Show Notes
This week on the Limbhanger Turkey Hunting Podcast, Shane Simpson joins the fold. We're kicking off a mini-series about how to plan & execute your turkey hunt when chasing the 49 state Super Slam. While that's the focus of the series, everyone's goal in the turkey woods is to fill their tags quickly, regardless of whether you're chasing the super slam or not.
Shane Simpson has a solid history of being quick and efficient in the turkey woods, no matter the state. When brainstorming a good guest for the topic, we all immediately knew he was the right one! Boy, where we right!
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast, where you're gonna hear opinions and discussions from all aspects of the Turkey hunting community. From legendary Turkey hunters who hunted in military fatigues to modern day Turkey hunters embracing technology while maintaining the traditions passed along for generations.
All are welcome at this round table conversation. The war creatures in the woods. That's the North American Wild Turkey,
and welcome to the Limb Hanger Podcast. Tonight we have Parker McDonald, Joey Bell, Matthew Reeves, and our special guest, Shane Simpson from calling All Turkeys Shane. Good to have you on here, sir. Thank you for having me on, and you probably should tell everybody who you are. Yeah. . Yeah. You let yourself know that.
Come on. This is true . This is a rookie move. This [00:01:00] is my first time trying to kick off the podcast too. This is Adam Cruz. So for those that dunno my voice. Yeah, I was watching the screen, all the little little monitors here as you named everybody. And I was like he didn't name himself.
So man, I just figured everybody would know me since like my second time being on here, . It's either the most humble thing or the most arrogant thing. Like you just know who I'm . I'm gonna go with Humble or, just missed it. Oh, Shane, man, it's it's good to have you on here tonight. So thanks for joining again.
We've been sitting around kicking around ideas on what to talk about and what hunters would be interested in right now. And I think a lot of us are all in this kind of planning stage, whether that's planning for opening day or we're talking about planning for next year and then some of us, like me are just procrastinators and we're like, dad gum.
I'd like. Hit as many states as possible last minute. So we've listened to you over the years doing different podcasts, watched your videos over the years, and everybody knows you're traveling all over the country to, to hunt turkeys. So we're excited [00:02:00] to have you on and talk about this tonight.
Yep. Looking forward to it, especially this time of year. I'm in the same mindset as you guys. I'm loving talking about Turkey as we, wait for Oprah. . So where are you? So those where are you kicking off at, Shane? Where are you starting? Nebraska. Nebraska, yeah. I'm not making any long trips this year.
I've got some side, I'll go ahead and get that out of the way. I got a side project that I'm working on that's gonna take a lot of my time and revenue or money. So I don't. I really can't afford this to travel as much as I did. I will hunt as much, I'm just gonna keep it local, neighboring states and whatnot, and try to put some of that money aside to work on this side project.
And then hopefully next year I'll be done with it and I can go back to, traveling as much as I used to. That's cool, man. Are you hitting that Nebraska archery season up, or what are you doing there? Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the archery and then bounce back and forth over there for that just to, [00:03:00] cuz they opened, in March for Archery.
And basically it's the earliest I can get a startup this way and then I'll wait for some of the gun seasons to open in some of these states. Iowa, I think I'm doing yeah, the first season in Iowa, which is April 10th, something like that. . Yeah. Living in Minnesota, it seems like you got pretty good quick access to really good Turkey hunting as it is.
Like you don't have to go very far for some killer Turkey hunting. Yeah, I can, if I used to plot or plan my trips based on how, where, how far I could get within eight to 10 hours, and that was because of my schedule at work. I used to work, second shift. and I would take a few days off if I left work, how, where could I be tomorrow morning in order to hunt a couple days and then jet back home.
And I can go all the way to the Nebraska, Southern Nebraska. I can get to Iowa. I can, I I can get far south [00:04:00] in 10 hours. The Dakotas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, all that. Yeah, there's a bunch of states I can hit within driving distance to even just hunt for a weekend.
Shane, you you're originally from the South, correct? Yep, South Carolina. All right. So you're from South Carolina, ended up in Minnesota, is that right? Yep. All right. In Minnesota, it like you, you really have a viewpoint that not a lot of people get. You hear guys down south, especially down south, talk about how hard the Turkey hunting is in the south, and then you hear guys in the Midwest talk about how turkeys are everywhere.
What I don't is min, first off, is Minnesota considered Midwest and also like as far as like levels of the country you got South, Midwest, and north, is there one that you're particularly fond of? Minnesota. And I've asked that, been asked that question lately, and Yes. First of all, Minnesota is in [00:05:00] the upper Midwest is what they categorize that.
But it's part of the Midwest. I used to, yeah, I used to name states that I've, that I felt were my favorite, but now it's more of a terrain feature hill country. With Eastern gobblers, not Miriam's and not Rios or whatever. I like hunting the timber, hardwood ridge tops, you can use the hills for terrain for cover to move around and maneuver.
Plus it's it's a lot easier to hear to get birds to gobble at a distance when you hunting those that basically like mountain type terrain, it's not quite mountainous, there's elevation changes. anywhere from three to 600 feet or something like that. But you can get out on a point and you can code how or hoot, and you can hear birds from a mile away.
If you can get cod, how loud enough you can get 'em to gobble and then you just have to figure out what point are they on that ridge and exactly which ridge they're on. Whereas in flat country, you it's, [00:06:00] you're only gonna hear a bird gobble, 6, 7, 800 yards away. Sometimes, quarter to a half mile maybe.
So you have that. That's one luxury or one aspect of that I enjoy. And then just the terrain itself, using it to my advantage to hunt. And then who doesn't like calling gobbler through the timber, waiting for 'em to pop into view. You hear 'em gobbling, you hear 'em drumming, and they're right there.
You're just waiting to see 'em come into view.
