Bear Grease - Ep. 2: The Thing About Owl Hooters

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Human inventiveness is displayed in our ability to mimic other animals using only our natural voice. In this episode, we’ll explore the "why" of natural voice calling, how it’s become ingrained in our hunting culture, and talk to a PHD economist to discover if there's really a correlation between an ability to owl hoot and increased overall woodsmanship. We’ll also interview a human voice expert and some of the best natural voice callers around (including one of the world’s best). This episode is literally a hoot.Connect with Clay and MeatEaterClay on InstagramMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop Bear Grease Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. Correlation does not equal causation. So just because you can al-Hoot and turkey call does not mean that that causes you to be a good hunter. If you go out with a guy turkey hunting and he rairs back

and al-hoots with his mouth or crow calls with his mouth, what does that tell you about that guy? He's authentic. He's a real hunter, right? He's a real deal. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're going to explore a communication technique is old as mankind, using the voice to mimic animal sounds. I'm trying to understand why humans do this, how it's advantageous for hunting, and how natural voice calling has embedded itself into our culture.

We're going to talk to the first person I ever heard Al-Hoot with their mouth, a PhD who's an expert on understanding correlations, an expert on the human voice and, We're going to have a conversation with the world's most decorated natural voice turkey caller who's called turkeys on the David Letterman show and the tonight show. Going to be a fun ride. You are a very effective aisle hooter from a competitive standpoint. Get off stage. My name is Clay Newcomb and this is the Bear Grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight and unlikely places.

and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Mimicking animal sounds to communicate with the natural world is as old as the hunt, and hunting is as old as mankind. Part of human uniqueness as compared to other animals is our ability to use our brains to conjure extremely varied strategies to acquire food. A small part of the equation is our ability to mimic animal sounds. And there are many reasons why we do this. Humans mimic owls, turkeys, crows, squirrels, quail, white-tail deer, coyotes, and even hawks.

These sounds are used in multiple applications. One would be to communicate with other humans in incognito ways so that other animals aren't alerted to human presence. You know, like a human making some type of bird call to let his partner know that he's made it to a certain location. Secondly, human hunters mimic the sounds made by the animals they're hunting in hopes of drawing them into striking distance. These are typically sexually based calls or territorial calls. Elk and turkey would be great examples of this. Thirdly, there are relationships between animals of different species that evoke predictable responses when the call of the other is made. The best example of this would be shock gobbling a turkey.

This is when a breeding crazed male turkey will gobble at just about any loud sound in the woods, including owls, woodpeckers, and crows, even though his breeding has nothing to do with those animals. Another example of this would be the calm feeding sounds of one species could indicate to other animals of a different species that everything is. in that section of the woods is okay. Basically, it'd be like saying there are no predators over here because I'm calm and relaxed. A good example of this would be like a hen turkey making content feeding calls that would calm and approaching deer.

I'll never forget the first time I heard someone hoot like a barred owl. You're about to meet my friend Josh Lunsford. Josh is a lanky cowboy type with a firm handshake and a strong eye gate. But he's a corporate executive in the communication business, and he's a veteran turkey hunter in Woodsman. It may sound funny, but the first time I heard Josh Alhout with his mouth,

it impacted me. I didn't know people could do that, and I never forgot it. So Josh, me and you, we grew up together. That's right. But the first time we ever went hunting together was when I was in college. And I remember telling one of our mutual friends, I was like, man, I'm going turkey hunting in the morning.

And he said, well, I can't go, but Josh is going. And so I called you and we said, hey, well, let's go together. And so we went to a place that both of us knew some public land. We walked, presumably we rode together in the truck. This was 20 years ago. So we get out. We walked back in there before daylight. It was a place with a lot of birds at the time.

I'd only turkey with my dad my whole life, never hunted with another turkey hunter. And I remember it got just about daylight. I mean, just, you know, the birds started chirping. And you didn't say anything to me. We were knelt down on the ground, and you stood up and just, oh, you let out a big al-hoot. And I remember being so impressed. I was just like, holy moly. I'd never heard anybody Al-Hoot with their mouth.

And you didn't think anything of it. You al-Hood and a turkey gobbled way over on the ridge. And we'd chase them around. and never kill one that day. So I want to hear your Al Hoot to see if I remember it like I remember it that day. Absolutely. So, and you know, in just one note, right, mutual friends, I had learned it from the helm. So you hunted with our friends Scott and Andy.

