00:00:04 Speaker 1: Clean your Gun Jr. Bow Where the Uncollective show Colin Hunters new and all uncollective show with thanks or fancs and opinions are subjective. You're listening to the Collecting. Everybody, Welcome to the pen ultimate episode of The Hunting Collective. I am as always been O'Brien and I'm joined in studio by Phil t engineer Phil. How are you, sir? Everybody knows that the pen ultimate episode is usually one of the best of a TV show, like a series or a season. Um, we'll see if that's the case here, you'd never know. It could be the second the best episode ever of this program right out. So strap in. I don't know if you're in a place where there's any straps around, but get one and strap yourself to wherever you're sitting. I don't know, you know, don't move and lock in because you're about to get You're about to get regaled with one of light like one of the nation's most riveting coming of age tales, and that is the tale of Filthy Engineers First Turkey Hunt. It's gonna be I will say this, and I say much about what happens, other than to say it's a two parter. There are two parts. This is of course the first of two parts, and we will reveal at some point along the way whether Phil killed a turkey or not. But more importantly than that, a few days back, I shared a photo of Phil the Engineer on Instagram and Facebook where he was holding his turkey target. Now we'll get to what happened. How that turkey. It came to be full of tiny little holes. But Phil, the reaction was broad and it was interesting. People, you're a hero, you are an inspiration. People love you. Hundreds of comments poured in from across the world. They the globe. People love it. Man greatest, somebody's the greatest character arc of all time. Phil is way less of a nerd than I originally anticipated. Still stoked on him, though, hashtag legend. I've never I've never wanted someone I've never meant to shoot a turkey more than I want Phil to shoot a turkey. Good luck. Don't forget the t P Phil, just in case. It's a good poop callback. Yeah, it really is. It's a good it's a good call back to the show. A lot of good lucks, a lot of yeah boys, a lot of people talking about how you looked. Ah, what do you think about hundreds of people commenting on your looks as opposed to your voice because we did the voice face contest back in the infancy. Yeah, of th HC. I totally understand the fascination because I've had the same experience. Yeah. Yeah, you you listen to a radio show or a podcast, and you haven't You just build up an image of somebody in your head and then you actually see them, and it's usually disappointing. It's This guy says, Phil looks like Steve and Yanni are his dad's. That was a good one, and I see it. I kind of see it. Phil looks a lot less nerdy than I imagine. That's a compliment. I imagine Phil is some nerdy early thirties chubby ginger with a beard. Do you think about that? I mean, I'm I'm offended for chubby gingers everywhere on their behalf. Yeah, I mean, nothing wrong with the chubby ginger support for those folks. So there there's a lot of people. Uh. This guy says, this is the first picture I've ever seen of Phil. Phil is not the character I drow up in my head. Well, people actually drew you up, and I don't think you look like what they drew the whole point of it. My favorite comment um was something along the lines of Phil looks less masculine than he sounds, and he doesn't sound very masculine. This guy said, I'll take it. He is like a small infant child, sweet boy. I hope he has fun in his first first time out. So thanks for all those comments. Yeah, I I could go on because there is hundreds of them. People from across the country sent us d m s. They sent us emails to t ac the meter to have wasting you well and hoping that you would get a turkey. So this is by far other than I don't know. I think this is by far the biggest thing we've done as a podcast, and that that it's the last thing we'll ever do, so why not be the biggest. People are into it, Phil, People they want it. Can you feel the pressure? I can feel it, but it's surprisingly not weighing on me as much as I thought I would. Know you were pretty I'm kind of brushing it off. Excuse me, I'm kind of brushing it off, But I don't mean that. I don't mean that I'm brushing off the compliments as well. I hear all the compliments and it's it's I want to thank you, yeah, um, because I I am. I am glad you're invested in my in my in my arc, in your character, but the greatest character arc of all time, which is essentially just hey, Phil, have you ever gone hunting? Nope, We're gonna take you hunting. And that was the ark. But people love it. Yeah, well that's it. If you stretch any small storyline now for two years, it seems like an epic tale. Exactly where we are now. We got a message from our friend Eric Hall. He had something to say to say something or signing of failt Engineering on Facebook that what's not a big siding? Yes, very rare, you don't see it often. His numbers going up. So looking forward to Field Turkey Hunt, the last two shows coming up. There kind of a build up to feel a Turkey Hunt being the last show. Yeah, that's it, He's right, The man is right, Yes, siting a filthy engineer like the big Foot, the lore of old Maybe you'll will once are the show is over. Your your legend will continue and people will continue to see you in places where you don't exist or maybe I will just retreat to the woods. Yeah, and a lot of check exactly, grow a beard, yeah, grow skip pop, we stashould come back. So let's let's lay out, Phil, what we're gonna do here. Uh, we have it. This is a lot of work to tell this story. And again, as we mentioned, quite the build up. So we're going to tell the story and its totality. We're going to lean into a linear tale of one man and another man and a truck in the Turkey hun and yeah, okay, I was gonna say, like in some decoy and some decoys we could just list there in your truck, a cup of coffee. We're gonna lean into. We're gonna tell you the whole story, and