No Plan is the Plan

In this episode, Ricky and Hollywood have a chat with Vapor Trail’s own Director of Operations, John Betker. Because previous episodes were heavily scripted the plan in this episode, is no plan. The conversation is started with a prompt regarding Turkey Hunting, and conversation ensues from there. 

John was part of the team that pioneered many of the techniques we all use today, to effectively kill Wild Turkey’s with a bow. John tells the story that led him to his current role at Vapor Trail & Stokerized, and goes into the details of his 2023 success in the Minnesota Turkey woods. BONUS CONTENT: John gets into a granny fight at a Nashville Predators Hockey Game!

Hollywood and Ricky tell tales of how to be successful bird watchers, as well as how to properly flip a coin in order to calculate your next Turkey hunting move. Strange Turkey encounters and public land woes are all part of the conversation. 

The guys introduce a new segment of the show called Shiny Things, where they will each discuss thier latest obsession. Whether it be some sort of archery technique, buzz in the archery industry or new product release, be sure to tune in, and comment your current Shiny Thing, below. 

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery and Stokerized Stabilizers.

[00:00:00] There's a funny story about being at that game. You had a encounter with an old lady. That year we went to Nashville. We were getting ready to go to the Nashville Predators game. Yep. And I ca and Johnny's wearing a suitor jersey. And we had on purpose, I might add. Yep. And we had just picked up suitor predators.

Fans were bitter understatement, yeah. The aforementioned bitterness of the suitor sweater Bridgestone Arena. Yep. And we're standing in the concourse waiting to get a beer. People kind of start chanting sued, or she had to been 75, pushing 80, but she was just fitting and hyper as a teenager. Yeah. I thought I had heard She was like poking you in the chest or something.

What, welcome to the Range podcast. I'm Ricky Bruley, and with me is Jake Hollywood Iverson. Join us at the Archery Range where we'll tell stories from the hunt, discuss technical bow shooting tactics and gear, and pick the brains of some of the most [00:01:00] successful people to ever shoot a bow, whether you're about to shoot that X for the win.

Or send an arrow at a trophy box. This podcast is for you.

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery makers of the best bull strings money can buy, originators of limb driven arrow rests, technology and innovators of stoker eyes, stabilizer systems, and what is it? 70% of the times all the statistics are correct. Yeah. Something like that. 70%. 70 all the time. Yeah. Yeah. 70% all the time. 60% of the time. It works every time. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Ron Burgundy. All right, everybody. Welcome to the Range. I'm Ricky Bruley, and joining me on this epic journey is Hollywood tagging along as our special guest, Olympic gold medalist, and our director of Operations, John Becker.

How are you guys? Good. How you doing, buddy? I'm awesome. Doing wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, just got off the range. Nice shooting. [00:02:00] How well, I saw that you shot a nice score yesterday. Yeah. Did you say how yeah. I never miss, so yes, so no, it was 300 56 x. So Nice. That's awesome. The four ran away from me, so that's why we got you here.

Cause I can't do that. Not me. No way. We're trying. Hey, thank you all for joining us for episode three. Titled No Plan Is The Plan. The last two episodes were heavily scripted, so I wanted to take some time to simply just BS for a little bit and just see where it goes. Again, just wanna start off by giving a huge thanks to everyone who is currently listening.

The feedback has been amazing. And I do, even though the plan is no plan. I do have a couple of topics in mind just to get the gears turning. And the main topic of discussion will be around Turkey hunting today, since we're by the time this airs, Turkey season will pretty much be done, but we just wanna, for some of it is done, right?

Yeah. Gripe and complain and wine and cheer and all that kind of stuff that Turkey hunting does for [00:03:00] you.

What that'd be you, what am I looking? Big old. Cut that part where it says Hollywood and bold. We're already there. Yep. My goodness. Sorry. I was whipping, man. Yeah, I know. And I'm like, all right, we through the first bullet plant I noticed as I was going to, I'm like, man, I'm going really fast. But, so the plan of no plan is executing.

Excellent. So after a huge cut. Yeah. So part of the reason why we have Johnny here is because he's part of the team that paved the way is how we effectively bow hunt turkeys these days. And you love it. Yep. And I'll let him tell all that story right there. How you doing, Johnny? I'm doing well, buddy.

How are you? You know how I'm doing. Exactly. I did, I have a bird for those that are wondering and he does. Hey, I give you an a for effort though. Yeah. You're putting it in, you're getting out there early in the morning, then 4:00 AM wake up calls are brutal. Yeah. First day or two, not [00:04:00] too bad.

Day Lake 17. Yeah, it's, that's a grind. I think I'm about there. And today I actually took a day off, so I look nice and pretty for the podcast today. Shaved up all clean edge. Yeah. Shaves sun back to your 16 year old face. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But you're right. Yeah. 3, 3 30 depending on how far you have to drive.

Oh my gosh. It's just, it's getting to be taxing. That's, I've always loved those 10 to two birds. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Sleep in session and Yep. Get up and go kill. And even like you said, early in the morning or early in the season sun's not getting up that early. No. So you can sleep in, so to speak.

Yeah. And then now it's it's up at. 5:00 AM You're ready to shoot. Like Yep. Yeah. It's getting tougher. So It is. It is. Birds are moving good though right now. So a lot of guys are having luck. A lot of guys are already tagged out. Even the guys like you that haven't had a bird go down yet. You've had opportunity.

You've seen birds, you've seen 'em moving around. Oh. Oh. But you're also doing the public land thing, which again I applaud you for, cuz that's a tough [00:05:00] hunt but Right. Public land, it gets real tough to really zone in on them birds. Anybody comes out there and bumps 'em in the morning, bumps 'em off the rost, chases 'em around midday, who knows?

I mean he had the one guy came in and sit behind you that kind of boogered up that one hunt's. So just mentioned that one. Yeah, I've had exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. Walks in at six, the sun's already been up for an hour, buddy. Yep. Ruined my that, that Tom was. Destined to come in and didn't commit.

That's super frustrating. Yep. It is. It's been a headache and a half yeah. Yeah, and I've been driving lots, miles, putting in the scouting and everything. And just like Johnny said, all public land, I have a couple of opportunities now with. Private land, but I'm just going the tougher way about it.

But yeah it's a tough battle. It's really tough. Yeah, we got a few weeks left. I might try to see if I can get out again, but I don't know. Who knows? We'll see how that goes. By the time this airs, I might have the bird on the ground. Who knows? Yeah, I might have a spot. Oh, [00:06:00] I got, there's, if I had a shotgun, I could kill a lot of birds right now, but Yeah.

Yeah. There's a few spots I could go, I've got some opportunities, but who knows? We'll see how that goes. I still don't want to bring a bow out, really. I just wanna bring a gun. Come on man. Just wanna bring a gun and just be, just get it done. Shoot 'em in the face and be done with it.

It's still hard. The two days that I spent out there, man, I just, it couldn't, you went on terrible days, man. Oh, it was horrible. Yeah, it was bad. Rained constantly. It was cold. We were flipping coins all day long. That was pretty much it. And I hunting with my good buddy Travis, and between him and I, we have such a difficult time like just making a decision.

It's oh man, we could do this, we could do that. We spend half our day trying to figure out what we could do instead of committing. But the awesome thing is so of course the I leave or I'm done with the hunt, right? And Travis stays one more day and kills his bird that next morning, which was super awesome.

I was just bummed out that I didn't get to be there for it. He actually, it had actually ended up being like a stock that he put on the bird. And I haven't got the details from [00:07:00] him yet. He did say it wasn't pretty, but it, he got it done. So I say a dead bird is a dead bird man. Yep. Doesn't matter how it went.

But so Johnny, I don't wanna get too much into detail about what Hollywood alluded to earlier. Because I think we need to save that for another episode. But maybe just elaborate a little bit on what that means. What team was it that you were a part of that kind of.

Paved the way for Turkey hunting as we know it with a bow. The crash course of my path that led me here the stepping stone that started it all for me was as I had the great privilege of being part of the original double ball archery team and anybody familiar with turkeys and ground blinds even the younger generation, you've had to have been exposed at this point to who Double Bowl is and what they did and what they were all about.

And it was an absolute joy. It's one of those. Career making moments, life making moments that I'll never be able to repeat. Regardless how [00:08:00] great Vapor Trail is. We have a very similar setup here as far as the energy, the excitement, the innovation and everything that we're trying to do to build our brand and grow our company.

There are many similarities, but Double Ball Archery was lightning in a bottle. They caught it perfectly. They timed it perfectly. Almost everything we did. It just seemed to work. It was almost too easy, I hate to say it that way. Yeah. And again, it was just a absolute boatload of fun.

And one of the perks of the job is, Hey, do you want to, go kill a Turkey? It's yes I do many, so there were a lot of times we'd unfortunately a lot of people think that when you're in the hunting industry or the archery industry, they seem to get this perception that, oh, you're in the archery industry.

You must hunt all the time. Here's a little dirty secret about that is if you're actually successful with what you do within this industry, your hunting time is [00:09:00] greatly limited. Yep. So there were many times that we would be building blinds up to six, seven, 8:00 PM on a Friday night where four of us would jump into two different loaded down pickup trucks with blinds, food, everything else.

And we drive six, eight hours into, somewhere into northeast Nebraska where we would basically end up at the parking lot at sunup so that we then could go out into the field, get the blinds set up Turkey hunt all weekend, and then we'd usually put the birds to bed on Sunday night. Jump back in the truck haul butt all the way home so that we got back to the factory where we'd go directly to the factory and literally just the shells of the blinds with no rods in 'em.

We'd basically fall down in them and take a two hour nap before we had to get back up and go to work that morning. Gosh, which I wouldn't have, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was a blast. If I was 30 years [00:10:00] younger, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I think if I tried that now, I'd. Probably die before I even got to Nebraska.

Much less getting back, but, yeah, double Bull is an absolute blast. I can't say how much fun that was. And that was the stepping stone for me to get to where I am now. Why? Why I do what I do now. Brief little pit stops along the way when Double Bull was bought out and acquired by Primos.

I did have the luxury of going along for that ride, just so to say, where I did work with the guys that at Primos for a couple years as a regional sales manager. I can't say enough about Will. Jimmy, that's a little bit different, but that's a story between him and I and if he ever hears this, I hope you still have that bobble ahead of me.

