00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything, dirt myth. It's been so long since you've joined us, Do you still uh? You know what I'm gonna ask about? Right, there's two or three things I think you will ask. Well. Yeah, I got a handful of things I want to ask you about, but mainly that that you you still you still chew man. You're still chewing man. Yeah, but half I feel like I've cut it half in consumption. You know, we get a lot of emails. I don't I think I got. We get somebody I don't even afford them to you anymore. People concerned about your health, people concerned about your true habit. It's a relatable issue, you know, I feel like but it is helpful. You like knowing that people are pulling for you. Yeah, because maybe it's a self esteem problem. Sure there's some like deep, deep seated psychological issue maybe or something. Or it was a it was a camaraderie thing with a lot of my mentors in the past. I don't know, because you're brought up in the ranching industry. But I don't want to. I don't want to pass blame of course. Yeah, uh Dirt has a coming of age story about his coming of age stories when he bought his first tin my first kid, his first good tin and didn't have to borrow it from ranch hands. Still chewing, but it's still conscious of trying to quit. I was, you know, I don't. I don't want to keep hammering at you, but I was gonna ask how about your love life? Are your trucks running? But um? Both but not a sperrit and move move on. Gary did tell me that we were traveling together and it was about ten a m. And we were walking through Salt Lake Airport and he's like, man, I haven't had any jew or coffee. He's really proud of it. Yeah, I asked, you need to pat me on the back for it. It was hesitant, but baby steps. Why why are you down on coffee? Well, just like any any uh anything that you can pull away from that as a necessity day to day. You know it's nice. I guess any addiction my woman? Um quit uh coffee and alcohol for a while, right for a while. Now I'm thinking about getting back into drinking. You always hear people. You always hear people trying to quit drinking. I'm trying to start back up again. Baby steps on that too, because a little sip here or there. I'm desperately trying to get back into it. I loved it. At one point you said you didn't give up on drinking. Drinking gave up on I want to try to reapproach it. It's like you'll relate to this dirt. It's like if you could have a break up with a girl, right and you reassess them, want to come back and fix what was wrong. So I want to reapproach the alcohol. I'm gonna like come back to alcohol and be like, listen, we both know that we had our differences, but we had amazing times too. No, Uh, Mark Kenyon is here. Mark. On a scale of one to uh, what do you like? You like a five ten or one hundred because you want to have a lot of room to really like nuanced an Yeah, on a scale of one one to one hundred. How excited are you about the UM Live podcast event that we're doing in Columbus, Ohio and a half. Oh you're that excited, very excited. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. I hear that you're gonna let me do Yeah. Well, yeah, because now people know I think that there's no tickets left. I mean there are some, but I think that by the time this airs, there might be no tickets left. But you know, we're just rubbing it in by talking about it. No, because I'm using this to inspire people in some of the other markets where we're doing shows two to go down and get some tickets. And we're it's close to selling out all the rest too right getting there. It's close. It might be too late. But you go to me eater dot live. Folks, you're not in your head. What do you think it's not in my head? Because you got to my website right, Thank you, me me eat or dot live. And it's the I think we'll probably adding more dates. We started out with four dates. Um Temper Arizona, Denver, Colorado, Columbus, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Um, we might add more and they're sold out. Who can we can? You say? Who All is going to be there in Ohio with me? And you well, you know we kind of gott to finalize with him. But I have I have extended invitation to the world's greatest small game hunter, Mr Murphy, Yeah, not to be confused at our guest guy Zach who's the world's greatest turkey hunter. Does that make you uncomfortable? I bet it does. Introduction of setting him up for failure. We rewind by telling them that. Um, and then another thing. Uh, Mark, Mark and I are working together now we are. It's like when you get when you become a couple and you start telling people is this official? Then this is official? All right, Mark's working with us at me or now, So you're gonna be You're gonna be here and seeing all all manner Mark Kenyon and you saw me put you in the hot seat the other the last time you were on you really did too. That was like, uh, kept coming. We were already going out pretty steady, but but I was hitting you hard to see feeling it out. Can can this really work? I guess I passed the test, So I'm excited about I think. I think it's a long term relationship. I'm not ready to talk marriage, but this is good. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna move in together, though let's not tell our wives. And then um, of course your honestly tell us is here. Good evening? And then uh poot mcgoot otherwise known as Chef Andrew Rajilowski world class, world class. Yeah. So over the last couple of days, Andy uh poop fixed up for us, walk us through poot the menu. What we've been been eating. Let's see we had what do we have? Well? Tonight we had some grilled octopus um that came from the cabin up the fish ak, along with some halibit that was also caught this summer at shack U. We had some turkey fresh turkey breast that was pretty good to the turkey pokata that was Leavin Eagles turkey. Yeah. Yeah, he's a little he's a little sour about it, you know. I know he's sour that his turkey is the one that everybody ate. Really, how do you know? Well, I'll tell you how I know because I not an hour ago. Uh. We had to um those soft sided yetti bags, the Yettie hoppers. I brought one and Yanni brought one size forties and we had some friends down for their first ever turkey hunt and they each got a turkey and we're bringing them back home to l A. So who's bag did they take my bag? Yeah? So here. No, Janis has a bag and I say to you honest and say, hey, man, do you mind carrying my turkey home in your bag? And I'll just get it from you later. And he's like, well, you might as well take it because my turkey's all gone. It was a little it was a little passive aggressive. Hey, yeah, yeah, I was fishing for Like, oh, well, bro, since we are both the ear breasts, you know, I'll give you one of mine. Is that what you were fishing for? Yeah, I would give you some of mine, but I'm the only one that if that's what the done deal. No, I was more than happy to share mine. You don't have to do that. No, I'll go Hans, he's with you. I just figured since you had the ball with me, you're taking home of our you know, stashed together, stashed that you would take it home mostly yours. I'm with you. Oh you know northing? You know, guy, I have you here? How many years did you live in Missouri? Forty seven and a half, so you're you're checked out. I'm Missouri. Because I want to do a quick correction or clarificate. It's not a correction, it's a clarification. We were talking about we we were down in We hunted in Missouri for Turkey's in spring and recorded a showdown there in which we were discussing, um, how someone jumped up some quail while we were hunting turkey and they were surprised they had jumped up some quail and he got into hey what. Um. We kind of kicked around, like why are what happened? All the quail used to live in the Ozarks and a guy wrote in with a one two three. He wrote in with a three point four point thing explaining why there's no quail in the Ozarks. The guy that wrote in to explain this is a is a feller that I've known through. He's like an email friend, Clay Newcomb, and he publishes a magazine called Bear Hunting Magazine. I didn't hear this from him. Do you know who that is? I'm part of the name yesterday los Feski, one of the four. I'm gonna give them all good calls, so I know now that you're checked out on this subject. I heard that this guy takes a mule, rides a mule up into the mountains and the Ozarks true story and spotting stalks, Black bearris with a mule. That's not something you here every day. Not something here every day? Can you understand that to be true? I grew up on mules too. It's trading posts and stuff in Missouri. This eels are pretty popular. Himpecones off of and okay, yeah. Now, he goes on to say, here's what's uh. He says that there was not a good answer given to why they aren't quail on the ozarks anymore. Fescue this is him fescue and bermuda grass now dominate the landscape because of the rise of cow calf cattle operations. Are a man you agree with that this part of the country now supplies a lot of the Midwest feed lots with steers, and the non native grasses are better for cattle. Before cattle was big agriculture, native clump grass provided better habitat for quail. Goes on to say Part two, there's not as many subsistence type farms anymore. From the turn of the century into the nineteen eighties, there were lots of small farms that just provided great habitat. We used to have a lot more edge habitat. Our our quail populations began to suffer in the early nineteen eighties and have never recovered. Here's an interesting one. You like that one. I totally agree with that. And part of the small farming that he's talking about is people spent their time taking care of their farms and their families. They didn't spend it trying to brush hog every weed and stick that made their field look like it was overgrown. Now we're we're a fence defense farming community and a fence defense cattle grazing community, and there's nothing left for a quail. Earlier, did you hear me mentioned the name Kevin Murphy as the world's greatest small game hunter? You know, very avid. Uh. He runs squirrel hounds and he runs beagles. He's like hunt. He used to like to hunt quail, and but where he lives in Kentucky, quail are gone to um. I bring that name up because he liked He prefers to hunt cotton tales on Amish farms and has a large network of