Ep. 7: Elk Hunting and Turkey Hunting Are Damn Near the Same Thing

turkey hunting. We may not be the best at it, we may not know everything about it, but we're going to dive into why it's just got this bad image amongst the Western hunters, why it's not as cool as calling in you know, maybe an eight hundred pound bull elk um, But then maybe why they should consider it cool, and why it is a bunch of fun and something to do in the spring. So welcome Dirk. Oh hey there, Yeah,

so I have been at some turkey calling contests. Oh you have all right, I'm gonna correct meself, okay, okay, the real judge, Yeah exactly, Okay, So we've got to chase elk all over you know, every fall. We also love the turkey hunt. You know, I wouldn't say as much, but it's definitely fun. It's something to go out there and do every spring. And so that's what we're gonna dive into. But first we're gonna jump into a few of our listeners questions here um that we've got. So

the first one is, I've never hunted turkey before. What are the must haves? So I'm taking this question is I don't need to go out and buy everything, but what are the must haves. I'll let you take this derk and I'll see if I can add to your list at all. But you know, I I feel we should keep the list simple. You know, whatever it is for calls, whatever it is for gear, you know, shotgun, um, that sort of stuff, like what's the minimum you can

go out with in the spring and be successful? Yeah, So if you're a diaphragm guy, um or a girl, you can definitely get by with just diaphragms. You can locate with diaphragms, you can call them in with diaphragms, um. But I will say there are some days that diaphragms sometimes just don't cut the mustard. I call as loud or as different or as soft as I want, And sometimes I just don't get any response. But man, you break out a box call and wow, I mean it's

just a game changer. Um. I don't know if it's just that sharp pitch of a box call or what, but I feel like that's like I gotta have. Like, Um, they're easy to use, especially for new callers. They're just super easy to use the versatile and uh, it's a great way to mix it up. Yeah, and and I'll take it. You know, as far as what weapon you need, if you're an archie hunter, you you can just take

your normal archery setup. Um, if you're gonna go out there with a shotgun, any twelve or twenty gauge will work, especially with the day's ammunition, some of the TSS loads and some of the crazy stuff they have out there, Like you can dang your take a four ten though. Um. And they became a viable option now that there are TSS loads and you can get so many pellets out there. Um. So you know, any shotgun with with the right ammunition. Um, you know a couple of diaphragms, Uh, you know, a

pot call with a couple of strikers. But you know, I wouldn't say they're there, must have. It's just nice to have because, like Dirk said, some days those turkeys won't answer one versus the other. Pot call is just like the box called, very easy to use. Um, you know, and I would say it's not an absolute must have, but it makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. Some sort of seating pad or a seat. Um. You know,

you don't necessarily need decoys. They're nice to have, but as far as the must have, you know, some way to locate the bird, um, and then some way to call it in and then somebody to kill it, so you know, your your bower, shotgun, a couple of calls, whether it's a diaphragm, a pot call, and then um, you know, most importantly you need some birds on the property you're hunting and have them you know, fairly well scouted out. Man. I couldn't agree more like on that

seating the seating pad. You know, I've been the tough guy all these years, and you know, you sit out on the ground and it's cold and it's wet and or sometime uncomfortable. And last year when we were hunting with our good buddy Randy Milligan in Missouri, not Missouri, in Kansas. Uh. He had these little seats, He's super low profile, uh seats for hunting, for turkey hunting. And to me that was a game changer. I man, it

was so comfortable. You could sit there motionless comfortably for ever, Whereas the other option is sit on the ground and man, your butt gets cold or tired, your legs go numb or whatever. So yeah, I mean I noticed, Dirk, you you didn't fall asleep at all on that first night when we didn't have the season. Once we had those seats, you were like three for six on knaps. So it was that the comfort level definitely rose. Um when we

now it is it's just a more time. You know, I don't have very much patience, but the more patient you can be in gear like seats or a good seat, UM can definitely add to you know, the the fun and and the comfort of it, but also the success if if you have the ability to sit in an area, you know, as long as you need to without getting ants here, like Dirk said, your legs fall asleep, Um, is gonna lead to a lot more turkeys being killed. Um. The second question we have will jump into this before

we jump into our discussion. My question for Dirk is what do your go to turkey locator tactics, which will play right into how we locate elk and the way we like to do it. But as far as locating turkeys and I there it's probably a two part question, Dirk. I would say, how do we locate turkeys while we're hunting? And then how do we try to light locate turkeys, you know, either for the roost or using you know,

non turkey sounds to locate turkeys. So for for years and until actually last year when we came out with that new crow call um the mediator x Phelps crow call, then UM, I just used my voice. I would either use al hoots or um or crow calls, so I would are more of a more North Idaho. We don't have crows really, we have ravens, right, so UM, I would just use my voice. You always kind of feel

weird doing it too, you know. Um you start going, like especially if you're with somebody who's a new turkey hunter and they don't know anything about it, my wife or kids, and and you get out of the truck or you hike around and you're going, I mean, it gets, it gets kind of weird if like, whoa there, take it back? Yeah, why are you scaring these things away? Yeah? And in fact, um elk cutting before in the fall.

I've had turkeys answered my bugle in the fall. You know, they're they don't typically bugle or gobble a lot in the fall, but um, I've had him answer me from the roost tree in the fall. Yeah. I don't like to use kyo house and stuff when the turkeys are on the ground or when I have to hunt them, so like in the morning and stuff. But that's kind of our go to locator at night, once they're up in a tree, if you give a good yep, um and get those turkeys so we can locate him in

the rus for the next morning. But once they're you know, let's say it's it's early morning and we actually have to hunt the birds. I don't want to put any extra pressure concern on them that there's a coyote on the ground in my direction. So we use a lot of crow calls similar to you. I cut my hands and do kind of a who you know, an al hooter sound that we use, um you affiliated woodpecker. And then a lot of times once we get going on the hunt. We're just using our turkey calls. You know.

