The Trouble With Late Season Gobblers: Late Season Turkey Tactics

Are we rolling rolling rolling? Row hide. Roll hide. Row hide. What's wrong? Row hide is a movie that used to be on or not a movie, a show like like every week for like really rolling. Row high. It was Bonanza. Okay. So it is old people like you. Yeah. All right. You know why they all know the same shows already here? Because that's all there was. There's only like four. There's only like one channel. Yeah. Everybody watches the same. Yeah. And you know, no, there was like four channels, but you know what that meant. You had to get off of the couch, walk over, turn the channel, go back, sit back down and decide whether you like it or not. Do you know what the channels were? Like what were the names of them? CBS ABC. Hey, you're complaining. CBS ABC NBC and I don't know. CMT had not come out yet. So all the news networks were all the way back then. So when I when I was younger as like a kid, my first television was black and white. There was no color. Yeah. And it was a big monstrosity thing that you sat on your You're sitting here complaining about having to get up off the couch and everything, you go change the channel and our ancestors. Their entertainment was watching a gladiator fight tiger. OK. Yeah, that was pretty cool. It's a little different. That necessarily so bad of a life. I'm not you know, usually it was prisoners. I think they had to fight. OK. And I agree. I said Tiger. I was at that, like I would rather watch you have our judicial system so that you know that they were actually guilty. But then if you've got to watch like a pedophile, I have to get killed by a line of pedophile. Why this is how do we get into these subjects? They deserve it. What are you? We have to say, OK, we're going to start the podcast because this is already out of podcast land. OK, so. This is actually what we would talk about. Everything people talk about the podcast land. OK, OK. So anyway, anyways, anyway, so we're back. The raised hunting podcast is here and we're going to be talking a little bit. Well, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not going to tell you what we're talking about because you people have started failing. That's right. You've let us down. We've got lots and lots of people that are watching the podcast and you're not leaving reviews. Well, technically they're listening to the podcast. What? Technically, they're listening to the podcast. OK, so they're listening, watching that tuning in. OK, that's better. Tune in to the podcast. And you haven't been leaving reviews. However, I do have one that I want to make mention. Mitch Duvay commented the other day. Him and his dad doubled on turkeys here in Iowa. And I thought it was really cool. He shared a photo with us. And so Mitch big shout out because he said a lot of the stuff that we had talked about. They employed as far as shooting turkeys with a bow. His dad was even shot it in the shiny spot. Yeah. So anyhow, very cool. Mitch, thank you very much. We appreciate that. If more of you folks would do that, we might mention your name. We might send you something like Easton, just give it to you. Hey, I'm a lot of fun. That's a good deal. Should be worth it. All right. So, but in a cage and feed it. Hey, a lot. That's not very nice. So here we go. We are going to continue our turkey topics. And the reason being is because we're probably halfway through our turkey season. A lot of you guys are just getting started. And we're close to the end just because they make poor season so much longer. Right. So what's our last day, May, May 15th, mid May. So we so you still got two, two and a half weeks, three weeks. Yeah, we haven't even got to four season. I mean, we got two days left, but right. But things are changing for sure. We're already seeing it. Yeah. And it's not not for the better, but so anyhow, I don't know who wants to share there. We have a couple things that have happened here in Turkey land. You had someone kill a turkey for their first time. Have we missed any of the other because we have you guys. You enjoy doubled. I doubled on the first day. We talked about your kill, right? Yeah. And we won't go on over that one. Jamie killed one. So she's only one recently, right? That I can think of. Yeah, mom is still holding the tag. And Alyssa still got her tag. Poor Alyssa. Holy cow. This morning was such a tease. Yeah, dude, that's been my whole year. I've only had one encounter where I had a bird close and I was the one who I also dipped out on plate. You have bounced around so much. How little consists. So I would like to know how I would like to know what is so different from this year to last year. It's called the hit and post. I don't know, man. Yeah, no kidding. My year has been way better this year than it was last year. The hitching post is a restaurant and Warren is usually there by 8, 8, 15. And if that gives you anything. And normally not because he's already tagged out because he just wants to go get breakfast is all he does is start mentioning it to someone at 6 30. And the more the hitching post would be really good eggs and bacon. If you don't get a group chat from Warren asking, you needed to make a table for four at the hitching post, then there's something weird going on. I told Nick that the week, one of the first days we were hunting it was. Stupid windy and stupid and a super windy and stupid. I was like, man, some breakfast sounds good. And he's like, yeah, like a McChickin and Arab, you know, whatever the McDonald's egg sandwiches are. And I was like, no, like I'm talking like a real breakfast, like eggs and bacon. Not some frickin grease bomb at seven in the morning. Yeah, that's the only way I go to eat breakfast. Out of size, it's got to be legit breakfast. Otherwise that stuff is. Well, we're not the only ones that because and I will. I'm admit I'm guilty of going to the hitching post, but typically it's in celebratory action because we've killed it. And I have not that is the bummer for me. The place that we normally have of our celebratory breakfast is temporarily closed. You can't you can't talk to us crap because how many turkey kills have you been a part of on the first week last year? I don't know, like seven or eight here in Iowa. OK, no, well, wasn't that many because I know like when you can't help me in Joey, it was like three weeks in. It was more two weeks. Oh, was it? No, we were at least second week because we hunted the first week on our own. No, you just felt like it was that long. No, we genuinely did. No, we actually hunted the first week. No, I don't think so. If anything was a second weekend, no, maybe the second weekend. That's it because they had enough. We had enough time to hunt our own places and get our butts kicked and they hunted where Joey ended up killing and then left and then we hunted there for two or three days. That was on the first day though. But we hunted three to four days at our own place on our own. OK, I'm going to start on a Monday, usually. This is not helpful. People listening to the podcast