Oh, John. See, Johnny's got a bobble head. I didn't even know that. Wow. That's amazing. I do. It's on Jimmy Primo's desk. At least it used to be. Whether or not it is still now, that's what happens when you're an Olympic gold medalist. Yes. Yes, exactly. That was during my trial run, sir. Yeah and then and then I voluntarily left Primos a couple years into it where I then went [00:11:00] over to Magnus Broadheads and assumed the vice president position over at Magnus Broadheads, working with Mike Som.

Yeah. Great product. Great brand. That brand does really well in our pro shop as well. I've always been a big believer of them even before I went to that brand as far as being employed by them. I can't say enough good things about Mike and Magnus. And then one thing led to another just a bizarre set of circumstances and relationships, as we all know at this table within the industry.

I'd been friends with Steve and Jared for many years. In fact, I actually heard Steve reference on his podcast what I've told you guys before, that when they were still a fledgling company, that Double Bull had basically hijacked them into the ATA show underneath their badges. That was actually me who hijacked their badges for 'em so they could get in.

But with that, after a little bit of communication and conversation and the growth that Vapor Trail was seen at that time, they extended the opportunity for me to come on as [00:12:00] the sales director, which I jumped at in a heartbeat. Came on there. And that was seven years ago now. Yeah, seven years ago now.

And that's been a blast. All the things have happened in that time period. All the changes of the company, changing the personnel, ears loved working with ears while she was still here. Yeah. Glad he is doing phenomenally well. Loved the fact that he's happy, healthy, great family, cute little kid, bunch of dogs.

But it'd still be fun to have 'em around. Yeah. Just so I can zap 'em with the rubber band. And then obviously the departure, Steve and the introduction of Rory. Obviously we know what kind of whirlwind that's been over the last several years. All of it. Good. But definitely one of those things that every day you wake up and go, so what's it gonna be today?

Yeah. Yeah. It's what's, when is, when are we gonna have a second to breathe? Yeah. It's, yeah, exactly. Never we've come back in, breathe. I'm gonna define today. Yep, exactly. Oh gosh. Alls I gotta say that is light saber. So all[00:13:00] But then it was probably, I don't even honestly remember, I think it's about two years ago, two and a half years ago, it was right after years left.

Is the decision was finally made to go from sales director to director of operations. And of course I was right in the peak of, COVID d and the pandemic and all the issues of, just the flow of business and pipeline issues and everything else that went on during that time period.

So that was definitely an interesting time to suddenly be responsible for all of that. But we got through that pretty well though. And then of course, obviously the transition over to the new building, which I know you guys discussed at length and prior podcasts. Yeah. So I won't dwell on that too much, so now here we sit in, the Taj Mahal doing a podcast, so Yeah.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. And I'm glad we finally get you on too. Yeah. I want to just backpedal a little bit because I. Before, I didn't know you really well before you started with Vapor Trail. And even to [00:14:00] this day, like I still don't feel like I know you well enough. At sometime we don't go out and have enough beers.

But I reme like at ATA shows and stuff like that, you were always just Hey, what's up man? Yeah. Just like really invested wanting to know what's going on and I'm just like, oh, this is God man. I don't really know this guy very well, but all right, let's go. Just conversations with you were always awesome.

And then that year we went to Nashville and we went out one night to have some drinks and Johnny comes rolling in and you're wearing a and this is for you Brian Forton. Ba Johnny comes in wearing his wild sweater, uhhuh and wild stocking cap with a little ball on the top. Yep. I'll never forget that, and we're just sitting there talking and stuff cuz we were getting ready to go to the.

Nashville Predators game. Yep. And I can't remember, you probably remember who they were playing. It wasn't the wild No. It was the Anaheim Ducks. Anaheim Ducks, I believe. A Ducks. Yep. Yeah. And Johnny's wearing a suitor jersey and we had on purpose, I might add. Yep. And we had just picked up suitor.

Predators fans were bitter. [00:15:00] Understatement. Yeah. And for all the years that we played him, every time Suder had the puck, they would boo him. Oh yeah. Every time. If we were in Nashville. Yep. Kind. Funny now that when he plays for Dallas and comes to the wild, we all boo him. I know that poor guy.

Weird how that works out. But go on. Poor guy. He's probably just one of the nicest guys too. Except his acting is really bad. Like those commercials, the air conditioner commercials No. Wasn't That was Jared's Spurgeon. That was spurge. Oh yes, that's right. Bad. He did Quick Trip commercials.

Yes. And he is, I was like, boy, he's, he. Wisconsin Farmer, right? Not an actor. No, not at all. But hey, you know you gotta do your PR stuff, right? Yeah. Anyway, so there's a funny story about being at that game. You had a encounter with an old lady. Spring is here, and Turkey hunting is in full swing.

Successfully killing a Turkey with a bow is extremely challenging. So after you notch that tag, be sure to give your bow some love by installing a brand new set of vapor trail VTX pole strings. Our proprietary VTX [00:16:00] material with sci-fi technology set it and forget it is proven to hold up better and varying weather conditions.

Includes a lifetime service guarantee against manufacturer of defects, and are available in thousands of color combinations to match your custom archery setup. With our three day ship guarantee, you can be back up and running in no time flat contact your local dealer or give us a call at eight eighty eight Bo stringing.

That's 8 8 8 b w s t r n g. Quit your client and have confidence in your equipment with Vapor Trail vtx bow strings. So the aforementioned bitterness of the suitor sweater. Yeah, so we're standing in, what is it, Bridgestone Arena. Yeah. And we're standing in the concourse waiting to get a beer. And I'm with three really good buddies, Brian Forma that you already mentioned.

Another good friend of mine, Bob Humphries. And then really good friend of mine, Dave Deming. And of course those guys will prod anything along if it humors them [00:17:00] of course. Of course people start chanting sued or that's their negative chant for him. Yeah. And all of a sudden this.

I say this respectfully, but this granny, she had to been 75 pushing 80, but she was just fitting and hyper as a teenager and she wanted to get into it with me over suit her and get into it with me, like physically, like she was ready to take me down. And basically, if you remember like high school fights, how people all of a sudden kind of get a little chippy with each other and all of a sudden the magic circle opens up and here you go.

The next thing I know, I'm in this circle with this granny chewing my butt about wearing a suitor jersey. And of course I got Brian, Dave and Bob behind me, egging Iran going, yeah, we told him not to wear that. I'm like, Come on guys. So of course obviously nothing happened and I walked away unscathed, but there was a mini riot going on there for a minute that [00:18:00] I thought was gonna end badly for me.

So yeah, I thought I had heard, she was like poking you in the chest or something. What? Like those points. Oh yeah. I can't believe you'd wear that here. I'm like, where am I Go, come on. Yeah. Why not? Obviously you don't know Johnny. Yeah, exactly. Poke the bear. Poke the bear. Yeah. That was the same game that we were sitting.

I knew you guys were there, I think because I think Steven said something to me. So I knew there was going to be guys from Vapor Trail there and how they show people up on the screen. The jumbotron. Yeah, and the jumbotron during intermissions and timeouts and stuff like that. Sitting there minding my own bewa, and all of a sudden I look up on the screen and there's Steve on the screen.

So I texted him and wow, you look fan on tv. And he is like looking around and they kept on going back to you guys. I think you got flashed up there a couple times. They were, they came, they got us twice and it was, [00:19:00] I, if I remember it was me and Steve and I'm pretty sure Greg Bratner. Yes.

And I think one other person, if I remember cuz we were up there for cuz b c Y does a party for all of the string manufacturers every year. And that's what they did that year. So we were in a we had like a suite where they had hot dogs and all kinds of food. It was so cool. Yep. But yeah, they came up to it, they came to us twice.

When they came back the second time, then we all were like pulling up our shirts so that we can show off the Vapor Trail logo, just to try to promote a little bit. Yep. Yeah, we were pretty wild up there, so they apparently wanted to get the camera on us. Yeah, it was wild that you saw that too.

Out of the blue. I was like, that looks like favor trail. Yeah, I'll be honest, I, other than that and eating hot dogs, I don't remember much of that game. Whoopsy. Yeah. Yeah. We were a little tore up. I waited till, at least after the game, until things got fuzzy, which, good thing. Or I probably would've punched a granny.

So I was just thinking you said seven years that you've been with Favor Trail now? Yeah. Yeah, [00:20:00] dude I think I'm one day or three days out from 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you were before me. Yeah. Like 10 years being around. Yeah, I had a couple breaks here and there during college and whatnot, but Yeah.

Yeah. I just realized, I'm like, oh my gosh. We're already to May cuz we were all just joking about it like a couple months ago. We were like, No way. I found this email from Rick, like when I was hired. Yeah. Oh yeah. He sent it to me. Little mini Hollywood 2013. I'm like, oh my God. Yep. Wow. Maybe it was yesterday.

Just got your first email account. Yeah, probably. It's probably in the first few. Was it in aol? I might be a little young for that using, just missed it. Using the Netscape browser search. Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. We are dating ourselves big time here. Johnny. I'm trying to think of what I would've emailed you over maybe a regular desktop computer, but I'm sure it wasn't fancy.

I'm guessing not probably from a school computer, like [00:21:00] the old, one of the old colorful imax, or, gosh, that's probably before your time even. No, we still had some at our school. They're pretty badass. Apple two E. Yeah. Oh geez. First computer I ever used, baby. Wow. That was that with Double Bowl? No. Okay. No, that was high school.

That was ages ago. So sorry. Sorry. Oh, we can circle back to this Turkey hunting stone. Oh yeah. No, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to oh. No. Divert. Divert to talk about my tenure here. This is good. All we need, we just need to make sure that we get you talking some more. Because we've come to find out that you have quite a few fans.

There was some people that were upset that you didn't get enough time. Me. Yeah. So you clearly you have more than, I'm like keeping record number lows. My low, my, my job here today is to get you to y Yeah which type? You might have more fan for more fans than I do. I've got 12, so you, I don't know.

