Ep. 530: Turkey Week - Gobblers Made in America

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Yes? I got that. Okay, that's probably all I'll get today.

Joining party by Dave Smith, and we're gonna we're gonna clear something up right away. Dave isn't hearing everything. And last time he was on the show, his wife told him he sounded arrogant. I didn't catch because he'll just he was just missing parts. Are you open about this? Yeah, oh yeah, I explain to your problem.

Well yeah.

And by the way, my wife before this, she gave me some words of encouragement. She said, she said, remember, Dave, you don't have to be funny, charming and intellectual, just be yourself. So I was like that that really helped a lot. But yeah, I just I can't hear shit. I mean, it's just way too much shooting and with without wearing hearing protection and guiding. And I've taken as many as twenty four goose hunters by myself on one hunt.

And so don't don't be Dave.

Wear hearing protection because it sucks when you get in this situation, that's for sure.

Okay, he's got isolated, You got your hearing aids in.

Got him, got him cranked up. We'll do the best I can.

Okay.

So if you're at home thinking, man, Dave guy's an arrogant bastard. He may be, it's just that he can't hear. I don't feel like that's gonna be a problem for today.

No.

Joined also by Jason Phelps, the team from the founder of Phelps Game Calls. Joined by the Lewises from f HF GEAR. Yep, I won't say say a little bit more now.

What you want us to say?

The highly ever Bowls, the highly ver Bowls Paul Lewis and John Lewis from FHF Gear.

My wife's here to tell me that same encouragement.

Is going to give you live feedback. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you guys are designers, like you guys are designers, so you spend a lot of time just not you spend a lot of quiet time.

Yeah, we just that'd be.

The goal anyway, It is the goal.

We just got done with the shows down in Salt Lake and Portland, and for me at least, like my voice is gone by the first day because I'm I'm used to sitting in sitting in it, like Dave said, a dark dungeon and not talking to anybody. So yeah, needs to exercise the vocal cords a little bit.

Are you all visited out after doing trade shows?

Yeah, I think we both get where we need to. Just this will be the most socialization. We'll do probably for the next week or so. How many trade shows did you go to?

This is number two we have of three four, so we have three more.

Yeah, I don't know. I try not to keep track. But it's a lot, a lot of people, a lot of talking. All yeah, man, but it's good. I mean, I enjoy seeing seeing the customers and like getting that feedback.

It just my voice goes out fairly early in the trip usually.

Phelps, Did you like doing trade shows?

I love them.

They do they wear on you, though. I mean, I like being at them, but I'm not in the same breath. I'm glad that they were on the same weekend this year and they're just done and over with. But no, it's always good to catch up with your customers and listen to hunting stories and shoot the crap.

You know what I liked that I didn't know you guys had is at your booth. You have that chart that like game call that that the major ram call matrix.

Yeah, it's just because you spend so much time explaining the same thing, so it's easy to point, you know, and like, hey, this calls down here, this calls up here.

I would have rigged it, so it was work like had a goal, so work better, works better, works better, then nobody leads to a high price margin.

Man, I thought we could. I was gonna say, at some point, we're not going to buy the ones that work worse. But I get that damage the sales on the little on the little working calls Clay's here. He doesn't make anything. All his trust, all his stuff is written in words.

That's right.

He makes a little. He makes cute carvings and artworks. Yeah, did you see your picture out there?

Yeah?

Man, yeah, krink.

He grabbed the picture so we can show the picture again.

Finally made it. Made it.

We're doing you know, we're doing a T shirt design.

Yeah, I heard about that.

I like it. I'm gonna show it again.

Hey, I was gonna say, I was going to ask you a question, Jason about your trade shows. Are you the guy that's elk bugling like NonStop, just like just like attracting attention?

Yeah, and then like the specially because this is where I put it, Clay, can you and your own words quickly explained?

So a couple of years ago I found this at my mom and dad's house and had completely forgotten that I had drawn this when I was a junior in high school in art class. It's a pen and ink of a muscled up dude, like a future man, yeah, with a machine gun shooting a big hog in a cyper swamp. And I made a living in high school man off drawing muscled up guys. I don't know what it was, but I was like, I just like drew those guys NonStop. And I think this is a This

He's been on the show.

Yeah, Bo Jackson man, Now he had Bo Jackson had a famous baseball card or football card where he had his shirt off, shoulder pads on with a baseball bat. I think that's what inspired the shoulder pads. But yeah, so we're gonna make a T shirt machine gun.

Yeah, Oh, that'd be a good name for the shirt.

That's what I think. That's what we referred to it as.

That's great, it's great.

Artwork that's really cool.

Uh and then uh, Dave Smith. Of course you're from from uh D s D. You know, how do you guys handle that there's Dave Smith decoys and then D S D decoys. Have ever asked you about this?

So I've always tried to push D s D because it sounds less because arrogant.

Exactly because you're arrogant.

So I meant at the beginning, I wanted to call them zombies zombie decoys, and that just didn't stick. You know, people were just like, you know, you got to go get Dave Smith, you know, if you got any of Dave Smith, and that just sort of that just sort of happened.

So but now you know, we're.

A larger you know, larger company and part of a larger company and everything like that.

Like I don't it just so you're comfortable.

I don't offend Jason because of the Felps scholar or whatever like that. But I just like felt like it's it's a I have, you know, not I'm not like the you know, the big decision maker on everything, you know, I mostly do the artwork part of it and stuff like that. So it's a there's so much contributors to DSD that I wanted to make sure that it wasn't all about me.

So you're comfortable to be in DSD decoys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever d s D.

I mean, DSD Decoys doesn't really make sense because it's Dave Smith decoy, so it'd be like, yeah.

I'm I'm changing Phelps game calls the PGC after him talking about arrogance and his name.

I'm gonna Philips.

We're going back to PGC.

Oh Man, already, already, I'm alreadysier to say than f h F.

Joined also by Brad Cochran, who's never been on the show before. Brad Cochran from DSD.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, man, I want to get to something. I want to get something about your decoy philosophy. Okay, we'll talk about it later. He well, no, we'll I want to touch on then we'll delve into it later. You you, uh, hey, you need to just go all the way.

You always do this. You always go you touch on like the most thing, and you're like, we're gonna get back to it. Just go for it, Okay, just let's go all in.

You uh all right, you have a rule that you don't want to shoot. Now you've bushwacked turkeys in the past and done all the oh sure, yeah.

I mean I got into turkey hunting when I was fourteen years old, so you know, I imagine, like a lot of new turkey hunters, it was all about getting a bird, oh.

Yeah in the beginning, and belly crawling, bushwacking, yeah, ditch crawling, yeah, strangling whatever it took. Yeah, but you got now you don't want to hunt them if you're not using a decoy.

For sure.

Walk me through that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean there's a lot of reasons for it, I would say, first and foremost, for me, it's really about the the experience I've found that there. There's just there's there's nothing quite as memorable to me as having that really close encounter, and with decoys, I can draw them in as close as I want. Essentially, you know, I mean, obviously I have to be concealed. That's certainly an important component to it. But there's also you know,

How many turkeys you guys a loud three? Really?

Yeah?

One per day, three per season.

Yeah.

Are you turkey numbers holding up?

Yeah?

They are. Our turkeys are doing really well.

When you when you're when you say that that there's a trick to it, do you feel that there's a trick to how you set him out? Yeah?

Yeah, absolutely, you know you want them to be visible for sure, And I think it's really important that you go into your hunt knowing that. Okay, my goal is to decoy a bird, right, So my mindset isn't that I want to get a bird however I possibly can. It is I want to draw a bird into the decoy before I shoot it.

If you want to spur it at decoy, you know.

I mean not necessarily, because sometimes I might just be using a hand decoy, Like if I'm archery hunting, for example, I've had better success with just a single hand decoy because the bird is more likely to either come in full strut and he's not moving versus you know, when you put a gobbler decoy out. Oftentimes the bird's responses

Well they climb up there, Yeah, don't you think that I'm surprised he doesn't show up and think, like, man, there's no way that just laying out there a breeding position real quick? Usually do you think that.

I hunt?

So one of the places that hut my buddy, Uh Doug Durren's place for the youth season, and and uh sometimes you get where uh you get where gobblers won't come out. You know, they'll know that decoys out there. Do you think when a gobler won't come out and it just wants to like watch that decoy and then shy off from a gop from a male decoy, do you think is that he don't buy it or you think that he don't want to go out and tussle with it.

I would say, I mean, it's just if it's is one of our decoys. I mean, is it a realistic looking decoy we're talking about, or.

Just say like whatever, yeah, like yeah, one of your decoys.

Yeah, in that situation, I would say, you know, assuming that you know, your height is good and he didn't see somebody move or pick you out or call terribly yeah, yeah, then yeah, maybe he's just not in the mood to challenge another.

Bird because uh, the way he's got set it up. He's got like this trail cam and we'll set up and sit and he'll he'll be like, oh yeah, every day that bird comes out and does whatever, you know, And then so me and my kids go out there and we set up like a you know, a pack of them and uh using that using a half strutter, and he might come down and see that and not like it. But if it's just a hen right out now, I was warm. If that bird doesn't want to get his ass kicked.

Sometimes I would say that it's the difference because then the other ones, you know, and then you might get one just runs out there like.

