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Our mission is to take a stand for Christ while hunting from tree stands and enjoying God’s great outdoors. On every adventure, if you look for it, God will teach you something about Himself. That’s what we want to share, a show about awesome hunting and an awesome creator who made it all possible.
Speaker 1 0:30
Well, welcome back to the stand outdoors, the show where faith and the great outdoors come together. I'm Dave Baker along with the founder of the stand outdoors, Mike Hayes, and today we're talking about methods and means to hunt turkeys this spring, and it is going to be upon us before we know it.
Speaker 2 0:46
Michael, oh, yeah, especially in other states, where they start in April
Speaker 1 0:50
earlier, yes, yeah, because you get warmer, the south you go and turkeys will be out and about looking for girls.
Unknown Speaker 0:56
Yeah, look and you were looking for one in love.
Speaker 1 1:02
So what are some of the methods and means of taking one of these hard to get turkeys? I I have heard that some states it's easier to get them than others. I know in West Virginia they are very, very difficult to hunt.
Speaker 2 1:16
Yeah, well, the Eastern the Eastern birds, which we have here, they, they, um, everything I've read, they're the smartest birds in the woods.
Speaker 1 1:24
Yeah. I mean, are they? Are they dumber the South, more south you go, or what's or more west you go.
Speaker 2 1:29
You know, it's amazing, the deal. They're not smart birds, but, I mean, their brain is the size of a pea, really. I mean, I've seen they get a lot out of seeing pictures of them. It's amazing how small their brain is. But they're, they, they're very instinctive. You know, God has made anything that moves. They believe it's after them to kill them. Yeah, yeah. So probably is. And they have incredible eyesight. You know, they have eyesight like a man with with the 20 power scope, yeah? So they can pick up movement a long ways away, and that that makes them look really smart. Well, sometimes they'll do the dumbest things you'll ever see.
Speaker 1 2:08
I mean, I, I was hunting once, and they sent up a bird in the tree to spy on me. There was a flock coming, and there was already a reconnaissance. They were watching me. And as soon as, you know, they saw any kind of movie, the flock just turned. The whole flock was coming.
Speaker 2 2:30
And, you know, it's funny, because usually they fly down in the morning, you know, yes, and I had one, I was in a blind this one morning because it was very wet and, and this hen comes in. I mean, she was making a racket, just yelping and clucking and doing all kinds of stuff. And I'm watching, I get this, she's gonna call every gobbler in around the area, you know, I was, I didn't have to do anything, you know. But she got near me within, you know, you know, I had my decoys out within, oh, I don't know, 30 yards or something, and flew up in a tree, and she was right there above me, just and I could see her in the tree. I'm going, what are you doing up in the tree by the mid morning, you know, it's like, I think she was doing reconnaissance for something.
Speaker 1 3:15
I'm telling you, maybe they're smarter than we think they are. I don't know, but they are tough in West Virginia. I mean, my dad was a big turkey hunter. He loved turkey hunting just about more than anything else, and he was pretty good at it. But I'm telling you, I have struggled. I got to tell you, I have struggled to get turkeys. I get them coming, I get the gobbler responding, and then they get within range, nothing,
Unknown Speaker 3:38
yeah, usually about 50 yards. They can hang up on you.
Speaker 1 3:41
They just stop. And I'm like, I can't get them to come in. So frustrating. And then once, you know, once your morning's done, sometimes you feel like we're done. Like, yeah, I've made my presence known in the woods. Now they're nothing
Speaker 2 3:52
coming, and you only get till 12 noon the first two weeks, right? You know, of May, and then you can hunt the whole day. But I've, you know, usually after noon, you know, they're, they're going to be sitting on their nest. That's why they do it. The hens go to their nests and all that kind of stuff. But that's why they usually stop it at noon. But spring gobblers, what I usually do, a lot of guys, hunt in the fall, and it's a totally different hunting tactic. Yeah, you know, they're not, you know, there's no competition for mating and all that kind of stuff. They're, they're, they're hoarding together in the fall, getting ready for the winter and and basically, you'll see maybe 50 to 100 of them in a flock, you know, just standing around the edge of the field. And the way you hunt them, because, you know, you're not allowed to stalk up on them, really, not in Pennsylvania, that you got to call them in. So you run at the flock. You literally, I've never done this now, and there's something weird about it, but you run in and you bust them all up, make a racket, and they'll fly all over the place, and they get all separated. You give it an hour, maybe, and then you set up and you start calling them back.
Unknown Speaker 4:56
Maybe I can use my grandson for the running part. They would love that,
Speaker 2 5:01
but it's so different than spring gobble, you know, where you're Ben all stealth, and you want to sneak in there in the morning, you know. And you want to, you know, you don't, you want to hear them, but you don't want them to hear you. And and then you're setting up.
