Turkey Calling Competitions Vs The Art of Calling With Scott Wilper

We have a treat for this week's show on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast with returning guest and turkey hunting beast Scott Wilper.  We talk about Scott's experiences at different calling competitions like the NWTF national calling competition among others and how they differ from being in the woods and the art of calling there.  We also talk about youth season and some awesome memories Scott was able to make there.  Then we finally get into some listener questions for Scott including questions about mouth calls, purring and clucking, turkeys and the rain, strategies for the different sub species, and more.  A special thanks to Scott for joining us again and thanks for listening!  

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast. Kinda a little stutter there. Did you hear that word? I heard it. What? You're getting steady. Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast with your host, Nate and Micah. You're getting steady worse at this. That's all right. What's up, dude? Returning guest.

Man. This, he's becoming the Turkey expert on Missouri Woods and Water. He and I tell him this, I don't know, he's not becoming it. He already is the one. I don't know if I said this during the sh episode or if it was before when we were just chatting, but he has been the number one person that I've had people comment say, Hey man, I listened to that Scott Wiler, show.

And [00:01:00] really enjoyed it. We appreciate Scott coming back on for episode number four with us. Yeah. So it's fourth episode with us. Yeah. If you want to hear some really good Turkey talk with Scott outside of today's show as well. Episodes 6 48 and 1 0 1. Those all covered, and then we cover a little bit of everything.

If you think about it, we have 'em on about every 50 shows. It's always around this time. Yeah. Scott Wiler comes on and we actually have a little bit of a different agenda, I guess you'd call it with him this time than the previous three. This time we talk about some of the calling competitions he's been in what he feels is important when it comes to calling, and then we do some listener questions and as far and fan questions.

Yeah. So it's a good show decently long because man, you get to talking. And Scott, Scott just, he's so passionate. He's passionate about turkeys like I am about deer and coyotes and things like that. So yeah, definitely it's, you can bring up something and he's got plenty of information to give to you on [00:02:00] whatever you're asking him when it comes to turkeys.

So you can tell he is got a really strong passion for it. And it's just great to sit there and listen to 'em go. Yeah. You got any news or things going on right now? Will we hop into sponsors? No, let's just I got a little an I guess announcement. I don't know what to call it, so I wanna say hi to two of our fans.

Or not fans. Listeners. Okay. I don't wanna ever say fan again. God, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Sounds like a douche. Yeah. Two of our listeners, I wanna say hi to Keegan and his dad, Nathan. What's up Keegan? I actually ran into Keegan at the place. He works today and we had a cool little conversation and I'm sorry that you guys are subjecting yourselves to listening to us, but appreciate you guys listening to us.

And then Keegan's coming off of injury in football and he's doing pretty good. So I hope he continues to get better. And he's back on the football field next year, so wanna wish him well. And just tell him thanks for the support. Appreciate it, man. Absolutely. So anyway let's do these sponsors right quick.

Let's pay the bills, pay [00:03:00] these bills, habitat works. Our buddy Dustin Williams, he's been doing a lot of fires recently. Where's my phone? My phone. Yeah I'm sure he has. Yeah. Actually finally did a fire. Oh, did you? Yeah, mine. Did you burn some stuff? Burnt my pile in my pond. Oh, nice. Yeah, he's doing a lot of firework this time of year.

Obviously he's always killing getting rid of them cedar trees and doing all kinds of habitat management. If that's something you guys are interested in, you can contact Dustin at Habitat Works llc gmail.com or you can give him a ring at 8 1 6 7 5 2 7 3 9 0. You noticing a lot of bright green in your forest understory right now?

That's a problem. Yep. Get ahold of Dustin. Yep. Is that what he said? To say? Now that you freaking ruined it. God dang. Yeah, that's, he was talking about that. Nice. Sorry, Dustin. I thought I worked it in there. Smooth. And then Mike's is that what he said to say? You just looked at, you made it obviously be like, Hey, I know my phone.

I messed up. Gimme my phone. Sorry. I'm sorry [00:04:00] if we never said we were good at this. Yeah. Alps outdoors, use the code two, 2023 wood water, 30% off. That's huge. See it's Turkey season coming up by the time you're here. This one, yeah. You're late to the game. Hopefully. Got on there before and ordered your Turkey vest or Turkey chair or whatever you needed for Turkey hunting.

Yep. Hunt worth gear. Used the code Mww 15 for 15% off. I know I'm gonna be using my little early season stuff this time of year. Honestly, this time of year, both those patterns are gonna be money. Yeah. They're both gonna be great. Yeah. So depending on what part of the country you're at, might depend on what you're gonna be using.

But we will use both of 'em for sure. Black Ovis used the code M ww 10 for 10% off. They've got new logo gear out. I know. I'm excited about it. We got some coming our way, I think. Yeah. I'm pretty excited about it. I they got one of the best logos out there. I've said, in my opinion, I've said it.

Yeah. In my opinion, they got one of the best logos for sure. I don't know why, but I like logos. Yeah. I like, different [00:05:00] logos. It could make a, break a company. I feel it can if it doesn't look cool and you don't want to rep that brand for, because the logo, that can make a difference though.

Yeah. Black Ovis has got a solid logo for shit. Yep. And their sister company can't forget about them. Camo Fire as Nathan would do, use, you can check that app out on your morning duties. Yeah. Duty. Yeah. Duty OnX. Download the app though. Yeah. Download the app. OnX. Use the code. MW 20 for 20% off It's Turkey season.

You're gonna be, it's gonna be nice whenever you're, it is the middle of the. And you're out there locating birds trying to get something to gobble and you're like, oh, I heard 'em gobble Right over there. Or whenever you locate where, yeah. What time you usually, that's right at dusk, right? Yeah. You usually locate in evening.

Can you do any, can you do it at night or is it just like an evening thing? Do they gobble at night? I don't know that they would gobble too far after dusk. Sure they could. Yeah. But OnX would be great. You and I have been using OnX quite a bit the last couple days looking for [00:06:00] some new hunting spots.

Yeah. We're hoping to, we're trying to expand our hunting region, I guess you would say, or something along those lines. We wanna find more property to hunt, so whether it be cattle and that's mostly just because of changes in our hunting. I guess my hunting spots, but mainly your, but yeah.

Yeah. You've always been wanting to find something and. Your hunting spot though has gotten a lot better uhhuh since you started, working on it. And unfortunately outside of my control at my hunting spots, everything, they're both going downhill. Yeah. Everything around you is going to crap, which in turn is gonna affect you.

Yeah. So for sure. That's for sure. But we've been using OnX a lot. Yep. Get on there. Check it out. Yeah. You get a free seven day trial by the way, too. E and I'm guessing even if you use our code, you can still call and cancel that, try 'em out. Weber Outfitters new partner of ours.

Yeah. I would guess they're gonna, we're gonna be there pretty soon doing some bow stuff. I hope so. Cause I wanna start, Amy asked me the other day, she was like, Hey, you want to practice bows? And I was like, I'm not yet. I was like, I do, but [00:07:00] I'm gonna be getting, I wanna get a new bow. So I'm like, do I waste?

Not that you're wasting time right by shooting, but I was like, I don't know. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna wait. If we take it like a day off work to drive, hop over to Hawk Point. Think about taking Caden outta school that day too. Cuz I, why not really? I really want to get him. Dude.

They're not learning anything important. He'd learned a lot of life lessons that day. Exactly. Yeah. It ain't gonna hurt him with his Weber is a dealer of elite bows and Elite has a really good bow that, from what I've been told for kids to grow into as they're getting older. Big, it's called the elite Ember.

Yeah. A lot of adjustability. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard some good things about that. Thought about. Doing that with him and then maybe not getting a really expensive bow for myself getting something, decent. But, and athlon optics, ridiculously good optics. Ridiculous.

Ridiculously good price and fun fact. Weber Fairs also is a dealer of Athlon Optics. So if you're over on the St. Louis side or the east side of the state [00:08:00] and you're looking for a dealer, go over to Weber. But we love our athlon optics. I have the Aries e t r. Is it the Aries? E t r e h d?

Yeah. E h d. Dude, that thing. Sick. That was my, I told you. Yeah, that was my chi one. I really want to get the Coronas. I just don't know what gun I would put it on. I think I gotta get a new gun. What I'm dealing with right now is the whole same, the whole my night gun is now done. My six arc is my night gun.

Yeah. We're our thermal season's over. Yep. So I'm like, all right. Do I take my Midas tech that is still in the box? That I was gonna put on my NPR and get some QD mounts for the six arc and put that on that so that I can use it for deer in a coyote. Obviously still Or do I just get a new six ak?

But then I'm like, I don't want it, I don't want that other, my six arc that I've got now just to sit in there and only use it two months a year. Yeah. What we need to do is we just need to go to different states and hunt their night. They're [00:09:00] nighttime hunting. I would, Oklahoma, we got compacts down in Oklahoma, apparently.

That's true. Just trying, that's not a bad idea. Just trying. But I believe that's it for today. So can you hunt nighttime near year round in Oklahoma? I'm pretty sure you can. Nice. I could be wrong. They got hog problems and stuff. Yeah. Usually where there's hog problems, that means you can hunt 'em out however you want.

Yeah, that's a good point. So yeah, that's our sponsors sponsors and partners for today. Appreciate all you guys. Please check 'em out. We can't do our show without them and they can't do business without you guys. We're big fans of everybody we just talked about. We are.

Active users of everybody we partner up with. Absolutely. I'm not gonna, we're not gonna talk to you about garbage ass, whatever, blah, blah, blah company if we're not gonna be active users of them. We're big fans of all these folks that we listed and we really appreciate. And then also, if you like us, it would help us if you went on Spotify or Apple It, whatever, iTunes, whatever you listen to, it'd be great if you give us a five-star [00:10:00] review.

