EP:432 | James Buice A Call Maker's Legacy

On this week’s episode we are joined by avid hunter James Buice, who’s dad Mr. Billy Buice was a legend in the turkey call makers community.  James loves wild turkeys, the traditions around hunting them and being a free spirit, traveling to wherever the weather is good during the spring turkey season.  James tells us stories about his dad, wild turkeys and the interesting trumpet calls that are the craze right now. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy.  

Buice Website: http://www.buiceturkeycalls.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Lost Young Land Enhancement Studios. They discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. And of course, funny. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm going to tell you, I've had it. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_05 0:27

Three, two, one. Okay, guys. So spring is here. Turkey season has opened and started. Others are just around the hook. Here and here and there. It's going to be a full foliage spring, it appears to me.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Already has. Already is. Yeah. But as it moves north, don't y'all think everybody else is going to be experiencing the same thing? It's going to be some glean leaf.

SPEAKER_06 0:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

A little bit.

SPEAKER_07 0:50

Did you have a quick pecans are not showing yet? True. That's the last thing. Peccons don't lie. So what did y'all notice got frosted? Grass in my in my yard. That's exactly. I've seen grass.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

I've seen the fig at your cabin got it and some other figs.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

My sawtooth.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

And then I've noticed red mulberry got it this year. Oh, I do have red mulberry.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Could it possibly have hurt my blueberries? Because they had bloomed a little. I don't think so. They're more coal tolerant.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

The Chickasaw plums out here at the office that nobody's allowed to ever collect. Right. They didn't get it.

SPEAKER_07 1:26

My mulberry got it. I looked at it yesterday and was like, what's wrong with that? But now I'm just raw with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

I've got all those beautiful blueberries there behind the house, and I looked at them this morning, and they've got less than half in blooms. And I don't know if that was from the drought last fall. I did water them some, I thought. But they're definitely being affected by something. I'm going to have maybe a third. And it's just like an entire side, actually. It's kind of weird the north side of them. Is what doesn't have blooms? Yes. Seemed like that would make sense. So the kind of the tops and more to the south. And then there's like nothing. One of them is covered in blooms, and the other ones are all partial. I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

I think they're pretty sensitive defrost.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

They are. Now that you brought that up, I bet that's what did it. So I need to go check mine. I was thinking we got because of the vathayas that started to bloom didn't bother them. I was hoping our oak trees fared well.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

They looked okay, the ones I looked at.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

But it's hard to tell until they put them all in.

SPEAKER_05 2:23

The leaves that came out on my sawtooth are just scorched. Oh, really? Yeah. All of them. That's not good. That's not good at all. What about your native oaks? Yeah, how your native oaks do. You know, it's hard to tell. Your real oaks. They're not as far along. Your real oaks. Your authentic oaks. Look, okay, I enjoy talking all this stuff with y'all, but we've got a guest. We've driven a long way to be here. Yep. Let's get him introduced. We've got Mr. James Bice. In the house. His name is spelled B-U-I-C-E, which would look like juice, but it's Bice. So the O is sil the U is silent here. It's actually Buse, it's French. We go. So part of Freddy. I mean, I've been like so been a fan of your dad. Oh. We need to say he gosh, this this earlier this this year. He lost him.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

And well, we all lost him.

SPEAKER_05 3:19

Yeah. Mr. Billy, Mr. Billy Bye. He got referenced numerous times on here by some callmakers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I would have loved to have had him sit in here or talk to him. However, we hate we miss that. But uh what a what a interesting growing up you must have had with uh being able to sit at his feet and learn and hear hear turkey stories, turkey call making stories. Yeah, that's why you're here. We want to learn about all this, that your lifestyle.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Yeah, I was it was really interesting growing up. I mean, we I had I'd say a really blessed childhood just having him as a father, but also just as a callmaker and kind of a mentor making calls and turkey hunting. And then his friends, you know, uh Larry Hearn, the late Larry Hearn is actually the person that got him started in callmaking in 1968. So where are you from now? You're in Georgia? In Georgia. Yeah, what part? Uh North Georgia, up near uh Chattanooga, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Okay. Hill Billy, yeah. Oh, yeah. We've been I've been going to Unicoy since I could walk. Just about.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

I guess you've been turkey hunting since you could walk, too.

SPEAKER_04 4:31

Just about.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Just about.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

You could stand flat-footed and kiss the ground up there.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

So in the in the late 60s, were there turkeys around where you grew up?

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Uh I th I wasn't alive then. I know they had a few.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

But you're I mean, your dad was making turkey cans.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Yeah, he was he was making them. Uh the way it got started, my my father was uh working at a cabinet shop. And Larry Hearn came into the cabinet shop and wanted uh a box built to send a rifle back to Germany. And my dad said he could build a box for him. And then he also had a uh an original Tom Turpin Yelper. And he said, Well, can you you think you can make one of these? And dad looked at it and he said, I think I can. And that's what started it. He actually copied a Tom Turpin Yelper. And then they I mean, Larry was over at the house, he lived five minutes away. And he, as a kid, I can remember he was over there every night, and my mother was not super happy because my they would disappear to the basement where my father's wood shop was, and I was young and kind of annoying, so they wouldn't let me down. So I would try to get their attention. I would go in and get all my in my dad's record collection, and I would zing those records under the door trying to get their attention. And uh they would, I mean, they stayed down there for hours just kind of tinkering with calls, and it kind of evolved into what he's got now, which is you know, the interchangeable mouthpiece system, which they they got a patent on back in 86, somewhere in there. And then another one called a crown yelper is the the production name, but it was just a trombone yelper, it was a trumpet call that slides to change the tone.

SPEAKER_05 6:06

Oh trombone. How about that?

SPEAKER_07 6:08

Never heard of that one.

SPEAKER_05 6:09

1986. That was 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, hard to believe. Don't tell me. Yeah, it reminds me how old I am.

SPEAKER_07 6:16

Oh, shoot.

SPEAKER_05 6:17

Old are the bears. So has your was your dad always a turkey hunter?

SPEAKER_04 6:22

Uh not really. No, it he didn't start turkey hunting probably until about 1968 when Larry came in. It just wasn't that you know, there weren't that many turkeys around. And there were there were some strongholds of turkeys in Georgia, uh, Springer Mountain being one of them up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And uh that's that was kind of the epicenter of where people would go there, and then some some pockets in South Georgia and Middle Georgia.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

So you catch your teeth hunting right there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Those hunting those those uh those hills, uh, those birds, then when you come someplace like it's that's flat, like around here, is d you have to kind of change your your strategy about things.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

A little bit, it's harder to hear here. Like it's it's more much more difficult to locate them. I like the I like the hills, a little bit of topography because you can get high and and hear a lot better than kind of flat ground. And it's kind of the same thing on the Carolina coast. I go down there and you know, you kind of kind of struggle to hear them at 150 yards away.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Maybe that's a problem. Yeah, you can use a ridge for cover too. And yeah, you you know in flat country. I noticed last week because the trees hadn't quite butted out, and I was in a place Lenny's familiar with that's a CRP about 40 years old, but it's really thick, and trees aren't really super tall, 40, 50 feet maybe. But I just all of a sudden I I caught one on the camera the afternoon before actually my son Neil pointed it out to me. So I was like, gotta be one down there. I went to listen, and um nothing gobbled. And I looked this daybreak and you can see 400 yards easy. Because it's flat, there's no topography change to hide you, and with the trees barren like that, and I didn't realize when they're smaller like that, they can see if they're roosted on a little bit taller tree. I mean, it's a good quarter mile, they could see you walking through there.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

So I vacuum cleaner woods, we call that.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah. So anyway, I just had not paid attention to it before. It is definitely a lot harder uh in that kind of situation. I'm not even going back down there until it fully leaves out now.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

I bet there's a lot also uh coming from the hills, there's trying to figure out when you're on this flat ground, just how close is it? Yeah, it's gotta be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

A lot of that, yeah. Yeah, and I I've I've lost some hearing and one ear just from loud noises. And uh, I'm having a hard time with direction now. Like I've I was I was hunting with a younger buddy of mine, and I started walking to a turkey, I heard gobbling, and he thought I was kidding. He goes, No, that turkey is literally the opposite direction.

SPEAKER_06 8:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

Yeah. So it's I mean, in the in the mountains, it's you know, they can echo. So they can be on this hill and then they're echoing off this one. You're picking up on the echo. Yeah. So you can walk to them, and it takes a takes a little while to get used to that.

SPEAKER_07 9:02

Do they tend to roost high and fly down low?

SPEAKER_04 9:05

Or they tend to it depends. If you've got a lot of wind, it seems like they like to roost fairly low. The only thing, the only consistency I've found is they like to roost over. They seem to like running water.

SPEAKER_07 9:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

If they can hear some running water, they love getting over that.

SPEAKER_07 9:17

It's interesting how they just always like water. Seems like.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

Why don't we start with some rapid fires? Yeah. Get to get to know them a little bit. It's brought to you by our friends at Nutrient Ag Solutions. Yeah, buddy's down there.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

All right, James. Uh I'm gonna ask you about a dozen questions in rapid succession. Just need a quick answer. We're trying to get to know you better. All right, as long as there's no bath. No bath? Math, math. Math. Math. Okay. What is the what is two plus two? Uh seven. Name your name your favorite family Easter dinner entree cider dessert. Hmm. There's got to be something you just think about every year. I'm just gonna go with ham. Okay. I like good old ham. Uh, what spring bloom comes to mind when you think of turkey season? Mountain Laurel. That's everyone. That's everyone. That is a new one. I love that. Yep. How old were you when your dad started taking you turkey hunting? Nine? Okay. Probably somewhere near. Uh most comfortable yardage for pulling the trigger on a long beard. I like him about 25. If you could own a new dream place anywhere in the lower 48, where would it be? Oh, that's a tough one. I'm sure you've got a lot on your mind. For full time? Uh no, just like a second home, whatever. Oh, I'm probably going to Idaho. Okay. Um, name a locally owned burger joint you've eaten at over the years that you just love. Speed burger. Speed burger. We're gonna share that with everybody.

SPEAKER_07 10:49

I need to look that up.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Uh, and where is that? Jasper. Okay. Uh, what shotgun have you taken the most turkeys with?

SPEAKER_04 10:57

I'm with 870 Remington special purpose.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Uh, have you ever worn camo face paint with a trademark design on it? God, no. Uh you may not keep count, but what is the most miles you think you've ever walked on a bird hunt?

SPEAKER_04 11:13

On turkeys or just any bird hunt? Let's go with any. 22. Okay. Goodness. I do keep track.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

That's a that's a that's a that's a sun-up to sundown kind of.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

That's called getting lost, is what they're called.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Um, I I heard you loved a fish. Name two species you really love to target. Uh tarpon and permit. Uh what is a species of fish that freezes well that you could eat just about every day? Salmon. Salmon. What is your favorite movie of all time? Oof. The truth one. Okay. I like that. Nice. Uh and do you shoot TSS yet, or are you still a copper-plated Sixes guy?

SPEAKER_04 11:56

I like TSS, but I I'll tell you what, if it goes up anymore, I've killed a lot with lead. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Good answer. If your favorite distance is 25 yards, you don't need them. No.

SPEAKER_05 12:07

I'm just wasting money every time I pull the trigger. Yeah. Yeah. That's good stuff. What about Idaho that is so attractive?

