00:00:00 Speaker 1: M Correlation does not equal causation. So just because you can ol hoot turkey call, does not mean that that causes you to be a good hunter. If you go out with a guy turkey hunting and he rears back and al hoots with his mouth or crow calls with his mouth, what does that tell you about that guy? He's he's authentic. He's a real hunter, right, He's a real deal. On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, we're gonna explore a communication technique is old is mankind using the voice to mimic animal sounds. I'm trying to understand why humans do this, how it's advantageous for hunting, and how natural voice calling has embedded itself into our culture. We're gonna talk to the first person I ever heard al hoot with their mouth, a PhD who's an expert on understanding correlations, an expert on the human voice, and we're gonna have a conversation with the world's most decorated natural voice turkey caller who's called turkeys on The David Letterman Show and The Tonight Show. Gonna be a fun ride. Oh, you are a very effective al hooter. From a competitive standpoint, get off stage. My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Mimicking animal sounds to communicate with the natural world is as old as the hunt, and hunting is as old as mankind. Part of human uniqueness as compared to other animals is our ability to use our brains to conjure extremely varied strategies to acquire food. A small part of the equation is our ability to mimic animal sound, and there are many reasons why we do this. Humans mimic owls, turkeys, crows, squirrels, quail, white tail deer, coyotes, and even hawks. These sounds are used in multiple applications. One would be to communicate with other humans in incognito ways so that other animals aren't alerted to human presence. You know, like a human making some type of bird call to let his partners know that he's made it to a certain location. Secondly, human hunters mimic the sounds made by the animals they're hunting and hopes of drawing them into stry king distance. These are typically sexually based calls or territorial calls. Elk and turkey would be great examples of this. Thirdly, there are relationships between animals of different species that evoke predictable responses when the call of the other is made. The best example of this would be shocked goblin of turkey. This is when a breeding crazed male turkey will gobble just about any loud sound in the woods, including owl's, woodpeckers, and crows, even though his breeding has nothing to do with those animals. Another example of this would be the calm feeding sounds of one species could indicate to other animals of a different species that everything in that section of the woods is okay. Basically, it would be like saying there are no predators over here because I'm calm and relaxed. A good example of this would be like a hen turkey making content feeding calls that would calm an approaching theary. I'll never forget the first time I heard someone hoot like a barred owl. You're about to meet my friend Josh Lunsford. Josh is a lanky cowboy type with a firm handshake and a strong I gate. But he's a corporate executive in the communication business and he's a veteran turkey hunter in Woodsman. It may sound funny, but the first time I heard Josh al hoot with his mouth, it impacted me. I didn't know people could do that, and I never forgot it. So Josh, me and you were we grew up together. But the first time we ever went hunting together was when I was in college and I remember telling one of our mutual friends. I was like, man, I'm going turkey hunting in the morning, and he said, well, I can't go, but Josh is going. And so I called you and we said, hey, well let's go together. And so we went to a place that both of us knew, some public land. We walked I presumably we rode together in a truck. This was twenty years ago. So we we get out. We walked back in there before daylight. It was a place with a lot of birds. At the time. I had only turkey hut with my dad my whole life, never hunt it with another turkey hunter. And I remember it got just about daylight, I mean just you know, the birds started chirping, and uh, you didn't say anything to me. You we were knelt down on the ground and you stood up and just oh, you know, you let out a big ol hoot. And I remember being so impressed. I was just like, holy moley, I'd never heard anybody out hoot with their mouth and you didn't think anything of you al hoot and a turkey gobbled way over on the ridge and we chased them around. Would never kill one that day. So I want to hear your ol hoot to see if I remember it like I remember it that day absolutely so um. And you know, and just in just one note, right, mutual friends, I had learned it from them. So you hunted with uh with our friends Scott Ny, that's right. Did they ever formally teach you or did they? They were just like you know, it's one of those things where you're hunting with people and you witness them doing something and you want to get better at it and you want to use it the way they did. You know, I grew up using it to find someone in the woods, not actually use it as a location call. And so that was how I learned to use it as a locator calling. How it could be so instrumental into making you more successful turkey hunting. Right, Um, yeah, I absolutely do it for you. Um, you can probably do it as good as I