Ep. 82: Turkeys, Ticks and Tactics

our own trying to finish it up. I was fortunate to kill a herd last night. And Dirk is hunting for a monster, not just gonna kill any turkey. He's looking for a big one, so.

like April eighteenth she had nine or ten. I think maybe she laid one more since they had been in there, so and she was sitting all day. She wasn't leaving that nest. So I mean it's seems to be really early. I mean, I'm sure people that know more or the biology of turkey you say that's completely normal, but seems pretty dang early. And they're you know, they're they're more advanced this year. You know, it's more like hunting them in early May to mid May, these guys felt like this year more so.

So they're probably coming off the nest and gonna go eat.

you guys could all hear it. The sad reality is we had some technical difficulties and Chris decided the audio didn't upload. So what I mean, you go from Chris Parrish in the Turkey Hunting World to Dirk Duram, You don't. You don't drop too many you don't miss a beat. So we're gonna we're gonna roll some of the same episode I recorded with Chris. We're gonna try to redo it. I may share a little bit of his answers added in with me and Dirk's answers. But I really wish

we could have got that dang episode out. But uh well, we'll we'll circle back and meet up with him, you know, somewhere else, but you know, another time, and we'll ask him these questions. But once again, you have any questions for me or my guests, email them to us at ct D at Phelps Game Calls dot Com or feel free to send us a message on social media and we'll do our best to get him included here. So I have to thank the Washington State Wilde Tricky Hunting

Club for this group of questions. The first one comes from Tyson Gray. We would love to hear you, guys compare your approach on Easterns versus Mariams versus Rios in the West and how they differ from each other. See if Dirk wants to take a crack at that, if you hundred rios before or just just Mariams and Easterns.

you can almost let your watch to it. Like on this trip, it's eight seventeen and forty three seconds at that time of the day right now, like they're done talking for the most part. They're just done. They be quiet. They're hard headed. You can't you Multiple times on this trip we've known their birds in an area. You go out and hit them with an owl. Scream a hawk, scream a crow, call your loudest yelps, and they're just not going to talk. They're just not gonna let you

know they're there. You know, the birds the bird I killed last night did not make a sound. We're hen yelp, And there was a live hen that came out in the food plot with them. They didn't care. It was it was just it was it's been difficult and it was tough to get them to, you know, to make a sound, and so Mariams a lot more talkative, you know, Miriams.

They don't like the rooseness in the same spots. These birds here seem to want to roost in the same general They got their favorite roosting spots.

and rios in certain areas. So he feels like they've they've got an edge, are a little smarter sometimes, you know, and maybe that's some of the reasons we we think that they're they're more hard headed. But well, they have a bigger head, like they definitely do.

with no finesse. He just he runs that thing just wide open. Just he just starts just hatchet in that thing. And I'm just like, oh man, you gotta put a little finesse on that thing. And he gets them coming and and and Idaho so and you know, so we're hit hunting those mirriams or hybrids and those those toms will come in to it really well. I mean I don't even think he can even run a turkey diaphragm. So with that said here, well, sometimes we throw the

whole the whole book at them. You know, we just kind of run through our gam into different calls and stuff, and sometimes they're just so hard headed. You're not you're not getting an answer for nothing, or one one call is not drawn it in better than another one. It seems like when they want to come, they want to come to and it doesn't matter which one. But same

to be said about diaphragms. To my experience I've had sometimes I can't get a get a turkey to answer me at all with a diaphragm, and I pick up a box or a pot and it's like bam, now everything's changed and they're answering and they're coming.

