EP:426 | Turkey Call History with Brent Rogers

This week we’re joined by Brent Rogers who has fast become the authority on the history of turkey calls. Brent has a vast collection but more importantly has dedicated his free time to learn the history to the calls. It would be hard to imagine anyone knowing more about the infancy of the call business and collecting the old calls that are worth serious money. They are still out there to find through estate sales, unknowing friends and internet sites.  His new book The Origins and Evolution of Turkey Calls is a must have for anyone that’s interested. We learned a lot about the old calls we all love so much. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Brent's Websites
https://turkeycallhistory.com/
https://www.wildturkeyarchives.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Jeff Fox Forty, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then let us use or in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Most Young Land Enhancement Studios latest best related wildlife and habitat management practices. And of course, there's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_05 0:26

We're live in three, two, one. All right, everybody. We're taking we're gonna today, we're going to Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. We're gonna be talking with Mr. Brent Rogers. Get the horn.

SPEAKER_07 0:40

Yes, he's from Iowa.

SPEAKER_06 0:42

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood when he's out there in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_07 0:46

Yeah, and he's apparently forgotten more about turkey calls than we will ever know. He does.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 0:51

He does. He is the man. I'm excited to learn more about all of all this stuff, uh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Brent Rogers, welcome. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And unfortunately, I'm in in Iowa today. We have uh some snow.

SPEAKER_07 1:05

Oh, it is spring.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Pretty nice, it's 85 degrees here, and tornado warnings are heading this way in another hour or two.

SPEAKER_05 1:11

Yeah, it looks like the Midwest is uh for the next few days, y'all gonna be getting a lot of bad weather.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

They got some yesterday. We were 79 yesterday, go figuring out snowing, so it'll be so yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24

I I had a guy call. We had to change his order um because he was gonna receive his trees and it's supposed to get down to 13. He lives kind of outside of Chicago. 13 degrees.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

It's gonna dip down a little bit next week. Hopefully we yeah, we're we're like 82 today, and it's gonna be like the high in a couple days is like 48.

SPEAKER_06 1:43

Yeah, it's supposed to get a frost uh Tuesday.

SPEAKER_07 1:46

I see, I planted those tomatoes this weekend, and uh here it comes. We jinxed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

I'm worried about our mass crop, Doug, because they're talking about we're at that stage, they just budded. So we're gonna be like less than a week into budding, and it's gonna be 20-something degrees. Hopefully it doesn't stay. Just matters how long it stays up that cold, but it's it's it's touch and go right now, I think.

SPEAKER_06 2:07

It sure is.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

I hate to think about that. We just had such a good mass crop that part.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

We would it would only affect our whites, I think that's right.

SPEAKER_06 2:18

Something like that. Or had or the next year's reds.

SPEAKER_05 2:21

The next year's reds, not this year's reds. What about sawtooths? Would it affect them? I don't really care.

SPEAKER_07 2:27

Why are you always bringing up sawtooth? Because it's our number one selling tree. And you know, there's people out there that are curious. I think you bring it up because it gets on Dudley's nerves. Well, it does get on Dudley's nerves. I don't know why it is.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

It's off to it's in a category off, but kind of.

SPEAKER_07 2:40

Well, I will tell you, it wasn't this year because we didn't have any sawtooth acres. Yeah. This year we did. The year before is when we didn't have any more. No, we didn't.

SPEAKER_06 2:47

Well, as a result, we didn't have any seedlings.

SPEAKER_07 2:51

So we didn't have any seed last year. But we will this year. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 2:53

Hey, Brent. So what part of Iowa is Mr. Rogers' neighborhood in?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, I'm from the southeast. So um if you watched MASH, he said he was from uh radar O'Reilly was from Otumwa, Iowa. That's the nearest town to me. Oh it's the right right part of Iowa to be from. Um, it's the rolling hills, it's uh a little poorer ground. Most people drive across I-80 and it's you know flat black dirt. We're a little poorer quality dirt, so we've got rolling hills with pasture and timber and uh great white tail and turkey country.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

It is I bet it is. Yeah, I bet some giant whitetails in the country. Could we come up there and check that out?

SPEAKER_07 3:39

That's so shameless.

SPEAKER_05 3:40

I'd like to see that.

SPEAKER_07 3:41

You know, you would never seen that part of Iowa.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, that's the only reason everybody any that's the only visitors I get.

SPEAKER_06 3:49

Yeah, you know, a lot of those poorer soils can be better for turkey habitat, you know, because it you know, it it can it can stay in early succession a little bit longer, and there's there can be more bare ground up on top of the hill, that kind of thing. Never thought about that.

SPEAKER_05 4:03

So, Brent, you're you're not I mean look, I read your bio. You're a really interesting guy. This is the second book that I'm aware of. Uh a couple years ago, you had uh Yelp and Gobble Inc.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

He's on the Doseki's bottle for turkey hunting, for sure. For sure, all for sure.

SPEAKER_05 4:19

He he lost the history of turkeys, but how did that passion get in you, Brent?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Well, there was even a book before that I did in partnership with George Denka called the Turkey uh calling literature collector's guide. And where where it all started for me was with the wild turkey itself. So I I'm a modern-day success story for gamekeeping and and and wild turkey restoration. The first turkey that we saw on our family farm in Iowa was 1988, and very captivating. I grew up in a hunting family, and turkeys there just were no opportunity, and there was no family heritage there. And so I got quite interested and really started watching videos, reading books, and began hunting in the early 90s. And I I've always enjoyed history, and what what I began to see as I was reading was a lot of the foundational knowledge at that time was still from the you know 40s, 50s, and 60s, and those lessons were still really good, and so that got me to dig a little deeper. And my wife has put up with me spending our our inheritance or any anything for our retirement on wild turkey collectibles, and uh she hunted turkeys with me while pregnant with both of our children and killed a turkey. So I I can say that uh I chose wisely in terms of who I'm yoked to. Yeah, yeah. And uh so she's gone on this journey too. But really, it's for me, it's just been one of uh feeling connected to the past and finding lessons that apply to the future.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

That's incredible, honestly. It's just uh we all we haven't acted on it like you, but we all feel that way. Because we all have a long past, you know, even past our own self, you know, in in the world of turkeys too, especially me. So those words really resonate.

SPEAKER_05 6:22

Yeah, nostalgia is an important. I mean, when you kind of look around and look back, but not everybody uh does like Brent did and just sits down and drills back into and really does a deep dive into it.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

So I think he's he's affected Daniel deeply with that, because they he already was down that road to start with, but oh my gosh, he has bought everything, every book. He's gotta have one of the top Tom Kelly collections on the planet. And uh I I do think it's um similar to your obsession with it, just that um they love, and I mean we too to an agree, but especially that age for us, they love that stuff they never were around to witness, you know, at all. And uh especially you know all this happened in this, you know, in this this pretty much the last century we are we've been in too.

