Ep. 74: Rapid-Fire Turkey with John Weik
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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. Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today I'm joined with John Wyke of Northwest Spirit Chasers. John served 35 years in the military doing military aviation work. He's originally from the Northwest hardwoods of Connecticut where he started hunting at the young age of 10.

He moved to Washington 28 years ago and started hunting turkey shortly thereafter, and he's never really looked back. He's a dyed-in-the-wool mountain turkey hunter with a run-and-gun style of chasing and setting up on gobbling birds and prefers this 100-to-1 over hunting out of a blind or patterned turkeys. Welcome to the show, John. Hey, how's it going, Jason? Good to see you. Good, good. We're only about two months away from opening day here, and it's getting close. Yeah, the countdown is rolling, and everybody's pumped.

How, I mean, you're over there more than I am. How was the hatch last year? Everything looking good? Numbers looking good? Yeah, the hatch actually was pretty decent. Birds are actually strutting and moving up already amazingly because we just don't have much snow. So that's great. Yeah.

Yeah, these mountain merriams that we hunted together last year, they love to be at that snow line. They love to be at the top of the mountain if the weather and the food sources let them. So I imagine this year, even more so than last year, we're going to be up high chasing birds. Oh, I sure hope so. Looking forward to it. Let them spread out a little bit before everybody else shows up.

Yeah, perfect, perfect. So we're going to start today's episode like we do on all of our Cutting the Distance. We're going to take some questions and answers from our listeners, our users, Phelps Game Calls customers. And if you want to submit any questions of your own, feel free to email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or send us a social media message and we'll do our best to get them in.

These three questions, I just got done with the Pacific Northwest Sportsman Show, John, and these were some of the most questions asked by either new turkey hunters or turkey hunters that started hunting and maybe don't have the experience. So this is where I kind of gathered these three questions from today. In your opinion, what's the best time of the day to hunt turkeys? And I'm going to add my own little twist to this because I think

There may be a best time of the day to hunt turkeys if you want to hear gobbles and get in action. And there may be a different answer for if you want to kill birds. But I'm going to let you go ahead and take that, and then I'll add on. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, it's definitely a best time of the day if you want to hear them. We all know, get out there early in the morning, listen for them. So 9 o'clock is fantastic. It's one of the best hours, I'd say, of the morning hours.

Just because birds have come down, those that are hand up are going to get hand up. And then depending on the time of season, obviously, some are going to cut away and the toms are going to get lonely and start talking again sometime after 9 and 10 o'clock. And they'll start talking pretty heavy. But I'd have to add to that at the same time, one of my favorite times would be 2 o'clock and on in the afternoon as well.

Yeah, and I'm, you know, I can remember back as a new turkey hunter. It was all about that early morning hunt, you know, sitting under a tree, hearing the roosted birds. And I loved everything about hearing the woods wake up, you know, hearing the 100, 200 gobbles plus whatever, you know, just birds all over. But then I started to learn, you know, as all good hunters do or people that should be reflecting. I'm like, you know what? It's real fun, but I don't kill near as many birds.

as many birds right then as I do later in the morning. And then it was kind of always the running joke is the old timers that have been turkey hunting for a long time. They'll sleep in. They're going to make themselves a nice breakfast, be a little more rested. And then when we're all coming in, cause we're whipped and tired, they're going to go out and kill the birds that we've been hunting all morning. Um, you know, and it's just, it's just that natural biology. It's not saying that you can't kill a bird first thing in the morning. It happens all the time, especially if you've got, you know, if you've got them patterned and know where they're going to want to fly down and which way they're going to want to feed out. Um,

Um, but it's just the nature of turkeys and, and especially as that season moves on, uh, and, and more and more of the, the turkeys are nesting or going to lay eggs in the nest or potentially even sitting on the nest full time. At that point, those toms become more and more lonely and it's just, it's by nature. Um, those toms are more susceptible and easier to kill, I think. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, it's like you said, you could dissect that question. Um,

this month or this week it'd be this thing next week could be a different one and then later later in the season you'll change those times again just depends on what cycle they're in yeah and like you know you mentioned the two o'clock i don't remember we mean i can remember me and you driving around in my truck looking at the the temperature gauge i think it was like in the low 90s to 230 233 o'clock we were doing short little hikes and uh we're like man we're just

it's hot like we you know you kind of feel like your percentage are really low we stop at one spot probably our 50th spot we stopped to locate get a bird to hammer and it was one of the cooler hunts we had that you know and it was a 230 you know three o'clock calling yeah it took a long time the birds weren't super active they came in a little more cautious but um

Yeah, those birds, you know, you say 2 o'clock, we talk about 9 o'clock. I like anywhere that's not, like, within that roosting time where the birds become more talkative early in the morning. Like, anything that gobbles in that midday seems like you have a pretty good chance of capitalizing or having a good chance of calling that bird in if he's very active middle of the day. Any time from, like you said, 9, 10 o'clock to 2, 3 o'clock is going to be a good hunt if you can get them to talk.

Yeah, absolutely. On top of that, you know, getting out in the morning, we all want to hear him gobble and it gives you a chance to listen to different voices and, you know, maybe dial in on a voice you really want to focus on. So that's really important too. And then understand they're hearing you when you're calling in the morning. A lot of people make that mistake that, you know, he walked away. He's not coming back. Well, give him time. He is coming back. You know, patience kills more birds sometimes than anything else.

Yeah, and doctor, I've mentioned this study multiple times. Dr. Mike Chamberlain out of the University of Georgia Wild Turkey Lab references it, and they've had birds monitored where if...

