00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Un don't meet ea podcast. You can't protect anything, so so raise your left hand if you've shot a turkey so far this year, and your right hand if you found a morrel. You guys, you're doing good, but only only well only yo Johannes. What they what they call you today? Only Johannes has a hand up, two hands up? Yeah, But Ruben, you're going Morrell hunting night. It's like on right now starting it's the Morrel harvest in the vicinity of Wartex World headquarters is rocking. I'm getting there. And you got like you got like a significant chunk of land you're gonna look at tonight. Yeah, it's it's a pretty sizeable spot. Did you have your left hand up minute ago? So this is your this is your like inaugural trip out now, Ryan, why haven't you how have you killed turkeys but not found where else? You don't care about most I'm a freak from where else? Yeah, I just haven't had the time. I was in Atlanta last week. Ryan and I have a good excuse. We were out of town we're like a war. We're like a week back. So but you've already done all kind of turkey hunt. Now, Yeah. I was in Nebraska really early part of April for the archery hunt, and so they have a Nebraska is a separate turkey archery hunt they do. Yes, that's a good idea. It is late March to April fifteen, and then it transitions to good. That's such a good idea. It was fantastic because they make you most states make you like, right, they make you archers will be offended by this, but they make you handicap yourself, right. And I only enjoy bow hunting when I can't use the other thing. That's why I have a bow. Yeah, Like you know, you bow hunt because it's like because you can't, right, And then I'm out there and I'm like sitting there man, like, man, if I had my gun, I would have got that thing. I'm trying to remember now, Ryan from when I lived there though, because we do that early archery hunt and then at least I'm going off remember, but I think it was actually a separate archery only tag. So it didn't even trenk like you couldn't even get into your tag. Yeah, did you eat your tag? Supply up three birds? You can shoot three birds in the state of Nebraska. But if you didn't fill it, then you couldn't like use that tag on the shotguns like archery only. Are they still killing all kind of um turkeys in the fall out in Nebraska? I haven't done the fall on, dude. I kind of like, I kind of feel like I don't have an ax to grind here, Like I've shot trying to have ever killed turkey in the fall I shot at one one time, but trying to hit in the head of the trying to hit in the head of the hunting mule deer in an area we could kill turkeys in the fall I can't. They've ever killed one. But I feel like like turkey populations are so high and now they're starting to see them some declines in some areas, and everybody's got ideas about this, Like there's some talk about some kind of UH disease that that strikes domestic turkeys that may have spread in the wild turkey. But one of the things people are throwing out there is that that fall hand harvest could be So I feel like in the future you might see Um, you might see less fall hunting opportunities. I wonder how many you're actually killed in the fall. You know, we all we all go out and everybody's got a fall turkey tag in your pocket when you're bowl hunting deer. But man, you never very rare. It seems like I know I have I have never killed one in the fall either. You know, I know a guy that I went to high school with who gets after him real hard with a because he's got a dog. So he likes to hunt like he like very much, like likes to run dog, likes to train turkey dogs and hunt turkeys because he likes working with a dog. And they get they do good. Yeah, he's like yeah, yeah, because you can't know if you read that that Colonel Tom Kelly's book, Um, the Tenth Legion. Have you guys ever heard of the Tenth Legion? Most read? Yeah, it's like, if you haven't read that book, you gotta read it. It's about turkey hunters. It's about a turkey hunter. It's a turkey hunter Alabama who was hunting back when there weren't he turkeys. It's just kind of like it's a it's it's one it's hilarious. I mean, he's a very funny writer, and it paints a really good picture because this is like an old guy who started out hunting turkeys. One if you saw a track, it was a successful hunt, like back in those days, you know, And he sort of tracks kind of you know, everything about turkeys. He's got observations about turkeys that will surprise you, and things he's watched turkeys do, including feeding on crayfish. That. Um, he's just like an acute observer of turkeys. What the hell was I talking about him? For turkey heading? I think somehow are you? I was going somewhere else dogs maybe dogs dogs and turkeys. No, damn, really really, that's unlike you, Steve, and none of you guys were listening carefully enough to follow what I was talking about. Just talking to the air, I was right on track to tenth Legion. Yeah, who cares? So really, just that's it, Tom Kelly, Colonel Tom Kelly, the tenth Legion. We were all we're talking about turkey population is overall in general being down or lower now or that's that was the transition. Now he ought to tell you just to say, but my point, I'll tell you the time. Kelly did not think highly of people that bush whacked turkeys. He felt that like or decoy users. Thought they're only like slightly just above a bush whacker. But the first turkey I ever killed that bush whaged bush wags, probably the first half. Oh my total turkey numbers would be cut at least in half if he if he took away all my bush wax, I don't like it so much anymore. I like it more than having no turkey. But if I had to spend one day bushwhacking number three days calling would I would spend the three days to call one in. So the so the old guys that used to shoot him out of the roost tree, that's that's like down on them. Kelly talks about that. He talks about your roost tree shooting. Um no, but he likes like a good clean calling the turkey in. I'm going back to my memory banks, and I've shot a fair amount of birds. I'm not. I don't think I bush whacked a single bird. Come, I'm not, And I'm not an elitist. I'm not any sort of elitist, because I would definitely you can't say something elitist then say you're not an elite. Well, I'm not saying I'm against it, and I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, just not that sneaky that could be. You could you could do like a like humble breaking, right, you could humble break it and make it seem like you're like, yeah, I'm just not a sneaky guy. So I've had to call in all my turkeys. I'm not trying to humble. I was just with your sister. I was looking back on my history of turkey hunting. Have you killed most of turkeys Washington Nebraska here? Oh? Kind of even numbers, mostly mostly Washington Nebraska. I've killed like three birds. So did you learn how to hunt turkeys from someone that knew how to hunt turkeys? Uh? Well, when we first got birds, man, like if somebody killed a turkey, like they were like a very like interesting person to know. Like in Washington when it started, you know, people starting to get into it. So like you'd like talk to some guy. You're like, oh my gosh, you killed one like this, you know, tell me, you know, and people nobody really had it figured out. Some people to tell you stuff. And then like now I look back, I'm like, yeah, that's just like incorrect information, you know. But and I don't think they're sandbag and you know, but there's kind of this mysterious new thing. But I decided to get into it for real and like learn how to call Yeah, yeah, I only I learned how to call turkeys just because I knew that sometimes bushwhacking didn't work out. I was like, I needed like an ace in the hole for when you were in a bad bush whack situation, right, And it wound up being, um, we would bush whack them out in like the bad lands, right, you see, you know, good visibility. Then