EP:326 | Understanding Hunting Pressure on Turkeys

This week we’re joined by Dr. Brad Cohen of Tennessee Tech and the Cohen Lab. We discuss hunting pressure, gobbling activity and what they have learned through research and monitoring GPS banded gobblers and hunters. Brad participates in many research projects along with Drs. Mike Chamberlain and Bret Collier, and like them, he’s an avid turkey hunter and has really paid attention to the findings. We also talk turkey season dates and the thoughts so far on their effectiveness. Ever wondered how they count  birds and establish limits? We touch on that. We also talk about avian predators having an effect on our turkeys. We think it’s a real thing. It’s an interesting discussion and one anyone interested in turkeys will appreciate. Listen, Learn and Enjoy.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Five and three, two, five, all right. Everybody, here we are once again. West point, Mr. Skippy. We're gonna talk target. Oh, yeah, you know we love talking target spot. You know what? I'm not having a lot of fun right now.

SPEAKER_12 0:38

Well the weather's been kind of locally, it's been kind of you know. Um, you know, our our everybody's still jealous of Mac, as always. Mac Mac. And he's not saying anything. He's just gloating over there. That's like a hair, I think. It is the hair.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

They're jealous of the hair, not anything else.

SPEAKER_12 0:55

I need to borrow your turkey vest or something, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

Okay, guys. So look, we've got we've got two guests today. Let me go in kind of uh as I'm looking down the room. We got Dudley here. Dudley's not a guest. Well, no, he's not, but I'm just setting the table for you. We got uh Lanny, the whole list over here. Mike is gonna fact check uh our guest. We got Richie run the board. We've got a young new employer.

SPEAKER_12 1:18

We got the new, but you finally got another tiger in here with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Mitchell Carr, who is from Toronto, Alabama Enterprise, Alabama. So on the on the guest couch, we've got Mr. Jimbo Ronquest from Drake and old Tom and all that. Hey, thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_12 1:35

Thank you for being here. Always a pleasure to have Jim.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

And then through the magic of the internet, we're looking at a guy who is playing hooky from work, I think. Yeah. And uh we've got Dr. Brad Cohen.

unknown 1:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 1:47

Ladies and gentlemen, uh let's not uh let's not make it too loud that I'm playing hooky from work, but yep, good to be here with you.

SPEAKER_12 1:54

We're talking research though. Hey.

SPEAKER_06 1:56

Yeah, I mean this is this is this is my job.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

I'm here. This is work. It could be, yeah. So they're cleaning out your they're doing removing asbestos.

SPEAKER_07 2:04

I hope nothing else they're not removing anything else from your you know, black mold, asbestos, all the good stuff to you know get her cleaned out. After after you know, after the first lung scan, and they tell you, okay, you know what? Your lungs look like they're 80 years old. All of a sudden the office starts to get cleaned up by the higher up. Isn't that funny? So I'm doing a lot better.

SPEAKER_12 2:23

Must be because of the health insurance.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Yeah. So uh uh Brad, you're with Tennessee Tech, and you've got a wildlife lab there at the university. Can you tell us about that real quick?

SPEAKER_07 2:34

Yeah, so we work real closely with state agencies, federal agencies on typically applied game management questions. Uh a lot of stuff with waterfowl, a lot of stuff with turkeys, but we're also doing work with deer and roughed grouse and secretive marsh birds, whatever, whatever applied management questions people have in our region, you know, if we can if we can help answer it, we work with them. So it's the goal is to make more effective policy decisions in the end of all things. So whatever they need. Hey, go. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

Yeah, so like uh the the then the state of Tennessee, if they were having an issue about some species, they would come to you guys and y'all would study it and give them a yeah.

SPEAKER_07 3:16

So like basically the way it works is we have really good relationship with, let's say, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. If they have a question, let's just say right now one about one of the ones we just started with is Ruffed Grouse. They want to know what the current population status is of ruffed grouse, and ruffed grouse throughout the southern Appalachians becoming increasingly rare, you know, their range is declining precipitously. And so we just want to kind of get a baseline understanding of where they are. We're gonna do some habitat management at the same time and kind of see if over time there's differences in density, you know, a bunch of applied work. They came to me and they go, okay, here's what we want to do. Is it uh what can what what can you do to answer this question? At the same time, they have another question that is like a lot of these areas they allow OHVs. You guys know what I'm talking about, like razors and cans and stuff like that disturbs up and down this area. And this is happening when uh rough grofs are drumming and turkeys are gobbling. And so they want to know like what does all this disturbance do to the distribution? So we work together with the agency to put a project together, and then the direct whatever we do, the answers have direct management implications. So the whole whole goal is hey, here's how many rough grouse you have, here's what the benefit is to habitat management, here's what happens when you allow and don't allow uh side-by-sides or razors or whatever running around the area.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

I like the idea that they that they're getting some really good biological information that they can make you know, decisions based on ones.

SPEAKER_12 4:46

And and they're making decision research vision based on you know hunting too, which is great, you know. Uh uh just the practices, you know, and and the information applies directly to hunting, which I like to see too.

SPEAKER_07 4:57

Yeah, I mean we're in it, we're in a day and age where I I really love coming into this field at this time where I feel like science is really appreciated for the resource, and the commissioners and the agency want to support that. And you really feel like you can have a real effect on conservation in uh a relatively short period of time, maybe compared to 20, 30 years ago, where you couldn't spread the word of what your research is, couldn't talk to commissioners as easily. So it's it's really it's a good time to be in in this field.

SPEAKER_12 5:25

And getting as specific as y'all are, I mean, should help with the legislation. I mean, because you're not ha answering these broad questions. Y'all are asking really specific stuff, uh, which should help legislature.

SPEAKER_07 5:35

Yeah, a lot of it's a lot of it's so targeted. A lot of it, you know, nowadays, listen, you don't know me to tell you, you don't need me to tell you when pawns are on the ground, but you might want to know, like, okay, under these habitat conditions in this scenario, what type of uh regulation should we allow? Right. So we just did a project with Tennessee where we did a bunch of different science that says, okay, here's the regulation packages, and based on your population status, your recruitment, your hunter effort, all these different things, your stakeholder opinions, we put it all together in a pot, we sued it up, and here's the optimal harvest regulations for this area versus this area. That's targeted management, that's adaptive management. That's where we're heading. That's what I like to see.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Jimbo, have you had any have have you got to cross paths with uh with Dr. Brad at all?

SPEAKER_05 6:18

A couple of times, yeah. We were uh running on each other last year turkey hunting, going to visit a farm, and uh I got talking to Brad, and I knew who he was by name, but I had not really put the name and the phase together. So we had a great conversation, of course, talking ducks and turkeys and whatnot. A wealth of information. I love sitting and listening to him. I can always learn something from somebody like that.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

Yeah, you know, you can hear the passion in his voice. So I I I I love it when a guy's occupation then when they're passionate about it. Like Dudley and Trees. No, no doubt about it. Dudley loves trees.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

He does love trees. What can I say?

SPEAKER_07 6:52

Okay, Brad. Wait, hold hold on. Is it pine trees or oak trees? I need to know. Because I personally or I love pine trees. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Well, I like I like them both. I wish pine trees were valued a little more than they are.

unknown 7:07

No.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

What about so what about pine trees that you love so much?

SPEAKER_07 7:12

Oh man, it's it's the thing I talk about with habitat managers all the time up here. You know, up here, it's a lot of hardwood management, but I feel like on a pine stand I can do so much more, so much more dynamic management, fire, disturbance. It's just and it's quicker, you know. I don't have to wait a whole until my kids generation to actually start doing things. So I like what you can do with pine stands more than you know, maybe the tree is just secondary. And if you've ever ever been in a pine savanna, something like that, you know, where it's a low, low density pine stand with a early successional community. I don't think there's anything prettier in this world.

SPEAKER_04 7:46

I agree. Yeah, I would agree with you. That's true. We've got some properties down here in Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia that he would just love. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 7:54

Lots of pine trees. Is there anything on here but a pine tree? Yeah, a couple sweet gums.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Uh you know, Mississippi uh has a pine forest that they do a lot of experiments on nearby, and it's a you know, a bunch of different uh spacings of pine trees, different fire regimes, uh you know, different frequency of fire, different times of year. Um and believe it or not, there's quail and turkeys all over it.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Oh yeah. Richie got a filmed uh quail on that pine stand. Okay. Richie.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

That Richie actually did something.

SPEAKER_12 8:28

Somebody took Richie's mic away.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

All right, look, let's uh let's look at Brad. Now, Brad, we you know we need you to focus here for a second. All right, focusing. Dudley, I'm remembering to let's do the rapid fire at the beginning this time. Yeah. We can learn a little bit more about Brad. Uh Rapid Fire is brought to you by who, Laney?

SPEAKER_12 8:46

And our buddies at Nutrian, of course. Nutrient Ag Solutions.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

It's a great partner of ours. We uh and they have a lot of ag knowledge that helps us.

SPEAKER_12 8:55

Yeah, we just had uh one of their specialists talk about toy beans last week, and very, very interesting. It's one of those podcasts that we thought were gonna take, you know, 30 minutes and then we ended up being on there two hours learning about toy beans. So it's good stuff, it's a great information resource, and they're across the nation too. So check them out.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

All right, Dudley. All right, Brad, I'm gonna ask you roughly 10 questions uh pretty quickly, maybe some yes or no, maybe some uh all of the above. Just uh let us know how you how you feel, okay? We're gonna try to get to know you a little better. So are you ready?

SPEAKER_07 9:29

Man, I feel the pressure. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

All right. Do you have any severe food allergies? No. Uh boiled peanuts or regular peanuts? Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_07 9:38

Boil boiled peanuts all day. All right.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Uh cornbread, sweet or unsweet.

SPEAKER_07 9:45

Sweet.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Turkey hunt in New York or Tennessee?

SPEAKER_07 9:50

Tennessee.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Gumbo or clam chowder?

SPEAKER_07 9:52

Ooh. That's a good one. Uh we're talking New England clam chowder or Manhattan clam chowder? I'm I'm just talking about it. North or gumbo all day.