That's right. Did they ever formally teach you or did they, they were just like. You know, it's one of those things where you're hunting with people and you witness them doing something and you want to get better at it and you want to use it the way they did. You know, I grew up using it to find someone in the woods, not actually, use it as a location call. And so that was how I learned to use it as a locator call and how it could be so instrumental into making you more successful turkey hunting, right?

Yeah, I absolutely do it for you. You can probably do it as good as I can these days. But... Oh, who, who, who, who, who, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, sounds just like I remember it. That's good. If you go out with a guy turkey hunting and he rairs back and al-hoo with his mouth or crow calls with his mouth, what does that tell you about that guy?

He's taking the time to invest in being better at the sport, right? He's not, he's not just purchased his way into the sport by buying all the gadgets. Yeah. Right? He's authentic. He's a real, he's a real hunter, right? He's a real deal. And what I'll tell you is, yeah, has it made me more successful in a lot of different ways, Clay?

And the simple fact that I don't have to carry as much stuff. I don't own an al-hoot. I don't own a crow call. I don't own a box call. I own a couple diaphragm calls and a slate call. Let me ask you this. Do you ever Al-Hoot not in a turkey situation? Would anything happen in this living room where Josh Lunsford with Al-Hood?

Yeah, when the hogs win. That's it. That's it. He's talking about the Arkansas Razorbacks. I'm sure you've heard of them. As intriguing as the social communication mechanism of the natural world are, I'm maybe even more interested in something quite strange that I've taken note of in southern culture. And maybe it's other places, I can't say for sure. But it's this.

There's a lot of street cred and social status that comes with being a hunter that can make good natural voice calls. Why? People that can mimic the hoot of a barred owl are usually good Wuzman. Let me take it a step further. They're usually good turkey hunters. To a hunter, this may seem like a no-brainer, but if you think about it, it's kind of strange. You see, a bard owl is a nocturnal avian predator, usually not weighing more than five pounds. It makes its living off of small rodents. A wild turkey is a large bird weighing up to 30 pounds that spends the majority of its life walking around, eating insects, nuts, and green brows off the ground. The only The only things these animals have in common is they got a pair of wings and they roughly inhabit

the same geographic areas. But I will suggest that if you were looking for a sure fire and quick way to find a good turkey hunter, you could start by asking to hear their owl hoot. Hmm. However, the water gets really muddy right here and even more complex because this is a dynamic correlation that I'm suggesting because it is possible to be a good turkey hunter and not be able to al-hout. Wait a minute. I'm getting confused. You know what we need? We need somebody that knows about correlations to explain what this means. Dr. Malachi Nichols is an economist and he's the

director of evaluation and data quality for an education-focused nonprofit. Maybe he can help us sort this out. Dr. Nichols, I am trying to understand correlations because it's very clear to me that I make correlations all the time. Right. I don't fully understand the mechanisms of them, but I find them to be like really predictable. Right. So help me understand the connection that I very clearly see between people that can al-Hoot

very well with their mouth and their ability to be good woodsman. What's the connection that I'm seeing there? Yeah, you know, I would, I would take it one step back and say, as a researcher, like this is a social science question, right? It's just the study of human behavior. The statistical tool that we use is correlations. And simply put, a correlation is just quantifying the strength and the direction of a relationship between two things. So if A moves, How does B-moved? So if there are weak correlations and strong correlations, how do I tell the difference? And is there a terminology that would describe a correlation that isn't a legit correlation?

Yeah. And when I think of one that isn't, I'm thinking about spurious correlations. And spurious correlations are correlations that appear statistically to be related. But if you look at the context, there's no relation. No relation. What's a good example of a spurious correlation? Yeah, so I'm thinking about data in the 80s and 90s of an increased use of people wearing seatbelts was associated or related to a decrease in astronauts dying in space, right? So statistically, it was a true statement. Right, yeah.

But really, there was no connection between the two things. No connection at all. That's the power and also the hardship of statistics and data. So in my situation where I'm seeing a correlation between a person's ability to al-Hoot or mimic now, sounds and then they're jumping to their general overall ability to be an effective hunter. I see this strong correlation, okay. But inside this same situation, you don't have to be an Al Hooter to be a good hunter. What does that mean?

Like if there's for sure a correlation, but it doesn't always have to be there. And what you're describing is that it's something that we say in our world is that correlation does not equal. causation. So just because you can al-hut and turkey call does not mean that that causes you to be a good hunter. It doesn't, it's not caused. It's just, it happens to have a relationship. And so therefore you have outliers, therefore you have people who are good hunters that can't turkey call or can't out-hut. And it just says, this is a correlation. There's a relationship, but there's other factors that cause you to be a good hunter. Do we use correlations constantly and don't even realize it? Oh, yeah. It's associated.

