Ep. 7: Elk Hunting and Turkey Hunting Are Damn Near the Same Thing
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I'm joined today by my very good buddy, the marketing manager here at Phelps Game Calls, Derek Durham. For everybody out there kind of wanting to know his turkey calling credentials, he has won exactly zero turkey calling contests. He's been in exactly zero turkey calling contests, but he's a dang good elk hunter. And one thing that we're going to kind of explain here is we love turkey hunting. We may not be the best at it. We may not know everything about it, but...

We're going to dive into why it just got this bad image amongst the Western hunters. Why it's not as cool as calling in, you know, maybe an 800 pound bull elk, but then maybe why they should consider it cool and why it is a bunch of fun and something to do in the spring. So welcome Dirk. Oh, hey there.

yeah so i have been in some turkey calling contests oh you have all right i'm going to correct myself okay okay or what turkeys okay the real judge yeah exactly okay so uh we've got to chase elk all over you know every fall we also love the turkey hunt you know i wouldn't say as much but um it's definitely fun it's something to go out there and do every spring and so that's what we're going to dive into but uh first we're going to jump into a few of our listeners questions here um that we've got

So the first one is I've never hunted turkey before. What are the must-haves? So I'm taking this question as I don't need to go out and buy everything. But what are the must-haves? I'll let you take this, Dirk, and I'll see if I can add to your list at all. But, you know, I feel we should keep the list simple, you know, whatever it is for calls, whatever it is for gear, you know, shotgun, that sort of stuff. Like what's the minimum you can go out with in the spring and be successful? Yeah.

Yeah. So if you're a diaphragm guy or girl, you can definitely get by with just diaphragms. You can locate with diaphragms. You can call them in with diaphragms. But I will say there are some days that diaphragms sometimes just don't cut the mustard. I call as loud or as different or as soft as I want. And sometimes I just don't get any response. But man, you break out a box call.

And wow, I mean, it's just a game changer. I don't know if it's just that sharp pitch of a box call or what, but I feel like that's like a gotta have. Like they're easy to use, especially for new callers. They're just super easy to use. They're versatile and it's a great way to mix it up. Yeah. And I'll take it, you know, as far as what weapon you need. If you're an archery hunter, you can just take your normal archery setup and

Um, if you're going to go out there with a shotgun, any 12 or 20 gauge will work, especially with today's ammunition, some of the TSS loads and some of the crazy stuff they have out there. Like you can dang near take a four 10 now. Um, and they've became a viable option now that there are TSS loads and you can get so many pellets out there.

So, you know, any shotgun with with the right ammunition, you know, a couple of diaphragms, you know, a pot call with a couple of strikers. But, you know, I wouldn't say they're they're must haves. It's just nice to have because like Dirk said, some days those turkeys will answer one versus the other. Pot calls, just like the box call, very easy to use. You know, and I would say it's not an absolute must have, but it makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. Some sort of seating pad or a seat.

You know, you don't necessarily need decoys. They're nice to have. But as far as the must-haves, you know, some way to locate the bird, and then some way to call it in, and then some way to kill it. So, you know, your bow or shotgun, a couple calls, whether it's a diaphragm or pot call. And then, you know, most importantly, you need some birds on the property you're hunting and have them, you know, fairly well scouted out. Man, I couldn't agree more, like, on that seating. The seating pad is...

you know, I've been the tough guy all these years and, you know, you sit down on the ground and it's cold and it's wet and sometime uncomfortable. And last year when we were hunting with our good buddy, Randy Milligan in Missouri, not Missouri, in Kansas, uh, he had these little seats, these super low profile, uh, seats for hunting for Turkey hunting. And to me, that was a game changer. I,

Man, it was so comfortable. You could sit there motionless comfortably forever. Whereas the other option is sit on the ground and man, your butt gets cold or tired, your legs go numb or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I noticed Dirk, you didn't fall asleep at all on that first night when we didn't have the seats. And once we had those seats, you were like three for six on naps. Yeah.

So it was the comfort level definitely rose when we know it is. It's just the more time, you know, I don't have very much patience, but the more patient you can be in gear like seats or a good seat can definitely add to, you know, the comfort.

the fun and the comfort of it, but also the success. If you have the ability to sit in an area, you know, as long as you need to, without getting ants here, like Dirk said, your legs falling asleep is going to lead to a lot more turkeys being killed. The second question we have, we'll jump into this before we jump into our discussion. My question for Dirk is what are your go-to turkey locator tactics, which will play right into how we locate elk in the way we like to do it. But as far as locating turkeys and I, I,

There is probably a two part question, Dirk. I would say, how do we locate turkeys while we're hunting? And then how do we try to locate turkeys either for the roost or using non-turkey sounds to locate turkeys? So for years, and until actually last year when we came out with that new crow call,

um, the Meteor X Phelps Crowcall, then, um, I just used my voice. I would either use owl hoots or, um, or Crowcall. So I would, or more of a more North Idaho. We don't have crows really. We have Ravens. Right. So, um, I would just use my voice. You always kind of feel weird doing it too. You know, um, you start going like, especially if you're with somebody who's a new Turkey hunter and they don't know anything about it.

