Ep. 5: Understanding the Turkey Nest

not a problem. Good to be here, Yeah, thanks, thanks. You have any big plans for the spring? Yeah? I do. Actually, Um, I'm I'm making the kind of annual swing. I'll go to Florida lighter in March, and um hit Texas for a week and and then Buddy and our making a swing out with us. I think we're gonna do South Dakota and Montana and Wyoming and um then I'll I'll probably be divorced at that point, so I'll have to have to come home. Yeah. Yeah, you have a pretty

full plate there for spring. Um. You know, similar to our falls, you you guys load up in the spring to chase turkeys and and uh, I can't wait to get out there and chase turkeys. I think I'm only gonna go to two states. We're gonna go back to Kansas, and then I'm gonna hunt kind of the area I cut my teeth on here in northeastern Washington. That'll be my two trips. So yeah, we're gonna start this podcast

off with a few questions um from the listeners. The first question, how much should I call to a gobbler on the roost. I'm gonna give you my answer, and then Michael go ahead and give you the right answer. Um. In my opinion, getting closer to that tree is maybe even more important than the calling. But the question was about the calling. So what I will typically do is I want to to get that bird to recognize me

or acknowledge you know, that that he's heard me. And that's typically you know, done by a gobble that follows my soft tree. ELPs, I know he's responded to me. And then as the morning continues on, some of the other hims start to wake up and talk to the turkey. He starts to get more excited. I tend to let him know where my presence is, but ideally I would like to call as little as possible, but enough to

still be recognized by the tom um. I've I believe I've had the worst luck ever hunting turkeys out of the roost. Um. It never seems to go to plan. But what do you typically do, Mike, as far as like how much should you call to the gobbler, why they're on the roost and maybe why you know why you do that? Yeah, I don't call much, man. I I usually if I know he can hear me, which you know, if you're within a few hundred yards of

the bird, he knows exactly where you are. I'll usually only call once, um maybe twice, and then I even if he doesn't respond, I don't continue to call because I know he's heard me. Uh. If I get a response like your and like you know, if he cuts me off one time, that's it, you know, I don't. I don't. I'm done for that until he until he hits the ground. And sometimes I won't call until they

fly down. It just it just depends do you do you change based on if you've been able to pattern those birds are kind of seeing what they've did the last couple of mornings, or will you just wait until they hit the ground to deer calling or is it because you know they're typically gonna you're set up in a good spot and they're gonna come your direction. Mostly usually when I don't call when he's in the tree.

It you know, I've got some some knowledge that Okay, when birds are in this location and they fly down, they typically will do this or that. Um. But I've also hunted some birds before that. You know, you you called to him in the tree, and they they shut up and they fly down and head away from you and gobble, and they expect you to come to them, which is in their world is supposed to happen anyway.

So um, sometimes I'll just if I think I've got everything on my side, there's no hens around him, he's by himself. Sometimes I'll let him hit the ground and then give him a call, and um, and I think sometimes it almost elicits elicits a responsible waite a minute. I didn't hear her over there, and now she's on the ground, and and uh, I've even you know, done flat ounds and take you know, my hat or the wing that's in my in my jacket. And really, you know,

once he hits around really makes some racket. And I've had some birds responding pretty favorably to that too. Gotcha, that's what you're saying, is in the tree, I should resist the urge to keep calling that bird, keep getting him the gobble to me, and just he knows I'm there. I've already established that, and then just be quiet. Yeah, okay, perfect,

I'm gonna add that. Yeah, yeah, And I agree. Like I said, I like to call as little as possible, but sometimes it's tough, like, well, he's gobbling on all these other hens. I want him to acknowledge me or re acknowledge me, um as the morning goes on. So all right, the second question from our listeners is one of turkey gobbles but heads directly away from us. What

should we do? Or or directly away from your setup that initial setup or you know, if you're I guess, if you're locating early in the morning, you get a turkey to gobble, but he continues to head away from you. What should you do? And so I always it makes my decision tree a little better. I always assume that that bird's in toe is something. You know, he's got some hands, he's in toe, and so I'm just assuming that he's got hands. He may just be wandering, he

may just want to go to a different direction. But I always try to just think that he's got hands, he's going in a different direction. I always want to know are there other birds around? Are there other good options for us to go hunt that morning? Or is that your only play? Is that the only bird in town? And you have to make a play? Um, I've had very very little success, way better success, you know, trailing

elk than I have turkeys. Um, If I'm going to try to make a plan that turkey, it's got to be a big loop. It's got to be you need to take the time, put in the effort, get way out in front of that bird, and then also understand the risk of doing that is you know what what speed did he travel as you had to make your loop? Are you still on pace? Are you gonna you know? And there's a there's a pretty good likelihood that I may bump that bird if that's the play I'm gonna make. Um,

So ideally I'm gonna go hunt a different bird. If he continues to gobble as he heads away from me. Um, you know, the second of all, if that's the only bird I've got to hunt. I'm gonna make a big loop, try to get in front of him and then either ambush or or some light calling out in front. Do you have anything to add to that, microor just a completely different strategy. Yeah, well no, I I usually, Um, it really depends on the bird and where I'm at.

