The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 173: Here’s What You Oughta Do

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

Steven Rinella talks with Becky Humphries, Spencer Neuharth, Ryan Callaghan, Joe Ferronato, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: Joe Ferronato as Vanna White; 8-inch beards; nail files; the Lacey Act; swapping turkeys for zebras; West Nile, bird flu and the pox; over-the-counter tags vs. tag draws; Steve’s genius idea for the NWTF; a pretty aggressive female name; anti-shaming; how to be a good hunting mentor; the crawfish and snake diet; the beauty of saying "I don't know"; thighs and drumsticks; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, everyone.

Today we're joined by, most prominently, Becky Humphries from National Wild Turkey Federation. Who's been on before? I have. NWTF. NWTF. We're going to talk to you a whole bunch. Before we do that, we're going to talk to our very own Joe Farentano. Farenato, but close enough.

Farenato? Yeah. That's how well I know Joe. Are you thinking we should? I thought you were Italian. I know, but a lot of that's been lost. A lot of my Italian-ness

has drifted. Farinato. Yep. No wonder I couldn't find your phone number on my phone. You're still on it, aren't you? But this is your first time

you've ever been on, this is the first time you've ever stepped on. Yep. And you're only here for a minute. Yeah, I know. This is a trial run. It is.

We did, the reason Joe's here, we did a, if you write an email into us, Joe will likely reply. Or at least knows what's going on. Joe's the gatekeeper. We recently did a thing where we were raising money. We had my former fish shooting bow, right? And we told people, hey, whoever promises to send the highest amount of money to TRCP gets the fish shooting bow. And Joe, tell them what happened.

Some of the challenges we faced and how we handled them. Yeah. So, I mean, we had a lot of people writing in about it. Are you single, Joe? Am I single? No. Oh, you're not single? I'm not. Okay, so I mean we had a lot of people write in about it. Are you single, Joe? Am I single? No. Or you're not single? I'm not. Okay, go ahead. I'm engaged. Yeah, he's heading down the opposite path. I was going to put in a little plug for you.

No, I'm good, man. Oh, okay, great. Thanks. You can talk up that Ferritano guy. Go on. But yeah, so I mean we had a lot of people write in, lots of good donation offers. Probably the biggest struggle is people donating the money before they received the bow. Preemptive, like a preemptive donation. Preemptive donation, thinking that they were going to get it anyway, which I mean is awesome.

But on this next giveaway, I'd make sure that you don't donate until you realize that you're the one getting the bow. Yeah. And what was another street? If you want, you could certainly donate. Yeah, I mean, if you want to. It's always more than that. It's not going to a bad place. No, and I think what they were trying to do was,

I don't think they thought they had got the bow. I think they were like, look how serious I am. Here it already is. But then we had another strange offer. Another strange offer. Explain that one. $25 a month for the next 50 years. Yeah, he was 35.

He's fixing to live until 85, right? Yeah, he said he's not planning to die until he was 85 years old. He's going to put in a credit card. He's going to keep the same credit card number for 50 years. Yep, and then just donate $25 a month for the next 50 years. And we spent a long time talking about that offer. Yeah. How did we fall in the end?

We fell on the probably wouldn wouldn't happen probably wouldn't be continuous throughout that 50 years so we decided to do a lump sum right up front nothing nothing against that fella yeah nothing against it's just a complicated process very complicated the legacy partner program which here at mediator we're not really set up to facilitate yeah not really and tell them um what that bow was not the one in your hand not the new giveaway not the new one the uh the old fishbowl the oneida osprey yeah yeah it's a pretty good fishbowl left and here's the big thing left-handed yeah left-handed because you're you're a lefty and left-handed osprey now explain the new bow. This is, you have to, because Becky's here, so in honor of Becky being here,

you, this bow, whoever pledges to give the highest amount to NWTF gets the bow. Explain the bow. This is a ready-to-shoot bow. I almost left the quiver full. A world-traveling ready-to-shoot bow. It is a world-traveling bow.

It's a world-traveled bow. You can tell by the string. Needs a new string. We might actually cut that string before we send it to make sure you put a new string on it. Be prepared to have it arrive with no string on it. What do you think? Do you think that's a real liability like that?

No, I don't think it's going to break. It just needs to be waxed. Okay, never mind. We're not cutting the string. This is a ready-to-shoot bow, and Joe is going to walk you through the accessory package. Yeah. Can I tell him what the bow is first? However you want to do it, yeah. We were trying to tell Joe he was going to be like Vanna White,

but Joe doesn't know who Vanna White is. That age is Joe. I'm young. I'm sorry. But it's a Hoyt carbon spider. Left-handed, obviously. It's got the Spothog, I believe it's called the Hunter, five-pin sight on it with the micro adjust.

Spendy sight. It is. It's a good sight. I've had it on my bows for many, many years. It has the Hoyt Ultra Rest. So it's just like the QAD Ultra Rest drop away. Joe's good at this. Like knows the product names.

He shoots a bow a lot. Yeah, I'd be like, it's got a, you know. Flippy thing. This thing that you lift up with your thumb and then it falls away. No, it's a great rest. In good condition. So you did a good job taking care of it. It's got strings on it and little pulley things on there.

Little pulley things on there? Yeah. No, it's good. It's a 60 to 70 pound bell. It looks like it's not maxed out right now. You're pulling like 65, Steve? That's actually 90. Yeah, 90.

Then it has a two-piece Hoyt quiver, the one that attaches straight to the bow. So it's not a removable quiver, but it's a great bow. It's an awesome giveaway. And check this out. When our new episodes roll up on Netflix, you'll see that bow used.

That bow makes the appearance of quite a few. I was using that bow when we did our Nevada hunt with Rogan. Yeah. Used that bow and killed a real whopper of an elk last year, which will be on a thing. Used that bow down in, I don't know if it ever made it into the cut, but it was down in Guyana. Oh, definitely. No, you shot the...

Was it the Curacao? Yeah, hunting birds down in South America. It's made several appearances. You'll see another episode where I miss... At point-blank range, I miss the Sika deer or that bow. Not the bow's fault. It might be the bow's fault. Any mistakes you see, it would be like, not the bow's fault it might be any mistakes you see it

would be like not that bow's fault hey you know you know should you tell them the draw length um i'm guessing since you're a 29 inch draw length that this is set at 29 and if it's not you have to go get it that's probably what i think it might be 28 to be honest with you i think so all right so here's what you do tell them how you do. Tell them how to do it. Tell them how to do it that makes your life easier and tell them how long you're willing to field offers. So this podcast will drop on a Monday and we'll leave that open for two days. We'll decide Wednesday.

I'll reach out to the person with the highest donation on Wednesday and that's how you'll get the bill. One-time donation. One-time donation. Don, one-time donation. Don't try and finance your donations. We're not going to do that. We're not going to set up the legacy partnership with you. So do they send you like a receipt, or they just send an email that says,

hey, I'm going to pledge this much if I get the loan? No, we need documentation. Yeah, so once I reach out to them, I'll have them go forward and send the receipt back in. Okay, got it. So with confirmation that they donated the money. But first, they just sent an email saying, I'm planning on pledging this amount.

Exactly. And we'll actually have Becky here have one of her people verify that it came through. Got it. Yeah, we want to make sure it's verified because we don't want to just send Steve's world-traveling boat to somebody who didn't donate the money. Hoyt Carbon Spider. What do you think?

Hoyt Carbon Spider. 1, you think? Hoyt carbon spider. A thousand bucks? I think we'll get a K going to NWTO. That fishbowl went for quite a bit above retail. Quite a bit. This is a collector's item. This is a collector's item. It's a world traveling carbon spider.

We're getting real QVC over here. It's been in the hands of Steve and Rinella. Yeah. All right. You good? Yeah, I'm good. We got to get a picture. Oh, that's a good idea.

With you with that bow. Yeah, we got a lot of pictures. We'll get that squared away. All right. Sounds good. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Farinato. You said it right. Yeah.

Thanks, Joe. Of course. And thank you. That's awesome. Now here comes Joe Farinato. Strapping on. That's awesome. Now here comes Joe. Strapping on Joe's still warm headset is Spencer Newhart. Okay, Becky, I know we got a lot of stuff we want to talk about, but I got to tell you about something first.

Okay. If you don't know, that's fine. Okay, what is more diagnostic on a turkey? In terms of age? Oh. And all I'm talking about is like Jake, not Jake. So a one-year-old or older than, what am I trying to say? Yeah.

What is more diagnostic? The tail fan and the length of the feathers relative to one another or the spur? Well, we usually use the tail fan just because we know when they do replacement of those tail feathers. Okay, so that's reliable. That's the most, I mean, that's the one that everybody uses to determine between the Jake and the adult Tom in terms of the tail fan. And it's the easiest to see at a distance too i mean those those spurs and various you know various um types of turkeys have different spur length too so you got to compare it to the other the other birds there in terms of that so if i told you that we shot a long beard okay it's a miriam's like Like a seven, eight inch beard on it.

Full tail fan. Gobbling his space off. Who had one kind of spur and then one no spur. And then I says to my brother, wow, that's weird. He goes, not here, it's not. Because I've seen, I got another one just like it. Yeah. You ever hear that?

Well, I've heard of it where you have anomalies like that. Yeah. You know, it's not, because I've got another one just like it. You ever hear of that? Well, I've heard of it, where you have anomalies like that. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. You get gene pool in certain areas where you get some anomalies. Last year, I was in Oklahoma, I guess it was, and the guy I was hunting with had told me he had seen a bearded hen. And he saw this bearded hen that was actually strutting. And then I wound up going out that day, and we had a bearded hen that was in full strut, beaten up on decoy for hours that day.

So you get some anomalies that get in the gene pool where, you know, you don't have spur development for whatever reason, and they persist. Yeah. you don't have spur development for whatever reason and they persist yeah now either obviously that bird is not in a situation where they're needing their spurs to fight an awful lot because that bird doesn't have them he's going to be at a hindrance but i presume it was an area where there wasn't probably a great density of turkeys no it's like a little island ecosystem yep so he could not literally an island, but like. Yeah, an island of habitat where they're around.

So he didn't. You don't even really appreciate how islandy this island of habitat is until you look at satellite imagery. And then you're like, wow, these turkeys are just out on their own. They had to satellite in there. They had to airdrop in there. Yeah. They probably don't run into turkeys that they haven't, but they don't know. Yeah, so they have their pecking

order already established. They know it. That bird doesn't have to fight all the time to maintain position in the flock or accepts it. That's the other thing. I've heard that spur length can be dictated by the landscape they live

on. So, like a bird that lives on the mountains where there's very rocky soil or like real gravelly substrate, their spurs get worn down, so they're real short and nubby. Whereas like a bird down south in the marsh, nothing wears on their spurs, so they grow longer and pointier. Anything to that? I tell people that all the time, too. Do you buy that? I mean, there could be. I mean, there could be differences like that.

You know, you see it between the various subspecies of birds that they have various lengths of spurs. Down in Florida, those birds, those Osceolas, are real limb hangers. They tend to have really nice, long spurs, and so that would go along with your theory. But they're also pretty sandy soils down there. So, which is, you know, if anybody has a dog, kind of knows if you're in sandy soils, you tend to, it wears down, anything like that in terms of nails or the rest of it. So, you know, I, you know.

