The Early Bird Gets The Worm: Early Season Turkey Strategies

Well, welcome back to the raised hunting podcast. I have been given the green light to go, meaning we have cameras ready. We're on the air. We are back with our special guests. We're going to get name tags for everybody that is going to be more on, but my special guest today named you war on on your. I know we're a war on. Yeah, we got our name tags at the Iowa deer classic this weekend and Warren's was spelled with an O instead of an E. So he was war on war on the moron. The moron wrote that it was. But anyhow, so we just wanted to say thank you because, I mean, honestly, it was probably hundreds of people that swung by and said, love what you guys are doing. And so many of you were talking about the podcast and specifically not just the television show, not just the YouTube stuff, not just the social media. So again, we certainly, certainly appreciate all of you that have found the podcast for the first time. Please share that with your friends. Those of you that have been die hard listeners, Devin, I know you're out there, buddy. We're going to hopefully be working with a young man from Kansas about doing a bringing about podcast here that we think is going to be a really good one. Yeah. But today, was there anyone specific that we needed to thank for what we are doing today? Because today we're going to talk turkeys. I don't think so. But like dad just said, genuinely, thank you guys because it was, it was crazy to see how many people have been really enjoying the podcast and came up to us and are enjoying listening and surprisingly enjoying listening to East and I bicker. That is a very common thing. It would be really easy. No, I enjoyed it because all the arguments I've had with you, everybody was validating me too. They're like, I see both of your guys' sides, but Warren's saying you're an idiot. He's just, he's just off, man. You both make good points. So that's all I got to say about that. Well, I think the most of you were thanking me for being the referee. So also, you better tell them about spring thunder. Oh, yeah. And so just in case that you don't have plans for, or if you do have plans, change them because our plans are better. That's right. March 17th, Friday night, I believe that is St. Patrick's night, St. Patrick's day, whatever. We are going to be having spring thunder, which is our turkey event here at our offices in Winter said Iowa. So when you hear this, you're going to want to get signed up really quickly because we are limiting the seating to 125, I believe it is or 100. Yep. Either one, you'll see it on the website. You'll see it on social media, but get signed up. We're also having a calling contest. This is the first time we've ever held the calling contest. Make sure that I'm clear. It's not a sanction event. Don't come here if you think that you're going to try to be the next world famous can't champion caller. Now, the prizes you go home with are equivalent to what maybe more so, but at the same time, we're going to let the fans vote on it and people cheer for you. And yeah, it should be a lot of fun. Unless you're full on Irish, I don't want any excuses. Oh, I got to go celebrate Celine Patrick's day. Okay, we're American. All right. So if you're Irish, I understand. Otherwise, be at our place and you can to find out the information, you just go to website, racetoning.com or you can go on Facebook and type in spring thunder, but websites probably easiest. You can sign up for however many people you're bringing on there with one sheet. Yep. And six o'clock to nine o'clock. Everyone is going to get to go home with something because we have enough stuff. Our partners have done a super job of just saying, Hey, we want to be a part of this. So anyhow, very cool. All right. Are we ready to rock and roll on what don't care? Okay. Well, I did. I didn't eat those during the podcast or what I was considering. What? We don't have any if we don't have any. Why do you get some look, man? I had to share for the first eight years of my elementary crap because if I wanted to bring a snack, I had to give it to the class. So I don't have to do that anymore. I'm a big boy. Okay. I don't have to share with you. That was to set precedent. They were sharing is caring. I don't care. I just don't want to share. All right. My M&Ms. I bought them with my money. See, they do teach you to be Democrats. Just goes from M&Ms to money. That's so true. You guys. Oh boy. All right. We support all political agendas. No, we know. That is definitely not true. We don't. Okay. Anyways, we do support the agenda of killing Turkey. So we're going to talk about. I mean, if you kill a Turkey, you owe me a Turkey. Yeah. Yeah. Now we are supporting the democratic size or bigger. We're not weighing them anymore. We're not measuring beards or anything because they're all just gender equal. So whatever he tells you, he is. That's what he is. Yeah, you roll a hand on that. You're going to good. You're going to find as a Tom. She gobbled. You wound had him strut into the decoy. So that's why I had it happen last year. I swear to you, me and Joey almost killed a hand, which I shouldn't even say, but we had one coming in strutting and you could see she had one perfect feather out of place. Like if you ever see them where they go, the opposite way, like the winds blowing them right at her beard. And I'm looking at Joey like that is the greatest head. There's no way that that is a freaking Tom. I'm looking through my binoculars. I'm like, I can see a beard because we chew a bearded hen. And finally, she came all the way into like eight yards. I was like, okay, now I can see that it's just like one string, straining feather. We can't shoot that. We can do it. Places that have a lot of bearded ends though. We do. Curtis just was telling me about one. That's kind of like an 11 inch beard. He's going to kill this year. But I know that last year, I mean, in Nebraska, when we were hunting, we have lots of footage to back it up. Flock came in and there was two or three. If there hadn't been so many birds, I would have finally killed my first bearded hen. Well, when there's that many of them around, there's a better chance. But there are many turkeys around. Well, that's what I'm saying. There were so many turkeys though. Every time that they would move around, I couldn't figure out, okay, where'd the hen go with the beard? And I didn't want to accidentally shoot the wrong one. So anyhow, it was, it was what's still a problem because I've still not killed one. And I've been trying for you have one at your house, don't you? I will usually sometimes have one over at the 80 or have one at the house or something like that, but not consistent enough to hunt it. I don't know about that. You freaking hunted a one-tomb consistently. Well, I just haven't chosen to do that. Here's a question for everybody listening. Have you ever, I've asked a question many times about whitetails. Have you picked one whitetail out to hunt? And that's a very common thing for people to do. Have you ever picked a specific turkey out? One that you have followed year after year after year and tried to hunt that one turkey? Okay. And if you have done that, you're just as psychotic as my father, okay? There's got to be one exception to that. He doesn't have like a smoke phase bird or something. That's a little different than when you're just looking at a bushy beard. His name was bushy beard. That's because beard was huge. It looked like a peep brush. So I mean, he did. It was in those gracious. All right, cool. Well, we're almost a turkey season. We are what, oh, you know what today is another big shout out that I got to do because I haven't made a post. I've already done my due diligence as a. All I know it this is because it didn't go on a deer classic this year. We missed it by day. So today is mom and I's anniversary. Oh, yeah. 31 years. Good Lord. You're after 30 years. Yeah. 31 years. If you divide that by 10 and take that number and add months instead of years, that's about how long I keep a girlfriend for. What that said, nobody needed that information. He's going 30 years. I can't even keep on our own long enough. See, I told you you're crazy. It's all good. But anyhow, so happy anniversary to my wife, Karen. But anyhow, so March 6th, we're probably honestly, we're only less than three weeks away from our first turkey trip. We'll be going back to Nebraska to start the early archery season over there. That starts March 25th. That it by the way, that is a tip for everybody as well that's looking to get married or anything else. He's a great example here. He picked a very good date to be able to celebrate his anniversary because there's not normally a season in in March 6th. So all you crazy guys doing November and October and we're