SPEAKER_05 7:18

Well, Brent, we're gonna we're gonna uh ask you some we've got a lot of questions about the historic history and Turkey cause and historical information that you may have. I want to point out real fast, there is a bit sitting like laying right there in front of Tati, would you hold that up? People on YouTube could see this, but you've got a new book out that uh it it is just awe-inspiring.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 7:43

It's it's got such great photography, such great information, the origin and evolution of turkey calls. And but it's a coffee table book.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

A piece of art, it ri it truly is, Brent. Well done. I can't if you love turkey hunting, you've got to have this book laying around your house or your camp even. It's incredible. And I just I don't know, I just feel like the the our life as whatever, just obsessed with turkeys, everything about them. Uh it just makes everything, the depth of it so much richer when you can go back and look at history, or maybe collect a little part of history, you know. Sure. It it's you know, I don't know. There's something about it that makes the experience just more whatever meaningful than just like what's going on today.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah. I think I think it actually helps us see our place, where where we're at today and and how we got here. Yes. You know, we we I I'll be the first to say that a lot of my complaints about turkeys are are uh because I have the opportunity I do. If I'm bumping shoulders with someone, um that's because there are turkeys to hunt. Where I live, there were no turkeys to hunt 40 years ago. Um, you know, this this is uh this is great that we're having an opportunity to look back in history and see where we've come from. And Toxie, you said it like within our lifespan, we have seen modern turkey hunting created, and there is a real hunger for authenticity right now, and you know, artificial intelligence has its place. There's a lot of cool things it can do, and I and I've used it where it makes sense, but the the originality and authenticity is what people still seek. And I see it with with Mossy Oak, how you've captured people's imaginations by you know bringing back classics, and and everybody wants to feel a part of something, and the stories we have to tell that that represent some of that history, we're handing off to the generation that is starting to really get passionate about it.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Honestly, they uh great, by the way, great words, just great words. But they really are. And that um there's a better awareness with that call it younger generation, I'd say whatever, 35 and under, maybe younger. Yeah, 40 and under 40 and under, and that to take care of things, then supposedly, um, then especially rather, um, 20 years ago when it was just like, you know, get your limit, get your limit, or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_07 10:33

Yeah, the turkey story is a gamekeeper story.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

I mean, and I mean that's all fine and good, get your limit, but our point is first things first, do you have excess resource to enjoy, you know, so that in getting your limit, it continues on and continues to grow and get better, too. And so I just think there's a it it's it's heartening to see a greater and greater awareness with that younger generation, too. When I don't think it existed as much, maybe 20 years ago. Yeah, the connection to older stuff and appreciation of it, I think goes kind of hand in hand with it.

SPEAKER_06 11:06

Right. I think the respect for the wild turkey has has grown exponentially in the last five years for sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, well, the mind has changed, which is great. I I think it's it's almost like we're picking up on the founders' mentality. And the founders, I'm gonna say, are the people from the 20s and 30s that really picked up the ball and ran with it. And you know, the part of the stories told in in The Colonel and the Fox, right? With with uh individuals that really stepped up. And and the book, The Origin and Evolution of Turkey Calls, that was one of the things that we really tried to capture through the book was not just the history of turkey calls, but we captured the story of the wild turkey alongside that innovation and what was influencing that call development with you know the technology people had, the uh the way things were passed down, the the supply or lack thereof of turkeys. And believe it or not, there's a strong gamekeeper story throughout the book in terms of individuals that you know now we are getting to embrace some of that that same thing that they were working towards, and and that's part of our story now.

SPEAKER_07 12:22

Help us understand. I was thinking about that before the the the podcast. What you know about that meme because uh our you know uh story about turkey restoration is highly localized, you know, and focused primarily on Mr. Fox and what we understood he did there. But we know there were people all over the country doing you know these kind of things. Can I I I guess my question is, it it like in the um we hear about the turkeys around here came from you know southwest Mississippi or or the mobile Southwest Alabama, southwest Alabama, maybe a little bit of southeast Mississippi. Like historically, where were those, I guess, um native flocks that that they that kind of spurred along the restoration in a in addition to what was in Alabama?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Well, of course, the Southeast played played heavily into that. Any anywhere there was uh you know unbroken uh tract of timber where turkeys could take refuge, and you know, a lot of the the work that that happened early on was even within states. So, you know, Mosby largely working with Virginia turkeys, and even there's a story in the book of of the um longleaf farms, um, which is in Mississippi, right bringing turkeys in from Virginia, six pairs of turkeys from Virginia, um, which they used to to uh establish on on that you know farm in the in this it would have been in the uh 40s, and then by 51 had their first season. So, you know, it was it was wherever there were turkeys, they were being moved around, and it wasn't it wasn't even sometimes within a state where where they there were turkeys in Mississippi at the time. My point is they got turkeys wherever they could access them. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Gotcha. But we couldn't, we never could do it to any great degree of success until the advent of the cannon net, though, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Right on. Yeah, that that was that was the game changer, you know. The attempts that were made early on, if you really look at the the very early 1900s, game farms, late 1800s, early 1900s, had just captured people's imagination. And unfortunately, it felt good because they could they could grow turkeys, turn turkeys loose and shoot turkeys, and it wasn't sustainable. It was it was a way to keep the sport alive, maybe at a time when it needed to be, but ultimately, you know, as they looked at the the uh success rate in terms of viability of those turkeys, um, and and any kind of nesting success, it just wasn't there. So ultimately, yeah, the rocket, the the cannon net, which then became the rocket net, gave the opportunity to capture turkeys, and they'd been capturing turkeys with log pins and with uh medicated bait. Um, you know, there were there were ways they were doing it, but they had poor survivability a lot of times with with those methods. So the toxic, just like you said, the cannon net was the was the solve.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Yeah, what what was the first when did that first succeed? Was it in the 50s?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, and I can't give you an exact date in the 50s. You know, Duff Holbrook and Wayne Bailey were a couple of the biologists that were, you know, right on the cusp of of using that technology. And uh, you know, definitely definitely caught on fast. And then the rocket net as it evolved, you know, allowed for a little a little better technology to capture the flock a little bit better.

SPEAKER_06 15:57

So what about in your specific area? Uh do you know where your turkeys came from?

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Um well some came from Missouri. Um there were even some there were some Rios, I think, at one time that got transplanted into part of Iowa that would have been north of me. But uh I think the real success came with Missouri turkeys when they they stocked those um just about an hour, hour and a half south of where I'm at.

SPEAKER_06 16:30

Okay. What year?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Uh it would have been they they started efforts in the 50s and then the 60s is when it really started to um to take. And the first season was in 74.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

Wow. I'm I'm really looking forward to more of this wild turkey DNA stuff, you know, where we might can learn, you know, is there any Rio genetics in Iowa that that is still in the gene pool and that kind of stuff? And we'll be finding more and more of that out.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Well, like with ducks, we're finding out. Is there any like domestic turkey DNA that causes problems with you know survivability or clutch size or nesting success and all those things? So Missouri turkeys are pretty hot-blooded. Yes, they gobble good.

SPEAKER_05 17:17

That's a good that'd be a good pool to need some of those to have stocked on your place. What uh well go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Uh I I keep track of uh every stat you can keep track of on turkeys for my own use. Uh I don't necessarily share that, but I will say that you know my average bird in Iowa is just a little over 22 pounds. So they they're big. And if I if I look at that average across the country where I hunt, that's that comes down dramatically. But the birds have to be hardy here, of course, you know, um, just with the the winters. Like I said, it's even snowing today. So they're big and they they gobble out.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

I've killed one bird in Iowa and it weighed 28 pounds. Oh my god. Butter balls.

SPEAKER_06 18:02

That's a lot of turkey nuts. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

Now could you tell as soon as you put your hands on him? Oh my gosh, this bird is six pounds heavier than it was.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

It looked and felt like he was like two bricks in each side of his breast. It hung down, it was so big and hung down so much.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, did that bird have jowls? Some of our bigger birds, they actually get jowls.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

A little bit, a little bit. It had a huge head like your fist. But it was with Mark, you know, 28 pounds. Central big and couple. Yeah, what is y'all's state record central?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

It's over 30. I think it's actually, I want to say it's it's it's I don't know if it's 35. It's like it's big. Yeah, that's a tank.

