Welcome back to cutting the Distance. I met today's guest about fifteen years ago on our local hunting forum, a hunting Washington dot com. I was just getting into turkey hunting and his tag name was Yelp, and so after kind of exchanging turkey hunting information with them for a few years, we had finally just decided to go on a hunt together, you know, mentor us a little bit, and so UM ended up joining up with Eric Broughton, great turkey color, great turkey hunter from here in Washington.
Works for fish and wildlife, is out in the field a ton just really had these Northeast turkeys kind of dialed. Another cool fact about Eric is his turkey camp. They share probably one of the most famed turkey camps on the East Side. A ton of history, a ton of knowledge. I got to actually go back and hunt with Eric last year and stay at their turkey camp, and it just can tell when you go in there. You know,
all the posters, all the lists on the wall. It's just rooted deep in uh, you know, turkey hunting um, you know. And and there's been a lot of camps that have shared that. So welcome to the show. Eric, Thanks Jason, great to be here. How are things looking over there on the east side this year? A lot of snow this year, things are starting to hopefully get closer to spring. But up north we have a lot
of snow. So but birds are active. I watched a group this morning, a bunch of jakes strutting around with some hands. So the birds are on the right schedule. I just don't know if the weather is. Yeah, yeah, a little little extra snow over there, more so than normal. And I'm gonna before we jump into our typical podcast here, I gotta go back and kind of relive a short moment on the first turkey hunt we ever had together.
We were hunting a piece of ag that we had some permission to against, a piece of public we had been hunting on even more so. But we found ourselves that day out in the agg and we had to kind of get across the field and the only one problem and our our approach was that swamp that was between us and the timber lion where the birds just walked into. And I'll never forget the day where I think you started handing me some stuff out of your vest,
or maybe you handed me your whole vest. And I'll let you finish the story from that point, but I realize your dedication to killing birds at this very moment is you continued on after that bird. That hunt was pretty phenomenal. We we had a hard time finding birds that day, and we finally saw that big tom strutting over there on the other side of the pond, and we kind of approached from the most cover side and and I thought, you know, there was we were kind of at a at a point that we could not
even get close enough for a shot. But the only way was to basically give you my wallet and I think my vest and anything I didn't want to get wet, And I took my shotgun and slithered down down into the edge of the water. We had a you know in nineteen eighties, you know guy grown up in high school and graduated eighty seven. You know that all those Rambo movies. I think we're in the back of my head.
But I just kind of tried to get as close as I could and and uh, you know, got wet, but you know it was it was just trying to get a good close shot to try to get that bird down. And I can't remember did we get we got pretty close, but I don't know if I got close enough. Yeah, I can't remember. I know we didn't kill the bird. I can't. I couldn't remember if you
had shot or not. But all I remember is we had you know, it was one of those hunts where we struggled early on this This is one of those times where you were going, you know, through the swamp. But later on it was one of those things where it's just you keep hunting, right, it's hunting, and then towards the end we we ended up all three finding a ton of success there at the end, which which turned out to be a great hunt. So we'll talk
about that a little bit more. So typical to all Cutting the Distance episodes, we're going to jump into questions and answers from some of our listeners. And you have questions for me or my guests, feel free to reach out on social media message us. You can email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com, and we'll do our best to get to get your questions in here. And I pulled both of these from emails this week, and I'm actually gonna give some credit to the questions
on where they're coming from. So the first question we have today, Eric is I'm a first year hunter. I'm looking to turkey hunt in southern California's Cleveland National Forest, which is chaparral and wood from eight hundred foot elevation all the way up to six thousand feet. Some friends say a turkey vest is the best way to carry all of your calls in gear. Others say stick with a pack. Question for us for this terrain, which do you feel is the best hike into the woods and
for hunting practicality? And this is a question given to us by David Marino. You know, that's a that's a good question because you know when you're when you're trying to cover ground and then you're also changes in elevation. You know, if you got half your vest full of stuff, it's really difficult. So there's a few sling packs, UM
that I would recommend. I think the new FHS Chest pack for turkeys that would be perfect on this hunt because it's it has enough things that you have in it, your calls, enough enough room, but it doesn't weigh you down. It gives you the mobility to go up in elevation and try to find those birds. UM. There's lots of turkey straps and totes and that that ability. You know, there's a lot of guys using packs too nowadays, Um with the being able to carry a little bit more gear.
But if you're you know, that's a lot warmer climate. You know, I think less is better and I think that if it was me, I would go with something simple and lightweight. Yeah, I'm I'm in that same boat. Um, we've been using the new FHF UM. You know chest harness. Um. I didn't think I would like it. I was always growing up, I had a vest that had you know, everything. I couldn't figure out if I had just a chest rig on, Um, how am I going to carry my
decoys and how am I going to carry this? And I realized I was carrying a lot of extra stuff. So that that chest rig. I can carry a couple of pot calls. I can carry my box call attached to the bottom if I need to all my diaphragms, my shotgun shells, you know, my my small pair of buynos.
