The Ozark Podcast

Kyle Veit:
Alright, welcome back to the Ozark Podcast. We have got the honor and the privilege of being joined by legendary turkey hunter, Ralph Durin. Ralph, we're going to talk turkeys with you, we're going to talk game calling with you. I know you're a world champion game caller. You're also in the Trappers Hall of Fame. and we're excited to talk with you. So welcome to the podcast.

Ralph Duren:
Well, it's good to be here and I've been retired for 18 years from the conservation department but that just means I get to spend a lot more time turkey hunting, fishing, trapping, all the things that I enjoy that I didn't have a lot of time for because I was too busy telling people all about how to get out and hunt and fish and trap and have a good time. spend more time at it. And at the same time, I still end up doing a lot of radio shows and some television shows now and then. But I, and I still travel and speak and across the country, I get to meet a lot of people and have a lot of fun. And that's kind of what it's all about, getting outdoors and having a lot of fun.

Kyle Veit:
Yes, absolutely. I love to hear that. And yeah, I didn't mention, but you've actually, you've been on a lot of different TV shows. I know that you've been on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. You've been on CBS This Morning, Late Night, the Outdoor Channel, you've been on ESPN2. I mean, you've really, I haven't

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
even named probably half the list, but those are some of the big ones that you've been on, so it's awesome to have you on and get to spend some time with you today.

Ralph Duren:
It's fun to do those. You get to meet a lot of famous people and what's fun about it is I'm usually on because I'm different, I'm weird, you might say. When the Tonight Show called, the lady told my

Kyle Veit:
Hehehehe

Ralph Duren:
wife she was in charge of the weird talent department. You know what? I grew up as a kid. I thought everybody spent

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
time

Kyle Veit:
awesome.

Ralph Duren:
in the outdoors and called the animals. I mean, that's just what I did. At the time I was a little bitty kid, I'd go out and call whatever I heard. And I didn't think there was anything unusual about it. And the first time I entered a turkey calling contest was 59 years ago at Festus Crystal City Conservation Club, which was only about a half mile from my house where I grew up in Southern Jefferson County. in the back, the one, the guy that picked me to win, even though the other judges didn't agree, he went home and told his wife about me because she was a teacher at my grade school. She was fourth grade teacher. I was in third grade and the next morning, about 11 o'clock English class, my English teacher announced to the class that there was a turkey caller in the room. around

Kyle Veit:
Hehehe

Ralph Duren:
like who is that and then she called my name and had me stand up

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
and do a turkey calling demonstration to third third grade class of Jefferson R 7 elementary so that kind of started it I didn't know where it would go from there and I sure didn't think it had ever get me to the Tonight Show but it did

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
and what just

Kyle Veit:
man,

Ralph Duren:
when

Kyle Veit:
that's

Ralph Duren:
I

Kyle Veit:
so

Ralph Duren:
got

Kyle Veit:
cool. The humble

Ralph Duren:
to

Kyle Veit:
beginnings

Ralph Duren:
ninth grade

Kyle Veit:
turned

Ralph Duren:
I had

Kyle Veit:
into

Ralph Duren:
to go in town

Kyle Veit:
a big stage.

Ralph Duren:
to Crystal school because Jefferson R7 didn't have high school yet. So we had our pick from Crystal City or Festus and I picked Crystal City and it was a smaller and, and that's when I realized after being there in town with town kids that everybody doesn't hunt fish and trap. I know at grade school, everybody stayed home to hunt deer during deer season, but in high school, they didn't do that. That's when I found out that

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
some of those poor people, and I felt so sorry for them, all those kids that didn't get to hunting, fishing, and trap,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah

Ralph Duren:
that grew up in town and they played football in the street instead of the cow pasture. They didn't live the same lifestyle I did. For fun, they went north to St. Louis. We didn't really want to do that very often. No, we went to the woods, what we did.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
So my dad

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
was just

Kyle Veit:
They're

Ralph Duren:
the

Kyle Veit:
missing

Ralph Duren:
kind

Kyle Veit:
out

Ralph Duren:
of guy

Kyle Veit:
on a

Ralph Duren:
that

Kyle Veit:
big part of life.

Ralph Duren:
did all of that. And if a season was open, we were hunting, we were fishing, or we trapping. And that's pretty much year round. You can find something to do in the outdoors. Besides working on the farm, there's something to do in the outdoors for fun every day. And so that was a rude awakening, to me when I went to high school that other people don't live that way. I just thought that was normal for me. And what was weird was when

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
I went back

Kyle Veit:
right.

Ralph Duren:
to 10 years after graduating high school and I was working for the conservation department, it was like I was their outdoor hero because those kids when they got out of high school discovered the outdoors and they would go fishing floating

Kyle Veit:
Oh yeah.

Ralph Duren:
on those arc streams just like I'd done all my life. They would do that on the weekends for fun and they didn't do any of that when they were young.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
So that was kind of a weird turnaround but I'm

Kyle Veit:
Right,

Ralph Duren:
glad they

Kyle Veit:
so you

Ralph Duren:
discovered

Kyle Veit:
had a head

Ralph Duren:
the

Kyle Veit:
start

Ralph Duren:
outdoors

Kyle Veit:
and kind of already knew what to do.

Ralph Duren:
without my help. But they remembered the day opening day of deer season. We played football against South Shelby in the in the semi-finals quarter whatever, but it was beyond conference play going for state and I played drums in the band and I had the bass drum and I don't know who would schedule a football game at noon on opening day of deer season but they did and I was a few minutes

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
late because I was in the tree stand till 1130 and they were waiting on me to play the Star Spangled Banner so we could start the game and That's that's when I thought

Kyle Veit:
Waiting

Ralph Duren:
I know

Kyle Veit:
on Ralph.

Ralph Duren:
I sure am glad I'm not playing football I'd have missed the whole day Opening day

Kyle Veit:
Thanks for watching!

Ralph Duren:
deer season and nothing should stand in the way of that.

Kyle Veit:
messes

Ralph Duren:
So

Kyle Veit:
up your deer hunting.

Ralph Duren:
I've always been a little different, but that's

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
okay

Kyle Veit:
right.

Ralph Duren:
my wife says

Kyle Veit:
Well, that's

Ralph Duren:
I Don't

Kyle Veit:
got

Ralph Duren:
think

Kyle Veit:
you

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
where you are

Ralph Duren:
you hunted

Kyle Veit:
today.

Ralph Duren:
everything. I said, oh, yeah, I did I hunt everything She thought when we were young I didn't hunt everything. I said, well, you were wrong, because

Kyle Veit:
as much

Ralph Duren:
I do.

Kyle Veit:
as...

Ralph Duren:
Thanks for watching! you do

Kyle Veit:
You

Ralph Duren:
it

Kyle Veit:
do

Ralph Duren:
awesome.

Kyle Veit:
it all.

Ralph Duren:
Then you

Kyle Veit:
It's good.

Ralph Duren:
did. You were

Kyle Veit:
You

Ralph Duren:
a super hero.

Kyle Veit:
felt like you got to meet some famous people going on the Jay Leno show and all of that. We feel like a little bit like that right now, getting to sit in front of the screen with you as far as just legendary turkey hunter, deer hunter, just man in the outdoor world and the Ozarks especially. So really kind of kick us off thinking turkey specifically. I'd love for you to touch a little bit on place for the outdoors in general and also specifically for turkey hunting.

Ralph Duren:
Well, you know, the conservation department, in their infinite wisdom, they started stocking, restocking from original turkeys in the Ozarks in 1954 in the winter. And I was born on the 1st August. So they told the citizens of the state that if you protect those turkeys for five years, stocking they ever made was in the river hills just north of Bloomsdale. And that was less than 10 miles from my house, east of Highway 61, between Highway 61 and the Mississippi River. And that was close and we trapped in those

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Ralph Duren:
hills. And the turkeys down there years. And we did open the season in 1960. I was out there with my dad, sitting there beside him. And it was only a three-day season. But we were there and we were, we did a lot of scouting and we were ready for it because we saw turkeys on our trap line every day. that we ran our traps. So we were pretty excited that turkey

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
season was

Kyle Veit:
And

Ralph Duren:
coming

Kyle Veit:
that was just

Ralph Duren:
no

Kyle Veit:
in six

Ralph Duren:
matter

Kyle Veit:
years.