Totally intent on fighting that thing. Yeah, you know, like they got different moods or whatever.

You know what I'm saying, right, And that's why we make gobbler and hen decoys and multiple different poses. You know, you see our strutter decoy over there, and he's a very dominant that's a very dominant pose right there, and any gobbler that season knows that he's asserting himself. Whereas that one over there, which I'm going to call the half strut bake because that's really what it is, and

He was three quarter strudding.

He's actually half strutting. That's the intention of that decoy. So we're going to call it the half strut, Jake, even though it technically, if you look on our website, it's called the three quarter.

Shread, Jake, tell me about the unhappiness. You just think it's goofy to say something's three quarter strutting, three quarter crow rams.

I mean, I you know, I mean I put a lot of effort in to the poses and make sure I try to make him as accurate as possible and everything like that, and that is a half strut, Jake.

I think what you have to realize here, Steve, is that Dave he studies birds obviously a lot, and and their anatomy, and there are you know, there there are other there are other poses that would be close more closely resemble a three quarter Strutchach. In other words, he there are poses between that decoy that are closer to a bird that's in full strut like that one right there, It would be more appropriate to call a three quarter stretch ache.

You know those shirts to show like the evolution to man. Yeah, we should do one of make it like ten steps toward full strut. Yea with the fractions. Yeah, the first one be like hanging out and then at the end of the turkey in full strut, and it just shows him'd be great decoy guy. We should cancel that about that, we should cancel that that future man and just do the thing on the way to the thing to.

Help people be able to describe what they're seeing. Like if I'm telling the story, I'm like, man a turkey with seven eight strut.

How often do you how often do you see that? You know, when Jake's come in, Jake's come in and get nervous about Jake's come in and get nervous about strutters? You know what I'm talking about.

They can, they can?

What do you think that what's going on in your head?

I would say that most of the time, Jakes are probably intimidated by a strutter decoy if they're not gonna approach it. But I've had I've had even individual Jakes come up and attack our strutter. That's what I'm likely to happen.

That's what I was going to get to next, is when you get a handful of them and they're going to take it on.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've had situations where I was hunting one big Tom and he absolutely would not come in because there's three jakes and my decoys, and I couldn't get rid of the jakes. I'm finally I'm like, maybe I should just start shooting the jakes or something that's gonna be frustrating. But it's like with everything too, even with the dear dycoy.

There's no situation where like, at a minimum, you're gonna use a hen, right, and then there's no situation. Have you ever set out have you? Do you ever use no hen and.

Just a gobbler decoy? Yeah, maybe it's happened before. If it has happened, it was probably because I was just trying to move really quickly and I only felt like I had time, you know, maybe to grab one decoy and and set one decoy, because the draw of a gobbler decoy is that, you know, if you have an aggressive bird, oftentimes that that might be the only tool you have to draw him away from his hens, is to threaten him with another gobbler who's who's challenging him.

Then he might kind of he might want to come in rough.

Yeah, because if a bird has five hens with him and he sees another hen, you know, sure he might. He might gobble at you, but he's he's not gonna leave. He's not going to leave the real deal. And so just generally speaking, I would say that you're gonna have better success with a gobbler decoy if a birds end up.

One of the things I like watching is uh, I like watching the hen come up to a hen and how they get like gradually really pissed. At first they're like purring at it, and pretty soon like hey, what's your problem? And then they're like packing it. I've had them come in and like lay down next to it, you know, like thinking they're hanging out and then get mad at it and pack it. You watch them go through this whole little friendship.

Yeah, it's crazy, you know, keeps.

Everybody entertained with your decoy. I know some tombo Yeah yeah, okay. I was hunting my boy one time and we had we just had all we had. We had a DSD hen and the hen came out and I'm not kiddy man like laid down with it, just set there forever, laid down not moving and then got irritated at it and like purred at it, got eyeball to eyeball with it. Was just not getting what it wanted out of it, packing at it, you know, bullying it because the.

Hen wasn't saying anything back. I don't know, I can't tell questions. It wasn't responding.

And that in that same spot where that happened, we had a KYO come over and roll that thing, which happens, yeah, which happens pretty frequently, come out and roll it. They more reliably roll the decoys than like a predator caller decoy. They'll charge it a lot of times, you know, it's just a predator caller sitting there with a little tail waving. They'll charge it and then they'll change their mind. But

Sure, I mean that it changes as the season progressives, but it also you know, it can it could depend on, you know, an individual bird that I might be going after or so it's not necessarily what I'd use for decoys doesn't necessarily correlate with the time of the season. A lot of times back home, our birds are still pretty flocked up during the youth hunt because that's the

What's the most decoys you ever set out at one time? You'll put a whole flock out, like you're hunting geese.

Probably the most that I've ever put out is maybe five, five or so.

But when we go hunt with Matt Winners, he puts out like twelve.

Oh dude, they're tel turkey decoys.

Yeah, yeah, And we have we have several customers that do that and they just every time they're just shocked at how well it works. And I'm kind of surprised that it works that good because it's like, all of a sudden, the flock of turkeys is, you know, encountering a whole new.

Flock and yeah, they're like I thought I was the flock.

Yeah, yeah, let's go mingle. But yeah, it's pretty fun when you, uh, when we have done that. Matt is the one who really turned that on the first time we ever went. He's in Kansas. The first time we ever went to go hunt with him, he wanted to impress us of how many DSDs he had and he had them all out in his yard and.

Then you wanted to show you what a good customer he was.

Yeah, exactly, actually yeah, And he's just been h he's been buying up first light gear the last couple of weeks and weeks. He's just like a great supporter of DSP and anything that we do.

He's just a great guy.

We love it.

We love him all right.

Give me, like, give me the just give people like the setup. If people aren't gonna try to figure a whole bunch of stuff out and they're not gonna buy a dozen and they're just starting out, what do they want to put out? They want to put out a strutter and a hen like, just like give it like the straightest, most most you know, idiot proof setup for idiots.

Well, like I always I asked him first you know about their hunt. First off, are you a shotgun hunter or are you an archery hunter?

Shotgun?

Okay, you're a shotgun hunter. Then I get a hen in at Jake decoy.

Hending to Jake, Yeah really yeah.

Three quarter strut.

So you just if you're telling someone like, okay, let me, let me give you the profile of the guy. There's a guy. Let's just say there's a guy that knows he's got access on some field and it's not a big spot. He's got access on forty acres and now and then he notices on his way to work he'll see some turkeys out in the field and he thinks to himself, Man, I'm gonna go out in that field on O ME day and I'm gonna sit there. And that's as much as he knows.

Yeah, that's a perfect Jake and a hen Hen guy that, like some of the guys, will will start him off with a strutter. If they have like a big boss Tom that they've been having, you know, trouble with, that's the time to put a strutter.

But it's also.

Trouble well, like they're just they just have been able to get him to go to commit by any other way or with other decoys or something like that. But yeah, I mean a half stritch jake and a upright hand is a great I mean people have done that for years and years just starting out and had great success with it. And we've had quite a few people at the beginning just put out just an upright hand only and start with that. But if you can afford two decoys, uh,

Do you.

My buddy' Zuck when he's putting them out, he likes to put him out where he's like, well, yeah, but they I could picture him walk in toward that corner, and you make sure that that they look like they're traveling in direct yeah, into that.

Yeah, we made a striding hand just for that purpose, and when some people a little by, three or four of them just for that reason. So we're just trying to offer everything and give you lots of options so that everyone's confused.

Is there any decoy company that makes realistic looking feet turkey feet.

I don't think so. I mean, I don't know why.

That's the only part of any decoy that's not realistic. But I mean, by the time they get that close, it's probably two heats in the grass. But I mean, you know they've they've all got the state coming down. And I mean a turkey turkey feet are kind of bright, you know that bright pink. I just wondered if there's like if you could and it maybe maybe it's it's not a factor.

But there are some things that I can't tell you. I can't say right now, but we we we agree it.

Could be like a detachable bipod. I bet I don't have any inside intel here.

I'll shut out. Oh, I can tell what Dave can't say. Yeah, I mean I've detected not can tell. I can't tell you.

I've got some ideas, But.

I mean, feet are a huge part of birds like Mallard ducks.

Even sitting on the water.

You can see feet are huge, a huge part of it.

And Canada geese, especially the large race white cheek geese, the feet are a huge.

Part of it.

And and I've fought that battle with the DSD forever, like wanting to have full legs and feet. So we have legs, but we don't have feet. But the feet are really a big part of a goose.

How about a little battery pack where they move like this.

So it's you're saying that the feet means something to a bird. Well, picture that you saw a dude standing on a field with no legs, but he was hovering. But it's really normal.

Yeah, I mean, because like in our goose hutting, a lot of our goose setting is about landing birds and having them walking around the decoys. So we somehow we'll use small spreads but get birds to land, and then those are our decoys while we try to get other birds come in in case we want to look for a like ban or net collar out of the air. And it's like, it's probably okay that the decoys don't

It bothers me. I don't know if it bothers the birds, but.

It'd be kind of cool to have the complete bird for sure.

But usually they're like sitting in grass. But anyways, I got what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

In your guys line up, when did you start making turkey decoys? Because you all everything like you were like all geese all the time, and then you moved into Brad.