are not getting any information out of us arguing about what day. What is your point? Count up how many it was. It was in the East. So Eastern killed. Well, let me go from the beginning. So I killed on opening day, I believe. Yes, with Nick. Nick killed the second day, right? We didn't we go back to all right. Then I don't know who was next. Who because the list was in that first week, you take a youth. No, I don't think so. No, you didn't take a use last time. I took everybody. I mean, so Joey was in there, but I don't know what day Joey was. I can look at my phone. Whatever was Joey killed. Then the next day me and you. What was that afternoon? No, yours. I looked at yours. Yours was Saturday. So yours was the tournament. You may be right Friday. Yeah, so fried. Because it was the day before Joey killed. So but you're every day, right? In mind. Yeah. Yeah, what was those? Yeah, my second one. That one might have been a little later though. Where was your first one? I don't remember which one was that on your West piece. You did not. Yeah, you didn't kill two of the bow last year. Did you? Yeah. Oh, you did? Yeah. Impressive. Yeah, I have to jump into Creek to get the first one. Yeah. Oh, that's right. I remember that. Yeah. OK, well, I think Warren's point here is the fact that it hasn't been that consistent. No, I'm saying take kitchen post out of the equation because he's not going to hit you post all the time and his numbers are still way down to you can look at the only thing I will say is I went three days, three shots. Yeah, for this year and last year was not the case. But this year, I will preface our weather has been not to like use an excuse, but I mean, our weather has been the evening, even the mornings, if you're not like, if you're sitting a little bit later, but the evening is mainly 20, 30 mile an hour winds. That's the biggest. I'd have been like cold, cold windy, which we haven't sat out because they're cold, but when it's 30 mile an hour winds at eight a.m., like it's you better kill them off the roof. Otherwise, you ain't killing them. Yeah, they can't hear you. That's you can find them. They can't find you and they shut up where like this morning, they were gobbling like crazy and it was cold, but it was calm and sunny. We're even here. We heard gobbles till 10. That last sit. And I haven't had that all year. Right. But so so anyhow, that first week, which you guys have heard us say numerous times, the first week, at least in Iowa in the Midwest, because I well, since this last podcast, I've been back to Nebraska, filled my second there. Yep. You got another one with no blind. Yeah, maybe we should talk a little bit. I forgot about that that I set out to see if I could kill them. Well, you should talk. I mean, you can talk about that story, but you should talk about the difference because you even you came back and said that, man, I would like to go back to Nebraska. Instead of opening weekend or whatever, I'd like to go later compared to here. We're already like when you went back there, we're still dealing with it's already we're getting to the point where it's tougher. You went back there and they're fired up like no other. That's because they start so much earlier that. So for those of you that I think Nebraska is the only state that I know of that offers an archery only season and somebody right in and tell us if there's another state that has one. There is. Where? Um, I don't know what somebody was just telling me about that. Oh, yeah. I think Kansas actually. Well, Nebraska is also like the only Midwest state that is extremely early on a turkey, like in March. Well, no, but their turkey season doesn't start till April. I mean, what do you say? Oh, you're saying that archery only season is long time. It's like three weeks. Yeah, that's fair. So it's three weeks. It is. It got March 25th to, well, what was the week? What was last Saturday? Today was April 24th. So. Let's say 17th. I don't know. 24th. So back up three days, 24th, 23rd, 22nd. Yeah. So the 15th. So there. Yeah. So from March 25th to April 15th is archery or April 14th is archery season in Nebraska. Wow. I did not realize that I didn't either. And then it turns into their shotgun season. Huh. That is a long season. You know, just a little bit of information though, so that people will know that if you're looking at doing these Midwest hunts, a lot of them are by draw, including Iowa. Yeah. Nebraska now is. They did not used to be. I didn't think Nebraska was draw. I thought it was just limited to half. They just started this year. It's not a half. It's not a draw, but. Well, what I'm saying is it's a limit. Yeah, they're not going to sell it. I mean, you can't just go like if you decide you wanted to go tomorrow, you can't. Yep. Um, unless they didn't sell out. They did. I'm saying in the event, in future years, they don't want to sell out. Which that will probably never happen. Well, well, I think they'll sell out all the time and let's stay up the quota by it. That's the way. And the whole purpose of it right now is to save the turkeys. They've cut down to a two bird limit. They've also taken out. You can't kill two birds in the same day. You got to kill one, then kill another one. I'd be willing to bet that actually makes a pretty big difference. It makes a huge difference. Especially there. And because I mean, I believe. Well, take them out of the flock. Yeah, Shane. Shane and I could quite possibly could have killed four birds out of it. We had four times come in that first day. Yeah, that's my, not necessarily even the same flock, just the fact that you can get multiple to come in. And now you're having to, you shoot one and then you have to go back and get more to come in again. Well, the other thing is, is on a three day hunt, that means that you're only going to have three mornings. Yeah. Where on a, if you, if you could kill two in a day, you could kill one at six thirty in the morning, go back out at eight thirty or nine o'clock. Go back out again at noon. I mean, that was doable before. Yeah. Do you know if it was ten thousand licenses or ten thousand tags? Ten thousand permits. So does that mean that ten thousand people could each get two tags? No, no. Each, every time you bought one, like I bought two. Right. So I took two of the ten thousand. Okay. So that's really could possibly only be five thousand people. Correct. I wonder how many, I wonder, I would be really curious to know how many they were killing before this. Like what the total harvest level. If you did that and you just assumed it was three tags a person. And I don't know, I don't remember. I don't think they ever had the limit. No, they probably have a limit, but it was probably a lot more than. Well, I'm sure that they came up with ten thousand had to be derived at from somewhere. They didn't just come up with it. I would say it's significantly more previously. Oh, yeah. I would feel like they probably cut it by like fifty, sixty percent. Yeah. A lot. Which, which I'm a fan of. I mean, if you've seen the numbers, if you hunted. Nebraska