Ralph Duren:
how short and the limit was only one because we knew where 600 turkeys were. We thought it'd be pretty easy to end up getting one of them to come in. And they did really

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
well and of course, the stocking continued throughout the Ozarks. They did all the Ozarks first because they didn't know turkeys could survive North Missouri. They didn't think there was enough timber. They thought that turkeys needed about 70% of the landscape to be timber and 30% opened.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
They tried some because people were urging them to stock some birds up around Kirksville. They tried some and quickly found out that turkeys can survive on way less timber, especially when corn for them to eat. In the Ozarks they depended heavily on the acorn crop, but

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
in North Missouri soybeans and corn made them fat and happy. All they needed was a big enough tree to roost in, and there were cottonwoods and sycamores and along the creeks and the fence rows for that, plenty of them for that, and they thrives. But it's a whole different world up there in North can see you coming from so far away. In the Ozarks, you usually you got timber and you got hills and you can use that terrain and the thick forest cover as an advantage to get closer to call them up and and so they don't see you coming and spook it a mile away like they can do in a lot of North where we had lots of turkeys and where we could use the terrain and I quickly figured out that that it helps to be above the turkey. It's kind of like when you have a military advantage. You go to the high ground that helps. It's easier to call that turkey up that

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
hill and they like to go up the hill but if they're coming flying down the hill into a bottom land field for a strut zone then all you got to do is set down the bottom and wait for them to down off of the hill. But found out usually they roost about three quarters of the way up the hill or a quarter way down from the top. And so use that and get above them, hoot like an owl, you know right where they're at. You can use the timber in the terrain to get close enough so you can get to 60 yards or so and sit down they can see you and pretend you're a hen and

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
wait for them to fly down and boom, it's over. Sometimes it's over fast. By 6.30, you're done. Other times it takes hours.

Kyle Veit:
Oh man that's nice

Ralph Duren:
It just kind of depends on how many hens are around.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
That's one thing about hunting the Ozarks that I still love. and turkeys like that big open timber and if you

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm

Ralph Duren:
can get close enough you can kill him and if you're patient enough he'll come on in and whether it takes five minutes or it takes five hours I've killed turkeys at five minutes to quitting time and I've left others goblins or just

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
out of range at quitting And every day is different. That's

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
the fun part. Every turkey is different. And every turkey on

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
every day is different. You just never know how it's going to be until

Kyle Veit:
It

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
really

Ralph Duren:
get

Kyle Veit:
depends

Ralph Duren:
there. And some things, everything works. Sometimes it works

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
great. Everything goes by you remember. You remember and you go back after them and it's a brand

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm,

Ralph Duren:
new

Kyle Veit:
absolutely.

Ralph Duren:
day. It's a whole different script and that's kind of what makes it so exciting. And I tell you there are times in the Ozarks

Kyle Veit:
Yes,

Ralph Duren:
when I

Kyle Veit:
absolutely.

Ralph Duren:
could walk out there before daylight and hoot and have over 30 goblers answer

Kyle Veit:
No way.

Ralph Duren:
But not as many. But...

Kyle Veit:
Well talk to me about then how it's changed. Talk to me about how it's changed because you talked about being young and having just so many turkeys around you and nowadays you know I know first hand people who turkey hunt know first hand you hear about it. There's just less turkeys here. So how do you pick the right spot? How do you know where to go to hunt these birds and how do you hunt them different now that there's just not quite as many?

Ralph Duren:
Well, like I said, back in those days, we would go roost them in the evening. You could just drive out there and stop on the county road on top of the ridge, you're on the hillside somewhere, and sit there and wait for a sundown. And in those early years, turkeys gobbled for sometimes an hour on their way to the roost and then several times after they flew up. morning in reverse.

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
They don't do that much anymore, but those turkeys got killed. That's why. It was kind of natural selection. The ones that gobbled all the

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
time and gobbled all the way to the roost,

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Ralph Duren:
people knew right where they were. You could go in there and get real close in the morning before daylight and kill that turkey right off the roost. And what we normally figured out was figure out where they're roosting, figure out the quickest way to get in close and sit down. And if that wouldn't work, you pick a spot that you could think you'd get close enough without disturbing him at all. If you couldn't get 60 yards, didn't worry about it. But get back where you could see him coming or where it was open enough or where there wasn't enough brush around you to keep him from looking through seeing you before you see him, that's kind of the key is knowing where he's coming from and not moving. While he's on the way in, a lot of people move. The turkey is still way out there, out of range, but he sees you. So we kind of figured that out. And then

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
also we tended to listen before season on a lot of mornings to see where he went when he did fly down. strut zones. And

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
strut zones don't have to be a field. A lot of times they are, a nice little green field, or it can sometimes just be an opening in the timber. And in fact, I've got a place I hunt here that it's down in a big deep holler, but it's real open down there and the birds all go to there by about eight o'clock or between eight and nine there from wherever they were. They all went down in this holler and they'd stay down there and they'd answer you, but they wouldn't come out. way you could get any closer on them birds without them seeing you. From where they were at down there in the bottom looking up through the big timber

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
you were always skylined and if you tried to get too close they'd see you and slip out of there they'd be gone. So part of it is knowing the terrain and the rest of it is scouting the bird trying to figure out where his strut zone is And sometimes those turkeys will come down and take off and go a long ways. And then they camp out right there. They might go a half a mile, three quarters, even a mile to a certain spot, but they'll be there most of the day. So people have figured out that maybe you'll need to be there before they get there. You can sit there and call Tim on the roost,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
and

Kyle Veit:
seems

Ralph Duren:
he flies

Kyle Veit:
obvious.

Ralph Duren:
down and goes the other way. But he's going back to that same spot, so why don't you just go sit at that spot and wait on him? It's a lot easier to call a turkey to someplace

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
he wants to go. Then of course the other thing

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
you have to worry about is how many hens are there and at what stage are they in, depending on how many hens he's got and how far along the breeding cycle is. And you'll find a lot of times that hens will root right

Kyle Veit:
Talk

Ralph Duren:
there.

Kyle Veit:
to me a little bit about the stages.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, if they roost right there, they just fly down. The

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
hens are there.

Kyle Veit:
talk to

Ralph Duren:
They

Kyle Veit:
me a

Ralph Duren:
quit

Kyle Veit:
little bit

Ralph Duren:
gobbling.

Kyle Veit:
about those

Ralph Duren:
They do

Kyle Veit:
stages.

Ralph Duren:
strutting. They might answer you once in a while, but they don't have to go anywhere. And those are the ones that's going to be late morning before you get to. When they

Kyle Veit:
Gotcha.

Ralph Duren:
when they they get done with the hens they got. If they

Kyle Veit:
So

Ralph Duren:
got 10

Kyle Veit:
maybe

Ralph Duren:
or 15,

Kyle Veit:
talk to me.

Ralph Duren:
it might be next week before they get done.

Kyle Veit:
So talk to me a little bit about, you mentioned stages and how many hints. What are you considering when you're talking about what are the different stages and is it better to have more hints, less hints? What do you think about that?

Ralph Duren:
Well, the Department of Conservation says they schedule the season to start on what they think will be the second peak of gobbling. Now, what we've got out there right now is you're seeing people today have told me, well, I'm seeing 15 every morning. Well, another guy says, I'm seeing 25 every morning. You know, other people are saying, I see five gobblers together. I see six gobblers together. Well, that's because they haven't completely broke up out of the winter flocks yet. It's still March. But about the 1st of April,

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
they'll start dispersing. And where you did see seven or eight gobblers together, they'll start spreading out. And they might be two together, or there'll be one loner by himself, or maybe three siblings together, something like that. And the jakes are still together in groups, and they're trying to gobble. They go around in a group. gobblers split off and then the hens start breaking up and the gobblers are strutting and gobbling way before the hens are ready. The hens are interested in eating right now. So it's

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
sunlight, lengthening days,

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
which trigger all that. And when we go through rain and rain and rain and days and days of cloudiness, that kind of discourages things. But the gobblers aren't discouraged, they're still ready. But then we get the sun popping out and the days get longer because there's more light, then the hens will start getting interested and the gobblers will start, they're gobbling to attract hens when the hens start breaking up, looking for new territories and they'll start looking for those gobblers.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
So there's that phase which is and that's like right now. And then they're going to switch over to where those gobblers are broken up

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
more and they're going to be widely dispersed and then the hens are going to be more widely dispersed and then hens will start going to the gobblers. Well after a gobbler constructs for an hour or so a hen will sometimes be receptive to breeding. So we got breeding going on mature gobbler, the boss gobbler is doing that and the rest of them are going to be standing around looking and wishing, I guess you might say. But he's going to make sure that the younger ones,

Kyle Veit:
Gotcha.

