EP:436 | The Lynch Story Explained by Allen Jenkins

This week we’re joined by Mr. Allen Jenkins who spent his decades owning Lynch calls and turkey hunting. Mr. Jenkins is tells the story of how he first met M.L. Lynch and how their lives intertwined around a love of turkeys. He is a great story teller and we enjoyed each one he told. It’s a walk back in time and a chance to meet a very private person that’s had a big impact on the sport of turkey hunting. 

Listen, Learn, Enjoy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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

SPEAKER_02 0:25

We're live in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Well, welcome everybody. It's it's mid-Turkey season, mid-April here in Mississippi, and everybody's excited. Everybody's tired. Look at Richie. Richie is a good thing. Richie got a picture.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

Yeah. Yeah, because he did. That's right. And look, we got Mac in the studio. I had to bait him in. We finally ran Dudley off. I think we ought to make this a common occurrence myself.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Well, Mac, we're glad to have you. Well, thanks for having me. My dad was at a baseball game the other day, and somebody asked him, Is your son still working over there at Mossyoka? I hadn't heard him on the podcast. I mean, I don't know what the deal is going to be. It gets busy.

SPEAKER_05 1:04

You think Bobby was, you know, you think Bobby's just you know, Mac's got an open invitation.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

There's an empty chair right there all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Sometimes you don't want to go to the party, Bobby.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

I guess so. Yeah. He's been busy, is what it is. The logic is booming. You know, we've got stuff going on. So Mac is at the at the helm over there taking care of business. He's a busy book. Why we're in here just talking about well, he is the guy to take care of business, that's for sure. Sweet.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

So, Lanny, look, this podcast is long overdue.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

Yes, I'm excited about this.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

When you think about the first turkey call you remember handling and having in your pocket and in your vest or something. One name comes to mind.

SPEAKER_05 1:39

I think for everybody. It does. It's a lynch box. It's a lynch box. It sure is. Yeah. You know, we've been talking about these calls a lot and custom calls, and I'm just been, y'all have completely opened my mind to all the call makers and things that are out there. But I mean, at the start of it all, for I think most everybody around here was Lynch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

I think it was. So look, we've got two guests. Let me let me start. Let me get Wendy introduced first. Wendy is tr is here from Ottogaville, Alabama. Our very own. She works for our magazine.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

If you want to buy and have the magazine, keeper media in general, not just magazine, Bobby. I mean, this is a full service operation period.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

It absolutely is. She really focuses on that magazine. It makes it look good. And Wendy, uh, thank you for being here. You're uh you you look great like always. We're so proud to have you.

SPEAKER_07 2:23

Thank you. Thank you all for having me. I'm I'm excited. All right.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

I'm so used to looking at and smelling Lanny and and and looking at Mac and Dudley and Richie. And I look up at you and realize you're on our team. It's just like, she is on our team. She is not like anybody else that I have to deal with all day long. Yeah. And you look, she runs a hunting lodge over there, whetstone plantation. She we did a television show about it. She's the real deal now. She's raising some young'uns over there and treating, doing them, doing it right. That's right, doing it right.

SPEAKER_07 2:55

Teaching them the right ways.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

And she killed her first turkey, and the our next guest that we're going to introduce called it up for. And can you imagine having let me just get it? Mr. Alan Jenkins. There he is right there. And thank you for being here, sir.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

You're welcome. Thank you for asking me.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Well, so if you go back in time, Lanny, I think back to 1969. I wasn't even around in 1966. I was, but I wasn't, you know. But don't be frightened. He got started at uh I mean, I think that's when he killed his first turkey. We'll get him to tell.

SPEAKER_05 3:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

But I this is royalty. Lane, we are talking with turkey call royalty.

SPEAKER_05 3:35

History. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Look, I started hunting them when I was 10 years old. And that was in 1954. And then I hunted them for a couple of years. I didn't know how to hunt a turkey. Nobody did back then. And I saw a little inch box in the hardware at$5, but I couldn't afford it. But I'll show you a little collar I made. I don't know if you can see it.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

But anyway, I made that collar when I was 13 and had one little place that would make a call. And I called my first turkey up with my best buddy, whose daddy was a principal at Liberty High School. Anyway, he killed a turkey that day. We had a three-day turkey season. And the next day I called my daddy up one. Then the third day after school, I killed one. So I killed three turkeys in those three days. I say killed them, I call them up. That counts. Yeah, my dad was a sheriff, and he knew Mr. Lynch was coming into town it the next year, which was 1958. And so I took my little box to meet him and show him, and I told him I'd kill turkeys with it. Then he kind of got on me about topping his box, but this little box doesn't even look like a Lynch box whatsoever. Anyway, Mr. Lynch gave me a foolproof. And that was one of the first ones that Mr. Lynch had ever made. And I got to hunt with him that year. And I hunted with Mr. Lynch until he died. And then in 1968, he was hunting with me and he said, This is my last year I'm going to make turkey calls. He said, if you don't come to work for me, they ain't going to be no more. And I said, Well, make me 50, because I want one the rest of my life. I want to have a new one every year. Anyway, rocked on, he offered me uh a job and paid me what I was making with Chevron Oil Company. And I told him, well, I'll see you. So he gave me the price I was working for Chevron plus 10%. So I worked in about four months after I was at Lynch, uh, he wanted me to buy him out. So I bought him out four months after I went to work for Mr. Lynch. That was in 1969 in August. And then for about a year I moved it to Liberty, Mississippi, where I was from. And I made turkey calls there till 19 uh 1994 is when I moved to Thomasville, Georgia, where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

How about that? So I think 1969 figured in there somewhere. But how old are you, Mr. Jenkins? I'm I'm 81. Wow, he's a young man.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Yeah. But that's a lot of history. Well, I mean, and look, the man started out with a bang, built his own box call, and just went ahead and killed three turkeys in three days in a three-day season. I mean, that's a hot streak. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's really cool to hear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Ament County, where I'm from, was probably one of the first counties in Mississippi to have a turkey seed. It was only half of the county that you could hunt a wild turkey in. So it wasn't easy to kill a turkey back then.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Right. Yes, sir. I I've got to ask while we're right here at Liberty in Ament County. Oh, I know what's coming.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Was Jerry Clower down there? Jerry Clower was from Liberty Wright, yes. Me and Jerry were friends, yes.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

Did you ever take him turkey hunting?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

No, I never did. Jerry mainly he he had a home in Liberty, but until his later years, he he was in Yazoo City pretty much all the time.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

I think I remember that. Wow. So look. Land, what you nothing. So listed that I've got two questions. I I could you tell us a little bit about Mr. Lynch and how he got interested in turkeys way back when and came to making calls.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I think maybe some of his he was from Mississippi, and somewhere in that period of time, he must have got the love for turkeys. And that's when he I take it he saw some of the old calls like Roger Latham's or um the Gibson call, and he made some calls, and he lived in Homewood, Alabama, and he just developed it from that point. Um he did trial and error for years and years. He would change it completely, trying to make the call better and better. And then in 1958 is when he decided that this was the best he could do, and he stamped 1958 on the world champions, and then he's that same year is when he started making foolproofs, and he stamped he didn't start stamping a foolproof till 1960, and then uh he changed it in 1965, so that kind of gives you a little idea. Now he made callers in homewood that is sold for as much as$25,000. Those are the ones that he's handwritten MLH on Homewood, Alabama. Then he made the big cheese, he made which was uh a big square call. Um I can get one and show you if you'd like to see one. But uh he made jet slates and he was developing all this stuff late 40s on up into all through the 50s uh when I met him and in through the 60s. He was constantly trying to make them better.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Was he a guy that back then that would travel to many different states turkey hunting? Was he eat up with the hunting aspect?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