You know, like if I'm in Merriam's country and they start heading away from me, I'm doing what you're you know what you just described. I'm getting up and trying to figure out where they're headed. Same with rios. Sometimes you know, they can they can they can book it and head to a different county. It seems if I'm over here in my neck of the woods, um, where it's really thick and and these you know, these Easterns

can be a little bit different birds to hunt. I will often just sit tight, believe it or not, because, um, if I know that he knows where I'm at. We have a lot of data showing that sometimes these birds will circle back to these places from which they've heard calling two or three or four hours later. And I know nobody wants to sit there listening to a bird gobble and walk away from you. But sometimes that is

the right play. Um. I think if if I know that he's got hands with him, then that's one thing.

But if I think he's alone and I'm just not on his agenda when he hits the ground, I will often just sit tight and see if I become on, you know, part of his agenda later in the morning, or I will maybe try to track, you know, trail him, track, follow him a little bit and just kind of keep the location I started from in my back pocket, and if I need, if he just veils completely and he shuts up, I'll a lot of times I'll go back to where I started and sit tight and call blindly.

And I've had birds, but I don't know if it was the same bird, but I've had birds that showed up doing that. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. That's a great segue into into the discussion and some of the questions I wanted to ask you, Mike, is I believe I was on the Meter podcast and and I think we had a phone call with you and some of your answers, and it was one of the most fascinating. You know, that's why science is kind of cool, is is you there's no you can think things, but once we've got

the data from you. One of the things that I was kind of amazed by is that the research that you have, um, like you said, you call from an area maybe early in the morning, and you guys have got you know, caller or tract birds that will come back to that exact point two to three hours, you know, four hours later to to you know, once the hens go to nest to come back and and look for that that hin that was calling to him earlier in

the morning. Can you can you go into some of that data and some of the you know, whether you know, percentages and whatnot, and kind of dig into that information a little bit more for the listeners. Yeah, sure, sure, yes. So what we've done on some study sites is we've actually, you know, we captured Tom's and in the winter and we put GPS units on them. But we also asked cooperating hunters to carry a GPS unit in their pocket. And it's just you know, like a garment e treks

or something, just something simple. We turn it on, it gets a location every minute, stick it in their jacket and and when they're done with their morning hunt, they drop it off with us. And and what we've seen pretty clearly is situations where a hunter knew he was on a bird. He or she was on a bird, the bird was in the tree gobbling, and for whatever reason, the hunter was not on the agenda when he flew down,

and that that's real common with turkeys. They had they know where they're headed, and sometimes you're not where they're planning to head when they fly down. But then they get curious, and if you think about it, it makes it makes sense from their perspective that, um, hey, I know she's over there, but my first agenda item is this place where I interacted with some hinge yesterday, and I know they're going to be there, so I'll go there first. And then as the morning wears on, he recalls, hey,

I remember hearing something there. I'm going to go check her out now and see if she's still in the area. And we have seen numerous instances where a hunter will will sit in a spot, presumably just by you know, calling to the bird. The bird flies down, cuts their track, goes behind them, walks off whatever. A few hours later, their GPS coordinates are the same. The hunter is back at the truck and gone, and that bird is standing exactly where he or she was sitting. Uh, And it

just speaks to being patient. And that's to your point, that's exactly why I I'm one of the most impatient pe fold that's ever walked this planet. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Yeah, I just can't. I'm busy body

and answer my pants, you know. And and the more I've gotten, the older I've gotten in the more data I've seen, the more patient I've become, because I do realize that sometimes it is going to pay off that that bird is going to come back, not every time to your question, And you know, percentage wise, it's not a high percentage, but there's a percentage, and that to

me is relevant because sometimes it will work out for you. Yeah, there's a strong enough correlation that sometime later in the day that that bird is likely to show back up at that spot that it's it's worth the play than than going to find other birds. Is maybe to hold tight and you know he will come back. And now with that said, Mike, is there is there any varying data?

