00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the me Eat podcast coming in you shirtless, severely bitten and in my case, underwear listening don't Eat podcast. You can't predict anything, damn everyone. First thing I want to talk about, um, how annoying it is? Like I don't understand people who don't wanna who guys would like to hunt, who act like they don't want to hunt turkeys? You heard so much? You have that any razor? Oh? Yeah, I just don't get it. I just don't get it. I hear that from so many people, But that doesn't county my house. Do you have answer? Spring thunder Dude, it's just it's minneo Coutton. Just locate them. What it's like? I understand, Like, what's not like big old damn bird coming through the woods? Is head changing colors? Right? I mean you know why because I think when most people think hunting turkey, they're not thinking hunting wild turkey. They're thinking, like, I'm hunting butter ball and cartoon turkey, and who whatever the turkey is that's in their head or the turkey that like is in there. They go to their mother in law's house, you know, in some suburban New Jersey and there's a turkey in the yard, and they think that's what turkeys are. Like, it's hard to give the turkey respect until you've been schooled by the turkey a few times. Multiple dog is sick of hearing about that from people. Man, it's like the I mean, it's the most one of the most hunted critters on the planet. Not on the planet's one of the most hunted critters in the country. If you look at man hours, the most shot animal in the country is morning doves. Numbers man hours, I because I think man hours is dear pure numbers as doves. Man hours is dear. I like turkeys up there, though the squirrels gotta rank high to you. The other thing I think about doves, did you go out and you know, like we went dove hunting this year. A couple of hours into you've got sixty doves laying there with a bunch of guys, you know, so, he ha, it's the most harvested critter we're here with. Uh, how do you like to describe yourself? Jason call maker? Call maker Jason Phelps. Phelps Quality Game calls this guy. What's interesting about this guy's he actually is out in his grige he makes the calls, I mean from scratch out in his garage, right, yeah, literally, I mean we besides the laminate coming to me pre pressed, you know, basically, I get a big sheet of plywood and that's what I start with on the wood calls. And you know, the the diaphragm started as a piece of UH scrap latex, a piece of tape and an aluminum frame, you know, And and every thing's hand built. So far, I've been able to keep up with the man. But everything's hand built, I mean yeah, and you're a real painting. He asked about getting American made stuff pretty much, I mean very very The green bands on some of these calls are made in like Indonesia, but that's about his You know, I've really tried, you know, the whole bleed, red, white and blue thing, pretty proud American. I've I've really tried to source all my plastic, you know, in in the US and and work with companies that, um you were able to source everything in the US. So why did you ever get interested in UH and making game calls? Okay, here's I'll keep the story short. But we were there was a small local UH sporting goods show Um, they're in my hometown a real small explain where that is Minlow, Menlo, Washington. I think it was the Pacific County Outdoor Show. Yeah, we're recording right now in Seattle, Washington, so in my brand's peakty New Garage and Jayson he's too. You're from two hours south Sea. Yeah, down Peel, Washington is actually where I live, but just outside of sin trash of this area. And you come from a long line of loggers. Yeah, yeah, everybody in my family it is there. It's still it's it's still going good down there. And really I was joking because I thought I was like, it's still I mean they you know, they worked for where I was, which was one of the last they're doing pulp and stuff though, right yeah, export where I was, there was a lot of export, but you know, get too deep into it. You know, they're on you know, thirty five to forty year cycles, so a lot of it, you know, isn't. They aren't getting the export and stuff anymore. But yeah, there's you know a lot of them still make make a living out there that you know, my hometown is pretty much loaded with loggers, you know that work out of the Warehouser, peel camp, got you, got you, but then you like peeled off. Yeah. Yeah. My old man he's like, I don't know if it's because he was afraid I wasn't gonna cut it and so I was gonna hurt his pride or what. But he's like, yeah, you need to go off and go to school. And so I ended up pretty good. It's pretty good at maths. So you know, naturally went the engineering round, got a masters and masters and game calls. Yeah. Yeah, and then you always had a passion growing up ever since my first elk calling. It was you know, the the switch was flipped, and uh, I've been hooked ever since. So yeah, getting into it. You obviously started out like liking make a game making animal noises. Yeah, you know. It started off with the Primost thunder bugle or the terminator bugle called my first bowl and I'm like, man, you know, how can I incorporate this in, you know, to my livelihood or to my passion and how the um did? It started at seven years ago, so I was twenty five, just just had my first first kid, and you know what, shortly after that, I started up UM the game calls, no no, how old are you when you got it? So? I mean, like how old when you blew your first game call? Um I bought my first out call nine, so I would have been sixteen. It was a It was a night before our archery opener here in western Washington, and we were out just scouting for musloder and rifle, and we actually pulled up to a landing and the elk scattered. You know, seen us pull up. That's weird, pulled to a landing like in a boat. Uh No, a landing where they logged from. So you said, yeah, So he pulled up on the landing and the elk scatter, and um, I didn't know what I was doing, get out and rip a bagle and all of a sudden you hear bagle down the timber where it ran from. And you know, before probably ten minutes, we had a bowl thirty thirty yards in front of us, just going nuts, you know, piston all over himself and uh man, this is easy. Bow season starts tomorrow. No, none of us have boat takes. We're all rifle or mosloader hunters. And um I I didn't hunt archery that year. And then so in my junior in high school. I I got a bow out of the Cabella's catalog. I remember, like a mail order bow. You know, don't go to your local pro shop get fitted, none of that, just left handed right. Yeah, but you know, have no clue on draw length or any of that stuff because at that time, nobody around us a bow hunted. Um, So mail order a bow right out of Cabella's. Just that long ago, late nineties. There's nobody hunt, no, not in our area. It's it's taken a huge exponential you know, it's grown exponentially, um since probably the two thousand's. But uh, at that time, it was pretty much you had any elk you wanted to yourself. Really, yeah, you could go out nobody. There were very few. I mean a couple of local guys. I knew that bow hunt had some old timers and you know, growing up doing it their whole lives, but there was nobody compared to what there is now out there. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it was you know, everybody was a muzzloader rifle hunter out there. Um went out the next day, opening day of archery elk and it still may be my biggest tree Roosevelt I've ever called in a big six by seven forty yards. I'm like, all right, that's within twelve hours. Yeah, within twelve hours, I've called in, you know, two of the biggest Roosevelt I've ever seen during rifle or moseloader season. And no, I still wasn't bow hunt. Yeah, I was still just sneaking off. Oh it was both season the night so you called the bull, and both season without a bow close a ton of shot opportunities. Yeah, but as you go get a dude with the bowl, we try run ads. But the thing you could, you could, you couldn't barely find anybody. Back then, it was it would have been a tough chore to find somebody with the bow. Tag Um, So you're kidding me, it was, And then of course it took off. But then next year I bought a bow, and I think I missed six bowls. I thought it was gonna be easy, he said. I go out there and I didn't have the whole nerves under control. Yeah, that's that's a cost. Yeah, So six bowls, I think I flung arrows over and then finally the seventh one I had somehow settle all the nerves and made it count. We're talking about this dr Night is like, uh, buddy, mine, let's talk about how he's got so many friends that can shoot on paper so much better and he can. He's like, they just know more about the gear. They can shoot better me. They can talk circles around me. They asked me questions I don't know the answer to. But you put them in front of elk, they can't hit it, yep, because you put me in front of the elk, I just hit it. But just it's psychological, man. Yeah, they're they're guys that have ice fall into their veins, for sure. But you gotta beat that out of yourself too. I think, you know, I think you just got like some people have a certain number Mrs laid up and I mean yeah. And then, of course, you know I didn't put a whole lot of practice in, you know, being a converted rifle hunters, like, ah, you pick your bow upside your twenty through forty yard pinning and go out and you know, I I quickly learned that you know, the dedication to the archery trade, and you know that it required a lot more than going insite and your rifling. You know, a week before season, it required you know, kind of a year round commitment and so yeah, you know, dialed all that in. But yeah, I would think of hunting as a discipline, but like, but but it's not. You don't even need to think about like archery has to be a discipline, you know, anyone it's good at it unless you just got like the ice, like you're saying, not only not on you need ice fall into your veins, but you need just like uh another uh used to the word discipline, just like the kind of discipline to know when and you have a shot when you don't have a shot. So if you can do that, if you can go out in the woods and be like, hey, I'll shoot thirty yards or I don't shoot, you know, and guys that are able to stick to that and let a bull walk it's thirty five forty yards away because they drew in their line. Like that's my thing. Man, You give me a bullet thirty yards, I'm gonna put it right in the heart or I'm not gonna shoot. But you wind up shooting then later being like pace it off. You have no idea where the thing was, you know what I mean? This is hard. I don't even miss it that I like to bow hunt a lot, and I don't know. I try to give Yanni minute about try to give Yanni a piece of archer equipment. He told me he don't bow hunt anymore. I honestly think it's easier than rifle hunting. Now, well, yeah, in that you're not dealing with hordes of dudes. Yeah, or just I mean just saying the same area. I could hunt area a bow season and hunt rifle season, whatever season they give me. I'd rather have a bugling bowl and and take those odds versus a rifle and have the extended range but not necessarily be able to know where they're at or dial m in or um. You know. So I honestly think from a success standpoint, i'd rather pick up a bow. Yeah. I think if God came down and put a gun to my head and said, you uh, you know, I gotta get it out this year or I'm gonna pull the trigger, and I had to pick I could do like rifle, especially in Montanics. I did so much of my bowing in there, But when I would do it, I'd be like, Okay, so I got a six week archery archery season, you know, and I can pretty much hunt by myself, I would probably go that route, yea, knowing that just like just the pressure aspect of it, because like moo and you go find Elk and there's a reasonable assumption he's gonna be there tomorrow if you leave him unmolested rifles season dude, Yeah, who's gonna run into him? Who knows? Man? So any out you were out there, a little kid calling a bowl calling a bowl. I was hooked a teenage and then uh, you know, so