You've you mentioned where you like to hunt the most. What's your least favorite habitat, terrain that you get? Pine trees, . Yeah. I grew up in South Carolina and it, they grow pine trees down there and like they grow corn here in the Midwest. And it's just, it just seems like a desert, of, it's nothing but pine needles and or briar thickets and it just doesn't seem like very good habitat.
And although I've, I grew up in South Carolina hunting turkeys in there. I only found turkeys in areas where there, there was like ravines. They were not allowed to [00:07:00] cut the timber in there, so you had just some mature oaks and those ravines at least in South Carolina, they protected those water watersheds or whatever.
But if you were in an area it seemed like me, it was just contiguous pine rows of pines forever. The Turkey population wasn't good at all in those areas and I just hated hunting them. And plus it was hot in there , yeah. The pine, pine forest don't give you those nice, cool breezes and and all that other stuff that see, that's springs so nice.
Shane. The thing that's interesting to me about that is, I know exactly what you're talking about, but when I think about hunting turkeys and pines, my mind doesn't go to Southern Pines. It goes to ponderosas and being out west and that kind of stuff, where it is pine needles and all that crap too.
But it feels different. That's totally different. It feels different. It's not the same type of pine. , and I don't know if it's because of the being up north it, there's other vegetation that seems to grow. And then plus usually you're in a hilly, like if you grow to the black hills, that's a good [00:08:00] example.
That's hill country. But with Ponderosas and whatever other kind of pines, they haven't grown out there. The ones living anyway that hadn't got destroyed by the pine bore beetle. But yeah, that's a, that's I enjoy that too. I just don't like hunting, I guess like south. Pine plantations where it's just rows of straight rows of pines that you can see forever.
And I don't know, it's just not my favorite place to hunt. I like a little, I like a little diversity. Yeah. And then like in the black hills the diversity, there may be a lot of pines, but the diversity is the hills. It breaks up the monotony of the just rows of pines and. Parker makes me laugh because we were talking today about our Florida hunt and not, it was last night and we were texting pens back and forth to to Walt down there in Florida, and he said, oh, Adam, you're gonna love it down there, man.
There's just rows and rows of ponds. I'm thinking I never really hunted that much. Ponds, . So now Shane's got me thinking maybe I don't wanna, it's just a sea of pines. [00:09:00] It's amazing. . Yeah. Wal Walter Gar holding me. I hunted down there not far from. where he lives. And we hunted an area. It was planted pines, but there was a, there was cabbage, palms and other stuff growing down near the ground.
And I don't know, it was a little bit different. Florida has a little more water, a little, even though the elevations don't change drastically, there was low areas with thick vegetation and there's a lot of sand there. So you can pick up on gobbler tracks. When I keep mentioning Southern Pine Plantation, I keep re.
Going back in my head to where I grew up hunting this public land, a lot of pines. Red clay, you didn't find gobbler tracks hardly unless it'd been a soaker because the ground just was hard as a rock, and so you basically, if you didn't hear birds gobbling back to you or hinge yelping, you didn't know there was ever any birds there at all, unless you stumbled on some dropping.
the way that I hunted those places, I would, especially if it was a new place, I'd find a little creek or something runs [00:10:00] through it, and I would basically walk in the creek the entire way, looking in the banks either side to see if there a Turkey had crossed it or came down to get some water. And that's how I figured out if there was turkeys in the area.
James, we're thinking about traveling for turkeys and really trying to plan a. , how many days do you try to give yourself, once you get to your location, to like the end of the hunt to be able to kill a bird? I know you've mentioned a couple times like you'd like to do a lot of quick weekend hunts, but you are you trying to plan three days, five days, seven days?
Especially if you're getting serious I want to get there. I wanna stay there until I kill. About how long do you. To stay I have the luxury now that I don't have to hunt weekends. Cause I have a work schedule that I work weekends and I'm off the first four days of the week, so I have four day weekends.
So that gives me a little bit of an advantage. But I will say when I first started traveling, it was mostly weekends and using vacation and I had the wrong mindset set. Looking back at it [00:11:00] back then, I would try to hit as many states as possible in that trip, like two days. or two days there. I figured I could kill a gobbler in two days, but then after, several times I'd go there and it felt like I was just getting in the rhythm of things after the first two days that a day, another day or two would've been helpful.
And so that's what I do now with those four days off. When I'm not using vacation, I may run over to Nebraska. I may drive through the night, like I get off Sunday, I'll drive through the night and try to get there before day. and when I'm putting my schedule together on my calendar I just mark off that four days is one location.
I'm there for those four days and I, it is hard to put backup plans. Like maybe if I tag out that first day, where do I go from here? But I'm to the point now with my YouTube videos, if I tag out the first day, I just come home and edit videos. And so it gives me a little break. But I try to maximize my schedule now that I'm.[00:12:00]
in a place. I'm always Turkey hunting when I'm off is what I try to do, but I try to give myself, three or four days in one location to, to really hunt it thoroughly. So Shane, you we're talking about trying to do this US Slam, like really the conversation is how, what is the best way to go about it?
I know our episode next week is gonna be even more so in that regard, and I don't even know if you. Completed it. But I know when we were all sitting around thinking about who would be somebody that just seems like they could go somewhere and make it happen fast. Cuz when you're talking about trying to kill a Turkey in all 49 states, you want to, there's not really, I guess you got your whole life to do it, but most people wanna do it as fast as possible.
So you're talking about being super effective and you. You definitely do that and I think it makes a lot of sense why we think that. Like I didn't realize that you were, a lot of times in a lot of the videos I've [00:13:00] watched, you were just a week, basically a weekend warrior, and you were making, creating all that content from hunting on the weekends, which is a pretty rare thing to see somebody have as much content as you do with that little amount of hunting. Yeah I am not trying to get the US Slam. I have no desire to ever try to get it . I just, I've only hunted, I've only hunted maybe 20 some odd states, so I'm not even quite halfway there.