Is the d S historian, and he's good with dates and stuff, and it's all a blur to me.

So, Brad, it was in eight with our upright hand.

It was in eight with our upright So can we edit that out?

Who's the who paints the Is there a turkey painting specialist?

I mean our whole paint crew paints them.

Yeah, but I'm saying, is there like, is it divided out or to the same people that paint geese paint turkeys.

Oh that's correct, Yeah, that's how we do it.

It's divided out.

So if they paint geese, they also paint.

Okay, and they get sick of I They kind of get sick of painting this one thing for for a long long time and they actually like a little bit of variety.

They don't mind going.

From turkeys to geese and back to you know, turkeys and then the deer or something like that.

Got it kind of monot monotonous.

Otherwise, when they paint him, is it a small what is the tool? Is a small airbrush they use?

They use big touch up guns and then small airbrush and then a lot of hand painting too, hm so, and then there's stencils, stenciling.

I don't want a dog in any particular decoy company, but I remember we used to when we were younger. We'd buy like a certain brand of decoys, and a lot of times you'd see where they did it was automated or something, because the they'd miss yeah, like the white patch, Yeah, the spot, Yeah, like the white man would be around the bag. It's like, yeah, that's so. But when someone buys one, it's been like there's been a dude painting on it.

Yeah.

I don't think people realize that.

Yeah, No, I don't know for sure.

And there's probably been like five people that contributed to that one decoy because we don't we don't have like individual stations where somebody paints a decoy from start to finish, you know, and put a base later on, and then you know, progressively, step by step it'll move down to the next person and so on and so forth until it's fully painted.

You ever seen But none of those guys wear braids and stuff? Do they? With the little palette?

We know.

That'd be a good ad campaign. Man's add with a brain and a palette doing some touch ups on it.

Put some happy little wattles on a turkey.

Well, I was just gonna say, like that, like on the like on the streutter, for example, all that red is all painted by hand brush and the entire body colored, every bit of pearls and irid essence on that that's all painted by brush by hand.

How long does it take to paint a decoy start to finish.

I don't know.

That's you know, we get asked that so often.

And we have no idea. We don't want to I don't want to know.

But you don't add it up now.

I mean maybe Greg does. But yeah, we're working on a new decoy right now. That's really really difficult to paint that. I can't I mean I can't really talk about it because we're not positive that will come out with it.

But it's really really difficult to paint.

And it's like, oh man, if we figured out how many, I mean, well, we'll never make a profit with it.

What it supposed to look like? What kind of animal? A bird? A bird one that goes quack like a Himalayan cock of the rock.

Yeah, yeah, it's a a temis tragopan.

Yeah.

What makes it hard the positions into the kind of.

Bird it's it's a Mallard duck is what we're working on right now.

And it's just a lot of you know, there's just there's a lot of airbrushing, a lot of color.

Can I ask a dumb question and don't that's not going to offend people?

How much?

Does?

Doesn't matter? But I'm not I'm not excited. Don't know, like if the paint's awful a little bit while the birds pick it up, or does it matter ten percent of time?

We've just we have just.

We just decided a long time ago to just make making things as accurate as we possibly can. And I've made fish replicas my whole life. And my mentor was honestly the best fish replica artists on Earth, Ron Pittard, and he just taught me that you just don't You just don't stop until something's deadly accurate, and then it

Like it's like, shit, no, we want we want birds super super super close. We want to make quick, clean kills.

Everything we do is mostly for our own hunting, and it's to be as absolutely as effective as we can. We honestly don't give a shit about you know, how pretty the decoys are, whether they were carved by a world class carver or anything like that. We just we just love to hunt and as effectively as we can.

So, I mean, I think but realism is a big deal with turkey decoys. Yeah, I mean big deal because guys were the real serious guys years ago and some still today are are using actual turkey mounts, have real turkey feathers, and if you're if you're trying to get him in close, yeah it's it's a big deal.

You're just hoping it don't rain.

Yeah, they get wet.

Oh there's so many guys that they'll say like, wow, we don't like turkey decoys or turkey decoys don't work that well and stuff like that. And we've seen a lot of footage of birds coming in and they're just like hanging up and hanging up like crazy, and they're like, yeah, I see, you know, turkey decoays don't work that good, but they're using some brand of turkey decoys.

It just looks horrible.

And it's like, well, that's the problem, and that's telling us a lot, and that's kind of driving what we do.

And it's like most.

Of the time, if we can get those guys to switch, then good things happen.

But I think on anything that's real persnickety and it has a ton of components, people can always say, well does that matter, does that matter? Does that matter? And be like, I can tell you that the sum total matters. And perhaps there's parts within this whole approach that if you pulled out it wouldn't affect the outcome, but it's

Yeah yeah.

Yeah. That's like with goose hunting.

A lot of it like the hide is so so so important, and you know, the calling isn't is important if if you're calling at all, and so it's like everything really has to be right and you wouldn't want to start removing any any part and start taking chances.

Yeah, It's like there's no way in the world you would say that I would have gotten that gobbler if my decoy wasn't as high quality.

Right.

Well, and then also, like Brad is alluding to, you know, it's like, well, you could probably get a gobbler, but what do you come into ten yards and really interact like crazy with the decoy and just have this breathtaking moment. It's like, well, maybe he would have came into thirty yards and you could have you know, dumped in with a shotgun or whatever. Just depends on what level of really fun and excitement you want to take it to.

I sent you guys that video last year of a bunch of a bunch of gobblers mounting your posturing him.

Yeah, we try to look away when that happens, but it's like.

It's kind of hard too.

I supposed to watch that.

Yeah, get your.

Head out of the gutter.

Oh I got one. I got one last bird question, one last turkey question. If if the paint job's so realistic and all that, why is there what's up with using a real fan or not a real fan? I can't tell if it matters.

Yeah, we've we wanted to make an artificial fan. We still want to just because it's so durable, because those are a pain to deal with for sure. But you know, we haven't been able to make an artificial fan that really has the right finish and and translucency and and all that stuff. And and we haven't seen any available that are that way too. And you know, we have

Yeah, Now, have you ever thought about doing like map spinners and buying and selling fans.

There's already a company that does that.

Does you can call them up and buy a Turkey fan?

Well, we we've we sent some customers to them, but most of our customers will have a you know.

I can stack them, dude, I like every year, I like go through and and sort them, take the bad ones, get rid of them, promote the good ones.

Yeah.

I was just dusting off my fan pile the other day thinking about coming up.

Yeah, turkeys are Turkey fans are one of those things like I find my stuff every time I clean a bird. It's sick so hard for to throw it away, you know.

Mm hmm. So you think that. Uh so when you're setting up, when you guys are setting up, you're setting up with a real fan if it's a full struck bird, Oh yeah, for sure. Huh you know that some uh you know that fanning. Some states are starting to come out with rules about creeping up on turkeys with a turkey fan.

Yeah, yep.

I think Wisconsin you can't do that anymore.

And I think maybe even in Kansas you can't reap. But don't quote me on that.

Can't move how they spelled it out, You can't move around. There's some rule you can't like move around with it.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, and a lot of people have been reaping where they they'll take even ardi KOI and get behind it and start crawling around. And and I've never done myself, but I've even my some of my turkey partners have done it. And they'll do it like with three or four guys all behind strutters and crawl, you know, crawling up.

Whatever.

It sounds kind of crazy and it sounds kind of dangerous. But yeah, that's that's.

I think that's why there. I think that's why states are clamping down on it. It's just the risk factor.

Yeah, yeah, we don't want people to do that, for sure.

There's no way, like like I might, there's no way I'll let my kid crawl around with a turkey fan on his head, because then my wife be home at what like once she got to understand, you know, if he got whatever sprayed by a load of shotgun shells or load of pellets, and then was asking me about what happened, and I was like, oh, I told him to take a Turkey's fan and crawl around out in the fields just over his face. She's just gonna get mad.

Yeah, that's for sure, So.

I don't do it.

I've got a I've got a design idea for your turkey fan. Okay, I can't tell it. Okay, it's that good Okay, I like it.

Uh, Clay, I want you and you and Phillips to do heat us up with a little turkey calling actions turkey calling, tell me what you're putting in your mouth?

Yeah?

This so this is I just got these from Jason this morning. This is the what is this, Jason? That the tripping hen? Yep, they're usually a little better after you warm them up a little bit, warm them up like body temp. I mean, like for a couple of days.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. Yeah, that's got a word for. I can't remember what it is.

I can't hear myself.

It's tough. Your headphones off.

It's a good gobble.

That's great, sounds good.

Your gobbles a little too high pitch?

Yeah, I got a real white call.

Have you ever heard of hen try to gobble?

You know? No, I know people talk about this, but no.

Yeah, it's it's extremely high pitched.

Trying to gobbler. Is it just a hen vocalization?

For sure. I've seen them actually like throw their head forward.

And two years ago I had a Hen come in in full straut and I was filming by myself.

That was pretty cool. I haven't seen that happen too much.

But it phelps youat this up?

Well you what's your little bird app that you? You say this isn't a woodpecker? You're no, I'm I just want to remind you because you're gonna say that it's not a woodpecker, but I whatever this is I got Oh goodness.

Are you really trying to do it? I feel like no, I didn't.

