Green-Up Gobblers

We've got our friend Jordan Pope this week on the Limbhanger Turkey Hunting Podcast. If you follow Jordan or know him at all, you'd know that when he gets on a roll, it's hard to stop the train. By that we mean once he figures out what the gobblers are doing in that portion of the season, he goes into full kill mode and it doesn't stop until the turkeys start doing something different. 

Speaking of the turkeys doing something different, our main topic today is hunting them once green-up occurs. This year it seemed like despite the cool weather, the woods bloomed super fast. Jordan shares with us some of his strategy once the seasons start to change. 

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Limb Hangar Turkey Hunt podcast, brought to you by Grounded Brand and their new impact 2.0 Turkey vest. Get grounded@groundedbrand.com. The limb Hangar Turkey Hunt Podcast strives to bring opinions and discussions from all aspects of the Turkey hunting community. From legendary Turkey hunters who hunted in military fatigues to the modern day hunters embracing technology while maintaining traditions passed along for generations.

All are welcome at this roundtable conversation about one of the wet creatures in North America. Wild Turkey. Y'all stick around. It's gonna be a great show.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast. Yeah, I'm pissed, Adam, because Walt actually stole the idea for [00:01:00] having a an old Southern gentleman voice intro in this podcast. Yeah. I surrendered it to him whenever he was like, he found some guy to do like a Sam Elliot voiceover or something like that.

And it sounds pretty cool, but every time I hear you say it on this intro I just wish it was some old gentleman saying, welcome to the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast. I can't, we can get someone. I know we could, but now Walt's got it. So it's like flip man. What are we gonna do about that?

You know what, I recommend everyone to go onto Spotify or Apple and then type in talking Tom Po hunting, like Talking Tom podcast and see what pops up for you and seeing if it's some old man. That is true. It's not what you think it's gonna be. It's pretty funny. Anyways obviously we got Adam here.

The man, the myth legend got a couple heartbreaks from this past weekend. Wha Yeah, [00:02:00] it's a couple swings and misses that happens. Yeah. But some pretty brilliant content. Like pretty good stuff. I, if you would like to see a grown man tugging a gun out of his son's lap. 11 year old son's hand.

Adam has got a video for you. Oh my gosh, dude, that is so funny. We're also got, we got Jordan Pope here. We've had him on Southern ground several times before, but this is the first for the Limb Hangar podcast. Gonna talk about a bunch of cool stuff today. Jordan is a Turkey killing son of a gun.

And he's nuts about it. Him and I have so many conversations throughout the season that we should have just pressed record because it's so good. And so we're gonna have him on and we're gonna talk about all this stuff. But Adam I wanna, I want you to tell the story. I want you to tell this story specifically of Luke Smith.

You you missing on your own. That's a sad story. We don't gotta relive that. We don't gotta hash that out. What's important to know is Adam found a gobbling [00:03:00] Turkey on public land and did all of the things. Except kill it, which is I think, the sign of being an old pro, right? Sure. I think the old pro would've like actually hit it.

No, I think the old pro, he talks about it in the book that like being, letting turkeys walk, letting him live. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You reached totally letting him live when you reached that point. So that's all you were doing. Yeah. And then the next day you took your son out and a pretty funny thing happened.

Jordan, little backstory. I always joke that I'm like, I will shoot a Turkey out from under my kids. No doubt. If a Turkey presents itself and they're like, I can't see it just yet, I'll just go ahead and squeeze that trigger. So I got to test that theory out this weekend. My 11 year old, he's only been Turkey hunting with a gun three times in his life.

One, he had a great chance to kill the second time he killed. Both of those times was with Joey. Like j I was just sitting there coaching him like I was 100% focused on do this, do that. Joey man, he put us in the spot. Scouted, [00:04:00] he called, set up everything a hundred percent. Joey. So funny thing, we go in the, I guess it was Saturday night, we're gonna go Turkey honey.

He's I really wanna go with you tomorrow morning for church dad, all this stuff. And he says, but one thing. Do you know how to call turkeys? And I was like, of course I know how to call turkeys son. He's I'm just making sure, but you call turkeys like Joey. I'm like I don't really know son.

He puts the pressure on me like that. He's a little bit of a jerk. Anyways, in that regard. He puts that pressure on me. So we ended up going to a public land area. Get there Manhattan Roosted Bird. Go ahead. Don't leave this out. I mean he he did this all to himself On the way there.

He was giving dad a hard time for Oh yeah. Not being able to hit the Turkey the day before. And it's a real mar like Marco Parlo Polo talking about it. And he's who? Look, dad missing a Turkey. He said something funny. He said something like I try to actually I hid all the turkeys I shoot at, or something like that.

Yeah, that's what he said. [00:05:00] And I responded to that with every time somebody says that they gonna have their first their first miss. And sure enough, dude, we move in, we get up there, we get like a listing at the high spot. We hear two turkeys, goblin, and man, we just take off. I'm looking at the OnX, I'm trying to figure out exactly how to set up on these turkeys, and I'm looking, I'm like, oh my gosh.

We can get like they're roosted at the end of the field next to the river, and they've only got one choice but to pitch down towards us. Now they can go like in the opposite direction, but if we can just coax 'em a little bit, like we're in a really good spot. So we circle around, we get in front of these turkeys before they come off the rouse.

Do a couple tree Yelps. Man this first gobbler, he was hot on the limb. He's never gobbled, doesn't gobble when he is on the ground, but he is at 50, 55 yards. He's too far for 11 year old to shoot. Like gun like would hit that, right? Like it'd be good. But I'm not letting 11 year old shoot that.

And he's strutting putting on a show and Luke's man this is the most beautiful thing. You can just feel it coming off of him, [00:06:00] right? This is this Turkey hunting, like love coming out. And this bird starts and Luke's on my weak side. The bird starts coming on my side and he doesn't start angling away.

He starts angling towards me. So like now he's at 35 yards and I'm like, Crap, I gotta shoot this Turkey. Luke can't shoot him. He's like way trying to like, get in some awkward position. I'm like, gimme the gun son. So I'm like, reaching over for the gun. And he's no. And so I get both hands.

I'm like really trying to pull it and you can see him like pulling it back on the pistol grip. And so I'm like okay. But there, that second gobbler, he's still gobbling. I'm not upset about it. I'm like, all right we got, we still we're in the game. We have a chance. I look over the second gobbler, he's coming, he's falling a hand, the hand's 20 yards.

The gobbler looks like he's about 35 yards. And dude, he's just, he stops and he's just putting on a show, sticking his head up and I'm like, Hey, you got all the time in the world. Just squeeze off when you're ready. So he does. And boy, man, he I don't know if he body shot it. What? But it rolled, [00:07:00] I ended up trying to sprint out there as fast as I could, like you saying Bolt couldn't make it.

Turkey's gone. And he took it like a champ. But man, I was, it hurt. I could have rolled that Turkey at 35 yards. What did I say, Jordan? Whenever I saw that, because me and Jordan were hunting together. What did I say? I say, oh, he earned that one today. Because he did. Yep. He did it to himself.