He back then it wasn't a lot of states, but he did travel to those states in Turkey Seed, and he filled his car up with turkey calls and he would sell them on the street uh in those areas where there were turkeys. So I mean he traveled to Pennsylvania and places like that that had a season. I mean, there's back then it wasn't a lot of states that even had a season. Uh maybe North Carolina, South Carolina, a few of those, uh probably South Florida. I mean, it just wasn't a lot of places you could go hunt a wild turkey.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Alabama didn't open up until in the late 40s or 50s, and so I mean it wasn't a place you could just go like we can today.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yeah, that makes sense. So, Wendy, you your first turkey was called up by Mr. Jenkins. Can you can you tell us that story?

SPEAKER_07 11:00

Yes. So I actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jenkins at NWTF. And so we started talking and got it all together that he was gonna come and uh take me on a hunt. And and we do guided deer and turkey hunts, but because I've always looked at our turkeys and deer as ones that my clients would be taking. Um, once I had the chance to actually go and hunt with Mr. Allen, I I took it. So um he came and stayed at the lodge with us um and and taught me a lot, like sat with me, showed me how to work his box call. He actually made a box call for me. Um, so that is something I'll treasure the rest of my life. Um and then we had a phenomenal hunt the very first morning of season when it when it opened here in Alabama. Mr. Jenkins, will you tell them about our hunt?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I think well, when I got there, Wendy told me she had seen a Turkish truck in one of her fields. So I said, well, let's just start there since I don't know anything about your property, we'll just start. So we went and stood in the edge of the woods, and the field was in front of us, probably almost a quarter of a mile across this field. So daylight broke, I hooted, a turkey gobbled way off. And I wasn't sure which way on the limb he was turning, but he was a long ways. Then we heard three or four more turkeys. Then it was the moon was out, stars. Then all of a sudden, here come the clouds. Clouds rolled in and shut the turkeys down. They'd only gobbled three or four times. So we stood there probably 20 minutes or longer, and they wouldn't gobble again. I hooped maybe a couple of times during that time that the owls even showed up. So I told her, I said, let's walk to the other end of your food plot and we'll find a place we'll just set a handle. So we did and got to the end of the food plot, and there was a little road that went off the end. But on the side of the food plot, there's some canyons. I'm talking about hollers that's 100 feet down. So I didn't know where the turkey was at being down in that holler where he would be at. So we set up, and I imagine we'd sat there probably an hour, and an ambulance or some kind of truck or something. Yeah, a fire truck, whatever it was, came up the highway, which was about a mile and a half away from us, just blowing sirene, and the turkey gobbled. So then the chase was on at that point. So everything settled down. I called to him real soft. Turkey answered me. Ten minutes later, they had moved a long ways, probably 150, 200 yards. He gobbled two or three times. I yielded real soft to him, he gobbled. And I I had Wendy set up, I knew the clock as the way I hunt. I tell somebody that tree is 12 o'clock. And to my right, to my left, it'd be three and nine o'clock. So I had her facing at 12 o'clock because I thought the turkey would actually come up her little trail that would come into that food plot. So we'd been sitting there and the turkey gobbled a couple more times, and all of a sudden I said, Wendy, I just heard something at 2 o'clock. I don't know if it was a leaf or something, I mean something broke or something. I said, I don't know what it was. It wasn't two or three minutes, Wendy said, I hear something at 2 o'clock. And at that point I started cutting my eyes, and their head was, I just couldn't see the head of the turkey. Now Wendy's over here on my right. I said, Wendy, you're gonna have to lean across me and shoot this turkey. And he said 15 steps. Wendy gradually moves the gun over, lifts it up, and shoots the turkey 15 steps. And I'm sorry, only thing Wendy could see was the head of the turkey. Oh wow, but when she shot another turkey that was with him, flew and went right back down. Wendy said, I missed. I said, No, you didn't miss Wendy, he's there. So we walked over and let him get through plopping, and we picked him up. He was gorgeous turkey, and I've never been more excited to call somebody up a turkey. Come on, how about that?

SPEAKER_07 15:32

It was awesome. I you know, when I realized I was gonna have to throw that gun up over the front of him, and he barely got his finger up and covered his ear when I took the shot. I was like, oh my gosh. But it was it was an awesome experience in the woods.

SPEAKER_05 15:47

That is great story. So, Wendy, are you gonna quit selling turkey hunts now and keep them off yourself?

SPEAKER_07 15:53

Well, you know, I may cut off an area for me.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

There you go, there you go. I see Bobby over here staring a little bit. Especially when she said they heard three. I'm like, well, maybe we need to go down there one time.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

You know, me and Wendy went and hunted down there before, too. Richie's already down in there. We did, we did, but unfortunately, we didn't have the she didn't, you know. I'm not as good as Mr. Jenkins. Obviously. Yeah, Mr. Jenkins was able to get the job done. Yeah, that is cool.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

What a great story.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Well, Wendy did she really did great. She shot that turkey. She wasn't nervous whatsoever until she shot the turkey. Then I moved telephone and she was nervous at that point. That's a sign of a killer.

SPEAKER_07 16:35

I thought I missed.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a sign of a killer right there when it wait until it's over with. Well, I just can't imagine having your first turkey called up by Alan Jenkins.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

No doubt about it. That's pretty cool stuff right there. Well, Mr. Jenkins, the your adventure with Lynch, how long did that last?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Uh I owned the Lynch Company for 38 years. Uh when I moved it from Birmingham to Liberty, we were building about 300, 350 callers a day. And then less than two years, I was having to build right at 500 callers a day. So in the early years, I mean, we kind of owned that market. Uh, and we sold them every state that a turkey seed we sold. I mean, I sold all the major wholesalers, which at that time was over 100. And then I sold like Bass Pro, Walmart, uh, some of the smaller Cabela's, those kind of people I I ship callers to. And it was an everyday fight to bill 500 callers a day. Uh, I had probably about 15 people billing to cutting parts. And you can't imagine you had to stay four or five weeks ahead on parts to do 500 a day. I ran every piece of wood me and James ever worked for Mr. Lynch and move from Birmingham to Liberty with me. A super caller, he could call a turkey, but he never had killer turkey, so he didn't know anything about the woods.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Did you ever take James Turkey on?