It's, again, going back to the aspect, this is a social science question, right? The study of human behavior. And so we're always as human beings trying to make connections. It's really like a shortcut. Yeah. Yeah. Like if I hear you Al-Hoot, you don't have to tell me your story. Yeah. I know a lot of it. So it's like a social shortcut. If there were, I want you to guess for me. So if I had 10 people lined up in a line and I went through the line and a blind test and had them Al-Hoo, and then I made judgments on their experience in hunting. Do you have any predictions on how often I would be right? Probably 50% of the time. Do you think 50%? Yeah, 50%. I think 80%.

Dr. Milakhan Nichols. Okay, last thing here. Do you know the cadence of a bard owl hoot? I have no idea. Okay, I'm going to do it for you. And then I want to hear you, I want to hear your barred out hood. Okay. So this is the hood of a bard owl.

All? Oh, oh, ho. Okay, here we go. It's up. It's up. Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Uh-huh.

Hoo-hoo. Hoo-hoo. You may not be an experienced hunter, but you're headed that direction. You can get there. I'm in the right direction. Now that we've got all that sorted out, I want to introduce you to some of the voices in my world that all fit the correlation that I've so strongly identified. I don't ever remember not knowing Steve Phillips. He's a good friend of my dads and families,

and he's always had an incredible knack for using his voice to mimic animal sounds. The guy is simply gifted. And wouldn't you know it? He's a heck of a woodsman, too. When did you start mouth calling, just using your natural voice? I started mouth calling using my natural voice probably about 76 or 77. I didn't start turkey hunting until the late 80s. But Kathy and I lived out across the street from a guy that was like old McDonald's farm.

I mean, he had every kind of animal. And he even had wild turkey. He had one gobbler and he had like four hens. And so I'd sit out on the lawn chair out on the front yard and I'd listen to them hens. And I would listen to him and he'd gobble and listen to him. So I started practicing mimicking those hens and the calls that they would make to make him gobble. Just with your mouth. Just with my mouth.

Just messing around. Yeah, never put a diaphragm, any kind of slate call, didn't know what they were. Didn't turkey hunt. So I just started messing around. And so I got to where I could walk out on the front yard any morning and call, and he had gobble. Then in about the late 80s, I got asked by a guy who asked me if I wanted to go turkey hunting. And I said, well, I don't know. How is turkey hunting?

What do you do? And he said, well, you need to get a diaphragm call. And I said, well, I'll go. I can call them with my mouth. and he assured me I probably couldn't so he took before daylight and he turned me out and he said that he knew there was some turkeys in there and he actually told me what I needed to do

you know he said pull in on top of the mountain listen to you hear one and try to get as close to it as you can and then make your call I said okay so we went got on the mountain heard the turkey gobble I got in what I thought was rather close made my mouth call he answered me

I just sit there a little bit, and before I knew it, he gobbled right below me. I called him again, and he came in. I shot him and killed him, went back to the truck within probably hour and a half. And I thought, you know, there's nothing to this turkey hunting. Little did I know there was a lot to turkey hunting. Andy Brown, who's a good friend of yours, he taught me everything I know about turkey hunting. He taught me, you know, what to do, when to do. And so I took it to the next level.

I practiced all the time learning how to call. Let's hear your calls. Yeah, I usually use two different locator calls. Early morning is the owl call. We'll do an out call when I first get out right before daylight. You know, well, it's still dark. I'll usually get out and I'll... Oh, who, who, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, and then you can also sometimes,

if you get two or three hours, I know you've heard two or three hours come in. That really gets a turkey really fired up. You can, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and that will get them really fine. Get them laughing. And then later on, you know, in the morning or something during the day, I use a crow call. And so I learned how to make the crow call with just my mouth, not a crow calls. That sounds good, man. I bet you can call a crow in right now.

Well, probably good. Yeah. Okay, now what I know you for, well, I know you for your crow calling, your alcohol. There's two of them. Hit him again. This crow's lit in the tree about 50 shotgun range from us. If you got a turkey choke on, I wish you could call. All right, let me hear your turkey call.

Okay. As you well know, your regular Yelp call, that's what I use the most. But when a turkey gets in close, you know, what do you usually hear when turkeys get in if hens are in? They're not calling real loud. They're doing more of a purring and just talking. And I will hit him with a, and then I'll slow down a little bit when they get to. and then closer and all this. That sounds really good.

Sounds really good. Most people can't call that good with a diaphragm. Okay, here's my question for you. Do you see a correlation between people that can natural voice call and people that are really good woodsmen? Yes, I do. Let me tell you this. I think there's two kind of turkey hunters.