years ago, now you hunted it recently. There's a big difference in the turkey numbers. It's still far beyond a lot of other places. I mean, the turkey number, but the entire Midwest. It used to be stupid. You could sit there in your early archery season that you're talking about and have a flock of a hundred to two hundred. Yes. And now granted, I'm sure certain areas are still having things like that. But as far as I'm concerned, even five years ago, the big flocks were now like fifty, sixty or that early in the year. Those, we got to experience the good old days of Nebraska. Yeah. We really did. Because when we were doing it on public, we weren't even, I mean, some of it was the tus part of the stuff was just national forest and unbelievable amounts of birds. Oh, and then they have a walk-in program. And if you, those walk-in places were just. They had less of them. Yeah. And there was, because everyone wanted to get rid of their turkeys. Yeah. They had way too many of them. It's a walk-in program. I mean, like you could just go sign a permission slip and you were hunting private ground, but it was public. Like that. Like block management and bars. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, well, let's, so you, you went back and you, well, first off, anybody that's paid attention to our social media, the post that you guys recently may have seen of slingshot engaged or whatever, Ricky Bobby and three or four times just freaking booking it was from that trip. Yeah. That's the difference. Like if you just took a very physical video difference, you go look at some of the footage from your hunt a month ago or whatever it was now and they're, they're strutting around and they're coming in and stuff and they're working in decoys and stuff. Well, now you went back and they're running to beat the crap out of anything. Yeah, you touch a call and then. I've never seen a turkey run that fast to decoys. I've never seen it either. It was so fast. You couldn't even, you could hardly even see the booby bounce in. Well, you, but you can hear it. But the thing that I noticed and I asked Marty the same thing and, and Jake, who was hunting with us, I was like, could you guys, you could hear their feet, which I mean, yeah, just like, right? Well, they had to hit the brakes when they got there. Yeah. They were running so fast and strutting. They would look like a parachute. He's like, who? It was cool. It was really cool. I know that would sound like, I mean, you hear them walk through the woods and stuff when they're scratching around and they sound like a herd of cattle coming through, but I've never heard like one specifically running where you know what that sounds like. It was, it was very cool. That was one deal. The other one, Marty was done the first morning in 15 minutes, 20 minutes, pitched out of a tree, walked right to the decoys and he shot him. Yeah. I mean, now he was hunting with a shotgun. So he had somewhat of a upper hand, you know, but, but I hadn't specifically gone there to try to fill a tag without using a blind. And I did it for a couple of reasons, not because I don't honestly like adding more challenges to turkeys. I like, I enjoy hunting them the way we hunt them, where we sit in a blind and have our decoys out and they come in. I enjoy that so much that I'll continue to do it that way. However, when you're hunting by yourself, it's tough to pack a decoy, a blind, a chair, camera, everything that you need to take. So I decided, okay, if there was one thing that I could give up, I would give up the blind and see if I could do it and still try to film it. And I will say hats off to the tech camp people because that's the only reason I got the footage that I got was being able to set something out there and remotely start it. You know, I mean, that's probably the only reason that you're comfortable shooting in the situation you were to because a lot of the stuff we knew, we need to have some footage and some video. And I think you probably knew when he was the way he came in that he wasn't going to, you weren't going to get him on camera. I knew I wouldn't get him on the big camera that I still had. Yes. Because you're self-filming. You're sitting without a blind, nothing. Just the decoy is out there, which I know some people still say is cheating, which I think is ridiculous, but with a bow and you got it. Got it done. Well, you got it done closer than most people ever even get a turkey either. Yeah. Well, he came within three, four yards, something like, I can't tell you exactly if I tried to grab him, man. I know I couldn't turn around. He was behind me and I was like, okay, just keep facing the decoy and pray he comes through the fence. And so the last time we did a podcast, we showed people we had just put on social media, you're a bird coming through a fence and didn't check up, man. I mean, right through the fence, this bird wouldn't do it. And it wasn't much. I mean, it was a little better fence, but it wasn't a sheep fence or anything like that. It was still just a barbar strand fence and he would not come through it. And so anyhow, when he got hung up, I mean, fortunately for me, the last place that I had a camera was now mounted on my bow. So no matter what I were, I was pointed at, I was filming, you know, and it was cool. I mean, it was, I will say this, it was, I don't recall shaking. And I guess I didn't realize that I was shaking as much as I was until I went back and looked at the footage. And you can see my, I had my ghillie suit over top and you see all of the leaves like going like this because, I mean, it was nerve-racking, man, to know that he was three, four yards right there behind you. And not being able to really look. I couldn't look. I could just hear him. I could hear him. Yeah. When we talk about stuff like when you're drum, like when you, if you really, you have to hear it the first time, you never know what drumming is until you actually understand, okay, that's what that specific noise slash almost a feeling was. I don't even know what it would feel like to be nothing in between you and them. And it would be all feeling. I feel like from, to hear that, or to feel the drumming, I figured, feel it in your chest. Well, the cool thing was, is that it was, he did it so many times. That's how I was keeping track of where he was is the spitting the every time he would do that, I'm like, okay, he's coming down the fence. I know where he's coming, but I'm still just facing my decoys and he's walking right toward me. And then finally it sounded like it got a little farther away. So I took the opportunity or I thought he might be walking away, I'm going to turn my head. And I just turn my head real slow. And sure enough, when I look over his tail's blocking his head and I was like, that worked. He's only six, seven yards away, spin around. And I was like, there's no way. And I spin around. Well, he heard something or saw something and he comes out of a strut for a second and he's looking around. And then I just stayed still at that point. And he went back into