Ep. 33: A Deep Dive Into Turkey Calls and Strategy with Eric Braaten
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Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. I met today's guest about 15 years ago on our local hunting forum, huntingwashington.com.

I was just getting into turkey hunting and his tag name was Yelp. And so after kind of exchanging turkey hunting information with them for a few years, we finally just decided to go on a hunt together, you know, mentor us a little bit. And so ended up joining up with Eric Broughton, great turkey caller, great turkey hunter from here in Washington, works for Fish and Wildlife.

is out in the field a ton, just really had these Northeast turkeys kind of dialed. Another cool fact about Eric is his turkey camp. They share probably one of the most famed turkey camps on the East side, a ton of history, a ton of knowledge. I got to actually go back and hunt with Eric last year and stay at their turkey camp. And it's just, you can tell when you go in there, you know, all the posters, all the lists on the wall, it's just rooted deep in the, you know, turkey hunting history.

You know and there's been a lot of camps that have shared that so welcome to the show Eric. Thanks Jason. Great to be here. How are things looking over there on the east side this year? A lot of snow this year. Things are starting to hopefully get closer to spring but up north we have a lot of snow so but birds are active. I watched a

group this morning. A bunch of jakes strutting around with some hens. So the birds are on the right schedule. I just don't know if the weather is. Yeah, yeah. A little extra snow over there. More so than normal. Before we jump into our typical podcast here, I've got to go back and kind of

relive a short moment on the first turkey hunt we ever had together. We were hunting a piece of ag that we had some permission to against a piece of public we had been hunting even more so, but we found ourself that day out in the ag and we had to kind of get across the field and

The only one problem in our approach was that swamp that was between us and the timber line where the birds just walked into. And I'll never forget the day where I think you started handing me some stuff out of your vest, or maybe you handed me your whole vest. And I'll let you finish this story from that point. But I

I realize your dedication to killing birds at this very moment is you continued on after that bird. That hunt was pretty phenomenal. We had a hard time finding birds that day, and we finally saw that big tom strutting over there on the other side of the pond, and we kind of approached from the most cover side, and I thought, you know, we were kind of at a point that we could not even get

uh close enough for a shot but the only way was to basically give you my wallet and I think my vest and anything I didn't want to get wet and I took my shotgun and slithered on down into the edge of the water and being a being a you know a 1980s you know guy uh growing up in high school and graduating 87 you know that all those Rambo movies I think were in the back of my head but uh

I just kind of tried to get as close as I could and got wet, but it was just trying to get a good close shot to try to get that bird down. I can't remember, we got pretty close, but I don't know if I got close enough.

Yeah, I can't remember. I know we didn't kill the bird. I couldn't remember if you had shot or not. But all I remember is it was one of those hunts where we struggled early on. This was one of those times where you were going through the swamp. But later on, it was one of those things where just you keep hunting, right? It's hunting. And then towards the end, we ended up all three finding a ton of success there at the end, which turned out to be a great hunt. So we'll talk about that a little bit more.

So typical to all cutting the distance episodes, we're going to jump into questions and answers from some of our listeners. And if you have questions for me or my guests, feel free to reach out on social media, message us. You can email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com and we'll do our best to get your questions in here and answer

I pulled both of these from emails this week and I'm actually going to give some credit to the questions on where they're coming from. So the first question we have today, Eric, is I'm a first year hunter. I'm looking to turkey hunt in Southern California's Cleveland National Forest, which is chaparral and woodlands from 800 foot elevation all the way up to 6,000 feet. Some friends say a turkey vest is the best way to carry all of your calls and gear. Others say stick with a pack.

Question for us. For this terrain, which do you feel is the best hike into the woods and for hunting practicality? And this is a question given to us by David Marino. You know, that's a good question because, you know, when you're trying to cover ground and then you're also changes in elevation, you know, if you got half your vest full of stuff, it's really difficult. So,

There's a few sling packs that I would recommend. I think the new FHS chest pack for turkeys, that would be perfect on this hunt because it has enough things that you have in it, your calls, enough room, but it doesn't weigh you down. It gives you the mobility to go up in elevation and try to find those birds.

There's lots of turkey straps and totes and that ability. You know, there's a lot of guys using packs too nowadays.

with, uh, being able to carry a little bit more gear, but if you're, you know, that's a lot warmer climate, you know, I think less is better. And I think that, uh, if it was me, I would, uh, go with, uh, something simple and a lightweight. Yeah. I'm, I'm in that same boat. Um, we've been using the new FHF, um, you know, chest harness, um,

I didn't think I would like it. I was always growing up. I had a vest that had everything. I couldn't figure out if I had just a chest rig on how am I going to carry my decoys and how am I going to carry this? And I realized I was carrying a lot of extra stuff so that chest rig

I can carry a couple pot calls. I can carry my box call attached to the bottom if I need to. All my diaphragms, my shotgun shells, my small pair of binos. And then nowadays, if I'm using like a Dave Smith decoy, they come in their own carrying bag where you can just kind of sling them across your shoulder if you need to. And if it's more of that run and gun and I elect to leave my...

my decoy back at the truck or the the side by side um i'm i'm just throwing one of my chairs kind of over my shoulder we'll talk a little bit about that later too as uh when we're setting up some of the things i like to do but yeah i think those chest rigs where if you'd asked me 10 years ago where i was you know wanted to have the the latest and greatest most updated turkey vest um that chest rig is pretty valuable

