Show Notes
On this episode of the Limbhanger podcast, we're doing a debrief of some of our recent successful turkey hunts. Using his military background, Adam shares that during his time in the service, after every mission they would do a debrief to pick apart what they did right or wrong. In this week's episode, we're going to do the same.
Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant, outdoor content!
Show Transcript
[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 round table conversation about one of the wart creatures in North America, wild Turkey. You'll stick around. It's gonna be a great show.
All right everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Limb Hanger Turkey Hunting podcast. My name's Parker McDonald and I wasn't here on the show last week, but I do wanna say that I thoroughly enjoyed the episode. Matt or not Matt, Adam and [00:01:00] Joey. You guys knocked it out of the park and great job.
Awesome podcast. I wanna say though, Adam, I was a little bit disappointed that we really didn't get to hear much about your successful hunt in that episode. And so I think we probably should talk about it today. That was just me being humble, man. I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna talk about myself. You did talk, you did share the story about the gobblers and Bandidos yes.
Which is really the most Texas experience I think you could possibly have. Absolutely. I'm hoping we're gonna hear about this story this week. I know you talked last week that we were supposed to have an episode with with somebody about talking, further, talking about the outfitter type thing, how to plan an outfitter that fell through last minute.
So here we are. We were gonna talk more about outfitting outfitted hunts. We had a really good kind of a Turkey shotgun episode lined up, but just having to fall through. So we will reschedule that one for a different time. And[00:02:00] I think getting into some tactics, things of that nature is, it's overdue, so we're ready for it.
Yeah, I've been watering at the mouth, trying to get into some, wanting to get into some tactical discussions. Been wanting to do that for a month. Tech. Yeah, dude, I guess I'm just the only one that just hasn't felt like it's Turkey season, even though I've been Turkey hunting a couple times. I went to Florida, went to Texas.
I've I've been in this mode of still preparation and still waiting and I guess like holding back on the tactics thing, just been holding back too long. We probably should have got going a couple weeks ago. Yeah. I'm still in that preparation. I'm still in that preparation mode and that is three days away from season.
I finally patterned my shotgun today, man. You boys Tennessee, boys are, it is, it's a very strange thing going on right now. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a lot of friends in Tennessee and I'm used to like Tennessee in the past opened up, an average [00:03:00] timeframe for a lot of states and now all this Tennessee guys are like, it does, it feels like we've been in Turkey season for a minute and you guys haven't even really.
Kicked off. Yeah, it was riding around one week after you guys. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I was riding around today and I noticed the green up that was happening. And it's right on time this year versus last year, which it seemed like almost never showed up last year, and when it did, it was boom, it was like a light switch.
But it's right on time this year mid-April. And I remember a couple years ago, it was pretty early, but hunting should be good. I'm not really upset about that later date right now. Cuz I'm still anxious to see what it does for pressure. But the hunting should be good. Yeah. I've been curious about like just what Tennessee, could potentially set standards for the rest of the Southeast, you know what I'm saying?
Seeing how this goes, if it, if [00:04:00] you guys do see some benefit from it from this later, like significantly later start date, it's not just it's a little bit later, like it's pretty good bit later, but then it's also going, it's also going back later into May. Correct? Yes.
They did not take days away from us, so we still have that six week, seven weekend season. So we close on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, which is fine with me. I was very happy they didn't take any days away from us, even though we've got six weeks to fill two tags, we still have all that opportunity, to take somebody else.
If we tag out early. That's interesting. Da I think that's gonna create some interesting data because we talk about, the, like the majority of the turkeys that get killed on that open weekend. I'm interested to see if the same amount of turkeys get killed in the same amount of days.
You know what I'm saying? I would bet that we killed [00:05:00] more turkeys the first two weeks of this season versus the first two weeks of previous seasons. I'll take that bet and I'll say, we'll, cute. Here's what I'll say. I'll say, we'll kill more this weekend versus last year's opening weekend. So there'll be more kills opening weekend.
But I think you'll see a severe decline the second weekend versus last year's second weekend. And I think that's where things really will start to show up because we've talked about it before. I'm not trying to apply pressure, late season pressure to Tennessee, but I do not feel like our. Our state carries hunters late into the year.
It feels like there's a significant decline of hunting pressure. And that has a lot to do with weather. It just getting hot. And a lot of people, they don't want to be out there when it's hot and that's fine. I'm afraid, Parker, to your question of seeing if this will set a standard, I don't know that the state of Tennessee will actually.
Commit to doing this long term. And if they don't commit to doing this long term, [00:06:00] we're not gonna get a sample size of what could have happened or what the results could have been. However, we do ha we can go look and see what they did to those Southern Middle Tennessee counties. And it's the same, it's the same thing.
They started them two weeks late, they cut back to two tags. And I was down in Wayne County, which is one of the counties that was hardest hit by a harvest decline. And so when you look at that from oh one to I think oh 17, there was like a 65 to 70% decline in harvest numbers. And I'm talking to my cousins who, I wouldn't say that they're just like Turkey hunters.
It's not all, but they're deer hunters that Turkey hunt and they care about Turkey hunting. My brother is putting that same boat and asking them like, what are you seeing for turkeys? And man, their eyes are lightening up and saying, we got more turkeys than we've had. In five to 10 years. And they are pointing to the fact of that late season open.
And I think it'll go back to peop it's not the fact that people are gonna[00:07:00] kill less turkeys opening weekend. It's the fact that they're not gonna hunt maybe that second or third weekend and then it just completely tails off. So if you lose 25% of your harvest, cuz your cost, you're not customers.
But if you're hunters stop hunting, that's a big freaking deal. So we'll see. Yeah, it's interesting. It's easy to get to talking about those ki type of things cuz that's, in our day-to-day stuff, we talk about it quite a bit. Just thoughts, opinions, whatever. But that's not in fact what we're talking about today.
You guys had a successful, like a really nice. Youth opener there in or open weekend I should say. There in Tennessee. And Adam, we gotta talk about your bird that you killed in Texas and I have not been able to share the story, which is a pretty fun story of the Osceola that I killed, the second bird that I killed in Florida.
And so we had this idea we were brainstorming a little bit last night about Adam, I'm gonna let you kinda explain it cuz [00:08:00] you're the one with the military background, the parallels there. So when I was in the military and anyone that's in the military, and you go on a legitimate mission.
Let's say you are in Iraq, you're in Afghanistan, and you are going to go on a mission, the first thing you do as soon as you come back is you do a debrief with your unit. You understand what went wrong, what went right, what could we have done differently, and really your unit is getting together to gather that information.
To go out and to be better next time. And as what we talked about over the last couple of days of how can we do a better job of storytelling, how can we do a better job of bringing value to our listeners and helping them understand what went right and wrong? Not only in our own hunts, but in our guests Hunts is really trying to structure a debrief around that.
Even in the business world. I went through a three day class that was completely centered around a bunch of Air Force guys had got, pilots, [00:09:00] had got together. They created this consulting firm. And what they do is they really preach the debrief. They c they say, Hey, this is the most important part of your business.
So in business, military, and I think we can also utilize this in Turkey hunting, is just to get around and understand what is right what went right, what went wrong, and how can we do a better job of it, but be very structured about the way that we do that. So we're gonna go through here, we're gonna talk about.
Each other's stories and we're gonna pick it apart really. And we're gonna try to learn something from it. I like it. Let's do it. I like it. So the freshest one on our minds is the one from this weekend where you guys got to go on Turkey hunt with one of Adam's boy, or both Adam's boys, two of Adam's three, and golly, all over the place.