the strut and I'm like, well, I'm not quite far enough around, but I'm going to spend one more time when he, if he does it again, sure enough, tail starts to go up when it goes up. I spend one more time. And then next thing I know, I'm about to get a 12 to 15 yard shot at him. And so then the only thing was trying to get a good shot where I could shoot him right where he was. But I will tell you this, how I killed that bird started with the fact that I was hunting a place. I went hunting. I mean, like when I say a lot of times what we do over there is we'll either Jake will tell us our weed kind of know where they're at. And we go set up and we're planning on, okay, they should roost in these trees because there's not a whole lot of choices. And tomorrow morning they should come out here. Well, this one I'm just packing decoys and I took off into the timber. And so anyhow, I walk back there and the wind is blowing like 40 miles an hour. So I went to the east side of the wind. I mean, the west side of the trees because the wind was actually out of the east. It was like a southeast, really hard southeast wind. And so I got out of the wind, went around on that side and it just still wasn't like I the bird when I heard him gobble the first time you would have thought he was 500 yards away. And I kind of kept telling myself he can't be that far. He's got the winds blowing too hard. He's got to be like 150 200 yards away. So I waited a little while before I called again until I felt like if he's coming toward me, he should be about even with me. The next time I hit a call, he wasn't even with me. He had actually made it past me. And then I made a few more calls and I'm like, boy, it sounds like he's coming and then I see him coming through the trees. I wonder if that's partly why he didn't come out through the fence because it was so windy that he wouldn't be able to strut out in the field. Well, if the wind wasn't blowing that hard on my side, I mean, it was hitting the tops of the trees, you know, really hard, but it wasn't down on the ground. So I don't think that was the case could have been and that's kind of what I want to talk about in today's podcast is now if you're one of those guys using decoys, decoys selection becomes really tough right now. I mean, that's preface to Iowa because or anywhere that your season has been in for a little bit because eastern birds, honestly. Yeah. Well, I think very stupid enough that you can continually change it up on them and they'll come. But I'm talking about some of these guys that are hunting Easterns that their season just opened. Yeah. And so they're going to be untouched still and they may be able to do whatever. So I guess you should preface what we're talking about that. We're talking about that the birds are starting to get educated and they're not coming in. Right. It seems sure seems that mainly what you pressure to I think doesn't make any sense because one of the places that I'm hunting where we were hunting this morning, not touched. They haven't been touched. There hasn't been a truck in there. The neighbors haven't been in there and yet the birds are already acting. So that's to me, I'm starting to feel like it's not necessarily the pressure as much as it's the time that you catch them that first week and they seem to be very callable. And then as soon as that week is over, you're already starting to get into that really tough time. Now I, but your guys as birds, this morning, my opinion didn't necessarily act all that weird. No, because they didn't, they didn't come in, but it's not like they saw the decoy and they were like, Oh, no, I'm not going over to that. Right. So what's going on right now is I feel like what you're dealing with is the hens that broke up more of the toms are with, even if it's just with one or two, I honestly believe the best time to kill a turkey right now. And again, this, I don't have a lot of facts other than yesterday to back it up. It is 12 o'clock. Like 11 to one, like sleep in and don't even worry about going, you won't know where they are because you won't know where they are. Even if you were there in the morning, other than you'll know they were there. But other than that, because like these birds, this morning moved. Oh, yeah. They went somewhere and then they kind of shut up. Well, yesterday I'm hunting with mom and we had somewhat the same thing. We didn't have near as many birds on the roost as what we had. And they came out. Birds came to we had hens come. We had hens and mom passed on a bearded hen, which I'm still kicking her in the butt for that one because I've been trying to kill a bearded hen for like 20 years and you had multiple come in when you're not the one when I'm not the shooter. I've had it happen. And yesterday she had the perfect opportunity. I mean, 20, 17 yards, 18 yards and yeah, but three jakes and four hens come in and we could hear a bird gobbling earlier and I was told her I don't think it was those jakes, but I don't see him. So this goes on for 20 minutes there at the decoys. Finally, the flock decides we had enough of these fake turkeys and they start moving away and as they start moving away, look who shows up on the edge of the timber and big old strutter. So I agree with you, Warren, that we didn't really have them see it, but they're kind of doing the same thing you were talking about last week and that is they're pitching down and then they're not going anywhere for a while. That's where I'm thinking that hopefully, hopefully this is the case is we have seen a significant increase in our hen numbers around where we're hunting at because what I'm seeing is that we've helped that we did some trapping and stuff like that and got some of the predators out of there. You've shot some of the predators by shooting some of the coyotes, but we still haven't got enough. But my point is that we've seen a few more hens, so I feel like there's more hens with more toms, but I also think that those hens leave those toms, but it's later in the morning, like not even mid morning, like where we stayed till this morning till 10, you know, but more like 11 to 1. What I don't necessarily understand is I would say that those birds this morning were acting somewhat weird just in the fact of how vocal they were being and did not care. They just wanted to talk and then you turn around and like that specific spot was you just haven't really hunted it. You hadn't hunted it till yesterday. Correct. So it was not hunted, no neighbors have hunted it or anything. They haven't had any pressure and then you turn around and where me and Jamie killed the one. Those birds have been a pain in the butt all year and we hunted them the first week and after that, we knew that we needed some kind of shotgun tag to break the curse over there and just be able to get in on them to where they come in the right way and figure them out a little bit. And we went and did that, but the thing about it was they came to calls no issue whatsoever. Yet you go 40 miles away and these birds that have not been on it at all don't care to