hoping until April 10th. Yeah. We're late. Yeah. But any of you guys doing some of these big seasons rethink when you're going to get on that knee. All right. Just just a fair warning. David's got it figured out. It goes for having kids too. Want to make sure like time that one. Easton's is May 26th, which is after turkey season. I mean, people have turkey season still in, but now where I ever lived. And then Warren's is December 28th. I screwed up by three days or he'd have been the perfect tax write off because you get credit for him for the whole year, but you didn't have him. So pretty hard. Very well. I'm so financially astute. We've got nowhere in this podcast. Oh, we haven't even started yet. And then people are sitting on the edge of their seat going, are they going to talk about turkeys or not? We're speaking. I can talk about early turkeys, right? Early turkeys early season turkeys. We're going to kind of break this into a few different podcasts because there's a lot of when subjects of turkey hunting, when does Florida open? Ooh, there a lot of those states are starting to mid March. I feel like they might even be open. Alabama was March 17th or something. Yeah, I was going to say around the 15th or something like that. So you're southern, southern, Southeast, most states, they'll start early. You know, more early, mid March to Holy cow, 2023, spring, wild turkey season, south of state road 70 in Florida opens on March 4th. So they're already open. Yeah. And then north do them. They have the one species. 18th. No, they have to. What are they? The Ociola and then also the Eastern Easterns. It just depends on how far south you are in. So let's talk about we should talk about regionally first on early turkeys. Because I think Nebraska is the only one that opens in March out here out here. As far as I know, that's the only one that has a specific turkey, archery turkey season. And then we should definitely bring this up because we talk about Nebraska a lot. And I think a lot of people know how good Nebraska has been. They have changed their laws this year. You want to make sure that you're paying attention. You cannot kill three birds this year. It's a two bird limit for everybody. And it's a lot more limited taxes, isn't it? And they've limited they never had their limit on tags. And now this year they have there'll be 10,000 tags is all for non-residents. It's also one bird a day. One bird for the double. Correct. Oh, really? Yep. What's the fun in that? So we just take a buddy and then you shoot one. They shoot the other way out. My guess. But no, no more me shooting one and dad saying good. Another year old. I've done that a lot. We're shooting three jakes and our 10, five minute times fan. I thought we weren't shooting jakes. Well, here comes another one. Gonna shoot it too. So yeah, but no, if you won't share M&Ms, then I won't share tags. What do you want to talk regionally wise? What is it? Well, I just think that your turkeys in Nebraska or somewhere early like that is going to be different and the stage of where they're at than in Florida. So I think, well, I can't speak. I should talk about is some tactics of this. So what do you expect when you're going in early to let's just say Nebraska to start on as a non resident or resident or resident. You're going turkey hunting and and before the weather has really changed to be spring because that's the one crucial element can be a crucial element. We've seen it. We've seen it snow three or four inches on us when we've been hunting Nebraska with by being there in the in March. We've killed them in in the snow in what's that? What was that day with Robbie? Oh, zero. Yeah. And they still came to calls and stuff though. Yep. And we're still gobbling. But I think the biggest thing to me that is of notable is the fact that there's there in humongous flocks. Yeah. You know, you're not going to go out there and find one bird by himself. You know, you're going to be chasing. It used to be hundreds. I don't know if I haven't seen it quite like that in a while. We haven't hunted the far west side like where places where we're hunting. Maybe the numbers have never been quite the same as what they were over on the far west side of the state. I didn't. I don't know about hundreds, but I will say what four years ago when me and you went, that was tons. They were 70 70 or 80 birds all out together that we were playing with for two days. You can still deal that they have definitely not left their flocks, you know, or but the big mass is the mobs of turkeys. Maybe they broke up where you don't have hundreds. You're down to 50 60 birds. But a lot of times out of those 50 or 60, there might be five to 15 20 toms, you know, so. So what's so what's the first thing when we let's just say that we're going to have to hunt a big flock. Maybe even we've seen a lot of times where it's a hundred birds. What is the first thing that you're going to do as far as your decoys? Are you going to put out or you're set up? How close are you getting to these birds? Are you trying to get in their way? Can you call them away? Are you putting out 25 decoys you put out one? Well, what I would tell people is one of the very first things is don't just don't just jump in. Don't don't dive in and say, Oh, there was a whole bunch of turkeys here. And I'm going to be hunting right over there by those trees. They're going to roost right there. The nice thing about the Midwest birds is a lot of times you can see them roosted. You can actually physically look through binoculars and see them all sitting in trees and things like that. But my point is is that if you could spend a day and watching the birds and see what they're very patternable, they're not doing a random moving around so you can catch that flock going to a specific place to feed and then coming back. And so sitting close to roosted areas can be really good, either just off the roost in the morning. Are you getting right in the center of their way? Or are you staying off of there? Just depends. It depends on what. So I think what Warren was talking about is because the next factor is how close can I get my decoys set up to this situation and how realistic can I make this look for them? Because I'm trying to drag someone out of a big mob of turkeys. And so in any how, excuse me, we've seen that where it doesn't work. We've watched birds just walk right by us. And I mean within 70 yards, 80 yards, and not get one single one to come out of the way. You and I had that situation in the national forest. Sorry. When you killed when you killed your first Turkey. Yeah. And that would shot my first shot. I killed my first one. You killed your first Turkey. And there was what? Different. 25 toms that beat up on your turkey after you shot it. I mean, it was crazy. You didn't get it shot off. Did you? I didn't get full jaw didn't you? I did. Yeah. But I couldn't pick one. But my point was that one was easy though, because we knew they were coming to that one snow patch. That's why I couldn't get water anywhere else. Right. And that snow patch kept melting and melting and melting each day. And so we kept moving the blind closer and too. It took me two days to figure out that's what they were doing. I was like, why are they here? Is in the middle of national forest? And but your boat bird to do things worth noting. He didn't come to the decoys. You shot him at what? 25. Yeah. Granted under 20. No, I shot that one was at 22 or 22. Yeah, because which was more because you said it's like what 10? Yeah, it's 10. I did smoke him. You made a great shot. And the first one I shot to is at 25 as well. But the it's because that this is going to make me sound like a piece of crap 10 year old, because I didn't think I should shoot a Jake. Right. And because we had the Jakes in like five or six Jakes and then a bunch of hens came into like four or five yards. You had me. Yeah. There was never a Jake that made it past me. There was three of them just chilling in our decoys. But the Tom's never came to our decoys. They just got but that's why I shot him out there because we didn't think they were going to come any closer. Well, so I think that's a few things that people should be aware of is one. I don't think it's one of those deals when you go out early, especially somewhere like Nebraska where you can expect to to call birds along ways or call a single bird along way or get them to break off of the flock. They're probably not going to do it. You got to get in their way. And that's the thing I thought was really interesting that I think you guys should talk about is you guys had the you'd pattern them in that saddle where he hit the other one and it bounced off of it where you're hunting them like caribou. Yeah, that was the exact same like area or like a saddle if you want to call it that