we're just on a little bit different Phil and I have decided that we're going to play our audio and and and do some color commentary of what was happening at the time was happening. Yeah, we're gonna do some live commentary with some probably minimal editing from me. I'm gonna I'm talking about I'm thinking about future me right now, several hours from now when I sit down edit this podcast. I don't know, I don't think I'm gonna do a lot of editing. We're just gonna do it kind of on the fly here, yep. And if you don't like it, cancel us, get rid of us. It doesn't matter. We do whatever we want. At this point, we get the worst thing could happen has already happened. And so we're pretty much flying by the seat of our paints that we're weren't already before. As I've been saying, what kind of building a roller coaster while we're riding it? So this is this, this is Phil's first hunt hashtag if you're going to post about this online hashtag Phil's first bird, okay? Is that it was that the final hashtag on landed on Phil's first bird? Okay? Because I think you've gone through several of this. Have you seen the video that I took a slow a video of you jumping over Yes, I saw it before I came over here today. What do you do you have any of ficial comments about it? I look fantastic. I mean a lot of people, a lot of people love it, dude, A lot of people are into it. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your strategy while jumping over this My first strategy was watching you so I can learn from your mistakes. And you you shorted it barely. I put a foot in the wall. Yeah, there was a foot in the water. If if, if you guys aren't haven't seen you gotta go to my Instagram. But any of B three or when I took a slow mo video of Phil leaping majestically in his new shnays boots, which we'll get to, yes, over this ditch that had filled with some runoff, so it's full of water, and at first Phil didn't know if he could make it over the dish, and I said, well, let me jump over first and then film you in slow moo for posting online later. So that's what we did, and it is it's pretty majestic, uh people. One guy said, it's like watching poetry. Such grace. I can't disagree. How are your a c L s feeling? Somebody wants to know My legs feel great to show you how how not in shape I am? I think I actually overextended my arm, somebody. My arm was sore for like a half hour after I made that jump. Somehow, don't know how, but that's how my body works, all right. Well, All the highlights from the hunt are going to be on my Instagram as you listen to this, they'll be there video B three oh one on Instagram, So you could see some of the visual highlights. But we have the audio highlights of this hunt. And let me just tell you a lot of stuff happened. A lot of things have happened, and we're gonna lay them out over the next two episodes, the final two episodes th HC. And I can't wait for you to see how it ends. Okay, Phil, you're ready to go, let's do it. Here we go. Now play some sort of awesome intro music right here. I believe in the Turkey and uh so we struck out. First thing we had to do was we had to strike out too what we'll call site in the shotgun, to pattern this shotgun. The weather be eighteen I that we had selected fulfilled for his first hunt. We went out to some local public land to site in this shotgun. Now, what happened on the way there is I think emblematic of this entire story. We didn't really get this on video or audio, but we're driving up a gravel road to this kind of what we'll call a public land shooting range close to to to my domicile here, and we're driving past a set of homes and there's kind of a rancher style home tucked in this little you know, the bosom of this litwer ridge. And in the yard is many things. Many things are there, rusty farm implements. There was chickens, a few chickens. It was not unlike some some places a hobbit would live. It was like tucked into a hillside, it really was, with a bunch of just animals and random stuff scattered, gentle smoke coming from the chimney um. And there in the yard was a turkey. First first first turkey sighting as a as a part of Phil's first hunt hashtag hashtag Phills first bird. The first turkey we saw was really emblematic of the rest of our journey. Let me try to describe this turkey to you, Phil, and you help me out here if I'm getting this wrong. This turkey. First picture some sort of goblin from the depths of Hades, and then a turkey, and then mix those two things together and that's what you get. This turkey could barely walk. It had maybe six or seven of its tail feathers. It could barely. It was. It was shaking uncontrollably. Its head was like the size of a cantalope. And it was just kind of like wandering around this yard like a zombie were somehow, but somehow it was. But it was walking like it could barely. Yes, if I had just punted it in the cloaka, it looked like it just it was in massive amounts of pain. It had like gyrating wing feathers, like a palsy of some kind. I'd like to think this turkey has had seen better days earlier in its life. I hope so. I hope it did, because it was. It was infirmed in a way that I've never seen any any wildly creature in my life, but we it was. It was. It was almost like a sign that this was going to be weird. But this tale, this coming of age tail, was just gonna be strange, and there's not a whole lot we can do about it. I've never seen a turkey like that. I got out my call, I hit the diagram a few times, and it let out this sad, dust filled gobble that could only be described as depressing. You could barely hear it and it was only ten yards away from the truck. So wherever that turkey is today, and it's probably right under that same tree he was. It is now the mascot for this whole two episode run. Sad as a mascot though it maybe you know, r I p that turkey because it's gonna die soon. I mean it's probably from natural causes or unnatural causes. I was looking around for like a power plant, a nuclear power plant, share like some some neon