SPEAKER_04 12:13

I like L Cunt and bird hunting. And they've got turkeys. And there's no people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Except what's that new town everybody's moving to that's got Cordialine or whatever? Oh, yeah. Um I've heard that's kind of like the a Chattanooga or an Atlantic, you know, everybody's moving there.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

In Idaho?

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Yeah. The whole valley down there is getting kind of well, there's people everywhere. And they've got wolves too, don't they? They do, unfortunately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

This is about you and wolves. I don't know. It's just kind of interesting lately. It's just all in the news about what's going on with wolves. I don't want wolves.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

We can keep them.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Idaho's interesting. Like uh eons ago, I went on a rafting trip on the snake and salmon river, and it gets like 120 degrees. And you're up near the Canadian border.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Well, those those pockets, though, in the summer just stagnant air can get so hot.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

I saw a rattlesnake uh in Idaho. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

But the water's the water's cool enough to cool you off, though.

SPEAKER_05 13:12

Yeah. Yeah. So look, let's go back. Let's talk about your dad a little bit. You you got it kind of got us started, but that his call making ability and it it expanded out beyond. Kind of speak speak to that a little bit and what all happened up through the years.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

Well, I guess you know, it started out, he was making them just for a few people. And actually Larry and another guy, Parker Whedon, would actually take the calls and they would sell, they would resell them to their friends. And they kind of kept dad hidden. They didn't want to, they didn't want to know who their golden goose was. So then he he finally kind of started branching out. Folks figured out who he was. And then we went to Unicoy, I think, I think the first Unicoy show that we went to was in 88, 87, somewhere in there. And uh we know we had the trumpet calls out and they have the interchangeable mouthpiece, so we had the mouthpieces separate from the calls, and everybody coming through thought they were candlestick holders. And we had to explain to them, no, it's a trumpet call, and then we'd use it, and you know, people would walk off and tell them the price, and they're like, Well,$50. I can get a diaphragm call for five bucks or a box call for$10. So I guess it really didn't start catching on until the early 90s. People started using them and coming by, and then he, you know, he'd slowly build his, I we'll call it a fan base, customer base up from that. And uh, and now I mean it seems like everybody's making them. But they've it's it's been kind of interesting to see the evolution of that call going forward. And you know, while he still made bots calls, scratch calls, and and that, he was always more well known for the trumpet yelper.

SPEAKER_05 14:53

Yeah. It's it's it's interesting that Toxie refers to them, they've kind of have turned into status symbols for with some people. And but when you go back in those old ones that he was making, do they sound any different than the the ones he recently made?

SPEAKER_04 15:08

They they've well the internals are slightly different. Uh the early ones in 68 and the early 70 calls were they weren't finished quite as well on the inside. And once he's once he started tinkering and figuring out how to tune them, because there's a lot of, I mean, it's more than just putting a drill, drill bit through a piece of wood and hollowing it out. There's a lot of hand work in tuning the call. And uh, you know, you can get our reamer and you can put it in a call, but the handwork is really where it where it comes in because those call calls are highly tunable. It's sort of like taking a like with a duck call. So you've got the sounding board, and if you change one thing on the sounding board, you've got to change three other things to compensate for the one thing you changed. So it's it just takes repetition of doing that and a lot of trial and error to kind of come out with with what you want. And each call is gonna, you're gonna hollow out the inside slightly different, depending on the wood density and uh and the mouthpiece you're using.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

So we've had you know, we've had several people on talking about trumpets, but we've never had the word trombone mentioned. And that what can you explain that call and how it's used?

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah, so the trombone is uh it's a call, so it's basically just like a trumpet call. And the lower section slides up and down, so you can make a five-inch call all the way down to a seven and a half inch call. And the original versions were just three O rings to kind of hold the to create an airtight seal. And then the one I designed a few years ago is a twist lock mechanism that that locks it in. So that that creates your air seal. And that's the one that's the patent pending now, and that's what I'm I'm working on now, uh, just to kind of release is the start because I always agreed I would never make calls until dad had either retired or passed away under my name. Just that we didn't want to dilute the brand, and and I kind of just didn't didn't have time to do it, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_05 16:55

Yeah. So explain to me when that thing pulls out, does it well how does it change the the pitch?

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Uh so the longer it gets, the deeper and more guttural it's gonna sound. And then if you and it's also gonna run a little different. It's gonna take more air the longer it gets. And then when you shorten it, it's a little faster air draw and it's gonna be slightly higher pitched. And what we I would just call it like a faster call. Your your airflow is gonna be faster and your timing's got to be just dead on. It's it's a harder call to use the shorter it gets.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

So would you say that you could get hen and gobbler sounds out of that? 100%.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

That's that's what it was designed for. Because Larry, uh, this is back in the that call was designed probably early 80s, and there was still a lot of fall seasons at the time. And Larry really enjoyed fall hunting, and he wanted a one call to carry that would get you know render a hen Jake and an old gobbler Yelp.

SPEAKER_05 17:48

It's the the learning curve on these things is it looks like, feels like, it's it's pretty difficult. Can if if if a guy walks up to you and buys one of these calls from you, how long for the average person for him to become where he can hunt with it, do you think?

SPEAKER_04 18:06

It it depends on the individual. I've seen people pick it up and figure out how to use it in a in a season. And I mean, I know some callmakers there that are selling them, they can't run them. I mean, it's just it's and it's more than just uh, you know, everybody wants to kiss the call and just make these quick little short airbursts. But uh, and Mark Perlum can speak to this as well. It's a it's a longer draw of air. And if the call is made right, the call is gonna break into that two-note Yelp on its own. You know, you're not manipulating your hands, you're not manipulating your airflow, it the call is gonna break itself. And that's the biggest problem I see with a lot of the calls that are out there is they don't they won't break on their own. And you have to manipulate this the the two-note yelp out of the call. But it takes, I mean, I I started doing it, and you know, Larry Hearn told me I was taught, you know, get three consistent sounds and then just build from that. So just get three one note yelps, and then you can build from that and get your you know, four note, five note, six note. It's kind of like learning a feed call on a on a duck call.

SPEAKER_05 19:08

I'd love for you to explain a little bit of that, just so if a guy's listening and he's got a trumpet, how hard are you sucking in, or just just kind of walk through it what you would teach or tell somebody.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

It I mean it depends on the call, but you just want to you want to start with kind of a high note, almost like a like a hawk squeal, and then and then work on your low note. So just get the high notes consistent, and then and that's that's that's teaching you how how to draw your air through the call and control your airflow. And then the low notes eat is it's easier because you can just kiss the call and you're gonna get that pop, pop, pop. But that's not what a hen sounds like. You know, a hen's got a definite high, low. And if you can, if you can get the your your kind of your air draw and get that consistent, you're gonna be able to manipulate the call where you can get that two-note yelp. And it like I said, it takes some people a year, it's some people two years, and some people just can't quite figure it out. It's sort of like running a mouth call. I know some guys that just can't run a mouth call at all.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

I'm one of those. I do too. Bobby. I mean Bobby's definitely one of them. I I run them and use them, but I uh never said I was sounded great.

SPEAKER_07 20:20

You can kill turkeys with them.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Oh, for sure. Sound good enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 20:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

How what's the ideal length of a trumpet then? Sound like you've got like a formula, shorter ones harder to blow, or it depends.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

Again, it depends on the internals and there's so many variables. I mean, I I hunt with a six-inch call and a five and a half inch call 90% of the time. The longer it gets, it it doesn't quite have that henny sound. It starts to become more of a gobbler note. But it it is possible to get too short because then if you if you shrink the call down, you're not gonna get that nice two-note yelp. It's just gonna be that that flat, even sound. Almost sounds like you're just clucking over and over.

SPEAKER_05 20:57

So you could look at a call. If you were walking through a show and and there's one laying out there that's 10 inches long, you might say, Boy, that was gonna be hard to hard. It's gonna sound to an extent, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

I mean, I j when I judged the the nationals a couple of years ago, you you know, all the calls are beautiful. And you would pick some up and you're like, this is a this is a great call. And then you'd pick some up, and that it sounded like a you were sucking through a you know, a straw at McDonald's. And it would it'd be a beautiful call. It was just the internals were a little off. And it doesn't take much. I mean, it's hundredths of inches sometimes. And you know, there's you know, you've got your you know, there's three or four different tapers inside, or three or four different hole sizes inside the call that's gonna constrict the air and create the sound. And if if those holes are off or one's too long or one's too short, it can it can make a call almost uncallable. Or if they change just one or two things on it, the call would sound great. And there's no way of really looking at it until you actually start playing it on how it's gonna sound.

SPEAKER_07 21:56

So there's not like a formula, no, I gotta go, this just depends on what you're doing. Even even maybe different blanks of the same wood still require manipulation.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Oh yeah, yeah. Wood's a is a huge carrier of the sound. I mean, like all of my calls are if you saw them, you know, dad's made calls out of solid ivory and this you know gorgeous burl wood and with all these ornate fixtures on it. And my if you saw my hunting call, it's probably the ugliest call. And it's just a straight Osage orange.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Oh meat getter, though.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

Yeah, but it's I mean, it just has the best sound.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

I mean, uh it's hard to beat Bodocus for anything, really.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

And I mean, green Bodark is probably the I mean, that's the holy grail of duck calls and and turkey calls. Why why is that? It's just there's something about that sound. Is the wood denser? Is it it's denser? It's definitely denser, and then it's got a you know, it's it but it's not super slick either.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

It kind of is grabby instead of some of the super dense stuff, it's just like it's almost sticky, yeah. Plastic almost looking, you know, or feeling.

SPEAKER_07 22:57

What's that? Scale, the hardened scale with the call.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Jenkins, or something like that. Y'all never make y'all make box calls with Bodoc? Never tried it. Um friend of Chris's down there m made some one time. They and I lost the one. He gave me this sounded incredible.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

A Bodoc box call.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

You know, I'm a I'm not sure. I think the l uh maybe just the lid or the bass was, but it was definitely Bodoc, and it sounded great.

SPEAKER_07 23:23

Jenkins.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

Yeah, what did we say? Oh I think we said Jenkins.

SPEAKER_07 23:29

Close enough.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

So let's walk back. It sounded like you said your at one time your dad sold trumpets for about fifty dollars. He started out selling for about twenty bucks. Yeah. And then so the those last last year, if a guide wanted one, what what would they sell for last year? He was doing$8.50 last year. Yeah. And so that pro I mean, I know there's a lot of work that goes on, and I'm not discounting that at all. But then there's a lot of work that you can't necessarily see that's gone on inside.

