Ep. 31: Run and Gun Turkeys with Samong Yang
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Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. I've been following today's guest for about the past four years or so, and I've got to watch his skill set, his knowledge base, and success kind of blossom into something that is truly impressive. I have a ton of respect for him. Simong Yang. He's from my home state of Washington and owns Simong Outdoors YouTube channel where he documents his journeys and educates viewers along the way.

In my opinion, he's wise beyond his years. He's a young man that is well-spoken and versed, and he's a great asset to the hunting community and kind of showing what we're all about as well as reaching future hunters. So I'm really stoked to have him here on the show. Welcome to the show, Samung. Thank you so much, Jason. It's an honor to be on this podcast. I have to ask how old you are. I don't even know how old you are, but I'm going to ask that one to start with. Yeah, I'm 25, born and raised, and currently still living in Spokane, Washington.

Gotcha. A little background, what got you started in hunting? Is it like the rest of us that it was kind of passed down through the lineage and from one generation to another? What's your backstory there? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Simply put, I don't know my life without hunting. It's always been something that I've done. When I was born, my dad had already established hunting in the household, so I was born right into it and it's just stuck ever since.

Gotcha. Real similar, you know, to our story. It's like nobody can remember, you know, up to a generation where we didn't hunt or we didn't hunt for food in my family. So real similar. And then you took your family's passion for hunting and kind of that lifestyle. And similar to what a lot of us do, you wanted to start to share that experience with others. You know, you picked up a video camera.

In my opinion, you do a very good job of sharing your adventures, but what kind of got you into filming those and wanting to share those adventures? Kind of what sparked that? - Yeah, the very start of it is like way back in like 2011 when I first received an iPod Touch for Christmas and it wasn't anything fancy, but growing up in the 90s,

you know, social media, none of this stuff existed. So like having a camera was just like, you're on cloud nine. So I was like, what, 14 years old when I got this iPod touch. And I figured out that there was a camera on this thing. And I just found that it was like the coolest thing to be able to take pictures and record stuff and just be able to watch it back. So back around this time,

I really had no interest in filming my hunting and fishing stuff. It was just, I was just filming whatever. And we were actually raising like backyard chickens back then. And so that's primarily what I did. I just went out and I just filmed my chickens, basically watched them from the moment they were hatched to when they were grown up. And I just thought it was the coolest thing to be able to watch what your chicks used to be and then watch them grow up to what they looked like in

adulthood and so that wasn't even really hunting that was just the idea of where I got started with filming and then this is also around the time when YouTube really started to pick up and You know naturally like I said, I was born and raised into hunting So naturally you just want to start watching hunting videos on YouTube and I think I think you can attest to this back then there was like hunting videos and hunting channels and

All over the western states besides Washington. I struggled to find any videos on YouTube that showcased Washington hunts. You always had Utah, like those limited entry Mossback videos way back then. And so the one channel that I came across very...

at the very beginning was actually prime time outdoors by none other than Jason Phelps. - You're digging way, way back into the past and the history, but yeah, that's cool because we didn't know how many people we were reaching or what we were even doing back then. We started back in 2007 and it was just some buddies that got some video cameras, some mini DV cameras and just started like over the shoulder, no production quality, you know, but that's funny to hear.

Yeah, it's funny, but that's actually how it kind of started for me, right? You basically...

Long story short, what you did back then when you were still active on Primetime Outdoors, you basically did what I did. You just went over the state of Washington. You just filmed whatever you were hunting, deer, black bear, turkey, and stuff like that. But as we all know, if they're familiar with it, you kind of just stopped. When you stopped, it's just like there was no more Washington hunts. I was like, well, if nobody's really doing it, I was like, well...

I really want to watch Washington hunts. So why don't I just start? Right. Yeah. So soon after that, I started, uh, following this man by the name of John wake, which today he's known as Northwest spur chasers. And I found out through his channel because he's actually like probably the biggest Turkey hunter in my neck of the woods, Northeast Washington. Yep. And I, like I said, it was so bizarre because out of all the states and all the places that

YouTube videos at that time were, it was so crazy to me to know that this man, John, was filming in the same areas I was hunting. And so that's really what drew me in, just to watch him hunt local turkeys, basically the same areas I hunted. And aside from John, because he really stuck to that niche of turkeys, which we'll be getting into later, there was really no big game content at all in terms of watching it. And yeah, you get your

one in a thousand like limited entry Blue Mountains elk hunt here and there. But it was just like a one video. There was no series. There was no consistent uploads to those channels. And so I was like, you know what? Like, I'm just going to start doing this on my own. And the start of it wasn't even the idea that I wanted to share this to people or to build a brand. It was simply the fact that I just wanted to watch it. Right. So I go out

i filmed whatever we hunted that day and i would just come back and i'd just watch it and it quickly turned into not just my personal entertainment but my family's entertainment and long long story short over time it just kind of evolved into the platform today and

you know you get like 60,000 people that I've never even met before just watching the channel yeah yeah you're um you know your YouTube channel has um definitely you know grown to a point um you know it's got great traction um you put great material out um and so yeah super happy for you I'm glad it got to where it is but let's um we're going to jump into the podcast just like we start these all we're going to jump into some questions uh from some of our listeners

So these are questions we get from either social, email, past episodes. If you want to submit your own questions, you can email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com and myself and our guests, we will do our best to answer those. So the first question we're going to throw at you

which we actually just kind of went over. We're gonna get a little more technical into your gear. You know, we get this question a lot. You probably get it a lot. I want to start filming my own hunts. What equipment do I need? And what was your approach? You've already kind of mentioned you started with, you know, kind of an iPad. What would you recommend somebody that's

And I think we maybe need to preface this because I didn't get any other information. Somebody's just trying to share stuff to YouTube. What do they got to spend? What do they got to invest? What do they need to do to learn how to edit and so on?

Yeah, I think my biggest advice is dive in and start filming. I think there's a misconception that you need this camera and you need that camera, but the most important aspect is to just start. I think the best way to learn and improve on video production is experience. I know everybody today. It doesn't matter if you're old or you're new. We all have a phone of some sort that has a camera. And the cameras on our phones today are way better than some of the actual cameras like 10 years ago.