So you think it might be more to do with the, it might be more to do with the bird? The bird, the food that they're getting, the keratin development on that for it, the subspecies of it, and then the age. Yeah. Man, I always tell people that. I'm like, reason he's not a big limb hanger, as you say. Can you explain what a limb hanger is? A limb hanger is a bird that'll hang up on a limb by his sp his spurs because his spurs are so long and that's right yeah uh how many how much do you i know you work in turkeys but how much do you actually hunt turkeys do you get to hunt a

fair bit or are you just too busy all the time some years i i hunt more than others this is one of those years where i've done less hunting i've only hunted south carolina and now i'll hunt a little bit in michigan while i'm up there But other years I try and get around, you know, we, we're really fortunate. We have a lot of great hunts. We have governor hunts and lieutenant governor hunts around the country and try and get out there with those folks, try and get some of our mentored hunters in. I always try and take out somebody that hasn't hunted before is one of the things that I do each season. Cause I mean, that you know gives you juice in this business and um and it's as much fun as as taking a bird or even more fun taking your a bird yourself so some more fun in some case the right person that's

more fun yeah so it varies from year to year sometimes I schedule myself for more hunts this year I laid back on it I just moved I'm heavy into a remodel project and we've got a lot of stuff going on at work. So with all that, I didn't schedule myself for as much hunt, which gets me real itchy this time of year. Yeah. Because we're fast approaching. I mean, the seasons have ended in many of the southern states. South Carolina, where the offices is closed now, that season ended. Michigan's still going through the end of May, so I can capture some of that.

Yeah. Layout for me, just kind of give me the landscape of NWTF. And you've done it before, we'll just do it again. Yeah. Kind of like mission statement, where you're at with membership, all that kind of stuff. Well, the National Wild Turkey Federation is, we're 46 going on 47 years old. It

was set up to restore the wild turkey. Tom Rogers, the original founder of it, had a vision that we could restore the wild turkey to North America. And we're an organization that came together and did that in the early days. We really were a group that did fundraising to help states with trapping efforts. We taught the technology of a lot of the trapping to the state agencies, and then we helped broker the deals so you could trade wildlife between states because you can get yourself in trouble with the Lacey Act if you put dollar figures on it. Oh, that's why that happens? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I didn't realize that that's why people did swaps. Yep. That's because because the lacey act you know when we passed a lacey act in this country to prohibit interstate movement and trade in in birds or wildlife in particular it was a great thing but state agencies then if they're trying to swap out wild turkeys those have they also have value to the residents of that state. And so giving away their precious wild birds, usually they want to explain to their residents that we're getting something in return for that. So, I mean, we swap turkeys for otters and turkeys for elk and turkeys

for rough grouse, and there were all kinds of deals around the country. What's the rough exchange rate in your mind? I don't even know now. No, at one time I was... Did it always seem a little, I mean, were people real literal about a value or was it kind of like a, almost like a gesture? It was a gesture, but in most situations it's when a state really wanted to reestablish something else. So for instance, you know, when we were getting turkeys, we were trapping rough grouse in parts of Michigan around Grash at Saginaw, and we ran grouse trapping operations all summer long to try and get those birds to get to fulfill the requirements so we could get birds, turkeys, back in that winter.

Oh, you mean you were trapping grouse in order to swap them out? So we could get turkeys back. Who was after grouse? I think it was Iowa at that particular time that we were getting our turkeys from, but I don't know who they were swapping with in order to get the grouse. So it was somebody in the Midwest. I do remember that.

Do states ever trade turkeys for turkeys? Like one state wants Easterns and the other state wants Merriams. They do a swap. Probably they have in the West, but I'm not aware of situations where they swapped various subspecies between that. But I'm sure they probably have. Boy, the menu's got to be real interesting when you're dealing with a state like Texas. Like you want zebras? You could, yeah, you could put anything on it.

Twelve swamp eels and a zebra. You keep your exotics to yourself. Thank you very much. How about a giraffe? How many turkeys for a giraffe? Yeah, but it was wild in terms of some of the swaps it went on. But anyhow, from there, the National Wild Turkey Federation is one of those organizations that actually achieved its mission. We worked with the state agencies and restored wild turkeys to its historic range and beyond. I mean, we have turkeys in places that really weren't historic at the time the, you know,

settlers, European settlers came over here. And that's, we've got Habitat for them, and they're doing well in some of those areas now, and that's great. And there's a lot of social enthusiasm for them, and it's hard to—go ahead, Yanni. I was just going to ask if you ever got any pushback from that where people say, well, you know, they weren't here, they're not natives. Yeah, in fact, there was a fair amount of that in California. There was resistance to turkeys in California?

Yeah, there were. I mean, we wound up doing studies. There were concerns that turkeys would negatively impact the vineyards, that they weren't historic to that area. And, you know, the question is how far do you go back on that? There is historic evidence of wild turkeys in California. And so as birds expanded into those areas and those were restored efforts and we were able to go in and show that turkeys, you know,

at the time that they're feeding in vineyards where you've got a lot of grape maturity and all the rest of it, they're really after more high protein than they are. They might be incidental takers of grapes and the rest of it, but usually a lot of the damage is coming from other species out there. You got raccoons that are going out there and cleaning them out and the rest of it. But the turkeys are very visible because they're seen more commonly during the daylight hours and people see them and they assume they're causing damage. I was reading about that same problem in Wisconsin when they first started seeing lots of numbers. And same thing, they're so visible.

You see them out on the fields and the farmers were like, they're going to eat us out of house and home. And they had to do a big study to prove that, well, no, actually, it's like 10% of their diet. And they're usually just picking up the scraps that you've left behind anyways. That's right. Or the insects. I mean, that's the other thing that's beneficial, where they're out there feeding heavily on insects in those fields. So the National Wild Turkey Federation, really around year 2000, had completed most of those efforts

to restore. And we moved into, we had already incorporated creating hunting heritage, maintaining the hunting heritage, and really trying to create that next generation of hunters so we can carry on the lifestyle and the appreciation of hunting and the use of hunted animals in our food base. And then we added in habitat restoration, because at that point we're starting, you know, in parts of this country, we're seeing actual declines in turkey populations. Now that they've been restored, they're starting to taper back off,

especially the southeastern United States. And, you know, what's going on with that? We're seeing large landscape- level changes. I mean, we know we're losing a lot of the mass crops in the Midwest. Hickory trees went by the wayside. American chestnut has gone and we've left it. Now, oaks are starting to diminish in that Midwestern landscape and those mass crops are- I mean, just from changing land use practices and development. Well, and our forests are turning over, too. Those oak forests that appeared and grew up after logging

and woodlot development and large forest tracks now are turning over to beech maple forests in many areas. And they don't have a mass crop. They don't provide the food that is readily available for a lot of the wildlife species that we all love. I mean, deer, turkey, squirrel, that hard mass is really, really important to a lot of the wildlife populations. What did you say the deer had to do when they were in a loblolly pine? They had to pack a lunch and take it with them.

Yeah. And you've seen that in red pine stands in michigan i mean those pine forests are all needles on the floor there isn't a forb that grows underneath there there's not good sunlight and they just there's not anything for them to eat so it's um we really think that's what's happening i think there's i think there's a whole range of things that are happening to be honest with you i think i I just heard that Missouri had its worst turkey harvest in 17 years. I haven't gotten two years. That could be weather, too, obviously.

It could be weather. It could be what weather was last year for brood production, last year coming out of it. They had a wicked snowstorm, I know. And usually your year after really bad weather conditions when you don't have the kind of nest success that you'd really like is where you really feel it the following year. Yeah. But you feel that there's real – we had a piece about this on themeateater.com about turkey populations dropping in a lot of areas. And then we got a lot of emails from people who are real upset, like, not in my woods. You just don't know how in my woods. Yeah.

You just don't know how to find them. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of folks would be like, oh, my bird feeder. There's like three of them around that every morning. Well, they are opportunists. There's no doubt about it. But you do feel that there are like systemic. There are some areas where, you know,

South Carolina is one of them that they have really been struggling. We are seeing a definite decline, even though hunter numbers are staying up or actually increasing in some cases. Like interest in turkeys is increasing. Let me float an idea by you. Okay. A buddy of mine put this to me. He says, you know what's really going on with turkeys?

He says we're killing them too early i think in some cases we are oh okay i think you know he's not a irrational guy no he's like people who say like you get into mid-may and they say the turkeys are all gobbled out he goes they're not gobbled out they're dead well and they shut up i mean that's the other thing most of the studies that take a look at what's happening to birds they react react to hunting pressure. It's like predator pressure. We are predators out there. They move, we did telemetry studies here most recently, and it was fun to watch it on the screen. We showed it for our board a couple years ago, but you'd see a hunter walk into an area, you know, and that bird would walk in further

to that area, and the hunter would leave, and that bird would walk back. I that area. And the hunter would leave and that bird would walk back. I mean, they avoid. They know we're there. They, you know, even if you're a decent hunter, they know that you're coming into that. And they shut up. We don't see as much gobbling activity in the rest of it. So it's a response, just like other predators would be, where they'll shut up more. And we've all seen that when birds, they'll do a gobble on the roost

and then when they land on the ground, they're done talking. They'll come in silent at that point. So, you know, I think that in some cases, though, there's been a lot of controversy right down in South Carolina about what should be the right starting date. That state is a state that has temperature changes and climate changes. From the coastal area, it gets warmer sooner. They want to start hunting sooner.

But the peak gobbling activity and the nest initiation is really about April 9th. That's most of the studies or most recent studies shows that when nest initiation is, is April 9th and they go in there. In South Carolina. In South Carolina. Now, it varies in other parts of the country. At that point, she's dropped her 11, 12, 10, 13 eggs. Starting to nest. And she's going to incubate them.

That's right. And if you're hunting, if you start your season before that time period, she's still in breeding cycle at that point. That's, you know, that's just the peak. There's some that start early. There's some that start late. But that's kind of the peak that occurs with that population. So there's discussion down there that they move their season to start into March. And you're probably disrupting those birds and not getting

all the birds bred, and you're not getting as much success on those nests because you are having that disruption early during that breeding cycle. So states are taking a look at that also. It's been interesting to take a look at what we're doing with hunting seasons as we move forward, and we know that the timing of the season is really important. The amount of pressure on the birds is really important. And, you know, what happens is people want to have lots of opportunity. They want to have lots of days to hunt. And they think that by cutting back bag limits, they can limit what the pressure is on that population. But really in almost all your wildlife populations, the length of season and the number of people that hunt

are the two factors that have the biggest impact on the population harvest. In this article that Steve referenced, it was called The New Silent Spring, where the turkeys, the author was David Hart, and he touched on a number of different theories as to where the turkeys have gone, why their population has been falling the recent decade.

One of the things that he kind of suggested but then dismissed was... Yanni ate them all. Yes. Besides that, was disease, specifically West Nile. He kind of brought up how states have thought that that's what's decimated grouse populations. And so maybe it's doing the same thing with turkeys, but there's just not enough information available. What are your thoughts on West Nile and turkeys? Well, you know, a good friend of mine, John Fisher is a head of the wild, or he was, he just retired as head of the Wildlife Disease

Cooperative at University of Georgia. And John and I chaired a lot of the health committees for the Association of State Agencies. And, you know, everybody wants to look to disease. They, especially as places where poultry farms, you know, spread manure from poultry houses and all the rest of it. Is there an opportunity that we're really spreading disease out there? And I'm not saying that we can't or it won't happen. And you never want to have birds feeding over situations where they could be exposed to that, where you have dead birds. But with avian influenza and stuff, we just haven't seen the die off. I mean, we've done an awful lot of surveillance the states have with avian influenza

and what their impacts, and we know there are indicator species that are far more susceptible to that particular disease. And when you're not seeing the indicator species go, we're not seeing it with the turkeys. Are you saying that there are other species that are a better indicator of West Nile? Yeah. I see. Crows and jays, I think. Yeah, corvids.