One of one, one or two of the three, something like that. But had some success. And Joey, you got to be a part of it. I want to hear, I want to hear this story and I guess since both of you guys were a part of this hunt I'm gonna, [00:10:00] I'm gonna pick, I'm gonna ask some questions based around what you did.
So set the stage for us for this hunt. So I'll go first. I was able to scout this place. A handful of mornings just go listen and just get some pins on birds just so we have a handful of spots to try out. And it turned out we just had to have one spot. We found one spot that had several birds and I think several is accurate cuz we heard a lot of birds from that one general area.
And the night before I went walking down the trailhead there and actually ran into some turkeys. The hens spooked. They crawled up on me and spooked around me. They've flushed. I had one land in a tree right above me. Now since you, you're out above me, y'all sent you guys that polo.
So that was pretty cool. But the, I had ran into these turkeys because I'd heard a gobbler. I. [00:11:00] A few hundred yards, at least way down the trail. And I was easing my way down through there. And after just a few minutes, one gobbled probably 75 yards away in a pasture, off the side of the trail.
And so I froze, tucked back into some cover there. And he gobbled once or twice more. And then I could actually see him and his hens crossing the road, probably 60 yards up in front of me through some brush. And I thought they were gonna go off into the holler across the road from that trail or from that field.
And they started to do that. And for some reason, the hens came back up to the trail and started walking right up towards me. When I saw them going off into that holler, I got outta my cover and I got, it was like a I guess you could call it like an intersection of two trails. So I got in the middle of this secondary trail and I was just out in the middle, nothing around me.
And I had my [00:12:00] dog moose with me too. I was just taking him with me to listen for turkeys and these hens start coming back up the trail. And I'm just like if I move to go get into cover, I'm for sure gonna flush him. So I just sit on the ground and I'm just sitting there holding moose. He's sitting there he's wanting to just lose his mind at these turkeys.
I know it. But the hens come up, they get 12 yards away from us. They start just flushing, they, I don't know they probably couldn't have flushed, but I think he just wanted to, if that makes any sense. Like he didn't we didn't scare them. They were like I don't know what that is sitting there, so I'm just gonna fly over it.
And then the gobbler was right there in amongst him, and he was like the same distance away. Saw us. Just cocked his head, looked at us. He never putted, never Clucked, never did anything. He just kinda just turned back up into the brush and on, up into the field. And I never saw or heard him again.
I never heard him fly up. It was close enough to fly up. I was like, okay I'll at least be able to hear him fly up. [00:13:00] Probably get a really good location on him, and we can get in there tight and do something with him in the morning. I never heard him fly up, never heard him gobble again, and I don't think I bumped him on my way out when it got dark.
And so we were gonna sit there. What kind of terrain are we looking at here? We're talking like hills and haulers. It wasn't much flat. Ridges and haulers, a lot of crops or mostly just mostly woods type stuff. A lot of hardwoods. Okay. And a open area here or there. Okay. So I'll kind think of it occasionally.
So your typical southern wma? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we get there I get there really early the next morning. I don't know if you guys saw that reel that Parker shared the other day about me describing this this guy that we actually saw later that day. He was talking about youth Weekend and he was like, man people still come in here like three 30 in the morning to get [00:14:00] a spot.
And I'm sitting there thinking, yeah, that was me. That was me. Adam and his boys had approved at what'd it take you to get there? An hour? About an hour and 10 minutes maybe. Yeah. So I was gonna try and get there. It was closer to my house, get there, hold a spot, and when they got there, we could walk in.
We walked in way earlier than we really needed to. This two boys fell asleep, laying on the ground while we were sitting there waiting for it to get a little daylight. But we finally heard a Turkey gobble, and I think from where we were standing at him, what would you say? Maybe a couple hundred yards or so, maybe 2 50, 200, 300 yards maybe.
Yeah. And so I'm thinking, man, that cannot be that Turkey that I bumped yesterday. Didn't hear him fly up, didn't hear him gobble, but it was so close to fly up that I didn't think. Go all the way out there and looking back probably 400 yards from where you thought he would be, right? Yeah. In a different direction.
Yeah. I thought he was gonna [00:15:00] be like on the other side of the pasture, when I saw him turn back into that breast the night before and go into that field, I thought he was going across on the other side of this ridge and was gonna roost over there. But I, now that I'm looking back, I think it was that same Turkey and he covered some ground before dark, so I, maybe I did bump him and just didn't know about it.
Maybe he was running towards that roo tree on my way out. But anyway, he gobbled and we were contemplating, I think right then end if that was him or not. Because if it wasn't him, so when he gobbles we're in hilly terrain, right? Is it, tell me like where does he gobble, like below you guys in a bottom?
Is he, are y'all just even elevation right here. I think we're on even elevation. Yeah. But he was on the tip of a small finger. Okay. If I, looking back, I can remember the map in my head. I think that finger wasn't that long off that main [00:16:00] ridge. I'm looking at it. Yes. He was on a small finger. So there's like a couple of fingers and this one is a small finger that he was on.
Yeah. And there's a creek running through that bottom. Might have been a dry gully and there's about a hundred foot of elevation change. But he was about even with us, so Yeah. Yeah. The good thing regardless was that we separated, or I separated his hens from him that night before. When they flushed, they flew off wherever they scattered and he was left without hens.
So that played into our advantage that I inadvertently did that, but. So it's still, you could still consider it early season up here last weekend. Not a whole lot of green up stuff's starting to butt out, but there's not hardly any green stuff on the ground. And we had the, we had two boys with us, so we had four people that we would try to need to try to conceal.
Should we re, should we make a move on the gover and beans. It was so open and [00:17:00] from that bird's vantage point, he could probably see that road right down to the base of that finger. So we crept up, what, Adam, a couple hundred yards maybe? Maybe a hundred yards? Yeah, maybe a hundred something yards, and got set up on that trail head.
My thought was that he would pitch down, come down that finger, and come down that road towards where he saw those hens fly off the night before. And he gobbled pretty good on the roost and then he pitched down and I think he ended up in that creek bottom. Yeah. Which surprised me. He didn't have any hens.
What's crazy about that? It surprises me every time that they pitch down into these creek bottoms. But I feel like I see it more and more like a, I see a lot of turkeys pitch down into creek bottoms and freaking just [00:18:00] start their day there. It surprised me because he was by himself. If he'd have been with hens I wouldn't surprise me to see those hens go down there cuz that's their food and there's water down there.
But I still think he pitched to that ridge and then walked down to that bottom. So maybe he did hear the hens fly down. I never heard them fly down. He definitely made separation from us. And got away from us. What was your calling like right here. So while he w y'all got set up, he was on the limb still.
What? What were you giving him? Right when we were setting up, I got out, down toward, down the trail, just a few, I don't know, handful of yards away from our little setup right there. And I just did, I think I did some tree yelps. I didn't, I wasn't able to get my wing outta my bag just right quick.
So I just used my hat, flapped my hat. Like I, I wanted to try to be that first hand on the ground. And I think I was, I just didn't think that, I just don't think that [00:19:00] he had any, just really didn't have any desire to come down that ridge and come down that trail right then. And so I think he gobbled at that.
He gobbled really good on the. And then he pitched down, like I said, and I think he walked down to that bottom cuz it got muffled there for a little while and he continued to gobble on his own. Now what what I've started doing the last handful of years is if a bird's hot like that.