Ralph Duren:
more submissive ones, especially Jake's, don't get between him and the hen. So you got that. Now what happens is as those hens get bred, and they can be bred several times, you know, once is good enough, but they can be bred more than once. They'll start looking for their nest, place to build their nest. That's what causes the dispersion of the whole population is the hens looking for new territory, hopefully new unoccupied territory to lay their eggs and raise their brood. And as those hens start going to nest, they're going to go lay an 15, 16, 18 days. So they might come in the morning, get a little something to eat, they might get bread again, but then they're going on getting plenty to eat, and then they're going to go to that nest for the afternoon and lay that egg, and then they'll be off the nest again and looking for food and water before they fly up. Eventually, after they've laid the whole clutch, they're going to start setting. And when they start setting, on there on that nest 24 hours a day except for just a few minutes in the middle of the afternoon where they can leave the eggs without them getting too cool and once those hens start setting those gobblers are out there goblin strutting and no hens are showing up by golly that's when eventually they come running to the calls and the rest of the time in the season you're sitting there

Kyle Veit:
Real late in the season

Ralph Duren:
and they're mobile, they can fly or run to that gobbler, to his strut zone to be bred, and they'll be flying and running right past you when you're sitting there calling and he's gobbling. So that's why a lot of times about 9.30, 10 o'clock, the goblin starts up again, they're done breeding the hens that are there, they're looking for more. That's when you kill those late morning birds because the hens have all gone off to lay on a nest and eventually by the end of the season most of them will be setting and those gobblers are still looking they're not ready to quit and that's when they'll start kind of getting back

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
together in gobbler groups again you'll have to do oh oh oh gobbler yelping or to call those groups of uh gobblers in when there's no hens around sometimes you almost So it just all depends on what stage they're

Kyle Veit:
Hahahaha

Ralph Duren:
at. When you get there on that gobbler, I know people that have been sitting there on that gobbler and they fly down and don't say nothing and he never sees them again. Well, that's because those hens are right there and he went off the other direction. And one of those days he's going to sit there and gobble and there aren't going to be any hens around. That's when he's going to come running. the season. But it kind of varies.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
You've got to put up with all those windy and cold and rainy days. And you can understand why a gobbler doesn't want to strut when he's been soaking wet all night long on the limb because he doesn't look real pretty. And he has to strut and look real pretty before a hen is going to come and set for him to heavy rain it takes them a while to get out and fluff and preen and get their feathers all cleaned up nice so they can strut for the hen. They're just not in the mood when they're soaking wet like that. And so that slows things down. So hopefully we won't have too many tornadoes, we don't have too many long rainy nights, and of course cold and rain both is really rough. It's really on hens, nesting

Kyle Veit:
Thanks for watching!

Ralph Duren:
hens and the ones that are even set and they'll sit there and try to keep those eggs warm. But if they're in a low spot and we get a five-inch ray, it's almost impossible. So any cold, wet springs is what really affects our hatch. And the hatch will affect what we get

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
next year and the year after. Apparently, we had a pretty good hatch around

Kyle Veit:
et à la zoé.

Ralph Duren:
here in some places in Missouri last year. That's why we're seeing these big bunches of jakes. And that's going to be fun because you'll sit down

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
there and yelp a few times and the whole mess of jakes are

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
going to come running, try to pretend they're big mature birds and gobbling strut. And sometimes they'll even gang up and chase the old gobbler off. And that gets real aggravating when that happens.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
But

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
that's why every day is different in the turkey woods. different. That's just part of the fun. It's not like a video game where you get used to the pitfalls and you learn to avoid them. They're all different. Every day is different in the Turkey Woods. And it wouldn't be near as much fun if it was too easy.

Kyle Veit:
Mr. Ralph, let's do this.

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
I've turkey hunted a few times. I'm not very good at it. I think Kyle and I have shared stories in the past of running into birds and just totally hosing ourselves. Not knowing what to do. Getting bonked or whatever. Well, I am a novice. So I was gonna say pretend like I'm a total novice, but I am. Talk me through just ideal you're going after turkeys for the first time. What do you need to know? What do you need to do? What do you need to look for? I'm thinking, to I guess getting in the woods for the first time. How do you kill a bird in the Ozarks?

Ralph Duren:
Well, the first thing you learn to do is sit still. And most kids today think if their rear is in one spot, they're sitting still, and that's not sitting still. You have to explain it like,

Kyle Veit:
Good

Ralph Duren:
that

Kyle Veit:
point.

Ralph Duren:
means don't move. Don't turn your head. Don't play with things with your hands. Just sit down in front of a tree, get comfortable, and look with your eyes and listen with your ears and don't move and that's the hardest thing. I mean even when I've had people there and I try to tell them don't make any noise and don't move and they still haven't figured that out and I try to tell them look at this a turkey will see you blink at over 50 yards away you can't

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
move. If his head goes behind a tree, then you move to move your gun up. Other than that, you put your gun up and have it up and point it in a direction that you hear him gobbling and leave it there. He's way out there yet, but he can see through the timber. And so one thing that'll help that is if you sit where the turkey has to come over a little rise out in front of you that is in range. He can't see you. That's why I like to say get above him. He can't see you and all the fidgeting you're doing before he gets in shotgun range. So, if, and you hear what

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
the direction

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
he's coming from when he answers, so you've got your gun pointed in that direction, then when he walks up there, if his head goes behind a tree, you can move your gun to that, where he's going to come out to. And, and if that's not the case, still and let him walk into your sights. And then when he's in range and within 30 yards you shoot

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
him. If you try to move, I've sat with people that that would move the gun every time the turkey gobbled. I'm like, oh you can't do that because it's too level out through there. He can see that and he sees you you don't see him,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
the key is you got to be able to see his head where it is before you try to move and it has to go behind the tree in order for you to move without him seeing it. And they, they, that's really hard to get across to people.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
So if they're sitting in a blind, then you can get away with that kind of stuff. You can do some movement and that's about the only way other than that. I usually do, you have to sit absolutely still. And then listen and try and figure out where the turkey's at and what direction he's in without moving your head and your body. So that's part of it

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
right there. But like I said, if you can sit where he has to come over up over a hump and make sure he let him come all the way up and get up there and stick his head up looking for you, then him is he has less chance of seeing you. If it's pretty flat and level and open he can

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
see you a long ways out there. So that's one thing. Knowing, doing your scouting and knowing where he's going that helps because before season you can pick out spots where you can sit next to a tree and see to see the direction where he's coming from. So hopefully you can see him way before he sees you. gets in range. And then also avoiding things like a woven wire fence or a real thick patch of bars,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
things that are obstacles, sometimes a bluff, you know, they got to come up. They won't, they don't want to do that. Now, those Rios and Miriams out west, they don't care about bluffs,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, they'll

Ralph Duren:
they

Kyle Veit:
get hung

Ralph Duren:
don't

Kyle Veit:
up.

Ralph Duren:
care about rivers, they don't care about a lot of things. But even hit that fence and then go up or down that fence back and forth for a long way to find an easy way to come through instead of hopping over the fence and A lot of people don't realize that You get a bird that hangs

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
up in the same place every time well after he leaves walk down there and look there's an old piece of hog wire fence there he he won't come over it so any kind of obstacle like that sometimes

Kyle Veit:
Hmm,

Ralph Duren:
it

Kyle Veit:
wow.

Ralph Duren:
takes is a thicket or a like that and they're going to have to go around it. So that's another thing you need to avoid. And I guess the best thing is most people don't scout near enough. They don't take the time to listen. And of course there are a lot of trail cameras out, but I remember a guy took us once to a spot, I was guiding for our army chaplain, he said, I don't know where the turkeys are. 11 of them showing up here every day on my trail camera. I said, what time are they coming? He said, 1130. I thought, well, it's only 10 o'clock. We weren't anywhere close to where they were

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
roosted. That's why they're not here yet. But by golly, 1130, by then they were ready to go home. There were the turkeys at 1130, just like on the trail camera. Well, if you wanted to kill them at then you needed to find

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
out where they were roosting, because it could be a long ways from

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
that field they're

Kyle Veit:
Gotcha.

Ralph Duren:
in at 1130. So kind of figure out where they're roosting and where they're traveling to. But the two things you need to look for are roost sites and strut zones. Those are the things you need to look for. And be close to one or both of those, or in between them, because that on a regular basis. The other thing is make sure you're totally camouflaged, not just blue jeans and a white t-shirt and a camouflage jacket. That'll get you shot, you know.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
Anything red, white, or blue gets

Kyle Veit:
sure.

