Ep. 2: Turkey Hunting 101 - Being Aggressive vs. Being Patient
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Today we are joined by my good friend, fellow meat eater, and a guy that just loves to hunt turkeys, Giannis Patelis. First, we're going to dive into a few questions from the listeners. Then we're going to dive into a conversation with Giannis going over decoying versus run and gun, his picture perfect turkey hunting scenario, as well as his favorite seven days to be out in the field during the spring.

all right we're going to jump right into the q a from social email and past episodes the first question we have today is how far can a turkey hear your call um you know whether we look at like the scientific research versus like what our experience tells us out in the field a lot of scientists say that they can hear at least a quarter mile some say in perfect conditions they can hear up to a half a mile

Giannis, what would you say just from your experience hunting, getting responses, how does terrain matter, calmness of the day, fog versus windy? Kind of give us your opinion and then I'll kind of use some of my examples to decide how far they can hear. I think the quick answer would be, yeah, that quarter mile, half mile, bad conditions versus great conditions, that sounds about right. But

I do think that there's a lot of nuances that, you know, I am constantly thinking about when I'm, you know, calling two turkeys. If I don't know they're there, you know, if I haven't heard them. And certainly, probably...

Even more than terrain, I'd say it's foliage. Yeah. Like the amount of foliage on the trees, the amount of trees in general that are between you and the turkey, you know, because out West, you know, we're mostly hunting coniferous forests, right? It was just needles on the trees. A little more open timber. No real leaves. Now, obviously thick evergreen could, I think, soak up some sound big time. Yep. But like this past spring, I was in Wisconsin and we were there pretty late in May.

And it was way leafed out. Like when you were in the woods, you know, you could barely see 50 yards, you know? And I felt like there, like at best, you know, we were here in a gobble at like 300 yards. They were, so they were pretty much right on top of you at the point you can hear. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, now that you've got some pet turkeys, are you going to have to like walk farther from your house and like range find back and see if you can get an answer and then we'll get, maybe get a better answer to this question. Yeah, totally. Um,

Okay. The second question early in the season, I hunt a particular area in the morning. The birds are gobbling their heads off, hit the ground and shut up. What would your strategy be? Um, I'll take a crack at this and we'll see if you have anything to add. Um, so it's very tough. I mean, hopefully you have some idea where these turkeys are going, where they're going, you know, where their strutting zone is, where those hens want to be, where the hens want to feed. You can try to set up down there. You know, one thing that I have an issue with is if I can, I can watch a turkey for five days and

pitch out of a tree, out of the roost, hit a spot, do the same thing five days in a row. And if I go sit in that spot on the sixth day, they're going to do something different. But I would just try to figure out where those birds are going. You know, it sounds like, and we don't have all of the context of this question. Like maybe the person's scared to, you know, chase, chase gobbles. Maybe the person's scared to, you know, go bump the bird, which is, you know, completely normal, but maybe be a little more aggressive. Yeah.

The other thing is, you know, one of the things I had heard, I believe Mike Chamberlain brought it up on a podcast I was on, on the meat eater a year ago, which I didn't realize that turkey, they've got a pretty good memory. Like they knew where maybe they've heard you called from three, four or five hours ago. You know, I'm not necessarily that patient to call from an area and then wait three to five hours, see if he loses his hens, maybe comes back.

Um, but those are some options either get aggressive, um, you know, try to stay with that bird. And that's how I hunt, you know, turkeys a lot is, you know, chasing gobbles and then try to get just close enough to set up without them seeing me. And then usually you're back up trying to reset up, but, um, those would be the two options. What would you do in that? I mean, we don't have all the context of this question, but. Sure. But I've been in that position and, you know, maybe you're hunting a place that you haven't been before. So you don't really know where they're going. You know, you have an idea. Um, yeah.

I do feel like we often forget that most turkeys, unless they're getting bunked, they're probably not ranging that far. So yeah, being patient and hanging out in that zone. But I had heard it that turkeys will, when they lose their hens, come back to where they heard you call in the morning before. And I've had it.

payoff where you can never know if it was the same bird. But I know that one morning I called back and forth at a bird that was way too far off. I think it was on a neighboring property.

and we did it for maybe 15, 20 minutes, and I could hear hens. I'm like, man, it ain't going to happen now. But for whatever reason, we're like at 1 p.m., we're like, oh, let's swing by that same point and see what's going on. And we peeked out, and it was a big, like a high line cut, and we could look down it, and like 300 yards down this cut, there was a gobbler out strutting. Can't see any hens with him.

