The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 231: The Pied Piper of Duck Hunters

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Ramsey Russell, Hanzi Deschermeier, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: How Jani is so not a trapper that he reminds himself to check traps by writing "coon" on his hand; Frito pie with mountain lion; Corinne and strawberries; breaking down what it means to flesh something out; the A.S.S. movement, the tissue issue, and how surface shitters are like meth heads; ocellated turkey stories and how badly Steve wants to hunt one; Ramsey on a life of collecting experiences; Get Ducks dot com being a sweet URL; booking as a shoddy industry?; incredible duck hunting in Azerbaijan and how the area where Ramsey hunts reminds him of the Mississippi Delta; the clean game and quiet pride; which countries are doing a solid job at conservation of the species?; Ramsey's favorite recipes for cooking duck; Steve's out-of-control horseradish and how Jani's garden got up and moved; Hanzi's rule on what not to do when cooking diver ducks; mouth calling; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with Onyx. Giannis, how you know if you talk about what's written on your hand you're going to get an enormous amount of feedback. That's fine. A lot of like, what you really ought to do. Yeah. And what I would do and what he's doing wrong.

Listen, there's a fella in town from Tennessee visiting my brother-in-law. He found out that I've got a blue tick that I'm looking to do some training with. And he just had to meet me to give me his two cents about the whole situation, which I did, and it was great. It was informative. You know, he runs plots for bears there in Tennessee, but, uh, you know, I was, I was glad to take it. So yeah, we can talk about it and, uh, I'll read some emails. What's written on his hand.

Coon. C-O-O-N. Meaning, here's how, here's how not a trapper Yanni is. I have never, in all my experience with trappers, I have never met a trapper who is at risk of forgetting to check his traps. That's all they think about. They'd be like writing breathe. Like don't forget to breathe on your hand. But Yanni had to remind himself to go see if he's got a coon. Yeah. Well, mostly because right now we're very centrally located between my home and where this trap is set.

And your trap line. And I don't want to get home and then have to turn around and drive an extra 15 minutes the other direction to go hopefully get my raccoon. And you need the raccoon for? I'm going to introduce Mingus, the blue tick hound dog to a raccoon. If you want to give Yanni some valuable feedback, tell him that he named his dog all wrong. Mingus. It's a great name. We could have named it. It sounds like a disease.

Did you hear Yanni got mingus real bad that's what i could picture saying to somebody most of the world really likes that name it's a musician right yeah charles mingus plays jazz used to play jazz what happened to him died that's a good name origin here in in our home state here uh you raccoons are non-game they're not listed as a furbearer it's kind of gloves off on raccoons yeah same with uh rabbits squirrels or at least the fox squirrels and your goal here in the end is to have a versatile hunting dog. No, hound dog.

Versatile hound dog. We'll see. He's very birdie on the grouse. Very. And he's not ranging too far, which could be a problem because Jake's like, How's he going to catch a lion? Exactly. He needs to be able to cut loose and go on a little tour by himself for two,

three, four hours sometimes. But, I mean, when we've been running trails, he's not ranging too far. He's been doing good. But I can tell you when he gets on a hot deer track, he's got no problem ranging and going out of audible range. I'm curious about your level of bloodthirstiness here. Let's say the dog is super good. Isn't? No, is. Okay. Let's say he does like to run mountain lions. He likes to run coons.

Do you picture becoming a recreational runner or are you going to be killing everything at trees and you're just going to have all kind of dead raccoons laying around? Oh, for the raccoons? Yeah. Or it'll just be like a little thing you go out and do. It'll be something in the middle, I imagine.

I mean, if someone wants to hide, if someone wants to shoot the coon and wants to hide, then sure, we'll shoot them. And how many lions? Same thing. I know. A lot of lion hunters. Most lion hunters aren't killing. I don't think Jake's got one in a decade, even though he trees umpteen of them a year.

Yeah. He put up, I think, close to 30 this winter. I never shot a one of them. The other day, we're still eating it. I was down in New Mexico and we had a thing called Frito Pie. You guys know what Frito Pie is? No. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Tell people what Frito Pie is. This is our special guest. I've only seen them at Sonic back home. Frito Pie with Fritos and chili and cheese. They sell that at Sonic? Yeah. Ramsey just a little bit closer to the mic. And say your name.