Ralph Duren:
you shot, including your face or your hands. So I wear head net, wear neck gloves,

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
and wear camouflage because it's easier to blend in. Turkey doesn't see you as good, anything that looks like a turkey and won't shoot at you. That's how most of the mistaken for game turkey hunting

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
accidents happen is the hunter sees signs of what he thinks a turkey. He hears turkey calling, he sees something that's black or something that's white, red, or blue, and in his mind he's already sure that the turkeys coming to his wonderful calling and any little thing that could

Kyle Veit:
Hahaha

Ralph Duren:
and they end up shooting other people. So don't

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
crawl on your hands and knees. Stop and look up. The turkeys do that. They walk kind of horizontal and then they stand up vertical and look around. Don't do any of that. Just sit down next to a tree and call the turkey to you. Make sure the tree is bigger than you are, wider than your shoulders, so somebody don't slip up from behind you and see a movement and shoot. And be patient. on television it's a 30 minute show and then with commercials they got 22 minutes and in 22 minutes they always kill a turkey. That's TV okay they cut out all the minutes

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
and hours of nothing happening. So be patient.

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
Think about this way the turkey doesn't have a watch he has no appointments he has nowhere he things I try to tell people is you got to slow down to turkey time. And they take their time. The only time they get in a real big hurry is if something's after them. If it's a coyote or a fox or a bobcat or a person, they don't care if something is after them. They get out of there really quick, happens that they're not sure what it is, but it's enough that they know they need to get away. They put distance between them and whatever it was. A weird noise, some kind of movement, it don't matter. Little things sometimes will trigger them. And then other times you get a call them and you get them coming they don't go anywhere. They'll still be standing there. So the other thing to

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
remember is

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
you were calling and the turkey was looking for another turkey and this big loud noise was just some loud noise. They didn't have any place or movement associated with it. It will spook them for about three seconds

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and if They're right back into that same mode they were in coming in. So I've had turkeys

Kyle Veit:
That's crazy.

Ralph Duren:
come in,

Kyle Veit:
It's like,

Ralph Duren:
people

Kyle Veit:
it's

Ralph Duren:
shoot

Kyle Veit:
like, you

Ralph Duren:
and miss,

Kyle Veit:
might as well, a tree might have fallen.

Ralph Duren:
and all I've got to do is say, don't move, and I go. There they are, right back in the same mode. They already forgot about that shot. So if you don't move, there's time for a second

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
shot.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, it's almost as if... It's almost as if they don't know whether a tree fell right next to them or a thunder clap went off real loud. To them, they don't see the movement and there's no reason to think that there's any danger.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, in fact, I've had them gobble at the shot, you know, and they're going to gobble at the shot and go right back to strutting. They've still got their mind fixed on that, you know, and it's a, it's a, they're stimulus response animal

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and the was the stimulus they needed for and for coming in. So that momentary noise was just a short distraction. I've had people shoot, put the gun down and go, oh, I can't believe

Kyle Veit:
Yes.

Ralph Duren:
I missed. I said, well, shoot him again. They said, well, what do you mean shoot him again? I said, he's standing right there. He only took three steps. What? Yeah. So they'd shoot again.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, so that's a mistake

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
a lot

Kyle Veit:
awesome.

Ralph Duren:
of people make is they shoot and jump up and run. Well, if you haven't killed

Kyle Veit:
Hehehehe

Ralph Duren:
the turkey, no

Kyle Veit:
Well

Ralph Duren:
reason

Kyle Veit:
I can't

Ralph Duren:
to jump

Kyle Veit:
wait anymore

Ralph Duren:
up and run.

Kyle Veit:
Well, Ralph, I can't wait anymore. You've already been demonstrating some of your calls and I'm impressed and I just got to say for our listeners, you're doing these all with your mouth. Talk to me about calling turkeys and what are the different types of calls you use. Maybe go through a couple sequences you might use in the turkey woods and just kind of let's demonstrate the vocalizations because you can do over, I think I read online, you can do over 100 different calls just with your mouth. Is that right?

Ralph Duren:
Well 135

Kyle Veit:
Wait,

Ralph Duren:
when

Kyle Veit:
I don't

Ralph Duren:
I can

Kyle Veit:
know if we

Ralph Duren:
remember

Kyle Veit:
can do all 100

Ralph Duren:
them all

Kyle Veit:
but

Ralph Duren:
without my list.

Kyle Veit:
talk

Ralph Duren:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
to us about how you do it.

Ralph Duren:
Well,

Kyle Veit:
Oh My goodness

Ralph Duren:
the first thing I do when I get there in the morning of course is try to figure out where he's at, make sure I know where he's at so I don't bump him. And so for years and years that's been the barred owl. Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof. And if that

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
doesn't get up, little early yet and and sometimes and if I know it's a long ways off to the turkeys I just I'll do coyote howl Just that, the dominant male challenge call is a bark or yip or two and then the short howl. You got to cut it off pretty quick in order to hear the...

Kyle Veit:
Oh my

Ralph Duren:
Now, if I get there and I'm fairly close to where

Kyle Veit:
goodness

Ralph Duren:
I think

Kyle Veit:
Hey,

Ralph Duren:
the...

Kyle Veit:
hey Ralph real quick,

Ralph Duren:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
can you hear me?

Ralph Duren:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Hey, um, do you mind just showing your face a little bit? I these will be good for little

Ralph Duren:
Oh, okay.

Kyle Veit:
video clips

Ralph Duren:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just r- WHAAAAAT?!

Kyle Veit:
You just got your phone up next to your head there.

Ralph Duren:
Because if you're really close, you don't want to do that.

Kyle Veit:
Awesome.

Ralph Duren:
Okay. You don't want to convince the turkey that there's a coyote anywhere close. Because you might not want to come off the limb. Cause that's a problem we have in the fall season a lot too.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
Coyotes are howling, the turkey's sitting in the trees. And this last fall I had turkeys sitting in the trees till nine or 10 o'clock every morning and I killed coyote finally. and the very next morning a bobcat came by.

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
And I couldn't shoot that, wasn't in season, but I thought, well, no one of these turkeys don't wanna fly down too early in the morning. They're sitting up there on the limb, looking out in that field, waiting on the coyotes and the bobcats to get done, before they fly down. They've been chased so many times. And so you don't wanna howl real loud if you're close. Sometimes you don't even wanna do a big loud howl, like, oh! If you're close. you can go a little quiet one like that or you can even get by with the great horned owl because he's a lot quieter and then that that'll probably get up but uh starts getting daylight you haven't heard anything yet you can do some barred owls to get two or three barred owls going and they start laughing. The gobblers just, they can't hardly stand it. Just, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,

Kyle Veit:
Hehehe

Ralph Duren:
woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,

Kyle Veit:
Thanks for watching!

Ralph Duren:
woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof at, but I've seen it happen many times. So at least you know where he's at. So if I know right where he's at the night before,

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
I don't really have to do any of that. I can get close to where he's roosted and sit down and I can start with turkey calls if I know they're right there. I'm already close. So when it starts getting daylight and the robins start That's already okay. The birds are waking up so you don't have to hear our or You don't need any of that. As soon as the... Whipper Wheel or the...

Kyle Veit:
Whiff, whiff about.

Ralph Duren:
Chuck Will's widow's quit, then you're pretty good. Cause the songbirds start, it's time to wake up and they should be waking up. So the only thing you start with, especially if you know they're really close, are tree calls. Really, really soft yelps, putts and purrs. Well. and that should if they're really close that'll get a Now I've sat down where the first little putt on a slate call got a Really close like almost over my head. That's all it took and then it's like,

Kyle Veit:
Really? Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
uh-oh

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, we're in business.

Ralph Duren:
and you don't just belt it out loud. If they're sitting anywhere close it doesn't take that because their hearing is so good they will hear you scratching on that little slate or doing that mouth call however you do as quiet as you can do it. They'll hear it. Those good still mornings they got really good hearing. So

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
that's really all you want

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
to do. Now if it starts getting daylight and the The Indians will start calling, the Jakes will start calling, then you think you need to yelp. Just like that. You can yelp, you can cackle. When the fly down comes, you can use the wing thing to sound like wings beating. and you do your cackle at the same time. But if he's only 40 or 50 yards up in the tree, you don't want to do that, make a lot of, do a lot of motion and a lot of moving around, and you don't want to get too loud. If he's out there a little farther, you can get just a little bit louder, but

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
simulate the hen flying down off the roost with that. And then once the hens hit the ground, that's when they'll start yelping. and you'll hear them and you need to listen to that hen, the one that's the noisiest, and imitate her and sound as much like her as you can. The boss hen is the one that makes them gobble. The one they're used to. So sometimes it'll be

Kyle Veit:
Mmm. Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
sounds like a little uh single reed diaphragm or a or a little cedar peg slate call. And if they all gobble at that, that's the one you need to imitate. If she's a real old raspy...