that we killed and we just ended up moving to the snow patch. And so what was the reason you guys did that because they weren't coming to the decoys because we watched him walk over to this. We watched and we only would have like half on the 75. Well, the first thing that we did was we went into the bottom where the birds were. That's where he shot his first one that we didn't kill. Yeah. Okay. And so we were right on those birds. But after we shot at them there, that kind of boogered those birds in that bottom a little bit. So then what we did come to the decoys first? Those ones did. But that was a different flock. Yeah. Yeah. Those ones came right. But they pitched out of a tree and then they went towards us. The one did the backflip and knocked itself out. That's what we're talking about. That's why we're talking about that one. Yep. And so we tell that story real quick. Probably because we're talking about a lot of kids too. So when like dad's talking, he would take us to Nebraska when we were young because you could do they even have a limit on how old you have to be? Like as long as you're with the hunting. Like a person with a hunting license. Correct. Well, Montana had to be 12. So I was 10 and he would start us off doing that. And we went to Nebraska for my first time and me and dad the first morning got in. That was probably one of the prettiest hunts too. Like those super tall trees, but it's really open in there and they pitched down what 100, 150 yards away from us and dad coaxed them in and they came over and were strutting all back and forth. Like they were fired up, but they wouldn't commit to the decoys. And me being 10. I mean, I was a decent, I say decent shot, but I mean. 20 yards when you were definitely effective out to 20. Well, yeah, I just was I was so freaked out because my first ever time being able to shoot at anything. But he wouldn't come in past 25. And so dad is like, well, if you're comfortable with it, he's he's calm. Like he's he's just kind of strutting back and forth right there. Take your time and you can shoot him right there. And I said, okay, I can do it. And I shot him and hit him right. We thought perfect. We hit him right on the was it the wing? But hit him right on the wing. But and he flops around and everything and literally waxes ahead on the ground. And his laying on his back and need dad see his legs straight up in the air. And then they just slowly go down like he dies and dad and me like freaking out. And like, I just killed my first turkey. I'm like, Dad, should we go should we go get it so he can't go anywhere? Like, no, I didn't we got to go strangle him because we've seen on TV. Yeah. So I was like, we got to go strangle him because I didn't know. And dad's like, no, he's he's dead. He's good. I was in Jack, man. We're doing an interview. And I don't even know how we didn't see it. I have no idea because granted we were pumped up, but he was 25 yards away. How did we not pay enough attention? But I'm doing an interview. Oh, he starts doing the bobble in around flip flop and around on the ground. Well, then I looked his feet. Yeah, I look over. I'm like, he's gone. He's going. He's just leaving. And so my bird head we determined that he had flipped around so much when I shot him, knocked himself out cold, got back on his feet somehow and ran away. And we chased this turkey for a long way. And we have seen him the next couple of days with he just broken. I just broken one of his wings and he's fine. He's still strutting around with all of the whole flock and everything. And but that was a mistake on my part. So there's a tip that people need to know is you need to understand when you start hunting turkeys, I don't care whether it's late season early season or middle of the season, you want to make sure that you have the correct broad head if you're going to shoot them with a bow. And what we had Easton in at that time was, I was shooting them with an expandable broad head, a hammerhead and hammer in a rear expanding the rear expanding, but they made a smaller one is what I was all I did with him because he was pulling like I want to 40, 45 round 45 pounds. I think something like that at the time. You're drawing. He was probably like what 2020 is 24 right and say his mom's. So anyhow, the arrow just didn't get the penetration that we needed it to get. And that's not on him. That's on dad. But same time, I don't think it would have mattered. You can look at the video and he like Captain America like no, that's that's another bird. No, that's the second one. That's a whole another bird and the arrow goes flying. Yes. That was the next day. Yeah, that was next. Not one that bounced off. No, the first one I crushed in my arrow went in and everything. Yeah, two. And then even though that had been three then because he missed the third one. No, that's so the next morning we went out and now Jake came in and I was telling that this is going to be TMI for everybody. But I was telling dad I'm sick to my stomach because this is before I understood everything of my emotions and I get especially when I was a dad with turkeys, I would get so nervous that I thought I was either going to throw off or crap my hands. And so different one. I couldn't handle it. So I'm like, we got these birds coming in and I'm like dad, I don't know if I can I don't know if I can do it. My stomach hurts so bad. And he's like, I think you do you know, you get on your knees. I was like, I don't think I can get on my knees and shoot because I felt so sick and I didn't understand what's going on. So I said, I'll just get out of my chair. And so these jakes come in and those are the first only Jake I've ever shot in my entire life. And I'm sitting in the chair. You never shot Jake. This is the only one I've ever ever. What the frick? You guys were in the blind right next to us. Yeah, this is when you guys are up on the hill. You and Jim like the same flock when they pitched, they came right to me and dad. I remembered the one the first one. I think we were just down from you guys. No, the first the very first one is the one I just told the story of where I shot her. Right behind the farmer's house. Yeah, because some because dad had to run back up to the truck because he forgot the camera battery and where were Jim and I? We must be there. They were at a complete spot. I don't know where you were that morning. Yeah, I think you guys were in a distance. I know we hunted together at some point because you guys busted all the birds and they flew over Jim. That's the same day. Same more the morning of that when that happened when they flew over you guys. Yeah, we were both we had two blinds set up right beside each other. Okay. And he was going to shoot first. Wait down in that bottom. Yes. Just off that. I was going to shoot the Jake and I was sitting in the chair because I felt so sick and I had never shot out of a chair before, which was mistake number one. And I'm just completely missed him at like 15 yards or something. And then after that went away like after he went, I told dad I guess I'm not sick anymore. Because I feel better. It's all adrenaline and all nervousness of all this when the turkeys are coming in. But that was only Jake that I and then the third one is your Captain America turkey. I did crush him too. I thought that one just bounced off and went down. Which one? The Captain America? Yeah. The Captain America is the one that you're talking about where I shoot him eight yards and I said, Dad's like, you crushed him. I was like, no, dad. My arrow bounced off. And dad's like, what? He literally you watch the footage. He opens his wing up as I hit him. And my arrow goes flying in mid air. And we were like, what in the world? Just that turkey is steel. That is super turkey. Captain America turkey, man. He probably he probably has some secrets. You informed that he looking back on this. That was the most he hectic, freaking turkey hunt of my life. Yeah, I'm not realizing how berserk that trip was for shots for complete. The second one. After the second one that he hit, then that's when I was like, so we got we got to do something different here. And so I needed. And so Jim had some fixed broad heads, fixed blade broad heads. And I said, Muzzy. I think it was a Muzzy. And I said, all right, let's try this fixed blade broad head. And because I think that's got to be what's going on. So we put the fixed blade on there, went outside. He shot it. He was it was hitting exactly where his field points were. And I was like, all right, we're good to go. We're anything under 20 now or under 25. Like I said, but I even think that you were shooting super well at 30. We just didn't want to shoot that far. I didn't want to see you. Definitely you were like it with turkeys. You don't. We should get him close. Yep. Did any did