Scott Ellis

In this episode of How to Hunt Turkeys, Paul talks with Scott Ellis of Woodhaven Custom Calls. Scott is a Turkey hunter from the state of Florida and one of the greatest Turkey callers of modern times. Scott’s real skill is teaching turkey hunters the in-depth nuances of Turkey callings. Yelps, cutts, putts, clucks? We got you covered in this episode! Paul and Scott dive DEEP into the language of the Wild Turkey. Calling sequences, calling strategies and call types are all covered during this episode. Enjoy this Master Class of Turkey calling.

The Countdown Continues!

12 Days- Southern Florida. 33 Days- Alabama

Paul Campbell: [00:00:00] Welcome to the How to Hunt Turkeys podcast. I'm Paul Campbell. Join me as we dive into the world at Turkey Hunt. Every episode we'll explore the minds the finest Turkey hunters around. We'll take a look at the people, the places, the tactics, gear, and the culture that creates the mystique around America's favorite bird.

That's right, I said it. America's favorite bird, the Wild Turkey. Throw on your Turkey vest. Grab your box, call. Let's talk some Turkey. How to Hunt? TURs podcast brought to you by Go Wild. Visit time to go wild.com or download the app on iOS or Android. Go Wild. Has all the gear for Wild Turkey Hunter needs camo clothes, hats, vest, Turkey calls, decoys.

And everything else. Sign up for a free account today and get $10 off your first order. [00:01:00] Time to go wild.com. Wicked North gear. Delivering the very best gear for a life well lived in the great outdoors. From field kits and DIY tax derby solutions to hats, hoodies, stickers, and more. Welcome to another episode of the How to Hunt Turkeys podcast.

I am your host, Paul Campbell. I am so thankful that you're here listening to it. Oh my gosh. Turkey season right around the corner. Just a number of days Today it's it's not even 20 days. Amazing Southern Florida. You'll be hunting turkeys here at no time. March 4th is coming up.

We're really looking forward to that. You heard me say it over and over again. How excited I am for Turkey hunting season. I cannot freaking wait. I hope you are. I'm recovering from from a full week at the National Wild Turkey Federations Annual Con Convention and Sports Show. I was going a thousand miles an hour for the entire week.

I I'll be honest with you today, I've been lounging feet up relaxing. I'm really recovering from that. What a great event. I met so many wonderful people, so [00:02:00] many awesome members and volunteers in the National Wild Turkey Federation. I couldn't be more proud to to have been there. What a time.

Got to meet some really cool guests. Got some really neat guests lined up coming up here on the How To Hunt Turkeys podcast. Really looking for that. So listen, check it out. March 1st, Turkey season.com goes live. Got some really cool stuff going on there. A ton of content I cannot tell you. This is the, this is gonna be the number one place on the internet.

For Turkey content creation, for information about Turkey season across the country, resources, tips, tactics, all of that stuff. It is gonna be a freaking blast really looking forward to that. I can't tell you how excited I'm about that. I know I keep saying that. I'm just just a bundle of excitement today for this episode.

So this episode, we got I'm gonna make this a short introduction. I got Scott Ellis. Scott Ellis is a freaking Turkey colon master. The guy's a legend. He works for Apex Ammunition, he works for Woodhaven. Custom calls. I got to meet Mike Pentecost over the week. [00:03:00] Him and I have been talking a lot. I got a great episode coming up with Mike from Woodhaven.

So really get ready for that one. That's gonna be a lot of fun. But Scott Ellis this guy is an authority when it comes to Turkey calling. And how to do a mouth call box. Call pot. Call. Tube call. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Al Hooton, the dudes an hooton champion. This guy is the real deal.

Wonderful man. Great dude, Scott, thanks for your time, man. Really enjoyed your time and enjoyed this conversation. Him and I got to talk very briefly. He's as busy as they come. They're at the National Attorney Convention, so get this. We talked in this episode, we talked a couple of times about the Turkey Tech app.

Now, if you are new to Turkey hunting, you're gonna wanna get this app. If you have been Turkey hunting for a couple of years, you're gonna wanna get this app. You've been Turkey hunting for decades, you're gonna wanna buy this app, okay? It seems five bucks. All right? And it will make you a better Turkey caller.

It really will. Scott really did a nice job with this app. It's five bucks, man, one time fee. A ton of information on [00:04:00] there. Get this app. I can't tell you how much it has helped me be a better caller. Just stuff that you learned, that you didn't think about, it's in there. Scott really has thought of it.

He's been through it all, still learning, and he's putting that information out there for you and I to, to quite frankly benefit from it. So thank you for that. Check that out. Turkey Tech app. Let's see, what did I see at the National Water Federation? That was there was something about a vest. I masio or someone like that came out to some vest.

I'm talking about the Mr. Fox vest. Oh my God, 400 em there at Earth. The federation's convention. That was wild. Seeing those people lined up, waiting for that thing. That was really cool to see. Checked out Mr. Fox vest. There's a couple more, I don't know, a thousand or so that they're releasing.

Here over the season. So before things get really kicked off, I know they're gonna have some at their store in Mississippi, which is gonna be pretty neat. Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, which you can do that, get there, check that out. I'm wearing the grounded vest. I met these fellas met 'em online.

They make the impact vest Turkey hunting [00:05:00] vest. Really neat vest. I picked one of those up. Very happy with it so far. Can't wait to kill a pile of turkeys and that thing. So check that out. I think you can just find 'em on Instagram Grounded vests. That thing's pretty cool. So let's see what do we got, man?

Yeah. Join the N W T F. You're a member. This is the, this is your Time to Shine as a Turkey hunter. Support that organization. All the work that the men and women of that organization are doing. nwtf.org, check that out. Click on Become a Member. 35 bucks. 35 bucks to be a member of that organization.

All of that. That's a ton of work that that organization is doing. Turkey season.com. Like I said, I already said that it's coming March 1st. Check that out. That's gonna be super cool. Excited about that. So those of you that have reached out to me on Instagram or go Wild, thank you for talking with me.

Thanks for communicating me with me. I love the conversations we're have going on, back and forth. So some really neat stuff happening in, in this world, man in the Turkey hunt world. I'm so proud to be a part of it. So appreciate you guys listening. Enjoy this episode with [00:06:00] Scott Ellis.

Check out our sponsors of the show. Time to Go wild.com. Download the app on Android or iPhone. That thing is super cool. I love being on there. Love being a part of that. Go Wild Family and wicked North gear.com. Check that out. Turkey kill kits coming up. You're gonna need a bunch of those.

I hope. Listen, thank you so much for listening. Give this show a review on whatever platform you're listening on that would really, I really appreciate that. Follow us on Instagram. H two H T Podcast on Instagram. How to hunt Turkeys on Go wild. You can find us on the web on the interwebs in no time March 1st.

That site's going live Turkey season.com. Good luck guys.[00:07:00]

I've tried to bring into this podcast that Turkey hunting it's more, there's more emotion, there's more nuance with Turkey hunting than there is deer hunting and there's a, there's, I think there's a bigger culture that surrounds Turkey hunting than there is deer hunting. Yeah. So I don't

Scott Ellis: know if I would agree.

Yeah. I've always compared it, the Turkey hunting. I loved the deer hunt, but deer hunting to me is so one-dimensional. It's like [00:08:00] bowling and golf. Deer hunting is bowling. You've got two lanes, you've got 12 pins and you're trying to knock 'em down, and you only have a certain lane you can roll with. And that's deer hunting because you can only control your destiny so much with a bowling ball.

But when you get on a golf course, you have to chip, you have to putt, you have to have short, you have to have a long game, a mid iron game. I'm a golfer. And it's dimensional. And that's what I love about Turkey and the fact that you're, dear, do half of their communication, three quarters of their communication is about scent alone.

You know what I mean? Yeah. They do vocalize but not like turkeys. Not like turkeys do. Oh God, no. And yeah, that's why I've always and been enamored with Colin Turkeys is cuz you're communicating in detail. If you know how to do it, you're really can carry on a conversation and you can exploit their emotions and you can heighten their sense of emotion or you can tone 'em down.

Just by communication. Like with, I'm yelling at you right now, Paul, or I'm like, you're talking to your dog. Hey honey, I love you so much, sweetie. And you do that same inflection you can put [00:09:00] in a Turkey call. Yeah. If you take the time to be better at it. Anyways, we're probably getting some good stuff right here.

This bullshit. But,

Paul Campbell: so I was gonna say I'm gonna put that in the show. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, I'm gonna introduce you, but that's gonna be the first half of the show, cuz that was great. That was a great explanation of Turkey calling and I didn't think, I didn't even for it to get that.

Good. That was well done. I appreciate, so on this episode of the How to Hunt Turkey podcast, we got I got Scott Ellis just a wonderful Turkey hunter, wonderful man. Scott and I have gotten to know each other a little bit over the last year. So Scott, thanks for your time.

This is podcast number two for you and I man. And I really appreciate your time tonight.

Scott Ellis: I'm happy to be here, my friend. I love talking Turkey with you and. I love talking and talking tactics and getting it out there, and hopefully somebody can listen to this and take a little bit of something from you and be successful, and I love that.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. Good man. So just give the listeners just a little rundown of who you are, where you're from, and your role [00:10:00] within the Turkey hunting culture and industry and where you fit in with Woodhaven and and all that good stuff.