SPEAKER_06 18:42

I mean, a kid couldn't put that over their shoulder and haul it out of the woods.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

No, no. Well, in Iowa, we've got, I mean, there's so much, you know, ag field that there's there's no food shortage, and whether that's good or bad food at times, maybe is questionable. But you know, nobody's necessarily baiting here, but uh there you don't need to because there's plenty of waste grain uh available.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

So it's gotta be some of the same effect as deer that the further north and the harsher the winters, they quickly evolve to the biggest and best rule, you know.

SPEAKER_05 19:16

Yeah, Bergman's rule.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Bergman's rule. That's right. I feel like because it it starts like I think in a little bigger, like you know, what for sure Kentucky, Missouri, but even maybe in part of Tennessee and all, but it just seems like the further north, the bigger they get. As long as, again, the groceries are there, which you also gotta remember the kind of incredibly rich soil you have up there in most places where the farms are and you're transferring so many more nutrients than just you know, average soils that you do.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

So let's do this. Let's let's let's pause just a little bit. Mr. Rogers, if you would button up your bottom land cardigan, we're gonna turn it over to Dudley and let him rapid fire some questions to you. Let us learn a little bit more about Mr. Rogers.

SPEAKER_06 20:01

Great. All right. So I'm I apologize a little bit to our listeners because a lot of these turkey season questions are a bit repetitive, but they're really good questions that we want to I want to get out of everybody. Sure. So, Brent, are you ready? Yes. Um, have you ever left a firearm in the woods, or in my case, leaning against the side of the truck and and drove off? No, I've not done that. You're you're a responsible person. You drove off with a gun, laying against the truck?

SPEAKER_07 20:34

We don't have to go.

SPEAKER_06 20:35

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, the old model 12. Who is a favorite author outside of turkey hunting stuff?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Um David David McCullough. I like all of David McCullough's work.

SPEAKER_06 20:50

Okay. Um, is there a particular call that you've carried for years in your vest and and you know, probably won't get rid of it?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Oh, yeah. Nightingale old yeller. I mean, it's it still gets the job done.

SPEAKER_06 21:05

Heck yeah. Okay. Name your current most prized turkey call in your possession.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Probably Archibald Rutledge box call it signed. Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 21:19

Uh, what shotgun did you use to take your first gobbler?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

It would have been a Remington uh yeah, Remington 1100 field grade with a two and three quarter inch shell. And I will admit on air, I I didn't realize at the time I was illegal using a a two shot. Oh I thought I everything I read at the time, you know, I was reading, you know, Ben Lee and others. They talked about you using big shot. After the season, when I read the regulations, I realized four.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Well, you know, differ different states are different states were different during those days.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Some a lot to adapt. I'm glad I did. Give you a pass when we do it.

SPEAKER_06 22:04

Have you ever missed more than one turkey in a season?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

I missed three in one day one time. That was a record I hope never to break.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Look at Doly smiling. Make it feel so good.

SPEAKER_06 22:17

Do you remember your last miss?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 22:22

Okay. Have you ever left a collectible call in the woods?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Not a collectible one. Okay. But I've I've left others in the woods.

SPEAKER_06 22:31

What is your second favorite state to pursue turkeys?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Um Minnesota.

SPEAKER_06 22:38

Okay. And last but not least, what is your favorite movie of all time?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Ooh, I probably dances with wolves.

SPEAKER_07 22:48

Oh, that's a great one. Great choice. Yeah. So Rapid Fire is brought to us by our buddies at Nutrient Ag Solutions. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:56

I bet they are busy right now. Spring is what you know. And I bet a lot of those reps out there that work the fields and work their customers are not going to be turkey hunting a lot this season. I think that's a tough sport for those. Yeah, if you like to turkey hunt, that's probably not the best.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

You can sneak one in early in the morning. I mean, Frankie makes it happen.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

I mean, come on, y'all. Yeah, he does make it happen a lot. He sure does. Brent, those are some good answers, but you kind of hurt my feelings there when I thought when he asked about that, your favorite author outside. I thought you were going to be able to do that. Oh, did you did you write something? Well, a long time. Are you an author? What a long time.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

He's an author. I I've got a sign, I've got some signed copies of those books, Mr. Bobby.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

Read Bobby Cole. Anyway. So look, let's let's get down to let's get down to business. And when you were doing all this research and collecting all these calls, um taking pictures of them, probably getting to see things for the first time. Did anything just kind of jump out at you that just really surprised and shocked you?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yes. And it goes back to something we touched on earlier, is is the fact that the people that were largely making turkey calls were doing so for a couple of reasons. One, because they they couldn't just go buy a call at the store. They had to make a call with what they had available locally, and they also did it out of love. I mean, I think you know, it it's a love story in terms of how callmakers were doing things, and we're often willing to share that knowledge and information with people. And then you look at a lot of early journals, and that was the case. But what's what was surprising is in the book, how many of the callmakers that we talked about were indeed, you know, hunter conservationists or gamekeepers. I mean, it's a long list. Um, some names are recognizable, like Charles Jordan and ML Lynch, um, others may be less known, Frank Hannoncratt, um Bill Rogers, Ike Ashby. I mean, there's a bunch that and and the reason I group them together because they were they in their let's call it their day jobs, they were wildlife managers, game, you know, game managers, they were game wardens, they were biologists, you know, you that's where again you can add Wayne Bailey and Lovett Williams Jr. and and uh you know Stuart Critcher and people like that. That we there there was probably at least 20 individuals that we covered in the book who were working to help with even what you know wild turkey conservation at the time they lived, and call making was one aspect of of how they were making that part of their lifestyle.

SPEAKER_05 26:01

Wow. Well, was did there end up being a favorite call that that you weren't aware of that that came to mind but that you learned through this whole process?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I I'll tell you what was neat. This uh for those you know on the YouTube, they'll be able to see this. But what this is, this is an Arkansas duck turkey hybrid. In terms of in Arkansas, there were a lot of duck call makers, you know, think about chick majors and and people like that. And what they did is again they used what they had and they used the duck call barrels um as striker pegs. They they inserted a you know the wooden peg through it and and basically you know used just a piece of uh a river slate or whatever it was they could find. Um but those are that's just one example of using what they had locally and repurposing it.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

So yeah, I was just wondering too, when it just springs to mind when you look at the book, it's so the front and back covers are so beautiful, and there's just um so many different and I'm sure different era calls, but of the I guess the primary ones box slate, wing bones, kind of scratch box, and of course the old mouth yipper, as my dad would call it, Y-E-P-P-E-R. What were the kind of the the timeline of origin of the different ones?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Well, the the the real history, you know, the furthest back it goes is with suction calls. There's no doubt Native Americans were using their natural voice, maybe even before they were using suction calls, but but we've been able to trace through archaeological sites wing bones that when they carbon dated the material around it are 8,000 years old. Oh wow. Wow. So I mean, you know, that's and that was in Tennessee. So I mean, there's some incredibly old suction calls, um, even calls that are two pieces instead of just you know, like the the single um radius bone. So that's pretty cool. And then we also know through more oral history and and accounts that we can read about um from firsthand accounts that Native Americans were also using leaves as a you know kind of uh external tube calls used.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

I remember seeing Ben Lee and then Harold Knight could he could still do it. I've been hunting with him quite a bit, and he'll just grab one off a dogwood tree or whatever, and he could no question he'd kill a turkey. But how would he do? He just holds it when it blows on it, and it kind of just in a miniature way, like a uh tube call, maybe. He holds it, it vibrates against his lift a little bit when he blows on it, and it's it makes a pretty dang good yel, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_05 30:54

Can you do that? You've never seen this?