It seems like a hen yell or a little bit of cutting seems to get them going, maybe more so than than the straight locator. But we kind of just play to what they're responding to. If we're getting them to answer O crow call, will stick with it. If they're answering you know, hand calls, then then we'll stick with them. But yeah, we reserve that kyote hal for roost him at night, which seems to be you know, our our best tactic as far as nighttime locating. So yeah,

that's that's how we go about locating turkeys. Why we're hunting while we're putting them to bed and roosting them. Now we're going to roll into to our discussion and we appreciate all you guys as questions and keep them rolling in, but um, we're gonna dive in fairly deep or as deep as we can. We're gonna kind of keep it light. Um. You know, there's just been this big you know front that that turkey hunting isn't cool,

don't compare it to elk hunting. You know, like all these little rules from these Western guys on on how it's not cool to maybe turkey hunting, And so we're gonna go through compare and contrast, he seeing, and then the end kind of like what's our verdict? Is it very similar? Are these guys just you know, trying to

maintain status by not turkey hunting? And why? I think ultimately we're gonna be able to say why you should be turkey hunting every spring if you like to call animals in Yeah, I think there's some weird bravado or something. Us Westy's, as the East Eastern folk call us as Westy's, have a lot of us, you know, are like turkeys, they're stupid or whatever. They're dumb. It's a dumb bird or whatever. But um, it's nothing like elk hunting. But

there there are some definitely some crossovers and similarities. And yeah, I think you know a lot of us out west we're just not that good at it compared to the folks that just live and breathe it so and it can't be frustrating. So I think there could be some of that too. It's some animosity towards turkeys from US guys out in the West. Yeah, I've said it before, you know, everybody likes the label turkeys as a dumb bird.

You know, I could drive down the road and shoot him on my window, and which is true until you have a shotgun in your hand and like step outside your door, and then they become maybe the smartest bird you know on the ground. And so it's it's why they seem very um, you know, not very intelligent. Uh quick glance like when you try to hunt them, and and as long as you say that, you you know, you're not gonna shoot him off the road, You're not gonna shoot him as you drive by. You're not going

to shoot him out of a tree. And and go and hunt them. Um, they become you know, fairly fairly challenging. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm not so sure if they're super intelligent. I don't believe that. But they are like the next level tricky, like they want to they have a will to survive, and they're a master of avoiding danger. Um with his

eyes and they're just they're just really good at avoiding danger. Yeah, and just just they're like daily timeline of you know, they'm all flying out of a tree, the tom staying with the hen Why we want to be out there and call him in and then just the the I guess their daily routine makes them very you know, sometimes difficult to kill because he's not gonna leave the hens that he's with until they go to nest. And by that time we're ready for a salunch and we're heading

in for lunch. So there's just things that are in place that just you know, turkeys are just doing what turkeys do, but it seems to make them tough to to hunt at times, or to or to get that tom to break off. Yep, I agree, yep. So let's compare how we like to locatel compared to how we typically locate turkeys and kind of walk through that process. So, you know, we've always said, you know, elk hunting, you can either locate with a location bogle or you can

locate using your binoculars. The same can be said for turkeys. You can locate them by glassing them up. But a lot of times I would say, you look, we locate more turkeys by being audible. They're a little tougher to spot. You're not gonna sit across the canyon necessarily you can and look for them. You're mainly going to hear them talking to you or you're gonna spot them it like the back of an agg field or something. The one major difference which we can jump into is turkeys can

be located with shot gobbles. We can use other sounds, you know, whether it's crows, peacock, some of their natural predators out there, some of the animals or birds they

don't like. Um, you know, doors, slamming, elk, bagles during the spring, you know, almost any loud sound we can use to locate them, which does give us a little bit of an advantage on locating turkeys because you know, when you locate with an elk call, you've now announced yourself as a cow or a ble and and their attention is now drawn to you versus if you're using the turkey call, you can locate them what they call, or you can use a shot gobble, which now they're

not necessarily as concerned or paying as much attention to the direction that your crow call came from, because not you know, as focus. So let's walk through, Dirk, like you know a little more in depth how we locate elk and then how we go about locating turkeys as far as like take us through a day. You didn't have an elk body. We're just gonna go run ridges versus you don't have you know, turkeys. Root said, how are you going to go locate? And how those you

know compared differ? Well, I think folks who are big turkey hunters they call it running, gun running and gunning. Right, So you're basically covering a lot of ground quickly and you're just you're just trying to pick up a bird with your locate locator calls. Um. You may stay in one spot and call for just a little bit, you know, whether it's a minute or two, and if you don't get a response, you move on to the next spot. And you're just trying to cover as much ground as

you can to find turkeys. And we do the same thing with elk cunning. Um it's uncanny, really, um covering a ridge system, calling into every little nook and cran of a draw or or up onto a ridge. Um. It goes to the same thing with turkeys. You know. Um, if if you have a terrain feature in between you and the turkeys, sometimes you have to get to the top of that that train feature. Let's say it's a ridge, maybe you're gonna have to climb to the top of