We made a few calls and that sucker was like about face and just coming. On a beeline. So. Yep. Yeah. Good, good points. And I'm just never patient enough to see if they'll come back. I've either moved on or went and chased the bird that was. Sure. You know, still talking, but no, good advice. And then, um, a question that Yanni brought from, uh,

listener or cousin. I can't remember what he said. Yep. My cousin. Does your decoy approach change during the course of a season? I only want to carry two decoys. Same with me. I usually carry a hen and a breeding Jake. My decoy approach is if I'm in thick foliage, thick vegetation, I usually don't set up a decoy or have time or want to risk, you

you know, depending on how close we are to the bird. If we're cold calling, you could set up, you know, birds in that, you know, situation, even if you are in the dense, you know, just to get the eyes off of you and maybe attract, you know, pick up, you know, on the turkey's sight to keep them off of you. But normally throughout the year, I'm really only setting up decoys in

if we got good visibility. You know, if I'm across a field or across the meadow, got good visibility where a turkey can come out and see the decoys, then I'll set them up typically on the edge of the foliage. But I guess I wouldn't say, I don't typically change my decoy approach throughout the season. It's usually always a Jake behind a hen. How about you, Giannis? You know,

I love using a strutter decoy just because I feel like it's fun, you know, because that strutter really like entices a big gobbler to come in and strut for you. You get to see the whole show and all that. But yeah, I've never like used a strutter and then thought, oh, I should have been using something else, you know, or I might have spooked him off. But I'm with you. It seems like for run and gun,

the decoys can almost get in the way more than they are helpful because you're constantly setting up and then setting up for the decoy placement, right? And if you didn't have the decoy, you just set up so that when the bird comes over the horizon to come check you out, you shoot him, right? Yep. And instead, you're kind of setting up so that he's going to have an opportunity to see the decoy. So,

Yeah, I do feel like for run and gun, sometimes it's just better to leave him behind. But there's no doubt in my mind that like on a, like a open field setup, like a big spread definitely can just be the extra little bit of realism that you need to bring in the bird. For sure. I'm going to add on to that question.

Do you feel, I mean, we've all seen, you know, gobblers take off running across the field at a foam decoy, you know, just a cheap decoy. Do you feel there's any difference? Are turkeys smart enough? The wildest turkey, can you fool him like with a stuffer decoy, which is, you know, somebody who's taken the, you know, a real turkey. Taxidermy. Yeah, taxidermy it up. Or do you think it matters that much between, would that ever happen?

you know, be the difference in calling a bird and having a stuffer decoy versus, you know, your cheaper foam options. Yes. You think so? A hundred percent. Okay. I feel like I've seen it in action where I'm just like,

that bird could tell from 200 yards away that something was amiss. Yeah. We've, we've had birds coming in and like instantly, like all of a sudden lost interest. And you're like, what, you know, what did it pick up? What wasn't right? Um, I've got the hunt behind a few, uh, stuffer hens before. And it seems like the birds, you know, could tell at times that it, you know, it was more real life. Yeah. Real life. I like to run those, uh, Dave Smith decoys. I'm sure you've probably used those too. And I don't know of others that are as realistic or more realistic, uh,

That being said, I've had birds turn away from those too. I feel like...

If it's like the same field, the same corner where in the last week, you know, five out of the seven mornings, there's been a decoy set up and somebody even maybe shot a round off at one point. Like, it doesn't matter what you got going on. They're just like, no, not into it. You know? Yep. No, I'm, and then a lot of times, you know, the, the quality of decoys, whether it's Dave Smith, if you're hunting, you know, Kansas flatlands versus if you're in Eastern Washington and Canyon country, like,

And then the decisions run through your head, like is it actually going to hurt to pull out these smashed up foam decoys that the paint's ripped off their heads? And some of that stuff always runs through your head. And I don't know what the right answer is. Does it actually do more harm than good by throwing them out there? What I'm excited to try this spring is I got a whole batch of those Montana decoys. They're doing some turkeys now. And it's like they're like spring loaded. So they still pop out.

But yeah, it's a very, like compared to a Dave Smith, it's a very crude representation. But like when we hunt Eastern Montana, we cover miles every day and packing around those bigger Dave Smiths, man, you just get old after a while. Yeah, the big bag of decoys. Yeah, exactly. And so I'll let you know next time we do this next spring how the just super packable, you know, not as realistic looking ones do. Perfect.

Some of the questions that I had for Giannis, you know, I think he spends maybe more time than anybody in the spring chasing turkeys quite a bit. He's frowning at me across the table there. So he spends more time turkey hunting, I think, on any given spring than I do. So I've got some questions for him. And coincidentally, the very first question I have for him is on decoying. You know, I wake up every morning ready to kind of do run and gun. You know, after we sit at the roost tree, see how that pans out, which is almost always...

I'm a hundred percent in the Turkey's favor versus, you know, setting up decoys, figuring out you've got a good spot. Like what do you wake up in the morning with the plan? Does it depend on where the roost tree is, where they've been typically flying down? Like, do you go out there with a plan to decoy in the morning or do you go out with a plan like to move? And then if decoying works that you'll set some up.