And then nowadays, if I'm using uh, you know, like a Dave Smith decoy, they come in their own carrying bag where you can just kind of sling him across your shoulder if you need to, and if it's more of that running gun and I elect to leave my my decoy back at the truck or the side by side, I'm just throwing one of my chairs kind of over my shoulder. We'll talk a little bit about that later too, is when we're setting up some of the things I
like to do. But yeah, I think those chest riggs where if you'd asked me ten years ago where I was, you know, wanted to have the latest and greatest, most updated turkey vest. That chest rigg is pretty vialable and you can keep a lot of your stuff in it,
especially when you're gonna be doing running and gunning. And I don't know if you're gonna find turkeys from eight hundred to all the way up to six thousand feet or anywhere in between, or if you're going to be hunting a section of that, but I'm going to assume David, that you're going to be you know, running and gunning and change in elevation. I want to go light and quick, and you know that that chest rigging and your gun is plenty. The next one comes from Greg Laravier, and
I apologize if I mispronounced your name. But he was wondering tips and tricks for cleaning and storing our turkey mouth calls. I'll let you go first there, Eric, how you get extra life? I was just doing it the
other day. I had some old Phelps mouth calls that were kind of crusty that I forgot to store right and pull them out and did the old you know, mouthwash trick, just kind of there's and you know, the alcohol is good for killing stuff, but they make some mouthwashes I found out that don't have alcohol, and I
think they're they're better on the latex. So I have some of that and it's alcohol free like listerine or whatever, and I put that in old dixie cup, throw my mouth calls in there, and then I'll take some toothpicks or something, separate them, make sure they're dry, and then I'll storm in a plastic bag and get them ready
for this year. It's critical that you do that. I mean when I'm on turkey hunts, you know, and I'm you know, trying to get through those because we get a month and a half here in Washington and you know, you're hunting and all kinds of weather and it's easy to pick up a chest cold or a running nose or whatever, and you don't know, you know, if you have germs on any of those calls that you're using
last year. So it's either safe bit just to buy some brand new ones or or if you're going to reuse them, you know, make sure that you use that anaseptic and dry them out and keep them clean and fresh. Yeah, that's that's the same with me. I've always been real hesitant,
um to use mouthwashing. A lot of the recommendations online same out you know, say to use mouthwash, which is great for killing all the bugs and and stuff, and on a lot of these turkey calls, most turkey calls or triple reads if not a double reed, and there are a few single reads out there, but you've got you know, all kinds of you know, saliva and stuff
that makes it down in there and gets trapped. And so that's really that toothpick goes in and allows air to get down in between those layers and at least dry those out, you know. But the mouthwashing, if I did use mouthwash, I would quickly then rinse with water and then dry the water out. Um, you know, even
even on a hunt. A lot of of times I like to separate that top read from the bottom two reads, or that top read from the bottom read, just because when they stick together, you don't get the rasp that you the call was designed for. So there'll be times where they make read separators or just a dull toothpick in between them just kind of keeps them separated so when they dry that the calls functional. Otherwise you're gonna
find when you're out in the woods. A lot of times I have to throw a call in my mouth for a minute or two and kind of let it, you know, awaken or come back to life. Is it sits in your mouth, those reads will kind of separate again and then you'll get the rasp back out of them.
And then you know, for long term storage, I like to let them just sit and dry on a counter, you know, no extra heat anything, Just let them dry over a couple hours on the counter with the two picks and them take the toothpicks out, put them in a bag, make sure they're completely dry though, and then just throw them in your fridge if you want the longest life out of them. I'm very fortunate now where you know I just go grab another handful of calls
here from the shop and ghost. I'm always using fresh ones. But if I'm trying to get you multiple years out of them, which you can out of Turkey calls with ELK calls, it's a lot more difficult with single reads and calls, it gets stressed a little bit more. But you know these double and triple read turkey calls that are stretched tighter, Um, you can get a couple of years out of you. Take care of them and put them away. So um, no spot on advice, Eric, and
appreciate that. And once again, you have questions of your own for us here or either my guest or myself here on the show, please email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com or feel free to hit us up and with the social message uh, you know, and get a hold of us and we'll do our best to get it on there. So we really appreciate the questions there, David and Greg on today's show. Now we're gonna jump into our normal discussion, but before that, I'm
gonna jump into a conversation about calls. I got asked in a bigger email if if before turkey, you know, the Turkey podcasts were over, if we can jump into
what does what with calls? And so I'm going to take the time and go through diaphragms to start with, and then we'll go into pot calls, and then we'll go into kind of some box calls and and I know, Eric, you know, for instance, the very first thing that I'm going to talk about, um, you know, you order our calls typically in a larger frame, which you're like our pair of signature calls. Everyone's mouth, mouth shape, tongue shape, the way that they add pressure, their lung capacity is
all different. And so where I might prefer call A, you might prefer call X, you know. And it's it's really tough, and it's I don't want everybody to go out and buy everything we have, but you really need to go through a little bit of trial and error to figure out, you know, what type of caller you are, what type of rasp you want out of your calls,
and all of that. You know, Eric, he calls on the pair of signature calls because they're built on more of what I would consider your old school wide frame, you know, the frame sizes that night Inhale and Hunter Specialties and all the the UM, what I would call your more traditional frame size is what Eric prefers for the most part. Yeah, So I use uh, I use those those larger frame mouth calls because it I have a larger palette and it allows me to you know,
get that air across it. UM. And it some people's palette is more narrow, you know, or high roofed or high pit you know, high kind of a high ceiling, and so they need that smaller frame UM, similar to you know, the the elk calls UM. And I can use some of the other ones, but it seems like just the way I hold my mouth, I can't do all the calls. You know, everybody's different, you know, and so and how they blow UM. And I'm still learning myself. So yeah, and that's that's where UM. You know, it's
maybe what you're more more familiar with. Like I used to use those all of the time, and then once I started using these medium frames that we now build a majority of ours out of, and like me, eater line, they're more comfortable for me. But then guys like Chris Parrish and some guys that they say that you can actually articulate the larger frames a little more because there is a wider distance for that latex. So there there's lots of reasons. And then so first off, we have
to find something that's comfortable. The second issue we need to do. We need to be able to steal the air off from the call and we use the tape for that and everybody, once again, everybody's mouth is different shape the tape lays and they're different. So we need to be able to steal that off. Number one to get clarity, and number two to get the volume out
of the call um. You know, if you're taking a diapragm out of your mouth and you've got big folds along the edges or wrinkles, we either need to narrow up your tape. We need to cut those wrinkles out so that we can get like a smooth you know, get get the edge to lay down smooth, so no air is going up above and we're getting all the air to transfer over the latex between the latex and your tongue. So that's that's kind of the second part. And then the next part is what type of color
are you there? The old school color we say, are kind of like those Huffer style callers. They want thicker latex, they want to blow harder into the call um that there's not as much uh, you know, control over those.