anybody else kill a turkey? Jim, I think I killed one or two. I don't know that I've ever been over there. I have pictures. I know. I remember if I shot one. Yeah, I think yeah, we all killed. I'm pretty sure we have either. I don't think I've ever gone to Nebraska, except for last year and not. I don't know if I still have it. Then I'd have to go back and look. I can't remember that far to see who else killed that year. But no, I think we killed several. They're on the Synology. I know that. So but anyhow, getting back to that. So make sure that you're shooting the correct broad ed if they're. I think we can do a whole podcast on that because we will definitely do it on our shop placement theories. Okay. Well, we can say that then. But so that early season, what we and again, we were hunting the big flock. We're following the flock and where they're going, what they're doing. And so, I mean, a lot of times midday isn't isn't very good because they're they're out doing whatever and unless you know where they are where I love hunting midday through the rest of turkey season. I'm all about a midday. I actually kill more turkeys in. But when they're in those big flocks, you want to be where they're coming out or where they're going back to. And you know, I mean, when we hunted over through by Broken Bow there with Robbie, that was the best afternoon place we've ever seen where they would come back. There was three or four fences that all came together in one spot there that we had. That's the slow motion of the way I shot and wore and tripped and tackled. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So I guess in that one thing would be is if you don't have a spot that you're going to, then you need to understand that it's this you need to find the turkeys. It's not one of those deals where you can go and just say, Hey, this looks like there should be birds here and you go and hunt it. You're probably going to burn some time. You're going to alhoot your brains out. They probably not get any answers. Yeah, because it so for people that don't understand or that have because there's probably a lot of states where they don't do this, you know, the winners are hard enough in Nebraska that they have to get into these huge flocks and you'll they'll come from miles around and they'll all flock up. And then as it gets warmer, they'll break up into these little groups of, you know, 10, 20, whatever birds and they'll just span out at that point. But they're going somewhere to winter, such as the one place that we'd found where the bales, they destroyed all the farmers hay bales into just a clump because they would just be there during the winter. So you have to find you're not going to be able to go in places where a few weeks later that you can go and you'd find birds probably consistently. You're not going to find them there early. You're going to have to find where wherever they're wintering at. And once you find some of them, you should find them all. And that's what we got and lucky with what you guys are talking about. All those birds too, we're all public, which I don't know if it's if Nebraska is still quite like that. But like we had gotten into hundreds of turkeys on the public ground out there, National Forest, and we're the only ones chasing them. So what I guess if we're going off situations, because I have questions previous to when season opens, but if we're going off like this regional and stuff for the people that are getting earlier season. So for example, we've talked about the time that like three, four years ago when me and you went, we wanted to go for a weekend in Nebraska, and we didn't go to the western side because this is when we lived in Iowa. And we knocked on doors just to see where we could get permission. And we'd found a big flock of turkeys and we got permission. They said, go ahead, go hunt them to lay out the situation of where these birds were at. There was two big, big ag fields. And then right down to split them is one strip of timber or like not very big, but that's where they were roosting. And then which was closer to the road than it was to where we actually sat, if I remember right. And when they would when they would pitch, they'd pitch out and they might work into the like down the field edge towards like where we end up sitting a little bit or just out in the field. The reason I'm describing that is because where you decided to pick the more I've the older I've gotten and looked back on it. I asked why did you pick there? Because we didn't we have no fear of putting us like a setup like a blind and a decoy stuff in the middle of a field in the wide open. But for whatever reason, where this came this this field came out, they would pitch you either you're banking on them pitching to our side or if they pitch the other side, we we weren't on that side obviously. So if they pitched on our side or good, but they might work out in the field couple hundred yards out away from us. And instead of being out in the middle of the field where we knew they were going to go by at some point anyways, you went to the edge of the ag field and we were on right on a terrace and in like this little grass area in the corner of the field, which was probably 200 yards away from where they were at. Why would you pick as opposed to going like cutting them off where you know they're going to come out and go to at some point, whether it's all 70 of them or whatever or just a few of them. Why would you go 200 yards away and bank on calling them to us or getting them to come over to us. So the reason it's greed is what put us there and that was we had more than one tag. You had two tags and I had two tags. And the way I was looking at it is if we're in the middle of the mob when they show up in the middle of this big and we shoot at Turkey there, they're going to we're going to spook everybody. So or we got to go get it or whatever. And then that's going to put us in a situation where we've blown that spot. And if you remember, I don't remember exactly how that really that was it. Yeah. I mean, we had the edge of this one field. I mean, we had the we so basically we had where the turkeys wanted to go to feed. We couldn't where they remember when they were all roosted down in that tree, like 200 yards away. We couldn't go on it. We couldn't go down there and hunt that. So we were limited in where we could go. And so I'm trying to maximize the area we have. And so I've banked on. Okay. And the other thing was the scouting we did showed us there was 25. We saw like 25 different toms. And I was like, okay, I think that we can start and they were strutting and they were doing their thing. Again, I'm checking the weather to see what is it going to look like tomorrow that can change where I decide to set up. But we were looking at good weather, meaning calm. I don't care if it's cold, like what you brought up or when we were hunting with Robbie and them that time, I want to say it went down to like minus 10. And if you remember, we lost a whole day of hunting. It was calm though. But when we went back to hunting, because remember when the storm came in, we couldn't hunt. It was that was like minus 10 wind blowing, snowy rain, and it just shut them down completely. And then the next morning it stayed cold, but it was just crystal clear and calm and sunny. And man, the birds didn't have any problem. I think we killed three that day. I was warning. Is that one I was with you guys on that one too? Yeah, mom shot one, shot one shot one shot two. That's what I'm saying. I think that you that we killed three. And that I mean, so all in the same bottom, all it all. We can see each other. Yeah, 10 minutes, I think, because I think the same birds that came over, mom shot the one and then the other one came over to me and I shot that one. And then and then another Jake came in and I shot that one too. Right. So, so I guess weather plays somewhat of an effector. If you're just trying to kill a turkey, set up and set up right where you think they're going to be coming through. Now, and then you kind of have to play a game with them. I'm looking at the birds. I'm looking to see how they're reacting. Hopefully, I've gotten to scout them a little bit, whether or not we're going to throw a Jacob or whether we're going to use a Tom, you know, the Jake's are beating up. Yeah, Tom's. I mean, if there's a whole bunch of Jake's, then I'm probably not going to use a Jake decoy. If there's not too many Jake's around or there's more Tom's, then I'll probably put a Jake out there, you know, and just depends on which way. But I would tell people. And why is the reason of that? Because what happens is if you get multiple Jake's together, then they become like teenagers on a on a basketball quarter out in the playground and they gang up on the Tom's and they'll