Ep. 3: Calling and Killing Turkeys with Chris Parrish

with Chris. He's been a little bit of my mentor, I would say, on the turkey call side, but we've really just kind of got to know each other eight or nine years ago and really just kind of hit it off. And I've been able to hunt with Chris a little bit, talk about Western hunting, turkey hunting, deer hunting. But in this podcast, it's gonna be all about calling turkeys.

You know, his preferred calls, his approach to calling turkeys, his favorite time of day to call turkey's favorite time of year to call turkey, and we're just gonna jump into all that. So um, welcome Chris, Hey, Thanks, thanks for having me gay soon. As I mentioned, one of the a one of the better turkey callers. You know, anybody can run a call, but to go out and put that ability to use, I think it's more important to be a good turkey hunter than it is to

be a good turkey caller. On our trip to Kansas last year, I think I remember you right. You had said that was your FOD or somewhere right around there. Uh yeah, actually four hundred and one. Uh. But you know, I've been doing it a long time. I won't give away age here. Yeah. Yeah, and you know some of those things that it's cool to keep track of, but I can tell being out in the field with you

like that number is. It's not as important to you as the experience and and the time that you're having out there, but it is cool to just kind of know. You would never bring that number up, so I brought it up for you, um, just to let people know just how accomplished you are, not only as a caller but as a hunter. It was It was cool to get to see you do your thing last year in Kansas. You know, I've I've grew up watching your turkey call and on the stage and getting to hear how good

you were about. To see you out in the field and put it to use was even even more important. You came from from the days when a guy could make a living off of being a good turkey color. You know, back when turkey calling was a big, big thing. Um, you talked about, you know, being able to go out on a weekend to go to a turkey calling contest and it wasn't anything to bring home, you know, three to five thousand dollars you know for winning that turkey

calling contest. Um. I remember, you know, back in the day, you were one of the first, you know, hunting callers to appear on you not only the Letterman Show, you were on the Stern Show. Um. And it used to be a big, big deal, um to be uh, you know, a good turkey color. I think it's it's still a big deal, but it's not. Um, it doesn't seem to be as big as it was back when when you were winning all those competitions. No, it's it's definitely changed

over the years. Uh, you know, Uh, YouTube and several other things have made it a lot easier to become a good caller. Back in the day, we used to go to contest actually to learn and learn off of those that you know, we're we're predecessors of ours and uh, um, I think now with YouTube and in all the different channels,

that people can go through. It just makes it a lot easier to become a good caller, and it becomes and you can become a better hunter as well, because you know, you're learning a lot about tactics and tricks and things that people have been using for the last twenty five or thirty years. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate

having your Chriss. Should be a good show. Um, I'm gonna dive into a lot of these questions I've asked you before, but we're gonna dive into all the listeners can can kind of dive into the the Turkey calling brain of Chris Parrish. And I want to take a second to um congratulate you personally. UM, I think in a couple of weeks you're gonna be inducted into the National Wild Turkey Federation's Hall of Fame. So, uh, you know, congratulations. It's a an awesome, awesome, uh you know award, and uh,

it couldn't be happier for you. Not sure whether it's deserved or I'm just getting old enough. Yeah, they figured they better throw and throw you in. Why they still got time and you can enjoy it. But no, I mean we didn't jump in I'm not gonna jump into all the you know, the Grand National championships, the team championships, but I'm just gonna put this out there that you know, you're you're one of the more decorated Turkey colors of

all time. And you deserve it both from a calling standpoint, what you did for the calling industry, both as your own company, and what you did with Night and Hale, what you did on the stage. So it's well deserved, Chris, and and like I said, it couldn't be it couldn't be happier for you. Thank you. So we're gonna jump in. We've got a couple of questions, um, from social It's kind of funny, mean you were actually talking about this

a little bit this morning. Um. You know, it's kind of the ideal the ideal way to to to condition our our plot calls versus like maybe what's good enough for everybody out there. So there's a lot of different surfaces, you know in our lineup, we've got slate, we've got aluminum, we've got a crystal, we've got a glass surface. Like, in your opinion, what is the ideal way to condition

those calls? And you know, you get really technical because you've called and like friction calling championships and stuff where you're trying to do really you know, fine calls with like key keys on the edges, you know, doing stuff that we're probably not going to be doing out in the woods as we're as we're trying to call turkeys in.