That goes a long way. So we'd appreciate that. And if you don't chew big grid gum, then fuck. Oh, what you, what I'm saying is if you don't like us and we talk about it in the show, but Wiler, he does do hand custom calls. He builds calls. He does. Yeah. We talk about it. Get ahold of him.

Wiler, you wanna thank him for what he did? Yeah, he gave me one, so I'm pretty excited about it. So it is number, he had it written down somewhere. Where did it go? Could be on the back of the paddle. 1076 and it's a pocket rocket and it's beautiful. Yep. Scott Wiler, Scott's a good guy, guys. He's one of those folks that you know you wanna buy stuff from because he's just a good old boy that makes really quality stuff.

Yep, absolutely. He's got a lead time, obviously, cuz it's just him. And when this comes out, it's Turkey season, so you're probably not gonna get it this season together. You're running behind bud. All right. So there's our sponsors.

It's almost like Scott's still here. Okay. Can you stop? I really, [00:11:00] that's really not that bad. I suck. You're pretty good. All. So let's get into today's show with Scott Wilber. All right. See you. This is the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast.

Okay with us tonight. For the second day of Turkey season. Cuz we didn't do a very good job of planning. No. We were off a little bit, but that's okay. But we got returning guest Scott Wiler in the house. I personally have had more comments about your shows than I've had any other of our different guests that we've had on.

No kidding. Yeah. He's the only one that makes sounds always. They always love what you're putting out there. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we do this then. In fact, we got a special treat tonight. Yeah. Which we, I guess we won't start Nah. Quite yet. Wait a little bit. So for anybody doesn't know, and I should've looked this [00:12:00] up before, we've actually recorded with Scott what this will be fourth time.

Fourth or three other times and always, usually right before Turkey season. So around this timeframe? Yeah. Or after, but cause I know one of 'em we did in fall, didn't we? With him? I don't believe so. Maybe. No, they were all spring. Were they? One of 'em was. The right at the end of season. Okay. Was that it?

That's why I was thinking one of 'em was, I think it aired one week after season or two weeks after season closed or something like that. But one of 'em was after. That was really bad timing on our part. Yeah. Hey, we've never accused ourselves of being smart people. Okay, so here you go.

Six, the episode we ever recorded. June of 2020. Turkey Talk with Scott Wiler, episode number six if you wanna go back and listen to it. Okay. It's gonna take me in a minute to find I gotcha. Other ones. I was just scrolling through our list that way. Yeah. At least that way they could go back and listen to the ones that Yeah.

Cuz they all got good information on 'em. And it's gonna be day two of our season here in Missouri. Other others states have, they've already started. Already started, right? Oh yeah. What states did you say were already [00:13:00] opened up? Mostly south. Yeah. Florida. Florida opened in March. Early I think.

Yeah. It, they have two seasons. They got Southern Florida is a week or two before the northern part, but they're open in March. And then Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, all come online there. And then it starts spreading up north. Gotcha. Yeah. How many different states have you hunted in?

Oh, I've been in let's see, Texas,

Kansas, South Dakota, of course, Missouri, and first non-resident to ever kill a bird in North Dakota. Nice. That was first non-resident to kill one. Yep. Yep. That's what they told me. Anyway the Nwtf did a bunch of stuff for the North Dakota game and fish there. And then they released.

They re there's the population for turkeys in North Dakota. That's a pheasant country. No trees. You can drive an entire Johnny Cash [00:14:00] CD before you see a tree. Oh, wow. Okay. We gotta have trees and some water to have turkeys. So Yeah, they got a rooster. Some, they got a roost on something.

Yeah. So I, I just talked to a guy on the way here. He just got done hunting Texas. They're open to, and wherever he was at didn't have very big, tall trees, but he seen gobblers roosted, six foot off the ground, really high enough. The coyotes can't get 'em. But he said if Man Turkey would've let him seriously, he, you walk up and just grab 'em right off the limb if they'd let you, that's how low Wow.

What they were. That's what they had. Yeah. But yeah. North Dakota, there's just, there's nothing but western. North Dakota pushing the Montana line there. There starts to get to be a lot of valleys and ridges and ravines there and cottonwoods, along the creek. They have a very few birds, but residents only can hunt, but they released one non-resident tag.

You, the N WTF auctioned it off [00:15:00] and my lovely beautiful wife won it for me. Oh, nice. Yep. So I, we went up there and got one on the first day. Walked about six miles, lost 10 pounds on that morning. But yeah, we got, we've got one. That was pretty cool. But, so yes North Dakota South Dakota and I love hunting.

South Dakota. Trying to go to Wyoming this year. That'd be cool. Hopefully it all pans out. Is that something you have to put in for a draw or you gotta build points or is it an over-the-counter type tag? That, I don't know. We went through an outfitter. Yeah. Okay. So they probably have tags.

They're all there. Yeah. They're allotted so many tags. If we can get my work and her work to cooperate on, I'm having a couple days off. That's the issue right now. But we'll see how this goes. If it don't pan out, I could probably roll the, yeah, I got bird flu. I get bird flu every year screen.

And my boss, he starts laughing cuz I joke with him about it. He says Bird flu. Huh? How come you're here at work? Can you feel fine when it's [00:16:00] raining or the wind's blowing 40 mile an hour, but them sunny mornings. You got turkeys. I swear I like the rain every time it's raining. Not terribly hard. I see him out in fields.

Oh yeah. In the last couple weeks I got these other episodes, episode number 48 with Scott Turkey. Calling Strategy with Scott Wiler. And then here's how what's the word? I don't know. Creative. We are episode 1 0 1. Turkey calling strategy with Sky Wilber. Perfect. Same exact. So episode 6 48 and 1 0 1.

Folks should go back and listen to 'em. Yeah. They're really good shows. Today's show, we're changing it up, what we've done a little bit with Scott in the past. The first thing I want to talk about is you've been doing some calling competitions this year, and you went down to N WTF again Yes.

And entered in the al Hooting division. Is that correct? Yep. Yep. And how was that experience this year? Was it the national, you were just explaining the judges and everything to us, which is interesting for someone [00:17:00] who's never been there. Yeah. If you've never been to the NWTF National Convention, you don't have to be a Turkey hunter, but for heaven's sakes, if you are a Turkey hunter you got to go.

At least once in your life. And experience it. But any kind of hunting there is 1400 booths. 1,410 by 10 booths related to hunting. 800 of them are Turkey related, so to, to speak. And then there's this booth sells leather and they're selling salsa. Them are there too.

Sure. But there's still 800 Turkey related. It's just, you walk in there and your jaw just drops. Almost overwhelming. Yes. Yes. It's the national convention. It's the nwtf is a good thing to join. They for veterans, they wheelchair handicapped people they're parks, benches.

They're constantly supporting the Turkey and elk. They help. Anytime you improve a [00:18:00] habitat for turkeys, you're improving it for other animals. It's for everybody's. Yeah. It's a trickle. It's a trickle down thing, right? Yeah. And they're constantly hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you join as a member your money's going, yeah.

You get a magazine every other month, but your money's going to help what we like to do out in the wild. Yeah. So support that. But, so the national conventions in every it's around Valentine's Day, second week of February every year. And you just Google the Nwtf and, but it's the nationals, the convention, and they only do that once a year.

So they also have a national contest for al Hooting friction mouth call. They have Jake's too. But I entered the hooting contest again this year. I have you dabbled with the other ones too, or in you have to qualify. Oh, okay. To get to, cuz this is nationals. I've taken third place in a couple events, took second place in a couple events, but [00:19:00] once you take, first you qualify at a sanctioned contest. We missed the Iowa one this year. Ah got sick some sick wife got sick. Yes. And we had to stay back, but we were gonna go and then we were able to make it to Festus.

But yeah, once you do that, you qualify, then you can get into the friction or the senior division. But the hooting, we went down there for that and ended up taking 30th outta 37th. Not happy about that. Yeah. Especially cuz this year you felt really good about I did what your get that damn owl outta my basement.

So I wish they'd do a voice division. Why don't they, I don't a natural voice. I think you'd wrap that one up. That's probably why they're like, why drive me nuts? Why even do it? But see and that's the thing too my son-in-law, Tony and my wife, and there's so many people, think that my, the natural voice sounds better than the tube.

I could see that. But they've been running the, the contest, the [00:20:00] tube has been part of the stage now for Palmers hoot tubes come out. Oh boy. I might be off of something my years, but I don't, somewhere around 2000. Somewhere in there, the Palmer who, and then they've gotten better and better and better.

I think the judges and they do sound awesome. The tubes are very good. They're real sounding, don't get me wrong, but you get focused on that and not the natural, a natural voice. Yeah. I just wish, I wish they would have a natural voice division. Do you have to use a tube?

No. You should just go out there next year and just I've tried that and, Hey, you got it going back. I can take a second. I can't do that. Yeah. I don't know how you did it. I just stop. Don't ruin Scott's beautiful sentence. Yeah. It's I have done that. I even tried one thing four years ago, five years ago.

I did it by voice on one side of the [00:21:00] stage. Walked across the stage real quick. Did the tube, then took a couple steps, turned my body and did the voice and made it sound like, cuz the sounds are a little different, there's two owls talking to each other. Yeah. Didn't work. So you know, what the hell they want.

But I think I took 16th that year. Yeah. That was two years ago, right? Or three? No, that was three or four years ago on that one. Yeah. Yeah. And the best I ever did was by voice 12th place. And that was the first trip I ever went down there. And that was, Six, 17 years ago. But again, 17 years later, my voice is changing too, that's a thing that happens. It really suck to catch a cold. Like right before you went too. That would probably pretty much ruin you what I would think that happened. That happened about 10 years ago. On one on, I've al we haven't been every single year there. There's a couple times in there.