If that turkey, when he eventually loses his hens, they will typically come back by that spot three to four hours later. It might be a long time, but that turkey almost with very, very pinpoint accuracy knew where that hen was calling from, you know, you and they'll typically come back. Yeah. Yeah. They don't forget. Yeah.

Yeah, they'll eventually come check on you once their live hens leave. So keep that in mind. Patience is a virtue. I don't have a whole lot of it. John may have more patience than me, but I like the run and gun. I like to be on an active bird and not slow play it, but it can be effective.

Oh, heck yeah. I mean, we walk away from so many birds all the time for the same reason myself. I want to run and gun. I want to play. I want to hear the voice. You know, it's just like you want to sit still and wait for an elk to come by and you want to chase bugles. I mean, you know. I want to chase bugles. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I can, I sit in a tree stand. I could sit in a tree stand until I heard the first bugle and then I'm going to figure out how quick I can get down on the ground and go chasing around. Exactly. Nope. Yeah, that was one of the things we heard. Of course, being at a trade show, the second most, or probably the most

most asked question. Um, I'm new to Turkey hunting or I'm, I'm getting into it. I'm not a real good caller. What Turkey call should I get for hunting? Um, in your opinion, like where should you start? What should you have in your kit? Um, and then like, how do you progress to become a better Turkey caller? Uh, and, and what does that look like?

I think straight off the bat for anyone brand new starting out, you can't really beat a box call. I mean, it's not super hard to make the right sounds, obviously spend time listening to real birds and try to mimic and try to learn the language as much as you can. But, you know,

you know, a box call, as you well know, too, they're fantastic. They work great. And I've had birds coming down the line that I swore. I'm like, well, that's another Turkey hunter, you know, with a box call and around the corner comes a hen. It happens every once in a while. Like, yeah, man, they sound all right. Yeah. Last year on the hunt, um,

We're proud mouth callers. I think anybody that's hunted for a long time always wants to go to a mouth call. But we got on a few birds last year where... I don't remember if it was yours or Si's bird. We tried to... I always call it switch them to a mouth call. We got them fired up on the box, right? And then we wanted to switch them to the mouth call so we can be hands-free. And we kind of looked at each other and we're like, we're going to keep running the box. They were just hooked on that. And then my bird...

the long calling where me and you, so I had to run back to town and it was me and you, I can remember you had the, your bigger camera and I would like pick up my box just to make sure they were still there, but we could never really get them to gobble to a diaphragm. It's like, they just liked the sound of that box. And, um, you know, pot calls are considered easy to run too, but you watch people at these shows pick up a pot call. And if they don't know how to angle the striker with a lab, a little, uh, without a little bit of training, they struggle, but everybody can pick that box up, make a sound. Yeah.

Um, and you know, pot calls are easy. There's, you know, we don't make them, but there are push pin type calls that are very, very easy. Um, and then I always feel unless you've tried and practice. And when I say try it and practice, like you're not just saying you had to call in your mouth for 15 minutes and give up, but if you've put in time and tried to, everybody should try to run a diaphragm and learn it and make, you know, hands-free, um, you can, you know, make

all the sounds with it were like on a box call, you're kind of limited to Yelps. You can purr, you can cluck, but you're not going to make like bubble clucks and you're not going to be, you know, do, do certain things where you can on a diaphragm. The same with the pot call. There's just certain sounds that they, they don't allow you to make where, um, a full range of sounds on a diaphragm. So, uh,

Um, and it's a lot of practice. Like, you know, you didn't get to be as good as color as you did by putting the thing in for five minutes and that's how good you were or me. Um, it takes a lot of time, uh, a lot of practice. And so give yourself ample time prior to season, pick up some diaphragms, um, you know, and, and, uh, you know, ultimately if you, if those don't work, there's always a chance to buy a box or a pot, um, and still be able to, to make turkey sounds and effective turkey sounds out in the wood. Now,

and we all know it does it does limit your uh you know movement it doesn't limit your you know eliminate some ability to be hands-free um you know for those of you this may be a question that's new for turkey hunters like until you realize what movement you can get away with uh you may you know with having a box call on your hand you may be very surprised that your your first few birds don't come in and it's because they will pick up any sudden movement and i mean that's one of those other things like we don't probably talk enough

about is until you've been in enough call-ins and enough situations where you realize like how slow and subtle and what you're allowed to get away with. I think people underestimate a turkey's ability to like

That turkey decided 80 yards. You're like, I really don't know why he left or didn't commit. And you're like, well, did you move anywhere? You might not even question yourself that you had moved, but it may be some movement along the way. Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I mean, those are really good examples, Jason, too. I'm talking about...

um, distance and a bird's ability to, uh, peg you. I learned early, early in the, in the years when I tried scouting birds at 700 yards and the whole group would stop and just stare at me. And I'm like, that's amazing. They are actually seeing me cutting through branches at 700 yards. I was totally not moving much. So it doesn't take much.

Yeah. Yeah. And we had a couple of setups last year. I remember the one that came down on like the horseshoe where Cy was hunting, like, you know, we, he was coming and we didn't know, like maybe we were in a group, we had that weird setup in a green bank. Like, was there any little bit of movement there? Was there, you know, so you question yourself and, and I always think like, yeah, it could be the setups wrong or we didn't want, the bird didn't want to leave his hand to go there. But a lot of times, um,

if you get real critical and look back, like maybe we moved or maybe we didn't look right. Or maybe we weren't, you know, tucked in or hidden or concealed enough. Yeah. Yeah. But so back to the back to what call should use for turkey hunting. I would say number one, not to answer a specific type of call, but whatever your most confidence in, you know, whatever you got the most confidence in, whatever you feel like making out there, you know, be willing to use it. Yeah. Me personally,

Me personally, we can talk about all these fancy sounds, you know, Yelps, Clucks, Purrs.