Does it? Is it different earlier in the year where not as many you know hens, or maybe going to nest versus later in the year that this is likely to happen sooner or more often or is there any difference, But mean, like you know, earlier in the spring till later in the spring, not that, yeah, not that we've not that we've been able to see it. You know, I ultimately think it boils down to his options that that day, and you know, you know as well as

I do. And these birds know where they're likely to interact with hens, and that those are the places that if they don't have hens with them or they're not following hens, that's what they're going to do. That they're either going to fly down and go to a call that they think as a bird, or they're headed somewhere, often quietly or even gobbling while they're walking, heading to a place where they they think they're likely to see some hens um. So sometimes that just doesn't include us.

You know, that spot is not what we're sitting, and that's why they seemingly ignore you. And you know common you know, logic dictates we call louder and we get up and track them, and we do. And in reality, if you called, it's as loud as a whisper from several hundred yards away, he knows exactly where you are, they're they're hearing is a cute. They know exactly where you were calling from and are capable at any point

of walking to that expect to that spot. So times just sitting tight is is a good play, as hard as it is to do it. Yeah, for sure. Right hunt in eastern Washington, very very steep canyon country, and we did kind of the impossible the one day, working a burden a couple of hens, and they pitched off of the adjacent mountain and they landed, you know, ten

yards from where we were calling. You know, they flew all the way across the canyon and hit and landed, and it's like their ability to know exactly where you were was was demonstrated that day and I couldn't believe it, Like, you know, they could have landed dirty yards off, but they literally landed no decoys right where we were, you know that the two callers were calling from and just crazy. So yeah, that's that's a great tip. And like I say, it was something I didn't know as a turkey hunter.

Um and then your guys data kind of showed it is that those birds they know where you were at, they remember where you were at, and there is a a you know, better than than random chance that they're going to come back and visit that location sometime throughout the day. Um, which, which, like I said, being being the busy body, you know, the guy that can hunt from a tree stand because I will go nuts. Um, it's something I definitely want to add kind of to

my um you know, tree stand for deer. But you know something I want to add to my my turkey hunting arsenals, Maybe a little more patient and if I'm gonna go back to camp and take a nap, might as well just take a nap under that tree and you know see if something shows back up? Yeah yeah, what better way? Doesn't I mean enjoy the spring, would you know? Sit there and yep, yep, yep for sure. So this next question kind of comes from once again

my own, my own question. UM, as I grew up hunting Easterns here in western Washington, which you know some say like those South Carolina birds or maybe the toughest birds to hunt, like our Easterns here in Western Washington. Maybe the toughest bird I've ever had to chase, just because of the low densities. I always say, if you can find one bird Um, you're doing good for the year,

let alone trying to kill it. Um. You know, we may find one to three birds, max um, and then we go over to eastern Washington and get to chase Miriams and Rio's around and me not me growing up, you know, as a high schooler that would jump in my Honda Accord and drive across the state just so I could go hunt a different bird and hunt higher density of birds. I was. I felt like I was hunting different different, a different creature. You know, they were

both turkeys, but they acted completely different. And I wanted to just go into you know, whether I'm hunting Easterns in Kansas, whether we're hunting Merriam's and Idaho or Eastern Washington and and every other bird, Like, what are the stark differences between let's say the Easterns, the Miriams and Rio's um, and how you would use some of their their distinct differences to maybe hunt them different because you know the first day I showed up Miriam's, I sat

into the tree watched him, you know, go away from me, gobbling, and and I didn't get up and chase him. I just I kind of sat there like, oh, this is like an Eastern, He'll he'll be around, He's gonna hang out for a while. Um, not have a big you know, not have a big loop. And then I might as well laced up my running shoes that morning and just took off after him. It was, it was a completely

different setup. So kind of with that question, Um, you know, how do you hunt you know, Miriam's and Easterns differently kind of some of their habits and how you can kind of use some of that against them. Yeah. Yeah, Eastern's you know that I'm hunting over here. You know, their home range size is only let's just say, on average, you know, during a spring week, maybe a few hundred to a thousand acres or so, so they're not going far from you. Um. I tend not to move a lot,

you know. I'm not one of these running gun scoot and shoot whatever you wanna call it. I tend to just uh try to figure out where the bird is headed and what's his daily agenda, what are the options, and then try to to be as patient as I possibly can. Um, And that I think has worked for me there. Yeah, there have been some scenarios where I got lucky and just called bird up and boom it