come to a call at all. So far from my experience. Double gobble gobble. The first hour or two, I don't really expect to call them in any of them. It doesn't seem like they, it feels to me as though that I call in all of them around like 830 and I think that just logically that's what I would think. I just, all of them, like the ones that I called in on Saturday. No, yes. Is it yesterday morning? Yes, it was Sunday. So. Yeah. Morning, you guys run a new farm? Yep. I called in seven birds. You did not call it. Yes, I did. I got somewhat close. Four jakes and three toms. The three toms didn't get close. Yes, they did. 70 yards. Yeah. With jakes between them and the decoys, that's close. You called in the jakes. And they absolutely, no, I didn't because the bird, that's how I knew they were coming is the tom was gobbling and coming to me. Okay. I don't think you, if some of the honey with a bow, you can't count it as a call in unless it comes within bow range. Whether you get a shot or not, that doesn't matter, but it's got to come with it. That's when absolutely came. They came to my calls for sure. They may have come to your calls, but they didn't come all the way. I called them in. They came to you a half called the man. No, the decoys screwed it up. But it really didn't stand up. It's dead on top of me. I'm calling BS and you can count it however you want. So anyways. You will count it as you have seven jakes. Yes, your jakes came in. So these seven turkeys that I called in. I mean, you guys kill. We should have shot one, but I have a pinky frickin shooter. So are you, you will not shoot. I would have absolutely, if in her execs near out of sh freakin's blitzed that jake. No problem. And you know it's true and he will confirm because I've killed a pile of them. You used to, but you've had all sorts of jakes come by. Yep. I didn't need to at that point. This was desperate measures. Anyways, go on. No, because you just don't want to go anymore. Anyways, so those birds gobbled all morning, but they didn't go anywhere. They weren't moving or they weren't moving very far. And then finally the one I hit a call and he'd answer. And then I hit a call and he'd answer. And then I waited a little bit and then he'd sound like he moved a little bit, you know? And then in your mind and the turkey on her mind, you know when they're coming, but you can't say that, right? You can't be like, okay, this bird's coming. But I knew in my mind this one's coming. And then I hit a call and he was a lot closer. So then I told the list was like, okay, you might need to just get ready because this, I think this bird, there's a chance. And then I hit one more call and there he is. He's in the field. But I very rarely seem to ever have them come like right off the roost and come into calls. See, all the birds out of part of a shot or killed was right off the roost this year. I think that really, but I think that yours weren't, you didn't call those birds. I think you were in the right spot and they came to, they. Joey's came when 100% was called in. He was alone. He was had no reason to come somewhere else. And he came in and then the other ones were going the opposite way. I don't say that flock that when he called in. The one that came. Yeah, those ones are going the complete opposite way. The moment I called to him, they turned around like, huh, what's that? And then I called to him again and they did their little committed walk. Something right in. See, now I agree with, I disagree with you on the what's calling and what's not. However, I do agree with you on you made a comment, I think, or maybe you made the comment this morning that I don't like it. I love it. I mean, I love hearing it. It's so much fun to hear what we heard this morning when there's an absolute pile of turkeys in the trees. How many was there? I think there was four. I think there was five. I very rarely get a bird to come out of that, out of those like that. I hate those mornings. I like it when it's one Tom or two Tom's right close to me or three or four that are scattered as opposed to like, sounds like they're in a bigger group or could be close to getting into a group. I feel like what those do is they pitch down together and then they just hang out. They can all see each other and everything. Why would we leave? Because on opening day when I shot those two, the first two that came in, they came off the roost and came to us, but not like right away. There was probably 45 minutes to an hour from the time they hit the ground until they made it there. I think I shot at seven o'clock or 7.15 and I think daylight's like 6.15. So I prefer, I agree, I'm not a big fan of the, or my success rate is not very, that first hour is probably one of my lowest conversions. Yeah. So let's just say this because I think this is the point of the podcast is we're trying to, how do you kill pressured birds, right? Well, you need to also, how do you figure out whether they're pressured or if I guess you could even just premise it as difficult, difficult birds that you're not being able to get the right reactions out of. You're not, you all just call to them again to come in or maybe they're not coming close enough. I think it's, I think you have two separate factors here. I think one is different with a bow, first with a shotgun. So with a bow, when you start to get birds that are more pressured or difficult or whatever we want to call it, how are you approaching killing those birds? You ditch the blind, you ditch the decoys, you keep the decoys and ditch the blind, do you keep the blind ditch decoys? If we want to be successful, if we want to kill, if there's someone out there who wants to kill a turkey and you have private ground to do it on or you have big enough area that you can make sure you can see what's going on, you know, because you got to be safe, I'm going to the reaper. Okay, without the reaper. Got to throw the reaper. I'll tell you that what I'm doing is I'm knowing exactly where they're going. Don't touch if it has to be. I don't, I don't, I will never, you'll never catch me doing it, but I know it works. I've watched him do it too. I've seen no decoys, no calls and let him come. You're basically waiting on them like a deer. That sounds awful. No, but, but, well, there's a, I believe it's effective. There's a mixture of that. What me and, what me and Alyssa did this morning, the last time, I could have sat there for a long time. Yeah, you could have just sat there and because one of them is going to come by eventually. Once we, once we got there and I was like, ooh, this is, we're out of the wind. You have the feeling down there too. The weather was right. This is where someone will swing by. And so what you'll do is you sit for an hour, throw a call, sit for 45 minutes, throw a call, half hour, hour goes, all of a sudden you're sitting there and blah, blah, blah, and then give him back something and now you're in the right area. The tough part about that is you need a lot of time. You know, the other part of that is there's a lot of time of nothing, but it's