It was every other year we went. Now, here recently, we've been the last four [00:22:00] straight, but yeah. One year I did go get all stuffed up and sick and makes it hard to Oh yeah. Do that. I was out in the hallway chomping on the halls, the cherry halls them cough drops and trying.

Coca, which I don't, I'm not a Coca-Cola fan, the acid in the Coke, you're supposed to help. Yeah. I'm trying to get right. And I think I took 20th or something that year. Yeah. But yeah, I'm always right there in the middle of the pack. Yeah. But so one of the top 20 callers in the world, basically, if you think about it that way.

They ain't doing these in India. It's pretty damn cool. Very cool. I'll tell you a quick story, and I love to do it by voice. I do it all the time, walking around the house and everything, but they truly believe that my voice will sound better than the calls.

But every time I've tried it, I'm not busting that top 10. So I've went into the tube and I've done the tube last, and I've actually tweaked and made my own tube. Did you really? So it's.[00:23:00]

I don't know how that come out on the microphone there, but the vo the voice to me, once you learn to do it, you just gotta practice like you were doing. Who just, who deep. Learn the cadence, who cooks for me? Who cooks for you all? Start with that. And then they go crazy after that.

Yeah. They start laughing at each other. That's called to laugh. Whether they're really laughing at each other or not, I don't know. But I could see myself doing it going, you dumb bitch. You sound like an idiot. First place.

Oh, I'd get kicked outta that competition so quick. Yeah. They wouldn't let me. You made a mockery outta this. You're disqualified. So this was about 17 years ago. Ashley, my oldest daughter, she wasn't three foot tall. So we were in my truck at my house, and I was al hooting and [00:24:00] one answered me and I repeated it and answered back, and I was just mocking.

And then it got to screaming and I'd mock it and mock it. And this went on for a little while. And my wife and Ashley's the witness were the story you wouldn't hardly believe. So we're in my diesel truck and it's shut off and I'm messing with this house. So five minutes goes by and all of a sudden I see it come out of the tree and here it's coming at us, it's gotta fly a good 150 yards.

It starts gliding gliding. I said look. It's coming at us, it's coming at us. And right at the last second, like 10 feet from my window, it flies up and lands on top of the cab. Wow. The who Dawl is on top of the cab. And I'm looking at my wife Amy and Ashley. And we're just pointing on the roof and then we heard it move.

You could hear its feet. It's blocking. Yeah. It's challenge. Challenger claws. You can hear it on the metal. [00:25:00] Moving. And then one of us in the truck, I think moved or something. Then it, it flew off. But yeah. Calling an owl in and landing on top of your truck. Now that's something that's a hard story to believe, but my lovely wife will back me on that one.

One of the coolest things that we've noticed from night hunting coyotes is calling owls in. When we will use the distress calls like the rabbit and distress or whatever your distress trying to be in distress. And some of the coolest stuff is you'll be sitting there looking, scanning and have you ever looked through one of them thermals before?

Just that one night, a year ago through yours? Okay. I got a new one I'll show you tonight before you leave, but is your old one for sale? No, this one's a scanner. My, the one I was showing you was the actual rifle or the scope. The scope. But. You'll be scanning and then next thing you know, here comes an owl.

Yeah. And they'll land usually like on a fence post or on a tree limb, pretty close to where that call's at. They're like, whoa. And sometimes on him, sometimes you'll [00:26:00] actually look out in the field and you'll go, oh, coyote. And it'll, you'll look at it and go, Nope, that's an owl. And they're just sitting there looking at what's going on, what it is you're doing.

Oh, yeah. Checking you out there. Yeah. Yeah. And I've got some pretty cool videos this year. I don't know if I've saved 'em or not, of Al's coming in and just, checking it out. Checks the dinner bell you's, you're running the rabbit distress and stuff like that, mouse, whatever. Oh yeah. Yeah. We've got, so I've seen some of the coolest things I've ever seen from owl's cow hunting now at night.

Yeah. And even during the day you'll call 'em in, if you're doing a rabbit distress again, they'll come and sit on a fence post and, yeah. It's a lot easier for them to figure out something's wrong. Wrong, but Yeah. Yeah, they're so that, they're a neat, they're a neat animal. Yeah.

So that was N wtf, but then you went to Festus Missouri a couple weeks ago, right? Yes. And what was that one called? That's, there's the longest running Turkey calling contest in the United States. 59th annual, wasn't it? 59 years in a row. They've, it's the longest running [00:27:00] contest in the United States held in Festus.

And we went down there for that. Pretty neat. Pretty neat. Never, I went to junior college over there for two years near, near there. Just 10 minutes down the road there in town of Washington, or, but really neat. I think we're gonna go back next year. Yeah. That's a cool area back down there.

Yeah, it looked really pretty. And we were just down there one night and came back the next day, but I think we'd like to, we may stay an extra day or two next time and check the area out. But yeah, Festus was really fun and Took second place there. So do you know by how many points you got?

Second? No, they didn't. They don't tell you that. Yeah. Like the Nwtf will, they'll show you the scorecard. Oh, and what your actual score was. But again, too, back to the Nationals, it's a tight race, yeah. I'm quite a few points away from first, but literally four Points puts me, I think it was 16th or 17th.

Yeah. There's a lot of people right there on top of [00:28:00] each other. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. I finished 30, outta 37, but Four Points is really nothing in the scheme of things here. Yeah. And I'm at 16th seven points put me in the top 10. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then past that point it starts separating a little bit.

Separating more, yeah. That way. I'm right in the pack, but. Yeah. Festus was a lot of fun. It took second down there, had a good clean run. No, no squeals or nothing weird happened. And on the calling part I did have a screw up on the my mouth call the reed locked up. Oh. I did the key run and I couldn't get the read unstuck.

So I sounded like a key peacock. I don't know what it was. So I just rolled with it and it's not, wasn't horrible, but not the way I won it, key run is a, as a whiny, high-pitched whiny whistle. And I was doing it, but it wasn't very high pitch. And it had some, it's clear mine [00:29:00] had some rust to it cuz I couldn't get it unlocked.

So then the next thing they asked me to do was your they had a fly down cackle. I had to do a cutting of an excited hen Kiki run your favorite call and pur and clucking. That was the five that we had to do in the contest. So then they said, your favorite call I'm gonna cut. I'm gonna do some.

Cutting of an excited hin. I love to do that. So I was using the same call, I was gonna do the key, key run about the third note. The Reid breaks loose. Oh God. And now I can't Yelp or nothing. All I could do is key run. So I went from Yelp, straight into key run. I'm gonna do the key, key run now.

And that's not what I intended to start with. Whether they picked up on that or not, I don't know. I just rolled with it. But I was, I, you would think if they had noticed that something broke in the middle and you were able to. Make the crowd know [00:30:00] that you didn't have any issues. Yeah.

That would give you bonus points. That guy's Reed broker and no one knows it that, or maybe this guy should have came prepared or something. I don't know It is nerve wracking too. Oh, I bet. Whether you're in front of, oh, that sound like it. There was probably, I don't know, we were guessing seven, 800 people at nationals.

That's nerve wracking. Walking up that ramp and you turn the corner and you just look out there and go, oh my goodness. Then Festus there, there wasn't seven or 800 people. There was probably. 60 people in the room. But either, either way it's still nerve-wracking cause you every eyeball's on you.

So it's a lot different calling. Yeah. If I was to break loose hair with you guys. You're natural versus your heart's thumping and you're off. Yeah. You're, I don't know this guy and he's staring at me being judged on it. That's sort thing. And then your, when your reed sticks, does he think I'm pretty, you gotta just roll with it.

So do you make your own mouth, I [00:31:00] know obviously you make your own hand calls. Do you make your own mouth calls too or do you, so you buy those? No, I don't. I'd like to. Yeah. That's just a different animal in itself. Latex Yeah, that's it. Is the latex stuff like that. I know a couple guys that do.

You gotta buy your tape and all the latex and the reeds there with the aluminum frames and they have a jig that you can buy. I just, I haven't got into it yet. It's a process thing, but the first Turkey calls I made 12, 2009, 2010, I believe is the first ones I ever made.

You gotta start somewhere. I had a Ryobi jigsaw from Home Depot, a jigsaw. Not a band, saw none of that. A jigsaw and sandpaper and a block that I sanded him with, and some glue and a couple clamps, and then every year I try to invest in, bought some more tools and better yourself.

So I've come a long ways in making these right. And time, calls would take me [00:32:00] four hours to make these things for one. I can whip 'em out pretty fast now, can just setting them up and do 10 at a time. That kind of thing. And I've got a guy, a friend of mine in Wellington's, got a CNC router, so he does some artwork for me on the paddles.

I designed the feather, I designed the feather and I actually, there's one hand painted. So I hand painted the feathers and somehow he scanned it and put that in his, I'm old school but he put that feather in the, computer and then it's CNC routed it on the paddle. Yeah. So wait, this is the new feather.

I'm not sure which ones you got. Do you have one that's engraved, like it? Uhuh? I think mine are all painted. Yeah. Yeah. Yours, his is mine are all painted on. Yeah. Yours are painted well for $60. Get you one guy like that.

You know his ears. He's probably I'm ready. His ears are [00:33:00] bleeding right now listening to this. No, I, that's good. I've got much better just by honestly my hooting, which is not good. Just by listening to Scott do it in front of us and then listening to the shows. Yeah. I can halfway do it now. Can you?

That's all. It ain't worth the hell. It don't matter. They're full of gobbler. It don't take much. It don't, yeah. A friend of ours actually, what was it at last week or the week before was talking about it. Oh, Andrew Munz. And he said he was in front of a hen, the I can't for a long time, and he said she sounded horrible.