I would say you always want to have as many tools in the toolbox as possible. But if you, if I had to go out with just one call, like go, go be able to make your good seven to nine. No, yelp is, is going to do the majority of what you need, but you know, we, but then we will talk about last year's hunt and we'll talk about each situation where we had to cut at this bird and we had to, you know, get this one fired up. And so that's where I think, yeah, you can hunt pretty effectively, but the more you can do, the better off you're going to be for sure.

Oh, without a doubt. And like you said, we're talking about the box call is hard to beat for a beginner. But yeah, you want to definitely start moving into that mouth call and get your reads figured out. Definitely what's nice about Phelps is they have different size diaphragms. You know, their frames are different sizes when you get one that fits right. And that takes time to figure all that out. But yeah, you can I mean, you can sit there and cup over it.

And you can make the sound throw in one direction, the other direction. And you're able to create amazing realism. And that's the difference over time you want to move there. Yep. Yep.

So the third question has a little more to do with locating turkeys. And we hear this every year. You've already hinted on it in the early question. And so it is these flocks. I'm going to go all the way back down. These winter flocks, especially Merriams, and we're hunting kind of a hybrid, Merriams, Rios. I think they're more considered Merriams. But these birds will, in the winter, congregate and be in flocks of hundreds and hundreds of birds, right? Yeah.

As spring comes along, as you're saying, they're already strutting, they will start to pare down into smaller flocks. And then that smaller flock might go up a certain valley and then they'll pare down to 10 groups of 10, you know, and then that group may... And so you get this dispersion and you hear a lot of guys, new hunters, or even, you know, people that are new to an area, like, I located a whole bunch in February and I can't find them in the spring, or there are a lot smaller groups. How do people...

in your opinion, how should people scout and then how should people like translate that to the spring opener or the early May season? Well, you know, scouting is a double-edged sword for one thing. Uh, you definitely want to hear him from a distance early in the morning. It's probably the safest way to scout, uh,

But if you start moving in physically and doing a lot of moving around and the birds start noticing you, they pick up really fast on the fact that, okay, pressure, things are going to change. They're going to disperse even more so. So really, if I'm going to scout a new area at all, it's going to be with my ears more than anything else and binos from a large distance. But be really careful. If you really have an area, you know, you want to hunt. Turkeys are going to be there, especially, you know, we're blessed here in Washington and, you know,

Idaho as well, Montana, some sorts. But there's birds. If you've got public land, if you're on it, you're going to find birds. So use your ears more so than letting them see you constantly. Yep. And now...

let's say we scouted, but finding turkeys during hunting season, you're in an area, what's your go-to? I know we had a little debate because I'm a guy, and I was testing a new call, right? So I've got this other business case, why I want to blow a woodpecker call or this or that. What's your go-to when you're just locating turkeys during season? Like, is this a good area? Should I keep running and gunning? Should I keep running this ridge? Like, what's your go-to to locate birds during season to get the hunt started?

My go-to is to get up high originally and listen earlier in the morning if I can, get up on a good elevation point. And if I'm going to make a call, if it's early in the morning,

You know, you can blow a crow call. You can make just about any loud noise there is. You can use a coyote call respectfully. You don't want to be too close doing that because you can set them on edge a little bit too. But evenings are great for coyote calls. They'll gobble to it. Mornings, you had that woodpecker call. It was fantastic. So, I mean, just about any loud noise that you can make that's reasonable and makes sense in the woods, they're going to gobble at it. So that's one of the best ways. But I like to start up high.

Yep. Start high. And then you were more of a, you, you tend to go to your just turkey calls for locating, right? You, you, we did use some locators throughout, but you tend to, you know, loud yelps, loud, you know, some cutting. And then that was typically your go-to while you're in hunt mode, might as well be the real thing and get that turkey to gobble at you. Um, you know, turkey calling more so than locator calls. Yeah.

A lot of people say, hey, man, you call kind of a little too much. And I'm like, yeah, I've heard that before. And I know some other elk callers have heard that before too, right? But yeah, my favorite, honestly, because I have followed hens that are looking for a tom. I followed one hen many years back and she literally went over three different mountain ranges. She never stopped talking. I mean, literally, I'm like, is this girl ever going to take a breath?

And she was looking for a tom. So I've learned from the real birds, you can call a lot. You can call an awful lot and become very realistic. And they're going to answer if they're there. Yeah. And I don't like to – I mean, we have did some podcasts with some biologists, and we talk about difference in subspecies. I do want to note that, like, when I'm hunting Easterns back in Kansas –

Not as much calling. We're out here in the mountains, Miriam, or Rio's chasing. I tend to call a whole lot more. Oh, yeah. And they're more responsive to calls. So keep that in mind. We've got listeners all over. So we may not be talking your normal...

Um, you know what we'd call like your ag edge, hardwood edge type Turkey hunting. This is more of our, our mountain hunting where you can get away with a lot more calling and just due to the terrain and vegetation, we might walk a hundred or 200 yards and this new bird could hear us where, you know, when you're in Kansas or, you know, Tennessee or where it missed it, wherever you might be, those birds, you know, flat as a pancake, you can, you know, that trick, you can hear from a long way. So maybe you're not, you don't just have to call that much to get responses.

No, that's a real good point. Yeah. For the most part, when I'm talking, I'm talking about our birds here for the most, if we're going to talk about Easterns, the whole game's going to change completely. Yep. Yep. Um,

Yeah, so thanks a lot, John, for helping answer some of those questions. Those were the three most asked questions we had here at the Pacific Northwest Sportsman Show in Portland last week. Once again, you have questions for me or my guests, feel free to email them to us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or send us a social message and we'll do our best to get it on here.