news was coming out of a pipe, and it was the turkey was eating it. There's this thing wearing an eye patch, like hasn't been shanked by one of these other turkeys. I'll never forget it as long as when I closed my eyes just now I can see it. I can see its face staring into my face. Um. Anyway, that's a I don't even think it had a beard. It was just it was a grotesque. It was just grotesque. So right into THHC at the Mediator dot com and name that turkey Skippy mc no beard, whatever you want to name that turkey, but he will be the mascot for the rest. We'll go back and give video because here he couldn't go far like physically he couldn't. He's there, he's got to think he roos in it. He can't fly up in a tree. He just lays down on the ground when he goes to sleep, just lays on the ground. Sayway, that's that's kind of my first and most searing memory from our journey, Phil, Yeah, was that we uh it was an omen an omen from the Turkey gods to watch the funk out. She was about to get western, Okay, and what happened after that it was completely unbelievable. No one would believe it, but you're about to hear it. So we moved past this mutant Turkey and shocked in all you know, kind of twitter painted a little bit, and I we move up to the shooting range. And the shooting range portion of this certainly was all about education, right Phil. Yeah, I mean I I had never fired a shotgun before, so this was Yeah, this was it. So we get out there and we are preparing and I need to go through what the gun is, what it does. Imagine your thirty two three my age, Yeah, thirty, I am thirty thirty. Yeah, I got it right on the first try. You're thirty, Your three year old man, you've done a lot of things your life, but you've never shot shotgun, you know, pulled the trigger. I got very into air soft in high schools. As far as that's as far as I got. I met, not yesterday or well yesterday, a couple of days ago, I met a fellow that had never tried pineapple. I've never had pineapple. To watch this human, this full grown adult human, eat this pineapple's amazing. So this is a lot what it was like for Phil. And so we get out there and um, I want to say, hilarity ensues, but it was pretty normal. And so here's here's me teach and Phil a little bit about the shotgun. Okay, Phil, are you ready, sir? Yes, I've had my my ice coffee. Of course, you've had your This is the this is what most people at the range do. They talk about their caffeinated beverages. Any anything, you want? Any questions before I go through the shotgun and task here? Uh not yet. No, I'm I'm ready to learn. I have some more Turkey specific questions for later, but right now I think I just need to like hold a gun in my hands. Probably all right, Well, here's the gun here. So this is a weather B eighteen. It's a semi drun. We gotta be honest. It was very windy. So we went into my truck and I didn't actually have the shotgun. No, I was my man the whole time, so just let's just keep going. It was sad. Uh. This thing that, this big piece in the back is the whole thing is the stock, Yes, a big silly And there's a recoil pad on that that helps to to cushion that recoil that you're gonna feel from the I'm trying to be the expert of experts here. I'm super worried that people we'll think that I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, so you're you're going over every little part of the gun. Yeah, I think I was even reading off something on my phone. The shot when you pull the trigger, so there's the trigger guard. Put your finger right there. You see that it's totally never put your finger on the trigger and even inside that trigger guard until we're ready to go, all right, and then when here's the safety, so you can push it back and forth and see as as the action is open, you can see that there's you can push that back and forth and see safety was when the red indicators showing, and on safe is when the red indicators and here at the range, we won't do this in the field, but here in the range, when that safety clicks off, you just say fire in the hole, which means I'm preparing to shoot, which lets me know that you're getting ready to send some shots. So now you're educated, Phil, educated. I was holding the gun in my hand, yeah, inspecting all the parts you were showing me. It was kind of like an air gun. It's made of air. There you go. But we did we actually did later than you know, inspect. It's the magic of the magic of audio. Here. We're just letting you into the creative work that goes into the show like this. You should be grateful. And then was so honest with you. He's really he's really opening up. Yeah, in these last episode and then you know, we did other stuff. Okay, it's it's it's getting a little window out here. We're out in them. We're on America's public lands. Obviously America's public lands. There'd be somewhere else. I'm gonna show you what you're what you're doing here, Phil, You're gonna be shooting these federal TSS loads. These heavyweight t SS Sponsorler Tungsten super shot. These are three inch shells. They have nine shot and it's one and three year quarter ounce of shot inside of there. So we're gonna put these babies right in here, and then when we hit this button, it's gonna go. It's gonna be chambered right, we're gonna be ready to fire. Okay, safety there like I showed you, and then this is the magazine or you'll be able to insert the extra shells that which will be cycled through when you pull the trick semi automatic. Okay, got it. Now onto the next thing. We recorded all right, eyes and ears safety, see, we're yes, we're doing it right. We made sure to about how far do you think that's your guests, Probably about fifteen yards? This turkey as a turkey's head. And you're gonna put the bed look down the barrel here real quick. You're gonna put that bead see the rip of the shotgun here. You're gonna bed that bead down in the ribs. So you just see like a half moon, and that bead is going to go right on the turkeys. Major curruncles are right in the middle of its neck. There. As