Turkey Talk

On this episode of The Nomadic Outdoorsman Dan talks with fellow Sportsmen’s Empire Podcaster Paul Campbell about Paul's only purpose on this earth…. TO PURSUE AND PROTECT TURKEYS

Paul is a passionate Turkey hunter from the state of Ohio. He has dedicated his personal and professional life to the pursuit and protection of the Wild Turkey. As a staff member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Paul has the true pleasure of working with the members and volunteers of the organization to promote and drive the mission of the NWTF forward. Teaching people about the culture of turkey hunting is important and Paul loves hearing turkey hunting stories from all corners of the country. The threats to the wild Turkey are numerous, but there is opportunities for all turkey hunters to leave a positive impact on America’s greatest bird. As a podcaster and communicator Paul loves meeting new people and talking all things Turkey.
Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant, outdoor content!

Dan Matthews: [00:00:00] All right guys. Welcome to today's show and joining me on the show today is Paul Campbell. Now Paul is the co-host of the O two podcast and he is the host of the brand new podcast, how to Hunt Turkeys. Now Paul and I have got to connect multiple times. We got to hang out at ATA together this year, and while we were walking down aisles, Paul would just bounce out any time we heard a Turkey call.

He was like, I gotta go check out that booth. I gotta go talk to those people. And so we're gonna dive deep into what his new podcast is all about, his tips and strategies and tactics for hunting Turkey and what he has planned this year. So I'm excited. Let's jump in.

Like he was doing things that were just badass. That was one of the coolest moments of my life.

Paul Campbell: I was really scared, but knowing that Dan had the gun, I did have the rifle, like we would be okay.

Dan Matthews: All right guys. Welcome [00:01:00] to today's show, and I am being joined by Paul Campbell, my brother, who is a Turkey hunting mother, and I'm pretty pumped, but dude, I'm not gonna lie. Before we're diving into this, I have one question for you and that's gonna determine the outcome of this. Okay. Podcast.

Paul Campbell: Oh, man.

Pressure. I'm ready.

Dan Matthews: Are you coming to Missouri to Turkey Hunt this year?

Paul Campbell: Yes. Without a doubt. All right. Yeah, without a doubt. I've got way too many people from the fine state of Missouri that have said, Hey, come Turkey hunt To not do it, I have to do it. Yes. Yeah, you and I will be in the Turkey woods together in Missouri for sure.

Dan Matthews: Perfect, man. Because I have been getting turkeys on my trail cameras. Okay. Past couple weeks they've been showing back up. They typically drop down across the road from the property I hunt. And there's a big, there's like ag fields, but there's a wooded Creek bottom and a very steep drop down to the creek, and they just hang out there.

As soon as spring starts to come, they're up in [00:02:00] the bean field. They're up walking the fence line over to the woods. When I say we've got turkeys here, it's insane. Dude. I talked to people That's awesome, man. All over the place. And they're like, dude, all the turkeys disappeared. We can't seem to find a Turkey to save our lives.

And I'm like, dude, they're everywhere

Paul Campbell: by me. And

Dan Matthews: there's a ton of, I, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 50 birds with long beards in the field across the road the other day. That's amazing. Find I couldn't find a Jake, I couldn't find a hen. It was like every bird in that field. Oh. Had a beer on it.

Paul Campbell: Man that's a special, that's a special place.

Yes.

Dan Matthews: I will definitely be there. I'm like, overselling this already. You're gonna get up here and you're gonna be like, you said 50. I only saw 30. Yeah, exactly. I

Paul Campbell: wanted quite 50. Dan. Yeah, dude. No, that's good, man. I'm excited.

Dan Matthews: Yeah I'm more pumped, man. You're gonna be proud of me. I'm more pumped about Turkey hunting this year than I have ever been.

Paul Campbell: I love to hear it, man. I love to hear. I've been preaching the Turkey hunting [00:03:00] gospel to fellow sportsmans empire podcasters and people in and in our community. And it's nice to hear people, Dan Johnson of all people, and I hope he listens to this his, I, I've heard a little peak of interest in his voice when I've talked to him about touring more so I think than years past.

Yeah, I love to hear it. And man what a time to be alive, and there's no finer pursuit to do, than wild Turkey hunting in this great country. Man, I'm glad to hear that. Dude.

Dan Matthews: It's gonna be I'm getting the bug a little by little. But I think I would've pushed myself over the edge had I made it to N W T F.

Oh. I had so many people like, dude, are you coming? Are you coming? You coming? And I wanted to, but that was around the time that we were trying to sell this crappy trailer that was on the property that we bought. And so it was like every day I was out there doing work. I was trying to get things taken care of.

And so unfortunately I wasn't able to make it. But then I had all the freaking kids these days call it fomo, the fear of missing [00:04:00] out. Yeah. And you see all the posts from your buddies and I'm sitting there watching you guys all at N W T F and I'm like, man, I wish I was there.

Paul Campbell: It is. Even if you're not a Turkey hunter, it's just a, it's a fun sports show.

It's a bunch of people, in camo. There's a lot of stuff for the deer hunter there at the sports show, and man, it is just, it is. So for me and for Turkey hunters, it's like a one, it's a big family reunion, but it's like the official unofficial if you will, kickoff to just Turkey season as a whole.

Yeah. It is a blast. And there was a ton of people there were more people that walked through the gates of the sports show at the N W T F convention in Nashville than have ever done before. Smashed every record that you could possibly think of. It w the energy that was around that show was amazing.

It was great, man. I like, that's my busiest week. Yeah. For me. So the week. In the week of convention, the busiest weeks that I have all year. And I was running around a hundred mile an hour, and I look outta the corner of my eye and who do I see standing over [00:05:00] by a new canoe, a McDonald, and he's in the middle of a conversation.

I hadn't met Parker yet, so I just run up and gave him a big old hug. It was like, good to see you, man. I just take right off running, back to whatever the heck I was doing. But it's a great time. It really is. You and your family, you gotta be there next year. You would love it. You really would.

You guys would have a blast. And if you're win a with the, if you're within an eight hour drive of Nashville, Tennessee, you gotta be there. It is. It is. Oh dude, we're,

Dan Matthews: it's an amazing time. We're so close to Nashville. We just drove through there this weekend. Yeah, our way back or on our way to and back from South.

And it's really not that far. I call it Ville. I'm not a huge Nashville fan. Yeah. Every time we go through there, I'm like, dude, my tires are gonna get blown out by the potholes. Everything's just dirty on the side of the highway. And don't get me wrong, downtown Nashville's pretty sweet. And like the whole Aura Broadway or whatever it is, yeah.

Isn't terrible. But for some reason, man, Tennessee, those big cities in Tennessee, every time I go through there I'm like, [00:06:00] What's going on? These roads look like they could collapse at any second.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. So I've been to Nashville a hundred times, I've never been to Broadway, I've never been to downtown Nashville, the n Vegas experience or whatever it's called.

Never been there. I've never experienced like the nightlife of, cuz whenever I'm in Nashville, I'm working. Yeah. And it's just I spend a ton of time there. I got a lot of people that I've gotten to know there, but I've never partied in Nashville. So February next year, Dan let's make that happen,

Dan Matthews: dude.