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. He said not a single wild Turkey would ever win a calling competition. You're right. Because they sound like crap. Compared to what, who, who said that? A friend of ours that he never had was a Paul. Maybe it was Paul. Paul, you're right. Paul's a big Turkey hunter Andrew never had before.

Paul actually works at N wtf. Yeah. Yeah. And there's about hundreds of contestants, in world, the world championships and the nationals. I'll tell you the same thing, we actually [00:34:00] sound too good. Better than the wild turkeys. Yeah. And to just a quick note on that for calling for our listeners, so many people think if I squeal on the call or get too raspy or I'm a little too high pitched, that's a bad thing.

That it's a bad thing. No, it's not. It, what's more important is rhythm, not the actual, yeah, you gotta, you can't sound like a peacock or a dog. I'm a peacock cat, but it the peacock category, but you, it's more rhythm than anything really. Okay. Because I've had same thing. I've had hens 15 feet in front of me, dozens and dozens of times for.

Long periods of time, I'm thinking, man, what are you choking on? That grasshopper's stuck in there. Something's going on. Or lay off the cigarettes. Man, you it's that bad. Yeah. Really. So it, you screw up your calling and, or you think you are. It's more about rhythm.

I'll try to screw up on this box call just for [00:35:00] an example. It's,

I don't know how that sounds, but that's horrible. It's more, you don't have to worry about that. It's more of a,

you can hear a flow there. And that's what it's more about. Yeah. Turkey ain't gonna, not the sound out of it. It's a flowing thing. It's a conver, it's like we're having a conversation right now. Yeah. I walk down the stairs. So it's more about the the tempo and the yes.

That's a good work. So I could just be like, that groundhog. Be like Helen. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. See if I can talk all a Turkey in. One of them seagulls. You know that? Is it finding Dora? Yeah. Mine mine, mine. Exactly. Yep. Yeah I had a friend of mine one time he got into Turkey hunting and he was asking me what's rhythm?

What's rhythm? And [00:36:00] I explained it to him. I didn't want him to take it this way, but he got it in his head and it took forever to break him. But I said, you just want to go 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4. 4 56. That's, I don't know how, why I explained it that way to him. But he got it in his head is in, we gotta do it like this.

He was actually counting numbers and that's not what I meant by very robotic. That is what will run gobblers away more than anything, is having poor rhythm, not so much the sound. It's just a rhythm flow. It doesn't matter whether you do six Yelps or eight Yelps. You start off slow.

You can hear a flow there. It's a rhythm thing. So you would recommend to any new caller or caller? Everybody wants to sound good, oh yeah. [00:37:00] Everybody. Yeah. But paying less attention to what you sound like and more to a. What the sound is coming out as, the rhythm and how it sounds coming out of the world, more importantly, more important than the actual sound itself. Exactly. Because like we were just saying, turkeys sound stupid. So no matter what, I guess I, I'm sure you can make it sound really bad, but, that's, I think that's what all of us worry about is, oh, this doesn't sound good.

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody wants the perfect sound. Yeah, I get it. Because I, I have so many calls that I build that I know will kill a Turkey any day. But I don't like it, I can make it better. I can make it, it's a passion where you just, you can't stop. I wanna make it better. I wanna make it better.

And they sound good. They sound better than the hints they do themselves. Yeah. It's a rhythm thing. And I've had a couple guys ask me in the last couple weeks, About it. And so I started explaining it differently. It's more of a [00:38:00] conversation. It's no different than the way we're talking, right? I come down the stairs here into the studio and Scott called it a studio and you said, how's it going?

Ain't seeing you in a while. How you doing? You didn't immediately say, put on the headphones, let's go, let's start this. Yeah. Gotta warm you up a little bit. Exactly. It's the same thing. It's like waking up. Good morning. Yeah. After a cup of coffee, we tar, start talking a little faster. And that's how you have to see it when you're talking to the turkeys.

And we all have different voices. Exactly. Turkeys are probably very similar. They sound a little different to each other. Exactly. And, not as a sales pitch, but I'm gonna throw this out here. My uncle was selling calls with me and he said, man, that's the slickest thing I've ever seen you do.

You just sold two, two calls to a guy that wasn't even interested in any. And I said that ain't what I meant to do. I was just trying to explain to him how it is. [00:39:00] And may, I think I may have said this on one of the other episodes, it doesn't matter what you like, you might like a high pitch call and you got a low pitch call, you have calls that are clear with no raspy, no bar.

It's a snap, like a bark. I try to make most of my calls with a very hard bark at the end. It's, and that the second half of the note is a hard. You can hear the bark at that end. Yep. And you're banging on a long box right there. Yep. And what I would call long box, 12 inch long box.

Your favorite calls that you make is this one right here. Pocket rocket. I frigging love. Yeah. Yeah. This is the one you made for our buddy Cecil, I told you I'd never hunt with. Yep. That's what I hunted with last year. I just I think I took this one or maybe that one. No, this one right here.

And this one just fits right in my pocket. It's just, it's so easy to use. And, that one sounds, I think these have a, have a. They're a, these are more a locator. They carry, [00:40:00] yes. But the problem, this one, these are much more quiet, I would call it or whatever.

Yeah. So then this one's always in my bag, which, that's a 12 inch lawn box. The one I'm holding here is a, that's the mid one. He's probably an nine. Yep. Something like that. But the problem with these, I love to play on these. This is like my guitar. I need to call George straight and maybe we can play a song.

He's hitting the guitar. I'll play this thing. We can come up with some kind of song here. But these these calls are, you can do so much on 'em. It's, they're, you gotta have a suitcase to pack the thing around a little. That's why I came up with that idea and named it the pocket rocket. And the main reason I named it that my uncle come up with the name.

But I wear bib overalls. I tried to get married in 'em, I think, but they didn't make tuxes in bibs. Imagine that. Can you imagine that? [00:41:00] But they fit right there in the pocket. Man, that's, they fit in any pocket. Yeah. And that's why Uncle Kenny, my uncle Kenny, he wears bibs 2 365 Dayss a year.

But he's, he come up with the name pocket rocket cuz it fit in his bib overall pockets. And, I wanted to make everything on the call round. Yep. Because there's nothing worse than any call that you buy usually from the store or Walmart. I'm not bashing on any other call makers, but they got corners.

They have corners and square edges. Yeah. And you're running and gunning one just gobbled and you need to close the distance 50 yards or cross this creek or whatever you're doing, and you're trying to put it in your vest. And them square edges are hanging up on the mesh pockets and things.

But that's why every, I don't have a square edge on that entire call. Yep. The paddles. And now that you said it, I noticed it. Yeah. I would've never thought that before. Same mine, but Right. That's why I designed them that way to be small. Yep. But have enough, a loud enough sound that [00:42:00] anything within 200 yards going to hear you, you're four and 500 half mile, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Is what they sound like. Yeah. The long box is a great call, but it's more of a locator thing. Yeah. Get one fired up at 10 o'clock in the morning. Oh, he just went off right over there. Put it in your four-wheeler or your gator or your truck or whatever, and then take off. That's what they're great, but a lot of guys do pack 'em with them.

Yeah. I'm one of them. My bigger calls are, I find a way in my bag. Yeah. This pocket rocket, which this didn't become a commercial for the pocket rocket, but this was two, two, was it two years ago? I think I even called you Scott after that hunt. I was with my son. During U season and we got up, we were gonna move through the timber on to another field and right before we got to the timber's edge, I pulled this outta my pocket cuz it was easy to just Yeah.

Slide and it, yeah. And I just went wait. And how's that go again? We, there you go. There. [00:43:00] 50 yards away. And I thought, uhoh. So I got the shooting stick ready for my son. I put the gun up where I thought that gobbler cuz I could, I saw him. I went around the tree, I put my head around the tree and here he was coming.

So I said, Caden, we gotta get ready. I put the shooting stick up. I sat the gun on it. It was a little bit big of a gun for him. And I said, he's gonna come right into this opening, and when he does, you put it on his head and you shoot him. Okay. Okay. I'm sitting there waiting.

We're behind this tree. That's the only thing keeping that Turkey from seeing us, that gobbler. And he don't come. He don't come. And I thought, oh no. So I pooped my head around and that damn gobbler came to the other side of the tree. Oh yeah. I said, Caden, can you take the gun off of. The sticks the sticks and swing around and shoot 'em.

He said, no, I can't do it. And every other dad in the world right now is listening to me going, why didn't you do it? But I wanted him to shoot. Yeah. Yeah. It's, first off, it was illegal for me to shoot it cuz it was you season. Yeah. But I didn't want to kill his [00:44:00] bird for him. I wanted him to be, and Right.

I just went through the same thing on this last you season with my Yeah. Johnny my nephew. Yeah. I wanted to take the gun from him, but, did he get it done? I didn't, haven't talked to Jeff since last week. Oh, we'll have to get into that story. Okay. Yeah. Let's get into it. But anyway, so he figures out something's going on and he leaves I did it again and I moved Caden.

So that he could get a shot on him. He had moved off about 50, 60 yards and I just did it again real quick and he come right back. But of course he came to my side of the tree. Yeah. And Caden couldn't get to him. He couldn't do swing again, and he finally saw us. Yeah. And I just thought if I didn't have this with me, we'd have walked right past him.

Never even knew. And he would've seen us probably going through the timber and went off. Yeah. That's what he's talking about 10 times better than we do. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's like binoculars, 10 power binoculars all day long. How they see, but Yep. Yeah. With turkeys just when you think you've got it figured [00:45:00] out, it's amazing how that pea size brain wins.

I'll never have it figured out. So we got a special part of the show right here. You wanna do that part now? We wanna do that, or we want, we're gonna listen to, yeah. Let's hear the youth hunt. You just got youth done with. Yeah. And then we'll get into some questions. Yeah. You took my brother and So you gotta picture this scene.