Yep, he did. Listen I love the Lord. And I believe that there are power. There is power in our words. And and that's also in the Bible. So whatever he learned a valuable lesson. Life has a way of humbling everybody. That's right. That's right. I hate it, but I've been there. We've all been there, man.

And yeah. And I think my response to that was like, that's gonna make, that's gonna wear him out. He's gonna think about that nonstop. It's gonna make him into more of a Turkey hunter. Yeah. He's got three hun Hunts under his belt that were all [00:08:00] incredible. And now that he knows the taste of victory, he also knows the taste of defeat.

And now he's gonna suffer through a lot more defeat to get that victory again. I hope so. I think that's the way it's gonna work though. I told him like, you're not a real Turkey hunter till you miss, he got that outta the way. We're good. Yep. But the other thing know, realistically, if he had killed that bird, it might've made him less interested cuz he'd been like, man, I'm two for two.

This is easy. Good point. That's a good point. It happens with a lot of guys, that say they grow up like, and they have access to really great property. They shoot a few great deer and they're like, huh? Yeah. They move on. We still, I saw that stuff all the time living in West Texas.

It's a wonder I turned out to be a Turkey hunter, to be honest with you. Because the turkeys out there were pretty easy to kill where we were at. We just didn't, we didn't have the same, it didn't take the same amount of effort. It took practically no [00:09:00] skill. Adam, you've been out you've been out there.

They'll come to a noise that sounds like a Turkey. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it feels great when you do sound like a Turkey, then you just made your odds go up that much more. Yep. But it's a wonder I turned out that way because what you're saying, Jordan, like so many people are raised in this environment where they have a lot of opportunity and so they don't find as much value in it.

But this is not a foreign. Topic for for me and Jordan to talk about, we talk about this kind of stuff all the time, about how different Turkey hunting is based on what region you live in. Based on even five miles can separate two completely different styles of Turkey hunting. One place might have it, it might feel be the equivalent of an Iowa deer hunt, whereas five miles down the road it might feel more like a Florida deer hunt.

You know what I mean? Those things do exist. Jordan, for anybody who doesn't know, tell us[00:10:00] the type of Turkey hunting you prefer and how you got to being where you're at right now, being a, dude, if I had to name a list of stone, cold Turkey killers, I'm gonna put you at least in the top five, at the very least in the top five.

I respect you and I respect your opinion on a lot of things. So you're doing something right. I want you to tell everybody about it. Oh, I appreciate that. First of all so I had a guy take me Turkey hunting when I was like 14. And this was in the era of there wasn't really anything on like YouTube.

We didn't even really YouTube then, or I didn't at least there wasn't much out there as far that I knew of. Like I didn't see any other real stuff. I didn't watch like TV that much. I skateboarded. So the concept of tricking a bird into thinking that you were another bird with only a mouth call or a call in general and [00:11:00] getting him to commit in it was like magic to me.

Like I was like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. Which part? That's why. And then you, like you are riding down the road, you start like seeing birds strutting. And it's funny cuz I never knew any other way than like the running gun style. Like no decoys, like no greenfield sitting, just Hey, we're going out in the woods to find a Turkey.

If he gobbles, we're gonna make it to him and try to call him in. And it even got further reinforced because as I was growing up I got into like drugs and some other things and that kind of delayed my hunting. But once I got back into it, I didn't have anywhere to go but public land I literally I had a couple places to deer hunt on private.

There were no turkeys. The only place I knew of that, that had turkeys were public lands. Years before I was even deer hunting public land, I was going to public land to hunt turkeys cuz I knew there were turkeys there. And it was just immediately the same thing. Like I would hear a bird gobble walk like [00:12:00] three quarters of a mile to him and completely screw it up.

And just like trial by fire Through time doing that over and over again. And it, it took a long time for me to actually break the ice doing it that way. But that's how I evolved into doing what I do. Like I see a lot of people now they'll go in on a bird like 3, 4, 5 days in a row, maybe two weeks in a row.

Like I just show up somewhere. I'm like, I'm trying to kill a golfing Turkey. I don't even really target 'em. And it's just that one, I want that one today. And sometimes it burns you, sometimes you're a lot better off to go in on a sure thing because I don't know if you've ever shown up somewhere like, all right, it's Saturday, week two.

And I put a lot of pressure on myself. I'm like, I really need to get it done today. And it's dude, you're nowhere near birds, nothing goblin. And you commit the first two hours of the day to that and you're like, dude, I have burned a whole day. If I had been done a [00:13:00] little something a little different, like I'll go off a historical data now.

So I've been in places with birds so many times, it's I know I can head here and maybe that pocket just isn't holding. Or maybe those birds just aren't talking that day, so it pushes me. I'm like, oh dude, I made a bad call today. And once, I don't know how most people think about it, but Turkey season is so short and even like only really get to hunt like weekends by majority.

Think about that. You're getting eight hunts. You get eight hunts. So every step, every move I make, like I'm literally hyper critical of this is, I need to make this count. And that's why it's so hard for me to go hunt with somebody because I'm like, especially if I still have a tag. Cuz I'm like, man, I need to be in the game somewhere.

Yeah. So when did it click for you? You mentioned there was like a point in time, like you went from chasing after birds and it not happening until, I think I, I can't remember the exact phrase you used, but it clicked at some point. When did it click [00:14:00] and what was that turn of events? What did that look like?

What was like that eye-opening Aha moment. So I could tell you, even when there was really nobody Turkey hunting public lands, like I would be, it would be like me and four super old dudes. That were like the weirdest characters you've ever met, like on these public lands, like wearing like a fedora with a Turkey pepper.

Oh God, yes. You know what I mean? Yes. Like those and me and the birds were still tough. Like they would still do the same things that they do now under, even though there's super high pressure compared to then. So there was just a lot of times like where I would either set up wrong or maybe I would get too close and the bird would see me.

Just all the mistakes of not even knowing how a Turkey worked. I got on a magic bird, the first bird that I ever was able to work at, like Freedom Hills. I'll just say it. I was at Freedom Hills and bold,[00:15:00]

bold. This bird, he's gobbling like a half mile off and I'm standing on the edge of a Greenfield and sun's coming up. And I'm, I don't know what I'm doing. I go ahead and start hitting my mouth call. He gobbles to it, and I'm literally using like a primos mouth call from Walmart. Dude, he's hammering this bird is forever away.

So I immediately, I'm running down this ridge making all kinds of noise busting through branches. Everything I step on, he's hammering to it and I'm like, oh my God. I've gotta kill this Turkey. So I end up making my way over there. I cross this creek and I'm so excited. I get across this creek, I hit the call again just to make sure he's still gobbling, like just stupid mistakes.

This bird's just hyper hot. It doesn't matter what's going on. He's trying to do it well. I end up like he's on a ridge top, but it's more like a bluff and it's a really short bluff, like maybe 40 yards, 50 yards [00:16:00] up. But like I get to the basis thing and I like whip out all my calls.