Oh boy. I mean, I would certainly say that I'm never going to pass up trying to have a bird roosted and trying to go for that move just because it like gets me more time to hunt. Right. And, uh,

It's great to be sitting there in the dark and the bird fires off and you're like, sweet. He's less than 70 yards away in the tree. It's a fun... The anticipation's high and even though we know that it doesn't work out probably more than half the time, it's fun to be in that position. And that's why I'm out there is to have some fun. So you're the guy out there at 4 a.m. crawling out to get your decoys set up and...

and in place and then crawl back to your tree? Oh, sure. Yeah. If I have a bird roosted, you know, if not, you know, it's trying to be on a high point in the dark and, you know, listening, making some,

you know, crow calls or, or, uh, you know, owl hoots at the right time of the morning and hopefully hear one firing off somewhere. And then it's a sprint to get within range, you know, but I'm definitely more cautious at that point. Like I'm not going to risk, uh,

them seeing me so I can get closer. Um, when I know that it's better, I think just to like, let it happen. Maybe you call them in first thing. Maybe you don't. If you don't, at least they haven't seen you. They fade off. I have the opportunity to make another move. Yep.

How many, I guess that brings up another question. How many days do you go out in the turkey woods with birds roosted, would you say? I mean, is it, is it vital to your success or, or, I mean, cause we, when we hunted Northeast Washington growing up, you know, when I was in high school, just starting to turkey hunt, like we were in an area that fortunately for us on public ground somewhere, like we could drive around after dark and locate a bird. So we always started on, on a roosted bird, but

But I honestly have never killed one that we've had. I mean, we've maybe killed them later in the morning, but we've never killed them technically off the roost. What would you say your percentage is like? Do you like the, I mean, ideally we all go into the morning, right? Having a bird roost and knowing exactly where they are. But I mean. I mean, I know some people that have quit doing it. I read some article recently. I can't remember who wrote it, but they said that they kind of quit doing the roosted bird thing and just went out there sort of with a little bit more of a blank slate. And when they'd hear a bird, they'd go and, you know, make their setup. Yeah.

But is the question, what's my like success percentage of like, like killing them off the roost? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what would you say? Like, is it, are you killing, you know, 10% of your birds off the roost or are you killing? Yeah. Yeah. I think if I have a bird roosted, I think it might go up to 20%. One out of five birds that I know where they are.

I could probably kill, I would think. Gotcha. That's about right. Even though mine's way less. I don't know. I don't know if it's because I start to do the soft tree helps and you just want them to keep going or like to recognize you. Maybe I'm just overdue it on the calls first thing in the morning, but it just never seems to work out for me. I mean, I'll, and you know, I'll definitely run that. If I have a bird roosted, I feel like it's in a good spot to set out some decoys. Um,

I'll run that for sure. Like, you know, a hen and a strutter, it's hard for that strutter, the real strutter, to be up in a tree and see that going on down below him and not come over and have a confrontation. Last year you had some interesting things happen at your decoy setups. One coyote and then three cougars had come into your setups with decoys. Well, the... I'm trying to think if we even had... I don't think I had...

We were just calling when the lions came in. Actually, I don't think I had decoys set up for either of them. Oh, they were just... Because the coyote came and got the bird you just shot, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure that in both instances... I'm not sure. I believe, I think, that in both instances...

the predators were there for the same reason I was like, they could hear gobbling. They could hear turkeys. They were sneaking around, they were sneaking in. And it just so happened that, you know, they went right by me or in the coyotes case, like he watched my bird start flopping and,

And it's still odd to me that that was, you know, a half a second after a gunshot went off and he had not a care in the world. Yeah. He didn't care about it. He had a crippled bird there that he thought was an easy meal and didn't care that a gun had literally just did that. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the Cougars, you just called those into your setup, right? They kind of snuck in. Well, again, I don't know. Like we were set up on the side of a pretty steep mountain, like a full-on mountain, like a mountain that took us...

a solid 30, 40 minutes to climb up out of this Creek bottom to get up to where these turkeys were. And, uh, we're kind of on like a draw on the side of this mountain. The turkeys were on one side later. We learned once we kind of went up there to see where they were, they were, they were on this sort of a bench, uh, you know, land type, you know, uh, land feature. But, uh,

The cougars, so we were calling to them back and forth, and the cougars basically came up this draw that was between us and the real turkeys. Gotcha. I'm sure they heard my calling, but they were on a direct path to go to where those turkeys were. Gotcha. Yeah. And once they went by us, those turkeys quit gobbling. That was the end of that morning. A lot of excitement at Giannis' setups and calling.

No, for sure. Last year was intense, you know, and I can't believe that both times we had the presence of mind to whip out a camera and, uh, take a little video. Perfect. Perfect. We'll switch gears here a little bit. Um,

This one, you get to be a little creative. Let's say you have a clean canvas, 100 acres, and you can paint your perfect turkey hunting setting. Give us a little bit of what that would look like as far as streams, vegetation, ag, trees, ridges. What would your ideal turkey hunting spot look like?

And you're asking me ideal as in just what I like to hunt or is more of like what I feel like is the best landscape to kill a turkey in? Yeah, kill. You can pose it any way you want. Hunt and kill, I guess. Like if that was your hundred acres to hunt for the rest of your life, you had it forever, like what would it consist of? You know, would it have a barn in the back?

corner of the, you know, like the just picture perfect Turkey stuff. Like what would, what would that look like? Well, I tell you, man, I'm, I really, it's a tough question. Cause I enjoy like the Ponderosa kind of river breaks country of the West that I get to hunt that it's very Savannah like, or you have big Ponderosas, but you can see sometimes hundreds of yards, you know, through the understory.