And then there's like this new age light profum, more intricate calling that that seems to be UM kind of taking off because people want to be able to do little light bubble clucks and nice little you know, very quiet yelps and two to three note yelps, but then also be able to turn that call around and do
your loud cutting and seven to nine oh yelps. So there's there's kind of two different calls, um, and and you're you're really gonna have to find what type of color you are to figure out what type of diaphragms you like this. But real quick, I'm just I'm just gonna run through kind of the rules of diaphragms. UM. You're gonna have an aluminum frame that will in case or keep latex or prophylactic stretch to a certain spec.
And by spec that means we're stretching it sideways from like side to side in your mouth, and we're stretching it front to back. So we will typically stack up two to three pieces of prophylactic or latex together and intermix them based on what the result is that we want, and then we're going to contain that within this aluminum frame. Um. The tightness of that latex um in combination with the thickness of that latex will then control the tone in
pitch of the call um. It's all determined by the how that latex or prof vibrates and the and the resonant vibration that we get back. And so we're a lot of this can can kind of affect itself. Right, if you go, you know, too thin and too tight, then you're going to be really high. But if you go thick and too tight, then you might be right in the right spot. So there's a lot of trial and errors. We're sitting here designing calls, um, you know,
similar to what I do for you Eric back. I think three or four years ago, we kind of just figured out what calls you liked. I think I Ha's you know, built twenty or thirty different ones and sent them to you. UM. And it's really we're just doing for the customer what we find to be like the most average call. But there are guys we can build
for that. Like it's really like custom fitting you for a call, and you know, we can't do that for everybody, but um, when you when you boil it down, like you can really get nitpicky and really get calls designed for what people are specific you know, specifically looking for. Yeah, I think the difference between between your calls UM and some of the you know, store bought ones is the ability to um the standard you know that you've that
you've built into the call. So like I might have to buy two or three of a different brand, and I might get one of those that I like, and when I pick up yours, you know they're very similar. So you so I can buy a couple of them, I know that I'm gonna be able to use all of them, and so it's really really great. Yeah. Yeah, I wish I could take credit for that, But that goes back to my team, UM our builders, our builders.
You know, I get to come up with the specs and you know, I work with Chris Parish really closely and some of our other um you know groups like you, and we figure out what people want. But then our builders are just top notch. They're not willing to sacrifice. Um. You know, I tell them all the time, like, don't worry about turning around and throwing a call in the garbage if you feel that there's any question that it's not going to work like we're not. We're about producing quality,
not necessarily quantity, so um that that all goes to them. UM. But as a generality, like these intricate colors, UM prefer thinner reads, you know, the new profs UM. They'll require a little bit less error to run. UM. But as a result, typically the pitches higher UM for a similar stretch thicker reads, they demand more airor to call on them and to get the same um you know, pitch and tone. But a lot of times if you don't overstretch a thick piece of latex, the tone's going to
be lower and deeper. UM. So we're kind of playing with all of this stuff. UM. As we're designing calls. I want to get into a little bit on asp. You know, that's one thing that that is determined by typically on our calls, the top read. Um, we we stack this latex and then when we go to we we build a call and they come out of the press with three straight reads. Right. We haven't taken our scissors to them yet at all, And that over that top read overhangs just slightly, or it could be a lot,
or it could be just a little bit. Um. We then go and take our cuts out of it, you know, a typical cuts like the combo cut. Um, we have a ghost cut, we have a cutter's cut, we have a bat wing. And all that is trying to accomplish is you're leaving just a little bit of latex or
prophylactic overhanging the bottom two reads. And as you imagine, we're running that air underneath off of two you know, two flat or straight reads that have no cuts in, and that air comes under the latex and turns that corner and it hits those pieces of latex that are now cut overhanging, and that's what creates that buzz and
creates your rasp. So that's where your rasp comes. Well, now you can start to think, well, if I was to cut a thicker back a bat wing, or if I was just to put like online our sassy split, be if I just put two V cuts and leave all the latex there, that's obviously going to be your highest rasp call. Well, I can make that latex thicker, which gives you a deeper rasp. I can make that latex thinner, which gives you more of a high pitch rasp. And so you can start to see how like the
combinations are almost endless on a diaphragm. For beginners, we always recommend like a casper or like the Meat Eaters easy Clucker, real light prof with a big chunk cut out of the center, really easy to light up the trip in hand. The Meat Eater three pack like those are good beginner calls if you don't know exactly what you're after, those are gonna be easy to use, easy for you to get sound in the correct you know, amount of rasp. And that's kind of our little rundown,
our one on one on diaphragms. And then we've already I had some you know, some care instructions here, but we pretty much went over most of that moving into pot calls, and we have a we have a story, you know, when when I first hunt it with you, I was still kind of new to the game and we had we were working a bird, and I've seen you almost roll out like this big rolodex where he rolled it out on the ground, and you must have
had a little envelope of twelve fifteen strikers. And it was that day, at that moment where I realized that, hey, different woods, different strikers matter, because I think you'd went through three of your favorite strikers to start with, and the bird was just kind of disinterested and we were giving him a little bit of a break between calling, and then you hit I don't remember fourth or fifth striker, and all of a sudden, that bird was hammer and hammering,
and we called him right up to the road there. I don't know if you remember that, but that was like a lightbulb going off in my mind. Yeah, there's that fifteen. I probably have like twenty five now, but yeah, all those different materials, different thicknesses, different tips, you know, the tip of the striker. They all make it sound.