And you can keep a lot of your stuff in it. Um, especially when you're going to be doing running and gunning. And I don't know if you're going to find turkeys from 800 to all the way up to 6,000 feet or anywhere in between, or if you're going to be hunting a section of that, but I'm going to assume David that you're going to be running and gunning and changing elevation. I want to go light and quick and you know, that, that chest rigging and your gun is, is plenty. The next one, uh,

comes from greg laravere and i apologize if i i mispronounced your name but he was wondering tips and tricks for cleaning and storing uh our turkey mouth calls i'll let you go first there eric how you get extra life i was just uh doing it the other day i had some old phelps mouth calls that were kind of crusty that i forgot to store right and uh pulled them out and uh

Did the old mouthwash trick. The alcohol is good for killing stuff, but they make some mouthwashes, I found out, that don't have alcohol, and I think they're better on the latex. So I have some of that, and it's alcohol-free, like Listerine or whatever. And I put that in a little Dixie cup, throw my mouthwash in there. And then I'll take some toothpicks or something, separate them, make sure they're dry, and then I'll store them in a plastic bag.

and get them ready for this year. It's critical that you do that. I mean, when I'm on turkey hunts, you know, and I'm, you know, trying to get through those because we get a month and a half here in Washington and, you know, you're hunting in all kinds of weather and it's easy to pick up a chest cold or a runny nose or whatever and you don't know

you know if you have germs on any of those calls that you're using last year so it's either safe bet just to buy some brand new ones or or if you're going to reuse them you know make sure that you use that antiseptic and dry them out and keep them clean and fresh yeah that's that's the same with me i've always been real hesitant um

mouthwash you know a lot of the recommendations online say mouth you know say to use mouthwash which is great for killing all the bugs and and stuff and on a lot of these turkey calls most turkey calls are triple reads if not a double read and there are a few single reads out there but you've got you

you know, all kinds of, you know, saliva and stuff that makes it down in there and gets trapped. And so that's really that toothpick goes in and allows air to get down in between those layers and at least dry those out. You know, but the mouthwash and if I did use mouthwash, I would quickly then rinse with water and then dry the water out.

Even on a hunt, a lot of times I like to separate that top reed from the bottom two reeds or that top reed from the bottom reed just because when they stick together, you don't get the rasp that the call was designed for. So there'll be times where they make reed separators or just a dull toothpick in between them just kind of keeps them separated so when they dry that the call is functional. Otherwise you're going to find when you're out in the woods

A lot of times I have to throw a coal in my mouth for a minute or two and kind of let it, you know, awaken or come back to life as it sits in your mouth. Those reeds will kind of separate again and then you'll get the rasp back out of them. And then, you know, for long-term storage, I like to let them just sit and dry on a counter, you know,

no extra heat, anything. Just let them dry over a couple hours on the counter with the toothpicks in them. Take the toothpicks out, put them in a bag, make sure they're completely dry though, and then just throw them in your fridge if you want the longest life out of them. I'm very fortunate now where I just go grab another handful of calls here from the shop and go, so I'm always using fresh ones. But if I'm trying to get...

you know, multiple years out of them, which you can out of turkey calls with elk calls. It's a lot more difficult with single reads and calls that get stressed a little bit more, but you know, these double and triple read turkey calls that are stretched tighter. Um, you can get a couple of years out of me, take care of them and put them away. So, um, no spot on advice, Eric, and, and appreciate that. And,

Once again, you have questions of your own for us here or either my guest or myself here on the show, please email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or feel free to hit us up with a social message and get a hold of us and we'll do our best to get it on there. So we really appreciate the questions there, David and Greg, on today's show. ♪ music playing ♪

Now we're going to jump into our normal discussion, but before that, I'm going to jump into a conversation about calls. I got asked in a bigger email if before the Turkey podcast were over, if we can jump into what does what with calls. And so I'm going to take the time and go through diaphragms to start with, and then we'll go into pot calls, and then we'll go into kind of some box calls. And I know, Eric, for instance, the very first thing that I'm going to talk about

you order our calls typically in a larger frame, which are like our Paris signature calls. Everyone's mouth shape,

tongue shape, the, the way that they add pressure, their lung capacity is all different. And so where I might prefer call a, you might prefer call X, you know, and it's, it's really tough. And it's, I don't want everybody to go out and buy everything we have, but you really need to go through a little bit of trial and error to figure out, you know, what type of color you are, what type of rasp you want out of your calls and all of that, uh, you know,

Eric, he calls on the pair of signature calls because they're built on more of what I would consider your old school wide frame. You know, the, the frame sizes that night and hail and hunter specialties and all the, the, um, what I would call your more traditional, um,

frame size is what Eric prefers for the most part. Yeah. So I use, uh, I use those, those larger frame mouth, uh, calls because it, I have a larger palette and it allows me to, you know, get that air across it. Um, and it, some people's palette is more narrow, you know, or high roof or high pit, you know, high kind of a high ceiling. And so they need that smaller frame. Um,

Similar to the alt calls. And

I can use some of the other ones, but it seems like just the way I hold my mouth, I can't do all the calls. You know, everybody's different, you know, and so, and how they blow. And I'm still learning myself. So, yeah. And that's, that's where, you know, it's maybe what you're more familiar with. Like I used to use those all the time. And then once I started using these medium frames that we now build the majority of ours out of, and like the meter line, they're more comfortable for me. But then guys like,

Chris Parrish and some guys that they say that you can actually articulate the larger frames a little more because there is a wider distance for that latex. So,

So there's lots of reasons. And then so first off, we have to find something that's comfortable. The second issue we need to do, we need to be able to seal the air off from the column. And we use the tape for that. And everybody once again, everybody's mouth is different shape. The tape lays in there different. So we need to be able to seal it off. Number one, to get clarity and number two, to get the volume out of the column.