If he's gobbling on his own, like I don't call to him, I call on a response to him. Now, I may do like feeding calls like wines, herbs, raking in the leaves because I like to call turkeys. And if I'm gonna do anything, I might as well just sound like a feeding hint or something that's not gonna bump or, booger anything.
Man, I think a lot of guys get confused whenever you hear people especially a lot of like old timers, just to bring it up. In old pro Turkey [00:20:00] Hunter, he talks about, make five Yelps, sit against a tree and wait fine sign, make a couple Yelps. Wait like we see that, we hear people talk about that it's really easy to get tempted to call, but it sounds to me like your approach is like there's a big huge difference between these more feeding casual sounds versus calling to a gobbler in hope for a response.
Yeah. If you listen to a group of turkeys in the woods, they make racket the entire time. They're either, they do those wines, they do those purs, they yelp maybe just a little bit. They make noise and I'm impatient. I've got a d and I like to call turkeys, so I'll just make those noises instead of, doing that loud stuff and wrist bumping him.
Now when he gobbled like every other gobble or so, I would answer him I'd try to cut him off best as I could with cuts, excited Yelps or [00:21:00] whatever. And just let him know that I'm interested in him. And the table started to turn in our direction when he was gobbling to us. Like I th he wasn't just like gobbling to attract hands.
I think he was gobbling to right directly to us. And then I was answering him. But it took, he was real quirky. It took him forever to wind around. He'd come up outta that creek bottom. He came up this little secondary drainage or holler or whatever. It took him a while and maybe he encountered some hens down there in that creek bottom.
And they wanted, didn't want nothing to do with him or whatever. But I think from the time that we sat down, from the time that we had that first shot opportunity, it was a foreshadowing right there. That was nearly two hours. Okay. So say I guess one of the questions I had, probably while we were sitting [00:22:00] there is you could have either changed your volume tone and pitch when we thought that Gobler was getting away, but you didn't.
And I thought he was slipping away. He was sliding out of there, he's gonna do something different. But you stayed consistent with your conversation, we'll call it with him. And that seemed to work. Why didn't you, why didn't you throw a change up at him? What, at that moment, like you, it had to been, I think it had to go through your mind at the same time as it was mine.
Okay. We're a make or break. He might be peeling outta here. What was your decision making process? I had made a vow to myself before this season that I was gonna be more patient and I just tried to implement that right then and there. And plus we got four people, if something I could have changed up my calling.
But I don't know that it would really made a difference. Like I don't think the calling was really made a difference to bring him in. Now, hindsight, we might, could have repositioned once he pitched down into that creek bottom. We might could have [00:23:00] scooted around, got on that secondary finger that he was roosted on and called him up there.
Shoulda, would've, coulda, but I just wanted to be patient like, and in the back of my mind, okay he didn't roost with those hens. I think there's just a lower chance that he's got hens and he just kept gobbling pretty steady. I think he got quiet for a little while, a time or two, but and he was in the right direction.
Like he never gobbled back behind us. He didn't circle us. Yeah. And the main road to this w m a was on the other side of him and there was traffic, it was pretty busy for youth weekend. So he was either gonna go up that other ridge, across the holler, go up the holler, or come up to our ridge and walk down towards us.
That, that's what I was thinking. I was just thinking I'll just wait until I know [00:24:00] for sure that he's going somewhere else. And for that entire time, I didn't feel like he was really leaving. I just felt like he was meandering just in that little area. Was it just the amount of gobbling that he was doing that you knew he was too interested to just leave?
Was that like the main, the main giveaway for you? Yeah, I think so. He was gobbling to us, like I said and I'd answer him and he'd gobble right back at that. So I knew he was pretty fired up. But like I said, he was quirky in that he took the long way around. Like he looking at the map, he did an s Yeah.
To kinda get to us. Come down that finger went down to that creek bottom, come back up this drainage. And he crossed the road out of sight. So we could see, I don't know how far down that road, that trail, we could see maybe what, 50 something yards [00:25:00] maybe till it got a bend in the road.
Would you say though? Yeah. Would you say though that this bird did he seem like he was being cautious maybe because he saw you the day before? That could have been, he acted like a pressured bird looking back at it. We walked right by him though. Probably the cover truck sitting there swinging her legs and drinking coffee.
Yeah. He very well could have heard all that traffic on the road, heard us walking down the road and, rocks popping up under our feet. Yeah, we walked right by that finger and from that trail to where he was roosted was maybe a hundred something, 200 something yards. Yeah. So there's moonlight no foliage.
Yeah. Clear trees. So he very well, very well could have just made him nervous and that's why he took that long way around. No doubt he had hurt us that morning. There's no doubt in the, in my mind, it hurt us. Yeah. He had to have because it was [00:26:00] still and there was four people. How quiet can four people be?
I can just tell you I can tell you right now, wherever I would've screwed up, I feel like there's this voice inside of me whenever the Turkey starts leaving. That, but he's been gobbling kind of the way that, like in y'all's scenario, I would've said he, he ain't trying to find a lady. He wants a hoe right now.
And I would've started cranking it up, that's probably what I'd have done too, Parker. And that's probably where I screwed it up. Yeah I absolutely, I know if I were to screw up now, I will say, Joey, it seems like I make smarter decisions when I'm not the one that's gonna pull the trigger.
So you were talking about you, you had tried to talk yourself into being a little more patient and that's really what you were gonna work on this year. But also you are starting off like you just have a clearer head when you're not the one who has to seal the deal. You know what I mean?
Yeah. And so you think about things a lot. Clearly, I [00:27:00] think, and like you make wiser decisions based on what you actually know, not what your heart thumping and adrenaline is telling you. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that I think that probably plays into your kind of where y'all were at right there, cuz neither one of you guys, I'm sure y'all are bouncing on all this off of each other, all your moves off of each other a little bit.
No, we weren't close enough. Oh, okay. Yeah. We weren't close enough to really talk to each other while we were set up, but while we were up, moving around or whatever Yeah. We were constantly back and forth asking each other, whatever. Yeah. And neither one of you guys had to pull the trigger.
That was the only point I was trying to make, is y'all are able to make good decisions. Clearheaded decisions, man. I feel like too, whenever I hunt with other people, I feel like I just make a little bit better decisions. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause you can just. Go back and forth versus when I'm by myself and I get in my own head and I'm like, do I do this?
What if, but I heard this. This happened last time. [00:28:00] And you get to thinking, you just fall apart. That's where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. And with kids, it's easier to be a little bit more patient, I think be less aggressive, kinda laid back. Because if it had been me and Joey, and not that we would've done this, but we would've done anything that it took to get in within range of that gobbler.
Like we'd have crawled across coals, but with kids, you can't do that. We had to think more in terms of can we actually cross anything and halfway be quiet. Yeah. Probably not. Yeah. So to, I'll try to make this a little quicker just so we can talk about the next day. So the bird crosses the roadway up there outta sight, and he's actually in the field that I saw him in the night before.
Just at kinda like the other end of it. And he's gobbling in the field. And if it was at that point that I thought he might leave, because I thought he was gonna get out in that field, we didn't have a decoy out either. It was all, it was just us. And and that was it. We didn't throw a decoy out, had one in my vest but we didn't have it out right then.
And [00:29:00] so I was real worried that he was gonna, the trail was below that hill. There was maybe what, a 10 foot maybe elevation difference from that, where that field was down to that road. Yeah. So in my mind I'm like if he doesn't leave, he's gonna poke his head up on the edge of that field, look down at this road, and not see anything he wants to see and get out there.