My wife or kids and, and you, you get out of the truck or you hike around and you're going, I mean, it, it gets, it gets kind of weird for like, Whoa, they're a little taken back. Yeah. Why are you scaring these things away? Yeah. And in fact, elk hunting before in the fall,

I've had turkeys answer my bugle in the fall. They don't typically gobble a lot in the fall, but I've had them answer me from the roost tree in the fall. Yeah. I don't like to use coyote howls and stuff when the turkeys are on the ground or when I have to hunt them. So like in the morning and stuff, but that's kind of our go-to locator at night. Once they're up in a tree, if you give a good yip,

and get those turkeys so we can locate them in the roost for the next morning. But once they're, you know, let's say it's early morning and we actually have to hunt the birds, I don't want to put any extra pressure or concern on them that there's a coyote on the ground in my direction. So we use a lot of crow calls. Similar to you, I cut my hands and do kind of a

hooter you know an owl hooter sound that we use um you know pileated woodpecker and then a lot of times once we get going on the hunt we're just using our tricky calls you know it seems like a hen yelp or a little bit of cutting seems to get them going maybe more so than than the straight locator but we kind of just play to what they're responding to if we're getting them to answer a crow call we'll stick with it if they're answering you know hen calls then then we'll stick with them but yeah we reserve that uh coyote howl for roosting them at night which seems to be

you know our best tactic as far as nighttime locating so yeah that's that's how we go about um locating turkeys why we're hunting or why we're putting them to bed and roosting them now we're going to roll into our discussion and we appreciate all you guys questions and keep them rolling in but we're going to dive in fairly deep or as deep as we can we're going to kind of keep it light um you know there's just been this big

you know, front that turkey hunting isn't cool. Don't compare it to elk hunting. You know, like all these little rules from these Western guys on how it's not cool to maybe turkey hunt. And so we're going to go through, compare and contrast these things, and then the end kind of like what's our verdict? Is it very similar? Are these guys just, you know, trying to maintain status by not turkey hunting? And why I think ultimately we're going to be able to say why you should be turkey hunting every spring if you like to call animals in. Yeah, I think there's some weird...

bravado or something, us Westies, as the Eastern folk call us. Us Westies have a lot of us, you know, are like, ah, turkeys, they're stupid or whatever. They're dumb. It's a dumb bird or whatever. But it's nothing like elk hunting, but there are some, definitely some crossovers and similarities. Yeah.

I think, you know, a lot of us out West, we're just not that good at it compared to the folks that just live and breathe it. So, and it can be frustrating. So I think there could be some of that too, some animosity towards turkeys from us guys out in the West.

Yeah. I've said it before. You know, everybody likes to label turkeys as a dumb bird. You know, I could drive down the road and shoot them on my window. And which is true until you have a shotgun in your hand and like step outside your door and then they become maybe the smartest bird, you know, on the ground. And so it's, it's why they seem very, um, you know, not very intelligent, uh,

at quick glance, like when you try to hunt them and as long as you say that you, you know, you're not going to shoot them off the road, you're not going to shoot them as you drive by, you're not going to shoot them out of a tree and go and hunt them. They become, you know, fairly, fairly challenging. Yeah. So, yeah. And I'm not so sure if they're super intelligent. I don't believe that, but they are like next level tricky. Like they want to have, they have a will to survive and they're a master of avoiding danger. Yeah.

um with those eyes and they're just they're just really good at avoiding danger yeah and just just their like daily timeline of you know them all flying out of a tree the tom staying with the hen why we want to be out there and call them in and then just the the i guess their daily routine makes them very you know sometimes difficult to kill because he's not going to leave the hens that he's with until they go to nest and by that time we're ready for a sandwich and we're heading in for lunch

So there's just things that are in place that just, you know, turkeys are just doing what turkeys do, but it seems to make them tough to hunt at times or to get that tom to break off. Yep, I agree. Yep. So let's compare how we like to locate elk compared to how we typically locate turkeys and kind of walk through that process. So, you know, we've always said, you know, elk hunting, you can either locate with a location bugle or you can, you know,

locate using your binoculars. The same can be said for turkeys. You can locate them by glassing them up. But a lot of times I would say we locate more turkeys by being audible. They're a little tougher to spot. You're not going to sit across the canyon necessarily. You can and look for them. You're mainly going to hear them talking to you or you're going to spot them at like the back of an ag field or something. The one major difference which we can jump into is turkeys can be located with shot gobbles. We can use

Other sounds, you know, whether it's crows, peacocks, some of their natural predators out there, some of the animals or birds they don't like, you know, door slamming, elk beagles during the spring, you know, almost any loud sound we can use to locate them, which does give us a little bit of an advantage on locating turkeys because they're

When you locate with an elk call, you've now announced yourself as a cow or a bull and their attention is now drawn to you versus if you're using a turkey call, you can locate them with a call or you can use a shot gobble, which now they're not necessarily as concerned about.

or paying as much attention to the direction that your crow call came from because they're not as focused. So let's walk through, Dirk, a little more in depth how we locate elk and then how we go about locating turkeys as far as take us through a day. You didn't have an elk spotted. We're just going to go run ridges versus you don't have turkeys. How are you going to go locate and how those compare and differ? Well, I think...

