Ep. 31: Run and Gun Turkeys with Samong Yang

he's wise beyond his years. He's a young man that is well spoken and burst and he's a great asset to the hunting community and kind of showing what we're all about as well as a reaching future hunter. So I'm really stoked to have him here on the show. Welcome to the show, Somone. Thank you so much, Jason. It's an honor to be on this podcast. I have to ask how old you are? I don't even know how old you are, but I'm going to ask that one to start with. Yeah, I'm twenty five, born and

raised and currently still living in Spokane, Washington. Gotcha? Uh your little background? What what got you started? Um? In hunting? Um? Is it like the you know, the rest of us that it was kind of passed down, um, you know, through the lineage and from one generation to another. Kind of what's your backstory there? Yeah, that's pretty much Italy, you know, simply put, I don't know my life without hunting.

It's uh, it's always been something that I've done. And when I was born, my dad had already established hunting in the household, so I was born right into it and it's just stuck ever since. Yeah, real real similar you know to to our story. It's like nobody can remember, you know, up to a generation where we didn't hunt, um, you know, or we didn't hunt for food. Um, and my family so so real similar. And then um, you know you took your your family's passion for hunting and

kind of that lifestyle. Um and similar to what a lot of us do. You wanted to start to share that experience, um with others. You know, you picked up a video camera. In my opinion, you do a very good job of sharing your adventures. But what kind of got you into filming those and wanting to share those adventures?

Kind of what sparked that? Yeah, the very start of it is like way back in twenty eleven, when I first received an iPod Touch for Christmas, and it wasn't anything fancy, but you know, growing up in the nineties, you know, social media, none of this stuff existed, so like having a camera was just like you're on cloud nine.

So I was like, what fourteen years old when I got this iPod Touch and I figured out that there was a camera on this thing, and I just found that it was like the coolest thing to be able to take pictures and record stuff and just be able to watch it back. So back around this time, I really had no interest in filming my hunting and fishing stuff. It was just I was just filming whatever. And we were actually raising like backyard chickens back then, and so

that's primarily what I did. I just went out and I just filled my chickens, basically washed them from the moment they were hashed to when they were grown up. And I just thought it was the coolest thing to be able to watch what your chicks used to be and then watch them grow up to what they looked like in adulthood. And so that wasn't even really hunting. That was just the idea of where I got started with filming. And then This is also around the time

when YouTube really started to pick up. And you know, naturally, like I said, I was born and raised into hunting, so naturally you just want to start watching hunting videos on YouTube. And I think I think you can attest to this. Back then, there was like hunting videos and hunting channels all over the Western States besides Washington. Like I struggled to find any videos on YouTube that showcased Washington hunts. You always had Utah, like those limited entry

Moss backed videos way back then. And so the one channel that I came across very at the very beginning was actually Primetime, my Primetime Outdoors by none other than Jason Phelps. You're digging way way back into the past in the history. But yeah, that's that's cool because we didn't know how many people we were reaching or what

we're even doing back then. We started back in two thousand and seven, and it was just some buddies that got some you know, some video cameras, some mini DV cameras and just started like over the shoulder, no production quality, you know. But uh no, that's funny to hear. Yeah,

it's funny. But then like that's actually like how it's kind of started for me, right, like you basically, like long story, sure, what you did back then when you were still active on primetime outdoors, You basically did what I did, right. You just went over the state of Washington. You just filmed whatever you were hunting, deer, black bear,

turkey and stuff like that. But as we all know, if they're they're familiar with it, you kind of just stopped, right And so when you stopped, it's just like there was no more Washington Hunts, and so I was like, well, nobody's really doing it. And I was like, well, I really want to watch Washington Hunts, so why don't I just start right Yeah, So soon after that, I started following this man by the name of John Wake, which

today he's known as Northwest spur Chasers. And I found out through his channel because he's actually like probably the biggest turkey hunter in my neck of the ones in northeast Washington. And like I said, it was so bizarre because out of all the states and all the places that YouTube videos at that time were, it was so crazy to me to know that this man John was

filming like in the same areas I was hunting. And so That's really what drew me in, just to watch him hunt local turkeys basically the same area as I hunted, and aside from John, because he really stuck to that niche of turkeys which will be getting into later, there was really no big game content at all in terms of Washington. Yeah, like you get like you're one in a thousand, like limited entry, Blue Mountains, elk hunt here and there, But it was just like a one one video.

There was no series. There was no consistent uploads to those channels, and so I was like, you know what, like, I'm just gonna start doing this on my own. And the start of it wasn't even the idea that I wanted to share this to people or to build a brand. It was simply the fact that I just wanted to watch it, right, So I'd go out, I film whatever we hunted that day, and I would just come back

and I'd just watch it. And it quickly turned into not just my personal entertainment, but my family's entertainment and long long story short, over time, it just kind of evolved into the platform today, and you know, you get like sixty thousand people that I've never even met before just watching the channel yeah, yeah, you're you know, your YouTube channel has um definitely you know, grown to a point. Um, you know it's got great traction. Um, you put great

material out and so yeah, super happy for you. I'm glad it got to where it is. But let's um, we're gonna jump into the podcast. Just like we start these all, We're gonna jump into some questions from some of our listeners. So these your questions we get from either social email, past episodes. If you want to submit your own questions, you can email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com, and myself and our guests we

will do our best to answer those. Um. So the first question we're gonna we're gonna throw at you U, which we actually just kind of um went over. We're gonna a little more technical into your gear. Um. You know, we get this question a lot. You probably get a lot. I want to start filming my own hunts. What equipment do I need? And what was your approach You've already kind of mentioned you started with, you know, kind of

an iPad. Um, what what would you recommend somebody that's you know, and I think we maybe need to preface this because I didn't get any other information. Um, you know, somebody's just trying to share stuff to YouTube. Um you know what do they got to spend? What do they got to invest? Um? You know what do they need to do to learn how to edit and so on? Yeah? I think, uh my, my biggest advice is dive in and start filming. I think there's a misconception that you

need this camera and you need that camera. But the most important act is to just start. I think the best way to learn and improve on video production is experience. I know everybody today I don't. It doesn't matter if you're old or you're new. We all have a phone of some sort that has a camera. And the cameras on our phones today are way better than some of the actual cameras like ten years ago, and the phone's