But what's your ideal way to let's just go through, like give me your ideal way to condition to slate, your ideal way to condition aluminum, and then your ideal way to condition like a crystaler glass surface for you know, for ultimate use as far as any strike you're gonna throw out a long long use out in the field, something that's not gonna you know, need conditioning over and over. Well on a slate surface, I prefer to use something like Scotch Bright Um. You know, slate will wear it

stands really easy. So using sand paper on slate, you wind up one cutting too many big grooves in the slate and to you wear the surface down so it gets thinner and thinner. Where scots Bright just barely takes that surface off and uh gives it a good conditioning and your striker runs easily on there. And you always want to sand regardless of the surface. You always want to remember you want to sand in one direction, and then you want to bring that striker across that surface.

That's what creates that grit or that grab of that striker. Um with aluminum, it's either a stone or like a piece of hunter grid sad paper. That's a good way to start it. And then a lot of times I'll go to using Scotch bright just to just to kind of keep it buffed, because once aluminum has some of its grooves in it, it generally will stay really good for quite a long time. It's actually a pretty easy

surface to condition. And crystal you definitely are any kind of glass surface, you definitely want to use a stone on that, and again just always going in one direction and bringing your striker across that. But stone works really good. Uh. Oftentimes after I stone it, I will take a little piece of Scotch Bright just to knock some of the dust off of it, to make sure I get all the dust off because that stuff will build up on your striker for sure. For sure. And then why we're

on that. You brought up a good point. Um. Something I want to throw in is, you know, conditioning strikers me personally. Um, you know, you can rotate it a few times. You do get that one little slick spot kind of your you know, right on that radius where you're you're playing that well, I usually just hit it with a Scotch Bright. Do you do anything different, Chris Um? You know, you just kind of twisted and Scotch bright makes you don't put any you know, high or lower

flat spots in it. Just give it a little twist and it is usually good to go um, you know, for for quite a bit longer. But do you need to do anything different on your strikers. No, I always try to condition them with a little piece of Scotch bright. Um. A lot of times you'll see people buff them with a piece of sandpaper. And to your point, what happens when you do that is you'll create a lot of times you'll get a valley on one side or the other of the radius, and then you'll get a skip

in the call. And and sometimes people don't realize that. But if you could, you know, take a uh something where you could see that really good, you'll see that you can you can take the the perfect radius out of that striker. If you don't watch what you're doing so, Yes, Scotch Bright, is is the way to go? Yeah, ye, Scotch Bright. And then I used to sit there and just rotate it back and forth, but I think just

twisting it all one direction is better. That way, you're not getting those high points or anything developed into that you know radius that that needs to be fairly uniform. The next question, Chris, somebody only has a small chunk of ground to hunt, it holds a few birds. How much pressure is to my you know, for for Elk, I've got it pretty set. Like I know, if I put this much pressure on, they're gonna be the next value over. If I put additional pressure on, they may

be a mile over. But when we go into two birds, you know, turkey hunters, they put a lot of pressure on the birds, but it is too much pressure too much? Are you gonna make those birds unhuntable? Kind of? What's that balance of being aggressive enough but not pushing the birds onto a different piece of property or making them so you're just not ever gonna be able to call

them in when you do get your chance. Well, there's a fine line there, and we can talk about this for a long period of time, but you know, I'll use a prime example of my backyard, and you've been here, Jason. I've got twenty three acres, so I don't have a lot of timber here. I don't have a lot to hold the turkeys. And the turkeys go up and down the creek quite a bit. They don't necessarily roost here every day, so you kind of got a hit and

miss with it as far as where they're roosting. And if they're roosting too far away, there's not much you can do about it. You're gonna fly down with hands and move off, and you know they may be three or four dred yards off the property. But when I look at pressuring a turkey, UM, hunt them smart. Um. If you know they're roosting on you, like for the night before you've roosted the turkeys, or they're gobbling in the tree the evening before, you kind of have a

good idea where you need to set up. You slip in there, You get in there way before daylight, sit down on the turkeys, try to work them a little bit. If they're not doing much, and they move off and they move off the property, leave it alone and just hold your ground and set around a little bit and see what's going on. I I prefer to because of the lack of turkeys in certain areas, I prefer not to put a ton of pressure on them when it

comes to small pieces of property. UM. A lot of times I'll skip days of hunting just to make sure I don't push them off this property. I want to make sure that they stay here or stay around close where I still have, you know, a couple of extra days I might be able to hunt them and work one of them. I don't think that you can actually overcall to a turkey when it comes to like pushing them off a piece of property with your calling. I think what happens is is more than anything, is you

pressure the hens. The hens don't want to be around you. They walk the turkeys off, Um, they get done breeding the hens for that morning. A lot of times they're coming back looking for you. So I don't necessarily think it's the calling part of it. It's the human presence on a consistent, consistent basis, or the taking the chances of bumping those turkeys with your human presence, you know, by going in and out, moving all the time on a on a small piece of property. So you know,

I would just say hunt it wisely. If you get the chance to roost the turkey the night before, that's a great way to do it. Or if you're going into the piece of property, Yeah, it's say, uh later morning or midday type of hunt and you're not exactly

sure where the turkeys are. Uh, slip in real carefully and check on the edges and see if you can get a turkey to gobble before you ever get in there and give his presents away, because oftentimes you know they're strutting with hens or they're just milling around, and you walk in there without you know, getting a location, you wind up bumping the turkey physically, and then when that happens, he may be a couple of days where he returns. Yea, And we have a fairly similar example.