Folks who are big turkey hunters, they call it run and gun, running and gunning, right? So you're basically covering a lot of ground quickly and you're just trying to pick up a bird with your locator calls. You may stay in one spot and call for just a little bit, whether it's a minute or two.

and if you don't get a response, you move on to the next spot. And you're just trying to cover as much ground as you can to find turkeys. And we do the same thing with elk hunting. It's uncanny really, covering a ridge system,

Calling into every little nook and cranny of a draw or or up onto a ridge It goes to the same thing with turkeys, you know If you have a terrain feature in between you and the turkeys Sometimes you have to get to the top of that that train feature. Let's say it's a ridge Maybe you're gonna have to climb to the top of that ridge even even the most subtle of ridges on the backside could be a little hollow or something or a draw and

where a turkey's at and you couldn't hear him and maybe he couldn't even hear you. But you have to kind of eliminate ground by just covering as much country as you can, pitching your calls out there and kind of looking for those responses.

Yep. And that's, it's very similar for me as well. Like aside from glassing them, if, if we're, you know, Turkey hunting in Eastern Washington, which is similar to some of the country we elk hunt, um, we're going to jump up, get on a ridge that way we can, you know, utilize both sides of the ridge covered twice as much ground versus being down in a bottom, um,

or half hill on one side, and then we're just going to throw locations off of both sides, whether it's loud yelps, whether it's crow calls, whether it's a location bugle for elk. We're literally sound checking every little pocket, every little area, walking down that ridge, and we're just looking for a response so we can get that game started as we walk down that ridge and run, versus if we were in Kansas last year,

when we're you know in a more flat area you're looking more of that fringe area you know you're you're on the edge you may be calling down into those bottoms um you're calling into terrain differences but you're not necessarily running ridges like that so real similar as far as how we locate them how you want to get up let the sound travel a little bit farther and um

Seems to be, you know, you know, I was just thinking about how I relocate turkeys, uh, and elk, you know, sometimes, um, maybe it's the first day you're there into a new area and you've just never been in that place. Um, you know, I I'm driving all the roads and checking out the lay of the land. I'm checking out where all the other hunters are hunting. And, uh, I don't typically want to hunt elk or turkeys by everyone else.

So I'm getting the lay of the land, seeing where everybody is at, but you can also spot a lot of turkeys out of the truck, you know, especially when, you know, they're chasing hens from like the feeding area to their bedding area or from their bedding area to their feeding area. You can catch them crossing roads. You can see them out in clear cuts. You can see them in the fringe of maybe big meadows, you know,

um just covering country if you just have nowhere no idea where even where to start you know getting getting some glass doing a little glass in here and there but just covering a lot of ground with your eyes and then diving in from there and doing the the run and gun technique is just great yep yep i agree with that you know learn learn the land learn where you would want to be you know if you were a turkey you know you use your past turkey hunting experience to kind of figure out the area and then like you said get away from people and focus on that

So let's assume we've located some turkeys, similar to let's assume we've located some elk. We have a pretty good system dialed in for elk. You know, we check the wind, which we don't have to do for turkeys. We move in close. Thank God. Yeah, they would be really tough to kill. You know, but we get the wind right. We figure out kind of the terrain and the vegetation we're dealing with. We get close, and then we, you know,

For us, we typically bugle, but we might start with like a lower progression and work up. What does your system or your turkey hunting script look like as far as, all right, we've located them. Now, what are we going to do? And I would say after hunting, you know, with you, getting that turkey hunt with you, we've got a fairly, you know, scripted system the same way. Like we're going to move in the same way Chris Parrish and, you know, Randy and all the guys we've turkey hunted with. You're literally locating birds. The only difference is we don't have to check the wind now.

But how do you feel like that part of your turkey hunting strategy compares to your elk hunting and where they may defer? It's very, very similar. Once I have them located, I want to get close. I want to get close as I can without getting picked off by their eyesight. But with turkeys, I feel like I can't get quite as close sometimes, even in like thicker cover as I can with elk. Or if I do, I have to get super sneaky and just like

really not get picked off elk i think you can get a little even you know elk a lot of times you know they're living and dying by their nose but they rely on their their their first defense is is is their eyesight and um i gotta i gotta get pretty close to them and sometimes i think a person can get away with a little bit more with elk than you can with turkey turkey's just

Cannot they're just so tough and they're so small and then they have this little periscope head I call it their little head peeks up over little little terrain features over logs Maybe they're standing in a dip and they peek over the dip and it's really hard to see that little periscope head looking at you sometimes and they pick you off so easy so I I try not to get as aggressive or get as close as I do with elk before I start calling on my setup and

Yep. I'm, I'm the same way. And what seems to happen is every time I've tried to get super aggressive, move in on the bird, they're harder to spot. You know, it's a 20 pound Turkey versus an 800 pound yellow elk. Um, so a lot of times I get caught like not seeing them first where elk, I feel like I've got a pretty good chance of spotting them first cause I'm looking for them and they're not necessarily looking for a person walking through the woods.

So that was number one. Like a lot of times I bust turkeys a lot more than I do elk. And number two is even if you are moving super slow, I'm probably guilty of not glassing enough when I approach elk. But with turkeys, I got to really slow down. Use, you know, your binoculars. I carry tens with me everywhere. But, you know, back east eights might make more sense. But, you know, really just glass enough.

everywhere you're walking to be a little more patient and it seems like as we're approaching a lot of times turkeys maybe even more so than elk they just kind of shut up for no other reason then they just don't want to gobble for a second and even though they're right there at 100 150 yards they just haven't gobbled in a while and you get you know i get impatient i end up walking closer to where i thought the turkey wasn't end up busting them somewhere either those turkeys were on their way or they did just clam up and be quiet they didn't want to gobble

And then, yeah, the beauty of turkey hunting, this is the, you know, I guess you replace it. They can't smell versus an elk can smell, but their eyesight's so much better. So it is the thing I actually like better about turkey hunting, and it isn't so much of a challenge as I can approach the exact, you know,

you know, as the crow flies, I can just go that direction at a turkey versus, Hey, guess what? I got to climb up around this Ridge. I got to drop over the other side, drop down, you know, and elk hunting. A lot of times we're trying to do these big, you know, big ass loops to get around them or keep the wind somewhat consistent.