SPEAKER_12 10:03

Uh north or south, buddy. Gumbo all day. Is that what we got? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Uh, what is more fun to you? Hunting, research, or habitat management? Ooh. Hunting. All right. I like it. Uh pick one. Moist soil or flooded corn. Getting into the ducks.

SPEAKER_07 10:22

Moist soil.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Uh goose hunting or duck hunting?

SPEAKER_07 10:26

Duck hunting.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Waterfowl or turkey?

SPEAKER_07 10:33

Waterfowl, I I guess. You know, waterfowl hunting for sure. I'm I that's my number one. I I knew it.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Okay. So uh, and last but not least, Drake or old Tom?

SPEAKER_06 10:44

Both, my friend. Good job, Doc. Good answer. Hey, I want to I want to keep Jim as a friend. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

I was just trying to figure out mostly if if you are a true Southerner or not. And I I think you are a true Southerner. I think he is now.

SPEAKER_07 11:00

Did I pass the test for real? Because he did. I don't know. All right, I'll take it. I mean, listen, I'm gonna take that as I've been here long enough where I feel like I've lived over half my life in the South now. You're a true name. I want to pass that test.

SPEAKER_12 11:11

Yeah, I think you are. You won. And we were gonna ask you if you knew what a Parsons nose was, but Dudley was the only one that knew what it was, so it's not really a Southern those.

SPEAKER_07 11:20

No, no. I would never, if that was uh if that was the entry fee, I would have never gotten that.

SPEAKER_12 11:24

Me neither.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Well, do you say y'all yet?

SPEAKER_07 11:28

Uh yes, I do, but it's not purposeful, and you know, sometimes I'm like, I has has the culture hit you that hard that you're at the y'all phase? And the answer is yeah, I really am. That's weird.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Had you heard of a clear cut before moving to the south?

SPEAKER_07 11:42

Absolutely not. No, no. When I was in New York, like I thought every, you know, we were talking about you know, pine forest versus hardwood forest. And I if you had asked me before I came and actually got an education in it, I would have said every tree's a beautiful tree, and that's where the critters like to live, and I just want to see the biggest, oldest trees ever. And then I came down here and I was like, to be honest with you, I'm like, man, I don't know if I really like trees anymore. Like you love trees. Okay, they want to say that, but like if I want turkeys, if I want deer, if I want quail, I don't really need trees. Yeah, I need, I need, I need grassland.

SPEAKER_12 12:14

Sunlight hitting the ground. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 12:16

I need sunlight on the ground. So yeah, now now to me, the only a lot of uh good trees are stacked up for timber. I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

So, Brad, uh, you know, we're gonna learn about this research that you've been doing on on hunting pressure, but but before we do that, I want to ask the state of Tennessee. A few years ago, y'all moved your turkey season. Last year may have been the first year of moving the dates. Do you have like a just uh how do you think the wind's blowing? Do you think people are liking it? They see the value in it, or is it has it become a sore subject?

SPEAKER_07 12:50

Man, that's such a good question. I don't want to take up a lot of time, but I'm going to because this is something I've been thinking of a lot. And uh, can I can I kind of frame it out a little bit, Bobby? Like, you know, my thoughts, and then if I go too long, just shut me up.

SPEAKER_09 13:03

Yeah, we will.

SPEAKER_07 13:04

But something I've been thinking about is, you know, I think we're in the second or third year of season changes in Tennessee. But you know, throughout the Southeast, a lot of states have basically moved their season later. Uh and it's in it's in response to like a lot of research, you know, going back 40, 50 years, that says we should probably a more conservative season would be timing our hunting season so that it coincides with like the peak incubation. So, in other words, when most of our hens have already got to breed and started nesting, that's when we should start start shooting gobblers. And then, and and so you've got to think about it from uh a state agency perspective. All right, turkey populations are declining, and you've got one of two options. You know, habitat and predators are fundamentally probably the reason that populations are declining, but a state agency can't control habitat and predators at a statewide level. They've got two levers they've got season setting regulations, and then they've got uh the timing of the season. And so instead of, you know, I think it's a carrot and stick approach. If you want to do you can basically reduce the bag limit, and that's a stick, like you get less opportunity, and we're gonna save more turkeys next year for harvest. Or hey, what if we move the season a little bit and it's a carrot approach? You still get to hunt the same number of days, but it maybe will pop positively affect the population. I'm not saying that it works or doesn't work, I think there's evidence both ways right now. Um but I'm surprised at the number of hunters that want to switch it back just because they hear turkeys gobbling. It's like, you know when the peak of gobbling is? When you're not hunting. So no matter when you decide to go out in the woods, it won't matter. So I just wish that people would realize that this is the state agency's attempt that instead of reducing your opportunity, they're trying to create more turkeys through the other only other means they have necessary. So I would give it a couple more years and see where we're at. But I think in Tennessee, it's 50-50 right now. Um half the people like it, half the people don't. That was a long answer, I'm sorry. That's exactly what we needed to hear.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Yeah. It's just yeah, well look, we're we're for the resource. Uh 100%. We've got to be. And we're we're just we're just hopeful that you know the right decisions are being made and that everybody embraces them.

SPEAKER_07 15:20

You know, what do you what do you hear? I wonder, like, you know, what are the main complaints about moving the season, let's just say, forward a couple weeks or back. I don't know how you want to phrase it, right? But like, you know, delayed it. Basically, the two is hey, that turkeys are already gobbling. I want to be out in the woods, right?

SPEAKER_12 15:37

That's what I always say.

SPEAKER_07 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

I always got to hunt these dates with my yeah, with my dad or whatever. And it just historical days that they don't feel like they're getting to hunt anymore.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

And it, I you know, it I I don't I don't travel much, but at least in Mississippi, the the goblin kind of tapers off the last couple of weeks of April.

SPEAKER_12 15:56

Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, we like hunting when they gobble, and and that's one of the reasons I believe for us.

SPEAKER_07 16:01

I I agree completely with you want to hunt them while they gobble. And let's just think about it though, and we can talk about this when we talk about how hunters affect turkeys. If you look at an unhunted population of turkeys and you look at the goblin data, they're gobbling for three months straight. You know what I'm saying? They're they're gobbling, yeah. Sure, there's a peak, but like, you know, and let's just say somewhere like South Carolina, you know, in the South, that peak's usually mid-April, early April, let's just say, something like that. Maybe a little later in Mississippi or a little earlier in Mississippi, a little later in let's say Kentucky. But no matter what, they're gobbling their heads off when they're not being hunted. So when we say, you know, we're putting cause and effect to something that isn't accounting for us being in the woods. You know, it's like, well, they stopped gobbling as much towards the end of the season. Well, that's because they've been hunted for a couple weeks and there's like 30% less of them and all of these other things. You see where I'm going with that.

SPEAKER_09 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 16:55

So, you know, it's a everywhere I go, there I am situation. If it wasn't traditionally the, you know, two weeks before and we had just had this season, we'd be yearning for us to, you know, move it back or move it forward. You see where I'm going. It's just a product of our own selves, the goblin we hear.

SPEAKER_12 17:11

That's makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 17:12

Yeah. Jim, what are you what what are you hearing?

SPEAKER_05 17:14

You know, I hear a lot of people say the same thing, or people will think, oh man, they're it they're done, it's over, they're done gobbling, gobblers got back together. But it's interesting to hear him talk about those goblin peaks, and and you hear a lot about that. I was just talking to a guy the other day that was talking about a research project with a bunch of SRUs, um, the sound recording devices they got around, and had some, and I don't know if this is for review yet or if it's but they were talking about a goblin peak in the state of Arkansas when I thought it was, and I I'd have thought, you know, right about now to mid-April, and they were saying even north to south Arkansas, which is a pretty big change. Um, but the general peak goblin date was like April 21st or something like that. And I wouldn't have thought it'd have been that late. I could see it up in the hills, you know, along the Missouri line, but not on its own.

SPEAKER_12 18:05

I think traditionally we've always said it's mid-April here, and we don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

But we've been basing it off of areas that we hunt. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, what the research is saying is those areas that aren't hunted very hard, if at all, um they're gobbling. They're still goblins.

SPEAKER_07 18:20

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that study, those studies are predominantly done by Mike Chamberlain and Brett Collier. You know, I work with their team, but I think they've made a really good case about just how much hunting affects gobbling activity, both by the direct removal and also, you know, I mean, I think we underestimate the effect of that we have on the animals we hunt, period, but especially a turkey. You gotta think for a second. Turkeys are the only animal that I know of that we hunt, um, maybe maybe a squirrel, I don't know, that is actually constrained to be unable to move at night. So they are they are only when they are active, they are being hunted. You know, a deer, a duck, they can just be active at night. We're not gonna be there.

SPEAKER_10 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 19:03

But a turkey, I mean, they gotta do everything, especially during the biggest part of their life cycle, the the breeding season, they gotta do that while we're hunting them.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Very interesting. Big implications there. Never thought about that. Now that I think about it, uh it just it seems to me, just in my experience, like 20 years ago, we started paying more attention about okay, maybe we're not gonna duck hunt on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And uh we're gonna quit driving the boat uh through the mud flats and jump them up every morning. We're gonna drive around and walk in. Um, we're gonna quit hunting afternoons. With deer, we've gotten really serious about pressure in the last 20 years or so, if not more. And it seems like with turkeys, we're not we really hadn't gotten into that to where we're focusing on not pressuring them as much.

SPEAKER_05 19:54

Well, there's some states, though, like Missouri for years, you know, can only hunt to one o'clock. And there's kind of an argument up there about people wanting to hunt in the afternoon and give more opportunity, and there's other people folks, man, hey, it's been good to us for this long. But to your point, I think pressure management is huge. And a lot of folks don't realize disturbance is pressure, whether it's ducks, deer, or turkeys. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Well, let's look, let's go to Brad. Brad, can you you've got this study that y'all y'all have done. Um, can you shed some light on what what what jumped out at you that really you didn't expect to see, I guess.