I was just bringing up that I called this woodpecker, but you reminded me last time that it wasn't.

Okay, sound ideas on. You're not gonna trick it. Hold on, you don't think it's gonna pick up. He's not gonna trick it, really do you'll trick so do some hand calling. Okay, I got it up. It says listening for birds. You'll trick it with a hen call. Because I can trick it with a hen call. You gotta get better than that. I think it's something with being in a room or something. Okay, phelps you hit it, you stop from it. You hit We're gonna hit the new woodpecker. Call no, no, hit turkey.

Call?

Oh no, who just did something? He no, I just took a minute. I got wild turkey. I think it's slow. I think it's because I finally started calling I'm a little better than Clay. You call it, okay, hit it, Okay, he's banging it, Clay, that's a new call. Try something different. You're not getting it, Phelps, but didn't bring it then, so I think we got No, it's not that we just got a problem.

What's the cut? I don't know. It's Jason the what the cut?

I think he's got. We actually split a bat wing on that one, so it's a split down the middle. And this is a combo cut with we nicked the second layer a little bit on the open side.

On this one.

This is a really really light call, like all prof and then that one's a little bit yeah, I mean by light call so we can layer in. You know, most of your tricky calls, there are a lot of doubles, but I would say the majority of your tricky calls are going to be triple three pieces of latex. So like when this one be an ultra light the new Rain series, it's got prof you know, prophylactic, profilactic, and a very light piece of latex on top that's cut.

But lighter is easier for beginners to learn. You don't have to learn how to force as much air.

Yeah, and you know you can get into like different styles of tricky callers, you know, like the old school guys they call like a huff style where you're using like a lot of diaphragm, a lot of air. Where like these new calls, it's like just real light air. You're not having to just you know, get rid of so much so much air. O can't rip on that one a little bit. This No, no, not the woodpecker yet. I liked you did a woodpecker. The perf not real

Like ghost cuts like.

Kiki's Merlin's Merlin's perking right up on that one.

So it likes a little higher pitch call. Well, like I said, it likes everything when you're outside.

Well, I remember the.

One time you were sitting on a tree and you had like forty two birds going no, like like, I think it's something weird happens when you're outside any like any kind of turkey column, it will usually like picker, start bringing it. Yeah, now let me see your let me see your woodpecker. So this is our new guy work with James Harrison again. But I want, I want Clay tell them our woodpecker problem, the woodpecker debate.

Which one man about I rebuild woodpeckers.

About my blue jay call and all that.

Oh just like just just like shot shot gobbling calls shot.

I'll tell you what me and Clay's debate is about shot gobblin.

I think that.

I think that a good shot gobble is something that gets shot gobbles. Yeah, Clay thinks a good shot gobble is something that sounds exactly like accurate, like a bird an owl. Right, I don't care if it sounds like I had, Like I like, hey, if you want shot gobbles. I've said, so you'd be you.

Want if you want to about two different things.

Now, I'm moderate. If we're talking about turkey hunt we're talking about turkey decoys, We're talking about turkey calls. Okay, right, we're talking about turkey hunting, right right, So set in the scene talking about turkey hunting. Okay, we're here to talk about turkey hunting. Yes, been talking about turkey hunting. Shot gobbles are elicited by in my view, shock op gobbles are best elicited by like sudden, very sharp, disruptive sounds.

Correct, Yeah, okay, Okay, are you done?

He is not that turkey is not sitting there thinking God, was that a real albel He's not, but he when he gobbled, he gobbles, he gobbles quicker and he can think.

Yeah, I agree with you. The difference between what you're doing and what I'm trying to do and what I appreciate and realism and all levels of woodsmanship is the difference between in casting and fly fishing. The difference because when I go into the woods, it's it's it's like it's like now, not necessarily me. I'm not the best out hooter nor the best turkey caller. But you go down with some of some of these guys from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could go out and do a spin casting. Fly casting.

I mean it's the same thing like.

You think, you think a really good bad you think there's you think a really good bass fisherman style, a really good bass fisherman that can land that that can land three eight times.

That was a great analogy. You see what I'm saying. I mean it's like in the woods. I don't want people to know, Wow, Steven Ell just slammed his.

Cardiff or has an air horn.

Ye, you're like, you just want to sound like I was what I was resenting.

And I resent this more than your take on owl hooting and all that. No, I appreciate it, good owl hoot. I'm saying, I don't think it in terms of getting a gobble.

I don't think it does.

I take offense at your thing that you were going to go down some path that like that that somehow fly casting is somehow like more poetic or.

When when I'm in the woods, I want to I want to be I don't want someone on the next ridge.

To go that dude just out and you think spin fishing is louder.

I thought this was going to be the best analogy ever done.

Would both of you go just what.

People say, like you're you're going to the river to fish. A spin caster is just trying to get the job done. A fly fisherman is trying to do as are bobbing their heads here. So I'm just saying, yeah, you can get a turkey to gobble all different ways. I agree with that, but there's some there's some art, there's some new craft inside of you know, your crow call, your alcohol play.

It took my croll call and wrote this is a blue jay call on it?

Oh disrespect?

Yeah, well no, because it is. That's all Him'm trying to replicate it.

See that would have helped me the first time I heard him blow it, if I would have known he was trying to do a blue jay.

Yeah.

We had this conversation multiple times just at the show, like, well, what's the difference between the wood alt hooter and the pro I said, well, the wood owt hooter actually sounds better. It's cheaper, but for a hunting call, I want to be able to crank that thing up, not sound quite like an owl, but be able to reach the next ridge over and get that response and still kind of sound like, you know, the best alcohol we can build. And so there's there's a lot of that, like just

So that's fly fishing. But it's like you're on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, trying.

To cut it's still technically fly fishing.

So you're you're gonna you're gonna blow on a pilliated call? Yeah, or what are our hunting piliated woodpecker?

Call?

Is very loud, you guys are Day's probably gonna really hate it.

But uh but I don't know.

We had this in Kansas last year and it did not pick up, and so I'm a little but there's a lot of weirdness about what picks up and don't pick up because what I found, like.

Like outside inside is a big difference.

We'll see.

Okay, Oh that sounds good though, man, pick up.

My favorite thing to do is like come down out of my office. I think all the workers are just down there putting stuff together, and.

Just hit them with a woodpecker call.

Hit it again. That sounds good though, Oh yeah.

And then this, uh James Harrison, the out hooter, you know, wins all the contests.

Matter of fact, you know our olhooter.

He just told me.

Out of the twenty nine people calling it the Grand National Championship, twenty four of them, I think, O, what ol hooter? Out of twenty nine, that's seriously yeah, like legit phelps out hooter.

Yeah.

And then we got the al scream, which this is his thing. Twenty four out of twenty nine guys are using your ol hooter. According to James Harrison on the stage at the NWTF convention, do.

You think it's fair that they could be using any kind of call at all for I mean for a competition. What do you mean fair?

Fair as in like, uh, I would think if you were having an al hooting competition, you'd have to also have a no just raw voice.

Well, that's a whole different competition, and they.

They've them more towards the calls they have. Man, Hey, in Arkansas, Bentonville, Arkansas, March ninth, we're having a natural voice out hooting contest at the Black Burbonanza. We are making it into the world's premiere natural voice out hooting contest.

So so you're so they divide out natural voice. Yeah, that's all we do. Okay, hit me, hit me with one. Clay Oh, I.

Could never do him on call. I had a guy to show the other day come up to me and was like, hey, Clay, give me an alhot. It was terrible. I was embarrassed.

I was like, get here home, everybody be quiet, give me another one.

So I didn't pick up.

No, it's not doing well. No, because I know you're I know yours pick up and what was killing Clay or what was killing Seth Morris is we are calling? Uh, we were calling owls.

You were there.

Seth was there and he could just get the owl to come in, get the owl to answer, but the app wouldn't pick it up, and he had to keep messing and messing and messing, and he had to change his call so the app would pick up, and it wound up being in the in the gurgle at the end. Oh, he had to manipulate his own girl. He had to like customize it to try to get picked off by the app. But outside yours picks off. But I don't know.

Yeah, do that one again.

I want to hear that again. That sounds good.

Doctor Woodpecker, do the il scream.

Let me hear the I want to hear the woodpecker. Get. I want to to pill.

I'll scream. Will just be like a pitch break. You've all heard the owl scream like early in the morning.

Now here's why I think before you do this, I think that like sure sounded like a bird.

That's great.

That's what I'm talking about. Forgetting gob It's like it's like it's so all of a sudden, and it's so you can't ignore it, yep, because the thing is, how many times in most places, if you're sitting there waiting for you to light out, first thing you're gonna hear in a lot of airs, you're gonna hear a northern cardinal and he's gonna be the first thing in the morning.

Yeah, where that's where the woodpecker, Like you do the pretty and like when you're out hunting, you can literally hit the first one and be done and get the same response like he's already gobbling from that one.

You know.

But back to Clay's point, I want to be somewhat accurate and like finish out sounded like a woodpecker, so you finish Hey, could.

It not be?

I think there's an argument to be made that realism might make a difference, because like, if you're hunting a super smart, wary bird that's had four years of hunting pressure, and you walk up there with an air horn and and he's heard he's not coming, the truck pull up and maybe he gobbles at it, but he's and I mean, I don't he doesn't have the brain power to think, oh, that's Steve Arnell over there, but he's just like maybe you know.