Ramsey Russell. And say what you like to do. Kill ducks. Haunting ducks. Yeah. I mean, what do you call Frito pie? Somehow, I don't understand. I never knew it existed.

Hold on. Tell me again. It's Fritos with what? All right. Corn chip, chili cheese, onions, jalapenos. Yeah. So I was down in New Mexico and they made chili with, he made like, but you know, like people in New Mexico get all hopped up about it.

Like, yeah, it's like, oh, my hats like people in New Mexico get all hopped up about it. Yeah. It's like, oh, my hats, chilies, and on and on and on. And they made very good New Mexican style chili in a pot. And you bring that out hunting with you, just in a Tupperware. And then you got cheese, onions, jalapenos, whatnot. Then you take a bunch of Frito-Lay corn chips and cereal in a bowl. And instead of putting milk on it, you dump chili on it. Instead of putting sugar on that, you put jalapenos and cheese and whatnot on there and scallions.

How I didn't know about that is embarrassing but you've certainly had chili i just made it with mountain lion since i got home you've certainly had chili with corn chips in it i've put corn chips on it yeah that's not what this is it's corn chips factor it's not like a sprint it's like the the relationship between the chili. Ratio is what you're trying to say, right? The ratio between the chili and the corn chips is that of cereal and milk. Okay. Not that of between clam chowder and oyster crackers. So I made a giant batch of that with the last mountain lion I had. Yeah.

It still said 2017 on the package mountain lion I had. Yeah. It still said 2017 on the package. I braised it down. Yeah, I think I've got one loin left. No, it wasn't from the one. It was one that Pete gave to me. Oh, you know what? No, because mine said 2017 on it.

I had my last bag of my own, and I had some that Pete gave me. God, this stuff is good, though, man. That's why I don't think I'd be letting all those lions run. No, I don't plan on letting all of them run. I wouldn't let them all get away. Yeah. But I'm a long ways from there. Mingus and I have a lot of work to do before we had to make those kind of decisions. Yeah, I'm getting a little ahead of you on that one, ain't I?

Although, Bart George, if you on that one. Although, Bart George, if you're listening, Jake said, you know what you ought to do? You need to call your buddy over there in Washington who's treeing more lines than anybody I know because he's doing it for the government. You can't even run hounds anymore in Washington, but he's working for

the government, doing all kinds of research. Where most houndsmen, I think, you're doing really well if you're like Jake and you're putting up 25 or so. But this guy, he's putting up 20 in a month. He's like, you need to just take Mingus out there. Oh, do some government work. And just hang out with him for a week.

Because what Jake keeps telling me is like somewhere between 7 and 12, I think those were the numbers, somewhere in that range, is where your dog is going to either get it and be like finished and ready to roll on his own or- 7 to 12. Tree lions. Oh, they meant years. No, no, no.

I was like, that's also where they die. 7 to 12 treed lions to where if he's going to get it or she, they've got it and they can go on their own. If they don't, then he's like, I'll probably start to get worried and start to think about moving that dog on to

somebody that's not going to hunt him. He had a dog get killed by a lion this year. You did. Bit it right in the head yeah what's crazy is that after that those dogs man they have such a one-track mind when they're when they have that smell on their nose after that when he came up to the dog he didn't know yet what had happened and the dog's still going on the trail because after that the lion had jumped and gotten treed like a couple hundred yards down the ridge or whatever by the other dog and uh the one that had been bitten is

still working the track and but then he kind of started looking a little closer and realized you know she wasn't quite quite right but uh yeah it doesn't happen often but boy i've been really warned by my family my girls that that goes down with me because i'm gonna have hell to pay uh i don't know if you remember but floyd down in arizona those guys were telling us a story about tree and a lion that was in a tree on top of a rock spire which you can picture down arizona right like Like some juniper or whatever, like with its roots, like grown into the cracks of a rock. So anyways, it's in such a position. And the dog somehow got up there, but they got up there in the dark and they couldn't get up there with the dogs.

