Bear Grease - Ep. 119: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Duck Camp Etiquette

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Are you a duck hunter? Are you thinking about getting some buddies together for an A-1 guided experience? Well before you go, your buddy Brent -- a former Arkansas waterfowl guide himself -- wants to make sure you get the most out of your trip. On this week's episode, Brent's dropping an abbreviated masterclass on being the best client you can be and having a hunt so good, you and your buddies will be hugging over a pile of greenheads. Just don't hug Brent's brother -- more on that later.  Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I've got a thing or two to teach you.

Duck Camp Etiquette It's summertime, so naturally we're going to be talking about cold weather. Really, it's getting close to the time when you plan your duck hunting trips. And if you're using an outfitter, I think you'll get some good out of this. And even if you ain't, I bet there'll be some stuff in here you can apply to just about anything. Y'all get ready for some duck camp etiquette. And I ain't talking about the kind of etiquette that suppresses your inner cage. man and keeps you from reaching across the table and snatching up the last biscuit out of the bowl

just because you still got some sopping to do. I'm talking about the kind of etiquette that helps you get along with folks you may have never hunted with, maybe in a place you've never hunted before, and since I know a little bit about the guiding business, we're going to talk about how that all applies to duck hunt. What clothes do I need? Can I call to? Can I bring my dog? But first, I'm going to tell you a story. It was late when I got to the duck camp that night. I've been working with some other agents at my regular job as a narcotics investigator on a case that required my presence, so I didn't get to leave when I'd planned to.

And it was way after midnight when I came rolling in. My brother Tim and I owned and operated Southern Waterfowler's Guide Service near the small community of Raydale, which was located 30 minutes due south of Stuttgart, and on the banks of the Arkansas River, right in the heart of Arkansas's world-famous, Green Timbered duck hunting. Tim had got there as planned and had everything ready for our guests when they arrived early that afternoon. They done had supper, and he explained to them that because of my job that I was going

to be a little late, but not to worry, because I'd be there when the coffee got ready the next morning before we all left out for our hunt. Our lodge was configured where the guests stayed downstairs with the kitchen, the living room, and our room was upstairs. We would come and go upstairs without ever disturbing our guests using the second-story screened-in porch entrance, which I was slipping in with all my hunting gear the night this happened. I slipped up the stairs and eased the door open to the living room and stepped inside, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. The kitchen was next to the living room and separated by a doorway.

The light above the kitchen sink was always left on, and with it shattering into the living room, I hung a hard left and headed toward my room, dodging a chair and a footstool, trying not to wake anyone up downstairs or my brother, whose room was just off the kitchen. As I'm tiptoeing trying to be quiet, I hear through the kitchen that my brother has opened his door and walking in the kitchen headed to get a drink of water which he was prone to do. I sat my bags down, walked to the kitchen, and could see a silhouette of my brother standing behind and propped up against a waist-high island that we had in the kitchen. He was drinking water out of a coffee cup.

I walked up and propped up on the opposite side and we briefly talked about the case I was working on and once that was done, he let me in on the plans he'd made for the duck hunt that we were going to go on in just a few hours. There were six hunters, so he'd take three, and I'd take three. He told me their names, and they were all experienced with guns, no red flags, seemed to be a good bunch of boys, and he was looking forward to hunting with them. He'd already scouted the places we were going, and there was lots of ducks, so we should have a good hunt.

I was give plumb out, and I told him I was going to bed. He said, okay, and he stepped toward the end of that island and toward his room. so I followed his movement, intended to give him a hug before we headed off to our separate beds. By this time, my eyes had calibrated to the darkness, and I could see everything that I couldn't see when I first got inside. It was at the other end of that island when we both stepped around it that I realized my brother was naked as a pig bird, and had been for the entire five minutes we were standing there talking separated only by darkness, kitchen furniture, and good fortune. Cat-like reflexes turned a potential embrace with a naked man into a pat on the shoulder and an immediate about face. I was still awake when that alarm went off a few hours later, and that's just how that happened.