We will make that happen. I just gotta put it on the calendar. I gotta get set up and and show up there. So talk to me, man. You started a new Turkey hunting podcast. Yeah. Are you still fully involved with

Paul Campbell: Oh yeah. No and Andrew and I are plugging away there. That show's been a lot of fun, the oh two podcasts and you know how it is to start a podcast.

When we first started doing it, I didn't know what I was doing. I was nervous. I remember the first time we interviewed someone like, live and I'm doing air quotes for people listening to this. I was terrified. And it was just me in my front room, Andrew and our buddy Corey who was with us on the show originally.[00:07:00]

And, two and a half years into it, I feel like I've settled in a little bit. I'm still learning. But I reached out to Dan and said, Hey man, I wanna do a Turkey hunting podcast on the Sportsmans Empire. Because quite frankly, the disrespect that the Wild Turkey got at the hands of nine fingers, I was unacceptable.

And I needed to change that. And he was fortunate enough to say, yes, let's go ahead and do it. So it's been a ton of fun. It's the How to Hunt Turkeys podcast. So it's very much geared towards People that, that have hunted a little bit or people that are thinking about Turkey hunting and or veteran Turkey hunters.

And so the, it's not just, newbies it's people that have been in a while. So I think the best way to learn and this medium that we have podcasts is storytelling. And so a lot of the guys, and that's the, it's not the show isn't analytical to the point.

If you listen to Bomar east meets Wes podcast, that's an awesome show. Bo has a really good way of like breaking down data, breaking down experiences in a very scientific manner almost. Yeah, this is just a couple of rednecks usually [00:08:00] talking about Turkey hunting in some fashion. And it's neat how the shows, I never know guys will be like what do you wanna talk about Turkey hunting?

That's the answer. Turkey hunting. It's not, I've never started the show. With an idea of this is what we wanna talk and it always just morphs into something and they've all been vastly different so far. But man, it's been a ton of fun. So really enjoyed it. Some great guests so far.

So what is it

Dan Matthews: for you about Turkey hunting? What about Turkey hunting just drives you crazy? Is it the calling, because I get that answer quite a bit. People are like, dude, the communication, like you're actually calling to a bird, you are communicating with a specific bird and you are trying to convince it to come in.

And I get that answer a lot. But it seems like Turkey hunting of all hunting for me. I'm like, it just seems like a really weird animal to get that crazy about.

Paul Campbell: Yeah, that's a good question. So we're gonna rewind a little bit just in, in my life. So I just turned 40 the end of last year in October of last year.

So I didn't start hunting just [00:09:00] in general until I was 25. And so my first hunting season, Turkeys, I think it was 2008 was my first year hunting. So for those that are old enough to remember, 2008, we were smacked dab in the middle of a great recession. The economy was trash. My dad had just died.

He died at 54 years old, so just totally unexpected. I talked to him at seven o'clock on Sunday night, 5:00 AM on Monday morning, I get a phone call that my dad had died. Geez. And so my life was in absolute chaos. It was in free fall. I worked in the golf industry for about 15 years. At that time, I was still in, the lower ranks of the golf hierarchy.

So I had, I'd really struggled to keep a job because golf courses were laying people off left and right. And so my life was a wreck. Quite honestly. I was a drunk. I didn't know what I was doing. I had no No direction in life. And my best friend Kenny Keaton said, Hey, man, do you wanna go Turkey hunting?

And damn, my response [00:10:00] is, what the hell's a Turkey? Like that's a thing. Like people punt turkeys they're like, wild turkeys. Are you serious? What is this? And so I I agreed, cause I didn't have my, I didn't have anything else to do, right? And so we went that spring and I bought a call.

I bought a primo's power crystal, and I borrowed a shotgun. I bought the cheapest camo that you could find. We go out the first day that, that we're hunting, Kenny and I are hunting on onto some public ground here in southern Ohio. And man, the first gobble that I heard from a wild Turkey, something in me changed in my mind, in my heart, in my soul whatever you wanna say, man.

Something changed in me. And I have, I had never wanted to. See something so bad. I never wanted to put my hands on something so bad in life. I never wanted to kill something so bad in my life. I had to see that animal. And not only did I not kill a wild Turkey that year, I didn't see a wild Turkey that year.

We heard a few more the second year. Same thing. Third [00:11:00] year. It took me three years before I finally killed my wild Turkey. So what's the draw to me? At that time in my life, man, it was my life was so bad that the pursuit of Turkey hunting and getting to learn something new, learn how to be a proficient caller, learn, how to shoot a gun proficiently, how to move through the woods, all of these things at that moment in my life, it gave me purpose and it gave me something to focus and it really just, it was something that I could latch onto when my life was so chaotic that gave me something important.

Cause I had a son, but I didn't have, I didn't have a wife and, small friend group, but that, that was something I was just able to latch onto. So it was it's very personal for me. Turkey hunting. Yeah, I think it's very personal for a lot of people. And just for me, as as I've gotten into more hunting, it's definitely, man the calling.

You're interacting with them, so that's something I, that I love. I'm not a patient guy. I've become patient more, but, hanging from a tree, I'm just like, oh God, this sucks. What way is the wind going? I don't have patience for that. But man, so that's, I that's a long-winded answer to, to why it, I latched [00:12:00] onto it.

It's very personal for me. I've said that, man, looking at it I, honest to God, Dan I believe that the wild Turkey and Turkey hunting, quite honestly, just sa saved my life at some on some level. Dang. Which is crazy to think of. So

Dan Matthews: that's wild, man. What a cool story of how hunting can change you.

Cuz it, it does, like I see it all the time with new hunters. It like gets ahold of them. It does. And they real they connect on a different level. When you are becoming part of the food chain, and this seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of the talks that I have with people both like the idea of becoming part of the food chain, becoming a, an active participant in the outdoors and not just an observer.

And then on top of that, like what you said, you didn't even see a Turkey, but you were still hooked. Yeah. And the thought of the failure is almost what gets you, or like the, it makes the success even better when it [00:13:00] happened. Yeah, absolutely. I've talking to people about that a ton lately.

Paul Campbell: Yeah. It's a, it's an important aspect I think that a lot of people overlook just in hunting in general deer hunting, duck hunting, moose hunting elk what, whatever it is, that the process.

Is just as important as pulling the trigger, pulling the release, putting an arrow out whatever it is. And I think it's easy for people to forget that. And, I've forgotten that just in my life, and you have that kind of, that personal renaissance, where you get back to what's important to you as an individual and really big picture stuff, as collectively I think is what I'm trying to get at.

Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. So

Dan Matthews: what, since that point you didn't get one that first go from there, how has Turkey hunting developed or evolved for you? Obviously like Turkey hunting, it doesn't seem like it's changed a ton. Maybe the amount or the opportunities, but as far as the actual pursuit and the technique and strategy of Turkey hunting it seems like people have been doing it pretty [00:14:00] similar way for decades.

For you. Yeah. That's what, how did things change for you after that first season?

