Posts in category 'Uncategorized'
20
How to Break Down a Turkey Breast the Right Way
Wild turkey gets a bad reputation it doesn't deserve. Ask most people who've eaten it and they'll tell you the same thing — it was tough, stringy, chewy. And they're not wrong about their experience. But the problem almost never starts in the kitchen. It starts at the processing table, and it has a name: silver skin.
A turkey breast is made up of several distinct muscle groups separated by fascia and connective tissue. Leave that stuff in, and it doesn't matter how good your recipe is — someone at the table is going to hit a chewy bite and decide wild turkey isn't for them. Take the time to break it down properly first, and what you're left with is clean, tender meat that holds up to any preparation you want to throw at it.
Here's how to do it.
What You're Working With
Before you start cuttin...
10
Spring Turkey Season Opener: A Midwest Hunter's State-by-State Breakdown
Spring turkey season doesn't sneak up on you. It builds. The days get longer, the timber starts to green up, and somewhere in the back of your head you start doing the math on how many weeks until opening morning. If you're hunting the Midwest this spring — or trying to find the right piece of ground to hunt — here's what you need to know about when seasons open and what actually matters when you get there.
Missouri
Missouri is legitimate turkey country. Strong populations, diverse habitat, and a long history of serious spring gobbler hunting make it a destination state for hunters who know what they're looking for. The 2026 season opens with youth weekend on April 11–12, followed by the regular season running April 20 through May 10.
Public ground exists, and some of it hunts well. But private land is where the real opportunity lives....
3
Turkey Calling Masterclass with Billy Yargus
Spring Turkey Calling Masterclass: Lessons from a Champion
Turkey hunting will humble you in a lot of ways, but nothing stings quite like working a fired-up gobbler for forty-five minutes and watching him walk the other direction. Most of the time, that's a calling problem — not a gear problem, not a location problem. A calling problem.
We sat down with a 3-time NWTF champion caller to talk through what separates hunters who consistently kill birds from the ones who consistently don't. The answer isn't volume. It isn't an expensive slate call. It's understanding that calling is communication — and communication is situational.
Calling Isn't Just Sound — It's Strategy
The single biggest takeaway from this session is that effective calling is situational. A sequence that pulls a bird at a dead run on opening morning in Mi...
30
Spring Turkey Prep: Getting Your Property Ready
Spring is Here - A Serious Hunter's Guide to Chasing Midwestern Gobblers
There's a moment in early April, somewhere between the last hard freeze and the first green tinge on the hillsides, when a gobble rips through the timber at first light and something primal fires in your chest. It doesn't matter how many springs you've done this. That sound does something to a person that's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't heard it while crouched against a white oak in the dark, shotgun across their knees, palms sweating in forty-degree air.
Eastern wild turkeys are one of the great hunting animals in North America. Not because they're the biggest or the most dangerous, but because they will humble you in ways that deer and ducks simply cannot. A mature gobbler has survived multiple hunting seasons by being suspicious of everything. He's spent his whole life eating and avoiding being eaten, and h...
20
What Makes Land a Unique Asset in Estate Planning?
If you're an estate planner, financial advisor, or CPA working with high-net-worth families, you've probably noticed something: land is different. It doesn't behave like a stock portfolio. It doesn't move like residential real estate. And it certainly doesn't feel like a bond. Yet most advisors treat it the same way they'd treat any other illiquid asset—with a referral to a generalist agent and a hope that things will work out. They usually don't.
Over my years working with families, advisors, and institutions across the St. Louis region, I've learned that land isn't just another asset class to liquidate. It's a category unto itself—one with unique risks, hidden complexities, and surprisingly high stakes. And if you're advising clients who hold significant land or farmland, you need to understand why treating it differently isn't optional. It's essential.
Why Land Is Fundamentally Different
Let me start with the obvious: land is illiquid