I'll paint the picture or fill the plate up here where you can visualize it before we get into the hunt a little bit. So we got a normal size blind. It's a the bull blinds double bull blind. Primos double bull blind. So it has the windows and I love these kind of windows where it's 180 degree window that you can pull apart however wide you want.

In that hundred, I usually have it to the left and right is only open an inch. Yeah. And it just gradually gets a little wider and wider until in front of you. It's open about six inches across the front, and it comes on the sides. It closes down, but, so it's just a, it's not an extra large, whatever you want to call it.[00:46:00]

Five man blind here. That's just a normal size blind little two man type thing. Yes. Okay. So you got that point. Now picture my brother, And me, which I can, Jeff's one of my good friends we're we're, I don't weigh 160 pounds no more. I don't know if I ever did. I'm not a salad eater.

Okay. Yeah. I think I weighed one 60 in high school maybe, but we're bigger fellas here. We got Jeff in the blind. I'm in the blind. We have Johnny, the youth hunter. He's nine and Johnny in the small nine year old Johnny. Yeah. He's a big kid. He's a, he's gonna be a Lawrence Taylor.

I think he's gonna be a linebacker, but we got Johnny, he just turned nine too. And then we have Bo Oh, Bo's with us too. So he's seven. That was he a little brother, right? Yep. Yep. We have four of us in the blind and a tripod. I don't know where Jeff got this thing, but it's perfect for [00:47:00] youth who, any youth can hold the gun, they're moving all over the place.

You're watching them and you're like, boy, we're, I don't know if we're gonna even hit a sheet of plywood here. So this thing, it, the feet were probably three feet by three feet spread out, right? Yeah. And it holds the gun big footprint. So they, yeah, it has a big footprint. So they shoulder, when they shoulder the gun, they have to shoulder it and sight and all that.

But it's holding, its steady for 'em. Yeah. It's a big, so it has a big foot pad. So I'm sitting in a chair with one leg, my leg in between the tripod legs and the other leg kicked out over here. Johnny, the shooter here, he's in the center. And then we have Jeff in a chair with his legs crossing over my legs.

And then we got Bo sitting on a bucket end of boy. So you could just imagine it was, we were like sardines in [00:48:00] this thing, right? You saw so much as move one little bit. The whole blind moves. It, we were just so pinched in there. And then Johnny, our bow was supposed to watching out the right side if anything comes in on the right.

That little one inch gap in the blind. We only opened it up on the sides very little cuz of the movement, right? They're kids. Oh yeah. You gotta, they're gonna move, they're gonna move. You need to blind, you gotta need to be in a blind. If you got kids and they're gonna snack on, they want a granola bar or whatever.

So I was eating sardines. I tried the irony. I was eating the mustard sauce sardines on crackers. I was trying to pay Johnny and Bo $5 if they'd eat one sardine. Oh, really? Wouldn't do it. You're crazy Uncle Scott. I said $10. I said, watch boys. And I ate one $20 for one sardine. Nope. Ain't going to do it.

That's right. But yeah, they, that it was tight in there. So opening morning of youth season was, [00:49:00] I thought we were in Canada. I don't. No. And our listeners out there, what part of the state you were in, but up here in Lafayette County, it was about 29 degrees. Cloudy and 35 mile an hour winds.

It was horrible. It was horrible. I got outta the truck, said, we are not gonna hear a gobbler. This is going to, we might as well, we might as well be deer hunting. It was horrible. But you gotta go. You gotta go. They're two days they're excited. Yeah. Yep. And I got to spend some quality time with them.

So I enjoyed that. But I didn't expect, what happened is unbelievable. And I did not expect this to happen at all. And the wind was blowing and all that. So I did the normal fly down, cackle started with some soft tree, Yelps, did a fly down cackle. Once we started breaking light, of course we didn't hear anything.

We didn't hear a gobble ever for the nowhere. Yeah. Not even one blow, blow. Two miles out. You can over that wind, right? They just, you [00:50:00] good out there, you don't want to talk. You're miserable, right? If you're miserable, they're probably miserable. But I did the normal fly down cackle, waited a few minutes and I did just some soft yelps and a few excited yelps put the call down and it couldn't have been, I don't know, 20 minutes went by out a few more Yelps and a series of them.

And then Jeff looks out that one inch crack that bo we supposed to have. We're blaming it on Bo, he was supposed to be looking out that crack. Jeff says, don't move. Don't move, nobody move. He's whispering, but don't move. So I'm clear to the left side of the blind. All this is taking place out the right window, and I don't know what's going on.

It's just a one inch crack that they're looking at. Of course, I, so I lean forward a little bit and I, in between Johnny's head, Bo's head and [00:51:00] Jeff's head here, I'm trying to look through all this, going on this blind through that one inch gap, in the blind. I can't, it's not like I can see right.

A lot here. I look through that one inch gap and all I see is the bottom of the beard and the top of the beard. I couldn't see that is how close this gobbler was to the blind. He was just right there. So he was close. I'm talking so close. You take a fly rod and whack him up beside the head. 10 feet from the blind.

There's a monster gobbler standing there. Geez. Came in quiet. Yeah. Never gobbled all morning, he point to this whole story is, there's more to it, but just, we called it gobbler in to 10 feet away. And never gobbled, never knew we was there in 30 mile an hour winds, 29 degrees, most miserable morning ever to hunt.

But I still went through the same routine that I always do. I [00:52:00] did some soft tree talk. Did he hear it or not? Don't have a clue. Because of the wind and all that, but I did it anyway and he's dead, so he can't ask him. Yeah. And then I did the fly down cackle. I waited 10 minutes, did some soft yelps.

It's a conversation. I'm working up into a conversation. The fly down cackles, when your feet gets off the bed onto the floor, now you're gonna go walk to the coffee pot, whether you run into your wife and good morning or not. That might be a Yelp or two. So you gotta picture it like that.

You're having a conversation. Fifth, we're 20 minutes of daylight's up now. You're gonna start talking more. I did some soft yelping, then I went into some excited yelping and then I shut it off for a little bit. Didn't say anything. And it wasn't long after that. Here he is right outside the blind, so I thought for sure this gobbly, Johnny's shooting.

He's on a shooting stick now. He can only shoot left and right. The decor are straight out in front of us so he can only shoot 10 yards to the right and 10 yards to the left. [00:53:00] He can't swing any more than that because he is gonna be hitting Jeff or hitting me. And as far as all four of us.

So he's got a, yeah, small radius, small window. A narrow window. We need the gobbler to come into the decoy set. He can swing, left and right a little bit, but there's no way we're gonna be able to take all four bodies in a bucket and chairs and food in my Turkey vest and the kitchen sink that we had in there.

There's no way we're gonna be able to. Shift everything in that blind to pull this off, right? And with the tripod. So he's standing there, and I thought for sure he's going, he's looking. He's only 20 yards from the decoys, and he's only three yards, 10 feet from us.

I thought for sure. He is just gonna come right into the set on the hardest day ever to hunt turkeys. We're gonna knock one down here. Nope. He just stands there and stands there. Good. Good. Five minutes. We're not moving. We're [00:54:00] trying to keep the poise calm. And he turns and goes away from us.

No calling whenever he was that close. Oh, when he's that close. Yeah. Don't make it sound, he's, he'd be like, they'll pick you off like that would assume they'll pick you. Yes, they will. They will. He'd look through your soul. When they're under 50 yards, I don't ever say anything.

Unless they're maybe leaving, try to do some a soft. Purning and clucking or a soft yelp or something to try to turn him. Because maybe he'll circle or something. But when they're, when they are committed, if you see a gobbler and he's committed, he's coming. Don't say nothing.

Let 'em come. That's the worst thing you can do is call to him when they've already committed. Why call to him? No need to. There's no need to. They're coming. They can judge distance. When you yelp at a gobbler at a hundred yards, he knows within five feet exactly where you should be.

That is how well they can pinpoint sound and distance. Yeah. So when they're already coming and almost in gun range, don't say a word, let, just [00:55:00] let 'em work, let 'em do their thing. He moved off to our right just 25 yards. He's well still in gun range. He's shooting a four 10 TSS load.

So 25 yards to the right of us. And then he started gobbling. So we beat this bird, we won, we beat the bird at his own game. We just didn't kill him. Ah. So he got to experience all that. I could hear his little heart boom. Same thing with Caden a few years ago. He got to see, would this been his first bird?

Yes. Okay. Yes. He's went a couple times with me and Jeff hooked up for a day here, a day there the last two years during regular season. But he gets tougher and tougher, yeah, he moved off to the right 25 yards and then started gobbling. He probably gobbled 20, 25 times, like 20 at 25 yards it through your body.

That's right. You can feel it through your body. And Johnny's eyeballs looked like golf balls. They were oh my gosh. And then I could hear his [00:56:00] little bitty heart, just b So that's what it's all about. And then finally the game was over and he left. And then the next morning we come back, sit in a blind, the same exact setup, all be, and it is a lot better.

The wind was only, I don't know, 37. Yeah. It went from 40 to 37. It probably wasn't, but five to eight mile an hour. Little breeze. And the skies were clear, calm, and I figured then we're gonna hear 'em. And it, then it happened. They're on the roost, goblin 150 yards. Did the same thing.

Soft always start with some soft tree yelps, and they're just about as light as you can blow on a call. Or pot call or box call doesn't matter. It's the lightest Yelps that you can make. I did that, and then I did a fly down cackle, same routine as the day before. And I'll be dang if another bird didn't come in I, we think it might have been the same bird.

But the way he was acting[00:57:00] not committing to them decoys all the way, like a two year old gobbler coming right at it. Oh yeah. Boom. And they charge right in. This one wasn't doing that. Four year old little smarter you come to me. That's how nature is. I gobble you come to me. And that's how he acted.