You can use one call and have several different sounding hens, and uh and like you know that one that Tom might be out there, you know, infatuated with one sounding hend, you know. And I've done it several times where I just at my wits end and I just sit down and take a break, pull that thing out, and I'll let's start cranking out on a slate call or one of the glass calls, and and try different combos and then next thing, you know, I'll strike a bird just
by doing that. But yeah, that that material and the hardness in the link. I mean, there's all kinds of little factors, um that go into it. Yep. So going through pot calls, it's it's very similar to what we just talked about on the diaphragms. There are a lot of factors and how they all affect each other is is sometimes unknown. There are some rule thumbs um. You know, I always attribute your playing surface, you know, your your turkey call, and this is going to be a horrible
rendition if you imagine it is like key yolk. You have your top, which is your key, and then your oak is kind of is that call breaks over and you get to the deep end yuke, you know you got So I've always felt that, like the high note, the key is controlled by the playing surface, and then your your drop off, your rollover into the second note is controlled more by your soundboard, and then your wood
density controls or contributes to both. Right. So within wood, one thing I want to say about anything that's made out of wood, and maybe even more so this is more specific to box calls, is wood is a naturally occurring material is as much as we try to get straight grained you know, walnuts, cherries, mahoganies, whatever wood we're using, it's natural and there's gonna be variations, and so there's always going to be slight differences from call to call
because we can't control it. The same thing with naturally natural existing slate um you know, it's mined out of you know, minds in Virginia and New York or wherever it comes from. Slate you know, comes out of these naturally occurring materials are always going to have slight variabilities in them, and so that's one thing as a call builder I can't control. But we're trying to just kind of hit the middle and make sure that all these calls,
you know, turn out. So back to that would we're going to adjust the sidewall thickness is on your pot calls are going to matter. Your base thickness is going to matter. How we cut your soundboard pedestals. Like if I'm when I used to turn them on a lathe, I would have a circle a circle pedestal, and then if I was to cut little notches in so that the sound can get into that center circle, or if you leave if you omit the center circle now, but now I have you know, potentially what looks like to
toothpick sticks to the bottom. All of this matters way more than you can ever imagine. As we're designing these pot calls, right, how the grain lines up with these pedestals now matters. You know. All this stuff is is stuff that we're taking into account as we're building these calls. You know, the harder, more dense woods will tend to produce typically a higher pitched or a tighter type tone. Your softer, less dense woods will tend to produce a
more natural, open tone. But then they're as I mentioned, there's all these combinations. If I throw a crystal, it's playing surface in or if I throw a slate, it's going to react a little bit differently. So crystal very high pitched glass slightly below it. You've got your aluminum, which seems to be very high pitched with a little bit of rasp in it. You've got your slate, which is really easy to kind of grab with your striker.
It's a little more forgiving on your striker, but it also tends to be a little bit more I don't know if this is the right word. It's not as sharp, it's a little more dull. And then when you use gray slate as your soundboard, it tends to kind of dull your your rollover. Versus, if you put crystal over aluminium or alumin ouver crystal, you get a real sharp
sound that maybe not everybody has. And so as a call designer, I'm working on how you combine all these materials to give you a unique sound but also still talks turkey. And then we just told the example of Eric's. You know, using multiple strikers, there are endless amounts of striker designs. You know, typically the denser the wood, the less woods needed on your striker. If it's a light,
softer wood, you'll typically have a bigger striker. And it's amazing to me how certain strikers pair with certain calls or can bring a call that seems dead to life, and vice versa. So the moral of the story is play with a lot of pots, play with a lot of strikers. And one thing I want to mention is
your location on the pot call. Like, I'm typically a twelve o'clock caller, so I like to set the pad of my thumb down on the bottom edge of the wood, and that kind of naturally puts a striker at twelve o'clock. But I can play a call at twelve o'clock or three o'clock and sound completely different. So play with different positions on the call, get those spots conditioned up, and yeah, just just find what works best for you. And then
box calls. You know, everything seems no matter, but in its simplest form, you have a bottom block of wood that has a chamber out of it, and you have a paddle with the radius, and those are based Those calls are based strictly on friction. You need the top wood to grab the bottom wood, and as those create friction across they're they're going to make the yelp or the turkey sound that you're looking for. The wall is going to basically vibrate. So the taller the wall, the
deader the vibration. The shorter the wall, the more shrill the vibration. The paddle typically will start to write on the outside of the wall, and then with that radius that's built into the box is it swipes over. You're now going from writing on the outside of the wall to the inside of the wall, and that's where you get your breakover on these calls. You know, we're going to use a bunch of different wood combinations. We typically like to have our denser, tighter wood as the paddle
and our our softer, less dense wood is the base. Um, we have a ratio we kind of like to stick to. But that's the that's the fun of building calls as you can get those woods. You know, you can use real dense woods on both sides and see what sound that's gonna give you that real high pitch um more of the sound that's indicative of like a long box and you can get a real um, your raspy kind of a if you use too softer woods. So we play with that. But um, that's we're also weakening the walls.