You know, one of the most frustrating things, I think anybody that's, you know, archery elk hunted or had to be close elk hunting, I think it's unanimous that the wind screws up that more than anything else. So I think, you know, their eyesight, you can trick it. But it is nice hunting turkeys like, hey, we don't have to, you know, get a wind checker out and mess with that. You can just go at them.

Yeah, exactly. And another thing that's very similar though to elk too is when I try to set up for elk, I want to set up in an area to make it easy for a bull to come to me, right? Yep. Same with turkeys. Don't set up on turkeys where...

gosh there's a nasty big brush pile between you and the turkey yeah sometime you know he's not gonna want to strut through the middle of that brush pile yeah maybe he won't want to cross a creek maybe it won't be a fence maybe you don't want to cross a fence it's the same with elk you know you want to set up tour it's just like super easy for them to come to you you want to make it as as desirable for them to come over and fight or breed as you can yep

Yep. So, all right, we've got our approach. We figured out how we're going to get close. You know, Dirk's saying we're not going to get as close because we can't be as aggressive. Let's say you finally got your good setup. This is a spot that's going to happen. What call are you going to first? And then kind of what's going through your head on an elk?

You know, we play the temperament versus what's going through your head on, on a turkey. And then I'll follow up with kind of how I think about that as well, because we, I think this is where it made the fur kind of a little bit from our elk hunting strategy to turkeys. Well, as with elk, I'm usually experimenting with that elk to see what call he reacts to the best.

Some folks will say, oh man, there's a, here's, here's your go-to silver bullet elk call. Like if you do this elk call, they're going to come running. But gosh, I just haven't found that. I just kind of called it this, the disposition of the bull and whatever he replies to. And the one, and you can tell when he really likes something or really doesn't like something, you know, maybe he gets, you can hear the change their tone in his voice. So that makes it easy to kind of know what, what he really likes. Now turkeys, I don't know that.

you know what? I haven't hunted him enough to tell the difference between when he's getting mad versus a regular gobble. And maybe there's no difference. I'm not sure. But, but for turkeys, I'm, I'm going to give him the same, you know, I'm going to give him some calls and whatever he reacts to. Okay. He likes those. That'll probably kind of what be what I stick with. But, um, as I've learned, you know, just to call, just to make him gobble a lot,

that's maybe not what I should do. You know, it's fun to say, oh man, here, oh, he gobbled again. Keep calling, keep calling. But sometimes, you know, once you kind of get them on the hook, less is more, I think. Let them start having to come seek you out, find you out, and maybe even just shut up for a while and let him get kind of worried like, hey, did those hens leave? So that's kind of my mode of operation. Yeah.

Yeah, very similar. You know, we the one major difference I would say is, you know, I'm speaking for you and me, like our approach to elk is a lot of times I would say 80 to 90 percent of the time we're throwing in, you know, bull sounds. So it's it's, you know, whether we want to call it bull to bull communication versus bull.

On a turkey calling side, I would say it's the complete opposite. Maybe five to 10% of the time are we going to actually gobble at a tom that we're trying to call in? So with that said, in the elk calling world, we will throw in more cow sounds, calf sounds, but then I would say our calling system is

plays on the temperament of the bull we're trying to call in it, and we try to get him fired up through bugling most of the time. We'll both agree that we would call an elk in with cow calls any day of the week. It's not as fun, but we're not above that. Versus on the turkey calling side, we're also playing to their temperament, but we're using hen sounds the majority of the time and gobbling a lot less.

So you are kind of changing your tactic on bowl-to-bowl versus hand-to-gobbler or hand-to-tom type speak. And

you know, a lot of times, like you said, be quiet. We use a lot of the same tactics. If that turkey is gobbling kind of half-heartedly, you know, we set out a seven Yelps and that turkey gobbles maybe 10 seconds later. It's like, well, he wasn't really gobbling at me, but maybe we got him, you know, with his head up and he seen another hand and he gobbled versus, you know, the same thing with an elk. If, if we bugle and he doesn't hit us right back, we're like, oh, he's not fired up at all. He's, he's just kind of, he's semi-interested. And then

similar to that i think we're always trying to turn you know what we call turn the temperature up on the elk it's like if we can slowly work him into being a pissed off bull or if we can slowly work him into caring more about our calls i think we do that with a turkey a lot as well like oh he's he's slowly you know gobbling and then you're like well he gobbled then maybe you cut fairly quickly after like you're trying to get him interested in what you've got going on but the same thing if a bull seems

you know, half interested, maybe we shut up. If a turkey seems half interested, maybe we shut up and just see if he comes, you know, over our direction. So as far as calling strategies, I think there's a lot of similarities. The main difference is

you know we're the bull trying to fight with a bull for the chance at his cows versus on the turkey side where a hen just kind of you know calling him away from his hens or to come over and check you out which in both instances go against kind of the way nature works you know a turkey gobbles so that a hen will come find him we're trying to reverse that an elk bugles so a cow will go find him we're bugling so that he will come fight us so we can take his cows so that's that's

That's kind of how I look at what we're trying to do with our calls there. Yeah, that's a really great point, Jason. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've gobbled at a turkey to try to call it in in the last years. It's just not common. You just don't do it. And then trying to get a call that replicates a good gobble is hard too. Yeah, there's lots of reasons why it seems like gobbling has always just kind of been a last resort.