And the phone's pretty limited, but like I said, you got to just start because I think

like there's really no better way to start than now like you can go on YouTube and you can search up like tips and tricks of Little things you can do to improve your video production and stuff like that but in my opinion my in my experience the most important aspect is Trial and error right you go out there you come back you learn what you did wrong or what you could do better and it's just it's this constant cycle of going out there filming coming back and

reevaluating, going back out there and repeating that cycle. And so it's obviously good to have good cameras because it will just help your content that much better. But I think it's the idea of you give someone who's really experienced a cheap camera and you give a rookie

with no experience, a very expensive camera, the person with experience will most likely outproduce a higher quality video than the guy that just picked up a super expensive camera. Again, I'm not saying that if you can afford a good camera, get it clearly. It'll help you in the long run. But

I think it's just the idea that don't wait on certain camera or think that you need a certain camera to get into it because a lot of people today, they just film on their phones and they're way more successful than I am. Yeah. No. And that's my advice is if you want to do it, um,

just get started. Um, get what you can afford. Uh, you know, you start reviewing cameras and everybody will say, you know, the, the $5,000, you know, the, the new Canon, um, you know, R eight or, you know, this or that. And you're like, well, shoot, I can't afford that. I'm not gonna be able to film my hunts. Go get the cheapest DSLR. You can, or like you said, even if we've all got a phone, like use your phone, uh,

you know, if that's your plan and goal, just, just get started. And then you'll learn along the way when you go to edit your stuff, you're like, Oh shoot, I should have gotten these shots or I should have filmed more at camp or I should have did this and that. And you'll just learn and eventually come up with your own style. But, um, a little off topic question, but something that I, we get asked a lot and I thought, um, you might be able to add your own, um, you know, two cents in and I think we're on the same page. Um, um,

Get something, get some sort of camera, get some sort of editing program and just get started is the most important. Then you can change and upgrade your gear at a later point. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of that route through trial and error is it really makes you learn about yourself, your style and what works best for you. You know, there's all sorts of hunting channels on YouTube now and almost all of them are different style, but they've all changed.

really achieved success with their own unique style, right? Like you just watch my stuff compared to like other hunting channels. I have my own style, but we're all relatively successful in our own ways. Yep. Yep. For sure. So we're going to, we're going to switch gears here. We're going to go back into our topic today. We're going to talk Turkey. Turkey's, you know, a, a,

We'll shoot. It's only two months away from our youth season here in Washington. So it's getting a lot closer than, you know, that we think we're. So we're going to jump into some questions. A lot of times we get, you know, roost questions. My question for you, do you roost birds at night? And if so, what's your go to method as far as calling and how you go about roosting birds and figuring out where they're at?

you know like this is all depending on the hunt and living in washington i don't get to say this very often but we have some amazing turkey hunting like with high turkey numbers i

I hardly roost nowadays because I know I can find them at almost any time of the day and still kill one. I can't really say that to any other species in Washington exhibit a elk. I can't really say that with elk, but with turkeys, like dude, there's so many turkeys, at least in the Northeast region. I'm not talking about just Washington in general, Northeast Washington, particularly. I mean,

Every year, like over 70% of the total harvest in the state comes from Northeast Washington, right? And so I live pretty much in Northeast Washington. That's my backyard. And so when it comes to roosting, if I do roost because I feel like I just want to do it for fun, it's actually a lot more simple than people think because one, there's so many turkeys to go around and it's hard to miss them. But my most common method is I just get to a vantage point, whether it's on a ridge or

just on a logging road where I can hear distance.

And I actually don't even call. I'll just sit there and I'll just listen because turkeys are very vocal. So as they're flying up to roost or they're just hopping from branch to branch to go to roost, they will actually gobble on their own. And so you really don't have to do anything. You just let them speak for themselves. But in the case when you deal with slightly more pressure turkeys, which often occurs in the later season, like let's say like mid-May to late May, if they're not vocal, I will often resort to an owl call.

just to give them a little bit more kick if they're not responsive or the other thing I will do is I will imitate a roosting hen but the only time I imitate a roosting hen is if I know that where I am standing right there is a good spot where I can set up for the morning because

turkeys they're as dumb as they might seem they can pinpoint your location to to your step like you you throw out a call they will know exactly where you are so the only time i will imitate a roosting hand is if i know that i can set up that spot so for example if there's a gobbler across the ridge and i'm i'm on a ridge across from him i'll just tell him hey i'm a hen i'm roosting here on this ridge tonight i'll come back in that

or I guess I'll come back the following morning and pretend that I'm that hen that roosted the night before, waking up, flying down. Because when you do that, it just lowers the suspicion of a turkey, right? If you didn't tell him you were there the night before and all of a sudden the next morning, there's all of a sudden there's a turkey there. Sometimes it can throw up the red flag, especially if you're dealing with pressured gobblers. But in terms of roosting, that's pretty much...

like the whole nutshell about how I go about roosting birds. Gotcha. And some of that research that our buddy Mike Chamberlain at the University of Georgia, the Turkey Lab there, some of the research he does is that you call...

And that turkey may not come into your setup then, but he will come back to that exact location in three to four hours. That turkey has a decent memory and he's got pinpoint accuracy on where you were at. And many times Mike Chamberlain's research has shown that that turkey knows where you were. He's busy with hens, but he will come back later. So I think the same can be said like he's on the roost.

he will know if there was a hen that should have been there the night before and he'll know if she should be in that tree when he wakes up. To add to your roosting birds at night, I like to do it just because it makes me feel a little bit more like I'm in the game or I'm interacting with the turkeys. I always refrain from using a coyote yip or a howl.

the morning because I feel like it can you know disrupt birds make them very weary and cautious but at nighttime when they're in the tree we use a lot of coyote howls owl calls like you said and I just love to get close to a roost tree and so by not using you know the hen calls like you said because you don't want to maybe throw that red flag if I use a locator call I can then you know pinpoint that bird try to get within you know 70 to 100 yards of its roost tree and make a

make a play in the morning. I haven't killed a whole lot of birds out of the roost. Usually we kill them, you know, when they've been on the ground for a while, but I still love that, that excitement I get when you're sitting near a roost tree first thing in the morning waiting for the fly down to see if you, you know, made all the right decisions. But yeah, we...