Yeah, corvids. Corvids get hit hard by it? Yeah, really hard. And they're your first ones. When you have that disease show up, when you start seeing crow die-offs or raven die-offs, you've got a good indicator you've got avian influenza out there. Oh, not West Nile, avian influenza. Huh, I didn't know that.

So they're susceptible. Yeah. Are they susceptible because their body doesn't handle it well or because they're more likely to get stung by mosquitoes? I don't know the answer to that one. I don't know enough about it. And West Nile virus, the same thing. I mean, these viruses have been going. We really expected with West Nile that we would, and corvids are really susceptible West Nile species too.

So that was where we first indicated it. But we really expected that we would see major die-offs as that started getting in the populations. And we did in places. But we also looked for high path avian influenza that's one of the ones that's found in waterfall and is really susceptible to the term you just use high path high path high highly pathogenic avian influenza there's always low path low pathogenic avian influenza that's in our waterfall populations it It's just endemic, and we have it. But when you get in the high pathogenic, that's where you have,

it kills off major populations of it, and that's a real concern. And there's avian pox. There's a number of different diseases out there. How is that spread? Avian, it can be spread through populations, so it's probably through touching, close proximity, feces, that kind of stuff. It's not an insect-borne. No.

No. What are other theories? The other theory is nothing's happening. Oh, there's another theory, and I don't understand this one. I mean, I understand, like I get the concept, but I don't know how true it is. That there's just a natural, like when you bring in that when you reintroduce the species or introduce the species there's a thing where they don't call it like i know founder effect is something entirely different there's some name for it oh it's like a bloom yeah and then they go like and then they taper off so they're exploiting some environment for

the first time there's ample food predators aren't tuned into it yet, and they have this party. Yeah, they bloom. They do really well. And there's a time lag before your predator species catch on to it. You wind up having the disease issues that come along with it. Also, disease is part of this phenomenon. Yeah. And then at that point in time, the population trails off a little bit. And you see that historically in some cases,

and we see it with exotic species, non-native species that come in. I mean, all you got to do is look at things like the Great Lakes where you wind up having these zebra mussel populations that just were tremendous blooms. They were over all the intake pipes and all the rest of it and fills this unfilled niche out there. Or a greater concern is they replace native species because they're more competitive in that environment

because they don't have predators or parasites that have adapted to them yet. So they have a competitive edge out there. So, yeah, there's some of that. I mean, the other theory is there's been lots of discussion about fire on the landscape. And this is more a discussion in southeastern United States. The Forest Service has really worked to try and be more active in their management, get those fuel loads down, especially in those pine forests that are fire-driven habitats. And we're used to have a lot of lightning strikes and wildfires that would move through

and burn off the understory, the fuel load, and help promote the grass. Because ridding the ground of those needles would allow stuff to come up. That's right. And those habitats were originally savanna left to their own, where they're very open canopy, but you have trees, and fire moves through it. And then in the southern plains, it's the pine savannas. You tend to get up in the Midwest, and you get the oak savannas, the same type of habitat. They're fire-driven habitats that had a lot of fire that moved through them on a regular basis before we got involved in the

ecosystem of living there. And then we suppressed that fire. And what has happened then is you wind up having a lot of woody vegetation. Turkeys don't like to have really a lot of heavy cover that's woody right around them because they can't see. They feel unprotected in that. They much prefer to have good grass cover where they have greater visibility, but yet they have good nest protection. And then you wind up getting a lot more insect damage, or insect, not damage, but insect availability for protein, food source, and all the rest of it. When what? When you have that sunshine that comes down to the forest floor.

You think, yeah, I would imagine that fire could be bad for insects, but habitat-wise, it makes up for it. Makes up for it, yeah. And there's, you know, the insects live on those landscapes. When you see those landscapes after they're burned, quite often there's very large ant colonies that go in conjunction with it. Those sandy soils are very heavy mineral. There's not a lot of topsoil on them, and those ants are really important for breaking down what vegetative material are there and getting some organic placement back in place. It'll burn those ant colonies if you get too hot a fire.

Normally, it'll pass through it, but if you get a really hot fire on it, I've seen where it'll burn out the ant colonies also, but it comes back very quickly. And that's bad for the landscape. No, it's not bad. It's part of what happens there. Okay. So by putting that fire back on the landscape, we're getting it overall back in better shape for turkeys because it's getting that open grassy component to the savanna back in place. But people see where birds might be nesting, and the nest gets burned during that time period.

And they think we're losing lots of turkeys to those large-scale fires that are prescribed fires. When in fact, a lot of times they go back in and re-nest. Sometimes the nest isn't even harmed. I mean, you'll see photographs from researchers that they'll go back in, they'll take a photograph of the nest. You know, an egg will even be singed, but the nest will hatch. The hen picks up as the fire moves through, she comes back right afterwards. And if you are in those landscapes right after the burn, turkeys move back in when it's still all black. I saw you guys did a study on that. Yeah. I saw you had turkeys with tracking devices and looked at how they respond to fire.

And they respond very favorably. So short-term losses, long-term gain on that landscape. What's a tracking device look like on a turkey? It's a little transmitter.

It goes on the back. There's two. You can do it through a radio signal or a little larger one will be a satellite signal. So now we have the ability

to track them through satellite. And that's like embedded in the turkey? You just glue it in there turkey yeah yeah it's it goes right on the back between the shoulders is where it goes it's under the skin yeah we we put it under the skin originally with some of these devices they used to have harnesses that fit on them now we've gotten to the point where we embed it right in there and it's nice you can you can actually embed it but it actually you can crazy glue it right on the on the skin pull some a few of the feathers out crazy glue it right on the skin and it's there it stays there that area that i was in in tennessee was kind of has a lot of these

components that we're talking about where you know we were on one side of the county there's birds everywhere on really some of the same property uh about 15 minutes away like yeah this used to be exactly like the stuff that we were hunting where there were tons of birds in the last year no birds. And they had captured a handful of birds out on All Red's property out there and put those tracking devices on them to try to get a better understanding of what's happening. But went from hundreds of birds to when we went out there, we saw one lone tom out cruising around. They think they moved or died?

He thinks they died. Oh, okay. Yep. And it's the same deal out here in eastern Montana that I was telling you about. Like the person doing the observation, the rancher, it's like the only thing I can think of is a disease. Because there are so many birds and then no birds. Well, yeah, we've seen that out here as well. They're just there and it's like tons of them and all of a sudden they're not there.

And it takes them years to come back. Well, that's it. When you lose a population, when you get down to a critical mass where you don't have a good breeding population, when you lose a couple of production cycles, it takes a long time for those birds to come back in and fill it but you know sometimes these landscape changes that happen we don't even recognize them um i give you a perfect example where i live in michigan we had we have had turkeys for years we hunted our back hillside it was a really nice oak mixed hardwood stand with some really old oak mass trees that are roost trees on

it and stuff. And, you know, I go out there every year. I've seen less turkeys. There's more development in the area, more homes. I'm thinking it's just disturbance. My son comes home, who spent a lot of time out back there, and he hadn't been back in three years. And he said, you know, Becky, we're losing our oak. This is moving over to Be, beach maple. And, you know, it wasn't until Joel said that to me that I started really looking around and thinking, should I have been on this property for 30 years? I don't see the kind of maturity changes because every year I'm out there during that time period. And you don't see that continual maturity and the changeover and how some of the dominant trees are starting to die out and become, you know, subdominant in that forest stand.

So what's the solution for that? Cut it. Cut everything? Not everything. I mean, to go in and do a shelter wood cut and bring up some of those, I should cut out some of those big older oak trees that are starting to die out because they're starting to die. And there's some younger oaks and I need to release those on that hillside. It's a pretty steep hillside. It's not that much acreage. It's hard to get in somebody to cut it. We don't have a lot of small cutters anymore

in a lot of these timber markets. So it's really hard to get somebody in there to do it. Steve's pretty good with a chainsaw. Yeah, I'm lot of these timber markets. So it's really hard to get somebody in there to do it. Steve's pretty good with a chainsaw. Yeah, I'm good with a chainsaw. Our buddy Doug, he manages a family farm. He works his ass off to try to keep oaks. Yeah. They're tricky.

Yeah, because the thing is, too, is like there's so many more deer now where he is. Yep. And so they have the way they like to feed and um and he has he has to do a lot of like active forestry management to try to to to keep this the you know the oaks in place the suite of trees on the on his place that he'd like to see because if he didn't i can't remember what one it is if you just like let it go what do you want with red maple something he doesn't like a lot of it's probably red maple it takes over in those upland hardwood stands. So if you just didn't do it and you just had a bunch of deer there and no one did anything

and no one was doing any kind of select work, you just would wind up with red maple. Yep, with a lot of maple on it. It doesn't support the amount of life. No, it doesn't have the mass crop that you really need to support the wildlife that you really want there. I'll tell you a study you ought to do. Okay. Get your pencil out. Get your pencil out because this is a good study.

I've seen this happen a couple times now. I'm sure it happens in other states, but you should go in. This state here that we happen to be sitting in right now is divided into seven regions. Okay. Okay. Over the years, they've added on which regions you're allowed to use an over-the-counter turkey tag for. Okay.

So as a region is coming into its own with turkey numbers, it's a draw. And I have come in and hunted turkeys in areas where it's a draw where you have to apply and win a lottery to get a turkey permit i know that's a very different kind of turkey hunting than when it's an over-the-counter because people over the years as they watch this they know where all the turkeys are. And the minute you can just go, they go, right? Mm-hmm. It'd be really interesting to, there's one region left in this state that's still hard to draw a turkey tag. Presumably, it'll get to where they're going to open it up. It'd be interesting to do a gobble study or something.

Because here you have like a great scenario of a turkey population and all of a sudden the floodgates get opened. And a lot more pressure on it. And watch and try to put some numbers to how they respond, where they're spending their time, like how much they gobble, where they like to hang out, how much does that influx of hunting pressure, because it happens like overnight, you what what is what do they do what does that do what's the population response to it it's got to be significant man because we just had a thing this year we went to a place that only a couple years ago went general and um and had a couple individuals

say to us like man that man, that place changed. Because people have been watching those turkeys for a decade. It is. Like they knew where they were. I spent a lot of years of my life dealing with regulations, wildlife regulations on these very issues. And it's always a tough balance to try and balance the opportunity of making sure that people can get out there and hunt it. And understand the entry system to get into it. Because you've got to think ahead and apply, you know, and meet that deadline, which is well advanced to the turkey hunting season,

versus have an open entry and make it easy for people to get in there. And states struggle with this concept and try and balance those two so that we're not unnecessarily restricting people. But on the other hand, we're not unnecessarily overharvesting the population or putting too much pressure on the population. I'm not even so much overharvest as much as the kind of pressure that goes in the behavioral changes that I talked about before with that. In the big game world, we divide the whole world into two things. You got your quality states and then you got your opportunity states. That's exactly it.