You might have, yeah. Who know? A couple dozen. I don't know. But yeah, we'll see how it [00:22:00] goes. But, so the, back to the, going back to the Turkey hunt like you were saying. What is, tell us your journey so far this year with Turkey hunt and how that's been going for you. There's not much of a journey.

It just ends up bird watcher. There you go. It's right there. Is it actual birds you're watching or just decoys? No, there's some birds. I'm trying to think. I. I think Monday. So I don't work Mondays. I think that was the first day I've seen no birds. Cause I tried doing the 10 to two, huh? Boy, that was a waste of my time really.

I slept really well and I had three deer come running right up to me and I was like, of course. Yeah, of course. Wrong season. But yeah, it's for me it's been very active. But man, just birds have been so hand up. And if they're hand up, it's yesterday when I went out I was texting you, it's like there's one hand.

Yeah. Just break free and I have three Toms on me. But no, they're gonna sit on private property 50 yards away, fan up, just, showing off. Then they turn and walk [00:23:00] the other way. It's god dang man. For the pea size brain that they have, they're actually not that stupid. They are the smartest, dumbest bird.

If they could smell, you'd never see a Turkey. Yeah. No. Oh, I know. It'd be terrible. Yeah, cuz I can actually shower before I go out there. It's crazy. Yeah, and I'm still rocking this year. I'm running the Black Hornets for Oh, my Broadheads. Johnny got me on the Magnus.

I, for all of you that are listening, I've only Turkey hunted like hardcore for three years now. Cause I've always been like, whatever. It's just a stupid bird. Three years ago, got nothing. Last year got my first and then that's when I was like talking to Johnny about Magnus. And he's you can't be shooting anything else.

Only Magnus. So I shot one with a Bullhead, or not Bullhead. Buzz cut. Buzz cut. Stinger Buzz Cut awesome Blade this year. I'm just trying to Black Hornet cuz that thing has to be awesome. It's just, I have not shot anything with it, trying that. And were you guys the first with the Bullhead style?

Since I accidentally said that? No, they're the most predominant one right now, but [00:24:00] there are others. The guillotine that was aerodynamics was, I believe they were the first one. But the Bullhead was very closely behind. Yeah. And as far as that category, that type head. Now granted, I admit wholeheartedly, I'm biased in that, but they're the ones that have stuck around the longest, been the most durable and the most reliable.

There's been others that have come and gone, but Bullheads have been there since they've come out. They've. Just maintained. Yeah, I and they are fun. Once you finally get a little more confidence and, feel like taking a, not necessarily a trick shot, but a different shot.

It is fun. I've done it twice. Those are the ones that I was successful with. I won't give you the body count on how many I was unsuccessful with. But they're a lot of fun. So now those, are you running a different arrow set up completely? Because I see some guys are running like a flu.

Flu, yeah. It's totally different arrow. You put the strings on my bow. You saw my arrows? Cause you paper tune mine. That's a Bullhead arrow. Oh, bull. Okay. It's a full length victory. [00:25:00] Yeah. With four inch feathers. Gotcha. So you're going for stabilization. Yep. Don't cut my flipping fingers off.

Exactly. Deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz you bring up a point that's, you wanna make sure that arrow and that bullheads out there far enough cuz a lot of guys will do that. Pointer finger, stuff like that. Yeah. We used to get plenty of pitchers. A guy that would just slice right down as the shot where Yikes.

It's yeah, okay, let's just make it so I can't do that. Do, have you guys seen the that video of Omar going around As much as I care, not to reference on, I don't want to talk about any, to be honest. I was good. There's some really good videos of heads cutting in half. Yeah. By those types of bro heads.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing though. But it's pretty gruesome. I've, maybe one of you guys have said it like some guys don't like using it cause it doesn't. Make for a pretty picture. It doesn't, but depends on what you're going for. I feel like that's a social media guy that's gonna be talking more on that aspect of, if you're going for a quick, clean, ethical kill that has pretty much absolutely no recovery [00:26:00] to it whatsoever. Other not walking out to your decoys to pick them up. Then honestly, if you execute this shot, there is not a better place to shoot a target a hundred percent, but Yeah.

But if you're going for the nice pretty trophy glamor shot afterwards Yeah. Trying to piece back ahead that's been split in four different parts and the waddles all torn up and the necks all torn up. Yeah. It's, yeah. That's where Rick comes in with Adobe. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I exactly, the argument is, it's about as quick a clean a kill you can get.

I just, and I. It for whatever reason, it's really like incredible to see and look at. I don't, it's just, I don't know if it sounds weird, but it just is. I just don't, I, I have concerns about whether that's going to, turn off certain people, right? Yeah. And again if it turns 'em off, maybe they're not the people you want.

But at the same time, I always just want to advocate for hunting as much as I possibly can, so I'll agree. I'll avoid showing that kind of stuff. Yep. Yeah. Trying to [00:27:00] avoid the gruesome stuff. For sure. It's, it's one thing to have, ACAP shot where it's like you just see the head fall off and the Turkey falls over and dies.

You know what I mean? Some of 'em, where it's like their head is getting split into four pieces is it's Whoa. Yeah. Pretty wild. And for sure you're gonna get all kinds of attention for that. Oh, no doubt. And, whether that's good attention or not I don't know. But but there, yeah.

Effectiveness. Absolutely. A hundred percent. It's the way to go. That's how I've killed both my birds with a bow. Really? Yeah. Which, yeah. Only I've only killed two with a bow, which is to, to what Johnny was saying earlier, I won't tell you the number of turkeys that I've flung arrows at and had no success.

Yeah. I like the idea I don't know, I've talked to you guys about going with the bullheads and whatnot, but I don't know. I feel like it can be a little bit more of tuning issues, but I just like the idea of having the chance of, maybe I'm a little cocky, but I'm confident in my long range.

And if I had [00:28:00] to, someone might go why haven't you shot one then if you've seen so many birds? It's not always that close or, if they're holding still three years ago when I started a guy that used to work here brought me out to private land, and this bird was just all balled up.

Just puffed up 80 yards away. I'm like, Dude, he's standing perfectly still. I could send this. No problem. The only problem was there's a wire horse fence. Like a wire tank fence, yeah. So I'm like I'm not gonna try and sneak one through that, pay the farmer back that sort of the deal.

But I like the idea of being able to get a little more distance where, if that bird is hung up at 30, may, can you make a shot with a Bullhead at 30? You can, but I don't recommend it. It's gonna look a little weird. I do not recommend it. It's a long ways. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that can go wrong.

You got those, blades out there and he can get a lot of planting, that sort of thing. But Jeremiah out back, this year he shot he at 32 or something. It's definitely a possibility where, he might himself with going with the Yeah. But he was using a conventional blade, that's totally different. Yeah. We were shooting him, the first one I shot was with ears, and I was [00:29:00] shocked to find out that he would, we would only set the decoys up at six. Arts. Yeah. Yep. And so I would've to practice super close range cuz I didn't even have, my normal pin setup wouldn't even No.

Start that close. But then one interesting tidbit too that I've that I just realized is I was watching the Hunting public and Aaron Moore Britton was talking about how just before he takes that shot, he'll throw out two quick just little cuts. Yeah. And then it gets 'em to raise their head and pause for a second.

And gives you that opportunity to take that shot. And I was always, I thought, oh, that's interesting. Then I was going back and looking at a bunch of footage from when I was hunting with ears. And so I'm listening to how he's calling and every single time, like there's a video of Steve shooting a bird both of them shot a bird.

They got a double. And in that video ears does just that. Yep. He's just burp. Burp. And then Turkey stops whack. Yep. And then five minutes later these Jakes are running around and same thing. He did the same thing. So that's how, that's definitely something, to, [00:30:00] to think about when you're doing that.

Cause a lot of people, they say, oh if the birds are in close, you don't want to call. Cuz then you might spook 'em off or something like that. Or if they're coming in don't call. But that's, it's proven to work Yeah. In a lot of different scenarios and less calling, like a little bit like with the Yelps, you and I were talking about that the other day, how I get into this thing where I'm like, and it's like pretty soon you're wound up, you're saying. Yeah. And the way ears was calling and exactly what Aaron was saying too, is it's just three, just burp burp, and let it be and just to give 'em some confidence as they're coming in.

Yep. And you don't have to get too crazy with it. You gotta soften it up a little bit. I was gonna say, I do some like soft clocks and whatnot, just some real small like feeding clocks deal. Like when they're coming in. Seems to be fine. But yeah, that's the hens that come in for me, so that's, I don't mind the hens coming in though.

It's good. Yeah, no, I'm, a lot of birds I've killed because I've called the hens in and eventually the Toms will come with them. Yeah. That's how I killed my bird this year, was doing [00:31:00] exactly that. Yeah. So if those, if I could get that one to commit, like last week when my legs just went dead on me because Yeah.

We'll, I got we'll get to that. Go on. Yeah. I get in there way late, not way late, but again, public land wars, I go to a different spot and get in late and I'm like I'm just gonna rock, no blind and. Had Yeah, exactly that. I had six hands just all feeding around me. Outside of a blind.

I'm just like, oh, kill me right now. Cause my legs are just numb. Okay. Cause I've been on my knees at this point for 40 minutes. Saying outside of a bo blind implies that you had a blind at that point. A hundred percent correct. I was like, I don't wanna set up in the, the light. They might see me coming in and then low and behold I get two, it's like 300 yard walk.

I get out there and I hear, gobbles just going off and I'm like, cool. They roosted where they've never roosted before. They're twice the distance away. I could have brought the double bowl out. Popped her up in the trees and I would've been perfect. Perfectly fine. Yesterday I did that.

I did exactly that. I actually was sat up [00:32:00] right underneath the roost and. God. I be damned man. I just, they see it right there. Oh, decoy. No, I'll go that way. They go right on. Then they're like, oh, private land. Cool. And then they just sit and watch you. They're sitting there with their middle finger.

Yeah. Decoys are a 50 50, it's, yeah. If you've got three good Toms that are getting fired up, you don't have to worry, but sometimes you get those like satellite ones that are just bouncing around and they it can push 'em away. So it's tricky, man. I, because then there's other times where you're like, gosh, if I had a decoy, he'd bin on it.