I didn't, I wasn't locked on a small chunk of ground. But here in western Washington where we had you know, just a few easterns, that was literally, you know, maybe the only bird you were going to get to hunt all year, because there just weren't very many of them. The numbers are so low where that was one thing we had to battle with all the time. You know,

you wanted to keep chasing them and pushing him. But if you push them out of the area, who knows where you're going to find him again, and you might just not hunt a bird the rest of the year. So yeah, it was that it's a balance of you still want to get in him and and we didn't. We didn't make our move or push him hard until it felt like, you know, everything was in our favorite, like he's responding to all of our calls, he's moving in our direction. Then we'd keep the pressure on him.

But a lot of times if he moved off or we didn't really know where it went, we would just have to back out. And it kind of makes for you know, not his action packed turkey hunting, but if you ultimately wanted to kill that bird, that's what we had to do. Well, that's definitely the thing is is, you know, if you want to be successful, you got to change it up a little bit. And I cut my teeth and grew up hunting public land where I'm dealing with not just my pressure, but all kinds of

outside pressure, and you never know. Every day was like a box of chocolates. You're gonna get something different from the turkeys, but I always learned early on, sit down, be patient, waited out, see what happens. And it's surprising how many times you come out of there successful and nobody else is killing turkeys because you're you're using the little patient hat track. Well, I appreciate hoping me answer some of the questions we got, and then let's jump

into the questions I have for you, Chris. Um, And a lot of this is kind of carry over from what I know from elk hunting, but I really want to pick your brain. Um. You know, we we said everything was gonna be about calling, but I want to start with the setup and then go into the calling because in in my world of of elk the setup is so important. Um, and you know too, before you ever begin. So once you locate a bird, Chris, kind of what goes through your head, like is there a

decision tree? Like well, that bird hit me right back, that birds in this location, that birds, you know, time of day, is the bird gonna be moving to a certain spot? Like what goes through your head to figure out like where we need to get to? And I know there's a lot of factors we can't you know, put into a question, but kind of what are some of the things that you think about before you go to get ready to set up. Well, I'll start off just talking about turkeys on the roost um because most

of us are hunting them early in the morning. So you know, when I have a turkey roosted, my number one thing getting in there in the dark is to get as as close as I can as possible. I like to get sixty seventy yards of the turkey if if possible. Um No, I don't want to get any less than a hundred yards from the turkey if I

can uh to eliminate some of the factors. One, you know, hands a lot of times are roosted in and around hens, and maybe I'll be the first hand that he hears that morning, and he will decide he wants to come to me. And a lot of times you can bring those hand to you that morning right off the roost and he'll follow as well. So there's that factor of early morning hunting. If I'm going into a turkey in a morning hunt and I don't have him roosted, they're

already gobbling on the roost. Obviously, terrain and the amount of cover that we have is going to dictate how close I can get to that turkey. But again, I'll push my luck a lot and try to get as close as I can. I want to cut that distance down and make it easy for him and easy for the other turkeys that he may be around to come to me, and make it more inviting for him. Um, middle of the day, you know a lot of times

you're you're trying to strike a turkey. You know, we've hunted together there in Kansas, and sometimes you're walking and calling and trying to strike a turkey and the birds just aren't doing much. But if I have one hit me, you know a couple of things that I do is I like to assess the area. So if a turkey gobbles, let's say a turkey gobbles two dred yards away, well, if I can get closer, I'm obviously going to get closer.

I want to get as close as I possibly can, But if terrain doesn't allow me, sometimes you just have to set up where you set up. The first thing I'm gonna look for is is it easy for the turkey to get to me? But is it also easy for the turkey to see my location from a great distance? So I want to do one or two things here.