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Now we're going to kind of jump into our discussion, John. You know, we're getting excited. Me and you are going to try to coordinate a hunt. We're going to be, what, May 10th to 15th. So without giving away all of our secrets, I really love that time of year. You know, the hunting's typically pretty good. The birds tend to do what you want them to do. So I'm excited about that. But yeah, I'm excited.

Everybody hates when we compare elk hunting to turkey hunting, but I challenge somebody that hunts them the way we do out here in Washington, Idaho, even Eastern Oregon, to find, aside from the physical animal we shoot at the end and the sound that they make...

Very, very similar strategies, very, very similar terrain and country. Me and you and Cy, and people might, this might add or confirm that we're crazy. I think the one day when Cy was hunting, we did what, 16 miles the one day? Oh yeah, easy. I mean, that's not uncommon for me, that's for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, I mean, there's a lot of similarities. And I know people hate to, you know, out west. I don't know if it's a pride thing or, oh, turkey hunting isn't the same as elk. I'm like, it's very, very similar from any way that I've did it. You know, so very excited. Yeah.

I mean, some people, yeah, you're absolutely right. But it just comes down to how do you like to hunt turkeys? Sure, you can go sit on a field somewhere at a farm's place and, you know, set yourself up in a blind. But, I mean, that's not what we're looking for. Personally, on top of that, every turkey hunt's an opportunity to scout for elk as well. And they tend to be in the same places, just as difficult to get into. So that's where we like to go. Yeah, both of them.

Yeah, both turkeys and elk this time of year. You know, that April-May time frame, they're following the snow up, eating that newest, freshest growth, and they seem to be in the same spot. So, yeah. All right. Well, I'm going to start this one a little different for you, John. We're going to do kind of a rapid fire 20 questions here, just your opinion. If you had to pick box call, slate call, or diaphragms, you can only take one.

I'm going to take a diaphragm every time. Diaphragm. And then we probably know your reasons, but explain why you're picking diaphragms on this one.

For me personally, I can make every sound that I need to make with a diaphragm, whether it's making like a coyote, if I want to play like other kinds of animals just to do a locator call, I can do that on a diaphragm. I can sound like a young bird, like an old bird, and I can change the direction and distance and make myself sound like I'm in one place compared to another. And they're easy to pack. It doesn't take much for space either. So it's just really convenient with lots of practice.

Gotcha. Okay. Decoys or no decoys? You don't know if you're going two miles or 20 miles. You taking decoys or you're leaving them in your truck? For me personally, I always have a decoy. And I know a lot of people don't think that's even right. But then again, they're not filming all the time either. And I enjoy filming. So a decoy just gives me more bird time on film, especially if I can get them to come in and strut around it and hang out. I'll stay there as long as I can before pulling the trigger.

Yep. Yep. Um, we actually, I just got done with a podcast and I know, you know, you're, you're teamed up with a different company, but we, you know, one of the meat eater brands is Dave Smith decoys. And, um, just, just got done with a podcast on meat eater with Dave. And, and they're almost to the point where they've got some people within that company that don't like using the calls. They want to use the decoys almost, you know, they do, they do team them up with calls, but like sometimes they're like just decoying. So like take the calls away. You got the birds pattern. Let's set this out and see if we can get

this bird to do nothing but decoy and, um, kind of, kind of, you know, for me, I'm like, well, you got to use calls and turkey hunting, but there are people that, you know, just, there are different ways to do it. Right. And, um, we always pack decoys. Now, whether I get, you know, the running and gunning setup, a lot of times you're like, well, we were, it's, it's, you can't do it on this setup, but there are times where, you know, a lot of our birds, we end up on, on a logging road or somehow that seems to be our setup. Um,

And you can get them put out in the outside corner so the bird can see it. It can't see your location. And there are times where the decoys really do help and add to the situation for sure.

Oh yeah. And sometimes the negatives are when people don't really set them up properly or they have the decoy facing directly at where the tom is coming from. And a lot of toms will come around the corner and see a hen staring them down and he'll back off. So, you know, try to face the decoy slightly away on a 45 degree angle. Let them know it's a submissive hen and she's looking for action. Yep. I know your answer to this one, but I'm asking it anyways. Ground blind or natural setup? Yeah.

Run and gun. Definitely no ground blind. Don't need extra stuff to carry. But then again, I'm not in Kansas or some other place too. Yep. If you had some private ground, this might be for some of our listeners. They're not doing it the way we... And we hunt for a specific reason. I do want to preface this whole thing. Me and John are out there. We hunt a certain way. We're wanting to work the birds without being set up or necessarily patterning them. So we're not saying this isn't effective or won't work, but...

If you had birds on private that were really patternable and maybe it was a little more open ag country where, you know, these, these birds don't like to be tight in the timber, you know, Southwest Oregon, these birds, they fly down and they're out in the open for 99% of the day. Um,

ground blinds might be your best solution, especially if you've got good patterns on them. So we're not saying it doesn't work, but a lot of times these birds that we find, we literally had no idea they were there. We had a good idea. There should be birds around, but we don't know which pocket and we're locating birds that we have no idea. And we're just hunting them for the first time in that moment. Right? So we have no idea about these birds. And so, you know, we're, we're talking into natural terrain and I like that. I like that.

You know, the idea that we're playing them kind of on their turf, we're having to adapt and try to make it work. Yeah, I mean, definitely. If you're going to be in an open field or maybe at a farmer's place or even property that someone's just giving you access to, even in a yard, I mean, yeah, they're going to be in the open areas. And obviously set up a blind, get in there in the dark, hang out, let them do their thing.