Yep, yep. Yeah. So frustrating. I've just been like, I would pay to have a satellite, Tom, what did I have yesterday? But then again, he's hand up and it's just man, like I feel like sometimes the satellite, Toms, you might be able to pull a little bit easier just cuz you know, Hopefully they're more dominant.

If they're subdominant, maybe they see that hen or a couple hens oh God, I can find here. And or the hens he's with are bred and he is like, Hey, here's one more. So that's what I've been hoping for. Cuz other times we're, sitting there with, like you said, three [00:33:00] Toms and it's they haven't seen the decoys, honestly.

They don't break that tree line. I think I sent a text every day to Johnny. They're not breaking the tree line. They're like every day. So yeah, it's just been a struggle of just trying to get 'em to come out and just commit. Last month I've had more conversation with wood between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM than any other time of the day.

Than an ATA show. Yeah, exactly. If you Exactly, if you'd stop trying to be a Chris B or a Michael Hunsucker and sit in a blind Yeah, I know. Yeah. And Sam left me with his double bowl and he's actually hunting today and he's just in it with the toms right now and I don't know, I dunno what he texts me now, but he's got 'em, but I'm like, so he's got his other blind, but I'm like, nah, that suck. It's what, 70 degrees out right now. Oh, it's almost 80. Yeah. It's warm and he doesn't have his double bowls, so he is gotta be sweating. It's 78 right now. Yeah. Nice. Ota. Yeah. So shout out to Double Bowl in that respect. Thank you, Johnny.

Going with the what do they call that? Like the, like [00:34:00] in invisible, like mesh stuff, oh, just shoot through mesh? Yeah. It's just insane. You get that 360 view. It's great on a day like today where it breathes, but Yep. Oh, man. Oh, is that the one you're, is that the blind you're using?

Yeah. One of those 360 ones. Yeah. Super nice. But my God, make sure when it's, and sure you open the vent on top too. That helps. You doesn't have that one. Oh, doesn't he? Yeah. No, that one's, it's just a full cap on top. But yeah, when there's a little breeze though, or like, when we went out, when it was raining a couple weeks ago, I, you might have been you two were gone.

But when it rained you were hunting actually. Oh my God. Oh, yeah. When you were up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like the That 360 blind, she lets water in. So Oh really? My bow, yeah, my bow is just soaked, but whatever. It's just the bow that's vapor trail products is gonna hold up, to the weather.

So whatever. But it's just, nicely done. You're, yeah. Shameless plug. But yeah, besides the point, it's just think is a little chilly, but on a day [00:35:00] like today, it's just yeah, this is so nice. A little bit of a breeze coming through. Yeah I'd be out cold in the bottom of the blind right now.

Same. I'm just thinking of it right now. Yeah. Oh man. My old double bull. I've wrote out some thunderstorms in that thing. Oh yeah. Just zip it up, close it up quick, and I'm like, you can't really see what's going on outside, but I'm like, there might be a tornado really close to me.

Yes. And you get a little bit of water that drips in through the top, otherwise it's all good. And then pretty soon you just open up that flap and it's like a Disney movie. The deer come out and you hear that little but butterflies and little finch is Yeah. Yeah. No turkeys though. Yeah. Ever. No stupid turkeys.

Yeah. They hate turkeys. Yeah. It's like I was saying that, that whole tree line thing, man they're educated birds. When it goes to public land, it's just nuts. It's pressure. Yeah. And then the one day you go set up down here, they run across a field back and forth for an hour straight. Or you're not, it's just come on.

Yep. One of these days will fall in place. Maybe [00:36:00] tomorrow. We'll see. Johnny and I were joking about this the other day. Back in the 19 hundreds when when I first started getting into bow hunting I watched a video called, so You Want to Be a Bow Hunter? It was by Hs Strut. Yeah. And they also had one, so you wanna be a Turkey hunter?

And but I, that's one of the things they talk about. Thanks. That's one of the things that they talk about is just, being mindful of having barriers between you and the birds because they can get hung up on some of the dumbest stuff. So it's but you, in most places, you can't avoid it.

You just gotta take a chance and, yeah. No I put a stock on one on Sunday and God they have x-ray vision, man. Yes. And I had to go into the worst spot. It's just these tall stands of pine trees, very open underneath those. And I'm just like holding up against this tree.

Like he won't see me. He's got a couple small ones and I saw his head go behind the tree and, that's, I think I was telling you Rick, I'm like, just cuz I can't see his head doesn't mean he doesn't have a good angle yet. Yeah. And I think I got all to hear and he just, [00:37:00] He brings his head up, does that little clock, you know it?

That little putt and then he just, I'm out. Yep. Yeah, I'm out. Yep. Dang it. Here we go again. Yeah. Stupid turkeys. Yeah. Tis the season. We can all be like Matt Dykes and John Becker here oh my gosh. Yeah. Dykes crushes me when it comes to turkeys. I don't even know, I don't even that blow. What blows my mind about that is he does, I don't know, maybe kills 20 a year.

Oh God. Is that too many? I don't think so. And he's already and spot in stock bro. Like I've chased him all over South Dakota. Yeah. And I cannot get, I just, it's ridiculous. I wasn't, not sure if he was using a blind or what. He stopped in just recently and we were asking him cuz he got off his little Turkey tour and we're like, one stands out the most to you.

And I think he obviously the oscillated, that's to complete his world slam, I think. Or Yeah, I think that's what it was. One, one of the big slams, but. Then he is saying the Osceola, but I didn't even ask. So you're telling me he's spotting [00:38:00] stocks? To my knowledge, that's Wow. And he takes poke shots too.

Like he can, I need to get better. He can watch. Holy hell. So hopefully we can get him on the podcast sometime and he can elaborate a little bit more on that. But yeah, he he does not get a near enough credit for what he does, skillset that he has, because there's not a lot of people that can do that.

And he just loves it. Like it's, he lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes it. And I'm completely the opposite. Everybody's getting all pumped up about Turkey hunting and all I can think about is fall. Yeah. This is, I think the only thing that bridges me to fall now, for 20 something years, I don't know what I was doing, but I was, we were doing food plots and whatever you do in the spring, get ready for fall.

But I was just like, ah, whatever birds. But now this year, you guys all know how I was. I actually had a. Not really a bet, but internally with like John, I'm like, I'm gonna be the first person in Vapor Trail to get a bird this year. And yeah, our buddy over at Wildlife Research sends us a text, I think opening [00:39:00] day.

Yeah. That his son got one, Tom Carroll, and then Yep. God, who else? I don't know. A mound of people beat me before I could even, yeah. I think Dykes had sent a couple pictures, so we knew he was already done. Yeah, he was already done. Yeah. And I know Mellow was out. I don't know if he ever got his, but he was sending pictures too.

No. And then Johnny shot his and I don't think he did anything. You just you just sent a picture of it being dead. I'm like, Understood. Yep. Understood. Yep. I'm not good. I was I took Emma to like Lowe's or something. We had to get, pick something up and I stopped the car and I just buzzed through my messages real quick and I saw, I had one from Johnny and it said Turkey one Johnny Zero, and that was it.

And I think that was a group text to all of us earlier. Yeah. Or maybe I don't, no, I think it was to you and Wood, I believe. Yeah. So either way I was like, ah, bummer. And so I'm like, respond to him. I was like, oh man, that's too bad. I don't know. Probably said something smart, smart al or something, I don't know.

And then I checked the next message and here it's, he's got a bird down. I was like, what? [00:40:00] Two hours apart? Yeah. Because what happened there? You had one come in or? Yeah. When I. Came in, I'd been scouting these birds all spring not all spring, probably, three weeks worth of scouting because we couldn't get into the field because of the snow pack.

Oh yeah. But the birds are pretty, Pretty religious out there on their patterns. You just gotta know which pattern it is they're on because it kind of changes, every few weeks. And so I go sneaking in there on a Sunday afternoon to go hunting. I had a pretty good idea where they were gonna be, so I just drove my truck down the shelter belt and there's one little two track that cuts through to the back field.

And I stopped my truck and snuck out and just stuck my head in the field. And lo and behold, 75 yards down the field where I'm in the tree line, here's half a dozen Toms, half a dozen hands are all out there just playing around. I'm like, oh. So I just backed up, pulled everything out of the truck quick, actually set up on the.

Opposite side of the shelter belt from the field they were in, so that [00:41:00] I could shoot the two track belly crawled out, slapped my decoys out there, and then just backed my truck up 50 yards along the shelter belt and came back and jumped in the blind. And I was looking with the binoculars and stuff.

I couldn't see 'em, I didn't know if I spooked them off or if they just naturally went about their merry little way. And I was like, all right, whatever. Sitting there, and of course, being an idiot, admit that wholeheartedly, of course I'm all in black hood, black gloves, shirt, everything like that.

So just being an idiot, bored, checking on things and just sitting there on my phone like this. And literally from here to the wall, away comes two birds dropping down in full strut that I never even saw. Never nothing came cruising. Ply the blind, the one actually had to pick its claw to go over the tie cord that I had put down to stake the blind down.

So of course, instead of having my bone in my hand, I got my phone in my hand. I'm like, maybe I should just throw this, stupid Turkey. So truth be told, I, completely air balled on that one. That's [00:42:00] why the message was turkey's one Johnny, nothing is because I was totally.

Unprepared in the respect that I wasn't in the mindset for a shot. I'm not an Olympic archer. I may be an Olympic skier, but I'm not an Olympic archer. And I have my progression that I have to go through, and if I don't go through it, I, there's no point in me even taking the shot, even though I will, cuz I'm a dork that way.

But I know if I don't have my certain rhythm that I do to get comfortable to get down to my pin, chances are it's not gonna work out good. And just the whole fluster of, literally having two 10 inch long beards, three feet out of the blind with me not even having my bone in my hand. By the time I could drop my phone, slink down, grab my bow, get back up, realize they're still there, and at that point, the whole mental execution of, okay, John, do this.

Yeah. At that point in time it was more instinctive shooting where it's ha, whack, and just basically let the arrow go Sora and pray.[00:43:00] Yep. But it was no harm, no foul, it grazed the one. As far as feathers, I didn't catch anybody at all. And they could care less.

They walked off naturally. They never spooked, they never putted, they never nothing, and then it was probably, yeah, about two hours later they just kept doing their big circle in the field where like I said, the hens, I actually saw the hens they were coming up on the riverbank is where I hunts right out in Mississippi.