You know, you see a lot of our box calls. You'll see us with curves down the side or checkering in the side. That's in order to kind of thin and weaken that wall in order to get us to kind of dial in on that turkey sound. So um, that's that's a real quick rundown of what matters and diaphragms, pot calls and box calls. Do you have anything to add there? Eric on the on the box calls, you know, the there's different links, there's small you know, very small ones. Um,
different materials, I mean, all those things. I mean I have thirty different box calls and and for different applications, you know, the old long box calls or the or great and like the wind windy days, you know, compared to maybe a cedar call or or like some of the some of the new calls that you came out with last year. You know, some of those calls just are really nice because of the types of materials that you put in them, and they're they're the right size,
you know. Um. But there's there's days where I'll grab the big old Quaker Boy or whatever because it's I got you know, ten mile an hour winds and that thing just cranks out some some good yelps, you know, and gets those birds to react to it. So yeah, yeah, those long boxes like to my ears, I'm sitting here playing them in my office or the ones I've played with in the past. Man, that doesn't sound exactly like
I like, but the results are what's there? You get that long box out, like you said, this big Northeast country that we've hunted, you know, big distances, or you throw a little bit of wind at that big distance and all of a sudden, that shrill, um, ear piercing, overly loud call is what's going to get that turkey's attention. So I'm I'm on board with with why you would
use a long box. Um. You have you have short boxes, which tend to be a little raspier, a little bit I'm hesitant to use the word hollow, but they have a little bit more of that hollow sound. Um. Most of our box calls are right down the middle. Um, we want it to be a universal call. Um, And like I say, we we've we've adjusted the sides. But um, yeah, box calls are a great tool. They're the first ones though I feel that get thrown out of your vest.
You know, is is if there's any chance of precipitation, box calls become pretty I don't want to say useless. There are there are treatments out there. You can treat your paddle, you can treat your edges. Um. I've always just liked wood on wood and I've got mouth calls or pot calls that will work in all weather. So the you know, the box calls kind of the first
thing that gets tossed. Yeah, I agree. I use the box call probably more often on public land because you know, those turkeys have been here, and diaphragm calls and other things, you know, and sometimes having just an extra call, you know, to try sometimes that'll you know, get a bird to gobble, you know, they haven't heard it before. Something different. Yep, yep,
I'm And we'll get into that here. A little bit on some of this small parcels, small public type stuff that you kind of open our eyes to a little bit way back in the day, is you have to do something different. Like if everybody's got out of the truck on a certain corner and blown the same woodpecker call, like you've got to give that that. Maybe it'll work again, maybe it'll work for the hundred time, maybe it won't.
And so if you don't have the ability to throw something different at them, and that's where I think, if you're as far as you know calls that make turkey noises or hind noises, that box call is sometimes your best bet. Not everybody's running a box call. A lot of the box calls sound quite a bit different from each other, um, and so you can use that to your advantage. So right now we're going to jump into to our discussion. Um, Like I said, I've got I've
got the fortune to hunt with you. I don't know if we want two or three times we went over there and hunted together, and UM, I've learned a lot, you know, kind of what I thought we knew because we had hunted the same area over there for quite a while. And UM, the first thing I want to kind of pick your brain on and have you talk about is what I would call like some small public parcels um and how you you hunt them, why you hunt them? And a lot of people just overlook these things.
But what's your approach to um small public hunting? Um? And and give us a little insight to that. Yeah. There, we're really fortunate in Washington to have lots of public land, you know, and there's lots of opportunities to to find places to hunt. And you know there's there might be one hundred and sixty acre quarter section, um that might be public land next to a big piece of BLM or whatever. And sometimes it's just to get you access
to maybe a better piece of ground. But when I approach, you know, the idea in my in my approach is having lots of spots, you know, and with some of the online tools like on X and hunt on X, and you know, it's allowed everybody access to those and so a lot of the places that I thought I had, you know, to myself, now there's lots of people. But tried and true, Um, those early morning hunts um on
public land are sometimes worth your time. But eighty percent of the time when I go back into those properties in the afternoon when people have left, those birds are
more available. And it's just the cycle, you know of how those birds come off the roost and the hens you know, do their thing in the morning, and the toms are waiting for him to make a move, and then the hens take off and go to a nest and they kind of separate those tombs, and the toms will move off with the hens, and and you know, everybody's trying to call at them and stuff like that, and you know, after a while, the hens lose the toms, and then the toms are wandering around trying to find,
you know, the next available hen or try to regroup with maybe another tom. But you know, you show up at about eleven eleven thirty and everybody else is back at camp having a sandwich. You strike up a big old tom and so don't overlook you know, private or public land, because especially in the afternoon, and you know, a lot of the lot of the locals, there's I
hunt several pieces of public land. UM. One of one of the ones is pretty close to where we camp, and I built a blind on this one small parcel and I and I found this place and it's just a natural blind out of some sticks and limbs. But I found this spot within that piece of public land that my call carried to the north and to the south, and it just was a great spot to call from.
And so being able to set up a blind in that area, UM, it turned out to be probably the one of the best spots where we've killed birds out of our camp. And I think we're at thirty plus tombs have taken out of that blind. And it's just the way that that call carries. And so, you know, not all public lands are are created equal. You know. Some of them have elevation, some of them don't. Some of them are right along highways, UM, a lot of
them have public views. I've sat in that blind and watched people walk right by and they wave at me. And you know, I mean, and that's public land hunting, you know. Um, but we always kill birds in those
areas because you know, we figured them out. And having that in the back of your head and just the you know, over the I don't know thirty years I've been hunting birds now, you know, having all those different memories and spots and hunts, it just adds to you know, what, what you're able to, you know, go to, you know, down the road. But um, yeah, don't give up on those those public land spots, especially in the afternoon. Yeah.