run them all. I mean, we've had. Because a lot of times you get one or two Tom's that are having their hands. Absolutely. And you'll and you'll have if you get a big group of alone Jake's, there's like six or seven of them together. They don't have any hands. They'll go beat everybody. They're just they become like ferocious. You know, it's the best description. I can't tell you. Many times I've had a Tom come to my decoy and he's coming committed. Everything is good. I'm going to get a shot here. And then all of a sudden out of the blue, some Jake see him. They come running and I mean, he comes out of a strut and just takes off running. He's gone. Yep. So you want to be careful, you know, when on what decoy you set up, but they a lot of those same Tom's are willing to come to another Tom. Absolutely. You know, they fear the Jake's, but they're okay with coming and fighting one individual Tom. Right. Well, it's a numbers game. I feel like a lot of times because if like you've had a couple times where you've had nine or 10 different Jake's around your property that just run around it. But I hate it. Yeah, I hate it. When that happened, but then you have a great year this year because you're telling me you have tons of Tom's everywhere. Yeah. Do you think do you think it'd be a good idea in St. Nebraska? I wonder if it could be more effective if you if we took say 10 decoys. Look like a good flock. Yeah. Because if you do see them when they kind of have their little groups for the day where they'll go over to the other birds on a consistent basis, where I wonder instead of us having just two or three, we had 10 15 decoys up there had to do that. I ain't freaking hauling that. We have too much crap in the first place. Dicks or I think it could work. Just mixed Nick and duck. I was going to say Nick's a duck hunter. So he'd help me. So it came out. Good Lord. Yeah. For anybody wondering what it's like to work in the race hunting office, this is what we deal with Warren's head and it just goes in for it. But yes, I was going to say Nick is a duck hunter. So he'd be willing to help me put out a bunch decoys. Well, I've seen people who've done that. Now the best thing that I have seen that if I was to tell someone the best thing that you can do to a decoy, there's there's a few things. One movement. If you can make a move that killer be the primo so on. I will pull this thing. We'll use that all the time because you pull that string. I do almost do it too much. Then come back up. Yeah. But you can also wrap it around them so you can turn them around. But and then I saw just at the Iowa deer classic, there's another gentleman that's got a whole mechanism that he sells you that's a rod that's a real, you know, a fishing reel and you pull it out. And then he's showing you how you can move them around. There's multiple companies now making something that's remote control that you can actually turn them around. Things like that. The one that we had used before was the strutting 360. And it is a game changer. I mean, when you start moving around, the only thing that made me nervous about that is if you get any wind which granted with decoys in the first place, if you get a lot of wind, it's pain in the butt, keep them sitting in one spot. But the it doesn't turn. You can't get it to turn. It's too great if it's really windy. But with a rope, I can pull it as much as I want. That's why I get them to turn. But the main thing that you don't need before that even is the thing is the two things that you need is if you buy a decoy, I don't care what brand you buy. The moment that you pull that silk fan that they give you, if it's a Tom decoy, you want to take that silk fan and throw it in the trash. And you want to get a real tail and put it or keep that and glue your tail on. My point is is you want real tail feathers on that turkey. Robbie had probably the best hen decoy I've ever seen with the one that he pinned the fan. I can't hear her wings on there. And so she. So what if you haven't killed a turkey yet? Then we can use the silk fan? You're going to have to if you know it. But I would try. I call it taxiderms. I call buddies and see if someone's got a fan. Usually people, someone will have an extra one sitting around somewhere, you know, that you can borrow or whatever. But I say borrow, you're probably going to keep it, you know, but which that's what that's what we do with a lot of our fans that we kill over the year is we can't we can't display all of them. So we usually keep a few just strictly for decoys. Yeah. And we used to we used to use the little. Primos made the primos made that little adapter thing where you can put each individual turkey feather in there like fan feather. And it only takes 12 feathers and then it folds up. That was nice for packing. But the thing that I've found that since we started reaping and stuff, it's kind of nice when you take just the full fan that when we fan it out and you get it to like you get it all the meat dried up and everything, you just take the actual fan and a lot of those decoys, you can pop the fan down in there and it just clamps onto the fan. But you can't pack that in your decoy bag. But that's okay because I don't mind I like carrying that so that and you get in the situations where like, okay, I need to walk on the edge of this hill or something. I can pop that fan up and use it kind of to cover us just to get to the next spot. And I have it right there. So the mobility of it didn't bother me that much to use an actual fan of just spreading it out to and locking it in that place. There's companies now that are making like a carrying case for the fans too. If you're going to want to do that. Yeah. It's like a zip deal. Almost looks like a guitar case or something. I play the fan in there and zip it. He says guitar. I don't know. Get taller. Okay. But you didn't let me finish that. So the real tail feathers is number one that you want to do to your decoys. And the other one is you want real eyes. You want real glass eyes. And I know it sounds crazy, but they can see the difference in the plastic eyes. And we know that from actually the first before that was kind of a thing. I was taking Primo's decoys and cutting the eyes out and I bought a set from a taxidermist. I bought two sets of turkey eyes. And then I put them on. I just shoved them in from the inside and took a piece of duct tape and duct tape them in there. Well, that was a mistake because the one day Warren and I had a bird come in. I mean, came right to the decoy perfect. It's like this in Miranda, Nebraska. And he comes from hundreds of yards away and he marches out there. And he gets to the decoy and Warren's just getting ready to come to full draw and the bird just like freaks out and runs off. I'm like, what the heck was that all about? Well, then we had another one. Here comes another one. It's okay. I don't know what happened there, but he does this. He gets to the same place does the same thing. So now we decide we better get out and go look and see what is there something shining on the decoy or what's going on. Go out there and our decoy has no eyes. And those turkeys are still telling each other about that. I saw the freakin go to Joe call time. Yeah, there was a turkey and he had no eyes. I could see the other side of his head. Right through his head. That was a dog turkey right there. But then so then I learned so in this little tip for people, if you don't want if you own an decoy and you want to make it better, you want to make glass eyes, cut the little slit to cut the eyes out by I think they're like they're probably 10 or 12 bucks now. I think they were like six when I bought them, but you buy a set of glass eyes for a turkey, put them up in there, duct tape them in there so that that will hold them in place and then shoot some great stuff foam and it'll expand. The reason I say believe the duct tape there is so that the great stuff foam doesn't come out around the eyes because then you got to like chip that away. A lot of these companies are using realize now I think. Several of them like AVNX and DSD. I think there's probably some other ones that are using realize. Yeah. Real glass and it makes a huge difference. And boy, the decoys look phenomenal nowadays. Lots of companies are making and then they make a rug. I think there's a couple companies making like a turkey rug that you can wrap around you. Yeah, it's real feathers that you pull around your decoy. Yep. So now let's just go to the rest of the country. When everybody else's season opens, what are some of the first things that you're doing? Well, I before you even get to that, I want to talk about before the season because there's not nearly as much to do like as opposed to a white tail where you're trying to find certain deer and stuff or whatever. But like