we started then they started having this there's this area that's a heavily timbered area and you can't see a thing there, and um, and they started issuing some number of tags. And it was like at first they would issue tags for this this big valley and you just weren't gonna bush back a turkey there because they were in the timber. So then we started like just getting box calls. But then you're hunting turkeys that had never been called because it was just the first couple of years when there weren't even I drew the tag a couple of years because people didn't even really know about this yet. They hadn't caught up. So then I thought turkey call was easy. Then later I went to call turkeys and places where Turkey knew about calls, and you know, it was a lot different. Now. Colonel Tom Kelly, who wrote the Tenth Legion, thinks that, like I think, if you called to Turkey he didn't come, it was because you were messing up. You weren't calling, right, right. He thinks that that's not even kind of it. There's unpredictable. I could agree with that because he's like, I've watched Tom's feeding and watched hens yelping at them and the time won't lift his head up, right. So it's not that you can't call because she damn sure and call because she's Turkey, you know, and he's not coming to her. That makes sense, I mean it, I mean it does seem like oftentimes, you know, I'm sure you've experienced it too, but like they either want to come or they don't, Like they're just in the mood and they'll come in, or they're not in the mood and they're not gonna go. The mood changes all time, very fickle. That's good to hear. It makes me feel good for being a fairly poor turkey caller that I can just flail away on that box call out there. It's not my fault when they don't go right right, it might it might be uh, your honest. So you got you hunted Montana, Ryan, two states, Yeah, Nebraska in Minnesota. So is that like, is that like a normal thing? We just do all kinds of turkey hunting. I try to. I tried to. And then you got what, like, whose property are you hunting on? I've got some family property back in Minnesota. And then a lot of public land hunted all sorts of places in Nebraska now, And does Nebraska have a good public land turkeys quite a bit along the platte Get your on next maps and hoping it up and it's anywhere that's blue. Really, Yeah, it's great. I mean I think I well, I actually you go up into like the northeastern part of the state to just south a Yankton, south Dakota, right over the state line there, there's a lot of good stuff up there. And their turkeys, man, there, they're all over the place down there. And are they gobbling good when you're hunting that early both season. Um So, last year I hunted it on opener, which was like March. I'd have to look back at it, and they were gobbling, but they were not ready to be decoyed. They were just they were not feeling it. They were they were early, I think, and they didn't um they didn't really know how to react yet. But this year I was a week a full week and a half after that, um so I was into April yet. And it was a decoy. Thirteen birds in three days, and they were hot and ready. What constitutes a decoyed bird? Uh So, at what point do you say, like a decord that bird, um when he can touch my decoy? Yeah, or he's in the vicinity decoy a capital D. Yes. So it was I had one bird. I didn't have a decoy out, so I guess it was twelve. But I called him in no decoy. He got to about forty yards and kind of spooked off and paralleled me for a little bit. But then everything else was was in the spread in the flock, if you will. So they were in and and uh I had bird strutting and I had bird's gobbling, and and it was it was a good time. I couldn't put it together though, using the stick and strings. So I mean like not like you mean like a tread bow. No, not not that, not that good yet. Uh that kind of still just you know, I wonder that I think about that. And at the traditional bow, I'm not gonna say it's like a a spot shot, like a point and shoot kind of thing, but there's less going on. You know, I don't have to I don't have to set up and draw back and settle into the pocket and all that stuff. I mean for the traditional bow, he's there, you can it, and you come up and you let go right away. And so I'm thinking about going to a traditional ball for turkeys, and I don't know how that's going to go on, like Plains turkeys, Western turkeys where they might beat a little bit you know, more distance. But it was tough, no blind. Whether it was kind of spooky and uh yeah, I'll give you I'll give your hats off doing it without a blind. Yeah, that was that's tough bow and no blind. I have yet to pull that off. I've tried that several times. Closest bird with seven yards is actually four birds at seven yards and um, and then that one that was that you know, outside of forty when he came in, and but that was tough. I is that a personal like like an ethical decision to know is total speed. I wanted to be mobile and and move and depending on where the birds would come in, I would put myself you know, behind a different bush or something like that before they showed up, or or try to reposition. No, so it was it was completely just speed. What do you mean an ethical decision challenge? Yeah, like yeah, like you're personal hunting ethics, you want to use a blind or not? Yea, I gave up on that idea with a bow, that's some tough stuff. It is. Yeah, you know a lot of movement. You can sit there and they can come in, but when it's time to draw that bow on him, man, it's that's where the with the with the long bowl or recurve though, because a turkey there is like he registers the threat, right, and then there's a pause like while he assesses, like his registers assesses and with a shotgun, that's all the time in the world, absolutely right, Well the shotgun, like I don't you know people like so painstakingly like bring their shotgun up I'll kind of like have my shotgun kind already. Yeah, And a lot of times when I shoot, I'm just like I bring it up. Shoot. It's like calling pulp and yeah yeah, because it's like they're just not that fast. You can't do like a huge move, but you can get away with a fair bit of movement while he kind of goes like, man, I should probably get going. It was like a guy right over there, but like, yeah, the shoot a bow. No, he's gonna move. And that that's where the thought process comes in with the traditional bow, because it's going to be a little bit quicker perhaps, but you got a body shoot him and it's that's tough. They God, they can suck up barrels. Janice, he killed on his bow on accident. Is how good he is? Johanness him what two things? We used to hunt in the spring before I started shotgun hunting turkeys. I thought it was too good to kill him with a shotgun, and so I was tried bow hunting him. But we used to hunt with um a buddy or I did a hunt with a buddy and we were just set up just like we were with elk and gotting back would be calling fifty yards back. A lot of times we have birds come in full strut, and the way we got a lot of shots off is that we just wait for him to turn and when he's got his fan to you, you got everything you want. And they say that are a good spot to aims, you know, right at the base that tail fan and the Texas heart shot. Yeah, but all my airs would always go right between their legs because of because of what reason? Because you're like, yeah, it's just bad shooting. Um. But yeah, one fall we're hunting turkeys with our bows in Nebraska and uh, we're hunting this giant like, well, a giant rafter. I just relearned the other day of turkeys was roosting in the moment. That's not even in tenth legion. A rafter is a collection of birds up in a tree. What I thought was a flock of turkeys is not. It's a rafter. Learned it on Michigan's DNR site other day. Well, they don't lie. They might be mistaken, I doubt it. But anyways, we had like a couple pride pride of lions after of turkeys. Okay, two