So Predator, you know, coyote howls at night seem to work really good in northeast Washington. I would hesitate to use them at any other time besides night roosting. And then the only reason I like to do it is so I can, you know, get closer to a tree in the morning, be part of the action.

Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. Like a lot of the birds that we set up on a roost, like most of the times, like we don't kill that bird for some reason. At this point, I just like to call roosting false confidence because it makes you feel like you're going to kill them the next morning and then they just, you don't kill a bird. You know, I don't know why, you know, you just think that you had it dialed, but then I don't know, man. Like most of my birds, like I said, or like you said, I kill them midday when they've already been on the ground for a couple hours.

Yep, you get that whole pattern of the hens start to go nest, leave those toms, and then they're more callable. I feel like the subspecies of the Merriams up in the northeast corner maybe are a little bit tougher off the roost where it seems like some of the Easterns we've got to hunt and some of the other species are a little more huntable off the roost. Their roosts are a little bit more...

you know concentrated to to good roost areas where these dang merriams they seem to just you know they do have you know roost sites that they like but they can hop up at any given spot in any given night you know as long as there's trees around and um they're they're not as uh you know patternable i guess it seems um maybe that that adds to it or not but uh

So if you roost a bird that you haven't patterned, how close do you like to set up and kind of what's your decision making? You know, in the dark, are you looking at some mapping software trying to figure out where to, you know, pick the tree, where you think he's going to go on the ridge top? What's your play once you've roosted the bird and, you know, figured all of that out?

Yeah, so I would say that most of my birds that I roost, I don't pattern them. I'll just go out the night before and wherever they roost, I'll just make a game plan based off of where they are. But yeah, mapping software is huge nowadays. But the thing is, I've also just hunted here enough to the point where I generally understand the landscape. And a lot of the places I hunt today, I've hunted for years. And so you just understand typically how they go. But in the event where I don't know the pattern of these birds, typically...

Where they flew up from that's typically where turkeys will pitch so if you knew where they flew up from there's a good chance They're gonna fly back down to that same exact spot and so ideally for me when it comes to the range 75 yards is about the magic range for me. It's not so close where I

He can just pinpoint you and you're just in his comfort zone, but it's also not so far where he just has to feel like, oh, I got to make this hike to get to him. So the 75 to 100 yards, that's ideally what I would set up. And how I set up, it really depends on the terrain because, I mean, dude, these Miriams, they'll roost right next to a creek. They'll roost on the ridgetop. They'll roost right next to roads. You really can't.

predict where they're going to be. And so it's really hard to narrow how I would set up because it's really so situation dependent. But the idea is how I set up is I just want to be able to set up

a way where the turkey can't see me until he's within range so that often means that I also can't see the turkey right if I can't see the turkey that then that means the turkey can't see me either yeah so it doesn't really matter how you do it I just want to make sure that by the time he can see me he's already in range because if he does see me at that time it doesn't matter because he's not going to outrun a shotgun the shotguns way faster than he has right and so

One situation that I will bring up regarding Northeast specifically, Northeast Washington, is roads because 95% of my turkeys probably come from a setup on a road because there's just logging roads everywhere up here. And so one, roads are easy for us as hunters to hike, so it's easy to cover ground. And roads are very easy to use to how to predict how the turkeys will come in. I mean, if you're on a road, there's a good chance if the turkey's coming in, he's walking the road. And third is,

That's just what turkeys love. They love to use roads as strutting grounds, travel corridors, and even feeding grounds. And so typically how I do is I throw my decoy on the road. I'll either get up off the road or I'll go below the road

And I'll just let the turkey turn a corner. That's typically how I set up on a road. I want to set up next to a turn in the road. That way the turkey has to turn that corner to see my setup or my decoy. And usually by then, like I said, by the time he can see the decoy and he can see me, he's already within range, right? So that's how I typically set up when it comes to a road. But when it comes to like, you're just on a random side of the ridge,

Man, you really can't predict it. You really just got to go based off of what he's feeling and what he's giving you. Yeah, but it seems to be a complete guess at that point. Like I said, I seem to guess wrong a lot under the roost tree. It's like you see him try to pitch to a flat spot. You see him try to pitch out to where it's more open when you know the tree they're in, and for some reason they always do the opposite. And then I've even tested it like, all right, I'm not going to touch a call all morning, just let him naturally pitch where he wants.

I'm like, all right, next time I'm going to call real lightly. He still doesn't pitch. And just, yeah, just real, real limited luck out of the roost. But no, I appreciate answering those listener questions. If you have a question of your own, you want me or my guest to answer, please email them or submit a social message, whatever it may be. Email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com. We'll do our best to get those answered here live on the show. Thank you.

So for today's episode, I've got my own questions to ask you here. It's specifically about hunting merriams. You've mentioned Northeast Washington, Idaho, some of that open country, more mountainous country probably compared to what the majority of the country gets when it comes to wild turkey hunting. It's where I grew up turkey hunting in that Northeast Washington corner. And it's a ton of fun because...

you know, I love the big thunderous gobbles of the Easterns compared to the, you know, the Merriam's little wheat gobbles and some of the differences between between the birds. Like, I love

that it's you get up in the morning and you gotta lace your boots a little tighter when you're hunting merriams you know you gotta you gotta maybe um you know bring a little more water with you because you're gonna run and gun these turkeys pretty good you know it's not gonna be necessarily you know sitting you what i'm gonna say this for me hunting public land you're not gonna get to necessarily sit on a on an ag field edge you know that's kind of um you know

your typical turkey hunts in some places. I just love that. It's almost like hunting the mountains for elk, for mule deer, but you're up there chasing turkeys on ridgetops. And I absolutely love, um, that style of, uh, of turkey hunting. Um, but I'm curious to see if some of our, where some of our strategies and, um, techniques are similar. And then also to see if you have some different tactics that we, um, that you utilize, um, in that Northeast corner that I'm not currently using, but, uh,