Paul Campbell: For me, because I was so new to, just, to, just hunting and I hadn't spent much time in the woods, so it was, there was a huge learning curve for me. And it is just as simple as moving quietly through the woods in the morning, I think o one of the, you listen to guys like Cut Strickland and they talk about like the art of the setup, right? And it's where to set you that for years it was, I would think to myself, okay, that turkey's over there. Ah, this is the best spot for me to be. Okay. And so the good Turkey hunters and there's a clear line.

There's Turkey hunters and there's Turkey killers, right? And those are the guys that just get it, man. They understand it. You could drop 'em off in the middle of nowhere with, with a freaking box call and an al Hooter and they're going to come back with a Turkey, no maps, nothing. They just get it.

Those Turkey killers. And I was having a really good conversation there. And this is I like to talk about this cuz I think it's a neat, it's a neat perspective, but it's you, so [00:15:00] you think of, okay, this is where I wanna be. I wanna be right here because it looks nice, right? Or, this tree, I can lean up against this tree.

And that turkey's over there and I, he's definitely gonna come to me because, I'm calling on this $200, freaking pod call that I've been working so hard at. And then they just walk right outta your life and they just gobble a couple of times at you and they walk you 200 yards to your west or whatever.

And so the epiphany that I had was go where the Turkey wants to be. And so you, and that was one of the evolutions for me was let's. This looks nice for me, but he, there's no way that he's gonna come down this ravine and up here, like there's a clear cut, there's a little tiny open spot that I can see that's 120 yards away.

That's where he is definitely gonna go, and so that was kinda the evolution for me was just those woodsman's the woodsmanship that that people talk about. And it's one I'm still learning, yeah. And I'm always gonna be, I'm always gonna be learning. Turkey hunting is definitely going through.

I think the popul it's funny because birds are declining and, there's a really, there's a lot of negative talk about wild Turkey hunting, more people were doing it now than they were [00:16:00] 20 years ago. Yeah. More people are getting into it. And so there has been some evolution.

Hunting with, your reaping and fanning and different tactics. But I think for the most part, like it's really, it's Turkey hunting is, I think it's, you can only do it so many ways. There's only so many they don't smell, so you can't manipulate that. You can't bait turkeys, so you can't manipulate that.

And you're already calling at 'em. So that's like the greatest weakness. So I think, for the most part, there's not a lot of trophy status trophy seekers in the Turkey woods. They're definitely I'm sure there are, but, so I think Turkey hunting it's gonna stay pretty traditional in the sense that, people are in it for measure and beards and measurements first.

Yeah. That's cool. That's just like the icing on the cake, so I think it's gonna stay pretty pure as it continues to evolve.

Dan Matthews: How do you, what is your take on things like reaping birds? Because that seems to be a hot button topic. Yeah. In the Turkey hunting community,

Paul Campbell: it is and.

I am not one to fight with people on social media. I just released [00:17:00] a podcast with Phil Cole Pepper, Jr. From Hunt Club tv. Been in the industry for years. Great man, great Turkey hunter. He's a big proponent of reaping and fanning, and he gets a ton of hate about that from Turkey purists and people that don't agree with him.

And that's very easy to do on social media, right? It's very easy to do on the internet is argue with people and yell and talk. I'm not one to do that. So if I don't agree with someone, I'm either one not gonna consume your content anymore, or I'm gonna have a conversation with you. And so Philip and I dove into this topic about reaping and fanning.

I am not for it. I'm a hundred percent against it, strictly from the aspect of it's a safety risk. It's a safety issue for me. You wouldn't dress up with a rack on your head and a brown rug on your body and walk through the woods during the rut trying to get. A Turkey or a deer to come out you and then hop up with the boat last minute and shoot it like you're just not gonna do it cuz it's dangerous.

Someone else is gonna kill you. Yeah. I referenced this and it's a tragic story. It happened in 2021 in [00:18:00] West Virginia. There was a 19 year old kid out hunting with his girlfriend on this family farm. A 76 year old man trespassed onto their property. This kid was in a field reaping a Turkey with one of those full mounts.

76 year old man shot him with a 2 43 with a rifle. He was legally hunting Turkeys shot this kid, and that's private property. All right? Yeah. And you look at videos, team wing, bones, some buddies of mine, they just released a video two weeks ago. And from Montana from last year, Turkey hunting, a guy comes in to a bunch of a field with a bunch of goblin toms and he's got a, he's got a reaping decoy with.

Is it effective? Yes. It's re it's a really effective way to, to kill turkeys. I think that, biologically I'm not smart enough to answer the question. Does it negatively impact the Turkey populations? I don't know. I've heard a lot of interesting theories about that. I don't think there's any science to back it up.

So at this point, for me it's an, it's a hard note just because of the safety. My life is not worth a. And I hope that people take that perspective. If they wanna do it. If it's legal in your state, do it. But really consider the safety risks that that you have [00:19:00] with that practice.

Dan Matthews: All right guys. If you've been listening to the podcast, I'm sure you've heard me talk about the helicopter hog hunt that I did down in Texas. Now I went down there with rope Texan Outfitters and Landon and Brandon, the. Put us on the animals. We killed 150 pigs in 19 coyotes, just from the air. On top of that.

We went out thermal hunting at night and got up close and personal to more hogs. I didn't have to worry about bringing guns or ammunition because all of that was provided for me, and it is to this day, the most action packed day of hunting I've ever had. I stand by what I've said in the past, and that's that helicopter hog hunting is the funnest thing that you can do with pants on.

In addition, they offer Sandhill crane hunts and predator calling. So if you're looking for the most exciting hunt of your life and something that you're gonna want to come back and do year after year, go check out rogue texan.com and book your hunt today.

Yeah, it seems like the idea now has [00:20:00] transferred not only from turkeys, but to all sorts of game animals. Like you see the silhouette decoys that mount to your bow or that you just walk behind the ones that you can unfold really quickly. And they make 'em look like cows. They make 'em look like just about everything.

Yeah. And I think the allure of getting up close and personal to an animal and just continuing to observe its natural behavior is why so many people like that. Yeah. If they think you're another Turkey, they're just gonna hang out. Yeah. And watch, maybe the alternative to reaping them with a Turkey decoy is to do a cow silhouette, so then you potentially minimize that risk of getting shot because someone mistakes you for a bird. Because I'll tell you this I've reaped way more turkeys than I've called in. In fact, I just killed my first Turkey this last season that I actually called in. And everything happened.

The right way, air [00:21:00] quotes.

Paul Campbell: Which one did you prefer? I know this is your podcast. I'm gonna ask the questions here on this one, Dan. Yeah. Perfect. No

Dan Matthews: dude, you're the Turkey guy out of all of us. I don't know. I don't know which one I liked more. I think the fact that I did call the burden solo was really cool.

Nobody else was with me. Normally I'm hunting with somebody else, and in fact, I called two Toms in. I still regret shooting the one this year when I did because these Toms came in and I think I would've got to see them just tear up my decoy. And I haven't seen that before. I've literally had, I've had birds spitting and drumming from me to my computer screen away while I'm sitting in a blind.

