EP:434 | Crazy about Turkeys with Mark McPhail

On this episode we’re joined by Mark McPhail of Collinsville, Mississippi, to talk turkey and turkey calls. Mr. McPhail is a long time turkey hunter, call maker and call collector who loves turkeys. It’s evident when he mentions dressing for work in a coat and tie in the field after a hunt, which demonstrates his love for going every morning he can. We also learned these short morning hunts he does seem to set up an afternoon hunting strategy that seemed to work for him.  His collection of calls totals over 7500 and provides further evidence of his love of the wild turkey. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, everybody, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Moftyoke Land Enhancement Studios as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. News, and of course, honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you. I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We're live in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

All right, everybody, Lanny. Into March, Bobby. Boy, it's flown by. It's going quick. Here we go. Yeah, summer's right around the corner. Spring has sprung early. The pecans are blooming. You know what that means. You can't trick a pecan. You can't trick a pecan. Who used to say that? Uh was that was that our buddy Tim Brooks? It could have been. It was uh, how did he say it? Pecans don't lie.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Something like that.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Something like that.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Our guest, Mr. Mark McPhail over here on the couch. Do you have any you have any have you ever heard that a pecan tree, you can't trick it, that if once it blooms, you don't have to worry about a frost after that?

SPEAKER_03 1:04

I hadn't heard of that. Have you planted your tomatoes plants yet? Uh my wife has yet. Look at you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

No good for you. I think they I mean we had to bring them in the house one night because uh this they planted them before the frost.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

I did too, and I lost them, so I replanted.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Anyway. It's been a you know, good Friday is when you're really supposed to put your garden out.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

But you'd like to try to get a jump on it if you can.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Well, you would. You sure would. But you don't want to burn them up with the frost. So my sawtooths look awful. They got that they got nipped. They got nipped. But we had that 27-degree night uh a couple weeks ago. It's awful. So I guess that there won't be any acres this year on those.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

On those. I don't know if everything was that way. It might have been as widespread as that. I didn't notice as much. Of course, I'm down in the river bottom, so I didn't notice as much there personally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

Well, so it's just us today.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Landing and turkey season, you know. Mr. Mark McPhail.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Yeah, thank you for being here during turkey season.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

Turkey days important.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Yeah, we did we did it in the afternoon. Yeah, you do. You gotta do one. I mean, you're probably not hunting in the afternoons, are you? I I hunt over afternoon. Do you really? That's my prime time. Oh, well, you should have said something. No, that's fine. Could have gone with you. We would have loaded up. We could have done a podcast in the morning and went hunting.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

You know, so Mark McPhel, you're from Collinsville, Mississippi.

unknown 2:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

And I think anybody that's been to the NWTF show a few times would recognize you uh walking. I mean, you're just you're you're there every day, you're walking around, you're you're you're just uh He loves turkey hunting. That same shirt I think you got on. Wise old old wise old owl turkey calls. They recognize that from a long distance. That fedora. Lanny, you need a fedora. I was thinking, you need a beret. Yeah. Dudley has a beret, a raspberry beret. So, well, Mark, it it's it's interesting to um thank you for coming up here. Yes, sir. And you've been around Turkey Calls. You've been, Lanny, he's got a he he makes these calls, wise old owl calls. But they've won a bunch of like the how would you describe it? It's not a calling contest, it's a call-making contest. Call making contest. Oh 57 different medals. Wow. And he won the make sure I get this right, in 2013, he won the grand national scratch box call. And in 2018, he won the grand national champion friction call in the amateur open. Man. It must be some pretty calls.

SPEAKER_06 3:40

It's uh a lot of competition and it's sort of the luck of the draw. So do you you make them all yourself? I make them all myself, yes sir. And never had any formal training, just got out in the shop and started playing.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Well, can you tell us uh you know how you got got started or got interested in turkeys?

SPEAKER_06 4:01

Uh my first experience, I was opening a scrapbook this week, and I was 13 years old. Our principal wanted to swap out a duck hunt with me for a deer hunt, and he carried me to Collinsville Hunting Club up close to the dummy line, and I saw these scratchings out in the woods. Uh I said, What is this? I never had seen a turkey scratching. So that got me interested. Then we had a game board and used to bring eggs to my daddy's grocery store, and uh he'd talk about turkeys. And then a local fellow named Jimmy Grissett carried me on my first turkey hunt when I was 19. And tornado warnings were out, we couldn't hear a thing, went to Kinnebish in Alabama. Didn't see or hear anything, but it just got me fired up. And uh I just had to learn to learn. I finally got old enough to have a car in 1971 and was able to drive to Kemper County. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Kemper County. Kemper County. We had none in Largley County at that time. Yes, sir. Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

Wow. And so and so you end up you became an executive at the at the hospital there, Meridian?

SPEAKER_06 5:05

I worked uh 35 years at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

I had a kidney stone there one time, Larry. Yeah, you sure did. I think you were on the dummy line and had to get taken there.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Yeah. Greg, our buddy Greg. Yeah, I texted Toxie. Hey, you're gonna have to come get me in these.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I'm sending Greg.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Can you make it out?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

That's painful. You know what? I was having uh this I was by myself down there, and there was a turkey goblin, and he and I was throwing up. I was in so much pain. And he when I would throw up, he'd gobble. And I find I just had to leave him. Uh but it I couldn't, I couldn't sit up. It was just awful.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

This is the when the the stone where you were sitting in the seat backwards with your seatbelt on, because that's the only way you could get in your relief.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

Yeah, Greg Griggs drove me to the hospital there in Meridian. And you were facing the opposite way. Yeah, I was I was I was miserable. Those things, I don't know why we have to endure those things.

SPEAKER_06 6:05

Have you ever had one? I had one uh Rocky uh elk hunted for 31 years. Oh and I dehydrated in the mountains chasing elk, and a week later he hit me. And I laid on the floor, got in the car, and told my wife I was dying. Run the red lights. And he told me I had dehydrated and I'd never have another one if I just drank plenty of fluid. I had I love that. Run the red lights, it's time.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

So you grew up down there in uh that part of the world?

SPEAKER_06 6:34

Uh nine miles, ten miles out of Maria.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Yes, sir. Yeah. Wow. Well, when did you start making calls?

SPEAKER_06 6:40

Oh, I had the heart, I had a heart attack in 2008 while turkey hunting and uh came back and pondered.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

That kind of trumps a kidney stone right there.

SPEAKER_06 6:50

And I decided it was time to give it up, get away from the pressure. So I was a collector already, and uh I got to think maybe I ought to take a woodworking safety course. So I went to local college, junior college, MCC, took a safety course, and then I had gone to a fellow's house named Jones K. Ware in Walnut Grove, and he had some little bamboo scratch boxes with a piece of cedar down them. And I said, I can make one of these. Found out later E. O. Mitchell had made some years ago, a famous callmaker from Winona. But started out with that and uh just got into it heavy. Just couldn't build enough. Well, let's go back to this hunt behind heart attack.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Yeah, I don't want to relive, you know, bad memories. I'd I thought I was gonna have a heart attack several times, turkey hunting. For real, yeah. I want a real stuff. Well, so maybe somebody can learn something from your experience.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

Well, I'm gonna tell you what my symptoms were, and I would have never thought it. I didn't want to be turkey hunting. Oh. Had no desire. So what am I doing in the woods? It was anxiety, I believe. I didn't have any chest pain, no shortness of breast breath. I was sweating, though profusely, but I didn't know that until I went back and tried to get a suit on. I realized I was sweating. So I went to the yard and it was a small, a light heart attack. But uh no more problems.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

So you were you were out there hunting, and you you didn't have chest pain or something.