I want to try to figure out how to set up and eliminate that turkey from being able to see a hundred yards to me, so that he thinks that he hands further away, and he comes in closer and keeps coming closer to see if he can get a visual on that hend and it's really open terrain. I'm gonna I'm gonna shut the calling down a little bit. I'm not gonna call to him a lot. I just want to get him interested in coming and just give

him enough to keep him coming to me. If it's a situation where it's uh, really really thick, really really nasty, and I feel like the turkey is gonna be slightly uncomfortable, I may back up and go around and try to get in a position where I think that turkey is gonna feel more comfortable coming into You know, they're just like people, um, And I use this as an example. I don't necessarily like walking in places where I think I'm gonna poke my eye out in the dark, So

that's why I use a head lamp light. So a turkey, you know, he's not walking around the dark, but he's coming through that thick stuff. They're not necessarily as comfortable as they are where there are places they can see and they can and you know it's just easier for them to to assess the situation. Um. They're also looking for danger the whole time they're coming in. You know, there's something always trying to eat them or get to them.

So you know, keeping that in mind. Oftentimes you strike a turkey sometimes and they're like right over the ridge from you. And I'm sure you dealt with this a bunch of the mountains, Jason, And you know a lot of times we we have a situation where we want to just like PLoP down right there and get our gun up or or whatever we're hunting with and and

try to call the turkey from there. Sometimes you need to look at that and go, well, you know this is not really The turkey is gonna be in my face before I can do anything, and if he comes

in right or left, I might get caught. So learning to back up a little bit from your setup and and give yourself a little bit of room, uh, and at a place where you can visually see the turkey coming in and where you can actually move a little bit more um to get yourself in position as that bird's coming in, so that you're you're on the turkey when he gets there. Yep. And also don't look to get into like a ton of cover. Um. Sometimes people get themselves so tied down to cover that they can't

even move their gun. You know, if the turkey circles to the left or circles to the right, they can't hardly turn to get their gun on the turkey. You know, get a good backdrop of a big tree. Try not to have a bunch of stuff out in front of you to you know that that keeps you from moving from one side or the other. Um. You know, you don't have to absolutely hot the turkey. We don't have to build a blind against the tree every time we

set up on a turkey, you know. And another thing is is don't set up when you got the sun directly beating on you. That some big mistake a lot of people make. They'll set up and the sun's just glinting off of their you know, if they're wearing glasses or their gun barrel or anything else. And you know, that's kind of a dead give away. Turkey walks in and best camel in the world's not gonna hide you

want to shot him? Yeah, for sure, and that kind of uh, last year on my My Burden in Kansas, you know, we kind of got we didn't take the time to set up. I don't know if we half heartedly just thought maybe there wasn't gonna be a bird there. But remember we set up. It was so flat there in Kansas that we kind of set up skyline a little bit even though there wasn't much rise, and you know, we were able to kind of stay out of that

bird's way until he got to the decoy. And then you know, instantly when he got to that decoy, he I think we all agreed that he kind of picked us off probably on that horizon, you know, and we had a pretty good set up. But it's the same thing we we encounter a lot here in the West turkey hunting. As we you know a little more mountainous, a little more ridges a lot of times, what's going through my head and let's go set up on the ridge top because that way I don't have to pull

him up and own um. But when we set up on that ridge top, you've just you know, you just started playing the turkey hunting game on level expert, because you're now basically skyline to any direction or turkey comes from. Any little bit of movement is gonna just you know,

stick out like a sore thumb. And and so that's one of the things when setting up is you know, make sure you have a big tree as your backdrop, or make sure you have some brush behind you, because you know, any of us that have did this, you know long enough, knows like there their eyesight is just you know, tremendous, and you can't get away with a whole lot no, And and on your hunt, Jason, to your point, Uh, that decoy was the thing that sealed

the deal, you know. I mean there was a little bit of a little bit of call in to mak him break and go ahead and come and convince him. But without that single hind decoy that that game was probably over before it got started. Real good. Yeah, just a prime example of how decoys can play a role in open terrain especially for sure. For sure, And one thing we all thought is my bird was you know, even for being a more mature bird, he was super hesitant.

So you know, were there other big birds out there that were affecting just how callab he was It's almost like he approached very gingerly. Um, he didn't want, you know, to him to pop out of the brush and whip him again. So, um, that was one thing we noticed. And calling that bird, we were we had to be very very patient with him because he wasn't gonna put up with a ton of calling. Um, which is you know you adjusted once you've seen that, and we you

know you just adjusted your calling to that style. Yeah, I might add to um, that was one time that uh, though they've came in very handy oftentimes, always carry your binoculars because when I started to work that bird, when he locked up, I couldn't I couldn't visually see him

with my eyes. So I was using the binoculars to look at the Dirk's screen on his camera to see what the bird was doing and how he reacted to my call, so so that I could knew how to work the turkey, which you know that might might be cheating in some respects, but it worked, you know. And and and he finally he finally broke when I started clucking and pern to him and soft talking to him, and uh decided he wanted to go ahead. That was the convincer, you know, and you never know what's gonna