do you have a do you havent make? But do you have like a story where you're like, yeah, my call failed me? And I knew that I had to make my own. No, there was a there was a time where the current call company I was using, I uh, there were some quality control issues and I was like, man, I gotta you know my my call that was money everyone I'd buy and all of a sudden, you know, went out of four one out of five is good, and I'm like, what the you know, what's going on? And uh, that was that kind of led to it. But the real reason, and it's kind of a strange reason to ever started business. And I was at this that Sportsman show walking through and there was an old man in the corner had an old lathe and was actually turning calls with the show, and I just I was with it was my girlfriend at the time wife now, and just kind of watching him. I was like, I can do that. You know, You're like, hey, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, you think you think that guy is sexy because he's turning He's turning calls over there, and uh, you know, I like, you know, being a semi red net growing up in a small town that I can work a lathe, you know, have wood shop in school, I can do all that. And it was kind of so I was able to kind of time my passion into you know that kind of let the spark. This guy was sitting there making calls and they didn't sound very good. I'm like, why, you know, let's let's sit and play around and see what we can do make one sound good and then we'll kind of do a slow release. Um. You know, I thought when I started making this, it all started with the wood out call. That was the very first call I made. And what do you call that one? The easiestris easiest, Yeah, just you know, they I got on a lot of the at the time, there was three or four custom call forums, you know where the custom call makers were on their uh you know, talking about woods they were using and in styles and finishes, and so I was just you know, soaking it all in as much as much as I can learn, you know, what what would goes with what finish and you know what what acoustic properties do you get out of certain densities? And so I was soaking it all in. And uh, I actually traded my first muzzloader bullhorns for a lathe from a now their local call maker down there. I'm like, I sent him three maple birls that my uncle had cut as a as a timber faller, and I traded a set of my horns because he he makes calls out of the actual horn. So I traded. I'm like, man, you know it's to me they're just sitting in the garage collecting dust. But it had some sentimental value. But I'm like, this is this is you know, just had a kid, you know, like, this is my this is my entry in. So he traded me a lathe um for for that three girls. And and so how old were you then? Yeah? Kids, a little bit young, not young young by modern standards. Yeah, so yeah, I was twenty five, had the kid was like three months old. I think when I kind of started and got the lathe and ordered all the all the tools and and you know, all the Chucks and all the wood turning tools, and like I said, I thought, I'm holding the call right now. Check it out. No, I mean the band. I make a style without the band, which is kind of my standard. Um, you know, we we fancy him up with the bands, but the call really hasn't changed at all for the last six years. And you'd call that just like a basic external read external read. It's you know, it's tuned nasally a little bit extra cy um you know, which, in my opinion in September is kind of the sound I'm going after. Um we a matter of fact, we talked a little bit before, you know, can we change that sound and that Yeah we can. If somebody prefers a deeper tone or whatever, we can, I can custom cutter read and really dial that into your preference. I've called elk in with that call. Yeah. Yeah. I met Jason through Jay Scott and then made a few phone calls and was begged him for a few free calls because I remember you have one of these. Yeah, I don't know, it's it's gotta be five. So you started turning him on a lathe, the barrel, the wooden barrel, and you did a lot of extra of uh not that I shouldn't say extra, like doesn't matter, but a lot of like it's an ornate it's like an ornate call. Yeah, I mean started, you know, got to finish, got the sound, got the size and the shape. You know, some people wanted it to you know, fit their hand right, some people. And so I got the sound. To me, the sound is always going to rule a call. So I worked on the sound first and then made him look good second, because I knew that was gonna, you know, what was gonna sell them, and so I kind of dialed this all in and uh in that first year instead of selling tan, I think I sold two or three hundred, you know on the local where honey Washington dot com. There's a form local you know, I know that for him, yeah, Honey Washington dot com. And just started putting them. I become a sponsor for dirt cheap prices, like they let you know, level of entry was was dirt cheap, like fifty bucks for a year. So I got on side on as a sponsor and just calls just started rolling off and then like you know, keep going back to you know, small country kid. I don't know how websites work. I don't know how e commerce stores work. I don't know any of this works. And all of a sudden, like I'm hit in the face with the you know, how are you gonna keep up? How are you gonna you know, let people get on them buy him, you know, And and so that was that's a whole different road. And I'm just a call maker at heart, and so all this other stuff, like you know, business decisions and stuff. Sometimes you're um, I did the best I could. Yeah, rip a couple of notes on that thing. That's the easy estress m. Yeah. Really it is really easy to use, really easy to use. Um. I always joke with my old man, he's the only guy in the face of the planet. I haven't been able to teach to use this thing. It looks like it looks painful. He gets us, He gets his big you know, squint, squints his face up like I might know if you're trying that hard, Like, let's start over. But uh, I actually made him a special bite and blower, you know, like the old school. Yeah, he he uses that style. That's what I started when I first started messing around. And that's what I would have is just the bite blows because you can anybody can make a noise. But see that's the thing is, that's why I always sucked that game calls, because I wouldn't work on it at all. So, you know, I was brought up like I mainly I hold a lot of friends, but I mean then I mainly with my two brothers and the middle brother, I'm the youngest. The middle brother was just like more of a tinkerer man, like he was kind of gotta you know, just totally dismantled electronics and ship and often leave him dismantled. But he would like dismantle or and he got he made a little kid to wrap his own rods, you know, So he'd wrap his own rods and lacker them like just all the painsteaking, meticulous hunting, fishing type stuff. And he learned how to do game calls, not make them, but just learn how to mess with them and mess with them and tune them. And he was just always like the family caller. And I it wasn't until I just it wasn't a way later. Like it kind of goes like this. When I was in college, regular school college, you know, they make it take Spanish three years, right, I never paid any attention. Man, I'd go in there and I try to memorize the ship ahead of time so I could get a grade. The minute I got out of school, I went to Mexico for a month to fish, just camp on the beach and fish. And I'm like, I can't believe. I just wasn't paying any attention the whole time they were trying to teach me Spanish. Because now I'm saying, you're looking at these guide books trying to figure out how to say basic ship that I know I learned in school and didn't care because it wasn't like real to me at the time, and all those years and you had any responsibilities and anything you're supposed to be doing. If I had just been messing with calls, I missed ten years of practice. Yeah, no, I it's like, what else are you do with like a ten year old dude should be messing with game calls? Yeah? You leave one laterund my house. The kids have got it sloughed up, you know, they sound like a dying rat or dying cat whatever, whatever they have noise they can make. But yeah, the kids, the kids are just my kids mouths all the time now just because you know, they run around. Everything sounds like a kazoo. But it's like just getting some basic familiarity with it, you know, because like, but so much of the hunting we did, we were kind of like pre when I grew up hunting tree stands in Michigan, like before people were real serious about the science of whitetail hunting. You know, we do it for ducks. We do a lot of pass shooting, a lot of jump shooting, you know, and you'd see you'd be out there and just like guns blazing on the marsh and some guy way on the duck call. It's like, dude, it's just like doesn't matter. You're not gonna bring one in with that call. You know, we're pass shooting now here. So it's just like stuff I just never figured out. And we started field hunting for geese and and uh yeah, man, but I was. I was in my twenties four I got I started realizing what I was missing out on. You know, when you moved to Montana, probably started hunting out and that's yeah. Then it started messing around the bite and blow. Alcohol started to matter. Yeah, I remember calling one of the first times I went out. I remember calling the Kyle Elkin real close. She came in and started blowing at me, like barking at me, you know, and I was like, this is a powerful medicine man calls. But really, ELK calling and ELK calls aren't that much older than before. When you're saying you started doing it right when you brought that first bugle to I mean ELK calls maybe another ten years, I think. You know, I don't know the whole history. I know Larry D. Jones out of Oregon and then Carlton were kind of on that cutting edge of of diaphragms and kind of introducing that and then uh, you know, kind of the next historic Marcus Rocky Jacobson, um, you know, developing that pallet plate and then you know the whole patent issue with them in Primos and then they carried that and then yeah, it realistically, ELK calling isn't that old. My brother I have an older half brother. I was just talking my brothers. I have an older half brother and he was he guided out for many years out of s s part Colorado. And remember it must have been the early eighties they were messing around with they were taking uh, diaphragm calls made for turkey. There was no elk one taking diaphragm calls made for turkeys and taking PVC um black plastic, you know, vacuum hoses or anything they can get blowing out bugles and back then, hearing about it back then, it just worked, dude. It was like the it's just like it was like the cutting edge. You know. Yeah, I mean, my my grandma, my grandpa passed away now, but my grandma she shows me the like the old uh like straws, the hard hard plastic straws that you can kind of coil up and if you blow through those you can get that kind of the high pitch. My granph used to locate bowls, you know, back with those. And you know, it's just kind of funny the progression, you know, anything that these guys could get their hands on to give them the edge. And you know, and then it went to you know, going to find your shot back and still in the hose and chopping it up, and then you know we're talking earlier with the honest you know. Now it's a blast, a black plastic bat. You know. People are a lot of guys use those. They just chop them up and drill holes in him, using them for their bagle tubes. The first bull elk I ever maybe you never saw and then proceeded to kill, didn't find him, but killed him. And that bull was bugled in, but he was bugled in with a PBC tube like a three footer. No mouth call at all. No, no, he had a mouth call, but he blew it through a PBC tube, you know, And that was in two thousand. I think it's amazing the way the animals adapt, you know, where they hear sounds and sounds get old in their community and then they associate those sounds of the man. Do you think like you got elk turn it up? That's so