Scott Ellis: Oh gosh. Yeah, man, I started off outdoor riding many years ago and got on a pro staff with a company called Quaker Boy. Game Calls. A lot of people know it back in about 25 years ago. And was, like I said, started com, competing on stage competition, Turkey calling, and just found my way into the industry just by winning, calling contest. Again, being an outdoor writer I love to write now. It just is so time consuming and you have to think way too hard to do it anymore . But I used to enjoy writing and now we have YouTube. YouTube wasn't big 25 years ago. Now we have YouTube, we have social media, we have all these platforms that you can talk Turkey with people and you can, teach the masses.

That's something I've always embraced with my Turkey adventures is just teaching people to call better, to strategize on turkeys better. And I have my DVDs mouth call Magic one and two. They have the app Turkey Tech that teaches the [00:11:00] art of calling and setup and just how to be a better Turkey hunter.

And that's where I think I found my niche. Had a lot of success on the stage competing, I've won some grand national titles and. On the back end of that whole deal sidebar there, but I'm kinda on the back end of the competition calling thing and now just enjoying time in the woods and friends and family and hunting turkeys or hunting anything for that matter.

But obviously we're talking about turkeys and that is my first love is Turkey hunting but yeah, you mentioned Woodhaven. I'm bouncing around on you a little bit, but I'm the pro staff manager for Woodhaven. I'm a and brand ambassador with Apex Ammunition. I'm with Thermic Cell and Masio. And again just enjoy the time with, in the fellowship of being in the woods and the art of calling and hunting while turkeys has always been my first love and I love it.

I love that I can. Ticket to the industry to some level, and then, and reap the benefits of meeting great people and getting some good invites to hunt some great property and hunting some public land with great friends across the country, and you meet up with people. It's just a great brotherhood.

The whole Turkey hunting culture is just a brotherhood and [00:12:00] most everybody are really cool people and they enjoy and embrace each other's success and love sharing that success and what made them successful. And that kind of gives a caveat to me going back what I was saying, oh, I just love what I do instructionally to help people and try to put as much out here, just like these podcasts that somebody can take a tip and run with it and hear something.

They, I gotta try that. And they try it and it works. And then you get a message on Instagram or on Facebook and go, Hey man, I heard you on podcast, or I saw your YouTube video and I did that crap and it worked, man, , I killed that Turkey. It worked. And that, there's no better sense of pride, man, that makes you wanna th up your chest like tar did.

I love it. .

Paul Campbell: Yeah. So I'm glad you mentioned that. As soon as I'm done with this statement, I want everyone to hit pause on this podcast. I want you to hop over to the app store and I want you to get the Turkey Tech app . I got that. When did you come out with that? What, four or five years ago I feel like?

Scott Ellis: It's been a few. Three or three or four probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Campbell: That, that is, that app made me a better [00:13:00] Turkey caller without a doubt. And so I had been hunting turkeys at that time for probably 15 years, so I was proficient at calling it Killed some birds. That was one of those apps that I could listen, especially when I got in, I wanted to get into the more complex calling sequences and calls.

That was one of the, one of the things that made me a better Turkey hunter because the way that it's packaged up, it's okay, this is a call, this is a tree alp. This is what it sounds like on from a Turkey, and this is what it sounds like from you. Scott Ellis making that call and it was I, so I was able to, it's a damn good app.

So I appreciate it. Do yourself favor if you listen to this, you wanna be a better Turkey caller? Hit pause. Go get that app. You will not regret it. You will not regret it single handedly. The number one thing that made me a better Turkey caller, so thank you for that. That's a free plug, Scott. Don't don't forget that.

Stay humble. Frank .

Scott Ellis: I appreciate it. 4 94 99 people. This is the price of a cap. Seriously. Yep.

Paul Campbell: Man it's worth every freaking penny. Good deal. So we, so what so when did you start hunting turkeys? We'll just get a little [00:14:00] background on like Turkey hunting beginnings. Sure, sure.

For

Scott Ellis: you. Oh gosh. I think this is my 37th season. I was about 11. I'm 48, so that sounds about right. Yeah. I think I was 11 and that would've been 1985. Yeah. Right before Mossy Oak and Realtree was launched is when I started turning in.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. That's pretty cool. So we're now, are you're in Florida now.

Are you born and raised in Florida?

Scott Ellis: B born and raised. Unfortunately I don't, I'm not proud to call Florida home, but it is home. .

Paul Campbell: Fair enough, man. Yeah. But yeah, born and raised in Florida, so the, yeah. So were, did you grow up hunting osceolas down south or are you up, up a little farther cutting your teeth on the

Scott Ellis: Easterns?

No. Hunting public land, Osceolas ugh. And I'm not south zone, I'm central zone. I'm not south of Highway 70, which is the line of demarcation. But I grew up hunting public land. I didn't have places to hunt when I was a kid. I wasn't poor, but we didn't have high dollar hunt leases and, leases were expensive 30 something years ago as they just like they [00:15:00] are now.

And they're even worse now. Of course. Yeah. With the Osceola becoming such a gym for people, a destination spot, if you will, to kill a Turkey. But I, and what? Cut my teeth on those pressure birds in those acis and in the pastures and swamps and oak hams to central Florida, I think is what honed my skills at a very young age, I had to kill any Turkey anywhere and put a plan together, and it just, it made me the Turkey under I am today.

Without a doubt. I think you can, I don't wanna step on people's toes, but I think if you were, if you grew up in more privileged type hunting, less pressured hunting, I'm not saying you can't kill turkeys or you're not proficient Turkey hunter. But I know that it made me hunt harder, hunt longer learn to call better, learn to strategize more, and have a very deep bag of tricks, is what I always called it.

The big old deep bag of tricks.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. No that's a good, that's a good way to say it. You. Public land. And that's, I same thing. I don't have primo private property that's, unpressured turkeys. I'm [00:16:00] hunting public lands of Ohio and the other states.

And I'm fortunate enough to hunt, with me and, sometimes a hundred other people on the same in the same area. So yeah, you definitely learned to scratch out in existence as a public land Turkey hunter. And it's just got, as the sport's gotten more popular, you've got more and more people coming into it.

So you just have to adapt to that. So

Scott Ellis: it's and I, it's not even that the turkeys are on public ground. It, there's a big, always a big debate, public versus private. I didn't finish my statement, cut myself off about hunting less pressured. Birds are just easier to hunt because they don't get the human pressure.

Public land birds aren't necessarily any harder to kill than any other bird. It's just the contact with humans that I think causes them to be so much more skittish, gobble, less. Be harder to call, be harder to move on, harder to step on. But they're just more skittish, if you will, in my opinion.

And you have to, yeah it taught me to call a lot less at a younger age, even though, I learned to call pretty proficiently, very young and got really good on a mouth call very young. It's still and that makes a [00:17:00] difference. I'll, we can talk about that at some point cuz I've been preaching it forever and ever and I will continue till my grave to preach that more realistic calling will kill more turkeys.

But that said, it's not it's just, you've learned to, I learned to tone it down. No matter how good you call in certain situations, you have to tone it down, scratching the leaves, collecting per wine soft yelping, not due too aggressive. And then there's times I've hunted public ground turkeys where I did get the chance to get aggressive and the bird allowed me to, because I wasn't surrounded by a hundred people.

It just, depends on the day, it depends on the management area, it depends on the ground, the state ground, the federal ground, whatever. It just, there's always a lot more variables in my opinion than hunting public ground. There's a lot more things that could happen. Unknowns, if you will.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

I'll tell you what, let's, I wanna on the back end of this, after the little calling tutorial here, I definitely want to talk some Turkey strategy because toning it down, that's a hard lesson to learn. And I think it is for a lot of people, me included, you learn that by what failure. That's . That's right.

And that's sometimes that's the best way to to learn. So[00:18:00] let's talk about, let's talk about calling man. So I, so

Scott Ellis: we're, we're talking basic. Go ahead, Paul.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. So let's start out, I get outta my truck and I'm a Turkey hunter. I wanna, the first thing I really wanna do in the morning, is locate turkeys.

So on the front end of a hunt, You're probably gonna do a lot of alcohol, doing some alcohol, maybe some crow calling. So talk about timing for ripping off a hoot alcohol in the morning.

Scott Ellis: It's a great topic to kick right into it because I'm the guy that gets my al hooter or my voice and hoot well before dark or before daylight.

Excuse me I'll hoot in the dark with the slight chance that bird will give his location away. And I've got a lot more cover of darkness to try to move on it. And it doesn't work all the time. Now I will say this, just a sidebar, interesting little tidbit. When I was a kid hunting off the, in Florida, those birds would gobble at five o'clock in the morning.

Does not happen that way anymore. [00:19:00] Evolution to me, and pressure and predation have definitely caused those turkeys to gobble when it gets lighter and lighter. Seems like every year they gobble later and later. It just seems to be the case. They can see. Yeah. So they can see. Yep. And back in the day when I was a kid buddy, you would be, you'd rip ripping off owl calls or at, not a crow so much in the dark, but definitely an owl at five o'clock in the morning.

And sometimes, very often they would gobble. Now Miriam's are the only exception. You still get Miriam's to gobble at any hour of the night or the morning but out, but outside of that Eastern's and and even Rios are more susceptible to gobbling really early. But Eastern's not, Xola is not so much.