right now I just I keep I keep a lot of cameras out year round whether it's for turkeys or for deer and I just pulled a camera and I'm sitting there thinking because where do you put it? I'm like, okay, I don't really most of our deer have dropped. I don't really need it for the deer at the moment. So I what I could be doing is have a camera out to see if I know some of these turkeys are coming into this field when they come out of their roost in the mornings or in the evenings where you are you trying to go locate birds right now and put cameras out? Do you just put cameras out in spots you think? Do you even do that and just wait till the season and just locate them or just driving around finding birds? What are you doing? Both. And I mean I enjoy turkey hunting as much as I do white tail deer hunting or hell hunting. And so I'm up early every morning, maybe not every morning, but early enough that I can get on the road and go drive around for an hour. I sometimes depends on where the farm is. If it's a farm that I want to hunt, that's an hour away. I got to be able to get down there. One is get there before daylight and listen to where they're because if they're gobbling, where they're roosting and start to figure them out because typically they're going to go back to the general area. Pretty consistent where they're roosting. Midwest, it's much easier because they don't have as many options places, but like places like back East, you know, and things like that they may they got a lot of oak trees, a lot of big tall trees. They may not roost in the same spot every time. But if you can start to figure out, you hear him two or three times, you know, before the season, good chance is going to be in that area when you go in there on opening day. I would tell you too, you can look during shed season, you can be looking for roost trees, you know, lots of poop at the base. And then the other thing about that is I personally, I think that you're better off listening in a morning if you can, than at the night. Oh, way more. Yeah, you hear them. They'll go off on their own a lot in the mornings. Yep. And evenings can be a lot tougher. The other thing that I found, especially in the West or the Midwest, did you got to be careful? You hear a bird and it's 15 minutes before dark. I'm talking, son has already gone down bird is gobbling and you think, okay, I can go home now. I'm he's gobbled seven or eight times, you know, and it's almost dark. That may now be the case. He may still be on the ground and move. I had a bird move one time on me over a mile in the last like five minutes, 10 minutes. It was at Mrs. where I shot the first turkey with you, Mrs. Millburn's place. And I heard him. Yeah, I had that bird located. I was turned around. I was walking up the hill and he gobbled again. And I was like, we're good. And then I next time he got one, I was like, I think he's moved a little. So I stopped and I started listening again. And then he gobbled again. And then he gobbled again. And then he was off of her property and around the whole ridge. And I'm like, what the heck? I would have come back the next morning and set up on a bird that wasn't there. And why Godling what's all I mean, birds like when they're like, if they're caught out to they will do a dinosaur run. Which I couldn't believe we got a shot that one day we pulled them off of their roost. Yeah. So a lot of times, you know, you'll see they'll go up on a bank to pitch in the tree. Yeah. And East and I had set up on these turkeys where we pretty sure they were there. I think I don't know how we knew they were there in the morning or something in the morning and we didn't get them to come in. Okay. We went back in the evening and they went by us and or they came up on that hill or whatever. And they were already to that roost and we're like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. They were so close to dark. So we were sitting there because we knew they were going to go there at a roost. Yeah. We're hoping they were going to like come 45 minutes early and kind of mess around. And no, they didn't. I don't even know what made us stay. I think we heard a gobble or something. Well, we and we saw them get up onto that hill like 10 or 15 minutes before dark. And I was like, well, they're at their roost tree. They're not going to do anything. And I guess we're here, we might as well try and await and you call call the men or the decoys or something as soon as they saw it. So they have everything and then running. It was like four or five times and just just in a line. All four of them just be aligned. And then, of course, Warren missed us. Oh, yeah. Which is not uncommon, but it was crazy though. But that was right. That like it was dark. Like it was they probably had five minutes from the time they left their tree to come down to us. It was probably 10 minutes total. They had to come to us and get back to their tree. And sure enough, they ran right to us, got shot at, ran right back. We came out on empty handed. So getting up early and driving, even if you don't get up that early, just glassing even too. I mean, look for places where you think that's ideal for these birds to strut. They're going to come out in areas and things like that, especially as every day gets better as you get closer to your season. Some of the seasons are unfortunate. I know back East that those guys struggle where the states now aren't starting seasons until like May or late late April. So I heard a theory behind that actually. I just talked to a gentleman and they were, I guess, and I haven't done my own research on this yet. So I'm just telling everybody what I heard. He said that basically is what they find out now because I guess there's a lot of states that have a diminishing population. So everybody listening, if you would chime in and let us know what's going on in your state, we'd be interested to hear it. Seems like Nebraska's obviously having some stuff too. But anyways, what this study, I guess said was that, you know, your one-time run in the flock that he, that one-time actually somehow makes it where the other male birds don't have an ability to breed at all. Okay, so if that time gets killed, there can't just be another tom that goes into that flock and can breed all of them. Now there's other toms that have the ability to breed, but supposedly they're saying that those ones also have hens and then it takes them longer to be able to find those other hens and so they're missing some of these periods for these hens to be bred, which is in turn what's hurting the population or that a lot of these toms are getting killed before they're even getting to the season, like say in a youth season or maybe in Nebraska where there's a really early season that before they're ever even breeding that these the boss gobblers are getting killed, which I thought was really, really interesting if that is all accurate. Like it sounds like a J can't even technically do any breeding. Yeah, see, I knew that they were they would no fight them off so that they can't breed. What are they doing to make it where they physically can't breed? I don't know. I need to read the whole thing, but that's just the quick information that I had and it was to me, it's that's all accurate information that's scary for the population makes me wonder how it's made it this long. Yeah, I mean, that would make me almost question it that it's made it this long as your main ones you're killing are the ones that would be breeding. Yeah, absolutely. They're definitely easiest to call in and most aggressive. But I mean, I do know there is some truth to to when you see two birds together and one is strutting and he's doing the breeding. The other one might be strutting it, but he's doing is protecting and keeping everyone off and he never does any breeding. But I wonder if that's because he can't physically breed. Well, I always assumed that if you shot the one, then he would take over. But I guess if they're I mean, for an animal like a whitetail deer to be able to absorb one of the fawns when they know the herd is in peril that it doesn't surprise me that mother nature hasn't built these way for these turkeys. One of them to do in the breeding another one not or but it's because I mean, that leads to like chicken birds. You know, chicken birds are maybe they don't care at all. No, I think chicken birds can breed. Oh, you do. I do. I think that they can. I think that they're just they're terrified of everyone else though. You know, they just know, I don't know. They just seem way too aggressive. Like as in, they're always easy to call and get them to come to a certain point, but then they just won't come any closer. You know, so maybe they're scared of becoming infertile. I don't know if I lose this. I can't have any kids. But so anyhow, so