And it's just like beautiful parkland to walk through. It's rolling hills. You're not trudging up and down, you know, 2000 foot elevation, you know, gains and drops like you are elk hunting. Yeah. It's just beautiful. But I also really enjoy hunting turkeys in the Midwest with, you know, on,

hard, hardwood oak ridges, um, with just beautiful green, super green spring colors going off, you know, and, you know, if you get lucky, you see something like the dogwoods bloom and, you know, um,

So I would, I would always prefer to hunt them like without any sort of agriculture, just because I feel like you end up or like, not that the field edge hunt is bad, but they just see, it just seems to be a little bit more predictable. Yep. And a lot of the reason I love hunting turkeys is because they are unpredictable and they're constantly like humbling me, you know, and what they're doing. So I feel like just hunting them in the woods, it's a little more challenging. Yeah.

And I would say like the defining feature between both of those landscapes that I would like to have to help me kill them would be some sort of roles in the terrain, something that makes like horizon edges that are, you know, that I can set up behind that I can use to hide that I can use to move, uh,

Um, cause it's no different for, I feel like than from an elk, like if you're calling and that elk can see a hundred yards to where you're calling from and he doesn't see another elk there, they get suspicious. Yeah. Throw up the red flag at that point. And the turkey's the same way. And so if you had to force the animal to come around a corner or come over a horizon to come and check you out or come through something thick to, you know, come check you out, um,

I use that as my sort of like, if you want to see me, you're going to come through here. And if you come through here, hopefully I get a shot, you know? And so I like to have some sort of, you know, I don't want to go hunt turkeys on the plains of Kansas, although I've done it and it was fun. But I remember it being extremely difficult for that reason. Yep. Gotcha. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's a, we have a, a kind of what I would label as my picture perfect spot in Northeast Washington. And of course it's a piece of private, but you would drive by, it has, you know, one major ag filled out in the middle and then it goes up into mountainous country, but then the draws would have like, you know, semi parks and meadows and the bottoms of those. And it kind of all fed to this ag and,

I just would love to go kill them back up in those parks and meadows. But it was just kind of like the ideal spot where they had big roost trees along the creek. They had their water they needed there. They had a bunch of brush around it for their nesting spots. So it was just like the perfect mix of everything. Like the hens didn't need to leave that piece, you

you know, later, you know, to, to go find nesting, um, tons of food, you know, tons of elevation for us to hear birds off of. Um, and so that's kind of that like mountain mixed into ag, but then have, you know, the Creek and the brush and stuff was, it's kind of always been like the ideal setup. And it seems like now, of course, anytime I'm anywhere, you know, if we're in a Kansas spot that kind of looks like it, it reminds me of like, oh, it's just, you feel like you're in turkeys and, uh, you know, it's kind of my, my ideal setup, but it's, it's on the ground. It exists. We just don't have permission to hunt the private.

anymore? No, never did. We hunt the fringes, but I mean, you could like, you know, you do your morning hunt, maybe go back, you know, for lunch or whatnot. And there's, you know, birds everywhere on every, you know, every edge of that place. And it's just like, dang, you know, it's like, it was just perfect. Yeah. Well, that's the cool thing about turkeys, man. They're so adaptable and they live, I think now in every state in the country, right? Yep. Dang near. I know that the Alaska population is like kind of like

you know, maybe a myth, maybe not, but they're there sometimes, you know? Um, but yeah, they live everywhere, you know? So you can find like in your mind, perfect Turkey habitat anywhere, anywhere you go. Yep.

All right. Aggressive setups versus being patient and coming as a diehard elk guy. I've just kind of taken what I knew about elk and transferred it to turkey hunting. So we keep a very aggressive setup. The question I want to ask, how long do you wait before moving? Let's say you're

you're, you're in a decent spot, you know, a hardwood bottom, you hear a turkey three or 400 yards away. Uh, you call, you guys play the game for a little bit, you know, let's say five to 10 minutes, a bird answers, answers. And it seems like either moved off or went silent. Like how patient is Giannis Patel us against the turkey tree? Hmm. Or are you going to go move 200 yards ahead and see if you can strike him back up? Like, you know, where the heck are you at? Yeah, boy, it depends on, it depends on the day and the terrain big time. Um,

Because, again, a lot of times in the open country of the West, you might be able to see them, you know, and kind of see what their mood is or, you know, if they're tending to head one way or another, you know, which makes it great for us because you can always sort of fall back on like a bushwhack strategy, which is just like, okay, they're heading generally east. Let's jump on the north side of this ridge and boogie 500 yards, right?

get in front of them because I can tell you that you're always going to be more successful calling a turkey the direction that he's already going or she's already going than trying to turn them or pull them back the way they don't want to go. This past spring when we were in Wisconsin, I was just telling you about when it was super leafed out. We had a great example of this where