And so I do hoot really early and just with the chance, slight chance that he may give me that location and I'll have a little more time and a little more ability to move and cover without having to just use terrain because it's starting to really break daylight where they can see. And for the listeners out there, we're gonna talk about a bared owl, and I've got my Woodhaven Ninja Owl call here that I designed with Woodhaven.

And I'm gonna [00:20:00] start off with just an eight note who cooks for you, who cooks for you all? Or y'all, actually, it's y'all. It's not you all, it's y'all, but . But I'll give the eight no hoot and I'll give it to you real quick with a a wood ninja

And I'll listen and I give it again,

add a little player on that one, those little single notes at the end of the eight note. And I'll listen. And sometimes they're ripping right off of the bat and you don't have to do much more. And what I will do is if you end up getting a locator call and you learn, start getting proficient with it, experiment with screaming, experiment with laughing, getting louder, getting higher pitched with the call.

Because sometimes I love giving this tip away or tip out is that you have to get aggressive with your locator calls. And I'll go into the crow call in a minute as well. You can do that eight no who, and that bird just might not gobble. But now I might not have heard anything. So I'm gonna get excited and I'm gonna throw, I'm gonna throw a scream in there.

[00:21:00] And this is what and the Ninja owl will scream. I don't know. Not all Hooters are made alike but the Ninja owl will scream and it's just a single high pitch note that the bardo does. Not super common but it's it's almost like a high coyote owl for Miriams. They'll go at this one.

They won't gobble at a lot. And so I'll give a screen. And this is the scream I bought out. That's the screaming, it's just a high shrill pitch sound. And then they'll go into a hitched roll note, if you will. It doesn't really have a name, but they'll scream and then go into this note. And this also adds a little flair, a little more aggression that could jerk or gobble outta one goes like this

and that adds a little bit more, and you listen. And then if that doesn't work, then I may go into a, like a little longer laughing sequence. So I'll hit something like,

Get something like that right there. And that will sometimes jork a gallbladder one. So just don't be afraid to experiment with it [00:22:00] and make different sounds other than the egg oak bar Bard hour. Just be versatile and get proficient enough with the call to be able to make the other sounds.

It can make a difference in locating and not locating.

Paul Campbell: I will Second what you said at we talked last year on, on a show and you said the same thing. Get a little aggressive, get a little loud, get a different sound coming out of the hoot. Other than the eight note I was hunting in Tennessee, highly pressured birds.

I was on a great spot. I was out on this ridge and there's all this, there's all this train and your features and I'm like there's gotta be turkeys here and I've been hooting and sun's. on its way up. And I'm like, man nothing's out. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna try that scream.

And man, it was just like I, and I hadn't moved, I'd been just walking the top of this ridge and I hit that scream. It was like the freaking holler, erupted, man, . There was like four turkeys there. I'm like boys, I've been standing here for an hour waiting for you guys.

Scott Ellis: . And the beautiful part about that is you truly shocked them into gobbling shot, gobble 1 0 1. And they may not gobble [00:23:00] again, but at least you knew. And they're there. And that's when, if they don't gobble again, that you can camp out in that area, set up and just do some blind calling and with a chance of killing something.

And that's a great, that's a great feeling. I do that a lot with a tube call in the. Because I get birds to gobble with my tube call that I don't generally get to gobble at anything else. And they may only gobble one time and give you what we call a courtesy gobble. But at least you know he is there.

And if he doesn't answer me again, I'll set up, start scratching, leaves clocking and purring not being too aggressive. And then if that doesn't work, then I might try cutting at him real hard. We could go into tactics. He, we're already diving off in the taxes.

Paul Campbell: Oh man. I love it. So I'm gonna, so my first Turkey hunting season 2007.

So I started out calling in 2007. I cannot freaking roll my Rs on the end of it, on the end of that eight, now hood, that little growl or whatever it is. Yeah. Yes. So just there. Do that. I'm gonna shut up. That's how you do it. Give it one, give it to us one more time.

Scott Ellis: It. Okay. There's two ways of doing it.

You can either float or your tongue or you [00:24:00] can vibrate your uvula. That little piece of skin that hangs in the back of your throat. , God gifted me with the ability to go and just roll my tongue. And all I do is relax my tongue. And then blow air cross it. I'm using my voice so you can hear the vibration.

And I just blow Air Cross and it flaps now some pe if I do it. Oh. Oh. See when I do my uvula, you can hear the vibration, but it's too fast. Oh, okay. It'll work great for Crow calling, but when I alcohol That was my u though. Here's my tongue. Thank goodness I can roll my tongue cuz I cannot get my uvula to slow down.

I think mine's about three inches long. . And that's the reason why I couldn't get it to vibrate. Yeah. There's too much skin hanging down here .

Paul Campbell: So I can get it. That's about what mine sounds like. It's almost like a, it's like an owl growl. And it, and I will say it works.

Scott Ellis: But you cannot roll your tongue.

Paul Campbell: I cannot, man. And I've tried and it drives me nuts. So I've just, I get that. I get that on the end of it. I'll [00:25:00] give it that little the laugh, that real aggressive laugh and then just go into a short roll and a lot of times, yeah.

For me, I'll get that. I'll get that quick little, yeah. And it works. But I think that's one of those things. It's for it's practice. Most people are gonna get it. I'm just an idiot. And can't .

Scott Ellis: No, you're not. There's a lot of people that cannot do either. They just can't.

They don't. I'll explain it real fast. I don't wanna go too far in the weeds, but it's take a deep breath and blow out until your cheeks fill with air. If you sat in your chair, like in the evening when you got home from work and you're tired and you go and your cheeks will fill up with air.

But I'm okay when you do that trying it, let that air channel, that air war across your tongue. I'm gonna try it. You're using your throat, you're

Paul Campbell: Yeah, I am. Yeah. You hear it, you

Scott Ellis: can hear it. Yeah. Yeah, I can hear your throat trying to vibrate. Mine does the same thing. And that's the only, and that's why I try, I teach people to perk to get the r the rolling tongue using that [00:26:00] same method, that deep breath your cheeks expel with there.

They fill up your, create a little back pressure.

And that's how I have taught a few people and got 'em to do it. So maybe we'll sit face to face sometime and I'll better watch what you're doing. I can help you. But yeah, anyways, not getting too far in the we, but that's the role for the rs on the owl or the fur on a mouth call.

Paul Campbell: Okay. Okay. Now is an alcohol.

So I've done this, I saw some guys doing it on YouTube or TV years ago, hooting at 11 o'clock in the morning and turkey's just shot gobbling. That's an effective

Scott Ellis: tool, right? Sure. Yeah. I'll hoo it all day. I just, I can get louder and more shrill on a crow call.

Yeah. So I will generally go to Crow during that part, during the middle day. Cause I can get louder and more shrill than an alcohol. Yeah. That might the, my Hooter's pretty loud, but it's not as loud as a crow call, but

Paul Campbell: yeah. So let's talk about the crow call real quick.

Okay.

Scott Ellis: Yeah. Crows call, great locator, right? And I don't crow call in the dark just cuz that's unnatural to me. So that's unnatural, right? As that sun first peaks his [00:27:00] little head right over, that just starts to crack light. I hear crows all the time right there, right? Before any kind of real sun up.

But that first crack of light, and it's loud at shrill and and you hear the crow fly over your head sometimes. He's just doing the basic calls. This is a woodhaven reel crow, and he's just doing the basic.

And that's just your basic, excuse me, gotta frog my throat. Basic crow sounds. Yeah. That might get a bird of gobble. A really hot Turkey might get a gobble. But what we're gonna do with what you can't do with your throat, you don't flutter your tongue with a crow call. You do use that uvula. And when a crow call, I can do that, what you're doing and you do that across the crow call and it creates a good crow sound. Hear it come to life. Oh yeah,

that's the uvula, that's not my tongue. So you do that and then you just really blast the air through it and get more aggressive, just like we [00:28:00] talked about with the laughing, the screaming blow air to it and make a little longer sequence. And this will make the difference sometimes. And when he gobbles and when he doesn't, and get my throat clear and I'll get you some good crow calling, getting aggressive using that gargle, that ulo.

And then listen. And a little tip to give people when you're trying to feel like, when you feel like you're running outta air, open your mouth around the mouthpiece and inhale in between the blows.

And there you go. And then you listen And don't go too long cuz he might shot gobble in the middle of all that sequence. But that's a great little sequence. Just a

and then listen like a crow fight almost. And that will be what sometimes is the difference between a gobble and not a gobble . Yeah. And I use that all the way up into the day. Yep. Okay.

Paul Campbell: All throughout the day. Yeah. That's a really effective tool[00:29:00] to pull a shot gle outta trunk.

So actually let's define what a shock GLE is for people.

Scott Ellis: Okay. Yeah. We gotta not get too far ahead of ourselves with the advanced tactics. A shot gobble is when a bird gobbles at a train horn at a th a clap of thunder at a crow at know. It's just as stimulus to a loud noise.

It can be a air horn, it can be slamming your truck door as the old boy say back in the, back in the old Turkey days, I didn't get out and slam a truck door. Any gobbles, I honked a horn, any gobbles. But I think one thing I have a theory I've developed over the years. Yeah, all that will work.