If you're taking a diaphragm out of your mouth and you've got big folds along the edges or wrinkles, we either need to narrow up your tape, we need to cut those wrinkles out so that we can get like a smooth, get the edge, the lay down smooth. So no air is going up above and we're getting all the air to transfer over the latex, between the latex and your tongue.

That's kind of the second part. And then the next part is what type of color are you? The old school colors we say are kind of like those Huffer style colors. They want thicker latex. They want to blow harder into the call. There's not as much control over those. And then there's like this new age light prof, more intricate calling that seems to be kind of taking off because people want to be able to do little light bubble clucks and

nice little, you know, very quiet Yelps and two to three note Yelps, but then also be able to turn that call around and do your loud cutting and seven to nine note Yelps. So there's, there's kind of two different calls. Um, and, and you're, you're really gonna have to find what type of color you are, um, to figure out what type of diaphragms you like. Right. But,

Real quick, I'm just going to run through kind of the rules of diaphragms. You're going to have an aluminum frame that will encase or keep latex or prophylactic stretch to a certain spec. And by spec, that means we're stretching it sideways from like side to side in your mouth and we're stretching it front to back.

So we will typically stack up two to three pieces of prophylactic or latex together and intermix them based on what the result is that we want. And then we're going to contain that within this aluminum frame.

The tightness of that latex in combination with the thickness of that latex will then control the tone and pitch of the call. It's all determined by how that latex or probe vibrates and the resonant vibration that we get back.

And so a lot of this can kind of affect itself, right? If you go too thin and too tight, then you're going to be really high. But if you go thick and too tight, then you might be right in the right spot. So there's a lot of trial and errors. We're sitting here designing calls. Similar to what I do for you, Eric, back I think three or four years ago, we kind of just figured out what calls you liked. I think I had built 20 or 30 different ones and sent them to you. And it's really...

we're just doing for the customer what we find to be like the the most average call but there are guys we can build for that like it's really like custom fitting you for a call and you know we can't do that for everybody but um when you when you boil it down like you can really get nitpicky and really get calls designed for what people are specific you know specifically looking for yeah i think that the difference between between your calls um

and some of the store-bought ones is the ability to, the standard that you've built into the call. So like I might have to buy two or three of a different brand and I might get one of those that I like. And when I pick up yours,

you know, they're very similar. So you, so I can buy a couple of them. I know that I'm going to be able to use all of them. And so it's really, really great. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could take credit for that, but that goes back to my team. Our builders, our builders, you know, I get to come up with the specs and, you know, I work with Chris Parrish really closely and some of our other, you know, groups like you and we, we figure out what people want, but then our builders are just top notch. They're not willing to sacrifice. You know, I tell them all the time, like,

don't worry about turning around and throwing a call in the garbage. If you feel that there's any question that it's not going to work, like we're not, we're about producing quality, not necessarily quantity. So, um,

That all goes to them. But as a generality, like these intricate callers prefer thinner reeds, you know, the new profs, they'll require a little bit less air to run. But as a result, typically the pitch is higher for a similar stretch. Thicker reeds, they demand more air to call on them and to get the same, you know, pitch and tone. But a lot of times if you don't overstretch a thick piece of latex, the tone is going to be lower and deeper. Yeah.

So we're kind of playing with all of this stuff as we're designing calls. I want to get into a little bit on rasp. You know, that's one thing that is determined by typically on our calls, the top read. We stack this latex and then when we go to we build a call and they come out of the press with three straight reads. Right. We haven't taken our scissors to him yet at all.

And that over that, that top read overhangs just slightly, or it could be a lot, or it could be just a little bit. Um, we then go and take our cuts out of it. You know, a typical cuts like the combo cut. Um, we have a ghost cut. We have a cutter's cut. We have a bat wing.

And all that is trying to accomplish is you're leaving just a little bit of latex or prophylactic overhanging the bottom two reeds. And as you imagine, we're running that air underneath off of two, you know, two flat or straight reeds that have no cuts in. And that air comes under the latex and turns that corner and it hits those pieces of latex that are now cut overhanging. And that's what creates that buzz and creates your raft. So

So that's where your rasp comes. Well, now you can start to think, well, if I was to cut a thicker back, a bat wing, or if I was just to put like a, on our sassy split V, if I just put two V cuts and leave all the latex there, that's obviously going to be your highest rasp call. Well, I can make that latex thicker, which gives you a deeper rasp. I can make that latex thinner, which gives you more of a high pitch rasp. And so you can start to see how like the combinations are almost endless on a diaphragm. Um,

For beginners, uh, we always recommend like a Casper or like the meat eaters, easy clucker, um, real light pro with a big chunk cut out of the center, really easy to light up. Um, the trip and hand, um, the meat eater three pack, like those are good beginner calls. If you don't know exactly what you're after, um,

Those are going to be easy to use, easy for you to get sound and the correct amount of rasp. And that's kind of our little rundown, our 101 on diaphragms. And then we've already, I had some, you know, some care instructions here, but we pretty much went over most of that.