That's the thing I do wonder about. Is I wonder about the difference because we're talking. That's two things. That's eliciting a gobble okay, And then there's is he gonna come over like does he just did he just add something to his knowledge base where it's like that wasn't the real I gobbled? But yeah, I used to get mega gobbles off of a rabbit distress call. I mean mega like way off gobbles. But then I'm thinking, Okay, he gobbled, But is he really gonna come mosying over

Yeah, the same reason like Eastern Washington, Kyle Howell's work great for locating, especially later in the day. But you're like, if you want to try to call that burden, like in my mind at least the picture in painting, like, why is this burd gonna come home all the time?

Man?

Yeah?

The only thing I would add is like I do agree that there's something to be said for a short call to get a shot gobble, because then you can hear them gobble, you know, which is like if you do a long drawn out call, it's like, hey, well, I mean maybe you guys don't have a problem I do with my hearing, like I gotta stop quickly. It's I can hear him. But also then you know where he's at, you could go, you could go to him.

Okay, hit the so oh I want to I want to add on that. The thing that causes tension between me and my turkey hunting friends is it they think that I start walking too quickly after making my shot gobble noise, Joannie gets irritated. I don't give it enough beats.

But I'm like, he would have already gobbled. Yeah, I'm on team Renela on this one.

Like shot you don't need to stay in there for a minute.

Even five ten seconds, Like that's too much. If he gobbles, it's on his own. I'll do it, I'll go I'll be like on.

Yeah, I'm walking on set, man, That's why I walked till twenty I'm like, dude, you might hear a gobble, but it's not never related.

Dear.

Yeah, you're just regular listening. You're not listening.

Man.

The best turkey hunters that I've ever hunted with do very little early morning shot goblin. I mean I think there's a there's more.

Depends so much on the air area, man.

Yeah, yeah, just just the patients that I see in some of these guys that I mean, they're not well known people, just like really good turkey hunters. Man, they let that turkey gobble on his own most of the time. And I mean they carry a shot gobble or can owl or crow with their mouth and and use that. But I would say the number one way to identify a beginner or novice turkey hunter is how much they're shot using shot gobble.

It's too dependent. Sure, if you're in a high density area whatever. If you're like out in the never ending Ponderosa pine grassland stuff right and you and it's cute, you're gonna go miles between anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think we're talking about too.

It's just kind of hunt.

Yeah, You're like, you're like somewhere out in this ten square miles there might be a gobbler. And if I'm gonna find a bird over the next two days, I'm gonna have to hunt very aggressively and try to get a because any mine is sitting here listening is like I'm gonna have to find a bird. Yeah. It's just different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

More of what I'm talking about is back East hunting. Hunting a bird that you maybe you know, the smaller ground, you might be spending your whole morning in a you know, a square mile or less or you know, maybe one hundred and sixty acres. Man, you're gonna be You're gonna play the patient game, all.

Right, go on, So I'm gonna try the James Harrison is a pro with this thing, but we developed it as an oul screamer as well.

Oh that gets them.

I mean just once again, just big loud bursts. Like I said, I probably just did that call. No justice, that's his side. I was more I want a woodpecker call.

But now that right there is for getting gobbles, just high pitched. What you do with them, what you call that the spincaster, no what like that gets a gobble. What you do with them afterward is up to you. But that's gonna get a gobbyl Yeah, And that's that's why I in this call. Like I said, we could have way more or maybe not on the ile screamers. I had been on the woodpecker.

You know, I had more accurate sounds, but then we kept adding more volume, made it loud because like I say, I'm I'm a hunter at heart. I just want these things to answer, so I can start the game and then go from there. There's two contests. There's two tournaments. I'm trying to figure out how to conduct. I want to have a world I want to have a glassing invitational.

I love that where you have set out, not set.

Out, Okay, I want it to be real. So I want to have a glassing invitational where you go to a good area and there's judges and to score a point, you so to find an original find, you put a scope. You put a spotting scope on it, and the judge comes, looks, verifies to find and that's like one hundred points now one betted next to it or whatever those are fifties

Beach tent, so they have the opportunity to find it.

So you don't know, so all the competitors can't tell where someone's looking. So figure that out, and like you get a point, and you set up at daybreak and you have till eleven, and it's like the World Glassing Championship, like it I love it to be a great compound competition. The other exciting to watch. No, I would love it. I would love it.

I could be like a golf commentator.

I thought about it, hide little things out, but I don't think it should be like that, because stuff pops.

If everybody was looking at the same landscape, it would be fair.

No, but you want to be an area, and I know I know right where I would hold it. I know right the hill, I know the mount, the peak I would go to to conduct it.

Dude, listen, I'll be one of the commentators. I will on the live stream and then we'll have have like roped off with people along the sides, like a golf tournament, and every time somebody does a find will and I'll be like, oh, that was a beautiful fine.

By the other, my other tournament is the World Shot Gobbling Invitational. And I don't know how to conduct it.

Hmmm. Yeah, you'd have like categories like just a listening freestyle unlimited freestyle. It's freestyle unlimited listening gobbles. I don't know how to make it equal though.

Another nail bitter.

Yeah, yeah, who can elicit the most? It have to be like days long to rule out to rule out incidentals or not not to rule incidentals, to rule out the freaks. It had to be ten days, you know, big commitment to be like, oh, he just got the good spot that morning. But over time you're gonna see you're Over time, you're gonna see a champion emerged, a trend, someone that just can listen gobbles, and it's probably going to be, unfortunately, a dude with an airhorn.

It's going to put to rist all of our theories. If you can figure out how to give away a truck at both of those you, I am.

Going to do the glassing the glassing invitational. I'm serious about. I think you could pull off a glassing invitational for sure. Oh, Dave, you know another thing I wanted to ask about. Just change the subject a little bit. You guys are you guys decoys are? Tell me about American made decoys.

All our Treky decoys are made in America, always have been.

And uh, it's difficult, and it's expensive, and.

But the quality is really good. They're super durable.

And we love our crew and they're good, they're good people, and that's just how we decided to do it.

And and but you could, there would have been an easier way to do it. Like, it's not like out of necessity.

Yeah, oh my gosh, I mean like we're I mean, we're I'm almost the only USA MA Turkey decoy.

There might be a few Q the national anthem phill, but.

Most decoys are pain are what overseas.

They're blow molded, you know, polyathlene made in China, and you know there's nothing wrong with that. It makes the lightweight and and inexpensive and all that stuff.

But can you pull that mic a little bit closer?

Dave?

Sorry, Mike, microphone close. I'm sorry, You're good, Thank you? Oh Dave? How much you've been here? And have you been hearing most of everything today?

Much better without the without the headphones? He that no, No, I did.

A dog.

Yeah, but yeah, it is. We're able to make like a really really super durable decoy, which is kind of nice. I mean, like, we have one video of Brad shooting a decoy and it's on purpose, It wasn't an accident or anything. He's shut out of decoy with heavy shot from ten yards away and goes and picks up the decoy and you absolutely cannot find a mark on it anywhere and you pick it up. He picks it up and shakes it and it's just absolutely full of shot.

It's like that Arnold Schwarzenegger had to fight in uh yeah, that silver guy.

Yeah yeah, yeah, terminator, Yeah, you heard him.

It just goes back to normal.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not quite like that, but almost the same. Yeah.

But when you started out, you know, why does it wind up being overseason and why not? I mean people launch them overseas, like if you if you started when you start out, you're just making a few of them, right, So obviously when you were making a few of them yourself, you like you didn't even think about whether you'd make them overseas or make them in America because you're just making a handful. Yeah, and there's some point at which it would just you'd have to decide that it would

I mean so far, we haven't had any major, major plans to make any Turkey decoys overseas, but it might be something that we'd offer, like especially if we could. You know, we just want to offer as many different options as possible for people, so you know, you can make it lighter weight and less expensive. So and the thing is is, like like our half strut Jake, we had a guy that just loved that decoy and thought

It took us.

Three years of literally like one by one content contacting people that were just you know, promoting his decoy like crazy, of telling him the truth and setting them straight, and took us three years to recover from from that. And they eventually he eventually went out of business and all that stuff because people are basically good and our customers are are unbelievably great to us and they stood by us and you know, learn the truth and everything like that.

So we we deal with that.

And there's we have other decoys where you know, these companies that we've known of for a long long time and all of a sudden they have a Turkey decoy and it's just like, it looks so much like our decoy. It's just ridiculous and that that happens and it's kind of flattering, but it's kind of annoying too and stuff like that.

But and those are.

All made overseas, so that's a little bit difficult because now all of a sudden they're able to charge a lot less for it. And the thing is, it's like because we make decoys uh in America and have made goose decoys in America, so we have to we do have to charge a lot because the materials are very very expensive, like that material that's so durable is super super expensive, and so we do have to charge a

But you guys don't like, you don't package and tell, you don't like overtell that it's all designed and made in America. I mean, you're sure, says DSD decoy's USA, but I could be they're based in the USA.

Yeah, we probably should push that a little harder.

Especially especially if people are trying to bone you over.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I mean point taking, Yeah, we probably should.

My idea for the tail fan was American flag.

