Big Island Jungle Fowl | Cal in the Field

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] first time been kicked by a turkey look at that guy gorgeous safe to say that Bird's never seen decoys before I could have reached out and grabbed him good try Jake immature bird got real close there's no Spurs on him extremely extremely fun and the entire Pacific Ocean is the backdrop which is unique for me my guess is that a lot of folks don't think of turkeys when they think Hawaii but that's why I'm here my longtime friend and longtime meat eater host Danny Bolton has agreed to show me around his family's Farm in hopes of putting some white meat in the [Music] freezer so while turkeys have probably been coming to the islands as long as uh the hoes it wasn't until 1961 when a ranch released some 400 Rio Grand turkeys that they became endemic now with number surpassing 16,000 well you can see where I'm going cuz we saw a hand right here right yeah if she split off from the boys she probably left them over there yeah would they be this way yeah yeah they're probably to the north chilling chilling with the boys mhm little Bachelor herd exactly dragging beards on the ground can't walk that far cuz they're so fat yeah yeah I mean this stuff out here it's it's so much more open even than where we uh called that other bird in yeah this is like fun for the challenge right it's like they'll be in here I I guarantee it in the next couple days there's going to be some Toms walking through this Zone but yeah well this is like exactly what they're looking for right cuz they can see forever nothing's going to sneak up on them yeah and they'll roosting trees like this like I see them roosting trees right in the middle of the fields nice or on the edge but I've seen them roosting yeah yeah down this down this row right here I usually see him hanging out down this one I mean that's just fun I'm not sure how productive it is is that a peacock peacock call or is that this is a crow call oh it's a crow call that I'm just using yeah to try to mimic the peacock sounds yeah they seem to they either are very annoyed by it or they like it we'll never know [Laughter] the words out like people come from the season and hunt you know but a lot of people the mainland a lot of like big time Hunters that I know hunting deer sheep pigs they're not like oh dude like turkey season's coming up you know just it's not really any of [Music] [Applause] that my feeling is that this heavy rain that's set in is not really making them very mobile beautiful spot oh only time I've ever set up for turkeys underneath the citrus tree there's a lot of great habitat and food on this ground and since we know they're here I'm not going to feel disappointed yet plus there are some other birds that have my [Music] attention turkeys that don't talk are really good at making you look like an idiot cuz it's just you and your mind and silence which is where where man fails being alone with with his [Laughter] [Music] thoughts PE peacocks or more accurately poul have only been considered a game animal in Hawaii since 2020 this came a few years after a well publicized legal battle one where a woman was charged with cruelty to animals after dispatching a squawking peacock Outsider condo complex safe to say there's no shortage of these things around the island turkeys they're too easy or too tough they've had had it had it both ways today it's hard to squeeze off a shot at 2 ft yeah so we have this big um Landmark tree and then in that corner somewhere the the turkeys are roosted I just heard the first first gobble of the morning up second gobble of the morning yeah our Intel from yesterday combined with some early morning gobbles gives us a pretty good plan for the day listen prepare and wait that's what we like so really no surprise that this is is where the turkeys were the most active that really have all the advantages great Roose trees lots of food all the things all this has been freshly mowed so the grass is really short again nothing's going to sneak up on them there's a Tom a jake bunch of H in here so Danny and I are set up probably about 350 yards from the Grise tree got some decoys out we going start letting them know that we're here here pretty shortly just be real patient and see if we can get some birds to work all the way in appears our Tom's on a different program today which happens to me all the time when I sit up really early on a bird often what happens is these birds have their own program when they come flying down like the route that they always walk and if you don't know it they just stick on that route no matter how good you sound unless that's just like really going off if it's not really going off you know that route you can just set up on it and they'll come in no matter what got to force their hand a little bit here there's a party going somewhere it's not here it's amazing how quickly these birds can foil your plants despite excellent morning Gobles and decent proximity we were just in the wrong spot and chances don't get a lot better as you hit midm morning [Music] couple more big openings up here still early in the morning or early enough anyway honestly it's probably not late enough in the day to kill a turkey Toms are in with the hands right now everybody's being silent need the hands to lay down and then the boys go oh better go find another hand that's where we come in will sound like a hand comes around the corner bang turkey turkey dinner pretty simple formula really while my tactics are fun and effective for Continental turkeys Danny usually approaches things here with the more Run and Gun method yeah I'm used to just seeing them and running up on them blast them we got uh we got a lot of birds up here though we'll get them washer repeat Danny washer repeat that's right love that intensity Danny as the day winds on a quick moving front covers the island leaving us wondering how the birds will respond in the afternoon another uh solid opportunity that didn't pan out patience worked and came into about 10 yards and just if the Tom was falling or he was too deep into the coffee to be seen clever clever Tom I suppose now the rain is pummeling so hard that but uh I don't feel this is totally productive not done just on pause of the three p foul varieties these are the blue or Indian [Applause] peacocks the turkeys have really thinned out but what has not or the peacocks so we want to do a little side by-side taste test here provide of this peacock as a death wish these birds have been well regarded as table fair for you guessed it literally thousands of years from at least Roman times peou meat has graced the tables of Nobles and fancy people around the world so it's interesting how why peacocks on private land are livestock peacocks on public land can be hunted as a game bird I should specify this is true for certain hunting zones on the island but not all public land turns out calling for peacocks at least my calling doesn't do much to bring them closer so I tried getting them to launch kind of like you might when hunting a ring necked pheasant in heavy [Music] cover got him it's uh empty good job buddy all right woo you ever eaten one of these no they too pretty young bird perfect I bet they're going to taste pretty good I would think I would think I wonder if they put all their energy into plumage and not so much into meat why do they feel little skinny yeah I don't know all right pretty colors huh everybody else ran look at that thing you know what's really wild is this is like a turkey on steroids maybe maybe on acid oh maybe on acid yeah acid steroids the uh sexual display right oh yeah is this is like the nuclear option little radiation right that's crazy look at that like a bunch of little eyeballs right right yeah and you could tell when we were watching those ones earlier like just you know doing their dance yeah that uh when he was trying to like bring the P hand in he'd give her the butt yeah and like shake his wings at her yeah and then when the male would show up he'd whip around give him the eyeballs that is crazy this is like the bird equivalent of the Irish elk right like that's a lot of lot of plumage a lot of energy into showing off for each other love those colors with a peacock in the bag we're about to head home for the night when Danny spots a Jake moving through the coffee ropes rather than risk it with the bow he borrows my scatter gun for a stealthy sneak on this [Music] [Music] bird the color changing head a little unwind yeah all right Bird down on the board dude we were set up for a long time within 30 yards of this dude you just would not would not commit yeah he definitely went a little further than what I thought he was going to be yeah turkey on the plate well done thanks dude like that tired old idiom about a bird in the hand this is a success no matter how you slice it and while it would have been sweet to call in a bird that's just sometimes not how it works and I don't care too much anyway because what I'm really excited about is a taste test between these two kinds of fowl peacocks have a lot in common with turkeys but on a scientific level they're more closely related to pheasants and one thing that's certain is that they both share some shall we say flamboyant characteristics in their plumage it's only this this side it's more green right and then when you go this way it's way more uh all showing off for the ladies but it's also showing off for the men too because it's like he's got a bigger fan I need a bigger fan look your eyballs I got and on and on we go yeah it is just bizarre to me that nature like selects for this you know b day is the family it looks real similar to Turkey like it does not look just in my head for some reason I thought it was going to be dark meat like I thought it was going to be this purpley dark well you may not be wrong yet I don't know you can see it pretty good right here it's looking like it just it doesn't look as dark as I thought it was going to look there you have it a peacock is just a giant fell [Music] [ __ ] turkey so there's like a nice cross gra yeah look and obviously we're not smoking things but it's like nice and moist on the inside really good mhm okay the salty you put it in I mean that salt soaked into it good yeah this is a total hunting camp meal all it is water and and salt H what do you think I'm just trying to decide if there's a difference right it is absolutely fantastic I'd go kill every one of those peacocks up there yeah just the boys just the ones with the really long tails yeah yeah it's good I I don't know the difference I want to say it has like more of a the turkeys real kind of plain salted plain I feel like this one has a little bit more flavor to it I don't know I think it does have a little more flavor to it it's funny how pretty animals kind of Garen a little bit more respect I feel like like for instance pigs I just feel like nobody not too many people care when I kill pigs y people are like oh yeah that's food yeah yep and I feel like turkeys have kind of fallen into that and more socially acceptable and I think people just get I mean they see that pretty thing how can you kill that yeah well look at them in the rain when it's a delou they're not that pretty um there's tons of them so yeah there's there's tons of peacocks like not the first people to be eating them they've been eaten for thousands of years and man you cannot argue with that that is a beautiful chunk of meat yeah beautiful chunk of meat so uh I would keep peacock on the menu like I said it'd be more fun to like let the dog run through there and see if you can get them to flush up and shoot them out of the air um but yeah that is a delicious Bird yeah I got no problems with it no no not that this will ever be the case but if you were to magically transplant a sustainable population of pile to public land in southwest Montana I can say without a doubt that I would be one of the most enthusiastic hunters in the meantime I'm going to stick to my more traditional Pursuits back home where the only coffee beans I'll see are in the grinder at 4:00 a.m. before a spring turkey hunt so we're going to pack it up get cleaned up grab our our PE file and our uh Tom from yesterday and do a little [Music] cooking little cooking little relaxing that's what micro needs plus my producer Jason is just really having a hard time at 33 really having a hard time not going to come on shoots ever again you going take that

Channel: MeatEater

Views: 162,893

Keywords: steven rinella, meateater, meat eater, Steve rinella

Id: lEnXhXt-uTg

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024