can these days. Um. But oh it sounds just like I remember it. That's good. If you go out with a guy turkey hunting and he rears back and our hoots with his mouth or crow calls with his mouth, what does that tell you about that guy? He's taking the time to test and being better at the sport, Right, He's not. He's not just just purchased his way into the sport by buying all the gadgets. Right, He's He's authentic, he's a he's a real Um, he's a real hunter. Right, He's a real deal, you know. And and what I'll tell you is, yeah, has it made me more successful in a lot of different ways? Clay And a simple fact that I don't have to carry as much stuff I don't. I don't own an al hoot, I don't own a crow call, I don't own a box call. I own a couple. I own a couple of die forragm calls and a slate call. Let me ask you this, do you ever al hoot? Not in the turkey situation. Would anything happen in this living room where Josh Lunsford without hood? Uh? Yeah, when the hogs win, that's it. That's it. He's talking about the Arkansas razorbacks. I'm sure you've heard of him. As intriguing as the social communication mechanisms of the natural world are maybe even more interested in something quite it's strange that I've taken note of in Southern culture, and maybe it's other places. I can't say for sure, but it's this. There's a lot of street cred and social status that comes with being a hunter that can make good natural voiced calls. Why people that can mimic the hoot of a barred owl are usually good woodsman. Let me take it a step further, they're usually could turkey hunters. To a hunter, this may seem like a no brainer, but if you think about it, it's kind of strange. You see, A barred owl is a nocturnal avian predator, usually not weighing more than five pounds. It makes its living off a small rodents. A wild turkey is a large bird waring at the thirty pounds that spends the majority of its life walking around eating insects, nuts, and green brows off the ground. The only things these animals have in common is they got a pair of wings and they roughly inhabit the same geographic is But I will suggest that if you were looking for a sure fire and quick way to find a good turkey hunter, you could start by asking to hear their owl hoot. M However, the water gets really muddy right here, and even more complex because this is a dynamic correlation that I'm suggesting, because it is possible to be a good turkey hunter and not be able to owl hoot. Wait a minute, I'm getting confused. You know what we need? We need somebody that knows about correlations to explain what this means. Dr Malachi Nichols is an economist and he's the director of evaluation and data quality for an education focused nonprofit. Maybe he can help us sort this out. Dr Nichols, I am trying to under d stand correlations because it's very clear to me that I make correlations all the time. I don't fully understand the mechanisms of them, but I find them to be like, really predictable. So help me understand the connection that I very clearly see between people that can our hoot very well with their mouth and their ability to be good woodsman. What what's the connection that I'm seeing there? You know, I would I would take it one step back and say, as a researcher, like, this is a social science question, right, It's just the study of human behavior. The statistical tool that we use is correlations, and and simply put a correlation, it's just quantifying the strength and the direction of a relationship between two things. So if a moves, how does be moved? So if they're weak correlations and strong correlations, how do I tell the difference? And is there a is there a terminology that would describe a correlation that that isn't a legit correlation? And when I think of one that is And I'm thinking about spurits correlations and spurious correlations. Are are correlations that appear statistically to be related, but if you look at the context, there's no relations. What's an example. What's a good example of a spurious correlation? So I'm looking I'm thinking about data in the eighties and nineties of an increased use of people wearing seatbelts was associated or related to a decrease in astronauts dying in space right, So statistically it was a true statement, but really there was no connection between the two, no connection at all. That's the power and also the hardship of statistics and data. So in my situation where I'm seeing a correlation between a person's ability to out hoot or mimic natural sounds and then they're jumping to their general overall ability to be an effective hunter, I see the strong correlation. Okay, but inside the same situation, you don't have to be an ol hooter to be a good hunter. What what does that mean? Like if if it's there's for sure correlation, but it doesn't always have to be. And what you're describing is that it's a something that we say in our world is that correlation does not equal causation. So just because you can ol hoot a turkey call does not mean that that causes you to be a good hunter. It doesn't. It's not caused. It's just it happens to have a relationship. And so therefore you have outliers. Therefore you have people who are good hunters that can't turkey call or can't ol hoot, And it just says this is a correlation, there's a relationship, but there's other factors that cause you to be a good hunter. Do we use correlations