Surprisingly, he came through that brush and it wasn't until he got to the bottom of that little hill on the edge of that road on the other side that he saw what he didn't, that he didn't see what he wanted to see. Now it was Adam's youngest son was there on the gun. And I th Adam, you'll probably have to take over for a few minutes.
I forget the reason, but he didn't wanna pull the trigger. Yeah. The bird was moving. But I'll let you explain what he told you, why he didn't really wanna pull the trigger. I'd say when that bird popped [00:30:00] out, he might have been what, maybe 20 yards from us? Tight. Yeah, it was very tight. It was tight cover.
And when he came out looking for a him and he was on a mission. He was out there to find a him. He was not just strutting around showing his stuff, he was trying to connect and go. And he was doing it fast. Luke and I we're, we were at one position parallel. This timber. And so he had to make a big time shift in movement with his gun once that bird was in the field.
So he's at an awkward spot where I've got, I had my hand on my knee and a crook in my elbow, and he's got the gun in that crook. And so he's in a really weird, awkward position, but he's ready. He's on that Turkey and I'm asking him, can you see him? He's saying, yes. And I'm saying, get on his head and shoot, get on his head and shoot.
And he's not shooting. But this is like very quick. This is just, we have literally seconds because this Turkey he's just on the move and a after he did not shoot, he crest by us and gets [00:31:00] around us, comes back into that same area that we are, but dips off into some brush, back down towards that holler way outta sight that we didn't see.
And I asked him, I said, What happened? And he said I just didn't have a good clear shot opportunity. And I said son, you're throwing, a couple of basketballs through that brush, you gotta be more like Parker McDonald and you gotta send it son. So you gotta be more aggressive. And he was, he never got down on himself.
He just took up. He is nah, that wasn't a good shot. I, and I'm, I was proud of him for that. Yeah. He's Hey, I didn't want to injure the Turkey. You didn't wanna miss the Turkey. Yeah. But I guarantee you daddy knowing shooting that TSS through there would've sent Yeah.
Would've sent TSS all over that bird a couple of times. Yeah. If any three of us had been on the gun, that would've been a dead Turkey, or at least been shot at. Oh. But yeah he ends up going back down in the holler that he came from. And it was, at that point we all stood up. We're kinda looking at each other.
We all stand up. We've been sitting there for two hours. All this happened within a two hour time period. So we were. Stove up a little bit. [00:32:00] So we're standing around there, we're out in the middle of the road. There's a fallen tree, there's a tree across the road. Not a big one. It was one like maybe a foot in diameter.
It wasn't enough that it was, you couldn't shoot over it or nothing like that. Yeah. And that was another reason that we sat where we did sit, because we got up to that tree and we were like if we get back way away from this tree and have that tree between the gobbler and us, our luck, he's gonna come right down that road and stop at this stupid tree.
Yeah. And not come across it. So we got we got, really close to that tree. But anyway, we were standing there talking and it wasn't but a couple minutes or whatever. I think we heard walking in the leaves. Yeah. We were standing up, getting ready to leave. We were talking about going to breakfast.
Yeah. And here's something walking in the leaves. So we put our mask up, just scr, scooched down a little bit. And then I think he gobbled. Did he gobble at the end? Yeah, either you called or he just gobbled spontaneously, but he was on top of us. [00:33:00] Yeah. And we just his older son actually got on the other side of the tree, was actually facing right down the road.
We didn't really have time to get into cover, so we just huddled around this tree. It was Luke, Adam, and myself on one side. And Aden, your other son, Aiden on the other side. And on our side on Adam and I's side, I think there was, there Jake came up. There may have been a HN or something off in the woods.
I couldn't really see, but in the meantime, this gobbler is lighting it up. The, you'd probably throw a rock at this thing if there wasn't like a little mound and a couple trees in the way, like 50 yards away. The, he had that rattle, he was so close and. Aiden's ready. He wasn't like, nodding off.
He was ready. And after a while, this bird comes back up to that road and his head's up and I can see him. I saw him for a split second. That [00:34:00] bird came up out of that holler, full body, but he never did stop it. Came up, turned right back around and walked her right back down in that holler. Now could one of us had probably shot him?
Maybe I say maybe, cuz that would've been a tricky shot. Bird never stopped moving. He just enough to get, within sight and turned right back around and left. So you could possibly count that as another shot opportunity on that goler. Yeah. But looking back, if he saw us walking in before daylight, then we were dealing with a really boogered bird.
And then it was at that point we decided to back out. And go get breakfast. And to sum up the rest of that day, it actually started drizzling rain, like mist and rain. It was cloudy, it was cool. I didn't expect to get anything going after breakfast. It was like, what, mid-morning? 10 o'clock? 10 or 11 o'clock, maybe 11 By the time we got back to the woods.
Yeah, [00:35:00] that same spot. I don't think we ever heard that same Turkey. But we heard a few more turkeys all throughout till probably one o'clock or so in that weather. Set up one more time on a bird. That was really close that started gobbling. But I think he saw us coming down the trail or something.
I think we boogered him out of there. But call today and then the next day was an excellent hunt. We get back to that same spot. Go back to that same listening spot and a bird gobbles down the ridge. Let's see. Yeah, it was right down that ridge where we were standing at. We were kinda standing at the end of it and I think we were, we, we were on a time crunch that morning.
You guys had to be out of there by eight or eight 30. Yeah. And so we just told ourselves like, if we hear one within reasonable distance right off the [00:36:00] bat, we just gotta go after him cuz we don't have time to mess around. And we heard this bird gobbling at the very end of this point and we started huffing it down through there and it turns into a big pine thicket.
And originally it was real thick on that end of the pine ticket and we thought we were gonna have to go around it. So we actually started going around this thing and it opened up maybe 50 yards or so into that thing. We're like, oh, awesome. So we'd get back up into the pine thicket and started easing her way back towards this bird.
And he gobbled like really close. I don't know that he had flown down then. I don't think so. Maybe if, maybe, but probably not. And we're EAs our way up through there and it gets to a point the woods are pretty open, underneath those pines. We're like I don't really want a chance bumping him and he's up high too.
And he's at that same elevation that this tur the Turkey was the day before, except we hadn't boogered this Turkey, which may be why he [00:37:00] acted a lot different. But he did, he pitched down and I think he went around the end of that point, got down below that edge maybe, and just worked his way around, towards our right.
Looking for, hes, I think he was gobbling pretty good the entire time. And his gobble was weird for a while cuz I looked at Adam, we were close enough to talk this time. He had a real short gobble. It was like a half gobble almost. It was like go or something like that. And I looked at Adam, I was like, is this thing a Jake?
And we were, I invited for no idea. But he got he ended up getting right up on top of this ridge, the same elevation we were. And he didn't sound like no Jake no more. No. After he got closer, he didn't, when he got that close. And we did have a decoy out this time. I just blew up a little Jake decoy and stuck in my vest.
And we just had we just had Luke with us. Aiden decided to sleep in [00:38:00] and we had the decoy out. And this bird did perfect. He came up on top of that ridge and gobbled strutted. Spitting drum all the way into gun range. And I could see him before y'all could. But my calling was very similar to the day before, if not the exact same.
I'd say you were more aggressive on this one for sure. In your response back to that gobbler and I'll, I'm gonna fill in a couple gaps cuz that, that gobbler did fly and he went down in a holler as well. And I also thought that this one was going to slip away. I thought he was going to get away and you were a little bit more aggressive on the yelps and cuts.