that ridge. Even even the most subtle of ridges um on the back side could be a little hollow or something or a draw where a turkey's at and you couldn't hear him, and maybe he couldn't even hear you. But you have to kind of eliminate ground by just covering as much country as you can, pitching your calls out there and kind of looking for those responses. Yep. And it's it's very similar for me as well, Like

aside from Glassingham. If if we're you know, turkey hunting in eastern Washington, which is similar to some of the country, we all cut um, we're gonna jump up, get on a ridge. That way we can you know, utilize both sides of the ridge covered twice as much ground versus being down in the bottom or you know, half hill on one side. And then we're just gonna throw locations off of both sides, whether it's you know, loud yelps, whether it's crow calls, and you know, whether it's a

location bugle for elk. We're just we're literally sound checking every little pocket, every little area walking down that ridge, and we're just looking for a response so we can get that game started as we walked down that ridge, um and run, you know, versus if we're where we were in Kansas last year, when we're you know, in a more flat area. You know, you're looking more of that fringe, are you know, you're you're on the edge.

You may be calling down into those bottoms, Um, you're calling into to terrain differences, but you're not necessarily running ridges like that. So I'm real similar as far as how we locate them, how you want to get up Let the sound travel a little bit farther, and um, it seems to be you know, you know, I was just thinking about how I relocate turkeys, uh and elk. You know sometimes Um, maybe it's the first day you're there into a new area and you've just never been

in that place. Um, you know, I'm driving all the roads and checking out the lay of the land. I'm checking out where all the other hunters are hunting. And uh, I don't typically want to hunt elk or turkeys by everyone else, So I'm getting the lay of the lamb, seeing where everybody is is at. But you can also spot a lot of turkeys out of the truck, you know, especially when you know they're they're chasing, chasing hands from like the feeding area to their betting area, or from

their betting area to their feeding area. UM, you can catch them crossing roads, you can see the mountain clear cuts, you can see them in the the fringe of maybe big meadows. UM. Just covering country if you just have nowhere, no idea where even where to start. You know, getting getting some glass, doing a little glass in here and there, but just covering a lot of ground with your eyes and then diving in from there and doing the running gun technique is just great. Yep, yep, I agree with that.

You know, learn, learn the land, learn where you would want to be. You know, if you were a turkey, you know, if you use your past turkey hunting experience to kind of figure out the area and then, like you said, get away from people and focus on that. So let's let's assume we've located some turkeys, UM, similar to let's assume we've located some milk. We have a pretty good system dialed in for elk. You know, we we checked the wind, which we don't have to do

for turkeys. We we move in close, use it. Yeah. Yeah, they would be really tough to kill of um, you know, but we we get the wind right, we we figure out kind of the terrain and the vegetation we're dealing with, We get close and then we you know, for us, we typically vehicle, but we might start with like a lower progression and work up what does your system or your turkey hunting script look like as far as all right,

we've located them, now, what are we gonna do? And I would say after hunting, you know, with you getting turkey out with you, we've got a fairly you know, scripted system the same way like we're we're going to move in the same way Chris Parrish and you know, Randy and all the guys we've taken in with you're literally locating birds. The only difference is we don't have

to check the wind now. Um, But how do you feel like that part of your turkey hunting like strategy compares to your elk hunting in where they made it for it's very very similar. Um. Once I have them located, I want to get close. I want to get close as I can without getting picked off by their eye sight. But with turkeys, I feel like I can't get quite as close. Sometimes even in like thicker cover um as I can with Elk, or if I do, I have to get super sneaky and just like really not get

picked off Elk. I think you can get a little even. You know ELK a lot times. You know they're living and dying by their nose, but they rely on their their their first defense is their eye sight, and um, I gotta I gotta get pretty close to them. And sometimes I think a person can get away with a little bit more with Elk than you can with turkey. Turkeys just cannot. They're just so tough and they're so small. And then they have this little periscope head I call it.

Their little head peeks up over a little little terrain features, over logs. Maybe they're standing in a dip and they peek over the dip and it's really hard to see that little periscope pad looking at you sometimes and they pick you off so easy. So I try not to get as aggressive or get as close as I do with ELK before I start calling on my setup. Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. And what seems to happen is every time I've tried to get super aggressive moving

on the bird, they're harder to spot. You know, it's a twenty pound turkey versus an eight hundred pound yellow elk um. So a lot of times I get caught like not seeing them first. Where elk, I feel like I've got a pretty good chance of spotting them first because I'm looking for him and they're not necessarily looking for a person walking through the woods. So that was number one, Like a lot of times I bust turkeys

a lot more than I do elk. And number two is even if you are moving super slow, um, you know, I'm probably guilty of not glassing enough when I approach elk, but with turkeys, I gotta really slow down use you know, your binoculars. I carry tens with me everywhere, but you know, back east eights might make more sense, but you know, really just glass everywhere you're walking to be a little

more patient. And it seems like is we're approaching a lot of times turkeys, maybe even more so than elk, they just kind of shut up for no other reason than they just don't want to gobble for a second. And even though they're right there at a hundred hundred

fifty yards, they just haven't gobbled in a while. And you get you know, I get impatient, I end up walking closer to where I thought the turkey wasn't, end up busting them somewhere either those turkeys were on their way or they did just clam up and be quiet. They didn't want to gobble um. And then ye have the beauty of turkey hunting. This is the you know, I guess you replace it. They can't smell versus elk

can smell, but their eyesights so much better. So it is the thing I actually liked better about turkey hunting, and it isn't so much of a challenge. Is I can approach the exact you know, you know, as the crow flies. I can just go that direction out of turkey versus, hey, guess what, I gotta climb up around this bridge, I gotta drop over the other side dropped down, you know. An elk hunting, a lot of times we're trying to do these big, big gas loops to get

around them or keep the wind somewhat consistent. Um. You know, one of the most frustrating things. I think anybody that's you know, archery, elk hunted, or had to be close elk hunting. I think it's unanimous that the wind screws up that more than anything else. So I think you know their eyesight, you can trick it. Um. But it is nice hunting turkeys like, hey, we don't have to, you know, get a wind checker out and mess with that.