you can see, there's a bull's eye on the target, and so you're gonna place that that bead right on top of that right and then you're gonna shoot him in the face. Good, So it's gonna go okay. Commentary Philip, No, it's a lovely day. Um. I couldn't ask for better, better weather, better situation. I'm excited. We're gonna we've got about We're gonna try it. We're gonna run through this once. Let's just let you feel it and then get your reaction, and then we'll start to look at accuracy and kind of play a little bit around what we need to do in the field. You were thrilled at this point, phil Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I was a little I mean, it was very much out of my element, so so you know, I was, I was I didn't really know what to expect, um, and I was just trying to take in what you were telling me. Yeah, I mean, I think all seriousness. I mean, I think being a mentor is about that feeling out process. Of course, we know each other from sitting around in the studio a lot of times, but those of you that are out there mentoring folks. You may not know them, or you may know them from other you know interactions. You may know him professionally even or from work. You may know from church. You may know him who knows you know, from the corner store, you don't know. Um, it's this going to the range of someone one is a good way to kind of set the precedent for how you're going to communicate, you know, whether you trust that person, whether you're really going to take on the mental roles like I'll handle the firearms, I'll make sure we're safe, or you're gonna see some trust over to that person that you're working with. And and these these early interactions are a way to kind of get to know each other but also to set a cadence because you have to to to do this successfully. To mentor someone successfully, you have to be able to communicate with them and understand them and they have to understand you. Uh. There's a lot of you know, even non verbal communication in the woods, a lot of whispering, a lot of fast action. And so this is to me, is like a good way to say, like, this is how we're going to communicate each other. That's how we're gonna be safe. This is this is setting a precedent for when we're out there, making sure we understand, you know, kind of the step by step process of how we're going to handle some of these more intricate actions out there in the field. So that that's my what I was, what's going through my mind, you know, to see how comfortable you are. I think immediately you were pretty comfortable with the weapon, like it wasn't something scary or you didn't feel like you were nervous. You were nervous. You want to be accurate, you wanted to do it right. But I don't think you were nervous at the idea of felt recoil, were you No? No? No, I mean I think you'll hear um. After you kind of gave me the go ahead to fire, there is a long gap. I was kind of I was really trying to like remember all the things you told me, like three points of contact, like where where's where's the where's the site pointing? Like? Am I level enough? Like am I holding the gun too close to my body and holding it too tighten? Or am I holding it too loosely? Like am I am leaning too far? Back to go forward and then all that kind of stuff I was trying to process, like fire on the exhale, just like all that stuff, um and so like I think there was some trepidation there, but I was never I was never like uncomfortable or nervous like in that way. No. No, So here we go. All right, we got Phil all figured out here. He's up. We're using a hydro sled and a Caldwell shooting table out here in the middle of this kind of really flat aired public land. Peace. So you're all set up there, fils that feel pretty comfortable? It does, Yes, We've We've finagled it, and now I'm feeling pretty good. Okay, I forgot the target stand, so we're using a piece of wood and a bungee cord, much like his tradition in the Turkey uming space. Okay, I'm gonna load this up for you. Phil. As soon as this action closes, it's gonna be ready to fire. Now, when you're ready to shoot, all you gotta do is push that safety and then when you're ready to fire, put your finger inside the trigger guard and just tell me, you know, ready to go. Okay, sound. So here's the momentble pause like thing that I'm gonna have my hand under the magazine like no, no, you're opening the further up on the flour ends. You can get it the better. If you hold it right here, you'll be just fine. And this is very natural. Well, well, like what's happening here, You're trying to get comfortable, I think, and you tell me if I'm wrong immediately when I load a shot shell and I say it's loaded, it's ready to go. But your mood changes a little bit. I mean, like your understanding now for a big loud thing could happen at any time. Yeah, well even just looking at that that the trigger and the trigger guard, how how close the trigger is to the back of that trigger guard area where I was like, oh, like this is like a hairpin, like you barely have to squeeze for it to go off. So it's I mean, it's you know, um, like I told you I did. You know, I didn't grow up with guns, so all all this stuff, you know, being handed a shotgun when you're thirty, it's it carries a little bit more weight and like the context as as as an adult, more than it would if you were you know, eight, years old, So like it just kind of you know, I was trying to be extra extra careful. Yeah, I mean all the time, we've talked about this and thought about this, and we talked about mentoring a lot on the show, and we've we've kind of thought through what this this would be. But this is one of the main points to remember if you are mentoring an emergent hunter is as a child, you're kind of you're pretty locked in on whoever it's mentoring you, whether it's your dad, you generally have a relationship with that person, right, uncle, father, friend, whatever, um. But you don't have a general like you have no general knowledge of the social and cultural