Before we jump into my questions for you, it's always fun to kind of relive the past. Tell me real quickly about your first turkey and kind of your strategy you put on that turkey and how you killed it. Yeah, the truth is I probably at this time didn't even have a strategy because I didn't know what I was doing, but I somehow killed a turkey. But I don't even know what year this was. This was well over a decade ago. But

I'll go to the year before I killed my first one because that kind of leads up to the year I actually shot mine. So the year before I killed my first turkey, it was during youth season. And I actually missed a Tom at 25 yards in this exact spot. I don't know how I missed it, but 25 yards turkey just took off. I don't know what I did wrong. I just missed. And so the following year it was, it was youth season again. And, uh,

You know you kind of go back to that spot because first off like that Tom that I missed that was the first turkey I've ever shot at and when you shoot something like that you just have this built up confidence in that little spot and so naturally I was just like I want to go back to that spot so it was my cousins and myself and we again like I said we went back to that spot out of redemption because We also knew that that little spot where I missed that Tom there was a roosting area like 200 yards below where I actually shot the Tom so I

We went the night before and this weekend was pouring rain. Like it was horrible. And so we got up before daylight and the rain was still going and it was pouring. Everything was soaking wet. And we pretty much went back to that same general area where I missed Tom last year.

And so sure enough, we get to that spot where we were last year and we looked down below us like 200 yards and we spotted Tom and three hens. And like I said, like the rain is just pouring down at this point. So even we were miserable, but the turkeys looked like they were even more miserable. I mean, they just went through a whole night of rain and now they're trying to dry off, but then there's no sun because it's still pouring rain. And so turkeys were wet. We were wet and it was just miserable conditions for a turkey hunt.

And so at least, you know, that's how it's looked at, right? When it's often raining, people often refer rainy conditions as poor turkey hunting. But today it was somehow the opposite for us. So anyway, we spotted Tom and three hens about 200 yards below in this little flat below us in Tampere.

My cousin just starts calling because that's what turkey hunters do. And so surprisingly, this tom was actually really vocal, but he just wouldn't leave his hens. I mean, this was like early April, you know, hens are still with toms and stuff like that. And so we sat there for like an hour in the range just calling to this tom and he would, he was very vocal. Like every time we called, he would gobble and he would even gobble on his own, but he just wouldn't leave his hens.

And so my cousin David and I, we eventually like just decided like, let's, let's scoot a little bit closer. So we moved down like another 50 yards without him seeing us. And we were just like, you know what, let's set up here because there's no way we can get any closer. So we scoot 50 yards closer and we sat there for like another 30 minutes, just yelping away at this Tom. And this Tom, again, like just kept going, but he just wouldn't leave his hands.

and so i don't even know how long it was but maybe like another hour on top of that like that tom finally just decided like okay like i gotta go and so we literally watched this tom break off from his three hands and he just starts walking up towards us and he's not strutting because he's he's wet he's just casually walking his way up towards us and where we're set up it's

on a small ridge with just like small pine trees here and there. And so he eventually walks to the left. Basically, he's going to walk up the spine of the ridge. But as he's coming that route, I can't see him anymore. And so he also stops gobbling because we also stopped calling because we knew he was on his way. So we didn't want to just keep calling for him. And so as a rookie hunter, not seeing a turkey and not hearing him gobble, you know, you have a lot of second thoughts in your head and it just feels like forever.

And so little did I know this turkey, he was actually drumming and spitting the whole way. But at that time I didn't know what drumming and spitting was. So I didn't even know what to listen for. So I kept bugging my cousin. I kept asking him. I was like, dude, is he coming? Like, like, where's this turkey? It feels like forever. My cousin, I do like stop. Like he's coming. Like he's right there. Like he's on his way because my cousin at that time, he knew what drumming and spitting was, but I didn't. And so he's like, dude, like just, just wait, dude. Like he's going to show up. He's going to show up. And so I'm sitting there drenched fingers numb from the cold. And,

What felt like an eternity, he finally pops onto this one shooting lane about 20 yards away. And we pretty much see each other right at the same time. But the difference was I knew what he was, but he didn't know what I was. So he stuck around just long enough to kind of poke his head out like, what is that thing in the bush? But my fingers were so cold.

I remember going to pull the trigger twice and the gun wouldn't go off. And I remember looking at my cousin to ask him, why isn't the gun firing? And so I come back to the gun and this turkey is still just standing there and I'm trying to pull the trigger, but I can't. So as I'm trying to lift this gun to the side to look at the safety to see if it's on fire, the gun goes off. And as the gun goes off, I look at the turkey, the turkey just starts flopping. So I'm

So I somehow miraculously got their turkey without really aiming at the turkey. Why, why twisting your gun over to look at it? Yeah. As I was twisting my gun, like the gun went off and I just remember, I looked up at the turkey and I just saw his right wing go up and he just starts tumbling down this ridge. And I just remember, I just yelled, I got him. And my cousin stands up. He's looking over because he clearly saw that I wasn't aiming when I shot the

when the gun went off. So he jumps up, he's looking to make sure the turkey's actually down, and sure enough, the turkey was just flopping down the ridge. And so I don't know how I got it, but I somehow got him. Yeah, a little bit of a story to your first bird there for sure. Yeah, I mean...

My first bird, I didn't even use a call. As much as I'd love to say I called the thing in, I was struggling. We kind of were in that part of the season back then. Late April, it seems like those toms just get on completely.

completely hand up, won't do anything. We don't have enough hens sitting all day. And it's just that like that weird time where it's not early enough. It's no longer late enough where all the hens are leaving and you just couldn't call to them. So I just like shamelessly listened to gobbles and did the big sneak and use terrain and popped around a corner and shot my first tom. But no, your story is a little more eventful than mine for sure.