You can just go at him. Yeah, exactly. And another thing that's very similar though to elk too, um is when I try to set up for elk, I want to set up in an area to make it easy for a bowl that come to me, right, same with turkeys, Um, don't set up on turkeys where gosh, there's a nasty big brush pile between you and the turkey. Sometimes you know he's not gonna want to strut through the middle of that brush pile. Maybe he won't want to cross the creek, maybe it won't be offense. Maybe he don't

want to cross across a fence. It's the same with elk. You know you want to set up tour it's just like super easy for them to come to you. Um, you want to make it as is desirable for them to come over and fight or breed as you can. Yep, yep. So all right, we we've we've got we've we've got our approach we figured out how we're gonna get close, you know, Dirk saying we're not gonna get as close because we can't be as aggressive. Let's say you finally got your your good setup. This is a spot it's

gonna happen. What what call are you going through? First? And then kind of what's going through your head on an elk? You know, we play the temperament versus what's going through your head on on a turkey? And then I'll follow up with kind of how I think about that as well, because we I think this is where it made the fur kind of a little bit from our elk cutting strategy to turkeys well as with elk. I'm usually experimenting with that elk to see what call

he reacts to the best. Um some folks will say, oh man, there's a here's here's your go to silver bullet elk call, Like if you do this elk call, they're gonna come running. But gosh, I just haven't found that. Um. I just kind of called it this the disposition of the bowl and whatever he reply too and the one and you can tell when he really likes something, it really doesn't like something. You know, maybe he gets you

can hear the change their tone in his voice. Um, so that makes it easy to kind of know what what he really likes. Now, turkeys, I don't know that, you know what, I haven't hunted him enough to tell the difference between when he's getting mad versus a regular gobble, and maybe there's no difference. I'm not sure. But but for turkeys, I'm I'm gonna give him the same, you know, I'm gonna give him some calls and whatever he reacts to, okay, he likes those, that will probably kind of what be

what I stick with. But um, as I've learned, you know, just to call just to make him gobble a lot, that's maybe not what I should do. You know, it's fun to say, oh man, here he oh he gobbled again, Keep calling, keep calling. But sometimes, you know, once you kind of get him on the hook, less is more. I think, UM, let him start having to come seek you out, find you out, and maybe even just shut up for a while and let him get kind of worried, like, hey,

did those hands leave? Um so that's kind of my mode of operation. Yeah, very similar. Uh, you know, we The one major difference I would say is, as you know, I'm speaking for you and me like our approach to el because a lot of times, I would say eighty to ninety percent of the time we're throwing in um,

you know, bowl sounds. So it's it's you know, whether we want to call it bold bowl communication Versus on a turkey calling side, I would say it's the complete opposite, maybe five to ten percent of the time, or we're gonna actually gobble at a tom that we're trying to call in. So with that said, UM, in the out calling world, we will throw in more you know, cow sounds,

calf sounds. But then I would say our calling system plays on the temperament of the of the bull we're trying to call in it, and we try to get him fired up, you know, through biggling most of the time. Um, we'll both agree that we would call an Elkin with cal calls any day of the week. It's not as fun, but um, we're not we're not above that. Versus on the turkey calling side, we're also playing to their temperament, but we're using hand sounds um the majority of the

time and gobbling a lot less um. So you are, you know, kind of changing your tactic on bowld to bowl versus hand to hand to gobbler or hand to tom type speak. And you know a lot of times, like you said, be quiet, we use a lot of

the same tactics. If that turkey is gobbling kind of halfheartedly, you know, we set out a seven yelps and that turkey gobbles, maybe ten seconds later, it's like, well, it wasn't really gobbling at me, but maybe we got him, you know, with his head up and he's seen another hand and he gobbled versus you know, the same thing with an elk. If if we bigle and he doesn't hit us right back, we're like, oh, he's not fired up at all. He's he's just kind of he's semi interested.

And then similar to that, I think we're always trying to turn you know what we call turn the temperature up on the elk. It's like, if we can slowly work him into being a piste off bowler, if we can slowly work him into caring more about our calls. I think we do that with a turkey a lot as well, Like oh, he's he's slowly you know, gobbling, and then you're like, well he gobbled, then maybe it cut fairly quickly after, like you're trying to get him

interested in what you've got going on. But the same thing. If if a bull seems you know, half interested, maybe we shut up. If a turkey seems half interested, maybe we shut up and just see if he comes, you know, over our direction. So as far as calling strategies, I think there's a lot of similarities. The main difference is, you know, we're the bull trying to fight with a

bull for the chance that his cows. Versus on the turkey side, where a hand just kind of you know, calling him away from his hands or to come over and check you out, which um, And both instances go against kind of the way nature works. You know, a turkey gobbles so that a him will come find him. We're trying to reverse that and elk bigles so a cow will go find him. We're biggling so that he will come fight us so we can take his cows. So that's that's kind of how I look at what

we're trying to do with our calls there. That's that's a really great point, Jason, Um. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've like gobbled at a turkey to try to call it in in the last years, you know, it's just not common. You just don't do it. And then you know, trying to get a call that replicates a good gobble it is hard to Yeah, there's there's lots of reasons, you know why it seems like gobbling has always just kind of been a last resort. Now let's go into more of the

you know, how do we find them? Um, you know we mentioned earlier like you know it's easy. I I like turkey hunting, and I'm not necessarily saying it's easier than elk hunting. But if we've did our job the night before, like a lot of times, I know I'm going to start within a hundred twenty yards of a roost tree. So every morning I go out turkey hunting light,