work and what's not gonna work. But the big thing is is you always want to have a big basket of tricks and different things that you can do to uh, to convince the turkey, and you know, switching up calls, making sure you've got a couple of calls that that have some different sounds. You know, obviously we didn't have but one hind decoy, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a hand back over and on the other side behind me in that field that was doing some calling. So

you know, all those things come into play. Well. That that little story there from the Kansas trip was a good segue into is Chris Parrish's calling system or your approach? Um? Are you feeding off of every bird's personality his aggressiveness? Are you going you know, do you or do you

have a checklist Let's say one through five. I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna do a little bit of you know, purrin and yelping and kind of you know, build to cutting or when you you know, and I can't lay everything out here for you, Chris, but but in general, like, what's your approach to calling birds, And I know the situation has a lot to do with it, but if you can kind of lay that out for us, I'll go through two scenarios here real quick. Um. One would

be a scenario. Let's just say you do not have a bird located. You're gonna go in and do some blind calling. And what I mean by blind calling is you don't see a bird, you haven't heard of turkey, but you know turkey's frequent up specific area, kind of like what we did on your Kansas hunt. You know that bird didn't answer anything until after we set up, and we kind of set down to do some blind calling and see if anything would come into that little

food plot area. At that point, what I'll do is I'll always start off soft, always soft, cluck in some soft yelping, just just some soft stuff to just feel the thing out and see if I can get a turkey to react to it. And after I've called that first little sequence, let's just say, I do you know some two or three small series of five six notes, soft yelping, some clucking. I'll just shut up and just give it five or six or seven minutes and just

see what happens. Something might push walk out. Maybe he decides after not me not calling for four or five minutes, he decides to gobble and let me know that he's in the area. Uh. And then at that point I will always let the turkey dictate how I called to him. Now, whether I call hard to him or soft to him, all depends on how he answers me. If that turkey is cutting my calls and and gobbling hard, and they have personalities, and I'll push this back a little bit

on you, Elk answer the same way. You know, you can tell when it elk is really smoking, when he really answers hard to you and bugles hard to you, uh, compared to a half hearted bugle turkey's gobble In the same way you'll get a turkey. You'll hit him with a call and heal gobble and it's like he vibrates the hat on your head. Or the next time he gobbles and it's just like he's answering you, telling you I'm over here. So whichever way I read that is kind of gonna dictate how I go ahead and call

to that turkey. Now, that doesn't mean I'm gonna jump in on him and start yelping and cutting and really calling to him hard, because if I don't need to, there's no reason to do that. If he's gonna answer soft calls and come, that's all I'm gonna give him

soft calls and come. But now if he kind of holds his ground, I might juice it up a little bit and and start hitting him with some excited yelping, a little bit of cutting to try to to try to app him up a little bit and see if I can make him break and go ahead and come a little bit. I really don't have a set pattern. I I generally just let the turkey dictate how I'm gonna call to him, and let the situation dictate. If he's got hens and you saw this last year with

Dirk and Ice hunt. Uh, sometimes they're you're just not even gonna get the hints to break and come no matter what you do. Yeah, they'll call back to you a lot of times and walk off. And with that you just gotta, uh, you know, rearrange how you're gonna

hunt those turkeys. But you let the turkeys dictate. I think I think letting the turkeys dictate how you called to him is always the best case scenario because you can get a read on them, and after you've hunted them for a little bit, you'll understand, you know, kind of what I'm talking about, how they answer you, how they react to your calls, and how you need to you know, move and and adjust your calling to what

they're doing. But um, I don't ever have a set pattern, but I always carry a multiple of calls because you never know what the turkey's gonna answer. One minute, he's answering a mouth call and he stops. Then you pick up a slate call and you hit him, and all of a sudden, he likes that pitch and tone, he

changes his attitude and here he comes. Yep, exactly, very very similar to um, you know ELK calling, or you kind of have your progressions, like you kind of start at the lowest, the lowest threat level and then slowly work up, you know, so pers and klucks, you know, maybe some soft helps and and it seems like the same thing we want to do with ELK, even though we may be big a little bit more is you you kind of want to call that turkey in with

the least amount of aggressive calling and then and then work up from there. So yeah, yeah, real similar to our approach, you know, with with elk And then one thing I want to ask you, Chris specifically, because it seems like any any turkey hunter that that's been doing it for a while or anybody has much experience, is you know, what's your approach to dealing with hung up birds?