SPEAKER_07 20:31

Well, so this is part of when uh you know working with Mike Chamberlain and Brett Collier, they kind of started the whole project, and I came on as a team member later on at just as a colleague and also as a postdoc. And we had several different students, and I want to mention, you know, it was John Gross, Elena Garrett, uh Patrick Whiteman, all those students. So it's a big like I'm coming here talking to y'all, but you gotta understand it's a big team effort. And let me kind of explain what happens. We go out there, South Carolina, Louisiana, we've done this in other states too. We give hunters first and foremost GPS units, and we say, we're gonna track you. We want to know where you're going. So every single hunter that comes in, we're figuring out what they do. And at the same time, we have GPS Mark 10s and gobblers. So, you know, long story short, we're you know, turkey hunters are are active when turkeys are are actually active too. Like, God, are they the most predictable hunters you've ever seen? I mean, I'm the same way. I I mean the second I saw it, I was like, I'm not surprised. But on public lands, you know, uh 50% of all hunter locations were within like 25 yards of a trail that they could walk on. You know, 50% of the WMA or I'm sorry, 50% of all the hunting pressure was on 3% of the WMA.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 21:49

That that is incredible.

SPEAKER_12 21:51

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. When I first got to Mississippi State University, this is before Onex, which I love Onex, by the way, actually actually on a run now. Uh but But um we took uh I took a map of the public land and I would mark out a half mile across all the trails. And then inside those lines is where I would hunt. And to your point, I never ran into anybody. Now things have changed now since Onex, uh for sure. But it was it was a matter for and has always been on public land. It wasn't it wasn't it it was get away from the people to find the good hunting opportunities more than anything.

SPEAKER_07 22:29

So that's exactly right. You know what's interesting is all right, so when you look at what turkeys are doing, first of all, one of the things we found, and I was kind of surprised by this, is that female turkeys don't seem to be affected by hunters. They want to, you know, hens want to be on those these trails that hunters are using for nesting, for just bugging, whatever, these more open areas, and they I I don't know how they realize that like they're not the ones being shot at, but they don't seem to be affected. Gobblers, on the other hand, an immediate response, like within a day or two, they have a they move way off of roads. Um they have really exaggerated responses, they stop gobbling, they basically gobble on the limb. Obviously, there's some variation, right? You're still listening I'm not saying you're never gonna kill a turkey after two days day two of hunting season on a trail. I'm just saying the general patterns are like huge shifts in district population distributions away from the trails. Now, what's fascinating though, and and this is something as a scientist, I think about all right, you you gotta think about predators, like hunters are just predators. And if you're a very predictable predator, what winds up happening is prey quickly adapt to you. They go, okay, I know where you're gonna be, and I don't want to like lose access to all this land just because I'm scared of you. I'm just gonna I'm gonna work around you. So what do we have? We get turkeys that you know get into the thickest stuff possible next to roads. We get turkeys that learn that you know, they're what I call a season killer, right? The one that gobbles non-stop right where you are, but knows the second you hit that call, I'm running the other way. You know, you resemble that remark, but I have a lot of turkeys that they ran. But that's I mean, because I think about it, and I also think turkey hunting might be, you know, maybe besides elk hunting, the only one where we're actively imitating, you know, a hen to try and kill it. They know the game really quick. The gobblers learn, like, okay, you know what? If I keep hearing the same Yelp all the time, that's a hunter.

SPEAKER_12 24:28

Right.

SPEAKER_07 24:30

And I'm telling you, like, being different after about day two of the hunting season or maybe the second weekend of the hunting season, doing something different is what kills birds.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Is there any like anything out of when you you're putting GPS on that on the hunters and you're watching where they get? Is there anything that bubbled up out of that, like the successful hunters ended up walking more or getting out of those areas that you're talking about? Is there anything that you could learn from the successful ones?

SPEAKER_07 24:58

Let me put it a different way. On John, this was John Gross's say, this was done in Louisiana many years ago, like well, now many, like maybe eight years ago. But what we found was all right, the harvest rate of birds that hung out on roads versus those that were really far away was similar. Even though the birds that hung out on roads experienced ten times the amount of hunting pressure. So to me, that says that if you want to be a more successful hunter, you're going to want to get to those fresh birds way off the trails, way back because they're experiencing one-tenth of the hunting pressure, but they are are much more just as likely to get harvested. That tells me if I want fresh birds, I gotta move. Did that answer your question right there? You know what I'm saying? We never really interviewed individual successful hunters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 25:48

That makes sense. I mean, we're always talking about here. It was food, water cover pressure. I mean, those are the four you know, pillars of of good hunting, things you've got to control. Uh so it makes all the sense in the world. It is, you know, you shed a lot of light on you know the few things that as a uh I don't know how long I've been turkey on, I'm like, duh, why didn't I think of that? I mean, what he's talking about about turkeys not moving at night. We're active when they're active, you know. It makes a lot of sense how they be more affected by the pressure than than the other species.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Hey Brad, so when you when these GPS hunters are moving about, did y'all have any GPS gobblers?

SPEAKER_07 26:24

At the same time, and we watched, we had uh, you know, John had several that like um interacted, like turkey and hunter interacted, and like a hunter missed the turkey. And there were several times that I think John himself actually like just busted up the turkey, just went after him, you know, said we're gonna hunt this one this time. And some of the reactions were just so extreme and and made make sense in, you know, I don't want to get killed type of way, but like you know, gobblers completely abandoning where they were and flying several miles over and re-establishing a home range, you know, just completely redistributing themselves.

SPEAKER_12 26:58

I've said I've seen a couple do that before. That's a terrible feeling. It is a terrible feeling.

SPEAKER_05 27:04

No, it's bad.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

I've got one more question along those lines. Do you do y'all ever see turkeys re-roost at night?

SPEAKER_07 27:12

Our data, the way it's structured, wouldn't be great at picking it up, but in general, they tend to stick with the same roost tree all night. Now keep in mind what we do is we just assume that like we've always assumed that like our midnight location, we take one location at midnight and then we stop taking it after that until morning. And so it's hard to get at that like relocation stuff, but it's very minimal based on our data. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 27:36

Did you have any information on how many times these people yelped?

SPEAKER_07 27:40

Oh no, but I imagine if they're anything like me, it's nonstop.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

You know, the the fact that they have this information and can monitor that in real time, it's it's it's pretty very interesting. State of the art.

SPEAKER_12 27:57

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

What's what's next in this research world? What are y'all like hoping's gonna happen? What kind of technology are y'all hoping comes down the pot?

SPEAKER_07 28:05

Well, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that Mike and his lab are doing with even looking at like personalities of Toms, um, looking at how more aggressive gobblers are may or may not be more likely to be killed, but I'm really interested in the end of all things in I really want to make the link if this is true, that more dominant gobblers are more likely to be harvested, because I'm not positive that's the case. There's a lot of arguments that could be made the opposite, that a dominant gobbler would be the one that says, You come to me, I'm not going to you.

SPEAKER_10 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 28:40

And a subordinate gobbler would be the one that's like, hey, I hear you, I'm coming. And so by understanding those personality syndromes and understanding how that time is, you know, we can put nowadays with our GPS trackers, we can also put like microphones and count the number of gobbles that they're making. So like we can really start to link those personality traits to harvest susceptibility, knowing that the dominant gobblers that are out there are the ones that are producing flock fertility. They're the main drivers of of what hens are reproducing with.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

Is there an effect there somewhat to compensatory versus additive mortality on adult gobblers?

SPEAKER_07 29:23

Yeah, this is such a good question. Right now, so uh the way the way we think of it is that adult gobbler survival is so high naturally, somewhere about 80 to 90 percent a year without being harvested, that basically all adult gobbler harvest is is additive. There is there's no compensatory length. Interesting. So when we when we modeled out populations for like Tennessee, for example, on their gobbler populations, we made assumptions that it's 100% additive.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Can you kind of explain what you're what what what what you're talking about there?

SPEAKER_07 30:02

It's really yeah, it's really important. Jim, do you want to you want to fill everybody in on that one? I can try. You're the doctor. I'll do it, I'll do it. All right, so you gotta understand that the way it works is every year um a certain number of animals are gonna die in the wild. And if if hunt if we consider hunting what we call compensatory, it means that somebody's shooting an animal that would have died either way. No matter what, that that that duck was flying up and it was doomed to die in the prairie pothole region while it was breeding, regardless. So we shot it and we just cut its life off early, but not to a doesn't matter to a population. Additive means that for everyone that we kill, you're not it's gone. It wasn't going to die. You don't have you would have had it next year, but now you don't. So for our regulation framework, it's really important to understand that if we consider turkey harvest to be additive, it means that for every turkey you killed this year, it's one less that you would have next year. Whereas with a compensatory, we go, okay, that one that was killed is going to be replaced next year because there's, you know, there's more resources available now, that less mouth to feed, so they'll produce an extra offspring compensatory. You see what I'm saying? Additive is like you killed that gobbler. You could have had him l next year too, but you took them this year. So when people think about having bag limits that are one versus two versus three, it's really important to understand that well, there's a lot of things there, but the more restrictive we get, the better the turkey hunting will inevitably get just because there's more gobblers that are going to be alive the next year.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

And it also kind of leaves a cushion on recruitment, too, also based on success, right?

SPEAKER_07 31:51

Amen. That's that's the biggest thing, is most right now, all of our harvest is you know, I would say six, if you look at our banding data, sixty percent of our harvest in any given year is two-year-old birds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:03

So this is the kind of information that a state would use to if they were gonna set their bag limits to try to find that sweet spot in the bag limit.