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Okay, I got a turkey on my wall here. The first time I took him in, we get in the woods, turkey gobbles, and there just happened to be an old harp pine stump. Yay bigger round, and it was probably fell over and burn in the woods, it burned it up about waist high. So that stump was real close and the woods were burned anyway. So we went, got behind that stump. Turkey gobbled, and I said, Okay, James, call to him. And he he was so nervous because he had never been out there, but he was more worried about a snake than anything else. So I called a turkey and he came. And by the time he got about 80 or 90 yards from us coming to us, James stood up and pointed at it. He said, I see him. And I said, Yeah, you see him running off, too, don't you? So a few days later, I was able to take him and walk him through whatever we had to do. And he killed his first turkey with me, and I got it mounted still on my wall here.

SPEAKER_05 19:26

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

What year do you think that was? Uh probably in um early 90s. He wouldn't go in the woods. Now he would deer hunt with me, but he wasn't too scared about snakes. But too many people talked about snakes around him, and he he was horrified of going in the woods uh with you know, around snakes, thinking about snakes. But I had got him a pair of snake boots, and but he only hunted two times that I know of turkey hunting. How about that?

SPEAKER_05 19:59

There he goes! Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

But he could call just like Mr. Lynch, and maybe even a little better than Mr. Lynch sometime, because Mr. Lynch at one point had got so old he had hearing aids in his ears, and they would scream, and he'd have to turn them down. Um and that's kind of where we were at Bill and College. Now I started hunting with Mr. Lynch. I had to pack a lawn chair and a sack of collars. He would pack his gun, but we could walk maybe a hundred yards. He had to stop and get his breath. We'd walk a hundred yards. So I had to drive him real close to where we would hunt at early enough that I wouldn't spook something, and then go get him set up, go cut some limbs and put around us, and then he would start calling, and I would hold my finger up and point in the direction I hear turkey. He couldn't hear him most of the time, but I'd put three fingers up if I thought he was 300 yards or 500 yards away from us, and I'd tell him, you know, call soft or you could call loud or whatever. It's corner how far the birds were. But that was mind-hissed for all those years. I packed all that stuff for Mr. Lynch. He had a, he'd take 15 callers probably with him. He'd go through every one of them and set it over here, go through another and set it down. Uh, so I learned an awful lot from him, but I also had been quail hunting as a young boy. So my daddy would let me squirrel hunt by myself and all that. So I learned the woods. So I knew a lot about the way turkeys was moving, and that's I'd go lay in the woods and sit by a tree, just listen to them. And I learned their language. Their language at that point goes from a fall language to a spring language. And when those hens go to nest. And you'll only hear them yet real soft or soft cloaks, because they don't want something to to catch them, so they'll sneak away from their nest to go back to the gobbler. So I learned that the gobbler is gonna stand and gobble just to get the hens to come to it. So all that is how I really enjoyed making the calls uh through the years I made them. I made a very few changes in the lynch box uh from Mr. Lynch's resident design. What I did was buy better mahogany than he was buying in the last four or five years that he was making calls. I started buying the best pattern grade mahogany you could buy. And today I still get a pattern grade mahogany. Comes from Peru, approving mahogany. And the people I bought truckloads of lumber from out of gut work selects that pattern grade for me and sends it to me. So I can still make a high-quality call by selecting that side piece that goes into a box. Before ever, before it's ever finished, I know that call should sound right because I watched the straight grain. If anything that had marble look or that's pretty, I didn't want it in that call side because I don't make pretty calls. I want I make calls to sound right. And that's kind of where I've been all these years. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_05 23:40

Mahogany. Yeah. And 15 box calls. I mean like you. No, that sounds the opposite of me, honestly. It sounds more like you, but anyways.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

We made them out of solid mahogany. Everything was mahogany most of the time at Lynch. But then in 1978, I started making a deluxe box. And the first ones I made a world champion, but I knew just proof, I mean, at that time I was still getting Honduras mahogany. But I got American walnuts, so I made them out of walnut for the lids and the bottoms. Sometimes the end pieces would be walnut, and then put that great mahogany sides on it to give me that sound that I was looking for. Now I've made collars out of every North American hardwood and softwood that you commercially could buy. I made it a lot of this exotic uh call, but I do not like the sound that I get from most of those calls. So I I just stick with uh what's good, mahogany walnut.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

How about that? Mike, you got a question? Uh you know I got a question. So it are you more worried about the the box itself or the lid on top of the box? What is what is plays a bigger factor as far as tone and and and loudness?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Well, I'm I'll show you a call if you can see it. This walnut is pretty much straight green, and the side of these calls are all straight green. Now on the back side, see that has a little streak in it. I wouldn't put that piece on a call side because I felt like it would definitely affect the sound of the call. So that's what I do. I pick every piece of wood that goes in these sides that's that I'm gonna build a call, and then I pick all this walnut to make lids, and then I put walnut in the bottom, bottom of them. Um there's one that's got some streaks in it. But if it's really streaky, I won't put it, make a lid. I want that lid to be straight green, then that call has an arch and an arch this way with a arch on the lid, which you got three arches coming together to make a yok sound. So that's that's what I'm looking for, the yoke sound.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Yok. Yeah, that's right. Wow. I tell you, I I'm I'm betting. Can you give us some tips on running box calls, things that you've learned through the years?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Well, the first thing I learned, these calls yep real often. But I don't yep that way hunting a turkey. If I'm in 300 yards of a turkey and he gobbles, I'll yep like this. And if he answers me, most of the time they do because they can hear it. As easy as we hear him gobble, he can hear that call. And so I'm telling him where I'm at, but he's thinking I'm gonna come to him. He's sitting up in that tree and gobble another hundred times sometime before you fly down. But I'm he knows where I'm at to the almost to the tree that I'm sitting at. So all I do is I I make a few calls. The call I call Turkey, I call up for Wendy. I probably didn't call to him but three or four times totally. And I may have clicked a couple of times knowing when he was up close. But it was a soft cloak, is all I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

How about that? You know, through the years, I've seen a lot of people that have gobbled with lynch boxes. And I don't recall any other boxes you can do that on. Is that a feature? Is that something you use often? Mr.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Lynch, he loved to put all the rubber bands and that's where you know all the little screw eyes and holes in the lid. He would put a toothpick in that middle hole and shake it. But he had rubber bands all over to get, he tightened it up until he liked this way it sounded. So yeah, the lynch box has been used for gobbling for years. Now I build a box, I don't have one right here with me, but I build a box that underneath the lid I put a dial. And that dial will only let that collar go so far either way, and then I just put some light rubber bands on it so I can get the gobble out of it.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

Yeah. What situation do you use that would you would make you gobble at a turkey?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

He's gonna have to be. If I've hunted him more than once, maybe for two or three years, because I hunt them when I find these old hermit gobblers, I just I just turns me on to beat him. I want to beat him in his game. And every now and then you can gobble at one of them one or two times. And sometimes I've been able to kill a turkey by gobbling at him, but I just don't go out through the woods gobbling. Um, I I use it at a certain time when when I feel like it'll hit me, but very rarely, most of the time they come to this box. I don't use decoys or nothing else. If he won't come to me, I didn't beat him. I mean, if he sees a decoy, I mean, he may come to it, he may turn and run. But I'm I'm not a decoy guy. Just I'm a, I guess you so ancient with this thing that I just want to be him at his games, and I don't play any tricks on him except with a call.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