getting up early, driving around, glassing, I'd spend as much time trying to locate your birds and see what you can figure out as you possibly can. I mean, it's the more information you have before the season that that's where we're pretty fortunate in that I live close to where we do a lot of turkey hunting. Some of the places we hunt, I don't live that close to, but I still try to get down there. And now that we've hunted them a few years, I've learned what those birds are doing and they do, they're pretty habitual. They'll do the same things. They have the same habits. But the other one is trail cameras. And I mean, you can, especially with the cellular pieces, piece to that, you could put a cellular camera out there and it will tell you pretty quickly whether you found the turkeys or not. And I. Well, that's how you have so many videos, a trail camera videos of turkeys. I don't get, I mean, I have a few cameras that are out that just happen to get deer ant turkeys together. But do you move your cameras? I've already started. Like I go. And so what are you doing to that? Because that's what I'm like right now. I've never set cameras up for turkeys. I just go hunt turkeys. That's what I do. I tell you, I have one particular camera that just the other day when we went shed hunting with Casey and Brock. And so it was on a scrape on the edge of a field. And that's, and so all I had to do was take and shift that camera. So instead of pointing, it was pointed straight west. Our straight E, sorry, from the west. And so that I could, because there was a scrape or a tree line, tree edge there, I turned it to where you shot last year, you know, so that that strip of grass going down through there so you can see down there. What I love about that spot is a lot of times I'll have a deer trigger it and I'll see the turkeys in the background. I wish I could control my tear that well shot a Tom last year. Yeah, which wall was in the head and the other one that you recovered. Yeah. Okay. So my, but that narrows it down a lot. Actually, yeah. So I'm all the way on the other end of that field. But like the other day, it wasn't it? Yeah, when we were all there, there was the turkeys had walked out right then because you said they were gobbling at us. Yeah. Yeah. So I've already, I mean, I had only moved that camera 30 minutes prior. And then there was Turkey standing in front of it. So some of them are just in the right spot. I just move them to a little bit. I just had to adjust. I just moved it 10 feet. Yeah. So that it was more out in the field. The other big one that I would tell people that, especially if you're looking to get evening pictures of or evening videos or pictures of off trail cameras, is you want your cameras set up on the on the west side of your fields. Okay, because what's going to happen is the sun's going to come out and those birds a lot of times will get in the shade. I don't know why, but they don't like to strut around in the sun. They like, even if it's cool, they'll walk over in the shaded spot. So if you're on the west side of your field, that's what's going to get shaded first. You know, it could be hour before dark or whatever. And they come out and they start strutting to opposite, isn't it? Your east side would get shaded first. No, and it was a sunset going down in the west. Yeah. So the first part that's yeah, the hills covering the east side. No, if if this is a field and I'm showing him with my phone, so if this is the field and this is east and this is west and the sun's going down like this, that side of the field is going to have all the sun on it, the east side. You're talking specifically in the afternoon, though. I think it's an afternoon about a morning. No, I'm talking about afternoon. Afternoon, this is going to get shaded first. The trees are blocking it. The tree, I guess. See, like if a tree was there in the sun, no, I get with the trees, I could understand that. I'm just thinking though, like if you were just a wide open field, the hill would be the first thing to block it from the east side. Well, I think there's trees around the edges of the field. Okay, whatever. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So the west, see what you're saying. You're right. The west side of the field, yes, because it would be a great place to put a camera. But what I'm looking for primarily is I'm not putting mine on trails and things like that. I'm looking for strudding areas. I'm looking for areas that I feel like and so that especially open areas in the timber, meaning it like instead of a little meadow. Yeah, instead of a 100 acre agriculture field, because they could be anywhere. I'm looking for a two acre grassy spot, grassy spot inside the timber, a place where, you know, and then the other thing I'm looking for is where are they dusty? Where where where am I seeing drag marks? Where am I seeing scratches or more importantly tracks? And that's the one that I can't tell you that I posted one here just the other day. There was tracks in my driveway and I took a picture of it and posted it. And I can't tell you how many people that I had to describe. It was a Tom track. And they thought that it was a hen. And so understanding that that middle toe is going to be longer on all your toms. Tom's are going to the middle toe is going to be quite a bit longer. Evidently, I should have paid a lot more attention to dad when I was younger. You didn't know that? I've never paid attention to a track. I mean, I see turkey tracks. I just think it's a turkey track and keep going. If he's flipping you off, it's a Tom. That makes sense. And then tell them about the poop. And then the poopers. I don't know that either, do you? Well, the poops are like large turds are the toms, aren't they? Oh, if it's a hen, it'll be like a Hershey's kiss. It'll be a little like a saxer. Remember that is a little kid. And then if it's a if it's a Tom or a Jake, it's going to be in the form of a question mark. It's got a little J to it. And then there are buttholes even do it. Yeah. I wonder why that is really weird that they're turds being any different. But they're 100% different. So you're looking for the questions, not the Hershey kisses. All right. That's right. And then you want the middle finger. You want the bird right at you? Yeah. You want the bird to know it's the bird. I might still have that on here. But there was a bunch of people that were. Well, that's good because I think the majority of the tracks I'm cutting right now all are flipping me right off. So I got a lot of toms. Yeah, there it is right there. Is there any difference in the toms and the jakes? Okay, see that I would have just thought it's just a huge track. I would just imagine it's a bit longer. Yeah, but look how much longer that that's way longer. Yeah, it's quite a bit longer. Your hands are I wish you had a hand sitting right next to it so you could have a comparison. Yeah, well, I didn't well, I can't make whatever shows I understand that I'm just saying that would be nice. But now see, this is what's crazy is you can see drag marks. I don't think that bird was strutting. But there are drag marks right there. Normally, a drag mark would be from their wings, but it would be why it need to be wider than that beard to me. I don't think so. A wouldn't have to be wider. Like it'd have to be away from his you would think. No, but then why don't you just tell people what drag marks are. So drag marks are when birds are strutting, they drop their wings down, obviously, and you'll see that because the the wings will actually get squared off. They won't come to a point anymore, especially after they've done a lot of strutting and they're dragging those wings. And matter of fact, you'll hear a turkey come in sometimes by hearing them dragging their wings. And it's a and it I mean, it's cool. Right along with the. Oh, yeah, I wish I wish that we could mimic that almost on here. You probably could kind of if you could if you could bump the base up in your vehicle. That's when it sounds like because just straight. I wonder how many guys out there are gals out there that have been turkey, honey, heard a bird drumming. You know, I would be well, a lot of a lot of them haven't in. Yeah, I was gonna say that's I'm saying they you don't understand that that because it's such a you actually have to focus to listen to it. I'd like to recognize it though, but it's cool. It's really otherwise usually there if you're hearing that they're pretty close. Sub 15 yards. Yeah, but we've heard somewhere. It's like 30 yards away. Yeah, because I've thought the same thing. I'm like, we mean that of sat there. I'm like, I can hear it, you know, I can hear where it's at. And you're looking all around you. It's like, it's got to be close. And it's the one that's out there, right? Or spitting