EP.45_Dirk Durham Talking Turkey

Archery Hunters listen up. If you find yourself in the heart of King County, do yourself a favor and stop in at Rock Creek Archery, located in Tacula. If you have everything you need if you're just beginning to the sport or you've been shooting for 20 years, even an indoor shooting range, or check them out at RockCreekArchery.com. Hey everybody, if you are looking for a game call that is elk, turkey, deer, predator calls, waterfowl coals, we highly recommend philbsgamecalls.com. Professional grade game calls made for every hunter. This section of the broadcast is brought to you by Burpah. Burpah.com. Use Ridge 15 at checkout to receive a sweet discount. Welcome back to the Ridge Zion Hunting Podcast brought to you by Phelps Game Calls with your hosts David Crane and David Sandana. Welcome back everybody. We've got another exciting episode today for you. Today we are going to be talking springtime gobblers with Dirk Durham from Phelps Game Calls. This past week we did do the Phelps Game Call giveaway so those are out to the winners. We have one over in Biacomile Washington and in Illinois. Oh nice, Illinois. That cost me a lot of money. That'll get some hard work. We put right to work. Alright, well let me bring Dirk on here. Dirk's joined us through Zoom which is something we've utilized in our last podcast and it was pretty good. I think the audience enjoyed it and it made it more interactive podcast for us. Yeah, definitely. Definitely good. I'm going to bring Dirk in here. Hey Dirk, how you doing? I'm doing great. How about you guys? Good. I was trying to make sure we got the screen set to the right size. Everything looks good. So we got the new game calls in and we did two episodes ago where we were fiddling with them. They're dynamite. Yeah. I cannot wait. Our opening day is on the 15th of this month so we're going to go hammer some birds. Yeah, alright on. You guys in Washington? Yep. Yep. Yeah, we're going to be hunting Eastern Washington. I'm probably going to put in next weekend. I'll probably be doing some West Side Eastern turkey hunting just because it'll be the youth season so I'll be able to do that. Awesome. Yep. Yeah. And so, no, it ends with seven to ends. Like it ends this Friday. Yeah, this is this weekend. No, like Friday. What day is it? I was going to check the calendar, man. I work so much. I'm always like, is it Monday? Is it Wednesday? I don't even know what day it ends on Friday. It doesn't even go through the weekend. So this past weekend was like the first youth weekend, which I would have took my son out because it's his last year of youth season, but he had track and football and all these other things going on so he couldn't go. So I was bummed out. Didn't get to go and play guide, you know, and play with these new calls and everything. So I was kind of bummed down on that, but he's going to try to get out a weekend and late season or I'm sorry, not late season, but later in the season. Hopefully when track is done. So we'll see. But we'll get out there sooner or later. Yeah, I feel you, man. When my kids were that age and busy playing sports, my daughter playing softball, my son playing baseball, and it's just really hard to get the time to get your kids out. Turkey hunting. Yeah, they, you know, that's, well, it's one of those things, right? You can take them out as much as you can, but then ultimately when the time comes around, I'm going to be hitting the woods regardless. I put my wife said, you know, can you help with the coaching on the kids team this year? And I had to ask her how many Saturdays and when does it end because April 15th, I am gone. That's it for me. My commitment ends on that day. I'm like, taxes and I'm out. Perfect. April 15th, the opener here in Idaho too. And I'm my wife's birthday is April 15th. So it's like every year, like bear, bear in Turkey opens on the 15th and it's like, well, I know what I'm doing on the 15th. Not bear in Turkey. I got to push it out. That's my wedding anniversary. So it's kind of like, do I go or do I don't? But 17 years and she's, she knows what's up now. It's like, Hey, this is the thing, you know, that's how it goes down. So what are you going to do for your opener this year? Are you going to be in Idaho as your is your foot better now or my foot's getting better. I've been going through physical therapy twice a week and it's ankle and it's getting better. I'll be able to turkey hunt, you know, turkey hunting. I mean, you can make it as hard as you want and then you know, as far as hiking goes, but you can be pretty, you can make it easy as you want too. So I'm going to go to Oregon on the 17th of April and go hunt with a good friend of mine over there. This old timer I met at the Portland Sportsman show and turns out he hunted all the Idaho country, back country that I hunted growing up as a kid and he was hunting up there as a young man and he he'd come up to me at the fells booth and and started reminiscing talking about stories and places and bowls and and we just hit it off and for the last three springs. Well, this will be the third spring I've been going over and turkey hunting with him and just had to have a good guy and great turkey hunter. So it's great making making friends that way. Yeah, are you talking about just this last like sportsman show here? Just this last couple months ago or? No, it was it was four years ago. I think I met him. So this will be the third spring I'll be going over there. And this is crazy. So where I elk kind of growing up, then I don't know how elk hunt there anymore because just the wolves kind of beat it up pretty bad. So I hunted a different place and he doesn't know the place I go, right? You know, we never talked about that. And in 2019, I hear a pickup coming and I tell the cameraman, Dusty, I said, hide. Can't let everybody see us here. I'm driving. I've got a pickup that's incognito. You know, nobody knows it's me. This rig pulls up and they can see they can see us that we somebody was hiding and he pulls up and he's like, Hey, I see you and I pop out and it's it's my buddy Ron from Oregon. He's like, Oh, that's awesome. You do it up here. It's just such a weird coincidence and such a small little world out there that you never know who you're going to run into and and have something in common with. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it seems like you meet people all around the place and this is like the great equalizer. It makes everybody on the same page. I guess maybe the equalizer is not the right term. It's a unifier, you know, yeah, hunting communities is like a great unifier because you don't you meet on no uncertain terms. You just meet in the place you're at and you're, you know, you have a same like mind and your passion for something and you start talking about it. And I'm the same way with like, fishing spots I've gone to, I'll talk to people on the book. Yep, I know exactly that rock is undeniable. Like you can tell by one little feature there's a tree with a where there's a tree that I carved something into a couple of years ago and it says no elk hill on it. Yeah. So if you ever saw you ever find yourself in that spot, Dave and I were up there. We did that. That was a good time. There was elk everywhere. Yeah, it carved it right above a big rub. That was awesome. And we were on bulls like, you know, three days in a row. So yeah, it was cool. Yeah, that was like, that was a good time. So you're open a weekend, you're heading to Oregon. Yeah, so I'll be over there on like a Monday. So the opener week like on the 15th, that's that's on a Saturday, I think. So yeah, I'll be doing my birthday, typical birthday deal, my wife's birthday will celebrate a birthday, go to dinner and have fun with the kids and stuff. And then then I'm going to bounce that Monday. I'm out. And I'll drive to Oregon and hunt for three or four days probably. So now what's an over the counter tag and license for Oregon? So I mean, we're all kind of neighboring states. I wonder, I haven't really looked it up. You know, I wish I could tell you better. I think I paid like it's kind of expensive. So what you do, you can get like a three day hunting permit, I think, but I didn't, I couldn't figure it out. I was buying it on my app on my phone on the Fish and Wildlife app. And I'm like, okay, I bought the whole like the whole season, like hunting license, which was kind of expensive. I think like 75 bucks or maybe it was more than that. And then the tag was like 90 bucks, I think. So how many birds is that for 90 bucks? Is that two tags? So that that's one tag. And then you can buy an additional one for another 90 bucks. Oh, full price too. They get you both times. Oh, yeah. They like that sweet money, that other state money. I guess turn about fair play. I don't think Idaho does Oregonians any favor either. So they're going to give it to us right back. I was just thinking after Dave said, you know, everything's so close that if they did like a three state combo license, that'd be kind of cool. I mean, discounted if you buy all three states. But I would do that. Yeah, definitely. I know Oregon and Washington. I mean, you're probably looking up for just 2000 bucks, but you know, a tricky trifecta. I don't know about Turkey, but no, for, you know, anything like Idaho license last season. And I bought a three year license because they had a one year and a three year option. As a non resident, I didn't want to wait in that pool and be like, well, maybe I won't get a tag or be able to get in and get a tag. So I bought a three year license. Unfortunately, I didn't get an in the window for the elk or deer tags. I can still go over the counter for Turkey. So now I can go back and go over the counter for Turkey, Turkey bear wolf. And I maybe you could do it either way, you know, regardless if you got that three year deal or not. But I thought it was a pretty good deal. I think they discounted the second third year a little bit too. Because one verse three, the math to me was beneficial to five three. Oh, yeah. And I think, you know, don't don't give up on that elk tag. Because, you know, I think it's after July, the date of certain day in July, they start putting those tags, the ones that get returned back on sale. And guys pick up some pretty decent tags, you know, once they go back on sale. So, you know, I have to keep an eye on that. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to be putting in, I'm not going to be putting in, I might actually drive over to Idaho and wait in line. To get an old tag over there. If you're going to go right with you. Yeah, no. Yeah, I think that's a must. I think it's time we get out of Washington and start. For bear? For elk. Oh, for elk. Yeah. But yeah, I'll probably buy a bear tag too. Why not? Yeah. So you don't have spring bear here in Washington. Why not do it overnight, ho? Yeah, pretty close. So the, we're gonna be Yeah, we're, we're siding in the conversation. Yeah, but well, go look, let's go back to Turkey. And so what are you going to be bringing near Arsenal for actually just this season? So call wise or just gear wise everything, the whole let's go in the whole shebang. Okay, let's start with how you're going to be hunting them and what you're going to be using to get them in. Sure. Okay. I'm going to be hunting in my speedo. And no, I believe that I'll sit down. It's made in first, like the first time first, like there's the fusion. Yeah, fusion. But so we're going to be calling turkeys go running gun type hunting, you know, locate. It's almost like my buddy Ron, he hunts turkeys like you do elk and the crazy guy. He's like 72 years old. He's an older fella and he's kind of rickety, right? He's, he has to walk with walking sticks. But the first time I went turkey hunting with him, that old man drug my ass all over the country. Like we heard gobbles across this canyon. He's like, let's go. And it was a deep, steep canyon. We crossed the canyon, went over the other side, chased turkeys and gobbles around all day and made a huge loop. It was like a 10 mile day. I was, I was crushed. I was just, I was just like, dude, I'm tired. And this old guy was just like killing it. I'm like, holy cow, how did you do it? It was amazing. Putting it all on the line. Yeah. But, you know, so we're going to, we're locating birds, you know, at dawn. And then we're, we're going after, you know, close the gap. It's like you would elk, get close, set up, and then try to call them in. You know, in the arsenal as far as calls go, we're using, you know, box calls. Ron likes a box call. He likes, he likes diaphragms. I'll throw in a diaphragm. I usually let him do the calling because he enjoys it so much. But they share, we'll have some pots, some of those new cool Morgan Stern pots to, to try out. And yeah, we're just