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So I'm going to jump into the questions I have for you now, Simone, and kind of just go over. These are kind of just the general turkey hunting questions, but see how we can kind of tailor this to Northeast Washington and some of the tactics you use to be successful year in and year out. You're not only successful for yourself, but I know you take a lot of other guys and gals out and find them a bunch of success. So I'm really, really excited.

interested to pick your brain here. So let's say, you know, just like you said earlier, I've had the same results. I typically go out on the most pieces of public in Northeast Washington and get a bird to gobble. So once you get that bird gobbling, what is your approach? Are you going to get as tight as you can? Are you going to set down like what's the magic distance you like to get to? And then what's your progressions on culling?

Yeah, it really comes down to just the mood of the gobbler, how far I am, and hunting pressure. Like, that's the three factors, right? What the turkey's feeling, how far I am from him, and what's the hunting pressure like in that area. And, like I said, it's such a situational thing, but I'll just try my best to keep it, like, just streamlined. Because the thing is, lots of gobblers, like, when a turkey gobbles, right, even if he's gobbling a lot, it generally means...

Or it can mean one of two things, right? If he's gobbling a lot, he's super interested. He's running and everybody wants that, right? The other thing is he's gobbling a lot, but he's hung up.

so one thing I've learned over the years is you really just have to learn to read the turkey and There's really no good way to explain how to read a turkey besides just spending time out there putting yourself in a bunch of situations and Really just getting that natural feel for how you can make a move because a lot of times when I go turkey hunt I really just wing it. I don't really have a game plan I just go based off of what the turkey is giving me so for example if we if

working a bird and i know he's coming in he's just pounding every call i make i'll play around with him uh in terms of call because one i just like to hear them gobble right if he's hammering you and he's running in i'll just i'll just call a lot because especially if i'm taking somebody else who's new

Hearing that gobble gets them excited and it makes them patient. When a gobbler goes silent and you're taking a new guy out and they stop gobbling, a lot of times they get very antsy and they get impatient, which that's probably the number one factor why people don't shoot birds. They just get impatient. But it doesn't matter how the turkey's coming in, whether he's coming in gobbling his head off or coming in very silent, very cautious. I will eventually stop calling when he gets close and let him come find me. Because like I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast,

turkeys, they might not seem smart, but every time you're making a call, they are pinpointing exactly where that call is coming from. And so typically what I do is I use a decoy. And so I make sure I stop calling before he's able to get visual of the actual setup. So what I do is I typically put a decoy like 20 yards away from my M. So

Once I stop calling, if he pops up, he looks at the decoy because I've given him maybe like a minute or two of silence. It makes realistic sense for that hen to have moved 20 yards from where I last called. So it just makes it more realistic for him to approach it. But on the flip side, when it says, do you call just enough or keep him over the top?

Obviously, if he's coming in, you can pretty much do whatever, right? But if he's very cautious, you really have to play around with how much you're calling and how you're calling to him. Because especially later in the season, when you're dealing with birds that have been shot at, they've been set up on before, you can't really just do whatever because they will read you and pick you apart. And so what I typically do is if a bird is gobbling, but he's not super over the top, like the first example I give you,

I'll give him just enough calls to make him somewhat interested, but I won't always be calling enough to the point where he's just like, okay, you come to me. Because what I've learned over the years is when you as a hen, typically that's how I call, I imitate a hen. If a hen is more excited than a gobbler, a lot of times what that leads to is that that leads to a gobbler hanging up. Because if he

If he wants you more than you want him, he will come running in. But if you want him more than he wants you, a lot of times what he's going to do is he's going to force you to go to him. So you kind of have to play that balance between am I calling too much or am I calling not enough? And so again, it really is a situational thing. And that's just...

depending on the situation of the turkey and whatever situation you get yourself into. Yeah. And early, I've always figured that early in the call-in, like we're going to, you're going to establish kind of the ground rules, right? Of this call-in. If he's hammering, you know, say you make a hen yelp and he hammers you, and then you maybe, you know, go quiet for a minute, but he gobbles two or three more times, you're like,

All right. Is he excited where he's at or does that mean he's really excited and coming to me? And so now as a turkey hunter, we're now listening. Like, is he actually getting closer? Is he closing some of this distance or is he sitting there spinning around, you know, gobbling towards me? So it sounds like he's getting closer and then he's turning away. Like he may be hinned up. And so you're trying to use like all of this information to figure out what's going on. Um, you know, and, and,

In the case where that bird's gobbling and getting closer, you're like, well, that's the easy one, right? We don't have to, we can, like you said, you can call as much as you want or as little as you want, and the thing's gonna come pinpoint your location. It's the ones in between that seem to kind of hang up, that seem to kind of answer you occasionally and seem to kind of gobble on their own occasionally and then don't answer your calls.

are the ones that really kind of give us the fits where we're like, well, shoot, what do we throw at him now? Do we need to go silent for five minutes and then does our hen call work again? Or do we need to get really excited with some cutting? And that's just where...

I think experience and then kind of just that gut feel comes in at times like, all right, did the cutting work? Did it not work? Did the silent treatment work? Did it not work? And you have to make your future decisions based on what you've got from that bird throughout the calling. You're trying to put all this information kind of into the pot and boil down what's going to work on this bird. And there are times where it's just not going to work. Exactly.

pretty much nailed it yep so in during the calling we've just talked about you know calling a lot calling a little bit going silent um you know that bird being able to i've always assumed before i get into this next question i am going to throw this bit of information out in the instance you've mentioned it multiple times but i'm gonna i'm gonna reiterate it because it's it's important

If you know that that bird answers your hen call, like you let out a seven note yelp and that thing is right on top of you, you know that that was in response to your hen calls. At that point, he knows exactly what tree you're sitting under.

So don't be worried. Like you said, you can go silent and maybe that hen will move. But at the time you make the call, he makes a call. I just assume that he now knows exactly where I'm at. So I at least got that bit of information. I think it's important to know and the research with GPS callers or GPS trackers on these birds, the research shows that that thing knows exactly where you're sitting and he will eventually go back to it once he loses his hens. So when that bird goes silent,

you know, and I'm talking silent, silent, how long are you going to wait this thing out? And I know it's always dependent. And then what's your play going to be after that? So, you know, you're calling the bird. He's gobbled six, eight, 10 times. Seems like he's closing the distance and he's interested. And then you just get the typical silent treatment that we've all, we've all been a part of. We've all, we've all had to deal with.