I know there's gonna be action. Now, I would say, you know, seventy five percent at the time, I know when I go out, oh hunting, I'm at least gonna be somewhere in the elk from either the day prior or we've just got ourselves into a spot. Um, that's

gonna be good. But let's go into how we find you know, turkeys and make sure we're in the action versus how we go about, you know, finding elk, whether it's you know, getting up on the highest point, glassing the most amount of country, you know, checking their feet areas, just knowing where elk want to be versus all right, let's say we've got him in the roost trees then, and this depends a little bit whether we're hunting Miriam's

in eastern Washington, where they we're hunting Eastern's you know, back in the Midwest. Like, there are different ways and different strategies on where we're gonna go find um, you know those turkeys, but go through kind of and we have a little bit like the differences on you know, finding elk. So we think of things like, you know, open parks in the high country. You know where I live here in southwest Washington, clear cuts is where they're going to find their food. And then we go into

like what I would almost consider like our subcategory. It would be like wallows, um, you know, some of these other places that we we focus on, you know, uh, passes through a ridge versus are there any similarities with turkeys, you know, like dusting zones some of some of those things. If you can go into that. Like as an elk hunter, we've got five or six types of areas that we love to go look for elk versus on the turkey side, you know, aside from the roost tree, like how are

we going to go find these turkeys? And and and compared to the finding elk, some of the places I love to find turkeys, um. A lot of times in that in that afternoon for some reason, they I call them strutting grounds. Um. And these places a lot of times are like a fringe area. You know, they maybe and maybe it's a knoll, it's just a little higher spot um where they can see and can be seen. Um. Let's say these toms don't even have hints, but they like to go out and just kind of strut us.

It's usually like two or three tom's, you know, it's like three buddies out there flexing in front of a mirror. I don't trying to impress some some ladies get some attention, but it's usually at the fringe with amber or maybe you're in a it's in a clare cut, but it's at the edge, you know. And and a lot of times it's maybe or a small a small meadow or something, you know, kind of a small meadow that's not you know, you're not looking at a meadow that's a few hundred acres.

Maybe it's a meadow that's a five ten acres um where they feel like they can they can expose themselves without being too exposed, if you if you see what I mean. So I really love like trying to find those places. And sometimes you know, that's like I was talking before, when I'm trying to cover country and I haven't even found any turkeys, those are the kind of places I would look now. Comparing contrast, you know, you tend to find elk in the same kind of places

like they like fringes. You know, you're typically at you know, in the evenings or in the mornings. You don't find them right smack dab in the middle of a thousand acre claire cut or a giant open hillside. A lot of times at dawn and dusk, they're gonna be in the edge, you know, getting ready to come out and feed. We're as turkeys, they're on the fringe, they're getting ready to go to bed. You know, they're trying to gather up.

In the evening, they're gonna try to you know, hey, ladies were over here, are roost trees here, and then finally they'll they'll go to roost um. But those fringe type areas are great places to set up um in the past. You know, I've I've chased turkeys where I have a heck of a time in the morning getting them to come to me off the roost. You know, all they care about is chasing those those hens around

and leave me in the dust. But a lot of times a great tactic I like to do is if I know they kind of like the strut their their little strutting grounds, I'll go set up near those places, whether it's in the afternoon, maybe it's in the evening. I want to get on their pathway to where they roost and then call them in on the on their path to the roost, because they're gonna come that direction anyway.

And oh, hey, there's a hand right over here. I'm gonna just detour just slightly and get over at her and check her out before we go to bed. Yeah, yeah, and you know we're we're we're checking you know, wallows. Compared to dusting areas or streading areas where they're checking

you know, passes in the ridge for for elk movement. Um, we do a lot of There are a lot of similarities, maybe not the same areas where we're going to see if like a turkey's went through a pass you know, on a on a ridgeline, but um, you know, changes in terrain have have been you know, a spot I always go and look if it's a big steep hillside and there's a bench through it. Um, for some reason, turkeys just like love to sit at that kind of

grade break or that difference in terrain. You know, the thing could be covered with the same vegetation all the way up, but if you put a little bench out there, it's just you know, turkeys don't necessarily need to be there, but it seems like they hang out there. In My ultimate favorite way to find turkeys in the middle of the day or you know, at a time where I'm not on anything. So rather than cold calling, it's just

old two tracked roads kind of through the forest. Um. For whatever reasons, whether turkey like to be seen, you know, whether it's Tom's like and display and be seen. Um, we've we've did, you know, I would say over of our birds, Um, in eastern Washington. They're even here in western Washington, have been killed off of old two tracks, you know, through the woods, like an old skitter road. UM, an old two track that you know might just have a couple of ruts in it and it's grass the

rest of the way. Like those birds like to use the path of lease resistance as they move through. You know, they don't like to get wet, so they're just walking down a two track. Um. You know, they're kind of bugging, they're kind of feeding as they go along that and it seems like, you know, walking those roads is more productive than than doing anything else. Um, you know in the middle of the day. Yeah, I agree with that