pretty limited. But like I said, you've got to just start because I think like there's really no better way to start than now. Like you can go on YouTube and you can search up like tips and tricks of little things you can do to improve your video production and stuff like that. But in my opinion, in my experience,

the most important aspect is trial and error. Right, you go out there, you come back you learn what you did wrong or what you could do better, And it's just this, it's this constant cycle of going out there film and coming back, reevaluating, going back out there and repeating that cycle. And so it's obviously good to have good cameras because it will just help your content that

much better. But I think it's the idea of you give someone who's really experienced a cheap camera, and you give a rookie with no experience a very expensive camera. The person with experience will most likely outproduce a higher quality video than the guy that just picked up a super expensive camera. Again, I'm not saying that if you if you can't afford a good camera, get it, clearly

like it'll help you in the long run. But I think it's it's just the idea that don't wait on certain camera or think that you need a certain camera to get into it, because a lot of people today they just film on their phones and they're way more successful than I am. Yeah. No, and that that's my advice is if you want to do it, just just

get started. Get what you can afford. You know, you start reviewing cameras and everybody will say, you know, the five thousand dollars, you know the new canon, you know R eight or you know this or that, and you're like, well, shoot, I can't afford that. I'm not gonna be able to tell my hunts. Go get the cheapest DSLR, or like you said, even if we've all got a phone, like use your phone, you know, if that's your plan and goal, just just get started and then you'll learn along the way.

When you go to edit your stuff, you're like, oh, shoot, I should have gotten knee shots, or I should have filmed more at camp, or I should have did this and that, and you'll just learn and eventually come up with your own style. But a little off topic question, but something that we get ask a lot, and I thought you might be able to add your own, you know, two cents in and I think we're on the same page. Get something, get some sort of camera, get some sort

of editing program, and just get started. Um is the most important. Then you can change and upgrade your gear at a later point. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of that route through trol and error, is it really makes you learn about yourself, your style and what works best for you. You know, there's all sorts of hunting channels on YouTube now, and almost all of them are different style, but they've all really achieved success with their own unique style, right, Like you just watch my

stuff compared to like other hunting channels. I have my own style, but we're all relatively success in our own ways. Yep, yep for sure. So we're gonna we're gonna switch gears here. We're gonna go back into our topic today. Um, we're gonna talk turkey. Turkey's um, you know, uh, we'll shoot. It's only two months away, um from our youth season here in Washington, so it's it's getting a lot closer than you know that we think we're. So we're gonna jump into some questions. Um, you know a lot of

times we get uh, you know, roost questions. UM, my question for you, do you roost birds at night? And if so, what's your go to method? Um as far as calling and how you go about roosting birds and figuring out where they're at. You know, like this is

all depending on the hunt and living in Washington. I don't get to say this very often, but we have some amazing turkey hunting like with high turkey numbers I hardly roost nowadays because I know I can find them at almost any time of the day and still kill one. I can't really say that to any other species in Washington. Exhibit A elk. I can't really say that with elk, but with turkeys, Like dude, there's so many turkeys, at least in the Northeast region. I'm not talking about just

Washington in general, Northeast Washington particularly. I mean every year, like over seventy percent of the total harvest in the state comes from Northeast Washington, right, And so I live pretty much in Northeast Washington. That's my backyard. And so when it comes to roosting, if I do roost because I feel like I just want to do it for fun. It's actually a lot more simple than people think, because one, there's so many turkeys to go around and it's hard

to miss them. But my most common method is I just get to an advantage point, whether it's on a ridge or just on a logging road where I can hear distance, and I actually don't call. I'll just sit there and I'll just listen because turkeys are very vocal, so as they're flying up to roost or they're just hopping from branch to branch to go to roost. They will actually gobble on their own and so you really don't have to do anything. You just let them speak

for themselves. But in the case when you deal with slightly more pressure turkeys, which often occurs in the later season, like let's say like mid May to late May, if they're not vocal, I will often resort to an owl call just to give them a little bit more kick if they're not responsive or the other thing I will do is I will imitate a roosting hen. But the only time I imitate a roosting hen is if I know that where I am standing right there is a good spot where I can set up for the morning.

Because turkeys, they're as dumb as they might seem, they can pinpoint your location to your step like you throw out a call, and they will know exactly where you are. So the only time I will imitate a roosting hen

is if I know that I can set up that spot. So, for example, if there's a gobbler across the ridge and I'm on a ridge across from him, I'll just tell him, hey, I'm a hand I'm roosting here on this ridge tonight, I'll come back in that or I guess I'll come back the following morning and pretend that I'm that hand that roosted the night before, waking up flying down, Because when you do that, it just lowers the suspicion of

a turkey. Right if if you didn't tell him you were there the night before, and all of a sudden, the next morning, there's, all of a sudden, there's a turkey there. Sometimes it can throw up the red flag, especially if you're dealing with pressured gobblers. But in terms of roosting, that's pretty much like the whole nutshell about how I go about roosting birds got you and some of that research that our buddy Mike Chamberlain at the

University of Georgia the Turkey Lab there. Some of the research he does does is that you call um and that turkey may not come into your setup then, but he will come back to that exact location you know, in three to four hours. That turkey has a decent memory and he's got pinpoint accuracy on where you were at. And many times Mike Chamberlain's research has shown that that that turkey knows where he were. He's busy with hins, but he will come back later. So I think the

same can be said. Like he's you know, on the roost, he will know if there was a hen that should have been there the night before, and he'll know if she should be in that tree when he wakes up, you know. And to add two year roosting birds at night, I like to do it just because it makes me feel a little bit more like I'm in the game

or I'm being you know, I'm interacting with the turkeys. Um. I always refrain from using a coyote yip or a howl in the morning because I feel like it can you know, disrupt birds, make them very weary and cautious. But at nighttime, when they're in the tree, we use a lot of kyote, howls, alcohols like you said. Um. And I just love to get close to a roost tree. And so by not using you know, the hint calls like you said, because you don't want to maybe throw