spitting is I like that. I don't know why it's easier to go into a trance. They kind of lose themselves. They have Tourette's. But so I mean, just another little quick thing that, you know, if you're going to be out there and you're you got limited time, a guy can, you know, you can jump out of the truck and Al Hoot at him, you know, and try to get him to gobble if you got to get going to work or whatever. The one thing that I'm not a big fan of and I know a lot of people that are doing it and that is they're using whatever is the loudest thing, slamming a car door and they might gobble at it, but they're not going to be anywhere around when you go to hunt them if they hear that. But the one that I is a coyote calls. I know people because they're really high pitch and they reach long ways. If you if you're going to be hunting, I wouldn't be using a coyote call because they ain't coming out of that they may gobble, but they ain't coming out of that tree because they know they could get eaten. So but anyhow, their locator calls can be super effective before the season. Get your trail camera set up in places where you open areas, smaller secluded open areas are better. What else? Where there preseason prep questions as you have. My main one was trying to find like where they're at before the season as a and and because I've heard a lot of people that, the words legal, they'll bait like throw corn out and stuff just to see if they're in the area or get them kind of in the area. But I don't I'm not going to go spend money on I don't corn out for the turkey. I honestly have never hunted us. Maybe I have hunted a state and didn't even know it anywhere. You can't be a turkey season. I'm not talking about during turkey season. I'm talking about beforehand. Oh yeah. I'm talking about just seeing if they're in the area or getting them in the area. Because I've heard people doing that, but I'm like, I don't care to throw corn out for me. Texas turkey. Yeah, I would think that in those cases you have quite an edge there. You throw corn out. My main thing was just finding your birds because we're getting to the point now where I think that you're going to have where they're at is somewhere close to where they're going to be at to be hunting them or we're getting to that point. We're not there yet. I mean right now, they're still like I saw a big flock today. Yeah. And I don't expect those birds to be in that same area. The other day, do you think they'd be starting to split now? We're getting nice weather. Yeah, but then you get crappy weather and they'll bunch right back up. You know, I mean, they just they go with the weather right now. So I'd be careful. I guess we still are what a month away. They seventh or something or sixth? That was the other thing I was going to say is for all the seasons is that when they do open, you know, I guess how aggressive are you going? Because I know for Iowa, we've changed our tactics to where as soon as the season opens, we're trying to kill every bird we can because they get educated so fast. Yeah. And I think that's probably no different than any other state matter of fact. We probably are less than what some others are and our birds still get educated fast. Yeah. Where I tell someone, you know, you can throw a ground blind up. They won't pay any attention to it a week after the season's open and that tent out there with two decoys in front of it. They probably have seen it. If they haven't seen yours, they've seen your neighbors. What do you think they really just remember that for a season then, they just forget it the next year? I do. They need better memories. They want to live. I hope not. Do their brain is that big? Yeah. But elephants brain is the size of a peanut and they're smart as crap. So I would like to see that. I don't believe that. Look it up. I will. All right. I guess I don't know if it's true either. I don't think I thought I saw it on Discovery channel. So that's got to be right. I don't think an elephant has anything to do with a turkey. Well, he's making fun of their size of their brain. Are you actually going to look up how big is the brain of an elephant? Interesting. The elephant brain in particular at 4.5 to 5 kilograms is about three to four times larger than the human brain. That's actually a big flippin peanut. Hey, man, maybe Africa's got bigger peanuts than us. Whatever. Well, like we said, I think we wanted to stick with pre-season to getting started on these early birds. Decoy setups, like I said, movement to them, getting them close to the flocks rather than being right in the middle of it. But you definitely want to know where your birds are going. If you're going to hunt turkeys early, you want to have done some scouting going out and just randomly, it's not like mid-season or late-season where you can go out and hit a call and you might get a bird to gobble and he may even come in. It's not going to happen typically early early, depending on how early your season starts. But boy, it can be fun. It can be a lot of fun to hunt them that early. It can be extremely frustrating though too. So don't be afraid. Well, don't be afraid that when they do pass by you to just hold tight sometimes, I've seen them in his particular case that day you shot all the jakes. Whole flock went out in the field, whole flock came back, whole flock went out in the field. Then the flock started to break up and a couple of them came over. Not that I'm wanting to credit too much, but number one, I think, of the tip, patience the whole time. Because I fought multiple birds last year with Joey and I'll get anxious. I'll sit there for a couple hours, two, three hours. I'm not sitting there for four, or five. And then the moment I tell dad, he comes and hunts and we that fourth hour or whatever, is when he breaks and he comes right in and kills his first bird. So wait for them. They are not in any hurry most of the time. I think that's 85% of people's problem. I think it is too. I don't want to sit that long. Well, I feel like sitting there when you know they're there, especially when you know they're there. You're sitting there for a couple hours and you got them working for a little bit or like they're gobbling, gobbling, gobbling, and then eventually they stop. You go like an hour. You're like, okay, they're just done. That's when I'm like, okay, I've given him like an hour to get here. If he's not, if he's going to be here, he would be undone and go. When really you wait another hour and that's when he's probably going to be more willing to move to come over to you. I mean, Nick can attest to opening day last year. We had six or eight Tom's fly down in the field with us. We thought this is going to be over. Actually, it's going to be screwed up because it's too dark for me to even shoot on film. And then they don't come over and they just scirted us the whole time for whatever reason. Then Bird shows up behind us. I'm like, all right, this is going to be it. He skirts around us. Another one shows up from behind us. He skirts around us. I'm like, what's going on? I want to say, what's in it? Like 11 o'clock when we finally shot 10 30. So we're talking four and a half hours. And yet most people I think would have when when they all left. And then there was only three or four hands left in the field. This is done. We just didn't have it. And we just stayed put, you know, and then all of a sudden one of the Tom showed back up. And for whatever reason, this time the Hens decided they were coming to us and they walked out to us and the Tom followed them and I killed a turkey, you know, but we had to just wait and wait and wait. So, all right. Anything else that you had question wise that anyone had asked? So hopefully, hey, if you guys got questions about turkeys, because like I said, we're probably going to be doing two or three different podcasts on turkeys. We got a lot of stuff. Warren kind of cut me off as far as waiting on the decoy stuff. And we're going to a lot more talking about calls and things like that and what to use and what not to use. I hope you can hear me over Easton eating his M&M's now that he's not sharing. Yeah, you rude piece of crap. Yeah, that's just wrong. Tastes good. All right. Well, thank you guys again for tuning in. We're looking forward to turkey season where I was going with that before he started chomping in my ear was you can hear me chomping. If you have specific questions about turkey hunting that you want answered, shoot us those questions. We'll add them to it so that when we do the podcast, we can include that in there. But other than that, we sure appreciate you guys again. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for leaving the reviews. The podcast is doing extremely well and that's thanks to all you guys. So appreciate you. This is raised hunting signing off.