a lot. Um. I find a lot of turkey signed turkey UM scat tracks and then just you find a lot of turkeys in those old two tracks, especially um in a lot of places in North Idaho, especially if it's if there the forest is pretty overgrown, and then then the road has been there a long time. You'll find like little little patches of clover. Um. You know that that's been planted by you know, whatever logging company or whoever whatever they plan in there, or maybe the

deer planet. It just by you know, passing through seeds through their bowels or whatever. But uh, turkeys love that stuff. And then like you said, they're bugging there's it seems like there's a lot of bugs on old two track roads and you know, maybe maybe it's a muddy road and there was a hard rain the night before. Probably find a lot of worms in that road, so it's in good place for him to feed. And it's they can move through easily. And you know what it's it's

just quick and easy to get places. Yeah, And and we're gonna I'm gonna move this point up a little bit. We're gonna talk about like finding sign and how you can use that to be more effective, just like we do elk hunting. Um, those two tracks are, in my opinion, the best place to look for scat. Look for tracks

like what kind of turkey numbers are around. You can see different ages of tracks, so it's like, oh, they were obviously here a day or two goo versus oh they were also here two or three weeks ago, m versus. The way we go and look for elks and you know we're looking for rubs, trying to age those based on you know, bark so One of the main differences is, you know, I guess it would be kind of in place scouting. You know, a lot of people look at scouting.

Is is what you know for l hunting, what we've seen in July and August leading up to the hunt. You know the same thing with Turkey. We scout a lot in March, we got in locate, just listen, um. But during the hunt, let's say you didn't have a chance to go scout the area. By walking these two tracks,

I feel you get a lot more information. Then let's say, you know Derek's example earlier of a thousand acre field, go out in a thousand acre field and try to figure out if there's tricky tracks or if they're scout. It becomes very very difficult. Versus walking down that two track that's either at the edge or the fringe of agg or you know, goes through a bench um you know on on forest service or what whatever it may be. Is I seem to gather a lot more information um,

off of that two track. You know, we're finding dusting areas, everything we need to know about. Is this a good place to hunt for the next week or you know, at least the next morning can be found from that two track. Yeah, and a lot of times if it's you know, typically springtime is not a dry time, but some some years can be kind of dry in the spring. Um, if there's not a lot of ponds or creeks around, Um, there will be some puddles in some of these two tracks,

and that's a great place to find turkey tracks. And a lot of times you'll see a lot of scat around those those puddles, So then you can determine you can tell an old turkey track or a really smoking hot fresh one in a little bit of mud there. So you're like, oh wow, they they're in here. And a lot of times you'll even pick up you'll see a feather or two in that area. So um, yeah, man, there's those two tracks that that's a that's a great

place to to to find them. Yeah. Yeah, I remember a little bit about my past, like watching the Truth series from Primos. You know, you'd watch them like walk the two track through the old hardwood bottom and it's like it just seems like turkeys and two tracks are just meant to be. It seems like a great place you know, they were, and we've hunted off of them forever. Um. And then one thing, the reason I like just hit the two track is it lets me cut the country

up really quick. Um, out here in eastern Washington, where I kind of grew up, cut my teeth. Turkey hunting is what we see in March. You know, where a landowner may say, you know, all the turkeys are in the backfield, whatever that may be. These is these flocks start to break up and separate. They merriams for instance, they move a lot greater distance. And so what might have been loaded with turkeys, you know, mid March, end of March, by time you get to you know, April

and April, they've dispersed. And so going to what you've seen in March might not yield the best results. But by going and running these two tracks, covering a ton of ground, even if you can drive them yourself, UM, just look for sign it gives you. It just cuts that learning curve down really quick when you're there to hunt and make sure that your own birds. Yep, that's great. I talked with Chris Parrish a little bit last week

about what he looks for in a set up. Um, but Dirk, tell me what you look forward and and an elk calling set up like, this is the place that's gonna happen. You know you had mentioned earlier. You know you're looking for for the elk have an easy way to come in. We're not trying to, you know, put any any roadblocks or hurdles in their way. What are you looking for when you go to set up on turkeys? Um? You know this is where you want to call to him. You're a hundred yards away. He

seems to become in your direction. Like, what's the ideal set up um on turkeys versus elk for you? And then I believe these share day near in my opinion, every similarity. But I'll see if you can find any differences when you're setting up. Yeah, I'm with you. I I know where your head's at right now on this um. You have to kind of picture where the elk is going to first appear and be able to see you, wherever he could first appear out of the woods. I

want to be very very close to that spot. And I have to say the same thing about turkeys, you know, I want to be close to where the first place he could see me. Uh, turkeys. Now, I don't know if I want to be super close to that spot. But I want to be fairly close with a shotgun range, which is it's pretty close, um for the most part, you know. Um, But and that's similar to archery range for elk. You know, you want to be pretty close. But man, I don't know if I can pick a

difference there. I want to just be super close. Now, I will say, I will kind of maybe even bell be a little bit more concealed, um as a turkey hunter than I would be an elk hunter, you know, Like I would crawl in behind a bush with just enough room for my shotgun to stick out if I'm not trying to shoot one with a bow. Um. But for Elk, I want to get in front of you know, said bush or in front of a tree and try to let my camel work more than more than the surroundings.

