Welcome to Cutting the Distance today. I'm live from the field. I'm joined with John Wyke of Northwest s Purchasers. He served thirty five years in the military and military aviation work. He's originally from the Northwest Hardwoods of Connecticut, where he started hunting at the age of ten. He moved to Washington about twenty eight years ago. From there, he started
hunting turkeys shortly after and he's never looked back. To describe the way John hunt's turkeys, He's a mountain turkey hunter who would rather sit at home and watch TV than hunt turkey's out of a blind. He has a running gun style, chasing and setting up on goblin birds, and that's his only style. Today's episode, I want to give a quick recap on the Kansas turkey hunt as well as the hunt we're on right now here in Washington. So welcome to the show. John's hey, it's good to be here.
Jason.
We're two weeks in the season, and are you tired of it yet? Oh?
Yeah, no, no, right, how can you get tired of doing this?
Yeah, it's a it's a it's been fun. I get tired during the season. It's long days. This morning we got up at what three forty five, I think to try to get past the bird, and yeah, you go to bed at ten. But uh, long long days. So we're we're physically tired, but I'm not tired of tricky hunting yet. Yeah.
No, try not to be anyway.
Yep. So we're gonna start this episode, like every episode of Cutting the Distance, we are going to take questions from our listeners. If you have questions you'd like to submit to myself or guests, email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com. I have to laugh at this question before I get ready to give it to you, because we've we've both got this question on this hunt. As we're hunting, people are messaging us this, do you have a spot for me to hunt? Oh?
Yeah, that's that's a question I never hear. Never. Yeah, we don't hear any of that too much, y'.
So, uh, because because we all know that that's all that matters when it comes to killing the tricky right. If you have the right spot, then everything else is going to be a gimme.
Oh yeah, it's golden. You just pick the right spot in the woods. You're gonna kill birds. It's it's really easy.
So let's let's elaborate on that question a little bit. And rather than give them spots, how would you prepare somebody to go investigate, look, find e scout whatever it may be good hunting spots you know here in Washington, and I know you hunt Idaho, Montana other places, like what's a what's a good recipe for figuring out where to hunt?
Well, first thing for us always, you know, we jump right on on X and then mix on X with Google Earth at the same time, and we're looking for you know, state land that has a lot of variation in it. We like the higher elevations. Our birds tend to move up pretty quick. They'll follow the snow line.
They'll chase it right up to whatever elevation and you want to go up to Not that you can't find them down low as well, but you know, we just we like prefer to hunt the upper stuff, so we find the birds up there as they're chasing up the snow. But yeah, you get on on X and start looking at Timberland. You got all kinds of different timberlinds out here. You can get into some i EP stuff as well,
and it's just pretty easy to find. If you're using on X, it's going to identify it for you, and then mix it up with Google Earth at the same time and say, you know, are there farmlands and aren't that far away that the birds probably wintered in and known After that as stuff starts greening up and some of the lower shrubs start leafing out, the hands are going to start nesting and you're going to find the birds. It's not that complicated if you're able to look yep.
And that's one thing you touched on there a little bit is a relationship to ag. One thing I love about the birds we've been hunting the last couple of days is they have no real like, no real requirement to go back down there, right I. One thing I don't like is hunting a bird that would rather run down to a field or run down to you know where he'd been getting you know, chicken scratch all winter.
These birds are mountain birds, but you still have to look at that ag or those farms to figure out like where they came from this winter, and they're going to be in you know, somewhat close relationship to those yeah.
Just some degree.
I mean, granted, there are some places we've gone to where it's so deep and dark and there's no egg anywhere, there's no fields, there's no people. I mean, I can think of some places that we've crawled into just to el Khunt and in the middle of nowhere, you're looking at your on actually like where do these birds live? And there they are staring at you.
Yep.
So it's not the ones you really want to hunt, probably, but yeah, yeah they're there.
Yeah, you had we were hunting the spot last night and you had made mention that you have a buddy that lives there, and you know at the time when he says the birds leave, yeah, his his yard. They're now up in the mountains. So it's like, you know, and then maybe that's why Washington's doing so well right now, is because we do have a lot of ag winter ag that supports those birds, and so our populations are staying real high, even though we did lose I think a few hens this year with the winter.
I think so too.
I mean, we had a really cold winter, but on top of that, we had powder, and powder is just not something that happens out here. You talk to the biologist, they say that's one of the reasons that we have such great popular relations is that we have snow that the birds can stand on top of walk around and still get a lot of feed. But this year we had cold right up front, and we had powder for a long time, and the hens they were pushing through it.
And people even gave reports where like, man, we're watching these hens struggle just to move through the snow and find food unfortunately.
So yeah, so just quick recap, get on on X, figure out where you can hunt. Find an area that's somewhat adjacent to ag and you're most like, especially in Washington, you're gonna find birds. Yeah, and we're gonna get into it a little bit later, and it's like, just let your boots, you know, burn up some boot leather and go figure it out.
Absolutely carry lots of water with you.
Yeah. I have question number two, which we've lived a little bit here already. In the first couple of days of this hunt, birds are gobbling really hard on the roost. They fly down and goble a little bit. They'll gobble up my calls, but about thirty minutes later they haven't committed to my setup or my calling, and they've completely shut up. What should I do or why is that happening? You know? And the question was what should I do? But I think more importantly is why is that happening?
And what can you do to take you know, you really can't take advantage of it, but what can you do to maybe turn that into a positive or what do you do with that information to maybe get that turkey? You know, and you know later that day or the following morning.
Right, Well, first thing is take note as to what their pattern was when they did it, because you know, maybe you're not going to be successful today, but you're creating a setup for understanding them better in their movements, so you can put that in your pocket and come back in the next time and get in front of them rather than behind them. And a lot of the birds are just going to be hand up because we're we're like two weeks behind still in our season. Honestly,
some friends I know found a couple of nests. I found one too, with one egg in it only, and that was just a few days ago. So you know, with this weather we had and the snow just leaving the wood still, things just greening up, we're just behind. So they're going to be pretty hand up still. Which is not normal so much right now. That's that's one of the biggest reasons they're moving away from me because they're following a hand. They're gobbling. Say, yeah, come join us,
we're heading this way. Yep, we have it in mind where we want to be. You're not there.
Yep. We're going to get into the nine am spark or whatever that we do, and we can use some of this information. We've did it already. The oh they're gobbling there, but let's let's keep in mind where we last heard them, like where that ideal spot for them to be was, because we are early in the in the nesting season. But that hen's eventually going to break off around eight thirty nine, go lay that egg, absolutely, and he's going to probably reverse that trail back to
where you started on it that morning. So I mean, it's great to start on a bird because it's obvious they want to be in that area. They're comfortable there, there's what they need there. But yeah, I think a lot of people get discouraged. The bird stops goblin by shoots around here is getting lights so early six thirty seven, and they're like, I'm going to go in for breakfast, you know, and it's the better hunting is still ahead. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Sit down and take a nap if you need to. Yeah, yeah yeah. Go to what you think is the best looking you know, where you've seen the most droppings, where you know that they're feeding on the greenest grasses of the greenish shrubs, and hang out and take a nap and wait for them to come back. So one thing we get asked a lot, me personally, is, you know, we make an alcochol, we make a crow call, we use a woodpecker call, we use you know, different locators.