you would kill. But you know, just like any good tradesmen, you know, uh, you know, if you have a circular saw, a table saw, and a you know what, a receip saw, you can do a lot more work, a lot faster, and a lot more efficient at times, or do the job right instead of having one saw trying to make it work on all of them. So, just like any carpenter, any tradesman, the more tools and the right specific tools

you have it at certain times. And what I would say I would equate that too, is sometimes there are birds that just want to gobble at a diaphragm, or they just want to gobble at that box sound, or they want to gobble at the sharp pitch of a crystal you know, over iluminum call, whatever it may be, with a certain high pitch striker. So I would say there are times where having more calls maybe to your advantage, but you can definitely get the job done with you know,

being being efficient with any of them. But you know, ideally diaphragms are well suited for for turkey hunting. But you know, if you're going to a pot caller, a box call, you can definitely make make it work. And then Case's had a follow up question, are decoy's worth it? We've went back and forth on this one. Yesterday I had to crawl out to our decoy to get the jakes off of them. They thought that that Dave Smith decoy's hen was real and was it was inappropriate what

they were doing with with the decoy. But I crawled out multiple times to beat them off of it, and uh, it was obviously effective. Those jakes were locked. They were convinced it was real. And then there are times where you know that Tom just comes strutting right in, and there are times where I think, especially we we hinted at it already. These birds are a little bit finicky right now, a little bit wary, you know, if you throw a posturing hint out there and not like an

uprighter breeding hin like sometimes a hen. You know, we've seen it in calling right where you're you're that hen doesn't want to you guys are in a battle, and then she'll eventually take the tom away from you. She doesn't like if you put a posturing hint out there, like, it might not be the right move at the right time,

you know, So decoys are definitely worth it. We've been packing around all week and in certain settings where maybe we need to put some visual out there at the you know, at the edge of a long cut or the edge of a long field so they can get a visual and maybe have a reason to come down.

But there are times like last night, we were a little concerned with if these you know, on a night time hunt, if these turkeys come out in this field to feed and the hinges are they are they going to be you know, have a care in the world that it's there. So I'm I'm kind of on both sides of this one. But we we always packed the decoys and they work pretty effectively. Yeah, next question from

John Hicks. After you spook a bird or shoot his buddy, how long do you have to wait to get back After him, he mentioned his son had missed a nice tom yesterday. Today his whole flock wouldn't even react to any amount of calls.

turkey loads we have these days. And I'm like, I think I can reach out and touch that that turkey of fifty yards. So when the time was right, I put the old shotgun beat on the turkey's head and I missed bigger than can be. I mean, I don't I don't even know where the pellets went, but they took off running. So discouraged, I walked back to the pickup, which, by chance, the turkey's kind of walked kind of ran off back towards the pickup. So I got back to

the pickup is probably about a half mile walk. I get it pick up. I'm like, well, I'm I'm gonna crow call here and see if I can hear anything. And I crow call and I am immediately I get an answer, and it kind of sounds like kind of where those toms had went to. So I grabbed my shotgun and went back over there in the woods and slipped in and sat down, and I made like four yelps, and those toms could not get to me quick enough. I shot the one at like five yards or something.

It was. It was incredible. It was like he'd for they'd forgotten about what had just happened completely earlier. They wouldn't hardly come in close enough. But also I was in some heavier timber when they did come in this next time, but they were gobling and just running in as fast as they could. So I don't know how long their memory is. So I would I would think, don't give up too quick on him.

all said, for opening morning here, everything was cranking. The next morning, nobody heard a bugle or a bugle a gobble besides besides the one guy, you know. So it's like it's the birds were real temperamental, and I wouldn't equate you know, not hearing them or uh, you know, because of the miss I would say, they're they're pretty short memoried. You know, they're they're gonna they're gonna recreate. That's what they're out there for. They're gonna do their

their their stuff. And so I would just say it was more of a coincidence that, you know, the day after they maybe quieted down. You know, we've we had some neighbors here that shot at some birds and it quieted them down and moved them for a day. But eventually they came back to their preferred roost and you know, settled down. So yeah, we appreciate that. That question. John. Next question from Ryan Clark, best calling techniques for early

season birds when they're hand up. He says sometimes he feels like any calling he does is doing more damage than good and and maybe sometimes he feels like you should be silent and try to sneak in. What's your opinion on that.

just to let them know, hey, there's some hens over here. Well, those gobblers will get kind of tired or spun out or whatever they're trying to do with those other hens, and there'll be a lull and whatever they're doing, and they'll come back and they'll be like, you know, I remember there was some hens over here. I'm going to go check those out. So it's a major game of patients at that point. So you just have to sit patiently and have your head on a swivel and be

very you know, mindful of movement. But we've had that, you know, an hour later, maybe two hours later, bam, you hear a gobble and that that gobbler's right there at twenty yards from you.