Lots of questions should come up when you're heading out on an adventure, especially if you're using an outfitter or a guide service. I've been running a camera on a few outfitted bear hunts with Claybow, and always my number one issue was power available. ability to charge my camera batteries. After all, I was there to film and everybody knows that in outdoor media, if it didn't happen on film, it didn't happen at all. Now, I'm going to talk about coming to the duck camp, but you can apply a lot of this to just about anything if you generalize it just a bit. The answer to all your questions should be addressed with the outfit of themselves. keeping an open line of communication between y'all is vital to making your trip enjoyable for everyone. I've had clients book a December duck or goose hunt in August when the dates are set

and talk to them weekly up until they get there. I've also had others book a hunt and not talk to them again until they needed to ride from the airport. Having been in the business for so long, we grew to expect this and tried to get out in front of all the questions to begin with by sending everyone a list of the items they needed to bring and what was provided. I've looked at several websites for different species of game and types of hunting, and I didn't find one that didn't have a prepared list like we made or a contact number or email address for questions. So if you get to your hunting spot, you're ready for your big adventure,

and you ain't got what you need, guess whose fault that is? Which reminds me of a story. We had some folks from Wisconsin book a hunt with us that lived in Green Bay. Now it gets cold up there, brother. And I never think about those boys of Green Bay, Wisconsin, that I don't hear John Fascenda, the narrator of NFL films say, The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. Except John Fissenda never really said that.

What he did say was the Frozen Tundra of Municipal Stadium. And he was talking about the Cleveland Boulevard. Browns, not the Green Bay Packers, but back to the story. Those folks not only lived on the frozen tundra, they went to the football games at Lambeau Field in the winter when it was below zero. Get this, they also duck hunted on the frozen tundra and had experienced cold like I had never known in my life. I picked them up at the airport, got them to the camp, and we checked them in, got their bags in the rooms, got their shotguns squared away and began to visit while waiting for supper to get ready. I thought it was odd that the main topic of concern for them, having just come from the frozen

tundra, was how cold it was in Arkansas. A big Arctic cold front had pushed in, dropping the temps below freezing for highs and forecasted to get progressively colder with highs in the teens and lows in single digits for the duration of their three-day hunt. Now, I don't know about y'all, and I don't really care to hear everybody that lives up north tell me there if you think that's cold stories. I do think that's cold, and I don't live up there for that very reason. But apparently, these boys had it in their heads that they were coming to the Bahamas to duck hunt. They didn't bring coats, long-handled underwear, or insulated waiters. And even though the severity of that cold front was abnormal, for the love of humanity cheese heads,

you're still outside of North America in December. So, we busted our hind-ins finding coats and borrowing waiters and clothes from every place we could find to keep those cats from going back home looking like old Hatchet Jack and Jeremiah Johnson. Now, in their defense, not everyone had access to the Internet like they do now, and they just assumed that since they were coming south, that it was going to be warmer from where they came. It was not. We got them some clothes, and boy, did we kill some ducks. So what does that tell you?

Ask your outfitter and come prepared. Every state that I've ever been in will have someone say, If you don't like the weather, just hang around 15 minutes and it'll change. Well, you need to be prepared to change with it. Choose wisely and bring layers. It's easier to take them off if you get hot and add them if you get cold. Setting yourself up for one type of weather is dumb unless you're going to the tropics or the Arctic. Those two extremes are pretty well a safe bet as far as what kind of drawers you're going to need.

I ask an outfitter in Saskatchewan one clear, cloudless day before we left in a boat to head to a bear bait. Reckon I'm going to need this rain gear? He looked at me with the expression I'm sure I had when those boys from Wisconsin quizzed me about when it was going to warm up and I said March. He went back to putting gear in the boat, and he said, this is northern Saskatchewan. It rains up here somewhere every day. I took it with me. In less than an hour, I was putting it on in a downpour that came out of nowhere and watching him smiling at me while I did it.

The difference between me and the cheeseheads was I asked. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. What about calling? What about calling?