The question we got is when and how should I use the different locators, and so all that you kind of kind of roll into that. You know, me personally, you've seen what I've used. It's an alcohol, use a crow call, we use a woodpecker. But kind of give us a little a little bit of how and when those should be used. I don't think you should be blown on an alcohol in the middle of the day, and I don't think you should be cranking on a
woodpecker call, you know, before first light. So absolutely, so give us a little bit of you know, how you think they should be used and what typically works the best.
Yeah, well, I mean we experienced that in the last couple of days hunting together too. You know, early morning obviously, get into an alcol and just to get a lowcate hater on them, and they're usually going to gobble back pretty good. So you know, practice that up, you know, make it realistic. You want some realism, but obviously noise is what it's all about. And that works really good.
And then we move into the day a little bit and Jason proved really well, how we'll get the woodpecker call worked, and they were really answering that really well, that was a great call.
I love that call.
Yeah. And then crow, in my opinions, real similar to that woodpecker, like, don't use it. I mean, crows start calling early in the morning, but they're already doing the work for you. Yeah. I feel like a crow is more of that same thing, you know, a couple hours after daylight through the middle of the day, and then you know, start to tone it down towards the towards later. And a little quick side story. Yesterday the first morning, me,
you and Simone, we're hunting together. We we were hiking up we hadn't really heard we heard a few birds off in the distance. Yeah, and the bird we thought was there just isn't there. And we I won't say we get frustrated. You're just a little like scratching our heads and.
Yeah, we're only six miles into you at that point.
Yeah, you're in mixed company. So you're like, I don't really know if you want me to use my alcohol. But we kind of all agreed, like, yeah, I go nothing you can hurt with the owl. And we blew on that thing, and he was what seventy yards up the hill on a tree. Right then we're able to set up and he did his thing, and then so we thought we had that bird today did where he had went, same thing. We got a little nervous, like every bird on every other ridge top mountain draw was
gobbling up there. You know, we were hearing, we were pointing different directions. We got a bird there, we got a big sound, and bird over there, we got a jake over there, and our bird never gobbled. And we were starting to debate, well, we got birds hammering to our left, and we got a ridge there, we can get behind it and slip in, and same thing. We're like, well, there's nothing to lose if you blow on the alcohol again. Blew on it this morning and he finally answered twenty
reddits after. You know, so it's early morning. You know, use those alcohols. But but locators are important because, in my opinion there we weren't close enough for a tree yelp to be heard. He may have heard it, but it's like the alcohol, there's no real harm that can be done, and it kind of let it. Maybe it actually worked against us because we stayed at that tree for another half an hour. He got got around us.
But yeah, use your locators. You know a lot of I used to be similar, you know, go out and only use my hint calls. But there are times we've seen it here where a hint call doesn't work in the hammer at that woodpecker, and it's just that that shot gobble aspect that I think, you know, it doesn't hurt if they're not answering a hint call followed up with a woodpecker, or if you think you're getting in close.
We did it a few times here like well, we don't really want a turkey call again, like let's hit him with the woodpecker. See if we're you know, if we're in a spot to set up. I don't know. I in my mind I maybe overthink it. I always wonder, like our turkey smart enough to know that there's a woodpecker and a turkey hint call him from the same spot. But I don't know. I don't know if they're that smart we actually just put them on top of each other.
We don't know.
I mean, I've definitely used locator calls, not a lot, honestly, but definitely if I'm trying to get into an area that I don't know really well exactly where he is at that time, and I just want to get his location so I can maneuver to it in an area to create a setup and then pull him in. So yeah, I mean, you definitely want to have one you're going to.
Use and then not necessarily located call. We'll talk about a little bit later. Box calls specifically on this hunt, whether it's pressured birds, whether it's something different, has has been working really well when maybe our you know, neither of our mouth calls might be working, right, you hit that box call and it's just something about it. So we're going to jump into that a little bit more when we when we get into part of the Washington recap.
So once again, if you have a question for me or my guests and you want to submit them to us, send us a social message, email us at ct D at Phelps game Calls dot com. We'll do our best to get him here on the show. So now we're going to jump into our discussion. The discuss I want to ask John some questions, So I'm gonna start out with the question. I think I already know your answer.
But we always talk about patterning birds as maybe being and knowing your birds in that area and what they like to do is maybe more important than your ability to call or you know, understand turkey. So if you had to take one or the other, a pattern bird that you've watched for three days do its thing, but you'd have to leave your calls in the truck or a brand new area, but you could take your calls. Which one are you picking?
Oh my gosh, this is about actually killing a bird.
Or just what you personal probably for you. And then I'm gonna switch a question up here and asking in a different context.
Okay, personally for me, I want my calls.
So so once again, this is just and we've we've talked lots on this hunt as we walk up and down the roads. I believe it's because you're out here for a certain reason, right, you want to work the bird. You want to get them to gobbles. So if you left your calls here, you know, once again you're back basically blind hunting. We mentioned earlier you'd rather not hunt.
Yeah, this is not my choice.
I mean I want to I want to go out here and play play turkey chess, and I can only do that with the calls. And I'd rather walk away from a bird that's just in a pattern, doesn't want to talk, and go find a bird that does want to talk.
Yeah.
So, yeah, there is though, after getting your butt kicked for a day or two, that you're about to the point where it's like, all right, I'm willing to sit on this bird and just out of spite at this point, But.
Yeah, there are those birds.
There are those times just getting your butt, the birds that you start giving names to.
Yeah, yeah, all right, So let's switch that question around. Let's say you're a newer hunter and your main concern was just killing a bird. Would you change your answer? Would you take that pattern bird overcalling?
Yeah?
Definitely, you know, I think back to the earlier days of learning all of this.
You wanted to fill that tag.
I mean that that's a that's a big pull for every new turkey hunter, especially you know, they put the money and they bought the license, they got the tag, and they want to fill that tag. So that makes sense. So definitely, if you can pattern a bird, you know what he's gonna do. You've watched them, dude, a few times. They really do get hooked into a pattern within reason. And so yeah, in that case, I'm going to go sit on that pattern and take that bird fill that tag.
Yep.
I figured that was going to be your answer, and that's the honest answer.