And I follow the seasons. Like I said earlier, I'm trying to maximize my time in the woods, and that's why I hunt a lot of the same states each year. And I typically add. One or maybe two new states every year. And that's just because, I'd like to try Illinois. I went there last year and killed one open the first morning.
I got extremely lucky that, but that's my goal. So you picked the wrong person to ask about getting the US ? No, not at all, man. Yeah, that, that's what I'm saying, like the point isn't necessarily that you've completed the US Slam, but you're incredibly effective [00:14:00] quickly. And I think that's one of the most important parts.
About doing the US Slam for the average working man. Like you've gotta be effective fast. So how to analyze an area, get there and get the job done, and move on. Or necessarily or like in my case to just, I don't know. I don't know if I could handle doing the US Slam, because then you're looking at so many states and you gotta scout so many.
like when I pick my schedule, I usually schedule schedule or start planning my spring schedule in November. And by December I'm pretty much set and if I go to one or two new areas or three new areas, I really pour over the maps and stuff. I study them. Rigor. I lay in bed at night before I go to bed and I'm looking at OnX and I'm going, okay, drop a pin here.
This looks intriguing. I'm Googling stuff. And so I do spend a lot of time cyber scouting and that's I think what helps really pay off. When I show up there, it's. . It's not [00:15:00] uncommon. It's not every single hunt, but it's not totally uncommon for me to walk out there and there'd be a gobbler, gobbling, within a reasonable distance of me where I could work him or go set up on him.
And I think a lot of that has to do with the cyber scouting part of don't just pick up piece of public and then just show up there and hope that you can just cover ground and find one. I try to put the, stack the odds in my favor if you. . So when you are doing that cyber scouting, what are the things that you're looking for in some of those areas?
What makes you drop those pins in some of those places? Oh, it varies from state to state. Depending on if it's an area that I think might get a lot more pressure, like Mississippi and then say Iowa, that's totally. For instance, like Iowa, I'm planning to hunting a new area in Iowa this year, a different zone, and they have Iowa split into zones.
First thing I do is OnX already has the borders of the zone, but if it was a state that didn't necessarily have those features available, I would draw a [00:16:00] line around the zone or the area that I could hunt. Then I'm looking for big tracks of PU initially. Okay. What are. key areas, and I'm looking at not just WMAs and I'm looking at National Forest, I'm looking at even like up here in Minnesota, there's areas that you would never think you can hunt.
They're like, they're called open parks or something like that. You can go hunt those areas, but the average person doesn't know that. So I'm pouring over, Google typing in things like that to try to find us. And so I start dropping pins on area. that I wanna investigate more, and then I'm narrowing it down depending on if it's hill country or river bottoms, creek bottoms.
If it's hill country I'm trying to find those little ridge points where I think a goler is probably gonna roost on based on my experience. And that, so that's, I'm just pouring over all those things, looking for those key things. I'm looking at access points the ones that. Maybe not overlooked, but a little more difficult to get to it.
I'm sure there's people going to it, [00:17:00] but I'm gonna probably have less encounters by going in that, those areas. Mississippi, the same way, when I was looking at that, I was looking at areas that probably drew less attention. Mississippi, everybody's going to the burns, and so if you go down there after a burn, those gates have six trucks lined up at 'em.
But if you go to some of the o, other areas where it's not. There may not be as good of Turkey hunting, but all I need is one Turkey and no other hunters to mess it up, whereas the other place might have three turkeys, but there's 10 people chasing those three turkeys. There's, I mean there's, we could sit here for hours.
There's so many variables that I'm trying to factor in depending on where I'm going and things. I've heard you mention Googling a few times and searching on the web for information. How much stock do you put in? Talk forums, because if you put in Kentucky Turkey hunting, the first thing you're gonna pull up is the Kentucky Deer Hunting Forum, which the, it's [00:18:00] got a section for Turkey hunting.
And you're gonna hear all kinds of chatter about specific WMAs and different types of, in intel. Do you put much talk into that, or you just gloss over that type of info? I don't pay attention to this general talk on those forms. , I'm mainly worried about getting my information from like state sites and stuff.
But with that, Once I narrow down to certain areas that I want to hunt, if it's a named WMA or if it's a named National Forest, I Google those names and I look I even click on images and I'm looking at people showing their harvest. I'm, it is bringing up forms and so then I'm gonna start reading, looking for any bad talk about it.
It's man, it was overrun with people last. or or some people, I even for instance, I'll give you a story from years ago, there was an area in Florida I wanted to hunt and I googled the area that I wanted to hunt, and I looked up images and I found a blog. And this guy had documented his day-to-day travels through this particular piece of public.
He wasn't a hunter, [00:19:00] he was just a person blogging. And so I got to see all the, what the terrain looked like. This is before you could. No, some areas where you could get on what is it, street view or whatever. Yeah. I mean like Google Street view and stuff, you can just drop down and you can see it from the road.
And obviously down there you're not gonna see some of these areas that are remote. But I was able to see what the train looked like, the access trails, there was so much and he logged about seeing turkeys and gators and other things. So I was like, okay, there's turkeys there. And he had so many photos.
So stuff like, Is I was gathering info on that one particular piece of public, that's not always the case. It doesn't work out that well, but that was the one that really stuck out and we went there and killed Gobbler like the first, second day I think I was there. And basically felt like I knew the area already cuz it was so many pictures in that, that blog that guy had.
But that's the, that's what I'm looking at. I'm picking the area that I think looks good on the map first, and then I'm re reverse search. For people [00:20:00] talking about that that one particular WMA or state forest or whatever. I don't know if I'm ashamed to say this or if I'm really proud, but remember one time I was doing some research on a place or on a state.
and I got on a, it was like a bird watching app or some kind of bird watching site , and I Googled, or I searched like Turkey on that bird watching site, and I found where people were like hiking in like national forest or just whatever oh, we saw all kinds of turkeys in such and such national forest or such and such park or state forest or just whatever.