was over with. But a lot of the time I've had to work and um, and realized that maybe just sitting tight and kind of you know, being really really quiet, calling subtly not often has worked. Um. When I go out west, I'm like, what you just said has exactly been my observation with Miriam's. Yeah. Hell, if he flies down, he's in the opposite direction I'm running. I mean, they cover some ground. And Rio's can do the same thing too, you know, they fly down and they get the booking it,

and UM, yeah, I'll never forget. And I was hunting in Kansas one time and and we followed these words. We I mean we had to get in a truck to to find them. I mean they just literally it was like they left the county and come and find out. That was their routine. Each day. They flew down across the road, went across two pastors, and before you knew it, they were three farms away and they were interacting with hens. And that's just what they did every day. And UM,

so that's kind of the mindset I use. It really doesn't matter which subspecies I hunt. I try to scout a lot. I try to get as much intel as I can about where they want to be anyway, because calling a bird to a place he already wants to go, or near a place he wants to go, in my opinion, is a lot easier than calling him somewhere he doesn't go. Um. And I'm not the world's best caller, so so uh, I try to I try to be where birds won't want to be already. Yeah, and is is the old

hunting guy? Um, you know that loves the turkey hunt? We knew something very very similar where if you can let that elk do exactly what he wants to do without you being involved, you've made your life a million times easier trying to call that that bowling or that elkin than trying to reverse or pull him three under yards in the direction he doesn't want to go. Um.

So yeah, very very similar. If you can, if you can intercept that bird in his daily routine, it's gonna make your life a lot easier, you know, trying to call that birden versus you know, doing what he doesn't

want to do. Yeah, no question, absolutely no question. Okay, I'm gonna dive into something and uh, I don't have a great grasp and I was able to hunt uh eastern Kansas last year and got to hunt with Chris Parrish, who you know, I was really picking his brain because I've always wanted to know, you know, about nesting and more specifically, like you know, when a hand laser first egg to their last, Like what's that process? Like when

does a hand lay on the nest? You know all day the majority of the day, do they ever lay on it? There's a lot of you know, misinformation out there, and I wanted to hear directly from you and then how that old mentally affects the hunting. You know, I know that April fifteenth in Washington, which is our opener, is not a good time to hunt one because everybody has taken that same time off to hunt. And number two, I cannot get those ding hands to ever you know,

go away. I'm I'm dealing with, you know, what seems like a hand up gobbler the majority of the time. But when I go hunt that same piece of public ground or same area, say May five, May tenth, my job just became a lot easier and a lot of times later in that morning, if I can you know, find a bird or get one to to light up. Um, it's my job is a lot easier trying to call that bird in so and my understanding it all comes

back to nesting. And if you can do kind of a nesting one on one here, um, i'd I'd love to hear it. Yeah. So, So basically, what what these birds do is they the tom's become receptive before the hands do. And that's why you see them gobbling and displaying and doing their thing before nesting ever starts. The hands become receptive. Uh. And the way it's supposed to work is everybody breathes pretty much at the same time. Uh, and then everyone should go to nest at the same time. Now,

that doesn't always function. Uh. We see, particularly in heavily hunted populations, that doesn't always occur. It may be more prolonged. But the bottom line is the hen you know, she she starts laying, she lays about one egg per day. UM. Early in the laying sequence, they will go to the nest once a day, they'll lay an egg and they'll leave. As they get closer to the day they're going to start incubating, they will spend more time at the nest. Uh.

During the laying process. So in other words, she may go on day eight and lay an egg and stay there for an hour and then she'll leave. And what she's doing is she's she's incubating eggs and she's synchronizing everybody. So the day that she starts incubating the last you know, the last eggs she lays, she'll start continuous incubation. And

at that point, you know they're on the nest seven. Uh, they'll leave, as I think we're gonna talk about, but um, they'll leave and um take a break, defecate, eat, come back to the nest. Their clutch sizes really depends on the population, but it averages about ten to twelve in that range. So if you think about it takes them about two weeks to lay a clutch, and it takes them about a month to incubate you know, the hatch. So so they're really tethered to that nest site for

about forty five days. UM. So she spends a lot of her life within a fairly small area. And from the standpoint of of um of hunting, what you see is that that tom's really ramp up compa titian amongst each other during the laying sequence. And that if you think about it makes sense because these birds can perceive. Um, there's research and mallards showing that they can perceive when females have eggs in the overduct. Drake's can when they're

flying around in these courtship flights, they can. They can sense, they can tell that she's in her laying sequence, and if they breathe with with a female during the laying sequence, they have a very high probability of being represented in that clutch. So if you think about it from a turkey's perspective, all of his lady friends start laying eggs and his time is running out because she's about to