I'm like gonna try to bring him down this bluff. I don't even know what I was doing, but I whip out all kinds of like pothole and stuff. And I remember it was that not in hell. It had a red top. It was like scarlet something, scarlet fever. And I hit that freaking pothole and that bird looked over the top of that ridge, looked dead at me and hammered at me.

And knowing what I know now if I could go back and do it, I would've just shot him then. But I was just like, holy crap, dude, that Turkey me just gobbled right there. So I was like I need to make a move. That used to be my thing. I need to make a move. So like I'm magically get on top of this bridge and I'm sitting down.

And he hammers. I haven't even hit the call yet. He hammers. But what I know now was he was turned away from me. I thought this bird was like a hundred yards. This bird was like 25 yards. So in between me and him, there was just a little [00:17:00] hump. I couldn't see him, he couldn't see me. So I stand up and as soon as I stand up, he just standing there looking at me neck up.

I threw my gun up and shot him straight in the chest. And dude, when I tell you, when I tell you he did not move, like I never even saw a feather get displaced. Like he took it like a grown man to the chest and looked out. So I felt him just like idiot and fly off. And that was really like, it taught me a lot.

And I started building off that. And I think the next year I killed my first bird. But once I was able it's a lot like a deer to me if I can ever make it happen. I can hyper accelerate my learning. I can figure out, go back and look at what I did wrong and start to experiment with what I did right in the next one.

And it immediately puts me further along in the game. Like I've noticed a lot of people, they'll continue to try to recreate that situation. Exactly. So like I'll, I always go [00:18:00] back and I'm like, I think I, I messed up here. I think I messed up here. And I'll try to cut those things out and do more of what I did.

So the next year I killed my first bird. I think the next year I killed three. And it was just like that. Even though I missed that first bird, it was like, that was when everything started to click for me. Yeah. Jordan you mentioned earlier talking about like how short the Turkey season actually is when you're hunting mostly weekends, which is what most people are doing.

You don't have, that's not a lot of days. It just really isn't. And so a lot of things happen in that short amount of time. Spring is happening, things are changing, food sources are changing. Breeding is changing. Every, a lot of things are changing while we're hunting them. And so somebody who's hunting one Saturday, things might be completely different the next Saturday.

And a lot of our conversations that you and I have are focused on this one topic. And [00:19:00] that is green up. That seems to be like a big thing that it always comes back to he did this. Green up, blah, blah, blah. It's kinda like just the blame. Green up, blame everything on green up.

Sorry Luke, you missed that bird. It's just green up, just part of green up. Hashtag So when you think about just tell us what you think about the word greenup. Like when the, what's the first thing that comes to mind? I think as soon as I think greenup, as far as turkeys go, in my mind, I think he has just gained a whole lot of survivability.

That, that's the first thing. I think if that bird, you have a period to meet in that green up where it is the marker of, okay, spring's actually here and these birds are gonna be good for maybe another week and a half, two weeks after this point. Lucky if you're in that two week mark, but knowing when you're going in, when you're going into wide open hardwoods, [00:20:00] and it's still wintery looking, it's early, everything's cold.

Even the way you go into setting up is just totally different because you could set up and green up in the same situation and have a bird at 20 yards and not have a shot. And he'll manipulate it. That, that it is better for the bird he knows and he knows how to slide around in that stuff where he can see through a little bit of it, but you'll never feed a shotgun through it.

So y'all's green up is a little bit, a little, the timing's a little bit different from where I am. You guys are north Alabama, maybe like mid Alabama. When are y'all experiencing like green up and what part of your season is that really in? Because I think y'all opened what, the 17th ish of March, is that right?

Used to. Okay. Yeah. 25th now I think is the earliest you can hunt in Turkey. Unless you're youth, it'd be the weekend before that. And I think it's different too. Just judging, just for you, Adam, like y'all's [00:21:00] green up seems to be, you can tell a difference because Alabama typical WMA properties are.

Burned at least occasionally. They're somewhat managed somewhat. I'm not saying it's perfect, but every public area I've been to in Tennessee just feels like you're in trash woods. Oh yeah. Everything's, they don't burn. They don't do that. They don't burn. It's thick. It's heavy. Understory. Lots of briars.

And then you got fields, right? That's pretty much what you got. Fields. Fields and so your greenup it does. Cause I've hunted Tennessee before Greenup and then hunted it again after. And it is different. It's a huge difference. And ours is different too.

Our ours it can be different based on where you are even regionally. But y'all, the, it's a drastic change for you guys, like way big Jordan. I don't know if you've hunted Tennessee much I got to experience probably the most dramatic sense of green up this year for the first [00:22:00] time.

And it was, I was on some river public, and I'm having to watch how I word this. I was on some river public, and dude, when I tell you it was day two and it was already like, because same situation. Like they're not burning this stuff. This stuff has just been growing for years. Just understory. You're not, I'm looking for a way to set up in this stuff.

And I told my buddies, I was like, look dude, before we even hit a tall in here, we need to make sure that we're set up to shoot. And it was just, I posted on my Instagram story where the birds ended up coming in. You were lucky you would not see the bird fully at 10 yards even. It was insane on day two.

And so going back to Adam's question, when do we normally experience green up around me? I would say week three. Normally this year is week two was already pretty full green up. Yeah. Yeah. Same where I'm at. We got [00:23:00] like our fields that we hunt we're like past knee high at this point, and it's good gosh, it just feels like spring got here way quicker.

And see what's crazy about it is like we had that super temperature spike, right? Leading into Turkey season. Everybody was talking about it dogwood or blooming. It's three weeks before Turkey season, but now you're in week three when it's normally so warm people are stopping to go. And it was like 40 degrees today with a high of 65, which is like perfect weather.

It's weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's been, what the heck, it's been excellent weather this morning. I didn't hear a single gobble this morning and it just didn't feel right. It was so stinking nice. I was like, any moment, something's gonna answer this flipping call. And I never heard a single Turkey noise.

Not a one, not a single Turkey noise. Heard a lot of other noises. No Turkey noises. Jordan, you also hit on something earlier. I don't remember if we were recording or not. [00:24:00] Just talking about the difference in pressured versus unpressured birds. So you've got things that are changing, things like green up and different food sources are changing, but you also got more pressure that's affecting what these turkeys are doing as well.

I wanna know here's the something I'll tell the listeners thing I know about you is you seem to get on like tears. Like you'll have you'll have a three or four day tear where you just, you figure something out and you just one after the other. You did that. First week of the season this year killed a few birds.

But it's been slow since then. Yes. And I know a lot of it is you analyzing trying to analyze what the birds are doing cuz it's something completely different than they were doing before. And so I, I want to hear just moving into that topic of how your tactics are changing as the season progresses.