SPEAKER_07 30:55

I I I don't know that I I can make a noise on a piece of grass.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Oh, I can make a noise, but it doesn't sound like a target. No, that's a turret. So I I figured that way back, you know, whatever, thousands of years ago, if they use something, I was gonna I'm gonna let him finish that, but it's interesting that the craze of the day is the trumpet and the wingbone. Yeah, you would be the first to say that too. It's amazing how many people want to get one. It's almost like we're making full circle again. If that's the origins of turkey calls, and that's you know, everybody shoved it under the table. It didn't sound good enough or whatever. And now Oh my gosh, people like Mark Proudhone. It's unbelievable. It really is. They can make on one.

SPEAKER_06 31:40

Um, I was at the at the turkey call function, the turkey tailgate last weekend. Uh went to go check on my buddy Bill Lester, who makes the the Lester trumpet.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:51

Um, and uh a a father and son walked up, and uh the son, you know, just asked him, you know, how did this come to be or whatever? And he was like, Well, I'll tell you. And it was a a Native American-based story about these kids uh sitting around the fire and they were cooking the bones of, you know, they were eating turkey, but they were sucking the marrow out of the bones. And uh, you know, and it just makes perfect sense. But, you know, one of the parents realized that you know, that kid sucking on that bone may have made a little cluck or something. And so then he takes that bone and and reproduces the noise. And so there you have it. I think it tells that story on the podcast.

SPEAKER_05 32:35

It did tell it exact story on the podcast.

SPEAKER_06 32:37

I'm sure he's told that story a million times, you know. But uh it makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

It does, but who knows? I mean, it all makes sense. We weren't there, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:46

We weren't, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

But it, I mean, I was wondering why a wingbone, when you know, there's pieces of cane and stuff like that too. Why a wingbone, that story would indicate that for sure. Yeah, what have you heard about the origin of the wingbone? Is it anything like that at all?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Well, that's that it there's there's nothing that we have that let's say we can we can positively you know nail it down, but uh I'll be the first to say that bone marrow sucking it out and and making that you know that sound to me makes a lot of sense because Native Americans used everything, and we know that they were making you know awls and air, you know, arrow tips and and uh whistles and flutes out of bone. And so that they would have if anybody could figure out how to take something and make it utilitarian, the Native Americans were the ones. And I I love how they would use every part of a turkey and and uh yeah, just through whatever it was, trial and error, sucking it out, and somebody said, That sounds like a turkey. And by the way, as you mentioned, that that's the craze today. I I was made a believer. I actually made my own wing bones and hunted with them in the fall here for years, but it actually wasn't until I was hunting with a friend and we were working a gobbler, and he said, Well, you go on ahead. And he stayed back and was calling with a trumpet. And I wasn't sure I was convinced it was him I was hearing, but yet I thought, there's no way that is a turkey. And and after after I got the turkey and and talked to him, I said, What was that you calling? Was that a turkey call? He said, Yeah, it's my trumpet. And I said, Well, it sounds different when I'm 50 yards away, and it sounded amazing and it made a believer out of me.

SPEAKER_05 34:45

Well, you know, Lanny doesn't sound that way. When you're 50 yards away from Landy, you pretty much know that's Landy at that point. So let me ask this. So here we are, modern times, you've just published this great book. But can a guy that's listening to this that's suddenly interested, and maybe I'd like to collect turkey calls, can do you give them, would you say, go to estate sales, go to yard sales, go online to different places? Can you are there still opportunities to find collectible calls out there?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Oh, yeah, lots. And you know, everything you just mentioned is is really relevant, but I think what's most relevant is just word of mouth. So since I have started to, you know, gain some recognition in Turkey, in the Turkey hunting world or turkey call collecting world, whatever that is, I will get calls. In fact, I've got a after uh after I'm all wrapped up later today, I've got somebody FaceTiming me who uh was recommended that they call me because they've got calls that his dad bought in the 40s and 50s that you know he's he says, I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do with these, I don't even know what I've got. And I I get a couple calls a week like that. So there are just a lot of calls, you know, sitting in in places where somebody's getting older and not hunting, or they inherited something, and it just getting word of mouth is is huge in terms of opportunity. And when it really goes wrong, that it gets thrown away, you know, like trash bins, fires, floods, wind takes care of some of that. But there's still so many good discoveries to be made out there. What we hope is my my co-authors and I are hoping that this book will get some people to get to looking and and we'll make some discoveries.

SPEAKER_06 36:38

I love it. So if anybody wants to call me about any of their old collections, I'll just go ahead and throw that out there. Will you give us your phone number out there? Uh DM me. So, Brent, what Dudley, don't you collect calls? Um, I wouldn't no, not really, but I would do some. Do you do you have more than two? I inherited all of them when I was young and irresponsible and and lost a lot of them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_07 37:07

I think every turkey hunter has more than two turkey calls. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 37:11

I get I get turkey calls in one pocket. I do too. I guess everybody's kind of a collector.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

So so let me go down this rabbit hole real quick with you. The one the one type we hadn't is probably the least sexiest, and I would say of all the evolution, it would have to be the deadliest thing hunting with that ever was a buying, that's the mouth call.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Um, so when I I grew up in the 60s with Daddy, and of course, shout out to my beloved Choctaw Bluff. We grew up. This is the 100th anniversary of it as a turkey hunting club. Wowzers. 1926. And so I was so blessed to be around that and the Stimson family and my uncle Toxie and all of Daddy's buddies down there, and learned so much so early on. But I was gonna get to is I I barely saw any other kind of call but a mouth call. And there weren't any in the rest of the country back then. And so that the story they told, there was a man in the maybe this was in the 20s. Of course, the the pioneer for wildlife management and timber and everything was Mr. Fred Stimson. But that his best buddy in in hunting was a guy named Jim Radcliffe. And they had a big competition going. Of course, there weren't seasons, and they admittedly later were killing too many, but this Mr. Radcliffe was kicking his tail, and his secret weapon was a mouth call, he found out. And so that's that was like the start of it. But I don't know, supposedly that was in the 20s. But what do you what do you know about how that evolved at all?

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Well, uh that that's basically the history we tell in the book. We talk about Radcliffe, and you know, it was right during the 20s. Yeah, it was uh was it 1921 that Henry Bridges, or was it 1923 that Henry Bridges patented the mouth call, and that was the same time that Radcliffe was, you know. So there were there were multiple people that were you know experimenting, and and I've got old lead diaphragms. Um here here's a couple, these are kind of cool. These are wooden diaphragms from North Carolina. Oh wow, you know, hand-carved wooden diaphragms. So there were all different ways that people were experimenting, um, you know, trying to improve on that use of the the the leaf or the blade of grass. And while while bridges patented it, Radcliffe is a great example of there were plenty of other people that were it was, you know, being experimented and and uh kind of developed in multiple parts of the country.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yeah, they um at the time there was a little shotgun house, I think if I remember right, it was in Mobile, and a man named Jack Davis built them and it was out of lead. And so you would call him and tell him what you wanted. I want to um I think they call them Billy Stimpson specials that he had made some for Mr. Billy one time. Anyway, I can remember it was like this biggest deal that we would drive through the back, you know, back rows of downtown mobile to this little small house and go in there, and the old lady would come out and she'd have your order ready and you'd pay her cash, and it's like picking up drugs somewhere or something, and it'd be a little round tin box, it might have five or six in there. It was like their precious gold, you know. And they probably didn't have any kind of cuts on them. They were just uh No, no, just the one single ring, and the only way you got any, and that's what I got obsessed with was the only way you got anything, um, any variation or what tuning at all that was just a clamshell of lead, it's one or don't have lead poisoning. Um and then you would be able to kind of build a bunch of slack in the very back part of it, and also bend the call, the frame to fit your mouth a little bit better. But and that was it. So it would like you know, they would they call it back then just get a little bit of rattle in it, you know.