that red flag. If I use a locator call, I can then you know, pinpoint that bird try to get within you know, seventy two hundred yards of its roost tree and make a make a play in the morning. I haven't killed a whole lot of birds out of the roost us. We kill them, you know, when they've been on the ground for a while. But I still love that that excitement I get when you're sitting near a roost tree first in the morning, waiting for the fly down to see if you, you know, made all

the right decisions. But yeah, so predator um, you know, Kyle Howell's at night seemed to work really good in Northeast Washington. I would hesitate to use them any other time besides night roosting. And then the only reason I like to do it is so I can, you know, get closer to their tree in the morning, be part of the action. Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. Like a lot of the birds that we set up on a root, like most of the time, it's like,

we don't kill that bird for some reason. At this point, I just like to call roosting false confidence, because it makes you feel like you're gonna kill them the next morning, and then they just you don't kill a bird, you know, I don't know why. You know, you just think that you had it died. But then I don't know, man, like most of my birds, like I said, or like you said, I kill them midday when they've already been

on the ground for a couple of hours. Yep. Yeah, you get that whole pattern of you know, nin's the hens start to go nest um, you know, get it, leave those tombs and then they're more callable. But yeah, and I feel like that, you know, the subspecies of the merriam's up in the northeast corner maybe or a little bit tougher off the roost where it seems like some of the eastern we've got to hunt and some of the other species um are a little more huntable

off the roost there. Their roosts are a little bit more um, you know, concentrated to too good roost areas where these days, Miriams they seem to just you know, they do have you know, roost sites that they like, but they can hop up at any given spot in any given night, you know, as long as there's trees around, and um, they're they're not as uh um you know, patternable. I guess it seems maybe that that adds to it

or not. But so if you roost a bird that you haven't patterned, how close do you like to set up and um, kind of what's your decision making? You know, in the dark, are you looking at some mapping software trying to figure out where to you know, pick the tree where you think he's gonna go on the ridge top? Um, what's your play once you've roost roosted the bird and um, you know figured all of that out. Yeah, So I would say that most of them, my birds that I roost,

I don't pattern them. I'll just go out the night before and wherever they roost, I'll just make a game plan based off of where they are. Um. But yeah, I am mapping software is huge nowadays. But the thing is, like I've also just hunted here enough to the point where like I generally understand the landscape and a lot of the places I hunt today, like I've hunted for years,

and so you just understand typically how they go. But in the event where I don't know the pattern of these birds, typically where they flew up from, that's typically where turkeys will pitch. So if you knew where they flew up from, there's a good chance they're gonna fly back down to that same exact spot. And so ideally for me, when it comes to the range. Seventy five yards is about the magic range for me. It's not so close where like he can just pinpoint you and

you're just in his comfort zone. But it's also not so far where he just has to feel like, oh, I've got to make this hike to get to him. So seventy five to one hundred yards that's ideally what I would set up, and how I set up it really depends on the terrain, because I mean, dude, these Merriams, they'll roost right next to a creek, they'll roost on

the ridgetop, they'll roost right next to roads. Like you really can't predict where they're going to be, and so it's really hard to narrow how I would set up because it's really so situation dependent. But the idea is how I set up is I just want to be able to set up in a way where the turkey can't see me until he's within range. So that often means that I also can't see the turkey. Right If I can't see the turkey, that then that means the turkey can't see me either. So it doesn't really matter

how you do it. I just want to make sure that by the time he can see me, he's already in range. Because if he does see me at that time, it doesn't matter because he's not going to outrun a shotgun. The shotgun's way faster than he is. Right. And so the one situation that I will bring up regarding Northeast, specifically Northeast Washington is roads because ninety five percent of my turkeys probably come from a set up on a

road because there's just logging roads everywhere up here. And so one, roads are easy for us as hunter's hikes, so it's easier to cover ground, and roads are very easy to use to how to predict how the turkeys will come in. I mean, if you're on a road, there's a good chance if the turkey's coming in he's walking the road. And third, it's just what turkeys love, you know. They love to use roads as strutting grounds,

travel corridors, and even feeding grounds. And so typically how I do is I throw my deco on the road. I would either get up off the road or I'll go below the road and I'll just let the turkey turn a corner. That's typically how I set up on a road. I want to set up next to a turn in the road. That way, the turkey has to turn that corner to see my setup or my decoy. And usually by then, like I said, by the time he can see the decoin, he can see me, he's

already within range. Right, So that's how I typically set up when it comes to a road. But when it comes to like you're just on a random side of the ridge, man, it's just you really can predict it. You really just got to go based off of what he's feeling and what he's giving you. Yep. Yeah, but it's it seems to be a complete guest at that point. And like I said, I seem to guess wrong a lot. Under the roose tree, you know, it's like you see

him try to pitch to a flat spot. You see him try to pitch out to where you know it's more open when you know the tree they're in, and for some reason, they always do the opposite. And then I've even tested it, like all right, I'm not going to touch a call all morning, just like let him naturally pitch where he wants. It doesn't work, I'm like, all right, next time, I'm gonna call real lightly. He still doesn't pitch and just yeah, just real, real limited

luck out of the roost. But no, I appreciate answering those listener questions. If you have a question of your own you want me or my guest answer, please email them or submit a social message, whatever it may be. Email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com. We'll do our best to get those answered here live on

the show. So for today's episode, I've got my own questions to ask you here and specifically about you know, hunting Merriam's you know, you've mentioned Northeast Washington, Idaho, some of that open country, more mountainous country probably compared to what the majority of the country gets when it comes to wild turkey hunting. It's where I grew up turkey

hunting in that Northeast Washington corner um. And it's a ton of fun because you know, I why I love the big thunderous gobbles of the Easterns compared to the you know, the Merriams little wheat gobbles, and some of the differences between between the birds. Like I love that it's you get up in the morning and you gotta lace your boots a little tighter when you're hunting merriams. You know you gotta you gotta maybe, um, you know, bring a little more water with you because you're gonna

run and gun these turkeys pretty good. You know, it's not gonna be necessarily you know, sitting why I'm gonna say this, for me hunting public land, you're not gonna get to necessarily sit on a on an agg field edge. You know that's kind of um. You know, your typical turkey hunts in some places, I just love that. It's almost like hunting the mountains for elk, for meal deer, but you're up there chasing turkeys on ridgetops and I