And one thing that you haven't posted in here is. We had another gobbler gobble on the other side of us so it was a couple of ridges over. And as soon as that Turkey gobbled it, that was the moment that I think this one committed [00:39:00] to get back on the same level as us. So once he got back on the same level as us, I think he had probably already committed in his mind that he was coming anyways, but I think that sped him way up and if you remember when that other Turkey started gobbling?
I answered him. Yep. I answered that Turkey. And it may have been what Draw drew that, that bird, out of there. He cut that distance hard then it, I mean he got on his, on a, he covered a hundred feet of elevation from down in that bottom to up top very quickly. Yeah. And he didn't come running in, but he got on the same elevation as us at that point.
That's It's interesting thing cuz I think a lot of times if I were to find myself in that situation, if I am working a Turkey, if I'm working a bird that's gobbling and another Turkey gobbles, I'm not gonna work that bird too. You know what I mean? I don't think about 'em like I'm concentrated on this one.
I don't wanna you know what I'm saying? But I do see where you're,[00:40:00] I see the benefit of it. Like now I'll probably do that. Yeah. I, when I called to that other Turkey, it wasn't in an attempt to draw him over there. It was an attempt to make that other one jealous. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think even I threw a Jake Yelp out there maybe once or twice or something. But still, I just kept, raking in that leaves and purring and all that other, good stuff. In between him gobbling, he'd gobble and I'd answer him maybe every now, every once in a while.
And yeah, he came up on that ridge man, and he put on a show for pretty good while before Adam and Luke could see him. And I'll let Adam take over for when he actually finally got the shot off. And what really happened, cuz there was a time, there's a, when he shot, I don't even know if I don't even remember if I could see that bird.
So the decoy was about 20 yards away, I think, like right at 20. And as Joey mentioned before, he could see that Turkey coming, whereas Luke and [00:41:00] I could not just based on where he was at and had some openings in the trees, like he could see him coming now, I could hear him spitting and drumming.
So I knew he was coming. We got Luke, fixated on that decoy. We knew he was coming right down that shooting lane, so he had his safety off. He was set up. But as I saw him coming in I think I had a little bit of Turkey, p t s D from the day before. I'm watching his body language and I'm always trying to figure out like, how long do I wanna watch a Turkey put on a show before I wanna shoot it?
And this one, as he came in, He was strutting. And as he's getting close to that decoy, I mean he's like fully parascoping at this point looking around. And for me, I was like, Luke, be aggressive. Shoot when you can, when his head is up in the air. And so he shot pretty quick after I said that.
And Joey's waiting for us to get up and run. Joey must start running. He like, what y'all doing? I'm like, hold Joey. Cause I don't think Joey could see at this point in time that the Turkey did not go down. It was evident that he had been kind hit, [00:42:00] but he was about 10 y 10 yards further out, maybe at 30 yards.
This point I was like, shoot him again. Luke, stand up if you need to. And it was a good clean shot that second time, but I think throwing, looking back I wish I'd have changed that choke from that gun from a little bit tighter of a pattern choke back to that factory pattern.
Factory choke. Yeah. For Luke, I'll probably do that the rest of the year. Just give him a little bit more of a wide open spread. Work with And he's fired up. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know who was more fired up. I was really fired up because I was, I about ran in front of his gun barrel. Yeah, I think you're going go do that.
I was like, oh, did he hit him? What happened? And then it was later on that morning Adam was talking to him and he said, you see it, you see how Joey, jumped up to go after that Turkey as soon as you shot. And he's yeah. And I'm like, yeah, that's a sign that I grew up shooting cheap shells.
Yeah. Like we all did. I'd do it do [00:43:00] after I'd shoot, I'd run over there. I wish I could do that with deer too. Oh yeah. If, it takes, if I'm just sitting there on the ground and I'm just getting up to go move or something, it takes me forever, man. If I shoot a Turkey, my feet up, my feet are up under me and I'm.
Ussein Bolton to that Turkey. I thought Joey was gonna go grab him by the legs while he is just kinda waddling around. I heard Adam, I guess it was you that told me that Joey gets pretty fired up about a Turkey. Like he's pretty reserved. Yeah, pretty reserved Mr. Most of the time he never gets fired up about anything.
You kill a Turkey man life shoots through his bones. He got riled up a little bit. Got the spirit of God. And I love Yep. I love hunting turkeys and I love seeing turkeys get shot, so I'm amazing. It was it was an incredible hunt. Yeah. That Sunday morning, it was in the top handful of Turkey hunts that I've been on.
Same for me. Just the way, didn't kill him off the roos, but it [00:44:00] was pretty much off the roos within an hour. Yeah. The way it worked out. Calling him, responding, the spitting, the drumming, the display. All of it was just so textbook man and very memorable. Especially for a first Turkey hunt.
Like you hope Oh yeah, you hope first time Turkey hunters, if you have a kid, you're gonna take has an experience like that because that's the kind of experience that can hook 'em versus, there's nothing wrong with shooting 'em out of a blind and stuff like that. That's the way me and Aiden have done that.
Aiden's missed some out of a blind and they don't, even for me is, I think about best memories. That's not the best memories. The best memories is hunts just like that, where it's done, I think the way God intended it with a shotgun and calling them up. Yep. Nothing but air between you and him in the Pines too.
Oh yeah. I don't. There's not many places around here. We get to do that. Kill Bird in the Pines. I know y'all do it all the time in Alabama. Adam, Parker, sorry. All the time is a strong statement. I've, I have not killed many [00:45:00] Pine, like any many turkeys like in straight Pines now. The one I killed on opening day here whatever it was last week, last weekend.
That was the unique thing about that one for me is cuz it was complete pines right in that spot where I was at. And I'd never really, I don't think I'd ever really done that. It's always been mixed hardwoods type stuff or straight up straight hardwoods. Yeah. So I know what you're talking about.
It's a unique feeling, like the shots quieter because the pine needle, pine needles absorb sound. Everything is a little less Like you can run, you don't get a ton of briar stuck in you like you do sometimes in those little bit thicker hardwoods. It's just a different, it's a different thing.
It's kinda like a, you got hardwoods birds, you got pine birds, you got field birds. Yeah. That was another reason we got up we got up into those pines, recently we were trying to get around that pine ticket and then it opened up and we were like, walking on those pine needles is gonna be a lot quieter than crunching on these tatter chip leaves.
[00:46:00] Yeah. Out here, you know what I like to see Turkey scratching in the pines. It kinda it's a little more noticeable than it is in hardwoods. For me, cuz when the Turkey scratch in those, in the pine needles, it kinda looks like a barn. Like a barn floor. You know what I mean?
Kind of has that scratched hay type look to it. And it's very easily identifiable. Sometimes you're in hardwoods, you find scratching, you're like, ah, I really want that to be scratched. But it might just be where squirrels have run around here, arm armadillo, push back leaves, yeah. And Lord, trying to find it in places where you got hogs.
Oh gosh. Yeah. That's tough to do. That's cool. That sounds like a really fun hunt. I know you guys were pretty fired up about it. I can't wait to do that. I can't wait to do that with my kids. You were all kinds of poetic at 'em about that hunt. Like it was, that was a big one for you.
It was, he was in out of me. It's special, [00:47:00] Aiden he's big time in fishing, loves to fish, loves football. We got our own thing together that we enjoy. But he's never got really big into the hunting scene. I called it gobbled up for him a couple years ago. It was an afternoon hunt.