birds coming into roost into these cottonwoods. So we would just get in there and wait, and an hour before dark Man just turkeys coming from all directions. It was fun. It's a lot of shooting, you know. And I have these two jakes that like maybe twenty yards coming in like neck wrestling, you know, like they do, and uh, that might be what dogs talking about farm wrestling maybe said something like that. But but anyways, I take the shot and I'm thinking, uh, you know on this day, like right between their two necks, and you know, I get one. Well I miss a little bit to the right, and the arrow just kind of sails just behind them and it's just a backup. So what was the plan? She in the base of their neck because they're so wrapped up together. I like it was like putting. I aimed at the base of their two necks, thinking if I missed left right at all, you get one or the other. But if I went through the middle, then well maybe I just get lucky to have to or cut one whatever. And anyways, missing both clean and the arrows dip smile like oh And just as I my boys finishes going oh I hear, and I'm like what, I go running over the hill and there's a hand running off with my arrows stuck in her. So then it turned and it got wild, and you know, I emptied my quiver. She was actually dropping arrows and I would pick them up and then shoot some more. I mean, it wasn't the nicest way to put down a turkey, but I ended up getting her earned it. Yeah, and luckily you can shoot hands fantastic. That's why I like, have never Yeah, I've never felt even the slightest desire to bowl hunt turkeys because you just talked to so many guys who have them run off get hit by the arrow. I'm going to head loppers. I gotta magnus, you're gonna hit or miss killer Miss. I'm gonna maybe have one or two expandables in the quiver, but it's gonna be three three Magnus bullheads from here on out. Yeah, that's the third time I've heard that this turkey season. Some guys were just like, man, I'm just seeing too many walk away. I've talked to guys that have like been shotgun hunters became archery hunters, and after a while I was like, went back to shotguns. They're hard to deal with it because the distance is the same. You still got to get closer, right, Yeah, it's like you're shooting from way far away now, is it fair to say? Am I allowed to talk about how how Vortex is starting like a whole new place and you guys are all moving absolutely? Yeah, yeah, sure, that's it's that's widely known. This place is so much bigger than it used to be. You wait, the place. Yeah, the new place will just dwarf what you see here today. But yeah, we've you know, this place has sort of grown piecemeal, section by section by warehouse by you know, we've as the company's growing, we've swallowed up other businesses that have moved out because it's all you know, it's all rental property here, so but you know, we've kind of used up about everything that's available here now. So it was, you know, the timing was right. How long have they been building that new place? I think we broke ground last spring back from the March. It was March. That sounds about right. But it's been in the works now. The plans have been in the works for a few years. I mean, just kind of looking for a place. It was, you know, deciding what town to move to, what direction I mean, there's a lot of thought that that owners put into, you know, deciding where we're going to move to, where we're gonna call home, and ultimately you know, moving out west of here a little bit a little town called Barneveld, and I think we're gonna be in about double the space that we're in here. Really, the two things surprised me most today looking around is one the it what's the what's the scope? You guys are the manufacturing that we're looking at. This starts out with them that the stick cope starts out with a with like a three inch diameter aluminium billet, big chunk of and then of that block of aluminum is carved away leaving a scope tube. Yeah, there's a razor hidden little one of those blocks. Yeah. I just can't believe. I mean, once you explain it to me, it makes sense. But just is like really surprising that that you start with like and like you know, everything is like aluminiums light. You pick one of these things up, man, it's just like really like satisfying, feel like a giant aluminum cylinder, and it is chisel and not chiseling quite Yeah. They take hammers and chisels and there. Yeah, and then the other thing is um So a human hair is a hundred microns I think is between ninety and a hundred. It depends and carbon that like those components, there's eighty seventy or eighty pieces inside of scope right right right, I forget what it was eight I think has eighty three um moving individual parts, and that those parts, so human hair is a hundred micron and that the parts, some of the parts need to be within I think five microns there there's one part. Yeah, there's one part in the zoom cell that has to be within plus or minus two. So we're you know, they're splitting a human hair and youwere from forty to fifty times. That's amazing. Man. Do you ever think it surprised because that the dude had a scope that was in a house fire and it's just like a melted block and send it in as a warranty claim. Yeah, but it was honored. Yeah, house fires, truck fires. I mean I had a customer in uh In, Texas actually super good friend of mine, good guy, and he's like he was out on his ranch and his his truck caught on fire. You know it his muffler heated up the grass enough to where it litter end up burning his whole truck, and he's like, I got parts from like seven optics, Can I send them all to you. We're like, sure, it wasn't his fault. It wasn't intentional damage, you know, just so that's what it goes by. Yeah, and then people, well, I mean, it could be someone's fault, but as long as it's not intentional, like a guy can't say the limit is of a guy who says I smashed this because I just wanted to smash it and send it back as a warranty claim, then you would say, no, I think we would, you know. Ultimately, like nobody really admits to that. I don't know if we had that happen. Yes, but you can be kind of like saying before you can kind of read like it kind of looks like this thing went with a meat tenderizer, and so like you know, but but kind of like, oh, yeah, I dropped it, and it's like, well, make sure you don't drop it again a meat tenderizer. I missed that earlier because we asked this question earlier during a tour and I was I keep thinking, like, how did someone get a sculpt through like that. You know the machine has a crank, Like you guys are talking about the mallet different size. Yeah, got it. When I go to mallet meat at home with like a meat mallet, like, my kids get actually upset something about they do not like, they do not like that you're like taking a hammer and smacking the dinner. I think the trick is you just need to let them do it. But they come into there, they get like it's like visibly upset. There's something about this is very upset. It just looks too aggressive at that point. Oh, you know the I got a bunch question for you guys. So how many of you guys sculpes? You include the sun shade on quite a few? Yeah, maybe half maybe half somewhere in that unity. And you guys use the sun like leave it on some stuff. It totally depends on what it is. Yeah, break that down. Like Yanni's dad showed up moose Hunt with us and he had his sun shade on. I remember just say I just took it off, came with the sculpe. He's probably kind of like you can't can't leave it at all. A good example is the range where a lot of us shoot just north of here, like our range is facing right into the sunset. So like if we don't if there's a scope that we don't make a sunshade for if I'm gonna shoot it any time after I get off work, but in the summer between five o'clock and eight o'clock, like I bring a toilet paper tube and tape it around the end of it, because you just can't. Yeah, so you do hang