You guys know that. And the hands were on the wrong side. And I knew the Toms had to be with them. And I'm like if I don't get the hens over here, the Toms are gonna go along that riverbank. And if they go along that riverbank, at least for this moment, I'm not gonna get a shot opportunity. They'll circle around again.

But for this pass, I won't get an opportunity. So I laid on the hens and finally got one of the hens dancer me, where we basically just got in a little, chat ourselves. Yeah. And finally she got pissed at me where she came across the [00:44:00] field and then it was probably couldn't have been five minutes this time.

I was prepared for it. I'm like, if they came over here and as they were in my decoys, the hens, I kept on seeing the one that I was calling with, she'd look my way where the calls were coming and all of a sudden she'd go and look down the shelter belt line and I'm like, oh, I guarantee all six of them Toms are coming down that line on my side.

So I already had my bow in hand and everything and had prepped myself that, don't be an idiot. Go through your mental progression, John. Don't lose your mind. And yeah, I couldn't have been a couple minutes after that. I could just, before they broke into the opening, you could just see the top two, three inches of their fans where there's three four of 'em in full strut just coming down the shelter belt line.

And I'm like, Woohoo. So that's such an awesome, but the only thing mind tingling about that is, is you know, now I've got. At that point now I've got four hens and six Toms ranging from three yards out of the blind to 17 yards out of the [00:45:00] blind where getting to full draw, I've hunted out of blinds enough.

I know I can do a back flip in there and they're not gonna see me. But it's still just, the mental games in your head where it's like, all right, I got 20 some sets eyes looking at me right now. But they did exactly what they were supposed to do, blinded with supposed to do, and fortunately I did what I was supposed to do.

So ultimately that's good job, Johnny. Were you running a box call to get that call way out there then, or Nah, I throw everything I can at 'em. Yeah. I do use box calls. I obviously use diaphragm calls. Yeah. Slight calls. I prefer slight calls when they're closer. Yeah. It's just because they're, to me anyway, they're not as overpowering.

Yeah. You can get 'em pretty soft. Yeah, I know. Like diaphragms you can, and that's, Oh, I run. But that shows to everyone how new I am. I'm just like, I don't know about an $80 box call. Yeah, let's try like a Quaker boy for 12 bucks or something. Yeah. I know a box call is needed though, because, there's days like if Sam and I do go out, oh my God, [00:46:00] you can just get that out there.

Just turn that box over and go. Otherwise with the diaphragm, it's like you're blowing your lungs off and maybe the reed folds over wrong. It's yeah, I just sounded really stupid. And I don't know if this is right or wrong. Again, this is Johnny's mind of Turkey hunting is, to me, I've always been able to get a box call out there further where you got a bird two, 300 yards out.

It just seems that box call's got a little bit more grit to it, or amplification or, I don't know what the, you know what it is something, but it just gets out there more where I tend to have a better reaction at those long distances. And. Again, if you're really desperate and need to get their attention, if you really lay on a box call and just make it actually just really hard.

It hurts U ear in the blind when you do that. But again, a Turkey that's at a distance that it hasn't reacted to a mouth call, it hasn't reacted to a slave call, it hasn't reacted to anything. It's so far out there just cranking that box call really [00:47:00] hard once just to make sure if he actually is hearing you and I've had birds respond to that. Yeah. I've killed birds doing that. So I've ran into that plenty of times this year where they're out there. And I'm, I'm sitting there with the diaphragm, but I'm like, go doing like one of these things where it's hopefully hears me cuz I don't have a box call, but, yep.

That was a mid-morning hunt too, wasn't it? Yeah, the, when the first two came by that I missed that was, yeah, probably about 10 30 maybe. Yeah, that's what sounds right. 10 45. I think I was sitting in a field, the field. Yeah. Up around cameras. Yeah, you were. And I was watching one Yeah. STR around with 1800 hands and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna pull one with no decoy.

Yep. And then I think it was like two o'clock, two 30 when I shot that one. Yeah. God, that's a, and there were birds around the whole time. As far as, you talk about laying down, taking a nap in the blind no matter what direction I looked for the entire time I was out there.

Now granted some of them were at a distance that I couldn't do anything with, or they were hens that had no Toms with them. So I wasn't gonna, try to pester 'em too badly. But [00:48:00] it was exciting and respect that I always had something going on yeah. That's sweet. Yeah. To, and to go back to what you were talking about, about like expensive calls and all that kind of stuff and folks feel free to argue with me on this one.

I'm obviously not an expert in the field. I got lucky twice but I've heard some Jakes make some really ridiculous noises where you're, where I'm like, that could not have been a real Turkey. It was. And then here he comes popping up over, I'm like, wow, that whole, so I don't think that n. Not being really good at calling could is necessarily gonna hurt your chances, agree wholeheartedly. So just do it, yeah. Cause I, when I first started Turkey hunting, I was like, scared to call. I'm like, oh, I'm terrible at this. I don't know what I'm doing.

And but the more time you spend out there, the more you hear the sounds that they make and you start to understand. And then and again I used to run around and spend a ton of time in the Turkey woods and I don't as much anymore because I, my time is limited. So I try to, put it in places where I enjoy the hunt.[00:49:00]

And that's not turkeys so much. I love hunting with my buddy Travis, and so that's one of the big reasons why I like to, why I try to just get out at least for a couple of days, cuz it, it is, and it's fun to listen to everybody's stories too. And heck, if I can get one, I got lucky and got one maybe, I wouldn't say lucky, but I think it was.

We had a pretty good plan and we got it done last year. So that was pretty cool. I got my bird last year. Travis didn't, and then now we're vice versa this year, yep. Okay. And, but either way it's, I, once I get out there, it's always just super fun, and I had the weirdest encounter this year with a Turkey.

I, of all the times I've been out it, this was very bizarre. So weather was terrible. Like we had talked about before. Nothing was gobbling. I think we heard one gobble the first morning that was, it rained pretty much the entire time. So one afternoon we're coming out. And we're going we're going through these planted spruce trees, rows of these planted spruce trees, and there's some openings here and there, and some open grass [00:50:00] fields.

And we're coming across and all of a sudden Travis goes, what is that? And I look over and you can just see, just looks like a trash bag, just like sitting out there in the middle of the open. And so we look in our binoculars and we're like, man, we're debating like, he thought it was a Turkey vulture.

And I was like, yeah, it does look like a Turkey vulture. And it's just sitting there. It's Turkey or this bird, it's just sitting there, it's Scott's head tucked way back in the feathers, so all you could see was just a little bit of its face. And then all of a sudden it started to move a little bit and then it shook off and it was raining so you could, it was hard to see a little bit, you had some of that rain in between us to where it blurred him a little. And anyway, all of a sudden he starts to move. I'm like, My God, that is a Turkey. And I'm like, how is it that he's still standing there? We're standing in the wide open looking through our binoculars at this thing. And I couldn't believe that it hadn't bolted yet, which was completely bizarre.

I've never, cuz usually they see you before you see them. Yeah. By the time you get your BALs up and you're looking through, they're gone. You find it, it's already gone, anyway, so I'm like, we formulated a plan. I'm like, here, I'm gonna get in these trees. [00:51:00] And then you go back, behind me 15 yards and call, see if we can get him to come by.

And so we tried this out and nothing's really happening. And he walks up to me and he goes, yeah, he's walking away from us, but he's limping. And I was like, oh, really? And so then I get the binoculars on him again and he's injured. I don't know what, yeah. Don't know what did it, but coyote, or if maybe he was shot at, who knows?

But he's just sitting there out in the middle of the open, probably trying to make sure that he can see, if something's coming at him, but he's just sitting out there in the wide open, not moving at all. And of course, me being a terrible Turkey hunter, we tried to formulate a plan and get on 'em and blew it and it flew away and can't even kill a wounded Turkey.

So with a shotgun no less but it was crazy cuz he, it was chilling in this field and it was, there was, I don't know, there had to have been 20 20 like bird poop spots or Turkey poop spots all over the place. So he's just been hanging out in this open field all day, just bizarre.

One of the craziest things. Yeah, it's weird. I wish I would've [00:52:00] killed him. That'd been cool. Say if Coyote doesn't get 'em by next time you're up there Yeah. Gonna have to take care of them. Yeah. We try to go back. I went back in there in the evening and tried, but evenings are tough, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth being out there. That's where I come in. Nope. In my experience, no. They're here and there, but man, every time I've sat this year for an evening hunt, it's just like, why am I here? Yeah. Like evening hunts, you gotta be between point A and point B with point B and the roost.

Yeah. Here anywhere else you ain't gonna get him. I have the one spot where we found his roost tree and I'm like, I might like, if I do anything, I'm setting up 10 yards from it. No kidding. Like no light right under it, because that's like the only chance that would keep me out there. In the evening.

Otherwise, no. I like, I've seen him around that midday hour and whatnot. Yeah. Geez. Evenings. Tough. I like going in the mornings. You can hear 'em, you can see where they are moving and everything, but Yep. Yeah it's just awesome hearing them just go [00:53:00] off. They're super far away from you.

Yeah. Not even close. And to also give myself a little credit here, I've hunted a lot of days, but that's the other thing that I really do feel like, cuz when Sam was texting me today, it was like 1130. They, at those toms, I think, like right now where we like early, mid-May. I think right now you gotta be there after they're breeding, like done breeding for the morning.

Oh yeah. Because I don't know how many birds I could potentially kill if I could sail out there for 10 to noon. But Maya shift starts at 10, I'm hunting every single morning till about nine o'clock and kissing the buzzer, on where I can be out there and it's at, right when they're getting out of the roos.

Good chance. Then from about then, six to eight, there's nothing. Then about eight 30 to nine it's Johnny I've got one coming, my car's that way. It's I think that mid-morning would be perfect, but it's God, they're just, they know when I leave.

Yeah. I think they must they're probably talking to you guys. Maybe you guys still 'em, I come, I have to leave by nine. So they just come to the field at nine. I don't know, it's just [00:54:00] terrible. At 9 45. Gobble right behind him. Yeah. Let him know that he's leaving and you're coming. Yeah, I know.