Speaker 1 5:13
And so, so talk to us. Let's talk about some methods. Let's talk about setup. I have wanted to hunt Turkey in my tree stand, and my son in law says, you can't. They'll see you, but I think I could do it. You can you hunt a tree stand like a ladder. Stand, to hunt turkeys.
Speaker 2 5:31
Well, I've shot them with my bow from a tree stand, okay, you know, but, but I missed.
Unknown Speaker 5:39
Well, that's a different thing together.
Speaker 2 5:41
It's hard to draw back on them too, because they do pick pick movement up. It's funny. But, you know, before we get into that, I want to tell this one. But my first experience hunting with my father in law, and I'll never forget it. If you're an archer, you'll love turkey hunting. You know, if you're an Archer and you haven't tried turkey hunting, you got to do it because it's so similar, because of the close encounters. Now I'm talking spring gobbler, and I went out with my father in law, and we set up. And we had this, he would like to set up, which isn't a bad way to do it. He it's not good for filming, though, but he'd like to set up, you know, where there was a ridge, a knoll, and and he would set up maybe 3040, yards away from that, where the hill would drop down. And there, and he likes to call them up the hill. He said they don't like to come down hill to cause for some reason. But he would call him up the hill. And then before they had too much time to see you, see, they're getting closer and closer when they can't see you because of the hill. But once they come over the crest of the hill, you can see their head, and that's all you got to see, you know, with a beard, you got to see. And then you can they don't have time to pick you up, you know. Now, filming is no good. Well, we're sitting there, and we got this, you know, area where, you know, you got it set up a little bit. There's a hill there, and it drops. And this gobbler, I remember the first time it gobbled and this is in a big open Woods area, right echoed, didn't it? Oh, my goodness. So it made the whole Woods shake. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was hooked from right there. I mean, I've never heard anything. It was so loud. I mean, he was probably only when he started gobbling, maybe only 6070, yards away, or something like that. And he was over that little knoll, you know. And it's exciting. It just like he had a megaphone on his beak, man, I'm telling and it I was hooked. And then what happened was he got hung up, like you said. He was only like 50 yards away, but he hadn't come over the crest of the hill. Wasn't buying it, and he was but he was going back and forth, gobbling his head off. And I was loving that this is I'm sitting there, getting more nervous and more nervous, and and then for an hour he did that, and then nothing. And we gave up after a couple hours, you know, we didn't hear anything. And we walk over, you know, to where we he must have been going back and forth. And there was a logging trail there, and we were standing and there was this one rock that jutted out. You know, Pennsylvania has these rocks that that jut out. It was huge, you know, you could literally get on it, like a dock, you know. And, and I wanted to look down the hill, because all open woods. Where did he go? You know? And I get on top of that rock, and I'm looking, looking over the rock down the hill, I guess, see all the way down, and all of a sudden, he's right under the rock. He jumps out from under the rock, jumps up, you know, looks at us, and I mean, busted through those you know, you think they don't fly, because you never see him flying. They he went through branches. He just took off right through that woods, right through the to the sky. My I look over my father in law, he's sitting there with his jaw down to the ground, his gun sitting next to him. You know, we didn't have our guns ready because we gave up, you know, but I'll never forget it. I was so impressed with that bird that I knew I'd be hooked for life. And that was, oh, man, 50 years ago. Probably that's a good story. But anyway, yeah, we're gonna talk about methods and means.
Speaker 1 9:24
So don't use the walk down on the rock and look underneath,
Speaker 2 9:30
you know, you know, I was looking under every rock, Ben, but well, let's just kind of go, you know, go over some methods, you know. Cuz the best thing to do really helps you is to scout where you're going to hunt. Because if you can, you can get in a plateau or something, and you can just spend some hours out there watching, because they'll usually come from one direction, you know, where they're roosting somewhere, and they'll come over to either a feeding or strutting. Area where they like to, like to go to, and they'll do that routine pretty, pretty regularly. And if you can find that, it's not easy, you got to spend some time out there in the woods scouting, just like you do with
Speaker 1 10:12
the area. Yeah, where I hunt, West Virginia. I kind of know where they roost on a regular basis, right? I kind of know where they go the pines. Lot of they roost oftentimes, and pine
Speaker 2 10:22
and tall, real tall trees. Amazing how they will sit up there all night long, hanging on to a branch and sleeping. I wish I could sleep like that. But anyway, I can't even sleep good in a nice, warm bed, but, but, but yeah, and, and looking for sign, you know, you want to look for the, you know, their prints and everything. And look also for like, scrape like in, you know, and you see a lot of leaves on the ground, and you'll see where they're scraping out for grubs and different things like that. You know, flock comes true. They really mess up the ground. They do. And they love those open woods where there's a lot of leaves on the ground because the grubs and the worms are all under leftover acorns. Yeah, they'll eat all that stuff. And so, yeah, all that sign is good.