You're right. We do. We do. And, you know, it's tough because you don't want people to, you want them to have opportunity to go in and take birds and have that place of hunting if they didn't even apply for it. But on the other hand, you don't want to diminish the quality. And some states have fall seasons, too.

We talked a little bit about that last night. What's your take on that? Well, fall season tends to be a season to restrict the population, pull it back. I mean, it's a— So that's what it's intended. Yeah, that's what it's intended. So you got agricultural interest. Yeah, you got areas, you know,

where you open up those hunting seasons to fall hunting, your game plan is to reduce the population. And... Why not reduce it in the spring? That's the thing I never understand. Like, why in the fall are you allowed to shoot hens in states that have fall seasons? Like, if you want to kill hens, why not kill them in the spring?

Well, the idea is that your spring season is a quality season that is not trying to restrict the population. And so we started spring hunting and have had spring hunting even as we restored populations. That was one of the things the Turkey Federation really did a good job on. They brought a lot of the science to the states so that you could introduce wild turkeys, get that population expanding, and still hunt it in the spring season because those birds are still those. You're not taking the hens. You're trying to time your season after the birds have bred, and you're not disturbing those nests too much in that regard. And you could open up hunting early as you're restoring those populations. Then use your fall seasons to reduce populations where you have overabundance in that population.

Who is it when you say like, oh, there's too many turkeys? Who is saying that? Usually who says it are people that call in that have nuisance birds. Your local biologist will have people that will call in. And when I was a field biologist, I would have this. I'd have people that would say, you know, I've got turkeys hanging around my property. They're roosting over the cars at night. They're out in the fields causing problems because they see them out in those particular fields.

Sometimes it's just the presence of turkeys. They're not used to it. They don't want to have turkeys around there. Sometimes they're habituating those turkeys. They've got bird feeders up and supplemental feed out. Those birds are taking advantage of it. It's an education process to get them to realize pulling your feeder, stop throwing out your chicken feed

out in the yard and having the turkeys come into it also it's a behavioral change and then sometimes we do have too many birds in particular suburban settings and that's where it tends to get the most tricky to manage is where you you have this mix of of field habitats, some small woodlots, and then a lot of homes in there. And you can support pretty good bird populations. And then you're not, if it's an area where people are, it's privately owned and they're not let people in to hunt, not getting much pressure, you can have some islands of really pretty dense populations. Yeah. And at that point, you're going to get someone who's like, there's too many turkeys. Yeah.

I don't want them. Get them out of here. A lot of depredation tags in Idaho. Turkey depredation tags. Turkey depredation tags. And so if you're a landowner and you say you want to have some turkeys taken off your place in the depredation system, then folks who apply for those tags can get a phone call. Says, hey, this landowner's got a bunch of turkeys on there.

Here's the number. And they have to provide access if they're part of that program. And then you get dispatched out there to hunt turkeys. Yeah, and a good friend of mine got a call last year for a region that is a difficult place to, you have to draw a tag to go over there and hunt birds but he got a call for a depredation over there the guy's like yeah he's like you got one standing on top of my car right now come kill him hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that

you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and

tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I want to get into some stuff you guys do around lobbying and whatnot. Okay. Is that a dirty word?

Lobbying? Well. Congressional? What do you guys call it? What do you like to call it? We like to call it education and advocacy. There you go. Yeah.

Advocacy and education. I want to talk to you a little bit about that. Okay. What what that world's like but i want to ask a couple things first what in your mind what's a very old male turkey and what's a very old female turkey you know 10 is an old bird in the wild now Now, you see domestic birds, they'll get up. People keep them in their barn, they're older than that. Did you hear of a show called Cal's Week in Review? Yes. Tell her about the bird from episode one of Cal's Week in Review real quick.

I mean, they will go older, there's no doubt. It's not a turkey. This is a Lays an albatross. Which is the oldest known oldest known bird. Yeah. And she's 68. And still rearing chicks.

Or a chick a year. But... Yeah, it was banded at roughly 5 years of age. Yeah, because they don't start laying until they're about five. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Yeah. And think how little time she's spent on the ground. They think that she's covered how many miles in her life?

Yeah, because, I mean, they go up in the air and they don't come down for long periods of time. I think this is a very conservative number when you look at all the other data that's out there, but 3 million miles on this one bird. Yeah. I think that's interesting. Delta needs to give her a status. Listen to Cal's Week in Review for more hot info. So you think between...

But there's no tom that lives 10. No. You have a toms, right? Well, not in hunted populations. Like six would be like your mega oh yeah i mean i'm talking about the really unusual situation out there because you asked what's the oldest you know that's that's probably not the oldest a really old oh a really old one yeah if you get a bird that's you know five six years old that's an old bird in the wild that's i mean especially

if there's much in terms of hunting pressure on that particular bird, you know, you're, you're lucky if you have very many three-year-old birds in the population, three and four-year-old birds. Well, those birds in Texas that we got. They were all. How old do you think they were? Three?

We all, yeah. Three to four. But scarred up. I don't think they're wounds. I don't think they're hunting those birds real hard out there, maybe. No, but I just think just disease or bacterial infections and stuff. Because we had a couple birds with real puncture holes in them and old scars and stuff. Old scars in each other.

Right. Yeah. Well, it's a rough life out there. Yeah. It's a rough life. Let me hit you with another one. Okay. I heard somewhere that a poult, so a young turkey, eats 75% animal matter. They do eat a lot of protein.

And an adult eats 75% vegetable matter. Is it that clean? I couldn't tell you that, if it's that clean. But, you know, turkeys are omnivores, so they're opportunistic. And as they're adults, they do eat a lot more vegetative material. We know that those young birds, those poults, really use protein. They grow really quickly. And so they need those high energy sources and those high calorie sources to really put on the kind of growth that they put on. Because, you know, when you look at a turkey, it doesn't take them very long to get to the

point where they are feathered out and able to fly. So they grow really quickly as young birds like that. And they're hogging down a lot of protein. Yeah, they go out. I mean, those hens take them out and they just, you know, snarf up whatever insect life they can find out there. Got any questions you want to zapper with, Yanni? No, I want to come back to the

DC stuff we were about to get into. I was going to say, before we get into that, you got any quick, hey, what's up with type questions? No. I do. Lay it on. In South Dakota, Spencer Newhart, ladies and gentlemen, a male turkey tag

allows you to shoot a turkey with a visible beard or spurs. And in the Black Hills there's a lot of bearded hens. I shouldn't say a lot but more than most places. I've probably seen a dozen like in my years of hunting there. In the spring I have twice shot bearded hens knowing that they were hens. Does that make me a bad person? No. No. Steve can shoot hens in spring. I would shoot a bearded hen. Why is that different than a normal hen for you?

It's not. Because I'd be against the law. So only because it's legal, you're okay with it then? It's not like an ethical thing? No, it's more complicated than that. If spring turkey season... Well, here's the thing. I have... that if spring turkey season well here's the thing i have like i have

most states 48 or so states i have a lot of uh faith in the wildlife managers okay 47 48 states i have a lot of faith in the wildlife managers where I would say if they were saying that we're going to open it up for hens, most states, I'd be like, they probably know what they're talking about. This is probably okay. So if I knew that there was a hen, like there's a part of this state where you can shoot hens in the spring. Yeah, three of them so i'm like must be i'm gathering a lot of hens because there's a lot of parts of the states where you can't and there's some parts where you can't hunt turkeys so they have an elastic model and if in this little corner of the area they've determined that they want to kill some hens in the spring i would have faith that

they were operating in the best interest of hunters. So in those places, yes. The bearded hen, I don't think that the American wild turkey is going to live or die or thrive or not thrive based on the occurrence rate of hunters harvesting bearded hens, which are an anomaly. So if you were to see one of these, I've never had a bearded hen in front of me with a shotgun in my hand. If I were to see one and get it, I don't think that that's going to then mean that we're going to see this

population-wide decline in turkey numbers. I always have a bit of guilt because I feel like I'm gaming the system. You're doing it all the time. Twice. That's not all the time. So tell me more how I'm not a bit of guilt because I feel like I'm gaming the system you're doing it all the time twice, that's not all the time so tell me more how I'm not a bad person yes, because the idea of the tag is for you to shoot a male turkey yeah, that's the spirit of the law

and I'm knowingly shooting a female turkey which is legal to get a turkey I feel it's like if you found a rainbow and there was like a little leprechaun and you stole his gold. It'd be like, sure. Never happens. There I was.

I took it. We cut Becky off. So tell me more how I'm not a bad person. I think it's an individual choice. I mean, you knew it was a bearded hen. Okay. That bird I had in front of me last year in Oklahoma, I knew she was a hen. She was a legal target.

I didn't take it. Why is that? Why did I do it? Because I couldn't believe her behavior. I had never seen a hen do a full strut like this and be that aggressive. But that doesn't account for why you didn't shoot it. Well, one- Let's say you saw a regular turkey do a backflip.

Yeah, that's true. But it was, you know, I knew it was an egg layer. You know, it was out there. I got more enjoyment out of watching her that day than I did in naming her that day and her behavior and laughing about it. Well, we named her a pretty aggressive female name. So she just wound up being, she was scaring the toms off. I mean, she was a really aggressive hen. So it was one of those situations where I got more joy out of that with the people I was hunting with than I would have by taking it and ending the scenario.

What she's saying, Spencer, I'm reading between, what she's saying is because she wouldn't do it because it's wrong. But she's being kind to you. No, but I don't think we should shame one another on this. I mean, it was. it's wrong. Which is being kind to you. No, but I don't think we should shame one another on this. I mean, it was... It's okay. You could easily change my mind if you said, no, you shouldn't be doing that. Well, obviously you feel that way when asked the question that you had some trepidation about it.

But I don't think as hunters, we should ever criticize another hunter for taking a legal target. I used to see this all the time in deer hunting with people getting into it and somebody during antler season would take a buck fawn and they couldn't tell it was a buck fawn. They just couldn't tell it from the head. You know, don't criticize them for doing it. It was legal. It's ethical.

And the person didn't know it. So let's not chastise them for that. It was legal. It's ethical. And the person didn't know it. So let's not chastise them for that. It's legal. Yeah. And you're asking that person to get on board with something that you're asking them to get on board with some long-term management plan that maybe they don't even, they don't share that. They don't share the desire. That's right. They shot a perfectly legal target there that was a animal that is going to give them quality meat. They're going to enjoy it. Don't ruin it for them. And the same thing I would say with that, we take it into effect that on harvest, when biologists make those recommendations, they know there's a certain

percentage of bearded toms or bearded hens. It's small enough. It doesn't factor into a significant part of the population that's going to hurt the population. So it's small enough it doesn't factor into a significant part of the population that's going to hurt the population so it's perfectly legal go ahead and do it and it's probably the the cleanest indicator for someone who's starting off turkey hunting to determine whether it's a tom or hen is that beard you can pick it up and see it and and visualize it for folks who are just getting started they're not used to looking at all the heads and behavior cues and all the and visualize it. For folks who are just getting started, they're not used to looking at all the heads and behavior cues and all the rest of it. Oh, it's one of the hardest things.