Moving into pot calls, and we have a story. When I first hunted with you, I was still kind of new to the game, and we were working a bird, and I seen you almost roll out like this big Rolodex where you rolled it out on the ground, and you must have had a little envelope of 12, 15 strikers. And it was that day at that moment where I realized that, hey, different woods, different strikers matter because I think you'd went through three of your favorite strikers to start with, and the bird was just kind of disinterested, and we were giving him a little bit of a break.

between, um, calling and then you hit, I don't remember fourth or fifth striker. And all of a sudden that bird was hammering, hammering, and we called them right up to the road there. I don't know if you remember that, but that was like a light bulb going off in my mind. Yeah. There's a, I, that 15, I probably have like 25 now, but, uh, yeah, the, all those different materials, different thicknesses, different tips, you know, the tip of the striker, uh,

They all make it sound... You can use one call and have several different sounding hens. And like, you know, that one... That tom might be out there, you know, infatuated with one sounding hen, you know. And I've done it several times where I just...

at my wit's end and I just sit down take a break pull that thing out and I'll just start cranking out on a slate call or one of the glass calls and and uh try different combos and then next thing you know uh I'll strike a bird just by doing that but uh yeah the material and the hardness in the link I mean there's all kinds of little factors um that go into it yep

So going through pot calls, it's very similar to what we just talked about on diaphragms. There are a lot of factors and how they all affect each other is sometimes unknown. There are some rule of thumbs. You know, I always attribute your playing surface, you know, your turkey call, and this is going to be a horrible rendition. If you imagine it as like, you have your top, which is your key. And then your oak is kind of, is that call breaks over and you get to the deep end. Okay.

You know, you got, so I've always felt that like the high note, the key is controlled by the playing surface. And then your, your drop off your rollover into the second note is controlled more by your soundboard. And then your wood density controls or contributes to both. Right. So,

Within wood, one thing I want to say about anything that's made out of wood and maybe even more so, this is more specific to box calls, is wood is a naturally occurring material. As much as we try to get straight-grained walnuts, cherries, mahogany, whatever wood we're using, it's natural and there's going to be variations. And so there's always going to be slight differences from call to call because we can't control it. The same thing with naturally occurring.

natural existing slate. It's mined out of mines in Virginia and New York or wherever it comes from, green slate, it comes out of these naturally occurring materials are always gonna have slight variabilities in them. And so that's one thing as a coal builder, I can't control, but we're trying to just kind of hit the middle and make sure that all these coals

you know, turnout. So back to that wood, we're going to adjust the sidewall thicknesses on your pot calls are going to matter. Your base thickness is going to matter. How we cut your soundboard pedestals. Like if I'm, when I used to turn them on a lathe, I would have a circle, uh,

a circle pedestal. And then if I was to cut little notches in so that the sound can get into that center circle, or if you leave, if you omit the center circle now, but now I have, you know, potentially what looks like two toothpick sticks to the bottom. All of this matters way more than you can ever imagine is we're designing these pot calls. Um,

How the grain lines up with these pedestals now matters. You know, all of this stuff is stuff that we're taking into account as we're building these calls. You know, the harder, more dense woods will tend to produce typically a higher pitched or a tighter type tone. Your softer, less dense woods will tend to produce a more natural open tone. But then there are, as I mentioned, there's all these combinations. If I throw a crystal and,

It's playing surface in, or if I throw a slate, it's going to react a little bit differently. So crystal, very high pitched glass, slightly below it. You've got your aluminum, which seems to be very high pitch with a little bit of rasp in it. You got your slate, which is really easy to kind of grab with your striker. It's a little more forgiving on your striker, but it also tends to be a little bit more

I don't know if this is the right word. It's not as sharp. It's a little more dull. And then when you use gray slate as your soundboard, it tends to kind of dull your rollover versus if you put crystal over aluminum or aluminum over crystal, you get a real sharp sound that maybe not everybody has. And so as a call designer, I'm working on...

how you combine all these materials to give you a unique sound but also still talks turkey. And then we just told the example of Eric's using multiple strikers. There are endless amounts of striker designs. Typically, the denser the wood,

the less wood's needed on your striker. If it's a light, softer wood, you'll typically have a bigger striker. And it's amazing to me how certain strikers pair with certain calls or can bring a call that seems dead to life and vice versa. So the moral of the story is play with a lot of pots, play with a lot of strikers. And one thing I wanted to mention is your location on the pot call. Like I'm typically a 12 o'clock caller. So I like to set

the pad of my thumb down on the bottom edge of the wood and that kind of naturally puts a striker at 12 o'clock. But I can play a call at 12 o'clock or 3 o'clock and sound completely different. So play with different positions on the call. Get those spots conditioned up and yeah, just find what works best for you. And then box calls, everything...

Seems to matter, but in its simplest form, you have a bottom block of wood that has a chamber out of it and you have a paddle with a radius. And those are based, those calls are based strictly on friction. You need the top wood to grab friction.