going to go kind of call them in and see what we can do and try to call them in. And the first year I went over there, it was rough, man. We didn't, we didn't kill anything. Got close a couple times and, you know, Turkey's their cagey man. They pick you off or if something ain't right, you know, they're, you think I personally think calling elk is easier than calling turkeys. I feel like elk do things that kind of make sense sometimes. But turkeys, they just don't make any sense at all sometimes. Sometimes they're just, they're just coming at you like hard and gobbling their heads off. And then it's like, oh, squirrel. And then they just kind of go off a different way. They probably have hands or seeing a hand or something. But, um, for a last year, yeah, the last year, um, was fortunate enough to get two over there. And, um, and it was just a lot of it just like you're hearing gobbles and you're just like getting the closest you can with them getting picked off and then set up real quick and do some call it. It's a lot like setting up for elk. Um, it's funny because a lot of, a lot of people will, that's fighting words, you know, turkeys are like, no, but honestly it is, there's a lot of similarities. And, um, and it was just a, it was a blast. Sorry to laugh. I was sitting here and also, and I started panicking. I was like, Oh no, did we press record? Did we have the SD card in? Is this thing? Everything's good. We're good. We got a little bit last time. Yeah. So we got it all, but, uh, perfect. That's awesome. My first time turkey hunting was, uh, similar to what you're talking about, like they, they didn't have a rhyme or reason to their approach. Yep. It just seemed kind of like they went up the hill when we were calling. They went up around us. They came down. They did a little figure eight, like 10 of them in a row did this figure eight loop following each other. Then they came down and as soon as they got right to where we were at, they just turned around and went the other way. And now, you know, obviously I didn't take that shot. And that's, that's the infamous first hunt that I went on later that day. We bagged a bird apiece. But, um, yeah, the second two, well, they just came to barrel up the hill. You know, they, they came in. They, uh, one was gobbling back to our calls and one was shock gobbling off the first. So it sound like, you know, a big echo. But yeah, it's crazy that they would just meander in and, there's really no rhyme or reason a lot of time. No, not at all. And it's, it's kind of funny, and that's the chess game of turkey hunting. And that's what makes it so fun and interesting. And it's like that first time, you know, you're out in the woods hunting something unless you, you know, you're fortunate enough to have spring bear season and your unbearers or something like that. But for us, I love turkey hunting. Um, it's something that I'll probably do until I can't do it anymore. And it's, it's fun. And yes, we, we hunt turkey similar to, um, hunting elk, uh, spot and stock, close the distance. You know, you have a shooter and a collar and you set up and same exact way. Yeah. Now on a flip side, so that was last year, I got the two gallblitters and we had quite a bit of luck calling and everything. And, um, fast forward to when I went to Kansas. So I went to some private property, very restricted hunting. There's not a bunch of every Tom Dick and Harry getting a hunt, you know, and quite a few birds. And I'm hunting with Chris Parrish. Chris Parrish is one of the most decorative turkey collars of all time. He's, he's won every calling contest. There, there is, it seems like, um, and he's been doing it for three or four decades. So the guy knows how to call birds, right? We couldn't really buy a turkey to come to us, right? But as he explains it, he's like, it has a lot to do with, you know, that the timing of the turkey, rut turkey breeding season, you know, if, if there's a lot of hands up moving, you know, a lot of time, it's really just really hard to out compete a real life in. Um, you'll, you'll do your call and build there some calling. Pretty soon that old Tom, he's like, well, I've got five or six of them here right here. I'm just going to follow them wherever they go. It's really hard to break them loose sometimes. Sometimes you can get some jigs to come over during that time, but, but what, what's really, really great is when those, those, uh, hands start laying, you know, sitting on their nest and then there's not hands out and about everywhere. So then Tom's are on the prowl. They're a lot more callable. So, um, and it just, it's kind of hard. It's, it's almost a look of the draw. Like some years it's, you know, this week and the next year, it's the following week when, when you're going to have your, your prime time calling. Um, so, so we end up hunting, uh, turkeys like deer. A lot. We go set up, you know, it's like, okay, we know where they've been strut and they've been feeding up in this little field and this little food source. So we set up an edge of the timber there and just set and do some calling and just wait, do some calling and wait. And, uh, sometimes they'd come in and sometimes they wouldn't. Um, those hands can be kind of jealous too. So they're like, yeah, there's ends over there. I'm not going to go. You know, let's go this way, big guy. And they'll take that Tom away to a different location. So, um, ended up getting a really nice bird out there. We did get one that would, that had come in and he did come to the calls and it's a really cool, cool setup and say I'm fortunate enough to get him. But, uh, you know, it, it's funny. It's like you said though, there's one time those things just come in matter than it can be or, or, curious as can be. And then the next time, I mean, it's like pulling teeth to try to get one of those Tom's to come into range. I have a video of Dave calling this Tom and every time he would scratch that little call, it would gobble back, but it would never come close. I mean, this was 25 minutes. Probably he just sat there doing that. And then we realized that he was down this little ravine and up the other side. And so he was probably, he was probably looking at us right where that call was coming from the whole time. And we started trying to, you know, pick him out and see where he was at, but we just couldn't spot him at all with your, your comment about the hen sitting