Yeah, and we're going to talk. Remind me to talk a little bit about patterns and then what what your opinion versus what we've seen out here. When you add some hint calling to your their pattern, it disrupts it a little bit. Even though we want to call, we want to do this, I feel that calling in a spot where maybe the hin doesn't want to take her tom by or there. You know, they didn't hear your hint there last night like we I think there's also a little bit of chance to bug her up the
setup just from calling. So we've we've looked at each other multiple times like should we just stay quiet and let the birds do? You know? It's like trying at least until it gets closer more committed. So remind me to pick back up on that one when we get to the gap. So as we're walking down the roads, as we're you know, let's say we locate a bird
on this hunt. Many times we have said this, don't do what a typical hunter would do, Like we're there's a bird there, and you know we see boot tracks as we're on public ground here, there's other people hunting this. You know, some some birds are pressured. Some birds you can walk and get to a spot where maybe they haven't heard as much. But we we've said that, don't
do what a typical hunter would do. So you look at a bird, it's like, oh, the easiest path of resistance to walk down the road, get there and call where we've we've mentioned this, and I believe it's important to not necessarily overthink it, but just put some thought into it. Like this, these turkeys aren't dumb. They've they've been called to from this road or that spot. They've they've heard it all. What do you in your opinion?
What do you what are we doing? We've talked about like fading away with our calling, we bushwhacked to my bird, you know some of this stuff, Like, yeah, what are some things people can can think about as they're out there and do a little bit different, Like don't be afraid to hit the bridge. Like, let's just elaborate on that, because there is so much stereotypical calling from roads, you know, setting up on bends.
In the roads right right?
You know, how do we break that that habit and make ourselves a little more successful?
Well, yeah, I mean depending on how much pressure is in an area, that can be hard to figure out. Sometimes it takes a little while. So you're gonna have to figure out what's going on in the area that you're hunting. And then as far as pressured birds are concerned, it is important. I found they get conditioned. They get conditioned by us. You know, what are all the hunters doing? Are they calling from the same spot? Are they using the same calls all the time? And that's why it's
important to keep a bunch of different calls. Yeah, I love mouth calls, but I know, dummy, I keep other calls with me too, and sometimes you get to try different ones and move to a different spot. We've already
seen that happen ourselves. Another great tactic, you know, when it comes to that type of scenarios, if you're hunting with a partner, especially, get the bird interested but he's holding up, or he's actually moving away, but he's still talking to you, then you can take the other caller and have him start walking away from you the shooter and just pull that bird in. I mean, and it works great. We've done it numerous times.
Yep. Yeah, that bird only wants to if he's with hims, only go come back so far, or.
He just doesn't believe it.
Maybe so he's like, oh, she's walking away, maybe I can walk over there safely now and take a look, you know, is she really real?
And then he's in front of the shooter.
Or even the loan toms just aren't comfortable leaving their you know, their area where they've got good visibility or a lot of this area we're hunting. There might be a road system and some of the ridges are very clean, but then they may not want to be they might not be willing to go through the jack straw, just the garbage either and so you're not gonna get him to cut that right, you know. So we ran into a little bit of vegetation really cause and you know,
some some impediment on the on their travel paths. And then same thing. I don't necessarily we had got that bird this morning going we thought, oh, he's gonna come down the road. So we did what a typical hunter would do. We ran down to the edge of the road and squawked on our hen call and the next time we heard him gobble. He was literally walking down the creek,
which we never thought he would do. And so it's just one of those things like is that one of those times where we did what we thought was right, but that's what every other hund would do, Like, oh, we're gonna go set up on the side of the road and then that whether it is or not, it's just one of those things that goes through my mind as I rethought this morning, like we did exactly what a hunter would do. Did that affected or maybe not?
Maybe he was gonna get drug down there by hint anyways, but it always makes you think, could we have multiple times even this morning, like we've and yesterday we would try to get like one move ahead of the turkey
right right. Yeah, I'm The more we do this and the more it keeps like we should we need to almost be like we need to guess like two or three moves ahead right to get us some more because it seems like we're always playing like, oh that makes sense, we think we can, but then they beat you there
or they do something different. It's like, well, shoot, we knew that that second or third you know that second or third idea, like they were going to a Look, we should have just went there versus trying to cut them off in the middle or right.
Yeah, And that's another good thing for having on X.
Yeah, trying to Yeah, we were in an area today we didn't really know the clean way through, and we had those three or four different birds gobbling and finally we oh, shoot, there's an open ridge in here. We got in there and it was the most beautiful turkey ridge ever had everything they need.
He never would have known there if you didn't flip on X and you're like, look, this is open in there.
Yeah, we got in there. I want to live here.
Yeaice it was, and it was literally the only way we could get through this area without you know, just you know, bushwhacking horribly.
So, but now you know where they were set up and where they were gobbling from in the morning. You know they're fly down area, and you know the pattern to get out of there.
So yeah, now the hard part will be setting up in there in the morning and not touching a call. Yeah, like we say, sometimes you can get in there and buger them up. I think. I I'm very very confident, you know, we we always joke as we sit down on our setups. This morning we had to go to a three percenter Yeah at one point, and that's why I'm sitting here. You know, mid afternoon, I would go into that spot with an eighty percent chance of killing the bird there.
Yeah seriously, Yeah, this morning we're like thirty percent chance of this being successful. Yeah, turned to zero.
But that's okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean they're And the reason you need to ask this question is we walked our road to some today, just trying to explore the area, and we've seen two dead birds, you know, two somebody had breasted them out and taken the legs, you know, basically cleaned up birds and it's like, man, there are a lot of birds getting killed near Yeah.
We didn't realize how much pressure was in here until we started finding the carcasses.
I'm like, no, wonder.
This is happening.
Yeah, and is now we know we got to change their tactics.
Yeah. Yeah, one predator, i mean, one was so fresh a predator hadn't even got to the other one been picked on a little bit, but both real, real, yeah, fresh kills. So yeah, don't do what a turcula would do. And then that doesn't I mean you have to take that with the grain of salt, like there are things that are just the right move but don't typically do the same thing. You know, we talk about seven to nine note yelps. I'm gonna get into the culling a
little bit. Yeah you hear what, Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, somebody's just gonna do their normal yelp. Yeah. You listen to me and you call it's like two loud, one quiet, three, you know, and throw a bubble cluck in there, and it's like and if you listen to real hens, that's what they're doing.
They're yeah, they're raising their tone up and down, facing one direction, turning and facing the other direction, versus monotone with a straight note.