the bottom wood and as those create friction across, they're gonna make the yelp or the turkey sound that you're looking for. The wall is gonna basically vibrate. So the taller the wall, the deader the vibration, the shorter the wall, the more shrill the vibration. The paddle typically will start to ride on the outside of the wall and then with that radius that's built into the box,

as it swipes over you're now going from writing on the outside of the wall to the inside of the wall and that's where you get your break over um on these calls uh you know we're going to use a bunch of different wood combinations we typically like to have our our denser tighter wood as the paddle and our our softer less dense wood is the base um we have a ratio we kind of like to stick to but that's the that's the fun of building calls is you can get those woods you know you can use

real dense woods on both sides and see what sound that's going to give you that real high pitch more of the sound that's indicative of like a long box and you can get a real raspy kind of a

if you use too soft or wood so we we play with that but um that's we're also weakening the walls you know you see a lot of our box calls you'll see us with kerfs down the side or checkering in the side that's in order to to kind of thin and weaken that wall in order to get us to kind of dial in on that turkey sound so um that's that's a real quick rundown of what matters and diaphragms pot calls and box calls do you have anything to add there eric on the on the box calls you know the there's

different links there's small you know really small ones um different materials I mean all those things I mean I have 30 different box calls and and for different applications you know the old long box calls are the uh are great in like the wind windy days you know compared to maybe a cedar call or or like some of the

some of the the new calls that uh you came out with last year you know that some of those calls just uh are really nice because of the types of materials that you put in them and they're they're the right size you know um but there's there's days where i'll grab the the big old quaker boy or whatever because it's i got you know 10 mile an hour winds and that thing just cranks out some some

some uh good yelps you know and gets those birds to react to it so yeah yeah those long boxes like to my ears i'm sitting here playing them in my office or the ones i've played with in the past like man it doesn't sound exactly like i like but the results are what's there you get that long box out like you said this big northeast country that we've hunted you know big distances or you throw a little bit of wind at that big distance and all of a sudden that shrill um

um, ear piercing, overly loud call is what's going to get that Turkey's attention. So I'm, I'm on board with, with why you would use a long box. Um, you have, you have short boxes, which tend to be a little raspier, a little bit, I'm hesitant to use the word hollow, but they have a little bit more of that hollow sound. Um, most of our box calls are right down the middle. Um, we want it to be a universal call. Um, and like I say, we, we, we've adjusted the sides, but

Yeah, box calls are a great tool. They're the first ones, though, I feel, that get thrown out of your vest. If there's any chance of precipitation, box calls become pretty, I don't want to say useless. There are treatments out there. You can treat your paddle. You can treat your edges. I've always just liked wood on wood, and I've got mouth calls or pot calls that'll work in all weather. So the box call is kind of the first thing that gets tossed. Yeah, I agree. I use the box call probably...

more often on public land because, you know, those turkeys have been hearing diaphragm calls and other things, you know, and sometimes having just an extra call, you know, to try. Sometimes that'll, you know, get a bird to gobble. You know, they haven't heard it before. Something different. Yep. Yep. I'm,

and we'll get into that here a little bit on some of the small parcel, small public type stuff that you kind of opened our eyes to a little bit way back in the day, is you have to do something different. Like if everybody's got out of the truck on a certain corner and blown the same woodpecker call, like you've got to give that, maybe it'll work again, maybe it'll work for the hundredth time, maybe it won't.

And so if you don't have the ability to throw something different at them, and that's where I think if you, as far as, you know, calls that make turkey noises or hen noises, that box call is sometimes your best bet. Not everybody's running a box call. A lot of the box calls sound quite a bit different from each other. And so you can use that to your advantage. So, right.

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Like I say, I've got the fortune to hunt with you. I don't know if we went two or three times and we went over there and hunted together. And I've learned a lot, kind of what I thought we knew because we had hunted the same area over there for quite a while. And the first thing I want to kind of pick your brain on and have you talk about is what I would call like small public parcels and how you hunt it and why you hunt them. And a lot of people just overlook these things, but what's your approach to,

to small public hunting and give us a little insight to that. Yeah, we're really fortunate in Washington to have lots of public land, you know, and there's lots of opportunities to find places to hunt. And, you know, there might be a 160-acre quarter section that might be public land next to a big piece of land

BLM or whatever, and sometimes it's just to get you access to maybe a better piece of ground. But when I approach, you know, the idea in my approach is having lots of spots, you know, and with some of the online tools like OnX and HuntOnX, and, you know, it's allowed everybody access to those. And so a lot of the places that I thought I had, you know, to myself, now there's lots of people, but it

tried and true um those early morning hunts um on public land are sometimes uh worth your time but uh 80 of the time when I go back into those properties in the afternoon uh when people have left um those birds are more available and it's just this the cycle um you know of how those

Birds come off the roost and the hens, you know, do their thing in the morning and the toms are waiting for them to make a move and then the hens take off and go to a nest and they kind of separate those toms and the toms will move off with the hens and

and you know everybody's trying to call adam and stuff like that and and uh you know after a while the hens lose the toms and then the toms are wandering around trying to find you know the next available hen or try to regroup with maybe another tom but you know you show up at about 11 11 30 and everybody else is back at camp having a sandwich you strike up a big old tom uh and so

Don't overlook private or public land, especially in the afternoon. A lot of the locals, I hunt several pieces of public land. One of the ones is pretty close to where we camp. I built a blind on this one small parcel, and I found this place. It's just a natural blind out of some sticks and limbs.