be unavailable to him. She's going to be incubating the clutch and at that point she's not receptive to him anymore. So what we see in our research populations is gobbling activity really increases during the laying sequence. So when a lot of your hens are laying, you'll see a lot of gobbling activity because competitions really high during that time. So from the standpoint of planning a hunt, just like you just said, um, you know it's April fifteenth, that's

in Washington, it's super early. They're still in these big flocks. It's hard to get that bird away from those hens. A few weeks later, most of those hens are incubating or they're laying eggs. At that time, they're in much smaller groups. They're dispersed across the landscape. He's super, super wound up, and you know, competitions high. It literally can act like a different bird, an entirely different bird, because he's he is different during that period. That's what I've seen,

and I actually try to. I try to time my hunts if I can, if I'm going somewhere that I don't know, I try to time my hunts if possible. It's not always possible, but if I can close to the laying period, because I know that competition is going to be high, and that means birds are I want to be gobbling and all things being equal, that's what makes me go out there. I want to hear bird's talk and I want to be receptive. I'm gonna wind back and ask a couple more questions on some stuff

you said there. So when you say, once the clutch is completely laid, she will lay on that seven so she she no longer those hens will no longer go to rust. They're sitting on those night and day except for to go feed and do the stuff you said, correct, Yeah, that's right. We see a few instances of hens that maybe the first day she incubates, she may leave the nest that night and roost nearby. But within a day or two they're they're continuously incubating all day, all night,

and they'll take a break. Usually we've seen from about eleven a m. To about four pm they'll take a break. It averages about an hour um. They will usually travel a hundred two hundred yards away from the nest and then they go back. And that's typically that lone hen that you see. She won't go join up with the flock or go find it tom that that hen will usually just leave her nest, go feed, localize, and then come right back to it. Yep, yep. And they they are.

They are very secretive during their nesting period. Uh Turkeys, you know, they're very gregarious and they hang out and their social with each other year round, but when they're incubating, they don't. They don't want to be around other hens. And part of the reason for that is they parasitize each other. They will lay eggs and other hens clutches um. So not only is she trying to avoid predation, but

she's trying to stay away from other birds. And that's why you often will see those lone hens kind of you know, shaking bake. She You see her and she's going to the same area every day and she's only there for fifteen or any minutes and then she's gone. That that's what she's doing. She's she's got a routine and she's back to the nest. That makes sense. And then she gets bread daily or one time to make

her whole clutch. And this might be a really dumb question because I don't know you know birds that well, but does she need to get bread every day for that egg or is it basically one time up front and then that the fifteen eggs you're created from that that breeding. They can breed once and produce a clutch. They're they're not designed to they're designed to breed multiple times to produce a clutch. And there's there's several reasons

for that. They don't have to breed every day. But in an ideal situation, so turkey store sperm, so they will breathe, they'll copulate, and they store sperm and these tubules in their body, and then their body releases the sperm from those tubules, and when it does, that creates competition at the sperm level. The best, the most motile sperm wins, so the um the viability of that sperm

decreases as it ages. So if you think about it from her perspective, in an ideal world, she'd breed multiple times across a number of days and store up the sperm because the best sperm is going to win. And she's not sure who that is, what tom it is. Usually it's dominant birds, but not always, so that's kind of how that works. They they should breed multiple times and what that results in if you look at clutches, um, the research has been done thus far shows that a

number of clutches have multiple tom's represented in them. UM. So she's not only breeding with the same TOM over and over, she's breeding with multiple times. Gotcha, That makes that makes more sense. It wasn't a straightforward answers, so it's kind of a mix of you know, one time or multiple and then the the strongest wins out. My next question for you, and and this is more of

you know during that that laying time. When laying one egg, you know, for whatever it is, fifteen days or or you know, maybe you know it could be a difference. But let's just say they lay one egg for fifteen days. How far are they going to travel from from their roost tree to where they're nesting? And I know the hints, you know, the hens prepare all their nests differently. Um,