absolutely love um that style of of turkey hunting. UM. But I'm curious to see if some of our where some of our strategies and UM techniques are similar, and then also to see if you have some different tactics that we um that you utilize in the northeast corner that I'm not currently using. But before we jump into my questions for you, it's always fun to kind of relive the past. Tell me real quickly about your first turkey and kind of your strategy you put it put

on that turkey in and how you killed it. Yeah, the truth is I probably at this time didn't even have a strategy because I didn't know what I was doing, but I somehow killed a turkey. But I don't even know what year this was. This was well over a decade ago, But I'll go to the year before I killed my first one because that kind of leads up to the year I actually shot mine. So the year before I killed my first turkey, it was during youth season and I actually missed a tom at twenty five

yards in this exact spot. I don't know how I missed it, but twenty five yards turkey just took off. I don't know what I did wrong, I just missed. And so the following year it was it was youth season again, and you know, you kind of go back to that spot because, first off, like that tom that I missed, that was a first turkey I've ever shot at, and when you shoot something like that, you just have this built up confidence in that little spot, and so naturally I was just like, I want to go back

to that spot. So it was my cousins and myself and we again, like I said, we went back to that spot out of redemption because we also knew that that little spot where I missed that Tom, there was a roosting area like two hundred yards below where I actually shot the Tom. So we went the night before and this weekend was pouring rain like it was horrible, And so we got out before daylight and the rain

was still gone and it was pouring. Everything was soaking wet, and we pretty much went back to that same general area where I missed it Tom last year. And so sure enough we get to that spot where we were last year, and we looked down below us, like two hundred yards and we spotted Tom and three hens, and like I said, like the rain is just pouring down at this point. So even we were miserable, but the

turkeys looked like they were even more miserable. I mean, they just went through a whole night of rain and now they're trying to dry off, but then there's no sun because it's still pouring rain. And so turkeys were wet, We were wet, and it was just miserable conditions for a turkey hunt. And so at least you know, that's how it's looked at. Right. When it's often raining, people often refer raining conditions as poor turkey hunting, but today

it was somehow the opposite for us. So anyway, we spotted Tom and three hens about two hundred yards below and this a little flat below us, and my cousin just starts calling, because that's that's what turkey hunters do. And so surprisingly, this Tom was actually really vocal, but he just wouldn't leave his hens. I mean, this is like early April, you know, hens are still with Tom's

and stuff like that. And so we sat there for like an hour in the rain, just calling to this Tom, and he would he was very vocal, like every time we called, he would gobble, and he would even gobble on his own, but he just wouldn't leave his hands. And so my cousin David and I we eventually like just decided like let's let's goot a little bit closer.

So we moved down like another fifty yards without him seeing us, and we were just like, you know what, let's set up here because there's no way we can

get any closer. And so we scooped fifty yards closer and we sat there for like another thirty minutes just yelping away at this Tom, and this Tom again like just kept galling, but he just wouldn't leave his hands, and so I don't even know how long it was, but maybe like another hour on top of that, like that, Tom finally just decided like okay, like I gotta go. And so we literally watched this Tom break off from his three hands and he just starts walking up towards us.

And he's not strutting because he's wet. He's just casually walking his way up towards us. And where we're set up, it's on a small ridge with just like small pine trees here and there, and so he eventually walks to the left. Basically he's going to walk up the spine of the ridge. But as he's coming that route, I can't see him anymore. And so he also stops gobling, because we also stopped calling because we knew he was on his way, so we didn't want to just keep

calling for him. And so as a rookie hunter, not seeing a turkey and not hearing him gobble, you know, you have a lot of second thoughts in your head, and it just feels like forever and so little did I know this turkey he was actually drumming and spinning the whole way but at that time, I didn't know what drumming and spinning was, so I didn't even know what to listen for. So I kept bugging my cousin. I kept asking him. I was like, dude, is he coming, Like, like,

where's this turkey? It feels like forever. My cousin like, dude, like stop, like he's coming, Like he's right there, like he's on his way. Because my cousin at that time, he knew what drumming and spitting was, but I didn't. And so he's like, dude, like just just wait, dude, like he's gonna show up. He's gonna show up. And so I'm sitting there drenched, fingers numb from the cold

and what felt like an eternity. He finally pops out into this one shooting lane about twenty yards away, and we pretty much see each other right at the same time. But the difference was I knew what he was, but he didn't know what I was. So he stuck around just long enough to, you know, kind of poke his head out like what is that thing in the bush? But my fingers were so cold. I remember going to pull the trigger twice and the gun wouldn't go off, and I remember looking at my cousin to ask him,

why isn't the gun firing? And so I come back to the gun and this turkey is still just standing there, and I'm trying to pull the trigger but I can't, so I'm trying to lift this gun to the side to look at the the safety to see if it's on fire. The gun goes off. Yeah, as the gun goes off, I look at the turkey. The turkey just starts flopping. So I somehow miraculously got their turkey without

really aiming at the turkey. White White twisting your gun over to look at Yeah, as I was twisting my gun like, the gun went off, and I just remember I looked up at the turkey and I just saw his right wing go up and he just starts tumbling down this ridge, and I just remember I just yelled I got him, and my gun stands up. He's looking over because he clearly saw that I wasn't aiming when I shot when the gun went out, so he looked.