SPEAKER_07 32:13

You want to talk, you want to talk a little bit about that because it's really important, I think, for people to understand some things about regulations because I think we all have good intentions when populations are declining. We're like, you know, cut the bank limit, but don't cut it too much. You know, let's go from four to three or four to two. Uh let's let's and then you know, then we look at the harvest numbers and we see, okay, well, we still killed the same number of goblers this year. That means maybe the population's doing better because we were all going to be shooting less, right? Well, season regulations are are a really effective tool at very low conservative regulation packages for populations, and after a certain level, they don't matter at all. Another way of putting this is no matter what you do, most people are only gonna shoot two deer a year. You could allow a hundred deer to be taken a year, and it wouldn't it wouldn't probably kill no more at a state level than if you allowed three or four. Because no matter what, people are just gonna kill two. The same with turkeys. Most hunters are going to kill one turkey a year. So that means if you change your regulation from four to three or three to two, you're not really affecting harvest. Does that make sense? It's like a sp like a hose spigot. You know, when you're clamping down on that, you know, you open the water and then you just go to close it, and it's only at the last turn that you truly turn off the water at any real way, it's the same way. If we wanted to be con if we wanted to change turkey harvest so that there were more turkeys the next year, we would have to go very conservative in our regulation package, knowing that most turkey hunters only kill one bird, and most birds are only killed in the first two weeks. So that means if we want more turkeys, we would have to go either to about one bird bag limit or less, like a quota hunt, or a very short season, like a two to three week season.

SPEAKER_12 34:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 34:03

Otherwise, it's ineffective.

SPEAKER_12 34:06

I mean, it seems like it always makes sense just to don't throw anything at me, Bobby, but shut it down for a year. I mean, I you know what I mean. I know I would freak out, but I mean, you know, for the resource. No. But no, like yeah, I can't believe that's a good one. I don't think it's that bad. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't be for it. I'm just saying, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

The way you explained it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um, you know, there's a lot of people that just don't they don't kill a limit every year. And by lowering it from three to two, it's not gonna affect the harvest, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:38

Well, I mean, if you're if you're Jim, yeah, you going from three to two, you you saved the bird, but if it's me, you haven't saved any birds. You're gonna have, you know, uh you you need to you need to really, in order for me, I mean, you know, my one a year is a good year. And I'm I'm just like most hunters, right? Yeah, yeah. And so when we think about all the stuff that we're asking state agencies to change in the name of turkey conservation, we have to really think of are we just twiddling our thumbs? You know, is the world just happening around us and we're trying, thinking we have the right intentions, but really what is the level of effectiveness we're having? And it's probably minimal.

SPEAKER_09 35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 35:15

At this stage in the south, in the southern part of the United States, the southeastern part in particular.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

You know, one thing I've noticed, I think if we put handcuffs on Brad, I don't think he'd be able to talk. Yeah. See, I didn't pass the Southern test too much because I still got the New York time motion. Oh well, Brad, uh all that he's saying, if you go out into the public, if you're if you're asked to go to one of the counties in Tennessee and give a talk, how do they how do they respond to you talk to you saying some of these things?

SPEAKER_07 35:48

So there's there's two different way ways that conversation goes. And the first thing you've got to be aware of is is that as hunters, we have amazing confirmation bias. We we are so passionate about what we do, we experience it real time. And so when you're talking to hunters, they're you know, science is theoretically unbiased and just it is what it is, but a hunter has seen the way they think the world works without realizing that the way the world works is based on their perception and how they've already created, they they've already messed things up in a lot of ways, right? I don't know how else to explain it. But like, so you know you you can get a a look that says like that's BS. Like I I remember talking to people about like, you know, science says that turkeys don't really have great visual acuity, right? Like we have 2020, they might have like 2060. And everyone was like, Well, you know, they they are scared of my belt buckle. I watched one, you know, run away from my gold watch. And it's like, no, no, you didn't. Um, but like I guess what I'm saying is the other side of it is other people are like, yeah, I get it. What what underlying it is is how can we convince of the few vocal minority that are like very, very passionate about this and have good in uh uh motives, but maybe are just too reliant on their own experiences and less so on what the science says. How can we get them on board? And I it's a tough conversation to have. I don't know the answer.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Um I would say that that probably has improved over time. Uh now that you guys have more advanced techniques to do some of these studies, um it seems like um that was probably a lot more difficult for you guys in the past compared to today. Um I'm sure it's not an easy feat to go up there and tell somebody we've been thinking wrong the whole time.

SPEAKER_05 37:43

Social media probably helps that out a lot too, I would think. Able to get the message out there better.

SPEAKER_07 37:49

All right. Well, then let me play this scenario out. This is a real scenario. I'd love to hear how you guys respond to it. So we do all this work with Tennessee, we're trying to predict out what the turkey harvest regulation should be. We go out, we measure the turkey populations the best we can. We do a bunch of so much science. And the number one objective is hey, we want sustainable big turkey populations that can be hunted, no problem. And we go, okay, well, here's the good news. Yeah, the secondary objective is you said is maximize opportunity. You want hunters to have the maximum amount of opportunity. Well, our package says you can have a harvest regulation of three turkeys, three goblins a season. And they look at the graph and they go, Yeah, but like aren't turkey populations declining? And we go, Yeah. But again, it comes back to that you said you want to maximize opportunity, and unless you're willing to constrain the bag limit down to bel to one, two versus three makes no difference. So go three. What would you say? What would you say to that? Would you voluntarily take two instead? Just even though the science says, hey, it doesn't matter. But you would make you feel good, right? If if the limit was at two, wouldn't it? It would, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 39:04

I mean, we even talk about we're like we try here on each one of the properties, depending on you know, the state of the wildlife, then we kind of regulate our consumption based on that. Not even paying attention to the state regulations. I mean, if I mean I could speak right now. I I only know of one turkey goblin at one of our particular places, and we have harvested how many? None. None. That's right. Um, I don't know. I you know, I it it's it's a very interesting scenario.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

So maybe Brad's about to tell us that if you move it down to two from three, that the the one people are gonna end up killing two more often. Maybe.

SPEAKER_07 39:43

You do see, you do see, you do see a little bit of mixed success. So when you do go from three to two, so we we have a uh we're working with Kentucky and Tennessee on a very large banding project. The biologists out there have put out over 2,000 bands on on Jakes and Gobblers, and we've been doing it now, I guess, five years, four years going to a fifth year. And um you do see a little bit of offset. So like when there's when you go from three to two, you see some people do get two more often. But what's crazy is the harvest rate really doesn't change. Uh not not really all that much. And you know, I don't try to think how much much in the weeds I want to go. You would really have to just I'm just gonna put it this way if you want more turkeys, you want better turkey hunting, especially on low quality habitat, you have to turn that nozzle so far down, I think it would be unacceptable for most people.

SPEAKER_12 40:39

Ah interesting.

SPEAKER_07 40:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Well, it's it's good that they know that they've got through the scenarios.

SPEAKER_12 40:46

Yeah, 100%. Matt, did you have a question?

SPEAKER_07 40:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:52

Yeah. So for us, Tennessee, Star North, Alabama, Star East, both have changed the turkey date, and Alabama's backed the bag limit down. So is that something that Mississippi can use as like how long does it take for a change to go into place? Do you feel like you have good data?

SPEAKER_07 41:14

All right, so there's a couple things you got to understand. So on this banding study, I gotta I gotta put a couple things out there for you. You cannot rely on the number of gobblers that are reported killed every year to tell you what the turkey population is. Because if you look at our data, this was done by Abby Riggs, my graduate student, and basically what we see is that hunters that are gonna kill their bird are going to work as hard as they can to kill that bird, regardless. You know, Jim is going to go out every day and kill his bird. Like even if it takes him three days versus two days, Jim, has it ever taken you more than a couple hours, though? Come on, be honest. He's that good.

SPEAKER_05 41:48

I wish I was. Some days way different than others.

SPEAKER_07 41:51

Uh when I met him in Tennessee, he was like, yeah, just got done shooting. Me and my buddy each got one. I was like, I've been hunting for like two weeks and having I'd rather be lucky is good any day of the week.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

Hey, that's right.

SPEAKER_07 42:03

But like, so so you gotta understand that what we look at as scientists and what the state agencies need to be looking at might not be the forward-facing stuff that they show, which is like you can go pull up harvest numbers. Instead, maybe like how long did you have to work to catch that turkey, to kill that turkey? Uh, that's probably more indicative of where a turkey population is. If you look at those numbers and you even if you look at total harvest and all that, it's if if moving the regulations are effective, which I'm not saying they are or aren't, like moving seasons a couple weeks later. Um in the states that they've done it and they've seen an increase in productivity, it is taking a lag of about three years, give or take, to see to have that effect. Um you as a scientist, I want to see those regulations in place for five, six, eight years before I tell you whether or not it's effective. Uh University of Tennessee produced a paper where they were able to actually, you know, have this really nice experimental design, and they were unable to detect this differences in uh how the season setting changes affected productivity. And it's a good, great design, and I'm not knocking the study. It's one point of evidence. We, you know, I think we need multiple continuations of that before we know what's best for this resource.

SPEAKER_10 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 43:21

But you know, the back and forth of like, let's move it, let's not move it, let's change it, let's do this. Just leave it alone. Just leave it alone.

SPEAKER_12 43:28

So we can figure out what's going on in the first place.

SPEAKER_07 43:30

Yep. Yeah, the worst thing for a scientist to deal with is is data that changes every year with no control.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

Yeah, so this might be a little bit of a waterfowl philosophy question, but what kind of thoughts is there into population inventory of wild turkeys? How do we count them and how much how much is put on yearly hatch? What kind of a recruitment rate? How much uh of that? And one so how do we count turkeys? You can't fly transects like you do Doc. And how much influence do we give to a yearly hatch?

SPEAKER_07 44:04

So the pulper hen ratios that are collected, like you know, Tennessee, for example, you anybody can can recruit recruit or I'm sorry, record pulper hen ratios. Super important scientific data. So any state that allows just people to go out and like record that data, very important. That that drives a lot of regulation decisions. We know that basically two years later, whatever that hatch is, that's the crop we have to shoot. You know what I'm saying? And so what was your other question, Jim?

SPEAKER_05 44:33

Well, uh how how could we count turkeys? So if we thank the idea that we got to have 2.8 poles per hen to be a sustainable population, then how can we go out there and decide how many turkeys we got? Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:45

You know, all right. So I have a question. I just wonder about this. I I think it I think we can back our way into it. Like we're giving Tennessee and Kentucky estimates of turkey density, and that's through harvest rate, basically, right? You get pulper hen, and then you figure out how what percent of them were killed two years later. We can back our way into a number. I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters. I don't think in most cases now, listen, I might be the only scientist that comes onto your podcast and says the absolute number of gobblers out there doesn't matter. Not at the discernible level of management. All we need are trends. Like we just need trends. Like if I told you there's 15 gobblers out there versus five, I don't I I know that sounds one's way worse than the other, but like what does it mean, right? You see where I'm going with that, Jim?