Amish acquaintances and friends. And he hunts because they still he says, he describes as they still farm dirty horse. And you know, so there's a lot of like when when crops are picked there's a lot of stuff still on the ground. They leave big wind rows, they leave brush strips, and he said that's where all the game lives. And he says they he's generalizing, of course, but he says they also tend to be hell on predators. Which uh point three, matt, old tea post, I need to read this one. Oh okay, Yeah, sence fence defence, so that the advent of the metal tea post cleaned up with her. Besides and her, modern brush hoogs have replaced old fences that primarily grew up into brush heads. So half of the keeping capacity of these fences was barbed ware strung between trees and the rest was native brush. This produced great edge habitat that quail thrive on. Man's so he's a correct Then he goes down to cat recap as I understand the dominance of non native grasses. Metal tea posts and modern machine mowing machines have been the demise of quail. My grandfather, lew And Newcomb, was a regionally known bird dog trainer in the w Cheetah Mountains. Is that right in the Wacheetah Mountains of Arkansas? Part of my passion for wildlife conservation was fueled by watching him grown for the days of good coil hunting during the last twenty five years of his life, at which point there just weren't quail. He died in two thousand and fourteen at the age of ninety four, and talked about bird dogs until the day he died. Unfortunately, the quail died a long time before he did. My grandfather and my dad used to hunt them. I mean, that's all they did. My dad tried to get leave from Vietnam to come back just to not to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving with anybody to quail hunt because they had such a high population of quail in the late sixties and early seventies. So how did that request go over? He made it. Yeah, I got pictures of him and my grandpa hunting quail and it I mean, like you said, in the early eighties, we had really, really bad winners back to back. We had a a sleet storm that it rained on top of We got about four to six inches of sleep, and then it rained on top of that and we didn't we didn't go to school for twenty eight days. It froze and got down below zero and we were finding wold cove. He's a quail froze together, but the button a circle. They roosts dead like that, froze together and it it never come back after that. And that was about the time Fescu and bermunigraph started, and about the time the big machinery started, about the time cell phone and electronics started. It all tied together to It was a perfect storm for the for the quail population. You might not know this about Dirt. Did you know that he wants bagged to quail that night with a walk and stick in Mexico catlike reflexes. I thought it was a night bird, but later he killed the last one. There was plenty. We were doing like a like a late night death march in the dart and um he sees it and later was trying to tell us someone with the story. I think I can't remember who was over hearing him tell the story. And he gets to the part where he has a name what the bird was, and rather than saying did no, he goes, yeah, it was a night bird. It was really tasted. That's my first quil ever, right. Actually, you stepped me through the process. You cooked it. It was delicious. You bring up a great point with Texas and Mexico no fescue. You know, especially South Texas and West Texas, quail populations are through the roof, through the roof. Yeah, I think about when we went down and hunted. Oh yeah, man, what was it called the eagle with Bell Bryant Eagle pass Texas? So was it in uh? Guy, was it in Missouri that you were brought up? That you were raised up with the turkey? Yeah? Can you talk about that? Well? I was seven or eight. My dad got a bronze back turkey that we raised and and he was my buddy. And uh, first year he was all right. And then we hit that first first spring and he turned in too, not being my buddy anymore because he was becoming into his own, coming into his own and it's a euphemism. Yeah, And before that first spring was over, you couldn't walk from the house to the car without him attacking you. And uh, he wouldn't be mean throughout the year, but when springtime would come around, he would. And my mom she would carry a whiffleball bat and uh, if you misplaced your whiffleball bat, you got the end of that whiffleball bat. But she would keep it by the door, and in order for her to get to the car in the morning and the springtime, she'd have to beat that turkey back away from her just to get through. She even put up with that. And why didn't she just say, you know what, I've had enough and just get rid of him. I think she thought, in my past life I was a turkey, and uh, she knew how much I love that thing. Okay, Yeah, because when we had pet raccoons, my mom hated our raccoons, but she let you keep and they'd come into the house and she'd get a landing net and landing at him and bring him back out of the house or carry him out of the house by the tail and old door and to throw him out in the yard. And they would like wait by the door, so they knew how to get in and wait by the door and fight their way in when the door cracked. Nice. Yeah, but she never sort of looked. She's never liked threaten. Love of a mother. Um, and you learned how you started learning how to communicate with the turkey. Ye, my dad got a few. We got a few bronze back hands. Explain that with a bronze back hen. It's just a domesticated turkey. It's like a white turkey, but it has coloring, so it wasn't a wild turkey. No, there's a bronze back, Spanish black royal palm, and then a regular white domestic turkey, all different subspecies. But and and talk about learning how to communicate with the turkey, Well, we had a hen named Henrietta. I mean we were real original on the names. Tom was Tom and hen was Henrietta. But she stayed pretty docile. She's getting your laps. But that's how I learned to call was by mimicking her. And where did she have a vocabulary? That? Uh is similar to wild turkeys? Yeah, and she would leave. She would leave the yard and go up in the woods and raid with the wild ones and come back. I need some girls like that. And she she would have eggs every year, but if you never did, never would raise them. But yeah, we had her, so she would. She would lay down a brood air is it a brood one, it's an egg a nest. She'd lay down a nest, but wouldn't it wouldn't set them. She would set them, but they just never hatched for whatever reason that she was like leaving them too long once cold or something. I guess, So I just I have no idea. But we never could get even one year. My dad got him on and put him in an incubator and it still didn't work. So that's interesting. We said a cat that would eat it's young. A cat was named Maud. That's mess stuff. They would we're one time it laid a whole litter kittens and my dad's shoe and ate them all. That's terrifying. Yeah, I don't know any girls like that. That's a painful story. Any cat cat lovers out there as something different? Oh yeah, we ran into a who's there, oh, Pooter, We ran into a feral house cat today we're calling it him with a turkey call. Yeah. It was curious too. It was like, I'm gonna kill litening whatever it is. It got close and spooked. So um back to this, So so Henriette and Tom. Henrietta would go up and breathe and not do it. And but I want to get to the part about how like in your mind, what was it that you wanted, Like why did you want to start talking to this turkey? Just turkey hunting? And so it was based on turkey hunh. Yeah, he enveloped my my soul. How old are you at the time you enveloped your soul? My first one when I was six, and it was from there on. You got a turkey in your six And my dad took me out and got a turkey in and we went onto this place called High Ridge, and I look back now, the only thing Dad wanted to do was go to sleep. You know, he'd been out turkey hunting for himself, and this little kids aggravating the snot out of him to take him turkey hunting. And he know, he gets in at nine or ten o'clock and says, yeah, let's we'll go. I'll take you. So I had a little twenty gauge, my grandpa's twenty gauge, and you give me one shell and uh he sent me off about twenty feet so I wouldn't aggravate him while he went to sleep. And uh, I know this because I've done this guiding over the years. He turned your back to the hunter and call a couple of times and sleep for ten minutes and then you wake up. And but we hadn't been there thirty minutes and he called and I heard a turkey gobble, and I tried to get his attention, and I couldn't get him. A throw rock at him, through a stick at him, and that's how I know he was asleep. The next time the turkey gobble, he was a lot closer. Got the gun up and walk right up there, and I shot. When I shot, he yelled out loud and scared, scared the snot out of him, But I got it. It's a little jake had a beard about four inches long. And I don't know if I've ever got another one that I was so proud of other than than that one. And so then you thought, like, I'm gonna learn how to call these things in good. Yeah, and you had this turkey in your barnyard. You could begin to mimic and he would answer and come to you. Oh you could call him in. Oh yeah, you could call him in. He would, I mean, he would respond and come in. But so you're playing like you're playing Henrietta. Yeah, to bring Tom in. And when Henrietta would leave and go off horn around, he would, he would, he would tear the yard up. He would get beside him elf goblin. And I try to call him in and but the thing it was, when he saw you, he wouldn't he wouldn't run from you. He would go into defense, like he would try to kill you. I mean he would try to fall because he thinks that you're you're competition. First, yeah, I'm looking for my woman, and then I find you here. So the first couple of times I called him in, it it didn't work out so well for me. So I got to carry that whiffle ball bat and I try to call him in and kind of even the odds a little bit. I don't think the greatest story, but you know this is this is actually it actually is the greatest story. So as I matured, he matured, and he got to where he wouldn't come in close enough to me. So I painted my little wolf the ball bat camouflage and just started