And the dogs are on the rock spire with a lion in a tree. They came back in the morning, in the middle of of the night that dog had come down or the lion had come down killed both the dogs ate one of them and went about its business making lemon out of or you know lemonade you know i'm trying to say yeah uh corinne got her ass handed to her i did corinne went corinne went spouting off at the mouth about GMO strawberries. I never use that expression and the more I think about it

I don't really know like I get it but I don't really get it. Like implying that it was detached. Do you know what I mean? Like right?

I think it means that maybe like you got it whooped. So how would that come? Where would that come from? Steve is taking it. I don't know. Like, literally, we had this conversation yesterday. Someone said a similar conversation yesterday where someone said we had a small part of an idea. And we were agreeing in a meeting to expand upon the idea and someone said well

let's flesh it out now okay one thing you could be saying like okay here's this skeleton of an idea and we will add flesh onto it yeah to make it grow yeah that's that doesn't seem like what they're getting at when you flesh flesh something, you're reducing. Okay. You're taking a hide and scraping it clean. I think that to say, to flesh an idea out would be that you have this big, cumbersome, ill-formed, over-ideated idea. You're scraping the gristle. And to flesh it out would mean that you're going to reduce it down to like a

crystalline clear idea. Handing asses to people. I don't know. Got her ass handed to her about a off comment she made about GMO strawberries, which really got people riled up. people are riled up and there's two that were shared with me and they show that the breadth of uh you know the breadth of personalities that we speak to on the show because one is very polite and he's like sorry for the rant but this is the most common fallacy and on and on and i always open i always believe in sharing information and we can all grow together and healing and hearing and then another guy uh

where's the one that he writes in other guy subject line stop your nonsense dash strawberries and then go talk about how stupid everybody is and how horrible Corinne is. So you can pick it up, Corinne, with whatever, whichever of these gentlemen, whichever of these gentlemen, whatever approach you want to take. You could be like, listen, asshole. Or you could say, yeah, in spirit of conversation, I will tell you what I was talking about. Yeah, definitely.

I take the latter approach. Yeah, if I stand to be corrected, then I stand to be corrected. I think that in the spirit of not replicating and putting out information that is not backed up or that is not correct. I totally welcome that. That's our spirit here. That's our spirit. Yeah. And yeah, if it's like emphatically said with a little grumble and a little, I, what's his name?

I won't share his name. I hear you. I hear the frustration. You're talking to the mad guy. I am. I hear you. I hear the frustration. You're talking to the mad guy. I am. I hear you. And I appreciate that you wrote in. What I was referring to, and I stand corrected. Oh, you're not going to double down? No, because I'm probably wrong. I mean,

yeah, I haven't done all the extensive research because a lot of people wrote in you weren't alone um a lot of folks wrote in one thing that was interesting to me was uh i gotta set the scene a little bit better we have no scene setting yeah okay we were talking about how is it that you can have such a giant bad like where does costco get these gigantic strawberries that don't taste like anything. Why are they so big? Why do they look so good and taste so bad? And why is it that you can't grow a bad strawberry in your garden? Right.

Like you can't. Yeah. I've never picked a strawberry from someone's garden that wasn't like, no, that's a strawberry. And thank you to the, I believe it was a PhD student who wrote in. Yeah, Bob Sears. Yep, thanks, Bob, and offered some answers about that. We can probably go into that later.

Want me to cover that while you prepare to talk about the GMO comment? Corinne's response was something about how it's probably something to do with GMO-ness. Right, right. And how they bred them with fish. Right. So there is a 2000 article, year 2000, from the New York Times. I've also seen some other things floating out there on the internet. And obviously we have to be very careful with what sources we pay attention to. But I had not revisited this topic

for years before I said what I said on the last podcast. And so the information that I had downloaded into my brain that I was walking around with was that one of the reasons why we have large strawberries that remain frost resistant, or they should say they stay fresh and beautiful and plump looking for so long that it seems unnatural, is because they are a strain, part of a, this I might be using the incorrect terminology here, a gene from or a protein from Arctic char combined with the strawberry actually makes the strawberry frost resistant and helps to preserve it for longer. To all you scientists out there, I hope that that was a kind of basic, but. But that's not true. But apparently that's not true. But apparently that's not true.