SPEAKER_05 48:18

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_07 48:19

So so like when we're, you know, so like while there's a lot of push to create, like, we need a survey to count how many gobblers are out there. I don't know if we do. I just think we need to create better, consistent data on our surveys. Catch per unit effort is such a good one. And that's that's basically me sending you a survey saying, How many days did you hunt? How many gobblers did you kill? That's simple. That is a if we get that consistently or we get pulled per hen consistently, then I can just look at the data and be like, ooh, we're going in the wrong direction, folks. Uh let's pull off.

SPEAKER_05 48:54

You see where I'm going with that? Is there a way to figure out overall population though? Like based on after Hatch, you know, middle of June, is there a way to accurately portray how many turkeys we got on landscape?

SPEAKER_07 49:11

Yeah, no, I don't I don't think there is. I think the what we've been doing with the bandning study is as close as you'll get. You basically need to understand harvest rate, survival estimates. You need to actually have marked animals. If you don't have marked animals and you're just like relying on harvest alone, right now we can't do that. We can do that with deer decently. We can't do that with turkeys. How do you do it with deer? All right. So you gotta basically understand it's a big modeling exercise, but you gotta understand the survival, neonate recruitment, and then you basically got to put a harvest susceptibility amount, like how susceptible are individual populations to harvest, and then you can back count after you get total counts to recreate and reconstruct the population. So it we can do that pretty simple. The way we can do that, and the answer the way we can do that is because a lot of people bring deer to either get processed or they're mandatory check stations. So if we have good ways of double checking and counting deer, we can do that. With turkeys, it's in most states self-reporting, right? Like, hey, I killed one.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:18

That doesn't work as well.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

So in the future, um all this thermal technology that we see that's kind of popping up. Just go with me here in theory here for a second. Could a wildlife management area in Tennessee that's say it's 9,000 acres, could they take a thermal drone and fly that at night in a grid and then the biologists come back and go, yes, okay, we've got 615 turkeys. They've done it with quail a little bit on this 9,000 acres. Is that technology in the future?

SPEAKER_07 50:53

Yeah, I think I don't I don't think it's very far into the future. I think, you know, there's there's a professor Mike Burnett at University of Missouri. He was at one point even doing like trying to pilot, you know, doing drone surveys for turkeys, especially in the winter when they're roosting in trees, and you're just like, you know, you can ID them really good with thermal. So I think I think we're probably really close to being there. Yeah, it's it's a great question. Like at a micro, at a small level, we might be able to do full-on censuses. Like, let's just, you know, we're gonna survey this thousand acres today and we're gonna figure out exactly how many are there. It's it's a possibility.

SPEAKER_12 51:27

I mean, with that kind of information, do you think it would ever lead to quotas and real-time data and all the technology? I mean, like real-time management.

SPEAKER_07 51:35

I would love to see. I would love, you know, as a scientist and a researcher, you hope that like the regulations would match the current conditions as much as possible.

SPEAKER_09 51:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 51:44

But I but as a hunter, I would hate it. I would absolutely hate it.

SPEAKER_09 51:49

Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_07 51:50

I'm sit I'm about to book a trip to Indiana, and you're not gonna tell me whether or not I've gotten my tag until you count the turkeys three weeks before the season or two months before you see where I'm going with that? Like so the best we'll do is probably annually.

SPEAKER_10 52:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:05

Well, a lot of states, you know, we pay a lot of attention to this, and it seems like some of the Midwestern states, I'm thinking of Kansas and Oklahoma, maybe Nebraska, or they've dialed back their their harvest uh a little bit, hadn't they, Jim?

SPEAKER_05 52:20

I know Kansas and Nebraska has for sure.

SPEAKER_04 52:22

And there's especially maybe even making it a little more difficult for a non-resident to come back to the case. Yeah, that's happening in a lot of states.

SPEAKER_07 52:28

It sure is.

SPEAKER_12 52:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:30

Um Jim, what do you think of that with the with the changes in you know non-resident tags and all that?

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Well, I I I don't know. You know, you always hate to take opportunity away from people, but you take uh a population like turkeys that don't migrate, uh, and as a state agency, they're charged with taking care of the state's wildlife. And if that's a way for them to reduce pressure and reduce harvest rate, they're well within their bounds to do so. I I think for those of us who have an opportunity or like to travel, it kind of sucks when I didn't get drawn for a Kansas tag this year, but does that how does that affect the overall population and and their turkey numbers? Yeah, I think that's just kind of part of it. You got to draw for elk hunts and mule deer hunts and antelope hunts and other places. I I think it's just part of modern day wildlife management and consump on the consumption side, those of hunters, those of us who hunt need to understand that the greater good is for the resource. And if we don't take care of the resource, it won't be there for us.

SPEAKER_12 53:28

Sound the horns there, Richie, for what they're Mr. Dim said.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

That's a tough pill to swallow it. I mean, I just I don't know any other way around it.

SPEAKER_12 53:36

I told you for us, they've never had we've had very liberal laws on hunting and you know regulation, you know. I've never checked a deer in my life, or a turkey I have lately, uh, because of the checking system. But I think ultimately, you know, that's where we might end up.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

Has there been like an overwhelming success across the different you know, species, deer, ducks, turkey, quail, pheasants, you know, elk that you've seen the science you know, five, ten years of science data, and then that drastic change has been made. Is is there like a good you know sample or a success story? Yeah. I mean, like in the more, I guess, recent years.

SPEAKER_07 54:25

Okay, this isn't a success. Um, but you guys are familiar with the Pentel change in Pentel Harvest strategy that they just did.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

Yeah, well, Jim's nodding his head. So at least Jim, you know what I'm talking about, right?

SPEAKER_05 54:36

Yes, I do. Going from one to three, and all, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's okay. It's a big point of discussion in the waterfowl world, as you well know.

SPEAKER_07 54:43

Yes, sir. So so this is a good example. Listen, science is is constantly feeding into management decisions. And then you have the com uh at a state level, the commissioners working with the state agency to, you know, adapt the best regulation package that fits their constituents. But at a federal level, it's a lot different. It's like, you know, science has to drive the decisions, mainly because like we, you know, the federal government just doesn't want to be sued, like just give us the science. And so waterfowl it's why I love the the research so much, is you always feel like the science is informing something, right? It's it's it's and you know, we this is a this is a hard pill to swallow, but like you know, pin tail populations are are very low right now, and they redid the regulation framework and basically looking at harvest rates, looking at all these decisions, and increased the pin tail harvest limit from one to three, or at least one of the options is three. But the science is suggesting very clearly that in this case, you know, harvest is not necessarily an added effect, and so we can allow three. You see where I'm going with that? And like that's not a successor one way or the other, but it shows where science is is pushing back on what public perception would look like.

SPEAKER_05 56:02

And isn't there some thought there from the science community on that? Of course, we're getting into waterfowl here, but isn't there some thoughts there that by maybe over harvesting it'll make a it'll increase the production effort?

SPEAKER_07 56:16

We don't know. See, this is the great thing about science, is we have a couple a bunch of people that think a bunch of different things. Everyone from saying like this is terrible to saying this is great, but in the end, you only learn by doing. And you know, if there's one critique of the waterfowl world, is that we've been in a one single package for waterfowl forever. And so, you know, I said, hey, we don't want to change things too frequently, but we don't want to not change them ever either, right? You can't learn without doing. So we're gonna learn really quickly how good that pensail strategy is just because that we're finally doing something, and through that we'll learn about manager that. Uh so you know, the right way if you care about conservation of wild animals is not to do a knee-jerk response for like populations declining in turkeys, but let them change regulations and leave it for three, four, five years. Don't tinker with it. That gives us enough time to assess whether or not it matters. Because why are why spin our wheels and waste our time with something that's ineffective? But if you're constantly changing things, we'll never learn that. You can't prescribe a clause. And you know, like there's some states that don't allow uh any bearded or any jake harvest. Well, jakes don't get shot anyway. And now, like uh some states don't allow anything that has a beard or a jake or a bearded hen to be harvested. No bearded hen g hens get shot either. You're saving 0.0 turkeys. You see where I'm going with this?

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I mean, we've uh not not so much this year in Mississippi, but we've felt the effects of you know neighboring states changing their regulations, being a state that you know opens the first right after Florida. So I mean we see the influx of trucks and out-of-state tags and and is and it's one of those things where you're you're proud of your agency for not jumping the gun and changing everything, but at the same time, how how do you work inner with interstates and bordering states to where it's not such a drastic change by you know a hundred? I mean, we're 20 miles from Alabama. And then, you know, I mean somebody could be right on the Tennessee Tom Bigby River and go across the river and hunt Mississippi two weeks before they can in Alabama. So at what point do you break it into zones or I mean, is it just all state? Each state does what they do. Would it help if states were all at the same time? Uh the latitudinal, like, you know, uh or breeding maps? Because I mean, breeding maps don't see state lines, you know.