I remember struggling. So for at least two or three years, I'd have turkeys coming in close range and the world's just all of a sudden moving a million miles an hour and it's spinning faster. And your heart's beating between your ears with anticipation. I could just never be like, yeah, there a tom that's him right there hunting with the hunting with maggie

and tracy when it was their first turkey hunt she's like well how do i know that i'm like oh you'll just know i'm like why don't let's talk about this uh i think we should touch on bag limits because you know the there's a difference between the face value of a bag limit and what the actual practical application of that bag limit is like you can shoot four birds with no tags in tennessee but you can only kill one bird per day that's right so you know bag limits have have their overall season implications, but people need to realize that season length and the number of hunters are really the controlling force on it. When you put bag limits on, for instance, I'll just use South Carolina because it's been hotly debated in their legislature lately.

They wanted to go from a few years ago, they moved their season, they provide a longer season. And with that, they cut the bag limit from five to three. Well, it really didn't do a whole lot because- Five is a lot of turkeys. There aren't very many people that were shooting five turkeys. And so you're only nipping back the population of hunters for a very small percentage of those folks that were successful enough every year to take five birds. And something that I think about also is the bird per day rule, because it's definitely happened to me where if it were legal to fill

those tags in one morning, you would do it. I would have had the opportunity, but because I got to wait to the next day to then have a valid turkey tag again, I had no opportunity, no opportunity, no opportunity. Sometimes the birds don't cooperate. Sometimes you can't go out. You've got to actually go work for a living. You know, it could be that, you know, it was a Sunday, Monday. It could be the weather conditions are different. And those birds, just about the time you think you've got them patterned and figured out, they prove you wrong every time.

Yeah. So you, I'm trying to, I'm trying time you think you've got them patterned and figured out, they prove you wrong every time. Yeah. So you, I'm trying to track what you're saying. So you instinctively don't see a problem or do see a problem with a state saying like, oh yeah, five turkeys, no problem. It depends on the state, not the agency itself. It varies by state. But a lot of times what you'll see is legislators wanting to trade off days and then nip back the bag limit to compensate. So, okay. But you're saying that that doesn't work like that.

That doesn't work that well. I mean, it just doesn't. It's not a trade-off. It's not a trade-off. Your season length and number of hunters are going to have a far greater impact on your harvest than what your bag limit's going to be. I'm tracking what you're saying now. Okay.

I got what you're saying now. So that's where they really need to listen to the biologist and realize that you can't necessarily compensate for a super long season because you might be harvesting them before the birds are really fully bred. You might be disrupting that breeding. season and a high hunting population, even if you cut back that bag limit, there's such a small percentage of people that can put it together, take five birds or whatever the maximum is, that you're really not having that much impact on restricting that season at that point. So you could have the bag limit and double the season and you're going to have a lot more dead birds.

You got it. Yeah. I mean, I was just looking at fishing regulations this morning, and it's just, it's really hard to put reality on those regulations. I'm like, oh, man, I really want to put a bunch of fish in the freezer. Oh, great. Here's a reservoir that I can put 30 crappie per day. Yeah. I've never caught a crappie in my life.

The odds of me putting 30 crappie in the boat are pretty bad, you know? Yeah. But I look at it. I'd be like, if I'm allowed 50 a day and there's no closed season, I'm allowed, you know, thousands upon thousands of crappie. You talked earlier, you mentioned with big game hunting, you have the quality states and you have the opportunity states yeah okay that usually is reflective when you go back and look at how many people are licensed hunter within that state usually it is tied to if you have a smaller

hunting population or a smaller population in your state per the population of animals out there that you're hunting, you're going to be able to support a quality regulations and seasons that will, because you're not exploiting that population as greatly as you would with a population that has a lot more hunters and they go out there and they take a lot more animals. Michigan's a perfect example. When I started my career, we had damn near a million licensed firearm hunters. You don't grow old deer in that scenario. No.

No. Can I get in one more question before we move on? Yeah. So in some place like the Great Plains where you have potential for all three species of turkeys, Rios, Merriams, Easterns, is there any species it's part of the question is there any concern for hybridization like long term there is like having mutt turkeys could potentially be a problem well i won't say concern but does does hybridization happen absolutely right but is there any concern about it happening?

Or like effects? I mean, there's places that are like in Nebraska or whatever, they're like, you could kill a Miriam's, a Rio, and an Eastern, all on the same farm. It's like, come on. No, but that's not what he's getting at. I'm asking if there's any worry that that could negatively affect turkey populations. Oh, that that would be bad for them. Right, like if all of a sudden white tails and mule deer were just hybridizing all the time,

that'd be a bad deal. Yeah, but those are two distinct species. I know, but most people consider these pretty distinct species. No, they're varieties. They're not even legitimately subspecies. So yes and no. And I'll give you an example in the waterfall front, okay? I'll take it away.

When we dealt with geese populations up on the tundra, we had these subspecies, and we tried to manage it by subspecies in the flyway so that you had James Bay birds and Mississippi Valley birds, and we tried to keep distinct populations. You mean Canada geese? Yeah. And this is back when they thought we had 20-some kinds of Canada geese. That's right. Valley birds, and we tried to keep distinct populations. You mean Canada geese? Yeah. And this is back when they thought we had 20-some kinds of Canada geese. That's right.

And they're breeding up on the grounds. So we did it geographically, and we tried to just harvest and maintain those separate populations of those geese within it. And everybody was concerned when one population started to decline. What wound up happening is we started to decline. What wound up happening is we started to use DNA to sample those populations. We realized there's a lot more inbreeding going on there. And there's a lot more of the mutts, you know, that really had genetic pools. And it wasn't as clean geographically as we really thought. So taking it to turkeys. Yes, you want to keep variability in your population

because the more variability you have, the more ability you have that population to adapt to changes. They're going to have just like diversity in any population. The more diversity you have in it, you're going to have some survivors that stand a better chance than if it's a really homogenous population. So yeah, you want to maintain that. But there's always going to be some interbreeding of those birds. And with that comes different diversity with it also. So yes, we don't want them all to be crossbreds or hybrids between those populations. But on the other hand, you're always going to get some variability because of the range and where they're located.

They're going to breed. What I'm getting at here, Spencer, there's no... Take the Eastern Turkey and the Osceola Turkey. We draw some arbitrary line across the state, right? But they just bleed into one another. I understand, but the National Wild Turkey Foundation

draws that line. Excuse me Turkey Foundation draws that line. Excuse me, Federation draws that line. In the record books, you guys define them as the different subspecies. We do. And, you know, it's how people like to classify and go out and gather the different birds. But, you know, don't forget there has been interbreeding in wildlife. I mean, and there's mixing of it over time. And sometimes we like to look at a point in time

and think it's clean and neat and tidy, and it's just not, it's messy. But when it comes to the different types of turkeys, Rios, Miriams, Goulds, Easterns, Osceolos, that's everybody, right? Mm-hmm. How much, like with current thinking, and our understanding of taxonomy changes all the time, with current thinking, like, how legitimate are those designations?

And how is it not just that there's this thing, it's the wild turkey, and there are slight color variations throughout the country? They're distinct enough that they're distinct subspecies there with it, but you're always going to have some of that interbreeding. And part of it, man is created too because we've moved these birds around with that. So you've got populations where the habitat type might have looked like it was more attractive to various species, and we tried it. But we did that with other species around the country too. It's not just turkeys. You know,

as we restored wildlife populations in this country, we moved wildlife, heck, we moved it from Europe and Asia over here and we put it out in landscapes and when it did well, it, you know, it did well. And so the same thing is true with these restoration efforts. A guy once told me, a thing that made me, that keeps me like not fully understanding the subspecies thing or that, meaning half the time

I feel like it's just, they're just different colors in different places and half the time I'm like, okay, there's like a legitimate difference is a guy in Oregon was telling me

when they were trying to get wild turkeys established in some areas of Oregon, they tried Miriam's and couldn't get them to stick and put reels in there and they took off.

Now they asked him, like, well, what happened? And he had mentioned something about the, I can't remember, that one of them has like a higher likelihood of having a brood. It just fit in that characteristic and was more successful. Yeah, and he felt that it was, the person outside who felt that it was, that that was the thing. It was where they took the birds from. And one couldn't figure it out and one figured it out, and the other one figured it out.

Yeah. So, I mean, there are things genetically different. I mean, look at what we tried to do with turkey restorations before we really had the technology to trap live birds. We tried to use these birds that were raised in game farms. I mean, Pennsylvania, Michigan birds for populations and several where we had turkeys back in the 50s came from game farms. So, yeah, they were bronze, broad-breasted turkeys, but they were not genetically bred for real good survival in a wild environment. And those populations got out there and they maintained,

but they were always, they never grew. They never did really well. And when we brought in live birds and released them in adjoining habitats, they took off and did really well. So there's genetic variability in these populations. And with that, sometimes it fits different climatic situations, microclimates, what the habitat is there, and the rest of it. All right, good?

Good. No more basic turkey trivia? I got a thousand basic turkey trivia. But most of my questions are— I'll fail most of them, so let's move on. We can talk about— Most of them are unanswerable. Okay.

We did want to ask about the roost thing. We didn't know about roost. Was that in reference to that study that we were so interested in? Yeah, we were looking at a study

that really surprised me. It was on Southern Colorado. I believe so. Miriam, Turkey, Southern Colorado. From back in the 90s, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah. And it was like that, that on average, a turkey only had a 13% chance that he would roost in the same tree two nights in a row. And on average would roost a thousand yards away from where he roosted the night before. And that the first number decreased during turkey season and the second number increased during turkey season, which would lead you to believe that they really responded to the fact that every day when they wake up, there's some guy down there trying to call them in and shoot them.

So he's like, man, tomorrow night, I'm roosting way far away from here. Yeah. You know, it probably depends on how many hens are in the area and all the rest of it. You know, when you hunt the same property over and over again, it winds up being one of those situations where you learn that where there, you think about roosts and traditional roosts and stuff, where they'll come in there and roost one night and then there won't be any birds there the next night or there'll be half as many birds. And then the third night there's nobody there.

Yeah. And you wonder if it's you or whether those birds just move around. I personally think those birds move around and they're opportunists. So they make good use of their daylight hours. They're kind of like we are. They get up about the same time, even the days are getting longer. They get up about the same time every day. They go out, they forage, they're looking for hens, they're breeding.

And then when it starts to be getting close to sunset, they're looking for the place to go to bed. Now, every few days they're coming back in and having kind of in the same vicinity if their habitat's that way. I mean, when you look at those home ranges in terms of how far they stray and stuff, it's going to depend on the habitat quality. It's going to depend on how many hens are there in terms of how far he needs to roam and how frequently he's coming back to the general vicinity. And then also what that forest type is going to be for whether there are a lot of trees. I'm sure there are river corridor, there are cottonwoods down in the southwest where they get hit up and roosted pretty routinely because there just aren't that many roost trees.

And there are other woodlots and places and forested habitats where there are a lot of really significant roost trees that are going to have good growth patterns, that turkeys are comfortable on them, they're big enough, they're high enough, that they're comfortable there, that they're going to use, they have lots of choices. So they're opportunistic. They're going to go out and not frequent the same particular roost tree all that often.

What's a long walk for a male turkey in one day? It depends on the habitat and where it is. Bad habitat. No turkeys around. No turkeys around. It varies from area to area across the particular study you're talking about. They were talking about 1,000 meters was about the typical of what they did. How far would he just in his travels throughout the day, how many miles would he put on? Well, I mean, at that point, you're looking at most of those turkeys, it's fairly small.