Yeah yeah, Paul with with with f HF you guys, uh, you guys got you guys fight it all the time on made in America.

We do.

And we're sort of in the same boat with Day where we started out. I started out making this in a spare bedroom, so certainly wasn't going to have anything made overseas. I was doing custom work and really kind of started in the tactical world where that was much more of a thing like hunting versus tactical. The customers typically want to see a US made product, I think in the tactical space. In the tactical space for.

Sure, because you're dealing with people who are like, like by definition like patriot, patriotic.

Yeah, patriots and preppers and just tactical guys former military, current military that kind of stuff, law enforcement, and then

But the part I don't get about it is when you talk about the cost thing, how you're talking about shipping it halfway around the world, Like, how does that you'd think that if you took a person from outer space, like you take a guy comes from Mars and you're like, hey, I want to ask you question, what do you think costs more me to sell a thing here in Montana? Okay, it was made in America, Or would it cost more if I had it made on another continent halfway around

Well, I think that it probably used to be. The biggest thing is the labor costs overseas. You can just you know, people, I don't know what they're our wages in China or Bangladesh, but it's certainly not as much.

As a dollar or two.

The people that are making stuff here in the US, and all of our stuff is made here, and so you know, the factories we use are paying their people well and treating their people well, and they have you know, their middle class jobs, and many of those have disappeared over the years.

Where you know, it used to be.

The textile market, you know, mills, sewing, everything was done here. And this was brought in, you know, as far back as right after the Revolutionary War for reasons for like national security and just independence to have all of that stuff done here locally, just like weapons manufacturing, All of that stuff was brought here. But you know, starting in the eighties, I just disappeared out of the country. So it's really hard to find factories in the US that can do a good job of it at scale, at

Say the best materials in the US, you mean the best materials produced in.

The US, correct, And there are some things that just aren't made here anymore. Certain things, or if they are made here, they may not be as good because that technology has been exported over the last thirty years and there just isn't a way to get it made here. A stupid example is our zipper poles. Like I almost bought a machine to make our little molded zipper poles on a cord, because there's maybe one of your listeners knows, but I cannot find a place anywhere in the US

What party talking about just.

The poles on.

I mean that's why I use bump the cord and the knotted cord on all the zippers because I mean on our little pouches, we do a little plastic zipper pool.

Yeah, And you mean there's no one in America making that or that you.

Found, not that I've found.

I mean you can find a piece of cord with some shrink tube on it, but you know, like a molded nice you know, something you can put a logo in and you know, make it look nice. There just isn't. That's just one example. But there are fabrics that we use, and we use a few of them that are made overseas, but many of those are done that way because, you know, to be honest, many of the best, like bag manufacturers, are in Vietnam because that's where all the technology is,

But those are fewer and fewer and fewer, it seems like.

So it's just a it's a weird self perpetuating problem trying to find find both the materials as well as the labor and the talent to get that done in the States. And it's expensive.

So if if everything, if everything of f HF gear is made in the USA. Does that Does that mean that you can't buy but you can still buy a material made somewhere else or is that not true? Yeah?

I mean technically.

For us to say made in the USA, you know, virtually all of it has to be here, and we do our best to source everything locally, you know, domestically, like I said, like zipper poles.

You know, there's.

Please reach out if you know somebody who will make those, but you know, for the most part we do our best. And then you know, there's the difference would be like assembled in the say, where you might have you know, components like say the shoulder harness and the pouch made in two different countries and brought here and put together,

We were on the slide.

Yeah, we were making and paying for them to make it in the US. And this was one product years and years ago when I was still in my basement, but they were the last one that came out of the box. I found a little tag on it that I think they used to get through customs that said made in Mexico. And I'm like really, and I'm like, you dirty rats, because they gave me a price for USA made or NAFTA compliant or you know, Asia pricing,

And they went out of business.

Yeah, they went out of business.

If when you look at the at that the doppel bag you're working on, it has the I know, you mess around with a bunch of different fabrics, yep. And and uh, you'd give me bags and I'd bring them back to you after you're broken. Well, I'd be like, you know, the bag baggage handler or brade and whatever this stuff happens to him mostly that yep. I mean, anything you ever gave me would wound up being that the guy, it looks.

Like it got stuck stuck in the conveyor We got jammed in the conveyor belt.

And then you uh settled on that sale cloth. Where's that made?

That is made overseas. That specific fabric is made overseas. Part of the reason I chose that is because of the color availability. Availability of the fabric again becomes a challenge. And that bag is actually a mix of US fabrics and the sailcloth, but it's one hundred percent recycled, and it's done in a facility over there that I mean, as you guys probably where almost all recycling is done overseas.

O kinceled. Like the recycling chain is like an overseas chain.

That's a whole other. Yeah, get down the YouTube and go down that rabbit hole.

But where it's actually happening.

Yeah, most of it is done overseas.

And so this specific factory is recycling, and this this fabric, it's a polyester you know, using recycled bottles and whatnot, is one hundred percent recycled. The film is recycled as well as the adhesive is a non solvent based adhesive that actually works better with UV resistance and it's actually more waterproof. So in this case, I think for this application, it was just a better fabric to use. But yeah, that one ends up being overseas, although the base of it is a US base.

Bottles it is.

Yeah, how do you buy the stuff? It's like like rolls of it is, so we do. We have a little different procedure than most whereas I do all the design and development stuff here in house in Bozeman, so I'm able to kind of reach out to these manufacturers and get small parts and pieces. When I first started, I mean I was buying stuff on eBay and just random stuff who knows where it was coming from.

Trying to buy materials.

Yeah, because most of these big companies, especially in the US, they have such high minimums that it kind of prevents the the little guy from ordering. You know, I even here in Bozeman, I wouldn't want to order, you know, roll and rolls of fabric. You know, I need five to ten yards of it and it'll last me a few months to just build some samples to get to you know, you and I and Jason to test out

Put everything and the solers. What are the main states or stuff gets sold that's made in America.

I'd say the biggest location is southern California. We don't use anybody there anymore, we have, but you know, right around LA, the San Diego area seems super busy. All along the eastern seaboard there probably South Carolina, you know, up in New England. And then we have facilities as well that we use, like in Minnesota as well as

You know, they they've started to move a lot of that bulk production outside the area.

And I don't know about SIMS specifically, but you know mystery ranch is bulk production is all over the country, or you know, they're certainly their military line is all US made, but their hunting line is made in Vietnam, which as I said, as I said before, the they have probably the most talented best as an aggregate sewers in the world. And it's just because that equipment and talent pool is there, and so I think it can

If you had to put a just like a fine point on it, or I guess it's more like a rough point on it. Making it in America, it's like sewing goods, like making making a backpack, binal harness whatever in America makes it cost what percent higher?

I don't know the answer because I've never actually quoted anything in the US, or I'm sorry, in China, or.

You never out of curiosity just asked them.

I haven't, but I get emails constantly from companies over there that will send me pictures of my harness as well as editor harnesses that say, hey, we make these, we could make yours for you and it will be you know, pennies on the dollar. And if you look at Amazon, I mean you can see, you know, search biny harnesses on Amazon and you'll come up with many that look very similar. Once you get them in your hand, you'll realize there's a quality difference. But there's copies of

You can hold it, it'll hold it on your store on it.

It's a difference between spin fishing.

And it is.

You guys make like pelves game calls you had, you traditionally started out like just founder base. You started off by hat you just like buy necessity made him here. Yep, yeap, it made him. And then I mean we went through that evolution. We are.

We are sourced both domestically and overseas, and we've tried to move as much back you know, like the Easy Sucker. We moved back into the States, and we're leveraging like a very big partner.

We've given a lot of work.

But USA Manufacturing, Like as much as I would love to move everything here there, to be honest, they're a bigger pain in the ass to work with, just like Paul alluded to, they don't you know, I feel like we're crushing it in the game call world, right, but ten thousand piece order of this plastic part, they don't want anything to do with that.

They want you to order one hundred thousand, five hundred thousand.

We just don't have that buying capacity or the need for it, and so you just kind of get thrown through the ring or your prices come back high. And then I'm left with like a business decision, like do you want to sell a woodpicker call for seventy and ninety nine or do you want to sell it for thirty two ninety nine where it should be, you know, And so a lot of times we do our best.

It can't be you know, made and ada, you know.

So you got to like balance all these like FTC rules and like make sure you're following the rules, you know. But we try, we we we make an honest approach. I do get a quote on everything we build USA and you know, offshore, and there are times where we just have to pick and choose.

And like I said, I'm.

Proud and I try to keep everything here.

But there's just business decisions where unless you're willing to try and sell something for ten times all of your competition, you're just going to be stuck going that way. Yeah, but you know, all of our Turkey calls. All of our wood tricky calls made in the USA, with the

He's like, oh, it's a nice wood, but man, it's yeah.

You don't want you don't want that, you know, So we avoid that. We try to bill as much as we can. You know, we started that acrylic deer call line. You know, we source a lot of made in the USA, a crilic. We do source some acrylic from off shore,

It's a good point in that, like having it made here allows smaller companies like us to be a little more nimble and be able to move and pivot things. You know, like for instance, if had we put that big bag that got cut on the conveyor belt into production and realized too late that you know, maybe we shouldn't, you know, make ten thousand of those. They aren't sitting

That's helped us a lot too, to just be nimble and quick and be able to come up with a product quickly. Yeah, because we're molding, you know, we're molding ourselves, you know, sculpting at molding it and casting the parts and painting and working out the paint. So some we can come up with a new decoy pretty quickly, as you know, the market changes, the populations change, or you know, hundreds inches change, and that's kind of nice to be able to do that well.