There's a caller and then there's a turkey killer. And I consider myself a turkey killer. I'm not the best caller in the woods. You've got guys that go to these contests, and I mean, they're really good. I think personally that the call is about maybe 15%, but I think the setup and location and how you set up on a turkey determines whether you're going to kill that turkey or not. To me, I've always said that somebody that can call with their voice has a lot of street cred in my book. So you got some street cred, man.

Show me your squirrel bark. That's good. Try to call those crows in. I heard him call all. ago. That's awesome. Do you ever use an al-Hood or anything for something other than a functional turkey locator? We as hunters, as a group of hunters, as you know, we do use an al-Hoot.

I can actually pick out like Andy and Wayne and Scott, you know, your different tones. I can tell when they're hooting. They can tell when I al-Hoop. You know, they learn that sound. So if we're ready to get down out of the woods or ready to live, leave or if we kill something, we'll al-hoot. Do you ever do it when you're not hunting? Do you, like something good happens at the house?

Yeah. Woo-hoo! Oh, yeah. We get out and we'll al-Hood out at the house when something's going. So what does it mean when Steve Phillips al-Hoot's not in the woods? Like what's giving an example of something that's happened? Why would you out-hook? Usually if something good has happened, I might be out in the backyard and one of the

the kids have done something, sometimes I'll throw an out as bad. You know, they think I'm crazy. It's a celebratory. It's a celebratory thing. There you go. There you go. Exactly. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the same. sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods,

they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut

is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. It was zero surprise to me when I learned that Mo Shepherd had a good owl and crow call. The guy is a turkey hunter's turkey hunter. He's been successful year after year on some tough public ground and a spring hasn't passed in the last 45 years when he hadn't brought home a spring gobbler. He's got a unique technique for prepping his voice

to make the hoot of a barred owl. Meet Mo Shepherd. So you, I know you owl hoot because I've heard you do it before, but you also crow call with your voice. Yes, I do. I do it a lot with my voice because it's so handy and easy and you don't have to move or anything. You know, I can be sitting there totally still.

And if a turkey hadn't gobbled in a while but I'm working or something other, I can just call with my voice and, you know, make a... Did anybody teach you or did you just learn how to do it? I just learned to do it on my own. Like I said, when I was a kid, I heard all those sounds out in the woods and stuff, but I didn't really try, I tried, but didn't make much success at it. I didn't really learn to Al Hoot until I was, I'd probably turkey hunted.

Did you hear somebody Al Hoot? Yes, I had a brother-in-law that Al-Hooted. He's the one that got me into turkey hunting. Mm-hmm. And he was good at Al-Hooting. Okay, hey, walk me through... Good voice callers are usually pretty good woodsmen and pretty good hunters.

Yeah. Okay, walk me through your Al-Hooten process because I know you kind of have something you do. Like I said, I tried it for years when I was younger, and then one day I'd seen somebody kind of doing this that I was hunting with, and the best I can remember, he said, you know, he said, you got to get your throat right to make the noise come out right.

He said, if you don't, it just blurts out. So I kind of swallow some air, if that makes any sense. I swallow air for three or four gulps before I start my out ofute and it gets the right tone in there. Well, let's hear it. And like I said, you'll probably hear this.

You should be able to hear a little bit of this of me swalling the air, like I said, I talk about. Nice. Let me hear your crow calls. Just tell me what it's, let's hear it all. I don't know what it's called, but, you know, crows make a lot of different sounds. Lots of different series and sounds.

And, you know, sometimes turkey's govled a long series. Sometimes they gobble it short calls, you know, just a short blast and stuff. So, you know, it's just whatever mode I'm in or what mood I'm in what I blast out when I do it. But I can do several different cadences of it. Old Ryan Greb is an all-around woodsman. From bears to turkeys to catching spring crappie, he's an expert. I've actually never turkey hunted with Ryan, but I knew he had a good al-hout before I ever heard it.

Our ability to make accurate predictions based on correlations is stunning, and it streamlines our ability to make judgments. I want you to meet old Ryan Flintface Greb. He rarely smiles for pictures, so I call him Flint Face. So where did you learn to use your natural voice to call with? Just growing up and probably hearing some older guys in high school that I knew that were hunters, you know, and they had hunted a few more years than I actually had. And I heard them doing that out of them.

What did you hear them do, al-Hoot? Al-Hoot's, you know, turkey yelping, crow call and, you know, stuff like that. You just kind of started doing it on your own. There was times I would, you know, when I was younger, I'd sit outside and just at night by myself in the driveway, while the family was inside, you know, and I just tried to practice. Let me hear your, what you'd use on a good spring morning to get a turkey to gobble. I'm not very good at... Oh, come on.