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Now let's go into more of the, you know, how do we find them? You know, we mentioned earlier, like, you know, it's easy. I like turkey hunting and I'm not necessarily saying it's easier than elk hunting, but if we've did our job the night before, like a lot of times I know I'm going to start within 100 to 120 yards of a roost tree. So every morning I go out turkey hunting, like,

I know there's going to be action. Now, I would say, you know, 75% of the time I know when I go elk hunting, I'm at least going to be somewhere in the elk from either the day prior or we've just got ourselves into a spot that's going to be good. But let's go into how we find, you know, turkeys and make sure we're in the action versus how we go about, you know, finding elk, whether it's, you know,

getting up on the highest point glassing the most amount of country you know checking their feed areas just knowing where elk want to be versus all right let's say we've got them in the roost trees then and this depends a little bit whether we're hunting merriam's in eastern washington or whether we're hunting easterns you know back in the midwest like there are different ways and different strategies on where we're going to go find um you know those turkeys but go through kind of and we have a little bit like the differences on you know finding elk so we think of things like

you know open parks in the high country you know where i live here in southwest washington clear cuts is where they're going to find their food and then we go into like what i would almost consider like our subcategory it would be like wallows um you know some of these other places that we we focus on you know uh passes through a ridge versus are there any similarities with turkeys you know like dusting zones some of those things jerk if you can go into that like as an elk hunter we've got five or six

types of areas that we love to go look for elk versus on the turkey side, you know, aside from the roost tree, like how are we going to go find these turkeys and, and, and compare it to the finding elk. Some of the places I love to find turkeys. A lot of times in that,

in that afternoon, for some reason, I call them strutting grounds. And these places, a lot of times, are like a fringe area. And maybe it's a knoll. It's just a little higher spot where they can see and can be seen. Let's say these toms don't even have hens, but they like to go out and just kind of strut. It's usually like two or three...

It's like three buddies out there flexing in front of a mirror, trying to impress some ladies, get some attention. But it's usually at the fringe of timber or maybe it's in a clear cut, but it's at the edge. And a lot of times it's maybe, or a small meadow or something, kind of a small meadow that's not, you're not looking at a meadow that's a few hundred acres. Maybe it's a meadow that's five, 10 acres or something.

where they feel like they can expose themselves without being too exposed, if you see what I mean. So I really love trying to find those places. And sometimes, that's like I was talking before when I'm trying to cover country and I haven't even found any turkeys. Those are the kind of places I would look. Now, compare and contrast, you tend to find elk in the same kind of places. They like fringes. Yeah.

Typically at, you know, in the evenings or in the mornings, you don't find them right smack dab in the middle of a thousand acre clear cut or a giant open hillside. A lot of times at dawn and dusk, they're going to be in the edge, you know, getting ready to come out and feed. Whereas turkeys...

they're on the fringe, they're getting ready to go to bed. You know, they're trying to gather up in the evening. They're going to try to, you know, Hey ladies, we're over here, our roost trees here. And then finally they'll, they'll go to roost. Um, but those fringe type areas are great places to set up. Um, in the past, you know, I've, I've chased turkeys where I have a heck of a time in the morning, getting them to come to me off the roost. You know, all they care about is chasing those, those hens around and leave me in the dust. Um,

But a lot of times, a great tactic I like to do is if I know they kind of like to strut their little strutting grounds, I'll go set up near those places, whether it's in the afternoon, maybe it's in the evening. I want to get on their pathway to where they roost and then call them in on their path to the roost because they're going to come that direction anyway. And, oh, hey, there's a hen right over here. I'm going to just...

detour just slightly and get over to her and and check her out before we go to bed yep yeah and you know we're we're checking you know wallows compared to dusting areas or strutting areas where they're checking you know passes in the ridge for for elk movement um we do a lot of there are a lot of similarities maybe not the same areas where we're going to see if like a turkey's went through a pass you know on a ridge line but um you know changes in terrain have have been

you know a spot i always go and look if it's a big steep hillside and there's a bench through it for some reason turkeys just like elk love to sit at that kind of grade break or that difference in terrain you know the thing can be covered with the same vegetation all the way up but if you put a little bench out there it's just you know turkeys don't necessarily need to be there but it seems like they hang out there and my ultimate

favorite way to find turkeys in the middle of the day or, you know, at a time where I'm not on anything. So rather than cold calling, it's just old two-tracked roads kind of through the forest. For whatever reasons, whether turkey like to be seen, you know, whether it's toms I can display and be seen, we've did, you know, I would say over 50% of our birds are

Um, in Eastern Washington or even here in Western Washington have been killed off of old two tracks, you know, through the woods, like an old skitter road, um, an old two track that, you know, might just have a couple of ruts in it and it's grass the rest of the way. Like those birds like to use the path of least resistance as they move through, you know, they don't like to get wet. So they're just walking down a two track.