He jumps out. He's looking to make sure the turkey's actually down, and sure enough, the turkey was just flopping down the ridge. And so I don't know how I got it, but I saw him. I got him. Yeah, A little a little bit of a story to your your first bird there for sure. Yeah, I mean, you know, my first bird. I didn't even use a call, as much as I'd love to say, I called the thing in. Um, I was struggling. We we kind of were in that

part of the season back then. Um, you know, late April, it seems like those toms just get on, you know, completely hand up, won't do anything. We don't have enough hens sitting all day and it's just that like that weird time where it's not early enough, it's no longer late enough, where all the hens are leaving and you just couldn't call to him. So I I just like shamelessly listened to gobbles and did the big sneak and used terrain and uh popped around a corner and shot

my first tom. But no, your your story is a little more eventful than than mine, for sure. We're so I'm gonna jump into the questions I have for you now, someone and kind of kind of, um, just just go over. These are kind of just the general um turkending questions. But see how we can kind of tailor this Northeast Washington and some of the tactics you use, um, you know,

to be successful. You're in and year out. You're not only successful for yourself, but I know, um, you know, you take a lot of other guys and gals out and find them a bunch of success. So I'm really really, um you know, interested to pick your brain here. So let's say, you know, just like you said earlier, I've I've had the same results. I can typically go out onto most pieces of public in Northeast Washington and get a bird to gobble. So once you get that bird gobbling, Um,

what is your approach? Are you going to get as tight as you can? Are you gonna sit down? Like what's the magic distance you like to get to? And then what's your progressions on calling? Yeah, it really comes down to just the mood of the gobbler, how far I am, and hunting pressure, Like that's the three factors, right, how what the turkey's feeling, how far I am from him, and what's the hunting pressure like in that area? And like I said, it's such a situation, don't think, but

I'll just try my best to keep it like just streamline. Yeah, because the thing is lots of gobblers. Like when a turkey gobbles, right, even if he's gobbling a lot, it generally means or it can mean one of two things. Right, If he's gotten a lot, he's super interested, he's running and everybody wants that, right. The other thing is he's gobbling a lot, but he's hung up. And so one thing I've learned over the years is you really just

have to learn to read the turkey. And there's really no good way to explain how to read a turkey besides just spending time out there, putting yourself in a bunch of situations and really just getting that natural feel for how you can make a move, because a lot of times when I go turkey hunt, I really just wing it. I don't really have a game plan. I

just go based off of what the turkey's giving me. So, for example, if we work in a bird and I know he's come in and he's just pounding every call I make, I'll play around with him in terms of the call, because one I just like to hear them gobble, right, if he's hammering and he's running in, I'll just call a lot, because, especially if i'm taking somebody else who's new. Hearing that gobble gets them excited, and it makes them

patient when the gobble goes. When a gobbler goes silent and you're taking a new guy out and they stop gobling, a lot of times they get very antsy and they get impatient. Which that's probably the number one factor where people don't shoot birds. They just get impatient. But when it doesn't matter how the turkey's coming in, whether he's coming and gobbling his head off or coming in very very silent, very cautious, I will eventually stop calling when

he gets close and let him come find me. Because, like I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast, turkeys, they might not seem smart, but every time you're making a call, they are pinpointing exactly where that call is coming from. And so typically what I do is I use a decoy, and so I make sure I stop calling before he's able to get visual of the actual setup.

So what I do is I typically put a deco like twenty yards away from I am, so once I stop calling, if he pops up, he looks at the decoy because I've given him maybe like a minute or too of silence. It makes realistic sense for that hen to have moved twenty yards from where I last called, so it just makes it more realistic for him to

approach it. But on the flip side, when it says do you call just enough or keep him over the top, obviously, if he's coming in, you can pretty much do whatever, right, but if he's very cautious, you really have to play around with how much you're calling in how you're calling to him, because, especially later in the season, when you're dealing with birds that have been shot at, they've been set up on before, you can't really just do whatever

because they will read you and pick you apart. And so what I typically do is if if a bird is gobbling but he's not super over the top, like the first example I give you, I'll give him just enough calls to make him somewhat interested, but I won't always be calling enough to the point where he's just like, okay, you come to me. Because what I've learned over the years is when you as a hen, typically that's how

I call im a hen. If a hen is more excited than the gobbler, a lot of times, what that leads to if that leads to a gobbler hanging up because if he if he wants you more than you want him, he will come running in. But if you want him more than he wants you, a lot of times what he's gonna do is he's going to force you to go to him. So you kind of have to play that balance between am I calling too much?

Or am I calling not enough? And so again, it really is a situational thing, and that's just dependent on the situation of the turkey and whatever situation you get yourself into. Yeah, and early I've always figured that early in the call in like we're gonna you're gonna establish kind of the ground rules right of this call in.

If he's hammering, you know, say you make a hen, you open, he hammers you, and then you maybe you know, go quiet for a minute, but he gobbles two or three more times, You're like, all right, is he excited where he's at or does that mean he's really excited and coming to me? And so now as a turkey hunter, we're now like, is he actually getting closer? Is he closing some of this distance? Or is he sitting there

spinning around, you know, gobbling towards me. So it sounds like he's getting closer and then he's turning away like he may be hind up. And so you're trying to use like all of this information to figure out what's going on, you know, And in the case where that bird's gobbling and getting closer, you're like, well, that's the easy one, right, we don't have to We can, like you said, you can call as much as you want, as little as you want. The thing's going to come

pinpoint your location. Um. It's the ones in between that seemed to kind of hang up, that seemed to kind of answer you occasionally and seem to kind of gobble on their own occasionally and then don't answer your calls, or the ones that really kind of give us the fits where we're like, we'll shoot, what do we throw out him? Now? Do we need to go silent for five minutes and then does our our hind call work again? Or you know, do we need to get really excited

with some cutting? And that's just where I think experience and then kind of just that gut fuel comes in at times, like all right, did the cutting work, did it not work? Did the silent treatment work? Did it not work? Um? And you have to make your your you know, your future decisions based on what you've you know,

got from that bird. Um. You know, throughout the calling, you're you're trying to put all this information kind of into the pot and boil down what's going to work on this bird and and there are times where it's just not going to work. Exactly pretty much nailed it, yep.

So and during the calling we've just talked about, you know, calling a lot, calling a little bit going silent um, you know that bird being able to I've always assumed before I get into this next question, I am going to throw this bit of information out in the instance You've mentioned it multiple times, but I'm gonna I'm gonna reiterate it because it's it's important if you know that that bird answers your hidden call, like you let out a seven note yep, and that thing is right on

top of you. You know that that was in response to your hidden calls. At that point, he knows exactly what true you're sitting under. UM, So don't be worried. Like you said, you can go silent and maybe that and we'll move. But at the time you make the call, he makes a call, I just assume that he now knows exactly where I'm at, you know, so I at least got that bit of information. I think it's important

to know. And that the research you know, with with GPS callers UM and or GPS trackers on these birds, um, the research shows that that thing knows exactly where you're sitting and he will eventually go back to it once he loses his hens um. So when that bird goes silent, um, you know, and I'm talking silent silent, how long are you gonna wait this thing out? Um? And I know it's always dependent. And then what's your play gonna be? Um?