onto it. Yeah, I have quite a little pile of little sunshades somewhere. But yeah, I have been in situations hunting where I was like really wishing I had the sunshade, and then you got like your buddy holding like a baseball hat, which is more difficulty, Like no, no, no, how farther up you know, he winds up being like four ft away trying to cast a shadow, you know. Yeah, I think. I mean a lot of customers will never come into a scenario where they'll use one, but you put them in just the right scenario and they will wish they had it. So do any guys, like if you're out like Paul like to say, you're out hunting doll sheet, for instance, did you have your sunshade tucks in your pocket. No, no sunshade on. So you didn't care. I didn't bring it on that one. No, not that you know, not that it couldn't possibly of Oh yeah, you know if you're just weighing, like the hassle of carrying it with the likelihood of reading it, you know, and you've been there to steve it's that that type of deal usually you've got if if it is that bad, you got that low sun angle or direct sun angle, you can you can find something to shade it, you know, whether it's a your jacket or someone with you, you can you can cover it. But it doesn't happen all that often, you know, things have to be just oriented right for it to be an issue. Is horrible at all. And then uh, moving on the next one. What is when you when people call and ask you guys like, hey, man, do I want to straight spot scover? Angled? Spots? Scope? What do you tell him? I tell him angled all the time. Ryan's a tall guy like myself. If you're if you're tall, you should prefer angles. They just they work better. I look at it like I do. The majority of my spotting seated right, so and I'm I'm usually looking I'm not down steep angles. You know, I don't hunt the Brooks Range or anything like that. And so you know, if i'm handlopermui hunting, and I'm usually seated and for longer periods of time, so I can like use my bone structure, lean over and just kind of slump into myself and look through my spotting that without having to have my head up and craning and like poking around trying to look through it. So I definitely prefer angled um, you know. And then when I shoot with it, you know, when I'm on the range, I go prone with it. It's you can look through it when it's angled, you know, I look down into it when I'm on my shooting matt um. I do tell people though, because a lot of folks will primarily use it from the vehicle. You know, they're not going to rock it out. Yeah, then you can't use angles, you can't. And so I'll tell them that if they are using it from from like a vehicle position, then straight the way to go. And and if they're looking at extreme downward angles, like extreme downward angles, straight the way to go. What I found because I like the angle. I started using the angle because, um, the late great Duncan Gil Chris who wrote the book High among many other classics. UM, he didn't carry a tripod. He just liked to carry the and put it on his pack, which I don't like to do, but he liked to do it set it on his pack or set it on a rolled up jacket or whatever. And um, and that way you can lay it down and then kind of like lay down on top of it and look into it, which would be impossible with that strategy. So when I started using them. But the drawback to him is it takes you a lot longer to find what the hell it is you're looking at can until you unless you get like kind of good at You guys used to make a tube that like I used to have a tube that sat on the side of that thing aim and tube, you guys called it. I think that might have been a technical term, aim and tube. What happened to those? We have graded the razors and o their new bodies, so you can't they don't have an aim or you can call the thing that hangs up on the on your backpack true, that's true. The viper vipers have a section of pick a tinny rail that you can mount the little red dot to. Oh, is that what that's for? Yeah, I was looking at that. Yeah. The other thing, like the way I always explain it to people is when they're deciding between angle and straight. First off, no tripod is tall enough where if you're using it for extreme up angle where you're gonna get it above your head, right, no tripod is tall enough. The other thing is if you have people that are like if you're using it for observation or hunting, and you're standing and you have people that are different heights, Like you've got one guy that's five five and one guy at six ft and one guy at six five. A straight spotting scope is gonna have to be perfectly in line between the person's eye and the and the target that they're trying to see. So your guy that's taller is going to have to squat down to see it, and he's gonna become he's gonna come very shaky and very fatigued after an amount of time. The guy that's shorter, the five ft five guy, he's not even gonna be able to use it because he's just not tall enough. So they're gonna have to lower it to him and then rEFInd whatever they're looking at. An angle tripod or an angle spotter, you could set at a at the height where the shortest guy can use it, and the other two guys all they have to do is bend their head, you know, bend their neck down. So if you're if you're using in one spotter from multiple people, and angled is really the only way to go. Yeah, definitely. What I like. The only thing I like about the straits is I can find something in my knockers. And I'm sure I could do this with the this this isn't even particular to straights, not I think about it. I can find something in my knockers, pull them off, put my scope on and it's dead on. But that's not particular to the straight. You could calibrate. You can calibrate anything now. Oh no, No, here's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that is something I do like. I caliber like I'll find something in the center in my binoculars, whatever, some object a few hundred yards away. Then I take my spotting scope and put it on the tripod and fidget with the mounting plate and retighten it so that I know that when I take my binoculars down and put my spotting and scope on there, aiming at the exact same spot. The reason straits work better there is because you're when you're looking through the binals. It's that direct, right. I was going to say basic orientation, So you don't need to move your you don't need to move your like because if not, you do it and then you got to adjust and get where you can get that done. But I still like the angle. Do you sell more angle or more straight? Surprisingly, I think it's pretty equal. I think it's pretty close split. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember asking that question last year, just because you know, we're always trying to decide, you know, what do you make more of? And I believe I was surprised to hear that it's very similar. Which you take on that, Mark Man, I agree with everything those guys are saying as far as the benefits of both, I mean, they both have a home, you know, and depends on your application, but overall, at least personally, I mean, an angled to me is just way more versatile. I mean, oftentimes you're hunting in a group, you know, and like you said, you know, you spot something you want to bring your buddy over to look at it. You know, he doesn't have to adjust the tripod or you might lose the subject or you know, stand on their tippy toes or crouched down unnecessarily. UM, I just think overall more versatile. Market made a really good point about the new um keylical focus razors the straits, specifically pointing out his um the side bag on his Kafar root pack and how this new spotting scope in this new form factor. I mean, it looks like a pirate telescope. It is perfectly straight, so there's no like little s shape in there. It fits really nice. So that's one thing. The packability of a is arguably you know better. UM so they you know, something to weigh in and consider. You know, overall, I'd still be all