You know, they're kind of bugging, they're kind of feeding as they go along that. And it seems like, you know, walking those roads is more productive than doing anything else, you know, in the middle of the day. Yeah, I agree with that a lot. I find a lot of turkey sign, turkey scat tracks. And then just you find a lot of turkeys in those old two tracks, especially in a lot of places.

In North Idaho, especially if it's, if the forest is pretty overgrown and the road's been there a long time, you'll find like little patches of clover, you know, that's been planted by, you know, whatever logging company or whoever, whatever they planted in there, or maybe the deer planted it just by, you know, passing through seeds through their bowels or whatever. But turkeys love that stuff. And then, like you say, they're bugging, there's

it seems like there's a lot of bugs on old two-track roads and you know maybe maybe it's a muddy road and there was a hard rain the night before probably find a lot of worms in that road so it's a great place for them to feed

And they can move through it easily. And you know what? It's just quick and easy to get places. Yeah. And I'm going to move this point up a little bit. We're going to talk about finding sign and how you can use that to be more effective, just like we do elk hunting. Those two tracks are, in my opinion, the best place to

to look for scat, look for tracks, like what kind of turkey numbers are around. You can see different ages of tracks. So it's like, oh, they were obviously here a day or two ago versus, oh, they were also here two or three weeks ago versus the way we go and look for elk sign. You know, we're looking for rubs, trying to age those based on, you know, bark. So one of the main differences is

You know, I guess it would be kind of in place scouting. You know, a lot of people look at scouting is, is what, you know, for elk hunting, what we seen in July and August leading up to the hunt, you know, the same thing with Turkey. We scout a lot in March. We go out and locate, just listen. But during the hunt, let's say you didn't have a chance to go scout the area.

By walking these two tracks, I feel you get a lot more information than let's say, you know, Dirk's example earlier of a thousand acre field. Go out in a thousand acre field and try to figure out if there's tricky tracks or if there's scat. It becomes very, very difficult versus walking down that two track that's either at the edge or the fringe of ag or whatever.

you know goes through a bench um you know on on forest service or what whatever it may be is i seem to gather a lot more information um off of that two track you know we're finding dusting areas everything we need to know about is this a good place to hunt for the next week or you know at least the next morning can be found from that two track

Yeah. And a lot of times if it's, you know, typically springtime is not a dry time, but some, some years can be kind of dry in the spring. Um, if there's not a lot of ponds or creeks around, um, there will be some puddles in some of these two tracks, um,

And that's a great place to find turkey tracks. And a lot of times you'll see a lot of scat around those puddles. So then you can determine, you can tell an old turkey track or a really smoking hot fresh one. Yeah. And a little bit of mud there. So you're like, oh, wow, they're in here. And a lot of times you'll even pick up, you'll see a feather or two in that area. So, yeah, man, there's...

Those two tracks, that's a great place to find them. Yeah, I remember a little bit about my past, like watching the Truth series from Primo's. You'd watch them walk the two track through the old hardwood bottom, and it just seems like turkeys and two tracks are just meant to be. It seems like a great place. We've hunted off of them forever. And then one thing, the reason I like just hitting a two track is it lets me cut the country up really quick.

Um, out here in Eastern Washington, where I kind of grew up, cut my teeth, turkey hunting is what we see in March, you know, where a landowner may say, you know, all the turkeys are in the back field, whatever that may be. These, as these flocks start to break up and separate, they, the Merriam's for instance, they move a lot greater distance. And so what might've been loaded with turkeys, you know, mid-March, end of March, by time you get to, you know, April, end of April, they've dispersed, um,

And so going to what you've seen in March might not yield the best results, but by going and running these two tracks, covering a ton of ground, even if you can drive them yourself, just look for sign. It gives you, it just cuts that learning curve down really quick when you're there to hunt and make sure that you're on birds. - Yep, that's great. - I talked with Chris Parrish a little bit last week about what he looks for in a setup, but Dirk, tell me what you look for in an elk calling setup. Like this is the place that's gonna happen.

You know, you'd mentioned earlier, you know, you're looking for, for the elk to have an easy way to come in. We're not trying to, you know, put any, any roadblocks or hurdles in their way. What are you looking for when you go to set up on turkeys? Um, you know, this is where you want to call to him. You're a hundred yards away. He seems to be coming your direction. Like what's the ideal setup, uh,

on turkeys versus elk for you. And I believe these share dang near, in my opinion, every similarity, but I'll see if you can find any differences when you're setting up. Yeah, I'm with you. I know where your head's at right now on this. You have to kind of picture where the elk is going to first appear and be able to see you. Wherever he could first appear out of the woods, I want to be very, very close to that spot.