constantly and don't even realize it? Oh yeah, it's association. It's it's again going back to the aspect. This is a social science question, right, the study of human behavior, and so we're always as human beings trying to make connections. It's really like a short cut, like if I hear you ol hoot, you don't have to tell me your story. I know a lot of them, So it's like a it's like a social shortcut if there were I want you to guess for me. So if I had ten people lined up in a line and I went through the line in a blind test and had them ol hoot, and then I made judgments on their experience and hunting, do you have any predictions on how often I would be right? Probably of the time, I think, Dr Milka Nichols. Okay, last thing here, do you do you know the cadence of a bard owl? Who? I have no idea? Okay, I'm gonna do it for you, and then I want to hear you. I want to hear your bart out here. Okay, So this is the hoot of a bard owl. Oh there, it's a it's a who cooks for you, who books for you. All. You may not be in experienced hunt, but you're head at that direction. Let me get there therection. Now that we've got all that sorted out, I want to introduce you to some of the voices in my world that all fit the correlation that I've so strongly identified. I don't ever remember not knowing Steve Phillips. He's a good friend of my dad's and families, and he's always had an incredible knack for using his voice to mimic animal sounds. The guy is simply gifted, and wouldn't you know it, he's a heck of a woodsman too. When did you start mouth calling just using your natural voice? I started mouth calling using my natural voice probably about seventy six or seventy seven. I didn't start turkey hunting until the late eighties. But Kathy and I lived out across the street from a guy that was like old McDonald's farm. I mean, he had every kind of animal, and he even had wild turkey, had one gobler, and he had like four hens. And so I'd sit out on the lawn chair out on the front yard, and I'd listened to them hens, and I would listen to him and he had gobble, and listen to him. So I started practicing mimicking those hens and the calls that they would make to make him. God, yeah, I never put a diaphragm any kind of slate call. Didn't know what they were, didn't turkey hunt. So I just started messing around, and so I got to where I could walk out on the front yard any morning and call and he had gobble. Then in about the late eighties, I got asked by a guy who asked me if I want to go turkey hunt? And I said, well, you know, I don't know how he's turkey hunting. What do you do? And he's, well, you need to get a diaphragm call. And I said, well, I'll go. I can call him with my mouth, and he is cured me I probably couldn't. So he took before daylight and he turned me out and he said that he knew there was some turkeys in there, and he actually told me what I needed to do. You know, he said, pulling on top the mountain, listened to you here one, and try to get as close to it as you can. And and then make your call. I said, okay. So we went got on the mountain, heard the turkey gobble. I got in what I thought was rather close, made my mouth call. He answered me. I just sit there a little bit, and before I knew it, he gobbled right below me. I called him again, and here he came in. I shot him and killed him. Went back to the truck within probably an hour and a half, and I thought, you know, there's nothing to this turkey hun. Little did I know there was a lot to turkey hunt. Andy Brown, who's a good friend of yours. He taught me everything I know about turryn He taught me, you know what to do, when to do, and so I took it to the next level. I practiced all the time, learning how to call. Let's hear you calls. Yeah, I usually use two different locator calls. Early morning is the alcohol. We'll we'll do an alcohol when the first get out, right right before daylight, you know, while it's still dark. I'll usually get out and all and then you can also sometimes darn if you get two or three hours. I know you've heard two or three hours come in, and that really gets a turkey really fired. Up you can, and that will get them really to get them laughing. And then later on, you know, in the morning or something near in the day, I use a crow call, and so I learned how to make a crow call with just my mouth, not a crow calls. That sounds good, man, I bet you can call a crow in right now, we'll probably okay, now, what I know you for? Well, I know you're for your crow calling. I'll call them hit him again. It's crows lit in the tree about fifty shotgun range from us. If you've got a turkey choke on, I wish you'd call all right, let me hear your your turkey call. Okay, as you will know you know, your your regular yelp call. That's what I used the most. But when the turkey gets in close, you know what do you usually here? When turkeys get in if hands are in they're not calling real loud. They're doing more of a purring and just talking. And I will hit him with and then I'll slow down a little bit when they get in closer. And all this that sounds really good, sounds really good. Most people can't call that good with a diaphragm. Okay, here's here's my question for you. Do you see a correlation between people that can natural voice call and people that are really good woodsman? Yes, I do. Let me tell you this. I think there's two kinds of turkey hunters. There's