impacts of firearms. Right. You also just don't have a general knowledge and ways people might die, all right, just don't sit around reading about gun accidents or reading about mass shootings. And so I'm I know that those things are baked in and I could I could tell, and I think this is is very normal that like when when the finality of that shot shell in the chamber and me saying like it's one you now be safe, do this, right, So you're immediately there's a question, Okay, what do I do? Where do I go elbows, hands, cheek. Where does this all go? You know? And that's pretty natural, right, I think? So there we go. Yeah, just don't get your This action is going to come back forward and this magazine will work in that action will work that next round into the chamber. But if you're there, you're You're just fine. And the goal here where this first shot was just to get just to understand how everything works. No expectation, no, no, tell me when you're ready to say, fire in the hole. Now we gotta, I gotta ready. I also didn't want to shoot the gun whenever anyone was driving by. Yeah, it was totally fine. The road was completely and it's it was in a very safe zone. Yeah, yeah, but you didn't want to. It was make I don't know, I don't know if self conscious conscious is the word, but something about it just made me slightly uncomfortable. Here we go, see him say win driving out of Okay, go ahead and get set up on it with that cheek on the weld. Don't put that figure near the trigger until you're set up and firm. Make sure this is firm against your shoulder. Okay, you're good, Go ahead and place that finger on the trigger and pull slowly back towards you. It's a lot of power, it is. You killed that turkey. All right, we're did that and he didn't make it well done? What are you think they're, Philly engineer. I that was exciting. Yeah, what a stupid I don't I don't have a whole lot of words right now. There. It was exciting a lot of pressure on you to say pulling in things. Yeah, I gotta say I did not like you running out to the microphone. Shot shot the gun for the first time. I did that. Every time you shot, I think, yeah, probably. Um. We won't borrow you with the rest of the details, but it suffice to say, like we'll talk through a little bit of what happened, Phil, we that first shot would have been in every shot you I think you shot about five times or maybe seven. Think it was you shot one. I shot one just to see. Everything was a little bit low, a little bit to the left. I think the first three or four shots you would have killed the turkey. But you know, to understand, you know where we had about an eighteen yard target again a piece of wood bungee cord. It was kind of on the ground. We started you on a Caldwell shooting bench portable shooting bench that I have, and then a hydro slid, which is like a lead sled. It's a big shooting rest. So we started you there first, just so you can understand the mechanics of the situation and kind of mentally understand what's going to happen, just so we all had that mutual understanding. And then we did that a couple of times, took that away, brought in a Caldwell shooting bag, just so now you could feel the shotgun directly on your shoulder. We could talk about fit, we could talk about points of contact, we could talk about you know, really as as I think you could talk about this a little bit. What came to I think really help. He was like control of shotgun. Don't let the shotgun control you bear down, Like make sure you're on top of the gun, don't you know, don't let it um, don't let her buck. I guess it'll be a good way to say it. So talk to talk people through how that progression went, because we went from just trying to understand two, just trying to control the shotgun, but then trying to shoot for accuracy. Then we sat you up against the gate, you know, just like you would be up against the tree in the field, and did some more shooting. So talk to people through how that all in your mind went. Yeah, I mean I felt like my aim, I mean behind the gun, I felt like I was aiming properly. Um And I was pretty consistent with where the shots are ending up, but it wasn't where I wanted them to end up. It was always just slightly low and slightly to the left. And um uh So then even even when I tried to kind of compensate for that, which I don't I don't know if it was the right thing to do, um, it was still ending up kind of low and to the left. Um So, so I think wait, and then you came in and were like, well, I you was I specifically doing something. I think you were telling me that I maybe was kind of You're dumping the trigger a little bit, which is completely natural, which jump in the trigger just means you know, jerking it, pulling fat asked, not smoothly pulling through right, So as you jerk the trigger, that's going to create really a different kind of action. And so I just talked about let's focus on other things right, because there is there's a level at which when you're instructing someone or something like this, you can get in their heads if you give them too much instruction, you know, if you have too many things to think about. And then and so I could just to me, it was like, okay, let's let's because we talked about you know, getting that taking a breath in and then when as you let that breath out, just slowly pulling that trigger and the surprise shot. You know, we talked about that. But as I was watching, I'm like, well, I think if I just let's just talk, let's just get that gun seated correctly in your shoulder and just control that thing. They just just know that you're not you know, you're not waiting for the recoil, not worried about the trigger. You're just worried about controlling that shatkun. And then once we kind of got there, then you're right on, you know, And I think that's that was just you know, openly through that process, just watching and trying to understand, and there's never really no one way to do that. You just gotta interpersonal. You just gotta figure it out together. And