Just loud noises, thunder's amazing. Actually best located I've ever heard. You can use a duck call, you can use a goose call. Very effective all over the us. I've done both of those. But something I think that happens with crows and owls is they're not mortal enemies, but they're not, they don't have that symbiance in the woods, if you will, the brotherhood in the woods.

And I think a bird will hear a crow or an owl as a challenging. [00:30:00] Another bird challenging his dominance, if you will. And I think Dale will sometimes gobble, they're sometimes gobbling at an hour or crow because they feel challenged. And that's just a theory. You can call me crazy, but that's a theory I've always said because he's hearing another bird that has a loud voice in this rashes sounding, and he wants to fire back and say, no, sir, I'm the dominant one in the woods.

And I think that happens, in my opinion, with a crow and an owl. So the other loud shrill sounds loud, booming sounds, thunder, whatever. I think that's more of a shock goble to me than actually an hour of crow. So just my 2 cents

Paul Campbell: on it. Yeah, no good. 2 cents. I will say . So let's talk about Turkey calling now.

Okay. One of the, one of the real interesting questions, and I, a lot of people, a lot of guys are different. When you're in the woods, you're al Hooten. Yeah you've got some gobbles maybe not as close, you're working in when do you start calling? So more from a tactical side, not sure we'll get into the [00:31:00] instructional side.

Like when do you start calling if you haven't heard anything with a shock, with a locator call, when do you start actually making Turkey cells?

Scott Ellis: Oh, when the sun's breaking. If I give all my best locator stuff and there's nothing happening, I will actually get on my tube call and gobble.

That's one of my last tricks in my very deep bag of tricks. , it will be the gobble on my tube call. But going backwards a little bit, I'm trying to keep it, I'm, I keep thinking 1 0 1 Scott. 1 0 1. 1 0 1. Can we go back and just say, okay, we've got him to gobble then for the new Turkey hunter that's interested in doing this.

What do I do next after gobble on the roof? Okay. Okay. So I just wanted to give a, just a quick brief rundown. You locating. Slip into that Turkey as tight as you feasibly can without bumping. And that for somebody, some people may be a hundred yards, maybe 200 yards, maybe one fit. Whatever you can do to use the darkness, if it's still dark enough or the terrain hills, rolling hills sides cover, thicker woods, denser woods.

[00:32:00] Get as close as you can to him and then sit down on the Turkey and then the game begins. Now we can I just wanna give people that just set up and get a place that gives you a good vantage point. Don't let cover block you. Try to keep any obstacles outta your way. Don't get on the other, on the wrong side of a creek.

Don't, try not to get, put a fence between he and you or ravine or any, again, any obstacle. And again, give yourself a good va, a good vantage point where you have shot lanes, you have places you can see if it's open timber, then obviously that's advantageous. For visibility that you can see pretty good.

But just don't forget that whole deal, cuz we'll talk hide to him one of these days in this, if we don't get too long winded, we might have to talk hide to him. My little tactic I came up with 25 years ago.

Paul Campbell: I know that one. ,

Scott Ellis: that's I mean I should have patented that phrase and coined that phrase, hide to him, but I'm it's, anyways, we'll get back to that soon.

Sound . Yeah. Yeah. Probably, I hear it's used a lot now, but at any rate so yeah, birds gobbling you set up on him and then the sun starts breaking and then you're saying, now you were saying when do you call, when you don't hear a bird? So do [00:33:00] you want to go that direction or do you want me to start doing some calling instruction now and just start off the roost and how you should talk to the bird on the roost.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. Let's go with the scenario that we're talking about now. And you're al Hootin, you get a gobble, you've gotten into position something that you feel is a new Turkey hunter or Turkey hunter is a good spot to be in. Where do you go?

Scott Ellis: From that point there, I'm going to get, let the light break just a little bit and then I'm gonna give him some real soft bubble CLS in what we call tree calling.

And the bubble cluck is like a water dripping cl I'll demonstrate on a mouth, call my new energy, but have a new energy. I gotta get my plugs in there man. . Yeah. My favorite split be beco. Yeah, my new energy woodhaven Call, mouth. Call one of my designs for those woodhaven. And I'm gonna give some and some tree calls and just try to make contact with him that, that's gonna sound like mouth.

This is just a hand up on the limb and you're letting that goler know that there is a hand nearby and it sounds like this.[00:34:00]

And that's the trick call. Just a soft little yelp, couple of those little pips, those little bubble cluck. And he's j you're just making contact with the bird. Hopefully he answers and he's fired up. Maybe he doesn't, don't be discouraged if he doesn't. But you, if you did it as loud as I just did, it just a very low level and you're within 150 yards of him, 200 yards even.

He's gonna hear that and he's gonna know you're. From there.

Paul Campbell: I think it's, I think it's important to say that's a soft call. That is not a loud call right at all. Even in the woods. That's a very mild sounding,

Scott Ellis: muted sounding call. Muffled, muted. Yep.

Paul Campbell: Yeah, for sure. Now for people, if they wanna learn the intricacies of blowing air over the reeds, that Turkey tech app, you go into detail about that I did about the style.

So we won't do, we won't do any of that on this call. So guys, like I said, you can get that app[00:35:00] there, there are other resources to, to learn that. We'll just go with more like the sound and the strategy of it. Sure. But it, but in that turn tech you go over that in detail about air pressure and tongue placement and all that

Scott Ellis: stuff and I've got tons of YouTube videos on my channel, hunt quests with my show throwing that out there. But there's, I got tons of instructions on YouTube as well. But yeah, so you make contact maybe I give him another two or three series of he Yelps or Tree Yelps. Only time I get a little more aggressive on the limb throwing this out there as a tactic is if I hear hens around him with him.

So at that point, I'm gonna try to get the hens talking to me politely, just softly civilly talking, having a nice little conversation to try to say, Hey, I'm over here. I'm the newcomer. May, sometimes curiosity gets the best of the hens and they'll fly down to you. Sometimes they do what? They fly the complete opposite direction.

But we're just gonna pretend for argument of arguments sake that he does not have any hens. A couple series of tree calls, and then I'm just gonna let it start getting light and let him do his thing. I'm gonna listen [00:36:00] to his gobbling frequency. I'm gonna let and see if he's gobbling at owls. If he's gobbling at crows.

I'm assessing his mood. Is he really fired up? Is he apprehensive? Not very fired up. I'm just trying to get a feel for when the game begins, is when his feet hit the ground. And we'll get to that here in a minute. But how I'm going to engage him once I get him on the ground? And that's again, that's when the games begin.

Tree calls, like I said, and then as it gets what I believe is good, like I don't have, we're doing this with an audio, so we don't have any video recording, but I use a Turkey wing. I have a, like the bottom lower, the lower the primaries of a wing cut right at the wing. The bottom wing joint.

And I put tape around the edge of it, makes a little handle, and I carry two of 'em around on my best, actually, for fighting furs and for fly downs and stuff. And so at that point, I'm gonna give a little fly down cackle and let him know that I have flown down with the wing beat. So he hears the wings slapping, and it simulates not only a Turkey vocalization, it simulates the wing, beats the Turkey sound, not just the vocalization.

So I'll just do a [00:37:00] quick little cackle on how I, I give it whenever I'm flying down to simulate the hands down.

And that's the flight on Kle. It's a chopping crescendo effect. Call it. Very sharp single notes called, almost like a cut note, if you would. And then it's just put into a, to a crescendo. It starts high and then finishes low just like you heard me just do. Nice. And then

Paul Campbell: if you've got mul, if you've got multiple hens in a tree, will all if you got four hens in area, all four of 'em cackle on the way down, or

Scott Ellis: is it just the Sometimes they don't cackle at all.

Sometimes I will do that same sequence. If let's here's the sidebar. We're on that, that hunted property, that pressured public land. I may not give any cackle. I just use the wings to make the simulate the wing beats. Now [00:38:00] I might tree call or bubble clock really soft, just once or twice, and then I give the simulation with the wings, but not even do a fly down cackle.

So it just, it depends on the time of the year where you're hunting it. Sometimes it's just a, it's just what you feel. Go with it. Sometimes even on public land, I will cackle, I'll give a fly down. But but generally, hands, always cackle. Absolutely not. I think more times than not they don't cackle than they do actually.

But it's just one of those, one of those tricks in my little bag, I got my little trick bag. Yeah. . And that's one of the ones that I definitely use.

Paul Campbell: Yep. Now I've used my hat before to do right, to do the fly down. Just out of desperation. I need to start saving Turkey wings. .

Scott Ellis: You should, man.

It's a deadly tool.

Paul Campbell: Deadly tool. Yeah. All right, so let's go. You got him. You're, you bubble cluck and fly down Cackle. You got someone on the ground. He's enter, entertain, he's interested. Okay. So he's flow. He's there. Yeah. He's flown down. Yep.

Scott Ellis: And this is where it really, we really started getting into the meat and potatoes of the 1 0 1 stuff, because this is where guys go.

Maybe they've been turkeying a couple years and they've had some [00:39:00] success or no success, but how much do I call her this rascal? You know what call just enough to keep him moving towards you. So now how do, what do you mean to keep him moving towards you? To ha to keep his forward progression. His march coming straight down your gun barrel.