difficult to be both. You can't take a nap either. One time when that sucker lights up that you don't know that he was there, you're going to miss it. With a shotgun, you just sit and lean against a tree. Let's say that bird comes in and he sees the decoys and he's out. He leaves? Yep. Okay. So I got to find another one that won't do that or, or a full of decoys. That's what we get to start happening is that that will have that happen or we'll be able to call them in, but then they get to us and they see the decoys and it's either the blind or the decoys and they won't come. That's, we've been having that problem all year where you guys are just that one farm, which is so weird. The number one question, I guarantee you if there's a turkey hunter out there that uses a decoy, you've all been in this situation and yesterday it happened, or no, I'm sorry, yesterday was Saturday, Saturday it happened. And that is, did they see my decoy or not? The bird comes to a certain point and then they turn and leave or they stay there and strut back and forth and they're there for an hour and then leave, but they don't come in, you don't get a shot and you can't figure out was it because they couldn't see the decoy so they didn't come or they could see the decoy and they didn't come. And mom and I had that exact say that situation happened. That bird came within 45, 50 yards. I mean, if he's five more yards around a bush, she can shoot. She was hunting with a shotgun and I'm sitting there thinking, does he see the decoy or does he not? He was crest of the hill and I put him purposely close to the top but not right on top because I really expected all of our gobbling was coming from this side of the hill. So I wasn't expecting anyone to come directly behind us, but I still, Nick looked at the footage with me a little while ago and from our point of view, I'm going, he had to have seen the top of that tail because I had a strutter out. But then when I got over there and I knelt down and after we were done and we didn't get a shot at him and I'm looking at that tail, I'm going, I can't see. He down there. Yeah. I don't know. And so maybe I just, and so there's becomes that question. Sometimes I think we blame it on a decoy and maybe it's that they couldn't find what they were looking for. I'm talking about though. So like let's just put some parameters on this. You got one farm to hunt. Yep. 200 acres and you've been hunting it all year. Right. And you have this scenario where a bird comes to you calling, he walks out in the field, he sees your decoys, tail fan goes down, he's out. Okay. And then I'm going to what Easton's talking about. I'm going, I'm even going to go to the extent I won't just pop the blind up out in the field anymore either. Yeah. Put it in the trees and kind of camouflage it in a little bit. You don't have to go crazy, but enough to make it inconspicuous. And I'm trying to, now you better start doing your scouting. Spend more time in the afternoons or the mornings trying to see if you can see those birds and where they're going and try to be there and wait on them. So you would say that there gets a point where birds that you've educated or someone else has educated, have been educated that utilizing just a blind out in the open and decoys can almost get to the point where they're unkillable. Or you're getting, or you're hoping for the lottery to find the one fresh one or that's on a really, he's angry and he's willing to still come into a decoy. He can't think straight at all. Yes. I think there's one or one of two options to when they do that though. You have to wait, okay, was it my decoy set up or was it the blind? Because we'll preach a lot of times, set your blind up in the wide open. Doesn't matter. Right. Now, I think me and you both have talked about it extensively. That one farm, I seriously think that part of that is the blind. I do. Which is odd, very odd because we don't have that issue anywhere else. Even in the area, we don't have that issue anywhere else. On that place, the thing that note, I think, is what you said, those birds are very callable. We've each called them in multiple times. Yeah, you can call them in multiple times. But they'll just kind of skirt around and bounce around. Now what I would, like what I just said was just set a blind up or if like you're going to brush in a lot, I may even just sit there against a tree and brush myself in a little bit and not worry about having to do the whole blind. But the other thing that I kind of want to try that I don't, maybe you have before is an absolute whack decoy setup. Like maybe set your blind where it's right on the edge of the trees or whatever. So it's still not freaking way out in the wide open. Put two or three, like two strudders and a Jake and three hens or some crap out there just to see if they haven't seen anything like that. Because if they come into that, then what that tells me right there is the decoy. The decoy setup is what they're like, oh, I've seen this before. But if they still come out and they're like, what the heck? Which I would be like, what the heck? But if they do that, then it's like, okay, they saw a turkey's, it's probably the blind. So then I think though for just for anybody that's listening, because I have started to get a few of these questions. I also don't expect anybody to pack in dirt, turkey decoys like goose hunting. I've only seen that once. 18. I saw a guy who had like 12. Oh my God. And did it work? I don't know. I didn't know him. I just saw the setup in the carol. Better be careful which one you shoot. Could you imagine the company getting that order? They think it's a retail order. Yeah. He had every brand you could think of. He had Montana decoys, Avian decoys, you had feather flecks, you did it. I think it would work in Nebraska early because there's so many birds. But I think to provide people some information, if you're trying to kill a bird with your bow still and it's getting later and the birds that you're hunting seem to have gotten educated and figured that out, then you probably either have to drastically change your approach. And it's going to be a lot harder. Like you're talking about trying to kill one basically on, you're setting them up on a trail and then need to strip their way to you or whatever or you need to find new birds that are fresh. You've got to go get permission somewhere else, go to different piece of public. You've got to go do something and hope that those ones haven't been messed with. I think that that's important to note that there comes a point where you can be setting up your mind and your decoys many times as you want and you're probably staying here against the wall. The instance that Easton was mentioning that I've done it, I've only done it once or maybe two, three times that I can think of where I sat like all day, no calls, no decoys. Okay, but in the one particular time was for one particular bird and the way I figured things out is I was removing things. So the first time he comes into my calls, he sees something and turns runs. I'm