much of turkeys, but you got elk turn it out that are in their twenties, dude, that's a lot of experience, a lot of Have you found that to be true here in Washington and calling it elk? And yeah, I mean there's there's a huge difference between calling elk within a mile of the road versus calling elk fifteen miles in a um, you know, walking a lot of our industry, real timber lands out there are walking access only. And you know, there's a big misnomer that Roosevelts don't bogle here here from you know, locals around here or people that have hunted both places. I rose about bulls don't bogle at all. I'm like, well I can if I wasn't gonna if I show you my honey hole, I would prove you wrong, or you know, watch my video that we put together. But yeah, I mean Roosevelt bulls, there is a difference in my opinion and her dynamics. You know, some of those Rocky Mountain bulls have a lot of more mature satellite bowls, you know, that are kind of pestering the herd, and so that that does naturally bring out more buglin. But it's not un normal to go out in the morning here and here, you know, ten different bulls and a canyon boglin. Yeah, I mean so yeah, you talk about in the rainforest, Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're not here in three mile away bowls. Yeah, um, you know, and and the same thing, you know, pressure oak you know here and stuff getting a custom and learning. Um I killed a bull in two thousand eleven and um in a Christmas tree patch. Basically, we're replanning probably ten years and we've been hunting this canyon all day, roads around it, you know, biggling from the roads or walking out finger ridges and biggling nothing all day. I sat without bull, um, you know, as my buddy went to get help in our bike carts. We were on a biking area. Who's gonna push both of our bikes up? And as I sat without bull, the canyon just lit up. You know, probably by time we were done, you know, eight to ten different bulls that canyon. We've been biggling and hunting that thing all day, but there's roads around it. But you know it's that is you know, sun went down and those bulls just lit up, and so it's like they've been there the whole stinking day. It's just so much pressure. If they've heard people bogle from every point along that road, they just right, we're gonna answer anything. So let's back up though, because when you started making that, you started making your cow call, why would people even buy it from you? Like? What would you because you're just saying like yes, I make a call. You don't have any way to show to share what it sounded like. No, I mean we we did, you know, a small video production that I was back in oh seven. We did me and my buddies, you know, primetime outdoors, four of us over the shoulder camera action. So we did have some um you know video. We went out and did like a two minute little you know YouTube video of this is what the call sounds like, you know, so that helped a little bit. Um. But I was fortunate enough in two thousand and nine to kill a muzzloader bowl on on film, um out out there in my neck of the woods, and that helps all the call. And then you know, it was funny though you called that bull in. Yeah, I actually called him in twice. UM called him in kind of going through the timber. He got to about forty yards and realized something and then all the all the elkwares single filing muzzloader. Well I don't know if it was a bad musket cap or what, but pal drive, you know, it just the cap went off and nothing. So we backed out and actually called they ran around, but it was we were in a salal patches the jungle patch and we actually went back eight lunch for forty five minutes, circled the next little finger ridge over and I called him and another bowl back in, just using that easy estris and I killed the one bowl, and um, you know, so that we had that video to share, and you know, the it was kind of yeah, it was kind of cool that, you know, call a bull and scare the heck out of it and then turn around and call that bull back in kind of like what are the chances there's two dudes? Yeah, I got kind of post rets, you know, so it worked. Help so the call and then you're not fast forward and too much. In two thousand and twelve, I had killed a really big bowl here in Washington, and it was funny I had already had the diaphragms out. I was tinkering with, you know, kind of completing the line. And then as soon as I killed that bowls like, oh, these calls must be even better. You know. It's like, no, they were the same calls before I left that arrow ago, and they were the same calls after I left that, but now all of a sudden they were better calls, you know, And that was really and then that was kind of um, you know, social media kind of it was all just timing was perfect and that's kind of helped me, you know, kind of pool So yet it was definitely starting out in the ELK world. Yeah, yeah, definitely, And you know, whether it's a business decision, whether it was more of my true passion. But um, you know, some of these other call markets are so flooded, you know, like Turkey call. What how can I differentiate myself from anybody else in the Turkey world, you know, because there's a thousand Turkey more, there's a thousand plus Turkey call manufacturers. Um, you know, you look at ELK and there's four or five and that's what I was best at. And so I you know, that was like let's let's focus on that and then we'll expand the predator line in Turkey line down the road. UM. So you don't mess around white tail stuff. Then no, I've got some you know, production type stuff. I really get a lot of requests you know on this side of the state for black tail and meal deer calls. Um, you know one and I was fortunate enough to um do a lot of um listening. Um. You know, our state allows bait hunting and I went over and hunted with my buddy on the east side, and you know, so we had a lot of We literally sat in a ground line and didn't have more than two minutes without a group of deer in front of us, you know, in bucks running, you know, and and running and call one and you know, coming in and out. We could hear him approaching from behind us and from the side. You really got to take a listening species deer. And I'm like, man, that at least the bucks we were listening to are so quiet and deep. I'm like, I can't. I'm having a heck of a time replicating that. And you mean like grunting does, yeah, or grunting but you know grunting bucks chasing does, and like it's such a deep sound compared to what you hear all the white or white tail calls make. And so I'm like, man, I don't know if I can replicate that. You know, I could with the calls that I had, but it was pretty rough. So do you make a black tail like a like a fond blye or deer call? Yeah, um that call or the my close read predator um is tuned for fond distress um zapp that once do you do like a bear kind of deal like that, like the sick of black tail guys use you like similar, Um, it's kind of that. Yeah, you know, but this this call that brings that brings the dose in. Just got probably ten those that are in my yard, all your black tails, and I will when they you know, here in April or May, when you know, June, whenever the fall and start dropping, I'll go out and mess with them. I'll go to the corner of my house and blow. I mean you can just you have dose, like literally criss crossing your yard, running around the corner and just going nuts. Yeah, there's a couple of there's a couple of calling things that just make you wish all calls her that way and they're calling avelina and then blowing one of those at a black tailed dough. It's sort of like, you know, even when you stand up, she still is like, Okay, I see a dude, but there's a fawn here somewhere in distress. Yeah, I bet you more than fifty percent of the time, even when I kind of pop out of the corner, she stands here and looks at me and still just stomping and bowing like I'm hey, you know here, I'm I'm a guy, you know, go back to your falling or whatever. Don't get to uh you know, asked a couple, Uh, I mean the honest for I asked a couple this fall just to just kind of watching because like they're so convinced, you know, running down the mountain, you know, snort and a is stopping their feet leaving coming back. You know, it's just like you feel like you got an animal on a tether. You know. It's just not a feeling you get all the time long game calls. I've watched them hunts up there on you know, shick a blacktail and during the rut they'll do it, and the does will come around with a lot of times those bucks are like still chasing him, and that looks like a kick. That's what a buddy mine says. He thinks that. He's like when I call it buck in, He's like, they just know they're going toward deer activity. And he was saying too that when you get that dough in there stopping around raising holy hell, during the rut, he's like, just hold her there, Bucks show because the bucks gonna show. Because he hears her messing around. You know he's gonna show up. Now, He's not coming to the rescue. You know, he's not like coming to like he's not coming to help with fun. He's like, oh, yeah, something's dying, but there might be a do over there looking that doing he still so now it's just you know, the whole game call thing. I don't know if it's a god complex or what, but you know, being able to have control over chure is always just I don't know, it's it's been my passion, Like, man, I can I'm literally like the steering wheel to this, you know, a thousand pound bowl, you know, elk or I'm the steering wheel to this, you know, twenty pound black butter ball. You know, I basically controlling nature at this point, you know, and and ful them. And so that's always been kind of that allure and what's drove me to, you know, develop all these calls and like you know, have whether it's a I feel like I have a small part. You know, you get the pictures, and it's pretty rewarding to say, you know, you know your calls were part of this, even though I say a lot of times like it's a carpenter. It's not the hammer, you know, Like, don't give me the credit. You're the one running the calls, making the right decisions. But it's cool to just feel like you have a little bit of, you know, a part in that success. When we're down, we're down in oblivion. We're out in the jungle with you know, just like like indigenous South Americans. And they would go and suck on their hand to make a monkey noise. Remember that. They would take a blade of grass to do a tape here, whistle what other kind of stuff they do. They would make a lot of noises. They've under that big date tree. He's sucking on his hand, make a look nose, remember him doing that the night I got to go out. Oh no, no, no, no no, I forgot hey there that night camera guys every night. So yeah, no, they would go there under this tree, and they knew there's monkeys up in the tree, and they were just going, you know. And then later they're taking grass and making a whistle, and I couldn't ask them. Later I was able to ascertain that there the tape here'll make a whistle like that, you know. So they're just out like doing game calls. The native materials, you know. You know it's you know, people always have been doing it for a long, long long time. Man. That's like my favorite turkey locator, you know, just the old alcohol with your hands. You know. It's just some rewarding about just being able to replicated with nothing more than your hands, a barred alcohol and get that turkey to snap back. And that's that's a I'm glad you brought it up because this is something that we've debated and argued about for a long time. I'm curious to get perspective on it. We'd go out and we were like going out in the pre you know, in the dark hour and a half for a daylight to to locate a turkey. And it was like ship you know, and someone like slam a car door. It's like I gave up eventually, I know that like owls and all that. But we would go out and just make noise. Now I take a predator call and I don't even try to like, I don't be like, yeah, these turkeys are wise, so this needs to sound like something killing the fawn, you know. I just go out and make the most hilacious sound, the