And I have to say the same thing about turkeys. I want to be close to where the first place he could see me. Turkeys now, I don't know if I want to be super close to that spot, but I want to be fairly close within shotgun range, which is pretty close for the most part. And it's similar to archery range for elk. You want to be pretty close. But man, I don't know if I can...

pick a difference there. I want to just be super close. Now I will say I will kind of maybe even be a little bit more concealed, um, as a turkey hunter than I would be an elk hunter. You know, like I would crawl in behind a bush with just enough room for my shotgun to stick out if I'm trying to shoot one with a bow. Um,

But for elk, I want to get in front of, you know, said bush or in front of a tree and try to let my camo work more than the surroundings because turkeys are just so darn sharp eyed. Yeah. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's real similar. You know, an elk, I would say the tree isn't as important of a part of my setup versus like turkey. I always try to get my back against the tree. That way it's breaking up the majority of my outline. Yeah.

versus elk, ideally I'd like to have a tree behind me to break up my outline, but I'm letting my camo work maybe a little bit more on elk and risking my setup because I do have to draw my bow. I do need to be able to get away with a little more movement where turkeys, once I get my back set up, I've really just got to swing my gun. But other than that, I don't want to set up behind a pile of brush for either.

um you know you got an arrow hanging out the end of your bow you don't want to have to turn and get you know 30 inches of arrow tangled up and brush you don't want the arrow to fall off your rest same thing with turkeys like if you have to swing your gun you do not want to catch even the smallest little twig and make it move as you're moving your gun so always in front of the brush let it break up your you know your background let your camo work and then i guess the other difference is in turkeys i feel a little bit

because my butt's on the ground versus elk, I can make more adjustments as he's coming in. If I hear that he's coming to my right, I can just turn my feet. I got more freedom versus I'm probably not when a turkey's coming in, gonna like stand up and move my chair a different direction. So I feel like with turkeys, I've got to make a little more

of a decision when I sit down, like, can I ride this position out or is it going to ultimately cost me is the main difference. But yeah, very similar brush on your background. Make sure you can move your weapon.

And then, you know, turkeys eyesight's going to be a little bit better. But the nice thing about turkeys a lot of times is where maybe we're not very smart for not using elk decoys. If we're in a spot or a situation where decoys make sense, we can get some of the attention off of ourselves and onto that decoy, which gives you a little bit more flexibility. But you still, I mean, if that turkey is 60, 70 yards away and you make any slight movement, even with a decoy, that head just whips to you, locks on you, and it's usually over. So yeah, really, really similar when we're setting up. Yeah.

I will say, um, one thing, you know, depending on what kind of camp you are, which camp you're in for elk setups. Um, some guys are all about being on their knees on their setup. Um, I 99.9% of the time, I will not take my knees on an elk setup. Yeah.

Just because I want to build a swing left or right. I want to be able to quickly move my position if I need to. I don't want my legs to fall asleep or if the bull comes in at a weird angle, I'm stuck facing the wrong direction. But...

typically you're not going to set up for turkeys on your knees you're not going to you're not going to typically stand um unless you've had to you know to set up for a turkey you're going to want to sit down comfortably so you can be there and then have your you know like you said be mobile with your with your shotgun you know build a swing left or right yep yeah perfect and then

As far as tactics at work, we're going to jump, we'll kind of finish up with this cold calling and why I feel that I don't have great success, you know, ever sitting down in some random spot where I think there might be elk and starting to like

you know, cow call, maybe bugle occasionally versus why I feel if you're in a decent spot, cold calling works so much better for turkeys. With that said, I will add the asterisk that we've did a lot of our own little like made up rep parties the last couple of years during elk and they've worked fairly successful. But I think we sit down knowing that there was a bull around, you know, four or five, 600 yards within the last 20 minutes. So I would say those are like lukewarm calling setups, but where truly if we don't know anything about

is is around and just sitting down picking a spot and starting to call why I think that works so well um you know on turkeys versus why it doesn't work so well on elk um I'll let you take a take a crack at why it doesn't work so well on elk and maybe why it works so well on turkey and then I'll add to it if if we've we've got some some things to add yeah well I think one reason it's a little bit weird for elk is um we get back to that whole nose thing you know sometimes that calling

cold calling setup, you will get a reaction from an elk, but it won't be a vocal reaction. It'll be him, a reaction by him coming and checking you out. And a lot of times they'll come in downwind and you may not even ever know it unless you hear a twig pop or something. You may hear a little bit of something and they never hear anything again. That could have been a bull that came in to check you out. And he was smart enough to come in downwind, um,

Whereas a turkey on your cold call setup, they come in, um, as long as they don't catch your movement, eventually they're going to give their stuff away. They're not going to smell you, you know, and they may not even be vocal. They may not, um, gobble, but you may, you might hear them drumming, you know, you might hear them kind of rustle in the rustle in the leaves or whatever is, as they, as they strut in. So, um,

I think there's kind of one big difference why cold calling on turkeys is a little more, works a little better. And sometimes it seems like when I'm cold calling for turkeys, it's middle of the day. And I see a lot of toms, they're just out cruising in the middle of the day. They're just covering ground, looking for hens. If they don't have a flock to tend of their own already, they're just out cruising.

And I see that a lot, a lot of just single toms out just looking. Whereas a lot of times middle of the day for elk, they've already kind of did their cruising at night and first thing in the morning. Now that's, there's a big asterisk by that too, because when it's,

When it, the weather's not, you know, nice and cold and maybe one of those old rainy days, overcast days in September and, and they're really looking for love. Yeah. Bulls will, they'll cover a lot of ground in the middle of the day too. Yeah. If they don't have any ladies, but, um, a lot of times typically elk kind of want to bed down in the middle of the day in their little sanctuary, catch up on their night's rest because they rutted hard all night or whatever. So, um, there's, there's never a, how do I say this?