And. I'm not ashamed to say that. Yeah. I jotted that. I jotted that down right away. . Yeah. It's, that's amazing. Those bird watchers or the non-hunters that or non Turkey hunters, I should say. How willing to share information without realizing, like for instance, a buddy of mine just shared a picture on Facebook the day before yesterday.
He's a, he's another deer tracker. He doesn't Turkey. [00:21:00] But he is here's a picture of blah, blah, blah, and some turkeys across the river, and he named the river and the county he was in. And I'm like, oh, let me type that in real quick. And it was a ton of public right there along the area. I said, that looks like a good area to try this spring dang show does.
But I'm not hot. He's not hot spotting his own area. I'm not going in on top of him. He doesn't even Turkey hunt, but he revealed an area that I hadn't even considered before and I'm lo looked at it and there's like hundreds of thousands of public land, acres of public land there and I'm like, there's obviously turkeys cuz he had a whole flock right there in his picture.
You just gotta always be listening. Yep. . Now Shane, earlier you were talking about how you would travel and you would drive through the night. I know a lot of guys wanna do that, but they're caught up in, in the field scouting and much less than going in blind. So I feel like you've, from what you've said, you've gone in blind a few times.
It's just what I'm collecting to area. [00:22:00] To locate Auburn, what's you can map scout as much as you want, but when you're in the woods, it's to totally different. Like what's your first step? Walking in blind to a place in person rather than just scouting it? . That's a tough question.
Usually I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping there's a trail or something in the woods are actually accessible. There's been times that I've gotten to an area and. , it's hard to see, tell what's going on out there in the dark and it's, I've gotten to areas where I wanted to go in blind, but I wasn't sure what to expect.
So I waited for it to get a little gray light before I started walking in there. Yeah, just showing up in another state, a new area, without ever being in as woods, doesn't happen often for me. It's happened a few times. . But what I typically try to do, if I'm not gonna make it there in time before sunrise, I like to get there at least in time to hear 'em gobbling in the mornings.
. And then, and one of the things I've changed up a little bit. I used to go to an area [00:23:00] and I would, I'd have spots picked on the map and it'd be daylight when I got there and I'd just pull in there, I'd walk back in there and start. and now I spend much more time when I first get there riding around and just seeing the area firsthand.
The maps can only show you so much and you look at something on the satellite image and it's really outdated by the time you get there. , there may be a clear cut there now, or it may be just so thick as there's no turkeys in there. So now when I show up, I don't necessarily go in blind all the time.
I get there in time, hopefully. Here's something goblin, and if I don't hear one goblin, I can go after I ride around and just getting a feel for the area. And then I'll dive in later in the day and maybe check out some areas. But I'm checking for sign. I'm glassing for turkeys from the road or listening for turkeys from the road.
I'm trying to strike birds, al hooting and calling from the road and just getting a general feel for the area. It, do you have a certain time of like, how long do you give an area before you scratch it off? And move on somewhere [00:24:00] else. If I'm seeing fresh Turkey tracks and a fresh Turkey sign, I'm staying there.
I've put so much effort into cyber scout now. I do have backups. Always. Always when I'm cyber scouting, play, waiting making plans for a trip. There is backup areas in case it doesn't work out. South Dakota was a great prime example of that. I picked up a leftover tag for a prairie unit out there, cyber scouting area.
Got there and there was no turkeys. . And so there wasn't a whole lot of public in this this county or this unit. But I, from a cyber cybers county, I knew there was lightly turkeys along the river. So my backup plan in that case was just to go knock on doors. So I drove 45 minutes in another direction and started knocking on doors, and I think it was the third house I came, fourth house I came to, they let me Turkey hunt and I filled my tags there.
But yeah, to Matt's point I guess adding to Matt's question there, whenever you go into a new place, do you give is there a certain [00:25:00] amount of miles that you're gonna walk before you say, screw it, I'm going somewhere else? Or do you like what's the moment where you turn around and leave a.
I'd have to say it's when the week is done, . Yeah. Like I said, as long as I'm finding Turkey sign. Okay. All right. So let's say you're not finding Turkey sign, is there, if you've walked so many miles without finding Turkey sign is, you know what I'm saying? Is there a moment that you Yeah.
I'll give you, I'll give you a quick example of each. So I went to Michigan the first time, a few years back, that June. I got there. I couldn't find, hear any turkeys. I was finding good signs but I hadn't heard a single Turkey all day. I was planning on keep continuing hunting there. I finally got one to Gowa that evening, but I went all day without hearing a bird.
But I saw lots of sign. There was no reason for me to leave there. They just weren't talking. Now, with that said, change it up and say there was no sign at all there and there was no birds talking. I would've hunted that entire. And I [00:26:00] would've tried to roo birds that evening, and the next morning I would've continued to hunt, hoping that they would gobble the next morning by midday the next day.
If I had still haven't heard or seen anything and found any sign of turkeys, that's when I'm, driving three hours west or whatever. I'm hitting my backup plan because it's obviously a day and a half spent there and I didn't, didn't hear one or see any signs that they even exist there.
That's when I'm out, so I'd like to give it at least one morning of go. And one evening of roosting, one morning to goblin, one evening of roosting and trying to get 'em to gobble and a day of walking around and driving around to look for sign. When you're doing your research, do you make any phone calls to these regional fishing game offices?
Do you talk to any biologists? And if you do, what kind of questions are you asking them and what kind of information are you trying to get out of? Don't do that a whole lot. If I notice an area that has turkeys and you can, you, it doesn't take much research to know if an area has turkeys or turkeys in the area.
[00:27:00] Now, hunting out west, I have called because those are a little a little tougher to decipher 'em. If you're looking at a map in South Dakota or Nebraska and huge cotton woods along the river, there's Turks there. You don't need to ask anybody. But then there was an area in it was either Nebraska or South Dakota that they had some small streams on the map.