And you know when I say small parcels, like we're talking maybe a section on one side the road, in a section on any other and and I almost feel like, what you're not willing to say that that I can't kill a bird on that one little section where when I'm putting my morning plan together, I want to be able to maybe run or chase a bird or you know, chase it off the roost or hunt it off the
roost where it wants to go. What I found I mean last year are we we showed up there, got to camp, unloaded, we went and bought our tags, and we rolled up to a spot and I don't think this will give it away. There was a parcel on the right that went down towards public and a parcel on the left. We showed up, hit the woodpecker call and had a tom just hammer right off the bat And I don't know how many people would have even stopped there to call, because you only had one parcel
on either side of you. Albeit, we end up losing the battle. Right. We called that bird all the way into the barbed wire fence, but where that parcel we couldn't get him to cross the fence. We thought we were going to. But that was just one of those examples. Middle of the day, people driving around, nobody's stopping at
these two small little sections and to have a bird. Um, we go set up and within what ten minutes we had that bird at twenty five yards, We just couldn't get him across the fence where we could finally Shyeah, we gave it everything we had too, but it was and you're you're right, you know that. The other thing to look at is how that those public lands are arranged. You know, Um, sometimes you'll have that particular one was
next to a big field. You know where you know, a turkey would want to spend time, and so trying to pull birds off of other properties. Um, I've done that a lot. They might like the the next guy's land because there's water and cover, and but when the breeding's going on and those toms are looking for hims, those toms will sometimes go miles to find a girlfriend. So it's uh, yeah, we came really close that day. It was pretty awesome. We we gave him a show.
We tried everything, I think every call we had yep, and and we're going to talk about it here in a little bit, but we actually he was gobbling a lot of our calls. But we also called us hen in ahead of him, right, which was something we'll talk to here in a little bit. Is calling to their
hens um. So kind of staying on the same um small public chunks or you know, the public chunks we haven't kind of scattered all over here in eastern Washington, so we're not hunting I would say the best agg fields where sometimes it's clear cut, sometimes it's you know,
mismanaged for us. Sometimes it's well managed for us. But a lot of our stuff is just being done off of public you know, we see what ninety It seems like they're all the birds are sometimes in the agg fields or on the private but yet we've kind of devised ways to take advantage of the public that surrounds it. Can you give us a little bit of the playbook on hunting the little public fringes around these private chunks
and how you can make that payoff for you? Yeah, I think the the looking back probably biggest tip is is if if you can get to the edge, you know, let's say that that piece of public, like if you're up in Stevens County, there's a lot of topography and
a lot of those toms. You know, they'll they'll probably roost off of a ridge above those egg fields, and so knowing that they fly down into those fields to display and you know, strut around the hands and stuff that, and then those hands are probably going to go back up into the woods um to nest and so you know that they're going to come back up probably those drainages.
So so try not to get impatient and try to push, you know, yourself into a situation where you're not gonna you're gonna kind of get stuck and you're not gonna be able to move. You know, I always, I always create kind of this chess mentality, you know, I try to stay ahead of them and try to think about you know, okay if I if I don't give them the position and I stay above them, then they have to come up. It's easier to call it bird up than it is to or or at the same level
than it is to bring them down. So UM, I always try to stay on the upward side of a field or an opening um and I try to you know, utilize the habitat, you know, like we did on the swamp bird. But you know, as far as where you have a place like that, usually you're going to have a lot of other hunters trying to do stuff, you know, in those areas too, because they see the birds, you know, just like we do when you when you can see
them out in the open um. But knowing where those hands are going to nest and trying to stay ahead of those birds, uh and trying to outposition them and know kind of where that tom's going to be after you know that hands dropped off, um, is pretty pretty important. The other the other big factor that we have in turkey hunting in general is you know, the size of the population. If you have a lot of private land, you might have a higher Turkey population than you do
on public land. UM. And knowing where you have that mosaic of public and private, UM, sometimes you'll have large populations. And it's pretty typical, you know, the first couple of weeks of the season to call in the satellite toms right and and get those you know, there's there're two year olds that leave, you know, the big tom, the dominant tom, he's got all the hands and and all of a sudden you're over here yelping, and you're you're
calling in those two year olds. And it's easy to be successful even if you're not hunting those birds in the field. So when you're hunting sometimes smaller groups, you know, you got to be careful with trying to figure out where you're gonna set up so that you don't out
position yourself. Yep, yep. I like that. And I feel one of my biggest mistakes early on when we used to hunt over there is we wouldn't try to figure out how to get back to that public behind the private until midday versus, like you had said, if you can get down in there, um, you know, early in the morning, get set up. Don't have to just the area when the birds are out in the fields and wait for those birds to come back up. Um could be one of your best players, So yeah, don't You
may have to start there. There might not be a lot of action for the first couple hours, but this is a great segue into scouting. If you know that those birds are eventually going to go back up a certain drainage, you're up a certain fingerage or whatnot, you know, being able to patter to them through scouting, UM, it can pay off huge. So scouting, UM, you're over there a lot, You're out in the field, a lot working for fishing, wildlife, doing a lot of work out there.