wearing camouflage and face paint and yeah, if I get him close enough, I'd wear his bud out. And I didn't. He didn't. I didn't always win. I mean nerevous times that he won, and uh he got. Really he was the wildest tame turkey in Miller County. I guarantee you what was the county, Miller County? So uh, you learned to do this, then in your communications with Turkey, you're not using a box call or you're not using conventional Turkey calls. Dad, give me one when I was twelve or thirteen and I had a bad gag reflex. But you know, I I learned how to do it. But all right, I can call on a diagram decently, but never could do use any call like I could. My boys, can you what was the first call you think you might have learned from? Henrietta just yelled? She would She would just walk through the yard, just constantly making small, little, barely audible noises. Who we are heard that one doing it tonight? You know, I was gonna ask you guys about that. It's kind of we're jumping ahead here a man. We Uh, the four of us hunted together, Andy, Guy, Steve, myself, Andy and Guy were sitting together. Steve and I were sitting together. Andy has pooty and come in fairly early, and uh, we we got to watch her for at least thirty minutes, right, and she finally drifted off. I never heard her make a sound, did you know? And you guys did She was talking the whole time. That's you know, it's funny. I want to get into this more. But I remember Will Primos listened to a Will Primos DVD and he was talking about turkeys make so much more sound, and you think he goes when you're sitting in the woods and one comes real close to you realize they're constantly making noise constantly, And I never, like tonight, we she wasn't in shooting range. You can't shoot female anyway, but she wasn't in shooting range. But I never heard a peep out of her. I can't believe that. You guys, just sitting not too far away, we're listening to her constantly talking and you don't even know if she's talking to to another one or if if she's just making noise to appeace herself. But I know that came turkeys we had. She would do it NonStop. There would be times when we get hot in the heat of the day. Now I don't mean she she called her head off NonStop. But for the most part, I'd say of her day was bent making noises. The other day we had a hand roll up on a decoy and she spent several minutes um trying to figure out what was wrong. With it. She'd kind of fan her tail out, walk around it, you know, move her head up and down. Wouldn't you just left to know exactly what she was thinking? Yeah, I would love to, I was saying. I kept telling I was telling Kenyan that if I could have, like all my questions about turkeys would be answered, if I could be in one's brain for five minutes, because I just want to know, like how precise their thoughts are or is it just sort of this nothing that's going on in their head, or is it that they're having like complicated thoughts about risk and reward? They live in two worlds. Everything's fine, everything's not fine. She would go up to it and was purring at it, but also just like whistling. It's really cool sounds. Yeah, a lot of that, a lot of those purrs and little subtle clucks in there, those little bitty tiny it's it's something that very few people even recognize as a turkey. But they do that to each other too. You know, they're curious. They want to know what's going on, you know, and you see it a lot when they walk up to decoys. What's the other noise? You just mean, just a perr just what does that do? That? Again, there's all kinds and the the purp. You know people talk about the feeding purr. Well, there's so many vocalizations from a hand to another hand, to another gobbler, to something's wrong, to an alarm. There the purr that a wild turkey uses as as many different, many different call meanings. Do the yell that you're old, Henrietta used to make walking around the yard. But what would shock me is she would do that in the yard and three hundred yards away in the woods, a turkey would gotble back at her, you know, hundreds of yards away, hundreds of yards away and on a on a still morning. And that was you know a lot of guys talking about now they don't ever call it to the turkey till he flies down. That was something I learned from that hen She would sit on the on the on our barn, which was where she roosted, and she would listen to the little turkey's gobble around her, and when they flew down, she would start calling to him. It was why, I have no idea. It was fascinating, but it taught me something. Don't ever call to him while they're in the tree. You know, wait till they wait till they hit the ground, and she would decide, she would make her mind up, she'd start yelping, and she'd pitch it down and go to a different one just about every time. So what other sounds did you learn how to make with just your mouth? Kyota hood owl and just any crow call, basically anything that would make a turkey cobble or let me hear the kyo, Let me hear it. Got a lot louder than that, but I don't want to break your sound machine. And then let me hear the owl. He lit up the owls. Yeah, like these guys were saying, you were calling in all kinds of owls. As he asked me, why don't al hoot when we go? And that's the reason why, because it usually ends up like that at five ours above my tree and I can't hear any thing. They were flying around from tree to tree, all around trying to find the offending owl. Can you rip it again? Let me here, that's good, walk me through. So if you can walk through what you understand to be um the vocabulary of a turkey. So we talked about a perr. What does it yelp? Saying when a turkey's yelping, what is it saying to other turkeys? It either wants company or it wants you to Basically, it wants company. That's it. That's their vocalization. But what is the one they use when they really are going like a dude? When when when a turkey sounds like a bad caller with a box call, because they do sometimes do absolutely the worst turkey colors in the woods or turkeys, what is she saying when she's doing that? She's ready to breed, She's ready for company in the springtime, now she's ready for company. And if you'll hear him do that in the fall too, And they've usually got split up from the flock and they're just trying to find they're gregarious animals. They want to be together, you know, as soon as the breeding season opened, as we're the gobblers get back together and they're best friends all year until you know, February March. And the same with hands. They're a very strange creature, but they're a creature of habit and they want company. You know, I just realized, can you hold on a minute? Sure we didn't do the list of the food? What distracted us for doing the list of the food boot. Yeah, he's turkey or lack of Yeah, that was it. That's what happened. Do you mind getting back into that. Yeah, speaking of rewinding turkey peccata. Yeah, we made we missed some stuff because you had some cured salmon that you caught there in say, yeah, I made some locks for breakfast. Um made a smoked cariboo kilbassa that we ate several different times. Did you hit the calamari? Oh? Yeah, we did some calamari that from my home waters. Yeah. You gotta lead down how you secret? Spot? How how that was served too? That was It was a curried calamari with golden raised and some green onion pine nuts and a little curry mangoeoli. How was it consumed or city shooting shotguns in the headlight of the truck. Yeah, as it should be. I just want to say, you guys all left and you left the plate out there. That's why I was out there for thirty minutes. Handful of handful of calamari. And what else did we do? Uh? That seafood caliboot halibut and spot ProMED sausage that's my favorite. Wee cured some goose ptramy, a couple of goosebreast stray we did Canada Canada goosebreast. Yeah, that's the I think that that dish if when you hear from people who get Canada geese and they don't like eating that much, does a job to be making. Yeah, it's a go to for sure. And then and poot special um food special Canada goosebreast pastrami recipes in the in the forthcoming cookboot. Yeah you can get it there. And oh, we had some couple of different lunch items where we did. Uh, I did a roast caribou and made a little sliders out of that. And then today we eat some too, a mountain lion roast and smoked through that in the smoker and it did kind of like a like a poled barbecue style with a little Cole slaw on all the all the tremans. That was pretty good. You ruin me, Andy, It was a wild game extravagan mayeah. You can never be reached again. Yeah yeah, yeah, yep. Series a big old alk linlif pi a. Yeah, that was that was really good. He cooked so hard, uh, he cooked so hard and so long that some essential part of himself was lost and he was unable to get a turkey. Yeah, because you, like you, you depleted some vital some sense of vitality that allows someone to well, I chose the wrong day to stay and uh do all my prep work every every hunt except yesterday when everybody came back with a turkey. Guy what um if you why was why was it so uh easy to get turkeys yesterday? But the day before was like very difficult because today it was not that great. Well, Friday, we had what winds out of the north, trees laying down and it's you know, they don't get together that well, they're scared. You know, predators have a better chance to catch them. Everything's moving. Uh, you know, sites their biggest defense, and uh we hit it right. You know, they were split up, some of them were lonely, and absolutely perfect weather. The barometer was low. Everything was just hit right cool and it stayed cool for uh it was probably eleven o'clock before it really started warming up. It was just absolutely perfect morning for so you think it was a response to having had such a nasty day the day before, Like if you have a rainy day, then the next day's real sunny. People more inclined to step outside. Depending on the wind and the weather, yep. But when it's clear and calm like that after day of bad weather over the years, it's And also the next day is usually the worst that you'll have. They're all back together and you and you've got the hunters you know around here that didn't hunt Friday or that tried to hunt Friday, and I knew that Saturday was gonna be good. So you had an influx of how many shotguns shots do we hear Saturday? I