Ep. 5: Understanding the Turkey Nest
48:23 Share

Need parts fast? O'Reilly Auto Parts has fast. Need them now? We've got now. No matter what you need, we have thousands of professional parts people doing their part to make sure you have it. We're O'Reilly Fast. Just one part that makes O'Reilly stand apart. The professional parts people. O, O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts.

You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to land.com. They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.

Market House has the cleanest, leanest, juiciest meat and seafood shipped to your home overnight. Expect the service of a local butcher and the convenience of a large supplier. Unlike many online butchers, you can grab just one meal's worth or lock in for a subscription box. Choose from grass-fed and grass-finished beef, American Wagyu, free-range poultry, grass-fed lamb, wild-caught king crab, seafood, and more.

and more. For 15% off your first order, use code COUNTRY at checkout. Just visit markethouse.com. That's M-A-R-K-E-T-H-O-U-S-E dot com. And use the code COUNTRY.

Today, I'm joined by a man that may have forgot more about wild turkeys than I may ever know. Mike Chamberlain. He's a wildlife researcher at the University of Georgia's Wild Turkey Lab. Since writing his dissertation on turkeys and predation, Chamberlain has studied the birds for almost 30 years. What he has learned about turkeys has made him a better hunter. We're hoping by having him on the show today, it'll help you out as well. Thanks for joining me, Mike. Not a problem. Good to be here. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Do you have any big plans for this spring?

Yeah, I do actually. Um, I'm, I'm making the kind of annual swing. I I'll go to Florida later in March and, um, hit Texas for a week. And then a buddy and I are making a swing out West. I think we're going to do a South Dakota and Montana and Wyoming. And, um, then I'll, I'll probably be divorced at that point. So I'll have to, I'll have to come home. Yeah.

Yeah, you have a pretty full plate there for spring. Similar to our falls, you guys load up in the spring to chase turkeys, and I can't wait to get out there and chase turkeys. I think I'm only going to go to two states. We're going to go back to Kansas, and then I'm going to hunt kind of the area I cut my teeth on here in northeastern Washington. Nice, nice. That'll be my two trips. Yeah, we're going to start this podcast off with a few questions from the listeners.

The first question, how much should I call to a gobbler on the roost? I'm going to give you my answer and then Michael, go ahead and give you the right answer. In my opinion, getting closer to that tree is maybe even more important than the calling. But the question was about the calling. So what I will typically do is I want to get that bird to recognize me or acknowledge that he's heard me. And that's typically done by a gobble that follows my soft tree alps.

I know he's responded to me. And then as the morning continues on, some of the other hens start to wake up and talk to the turkey. He starts to get more excited. I tend to let him know where my presence is, but ideally I would like to call as little as possible, but enough to still be recognized by the Tom. Um, I, I believe I've had the worst luck ever hunting turkeys out of the roost.

Um, it never seems to go to plan, but what do you typically do Mike, as far as like, how much should you call to the gobbler? Why they're on the roost and maybe why, you know, why you do that? Yeah, I don't call much, man. I, I, I usually, if I know he can hear me, which, you know, if you're within a few hundred yards of the bird, he knows exactly where you are. I'll usually only call once. Um,

Maybe twice. Even if he doesn't respond, I don't continue to call because I know he's heard me. If I get a response like you're saying, if he cuts me off one time, that's it. I'm done for that until he

till he hits the ground and sometimes i won't call until they fly down uh it just it just depends do you do you change that based on if you've been able to pattern those birds or kind of seen what they've did the last couple mornings or will you just wait until they hit the ground to do your calling or is it because you know they're typically gonna you're set up in a good spot and they're gonna come your direction most yeah usually when i don't call when he's in the tree it you know

I've got some knowledge that, okay, when birds are in this location and they fly down, they typically will do this or that. But I've also hunted some birds before that, you know, you call to them in the tree and they shut up and they fly down and head away from you and gobble and they expect you to come to them.

which is in their world is supposed to happen anyway so um sometimes i'll just if i think i've got everything on my side there's no hens around him he's by himself sometimes i'll let him hit the ground and then give him a call and uh and i think sometimes it almost elicits elicits a response well wait a minute i didn't hear her over there and now she's on the ground and and

I've even, you know, done fly downs and take, you know, my hat or the wing that's in my, in my jacket. And really, you know, once he hissed around, really make some racket and I've had some birds respond pretty favorably to that too. Gotcha. So what you're saying is in the tree, I should resist the urge to keep calling that bird, keep getting him to gobble to me and just, he knows I'm there. I've already established that. And then just be quiet. Yep. Yep. Okay.