We were able to just kind of keep calling occasionally and then maybe more patiently we kind of stop for twenty to thirty minutes in the middle, kind of let things settle down and let that flock figure out what their morning routine was, and then started picking our calling back up, and slowly we heard two gobblers break off and come towards us. You know, he's able to kill one of those. So why it can be very you know, it can be discouraging as you're as you're trying to

call these early hind up birds. But I say, you know, be persistent, stick with it, and then just kind of let the turkeys dictate. Like if if you know they're not hammering back at your calls, and if you can't tell that they're responding to you, maybe call more sparingly or more patiently versus you know, if they're hammering your calls and you can kind of keep them going and keep them excited. Then I would say stick with them.

And and you know at times here when this hunting gets really tough early when they are flocked up or hind up, which they don't seem to be as much this year. You know, this is where you're scouting and patterning or listening, like, hey, that bird keeps going through this area, or he keeps you know, going off the point of this you know, meadow or whatever it may be, whatever area you're hunting, you know, use use the patterning.

It's not as fun of hunting, but you can definitely set up and you know, just kind of wait for him to come back through.

Now the hens might be somewhere close by. But if you know about those kind of places, like you know, I've seen Tom strutting here a lot, it's super smart to go sit down in those places really, you know, within shot range of where they're going to strut, and just sit there and maybe make a few calls very sparingly and they just be quiet and just let let it unfold because a lot of times, you know, an hour or two later, those toms they want to be

there anyway, they're gonna come back out and struggle, and uh, you can take that to your advantage.

it does take is consistency. So maybe ten minutes a day, and after like after like two weeks of ten minutes a day, just throwing the call in every day, pretty soon your tongue and your your air pressure and your brain and all that stuff, we'll start getting muscle memory and you'll start up, they'll start working together better. But if you just try a little bit here and there, it's really hard to build that muscle memory. But just getting that thing in your mouth, and what can you do?

Can you can you make a yelp? Can you make any kind of a noise? I like I look at kids. Kids will they'll take a diaphragm, they'll take any kind of a noisy noise maker, and they'll start blowing on it, and they will check test the boundaries of everything. They'll make every single every single noise they possibly can. One minute, they got a diaphram in their mouth. They're trying to talk like Donald Duck. The next minute they're trying to

squeal like a pig. And the next minute they're making siren noises and just making weird noises, like get that diaphragm in your mouth, start and some noises with it. Understand, you know the parameters help, what kind of tongue pressure it takes to make different sounds, just any kind of a sound. And then start like trying to trying to do the exercises. We're trying to actually make it yell.

a diaphragm. We can't get the air sealed off. Until you can get the air sealed off you're never going to make a clean sound, You're never gonnaet the volume. You never can get anything right. So when Mike had taken his call out of his mouth, sent me a picture he had. Usually we get a some folds at like forty five degrees from the center of the call, like if you come back on like a pizza shape, the corners of the U shape of the tape or typically have folds, and we're like, oh, there's too much

material there. It's folding that we can't get sealed. We asked people to cut that material out, try it again. Mike had a very interesting fold on the right side of his mouth, like directly horizontal of the call, like a big major fold that the call was trying. Well, if you can't get that to seal off. So the first thing me and Mike started working with was cutting his tape more narrow, trying to cut material out, trying to cut little slits around that area so it can

fold and become more malleable. So fitmentt and ceiling it and so one thing with fit Mint, and I'll talk about other brands because I used to use these, you know night Inhale Hunter Specialties. You know the zinc. Some of these old you know Quaker Boy, the old school Turkey calls, or what I call him old schools, that's what I used to use. They come on what's considered an adult small frame, but for me as a as a call maker, they're large frames. They're very, very big calls.