SPEAKER_06 8:18

No, sir. I had a turkey goblin. I just did not want to hunt him.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 8:22

There's your son.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about that? So you've been turkey hunting a long time. Started in 1971. So you've seen the days where we didn't have many turkeys rise up to when we had a bunch of turkeys. Yes, sir. And what are you seeing now?

SPEAKER_06 8:39

I'm seeing a decline. Uh and a lot of it has to do with people moving to the county, subdivisions. Uh you don't have any rural areas a lot of times now. A lot of other factors, a lot of good turkey hunters. I mean, a tremendous amount. A lot of perish on them. Uh I think the season's a little too long myself. 42 days or whatever it is. 49 days is just too long.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Would you start it later or would you end it sooner?

SPEAKER_06 9:08

I'd probably cut it off, son.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 9:11

That's just been my thoughts over the years.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yes, sir. So you think fragmentation of the landscape and just more home? A lot of clear cut. A lot of clear cut. Yeah, a lot of clear cut.

SPEAKER_06 9:21

Turkeys are not as wild as they used to be either. They used to live in people's backyards.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Mm-hmm. Mississippi seems to be, I mean, they've made some adjustments on their Yeah. Uh the the time frame of the season and the birds and number of birds.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

I think I just read this morning that they are there's uh several um specific projects for turkeys that MDWFP is launching in the next couple years, too. Uh primarily species focused on turkeys. So maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

We got a good we got a good group down there to looking after the resource for sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Sure sure do. Well, and I think, you know, now it's reaching beyond, you know, states, you know, you see collaboration across with universities and and biologists uh across the world. Because I don't I mean we we know there's a whole lot of different things contributed, and those things probably vary depending on where you are, um, you know, whether it's predation or fragmentation of land or whatever it is, or pressure.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

It's sad though, to you know, uh if you can remember going one morning and hearing ten birds and uh and now you you you you might go three mornings trying to hear a bird. I may a few years I heard four or five the whole season.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Uh yeah, I can echo that. There's uh places I hunt that I went to from hearing multiple birds to no birds uh for a couple years, a couple three years.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

So uh Landy, why don't we Dudley's out, but he gave me his rapid fire.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Through the the magic of that dagum internet, he has sent me his rapid fire question. So thank you, Dudley. Uh he's out there working hard for the nursery, him and Mac. So they're actually working on contract growth stuff. So uh if if we are offering that service going forward, if uh you need specific lots, large lots of specific trees, uh give us a call and we can uh custom grow some uh some stuff for you. So, anyways, side plug there. My bad.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

All right, so uh the rapid fire, we we ask a bunch of questions just to get to know you a little bit, but it's brought to you by our budget. Who is it? Who is it brought to you by? Nutrient Ag. Look at there. There's some good folks. Yeah, they are. I'm so proud of Brian for Lane. I told you about that major award he won. He did. Yeah, he won all the ag people a worldwide recognition as the ag marketer of the year. Wow. Go, Brian, get the horn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

All right. So I'm not gonna do this near as much justice as Dudley does. Um, but we're gonna ask, I'm just gonna ask you some some questions pretty fastly. And if you just whatever the first uh answer that comes to mind, you can just kind of holler that back at us again. Uh just help us get to know you a little bit better. All right. Pretty fastly. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Is that even a word? Fastly? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yeah, sure. We'll go with that. I mean, you're the author. And well, don't go into this saying you're not gonna be as good as Dudley. You gotta put your best effort forward. Okay, I'm gonna put my best effort forward. Please. Okay, all right, here we go. Well, my screen went blank. Hold on just a second. Now, all right, are you ready? Yes, sir. All right, here we go. Uh, do you travel much to turkey hunt or not? I did up to the last couple of years. I hunted about 20 states, 22 states. Nice, nice, nice. And you're what you know, we kind of talked about this already, but what decade would you say was the pinnacle of the highest turkey populations in your home area?

SPEAKER_06 12:40

Late 1980s, early 1990s.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

1990s. Uh, is there a pro a particular person you've probably shared the most time with in the turkey woods?

SPEAKER_06 12:51

Uh travel hunting early on, my buddy Donald Belvin.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Plumber. Oh, Donald Belvin. All right. Um, have you ever killed a turkey that you would say is some kind of oddity?

SPEAKER_06 13:05

Uh just color variations and all the multiple beards.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Yes, sir. No white ones. No white ones. Uh, aside from the the turkey nuggets, the meat and the legs, uh, what else did you keep from each turkey?

SPEAKER_06 13:19

Uh the turkey nuggets are the best, and Donald Bevin is the best I've ever seen. Some at church.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yes, sir. Uh any of it's good if you treat it right. Do you keep the fan or the spurs or anything like that? Uh not anymore. Not anymore.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

What about the beard?

SPEAKER_06 13:35

Uh, mites got into them, made them all when I was building a new house 34 years ago. So I just quit worrying about them.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

What is your favorite week of the Mississippi turkey season?

SPEAKER_06 13:47

Opening day.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Opening day. I like it. Uh what's worse, a coat tromping through your hunt or a deer snorting at you?

SPEAKER_06 13:56

A coat, because they usually go in after the turkey. They'll look at me and then they'll look toward the turkey and walk off.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

That'd be my uh I suppose I think too. Uh last but not least, what species of wood would you say you use the most in your call making? Cedar. Cedar. There it is.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

How about that? Well, tell us about wise old wise old owl turkey calls. What what all different calls do you make?

SPEAKER_06 14:22

Uh I've sampled a lot of little things, but trough calls, probably I made more of those, scratch boxes. Uh made some turtle shell calls. Uh also made a little slate box that's probably three and a half inches by two and a half inches or three, two and a half by three and a half. And I did a podcast with Andy Gagliani out of Birmingham, and he had bought two or three, and he bought three or four the next year, and he put that on there, and I sold out. I got one left.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

But uh what is there a call in that you offer that you feel like, you know, people are just missing the boat. This is a really good, this is a good sounding call, works great in the woods, but they maybe they're intimidated by it or they just don't know much about them.

SPEAKER_06 15:13

Well, I try to do a lot of teaching at the uh Moss Yoke or wherever. Uh any anything will call a turkey. It's just a matter of pressure, holding, angles. It's just a matter of learning. It's like a musical instrument. So I don't have anything that's better than one or another, but I love to teach people how to use scratch boxes because that's old school. Old school. Have you got one you could run for us? Love to hear it. They in the truck. Are they? I got trough calls over there.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Well, run a trough call for us, then.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Can't think about a scratch box without thinking about Mr. Bill.

SPEAKER_06 15:51

So this is you're calling this a trough call. Trough call. It's got a trough down the middle. By regulations to enter competition, it's got to be about a quarter of an inch deep. Look how good looking that thing is.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

Yeah, and that's cedar.