And and also we're making small daily batches of decoys, whereas you know, if you're importing, you know you're buying container loads, and so you could get an order of five thousand decoys only to find out that, you know, there's there's some huge quality issue there, and now you

So I could call you guys and say I want you to go out and find me the nicest one out there.

Oh yeah, I thought he was going to say he could walk out in the shop and yell at somebody this juggie.

We could do that, and that that Doffel bag though, what do you call the Doffel bag or pit Duffel?

Just because it opens up into a big can you can you peel by you?

Not yet?

Yeah?

Okay, that's the nicest Dolf bag. I think we're made by man.

Well, it's relatively simple, but it great.

But it seems like it's gonna float away as far as light.

Yeah, and that that's the other benefit of that fabric because it's ultra light, and the film and the coating on that allows it to just, yeah, be ultra durable. Like I said, I'm not gonna color a waterproof bag, but you know, very water resistant and h and tough like that material itself is, you know, just reinforced. And yeah, it's gonna be I think it'll be a good bag.

But you gotta make what you're gonna make a bunch of sizes, three sizes.

Maybe still gotta argue with the.

Internal uh corporate about how many about how many sizes as we can make.

Give me the arguments. What are the arguments?

Well, give me the pro and con Well, I don't know that there are.

I don't have any cons. I want to make a larger one. That's uh, you know, it end up being the one you have is like a sixty liter defel. I want to do a thirty of sixty and a ninety leader does Yeah, and uh, I think that'll be perfect We've already made the ninety. We've tested it. Uh, I made one, but we've traded around the shop and used it for flights here and the air and send

Are able to do that quickly.

Can I give you hot tip?

Yeah?

Absolutely, If you do three, I'd call it the one ten, two twenty and three thirty. Hey, you go conno beears because that's the three conn be sizes. Like I mean, there's all their goofy stuff. There's like one eighties and sixties that's going to sixties. There's one sixties, two eighties, but no one pays attention the one ten, the two, twenty to three thirty.

Then I'll confuse everybody.

What are the numbers mean? Like, it's long story. There's nothing to do with that. That's nothing to.

Do with you.

That's always good.

That is a long story.

Yeah.

Can I ask do they have like backpack straps on them?

They do?

Yeah?

The backpack straps are the handles and you can kind of figure basically decide where you want those, but yeah, they're they're comfortable backpack. Like the giant one I made. I've used in airports as well, and if you got to walk real far. I mean that one was one hundred and forty leaders or something that was a huge but which is why I got caught on the conveyor belts everywhere. But and it wasn't as comfortable as this one.

Perfect.

So the one I have is sixty, yes, thirty sixty ninety dude, Yeah, thirty.

Won't confuse anybody.

So what's up apex belts? With Turkey season coming up?

So that is uh, it's funny.

We just got done with the show and had to kind of explain to people that the U the foundations we came out with, the belt, the hydration pack both are multiple use items. Just happens with the and I say multiple use, How do I best explain that there? I use it as a range belt, a hiking belt, hunting belt, edition whatever, fishing. I scouted all summer in.

It, all season, all pursuit.

Yeah, I was using mine for buck ratlin yep.

But being that we're launching that here in the spring, figured we would include some accessories or launch some accessories about the same time. So we have the box call pouch coming out with it. It's a The belt itself is a three piece belt, so it's really expandable, kind of designed to be a one size fits most belt. Got kind of an internal frame sheet molly attachment. Those who are familiar with the battle belt will.

Kind of be familiar with the idea of a padded imagine like the belt of a big frame.

Pack without a backpack. Let's go a way of putting it.

Has suspenders available, has a folding seat that kind of tucks up out of the.

Way and yeah, is that out now or not out it is?

Yeah, we I think.

Sweet launched that and you don't even notice you're wearing that a super you know, minimal. We've seen interest from that from predator hunters, Turkey hunters as.

Well as well. My old turkey vest had a seat and I like a seat, but all day walk around that seat bang in the back your knees drives you insane, man.

Yeah, and that's you know what we kind of heard from customers is like one they're usually a pain to stow if you're going to stow them up behind it. And if you don't stow it, the yeah, they hitch you in the calves the entire rest of the day.

In the pot call pouch, we did the pot call pouch.

We call it echelon right and left just because they're kind of a triangle shape with the point facing forward.

You would that's how you figure out right and left.

Ye.

And if you're inclined to leave all your shit out in the woods, this is a good little thing to have with you. Yeah, easy to it encourages not leaving all your junk in the woods, easy to put stuff in, easy to get in and out of quickly because you can actually operate out of it. It's a pot call holder, but it opens out yep, So when you're sitting there,

I put it. I need to put some more lanyard loops on that thing. But yeah, it's uh just the way it sits open.

Yeah, you can kind of just like our chest ri you can just open open it and work out of it and put everything.

Back where it goes.

It's got the spots for you your putt and peg as well as scratch pads all that stuff.

We found out.

Its shows that actually uh conceals a handgun in there pretty well as well. We had numerous people ask and actually like to wear mine. It's all where the the right or I'm sorry, the left one. So the triangle faces forward on your left. I wear that on my right side for cross draw. Well it creates, uh, it creates like a wing of sorts where when you sling your shotgun, it sits right behind there and creates at the weapons catch.

So it's good.

It actually works out really well in that respect. But I think that covers that.

So how about the is the is the the morale bag?

It is available now. Yeah, and it's just the same way by those people are stupid.

If they don't, people I think need to be educated to what they are.

They're all over in the tactical world.

You know, guys use them for mag dump pouches, you know, putting down empty mags or whatever we've found we've been using them for, like rifle hunting. If you need to stow your gloves quick instead of putting them inside your coat or draw opping them as you're moving, you just stuff them in that bag. It's just a you know, it gets the size of like a chew can rolled up.

Yeah, it's like a big ass bag that hangs from your belt, but it rolls up like a chew can.

Well you don't you know, you wouldn't know it was there. No, And the way it's undo it and it opens up and you can you can put like eight meals or the morals in there.

Yep. Absolutely.

And it's got a mesh bottom on it, so you know, if you are putting stuff that's dirty or wet, you know, it still drips out the bottom. It doesn't collect, and then it's removable so you can it's mollied onto your belt. The attachment system we use, and it just you can unhook it and empty it, do whatever you need to.

It's a drop bag too, so it's out of your way.

Yeah, and it's sits underneath the way it is attached, sits underneath your existing pouches, so it doesn't take up extra room on your belt. And so if you don't need it, you really don't even notice it's there.

Yeah.

So all the everything people need to hunt turkeys is available on there, it is.

Yeah.

And again that's you know, because of the timing of launching all this stuff, we focused on turkeys to start with, but you know, the plan would be to have a whole lot of different stuff coming out that will attach and any of our old existing pouch is still attached to it now, like you said, I use it fishing at the range, you know, all over the place.

But the Scott's shoulder straps too, it does.

It has kind of the same geometry as the first light elastic suspenders. Or you could attach it to the hydration pack and use your hydration pack as your shoulder yoke.

But so, but you can buy it all you can buy right now. Right It's like they came, did they sell out, came out not for sale.

We did a soft launch in December December, and then we did limited colors then and they did sell out. Some of those sold out right away, and then we relaunched them here just a couple of weeks.

Ago with all the colors, so you can get it right now, just get it. Yeah, absolutely, And what else is coming up next?

Pit Duffle in June. We've got.

A hip quiver YEP, kind of an interesting hip quiver that I think is different than any of them I've ever seen on the market. Ambidextrous kind of use and uh, you know, there's a lot of companies out there doing them, but none's ever been done like this.

So that'll be the summer launches. You probably know more than me.

Yeah, we have a bit of a quiet year after Apex Belt System, just given the nature of last year we had I don't even know how many new products with the fob. So we'll have one more launch this year and then we're kind of grinding on twenty twenty five stuff.

So and how are you coming on our on our secret uh our work entitled Rio Loco. Yeah, I was there, remember when they're named that thing? Well he needs. He needs to do a bunch of research on this. Yes, I have the only one in existence right now. Oh and also felts, what's up with the moose call?

We got it.

You and you and Clay asked a lot, but we have to make a little divergence.

It's just it's unsustainable to build it the way you guys wanted and be like this ultra I won't say ultram, it's not not ultra premium, but it just can't be produced one at a time and a big giant.

I want you in there just making one at a time. When you get one done, let someone know, like the original days, like I just just made this one. It's up for sale, like just all day web maintenance. But no, it's it's coming.

We finally found somebody that would injection mold it with the right plastic makeup and a huge like fiberglass fill, so it'll be very, very similar to what what you guys used. We made it a little bit thinner. Some of the other reviewers wanted a little more resonation out of it, and so were a little.

Who else is better?

Mosing? Do they want it?

They want, but they want to be able to rake brush rake. They wanted to be a little more hollow when they're raking brush.