SPEAKER_04 23:56

There's a lot, there's a lot more work that's gone on that you can't necessarily see than than than you can see because everything's machined in-house. So all the all the little metal fit fittings and everything that you see on it started out as a piece of just round stock, and then it's machined down on by hand on the lathe.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

And so, you know, for the listeners that probably think that's too expensive, uh, you know, compare that to a gun that you were given that you're gonna hand down to your to your kid or your grandkid. I mean, this is something, this is a tool that you're gonna use the rest of your life. Yeah, I mean and it's not only that, it's a piece of art and craftsmanship.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

It reminds me of some of the many, many, many, many pieces of wisdom I got from Daddy. And he was talking actually about business and um what to price things. I mean, I'm you know, and someone, you know, I actually like had some training when I was working at Sarah Lee about, you know, strategic pricing based on costs and doing that analysis and then you know, the marketplace, this and that, and you know, it was kind of seemed like it was overthinking a little bit. And he said, I should never forget he was talking about son, if it's your your pants you're selling, or if it's a piece of land, or whatever. He said, It's gonna be worth whatever the hell someone's willing to pay for it. And I mean, it sounds like just a country boy, whatever, but it's a lot of wisdom in those few words about when you are pricing something. So I mean, you know, when something someone's put poured their soul into it, and uh it's hard. We sometimes will complain about what stuff costs, and I'm sitting on the other side. If you knew what all goes into that and the risk taken and the expense and the personal time put into it by someone, uh, you know, I don't know. I've never been a complainer about that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 25:49

Yeah, and so I bet there's a there was a waiting list too.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

Yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm still working through the waiting list right now. But it's you know, it we we were you were talking about pricing, and we've we I I knocked down the like price per hour that he was getting paid for the call, and I think it came out to like$12.50 an hour at$850. Yeah. It was because there's a lot, I mean, it's hours and hours.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

He's spending more time than just working on the call for that call, too.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the wood we get is is rough stock wood that has to be cut. So we're getting a log of wood. We're not getting a lot of times just the turning blanks. So we're rendering that down to inch and a half by inch and a half by six turning blanks. It is Janka, sorry. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_07 26:31

Yeah, you're right. I was just making sure you say that again.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

Janka. No, you say that other. Oh, now I'm never gonna say that again. So, James, I just realized you walked in here with nothing on you. I was have you got a call that you could blow that we could hear?

SPEAKER_07 27:18

Do you hunt exclusively with a trumpet?

SPEAKER_04 27:20

No, no, I use a I use a bunch of different calls. I mean, I I'll use a trumpet a lot, but I'll I mean I'm using a diaphragm a lot too.

SPEAKER_07 27:27

Yeah, are you do the trumpet call is it more for soft, Colin?

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Are you doing everything with it? You can do everything with it. Yeah, it's harder if you're learning on a trumpet, it's it's easier to call loud than it is to call soft. Okay. I mean, once you once you really master it, you can call soft or loud, but most people starting out are hitting it way too loud. Way too loud.

SPEAKER_05 27:45

Who is the best person at running a trumpet? Not not who's the makes the best trumpet. Who's the best in your mind at running the trumpet balls? And if you want to say if there's three or four, I mean, yeah, top guys.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Mark's pretty dang good on one. I say he'd have to be in the morning somewhere. I mean, we had him on and then made him demonstrate like live. It wasn't like recorded and edited. I was like, my jaw dropped. Mark's really good.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Patrick Gamble's another guy. He's he's really good. He won't call in front of anybody, though. That's how I am. Oh, yeah. Bobby just don't want to embarrass him. Bobby don't want people rushing to get his autograph and stuff. Yeah. But yeah, Mark, I mean, as far as known people, Mark's probably the best one that's out there that I've heard.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

You know, Bobby's the only one that's beat the Cornell app with a mouth call.

SPEAKER_07 28:33

He practiced on that for I think I did six or seven days.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Maybe the first person ever to beat Merlin. Bronson held the Merlin. You know what we're talking about. I have no idea. There's an app called Merlin. Listen and it'll identify birds.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

You can be in the woods and turn it on, and you can even barely hear some of the songbirds, and it'll be telling you the real time where they are.

SPEAKER_05 28:57

It's a great Bronson came in here with it, turned it on. Toxie, for some reason, didn't show up that night. I know. And then Lanny, Dudley, everybody ran a call. I was the only one bird really identified.

SPEAKER_07 29:09

I don't know how long he practiced this, but I'm telling you he did. Oh, yeah. You lean back.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

You had to get away.

SPEAKER_07 29:17

And I have to say, it was the worst yelp I've ever heard come out of you. But a good register.

SPEAKER_04 29:22

Well, do they have it where it'll identify like a box call, slate call? No, no. That's the app you need because you can just turn that on and you can tell who's around.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Oh yeah, that's a good one. Human identifier for the for the woods.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

Is this a real turkey?

SPEAKER_07 29:37

No, I can tell. You can usually tell around here because they won't quit yelping.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

We need one that's like when you hear someone calling in the woods, is it like is it like a guide or is it a poacher? Is it a landowner? Is it, I mean, you know, what are you dealing with?

SPEAKER_05 29:52

Right. Do you uh do you like I I know I've been with toxic, and sometimes you hear something off in the distance and everybody just starts getting kind of paranoid. What is that somebody? Is that do you do you go through that? Mm-hmm. That's a turkey hunter thing. That's what I do. That can't be a that cannot be a real turkey. That's gotta be something.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Oh, you can tell sometimes for it's no way. 100% you can tell. And then the owl hooting is what really there's no way that's an owl. The whistle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Uh how many times have we been with Toxie on maybe it's a duck hunt or something, and you hear a shot off in the distance, then we turn around in the blind. Oh, I'm not gone. Toxic is exaggerating so much.

SPEAKER_07 30:30

You got a little bad on the duck hunting thing for a little bit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:34

That's just good stuff. I I mean, to be worried about your who's on your place, that's just that's very normal. Do you so are you d hunting a lot of private ground? Are you hunting public ground? I'd say I probably hunt about 80% public ground.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Yeah, nice. Yeah. That's gotta be tough at times. It's it's gotten tougher. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:52

There's a lot of people turkey hunting now.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

A lot of people, because I'll usually hunt anywhere between six and ten states. Wow. And it's it's it's gotten more challenging for sure, especially in some states. Southeast is it's gotten rough down here.

SPEAKER_07 31:05

I'm proud for the resource that you know, there's more funds coming in and more awareness about it, but definitely a lot more people in the public.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

On the you know, on the private thing, and I I can sp all all of us can speak for this, is uh, you know, we're more cognizant. That's my new word. We're more cognizant of how many birds were taking. You know, like where I grew up hunting on private, I mean it we didn't mind killing five to eight turkeys a year. Um and now I wouldn't, you know, the last couple years we didn't consider taking more than two. And so you do want to go to public more often.

SPEAKER_07 31:41

Well, and with turkey hunting just in general, I mean, if you can have a 40 or an 80 and deer hunt on it, you know, but you know, turkey hunting, you need, I need a little more, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

I like walking. I need a little more land and that. When you when you own a place and you put your butt into it, it just it it is necessary that you make the transition from the limit and like that's your benchmark. Oh, the bragging rights. I got my limit, you got my link, oh, I got my limit in like six days this year. Just it's like the harvest should be based on the place, not on the arbitrary limit or something. Yeah. So more and more and more people I know have like, you know what, we've got a couple of spots here, and I and I realize if it's public or if it's something you got at that's a lease that you're gonna lose, and I mean, okay, you know, all bets are off. That's fine. But they're they're like, okay, we're gonna take two off this place, and cameras have helped a lot. So you really kind of have more of a feel and a sense as far. But I've just seen more and more better hunting by people that are hunting to what's best for the place as opposed for just kill, kill, kill. Yeah, honestly. And um, there was not much consciousness about that 20 years ago. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're in the middle of that. It was like there's one left goblin on the hunt club, buddy. He's gonna buy one. Yeah, we're gonna get him. We're gonna get the ball.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

It seemed like there was a turkey behind every tree. Yeah, there were more. Yeah. And now, I mean, I've we just bought this new place about six months ago. And I'm, you know, my my ratio is gonna be one gobbler taken for every 10 that we've got because I just want to see how it goes from wanting to kill one to seeing how many you can get on the place. Yes. And I was talking with Steve Burnett, uh y'all know the other day. And uh and he I mean he summed it up really well with uh, you know, when you when you get your own land, you want to kill other people's turkey. Right. Yeah, you don't want to kill yours. Steve's always been that way.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Yeah. He was murder, buddy. He called, he won some contests too back in the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 33:35

We need to shout out old Steve. Yeah, we should.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Look, for the rest of the world to know, he is uh my shout-out to him. He was a true pioneer right alongside Cuz and Bill and Bob Dixon. Steve Burnett was the fourth of the four horsemen that carved a path across the southeast for Monse Oak. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

I remember the first time I saw Steve was at Unicoy one year, and it and he was my hero after that, after the first time I saw him. Because he came in, he got a call from Barry Springfield, when Barry Springfield was building calls, went upstairs, he won an Appalachian Open, a Georgia State contest, and then he came downstairs and left with the Budweiser girl. That's Steve. That's Steve Burnett. And I said, I don't know who that guy is, but I want to grow up and be just like him. He could sell.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yep. He he had a storied career.

SPEAKER_05 34:20

So all this public land you're hunting, have you got any horror stories about people misbehaving or acting out or I've been shot at a few times and that's pretty fun.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

Yeah. And having uh, you know, just nothing terrible. You know, you you run into some bad apples every once in a while, but m a lot of people m I found most people are more respectful. Um, and it's you know, it's it's not just one group of person, like it's not the new hunters, it's not the guys that have been doing it forever that think they're entitled. It's just you just run into just a jerk sometimes. And they're gonna tell you they're going in going into the same hundred acres you're going into. And uh by God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

I mean, it's it's it's just not worth I've got options, so I'll just leave them leave them to it. They're probably not gonna kill the turkey anyway.

SPEAKER_07 35:05

Yeah, that's the way I look at it now, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

Yeah. That I heard somebody riding through uh the Noxby refuge this past. Maybe it was you, Deadly. You said there was a just a lot of cars parked here and there.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Yeah, I had somebody, I was parked and going into the woods, and they parked like a hundred yards from me and just started going into the woods. And I was like, Hey guys, you think we can talk about this for a minute? And they were actually really nice. I think they were just newer and and didn't know any better.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

Yeah, I think that first interaction is important too with the new guys and not rolling up on them real hot, you know, just say just trying to educate them a little bit, saying, you know, this is everybody's in camouflage. We've got this new TSS shot that can definitely kill you. So let's just try to be careful instead of just start starting it off with a yelling match.

SPEAKER_07 35:54

Yeah. If you said you want them, go with them. I mean, take them on as well.

SPEAKER_05 35:57

So you said you've been shot at, which you were mistaken or for a turkey or somebody shot, or somebody was shot in your direction.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

I was sort of in between or past the turkey on one, they kind of came in and I was I was here, the turkey was here, and they were here. And that was that was pretty interesting. And then the other two times, well, one time was on uh pla public land in Georgia that uh the turkey got between us. And then a couple of times I've had people come over with the safeties off. Oh, I've had yeah, I got a bunch of things. Coming over a hill. And then I there was one where a guy was sneaking through some Mount Laurel, and I had a turkey goblin on the other side of the laurel, and I saw this red head going through the laurel and just catching little glimpses of it, and I kind of swung my gun around and I'm like, something doesn't look right on that turkey, it's not walking right. And the guy comes out and he's got a gobbler decoy in that head sticking out of his game bag. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

And I was no and I'm like, oh please out there, people, do not do that. Yeah. So while dangerous.

SPEAKER_05 36:56

So while we're here talking safety, what what are some of the things you see people doing wrong that we that we all need to do a little bit better about?

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Uh I'll throw it out there. I was never allowed to wear red, white, or blue socks or undershirts.

SPEAKER_05 40:16

Anything else, right? Any piece of it. Yes. Anything red, white, or blue. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, the thing about, you know, and and with a like Lanny, with you've you've been teaching Hayden this for a long time, but just always kind of glancing over and making sure he's got that safety off so it it becomes something that you think about all the time.