And they were just on the other side of the property line. And so I could have I could have almost knifed them or grabbed them to the fence. And so I've got to see a lot of really cool things, but I haven't seen that yet where they come in and just beat the tar out of a decoy. And so I think that probably would've put it over the edge for me [00:22:00] to just see 'em attacking it.

Yeah. But as far as calling one in, I definitely like the interaction. I'm not a good Turkey caller at all. And that just shows you how dumb these birds are around here. Like the fact that I can kill a Turkey every year, it, anybody can do it where I'm at. Yeah.

Paul Campbell: The,

Dan Matthews: so I did like the calling aspect because I did, I heard these birds coming and I heard 'em, I for 45 minutes probably.

We called back and forth and it was I wasn't specifically calling to them. I was calling to probably eight different times, all gobbling. And they were in different areas. I mean some in a small 12 acre wood lot, some in the big creek bottom, some straight down the fence row from me. Some in a 20 acre wood lot.

I mean from all different directions. And these were just the ones that come in. And so that was definitely cool. I liked the physicality of reaping. Yeah. Crawling

Paul Campbell: through and it's just another aspect of argu to do this.

Dan Matthews: Yeah. Like to creep through, to have to be very cautious about [00:23:00] your movements.

In fact, I think not even reaping or fanning or doing any of that the, my favorite Turkey hunt that I think I've been on, we saw these birds while we were set up. Traditionally we saw them, they disappeared. And I was like, what in the world, man? These birds were just here. And so I was like, I'm gonna go walk through the woods.

I'm just gonna slow walk and see what I can find, see if I can hear anything. So we'd stop and call. And then I look out of the woods and about 300 yards away I see these toms. And instead of calling them, I just watched what they were doing. And I could see that the sun was in their face and they were working, say southeast to northwest towards the north end of the wood lot that I was in.

And so I was like, I can just work my way up. Like I can stay in the shadows and get in front of 'em and when they get in range I'm gonna shoot one. And it was fun playing this cat and mouse [00:24:00] game cuz they just fed the grass was too tall to fully see them all the time. And so I'd see one head pop up then another.

And I knew there was a monster in there that I wanted to shoot. And so that was a fun, like weird whack-a-mole game where it's like a head would pop up. I'm like, no, not that one. Another head would pop up, then they'd all disappear. And then finally I saw the one. I was like, that's him. I could tell just the size of his head.

Yeah, I could see that the size of his head was that much bigger. Oh, that's awesome. I pulled the trigger that bird would've ended up being the state record beard length Turkey in Missouri. Had I, wow. Even thought to oh, I need to measure this and, submit it. I found out the next year when I was looking at the weight of my bird that I shot the next year that I had shot, and it wasn't even by a little, it was like a half inch bigger than the record.

Oh. So that's impressive, man. That's wild. So anyways, like I, I just love pursuing animals and I can't, I don't ever get hung up on one way of doing anything. [00:25:00] And again, along what winded way of saying, I think calling it in was pretty, pretty cool. And the fact that I had killed so many other ways that I was able to actually do that effectively, I was pretty pumped about.

And for sure. Hopefully I can do it again this year. Yeah,

Paul Campbell: it's fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I watch the video this year.

Dan Matthews: You can call one in this year.

Paul Campbell: There you go. Shoot it. I watched the I watched the reaping videos and I see these toms that they just rip across the field from like a hundred yards away and these guys are shooting 'em from five feet.

I'm like, oh my God, that looks insane. Yeah. And so there there's some interesting theories about the biological breeding structure of wild turkeys and the effects on reaping. So you, so turkeys are, deer will breed with, the dominant, the dominant buck and or really anyone that's, they, they deem suitable turkeys are a little more rigid and they're breeding structure.

A hin might have one Tom, the dominant tom bald hens might have one tom that they wanna breed with. [00:26:00] And then you'll have, five or six subordinate males that, that are there in, in the waiting. And so when you, and this is where the reaping a lot of the negative Feelings and bad and hard feelings about reaping come from is that when you're fanning or reaping, that dominant tom is the one that, that you pull across the field that comes to you.

And so when you take him out of the breeding cycle and most Turkey seasons start on the downward of that bell curve, once the majority of the breeding has occurred, you hunt. If hens haven't been bred and they wanted to breed with this dominant tom, and we take him out they start that process all over again.

The lacking process and that breeding hierarchy. And so when you do that moves that nesting and that plp and that brooding process even farther into the season. And so you'll have some effects. And so that's the theory a about that. And I, like I said there's not any hard.

Data that I've seen research about

Dan Matthews: How would that be different than traditional Turkey hunting? Because you're still trying to shoot the dominant male,

Paul Campbell: right? I think [00:27:00] for and if and this is just from what I've heard and just experience in the woods that I would say a massive majority of turkeys that are killed every year are like two and a half year old birds.

They're the ones that are fired up because it's their first years with a long beard, yeah. And they're ready to fight. They're ready to see if they can just get in on the breeding action. So those are the ones that are coming in. I think the mature birds, those dominant birds.

If I had to get, and this is, like I said, this is purely speculation just from my personal experience and from listening to biologists when they talk and other Turkey hunters those dominant birds, you're not, we're not interacting with them as much as we think we are as hunters, and so that bird that you caught I, they're, the caught listen to me, that bird that you shot. That's, yeah. That was probably the dominant bird and air quotes, again, you did that the right way. You stalked him, you moved in, he got in position, you did all these things.

You know that, and that's the, and that's the argument. So what's the, what's worse you being a skillful ninja in the Turkey woods and you can go in and you could kill a dominant tom from this section of the woods. And then, the [00:28:00] next day I can go in and do the same thing and go get another dominant Tom from, cuz I'm good at moving through the woods.

And that's the juxta position. It's the word I'm looking for here. What's the right answer? And I don't, and quite honestly, I don't think anyone knows. I sure as hell don't know because I'm an idiot when it comes to a lot of these things that, like I said, I just listen to what other people say.

Yeah. So I understand why people are upset about it just because Turkey decline is a very personal issue for a lot of people. And then so we, as humans we wanna blame something, right? So we blame the raccoon, we blame reaping, we blame decoys, we blame a Walmart building, a new distribution center and Turkey.

Anyways, there's all these things. And just to sum it up for me, it's just man, it's just it's a hunting, there's an inherent risk when you're hunting. It's just an added risk that I'm not willing to take. But like you said, I like getting, I like seeing 'em all close and just being turkeys, man, it's super cool watching 'em just putts around.

And if I could get inside of a cow decoy and just sit in a field, I'd be like a freaking kid. And Christmas man watching them like move around this is so cool, man. And what's really neat is like when they get close like that, you hear sounds that you didn't know that they make. Oh yeah. That you [00:29:00] only hear them when you're 10 feet from 'em and you're like, oh man, this is really neat.

You don't see this on YouTube,

Dan Matthews: Listen, I don't ever save, I don't ever save my Turkey videos that I get on trail camera. And this year I got some incredible sounds. No kidding. I'm talking like 40 turkeys right in front of the camera. Oh. I'm just hearing all the different things and in the past I haven't even had cameras that could pick up sound.