Yeah, I think when you say silent treatment, I think you can draw like a bunch of branches under it. So I'll give a couple of different scenarios, right? So one scenario, which is very common that people don't realize is he's coming in, he's gobbling, and all of a sudden you just don't hear him anymore. So we would refer that to as he goes silent.

What this often means is he sees your decoy or he sees your general area where the sound is coming from. So that means he's made it there. He's just now poking his head up and he's just looking at the situation. Because the thing with gobbling is it's often a communication between two turkeys who cannot see each other. Once the gobbler shows up and if you have a decoy out,

If he sees your decoy or he sees a hen, he really doesn't have a need to gobble anymore. I mean, like the communication between a gobble and a hen yelping has brought them into one area. And at this point, if you're a tom, it's not about I'm gobbling anymore. It's about, okay, there's the hen.

How can I look as good as I can to this hen? So what happens is when they come in and they're silent, that means he sees your decoy and he's just trying to strut. He's trying to look as good as he can for the hen. This is what happens with a lot of situations is people who don't, who can't identify drumming and spitting. This is where they screw up because the turkey's already here. They just can't see him and they don't think he's here because he's not gobbling. But like the, like I will say later, um,

turkeys are always drumming and spitting no matter how pressure they are. They're always drumming and spitting. So if you can learn to identify that, even if he's not gobbling, when they're close, it's so distinct. You can't, like, you just can't not hear a drum and a spit. So that's one scenario of what happens when he quote unquote goes silent. He shows up, he sees your decoys. He's now just putting on a show. Another thing is,

especially in the northeast region we live in we hunt in mountainous terrains and the landscape is so oddly shaped that sound can just travel very weird and so for example if i'm on a ridge and there's a turkey on another ridge and he's goblin right sounds like he's just hammering all my calls because a lot of times that terrain is so mountainous what happens is a lot of times turkeys will have to take longer routes to get to your setup so what i've had happen is

I'm just standing face to face with the Turkey. He's on another Ridge. I'm on another Ridge, but instead of coming straight down his Ridge and up my Ridge, he's just going to take this logging road. That's going to loop all the way to the backside of the Valley to get to me. So what happens is he's sounding like he's going farther away, which he is, but that isn't necessarily, he's losing interest. He's just taking the path of least resistance to get to me, even if that means it's a longer route. So what happens sometimes is he gets into like this little,

this little pocket where the sound just doesn't travel as good so because you can't hear it we just say oh he went silent on us he's not he's not really interested but no it's he's still gobbling he's just on his way you just can't hear him at that moment i've had this happen so many times just last year i took my buddy steve out

we this bird was hammering us he was like he was probably half a mile away and it got to a point where we couldn't hear him anymore and my buddy steve was like dude like he's he's gone and i told him like dude with how he was hammering us like the first 15 minutes there's no way he's not going to show up 20 minutes later sure enough there's turkey shows up 10 yards smokes him right it's like it's things like that that go a long way so when we say

They're giving us the silent treatment. There's a lot of different ways and a lot of different scenarios that you have to keep in the back of your mind. Yep, for sure. Yeah, and there's always...

It's tough. And that's where, like you said, you have to draw from the experience you've had with that bird prior to the silent treatment. And you've got to make some decisions on whether that bird's still coming or whether, you know, he went away with a hen. A lot of it is, you know, was he, was his last calls going away? Was he coming towards you? And then you have to make your decision, you know, based on that.

Great, great information there. So we've talked about it. Most of the Northeast, it can be very brushy, but in my opinion, you know, it's fairly open, you know, mountainous, like we've said, it kind of lends itself to that run and gun style of turkey hunting. I already know your answer to this because you mentioned it earlier. My question was, do you use a decoy or not? And you've said you use it in roads a lot, but, but,

What's your thought process on decoys? Do you use them on every setup? Are there times where you won't use a decoy and kind of go into that for me? - Yeah, I think I can definitely get away with my experience now. I'm not saying I'm the most experienced, but with how I can read turkeys, I can often get away without using a decoy. The reason why I still use a decoy now is it really just helps me on the filming side of things. To be able to know where I can just leave the frame of my camera on the decoy, it's so much more, like it's less stress on me mentally,

rather than predicting where this turkey is going to come because a lot of times i sell film so knowing that okay there's a decoy i just got to put the camera on the decoy just leave it on the tripod it makes it a lot easier for me because i can really focus on just working this tom because a lot of times they're going to show up to the decoy um but the other thing is i often only use a hen decoy i know some people like to use like a tom or jt koi i've never really found it to

improve my chances. The other thing too is I just don't want to get shot by other people, you know, and so I just use one-hand decoy. That's typically what I do. But like I said, it's not really mandatory, but it really just helps me with my filming.

Gotcha. Perfect. That makes, makes a ton of sense. We've always, we used to use them a lot more, you know, set out, you know, two hands and a Jake on a lot of setups. And, um, there were times where we would get picked off setting them up, you know, the Turkey closed too quick or whatnot. And I would say the majority of the time we do, but when we do go back out and hunt some ag stuff and the turkeys can see for so long to get that like visual confirmation that, all right, there are turkeys down at the other end of the field that are making, you know, Turkey noises.

I feel is a little more effective versus like run and gun, you know, chasing turkeys around at times. It seems like we've elected to, we seem to not put out decoys as much. We've used some, some live stuff for decoys at times. But, you know, they're, they're big and they're a pain in the butt to carry around. But, but they, they are effective in the, in the certain situations where that, you know, Tom that you're trying to call in can make a visual. It can, you know, change the game for us a little bit.