a caller and then there's a turkey killer. And I consider myself a turkey killer. I'm not the best caller in the woods. You've got guys that go to these contests, and I mean they're really good. I think personally that the call is about maybe, but I think the set up in location and how you set up on a turkey determines whether you're gonna kill that turkey or not. To me, I've always said that somebody that can call with her voice has a lot of street cred in my book, so you got some street cred, man, show me, show me your squirrel bark that's good trying to call us crows? And I heard you call while ago there was one that's awesome. Do you ever use a OL hoot or anything for something other than a functional turkey locator? Hunters as group of hunters, as you know, uh, you know, we we do use an OL who I can actually pick out, like Andy and Wayne and Scott. You know your different tones. I can tell when they're who. They can tell when I who. You know they learn that sound. So if we're ready to get down out of the woods, are ready to leave, or if we kill something willow, who do you ever do it when you're not hunting? You like like, uh, something good happens at that? Like yeah, yeah, we we get out and you will allow who do at the house? When something what? What does it mean when Steve phillips ol hoots not in the woods, like what what's given an example of something that's happened? Why would you alhoot? Usually usually if something good, you know, has happened, I might be out in the backyard and and uh, one of the kids have done something. I'll sometimes I'll throw one out is bad, you know, it's it's a celebratory, celebratory. There you go, there you go, exactly. It was zero surprise to me when I learned that Moe Shepherd had a good owl and crow call. The guy is a turkey hunter's turkey hunter. He's been successful year after year on some tough public ground, and a spring hasn't passed in the last forty five years. When he hadn't brought home a spring gobbler. He's got a unique technique for prepping his voice to make the hoot of a barred owl. Meet most shepherd. So you I know you al Who because I've heard you do it before. But you also cro called with your voice. Yes, I do. I do. I do it a lot with my voice because it's so handy and easy and you don't have to move or anything. You know, I can be sitting there totally still, and if a turkey hadn't goblded in a while, but I'm working or something other, I can just call with my voice. And you know, I did anybody teach you or just I just learned to do it on my own. Like I said, when I was a kid, I heard all those sounds out in the woods and stuff, but I didn't really try. I tried, but didn't make much success that. I didn't really learn to al who until I was probably turkey hunting, did you somebody? Ah? Yes, I had a brother in law that that al Who did. He's one that got me into turkey hunting and he was good at al hooting. Okay, what good voice callers are usually pretty good woodsman and pretty good hunters. Okay, walk me through your al hooting process, because I know you you kind of have something you do. Like I said, I tried it for years when I was younger, and then one day I I'd seen somebody kind of doing this I was hunting with and the best time, Remember he said, you know, he said, you gotta get your throat right to make the noise come out right. He said, if you don't it, this blurts out. So I kind of swallow some air, if that makes any sense. I swallow air for three or four gulps before I start mouth hoot, and it gets the right tone in there. And like I said, I'll you'll probably hear this. You should be here a little bit of this of me swallowing the air, like I said, I talked about very nice. Let me hear your crocs. Tell me. I don't know what it's called, but you know, curls make a lot of different sounds and lots of different serious series. And you know, sometimes Turkey's gobble a long series. Sometimes they gobblet short calls, you knowiced short blasts and stuff. So you know, it's just whatever mode I'm in or what mood I mean, what I've blast out when I did, but I can do several different cadences of it. So Old Ryan Grab is an all around woodsman, from bears to turkeys to catching spring croppy. He's an expert. I've actually never turkey hunted with Ryan, but I knew he had a good out hoot before I ever heard it. Our ability to make hacurate predictions based on correlations is stunning, and its streamlines our ability to make judgments. I want you to meet Old Ryan flint face Grab. He rarely smiles for pictures, so I called flint face. So where where did you learn to use your natural voice to call? With? Just growing up and probably hearing some older guys in high school that I knew that were hunters, you know, and they had hunted a few more years than I actually had, and heard them doing that al hoots, you know, turkey open crow call, and you know stuff I started. You just kind of started doing it on your own. There was times I would, you know, when I was younger, I'd sat outside and just at night by myself from the driveway while the family was inside, you know, and I just tried to practice. Let me let me hear your on a good spring morning to get a turkey to god, I'm not very good at Come on, I'm not. I'm really not better at crow than I am. Well, I want to hear your out and your crow. Oh oh crow crow? That sounds good man. So do you do you ever use a barred