most abrupt, hilacious sound I can make on that call to shot gobble. One day, I mean, we were laying there hunting turkeys and we couldn't find anything where you know, got the peacock thing. It's like, how many turkeys have heard of peacock? Right? But they gobblet got a peacock thing. We've got a coyote thing. All this stuff, nothing's god. But one day my brother matches like it's time as long as stops, yea, Like, I just don't know what they really like. I don't know if it matters that much. I don't either. You're shocking them up with and I don't know if they're thinking when he yells hey and he gobbles, I don't think that turkeys and saying I better relieve now because that was a man he was just yea responding back basically, Yeah, just I we you know, we've our experiences all of Washington turkey hunting. But there's something to be said for locating at night. You know, we got that. I call it the thirty minute window from about ten minutes before you know, dusk and twenty minutes after. Yeah, if they if they're gonna gobble, that's what kyot. How for some reason will locate, you know, for us over there locates everything at night. But then you're like, you're just saying we have always been hesitant to use it during the day because now it's like, well do they want to come run into Kyote? You know, so you're trying to like process this so much. I think I don't know how much they think about way off, way off sounds because I've watched them. Uh, if he was a seventy five yards though, just happen to be a huge difference. If you give him some credit, if they don't live that long, you know, the three old turkeys old turkey, give him some credit. He's definitely watch other turkeys bite the dust at the hands of Kyle. So if you think about how like turkeys are born to die right of nests roughly nests to get laid are destroyed before they hatch. Sev of the turkeys that hatch are dead was in their first year. Se of the ones that are not are dead within the next year. Sevent of those are dead within the next year. That's why when people find like a big, you know, a three year old bird, it's like he's a survivor man. You know what I mean, and they'll drop multiple clutches, but I mean they just die all times. It's like turkeys are constantly dying all over the place. You have to think that if you're an area that has significant numbers of kyote, to the turkey in his one or two years on earth is gonna be like, that's not a good sound. Dude like that. I can tell you. The dude yelling, I don't know what that is, but that's I think it's gonna But yeah, so I hear all that, and I do like the natural noise because when you're out in the woods, you do want to be discreet, you know, and so running around screaming and blowing honky car horns, it's just like it's just an unnecessary thing, just naturally. I have heard turkeys shot gobble crows in real life. You know. I've heard turkey shot gobble thunder in real life. I've heard him many times shot gobble redtail hawks where I see the hawk here, the turkey, dogs, barking, coyotes, yipping, jets flying over, walking geese flying over. Yeah, yeah, a lot of times that that, don't you know? You get the whatever that that noise it rolls off every once in a while off the jet and bam, all right, we don't have to make a noise. That was easy to get that one started, you know. And yeah, I just think it's like he's just out there making racket. But yeah, I don't. I would never yell. If you if you yell a turkey seventy five yards away and do that, hey, I think he's gonna haul us out of there. But the way off noises, I don't know if they're processing it. I don't. I don't think so either. We've we we've always been careful in the morning, you know, because a lot of times will locate at night and then try to get where we think, you know, hundred yards within that tree for the morning. You know, if nothing else is exciting, because it's thinking things, gonna gobbill fifty times on the tree, it flies down. But yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll kill him later. But yeah, we usually you know, that's our morning is usually silent, just kind of enjoying the sunrise, enjoying all the sounds. And uh yeah, we used to get out there and think that, uh you know, like because everyone like, yeah, call him off the ruse, calm off the ruse. You know'd be like eight thirty in the morning, be like, damn it. Yeah. The other way I would just sleep till now and get and get him at ten level. Taking me ten years to even realize that now. And maybe people have been saying it and I just wasn't listening. But you should really never call at a turkey that's in a tree. You should never call it one in a tree. You should always let him hit the ground. Just wait. Never Yeah, especially when you hear him up there and you got all these hands going up. Now, I've done it, and I've you know, I've no people have done it, and I've seen it done. But it's just yeah, late morning. Many spirit like just don't even mess with them. But your whole life you brought up like Yetta, be out there hunting at dawn and it does happen, and then it feels good it happens. But if you're gonna give me, if I had to pick two hours, if someone, if I had to be like I could only turkey hunt two hours a day, I don't have from eleven to one. I'd probably pick ten to noon. And some of the best turkey hunters I know public, you know, not not your private land guys. But some of your public land guys here, they won't. They sleep in the late breakfast in camp and they and go. They don't even start their turkey out until nine. You know. It's like, let you know, and then just the natural process of the hens going to lay, you know, breaking up the floor. It just all makes sense, you know. And and I think it's just part of you know, wanting to be part of that cool experience at sunrise and you know, turkey's gobbling a ton in the tree. I don't know if I necessarily want to miss out on that, but some of these old timers are like, you, young bucks can go chase these turkeys around in the morning. I'll go out there at nine and kill him, or ten o'clock and kill him. Yes, because if I hear a guy will the more like pre dawn darkness, I wouldn't say, like, man, we're gonna get this turkey. But if you're out it's like leven, you know, it's kind of sunny out getting warm, we get ready for nap. And I said, yeah, we have, we have we You're like, dude, we're gonna kill that turkey. Yeah, start the oven. Yeah, you just know, it's like that dude is gonna play ball the same without you know, not to switch gears completely. But I say, that's why it's almost a merror image to me. Um, it's like, man, you get that help to answer at ten or eleven or noon, and it's bad. It's like that's a you know, that's a killer boiling the same same thing. It's just some reasons, like us things board in the middle of there, someonell keep me entertained, and yeah, we've had great success turkeys, And later I thought about it, but I can see it's like, you know, he's probably more likely to play he's had just one of like one of a thousand alcohol making racket in the first five minutes of the daytime. Yeah, at ten am, he's probably not traveling like he is at six am. Yeah, he's in my opinion. You know, there's probably people that could you know, argue, but family, Yeah, they always but you know, we've always had great success or at least at least have an opportunity if we hear that boy, you know, somewhere between ten and one, if he does bigle be you know, usually getting close and at least have an opportunity or get to see him or whatever. You know, once you got out of doing the asterisk, uh, not got out of but you made the easy asters. What was the next call you added to your line is that when you got a diaphram um, we bought the presses Um. You have one one press that uh you know, basically presses down the aluminum frame. We stretch the latex out. It's all on a micrometer, you know, so I can tell within ten thousands of it. So I'm gonna tear this call apart just so you can. That's what I don't tear that. Okay, There's there's an aluminum frame under here, and it starts out as an oval. It's open. I bend it and then it cramps it on both sides. So I'll crimp this side first, So this side and then I'll stretch this side underneath, stretch my hand. It's all on a press. It's on a press when you're pulling the late Yeah, it's all by feel and by hand. And that's really the art and it. You know, when I first got this thing, I about quit diaphragms. I probably threw a thousand of them away, like I'm never gonna get this and it truly was like there was there's tricks to it, and I was frustrated, like something handed me a Rubi's cube, Like I'm I'm not ever going to get right tension right or the cuts right, or you know, there's side tension, there's back tension, there's you know, tension forty five. There's all different kinds of stretches you can put into these things, and I couldn't um, you know, master turkey calls and I'm gonna fend the turkey call makers are easier to make the elk calls. There's a lot more, in my opinion, finesse to get these things to to react right. So that was my next venture is you know, being a die. At this time, I had been hunting archery oak for eight years and new, uh, you know, all serious elk hunters want diaphragms, they want to be hands free, they want to be able to you know, bhgle calcoll all from the same call. So that was my next rabbit hole. I started running down um and in the in between, I have these are all you know what I call my medium now, which is what of the guys order, what fit the guys. But before that, I had a youth in a large and I knew at the time I was trying to market these things. They weren't the best for everybody, but I was trying to either fit them in one or the other. And finally I had, you know, did well enough that I developed my you know, my own frame, this medium frame. Um. My wife worked for Northodonist. You know, they make lots of molds and people's mouth. I was like, hey, let's start making take some measurements off of pallet inside pallets. I want to know, I want to get this average figured out, you know. And so we kind of you know, dialed in there and came up with the size that was gonna work. So what is the average pallet we southern Washington? Two inches? No, no, it's don't tell us, yeah no, no, no, you po me on the spot. I'm like, no, it's something easy, something you know, anybody could buy him in measure room. It's um that's a good idea though, man, So uh, hit a couple of notes on the on your diaphragm. This is this is yeah, yeah, this is you know my you didn't bring an ELK one, I can use the double. Um, it's not gonna sound the greatest. I didn't bring any ELK calls up, um, but this is pretty tight double It's similar to EI. This would be more of a bugle read. But so let me ask this first. Is an ELK call. Is the latex tighter or looser than a turkey? Um? A little bit looser, um, and usually not as many layers. You know, a lot of turkey calls in that being doubles or triples just so they can kind of stand that, you know, hard cutting. Um. A lot of my ELK calls are like one of what I call one and a half read or or a double read. And do you do you sell more diaphragms or more? Um? I sell, you know, just for pure quantity, more diaphragms. Yeah, but you know, of course, you know, the easy ESTR sells really well too. And it's it's priced a lot higher, so you know, it's all and the Beagle tubes. Actually, if I could keep the stinking things in stock and the manufacturer can keep up, um, I probably sell the most bagle tubes. Um. Yeah, these easy astras as long as you don't lose it, I mean you could, this thing will work ten years, right, just replaced the castration man. Yeah, I mean yeah, this latex isn't really protected from UVA or that latex. It's in that castration band. Castraight ban that's what that is. Yeah, you go to the farm store, I buy you know, tail docking slash castration bands and your ship. That's what that is. That's a lot of guys will call me up and say, hey, will you shipp me one? I'll pay for shipping. I was like, it's cheaper if you've got a farm store. Just wrap that around my nuts. Man, I could have