Okay, perfect. I'm going to add that. Oh, yep. Yep. And I agree. Like I say, I like to call as little as possible, but sometimes it's tough. Like, well, he's gobbling all these other hens. I want him to acknowledge me or re-acknowledge me as the morning goes on. So, all right. The second question from our listeners is when a tricky gobbles, but heads directly away from us, what should we do? Or directly away from your setup, that initial setup, or, you know, if you're, I guess, if you're locating early in the morning, um,

you get a turkey to gobble, but he continues to head away from you. What should you do? And so I always, it makes my decision tree a little better. I always assume that that bird's in tow of some, you know, he's got some hens, he's in tow. And so I'm just assuming that he's got hens. He may just be wandering. He may just want to go a different direction, but I always try to just think that he's got hens, he's going in a different direction. I

I always want to know, are there other birds around? Are there other good options for us to go hunt that morning? Or is that your only play? Is that the only bird in town and you have to make a play? I've had very, very little success, way better success, you know, trailing elk than I have turkeys.

Um, if I'm going to try to make a plan that Turkey, it's gotta be a big loop. It's gotta be, you need to take the time, put in the effort, get way out in front of that bird. And then also understand the risks of doing that is, you know, what, what speed did he travel at is you had to make your loop. Are you still on pace? Are you going to, you know, and there's a, there's a pretty good likelihood that I may bump that bird if that's a play I'm going to make. Um,

So ideally I'm going to go hunt a different bird. If he continues to gobble as he heads away from me, um, you know, second of all, if that's the only bird I've got to hunt, I'm going to make a big loop, try to get in front of him and then either ambush or some light calling out in front. Do you have anything to add to that Mike or just a completely different strategy? Yeah, well, no, I, I usually, um, it really depends on the bird and where I'm at. You know, like if I'm in Merriam's country and

They start heading away from me. I'm doing what you just described. I'm getting up and trying to figure out where they're headed. Same with rios sometimes. They can book it and head to a different county, it seems. If I'm over here in my neck of the woods where it's really thick and these easterns can be a little bit different birds to hunt, I will often just sit tight, believe it or not, because if I know that he knows where I'm at,

We have a lot of data showing that sometimes these birds will circle back to these places from which they've heard calling two or three or four hours later. And I know nobody wants to sit there listening to a bird gobble and walk away from you. But sometimes that is the right play. I think if I know that he's got hens with him,

then that's one thing. But if I think he's alone and I'm just not on his agenda, when he hits the ground, I will often just sit tight and see if I become on, you know, part of his agenda later in the morning, or I will maybe try to track, you know, trail him, track, follow him a little bit and just kind of keep the location I started from in my back pocket. And,

If I need, if he just bails completely and he shuts up, I'll, a lot of times I'll go back to where I started and sit tight and call blindly. And I've had birds that, I don't know if it was the same bird, but I've had birds that showed up doing that. Yep. Yep. For sure. Yeah.

That's a great segue into the discussion and some of the questions I wanted to ask you, Mike, is I believe I was on the Meat Eater podcast and I think we had a phone call with you and some of your answers. And it was one of the most fascinating, you know, it's why science is kind of cool is there's no, you can think things, but once we've got the data from you, one of the things that I was kind of amazed by is that the research that you have

like you said, you call from an area maybe early in the morning and you guys have got, you know, collared or tracked birds that will come back to that exact point two to three hours, you know, four hours later to, to, you know, once the hens go to nest to come back and look for that, that hen that was calling to him earlier in the morning. Can you, can you go into some of that data and some of the, you know, whether, you know, percentages and whatnot, and kind of dig into that information a little bit more for the listeners? Yeah, sure. Sure.

Yeah. So what we've done on some study sites is we've actually, you know, we captured toms in the winter and we put GPS units on them, but we also ask cooperating hunters to carry a GPS unit in their pocket. And it's just, you know, like a Garmin E-TREX or something, just something simple. We turn it on, it gets a location every minute, stick it in their jacket. And, and when they're done with their morning hunt, they, they drop it off with us. And

And what we've seen pretty clearly is situations where a hunter knew he was on a bird, he or she was on a bird, the bird was in the tree gobbling, and for whatever reason, the hunter was not on the agenda when he flew down. And that's real common with turkeys. They know where they're headed. And sometimes you're not where they're planning to head when they fly down, but then they get curious about,

And if you think about it, it makes sense from their perspective that, hey, I know she's over there, but my first agenda item is this place where I interacted with some hens yesterday, and I know they're going to be there. So I'll go there first. And then as the morning wears on, he recalls, hey, I remember hearing something there. I'm going to go check her out now and see if she's still in the area.

And we have seen numerous instances where a hunter will sit in a spot, presumably just calling to the bird. The bird flies down, cuts their track, goes behind them, walks off, whatever. A few hours later, their GPS coordinates are the same. The hunter is back at the truck and gone, and that bird is standing exactly where he or she was sitting. And it just speaks to being patient, and that's to your point. That's exactly...