Yeah. And these turkeys, I mean, I don't want to give them too much credit. They're not the smartest bird on the planet, but they're also not dumb. They're there, they get conditioned their turkeys. They're doing what turkeys are doing. So calling different. You know, we're not afraid to purr, We're not afraid to cluck, you know, bubble cluck, mix it up. Yeah, just sound like a realistic can. And
there's times where and we also escalate our calls. I think we start with a low volume and then nothing answers, and then our second set of yelps and clocks will be a little louder. It's just you don't typically hear a hint out here, just yeah, yeah, got jack. You know, she's just just not doing that. And I think ninety five percent the hunters that come out here that's how they call. Yeah, so yeah, all right, we're gonna diverge off of that. Don't do it a typical turkey hunter
would do. But it's important to think about out there, like can I get this bird to work somewhere besides down this road where he's been called you know, it's it's just changing the game a little bit or by little decisions. Can I get you know, can I call them up a ridge versus a road? All of that. Let's talk a little bit about the style of turkey hunting we're doing here. You know, a typical day in the Turkey woods, you know, for most might be a couple of miles, maybe a couple setups to get on
some hot birds and you're done. This is these sort of you know, Miriam's Rios type hunts. They're completely opposite. Like we've talked about it multiple times. You might as well be hunting elk or you know, mountain meal deer or whatever. Yesterday when we killed, well we both killed our a bird. Yesterday we got back and I pulled out the iPhone. You know, it's like twelve plus miles, yea, a hundred foot of elevation gain. Like we're we're working
our tail off. And I think a little a little bit of it relates back to pressure in area.
Yeah. Yeah, these they've moved further out of it.
Yeah. And the birds that you there are birds. There's no denying there. Birds from here to mile marker one and a half in this area. There there are birds there, but you can tell when you call to them that they've been worked or they've heard a.
Call before, they've worked hard versus.
I joked yesterday you should never see a mile marker more than three, why you're a turkey hunting. But we started to see those mile markers deep in there. Yeah, you get in there, and now those turkeys maybe have only heard a handful of calls from guys, or maybe haven't got bumped, and they start to react like they should, like a tom without a hen. You know, yesterday this this chunk that we are hunting. Now we literally touched all four corners of aside from one big peak on
the opposite side. But we could hear up there. We put in work and and.
Oh it was hardcore. I mean yeah, we were digging deep to get out there. But and we knew what Reggie was on and we're looking at our round X as well. Man, we're gonna have to crash through thick, thick timber just to avoid being seen on a point and play the game all the way over to the other ridge. And we knew we're gonna it's going to be a twelve mile day, But we're going to get near that bird, yep.
And I mean there were decisions made throughout yesterday where we could have taken we I'm almost don't want to admit it, and I think I still think it was a wild turkey. But he was a domesticated wild turkey. I have some sorts he was. He was just very comfortable living off the edge of this public So we got drugged down there and we hiked up maybe a
couple hundred feet, hit a road system. We could have just easy taken that road system back towards the truck or two in a different area, we elected to go. We got to a beautiful basin. We knew it was gonna suck because we had to walk up through a fairly steep clear cut, but it gave us the ability to sound check an entire canyon amazing looking Turkey country, and when we finally did get to the top, we were able to locate my bird in a different bird.
And if we hadn't have put in that extra effort, we wouldn't have had that opportunity.
Yeah, and he heard that sound too. I mean he heard it from an area that another hundred probably would never be on it as well. Yeah, so as that sound got close to him, it created realism.
Yep. And we'll talk a little bit more about once we located that bird. Kind of our approach, and it ties back into the don't do what hunters would do either, the way we had to approach him just to guarantee that he hasn't you know, seen or heard something that he didn't like. So, yeah, a lot of miles. It's
it's in an effort. I feel like you can control the outcome a little better when you're putting in that many miles finding birds that haven't been messed versus if you're always leaving it to chance trying to hunt these pressured birds. They're doing sporadic turkey things. You know. We talked about like how smart can something be with that
little pea brain of theirs. But they and I don't know if they're smart or if they're just have an uncanny ability to do what just random thing they need to do not to get killed.
Yeah, they're very instinctive. You know, they've dealt with enough pressure. They figured some things out.
Yep.
Educated birds.
Yeah, So I'm gonna diverge a little bit from our conversation just give a quick update on our Kansas. I'm sure you'll have some stuff to interject with the way that the things were going so out there in eastern Kansas. You know, we're hunting easterns. We'd been hunting early May. Typically that's typically when you start to get your hands with full nests. They're not near as interested in feet in as long you're like, all right, money, you know, we've got loan toms, and so we were always told
that they're more callable early. So we decided to go there April twenty, April twentieth. We fly out there to Kansas, and everything is is a little bit late, and so or it actually seems to be a little early in Kansas. Whatever it is that those toms are completely handed up all day long, like they there were some toms we'd see that would still have hans out in the field with them at one or two o'clock, which I don't It may be extremely late, like they haven't even started
laying their first egg. But I almost can't believe that, you know, April twentieth by then, especially being that far south. But or she had just went later egg nested for a little bit and then popped right back up a little bit earlier. But we could not call those birds off very easily. Do you have any And I've always said Easterns are more stubborn, They're more difficult, They're more hard headed. When they fly down. They don't mind if
they live in the bottoms. They don't care if they ever gobble at you the rest of the time, you know, goblet of the roost a little bit, but.
Way more frustrating. I mean, it requires a lot more finesse. You know, a lot of different type tact calling than what we do out here. Our birds out here don't really want to hear a lot of cutting, whereas you know Easterns they do.
They want to hear it excited. Yeah, yeah, And that's sometimes the only time we could get them to do and get a call or get anything out of them. But they were very, very content just doing what they wanted to do and not dealing with you at all. As a hunter. They had their you know, seven eight ten hens, all with an eyes sight. They were all
roosted together every night. You know, they roost a little more I would say typical in a typical spot every night there, and they knew all their hens showed up. We sat close to a roos tree one night, all the hen show up. Tom's being I don't know why they didn't fold their hands out. They come in from a completely different direction, but they all meet at the same rooster. It's just very difficult to hunt.
A lot more tactics of crawling, a lot of moving and trying to sneak in and get in the right positions. There's there's so much more you got to put into it. Easterns.
And just like you had mentioned earlier, you don't like to sit in the blind, and I don't necessarily. We all know when we go to Kansas, if we just sit in a spot, we will kill a bird. Yeah, you know, they're very very patternable. But we don't like to hunt that way. So what they do is they get us running ridge to ridge with gobbles and then they would be on the opposite ridge by the time you got and you're just like, it's almost like you have to sit still to kill them. But who wants
to hunt them that way? Yeah? Some birds?
That's you have no choice. If that's the kind of air you're gonna hunt in, I mean, you got you gotta do.
Yep. I was uh. I was able to kill my bird on the first morning there. We didn't really roost. We don't roost those birds in Kansas like we do, and I guess you don't roost here a whole lot. I usually roost pretty you know.
Yeah, No, I don't do much of that. We just go out and listen in the morning and get in tight.