And this is big, especially for like, when you're leading into like where I'm used to now popping multiple tags. So for me to [00:25:00] myself it's not that it's unacceptable for me, but I pressure myself into formulating a plan as to how I'm going to go about each bird. Like I'm already once I've killed my first bird, I'm already thinking about my third bird.

And so a lot of mistakes that I see guys make everybody. So a lot of especially inexperienced Turkey hunters, or even some of your guys that have been doing it for a while, they have a bird. They've been seeing him every day, whatever maybe he's using at Greenfield or whatever he's doing, he's been more visible.

Maybe he's the dominant bird. That's the first bird they want to kill. That is not the first bird I want to kill. I wanna leave that bird alone until I hit a hard spot. So what I want to do is I want to go in on birds that I think are workable, that I don't maybe know much about, but you're coming in on a fresh bird.[00:26:00]

He is there, you know that it's the first week of the season. There's no pressure being in there. He's not a sure thing, but I think that I'm good enough to pull it off. I try to knock one or two of those and them fall back on a bird. That I think is a sure thing, because once you take that sure thing out of the equation, you can hit a wall real quick.

I'd rather hit a wallet number four than at number two. That's a good point. That's good. That's freaking wisdom if you ask me. And it's I totally, I see where you're coming from. Public land adds a whole lot of different challenges when you think about trying to do that. And that's another thing is like now used to, I would only hunt public as I've gotten older and pressure's always and this is something that I say to a lot of people now, I even struggle on public now.

There's so many people that's a whole different variable that a lot of guys have never seen before. The height of [00:27:00] the pressure that it is now. So what I try to do is I try to go like private, public, private, public, If I can do that, if I have the birds to manage that situation, that's the way that I try to do it.

If I can knock three off a private, that's what I try to do, is I really try my hardest nowadays to stay away from it unless I just absolutely have to, or I feel that there's a piece that's not receiving as much pressure. I know I can go in and get it done. I just wanna point out that Jordan is really pushing you guys to, to focus more on private land.

That's what I'm hearing. Like there, there should be a real movement right now to go hunt grandpa's farm instead of like just coming in some local W m A. Like I really feel that in my, so I just wanted to point that out. But it is crazy because alright, like on a local w m A day one, there was like 24 birds killed.

All right? Day [00:28:00] two, there may have been three or four, and after that it was like maybe one, maybe two. And that's a very, this is a point that Parker wanted me to touch on was like pressure turkeys versus non-pressure turkeys, they adapt super, super fast and people, they don't reel theirself back enough to realize, alright, these birds, I have videos of my phone of birds breeding in late February.

Just from getting out and scouting. I know for a fact that around here they will start breeding in February. I used to go start listening for Rus in February cuz they'll g they'll start gobbling pretty good. All right, so these birds have been breeding for now. Two months with, they're not hearing trucks, they're not hearing people, they're not running into any problems.

And then it's boom. In two days the animal that can see the second best and the whole animal kingdom has seen how many people walking through the woods now, how many times have they shown up to a call thinking that there's a hint [00:29:00] there? Maybe that person left and they're like where'd she go?

It's just little red flags for 'em. And then they start getting on edge. And so what I've come to the conclusion of over the years is once a bird prioritizes survival above breeding, they will totally reel it in and they'll turn into I'll walk around and if I see a hen, I'll go to her and we'll make something happen.

But I'm not vocalizing, so lemme ask you this question though, on pressure turkeys versus non-pressure turkeys. One of the things that I've realized is when you're calling in a gobbler, And he gets close enough to where he should see a himn. His body language completely changes on a pressure Turkey like bingo.

He will start perro scoping and if he doesn't see what he needs to see, he's gone. Now do you see the same type of bo like body language from a non-pressure gobbler? Yes. ESP on an older bird. Okay. So once a bird, once you can tell like you're dealing with a [00:30:00] dominant bird or a bird that's seasoned even on hu, even on private, like very non-ed private, that bird will, he'll do the same things.

Like he'll walk that three quarter ridge and he'll just pick his head up two times. If he doesn't see what he sees, wants to see, he's out of there. And you also run into the same situation where those birds, they like to gobble one or two times on the limb. They might gobble one time on the ground, they'll slide in silent.

A lot of it comes with experience and just their edge of survival. I don't actually think, If you take a public land Turkey, private land Turkey day one, they're the same bird. It is the exponential pressure and how quickly it's applied that turns that bird different. And so you do that for two or three seasons.

You take a four year old Turkey on private and four year old Turkey on public. They're different. So I set you up for a softball there. Like what I want to get out of people is if you got a bird that's coming in, be ready to freaking shoot when you got your shot opportunity because when he crest that ridge, doesn't matter if he's [00:31:00] pressured unpressured, he's looking for the same thing.

And if he doesn't see it, he could be gone. So if you're not re and I don't know how many birds I have literally missed because I wanted to watch them crest that ridge or I wanted to watch a show. If you know that's a gobbler, doggone it. You see his head and you've got a good clean opportunity. You might wanna go ahead and take that, or you gonna miss out on your opportunity.

That's one thing that was, it's ingrained in me to be that way because I cut my teeth on public so hard for so long before I ever had access to any unpressured turkeys. So that's just the way I'm built now. So I know I've seen too many turkeys just pick their head up one time and you're dumb for the day they're done.

And so a lot of people don't even equate this in. So you have sun shafts shining through the canopy. Alright. Why is a Turkey iridescent? A Turkey is iridescent because a tom is able to pick up that glimmer. He doesn't necessarily see a hand, but he sees that [00:32:00] sheen and that sheen has a certain shimmer that he knows that's a bird and they're constantly moving.

So he can take a quick scan and if he doesn't see that sheen, he knows that he's not seeing what he needs to see. Dang. That's never even, I just thought they were pretty, that's all. No and I see what I mean. That's just adaptability, right? They have the ability to adapt so quickly. They're literally an animal that lives pretty dagone clothes to the bottom of the food chain.

And when I think about those type of situations like the number one reservation a lot of people have, whenever you go to what you're talking about, Adam, is I gotta make sure it's not a Jake. And with that mindset you're gonna see a lot more guys in the hill country, in hilly terrain.

I'll do it and I'm not gonna apologize for it. If I've been working a Turkey and I'm expecting [00:33:00] a Turkey, or if I'm just sitting there and I see a redhead pop up, like it is not gonna be a whole lot of. Hesitation for me, if I can identify clearly that it's a Jake, then I'm not gonna do it. Most of the time always leave room.

We, we don't ever say never say never around here. But it does leave you vulnerable for that kind of stuff to happen. So there's gotta be ways to go about this Jordan? I've seen you get on a tear and it's the last week of the season and you kill all, you tag out the last week of the season.

So I know that there's been times when you've been able to figure this all out. What's your kind of go-to first thing when you ever, whenever you feel like everything's starting to shift, what's the next thing that you're doing? So once I identify that, okay, pres, birds are starting to act funny.