Yeah, we're right there with you. That sounds good. You never gobbled one, Bobby? I don't know that I have. Oh man, you messing out.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

I actually you many years ago I had a gobble two. Yeah. And I I remember trying it, but I never had any luck with it. You gotta shake the fire out of that thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

Yeah, I don't know. I've just never never gobbled at them much. So was it hard the I mean, with being there being so few turkeys and probably even less turkey hunters, was it hard? I mean, did you feel like when you bought the business that you were like, this is gonna be a success? Or were you nervous about, I mean, how am I gonna sell these things across the country?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

I wondered that myself when I went to work for Mr. Lynx, but he appetized in fill and stream outdoor life with a little two or two and a quarter inch ad. And every day at Lynx, we'd get an order for one or two calls that Mr. Lynx and he could tell where the ad came from by he code the ads, and he wouldn't know if he'd come from feeling stream outdoor life. And I saw that there was an open market for using that, but he had these wholesalers, but he never went to a wholesale show or any of that. So when I bought him out, I started going to their shows and selling calls. So it didn't take long for me to realize this was a you know a great business.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Yeah. What about the jet slate? How did that get started?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Mr. Lynch started a jet slate. In fact, I got some right here. Mr. Lynch started in he, I think the first ones were around 55, 56 when he started making them. It was just a piece of slate and a little striker, and he designed that little square striker. He he can use three or four different types of strikers from a I guess a bullhorn, uh I don't know what all he tried, but he ended up with a little square box. I mean a piece of wood that he drilled a hole, and that's a piece of birch uh dial that he put in it. And Mr. Lynx would say, you hear how bad that is? Well, look at this. He put it up against his stomach. And that's where that slate comes from. I meant to get. And we made them for years and years. And so when I I retired from lynch in 07, and people wouldn't leave me alone. In fact, the Alabama governor, they wanted 350 calls, and I tell I can't make 350 calls for you because I can't put lynch on them. They said, we don't care what you put on as long as you make them. So I made 350 calls for them, and that's kind of how I started back making calls, and I just started putting Alan Jennings' name on them.

unknown 32:36

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Yeah, that well that Landy, that website, the calls are gorgeous. That jet slate, I I can remember as uh being 14, 15 years old, that was one of the first calls I had, and it didn't take up much room in your pocket. Oh, and you can get soft on it too. And you could get soft, and you could take a little lighter and burn the end of that birch and then sand it back down. I would I I probably did that way too often. But that was a great sounding little call, and I don't know what in the world ever happened to mine. I think about it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Well, this one is just a tad bigger, wider, than uh the original uh jets. I made it probably a eighth inch, a little bigger, because it fits in my hand a little better. The little ones were just I didn't like the size of them, but I didn't change anything at Lynch. I built them just like Mr. Lynch built them the whole time I owned the Lynx company.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

Is there anybody still with the last name Lynch that that's part of that family that turkey hunts?

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Mr. Lynch and Ms. Lynch had no kids. He had a couple of nephews, but they he had one that worked at the company, but JT Lynch, his name. JT had a problem. He was a little mental. About every two or three minutes, he'd put his watch out. He had a watch and he'd look at his time, put it back in his pocket, and he'd do a few things and he'd pull that watch out. And so I I got used to him. I wanted to fire him once I bought him, but I kept him there. I said, What what time is it? And he pulled his watch out, and he had just looked at his watch. So it was a habit with him that uh, but that's all of Lynch's. I he had a couple other nephews. I only met those boys and they were older at that time, uh, when Mr. Lynx died.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

How about that? What a great story and company. And but it's I mean, everybody has had a lynch box or a lynch jet or a foolproof. Right.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

Yeah. Sure have.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

Yeah, and I remember I can remember when I was in college, I worked at a sporting good store, Mike, and I can remember y'all coming out with some packaging. It was black and gold, and it was just it was so rich looking.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Well, I was gonna show you when I bought lynch out. If you can see this, we wrapped all the collars in paper. And when I moved to Liberty, the company, this is the first foolproof that we made in Liberty, still in wrap.

SPEAKER_05 38:23

Cool. That is I love the paper.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Okay, the reason we left, I changed paper to to a wood, I mean a cardboard box, because we drill those holes in that lid, and the screw hole, and then all of your other holes that they lined up. Well, when we shipped those in paper, I found out just in UPS who was hauling them, just a little break would crack those lids. So we had a bunch, I mean, we get three or four hundred returned every year because the lids were cracked. And so I went to a paper box like this, still having the same problem. We did this for two or three years, and I just got tired of all that, and I built a clam, a plastic clam shell. I didn't want to use them because I liked the paper. I had to quit using paper. I liked the box, had to quit, but the the clam solved my problem from them getting broke uh in shipping.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Yeah, I could see that happening. I now that is, yeah, it's red, not black, but but uh but the gold, I remember the gold, but I remember the clamshells, and you were like, I can't take it out and try it before I buy it. It was a little harder to do that.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Well, the retailers wanted them sealed so nobody would take them out of packaging.

SPEAKER_06 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

So like Bobby, yeah, run through. Mr. Jenkins, so if you're making 500 calls a day, how many how many times would somebody come in your office and was like, you might want to put this one in your drawer? Like, would you have the pick of the litter of the calls? Or I mean, would you hear one? You're like, I need to take that one, put it in my vest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

I I would take a few and keep, but when I start, I made this, I started making the deluxe boxes in in 78, and I really knew those deluxe boxes as uh putting them in my office and selling those calls rather than my regular line that I uh would sell to the general public, you know.

SPEAKER_05 40:44

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

So I I was hunting with that deluxe box, and every time I took somebody hunting that I called up a turkey for I give him the box. Every call of pretty much I've ever made taking somebody hunting that I call their first turkey up, I give them the box, I call a turkey up with.

SPEAKER_04 41:05

That's cool. Yeah, it is. Yeah, well, I bet there's been a bunch of those too.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Well, there's there's a lot more than I've killed that I've called up for other people. Yeah, I'll give hundreds of boxes away. Wow.

SPEAKER_07 41:18

Yes, he gave me mine and he told me when we headed out to go hunting. He said, now if this one doesn't call call up a turkey, we're smashing it. And I was like, Oh no, please don't smash it.

SPEAKER_05 41:29

I like his attitude. Well, Mr.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

Jenkins, do you remember when like the turkey craze kind of started and people started traveling and all of a sudden some people wanted to go to the 49 states and the Grand Slams and what what kind of got all that started in your mind?

SPEAKER_01 41:47

I'll tell you who how I got involved with the NWTL. I'm a founding director of the National Wild Tucket Federation. I'm the only living original board member that's still living.