You're out in the field, so you know you're you're looking at hundreds, if not thousands of birds prior to season. Um, how do you take kind of a scouting plan and reduce it down to what you think your best hunting plan is going to be. You know, you've you've got a hundred different toms that you know of that are on public How do you figure out where you're gonna
go and what you're gonna do? Is it based on where you think pressure is going to be where you've had success in the past, it's your favorite spots or what would you say, UM is the biggest determining actor on where you're actually gonna go set up on on the first morning. Yeah. I think the reality is that if I'm seeing that, most people are too. So you know, I try to I try to really look at maps
and understand maps and understood in the lay of the land. UM. I think woodsmanship is so critical and being successful anymore, UM, depending on if you're hunting birds down in Lincoln County where you're you know that agg slash timberland interface and they're kind of intermingling and versus the you know mountains of you know, Northeast Washington. UM learning the road systems learning, you know, all the different access points. You know, there's all kinds of things to learn about and uh and
that all leads to UM. You know, we did that last year. We found a spot. We you know, we're able to get pretty close to some birds. But I took a I love mentoring new hunters and last year, just to give you a good example, I was handing a big chunk of DNR and I know there's the birds there but it's critical to know where you're gonna hunt in the morning, and so the idea. So I took him and I said, Okay, we're gonna go out right at dark, and we're gonna run a five mile
area right off the highway. In every hundred yards, I was doing owl hoots, woodpecker calls, whatever I could to get them to gobble, and we located five different toms on public land, not knowing if we were going to be able to get close to him in the next day, but we had no problem finding those birds the next day and we had opportunities to get on those birds, and it was neat to show. You know, our typical hunters they run around and they don't do that anymore.
They just look at the birds in the field and then they try to make a plan for the next day and they sometimes it doesn't work out. I love setting it up for the night, you know, the night before and learning out where those birds are at and just trying to find you know, enough targets within the public land and you might cover you know, five miles before you know the birds shut up for the night, but at least you have some idea on where to go.
The next day. And you know when this time of year is a good time of year to be driving around looking for birds on private or public and getting permission or whatever you want to do. But you know, a lot of its elevation and a lot of our you know, you know, the birds are low, especially like in a hard winter like this year, we have a
lot of birds that are low. And you know with Miriam's they hugged that snow line as it you know, starts to dissipate from the high elevations down to the lower and you'll, you know, I used to hunt more of a higher type of bird compared to where everybody else is at down low. So sometimes i'll I'll use that intel, you know that I said before, you know, learning where the road systems are, trying to get up
in there, trying to get a good vantage point. In the evenings, listening where there's birds trying not to you know, you don't have to make a lot of calls to get them to gobble. They're going to gobble on their own. But and over the years, you know, even hunting into May, if you find these areas that they like to hang out in, and then the next year you know that that's where they're going. So I mean that the intel that you use this year is going to be valuable
next year. And just adding that to your you know you're hunting repertoire, you know, is you're just trying to get more knowledge. And I think that you know, I've been able to say, you know, I'm out of here, there's just too many people. I'm going to go to this one spot and I'll get up in there and I'll find a bird and it doesn't take too long.
If you just use locating birds in the evening, going back into those spots in the morning, knowing the lay of the land, I think that's your best best opportunity when you're talking about scouting and getting ready for your hunt. Yep, yep. Those are all great tips. So my next question, I know the answer to it because I've been there as you've did it. But do you ever call to the hens when they're answering and the gobbler isn't And then kind of when you're doing that, what's your strategy and
your approach behind it? Yeah, the hens themselves, you know, if you know there's birds in the area, especially Tom's, you don't know if somebody harvested the tom that you were hunting earlier in the morning. You have no idea, but you know, when you get a hand to answer, especially during the early part of the season, usually means that they want some company they've been bothered by, you know, like this morning, I was watching a bunch of Jake's
chasing all these hands all over the place. And you know, it's the same thing with you know, tom's. You know, they especially if your population's got a lot of Tom's and them, they won't They're relentless. They'll just keep trying to get on top of a hen and get the breeding done and sneak sneak in with you know, the dominant tom will looking the other way. I mean, they're some some of those flocks are relentless, and so you know those hens they don't like being there the tom's
and so um. But when you start talking to some of those uh more dominant hands, sometimes that can trigger you know, another tom to gobble and because you know, they sometimes get territorial, especially if they know that they're they're they're with a dominant tom. And you can actually strike up different conversations with hands and uh really have kind of um, a bitch fest, you know, back and
forth with them to get them kind of agitated. But that can trigger a response from those gobblers to come in. And a lot of times, you know, I get that when I have you know, a decoy out or something like that, that they're they're kind of not too happy
with it. It gives it realism. But but yeah, that the calling it hands sometimes can lead to you know, it's kind of like fishing, you know, I mean, you're just trying to drag those toms back to the boat, so um, but yeah, just trying to trying to get those hands excited enough that those toms are going to come come in. Yeah, And every every time I've gotten too a calling battle with a hand, it seems to be like a one upper or we're this is gonna be a something we talk about in a little bit
on progressive calling. But it seems like we start off with like a cordial conversation, you know, five six seven, you know, yelps, clucks and she'll she'll respond, and by time you're done, it seems like you're in a screaming match. You all need each other, you know, as you call that hen in we called a hen in last year and Kansas didn't have a tomb behind her like you had mentioned, they're not always going to be there. But by time she was dirty yards away, like she was
just NonStop, like trying to override us. Um that bird that we called across the canyon. Um, the very first hunt that we ended up up hunt with you at the you know, um, you know we ended up we could hear the gobbler over there, but ultimately we ended up. Um, you know, you open it her just as much. And