And I say act funny. They're still breeding. We know they're still breeding. They're just. Way that they're going about it. Whether they're, not being as vocal with gobbles and they're doing a lot more spitting and drumming, which it [00:34:00] to us is not audible at like a hundred yards. Whereas a hen it probably is.

I have no way to confirm that, but I personally believe that, hens can identify that at longer ranges and they'll gather to it. So once I feel like that's the situation, what I start trying to pay attention to Is hen vocalizations. So in that first week of the season, you can usually catch a hen.

If you're in a, a good enough spot with not very many people, you'll catch a hen letting it loose. She'll get on a rip, especially if she's headed into a gobbler, she's trying to get to him and she's in a spot let's say there's a creek between them. She wants him to come to her and he wants her to come to him.

They'll go back and forth. So as that progresses, once, once everything starts getting a little funny, you start hearing hens get quieter and quieter. So a huge red flag to me, especially like around week three, [00:35:00] is like your guy that goes in and he is just ripping it right off the bat.

Now it's situational. I've had birds get super hot week three, and I've gotten very aggressive with them and killed them. But by majority if I know that there's a bird and he's working, I try to keep it soft and light because the hen an actual hen at that point, she's gonna keep it soft and light lot.

So you're gauging when this turn of events happens more off how the head is vocalizing versus anything else. Am I correct there? Yeah. Also just, and we all see it as like, all right, the bird kind of hammers on the roof, hits the ground gobbles one time. Yeah. That's a big indicator that he's boom.

And a lot of guys are like, oh, he's just henned up. That's not necessarily true. That's not necessarily true. That's the Turkey that wants to live. And even at this point, what people also have to equate, and me and Parker just saw this, is we're not the only thing trying to come [00:36:00] to that goble, how many times are they getting, encountering a coyote, coming to them vocalizing.

Yep. Which is specific to this time of year, right? Like with hens yapping and doing their thing. When it's breeding season and yelping all over the place they're just leaving themselves that much more vulnerable to those predators. And you said something the other day when we went out coyote came basically right up to us while we were standing there talking where the gobbler was gobbling at that morning.

Like we were sitting there talking about how he probably was roosted and what, and the world happened. And you said, I've gotten screwed over by a couple coyotes this year already, and I swear it wasn't 30 seconds. 30 seconds, you're like, coyote coming right to us. So I just pulled up the camera as fast as I can and he caught a face full.

And he fell to a pretty sad demise down that bluff that flipped. Oh yeah, dude all over the place. But Jordan like that, that, this makes it tough. It makes it [00:37:00] tough when somebody says, Hey, I wanna go hunt public land. Turkeys makes it tough in a place like, like Alabama or really anywhere in the southeast, I think.

And other states. I honestly good luck in the Pine Bri, pine Ridge of Nebraska right now, cuz there's a lot of people hunting there. That's a typically a great area and turkeys like it. But I'm not even, I'm not even spot burning at this point. It's a, just a joke now.

About how many people are there? And it's affected the way that it hunts. It absolutely has affected the way that it hunts. You went on this tear a couple years ago. I keep saying the same. I don't know another way to call it. You went on a roll had a crap season. I wanna say it was covid year.

Had a crap season for the majority of the season, and then you went on the last week and killed several. I don't remember if it was three or four, but you killed quite a few. What are the things that you did differently on that one? Cause we're running right up on the end, like we're closing. I know Adam, you guys are just getting started.

But we're [00:38:00] closing here soon. So that year specifically are week three. This was a huge tick for me. So I was in one of my best spots. I've killed a lot of birds right here. Everybody was off work and people were just, will, they had more time. They were willing to go a little further than they normally would.

This is about three miles deep, so that was a g When we get back there, there was a guy, he's ripping it, gobbler's, ripping it, and me and my buddy, he doesn't even Turkey hunt, he just wanted to go with me cuz it seems like he didn't have anything better to do. So we get in there and I call this bird maybe two times, and this other guy's ripping it, the bird's hammering.

And I just, with time you start being able to gauge like how a Turkey is. Like whether he's really committing or he's just vocalizing, Yada yada. I looked at my buddy, I said everything I had down, and I said, I kicked back and crossed my legs. And he said what are you doing?

I said, that bird's gonna walk right to [00:39:00] us. He's gonna lead that guy and he's gonna walk right to us. I said, but if I keep calling, he's gonna walk right away from both of us. I said, I'm gonna shut up. Said, and he's gonna walk right in. It wasn't about 10 minutes later that gobbler, and it was either 10 to 15 other gobblers.

It was a whole group, but only one of them was being vocal. He walked right in and I shot him at 20 yards. I rolled the bird. I gave him three and a half inches of tss. Who's laying there? I'm just chilling. While I finally get up to go get that bird, he hops up, flies up on a limb and pitches off. That's why like even though I shoot TSS now, I run and stand on birds because I've seen it personally happen and I drilled at 20 yards.

That year really taught me a lot as far as what turkeys will do under pressure heavy pressure. The only conclusion I could come to us to why that many goers had grouped back up [00:40:00] was that they had gotten to the point that they had discontinued breeding almost and grouped back into groups just to have as many eyes as they could, whether it be hens, whether it be gobblers.

They literally devoided everything that they, they felt like nature was pushing them to do and gathered back up for their survival. So from that point on, going into the rest of week three and week four, The pressures like, I think that was the last day that I really saw anybody. And I've always noticed, like if you're on big management areas, if you're in the woods, when people start driving around like they're the whatever, they lose a bird or they're trying to hop spots or whatever, you'll hear these birds they'll either do one of two things.

They'll hammer while that truck's popping that gravel and as soon as it stops, they shut up. Or they'll gobble, they won't gobble at all and that truck [00:41:00] will stop. They'll gobble one time and then they go quiet for 40 minutes. Then once it settles back down, they'll crank back up. It, I guess it just depends on the bird.

So the first thing I thought to myself was, I do not need to be driving a truck off of asphalt. I don't want any gravel popping, especially on these roads where I'm trying to get to deeper points that are gravel. So that was the first thing I cut out. I'm foot only. Even if I have to walk an extra two miles, I'm foot on me.

So then what I generally do even now in like in this type of situation, everybody wants to strike a hot bird. Hot birds are over if you want my opinion on it. Late season you're done with hot birds, especially on public. What you're trying to do now is kill a Turkey, a pressure Turkey. So I would put myself in situations where I know that birds are in the area.

I know where they like to hang out and I just don't call. And what I would do is eventually, I would hear boo groups of birds walking very [00:42:00] lightly. Clucks and pers and bird would wander over and check and boom, there it goes. And that's how I killed all of those birds that year.

And I actually haven't gone to that extent since then, but I was so under so much pressure that year because we're going into week four and I haven't killed a bird and I ended up killing four birds in five days. In that last set of days. But it was a combination of, so if you've ever, not many people do this.

If you ever go back to an area after Turkey season ends like two weeks, the goblin kind of picks back up. It was like the same effect. Like p it got so warm that year, people quit going a little bit earlier. So it gave me enough buffer that those birds, like I was the only person in the woods too.