I'll tell you about calling. calling ducks into the decoys for folks that can't do it is the closest thing i'll ever know of what it was like to be Elvis telling your hunters to be still get ready and blowing a series of calls at the correct time and volume to get a big group of ducks lighting the decoys feels as good as when your mama hugs you i started calling at an early age under the mentorship of my older brother tim and i practiced year round As a matter of fact, they're hanging within arm's reach where I'm sitting right now, and to a duck hunter, it far surpasses the enjoyment of shooting them in my eyes, and I don't know anyone that likes to bust a cap in a mall or ducks behind more than I do.

It's a wondrous thing, and everyone wants to do it. But not everyone wants to put in the work to be good, or they just don't know how to be good. The old saying of practice makes perfect, that ain't correct, pal. Perfect practice makes perfect. If your practice is jacked up, your duck calling will be too. Now, we had a guy that booked a hunt on the premise that he could help call. No worries, he was the only guy that was coming for those three days,

so when he said he knew how to call, we took him at his word. I'm reminded of a quote by President Reagan that said, Trust, but verify. And we didn't verify. But we should have. We just assumed that since he said he could call that he could call. And we've been talking to him all summer. He was the type that booked the hunt in August and we talked to him nearly every day.

And all he could talk about was how excited he was about being in the green timber, that flooded green timber of Arkansas and calling ducks in and killing his limit. Filling up his duck's trap with limits of green heads that he called in himself was his only goal because he already knew everything else. So when he came down and we got out there that morning, that first morning of his hunt, man, he's got all the right gear. He knows where to stand associated with the wind.

He helps set the decoys out correctly. I can see it's call hanging around his neck. It's a quality call. He does everything that he's supposed to do, and he looks the part. And when the duck started flying and it came time to start calling, the racket that was coming out of his duck call was something I had never heard in my life.

I couldn't imagine how much practice it took for him to make the sound that I thought was impossible to be created by blowing air over a plastic reed. It sounded like somebody skinning a live bobcat with a dull hatching. Tim and I

looked at each other and I thought he was kidding. I thought he's playing a trick on us. But it was obvious after a minute or two that not only was he not playing a trick, but he also did not know how to called ducks as he previously claimed. So after he flared the second bunch of ducks out of the hole and looked at us like a

calf looking at a new gate trying to figure out what was wrong, he was standing over there by Tim. And I asked him, I said, hey man, have you ever had your call pitched? He said, no, I don't guess, I have. Do I need to have that done? So my brother said, yeah, let me see it. Take it off your lanyard. So the fellow took it off his lanyard, handed it to Tim.

And Tim pitched it to me, and I stuck it in my pocket. And I said, buddy, if you want to kill some ducks, let me keep this here and we'll shoot some. And then when we get done, we're going to teach you how to call them. And that's just what we did. So if you've a mind to be calling ducks when you get to your outfit or a club, don't be surprised if they ask you to call before y'all go hunting. The biggest mistake folks make is actually not the sound that they make, although that is important.

but the biggest mistake they make is when they make the sounds. I've hunted with callers that like to hear themselves call more than they like to call ducks, and knowing when not to call, that may be more important than knowing when to. I'll tell you, this next item on the list was more contentious than just about anything else we dealt with during our guiding career. And while only a few folks ever requested it, it caused the most problems and hurt feelings. and I shut her now thinking about it and that was when a potential client asked can I bring my dog

oh Lord here we go I'll tell you this nothing makes a good hunt great faster than a well-trained obedient retriever I've had one of the best I've ever seen her name was Anna she was black as the ace of spades

and lived with us for 13 years and when she died I thought I was going to die too she was something special and retrieved no telling how many ducks, thousands. On the other hand, nothing will ruin a great hunt quicker than a dog that ain't trained.

Allow me to pontificate. This group of hunters came to us from the Atlantic Coast. They duck hunted a lot out there, but the hunting conditions where they were was quite different than it was in Arkansas. They were lucky if they shot a few wood ducks here and there where they lived.

They never had the numbers of ducks working into the decoys like we did in Arkansas. saw when they brought their dog for the first time. We had fully vetted these folks on how good this dog was. They talked about his pedigree. They did demonstrations with him when they got there to the camp on how good this dog was. A man, he performed like a champ, for real. He did everything that that boy told that dog to do.