I've been over here Baja ba humbugging, Turkey hunting this whole time. But I will say that it is a really cool opportunity to get kids out. Just, yeah, because I've, I've gotten coat out a couple times. It's nice to be able to sit in a blind and if it's gonna rain or something like that, you can, and then you can get away with the movement and everything.

And I got my daughter out. One day, which was cool. She's two and a half, so I just figured okay, so I got her Bluetooth headphones and put an iPad in her hands. She watched him, watched a movie, and again, it was an evening hunt. But still, it was a ton of fun.

She was all excited to jump into a blind and I, when I was packing everything up, like I, I look up and she's over there like spinning the decoys, and just like having a blast with them and then holding 'em and petting 'em and stuff. Yeah. I'm like I don't know if that's good, but Yeah.

So there's that, yeah. Like it, when she comes of age where she'll, be able [00:55:00] to tolerate it more and hopefully she enjoys it. I, she doesn't fit is what it is. But that'll definitely get me in the woods a lot more. Yeah. And I think, like you're saying, for kids, Turkey hunting's a, a.

Definitely an easier way to go. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's decent weather like today. The mornings suck. Jeremiah was saying like his daughter, she's not so sure about, 4:00 AM but it's like I can get behind that. Yeah. But if you can nail down a spot like you've got, where you can go out there at nine instead, that helps. But Yeah, it's way easier, cause if you have to, you just fall down and blind and take a nap. Yep. I've done that. It's nice deer hunting. It's just oh, how cold are we gonna get today? Yeah. Hopefully I don't follow the tree.

Yeah. No, it is great for getting the kids involved. That's how I got Sarah involved. Yeah. Oh yeah. Some of her hunts when she was really young, before she was shooting a bow, they were priceless hunts. I had a blast, and it got her hooked on it where, once she was old enough to shoot a bow, she did.

And all of a sudden she started killing more turkeys than I did for a few years. In fact, she's upset with me for the bird I [00:56:00] killed this year because I didn't even tell her I was going, I just packed up that day and went out all by myself. So when I shot it, she's you didn't even tell me you were going Turkey.

And I'm like, yeah, cuz you would've shot it then. Yeah. His dad's turned to kill a Turkey this year, kid. Yeah. Yeah. So she had last year. Yeah, she got that one last year. Get outta here. Yep, exactly my turn. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't it when I first moved here is when I started to get into doing some of the Turkey hunting and stuff and where I grew up.

Up in, Polk County in Crookston. I didn't, I'd never even seen a Turkey. I didn't know turkeys were even wild in Minnesota. When I was growing up, and they were reintroduced, I think, I don't know, and somebody can fact check me on this, but I imagine it was sometime when I was in college, probably the early two thousands.

And now they're thriving up there. I see 'em all the time. Yeah. And I'm just like, man, that would've been cool, as I was growing up cuz everybody was goose hunting and duck hunting and I wasn't really into that, I'd like to walk trails and grouse hunt and stuff like that from time to time.

But just never had the opportunity for Turkey hunting. It just didn't [00:57:00] really exist up there. No. And your time period's about right. It was early two thousands, late 90, early two thousands. That did a concerted effort to, yeah. Transplant some birds up there and did really well. Yeah. Obviously did well yeah, I see 'em, but not as much as I see him down here, but, oh no. That's also could be just because I don't know, there's so many open fields up there. It's all farm fields and stuff. So they're probably isolated in groups in the woods and stuff like that. Got a lot of wolves up there too.

Yep. And I was trying to look it up, but for whatever reason, I can find when they were. Unsuccessfully reintroduced up there, but I'm not finding when they put them back up there, but and I know winters are really tough. Yeah. For 'em up there and I think, yeah. For whatever reason, just the one that one year they started, they, they survived the winter and they adapted well, when was the big flood too?

That was early nineties, wasn't it? That was 97. 97. Because [00:58:00] I know, I can't remember if they had started at that point, but I know there were a lot of areas, wildlife areas that obviously they were under water for. Yeah. How long and how deep that, that impacted a lot of that stuff. Yeah. I don't know if that the case in turkeys, but it wouldn't shock me.

Yeah. The one or two they had up there, if they didn't have inner tubes, they were dead. Yeah, floating turkeys. Yeah, that was a crazy deal there. Yeah, that was, I got outta school, the sandbag. Yeah. To put up sandbag walls. If the river was right in my backyard, that's my, was this company I worked for sent us up there to go do the same thing.

Yeah. Was this the Red River? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the Red River? Yeah. Wow. That must have been pretty full. Oh dude. It was insane. It got to the point where, so what you do is they lay down this plastic and then you start stacking sandbags up, but you gotta start with a row of seven and then six, then five, you gotta build, you can't just stack them.

Yeah. You can't just stack 'em one on top of each other. They're not gonna do anything. And then what they do is then they pull a plastic over the top. There [00:59:00] was a point where there was a line of people like holding that plastic up, cuz the water was starting to come over the sandbags.

And there was a, cuz there was a ice dam on a bridge just outside of town. And so they had cranes in there where they were just like, they said these big huge like eye beams on the end of 'em, and they were just trying to bust up that ice and try to get the water moving slow ice.

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the whole thing just breaks through. And we just watched the water drop like a foot instantly, and then it slowly started to recede. It was crazy. Yeah. Geez. What I missed out on, man. Yeah. And I was just a little tight. Now is global warming. It's always been like that though, every year up there.

Yeah. It, there's always this fear of flooding. And the house I grew up in now, they ripped it down. They tore down all those houses on that block, built up the levees. I missed the Halloween lizard though too. I missed all this. Oh, that was a riot. Yeah. Like you guys had some fun stuff. Now me 30 inches of snow and. [01:00:00] 24 hours. Oh my God. It was a hard definition of fun, but it was fun. Ridiculous. So yeah. I used to shovel, that was my job, to shovel the sidewalks, man. And I remember throwing snow like way up. And then we had to have people would put these little bright foam balls on the antenna of their car.

Oh yeah. And you could just see those things going by. Like just above the snowbank. Yep. Just cuz otherwise you couldn't see if a car was coming. Yeah. Oh my God. So you walk out in the street and get, we almost got to that point this year, I swear to God, like at least. Anoka County. They were so slow on clearing these, like the side roads.

Yeah. What the hell are you doing? I'm halfway out in the intersection just to see if one guy's coming from the yeah. Some of the back roads by stop signs and stuff like that. It was like, all right, stop and just slowly eek out a foot. A foot just to see if anybody's coming in. Yeah. So I can't imagine back then, my God, when it actually snowed, Yeah.

It was a lot of snow. Yeah. Snow. And it snows up there where I grew up a lot more than it does down here. Yep. I think it was, I. I wasn't that leaving that long ago? It was two [01:01:00] weeks ago or something like that. I think they got a couple oh five, six inches of snow up there. Yeah. We didn't get nothing down here, thankfully.

I think it just rained. It was probably those two days it rained while I was Turkey hunting. Yeah, it was, yeah. They got snow up there. It was, yeah. Yeah. Just I'm glad because I put those shovels away after that one day when there was literally no chance I could make it into work. I said, I'm done with this winter, man.

I threw those shovels in the back. I said, done. Wait a minute. Where were you when we got the 20 inches of snow that I had to. Plow the sidewalk over there. Oh yeah. I was sitting in Mexico. That's right. Yes. So Grimier River pal. Yeah. Yep. I was And Sonata was amazing. Sitting in the nice weather.

And then what do I do to go on vacation? I go up north where it's even colder. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I do. Swing a hammer at some hot steel. Could plan it on your part. Yeah. Wonderful weather. Oh man. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. [01:02:00] So what's your game plan Turkey on the rest of your, what are you gonna try to, other than kill?

I dunno, I didn't make up this morning. I woke up at three 10 and I was just like, man, do I go to Cambridge? Do I go to my other spot where I've been fighting that dude? I don't know where to go, man. And even if someone was to be there or not be there, yeah. There is a new car there now where I'm like, How many birds are gonna get killed over there?

That spot is amazing because there's three hens to, four. Let's just say it's a three to one ratio, Tom's to hence. It is a really good ratio up in Cambridge. It's like reverse. It's really bad where it's good in one respect, if you can get all those hens in.

Yeah. But this spot where I had that one the one day where that guy came in and busted me, it's like I can be, I can pretend to be a hen and these Toms just come right in. Yeah. So I want to be there, but it's okay, how many are dead now? Yeah. I don't know if it's really worth me wasting a morning there.

It's a shorter drive, so of course I want to do, I want to do that, but Right. I don't know. I'm not [01:03:00] sure I get, get past this weekend and see what happens on the promised land and maybe drag you two out there and Right. Yeah. See what kind of chaos we can create. I'm not trying to be the.

Stubborn guys, just, and I don't know, I don't wanna be like public land hunter, like whatever. I just, I don't know. I want to do it and try and do it myself. Show I can do it. Yeah, dude. She's tough. Public land or private land, you still gotta execute, right? You still gotta take the shot and hit the bird.

So there's, I'm just thinking if I had a weekend, but, I have, it's just, I have some personal stuff going on. So it's just every day that I get a chance to fully be out there, it's I gotta go do this now. Yeah. And then that's when the birds come out. I'm like, man, if I could just have a full day to sit out there, it'd be mint, but I don't know. I'm bouncing between those two public spots. But yeah, I don't know. I'd like to try an evening hunt, underneath that roost. Otherwise I have a game plan in my pocket where I get up like I did today. Instantly leave, get out there four in the morning, literally sit up in the woods where they [01:04:00] roost.

Risk it all, I just hope, cuz the other thing is like the guys that have been hunting this other spot Yeah. They're not going near as far as I am. I'm gonna the back corner, way back in there. And, which is dumb because it's not like turkeys hide themselves like deer. Like when we're out west you gotta walk a long ways where you might find something.

Turkeys tell everyone where they are. Yeah. But every time I've had people, they're not even close to where I am and where they are, I don't know. I think that's the plan right now. A morning hunt is gonna be way in there, right underneath them. Yeah. Land on me, and if they don't, then I'm throwing my hands up then maybe evening hunt then.