SPEAKER_05 42:03

Wow, hit the horns, Richie.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

So in in probably 1972, Tom Rogers had an idea to start a federation. And me owning Lynch, and it was Penn Woods was the only other competition I had at that time. And so he communicated with me four or five times. He asked me, would I be interested in helping? I said, I'll help the wild turkey, whatever it takes. So anyway, he got it started, called me up, he said, I've got all the paperwork done. He said, Well, you want to be on the board? And I said, Yes, I want to be on the board, and I want to send, what are we gonna do? A lifetime membership, because I want to send you a check today to be one of the first life members of NWTF. So I wrote a check, but I think it was$250 or$350 back then to be a life member. So we started it, and every, we didn't have a mailing list, we didn't have anything. So I had all these people had bought single calls from us, their names, and at Mr. Lynchy saved them. When I moved the company to Liberty, I took all that paperwork with me. And there was, I mean, I can't tell you how many callers he had sold through the years. So I hired two young girls. They came in the office and they typed for around two weeks, and we came up with about 25,000 names. And I sent that list to Tom Rogers, which was the only mailing list we had at that time. And then an Everynch call, I went and printed a little leaflet, join the Wild Tucket Federation for$5. And that's how we got the public to know about callers, because they were getting them little leaflets back with$5 of people were joining. But when we first started for the first four, four or five years, it was a to get to$5,000 members was we jumped up and down. We had 5,000 members. And that was that took forever to get to 5,000, I'm telling you guys. And today, I mean, if you've been to the National Convention, you see how it exploded. I mean, it went from nobody wanting to join, nobody now, I'll tell you what, nobody in Alabama wanted to be a member because they don't want nobody messing with their turkeys. And they and they knew if they joined the federation, it may make people, you know, come after their turkeys. I don't know what they thought, but eventually Alabama changed and and joined the Federation. Members, you know, way up.

SPEAKER_03 44:47

So Mississippi folks weren't like that, were we? No.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Oh yeah. Same thing in Mississippi.

SPEAKER_05 44:56

That's really interesting. So I mean, essentially, uh the the NWTF was started off the original mailing list for lynch calls. Am I hearing that right?

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Yeah, you heard that right.

SPEAKER_05 45:08

Yeah, that is that's a great story right there. Not even a story, that's a great truth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

And and today that convention is just jam. Wow. Yeah, it really is. So many callmakers and people walking around. Yawk yalking. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a lot of fun to go to for sure. A lot of parties on it, you know, the pouring one for the polls. Yeah, that's right. There's a lot of fundraising that goes on around that event, for sure. For for the wild turkey. Well, and so you you got do you ever just kind of sit back and kind of look at where you've started and where the wild turkey is today and know that you had such a big part in helping that it grow like that? It's gotta it's gotta have some satisfaction associated with it.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

It does. Yeah. I I tell you what, if it was today I had to start over again, I'd probably do the same thing as I did back then. I just love the wild turkey. I love to hear them gobble. And when I go out in the morning and I don't hear one gobble, my feathers fall. I mean, it's a uh uh something inside of me. I if I hear just one gobble, I'm fine. When I don't hear one gobble, I really it makes up for a sad day for me. So I don't know if you guys understand that type of relationship I have with a wild turkey.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

No, we're oh yeah, we 100% understand that. Yeah, we get for sure.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Wow. Have you got any advice for uh you've been doing this a long time. You got any advice for somebody that misses a turkey?

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Oh yeah, you go home and you sick all the rest of the day. Uh yeah, I've missed, I tell you what, in 1970, I'll tell you a true story. In 1970, in Alabama, I went hunting and my wife's grandpa had an old uh model 12, and he I asked him, could I need Used to kill a turkey. So I went out and called up a turkey and shot and missed. So I went back, I was sick. He had another gun, a double barrel. And I said, but can I use that double barrel? And this is one day now. I go back out, I call another turkey up, and I miss that turkey with that gun. So I'm selling a wholesaler in Selma, Alabama, and we were north of Selma, not too far. I called him up and asked if he had a 12 gauge over and underbranded. So I go down and buy that gun. Come back that afternoon, I missed another turkey. The next morning I call him back up. I said, I want a 20-gauge full choke modified over and under branded. I go down there and buy another branding. Come back, I miss another turkey. I go to Mississippi. I miss seven turkeys in a row because it got to be a mental thing with me. And since then, I don't shoot them at 80 yards or 60 yards or anything. I kill turkeys at 15 or 25 steps all the time. And by not using decoys, anything like that, I pick a place that I feel good about my shot. When I see him, I want to be able to kill him. And that's kind of how I hunt him. Just like the one Wendy, that turkey was in 15 steps when he could even think about seeing us. But I didn't think he'd, I thought she'd have a 20-yard shot. If he'd come up the road, she would.

SPEAKER_04 50:38

You know, he uh what he said, missing seven turkeys in a row, I'm I'm feeling the pain that that probably inflicted on him over those days. But that's kind of how it is.

SPEAKER_05 50:47

I missed three in a row one time, and I remember thinking like you said, it gets in your head. It really does. And you can get a little target fright, and you're trying to rush it to get over the hump, and you know, taking shots maybe sooner than you should, or you know, just trying to get over the hump.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

You can't imagine what was going through my mind because I've never done that before.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

Yeah. What do you think was happening, if you had to guess?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

I don't know if I was pulling off the turkeys or once I missed the first turkey, I got excited on the next turkey, and I just kept getting more excited than I was thinking about missing a turkey. And I think that affected me as much as anything else, knowing I just missed the turkey. Then when you miss two, you get to think, oh, I'd have missed two turkeys, then three turkeys. Then seven. He wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_05 51:37

It was not fun.

SPEAKER_04 51:38

So when you finally, when you finally killed one, that that eighth turkey you shot at, I bet you that was up you you screamed with joy and love.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah, he was he was probably about 15 steps from me when I killed him.

SPEAKER_04 51:50

How about that? Well, goodness. Well, you've seen a lot of changes through the years. You've seen chokes come along, you've seen some improved shells, improved everything. I mean, just turkey gear all the way around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Oh, everything has improved since I started hunting turkeys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:06

Yeah. The modern turkey hunters got a lot of advantages.

SPEAKER_05 52:09

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot of stuff. A lot of gear. A lot of gear. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Well, I sat on the ground on a cushion with a vest. In fact, it was a I've I'm still hunting with a mossy oak vest that we built in Liberty. We sold them commercially for a while. Yeah. And I've hunted, I'm still hunting with that same vest I made back then. And I've been sitting on the ground till about five years ago, and a friend of mine had two chairs. He let me sit in one of these little low-range low chairs. And since then, I've I've kind of liking sitting in those little low chairs. In fact, I I got one for Wendy to sit in when we went hunting.

SPEAKER_07 52:54

Yes, it was nice.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

But when I sat there two or three hours sometime and not moving, I mean the ground gets kind of hard.

SPEAKER_04 53:02

Oh, yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:05

Of course, I ain't never sat there for two or three hours, but you know, now that I think about it, Mr.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

Jinx, I think I had a lynch vest at one time that was a just a real simple vest that y'all made.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

I you probably did. The ones we started with had two pockets on one side, and um I'd show you mine, but it's in the truck. But I had two boxes on one side, and I play for slates and round calls, and inside I had places you could put flashlight, you could put your head nets and uh clippers or whatever you needed to pack, and then the back, I had we figured out how you could pack a turkey in it, so it had two snaps you could open and put a turkey in there, snap, and pack them out of the woods in that backpack.

SPEAKER_05 53:55

That's right. I remember it. Well, have you ever have you ever used a mouth call much?