So how do you realize that with not ca without calling too much? I will give a Yelp. I'm well, okay, so he is hitting the ground. Let's get into some more basic stuff. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just Yelp to him 1 0 1. Yelping probably killed more turkeys than any call, than a Turkey caller has ever a Turkey hunter has ever made.

So I'm just gonna give a basic, just a hand Yelp. Once he's, I know he is on the ground. See how he is gobbing gauge his reaction Sounds like this.

And that's the five, six notes. You can hear it. Most people will identify where that, and know what the heck that is and then from there, okay, does he hammer, does he not gobble [00:40:00] at that point? I'm just gonna give him a minute. Let him settle down after he is just flown outta the tree. Let him get his scruples about him, get his faculties, get.

Get right with the Turkey, get right with the woods, if you will, . And then yeah after that goes down, I'm going to see, I'm gonna check him basically. If you gobbled really well, all we can do here is run scenarios. It's so hard to say this is what you do, a, B, C, B, E, F, G. You know what I mean?

It's hard to, so all we can do is put is just put the scenario that we're trying to teach somebody the basics out there. And that's, let's just say he gobbles and he's 125 yards away. Say you set up away from him one 50, he flew a little towards you, or maybe he flew to the right of you, but he's not too far away.

He's well within Cullable range. Setup is good. And from there I'm going to I'm gonna give him that first contact. He answers and then I'm gonna give him a few minutes and then I'm gonna check him, give him two or three minutes. Don't just immediately start firing off at him when his feet hit the ground and you just want to hear him gobble.

That's why we do it. [00:41:00] We wanna hear him gobble. That's why we're there. We're there to eat Turkey nuggets. But at the end of the day, we're there to hear that gobble and see that, oh yeah, hear that drum and see that seem strutting, and give him a few minutes and then just hit him with another yelp.

And I'm not gonna demonstrate it again. Yelp. And listen, is he closer? Is he further away? If he's closer, this goes right back into what I told you when I say, just give him enough to come to keep you, come, keep him coming to you. So say he closed and he's noticeably closer. You don't have to.

If that bird's that hot and he's ready to roll, you've just landed a, you've just hit the lottery, he's closer, noticeably closer. Give him another three or four minutes. Check him again with the basic kill. Don't see. This is where this, we could go so far in the weeds, brother. I love talking this stuff because when you can cluck and pur and you can cut and you can fight and pur, and you can shake you up and you can gobble when you do all these sounds, these are all those tricks and that big old, deep bag of tricks I talk about all the time.

Don't get advanced, don't get crazy. And don't start, if you, maybe you're an advanced jerking hunter that's listening to this right now. Don't throw all your tricks out there on the table. They're your ace, your trunk [00:42:00] cards right off the bat. Just stick with the basics. Then you have those in hold if you need 'em.

Wh when he does hang up. Fair enough. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay so this bird's closing. I'm gonna give him another Yelp. He's closing. I'm gonna give him another Yelp and a after he's getting to what I'm saying, 75 yards. I'm gonna almost go, I'm gonna go quiet. I've killed turkeys.

We've all done it. If you've hunted longer than a few years, you yelped three or four times and he's dead. Ralph Roost doesn't happen as often as we'd like it to happen. , but it can't happen. So now that's the, that's you called Yelped. Three or four times. He's closing, he's moving towards you. You don't have to call too much.

Don't over call him. Don't. If you over call him, there's a very good chance he'll stand his ground and he'll get stubborn and want you to come to him. Always remember that. A bird, generally a go. Gets the hands to come to him. But now Gobblers do cover ground, obviously we call 'em up a lot, right? They do cover ground.

When they're in the right mood, they will come to the hen, but in general, when they hang up, that's the bird being stubborn and being what's a little more natural. And he destructs and shows off and he calls up the [00:43:00] ladies himself. So this bird comes right on in. Boom. We're mash or Turkey hunters.

I yelped four times, called him right off the rost and killed him and he's dead. Okay, now let's throw another quick scenario out there. Let me throw two spins on another scenario where he's gobbling good, but he's not closing the distance, he's not coming forward. That's when I'm gonna yelp at him for a while.

Like I just did three or four sequences. He is not acting right. He's not, he's answering but he is not closing. That's when I might throw four or five cuts in with that Yelp and get a little more excited with that Yelp and that I will demonstrate is I will get a little aggressive and try to charge him up and get him to break again.

Don't over call him. Don't give him too much too soon. Give him little doses and give him silence in between those little doses. Does that make sense? Yep. So I'm gonna cut 3, 4, 5 times and then go into an exciting joke,

just like that. Wanna do it one more time, just a little sharp cut note[00:44:00]

and they listen and then give him a little bit of silent treatment. Give him a little dose like that, and then give him a second. He gobbles. I'm sure he'll gobble that if he's gobbling well at you. Okay. And give him three or four or five minutes and then check it. Sometimes that breaks him right there.

Sometimes that's all it takes is that little more excitement to get in his head, get in his helmet, and then he breaks. And then when, whenever you get him coming, then you can tone it back down to basic Yelps, and then you can put that cutting in your back pocket until you need it again to get him fired up again.

You follow where this is all about exploiting his mood based on the vocalizations, what we talked about, start of the podcast. It's using the sounds, their voice, their the inflections and the excitement level and their voice to either excitement to get 'em fired up or in, we're gonna go in a different direction here in just a second.

And then and he comes in and then shuts down on you and he hangs up. We're gonna go quiet or we're gonna cluck him per, so that got him fired up. That broke him. You yelp him all the way to the gun barrel and you kill the Turkey. [00:45:00] Now in that whole series, you may have to get, again, you may have to cut louder and longer at him just to keep him coming.

But it all depends on those little doses and then silence and then checking little doses of calling. When I say little doses, a little bit of calling, a little bit of silence and then checking, and then that's how you, but don't just sit there and yelp at him profusely for five minutes. That's not what we're trying to do here.

We're trying to, no, the silent treatment is just like cat is cat and mouse curiosity killed the cats. It's the same philosophy. That bird. We killed him too. So we've killed two so far. We're in a roll. On a roll now. We did it. We did the basic stuff and it killed one. What a season. What we're, and we're tagged out right off the bat.

No, we we got a little aggressive. That breaking. Again, you may even get more aggressive to breaking if that didn't work. And then at some point, don't overdo it. Okay. You gave him, you get a little more aggressive, a little more aggressive, and then you shut it back down and say, no, that's, I don't wanna overcall him.

That's, let's just push, reel it back in. That's when we're going the different direction here. And I'm gonna give him [00:46:00] some silence. Five, 10 minutes of silence. Okay. And then I'm gonna start doing some softer stuff. I'm gonna tone it back down to play coy and shy with him. And now we're gonna do what's called the per clucking pur and the wine of a hen Turkey.

And it's just, it's a simulated, it's a hen. It's simulating a hen feeding. And these are the sounds that they make when, if they need, it's almost say you did that excited stuff, putting this in perspective and it didn't break him. And then you're like, it's like a woman that you're a guy's talking to, a girl trying to get a number.

okay, I'm trying to pick my words here. He's trying to get the digits, he's trying to get her number. Hey girl. And you seen this beard girl? the bearded girl. No, I don't follow the beard, girl. No, I

Paul Campbell: said have you? No, I've, I said, have you seen this beard? Girl,

you

Scott Ellis: seen this thing? Oh, have you seen this beard?

Oh, exactly. There you go. G-rated. G-rated, yep. Yeah. And so you get, you're, it's a guy and the girl's being really aggressive and she's being, really sexy and getting his attention and then she's [00:47:00] nah. Not so much, I'm just not really feeling it. In my mind, that's what you're doing when you fire one up and then you reel it back down and just start clucking and pouring and it's you got me all excited, big boy.

I heard you gobbling your brain's out over there and I'm not going over there to you, so I'm gonna lose interest now and go back to feeding and I'll pay you any attention. And that's what, that's in my mind what I'm doing. Again, trying to exploit his emotions. You get him all fired up and then you shut him down.

He's whoa. You leave me hanging woman. What's going on here? , without further ado, some clucking and permit for you. And this is, let's go. This is when he's, you got excited. He came in some halfway in and then he hung up on you. Okay. So we're gonna cluck him. I'm gonna, after a while I'm gonna collect and purple.

And that's clock and puring and I, and if I can move, I will scratch in the leaves and just simulate a feeding hen. Sometimes that breaks [00:48:00] them and game over. And boom. You just killed the, we just killed three. We're three for three. Just like that. Clock and pur.

Paul Campbell: What a team. What a team.

What a Turkey player team. We

Scott Ellis: are. That good people we're that good. So there's another scenario where, you fired him up, didn't work, so you shut him down. And then one of the most successful tactics I've ever used when none of it worked and he's out there strutting his struts on, back and forth, shut up, completely shut your calling down.

It takes more discipline than anything I ever do in the Turkey woods. And for 95% of Turkey hunters, if they tell you it's easy for 'em to do, they're either not very proficient at a calling or they're lying . Cause just shutting up when you have him there and he is fairly close and he is not quite gun.

but just going quiet for 15 minutes. Just be listening for that drum. Sometimes they'll gobble on their own when you go silent and when you, when they gobble on their own. When you go silent, that's when you really gotta, okay, call tonight. That's when you really have his attention to my opinion now, and I found that to be true many times.