After that? So you know you're calling the bird he's gobbled six, eight, ten times, seems like he's closing the distance and he's interested. And then you just get the typical silent treatment that we've all, we've all been a part of, we've all we've all had to deal with. Yeah, I think, Um, I think when you say silent treatment, I think you can draw like a like a bunch of branches under it. So I'll give a couple of

different scenarios, right. So, one scenario, which is very common that people don't realize is he's come in he's goblin, and all of a sudden, a sudden, you just don't hear him anymore. So we would prefer that to you, guys. He's go signed that. What this often means is he sees your decoy, or he sees your general area where the sound is coming from, So that means he's made it there. He's just now poking his head up and

he's just looking at the situation. Because the thing with gobbling is it's often a communication between two turkeys who cannot see each other. Once the gobbler shows up, and if you have a decoy out, if he sees your decoy or he sees a hen, he really doesn't have a need to gobble anymore. I mean, like the communication between a gobble and a hen yelping has brought them into one area. And at this point, if you're a tom, it's not about I'm gobbling anymore. It's about, Okay, there's

the hen. How can I look as good as I can to this hen. So what happens is when they come in and they're silent, that means he sees your decoy and he's just trying to strut. He's trying to look as good as he can for the hen. This is what happens with a lot of situations is people who don't who can't identify drumming and spitting. This is where they screw up because the turkey's already here. They just can't see him and they don't think he's here

because he's not gobbling. But like the like I will say later, turkeys are always drumming and spitting, no matter how pressure they are, they're always drumming and spitting. So if you can learn to identify that, even if he's not gobbling, when they're close, it's so distinct you can't like, you just can't not hear a drum and a spit. So that's one scenario of what happens when he quote unquote goes silent, he shows up, he sees your decoys.

He's now just putting on a show. Another thing is, especially in the Northeast region we live in, we hunt in mountainous terrains and the landscape is so oddly shape that sound can just travel very weird. And so for example, if I'm on a ridge and there's a turkey on another ridge and he's gobbling, right, sounds like he's just hammering all my calls because a lot of times that terrain is so mountainous. What happens is a lot of times turkeys will have to take longer routes to get

to your setup. So what I've had happened is I'm just standing face to face with the turkey. He's on another ridge. I'm on another ridge. But instead of coming straight down his ridge and up my ridge, he's just gonna take this logging road that's gonna loop all the way to the backside of the valley to get to me. So what happens is he's sounding like he's going farther away, which he is, but that isn't necessarily he's losing interest.

He's just taking the path of least resistance to get to me, even if that means it's a longer route. So what happens sometimes is he gets into like this little, this little pocket where the sound just doesn't travel as good. So because you can't hear it, we just say, oh, he went silent on us. He's not really interested. But no, it's he's still gobbling. He's just on his way. You just can't hear him at that moment. I've had this happened so many times. Just last year, I took my

buddy Steve out. This bird was hammering us. He was like, he was probably half a mile away, and it got to a point where we couldn't hear him anymore. And my buddy Steve was like, dude, like he's he's gone. And I told him, like, dude, with how he was hammering us, like the first fifteen minutes, there's no way he's not going to show up twenty minutes later showing off. There's Turkey shows up ten yards smokes him. Right. It's like it's things like that that go a long way.

So when we say they're giving us the silent treatment, there's a lot of different ways and a lot of different scenarios that you have to keep in the back of your mind. Yeah, for sure, Um, yeah, and there's there's always Yeah, it's tough, and that's where, like you said, you have to draw from the experience you've had with that bird prior to the silent treatment, and you've got to make some decisions on whether that bird is still coming or whether you know, he went away with a hen.

A lot of it is, you know, was he was his last calls going away, was he coming towards you? And then you have to make your decision, you know, based on that. Um. Great great information there. UM. So we've talked about it. Most of the Northeast it can be very brushy, but in my opinion, UM, you know, it's fairly open, you know, mountainous. Like we've said, it kind of lends itself to that running gun style of

turkey hunting. UM. I already know your answer to this because you mentioned earlier My question was do you use a decoy or not? And you've said use it in roads a lot. But but what's your thought process on decoys? Do you use them on every setup or other times where you won't use a decoy and kind of go into to that. For me, Yeah, I think I can

definitely get away with with my experience. Now I'm not saying I'm the most experience, but with how I can read turkeys, I can often get away without using a decoy. The reason why I still use a decoy now is it really just helps me on the filming side of things to be able to know where I can just leave the frame of my camera on the decoy. It's so much more like it's less stress on me mentally, rather than predicting where this turkey is gonna come. Because

a lot of times I sell film. So knowing that, okay, there's a decoy, I just gotta put the camera on the decoy, just leave it on the tripod. It makes it a lot easier for me because I can really focus on just working this tom because a lot of times they're gonna show up to the decoy. But the other thing is I often only use a hend eoi. I know some people like to use like a Tom or Jake tkoy. I've never really found it to improve

my chances. The other thing, too, is I just don't want to get shot by other people, you know, and so I just use one Hen decoy. That's typically what I do. But like I said, it's not really mandatory, but it really just helps me with my filming. Gotcha perfect,

That makes makes a ton of sense. We've always we used to use them a lot more, you know, set out, you know, two Hens and a Jake on a lot of setups, and there were times where we would get picked off setting them up, you know, the turkey clothes too quick or whatnot. And I would say the majority

of the time we do. But when we do go back out and hunt some aggs stuff and the turkeys can see for so long to get that like visual confirmation that all right, there are turkeys down at the other end of the field that are making you know, turkey noises. I feel as a little more effective versus like running gun um, you know, chasing turkeys around. At times, it seems like we've elected to we seem to not put out decoys as much. We've used some some live

stuff for decoys times. Um, but you know, they're they're big and they're painting the butt to carry around. But but they are effective in the in the certain situations where that you know, Tom that you're trying to call in can make a visual um. It can you know, change a game for us a little bit. Absolutely. So it's different than the silent treatment um very often. Especially