Speaker 1 11:08
And can you put him to bed at night? Can you go out prior and put him to bed? Kind of hear where they are? Yeah? Well, a lot of hunters do that, yeah.
Speaker 2 11:17
Well, once you, once you get ready to hunt, you know, that's what I do. I'll go out the night before, right before dark, to the areas where I've seen them. And, like you said, where you know they frequently know. And you go go around. And the best, the best way to call them is with a an alcohol or sometimes you can use a crow, just like a shock gobbler, you know, but the owl right before dark is the best. And I haven't had real good success with that. It's hard to get them to to gobble at an owl. I don't know, maybe because that's their main predator, you know, an owl. But I don't think for some reason it's a big problem for them in Pennsylvania, maybe there's not that many owls, I don't know, but I haven't had a lot of success with with getting them to answer an alcohol and sometimes I'll go out there, and sometimes it doesn't work, but I'll go ahead and do a couple yelps, you know, and if they're around, they're going to answer and and then you can get a good location about where they are. But the problem with that, and I had this happen one year only happened once, where I did the, you know, I always try the alcohol first, but if that doesn't work, I try the Yelp. And I did and I got an answer, you know, and I thought I got an answer. It was like I thought I heard one. It was really far away. Let me just try one more. Yelp. So I tried one more. This is right before dark. I tried one more, and he was closer. So now he's coming in. I don't want that, because I can't even hunt, you know. Yeah, I want that in the morning, you know. So I said, let's get out of here. I don't want him to see us, and I don't want him to get too close, you know. So, so we got out of there, and then we went in the next morning, and we set up, you know, where we figured we'd be about 100 to 200 yards away, and that's what you want to do. And then I just waited until, you know, daybreak, and I let out a little bit, no, I didn't have to leave, leave out any, you know, type of a call. All of a sudden I hear him gobble, and he's right over my head. I'm like, I don't know how, I mean, it was pitch black when I went in there, but he was roosting right there and and there. And I, you know, I probably, he probably saw me come in and heard me or whatever, but I never saw him. He never came in. I was way too close, and that was from using the Yelp, which brought him. He wasn't in his roost yet before, so it brought him in. You're no right for dark, for dark, and that's why the Yelp, it and the greatest to use, because you could bring them in, but you're trying to roost them, and you got to get something in the crow, you can shock them, but you want to find out where they are, so that that's that's great if you can roost one at night, that's the best way to go. And then you want to set up the next day, and you want to get a good 100 to 200 yards away from where you hurt them, because if you can, if you get them in the roost, if you can tell they're roosting, when they return that gobble, they'll be in that same spot the next morning, every, every time they don't move.
Speaker 1 14:25
Brother in law, he's killed so many turkeys using that method because he's had an area that he is he knows about. He goes there. He knows that they roost there pretty regularly. So he just goes and does that method. And he is, man, yeah, he's had a record run here of just killing a turkey every year. He knows how to he got do it now, my dad, he was big on calling and calling him in that's what he he didn't put him to bed at night, but he would call you mean your brother didn't call him, no brother in law called him, but brother in law often. Times they were right. They were he was pretty. They would fly down right on high down. He was just a couple of chirps and maybe a two, and all of a sudden they're within shooting range. I don't know he's he's got a good spot.
Speaker 2 15:12
Well, that's the best way to do it, because once they kind of get what their hens are going to be with, it's hard to pull them away. That's right. So he's getting them actually, right after they fly down, before they go there, they're looking for the hens, so they're hearing him, and only takes a couple yelps and they go right.
Speaker 1 15:29
May make a heck of a racket coming down off the roost.