When you got [00:49:00] one going and then he does it, he doesn't break and come in and you end up shutting it down on him and going. it. They can't stand it. Now, caveat to that is don't go silent for longer than I would say, maybe 15, 20 without maybe giving him a little yelp and trying to check him again, because I have had them lose interest or walk off when you went and completely silent.

So that's something to consider, but don't be scared to use it. And if you have no success with it, after, 15, 20, 30 minutes, then go ahead and give him a little Yelp and see if you can check him. And I've done that. Then that bird gobbled, and he was on 200 yards away when he was at one time.

75 yards away. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a crappy feeling I

Paul Campbell: can tell you. Yeah. So if you go sign, if you got, and I feel like a, the first couple of scenarios Yeah. Those are, yeah. Those are fun to talk about. We'll play radio. I feel like a lot of the time it's, you're gonna have that bird that's not.

Not ready to come in, not ready to die yet, whatever phrase you want to use. So if I'm giving him that silent treatment, are you scratching in [00:50:00] the, are you scratching the leaves? Are you

Scott Ellis: that's a great, that's great point. Yeah. I will take my wing and just scratch and tickle leaves and stuff just, and, and make scratching simulations like you're saying.

Maybe even do a little, I've actually tapped, taken my wings and tapped them together. Like she just stood up and flapped her wings or something. Just a Turkey sound. That's not a vocalization, but Yeah. Yeah, what you can, I like using Turkey noises and not necessarily Turkey vo vocalizations.

That's been very successful as well.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. Now, is there, and this is a really high level question, and we're gonna jump, I, and this is a very selfish question because I wanna know, so I'm gonna ask it . If you've got like just this super stubborn Turkey and you're doing all your things, and we're gonna, we're gonna get into more of the bag of tricks, but is there ever a moment in that battle back and forth, if you can, without being seen, but you get up and move away from that Tom, and

Scott Ellis: Absolutely.

Great question. Yeah. That's a great question. Absolutely. I like when you lead me into, you feed me these questions . [00:51:00]

Paul Campbell: It's one of my favorite, it's one of my favorite moves, man. I love

Scott Ellis: to about it. Yeah. Repositioning is, if you can move, 100%. I do it all the time. You watch anybody on that's knows theirs, salt on Turkey killing turkeys.

Yeah. You can sit in one spot all day and kill a Turkey eventually. But if you're engaging one like that though, and you, and it's, he's just not closing. Go quiet. Check him with locator calls. Don't use hand calls when you reposition. Always keep that in mind. And if he doesn't gobble at the locator, I would still suggest not to use the hand call, especially if you're going around him making a birth around him or going directly away from him or, but hopefully he gobbles at your locators, and that way you're not giving away. He doesn't, you're not giving the idea that the hen's just walking around him or whatever. Now, caveat, I love that word. If you walk away from him and you're hunting in tandem, you can have your buddy walk behind you and call a hundred yards behind you.

And very often that we've seen that's worked a [00:52:00] million times over the years. But if you're just by yourself, I would discourage him calling as you're repositioning. Because all you're doing is giving the illusion that she's just walking away from him, or walk or walking around trying to get a different angle.

I like, if I do anything, I reposition, set up call, and we're getting in the weeds again here and even sound like a different hen. Sometimes I'll change my yelp on my mouth call I'll go from a less raspy hen. I'll do a rollover yelp instead of a front end, whatever, and give the illusion. That's a different hen coming from a different direction, and that can sometimes, so we could get so far into detail with all these different variables and these scenarios about the repositioning.

Never discounted repositioning. If you, if he leaves you and he's walking away from you, make a use your locators. God willing, they get he gobbles at your locators. Make a wide birth around him and try to get in front of him. If he's on a power line, if he's walking down a road that you're familiar with, make a big birth around him.

Get up front of him and bushwhack him. We're Turkey hunting. We're not I love to [00:53:00] call Turkey. We're trying to kill the animal at the end of the day. The bird. So yeah, if he's moving away, get in front of him. Set up, and try to identify his route if you can. And then set up in front of him and then just let him walk right by and shoot him in the face.

There you

Paul Campbell: go. It's a great tactic at work. That's four turkeys, Scott. Four turkeys. We gotta

Scott Ellis: move now. We four for four. This is gonna be, we're gonna have to be careful cause we're gonna, the DNR is gonna be caught on us, dude. Yep. That's it.

Paul Campbell: It goes. So let's let's dive a little deeper into that bag of tricks that you got.

So we've got, okay. We've gone through, we got a Turkey that we're not gonna move. We're, we can't move. We've got a bird that's just stubborn. He might be hung up with maybe, maybe a line fence or he's just in a really good strutton zone and he's you need to come to me.

And he's just this stubborn Tom that's not moving. What else you got? ,

Scott Ellis: you said we already did get into debt in the bag of tricks, or we wanna go into fighting pers get

Paul Campbell: advanced. No, I wanna go deeper into the fighting the bag of tricks

Scott Ellis: deeper than fighting. Pers.

That's pretty deep. That's a pretty good no.

Paul Campbell: What's, [00:54:00] yeah what's next? What else you got? Oh

Scott Ellis: gosh. Okay, so we're just talking a hung up Turkey. You can, yeah. What would be the next step if I did the things we talked about? What would I do next? Okay. We're gonna pretend he doesn't have hens, cuz that could be one of the reasons he is hung up too.

Yes. Oh yeah. He could be out there with feeding hens. So that's where that's a whole nother podcast talking to the hens, how to call, shoot the hens. We're just gonna pretend he's by himself and being stubborn at that point. We're gonna go into, I'll probably take some Jake help setting, honestly.

Just throw some Jake kelp at him. And this is really advanced. This is getting way outta 1 0 1 stuff here. . It's hard not to. I think we covered the cases.

Paul Campbell: It's, yeah. 1 0 1, honestly, 1 0 1 is what? For me? It's al hooting. Find them. Yeah. And then most guys are gonna clock and they're gonna yelp.

And that's and gave them

Scott Ellis: the scenarios. Yeah. Off the roost. Yeah.

Paul Campbell: So I think, yeah. Let's get dirty, man. Let's get down in there. I'm here for it. . And I know people listen to this are gonna be like, oh yeah, let's go.

Scott Ellis: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, before I get into fighting Persian goblin at [00:55:00] him, or staging, with the wings and staging a fight, I'll just, what I'm gonna do, and I'll demonstrate it, is I'm gonna do some real honking, deep slow Jake Yelps.

And then I'll answer my Jake with a hn. And I think in my mind, I'm creating the illusion that A, some Jakes have slipped in his back door, and with this hn he's been, that he's been talking to for, we'll call it thirty, forty five minutes, an hour, and, He's wait a minute. Why? Why is it, why is the juvenile sliding in my back door on this woman I've been trying to court for an hour.

Anyway, and a Jake Yelp for the people listening again, we're trying to get it back to 1 0 1 as we're going event Jake Yelp is a, is you know, a Jake Yelping, like a hen, but it's gonna be a deeper, more honking slower rhythm type call. And you'll hear the difference cuz I'll do 'em both on the same call and you'll hear the honk and then you'll hear me get higher pitched and chop your with the, so I'll throw some out there and some deep with it[00:56:00]

handing.

There you go. You can clearly hear that choppy, slower rhythm. That honky sound almost, if you will,

Paul Campbell: honky. Yeah. The way that I, the way that I describe it, it's it's like a yell, but it's elongated is the

Scott Ellis: elongated and deeper and slower. Yeah. Yeah. Drag.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. So that's and that's a great

Scott Ellis: ethic.

And I've had 'em break and come walk into whoa. Come. Not necessarily running in, but have a break and walk right in after the, after just doing that now, and again, people, none of this is gospel. Okay? Let's just be clear here. All these tactics and all these, what I call my bag of tricks are just trying something when something else isn't working.

And sometimes it works, doesn't always work. But when it does and you have enough tricks and you can throw enough at 'em, many [00:57:00] times, one of those tricks, one of those tactics, those call sequences moving re. Strategies, something you can do that's different that you move onto in your bag of tricks, your playbook, if you will work.

And if you only sit there and you know how to yelp and that's it, and you can't, you don't know how to move, you don't know how to, reposition, you know how to do all these fighting purs, all this stuff, you're handcuffing yourself. You can still get out there and enjoy yourself in the Turkey woods.

I'm not faulting anybody for whatever level of calling or hunting ability they have or don't have. I'm just saying the more you get better at it and the more you get versatile with your calls and your Turkey knowledge, the more chance you have for success. It's just that simple.

Paul Campbell: And it's more it's, no, you're good.

It's, and it's more fun too. The more things is a Turkey hunter that you know how to do, you're gonna have more interactions with them. And it may not be, it may not lead to pulling the trigger more often, but you're gonna have more interactions with them. And that's a lot of fun.

And honestly, man, I think one the one of the funnest Turkey interactions, and we won't touch much on it, is when you start talking to the hens, cuz that's, That [00:58:00] can be a lot of fun.

Scott Ellis: That's the fun is hearing one gole. Yeah. I love talking to the girls. It's,

Paul Campbell: oh it's

Scott Ellis: it's, and they, it's pretty neat.

They'll teach you a lot. Yeah. They teach you so much if you just listen to him and how they react and how when you hear hands interacting with a gobbler and how they talk to him and when they cut at him and when they get in their little pecking order and they're getting pissy with each other and they start doing fight the hands, do fighting first cuz they're establishing pecking order.