Yet they're all typically roosting next to each other. And I've always kind of attributed to why you know, the hens may walk the tom in a certain direction towards their nest or towards where they're all nesting. But how far are they typically gonna move? And I know it's gonna we already talked about it the subspecies, and it's it's different. But um, you know, do we have any data on how far they travel from you know, roost to nest typically? Um? Yes we do. I've I've got

a student that's actually looking at this right now. UM, and I don't. I don't have an average for you. What we do see is that, uh, these birds appear to have different strategies. In other words, there appear to be some hens that have quite a few rush locations in there and their home ranges while they're laying, and

others do not. Um if you think about it, it makes sense to not spend time at that nest while you're laying because you're not there to protect the nest, so it's unguarded, so you really need to stay away from there as much as you can. Um. So, we we typically see that birds spend a lot of their time elsewhere in their home range and then they run over to their nest, not literally, but they moved to their nest, they lay an egg, and they're gone. Um So there. I don't think there is a distance per

se and average. I think it's it ultimately depends on when she's laying, you know, what time of day her body tells her, Hey, it's it's time. You know, you need to be moving in that direction. I think that dictates where she's adding her home range relative to that nest site and how far she is from it. But they do tend to stay away from that nest until the hour they're going to lay, and then they're then

they're gone again. So that's that typical morning where you know, they all fly down together, they do their thing for that morning, and then you'll start to see that hen kind of break off, go lay that higg and then she comes and joins back up. Yeah, you see that a lot. You know, you've got five hands that are together. And then at eight o'clock there's four, At ten o'clock, there's three. At eleven o'clock, they're gone, and where are they at. You know, they're off doing their own things,

staying away from each other. And you know, from a Thomas perspective, that's when I've had I've had a lot of luck at that time of morning. If if you can get those get those birds away from those hands, they become receptive. So one thing for me, we used to scout a ton, especially growing up here with very few birds. We would spend you know, every weekend in

March trying to find birds. And then I was able as I started to hunt northeast Washington, made the drive over the past, started to scout birds and figure them out. But the only trouble I was running into is I was scouting them in mid March, late March, and I would get there and the birds seem to have dispersed um, you know, whether they were more comfortable early in the spring in the location and then they seem to have moved. Um,

can you tell me a little bit. I know you've you've worked on this and and you've you've had some schematics on how birds move and and disperse and talking with my buddy, my good buddy Randy who owned some property in Kansas, like his his properties are loaded early in the season, and then his season gets late, like he loses his density of birds very quickly. Um, going to neighboring you know, so it's obviously I want to

be there earlier in spring, but leave. Can you tell us a little bit about like that natural cycle of you know, maybe white turkeys are loaded up in a place, you know in marches, is they're kind of you know elk. We would kind of say they're staging and kind of figuring things out, and then they slowly dispersed into smaller flocks and smaller groups. Um, and kind of what's going through? Are they just trying to go? Are the hens finding

like they're their annual nesting spot? Like, what's the reason for that dispersement and how does how does that kind of play out? Yes, So what turkeys do is you know, what you're seeing in early March and some of these

areas are just winter flocks. Those are flocks that they've been together, you know, since the fall, and you've got a lot of birds there there, and they're about that that flock is going to blow up, um, and it's going to become a handful of smaller groups that are more social groups than anything, and that will often cause a scenario you just discussed. Um, they're here in March and then April they're gone, or two thirds of them

are gone. Um. What what they're doing is they're shifting their home range at that point, and they're moving from more of a wintering area to a spring reproductive area. Sometimes that's not very far, and sometimes it's it's a

long way. Uh So, for instance, in our easterns we see that, and you know, in some areas it's not they may go to the next farm, or they may I mean they're very close by, and other populations, like our pine dominated landscapes down in the southeast, they may move, you know, a couple of miles from their wintering range to their spring range, and that causes them to literally

disappear from private properties. You know, if somebody says, Mike, I had birds until February and then they left and then they had they don't come back until the summer. When you go to the western subspecies, you often see, like the research has shown with Miriam's, they will move

a dramatic distance from winter to spring thirty miles you know. Um, and you see that, you know, I think less common in some of the prairie landscapes than you do in other places where they're moving, you know, to some degree based on elevation, but um, but yeah, they they can cover some ground between winter and spring. And that's a common scenario in all of the subspecies that shift from winter to spring. Got you that that makes a lot of sense because some places in you know, we're hunting