Why I, I'm one of the most impatient people that's ever walked this planet. Yeah. I'm right there with you. Yeah. I just can't, I'm busy body and ants in my pants, you know, and, and the more I've gotten, the older I've gotten and the more data I've seen, the more patient I've become because I do realize that sometimes it is going to pay off, that that bird's going to come back. Not every time to your question, you know, percentage wise, uh,

It's not a high percentage, but there is a percentage. And that to me is relevant because sometimes it'll work out for you. Yeah. There's a strong enough correlation that sometime later in the day that that bird is likely to show back up at that spot, that it's, it's worth the play. Then, then going to find other birds is maybe to hold tight and, uh, you know, he will come back. And now with that said, Mike, is there, is there any.

varying data does it is it different earlier in the year when not as many you know hens are maybe going to nest versus later in the year that this is is likely to happen sooner or more often or is there any difference between like you know earlier in the spring to later in the spring not as turkey's coming yeah not that we've not that we've been able to see it you know i ultimately think it boils down to his options that that day and you know you know as well as i do if

and these birds know where they're likely to interact with hens and that those are the places that if they don't have hens with them or they're not following hens, that's what they're going to do. They, they're either going to fly down and go to a call that they think is a bird or they're headed somewhere often quietly or even gobbling while they're walking, heading to a place where they're, they think they're likely to see some hens. Um,

So sometimes that just doesn't include us. You know, that spot is not where we're sitting and that's why they seemingly ignore you. And, you know, common, you know, logic dictates we call louder and we get up and track them and we do. And in reality, if you called as loud as a whisper, right?

from several hundred yards away, he knows exactly where you are. Their hearing is acute. They know exactly where you were calling from and are capable at any point of walking to that spot. So sometimes just sitting tight is a good play. As hard as it is to do it.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, where I hunt in Eastern Washington, very, very steep Canyon country. And we did kind of the impossible to one day working a bird and a couple of hens and they pitched off of the adjacent mountain.

And they landed, you know, 10 yards from where we were calling, you know, they flew all the way across the Canyon and hit and landed. And it's like their ability to know exactly where you were was, uh, was demonstrated that day. And I couldn't believe it. Like, you know, they could have landed 30 yards off, but they literally landed no decoys right where we were, you know, the two callers were calling from and just, just

Just crazy. So yeah, that's, that's a great tip. And like I say, it was something I didn't know as a turkey hunter. Um, and then your guys' data kind of showed it is that those birds, they know where you were at. They remember where you were at and there is a, a, you know, better than, than random chance that they're going to come back and visit that location sometime throughout the day. Yeah. Um, which, which,

which like I said, being, being the busy body, you know, the guy that cannot hunt from a tree stand, cause I will go nuts. Um, it's something I definitely want to add kind of to my, um, you know, tree stand for deer, but, uh, you know, something I want to add to my, my turkey hunting arsenal is maybe be a little more patient. And if I'm going to go back to camp and take a nap, I might as well just take a nap under that tree and, you know, see if something shows back up. Yeah. Yeah. What better way to, I mean, enjoy the spring woods, you know, sit there and chill out. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Yep. For sure. So this next question kind of comes from, once again, my own, my,

My own question, um, is I grew up hunting Easterns here in Western Washington, which, you know, some say like those South Carolina birds, or maybe the toughest birds to hunt, like our Easterns here in Western Washington, maybe the toughest bird I've ever had to chase just because of the low densities. I always say, if you can find one bird, um, you're doing good for the year, let alone trying to kill it. Um, you know, we may find one, two, three birds max. Um, and

And then we go over to Eastern Washington and get to chase Merriams and Rios around and me not me growing up, you know, as a high schooler that would jump in my Honda Accord and drive across the state just so I could go hunt a different bird and hunt a higher density of birds. I was, I

I felt like I was hunting a different creature. They were both turkeys, but they acted completely different. And I wanted to just go into whether I'm hunting Easterns in Kansas, whether we're hunting Merriams in Idaho or Eastern Washington and every other bird. What are the stark differences between, let's say, the Easterns, the Merriams, the Rios?

and how you would use some of their distinct differences to maybe hunt them different. Because the first day I showed up to hunt Merriam's, I sat under the tree,

watched him, you know, go away from me gobbling. And I didn't get up and chase him. I just, I kind of sat there like, Oh, this is like an Eastern he'll, he'll be around. He's going to hang out for a while. Um, not have a big, you know, not have a big loop. And then I might as well laced up my running shoes that morning and just took off after him. It was, it was a completely different setup. So kind of with that question, um, you know, how do you hunt

you know merriam's and easterns differently kind of some of their habits and how you can kind of use some of that against them yeah yeah easterns you know that i'm hunting over here you know their home range size is only let's just say on average you know during a spring week maybe a few hundred to a thousand acres or so so they're not going far from you um

I tend not to move a lot. You know, I'm not one of these run and gun, scoot and shoot, whatever you want to call it. I tend to just try to figure out where the bird is headed and what's his daily agenda. What are the options? And then try to be as patient as I possibly can. And that, I think, has worked for me. Yeah, there have been some scenarios where I got lucky and just called a bird up and boom, it was over with. But

A lot of the time I've had to work and realize that maybe just sitting tight and kind of being really, really quiet, calling subtly not often has worked. When I go out west, what you just said has exactly been my observation with Merriam's. Hell, if he flies down, he's in the opposite direction. I'm running. I mean, they cover some ground.