Hopefully we get a lot more people writing in about this. What I have seen is that stuff like that does exist. I mean, there are scientists testing gene hybridization to make some fruits or vegetables taste a certain way or to extend the freshness of, like, it's not that this doesn't exist. And so, actually, maybe I should call up our listener who wrote in and have a conversation about this and get and kind of flesh it out. Flesh it out. Flesh it out. And do a follow-up report.

Yeah, I think that would be very helpful. But from the FDA.gov site that he sent in the email, it says, GMO crops, animal food, and beyond. The question is, what GMO crops are grown and sold in the United States? And they are

corn, soybean, cotton, potato, papaya, summer squash. Hold on. Let me just make sure that there aren't like 57 things. No, it's not a long list. Alfalfa, apple, sugar beet. And that's it.

Yeah, there's no GMO strawberry. No GMO strawberry has been approved. Yeah. What he does go on to say is people shop with their eyes. And they don't shop with their tastes. And he says that when you go into the store and see some giant strawberry, all they're going for is they're going for, it has to pop to your eye. And it has to be rugged and handle well and last a long time. And so there's different ways that they control the nutrients availability and when you pick

it and all this, um, that you get that, that ruggedness and eye popping bigness and no one cares what they taste like. Do you have any strawberries popping in your garden right now? Yeah, but they don't last. The kids eat them. Oh, I'm going to stop by and steal some. Well, if you stop by, you'll get one. They check them frequently.

They're in there all the time. And they've taken to eating the carrots, which are not even quite ready. They're like your pinky. Big, long pinkies. I have a very, very, very close person to me who I can't name because he works for an agency. Um, and he needs to be tiptoe about when he's speaking for who and what he was like, oh, he goes, uh, you can get rid of GMO stuff. You better plan on starving off about a third of the planet, but go ahead. I have, just at this, me speaking personally, I have zero, like zero problem with GMO stuff.

And I'll point out that there's never been anyone that could prove in any thing that would get scholarly consensus that there is a health implication from eating GMO foods. There's just not. As off-putting as that is to people, because people want to hate them so bad, there's nothing. There's nothing. It's a pretty robust dialogue, though, wouldn't you say? Please, Hansi. I like earlier you introduced yourself, Hansi.

You've never been on the show before. No, I haven't. And Ramsey, our guest, said Hanse, like Fonzie. Yeah. I never thought of that. That's an easy way to remember it. Okay. Give me your take on the robust dialogue. Eating GMO, not like what GMO does to crop systems, how it affects irrigation, pesticide use, herbicide, like none of that

crap. No, I think you're, I mean, I think you're on the money with, with saying there's no like verifiable way to say this is what it does. Right. But it's only been around so long. Right. I mean, we're talking, we're not talking about like breeding, uh, like different crops and splicing, uh, different kind of crops together like one

kind of apple with another kind of apple as the gmo it's the genetically modified seems like the dialogue is more talking about like marker assisted selection or some of these like really specific ways of genetically modifying which which have, I mean, how long have those been around? Like how do you, how do you do any multi-generational studies on that kind of thing? I don't know. I don't have the answer, but it seems like that's a,

that's an awesome question. Like meaning the assumption is there that someone will turn something bad up. Yeah. So let's start acting like they're bad ahead of time. No, no, but the downstream consequences exist, right? We just don't know what they are yet.

So how do we even ask a good scientific question? How do we do the scientific method if we can't ask a good question yet? Likewise. I think that you're in the same situation when you want to say that they're bad. Totally. I agree. i'm just saying that the the dialogue is good it's a good like it's a good ethical debate going on here i don't think it's as good of a debate as why to why are the strawberries at costco tastes like dog shit yeah that's a real question that's good um a couple other quick things I need to give a

Father's Day shout out to a guy named Dylan Shrupka this is for Father's Day 2021 Happy Father's Day Dylan Shrupka and also we have a thing we gotta talk about real quick we've come on the radar the ass movement

and the ass movement is Yanni can break down the ass movement for me. So good. Ass stands for anti-surface shitting, and it's been a while since I've read this letter that. We've gotten a lot. Do you want one of these? Sure. Do you oppose people just going into the woods and defecating on the surface and not digging a cat hole?