brought the tool for you. No. So yeah, but all calls are stretched a lot looser, um, you know, not quite as much latex, and they're a lot easier to blow. This is this is a double It's gonna be a little bit hard to control as a note call, but I could make it work, especially for a bugle. It's not it's not it's not perfect. It's not perfect by any means. I Um, my competition calls that I used are all like one and a half reads, or if I was out hunting, I would use it one and a half read to do all the locating and stuff, and just a lot easier for me to operate and that's that fills forign in my mouth even trying to be you go on it. But so when when you're blowing on diaphragms, what are you mostly doing with your hand when I put my Let's talk about turkeys first, Like what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to achieve that that you're sounding like a bird, like a ventriloquist like thing. Are you trying to actually affect the sound? Yeah, by by using your hand that you know, use it on one side or the other. It's it's causing some sort of deflection off of your hand. You know that sound's gonna hit your hand and bounce back, and so you're really kind of adding that rich tone and some reflection in that call. Um. I was a nerd when I first started this with our cameras, and I would go set up fift yards away and do it with my hand and without with my hand with without, and you could hear a deaf and difference in the tone. Um. By just having the hand better, it's just richer, you get some bounce back, you kind of break the call up. Um. If I'm on top of a high ridge, I won't put my hand because I want that. I don't want anything to block, you know, that sound. If I'm trying to locate, um, you'll just that rip and and don't use my hand. But you know, typically I don't know why. I don't know. You just got your hand in there. Yeah. But sometimes when I'm watching guys, dude, I'm like, that can't all make sense. I feel like it's just like a thing where you feel like you need to be doing something with your hands. I don't know what to do with my hands. You know, ELK call, and especially when I do, you know, cow calls, it's you know, you always got your hand kind of cupped. Um, I ventured down. I had another external ELK call for a while, called the Director, and that call really opened up. When I designed it, I didn't realize what my you know, I designed the tone board, then designed the barrel afterwards to get that right sound. That barrel ended up being less than an inch long, and it absolutely changes a sound whether you put your hand over it and you're leaving it open, if you put your hand over the end of that barrel and blow, versus if you leave your hand open like that, you know, if you open your hand up completely change the call and completely change the characters characteristics of the call um, you know, So not so much with the easy esterros. You can cut it, you can tighten it, it it doesn't affect as much. But on that call um specifically, it made a big difference, um, you know, by by reflecting some of that sound. So how many different diaphragm elk calls do you make on online? I make? Uh, I usually make six different turkey diaphragms. Um, I've kind of six. Yeah, I've expanded to two more. So I've got eight total, just different cuts or different different cuts. And then on the elks side. And when we say cut, like, explain just because I wish that we could that everybody can see one of these things landing from us. But most guys know what a diaphragm call its like. But explain what what do you mean by a cut? Okay? So on a turkey diaphragm we've got, you know, typically three will say three pieces of latex um in order. The top reads usually the furthest out um, you know, the read under that's set back just a little bit, and then the third read set back a little bit more. That top read um. We we typically put some sort of a cut in it. And what that does is by letting that little bit, you know, since we put the top read out the farthest, we leave them of that read hanging over um that second read. So the second reads actually you're calling read and then that top reads actually um introducing some rasp to the call. Yeah, it's like when you saw about his cut. It's like you got like a little V shaped piece of latex which is vibrating. Yeah yeah, I mean so it's flat. It's like like management as you blow air cross and it's like flapping in the wind, but at a very very high frequency. And we can you know, I played with us a ton of how however, big a chunk you know, like this is uh, nobody can see what this is. A ghost cut. Industry could refers to this as a ghost cut. The center's cut out of it. And you know there there's all different kinds of cut um. You know, the split, split wire, the split v um is a typical cut. We've got the bat wing cut. Um. You know, the split is usually a really raspy call. Because you have so much material. We didn't take any material out, you know, so you left all of that material overhanging the second read. Um, now what I found, you know, with the cuts, I found that calling turkeys, I like a key key so like that I don't want to cut or I don't want a big cut, like yeah yeah yeah, so I certain calls it better me with it. That's the thing is that every just got to pick them up and mess with him. I don't think you can really anticipate. Nope, what's gonna work for people? Yeah, that's that's a hard part. You know. Some guys come in with a what I consider kind of like a shoe string budget. You give me your best two calls. I'm like, you just put me in a hard spot, you know, to decide for you, because I don't know what's going to be the best two calls for you. I can recommend based on what you know feedback. I've gotten stuff. Um, you know you get for a single diaphragm seven to eight bucks. I'm still fairly low, but you know, I think turkey diaphragm is a six pack cells for like thirty five bucks. You know, so we're we're under you know, six bucks of diaphragm, which is a pretty good deal. You make all these all of them, I said, I can make anywhere from If they're a single read call, I can make fifty of them an hour, and if some of these triple reads and stuff, I'm probably at thirty of them an hour. The whole process. Yeah, I mean, but it's it's doubt You're efficiency definitely, UM depends on doing one call, the same cut, the same stacking, you know, because I gotta lay all these super sharp um um seamstress scissors. Basically everyone's hand cut stretch it. Yeah, and some of these the latex is like a pain, you know, like you know that one you basically cut on the ghost cut. You make the two cuts and then you grab that piece of latex and pull it in. It rips. Well, you can see sometimes it doesn't, and so you know, like this calls the ghost cut specifically, that's my cast per tricky call. It's got like a uh throw away because the cut doesn't turn out right. So you make if I if I know I have fifty to make for an order, I'll make seventy because I know I'm gonna ruin twenty of It's kind of a just you know, part of the part of the deal and the larger manufacturers. Uh do they have it figured out where they're doing it completely automated? No, this as far as I understand, there are some you know, big companies that make calls for other companies. Basically, you know, they come up with their specs and then somebody's sitting there spitting them out all day. But I think, uh, there was one of the larger call companies tried to go overseas and basically stretch out you know, ten yards of latex at a time, and they didn't and then you know, have a press come down and hit two hundred of them at a time. It didn't work because as everything hit at a different time, you were getting variations in the stretch and it just didn't work out. I think, to my understanding, everybody's making diaphragm calls, has somebody or a group of somebody's sitting down hand pressing all of these. So what makes a good one with everybody making them? What made well? How do you differentiate a good one from a shitty one? Consistency? If I in my opinion, and and you know anybody can hold the hold me to this. If you buy my cast per turkey call, if you buy my rip and red Turkey call in the order A hundred of them, all hundred of those. I expect to be the same um with me making the call. And this is right now. I'm able to keep up. But say I'm paying you fifteen dollars an hour to sit at the press, I can only make it like four hours and my back starts cramping up, my shoulders hurt. Now say I'm paying you fifteen dollars, you don't, Or if you're getting paid piece work, you don't care if this one's off by ten thousands or you didn't stretch it. You know you're stamping him and throwing him in the pile because you're getting paid. I'm not saying everybody does that, but I have, you know, control over my name is going on the call. I have some pride in this. If I if I fold a piece of latex, or if I miss a cramp or something's wrong, I'll toss in the garbage. It's not worth it, you know, for me to put my name on that um, and that's there isn't uh. You know, I'm a call maker, and I don't want to discredit other call makers, but really, when it boils down to it, it's somebody stretching latex and putting tape on it. It's not rocket science, you know, so to so to speak, and um uh that's the only that's what. There's stretch, there's there's art and um you know, because there is no dial indicators on some of these stretches, so it really is by feel. Um. But I ask you about that. Is there anything that you can use to press against that late texas see how much rebound it has? Or you could probably come up with the gage, but then you've got to try to hook like an alligator clip to the back and then somehow, you know, on a fine scale, measure the you know, the pound edge or the um you know, whether you probably measure an ounces of pool. I don't even know how you measure that. So we do have a I have a dial indicator on the one stretch, but it still matters on how much stretch I put on the the opposite side. So everything truly is by field. Um. Yeah. I can remember when I was told that when I was having issues with diet fhragms because the same thing. It's like you have two or three and you'd be like, man, these things are money, and you'd go buy a couple more and then be like the same call, and the next two would suck, you know. And finally I talked to somebody and they were like, oh yeah, every year I started off the season with thirty of them and I have five at hunt with the other go into the trash, you know. And so it's it's cool to hear that you you know, put them. Is that when you open up a package, you're not guessing whether it's gonna work or not. Uh, you know, like when I went to here's a I went to Oregon State calling Championships three or four weeks ago, and it's kind of my little backstory. I I blew out. We had the Portland Sportsman's Expo, which is one of the largest sportsman shows west of the Mississippi here down and I had a booth there and I blew out my competition call, and you know, it's almost heartbreaking, like the one I used in Vegas. And now it's gone and I have a competition next week. And I got down there and uh, my buddy Corey, who had made a bunch of calls for um, he's gonna buy him from me. He needed some calls for the competition and I was like, Corey, I need to borrow one of those one of the Beasts, which is the name of one of my bugle calls, and you know, to pull out of the package and then turn around and use that in the competition. It is kind of a you know, my own personal testament that you know, I didn't sit and pick through a hundred or two hundred of these calls to get the perfect call. I pulled one right out of the package. That was an inventory that I had a ship to anybody, um, you know, And and that's really what I strive for. And a lot of times I'll make fifty hundred at a time and if I can't grab four or five out of there, and you know, they hit the perfect note, you know, I wouldn't necessarily scrapped a whole lot. But I'm gonna go back to and inspect him, like, you know, do the do the cuts the cuts look right, do the stretches look right? And if they don't, all toss him and kind of clean that