SPEAKER_06 16:04

And it's got this is not cedar, it's poplar and mixed woods, walnut, various mixed woods on it.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

And then there I can see all the way through it, so it's that sounding board, that piece of slate is raised up.

SPEAKER_06 16:16

It's the slate is lowered down into the trough, and underneath, I came up with the idea of putting a piece of glass underneath there to make it more raspy. And so uh people drop them occasionally, and the uh glass would come loose. So I learned ran a popsicle stick underneath glass all the way through a piece of bamboo. Ah. So you can drop it now and it's not gonna do anything.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

Is that glass like glass that is in a window or is that plastic glass?

SPEAKER_03 16:43

It's like glass in a picture frame. Uh real glass.

SPEAKER_04 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

And got the classic corn cob striker. Yeah, that's my favorite.

SPEAKER_04 16:51

Well, let's do that thing.

SPEAKER_06 17:23

Squeeze it on the side, people don't realize it. And that's by squeezing it. Just squeezing right there. If you just let it uh be loose in your hand, it'd be more raspy. I like that high pitch. I do too. So I'm a raspy man, but everybody likes something different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

That's a beautiful call. It is. And that's you, you just call that a trough call. That's a trough call. All right. Very similar to uh just a traditional pot call, but it's uh it's got that air chamber under it.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Yeah, and it's uh long and narrow.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Man. All right, what else you what else you got in your bag at Trish? That's all trough calls. Well what is the are the the scratch boxes hard to learn to use?

SPEAKER_06 18:18

It's uh it's a little more difficult. People don't understand the angles you have to get. And uh again, you can just by macing the strike over here harder, putting a finger underneath, you change the pitch.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Mr. Martin, would you d demonstrate that scratch box?

SPEAKER_06 18:36

Okay, this is a scratch box with a cedar soundboard. It's the most forgetting a piece of wood you can use. A cedar striker, that sounds really good.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Yeah. You know. I don't know, but a scratch box was early on.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

Early early on. Yeah, no, and do you think it was was it from Virginia? Did I remember am I remembering that right? Or South Carolina, maybe?

SPEAKER_06 19:31

It's up in that area. The uh Brent Rogers would know he's a expert on that. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

We should ask him that. Well, yeah. We'll get a web redemption with old Brent.

SPEAKER_06 19:40

That call, it do you have to keep that piece of chalked up really good, just like a box? I could keep it chalked, and on some of them I have a piece of slate down the side just in case you lose your chalk or it rains or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

That looks like a delicate call. It looks like somebody like Lanny could sit on it and had a man from Starville bought one.

SPEAKER_06 20:01

It's the man died in 1972, caught them. Very historical call, and it was broke off right here. Oh easy to break off because all the signboards are cedar geese. Yeah. You've killed a lot of turkeys with that?

SPEAKER_03 20:15

I've killed killed a few. Yes, sir. So tell us about oh, can I am uh you give me do some more demos? Well, go ahead. Um, so uh you you started turkey hunting I think in the 70s, isn't that what you said?

SPEAKER_06 20:30

I killed my first turkey in 1972.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

1972. Was it do were you using a call that you made then?

SPEAKER_06 20:36

I'm gonna be very honest with you. Went to Kemper County on the dummy line.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Wait, what? Yes, the dummy line every other counties got dummy line. Well, I think it's the same way.

SPEAKER_06 20:46

State line hunting club. Yeah. And I did not call the turkey. Oh, okay. That's all right. I did not, but I was very proud of him. Oh, yeah, no. Now I don't use, I'm sorry, I'm not being negative toward any about it. So I don't use decoys, I won't bushwhack. I I want to know I call the turkey. 100%. We understand. Just me. Yeah, we're the same way. But I did bushwhack that turkey. I shot him, I did not call him. But the next year I did call up three and kill him.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

So was it with calls that you made? No, sir. I didn't make calls at that time. So tell us about the first turkey you killed with a call you made.

SPEAKER_06 21:22

Okay, I was hunting Lawrence, Mississippi, in Newton County. We had a little club, family club, a father-in-law and brother-in-law, called Gobbler's Knob Hunting Club. I named it after Gobbler's Knob in uh Pennsylvania. And I heard him a mile away. Golly. And I said that was a turkey. I walked that mile and got there and he hushed up. My call would not work. It got wet. I clucked. I got a cluck out of it. He started, I heard him fly down, he clucked all the way to me and I killed him.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Was it a scratch box? No, sir. It was a box call, which was a few. You think that was that the more satisfying than your first one? Oh, yes, sir. No doubt about it. Was that the most satisfying third you probably you think?

SPEAKER_06 22:10

Probably so. I was so excited. I had a meeting in Jackson that had to be at like nine, ten o'clock. New job I had. And my father in law was hunting about a mile from there. And I remember put that turkey on his doorknob and tied a rope to him. So when he opened the door, he had to drug him on. I didn't have time to clean him.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Oh wow. Oh, that's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

So was uh being a hospital, the head of the hospital, was that did that lend itself for you to be a little late during turkey season? No, sir. I was always there at eight o'clock.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Oh so you had to kill them off a roost. No, sir. Excuse me. I didn't say I didn't, I guess off the roost is a blimb. Oh, I had to kill them quick, but the th You had to kill them quick.

SPEAKER_06 22:52

You learned where they were and you could go back in the evenings. Then you knew where they were. Oh, that's why you like Strategery. I hear you. Yeah, yeah. And they don't have girlfriends in the evening. They've already got brother and girlfriends.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

This is true.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

This is true. Strategic. Strategery. That's good. That's good advice right there. Somebody that's getting just getting started in this listen. And you get to go turkey hunting twice in the same day. Well, and you mentioned that you would get up, shower, shave, and then put your hunting clothes on, but you carry your suit.

SPEAKER_06 23:23

Carry my suit and change clothes in the woods.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

I tell you what, there's an art to change in in the woods. And A, not, you know, especially if you're somewhere that's even kind of muddy, you know, and you you can't afford to get your clothes clean uh dirty. Now that don't happen to me much, but it has happened before. You got to be pretty good. Yes. Yeah. And and to be able to take your boots off and you know, one at a time and then get your clothes back on. You ever had that? I have had that.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

And I'm thinking to be there by eight, you probably had to leave wherever you were, 7 30th. So, you know, goblin time might be 6 15. You didn't have, but didn't have long. But you learned. But you were really on a reconnaissance to go back out after that. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 27:12

I was after by about five o'clock that evening. So and you learned to roost them, baby, and the next morning you'd be set up on them at daybreak.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

Yeah. That's good stuff. Wow. Well, wh what what other calls have you got down there? And you I see a bunch.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

I think it's uh same thing we've been looking at. I was walking strikers and draw calls.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

You had an old box when you first walked in here that you showed me. I just wanted to just get you to describe that one and tell us about it. Lady this thing uh I think he said the guy that built it was born in eight in the late 1800s.

SPEAKER_06 27:53

This man was born in 1897 in that in Choctaw County, Alabama. And named uh Prince Buckaloo. I never met him, but I inherited this call, but he was best friends with this man, Glade Hamburg, who I went and drove to his house and paid three dollars for his call.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Got two of them.

SPEAKER_06 28:13

Glade Hamburg.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Be as old as it is, it sounds great.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah. That doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard right there.