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Okay, I'll tell you about mouth calls. When I was 15, I thought I was the greatest you could be on a mouth caller. Sounds like a lot like us. Mr. Davis and Mobile built a little lead frame diaphragm.

SPEAKER_06 54:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

I was hunting at a hunting club in Liberty. There's about 10,000 acres where I hunted. And he would bring those mouth calls up. So I started blowing on those things when I was 14 and 15. And I really thought I was great. And so I I was calling up turkeys. Anybody would let me take them hunting back then. And one year I called up 21 turkeys in 14 days. 19 different people killed a turkey with me.

SPEAKER_05 54:47

Golly.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

So I knew the mouth and I thought I was good. But I knew the box also. But an older gentleman said, I got a turkey you can't kill. And I said, Okay. So he invited me to come. I went to his place, went down turkey gobbled, and I had my little mouth called and I yeped at him, just as pretty as you want to be. Anyway, he did not open his mouth. And so I went back another day. He wouldn't answer me. After three trips, he would not answer that mouth call. So the third trip I made, I took it out of my mouth and threw it at him. And I said, I'll be back. And so two or three days later, I took my little ink spot foodproof down there and I yep, real soft. I kill that turkey in five minutes. And I said, I may be the greatest on a mock hog, but I'll never use another one on a wild turkey. And I've had I hunt with boxes and I'll kill so many with boxes that I mean I can use my alcohol, but I just don't care for mouth calls. I like the sound. I can yet so soft on this cog. And I can't make that soft call with a mouth call because when you blow, you got air coming out. It's gets it's hard to get that soft to me on my for me to get that soft on the mouth call.

SPEAKER_05 56:18

Yeah, no question that soft call on a mouth call.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 56:21

Great story.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

Richie, have you got a question over there?

SPEAKER_02 56:24

Uh yeah, I know we've been talking about box calls and turd calls, but Lynch, so y'all make other calls as well, like grunt calls and guy calls.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

I tell you what, we we made the night in hell, David Harrell at that time had got in business, and they sent me a grunt call and wanted to send me some of them. And so I said, How many can you make? They said, Well, we can make, you know, five or six thousand. And I said, You have a mole of that we can build these things. They said, Well, we've been drilling them out. This guy, I said, Well, let's get a mole. So I bought a mole from a mole company, had them develop the the the um tubes, and I let them put them together. So I made a deal with them. I'll take the black ones and y'all can have green ones or whatever. We'll so my first year with a grunt call, I sold a hundred thousand grunt calls.

SPEAKER_05 59:16

Good grief.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

The wholesalers did not think, they thought I was crazy when I told them about deer grunt and this kind of stuff. So we did. We developed it. Then the next two or three years, everybody that made a trigger call got in the grunt call business. And I I couldn't make any money because they started selling, I was selling for seven dollars and something. They started selling for two and three dollars. So I just got out of the grunt call business. And I made owl calls, and I still hunt with a little owl call like this today. I probably made this call in 1980. Um and it's just a hooter. But I saw a plastic one out of somebody made out of a piece of pipe, and they glued them, I don't remember what they glued on the pipe, but I just started messing with them. I made some round ones, I didn't like the way it looks. I did this hextical one, and I put this tube, and it took a while to get the right angle and the whole sides, and I put a hole back here you could put your finger on, but it's just a hooter. And that's all it is. And I I still hunt one like that today. In fact, I was using the one I've been using for over 30 years with Wendy. I still carry that same hooter, and it'll make owls come and get in trees right above you. You can stir them up with this hooter. And I've hooted with my voice until I made that. How about that?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

Who cooks for you all? Yeah. Well, so Mr. Jenkins, yeah, you're such a you're you're a good storyteller. Would you think through your all these turkey hunting stories that you've got, is there a favorite one that comes to mind you can tell us, or one that really stands out?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

Well, I'll tell you what, I won't since he's passed away, I'll tell you, I a um a good friend back then named Bruce Brady, he was an outdoor writer.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:17

Oh yeah, remember Bruce.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Bruce was a good turkey hunter. Anyway, I invited Bruce down to hunt with me. He said, Well, I want to hunt with him old turkeys like you hunt all the time. I said, Oh, I got one right now that's a show enough hermit. And I said, We'll go to him. And I knew about where he would be every day. And we went in and daylight came, and um I hooted, and the turkey gobbled so low that Bruce didn't hear him gobble. And the turkey wasn't 150 yards from us. And I said, Did you hear him? He said, No. I said, he's straight in front of us, right out there. Turkey gobbled again. I said, Did you hear him? He said, no. This turkey was gobbling so low, you just could tell it was a turkey. So anyway, we sat down and I said, okay, he's on the ground. He just gobbled again. I said, he liked mouth calls, so he started calling on the mouth call. Turkey wouldn't say a word. He finally, the turkey finally got a little close to it, and he finally heard him gobble. And he said, You were right. That turkey is right there. And I said, I tell you, I heard him gobble the first time. I've been hearing him strut all this time. So anyway, Bruce yeped at him and the turkey started going off. And I said, I know about where he's headed. Come on, we'll circle around and we'll reset up. I set up again. He pulled that mouth call out. Well, he hadn't in his mouth, and he yeped on again. Turkey shut up from strutting again. So I left him alone. I yep one time on my box, think I was saying goodbye, he's gone. So that's uh, but I hunted with all the outdoor riders way back. But Bruce never got over it. He didn't hear that turkey, he couldn't hear him strut, and he wouldn't answer his call.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:10

That's a rough thing. That's a rude turn. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:17

Have you got any any tips on like what you when we're hearing them drum, do you have any tips on being able to course that sound?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

It's it's kind of difficult. I'll tell you what, I have protected my ears all these years. I'm I'm 81, I still can hear them strut. And sometimes I can hear them, it's corner in the woods, and if the foliage is not too bad, I can hear them sometime up to 100 yards or further. You're trying to get them to listen for they can't hardly hear that sound. It's just a sound that they don't pick up, and it's hard to pick that sound up. And if you don't protect your ears, uh, you'll never hear that sound. And a lot of the people I take, a lot of doctors, other people I enjoy going hunting with, they can't hear that sound. A lot of them can't even hear them gobble at a quarter of a mile off either. But the strut sound is hard to hear, and you gotta really key up and poke, because cut all the red birds out and all that activity to hear that strut sound.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:24

That's a wonderful sound. Lenny, I'm so sorry you can't hear it. I've heard it one time. Yeah. I mean, you were with me, and the turkey was from me to Mac. So if there's close to me to Mac, and I don't know if I heard his feathers ruffling, but uh definitely heard him strutting. I like what he says better, hearing him strut. Yeah instead of hearing drumming because you always say, Oh, Lenny, you don't hear him drumming? And I'm like, no. But anyway. But I do hear I can hear him spit, you know, and I key in on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

So but what I was gonna say, lots of mornings I go in the woods and I know about where those turkeys are, and I listen for them shutting on the limb because they'll strut on the limb lots of times before daylight, before even a red bird, you can hear them shutting on the limb. And so, I mean, that's a key factor for me hunting turkeys is the structure.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