And Rios can do the same thing too. You know, they, they fly down and they get to booking it. And, um, yeah, I'll never forget. And I was hunting in Kansas one time and, and we followed these birds. We, I mean, we had to get in a truck to, to find them. I mean, they just literally, it was like they left the County and come to find out that was their routine each day. They flew down, crossed the road, went across two pastures. And before you knew it, they were three farms away.

And they were interacting with hens. And that's just what they did every day. So that's kind of the mindset I use. It really doesn't matter which subspecies I hunt. I try to scout a lot. I try to get as much intel as I can about where they want to be anyway. Because calling a bird to a place he already wants to go or near a place he wants to go, in my opinion, is a lot easier than calling him somewhere he doesn't go.

Um, and I'm not the world's best caller. So, so, uh, I try to, I try to be where birds want to be already. Yeah. And is, is the elk hunting guy, um, you know, that loves a turkey hunt. We do something very, very similar where, um,

If you can let that elk do exactly what he wants to do without you being involved, you've made your life a million times easier trying to call that, that bull in or that elk in than trying to reverse or pull him 300 yards in the direction he doesn't want to go. Um, so yeah, very, very similar. If you can, if you can intercept that bird in his daily routine, it's going to make your life a lot easier, you know, trying to call that bird in versus, you know, doing what he doesn't want to do. Yeah, no question. Absolutely. Absolutely.

No question. Okay, I'm going to dive into something, and I don't have a great grasp on it. I was able to hunt eastern Kansas last year and got to hunt with Chris Parrish, who I was really picking his brain because I've always wanted to know about nesting and more specifically like

you know, when a hen lays her first egg to their last, like what's that process? Like when does a hen lay on the nest, you know, all day, the majority of the day, do they ever lay on it? There's a lot of misinformation out there. And I wanted to hear directly from you and then how that ultimately affects the hunting. You know, I know that April 15th in Washington, which is our opener is not a good time to hunt one because everybody's taken that same time off to hunt. And number two, I cannot get those dang hens to ever go away. I

I'm dealing with, you know, what seems like a hand up gobbler the majority of the time. But when I go hunt that same piece of public ground or same area, say May 5th, May 10th, my job just became a lot easier. And a lot of times later in that morning, if I can, you know, find a bird or get one to, to, to light up, um, it's my job's a lot easier trying to call that bird in. So, and my understanding, it all comes back to nesting. And if you can do kind of a

a nesting 101 here. Um, I'd love, I'd love to hear it. Yeah. So, so basically what, what these birds do is they, the toms become receptive before the hens do. And that's why you see them gobbling and displaying and doing their thing before nesting ever starts. The hens become receptive, uh, in the way it's supposed to work is everybody breeds pretty much at the same time. Uh, and then everyone should go to nest at the same time.

Now that doesn't always function. We see particularly in heavily hunted populations that doesn't always occur. It may be more prolonged, but the bottom line is the hen, you know, she starts laying, she lays about one egg per day.

Early in the laying sequence, they will go to the nest once a day. They'll lay an egg and they'll leave. As they get closer to the day they're going to start incubating, they will spend more time at the nest during the laying process. So in other words, she may go on day eight and lay an egg and stay there for an hour, and then she'll leave. And what she's doing is she's incubating eggs and she's synchronizing everybody

So the day that she starts incubating the last, you know, the last egg she lays, she'll start continuous incubation. And at that point, you know, they're on the nest 24-7. They'll leave, as I think we're going to talk about, but they'll leave and take a break, defecate, eat, come back to the nest.

Their clutch sizes really depends on the population, but it averages about 10 to 12 in that range. So if you think about it, it takes them about two weeks to lay a clutch and it takes them about a month to incubate, you know, to hatch. So, so they're really tethered to that nest site for about 45 days. So she spends a lot of her life within a fairly small area and she,

From the standpoint of hunting, what you see is that toms really ramp up competition amongst each other during the laying sequence. And that, if you think about it, makes sense because these birds can perceive. There's research in Mallard showing that they can perceive when females have eggs in the oviduct.

Drakes can, when they're flying around in these courtship flights, they can sense, they can tell that she's in her laying sequence. And if they breed with a female during the laying sequence, they have a very high probability of being represented in that clutch. So if you think about it from a turkey's perspective, all of his lady friends start laying eggs and his time is running out.