SPEAKER_04 40:35

I'm a habitual safety checker, thanks to my dad. I mean, I'm walking through the woods and and it's amazing that sometimes I'll reach back because on on that Benelli, that safety is easy to knock off.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Because if you if you were getting a turkey really close and took the safety off, and which I mean you lose you lose an oxygen in your brain, you're so excited. You could leave it on, get up and walk with a safety on. I've had it happen before, too.

SPEAKER_07 40:56

I've had a NRA shotgun instructor actually go off on us in the turkey woods, and he's beside himself. You know, he's like, I don't know what happened. Like things happened. Yeah. That's why that's just that's why I'm walking behind you.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Yeah, yeah. Muzzle control is a big thing I see.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, swinging the muzzle around, and it's that just or you're walking with someone and the way you shoulder your gun, you know, on the strap or blow. I mean, I learned from Bob, I'll actually hung the strap around behind the back of my neck, so there's no way that the gun has to point straight up and can't be forward or backwards. But you know, some people even towed a gun like holding the barrel when they're walking. Well, if you're in front of them, the barrel's pointing at you.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah, it's very common in the turkey season.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah, that's the thing about owning a gun. Anytime. Anytime. You just check the gun and you know the breach is open, you still never point the barrel ever at anything. Yeah. Anybody.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

You know, you've got a vest on. You may be carrying one of those chairs. That's right. Uh it's easy like when you lean over to be pointing at your buddy. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

And you just have to be aware of that. And look at all the accidents they have with guys just getting their guns out of cases or trying a dog stepping on a gun. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

I mean, it's accidents can happen really easy. Yeah, and you know the sad thing about a lot of hunting accidents is it's family or friends. Oh, yeah. When it's accidentally, yeah, of course. Yeah, it's terrible stuff. So if a guy's got a decoy or whatnot, he really needs to take extra care to make sure that thing's not visible.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I I hate to take anything away from anyone out there, even though I have my own opinions about it. And uh I do not want to be the arbiter of whatever right from wrong on a lot of that stuff. Uh just whatever with the law or make your own choices. But there's nothing worth risking it. And and some public hunting is so intense, I almost wish they didn't let you have a decoy on public ground like that. And that's kind of prejudice against the public ground hunting versus you know someone's got a private place to go, but it's just so dangerous now. And especially uh, you know, and I'm not trying to be controversial, but the fan, because you're holding it in your hands at your person. Yeah, and at least the decoy might be 20, 30 yards in front of you or something.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

And it's a legal turkey, it's a male adult turkey.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

So I don't know what they're gonna do. I mean, it's just and people get shot every year.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Yeah, well, look at those two kids that got shot, uh, or that that one guy that got shot, where was it? Virginia, where they can they can still rifle hunt Virginia, is that it? Virginia, West Virginia.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

I don't know how you can enforce it, but I mean you ought to make a law that you had the the decoy has to be at least what 30 yards away or something, you know. That would probably I think if it saved one life, it's worth everybody going through that. Yeah, so what happened?

SPEAKER_05 43:32

They were hunting with a rifle.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Oh well the I think it was Virginia, because you can I think you can spring hunt in Virginia or West Virginia with a rifle. I can't remember which one it is.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I thought they finally outlawed it, but it was Virginia for a long time. You know, it was a Mississippi for a long time.

SPEAKER_07 43:43

Yeah, you couldn't use decoys, but you could use a rifle for a while.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Well, you could and I I remember the if I remember the story correctly, the guy was hunting with his girlfriend, he was putting a gobbler decoy out in front of them, and there was a guy behind him on a hill and shot the decoy, and it killed the guy putting decoy out. Which I still can't square it in my head, but I mean people shoot into bushes at sounds.

SPEAKER_07 44:04

So I mean, my personal experience with with decoys is they run off a lot of times when you see them too.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Oh no, they do like those little feather flex decoys that they sold for what they're spending, yeah. All the safety stuff we're talking about, and I can hear many thousands of people going, I've been hunting my whole life, I've never had an issue with anything, nobody's ever tried to shoot at me with a decoy on or something. And I kind of liken it, uh you know, they make y'all all make fun of me too about the weather. And if like there's tornadoes or tornado warnings, I'm this nut job telling everybody just don't go to be careful and whatever. And they go, We've been doing this your whole life. You saw I hear from you, and it's nothing's ever happened. And I always tell them, but you know what? It takes one time. So I'm gonna keep on being a pain in the butt about it. And that's my thing about that. We're gonna keep being a pain about all these little nitpicky safety things because it only takes one time.

SPEAKER_04 44:50

And you're affecting two lives, a person that gets shot and a person doing shit.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

It's worth being a pain in the butt to everybody if it saves one person. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Big time. 100%.

SPEAKER_05 44:59

Yeah, there's a that you make a good point. There's a guy I've been trying to get on here that was involved in an accident, and I think the shooter is just he fell apart. Yeah, you know, after that. Oh, yeah. And and so you're absolutely right. Two lives are shaken up.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Well, okay, let's get off of well. I mean, it's it's important to talk about. It really is worthy of our time.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

I've had a gun drawn, you know, about tw 20 something years ago. I was afternoon hunting, sitting under a tree, taking a little nap on the edge of a field, stuck a hen decoy out there, and uh the neighbor's cows had gotten out. And the the man in charge of keeping the cows up came around the corner. I happened to wake up and I see him walk out into the field, and I'm thinking, I'll just be quiet. I, you know, I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know who this was. Uh, but he got up and saw the hen decoy, and he had an old single shot something or other, and he raised that gun up and I was like, hey, hey, and jumped out. So that was the last time I ever used a fake turkey when I was hunting.

SPEAKER_05 48:08

And they're heavy, yeah, stuff to carry around with you. That's too much scary. I'm trying to light my legs. I hate giving up ground. If I've gotten that close to him, I want to sit right there, not sit something down and back up.

SPEAKER_06 48:19

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_05 48:20

But let's learn a little bit about you. Do you remember your first time you killed a turkey? Can you tell us can you tell us that story?

SPEAKER_04 48:25

Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot to tell. I I I was hunting, and I I when even as a young kid, I hated people to call in my turkey for me. I didn't want anybody to call for me. I had to call and was still carries over today. I'm getting I'm way too much of a control freak. You can ask my significant other about that. But the uh uh we were hunting public ground and I I got dropped off actually, and I'm walking down the woods and I've got a turkey goblin. And uh I hear footsteps behind me, and there's two fellows come by me and they see this kid standing there. And I'm like, I'm going after that turkey. And they just walked on by me and went down toward a turkey. And I said, Well, this isn't fun. And I, you know, there's No plan B. There's one turkey goblin. I dropped, I'm dropped off. My ride's not going to pick me up for another three, four hours. So I kind of went down, circled on a turkey, and they started calling to him way too much on the limb. And I just kind of made some tree calls and he answered me, and I sat there for a minute. And here in a minute, the turkey flew down, walked straight to me, and I shot him. It's pretty uneventful, but I did leave a I did walk out and started walking back to the my buddy that dropped me off, and I left a turkey feather on her on her woodship. I was gonna ask that because you should have.

SPEAKER_07 49:34

It's very complimentary.

SPEAKER_04 49:35

Yeah, you had you had to do it. You gotta do that. Just to let him know that it was in there. I'd have had to wait on a wake.

SPEAKER_07 49:40

You'd have been on the on the tailgate. Look at him, boys.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

Uh I bet they were like, I should have asked him for a ride. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

Because it was a long walk. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Boom.

SPEAKER_07 49:51

Hey, can I get a ride now?

SPEAKER_05 49:53

Well, I can tell talking to you, you were eat up with it as bad as anybody we've ever met. I do enjoy it, yeah. Yeah. What about turkey hunting you think has grabbed you so hard?

SPEAKER_04 50:02

I think it's just interacting with the animal. You know, it's it's it's voc vocalization. It's the same thing with elk hunting. You know, you're and I'm gonna get those Western folks are gonna scream at me, but I I really think that there's a lot of similarities. I think it's they're two totally different things, you know, tot two totally different calling strategies, but you're still interacting with the animal. You're still communicating with them in some primitive form. And uh I just I just like fooling them.

SPEAKER_07 50:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

It's just that's that's half of it for me. I mean, I've some of my better hunts I haven't shot, I haven't pulled the trigger on them, but you just get to just really kind of commune with nature.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Something something about the connectivity of you know, tricking them.

SPEAKER_07 50:47

Oh, yeah, and making them do something that they weren't gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

I don't know, it's hard to explain why it's so um addictive. But the call in the answering, and actually to the point where I hunt with a lot of people and I have to keep reminding people, it's like, so make them one gobbling and then call them one up to two different things. And they'll call, but it's so addictive to calling them, have him at you. Yeah. So you want to just like, oh, we hadn't gobbled in a while. It's been at least what, 20 seconds? Let me call again. Yeah, see where he is. Let me check it. Let me check him, man. I'm gonna check just check it one time.

SPEAKER_07 51:22

Dang, he's still in the same spot. But it is, there's something about that connected.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

If it wasn't for that, it wouldn't be nearly, nearly as uh addictive.

SPEAKER_04 51:30

That's what I can't understand, folks sitting in a ground blind, I mean I'm not gonna discount it, but sitting in the ground blind open spreading decoys. I'd beat the balls out of that thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

I'd quit if I had to do it because you're just you're relegating it to like any other kind of hunting, just shooting something. To me, that's what puts it on a pedestal above everything.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

And I mean, I was brought up with calls, so that's that's kind of my center ethos. Yep, yeah. You know, you want to sound like the turkey, reverse nature, you know, the gobbler's coming to the hen instead of the way it naturally happens with the hens going to the gobbler. Yeah. And it's just it's just something about seeing them come in, too.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

I've been with in my life, younger years, with some of the older gentlemen, they would not shoot a turkey they didn't call up. Now Bobby would be.

SPEAKER_05 52:12

Well, we got to put everything into context. You know, I guess go shooting, yeah. Careful, Bobby. So uh as you matured, got older life, you everybody gets busy. Did you and your dad continue to get to hunt in the spring together? Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

Yeah, because our our lease was probably five minutes above his house. Oh, nice. So, you know, even as I got older, my tradition was on the open the opening evening, I would come, I'd stay at their house, and then we would leave and and go. And you and in order to leave, you had to walk through the turkey call shop to go out. Oh, that's cool. So you'd you know, you'd you know it's dark in the house and you're walking out, you can smell the wood and all the all the veneers and whatnot, and the lacquers and the turkey call shop. And so that kind of just sort of sets the season for me every year.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Or did so when's when's the opener over there this year? Two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

Oh, it's first, so public and private are different. Right, but like where the lease is. So so that would be April, I want to say April 1 with public on April 8th or something. It's gonna be a week before. So you think it's gonna be hard?