about the angle. But something think about now this dude, there's there's a dude wondering. I can't tell it was the tappy. He's wondering, what's the best general purpose Western spot and scope? If big, if to qualify you only have money to purchase just one, that's a that's a question. We get a lot. I'm sure yeah it is. Um, I guess I'll weigh in on this first. And what I'll tell anybody when they're looking at a spotting scope because they're so unforgiving, is the first priority on your list is optical quality. So if it all possible, move yourself into the razor level, and even at the cost of magnification. So in looking at this, I want an image that's as clear, bright and sharp as possible with the spotting scope, So I will sacrifice magnification, go down and constant size and weight and get something like even the eleven to thirty three razor. If you're on a budget, it's a it's a seven spotting scope, and it is phenomenal that it's a powerhouse and it's twenty five and it's the size of a soda bottle um so you can you can play the affordable field there and do that. A lot of people are hesitant because of the magnification. I think they kind of shy away from it. But really, when I'm most of the time, I'm turning my magnification down. Anyways, I'm around forty, you know, because of mirage and how forgiving the image kids. So I carry around a huge spotting scope and a tripod to to tout it and to to support it when you can get away with twenty five ounces and something that we can run on like our some of SSP have a package at ways about two and a half three pounds total. Um, so I'm a I'm a huge fan of that little thing. Overall, I think that probably the sixty five millimeter spotters are a little more versatile. Maybe, well, yeah, that's a that's a good meddal ground. Look at there. If you're gonna do to me, if you're gonna do one to do it all, you're like, I want one, you know, And there's no one magic bullet or magic fix, right, I mean certain, there's always give and take. But if you're gonna get one to do it all where you're like, yep, I don't mind packing it up the mountain, it's not you know, or or it fits in my pack nicely. And like the sixty five is definitely super versial, like like Ryan said, Um, it's just just a really nice, nice middle ground that's super versatile. And yeah, I just don't spend that much time at sixty. No, I only use mine, I use my I don't generally I do not use mind to find game anyway, Right, I used to give something like a detailed stink guy after I've already found it with my knockers now, and then I might like it might be some little spot, some little dark little pocket that I get real curious about, you know, and I want to take a game er in there. But generally it's like I've already found it, and I want to look at it real careful to assess like legality, you know, like if you're hunting moose, like does it have four brow times? Which two miles away does it have four brow times? Is like it's a question that you could spend hours trying to solve, right, or like is a sheep full curl? That's like a thing you could spend days arguing about whether that thing is full curl or with your friends. So it's like when I'm doing that, I'm doing like very detailed stuff. When I'm doing very detailed stuff, I find that you're not cranking the magnification all the way up anyways, because again, like issues like mirage and other things, you wind up kind of playing around in the middle ground where you get like your crispmas, like you said, you're most like forgiving crisp image, and um, yeah, every every every day is different when you're doing that. You know, how high can you run that scoope angle throughout the day? Right the minute? Like it's like there's a time in the morning when everything's like you've got good light and it's still real cold, and everything is just beautiful, and then all of a sudden that sun comes. You start feeling on your shoulders and you look out your spots. It looks like you're looking down a desert highway. Yeah, then it just then it just goes out the window. Man, can you guys all wait on that though? I'd like to know, is there anybody at the table that will actually like glass with their spotter very very occasionally? But you know, I done it for years and years and years, and it's just really tough to do that. You know, it's hard to stay behind the spotter for a very long period of time you're looking through a single barrel. Um, it's just you get more eyes trained, you're gonna get tired, You're gonna you're gonna want to rest your eyes more often. So there's no doubt. I mean, you're way more efficient behind a binol than you are a spotter. But there's every now and then. I mean, you you get some situation where just due to geography or whatever it is, you can't get remotely close to an area, and you know, so you I mean, it's worth it. It could happen that you might spend a day trying to glass some very distant face, primarily using a spot if you try to avoid that, if you can, if it's so far away that you can take in when you're talking about distances where you're actually taking in a considerable chunk of ground through the image, it's cool, you know, because like you can watch a whole basin or something because it's so far away. Yeah, it's sort of the picture looks a little more like what you see in in the buyo at that point. But I fatigue is a big thing, man, It's huge. I will get like if if we're if we're up somewhere and just like glass and all day. By the end of the day, I get where um yeah, I get right, just close my eyes for a while. It's just hard to focus, if you like, if you're actually spending like eight days on many levels, one just your posture right that you don't realize, you know, how much you move until you're sitting there where you can't move your head. It just is taxing, just like even more taxing when you're trying to do it with one eyeball, which is not how you're you can you can always tell in the field when you get out with guys instead of spent a lot of time glassing and looking. And you watch how carefully a guy usually will sort of set up his position before he's glassing. I mean the seat angle and your place to rest your neck back and and you know, a shade and a cover, you know, rather than just to PLoP them down and sitting there behind it. And then like you say, you're you know, no time flat. You've got a sore back and a sore neck and you're you're stretching. But if you can really get yourself comfortable and make you know, you'll you'll spend a lot more time. Yeah. When I crawl up into a good spot, man, I'm in there like kicking rocks out around later. So man, it's like we're making a like making a bed up there exactly. Uh, Paul, explain explain for me. This is something that I've actually had to call you to ask you about, Uh, explain like what what what makes the scope suitable for twenty two is and BB guns and whatnot air guns and not in like I'm referring specifically, like how how fixed parallax scopes, like, just explain that whole deal. Well, what what you're mostly There's a couple of things going on there. I think what you're mostly talking about is is a sculpe that's going to be used specifically for stuff like twenty two and are Again, one of the first things you run into is you're you're you're just not using it at the same distances that you'd be using a centerfire rifle. So when one of the things that happens is the focus on the scope is set into a closer point, usually fifty yards, whereas a rifle scope that's set up for centerfire use, but game hunting if it's if it's non adjustable, it'll be set out to a hundred yard focus point. And then many of those scopes are also going to have a separate adjustable focus aside focus or an a O that when you talk about focus points somewhere like the parallax adjustment, well, focusing focus on parallax tie in together at each other. If if if a rifle scope is focused perfectly, there will be no parallax. Yeah, so it's you know, those