I've always thought that they were awake 30 minutes before goblin time.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:19

Oh, 100%. They'll sit up there and preen, it seems like.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:21

Have you got a thought on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

Well, I know they struck on the limb before crack of day because I've I I hear them struck on the limb. So I know they'll start right right at about 30 minutes before daylight. So yeah, I mean, if you couldn't hear that sound, you'd walk right under me and flush them out of the tree.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:40

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Done it myself a bunch of times. A few times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

There he goes. I mean, a lot of people don't realize they hear turkey gobble and he's facing the other way, and they'll take off thinking they're gonna get closer. Well, he'll turn on the limb. All of a sudden, now he's almost looking at them because now he gobbles at him. And uh, people run turkeys off because they don't listen to him gobble enough to know if he's facing them or facing the other way or which direction he's in. You need to know which direction because they'll sound like they're right on top of you or half a mile off.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:18

That's good advice.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

Old turkeys, when they get to be a hermit today, they don't want they'll they'll mess with hens, but they don't want to be around another gobbler. And to kill that kind of turkey is really tough to kill them because they'll gobble so low on the limb, and the turkeys of hens will fly down and go right up underneath, and then he flies down. He'll sit up on that limb an hour, two hours. And just struck. And very rarely, sometimes they'll gobble once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes ten times, but not a lot.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:53

That sounds like every turkey I hunt.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:58

Have you gotten any advice for turkey hunters that uh I mean just something through the years that you've learned that boy, I this is something I pay attention to. I always do. Uh but uh any advice you can give us.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

The where you sit down and set up is a key to kill it most of the time. I want to find a tree that's not too big, but has some kind of background to it, some kind of bushes or something that when I sit down facing where he's gobbling, I want some a little bit of background to break my image a little bit when he walks up. So picking a place to sit down has been a key for me all these years, uh especially on a road. If I'm on a road, I want to find a bend in that road. And I want to sit on the side that he's on the other side. You got to come around that bend, and when he comes around that bend, he's gonna be 20 yards from me. And so I've got a good place to sit, and when he comes around the bend, I can kill it. But if you go to a field and sit down and he walks out there in that field without decoys, he's not coming down there. He he may yep to him, he may gobble a hundred times, but he ain't coming down. You that's where he needs people using decoys today, sitting in tents and putting decoys out and calling turkey seed, and they run to the decoy. Well, if I'm over on a field, I'm gonna sit 20 or 30 or 50 yards off of that field. I'm gonna make it come out of that field to me, and they'll do it. You just gotta be patient. But you can't lie and call them. You gotta soft call these turkeys.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:37

Soft call, Lanny. I I don't know nothing about that. Soft calling.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:41

Mr. Jenkins, uh, all you're traveling, is there a couple of states that stand out to you that you had rather turkey hunt in than any others?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

I enjoy hunting South Florida, south of Orlando. I've always hunted around a town called Yeehaw Junction and South until you get to Highway 70. Then after you get to 70, which is across the state, that's where they opened the first season at south of uh Highway 70. I've hunted with uh Chief Osciola in the Indian reservation. I called his first turkey up in that south zone. So I I took an outdoor rider down there to hunt with him, and we set up a tent out in the woods, and he came in with a about a two-foot alligator tail that was freshly killed that he cooked for us. Anyway, the next morning I took him and turkey started gobbling. He was chubby fella. He was uh in the Olympics, he was with where he had a group of five shooters, he won a gold medal with one of the five in in the Olympics. And he was quite a character, that guy was.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:08

How about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Now I I I used to have a Lisa ranch in Texas. I'd take wholesalers. I could kill 20 birds on that range, 40,000 acres, and I told him I wanted to kill 20 every year. So I paid him for 20 birds. Then I would take all these wholesalers out there to let them kill a turkey. And I had a relationship. That's one reason Linked sold a lot of calls, because I worked that side of the industry by taking them turkey on. One call I made for Bass Pro, I took their buyer to Texas and I'd call up a couple of turkeys for other people, and people that was buying maybe$100,000 or$200,000 worth of calls for me. I would take those guys first, probably. Anyway, the guy from Bass Pro wanted to hunt with me, so I took him and turkey started gobbling now, yep, real soft, and turkey flew down a few minutes. We killed him. He said, Now what kind of calls that you were using? I said, I just used a little sex lick on on a box. And he said, sex lick. I said, just a little sexy sound, real soft. He said, would you make some calls for me? So I made 1,500 calls from Bass Pro with sex lick on it. And I've seen them sell today, that's been a long time ago. I've seen them sell today for well over 100 bucks to 200 bucks that those calls.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:40

You don't have one in Bobby? I don't. No.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

Well, be on the lookout. What what should we be asking you, Mr. Jenkins? You're full of all kinds of stories. What else do we could tell us that we would enjoy?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:53

Well, I did my first TV show probably around 1980. A guy from um um I guess he was from um well he was up, not Maine, but he was up in that country. Um George Clucky was his name. He came down and we filmed, and he took that stuff back to Water Brothers and they developed a film for him. Anyway, during that period of time, we killed like three turkeys. I let my my eight-year-old son kill a turkey, so he was on that video. And then we did that video, and Water Brothers, they burn up, lost probably 600 foot of film because they put it in the raw bed or whatever they did to mess up. So he wanted to come back the next year, so I let him come back and we kill a couple more turkeys first for the uh story for. And then the last turkey I called up, I mean one heck of a turkey. He probably had a 12-inch beard, real thick, long, pretty. When he came up, they were filming and he was sitting pretty close to me. He said, kill him. And I said, No, I'm not going to kill him. I let him walk off. And that ended his show. So when he showed that film up north to people, and everybody see that last turkey, you could just hear him say, shoot him, shoot him, shoot him. And I said, I'm letting him walk off because he ain't big enough. And that kind of that was my first deal with TV. So I've done a lot of TV shows. I I I I'm not a TV guy because TV, you gotta do it, I call it fake stuff. You go out and you sit down and you call a turkey. If you kill it, then you put the story together. And I didn't like that. I like if you're gonna do it with me, let's film at daylight, me calling who here comes the turkey, we're gonna film it as and then put, but going back and shooting after you kill a turkey with everything, I just never cared for it. It's just part of me I I treat and I never did a lot of TV. I did enough, but you know, that's kind of where I'm at doing TV. And like Dave and Harold, they did TV all that all those years. I just didn't care for it. I I feel more for a wild turkey. I want to beat him at his game, and and that's kind of where I've been all my life. I'd rather take somebody, never kill a turkey, or has killed turkeys, but I like hunting with somebody to watch the excitement in them. It's what I get as much out of pulling the trigger myself.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:47

Mm-hmm. How about that? Well said. So today a guy can go, so they he can they can go to Alan Jenkins TurkeyCalls.com and there's uh the these box calls that you're making today that have your name on them and slate calls, and that that's up and running, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