Yeah, which is awesome because every morning's kind of a new morning. I've always liked just that excitement, Like no, when I'm seventy one hundred yards on a bird and I liked I always like to look at and like, oh, he's gonna pitch here, and like guess, and I guess ninety percent wrong, But I still like that game. But there I was able to We went out listen. We had a couple of different birds. We had one close,
and so we didn't He didn't only gobbled once. Early we had to go set up in the dark, and sure, sure enough, as it started to get daylight, he was sixty yards away in a tree. We had already set our hen out there, not in the right spot for what we wanted, and three jakes fly down first. I'm like, oh, no, he's just holding up up there like maybe he doesn't want to fly down because of these jakes. He doesn't want to get bullied around. So we sit there for
twenty minutes. We're just gobbling up there in the tree. And we sit there for forty minutes after the jakes have flown down, gobbling in the tree, and at about I'm guessing fifty fifty five minute mark, and these jakes are just at full strut under his tree. So it almost looks like they're waiting for him to come down and they're gonna whip his butt. You know, we had
that hen decoy. I don't know exactly what's going through their head, but so they were just puffed up under his tree for fifty minutes, fifty.
Yards from shutting in the tree basically.
So all of a sudden, two hens fly down and hit the jakes. We're like, oh boy, it's about ready to happen. And what I think happened is why we were setting our decoys up, and I was being a dummy because I didn't think that that bird was that close. I had like a spidercum land and I was trying to like move my gun barrel around and loaded my shells, and I think he just got nervous like he wasn't. We didn't spook him enough that he just flew out it,
you know, and just fly away. But we knew something, and I think even his hens knew something, even though they were even deeper than the Jakes. And those hens flew down and I was keep my eyes on her. They flew into the jakes, and then you could see they kind of like, did the scurry walk away from us? Dead away from us.
I'm like, oh boy, they just knew someone.
Yeah, and that bird it's the ground. I let him take about two steps and clear everything. I'm like, I know what's going to happen. And so was shot that bird. So I you know, if it wasn't for an hour of him hanging up in a tree, you I wouldn't have huntred for very long. But we were able to get that one killed. And then we actually we went and did a cold sit on a on a field where we know two big birds had been frequenting and we only been we only been set up for half
an hour. Set it just to Dave Dave Smith decoy a hand out there maybe forty yards from us, a little bit further, but we wanted him to pull our attention off of the edge, and all of a sudden and they're coming, two big giant birds, like old old birds, big old paint brushes.
On him, and the sire.
To be able to get him coming to decoys. But then the bird, the non strutter, he came over and started to mess with the big bird, and he did it at the wrong time. He needed to do it, like ten yards later, because as soon as they started to tussle up and wrap next and kind of messed with each other, they just went straight to our left at sixty yards and a little too far to shoot,
and so we had to let that bird go. They were active in the morning, but you needed once again, you really needed to be in the way where they wanted to go. Later in that hunt, we got some really good action. A tom actually pulled off of his hens, came into us, but once again saw something that decoy he didn't necessarily like and exited at about fifty yards and just not quite The guy I was hunting with
wasn't quite comfortable shooting there. But yeah, we don't need to tell the whole entire hunt, but it was just one of those things where Easterns are stubborn, and I'm starting to really unlike them, especially now that you know, I only had a two day break and was able to come out here and hunt Mariam's I'm like, man, this is way better for the most part. You know
the answer. They're more huntable. You can, you know, get back on him at three o'clock in the afternoon and they'll stip, you know, typically start gobbling.
Again, versus we have to train you enjoy being in two Yeah.
And those birds in Kansas, they would just gobble half hour in the morning, half hat night. That was all you're getting out of them all day. So real, real frustrating. So we're gonna jump more into a Washington focus. Now let's do a little update here. First thing we need to mention is it is hot. Yes, it is hot. We we're hitting what mid eighties.
Yeah, we're only a couple of days into this high pressure and it's had its effect for sure.
Yep. And give us a little of your I'll call it your opinion, but it's also probably pretty factual. Since you've been out here doing this enough, you talk about like three days in a row is what you like to see, no matter what it is. But it needs to be three days and then maybe not this hot.
Yeah.
I mean, I've experienced this so many different times over the years. It's not even funny and it's realistic to me. So we'll call it my science if you want. But anytime we've seen a pressure drop or pressure change, whether it's going into a high pressure or a low pressure, if it's extreme like this is. You know, we just went from fifties to low sixties at the most, and then we jumped straight into this high pressure of upper
seventies and hitting eighties. And what I've always experienced when that happens, whether it's either direction, you know, it usually takes a good three days minimum before things really get back to normal and birds start becoming extremely workable. You can still kill a bird. Obviously we did it, but it took a lot of work. It took more work than it normally does. Now we've been trying to tell Jason, this is not normal, this is not what we normally experience it.
It's got to get better.
And what I found, it's always about a three day mark, and that's just way. Whether it's bad weather, you can' three days boom, doesn't matter. If it's still bad as long as you slipt into it for three days or so.
Yeah, it's and we'll roll into that a little bit not what I'm used to, So I hunt a different area typically, I haven't been in this area, and I'm a little I'm a little shocked at how much contrast there is to my normal spot and in the way. So I still think this is pretty dang good hunting. These guys are telling me this is nothing like it
normally is. So I'm excited to see if maybe this high pressure holds for a couple more days and we can experience that, you know, third and fourth day, even the fifth day before we head out a camp, and see if those birds really turn it on.
Yeah, I hope. So we're hoping too.
On this hunt. The nine ams and this is we've always talked about this. If you listened to almost any Cutting the Distance podcast, you know we always joke about the old timers saying, you you young guns, young guys can go go hunt those birds off the roofs and I'll go kill them. At nine o'clock. You know, I'm gonna eat breakfast. So nine AM and the three paid the three pm kind of the spark, you know, Yeah, it's the time to be out there. It really is. Get on those critters. And the nine am to me
makes a lot of sense. You know, hens are gonna go lay on their nest, go lay their eggs, and those toms find themselves lonely.
Yeah.
The three pm spark is a little bit more interesting to me. It's like, I don't know if it's a temperature thing. If it's a the sun's getting low enough. Finally, like why three pm? Because I'm not going to lie Like my sweatometer says that three pm is still damn hot. It's the hottest it's been all day at three pm, and these birds are starting to fire off at three three point thirty.
Yeah.
Well, the other good thing about when you have this kind of a high pressure is we can kind of predict they're not going to go sit in it. So look we did yesterday, we moved to a different area. I knew that area is going to be a little bit cooler in general. But that three o'clock timeframe has just been golden for a lot of years that I
can always think of it. Birds are usually out and they've spent their day eating, and now it's heading towards their thought process, in my opinion, is you know, we're going to be start starting to gather up, and a lot of times you're just going to see Tom's out there by themselves and they've lost their hands for most of the day, but they want to gather back up with them so they can you know, have their way
first thing in the morning. And if you're a hen that's kind of starting to talk around that time of day, you're probably looking to gather up with them.
Yep.
And so then were't have to come in.