SPEAKER_07 53:16

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be hard. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

For this year, yeah, yeah, without him. If my yeah, my my one sample size of my life didn't tell you about an opening day after that, it is very hard. Yeah. Um, I've had to reach down to have the motivation to go, honestly. Not not feel sad for me stuff, but it's just like you realize the little boy inside of you has always been like such the the whole big part of it was due to him.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

And that's gone. It's just this big hole. So part even when I was older and doing my own thing and spreading my wings and fly with all this stuff, it was still I couldn't, it's the one person I couldn't wait to call. Yep. That was the most like a little child excited that I killed a turkey. Or I couldn't wait. If I'm here, I just rushed right back back to his house and all. And I didn't realize, you just don't realize until it's gone what a huge part of that the joy, the I think I said four-year break. Yeah, the sense of wonderment. Well, you had it really hard. Because I mean, one thing I can't say is that there's no tragedy involved in my dad's passing. He lived an incredible long life. So uh his brother, you know, died early, got taken away from Dudley's dad, some others. Uh, but that first time, it's an adjustment to get to find part of your lifelong motivation is all of a sudden kind of vaporized.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

Yeah. And if you're like me, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna kill a turkey and take a picture, and you're gonna immediately, I know I'm gonna do it. That the first number I'm gonna prodal some, and I think that's when it's really gonna hit.

SPEAKER_06 54:49

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Oh yeah, sounds like because it was funny, he would, we we had our this is I'm knowing you talked about this. So over the years on the telephone, even before cell phones, if if he called and he'd kill one, or I called and killed one, the phone would ring and no voice and it would go that would be the first sound that either one of us would make. That was kind of our little thing. That's cool. I never heard that. And I never did it with anyone, I never did it with anyone else. I never thought about it with Daniel Neils. It was just he started that, you know, and he would, if he came in from hunting and and you didn't know what happened, he would kind of cozy up to you and push on you a little bit and go, and he would make a strutting sound like that. So it just kind of became our thing. I thought about that this year. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 55:39

So I'm thinking about both of you guys right now. I I hadn't thought about that, and that's that's that's uh something we've got to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

Well, what you'll find is that you'll you'll want to go more because you'll feel closer.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Yeah. That's exactly, and you'll want to sit there and kind of meditate and enjoy the moment in the stuff. Because I mean I we don't know. I don't think we'll ever, humanity will never know, but it's just like he's he's in the air around you or something almost. It's just and I'm sure who knows the explanation about that. But there is kind of speaks to what Dudley's talking about, you know, slow down, disjoy where you are, you know. And and the other thing is like you you can sit there with all the clutter and busyness and you're playing back all the memories, you know. So I've just started going through that.

SPEAKER_05 56:29

So, James, uh I've watched a lot of videos about your dad. And he sounds like he was really good on a call, no matter what the kind it was. Was he as good at calling turkeys as I imagined that he was? He was pretty good at it.

SPEAKER_04 56:44

Yeah, he you know, he was he he loved turkey hunting, but he was a guy that he would he he didn't like waking up really early. So we we we shot a lot in the afternoons. And if it was his ideal temperature to turkey hunt was somewhere between 69 and 70 degrees with no wind very strong and no clouds. And if it was hotter, if it was 72, it's too hot. And if it was 50, it's like it's too cold. They're not gonna gobble this morning.

SPEAKER_07 57:10

That's great.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

Yeah, you had it nailed down. Yeah, so I I had to I there, you know, a lot of times I would just have to come come and just basically push him out of the house and be like, I've got four gobblers roosted. We are going tomorrow. This is where we're going. We're gonna sit at this group.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

That's what Neil would do. And I was like, I'm not sure he's gonna fill up to it. He's backed out like three times, and he said, Dad, we're gonna go over there and sit down and talk to Papa, and we're gonna tell him that he's going. We're not gonna give him an out. Yeah. And so it worked every time. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 57:40

Was did so is it safe to assume that your dad made turkey calls before he ever even killed a turkey? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. So probably everyone he ever killed was with the call that he made. It was, yeah. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, because he I gotta make me a turkey call. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 57:56

Yeah. Are people collecting his calls? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh my god. Well, I even I think they just sold.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

There was a guy at Indeeder auction. I think they sold a set of five for$28,000. Yeah. Yeah. And then the Fox, there was one that recently had the Fox vest.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Yeah. Yeah, it was one of the calls in the first Fox vest that rolling 315,$31,500.

SPEAKER_04 58:22

All for the turkeys, that's all. Which was a great idea with the whole all the custom callmakers and the Fox vest and tip of the hat of Daniel Neil.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Yeah. They opened my eyes, this whole world. So he got uh Neil got um oh, he had a trumpet call made um by Mark. Mm-hmm. Just one out of the wood from the tree, just a sliver of wood to do it. And they auctioned at the last year, two years ago. 24, 25,000, something like that. All going to charity. So that's the cool thing that that people will pay a lot more for them, too. First of all, you're getting two people bidding against each other. And that gets it up there. But then they know it's for a great cause, too.

SPEAKER_07 59:03

So Am I just missing something on the Trumpet call with I mean us and growing up here? I mean, like, were you exposed to the Trumpet call when you were?

SPEAKER_01 59:11

Not a Trump call. Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud, you know, biggest Chris Holly father. He carried one and called on it. You know, he he wasn't a great caller by any stretch. He was a really good hunter. But um, you know, he he sounded similar on a mouth call because back then there wasn't just one style of the old lead frame single reed, you know. That's kind of how they both sounded. But they were turkey. Nothing, nothing like we could do today. He did have that's the one I saw first. It was Uncle Bull. Yeah, I remember the wing bones. I just the trumpet thing just but all the people like it. I grew up at Choctaw Bluff, that was unbelievable collection of turkey hunters from you know the 40s and 50s. And I never saw one. I saw a few box calls, not many. Uh, a few like jet slate stuff, not many. I remember the revelation of the Cody Slate with all those people. That was like you know, and he's a cabinet maker, too. So but but again, I've said it before, everybody there used mouth calls, and there were just about no mouth calls in the country anywhere else. But that's just that's kind of what I was getting at.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:13

I wonder if it was because we were all mouth calls, and maybe like in Georgia and the mountains, they were using more section calls.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:19

Yeah, well, it seemed like every like Alabama, Mississippi, just with my limited scope, you know, it during that era seemed to be mouth calls, like you were talking about the old lead frame mouth calls. Everyone's in lynch boxes in Alabama, of course. And then the Carolinas, Georgia, you had a lot of trumpets in Pennsylvania. Lots of trumpets. Uh they they they knew what a trumpet was up there because you know Penn Woods was making a trumpet call. Yeah, that's right. Back in the 80s. We talked about that the other day.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

There was a little there was a decent little population center of turkeys, and close proximity to that was the birth of different types of calls. And like a kind of a hotbed of the the great callmakers and then the custom callmakers even kind of came from that. Now it could come from anywhere, but it seemed like obviously down here in the south, and um, but then the Carolinas and then Pennsylvania, and to a degree, I think just a little after that, but in the origins was like part of Missouri.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

There was more contests, there were more callmakers. Yeah, there was a bunch from Pennsylvania, and a bunch of the names you can remember today, the iconic like call companies and all that came from up that way.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:27

That makes more sense to me because I just and then out of all that, then Tom Turpin was in Memphis. Mm-hmm. Then he was making a trumpet.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:36

Yeah, he he he was making probably, I think it was the well, it was the first modern style trumpet with like a synthetic mouthpiece because it those that were all coming over from like Jordan Yelpers and uh, you know, loosely like rowing oak calls and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Yeah. So that was the spot though, when you look at the map, one of the maps I looked at where there was a kind of a somewhat of a sustainable or good population was, you know, like I always brag about where I grew up hunting in southwest Alabama, a little bit of southeast Mississippi, mostly uh that lower like Tom Beebe, Alabama. But then there was on that same map would always show a little strip south of Memphis inside the levee over there on the Mississippi River. So I'm sure some of that was born up there by the fact that they had turkeys there even when they were almost extinct.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

And well, Larry used to live in Memphis, Larry Hearn. Right, because he was a executive with Bick or a salesman with Bick, like the pins. And he moved to Georgia from Memphis, and that's where he had gotten the Tom Turpin Yelper. From up there. So he was kind of the one that brought, I won't say he's the one that brought that down to the South because you know, you had Jordan Yelpers and Roanoke River Calls and the Cane, uh, you know, low country South Carolina cane yelpers. Yeah. But, you know, he was he definitely had that Memphis influence with Tom Turpin and brought it down. And I mean, you're thinking talking back in the 60s. So it's not like you know, we didn't have the internet or ways of communicating back then. It was just sort of, what's that around your neck?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:03

And now folks are, you know, they've got them like rap medallions hanging around them. They don't know what they don't know how to use them, but they're real pretty.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:09

But in the early contest days, I mean, nobody was blowing trumpets like at the one.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

Oh no, no, no. That's only a very recent thing. Really recent. Very recent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:18

So what about like a uh obviously you can you're really good on a trumpet, I'm just gonna uh guess. Okay, because you didn't bring any comments. I'm okay. So uh but what about like a do you do you enjoy blow a wing bone or what about some of these cane? Or what are the pros and cons of those compared to a trumpet?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

The uh a lot of it's just inconsistency. The uh you know, the wing bones, a lot of times your your hole diameter for your mouthpiece is going to be way too big, even with hen wing bones. Now, an osseola hen wing bone is really good, but I'm so used to blowing uh like a round mouthpiece that it's really hard for me to get used to the oblong mouthpiece on the wingbone. And so what we actually started doing, dad started doing it for me, is he would take the wingbone and flip it and then cut it flat so it's a round mouthpiece. And I can blow those. But it's that they they render a really good sound, they're a lot harder to use, though, to me, and uh just for in a consistency or from a consistency.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:17

That would make a lot of sense. Uh, you know, if if you're going in that inner hole and and gouging tiny little pockets and things like that, you're not gonna get that with a cane or a wing bone. It's just gonna, I mean, I'm sure you can try to get close, but uh, unless you're removing material, you're just gluing it together and hope that it makes the correct back pressure or whatever. And I'm sure a lot of them do.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:42

Some of them do. I mean, there's some really good makers out there that have figured out how to, you know, they've got a bunch of bones and they can they can fit them together and they know what to look for. And they're making some pretty nice calls. And I mean, Jordan Yelpers, I've I've played some of those that are really nice with the, you know, but it's uh for me too. I mean I've been using these calls since I was probably six, learning how to use them. So I've I've gotten so used to using one particular kind that everything else, it takes me a couple of minutes to figure out just how to use that call in the way that the you know the maker would would use it. And that's the hard thing about judging them is you've got a bunch of different makers that are probably drawing air different than you are, so you have to adapt and figure out how to run that call you know, like they would.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:30

Because they're the one making it.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:32

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:33

So let's transition to you now. And you had mentioned earlier uh uh beforehand that you kind of had an agreement that you weren't gonna sell any calls or make any calls until your dad retired. And so can you kind of bring us up to speed on what's going on now?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:48

Right now I'm just kind of going through his shop and you know, looking at back orders and seeing what he had promised to be made. And it started out, I think he had quite a few calls on, you know, that he had he had not he never would take money. He didn't want to take a deposit on anything. So uh, but like so I was calling people saying, hey, you know, I've you know my dad's passed, and I'm making the calls, you know, and thinking maybe five or six of them would say yes, and the rest of them be like, nah, we don't we don't want you making it. Yeah, and so far it's I'm you know it's been a hundred percent of the people are like, yeah, make the call. So I'm kind of starting with a backlog and then uh and then working on that the new trombone call as well, and then trying to just really just kind of get through everything because it's kind of hard going into the shop that I would work in. Oh my god, with it. And you know, sitting in his chair that he always said in. And you so I you know, I'll work on a call for a while and then I'll get sidetracked. You know, I'll see something, and then you go down a rabbit hole and the adult ADHD will kick in. And then before you know it, I'm in a I'm in a rabbit hole of looking at you know all these blanks of wood that he had kind of cataloged and labeled, or I'm you know, looking at the gouges that he had, you know, he was he was sharpening, or you know, just it's just odd things, just small little remembrances. And then I'll find like a half half burned cigar sitting in a corner somewhere. Oh my god. So it's just you know, and I'm I'm really nostalgic with everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