Those turkeys in that particular study you were looking at during the breeding season, they were anywhere from 40 to 80 acres when you factored out the hectares, translate it back in. So those aren't big areas. Like that's what he spent his day in, that type of little area. Yeah, I mean, it's a fairly small area. I didn't look at that part of it. So it's really, but that was probably an area where it had some decent habitat and they had some hens around and the rest of it.

In other areas, you know, you can see it. So you've got several sections that those birds are moving around. So they're moving several miles to get around in those areas because there's not much cover. To get to roost trees at night, they got to move further. So some of those really wide open landscapes, those birds are moving further on a daily basis. And then other places where they're staying really tight in. They've got everything they need in pretty short areas. And there's competition if they move into other habitats.

Man, them spending their whole day in 40 acres makes you think it's just a good idea to sit down. Oh, yeah. In those situations. Find where two good little trails or roads come together. That's the thing I always say, like, turkey hunting, if you spend a few days on a property and you're looking at tracks like you know what we could have done just said that pick a spot at an intersection of two trails and say you know what you guys do your thing i'm gonna spend my three days sitting right here i'm not gonna do anything i'm not gonna make

any noise i'll be here at sun up and i'll wait until sundown and you'd probably be a very effective turkey hunter just to bide your time, you know. And the other thing that turkey hunters need to remember is a lot of folks go out, they get out there real early in the morning before the birds get off the roost. You know, they're going out way before daylight and then they're coming in a couple hours after sunrise. You know, they'll work them for a couple hours and that's a great time to be out in the turkey woods. Oh yeah, man. You know, when it's eight, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock in the morning, that's a time where you want to sit tight and let all those other yahoos in the vicinity go to work, do what they're got to do, but about their time, they're going back.

Go off and make their money. That's right. Get their cup of coffee, whatever they're going to do, you need to sit tight at that point because those birds move in response to it. Okay. That's a hot turkey hunting tip from Becky Humphreys. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers. You're irritated. law that makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet.

OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Now, you guys spend a lot, like your organization spends time on government policy. We do. What's that look like? Like, what do you do? You go down there, you're like, we need more turkeys. Well, at the federal level, we don't do that because management of wild turkeys falls to the state authority.

So we do that. You know, we have through our chapter system, we advocate when it comes to regulations, seasons, funding for research, those types of things. So you guys will go to a state and say, we feel that you're going about this the wrong way. Yeah. Most of the time, we're working with the agency along with it through helping to fund research, to help move forward good science on it. So we like to work hand in hand with that state agency. We're partners with most of them. And we actually have a technical committee that was formed before we even had biological staff with the Turkey Federation that's made up of turkey specialists from the state

agencies and our federal agencies. And we call that the technical committee. They meet a number of times during the year. And we share that good scientific information. We try and come in and help them so that we can support good management. And typically, it's when an agency is getting pressure to do something legislatively that's going to be detrimental to that population or restrict hunting too much. At the federal level, we try and narrow our focus so we can really be effective on the areas where we have good expertise. We really work on forest management issues. So a lot of the work that's been done to try and get more active forest management and try and correct this fire suppression funding problem we have in the country, we've been very active on that. Explain that, fire suppression funding.

You're not saying you want more money to suppress fire? No, I'm saying the U.S. Forest Service, over the course of time, because we've not kept up with the growth cycles and we have more and more fuel loads building up in our national forests. Not burning enough. Not burning enough, not cutting enough. We've got older forests, so we're getting a buildup on it. And with that, we're having these

large wildfires that are occurring. And we've also come off a period of unusually high rainfall. Now we're heading into a more drought type situation. And then you've got disease. I mean, we've got trees dying off. We've got some climatic changes going, but all that's culminating in these mega forest fires that we're seeing. And so we have, the Forest Service has moved a lot, had to move a lot of their funding to fight those forest fires and put in specialists in fire suppression to try and combat and control those fires. And as a result, they have less funding available to do the proactive management to keep our forests healthy. So we've been working with Congress.

Try to get the money in the right direction. Money in the right direction and also take away some of the barriers that there are. There are always going to be people that don't like the idea of active forest management. They want to leave it alone but it has you know we're not living in a situation anymore where we can just let it go and it's we're going to like the results of it when you but you're not leaving alone when we do fires when we put out fires no you're not leaving alone you gotta you gotta make up for you know i mean yeah you've already you've like you've already entered into sort of a false. Pretense on it. That's right.

I mean, we have, as humans, we have taken away a lot of these fire-driven habitats. We have taken away the cycle of fire on it that occurred so regularly it kept those fuel loads down low. It would burn the pine needles and the dead woody vegetation. So you didn't have it ladder up. You didn't have it climb up those trees and crown and then just go on these huge fires that burn everything down. And when you have these really hot extensive forest fires, it actually burns the topsoil off the ground. And then the problem is afterwards you have rain and you have the soil gets loose. So you have mudslides and tremendous, you know,

saltation in your streams and your water course as a result of it. And it takes decades to restore those landscapes to that. You know, you can see areas in my home state of Michigan where I was, you can see places where those forest fires, after they cut down the white pine forest in northern Michigan, they had fires that literally swept across the peninsula. And with that, because they had all that down vegetative material that had died off, and it burned that topsoil in places where we are just now starting to see forest cover come back into it. It wasn't capable of growing anything but lichen for decades and decades and decades. You ever hear of the Peshtigo fire? Mm-hmm.

Oh, my God. It's a horrific story, man. Yeah. I mean, some of these- People jumping into wells and getting boiled alive in their own wells and just crazy fires. Whole families getting wiped out. I mean, you know, in those- Dying in boats.

Yep. And so, I mean, it's, we have altered the landscape. So we've got to deal with the fact that we don't, at this point in time on our forest, we're not keeping up with the growth cycles. And we're getting these fuel buildups. And we either have to become much more engaged and actively manage those forests, or we've got to be willing to suffer the consequences. And part of the consequences is we have people actually building in some of those forests also. So you've got homes, large homes, sometimes very expensive homes, right within it. And it takes resources to go out and try and put in fire lines and protect those resources

and get people evacuated and get them out of those communities that are built right in fire-prone landscapes. And that sucks money out of doing the kind of wildlife work that you'd like to see done. That's right. So I'd rather put the money towards the proactive management and get our forests so that they don't have these buildup of fuel loads, that we manage them more actively with prescribed fire and cutting regimes, and then that we also need to think about some of these places, how much we're as a public going to invest in people that want to build large homes

and inholdings and some of that property. Well, I mean, look at the risk, right? Oh, it's high risk. Your fancy home in a spot that nobody built there for a reason. That's right. You put a lot of people at risk when you ask some fire crew full of 18-year-old kids to go in there and try to save it. Yeah. And, you know, it's heartbreaking for people.

You know, you see whole communities wiped out. So anyhow, we've been working with Congress on that. And there are some folks that feel very strongly, and we've used a lot of our laws that are on the books right now that were intended to give the public input into planning processes and bring challenges against government when they are unduly negatively impacted. But we've got groups and individuals are using those laws to really slow down the active management process out there. Talking like public comment issues. Yeah, or bringing lawsuits. Primarily it's lawsuits. Lawsuits.

Bringing lawsuits against the Forest Service on these particular cases. And over time, then, your processes get so expensive, you're spending all your time and energy on the planning process. You're not ever getting to the management, and then you're having to pay even more because of the result of lack of management out there. Because they have this kind of like childish sort of naive idea that the best thing for all forests is to let all forests. Let it go.

Even though you're not even talking about, most often the case, you're not talking about native old growth stuff anyways. You're talking about disturbed ecosystems that are already disturbed from the start. That's right. And so it's a philosophical difference. It's a very expensive way to iron out that philosophical difference. To back up for a second, you're talking about state involvement, the way to do this and they don't want to really listen? Or do you guys get pretty good buy-in from state wildlife agencies?

I have to say we have pretty good buy-in from state wildlife agencies. A couple things that, you know, having run a state agency before, we don't come in and try and lecture states how they should do things, especially there are regional differences and cultural differences on how populations like to run their natural resources, and we try and be respectful of that. We also try and be proactive in helping the state agencies if they have needs, if they have scientific needs, if they've got questions, if they want to learn from other states on stuff, of sharing that information behind in a safe environment that they can

get hold of it and have those conversations and really try it out and know what they're getting into as they get into those discussions before they come real public. Because at that point in time, you know, it's tough to be wrong on things once you've gone out publicly. Once it's been fought in the op-ed pages or whatever. That's right. So we try and take a proactive approach on that. You know, there are other issues we work on on a national level. We try and maintain making sure that there's really good access to our public lands out there,

making sure that regulations that unnecessarily hamper the ability to go out and hunt those lands, we're not putting those in place. Try and make sure that the federal agencies are respective of people that want to go out and use firearms on those lands and hunt those lands, fish those lands, hike those lands. That's great to get involved in that stuff. Yeah. We take a very active role in it. Because that's one of the criticisms I have of the conservation space in general is I feel like you have a lot of groups who focus very heavily on hunting rights. And you have groups that focus heavy on habitat and wildlife.

And I feel like in a lot of cases, I think that those two things should be melded together a little bit better. I do too. As a holistic package. It's why I'm at the Turkey Federation, to be honest with you. And I worked with a lot of different conservation groups out there, and there's a lot of really good ones. But I agree with you.

I think it takes both habitat management, and it takes people using that landscape caring about it and being those future conservationists to really get the full picture we can't pull people out of the equation you just can't we're part of the ecosystem we're part of the influence on that landscape. And I want there always to be segments and a big chunk of our population that really understands what's going on in those landscapes and advocates for wise management and also realizes that our wildlife are renewable resources. We don't have to, I mean, most of these populations, they have high turnover and hunting can be compensatory. It replaces other types of mortality out there. And I just as soon have people use that food source that's out there and have it and value it as a way to get part of their protein and what they like to enjoy

and be connected to that landscape and understand it. On the federal level, like in D.C., what are some of the changes you've seen going on in D.C.? Do you find that people, is it like you're enjoying a lot of people who sort of instinctively understand the concerns you have. Is that landscape changing a little bit? Is it harder to explain your mission? It depends. I see there's glimmers of hope. I mean, we have in the House, we have Congressman Westerman, who is a forester, and he's really been the lead on a lot of this forest initiative. So it's been helpful to be able to work with him and his staff

because he's a trained forester, he gets it, and he's willing to work with leadership and move forward good regulations, good changes that are going to, I think, help move us forward. There isn't necessarily, I will say, Washington, D.C., since I've been working in it, it's gotten more contentious, more polarized. It's tough. With some of the big issues our country is facing right now, a lot of the issues on conservation and some of the challenges we have,

you wind up getting positions in polarization where people are talking. They're not talking about ways that they can work together to achieve getting there, but they're taking positions. And whenever that happens where it's all or nothing or we don't, this is off the table, we can't even talk about it, that doesn't lead us down the path of really great decision making. But it takes people sitting around the table and it has to come about with bipartisan support. It has to be by Camberl. It can't be just a Senate. It can't be just a House. It has to be both in order to get it into law. So it's tough. And we have people, more and more people in Congress who have not, I mean, we're as a population in general, and Congress represents that population, we are now several generations

off the farm and ranch by and large. Fewer and fewer people are living in those rural environments, living off the land. And so their direct knowledge and understanding of those landscapes is impacted by that. Yeah, I always tell people it's really easy to understand how detached these folks are from some of these outdoor situations. All you got to do is go walk around the tunnels in D.C., right? Those folks working on the hill don't even get to go outside. Yeah. And, you know, and you can't blame them. It's not that they don't want to know.