alcohol for anything other than hunting? Like like, for instance, would there ever be a reason that you would bard alcohol in your house? Maybe to aggregate the life sometimes? Or do you ever alhoot when you're excited about something as a celebratory of time? What? Okay? What would what would have to happen in Ryan Grab's life for him to al hoot? Not at a turkey gobble? Give me an example, Oh, catch a three pound crappy. Benjamin Moore is a New York based voice and speech teacher where he coaches Broadway, film and TV actors, as well as diplomat scientists and economists at some high salutant organizations like the United Nations. Benjamin works for the Link Ladder Center for Voice and Language and the City University of New York. I've got a feeling that he's got some insight into why humans are so good at mimicking animal sounds. Benjamin I am trying to understand why humans are so dynamic in our ability to mimic. The only animal that I can think of off hand that does this as a mocking bird. But are there other examples in the animal kingdom of animals that can mimic other sounds? There are a lot, But as far as mimicking human speech goes, the only other animals that really do that consistently. There have been some like strain age things about seals, and even an elephant one time that learned how to say a few words. But but in the animal kingdom, it's birds, it's parrots, parakeets. Probably the the king of of imitating our speech are parakeets. They can learn as many as four hundred words. Let me ask you this, Benjamin, if we're so unique in our ability to mimic other animals, what is it from an anatomy and physiology perspective that allows a human to make so much variation in our voice, um our, larynx, and respiratory system is much more sophisticated than any of the other species going. We have a big range. Most of us in our daily conversation have a couple of octaves of range with a little bit of training, every one of us can have something more than than four octaves, so we have this big range from low in the voice to high end the voice. And then on top of that, up above vocal cords, that tube that comes up from the vocal folds called the pharynx. It goes up, goes up behind the mouth, goes up through the nose. Uh, there's that obviously comes out through the mouth where there's the tongue, that jaw on the lips. That whole tube has muscles there that not only are good for swallowing food, but also adjust the shape of the vibrations as they come up and out. All of that has this incredible flexibility. We learn it just like the parrots do and the mockingbirds do. We learn most of our sounds through imitation and all the languages of the world. There's something more than two thousand sounds that human beings are able to produce, and every one of us that is normally functioning when we're born can hear and distinguish all those different sounds. Over a period of time, we begin to lose it because it's not useful, and the brain begins to streamline itself for what is a useful commune occation and what's not? I have one final question for it. I know all these people that are incredible natural voice callers, why are they so good at this? And other people are not. With the understanding that all of us are born a little bit different. Some vocal cords are longer than the others, and the shape of the mouth and stuff is always going to be different, the real difference is their interests, their passion in the subject um. Almost to everybody can develop a huge range in different ways of speaking. We're just really flexible that way as a species. And we do know that human beings who want to be an expert in something, whether it's a professional athlete or an artist or a mechanic, what their passion is, and they say it takes about ten hours to become an expert at something. What their passion is really drives him in a couple of different ways. One is that that emotional framework allows us to marry our intellect with our physical skill sets, so that the skill sets just aren't something that the body is doing. There's a real understanding that comes. But also with that passion comes an ability to perceive and really focus in on the details of a situation. Like for these natural callers, they are hearing that turkey in a way that even when I would go out and try to hunt, I was like, I never I know for sure I'm not hearing a turkey the way Preston is, for instance, and how attuned he is with his ears is like a symphony conductor. So, Benjamin, are you familiar with the hoot of a bard owl? I am. Okay, I'm gonna hoot like a bard owl. Okay, I want you to tell me what I could do better if you can just in one who here, here's my ol hood. I'm gonna step back just a little bit, all right, give it a go. Oh okay, that's my wow. That's great. Once you go up into that high part, the tongue is gonna want to come up, but you're gonna want to try to leave that down so that it's more resonant coming up through through the front part of your face. So try to keep my tongue down, so you're going to keep the back that's closer. Yeah, I pushed my tongue down. I'm I have to say, I'm impressed going. I wasn't expecting that. That is great. Preston Pittman isn't normal. He's one of the best natural voice callers on the continent and certainly the most decorated. After meeting him, it's clear he must have been raised in a clutch of wild turkeys. Anthropomorphism