Yeah. And so this go round, I was like, oh, I'm curious like how vocal are they when you're like right there inside of them and I probably have a hundred videos saved on my camera of all That's cool. Vocalizations. And I was like, yeah, this

Paul Campbell: is pretty wild. Because I heard

Dan Matthews: people talk for years oh yeah, they spitting drum.

And I'm like, I don't even know what that means. People are doing their rendition of it on a podcast. And I'm like, they don't make that sound. And then sure enough, man, I'm sitting in this blind and I'm like, dude, big Tom coming our way. Yeah. He's right on the other side of the fence, dude. He's three [00:30:00] feet from us and my buddy's cool.

Can we shoot? I was like, no. He's like on the neighbor's property. He's dude, he's three feet from us. Just reach under and grab him. I'm like, no, we're not shooting him, man. No. Can't do it. I just hear,

Paul Campbell: I was like, that's it. That's what it's

Dan Matthews: right there. Holy cow. And just hearing him as he's fanned out and it's just and I'm like, what the heck, dude?

It's it's amazing. It felt like it made the blind

Paul Campbell: shake. I'm like, yes. It's the weirdest thing. Like you can feel it. It's, yeah. Yeah. And you know what's, you know what's crazy? A lot of people cannot hear that sound. Talking with, I was talking with Michael Chamberlain. He talked about just people, their whatever is in their auditory setup that they cannot.

Spitting and drumming. It could be ing three feet from you and they can't hear it. There's just certain people. I definitely can't hear it as well as some of my friends, but I can hear it. Yeah. And then you hear like their feathers like flex and I, it's like they, is it like, I don't know what it saying is that like their feathers like Yeah.

[00:31:00] You can feel It's like a vibration. Yeah. Yeah. You can feel it. It's like when you're you like, if you're like at a concert and they're warming up and you hear the drummer just hitting the drum, like you can't, cuz it's far away. You can't really hear it, but like you can feel it.

That's almost like what it is. Like for sure. It's the, it's a weird experience. So Yeah. There's another thing to chalk it up by turkeys are better and deer. Dude, that's

Dan Matthews: funny. I mean I think it's cool like the different types, like you can go, obviously deer have all their different species around the country, but like Turkey hunting, like the different settings that you're gonna find turkeys in.

Even being out in Utah, man, I saw some Turkey sign, more Turkey sign. Oh yeah. It was like the road. Looked like it was textured with a roller covered in Turkey prints. Oh man, that's cool. It was just that many bird prints. No kidding. And I was like, holy cow, man. This is unique. This is like deserty mountains where like we're mountain lion hunting and this is, there's that many birds here.

This is crazy. Yeah. And so I think that's a pretty cool aspect of it. And then you get just [00:32:00] like that slight variation in the fan yeah, the color of the bird. And then obviously, what's the one that's like crazy different? The, so the

Paul Campbell: o so the os the, the oscillated is down in Mexico.

Yeah. Yeah. And just a small portion of Mexico, but it's almost if I could explain it and. Google it. It's like a peacock slash Turkey hybrid. Yeah. And they've got like these gnarly, like bumps all over their head and their waddle was like outta control. They're pretty wild and they're beautiful, but they're like shimmery green.

They're gorgeous, man, gorgeous animals. I had a

Dan Matthews: boss that had completed the Slam I don't know if it's the World Slam or what, but he ended up going down to Mexico. Okay. And he's that was a different hunt. Like we talk about reaping and stuff, but down there it's like anything goes.

Yeah. And the way he described it, he was in the middle of the jungle and he had this tribe a couple hunters from the tribe. They took him out and they were out there in the middle of the night. I'm talking like the sun went down. They waited a couple hours and went out. [00:33:00] And he is we're walking down this trail.

I can't see my hand in front of my face. It's so dark. And I'm just like, I can hear them right in front of me. So I'm just following them all through the jungle. And he said the guy. The guy told him, he said, I'm gonna turn a light on and you shoot where the light is pointed. Oh my gosh. And he is what?

And he is this is I didn't realize this is what I was getting into. Yeah. And it's a legal practice down there, but he's literally he shined the light I shot and the bird fell out of the tree and it was just a gorgeous, gosh, lady. Gosh. And I was like that. It's cool, it's unique.

And that's where I'm like, dude, I have a hard time when somebody says, oh dude, you can't hunt 'em like that. That's not the way to do it. I immediately want to be like, who says I'm gonna try it. I want to see

Paul Campbell: How it, yeah. And they were like you're in the woods. Like when the jaguars are out on the prowl, that's, oh, no kidding. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting, people were really protective about the critters that they chase, whether it be deer [00:34:00] or turkeys or elk or grouse, people. People are passionate. And I think that's the one thing that I take as a positive when people are upset about things, is that it means they care and whatever it is that they care about.

Yeah. I'm happy that they're upset about it, even if it's directed at me. Because I know that, that you care about it. So I think it's the way that we communicate those issues that that we need. We, and I say we, like all of us need to do, a better job. So because like that's a unique experience that you'll never, a unique hunting experience.

It's got its own challenges. It's got its own inherent dangers and its own rewards, so that's pretty

Dan Matthews: cool. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think the journey, the story if I sat in the same tree every day, every year and shot a buck and shot a dough and nothing ever changed, like that would get monotonous and boring for me.

Yeah. And so to experience it new and in different ways, adding challenges to it, I think is Yeah. Is pretty sweet. What what are your plans for Turkey season? This year, are you going after any new

Paul Campbell: species or, yeah, man, [00:35:00] so this is a big year for me. So let's see. So today is what? March 8th.

So March 16th. Next. Next. So a week from now will be my first Turkey hunt in southern Florida. Really looking forward to that. I've never hunted in Florida, so I'm hunting hunting the Osceola, turkeys I'll be there for two weeks. I'm going down by myself at Parker, McDonald's going with me from Southern Ground.

We're gonna do some Turkey hunting together. And then I'm going up guiding some folks from New York or coming down to central Florida. We'll hunt. And then I'm headed up to, I'm gonna hunt my way back home. So I'm gonna go through Alabama hunt with with my buddies from Woodhaven game calls.

And then up through I think I'm I might skip Tennessee this year. I'm not sure still trying to plan that out, but Kentucky and then I, the and this is where it gets sketchy, Dan I've gotten. A couple invites to go to Montana and hunt Miriam's. So I've told my wife, I'm like, okay, if I have an Osceola and an Eastern in the bag, and then I go out early May, mid-May to hunt, early May to hunt Miriam's and I get one, I'm going to go [00:36:00] and try to kill a Rio.

And it's just nothing that you can tell me. I'm whatever amount of time and money it takes to do that in one year, that slam in one year, I'm going to do that. And she's can't you just do it yet next year? I'm like yeah, but it's not the same. So yeah, I am I, there's the potential for a slam.

The US Slam in one year. We'll see if it happens, man. Turkey hunting can be real weird at times. But yeah, so new species. I've only hunted Easterns in my life, so I'm doing all of 'em hopefully in one year.