If the kids wasn't with us well that, any adult could have, we could have pulled that off and swung the gun. Slid the gun out that crack. Put it on his temple. I tried to pay Johnny a hundred dollars to give me the gun. He said No. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. But yeah, you got your heart beating.

The next day when we did this, he came in called, we think it's the same bird. Did the same thing come in right behind us, but a lot as a better morning. Probably gobbled, I don't know, 50, 60 times this time. Wow. Wow. And about 30 yards and hung out right behind the blind forever. Slowly moved to the right and went to the, almost standing in the same exact tracks.

[00:58:00] Wow. As the yesterday morning before. And hung around, would not commit to them decoys. And then I put the binoculars on him. Threw that crack. And I seen a Spurs. Yeah. He's four years old. Big bird. Huh? He looked like a rooster. Oh wow. They go out and curl. Nice. Yeah. I think they're about an inch and three H Spurs.

He's a stud big one. Smart. And that's why he didn't charge into the decor. He's been around the block a little bit. He's been around the block. But a lot of fun. Oh, a lot of fun memories. That's all kids need that's what it's about. That's cool. That's all. Yeah. I haven't talked to Jeff since I didn't get, unfortunately Caden and I didn't get to take either boys, cuz sports are ruining everything.

But speaking of kids. Yeah. Michael, why don't you tell a cool story about this? A good buddy of mine, actually, today, this morning, first thing good buddy of mine, he texted me and he says, Hey, we, me and Brooks his son, we've been listening to Scott Wiler, some of the old episodes that you've been on.

He's man he's just getting pumped up about it. And I was like, [00:59:00] funny you should say that. We're having him on the show tonight. Does Brooks have any. Any any questions he wants to ask him. So he gave me a few few questions. First off for you. First off, hi Brooks. Yeah, shout out to Brooks.

Sorry buddy. We couldn't get you on. I was hoping that we would be able to get you on a phone call and you could ask him yourself, but just Scott thought that'd be pretty cool, didn't you? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It would've been pretty sweet, but just time didn't allow. Call me tomorrow, Brooks.

Yeah we'll get, we will get that figured out for sure. I'll talk Turkey all day long. All right, so the first question what is the best mouth call for a beginner? Yeah. For a beginner? Yeah. I think he's around that 10 age, 10 years old, give or take. I'm assuming he's wanting to use, try to get into the mouth call game.

Right? That's takes a lot of practice. A lot of practice. The best is to start on a single or double read. You have to do some research. I haven't. The specific call. I [01:00:00] can't answer that, which one to get right. But you have to get Google, get on the phone and computer Google up a single single read or double read light stretch that, that make a light stretch and or medium stretch, heavy stretch.

So you want a light stretch call that's a single reader or double read, just straight double read. They've got bat wing cuts, cutter cuts. There's all kinds of different cuts in the call. You just want a straight, single or double read, and them are the best calls to start on and per and cluck and soft yelps on.

Okay. And then that's what you need to get started. And that was his next question actually. Best call to perfect. The. So there would be a double read straight or any light stretched call. The more reads you have now, is that still best for a per or if he's talking about any call, would you talk about maybe your pop calls, your slate calls doing your [01:01:00] purse.

Can you do a per Yeah, he showed me how on a box call's tougher to do a pearl. No I'm talking about the pot calls. Yes. Didn't you show me on the slate? Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah. I probably do 75% of my purring and clucking. If I have a gobbler under 75 yards, I'll, I'm saying 75, 80 yards, whatever, not 40.

That's different. I don't say anything. And if I am doing it, I do it with a mouth call. At that point, you just don't wanna move. They see like an eagle, 10 times. You can't ever forget that. They'll watch you blink. I had a gobbler last year. Seen my breath. It was a cold morning. And I swear that's the only reason I did not kill him.

And now I think he had two inch hooks. I spent 10 days hunting this bird and never got him. I let two birds go. Two year olds, 10, 11 inch beers, 20 pounders, three quarter inch spurs, 20 yards away. I'll let him walk. I was [01:02:00] after a specific bird that busted me. I had him about five yards away behind the cedar tree.

And he steps out and I could see his spurs. He's so close to me. Yeah. And they were record book type spurs, but I didn't flinch and he would not commit to the decoys. And he's to my right and I can't swing on him. But point being, I sw I did not move. I swear he seen my breath. Just saw the, yeah, the fog from your breath.

He just, And took off. Running, gone. Gone, I believe it. And staying still being still is so important. So anything under 40 yards I pur and cluck with my voice, but it's very rare. So when they're out at 75, 80, whatever you're the reason why you pern, cluck the gobbler's already to 80.

So he has already somewhat committed to you. But if maybe he's not two years old and gonna come charging right in. So you need to play the game. I'm trying to convince you that it is safe [01:03:00] here. Come on in another 40 yards, if your range is 40, which, for most, that's the 40 yard mark is what you're looking for.

You need another 20 or another 30 yards and he's safety's off. You need to portray to the, make it seem like everything is fine here. It's like eating at the dinner table. You are comfortable. What'd you do at school today? Nothing. Or how was school? Fine. What'd you do? Nothing. And then mom asked, how was work?

Ah, same old, but you all are comfortable talking to each other around the dinner table. That's what purring and clucking is. Purry and clucking is a feeding call. And cluck is more of, hello? What's going on? That's the question part. The purring is actually feeding. They're like chickens.

They're constantly purring as they feed. But what you're doing is telling that gobbler everything is fine here. Yeah. There's no bobcats, there's no coyotes, there's no willers around here. Everything is fine. [01:04:00] That's what you're trying to convince that gobbler to come in another 20 yards. You're, I know you're uneasy and that's what you're doing when you're p and clucking.

So when they're at 80 40, don't say nothing. So I do a lot of that on my pot call. Cause you purning and clucking on a pothole is you can't beat it. Yeah. And to prove it, the comp, yeah. Remember he showed us last, last year how to turn the stick or the, whatever you call it. The striker. Yeah, the striker.

The peg. How to turn it to where it just you drag it. Yeah. Yep.

I need to put a Why do you even need to use That's with my voice. I should but that's what you're doing.

Maybe even this,

just a couple soft yelps. And again, it's just need to record him, put in a speaker. [01:05:00] So it's the lingo. Any, anytime you're, you wanna say something to Turkey, think about it in a human language here. What I just did right there, is, we're safe here. Okay. Okay. Nice. So Pering and clucking, to answer your question on that, Brooks would be a good pot call slate.

Slate. Anything that's slate is awesome to per and cluck on glass is higher pitch. You can do it, but Slate is so forgiving. You can't beat a slate. Call purring and clucking and mouth call to do it on a mouth call. You need to get a double read or single read light stretch call. Okay. Okay. One other question he had, he's been researching when he should start calling, and you covered this a little bit earlier.

But still in the dark while they're in the roost or first daylight, break that down for 'em to do, to answer that. That could be tricky. Youth season this year, 35 mile an hour wind, it's 29 degrees. [01:06:00] They're not gonna talk much. So you don't talk much. But the next morning I still did a small routine, even though it was nasty weather.

I did the tree Yelps, did a fly down, did some soft yelping. But the next morning, it was better weather. They're gobbling on the roof. You can hear 'em, they're talking a lot more. I could hear a hen back off to the right talking too. I did several tree yelps, couple fly down. Cackles did some more start up yelps, if you want to call 'em.

And in more exciting Yelps, let the turkeys tell you how much to, to do it. And usually if it's a calm morning it's not cloudy or partly cloudy. What a calm morning. And it's not 20 degrees or 90 degrees, fifties. A perfect gobbling. If it's a perfect morning like that, usually you could talk more.

You can. Yelping and get away with more but the, I usually do a tree yelp, which consists of three to five of the softest [01:07:00] yelps you can make. And all that is a hen that is waking up, you're letting that gobbler know that there's a hen over here that just woke up and if he, they usually answer you if they're, you're close enough.

150 yards yeah. They can't hear that out at 400 yards out. But how many gobbler are not gobbling? That's why I do it every time. Just like this one that didn't say a word. Come in quiet and look out the blind. He's so close that I can only see beard, if I wouldn't have called all morning long, because there ain't nothing here.

I don't hear any gobbling. They wouldn't have got, the kids wouldn't have got to experience that. So I do it all the time, no matter what conditions are, how much of it depends on. How much they're talking and the weather too. But two to three, four of the softest Yelps you can make. I usually do it two to three times with about a minute or two in between, and then I'll wait when it's, if it's light enough that [01:08:00] you can see.

Say a hundred yards you can clearly see. Then that's fly down time. That's when you do the fly down. That's when you break out your bread bag. Yeah. Or a wing. The bread sack, right? Yep. You my pocket rocket. I just, I'm waiting for you to make me a wing out of the, what is it? The Bondo you use Tar Bondo?

Yeah. Yep. Just take one of your gobbler wings. You gotta kill one first, Nate. Oh, yeah. You take a gobbler wing and I split it in half. I don't know how many exact feathers are in a wing, but I use five or six of the wing feathers and car bondo and just shape it into a handle and just, you're basically just gluing them things all in there.

Yeah. And slap that thing on your leg and then fly down. Cackle will sound.

They're looking, let's see. I need to shoot through that hole, go underneath that limb, dodge that limb, then I can be out and to clear the land. So that's what they're doing right now. They're talking [01:09:00] like, I'm gonna do it here soon.