All the smells and all of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:14

I mean, I was sweeping up sawdust off the floor and putting it in a ziploc bag going, well, I might maybe I'll use this for something later. Yeah, yeah. Good for you. So it's you know, it's it's a lot of memories in that shop because I mean he was in there in the last shop for over 30 years. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

So so I would say to you, never again apologize to at least us by losing yourself into something you love that much. That's a gift, actually, not something to apologize about. Yeah, I mean, people just have to they know people understandably be patient with that. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:46

And dad was always he was always really nice to folks. With me, I'm just kind of telling them, I'm like, look, you're you're number four on the list, and if you call me, you're the whatever number is the last person that called me, you're right after them. So it'll uh uh but it's yeah I mean it's probably a year backlog right now, I would say.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:05

So you're not starting from scratch. You've been you've been in that shop helping, watching, understanding for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:11

Yeah, Larry Hearn actually bought the first call I ever made in 1988 or 89.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:18

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

How old were you then? Uh gosh, I was young. Way too young to be using power tools. Way too young to be doing. But I made it, you know. I mean, my father was over my shoulder watching me make it, but Larry wanted one that I'd made and he gave me 20 bucks for it, which I think by the conversion rate now is about$700,000.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:38

Yeah, breach. Unfortunately. I can make money doing this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:43

They are beautiful. Those the calls are just they're works of art for sure. They are artists.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:48

And you know, think about their hand tuning and and and working on these things. It's not just they're turning them on, throwing them in a box, and getting them out of there.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:56

So you mentioned like ivory and some other exotics. Was he was he searching for a better sound, or was this something somebody said, hey, will you make it?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

A lot of that's collectible. I mean, ivory to me doesn't have a great sound. Now, I not like now, true Westinghouse ivory micarta.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

Now that's I've heard the micarta.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:13

Yeah, that's I mean, that's the holy grail with duck and turkey calls, really, in my opinion. And it's probably got asbastis in it, and everybody's gonna get cancer from using it, but it sure does sound good.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:23

Wow. Not even I'm not sure I know what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:25

I don't know what it is either. So it was a it was a paper laminate that they were using as an alternate ivory substitute. And it was and they they made runs on it, and then it was kind of it was discontinued, I think actually, because it did maybe it did have asbastis. I might be making that up. You might want to fact check it, but it was made by the Westinghouse Company, and then they replaced that with a with a product called Linen Micarta. I don't know if it was a replacement or just an evolution. And the linen micarta is if you hold the two side by side, linen micarta is going to look like uh almost like little hatch marks on it when you turn it. A lot of knife handles are made out of micarta. Yeah. If you look and if you look at the knife handles, they've got little hatch marks kind of running crossways. And then ivory micarta has that true layering of ivory, like you can actually see the layers of the paper micarta in there, kind of like you can see the layers of the ivory growth. But uh, I mean, I've got ivory on calls, and uh I mean to me, mastodon looks way prettier. It's got a lot more character to it.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:22

Yeah, and then a mastodon trumpet, turkey trumpet.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:25

What is strange is you can actually get mastodon legally, but you cannot get ivory, elephant ivory legally.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:30

Wow. I think they found some mastodon teeth back here behind the office, didn't they? Probably. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

Sure did.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

That's all right. Might need to get one. What's another cool what's another cool material uh you know, like other than wood? Have you ever made any out of deer antler or something? No, it's too porous.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:51

So I mean you can make them, they're just you know figurative calls. But the uh we've made some out of acrylic, and they've got a ring to them, but it's real hard to get that turkey sound out of a synthetic. You know, it's you you can I mean it's hard to beat wood and just like a like a medium soft wood with the exception of Bodart, which is really hard. But I would say, you know, as far as favorite woods or or neatest woods, uh Desert Ironwood looks really cool. And uh Coco Bolo makes a beautiful call. But the problem is like if if you're like my father, kind of like a bread, like a like a baker, and we get allergic to flour, eventually you're gonna get allergic to cocoa bolo because of the the the woods, the the dust is fairly toxic. And dad was allergic to cocoa bolo, and he's he had to stop making cocoa bolo, I think, in the mid-90s. Because he would turn it and that fine dust would get on his arms and break him out. Oh, he would just and I mean my dad never would I've never seen him wear a respirator, protective clothing, and he'd be in the shop spraying lacquer with in the winter with all the doors closed, and you'd walk in and he's smoking a cigar and you're just waiting for the whole shop to blow up.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:01

So I'm I'm sure you may add a couple state-of-the-art safety features.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:06

There's gonna be, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:08

Some ventilation and all that good stuff. Ventilation, a little respirator. There you go. We can learn from our older people's.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

That's exactly right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Bobby's targeted, and you're like, you know, how many leashes you have? What does your spring look like? Don't feel bad. He does this to everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:33

What does your spring look like? Oh, kind of, I mean, just normal. I'm I'm gonna leave here and I I was gonna hunt Mississippi, and I think I might just head to Texas and hunt at a friend's place, and then we've got a callmaker's hunt in uh kind of West Texas right after that, and then I'll go back to Georgia. It'll be open. I'll probably go over and stare call in some of my turkeys and stare at them. And go up to the mountains and try to kill one, and then probably hunt. Just kind of start bouncing around. I just I just kind of I kind of wing it. I've done a pretty good job of just winging it during the spring. Just watching the weather and saying, well, it's it's sunny in Montana, I can get there in a day.

unknown 1:13:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:17

That's uh I like the spur of the moment. That spur of the moment that's another ADHD trait.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:23

Yeah, and my job's not overly traditional, so I don't work at nine to five, so I can take off you know 40 days during the spring and hunt and chase turkeys. So really fortunate. Yeah, I was gonna ask you how many days do you think you put in in the spring? I'm afraid some of the people I work with will hear this way more than I should. I don't miss very many days of the turkey season. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. But I don't I don't do Florida anymore. I don't like swamps, don't like snakes, don't like mosquitoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

Oh there you go. Well, it's gonna be a mosquito snake year. Mm-hmm. Hot and warm weather. But we were at the game, Mississippi State baseball game yesterday, took the granddaughters and had a ball. But it was 91.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

It hit 91.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:01

And less than a week before that, it had been 25. In a week, in six days.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:07

Yeah, we set we set two records, a cold and a hot.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

In inside of a week. Mm-hmm. So who knows what the effect on the environment is gonna be. But I've my sample size so far says mosquitoes are gonna be. We've had a couple of pretty decent years on mosquitoes, but this is gonna be a bad one, I'm afraid.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:27

I'm afraid the ticks are gonna be bad in the upper Midwest and New England, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:31

Not for me. I got so much permethrin all over everything I own that I'm not gonna have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:37

So I'm thinking about where you are up in that part of Georgia. Do y'all have wild pigs up there? Oh, yeah. In those mountains? That's wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

Yeah, they released uh The Scourge of the Earth. Oh, I hate those things. They're very seldom can I go up there and hunt and not see pigs. Is that right? Yeah, we've got a lot of pigs.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:56

Are they those pigs a little different than these flatlanding pigs we've got around here? Because they've got to be in great shape running up down those. They're in pretty good shape.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:03

We get a lot of the, they've still got that Russian boar kind of physique to them, you know, the wide, wide front shoulders, narrow hips. And uh we I mean they're pretty good size up there.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:13

Were were those pigs released for people to run dogs with and hunt?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:17

I don't know about dogs, but I know they were released in the in the Cahuta Mountains way back. I I heard turn of the century.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:23

I'd like to have a time machine and go back and shoot whoever released the first one. You probably can't get rid of them up there. You can't. I mean I hunt on a plantation down in South Georgia and uh I I guide to hunt kind of deal.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:37

And I show up a couple of days early to scout. But uh I think we've killed 1,200 per year. And you can't dent them.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:50

What would it be like if you weren't taking those 1,200?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:54

You know, the biologists say that they just you know, if you start killing them, they start reproducing faster. But I I can't think of I mean, they're digging holes in cotton fields that you could park a pickup truck in.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

So basically.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:05

And just in a night. So I don't luckily I don't have them on the new farm. They by all common sense logic, they should be there because they're 10 miles in every direction. But and talking to the the folks around me, they're like they just do not get down here, which is good because shoot the first one that shows up, take no prisoners.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:26

I don't know. I I had one at about a hundred yards uh Sunday morning, um and I just couldn't spend eight dollars shooting at him.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:36

I had the same conversation on a raccoon or me, it's like many brown.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:43

Or whatever I could have. I don't want to mess the woods up if I need to.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

If I knew I would kill him, I might, but uh in this time of year, it I'm not worth messing up spring woods over. Yeah. I was like, I we'll get you next time in a trap or something. That's what I gotta do.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:57

So what do you think uh I mean, this is kind of a broad question because different states are doing different things. Everybody's kind of fussing about this states move their season a little bit. And you know, uh we're listening to Mike Chamberlain and and the and other scientists, and you know, and it's what they're saying is making sense to us. So I'm not necessarily asking you about changing dates or anything, but I want to ask you what do you think we're getting right about turkeys now and what are we getting wrong? And I'm just kind of asking your opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:29

Super unqualified for that. I mean, I've all I've got is just empirical data of like what I see in my little you know narrow scope. But you know, and it it's uh I think that the the research he's doing right now makes a lot of sense with the genetic like the diversity in genetics because I mean it's worked in the quail woods where you would have plantation owners that have quail that kind of go stagnant and then they can bring in some new blood and genetics, and they have a kind of a quail population explosion. Of wild quail. Of wild quail, yeah. And it, I mean, it would it kind of tracks with what was happening during the restocking efforts of the you know 70s, 80s, early 90s of that that genetic diversity being brought into places and then having that explosion.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

Little population boom. Uh I was thinking about that the other day, and it's not too far off from restocking a lake neither. I never thought about it. They have a they have a little boom there right at the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:25

Yeah. And it's you know, I don't I don't necessarily agree with the I mean, I think uh habitat does have a huge impact on it, but I'm also seeing turkeys. I hunted New England a fair amount, and I mean I'm seeing turkeys in people's backyards, and there's a lot of urban encroachment up there, and the turkeys are thriving. And you know, where I'm at, there's 36,000 acres that has not been touched, logged, anything, and it's been fairly consistent, you know, old growth woods, which is not ideal. I mean, they should log a little bit, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:59

That's in the news right now about log and all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:02

Because it I mean, logging does help, you know, smart logging helps, not just scalping, but you know, the smart logging does help. But we've seen, and the woods haven't changed that much in the last 10 years, but we've seen a precipitous drop in a turkey population up there just in the last decade. I mean, I've I've got routes that I could I could drive and hear 10 or 15 goblers on a on a loop, and now I can hear one every two or three trips. And you walk in the woods and you're not seeing scratching, you're not seeing signs, but then you can go to a place that it hasn't had turkeys and and it's loaded with turkeys. So I you know, I just don't know. I mean, I think we're I think that the best part of what's happening now is people are asking questions. And no one's been asking questions until now, and I'm just hoping it's not too late. And I I think they can get it turned around.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