Because turkeys are just so darn sharp eyed. Um what do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's it's real similar, you know. And Elk, I would say, the tree isn't is an important of a part of my setup versus like turkey, I always try to get my back against a tree that way, breaking up the majority of my outline versus elk Ideally I'd like to have a tree behind me to break up my outline. But I'm I'm letting my camera work maybe a little bit more on Elk and risking my setup because I do have to

draw my bow. I do need to be able to get away with a little more movement where you know turkeys, Once I get my back set up, I've really just got to swing my gun. Um. But other than that, I don't want to set up behind a pile of brush for either. Um. You know, you've got an arrow hanging out at the end of your bow. You don't want to have to turn and get you know, thirty inches arrow tangled up and brush. You don't want to

arrow to fall off your rest. Same thing with turkeys, Like if you have to swing your gun, you do not want to catch even the smallest little twig and make it move as you're moving your gun. So always in front of the brush. Let it break up your

your background. Um, let your camera work, and then I guess the other difference is in turkeys, I feel a little bit um you know, hamstrung because my butts on the ground versus Elk, I can make more adjustments as he's coming in if I hear that he's you know, coming to my right, I can just turn my feet. I got more freedom versus I'm probably not when a turkey is coming in gonna like stand up and move

my chair a different direction. So I feel like with turkeys, I've got to make a little more of a decision when I sit down, like can I ride this position out or is it can ultimately cost me? Um is the main difference. But yeah, very similar. Brush on your background and make sure you can move your weapon, and then you know, turkey's eyesight is gonna be a little bit better. But the nice thing about turkeys a lot of times is we're maybe we're not very smart for

not using elk decoys. If we're in a spot or a situation where decoys makes sense, we can get some of the attention off of ourselves and onto that decoy, which gives you a little bit more flexibility. But you still I mean, if that turkey is sixty seventy yards away and you make any slight movement, even with a decoy, that hedges whips to your locks on you, and it's usually over. So yeah, really really similar. Um, when we're

setting up, Yeah, I will say Um. One thing, you know, depending on what kind of camp you are, which can't be your in for elk setups. Um. Some guys are all about being on their knees on their set up. Um. I nine percent of the time, I will will not take my knees on a elk set up. Um, just because I want to. I want to be able to swing left or right. I want to be able to

quickly move my position if I need to. I don't want my legs to fall asleep, or if the bull comes in at a weird angle I'm stuck facing the wrong direction. But typically you're not gonna set for turkeys on your knees. You're not gonna you're not gonna typically stand um unless you've had to, you know, to step for a turkey. You're gonna want to sit down comfortably so you can be there and then have your you know, like you said, be mobile with your with your shotgun,

you know, be able to swing left or right. Yep, yeah, perfect. And then as far as tactics at work, um, we're gonna jump. We'll kind of finish up with this cold calling and why I feel that I don't have great success, you know, ever sitting down in some random spot where I think there might be ELK and starting to like, uh, you know, col call maybe bgle look occasionally versus why I feel if you're in a decent spot, cold calling

works so much better for turkeys. Um. With that said, I will add the asterisks that we've did a lot of our own little like made up rep parties the last couple of years during ELK, and they've worked fairly successful. But I think we sit down knowing that there was a bowl around you know, four or five six yards within the last twenty minutes. So I would say those are like lukewarm calling setups. But where truly, if we don't know anything, it is is around and just sitting down,

picking a spot and starting to call. Why I think that works so well, um, you know on turkeys versus why it doesn't work so well on Um. I'll let you take a take a crack at why it doesn't work so well on ELK and maybe why it works so well on turkey, and then I'll add to it if if we've we've got some some things to add. Yeah, well, I think one reason it's a little bit weird for ELK is um we get back to that whole nose thing.

You know. Sometimes that calling cold calling set up, you will get a reaction from an elk, but it won't be a vocal reaction. It'll be him a reaction by him coming and checking you out. And a lot of times they'll come in down wind and you may not even ever know it unless you hear a twig pop or something. You may hear a little bit of something and they never hear anything again that could have been a bullet came in to check you out, and he

was smart enough to come in down wind. Um. Whereas a turkey on your cold call set up, they come in um as long as they don't catch your movement, eventually they're gonna give themselves away. They're not gonna smell you, you know, and they may not even be vocal. They may not um gobble, but you may you might hear him drumming, you know, you might hear him kind of wrestling the wrestle in the leaves or whatever as they

as they strut in. So UM. I think I think there there's a kind of one big difference way why cold calling on on turkeys a little more a little more um works a little better and and sometimes like it. It seems like when i'm cold cold calling for turkeys, it's it's the middle of the day. Um, and I see a lot of tom's they're just out cruising the middle of the day. They're just they're just covering ground,

you know, looking for hands. Uh, if they don't have a flocked at tend of their own already, Um, they're just out cruising. And I see that a lot a lot of just single toms out just looking, Whereas a lot of times the middle of the day for elk, they've already kind of did their cruising at night and

first thing in the morning. Um. Now that's there's a big asterix by that too, because when it's when it the weather is not you know, nice and cold and maybe one of those old rainy days overcast days in September, and and they're really looking for love. Yeah, bulls will They'll cover a lot of ground in the middle of

the day too, if they don't have any ladies. But um, a lot of times typically elk kind of want to bed down in the middle of the day and their little sanctuary catch up on their night's rest because they read it hard all night or whatever. So um, there's there's never how do I say this, there's never always never and there's never always always on either one of those. That doesn't make any sits to write that one down, Dirk,

to try to decipher what that just meant. Yeah, well, I guess you can't ever you can't never say never, and you can't always say always. Right, there's so much variation, um, but there's there's some similarities through it. Yeah, yeah, no, I got it. And that's what that's what I've come up with, like trying to figure out why and how come is you know the main difference is you're I guess the similarities are first thing in the morning, I

would call it like active calling. Typically you're on an Elk or you're on a Turkey and you're doing the you know, get ahead of them, chase them, try to get within distance. And then where the biggest change is is you alluded to, is the Elk are gonna go bed down? Like their their action is done at that point, and so we've all went through this active calling, the