Yeah, we've had great hunts. Well, I killed my bird about nine am years was a little later than three m But we got on a bird and worked the bird yesterday for hour and a half. Yeah, probably yesterday, right at three o'clock, I think, I yeah, yeah, I
think I got picked off. You know. It was it was some up and down cliffy country, you know, a little bit steep elevations, and it was I think we just got caught guessing he was a little bit further, but we still worked him for a bit and then yeah, I was able to get into a different bird later. So pressuring pressured birds here, you start to realize whether you know, I know you're good. I think I'm pretty
good hit this thing. But we were starting to realize, like pressuring pressured birds, no matter how good you are, we're running into some struggles, right. They don't want to play the game. They don't want to turn around. We watched a couple of birds through the binos come down a uh you know, by themselves, one really big bird. It looked like maybe at a jake with them in tow. They didn't gobble at all. Coming back nine o'clock, we we did some calling. They did gobble once I take.
The one back on their own. We didn't evene.
Yeah, as far away from one of my calls on either side as it could get, just for sure literally just gobbled on his own. But it's just weird. We were we were I wouldn't say were in their zone, but we were with an earshot where two birds without a hen should answer any any hint call and nothing.
And and we tried resetting up, we went to multiple different spots, just could not get a peep out of them talk And so we've talked about it about this afternoon, like we just need to go find a spot where maybe somebody hasn't talked to a bird yet or a bird that want you know, very very few people have talked to. So, yeah, we're we're dealing with some pressured birds here. Turkey hunting is very popular, and uh it's
it's you know, for for good reason. There's it's there's some really really good turkey hunting here, but uh, there's there's also a lot of hunters.
We've seen quite a few boots on the road. That's a good indicator. You got pressure.
Yeah, pressure. So we're dealing with that. And our way to deal with that is we said, put a lot of boot you know, boot in and try to get to some birds or think a little bit outside the box, like, you know, are there short little hikes that maybe don't have good access or you know, little chunks you can get into on ag edge, whatever it may be, like, try to find that little you know, diamond in the Reugh.
Yeah, I'll look for the easy roads in look for the stuff that's gonna take effort that yep, a lot of people don't want to put that effort into it.
Let's talk a little bit. We we kind of started going down that path about you know, we worked our tail off to even locate my bird but then in my in my mind, the approach to my bird was a little bit different than what most people would have, you know, do, and it goes back to don't do what a typical hunter would do. So we were climbing up a very steep, real good looking ridge. Turkeys had been on that ridge, real grassy. Get to the top located bird across the canyon, the big canyon. We were
climbing up. All right, he's there, gobbled a couple times.
He was just on the ridge we were on too.
He's been moving, yeah, and so we know we know where he's at. We get up, we climb. Someone said, there's a road up there another fifty yards. Yeah, we get to the road, and at that very point, it would have been very easy to walk that road directly to his gobble.
Absolutely, yeah, it would have been the fastest, easy.
And like most people would have got there and been like, oh, this road leads right to the ridge that he's on. You know, the only problem was you get down there about four five hundred yards and you're going to be completely exposed to the ridge that he was on, and if he looks out there sees you anything's up, or if you try to call to him and like, really get his eyes over to that road anywhere in between. Yeah, the gigs up. You're not going to call a burden that's seen you.
He might gobble, but he's probably not gonna come.
He's not going to come in. So we look at it and we're like, oh man, we got to climb the next little knob and the next little knob, and we got to stay rolled over so he can't see us or hear us. And then we get to the end and once again, it would have been very easy to just track and hit the road just a little bit further back, but yeah, we had to. You know, it was put your hoods on everything, and it was
one of those just dry sticks snapping and crunching and cracking. Yeah, but we did it on just enough, I think on the backside that you know, it wasn't right in his face, and we we took the absolute hardest route to get there. But the nice thing was when we finally did hit the road, we knew we were behind his ridge, we were out of his eyesight, we were out of everything, and we got to that point without screwing it up exactly where we could have screwed it up real bad.
And he heard our call on that other ridge yep, and then he never saw anybody else, and the next time he heard our call it was closer to him.
So it was just I don't like, I don't want to necessarily say we did something that not everybody else would do. But I think a lot of people would have just walked that road. And so it's just going that extra step making sure that you don't screw up the you know, the opportunity that you have and keep it intact right. It's yeah, if you if you blow it up early, then you might as well not even walk over there. So keep it in tack.
I mean, look how many miles we put into it.
I mean it's like, do we want to give up going the best possible route after all these miles.
No, let's give it every ounce we got ye paid.
Off, so we'll follow that up. So we get there. He gobbles to the woodpecker call. We didn't we were. It was that's one of those times where not blowing a turkey calls like one of the few good times, Like we want to ye a little bit of that shock and awe. You don't want to necessarily disclose your location, because he doesn't know there's a hin here right now. We would pick her call from the road answers, some of them has been there, so he we didn't have to look at on X or anything. We just know
go down there. We got on his ridge, get set up, and we're going to talk a little bit about certain calls here on the box call on your bird, but on this bird. I think I yelped a little bit on my my mouth call and I'm like, huh nothing, nothing well John, and John starts the olp, and sometimes I think he does this just so he can say a bird answered, maybe not you, but no, we we call a little bit. We call a little bit different, different pitches different, I mean, and the bird hammers back
at him. I'm like, all right, I'm not calling for my bird, own bird in you know. It's like I didn't want to, but it's like I'm just done calling it.
We want to kill this bird.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we set up at a tree, we get all set up, we put the we didn't have to, so we get all set up. Someone drops back. So we were at a weird spot where this ridge line trail split. So we set up.
This is sharp ridge too. There was a lot of room. Now this is a.
Great segue into my next point, but we might as well rolled in. We set up at an angle, right yeah, This bird was not gonna walk a lot of a lot of people, even myself. The first your instinct is to set up right here because you can see down the ridge. But guess what, when that turkey gets visible and you can see it, it can see you, and there's a lot of chance for stuff to go wrong.
After he's gonna pick.
He's gonna pick something out. So we've set up at an angle. Set up at an angle that gives you the ability to shoot both trails, both angles, and keep his eyes off of you.
Right yeah.
We want to try to get that ninety degree angle if we can possibly somehow. If you're using the decoy, it's even better. And you know, putting that decoy out where if he's gonna see it, he's also shootable at the same time, but just don't have him coming straight into you with his eyes.
And one thing we've did with the decoy the first the first evening and then this morning we brought one is set that decoy up so that you don't believe you're gonna be in it's its line of sight when it does see it, because if you're behind it, the idea of the decoy is to take his eyes away from you, right. But I've seen a lot of people set up where they're like straight line with their decoy
where they expect that bird to come. It's like, no, set that thing off at a forty five degree to your left from where you think the bird's gonna come, and let it see the decoy before it sees you. That way. Is he comes around, it gives you a chance to move your gun whatever it may be. But yeah, yeah, don't don't set that bird up.
Line up.
But that's that's a good point. Don't line up with it, and that does happen. I've had people send me a text, man, I just made a classic mistake. I lined up right behind the deep Yeah busted.