Yep. If you, if you had to declare on your turkey tag, you could hunt from five to nine or nine to, um, one o'clock. What are you picking? Five to nine or nine to one o'clock. Ooh, I'd go five to nine for sure. I want to hear them and then I'll get in as tight as I can and be the first hand on the ground at the roost.

Okay. So you're going early, even though we we've talked, you can have success in both places. You're out there. You want to hear the gobbles, want to be in the action and make that work. Um, that's a tough one. Cause I mean, we've killed birds and you know, at both times, but I agree. I'm a, I'm a guy that likes the action. I like to hear all the gobbles, like to know where all the birds, how many birds are out there. And there's just something about that fly down and birds dispersing and doing their thing that I love to be a part of.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, but if you're looking for just success rate, then the other timeframe is probably better for success rate. But if you just want to suffer and really enjoy the calls morning, early. Yeah. Um, you have to hunt alone or you can hunt with a buddy. Ooh, I like them both equally 50, 50. I mean, I love doing solo hunts. I love filming solo hunts, but then I really love the camaraderie and everything that comes with that. And that's just another whole Epic opportunity.

Yep. No, I'm, I'm in the same boat. Um, yeah, I've probably hunted more turkeys with buddies and, you know, and maybe set a collar back just a little bit. But, um, yeah, I, I think the hunting alone, especially when I did some around here, um, back when, you know, we have Easterns here in Western Washington, we'd go out and I love just like working a bird on my own or firing a bird up on my own. Um, you know, it's like,

Yeah. But then, but like you said, hunting with buddies, I had a blast last year with you and Cy. Um, so I like, like you said, it doesn't really matter as long as I'm turkey hunting, I'm going to be good. Exactly. Um, this, this question, I know your answer running and gunning or sitting and waiting. Running and gunning without a doubt. I mean, it's, it's all about the action. It's about the fun, the excitement, the exercise, just being out there and moving through the mountains and seeing more terrain.

Now, with that said, let's dive into sitting and waiting a little bit more. During a call, let's say you've run and gotten to a point. How long are you willing to sit and wait as long as the bird's responding and you feel like you're working him? Or is there a point within a call and you're like, we got to get up and get a little closer, like he's been stuck for too long or he's unwilling to get closer? How do you make that determination where you're maybe, I don't want to say too aggressive, but you're being aggressive versus you're willing to sit and wait during part of a setup?

Well, for me, I mean, one of the reasons I like being out there early is to hear how many voices there are in a certain area. And just because they went quiet doesn't mean they left. I mean, that's something you learn. So then it becomes time to just sit down and shut up and wait for that next gobble to kick off on his own, because that's going to happen eventually. At some point, Tom's going to get alone or he's going to lose his girl. And you're there knowing that they were there and they still are. And you just got to believe it, have confidence, wait for that gobble. It's coming. It might be 10 o'clock.

Gotcha. Um, traditional camos or ghillie suits? Traditional camos, Turkey, traditional camos. All you Westerners like to wear the elk stuff, which is fantastic and works good. I just, I love the, I love the more greens, you know, you pick your suit. Yep. Yep. Um, so Turkey vest or like a chest pack, how are you organizing your stuff and what do you need to take?

Well, because I'm filming, the turkey vest is better because I'm loading it up with gear, extra batteries, extra this. And for me, I just enjoy the turkey vest. It's convenient for me. For a lot of people who run and gun, if you're not filming, you're not hauling a lot of stuff, then the chest pack is fantastic.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I ran that new FHF gear. You got to see it a little bit. We had one of the prototypes last year. It's kind of a hybrid. It's got, you know, it's basically a belt, a tactical belt where we could keep our box and our pots. You couple that with the chest rig that kind of holds it all together. You got the foldable seat. It worked really well, especially out West. Now, you know, back East, you know,

I don't want to call it lazy. I've even kind of got Steve hooked on this idea. When you're hunting Kansas and we're using electric buggies or we're using side-by-sides to get kind of there, I love a low seat and then just kind of keep my calls in the chest pack. I don't need a bunch, but I love having those very low-to-the-ground...

recliner chairs because with Easterns, it seems like I have to be a whole lot more patient. I'm going to sit underneath my tree for a whole lot longer. And the last thing I want to do is my, you know, butt cheek going numb or falling asleep and then you're rocking and you're rotating while you're trying to, you know, so yeah, I love that new lightweight system. But yeah, with you being self-contained or filming yourself, I could see where the vest and additional pockets and additional space to throw your decoys and stuff really, really starts to pay off.

Oh yeah, definitely. And yeah, like you said, I mean, even your bird, last calling, we were sitting a long time. I think I remember you not able to almost get up.

Oh, my both of my feet had fell asleep. Yeah. And so after I shot the bird, it was like three or four minutes before you weren't going to like break your ankle trying to trying to walk. Yeah, we were we were there for a long, long time. And that's where my stubbornness comes in because I was more than willing to kill that bird and wake my feet up and move around. So we were we were we were locked in for the long haul there.

Oh yeah. That's all film coming out in another couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting, we're getting real close. I'm excited to see how that all comes together. Yeah. Um, if, if you, if you had your own private land, I know we do a lot of public, are you going to hunt public or private?

What's your preference? I prefer public personally. I mean, I have access to a lot of private, but I honestly rarely go there. What I do is I save it for maybe kids or other people that need help or older folks as well that we take out and mentor. But for me personally, I'll just go to public because there's so many birds. Yeah, it's just really lucky.

It's so dang good. Yeah, I know last, you know, if you follow along your adventures with Northwest Bird Chasers, you know, you utilize that private at certain times or people's first birds or kids, like you said. And it definitely has its use. And I'm neither, I don't, you know, a lot of people, oh, it was a private land bird or it was a private land elk or private land, I don't care. Like hunting is hunting to me, but I agree with you. I like hunting.