SPEAKER_07 58:55

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you look, it's such a good question. It's something that goes back to like what is the difference in timing of reproduction across all of our southeastern states, let's just say. And I'm telling you right now, the difference between, let's just say, southern Alabama to Kentucky is minimal. It's it's a it's a couple weeks, maybe a week or two. Um, if you think of goblin chronology, our goblin chronology is almost identical within a state, whether it's the bottom, you know, Mike Chamberlain and Patrick Whiteman just showed that like South Alabama to North Alabama has almost the exact same timing of goblin chronology. So, in a perfect world where there weren't personalities involved, different state biologists wanting different things, different constituents wanting different things, it would be great if we just blocked it off. Like if you're you know, the whole Southeast starts this date, or hey, this half of the southeast starts this date, this half of the southeast starts that date. But I like chasing turkeys too, and it wouldn't be I'd be pretty sad if I lost the opportunity to run over to get one of your birds in Mississippi, um, and then go to Alabama, get your birds, and then finally have my opening in in Tennessee.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:05

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Alabama's kind of got it broken down. It so the most of the state comes in March 25th. The northern part of the state comes in, I think, the first of April. There's uh, you know, there's there but I've heard that what he just said, that the hens are the the breeding chronology or what is the same from South Alabama to North Alabama.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:30

Yeah, that's like to me then I mean, it would wouldn't it be beneficial just to have you know those dates line up? I mean, just like look at the the whitetail rut. You know, I mean in Alabama it's way different in different parts of the state, but if the turkey, you know, are laying eggs at the same time as in Mississippi or in Tennessee or in Georgia.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

Land, we're we're always in here. We always have these interesting guests, and you're always on your computer. What's up? Look at it on it the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

I look I love that, but I love the desktop too. My favorite thing is if Bobby doesn't know how to shut his computer down, I can go in there and scare his pins to my cat.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:14

I can turn on the track and feature and I can see where I've looked.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:18

I can use that feature too. It's spreading seed, spread the fertilizer, spray it, it really keeps going tracking.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:23

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SPEAKER_07 1:02:52

Well, let me back up here because we let's talk about who it's detrimental to or who it's bad for. If you look at all the studies that look at like, you know, harvests of turkeys, most states, I mean, it's amazing how consistent it is that in general, adult gobbler harvest, so birds that are two years old and older, it's consistently 30%. So every year out of a hundred goblers, 30 of them are getting shot. And that seems to be consistent, whether it's in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, independent of regulations, because again, I told you we all have two liberal regulations uh to make any difference between the compare and contrast to different states. And so, like, I don't think by allowing out-of-state hunters in, you are hurting the turkey population because no matter what, 30 are getting killed. This is a weird way to think about it, right? This is really weird to think. But like 30 in general are getting killed. But do you want that 30 to be local Mississippi people? Or do you want, you know, 25 of those to be local Mississippi people and five to be out of out of staters? That's the regulations that you're you have to think about. But in general, I don't think it hurts the population per se.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:03

Yeah, it really is. Because I mean, we hear guys around here talk about, you know, we all put in for some of these public areas. Oh yeah. Um we all do. And uh, but but you you know, you're I guess now that sometimes after the season gets going, you you're seeing a lot of out-of-state tags in place. A lot of out-of-state tags.

SPEAKER_12 1:04:22

And it I think the difference for us uh as far as residents, you know, we're trying to go to Target and still go to work, you know, where they're out there. They're gonna be out there, they're gonna be out there all day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:04:34

They hunt just and look, if I was in their state, you'd be doing the same thing. Yeah, daylight and dark, baby.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:42

Brad, let me let me take you back to those uh those gobblers that that have GPSs on them. So as the season progresses and the hens begin nesting, uh, do you see those gobblers change their roosting sites? Move move to different territory areas?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:00

So in general, that okay, this is going to fly in the kit in the face of what I would have thought, but our our eastern wild turkeys don't use the same roost trees day in, day out. They're constantly changing.

SPEAKER_12 1:05:17

One, I agree with that a thousand percent.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

But you always hear you always hear these folks say, well, you know, he's been roosting in this spot for four years.

SPEAKER_12 1:05:27

I think there's Chamberlain talked about this. There are favorable roost spots, but it might not be the same turkey. But they're on a cycle, you know, on a cycle, they move turkey that you're especially in public land now.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:37

Man, I grew up I grew up in a place where I I could have sworn it was like you said, that gobbler has been there three years in that tree, you know. Like I was hunting the same one, and little did I realize, like, yeah, there's some places they want to roost, but it's not it's a different bird every time. It's a different bird. And so, like, yeah, they're following the hens, they start following those hens really close, especially right before laying. They get right on top of them, and then all hell breaks loose because typically hunting season happens and they stop, they got everything changes. But yes, they try and get on top of the hens.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

All right, I got one for you. So, yeah, this is is very random and it might be laughable, but so we talk about dog years and dogs, and then you think about a turkey, and a turkey can be just a punk idiot as a Jake, and then as a two-year-old, he's a little smarter, and then as a three-year-old, he's a little smarter. What changes in there? I mean, what changes in a turkey from a Jake to a two-year-old to a three-year-old bird? That that they you know, they'll respond to anything, they'll gobble at anything, they'll come check out what everything's going on. Like what like like what changes in them?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:51

Yeah, Jake's make me feel like I'm a good hunter. I hear you on that. Um, yeah, I think I think it's all experience. I just I think I think it's just like that big buck that, you know, when I grew up in New York, I you could swear that the big bucks, the second they heard that the doors shut on the first day of hope opening guns, opening day of gun season, they were running for the closest thicket. I think it's the same thing with you know old old gobblers, you know, been there, done that. I've heard I've heard that door shut before, especially given that, like, especially on public land where people are scouting like one or two weeks beforehand, I think they know the game real early on. Our harvest rates of of three-year-old and four-year-old birds are really low. Really low. I mean, once they learn the game, I think they just know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

All right, I got one more random one. How long has anybody like how long would a rock be in a turkey's crawl? I guess or yeah, yeah, like so, like, would like if it if it eats a rock as a polt, is that same rock in it in three years when you clean that turkey?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:58

I don't I I don't I think I don't know the answer to that, but I don't think so. I feel like they eat grit a lot. Like, I feel like birds eat grit all the time.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:06

So you know, if you've ever raised chickens or like, you know, I I was I'm in I was into dog training a lot with pointers, and so I had pigeons. The suckers would eat grit non-stop.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

So I feel like have you ever seen a rock in a turkey poop? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_12 1:08:26

Cricket too. What do we get here? Mac's got the questions. I mean, I just I mean, I've been he's also got a jar full of the rocks that he's carried that he's got out of the turkeys he's giving it too. You're collecting the rocks. Oh yeah, no, dude, those are those are like a day old.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:42

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:42

So how do they just I'm just I'm just kidding with you. I don't know how long they're like.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:46

Yeah, I just didn't know how long they like I guess we can Got to do a study. I just didn't know how long, like if it stayed with them. I mean, because one could be slam full with them and then others aren't.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:56

And I just was curious of you know what's that process of you know They erode, they erode relatively if it's anything like you know what we see in other birds, like chickens and stuff, it erodes quite quickly. I imagine it's a function of the rocks they're eating and several other things, but they they are grind ground together pretty quickly and need to be replenished quite frequently. Same with mallards and stuff like that. They're constantly grabbing grit.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

Sounds like we need to get a pet turkey, Mac, and feed it away.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:25

By the way, the idea of keeping these turkey stones, that's that's a have you guys heard of that before? That's a new thing. It's pretty cool. Mac's got a jar of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:32

I've got I got I killed one in Texas and it had uh what was it, Mexican plum?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

Yeah, plum seeds in there.

SPEAKER_12 1:09:38

Yeah, we're really getting into opening them up and see what's in them.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

Yeah, I mean I used it just to explain to my son, you know, like you know, the birds don't have teeth. Right. You know, I mean, that's just kind of like how they use it to digest their food.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:49

So let's go back to these gobblers with GPS's on them. Y'all are doing studies on hunting pressure. Would y'all at some point since you know where this turkey is, would y'all maybe go do a false hunt just to see what kind of pressure if you went in there and it maybe not you're not trying to kill the bird, I you but just trying to see how he reacts. Do y'all do that?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:12

We so it has been done before. It's been done with turkeys and it's been done with waterfowl. And yes, we want to do it. Um given nowadays we can get such fine-scale resolution data. But we've done, I mean, they've done a lot of this type of stuff, run them with dogs, you know, all kinds of things. And uh turkeys, turkeys bust out of the area, but it's amazing how quick they they adapt to uh to that pressure. They'll come back eventually, but they just won't act the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

I've got a I've got a dumb question. Oh, not as dumb as mine, apparently. I think we've asked maybe Mike this before, but you know, no, the turkey the turkey stones take it, by the way.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:52

So go ahead. No, you're thank you, sir. I'm just joking with you. I'm just joking with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

When these birds shut up, you know, like at 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning and you just start getting mad, you have no idea where they are, are they like just going and holing up somewhere in like some thick pines and just sitting there until almost time to roost?

SPEAKER_07 1:11:13

If you look at our data, the second hunting pressure is applied, they go into thick bottomland hardwoods. Thick bottomland hardwoods. Like they're there's a clear pivot from open areas, which makes sense to me, right? To like the thickest, nastiest hardwood bottomlands. I'm sure it'd be the same with pine, you know, pine stands, but and they stay in those general that general habitat for most of the hunting season.

SPEAKER_12 1:11:46

Which is interesting because you'd think they wouldn't be able to see as well in that stuff. Uh to me. But I mean obviously No, they can't.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:53

They can't. And and and if it and that's the whole idea. I really do think that you know, hunters have a pretty big indirect effect on turkeys, and that is like, look, they're you're putting them in somewhere they that isn't op it's fine for them, don't get me wrong, but like they're made to see for long distances, like you know, that's their predator defense mechanism. So like putting them in thick stuff isn't great.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

You know, we don't see turkeys out in fields like we used to see. No, we sure don't. And from time to time we see eagles and uh uh other raptors. We just wonder if they're having an effect on them.

SPEAKER_12 1:12:26

Uh that's kind of just our our we know they're pressing them because we've seen them pressure them out of the fields, you know, swooping down them and running them off. Like what have you seen? Uh turkeys um observing turkeys in an open field and they actually turn their heads and look up at the sky, and then I look up at the sky and it's a bald eagle, and they haul ass to that bottom, to that thick stuff. And we've seen that, I don't know. Yeah, you've seen it. I saw it this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:52

I've seen it multiple times. I know the populations are down a little bit, but it just seems like a long time ago you'd be driving around and you would see turkeys in every nook and cranny of fields. Uh now you can drive, yeah. Now you can drive around, and it's rare to see a turkey from the side of the road out in the open.