And it's gonna take somebody that went to school a lot longer than I did to figure it out. Well, well said.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:58

Yeah, and you know, and Facebook is full of like Facebook biologists, Monday morning Facebook biologists, you know, and they and I Holiday and Express stockholders. Yeah, and but and but now you know, we we listen to Mike, we know he's because I try I talk to him uh once a week about something, and he's over in this state, he's over in that state. He's he's he's working with other biologists. They it's amazing how busy they are, and they're just gathering all this information. I just think these guys that they care as much as we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:29

Oh, of course they do, maybe more, because they put their whole life behind answers.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

Questions are being asked, yeah, but the answers are what matter the most.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:38

Yeah, and I mean they've got the data, you know, showing that you know these are the predators. This is what we have found. And this, these are the nest predators, and then you still hear people say, Oh, it's coyotes. Coyotes are killing turkeys. I don't know about y'all, but I've called in a lot of coyotes turkey hunting, and I've never had one sneak up on me. I've I've never just looked up and said, Oh my god, there's a coyote. Not bobcat, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:59

The bobcats are a big issue, yeah. A lot more so than coyotes, but they'll all be an issue. I mean, from listening to all these people, I'm telling you there's four, five, six, seven major different issues.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

And a lot of them we don't even understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

That's right, and they vary geographically. So what's the issue in the place you're talking about? It may not be the same issue over here we had the causing those issues.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:23

There's no silver bullet.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:24

Because you never know. The the really scary one above all of these is actually disease. You know, and so Which I think we experienced a little bit around. And that happens, you know, sporadically. Yeah. And that's also not as understood because um, and we're getting on down a rabbit hole, but the the big problem is all this natural mortality from a disease no one ever finds out about. Nobody ever sees the carcass or unless you found it in the first day or two, you couldn't send it off for testing anyway. So And it's not like a deer's carcass, it's big enough where you can actually find it. So if you're in, I say this if you're in an area, because there's several now, we've talked to the biologists that are doing this, that have a harvest tissue sample, please try to help because the understanding what's going on with diseases could be best unlocked only by hunters, quite honestly. They're never fine enough to have a solid sample size, but we're killing all these turkeys. Yeah. Um, and we can help. So I think we're gonna see more and more of that. I know there's that's been established in several areas now.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:30

The wild turkey DNA? Yes. And the biggest thing is just getting those samples sent in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

I think there's more than just that though, taking samples from L was it LP? LPDB is probably the biggest one right now. But I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:46

Yeah, who knows? Yeah. But what about the hunt the turkey hunting culture? I sometimes I just get so like at the NWTF and you see all these people they're so excited about. There's it's just such a cool culture. Yeah. It really is. And you know, most everybody except for Lanny is like interested in helping others learn how to do this to the world. Wait, that's that was mean by that.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:11

That was that was you know, he's all mean I've helped you along so I'm not expecting I need to pass those.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:16

He trained you pretty much everything you know about turkey. I mean, there's and there's so many things, so many factors. One thing we've talked about before is uh I I want more folks going to wildlife uh school uh to be hunters. Um, I'm happy that anybody's going to learn about you know wildlife biology and and and similar studies, but uh I fear that you know we're having fewer and fewer hunters getting involved in in going to wildlife school. Good point. We need to turn that around.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:47

Need those guys not only there, but in enforcement too. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:50

And running for office and everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:52

That's I mean, that's the big thing, is especially with states that are pointing their their wildlife boards. You know, if you look at the wildlife board in Georgia, it's I mean I I'm pretty sure everybody in this room has shot more turkeys in one season than they have collectively in their lifetime. And they're the ones that are actually making the laws for the state. So I think we can we need to kind of focus on that and definitely vote, you know, in a toward the person that's gonna start driving that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:21

Get me started on that's like talking about hogs politics. Politics isn't shouldn't is not governing what's best for our wildlife. The science it should be.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:31

Well, what do you guys think about the the the whole thing now with the pen sharing? You know, that's that's been a whole new topic. Somebody get my pens. Yeah, like like say, well, yeah, here's a you know, it's a everybody's talking about, well, you'd share a pen here, you know, gift a pen here. And it's I'm like, you know, when I was growing up, we were taught if you heard a turkey, you did not say you heard a turkey. He ain't giving no pens around here, buddy. I promise you that.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:51

That's the only difference. What's a pen?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:56

Yeah. We haven't adopted that code. I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:59

Well, you couldn't, I couldn't get, I mean, uh, Lanny would not share. There's no way he would share a piece of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

That's part of the culture. That's part of the cool part. Cuz had said it best. There's a couple of we we all just for some reason, for like two months, just come down with this like, what do you say, conveniently absent-minded, politely evasive? Yeah. There's a couple of those things. It's just like, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:25

Well, before we wrap this up, we're gonna do blood on the biologic. Lanny's son killed a turkey this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:29

Lanny said, In Bobby's honey hole. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:33

No better place to kill turkey. I didn't text back. Did you how many did you hear? Where I didn't because he wouldn't tell me the truth anyway. So then what's the point of even asking?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:41

You're gonna have to go to figure that out. That's right. That's kind of how everybody is around here.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:46

They do. That's right, because they share a lease. It's kind of a company thing, but it's their thing, and it's kind of special to them and all. And so man, they have some great years on that lease, but they never ever hear many at all. I don't know what it is. It's weird. It's usually just like a Jake way off. I asked Landon, you know, he did he look, it don't feel bad, he lied to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:07

Yeah. I mean, I don't believe in just shutting people out. You know, I think a mentor program is really important to get people into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

But I also think that You mean to teach them how to lie like we do? Exactly. Okay, everybody needs to learn how to lie.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:19

You know, you want to get you want to get people in there, teach them how to do it, and and preferably do it right, but you know, you also want to teach them to be advocates for the sport. Right. Oh, and for the turkey. You know, and just get just getting somebody out there and just saying, Oh, yeah, I here you killed a turkey. And they think that's what turkey hunting is. No, you know, you've got to you know show you know the conservation efforts that were quite, you know, that they all came together to make this moment happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:40

Well, 2010 we were all kind of spoiled. Yes. And so um, but those of us old enough to see a couple other phases of it where like I was a kid, there weren't any turkeys around, and I'm I was so obviously very proud my dad was the one kind of started here. So, but I've seen a couple of the valleys and peaks. And once you've been through the valley, you become more of that by, you know, you can just appreciate it so much more. 100%. And if the kids have only, you know, they whatever, from zero to thirty years old, they've had nothing but, you know, everything we touch turns to gold, and there's one goblin behind every tree, they just don't seem to, you know, feel it nearly as much, the need for that.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:22

So I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna ask this one question. Oh, he's got a bad look on his face.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:25

He's got a bad look on his face.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:27

How many of us have told their kids after after we've after they've killed a turkey or something, when you're riding back to where everybody else is, don't say anything about that other turkey that we heard. Don't give them a telling them what's going on. How did you ask the question? How many have read?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

How many of you don't you just do it? Turn that around and say, have any of you ever not done that? Yeah. That would that would be because I'm not raised by the law. I'm not sure. Oh, I could I'm guilty of that a couple times this year.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:55

I've gotten in trouble for talking to Bobby about turkeys by my own time. It has a way of doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

What's the old saying? Oh, we weren't talking about that.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:03

I didn't give you bad advice. Oh, there were three over there. Yeah, I was putting the move on him, son. Daddy, you said there were ten.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:10

What are you talking about? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:11

So, James, I think it's kind of rude when somebody asks you, What'd you hear? It is just it's just kind of rude because then that puts you in a position where you've got to know. I'm gonna remind you of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:21

Wait a minute, Bobby. You asked me that the other day.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

You did, Bobby.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:25

This morning. I did try to make conversation with you, Richard.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:28

Hired him this morning ask you that.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:30

Answer's always the same. One a long way off. Sounded like a joke.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:33

Bobby, Bobby, look, Bobby's playing, Bobby's playing ninja mind games with everybody about turkey cylinders. It's like the next thing you know, you'll just be spouting off to him something you shouldn't be saying. So just just ninja mind games.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:45

That's right. All right. Why don't we? I know we're gonna have a couple more questions, but while we're thinking of those, why don't we ask him a trivia? We got a trivia question. The peanut patch. I know I bold peanuts are part of your lifestyle. Yeah, yeah. Anybody from Georgia. Yep. The peanut patch, you can get them at the uh these convenience stores.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:10

The totsum. Yeah, yep. When was that? When was the last time y'all heard of a totsum? Totesum. Is that the no? That's the double quick in the Delta, isn't it? It hadn't been around in years. But that's what I grew up calling every gas station was a totesum.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:23

Didney June is what we call them. I called him Junior Food Markets. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:27

All right, Richie. All right, so our listener who left a review, uh Quackhead 95. Quack? Yep. Quackhead.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:33

I bet he likes to hunt duck heads.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:35

Yes, he's a duck guy.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:37

Uh awesome podcast. I listen all day long as I work. I always learn something new. Keep up the great work. Quackhead. Quackhead in the house.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:46

You know, James, we were thinking. So that wouldn't be another nucleum blind. Good job.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:53

You could probably use that thing duck hunting too. You probably could.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Yeah, it'd be a good use of it. All right, Richard. So our trivia here is uh who is the largest firearm manufacturer in America?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:07

Hmm. This could be uh manufacturing makes them in the U.S. Domestically the keyboard. So like it's gotta make them here.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:16

That would be the keyboard.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:16

Not turkey.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:18

Firearm or firearm? Shotgun rifle, both firearm. Firearm. Gotta be made in America in the U.S. But the but they're actually made here in the U.S. Right. So this could be military firearm too, or just sporting firearms? I guess it could be firearms is made here.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:34

But it's got to be a brand we know. It is.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:37

It's a brand, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:38

Beretta's got a big factory over there. Yeah. So Beretta will be talking about this for you, and I'll just answer that.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:44

You're just no, that wasn't your answer. I know you're thinking about the we could, you know, some of the prizes he might be real excited about. Uh there was uh full strut decoy that we were thinking about. Oh, we you know, what about the electronic call? Yeah, the electronic call.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:05

You forgot about the electronic call package.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:07

If you were here last week, we had it was a$2,500 prize, but that that was last week. So I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

It's amazing how the prizes go up when someone's like invites them to a hunt. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:19

So it, you know, we're probably playing for a case of peanuts. So I want you to think about this, get it right. Oh man, I'm just I'm I'm going through my give us a multiple choice.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:28

Come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:29

Uh all right, let's think here. Uh, we got Remington, we got Winchester, uh Ruger, and got Browning. Browning, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:41

Those are some good ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:42

Well, Browning and Winchester are made in Japan for the most part, the Maroku factory. I think I like how he's thinking through. It's a good test taker, I can tell. And I'm gonna have to, God, I'm gonna go with Remington just because he didn't say the one I was thinking. Maybe there was a maybe the maybe the second R. Second R. Yeah. Isn't Ruger out of business? Hey, yeah, yeah. It is Ruger. Is it Ruger? There's a hostile going on. Caught me by surprise.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:10

Did I hear Beretta bought Ruger?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:12

I think that's what that's what had me thinking Beretta was. I thought Beretta acquired Ruger. That's what spurred him to. Yeah, yeah. Spurred him.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:19

That's what spurred him. Spurred me. That's what spurred him. So the question would be interesting is who's the number one seller of firearms. You know, number one seller of rifles. And so it didn't matter where the Facebook market was. Because a lot of the really, really funny guns are made, you know. Yeah, I bet Brandon would probably be that number one would think so.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:41

You know, now that they've done away with all those gun selling groups, I love how people will uh get on there and be real incognito.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:48

Like selling a coffee can. Yeah, I've got so we had a part B to that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:55

Uh read that real quick. Yeah, so uh our bonus aspect of this question is who is the largest worldwide manufacturer? Firearms? Yes. Worldwide.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:10

There it is. That's right. 500-year-old company. So what do you see? What's the future of Trumpet Calls looking like? Is there obviously it might be the Trumbum? Trumbum?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:21

You know, in terms of just in general, it's, I mean, I'm I'm I think we're seeing it peak right now. And I think it's going to just kind of do what everything else does. It's going to peak and then we're going to see a slow backslide of it. Because a lot of people are getting them because it's the end thing now.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:36

I mean, remember the pot calls.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:38

The pot call boom. Yep. Yep. Well, who we talked, wasn't the guy we the historian we talked to the other day? Brent Rogers. He had 4,500 calls. He sure did. That guy's the market right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:50

It seems like there's a lot of call collecting going on in your part of the world and in Georgia and down to Davis Love and we and all that. But I haven't heard about people collecting calls around here until recently, I suppose. Have you planned it?