SPEAKER_06 28:35

And what's amazing about that, this 1973, that piece of rubber was on it and it's still on it.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Man, you're taking care of that.

SPEAKER_06 28:43

I don't know what what it is.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Oh huh.

SPEAKER_06 28:47

So, what got you started interested in collecting turkey calls? Okay, my father-in-law, George Blackwell, who was a Paced Game warden, bought me a call in Decal, Mississippi by Sidney W. Vaughn. Jack Dudley endorsed his calls. And I wore that call out.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

Now, Jack Dudley, Lanny, that's that name we see at Scuba that says world champion turkey calls. Sure does.

SPEAKER_06 29:11

I don't really know much about him.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

What can you tell us about him?

SPEAKER_06 29:13

Well, he was a world champion got uh turkey caller call with his natural voice. And uh he won in Arkansas several times. He's a he's a national legend. Wrote the book Greatest Moments of My Life, which sells for hundreds of dollars. Didn't know this.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Bobby. Uh yeah, I mean, I just see that green sign every when we was from right there.

SPEAKER_06 29:35

He was from the Caleb area and he had a farm out there, and uh he was legendary. I only got to meet him one time. Is that right?

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Sure it was natural voice call. Natural voice call. He's uh but he didn't do uh people that make turkey calls probably a little jealous of him.

SPEAKER_06 29:51

Oh, I'm sure they were, but he would go to Yelville, Arkansas, and win the national championship several times. How about that?

SPEAKER_04 29:58

So your your father-in-law was a game warden. He was a game board. That's pretty convenient for a guy wanting to access a lot of places. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:07

And by the way, he just out of information purposes, he killed the first deer that was killed with a spear. Uh, one of the game and fish people, before he was a game board, bet him, he couldn't kill a deer with a spear. So 1968 he did that. And it was in the Game and Fish magazine. How about that? But he bought me a uh Sidney W. Vaughn call, who made a one-sided box call from Grenada, and I just fell in love with them. And I got this call in Mr. Vaughn and ordering 12 every year at$8 a piece. And uh he said, Why you order so many calls? I said, Well, I'll give away about eight or ten, and I keep the two I like the best. And he asked me one time how many turkeys they killed. I made a mistake of telling him, and he said, Can I come hunt with you? So he came down and hunted with me. Just stayed a high for day, but uh precious memories.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:57

Oh, and he threw a uh bag in the back of my truck. And I said, What is that? I said, I said, decoy. What? A decoy. And he pulled it out. I said, We'll get shot with that. He said, I've been shot twice. It was a box of wood decoy.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Really?

SPEAKER_06 31:15

And carved.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

And so you got to experience hunting with that for the first time.

SPEAKER_06 31:19

Well no, we we left it there.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

We carried with us. I Laney, I've seen those things. Collectors go crazy for those things, don't they? And they're not real, you don't see a lot of them.

SPEAKER_06 31:28

Well, he I guess he carved this himself. Sure did. So that got me started, and my wife bought me a curio and taught me how to do eBay, and that was the end of it. Katie barred the door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

So you would just go eBay's all right. Search the internet for calls at night. State sales, or anywhere I can go.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

So are you real slick, like you ease into an estate sale and just kind of walk around, look like you're looking, and then just kind of casually say, Y'all got any turkey calls on there? I get on the internet and see if I can find out.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

Have you found any really cool things like just that were just out there where the public could have gotten it at a like an estate sale? Oh yes.

SPEAKER_06 32:12

I I had a good friend died years ago and they had an estate sale, and I it was on the internet. I messed up and didn't bid. I had a Ben Lee soap box, soap container uh jet select call. I couldn't bid because I was watching my grandchildren at the play. But I lost that. But I bought I won about 10 of his, and they were all special. Have you got a Gibson box? No, sir. I do not have a Gibson box. Is there is pre-production, but not the real one.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

Is there any like calls that you are just boy, I I am looking for this one every night. I'm on eBay looking for not I just go with the flow, whatever's out there. See, Lane, I don't think he'd tell, I don't think he'd tell us. He's way too slow.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

He's not he's good with strategy already, you know. How many calls do you think you have? I got 7,155. Well, he's got way more than Brent. Brent says 4,500, and you've got 7,000. Brent's probably got a lot more high-end calls than I got. You still got way more than he does, I think. Didn't he say 4,500? I think so. Yeah. Wow. Man. Is that a I thought I was into turkey calls.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

In terms of collectors, would that be a I mean, that's a lot of costs, but in terms of collectors, is that a big collection?

SPEAKER_06 33:27

I've never asked anybody. I've just real subtle about it. I know that uh there are some people that collect high-end calls that I know one man paid fifty thousand dollars for one. Oh, for a turkey call? And he'd let me play it. He'd loan it to me, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Oh man.

SPEAKER_06 33:43

I know we loan it to a man to call up a uh turkey for a child.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:48

That must be a heck of a yelper. It's the original Jordan Yelper. Oh wow. That's a cane-style yelper. Cain style with a wing bone on there. Yeah. Well, cane style. I guess it's cane.

SPEAKER_04 33:59

We had a we we we had Chad Anchers here uh a couple weeks ago. We had several people go s make comments like, you know, he didn't invent those. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was uh you know, the or a uh the reproduction of the Jordan call. And so we yeah, we we knew that. But so look, maybe I'm out of bounds asking this, but I'm just curious, like, do you have to have an insurance writer just on your collection?

SPEAKER_06 34:22

I should, but it's too time consuming. You would have to spend m months document them, getting an appraiser in there, and spend thousands of dollars. Yeah, I'm not gonna worry about sure.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

Are they all organized?

SPEAKER_06 34:34

And they were at one time. Now I have to just sort of cram them in, you know. Have them by state, you know. Oh wow. But uh Missouri here and Alabama here, but it's getting crazy.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

I've just so enjoyed and and Bobby, thank you for introducing me all this callmaker stuff. I mean, just the the the legacy of it and like hearing you talk about callmakers and granada and Winona and like this guy right down the road in Scuba, you know, it gives you a little perspective on on everything for sure. And interesting them using the materials that they had, and uh, you know, depending where they were, of course they weren't talking to each other, all had these little different styles. It's pretty neat, anyways.

SPEAKER_06 35:13

Well, if you uh go to callcollector.com, you can go by state and go to Mississippi, and it's 120 callmakers listed.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 35:21

I've listed most of them, uh a lot a large portion of them.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

What's that called?

SPEAKER_06 35:25

Callcollector.com. And you just punch in the state, turkey call and punch in the state, and it'll pull them up. What state has the most? Probably Pennsylvania. I've never officially come, they got a great history in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Have you got somebody in your family that's just itching to get their hands on this collection? Uh take it over and I I refuse to answer that question.

SPEAKER_06 35:49

Okay. We try to get him in trouble. Well I got a son that's very interested in turkey hunting. I got a grandchild very interested in turkey hunting.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Good for you. Yeah. And your son actually worked here. That's correct. In the warehouse. With with I think I was around at that time. Did you did you run him off? Uh no, no, no. Did you give him a bad experience?