Cover your shit. Oh, so there you remember. You can find the anti-surface shitting. You can find them on, what's their social media handle? At, the guy's last name is Booze, interestingly. At the ass movement. So that's at the underscore A underscore S underscore S. Can you check the screen? Underscore movement.

Can you say that again? The ass movement. The anti-surface shitting movement. Trying to instruct people, inspire people to not defecate just out in the woods and leave their toilet paper blown in the breeze. Yeah. And this fella, I think he lives and recreates on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. And he said it doesn't matter if he's fighting fire or hunting or fishing. He's just says it's out of control. He says he sees way

too much of this shit in quotes. Um, it's a real problem and, uh, there needs to be awareness around it. And, uh, which is why we talked about it the other day on the podcast about doing, about what our proper protocol was. Yeah. That's what inspired this. His last name is legitimately booze i used to want to change my last name to fever steve fever but now i'm jealous of booze that's that's real cute and you don't like my dog's name of mingus huh no if my name is steve fever by birth so uh corinne can you double check that

i'm getting this right on instagram yeah it Yeah, it is. Found them. How many followers? Oh, hold on. I was going to read out. Six million? The ass movement on Instagram. Well, they were just established in 2020 and they've got 1,183 followers at the moment. So, on their Instagram page, do you go and post pictures of poops that you found in the woods? Let's see. Well, so far I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling.

I see a lot of stickers and poo emojis, but I wanted to point out, I want to point out, I'm on the the fire wild.com and that's and the ass movement is uh is part of this organization he's a photographer too so i don't want him mixing business and pleasure here okay well it's the ass movement site for people to coalesce around the idea that you should not poop in the woods outside of a hole? It's confusing because it's the ass movement and it's thefirewild.com who we are. Firewild is a wildland firefighter owned company and brand. Firewild owns and established the ass movement in 2020 out of disgust and disappointment in seeing the tissue issue on fires, trails,

and all other public lands enjoyed in the great outdoors. I think that what he should morph. That's deep. I think that he should morph his site into a place where you go to post. You know what we did at our river access cleanup? I brought latex gloves and I picked up discarded camp money

with my latex gloves on and bagged up discarded camp money. That's real dedication. I think it should be a place where you go post pictures of soiled wild lands when you come across evidence of surface scatting. There is some of that in here. Only 1,000 followers. Yeah.

Is there anybody that would, like, be counter to this? I mean, it seems like such an obvious. Oh my gosh. No, I'm going to go poop on the ground and leave it. But do like, okay, do, do, do meth heads. Do our meth heads pro meth or are they just meth heads? Yeah. I'm asking.

What do you think? I haven't met a meth head yet who's like, got his like pro meth t-shirt. Like I'm like. I think surface shitters are like meth heads. Yeah. They just, they can't help it. Hadn't thought about it. They got trapped up in a lifestyle.

Made poor life choices. No. I think you're giving them too much credit if you're saying that. I seriously, like the first time that it came to like at a i mean we didn't we weren't gonna quite fist fight over it but there was we had like you and me no another another fella down in arizona we like a quiet hour long ride back to camp because surface scat i had seen other signs of surface shitting before we went out into the woods and I talked and mentioned it. I was like, I can't believe

that, you know? And then like we get back to the trucker. I don't forget at some point, whatever, he runs off to supposedly go flip a rock, comes back and then it gets light and I look over and I'm like hold on, is that yours right there? After you talked about it. Yeah.

And he's like, oh yeah. is that yours right there? After you talked about it. Yeah. And he's like, oh yeah. Like that's how we roll down here. Who's we? Him and the other surface gators. I don't know. Arizona. I've heard that though in the desert that like you're supposed to like smear it like on a, like to not like disrupt cryptobiotic soil.