I kind of gave the scenario earlier. You know that that mid April to late April when birds are just on you know, lockdown, they're they're hung up, they're hinged up, very very uh you know, difficult to call in, but they will play the game for a bit and you know that bird hangs up. You know, we've we've seen him getting their strut zones. Um, you know, hour hour and a half after fly down, they establish where they

want to be. The hens lead him to where they want to feed, and that bird kind of gets you know, hung up in his strut zone. Or he may come part way, but he's not willing to leave those hens complete league because you know, he's got the for sure thing. What do you have any out of the box, um, you know, strategies or tactics for that, or do you

have just a strategy that works? When those birds hang up, they're still active, they're still calling, but they just will not break you know, either a certain train feature, a certain topo feature, or they just flat out won't go any farther away from their hands. Yeah, I think the most common technique when it comes to a gobbler that's hung up because of a hen is to start talking

to the hen. Right that Like, the reason why that gobbler's not coming in is because he's hung up with the hand like he's he wants to stay with the hen. So if you can get that hand that he's hanging out with to come into you, I mean, like that's that's textbook right. So that's like the most common thing is like people, especially rookies and myself, including when I first started, all I wanted to do was talk to the tom. But it's like that's not always going to work.

If if he's hung up with the hen, start talking to the hen. Because if you bring in the hen, that Tom's gonna be right behind her. It doesn't matter who you're talking to because at the end of the day, you just want that tom to be to be in range so you can shoot him. Yeah, But aside from the situation where he's hung up with the hand, if this is just a lone bird and he comes up to your setup, you're calling him, he comes up and he's just like sixty seventy yards just right outside choking ring.

There's typically three reasons why a lone tom will hang up. First off, which is the worst one, is they see you. He's hung it up because he's looking at you, which oftentimes from there there's not much you can do. You can just hope and pray that he's gonna walk a couple more steps, but oftentimes he's just gonna turn away and walk around. The second scenario is he comes up, he doesn't see you, but he just doesn't like he just doesn't like what he's seeing, like it just something

feels off to them. So when it's something like this, it's fifty fifty, he might close another ten fifteen yards, or he might just turn around and leave. The third one is they're not seeing what they're supposed to be seen. If you imitate a super hot hand in this open field and he comes up and you don't have a decoy out, he comes up, he looks at it, he's like, where's this hent, he's gonna hang up because he's gonna take his time, he's gonna observe where this supposed head

is supposed to be. So those are typically the three reasons why a loan bird will hang up. So typically what happens when he doesn't like what he's seeing or he's not seeing what he's supposed to do or supposed to be seeing, is I just go silent. I want him to build up that that curiosity like, Okay, I don't see what I'm seeing. I don't really know what's

going on here. I need to go investigate, because at this point there's not much you can do if you're gonna give a call out and he's already within sixty seventy yards. Again, he's gonna pinpoint your location and he's just gonna stare right at where the call is coming from. And if you're not a decoy, you don't have a decoin next to you, there's a good chance you're not

calling him in. And so this is, you know when That's why it's such a hard topic, because when a bird hangs up, it's like there's really no right or wrong way to go about it. It really is you gotta go with your gut instinct in that situation. Yep, yep, No, I'm I'm with you on that one. And real similar to what we do there, we've we've touched on this a little bit too, a little bit in our earlier conversation.

Most of the public land we get to hunt northeast Washington, whether we're you know, a mile from the gate, whether we're right along a country road, whether we're along a logging road. These birds get a lot of pressure. Why we do have a great turkey population that's thriving currently, they are, the birds still get pressured. Right, we have a lot of Washington State as a whole. Hash I don't want to misspeak. But we have a very high hunter count. You know, a very high number of hunters

that's still hunt spring turkey. Um, so we do have pressured birds. Do you have any other tactics you like to use specific to pressured birds on this public land? Yep. So basically three tips. First one is I work them a little slower and I just give them more time. Pressured birds they take their time, they're more cautious. The second one is I worked turkeys from a different angle. Everybody knows that gate that everybody parks at and goes

in from one direction. You can use that as an entrance, but dude like loop around the mountain, come in from the backs that come in from the east, coming from the west, working from a different angle, because a pressure bird knows the most common entrance, which is through the gate, and that's typically where he's found the most danger. Right, if everybody's coming and calling in from the same direction,

he already knows what's up. You come in from the back set or a different angle, he might be like, oh, maybe this is actually a legit turkey. Or the third one is instead of full blown yelps, I just resort to Kluck's more subtle calls, you know, because at this point in season May late May, every turkey knows what

a full blown yelp means. Yep, yep. That's That's one thing I was going to add, and I kind of had dialed up for pressured birds, is you know, everybody in the world can go out and use a seven to nine note yelp um. It's it's our go to calls for the most part. But that bird has heard every variation of a seven to nine note yelp on a mouth diaphragm, on a pot call, on a box call, they've heard it. And if you know those birds have heard it, let's go to klux, Let's go to some

subtle purring. Let's go to some real, like, you know, real short two to three note yelps. And I learned this from my buddy Chris Parrish and Randy Milligan. It's just that subtle, realistic sounds can sometimes help you out on those pressured birds. And so that's what we like

to do, at least from a calling tactic. And then I do like your point, like, all right, if there's a bird up a canyon, everybody's gonna approach halfway up the ridge because that's where the road's at, you know, So in that turkey's mind like, hey, guess what, you know, other hunters coming down the road. Let's let's cross the creek in the bottom and come at them and you know,

get a top. Or let's go around the ridge. Let's approach him differently and just you know, change up the thing that the bird's seen, you know, multiple times throughout the year or last year or Whatnotum, so you're getting ready, Um it's opening day of season. What calls do you have on you? And what are the calls that are gonna get some use and what are the calls that are maybe gonna a little bit more specialty. Yeah, I go pretty simple, man. I have three calls on me

all the time, and that's pretty much it. I have a crow call, I have a read diaphragms, and I have a slate or a pot call. That's pretty much it. That's all. I carry. A crow call. It's Natural's right. We have crows here all the time. They're always they're very active in the spring. That's my locator call. And it's really good because one it's natural, but the downside with it is it's very loud. You can't really do

a soft crow call. So the downfall with a loud crow call is if there's a gobbler that's really close to you and you just let them have it a lot of times, it'll just spook the turkey, which that isn't work in your favor. The second one is an

actual turkey call, which is a diaphragm. It's more difficult to use, which is the downfall, but if you can get even just proficient with it, it's really good to have because your hands free, you don't have to worry about not having your hand on the trigger when the turkey shows up or anything. The third one is a pot call. It's just easier to use, but the downfall obviously is it requires two hands, so to heading on what I'm doing. If I'm the hunter, i'm the camera guy,