And then they landed, and that's a fly down cackle. And I'll do that every single time. And there's so many gobbler that don't gobble and that's why you need to do that, to call 'em in. Yeah. I gotcha. Now they know you're there. Yeah. They might do the coming to you part, right? Yeah. And then also in the rain. How do turkeys act whenever it's raining? I'm assuming, I think Robin asked this question cuz he's probably trying to get out of hunting if it's raining. But I've noticed, just in my travels, dude, I'm telling you in my travels if there's a light rain something going on, I'm seeing turkeys out in the fields.

Oh yeah. So is there something to that? Yep. There is. That's a good question. Good question there. The reason I like to head to clearings or open fields your [01:10:00] meadows type areas they get out of the woods basically is what they're doing is their eyesight, again, is 10 times better than ours.

So everything in this world is trying to eat a Turkey from eggs. To four years old as a gobbler, he has to win every single day. He has to beat nature, he has to beat sickness, he's gotta beat coyotes. He's gotta beat bobcats. He's gotta beat Turkey hunters cars. The list, when he's an egg, he's gotta beat, they gotta get through raccoons and skunks.

Snakes. Possums who dos hawks. Bloods flood. Tell me what is not trying to kill or eat a Turkey? Me. So every day when you wake up, knowing that in mind that the entire world is trying to take me out every single day, no matter what it is, you're gonna be on edge. You are going to be edgy.

And that's how them birds are. They are super, super edgy. They can see [01:11:00] 320 degrees without turning their. 360 s a full circle here they can see three 20, almost a full circle, without even turning their heads. If they turn their head one inch, now they can see the just one inch and they can see the part that they couldn't see right.

Straight behind them. So they're so finicky. So you picture being in the woods and it's raining, being edgy like that, and every raindrops hitting leaves, you don't like it. And hitting limbs now add a 15, 20 degree breeze or wind to it. This situation, them limbs are moving, the leaves are moving, and then there's noise.

Cuz they hear five times better than we do. So with all that going on in that woods, they're just in freak out. They don't like it mode. They hate it because any movement, if there's movement, usually it's, cuz we're getting ready to get eaten every time they see movement it's so just su gives them super anxiety pretty much.

There you go. That's the best way to put it. Yeah. [01:12:00] So if they go out in the middle of a field or out in a clearing or whatever, they need some weed. They can see everywhere. Elevate. They need some elevate. My buddy Skylar will get that one. I don't know what that means. He, my buddy, he works for a weed dispenser.

I don't know exactly. They grow weed. And it's called Elevate. Gotcha, gotcha. Elevate. Yeah, I believe so. Like that. I get it. Yeah. They're elevated when it's raining. Yeah. And do you think it's pretty much any type of rain or is it, is there like pouring rain? Will they do it or No, that light, drizzly drizzle, rain, light, rain, mo, even moderate rain.

They had for fields, clearings openings and they're, and they usually will be pretty close to each other if you have a small flock or whatever. Notice that. Yeah. Yeah. And they'll sit out there and dry themselves. They're, they can't continuously start trying to dry themselves, but when they're out in the open, all them branches aren't moving, leaves ain't moving.

And then they can see. We can see any danger within a hundred yards trying to get on us. And [01:13:00] that's why they moved to clearings when it's raining like that. Okay. Now thunderstorm, tornado type, hurricane blowing rain. Yeah, they hunkered down just like every, they just hunkered down like anything else.

The coyotes hunkering down the bobcat. He ain't trying to hunt 'em either. Everybody's trying to survive the storm. Then get back to normal, so I gotcha. Yeah. Hopefully that answered your question. But yeah. When it's raining, light rain, go to clearings, go to the opens, and then probably right after a rain.

After a rain, it usually takes a couple hours for turkeys to fire up. Really? Because they want to dry off. And the reason they're more worried about getting dried off is because flight is. And they can't fly when it's wet. They can't, I'm sure. They can but not worth a dang.

So they have an oil gland. You guys will probably notice this and wondered what they're doing or people have out there. You'll see turkeys stick their head and their beak underneath their wing, way underneath their wing, and then pull their head back up and then start [01:14:00] touching their feathers with their beak.

They have an oil gland, basically in their armpit, if you want to call it. There's an oil gland, and they're getting oil on their beak from that oil gland and then rubbing oil on their feathers. And that's a water, makes 'em water resistant, oh, that's cool. If you, yeah. If you have an oil spot in your garage and drop water on it, you just see it just beads up and runs off like rain X on a windshield, right?

Yeah. That's what they're doing. And they'll spend the next two or three hours in that field when the rain quits. Getting dry. And that probably takes president over breeding or anything else, breeding, feeding, anything, because flight is life. And if we can get dry and get that oil back and get their feathers preed back into this position now if a run into danger, I can I'm out.

I can take Get out here. Take off. Yeah. Take off. And so that takes a couple hours? Yeah. Okay. Now they're dry. Then there's some hens might start firing up, then you're gonna start maybe hearing some more gobbling and games back. Awesome. That's the, break out [01:15:00] the sardines. Yeah. For two hours while they're trying off.

Good questions Brooks. Yeah, really good question. And Robin, maybe. Yeah, thanks for your question. Robin, you don't get out of hunting in the light rain. And I heard and I just said that, I don't know if he actually meant, he goes, but I got a confession to make. I got I, I'll be honest with you. Okay.

About 25 minutes ago I got excited about our show and I posted on our Instagram story that we are recording with Scott Wiler right now. Somebody has ask questions and I got two questions already. Perfect. Cool. Okay, so first question is from John HUDs Smith, which John is the actually the host of the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast.

They just had a big hog hunt down there. Yeah, down. That was pretty awesome. His question to you, and this is a good one cuz he's in Oklahoma. Do you change your tactics for the different subspecies at all? Yes. Interesting. Oh, definitely. Yes. Easterns. Easterns are my [01:16:00] opinion. I'm sure there's a lot of guys that'll back me on this.

Easterns are the, probably osceolas are tough too. Easterns are probably the toughest bird to hunt what we have right here. Most skittish Yes they're very weary I would say. And Osceola is ranked pretty high up there too. Then Rios, which I don't know what part of Oklahoma he's from, but he's in southeast Oklahoma.

Y definitely the middle of Oklahoma and Westward. Is he, that's Rio territory. Closer to the Missouri line is probably in the hybrid you mixing with Easterns. Easterns there. But Rios would be next in line. And then one of the, and again, it's not easy, but. Easier of the four I, in my opinion, would be the Miriam's.

Miriam's, I've always heard are the most aggressive. Are they the white tipped ones? Yeah. Yeah. They're the ones in Wyoming. The one I'm aggressive should be the term I'm using. But which is the one that with the, and I'm [01:17:00] the rainbow color. That's Easterns. Is that Eastern? Oh no, you're talking about the oscillated.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. That one. Down, those things are just gorgeous to me. You gotta leave the country for them. Oh, okay. They have them yellow. Yeah. They even have like yellow wart looking things. Something like that. They're all, they're really colorful. Really bright. Really bright. They don't even gobble Really.

Oh, I, man, this is what I'm, you ain't been heard about it. I've heard about 'em. They'll hum and drum. That. That's it. That's it. But they're a Turkey. They're a Turkey. They're a Turkey. Where do you gotta go get one of those? South America. South America? Yeah. Down there. What Panama, what are some of the countries down in, around that area?

Panama. Argentina. Argentina. Yeah. Down in that area. Down there is where they're at. But yeah, they don't even go one Columbia. Yeah, probably. Yeah. That's about all I know right there. But go down there, get you a Turkey and get you some cocaine and a red stag and a red stack. The Miriams would be the somewhat of the easier, and nothing's easy getting a bird, [01:18:00] but some of the easier, they love calling.

You over call to an Eastern, he's laughing and gone. You almo, you can't overcall with any Turkey, but they want you to call a whole lot more. Miriam's do. You do twice The amount of calling usually with Miriam's, and then Rio's are in between there.

But Yeah, I changed my tactics. That's the calling part. You got white depending on where you're at, trained. There's more woods. Yeah, there's more woods. Easterns are the westerns birds are more open terrain. You need to use the ditches more less moving around in the wide open where you can get away with moving around more in the woods in hills to, to hide you.

So yeah, my tactics do change. And then a few states that I've hunted differently. Nice. I run the creeks. Creeks more. You're outta sight. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Think like a bobcat. This next question. Thanks John for that question. And then the next question, which I only [01:19:00] posted this like 20 minutes ago, like I said, we're probably gonna hit the stop button and other people are gonna ask questions, but this question is from Murphy Granger, so thanks Murphy. I do not know exactly what he's meaning in here, but he said a Turkey that you had to earn that you shouldn't have. I'm not sure exactly what that means. A Turkey that you killed that you really had to work, that you shouldn't have probably killed, you shouldn't have worked, shouldn't have worked out.

Did you ever have one like that? Which Yeah, you've been hunting turkeys for 40 years, so I'm sure you've had some stories. Is he meaning more like That's all. That's all he said. It's just Turkey, you had to earn that You shouldn't have, so one you shouldn't have killed that you got, I guess maybe I'll tell you one that was, sorry if that's not what you meant. Murphy, right? Yeah. We'll just go with, this came to mind when you said that whether it's the answer or not, we'll roll with it here, but, so I had a, I was hunting by my house and I had a friend of mine. Call me Sir. Wiler, he's hollering and I'm trying to whisper cuz I'm still hunting [01:20:00] before work.

Trying to be to work as early as possible. You pass the nine o'clock hour, you pretty much gotta take a half a day vacation, but if you can get into work by nine, maybe work an hour late and make it up type thing. So it, anyway, so he calls me and says, I just killed one.

I just killed one. He's got an inch and quarter spurs and he's double bearded 10 inch beard and the other beard's 10 inches long. And man, he weighs 23 pounds and he was all excited and everything he said, and I'd been calling softly again and again. This was a gobbler that come in silent.