The actual structure of them underneath the tape, and a lot of times they struggled to get him to fit my mouth or they'll they'll, you know, be can it a little bit left orright because they are so big and I've got a big palette. So one thing that we do, aside from the Parish Huckleberry kills on a manipulator, all of our other Turkey calls are built on what I would consider a medium frame that we've found to

fit people a whole lot better. They may be a little bit different specs or stretches in those diaphragms than the larger ones, and you may be able to, you know, get better sounds or different sounds out of a large one. But one thing I would urge people to do is is all of our Turkey calls, aside from those original Parish three in our lineup, are built on a smaller frame could be the ticket just because of the actual structure they call be going to fit up, you know,

up in your palate a little bit better. And then, like Dirk said, a lot of practice, you know, work on you know, the high note. I would start with a ghost cut. Try to get that kiky note down that get that if you can just hold them like the very high pitched mosquito noise, that's the that's the note you need to start with. Even for turkeys, you may not hold it near as long as you do on an olk, but then you'll drop your bottom job more so than than elk calling, where we tend to

just move our tongue and pressure with our tongue. Turkey calling, you'll actually like drop your bottom jaw and that's what's going to give you your no articulation. You're high to low and so you know, find a good starting point. Work on that. And that's the best advice. You know. There's lots of good YouTube videos out there, but.

to jump into the converse. Let's start with a little hunt recap here today. We've got a couple of days left. You've got a turkey tag in your pocket. You know, Kansas. It was started pretty slow. I think they talked about just seven to eight days ago, prior to the opener. Their trail cams are just loaded flocks and flocks, you know, big flocks, hens, you know seven, eight, ten hens, multiple gobblers.

They show up here on the seventeenth of the opener, and everything had changed in that short week, they went from you know, the big groups of hens to you know, toms running together and hens being all singled up. But I don't know if anybody we've seen I've seen three hens in one field at one time, but they were all kind of independent. They just happened to be there. They all came out separate. They weren't all feeding together, running together. Last night, hens separate. This morning we had

a single hen. You know, we had multiple single hens this morning. Just seems to be at a weird stage. And maybe these hens are all laying you know, all day already, which seems crazy because usually we come in early May, you know, May fifth to tenth and they're still flocked up, which now they're already seemed to be kind of out of that phase a little bit.

to one Tom. The Tom will still kind of do his thing, but you start to get to that three to one, four to one show, and that Tom becomes very nervous around that many jakes, right, any of you that's seen it, you'll, I may be telling some of you something you already know, but these jakes will bully that Tom right and still his hand or run them off for And so we're we're dealing with lots of jakes, which makes sometimes trying to call these Toms in, you know,

these single toms a little bit more difficult. You know, they're they're wary. So we we actually have stopped putting our jake decoy out in the field right because they don't know if that's the only jake, if there's more jakes on the edge. And uh, it's just it's been tough the the long beards. For the most part. We've seen a few singles, but for the most part, these long beards are all running together a little bit. And it's been an interesting year. Lots of turkeys around, which

which helps, but but calling birds. We've called a few in, we've patterned a few birds, and we've just got lucky on a few birds.

have a decoy out. Well, we'll see a group of jakes walk by you do some calling, they'll look over at that, at that decoy and just keep going like they have zero interest. And then the next one, like the next day, you're out there and the jakes are molesting your decoy. We've been getting kind of mixed signals from you know, Jake's and and long beards. So it's been kind of a weird, weird, weird week.

called the multiple birds. They just don't answer. So yeah, it's interesting. We're having a lot of fun, like always here, but you know, kind of beating our head against the wall at times, and not everything's going our way. But we've had pretty damn good success. I am curious, what's your tick count? Have you been keeping track of these Kansas ticks.

figure out how to email Phelps game Calls. I'm not gonna put my email out there, but I want somebody to know. The big ones. We have permethrone on everything, and we re upped our game last night. We did a second application because I was tired of ticks. The big ones, the full size adults. They will crawl up get they don't get halfway up my gator and they'll tip off, dizzy, drunk, poison whatever you want to call it.