And the gobbler's over there just showing out, doing his thing and the girls are all fighting everything, basically trying to figure out who's dominant, who's the boss, but so anyways, we're always going off on tangents. Man, I'm really bad about it cuz there's so much to talk about it seems but I'm not, so we did the Jake Yelps.

No, I appreciate it, man. Yeah. From there, if that doesn't work, it doesn't break him again, give him a couple doses of those. Jake Yelps and him answering. Nothing happens, then I'm probably gonna stage a fight, would be my next tactic. And I wish I had my wings. I don't have my wings in here to simulate the, because I take the two wings and beat 'em together, like with, I'm clapping but you can, it's like they're [00:59:00] slapping each other with their wings.

And then I'll do a fighting per, and a fighting pur is a long aggravated contended pur, if you will, a contented pur is a very, that slow purs that I was doing early in the show, very slow and soft. And then the fighting per is a drug out, longer version of it. It's happening when hands or gobbler are fighting and they're excited.

They're a, they're aggravated, if you will. And again, I use the wing beats to simulate the Turkey noise. And then I use what I'm fixing to do for the fighting pers on a mouth call to stage a fight. And it's like they hear the wings, they hear the fighting pers and they're like, what in the world's going on?

What happens when two people get into a fist fight? What happens? Lot of young Yeah. Lot of people. No, but if there's a lot of people around what happens?

Paul Campbell: They start filming it and putting on Facebook. They start

Scott Ellis: running to it. They start, yeah. They start running it. Oh fight, fight.

And I think that's what happens with Turkey. They're, they're such social creatures that it's the same type of scenario, but, so I give some fine for you and it'll, I'll do a little sequence like I would do my wings.[01:00:00]

Okay. And that's a shorter sequence. I'll take a bigger breath and keep it, maybe drag it out longer, and then I'll start and I'm, the whole time I'm beating those wings together just it's can be deadly. And I will say this, to add to the fighting per. if you're in a position to be able to use those wings.

And I'll give you, if you go to my show Hunt Quests people, there's one of the videos that say, do fighting pers really work. Go watch that video. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about. If you're in a position where you can use those wings and actually deferred, can see where you're at, but you won't.

But you're covered now. And this is where it worked for me. I was filming, I was guiding and filming my hunter, and I was behind my camera with my camo netting around my tripod. I was able to do those fighting pers with the sound, and I will get those wings just above the edge of that netting. And all they see is the [01:01:00] feathers flipping and f flopping and making the noise.

A Turkey will come out of his skin. It's almost it's almost unfair. It almost is unfair if you're in like an open terrain where they can see that movement and you cannot spook 'em by doing that movement. You, but you have to be concealed. You have to be almost behind like a a palmetto blind if you're in Florida, where you could get the wings above the palmas a little bit.

Or if you were, using camo netting, those little blinds that she can roll out in front of you. You have to be very careful. That's one of those things you gotta be careful with. But it's all it's almost unfair. It really is. But that's the next thing I'm gonna do. And just the audio of that still has broke many birds from me over the years.

Just hearing the wings and hearing those fighting first will still break turkeys and get 'em to come. So we've done Jake helping. Now I don't have a tube call to gobble. I can halfway gobble and a mouth call, but I'm not gonna do it. I wish I'd brought my tube call in here, Paul, but No worries. I'll just, everybody knows what the goggle sounds like, even if the guy's just starting charging out.

So you

Paul Campbell: might, if my kids weren't asleep, I would gobble for us, but there you they're right above. They're right above the bat. That's one of

Scott Ellis: those Oh God. Yeah. [01:02:00] My chief call would, yeah, I should have brought it in here. I didn't think about it, but I didn't know that we'd be talking these kind of tactics honestly.

But If that does not work, I will probably gobble at him. That's and give him a couple, three or four gobbles, and then I'll answer my gobbles with my hand that he's been hearing, again, making him give the, giving the illusion that gobbler slipped in his back door and, trying to steal his hand that he's been talking to you.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's just another one of those tricks. After that, those are some of the really nasty, dirty tricks. There's a lot more we go into. I don't run decoys, so there's a whole nother level of stuff that I'm not gonna bring into the equation that people are doing with a lot of success, and I'm just not gonna cover those.

But as far as vocalizations and then repositioning, as you said earlier, That I may do that after I give my vocalization Taino tactics. All of my advanced stuff that I can do, collecting and pouring soft stuff, going quiet, gobbler helping or gobbler slash jake yelping fighting first. And then at that point I'm probably gonna move on that bird, try to do something [01:03:00] from a different angle, try to figure out why he is hung up and, open the playbook and try something different.

If that doesn't work at some point I might leave that bird alone. If he's gobbing, you're on public land, there's a good chance somebody's right around the corner or is also on him. Unless you just have the, you're able to get away from people, which is hard to do as you well know. So your options are more limited on public land is if you're on private land and you've got opportunities to, other birds.

Yeah. Leave that bird, come back in, after lunch. And then try or that afternoon and see if that bird isn't right back in that area. I've done that many times. I've done it on public land as well. Come back if I thought that bird would not be molested while I left him. Yeah. I've came back on public and private ground and caught 'em right in the gun range.

It's like they, their whole mood changed. They felt like they got left and then their come back in that area looking for the hand they left behind. So I think we covered whole bunch of good stuff

Paul Campbell: there. No we did. That was good. And so I think the number one thing that the new Turkey hunter really needs to [01:04:00] focus in on calling is one practice before the season.

Don't do it in your truck on the way, to morning of opening morning. Yeah. Yeah. Practice, whether it's a mouth call, a box, call a pod call, tube call practice. And two, the, and this is the beauty of Turkey hunting for me, is all of the nuance that comes with it. Because you could do.

Everything. Everything. And if a turkey's not ready to die, he ain't gonna die. They're just not, he ain't gonna die. There's literally nothing as a Turkey hunter that we can do if the time isn't right, if that, and it's funny when I took I've been taking more new hunters into the woods with me and a couple years ago when asked me, said, what are we looking for out here?

I'm like we're looking for the Turkey that's ready to die. That's what we're looking for. That's our whole mission is to find the one. We might find 10 turkeys, but if none of 'em are ready to die, that ain't Turkey we're looking for.

Scott Ellis: And now that said, all of this stuff that we've gotten a lot more advanced than we originally intended to, but that's the stuff that will make him do something he [01:05:00] might not necessarily wanna do.

Oh yeah. That's now granted he that if it is not his day, it ain't his day. It doesn't matter what you do, how good you call it doesn't, but they're, but all of these tricks that we've been talking. Do make a difference and they will kill birds. When your basic stuff would've never gotten it done.

Just don't,

Paul Campbell: don't. I think for me the ones that I'm like, okay, this is the, that Jake Yelp, that is one that man, you can just rip a tom out of that spot that he doesn't wanna come out of real fast. And the in per, I've done that. I've never killed a bird off of it. I've done it.

I've gotten 'em to, to move in a little closer. And that's what you're looking for. It's just that, it's that extra little push, man. It's, cut Strickland talks about Turkey getting wind up, bam, wind that bam wind, then it snaps and they just lose their mind, so that's kind, that's one of, that's of those, go ahead.

Scott Ellis: That's the same thing I'm saying when you're, when. Getting him really excited and shutting him down or shutting him down and then bringing him up and getting me excited. It's almost like a roller coaster of emotions. And that's what cause is talking about winding him up like [01:06:00] pops. Yeah. Yeah. His exact same thing.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. So I don't wanna, I wanna blow people's minds here. I and this is, I let's do a real quick, gimme like a five minute masterclass on, on advanced mouth calling tactics, practices. There's gotta be something banging around in your head. They're like, yeah, I wanna talk about this, but this isn't the, this is the spot I wanna, what do you got?

Something that's real good. And when I say that, I think with calling, especially mouth calling tube, calling a caller, you can add a little inflection to. , the sounds, you can add urgency, if you will. What are some of the what are some of the things, maybe like a desperate Turkey call, something that you're really, it's not it's not desperation time for you, but something that might just be different that people aren't, that other hunters aren't necessarily using in the woods.

Scott Ellis: Okay. One, one of the things to keep in mind about how we're talking about the, you said inflection, and this is easier done on a mouth call to me than any other call [01:07:00] but turkeys show their mood change, their by volume and rhythm and pitch volume, rhythm, and pitch. I'm just shooting this right off the hip, and as I'm saying I'm thinking they get loud when they get excited.

They get soft when they get content. When they're aggravated, they get loud, they get faster. Choppier, louder. Ag a contented curve versus a fighting curve. Cutting versus clucking. And that and the rhythm falls into play with. You have fast cutting and then you have, again, just walking through the woods clucking.

You have excited y'all being fast, higher pitched, yelping, she's showing excitement. So she's yelping fast. Remember volume, rhythm and pitch. And she'll get louder and ping her when she's cutting super hard. And she might get higher pitched yelping cuz she's yelping. With more inflection, she's more excited or she's yelping contented and she's just not showing much emotion.

So those three things is things to think about. [01:08:00] Volume, cadence, and pitch is the things to think about. How you can put that inflection in in, in a box call. Again, it's harder to do pitch changes in a slate or a pot call in a box call a little harder to do that. But you can do it with rhythm and with volume at least.