I couldn't quite tell if they were year round streams or what. There was a few trees in here and there, but I wasn't sure. I'm like, ah, man, this is gonna be a tough decision. So I got on Google and I'm looking at the maps and they have the little towns there with one gas station and three houses nearby.
Had a corner. I'd call 'em and then they was like, Hey, this is Jim store. Whatever. And I'd say, this is gonna sound like an odd question, I explained that I'm coming out there to Turkey Hunt. Are there any turkeys around there? Oh yeah, I see 'em all the time across the road, right about a mile south of town.
and I'm like, oh, there's where that ravine at. Perfect. I know there's turkeys right there. So he just asked her my question and then so then I'm satisfied at that point that actually [00:28:00] happened there. And I went there and killed turkeys there in that location. But just looking at satellite images, it looked like it could go either way and so calling like locals and I have called.
I what the people I normally call, I've called DN r Wildlife officers, but I like calling the locals, like if they're at a state park or somebody running some amuse, not amusement thing, but like some type of local attraction, and just get, yeah, those people don't have like us an interest in turkeys.
We wanna. . So they're not gonna be protective of their information. You know what I'm saying? See, they usually giggle and willingly share the stuff.
I don't know why. I've never thought about that. Like why not just call like state parks, hey, yeah, tell me about the turkeys. Write that down, down. I want to come and photographed turkeys. Tell me about the turkeys y'all got there. You know what? Something like that. Just to know that there's turkeys around.
What I found , what I found with rain, like ranger stations with [00:29:00] national forests, they're not like game wardens or anything like that. They'll give you a. They'll give you the keys to the farm. Yeah. Some of those guys will because they ha they do have a, an interest in the turkeys, but it's not I guess like a w m A, where it's pretty much all hunting, national Forest is hiking and there's, and 15 people calling in a day.
Can you imagine the game wardens in Nebraska? Like two weeks before season starts, Yeah. Everybody from the south is trying to go to. and and they have to answer the same questions, but other people aren't, they're not answering those questions. Going back to what Shane said you said you start your planning for spring and November.
I'm the same way. Like when I'll only take a week off and I'll go somewhere for a week, once a spring, and I'll start in November. Hounding people, they're not thinking really about turkeys and it's all like deer hunt. Yep. , I'll talk to those DNR guys and I'll talk to forest rangers.
And especially when you get to [00:30:00] calling people out west, they're in, waste deep snow. They ain't doing nothing No way. So you can catch them in the office. Basically Shane, every, have you seen nacho Libre where he is everything that you just said is your favorite thing, is my favorite thing to do too.
that's pretty much, that's pretty much Joey right now. . Yeah, but that's I've said it before. That's like half, if not more than half of the fun for me, it's detective work and you're trying to find turkeys from a thousand miles away. and but yeah, when you talk to people in the dead of winter about Turkey hunting in the springtime, you're I'm usually asking like general questions like, how was your hatch two years ago, like for 2023?
How was your hatch in 2021? What kind of habitat projects you got going on? Just, just general stuff. And they're just more willing to talk to you about Turkey. In December versus, yeah, march. There's it's like me up here in Minnesota. I'm basically homebound or I had, get cabin fever.
We're stuck inside. There's over a foot of ice and snow [00:31:00] on the ground right now. You can't even walk across my driveway to get to the car without falling over. So you just stay in house all the time and then it's really cold. But I. To talk about real quick to go back to where you were talking about calling these states where all these guys are coming from up from down south, and they're asking the gay wardens in Nebraska and South Dakota.
It reminded me of a little stor of me calling to ask, and I think it depends on what part of the state you're going to. If you're going to one of the popular areas, if you're talking Turkey hunting Nebraska, the Pine Ridge. Yeah. Shane don't hotspot on the podcast. Just kidding. Okay.
Everybody knows . Everybody knows everybody. Pine Ridge, every Pine Ridge, everybody goes to Pine Ridge. I'm trying to convince them not to go there. Yeah. Stop going to the Pine Ridge . But those folks out there get probably inundated with calls. Yeah. There's an area I went in Nebraska, this was deer hunting related.
And it's not a popular deer area. This people go out west western [00:32:00] Nebraska for mule deer and they go to this part because, White tails. And this was an area that was just basically desolate. And I called the local I guess it was the local warden or something, and I, it, the way he acted it was like it was the first time everybody, anybody ever called him to get deer information in that area.
He was like, where, whereabouts you thinking? I was like there's this little piece of this property that's right north of this. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking. , when do you think you're coming out? And I said, it'll be the last part of August. I'll do some scouting. And oh here's my number.
When you get out here, go ahead and gimme a call and I'm gonna, I'll show you around. And I'm like, my goodness, this guy's rolling out the red carpet for me, . But it was an area that no one would likely, and that's why I picked it. It was, I was trying to pick areas that the crowds weren't heading to.
And I think I guess I got lucky. And that was the. That's and that's another reason you start early in my opinion, you start early because you're, or I'm trying to build rapport, , maybe [00:33:00] with some of those people, because like I said, I'm going there for a week. I get, I'll take off one week and I go somewhere, and so I'm gonna find out as much as I can about an area and it was a handful of years ago.
We went to this one state that that had walk-in hunting areas, but I never really heard about it online. It wasn't really talked about online. And I started contacting the the manager of the Walk-in hunting program for that state. And I started talking to him in like we said, October, November.
And I bet I talk to him at least once a month. up through April, and by the time February rolled around, I had talked to him enough and we had we had communicated enough that, he was giving me information like here are some new walk-in land hunting areas that are not even open yet.
These are gonna be open. We haven't even released them yet. And so he was giving me all kinds of nuggets of information, like before the general public even knew. And then come [00:34:00] come season, I go down there and yeah, there's brand new signage on these places. He said, check these out. Like I saw a couple turkeys on this and such place and this and place and just check these out.