SPEAKER_04 36:10

I don't I hope not. Did he work this summer? Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_03 36:13

David McFay worked what is it, Mississippi State? Yeah, worked when he was in school here, friends with uh Larry Moore's son, David Moore.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Yeah. So yeah, I remember sure. I think I was I think I was making rounds in the infamous camouflage van at that point in my career. I was on the road.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

But you know, Larry Moore. I I I he's a good friend, but I don't get to talk to him from March and April. He was like he doesn't even exist.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

It's the craziest thing. And y'all are such good friends in the fall.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

The rest of the year.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

And you never hear from him.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

Turkey season. I think he thinks I'm gonna ask him, can I go turn down?

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Well, and everybody knows that you are gonna ask him if you get the chance.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

All right, let's let's keep let's keep drilling down as the the collectors a a little bit. So Mr. Mark, so what are the most prized calls? Can you just list four or five of them?

SPEAKER_06 37:09

Well, I I'm uh I love Mississippi callmakers, and I leave somebody out, but uh you know they just uh you got Ford Mangum who's like 98, be 99 years old in April, but from Morton, or he makes one of the most fantastic calls. And uh uh but uh you got Paul Meek uh makes great calls, and you just go on and you look at Primos, what they put out, Preston Putman. Uh uh Mississippi's got a lot of history, a lot of history. I'm leaving so many out, but uh one of my things that I really enjoy was traveling the country over, particularly Missouri East and going to callmakers' houses and just getting to know them. A lot of them are deceased now, but we had my wife and I had some great times at these people's houses. Yeah. Are there still Jordan Yelpers out there that a guy could find? Oh, people make Jordan Yelpers, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

But the but the original one.

SPEAKER_06 38:05

Oh, it was just the original ones. Uh it's a long story to get into how it was found, but it's uh Well we got a minute. What what you guys what the story I heard was a man had the Jordan Yelper on a train. This is back in like 1890s or something, and couldn't figure out how to play it. And you asked the man in the back, did he know how to play that? He said, Yes, I do. I made it. And the Jordan fella got mur uh killed by a poacher. He was a game boy, I believe. But the man that bought that and paid fifty thousand dollars for it, they found it on the internet and they bought it just like that.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

How about that? How did he get killed by a poacher? Do you know that story?

SPEAKER_06 38:47

I don't know the whole story. But he got killed by a poacher.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

So if correct me if I'm wrong, but he was down around that Macleany Island in that part of the world? Louisiana is what I understood. Yeah. That's really interesting. And so these cane yelpers that we see are are very similar to that call. But that call had a wingbone. How about that? Well, what about boxes? What what are the top two or three boxes that people have coveted?

SPEAKER_06 39:17

It's just so many thousands of choices. There's so many call makers and the ones I I I love Irving Whitt, uh who makes a living making calls for the last 20-something years. And I have numerous Irving Whitt calls. He's from South Carolina. Uh another callmaker I really like is uh think of his name. Uh can't even think of it.

SPEAKER_04 39:41

So do you walk into the NWTF show with an empty briefcase and if you see a new callmaker, you will your wife listen to this? Yeah, she will. I'll be okay. But do you walk around and and and if you see somebody new, you get one of them?

SPEAKER_06 39:58

I I don't really buy a lot of NWTF. Now I will be at on the auctions of the calls in the callmaking competition. Like I had a good friend out in Washington, uh Guy Rumble, makes a beautiful lawn box. I only had one, and he entered some of the competition, so I bought two competitions and got them at a real reasonable price.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Those some of those, Lenny, have you ever go up there and pay attention to those really uh ornate calls? Oh, yeah. No, it's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. Now people aren't hunting with those, though, are they?

SPEAKER_06 40:28

No, that's that's usually uh decorative, they call it. Yeah. And do you like those? Well, I get a few, but I'm more in the hunting doll. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 40:38

There's a guy many years ago that I met at the NWTF named Tim Murphy, and his company was kicking bird. And I found one of his calls and loved it and ended up losing it a few years ago. And I have lurked looked and looked and looked, and I finally found him the other day.

SPEAKER_06 40:56

There's been some on eBay. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

I finally found him. So I was glad to know he was okay. He told me I talked to him. Lane, I thought he maybe had passed away or something. Because I I mean, I really could not find him. And I I still have his card in my desk, and I Googled and just everything I could think to do. But he told me that he lost an eye and he couldn't for the longest time figure out how to be safe in his wood shop with one eye, but he's I think he's figured it out now. He's gonna get back into it. So I I thought that was interesting.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

I know you're excited. You were glowing when we came in. You told you won't believe who I found. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:31

He's in New York, in uh Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_04 41:35

Yep, sure is. Well, what calls uh so do the pot calls interest you at all? Oh yes.

SPEAKER_06 41:42

Yes. I got I carry uh two different pot calls with me. You know Joe Mayo, who's one of them I use, and uh your other friend who's not here, he knows Joe. Okay. And I I carry that pot call with me. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 41:57

So I I'm kind of picturing you, Lanny, help me if I'm out of bounds here. You're an old school turkey hunter. I I think that's you're squarely an old school. So walk us through. You're gonna walk into an area and you think you know where a bird is, it's dark. What walk through your your setup first how close you're gonna try to get, what your first calls are. Just kind of walk us through what you do.

SPEAKER_06 42:22

Well, uh because I'm on aisle. If I don't hear anything pretty soon I'm on aisle. And try to get him to gobble. And I'm gonna try to set up 125 yards from him. Soft call. As the day progresses and he's not coming in, I get into some cuts and cackles and and so forth. You do a fly down? Uh not really. Yeah. I don't do a lot of that. The other day I had one and I uh he was just over the hill and I did this like that and cut.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:51

He came right over. That was it late in the evening. Then did you cut with a mouth call?

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Yes, sir. Yeah. Do you call do you call to him on the limb much? Yes, sir. I do. You want to be the first one with your name in the hat? Be the first girlfriend.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Yes, hello, it's me. Isn't it interesting how you can tell which direction they're facing? Oh, yeah. And when he when he when you yelp and he then he turns around, he's facing you out.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

You'll think it's two different turkeys. Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

And sometimes it is.

SPEAKER_06 43:20

And when he's when he's facing you, you think, all right. He's riding. Got a chance. You start hearing that ride on his chest, you better be ready.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Yeah. Isn't that a neat sound? It is. Nothing like this. Oh, you got me wanting to go hunting with you this afternoon. We could probably go tomorrow afternoon. I should have bought my gear. Yeah. Oh, we got gear. Well, t uh what about comp but what about this collecting that I'm not what what should I be asking you?

SPEAKER_06 43:50

Oh I I can't think. There's so many variables. Do you spend every uh every night? Are you looking for something? Um every day I look, and uh I I guess one thing I would say is you get Brent Rogers and George Denton's book on call values. That's a good base to look at to see how many have been sold and what the average price is. And of course they don't have but a select number of sales they catch, but it gives you a good idea. Yeah. And uh they've put out uh George has put out four editions, and Brent was on the list too, with the literature in the back.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Lenny, you ever look on eBay for cause? Uh no, no. I mean, I again yeah I my eyes have been open to this. My whole, you know, experience with cause has always been just so based around the diaphragm, you know, wanting to master it is how I got introduced to it. And you know, again, I'm you know, it the funny thing is, my granddad's a woodworker, you know, and I love to work with wood too. So uh just learning more about this and the appreciation of it is super cool. And the artistry that goes into it, and even cooler to me, the styles and the materials they're using, you know, because even further back then they had just like the cane yelber must because he had cane, you know what I mean? And uh the different and cedar and and all the different local materials uh they're using to to so let's go back to you sitting there calling that turkey.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

Are you are you tree calling on a slate or you scratch box? What do you what what what are your go-to calls?