SPEAKER_06 40:55

So folks were just I mean, you could you could do a three or four note yelp for the most part.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

But not there was no I got introduced to cutting on a mouth call um in gosh, it would have been the eighties with um Primo's True Double Someone had, you know, and I I'd never even done that before, other than just a yelp and a cluck, you know, with a mouth call. Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_05 41:28

So Brent, did different regions of the country like focus more on certain styles of calls, and that kind of became like a little trademark for the say the North Carolina region. Did they do something different? Did y'all find anything out like that?

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Early on, for sure, there were there were differences in terms of what was being developed where. Um, you know, for instance, you you had uh in North Carolina the the Roanoke River Yelper, which was you know made of local cane. That's what they had to work with. Or you had uh Florida was really big on scratch boxes. Um, you know, I talked a little bit about some of the the way that Arkansas um kind of utilized the those duck call barrels in in a slate and Pegan slate, um, as well as you know, Missouri and Arkansas, I think for sure were pretty early in box calls. Um Gibson was right from that area. And uh we we've even seen uh an earlier example of a handled box, um, earlier than even Tom Turpin's that came out of uh the eminence, Missouri area. So essentially anywhere that had turkeys had a callmaking culture. So you had Pennsylvania actually had a pretty robust callmaking culture, and largely that was scratch boxes which evolved into boxes and then into diaphragms. Um Missouri was you know pretty heavy on boxes and then it got into other friction style calls. Um, so yeah, depending on where in the country you were, the southeast probably had the most of the the you know the the melting pot of calls because more of the southeast had turkeys than than the rest of the country. So you did have things moving around there and turkey hunters traveled. I think what what's neat is to even look back in the late 1800s in journals and see the advertisements that were being made for people to travel by train to turkey hunt, even out west or to Texas. Um, there was a real draw for sportsmen at the time to go where the game was. And uh, you know, Charles Jordan's a perfect example of that. He was a Louisianan and he was a he was a gamekeeper on a you know, whatever it was, 20 or 30,000 acre um, you know, uh hunt club kind of game farm, but traveled all over to hunt and and probably got the first grand slam in terms of where all he traveled, uh or if not the first. We we know through his writings that he he likely achieved that. Um, but all all those areas maintained some kind of a of a turkey call making culture.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

You know, you uh when you said that I made a note, it's it's kind of fascinating now. So I would have grown up, you know, the late 60s, I could kind of remember stuff, 70s started this in the 80s, and quickly got a better handle on where things were coming from. So the epicenter of commercially selling calls um interestingly kind of mirrors what you just said. I would say primarily the southeast, but then right there with it was Pennsylvania. And I would say that would be the top two from just anecdotally what I remember. Then if I had to throw one more in, it'd probably be Missouri. And it was also the same area where the popularity of the calling contests were at the time that I was growing up in it, because it was there were a lot in the southeast, but outside of that, there were a lot of the best competitive callers were like either kind of Pennsylvania or Missouri. And it mirrors what you said about the very earliest of calls and people that, you know, the cultures that were obsessed with trying to produce calls.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Well, yeah, you look at where ML Lynch, you know, he he had calls he sold out of the back of his car wherever he went, but he made regular trips to Pennsylvania to sell to sell turkey calls.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah, because that's where that's where the turkey hunters were. And what's neat is if you look at a lot of ML Lynch calls, you'll see patent pending, world champion, you know, a lot of advertising that maybe wasn't necessarily ingrained in in complete fact. But what what's funny is in terms of him being a world champion turkey caller, while we don't have proof he ever won a world championship, what we did discover when we were doing the book and we wrote a story about. That is that wherever he would go to sell turkey calls, he would basically seek out the turkey hunters. He'd go to the hardware stores and places like that. And he would start to advertise we're going to have a turkey calling contest tomorrow at noon. There's going to be a prize. And then he would often win those contests because you know that's what he did is he made and ran turkey calls. And we've even found a newspaper article where he he won one of those contests. So without that, was kind of those kind of nuggets in the book are fun discoveries.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

Well he was a he was a promoter, really. I mean, I guess he he was the innovator on making the calls greatly, but the reason everybody remembers him so much too is from what you just said. He was a in his own way a promoter and a marketer.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

I had a jet Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 46:49

I had a jet slate, very one of the very first calls, and I wish I still had it today. I've I mean I remember a little burnt tip on it too. Yeah, and it was such a cool call. I don't know whatever happened to it. Same. I did too. But I was gonna ask about him. Was uh he's the first calls that I remember going in stores and seeing in any kind of volume as a when I was 14 or 15 years old. But was he from the Birmingham area?

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Yeah, he was. So that's that's where he grew up. And uh his earliest calls are are labeled Homewood, Alabama, which got incorporated into um Birmingham. And yeah, so that's that's right where he was. And you know, it's it's so neat the ML Lynch story. Uh, there's a book called The Most Perfect by a gentleman named Ray Massiarella that goes really deep on Lynch. Um, but we still included quite a bit of Lynch history. And what was really neat is when we were working with uh the Longleaf Farms folks, they they had great photos of him there with turkeys with his turkey calls, which we had never seen before. There's there's in his advertising, he had pictures of him with a turkey call, or I think there's one with a turkey, but these are great color photos of him. You know, he's got a jet slate in his pocket and he's holding a gobbler and there's a bobcat hanging on a line behind him. And uh, you know, it's just uh it's such neat um things to kind of get to rediscover and share. And uh, you know, I I mentioned earlier Lynch was also a game warden for a time, is is what we've we've come to learn. And and just one more aspect of how you know people that were doing what they love, he didn't start out as a turkey callmaker. That that's maybe is how he's recognized today, but uh pretty neat to see the journey that that it he was on to get there.

SPEAKER_06 48:40

That's interesting. And the the tip of the jet slate striker was often burned. Um and uh, you know, it it it doesn't didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, you know. Uh nowadays strikers you you condition them with with something like a piece of sandpaper. Was was he the one that came up with that, or was that something more common on on strikers back then?

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Um, you know, I I think I've seen older examples of where people were doing that. Um that that was a way to just you know create that little bit of friction, right? It'd be like essentially using chalk, or then it would have even been rosin. Exactly. And if you look at the Gibson box call, the Gibson box call, which was patented in 1897, um, has this um cork, and that cork is where they kept the rosin. Um that that was kind of the first you know friction aid, and and uh burning the peg was just another way to get there.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 49:42

Those were a cool little call, though. And it seems like when you club when you find it at a you know an estate sale or something, it's either the striker or the jet or the the slate. It you know, you didn't really all often find them together.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

So as in my early days too, I also remembered that little teeny channel of aluminum with a striker, and I think the first one I ever saw, Ben Lee made, but I wonder where those came from.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

The troll. Well, we yeah, we tell that story in the book. That's a great, that's a great one. Uh a guy um named Ray Chisholm uh from Mississippi developed the Magnolia Leaf Call, which was uh basically um, you know, kind of a sound chamber with with kind of a piece of wood that had a sound chamber, and he laid in it an aluminum strip, and it was Ben Lee um went with Preston Pittman and there was someone else, and I can't remember who that was, but they went to visit uh Chisholm, and that's how Ben Lee got basically uh Ray Ray's blessing to go ahead and reproduce that call as the super hen. And we tell the story in the book. What's neat is you know, uh Ray Chisholm um would would basically go sit outside a hardware store or people going in to buy calls and would play his call. People would walk over and say, What's that? And and he that's talk about a great great sales pitch, and uh some of the aluminum he used apparently came out of a P51 Mustang that was shot down, and uh he never did divulge where where his source was, but the particular kind of aluminum, it's like dir aluminum or something. There, there's a name for it that's uh you know, very specific kind of aluminum.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

Yeah, it had uh it it grabbed the striker better. It was like it wasn't real slick. How about that?