SPEAKER_12 1:13:10

And we're also seeing a lot more turkeys in the prairie and not in the river bottoms, and and we're anecdotally blaming that on hogs. Uh, we think that you know that that they're pressuring uh the turkeys into more upland areas than the bottom land, not only because of the fact that hogs are completely obnoxious and take over the resource, but they're like vacuum cleaners, the uh rafts of of red oak acorns that used to just be all in our bottoms are gone now. Um so it's like they're they're pressing them out of there. Yeah. Uh did I one quick question on your hunter data? Did they did they were the hunters hunting all day or were they, you know, from daylight to 10 a.m. and bailing out of there?

SPEAKER_07 1:13:50

Yeah, most hunters are hunting till 9, 10 a.m. and then bailing out.

SPEAKER_12 1:13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:56

I think I don't where do you guys fall on that? Like, you know, the hunting sun, you know, first thing in the morning while they're on the roost, versus like, I don't know, getting in the woods or just, you know, my hunts just beginning at about 9 a.m. when you know they're starting to lose their hand. Where where are you on that spectrum? I I I I wonder.

SPEAKER_12 1:14:17

I think all of us pretty close.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:18

Nine to eleven if I had to choose to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_12 1:14:20

Yeah, if you had to choose nine to eleven. No, I'd rather I I want the textbook, it's dark, he gobbles, he flies down to me, does his show, and put it on him. But I know my chances are greater uh after nine o'clock. They really are. And we'll often hear them in the morning, they just chill and they'll start gobbling again, and they tend to respond a lot better to calls and uh kind of ease on in there. And even my experience on public land, too, uh, is um, and don't tell anybody this, anybody don't listen to this if you're on the podcast, but you know, later in the morning's better.

unknown 1:14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:14:52

Especially when it's prime time. Yeah, especially when it's prime time. Yeah. So but I can't make myself not get up before daylight. You know, you try to, you you just want to be out there.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:01

So I I wonder if your GPS turkeys show that that when all the hunters out of the woods, do they kind of ease back in their preferred areas or not?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:10

Yeah, I when we looked at some, you know, this is many years ago, we looked at like their transitioning from the bottomlands to the uplands, you know, in like a 12-hour cycle, you know, throughout the day. And I don't think it ever got published, but it was a clear transition that they moved further into the uplands during hunting season, you know, as the day progressed. Now I just always thought that was more like, you know, well, that's their natural thing. But it, you know, it very well could be the you know, in response to that, they know hunters are off the landscape because they know they our data shows very clear that they stop using open areas as much as possible during the hunting season.

SPEAKER_10 1:15:47

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:48

Brad, the you know, we we think we've we've had a lot of guys like you that are really smart on here explaining stuff to us and we we learn so much. And I go, you know, for years, I have always when I would experience a morning with not a lot of gobbling, I I I've always managed to make myself think, well, you know, that there's a lot of coyots in this area that they have figured out if they sit there and on the ground gobbling that a couch's gonna run back to them. Do you do you uh and where do you fall in that that thought process? It just seems like they are so vulnerable when they're out there on the ground gobbling.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:23

Yeah, so Mike Chamberlain and I put together a study, and uh, this was while I was a postdoc at the University of Georgia, and then uh Patrick Whiteman finished the study, and we uh they there was we put GPS collars on coyotes and on turkeys and hunters too. And so Mike can tell you more about it, but uh or Patrick, but the end all be all was that like it just cli was pretty clear that coyotes are just incidental to turkeys. They don't they're not chasing the gobblers or anything like that, they're not harassing the gobblers, they're kind of doing their own thing. And uh yeah, if they stumble on a gobbler, you know, they might take a swipe, but I don't think it's I don't think turkey coyotes are having any effect on gobblers in the sense of of gobbling, right? Like I just don't think that's the case.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:09

Yeah, yeah. We had heard that as well. I tell you one time I hunted in Missouri, and there was a farm that had a big white dog, and every morning, wherever the turkey was gobbling, that white dog went to that goblin turkey. It made me about lose my mind a couple of times. Very comes. No, he was going to that turkey like as was his buddy or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:34

Uh I mean I I guess he was gonna try to catch him.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:37

This morning I had a coyote get downwind of me. And he flushed directly in the direction of where the gobblers and hens were hanging out, and they were really chatting it up this morning. And he ran right in their direction. Of course, he disappeared into the woods, but the turkeys never shut up.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:58

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:58

Just ran right I think he ran right into them.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:02

But didn't shut them up. Wow. Well, look, why don't we Brad, you look like we have just fried your mind with all these questions we have.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:11

I'm out of I'm out of water. That's the issue. No.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:14

Why don't we let so we can gather up our last thoughts, but in in the meantime, why don't we do a trivia qu ask him a trivia question here, and then we'll come back with some closing thoughts and questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:25

Wake up.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:26

All right. Mac Mac, we on Mac's on the trivia today. So Bobby picked this reviewer. Its name is Mason Dixon94, who left to serve you. So the prize is a Newcomb blind, and I will tell you, I've gone and used this blind, and I really, really like it.

SPEAKER_12 1:18:46

We've got one set up here in the office we messed with it this morning. It's like the design of it was really thought out. Even the angles on it, it's it's hard to see from here.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:53

It is, and it's tall, you know. Last week we were talking about that they were maybe they're just for kids. No, they're for adults. They're they're there's several sizes.

SPEAKER_12 1:19:01

I fit really well in there. Richie sat in it while we were having our meeting this morning. And he looked like he was a levitating head over there. I mean, all you could see was they're well thought out.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:10

I don't even know if it's a word, but it is totable. Totable, there you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:14

Portable would be that way. There are two winners this week. There's two winners on that sheet. While you're looking for that second winner, guys, I'm excited to say that the trivia question now is brought to you by the peanut patch. Yeah. You can go get boiled peanuts at the convenience stores, Walmart.

SPEAKER_12 1:19:34

I had a couple cans of them this weekend. My kids love them.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:37

That's a great deal.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:38

And I hate to admit this, but I actually like those better than homemade boiled peanuts. Well, it's very convenient. I mean, they're boiling them in a can.

SPEAKER_12 1:19:47

Yeah, they're good too.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:48

So you can get Cajun flavored, regular flavored. And Mac, I'm sorry you can't have them. We got an EpiPen here. Yeah. Mac's allergic to peanuts. But I am. Guys, y'all go buy these convenience. These peanut peanut patch peanuts are so good.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:03

They're available everywhere, too. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

And hey, Brad, I guarantee you there's a convenience store near you that's got some peanut patched peanuts.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:10

Now, now we're talking. You know, that's the thing. Like here in Tennessee, that there's just not enough, there's no boiled peanuts. You know, like you go down to South Carolina, you go down, there's like somebody on the road making some boiled peanuts. Life is good. I miss that. So now that I know it's at the supermarket, I'm gonna go get them some.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:24

We're gonna send Brad a can of peanut peaks.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:27

There we go. Man, you'd make my day.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:28

Just send me a Cajun or original. You're a hot spicy guy or not spicy guy.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:33

Yeah, let's go. Let's go with Kate. Let's you know what? Let's double down. Why don't you send one of both and I'll get it?

SPEAKER_09 1:20:38

I like it.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:39

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:40

So the other reviewer that wins a Newcomb blind is Aiden M. Aiden M. We got Mason Dixon and Adam M.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:48

Yep. You guys are one, so get in touch with us and we'll get those shipped out to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:52

Hey, Doc, before I ask you this trivia question, uh, do you know what the I want you to ask this to Bobby if you know the answer. The previous name of Tennessee Tech was. Or its previous, previous name? I I don't think Bobby is gonna know that one.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:10

Uh no, I don't know. Was it like something like Dixie University or something like that? It was. It was Dixie University.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

I thought that's why Bobby picked Mason Dixon as the uh reviewer winner this week. But so the question is we want to figure out if you have truly immersed yourself in the southern culture, but what beverage is originally thought to go best with a moon pie? Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:40

Take a second.

SPEAKER_12 1:21:41

Wow, that's an old South one right there.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:43

Yeah, you guys, wait, hold on. I just want to understand something. You all know the answer to this. I know the answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:50

Yeah, it's a type of pop.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:51

Yeah, what's the case? Well, yeah, I mean, so let me just start off with my my first immersion to the south was realizing that everybody called the you know pop or soda coke. Like if everything was a coke. Um okay, I know this is wrong, but you know, I'm gonna go Mountain Dew just because I know a good Southern boy likes a little bit of dip and some Mountain Dew together, especially the duck hunters.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:17

Yeah. Well, you are right about that part, but uh that may be a more modern answer.

SPEAKER_12 1:22:22

Yeah, that is a more modern answer. This goes a little bit back back a little further.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:25

A little history to this one. All right, go ahead. No, I have no clue. Well, let's ask it, let's see if Jim can save you here. RC Cola Moon Bay.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:35

R C Cola. I was never getting that.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

Yes, RC. I love RC Cola. They're they're even sweeter than Coca Cola. Yeah, cuz loves an RC Cola.

SPEAKER_12 1:22:44

They are, yeah. Yeah, you don't see them anymore. No, you don't. No RC and Moonbab. You can still get them though.

unknown 1:22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

All right, Mac. Thank you for that tribute question. That was a good one. That was a good one. Thank you, Bacon. Yeah, that was good.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:54

Jim, thanks for the assist there. I was very welcome, brother.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:57

Yeah, yeah. Did anybody have a teacher in high school that would put peanuts in their Coca-Cola? My granddad, my dad, my mom.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:06

You know, uh, Brad, the Moon Pie Company is in is in your state.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:10

Yeah. And we want to do a camouflage moon pie. I mean, it's it needs to be done. Mossy Oak Moon Pie.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:16

How cool would that be?