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
like an old box call or a thick triple reed diaphragm, then imitate that one. Getting a fight over dominance with the boss hen. And that's the one that makes the gobblers go. You want her to come to you, because if she goes to them, they fly down and go off the other direction with her, she'll make sure she leads them away from you. That gets real aggravating.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and watched them like that and

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
sometimes that old boss hen sounds like somebody sawing on a box call that that has no idea what they're doing or how to call. That's how bad they'll sound but if she's the

Kyle Veit:
Hehehe

Ralph Duren:
boss she's going to take them with her. So you do that. Now another thing is getting them excited and and picking a fight with that hen cutting. or putting that cut before your yelp. Cutting is highly underrated. says I'm a hen and here I am but the says you

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
here now. I mean it's very it's demanding. A lot

Kyle Veit:
Haha

Ralph Duren:
of times if nothing's gobbling and you've

Kyle Veit:
It's time

Ralph Duren:
tried

Kyle Veit:
to go.

Ralph Duren:
everything else just loud cutting will make them gobble because that's the old hen saying I want you here now right now. She's ordering them to come in and

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
so that one works real good too. And then later in the morning sometimes just a lost call. Lost call with a and then. Now on a windy day, those old box calls with a high pitch are louder and they reach out farther. And sometimes on those real windy days by mid-morning, if you're using a little slight call or a little thin diaphragm call, that sound don't carry very far. Turkeys are very far away. They're not even hearing you. you and you spook them before they'd be able to hear you. But if you saw in that old box call do some cutting and yelping, that'll get a gobble farther away at a greater distance. So that's good to know too. The secret is not so much that you overcall. It's that if your calling doesn't sound like a turkey, that's kind of the common thing. I've had people say, you know, that turkey and he goes the other way. And then they call for me and I'm going, oh my, no wonder he goes the other way. Because you don't sound like a turkey, you see. As long as you're sounding like a turkey, you can call as much you want to.

Kyle Veit:
Step

Ralph Duren:
Depends

Kyle Veit:
one.

Ralph Duren:
on the mood of the turkeys. Some days they talk a lot, some days they don't.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
But when you're calling, doesn't sound anything like a turkey, but you get It's because turkeys gobble at anything in that pitch. I mean, literally anything. A squeaky

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
wagon or a car door slamming, somebody hitting their brakes. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Kyle Veit:
That's amazing.

Ralph Duren:
Crow. A RED TAIL I mean, any of those things will make a turkey gobble, but it's not going to call a turkey in. It's just going to make him gobble. So

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
you can use those locator calls, especially later in the day, mid-morning or so. You can use those locator calls to get him to gobble, but he's not going to come in at that. But if you get that hen call to sound like a real turkey with the right rhythm and the right pitch, Then he goes, then he comes in. Okay, so yeah, I've had people do this thing they think sounds like a cackle, and it doesn't sound anything like a cackle. All it is is loud and high pitch and they gobble at it, but there's no reason for them to come in because it doesn't really sound like a hen turkey. So the key is listen to the hen turkeys

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and imitate them. To sounding like a turkey is getting the right

Kyle Veit:
and do what

Ralph Duren:
rhythm

Kyle Veit:
they do.

Ralph Duren:
The pitch is different smooth and high lower and scratchy course, but the rhythm is always the same and If you get too excited guys to go in their first Competition and they're nervous as they can be they'll get up there and think they're doing real good But because they're so nervous and they're excited what happens when you get a gobbler close. Their heart goes and hits about 130, 140 beats per minute and they'll go, and you're like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. And they think they did good. They were calling

Kyle Veit:
What

Ralph Duren:
like

Kyle Veit:
was that?

Ralph Duren:
a turkey on uppers, you know, is turkey that had way too much coffee for breakfast or something. It doesn't have turkey rhythm.

Kyle Veit:
Hahahaha Hahahaha Yeah

Ralph Duren:
So that's the thing. Now here's the other thing you need to do. Get your recorder, I guess everybody's got one now they got a phone, a tape recorder, in the old days what I used to do. Set it off away from me about 20 yards, back away from it, and sit down and call. Do your series with whatever call you got and then go listen to the tape and play it back. See if it sounds like a turkey to you

Kyle Veit:
That's a really good

Ralph Duren:
because

Kyle Veit:
idea. Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
what your ear hears up close is not necessarily what it sounds like farther away. And so I learned to record myself

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and then listen from a little bit of a distance to see it so you can and make your adjustments that way. So you sound more like a real turkey. And that will help to, to be able to hear it the way the turkey hears it. do something right when you squeak or squawk Because you're not holding your peg on the slate

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
at the same angle all the time Or whether your box call needs chalk or whether your reeds are slipping on your diaphragm call If you don't record yourself and play that back You don't realize how bad it sounds to the turkey because to you, you know being

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
really close to your ears To you that sounds great 20 feet away. That's another good thing to remember. And don't overblow too loud

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. That's a really good idea.

Ralph Duren:
on the turkey. The closer he gets, the quieter you need to be. Because like I said, his hearing is so much better than ours. If you're calling that loud, he's

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
gonna

Kyle Veit:
and

Ralph Duren:
stop

Kyle Veit:
that's tough to

Ralph Duren:
out

Kyle Veit:
do.

Ralph Duren:
there thinking, you should be right here.

Kyle Veit:
you

Ralph Duren:
You should be right in so loud,

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
then you're not. So where are you? But then the other thing you'll notice is when you get a turkey answering you from way off,

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
he can pinpoint exactly where you're at. That's why he's going to slow down the closer he gets.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
And when he slows down, you forget. You're a patient, you forget he's on turkey time. He's taking his time because he knows he's getting close and he wants So he's not going to come running in necessarily because he doesn't know what he's getting into. He's going to come sneaking in, quiet and slowly. And then sometimes he's already strutting. And if he's looking and then you call, he's stopping strut. So you might have to call less the closer he gets in order to get him there quicker. call the more he'll strut because when he thinks he's getting close enough to be seen by him he's going to be strutting zigzagging taking his time getting there set the call down and wait and he'll gobble and then it'll come closer so patience again patience sound like a turkey have patience sit still and it's best if you're sitting in a spot where you know the turkey already has been wants to go to and sound like a real turkey and wait on him

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
because you're actually trying to reverse Mother Nature by getting him to come to you because normally the hen goes to the gobbler.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah so you're you're you're

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
messing with him see so he takes curiosity you got to peak

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
his curiosity

Kyle Veit:
it's

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
tough

Ralph Duren:
got

Kyle Veit:
to

Ralph Duren:
to be

Kyle Veit:
reverse

Ralph Duren:
convincing

Kyle Veit:
Mother

Ralph Duren:
enough

Kyle Veit:
Nature.

Ralph Duren:
to get him to come to you.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm, absolutely. Mr. Ralph, do you mess with decoys or anything like that? Or are you pretty strictly going in with my gun, my camo, and my mouth?

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, I can't hear you. I barely hear you. Say that again.

Kyle Veit:
I said, do you mess with decoys all that often or are you pretty much going in with your gun, your camo, and your calls knowing that's all you need?

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, yeah, some people call, they just, their call is not realistic and they call too much. So I tell people be camouflaged so they don't see you from a long way off and call. Call, I mean you got to put a call out there. Some people make three ups and then wait all day. That's not the way to call. You got to call more

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
often than that. The old, old story was call once every 10 minutes, not a minute before. Once every 10 minutes. Well, there's too many distractions for him to run into if you've got 10 minutes between calls. There are all those other hints out there as well. And he can get easily, has this very short memory, he can get easily distracted along the way. So it might be more often than that. But you call just enough call bad, don't

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
call very often at all.

Kyle Veit:
Let me say this.

Ralph Duren:
That's the thing. If you're calling is really bad, don't call

Kyle Veit:
Hmm. Hehehehe.

Ralph Duren:
very much. And sit still and wait.

Kyle Veit:
Ralph, let me just say, those are... Those calls that you just did there for us, that was some of the most impressive calling I've ever heard in my

Ralph Duren:
Thanks for watching!

Kyle Veit:
life. So thank you so much for demonstrating that. Especially your crow call. I mean all of them, I thought the birds were in the room. Do you ever mess with decoys when you're out in the woods? Or do you pretty much go in just you, your camo, and your mouth?

Ralph Duren:
Well, if I'm strictly hunting in the big timber in the woods, I don't mess with decoys at all. If I'm on a field edge or

Kyle Veit:
Okay,

Ralph Duren:
a real open area,

Kyle Veit:
let's get to know.

Ralph Duren:
if I got realistic decoys, yeah. Usually only a hen and a jake. Now, realistic decoys nowadays cost a lot of money. But heck,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
I did,

Kyle Veit:
they do.