I'll have a read them amount all the time. If I'm just helping someone out poll call, because it's way easier and I'm personally better out of pow call than i am with a diaphragm. Gotcha. That makes Yeah, I'm fortunate. You know, we end up carrying probably more calls than we ever use. Very similar I will throw a box call in um, you know, in in areas where you know it's big country. I feel like sometimes that box call UM can carry maybe a little bit more. It's

got more of that high shrill pitch. UM. And then once again, if if we are an area with pressure birds, that might be something they haven't heard as much of. Um, you know, similar to you, I carry a few a few diaphragms, UM, a pot call, and then you know, the only thing I may have. I found that affiliated woodpecker works really really good in that northeast corner. UM, and so I'll typically have some sort of a woodpecker call. It's just that real high pitch you know, startles them.

It seems to get um, you know, at times when the crow call doesn't work that uh, that pilliated woodpecker seems to really get them fired up. So that's really the only difference. I might carry a box. But there are times where it's just like I don't want to carry the box round. I don't want to worry about it, you know, especially if it's raining. Um, you know, you're dealing with two different woods that if it gets wet, it's useless anyways, UM, I'll just elect to put that

thing in the truck and leave it there. And uh, you know I would even be able to if if it's raining, I'm probably just gonna use my mount diaphragms anyways and leave. Might as well leave, you know, even the pot calls in the truck. M We've we've talked about I'm just going through our my questions here. We've we've hit this one enough on hind up birds and and that are hard headed. UM. Long distance locating in northeast Washington, You're you're hunting ridge top to ridge top.

You're hunting what I would even consider like drainages. A lot of these walking areas that we hunt UM DNR walking areas there. It's big mountainous country ridges UM in between. UM. We talked a little bit about this on our roosting. But let's say you strike up a bird on the opposite ridge. UM, how do you kind of make the decision to stay where you're at and try to call that bird to you or go after? What are some of those cues or kind of indicators that let you

decide what to do? Yeah, the first thing is it's just how desperate I am. You know, if it's if it's been a struggle and that's the only bird I've struck up, Like, I'm going after him, But if I know there's other gobblers closer to me, I'll just I'll keep tabs on that bird. I just won't go after him right then and there, because I mean, if there's birds closer to you, obviously, why would you not go

to close the birds. But the idea is like, if if there's a lot of distance in between us and I'm trying to gauge is it worth my hike to go over there? It really goes back to what I said earlier. You have to really get good at estimating the mood of a turkey. Right if he's far away but he's just hammering you, just showing so much interest, it's very hard for me to turn a bird like

that down. But if he's far away and he's like giving me like half efforted gobbles and just not really showing interest, then I'm just I don't even go after him. I'll just find another bird, gotcha. Yeah, Then there's there's a lot of times if you kind of like you said, desperation, if you know there are other birds in the area, like sometimes, especially if my approach wouldn't be good. Or if you know that thing could potentially pick me up

and it's a risky move. Um, and I know there are other birds in there, I won't risk it at that point, but I'll keep it in the back of my mind, like, hey, there is a bird that's working that ridge over there. Um, you know you can always use it as kind of your backup plan. But yeah, similar to you, like, I don't want to bust over there potentially you know, not find the bird. That's just you're right around the corner on my side, Um, at

the risk of losing it. So yeah, it depends on the situation and when you're gonna, h can't you go over there? In closing, if you had what's your one tip you feel would give a turkey hundred better odds in finding success this year? My one tip, if I had to tell them, is hunt all day. You know, I've killed birds from first light to last light and everything in between. In fact, I'd say I'd killed more birds midday when most hunters stuffleft the woods are napping,

you know. Turkeys, Like I said, turkeys first thing they do when they fly down, The first thing they do, or typically do, is they breed, so when they're breeding, it's hard to pull a tom away from the flock. But you know, once they're done at first light breeding and tom's are alone because the hens are tending their nests. Like dude, like from nine to three o'clock, you just don't know when you're gonna strike up a super hot tom. So if that's the there's one tip I could give

to them. Hunt all day. Yep, No, I'm I'm the same way growing up in you know, hunt over there in northeast Washington. I got. I got to hunt with some locals and hunt with some people that have been doing it for a long time, and it was even comical to the point where it frustrated me. They wouldn't get up, you know, at four o'clock in the morning

and go sit on a roost tree and whatnot. They would hang out at camp, cook themselves nice breakfast once it got daylight, wait for all of us young guys that were full of pissing vinegar earlier in the morning to come back to camp, and then they would go

out and kill the birds that we were hunting. You know, It's just it's just nature and the way it works, right, It's those those toms fly down with a group of hens that handel, go lay eggs, go sit on her nest and leave, and then that tom's a lot more callable at that point. And so now I'm with you with that said. I think you're still punching the time clock whether you're out there in the morning and night. And and we all know that you can kill a bird first thing in the morning, but you can also

kill a lot of birds midday. So similar to what you said, you know, more time in the woods is always going to lead to more success. And I'm fully on board with what you said there, right. They appreciate having you on the podcast today. How can people find out more about even where can they find your stuff? Yeah? So I primarily operate on YouTube and Instagram. My YouTube is just some Long Outdoors sam lg Outdoors and on Instagram it's sy Underscore Outside Perfect. Well. Yeah, like I said,

you're doing cool stuff. I love your YouTube channel, you know, super humble, modest um in my opinion, doing the right way and representing hunters in the light that we need to. So no proud of you, like I said, got to watch it for the last four years. Really like what you're doing. Um, it's an honor to have you on here,

and good luck to Spring. It sounds like we're gonna hook up and maybe do some trick hunting together, So everything we talked about here, maybe we'll be able to put it to use here, the Spring and the document and all. Absolutely, man, I'm looking forward to it.