They're they're done. These seed ticks will start up my boot and they're faster and they will make it through my gator no problem. That permethron doesn't seem to bother them. And then they're cruising up my leg and then you have to flick them or you know, get them with your fingernail. I want to know if there's something to that and seed ticks are permethron doesn't work on them,

or something weird's going on. But uh, yeah, I've had I had one one lone star, one big one in my shin, and then last night I had a little seed tick that wasn't really in. But as we're recording this podcast, the big loan star tick bite has a big bump and itches. That's an extra. That's a new development in the tick bite. Gotta hate these things. If I could figure out a way to just I've looked.

I spent two hours last night before my turkey came in trying to research tea tree oils, if I eat lots of garlic, if I was I'm ready to try anything. I just want to enjoy the turkey hunt and not deal with these dang ticks. But all right, I diverged. We'll jump back in the podcast. But these ticks are giving us some fits, and Dirk, I'm gonna give you a tip. I don't know if you know this or not, but gators, when you have them, they are a great addition.

You should probably wear them out in the field.

or is that? And you have to kind of like kind of scratch at it and like see if it'll move. It's like, oh, that that's like a latch. It's something latched on and then you have to get it off. And then then I'm like, but is it a tech? So then I'll put it on a white piece of paper. And if you're like me and stubborn, don't have your your readers with you all the time. Then I just grabbed my cell phone and came run it and zoom in. Oh yeah, that's icya legs, that's a tick. So yeah,

you should definitely have have gators. Oh yeah, or you're gonna regret it.

a striker. Sometimes I'll have a couple of pots, or a couple different strikers, different strikers because different strikers made out of different materials will make a different sound with the same pot. I also have a couple of locator calls. I have an owl hooter, and I have a three triple threat triple screamer. What do we call those same the triple locator. So the triple locator makes a owl stream, a hawk stream, and affiliated pecker, and I got that

in there. I have a small pair of loophold binoculars. I also have some diaphragms. I have some stuff to scrub my slate with, you know, some ss pad and last but not least, I carry some little pruning clippers. TSA stopped me at tear part. They're like, oh, you can't have these. I'm like, what why not? They're like you might cut someone's finger off with them. But then they measured them. They were under seven inches, so they

allowed it as a carry on. And you know, whenever, and I will say I think I had less ticks on me than Jason had on him last night. And the reason is why is I went through and I clipped all the little bushes and all the little brush and stuff around where I was gonna sit on my little seat there, and Jason did not do that.

in my carry on, not thinking anything about it. Well, guess what FHF also makes. They make a show holder that bel crows to the inside of your harness. And there sat to twelve gage shotgun shells number nine TSS Federal And I got here and I was thinking, as we're starting to switch to guns, and I oh even got my own ammunition to shooting, and it just instantly clicked, like how the heck did you get the ammunition here?

And through security man and c Tack pulled all three of my bags like you watch that little flipper and you're like, oh, number one go, number two goes. Because these podcast mics were talking on right now. Always he thought they were suppressors. Evidently you should keep your thumb release since it can be considered brass knuckles in a separate So I got almost got my thumb release taken, almost got my podcast MIC's taken because they thought those

looked like silent supercans. And then thankfully the one guy didn't even open the bag with the shotgun shells in them. Gosh dang, Thankfully I don't have those shotgun. I'm gonna leave them here in Kansas. I'm gonna donate them to the Turkey camp. But yeah, that was a not what's in my vest. But I had to just let everybody know that I snuck some shotgun shells shots, I say, without any intention of doing so.