Absolutely. So it's different than the silent treatment. Very often, especially I kind of gave the scenario earlier, you know, that mid-April to late April when birds are just on lockdown, they're hung up, they're hinned up, very, very...

you know, difficult to call in, but they will play the game for a bit. And, and, you know, that bird hangs up, you know, we've, we've seen him get in their strut zones, um, you know, hour, hour and a half after fly down, they establish where they want to be. The hens lead them to where they want to feed. And that bird kind of gets, you know, hung up in his strut zone, or he may come partway, but he's not willing to leave those hens completely. Cause you know, he's got the for sure thing. What do you have any out of the box, um,

you know, strategies or tactics for that? Or do you have just a strategy that works when those birds hang up, they're still active, they're still calling, but they just will not break, you know, either a certain terrain feature, a certain topo feature, or they just flat out won't go any farther away from their hens.

Yeah, I think the most common technique when it comes to a gobbler that's hung up because of a hen is to start talking to the hen. The reason why that gobbler's not coming in is because he's hung up with the hen. He wants to stay with the hen. So if you can get that hen that he's hanging out with to come into you, I mean, that's textbook, right? So that's the most common thing. People...

Especially rookies and myself including when I first started all I wanted to do was talk to the Tom But it's like that's not always gonna work if he's hung up the hand start talking to the hand because if you bring in the hand That Tom is gonna be right behind her It doesn't matter who you're talking to because at the end of the day you just want that time to be to be in range So you can shoot him. Yeah, but aside from

the situation where he's hung up with a hand if this is just a lone bird and he comes up to your setup you're calling him he comes up and he's just like 60 70 yards just right outside shotgun range there's typically three reasons why

Alone Tom will hang up first off which is the worst one is they see you He's hung up because he's looking at you which oftentimes from there There's not much you can do you can just hope and pray that he's gonna walk a couple more steps But oftentimes he's just gonna turn away and walk around the second scenario is he comes up He doesn't see you but he just doesn't like this. He just doesn't like what he's seeing like it Just something feels off to them So when it's something like this

It's 50-50. He might close another 10, 15 yards, or he might just turn around and leave. The third one is they're not seeing what they're supposed to be seeing. If you imitate a super hot hand in this open field, and he comes up, and you don't have a decoy out, he comes up, he looks at it, and he's like, where's this hand at?

he's going to hang up because he's going to take his time. He's going to observe where this supposed hen is supposed to be. So those are typically the three reasons why a lone bird will hang up. So typically what happens is

when he doesn't like what he's seeing or he's not seeing what he's supposed to do or supposed to be seeing is i just go silent i want him to build up that that curiosity like okay i don't see what i'm seeing i don't really know what's going on here i need to go investigate because at this point there's not much you can do if you're going to give a call out and he's already within 60 70 yards again he's going to pinpoint your location and he's just going to stare right at where the call is coming from and if you're not a decoy you don't have a decoy next to you

there's a good chance you're not calling him in. And so this is, you know, when that's why it's such a hard topic because when a bird hangs up, it's like, there's really no right or wrong way to go about it. It really is. You got to go with your gut instinct in that situation. Yep. Yep. No, I'm, I'm, I'm with you on that one and real similar to what, to what we do there.

We've touched on this a little bit too, a little bit in our earlier conversation. Most of the public land we get to hunt in Northeast Washington, whether we're a mile from the gate, whether we're right along a country road, whether we're along a logging road, these birds get a lot of pressure.

Why we do have a great turkey population that's thriving currently. They are, the birds still get pressured, right? We have a lot of, you know, Washington State as a whole has, I don't want to misspeak, but we have a very high hunter count, you know, a very high number of hunters that still hunt spring turkey. So we do have pressured birds. Do you have any other tactics you like to use specific to pressured birds on this public land? Yep.

So basically three tips. First one is I work them a little slower and I just give them more time. Pressure birds, they take their time. They're more cautious. The second one is I work turkeys from a different angle. Everybody knows that gate that everybody parks at and goes in from one direction.

You can use that as an entrance, but dude, like loop around the mountain, come in from the backside, come in from the east, come in from the west, working from a different angle because a pressure bird knows the most common entrance, which is through the gate. And that's typically where he's found,

the most danger right if everybody's coming and calling in from the same direction he already knows what's up you come in from the back side or or a different angle he might be like oh maybe this is actually a legit uh turkey or the third one is instead of full-blown yelps i just resort to clocks more subtle calls you know because at this point in season may late may every turkey knows what a full-blown yelp means

Yep. Yep. That's, that's one thing I was going to add. And I kind of had dialed up for pressured birds is, you know, everybody in the world can go out and use a seven to nine note Yelp. It's, it's our go-to calls for the most part, but that bird has heard every variation of a seven to nine note Yelp on a mouth diaphragm.

on a pot call, on a box call, they've heard it. And if you know those birds have heard it, let's go to clucks. Let's go to some subtle purring. Let's go to some real like, you know, real short two to three note yelps.

and i learned this from my buddy chris parish and randy milligan it's just that subtle realistic sounds can sometimes help you out on on those pressured birds and so that's what we like to do at least from a calling tactic and then i do like your point like all right if there's a bird up a canyon everybody's going to approach halfway up the ridge because that's where the road's at you know so in that turkey's mind like hey guess what you know their hunter's coming down the road let's

let's cross the creek in the bottom and come at them, you know, get a top or let's go around the ridge, let's approach them differently and just, you know, change up the thing that the bird's seen, you know, multiple times throughout the year or last year or whatnot. So you're getting ready, it's opening day of season, what calls do you have on you and what are the calls that are going to get some use and what are the calls that are maybe going to be a little bit more specialty?

Yeah, I go pretty simple man. I have three calls on me all the time and that's pretty much it I have a crow call I have a reed diaphragms and I have a slate or a pot call. That's pretty much it. That's all I carry a crow call It's naturals, right? We have crows here all the time. They're always they're very active in the spring. That's my locator call and uh

It's really good because one, it's natural, but the downside with it is it's very loud. You can't really do a soft crow call. So the downfall with a loud crow call is if there's a gobbler that's really close to you and you just let them have it, a lot of times it'll just spook the turkey, which that doesn't work in your favor.