SPEAKER_06 45:22

I'm gonna use a scratch box or a trough call to start out with. Where I can reach out, try to cut and make him cobble. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

So that Kemper County, Mississippi area, there's but that doesn't look like it have many turkeys. It's a that's an odd thing, isn't it? There's mostly pine trees at the different various stages, but uh there's not nearly as many turkeys over there as there used to be. But uh I think uh Lanny and they they tell us that there used to there was kind of like always a few turkeys right there.

SPEAKER_06 46:01

Ever since I was a child, it was always in the flatwoods. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

So all we said, go to the flatwoods, go to the flatwoods. Yeah, Mr. Fox would talk about a hunting club that was over there, and I think it was called the Blue Door. Does that ring any bells?

SPEAKER_06 46:13

Blue Room. Blue Room, maybe that's what it was.

SPEAKER_04 46:17

Maybe that's what it was. I wonder what that was about.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

I must have had a blue room in it.

SPEAKER_06 46:21

I guess. Have you ever been to it? I I'm trying to recollect. It was pretty close in there to Collinsville State Line and uh what was the name of the uh Hopewell. I used to hunt Hopewell too. I could hunt anywhere in there, just friendships and uh Campbell Hill.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Boy, those are the good old days though, weren't they? When you just had people just let you hunt a place.

SPEAKER_06 46:46

I remember at Collinsville, I had a friend. They just said, go up there anytime you want to, just go.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

They don't have no more. Want anybody hunting? Mm-mm. Lenny, he told me earlier before we got started, at one time he had a hundred pieces of paper that said, You can hunt my place. That's pretty awesome. That's a lot. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 47:03

And they're all deceased now, just space. Every one of them.

SPEAKER_04 47:06

Yeah, and then probably their youngins probably aren't as welcoming.

SPEAKER_06 47:10

Grandchildren or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 47:11

Yeah, they're probably not as welcoming as the original guy was to you.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

I had a pretty good story about travel hunting. I got a uh more current partner travel hunting, uh Till Prater. And we went out to Sundance, Walmart. We couldn't find a place to hunt. The governor's hunt was on, they were carrying kids everywhere. Went in a restaurant downtown Sundiance, uh, Camo Wall. Asked everybody if they had a place to hunt. Nobody'd say anything. We ate, the man came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, Follow me, I'll show you where you can hunt. I said, Oh, thank you. He said, Where you stay? I said, We ain't got a room yet. He said, You're spending the night with me. Oh, wow. I said, sir, with Missy if you don't even know us. He said, I saw you pray before you meal, and I'm a priest. You're staying at my house.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Nice. What an experience of memory. Yeah. He has turkeys too?

SPEAKER_06 48:04

Oh, we just left this place and hunted the Black Hills. Oh, nice. Did not kill one. We had some close encounters.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

Mac hunted that last year, didn't he? Beautiful. Brought home the bird. I think so. You need to go early because they are scared to death at the end of the season. That sounds like all the turkeys around. They scared to death at the beginning of the season around here.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

Yeah. So do you think when you kind of look in your crystal ball, do you think states are going to need to do some more adjusting or or what do you think the future looks like?

SPEAKER_06 48:34

Well, Kansas is already adjusted, Nebraska's already adjusted. You used to go over there and buy them over the counter. It's all draw only. They sell out within two hours, both states, you know. So everybody's adjusting. And it's going to be more adjustments down the road because of the increase in population. Yeah. Number of hunters, number of good hunters. You know. Just it's a lot easier than it used to be far as just killing.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

Yeah, it sure is. I think I asked you this, but let me just in case I didn't, is there an overlooked call that maybe Wise Al makes that that you think people just just don't realize how good it is?

SPEAKER_06 51:10

Well, that's what the little slate box I was telling you about that Andy Gagliani did. I couldn't sell them once he put them on there. I had one man order 13. Uh 14 of them. And I got to get in the shop and make some. Yeah. I've had some health issues, so I hadn't made any calls.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

Is that similar to like the when you say a small, I'm kind of picturing that jet slate?

SPEAKER_06 51:31

It's like a jet slate with an opening on one side and uh just you hold it a little bit different and play in the corner of it. So you can soft call on it real good.

SPEAKER_04 51:42

Are these like typically calls are they they're not patented, are they? I mean, so so you could you could get if somebody was making a box that you liked, you could make something pretty similar to that. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:53

No doubt about it. It's not much new invented anymore. No.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Lane, you got any more questions? Uh no. Um I'd like to ask you about your after afternoon style. Okay. So you get there.

SPEAKER_06 52:11

I've known where the turkeys are before. You know, I've heard them. I know the range where they roosting areas. I get in there and start soft calling and move about I sit there for a long time, then move maybe 75, 100 yards, and uh just keep it up sooner or later. Something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

Are you getting in there close to where he roosted?

SPEAKER_06 52:34

Uh not exactly where he roosted. I made that mistake a couple of times this year by misjudging. And actually ended up the next morning. And uh let him go, you know. Yeah. Uh but you you it's the sound in these hollows where I'm hunting the timber so up means it's hard to judge the distance to where he was.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

Do you find if you can get him to gobble in the afternoon, you got a really good chance? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 53:05

A lot better chance, a lot more planning ways to come in. Uh approach on him. He's gonna fly and usually land with a slope uphill. Uh so he can keep his balance.

SPEAKER_03 53:18

I never thought about that. Oh, yes. And we hunt that flatwood, it's all flat. It's all flat.

SPEAKER_06 53:24

He's gonna fly uphill so he can. I watched one the other day and he came out like a helicopter. He never even flopped like a duck coming through the woods, you know.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

And you say on their landing approach they'd rather have a little bit of uphill strip. Oh, yes. They lose their balance if they're going down here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Huh. Landing strip. Yeah.

unknown 53:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

We don't, you know, hills around here are not but a foot tall.

SPEAKER_04 53:46

So uh you your after afternoon strategy, you try if there's a field in that area, is that something you'd concentrate on? Very much so.

SPEAKER_06 53:53

Very much. I don't have any fields. I ain't hunting now, but uh very much so. Because you visually you can pick them out, even if they don't gobble.

SPEAKER_03 54:01

Yeah. So of the birds you killed in the afternoon, uh, what percentage of them would you say gobble before you killed them?

SPEAKER_06 54:09

Probably 40 or 50 or more than that. Otherwise you just come and instruct them. And you're scouting for the next day, too. Okay, yeah. You hear him, you hear him fly up, you hear him gobble. Bail out and come back. Yeah, like sometimes you get on two owl hooters and act like you're two owls going at each other, and all of a sudden he'll fire back. Yeah. I don't know what causes it, but he will.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

We used to uh, you know, go out and at night and with a cow howler and and see where they were after dark. I don't I don't know if that's common practice, but we we did it.