Miriam's in eastern Washington, you know, real mountainous. You might as well just put your backpack on, and you know, because you're five six miles from a road where they're wintering down in that agg and then as the snow melts, they're almost following you know, that snow line kind of back up the mountain and they just end up where they're at. I guess as long as they have enough food and water and security, and that's where they want to nest and and you know, do their breeding then

that they'll move up there. But I just always wondered, you know, like that dispersement, like why wouldn't they hang out on the agg um. I don't know if it's you know, concentration of predators or what their reasoning was from from leaving where you know, it kind of feels like they got that that gravy life with a bunch of agg and a ton of bugging and kind of everything they need and they almost make life harder on themselves by going up into the mountains and and you

know doing it that way. Yeah, Well, they're looking for you know, they're looking for habitat that they think they could hode in and they can take a brood too, and the brood is going to have you know, more success. And in those in areas where you see elevation chains like that, Um, what you just said is is spot on. Sometimes they literally almost looks like they're following snow melt. Well, what they're actually doing is they're moving up and down

elevation based on resource availability. So as things are greening up and becoming more succulent, insect communities are thriving, they're they're going to shift around and use that. Um. And you don't see that is that shift is pronounced obviously saying Eastern's where you know, in most areas they're not living. Elevation is not a really big thing for them. Um it can be, you know, Appalachians in some areas it

can be, but usually it's more pronounced than Miriam's. All right, So that just kind of covering that we talked about scouting turkeys so much that you know, if you are in you know, the western area is where these birds are going to maybe disperse. You know, the the Miriam's and the Rio's are gonna move a little bit farther.

You know, just keep that in mind while you're scouting that there are birds there now, but they may not necessarily be there when you come back, or you know, when it comes time for season to actually open, you may need to go. You know, they'll hire a little farther to find them. Um. Okay. And then this this, this question isn't gonna necessarily fit in, but it's something I've always kind of wondered about. I've read a few

articles on it. When I was growing up turkey hunting and getting really into it, you know, in the late nineties early two thousands. I was doing a bunch of reading because nobody in western Washington, you know, huntred turkeys. The the idiots around here. The only thing we had any interaction we had with weld turkeys, with somebody shooting him out of a field with a rifle when they seen him. And you know, nobody hunted these things. It

was a bird they shot with a rifle. And so I was trying to learn, like how do we find him? How do we call them? In? Um? And you know, I can remember reading back when Missouri was like it, and I might be off by a few years, but you know, Missouri was in there heydays. You know, some of these states back in the Midwest where just you know loaded, and then now you fast forward one and some of the numbers that are coming out, like Missouri's

in bad trouble. You know, As I was hunting turkeys in Kansas at the gas station, you know, you'd hear comments to to Randy and and Chris Parrish like, hey, you know, turkey seemed to be way down this year, almost like they're they're at extinction levels almost, you know,

compared to what they were twenty years ago. Um. You know, some of the articles we read are really putting a lot of pressure on the youth seasons, and you know some of the reasons why they feel youth seasons may have a bigger effect on the birds even though the numbers aren't that different. Can you maybe shed some light onto what your opinion is, whether it is youth seasons, whether it's maybe is predation like a lot bigger issue. You know, we've we've talked before about you know, the

price of raccoons. Um, you know, there there is no market, so nobody wants to go out and trap raccoons anymore, you know, and bobcats, coyotes. You know, it seems like possums. Everything's after after a turkey. But, um, do we have a good idea yet on maybe what's what's hurting these numbers. Are youth seasons to blame, is over harvest to blame? Is it predators or is it I mean we all kind of know it's probably a combination. But what's your

what's your feeling on the biggest impact? Um, it really depends on where you are, and and I'll just say it depends although I know that's a cop out answer, but the bottom line is Uh, all of these things that occur on the landscape, habitat issues, predation issues, harvest issues, weather disease, all these things impact turkeys at at a local level. The contribution of each one of those things varies.

So saying it's predation, no, it's not just predation, it's predation, and X y Z saying it's hunting, No, it's not hunting, it's hunting, and x y z, UH and PDQ and ABC. I mean, it just depends on where you are. The bottom line is from a turkey's pers effective if you look big picture, kind of use the coach's view of the of the US and the areas where turkeys live.

You know, the big picture. You see that. UM. All you have to do is drive across the United States and look out your window and you will see compared to twenty years ago, habitat loss. You'll see, uh, habitat degradation, the existing habitats that we have left or not as the quality they were. You'll see fragmentation off the charts. UM. Things that interest you know that split habitat, roads, power lines, rights of way, you know, you name it. UM. That

doesn't benefit turkeys, it benefits things that eat turkeys. You see um, you see a lack of management of properties. In the South, it could be lack of fire. In the West, it could be lack of prescribed fire or timber harvest. Things that increase early successional habitats. You you see predator communities are off. You know, they're they're more diverse, and they're more abundant than they were historically. There are

more of these things out there period. And if you think about it from a turkey's perspective, if you have less habitat and what is there is has more predators in it. That it's math. It's basic math. So we've seen that successes is quite a bit lower than it was historically. We have disease issues that are popping up

all over the country that we really don't understand. We've we've known that some diseases affect turkeys and half for years and years, and there are some new things that are emerging that we don't have a good grasp of, and we just it's hard to answer questions about disease because sick birds get eaten and we never know they're there.