and then the Thomas becoming more active. Do you think there's like a correlation there with elk calling as far as like when the cows lay down the elk are up moving and they'll be reacting more just just out of curiosity on that? Well, I really love my favorite time to hunt. Like big bulls, mature bulls is the middle of the day when the cows are bedded down. You know, everybody's taken a nap. Bulls, they got their, they got, usually have a bedding area that's pretty defensible to where they feel pretty comfortable. Like, okay, these cows aren't going nowhere and they're pretty defensive of that spot. And I get close and start calling and a lot of times they'll get those, those big bulls that come out because a lot of times, if you're trying to chase them in the morning, they just kind of bugle and run, bugle and run. But what, if you can find them in their bedding area and get them up, then a lot of times, you know, they're not going to run. They're going to like, well, the cows are laying there. They're not going anywhere. I'm going to get up and stop this guy. You know, it's kind of like stopping a crack head at the curb before he comes in knocks on your door, right? Bull wants to wants to catch you before you come in there and make a mess of things. Yeah, I'm always trying to draw these little correlations between species just just out of my own, I guess, curiosity, but also just to know what I'm, what I'm up against. Because we're calling, I mean, we use cow calls and elk hunting, but we're primarily calling with a hen call to a tom that had, you know, typically could possibly have hens. And there's, there's this thing there, the hens are stopping the tom from coming possibly, or the hens are doing their own thing and don't care. And the tom's want to be with these ladies he has in his hand. And then when they sit, that's the opportunity to rise, strike his curiosity to bring him in. So have you found like, when you're turkey hunting, have you found like there's a distance that's best to bring him in if say you call and you get a gobble back, how far do you feel that that tom is going to come away from hens that are sitting in order to get a new hen or come to your call? Well, those things are going to, as soon as those hens go set, then they, they just go on the prowl. Those tom's, they're just like, okay, there's no action here to be had. And then they're just on the prowl at that point. And they'll cover quite a bit of country, you know, looking for other hens. And so yeah, you just never know, you might see one, you know, he may, may see him trotting across the field for a quarter mile, you know, and going over into the next big woodlot, you know, to check out the hens over there, see if there's any receptive hens. But those things can cover a lot of country. So, and then sometimes it's, they're funny, like, I called in some, I called in two birds one day and they would not get close enough. I'm like, finally, I think they're close enough. So I take a shot with my shotgun, right? And they weren't close enough. Yeah, they just ran away. This is a long time ago. They just ran away. It's kind of the way they ran and what's kind of the direction I had to walk back to the truck. So I'm walking back to the truck and I get back to the truck and I start, I'm like, you know what the heck I'm going to give a a crow call here and see if I can hear a turkey over here and I call crow call and bam, they answered it. And it's I'm, I'm positive. It's those same two birds that I called in earlier because it was just the kind of the roundabout way that they would get there. And I walked about 100 yards from my pickup and set up and those things about ran me over. They just come, they come right in, like came in a dead rod. Just I shot one at like 10 yards. And surprisingly, I've heard that from other people too. Sometimes you'll, you'll bump, you'll split up a flock or shoot and miss and they'll all scattered. But if you can kind of see which way they're going and just kind of go get back over and get around and get set up over in that area, it's like game on again. So, but sometimes there may not be quite as smart as or sometimes it may not be as smart as a first time or sometimes it might be smarter. I just haven't, my personal correlation, I just haven't had it be consistent, you know, the good, the good part about turkey hunting is they don't smell you. Yeah, you'd never kill one. If you tried looping around them, they'd be gone, you know, they're, that's, that's the one advantage, but their eyesight is impeccable. So, and they got that little periscope head they just, they, you can't see the rest of their body, but they'll poke up that little head and be like, Oh, there's a guy gone. Yeah, kind of like elk over a ridge, you know, they soon as I can see that spot, nothing there out here, or they see something they're gone. And that I've seen that periscope head. You actually, you actually shot one Dave, when he poked his head up, you said, but what you heard him milling around first. Yeah, so I was coming up on so this area that we we hunt, there's this ridge and usually you'll go up and over the ridge and back down into this flat area and that's usually where the birds are. So we'll get up on the ridge, call from the ridge, get something going and come back down. Well, the gobbles that I was hearing were on private property. So I was like, all right, well, I'm going to head back up to the ridge, call some more and try to find some other birds. Well, as my as I was going up to the ridge, I saw a bird, I didn't know if it was a Tom or hand, I just saw something. I was like, Oh, there's a bird. I start walking a little bit more, boom, I see a beard. And he kind of like drops back down in this little, little dip. And then he just pokes his head up and I like when flying blasted him. So perfect little telescope head, that was all it was there, but it was already, you know, I could tell it was a Tom. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was up with a front bead very nicely. Yeah, definitely. Just boom, just let him have it. And it was it was fun. I was a solo hunt and it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. It was colder than heck. It was snowing and raining and, you know, all the good, all the good weather when you haven't spring. Well, well, mountain, you know, eastern side mountain spring. I was watching a pack video today. This guy, he was a, he was a sear trainer for a long time. He was talking about packs and pack weights. And it was nothing to do with hunting. But he was saying like, whatever you're doing, make sure that you pack for that. Like, no, yeah, saying don't bring a hundred pound pack if you need a 20 pound pack. They were saying like, when you get to your destination or whatever your mission is, if you carry it a hundred pounds, you're less effective when you get there. If it's more than what you needed, when you're there, of course, you're exerted all this energy to get to where you need to go. And then that's just the start. He was saying like, he would eat like seven thousand calories a day when he's on mission, because they have 70 pound rocks and they'd be going all day. You know, wow, but this was a military related thing. But what do you bring it on your hunt? And what do you expect the weather to be? You know, turkey season can be kind of fickle. You just never know. I'll have stuff for like cold, cold weather in Idaho. It may snow on you. I'm an organ. It may snow on you, or it may be 90 degrees. So I'm going to have in the truck, I'll have, you know, puffy jacket, warm stuff, lung johns. But if it's a pretty bluebird day, no clouds in the sky, typically, I'll probably go pretty light. I won't have any rain gear or anything. I'll go pretty light. If it's somewhat cloudy and there's a chance of rain, I'll throw a rain jacket in and that way I can shade up under a tree and get put my rain jacket on and maybe wait out the storm if it doesn't rain all day. But yeah, I kind of just kind of dictates what the weather is supposed to be and what I'm looking at. So I've always been curious for those, I always see people with those turkey hunt and vests. You know, they have like a seed attached to the back and it seems like that's it'd be nice if I lived in a spot where like, that's all I needed, right? Like that'd be really sweet just for me to have only that but we're packing up because we're out hiking all day. You know, we have to go up a pretty nice size ridge and we like to say that nobody goes up that hill. But we're like the only people up there when we get there because it's that steep. So but I'm envious of people that get to pack light, you know, like a nice low land hunt or, you know, somewhere down south or you just see them in a vest and go in their little stand and that's it. It's like that'd be so awesome just to chill out like that. So this year, we've had a lot of snow. So I mean, I don't even know what it looks like where we're going to go. But last season, it was it's still kind of snowy up there. But we went. So I'm anticipating there being more snow there this year than last year. So I mean, I'm kind of uncertain about what we're going to encounter, but I'm going to fight over pack just to make sure that I'm not lacking anything because nothing's worse than, you know, sitting there miserably cold. Well, it's nice about at least how we we turkey hunt. We're just out of the truck. So we can bring the kitchen and tub and all that stuff and just kind of like figure out what we're going to pack in the actual pack for the day. But yeah, usually I camp we're pretty cozy. Yeah, we get back and sit down. Yeah. Yeah, just that just that up the hill day, you know, then, you know, that's the that's the point that gets you. Yeah, bringing definitely lost snacks, a lot of calories and a lot of water and then getting it done. It almost seems like it shouldn't be that way. You know, like, like you said, dirt, making it as easy as you want or as hard as you want. We have a guy, Burgess, that goes with us and he's like your buddy, he's older. He doesn't seem like he gets around very much. He kind of he kind of moses around camp, but he always gets where he's going. You know, he's like, it might take him twice as long, but he's getting to that spot. And he'll be back at camp a couple times. He's got back to camp before us. He's like, well, guys, you see anything? And we're like, no, he's like, don't go look at that log. It's covered in blood. Because we have a turkey skin and log, you know, we're like, you got to be shit me every time, you know, and this guy goes out and he calls him in, you know, just, you know, doing it his way. Pretty slick. Yeah. One thing I found about turkey hunting is, you know, it might even be better to be to do it like that guy does, you know, kind of a slow game or, you know, taking it nice and easy, not being in a rush, not being very patient. That can really pay off. Sometimes a guy gets a little too anxious and pushes up too hard and you get picked off. And like Chris, you know, when we were in Kansas, Chris was saying, you know, a lot of times, you know, these birds will come off the roost and then those hands will just drag them right right away from you. You're sitting there, they're talking to you. As soon as they come off the roost, they don't even come near you. They go into opposite direction. But he said, it's good to kind of stick around in that area because you've planted those seeds to that tom or the toms. There may be multiple toms there to that to let him know that there's other hens over this way. So when those other hens go lay, then he'll he'll he'll come circle back around and be like, Hey, where were those ladies at over here? He said, that's it. He's like, if you want to be patient and you know, you know, want to be too physical, you can always, you know, just play the slow game. When we're in Kansas, we take these little seats, these little chairs, we sit on and they're super low. They're they're probably six inches off the ground, kind of a little folding chair. And those things are awesome for comfort wise. So when we were hunting them like deer or whenever you're trying to do that, that real patient game, having a comfortable seat is paramount because about the time you get uncomfortable, start shifting around and stuff, that's when the turkey comes in and sees you and runs away, right? So those little chairs were invaluable. Now to pack them around and on mountain hunt would probably not be super feasible. But like when I go to Oregon, I'll have my same pack I use for elk hunting, right? I'll have I'll have my snacks and my stuff in there, no big meat bags. I'll have one meat bag for throughout the turkey. And but I will carry a little foam pad just to pop out and just sit on any time I want to