Speaker 2 15:33
Yeah, there's even a call that we might get into next week when we're going to do some, you know, calling, but, and how, what calls to use, and that kind of thing where you can actually get into, you know, you can make a sound like a hen flying off the roost, you know, it's called a fly down cackle. I'll never heard that and and that that gets them all excited, you know, the gobblers. But, all right, so if here, okay, you go out the night before. You can't you're not getting anything to gobble. You don't know where they are. So how do you know where to set up? Then you kind of go by your scouting. You go in the next morning in the dark. And what I've found works about usually they'll gobble right at daybreak. They'll do most of their gobbling early, like that, and you just kind of be quiet and listen, just you don't even have to be set up yet. You can listen, and you'll probably hear a gobble, and that'll give you a direction,
Speaker 1 16:36
especially if you're hunting. I found in West Virginia hunting in a mountain range, because not a lot of people hunt turkeys. Now. They hunt fields in Pennsylvania, right? I remember the strutting field, yeah, yeah. But in in the mountains, and they do hunt in the mountains in Pennsylvania, don't get me wrong, but you can hear them across the valley, Goblin, Oh, yeah. They'll come. They'll come to even get them. Yeah, you
Speaker 2 16:55
can call them from a long ways away if they, if they're not with hens, and they and they think that's where the hens are. They will get over there, but, but then, if, if you don't hear anything, you know, if you hear something, then you want to go, get get closer and get Now, do you start moving? If I hear something that's real far away, then move. I'll move. Yeah, I'll move. I'll try to get set up where I'm about 100 100 100 to 200 yards away from from the gobble. But if I don't hear anything, I don't know which way to go. I don't know, you know. So that's when you got to start what we call running and gunning. And if this is why I love my electric Bad Boy buggy, because you can only cover so much territory, you know, when you're out there on foot, and I got this electric, you know, it's like a golf cart on steroids, you know, fully cam owed and everything, got the big old knobby tires on it and all. But I can drive that, and I can cover so much character. And what I do is, I'll, I'll go, you know, I'll set out some yelps and clucks and stuff. If I don't hear anything, I'll drive that thing 200 yards from there and start calling again. Then if I don't get anything, I'll go to another spot and call it's called running and gunning.
Speaker 1 18:10
I love that method because I can be in a cart, that's right, a golf cart.
Speaker 2 18:14
You can take your clubs and try a couple swings, if you want, with the electric I love, I mean, it's funny when I'm out there doing that sometimes, well, it was so quiet, you know, the car I'll drive right up on some deer, and they're going, What the heck are you doing here? They don't hear us coming. Yeah. But anyway, the but even if you're walking, that's what you want to do, walk a good 100, 200 yards and let out some more calls, do a little sequence of calls, see if you can get an answer, and if you can't, it's usually not good unless you know they're in that area somehow to set up, because you're really wasting a lot of time, and you only got until noon. You know to hunt that
Speaker 1 18:51
goes fast, and you realize your opportunity, how fast your opportunities start to dwindle. By the time day the sun comes up, you're kind of like, well, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 19:01
You know, our very first episode was a turkey hunt and and it was upstate Pennsylvania, on the stand outdoors. Calm. On the stand outdoors. Dot first video. My first video. Yeah, first thing you ever did. Oh, wow, is it, is it still up there? Yeah, it's part of the Bible study series. You should check that out. Stand outdoors.com. Yep, and, and it's our, you know, first one we got on film, turkey hunt and, and it was amazing how we were pretty much done. We thought we didn't hear anything, and you'll see it on the video. But finally, it ends up, I told, you know, we're driving the buggy around. Told my wife, I said, Daddy, just, I'm gonna go, just take a couple steps out in this field. And, yeah, let out a call, you know, I said, this probably not gonna hear anything. We're almost ready to quit. So I let out a little Yelp. And then, you know, right over the hill, I come running back stash the buggy, there was no tree to even get up against. I had to, I had to sit in this high ground. Ass. I had to belly crawl, you know, because I figure he coming over the hill. I had to belly crawl and put out a couple decoys. I'm sitting there. Dottie is hiding. She's an incredible camera person. I'll tell you what she was hiding behind the buggy. She never saw this turkey with the naked eye. She's looking through the hold her hands up, getting the camera through the rails, you know, of the buggy, and filming that Turkey coming in, strutting all the way she's filming the whole thing. And he came in, and I think, because I was, you know, from doing all the belly crawling, the first shot I had might have been 30 yards. I shot, and I must have hit him in the body, because he took off flying. And then I had backed up my five shot with some four shot. And I pumped, you know, pumped it. Got the four shot in there, and I dropped him out of the air. Boom, right out of the air. I couldn't believe it. So we were high five, and, man, we were having and it's we got it all on film. Dottie was incredible. How she got all that on film, and it made for a really neat episode. So you got to check that one out. All right. Let's get on. Get into some more methods here, running and gunning. Of course, that's what we end up doing a lot. We got to find them. All right, once you find one, and now you got to set up, right? If there's two of you, one of my favorite setups that seems to work incredible, because you talked about this in the beginning, Dave, you mentioned how they