lot up. Um. And that's I think that's some of the stuff you don't necessarily get with everybody. And but you probably, but don't you wind up hitting the thing where you know, as you as you keep doing this and and find more success at it, that you're just gonna come to a crossroads. To day is coming. It's it's coming quick because your kids aren't old enough their name will be on it. People who have told me that women are better call makers on the diaphragm, you know, smaller, I got big old pause. I'm trying to get in these tight little um spaces. You know, train somebody? Do you train family? That's really been my my hang up is wanting to give give up control of the quality control, you know, the quality assurance and quality control part part of the deal. And I don't know what I'm gonna do, to be honest, Yeah, because we're running out of time. Of the days I didn't need to you know, still a line from my good buddy Aaron. Either sleep faster or I need thirty six hour days, one or the other. Hit. Uh. What year did you start doing at selling Turkey calls? Two thousand and nine? I started kind of development in late two thousand and eight, and I think I sold my first one in nine? What's your first one? What was the cut on your first one? Um? Oh? Oh, Turkey Calls? Let me. That was two thousand and eleven when I got depressed, Um, the ripping red um, they kind of all came together. I developed those six kind of originally yeah, um and it you know, you basically looked at Turkey calls. You know, I didn't reinvent the wheel. I was like, well, what popular cuts are out there? And so I tried to replicate the cuts. Um. You know, I have a dragon Slayer one of my oak calls. It's really similar to the Casper. We just cut the corners off, um, and so I kind of knew about where I wanted that thing. So what on the on the dragon Slayer, we just cut the corners off. So off the latex, yeah, because that adds too much rask. So on an ELK call, I wanted it cleaned up. And so there's just there's tons of plan and once you learn kind of how the latex reacts and what does what it kind of you know, and then I'll come up with a new design. And that just kind of slapped myself on the side of head. Why didn't you knew all the components to this call? Why don't you to develop this three years ago? As you know, it's my new best call or whatever. Now I've had these, uh, because I hunt a lot. Just keep it in my mouth. I mean, I'll try to bite and have it out of my mouth, but I've had to get wet and fall apart. Are is your we have? There are tape issues and a lot of us get our tapes from the same manufacturers and not saying this didn't happen with a felt it will happen with mine. You know, I try to warrante him. It's not necessarily my fault. But if these things, you know it's it's water resistant tape. It's not waterproofing, so you get d I've learned to be much more careful about just having to be just like slobbered up all time. What's your method for keeping them dry? Like how much do you run around? And if you just chase them a bowl of or a day, maybe you haven't heard one for an hour or two, but like through the course of the day, how much does that call in and out of your mouth A lot? I used to he's gonna play some years. That's the rassy red. I don't want to rip too loud. Get yours out, answer you the question. We get yours ready, um, so on an elk count as much as I need it in my mouth, I will, But as soon as you know there's a break or we're chasing or removing. UM. I have a buddy who local guy down there just south to me. He had what's called a read vice and it's kind of a homebrew little thing. It hooks to my hat and then it's basically got like alligator clip that comes off. So I hook the one thing I found this year in Idaho hunt elk degrees all day. Latex doesn't like direct sunlight, so you start getting little hairline cracks in your call. Like all right, So then I flipped the underside of my hat when I was kind of blocking my vision. But that's where your engineering degree. Yeah, yeah, I can get rid of the sun. So I use a read vice, and I also I have a prototype basically like a little wing per squeezer. But the thing I didn't like with that is a lot of guys were using vinyl and you know what they put like a whole punch in it. Well, that wasn't breathing very good. So I used a piece of like five cordua on one side and then like mi spec mesh on the opposite. Send me one of those. I'll have to get some made it. Trust me, I've got tons of requests. I just like, like I was telling you earlier, everything in the US is ordered by the thousands. It's like my in this order was like twenty dollars, and diaphragm pouches are like, man, how long am I gonna? You know, have to but no, I can get some more maine. I'll definitely. So you try to keep it dry as dry, and often are you pulling apart the layers, the latex layers, I mean, is it bad to get in there. I'll be getting in there all the time. And like tying on turkey calls, especially that top reed once it gets stuck to the underreead it it's not near his drafty and it kind of locks the call up. So a lot of times in the morning you gotta it is okay just to like do this, I'll do this and get a little here's my get it wet first, put in your mouth for a minute, and loosen everything up, because if you try to pull that when it's dry, a lot of times, especially like on these small little cuts, you'll rip the the latex right off because it's pretty good. Yeah, I have done that and put it under a faucet to just to Yeah. Yeah, if you pull one, if you don't clean it and you finished turkey season and throw it in a desk jarld out later, Dude, it's hard to get apart. So I'll like run it under a faucet and eventually I'll get a whack them. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of stuff. If if you have toothpicks around, you know, at the end of the day, you can slide a toothpick in between um provide, you know, but it is okay to like, yeah, you know, gently separate them. But yeah, you can definitely separate them. Um. A lot of times all get mad. The casper or something like the casper um that's called it has like really fine ones laying over when he gets stuck. It just doesn't add in your asps. So it's like, no, I want so you'll yeah pull pull, pulling the coal apart in the middle of the morning and you hit a couple of notes on your when of your your first one. That sounds good, man, I'm ready the wife ready spring thunder. Yeah, that's what I gotta do. I gotta get I gotta get to call in my mind into my wife's mouth because she's just like right now, they hate it. My wife hates me blowing around the house blowing game calls. And she's got the kids browled up. They used to like it, because she doesn't like it, and they're like, stop that, dad. They're like, give me one. Yeah, they don't like it, but then they want to get one and go make a noise with it. Oh yeah, I get my My wife's got my kids trained. You go to RiPP a bagle in the house and you you get three get out in the garage. Is all about. But she can blow a turkey call. You're saying, no, she likes to hunt turkeys, so she that's that's my wife's favorite. And she likes deer hunting all cotton, but turkeys, like you like the ribbon red I do. But it's weird. The headphones on. You can't tell what what you sound like at all. Sounds good. You got a nice rasping it. I admire that rasp man. I don't get it. But you're saying, like you you visualize, I don't know if it makes sense. I just in visualize. I visualized putting the air towards the end of the read. I don't know if it matters or not, because here I'll tell you what. I'll blow towards the back. I'll imagine blowing towards the back, and I'll blow towards your front. Yeah, it didn't matter. That sounds good, has a lot of ass. Yeah, what you want to actually mad is I think I've got this whole like wild hen Talk mastered. And you go out and you hear some hen Off d yards yapping away, I'm like, man, I don't sound anything like hands me every spring. You know what that hand sounds like. That hand sounds like a ten year old kid with a box call. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. It's like, yeah, every you're in here trying to do this finesse. To hear something upbout a ridge top just laying out, it's either that's like someone with a rusty box call yeah, but it's a hit, yeah, chocolate box or something just up there like the most well, the same thing like listening to Elk. You know, like you go out like there's like the perfect bugle right when you go out and you're watching some bull and he's basically like, yeah, there are some nice ones, but you also just hear a lot of There's just a lot of variation out there, you know, and you hear some bullies all like horse you know, to actually sound like that premost Terminator two were you were you thinking like, you'll never hear a bull it will actually sound like flutey like that. But yeah, he lives out there, Ye, Yanni does. Yanni can whistle where it sounds like, you know, like when you can't even tell if you heard a bull or not it's so far away. Do your whistle that wasn't That wasn't a great one. Yeah, it's like you're like, goddamn, I just heard my way off. That's that's my goal every year is and not getting called in by somebody. But I think it's screwed up my chances on real helk Sometimes oh yeah I'm not that call me that not the other way. I've had more times where I wrote a bowl off as being some jackass and then it turns out to being out. Ye one time we played it all the way through and ended up getting a shot and kill the bull. But I was convinced. I was like, I'm not taking one more step because I'm not getting called in by somebody. He's like, it's a real bull. I'm like, no, it's not listening. It's horrible. And he was back fifteen yards to my left but could see over the ridge better and he's like, here they come like a son of a gun. And I'm glad we stayed. But I was here by myself, I would have went the other way, like I'm not or mess with somebody. I like to call people a top of mountains and stuff. Mess with him. But I would write to a couple. One time we were actually walking off the mountain. We'd have been in there for I don't know, maybe three or four days. I think it was. It was my dad and the only time he went in the back country, but we could hear him calling, and I was, you know, just sure that a deaf. I think he might even even run in the hoochie mama, which that call, you can definitely pick it out, you know. And so I just figured, well, I'm just gonna just trump down right through the forest, just right at them, which in retrospect probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, because I come through like the last two Christmas trees and like six ft away there's a gal a girl stand there with an arrow knocked not drawn, thank goodness, but not in just I can see the top of in just just like just shaking, you know, and her interdor. I don't know if your boyfriend, her husband behind her is like kind of smiling over her shoulder. He mustn't, you know know, and that you know I was coming and he caught a glimpse of me. But you know, in retrospects, fight out the best thing to do. You just gonna charge it in on what was what was the response like when you started selling Turkey calls? Do you sell Turkey calls of the guys in the easter as it always it's pretty local, I is my Turkey. A lot of it stems from guys have sold ELK calls to uh, you know, it's kind of that because saying Turkey call markets so saturated, and you know, you've got the big companies back east, you know, the you know whatever, the there's just a lot of turkey call manufacturers back East, and it's just so there are guys making Turkey calls, big companies that make Turkey calls that aren't making ELK calls. Yeah, correct, a lot of you know, a lot of those companies back Easter, you know, maybe waterfowl, turkey, um maybe you know uh uh squirrel, you know squeal you know and and you know there there's some different mix. But for some reason, a lot of these call manufacturers have stayed away from from ELK. It seems like a lot of your manufacturers, besides Primos um, you know, like Hunter Specialties and Night and Hill have dabbled in