I'm not. I'm really not. Better at crow than I am. Well, I want to hear your owl and your crow. That's good. Crow? Crow. That sounds good, man.

So do you ever use a barred owl call for anything other than hunting? Like, for instance, would there ever be a reason that you would barred alcohol in your house? house? Maybe to aggravate the wife sometimes. Do you ever alhout when you're excited about something as a celebratory? Yeah, out of time. Okay, what would what would have to happen in Ryan Grebs life for him to alhut not at a turkey gobble? Give me an example. Oh, catch a three-pound croppy. Benjamin Moore is a New York-based voice and speech teacher where he coaches Broadway, film, and TV actors as well as diplomats. Benjamin Moore is a New York-based voice and speech teacher where he coaches Broadway, film, and TV actors, as well as diplomats. scientist and economist at some highfalutant organizations like the United Nations.

Benjamin works for the Link Ladder Center for Voice and Language and the City University of New York. I've got a feeling that he's got some insight into why humans are so good at mimicking animal sounds. Benjamin, I am trying to understand why humans are so dynamic in our ability to mimic. The only animal that I can think of offhand that does this is a mocking bird, but are there other examples in the animal kingdom of animals that can mimic other sounds? There are a lot, but as far as mimicking human speech goes, the only other animals that really do that consistently, there have been some, like, strange things about seals and even an elephant one time that learned how to say a few words. But, but, but,

in the animal kingdom, it's birds, it's parrots, parakeets. Probably the king of imitating our speech are parakeets. They can learn as many as 400 words. Let me ask you this, Benjamin, if we're so unique in our ability to mimic other animals, what is it from an anatomy and physiology perspective that allows a human to make so much variation in our voice? Our larynx and respiratory system is much more sophisticated than any of the other species going. We have a big range. Most of us in our daily conversation have a couple of octaves of range.

With a little bit of training, every one of us can have something more than four octaves. So we have this big range from low in the voice to high in the voice. And then on top of that, up above your vocal cords, that tube that comes up from the vocal folds called the pharynx, it goes up, goes up behind the mouth, goes up through the nose. That obviously comes out through the mouth where there's the tongue, the jaw, and the lips. That whole tube has muscles there that not only are good for swallowing food, but also adjust the shape of the vibrations as they come up and out. All of that has this incredible flexibility.

We learn it, just like the parrots do and the mockingbirds do. We learn most of our sounds through imitation. In all the languages of the world, there's something more than 2,000 sounds that human beings are able to produce. And every one of us that is normally functioning when we're born can hear and distinguish all those different sounds. Over a period of time, we began to lose it because it's a same. not useful and the brain begins to streamline itself for what is a useful communication and what's not. I have one final question for you. I know all these people that are incredible natural voice callers. Why are they so good at this and other people are not? Yeah. With the understanding that

all of us are born a little bit different, some vocal cords are longer than the others and the shape of the mouth and stuff is always going to be different. The real difference is their interest, their passion in the subject. Almost everybody can develop a huge range in different ways of speaking. We're just really flexible that way as a species. And we do know that human beings who want to be an expert in something, whether it's a professional athlete or an artist or a mechanic, what their passion is, and they say it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, what their passion is really drives them in a couple of different ways. One is that that emotional framework allows us to marry our intellect with our physical skill sets so that the skill sets just aren't

something that the body's doing. There's a real understanding that comes. But also with that passion comes an ability to perceive and really focus in on the details of a situation. Like for these natural callers, they are hearing that turkey in a way that even when I would go out and try to hunt, I was like, I know for sure I'm not hearing a turkey the way Preston is, for instance. And how attuned he is with his ears is like a symphony conductor. So Benjamin, are you familiar with the hoot of a bar? I am. Okay, I'm going to hoot like a bard owl, okay? I want you to tell me what I could do better. If you can, just in one hoot, here's my owl hoot. I'm going to step back just a little bit away.

All right, give it a go. That's my owl hoot. Wow, that's great. Once you go up into that high part, the tongue is going to want to come up, but you're going to want to try to leave that down so that it's more resonant coming up through the front part of your face. So try to keep my tongue down. I see what you're going to keep. So the back, that's closer. Yeah. Hey, yeah. Man, how about that? I push my tongue down. I'm, I have to say, I'm impressed, Clay. I wasn't expecting that today. It's great. Preston Pittman isn't normal. He's one of the best natural voice callers on the continent and certainly the most decorated. After meeting him, it's clear. He

Must have been raised in a clutch of wild turkey. Anthropomorphism is when we assign animals human-like traits. Zoolmorphism is when we assign a human-animal-like traits. Preston has been zoonorphized. Or maybe he's just a darn good Mississippi turkey hunter and woodsman. Preston became the Mississippi State Turkey Collin champion when he was 16 years old. Today, he's 67 years old. He won that first calling contest with his natural voice.