And we killed our birds right up. Exactly. In those places. And, I'm not a, I'm not above taking a pin from somebody. But , I did enough homework I felt, and I developed a good enough rapport with that guy. , I still earn those turkeys, but just hounding, not really hounding him, but just staying, like staying in the back of his mind.
And then after a few months, he had enough he, he was comfortable enough with me that he was sending me some really good information. Yep. That's, and that's the way I act. You see some people, they don't like government, they don't like game wardens, Mr. Green jeans or what. man, when I run into a game warden, I'm, I got my hunting license out.
I'm ready to talk to this fellow. . . And anyway I've gained access to like you said, public areas that weren't even on the map yet. They didn't even have the signs up yet, but it was [00:35:00] open for hunting, and you're talking about some good hunting . Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's unpressured like brand new unpressured birds.
Let me have all, because probably nobody's hunting it, otherwise they, Giving it to the state. A lot of those Western states, it's private land that the state's giving them an incentive to lease or whatever. Yeah. I killed a bird out west on one of those properties too. And it was definitely a different experience.
We had to drive a little bit out of the way. But I, we were literally up on a mountain. not seeing turkeys. And we were sitting there and I was like, there's gotta be more public around. And I start really looking, turning other layers on. I think that's another thing too, is like a lot of people don't know that there's actually more layers on OnX, and maybe we shouldn't tell 'em about 'em, but here we are, thanks. Yeah, when we get done recording, I'll tell you about a couple of the apps that I found that'll reveal a few Heidi holes. Yeah, we wanna help people, but not that much. I'd just like to give 'em a little push like, here you go. It's not that [00:36:00] hard to get started.
go along. Encourage them to get started, but not too much information. Yeah, absolutely. Shane talking about encouraging people, for guys that are trying to get their grand slam for the first time, it can be really daunting to think about some of those species like Miriam's Rios and Osceolas about Hey, how do I effectively plan, like the best state, the best opportunity?
Are there, is there a species you might tell someone and say, Hey, it might just be better to go with an outfitter to just try to get that one done. The R. I guess if you're talking about the Rio, the Miriams, the Eastern and Osceola, those four. Yep. Correct. Rio is probably gonna be, I don't know there's enough public to get on that, but if you want to hunt true area or areas of true or historical areas where you're getting into the pure gene pool, I guess the, for a lack of better term, Oklahoma doesn't have a lot of it does, it has some areas, but like [00:37:00] Kansas, you gotta go real far.
You know how Kansas is pushing things back? All of 'em are doable. Miriam's is pretty easy. You go to Black Hills, you go to Wyoming, and you go to Montana, you go to South Dakota, there's lots of areas you can just go in there and hunt and Easterns are all over the place.
Osceola is a tough one. I wouldn't pay an out an outfitter just because it's ridiculous amount they charge. I think if you take your, put in the effort the cyber scout and plan your trip and plan for maybe more than four days in Florida Florida, the Osceola is not as difficult to kill as people make it out to be.
Be the thing there is finding an area where you're not having other hunters crawl all over top. , but the bird itself, if you get one-on-one with a bird, they're not that hard to call in. I think an eastern's harder to call in than a Osceola. I guess I really didn't answer your question I've never used, I've never paid an outfitter to, to go anywhere. I just do it. I [00:38:00] have hunted in the outfitters, don't get me wrong, like media hunts. But I've never used my own money to go into any. . It's, God, that's a tough question. I just don't know enough about the entire range of these birds.
I, the Rio just seems like that's the one that's got a limited public to, to really hit 'em hard. Shane, you're talking about Rio's. I would probably agree with you that for most people, that is gonna be the one that you are gonna want to get an outfitter for. But I would also say that it's the easiest bird to kill out of.
Yeah, probably because if you can go to an outfitter in Texas for a Rio, you're gonna kill. Pretty quickly, if it's a, if it's a decent outfitter, I would say most people are going to just in my experience of with the, all the subspecies the Rios like a 15 minute, yeah we went to, on that media hunt in Oklahoma and that was Rios.
And that was in western Oklahoma, right next to, I guess that was Rios. It looked like Rio's. It would be, I think it was [00:39:00] in yeah, it was in western Oklahoma. And So that guy had plenty of birds and it was no problem for us to, shoot, fill all our tags stuff. I only killed one. I can't remember.
Yeah, I just, I guess I did kill one. I didn't fill both my tags cause I was so busy filming other people at the N W F and whatnot. But yeah, that they had plenty of birds and they were pretty easy to call in to basically enforce what you just said. Yeah, I think Rios maybe, I think Rios maybe are affected by, A lot more like for a successful hatch than they are maybe the, some of the other subspecies.
And I've heard that cuz when we went out to, when we went out to Oklahoma that's what that was a big topic, yeah. We had good weather this year. We had a good hatch. We had bad weather this year. And it was almost like night and day difference from year to year. , it almost seemed some of those areas where the Rios.
they could, it would almost seem like they could double their population size with just a really good hatch one year. It was just so cyclical. And so [00:40:00] maybe maybe that factors into what you were just saying too, like if it's so touch and go, if you just go there on an off year, you might not hardly see any birds.
So that may make sense. Yeah. You. One of the thing that I pulled out of Shane's answer seems like probably Easterns would be the hardest one, but maybe not the one to go to the outfitter for because it's the most accessible. Am I reading that right, Shane? Yeah. When I say that there's really no, no way to easily compare 'em all.
Yeah. Unpressured Osceola and an unpressured, Eastern Miriam's, , those jokers act dumb. Sometimes they just come in and running and Goblin depends on but I've run into some that are like out in South Dakota just two years ago that he just popped his head over a hill and then he saw something he didn't like and he was gone.
So there are some that. That feel the pressure, like the Black Hills, the [00:41:00] Miriams in the Black Hills are definitely a little bit different breed than the ones out on the prairie. I can tell that just from Huntington, they are a little more skittish or a little bit more reluctant. But I've hunted areas in Iowa where those easterns just at farm birds, they just, they don't know any better.