it's just weird, you know. With the certain times, whatever turkey call I think sounds the best, the turkeys want to answer you switch striker, switch calls, make it higher, pitch, lower, pitch more, rasp cleaner, and all of a sudden they hammer. So I like to have between those two calls and three strikers. Gives me the ability to sound like six different birds. On my right hip belt, I carry my box call. I'm testing a new box call for twenty

five right now. Sounds sounds really really good. H moving to The APEX system has a drop down seat that folds so when you're walking around and it's not dragging around, slap it buckles up. I've got a little bit of a hydration pack on my back between and I keep a water or my extra coat there. And then on the front on the chest rig I've got and I'm probably gonna get the name of the pocket wrong. I believe it's an E two or an E one pocket on the front of the chest rig, so it gives

me a lot of expansion. In the main pocket, I typically keep my alcohol, my binoculars, and my AMMO and the front one I'll keep my locator's call locator calls. I've also got the triple locator lamin it, and I've got a crow call, and I also keep all of my diaphragms in that front pocket. I don't carry a loppers, even though all these guys do, and sometimes I wish

I had some. I usually I'm the guy that bends the stick in half and then does like seventeen twirls and try to like get the branch to break off, and that's how I usually create my shooting lanes. But sometimes I really wish I had some looppers. Brandy has a really nice pair of They're like ratcheting right, so even if you have to cut a big, big, you know, branch out of the way, with the small pair of pliers, you can just get a little leverage. It locks and

it slowly just works your way through them. We need to get that not in my best but something we carry here in Kansas we don't carry in Washington do to the terrain is these low, very low sitting seats man.

sits longer. And then not in our vest, but around our shoulders is typically always that upright hand decoy we're packing into all of our sets, and then we'll decide when we get there if it's the right setup, you know, or if it's things are happening too quick or the brush is too tall, what we're going to do there. So that's really you know, I carried an eight y thirty two pair of loop loophold b X fours. Yeah,

just pretty simple system. And then I probably got twenty or thirty different diaphragms that I carry around just because I I've got them. And you know, if I'm trying to you know, emulate a tree yelp or something real light, I might switch compared to a call that I want to cut down into, you know, try to locate a bird with. So I just I've got a handful of of diaphragms, and that pretty much rounds out everything that

I carry. Pretty pretty simple. You know, sometimes a Washington bigger canyon country, I'll i'll grab a tube call just so I can you know, cut really loud and locate birds.

in and the spot you moving around or whatever. So those things are you gotta have them. They're they're really nice. But but what in Idaho or let's say you're in Washington, you're putting on a lot more miles in a day chasing turkeys. They're kind of a pain in the butt to carry.

you gotta look the part. You gotta it's the.

doesn't add any warmth necessarily. It's a real nice system.

But I feel like a lot of new turkey hunters or people that are just getting into it or maybe haven't had a lot of success. They hear a sound in the woods and they don't know what to do, Like, what am I gonna do?

because you're gonna shoot a hen? No, but there may be a gobbler with her.

You know? Maybe listen for distant gobbles, depending on how far out she is, and then, like you, I may yelp back. And one thing I like to do, similar to elk calling, is we try to match her intensity. You know, if a hen's out there just being loud mouthed and yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I may kind of going with that intensity. But if she's just milling around, the last thing I want to do is is try to to you know, tick off that hand

and get her to go the other way. So you know, I'll match intensity and typically very soft call just loud. I always just want to assume that I'm calling just loud enough she can just barely hear me, or just aggressively enough that she can just barely hear me. See if we get a response, you know, if that doesn't work out, we don't get a response a lot of times, move in that direction a little bit, try again, get

a little closer, and then we all know. Or or if you've been turkey it long enough, you know that if it is the dense forest kind of like we set up, you're probably not gonna go and sneaking in on this bird. So the last thing I want to do is like push too hard, you know, maybe different. This is where elkin and turkey deffer a little bit. I'll be a little more patient turkey hunting and be a little less aggressive and not walk in. I'll maybe skirt or just make a mental note on where that

hen was at what time of day. If I don't hear a gobbler, you know, kind of continue on and.

name it. I mean, you can't get on to gobble. But that's a good way to to actually see if there could possibly be a tom with her.

and try to pop up at one hundred yards? Which one would you take? If you can only take one? I know Chris said he would always try to cut that distance down as much as possible. He'd much prefer one hundred yards and no decoy, but being really close to that bird then two hundred fifty yards and a decoy, And so that was one. I know. I wanted to add that in that, you know, if you can move same thing we talked about on elk all the time.