We snuck in to like two, 300 yards of these turkeys, like working this wide open chopped cornfield. And it was like a, it was a hilly cornfield. So you could see all the way up to the horizon. It was maybe 500 yards away. And these turkeys, there was, I don't know, three or four gobblers working back and forth. Um, and yeah,

We got the decoys set up without them seeing us. We got behind our decoys and, and the chopped cornfield was on the neighbors. So we were like limited as to like how much we could actually chase them, you know? And, uh, we set up, called, worked them, called, worked them, thought we had one or two pretty fired up. They kind of came down the hill across the chopped cornfield, but eventually it went silent and we couldn't see any more birds. And we could, we had seen a couple fade away and,

But I kept telling my buddy Miller that I was hunting with. I'm like, man, like we saw four, whatever it was, four gobblers total. We know two faded away, but the other two, we don't know where they are. Like, let's give it some time. Let's wait, let's wait, let's wait. And cause for sure they had seen the decoys for sure. They had heard us. They had been answering us. And, and,

It probably seemed like a lot longer than it was. I'm guessing it was five to 10 minutes, but all of a sudden, like we're looking at, you know, our decoy and right next to it, here comes a redhead. I mean, he was in range when it was just like the role of the terrain or whatever. He was able to, you know, kind of sneak in on us, but yeah,

We very easily could have been standing there and been, you know, with our heads down, like thinking about the next plan and just those five or 10 minutes made it pay off. So I'd like to think that, you know, I'll at least when I'm like in a rush, I'll be like, okay, dude, just give it five more, give it 10. You know what I mean? Like,

That turkey, like I said, most of them just really aren't covering that much country in a day. So they're not going that far. Yeah. You know? And so give it 10 minutes. If he...

sure if he was he's walking directly away from you maybe he's going to be 50 yards farther than he was earlier right they're just slowly feeding their way around yeah one thing i noticed this year on the bird i killed um in kansas uh we think he was like a two-year-old maybe a young three but there were some big big eastern birds on that property like a lot bigger than he was and we got to watch him similar to that story come corner to corner across the cut cornfield that was just you

you know, left and he approached so, so slowly, like made up zero ground and like 15 minutes to come across that field, maybe 200 yards. And, you know, we were hunting with Chris Parrish and he's like, that bird had been beat up. You know, he was super nervous with the situation, you know, kind of, as he approached that hen decoy all by itself, like just, he was waiting to almost be ambushed or he's waiting to, you know, approach with extreme caution. And so, um,

You know, but it just lets you kind of see like, well, if that would have been where I thought that bird was 400 yards away and he had to cover that, like it could have been 30 to 45 minutes. Oh, easily. Because I inevitably, I get super impatient and

Well, the damn thing hasn't answered me. Obviously he left, let's walk towards him. And then, you know, you're, you know, 200 yards away, you meet the turkey and it's just an explosion of feathers and, you know, him bombing out of there. And it's like, he was still there. He just, for some reason or another had crossed the line in the dirt that said, all right, I'm not going to talk anymore. I'm close enough.

Um, you know, maybe he's waiting for that hen to come see him. Like, I don't know what the thing is, but it seems like more times than not, when I get impatient, you end up, you know, busting that bird, um, as you get up and move in his direction. Yeah, totally. I think it happens with, you know, with elk too. We had one last year that I think we already caught him or maybe we had set up. He came feeding out of the timber and there's this giant Oak tree in the middle of a, uh, child. I think it was like,

I think it was corn again. Maybe it was like half corn, half beans. Anyways, he comes out, goes around this big old oak tree, starts coming towards me, and then veers off, just keeps on feeding, goes all the way around this giant oak tree. I mean, it took him 15, 20 minutes, and he's just feeding, feeding, feeding, and he'd already made like a motion to come towards me, but he just had to go all the way around this oak tree again, and then the second time around, he's

He came and then he came to us. But it was still, it wasn't like the dominant bird that's just coming running where you can just see his, you know, breasts shaking as he's running towards you. It was just like, I'm going to feed slowly. And then when he finally got to within that, you know, range, when he's looking at my Jake decoy going like, all right, I know I can beat you up. That was the first time he came into strut and he was already within range, you know?

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So let's dive a little bit into how Giannis Patelis calls turkeys, like what his strategy is, what your technique is. You know, there's clucks, purrs, cackles, you know, cutting, yelping, and so on.

Is there a, and I'm sure most of us have a go-to, like, you know, let's say you're set up in a good spot. Everything's working. The bird's 150 yards away. Like what's your calling strategy? I know there's a lot of other factors, but let's just say on your general calling setup, like how are you going to speak to the bird? What call are you going to use? Is it going to be on a pot call, a box, a mouth diaphragm? Like, can you explain that situation? Kind of what your go-to is? Go-to? Yeah.