But then you get, down south where there's a lot more Turkey hunters, a lot more diehard Turkey. , those birds hear a lot more, I think. No, no insult to the people up north, but I think you just in general, have better calling down there. People have a lot, a little better range of their capabilities.
Thank you, Shane. I appreciate that. Yeah. I'm from south too, so I'm complimenting myself. , I took it. That's a compliment to us, but whatever. It's, no, Turkey hunting's been down around in the south a lot longer, right? It's, and it's a little, people take it more seriously down there, up here, deer, hunting's king and fishing is king.
And even though you can get multiple tags in here, in, in in Wisconsin or [00:42:00] whatnot, or you. , go hunting with other people and take them out to fill their tag, help them fill their tag. Most people up here are like tagged out, ready to go fishing now, and I'm like, what? You hunted two days and you killed a go and you're done.
They don't really take it as serious and so they don't work at the craft as much as southern Turkey hunters do. And that equates to birds down there here and better calling, getting more pressure throughout the entire season. , we're up here. I probably shouldn't say this, but oftentimes I, I don't run into hardly anyone at all in the late season, late May, up here in the Midwest.
Everybody's fishing and you see it in my videos. You don't see me, running into so many people. Yeah. Jot it down. Make the 20 hour drive up here. . So Shane, you he recently hunted with a guy. We know the videos just came out, Tyler Malone. Tyler's a hoot to be around freaking hol one of the most hilarious people I've ever met.
Maybe his al Hooting is a hoot . [00:43:00] All right, so that, that kind of goes . That goes into my next point. Tyler self-admittedly, he's a pretty new Turkey hunter, hadn't been doing it for a real long time, but he cut his teeth hunting public land birds in Alabama, which is gonna probably, If you can kill one.
I'm not gonna say if you can kill one in Alabama, you can kill one anywhere. But if you cut your teeth hunt in Southern Easterns, I do feel like it gives you an advantage. You got to see him go to the, what is it, the upper Midwest and hunt birds out there. What would you say and this is really isn't gonna help anybody, it's just for me to know, like I just wanna know the information.
Did it surprise you how much further along he was after only four. Of Turkey hunting versus the average Midwestern guy who's been hunting for four years, basically any yeah. I'll tell you the truth. I did not know that he was, or if he told me, I didn't remember that he was new to Turkey hunting.
He came across as somewhat of a somewhat that knew their way through the Turkey woods and knew what.[00:44:00] I find myself when I'm hunting with some people, sometimes, especially new Turkey hunters, they, you, a lot of this stuff, we, it is second nature for us. We've been doing it for years.
We don't think about, get set up, get your knee up, get your gun up you listening for drumming, all that stuff. And even though he kinda looked like a goofball in some of those videos, cuz we were just, I was with him for, those. , was it a day and a half, two days, two and a half days or whatever it was.
Just seeing him he didn't come across as like somebody green to Turkey hunting. It wasn't until later I found out he, that he was in, that was his, like his third spring. Or fourth spring and so he was well advanced. Most people that you see are just in their first, even in, like with people that have been in their sixth and seventh year they, they don't quite understand, where to position on a Turkey.
Try to get the high ground, setting up on a Turkey getting good back cover, all those little things. . There's a whole myriad of things you could list here, but they just, [00:45:00] he, like you said, without stretching this any farther Yeah. He seemed to be farther along . That's awesome, man.
That's really cool to see. I, as we're talking about going in and trying to be effective quickly in a in any given state, it doesn't matter if somebody's just trying to knock states off the list. You've done your, you've done your scouting or your cyber scouting. You've called your people, you're ready to go in for the first hunt.
Do you recommend if somebody's got four days, do you recommend just being super aggressive on the first day? And when I say super aggressive, let's say you find a Turkey goblin, just go in immediately and try to kill 'em. Or are you trying to just kill him within those three days? Learn what he does, don't spook him.
You know what I'm saying? Which one do you. I don't know. I pretty much I guess I've never thought of it like that. I pretty much hunt the same way every time, every opportunity I'm going, I'm analyzing what's going on. I am trying to kill him, but I'm also analyzing the best [00:46:00] approach to go about doing that.
I don't go to an area and say, okay, like it's a big buck and you're trying to figure out where he is. Bed, and then you're gonna, work, sit back and si what do you call it? Observe. Yeah. Observations, observ, observation sits, . That's what I call 'em when I sit and don't kill nothing.
Yeah. I don't, I'm not a bird watcher. I'm going in there to hunt that gobbler . So yeah. Every opportunity I have a bird, I'm strategizing. What's the best way to effectively hunt this bird and kill him? Depending on the situation, I'm situation, I'm, yeah, I'm not gonna call Mikai and run straight at him and then, do something stupid.
But yeah. All I'm so to that you're not gonna calm mikai and do something stupid if it's the last day of your hunt. If you've got four days to hunt, are you gonna call mecai and do something stupid or are you gonna do the same thing? Do you ever change how you go about it? Yeah, I guess with that said there I do, I am bound to take more risk and what keeps me from doing, taking.
sooner is I'm self filming and I have a lot of [00:47:00] camera equipment and there's plenty of times that I want to make a move, but I'm reluctant because I have to break down all this gear and then try to, maneuver with all this gear. If I was just holding a shotgun in my hand and just me sitting against a tree, it, I would just, I'd be up quicker and moving on a bird.
I think both have helped me and. because I haven't moved because of the camera gear. I've been there a little bit longer. I ended up killing one cuz I was basically patient without being patient. And then in other instances when I, made a quick hasley move, it cost me or may not cost me.
It helped me because I was more aggressive and then, and if I had set back, the opportunity would've passed. But there are times where, it gets down to. I guess this hunt that's coming up this week on my channel, it'll, I don't know. When's this podcast gonna air? This week on Friday.