Elko and bed down. Now we've got to make it this vision, you know, whether we're gonna mess with them in better if we're gonna leave them alone and hunt them that evening or whatnot, and versus the turkeys are the opposite. Like typically what happens is the hens will leave to go nest, and now that gobbros left all alone and he's willing to cover tons of distance because he's not going to bed down. You know, he's gonna

stay on his feet. He's gonna look for other hens and aren't on a nest, which we can be that perfect hen that he's looking for in that area. So I think that's the major difference, where you know, all of the out go to bed, only the hens go to nest. And then typically we're we're no longer in an active calling situation where we were done chasing birds.

We can now you know, cold calling is gonna work better because we just have a lot better uh you know recipient that that tom turkey is a lot more receptive to cold calling in the middle of the day versus a bull that's bedded down and kind of wait until the evening. Yeah, it's almost like they're they're complete polar opposites on their schedules. Yep, right, Elk loved to run around all night long. Turkeys us lay lay in a tree all night long. Yeah, you like to bed

down in the middle of the day. Turkeys like to run around the middle of a day. Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean, in my opinion, they kind of to wrap this up. You know, there are some stark differences in turkey versus ol cunning. But I would have to say there's you know, a lot more similarities. Um, you know, as far as how you call them, as far as how you you know, move on them, as far as how you're gonna set up. Um. So, I I guess I'm still I'm still confused why there's so much hate.

You know, I don't even know if it's hate, just uh, you know, um discussed with with turkey hunters or you know, people liking to get excited to go turkey hunting out West. I absolutely love it. I look forward to the hunting this year. You know, we're gonna head back to Kansas, if you can come up here to eastern Washington, We're gonna hopefully you know, hunt our northeast corner where I

kind of grew up turkey hunting. And like I said, I just as much as I love to hunt bigling elk in the fall, I look forward to springing turkey hunting, you know, just just a notch right below that. But but it definitely gets me excited. And it's the same same game in my opinion, to go out, locate, get as close as you can, and try to reverse nature and call this bird into your lap. Well, such a great time a year to be out there. You know, you've been cooped up all winter and finally got some

pretty days, some some sunny days. Just you know what, even if the birds aren't playing the game like you want, it's sure as nice to get the heck out of the house. You know. It's just a great time to be out there. And one more thing I was thinking about um as far as similarities for elk and turkeys, UM shot placement, right shot placement. Elk are big tough animals. Um. Unless you shoot, you know, accurately, into the right spot right in the vitals, they're hard to kill and or recover.

And same with turkeys. I mean, if you blast a turkey mid body with your shotgun, you're probably not gonna get it unless it's like point blank range. Right. They're just so tough. You know, you have to take ethical shots that are gonna kill him quickly. Uh, Sam's elk. You know whether and it don't matter whether you're our tree or or shotgun, you know. For for turkeys, yeah, you have to fool them. You have to get them close and then like you said, make a make a

great shot. So there's a lot of similarities just in like the the main overview, like the thirty foot view is you know, you're you're locating an animal, you're getting them close, and you're having to make a good shot. Um, which they carry a lot of similarities there. Um, you know, I I agree with you, Derek. I absolutely love the springtime. I love the weather is changing and the days are

getting long. Um, the day is getting long. I could do without, though, because it seems like by time you're done and rus and a bird, get the bed and then have to get up at four o'clock in the morning to go sit under a tree that you you don't get a whole lot of sleep and then, um, the other thing I hate about spring Turkey, and this may be the only thing I hate about spring Turkey

is them damn ticks. Um. I've tried spraying permethrin everything, and it still just seems like you're sitting there letting these things crawl all over you. We had I think we both ended up with a bunch of ticks last year and uh lines and eight of them. Yeah, yeah, I don't like them. Um, you know a couple. I think I was on a couple of different prescriptions for doxi cycling a couple of cycles last year. Um, it's yeah. But I absolutely look forward to turkey hunting every year. Um,

it's it's just a fun time. Um. And whether you can hate me, you can hate me for saying this or not, it's very very similar to to elk hunting, and uh, I look forward to it. Yeah, it's it's fun. You know. I know you, you know you you blow a pink call and you know, but you're okay with it and you're okay with love and turkey onto, So all right, you'll let both of those slide. Yeah, I'll let us slide. In closing, if you could give one piece of advice to turkey hunters out there that may

add to their success, what would it be. Uh, you know, it's gonna be might kind of go to for elk hunting, and it's be persistent, don't give up. It's so easy to give up on turkeys. And get frustrated. I think turkeys are way more frustrating than El cuban um. But you just gotta keep at it because I don't know how many times I've been frustrated beyond belief and then have it it turned around in the next hour to where it's like, oh wow, that probably the best color

in the world after you know, that little performance. So you just you have to let your calls work. You have to give them time to work. And especially if you're a new hunter and you just haven't had a lot of interactions or success calling turkeys, it's okay. Just stick with it because you'll get it. You'll get it, and and then you'll fit. You'll start seeing all the nuances of like where it went right and where it went wrong, and then you'll be a lot more consistent

in killing them out. Well. I really appreciate having you on the show here today, Dirk and uh play luck this spring and look forward to chasing birds with you. Yeah, it sounds good. I can't wait.