is when we assign animals human like traits. Zoo morphism is when we assign a human animal like traits. Preston has been zoo morphies, or maybe he's just a darned good Mississippi turkey hunter and woodsman. Preston became the Mississippi State turkey calling champion when he was sixteen years old. Today he's sixties seven years old. He won that first calling contest with his natural voice. Since that time, he's won the World Turkey Calling Contest, the World Natural Voice Turkey Calling Contest, the World Gobbling Turkey Calling Contest, and he was the World Champion Natural Voice al Hooter. He is the only person to hold five different world titles. He was on The David Letterman Show three times and The Tonight Show with Jay Lenno colling turkeys. But of more note than all these accolades, Preston is probably as good a turkey hunter as has ever drawn a breath of air. Here's the clip of Preston in his prime. I ain't gonna tell that called to you. It's not for sale or no man money. That's my natural voice. I'm Preston Pittman. I've been blessed that I've held the world championship several times, the World Natural Voice Calling Championship. But let's tell you what. There is nothing in this world that sounds is good? Is natural voice calling? Does suppressing tell me about when you first started using your natural voice for calling? Well, they pick on me a little bit. Say uh that when I was hatched on November of nineteen fifty three, that when I popped out of my mama and the baby doctor grabbed me by my hind leg and spanked me on the rear end instead of crying, is what come out of my mouth. But in all seriousness, me and from a family that always hunted and always fish, I guess I couldn't help but hunt. And my dad was not a turkey hunter. He was a big dog person. Back whenever we hit quail here in the South um and run deer with dogs, and we did things together. And they used to have an old timy day and a little town by the name of Carthridge, Mississippi. And at that Fourth of July, which when it was celebration of our great country, they had a turkey calling contest, a duck colin kind tests and acts throwing contests, and they had the Mississippi State UH duck collin the Mississippi State UH Championship in turkey collin. Back when I was about twelve, I met a general m the name of Jack Dudley, who at that point in time was the Mississippi State champion wild turkey caller, and um, he was good enough just on that day to start working with me, kind of tell me what to do and how to stretch my local cords, and I'll be dead gun. At the end of the day, I was. I was making a somewhat of a turkey sound, and uh. Kind of the rest of the story is I had won the fishing rodeo for kids, and I was a year two old, so I had already been awarded the plaque, and uh, I had to get the black back and that was okay, I understood. Well, I just kind of made myself as I I said, one day and I'm gonna come back and with me a trophy. He up here between something, I'm gonna be able to do it. But Mr Dudley would go to some of the sportsman's clubs and do a little short seminars. He the forty five rpm record that I memorized, you know, word for work, and it was on Turkey Column. It was on Turkey column. Really are there any of those left today? And you know, I know what there was one I met in your house. Uh huh and for salf uh. And at one point in time, I could literally quoted my Hello, my name is Jack Dudley, and I'm gonna teach you how to turkey call. The first call that I'm gonna teach you is gonna be a maiden coll. And this is the way you do a maiden coll. You know, three us and two cluck. But kind of making a long story short, At sixteen years old, I went back to that same contest and I won. And we didn't have youth editions back then, you know, it was a calling contest and very few of those. And I want the Misssippi State championship perkey collar. And from there it just went on and I own and I own, and I on and on Preston, act like I've never turkey hunted, and give me a good look into the vocalizations of the wild turkey. And again this is all just with your natural voice. Okay, well it's sixties seven years old. I have stretched my my layers next my vocal cords so much till it's like a rubber band that you laid up on the dashboard as the truck. I can barely up a little bit, cluck a little bit, per a little bit, and sometimes gobble. So the quality is not there too many people, especially, I'm just gonna say it, since podcast and Facebook and YouTube and all that junk, they won't learn how to kick you run, cackles, lying down on excited hand, the apps, cutting, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, yadda. No. No, As a beginner, you need to learn one sound and one sound only until you can do it exactly the way that you want to do it every time. And that is the basic hen yep. I will use a human analogy with to you. I can take one word and have three very total different meanings. I can go hey, or I can go hi. All right, I can go he and you can do that all basically with a yelp. So it's kind of like building a house. Build that foundation solid, then start adding a call. Then go back and do your foundation. It's calm, it's cool, is collective, is peaceful, it's tranquility. Come on in, big boy, I want to date you. Okay, there can be that's more of I'm reaching out. I won't company. Where are you an assembly? Call's