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Is that what it is? It's four birds that

Paul Campbell: gets you your US Slam. Yeah, so your US Slam is the Eastern Osceola, Miriams, and Rio. Your Royal slam is those four plus the Goulds, which is in Arizona mostly Mexico. And then your world slam is you add the oscillated on. [00:38:00] So hold on.

Dan Matthews: The US Slam doesn't involve the Goulds, which is nope.

Located here in the

Paul Campbell: us. Correct. Yeah. Just so their native range is like the southwest of this country. But they just recently have been reestablished hable populations reestablished in, Arizona. Okay. Yep. Yeah. And it is and Arizona and the US states, I think Arizona, maybe New Mexico has some goulds there.

They're very protective about their turkeys. Yeah. Because it's taken a lot of time, effort, and energy and volunteers to get those huntable populations back to those props to that place. Mexico I did an interview with Jay Scott from Jay Scott Outdoors. Awesome guy. And he does a lot of Goulds hunts and Mexico.

He's got ranches all over the, the, that territory and was telling me about the os, like the ghouls down there. They don't get a lot of people that go hunt them. Just, one, it costs a lot of money to get down there. There's not a lot of public property. For people to hunt, it's just not important, an important game species in that part of the world.

And so he said that when he [00:39:00] gets new hunters to go down there, he has to tell like the guys from like Ohio and Missouri, when they're hunting these turkeys to not freak out and shoot 'em from 60 yards away because these birds are unpressured. He'd talk about getting to watch 'em be turkeys.

He said that people are amazed because these birds are so unpressured that they just act like turkeys the entire time. And you're just in, you're just in a spot and they're interacting. They're breathing, they're fighting, they're clocking, they're making all these sounds, and they don't even know that you're there.

And he said that you just sit there and you watch 'em and then, inevitably it'll an opportunity will present itself. And then you take the shot. But he said it's really funny because guys will get down there and they're ready to shoot the first Turkey that they see, and he's freaking and relax.

Just watch 'em do the, fanning and strutting and drumming and spitting. He said, you can sit there for hours and watch 'em. Geez. Just have a good time. Which is really neat. So yeah, that's the royal slam when you add on that the ghouls.

Dan Matthews: Dang man. So yeah, this could be a huge year for you.

And regardless if you get one in each of these places, the opportunity and the amount of hunts that you're gonna get to do in new locations, [00:40:00] that's, yeah, that's a win.

Paul Campbell: It is, man. I'm looking forward to it. There's a part of me that, that feels bad, for my family and my wife is an absolute trooper man.

She she takes care of the kids and, I tried to be a good father and husband, but I'm extra, a little extra effort right before and right after, because that Turkey season man, it is it's almost a one track mind for me. And man, you only get so many years that you can do that.

Yeah. With health and. And I'm fortunate enough to have the ability to be able to afford to do those things financially, which I respect that, and a lot of people don't get that chance. I worked really hard to, to save the money, to get, to be able to do that this year.

And it's just, 15, 20, 30 years from now, I may not be able to do that physically, yeah. And so I'm gonna try to capitalize on that while I can. Thank you, Ashley, for holding the fort down.

Dan Matthews: She, listen, dude, the wives man, they are a different breed to put up with this, yeah.

And my wife, when we got married, she understood that I was a hunter. She didn't understand the [00:41:00] extent of which I hunted or wanted to hunt. But yeah, I hear stories, man. I like I look at it and I go, I'm gone quite a bit hunting. I do a lot of big trips throughout the year. I do a lot of just local, Hey, I'm going out this afternoon.

Or I'm going out in the morning, I'll be gone all weekend, whatever. But then I think about people like big players in the industry who are creating a ton of content and hearing, they might be gone 150 days, the in a year to hunt. Yeah. I'm like, I, that's tough, man. Point my wife at those people, I'm like, yeah, at least I'm not that.

Yeah. At least I'm not that. Yeah. She's we don't, you don't want me to count how often you're gone. Oh gosh, yeah. No, I definitely don't.

Paul Campbell: No, it, it, that's, it's funny cuz when people are like, oh man, I wanna be in the industry. And then you talk to guys that are in the industry and they say that, they're like, dude, I, you miss football games, you miss soccer games, you miss your birthdays, kids growing up and all these things.

It's what's important to each person, and, I wanna enjoy my family and I also wanted to hunt turkeys. So it's, for me, it's, there was, I think almost [00:42:00] subconscious or consciously rather, there was the decision where it was just like, I'm gonna put all my eggs collectively into one basket, and that is the Turkey hunting basket and everything else.

I just do it very sporadically. Yeah, because I'm a schmuck man, I'm gonna be honest with you from, and it is just, and it used to be just like the last two weeks of April to the third Saturday or third Sunday in May, yeah. Cause that's our Ohio season, and now it's I'm going to Florida, March 15th or whatever.

So it's that time that I'm a schmuck has just expanded over the years oh,

Dan Matthews: yeah, man. Florida would be a very unique place to hunt, I feel like. And there's a lot of cool spots like here. It's very typical what you'd think. Mid Midwestern hunting, yeah. We're hunting bean fields, close to wood.

Lots. The birds come out. We'll see a lot of birds. We're gonna hear, I don't know how many gobbles you're used to hearing, but last year I heard more gobbles in one morning than I think most people probably hear in their entire life. I'm talking like hundreds. Oh, we gotta love that of gobbles. [00:43:00] And,

Paul Campbell: That's really good to hear because there's a lot of people that say, Missouri is dead for Turkey hunting.

I'm like, man, that's not, yeah, I

Dan Matthews: talked to guy from Nwtf like a year ago about this, and he's oh yeah, Missouri's population's declining like crazy. And I'm like, yeah, man. Yeah, there's, I gotta keep my spot secret then, because everyone's gonna be looking for a spot close to home. And we, and

Paul Campbell: I think that, keep your spot, you moving.

It's, and I think for a lot of people, a lot of private landowners, and so you look across the country, like just a, the state of Ohio, 96% of the land in the state is privately owned. So when we talk about like wildlife conservation work, habitat, That falls, that owners falls in the landowner. And same in Missouri for sure.

Yeah. The private landowners, they need to do the things that are necessary to benefit wildlife positively. Keep doing the things you can do. And there's a lot of resources out there for people to, help along, the good habitat.

Because here's the issue. You'll have that, and I say you, I use that a broad, you'll have that awesome spot. And landowners won't do anything for [00:44:00] decades. And then they're like the turkeys are gone. It's because they're two miles down the road because your buddy's been maintaining, putting a ton of time and effort into his habitat.

Yeah. And it's more desirable to be down there. So your turkeys are not gone. They're just down the road. Yeah. So it's yeah it's a wild, it's a wild animal, man. You gotta keep it happy,

Dan Matthews: Oh, for sure. I'm yeah, I'm curious to see how this year's gonna go. Like I said, the birds are starting to show back up again.

I've got, A new property that I actually own. So I'm excited about that. But I have Congratulations. Sign of Turkey. Oh, really? Haven't seen anything. And I get it, like it's in a unique spot to where it doesn't lend itself to being good Turkey habitat. There's a big road on the south, a big road on the east side of it.