They just don't know. So some of the most effective things you can do sometimes are getting people out to see stuff in the field, to actually do tours of active management, to see that so that they're not hearing it from people that's saying, oh my gosh, this timber cut was just devastating. Look at it, it looks terrible. Go out and look at a forest that hasn't been thinned. Look at one that has been thinned. Look at one that, see thinned, look at one that see an area that's been burned over and see some of the degradation that occurs from that forest fire as opposed to a timber cut and have that real life knowledge so that when they're talking about these issues, they can visualize that and it makes more sense to them. Yeah, I think that you're also asking, I mean, you're kind of asking a lot of people to

understand all the complexities and nuance that are involved in landscape management where there's just not a lot of hard and fast rules to live by. I think that, you know, we have a cabin up in Southeast Alaska and there, um, there's a very legitimate argument and I feel this way personally where I think we're cutting too much old growth timber. But that's a very different thing where you're talking about these coastal rainforest areas that have five and 600 year old trees

that you're not going to like- It's not going to grow back to that. trees that you're not going to like, it's not going to grow back to that. No, you're not going to go back to that. So it's like, how could I say, Oh, I don't want them.

I want to slow down curtail. I'd love to see the end of old growth, timber harvest on public lands in Southeast Alaska. But how can I then turn around and say in Northern Michigan, we need to be cotton. Yeah. Because people are like, well, how could both those things be true? And it's like, because it's just, we live, it's a complicated planet.

It is complicated. And, and it gets to accessibility. It gets to what those, those species are. It gets to how quickly it regenerates, what those soil types are. And what's already happened. there is you know and that's the thing that we talk in generalities when we it it be we try and simplify the system for discussion's sake and in that simplification you lose some of the nuance with yeah i think it became logging is bad yep people love absol love absolutes, right? It's like, well, tell me what the problem is. Okay, logging, bad, got it.

What's next? As a biologist, you're like, well, actually, there's a myriad of problems. I'm like, well, I don't have time for that. Yeah, yeah. That anti-logging campaign that we all grew up with, that must have been like the 80s, I'm guessing, right? That must have been when the Spotted Owl. Was it the Spotted Owl?

Spotted Owl was 90s. Was it late 80s, early 90s? Early 90s, I'm guessing, right? That must have been when the Spotted Owl. Was it the Spotted Owl? Spotted Owl was 90s. Was it late 80s, early 90s? Early 90s, I think. But either way. But yeah, I mean, it took me a while into adulthood to sort of have my own personal, you know, enlightenment about logging to be like, oh, yeah, it's not always bad

because that was just pounded into my head through whatever channels. My parents never told me that logging was bad, but the marketing of that, you know, it got into my head through whatever channels. My parents never told me that logging was bad, but the marketing of that got into my head. Well, and I mean, Smokey the Bear is another one of those campaigns that's been highly successful to the point where people don't like prescribed fire that much because they have, fire is bad. Unless Smokey the Bear lied to me.

She wouldn't do that. Seems like a straightforward fellow. She's like a straight shooter, old Smokey the Bear lied to me. She wouldn't do that. Seems like a straightforward fellow. Seems like a straight shooter, old Smokey. Okay. You had mentioned that you wanted to discuss personal goals for mentoring a new hunter.

Well, I think we should all have personal goals. So you didn't want to tell us about your personal goals. No. Well, I mean, we have a new pledge going on with our corporate sponsors right now, trying to get every one of our members to make a personal commitment that they'll at least mentor one new hunter every year. Awesome. Wow.

And so we ask them to sign a pledge form. We ask them to report back on that pledge form with us. Me and Yanni are already good. All right. Spencer? Not this year. Yet. Last year?

Yet. Yet. I don't know about last year either. How about the year before? Yes. Oh, good. Possibly last year, definitely the year before. Yes.

And that wasn't just because you met your wife or something? No. I took an old college roommate. I'll take it for the first time. That's good stuff. I'd like to brag that last year I did it as well. My neighbor took him out hunting. First time.

Yeah, I'm tearing it up on the pledge. We need to give him a retroactive pledge sheet. There you go. So you got a pledge sheet. It's an actual sheet. It's an actual sheet. It's an actual sheet. We ask them to sign it, write their name down on it. We kicked it off at our annual convention this year. And we are trying to get every one of our members to do that because that's what it's going to take. I mean, when you look at the demographics of hunters in this country, we're going to see a pretty stark decline

with the baby boomers as they start to age out of hunting. And if we don't start getting other folks to replace that, and everybody loves to do the kids' programs, and we're one of them. We have a really robust Jake's program. We've done it for years.

We love it. But those kids aren't going to grow up fast enough to replace the baby boomers. We've got to get those adult hunters out there. We've got to get the 20-somethings that either weren't going to grow up fast enough to replace the baby boomers. We've got to get those adult hunters out there. We've got to get the 20-somethings that either weren't exposed to it or didn't do it enough to make it part of their lifestyle. We've got to get them to feel welcome and that's something that they want to do and enjoy the lifestyle and think of themselves as hunters. Now, there's going to be somebody listening, probably more than 10%, maybe. I don't know.

A bunch of people listening. They're going to say, that ain't true. We're not losing any hunters. Show me one person that can say there's less hunters where I hunt now than there was 10 years ago. Which is a really good, interesting point. You can't be flippant about it. You can't. You can't at all.

No one's like, oh, yeah, where I hunt. Used to be guys everywhere. Now I go there and no one's around. It's just turkeys gobbling every can't. You can't at all. No one's like, oh, yeah, where I hunt. Used to be guys everywhere. Now I go there and no one's around. It's just turkeys gobbling every which way, elk running around. I did run into one guy in Colorado. It's been a few years now. This was maybe five, seven years ago. But he did say that he noticed it because they hunted very dense forest.

And he felt like there was less camps along this road, this forest service road everybody used to camp. And then he felt like a lot of success was due to more guys in the woods back in the day, moving more animals around. And now they didn't have that. There was less success. And he did complain about having less people out there. That's interesting. That being said, I wonder sometimes if it's not a Western thing, right? We hunt big, Western, open, vast landscapes. We can see a lot more, so we see more people. Well, plus more people are people.

The people that are hunting are more inclined. There's a greater likelihood that they are hunting multiple states and traveling around. That's true. That's true, too. So, like, use habits change. And then you have a lot of states that aren't seeing declines. You know, then you go to these states, you know, states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and you're seeing declines that you're not experiencing in Wyoming, Idaho.

That's true. There's changing. I mean, and it has changed over time, but overall, the number of licensed hunters as a whole is declining through the federal surveys. Do you find it more like maybe where you guys are at in the southeast? Yeah, I think the eastern United States is seeing it faster than the western United States. And it varies by state. Some states are seeing nice, you know, part of it is populations of those states also. You know, I happen to be from a state in terms of Michigan that we lost overall population. We lost almost 2 million people during the economic downturn.

What? Really? Yeah. The one from 10 years ago? Yeah. Hold on. Michigan came out of that with fewer citizens? It did.

Wow. A lot fewer. I didn't know that. Yep. And so as a result of that, you lost hunters as part of that also. Huh. Really? Where'd they go?

Sunbelt? All over. They're like, dude, we're in the Rust Belt. There's a place called the Sun Belt. And you have other states that are seeing population gains. And with that, changing demographics in those particular states. And sometimes with that, you're seeing an increase in hunters, and sometimes you're seeing a decrease in hunters.

So it changes around the country. But overall, the total number of hunters and the age of hunters is getting older every single year, which means you've got no bottom of the population of hunters coming into the scenario. Go on with your point, Yanni. You're going to make a point. 10% of the people are going to. Well, no, that was it.

They're just going to say, how can that be? Oh, I thought you were going to extend that. To what? Like the perspective of why in the world. No, I mean. Which we've explored. Why in the world would you ever even suggest a desire to have more hunters? Like that makes no sense.

Right. Why would you want more people out screwing up your hunt which is also a legitimate thing to say oh yeah we're our own worst enemy when it comes to that yeah we don't i mean we're all guilty of it not in my spot you don't yeah especially coming at it from a turkey hunter. Turkey hunting is where you get shot. Well, and we've all been there where you're out, you go out, you set up that morning, you've got that perfect place, and then there's somebody else calling. You're like, darn it. Yeah, we hunted some public land in Missouri last spring, me and Yanni did.

And when you heard a gobble, instead of wanting a gobble gobbler to keep gobbling you heard a gobble you're like please shut up please shut up please shut up because no matter what pretty soon it's like you hear a car door on some ridge and i was like yeah yeah yeah then like the race is on man that's right so but it is i mean if we've got a window of time here that is pretty short that we've got to replace those baby boomers, which are the biggest bubble of licensed hunters in the country right now. Their parents, hunting participation was so high for their parents. That's right. So as much as it hurts, go out and mentor somebody.

That's right. And don't pick anybody that's less than 20 years of age. Be like, I'll show you exactly how to hunt cow spot. I think that is a point that shouldn't be glossed over is there is no set age for a first-time hunter. No, there's not. And, you know, the cool part of it is you can take people out that might not have hunted their entire life who have wanted to go hunting or maybe they don't even recognize they wanted to go hunting. But they go out and enjoy it and it opens up a whole new world for them. But the other part of it is stick with them.

It takes more than one hunting experience. It's intimidating to try and figure out what kind of equipment you need and how it's fun to go out with somebody who's done all the research and scoping and loans you their equipment and takes you out there and calls in a bird or whatever your hunting species is. And you get a chance to go out and be part of it. It's another to then go out and be self-sufficient. So you've got to stick with them to be there, that mentor that tells them, okay, you want to go out and get a firearm? Here are some recommendations. I'll go with you if you want to go talk to the person at the gun store. Or here's what I recommend for some basic equipment. Or here's so-and-so that also hunts. Maybe you want to link up with them because I'm going to be gone next month, but maybe you'd like to go hunt with them because we know it takes social, that social network.

You guys have it because you live it every day. But for other folks, as we become more mobile as a population, trying to link up with other people in our communities who share that same lifestyle, we don't join clubs anymore. We don't join conservation clubs and some of that stuff. So, and I hope they do. I hope, I'll give a plug for National Wild Turkey Federation. Yeah, you worked there. Go ahead. Yeah.

If you moved to a new community or if you just are part of a community and you want to meet people that hunt and can introduce you to it, go join the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation. That's the hot tip I've been giving people all the time. Because when we do live shows, we talk to a bunch of people. And they're like, oh, yeah, what's the best tip for getting involved? Like, I hunted two years and haven't seen anything yet. And I'm like, I didn't do this because everyone's different.

Like, I just grew up, like, very immersed in it. But I was like, what I would do now that I realize how things work is I would get involved volunteering with a conservation group. That's right. In your area because you're going to get in there and start doing stuff and people are going to feel sorry for you. They're going to make, you're going to make friends and get involved in activities through social interactions and through organized events. That's the other part of it. And you get those people a little drunk, and you'd be like, and pretty soon they'll say something like, I haven't been in there myself, but I have a good feeling that if you tried that spot.