Ralph Duren:
when I was in Uh, 1974, I think, uh, Boone County was going to open up for the first time, uh, for turkey hunting and nobody up there hunting turkeys and they, uh, the local Lee's archery range asked me to come and do a seminar, um, cause I'd been hunting turkeys, you know, since I was six years old. So I did a seminar right there on the archery range and, and, uh, they didn't offer to pay me or anything, but I, you know, I didn't ask for it. I said, oh, sure. I'll be glad. they're doing if they're going to kill turkeys up here, you know. And they gave me this decoy, first one I'd ever seen. It was a really fat hen. It was mottled off of a goose decoy of some kind. It was styropho. Okay. Heavy and noisy. And I put it out and gobblers came right in. And in fact, in the in the head and it made a pop

Kyle Veit:
Hahaha.

Ralph Duren:
noise when he hit it because it was hard styrofoam.

Kyle Veit:
Hahaha

Ralph Duren:
He went rolling and got up with the silliest look on his face like what was that and then ran off. And so I knew

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
decoys would work and I had that thing but it was so much of a pain to carry around that I didn't really need it most of the time. Now then I got those feather flex ones And

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
those were easy to carry and I would take a hen or two hens and a jake. And that's when I noticed it's good unless it's way too windy. And it's not good when the wind blows them and they go tumbling down through the field. So

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
I said, okay, that's a good thing, but not on windy days.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
And then the other thing I noticed is when the gobblers did come in, they ignored the hen and went for the Jake. I thought, well, isn't that interesting? And they'd come right in and beat the Jake up until it was flattened in pieces. I thought, well, okay. So in a big field

Kyle Veit:
Yeah

Ralph Duren:
like that where you're just sitting over there in the edge somewhere and the turkeys are out there, they can hear you because it gives them something to zero in on it. But then later I noticed, especially out in Kansas, apparently a lot of people are doing that. And I've had birds come and that would have been right in close on the path they were taking to come to me would have been in 10 steps of me. And when they saw the hen, they made a great big circle, 50 yards, just out of range it and kept going. And I thought

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
now those turkeys have seen too many decoys and you don't know that till it happens.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
See now I had another instance where I was hunting with Brad on

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
this pole ground where we were in a blind so we could get good video footage and we were in a blind out amongst the strip pits and different gobblers strutting and gobbling and we had one of those half struts gobblers and instead of coming in and going oh I'm gonna go whip you which happens a lot of times you know they'll go for that jake decoy these gobblers that coming in even two at a time or one at a time would be strutting and gobbling come in the food plot as soon as they saw that they would fold up and leave And that one day, Brad

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
left and

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
left me with the cameraman and I said, take that gobbler decoy with you when you leave. And the next bird that started gobbling came right in, circled around behind the blind and stepped within two feet of the camera in front of the blind. And I let him walk off to about 10 steps before I shot him. But

Kyle Veit:
No.

Ralph Duren:
the other eight before that came in,

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
saw him folded up and left. time and place for decoys

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
and then apparently there's a time that decoys only serve to spook them. You'll have to determine that.

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Ralph Duren:
I have never seen the mounted real hen scare them off. It's always been the other decoys. Every time I've been with somebody that used Turkeys see a little differently than we do apparently sometimes. And something about some of the decoys have a little more glare than real feathers. You know, maybe the detail is

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Duren:
not enough, maybe they move differently. Some of them move too much and some of them don't move at all. It's hard telling what it is. But some turkeys get spooked by decoys. come right in and jump on them. And like I said, every day in the turkey woods is different. So

Kyle Veit:
It sounds

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
like

Ralph Duren:
never

Kyle Veit:
you're...

Ralph Duren:
know what it's going to be, but I, I tend

Kyle Veit:
Right,

Ralph Duren:
to

Kyle Veit:
well

Ralph Duren:
not

Kyle Veit:
it sounds

Ralph Duren:
use

Kyle Veit:
like

Ralph Duren:
decoys

Kyle Veit:
you're...

Ralph Duren:
unless I'm sitting out in a blind in a field. If I'm in the woods, I don't even bother with them.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, it sounds like you're better off in the Ozarks.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, yeah,

Kyle Veit:
That, yeah,

Ralph Duren:
yeah,

Kyle Veit:
you're

Ralph Duren:
yeah,

Kyle Veit:
saying what I was gonna

Ralph Duren:
that's

Kyle Veit:
say.

Ralph Duren:
kind of the

Kyle Veit:
It

Ralph Duren:
way

Kyle Veit:
sounds

Ralph Duren:
I

Kyle Veit:
like

Ralph Duren:
feel.

Kyle Veit:
in the Ozark

Ralph Duren:
If

Kyle Veit:
mountains,

Ralph Duren:
I'm not

Kyle Veit:
at least

Ralph Duren:
out

Kyle Veit:
in

Ralph Duren:
in

Kyle Veit:
the

Ralph Duren:
a

Kyle Veit:
timber.

Ralph Duren:
big open country and field

Kyle Veit:
Unless

Ralph Duren:
sitting

Kyle Veit:
you're over

Ralph Duren:
in a

Kyle Veit:
a

Ralph Duren:
behind,

Kyle Veit:
big food plot, you're

Ralph Duren:
there

Kyle Veit:
better

Ralph Duren:
are more

Kyle Veit:
off.

Ralph Duren:
trouble than there were.

Kyle Veit:
Right. Okay. No, that's helpful.

Ralph Duren:
Let me ask

Kyle Veit:
Let

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
me ask

Ralph Duren:
to

Kyle Veit:
you this.

Ralph Duren:
talk to me

Kyle Veit:
Talk

Ralph Duren:
about,

Kyle Veit:
to me

Ralph Duren:
I

Kyle Veit:
about,

Ralph Duren:
don't want

Kyle Veit:
I know

Ralph Duren:
to

Kyle Veit:
we

Ralph Duren:
talk

Kyle Veit:
wanted

Ralph Duren:
about,

Kyle Veit:
to talk

Ralph Duren:
but

Kyle Veit:
about

Ralph Duren:
back in

Kyle Veit:
trapping

Ralph Duren:
a little bit,

Kyle Veit:
a little

Ralph Duren:
my

Kyle Veit:
bit.

Ralph Duren:
sense

Kyle Veit:
And when

Ralph Duren:
of

Kyle Veit:
it

Ralph Duren:
the

Kyle Veit:
comes

Ralph Duren:
problem

Kyle Veit:
to

Ralph Duren:
that

Kyle Veit:
properties

Ralph Duren:
you might

Kyle Veit:
that

Ralph Duren:
have.

Kyle Veit:
you

Ralph Duren:
So

Kyle Veit:
hunt

Ralph Duren:
yeah.

Kyle Veit:
and areas that you might manage, how important is trapping and taking those predators off the landscape in your opinion? And why do you love trapping so much?

Ralph Duren:
Well, I grew up trapping. Dad said

Kyle Veit:
you

Ralph Duren:
I shot my first coyote in a trap when I was four. And I like to tell people, well, there's no sport in shooting a coyote in a trap. That's not any more sporting than leading a beef, you know, steer into the slaughterhouse and shooting him in the head with a bolt gun. But it's a necessary part of the whole process. You got to kill him before you can skin him. But the sport is getting the coyote

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Ralph Duren:
to put his paw on that little two-inch circle pan of a trap when he's got 20 square miles of land he normally runs on. And that's the sport. You've got to be a little bit smarter than the coyote in order to get him to put his foot on that two-inch circle. And so I got hooked on trapping

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
as a very young kid and of course started with muskrats possums and then raccoons and mink and beaver and coyotes and bobcats. And so before I was in high school, I already caught all those traps before and other kids had never even seen one. And I think it's pretty important because we know predators are very efficient. The mainstream people tend to think that, and you'll hear this from people, oh, they sick. No, they'd all starve to death if that was the case. Like when coyotes come into a sheep

Kyle Veit:
Mmm,

Ralph Duren:
farm,

Kyle Veit:
yeah.

Ralph Duren:
they kill the best lambs first. The ones that you got fattened up to take to the fair for the show, those are the first ones they kill and then they only eat the liver and the fat around the liver. They could kill one and eat the whole thing, but oh no, they'll kill one or two every day and just eat the fat around the liver. They're very effective. Bobcats

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
can kill full grown deer. They don't wait all year and just eat fawns in June. They got to eat every other day or so at least, sometimes

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
every day. Coyotes eat anything that moves and things that don't move. In the summertime they even eat watermelons and cantaloupes. So they'll eat it. If it's there, they'll eat it. And they're very effective. Coons, possums, and skunks eat turkey eggs. They also, coons kill the hens on the nest. That seems to be the biggest problem with turkey production is nest failures due to predators and actually the biggest problem with hens, biggest mortality is hens while they're sitting on the nest being killed by nests. nest raider predators coyotes bobcats and coons so right now we have a super

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Ralph Duren:
high raccoon population and and no demand for the pelts a dollar dollar and a half at the most for most coon pelts right now when back in the 60s 70s when you could get $30 for every coon you pick up on the road you know we had a whole lot of have any. And so that koon population is getting ridiculously high

Kyle Veit:
That's crazy.