You know that that big hang up, that bird you know, maybe pays attention to you for a little bit, gets to you know, a hundred and fifty yards somewhere where you can't see him. Maybe you can hear him gobbling at one location for a while. Can you give the listeners kind of what your your approach to hang ups is?

We we've tried to be really aggressive, Like if you feel like he's you know, come to a certain location and then faded, we'll get up and be very aggressive, try to get to that location and see if we can get him to come back to that location since he was comfortable there before. You know, whether it's in like a strut zone, but that's kind of been our approach. Whether we're doing it right, I don't know, but um, let's hear what you have. You know, what's what's in

your bag of tricks for hang ups? I don't know if there's a writer or wrong on any of it, and and you're gonna you're gonna hit and miss regardless. It's a wild, wild turkey. He's gonna do some things that you have no idea what he's thinking. He don't know what he's thinking half the time. I'm pretty sure of it. But I approach it similar to what you're

you're talking about. UM. You know, if I can't see the turkey and he's been gobbling, or if he's still answering me, um, generally, my first indication is he's probably got hands with him. There's a good good chance he's got hands with him. That's the reason why he's not breaking and coming. Um. Or you're dealing with a four or five year old turkey that just knows how the game's played, and he's gonna wait and see if that

hand will come to him. The first thing that I'll do most of the time, as I will shut up on the turkey for a little while and let him think about it. I'll start off and try to call to him and get him gobblin pretty strong and and kind of try to see if I can make him, you know, get him to that fever pitch if he doesn't break, and I shut up on him and he still doesn't break, and they say after five, six, seven minutes, and I hit him with a call and he gobbles again.

He's in the same spot. I'm gonna look the terrain over real carefully, and I'm gonna make a move. May move right, they move left. I may move right at him. I may try to get up and make a big circle and getting a different location. Sometimes just changing locations and sometimes by fifty two yards can make all the difference in the world. All of a sudden, Now you become alive, hen because you're not sitting in the same

place for the last hour. And a lot of people don't realize that, but you know, if you're sitting there calling in the same spot, now, is he's sitting out there thinking, oh, well, that's a human being. No, he's not. He didn't have a clue, but he does know if that he is consistently calling all the time in the same spot, she should be coming to him. That's how the game has played. And so he realizes that that's not what you know is not natural. It's not natural.

So I'll make a move on that Turkey I'll try to get in a different position and see what happens there if if he does fade off, say, for example, he gets in behind some hens and he's moving with some hens, especially if he keeps gobbling and he's going in a certain direction, I'll try to make a great, big, wide circle and get in front of that and just kind of figure out how they're moving, and then maybe lightly called to try to keep them coming that way.

Now I have seen the hens turn around and go right back to where they were, just because they don't want to deal with you. If you call to him and you're gonna you're gonna fight that battle. At that point, I'm probably gonna play the waiting game and just see if those hens will leave him at nine or ten

o'clock in the morning if it's a morning hunt. Um. Sometimes the hens are with them all day and you just have to you know, you just have to keep working around and working around until you finally get in position. And sometimes it's just not gonna happen. Sometimes you're just gonna be unsuccessful and chalk it up and try to

do something different. Another thing that I have done that is probably a last resort overall is if I can get in there close enough and get a visual, and I know that every single time, those hens are walking him off. A lot of times I'll try to go in there and actually split them up. I'll go in there and and run try to run the hens off. I'll split the gobbler away from the hens are just spook them in every direction. I know this sounds totally crazy, and people look at it like, wow, man, what are

you doing. Well, I can tell you something if you've got especially if you have all day to hunt. Now in Missouri, we don't have that, so I tend to be a little more conservative here in Missouri where I live. But in areas where I can hunt all day and it's say ten o'clock in the morning, eleven o'clock and those turkeys are hanging out, a lot of times, I'll go in there and bust them up. And you go back there an hour later and he's standing over in

the corner goblin trying to relocate his hands. You sneak in there and give him one little yell, and a lot of times he'll run over the top of it. Again. It's a last resort, but I have had it worked multiple times, so I guess what I'm getting at in a nutshell is, don't be afraid to try a lot of different things. Don't be afraid to move on them. You know, your tactic about moving up and setting up

where they were, it's a great tactic to use. I've have called him right back to those areas before, just because they do feel comfortable with it. But try it all and you're gonna find that every turkey is going to do something different. No two turkeys are gonna act the like. So that's that's the fun part of turkey hunting too. It's always a chess gig. Yeah, there's some great tips and some you know, great things to try.