SPEAKER_06 51:37

Cool stuff.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

All right, no, Dudley had a question about the magnolia. Yeah, I want to answer that for you, Dudley. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 51:43

I was just making a a mental note when he called it a magnolia leaf. That that's what these those trough calls look like is two magnolia leaves sandwiched together. They sure did.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah, and and the tree, it was the sweet bay magnolia, is is what the the um wood being used.

SPEAKER_03 52:01

Those are only south.

unknown 52:02

Correct.

SPEAKER_06 52:03

Pretty much from here or see them on the way to the beach on 45.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

Correct, in the big creek bottoms. Yep. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Well, uh, goodness gracious. Were there any turkey calls that maybe back in the day were popular, but it just didn't stand the test of time and now just aren't practical anymore that jumped out at you guys?

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah, there was, you know, so what one would have been what I would call the external diaphragm. And uh there there were there was even a patent filed on that call. Um in essentially it's like a slingshot that you you would hold and and that little um with the open end towards your mouth, and there'd be a reed stretched across it for people that maybe were afraid to put a I don't know if it's because it was lead or they they were gonna gag on it, whatever reason. This was this was gonna be, you know, kind of an external diaphragm.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

Wow, I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

But yeah, they they just it it never never caught on big. And then another one I think, you know, ML Lynch was was a relentless innovator. And in the book, we've got eight different um Birmingham jet slates in terms of the slight changes that he was making. And you can look at the world champion call, and there are almost endless variants of that of the world champion.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Did you number them? I seem like I can remember the jet slates having a number one or a number five or something like that. I don't remember that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

He did he he didn't put a number on them, but what we do know, and we know it from the literature that that he put out, like the brochures, like the the very first one was kind of an open, you know, like where you could actually lay the peg right inside of the the slate because it was just open. And then then the next version, then he had kind of a sound chamber that he created versus you'd hold it in your palm to create the sound chamber. And uh they had lips on them, you know, in of different sizes. And so anyway, it was kind of neat. But one of the calls that didn't stand the test of time, and it was a it was neat, was the big chief turkey call, and it's very collectible, maybe because it it didn't stand the test of time, because there were fewer of them made. And what that was, that was um really, I think the big chief was the first call that we found that was a pot with an enclosed sound chamber. And the way it was designed is it it had a a wooden face that that would slide back and forth across your slate calling surface, and it had holes in it, and in the instructions, you you could be he told you where to put the which hole to put it in to make a gobbler clock, which one to make uh an old hen yelp, um, you know, by using different parts of the slate, but it was kind of a big bulky call to carry, and was again pretty complex and and the glue um that he used didn't necessarily hold together well. Like uh I've seen a lot of those where the they're coming apart. So while while it didn't stand the test of time, collectors love those kind of calls I mentioned. Um, you know, like the the um slingshot or horseshoe diaphragm and the big chief because they're just neat pieces of the history that that help tell the story of what what lengths people were willing to go to to uh you know there was also a guy named Meganson that made an air-operated piston call. And we've only ever found two examples. Um, and it was engineered, you know, pretty pretty well, but uh just made it impractical. And it's why Gibson, I think, even though in his patent he shows a dugout box call, he went to a sawn and glued model, probably for the same reason that Lynch did, because Lynch originally made his homewood calls or one piece, but as as they had to make them in bulk, sawn and glued was the was the answer.

SPEAKER_05 58:11

Wow. Is there anybody in the with a last name Lynch over in that part of Alabama that's or somewhere that's still a a turkey hunter?

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Uh not that we're aware of. Um, you know, the Alan Jenkins bought, you know, got the company in '69 and moved it to Liberty then uh a year or so after, and we mentioned that in the book, of course. And then and then it's been uh passed on again since then. But most of the lynch history that we were able to get um, you know, came came through others. Um as far as we know, there's there's not a strong, you know, turkey hunting hunting element still that that we've been able to discover.

SPEAKER_05 58:55

Hmm. Would you what would you say if from back in the day? It was was there uh one or two brands that stuck out? I would assume Lynch probably would, but it's well would you name the top four or five?

SPEAKER_00 59:09

Well, yeah, ML Lynch, you know, that there's probably more turkeys that have fallen to a Lynch call than than any other just because it was around early and and has persisted. Um, you know, throughout time, there were there were other, you know, like Penn's Woods was a big deal in the Northeast. That that's that was uh that was big time in terms of uh again, they they had the history of going from Tom Turpin to Roger Latham to Penn's Woods, Frank Piper, and we're able to utilize both the Roger Latham and Tom Turpin name in their call lines. So that was that was huge. Um you know Harold Knight um we is one of only when we published the book, there were only three living call makers that we featured in the book that were still living. And uh Harold Knight was one of those, uh Lonnie Sneed Sr. is one of those, uh a pot callmaker, and then the other one was Mr. Billy Bice, who unfortunately we've lost since then. But you know, Harold Knight in developing his tube call, and you look at uh there were there were tube calls already around, but I would say what Harold did is he took that tube call to the next level in terms of winning contests with it and showing how practical and useful it was, and then you look at where you know cuz and and others have picked up on that and ran with it. That's another neat kind of modern day legacy coming from that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

So I remember early days hunting with Chris Hawley, who the presidente of Moss Hill properties, and he had a two call, he was actually really good on it and could gobble really well on it. I was like envious of that, but it was a is that a little more is it the Morgan call?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yes, yeah. So Kenny Morgan, um his his call was made. I think it was he made it of wood too, but he's also I've seen some uh snuff can call it, yeah, like a snuff can type. And that's that's where actually, and I wrote about this in in the last book, Yelp and Goblin Incorporated, where Will Primo's um saw somebody using one of those uh Morgan tubes and was so enraptured with it, he went down and visited Kenny Morgan in Louisiana and got some personal instruction and got a couple of his tube calls, um, which he gifted to me a couple years back. And they are cracked and they have paracord wrapped around them to hold them together. They're they're well used, but um, he's he sold uh when he started Primo's Yelpers, he sold some of Kenny's um tube calls before he actually started making his own. So it's it's neat. And we we there's a lot of stories in the book like that about how callmakers would help each other. Yes, they're competitive, and yes, there's you know times when it it it it gets it even gets uh emotional, but for the for the large part of the history, callmakers have passed along their craft in really neat ways.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

That that's saying a lot. So, Landy, let me point this out. Okay, because Brent's not gonna point this out. Last year he won the Tom Kelly NWTF Communicator of the Year Award. Boom. And you could, if you were a student at the University of Florida, you could take an online course on the history of turkey calls, and Brent was your professor. How cool! Yeah, we got a good thing. I think I could have passed that.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:49

We need to get that out of your curriculum over there.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

Hit the horns for that too.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:53

I mean, you might have gone to that class.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:55