mean, jeez, must alone a handful. Yeah, And then there were several from around you know, so they noticed the pressure. So that next day they tend to be off a little bit. I know, we heard several turkeys this morning that only gobbled, you know, three or four or five times, and that was it. And we had one gobbled yesterday a hundred times at least at least at least a hundred times. And I'll put it into that you did, amen, capt One. But it gets frustrating, you know, when you have a day like today. But that's why they call it hunting. It's just you live for those days for yesterday. Up. I was telling Mark Kenyon or nothing. I was telling Pooter if if, if it's a sure thing, they wouldn't call it trying to call in a turkey. Hey man, it calls something different. Call it something different. Um, can you make a cut noise like what a turkey does when she cuts? I can't do it with my boys, really, yeah. I can do it with a mouth call. And I used to pack a mouth call it to do the cutting so I could yelp with my voice at the end of it. But you don't. I've hunted turkeys for forty years. I've heard cutting in the wild from a wild hen maybe a handful of times. No, hear it all the time. I just don't hear it. I mean not not the continuous cutting that like I was doing today when I was calling. I don't ever hear that. Me and Yanni do do you really? Really? Yeah? Are you sure you're not confusing it with just a bunch of clocks? Would you? Would you define it as like a very aggressive fuck? It's sort of just a series of very aggressive clucks. She's not scared, She's she's looking for somebody to she's looking for a time, trying to get a response from from a gobblin. So you can't do you can't cut with your mouth, thanks too much her, I'll pass out, okay, So so cut with a slate, Do one up by your mouth, do one up by your mouth piece? There, what's that turkey saying? She's looking for company? She's excited, may call it excited you up. So I don't know anybody that's ever talked to one actually, but you don't know any it's ever talked to one actually what she's thinking. But I think that she's looking for somebody. She's looking for a response, whether it be from another hen or from a dollar. But it just to be clear if you just slow that down and instead of doing a bunch in a row and just do that same sound. Yeah, you just called out a cluck. Cluck. She's walking and looking. Can you cluck with with your mouth? And a lot of times what hen says after she clucks. You know, I can remember in the eighties growing up, everybody told you don't make a put with your call, or you'll scare everything in the woods. Yeah, because you do the sound that they that they make when they spook. Yeah, but it what she does after she clucks or puts it says everything. If she puts and flies off, every turkey in the woods know something's up. But if she puts and yells, they're immediately calm. It means a totally different thing. But here's the thing. If all of these things meant I'm looking for company, then it wouldn't have They wouldn't all exist, Like why the redundancy, because we do everything backwards in nature, the hand goes to the godler. You know what I'm saying. If she wouldn't like, there has to be some difference. I'm sure you're we don't know. But if she yelps and cuts and cluck's all meaning I want company, they must all mean variations. If I want company, I want a company a teeny bit, but not really, I want company a lot. I see what you're saying. Yeah, And I've seen hands walking to the woods clucking and yelping and clucking and yelping, and they'll clucking yelp until they get a gobbler to response and turn and go right to it. And you know from listening to that that that's what she wanted to do. And I've heard the same hens doing the same things. Here a turkey gobble and turn and walked the other way and get with a group of hens and go off into the wood. Yeah, when it comes down to the final of it, she knows what she wants, and until we can figure out a way to get in her head, we're about as far as we can go as a as a group of hunters. I think, Uh, can you talk about when you when you saw a turkey gorging itself on crayfish underwater? That was that Empire ranch and it was unreal. She was walking along the edge of a pond like a raccoon picking her head would go into the water, and she had a beard about I don't know, seven or eight inch, as long as it was a bearded hen. Yeah, would you shoot a beard heading? Not? Now? Would you go to a bar called the Bearded Head? Yeah? We saw you? Did I say, we saw a bearded head last night? Pencilfin eight inch? Would you shot it? Mm hmm. I was hoping that would come in and poot could shoot it. That's why I could inspect it. But now I have to feel the guilt. That's where I would be. I would be able to then say, like, yeah, I was with a guy one time, I didn't do it, But my body shot a bearded him. But they'll eat anything if they can get it in their mouth. I killed the guyler one time had bagworms in his and his whole chest was just moving from all the bag worms. He had eight you mean bag rooms like tent worms, and you can see him moving inside there, see us craw. My wife wouldn't like that a bit care for it at all. What were you you were talking uh this morning about the hands have the hierarchy as well, and like the vocalizations will change based on their status within that pyramid. Is that that's true? And the hand goes into something that's called birdie when she gets a nest, she gets towards the end of her nest, she gets real defensive of her little area and defensive of herself. But they fight, They strutt just like a goler. They don't make the same you know how a goler does. But they will let me hear you. Let me hear you do that one again. Mm hmmm, you know I do. It sounds about the same, just abbreviated verse um. So the crayfish thing, how big are the crayfish it was eating? I mean, they weren't like what you'd find it a crawfish bowl. But they were all three or four inches long. So she's just filling her crop up with those things. The writer Tom Kelly, Colonel Tom Kelly who wrote the the greatest turkey hunting book ever, Legion, talks about them eating mudbugs, which crawfish, talks about the meat and crawfish. And I hadn't read his book until after that happened to me. But it's been a long time ago, but I did. I did harvest a turkey and because I had to see, you know what in the world, and she was eating, had a whole crawfull of and once again her crawl was moving. They weren't near about dead. Yeah, so crow, I never thought about that crossed the word for a crop yep, across the crop. Uh, as you learned how to make all these turkey sounds that your farm there as a kid, Um, how did you get into competitive turkey calling? And like what is competitive turkey calling? It's uh where a group of guys get a list of turkey vocabulary in vocabulary and UH you make each say it's a cluck or the cutting. You do that and then the yelping and series of that and then um clucking purrns, a serious of that and you get judged on those call. Do you believe in a call called the fly down? Is it useful to hunters? Absolutely? Now that one. I have heard a lot. Is it the fly down cackle? Fly down? Kickickii ki ki kick again and shoot that hand? Would dad? Can you? Yeah? You can? Can you do it with with your mouth with no calling? And now I'll pass out again. Let go a little close to your mouth piece. There you're you're Mike. And that's the that's the that's the vocalizations they make coming down out of a tree. Oh and I had her hands to do that a lot, especially in Texas. Uh. But when you so, when you but when you've got into doing a competition calling, it was just you were doing No, you're just just using voice calls. Now, I would have to use a diaphragm for stuff like that, for cutting and for the fly down cackle, but for a basic yelps and the clucking umpires and stuff like that. Yeah, run me through like a run through a bunch of the just a whole whatever comes to your mind. Oh, the call sequences, Yeah, run me through like a like let's say you're at a calling Well where were the calling competitions? Let me ask that. First, I took second in the world of Natchez, Mississippi. Second in the world natural voice. A guy named Tucker Chris beat me by two points. But that's what I mean. You just said natural voice. Yeah, so how can you can't If you're doing the natural voice, you can't have the call right. So you just suffered through it. And that's that's where I lost. It was the fly down cackle. I just couldn't do it. It sounded like a dead chicken, and I didn't score very high on my dead chicken also cost you the World Championship Voice calling. Yeah, I had nines and tens out of ten. He was scored zero to ten and I had nines and tens on all the calls except that one, and I had a four. So what was like? What was the first time you went to a competition? I didn't eat for three days and I flew down to Natches, or flew down to Louisiana and went to Natches. From uh, it's just nervous get up. But in front of a bunch of people, that was that was pretty rough. You know, you were nervous about it well in advance of going and doing it well in advanced Yeah, and you signed up. And did you even know that what other people were doing with calling? Had no idea? Had guys tell me? I just had a feeling you were good at it. Yeah. I had a guy tell me I had to eat lemons before, and then another guy told me I had to eat limes, and another guy told me had they cough halls cough drops that would clear my throat. And by the time it was over, I couldn't even talk, you know, I just it was But it was a great experience. You know, I met one of my best friends for life h there. I mean, we've been friends thirty some years. Met him at that column contest. And where was the calling contest? Natchez, Mississippi, Our nash Mississippi. However you want to say it, some good friends from down there and made made some really good people, met some really good people down here. This happening nineteen nineteen. Okay, No, I gotta followed real quick. How many other folks were in the voice division? I think, and all memories just a little rough, but I think there were sixteen or eighteen, and you know, there's some Mark Jury was there. He's a he's an excellent, excellent natural voice caller. And uh, there's some other people that you know, it's been twenty years ago that I can't remember. But