Yeah, oh yes, yes. I had it shut down for a couple of weeks trying to redo some stuff, and I still gotta do it, but I'm not gonna shut it back down during turkey season anymore. But right now on my website I got um some uh Ambrose Maple boxes, I mean uh slates, and I can't get the Ambrose Maple anymore for some reason. My supplier can't get me any, so I just got some walnut in. So I've just built a few of these walnuts, I gotta get them to take the place on my website. But I mean I don't do a lot of advertising or anything else, but I'm kind of private that way. I don't boast about what I can do or something. But NWTF just did a NWTF, let's see, it's NWTF 365 Allen Jenkins. I just did something with them uh about two months ago. That's the first time a camera's been in front of me in a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

How about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:09

Well, so do you enjoy getting in the wood shop and and and is that something that that I enjoy building these calls because everyone I build, I know it's gonna sound good. And I very rarely ever have to break a box. Now, if Wendy's box hadn't called up that turkey, I'd have stepped on it and broke it in the wood.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:32

Thank goodness I didn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

Her her box is a really good box. It sounds great. And I knew it was gonna kill a turkey when I took it out there in the wood.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:45

That's good. Look, why don't we why don't we uh let's change up speak? Richie, we've got a let's turn it over to Richie. We've got a trivia question for Mr. Jenkins.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:54

Yeah, so uh we have a listener who left a review uh on Spotify. He listened to the uh episode number 431 with uh uh Mr. Ernie on Spotify. Bray left a comment as an adult hunter with no real mentor, me and my boys have learned more about hunting and gamekeeping from y'all than anyone. We're internally grateful. And Bobby, I don't have much to offer you, but if you want to come hunt turkeys in upstate South Carolina, you got an open invitation.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:23

How about that? Why did you wonder why he got it? Yeah, I wonder why this guest means. We never get any of them. I didn't pick I didn't pick this. Um whatever. So where did uh Bray win? Yeah, we've got the last nuke them blind. So we'll get sent out to them. Those are those are great. They've even got one of these chairs, like he's talking about. They do that uh those Matt, those things are real comfortable to sit on. All right, so uh Mr. Jenkins, we've got a trivia question, and it'll you and Wendy together. Y'all can y'all can collaborate on this one and see what you can what you can come up with.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:56

So first before we get to the trivia question, Mr. Jenkins and Wendy, uh, do y'all like boiled peanuts?

SPEAKER_07 1:18:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:05

Yes. So our trivia is brought to us today by our uh friends at uh Matthew Peanut Patch. Here we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:12

Our favorite boiled peanuts, great peanuts.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:14

All right, so here's our uh our question. All right, who said this phrase? Life's tragedy, tragedy is is that we get old too soon and wise too late. It's a multiple choice. A George Washington, B. Jeff Foxworthy, C, Benjamin Franklin, D. Solomon. Life's tragedies. I'd say that we have Jeff Foxworthy. Jeff Foxworthy? Well, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:43

Well, let's think about that just a little bit there. Because I kind of tied this to the turkey, and this particular person kind of had an affinity for the wild turkey. Well, I mean of course Foxworthy's got an affinity. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:59

Go through the potential. All right, so we got A. George Washington, B, Jeff Foxworthy, C, Benjamin Franklin, D, Solomon. So the Solomon's trust answer. Did Solomon hunt turkeys? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Wendy, have you got an idea?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:18

George Washington?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:20

Okay, let's keep thinking about this thing one more time. So who is the godfather of wildlife management in North America? Aldo Leopold? No, that's Theodore Risbot, isn't it? We're gonna have to edit this heavy.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:34

Yeah, Theodore was not an option.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Electricity.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:40

So we got we got so we we narrowed it down to Benjamin Franklin or Solomon. Yeah, Benjamin's either Benjamin.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:46

Benjamin Franklin.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:49

You know, so Benjamin was the guy that said that the wild turkey ought to be the national emblem instead of the bald. That's right, that's right. I'm gonna say that. There we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:58

All right, well, be the national bird, not the national emblem.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:03

Thank you for creating it. You're right.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:06

Tomato, tomato, yeah, potato, potato, casual, caramel. Well, Mr. Jenkins, we've enjoyed talking to you. Yeah, it's great to catch up.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:14

Yeah, and you're all having me on.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:17

Yeah, I'm looking at the guys. You need to go to YouTube and watch this. You could his office is really neat. He's got some beautiful paintings back there behind him.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:24

I was gonna say something about you. He was meant for YouTube. You know, he doesn't like all this post-production recreate stuff, Richie, which reminds me of some people around here. Yeah, he was just meant for YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:36

What's uh what's a day like in your right now for you over there in Thomasville?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:42

Well, my son has a cabinet shop and I go hip him. I I gotta stay active since I'm 81, but I I'm doing something all the time, but I can still hunt and walk four or five miles if I need to turkey hunting. I just want to be healthy, and that's what I do. I stay up, stay if I go sit in a chair, I'm gonna take a nap, and it's not good for us all the time. So, but I'm I'm pretty healthy, and I that's what I I build callers. I don't build a lot now. I'm not building probably two or three hundred a year, but I enjoy the ones I build, and that's kind of where I'm at. I probably could sell a lot more, but I don't try to sell a lot more. But that's a lot of calls for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:31

Well, Mr. Jenkins, we've enjoyed this so much. Thank you. Uh we we appreciate it. And and and uh goodness gracious, I love I could listen to your stories all day long.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:41

Well, well, thank y'all for having me on. It was my privilege, and I'm tickled to death that Wendy, I take it got this organized for me to be on this show with y'all. But Wendy is a Prince of a Lady.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:56

Thank you. I really enjoyed our time in the woods together.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Hoping we'll be able to do it one more time. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:04

Yeah, who's that remind you of? Yeah, that's right. One more time. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:09

Well, guys, this has been a really good one. Very, very interesting stuff. And uh have we got anything we need to any announcements? Turkey stamp.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

Yeah, got the treat to 2026 turkey stamp that just came out. Go to mossyoke.com to check that out. Uh, we will have a new gamekeeper giveaway coming up, and I believe who is is it gorilla and meat? So we're gonna have a summertime kind of giveaway coming up. Uh, so be looking for that. Also, you guys, deer season, Mac, starts now. It does. Yeah, so all the spring stuff is in in in stock. Uh soybeans, spring protein peas, uh, some clovers. Uh, we even got deer vetch and deer vetch plus Bobby. Yeah, I'm looking forward to planting some. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna talk uh with Bronson and them about vetch tomorrow, as a matter of fact. Wendy, thank you for being here. Thank you for putting this together. And Mr. Jenkins, uh we we just we we hope hope you enjoy your spring and we appreciate you spending some time with us.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:04

Yeah, thanks for what you've done for the wild turkey. Um, I mean, seriously, like just the the story of him, you know, help get the Federation started uh is in itself is just really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:13

Well, Bobby said something, I'll give you a turkey call. You just need to tell me where to send it to that you can go to the code.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:20

You can send that to Caledonia, Mississippi. Don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:24

Barton Ferry Chickasaw Dragon Ferry Road. No, don't don't worry about me, Mr. Jenkins. But I thank you very much. This has been my pleasure. Okay, mine too. All right, I'm gonna look around the room.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:38

Why don't you say goodbye, Lanny? Goodbye, Lanny. Where's Dudley? I don't know. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:45

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