Like you, your chances of calling something exponentially go up. If you can cut that distance, if they have to move their feet as a little as possible to get to you, your your chance is going to go, you know, way up.

to me. But if you get over there and you're half that distance or even closer, and you you know, pop out a little a little closer than that and can do a little bit of calling, you're definitely going to be get more of his attention.

making any kind of noise. If it was only one gobble, then I'm After listening for a while, I'm gonna I'm gonna do some calling, whether it's a locator call or a hen call, I'm gonna do some calling to see if I can hear it again. Like I really want to pinpoint this thing and determine how far away it is in the position of it. Am I going to have to get real crafty and like make a big circle because there's a field in between him and I

and I'll get exposed or or is it good? Is can I can I quietly and quickly approach him without getting getting seenep that Those are the first things through my head.

listened to Tricky's gobble. We know they haven't moved, but just by them turning one eighty gobbling at, gobbling away, or like up birds in two different spots by half a mile, you know, sometimes we really need to pinpoint him. And then yeah, the same is just listen for a little bit. Are there hens with him? Are there other? A lot of times are there other birds? You know?

And then once we can figure that out, typically unless they're coming in our direction by their their gobbles, we'll we'll we'll try to cut that distances, you know, as the terrain and vegetation allows, and try to get as close as we can do them. And then typically you know, if you had to pick a call to use, We're probably gonna sit down and you know, start with just your your typical yelping, your you know, see if we

get a response, is he ended that or not? Maybe wait five to ten minutes, does the answer and then you know, figure out if we if we you know, a few clucks and you know, some more aggressive yelps, you know, maybe even throw some cutting in later on down the road, like just see if he's if he's into that. If not, we may need to just sit tight.

You know, you've now made some some some you know, hint calls, and a lot of times I think we relate it more to elk where we'll get up and try to push the push the conversation and push the game. A lot of times these turkeys are they're just they're coming in slow. They're they're working at their own pace. So just be patient. As I think I'm a hundred times more patient turkey hunter than I'm an elk hunter.

I've just i feel like I've seen it enough where it sometimes it just takes a little time to materialize and for things to happen like you want them. Yeah, I'm gonna try to get as close as I can to that gobbling bird without being seen, be as very conservative, you know, as conservative as I can, and then try to get in tight.

Sometimes you'll walk away from one. Yeah, that would have been calling right right there. Sometimes the ones that are close to you, sometimes it just takes them a little longer to vocalize. Sometimes not. Sometimes they just hammer right away. But I feel like giving it a little I feel like everything with turkey hunting, if you can give it a little more time, Like I am the least patient person on planet Earth, and turkey hunting is teaching me

patients and I'm exercising that a lot. Like just take your time, Just don't get in a rush, you know, just give a little time and and by waiting an extra ten ten minutes or something, you're you're not going to miss out on anything.

though I don't. I think I think you can overcall, especially then, but I just want to like enter the conversation a little bit and just say hey, I'm over here too, and then just kind of let leave it at that and count and and like and and less that if that n she starts like firing up a lot then I'm probably gonna fire up a little bit more. But I don't. I don't want to just be there and be quiet unless I think if I know their path is going to just lead me, lead them right

towards me, I may just say nothing. It just kind of depends on on the turkeys. If you you've been playing with them a little bit, and you know they're gonna fly down to this little narrow field and they're gonna walk right by it because they like to go feed in a certain spot, then I may just sit there and be quiet, because then if I start calling that hand when she gets out of the tree, she may laid that gobblet away from me.

all right, they know I'm here. That's all I've established it. I'm a turkey over here. And then as it gains more daylight, I start to get personally very worried that they they're looking for me, right, why the hecks you already? Is that hen already on the ground? What what's going on? Why is this happening? And I don't want to get picked off, especially if you like the two days ago when we set up next to those jakes and the

one long beard was down the way. Those things were in a tree sixty seventy yards away from me, and by thankfully had really good cover. But I was worried that they're going to try to pinpoint us, and and you know, know that we're on the ground already without a fly down, and you know all of that, and one thing, it depends on our cover. Sometimes I'll omit to fly down. I'll just I'll show up as a hint that's already on the ground. You know, once once