you beat Marjury. No, No, he was there the year before he won it. Three years is in a row, and he was there at the contest, but he didn't call that year. He quit because he was winning it every year. He went into business for himself. The year I competed, he wasn't in it. Is there a day to day like maintenance you have to do for your throat or you know what I mean? Like a singer does their warm up? Do you do something to like you know, yeah, do you do that? Come on, sing it all day tomorrow? Yeah. I realized I had such a hit because my understanding is like, when you write a song, it's meant to be get some people's heads. And does he man or is he bith or myth gets into Mark's head and shake it, which tells me that it's a hit. What's even worse is my wife has had to hear me sing it because she gets mad at me, and I say, talked to Steve, I can't wait to get home and singing this is the annoying song, and this is how it goes. Does he man or is he? So you gotta warm up, l La. The more you call, the better you get at it. The more I practice, the better I am. All right, So at some point we better do it. Now. I want you just to like get put yourself back in your nineteen year old self. Okay, here you are, your Natchez, Mississippi. Haven't eaten in days. You get up on the stage. Let me set the scene for its a crowd of beautiful women and you're up on the stage, and and you need to start ripping out a wide array of turkey sounds, um that you learned communicating with the family. Pet. That's it. Do you have to do my specific order or yeah, yeah, and I'll say call or do the wild because we can do this just like a contest who wants to be the announcer. You don't mind me any announcer I've ever seen before. I be a crowd. I'm gonna be a crowd member. Contestant. Contestant number one, could you please start with the cluck and you just do it a few times and that's all You do just cut it and they'll give it a minute for the judges. Who who's judging I mean here at the table, I'm not judging who's judged in real life? You know they get h A lot of times would be you know past callers, um, people that turkey haunded a lot from that local area. Um. Sometimes they'd have agents do it from that area. You know, people that were absolutely knew what a hand turkey was supposed to sound like. And this is something put on by the National Wild Turkey Federation. Did Jay Scott judges the alcoholing right? Okay, so announcer moving on to the yelp U. Usually you do it twice unaided one time. Yep, yep you can do. That's like more of a harbor seal. Ye you tried dirt, Oh no, tryep you got Yeah. I bet Yanni can do like an approximation of it? Do you have? But my voice is not might in the best place for it. I canna try. It'll be good, Mark, but yeoh, hit it again. So when you're learning, how like now we're going back in. If you're not your nineteen year old self anymore, you're you're like whatever you know, you're gonna go back to being him in a minute. But you're you're younger, you're your younger self. How did you like? Were you learning to call with no call, just using your voice just out of expediency, like uh? Or were you thinking I want to become a a voice caller. I was using that to kill turkeys. That was it. So if I had given you a bunch of turkey calls, you might not have learned. Right, Okay, announcer contesting number one, que please now hear you're fighting per Actually this was big. Oh yeah, when two goblers made our two hens and you can tone it down from one to the other, but m t yeah hit him again? Yeah yeah. How about the kiki run? That's a close one. I can barely, I barely can do that one. But okay, but first, can you explain to me um the turkey sounds kiki kiki run? Like all these things, most generally, it's the fall of the young young, the fall turkeys, babies that can't haven't developed a voice enough. And you'll hear it take at the end. Sometimes sometimes it won't break. They'll ke key NonStop. But I've heard hens that do it. She my that Henrietta Turkey. She used to do it when she was five six years old. She would ki key. They can do it if they want to do it now. Babies in the fall, they don't have the voice box. They do it just because they're trying. They can't yell. But uh, I've heard them hens do that Kiki run in the spring, and like, I don't have video of her, but m she would do it when she was older. Let me hear the north. That just means follow me. I'm not sure what the Kiki run is from a mature hen. I don't know what that means. I really don't know why they do it sometimes. But Mark, well, what do we have left? We want to hear the fight on cackle again? Do we want to hear the I can't Where did you do the putts? I'll do the feeding purr? How about an alarm put Yeah? I told your ears, no, it's nothing. And my putting cluck sounds so much alike, you know, Yeah, but a real hands putting cluck sounds alike to Yeah, it was at the time. I'm in the woods going, damn it, I screwed up again. And yeah, here she comes, Yeah, she's coming. All the way in, and I'm like, oh, she's not putting it. Isn't the cadence different though? On the alarm put Oh yeah definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So when you were when you what was it like when you were growing up Missouri? Would you would your what'd your old man do for a living? He worked for the state Department and he wasn't around very often. And it was you know, when I lived in Tuscumbia, Missouri, it was population two. You know, we had a we didn't even have a stop that we had to stop sign a bank of church, in a bar, in a school. So were you the kind of kid that hung out by yourself? You know? I mean it was hard not to be popular because there was only like fifteen of us in my class. So you were popular whether he wanted to be. But no, I wasn't popular, but it was it was a great place to grow up. But I was a Hellian. You were a hell Yeah, I would say Hellen, like, well, like it tell me some bad things you did. I shot a lot of turkeys, but you mostly ran around out in the woods. Yeah, because like after the last couple of days, I can just tell, like I've only only for a few days to hang out with. But you're like, oh, you're like what I would call it a woodsman a turn that I do not throw around. Well, there's a lot of guys like to go hump. They're not like a woodsman. And that's just it. I don't hunt it all anymore. I mean I don't. I can't remember the last thing I harvested other than the bird that was pooping over the window sill, you know, I mean related relocated. I mean, it's just I love it, like you guys being here and the success you guys said, that's where I get my charge of of it, and you know, seeing the conservation efforts that have been made for the wild turkey, not only for the wild turkey, but for the To bring up a bad but good point. When I was a kid growing up, you would talk to guys, did you see anything today? I shot the hell out of this bush, but you know, it turned out it wasn't a turkey or I I shot at once seventy yards and there was accidents and you know people, I had a really good friend of mine got shot turkey hunting, and uh I got him into the sport and you know, he got shot a second time ever being out. He was hunting a public land there close to home, and uh, he was calling the gobler and he said he was just about ready to shoot it, and hits saw him and run off. And he said he was just sitting there and he say, looked, and he's seen a guy walking up to him. And he waved at him and he didn't have his gloves on, which who cares. And he a man looks about as much like a turkey as I look like an elephant, you know. But he waved at him, and he said, as soon as I waved at him, he threw his gun up, and he said, I knew he was gonna shoot me. And he put his hand over his eyes and saved his eyes. But he had forty some pellets up his arm and then his skull and holy ship. But you don't hear about that anymore. And it's through the conservation efforts of this country, and you know, educating people that you don't shoot until you are sure of your target. There was a kid that was that one of the Turkey Federation things who was a expert voice caller. The story was he became good at it because his old man shot him in a turkey hunting accident and damaged his voice box, and now he can call turkeys. Like I don't even you know, I try to think of like what word would describe that story. It's not irony, but there's some bizarreness to that story. And you can't ever take that, you know, that trigger pulled back. But I don't understand, Like if you if you talk to you guys soon, it's like, oh, so you thought you thought that you saw a man's hand and in your mind was, um, oh, there's a turkey, And I am verifying that it is a bearded turkey in there for illegal and I'm verifying that I'm holding on the wattles. Yeah you're not doing all the No, you're not, you're shooting that movement. But that was I mean that it was. I mean, we had ten fifteen accidents a year in the state of Missouri. Back in My buddies from Missouri have a good story about watching uh, an acquaintance of theirs. They just happened to be perched up and watch this guy like belly crawling on a bird in a field. It was goblin and the guy got up and shot a fence post. The bird was still like fifty yards farther, never saw and just reared up and shot this fence post and stood up and walked over there and realized that there was no turkey, not even close. He was trying to help the quail by killing the fence post. But it's because there was such a lack of it was like you had to take every split second decision to shoot something like it was just in the pride and ego, which is downfall of the majority of US guys. But you know now through their efforts, you know, they had the safe sticker on the end of the gun, you know, and everybody made fun of it. I didn't make fun with all. That was a great idea. Yeah, it was a b safe sticker that you put on the end of your when you put your gun up. It was on the whatever that's that the riser or whatever. So so you had to see that sticker before you made you think that one little one little bit. But are I mean it's went downhill. There's hardly any now, you know, one or two a year, and it's usually somebody dropping a gun or so some level of education took shape very much. So, yeah, you know what I was saying, how like how I was saying, like I think of you as a woodsman after walking around