Because she's about to be unavailable to him. She's going to be incubating the clutch, and at that point, she's not receptive to him anymore. So what we see in our research populations is gobbling activity really increases during the laying sequence. So when a lot of your hens are laying, you'll see a lot of gobbling activity because competitions really hide during that time.

So from the standpoint of planning a hunt, just like you just said, you know, it's April 15th. It's in Washington. It's super early. They're still in these big flocks. It's hard to get that bird away from those hens. A few weeks later, most of those hens are incubating or they're laying eggs at that time. They're in much smaller groups. They're dispersed across the landscape. He's super, super wound up and, you know, competition's high, but

It literally can act like a different bird, an entirely different bird because he's, he is different during that period. That's what I've seen. And I actually try to, I try to time my hunts. If I can, if I'm going somewhere that I don't know, I try to time my hunts if possible. It's not always possible, but if I can, I can.

close to the laying period because I know that competition is going to be high and that means birds are going to be gobbling and all things being equal. That's what makes me go out there. I want to hear birds talk and I want to be receptive. Yeah.

O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

They did not have it, and the dude told me specifically where I would go down the road to find it is how nice they are. They offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. Thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in-store, or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

They'll test your battery for free. If you need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or quick service, they'll help you find the right part or point you to a local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, best of all, friendly. These guys are your one-stop shop for all things auto, do-it-yourself,

You can find what you need in-store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit them at OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. That's OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam Motor Treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

It's really simple. When you pour it in your gas tank, sea foam cleans harmful fuel deposits that cause engine problems. I'm talking common stuff like hard starts, rough engine performance, or lost fuel economy. Sea foam is an easy way to prevent or overcome these problems. Just pour a can in your gas tank and let it clean your fuel system. You probably know someone who has used a can of sea foam to get their truck or boat going again. People everywhere rely on sea foam to keep their trucks, boats, and small engines running the way that they should the entire season.

Help your engine run better and last longer. Pick up a can of Seafoam today at your local auto parts store or visit seafoamworks.com to learn more.

This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at HuntTheGreatest.com.

I'm going to wind back and ask a couple more questions on some stuff you said there. So when you say once the clutch is completely laid, she will lay on that 24-7. So those hens will no longer go to roost. They're sitting on those night and day except for to go feed and do the stuff you said, correct? Yeah, that's right. We see a few instances of hens that maybe the first day she incubates, she may leave the nest that night and roost nearby.

But within a day or two, they're continuously incubating all day, all night, and they'll take a break. Usually, we've seen from about 11 a.m. to about 4 p.m., they'll take a break. It averages about an hour. They'll usually travel 100, 200 yards away from the nest, and then they go back.

And that's typically that lone hen that you see. She won't go join up with the flock or go find a tom. That hen will usually just leave her nest, go feed, localize, and then come right back to it.

Yep. Yep. And they, they are, they are very secretive during their nesting period. Uh, turkeys, you know, they're very gregarious and they hang out and they're social with each other year round, but when they're incubating, they don't, they don't want to be around other hens. And part of the reason for that is they parasitize each other. They, they will lay eggs and other hens clutches. Um, so not only is she trying to avoid predation, but she's trying to stay away from other birds.

And that's why you often will see those lone hens kind of, you know, shake and bake. You see her and she's going to the same area every day and she's only there for 15 or 20 minutes and then she's gone. That's what she's doing. She's got a routine and she's back to the nest.

That makes sense. And then she gets bred daily or one time to make her whole clutch. And this might be a really dumb question because I don't know, you know, birds that well, but does she need to get bred every day for that egg? Or is it basically one time up front and then that the 15 eggs are created from that, that breeding. They can breed once and produce a clutch. They're, they're not designed to, they're designed to breed multiple times to produce a clutch. And there's, there's several reasons for that. They don't have to breed every day because,

But in an ideal situation, so turkeys store sperm. So they will breathe, they'll copulate, and they store sperm in these tubules in their body. And then their body releases the sperm from those tubules. And when it does, that creates competition at the sperm level. The most motile sperm wins. Yeah.

the viability of that sperm decreases as it ages. So if you think about it from her perspective, in an ideal world she'd breed multiple times across a number of days and store up the sperm because the best sperm is going to win and she's not sure who that is, what time it is. Usually it's dominant birds but not always. So that's kind of how that works. They should breed multiple times

And what that results in, if you look at clutches, the research has been done thus far shows that a number of clutches have multiple toms represented in them.