Since that time, he's won the World Turkey Calling Contest, the World Natural Voice Turkey Calling Contest, the World Gobbling Turkey Calling Contest, and he was the world champion natural voice Al Hooter. He is the only person to hold five different world titles. He was on the David Letterman show three times and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno calling turkeys. But of more note than all these accolades,

Preston is probably as good a turkey hunter as has ever drawn a breath of air. Here's the clip of Preston in his prime. I ain't going to sell that call to you. It's not for sale. Or no amount of money. That's my natural voice. Hi, I'm Preston Pittman. I've been blessed that I've held a world championship several times,

the World Natural Voice Calling Championship. But let's tell you what, there is nothing in this world that sounds as good as natural voice. voice calling does. So Preston, tell me about when you first started using your natural voice for calling. Well, they pick on me a little bit, say that when I was hatched on November the 28th of 1953, that when I popped out of my mama and the baby doctor grabbed me by my hind leg and spank me on the rear end instead of crying, is what come out of my mouth. But in all seriousness, being from a family that always hunted and always fished, I guess I couldn't help but hunt.

And my dad was not a turkey hunter. He was a big dog person back whenever we hit quail here in the south and run deer with dogs. And we did things together. And they used to have an old, timey day and a little town by the name of Carthage, Mississippi. And at that 4th of July, which when it was celebration of our grandkids, we had a great day, we had a little town by the name of Carthage, Mississippi. of our great country. They had a turkey calling contest, a duck calling contest, an axe throwing contest. And they had the Mississippi State Duck Collin, Mississippi State Championship in Turkey Collin.

Back when I was about 12-ish, I met a gentleman my name of Jack Dudley, who at that point in time was the Mississippi State champion wild turkey caller. And he was good enough just on that day to start working with me, kind of told me what to do and how to stretch. my vocal cords and I'll be dad gum at the end of the day I was I was making a somewhat of a turkey sound and uh kind of the rest of the story is I had won the fishing rodeo for kids and I was a year too old so I had already been awarded the plaque and uh I had to get the plaque back and that was okay I understood well I just kind of made myself a vow I said one day I'm gonna come back and win me a trophy here you know between something I'm gonna be able to do it But Mr. Dudley would go to some of the sportsmen's clubs and do little short seminars.

He had a 45 RPM record that I memorized, you know, word for work. And it was on turkey calling. It was on turkey calling. Really? Are there any of those left today that you know? I know what is one I met. In your house. Uh-huh.

And it ain't for sale. And at one point in time, I could literally quote it. My hello, my name is Jack Dudley, and I'm going to teach you how to turkey. call. The first call that I'm going to teach you is going to be a mating call. And this is the way you do a mating call. You know, three ups and two clubs. But kind of making a long story short,

it's 16 years old. I went back to that same contest. And I won, and we didn't have youth divisions back then. You know, it was a calling contest and very few of those. And I won the Mississippi State Championship perky collar. And from there, it just went on and on and on and on and on. Preston, act like I've never turkey hunted

and give me a good look into the vocalizations of the wild turkey. And again, this is all just with your natural voice. Okay, well, it's 67 years old. I have stretched my larynx, my vocal cords so much till it's like a rubber band that you laid up on the dashboard as you truck. Yeah. I can barely yip a little bit, cluck a little bit, purr a little bit, and sometimes gobble. Yeah.

So the quality is not there. Too many people, especially, I'm just going to say it, since a podcast and Facebook and YouTube and all that junk, they won't learn how to kicky, run, cackle, fly down, excited hand y' y'n yups, cutting, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, y'at. No. No. As a beginner, you need to learn one sound and one sound only until you can do. it exactly the way that you want to do it every time. And that is the basic hand yelp. I will use a human analogy with you. I can take one word and have three very total different meanings.

I can go, hey, or I can go, hey, or I can go, hey, he. And you can do that all basically with a yelp. So it's kind of like building a house. Build that foundation, solid. Then start adding a call. Then go back and do your foundation. It's calm, it's cool, it's collective, it's peaceful, it's tranquility. Come on in big boy, I want to date you, okay? There can be.