Jeez. It used to be a diaphragm. Like I always felt like if I could, if you're going to make me just have one call, it'd be a diaphragm. And just cause I was, that was what I was most comfortable with. And it was probably because I'd gotten good with an elk diaphragm. And so it was pretty easy to, you know, when I switched over now, I've also feel like I can probably make more nuanced, softer stuff with a pot. Um,

And it just depends like probably for the nuance, softer stuff slate. And then if I want to get a little bit louder, you know, I'll go crystal, you know, to try to fire one up. But if the bird's already there and like, I feel like I'm working him, I'm going to start with less and then work towards more. And that's something I've learned with my pet turkeys. And it might change as we come into the first breeding season here soon, but like,

Rarely do I hear those turkeys. I've got one Jake and two hens right now. Rarely do they make more than like three to four notes. Just a real... Rarely. It's... That's what you hear 95% of the time out of my turkeys. And you hear just the little putts and purrs, but they're not sitting there...

Yeah, for seven or eight or 15. Like 99% of the hunters out there. Yeah. Now, everybody's seen now a YouTube video where there's some hen that does 72 yelps in a row. But I would start with less and just think that, again, just like 95% of the time, my turkeys are not doing a lot. It's probably similar in the woods. Yeah.

um, 5% of the time there's probably some hen just going bonkers. You can always escalate to that and, and, um, you know, backing up to if the bird wasn't there and if I'm just trying to find one, yeah, I might do a, you know, 10 notes real loud with some cutting and stuff just to get an answer, but then I'd probably immediately back it off, you know, and, and try to just work into it. So, um, yeah, it probably just depends on,

whether if I have a diaphragm of my mouth or if I want to pull out the pot call, you know, how much time I have, you know, to set up and whatever. But yeah, starting just really micro couple three Yelps,

you know, maybe a couple clucks here and there. And then you just judge kind of his response. Does he gobble? Are you just doing it regardless? And then you got to figure out how he responded and then kind of make your next play. Like, all right, he liked that. We'll give it. Because a lot of times I feel like even though you think that you're getting him all fired up

and he's gobbling in every call, I have a feeling that that bird, you could probably quit calling and he's going to keep coming and keep gobbling because he's fired up. Right? Like you don't necessarily have to get him all hot and bothered. And I'm sure that some people are good enough to do that. I don't know if I am. It seems like most of the time, like he wants to come to you anyways, but

I don't know if he needs like to hear you making more yelps to be like, okay, for sure I'm coming now. Like he's like, okay, there's a hen there. I'm coming. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that's where it's nice to be able to watch them because, you know, if they kind of stop and then you call again and they start to move again, it's like, all right, he needs, you know, needs some prompting to keep moving versus, you know, like you said, if you make that first three or four note yelp, he responds to it. He might be on his way regardless of what you do from there on out.

I'm with you. I used to be a diaphragm junkie, you know, because it's kind of a carryover from elk calling. But...

You get into turkey calling and I just love the sound that you get out of a pot. It seems like the birds are super responsive. My one big conundrum though is, all right, you're doing the calling, you're running a pot call and the bird gets close or he's visible and you're not necessarily tucked in, right? All right, now I've got to, is me switching to a mouth diaphragm here at the end going to mess it up? Is he going to notice a difference? Like,

That's always the way. I wish you could just have a caller 10 yards back using a pot call. Sure. And then that way you don't have to, the shooter can do what he needs to do or I could do. But yeah. Hey, on top, you mentioned slate. To bring this up, I just found out this morning before this podcast, there is evidently a slate issue across the country. Shortage. Shortage. Uh-oh.

I'm having to decide now what I want for slate in middle of 2023. And it's, we haven't even sold our 2022 calls yet. And so, um, and I'm lucky that, uh, Phelps game calls was a big enough customer last year. Thankful to the, the meter X Phelps line and it, it's popularity that we made like the, that we were like the bottom cut of being on the list of even being able to buy slate from the one manufacturer. So it's,

getting crazy out there. Um, like just, it's not like glass or crystal or something that's like more, you know, um, manmade, I guess it's being naturally produced stone. Like there's only going to be X amount. And if you don't, if you're not part of the, do you know if like demand has increased, like in some other production that happens in the world? I just think that there was, it sounds like there was, it's been bad business for the last couple of years. So there, um,

Raising the price up. And they basically said like, well, you know, basically there was anybody else besides this group of, of, uh, you know, people that have the slate could sell to you. But other than that, like we're no longer distributing slate to the smaller companies. Hmm. I'm like, well, that puts us in a weird spot. Cause you know,

We're here probably early March of 22, and I'm making the decision like what our forecasting and everything's going to be for. But it's such a good material for a tricky call. You want to be on that list. Yeah, interesting decisions I get to make. Get a bunch is my advice. Yeah, I think we'll definitely probably buy more than we need just to make sure we have some on hand. So yeah, just a little side fact on the slate issue in the United States right now.

We're going to drop down to the question that I had for you is, and this is very dependent. I mean, if you're hunting Osceola's, you're obviously going to be in March, early April, or if you're hunting Washington way up north, it's going to be different. Let's take like your typical Midwest state.