Ralph Duren:
and we know that when it gets too high Mother Nature takes over and we'll have another distemper epidemic among the raccoons and it's going to kill off a lot of them. So we really need to be hunting and trapping them to keep that from getting to that point but when they get that thick a turkey just doesn't hardly have as well. And

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
coyotes and bobcats and foxes will catch the grown turkeys and they will catch the poults. The hawks and owls will eat the poults. They got about three weeks before they can fly up in a tree that they got to deal with the skunks, possums, coons, foxes, coyotes, and bobcats. And so there's a huge mortality on the nest, on the eggs, on the hens, and on the poults until they And then through the summer, still, the owls get them out of the tree and everything else gets them on the ground. So it's no wonder that a hen with 18 eggs is lucky to raise one or two poults and then get through the winter.

Kyle Veit:
That's crazy.

Ralph Duren:
It's amazing that they can get through the

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
winter.

Kyle Veit:
I mean it's a tough life for a turkey.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, yeah. A two, two pulse is a pretty good hatch actually if they raise two poults. If you think about that, it's like, oh my, what could it be if we could get them to raise a hen? I've seen hens with, with 12, you know, 12, 15. Wouldn't it be awesome to get a hatch where the hens that did hatch eggs raised 12 to 15 poults, that would be amazing. Because what it comes down to is we, in the last few

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
years, we've had, you might see, six, seven, eight hens with no poults, and then one or two poults, or one or two hens with two or three poults. So that's part of the problem. That's nest production along to freeze and that along with providing habitat. They need good nest habitat where they can hide that nest to stay away from predators and where those poults can navigate through the vegetation and still be hid from the hawks and owls overhead and places where they can go to get away from all those other ground nest predators. You got to have it all. You've got to have habitat, you've got to have good weather, and you've got to control the predators. It doesn't mean you have to shoot every one of them,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
but if you think about it, we can only control those fur bears. We can't really control the snakes, the mice, the shrews, the voles, those kind of things. And we can't control the hawks and owls. protected. So we're only looking at some of the predators that we can have any influence on and we all need to do our part. So that's what I try to do is on the lands

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm

Ralph Duren:
that I turkey hunt, I try to make sure we've got a long season right now and if you can get on there as soon as you can after November 15th and trapped to the end of February, you could make a difference. Unfortunately we have now that a lot of people don't want anybody on there trapping until after all the deer seasons are over with. And that cuts her down into the hardest

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
time of year to trap because the weather is late January and February. So it's a lot easier mid-November and in December than it is January and February. But you can still, even if you only got a few weeks, you get in there and you can make a big dent in the coons, possums, and scums, and maybe if you know what you're doing also in Bob Katz and...

Kyle Veit:
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm glad that you hit on habitat too. I mean, like you said, you got to do, you really got to do a little bit of everything. But one thing as we've been doing the podcast and we've talked to different biologists and land managers talking about how important habitat is too, because,

Ralph Duren:
That's

Kyle Veit:
you know, say,

Ralph Duren:
it. Thanks

Kyle Veit:
think about

Ralph Duren:
for watching.

Kyle Veit:
if you have a

Ralph Duren:
I'll

Kyle Veit:
bunch

Ralph Duren:
see

Kyle Veit:
of

Ralph Duren:
you next time.

Kyle Veit:
predators and now there's that many more places for turkeys to hide you have more places for nesting and all those things it just becomes harder for those predators to find those nests and it just you know it's really easy to

Ralph Duren:
I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I

Kyle Veit:
hunt a closed canopy forest versus when you've got you know grasses patches here cover and brush over here like it just makes it all of it goes together but habitat is also a huge a huge part of that equation yeah it makes those It's

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, and even

Kyle Veit:
it's not just

Ralph Duren:
what

Kyle Veit:
easy

Ralph Duren:
kind

Kyle Veit:
picking.

Ralph Duren:
of habitat

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
they

Ralph Duren:
have

Kyle Veit:
can't

Ralph Duren:
looks

Kyle Veit:
hunt

Ralph Duren:
like.

Kyle Veit:
a 50 acre plot

Ralph Duren:
Uh, if you're forced, uh, needs to be, uh, have a controlled bird on occasion, uh, get rid of some of that leaf litter and, and, and, uh, the dirt has to be broke up in, in some places along the edges to have more space for the little ones, uh, the turkeys and quail both to, to get through and get to dirt, some, some bare soil and, and bugs. insects. So the kind of grasses you plant and the variety of grass as opposed to fescue everything, fescue is a nemesis of wildlife basically

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
and it covers every piece of ground so it does do its job to control erosion but little turkeys and little quail can't get through them and it grass

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Ralph Duren:
legume mixture, a little bit of bare ground, the right kind of habitat for the young turkeys when they're little to get through and in order for them to have enough insects because when they're that young their first month or two they're growing a lot, they need a lot of protein, they need those insects. So we have a good year with the cicadas, lots of grasshoppers, turkeys do real well. My nephew was a wild turkey biologist for Ohio for a few years and I congratulated him for Ohio DNR and I said, when you're a turkey biologist now, that's quite an accomplishment. All you got to do is make sure there's plenty of turkeys for people to kill. And he said, oh, I'll be a hero here in the next couple of years because we're going to have that big cicada

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
both all hatch at the same time. He said, we'll have millions of cicadas and the turkey crop that summer is going to be wonderful. He said the biggest we've had in years and of course he said I'll take the credit but he said I got nothing to do with it. It was all the cicada hatch. So insects are pretty important

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
to that too. So a lot of things to take into account there besides the weather, the hatched that year. And all of those things have to come together in order for that hen to raise a bunch of poults. And they won't all. In fact, some years, very few of the hens make it, have a brood at all. And it shows up in the long-term average. But long-term average is if we get more than two poults per hen, that's a good year. And it doesn't We can always hope for the best, but some of the lot of those years have been less than that. I mean the hen has to have at least one poult to replace her if she dies in the winter or dies of old age. So two poult,

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
that's fairly good year, but if we get anywhere more than that, it'd be a great year.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Ralph, I just want to thank you so much for your time and just sharing your experience with us, the tactics, and letting us hear some of your awesome calls. Super impressive that you can do all that with your mouth. And I really enjoyed talking with you and hanging out with you.

Ralph Duren:
Well, it's been fun and anytime you need to hear something, you know, I always go to my website, I got about, I don't know, 40 or 50 calls on there. You can click on and hear them. Like I said, I know 135, but there's a few of them on there. If you ever wonder what an animal sounds like, they're on there free. I don't sell anything on there. It's all free. Roughdurham.com. And then my daughter manages an Instagram page for me. I make a little video now and then and send it to her. She puts it on Instagram. That's way over my head how that goes on. And I have a Facebook page

Kyle Veit:
Cool.

Ralph Duren:
personal and a Facebook

Kyle Veit:
Hahaha

Ralph Duren:
public, which is Ralph Dern Animal Impersonator. You can check out where I'm at and where I'm speaking and come out and see me. And most of the time, if you don't see me, I'm in the woods or on the water having fun.

Kyle Veit:
I love it, as you should be. We appreciate you and we hope our listeners, you guys enjoyed this episode. Make sure you let us know by leaving us a 5 star rating or review on iTunes and we will see you next time.

Ralph Duren:
Thank you.

Kyle Veit:
Ralph, thank you so much man, I really appreciate it. This episode

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
will be, we'll put this episode out here in a couple weeks but it will be before turkey season

Ralph Duren:
Okay,

Kyle Veit:
and

Ralph Duren:
yeah.

Kyle Veit:
I'll send you the link

Ralph Duren:
Sure, send me the link or post

Kyle Veit:
and it's,

Ralph Duren:
on

Kyle Veit:
we're

Ralph Duren:
my

Kyle Veit:
just

Ralph Duren:
homepage

Kyle Veit:
called the,

Ralph Duren:
if

Kyle Veit:
it

Ralph Duren:
you want on Facebook. And because if you send to me, I'll put it on Facebook. If you want to, you can put it on my homepage. And I'm looking forward to hearing

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
the comments

Kyle Veit:
absolutely.

Ralph Duren:
because...

Kyle Veit:
And feel free to share wherever you want to

Ralph Duren:
Sure.

Kyle Veit:
on your website

Ralph Duren:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
if you want to.

Ralph Duren:
Okay.

Kyle Veit:
You can do that too. It

Ralph Duren:
So, we're going to go ahead and get started.

Kyle Veit:
doesn't matter to us.

Ralph Duren:
Okay.

Kyle Veit:
And

Ralph Duren:
So, we're going to go ahead and get started.