So it's instinctive though a little bit right, And if you don't think about it, you're like, well, the bird's coming this way, I want this decoy towards him. And then you go straight behind it and you're just in line. And I think a lot of people get picked off, and you know a lot of or a lot of people say like, oh, I didn't you know, like I just told the story. I didn't like my decoy. It's well, maybe didn't like seeing the you know, your face behind it,
or the shine of your gun. You never know what. So back to my spur. We get set up, Smoe set up behind us. You're set up to my right. I think you yellped a couple more times, and he gobbles twice from down low and uh, me and you were kind of besting at the tree, like wow, we don't want to have to keep pulling gobbles out of him, and you know, you're you don't want to have to force everything. And I think we just get done finishing up that conversation. And and he's right, He's he's in.
You can tell there's no more timber between him and us.
He cut the distance in half that.
You were like, all right, he's here. So I clicked my safe and uh, we're waiting. Then I can see he comes. I could see his head bobbing from the right. We can hear him spinning drip yeah, sin, yeah, I forgot yeah. We I I evidently assume everybody's deaf when we're calling birds. And I'm like John, you hear him spinning, Yeah, I hear him spinning. I just thought you might not
get loud. So he shows up, and we were hoping he comes a little bit like straight down my barrel like at twelve o'clock, which we just said we don't want to do, but this is pretty.
Much we wanted to see him. His head come up going towards it.
Yeah, but he comes up more like at my two o'clock and works towards my twelve o'clock right, and I see his head bobbing about three steps, and then he gets to a spot and anybody a ton of turkey's on if you just read their their mannerisms, and his head goes blink straight up, turn to the left towards us, and pow yep, And he was about thirty yards and
I knew he killed him. And then all of a sudden, I hear John say, I don't know if I could see him very well, and I'm like, oh, dang it, because I I just soon because I had such a good view that. But anyways, it was it was a great hunt.
It was a good setup.
We did everything right, you know, and we didn't overcall him. He did what a bird's supposed to do with everybody hopes and yeah, I mean for filming wise, I was on your right. If i'd been on your left, that I would have seen him perfectly like you. But I mean, we're still going to see him through the shrub. He stopped right behind that shrub and stuck his head O.
Yeah, great hunt. We couldn't have killed him at a higher elevation. Yeah, the tippy top peak of the whole place.
But it was cool furthest away highest top yep.
That we Yeah, we talked about setting up at an angle which I really wanted to cover, which simple did a lot on this, And then last night on Your Bird we jumped in an area we've already mentioned. It was cooler, little flatter. We needed a little break after getting my maps, my bird all the way back to camp. I do want to don't call me a wop, but I just want to say, packing a twenty ish pound bird for four miles on a on a shoulder sling, it becomes very uncomfortable.
Sure it does.
That's my complaint of the day. I'll take it every day. I'd rather take that that complaining. But so we get your bird located after you knew there was kind of a little honey hole at the back end of this public piece. We get back there, we got some birds answering way down, like we're not going to make a plan on them this late, and we just get to the edge and we get hit by two birds.
One just said too, wouldn't it be nice we could kill a bird with this view? And I'm like, yeah, that's it was. It was beautiful, that's the goal.
We get hit by two birds to one of John's and so remember this little point. John yelps with a mouth call and we get a bird to answer straight ahead and probably at nine o'clock to our left, and just to set the scene, they're probably over a forty five degree slope, like very steep. Yeah, it was very very steep off the edge. And so we get set up real quick and get everything ready and I didn't have the greatest setup, and you guys kind of just kneeled behind an old root wad that it fell over.
We may do. We thought it would be if those birds can came in on a string, it would have just been close shooting. We would have been able to kill him when they showed up. Yeah, I believe the bird that was straight ahead of us actually starts to work to the right, but we cannot get this dang bird to answer.
Yeah, he answered once to my original call. We knew, and we had two of him because one was a little left, one was a little right. Yep, And he answered me that one time, and that was pretty much it.
But we knew he was there.
Yeah, And so we're set up and John's yelping on his mouth call and I can kind of see the frustration. You just shake your head. You're like, now they're dang hind up bird or just a bird doesn't want to play the game, and you kind of I'm always hesitanting and I wouldn't have necessarily did this anyways, but you look at me and kind of pointed my box call, get your box call out like that. What so here me being real nervous, I'm like, I'm just all just
call real quiet, just real light pressure. And I probably I just did a real short, not a long, maybe five yelps, pretty soft, and yeah, they hammered, like cut the end of it off, and I'm that worked.
They're almost going away, yeah, until you did that.
Yeah, and then it pulls him up. It pulled him up to our elevation. But now these birds were quite a bit to our right. But we had a real good like on the rim of this drop off, was was real clean. We're sitting there and I accidentally kind of squawked my box a little. You know, you're trying to keep that thing box quiet, and you look at me and shake your head, yeah, like go ahead and do it. And that wasn't I didn't mean to ask you, but I kind of in around about.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not whatever, it's gonna work.
Hits the box again and so swipe it again, same thing, and then I think we'd be quiet. We we went pretty quiet there because he's real close at.
That yeah, at that point, and then.
We start to see three birds, and and you had made uh I'm either I heard you whisper to me or something like they're going to see you before they see me. And I'm like, so now I'm like tucked way into my tree. I got like half fly hanging out. But I do see three birds come in.
I'm looking at the angle that we're set up. We're set up at a good angle over us for filming, and I look over at you and I'm like, dang, he's yeah.
Because the way I took the birds, if they would have came in straighted to our left, I would have never been picked. But they came to our right, which now like exposed me way before that.
You get way before I, soom get exposed.
So we're sitting there and I start to see the first bird come out, and I'm like, I don't see a beard, but I And at that point it was real sunny and shady and the sun was kind of setting weird, and I'm like, jake. I thought it was a jake, right, And then I see two birds come by, and I'm like, whoa. I one had a really big, you know, beard, and then the other one came by and it looked really good. I'm all right, we got two toms and a jake is what I thought the
whole time. Well, then they sit there and mess around on that top for a bit, and that hen turns towards like you know, they had heard a box call five minutes ago, but she turns directly towards us. Yeah, and takes off sprinting.
Yeah. Right, oh boy.
And there was a little dip between us about fifty yards out a pretty good brushy dip and then he got back up to that green grass and when she took off, both those toms took off down to the brush. And I'm like, man, I hope they don't turn left in that little crick draw and get out of here. I don't know why they're running. Are they scared? Are they running towards us? Like? What's going on? You know? I can start seeing heads bob over. Oh, here they come. We're gonna be good.
Yeah, And it's like forty yard max to the minute they were showing up and get better after that.
And uh, first bird goes through, I'm like, oh, let the jake go. And then the second bird I can see and I'm like, it looks like the real, you know, the good one. And I can hear. I could hear you before that tell some among something about which bird you were gonna shoot, but I couldn't hear. I can hear you guys chatting, and uh, the bird I was watching, I'm like, what's taking John so long?