Those kind of conversations. Well, you do. A fellow might. That's the sentence you're looking for. Well, and the other part of it is it helps motivate you to get out there. You know, when you're socializing, talking about it, somebody has you over for, you know, for venison dinner afterwards, you're more inclined as you get immersed in the lifestyle to remember how much you enjoy it and make that effort to get out. Doing some rough math in my head, I feel like you need to have them mentor. Oh, because you're saying one person every year.

At least one. Yeah, because I think that it takes about four to have one stick. Just looking at my own set of experiences. You're probably right. Everyone, I've never had someone be like, I wish I hadn't done that. They're always like, dude, that was really very informative and really kind of changed my perspective on things. Glad I did it. But that doesn't mean that they're going to then start, you know.

Go off on their own. Yeah, start finding spots. We've been, you know, one of the things that we've been doing on these, we've tried to move away from one and done events. Well, that's what we call them, where you come in, you take them out for a hunt, and then you're done. That's it. Where we try and work with other conservation organizations.

So we teach them the life skills. They learn how to hunt safely, get hunter safety, move through, go out on a hunt, try several different hunts. What we ideally would like to do is move people through that system so then they can become mentors to other folks. But it takes having them have exposure and meeting different people and having those different experiences multiple times to really start thinking themselves as hunters and getting the confidence to go out on their own. Exactly. Or take somebody else out who hasn't hunted before.

Yeah, and you can't let those assumptions lie either. Like if you are successful to the point of having a bird or a buck on the ground, you can't just be like, cool, well, take that to the processor. You're successful. Good job. Show them what to do with the meat, too, I think is a big deal. Yeah. You got to. And then check their freezer, make sure they're using it.

If not, yell at them. Yes, exactly. Humiliate them in front of their friends. Well, and. That's how you. Ensure a good recipe recipe that's how you get more hunters humiliate them yeah got any got any final thoughts you want to wedge in there cal i know i think i've been wearing that hat in a briar patch well you know i got a tiny little head and only certain hats fit me so i got to stick with them while I got one. When you get one that works, you stand by it.

Yeah, yeah. No, man, I think we covered a lot of good stuff, and thanks for coming out. My pleasure. Love hearing all the good info. What's a lifetime membership cost at the Old Turkey Federation? Lifetime membership? An annual membership is $35. Sponsorship is $250.

And then we stack memberships. So you can continue to be lifetime memberships. Is that a one lump sum lifetime membership thing? No, I mean, you can do that. But typically what we do is we like to get people back every single year and continue that membership. That's better. With someone buying in once and then going. That's right.

Because we want you to be active with us. I mean, that's one of the things with National Wild Turkey Federation. We have a pretty high percentage of folks that not only are members, but are volunteers. So they come in and they put in the learn to hunt workshops. They go out there and do the women in the outdoors events. They do the Jake's events. They do the Jake's events. They do the Whelan's events. They go out and do habitat work,

or they work at the Capitol in their respective states. And that is what's so special about it because those people are really engaged in the outdoors. So I can't just cut a check and then go vanish for the rest of my life. Well, you can, but we'd really rather have you come back and be more invested. Oh, I got a concluder question.

Hit it. Strangest thing you've heard of a turkey eat? Strangest thing? Because, I mean, they don't eat anything. They eat just about anything. Yeah. What's the strangest contender? I don't know that I can think of something that's really strange.

What have you seen? I'll be on the lookout for that. Well, in Colonel Tom Kelly's The Tenth Legion, he talks about watching him out eating crayfish from underwater. That's interesting. Oh, that's true. That's true. I've heard a number of people bring that up. I've seen deer eat fish.

Now, that's pretty weird, waiting in and eating alewives. That footage of a deer eating baby birds out of a nest. Yeah. Which really changes how you feel about deer. That's true. I mean, watching a turkey swallow a snake is rather interesting. I've seen them go after the snakes. Yeah. They get really excited.

Yeah, they do. Yeah. I've seen footage of that where a turkey's standing out in a field beating a snake to death, whipping it back and forth, trying to kill it, and he eventually gets it. Yeah. And then gulping it down. Yanni, concluders? You know what your concluder should be?

Tell me. You should have a concluder question where you say, what's the strangest way you've ever heard of a turkey dying? Unless you got something else. I got something else. You can take that one.

It's made with Spencer's skin. But no, I'm always just so impressed, man. We have a lot of guests on this show. And Becky, you rarely say, I don't know. Today, I think you said, I don't know, to one of Steve's questions. Two, I was counting. Two, you were counting too? Because I respect it.

Yeah, it's very impressive. Because a lot of people, they're like, oh, yeah, what happens there? It's just better to be like, I don't know. No, Becky's in the hot seat too. I'm just always so impressed now knowing your background because last time, the last podcast, I wish I knew the number off the top of my head. You should listen to that one too

but we really got your story of how you came to CareerPath and all your experiences and then it just so thoroughly comes out when we're chit-chatting because I'm old is what you're trying to say. I've been around the mill a couple times. It just so thoroughly comes out when we're chit-chatting because, like, yeah. I'm old is what you're trying to say. I've been around the mill a couple times here. But my conclusion is that before we started.

Finish your point a little more solidly because I might have misunderstood it. No, my point is just that I'm impressed. Like I said. She has the humility. Great A guess. You're saying that you appreciate that she has the humility to say i don't know or that she rarely doesn't know i didn't say that about the humility which that's a great um uh characteristic of people i i like to think that i can say that often too i say it often you know

that i don't know but she doesn't say it often which is so impressive. Oh, because she has a lot of insight. Yes. But I took note of when she did and felt proud and happy to know her, that she would be like, I don't know. It's great for us turkey geeks because we just sit around here and just ask weird turkey questions. She's like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Let me tell you about this, that, and the other. That's where you run up against the trouble talking to biologists is I'm interested in like, what's the weirdest, right? Yeah, you and and the other. Well, that's where you run up against the trouble talking to biologists, is I'm interested

in like, what's the weirdest, right? Yeah, you and all the normadelic people. Yeah, and they're kind of like, biologists are more like, well, we're kind of a little more focused on sort of like what happens. What are the averages happen? What normally happens. So, I appreciate it. My concluder is that before we started recording, Becky and I were talking about the National Wild Turkey Federation convention

that happens in Nashville every week around Valentine's Day. Is that right? And she was telling me what a good time it is. And I was saying that it must be. I've heard of that. Right. But you didn't stay long. I think we should go back next year.

We'd love to have you back. Maybe do a little something. Cal and I were talking about doing a little seminar called Drumsticks and Thighs. Something along those lines. Bring a bunch of thighs and drumsticks down and show all the ways you can make them real good. Yeah, and be like, tell me this ain't good. That's what we'll call that booth. Something like that.

Tell me this ain't good. But yeah, she was just telling me what a party it is and what a good time and how people like take family vacations to be there. And I was just, I was noticing that a lot of other conservation organizations, their annual conventions aren't so hot anymore and they might be losing participation where it seems like the Turkey convention is just like, we hear everybody's going there and it's nuts and people love it over 56 000 people were there last year yeah that's where i met will primos real quick

yeah i mean i mean it's so fun because you can you can we have secretaries of um agriculture secretary of interior was there if chief of the forest service, NRCS, and they're there having dinner with people. And you can have conversations with our members, with those folks. And then who's who of turkey calling and all the rest of it. And so between the trade show, the events, the talks, the seminars, you get a wide variety. And it's fun. It's like a big family reunion. Is it in Nashville this year?

Yeah, it's in Nashville. Is it always in reunion is it nashville this year yeah it's in nashville we used to move it around um last time we had we moved out of nashville was when the gaylord wound up getting flooded and had to be closed so it was probably about eight years ago seven eight years ago and we had it in atlanta much smaller participation but we have gotten so large that there are very few facilities that we can really host it. Well, don't move that thing to Las Vegas, man. Well, that's what I said. And our membership, historically, our membership was more heavier to the eastern United States.

So we're within driving distance for a lot of our membership. So they can bring the whole family down, and it makes it really nice. Yeah, we'll have to go down there and hang out. Please do. I'm primed to roll around that floor and just pick up every single pot call and go, you and everybody else. No, we should get a big stack of thighs and drumsticks and do something fun. I'm going to amend our title.

It's going to be called Turkey Drumsticks, not just for driving in tent stakes. Yep. turkey drumsticks not just for driving in tent stakes yep that would be great man if we had a solicited from listeners a whole bunch of thighs and drumsticks and went down and just had a taco truck mm-hmm we just gave out thigh don't talk too much about it's gonna be going to be held to it now. I said if. I said would be. Would be.

We'd love to have you come down. Spencer, I don't have any concluders. Go ahead. The turkey recovery story is like one of the coolest conservation stories there is. You know, one time they said there was like 30,000 that were left.

And when people think of like imperiled species today, like an orangutan or an elephant, there's hundreds of thousands of those left. And when people think of like imperiled species today, like an orangutan or an elephant, there's hundreds of thousands of those left. And people think of how few there are. And so when you think about 30,000 turkeys and how there's 7 million today, that's crazy. It is crazy.

So thank you to Becky and the NWTF and the agencies and all the people before you because it's a really cool animal that you have brought back to this status that they're all over the continent. People think there's a trap of people thinking that things only get worse. That's right. And then when you learn about the story of American wildlife, you're like, oh, you can make the world better. You can.

I used to give a talk when I was the state director that these are the golden years, the great years. Because, you know, we spent 100 years restoring a lot of these wildlife populations that just weren't around. But the Turkey Federation and the wild turkey is a great success story. And it's nice because it's a confidence boost to people that you really can, with working together and effort, we can restore these species. We can enjoy them today and have them tomorrow. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Good old American elbow grease, man.

You got it. And a nice incentive program. It is. Because you can go out and interact with these birds and hunt them and eat them. And that makes people be like, I'm in. That's right. Let's do them. And that makes people be like, I'm in. That's right. Let's do it. And they're gorgeous.

I mean, as I said, I probably told you guys this before. My daughter, when she was a little old, she used to call them glow birds because they glow. You know, you bring back those toms and they're still, they just glow in the iridescence and the feathers and everything else. Pretty spectacular. Yeah.

One thing you guys should work on is there's nothing that looks worse than a wet turkey. That's true. We got to air dry them. You got to think some way to, when you get a wet turkey, to make them look nice again. Because then you walk up on a wet turkey. It's not like walking up on a dry turkey. No, you're right. It's not a glowbird anymore.

You got to tell the person, normally, these are spectacular. All right. Well,, you're right. It's not a glowbird anymore. You gotta tell the person, normally, these are spectacular. Alright, well thank you very much. Thank you. People can find you guys obviously if you type in National Wild Turkey Federation. I mean, there you are. NWTF.org. Yeah, if you're looking to get into turkey hunting,

man, go there and read. Because there is a, just a, I'm not going to use the expletive term there, but just a lot of information. Like I still go there. I'm like, wow, how could I not have read that article? Yeah, a lot of, and you can go there for good, all like vocalizations and stuff. Yep. All kinds of information.

And look up a local chapter, get involved, get to know some of the people in your community that already are active and participate with the National Wild Turkey Federation. They're great people and we'd love to have new members join us. Yep. And get in your bids for the carbon, the Hoyt carbon spider. Use the used left-handed Hoyt carbon spider. Make your, let us know your top bid, and then we'll send the bow to whoever pledges the highest dollar amount to the National Wild Turkey Federation. And thank you, Becky, for coming on. Thank you. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer.

You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.