So if I wouldn't have said anything all morning long, he probably wouldn't have come my way. So I'm always calling, but it's always soft. There's no reason to scream there, there are times for that, but I'm always calling soft every 15 minutes. And I think that's probably why I killed this scholar.

But, so he's all excited and he's fired up. I'll see you at work and got you now, and he started turning into a game and I got you [01:21:00] now. I'm gonna beat you this year and I'll see you at work here in 30 minutes. And I said, all right, congratulations. And I was happy for him.

And it was one of his first, whether it's his first or second gobbler, but one of his first gobbler ever. And he was fired up and he, and that's an awesome bird. A double bearded 10 inch, and I think the other one was 11. Inch and a quarter spurs 23 pounds. Top that, in all seriousness, that is a gobbler of a lifetime really.

That's a nice, and so again, whether I earned it or not, I've been sitting there, patience. Patience and persistence. The more you keep trying and the harder you try, it's going to pay off sooner or later. But I'm sitting there, did my calling, whatever, just hung up the phone with him and I put it back in my pocket and I'm just a kickback.

I'm gonna go 10 more minutes and then I do need to get outta here. So just as I got off the phone with him, this is the truth, honestly, God is truth. [01:22:00] I see the tip of the fan coming over the hill. I said, oh boy, I didn't make, okay. I see the gobbler. He's well under 60 because the top of the hill that I see the tips is about 50.

So I ain't calling anymore. He already, like I said, they can judge distance like nobody's business. He knows within a few feet of where I should be at when I didn't see him. That's how well they can do that. So he comes over the hill. There he is at. There he is at 50. And then finally I see it's a safe shot and it's a clear view of him.

And I think he was like 43 yards or something. I pull the trigger now I got one down. Whether I deserved it or not, I wasn't he never gobbled either. So I walk up there to this bird and he's on my wall. He's number 64 in the state of Missouri right now. Really? So again, I didn't want to crush my buddy's [01:23:00] party here and pop the balloon, but I walk up on him and he has an inch and three eight spurs.

He weighs 26 pounds and had a 10 inch beard, 10 and a half inch beard and 11 inch beard. Oh, wow. You're a dick. I, so I come, couldn't let that guy just have that one thing. I know it. I know it. So I didn't say anything to him at all, and I drove into work and. We have a lumber yard, if you want to call it.

My boss owns a couple acres right on the edge of town, and we just store our half the lumbers half rotten, but we build crates and things out of it. But we meet down at this lumber yard to, to clean the bird. If we, it's not like you do it every day. It whenever you get a gobbler, before work if you don't have the day off. But we meet there to clean the Turkey and whatnot, take a few pictures, and then actually start work. So I knew that's right where he was at. So I pulled in there, and he's jumping up and down and pointing in the back of the truck. All excited.

And I walk up there and [01:24:00] it, man, he was a stud, gobbler, stud gobbler. And I, and he said, you, what are you grinning at? You killed one, didn't you? I said yeah. Where's he at? So he walks us back of my truck. He said, Wiler, I could drop you off naked in a desert. You'd come back with a gobbler and a cold glass of water.

That's awesome. That's hilarious. So I didn't deserve that. If, I hope that someone answers your question, I don't think I deserved it, but that's how it happened. That's h lyrics. That's great. You come back. But persistence with the governor at Glass of Hunter and the whole thing of it was, I heard nothing that morning.

I, I should have been at work at 7:00 AM right? It was that where I was at. It was that dead. But persistence and patience. Do a routine. [01:25:00] Don't get crazy with it. Stay soft and low. He came in quiet. Number 64 in the state of Missouri. Boom. That's pretty cool. Didn't deserve it. Hope that answers your question, but Awesome.

That's a good one. We got some good stories, some awesome listener questions. I'm gonna check one more time before we get off. Oh, I'm on here. Okay, here we go. We got one or do we not? I don't think so. I've been getting weird notifications. Nope. That's the cue. Before we hop off, Scott, why don't you give everybody your contact information if they're looking for an awesome box, call all these calls you've been hearing today, unless they're coming outta Scott's mouth.

Were handmade by him. Bloodwood and black limbs. What we got here? That's what you just heard. Two of my favorite combos are, what's this one again? Purple Heart and Walnut. See? What's that one? That's Purple Heart and Walnut. That's what I thought. And you put 'em on there. Yeah. Purple Heart over Walnut.

I always write on the bottom. Oh my gobble. [01:26:00] Oh, my gobble. Yep.

I don't think I use, I usually write something on the bottom of the paddles. Yep. Whatever I'm feeling. EV everything says something different. This one says, can I get an amen? Trusting the Lord, you'll lack no good things. That one says that too. They all say something. Oh, my gobble.

And sometimes they're funny things. Beat beard buster, and there's some quotes and stuff like that. But before we hop off, or I tell you some info, I want to, can I get a name in? I just read. So two years ago a guy was hunting, bought a call from me and I wrote, can I get an name in on there?

So he took a kid hunting with him. He's 15 years old, getting in trouble, just traveling down the wrong road. I said he stayed in his room playing video games a lot, and that's about all the information, just going down the wrong road and doing some troubled things and whatever. And he took to the [01:27:00] kid and mentored him.

He became his mentor. This guy did, this kid said he was his mentor, but he took him hunting, Turkey hunting, first time ever. And he's sitting next to him. And this just happened two years ago. I started writing that on there, and I've been writing it quite a bit on there because of this story I'm telling you.

So he takes this kid hunting and they set up, and he didn't realize he was that close to the goler. He knew about where they roost usually tell me. So it started breaking daylight and he hit his pocket rocket and he said he let out three or four Yelps and the kids like so close to him on his right side.

They're touching each other on this tree, but he just, he did.

And this gobbler hammered just a hundred yards away in the tree. That's close. Yeah. You're roosted you better not be breathing. You're so close and hope. And later in the year when you have foliage, you can get away with a little more movement. But this time of year, beginning of [01:28:00] season you can't move. They see so good. So when he yelped on that thing and that thing gobbled when you're that close, you can feel it. You guys, you can feel that gobble through you. He turned to that kid and he held that call up and said, can't I get an amen? And looked at that kid and he said that kid's eyeballs were all big and he was hooked.

That's awesome. He was hooked. So then fast forward to the next year, he calls me back, says, I wanna buy another one from you and can you put an a, can I get a name in on it? Also, I'm buying it for the. He said, we can't keep him outta the woods. He hasn't played a video game for a year. He's trapping. He's deer hunting.

He's Turkey hunting, and he's saved his money up and he's getting ready to buy a shotgun. Stories like that is why I build these things. Hearing something like that, the passion in it. Yeah. And that's where can I get a name in came from it changed that boy's life. That's awesome.

I've told the story so I ain't gonna make it long, but [01:29:00] the one I'm holding in my hand right here when our me and Jeff's buddy passed away Cecil you made a few of these for his, Yeah. Benefit auction. I remember that. And I didn't win it and so you made me my own personal one.

Yep. At that time. But I got another one over there. Did I buy it too? Maybe I did win it. I can't remember how it happened, but one of 'em I didn't wanna hunt with. It's that one over there that I haven't ever hunted with and the pocket rocket goes out with me. Cool. Things like that, that, this one means something to me.

Yeah. So you always take extra care of stuff that means something to you too. And as far as these box calls goes, guys, I got so many tricks up my sleeve. Go to Walmart, spend $5, get you a three pack of black socks, men's socks. You slip that call in that sock to protect it. They're wood.

You don't want water on 'em, you don't want the dew from the grass, dirt grease, on the paddle or that top rail of any box call. That's where your sound's coming [01:30:00] from. You want to keep it clean and dry. I take black socks with me literally and put my calls, they slide in and outta the socks that protects 'em.

And then I always take one gallon Ziploc bags with me. Here comes the rainstorm, you're not gonna make it. You're not in a blind or you can throw them calls in a Ziploc bag and zip 'em up real quick. Yep. So that's good. Just another little trick there, but Very cool. Yeah.

Just you can Google. I have a face face, back, face, pamphlet face. What do you wanna call it? Facebook. Yeah. Wilford Custom calls. I'm old school people. I'm telling you what his wife runs it for him. Yeah. My son-in-law, I call him my son. He's a good man. Real good man. My son-in-law and my wife run the face back Facebook, I think is what you're supposed to call it.

But so if you just Google Wiler custom calls, that'll come up and they con you can leave it, leave any questions or if you want to order something, but my phone number's on there. So the best way to order a call is to just [01:31:00] call me and we'll talk about it. And they some people like to do that, that Venmo and pay me back pal and all that stuff.

I'm old school people. I'll mail you the call, you mail me check, you mail me. It's that simple. Or cashier's check or money order, whatever. It's that simple. So send me a Western Union. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I ever did that. Don't, I Did have a guy mail me. Two people mail cash in the mail. Oh, really? So yeah, I don't recommend that.

That's ballsy, but Right. I wouldn't recommending that, but, it just, but anyway, yeah, you look up Wiler custom calls and it'll ex, you'll see my phone number if my wife or Tony may actually first answer you and then give you my phone number. But yeah, just look that up and you'll see the Facebook page and.

To get a hold of me, we can get you whatever kind of call you need. Perfect. Amazing calls. The only calls I use now. Scott, if I don't talk to you before or if we don't talk to you before opening day, good luck to you. I'm sure you're gearing up just like every year. Oh, yeah. Yep. And good luck [01:32:00] scouting.

Hope everybody's scouting. This will be the day after opening day, unfortunately. But good luck to everybody out there and hope everybody kills a beast. Yeah, gobble. Gobble.

All right. Put it up. So good at this. Yeah, Scott, you've taught me well. Yeah. All right. See you guys. Scott, thank you for coming on, buddy. Thank you. You're welcome. I love it. I love it. See you, man.

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