get hung up, you know, maybe 50 yards in front of you, right? And they don't come in all the way. Well, if you have two of you there, we call it the drop down method. And we'll put the hunter in one spot, and then the caller will go back maybe 2025 yards behind the hunter. So he's calling, you know, at 25 yards behind the shooter, the hunter. And then you put your decoys, of course, in front of the shooter, and maybe 10 yards, 20 yards and and then that gobbler thinks he's all smart, he's going to hang up at 50 yards. Well, he's in shooting range. Then, because he's only 25 yards away from my shake down a lot, and it works incredible. We have gotten so many Turkey that way. And if you're alone, then, you know, you I try to really get concealed good. And I try to bring the gobblers, you know, maybe only 10 yards in front of me. You know, I don't put them too far out because, you know they're looking and they're going to get hung up probably, you know, but, but they want to see something, you know, and so that's what I'll do. And I prefer hunting, you know, on the ground. I like those low seats, you know, either just a square seat that they sell that has real short legs on it, get you off the ground, or the, you know, they have these low rider chairs. They even have a back on them, but they sit like couple inches off the ground, and then they have a back, which is nice if you can
Speaker 1 23:10
get once, you can attach to trees. Now you can sit in there, low you can, yeah, put them. You can put them anywhere you want. Yeah, right now, also, I would say, and we'll talk about this in a bit, but your strategy changes depending on what you're shooting them with. I mean, if you're going to shoot them with a 22 to 50 or 223 versus a shotgun, then your strategy can change quite a bit in your hunt, right? I mean, yeah, you don't have to be quite as close if you
Speaker 2 23:38
and you got to know, you know, you have to spend time patterning your your gun. Just last year, for the first time, I got a 410 because I wanted my grandson to go go hunting with me. You know, he's nine years old, and the 20 gage would be a little powerful for him. You know, I've been using 20 gage three inch, you know, three inch shot using, you know, like five, six shot and, and doing really well with a good a good choke really chokes it down. One thing about a choke that you got to understand, the tighter the choke, you know, the tighter your your you know your shot is on the target. And you got to know that, because if you're like, I like to sighted in at 30 yards, you know, well, if you do it at 30, and it's a nice group, you know, around the head at 10 yards, it's going to even be a tighter you could miss that Turkey, and you got to keep that in mind. So it's good to figure out a couple ranges, 1020, 30, and then maybe 50. See what your ultimate range is. If you can reach out to 50, that's incredible, because that's shotgun with a shotgun, yeah, with the 20 gage or 12 gage. Now I. So I kind of like the ballistics are so similar from a 20 to a 12, but these new rounds that they have out now, these TSS rounds are very expensive, but they will penetrate so much more because of the titanium, you know, and and they fly. They're so much more accurate, and the speed is better, but they will penetrate. They don't. The lead just flattens out, and they don't get the penetration, you know? And that's why these 410s man, I'm going out with the 410 Wow, it they I was watching. Who was it? Real tree. Dave, what's his name, Blanton. Dave Blanton was out there with a 410 he was trying out these new shells, you know, these TSS shells, knocking them 50 yards. He got he got a gobbler, 50 yards with a 410 That's how good these and now they're saying, don't spend a whole lot of money on a gun. Spend it on the ammo, you'll do much better with the better ammo. You know, because ammo is like 50 bucks, four shots, you know, it's ridiculous. It is. It's crazy. But, all right, I wanted, before we got into maybe, you know, talking about our weapons, I wanted to talk about decoys a little bit. You know, some people don't even like decoys. They think it scares them away or whatever. But for the most part, decoys have kind of proven themselves to be good. Not only is it good because it brings them in, you know, when they see it, but it also it gets their eyes off of you. You know, they're looking once they see that decoy, they're looking at the decoys and and they're not looking at you or where the sounds coming from. They're thinking it's coming from them. So, so it's got a couple advantages there, but you got to be careful with decoys, because, and I learned this the hard way. Of course, we were out dot and I were out hunting, and a lot of times in Pennsylvania, you don't get two or three gobblers coming in at the same time, you'll get one. You know, that's usually probably nine 90% of the time, that's all you're going to get coming in at one time, is one gobbler. And if you have I used to set up. I used to like to put a lot of decoys out. I'd put out like, a couple, you know, Jake's with maybe two or three hens. You know, that's how you usually see them out in the field. You know, I was trying to mimic the stuff that I saw, right? Well, one time we had this gobbler come in on us, and he was like, 80 yards away. This is when Dottie was hunting. I had already gotten mine. Dottie is going after hers, and she was using a crossbow, so we needed to bring that thing in pretty close, you know. And, and we had that same setup with the decoys, and we watched that big old, big Tom, big old, Long Beard look like a coke bottle hanging from his chest, you know. And, and he was gobbling making noise. And we have this all on film too. I think it might be on one of the episodes, but anyway, that gobbler went around, and it was a big open field area, and it never committed to the decoys. It stayed, and it must. It took an hour, probably, but it walked the perimeter of that field all the way around, staying like anywhere from 70 to 80 yards away, looking in and gobbling, but not committing. And then finally it came into like 60 yards. And it was almost 12 o'clock, and I said, Daddy, you got to take a shot. And she did, and it went right underneath, right underneath it, you know,