it woods Why some of these companies have dabbled in ELK calls, but then have a huge presence out here where you know, out west, we've got um, you know, premos from from back east, but you've got uh, Rocky Mountain game calls are biggling bull whatever you want to call him. Um, you've got Barry game calls. You've got point Blank, which used to be the old Larry D. Jones UM. And you know, it seems like out west there's there's a lot fewer um, you know, ELK call manufacturers. You make a dusky grouse call, I don't I did you watch our episodes about dusky gross I didn't. I didn't see I see you. You'll sell five six of those every decade see you guy. You guys are intriguing because I hear about all the stuff you hunt, and it's like, I'm literally a mule deer, blacktail and an elk hunter. That's like, that's I cut my teeth on that. And it's just I've got an opportunity. I can hunt those every year. You know. I've always got the moose, caribous sheep stuff on the radar. But that's gonna be a lot, a lot harder to make. Have you haven't been able to make it in a nice cow call for moose? No, yeah, no, we haven't played around. I made some markets limited on that because so many guys would like to hunt moose just learn how to do it, yeah, with their boys. But I'm telling you, a man a dusky grows call for guys like to hunt spring hooters, you'd be the only guy in the market's tough call. Everybody tells me that a male call is easy because you like a jug or something, you know, but the female calum you figure that one out. I get a lot of requests for antelope calls. I'm like, I'll just get you like the little the little North that I don't know what I always joke with him because I don't know and they do like a yeah, I just figure I was cann get like two glasses of water pouring back and forth and then just let the antelope hear the water and I'll call him, Yeah, that make a noise. And they make a noise and it's uh, they use it, you know, and you can make it back at them and get a good response out of them. It's just like, you know, the closer you compare it to, it doesn't really compare it mean, like a white tail's warning call, you know when they blow. Yeah, they just got like like, here's the white tail, like right, animals like, but they like when a white tail does it, the white tail doesn't give a shit about hearing it back, you know, like no matter, it's never gonna come. They're not gonna come check the noise out and over intrigued by that noise, come back with the noise. So you're saying no to all that stuff. But is there like the next rabbit hole for felps game calls, Like, is there a challenge like a call you've been wanting to make or trying to make that you just haven't figured out yet, you know, I don't ultimately blacktail. I want to make a black tail grunt. It seems to be really popular. Yeah. Um, you know, it's highly requested. Um mule dear grunt. Um. You know, the late season bow hunters haven't grunts. Bow hunters. A lot of the late season bow hunters think that they potentially when they get in close, you know, it could be you know, they wouldn't use it all the time, but you know a lot of the guys say, you know, it could be a game change, or it could work occasionally. And I just I wonder if, I mean, if Mulder's gonna act any different when he hears the white tail I mean, you know what I mean, does he give a ship? I don't if he hears the white tail grunt, I don't know. I've never That's one of the things I'm not real versed on. You I'd probably I'd probably calling some people that have messaged Yeah, it's it's it's shorter, and it's deeper and it's quieter from what I've heard. Um, you know, But like I said, I I don't do a whole lot of late season archery deer. Last year was the first year I've ever bow hunted for a late meal deer, and what I heard wasn't what I thought I was gonna hear a meal. Dear grant sound like said, all right, go back the drawing board, change up the read thickness, and change up the barrel diameter and making some changes so you never feel like messing with waterfowl. I will eventually, you know, if if I want to make a run at this thing full time, I'm probably gonna have to develop the waterfowl line. But I don't. This is the other thing. You know, some guys may, you know, go reproduce a call that's out there. I'll probably bring in four or five guys, you know, because I'm not a waterfall expert. I don't. I don't claim to be a duck hunter. Um. The ones that the waterfowl calls I sell now are basically Echo inserts. You can buy them, um, you're right off their website from Echo. And I basically just am a wood turner. You know, I can turn the barrel. I had my buddy come over and size the barrel for what he liked, and that's what I sell. You know, it's there's I don't have a whole lot of investment or you know, my skill doesn't really come into play. My buddy basically sized it for me. Um, but I probably imagine you know, the predator call line is is decently got one close read and three open reads. Um, probably waterfowl's next, could you bring that? Yeah, the clothes read we did they do the fall in distress and also does that real raspy jack um once you break the read over really loud, like ob noxious, just just by get forces. Yeah. So I mean you got that real quiet fall in distress and then you can crank it over and yeah, get like the Holy Smokes noise. Yeah. So so you're making Turkey elk predator, right, waterfall a little bit A couple of calls, which, like I said, just a would turn around the waterfall. But if you had to make just one, you're like you do out. Okay, you know that's what you're paying fall Turkey fall by predator probably in that order. Yeah, um yeah, definitely, um passionate, most passionate about it. That's where if I try to align all my vacation up, it's like elk elk and then maybe a meal deer hunt on the end. You know, It's like I want to be elk cut in at least two weeks a year and in the red. How many elk trips you do every year? Um, last year was one, but I did it two weeks continuous, so like you know, weekends included, we were gone like nineteen days this year. Got a new job, so it's like two, you know, a nine day trip, come back for a week, and then a nine day trip. So I'll try to hit you know, I'll try to be in the oak woods anywhere from fifteen to twenty days and in September calling it elk obviously. Yeah, usually we're pretty here with your rifle. Yeah, or I'm actually putting in for east Side special permits now, so typically don't hunt Washington if I don't draw, Um, we go out of state and do all over elk cutting. Currently. Um, you know, the wife still hunts around here, so I gotta go out or the rest of my dad and his family, So I still gotta do a lot of you know, riding along and and hunting along and spot and stuff. But yeah, the life of a costom call maker, Oh, it's exciting. It's exciting. So it's your whole shop just given over entirely to Yeah. We Hey, I gotta basically built rooms within my shop because the dust was uncontrollable and I'm still just a yeah the dust and sand and it was getting everywhere. So we like enclosed the section of the wood shop and then we've got like her inventory and you know, a different section, and then you know, I'm still just a working out of the shop basically, so the lawnmowers parked on the other side. You know, it's not just a game call shops and you and you, uh, do you have a distributor? You shipping all yourself? We do everything direct. You know, probably eight of the cells come um directly through my website. And then I've got people don't buy you off Amazon. No, you know, I've I've been approached by Phelps. You go to Phelps. Yeah right now. Um, we do we have four or five dealers um local bullshops that I'm just buddies with or buddy deals. And then we do have one other online retailer. UM. It used to be Elk one on one um but now it's black Ovis is is selling the calls out of Utah as well, So a couple online distribute. It's funny, you know, it's you debate and business models, you know, And I understand you want pro shop support, right, you want uh, you know, you want that guy to sell, you know, the guy that comes and buys a bow your call. If you take that away from him, you may lose that support. And since he's got a you know, biggling bowl or a Barry Read on the shelf, he's gonna sell him that because that's where he makes his money. So there's a balance, you know. I like the whole qu model, you know, as a business owner, I like that model. At the same time, I understand it's not the best model necessarily for the business I'm in. So, like I said, I never claimed to be a smart businessman, but some of this stuff is the stuff I'm wearing right now. Like what direction do we go? And what's the best direction? And and like you're seeing growth every year, though exponential growth every year. I don't know where it's gonna stop. But like the same conversation you start talking about that, and you come back full circle to how you're gonna keep up because I don't. I don't know what I'm gonna be able to do in July and August. That's my two by far biggest months because you know, centered round everybody buying their OLK calls and geared up for ELK season. It's gonna be interesting this year. The wife said, I had one more year to do this all on my own, then I better figure out a streamline way. Well, she just it was. It was rough last year. You know, basically every weekend, you know, all weeknights un till midnight, get up at five, you to work, get home at five thirty, and you're making calls until midnight. And just a couple of hours south of Steve you probably call him up stretchatex stretched the latex my day that you never heard that one before. So now what you got a website obviously, Yeah, we're Phelps Game Calls dot com pH pH you know PS. You know the NATO phonetic alphabet I just like Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta supposed to be that all the NATO countries um that they would look at those words and pronounce, you know, how to pronounce those words. You know, I'm working on the confusing phonetic alphabet where I'm trying to find all like um like for p would be pneumatic um or for p you could do psychology or nomic for you know, so all words that don't start. I'm just bringing us out to point out that your name is not f E LPs for phone pH phelps pH e LPs And what's the what site? Though? Phelps game calls dot com? Phelps game calls dot com And people do usually this order online? Yeah, you know, I'm I'm pretty open on social media, you know a lot of times, and you know that's maybe the difference you get the experience with me. A lot of times I'll get him, you know, will message back and forth Benner, you know, back and forth at eight o'clock, it at night. You know, what do I need to order? This is what I would order? What are you doing? And then all of a sudden you see the order pop through. You know, if you have dudes call up and be like hey, looking for advice and what to get or or a lot of times like you know, maybe it's a new era, but I don't know if it's tacky or untactful. But a lot of times with my phone now, it's like it's easier to do a text message or a Facebook message. That's how I communicate and it makes it super streamline, so I can deal with a lot more customers that way. You know. So a lot of guys will just hit me up on Facebook and message me or text me um right off the website, and then it just makes it quick and easy. And then they then they place the order. Yeah, like instantly, I can. I was just talking to you know, Rob so and so, and then bam on my phone, I see the order come through. You know it's it's uh, it's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, and you got concluding thoughts. They're beautiful calls. Man, than you can rip a couple of notes on there. Let's hear jack Rabbit just I'm no good at them. I can run the easy astres, you can run the jack rabbit. He likes to blow those at grizzly bears when we see one. Yeah, I think I've seen you guys running from a grizzly bear, and one of the efforts I do like to blow a man grizzly bears and annoys people I'm with, like, let's see this barrel. Check this out. Yeah, we're only camped a couple hundred