It was very special. He enjoyed it, but I guess like Luke, he just got tore up about it, right? I always talk about Aiden, he's Mr. Iceman and doesn't get tore up over anything. I think Joey's he never gets tore up over anything. And then all of a sudden, like you kill Turkey and he got tore up.
Aiden's pretty, he would kill the whole way through. Luke was just like outta his mind about it and he's still talking about it, still showing his girlfriends and friends and showing him the pictures. And he is painting pictures. My man got girlfriends not just he's got on, he's on the plural.
Mama's lock up your daughters. Cause we got a Turkey hunter on our hands. Yeah. Yep. A Turkey hunter was born that day. He was she out about it. That's he was. Yep. That's so cool. Adam, you said before you told us I don't know if you've actually said it [00:48:00] on a podcast or not, but you're like, man, I'll probably shoot a Turkey out from underneath my own kids.
Now where you're at now, you've seen both of your kids shoot a Turkey. Is that kind of a gi like you're gonna let 'em pass on that one? You're not even gonna try to shoot their bird, but next time it's gonna be a we're both taking guns. First person gets. Okay, next time we're both taking guns cuz it will be open for dad and if he can't get a shot off like he did that first morning, dad's gonna be like throwing.
I would say that in the future we're gonna ramp him up and we're gonna get him some kills, right? We're gonna get him a adjusted acclimated to being a Turkey hunter, but after that, man, he's on the level, he's on the same playing field. It's gonna be 3, 2, 1, or, for doubles. And we're gonna shoot at the same time in those situations and then we're gonna be alternated after that.
And then he is gonna have to be finding in his own spots at some point. The old timers, you read these old books and we've talked about Turkey hunting literature. You hear about the old school [00:49:00] mentors, most of them did not take youth or others with them through the Turkey Pro hunting process.
They would take them out, tell them what to do, and then send them on their way and say, this is how you do it. But they hunted alone. I talked about that with some, family this past weekend. It was like, hey, you get sent out on your own. You do your own thing. You know how to do it now go figure it out.
I think there's a, there's something to that. I think Turkey, I think there, there's a book, Kenny Morgan one, a Turkey hunting, a one man's game. It is a little bit of a one man's game, so I'll still be a little selfish. My f my favorite part is you told us afterwards that I think people were asking Luke, details about the hunt and the question would come up about where you killed that Turkey.
Oh gosh. Yeah. And he would not disclose that information and I couldn't have been more proud. Ain't none of your business. Ain't none. This is what he told a kid at church. He said, it's none of your business. I was like, okay. All right. Good [00:50:00] boy. Another, and another lesson that he learned that day we were walking back to the truck.
And I thought, I heard gravel popping with a truck coming down the road, and I think Adam was toting the bird at that point. We were just about ready to just jot, dive off into the bushes or chuck out, bird off in the bushes when that truck was about to come by. I think Luke was wondering what was going on.
We were like, yeah, you don't wanna see somebody walk out with that Turkey over your shoulder. Oh, and we saw that other kid and guy with a Turkey, we wanted to congratulate him, see the Turkey? We just straight up basically said we were in a totally different area than what we really were.
Oh yeah. He was like, are y'all on this main road? Road or whatever? Yeah. On this. Yeah. He was like, were y'all up by, up this such and such road? Yeah. Yeah. We were up there, I didn't hear nothing, so whatever. Then we got it back in the truck and told Luke, right Luke, you shouldn't lie to people except when it's about hunting, then it's okay.
Oh, he loved that. He loved it. Boy, he just embraced that all the way. [00:51:00] I'm gonna glad of his mama. Oh man, dude, that's that's fun. I can't wait to do it. You actually transitioned pretty nicely though into into the Osceola hunt that I had because I did not show the restraint of somebody who's not on the gun.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell my story. This is my story of this hunt. You can ask Brett his story and he might tell you something completely different. But this is my story at this hunt. So we went back to Florida. I went back to Florida by myself this time. Walter, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to do this as fast as I can too, cuz I know we're running low on time.
But Walter basically sent me a whole bunch of pins and said I would start right here. This is a great spot. I did, at first, I don't think I knew everything about this spot, but he said, this is a great spot. I'd start here and work your way around. So first couple days went in [00:52:00] there, there were turkeys, one or two maybe turkeys goblin in this area.
And I, it was good. I ended up going and finding some other turkeys and had a really good hunt on one of those days where I heard, no less than probably seven Birds Go, one, they were, it seemed like they were on ever side of me, and that was an indifferent area than this other spot.
But Brett Mashburn, our buddy who we had on the Southern Ground Podcast last week talking about deer. He he was coming up that day and Walter was like, Hey, Brett's gonna hunt with you. I was like, sweet. At this point I know Brett pretty good. We hadn't really hunted together a ton, so I don't really, I don't know his experience Turkey hunting is he, has he shot a bird before?
Cuz that's a different dynamic, has he, and I was pretty sure he had. Multiple birds or whatever. And he had, he told me he had shot six I think is what he told me. He shot six turkeys. And so he's not a new Turkey hunter, he's just getting into being a Turkey hunter, he's just always it's taken a backseat.[00:53:00] But he had a shot at you? Yeah. He's a deer guy. Yeah, he's a deer guy and, whatever. And he still is, but he's starting to get a little more into turkeys. We get out there and sure enough this, there's Turkey goblin like crazy, he's going nuts.
We get in close, probably within 120 yards. I've got my gun set on my knee. But I'm behind Brett's definitely in the spot, right? Like he's in front of me just a little ways. He's in the spot to shoot where we feel like this turkey's gonna pitch down at. Now this is Florida, but it is it is like, A little more terrain than what you would imagine in Florida.
It, it hunts very similar to some parts of Alabama. Even Adam. Would you see what I'm talking about. It's it's very hardwoods. Oh yeah. Like mixed pines. It's not like your South Florida type of habitat. Terrain where you're at. It's a little bit different where I at.
Yeah. It's kinda, that's kinda what I was wondering. You said you got 120 yards from that bird and in my mind I'm thinking of a flat, [00:54:00] I guess a somewhat dry swamp or whatever terrain. With little to no, topography. But it makes more sense if you're able to get in tight enough to 120 yards that you had something between you and that bird.
Yeah. So it's pretty thick woods pr like pretty big woods too. And so we walk the trail from the truck, we walk the trail and there's this little listening spot basically that kind of is in between the places where Walt typically hears birds at. And me and Brett stand there, we hear Turkey goblin and he is, we're on the access trails on top of a ridge.
That ridge goes down into a big bottom and then there's another little finger ridge that comes up. And we felt like he was on that little finger ridge right there. So we had a creek between us and him and some pretty thick woods. So there was a really nice opening in the bottom. And it was a wide bottom too, so doesn't have like steep banks or anything like that.
It was pretty wide. So this turkey's [00:55:00] hammering and he's going crazy and. In my head, I'm calling a Turkey for Brett, right? And so I'm thinking I'm thinking clearer, you know what I mean? I'm not thinking like I'm about to have to shoot a Turkey. My first priority is filming and calling and whatever.
Brett's not a super experienced caller. He's getting better at it. So I was calling and doing all the calling on this one, but I didn't give him much. Like it was just some tree alps, just really light, light, light tree. Yelps probably if I had been intending to be a shooter, the shooter, I might have done things different.
You know what I mean? Like I'm, I might have not thought as clearly, but in this scenario I did and just gave him really light stuff and he was just going crazy hammering. And I think I gave him like a four note tree yelp, maybe twice. Before fly down. And he gobbled so many stinking times.