Okay. Very little cover, almost all like pasture land that is completely cut down right now. Okay. So it doesn't make sense that there would be a lot of turkeys there, but luckily it's only a mile away from the Turkey mecca. I'm talking. Yeah,

Paul Campbell: there you go. And see, that's, you put a little [00:45:00] effort into it, man.

They're gonna, they're gonna love it. And here's another interesting thing too, is that, like during the winter, yeah. A lot of people know this during the winter, those turkeys are sucked. They're gonna flock together, man. Oh yeah. Because of food sources. They're limited. So they're very, tightly knit.

And then right before breeding season, you get that lacking, so the Toms are fighting, the Jakes are fighting, the hens are doing whatever the hell they do, and they just those, they start to spread. So you might not have turkeys during the winter, but you might have a couple turkeys gobbling, during the spring because yeah, those flocks have split up and those batcher groups are moving out.

So things can change overnight, man.

Dan Matthews: Yeah. And that's, I just noticed that about my hunting property in general. The spot that I mainly hunt is like the animals are there when you can hunt 'em and they're not there when you can't. And I'm totally fine with that. I'm like, you can go somewhere else and hang out all year long, as long as you're here for opening morning.

That's all

I

Paul Campbell: care about. We're good. Yeah, exactly. No, that's cool, man. I'm excited to get down there. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah,

Dan Matthews: man. April 17th I think is the date [00:46:00] this year. Okay. It's the first day of season. And I know, you're gonna be, you're gonna be busy. Are you doing the Oklahoma Hog Hunt?

Paul Campbell: I really want to, and I think it's what, April 1st? And so I looked at the Turkey season for Oklahoma, and it was a little, I think it was like maybe April 14th or something like that, that it started. So if there was a Turkey season going on in Oklahoma, either like that weekend or like right after, I would probably go down and into it.

I just, it's a really busy time man for a Turkey hunter and a guy whose professional work revolves around Turkey hunting. So I've gotta be, I gotta be laser focused and dialed in. So all of that said, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do the Oklahoma hunt, but we'll have Ohio representation there.

Andrew Muntz as he got a new rifle, man, he's ready to go. So yeah, new rifle, new scope. He's chomping at the bit to, to get out there and kill some hogs

Dan Matthews: oh heck yeah. That sounds awesome.

Paul Campbell: Where I'm hunting in Florida it's a ranch and they've got, The guy was like, yeah, man you can hunt.

You just gotta kill as many hogs as you see. I'm like, [00:47:00] okay. Yeah. Twist my arm. Yeah. Perfect. So I've only seen, I've only seen like three wild hogs in my life. We don't have, we, I asked the game warden here in Ohio there are some reports of wild hogs down in, in the zones that I hunt.

And he's man, you're gonna see Bigfoot before you see a wild hog around here. Okay. But I in Tennessee, man, they were freaking every. And for I, the first one I saw was down a little Waller, big old oak tree had fallen over and it created that big cradle on the ground. It filled up with water and that, that pig was down there like walling around and that stuff.

And I got, I don't know if they could smell, but the wind was in my face and I walked up to the edge of this thing and this muddy thing jumps out. And I was like, oh my God, what is that? I thought it was a bear. This thing was huge. And it just pops up and it stares me. It had the tusks. I'm like, oh my God, this is a pig.

And it was federal property, so you can't shoot 'em there because the U S D A hunters were out there, so they're real stringent about that. And I'm like, this thing's gonna kill me, like right here. And it took off up the hill and it was awesome, man. What an experience. I know they're super destructive, [00:48:00] but when you talk about a cool big animal, man they're pretty neat looking, but you don't want 'em from everything that I've heard.

Do you guys deal with 'em there in Missouri? They've started

Dan Matthews: moving in. Okay. I don't know of any places here in Missouri that have a really serious problem with them, but we're surrounded by states that do, Oklahoma? Yeah, Arkansas. Like they both have problems with them. Texas has major problems with them and it seems like the southern part of the US is really where they're most affected.

But I just talked to a guy from Alberta the other day and they've got feral hogs up there. That's insane. Now that is incredible. The problem is like they can survive in any habitat. And so it's once you have 'em, unless you completely eradicate them right away, there's nothing you can do. Yeah. And so I'm going down to Texas.

I'm hoping that I can make the hog hunt in Oklahoma for a couple days, but I'm going down for a dog training event with best retrievers where my dog currently is at, and then I'm [00:49:00] also gonna shoot over and do some helicopter hog hunting with some buddies in Texas. Oh man, that's gonna be cool. I'm like, I the potential of shooting 200 pigs in a day from the air or it's insane.

Yeah. Shooting a couple from the ground, I, but I do want to get, I wanna make it out there, I want to hang out with all the guys from the network and

Paul Campbell: Yeah. That'd be a lot of fun, man. I, there's a part of me that wants to go. I just, I, the time I just I can't do it. Yeah. If it was Turkey season, I'd get down there and you guys hog hunting.

I'll just go Turkey hunting somewhere. Is this more time

Dan Matthews: for you to come hunt in Missouri? That's it, man. That's, I hopeful. Hopefully we don't need a lot of time. You get two birds here. Okay. You can only shoot one the first week and then after the first week you can shoot two, but not on the same day.

Paul Campbell: Gotcha. Okay. That's a good, that's a good role. Give him, give 'em a little time, oh yeah. You get the opportunity and then get, let it rest and then go back and do it again. Yep.

Dan Matthews: So we'll see. I might try to shoot one with my bow this year.

Paul Campbell: That. Yeah. I've only I've bow hunted him just a very [00:50:00] few times.

I've never killed one with a bow. That's an a layer of I guess skill that I quite frankly don't have with the bow. Cause I just don't do it much. Oh, yeah. But I got a, I got an episode coming up on the How to Hunt Turkeys podcast with Clint Casper from the CC Hunt files and working class bow hunter that he is a big archery hunter for for turkeys.

And so we're gonna dive into that. So I'm looking forward to hearing about it because it's, and his saying is sh aim for the shiny spot on the wing, shiny spot on the wing. Most deadly spot to hit him. So that was his comment when we talked.

Dan Matthews: Interesting. Yeah.

I don't know how I would go about that. I've seen the guys with the guillotine heads that'll shoot for the head and basically lop it clean off. Yeah. In my mind I'm like, I like that because you're either going to kill them or they're going to get away. Unharmed. You miss. Yeah.

Paul Campbell: Whereas

Dan Matthews: That's a good point.

I'm so removed even from a Turkey's anatomy, like with a gun, I'm shooting 'em in the head. Yeah. With a bow though, they puff up so much, man. It's insane. I don't know if you do, the [00:51:00] volume that is taken up, like how much that increases from their normal body size, say fan, it's gotta be

Paul Campbell: double at least it at least.