Um, so she's not only breeding with the same Tom over and over, she's breeding with multiple Toms. Gotcha. That makes, that makes more sense. It wasn't a straightforward answer. So it was kind of a mix of, you know, one time or multiple and then the strongest wins out. My next question for you, and this is more of, you know, during that, that laying time when they're laying one egg, you know, for whatever it is, 15 days or, or, you know, maybe,

It could be a difference, but let's just say they lay one egg for 15 days. How far are they going to travel from

from their roost tree to where they're nesting. And I know the, you know, the hens prepare all their nests differently, yet they're all typically roosting next to each other. And I've always kind of attributed to why, you know, the hens may walk the tom in a certain direction towards their nest or towards where they're all nesting, but how far are they typically going to move? And I know it's going to, we've already talked about it, the subspecies and it's, it's different, but you know, do we have any data on how far they travel from, you know, roost to nest typically? Yeah.

Yes, we do. I've got a student that's actually looking at this right now. Um, and I don't, I don't have an average for you. What we do see is that, uh, these birds appear to have different strategies. In other words, there appear to be some hens that have quite a few roost locations in their, in their home ranges while they're laying and others do not. Um,

If you think about it, it makes sense to not spend time at that nest while you're laying because you're not there to protect the nest. So it's unguarded. So you really need to stay away from there as much as you can. So we typically see that birds spend a lot of their time elsewhere in their home range, and then they run over to their nest.

Not literally, but they move to their nest, they lay an egg, and they're gone. So I don't think there is a distance, per se, on average. I think it ultimately depends on when she's laying, what time of day her body tells her, hey, it's time, you need to be moving in that direction. I think that dictates where she's at in her home range relative to that nest site and how far she is from it.

But they do tend to stay away from that nest until the hour they're going to lay. And then they're, then they're gone again. So that's that typical morning where, you know, they all fly down together. They do their thing for that morning. And then you'll start to see that hen kind of break off, go lay that egg. And then she comes and joins back up. Yeah. You see that a lot. You know, you got five hens that are together and then at eight o'clock, there's four at 10 o'clock. There's three at 11 o'clock. They're gone. And, um,

Where are they at? You know, they're off doing their own thing, staying away from each other. And, you know, from a Tom's perspective, that's when I've had a, I've had a lot of luck that time of morning. If, if, uh, you can get those, get those birds away from those hands, they become receptive. So one thing for me, we used to scout a ton, especially growing up here with very few birds, we would spend, you know, every weekend in March trying to find birds. And then I was able, as I started to hunt Northeast Washington, made the drive over the pass and,

started to scout birds and figure them out. But the only trouble I was running into is I was scouting them in mid-March, late March, and I would get there and the birds seemed to have dispersed.

You know, whether they were more comfortable early in the spring in a location and then they seem to have moved. Can you tell me a little bit? I know you've worked on this and you've had some schematics on how birds move and disperse. And talking with my buddy, my good buddy, Randy, who owns some property in Kansas, like his properties are loaded early.

early in the season and then as season gets late like he loses his density of birds very quickly um going to neighboring you know so it's obvious they want to be there earlier in spring but leave can you tell us a little bit about like that natural cycle of you know maybe why turkeys are loaded up in a place you know in march is is there kind of you know elk we would kind of say they're staging and kind of figuring things out and then they slowly disperse into smaller flocks and smaller groups um

And kind of what's going through, are they just trying to go, are the hens finding like their annual nesting spot? Like what's the reason for that disbursement and how does that kind of play out? Yeah, so what turkeys do is, you know, what you're seeing in early March in some of these areas are just winter flocks. Those are flocks that they've been together, you know, since the fall and, you know,

You got a lot of birds, they're there, and they're about, that flock's going to blow up. And it's going to become a handful of smaller groups that are more social groups than anything. And that will often cause a scenario you just discussed. They're here in March, and then April they're gone, or two-thirds of them are gone, and

what they're doing is they're shifting their home range at that point, and they're moving from more of a wintering area to a spring reproductive area. Sometimes that's not very far, and sometimes it's a long way. So, for instance, in our Easterns, we see that in some areas, they may go to the next farm. I mean, they're very close by.

In other populations like our pine-dominated landscapes down in the southeast, they may move a couple miles from their wintering range to their spring range, and that causes them to literally disappear from private properties. Somebody says, Mike, I had birds until February 20th, and they left, and they don't come back until the summer.

When you go to the western subspecies, you often see, like the research has shown with merriams, they will move a dramatic distance from winter to spring. Think 20, 30 miles, you know. And you see that, you know, I think less common in some of the prairie landscapes than you do in other places where they're moving, you know, to some degree based on elevation. But, yeah, they...

they can cover some ground between winter and spring. That's a common scenario in all of the subspecies that shift from winter to spring. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense because some places in, you know, we're hunting merriams in eastern Washington, you know, real mountainous, you might as well just put your backpack on and, you know, because you're five, six miles from a road where they're wintering down in that ag and

And then as the snow melts, they're almost following, you know, that snow line kind of back up the mountain and they just end up where they're at, I guess, as long as they have enough food and water and security and that's where they want to nest and, and, you know, do their breeding and that they'll move up there. But, uh,