Why is he not shooting with the big rope?
Yeah, I'm like, that bird's just sitting there and uh, maybe something's in his way. You know. I don't got your perspective and uh, pow, and the bird I was watching flew off. I'm like, what, John, There's no way John missed. And Simona, even off camera, said I think you missed bad.
Yeah, he's like he said, So I'm like, oh, man, you missed. I'm like, I didn't miss anything.
We walked out there and there was some miscommunication. You had shot the bird in the back, which typically is the biggest uh tends to be for me, and and he got that bird in the middle to kind of come out of strut a little bit. And so there's you know, your bird was an old bird three years plus but great bird. Yeah, great bird, just uh, you know,
he was a brawler, all tore up. But that was what I want to I told the story there a little bit, but really wanted to go back to Most people use box calls for locating birds windy days, high ridges, big country, and uh in that instance, I we've talked about the bird. I called him my wife or in for my wife, and click attap only would answer box call. I had to literally box call the thing into our
lap and not necessarily box calls. But don't be afraid to try something different, try your you know, your crystal, your crystal pop call, Try your slate pot call, Try a different striker, try a box call. Try you know, if you have a diaphragm that you think is way too raspy and and not high enough pitch, try that and then go try your high pitched one. Yes, I've learned from hunting with Eric brought now hunting with you. Hunt with all of these guys that call different Chris Parrish.
There are times where the way Chris Parish, which is surprising, you know, the way he calls, isn't what the want to hear that day.
Yeah, he's a phenomenal call.
Yeah, yeah, I like it. He can do whatever he wants with a call. But yet that bird wanted, you know, somebody else's old raspy call, and that's a little slower cadence and a little louder, and it's just it's one of those things where just hit him with a lot and see if you've got something in your toolbox or your arsenal that's going to get him fired. That's right, something different.
Yeah, I was not shy to saying, hey, Jason, get the BAX call.
Yeah, yeah, which I'm always has that there's you know, everybody's rando a box call those but some of you and you guys out there. One thing bad about a box call is it's the absolute maximum movement in order to get a turkey sound outs fact. Yeah, you know, diaphragms very little movement. Pop call, like I really only have to make a quarter inch circle with my fingers, but a box call, I'm having to move a paddle at least three inches minimum, and so there's a lot
of movement. So I always get a little hesitant. But you either got to take the the little bit of risk that you might get saw versus the chance that none of your other calls are working right now on this bird.
Yeah you're about to lose him.
Yeah yeah, So it's it's pulling out all the stops and yeah yeah, that was That was one thing that like it reiterated what I learned back and click attack, you know ten years ago my wife's bird is like, there are times where a box call needs to be oh yeah, be used, and and it can be.
A very box calls because it's really hard to beat a lot of times. I mean it wishould one with a good drop and you know, of course Jason was using a Phelps box call that kind of helped.
Yeah, that uh that that box is sounded really good and we it They backed it up again this morning, and it maybe goes back to a little bit is don't be like all the other hunters. Yea, we use that box call more this morning, and you were just because it was something different. I bet you not everybody's throwing a box call at these birds and apparently once
again the same as last night. I think it worked better getting birds to answer when we were like searching for that gobble or working down a ridge versus our mouth calling. So it's just you know, don't I guess the moral stories, don't be afraid to try something, you know, all the calls in your.
Yeah, you may have a call you love to use, and it may always work in the past, but yeah, if a bird's not tune in into it and he's just not answering, pull out the next one, move on and keep trying.
All right, So I'm gonna I'm gonna end up with a everybody's gonna stereotype me is like the guy that's definitely afraid of ticks. But I think you might have me. That's what we're gonna close on this. I I put a post on there on social media about promethrone and got I probably haven't got more questions on a specific topic.
And I'll tell you right now, I'm holding one in my hand. I'm waiting for this to get you. I could get rid of it.
Yeah, as I was getting all the podcast stuff set up, you pulled one off of my leg and we are to set the stage here. We're literally in a dirt camping spot.
There's no hass, nothing near but dirt.
You went to toss your carcass last night, YEA had six on the outside of your pants, and just I shouldn't have said it because it probably made you more nervous. But I'm like, man, if you have six on the outside, image and then you trying to fall asleep. All I could hear was John over there yelling about ticks in his tent.
I was like that, drop my pants now.
Yeah.
I was plucking them off for like I don't even know thirty minutes. They were everywhere on my legs, and I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
Yeah, And you said you've never I've always gotten the ticks bat over here, But you said you've never experienced something like we've had the last couple of days.
I've been walking through brush and always cutting the distance through all kinds of junk, and I've you know, yeah, randomly I'll get a tick, I mean with the permeter and it's you watch them climb a little ways and just fall off. But I'll tell you what, this is a whole new game right here. And we're just sitting on dirt and there constantly we're looking down like up here comes another one walking up my legs.
Yeah, it's been so I'll just I'm gonna just do a quick recap on you know. Some of the people like where do you get it? What do you use? The two brands that I use and I use them interchangeably is repel or Sawyer. And I like to use the aerosol. I don't like to use the spray or like a squirt bottle. You know, I use squirt bottle. So I just used the aerosol. It's I think it
usually comes and mix it like a half percent. Yeah, And I'm I'm not here to give any advice, like there is some you know, promethrone is a poison, so do all your own due the euligence, like make sure you do not put it on your Skin's right. It needs to be put on your clothes and it needs to be allowed to dry.
Yeah, your socks too, up socks.
Yeah, And one thing I would just recommend. I know you guys aren't hunting gaters, but like, I think I'm faring a little bit better. You and smell have had a few more on you know, get inside your pants. Like the gators are hot when it's eighty five, but I'm like, I'm just avoiding dealing with them up my pants right now.
You are, I'll give you that. I can't stand it when it's this hot and wearing gaters all the time. But yeah, and I'm definitely picking more ticks off the inside of my.
You are you? Oh?
I got to tick crowl up my boot right now. I'm telling you we're recording. I know I have one inside my pants on my leg right now. I'm holding it with my hands because I'm talking through a microphone with the other one.
All right, well, I that No, we're on day two a day four of our washing the hunt. I appreciate having you on, John balth and knowledge when it comes to turkeys and uh, I want to I want to recognize you do a lot with the veterans, a lot with the youth. Can't thank you enough for for what you do for people that want to get out and experience an awesome Turkey hunt.
So really by giving back, you know, we have a good time doing ourselves, but you get to a point where you just want to get back, and that that's important for all of us. So take a kid out, take a veteran out, take somebody out that's never hunted. Do whatever you gotta do to spread the sport.
We need everybody out there.
Yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks for having Thanks for hunting with me this week. It's been been a blast. We're not even close to being done yet, so we're going to thank If you want to find out more about John, follow him on Instagram Northwest fur Chasers. The guy spends a ton of time out in the Turkey woods and knows this stuff. Thanks Sean and a