Speaker 1 28:38
that's when you need a 22, to 50, yeah, well,
Speaker 2 28:42
you're not allowed to use anything but a shotgun, you know, in Pennsylvania, spring gobbler. Now, in rifle, I mean, in the fall, you can use, you can use a rifle, but and you can even get a hen in the fall. But I've never really gotten into that type of hunting, so I really can't speak to it, but it sounds pretty interesting. But the reason why did that happen? You know, why did that gobbler not commit? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, and I saw it on some different outdoor shows where two Jakes can give a gobbler a lot of trouble. You know what I'm saying. They're, they're almost like, like, the the, you know, the teenage gang, you know, you get two or three Jake's out there. A gobbler is not going to come in by himself. And so what I've been doing now is I'll put out either, you know, I like one Jake and maybe one hen or two hens. Sometimes I'll only use a hen, I won't even put out a Jake, but sometimes that Jake gets them coming in even faster, especially if there's two long beards, you know. But if there's just one Jake, and then you have one long beard that won't stop him, he'll come in. Yeah. And I've had so much more success when I just. Had one or two decoys out there like that, and remember, especially only one, Jake, that's all you want. So that's important, and that has been proven over and over again with me a lot of times what I like to do, too, even though I rather be hunting out in the open and up against a tree or whatever. The blinds can be really good, especially early in the morning, when you know where they are, and especially if it's wet, rainy, you know you don't have to lose hunt like this is May. What happens in May. May flowers come Spring. Spring showers bring May flowers. And a lot of times we'll get rain. And one thing I've learned to do is to pray to the real weather man. My wife and I have seen this happen so many times. It is hilarious. How we you know, we look at the forecast and we shouldn't be going for a long weekend turkey hunting because it's going to be raining all weekend, right, according to the weather, the weatherman, but we pray to the real weather man. And I've seen it on when you look at the Doppler, or whatever you want to call it, I've seen it where that rain is coming right and then it split. It's almost like the parting of the Red Sea. That darn rain, the clouds will split and go right around where we're hunting and and we've had that happen so many times. So I'm a big proponent. Don't Don't stop your plans. Just pray to the real weather man. But, but anyway, the blind works out really good for that. And you can even put your decoys closer in a blind, because they don't see the movement. And turkeys, they're not afraid of blinds like deer are. You know, deer, you got to put it up a month ahead of time, let them get used to it with Turkey, even a day. I mean, I've hunted out of them, you know, the next day I put it in and they're walking right up against it, you know, they don't even care. So a lot of people say, get it in there a few days before, but, but that's nice, if you can. But the blind offers a lot more protection you can. Your cameraman could be right there, you know, hidden. And so I don't mind a blind at all, especially if you're going to now, we're going to get into some weapons. If you're going to get into hunting with a bow, it's very difficult to draw a bow on a, you know, a turkey, they have eyes that are unbelievable. So if you're in a blind you have a much better chance. And even then, it's a very hard thing to do. I've only done it a couple times, and I haven't gotten one yet. I have not shot with my bow. And, you know, I own it's weird to hit a turkey with a bow. To me, is almost like, like hitting hitting a football with a baseball bat. You know what I mean is it seems like they don't go together. Like the shotgun seems to be the just the right way to kill a turkey. I don't know what it is. You know, it's like two different sports that don't Clyde Well, there's
Speaker 1 33:01
lots of precision with the bow, where you have to, I mean, there's not much. I mean, you could shoot them through, through and through. Where do you aim at a turkey with a bow? Well, there's a
Speaker 2 33:11
couple different strategies. The vital area is very small, you know, in the chest area there, it's a lot smaller. And you think it is when you see all those feathers, you know,
Speaker 1 33:19
because you don't want to ruin meat, if that's, you know, yeah, yeah. Well, you will protect if you're gonna
Speaker 2 33:25
eat it, yeah, you're gonna eat it, but, but you will ruin some meat, but, but it's still so challenging. I mean, that's one thing I love about it. But a lot of guys, they'll get those guillotine, you know, broad heads that are, like, three inches, four inches long, you know, the blades on them. Try to decapitate, and they try to decapitate and they shoot for the head. They aim for the base of the neck, just like you do with a shotgun, hoping to cut their head off. Gotta be difficult as well. Oh, it is. It's super and it's got to be very close range with those broad heads, like, I'm talking five yards. Like, literally five yards. That's where you want your decoys, five yards in front of your blind. Wow, yep, that close and, and, and, or you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna hit them. Now you might shoot for the body. And another thing about archery, when you shoot for the body, you got to go get them. They'll run away. If you shoot them with a bow, they'll run away. And you got to find them like a deer, you know. And sometimes you don't find them, you know, because you didn't get enough of the vitals, because they're very small. But the blinds a way to go when you're when you're using, when you're using a bow. So do we cover everything? Dave, you think, Oh, we got to go through some safety tips. This is important. You