Kyle Veit:
we'll make sure we share

Ralph Duren:
Okay.

Kyle Veit:
your Instagram

Ralph Duren:
So, we're going to go ahead and get started.

Kyle Veit:
with people.

Ralph Duren:
Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started.

Kyle Veit:
We've got a pretty good following on Instagram so we can share that

Ralph Duren:
Good

Kyle Veit:
and hopefully get you a few more

Ralph Duren:
Good.

Kyle Veit:
numbers.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, that'd be good. Yeah, I shared Brad's Both those you did with Brad and I had a lot of comments on that. So a lot of people listened to it and I Enjoyed it too. So hopefully I'm gonna get to see him

Kyle Veit:
Good deal.

Ralph Duren:
this turkey season sometime down there

Kyle Veit:
We're good.

Ralph Duren:
I'm at Peterson outdoor ministries down there for the first

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
weekend.

Kyle Veit:
I know he's been...

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, I heard the chaplains hunt So I'll be down there to lodge a hole,

Kyle Veit:
Okay,

Ralph Duren:
you know

Kyle Veit:
yeah, no, yeah, he was nice enough to give us your number. And yeah, no, Brad's a great guy. We really appreciate him for sharing your contact. There's a couple times you're sharing stories and I was thinking of Brad's line of suicide birds. Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
Oh yeah,

Kyle Veit:
Those

Ralph Duren:
yeah,

Kyle Veit:
birds just want to get killed.

Ralph Duren:
yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a lot of them. He figured out that little wimpy jake decoy. I mean it was for Michael

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
Waddell to come up with that one. I forget what they call that little bitty one. He's got, looks like a chicken. And Brad came up with that thing before

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
and he was using it out there in Nebraska. And they just, those great big fields at that ranch out in Nebraska. turkeys out in that field that year I hunted up there and he figured out he could hold that thing up and walk out there and as long as you stayed behind the decoy they just come running it was hilarious he took it up there took his grandkids and he got

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
got

Kyle Veit:
crazy.

Ralph Duren:
the videotape in this he calls he walks out there decoys, holds it up in the air and they come running right into ten steps. Meets everything you think, what were

Kyle Veit:
Man,

Ralph Duren:
they thinking?

Kyle Veit:
that's as easy as it gets.

Ralph Duren:
So yeah, but this is, I don't have any of them

Kyle Veit:
That's awesome.

Ralph Duren:
strutting ones you're supposed to put on your gun barrel and go crawling up on turkey. That's too dangerous, that reaping. I don't do any of that. I got a fan and if it's a big oak mario like that, I know nobody's I can hold that fan up and turn it a little bit, but I avoid that unless I can see a long ways around me You know, I know you never know where somebody's gonna show up when they're trespassing and they're hunting where they're not supposed to be It's just too easy to get shot but

Kyle Veit:
Right, yeah, you gotta watch

Ralph Duren:
Yeah,

Kyle Veit:
that.

Ralph Duren:
I see I had a fan

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
from a guy From over around Sullivan that invented this one with the little plastic turkey head on it had two little holes cutting the fan opens up. And they said, that's what it's for. This is in the 1980s, early 80s. And he said, this is for crawling up on the field gobblers. And he took it to Bass Pro and they said, oh, they had no way we would ever market that with the liability of people getting shot. But, you know, then just

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Ralph Duren:
a few years ago, here they come up with the same thing. People are doing it on TV over and and all the golf companies are selling the Reaper. I'm like, whoa, man, just can't imagine how many people

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
would have been shot in the eighties if we'd have done that before we had all the

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
mandatory hunter head and the turkey

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Ralph Duren:
hunter

Kyle Veit:
no,

Ralph Duren:
education.

Kyle Veit:
you got to be careful for sure.

Ralph Duren:
Yeah, yeah. So I don't do that kind of stuff. I sit down, but you'd be surprised how many times coyotes come running right in on me. I mean, multiple times every season. using a turkey call.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
That place where I

Kyle Veit:
Man oh man.

Ralph Duren:
dairy farmed my turkey

Kyle Veit:
That's fun

Ralph Duren:
hunt

Kyle Veit:
stuff.

Ralph Duren:
on, now deer season, the guys that release it killed 13 turkeys, or 13 coyotes in one deer season. And yet in spring, you sit down and go, yup, yup, yup, coyotes come running.

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
It's ridiculous. So yeah, those

Kyle Veit:
Man, I'm producing

Ralph Duren:
two this

Kyle Veit:
fools.

Ralph Duren:
morning were right here

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
my

Kyle Veit:
crazy.

Ralph Duren:
house. So I can go out on my porch and hoot and hear them, sometimes six different gobblers. So we got a flock of seven to my east and a flock of five longbeards to the south from my house. So and 25 jakes and

Kyle Veit:
Wow,

Ralph Duren:
seven longbeards

Kyle Veit:
well you're in good shape.

Ralph Duren:
down in Mida. 25 jakes. And then

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Ralph Duren:
long beards and those jakes just come running they gobble on

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Ralph Duren:
the roost and they come running they strut around your decoy they come in and act like they're big boys and they got tiny little old beards but it's gonna be a fun season I can tell you that we

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, well that's,

Ralph Duren:
had

Kyle Veit:
yeah

Ralph Duren:
a

Kyle Veit:
it

Ralph Duren:
good hat

Kyle Veit:
sounds like you're gonna have some fun. We'll definitely be in touch and I'm looking forward to seeing some some turkeys on the ground from you.

Ralph Duren:
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Off sending pictures. sure will. I'll send you pictures.

Kyle Veit:
Sounds

Ralph Duren:
As

Kyle Veit:
good.

Ralph Duren:
long as

Kyle Veit:
All

Ralph Duren:
we don't have tornadoes

Kyle Veit:
right, all

Ralph Duren:
and

Kyle Veit:
right,

Ralph Duren:
blizzards,

Kyle Veit:
Ralph.

Ralph Duren:
we'll be fine. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, you guys. Call me anytime you need

Kyle Veit:
That's

Ralph Duren:
something.

Kyle Veit:
right. Pleasure talking with you, Ralph.

Ralph Duren:
Okey-doke.

Kyle Veit:
Sounds good, thank

Ralph Duren:
Good,

Kyle Veit:
you Ralph,

Ralph Duren:
good.

Kyle Veit:
we will.

Ralph Duren:
Good evening. Bye-bye.

Kyle Veit:
Bye bye.

Ralph Duren:
you

Kyle Veit:
All right, we did it. We could probably make that a two-parter. I am, I think Daniel's gonna have to edit enough though that it'll probably shave it. Yeah, that's true. Like the first 10 minutes. Yeah, at least. We'll probably cut that off. And then there's a lot of pauses that will probably add up to at least four minutes. Yeah, we should've, I forgot about this Mark Clip thing. We should've been doing that the whole time, but yeah, we'll figure it out. Oh well, we're still rolling. intro will be quick. some ice cream on your nose. Is this for after dinner? A whole big Andy's cup. Oh my gosh. Can she eat all that? No. I was about to say that's a lot. We bought one and all three shared it. What are you eating? Ice team. Ice team. Ice team. I bet that's so good for her. Chunk her up. She loves it though. Thanks for watching! Alright, we need three things. That one was hard. Actually, it'll be really good stuff. That's great. But it was hard to- I wish we were in person. I know, hard to follow and hard to ask questions when we wanted. It's honestly like, someone like him who does seminars, who like goes and talks for a living. You just go do it. It's just like, I'm gonna ask three questions the whole time. Yeah. And you just, you know how to tell the story. You know how to get it to come out. But it's, yeah, it was like, every time we had to ask a question, it was like, You heard there was a delay, and then we had to like, let him know that we were talking before he ever stopped and then listen, then we had to say it again, and then you'd wait for the delay. So, Dale. It'll be funny. You have some editing to do. Okay, I'm gonna say remember to be on Turkey time. I thought the I'll do calling sequence sequence. Okay, and then I'll talk about hand stages It's kind of like pitch, sound, and tone. Nah, it's all about the timing. Yeah. Hey, babe. What about the right sequence? So, where's his video it uploads after that did make me a little nervous that it's not 4% We'll be able to see once we leave this where it's at, but it's supposed to do that where it records on your local and then it uploads it so it may take some time for his to go up. Turkey time? Yeah, I'll end on that one. I'm going to talk about stages of turkey season and why a late season gobbler is a vulnerable gobbler. Hmm. Hmm. I'll say. Okay. I like that late season golf. Can we plug that into that? Or does it not matter? Um, yes. just so we can hear ourselves. Check, check. Check. It works. Sweet. Nice. On the same line. Man, we can have like eight people listening. Just to be a part of it. But only four of us can talk. OK. I guess we don't need this.