Eventually private and just tip my cab. So yeah. Yeah. Season F's coming up here pretty quick. 17th. Don't remind me. So that's when it opens back up again for me and I don't know, see if I can make a few things happen. I got some options. I don't know. Yeah. Like I was telling Johnny too, I thought about talking to Nathan and see, because a morning [01:05:00] hunt, like during the week I could probably pull off weekends don't work.

Yeah. But and then, my buddy Charles, he's, he offered to take me out, during the F season too. And there's good chance I'll get one. He's called in several birds for me and I always choke and but with a shotgun. I was gonna say, not with a shotgun though.

No. And I don't know. He might not let me use one though, just because Yeah, because that's his, he, that's his thing too. He wants to do it with a bow. Like I said, the shotgun, this, these spots have been, you could take out, I don't know where you've been going. Like I know where you've been going, but I don't know how it is up there.

Are the birds pretty heavy up there? Or you just gotta find the right spot? There's a good amount of, there's a good amount of birds, but there's also a lot of pressure too, cuz it's public, but, again, I killed a bird last year. Travis killed a bird this year. And Jeremiah, he's familiar with the area.

Yeah. And he doesn't hunt it, but he's got other spots, but he, he's always asking me too, he's curious about how, if I'm seeing a lot of hunters and honestly I don't see very many hunters at [01:06:00] all. I'll see him parked in some spots. But then it's also an area where a lot of people just go out and camp.

Yeah. Cuz the campgrounds aren't open yet. And and people like to get out really early. Yeah. And so we came across, probably four or five vehicles. They weren't even there hunting. They were just there camping really. They just park their vehicle and then they hike in, that's pretty cool.

30, 40 yards and just pitch a tent, so there's that too. But, so I don't know, they were just gobbling like crazy last year. And then even during, like the last season, I tried to take Coda out and I was able to call some birds and then I blew it because I didn't estimate how far away they were.

And we ended up just setting up rent underneath them. And so it, they, I busted 'em out of the roost and so that was pretty much the end of that. But it was end of the season, and they were still making noise and still plenty of birds out there, i.

I could probably go out there again too and give a crack at it. And there's a couple other public spots up by me where if I could get out there in the morning, they might produce something as well. But again, I don't know the [01:07:00] public land, that's tough, man. There's a lot of pressure. So just, you gotta be really good at calling. I think there's that. And then just understanding, should I put a decoy out? Should I not put a decoy out? Yep. I just don't have enough experience to really know which decision to make. It seems like every decision I make is the wrong one. Yeah. And I feel truth of the matter is, even if you do know, they can change your mind so quickly that you do the right thing and it still doesn't matter. Yeah. So I, yeah. I'm sure even the best hunters run into issues like that. Oh yeah. But at the same time yeah, I don't know. I. Still time spent out in the woods too. Oh yeah. That's all. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I think about the only time you get to clear your head and Yeah. Yeah. No, that's nice. Good de-stress. Yeah, exactly. Out there. Yeah. I gotta try to get my wife out more too, cuz she, she hates she's just got something with birds. She's not a, unless it's an owl. She wants an owl. She would love to have a pet owl.

Other than that, she hates all birds. Perfect. She, they can die. Perfect. Okay. Yeah, [01:08:00] I think turkey's right up her alley. Yeah, I did get her out the one time out at Athe. Oh, we didn't see, that's right. We just didn't see any birds that one morning. But yeah, I got her in the old sick and ninja suit and we sat in the blind one morning.

It was fun. Hopefully we can do it again. It's just, with Emma being the age that she is, it's a little, it's a little tough. We don't, she doesn't have grandparents to watch her either, so we have to rely on our sisters and we only have one a piece up here, yep. Yeah, she's busy with shiny objects.

Oh yeah. Shiny objects. Here we go. Totally. Almost forgot about that Uhoh. Yeah, every episode, yeah, every episode we're gonna have a segment called Shiny Objects. And I'm stealing this from a, another podcast that I listened to. But I thought it was a cool thing to get on top of.

We can, talk about whatever cool thing that's come out, whether maybe it's not so cool, but just whatever. And hopefully it's [01:09:00] our archery related. Doesn't have to be, but what's the bus? So I've got a few things, but Hollywood, I know you got a little bit of a list there, so what do you what's your current shiny object?

I don't know. I it runs into yours. The The big thing that was released in the last week, at least on some of the socials, is Easton's, what the heck do they call it? Their uniform spine or something like that. Acu carbon, acu, corbon. They've been running Accu Carbo for a while, but I think they're, are you Googling it?

Yeah. I'm looking it up just to make sure that we get the terminology right. I wanna say they're trying to essentially say, you don't need to worry about spine with their arrows and not so much about spine, but being indexed or spine aligned Index. Yeah. On their arrows. But sorry, Matt Tavares, but I've been shooting Easton for a while and I still do it all the time.

There's still, I don't know, I, it doesn't really make me that much better. I don't know. But there's still a spine there [01:10:00] that I can find on a, a. What do you wanna call it? Little dial caliper or, yeah. You know the there's a little bit of a hump there. Yeah. Times too. When I, yeah. When I find that I index it every single time, fletch my arrows to it, tune my broadheads to that.

Then I'll play with knock tuning if the arrow needs, if it's still fine, a little goofy. But maybe I missed the spine exactly with with the componentry that I'm using, but I still always index on my east ends and again. Whether that really got me my 350 x, who knows?

You gotta be able to shoot a bow first. But I think the reason why they're bringing it up though, is because of Victory's pulling ahead. Matt DVAs they're doing really well, at least in the pro shop here. We sell probably three to one, four to one. I was gonna say four to one.

There's a lot of victory going out the door and. I think a big thing is, social media's got victory hyped up pretty good, people like Crispy, doing the YouTube comparison videos, you've got, I don't know, [01:11:00] there's diy, bow hunter, precision. Whatever Precision Arbitrator, I don't know.

There's inside out Precision. Precision, that's who it is. All these YouTube guys are running victory stuff here or there. We're mentioning it. I think it helps, but like Rick and I were saying, it helps they victory comes with it spine aligned. So it cuts out having to do the extra work of, okay, now we need this extra tool or machine.

And there's different ways, I'm sure at home you can find the spine. But yeah, at least for us, Botox like up front, helping a guy, you don't have to do any spinal alignment stuff. With victories. You can literally just peel and right outta the box. They're already spinal line and indexed.

Whereas the East ends, who knows. And if you're getting just set up bear shafts, now we have to index all those ourselves. Whereas Victory, they come indexed. You can just flesh 'em right to it. Boom, you're done. Yep. So I think they're trying to be relevant again. Cause I, I referenced that to our rep for Easton.

Brad was just like, I've shot Easton a lot for most of my [01:12:00] career. And I really love him, but I just, the sales aren't really there right now. Everyone on social media is running victory. Yep. And I don't know, maybe the component stuff helps that Victory is selling a lot of, different components with them.

But I know Easton is starting to do that and I don't know, I think that might just be why they brought it up is just, Hey look, we can do, here's our spine. Don't need to worry about it. Yeah. But, and I know they're, the way they're doing their carbon is a little bit different too.

They're not doing a. I think the normal, traditional is like a weave or wrap where Easton's doing pole intrusion, they call it. Yeah. It's basically pulling out the carbon. But that's my biggest thing right now. I'm just like, I don't know. I still index 'em, still run it. I don't know if it, again, really makes a huge difference, but Yeah, I guess now we could find out.

If it's true and I can't, obviously it'd be interesting to find out, like at what point did they start doing that, because yeah, I've got injections. They don't make those anymore. And the only, and I'm still sh I've got like four dozen of them. Cause I [01:13:00] bought a ton of them way back in the day and I say way back in the day, I know maybe six, seven years ago, something like that.

But they definitely have, they have an indexing point, whereas, you would want to have everything lined up properly. You want to have 'em all indexed properly so they come outta the bow the same. And if they're newer arrows or, Are what they say it is. And it's Accu Carbo.

I don't know if that's what I said before, but Accu Carbo Uniform Spine is what they call it. And if that is the case, that's awesome. Yeah. But at what point did they start doing that? And then how do we, how can we, I want to test it. I don't wanna find out. Yeah.

Cause I'm not super knowledgeable on it. I just know I saw their thing and I didn't really read a ton into it, but if that's what they're, essentially, that's how I'm taking it. I've got some fresh four mill long range arrows I got last year, and I still indexed all those.

There was still a spine on one side and the other, the weak and strong and right in between. There's nothing. It's soft spot, so I I'm not really sure where they're going with it, [01:14:00] but that'll be interesting to see. I do that they're made in the usa. That's a big, yeah, that's huge.

That's a big selling point, I think. Yeah. And I think it's smart for them to hit that as far as the market goes, but again, we'll just have to see. I have no need to buy any more arrows for a really long time still, so I'm just gonna keep shooting my old injections for as long as I can, I just, at this point in my life, I find a setup that works good and I'm just gonna stick with it, i, yeah. Used to really love to get a new setup and tinker, but now I just don't simply just don't have the time. R really, both of you guys saw my bone in the last couple of weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. Who's stuck on their ways? Yeah. Yeah. If I didn't have always be tinkering, if I didn't have to keep pulling the arrow rest off my bow for r and d purposes, I wouldn't have to. I'm going on tuning like number 12 now of tuning my bow because I have to keep pulling it off there. Yeah. In the last two months, r and d stuff.

Again, to Johnny's point, yeah. Work in the archery industry. You get to hunt a lot. Yeah. You work in the archery industry in a manufacturer's [01:15:00] standpoint. Yeah. You'll be test moving and testing your setup every month. Yep. Yeah. Oh, what have we got this week? Okay. Yeah. Let's take this apart.

Retune. Yeah. It's a joke, but it's fun. That's how I keep my bone in one piece is because who's possibly gonna r and d on a bow? That old? Yeah. Leave it at home. Yep. Don't have to worry. Exactly. We'll be fine. John, what's your shiny object, Johnny? Oh, gosh. Shiny objectable. I know. It's, I was 13%, 16, 13%.

I love marketing. I love statistics. It's fun when they put 'em both together yeah. But in all fairness, I would like to explore that, Oh, 100%. Yeah. So you're talking to the vibration in Yeah. 13%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Ultra View just came out with a new set of stabilizers and some of the stuff that archery let down put out there just had me cracking up.