like, okay, must be the decoys. So I eliminate the decoys. I don't know if it was the next day or two days later, I hit the call, man, this bird's coming. Next thing I know, it's bushy beard again. Here he comes. Comes out in the field this time, there's no decoys. I'm like, he's going to have to come over here and keep looking. He's okay with that and he's walking around a little bit, but he's like, nope, I ain't committing to that. I'll gobble and I'll strut. I'm staying out here like 40. A shotgun hunter could have killed him. He was probably 35, 40 yards, you know, and he strutted and strutted and strutted. So I was like, okay, he's not too worried about the blind. He was okay with that, but the decoys, not being here, he didn't run off, you know. So the next time I moved the blind though over next to a cedar bush and said, okay, now what I want to do is he seems to like this area. I found a core area that had a trail camera there. So I started checking that trail camera almost daily just to see. And then I started realizing he's coming through once a day, sometime during the day he, and you'd have to see that to understand that situation where he comes to that point of the field right there where the road comes through and makes a cool corner. And I say a cool corner. It's a shaded spot where when it's sunny, they can get out of the shade and he gets struted. And I was like, I'm just going to sit and wait on him right there. I'm just going to bank on. He's going to be there at some point. So I've killed two like that. Without calling. Yeah, I didn't. And I will say this that one of the hardest things to do is to be sit there and not call when a bird gobbles 200 yards away. Yeah. You hear, and you're like, oh, it's three o'clock in the afternoon. And all I got to do now is touch a call and he'll come over and just don't do it. What about in the situation of doing that same thing? You go in there like, okay, we're like, when he came in, when you could see him, were you still calling some? No. Oh, you were packing up. Oh, see, I was wondering if you could maybe do it where all you do is you call very minimally once or twice until he answers. And then once the answer is done. Yeah. Or if that would even benefit. I had tried all that and it got to the point where just nothing would work. And I didn't see him coming in. I don't see him coming in. When we saw him for the first time, he was seven or eight yards away. All of a sudden he was standing. I mean, and the only reason I saw him is because I was packing stuff up and I happened to turn and look out the window and I'm like, care, care, he's right here. And she's like, what? And I'm like, he's right here. And he's just pecking around kind of thinking about strutting and then I'm like, he doesn't have a freaking clue because we've not blown a call. We've not done anything. This thinks everything's normal, but it's seven something in the evening. I'm like, we're. And so I got a re knocking arrow and everything. She gets the camera on him and all this and I shoot him. I don't know. So that situation is different though because you also knew the weirdly enough. Right. But I think part of what's going on is sometimes what we think is pressured birds is the change of the year. It's in what I'm talking about is, oh, they must be pressured because they keep going away from me. They're with hens. Those hens have broke up. I mean, we're not seeing big flocks of hens. I saw a flock of hens the other day that was maybe seven or eight or nine or something like that, which was large that that was just even two weeks ago, 15, 16, 20. And now they broke. So now I feel like that that midday thing could eliminate all of this, meaning you could find a Tom that even if he now, if they're getting shot at with shotguns or they've had situations where they come to the decoys, you may be fighting a losing battle other than going to not doing anything. Now you say they're with hens and are you thinking that they are just following that because and Warren said it the other day and I 100% agree with them. Now I don't necessarily, but what he wasn't talking about now is hens, you almost just throw a call out and goodness, you can't get them to go away if you get them to come in and they're just going to hang out. Well now they not necessarily pressured, but the hens aren't coming around as much because they're more focused on nesting and I think that they become kind of annoyed with each other, you know, because they are looking to go sit on their eggs and you don't ever see two hens nowhere near each other when they nest. They go separately. So I think they become annoyed and they will move away from another hen. And so sometimes they take the Tom with them. And so that's what you see. And it's just one of those things where right now I definitely, I am a firm believer and I might even just do that a couple times even without somewhat just go sit and see if I can film a turkey doing something in the middle of the day because what I'm getting at is I just checked several trail cameras yesterday and I had a lot of birds between one and three o'clock by themselves. Not just laying there. You would not just laying there like the ones today. You'd contradict yourself. One, I think with a shotgun this whole thing is totally different because I think now we are different than the east side of the country because I think it seems like over there there's so many more turkey hunters that it gets different. Absolutely. I think that you can almost call a bird in all the time. If you're not putting out decoys, putting in blinds and you find the right one just like the ones we're talking about, you can call them in. If you can get them to 40 that's the question. I think that a lot of them could. Well those birds that we killed yesterday morning was they all came in and they were nervous because they caught us moving. But I don't think that until they got within 20 yards they never even had the opportunity to see the decoys. So they were solely coming to a call. Yeah. Yeah. I mean and the ones that we had yesterday, I think that there's a good chance that you killed one of those tobs because the jakes would have kept going. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I would be trying to be a little more mysterious instead of guiding them to the decoys. Not quite as many calls and I think the jakes would have probably either gone right past you or to the right or something and that's Tom's would have been following and you got a shot. Yeah. So I think it's a different game with a shotgun. But the one time I ever did that was the best time of my life because these turkeys, I think I was, I can't remember if I was going to school or what. It was work. Every day going to work, these whatever I was going to do. I kept seeing this bird go on this terrace and they weren't doing, they weren't playing with decoys or anything anymore. And so I pulled the dad and I was going to go and sit the blind right there at the end of that terrace and figured I'll get a shot. Right. And so I did that the next morning and I decided, well, I'm just going for, I don't know why I was by myself because it was one of the few times I've ever been by myself. And so I was hunting by myself and I was like, oh, I'm just going to take a quick nap. Well my nap. I told you, you can't take a nap in those situations. Oh yeah, you can. No, you can. It's meant to be. It's meant to be my man. Oh my gosh. Because I took a nap and I ended up sleeping a lot longer than I intended to. And I woke up and I looked at my clock and I was like, oh shit. And I, so I just peeked my head up, you know, I'm like, pull the brock. And there's a turkey at 40 walking right at me. Grab my bow within two minutes shot the bird and was done. It was freaking epic. It's meant to be as meant to be. It was so awesome. And I was like, yeah, I just went and took a nap and I just woke up to a bird there and shot him. That's it. It's exactly what you're talking about. Exactly what happened. Oh, that's lucky. It was. So what did you, what are you saying? I'm contradicting myself though. Because you're saying between one and three that you feel as though that may change, but yet you'll say that between one and three is loafing time and they won't do anything. And I'm, and I'm, and what I'm getting at is typically that's what, and maybe it's not three. Maybe it's 11 to one. But of what I'm saying it, what is midday for a turkey hunter is 11 o'clock because you've been, it's daylight at five, 3545 or whatever now. So my point is is I'm, what I call late morning or mid morning, you know, is nine o'clock, you know, and that's, that's my kill time typically that's seven 30 to nine 30 birds get off the roost. The hints start to, they do their thing for that hour and it's annoying and you can't do anything with them. You start to mill about and then all of a sudden one shows up. That's what, that's where my money, if I had someone told me there was only one time of the day I could go for two hours. That would probably be what I'd pick. However, at this time of year, maybe that's not the case. Maybe what I'm starting to say is I'm trying to learn are these birds doing what I think they're doing. And that is they're staying with, there's more hands. They're staying with those hands longer. It's taking longer for those hands to leave. And then once they're off of those hands, now they're like, and now they've all more birds are getting to breed because there's so many more hands. And so all of a sudden all of them are like, yeah, this is go time. And so if you touch a hand call at the middle in the middle of the day and you can find one that has been locked up, I think you could kill it. I think he would come to the decoys too. I would still have probably have decoys out because I think that if I don't think they've been pressured, if I think I'm just dealing with a different time of Turkey, I'm probably putting the decoys out. We have good news because in two days, the sole problem goes away because Warren's buying a super goose tag and I am just blowing the beaks off these suckers. I want at least I still got a bow tag. So all right. Well, you can use a bow, you know, I don't feel like you can buy that bow. You buy that tag and still use a bow. No, I'm good. Yeah, Warren is by far well past. He didn't have any patience to go into the season. He is so far past having even an ounce of patience left for turkeys at the moment. So just let him have the shark. All right. So I want fun, Terry, and yesterday we're walking and we're like, I'm doing it away. I normally would not do it moving through a bottom, waiting to hear a bird gobble. And I found a spot that. Mm. They'll get us like, I know they roost in here. I think we could sit here and just wait for them this evening. And I let myself be peer pressured to wash it around. I want to go try to chase turkeys. He's like, yeah, I could shed hunt while I do it too. I'm like, you're an idiot. This is just, he's not trying to tear you up. He's shed hunting. Right. I was too trying to tear you up, but I want a fun turkey, not a boring one. The same thing with fishing. He's a catcher, not a fisher. Right. I'm not a fisher. No, you're not. At least you admit that one. You're not a turkey hunter. All right. So should we wrap this up? Let's wrap this up. I think if we had to wrap this up, you hear that this is without wrapping it up, just from the discussion, when you get mid-season of any turkey season, whether it's pressured birds, whether it's the change of birds, they get harder. Yeah. Birds can get. You need to start changing too. Yes. I think turkeys are a unique one because they can be so easy sometimes and so hard other times. Yeah. You can catch them at just the right time, at just the right mood. So you got to change up like what Easton just said. You got to change up what you're doing. Otherwise, you're just borderline insanity. You're just doing the same thing, hoping for the same result and it ain't going to happen. Yeah. So. Why do you get a super goose? Super goose. He's referring to a shotgun. So, anyhow, well, thanks again, guys, for tuning in to the raised hunting podcast. I hope that, well, not I hope we've had proof that what we're talking about has helped guys thinking about what they're doing and they're applying it and it's worked. And so, anyhow, we're not saying we know everything by any means. And as you can hear, we're still trying to figure things out ourselves. I'm still learning. I've been doing this for 35 years now, something like maybe almost 40. And I just think it's so cool to understand that I can still learn something about them. So, anyhow, keep writing the reviews, keep sharing with your friends. Keep asking questions. Yeah. You know, we will continue. If we don't know the answer and you want to know what happens when you set out four toms for a decoy and a couple of jakes and maybe a whole flock of hens, let me know. I'll try it for you. We'll see what happens. I should try it. I'm going to. I've always, that's why I was zoning out a couple of times there because I was thinking about what kind of combination I'm going to do. I'm going to have like five or six different birds at least. You're going to have to have them really consolidated to keep them in your shooting window. Oh, no, I'm spreading them out. How are you going to shoot everywhere? Because I'm going to let them come to those decoys and work through them. Well, I get them all to move. I'll be. I have remote controls. I have lines everywhere. It's basically going to be a piano. Do you? No, no, no, like the doll thingies. There would be a synchronization. Why can I not think of their name right now? The whole, the axe I used to do like like Pinocchio is the little string guy. Huh? I never would have guessed that. That one. Whatever. I thought that was just a puppet. Puppet. Yeah, string puppets. That's what I was thinking. There you go. We do, we do, we do. All right. I think we were closing before he got so off on a tangent. So thank you guys again. We appreciate it. This is the raised hunting podcast signing off. Okay. Okay. Okay.