when they before they flew the canyon. So I was another one where it seems like she would answer and then we kind of slowly switched like all right, we're no longer getting uh, you know, the gobbler to answer, We're just trying to get her fired up before they all pitched. I think in that case it was like safety and numbers. I think she was like, I need some girl tis. I'm sick of these guys, you know, because and I think that's what I think that's what
it was, you know. Yeah, they were up there on the mountaintop. I think it was the big tom that you killed, one of the biggest toms I think I've still ever seen over there to date, uh that hand and then the jake. But I know she got real mouthy there towards the end before they pitched over. So yeah, that's just when you start to talk with a hand, I think you can almost expect the conversation to like ramp up as it goes on. You know. That's it brings up a good point because in nature doesn't sound
like a calling class goodness all the time. A lot of times it's silence. Yeah, and you I mean, you don't hear it, just hands the help and you know early in the morning, you do when they come down off the roost. But turkeys are pretty quiet, you know. I mean, and I think we have a you know, as hunters, we tend to overcall. And I think that to provide that I kind of feed off those hens. So if she's like soft calling, I'll soft call. If
she gets bitchy, I'll get bitchy, you know. And you just kind of back and forth trying to make it more realistic. And I think that there's a lot of times where I'm out in the woods, I'm like, yeah, that's a turkey hunter, you know, boy, he's just going crazy over there. And then out walks his hand. It's wanting company, you know, And I'm like, man, I got surprised on that one, you know. So but yeah, it's uh, it's really important to kind of like just imitate what
they're doing back to you. Yeah, so we get all set up on a bird. Um. I think as you just mentioned, I think it's all a great segue and it kind of rolls right into it is you know, turkeys are relatively quiet. Hens will typic at least ramp up their calling. But if you are calling to a gobbler. We've talked about it a bunch, is it's kind of
that progressive calling or ramping up the calling. We don't want to come in, you know, you don't want to be you know, cutting cutting up a storm and you know, loud clucks and you know, yelping fifteen times in a row and never given given you know, the woods any silence. So why do why do you feel that we always approach it with it like a progressive ramping up style, And then why does that work? Yeah? I think it's
just the nature of the breeding, you know. I think that Tom to get excited the more you know they're dealing with these hens, that have shut them off, and then all of a sudden, there's this hot gall over in the corner, you know, just like, hey, come over here, you know, and so you're so you're kind of feeding off of his excitement and you're trying to figure out if he's responsive or not, and if he's not, you kind of back off. And then in a lot of times, what I like to do is just kind of get
them worked up and then I just shut up. I think that's probably one of the trigger years to having a hung up Tom. Is we tend to, you know, the natural thing is for the hen to go to him, and so he's over there, gobblin. And a lot of times, you know, I think it's just if it's a two year old, he doesn't know better, he's probably gonna run right in, you know, and you're gonna get a bird,
you know, or you're gonna get an opportunity. But if it's another Tom, and maybe he's got a nd, you know, he's over he's weighing things in his head and he's trying to be like, well, should I stay here with Sally or should I go over there and visit that girl? She sounds more eager. You know, so you never know
what situation you're in. But you know, I think that by shutting up, you kind of play hard to get And I think I've killed more birds doing that because it just it breaks them from getting hung up and it makes it kind of gets him to the point. Now, if he gobbles and he's leaving and you can tell that he's gone away, then you know he's probably got
a hid, you know. But if he if he gets closer, and I've had I've had a lot of times where it's like, oh, yeah, he's coming, he's come, So I don't really have to make and I might give them a little teaser and just say hey I'm here, still here, and it'll fire him back up and here he'll he'll break him, you know, and he'll come in. So um sometimes uh getting him worked up and then kind of going quiet on him and uh letting letting them kind of think that they're missing out on So yeah, yeah,
it's it's similar to our out calling style. You know. To relate that back to anybody that maybe hasn't turkey hunted as much, is just you don't want to come at him throwing the kitchen sink. You want to slowly get them. First, you want them to even consider you, right, so it's like, all right, they've now considered me. Now they're a little bit interested. Now they you know, the next step is do they like what they hear? Do
they do? They seem to be you know, and you can you can figure that out really easily by is that turkey answering my every call? Is that turkey answering every fifth call? Um? So you start to really quickly put put things together. Um. You know last year that that bird we were calling to, um. You know, it's like, well, he was answering every gobble and then he went to answer in every you know, tenth gobble and then you're like,
all right, we're losing him, you know. So then it's either you've got to be quiet you're gonna lose him anyway. So you're you're trying to just like be a you know, think on the fly. Um. But yeah, first thing, you get their interests. Second, you need to get them committed. And then third, like you said a lot of times, shutting up is what finishes him. Because once that turkey gets to eighty ninety yards, like he already knows exactly what tree you should be under um if you're not
using a decoy, get the attention off of you. I think all you can do by calling is like racist suspicion that something's not right as they get close. So that's like that ramping up, get him, get him interested, get him committed, get him worked up, and then kind of turn it off there at the end. I agree with that. Yeah, and your idea that you know, shutting up can can sometimes pr the best. All right. In closing, Eric,
we really appreciate having you on here. But what is one tip you feel you could give turkey hunters that would give them better odds at finding success this year? Well, I think get out there and get work working with some of your calls. I know a lot of people do say, oh you don't call early, but you know, at home practice, I think just getting out. It's been a long winter here and I'm anxious just to get
out and get my legs back on me. But I think that just getting to a point where you know where there's some birds, you're getting ready for season, and you got everything ready, practice getting your gun ready. This last year I went to a four ten and practicing with that, because you know that's been a fun change. But but yeah, just take the time this March and locate some birds and get all your gear ready. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's great. Hip. UM really appreciate Eric. We're gonna I'm gonna head over there that direction, I think the twenty eighth or so, so maybe we'll have to meet up and spend a couple of days in the woods together. M really appreciate you having having you on and good luck if I don't talk to you before season. Thanks Jason, good talking to you again.