Jordan's telling a story there. It's complete lie. Like when birds stop gobbling, they just stop gobbling. No reason to go back in the woods. Kinda what I think, just watch your step if you do, Adam I'm wondering [00:43:00] your intent with having good guests on the show. I feel like with this we should maybe move to having crappy guests that give really bad information.

I'm like no, Jordan. That's too deep, Jordan. But don't go there. Don't go there. That's a secret Adam. Before I had kids I had more time. So like when you really you're obsessed it's I just wonder what they're doing. Yeah. Like I wonder if this changed things. I wonder if that changed things.

Whereas most people would be like, ah, Turkey season's over, I'm getting my fish and stuff out. I'm like, where are these turkeys? Yeah. Why did more of them, Adam, you and I have had similar conversations talking about a particular public area that you and I hunted that same, that very same year. If you'll remember Adam, I mean it was balls hot the whole time we were there.

Then there was like a weird 28 degree may day, but this was Covid season. And what Jordan's saying is absolutely true. People quit hunting that Yeah, people weren't [00:44:00] hunting. And for good reason. Here's the thing, for great reason, it's hard. Like Jordan's saying, the birds aren't hot.

You'll still hear gobbling. You will absolutely still hear gobbling, but good luck trying to call one in even in Tennessee, in that late season hunt, it felt very similar to hunting Miriam's, where you just have to get in front of them and that's really your, yeah, your best option.

And so that just confirms even more what you're saying, be where they want to be and take it easy for a little bit. Jordan, that's something I wanted to ask cause I saw you make a comment on Facebook in preparation for this cost. I started like doing a little Facebook stalking on you Uhhuh, and comment you're very active on Facebook, especially in that Alabama Turkey hunting forum, whatever it is, that group there.

And one of the guys was talking about late season turkeys and how you, you made a comment about like deer hunting them. And you made a comment a minute ago about being where, turkeys will be, and then you also take into consideration of what Parker just said, of hunting 'em, Miriam's and just [00:45:00] trying to continue to get in front of 'em.

Where do you lean when you go in it's late season? Maybe these turkeys are only gobbling on the roofs. Maybe they gobbled one time on the ground. Are you doing your best to get in front of 'em or are you saying, Hey, I know turkey's frequent this area and I'm gonna just sit it out?

So again, it depends on the gauge of the bird. So let's say. You have a bird that'll gobble once every 45 minutes, you can work with that. You can get in the first two hours, okay, he's headed this direction. I need to move around and start circling in front of him. When you have a bird that gobbles twice a day, it's a little bit tougher.

And the reality is, none of us have the time to sit in the woods and watch a particular Turkey enough to learn exactly what he's doing. You come to conclusions about what they're doing. And especially what I've done before is, [00:46:00] let's say week two, I hear a bird, he's flying down to a creek every day and he's gobbling going down that creek every day.

All right, let's say I don't kill that bird. Week four, that bird's still doing the same thing. He's just not talking. He likes that route. He's gonna run that route. So those are times that you can fall back and you're like, okay. The turkeys are very patentable, which is why they're killed on fields so easily.

Especially like usually within 30 minutes of like, when they like to show up, they're gonna show up there. So you can fall back on those birds. Okay, I know he's been in this area. I know a week ago he was doing this thing, I'm just gonna chill here. And people talk about the bubble, it, within that 70 yard range, it's a lot easier to coerce a bird, to make a slight veer versus trying to call a bird opposite of what he's doing.

Yeah, I absolutely. And specifically during late season, [00:47:00] right? Like they just aren't gonna do the same. Adam, even going back to the whole Tennessee situation that we had, it was not rare to hear an afternoon gobble on that. On that particular week. It was not rare. But you couldn't, it felt like you could not do much with it.

Like it would be pretty sparing, but it'd be just enough, like maybe once every hour and a half, it like, just when you're getting ready to go in, it's oh crap, I guess I should stay here a little bit longer. Cause you hear another I'm here. Yeah, you hear another Turkey gobble or whatever.

But it does turn into a, an entirely different game and it turns into an entirely different game too. I feel like most of the content around afternoon Turkey hunting or like late season even just Turkey hunting in general. Like you talk about afternoon birds. If you get with me and you were talking about this Jordan yesterday.

If you get on an afternoon bird or late morning bird, he's as good as dead. I thought your take on [00:48:00] that was pretty interesting. And the reason why is because I find myself a lot, especially after, after about week two of the season, I found myself a lot having failed attempts at late morning and afternoon turkeys.

And I think to myself like, I thought this crap was supposed to be easy when you get 'em to, it doesn't matter how long a Turkey hunt, I'm always, if I don't make it happen on one of those turkeys that gobles in the afternoon, I'm gonna feel like a crap Turkey hunter. Yeah. And it's funny because even more so in the afternoon, You will know within the first five minutes whether it needs to be, it's a bird that is gonna die or not.

If it's one of those birds, like, all right, he gobbles, you call to him, he gobbles back and then he just starts ripping it on his own. That's that situation where it's okay, that's a dead bird. And it almost feels like a lucky situation. Honestly. Like the only way to determine that is either you're on private land or where there's still hard [00:49:00] goblin, younger turkeys.

But most of the time what I find when you start getting into this week of the season, those turkeys are dead. Or they're just smarter than the rest of the other two year olds. So now let's reel it in and think why would a Turkey do this? Alright, this is why I always go back. Why? Alright.

Especially specifically on public land, why would he gobble once, let's say every hour, but he wouldn't do anything with a call That bird has become, Totally reliant on his eyes and he is totally confident in the fact that he doesn't have to breathe. But if he can bring hints to them and get a visual on them he's fine with it also.

But he knows better than to commit to something that he does not know what it is. For sure. He's probably bumped into people. This is, goes back to he has now pro prioritized survival over breeding. And That's true. That's younger turkeys. That's Jake's, that's hys. Yeah. I believe [00:50:00] that's everything.

Some of 'em may be more apt to make the mistake in the late season, but to get four year old birds, that means you have to have two year olds that survived and they survived by wisen up. Absolutely. And so it's fun. The public birds that I've had really do it in the afternoon, like really do it.

They were always in very remote places. They weren't anywhere close to being tampered with. And it was always like week two. And man, when they lit up. But one of those birds I ended up not killing because the Woodman Woodsmanship wasn't there. I made some calls to 'em prior to being ready.

He came right in and I was 150 yards away and he immediately entered a, a cut over and he knew, he was like, where's she at? And he was still workable, but he started walking away from me and I had to round him out. And we ended up on the same ridge. But I was pinned. I was pinned at that point because I had called too early.

He knew that he should [00:51:00] already be seeing her, and I couldn't make a move. So even when, people say, oh, it should be a dead Turkey, especially at public land, Turkey, but any turkeys, woodsmanship is king of those woods. Every time. You even made a comment early on, like when you guys were setting up in a thick spot, right?