Okay. So this won't, this, the video will already be out by the time, cuz this Wednesday I'll post a video on my Minnesota hunt. [00:48:00] This is one where I was taking risk. I'd already hunted with Tyler for few days. I had my my buddy Evan come in that I just aired and he hunted with. . I'm trying to think if I hunted a day with myself or not already, but this was like after those guys had come and gone.
It was my time to hunt, and I was on a bird and I had a bird gobbling, but I knew he had a hym with him, and I heard another one gobbling off to my left. So I just you know what? I may bump this bird because the woods are pretty open, but I'm gonna take that risk because I don't feel I can kill him anyway, so I just up and moved towards that other bird and got set up on him when I was set up on him.
he, it became obvious he had a hand with him and I heard two other birds gobbling on the next ridge over. And so I was, again, I was gonna leave this bird. I'm like, I keep running the gobbler with hens. I'm like, those two birds together probably don't have hens. I'm gonna go after them. And so again, I was, making a move and risking, bumping the [00:49:00] birds.
They weren't that far away, goblin, it seemed like at any moment I might see 'em, but I took a risk and I moved and dropped down to Rav. . And as I'm moving to the other gobblers, I realize that I, by moving, I'd gotten that ravine and there was a way for me to work around on that bird with the hen and I said, you know what?
I'm not that far from them. I could probably slip right up here and just peek over and I might be within his bubble and might be able to call him in if he's not in gun range. And that's exactly what I did. I was able to get up there. I, it was like a rock cliff. Set my gun up on the little cliff there and I peeked over.
I had to stand on tippy toes on a little boulder to see over and as soon as I popped my head up, the gobbler wasn't in range. I didn't even see him, but there was a hand there. I think she saw me cuz she was kinda like I heard, so I yelped at her. She must have thought I was a hen. She come walking right over through the woods, right to beside me, and I'm standing there on the edge of a cliff looking over my gun.
I was cut. I didn't even look at her. I just cut at her and [00:50:00] yelped at her, and she's cutting back to me and she doesn't know where this hand's at. And she didn't realize I was, a person standing there. And that was enough to break that collar. And he dropped down the hill and right into 30 yards and I shot him.
and it was one of those situations, I think even though I had more season left in Minnesota, I was I was, had hunted it for enough days that I was, it was almost, it felt like it was getting near the end of my season. I need to make some moves and so yeah, I got aggressive. Sorry for such a long story.
No, dude, that's perfect. I think it tied into what you were asking. It's perfect. I'm sorry guys. I'm gonna be a little bit selfish right here on all these ending questions, but you, you said something in that, you talked about the bubble now on the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast, we've talked about this multiple times, but this is a new podcast and I want to hear.
Shane Simpson's description of the bubble. When you describe, when you talk about you wanted to see if you were in his bubble, that's one of the most important parts about being an effective Turkey [00:51:00] hunter is knowing where that's at. What is it to you? It varies from gobbler to gobbler, but it basically, it's an imaginary circle around this gobbler.
You can be just outside that circle and call to your heart's content, and he will not budge and come closer, but you get right on the inside of that bubble, that imaginary. And he, it just turns a switch in his head and he's I gotta go there. This hand's close enough. I need to go. You go meet her. And like that gobbler that I was just talking about in that hunt, I was probably 75 yards away and he would not budge him in that hand, but it also helped me with that hand.
I got in her bubble too. They have bubbles also. She yelped down there. He would gobble. I was yelp and nothing. As soon as I got. I was probably 30, 35 yards from that hen when I popped up. And as soon as I made a yelp, she marks right over to me and then our commotion was enough to pull him in. So in that instance, I didn't necessarily get within his bubble cause he had a hand, but I got in her bubble and then that [00:52:00] resulted in him dying cuz she came over.
Great. He sounds like you've described that a couple times. That was awesome. No, I don't think anybody's ever asked me to define it. I just figured, fan freaking. I feel great about that question now. I thought it was a really elementary question. The first time anyone's ever asked me. Heck yeah. I'm gonna get it. Your entire answer printed out on a show, put you a little, is that a little whiteboard behind you? No, that's a, actually a picture of a deer I killed. Oh, I see that. It looked like it was hanging from a whiteboard. I was gonna say put a chalkboard or a whiteboard back there and, Put that first time question back there,
And then next time you have a guess to say, have you ever been asked that? And you can have that question, you start tallying up first time questions. Yeah. Guys, anybody else have anything for Shane before we wrap this joker up? Fantastic. Ain't think nothing to Shane. Appreciate everything you've talked with us about this evening.
All right. My pleasure. Shane, you you're putting out a lot of videos. Are you on a schedule where people can be marking their calendars for a new Shane Simpson video? [00:53:00] Yeah. Right now they're by the time this goes I'm getting low on videos, but I post 'em every Sunday and Wednesday evening at 6:00 PM central time, and then once tur season starts, they're gonna be, I really, I guess I really haven't thought about a schedule.
I probably should try to keep it at least to somewhat similar schedule. I don't know how quickly I can get the videos out, but if it's one video a week, it'll be Sunday evenings. I'll say it's 6:00 PM. Awesome. Shane Simpson from calling all turkeys. Dude, it has been a pleasure to get to talk to you this evening and why don't you go kill some more turkeys this year so you can have videos.
All through the fall for Joey to watch. I've got a full schedule. Yes, please. I'm hoping that we can get a few down. Awesome. Tyler's, Hey, Tyler's coming back up to hunt with me. . That's awesome. I enjoyed hunting with him so much. I invited him back for round two. Fantastic. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Sequel. Yep. We'll see, I don't have Doug up update to hunt with anymore. He and I haven't hunted in a while. I still have him, but [00:54:00] our schedules. Been cohesive lately. Tyler's filling that little niche there, . Awesome, man. You have a good evening. Thanks for coming on. All right, man.
My pleasure. Y'all take care.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast. Hope you tune in next week for another great conversation about our favorite bird in the woods. That's the Wild Turkey. We'll talk to you guys next week.