sit down, I'm gonna sit on that foam pad that we don't give my butt wet or maybe it's rocky or whatever, I'm gonna be comfortable. So that's that's a pretty important making sure you're comfortable when you're sitting that way you can sit for a while and not and not jump the gun and get up and scare the turkeys away about the time they're coming in. Yeah, that's the that's the dichotomy or yeah, is that what it is? The dichotomy. Do I get up now? Do I wait five minutes? Is he just around the corner? Like I've had a million thoughts like that same way. Yeah, because I get antsy, you know, I'm sitting there and in the eye because I have that experience. Let's grab the lights. Sorry. I had that I had that I had that experience where that Tom came running in and it happened pretty quick and I have the expectation like this is how it's going to be from now on or that's my desire. So I kind of if it doesn't happen that way, I get to the point where I'm like I got to move something's got to change. They're not you're not close, but I could be, you know, jumping the gun early and actually kicking stuff off that's coming to my coming to me at the time. Exactly. And they will come in quiet too. Sometimes we'll just come in real quiet until they get fairly close like the ever night last year with a couple times gobble way off in the distance and then 20 minutes later, they're right in front of us and they didn't make a peep until they're probably 30 yards away. You can kind of hear them just putting along and then boom, they're right there. It was crazy and they close the distance fast. I mean those those turkeys can run fast. Yeah, I'm gonna bring it. Last year, I think I brought that little a little seating pad because a year before, you know, I got the rocky ground treatment on the rear end where you can't sit still very long. You know, if you want it to, you're just like, oh man, you got to move side to side. Yeah, I got something poking you. And yeah, then, you know, sometimes my legs go numb, you know, like I'll get like this, maybe it's a sciatic or something. I don't know what it is, but my right leg will go numb from sitting on something hard too long. Oh yeah. You know, so I got to I got to stay off and kind of wiggle my leg a little bit just to get to come back alive. I got a couple of little light seats too that I haven't really been bringing to Turkey camp at all. We can pack those in. I'll bring them this year. We'll be nice and comfortable. Yeah, I think we should sit longer, you know, than we have been. Yeah. That the up. See, here we go. Here we go. Already like, yeah, I need to be a little bit. It's my, it's, it's me. I usually push. I usually give it. I don't really sit for too long. I'm like, oh, right, time to go every time. You got to give it a shot. Got to keep it work time. So, um, you say you're going down, you're going to bring your pot calls, turkey calls, use your hunting pack, anything, anything other notable additions you're going to bring that that's. Do you use decoys at all? Because I know for me, I sometimes I use them. Sometimes I don't. And it seems like I've been pretty successful without using them at all. Yeah, I typically don't use them, but hunting with other people sometimes do. And there's like Chris Parrish, he talks about decoys a lot, depending on what you're set up. You know, some people like to set up a Jake decoy, you know, to just get that Tom to come in there to beat up that Jake. But if you have a large Jake population, you got to kind of be careful with that because a lot of times those Jake's will gang up and they'll go beat the snot out of a mature Tom and they'll run him off away from the hands. If there's a gaggle of him, you know, six or eight of them, Jake's, they'll come over and put a thump on a Tom and run him off. So a lot of times those mature Tom's, if there's a lot of, a lot of Jake's in the area, then they're a little bit leery of a Jake decoy. They're like, Oh, that's a Jacob decoy. The one I shot last year in Kansas, we had a Jake, Jake decoy set up. And then he was coming, he was coming and all he got to where he could see that Jake decoy. And he's just like, he's just like, well, he just stopped and put his head up and it was freak out time. He was about ready to go and luckily he was close enough and got him. But if I would have waited any longer, he would have been gone. That that Jake decoy kind of spooked him. He was a big old Tom too. Like, but you know, a gang beats up a one old man, right? He was thinking twice. He was like, Oh, I've been in this one before. I looked left and right before he took on running. Where are you buddies at? So Jake staying home. Yeah. But yeah, you know, at times, you know, decoys were great. A lot of times were I-hunt. A lot of this pretty thick country to wear, you know, a lot of brush and stuff. So you just really can't see a decoy really easily until they're in range anyway. So a lot of times we don't use a decoy. But if you knew, you know, let's say there was a pasture or a field or a glade or a meadow that Turkey's been strutting and been seeing him feeding in there, definitely be good to set what was set out a hand decoy there and do some call and set up in the edge of the timber and see if you can get one to come by. Yeah, I've never considered that gang of Jake's before. Yeah, I didn't know that was the thing. He said, Yeah, it's a that's a real thing, at least back in Kansas. I don't know if that's well, he he sounded all over the south and yeah, but yeah, I've never I've never heard that before. Yeah, I think it's I think it's kind of fascinating that they they have that, you know, kind of pack mentality when there's a bunch of them, you know, they they calculated like, Hey, this guy can take us one on one, but if the four of us go in there, one of us is getting that hand, you know, it's like rock paper scissors going first, you know, like put it out there, man. He's like, I don't even have a I don't even have a beer yet, like you're going first. You got to do it. It's for the group group, group betterment here. Take one for the team. Yeah, that's awesome. We all have to have a partner like that. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, that's cool thing, man. I so some of these things you're saying they're all they're all new to me, you know, the, you know, the Jake thing. Yeah, I've never heard that one before. Some of the that was new to me too. It last year is the first time I've ever heard that. It makes complete sense, because they all even though they're Jake's, they still have that same mentality, like they still want to go and breathe on these hands and their options aren't very good unless they, you know, get the Tom out of the way in some cases, but you know, taking your time can be going fast, you know, running gun or sitting, you know, the time of day, you're waiting for the hands. And then if you run them off in the morning and you call and that Tom is going to remember where that sound came from. So when his hand sits, you know, he might return to you. So these are these are concepts we're talking about this. Could change the game for you. Yeah, here's one that changed the game for me one time. This is my very first bird ever shot. I go out before work in the morning and locate these these birds and and I had just very little time, like 30 minutes or so. I'd pull over on my woodwork, chase out there, you know, see if I could get a bird and then I'd have to leave. But there was always this one little kind of little knoll, little elevated knoll in a clear cut where these turkeys would just be strut and then just gobbling their heads off every morning. I could never get them off that knob. And it was so well protected, like they could see it coming for 300 yards. So one day I got a fork early, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go up there and I'm going to lay down in the grass and that knoll and there's some stumps and stuff. There's a little bit of cover. I'm just going to go up there and lay down until this evening and those two birds, if they're there in the morning, they're probably roosted close by somewhere. So maybe I'll get them coming back by heading to the roost in the evening. So I went out there and laid down, took a nap and it was a beautiful day, nice and warm and I got there and I got out my old box call and did some meoping for a while and nothing, nothing. So I just kind of lay in there and just kind of fell asleep. And then I was rudely interrupted, bam, it's turkey gobbles, like right there. Like I'm like, I opened my eyes and I'm like, oh man, I'm afraid to move. I don't know where he's at. So I like slowly roll over. There was just a little enough grass where he couldn't see me and roll over and I raised my head up and I see him and he's strutting and he's got his back to me. Oh man. So I'm like, oh man, here we go. So soon as he turns, he was like 20 yards away if that. So pretty soon he turns around and bam, I shoot him. I was just like, man, I got this turkey hug figured out. I've never had happened like that again. See if it's me I'd be laying down everywhere now. I'm like, I just need to go take a nap. Yeah, I'm gonna pop up right here in front of me. No problem. That first on success, you know? Yep. That was awesome. Yeah, ambushed. But I think the big key takeaway is, you know, if you're seeing him in the morning coming off the roost, you know, try to get back on that pathway that they're taking. If they haven't been disturbed, you know, chances are they may go roost in that same tree again. So go set up along that pathway that takes them back to that roost tree in the evening. And chances are you could probably get a Tom come by and check you out. It's awesome. Man, well, what do you have anything to add, Dave? No, not really. I actually just bringing it all in. You know, I think all the information that, you know, anybody can gather is just going to help them in the long run, right? I wouldn't say I'm the best turkey hunter out there, but I do love turkey hunting. And I've gotten it done a few times. I'm definitely not even close to anything considered the best of that. No, not at all. I don't think you can be. I'm going to, you know, there's guys that are out there, you know, I mean, they live in the turkey woods. And that's all they do. I just look forward to this season, just because it's it's here now, you know, last year was good. We had a good time. We had a lot of encounters. Yeah. We were on the cusp of, I don't know how many turkeys were down that hill right below us, but we were on the cusp of tagging. It just didn't come together. And you have seasons like that, you know, it's just their birds, really. I mean, what are you going to do? You know, they big do what they want. They wander around. I mean, you can you'd have to lay down on their spot. Sometimes, you know, for the to get one, you know, so aside from that, I mean, you know, it's a new opportunity this season. And we've got a we've got more tricks in our bag. And we got some new calls we're excited about. Yeah, definitely. We're going to give them a we're going to give them a heck of a time out there. Yeah. And it was just great having dirt having you on and talking something other than oak. Yeah. Yeah, which is weird because we'll spread it a little bit out there, but well, I'm by no means a not a any kind of a turkey, cotton expert, you know, I've I've shot quite a few over the years. And I think it's it's like any kind of hunting, you know, you just got to you got to put in your time and kind of learn, you know, and there's a lot of really good information by a lot of people that are really good at it. And if you can listen to what they have to say and then kind of put that in your in your little quiver of of ideas and tactics, then, you know, I think any just about anybody can have success on turkey woods. And like I said, you know, I had Chris Parrish with me the guys shot countless turkeys, one countless championships, and even sometimes the best gets skunked. So don't let don't let that sink your ship, you know, there's there's going to be days that's terrible. And the next day it'll turn around and you'll be like, Oh, these are the easiest bird to kill on the face of beer. I did I did hear from a guy is on I think I was a there's an old time around a TV show. He was turkey hunting and he had killed like 800 turkeys in his life. It was this ungodly amount of turkeys. And he he said that one thing he would focus on turkey hunting, the most important thing to turkey hunting is whatever you're doing at the moment. And I was like, what does that mean? And he just got into this, like, whatever you're doing right now is affecting the next thing. So focus now, next thing will happen, focus then and focus then. And he just broke it down into this this