Yeah, you can press harder on a box car, harder on a slate, but it doesn't always equate to more realism. It just, it'll, the call will squeak out. It doesn't sound correct. Yeah. Mouth calls. You put more tongue pressure. You can, in my opinion, get a little more realism and you can put that inflection a little bit easier with just a little more tongue pressure.

So there, there's a really advanced, something that people probably never, I've, I don't know if I've ever heard anybody talk about how are turkeys showing their emotions? Yeah. Through rhythm or cadence and pitch or volume, cadence and pitch. Yep. And outside of that, what's some, you said masterclass, gosh, you put me on the spot on that one.

Brother crash. Sure, brother. Practice. Listen to turkeys. The app has real turkeys doing the sounds. It has me doing the sounds.[01:09:00] And then you can record yourself doing the sounds and then play it along with, Turkeys doing the sounds or me doing the sounds, you can stream it or what would be to synchronize it with the sounds that of the actual wild birds doing the sounds.

And you can listen to yourself as the birds are playing as well. Actual turkeys or me, whatever. And you can go where do I stand with that? That, a really good caller. I'm not being, arrogant, I'm saying a good caller. And then and actually a wild bird. And ultimately you should compare yourself to the birds before me.

I'm just saying you still have a baseline with me in there. And the turkeys in there. You have two baselines. Yeah. And just be proficient on more than one kind of call. You never know when you go from a mouth call to a pot call can change. That's something we did not do. And I have to go backwards now.

I'm tired. It's been a long day. My mind is numb from work today, , I'm honest with you. But that said something I gotta demonstrate we're going backwards, but you we're doing the masterclass here [01:10:00] is changing this sound of the hen itself can completely be a game changer.

Paul Campbell: Yeah, we mentioned that. We did touch on that.

Yeah. Let's do that with the same

Scott Ellis: call. With the same call, with a mouth call. Harder to do on a box or a pot style call, two call. I can do it very well on. But, so there, there's three basic types of hand Yelps and I'm gonna teach 'em to you guys in a crash course. Real, I'm gonna demonstrate 'em.

I'm not gonna teach 'em. I'm just gonna demonstrate 'em too hard. We don't have enough time. We've been on these yeah, an hour and 15 already. You have a front end Yelp, which is basically mostly front end and almost no RA in the back. You hear hands of the real high kicks like that and they almost have no back end.

And I'll demonstrate that Yelp. This is a front end Yelp. Almost no ra.

Real high pitch, real pretty, real clean, just a little hazy back. And that's the front end, [01:11:00] y'all. More front end and the backend. Now we're gonna do what I call a transition yelp, and this is the hen I use. This is my go-to hen and it has a smaller front, but a bigger nastier backend. And this is called a transition Yelp.

You'll hear me start it, and you'll hear the little high, and then you'll hear just a little bit of high in the front of each note, and you'll hear it break into the backend. This is transition. This is one I've been doing on the podcast the whole time.

Last but not least, is the Rollo. And this is where you hear a hitch in the middle of it, you hear the high and you're gonna hear a little click, a little hitch right in the middle of it. And this is gonna be called a roller

that's rollover reel. And that's, [01:12:00] so what I'm saying is, what we didn't talk about when that bird was hung up, when I completely just lost, just slipped my mind was, is say I'm doing the transition yelp, I'm doing this,

and then I completely go higher pitch and take all the rasp outs. So I'm gonna do the two different hands side by side and sequence so you can hear the differences.

So hopefully they can hear it recorded well and you can hear those two hints. But what I'm saying is to change it up, go away from that hen that did not work and you couldn't get him to commit with and go and change that voice. And that just, that's a lot. I teach this in my DVDs, which we have not mentioned that you can order at Scott Ellis Turkey hunting [01:13:00] Scott Ellis hunting.com.

I don't know my own websites. Mouth calm magic one and two, mouth calm. Magic teaches all three of those. Hi Yelps. And I do it on a bat wing and split via combo cut and a ghost cut. I teach all three. Hi Yelps on the four major mouth call cuts and and it gives you three, three completely different hand turkeys.

Mouth call magic one and two Scott Ellis hunting.com. Check 'em out. Great DVDs, if you still have a DVD player or a Xbox, you can play on the Xbox, whatever. Yeah. But That, that versatility with a mouth call. And that's why I was bringing up the DVDs, because not everybody can do that. And it takes a lot of practice to, to master completely changing your mechanics, to make a different hand sound.

It's, it takes a lot of practice. But what the average guy could do that doesn't take Ava mouth calling advanced. Have a pot call, have a box call, have a mouth call and what did I say about 10 minutes ago? Be proficient in all three of them. So if you can't change it up just with a mouth call, you can pull your box, call out and run it.

If that doesn't work, pull your pots hot, run it. There's another trick in your little bag of tricks. Another Trump card

Paul Campbell: [01:14:00] if you'll ace hole man. Man, this is big. Good. Last thing, 60 seconds or less. Guy, give me the number one advice that you give to a new Turkey owner.

Scott Ellis: Be patient.

I'm done. ,

Paul Campbell: we go. No, that's the number, that's the number one answer. I've asked six different people that for this show, that's the same answer. Everyone says, patient

Scott Ellis: skills, turkeys, don't get in a hurry. Don't get up too quick. Don't. Patients can be applied to many different facets of the hunt.

Sit on that. You're longer,

Paul Campbell: sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. One thing that's overlooked with discipline and you men or is discipline, you mentioned that in the earlier in the show, discipline also kills turkeys.

Scott Ellis: That, and that's where I was going with the, I was patience, discipline, meaning be patient when you're calling.

Don't call it falls into a lot of different categories. Be patient with the bird. Let him work, let him do his thing without you completely overcall him. Harassing him, just beating him to death with yelping and cutting and yelp. Opening, cutting. Be patient. Be patient. Before you get up and move and you change your setup, sit longer.

Sit all day. I've sat in spots [01:15:00] for four or five hours in his blind call. Blind calling's, a whole nother podcast, man. I love, I have tons of theories on blind calling versus running and. I killed turkeys both ways. I've killed a pile of 'em both ways, but as of late in the last decade, 15 years, I'm killing more turkeys.

Setting up in places I know that hold turkeys and blind calling, and that's a whole, it's another 20 minutes me, another 20 minute dissertation that I don't really wanna even we'll save it for another podcast if you want, but yeah, Scott work. Oh, sorry. Oh, no, it's all right. I was and just know your equipment, man.

Another great tactic or tip. Know your equipment. Know your, the limitations of your shotgun pattern, your shotgun. Know what it'll do, how far you can shoot it. Carry a rangefinder so that you know your limitations. I take a rangefinder just like I bow hunt gear and I shoot trees and I find my yard just knowing where my gun is and how effective it's, and how far it's effective.

Sorry, I just had to throw that in there. Light. It's overlooked all the time.

Paul Campbell: It is, for sure. Scott, where can people find you on social media or the internet?

Scott Ellis: Absolutely. Hunt quests [01:16:00] with Scott Ellis is the the Facebook fan page. Give us a light. I'm always putting up some good content. I'm gonna be doing live some live feeds here in the coming weeks.

I'm gonna put some means out there talking about the dates and times, and we're gonna do q and a. I do a lot of q and as and answer questions as I go and demonstrate calls and stuff. It's a lot of fun. On Instagram is Scott underscore c underscore Ellis or you can type in hunt quests. I think it comes up.

Find my hunt and show hunt quests on YouTube. Just type in hunt quests with Scott Ellis. It's on YouTube. Was in a weird position last year. In between jobs. Had some stuff going on. Didn't get to hunt as much, didn't get to film as much. Got six or eight episodes coming out for Hunt question.

Not as many as I'd like to have. I'd like to have at least a dozen 15 good hunts, but just didn't, wasn't in the cars last year, but I do have some shows coming out here in the next couple weeks. And I think that's my, I'm not, I'm on TikTok under Scott Ellis, I think on TikTok, but I don't engage in TikTok ever.

My son's dad, you gotta do that TikTok thing. I'm telling you, you get a lot [01:17:00] more viewership on that. But and Scott Ellis hunting.com. You can get hunt quests t-shirts, and you can buy my DVDs there. And check out my signature models with woodhaven woodhaven custom calls.com. Check out Apex ammunition, which would be apex munition.com.

We all know maio.com. I love my maio camouflage and I love my thermic cell. I don't go anywhere without my thermic as I'm hunting. In, in the earlier spring, in the colder climates, it's usually not an issue, but here in the southeast they're like, they're worth their waiting platinum.

Paul Campbell: I bought a thermic cell a couple years ago.

I don't know how I hunted without one. Honestly, man, those things are

Scott Ellis: amazing. I look back at my childhood and I don't know, I just don't know how we did it. I think we used deet. I think it was de. Or a can of off every time you run the woods because it the mosquitoes. And I'm gonna grow up in Florida, dude,

You can only imagine how bad mosquitoes are here. So

Paul Campbell: yeah. Good deal. Scott, thanks so much for your time, man. I'll see you in Nashville here in a couple weeks at the N W TF Convention, and hopefully we get to, to share the Turkey woods [01:18:00] together at some point here in the future. So Scott, thanks for your time, my friend.

Scott Ellis: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I had a blast.[01:19:00]

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