SPEAKER_04 54:43

When you're sitting there in the afternoon in the edge of a field, or you i if if he's not gobbling, but you can tell by the colorations in his head whether he's interested in what you're saying or not.

SPEAKER_06 54:54

A lot of times you can't. This one particular turkey I've been hunting this year, he uh he has no coloration much, and he I don't believe he weighs 11 pounds. Hmm. You can't even hear him fly up. He's old, old, old. Golly.

SPEAKER_04 55:10

You ever you ever what do you think about the legend of the mossy head?

SPEAKER_06 55:15

You're going to tell me more about it. You're talking about go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 55:18

Well, there's there's uh a thought that there's some turkeys down in the Alabama River swamp right above Mobile that are 11-pound turkeys, got a little few more feathers on the top of their head, and they and they'd call them mossy heads. And that's supposed to be maybe the someone original, yeah. Have you experienced any of that?

SPEAKER_06 55:37

Uh no, sir, other than this one turkey that I saw that I've seen several times. Could have blasted him several times, but I I want to call him up.

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Yeah, yeah. No, you want to call him up, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 55:49

So in the afternoon, is there a time frame like let's just say fly up time is is seven o'clock. Is is he fair game? Is he gonna be interested until 6 30 and then after 6 30 he's thinking about where he's gonna fly up? Is is there is it that cut and dried?

SPEAKER_06 56:09

It's not cut and dried because I've seen them roam over a mile, mile and a half. This one stays on 80 acres, I'm dealing with right now. It's just variables. Uh, you know, you never know. But a lot of times they'll gobble back at you if you yep, yep to them, but a lot of times they just fly up.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

So would the um like as far as the hens you're seeing in the afternoon, I mean you are most of these gobblers alone? They're alone. I've seen very few hens this year.

SPEAKER_06 56:37

One or two. Purds saw.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Right.

SPEAKER_06 56:41

But uh, I've not seen them.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Typically in your afternoon scenarios, though, they don't have hens, they're just coming through there solo, cruising. Usually by themselves. Gonna catch one more full fly. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:51

You know, and that's the turkey I always feel like. I should be able to kill this turkey when he's by himself, and sometimes they don't respond to a call, and it just hurts my feelings.

SPEAKER_06 56:58

And they're gonna roost sort of by themselves, even their hens around. They're not gonna get right up in the middle of them.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

Well, and us too, we're so like if he's not gobbling, I'm not gonna be there. You know? Yeah. I mean, I'm a let's go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04 57:12

So as many mornings and afternoons consecutive that you as you've done in a season, do you s hear of uh like you put a bird to roost and you know he's right there and you come back the next morning and he's not there? Do you does that happen very often? Not often. Not often. And do you find that they roost in the pretty much the same spots?

SPEAKER_06 57:30

Uh some one particular turkey's he's roosted in two different spots. Uh he's changed, but it's not over three or four hundred yards.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

Same job.

SPEAKER_06 57:40

But I I've had coyotes surround trees at daylight when one gets to gobble it and surround the tree highly. And that's it. That's the end of the hunt.

SPEAKER_03 57:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:49

I've had coyotes come through looking at me, two of them last year, one this year.

SPEAKER_03 57:53

Mm-hmm. I've had that same thing.

SPEAKER_04 57:55

Those coyotes are at a distance, so that'll make they'll make that turkey gobble. He, you know, that poor turkey is up when he gets on the ground, he's strutting and he's got his head tucked back in those feathers. He seems so vulnerable at that point.

unknown 58:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 58:09

It's amazing how that we don't lose more of them to coach and bobcats. And we had a trapper here a few weeks ago, and he he pointed out that he thought the bobcat was the worst on them.

SPEAKER_06 58:18

I've seen a lot of videos where bobcats jump high as that ceiling after one fly.

SPEAKER_03 58:23

Yeah, Chris Hawley found uh a dead um carcass on his place and bobcat killed last week, I think. And he said, interestingly enough, they're religious about burning. Um, you know, but there was um, I think some moist areas, and he said it was a lane going through the woods, and right where the turkey you could see was an ambush point, there were just some stuff that hadn't burned, and the bobcat was able to to hide and wait till something walked by and pounced. So interesting. Get after them bobcats. Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_04 58:55

All right. Lenny, you got another question, and we need to go to trivia.

SPEAKER_03 58:59

Uh very interesting talking about the afternoon hunting. Uh for sure. Not a lot of people do that as much anymore.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 59:07

They like that excitement and interaction.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:11

And I see a lot of snakes in the afternoon for some reason. Uh uh when I go, I just like I'll see a snake.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

It seemed like Well, you can't see them when you're going in in the morning when it's dark. Maybe that's what it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

And then I'll be sitting there in the afternoon, all of a sudden there'll be a tick crawl. Oh, yeah. It's just it's so it's usually warm. It's just I don't know. It just I know how good it can be, but there's also Oh, it's a it's a legit way to kill turkeys, there's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_03 59:35

And if I travel somewhere, for sure more. Yeah, no, if you're hunting there. I mean, we all we're always you know trying to get a hunt in and then go tackle the rest of the day. But if you have, you know, all day to hunt, it's a kind of a different mindset.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Yeah, it sure is.

SPEAKER_06 59:48

So you would prefer to afternoon hunt, it sounds like. Oh, if it I just don't hear them gobble in the morning like I used to. So I I prefer afternoon hunting. You know, that's frustrating though, because for him to say that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:02

And it's safer. I mean, you think about turkey gobbles, everybody's coming into that situation. Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

Have you had any encounters with people through through the years that that frustrated you?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:13

Um not really. You know, I I get along with anybody, but uh, I had a man block my vehicle in one time behind the gate and wouldn't let me out. And uh told him I had to get to work at eight o'clock. And that winch was on the front of mine. Yeah, he moved it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

There that was. That's the end of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:35

You know, uh landowner said he's gonna take the lease away from him. I said, No, you gotta live with those folks. You just right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:45

Well, so you're hunting mostly private ground, sounds like. I lease my own now. Okay, so you probably don't have any any run-ins with other hunters and that's the way to do it, Laney. We need to do that. Yeah, we sure do. Why why don't we ask a trivia question? Mitchell? We've got let's turn it over to you here for a second.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

Well, before that, I have a user review on episode 424 on YouTube, Tom Mad 10. It's a great episode. Always interesting to hear how all make call makers got started hunting and making calls. Interesting to me, too. It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:23

So he wins a nuke emblem. Hey, get that ship term.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

So just get with us on YouTube or email and we'll send it to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:31

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

So the trivial question is from Bobby Do owls have eyes like humans or their own style?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:44

Do owls have eyes like humans or their own style? Do they have eyeballs?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

That's the focus of that question. Do they have traditional eyeballs? Now we've got a man here that worked in a hospital. You would think.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

This is an interesting question.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:04

And his company is called Wise Old Owl. What were some of the other well in the beginning of that question? There was some little interesting little owl that I had written down. I did not write those down. Yeah. It did not lead to the trivia question. Okay. I just thought they were interesting little tidbits about the owl. Turn their head 270 degrees.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:22

Now I knew that. And and like an owl is one of the only birds that is completely noiseless in flight. Silent. Silent. I've seen a study where they had them like pitch out over a bed of feathers and they didn't even disturb the feathers because they have that little bit of turbulence.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:43