It is crazy because if you see 'em just like standing up right in a field, they're just like these long cinder, slender, black, shiny objects. And then you see one of them puffed up and it looks like they're four feet tall and three feet around and they very well may be, and it's un and it's unfortunate that most of the time that we get to put our hands on 'em or get up close they're dead, yeah. I did get to hold live, Jake Wild Turkey last week. We can dive into that, but I just saw those pictures. Oh man. Wasn experience. Yeah. Wasn't experience. Wild Turkey research going on in the state of Ohio. There's a ton of research going on in this country because of the population decline.

So this is a nesting, brood habitat study funded by in part by the National Wild Turkey Federation in Ohio. So I was able to go down there and work with our representatives from the state agency and the Ohio State University to we trapped eight wild Turkey hens and one [00:52:00] Jake.

And so we were taking measurements on the hens aging, the hens, overall health. And then they put radio GPS collars on the hens. So they'll be operational for about three years. They're gonna test they're gonna track where they move, when they're incubating, when they're nesting, where they nest.

And then after they move off the biologists are gonna go in and check out the nest to see like nest survival, how many eggs were laid. And they can tell too, by the way, that that the shells are. If it was a successful hatching or if it was destroyed by nest predators. And they can actually tell the way the eggs are broken, how that was done.

It was really fascinating to learn. At the end of it, after they got all their information, we were abandoning these birds, which is really cool. They did the Jake las because they're, they just banned them and then get overall health. And then, they're testing hens as nesting.

Yeah. So I didn't wanna mess with any of the hens. I didn't wanna be the guy that dropped one of the, one of the subjects. So I waited and they let me hold the Jake, which was freaking awesome, man. For a guy that's passionate about tur gunning. It was a it was a moment I will never forget in my life, man.

And it was super cool. [00:53:00] So we just did an episode about that. I just talked, in depth about the experience, man, it was cool, man. I had a lot of fun doing it.

Dan Matthews: Man, it's cool when you can actually be like, boots on the ground, hands on with these agencies because a lot of people, through.

Banquets or just donations. They're taking part in this stuff and they're doing their part conservation wise. But the hands-on stuff, it's a different level man. Yeah. Like it really is when you can be part of it and you can have encounters with truly wild animals Up close. Yeah. Alive. It's a cool deal.

So I've thought about that now for a while. Man, I've got a really unique spot. And I'm curious to see would the nw, would the N W T F be interested in doing some studies out there? It's not public land, it's private. There is public close by, but we do have good numbers of birds and there's gotta be a reason for it.

I know the hunting pressure is very little on these turkeys where I'm at. There's not many people. [00:54:00] Yeah. I think there's one adjacent property that hunts them and that's it. Yeah. That'd be neat.

Paul Campbell: That'd be neat to see. You like to see. It's because you look at the science and the data and all of the research, Michael Chamberlain and some of the guys from the University of Georgia did a gobbling study on un hunted property.

It was a, I believe it was a military reservation or military base with a massive amount of turkeys, no hunting. And then right down the road it was public land. So you had arbitrary numbers here, you had 500 gobbles a day at both properties. And then hunting season starts. You still had 500 gobbles at the army base, but you had 60 at the public land.

Because we interrupt what they're doing, they know that we're there. They feel that pressure. So I think that's like the, they do a ton of research on that particular property just because it's unpressured and they're just turkeys being turkeys. Yeah. You get to see what happens. So yeah it's pretty neat.

There are a ton of research going on around this country to really kinda get a grasp of what we as humans need to do to help out the population. So yeah. Fortunate to be a part of it. Nice man. Yeah, that was cool. I'm gonna write some [00:55:00] articles for it. You're gonna see some stuff coming up.

The N W T F official Instagram. Put some of the pictures and videos up. I've got a ton. I'm gonna, I'm gonna write an article for, hopefully for the N W T Nwtf. I'm gonna write another article for myself and put that up just to, because I want people to see what their conservation dollars go to, yeah. And we can't have everyone out there trapping turkeys. It just doesn't work that way, yeah. I was just fortunate to go and experience that. And I wanna share that, that message the, this is what's happening, with your money and with your effort very cool.

Dan Matthews: Nice man. That sounds awesome. And I'm pumped to hunt with you this year, man. I can't wait. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Tur. It's just around the corner just over a month away here in Missouri.

Paul Campbell: You can, it's crazy, isn't it? It's going fast. It is. We've got flowers blooming, we've got the maple trees are starting to butt out.

Here in Ohio, the forsythia bushes bloomed out like last week, at the end of February. It is insane. The spring is

Dan Matthews: so on, so surely it's a fall spring there, right? Like you guys are probably gonna get another

Paul Campbell: freezer too, at least. Yeah. And that's what I'm worried about.

There's definitely some colder weather, but it seems pretty [00:56:00] stable. And you we'll get those, few little, few, little snows, the little wives tail is three, three snows after the ftia blooms. And that might be a wives tail, but it happens every year yeah. Yeah we'll see how it goes.

But, it's been pretty mild, so I feel good about going into spring that, that those turkeys are gonna be pretty, pretty healthy going into it. Yeah. And I learned something that Turkey breeding behavior, Dan is based off, and I learned this from Michael Chamberlain the Wild Turkey Doc on Instagram.

The Turkey breeding is strictly based on hours of daylight. It's not temperature. He said that people think that because it's, beautiful weather early that the turkeys are breeding. He's they might be gobbling just because they're just like you and I, they're happy that winter's over.

They're happy that they can sun their face out in a 70 degree day, and it's not, 13 degrees in windy. He's they're just as excited as good weather as you are. So he's but they are not breeding until those daylight hours start to elongate. Interesting lesson there.

Yep. Yeah, that

Dan Matthews: is interesting. And I've seen, I've tried to, I've tried to make [00:57:00] note of different things that I see. It seems like light rain is incredible for Turkey hunting where I'm at, like I just love it. Sunny days, I'm not about Turkey I just don't seem to have luck on 'em. But that light, rainy.

In the morning. It seems to be a hot time for it. And

Paul Campbell: they love the fields on the train. Yeah, man. No problem man. Thanks for having me.

Dan Matthews: Yeah, thanks for hopping on. And before you hop off, where can people find you? Where can they follow along and listen to the new podcast?

Paul Campbell: Yeah, man. So the new podcast, the How to Hunt Turkeys podcast is available on all platforms that you listen to on Instagram.

It's H two ht How to Haunt Turkeys H two HT podcast. You can find me on Go Wild. I've got a new website, Turkey season.com that went live a couple weeks ago. Really neat. A ton of content creators. It's all Turkey hunting, man. Just nice, some really neat stuff, some really neat videos.

That site and that that is gonna continue to evolve. There is a store there on the back end, A lot of different options for Turkey calls and some really neat products. So yeah check that out Turkey season.com. I had someone say, man, if you don't know where to get, if you [00:58:00] don't know that you can get Turkey hunting content@turkeyseason.com, go back to school.

So it's all

Dan Matthews: good. That's awesome, dude. Yeah, we're gonna thank you, man. We'll be doing a follow up podcast when you come down here and hunt and hopefully maybe kicking up some fresh Turkey meat. Man, I hope so,

Paul Campbell: buddy. We'll f we'll tailgate cooking, right? Oh, yeah.

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