bring our fault either way. Are speeding it up, speeding the rhythm up? Are acting more excited day in day out, especially on southern birds. Then I don't want unless I know the particular bird or I'm just trying to locate one. I will always revert back to softer, calmer calling. Let me ask you a question. So you you are a natural voice caller, and you're also you also do incredible diaphragm calls and all kinds of the calls. But I'm interested in your natural voice stuff, and I understanding how much of that was practice, how much of it was natural? Okay? Even Mr Dudley looked at me as his son. He says, you're natural. He said, everybody can't do this crap. I'm in hell in there, I'm sucking in, which gives you more rasp to our now, and it's not like what it used to be. But it's almost like me saying the word. I'll get your tone working. Describe what's happening in your mouth when you make that gobble. I'm sucking air in and I'm mimicking the word. Then I get my tongue to flopping up and down, and I will use my cheeks, watch my cheeks. I'm bringing it in and I'm bringing my my my my mouth in to get the tail off of the gobble. But anybody and everybody can at least what I call squeak something out like they can get a because that's all I'm doing now. I mean I've lost it, but yeah, I mean you can hear the word out in there. I'll take it out. But I'm over exaggerate. Yeah, you can get a little something. And let me tell you this. Take a group of a hundred turkey hunters anywhere in the United stuf eates. I'll bet you there aren't over two to five people that can do anything with their natural voice. It's something he has not heard. He is not used to it. A natural voice collar. As far as harvesting a bird, a natural voice collar and or either a trumpet our wingbone user will kill some of those that you walk up to the limb and you hang his spurs upon her. Any swings back and forth. And you think natural voice calling gives you an advantage in hunting with fan buttser doubts. I mean, I'm I'm basically I use a little bit of everything now, but my my go to collars a diaphragm, that's first, okay, but there's a lot of times I'm blowing a diaphragm, and just to mix it in, I'm liable to throw my voice to make it sound like another hen coming in and add that little more realism into it. You you told me about adding realism to your calling, said, and how you would used to bark like a squirrel or you would crow like so you're calling the turkey, so there's a gobbler here and you're kendy up and but then you might bark like a squirrel. Let me tell you what I'm doing it spending and I'm I basically kind of kenning in on tough turkeys. Now, okay, hard bird birds that's call shy birds has been missed with birds are in that four and older your range bracket. But I heard everything. Okay. Then they had to the kitchen sink drawn at him. Well I'm fitching. Now throw the kitchen sink, the como, the basktub, hecked front door at him. I tried to paint a picture and buy that for y'all turkey hunters out there. What happens whenever a crow gets on birds, he starts raising king right and looking at the turkey, right at the turkey. How many times have you been sitting in the woods and have like a little thicket or a blowdown or is in between you and your bird? The bird shuts up. Five minutes is gone by, Nothing has happened. Ten minutes is gone by, nothing has happened. You hadn't heard anything, But you didn't notice that little thrush that come flying out of that thicket? What made it come flying out? And then twelve fourteen minutes later, fifteen minutes later, all of a sudden, Oh my god, where'd he come from? There? He is in full struck. He's been there the whole time. So as I tell people, I see with my ears, because I see more with my ears than I do with my eyes. It's paying attention to the squirrel barking, we'll do something moving through the woods, and if you will pay attention as to what's going on in mother nature, you will automatically step up. Now if you can add some of those sounds, like when we used to have Bob White quail, that was one of my favorite things to do, was to sit there and see if I can still do it. I would mix that in with my calling quiller trying to get back together, or throw a Bob White at it. You know, the Bob White whistle mixing in with your turk, mixing in with your turkey callings. That means there's other wildlife there at ease. So he's gonna think, well, there's quail over there that I could learn a redbird. I want to learn a redbird so bad it was pathetic. I want to go a little bit deeper with you to the kind of the thing behind the thing in In Southern culture, it means something to be able to call with your natural voice. What would if if a guy walked into this camp right now and he could al call like a barred owl, he could gobble like a turkey with his mouth, what would what would that say to you about his woodsmanship, his hunting prowess. I can answer that very simply, very shortly. I don't want you on my land because that tells me that is a person who is dedicated, especially if they could do a full range of calls. That tells me that that individual is either one a kid or that is a seasoned outdoorsman. Like I said, stay all my land. I don't want somebody like that in there. So the bard owl in Mississippi culture, Yes, where would Preston Pittman al hoot? Not in a turkey hunting situation? Give me an