So the question we get all the time, and of course we get to run a call fairly well compared to most. Um. Everybody wants to sound like Chris Parrish or you know, Jason Phelips or guys that are are good on a diaphragm. In your opinion, how important is it to be a great caller? And by that I mean like you make the prettiest sounds and the most accurate sounds versus you know, how important is it to

know how to turkey hunt well? I think and I'm always gonna say I think being a better woodsman is is going to be far more successful for a guy than being a better caller. But I think there's a combination of especially this day and age where we have probably about as many turkey counters as we've ever had. We've got a lot of turkeys. But I think calling is overrated when it comes to like sounding perfect, because if you listen to a hand, sometimes there's nothing that

sounds worse than a than alive hand. So the most important part of calling, to me is understanding how to call in a particular situation, and then calling with the right rhythms and putting your sequences together. And and I'll use this for an example. I remember turkey hunting in Arkansas many years ago with a fellow that's a great caller, and I love him to death, But he called to this turkey with a repetitive style of calling, meaning that

there was four or five clucks and seven yelps. Turkey would gobble, and he would four or five clucks and seven yelps, and he would do it exactly the same every time, and eventually the turkey shut up, and uh, I whispered and said don't call to the turkey for a little while, give it about ten minutes. So when ten minutes to twelve minutes whatever it was was up, I made one one note, yelled, I went one time, the turkey gobbled, never said of what another word, and

strutted right to us. Prime example of one changing up the sound of your call because it was a different sounding call, and then being more natural with your calling. Um, I just think being natural with it is the key is calling with broken rhythms, with uh more natural qualities to the call as far as your your rhythms and and how you present the call, and and not being uh fake with your calling so to speak, or you're doing it repetitively the same way over and over and

over again. And I think that that probably is a better key in calling. But if I had to say one thing, learn the turkey and learn what the turkeys are doing in the area that you're hunting and you're calling will always be second to that. Now, that's one thing I noticed, um hunting with you, Chris, and you know, I try to do the same thing, is is do what the real turkeys do? You know? And we get to listen to a lot of guys just start cutting on a mouth diaphragm and it's just you know, never

ending her. You know, a fly down cackle that's just loud and and you know, out in the woods you might hear like three little quick yelps or like, you know, just a couple of little quick cuts or cuts, and you know the guy out there trying to mimic what they see. And you know some professional caller do on the stage. They're out there, you know, nineteen hard cuts in a row and then right into a seventeen note yelp,

and you know, whatever it may be. But I think sometimes just being subtle and natural and fitting in with the natural turkeys in your area is going to lead to a lot better success than just going out there and just you know, no matter how good you are, just cranking on that call and just kind of be in the loudmouth hin that that doesn't fit in. Well, yes, And you know, to your point, I think, uh, understanding and listening to real turkeys. You know, that's the great

thing about YouTube and other things. You can get on there and listen to these turkeys and listen to how they you know, when you hear you watch a hen walking through the woods and she'll be walking along and she'll you know, she's cluck and she and you hear that that note that I did on the end of that little series of yelps and did with my voice, which is not great, But that's like a questioning yelp. She's arch and she's looking for another turkey, whether it

be an other hand, whether it be a gobbler. But learning how to put that kind of question mark and searching and and uh um emotion into your calling. That emotion is no different than you and I talking. You know, if we're uh if we were l cutting together and you popped over ridge and saw three eight six by six and and I happen to be carrying the bow, You're probably gonna look around at me and go, come on, come on, come on, let's get up here and get on this on this elp, and I'm gonna be running

and jogging. But if we're just easing through there and we're nothing's going on, our emotions are going to be lower. So understanding how to put emotion in your calling is very critical because you know, I always use this analogy when I do a seminar. If my wife asked me the first time to take the trash out, she's gonna ask me fairly nice. The third time she asked me to take the trash out is probably gonna be a

little more vocal, a little bit, a little bit more radical. So, you know, keeping that in mind, kind of approach your calling style to that because it seems to have worked for me for forty five years, not giving my age away. But uh, now we're gonna have a little bit of fun with this. Um, We're gonna put you on the spot. If you could only go into the Turkey Woods with one call, and on that one call, you could only produce one sounds. Let's say you can make a yelper,

a cluck, or a per um. What are you going with. I'm probably gonna go with a mouth call just because that's my go to thing. Um, and I'm going to probably stick with just yelping. I'm gonna I'm just gonna yell, and the call of my choice is generally a combo

cutter bat wing style call. That's that's my you know, I mean, we've got them in the met eator line, got him in your line and my signature line, and all of them run fantastic and that's that's what I'm gonna run and and I'm generally gonna I would generally use a mouth call. I use all of them, but if I was stuck with one, that would be the one thing out, and I would stick to yelping only because that's just the backbone and the bread and butter