SPEAKER_12 1:23:17

Yeah, we're working on it now. If you if anybody from Moon Pie is listening, we're ready. I mean, Post Malone has Oreo cookies. Why wouldn't Mossy Oak have a moon pie?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:27

We should.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:27

We should.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:28

We sure should. Are we packing are we camouflaging the wrapper or the cookie? Oh we're the cookie. Yeah, the cookie.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:33

We think we can make it look like oh man, a little, yeah, a little what is it, pistachio, some chocolate, anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:38

We'll make that work.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:39

Brad, we'll send you some if that ever happens.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:41

Yeah. And I'm hoping to play middleman, you know, since it's in my state, you just let me know and I'll connect you with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:47

So, guys, what else do we need to be asking? Hunting pressure on turkeys is something that that hunters really need to pay attention to.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:55

I mean, I've always thought about pressure, but until talking to Brad today, you know, I mean, it's just it's funny the things that he brings to light that I knew that I didn't know, you know, just about the turkeys in the daylight and not doing anything at night. And we are mostly active when they're mostly active during their breeding and reproductive season. So uh it does lend itself to think that turkeys were probably more predisposed to hunting pressure than the other wildlife species we chase.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:19

And I think guys, I mean I'm kind of looking around the room. I think guys that have private property that they're blessed to hunt. I was talking with Mitt Wardlaw was in here the other day. And he he was like, we he started laughing because it because if you've got a turkey on pri that you know you can go back to next weekend, you may not hunt it now. You gotta push him real now. Well, I'm gonna go back next Saturday.

SPEAKER_12 1:24:38

But if you find one on public, you gotta go every day. You're gonna make that hard play. Yeah, you're gonna make the hard play.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:43

On private, you may not, you know, you may sit back.

SPEAKER_12 1:24:46

Yeah, may sit back. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:48

Brad, you got anything you need to try to you need, is there a a dean or somebody you need to call out? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:56

Just just my uh just my colleagues. You know, I'm I'm only here because of the people I work with, you know. I work close with Mike Chamberlain, Brett Collier, you know, talking about a lot of of the research that they've done too. So I appreciate everybody and all the students that that went into all that hard work. I like how these guys work together in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_12 1:25:14

I love it. And I love the fact that they're really working towards Hunter research too, to help, you know, with the resource and with hunter recruitment and conservation in general. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:22

Well, there's this there's this new wild turkey DNA project, yeah. We're Goretsky. Yes, our our favorite little the the guy that's that telling us the the all the duck genetic stuff.

SPEAKER_12 1:25:35

We're gonna start studying turkeys too.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:36

So you know, we've uh boy when we've we've just all this wild turkey and duck stuff really hits close to our hearts and we want to be helpful and supportive. Though we've got the wild turkey stamp that we that Monsieur Oak does give through Game Keeper grants, we're giving back as much as we can. So we we just well we salute you guys for the for the work that y'all are doing.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:57

Oh we well, I appreciate you know it's a it's a it's a passion, you know. You don't there's nobody, let's let me be clear, there's nobody in the state agency that works with game animals, nobody in academia that works with game animals that isn't a passionate hunter, doesn't love the resource, doesn't care about the the actual you know experience, uh both of conservation and of hunting. So we're all on the same page, we're all working together. Brad, do you uh teach classes? I do. I teach habitat management and I teach wild bird ecology. And then like a graduate class. But you know, wild bird ecology is like I teach them all about the ecology of turkeys and all the other birds that are are huntable, and then habitat management. That's a fun class. That's get your hands dirty. That's why they get into the field. So it's I'm real lucky on the classes I teach too.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:42

Are do you are you a hard teacher? Are you you uh were do you great on the curve?

SPEAKER_07 1:26:47

Man, I'm I don't know if I'm a hard teacher, but I'm very intense. Like I go in there and I'm like, you don't understand. This is a profession where like only the cream rises to the crop or the top, and you better be the best, because if you're not gonna be the best, get out. It's too tough to get a job here. And so I scare the crap out of them. Uh and then I eventually like calm down and I'm nice to him. But the you know, it's tough love at first, and then you know, we build them back, we build them back together.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:12

Yeah, yeah. You're kind of like that that baseball coach that everybody's scared of until their senior year. Yeah, then he's the coolest dude they hung around. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:19

I let the Yankee out a little bit in the beginning of class, like the first couple weeks, and then I pull him back in.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:27

So, all right, Brad. So as you as you talk about habitat and turkey ecology, taking into effect all the rain we just had uh up through Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley, all up through there, you know, 20 plus inches of rain right here, early nest initiation. Is that a total wipeout or we got plenty of time for reness success?

SPEAKER_07 1:27:50

Yeah, no, we can we can go pretty deep here. I think it's a pretty scary proposition with all those rains we had right now. Uh I mean, we're seeing catastrophic flooding out, at least where I'm familiar with in western Tennessee. I mean, 15 inches of rain in a couple days, rivers are way, way, way outside their banks, historic flooding. Um, I think if you're in the river bottoms of the Mississippi of Alluvial Valley where it's and you're I don't think the flood water is coming back off for a while. Mississippi River's way up.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:20

I know.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:20

Um so I man, I'm I'm I'm concerned for the resource in those areas. I think there's I think there's gonna be pretty low productivity this year. Not to forecast it and be negative, but it's definitely of concern.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:34

Will those turkeys move move upland or will they just ride it out and hang out in the trees? I've seen them, you know, what's it called budding a lot of times or hitting the tops of levees.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:43

We don't know the answer exactly, but okay, our our area where we're doing research right now in Kentucky, it's really, really flooded, and our turkeys moved to the uplands, right? But then Mike Chamberlain, back 10, 15 years ago, had turkeys that were marked in Louisiana and the levee, I think they pulled the levee or something, they basically let water into an area, and all those turkeys just jumped in the trees and then eventually died. So I would hope the more optimistic part of me says they're gonna move. You know, there's no reason not to. Um the pessimistic part of me says, Well, do they know that after moving so far? Well, they just say, uh, I guess it's our lot in life. Uh I guess we're staying. That's a good question, Jim.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:29

Yeah, that was good, man. That wasn't that wasn't too bad. I tried it. I tried to be helpful on occasion. You brought something to the to the top. Try to. I just don't want to be negative because Lord knows we don't need to lose our turkeys in the bottoms. I know how it is in White River Bottoms at home. We don't have turkeys like there once was, and all up inside the Mississippi River, you know, and y'all too over here. Yeah, we're the same on the setting stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:48

Brad, how is it that the Canada geese are so successful at nesting? It just seems like they're just more and more than they're everywhere, they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:56

Um if you've ever I mean, have you listened how many times have you been attacked by a Canada goose trying to go fishing? I mean, like, I I mean they're just so aggressive. I just think they're so good at nesting just about everywhere. They pair bond together. The male and female are super aggressive with nest predators. And the but on the underlying thing is they nest early. So like they're on top of the game. Like I don't know about you, but like they're they're full on nesting here in Tennessee. Like they're yeah, they're gonna be goslings on the ground here soon. Like the earlier you are, the better off you are nowadays. Unless you're talking about ducks in the prairies, in which case, uh, if you're a species that nests later, you you're probably better off, but that's a whole nother story.

SPEAKER_12 1:30:40

Whole nother podcast. Yeah. Well, we'd have an excuse to get him back.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:44

Brad, we always enjoy talking to you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_12 1:30:46

We appreciate what you do and what the lab does up there. It's great stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:49

Your bladder's full, and I'm trying to hang keep you on with these.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:52

Man, no, no, you've got me every time. So every time I come on here, like, all right, what got me was the eagles chasing turkeys, and I'm sitting here like, I'm not trying to be the scientist while we're talking, but I'm like, you know, that is a really interesting thing. Like this, you know, the and and I'm I'm like, I wonder how much you know all these avian predators definitely have an effect on all these game bird populations, but I've never thought of it through this kind of indirect, like, yeah, they're also pushing them off of areas they want to be. I just was I'm sitting there ruminating on it. That's all. It's not it's not that I got a pee real dead or anything. This is what it looks like. It's the painful process of thinking. Oh, look at that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:32

So so uh so we we live in an area along the Tom Bigby River that for the last 25 or 30 years, there's been a very active and uh trying to re-establish bald eagles.

SPEAKER_12 1:31:45

Yeah, started in in the late 70s, early 80s, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:48

They've been very successful at it. We see bald eagles every week, if not every day.

SPEAKER_12 1:31:53

And a lot of ospreys, I mean a lot of different hawks. Uh what are those uh kites?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:59

Kites this year. I can I can count. There's a golden eagle at the refuge right now, yeah. That have a bald eagle turkey story just from this spring.

SPEAKER_12 1:32:09

Yeah, it's lots of it. And I I mean, this has been, I mean, let's say one two three. Uh the first time I saw it was probably 10 years ago. Sure was.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:19

Why don't you come down here? We'll let you check one of these eagles if you'd like. You can give all the eagles you want to. Yeah, I'm uh I'm all right. Uh at least you have a sense of humor. Uh oh gosh. What else? Is there anything else we need to do? We we sure appreciate everybody looking at it. That's good stuff, yeah. Yeah, and uh Jim, we appreciate what we're gonna do. Yeah, thank you for having me, Jim.

SPEAKER_12 1:32:45

Always good to have another game keeper on the page.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:48

Man, I enjoy it. I like it. Thank you. Y'all make some great products, Drake and old Tom for turkey suits. Great gear.

SPEAKER_12 1:32:53

I'm actually got that little turkey, what is it called on the on the front? I don't know if there's a specific yeah, man. That thing's been great. I like that quarter zip. Yeah, that quarter zip's super nice. I've been wearing it all year.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:04

Windproof quarter zip. Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. Jim, I can look in Brad's eyes. He's wishing he had a quarter zip.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:13

I'm trying to remember the name of what I, you know, I use an old time vest, and you know, like to me, I'm I'm a piddler, so I need I need like six different pockets for the 10 different calls I'm gonna bring, you know. Yeah, and it's just it's just fits me perfectly. I'm trying to be like, I was just trying to be like, listen, I really like this vest. I'm trying to remember the name, but in general, I don't need a simplified version. I want to use this striker with this one and this. I and I love, love their vests.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:40

It's good stuff. Yeah, it is. Thank you. Make great stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:43

All right, guys. Well, I tell you, Brad, we're gonna have you back on. Yeah, can't wait. Yeah, we're we're big fans of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_12 1:33:51

So, Landon, you got anything else? I don't think so, man. It's been a good discussion. Just say goodbye, Dudley. Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:00

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper 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 Gus Drackler.