That's more of I'm reaching out. I want company, where are you? Yeah. An assembly call. Let's bring our fault. Either way. Yeah. Or speeding it up, speeding the rhythm up, or acting more excited.

Day in, day out, especially on southern birds, then I don't want unless I know the particular bird or I'm just trying to locate one, I will always revert back to softer, calmer calling. Let me ask you a question. So you, you are a natural voice caller. And you also do incredible diaphragm calls and all kind of other calls. But I'm interested in your natural voice stuff. I understand.

How much of that was practice? How much of it was natural talent? I was gifted. Okay. Even Mr. Dudley looked at me. He said, son, he says, you're natural. He said, everybody can't do this crap. I'm inhaling there.

I'm sucking in. Okay. Which gives you more rasp to her now. And it's not like. like what it used to be, but it's almost like me saying the word, ow. Now get your tongue working. Describe what's happening in your mouth when you make that gobble. I'm sucking air in, and I'm mimicking the word,

then I get my tongue to flopping up and down, and I will use my cheeks. Watch my cheeks. See how I'm bringing it in? The cheeks are moving. Yeah. And I'm bringing my mouth in to get that tail off of the gobble. But anybody and everybody can at least what I call squeak something out. Yeah. Like they can get a, because that's all I'm doing now.

I mean, I've lost it. But I mean, you can hear the word owl in there. I'll take it out, but I'm over-exaggerating. Yeah. You can get a little something. And let me tell you this. Take a group of 100 turkey hunters. Anywhere in the United States, I bet you there aren't over two to five people that can do anything with their natural voice.

It's something he has not heard. He is not used to it. A natural voice caller as far as harvesting a bird, a natural voice caller, and or either, a trumpet or wing bone user will kill some of those that you walk up to the limb and you hang his spurs up on any swings back and So do you think natural voice calling gives you an advantage in hunting? They ain't no if and butts or doubts. Yeah. I mean, I'm basically, I'll use a little bit of everything now, but my go-to call is a diaphragm. That's first, okay?

But there's a lot of times I'm blowing a diaphragm, and just to mix it in, I'm liable to throw my voice to make it sound like another hen coming in and add that little more realism into it. You told me about adding realism to your calling set and how you would used to bark like a squirrel. Oh, yes. would crow. Like, so you're calling a turkey. So there's a gobbler that you're hearing, you're hindi helping, but then you might bark like

a squirrel. Let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm basically kind of canning in on tough turkeys now, okay, hard bird. Birds that's called shy, birds that's been messed with. No, birds are in that four and older year range bracket. But I don't hurt everything. Okay. Then they had the kitchen sink drawn at them.

Well, I'm fixing to now throw the kitchen sink, the commode, the vast tub, heck the front door at him. I try to paint a picture. And by that, for y'all turkey hunters out there, what happens whenever a crow gets on birds? He starts raising king, right? And a cow is looking at the turkey. Right. The crow's looking at the turkey. How many times have you been sitting in the woods and have like a little thicket or a blowdown

or in between you and your bird, the bird shuts up, five minutes is gone by, nothing has happened, 10 minutes is gone by, nothing has happened. You hadn't heard anything, but you didn't notice that. little thrush that come flying out of that thicket. What made it come flying out? And then 12, 14 minutes later, 15 minutes later, all of a sudden, oh my God, where'd he come from? There he is in full strut. He's been there the whole time. So as I tell people, I see with my ears, because I see more with my ears than I do with my eyes. It's paying attention to the squirrel barking, well, there's something moving through the woods. And if you will pay attention as to what's going on,

in Mother Nature, you will automatically step up. Now, if you can add some of those sounds, like when we used to have Bob White Quill, that was one of my favorite things to do. Was it just sit there and see if I can still do it. I would mix that in with my calling.

Quill are trying to get back together or throw a Bob White at it, you know, the Bob White whistle. Mix it in with your turkey call. Mixing it with your turkey call. Because that means there's other wildlife there that's at ease. Yes. Yes. And so that he's going to think. Well, there's quail over there. I never could learn a redbird.

I wanted to learn a red bird so bad it was pathetic. I want to go a little bit deeper with you to kind of the thing behind the thing. In southern culture, it means something to be able to call with your natural voice. If a guy walked into this camp right now and he could owl call like a bard owl, he could gobble like a turkey with his mouth, what would that say to you about his? woodsmanship, his hunting prowess. I can answer that very simply and very shortly. I don't want you on my land because that tells me that is a person who is dedicated, especially if they could do a full range of calls, that tells me that that individual is either

one, a kid, or that is a seasoned outdoorsman. Like I said, stay off my land. I don't want somebody like that in there. So the bard owl in Mississippi culture. Yes. Where would Preston Pittman owl hoot, not in a turkey hunting situation? Give me an example of why you would owl hoot in your life. Oh, I can tell you that real quick.