I like at this point to challenge myself on public land or land that everybody has to hunt. And it's just, it adds a little bit of a level of difficulty. Not that I'm out there trying to find the toughest to kill bird, but it's just, it's not, not quite as easy as private land. And yeah, you, you, once again, it goes back to, we get to hunt them exactly where they are. We're not like waiting here for three hours. Cause eventually they're going to come through this pinch point in the field. You know, you're like, I'm just wherever I found the bird, never been here before. It's all brand new to me. And I love that. Like,

There's always a wild card. You can't plan for it. Yeah, it just adds a whole different level of stress and adventure to it for sure. And then sometimes just because you got private property doesn't mean it's always going to be easy either because a lot of people, if they want you there killing turkeys, they want everybody else there killing turkeys too. So you might find it's worse. Yep, yep, for sure. Shotgun or bow?

Ooh, I love them both. I used to do archery turkey a lot in earlier times. I just got tired of the mess, to be honest. And the shotgun is just easier, again, to pack along for filming. Yep. And one thing that doesn't get talked about enough, we're hunting these in mountainous terrain, right? Yeah.

If you may, even if you make a great shot on a turkey, yeah, you can, you know, without getting too detailed, you can decapitate it, you know, you can do some things, but if you make a perfect turkey, a shot on a turkey, there's nothing saying that that thing doesn't pitch off that mountain and end up flying over a group of trees before it decides it's going to die or expires or, you know, they leave bad blood trails. And so why I, I love the challenge of bow hunting. I'm like, there's something about.

not losing a bird that I feel like I owe him a little bit in certain terrain. And, uh, you know, where sometimes private land, you know, the it's flat ground. So the Turkey just kind of runs off or you can, you know, keep track of them where in these mountains, these birds get spooked or get shot. They might pitch off of a mountain and you may never find the thing. And that's not what I'm out there for either. Oh yeah, definitely. And it is definitely a much smaller target, obviously. And I've been on a few bow hunts with other people where, um,

a lot of time was spent trying to recover a bird, which was never recovered. So yeah, it's not, not enjoyable. Um, open, open, uh, in the woods or open, um, terrain or vegetation, excuse me. Uh, both have their adventures depends on where you live. But I mean, for us out here, I'll always go for the thick and dark and all those inside of 20 yard shots.

Yep. I mean, like that spot where you and Cy killed your bird, like it was pretty open up top and then it was timbered. So it's not like thick timber, but it's kind of a mosaic. And it seems like we end up finding ourselves, you know, a lot of this is industrial timber land where you're going to have, you know, thick.

timber patches you're going to have clear cuts you're going to have your road systems and that's why a lot of time these road systems inside the you know these heavy timbered ends up being like good travel corridors so it's yeah i'm with you i want to be in the woods be tight but you know you may find yourself in a road you might find yourself in an old clear cut or a thin piece of timber um you know it's really wherever we find the birds yeah and they're definitely going to use every easy access because they love easy traveling too so you're going to find them wherever you're walking easy

Are you hunting the rain or are you going to just wait for clear weather? I hate hunting turkeys in the rain. I hate it as much as they enjoy it. Basically, you'll see them just sitting there all hunched over like somebody without a raincoat, just miserable. So I'll stay home. It's not worth it. There's better days. Unless you have to.

I was going to say, you have the luxury of being close and you dedicate so much time to it that you'll just pick the good day. Now let's say I'm coming over or I'm coming to an area, I've only got five days to hunt. Might as well be out there, right? It might not be as good, but there's always a chance. And it seems like we talked a little bit last year where we want the weather patterns to kind of stabilize for a short stretch, but

Do you notice like if you come off the backside of a rainstorm, maybe there's a break in the weather and it really clears up. Are you going to get better action? Is that like a good time to be out in the woods? If the pressure stays the same, then yeah. And even in a heavy downpour, we've called birds in in the past on times. Like you said, people came in out of town and, you know, we got these three days and these three days are bad, but we can go out there in a heavy downpour and still call a bird and gobble. And even though he looks terrible, he'll come in.

But, you know, if I have a choice, it's different. And like you said, if it breaks, usually they're going to light back up pretty quick or you'll find them on the edge of a field out here or an opening where they can catch a breeze and dry off. So go to those openings where the wind is giving them a chance to dry off. If you only had to, you have to hunt near water or hunt near food? Ooh.

I don't find that hunting near water with our birds is critical, not at all. So food seems to be more important and that changes depending on what time of the season it is. Gotcha. We have to make an assumption on this one. You've got a hen decoy, but you have to grab your second decoy. Are you grabbing a long beard or are you grabbing a jake?

And that's a tough one too. I mean, a long beard is going to work if you don't put them in a dominant area. And it depends on how I've found personally, it depends on how many birds are in that zone. If there's a lot of dominant toms already there, then a tom's not going to make a difference. If there's maybe not quite so many, I've found that a Jake works really good at a distance from the hen. Gotcha. Are you going, are you bringing a 12 gauge or a 410? Or a 20? Yeah.

If I had a choice between all of them and I only had to choose one gun, I'd probably bring that 12 gauge because sometimes out here you are shooting through a pile of junk. So that's going to be the number one choice if I had to pick. TSS, heavy shot, or copper? TSS every time. Let's see. If I could buy a really cheap Walmart arrow to go elk hunting, would I do that? No. So I'm going to go TSS.