When he told him to do it, I mean, he was an absolute monster, and they also hunted him in hunt test, and he did really well. But when we got in that flooded green timber in groups of 20, 40, and 50, duck started working around the hole and incoming in and calling the water slosh and shooting, man, it was more than that dog could stand. He was whimpering, whining, barking loud, breaking off the stand, running out in decoys. And when the duck started coming in, and that's dangerous for everyone, especially the dog. He can mess around and get shot. And the other hunters were looking to hang that dog and his arm. It's really nothing against the dog. He had just never

experienced anything like that. He had seen all the hunting scenarios and the hunt test that he'd been in, but he had never experienced the real thing. And man, I'll tell you, I about lose my mind every time a big group of ducks starts working and coming into the decoy. So I get it.

He was excited, and he just couldn't help it. He just needed exposure to it. And the wrong time to expose him to it is when you've got a group of folks paying to hunt. And the only thing that's keeping them from being successful is your dog. So, what we wound up doing was taking his dog and the stand and the hunter and moving them back like 30 or 40 yards away from where the decoys were, and we would work the ducks and shoot

them and then bring the dog up and let him retrieve the ducks. They were there for three days, and that was the first morning we hunted. We retrieved our own ducks the last two days. There's so many things to consider when bringing a dog on a guided hunt. Number one is the dog trained. Does the outfitter have space available for a dog? Just because it's a duck camp doesn't mean it's open range for labs to roam all over, digging in folk stuff and leaving Purina landmines behind the couch. Yours and Mama's baby might be able to do that at home and sleep into bed with you, but it'd be a rude surprise for both of you if after you get permission to bring him

and you get to camp and you find out all the dogs stay outside in the kennel. Ask yourself this question before you consider asking about bringing your dog. Will he be an asset to everyone's hunt or a liability? It's that simple. I've seen a lot of changes in duck hunting from the time I started to what it is now, and while I still have the passion for it, I don't have the drive to do it like we used to.

60 days is a long grind, but boy, did we have a good time. I made friends that have remained friends long after we retired from guiding. Tim and I talked to two of them to do. Two good friends from North Carolina took a chance and booked a hunt at our duck camp. We met and we all became brothers and that was over 20 years ago. David Miller and Jay Van Noe, an unlikely pairing of a mortician and a lawyer, two folks that everybody's going to need eventually. One of them can help you get you out of a jam and the other one, well,

he'd be the last fellow that will ever let you down, literally. Booking a hunt with an outfitter, well, it's, a gamble. The only thing that they can guarantee is to do their best to give you the opportunity to shoot some ducks, deer, elk, catch fish, whatever it is you're after. That's what you're paying for, the opportunity. Take it upon yourself to be informed about what your responsibilities are and recognize that going in and the whole experience can change for you. Do this for me. Go in with the attitude that you want to learn something. Just one thing, in addition to why you're there.

Like the guy that couldn't call ducks but thought he could, he learned two things. Number one, that he didn't know how to call ducks. Number two, the killing a full strap of greenheads paled in comparison to the group of ducks that he called in by himself and lit in the decoys. On the last day of his trip,

Tim and I had our limits and had unloaded our shotguns and was letting him do it all by himself. He was one green head short of his limit when he saw a group and started calling like we'd shown him. He worked him like a champ. He was silent when they approached except for soft contented feeding calls and forceful when they swung away, bringing them back time after time until they committed and settled in the hole. They were landing all around him and us and he never fired a shot.

I would never forget it. The ducks eventually spooked and exploded out of the house. a hold and he never reached for his gun. We were silent watching him watch all those ducks fly out of sight. They'd been gone ten seconds before he moved and with tears of joy in his eyes, he looked at me and Tim and said it was the most beautiful thing that he'd ever seen. And I have to agree, it was pretty sporty and we was awfully proud of him. I thank y'all so much for listening.

Remember, educate yourself on what your plan is. do your diligence and understand what's expected of you and above all else never hugged my brother in the dark this is brent reeves signing off y'all be careful first lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends products built for early mornings full days in real use hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters no shortcuts Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out.

First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.