again, if you're teaching somebody how to to go hunt for the first time, especially they're an adult. This is gonna happen. You have to like work with each other, work as a team. It's not it's not boss employee. It's two people trying to figure something out together. It's really what this is. I was happy by the end of the thing, and we got to go drive out. We got to drive by the mutant Turkey on the way back out. That's right, say goodbye, say goodbye, goodbye, mutant Turkey, goodbye forever. So we when we were driving out past the mutant Turkey, we did a little recording just to talk about in the moment. So let's see what you said. And you know, in reflection, because I do not remember anything nice. That's what I'm saying that I don't remember eating. So it's good. It's like, this is a fun way to play it out. Maybe it's not good for the audience, but for us, it's fun. Okay, Phil, Yeah, uh all right, last shot he blew the turkey's head off. Feeling good about that. Yes, it was a good note to go out on. My best shot was my last shot. Um, I just gotta remember to kind of you were telling me to bear down a little bit, keep that gun tight, tight to my my my shoulder, and uh and aim a little higher. I guess that was kind of what I did on that last last shot. So well, I mean, that's it, man, That's why you come out here so you can learn a little bit and experience it. And if you all but one of your shots, you would have killed the turkey. So for your first time really doing this, that's that's like I said, I'm not worried at all. I have no concerns about the turkeys and what they'll do after Philly Engineer pulls the trigger, except the real ones will be like presumably walking around and moving, so that's that'll be another wrinkle. But I think I think I'm ready. I think you're ready to what questions you have about actual turkey hunting itself. It's kind of going over it on the show a bunch of times. But do you have any questions about like the scenario for the morning? Yeah, I think so. I mean, so we're gonna set up decoys, he said a twenty yards away. Is there a specific moment that the turkey that will the will the turkey be doing something specific when like when it's when it's strutting or try and check out the decoys? Am I waiting for it to kind of stop and and you know, plant for a second before I take the shot? I guess, I guess what's the opportune moment to actually take the shot other than having a clear sightline and and you know, knowing the target and everything. Yeah, so it all depends on how it happens for your first turkey hunt. If it doesn't go the way we wanted to go, we're just not gonna shoot like that. You know. If if he comes in he gets nervous and starts running around the circles and looks like he starts putting and looks like he wants to roll out, we're just gonna let him go. You know, We're not gonna rush anything. We're not gonna be unethical. We're not going to force a shot if we don't need to. So the perfect scenario is when we set these decoys up, we're gonna set them up in such a way that he has to come where we'll set up I know, this little meadow where we're gonna go. We're to set up the decoys where he basically in almost all scenarios, probably nine out of the ten scenarios where a turkey might approach, He's gonna have to come past us to get to the decoys. Okay, and for a for a myriad of reasons, but really because I want him to be focused on the decoys and walk and looking towards the decoys. And we're not on the other side of those decoys, right, So we're gonna set up so he has to come past us. So generally, once it wants a full strut turkey or a gobbler or you know, any turkey that's interested in decoys, once they get full lock in on on a decoy, they want to come. And I'm not gonna say you can almost do You can't do anything, but you can move around a little bit, you can adjust a little bit. I mean people, you know, in those situations draw a bow. So I have a full draw on a bow. That's a lot of motion that you all need to have. So when that turkey comes in, you're gonna be set up already like we just worre. You'll be sitting on against the tree, you'll have three points of contact, you'll be ready to go. You'll be putting that site picture in your mind and getting ready to literally just click the safety off and when I tell you to shoot, you let it go. What you're looking for turkey wise, there's a couple of things we can do. He's in full strut, his his feathers kind of fluff up right, his his body kind of blows up, he lifts his wings, his tail fan is kind of up in the air, and his head is tucked into his body, right, And so it's not a full you know that that target we're just shooting at is just a full turkey's head, and that's it in that case, when his head is tucked into his body. Certainly I've shot turkeys like that. What I would would like to do is I'll probably throw out a few clucks or just like one noise to get him to poke his head up, and then I'll tell you to kill him. So when he puts his head up to look around, like what was that, then you have a full clear picture of that turkey, hopefully a silhouetted head just like you had in that target. And so that's what we're looking for now. If we don't get that, if he's coming to the decoys, he sees something weird and he skirts so and he's around it like thirty or forty yards and he just won't come in. We can talk about it. At that point, I'll say you comfortable, Like thirty yards, I think you can kill him, Like, are you comfortable? And in the first time we go out like air on the side of caution, air on the side of thinking it through. And I will certainly tell you when I think that you are good to go. That doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean you have to follow that order, like you can judge it for yourself. But I'll let you know when I think you're good to go. But if the if the turkey is in the decoys, if he is making contact with the decoys, if he's doing a dance with with where we set our decoys up, he'll be killable range pretty