And TSS, like, and with, to add to that, we both use custom ammo. You've got a custom ammo supplier. I'm using some Foxtrot that, um, it's just good. And it's, it's amazing when somebody takes a little more time and, and, you know, gets the right buffer and gets like the right load, just how much more you can pull out of these shotguns, which you can only kill a turkey. So dead. But like you said, when you're shooting through brush or, um, I don't, I,

I'm very hesitant to use the word marginal shots. It's they're good shots, but you need to know your equipment and that you're going to have enough BBs going through there to be very lethal and effective. But yeah, some of these custom loads that people are using now, you know, and some of these, you know, you use pattern master chokes. I use Indian Creek. You use a different just regardless. I guess the moral of the story is know your know your choke, know your load and know that when you pull that thing, you're gonna have a whole lot of TSS hitting inside of a, you know, the head and neck.

Yeah, like you said, I mean, time on paper, we can't say that enough. Get out there and know exactly what's happening at different distances, what it's capable of doing. In TSS, you know, you don't need to spend that much money on a shell. But, I mean, if you want to take your best shot, then you might as well be using a number 9 BB that has the weight of a number 4 or 5 with small, amazing penetration. So, why not? Yeah.

No, that's the thing. Like I make a point, especially with my wife, I never add up what it costs to kill these turkeys, you know, after gas and tags. And it's like, all right, yeah, these, these, some of these shells are five to, you know, five to 10 bucks a piece at times there, they are expensive, but like, that's the, that's another gallon of gas when I just drove across the state and then got to drive all the way back. So it's like when the time comes, I just assume kill the turkey, um, be a very effective, have additional effective range if needed or a followup shot.

So I'm with you there. I like TSS, you know, heavy shot was the best we had for a while. And then, you know, it's like I had rigs built for copper plated too. It's like, as long as it's good enough on paper, just make sure you're confident in it and know your effective range and then go out and make it work. I mean, pick the company you want to work with, whatever shot you're happy with and what you feel confident with equipment wise. That's really what it comes down to. Would you rather, if you could only hunt in one place, would you be feeding areas or roosting areas?

Uh, probably feeding areas, to be honest, if I only had a choice of one place because they're going to go there guaranteed. Yep. Um, when you call you, you either can call very aggressively or you can only call once every 20 minutes.

It's going to be aggressively for me because I really like to make a point. And you can demand a Tom come. There is a way of doing that when you understand the language a little bit better. And I have a lot of examples of it. So if you're experienced, then you can get aggressive. If you're not, then take your time and listen to what they're saying back if you can.

Yeah. Um, so that kind of, that kind of wraps up our little rapid fire section there. Is there anything you want to elaborate on? Um, you know, you're a wealth of knowledge. I really enjoyed, I had never hunted with you until last year. And it's, it's funny when, you know, size been successful. I've been successful. You've been successful. Like, is there anything that you feel like you do different or maybe things that people don't talk about enough as far as like

you know, finding success or things that you do a little bit differently? Is it, is it areas that matter? Is it the way you hunt that matters? Is it, what are the, what do you think, you know, give, give our listeners, you know, three to five good tips that you feel, you know, maybe not everybody talks about or things that really matter. Like if you could take these three to five things and implement them, everybody out there would be successful.

For me, again, I'm going to go back to I really don't have a problem walking and calling constantly all the time. Basically, I'm not going to walk too far without a call because if you're going to pretend to be a real hen, then be a real hen and call pretty consistently in the morning when you're looking for another tom because you're telling them that you're a hen without a tom and you're looking to breed.

So do it every 30 to 40 yards, literally. That's one of my success rates. It's really high. Don't be afraid to go into areas you've never been in before. Don't feel you have to scout it. Just get in there and put your time in. Walk around the perimeter of properties rather than down the middle of them. That's another really good successful point if you're doing small parcels.

Don't overlook small parcels. A lot of people want to find that big giant piece of land that they can go in and play with birds all day long. Some of the tiniest piece of properties that get overlooked are extremely good. Just walk around the outside of it and don't think. If you see sign, know they're there. So you can stay there all day and keep walking around it, calling like a hand. You can demand they come. They will. Just be patient.

Yep. I mean, we were hunting an area last year that had some very, very steep terrain, um, kind of over where I ended up killing my second bird with you. Um, and you know, I looked up and there are turkeys up there. It's like everything is holding birds. The mountains are holding birds. It doesn't look like your cookie cutter turkey country. Cause there isn't any ag, there isn't grassy roads. There isn't, uh, you know, open clear cuts. It's, it's all steep, you know, reprod big timber, but there are birds up there gobbling. And it's like, if you put in the effort up there, I, I,

I don't want to say I guarantee, but with pretty good certainty, nobody else has messed with those birds because of where they're at. People don't want to climb 1,000, 1,500 feet above the road to a high point, but there are birds that are roosting up there on that ridgeline, and you're going to be in birds. Walk us through real quick. One of the big things, and one of the things I still struggle with is I'm maybe too much of an engineer or a mathematician or a guy that wants like everything's a probability, right? And then one of the most difficult things to,

I struggle with in the morning still to this day is either you roosted a bird at night and you might not know the exact tree. You might, there might be multiple gobblers is, is it's just, you know, what 30 minutes before daylight and they start to gobble. I never know which one to sit by or which one to set up on or, you know, and a lot of times it comes down to, to just our gut feel, but it's like, all right, here's Onyx. I think these ones might fly down here. I think this is a tree they're in. Should I call? Shouldn't I call? Um,

What's your process in the morning? Like, is it a gut feel that this one's the closest or like last year we moved a couple of times because you specifically thought a bird was bigger based on his gobble. So we maybe like we're going to set up on that one. Like, is there is there a better way to figure that out in the morning? Is it really just try your best set up close set up where you think he's going to fly down?