know, more people get shot during turkey season than any other season. Oh, wow, out there, and it's because you got all these colors on, just like a turkey, but, and you're on the ground, you know, usually. And the way they're, you know, it's against the law in Pennsylvania, but the way they're using these fantails and trying to walk up on these deer, you know, very, very dangerous. And there's so many hunters in Pennsylvania, you know, it's just not a good idea. But I just want. To go over some clothing and gear for safety tips, avoid wearing white, red, blue or black. These are the colors that mimic, you know, a Turkey's head or their feathers and all so and I like to wear when I'm running and gunning. I like to wear an orange hat, or some of the vests have the orange flag in the back you can pull out. And that's really important walking around, because I'm telling you, I've walked up on several hunters, and it's not it's a dangerous thing. And what do you do? You know, if you're sitting there and you see a hunter walking up on you, well, you don't start making calls or anything. You don't start waving your hand around. You know, the best thing to do is yell, say, stop another hunter. Just say anything real clear and distinct. You know is the best thing to do. Well, the one thing you got it you got to make sure is that you know, you're shooting at a gobbler. You know, in spring turkey, you got to see the beard. There's got to be a beard, even if it's a gobbler and, you know, a male and it doesn't have a beard, it's not legal. If you see a hen with a beard, you can actually shoot it in the spring, even though you're not allowed to shoot hens in the spring. But if they have a beard, and very rarely, you know, you find one that has a beard. But so you got to make sure, absolutely sure of your target. Now, here's the problem. I read a book from a guy that had three or four of his hunters shot in Turkey season. Can you imagine that having your friend, that many of your friends shot, he'd go out with, like, you know, four or five guys you know, and in his hunts. He was just getting sick of it, and so he actually, he did a film, you know, that that now the Game Commission used for their hunter safety course, he made a film of what a gobbler looks like in the woods, you know, and and how the hunter looks just like it, and that's why we got to be so careful. But here's the other thing that's very dangerous, that we need to know that, and it just make us be that much more positive. The people that know how brains work and everything. If you're an experienced hunter in Turkey and you think you see a gobbler, and let's say you see, let's say you see the red head. So you see that red head, you see the movement looks like a strut, almost in the woods, your brain will fill in the rest of it, because it's already seen it in the woods, the beard, you know, the feathers, all of the stuff. Your brain can fill in those gaps that you don't have and you don't even know it, and you will actually see a turkey, even though it's not there. If you get a couple things like the red head, like, if somebody has a red cap on his in his pocket, of a lot of people take bug spray during then, and there's a lot of times they'll have a red, you know, Cap, cap, and you see that, and it's moving, you know. And then you shouldn't be moving, you know. But the guys, that's why you want a big tree. If you can get a tree that'll cover your whole back, cover your back, you don't want to be turning around that tree looking behind you, because now you're doing that motion of a turkey strut all these things. If a hunter sees that, and he says that a turkey, and he sees the red head. He sees the motion. He sees the fan tail. May take a shot, yep, and he's gonna, but his brain's gonna fill in the rest. That's so, so make sure that you are shooting at a true gobbler. Hey,
Speaker 1 38:40
it. Well, we've been talking about the methods and means of hunting turkeys, and we want to talk a little bit about the methods and means of sharing the gospel. Mike, yeah,
Speaker 2 38:53
you know, I was trying to think of a spiritual lesson here. You know about hunting turkeys, and probably one of the the biggest ones that I could think of that would really help us is how you have to be sure that you're shooting a true gobbler. You know that you got to make sure, because there's so many accidents in the woods and and, and that just made me think about how you know when I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, it was after a death in my family or my girlfriend died in a car accident when I was only 19 years old. And it got me to, you know, to start thinking about the truth about what happens after you die. And, man, I went on this journey that took forever. You know, it seemed like it did. I was I quit my job, and I quit college, and I actually went out to pursue the answer to that. I was kind of like Lee Strobel, you know, is that investigative reporter, and I was talking to every guru in the area, and I was, you know, every, you know, took talk. I was Catholic at the time, but I wasn't a good Catholic. But I was talking to my priest. And just talking to everybody ended up, I talked with this guy that I persecuted in high school. He was my best friend, and he became a Christian, and I just, I knew our friendship was over, and I persecuted him. I told him, This guy's a Jesus freak, you know, all of our friends, because he wasn't going to party with me anymore. And I was mad. I was so mad because he was my best friend, and he ended up going to Bible college, and I figured he might know something, you know, after a couple years of Bible college, so I showed up on his doorstep and surprised him and freaked him out. But you know what? We stayed up all night long, and he answered every question I had right from scripture, and that blew me away. I was still a little stubborn. Took me a little while longer, because I thought I had to study all the religions in the world to know him well enough. And of course, the devil, he knew I couldn't do that in two lifetimes, you know. So he was hoping I'd die on the way, you