And then they want, but i'll talk to you.

There's some reasons why.

We all see big bulls.

And then they got that you're taking our color suggestion.

Right, Oh yeah, yeah, we picked your It was weird that the name has green in it, but it was the most accurate. It was like some weird sage green color that they could cast.

But yeah, it'll be meaning that your call looks like a paddle, but yeah, it'll be like that could be really good. Does it have the read in it or is it just we're going to work on it.

We we got some other changes to it, but yeah, we'll have that. We'll have that read read in there as an accessory. But nine people will probably just voice call, but we'll we'll have that as an option, okay, and.

Then uh, and then real quick before we wrap up review for me, what what hot new turkey products are out?

And then then I want the DSD you guys do the same, So Turkey calls.

This year we got the new triple locator Hawk Scream, I'll scream Woodpecker call. We brought back working with Steve Morgenstern, one of the greats in the in the friction ca world. We've got two signature series, so we went with I'm gonna get this wrong. We went with Mulberry and a red slate, and then we went with like a very specific specked out hard slate in Babinga. So we have two of.

Those pots coming.

And then we've got the new Rain series that we partnered up with Chris Parrish, probably the all time winning his tricky caller and great, great you know guy that that we work with on the Turkey call side on a three pack of those really light, more intricate diaphragms. This year we've got a new reverse tapered striker. I think I can talk about it now, a reverse tapered striker.

So like, oh, by the way, why'd you give Clay a pack of calls?

We didn't give me a new pack of calls.

Don't need Clay gave me credit for that. I don't know where he dug those up when he got here.

Oh yeah, you didn't give those to me. Somebody else did.

But then we've got like you know, strikers forever have been like you know, they usually get bigger as they.

Go out to the bell.

But like you can see on this one, it actually gets skinnier back towards where we make the connection on the on the end, a lot more vibration you can actually fill it in your striker, and so we're getting a little bit more once again.

Morganstern had that idea. So we're gonna bring that guy out this year.

And everybody talks about you always hear everybody talk about diamond wood strikers, you know, wake up the cheapest calls.

And we finally found a company that has.

Yeah, like that's that's the best striker material you can in my opinion, and a lot of tricky hunter's opinions you can use. We finally found somebody that had like the original recipe to diamond wood. Everybody, you know a lot of people have tried to imitate it but haven't got it right. And so we're back to like the original diamond wood.

What is the strikers.

So it's just a bunch of laminated short really you know, thin veneers, and they put a bunch of phenolic resin and then put it under like crazy amounts of pressure. So even though it's wood, it's also got a lot of phenolic in it, and so it's you know, fairly waterproof. It will it will saturate out, but like just that thing will wake up a ten dollars pot call that you got it Walmart and have, Yeah, that's yours. It does look like you put it in there backward. Yeah, no,

It's good.

You can build a real marginal pot call and throw out striker in with it and you're like, bam, is that right? And then uh, tell me about the triple locator again. So hawk scream it's got three settings on the band, So if you set it closest to the front of the yeah, we got this, and then we also have it in like a more custom fancy lamine. You got the oul screamer in the middle setting, and then all the way back we've got that affiliated woodpecker just located on one.

Yeah.

Loud, extremely loud, you know, with the intention hunters, the hunter's call just to get them to locate. Are you still selling Clay's acorn call?

We are, We're about out.

We we did that rerun and really didn't talk a whole lot about it, and I think we're we're getting down into real low two digit inventory left and that's gonna be the last run ever.

We've made some improvements.

Yeah, we got two material improvements and uh uh yeah, I'm gonna the.

One little issue collectors.

Are you going to retire it? Yeah? Well, so Clay, we did something cool.

We wanted to use white oak, and we realized like the finishing of white oak was a giant pain in the ass at times.

So we had to we had to go back and you know, change them over.

But the structure of the call, that being an inhale exhale dobly buck grunt, I mean, that's the acorn grunner, but the oak acorn grunner.

Is gonna go The oak part is gonna go away. We're gonna switch it over to a crylic. How many do we make of those total in the two different runs? At twelve hundred total, and then you don't have if you want to get one. We sold a bunch of them there at the Portland Show. People loved them and yeah, it's it's pretty unique, great sounding call. You blow on one and I'll take that.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of a collector's I mean not had me there night. There was a huge mistake. My buddies were over because my birthday and someone's like, hey, can we open this bottle of whiskey?

Oh don't well?

I was well, I was like, I don't care. We could drinking, and you know that they opened it. I didn't realize back there when we had that that barrel of meat eater bourbon. Oh it was them. It was the bottle that said one, and I had like, you.

Were never going to use it, I know, but dude, they got it.

You've got a little chunk change for that. If it was if you have send it to my collection, it would still be sitting up there unopened. Once I realized what happened, Yeah, it's going now have gone.

But this is the like whiskey is meant to be drinking.

You know, my good friends and what's better than the fiftieth birthday party? It was my old was my oldest friends, was like my o G friends. They drank it.

So it's fun, all.

Right, Dave, you do the same thing. What's the hot new ticket. The hot new DSD items for spring turkey which is coming up.

New for of this spring is that we finally made a pack that's designed to carry DSD turkey decoys. It's a fly down pack and was designed by our own Scott Sprucker, and it.

Is I mean, rather than putting them in a big gunny sick yeah, rather.

Than putting the the you know, the straps around your neck and it's like you put to this way and.

To this way, we're going to get across some getting strangled, yeah, which.

We've all done that.

This is a really comfortable pack that's lightweight, has a divider in it so it easily carries a jake and a hen half strut jake and a hen and maybe maybe a little more than that, and then there's also a chest rig and they can be worn together. And the chest rig is basically to hold everything, every essential thing that you need for turkey. Anningh did you bring me one of those packs?

Does it have a nose it replaces your turkey your turkey vest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and.

It has a yeah, and it has a pad, uh seat pad.

Really yeah, I just want the backpack.

It's not it's not quite the utility about that. That's what I was.

It's a bag. I want the bag to carry the decoys in a guny sex. Yeah you can.

You can put the decoy within its bag in the backpack, or just take it out of its bag and put it. Put it in the backpack because it's it protects the whole decoy, so that makes it super fast, super fast set up.

That's what I want.

And you can buy it, Steve is just the backpack or just the chest pack, or you can get the pair.

And you guys are all in stock. People are gonna have any problem to go to buy their decoys for the spring.

Yeah, so far we're we're caught up.

Yeah yeah, good man.

I'm getting excited, like Turkey's coming. I mean it's here for the you know people down south. Yeah, I'm excited. I get this time. I get like where I all. I do a mental transition and I just start putting junk away, Like if I had ice fish and stuff out, it's done, trap and stuff, put it away, just start clearing the deck yep. Like I lose interest in everything, and it's like Turkey time.

Yeah, it's an exciting time.

And then one thing I might add to that, Steve is our preming hend was so popular last year and so many of our customers were actually buying multiple preening hens. It we're now offering it as a as a twin pack. You can get two preen hens and save a little money.

That way sweet.

So that was a decoy we came out with kind of late, so a lot of people used it last year and it we were really super happy with it.

Did you bring one of those?

Yeah, we do, We've got one here. Oh it's like it's like almost.

Yeah, it's just.

Steve happy related.

You know, do you think when a big guy work comes up to two preening decoys, he's gonna go, what are the chances both of those ladies are preening at the same time?

But I will say this.

In our observations, it's it's it was amazing the number of times that four or five hens are preening together and they're preening the same group of feathers at the same time. And so that's what's so amazing about this decoy is that that is a sign of turkeys that are one hundred percent relaxed, like they will only do that do feather maintenance when they're just completely feeling safe.

So it's the opposite of the decoy where they're all standing exactly vertical armed the side of their head. Yeah, looking in the same direction. Yeah, that's great man. All right, Well, thanks for coming on, guys, Thanks for having me, Thanks for geving. I like having the roundup, the Turkey roundup of everything that's going on this year. Fire it up, do a gobble, Phelps, Oh you're putting on a spa again.

Thank you.

Back Yo.

Shaky.

I'm a Backwoods guys, real Joff Trophy, stay sharp because I know murderer's working behind them tree bus and Caps and me both schools.

Couldn't get a barn.

Like a lot whom appeared like a gold chain Stephanny wurts like there cocaine, got a sexy ass water on my neck, got six inch ferst and don't disrespect.

Ain't high in my bolster all night, spinning.

That hands, getting in fight camp when.

We went to whitecast calls real one. It's like talk and needs, It's.

Like baseball dams.

Back.

I'm a bus Tom bad ass, certified moss back, Bunda tick long beard, thunder chicken, hear her head king because I got a white crown watching homies getting murdered dead on the ground at scared of a now more crow.

No wait, I'm ever gonna shock.

I'm a bro walk into the party, foll strutch from my stud still the brood, knocking in the club, beef with the homie name Jake for shore so as Jenny took her home, then I made a purr.

Don't Tom for read. You can't fo me.

I'm a wearing am stress.

I makes you see go damage you.

Usless.

Night m H.

Joe shout out to my marriage up in the feasts.

My lords shout in a bo I feels over in mid.

To my history rather than long days.

BO three o' groner for light.

Bathom and I stopped at the border homies, I s, I love all.

Y'all want your job to back them

What I'm out