Well, I mean, again, we're talking about our birds and I'm not talking about birds in a different part of the United States. So I'll go with that instinctively and say, if I hear them gobbling, I want to try to get in reasonably tight, preferably between honestly 50 to 75 yards, depending on the cover out. Of course, if you don't have a lot of cover, then you're going to maybe be at a hundred yards. But if I can get into 50 and still have good cover, then I'm going to go with that.

and start working them when they start working, letting them gobble in the morning. And then you got to understand tree talk and you got to understand what that means and start talking like a hen that's up in a tree. And if you can get him fired up and if he's gobbling in your direction, basically telling you he's locking in on your tone,

And you know there's hens there because you probably wouldn't be there if there wasn't any hens. Then you want to flap, slapping your hat on your pants or having a wing, whatever you have, and be the first hen on the ground and then start doing a demanding gather up call.

And for me, that honestly has worked more often than not. And I have a lot of videos that show, you know, roost work and demanding they come because you're the hand on the ground. And usually if you have more than one tom in a tree, it's even better because the younger tom is going to say, here's my opportunity. She's on the ground. I better get down there fast before he does. And that works really good.

How much can you get away with when they're in the tree? Like with the flap down, like they need to be out of visible. Like they can't see where that's happening or can you get away with it early enough? And then like getting into your tree, are you okay? You know, once they're gobbling, like, do you feel like you've got a little bit of security to move without them picking you off? Like, that's always, always my concern. Like, all right, they're already gobbling. They're obviously awake on the limb. Yeah.

Can I get to 70 yards or do I need to stay out of there? Can they see yet? You know, like those are some of the things you just play with. And some mornings you're like, I think I screwed that up or other mornings you're like, oh, I got right in here and didn't seem to bother him at all. Yeah. And again, if, if you have the cover and you can get in that, that's fine. But if you don't know the area, you obviously, you better be pretty darn careful if light is starting to come up.

If I can see what's in the tree myself, they can see what's on the ground for the most part. But turkeys are kind of funny in this regard out here. If they're up in a tree, they feel extremely safe. And if it's not a heavily pressured area, you have a lot of leeway to get in. The goal is get in and shut up for at least half an hour.

And don't give away the fact that you just sat down and then they pretty much will forget about the fact that they heard a deer or heard an elk crashing in their way through. I don't worry about making noise because everything's making noise in the woods. Yep. Yep. No. And that's the thing that usually you can let them settle down. Last year in Kansas, the very first day we were there, we didn't get a chance to roost the night before. Just had to guess, uh,

Set up right under the bird, like 60 yards away. Had a decoy out. It got daylight, and a few jakes flew down, and then his hens hung out for like an hour, and he didn't come down to fly into those hens until like an hour and a half after daylight because we were so tight. And that's one of those things where like...

They knew. He knew something was wrong. He knew at some point something, but ultimately had to fly down to those hens, which were out in front of us and ultimately led to his demise. But yeah, you can booger him up pretty easy on that roost. And so I think that's where I play it real conservative, back out, and it might not work all the time. But yeah, we were real aggressive. It didn't work the one time last year on the roost with us, but we had birds everywhere around us. We had hens popping their head up. We were kind of on a bench that had a real steep slope

um, drop off. And so it was kind of a, an interesting setup, how close we, and it was, it was fun because you never knew what was going to pop up, but yeah, no kidding. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that was, that was fun. So, uh, no, I really appreciate having you on John. You're one of the, you know, one of the guys I look up to when it comes to turkey hunting, get it done year in, year out. You spend, you spend as much time turkey hunting as I do elk hunting. So I respect that. Um, and, uh, yeah, you're, you're wealth of knowledge. And can you let other people know where to find out about you? Northwest bird chasers, let people know a little bit. I don't want to mess it up. You do some veterans hunts. You take a lot of kids and youth or first time hunters, um,

elaborate on that a little bit where people can find you and then can't wait to go hunt with you in May.

Oh yeah. Looking forward to it. We're going to have a blast. Let's just hope for that weather again. Yeah. Yeah. We need some weather, right? Although looking really good so far, but as far as finding me, you know, you can find me on Instagram at Northwest spur chasers. No problem. You can also go on YouTube and I'll answer anything you guys want to talk about for the most part, unless you're looking for an exact location, you know, that's unrealistic. Yeah.

So beyond that, those are the easiest ways to get a hold of me. I stay on top of it. You can message me through either one and we can talk more. And, you know, you look back at the videos. I got stuff up there that's even embarrassing for me to watch. So it's fun to lead the progression and not be afraid to show people. Look how it was in the beginning. And, you know, here it is now. So you can learn a lot.

The veterans thing, I do want to put a pitch out there for that. So one of our passions is we're always looking for opportunities to give back. And so, you know, Heroes Harvest is who I like to work with. And we've been running a camp over in Idaho. We're actually taking a break this year simply because we want to secure more property rather than constantly bringing people back into the same places and taking birds from a lot of the same places.

So we're kind of taking a break to secure a bunch of private properties so we can work our heroes harvest for next year and years coming as well. But we are going to work with the BHA chapter from Washington of the AFI Armed Forces Initiative, and we're going to do a multi-joint camp with them.

So we'll be helping out there as well. The other passion I have, of course, is taking out kids. Always looking for young kids that don't have dads or maybe someone that is just not in their life that needs to, they have a need to learn more and want to learn more. So we put a lot of time into that too.

And that's probably the two big passions we have. Paying attention to you, you're always helping, you're always willing to help. It's one of the awesome things about you, as well as just knowing a ton about turkey. So I really appreciate having you on, John, and good luck in your turkey season prior to us getting there, and then can't wait to meet up in May. Thank you.

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