you. We're The reason I bring that up was our friend Pat Dirk and we're talking to him and he's talking about these guys that get so good at killing white tails. This will interest you, Mark Um. These guys get so good at killing white tails and like killing machines, you know, but they can't tell you what tree the tree stands hanging in. They don't know what kind of tree. Like they learned some aspect of hunting, but they don't learn the package of it. But you when you're out in the woods, you're you're you know your trees, you know your plants, You're observing all of the things around you, and you're curious about the vocalizations. And you don't even care to be the guy hunting could care less. I just there's something to learn every time we go out there. You know, it's if nature. Woods are changing every single second of every day. And now we've decimated our forests back the turn of the century and they've you know, they've come back, and we're learning as a nation that you have to take care of it. By eradicating fire and fescue and fence defense planning. In my opinion, someday she's gonna get tired of it. You know, we got to do our part a sportsmen to give back. We got to take care of our woods in our fields and our forests and our wildlife have to. We owe it to the next generation, our children. When you're growing up, that you see a lot of areas get destroyed. Yeah, over the course of your life. One of the most painful ones was in Alabama that we hunted, and uh, I mean it was. It was one of the few places I ever got to hunt that was virgin timber and uh there was wide oak trees and it was two acres and and me and uh the buddy that I hunted with down there, Barry, we could hold hands and not touch I mean around the majority of the white oak trees on that place. And Uh, that grandfather passed away and left it to his grandson. And on the one condition that it didn't get clear cut, that nothing happened to it. It It was never to be logged, which I'm not sure did I agree with the never being long stuff? But something that pristine and that beautiful, Yeah, I agreed with it. And I remember we went down there one year and that his uh nephew had found a way around it, and it was a clear cut field when we got there. It's the logging thing is is tricky. And the main when I was a little kid, the main area we could go and we could like take twenty two and walk out our door, and and you had you would like take twenty two whatever across the road and you go into a small wood lot with my old man on the chunk of then you go down and cross Mueller Road and pass into a big woods because it was owned by a summer camp and it came to be the summer camp sold it and whoever got it was came in to log it, okay, and these are big white pines, big oaks, um and they came in to log it. And we were like the monkey ranch gang man because we don't want to log it. And we noticed that the guys came in and would go around right and no cut on some trees. And my old man had gotten all this paint at uh my old man had gotten all this paint at a white elephant sale. And we had a sprayer and I remember me my brother. We were I think I was thirteen or fourteen. I remember because right around the time, I was peeling logs for thirty or five cents of foot at a place that made log homes. And uh, we kept mixing that paint to try to get it to match exactly the paint that said no cut, and then went all overund in the woods right, no cut it on stuff, which didn't work, and then they cut it okay, so it was it was squirrel woods. Then they cut that forest select cut, not clear, but select cut it. And it was a couple of years later and we had deer and there wasn't deer anywhere near. I mean it was like you would there would be now and in a deer somewhere if you crossed the next world white Lake Drive and passed into this other woods, you could possibly run into a deer. They logged that thing, and we jumped a rough grouse in there a few years later, which never happened, and we actually went and hunted deer in net woods after it was locked. And then that that caused me to have sort of like an awareness of sort of like a managed forest, right or like how you could that's something you think is negative, like, oh, logging so bad, But then it created this thing and it wasn't like this is old girls whose got logged off during the logging boom. Anyways, it was something of a more cyclical nature. But if you went there, now there's now again there's nothing because then what happened was development and someone came in and scratched it all off into lots. Feel out of it. Just it's just houses. Yeah, it's houses. It's just gone now and now it's now. What I think is like, oh they're gonna log it. It's gonna be gone or it's gonna be ruined. No, it's gone when you build, like when you develop it, that's gone. It was developed. It was developed by the guys that you know, it was developed by the guys that went to high school with It's not like not like an evil not like an evil thing happened or someone did it with malintent. It's just like the fact is now nothing's there. Well, there's some scrolls run around. You can't hunt because it's people's yards. That's why they make pellet guns. Right, I'm I'm a fan of logging when it's you know, selective selective harvest it's a renewable resource, just like cutting the field of grasp for Hey, if you don't, it's just gonna go to go to waste. Utilize it and you can if you do it right, you can help your forest in so many ways. You can help your forest and your wildlife. Yeah, have you ever ever been around when they've done those rings? They bore into the tree and take it out, and the rings on the wood and tells you how many years old the tree is. No, I just know you're counting them on the stone. Yeah, they got a machine or it's a little handheld deal that bores into the tree and it takes out a tube of the tree for lack of a better word, and they can count the rings and you can see that trees life where it had a drought year, it had a lot of rain, or it's starting to get enclosed. It's got too many trees around it. And the rings will get shorter and shorter and shorter as the forest matures. And you do a selective harvest in an area like that and come back in ten years and do that same thing, and those rings are so far apart you can't even it doesn't look like it's the same tree like that tree kicking. Now it's got room to grow and there's some light through the forest. And we as human beings we want to see. Well I don't, and I'm sure you guys don't either, being hunters. But people want to see a pristine forest. I hate that word. You know, Christine, There's there's no such thing as pristine in the forest. If it's Christine, it needs some work. You know, if you can look six yards through an oak forest, there's nothing there. There's a few acorns at the end of August that last what two weeks, and then then there's nothing. You need to cut that and open the timber up and allow some sunlight so you can have growth for deer and nesting cover for your turkeys and dere see food and this fore ft fore ft of cover. They don't care about what's above them. They want they want something that they can hide in and even a while Turkey does too. Now, yeah, they like their open areas, but they they need security. This a little off topic. Do you remember what it was they were given out at that Turkey calling contest for a prize? Yes, it's just ginormous trophy. The only trophy I've ever will that in co ed softball. That's the only two trophies I got in my house. You still got it now? Yeah? He carried around with you? Now, yeah, I dode. That's only the only ones I kept. And that's not true, right. I won that Illinois Open, in Oklahoma Open, and some other little contests. But I don't have any of those trophies anymore, but I do have that one. Is there a group he's in uh Mouth, Turkey Colling. I don't know I got so I got so far away from it, you know, I don't. I haven't done it in so long. But there were some super guys that were that. We're in there. Yeah, it's a good group of fellas. And then you got into turkey guiding, guiding, turkey hunting. Yeah, when you do know, are you mostly um enjoying it or mostly not enjoying the company of the people you're guiding? You don't. When you don't do it for money, the the ego and pride leave and the enjoyment of it come in. Who's the egoing pride? Not mine? I have none left. But when when somebody is paying you for a service, they expect results, so it puts pressure on you too to make those results. And a lot of times, like today, turkey that wasn't doesn't want to cooperate and you really can't make them do what they don't want to do. And uh, you know, I got enough pressure in my life. I don't I don't need that. But you know, like Saturday, I lived for those days, so you felt the guide and you felt that the the transaction of it made it less fun because the hunter had expectations right, And I haven't. I haven't taken money for other than a few tips. I tried to talk, I'm out. I've given me to him, but they still give me. But I haven't took money for guiding in cash. I don't even know how long. It's been a long time. And that makes you feel better about it, a lot better. Yeah, what were some of the things you've seen people do when you're guiding that you didn't really like? Oh? Lord, one, I'm not gonna name the guy's name because I don't know what the statue of limitations is, but he was a baseball player at it, and he played for the Mets. He held the record for getting hit by a pitch the most in one single season. It was like a hundred and twenty times he got hit by a pitch, mean, horrible rough man that just was soft on the inside, you know, a good, solid guy, but he was. He just didn't put up with nothing. You know, everything was a bench clearing brawl if it didn't go right. And you feel that that's a symptom of being soft on the inside. Yeah, he was a super soft guy. He was a good guy. I really liked him, you know, even to this day, he's a he's a super guy. I kind of I don't really understand what you're saying. You're saying that he would fly off the handle. Yeah, but and that being a result of him being soft on the inside trying to hide it. That's my opinion. I understand what you're saying. That's my opinion of him. But he had soft tendencies but didn't like it. It didn't like that about him, so it wasn't gonna show it. And he would go over the top and pummel you if you thought that of him, which if he hears this podcast, he's probably gonna pummel me. But that's all right, goes, well, we'll pump him right back. But I took him out. He aggravated me for two years to take him turkey hunting. So I took him. We go out and it was kind of raining that morning, and I set up under a cedar tree and a glade and it was I don't know, it's probably ten o'clock and I didn't want to be there unclose one. It's raining and the sun he stops raining, the sun breaks through and me and him are sitting there shoulder shoulder. First time ever been turkey hunting. It was April twenty nine, a Friday. I remember it like it was yesterday. Man, I'm waiting for something real bad to have. It's pretty bad. And this this turkey gobbles just out of the blue about two or fifty yards down on the off this glade, and we're in a perfect spot. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, you know. I get him around, get his gun up, and uh, the rain is dripping off the cedar trees, and there's just that little bit of miss you know, and I just it's like, all right, Rocke, Yeah, I mean, he just was almost he couldn't because with the guy shooting. Sorry, no, no, now you're talking. So it's skinting around, get his gun set up, and through this glade outsteps Ahin, just a beautiful little hen and she back at me and I called to her, and he gobbles and he steps out behind her, and it's just one of those turkeys that you never get a chance. You know. He's got a foot long beard. It looks like as big as a coke can. It's just a humongous turkey. This is what you live for, you know. And I'm telling you, this is the biggest turkey I've seen this year. It's it. Please, you know, take your time, he said, I got this, Like all right, So I call a couple more times. Can you hit that gobble again when it's the right moment, Like this is it? You know, a gobbel straight at us a hundred and fifty yards a hundred yards and then she's about fifteen or twenty yards ahead of him. She's just walking and feeding, you know, And she gets on about twenty five yards and he's about fifty and he's just beautiful, the sun shining off of him. And I'm like, how am I gonna talk to this guy in a mountain this turkey? You know, because it's a trophy turkey, and I said, all right, let him take a few more go boom, and then just explodes into a cloud of feathers. Yeah, oh my gosh, what in the beep beep and beef? You beef an idiot? Well I got the idiot out and that was the end of my trash talking him. I got a stern lesson and that he was paying me for a service. He came here to kill a turkey, and by Lord above, that's what he did. And if I didn't like it, I could march my butt right on back to the truck, which is exactly what I did. I left him with his turkey right there in the woods and left professional baseball player. Yeah, shout the hand. And he packed that thing around and showed it to people. They would have hung me, they would have put me under the person, you know, but not him. He takes it and goes off and just as happy as he can be. It's like never again. I never took him again anything, never soft inside, soft inside. But that was that was his claim to fame. You know, you, Johannest does this. You do it, and your honest does it. I'm trying to learn how to do it where let's say if I if I meet someone who just terrible, you know, I'll just feel like I don't like that guy. But um, yanni will will will try to find out what it is that makes the guy that way. That's a tendency for me too, and then um right, you'll give him like the credit of the problem. Do you know see what I'm saying? Yeah, as opposed just writing it off. As opposed to write it off, he'd be like, yeah, but he yeah, but he as an explanation, I think it's a more like gracious way to go through life. Be like, well, yeah, but he had a lot of problems with his dad, I understand as a way to like excuse the sort of behavior. That's man, I'll have our our fault, all of us. Yeah, dirt, I got no faults. Well, I guess chewing. Uh, you're like a hunter who doesn't hunt. That's it. I refuse, refuse, refuse other than the relocation of a pest from time to time. Other than that, I'll never kill another animal. Had a pleasure do speechless at a little bit speechless? Well if at a point where okay, so at a point you would you say, did you imagine the point in your life you will say not only will I not I will not assist in the killing of another animal. Too much pleasure from people, too much excitement. I enjoy seeing that the look on people's faces, kids, women, adults, It doesn't matter. I enjoy the excitement of it and seeing the thrill. Did you take your own kids hunting very much? Yeah? Do you take them hunting? And then think like, well, I hope that they'll arrive at a point where they don't want this anymore like I did. Yeah, I do. I hope that that someday they reached the point where they want to help others see what they've got to see in their lives. So what is it do you think? You're like, what is it that you're helping people to see that there's another side the turkey hunting and deer hunting? That it's it's and I don't want to offend a ruffle any feathers, But don't worry about that, all right, Well, it's not about it's not about selling the next product or making the next invention. You know. Tom Kelly was, I mean, he's the greatest. He he loathed decoys, he didn't feed corn, he didn't do anything, ain't wrong. He just hunted turkeys. He wanted that battle of him against a turkey. And that's it's personal for me. Two match wits with one of them to know what he's thinking before he realizes what he's thinking. And by the time he realizes he's messed up, he's laying on his back looking at the last sunset or sunrise he'll ever see. And that's a because I failed so many times that when I finally succeed, it's just I enjoy seeing that in other people's eyes. Well, my son, he was eight years old when he killed his first deer with a bowl, and uh, when he couldn't get he physically couldn't get out of the tree. We had to sit there for an hour because his legs shook so bad. I knew that was it for me. I would never get that level of excitement, And why why would I kill anything if I'm not gonna be excited about it to his level? And he still gets that way. He still gets if it's a dough or ten point buck. He's still both my kids are still that way. So the fun vanished, and I don't know if the fun the fund is there. I love going out with him and sitting in the tree with him, and even with my wife, I enjoy sitting with her. I enjoy hunting with anybody that gets an excitement level out of it. But where I'm what I'm trying to say is why would I harvest an animal if I can't get as excited as they could about it. I understand, I understand what you're getting that, but I just it's hard for me to I understand, like the structure of what you're saying, but it's hard for me to understand a little bit because, for instance, when I was kids, we were hell on chipmunks. We learned how to hunt by hunting chipmunks. Today, I was having a conversation with you honest about how we were listening to some chipmunks. I'll say, man, we used to just really hunt hard. If we heard a chipmunk cutting loose chirping, we'd get baby guns and go after it. But we didn't eat the chipmunks. Okay, So I would now like I now, when when I'm out with my kid and he's in that he's got that little kid thing where you want to get everything in the woods, I'm like, no, because that's right, we're all here for squirrels. I'm not gonna do that. That's not something people eat. It's not something we're gonna eat. So no, but here I am okay. So here, I am like I've engaged in this activity. I used to engage this activity, and it's something I enjoy doing, and I learned how to hunt that way. But I've decided that I'm like, you know what, I don't like that that happened. Looking back on it, I'm not gonna tell my kid not to do something that I did. My kids are raised very differently than I was raised, so that so that is true, very true, very different than I was raising. You know, my mom and dad worked daylight the dark. Um. I can remember packing a shotgun to school. Yeah, I was seven miles from my house to school. I was turkey hunting all the way to school. Leave my shotgun on my camouflage, leaned up against a big oak tree on the south of the playground, and I go to school. I come out of school, pick my stuff up, and walk back home. It wasn't it was just part of it. I mean, I want to go to that school when I man, when when I was I remember when they banned guns on campus, and we'd always go hunting after school and I run my trap lines after school, and we went down saying, well, this isn't gonna work because um right, you have to have it, and like, oh, yeah, you know that's okay, That's not what we meant. It was just you just had to go let the principle know that you weren't going to follow that rule, and he saw us out whether he thought it was okay for you to not follow or not. There's different times back then, different times every guy in our class had a gun rack and a gun in his back of his truck, you know. I mean, it's just it was part of our our culture, and we've let that go because of some bad decisions. I have a few messed up people. We've all got to pay pay for it. Yeah, but I gotta tell a story my dad, and then I'm done because you you brought U the chipmunk shooting the chipmunks. Mine was Turkey's all right. My dad had this box of paper Peter's shotgun shells, twenty five of them. I mean, when he used to not be plastic with paper paper. And people probably don't know this. The casing was paper. My great grandfather, who I'm named after, give him those shells, and he was so proud of him. Well, jan any worry. First, I got banned from using the shotgun. I couldn't kill turkeys anymore. I was in trouble, bad grades. I couldn't hunt that spring. Well, that just tore me up. So he took all my and I you know, are you not academically inclined? No? I graduated with point one percent one percentage point. You know. If there was classes on turkeys and deer hunting, I just I would have aced it. But I didn't have time for school. There was hunting and drinking beer and other things to do. But you knew how to read good. And I'm not superably stupid. I made some bad decisions, but I'm not a complete idiot. But anyway, those shills set inside