And you factor in man, we like to hunt this bird, and you have a bird that is the only bird in the conterminous United States that's unted during their reproductive season. So we are hunting turkeys, you know, we're hunting the fall in some places, but by and large, we hunt

this bird in the spring when they're breeding. And you throw all that in a blender and and it what you end up getting is is the recognition that you have all these complex issues that are facing this bird, and managers are trying to manage harvest, and they're trying to do that in a way where you and I can go out and hear birds and and the resource is sustainable and all that to say that, yeah, populations are struggling in some places, and it's got management agencies

really really looking at, Okay, what can we do to change the playing field here? Because people like you and I complain because and we have every right too, because we we cherish this bird and we want to be able to hunt it. We want to be able to hear it and enjoy it with our families and our friends, and and we realize that we can't do that. It's frustrating to us. And and a lot of people are frustrated right now because populations are in many areas are declining.

Not everywhere, but in many areas they are and and it really has agencies, um has agencies scratching their head as to what to do. Got you so to paraphrase that and hopefully not answer it wrong, is that youth seasons may have an impact, which is, we know for sure they do have an impact, but it might not be the you know, the major impact that some of these articles are seeing. You know, it's a combination of

of all of these. I don't buy the argument that youth seasons are impacting Turkey populations, and the reason being if you look across if you look across the subspecies ranges and you look at what percentage of the total harvest is taken by youth hunters, it is a very small percentage. Um. Yes, it's typically early, it's typically before you know, the general season opens. It ultimately depends on

the rate of harvest. In other words, if youth hunters are killing two thousand birds and that is three of the times and the population, then it's irrelevant. If they're killing of the times, well then that's more relevant. So it it these broad sweeping statements about hey, this is it, it's it's us seasons or its predation, or it's this, or it's that. I don't I don't lend a lot of credence in those because they there's not information showing

that is the cause. And like we were just talking about, there is no single cause. It's a complex series of things that ultimately hinge on how many birds you have, how many you're harvesting, what you know, what the net success rates are. And that's why we do the research, honestly, man, you know, I mean we do the research because we tried to. We're trying to understand these these questions and and give people answers because we know, as human beings

we want to answer you know. Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna close up with the question I've been asking everybody if you could give one or two small pieces of advice that you think would make a turkey hunter more successful? What would those what would those two things be? Um going into the spring, say, say you're struggling, you know, what are those like two little keys that you kind of you have? I tell myself every day, be more patient, um, be more thoughtful. In other words, don't be so reactive

to the situation you're in. Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast. I don't know if you're well. I'm an old NASCAR fan. I don't watch Nascar anymore, but they'll Earnhardt used to say, sometimes you have to slow down and go fast. And in turkey hunting and in life in general, I think sometimes if you slow down, you end up being more successful. Analyze the situation, be patient, be willing to sit longer. And that kind of dovetails into my second piece of advice. And I tell people

this every spring, and I do that. I try to do this myself. I don't. I'm not always successful. I do it with my deer hunting well. I love fanatical deer hunter. Sit longer, stay out there, fifteen minutes longer, thirty minutes longer. You know, I get out of stand at ten o'clock. I'm like hot hell with him. I ain't seen a deer in three hours. And I'm like, Okay, nope, I'm gonna sit until ten fifteen. I'll sit utill ten thirty.

And by doing that, the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to have an extra half hour in his creation, enjoying what's around you. That's the worst possible outcome of that, well, I'll say that. I mean, you could get run over by a truck or whatever it is. But the bottom line is you're going to spend more time in a place you cherish, and sometimes

times that's successful for you. Be more patient, to be willing to sit longer, spend more time in the in the spring woods, and if nothing else you're going to you're going to be enriched by the experiences that you have. Yeah,

for sure, I completely agree with that. And you know, everything that we're chasing, whether it's you know, elk predators, you know, dear whatever we're calling to, I think that that advice can can you know underlie all of that that, Yeah, you spend a little more time and and you know, good things are probably gonna happen, you know, during that extra time. So well, thank you very much, Mike. Like

I said, you know, you're a wealth of knowledge. We could have talked about anything to do is uh spring Turkey, but I picked out a few of my my own personal questions I wanted to ask you, and I really appreciate you taking your time, and uh, yeah, I really enjoy the spring this year. It looks like you have a full plate and I wish you the best and good luck to Spring. Yeah you too, Jayson, best luck to you. Ou