Um, what's your favorite seven days? I mean, you know, you're hunting from April, you know, I think last year when you hunt from April, early in April to, you know, towards the end of May, even. Oh yeah. You were kind of, you know, scattered out like. Very late. With a ton of experience covering probably two different months. Like if you could pick a seven day period, you know, what would be your ideal time to be out there? Man, just top of my head, I'd probably say like April.

The 5th through the 7th or 5th through the 12th of May. Of May. Yeah. Elaborate a little bit. I'm sure your reasons are the same for mine because my days are very similar. In Washington, I would like to be there, you know, probably that first weekend in May and then hunt that next week, you know, if I had to pick a week time there. You know, I'll let you give your answers why that's such a great time. I'm fully on board and all of you listeners don't hunt the same time as me and Yanni.

um, or recommending you guys still fill up opening weekend, get all excited, get it out of your system. Don't come back in May, but we're going to do our best to explain why we feel that that first part of May is pretty good. I mean, honestly, before we get into like the turkey, you know, tactics and behavior and whatever, uh, a lot of it for me has to do with just the weather. I mean, you can kill birds all April long, but especially hunting out West and even hunting in the Midwest, man, like

Hunting turkeys like in a light snowstorm. Yeah, it's still fun. I like hunting turkeys in any weather, but is it as good as when it's like a

blue birds, 65 spring day and the birds are all going off and it's all green and pretty out there. No, it ain't the same deal. I mean, turkey hunting in the rain is only better than work. Like there's nothing else below it. Like I'd rather be turkey hunting in the rain, but it just sucks sitting under a tree getting soaked. Um, it's still pretty cold that time of year. Yeah. Freezing. I don't like it. Freezing. No, I've had, I've been so cold sitting in exactly that man. Like

We had a bird. He only gobbled two, three times. I was with my wife and he came down. We kind of lost him, but he popped over a little ridge and I saw a hen with him, but they were just feeding our way. But they were like just feeding because it was just like cold and sopping wet. Like he wasn't strutting. They were just feeding. I'm like, you know what? Kind of looks like they're coming our way. Let's just wait it out. And we were there for a solid hour. And sure enough, eventually here they come within range and we killed the

killed the tom, but like, it was just like, yeah, you know? Yeah. Um, yeah. Same thing with my, my wife's first bird, big rainstorm, uh,

you know, middle of April, all the creeks and everything was, was elevated, you know, small streams that weren't supposed to be there were there. And her bird just comes in soaking wet. You know, they're not near as pretty, you know, it's just, yeah, I, she still, I was stoked. She killed her first bird, but man, the experience isn't the same if it would have been 65 and sunny. Want to dive into the biology and maybe why, or part of the biology or why that might. Yeah. Well, I think what we're both probably hoping for is that,

And now after listening to Mike Chamberlain, there's even more reason to do this, but they, what we're hoping for is that most of the breeding has happened and the big flocks, um, have broken up. Um,

And you're hoping to catch that time period when like all of a sudden a majority of the hens are sitting, but there's still plenty of hens out there that haven't been, aren't finished breeding. And so all of a sudden the numbers skew where, you know, every gobbler used to have, I don't know, whatever it is, the ratio, five to one, six to one. And now maybe it drops down to two to one or maybe one to one. And, um,

Those gobblers are still very primed up. They're still ready to breed. They're talking a lot. You just can catch that right there.

That right time period, man, it can just be like, you're just going to fool them like no other time and fool them easily. The competition's a lot less. If you're dealing with having to beat one or two hens versus a flock of five or six. I was told by an old timer, and whether it's true or not, is those older hens are typically bred first.

They start to fill their clutch of eggs up. They're fully nesting. They're no longer being bred. And those are the hens that kind of control those situations. Like they're more likely to tell that, Tom, we're going this way away from this hen that's calling to you, which is us, versus these younger hens no longer have control over him. So if you're calling to him, yeah, he might have a hen or two, but he's like, I'm just going to go this way because the boss hen –

is no longer there like telling him what he's going to do or where he's going to go, which, you know, kind of has always stuck with me, whether it's right or wrong. I think about it that way that, you know, early May, uh,

Um, you know, and then that's the thing you, you even, even in early, you know, mid April when our seasons open up, you'd always still get those birds to gobble midday, which you always thought you had a better chance. Um, you just seem to get more of them, you know, in May, like you'll get more of that midday gobbling. Cause like, you know, they're still fired up. They're still wanting to find a hen that want them to be bred. Um, but it just seems like it opens up that midday gobbling opportunity. You may hear more of them midday, which, you know, really.

It seems to result in a better, better kill odds for us as a turkey hunter. I tell you what, talking about it is getting me excited to go turkey hunting. Yeah. I was telling my kids it was time to start talking about turkey hunting. They're like, oh, but it's months away. I said, yeah, you got to get primed up.

I told him, I said, all right. I said, I won't talk about it until February. They're like, well, February is in two weeks. I'm like, I know. That's all I'm giving you. That's all I'm giving you. What do you have on the docket this year for turkey hunts? Pretty exciting and full spring. I'm trying to think where we start. I want to say that the first hunt is California, where I'm hunting with my friend Rue Mapp.