know. But, but then finally, somebody explained that to me, but, but I did want to know the truth. And then I remember Jesus himself. If you look at John 8/32 Jesus says, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. And of course, in John 14, six, you know John says, or Jesus says, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. So Jesus Himself is the embodiment of the truth and and I remember Paul when he was doing his missionary journeys, and he he was traveling all over. He was the apostle to the Gentiles, and he was talking to all these different people, bringing in this Good News of Jesus Christ. You know, that's the definition of the word gospel. It means good news. And of course, it's great news to know that all of my sins have been paid for by the blood of Christ, because the penalty for death is something I could never understand. The penalty for sin is death. It's not doing good works, penance, you know, putting money in the plate. Those are good things to do, but they'll never pay for your sin. The penalty, according to God's word, which is the truth, says, The penalty for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Through Jesus, Christ and Paul was going around preaching the gospel, and he got to the Bereans, and he said this thing about the Bereans, and I'll never forget he was talking to another city that, and he said, be he wrote a letter to him, and he said, be like the Bereans, because they didn't even take my word for it. He said they searched the scriptures to make sure that what I was teaching was true. And and it impressed Paul, you know, and Paul said, be like the Bereans. And that's what I challenge you guys to do, too. Don't just settle for some religion or or, you know, you know, something that you heard on TV or, you know, or you saw in a movie, or whatever, check it out in God's word and and look at the scriptures and see how fantastic they are. You know, I ended up going to Bible college for four years after that. Now should become a pastor, but,
Speaker 1 43:20
but you saw, but you sought out somebody who knew the word, and you sat with them, and kind of went through it. And if you study the life of Paul, if there's anybody you want to study about the methods and means of sharing the gospel, he used all kinds of methods. Yeah, he used one mean, and that is the gospel of Jesus, Christ, and His his life resurrected after his death and so. But he used a lot of methods. He used different ploys and different ways to communicate the gospel to different sets of people. Yeah, and the Bereans were just one of the many that he used. So Be Like Mike,
Unknown Speaker 43:58
not Michael Jordan, no,
Speaker 1 43:59
like Mike Hayes and go find somebody who you respect, who's been in church a long time, who knows the word of God, and sit with them and ask them the questions that you have. You might not get them all, and you might not answer answers to all of them the way you want them. That's right, but you'll be further down the road and finding Jesus,
Speaker 2 44:15
you know. And that's the way I thought about it. I said, okay, all I have is logic and science, you know. And there's this book that claims to be the spoken word of God, either it is or it isn't. And so I said, let's go check it out. And it was amazing. Everywhere it touched on science. Now, the Bible is not a science book, but everywhere it touched on science, it was not 50% correct, not 60 but 100% correct, things like, like the blood of animals being different than the blood of man. We didn't know that till 150 years ago, maybe and but yet, 3000 years ago, you know, it's written in Scripture, things about the stars, Ben, innumerable. Did you know in our science books we had actually a guy? That counted all the stars, and it was known as a fact, and it was in our science books of the day, until Galileo invented the telescope, and he goes, Oh, you're a little short. Buy a couple trillion, zillion quadrillion or whatever. But God already said they're innumerable. You cannot count them. And there was just so many, historically, was another 100% correct. But the one that really got me to was the prophecy, 100% correct on every prophecy that has had time to be fulfilled. That's amazing, guys. And you know, it was all there for 1000s of years. I just never checked it out, you know, until I had to go through a horrible accident and lose, you know, a very special person in my life.
Speaker 1 45:45
So if you're if you're a believer, learn about the methods and means of sharing the gospel. If you're not a believer, find a method and means to find out more about the gospel and find out how you can get the answers you're looking for. We are big fans of the local church here, find a church you feel comfortable with, get involved, ask the pastor the questions you have, and find the methods and means to find out more. And if you're a believer, find the methods and means to share it more. And that's our challenge for you today.
Speaker 2 46:15
Yeah, God said, If you seek for me with all your heart, you will find me. So I encourage you to do that.
Speaker 1 46:23
We would love to hear from you. We really do. Please send us a note or a question by going to our home page. It's found at the stand outdoors.com, and hit the Contact tab.
Speaker 2 46:33
Also, we'd love to pray for you too. Leave your prayer request by hitting the contact or the DO YOU KNOW JESUS tab
Speaker 1 46:41
also check out our targeting the truth Bible studies and the YouTube hunt videos. Again, it's all found at the stand outdoors.com. Check it out. Hey. Thanks so much for joining us today. This podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and many other platforms too.
Speaker 2 46:58
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow hunters.
Speaker 1 47:04
Details about our guests, and any links can be found on our show notes, and you can find us online again at the standout doors.com that's the stand outdoors.com. Until next time for my case, I'm Dave Baker,
Speaker 2 47:16
and remember, stand firm in the faith and keep targeting the truth. You
Transcribed by https://otter.ai