Yes, that is, but that does not involve, that's bringing your teepee, bringing your teepee out, or depending on conditions, you could always torch your teepee. Though, there have been, I've been trying to get Spencer Newhart to do an article about all the crazy things that have started forest fires.

There was a teepee burning situation that started a big forest fire. There was a situation where some guys were having a gender reveal party. When I heard this story, I, in my head, thought that it was someone changing their gender. And that was the party. But it wasn't. It was someone who's

pregnant. And his buddies filled a tannerite thing with the appropriate colored powder so that he could shoot it with his rifle and it would blow up pink or blue and he would find out if he's having a boy. I'm not joking. That started a big forest fire. A woman burning love letters. Her job.

She was like a forest service employee burning love letters and started a big forest fire. And yeah, and there was a teepee burning scenario. So be careful burning your teepee. However, yeah, there are places where you're supposed to smear on rocks. One of my favorite stories about flipping rock, you know this happened to Mo Fallon. Ramsey, you're probably getting concerned that we're not even going to get to you. No, I'm fine. Okay.

I'm enjoying it. Don't worry. Okay, this is a funny story. So we were filming in Hawaii years ago and one of our camera guys, Mo, he got there earlier or something because he wanted to surf. He's got a rental car. He like rents a car, rents

a surfboard, gets down to the beach. He doesn't know what to do with his keys. So he finds this like conspicuous, easily identified rock and lifts the rock up and throws the keys under the rock. And then goes and surfs. So gets done surfing and he comes back up to the rock and flips the rock, but there's no keys. And he's like, dah, what's been another rock? So then he starts getting into a panic, running around and flipping all these rocks.

None of the rocks look like the same rock. Goes back, lifts up the rock again no keys eventually he realizes that someone had taken a growler had rolled the rock out took a growler put the rock back but the growler stuck to the rock so that when mo put his keys in the the deuce trying to use the poo cement, captured the keys. And when he would lift the rock up, the keys would ride up with the rock. And only way later did he finally get around to looking and realize the keys.

And then he had to, you know, get them all cleaned up. So next time you rent a car in Hawaii, don't lick the keys. Can I just circle back to one thing? Yeah, you want to get back into your strawberry problem? No, not my strawberry problem. Hansi, introduce yourself.

Yeah, Hansi works for us. Yeah, I'm a video editor here. Hansi Deschermeyer. A lot of letters there. But it's phonetic. H-A-N-Z-I. Deschermeyer. Long one.

You don't have to worry about that one. And this is your first? It's my first podcast ever. Watch this segue. You ready you ready yeah let's hear it uh the reason hansi's in here is he's an enthusiastic hunter of ducks fanatic even a fanatic and what better conversation for you to participate in than one with our guest, Ramsey Russell. Get ducks. Proud to be here. Is that clapping for your segue?

Oh, no, no, no. I was clapping to introduce the guest. That was a good segue. That was a good segue. I'm impressed with that, actually. So tell everybody what you're doing right now. 30 years ago, I had heard misinformation. It was misinformation.

I wish I was in good enough shape to pedal across the country again. But 30 years ago, I was 24, much younger, and a college roommate and I rode bicycles from Bar Harbor, Maine, out to the Olympic Peninsula. Just because we were young. And it was there. 30 years later, there's a stick in our spokes. Nobody's traveling. His job's interrupted. My job's interrupted.

He calls up and says, hey, let's go spin around for a couple of weeks, camp and bike. I said, let's do it. So you're doing kind of the same thing, but you're just interrupting the biking with driving. Yeah. Driving and just meeting with people and doing things. It's more like a day trip.

We drive here. We stop. We stay for a few days. We spin around and bike ride like we're at home and go to the next destination. So have you stayed an enthusiastic bicyclist over the years? No, there's been, there was a long absence when I got busy and worked and did some other

things, but yeah, I try to stay in shape, you know, so I like to ride bicycles. You know, the thing about riding a bicycle versus real working out, I feel like a kid. Who doesn't feel like a kid riding a bicycle? I agree. But it was a heck of a bicycle? I agree. But it was a heck of a summer, Steve.