I can hear them all fly down. But if the cover allows it, and I can do it in a way where it's realistic and I know I'm not gonna get picked off, we'll do a fly down, cackle and kind of let that bird know that we're the first hindle on the ground. You know, maybe grab his attention to that location, especially when you're trying to fight. You know, the real thing in the adjacent trees. But yeah, that's

the same thing. You know, soft soft clucks and purrs, you know, soft soft tree helps just make sure that those birds identify that that we're there. And in the last, uh, the last scenario is the silent woods. There's turkey sign, fresh tricky sign, there's birds around you're hunting area, but the woods are silence, you know, silent. What's your approach.

come up and strutt in those areas. You know, maybe maybe the the hens are gonna want to come up there and feed. But if everything's quiet, I'm not hearing anything. I'm just gonna kind of be practice at patience again. I'm gonna set up, I'm gonna do some calling. I'll put a decoy out. I'm gonna start calling, you know, and real sparingly at first, and then maybe get a little bit louder, a little bit louder, and then I'm

just gonna turn it off and let it set. And I may sit for an hour or two, depends, and sometimes it just takes that time, like they're eventually gonna come there, or you know, they're preoccupied, like we talked before, you know, with those hens, but but that doesn't work out for him, or they're they're ready to do something different. I heard Hans over, I'm gonna go check it out. So I think you know that it's almost like cold calling for elk, you know, you you know there's elk

in the area. You know there's turkeys in the area. We're gonna do a bunch of calling, and then we're just to shut up and just kind of see how it unfolds.

so that's like the best information. Or hey, there was a tom on this field edge on a certain date. So you're you're trying to look at like do I have Number One, do I have live birds that are gobbling today? Do I think their jakes or longbeards? And then you know, and if I don't have any birds,

then where have they been? And then if that's not the case, like I like to get as high as I can or on a ridge or get some elevation to my back, you know, on my side, and if that doesn't work, Just like we were talking this morning, we were able to actually, you know, hear better from down load just because the angle we could hear up on the tops versus if we got as we got to the edge of those hills, we couldn't hear as good.

So I want to I want to be able to listen, and then I will run those ridges, and in this time of year, all kind of alternate all you know, why we don't think there's trickys there. I'm kind of cranking through my woodpecker, you know, hawk scream, I'll scream. I'm cranking on the box call. I'm letting you loud yelps. And I'm I'm being pretty pointed here because I will I will assume that if I don't hear a bird and the you know, right now, we've got it. We've

got it coined. From about daylight to eight thirty, I'm gonna assume that there's not a bird there, because I should be able to get a gobble of some sort. And so I'm gonna run. You're running the ridges or walk just like we did this morning after we had kind of a blown set up. We ended up walking around trying to get some elevation, trying to hear birds, and then reset up and and so I think you

just got to cover ground. You got to kind of let your calls, your locators, you know, your your box calls, and even if you're not using the call, just let your ears do the walking, right, Just you got to find some some recent information. You've got to find a gobbler on its feet, and so I just cover ground, try to get a you know, an answer or response, listen, and then and then go from there. So yeah, it's it's it's tough. Sometimes you'll find yourself in those situations

where birds just aren't talking, nothing's answering. You just got to cover ground, see if you can find them, and if not, you know, call the morning hunting and come back out later. Or if you're patient, if you're more patient than me, you can go sit against the tree and set a decoy out or do some you know, spread it calling and go from there.

things unfolds the way to go. If you've got some places you can stretch your legs out and put on some put on some boot leather miles, then that's that's a great way to do it too, because just like you say, you know, they might be quite right here, but you walk over. If it's broken country, you know, you may walk over three hundred yards from where you're at and you can hear down into a little drawer or a little holler or something, and then all of

a sudden, bam, you can hear the turkeys. They're right over here. They've been calling the whole time, you just couldn't hear them because your location.