those two are joined at the hip. Now when correct me if I'm wrong here. When Paul thought about parallax, be like, if you're looking through a scope and you move your head, it's like picture that you're like staring through a scope. Yeah, one I look at your scope and you move your head around in circles. Does do the cross hairs appear to move on the target with parallax induced? Yeah, that's what you're trying to avoid. So when you have a side dialing on your scope and you're setting the distance there, you're reducing at that distance, you're reducing the chances that your head movement is going to cause, Yeah, the cross hairs to appear to move around the target. You can eliminate that with that focus because you can be slightly off like you could be you could your head could be slightly left, right up down, and as long as the cross hairs around there Actually on one way I drew this up. I tried to explain to someone one time or in writing, is like if you're in the passenger see of the car and you're looking at the speedometer from the passenger seat, right, you get like a different reading that the needle seems to be covering a different number than it does if the drivers from the driver's perspectives. Yeah, that's exactly how we explain it. When we're on phoning with the customer, and you know, you have your eye, you have the needle, and then you have the actual spiedometer, and that's the same as your eye, the radical and the image. Right, So the guy the passenger looks over and he's like, hey, where are we Where are we only going fifty five? And you're like, we're going sixty from my angle. So yeah, and you know, when you have a way to think about that, when you have a scope that has an adjustable focus to it aside focus or nail effectively to sort of meld those those two images together. When you tune that side focus, what you're doing is you're effectively going back to that spedometer analogy. You're slide the back plate of the spiedometer then would slide up until it's lapping the needle. And then if you think if those two are on the exact same plane, then the passenger is going to see exactly the same reading of the good word that you know, what's your job title game? Paul has been here two halfway through twenty two. That's why I finally put a parallax um on my spinometer. Yes, argue with your passages all the time, damn, But so a scope that's rigged up for twenty two will have oftentimes fixed fifty yard focus right right. And the reason that the reason that all it may not be immediately apparent to listeners is that any when you're looking at an object through an optic, a rifle scope or a spot or whatever, it is the distance that that object is away from the objective lens that that affects the internal the focal distance inside that scope. So that in the focal distance of the scope is where that small focused image comes down. We just talked about moving that with a with that side focus. So that's that's why when you have a near object or a far object, that focal length inside the scope becomes very very slightly shorter, longer, and it and and it walks off of that slice that plane in the scope where the radical is sitting at. And when you can when you can adjust that side focus you can effectively you can overlay. You can always overlay those two on that same plane, is why that works. Yeah, So do people make like specific like do people make these lines of sculpes that are meant for rim fire, meant for like twenty two small game hunting? Right, there are some you know that that where that focal length that focus is set at. That's one of the most common ways of scope would be distinguished for that just recognizing the fact that it's going to be used at shorter distances. There are other things, you know, the sometimes the rustpent range that might be available on a side focus will come in very close, you know, maybe ten yards on a scope designed that type of where you're probably not generally shooting deer at ten yards away, or if you are, you're not worried about You're not worried about to find details. You're not too worried about it. Yeah, you're not worried about. Way from the shop, what do you got you and you got questions? Yeah, I got a question. Well, I was looking through the questions and I'd like to This comes back to Turkey as a little bit. Eric uh West ask if we can speak to the advantages disadvantages of using red dot scopes versus low powered scopes versus no scope on turkey shotguns. An example follow up shots with a low power scope in Pede's target Acquisition battery running out on red dots, lens, flair, et cetera. From one from a gun standpoint, I think a lot of people take for granted that the shotguns a shotgun, and so they think, you know, you're gonna shoot this big pattern out there and hit whatever you want. So they go down to the the local sporting and store and they pick up a turkey choke of X y Z manufacturer in the closest box of turkey loads they can get. UM has to say extreme on the box right, Yes, yeah, I don't anticipated troubles well and you don't want it. That's why they make the extreme shells. So so what what we found, um a lot is that a lot of shotguns have a lot of misalignments that you you wouldn't expect to be there. You just don't think intuitively that a shotguns I would say, I would say that there are some misalignments in most shotguns. Absolutely absolutely, you're surprised when you take a turkey load and shoot out of a shotgun. You always like, holy cow, yep, it's hitting exactly, and so rarely do we have this ideal. We'll call it a sixty forty split of our pattern or or maybe like a seventy thirty split um of your pattern to to what you're looking at. So I think the biggest advantage to something like a red dot or a scope of low powered variable is being able to place the pattern if you will, where you want it. So like I I before I started hunting with with a red dot or a variable power scope, which I hunt with both. Um, I missed a turkey really close because the gun shot remarkably lower than my bead, So like my forty yard pattern was like eight inches below my point of aim, and I missed this turkey at like breathing distance. If I'd have had like a spear, I would have had that turkey. And I literally shot under his head and well that would be his neck. Well he was, he was like side. I literally shot under his head and I couldn't believe it, and so then I said, enough is enough. And maybe you know, there's some other things I could have done there to make that turkey happen. But um, so I did. I switched to a low powered variable at that point in time, and and um, you can you know, zero your pattern just like you would your rifle scope. And you know, if if you've got guys that are are thinking about, you know, taking a thirty five or forty five yard shot, which in reality is a long shot. Yeah, people talk about like crazy shots on turkeys, but most if you pace off most turkeys that you shoot, you're not You're shooting that far would bet or end. And and if you're thinking about that, your pattern placement, like it relative to your your sighting device, whether it's a beat or a red dot or an optic, because it could be remarkably different. So having the red dot in the scope on there helps you kind of pick that spot out. One other thing too, is that, like I think number one, people think that with shotguns, gravity doesn't apply, right, You just think that it just goes out and whatever disperse my pellets actually leaving a vacuum, right. Yeah, so's so a lot of you know that allows you to actually like you know, adjust for that for a longer range shot. And the other thing is that you know turkey load you know, one three quarter ounce or two ounce turkey load shoots a lot differently than you know, a one ounce double a trap load, and so your shotgun might shoot that trapload like perfectly where your bead is, and you go out and you throw out this load that's twice as big with much bigger pellets, and it's