Finally he flew [00:56:00] down and flew into the tree right above Brett, like literally in this giant pine above Brett just looking down into the, forest floor looking for a hen and he ain't seeing nothing. And he's not gobbling at this point either. He's just there. And I've got a camera that's up on him.
I've got my gun pointed in his direction of where he could potentially fly down to. And, I'm, going through all these motions, right? When I look over at Brett, Brett's got his gun on his lap. And you'll find out why later his tree wasn't as good. There was a little bit of a slant in the.
Ground right there. And so he was having to hold himself up with his other hand so that he didn't move. Cuz his Turkey now is just right above us. So I'm stuck. I can't really move. I can't see the Turkey, but I know where he's at. He's like behind a cluster of leaves [00:57:00] in a tree that's next to me.
And so I just put my hand underneath my opposite leg and start just raking on the leaves, just trying to make some type of noise. Get him cuz he can't see me cuz I can't see him and I'm just trying to make some type of noise and he not doing anything. He does that for 20 minutes. Just sits there.
We're both frozen. Our cameras are dead. We both have cameras that are running, but at this point we can't even move to stop the recording. So our batteries are dead. My instant 360 is still going. So I got that as a backup. And so 20 minutes later, this Turkey flies to another tree directly behind us, like maybe 15.
The tree's probably 15 yards behind us, but it's a tall tree. So he's basically right above us. Now. I was able to move my gun with where he went. I was moving as he went. Brett's still in the exact same position, [00:58:00] like with his gun looking like it's in his lap from where I'm at. So when he gets to probably right there, I whisper to Brett can you see him in the limb?
Can you see him on the limb? And he said, no, but I know where he is. I think that's what he said. And I knew where I thought he was as well. And I'm like kinda looking, I'm like, man, I don't know how Brett's gonna be able to get a shot off on this bird. I just don't know how it's gonna happen.
So I'm propped up like this, looking at it, looking at the bird, then he flies to another tree a little bit further behind us. And when he did that, he was now probably 80 yards outta sight of being able to actually see us. He would've to fly down. And at this point I still haven't given him hardly anything cuz I didn't want to give away our exact location.
Have you called at all while he was that close? No. When he flew back over to you guys. Okay. No, you've just been completely silent. Yeah. I may have done, like when he went into that first tree, I may [00:59:00] have done a little bit of like soft whining type stuff. Like maybe some little clucks and whistles and things while I was scratching.
But I stopped doing that really quick and it wasn't a whole lot. But after that I wasn't doing anything. Then he flew. To that far tree behind us, like literally directly behind us. I'm looking at Brett's still awkward position. I'm in a good position for it, to be honest. I'm pretty comfortable right there in the spot and I tell Brett, I was like, Hey, whoever gets a shot needs to shoot him.
And that was me basically saying if I get a shot, I'm pulling the trigger because I don't know at this point, I don't know that Brett is struggling to stay up on, on where he's sitting at. I don't realize this is going on. All I can see is his gun sitting in his lap and I'm like, this joker ain't ready to shoot no dang Turkey that's doing what this turkey's doing.
I'm still amazed. So this is tree number [01:00:00] four? Yeah. Tree number four altogether. Yeah. This bird has not touched the ground yet. He has tree hopped four trees. And it's taken him, and it's taken him an hour to do it. So all other turkeys in the. In the vicinity had probably already flew down by now.
Absolutely. Yeah. You think that he just saw something he didn't like around y'all, but was curious enough to not leave? I'm just amazed at that. This Turkey I had hunted him, I believe it was the same bird, like the very first day I was there, late morning, it was 11 o'clock. I struck him up in that, basically that same spot, and he covered so much stinking ground.
I think I may have talked about it in the last podcast I was on. He I got up to make a move on him and he gobbled again and it was right there and it wasn't two minutes after his first gobble, which [01:01:00] sounded like it was 500 yards away. I made a quick adjustment, a quick move, and I'm pretty sure I bumped him.
Walter had the same thing happen in that spot. Like two days before that. And then one of Walter's Walter's neighbor I think had another encounter with him on opening day where he did the same thing and he told Walter's neighbor told Walter Hey, this bird here, be careful cuz he covers ground quick.
And we wondered if maybe he's just tree hopping, like I think it's a real possibility. And you know what's funny is later in the week we had another situation where we bumped a Turkey and he went to, he resorted straight to tree hopping. Like we bumped him up, he flew to a tree set in that tree.
We kinda worked our way around and we're like, where did this Turkey go? We didn't know that He went into a tree. We were like, where did this Turkey even go? And finally we bumped him again out of another tree like an hour later. So this is a thing [01:02:00] that seems could be a possibility, something I haven't seen before.
But I'll tell you what happens. I, when he gets to that further tree, I do start calling to him a little bit more, and he starts gobbling again. And then he starts like double gobbling and he starts going crazy. And I'm like, all right, this bird is not convinced. There's a hint here. I've just basically gotta get him fired up so much to the point where he just can't stand it.
He's too far away now to see. He's just gotta not be able to stand it. And I think that last tree, he may have been in for five, four or five minutes and he flew down and I'll never, it is a permanent image in my mind. This Turkey flew down directly at me. All I could see was his wings and his head.
And he you know how they'll catch theirself? They'll pull their wings up, catch theirself in that wind and like their fan flops up. He did all that. He put those wings behind him and I shot him right there. And Brett was like, I was [01:03:00] just about to pull my gun up. And I said, man, I was like, at that point, it don't really matter, somebody just needs to shoot this Turkey.
We've been sitting here on our butts, frozen solid for an hour, waiting on this Turkey to just fly down. Golly. It was a crazy hunt and Brett was a good sport about it, and I think afterwards when we he didn't hear me say that first off he didn't hear me say who, whoever has the first shot shoot.
I didn't realize that his gun was actually, it wasn't that his gun was in his lap, it was that he just, his other hand was being used. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably do it the exact same way, and I would hope somebody else would do that to me too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like when you're in those type of situations, I do think it is important to we start out with we have the intentions, but the end goal is to have a good hunt and have a dead Turkey at the end of it.
And if it's somebody's first Turkey or something like that, I think it's a little [01:04:00] bit different story. But when you're hunting with your buddies, let's just go kill, let's just go kill one. Everybody needs to be ready to kill one. Yep. For some reason that I can't get a shot at, a Turkey after a situation like that.
Somebody needs to kill that Turkey. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody for sure. I don't care who somebody need to kill that Turkey. Adam, I'm I've got, I'm running outta battery on my computer, so we need to hear this we need to hear this Rio story, which is a good one. Really good one. I'll try to make it a little bit quick.
So we get out there into this area and obviously, we have not been to this area during daylight, so we have no idea what we're getting into what it's gonna look like. We're pretty much dropped off on a logging road. The guy says, Hey, here you go. Try to stay in this area. I'll see you guys back, around lunchtime.
Come pick you back up. I did ask him before, he left. I said, where are these? And I'd asked him the night before too, where are the turkeys roosting in [01:05:00] the past. And he had gave me some direction of different places they might be roosting. He had said that they were going to be roosting in an area way off away from a creek, but there was a creek up in front of us.
So I thought that they would probably be closer to that creek. Sure enough, as daylight breaks these turkeys didn't start gobbling until really way past daylight. Once daylight hit. I'd say those turkeys that Joey and I was hunting this weekend, they were probably gobbling by six o'clock, which that's like break in daylight that these turkeys in Texas.