yards away. Let's see if we can bring this grizzly bear close. You just don't have any fear of them or like is it it's not a lack of respect, but just no fear. I used to be real, I used to know, not real. Yeah, it's just to me, it's like what happened? You know? Some dudes drive fast down the highway, right, I don't like that. I'll drive slow down the highway like I have that right, I have that thing. I just don't have the bear thing. I'm the same way. Some guys can drive a hundred miles an hour, right, we even in and out of I can't do that. But those guys might be scared of bears. I'm just not afraid of bears. I mean I'm afraid, like I respect them, but I don't want to see a bear. The first thing I'm not the first thing on my mind is that that he's gonna come scratch me up. So you're not reaching for bear sprayer or a gun or anything or no, I'm just like, wow, hey, a bear. I always felt like somebody's gonna pull my man card because like the whole eastern Idaho, southwestern Montana, northeastern Wyoming, like I'm I went deer hunting in region F and Wyoming you know, against the eastern border. We've seen like five years. I was the day after I killed my buck, there was grizzly bears everywhere, and I'm like, this isn't my thing at all. Like that, I honestly like, if you, if you, if I could have absolutely identical right places, everything exactly the same, and they're like, only difference is this one's guy grizzlies and this one don't. I'd be like, let's going on the grizzly one just because I like looking at him. They're cool from a distance. I like looking at him from like interne the way in the spot in scope. If we had more time to talk about it, I would talk about, um, the current debate around de listing in those area you're named, and it's I've looked at it from all angles. I think it's the best, the best way forward for the bears and for people's delisting, you know, and they got to delist them often endangered species list. Um, there's a lot of bears in those areas. They met the requirements. Um, you can't tell states and all these people, you can't tell them for decades that here's what recovery looks like. And we're all going to strive for recovery and make all kinds of sacrifices and and achieve the goal and then and then move the moving target and then move the mark around people. Man, It's just like it just makes people so resentful of the Endangered Species Act, when in fact it's a great tool that works well. But you gotta put it out and take it off. It's a one way street man. Stuff gets on, it never comes off, especially if it's charismatic. You know, you weren't gonna have time. But that's the whole same thing. Like this state in the wolves. I don't know if you've looked into much this thing recovery. The wolf recovery plan is absurd compared to the public ground we got versus the number of breeding pairs we have to have, plus the three year um wait time. It's like, we're why are objectives in this state so much higher than these other Western states that have way more public ground and way more you know. Uh. But even when they do hit it, someone's gonna block it because it's charismatic. Yeah, and they're like, oh, yeah, I turned it over. Then it act as though turning it over to state management is some outrageous idea, and you wanna be like, well, hold on a minute. Every other animal is state management. So Montana is managing what seven eight big game animals, all fur bearing animals. They're managing everything. People like, oh yeah, just turn it over to state management. That's absurds like, but they manage all the game, they manage all the large carnivores. They're managing black bearers, they're managing mountain lions. They're on and off managing wolves, managing coyotes, managing by cats. It's not like they don't have a grip on that's frustrating. I don't mean to take it away from game calls. What was your concluding thought that you like the looks of the call gounty that's best. That's as much as you No, no, no, I didn't know. Now you got me thinking about you know, management. Yeah, we let's not get into that conversation right now. No, but it's really something that just that I think people need to learn more about. They do, because I really try to read both sides, you know, now, just like you know, there's been just so much written out there lately about like the Grizzly d listing and it really seems like at least everything I've read so far, and it's been probably a half dozen articles like against the delisting, it's very unfounded and like and just you know, kind of fanning the flames type of rhetoric where they're not really just laying out the facts there, like the only the only thing is gonna come from this do listing is basically uncontrolled trophy hunting. And you're like, whoa, no, no, no, no, that's not how it works, bro, Like what you just said is completely alive. But yet because of the magazine you publish that in million people just read that. The most irresponsible one I've read was in a was in a think called publication Daily Beast. If you read that one, I was suprea as the guy that wrote that he keeps his job because he says in there that there's no money, that the state doesn't have money to manage. And again you point out how many they manage all the animals, right, that they have no way of knowing how many get killed, which is absurd because you know how many tags the issue. It's like they know how many deer they're killing, you know, states killing thousands and thousands of deer, they know how many deer they kill through how many tags your issue, you do surveys, you do mandatory surveys, you have quota systems are in place, it's fine tuned. So he's like, they have no way of knowing how many Like that's absurd because they track all that stuff. They would be controlled hunt in our country then if there were to be a grizzly bear hunt. And the other point that they misses all of these individuals and game agencies and conservation groups who have worked so hard to get wolves and now grizzlies off the list. Don't you think that after you work that hard to get them delisted, the last thing you're gonna want is to have him back on the list. Who who's interest would be being served if if you hand it over to state management that the state would shoot them all out so they get put back on the list again. Who's interest? Like, who's motivated to do that? You spent forty years basically trying to recover the thing and then act like you're gonna blithely go out and shoot them all down so they get put back on the list for another fourty years. And like, if that's the motivation make any sense, you'd like to look at that game call, I do. I'm fired up to go turkey hunting. I'm stived, dude, I'm so excited about turkey hunt. Um, so you hunt turkeys besides Washington this year? I I you know, it's one of those and you know, kind of you started off with the whole. I don't even hit you with the It's just one of those things where I won't. You know, we've got three we have three species right here, and and you know, we've got Easterns on the west side, We've got um, you know, Miriam's down in the south central, We've got Rio's down in the southeast, and we've got kind of a Merriam Rio mixed up in the northeast corner. We've got you know, a ton of the opportunity right here close. So I typically don't travel more than you know, four or five hours across the state the turkey hid. Yeah, but you do good. Yeah, we've we've did really well, um, really well. You got concluding thoughts. That's where you get a chance to say anything lasting on in mind first as mine, but you already had to change, so you like the call. And then you've read some articles. I'm gonna conclude with I'm gonna get Annie, raised her out and change your mind because I think I've got Branney brothers coming along with us. It's I have like a two full plan because for me to help with my wife, someone's gonna stay in camp to tend to kids. So she's gonna come along and fill that, you know, void. I'm gonna also take her out, you know, turkey hunting a little bit, and then we'll coerce Annie to come along with us, and she'll next time she's on the podcast, she'll be here. So you have a whole pack of ladies down there hunting turkeys. Good they call him, you teach them to call I haven't yet, but we've been talking. We need to do all that very soon. Shot go pattern shotguns and get them calling a little bit. You know. Jason thought thoughts, Um, gon go out in left field here. You know, Um, I'm excited just to kind of see where this whole thing goes, and ultimately on my I've been you know, blessed um with the position to to you know, maybe not it reach as many people as you, but I feel blessed um. I get the chance to to discuss and talk with a lot of people and influence a lot of people, um, you know through this game coll avenue and ultimately you know, just trying to keep the keep the on the prize. Um. You know, I'm I'm always thinking about my kids and my kids as kids, and you know, trying to leave this place so you know, and if I can, if I can influence or impact anybody from my position, you know, it's make sure we leave this place a better place for for all of our kids to hunt and have the opportunity. Especially um on the political front, that's where it's never gonna go away. I don't see it getting any better. So stay united. Um. You know, it's like I get so tired of hearing the archie hunters argue at the mostloader hunters argue with the rifle hunters and then you know, hitting each other, you know, pulling knives out of each other's backs, trying to you know, It's like it's just I always feel like we should, you know, focus our efforts elsewhere and you know, stand united. But said I arguing about whether it's better to do with the bow or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that's like I said, I kind of went out in left field. But that's kind of no. No, that's like that's a good closing thought. That's that's that's a closing thoughts before. So my closing thought is, uh, the thing I've always liked about the world of hunting in the world of fishing is how yeah, it really invites so many people, um just to be inventive and like just make stuff, you know what I mean. Like even growing up like I grew up around old guys, they'd like make their own bucket scalers and guys would make their own rods and tie their own stuff. And then you kind of get good at it and get a knack for it. Precon you're selling a couple of things. It's just like this funny little it's like such a great economy of entrepreneurs and you know, just kind of like American elbow Greeks man, you know, like just people getting in there and and and making stuff. And it's it kind of comes from people who are out in the woods and on the water all the time and they're messing around with their gear and they're like, man, this, you know, if I made this, I'd make it this way, or I'd make it a little bit better, and just like that constant cycle of invention and and and doing stuff. It's just fun that uh the way the way hunting and fishing, uh really invite people to get in there and and and be craftsman, you know, because there's a lot of stuff in your house, just like things you might do in your world where you just don't have the garage tinkers, you know, like you do in this world. Man. It's just it's it's funny. It So you imagine in the old days people just sit around and everybody would nap their own arrowheads, you know, And it's kind of like that to see people out there just like making hunting gear, you know, trying to do something a little bit better, and you can just get in there and do it and just on your own and in your case, getting there and do it and make a business out of it. It's fun, man, It's a fun world. So yeah, good luck to the I mean good luck to you making the calls. So it's cool to get a chance to me because I you know, I've been wailing on some of these calls for a couple of years. I've never got a chance to talk with you. So yeah, well we'll get you loaded up before you head to Mexico. All right, thanks for having me, thanks for listening, and everyone to take care. M

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