Oh. Oh. I haven't even seen 'em. I love that guy. But they come up with [01:16:00] tubes that are more tuber. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that on archery talk too. Tuber of the tub or something like that. But anyways and not to dog on Al Ultra view, cause they make fantastic, they promises. Yeah, no, they're good guys. Great product love sites.

Love their releases. But it's, it's just one of those things. So the weight system is clever. Yeah. I do like that. It's like a snap in almost sort of thing, or it's just like a quick weight adjust? It's, yeah, it's just your, the threads are integrated into the weight, so you're not having to deal with one long bolt or a short bolt or they're just my daisy chains. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And aside from that though, I don't know, what serious advantage you're gonna get. The statistic of 13% stiffer, is that what they claim?

I think it was just vibration. Yeah, vibration. Vibration. Cuz then true ball came back. I'm not trying to start a fight here, but thing came out like a day later he said, she said, no, we have less vibration or something. It's just right one after another. Oh, you [01:17:00] sent me that. What was it that you said?

Yeah, that, that was, you're talking to True Ball One? Yeah. Yeah. It's like we have less vibration or something like that. They're just going back and forth right now where wow. We talk way too much about Turkeys One. Okay. There. How much? I'm watching Birds Bird Watcher. Yep. Yeah. Less vibration.

Okay. Thousand dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, that's just r and d on their last vibration. Yep. But my big thing with Vu where I just, I can't help but laugh, is every one of us we're right in it. Every one of the stabilizer manufacturers, whether it True ball Quatro Stoker yeah. Stok Eyes to be careful.

You're welcome with everyone. VU is always like ultra high modular carbon or moul carbon. It's like you realize everyone's using U H M C, right? Yeah. That's weird. It's and then even the guy who sh shall be unnamed, when he started doing a new stabilizer set [01:18:00] up, I think with Levi he said the same.

They were no, John's gonna go piss UV stabilizer is. A high performance stabilizer delivers precision in every shot and power in every ounce. 13% stiffer on average. Yes. Is 13% stiffer than bars with similar diameters. Cuz that's what I wanted to look at cuz it's cuz we could come out and say that our stabilizer is 20% stiffer than, than just a raw tube.

Yeah. What are you comparing it against? You know what I mean? It, so again, specifically what are we talking about? Yeah. So that's where those numbers make you giggle a little bit just because there's so many other factors I feel like that are involved. And stiffness is definitely something that people want, lightweight, all those kinds of things.

So it'll be interesting to see, again, going back into the marketing side of things, I'm sure they'll do well on 'em.[01:19:00] Just guaranteed them being who they are. Why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you expand into that market, Johnny? So when I was looking at this, it does say it says on average UV stabilizer is 13% stiffer.

And so again, to your point, I suppose that probably plays into vibration of sort, right? Absolutely. By what metric are they basing that number off of? That was the same thing that I saw too, once we put in some proprietary, ground, ground up corn flakes that we pour in there, there's just more two beer man.

Yeah. And those numbers. Are they add some relevance Yes. To the advantages of the product. But yeah, no, I mean it's beautiful marketing and again, great company. I don't wanna make it sound like I'm bashing on Al Ultra view. I think they're great guys, great company, but it's just always cute whenever a new product comes out like that.

And yeah, they have some tested [01:20:00] metric that they throw out there that again, what's your baseline? Yeah. 13% better than what, you, you didn't have a stabilizer before. Correct. Am I wrong on that? Correct. Yeah. No, I'm correct. Okay. But so you were comparing that to what Yeah. What or who's, yeah, what exactly.

That's the other question is, did you line up every single stabilizer in the market and you just rounded off that 13% was, the stiffness better in all of 'em out there? Yeah. Because you all better bet. We might be testing that. Yeah. I at least I would love to. Yeah. Maybe not Vu specifically, but I know we've got other companies that we've looked at to test.

So it's just what you do in this industry, but Oh yeah. It'll be interesting to see how much stiffer. Stiffer. It's just as important to know as much about other people's products as it is your own. Yeah. So a hundred percent. That's how we better ourselves. Yep. And a hundred percent. Okay so what's grinding your gears?

[01:21:00] Nothing's grinding my gears right now. I, but I, and I, cuz I am really excited. Here's a shiny thing that I want to talk about. And Uhhuh I had didn't have a whole ton of involvement with this. It was mostly Hollywood and Rory, maybe I should let him talk about it, but our brand spanking new vapor trail.

Arrow customizer. We just reviewed it yesterday. Just to go over, some things with it, make sure that all of the details are there that are necessary. And in my nitpicky way, I found a few things that I felt should, should get changed. Probably splitting some hairs here and there, but I also think it's pretty important that we're accurately portraying the service that we can provide.

And I'm trying to see if I can bring it up here, but I don't know if I'm logged into the right account. I'm guessing that by the looks of that, I will say that yes, there is a chance that I might be building people's emails now. We will see. But yeah, it's exciting. Right now, we're gonna be dealing with Victory and Easton the most.

[01:22:00] And it's gonna come with, let's see, we have wrap options, vain options from most of the big vein manufacturers. That are, there's so many, no. Yeah. They're as bad as stabilizers. There's so many veins. I didn't realize it until Yeah. It's just insane. It's nuts. So the main big guys we do have obviously other knock options if you want different colors.

It's all about customizability. Being the most, biggest thing. And again, two biggest arrow lines right now, what it looks like. We've got 1, 2, 9 different victory arrow options five Easton options, and then obviously different spines in all of those. Yep.

You can have 'em cut to length. You can have us glue in your inserts. And you can choose either hot melt or two part epoxy. We've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 different wrap colors. And then I think with those colors we're gonna have a design, like a specific like vapor trail design option with that.

I think that was it [01:23:00] though, right? Just one design for now. I thought that's what it was about the wrap. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if I left it out just cuz I didn't know if we want to throw that Easter again there, but the veins on those veins will have some VT branded ones. Oh yes. Yeah. Hopefully that's possible.

Coming soon. Yeah. And then you have your choice between three fledge, four Fletch, you've got AAE options, boning options, flex Fle options. And. Vein colors we're running 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 colors. There could be more to come cause I know that thing's still under the works, but Yeah. Yeah, there's a few here, but cuz I don't see white well there I see it.

So several options in colors. You'll be able to pick your primary color, your secondary color vein angle will have right offset, left offset and several different degrees. And also helical left and right. [01:24:00] You already talked about knock options. We're going to either allow or we're gonna offer spine alignment or indexing as an option.

If you don't wanna do that, you can just roll the dice. I love that. Roll the dice. It's a great phrase. I need to get a drink of water here. Have fun. Turn in your Knox Boys. It's really not too bad though. Usually these days, as long as you're running the right setup, it's not that bad. Yeah.

But three point options, 75 grand, a hundred grand, 1 25 grand. And then you've also got a lightning speed option to get 'em expedited out within a couple of days. I'm sure you're gonna love that one. Hollywood when Yeah. You get those orders come glue wrapped around my head. Heck, you might even get some here come this summer.

You'll get an order two, three days before a tac event or something. Yeah. Somebody, oh, guarantee you stat. Last year being the first year that we opened that pro shop, we had, one guy just jump in here cuz again we're vapor trail, we can make strings jumps in here. And he is yeah, I'm leaving a new to New Mexico tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning. I'm like, [01:25:00] and yeah. And I've been waiting six years for this elk tag. I'm like, And you need a string and so it's gonna happen. Yeah. Oh yeah. Whether it's tac or the same dude. Yep. It's my God, you can't prevent, your string blowing up. But yeah. You had months to prepare for your arrow buddy.

Yep. Right now be ready for it. Yep. Yeah. But yeah, so the arrow customizer, we're pretty excited about that. Rory's been working real hard on it, and it looks pretty good, so I'm excited for that. Excited for it. Yeah. Excited and nervous. Nervous because let the fun begin. Yeah.

Rightfully how many orders are we gonna get right out the bat? Right on. I think that hit it. I think we hit everything on there. We'll have to get to the next section that I had on the docket for next time. Yeah. Because it's, yeah. Getting to be that time. We've talked way too much about how we can't kill birds.

Yeah. I'm Rick and I. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Not Johnny. [01:26:00] So Johnny vetted Turkey County, he knows what he's doing. Not quite that good. Didn't exist until then. Yeah. He might have had a, he might have had a role in making sure it wasn't the NA National Bird, just so that we could haunt them.

Yeah. I don't know if you want to go back to the double bull days where we started this conversation. Trust me, there's plenty of guys here that'll explain to you how I be used to be real bad at this. Oh, so I thought it all started, I thought it went way back to Ben Franklin, but same time Franklin.

Holy cow. Isn't it weird to say that you were born in the 19 hundreds? Doesn't it just, I don't know. I hear somebody say kids will say that, they're like, whatever old man you were born in the 19 hundreds, and geez. And then I laugh at them and walk away, right? Yeah. Yeah. I can drive.

Yeah. I dunno what, there you go. I just sweep the leg. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Anyway, all hey, thanks everybody for joining us. If anybody has any questions or suggestions interested in being a [01:27:00] guest on the Range podcast, you can reach out to me on ig ricky dot Wayne 80 or shoot a message through Vapor Trail ig, Facebook or YouTube.

And of course, you can always find Hollywood at. On the old Instagram, Jake Ivy three. And Facebook. Jake Iverson with Hollywood in parenthesis. There you go. What about you, Johnny? Do you want anybody to be able to find you or are you like, Steve, it's a ghost? No, it ain't a ghost, but I honestly couldn't tell you what my screen name is.

Pretty sure. It's just my name, so I think it's just my back. You wanna find me? Look up John Becker. There you go. Yeah. So awesome. Definitely find him on Facebook with that. Yeah, as far as I know. Yeah. All right, with that we're gonna pack up our bows and arrows and we're gonna leave the range. Have a good day everybody.

See ya. Thank you. See ya. Vapor Trail is now offering an exclusive discount to the Range podcast listeners. Enter promo code T r p 15, that's t r p 15 at checkout for 15% off VTX bow strings and Vapor Trail and Stoke Rise, branded t-shirts, hats, and other gear.[01:28:00]

‍