I've just always wondered, you know, like that disbursement, like why wouldn't they hang out on the ag? I don't know if it's, you know, concentration of predators or what their reasoning was from leaving where, you know, it kind of feels like they got that gravy life with a bunch of ag and a ton of bugging and kind of everything they need. And they almost make life harder on themselves by going up into the mountains and, you know, doing it that way. Yeah, well, they're looking for, you know, they're looking for habitat that they think

They can hide in and they can take a brood to, and the brood is going to have more success. And in areas where you see elevation change like that, what you just said is spot on. Sometimes they literally almost looks like they're following snow melt. Well, what they're actually doing is,

is they're moving up and down elevation based on resource availability. So as things are greening up and becoming more succulent, insect communities are thriving, they're going to shift around and use that. And you don't see that shift as pronounced, obviously, say, in Easterns where, you know, in most areas they're not living. Elevation is not a really big thing for them.

It can be, you know, Appalachians in some areas, it can be, but usually it's more pronounced than Merriam's.

All right. So that, that just kind of covering that we've talked about scouting turkeys so much that, you know, if you are in the West or areas where these birds are going to maybe disperse, you know, the, the, the Merriam's and the Rio's are going to move a little bit farther. You know, just keep that in mind while you're scouting that there are birds there now, but they may not necessarily be there when you come back or, you know, when it comes time for season to actually open, you may need to go, you know, a little higher, a little farther to find them. Um,

Yeah. Okay. And then this, this, this question isn't going to necessarily fit in, but it's something I've always kind of wondered about. I've read a few articles on it when I was growing up turkey hunting and getting really into it, you know, in the late nineties, early two thousands, I was doing a bunch of reading because nobody in Western Washington, uh,

you know, a hundred turkeys, the, the, the idiots around here. The only thing we had any interaction we had with wild turkeys was somebody shooting them out of a field with a rifle when they seen them and nobody hunted these things. It was a bird they shot with a rifle. And so I was trying to learn, like, how do we find them? How do we call them in?

Um, and you know, I can remember reading back when Missouri was like it and I might be off by a few years, but you know, Missouri was in their heydays. You know, some of these States back in the Midwest were just, you know, loaded. And then now you fast forward to the 2020, 2021, and some of the numbers that are coming out, like Missouri's in bad trouble. You know, as I was hunting turkeys in Kansas at the gas station, you know, you'd hear comments to Randy and, and Chris Parrish like, Hey, you know, Turkey seemed to be way down this year, almost like

they're at extinction levels almost, you know, compared to what they were 20 years ago. You know, some of the articles we read are really putting a lot of pressure on the youth seasons and, you know, some of the reasons why they feel youth seasons may have a bigger effect on the birds, even though the numbers aren't that different. Can you maybe shed some light on what your opinion is, whether it is youth seasons, whether it's maybe is predation like a lot bigger issue? You know, we've talked before about

The price of raccoons, there is no market. So nobody wants to go out and trap raccoons anymore. And bobcats, coyotes, it seems like possums, everything's after a turkey. But do we have a good idea yet on maybe what's hurting these numbers? Are youth seasons to blame? Is overharvest to blame? Is it predators? I mean, we all kind of know it's probably a combination, but what's your feeling on the biggest impact?

It really depends on where you are. And I'll just say it depends, although I know that's a cop-out answer. But the bottom line is all of these things that occur on the landscape, habitat issues, predation issues, harvest issues, weather, disease, all these things impact turkeys at a local level.

the contribution of each one of those things varies. So saying it's predation, no, it's not just predation. It's predation and X, Y, Z. Saying it's hunting, no, it's not hunting. It's hunting and X, Y, Z. And PDQ and ABC. I mean, it just depends on where you are. The bottom line is, from a turkey's perspective, if you look big picture, kind of use the coach's view of the

the U.S. and the areas where turkeys live, you know, the big picture. You see that all you have to do is drive across the United States and look out your window and you will see, compared to 20 years ago, habitat loss. You'll see habitat degradation. The existing habitats that we have left are not as the quality they were. You'll see fragmentation off the charts.

things that split habitat, roads, power lines, rights of way, you name it. That doesn't benefit turkeys. It benefits things that eat turkeys. You see a lack of management of properties. In the south, it could be lack of fire. In the west, it could be lack of prescribed fire or timber harvest, things that increase early successional habitats.

You see predator communities are more diverse and they're more abundant than they were historically. There are more of these things out there, period. And if you think about it from a turkey's perspective, if you have less habitat and what is there has more predators in it, that is math. It's basic math. So we've seen nest success is quite a bit lower than it was historically.