Make sure you have plenty of shot opportunities. That cost me Saturday, like I probably could have set by a tree 10 foot over and had a much different outcome, right? Like just thinking like every situational point of that hunt. Am I set up where I need to be before like I make a call or whatever it may be.

Before that Turkey comes in is it's important and it's literally life and death for that Turkey. Not for you, but for that Turkey it is. So think about it this way, alright? If you don't call that Turkey, is he gonna turn off? Just like that. What is pressuring you besides yourself to hit that call? [00:52:00] Man sometimes we fumble ourself into a mistake because we're excited.

Especially when adrenaline's going, it's best to reel yourself back. Say he's not going anywhere, he's ready and you have 30, 45 minutes. I mean that bird's doing it. And maybe a hint will get there before, but maybe not because why would he be searching if there was a hint readily available?

So that's when you reel yourself in. And especially alright, so taking it back to day two on the river public, we ended up striking the bird and I didn't like where we were at. I think that the bird had too many opportunities to enter the area and see that there wasn't a hint there. And I'll do this a lot too.

The birds are moving in. I'm fixing to make as far of a move towards him as I can and without calling. And the reason being is there's been a thousand times where I wish I was one tree closer. A lot of people, this bird's being vocal, they want to communicate with him, and they're just locking theirself in harder.

[00:53:00] That bird's getting closer and he is dialing in where you're at closer and he's looking well when he starts committing it. And you've only called to him once. You have three, four minutes where you can make a 20, 30 yard play, let's say. And this was the situation we ran into the woods. I'm trying to convince my buddies that they're a Turkey.

One of 'em is arguing with me. He's bro, that's a woodpecker. I'm like, no, dude. That is a Turkey. So I'm like, we gotta go. So we get in the woods, it's thick. It comes to a creek opening where it's three or four. Really like really streams, like I'd say four foot wide streams connecting.

I set, I sat behind the God that I wanted to shoot, and I immediately knew if I wanted to. I was trying to let that guy kill a Turkey. But I was already in my head like, this is a mistake. I need to get across that creek. I need to be across that creek before these birds come in. And what ended up happening was the birds crossed the lane, his gun was in his [00:54:00] lap.

He couldn't shoot. The birds got in at 20 yards and it was too thick. If I had been across the creek, I would've had four or five opportunities to kill those birds. So there's a lot of, once you have that bird hot, once he's committed, he has responded to you instead of playing into his game. The best thing you can do is do less.

Every bird I killed this year, pretty, every bird I killed this year, I struck the bird. Day one, I hit a box. He responded like a half mile away. Literally, I hit the box again. He responded. I left. I started walking a half mile down the road. I just left him. And part of the reason was like I wasn't, there was an asphalt road in the bottom separating us.

He's on a total different ridge shop. And I was like, he might commit, he might not. I'll come back and check later, but it's never a bad theory either because too vocal of a hen I feel like is a bad thing. As silence is a, the best thing for a Turkey. [00:55:00] Even when you're talking about these afternoon birds that crank up, they never crank up when they've heard calls all day.

They crank up. Especially let's say you got off work, you rode to public. Nobody's been there all day and you walk in and you get a bird to fire up. He's been sitting there for three hours, maybe gobbling once. Every once in a while. He still hasn't came in. He's pent up. So when you give him that reel of silence, like when I walked away from that bird, I was about a half mile down the road trying to strike a different bird than I had heard that morning.

And that light bulb went off my head. I said, if he is gonna do it, he's on his way. I ran back and with him 40 yards of where I called. He was in the bottom double gobbling. And I was like, oh God. So I sat down and I ended up killing that bird. So the third bird, I killed the same thing. I struck him, I made a huge loop, like probably a quarter mile loop.

I hit the box in the middle one time, kept walking. I didn't stop there. I just kept walking. Gave him more silence. Next time he gobbled, he was where the box was. I wasn't [00:56:00] really pressed. I was like he's workable. And the silence is only making it more he's getting frustrated. Jordan, even looking at that specific situation you talked about, talk about woodsmanship, you talk about a lot of things that kind of got in the way of maybe you being able to be successful on that specific hunt.

I always try to, especially when you're talking about throwing up. Calls every once in a while, or setting up in a setting up in a spot that has a lot of sign. A lot of the things that we've been talking about in late season specifically, I always try to concentrate on one thing for myself every season that I know is a weakness, but I wanna make it into a strength, right?

So every season I feel like I have something like that, that I really focus on. And the one of the main things that I've talked about on the podcast is this patient's mindset. If there is nothing else going on, I want to be in the woods, right? I [00:57:00] still want to be hunting. I don't want to just go get breakfast.

I, I, honestly, I don't have that luxury because I pretty much have to drive an hour to get to any public area that I could possibly hunt. And so I'm gonna stay stationary. I'm gonna be in, I'm gonna find a place that has lots to sign. And I'm gonna be there for those moments. Like I want to be there for tho if he's not gonna gobble.

But every once in a while I wanna be there for those. And what I found this year, forcing myself to do that even more is that it works a large percentage of the time when you just sit there, if you the main factor is you gotta know that there's turkeys around cuz if there's not turkeys around, then you're kinda wasting your time.

So finding that sign, or knowing that it's an area that I've heard turkeys gobble at before, or maybe I've had encounter there, whatever, but sitting still and just being there and then maybe call every 30 minutes and trying to hope that he is I think the term [00:58:00] you used was pent up. Hope he, he gets there, in those 30 minutes, that's a long time to be quiet. It really is. When you're Turkey hunting, I could say you could probably do it every hour and you might have a better, you might have a better success rate doing it every hour as far as getting a response from it. And then doing like some of the stuff that Joey has talked about if you wanna call, learn how to soft call, learn how to do feeding, how to do clucks and purs and little things like that.

If you just have to make a noise because you're a d then learn how to do those kind of things and make natural Turkey sounds. And I think just tying it all up, it seems like your main, focus whenever it comes to late season and really adapting, is almost being more conservative.

You, you're more conservative with your style of Turkey hunting the longer the season progresses. Is that accurate? And even the best way [00:59:00] that I can think about it is when we're hunting, Like specifically, if you know that you're going into an area with a big mature buck, so many people are like, I need to make sure the wind's on point.

I'm looking at thermals. I'm making sure that there's no scent on my clothes. Maybe they're bringing a tub in, maybe they're going in no light. Some people are waiting for daylight to walk in. They're trying not to make as little noise as possible. You're trying to be a ghost in the woods. Everything needs to seem natural for that deer to move.

So when you're going into Hunter Turkey, why do so many people subconsciously make it feel like there's a hunter in the woods? Yeah. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Why? Why throw off the natural order and you were hunting and we're sitting there long span of silence. We haven't done anything.

We're just sitting there, chit-chatting. He walks right up on us in the thicket, in the weirdest place. Yep. [01:00:00] Yep. And so the longer I've done this, the more, and I don't have necessarily any proof of this besides just small things, but I think over time it will prove itself. I really do believe a lot of people mentally are like these turkeys, they're out.