off to the right and high. So I actually like a low power variable, like a wonderful or something like that. It allows me to not see my bead at all, Like I can zoom it up a little bit and then I don't even like that's not distracting me whatsoever. So I know where it hits. I know where my pattern hits in reference to the radical rather than rather than you know, focusing only on the bead, because a bead is really hard to if you if your pattern is low and you have a bead, well, how do you know where you're covering? Up? Right? I think I'm I think I'm high enough, But in reality you might be a foot over the bird when you break the shot and your shot goes completely over the time. So that's the that's my first thing. I almost almost done here. The second thing is a low light like you can use obviously you can use fiber optics stuff. But if you have you know, either a red daughter a low power variable, it just allows you to place your shot much better in low light, which is a lot of the time where we're shooting birds at And I thought about I thought about it. I think about all the time. I was thinking about it today in fact. But um still, man, I have never shot off anything but like a bead and a you know, just the beat Trusty eight seven. But I've only ever I've never I don't know how it sounds like it sounds like old boardman over here never missed a turkey. I've never made that plane. Now I have missed one. But I do see the limitations of what I expect it will happen at some point. And I should clarify I did hit one one time that fell over and got him and flew away. So that's kind of like you weren't using that extreme shot. No, I didn't have. But you're not a thing that I do do, And I feel like it might just be all in my head. As I do like those blends, man, yeah, but I just feel like I like them. I don't know if I like them. I don't have like empirical reasons to like two by four you know, the four or five six you don't, Yeah, I use those blend loads, but I haven't I'm going to break up a shotgun and start. I would like to use the scope sometime. I just thought to shoot off the you know, I'm gonna throw at one other quick advantage or potential advantage of the red dot. And not that they're they're not just for kids, but if you're introducing a youth to turkey hunting, um, I was just gonna say the same. And you don't want to wound it up turkeys. Yeah, I mean, they're just they're gonna be able to find that dot, put it where it needs to go. I mean bearing down on a shotgun or learning how to do that, you know, can I think can be difficult at times. And I think it just really simplifies that they can still acquire the target easily because it is a one x optic um but it's essentially, you know, essentially parallax free. And they you know, so if they do have maybe not the best head placement, as long as the dot is on that turkey's head or on his wattles, you know, the it becomes such so second nature to like put the bead on the rib and know what the proper you know, site picture is. I mean, if you've been shooting your wholda and like the other day with Helen Show, Yeah yeah, yeah, I have to coupe people missing turkeys the spring. Yeah well what yeah, but Helen was just shooting a target. Just we're just practicing a little bit, you know, getting comfortable. I think we had the target. It's not a twenty five or thirty yards you know, and uh sitting down, you know, a nice solid rest her first shot, not a pellet on a two by two, you know, because she's just putting the bead. We're not worrying about the beads placement relative to the rest of the barrel. Sure, you know, but I've even gone as far to explain it's like, yeah, the ramp has to not be there. It should be just a line and then the beads on top of it, you know, and even you know, bury it just slightly, you know, maybe even and you know, do six o'clock hold, you know, you can see the whole target above the bead still and still shout out completely over it. Then we went back and said, all right, bury that beat even a little bit more like actually start to lose the bottom third of the bead when you're looking down it. And she smoked it was perfect. But I mean, it's just like but then went on to miss a turkey Helen, not hella her her boyfriend did. But I think that's that's your point, also getting a new hunter to remember that when sounds like thunder the ground shaking, its tough. It can be really tough. Yeah, I should. I don't know why I don't have I don't even have a I don't know why I haven't see I haven't because what the guy said in the question is about like batteries running out the whole technology, But the scope doesn't do that. No, you're right, I mean how many? I mean all ever? You know, I don't scope all the time I hunt. I put scopes on rifles through far more extreme environments than you would ever encounter hunting turkey. M how long will a battery last on one of these red dots? You just leave it on forget about it. Most have auto offs, so that's kind of a handy feature. So you know, the I think the spark too, is the ideal dot for the turkey gunner if you will. You can mount it pretty low, so you don't have to get a cheek piece on the gun or like an elevated cheek piece, and you should expect three to fives a battery out of it. A lot of turkey onunts, there's a lot of hunts. Uh. So two m a dot it's just perfect for that covers up a gobbler's head just right. Even a strike fire to green, you know, because a lot of people have have a like a color blindness issue, and so they'll have to run a green a green red dot. That's interesting and so like a green red dot, yeah, green red dot, yeah, green dot site. Um, the strike fire two has got the same battery life roughly, and the only downside of that is you have to mount him a little bit higher. But even so, I mean age of the battery once a year. It's it's it wouldn't be any worse than like mounting a regular rifle scope either, just sort of a similar to that. No, there's a couple of things to be clarified here, because I think there's confusion when people here red dot. So in many states, if not most, Um, you can't hunt with a firearm that projects light. So they're not talking about the thing, the thing that casts out. You know, what do you call those kind of things laser sights. It's not like a thing that casts out, like puts a red dot on the turkey through a laser. It's just like, instead of looking into a scope, it's it's slightly different this but instead of looking through the scope and seeing like the cross hairs, you're looking through the scope and seeing a red light. You're seeing a reflection of of an LED, whether it be red or green, that comes off of you know. The l e ed is planted in the bottom of the tube or on the side of the tube, and it points at the objective, which is basically a parabolic lens, so it's set at an angle so that no matter where you move your head up and down, left to right, it kind of goes back to a mark set about them being parallax free, that dot actually looks like it's following you when you move your head, so it's following, it's tracking up and down left to right as you move your head. And that's not a laser sight. That's just a little little LED that's being reflected. Yeah, but there are even some states where you can't use that for big game at least I don't if they reg I don't know if they regulated on turkeys. I don't know about the Midwest. But no, bad, I can't have any like any it takes a battery on your bow or on your gun for big game is sometimes illegal. So you do gotta check into that stuff. Yeah. Or muzzleloading too, That's one of those weird things where is different because like states defined muzzleloading equipment differently, and and and some you can't use any any kind of anything with any magnification, anything with any kind of electronics on it. It just depends on how much they're trying to cripple you cripple efficacy out your is loader. Now here's a good question. It's going to be our last one. What this