But I found this spot within that piece of public land that my call carried to the north and to the south, and it just was a great spot to call from. And so being able to set up a blind in that area,

it turned out to be probably one of the best uh spots where we've killed birds out of our camp and uh i think we're at 30 plus toms have taken out of that blinds and it's just the way that that call carries and so you know not all public lands are are uh created equal you know some of them have elevation some of them don't some of them are right along highways um

a lot of them have public views. I've sat in that blind and watched people walk right by and they wave at me. And, you know, I mean, that's public land hunting, you know. But we always kill birds in those areas because, you know, we figured them out. And having that in the back of your head and just, you know, over the years,

I don't know, 30 years I've been hunting birds now, you know, uh, having all those different memories and spots and hunts, it just adds to, you know, what, what you're able to, you know, go to, you know, down the road. But, uh,

Yeah, don't give up on those public land spots, especially in the afternoon. Yeah, and when I say small parcels, we're talking maybe a section on one side of the road and a section on the other. And I almost feel like you're not willing to say that I can't kill a bird on that one little section.

when I'm putting my morning plan together, I want to be able to maybe run or chase a bird or, or, you know, chase it off the roost or hunt it off the roost to where it wants to go. What I found, I mean, last year we, we, we showed up there, got to camp unloaded. We went and bought our tags and we rolled up to a spot and I don't think this will give it away. There was a parcel on the right that went down towards public and a parcel on the left. We showed up, hit the woodpecker call and had a, a,

a Tom just hammer right off the bat. And I don't know how many people would have even stopped there to call because you only had one parcel on either side of you. I'll be it. We ended up losing the battle, right? We called that bird all the way into the barbed wire fence, but where that parcel, we couldn't get them to cross the fence. We thought we were going to, but that was just one of those examples, middle of the day,

people driving around, nobody stopping at these two small little sections and to have a bird, um, we go set up and within what, 10 minutes, we had that bird at 25 yards. We just couldn't get them to cross the fence where we could finally. Yeah, we, we, uh, gave it everything we had to, but it was, uh, and you, you're right. You know, that the, the other thing to look at is how the, those public lands are arranged, you know, um,

Sometimes you'll have that particular one was next to a big field, you know, where, you know, a turkey would want to spend time. And so trying to pull birds off of other properties, I've done that a lot. They might like the next guy's land because there's water and cover. But when the breeding's going on and those toms are looking for hens, those toms will

sometimes go miles to find a girlfriend. So it's, yeah, we came really close that day. It was pretty awesome. We gave him a show. We tried everything. I think every call we had. Yep. And we're going to talk about it here in a little bit, but we actually, he was gobbling a lot of our calls, right?

um but we also called his hen in ahead of him right um which was something we'll talk to here in a little bit is calling to their hens um so kind of staying on the same um small public chunks or you know the public chunks we have them kind of scattered all over here in eastern washington so we're not hunting i would say the best ag fields where sometimes it's clear cut sometimes it's you know mismanaged for us sometimes it's well managed for us but

a lot of our stuff is just being done off of public. You know, we see what 90, it seems like they're all the birds are sometimes in the ag fields or on the private, but yet we've kind of devised ways to take advantage of the public that surrounds it. Can you give us a little bit of, of the playbook on hunting the little public fringes around these private chunks and how you can make that pay off for you? Yeah, I think the, the looking back, probably my biggest tip is,

is if you can get to the edge, you know, let's say that piece of public, like if you're up in Stevens County, there's a lot of topography. And a lot of those toms, you know, they'll probably roost off of a ridge above those ag fields. And so knowing that they fly down into those fields to display and

you know, strut around the hens and stuff that, and then those hens are probably going to go back up into the woods to nest. And so you know that they're going to come back up probably those drainages. So try not to get impatient and try to push, you know, yourself into a situation where you're not going to, you're going to kind of get stuck and you're not going to be able to move.

I always create kind of this chess mentality. I try to stay ahead of them and try to think about, okay, if I don't give them the position and I stay above them, then they have to come up. It's easier to call a bird up than it is to – or at the same level than it is to bring them down. So I always try to stay on the upward side of a field or an opening.

And I tried to, you know, utilize the habitat, you know, like we did on the swamp bird. But, you know, as far as where you have a place like that,

Usually you're going to have a lot of other hunters trying to do stuff in those areas too because they see the birds just like we do when you can see them out in the open. But knowing where those hens are going to nest and trying to stay ahead of those birds and trying to out position them and know kind of where that tom's going to be after that hen's dropped off is pretty important. The other big factor that we have in

Turkey hunting in general is, you know, the size of the population. If you have a lot of private land, you might have a higher turkey population than you do on public land. And knowing where you have that mosaic of public and private, sometimes you'll have large populations. And it's pretty typical, you know, the first couple weeks of the season to call in these satellite toms, right, and get those –

you know, there's two year olds that leave, you know, the big Tom, the dominant Tom, he's got all the hands and all of a sudden you're over here yelping and you're calling in those two year olds. And it's easy to be successful even if you're not hunting those birds in the field. So when you're hunting sometimes smaller groups, you know, you got to be careful with trying to figure out where you're going to set up so that you don't out position yourself. Yep.

Yep, I like that. And I feel one of my biggest mistakes early on when we used to hunt over there is we wouldn't try to figure out how to get back to that public behind the private until midday versus like you had said, if you can get down in there, you know, early in the morning, get set up, don't have to disturb the area when the birds are out in the fields and wait for those birds to come back up, could be one of your best plays. Right.

Yeah, don't you may have to start there. There might not be a lot of action for the first couple hours, but this is a great segue into scouting. If you know that those birds are eventually going to go back up a certain drainage or up a certain finger ridge or whatnot, you know, being able to pattern them through scouting is

it can pay off huge. So scouting, you're over there a lot. You're out in the field a lot working for Fish and Wildlife, doing a lot of work out there. You're out in the field. So you're looking at hundreds, if not thousands of birds prior to season,

how do you take kind of a scouting plan and reduce it down to what you think your best hunting plan is going to be? You know, you've got a hundred different toms that you know of that are on public. How do you figure out where you're going to go and what you're going to do? Is it based on where you think pressure is going to be, where you've had success in the past, just your favorite spots, or what would you say is the biggest determining factor on where you're actually going to go set up on the first morning? Yeah, I think the reality is that if I'm seeing them, other people are too, so...