And, you know, we were just riding a bicycle and rode across the country and had a great time. But I see now we're seeing America at 50 miles a day versus 80 miles an hour. It just created this wanderlust. It became manifest in what came later down the road. What state were you born in? Mississippi. Is that where you live now? Born and raised, yep.

I caught you saying earlier, I overheard you saying when you're out in the lobby there, that you appeared on a TV thing once and they subtitled you? Oh my gosh, yes. Way, way back when, 15, 20 years ago, it was an outdoor television show, and everybody had nice accents like yourselves, and they subtitled me. And I was trying to emulate and adopt the correct pronunciation of words. I've since given up. But they actually subtitled me.

So I'd ask Hansi, how are you all going to subtitle me? Well, Sam also, Sam, who we heard about you from or through. Yeah, Sam was our talent scout. Yeah, said you had a really nice drawl. That's a good description. Got a face for radio and an accent for Andy Griffith. Tell people what you do for a living. We really, we get ducks. And I love to say that, you know,

when you meet somebody and you say, how are you? I'm fine. What do you do? I get ducks. Uh-huh. But really, we sell international duck hunts. We sell duck hunts on six continents.

Duck hunting adventures, I should say. How come not on seven? I haven't found any on Antarctica yet. Are there? I don't think so. Too cold. Yeah, I didn't know if I'm the edge of it somehow at some point in time, some pelagic, you know.

Australia is about as close as I'm aware. Maybe Tasmania. I don't know how much closer you can get to Antarctica. If there's ducks on Antarctica, somebody let me know. I'm aware, maybe Tasmania. I don't know how much closer you can get to Antarctica. If there's ducks on Antarctica, somebody let me know. I'm heading that way. So you've personally hunted ducks on six continents. Yes, sir.

How many kinds of ducks? I believe I've shot, you know, when I include subspecies, 112 subspecies of waterfowl, plus, let's say, another nine of the North American Canada geese, so 123 subspecies. Yeah, but the number of North American Canada geese taxonomists keep reducing it. It went from like 23 to two. I think it's 11. Well, it's 11 now. You've got Canada geese, which are the big ones, cackler geese, which are the small ones.

You've got seven subspecies. So they still accept that? I thought that they keep like reducing. You know, like with genetics, everything either gets more complicated or less complicated, but nothing has stayed the same. I think they subgroup them into Canada's and cackler's more for a sportsman's list. But there really are.

There's a lot of subpopulation of Canada geese when you get into it. Their breeding and their migrations are isolated. I mean, there just are. I'm trying to think of one real quick. The dusky Canada goose comes down the Pacific Flyway. The interior starts up in the Arctic and kind of comes down towards the Mississippi Flyway

through Ottawa Valley and peels over. The James Bay population of the interiors come from a similar area, but they don't overlap, and you can see that on band recoveries. So you've got these little populations of Canada geese. Now, whether they're becoming hybridized, who knows, but no, I still accept, I think they're still accepted to be 11 total subspecies of Canada geese. And you've got all those. I need two.

I need two of the Pacific ones that I'm aware. I need the dusky. Probably have to go to Copper River, Alaska area to get on those good. And I need, what I believe I need is the Vancouver, which is endemic more or less in the breeding area to British Columbia. What, how'd you get, I'm just curious. endemic, more or less, in their breeding area to British Columbia. How'd you get, I'm just curious, how'd you even get into the path that would lead you to being like an international, a world-traveling duck guide?

I was working for the U.S. federal government. I went to college, wanted to be a wildlife biologist, became a forester and wanted, I really, I left the deep South to go up North to Canada to go. I wanted to shoot Canada geese, migrator Canada geese, real Canada geese and experience the prairies. And I went and brought some friends. The first trip we, I booked to Canada was a disaster. Anybody that's booked enough hunts knows they exist. It's just nothing like it was represented to be and just a complete and utter cluster. I began to do my due diligence and met another outfitter in Alberta and brought a few friends.

The following year, a few more, and the following year, a few more, he called me outside and said, Hey, I'd like you to be my booking agent. I'm like, What the hell is a booking agent? I'm a forester for the U.S. federal government. But he explained it to me, and I started off just okay. I'll help bring some hunters to this guy. The thing spun out of hand.