They're somewhere strutting or they're moving. And maybe if I'm moving, I'll run into 'em. I actually think as season progresses and pressure is maintained, that birds do a lot of standing. They will get in one spot and stand, and it is, if you've ever walked, had a seven to 14 mile day in the woods and he walked and walked and walked and not seen turkeys, especially late season, that's the only conclusion you can come to because you cover these points that you know that birds are using and what is more than likely, I think happening is.

Is they have positioned theirself up against a pine ticket, up against a cutover, and they see you far before you see them because you don't know they're there, they're not [01:01:00] making noise, and they just receive 10 yards. They're making 10 yard play. And they do that until they know for certain, just like that hn the other day.

I think she got in her normal groove in a long span of silence. So once those birds are fairly certain that everything in the woods has calmed down they'll go back into normal action.

Adam, man, I had a a really good question. You had your hand raised and I did have my hand raised. Hey, I, I do wanna say this too. I was making a point earlier and I never actually got to the actual point of Woodsmanship with your setup right there. One of the things that I.

That you're able to control when you hunt this this kind of style? I guess that, that I'm referring to right here of just trying to set up in a spot call sparingly and get a gobbler is you're able to control your setup most of the [01:02:00] time in those moments. You don't have a Turkey goblin, you can take your time picking out a tree.

One of the, I don't remember who I heard say it, but it was probably like seven or eight years ago. It was a while back. It was a long time ago and it stuck with me of don't call unless you're close to a tree that you can set up on. And that's, that's been huge, right? Like I can remember earlier on in my Turkey hunting where I was like, Setting up on these tiny little trees because that's all I had.

Because I was not being wise in my setup. It's like I knew from the moment that I got there, I got rushed into the setup. And that still happens. It's going to happen when you run a gun Turkey hunt, there's gonna be times that you're just like, heck, I'm in this cut over. Let's just throw one up as a hail Mary and he's gonna gobble and you're gonna be like, where do I sit?

What do I do right here? So it, it will happen. But at the same time, like I think those kind of [01:03:00] things, those kind of scenarios you're able to control the narrative just a little bit of how that hunt's gonna play out as much as you possibly can. Cuz you're never gonna be able to do that. So Jordan, like Parker point all that out, brought me back to my question so I apologize there.

I blanked out. But you mentioned like how some Turkey hunters are more nonchalant. Than deer hunters when it comes to approaching a Turkey, right? It's like they let their guard down, they're like, oh, I can get away with this. What are some mistakes that you think Turkey hunters are making when they're going into a goblin a bird?

The first mistake, and I reiterate this all the time, even to myself, every season, the first mistake I think that you can make, all right, so you have a bird. So many people, they want the TV hunt, they want, I'm calling, he's gobbler, I'm calling. He's gobbling all the way to the gun barrel. Ideally for you to be in that situation, you're set up where he wants to be, and by the time he gets to you, it's too late for him.[01:04:00]

So in order for that to happen, you would have to know without a doubt that you're right. So what I see people do especially on their feet, like talking, running, gun target hunting, not targeting a bird. The bird is committed. He's coming in and they're still talking to him, and they're still trying to move him.

This bird can see exponentially better than you think he can. So the worst mistake you can make, even if he's committed, don't keep talking because some birds, it'll speed him up. They'll get there even quicker if you keep talking to him. So what you can do let's say I, I call to a bird, he hammers.

I'm immediately going to take a second, I'm going to try to situate myself to where he has some obstacle to cross that when he breaches 40 yards, he's a dead man. It doesn't matter, whether it's a brush pile anything like that, my phone fell. [01:05:00] But ideally, what I usually try to do is either below the crest of a bridge or just over the crest of a ridge, and force him one way or the other.

Because if he's at workable, he'll do it. But the continual calling, I feel like you're just making 'em look harder, your direction. So let's say you're in the situation like Parker. Alright, you've got a bird coming in and you're nowhere near where you need to be set up. You're struggling, then you sit on a tree, you're uncomfortable, you're trying to shift around.

That bird has showed up on you and he's busted you. And it's only because you did it to yourself when you originally struck him. He was interested, but you got him super hot. So again, who's putting the pressure on you to make him super hot? Because usually how a Turkey does, you strike him and they'll say, you heat him up again.

And it's that second one where he's I'm coming. Very rarely on the first one, what I've had happen multiple times. If he's that close. For that [01:06:00] first one, a lot of times he won't even gobble, he just shows up. So I try not to even call without sitting down. But I've had this happen a lot on public, be in a bird's bubble and be standing there calling like on a light rainy day or something and turn around and he's right there and you're like, oh God, I should have been set up.

It's just, it's also like a mental thing about how a lot of people hunt turkeys or get into Turkey hunt cuz they're like, I don't have to worry about scents so I can smoke cigarettes. Or, me and my buddies can cut up. It's a lot like duck hunting, this and that. But the reality is that animal is just like a mature deer.

But in its own ride it depends on how serious you want to take it. If you just want to kill one young dumb bird a year that's gonna run in and you can make mistakes, that's fine. You can do it that way. If you really want to kill multiple turkeys a year, and even as pressure progresses, You have to be on point when you get in the woods, man.

[01:07:00] So stinking good. And it relatable for a whole lot of people. We're not talking about, you don't, you're not, you weren't given an opportunity to have a big, nice, huge piece of private land that, like you're talking about going out and working for him. It's one of the reasons why I've always respected you so much and you're, you've always been so willing to share knowledge.

So dude, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Adam, do you wanna, you have any other questions for Jordan before we go? No, man. This is this has been a lot of fun. I'm glad I got to know you a little bit better tonight, Jordan, for sure. This has been a great conversation. Look, I'm gonna give y'all one thing before I go.

Yeah. And this is a tip out of my bag and something that I've implemented like the last five years when, you know he is coming. Go ahead and shuffle two or three, three trees closer. There's two reasons for that. He's thinking your two or three trees further back, so he's not ready to slow up yet.

So when you hear people start thinking about, that bird's, they, he hung up at 70. You not only are you taking that [01:08:00] out of the equation, he's now in 40, he's also looking past where you're at. So if you have that time when you strike him, you make that second call, you go ahead and move four or five trees up, you go ahead and pre-prepare for it to make a shift on him that he doesn't know about it.

It changes the game. That's good. It's real good. I agree. I will use that. I'll remember you saying it too. All right, Jordan, man, really appreciate you coming on the show, man. And I hope you can get this last Turkey under your belt for the season. Me too. Your marriage might be happier. Daughter's gonna be happier.

Everything's, life's just be better. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's like you just can't mentally move on knowing that the government's gonna let me do it, I gotta do it. Anything they give me, I'm gonna take it. Absolutely. All right guys. Thanks so much for listening. Hey, thanks for listening to the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast.

[01:09:00] Hope you tune in next week for another great conversation about our favorite bird in the woods as the Wild Turkey. We'll talk to you guys next week.

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