There's never, always, never, and there's never, always, always. On either one of those, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. I'm going to have to write that one down, Dirk, to try to decipher what that just meant. Yeah. Well, I guess you can't never say never, and you can't always say always, right? There's so much variation, but there's some similarities through it. Yeah. No, I got it. And that's what I've come up with, trying to figure out why and how come

is, you know, the main difference is your, I guess the similarities are first thing in the morning, I would call it like active calling. Typically you're on an elk or you're on a turkey and you're doing the, you know, get ahead of them, chase them, try to get within distance. And then where the biggest change is, as you alluded to, is the elk are going to go bed down. Like their action is done at that point.

And so we've all went through this active calling the elk going bed down. Now we've got to make a decision, you know, whether we're going to mess with them in bed or if we're going to leave them alone and hunt them that evening or whatnot. And versus the turkeys are the opposite. Like typically what happens is the hens will leave to go nest. And now that gobbler is left all alone and he's willing to cover tons of distance because he's not going to bed down. You know, he's going to stay on his feet. He's going to look for other hens that aren't on a nest.

which we can be that perfect hen that he's looking for in that area. So I think that's the major difference where, you know, all of the elk go to bed, only the hens go to nest. And then typically we're no longer in an active calling situation where we're done chasing birds.

we can now you know to cold calling is going to work better because we just have a lot better uh you know recipient that that tom turkey is a lot more receptive to cold calling in the middle of the day versus a a bowl that's bedded down and kind of wait until the evening yeah it's almost like they're they're complete polar opposites on their schedules yep right

Elk love to run around all night long. Turkeys want to lay in a tree all night long. Elk like to bed down in the middle of the day. Turkeys like to run around in the middle of the day. In my opinion, to wrap this up, there are some stark differences in turkey versus elk hunting, but I would have to say there's a lot more similarities as far as how you cull them, as far as how you move on them, as far as how you're going to set up.

So I guess I'm still confused why there's so much hate. I don't even know if it's hate, just disgust with turkey hunters or people liking to get excited to go turkey hunting out west. I absolutely love it. I look forward to hunting this year. We're going to head back to Kansas. If you can come up here to eastern Washington, we're going to hopefully hunt our northeast corner where I kind of grew up turkey hunting. And like I say, I just...

As much as I love to hunt bugling elk in the fall, I look forward to spring turkey hunting, you know, just a notch right below that. But it definitely gets me excited. And it's the same game, in my opinion, to go out, locate, get as close as you can, and try to reverse nature and call this bird into your lap. Well, such a great time of year to be out there, you know. You've been cooped up all winter, and finally, you've got some pretty days, some sunny days, just...

you know what, even if the birds aren't playing the game like you want, it sure is nice to get the heck out of the house. You know, it's just a great time to be out there. And one more thing I was thinking about as far as similarities for elk and turkeys, shot placement, right? Shot placement. Elk are big, tough animals. Unless you shoot, you know, accurately into the right spot, right in the vitals,

They're hard to kill and, or recover. And same with turkeys. I mean, if you blast a turkey mid body with your shotgun, you're probably not going to

get it unless it's like point blank range right they're just so tough you know you have to take ethical shots that are going to kill them quickly uh same as elk you know whether in it don't matter whether you're archery or or shotgun you know for turkeys yeah you have to fool them you have to get them close and then like you said make a make a great shot so there's a lot of similarities just in like the the main overview like the 30,000 foot view is you know you're you're locating an animal you're getting them close and you're having to make a good shot um which

They carry a lot of similarities there. I agree with you, Dirk. I absolutely love the springtime. I love the weather's changing. The days are getting long. The day's getting long. I could do without, though, because it seems like by the time you're done roosting a bird, get to bed, and then have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go sit under a tree that you don't get a whole lot of sleep. And then the other thing I hate about spring turkey, and this may be the only thing I hate about spring turkey, is them damn ticks.

I've tried spraying permethrin, everything, and it still just seems like you're sitting there letting these things crawl all over you. We had, I think we both ended up with a bunch of ticks last year and limes. I picked off eight of them. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't like them. You know, a couple, I think I was on a couple different prescriptions for doxycycline a couple cycles last year. It's, yeah, but I absolutely look forward to turkey hunting every year. It's just a fun time. And whether you're

You can hate me for saying this or not. It's very, very similar to elk hunting and I look forward to it. Yeah, it's fun. I know you blow a pink call, but you're okay with it and you're okay with loving turkey hunting too. All right, perfect. You'll let both of those slide? Yeah, I'll let it slide. In closing, if you could give one piece of advice to turkey hunters out there that may add to their success, what would it be?

ah you know it's gonna be my kind of go-to for elk hunting and it's be persistent don't give up it's so easy to give up on turkeys and get frustrated i think turkeys are way more frustrating than elk even um

but you just got to keep at it because I don't know how many times I've been frustrated beyond belief and then have it turn around in the next hour to where it's like, oh, wow. Yeah. That's probably the best caller in the world after that little performance. So you just, you have to let your calls work. You have to give them time to work. And especially if you're a new hunter and you just haven't had a lot of interactions or success calling turkeys, you

It's okay. Just stick with it because you'll get it. You'll get it. And then you'll start seeing all the nuances of where it went right and where it went wrong. And then you'll be a lot more consistent at killing them. Well, I really appreciate having you on the show here today, Dirk. And good luck this spring and I look forward to chasing birds with you. Yep. Sounds good. Can't wait.

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