It was like daylight. Daylight. And then they started hammering and then they're on the roost. So I think at this point we have identified where three gobbler are at. We don't exactly know where they're roosted. We just set up and do the best we can in a blind calling situation to set up and call not knowing the terrain, not knowing, what's next.
These turkeys come off the roost. They end up getting way above us, which is opposite of what Joey and ex not experienced, where the Turkey flew down low. These turkeys went [01:06:00] above us up into, the best I can describe it is like a cactus patch. There's just all kinds of mesquite. There's all kinds of cactus.
It's really thick. They worked, we thought they were working away from us. We ended up making a circle, got on these turkeys, got up inside of that, Mesquite and cactus, and I'm talking, I think we did a locator call. Maybe they gobbled on their own. I can't remember. But one Turkey gobbled gosh, 80 yards away.
So it's blowing us out. We hit the ground. There's two more turkeys and it's gobbling in a different direction. So we're like, we're in it right now. The bad part is we have zero visibility of where we're at and and where these turkeys are. Is it, I'm doing the best is do you have bad visibility?
Because it's so thick in there. It's just, it's thick. Just like it's mesquite thick. Cactus thick. Yes. Mesquite, cactus brush I literally, from where that Turkey was at, I could only see 10 yards [01:07:00] in front of me max. It's that kind of thick. And you're not talking about thickets that you can maneuver around in and belly crawl in, like you can't do anything.
No it's rock and it's loud. So it's a very quiet and it's also pointy and it will hurt you very badly. Stick sticky and stabby. Yeah. It's sticky. And also there's snakes, there's rattles, reiki. At this point we hadn't seen the rattlesnakes, thank God. Cuz we saw some later that was big as tree limbs, it felt like.
But at this point I hadn't seen any, so that wasn't really going through my mind. But yeah, they were obviously there. And at some point I did, I was thinking about trying to make a move through those rocks and cactus because this, I'm just doing some real soft calling. This Turkey is on top of us and he is hot and he is trying to find us.
He's gobbling double gobbling, triple gobbling. Adam, I gotta, I want to interrupt you real quick. Why would you're a pretty experienced Turkey hunter. Why did you set up in the thick stuff? Maybe I missed that. We didn't have a choice. Okay. It was when we heard [01:08:00] him fire off, he was so close, we didn't have anywhere to go.
I got you. Like we didn't have anywhere to go, but hit the ground. It was one of those situations. The good thing is we had plenty of cover, so it didn't matter. We did not anticipate here in this Turkey gowa, we thought we got up there and we had lost these birds had no clue where they were at.
So for him to gobble right on top of us was like, crap. Like we've gotten too close. But, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd had some shooting lanes because I can literally hear this turkey's wings scraping the ground and he never was like, spitting in drum. I could just hear that rocks going through.
I was like, my gosh. He is just right on top of us. Unbeknownst to me, there's another group of hunters now we're hunting thousands of acres and they're, and we're on private land with an outfitter and this, they had dropped off another group of hunters like. 25 acres away, so we're only hunting 25 acre blocks.
And I didn't know that, like none of us knew that we didn't go and measure it all out. This dude is coming up on this Turkey and I didn't [01:09:00] like all from, all I know is he's on me one second and he's gone the next, and I hear him gobble 200 yards away. And I'm like, what the heck just happened?
So we get up, I get up with guys, with Brian, and I was like, man what happened with that Turkey? He's I don't know. I was like let's try to reposition on him again. And we take three steps and another a hundred pops up and Hey, did y'all hear that Turkey? Yeah, no, nah.
Yeah, dude we heard him. So he had came up and got above him and I think he pushed him off. Now that could have worked out in my favor where he had pushed him like on top of me, but it didn't that Turkey he took off, went back towards the road. And so at that moment we were like, all right man, we're gonna go the, we're gonna go back to our area.
You go wherever you want to go, but we're going back to our area. And so we had a good idea of where this gobbler went. And so we made a huge circle to get around him. Got back on the two track, walked a very long way making sure, hey, we didn't bump him. There was a lot of, I don't wanna say a lot of elevation, but there's some like [01:10:00] ridges and open terrain where he could have seen us.
So we're trying to get around all of that to where he cannot see us moving in closer. We circle way around. In a moment of dep desperation, we get to where we think that he should be, at least to where he can hear us call set up on a logging road, got more of an open habitat terrain.
There's cactus, mesquite, but now it's open. It's a little bit like you got some grass popping up. Even in west Texas, it's his Turkey terrain here. Like you, you're finding a strut zone, things of that nature. This is where he's gonna be. It's okay let's just stop here. Let's set up and let's call.
So we set up call, call. I think call the first time, get nothing 10 minutes later. Just hit it again. Boom. He gobbles, he's probably three, 400 yards away. And I was like, okay. He responded right to that, answered back to him. I think at that point, I can't remember how excited I was in the volume, but he's so far away.
I'm thinking I'm yelping to him. Like an excited yelp. He fires [01:11:00] back, he continues to close the distance. He probably went from 350, 300 yards to 200 yards very quick. He's acting like a Rio at this point. He's wanting to die. So I stopped calling like I'm done. After he's cut that distance, I'm like, I'm not calling again.
And I can hear him. Gol cow, he's just getting closer in about a hundred yards. We can see him coming down this road At that point, he's just strutting. He'll strut and then he'll come outta strut and run, strut come outta strut and run. And then he gets to a point to where he's okay, I should see this hen.
But he is nowhere to he's not seeing us. So he's parascoping looking again, I'm like paying attention to his body language and I'm worried he's about to leave. So I do. I'm like, just a couple little soft up. Yep. And man, he does, he gets back into his strut and run mode and it was on after that, like his, he just gobbling and strutting and running to the gun barrel.
At that point I shot him. I didn't want him to get too close cuz I was afraid he was about to run [01:12:00] like over us. I'm gonna be shooting a softball at him. Yeah it was textbook man. Textbook Texas. It's what you hope for. Yeah. When you go to Texas to find a Rio that just wants to die. And boy we found one and he put on a show real quick.
That is gotta love Rios. I love 'em so much. They're fun. Oh man. It's that's what I said last week just after hearing about Parker your hunt last year and Adams hunt well now and, but his experience that he was talking about last week, like I cannot wait to get back after a Rio Grand Turkey. I love them.
That's the point of this podcast is just we said all of that to say Hunt Rios is fun as crap. Just go hunt Rios. Just go, heck, a lot of fun. We can talk about tactics if we want to, but really at the end of the day, Rios are the most fun. Yep. You ain't gotta have much tactics for Rios, man. They just come right in there.
Suicidal the way I like 'em. Heck yeah, they, those. I've never seen such redhead on goers either. Oh, I know. Or they just look like they're, they look [01:13:00] like some bandidos, man. They're getting mad at you. Yeah, they do. Yeah. Boys, they look like they're bleeding. My computer is literally telling me like, Hey, you better shut this.
It's a Rio. Shut down. It's a Rio. It's ready to die. It's, it is ready to die. But I enjoyed this debrief. I hope we can do some more. I really hope we can actually do some more here in the coming days. Yeah. I hope so too. Yes, guys, if you, I'm gonna be very depressed and Madden, if if the listeners like these kind type of episodes, let us know.
We always wonder if people even want to hear our own thoughts on stuff. But yeah, I like the conversation. I like we didn't talk about golf or anything, so that was good. Yeah. Yeah. We kept it all good. I'm good with that. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next week. 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 of the woods as the Wild Turkey. We'll talk to you guys next week.[01:14:00]