The second one is an actual turkey call, which is a diaphragm. It's more difficult to use, which is the downfall. But if you can get even just proficient with it, it's really good to have because your hand's free. You don't have to worry about not having your hand on the trigger when the turkey shows up or anything. The third one is a pot call. It's just easier to use, but the downfall obviously is it requires two hands. So depending on what I'm doing, if I'm the hunter, I'm the camera guy, I'll have a read in my mouth all the time.

If I'm just helping someone out, Paul call because it's way easier. And I'm personally better at a Paul call than I am with a diaphragm. Gotcha. That makes sense.

Yeah, I'm fortunate. You know, we end up carrying probably more calls than we ever use. Very similar. I will throw a box call in, you know, in areas where, you know, it's big country. I feel like sometimes that box call can carry maybe a little bit more. It's got more of that high shrill pitch. And then once again, if we are in an area with pressure birds, it might be something they haven't heard as much of. You know, similar to you, I carry a few diaphragms.

pot call and then you know the only thing I may have I found that a pileated woodpecker works really really good in that northeast corner and so I'll typically have some sort of a woodpecker call it's just that real high pitch you know startles them it seems to get you know at times when the curl call doesn't work that a that pileated woodpecker seems to really get them fired up

So that's really the only difference. I might carry a box, but there are times where it's just like, I don't want to carry the box around. I don't want to worry about it, especially if it's raining. You're dealing with two different woods. If it gets wet, it's useless anyways. I'll just elect to put that thing in the truck and leave it there. I would even be able to, if it's raining, I'm probably just going to use my mouth diaphragms anyways and leave. Might as well leave even the pot calls in the truck.

We've talked about I'm just going through our my questions here. We've hit this one enough on Henned up birds and that are hard-headed long-distance locating

In Northeast Washington, you're hunting ridge top to ridge top. You're hunting what I would even consider like drainages. A lot of these walk-in areas that we hunt, DNR walk-in areas, it's big mountainous country, ridges in between. We talked a little bit about this on our roosting, but let's say you strike up a bird on the opposite ridge. How do you kind of make the decision to stay there?

where you're at and try to call that bird to you or go after them. What are some of those cues or kind of indicators that let you decide what to do?

Yeah. The first thing is it's just how desperate I am. You know, if it's, if it's been a struggle and that's the only bird I've struck up, like I'm going after him. But if I know there's other gobblers closer to me, I'll just keep, I'll keep tabs on that bird. I just won't go after him right then and there, because I mean, if there's birds closer to you, obviously, why would you not go to closer birds? But the, the idea is like, if, if there's a lot of distance in between us and I'm,

Trying to gauge is it worth my hike to go over there? It really goes back to what I said earlier you have to really get good at Estimating the mood of a turkey right if he's far away, but he's just hammering you just showing so much interest It's very hard for me to turn a bird like that down but if he's far away and he's like giving me like half-efforted gobbles and just not really showing interest and I'm just I don't even go after him I'll just find another bird

Gotcha. Yeah. Then there's, there's a lot of times if you kind of, like you said, desperation, if you know there are other birds in the area, like sometimes, especially if my approach wouldn't be good or if, you know, that thing could potentially pick me up and it's a risky move. Um, and I know there are other birds in there. I won't risk it at that point, but I'll keep it in the back of my mind. Like, Hey, there is a bird that's working that ridge over there. Um,

You can always use it as kind of your backup plan. But yeah, similar to you, like I don't want to bust over there, potentially not find the bird that's just right around the corner on my side at the risk of losing it. So yeah, it depends on the situation and when you're going to go over there. In closing, if you had, what's your one tip you feel would give a turkey hunter better odds in finding success this year?

My one tip, if I had to tell them, is hunt all day. You know, I've killed birds from first light to last light and everything in between. In fact, I'd say I'd kill more birds midday when most hunters have left the woods or napping. You know, turkeys, like I said, turkeys, first thing they do when they fly down, the first thing they do or typically do is they breed. So when they're breeding, it's hard to pull a tom away from the flock. But, you know, once they're done at first light breeding and toms are alone because the hens are tending their nesses,

Like, dude, like from nine to three o'clock, you just don't know when you're going to strike up a super hot Tom. So if that's the, if there's one tip that I could give to them hunt all day. Yep. No, I'm,

I'm the same way growing up and, you know, hunt over there in Northeast Washington. I got, I got to hunt with some locals and hunt with some people that have been doing it for a long time. And it was even comical to the point where it frustrated me. They wouldn't get up, you know, at four o'clock in the morning and go sit on a roost tree and whatnot. They would hang out at camp.

cook themselves nice breakfast once it got daylight wait for all of us young guys that were full of piss and vinegar earlier in the morning to come back to camp and then they would go out and kill the birds that we were hunting um you know it's just it's just nature and the way it works right it's those those toms fly down with a group of hens that hen will go lay eggs go sit on her nest and leave and then that tom's a lot more callable at that point and so no i'm with you um

With that said, I think you're still punching the time clock, whether you're out there in the morning and night. And we all know that you can kill a bird first thing in the morning, but you can also kill a lot of birds midday. So similar to what you said, more time in the woods is always going to lead to more success. And I'm fully on board with what you said there. I really appreciate having you on the podcast today. How can people find out more about you and where can they find your stuff?

Yeah. So I primarily operate on YouTube and Instagram. My YouTube is just Samong Outdoors, S-A-M-O-N-G Outdoors. And on Instagram, it's S-Y underscore outside. Perfect. Well, uh, yeah, like I say, you're doing cool stuff. I love your YouTube channel. Um, you know, super humble, modest, um, in my opinion, doing it the right way and, uh, representing hunters, um, in the light that we need to. So, uh, no, uh,

Proud of you. Like I say, got to watch you for the last four years. Really like what you're doing. It's an honor to have you on here and good luck this spring. Sounds like we're going to hook up and maybe do some trick hunting together. So everything we talked about here, maybe we'll be able to put it to use here this spring and document it all. Absolutely, man. Looking forward to it.

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