Instead of hooping, hollering, whatever it may be, I think probably every contest that I ever won. I did something like this right here, and then I gobble behind it. You let me get at a football game, which I don't go to a whole bunch of them because I'm in the woods hunting. Then I can do that single note, you know, like that hoo-ah instead of hollering and screaming. It's my happy holler is what it breaks down to. You know, I'm happy. Or I'm rooting for somebody. Why do you think we do that?

It's a southern thing. It's a southern thing. I mean, you got to eat grits, you know what I mean? Don't eat no oatmeal or cream of wheat junk. It's a grits thing is what it is. It's just a, it's a southern thing. Preston, I'm, I think for a southern, well, okay, I'm going to set you up for something to judge me, okay? Okay.

Okay. My assessment of myself, I think I am a average southern owl hooter. Okay. Do you want me to judge you being in a contest or do you want me to judge you as a hunter? Judge me as a hunter. Okay. And then give me the critique of a contest. But I want, I'm going to Al Hoot, and I want you to give me just your honest assessment.

And I want you to coach me because let me tell you something. I'm going to turn my back to you. I take a lot of pride in my Al-Hooten, and I use it all the time. I mean, I use it as a form of communication. Are we still going to be friends whenever you leave here? No, no. I want the truth, man. Oh, that's my secret.

You are a very effective owl hooter, probably a little better than average. Okay. From a competitive standpoint, get off stage. Okay. You ain't going to hold a candle. Okay. That's being real honest with you. And also, too, so I had to coach you right now from a hunting purely perspective.

Yes. There are so many times when you go in to all the different notes that an owl makes. Yes. He's done gobbled once or twice and you ain't heard him. There you go. So you need a short like, or even just a hoo-I. Preston, you've made a lifestyle, a career, and you've dedicated yourself and your personal passion towards not just turkey hunting, but turkey calling.

What does turkey hunting mean to Preston Pittman? It's my life. I don't know any other real way to put it, but it is. It's a gift that God Almighty gave me who blessed a barely high school educated person that dreamed of being a game warden so I could be out and outdoors all the time, which, oh, Lord God, it's giving me a dream come true. It's basically what it has. And at 67, I have not lost that passion.

Have you ever thought about why? I mean, like you think about a human and what we're here on earth to do while we're here. Why is Turkey getting so special to you? Remember this. I enjoy all of the outdoors, but there's something about that time of year. It's about sitting there and seeing the beautiful dog woods come into full bloom. It's about the first buttercups, you know, start to pop up. It's about seeing life come back to the dead woods again.

It's about being mesmerized by a spider. It's something about that time of year. It's like everything's going to be okay. The winter's over with. It's not cold. And there's life in everything again. You know, what I hear when I hear you talk like this and describe nature in these ways is I hear somebody that's really paying attention and is perceptive and aware and cognizant of detail.

And I think that as hunters, we are in a situation where we are trying to fool a part of nature. And so we're having to embed ourselves inside of a system that we're usually not in. You're paying attention to all this stuff. And I think that's a quality that is lost inside of much of modern society. Because technology, different things, the modern world has taken away our need for. for that type of awareness. And so just as I hear you describe that, I take it as a personal challenge

to be more aware and be more in tune with what's going on around because that just provides this rich palette for what I see inside of you as a man that's passionate, loves what he's doing, appreciative of what he's doing. That doesn't come by accident. That's real intentional. A human's ability to mimic the wide array of animal sounds

is a special part of human, unique, and it's embedded itself into our culture. In the South especially, there is cultural value placed on realism and even higher social status assigned to the people who are proficient at it. A good Al Hoot is a reflection of confidence, practice, and natural talent and carries with it a strong correlation of being a proficient woodsman. It's really unique when you think about it, But we have incorporated, or maybe even, hijacked the language of the bard owl

to communicate with other humans a very high level of meaning. That nine-note sequence would take a whole lot of human words to describe what it means. I wonder where else in our lives we do this. Humans are constantly looking for shortcuts in communication to tell others who we are. Much of the time these messages are our calling card for deeper human relationships, even in Al Hoot. These social science questions are highly interesting to me, and they make me more aware of myself and why I do what I do. When I hear somebody Al Hoot, I feel a deep connection to them, and I suspect that that's an ancient social mechanism, and I like it. I love it.

Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods,

They're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut

for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.