So we're going to hunt Rios out there like near Napa Valley, which I've hunted before and I came away with one of the worst cases of poison oak I've ever had. So I've got that top of mind to hopefully do better. I don't know what I'm going to do if I'm just going to bring like five changes of clothes and never put on the same clothes or just do a lot of scrubbing with hardcore soap, but

Uh, and then, uh, let me see, we're doing the TRCP Turkey Hunt. Uh, Steve and I are doing that in Michigan. Um, and that's in April too. I've got a, uh, my annual family turkey hunt in Montana, um, where we go and camp usually for four or five days. Um, yeah.

I feel like I'm missing something, but I'll probably get just some other, you know, days here and there in Montana. So pretty full slate for... Yeah, it'll be good. Oh, I almost forgot. Steve and I are going to Central America for the Oscillated. There you go. Which is...

Kind of a turkey. Not really a turkey. Kind of a turkey. It looks like just as much as like a peacock as it does a turkey. They don't speak turkey. They don't. They don't. And we're not going to be doing any sneak. But this is where like the skill of getting up at four o'clock in the morning and slipping through the woods and getting under his tree is

is going to come in handy because I believe, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that to kill one, you have two options. Sit on a field that's got ag in it and wait for him to walk by, which I'm not that interested in.

Or slip through the woods in the dark and the coming dawn. And when he does, they make some sort of noise that will give away their location and slip in there. And then once you can see them, you shoot them off the roost. Off the roost. Which I think is what Steve and I are gunning for to go do. Gotcha.

That brings up another topic for a whole nother podcast on, you know, like it's probably acceptable to shoot them out of the roost down, you know, that type of bird down there versus, you know, up in North America. It's kind of like, ah, you don't want to do it that way. No, I think some states it's even illegal. Yeah. Yeah.

So closing this up, Giannis, if you had one tip or tactic to give to a turkey hunter out there that hasn't had success and this might be able to kind of turn the corner for them, what would your advice be? Just one, huh? Just your one main one.

If you had to pick one, I mean, we all know there's a bunch of them, but just like one piece of advice that, you know, over the years has maybe helped you or, you know, may help them. Yeah. Well, I feel like what I see a lot of beginners, the mistake that they make is, um, you know, I'm not going to go into calling. I'm going to keep it even simpler than that is like movement. People just don't seem to understand how good the Turkey, Turkey's eyesight is. And then they,

how little they will put up with when they catch micro movement. They might not know exactly what they saw, but they're like, man, there was a leaf that moved the wrong way over there in those bushes.

And I'm just not 100% sure, so I'm not messing with it. And I'm not going to even run away. I'm just going to kind of just veer and slowly feed away. And when that stuff happens, you might be like, oh, man, my decoy setup was wrong. If you're like a beginner hunter, I can almost guarantee you that no, it was because you thought that you could move your head around

three or four inches and look out of the corner of your eye because you had to look at the turkey and he caught the bill of your hat moving or he caught your ghillie head net moving a little bit, your gun barrel moving a little bit, whatever it is. But like,

They just won't put up with it. Yep. You've got to like, the only time I move on a turkey is if I am a hundred percent sure that Turkey's head went behind something that they cannot see through. Yep. And if it's like a bush, I'm probably not going to move. Cause I feel like they're going to see through the bush. And if it's like a solid tree trunk or a bale of hay, or maybe even a fence post, uh,

Like, you have a half a second where you can just, like, you know, adjust your gun two inches, three inches, whatever it might be, or adjust your butt because it's falling asleep, but, like...

Yeah, man, just you got to like, you got to sit so, so still and literally let them walk in front of your gun barrel versus trying to swing on them. They're so quick. That's what I was going to say. Like, you know, the movement of guns even need to be like, you know, sloth like. We've thought like, oh, he's in range. Like I'm going to move my gun from my knee now and point, you know.

put the beat on him. And that, you know, that half a second it took me to get from on my knee to, you know, maybe 20 degrees, he's gone and I can't get back on him. It's just like, so quick, this is so well. He puts 10 yards on you and all of a sudden, you know, you went from having like,

a maybe okay shot to now it's very marginal. Yeah. If you think you're moving slow enough, move just a little bit slower or not at all. I mean, it's like even head turns, you know, hunting with Chris Parrish, who's did it forever. Like it might take him a minute to look from his right to his left. You know, maybe he'll move his eyes, but then his neck turn or his head turns on his neck. Just like,

extremely slow. Um, you know, just making sure if there's birds close that, you know, no, no fast movement. Well, um, well, good luck to you this year, Giannis, on all of your, uh, spring turkey hunts. I really appreciate, you know, taking the time to be on the podcast today. And, uh, yeah, thanks for having me on. You got me all fired up now, man. I'm going to go home and, and, uh, bust out a pot call and start clocking away at my, and my pet turkeys and, and, and up in my, uh, my language game. Perfect. Perfect. Have a good one, Giannis. Thanks.

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