is a tricky question. What standard of accuracy should first time hunters achieve before heading out? It's a tough and anyone to where they're shooting and what they're hunting. Yeah, when I've told it a thousand times. When I was a kid, the standard of accuracy was that my old man would take a milk jug full of water and march it across Eugene Gron's yard to the tree line and set that milk jug, and set that milk jug on the stump, and then you would take in my case, my lever Action thirty two special Winchester Model ninety four the peep site and you would take that and if you could hit the milk jug, you were ready to rock. And you couldn't tell where you hit the milk jug anyways, because it will blow up when you hit it because it's full of water. I think that my old man still adheres to that. And it was like you were ready to rock. That is a minute of jug, a minute of jug accuracy. But to Paul's point, consider where we were hunting. We're hunting in like like Michigan brush country, you know. I mean, if you took a long poke, it was because you were taking a long poke across a small field. It would be like a long poke. But most of deer um the first quite a number of deer I shot, I shot within one yards. You know. It's just like because there's just the kind of stuff you're hunting. You can shake hands at he's deer. So there it was fine. In other situations, Um, it just differs. But I think that like, here's a good way to put it from and everybody has their own definition. I don't think that that when you're shooting at big game, I don't think there should ever be a sort of like let me see if I can hit it. I think if you rule out the idea that when you take a shot you're curious about what will happen when you shoot, like that's a bad shot. Absolutely, I think that's the perfect barometer. If you're like, holy, I hit it, I would say you just took a shot you should not have taken. In this case, it worked out in your favorite but you should have not have registered so you could register excitement pleasure, but you should I be registering surprise when you hit something right that's out of your range of accuracy, if you have like some doubt, you know. But now I think it's like really difficult to define. I think I think what you could do is you could you could you could pick whatever game animals you're hunting and sort of look at you know, what a typical diameter and a vital zone might be, whether it's four inches or six inches, and and you know, use that as your limitation at whatever distance you can still keep those in that vital zone that that that could be a fair estimation of your sort of max. No, that's good. That's good. Like how big is like if you're going hunting antelope, Like, how big is that circle? Pick? Pick a diameter? It's not that big, No, it's not. It's probably smaller than most people would think it would be. So if you're gonna go hunt antelope and you're thinking that, you know, oh yeah, I'm good at three or four yards, okay, then you should be able to go to the range and with the equipment you're hunting with, not off a bench, but with the stuff you're carrying with you in the field, and in the typical method that you might be shooting off a pack or sitting or whatever it you on that not knuckled down hard behind the bench with a salad, sand bags and all that. And then you go out and you can put nine out of ten shots into that six inch circle at your shooting distance, then you could probably you could argue that you did your due dilgence. Now, of course, you're also you know, you got issues of that. You're excited and messed up your buddies. Shoo, shoot shot, Shoot, shoot when you're not ready to shoot, which tends to rattle people. Myself included, um, and all these things you can't factor. All right, Mark, you got any concluders, man, I think we covered some good stuff. You know. Um. My usual concluding thought when it comes to optics is they're about the most important thing you can carry in the field. I think that was my same concluding thought last time. And I'm not trying to sell optics, but I heard it, Uh, I can't remember how it went. Now. Some guys like, if you had a thousand dollars to spend on a rifle, what would you buy? And the guy's answer was why I spend nine on my scope? Yea, when I take my last hundred bucks to get a rifle. It was something to that effect. I've got an additional concluding thought too. If you were talking about spotting scopes and stuff, if you haven't been tripod glassing with your binoculars, startart doing it, Yeah, change your life. Correct that I was going to do that for my concluding thought. The acting you'll start glassing up quail at five yards away will convince you that it's the way to go. You don't realize how much that stuff is moving, like and when you're glassing, a lot of what you're seeing is movement, and a lot of movement gets camouflaged by your own movement. Johnny Concluder, we got the full tour of the Vortex factory today and I just want to say that I learned that I don't know shia about what it takes to build optics. I know a little bit now, but like when you actually see what goes into it, and like the scientists that are being employed are building these things, you're like, wow, I had no idea, like so so yeah, the machin dudes are impressive guys. Man. Yeah, they start talking like whoa, whoa hold on now what you need it? You mean to tell me, Oh, we covered a lot of great stuff. Check out check out an optic for your turkey gun. I mean, as simple as it sounds, I think for a lot of people it will really increase. You see your odds of of bagging a bird. But you guys don't make next year, you don't make a thing called like the turkey Slayer or something like that. Well, no, we're trying to in many of our optics. But yeah, the extreme version, um, give one of our guys a call Ryan, myself, Paul Scott, you know Mark, any of us would be happy to chat with you about. Yeah, that's Mike. I'm gonna do my COELU thought auto turn. When you call bord Tex, there's a bunch of dudes sitting there whose job it is to take calls from people and answer their questions, like honest, the goodness people who do all kinds of shooting and hunting. To answer your questions part of your job. I think a huge part of your job here is being knowledgeable on your whether it be a Western hunting, whether it be you know, competitive shooting, whether it be hunting the Midwest. You know, part of my job. And it's nice because I could tell my wife, Hey, I gotta go to the range today. But that's you know, to stay in sharp is part of your job. And that's why our crew I think is, you know, some of the best guys out there pretty tough to beat. Ryan. I think that in general, Americans like things big, right, We like jacked up trucks. We like big knobby tires on them. If I could give anybody listening a piece of advice and conclusion of today's do not put a precedence on the size of your optic. Put a precedence on the quality of the optic. So take optical quality over magnification or simplicity over complexity, that kind of thing. It'll make you a better shooter. It'll help you determine or set that gauge of whether this is a shot you should register, is exciting and confident or surprise, you know, So go go big on optical quality. Skip the magnification if at all possible. Yeah, it's all stuff, good stuff, I think. For me, I always talk about turkey hunting and red dots, and it makes me think I'm still shooting a bead off of a type of a barrel. So I need I need like unfettered access to like some of the greatest optics in the world. You need to I need a red dot on my turkey. How have you done this stuff? I don't know. I'm gonna try it, man. Yeah, it's time alrightybody, thanks for tuning in if you got if you got questions, what what I would do if you if I had a question about any of this stuff, I would just call what's the phone number here to six zero zero for eight. Yeah, and ask these holes as yourself. Um, all right, thanks again