shotgun. So that's really really what the consideration is in terms of effective range and what we really want to see. There is there is oh lord, there's the chis. Those are those are farm turkeys. We I don't even understand what to do with this turkey. That is the craziest looking turkey that I've ever seen. Dude, It's like oh man, that is the wildest. I gotta keep my phone out. I don't know what to say about it. It's like mutant turkey. All right, that's it, Oh mutant turkey, right you once but again, I hope for everybody's tracking here, I know that this is These are the essential parts, you know, of of mentoring someone. These are not the exciting parts, but they are the essential parts of of like I said, getting to know someone, having them, getting to know you, you know, articulating yourself in a way that they can understand. And also, hopefully, Phil I made you feel like you could ask questions and there was no dumb question hopefully. Uh yeah, I know. And one thing you just said a few minutes ago, it's about hell not you don't want to try to overload someone with information. I never got that at all. You kind of just let me feel it out through in a tip here and there. But it was never sort of like do this, do this, do this, do this, because if if you if you had done that, I would have kind of probably walked shut down a little bit. I've been too worried about screwing up. So yeah, So now we're headed out hunting the next day, so a spot that I'd been and never killed a turkey, talked it up a lot. This is it. This is the moment that all of all of my talking and just grandeur about turkey hunting was going to come to fruition. There was gonna be gobbles everywhere. It would be an early morning, just crisp morning birds everywhere. You get to see that natural world come to life in the springtime. You get to just feel the energy of the turkey woods. And this was in my mind what was going to happen, and that we were going to have this indoctrination into this cult like mentality. Phil will is finally gonna be a part of the tent legion. Okay, fail, what do you think, buddy, h it's not it's not too cold, which is great. That's a good commentary, first thought. Wom in Montana. Yeah, that's a good thing. Well, we're going right over here. Okay, there's a river which will go un named, that goes obviously right here, and there's a bunch of good roots and trees right on the river. The situation is we gotta go about quarter of a mile to get to where I think they'll be and listen for him to be goblin in the tree. Big problem here is they'll be in a tree of the time on private land, so we gotta it sounds like a turkey and have big plastic things that looks like turkeys and get him to come to us on the public which is pretty common. So it's not academic. I've never killed a turkey in here before, but I've been on him every single time i've been here. So okay, we'll stop there. That's interesting commentary by me. We'll see what happens. Phil. I will give you a compliment. Okay, ready, thanks man. You were you were very punctual turkey hunter. Like, you don't know how annoying it is for someone not to be punctual and fly down situation. Okay, good. You were flawless the entire time you were on point. You were very willing, you were excitable. I think I feel like your number was pretty high by the time that, like we were talking strategy here at the truck. Hi. Yeah, for sure, mainly because I was just I was just thrilled. I was spring time in Montana can be a fickle bastard. It could be a bit, it can be it can be a foot of snow. It can be pouring rain, it could be lovely, it could be very windy, which it usually is. Um but these that first morning was just it was perfect. It was it was perfect, and so I was just din't agree, you know, I set my alarm, woke up. I was, I was, you know, I was. I was ready to go. And then when I stepped out of my car in that in that uh that a lot we were in. It just it just felt I was. I was looking forward to it. I was ready for the day. It felt good. Yeah, I build it up in my own mind as well, and it felt good. I was ready for that first gobble. I was ready to like put my arm in the air and celebration the first time we heard a gobble, and to know where these turkeys are, make a plan and show you kind of at least the interaction, right, the game of cat and mouse. Yeah right, we were gonna have a nemesis to key by the end of the day, I thought. And again, a lot of build up here, A lot of pressure, a lot of build up, A lot of pressure on me to to create something here, to to show Phil exactly what hunting is and what it's like. And I put a lot of pressure on myself. So, uh, a lot of things happen, you know, and in hunting, we were heading out and then my kind of my fatherly notion is to make sure that I have everything first, and then to make sure Phil has everything he needs. We got decoys, we got shotgun, we got calls, get everything we need. And then I checked one last thing. Phil forgot his license in the truck. We're going back. It's only we only got fifty yards from Okay, he forgot his license. Fine, it happens to the best of us. It was where it was in your backpack? Yeah, yeah, it was in my backpack. I didn't I remember to grab it in the morning. Yeah that was good, right, Yes, big lesson. Big lesson. Also to to go back a couple of steps Phil when buying his license. This is something everybody should know. Like in the state of Montana, you can print out your license or they'll mail you the carcass tags. There's an actual license itself and then a carcass tag which when you fill your tag, you notch it and that becomes the thing you attached to the carcass hence the term carcass tag. Phil got his license the night before the hunt, which is always what I see most commonly people tend to do when it is over the counter. He gets his license online and then at the end, what happens phil you get you get Twitter pay? Did you get confused? To ask you a bunch of questions. One of the questions the bottom was because I had already I had