of turkey calling. And that's what you hear more hens do, especially is yell. Yeah, the same thing with me. Everybody asks, you know, what do I need to know to be able to call turkeys in? And I said, well, everything will help, but if you could only bring one in, like, you know, get a good diaphragm that you're you're confident in, and then that you know, anywhere from a four to a nine note yelper, you know, it's just adding more on and transitioning out is kind of the answer that

we go with. And then you can build off of that. If you can yelp, I'm almost positive you can cluck. You know, purring is gonna take some a lot of practice, and then you know, being able yeah, being able to cut and put those together is gonna take a little more skill, but you know, being able to cluck and yelp Um, you know, learn that as far as going

out in the woods and be confident in it. And then like you said, I like a combo cut Um, once you get some experience, you know, it almost gives you two calls and one you can play to the raspy side, which is decide that the latex is is overhanging, or you can go to that clear cut side and clean up your call. So it gives you a little versatility. Um, And that one calls is why I think that combo cut is is so popular and versatile for most I

would agree. Now I'm gonna put you on the spot if you could give, you know, one or two short tips to you know, all the turkey unders out there that maybe aren't finding success and aren't able to put it together a year after year, Like what are just what are the two random tips from from Chris Parish. Number one tip is scalt try to find the time to get out and scout. Locate your turkeys, locate the areas that they frequent. Um. You know, it's kind of

like killing a big white tail buck. You can't shoot one where they don't live. You can't kill a turkey where they don't want to be uh in general, So do your scouting, put some put some footwork in and figure out what's going on. And oftentimes you'll find that you'll see a lot of turkeys in the fall of the year, and those turkeys aren't there in the spring, so you'll have to move around and try to find

where you know where they frequent in the spring. But find your turkeys, locate them, figure out what they're doing, spend some time in the morning in the afternoons kind of figuring out that what they're doing and how they're using that terrain and how they're using that area, and that will help you greatly learn how to one where you need to set up, where you need to start at, you know what time of day you need to be in certain locations that that eliminates a lot of the

the problem factors, and and secondly, set up closer to the turkey if at all possible. That's the number one biggest mistake I find of all turkey hunters make, including those that have hunted for a long time. They hear turkey gobble, and they hastily go in and set up, and they're not set up where that turkey really wants to be or there so far away that there's so many things that can happen between the time the turkey would get to you. Uh, and when he's coming in,

can sneak in never say a word. All of a sudden the turkey shuts up and leaves. So get as close as you possibly can to that turkey before you set up. If the terrain will allow it, always try to break that hundred to a hundred and twenty five yard mark and get in there tight on that turkey. That would be the two number one, number two tips that I could give that I think would improve anyone's success. Perfect. Yeah, I like both of those tips, Chris, And uh, you know,

I think it can definitely help. Um. You know, it's at aggressive play, people really not wanting to get in tight. Um. We've seen it, you know on the Olk side. We've seen it on the Turkey side. Once we started pushing that envelope and um, you know, all right, let's not set up a hundred eight yards away, let's set up a hundred yards away, using that terrain and that vegetation to our advantage and being a little more aggressive. Um, it was amazing how many birds we started calling into

our laps. Versus you know, just getting the getting the old gobble and walk away. And then it seems like we spend the rest of the day chasing because we would never be aggressive enough to get to that, you know, that that bubble where we could get him to turn. Ye, there's a lot of a lot of different factors, Jason, you know there's I mean, terrain is gonna dictate a lot of things. Um time of year, early spring, there's

not any vegetation. It's hard to move, but there's always roles and little things and places that you can you know, that will allow you to try to, you know, move a little bit closer. And again it just it will it will eliminate a lot of problems if you if you learn to hunt that way. Yep, yep, I agree,

I agree. Well, thanks a lot, Christopher, coming on. We really appreciate your sharing all your knowledge and you know, experience in the Turkey Woods with all of us, especially when it comes to calling and it's about go time. Most seasons have started now around the West, and if they haven't started, their their openers are right around the corners.

So hopefully everybody can use some of these tips and tactics to help them be you know, a a little more successful this year, or at least get a little more action by being in tighten um, you know, doing some of the stuff you explained here. Well, I enjoyed being on and I thank you for taking the time to have me on here. And uh you know, I've always got time to talk Turkey no matter what the schedule is. Prayer.

We appreciate that about you, Chris, And uh yeah, I think looking forward to joining back up with you and Randy this year in Kansas and see if we can't do it again. Oh absolutely, I think we'll have just as most success or more. They had a good hatch last year. And I think we'll have a lot of goblin two year olds. And uh you know that that to me is what's fun. I like to listen to him goblin, m m