segment, like every time you hit the call, that's the most important thing. It's not the next call. It's this one, you know, in right, I mean, after 800 birds, you got to pay attention to what the man says. It seems like he knew what he's talking about, you know, yeah, definitely. So yeah, I'm going to keep that in mind this year, focus on what we're doing now, you know, move within 10. It's basically telling you just don't have acid, you know what I mean? Because that's, you know, breaking it down on a nutshell, you know, don't have acid, make sure that every single step and every single thing that you're doing is, is that focus at that point? So it goes into all aspects of life. You know, I think that it has a bigger meaning, you know, in the NCAA final for just happened, you know, they had all the championships are over. And every single shot in those games came down to that shot. I mean, they had some that were buzzer beaters in the end. So you can have a turkey buzzer meter if you pay attention. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm looking for. I don't want the buzzer beater. I don't want to break it down that late. I want an early morning first day bird, and then I'll buzzer beat it. Then we'll go buy another tag and they could be a buzzer beater. Yeah, I buy two anyway, just so I donate if I don't get anything. And it's twice as much tag soup if you do. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, you got any questions Dave or anything else? Any other hunts that you have lined up for this turkey season? I know you're heading to Oregon, you might hunt at home and Idaho. Do you are you heading back east or? I'm tentatively heading to Kansas again. So I'm still trying to put that together, but I'll probably go back there. And then in June, I'm going to try to go bare hunting in Wyoming. So got a good buddy that's got that lives over there. And he's going to set up a bait and we're going to go try to get a bear. Nice. Nice. Do you know if you guys are they going to have any more of those lined one pot calls coming out? Nope. Those are those are all gone. So they were here for a limited time only kind of like the McRib. Yeah, probably won't bring it back eight times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was I was looking at those and those were those were super nice looking. I was looking at like, I was when they first came out. Yeah. Just like something you'd hang on a wall, just keep it. Yeah. It seemed like, you know, good bunk sway. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, they're so pretty. I mean, you hate to like, first thing you do is like with a glass or a crystal pot call is scratch up the surface, you know, and rough it up. So you could get some good sweet turkey sounds off that crystal and man, it almost seems like wrong to do that. It's like, man, this thing's so pretty. I don't want to scratch it up. Yeah, they were gorgeous, man. I was drooling on them. And I was like, oh, there's 20 other things I need to do right now. So all right, well, we're coming up on an hour. And I know you're an hour later than us. I don't want to hold you too long. So you have any final closing thoughts for the turkey season for us or any last minute pointers? I just think yeah, just kind of it. I feel like it's just like elk hunting, right? You can get discouraged, but just stick with it. You know, you're gonna have some good pines, you're gonna have some bad times and highs and lows. And if you haven't had a bunch of highs and lows, you probably didn't have a real good turkey hunt, right? You shoot one on the first day and go home with a lot of be way too easy. But you got to kind of suffer through a little bit, I think, you know, some highs and lows. And then this year with a lot of snow packing a lot of places, then, you know, don't try to go too high. You know, turkey's usually followed the snow line up from wherever it's at. And they love that the edge of those those snow lines of just where you get some wet meadows where there's some little green stuff starting to pop up. They love those places. They're out there looking for snails and for little green tidbits to eat. Yeah, just just don't don't try to go too high. Maybe, you know, where you typically go if there's a lot of snow and just you might get skunked and then just cover country. If you're not finding birds, cover country, you know, get in your truck, get your binoculars and and and if you have clear cut country that you're hunting, you know, glass of clear cuts, do, you know, ton of road goblin, the road calling, you know, cut cover a bunch of ground until you hear get into some some birds that are goblin. And it's like, okay, we found some now we can hunt. But but don't be afraid to cover a ton of country until you find birds. Because sometimes with it, you get a weird spring that's it's a late spring or whatever. They may be in a little different place and where you normally find them. Yeah, yeah, that's really good advice. It is just don't give up. Stick with it in in locate the birds. You know, don't get too high. You know, they don't probably live in the snow, you know, looking for the fresh food. So hunt where there's fresh food and and uh find the food. You're going to find the birds. Yeah, maybe go scratch one up. All right, everybody. Well, this is going to be the end of the show, but we are going to give away two Phillips game called diaphragm. So we're going to have two winners at the end of this week. So this will be the last opportunity before the season kicks off. Well, at least for Washington. So in some in some spots, it it was some of them started on the third. Yeah, I've been seen on mine. A bunch of turkeys. Yeah, I'm like, oh, just give me a couple more weeks. Give me a couple more weeks. So yes, be looking for that. It will be the giveaway will be on YouTube, Instagram and on Facebook. And how we're doing it, all you have to do is subscribe to the YouTube channel and comment below on the on the giveaway video and you're entered to win. These can be awesome. But will you appreciate everybody for watching? Dirk, we appreciate you for coming in here and sharing your knowledge with us. And hopefully you have a great season in Oregon. Absolutely. I pleasure. Good luck to you guys this spring. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks guys. All right. Thank you, Dirk. Have a good night. Yep. Yep. You too. Bye. .