this little drawer where we had dinner at and uh so, turkey season come around and I'll sit there one morning and a turkey starts to going across from the house. So I got it. I got it. He had old twelve games that he left in the corner and old Winchester. I got one paper shell out of there. Slid in. The gun closed it it closed. You know, everything was good. I wont what I wonder. So they were off to work. I sneak up the ridge and the gun goes off and I killed the turkey. Well the papers, you know, it didn't expand like today's plastic shells. So I just took all the shells upside down and put the paper one on the bottom. That's a good thinking. No one's ever going to No one's ever gonna know. Fast forward three Turkey seasons, and uh, grades hadn't got any better, and uh I was keeping the local neighbors supplied in Turkey breast. But we had this couple my mom and my mom worked for this guy and real high faluting guy and mom and dad and mom they cleaned the house then everything, had this big dinner for him. They come over to the house and we're all sitting around the table and we just finished eaton and my dad says, they had a guy, you know, every deal with guns. And he says, oh yeah, yeah, and he gets up. He goes out in the car and he brings back this gun. He says, this gun my great grandfather gave me. And I thought, oh shoot, he says, I got something my my my grandpa gave me. And he turns around and he reaches in that box and he picks up this empty case of paper shotgun shells, and right in the middle of dinner, he just chucks them at me. You little bee beep beep beep. I knew, I knew better. I knew it. So we had this huge family squabble in front of this high fluid couple that mom and Dad really laid out the red carpet for. Because I shot every single one of those shows, there wasn't a one of them left. I still think grabbed my great grandpa for that box of shells because Peoter, did we name all the dishes? I think I think we got to the ball cloth man, do you have anything? Do you have anything you wanna wedge in there? Uh? Yeah, clarify. I just I'd had to say that I learned a lot over the last couple of days about turkey. And it was even though I didn't put one in uh in the freezer first turkey just last spring sure did yeah over in Montana. So now you're learning what it's like to lose. Yeah, but no, it was very educational because last year when I got it was it was a quick I had a bird on the ground within within an hour of being being out and about. So this year was good because I learned way more about the the whole process, and obviously I had some good uh, some good good guys to to lead that what's your favorite what's your favorite thing about turks so far? Uh, just the interaction, you know, getting out there and hearing that that gobbl in the morning and se crazy beautiful noise they make. Yeah, and then just to kind of have that kind of that conversation with him. Yeah. I I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it, uh, it didn't turn out in my favor. I die really really enjoyed getting out there and sitting and just covering some ground and seeing seeing what it was all about. And hopefully do it again next spring. Oh you'll get one next spring, man, no doubt my mind. Mark Kenyon Final thoughts. Yeah, housing, flip pops, feeling really good, gotta air this, Yeah out at night and I was wearing the big stomp clumpers all day, rubber boots, So any of these pretty badly final thoughts. It's just a great weekend. I mean yesterday was a lot of fun. We're able to me and dirt were able to get the job done firstly in the morning, which is a blast, and then uh probably other than that though in the camaraderie was stand out as Pooter, the founder of the feast, You put on an unbelievable culinary extravaganza. I think I gained ten pounds some great, great food. Who's my favorite cook's taste? Yeah? Mine as well. It was great, great time, Dirtmouth. Yeah, I'd second what Mark said in uh the two hunts, I gotta hunt with you honest as well. Both Mark and your honest got their birds. The light for my craft was untouchable. It was just amazing the beauty of this area. And Michigan was the final state. So have you I want to touch on this? Yeah, it was. So do you have to say you've ben the state? You get figured you gotta sleep there or just you don't kind like the airport layover? So how do you count it? Yeah, like get a sense of the area, even if it's brief, But yeah, not a not counting like a connection flight or anything. It doesn't need to be a sleepover. No, But I think I have probably every state at it at least a night plus. I did a big trip too long to get into it. But yeah, I felt like all the states prior to Michigan was more than just a check on the board, and now Michigan feels that same kind of role. It was amazing, amazing time here it's ladies and gentlemen, dirt myth um fifty states. Yeah, you can look down on him because he's a slave to a substance. It doesn't have the level of discipline to stop doing something that's killing him by rotting his jaw off. However, there's always a balance. But however, he's visited off and he did. Is there really a term for that? Is there a title? Like there's the Turkey Grand Slam Holders. They're like state Grand Slam. You're a Grand slamdholder, State Grand Slam. Yeah, I'm at forty nine. There's one missing, good that you got any questions for him to know how the clothes are down? The one missing for me is Louisiana, which I know because we were on our way there. I tell the story all the time. We're on our way there. We are down in Mississippi. I think we started out in Memphis. We're headed through Mississippi, got to like Clarksdale, home of the Blues. The crossroads were Devil where we went to the Crosswolds where supposedly Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil. I was like, I'm gonna get out of the the car. My friend I was like, don't get out of the car. Um and then continued on our way and we're going to New Orleans and on the news is like, we're there's like a big weather event fixing to happen. And the more we go, the more serious the weather event is. And it winds up being that there's closing some stuff and evacuating some stuff. And we bailed. That was Hurricane Katrina, so it wasn't it wasn't faded, so it was like we Yeah, so we could have made it into town in time to take part in that whole rodeo. Good decisions. Yeah, left named print. Oh, speaking of calling that a rodeo, there's a clarification. The guy wrote in I want to touch on real quick where he says we were. He was saying, getting western and getting squirrely are very different. Oh, I'd agreeing Western means risk of injury. How would I describe my physical danger squirrely? I would say too, Yeah, he's like you could like mess up the fletching on your air on it shoots a little squirrely, yeah, or like Garrett was giving me eyes today in the blind. Western's far different. Yeah. Yeah, if you're blind with another man and you were just saying, man, I thought I was gonna get Western. That's different than let's get if you said, like I was in a blind with dirt and things got a little squirrely, No harm done. But his clarification was that there has to be a risk of physical harm is explicit with with within Western, and squirreliness does not slight hearted. Yeah, get something being a little squirrelly doesn't mean that the physical harm is going to result from that. Yeah, did you have any final thoughts? We always say Western when there's uh hunting, when there's like too much shooting going on. The first shot didn't really connect properly, but you decided to keep on shooting. Things got a little Western. You've got a little Western. Dude got West like a shootout? Oh gosh, Yeah, that was so, what is it when you get to Eastern? Things got a little Eastern? I don't know what got Western tonight. That guy with the oh the guy that was just shooting up the store. Steve Texas is like if that gun ain't said and now, yeah, that's just coming from a guy who's sort of like I used to love to just shoot, and we're kids would just go shoot for Christmas. We get those you know that the sells milk cartons, ammo, we just go like, burned through a whole milk cart in its twenty two rounds. Now now it's did not even that. It's just like, no, I just it's just very like it's like a functional thing, Like I no longer just like to just go down and just what we call plank just blast. It's just loud. Yeah, it's like loud. That wasn't a two today, Oh no, no, it was you were he worked in the twenty two later. Yeah, that double comma was like fireworks. Just my view on recreational shooting is it's just it's just like loud, you know. And when we used to just shoot, shoot, shoot all the time, I never thought about what it means for some guy who's out like we were tonight, Like that guy, he's oblivious to the fact that we're out creeping around the woods. Yeah, we're trying to We're trying to film an interview. And we had like ten different takes where I'd start and then start shooting, stop agatting, like okay, wait, wait, okay, now go that was getting western for sure. I thought it was somebody could have gotten home. He was decidedly squirreling. Any um, yeah, um, I think I want to go home, and uh, you know, we have a giant flock of chickens, but I think when I'm missing at home is a couple of henriettas. Yeah. He was telling me this tonight when we were sitting there just observing. You're in Poot's hunt. I'm not saying' gonna become a Laics caller, but I figure my next spring to Turkey season, you won't even be able to get near me my turkey calling skills. Spent a whole year with Henrietta just listening. That's your concluder. Yeah, um, do you guys have room for a turkey? Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to this plenty. So, guys, Zuck, can you tell us your what your what was your guy's family name before you guys Shorten it to Zuck Zuk and hyphen Snyder or something. Guys, Zuck, thank you uh for coming on the show and uh and talking about turkey. Calm, guys. I just want to say it was a pleasure having y'all and give a shout out to our host. Thanks thanks to him for letting us be together, and I hope to do it all again someday. We'll be back. Here is a fun place to hang out, So thank you. I'm gonna hold you to that. We're coming alright. Brother, enjoyed it. H

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