning turkey behavior, develop the ability to control your impulses, like you're gonna make a you're gonna make more as the beginning turkey hunter you're gonna make more mistakes of moving too soon and being too aggressive early on, You're gonna move too soon to be too aggressive, a bump, too many turkeys eater. When you start learning a lot more,

you'll learn like just how aggressive you can be. But it doesn't Things might not happen as quick as you want them to happen. And if you got a bird and you're calling to it, working it and he leaves, um learning when it's like, man, I would go in that direction, but I can tell by how loud the leaves are, by how open the country is. There's just no way that I'm gonna get up and he's gonna see me um so early on and be like, I don't know. Admit yourself, I don't know a ton about birds.

Yet every party wants to get up. But I also know that me that I'm being, I'm probably gonna blow it and just be a little more patient until you get good enough and you've watched enough turkeys to start being a little more adventurous. But I screwed up a lot by going too hard and then there he is

staring at you. Yep. Yeah, So cautious patients a little more as a beginner until you kind of learn, you know, what you can get away with, yea, And that that's exactly right, like learning what you can get away with, you know, learning like I shouldn't. But in this like you'll you'll wind up saying this yourself, I shouldn't do this, but I know that right now it's okay, ye know. And and one thing, I mean, what you're saying is in order to learn that though you're gonna bump birds,

I mean, even with being cautious. He's I think Steve telling you to be a little bit extra cautious on the side, but they're on the side of not moving. But then to ultimately learn what you can and can't get away with, you're gonna have to bump birds somewhere down the line. But to start with, just like you say, be a little more reserved. I really appreciate having you, hear,

Steve Um. So what we're gonna say is go check out the meat eater dot com somewhere on or around line one Turkey call a really cool experience, they say. I I kind of joke with Steve as I thought his idea was wasn't great and I didn't like it to begin with. But um, I became a believer about halfway through the process, and I'm really excited to see

this through. If you had to pick one time and you wanted to maybe see Steve out in the turkey wood under a tree, you're gonna want to go between nine and eleven because that was the time that Steve picked um for for being out there as far as notching, you know, his turkey tag on a turkey um Nother than that, if you're a new turkey hunter, um, maybe be a little more cautious until you kind of get the turkeys figured out what you can get away with him. As a friend of mine put it, when you feel

like doing something, don't. Thanks a lot, Steve, a right. Thanks h