SPEAKER_07 1:34:06

No, it's a new phenomenon. Actually, Daniel Neal enlightened me to it, you know, when they were coming in with Mr. Fox vest and everything else. I was like, what? You know, but uh it's really cool. And and what's really cool to me is tying the story back to where the turkeys were and these guys using the natural stuff they had in the first place uh to hunt them just created these little pockets. And now I'm becoming aware of it. It's more clear to me now just talking, you know, why we were so heavily influenced by diaphragm calls, just really by the location and who we were mentored by.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:35

You've mentioned Jordan a time or two. Is that the guy from Louisiana that was making the cane can yelpers? Yeah. Have you blown one of those? Oh, yeah. Do you like those?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:44

They're they're I I I don't, I mean, I wouldn't hunt with one, but they're they're a neat part of history.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:50

I mean, they'll call a turkey.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:52

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:53

Yeah. They obviously have called turkeys. Sure. Been around longer than I've been alive.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:58

What else? What sh else should we be asking him?

SPEAKER_07 1:35:02

You hadn't asked him to take you for him to take you hunting yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:08

I try to read the room. I don't I don't really have anywhere to go.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:12

He nailed that question.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:14

Yeah. Well, I would like you to send us a sound file so we could insert insert in the so folks can hear you yelping on. Because they are still and and I know what I want to ask you. You guys, what are y'all, are y'all writing down questions? Do I have to carry this whole thing? I'm just doing it. Dude, I'm tired from carrying this. You're paid to carry it, Bobby.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:34

What are you supposed to do? Delete that Mr. Bobby. We call that job security, Bobby. Richie will mark that.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:42

Yeah, that's going in the teaser.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:43

I don't know. No doubt about that. So let me ask you this. Why do you think a trumpet sounds better off at a distance than it does up close? And do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_04 1:35:53

It depends who's running it, really. The Patrick Gamble guy was talking about sounds good up close and far away. And Mark does too. And it's a lot of people are trying to crank on it too hard. And it just seems the further you get away from it, it gets a you know, you kind of get that sound distortion.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:11

That happened but that's with all calls. Yeah. You can, you know, you know, mouth calls are like that, and you can be close to someone and go, he probably shouldn't use that. Yeah. And then you get away from them a little ways, and sounds turkey.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:23

Lenny, that may be why I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:24

It's like elbow you all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:29

I will say a trumpet at distance, I think, can get them to gobble a little better than other calls.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:34

Why would why would that be? That's the one thing I was like, somebody ought to tell me why that might be.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:37

It's because you it's got that percussive sound. So you get it kind of I just you know, like when you hear bass in a car, you can kind of feel it in your chest. I feel like that's that's that's kind of the same thing turkey.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:51

Because I can't hear drumming, you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:53

So yeah, can you hear drumming? Sometimes that a great sound. Oh, yeah. But do you have a hard time coursing it? And what's that? Do you have a hard time coursing? If you hear one drumming, can you go, oh, he's right there.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:07

Oh, it it depends, because I've I've I've heard him drumming. Sometimes I can. If he's over here, maybe, but then because that's my good ear. But if he's half the time, half the time I I'm like, okay, that turkey is drumming, he's gonna walk right here, and then I look and he's coming in this way.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:22

They always do that to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:26

I don't know how they can throw that sound out.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:28

I love turkeys.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:28

Well, we've heard a lot of people through the last couple years as we've talked about trumpets from time to time, they'll they'll say, You gotta get out about 40 yards from it, and that's when it really sounds sweet. And that's uh it's always made me kind of scratch my head.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:41

If someone's running it right, it sounds pretty good up close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:45

That's what I think, Land. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:47

You're gonna use one Wednesday?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:49

No. No, no, I will.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:52

I'm gonna bring my using that box call when he's gonna be. I know exactly what he's gonna do.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:56

Bobby's a box man.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:57

He's got he's getting tooth pulled Tuesday.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:59

Oh, yeah. Sure am I. Hope you're getting medicated with it.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:01

And it's not a tooth that's gonna be attached to my mouth call. So it is and my the guy that's the oral surgeon is a turkey hunter.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:08

We've been so but you better. One thing you ought to do is you ought to soak those things in a good mouthwash. Yeah, I probably should.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:15

What if it makes it harder for you to run a mouth call?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:18

It it's not. It's not one of those. How do you know? That's what I talked to him about. We got all that worked out as so before we let you go, uh the the other calls that your dad made, the box calls and whatnot. Can you just speak a little bit about that? We just kind of concentrated on Trump.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:34

Sure, yeah. So he he makes a uh made a Gibson box call, which is more kind of an elongated call. It's you know, solid wood body. Uh, it's not kind of checkered like a Lamar Williams or a Neil Colls-style box call. Uh, and then he made some boat paddle calls. Uh he did not make very many boat paddles, but he he would kind of make the the paddle calls and the box calls as a break for making trumpets because he a lot of these guys will make, you know, and I think that's one of the reasons that dad became what he was, because he would make, you know, a hundred calls in a year, and a lot of guys would make five. And he just had kind of a system where he would make 25 at a time. And with the bot, and after a while that gets monotonous. So he would want to, you know, take a break, and his break from the trumpets was bots calls. And he, I think he enjoyed making bots calls almost more at the end than he did making trumpets, just because it was kind of a reprieve from that that grind, and you know, people weren't calling him going, is my bots call ready? Is my bots call ready? Right. Yeah. And then uh and he had a patent on the uh what's known as a dial tone box call where it you know it's got a dowel that goes up, you've got your lid, screws in the dowel offset, and as you twist the dowel in the call, the it changes the lid position. So that was uh and that was another Larry Hearn and Billy Bice collab on that. And he actually had the more valuable ones of those were actually out of Meaden, Tennessee, under the Old Masters brand. And he branded, I think he made 50-ish of those with the uh with the Old Masters logo with Meadon, Tennessee at the bottom.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:10

About that. Well, I tell you what, uh Mr. Billy Vice, uh we've we've had peop many people have mentioned and we've just heard lots of cool things, and we're sorry for your loss. And uh be thinking about you this spring. I had not that had not crossed my mind, Toxie. I'm looking at you too. It had not crossed my mind how y'all might have to deal with that, but y'all are in our thoughts and prayers.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:33

No pity needed, no pity needed. It's just part of life.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

Far scope said this is part of life.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:39

Yeah, and I I've got a call that I he made me at 93 that I've hunted with every day since then. So it's like you know, it's always like I've got you've got a piece of him with you. Now you do.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:49

So if one of our listeners wanted to uh look at your calls or get have you got a website or what do they need to do?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:56

We are in the process of getting one up. Just just dad never had a website. They would just always call the house and talk to him, and I'm uh sort of in the process of sort of getting that.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:04

Do you want to give out your cell phone number? Is that oh yeah, let me just get right on that. I none of these guys, these old callmakers, we've none of them have had a website. They just call the house.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:15

You're focused on the craft and not the marketing. You just came to them because they were so good at it. They sell themselves. That's correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:23

So only some breadcrumbs they can kind of follow me around.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:26

There you go. So it at some point here in the near future, there will be a website. I'm working on getting a website up. Not for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:33

You can let us know, and then we when you want us to give it out to people, we'll do it. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:40

That's good. All right, guys. What else what else?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:43

Uh who's gonna go listen for me in the morning? That's all I want to know now. Laney, you want to go? I will. You want to go listen? Look at him. He's bought me. Bobby's not gonna answer because uh he knows I'd like to listen with a shot. I'd listen better when I have a shotgun, right? You can hear better with a shotgun.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:03

He'll drop me a pen, I'll go listen for it. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:06

Oh, we'll drop a pin. Do you want a pen? We'll drop a pin. I'll drop you a pen, no problem. I'll call Burke. It's called the dummy line. Be careful. My goodness now.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:15

The gar hole pin.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:17

All right, Richie, you have you got a question?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:20

Uh, you know, you guys hit on a lot of questions here. Um, but you know, I've kind of gone through everything. But yeah, so in the woods, though, your go-to call is the trumpet call. I'd say about 80% of the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:33

What's your second call? Diaphragm.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:36

And are you using the diaphragm when you got further and louder? Or just you know, something just to mix it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:43

Don't ever hands-free. That's the one thing you can't take away from anything else. So it's the great, the greatest finishing call in the history of Turkey is a good soft mouth call.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:53

Especially early season at Toxie's point earlier. You know, when you're staring out 300 yards and you're trying to get that trumpet up next to you and hold a shotgun, that's just that's not gonna work when he's when he's walking to you. I'll put a diaphragm in. Now, Mark will not, I think he uses a trumpet call to call him to his feet and more power to him, but I I just can't do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:15

No, somebody needs to get a patent on something like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:18

That trombone. I'm surprised you didn't mention that as one of your top three. But do you set the distance and then you stay there, or do you slide it in and out while you're calling? I'll I'll move it around some. It depends. So you could sound like multiple different birds with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:33

Yeah, and then you can change the mouthpieces out to get different tones too. So it's kind of an infinite, infinite uh you know, super tone tone variation.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:40

All right, Mr. James Bice.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:43

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:43

You're kind of uh yeah, yeah, you're kind of uh I feel like there's a lot of things you didn't say. Like you're kind of guarded with some some of your things, but I like that about you. You're uh that's how turkey hunters are. I'm a turkey hunter.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:58

He's not gonna give you a pen.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:59

I ain't gonna tell him everything. I wanna I've always wanted to kill one in those Georgia mountains. I'll drop you some toilet.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:06

There's one I know I know that just the ridge that you can walk up to find one.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:10

There you go. I bet he does. Perfect. All right, guys. This has been a lot of fun. Toxic, if you got anything, I'll give you the last word. Goodbye, Dudley.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:19

Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:21

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Gamekeeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Mafio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Guster.