I try to really look at maps and understand maps and learn the lay of the land. I think woodsmanship is so critical in being successful anymore, depending on if you're hunting birds down in Lincoln County where the ag slash timberland interface and they're kind of intermingling versus the mountains of northeast Washington.

learning the road systems, learning all the different access points. There's all kinds of things to learn about. And that all leads to, we did that last year. We found a spot, we were able to get pretty close to some birds, but I took a, I love mentoring new hunters. And last year, just to give you a good example, I was hunting a big chunk of DNR and I know there's birds there.

But it's critical to know where you're going to hunt in the morning. And so I took him and I said, okay, we're going to go out right at dark and we're going to run a five-mile area right off the highway. And every hundred yards, I was doing owl hoots, woodpecker calls, whatever I could to get them to gobble. And we located five different toms on public land.

not knowing if we were going to be able to get close to them in the next day but we had no problem finding those birds the next day and we had opportunities to get on those birds and it was neat to show you know our typical hunters they run around and they don't do that anymore they just look at the birds in the field then they try to make a plan for the next day and they sometimes it doesn't work out

I love setting it up for the night, you know, the night before and learning out where those birds are at and just trying to find, you know, enough targets within the public land. Um, and you might cover, you know, five miles before, you know, the bird shut up for the night, but at least you have some idea on where to go the next day. And, uh,

you know, when this time of year is a good time of year to be driving around looking for birds on private or public and getting permission or whatever you want to do. But, you know, a lot of it's elevation and a lot of our, you know, you know, the birds are low, especially like in a hard winter like this year. We have a lot of birds that are low. And, you know, with Merriam's,

They hug that snow line as it starts to dissipate from the high elevations down to the lower. I used to hunt more of a higher type of bird compared to where everybody else is at down low. Sometimes I'll

I'll use that intel you know that I said before you know learning where the road systems are trying to get up in there trying to get a good vantage point in the evenings listening where there's birds trying not to you know you don't have to make a lot of calls to get them to gobble they're going to gobble on their own but uh um and over the years you know even hunting into May um

you find these areas that they like to hang out in and then the next year, you know that that's where they're going. So I mean that the intel that you use this year is going to be valuable next year. And just adding that to your, you know, your hunting repertoire, you know, is you're just trying to get more knowledge. And I think that

I've been able to say, "I'm out of here. There's just too many people. I'm going to go to this one spot and I'll get up in there and I'll find a bird." It doesn't take too long if you just use locating birds in the evening,

going back into those spots in the morning knowing the lay of the land you know i think that's your best best opportunity when you're talking about scouting and getting ready for your hunt yep yep those are all great tips so my next question i know the answer to it because i've been there as you've did it but do you ever call to the hens when they're answering and the gobbler isn't and then kind of when you're doing that what's your strategy and your approach behind it

- Yeah, the hens themselves, you know, if you know there's birds in the area, especially toms, you don't know if somebody harvested the tom that you were hunting earlier in the morning, you have no idea. But you know, when you get a hen to answer, especially during the early part of the season, usually means that they want some company. They've been bothered by, you know, like this morning I was watching a bunch of jakes chasing all these hens all over the place. And you know,

it's the same thing with you know toms you know they especially if your population's got a lot of toms in them they won't they're relentless they'll just keep trying to get on top of a hen and get the breeding done and sneak sneak in with you know the dominant tom looking the other way i mean it's they're sometimes some of those flocks are relentless and so you know those hens they they don't like being near the toms and so um

But when you start talking to some of those more dominant hens, sometimes that can trigger another tom to gobble. And because they sometimes get territorial, especially if they know that they're with a dominant tom. And you can actually strike up different conversations with hens and really have kind of a conversation.

a bitch fest, you know, back and forth with them to get them kind of agitated, but that can trigger a response from those gobblers to come in. And, uh, a lot of times, uh, you know, I, I get that when I have, you know, a decoy out or something like that, that they're, they're kind of not too happy with. It kind of gives it realism, but, uh, but yeah, the, the, the,

calling it hands sometimes can lead to, you know, it's kind of like fishing, you know, I mean, you're just, uh, trying to drag those toms back to the boat. So, um, but yeah, just trying to, trying to get those hands excited enough that, uh, those toms are going to come, come in. Yep. And every, every time I've gotten to a calling battle with a hand, it seems to be like a one upper or

or we're this is going to be a something we talk about in a little bit on progressive calling but it seems like we start off with like a cordial conversation you know

five, six, seven Yelps, Clucks, and she'll respond. By the time you're done, it seems like you're in a screaming match yelling at each other, as you call that Hennon. We called a Hennon last year in Kansas. Didn't have a Tom behind her, like you had mentioned. They're not always going to be there. By the time she was 30 yards away, she was just nonstop trying to override us.