example of why you would al hoot in your life. Oh, I'm telling you that real quick. Instead of hooping, hollering, whatever it may be. I think probably every contest that I ever won, I did something like this right here, and then I gotta lie. Uh you let me get in a football game, which I don't go to a whole bunch of because I'm in the wood hunting. Then uh, I can do that single note, you know, like that who I instead hollering and screaming and it's it's it's it's my happy holler. And what it breaks down to, you know, I'm happy or I'm rooting for somebody. Why do you think we do that? Because it's a Southern thing. I mean, you gotta eat grits, you know what I mean. I don't need no oatmeal or cream a wheat junk. It's a grit thing, is what it is. It's just it's a Southern thing. Press that I'm I think for a Southern Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna set you up for something. To judge me. Okay, my my assessment of myself. I think I am a average Southern al hooter. Can you want me to judge you being in a contest or do you want me to judge you as a hunter? Judge me as a hunter and then give me the critique of of a of a contest. But I want I'm gonna al hoot and I want you to give me just your honest assessment, and I want you to coach me because let me tell you something, I take a lot of pride in my al hooting and I use it all the time. I mean I I use it. I want the truth. Man. Oh that's my sequence. You are a very effective al hooter, probably a little better than average from a competitive standpoint. Get off stage, Okay, you ain't gonna hold a candle. Okay, that's being reliance with you and also too so I had to coach you right now from a hunting purely perspective. Yes, there are so many times when you go into all the different notes that an owl makes, he's doing gobbled once or twice, and you ain't hurt him. There he goes You needed short like or even just the who I Preston, You've made a lifestyle a career, and you've dedicated yourself and your personal passion towards not just turkey hunting, but turkey calling. What does turkey hunting mean to Presston Pittman? It's my life. I don't know any other real way to to to to put it, but it is. Uh, It's a gift that God Almighty gave me, who blessed a barely high skeool educated person that dreamed of being a game board and so I could be out and outdoors all the time, which, oh Lord God is it's giving me a dream come true. It's basically what it has. And at sixty seven I have not lost that passion. Have you? Have you ever thought about why? I mean, like you think about a human and what we're here on earth to do? Why we're here? Why is turning so special to you? Remember this. I enjoy all of the outdoors, but there's something about that time of year. It's about sitting there and seeing the beautiful dog woods come into full balloon. It's about the first buttercups, you know, start to pop up. It's about seeing life come back to the dead woods again. It's about being mesmerized by a spider. Is something about that time of year. It's like everything's gonna be okay, the winner's over with, it's not cold, and there's life in everything again. You know what? I what I hear when I hear you talk like this and describe nature in these ways because I hear somebody that's really paying attention, and it's perceptive and aware and cognizance of detail. And I think that as hunters, we're we're in a situation where we are trying to fool a part of nature, and so we're having to embed ourselves inside of a system that we're usually not in. You're paying attention to all this stuff, and I think that's a quality that is lost inside of much of modern society because technology different things, moder the modern world has taken away our need for that type of awareness. And so just as I hear you describe that, I take it as a personal challenge to be more aware and be more in tune with what's going on around because that just provides this rich palate for what I see inside of you as a man that's passionate, loves what he's doing, appreciative with what he's doing, and that doesn't come by accident. That's real, intentional. No humans. Ability to mimic the wide array of animal sounds is a special part of human uniqueness, and it's embedded itself into our culture. In the South especially, there is cultural value placed on realism and even higher social status assigned to the people who are proficient at it. A good our hoot is a reflection of confidence, practice, and natural talent, and carries with it a strong correlation of being a proficient woodsman. It's really unique when you think about it, but we have incorporated, or maybe even hijacked, the language of the barred owl to communicate with other humans a very high level of meaning. That nine notes sequence would take a whole lot of human words to describe what it means. I wonder where else in our lives we do this. Humans are constantly looking for shortcuts and communication to tell others who we are. Much of the time, these messages are calling card for deeper human relationships. Even an owl hoop, these social science questions are highly interesting to me, and they make me more aware of myself and why I do what I do. When I hear somebody ol hoot, I feel a deep connection to them, and I suspect, but that's an ancient social mechanism and I like it. Oh oh oh, I love it.

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