already printed my license, and then there was one more step where it was like, would you like to print your carcass tags now or have f WP mail them to you? And just I, obviously, if I had spent ten seconds thinking about it, I would have thought, well, I need I'm going hunting tomorrow. I'm going to knee these carcass tags as soon as possible. But just I just was like check marks, I just mailed me. I was not thinking. And then as soon as like five minutes later, I kind of I was. I had one of those moments, just like something went off in the back of my head like, ah, maybe I should call Ben and see if there's a problem. I was like, that's gonna be a problem and you're gonna need those. But luckily Ben made some phone calls. I was able to go to the local sportsman's warehouse, and they could not have been lovelier. They were very lovely to me on the phone. I called him, I said, I have this fellow and they said, is it a boy? I said, no, it's a man. It's a fellow. It's a fellow man. She said, is this a child? I said no, it's a man. His first hunt and he needs a license. So they took care of you, and then now we resume our adventure. The one thing about hunting, at least at my case, it's really about forgetting things and then remembering them. We're losing things and then finding them. Were wearing thousands of dollars of gear sponsor, and obviously we need that. We wouldn't be able to fold this turkey. Were about to go find that stage advice fill you remember that for next time, So off we go. The idea was to hit up a little clearing, a little pocket amidst the brush in this riparian zone and listen in glass. We were pretty early again, we were probably thirty five minutes before fly down, so we had plenty of time, and that was by design. We had plenty of time to get in there. Here the turkeys get set up do whatever we needed to do to draw them for what I thought would be from private onto public, Like this is the game. I'm pretty sure we're gonna play, um, and then just all hell broke loose? See amazing? Do you guys hear any gobbles? Well, Phil, we've heard a lot of birds this morning, your first morning turkey hunting, but no turkeys right as far as I know, no, And by as far as I know, I mean I I ask you and you say no. Yeah, We're standing in a spot where, Um, I've been haunted. I've never shot out to turkey here, but I've hunted it by my six or seventh time being in here hunting, I think, And I've never not heard of turkey on the roost. And it is just about fly down here in another five minutes or so. Now we have not heard a peep from a turkey. It's very demoralizing because it's kind of like, Wow, is you gonna go to this spot where there's turkeys in there? You know, as a turkey hunter you have certain spots, Phil where you're basically like, yep, at least we're gonna get some action there. Well, Phil, this is this is when you started a spiral. I spiraled so quickly were it wasn't even fly down yet, But I was wrold at this point. I was not as bummed out as you, because I think you had obviously had more expectations than I did. But I was expecting to hear a turkey. A turkey. We heard no turkey, none, not a turkey, no, knowing that there were turkeys there, like I like the way that this sets up. Their turkeys either fly across a river to go, which they will do, but they I knew that. I know there's turkeys here. They're just not goblin. And as we said earlier, it's a fine morning. There's no excuses, lovely, lovely morning. No wind, little to no wind, probably eight to fifty degrees right around fly down. And this is like prime time. We have done everything right. You you are punctual. We've we've trained, we've got the shotgun, and we've talked about scenarios. We've got our decoys, we've got thousands of dollars of gear, and here we are the precipice of greatness. And the turkeys aren't gobbling. No, there's nothing that we can do to make them gobble. Did I make noises at him. Phil, Oh, yeah, all kinds, all kinds of noises. Listen, and I've I've been lucky enough to be to have been exposed to and meet all kinds of incredible turkey collars. I saw a bunch of at and n W t F. There was like there was a g D competition. I saw people there, competition. You sounded you sounded great. You were calling, You're doing all all kinds of clucks. You you broke out the crow call, trying to get them too, shock shot, gobble, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing happened on the first Phil's first day of not not like, oh did you did you have one of It's far nothing, not a single one, nothing, And there you know, what were we gonna do? There was nothing we could do. It was pure and we've been hunting for forty eight minutes and it was pure desperation. At that point, I thought my entire life to that point was worthless, and that these two years of hunting, of knowing Phil and hunting and convincing him to go hunting, was going to be in vain HM. Tune in next time to hear what happened. In Part two of the Coming of Age, tail of Phil t Engineer. Any parting shots Phil before we head to the final episode. Cliffhanger. Wow, I just want to ask you how this feels. You're setting up the final episode of The Hunting Collection, fucking with a fucking with the listeners a little bit. We can tell the whole story if we wanted to, but we're not gonna tell you the whole story. It's a cliffhanger. Come on, we didn't hear any turkeys the first morning. Eventually we heard turkeys. I can tell you that. Whoa find out next time on The Hunting Collective. Say bye Phil, goodbye Clean. You're gone to your bowl where the hunt collected show and calling hunters new and all the hun collected show working pick and shuttle or working ben in hand. We call regate nice and over. I'm the land. We're focused. We're just living for the searching, dreaming of the fire and saltic gilburn Bo. We ain't coming by to heallenge colden Lane taking it so so we can shooes right. Clean, You're gone to your bowl where the hun clegged show, calling hunters new and all. The ain't no cold I am told