We have disease issues that are popping up all over the country that we really don't understand. We've known that some diseases affect turkeys and have for years and years, and there are some new things that are emerging that we don't have a good grasp of, and it's hard to answer questions about disease because sick birds get eaten and we never know they're there. And you factor in, man, we like to hunt this bird, and you have a bird that,

is the only bird in the conterminous United States that's hunted during their reproductive season. So we are hunting turkeys, you know, we hunt in the fall in some places, but by and large, we hunt this bird in the spring when they're breeding. And you throw all that in a blender, and what you end up getting is the recognition that

You have all these complex issues that are facing this bird, and managers are trying to manage harvest. And they're trying to do that in a way where you and I can go out and hear birds, and the resource is sustainable. And all that to say that, yeah, populations are struggling in some places, and it's got management agencies really...

Really looking at, okay, what can we do to change the playing field here? Because people like you and I complain because, and we have every right to, because we, we cherish this bird and we want to be able to hunt it. We want to be able to hear it and enjoy it with our families and our friends. And, and we realize that we can't do that. It's frustrating to us.

And a lot of people are frustrated right now because populations in many areas are declining, not everywhere, but in many areas they are. And it really has agencies scratching their head as to what to do. Gotcha. So to paraphrase that and hopefully not answer it wrong is that

Youth seasons may have an impact, which we know for sure they do have an impact, but it might not be the major impact that some of these articles are saying. It's a combination of all of these. Yeah, I don't buy the argument that youth seasons are impacting turkey populations. And the reason being, if you look across the subspecies ranges and you look at what percentage of the total harvest is taken by youth hunters, it is a very small percentage.

Yes, it's typically early. It's typically before the general season opens. It ultimately depends on the rate of harvest. In other words, if youth hunters are killing 2,000 birds and that is 3% of the toms in the population, then it's irrelevant. If they're killing 20% of the toms, well, then that's more relevant. So these broad sweeping statements about

hey, this is it. It's youth seasons or it's predation or it's this or it's that. I don't lend a lot of credence in those because there's not information showing that is the cause. And like we were just talking about, there is no single cause. It's a complex series of things.

that ultimately hinge on how many birds you have, how many you're harvesting, what, you know, what the nest success rates are. And that's why we do the research, honestly, man, you know what I mean? We do the research because we're trying to, we're trying to understand these, these questions and, and give people answers because we know as human beings, we want answers, you know?

I'm going to close up with the question I've been asking everybody. If you could give one or two small pieces of advice that you think would make a turkey hunter more successful, what would those two things be going into the spring? Say you're struggling. What are those two little keys that you have? I tell myself every day, be more patient. Be more thoughtful. In other words, don't be so reactive to...

the situation you're in. Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast. I don't know if you're, well, I'm an old NASCAR fan. I don't watch NASCAR anymore, but Dale Earnhardt used to say, sometimes you have to slow down to go fast. And in turkey hunting and in life in general, I think sometimes if you slow down,

you end up being more successful. Analyze the situation, be patient, be willing to sit longer. And that kind of dovetails into my second piece of advice. And I tell people this every spring and I do that. I try to do this myself. I don't, I'm not always successful. I do it with my deer hunting. I love fanatical deer hunter, sit longer, stay out there,

15 minutes longer, 30 minutes longer. You know, I get out of the stand at 10 o'clock. I'm like, oh, hell with it, man. I ain't seen a deer in three hours. And I'm like, okay, nope. I'm going to sit until 10, 15. I'll sit until 10, 30. And by doing that, the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to have an extra half hour in his creation enjoying what's around you.

That's the worst possible outcome of that. Well, I'll say that. I mean, you could get run over by a truck or whatever it is, but the bottom line is you're going to spend more time in a place you cherish. And sometimes that's successful for you. Be more patient, be willing to sit longer, spend more time in the, in the spring woods. And if nothing else, you're going to, you're going to be enriched by the experiences that you have.

Yep, for sure. I completely agree with that. And, you know, everything that we're chasing, whether it's, you know, elk, predators, you know, deer, whatever we're calling to, I think that, that advice can, can, you know, underlie all of that, that, yeah, you spend a little more time and, and, you know, good things are probably going to happen, you know, during that extra time. Absolutely.

Well, thank you very much, Mike. Like I said, you're a wealth of knowledge. We could have talked about anything to do with spring turkey, but I picked out a few of my own personal questions I wanted to ask you. And I really appreciate you taking your time. And yeah, I really enjoy spring this year. It looks like you have a full plate and wish you the best and good luck this spring. Yeah, you too, Jason. Best of luck to you.

Hey, we're going to take a little break here and talk about interstate batteries. Now, if you're like me, enjoying the great outdoors, you need gear that is as reliable as it gets. That's why I power my adventures with interstate batteries. I use interstate batteries in my boats. I use interstate batteries in my camper. Great for your truck, too. From Alaska to Montana, they're outrageously dependable.

Battery is essential. With over 150,000 dealer locations, finding one is easy. For all your vehicles, land or sea, choose Interstate. Head to InterstateBatteries.com and find your power today. You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to Land.com.

They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.