I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:57

Did a lot of did a lot of people sign up for that, Brent?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

Um, I asked the other day, and and there were 60 some, so as of as so far, so that's that's good. That that's at least uh a few dozen that will and this maybe have uh another look at things.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:15

Oh tell me, that's maybe not. So, what's your connection to the University of Florida?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Well, it's through the UF Game Lab, Marcus Lashley, and and and the workings.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:25

I knew that that's why I asked, because I said it had to be. So they got college credit for learning about the history of the things.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:32

Yeah, how many hours did you get? Would you get like what would you get?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Well, so what it was, it was one module that the I did an hour, and I think David Hawley also did an hour-long um module for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:44

We didn't know it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

Yeah, there were multiple people that did modules.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

Yeah, he was very, very capable of it. I promise you. He was a professor. I don't even know what a module is.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:54

We did we didn't have those in the quarters. Credits.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:59

And you had to have so many credits because I knew exactly how many credits I had to hours to get through. It took me a long time to get through college, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

Perseverance that matters in the turkey league in the middle of the year.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:14

You're on the six-year plan, right? Uh longer than the year, it takes eight years. I couldn't go in the spring. I didn't know I didn't I didn't check out of college in the spring. I just didn't go to class. So that was my challenge. How can I get how can I get through skipping all the classes and still not flunk?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:30

That was my challenge. Everybody needs to go to class. None of y'all listen to this. You work hard and then you you you hunt hard on the weekends.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Well, I'm impressed with your uh that communicator of the year award. That's that uh well deserved. I can see it back there behind your the your left ear. That is a beautiful award.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

It is very appropriate. That that was humbling. I mean, I I gotta say, like that for me, that was a lifetime achievement, which which meant a lot to me because you know, the the people that that I look up to a lot have won that award, a lot of them have, and you know, cuz and and Will and Tom Kelly and and so many that that I look at as are gems of storytellers. I'm only aspiring to that. I I I feel like I've got a lot to do to give proof points that that I deserve it. Um, but but I will always be working towards that. And I'm really glad that you know that there's a um call it an audience for it. Um you all providing this platform like the Colonel and the Fox, getting to be a small part of that. I I just feel like I I've been given a great opportunity to you know contribute something, and uh we'll just keep leaning into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

So I can I can speak with pretty good authority in my lifetime and then what we've done here. You need to be at peace that you deserve to be right there with all of those. I would have to put Mr. Kelly on the platform of all, we all would. But sure, and it's named after him, so rightfully so. But you don't need to be worried about one bit. You have contributed so much to so many and uh you know, and just the fact that the way not only that you you know your craft at it and your but it's just the the the way you revere it, I think help that energy right there helps everybody revere it better, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:27

Yeah, turkey hunting is fortunate to have a man like Brent that can grab and aggregate all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

It's like a glue, it's like a glue for all of us, pulling it all together. Yeah. So don't underestimate the value of that, and then you know, because then when you in when you speak of it, it's so important to you. You know, that's the kind of thing that really adds something for the ages.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:48

So, hey Brent, so I'd had long for several years had wanted to have Mr. Billy Bice on here to talk, but and we couldn't we couldn't pull it off. But next week we have his son coming over who's coming and was gonna sit on the couch and tell us about it, fantastic. Excellent, it's gonna be really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

Yeah, wow. Well, I get to spend a little time with uh Jamie and Turkey Camp in Texas here in a couple of weeks. So I'm looking forward to that very much. He'll be an amazing guest.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:17

Wow. Looking forward to that one. So look, and now it's about time for a trivia question. And uh what we've done, Brent has a trivia question for us. We're 100% on these questions, Brent. Nobody's ever spoken to the colour. I mean, we touched.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:31

Yeah, no wonder you never win a ballgame anymore.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:34

You jinxed yourself. It's a sorry dog that won't wag its own tail, is kind of my attitude. Okay. So uh Mitchell, we'll turn it over to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

Why don't you set us up? So we'll start off with the user review. And I picked this one out this morning, it popped up on our feed, and I was like, oh, this is a pretty good one. Uh, Tonto 97495 on episode 422, so the one that just came out. He said, Great listen. Um, I'm listening while waiting on daylight to locate a gobbler. Oh, look at there. Not bad. From the Tonto.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:08

Yeah, Bobby's used to trick them into GPS coordinates.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:11

That's the problem. Yeah. All right, Tonto. So you just want to nuke them blind, Tonto. And if you'll uh get in touch with Mitchell, we'll get that thing shipped right out there too. So trivia's brought to you by the peanut patch, guys. We love some boiled peanuts. We boiled the peanuts, the bread. If you were here, we'd share a peanut with you. Oh, we can send him some. That'd be easy. I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:32

We're getting low on peanuts. Dudley and Bobby are wearing them out.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:35

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:37

I can't eat much, but I can eat peanuts. If you stump us, I'm I'm probably gonna catch all kinds of grief. But I want you to bring a good question.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:45

You're gonna catch it anyway, so might as well be for good reason.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:48

I had an extra cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:49

I'm ready. Get your fingers ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

All right.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:53

Googling fingers.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:55

I'm gonna hold my hands up so I'm not googling.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

The the answer's in the book, by the way.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:00

Oh let me tell you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

And and there's more than one right answer. So there's that. The question I've got is in what state was it illegal to use a turkey call during season? Whoa. And there's more than one right answer. What a great question.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:21

Well, we presumably can say it wasn't Alabama because Toxies folks at Choctaw Bluff were according to him.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

I'll say this. What like I'm not thinking in the season. In what time period? I guess once like 70s on 70s on still, 70s on.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Might have extended to the 60s a couple places.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:41

Yeah, that would be okay. So I'm just thinking out loud. They had to have turkeys. Right. Had to have a season.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

I got my guess simply because it was always been a very restrictive state, but I don't know. We'll see. But we get five guesses, so yeah, we do. Get some more people in here. Doctor, what's your guess? I just totally wildcat and I'm gonna say Virginia. Yeah, go ahead, Laney. That is correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

Boom! Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:13

Get on my soapbox. But uh Virginia, if I as I remember, I don't know what's going on today. The you're looking at like baiting laws, and so it's such a controversial thing, especially with turkeys, and rightfully so. But Virginia, I think, got it right when I was looking up. It was not just illegal to put out bait and shoot a turkey over it, it was illegal to even put it out. So that's the way you really could do something about it, instead of like it's okay, you know, feed them, do whatever you want to. No loop. And unless you get caught over it, you know. But and I've always said all along these poor wardens have to chase everything down if you would just make it illegal to even put the feed out there. Well, that's what Virginia was like. So if they got looking at your place and they found bait on the ground, they didn't have to wait and catch you over it. They could write you a ticket. That's what I understood about it. They were just very protective of their wildlife, and I figured maybe they would be the one. How about that? Can't feel winner. Toxic, I'm very impressed.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:06

Brent, you've got to be impressed with that. We're a hundred percent. We've done 400 and something episodes, and we let about every third one a guest ask us a question, and yet has anybody stomped us? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:19

Amazing record, Bobby. There's other answers.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:22

He said there's more than one.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:23

My shoulders hurt from carrying you, Bobby.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

Do you want me to tell you what? Sure, do you know? Yeah. So in the book, there's an ad that was placed by P. S. Olt uh in 1940 for their scratch box turkey call in the Northern Virginia Daily newspaper. Turkey calls now legal in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:48

I was gonna say Pennsylvania. I bet you were. But I just thought it was too turkey of the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

That was gonna be my next guess. Simply because Pennsylvania. Yeah, they had they had turkeys way back then.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:57