They're pretty impressive. They're predators. Yeah. You know what a group of owls is called, Mr. Mark? No, sir. A Parliament. I knew that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Parliament of owls. Wait, wait, isn't that what a pelicans are, too? No, that's a squadron or something like that. My bad, my bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:59

All right. So let's think about these the owl in his eyes. Does he have eyeballs like other animals, do he?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Um wait, I know this in my question. I always like to answer him though.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:10

You got a guess? I got a poem, if I can cite it. All right. Wise O Owl once lived on an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. Less he spoke, the more he heard. Everybody ought to take a lesson from that wise old bird. Man.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:26

That is good. That's a good one. I like that one. That is good. He's a poet and didn't know it.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:31

I got that from a doctor who gave that's how I came up with the name Wise Owl. But we don't know the author.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

I'm gonna say they do not have eyeballs. That is right. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

So owls actually have eye tubes. That is why they spin their heads in 270 degrees. It acts like a telescope instead of our eyeballs.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Gali, no wonder they can see so good. Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:59

You have learned something today. Mr. Mark, you learned something. I did. How about that? Every day.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

Owls are very intriguing.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

They sure they sure are. I love to hear them in the spring. They get going. What owl is that that we hear that we love so much? The bar. Yeah, that's right. Is there a question I should have asked you about? Can you tell what about your wife and your family? Are they supportive and all this? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:27

I have no issues there. Wife has her own hobbies and she don't mind you turkey hunting. She doesn't mind me turkey hunting.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:34

Filling up the house with calls. So I I'm I'm just picturing UPS just arrives every few days with a little package.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:40

It's slowing down a little bit. It's slowing down. But the price of turkey calls has gone way up. It's gotten very, you know, collected. Yeah, no, it's a it's a thing for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

So next year when you're at the NWTF event, you guys you can look at him on go to YouTube, you'll recognize Mr. Mark. And y'all speak to him at the show because he is a wealth of information. And uh the your calls, those uh wise old owl, they are they're beautiful. They're little works of art for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:10

Thank you. Yeah, and so he you last year you well, every year you've come to the Mossy Oak uh Call. I've shown up here every day. Turkey Tailgate. Yeah, we sure appreciate that.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:19

That's a great event and it's growing. And uh Tis is a great company, I gotta say it. I mean it's well thanks. Just uh so friendly and Christian based and uh can't say enough about the goodness in this family unit.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

Well, thank you. We're very blessed. Uh 100% for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:36

Yeah, do you ever listen to our podcast? Occasionally. Occasionally maybe we can step that up a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

I mean, I'm gonna step it up. He's gonna listen to at least one more. At least one more.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

What about what about our television show? You ever Tuesday night? You ever I don't even know how to get it. Okay. There you go. Well, yeah, we've tried to figure that out. What station's you know? Well, it's the outdoor channel. The outdoor channel. And the sportsman's channel. That's right. And you might you won't your wife probably has this little app called the Friendly App on her phone on her television that she watches because she can watch Bonanza and all that kind of stuff, and we're on that. Or you can watch it on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Well, yeah, you can both.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:11

Yeah. I beg them. Those guys are everywhere. They the cameras are everywhere. Yeah, they're everywhere. That's true. One more question. Is your wood shop at your house? Yes, sir. I built it in 2017.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:21

Right there in the house. I should have uh done it many years before. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I had better health, you know. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

So you'll just go out there and crank out a few calls in the summertime, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:31

Yeah. You deer hunt? Uh yes, sir. I deer hunting and elk hunt. Oh, yes. Used to elk hunt.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Used to. Had elk hunting, that's all right. I loved it.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:41

Being alone in the Rocky Mountains.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:42

Yes, sir. Oh man, being close to God out there real quick. Yeah. All the smells and everything else. A lot of people say that. Yeah, especially being from here.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:51

I carry my undertaker with me, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:53

Your undertaker?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:54

Yeah. Who's that? Uh Wright, fellow from Wright's funeral home.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

Oh, there you go, just in case.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:00

Yeah, just in case.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:03

Were there many doctors at the hospital that turkey hunted? Um, no, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:08

They so dedicated to their careers that very few.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

Yeah. We've got one up here, Dead Miller. Oh, yeah. He I don't know that he gets to go as much as he wants to, but he He's a different kind of doctor too.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

I'll say that. Family medicine. Well, I mean, a community, you know, he's not out for the career uh and the you know the hierarchy. He's out here to serve the the community. He does. He cares about the community, that's for sure. Yeah. So it's a turkey hunting community. So he's got to participate in that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:37

Unless you don't have a place to turkey hunt around here.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:39

It's kind of a you can go with me anytime. My place is your place, Bobby. We've said this.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:43

My Uncle Sam is your Uncle Sam. I mean, you have the same opportunity as I do. I've had so many run-ins, it's just uh just well, I'm gonna tell you, it's worse than it used to be. So it's what I hear prepared.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:54

You ever hunt any public land? No. Years ago in the early 70s, I hunted Tallahala, but Oh, Tallahala's got some birds over there. We did hunt, go to Idaho and Washington, but we went the last week of the season where it wasn't anybody else out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:08

And the turkeys weren't either.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:10

They had moved, migrated to town and from the schools and all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

So if a guy's listening to this and he wants to pick up a scratch box or something, how does he find you? Or you you have a website or no sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:20

No, I don't have a website or anything. All I do is a telephone number. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

Well, we'll get you to give that to the channel. Jim should put that in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're a gym. Yes. Yeah, true gentleman, and we uh I've seen you wear that hat with all those pennants. I can't remember how many years.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:35

Yeah, and you gotta show us your other hat. I mean, that's I love that hat. Mr. Fox I use. There you go. Yeah. I love that hat. But your other hat over there, uh, think Bobby needs a version of that for sure. Show that to the camera there.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:47

You might not see that. What does it say? It says, Do you have a place for an old man to turkey hunt on? And my wife, being an English teacher, said you don't end a sentence with a preposition. No, you don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:00

Good for her. I'm so glad these knuckleheads around here in every sentence is with a preposition. Plenty of dangle one in a harp. Nobody else has caught that. You need a hat like that, Bobby. Uh I do need that hat for sure. All right, guys. It's been a lot of fun. We'll have uh get in touch with Mr. Mark there. Uh thanks for being here. Thank you all. So much. Thank you for preserving the history of you know, the especially the Mississippi part.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

Yeah, giving us the deep dive on Mississippi, really interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:28

Also, the museum in Leland. Uh I gotta mention it. Of course, Tox is a uh uh Hall of Fame member over there. We've got about 40 plus turkey call makers display their history in Leland, Mississippi. Y'all ever been?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:43

I have not.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:44

You'll be amazed.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

Shame, shame. We need a field trip.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:47

Everybody that's gone through there just it's just amazing what they have. We need to do that. We need a field trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

Yeah, we sure do. Yeah. After Turkey season. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

You could have a show over there. Yeah, we could. We might could. Mitchell, you got your stuff ready? Yeah, he's ready. Let's go for it. There you go. Oh my gosh. Why don't you say goodbye, Lanny? Uh goodbye, Lanny. Get us out of here, Mitchell.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

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