that bird that we called across the canyon, the very first hunt that we ended up hunting with you at the, you know, we ended up, we could hear the gobbler over there, but ultimately we ended up, you know, yelping at her just as much before they flew the canyon. So it was another one where it seems like she would answer and then we kind of slowly switched, like, all right, we're no longer getting

uh you know the gobbler to answer we're just trying to get her fired up before they all pitch i think in that case it was like safety in numbers i think she was like i need some girl time i'm sick of these guys you know because

and i think that's what i think that's what it was you know yeah they were up there on the mountain top i think it was the big tom that you killed one of the biggest toms i think i've still ever seen over there to date uh that hen and then the jake but i know she got real mouthy there towards the end before they pitched over so yeah it's just when you start to talk with a hen i think you can almost expect the conversation to like ramp up as it goes on you know

That's a brings up a good point because in nature doesn't sound like a calling class all the time. A lot of times it's silence, you know, and you don't hear he just hands you open early in the morning you do when they come down off the roofs, but

turkeys are pretty quiet you know i mean and i think we have a you know hunters we we tend to over call and i think that to provide that i kind of feed off those hens so if she's like soft calling i'll soft call if she gets bitchy i'll get bitchy you know and you just kind of back and forth trying to make it more realistic and i think that there's a lot of times where i'm out in the woods i'm like yeah that's a turkey hunter you know boy he's just going crazy over there and then

out walks his hand, his wanting company, you know, and I'm like, man, I got surprised on that one, you know? So, but yeah, it's, it's really important to kind of like just imitate what they're doing back to you. Yeah. So we get all,

Set up on a bird. I think, as you just mentioned, I think it's all a great segue and it kind of rolls right into it is, you know, turkeys are relatively quiet. Hens will typically ramp up their calling. But if you are calling to a gobbler, we've talked about it a bunch is it's kind of that progressive calling or ramping up the calling. We don't want to come in, you know, you don't want to be, you know, cutting, cutting up a storm and, you know, loud clucks and, you know, yelping, you know,

15 times in a row and never given, given, you know, the woods, any silence. So why do, why do you feel that we always approach it with like a progressive, uh, ramping up style? And then why does that work? Yeah, I think it's just the nature of the breeding. You know, I think that Tom to get excited, the more, you know, they're dealing with these hens that have shut them off. And then all of a sudden there's this hot gal over in the corner, you know, just like, Hey, come over here, you know? And so you're, so you're kind of feeding off of his excitement.

excitement and you're trying to figure out if he's responsive or not. And if he's not, you kind of back off. And then in a lot of times, what I like to do is just kind of get them worked up and then I just shut up. I think that's probably one of the triggers to having a hung up Tom is we tend to, you know, the natural thing is for the hen to go to him. And so he's over there gobbling. And a lot of times, you know, I think it's just if it's a two year old,

he doesn't know better, he's probably going to run right in, you know, and you're going to get a bird, you know, or you're going to get an opportunity. But if it's another tom and maybe he's got a hen, you know, he's weighing things in his head and he's trying to like, well, should I stay here with Sally or should I go over there and visit that gal? She sounds more eager, you know, so you never know what situation you're in. But, you know, I think that by shutting up, you kind of play hard to get. And I think I've killed more birds doing that.

because it just, it breaks them from getting hung up and it makes it kind of gets them to the point. Now, if he gobbles and he's leaving and you can tell that he's going away, then, you know, he's probably got a hand, you know, but if he, uh, if he gets closer and I've had, I've had a lot of times where it's like, oh yeah, he's coming, he's coming. So I don't really have to make, and I might give him a little teaser and

And just say, hey, I'm here, still here. And it will fire him back up and it will break him, you know, and he'll come in. So sometimes getting them worked up and then kind of going quiet on them and letting them kind of think that they're missing out on something.

- It's similar to our elk calling style, to relate that back to anybody that maybe hasn't turkey hunted as much. You don't want to come at them throwing the kitchen sink. You want to slowly get them first. You want them to even consider you, right? So it's like, all right, they've now considered me. Now they're a little bit interested. The next step is, do they like what they hear? Do they seem to be... And you can figure that out really easily by

is that turkey answering my every call? Is that turkey answering every fifth call? So you start to really quickly put things together, you know,

last year that that bird we were calling to um you know it's like well he he was answering every gobble and then he went to answering every you know 10th gobble and then you're like all right we're losing him you know so then it's either you got to be quiet you're going to lose them anyway so you're you're trying to just like be a you know think on the fly um but yeah you you first you need to get their interest second you need to get them committed and then third like you said a lot of times shutting up is what finishes them because once that turkey gets to

80, 90 yards. He already knows exactly what tree you should be under. If you're not using a decoy, get the attention off of you. I think all you can do by calling is raise his suspicion that something's not right as they get close. That's like that ramping up. Get him interested. Get him committed. Get him worked up and then turn it off there at the end. I agree with that. Your idea that shutting up can sometimes work best. Music

All right. In closing, Eric, we really appreciate having you on here, but what is one tip you feel you could give turkey hunters that would give them better odds at finding success this year? Well, I think get out there and get work working with some of your calls. I know a lot of people don't say, Oh, you don't call early, but you know, at home practice, um,

I think just getting out, it's been a long winter here and I'm anxious just to get out and get my legs back on me. But I think that just getting to a point where you know where there's some birds, you're getting ready for season and you got everything ready. Practice getting your gun ready. This last year I went to a 410 and practicing with that because, you know, that's been a fun change. But yeah,

But yeah, just take the time this March and locate some birds and get all your gear ready. Yeah, that's great tips. Really appreciate it, Eric. I'm going to head over there, that direction, I think the 28th or so. So maybe we'll have to meet up and spend a couple of days in the woods together. Really appreciate having you on and good luck if I don't talk to you before season. Thanks, Jason. Good talking to you again.

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