How about that? That well, you brought it up. That's a great question. Not great enough, but great.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

It sounded perfect to me. Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:05

Well, it'll be good dinner table conversation. We're pretty good at this. We should probably go to some kind of trivia night. No, no, trivia night. No, we shouldn't. Grant.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:15

If I'm listening to this and I want to get this coffee table book, well, how do I go about getting one?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:20

Yep. So there's a website we have, turkeycallhistory.com. One word, turkeycallhistory.com, and uh Danny Ellis, Rick Powell, Chris McDonald, and I um each have a few books um as well. In case somebody wants one signed, you can contact one of us and we can probably get you one that that we can sign and send you, at least whoever has the books. So that's that's probably the best ways.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:45

I got one more question. Yeah, go ahead. Can I no? So I just gotta think that those cabinets behind you are full of turkey calls.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

That is correct. Uh how many do you have well they're architect flat file cabinets um or map cabinets, some people call them, and I've got some with different size drawers, but I've got four of them um any in stacks of three to four units, and they're full. I mean, they are they're I put uh um a little bit of cloth in the bottom, yeah. And uh and then turkey calls don't move around when I open the door drawers, but uh they make dust-free, easy access. Of course, everything's alphabetized so I can find it quickly.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:31

I bet he is organized.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Yeah, he is.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:32

Do you have any idea of how many number of total turkey calls you have?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

About 4,500.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:38

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:38

Oh my goodness. That's more than two. Does uh yeah, you probably do we need to.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:43

That's more than a passion if the concession. I hope my wife hears this. She'll be proud of me because I don't know I don't have nearly enough.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:50

I have nearly enough, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:51

Bobby wants to know if you have any box calls with slate inlaid into the lid.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:57

I absolutely do. Um, it didn't take him long to get it either.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:00

Yeah, look at there right there. Oh, look at that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

Oh, Archibald Rutledge sign call, and it's one of the and and he's got slate inlaid in the lid.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:12

So somebody makes some more of those. What a cool name. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

Archibald. Yeah, that is a good name.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:18

That really is a good night. I'll tell you what, I think we are gonna have to make it.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:20

Meryl Knight gave me one time. He he handmade some for himself. He had one like a lot of times. I say, Oh my gosh, can I buy one of those? No, I just made some in the shop like that, and he'll just throw it over. You can have I'll make another one, you can have it, but it's a push button with a slate. Okay. Instead of the wood, and it sounds really good.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:39

All right, Brent, is there anything about you that we needed to touch on? We didn't, any interesting facts, anything that would surprise somebody listening about you?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

Well, I would just say the the the last thing is you know, I'm right, we're I'm right in the middle of uh launching um a new organization called the American Wild Turkey Historical Foundation. That's gonna happen in about a week.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:02

All right, one more time, one more time. There we go, big time.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

That sounds that sounds like Nathaniel, Nathaniel Maddox, who who obviously helped do the Colonel and the Fox film, is one of my partners on that, as well as a gentleman that was with the NWTF named Paul Campbell. And what we're aspiring to do is build the largest archive of wild turkey history and and and make that accessible to people, um, both digitally. So we're gonna have the wild turkey archives will launch on Monday, and that'll be uh a site where people can go and you know see photos and video and audio, see stories uh on wild turkey history. Um, you know, we'll we'll be adding to it always. And we we also will have a streaming service, um, including thank you, Mayoak, uh, some Mayok and other videos where people can actually uh sign up for a streaming service to see that on their phone or TV. Um and then uh we eventually want to have a museum and experience center, or you know, that could be a standalone or it could be added on to existing uh places, but where we can actually have uh you know people be able to see and touch and hear history. So that's my legacy project.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:18

Incredible kind of like only turkey fans. You just maybe go there. Maybe he went there, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:24

He would have. You know he does. So yeah, for real. At least one bad joke.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

So I gotta say this, it struck me as his words are so good in and around this book. But inside the the cover, you know, the forward, I guess it's called, the first line says, Knowledge has a shelf life.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:40

Nah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

Thought that was very appropriate to this discussion today.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:44

Very interesting. You know, even me learning about the history of it because I mean just got into it, you know, and loved it. And then began to think of all the stuff that's connected.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:53

So this this book will be featured in the summer issue of Game Keepers in the Bottomland Book Club. It'll be it's the book of uh awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:01

Speaking of that, spring issue should ship. Uh, I think it's at the end. Have you printed a magazine? That they are printing feverishly. Feverishly. Maybe you've already printed it, hopefully. So be on the lookout for the new spring, uh, spring edition.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:13

It's a good uh Brent. Are you a subscriber? Do you get the magazine? Oh, yeah. Yes, I do. Yeah, maybe one day the magazine can make it into the archives of the natural history. We got about a hundred years to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:26

Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:26

How many podcasts do we have by the end?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:28

I don't know if we want to do that. That would use most of the stuff in the archives has ceased to exist anymore. So, you know, I don't think we're ready for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:36

All right, from scratch that, bro. Well, well, here I will say this. So we we what we consider our our our um guardrails in terms of history is Native Americans through the present day. So for instance, we've got a uh we're because we're making history today, right? I mean, history, this is when we should be capturing the stories to tell in 50 years. And so we we're capturing history as it's made.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:02

Good point. Wow, history. Yeah, do you make it do you ever make it to the south in the spring much?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

Um, outside of Texas um and Missouri, you know, I I I had a tag for Mississippi the COVID year, and then wasn't able to go. Um, but uh yeah, I've I've not well, Florida, uh, you know, for sure I've been to, but I I've yet to be whipped by an Alabama or Mississippi turkey. You have not been whipped till you've been whipped by an Alabama turkey guys.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:33

I'm gonna say if he can't come to us, we should go to him.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:37

It's the only fair thing to see is always an agenda with Bobby. Always in agenda.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:41

28 pounds.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:42

At least it's he's consistent, I'll give him that.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:44

Yeah. All right, Brent, we really enjoyed it. Thank you. Yeah, and thank you for compiling all this stuff. This is great.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

So so I gotta I give you one more shout out to him. I know he's gotten a lot of accolades from today. So I did a little sneak video of you a minute ago when I sent it to Daniel, and about 10 minutes later he said he said he sent back a two-word response. He said, the man. The man.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:06

Daniel's a great, he's a he's been a great partner um in terms of somebody that that really gets it and is passionate about it. And and I give him a lot of credit for you know pulling me in at times. I I really have appreciated it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:21

That's a good one. That is a two-way streak.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:24

He loves the history.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:25

Oh, we do.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:25

Yeah, and the written word. He's a big fan of the written word. He's a fan of the written word. Yeah, which I'm glad to see that because you don't read a lot, do you? Not as much as I used to when I started losing my vision. Yeah. Lanny, no. What's the last time you read a book?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Did he ever read one?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:44

I mean, the last book I read is the Bible. I mean, I gotta go on a minute.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:47

Okay, well, everybody's a Mr. Brent Rogers, thank you so much for being here with us. Guys, if you get a chance, watch this one on YouTube and you can see some of the stuff that he held up and go get this book. It's a piece.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:00

I mean, uh a coffee table piece.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:02

It is a it you can it's a must-have. Uh I would say more so than getting it for yourself, uh, it would be a great gift.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:09

Yes, were you thinking about me? Like a wife to give a husband. Oh, I thought so.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:13

Right, or you know, like any kind of gift. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:16

That's right. All right, Brent, we gotta go. Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:20

Get us out of here, Mitchell.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

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 Cut Strick.