I mean, it just one step, it just spun out of hand slowly but surely. I did not start out to say I'm going to hunt six continents and sell hunts on six continents. It just happened. So are you still, are you primarily a booking agent now or you have your own guiding outfit? No, I'm a booking agent. I'm a booking agent. You know, there's so many mental steps.

And what we do, and I hate that word booking agent because there's a lot of nefarious ones out there in this business that don't do their due diligence. And it's very important to me that if I'm going to represent to you that this hunt is better than some of the other ones down there, that I've been there myself, but I've been to them all. So we go to them and we scout them. And we've gotten off in the bushes to where Argentina, for example, you know, a lot of our outfitters down there, we found them, we developed them. They don't exist online. They don't exist, period, except through us.

And there's some really pretty amazing hunts. And I'll say just in terms of the overall experience when we go hunting, we don't cater to five-star. If you want a five-star hunt, take your wife to New York or Italy. If you want a real hunting adventure. You know, and here's how I differentiate, Steve, is you can go to any of those continents, any of those countries we've been to and stay at the Hilton,

but it's not the Azerbaijan experience if you stay at the Hilton. It's not the Argentine experience. It's the Hilton experience. I want to see real Argentina. And that's where we diverge. And we've just cultivated good long-term relationships with a lot of outfitters, um, and built the program.

My wife and I, it's a very small company, but my wife and I handle this side of it. Explaining to Hunt, the logistics, getting you there, picking up the phone assistance and stuff like that. Uh,

this is off subject ducks, but do you have any hot leads on, um, what are you laughing about? Cause I was the whole time he's explaining that I'm thinking, man, steve's gonna ask him where he can go get one of them uh turkeys are you familiar with what a super slam turkey holder is you're looking at one not toward yannis when you say so when you say super slam when you say super slam you're not talking talking the six. Not a world slam. What is a super slam then?

A super slam turkey holder such as myself? That means you've gotten all five varieties of the American wild turkey. Okay. Now, where can one go from there? Oscillated and Gould's. I already did Gould's. Okay. If I hadn't done Gould's, you'd be looking at a mere Grand Slam holder. You need the oscillators.

To become the pinnacle of a turkey man. Oh, and that is an amazing word. Which is called a, what's it called? World. World Slam turkey holder. At which point I will get my World Slam turkey holder at which point i will get my world slam turkey holder tattoo but uh meaning i like we want to go down and hunt isolated turkeys bad is what i'm getting at but we're trying to find the right i want i don't want to be shooting a field turkey coming out some

field i want to be out in the jungle you want to be in the jungle yeah that and that's what i was fixing to say i don't want to stay at the hilton no no you want to be you want to be in in the jungle. You want to be in the jungle. And that's what I was fixing to say. And I don't want to stay at the Hilton. No, no. You want to be in a tent camp in the jungle. Rising dirt bikes through the jungle. No, that's where you exactly want to be. And how do you hunt? You know, as a non-turkey hunter, I've killed 10 turkeys in my life, and I need to marry

them, just so you know. So I can be that guy in your crowd. I love the oscillated turkey hunt. We get those out the window here sometimes. Can't get them here. Let me know. It's a little tricky. Well, no, but that latest research that came out, didn't you read that email that we got?

Are our turkeys corrupted? Oh, they're saying that basically all the Western United States, because of the stocking efforts from 20, 30 years ago, there ain't a pure one left. They're just hodgepodge. They're just turkeys. I didn't know that. I've got a lead for you on the perfect. Don't say it right now I didn't know that. I've got a lead for you on the perfect jungle experience.

Don't say it right now. I won't. But I've got the lead and you'll love it and I love it. Can they bump us to the front of the line because we want to go

this winter? We want to go this winter. March, whatever. You want to go mid-April next year is when you want to go. I know, but you need to start

getting the rains in the jungle. It's dry. Don't think jungle like need to start getting the rains in the jungle. It's a dry, you know, don't think jungle like lush jungle. Think very desert-y jungle, very dry jungle.

I know that jungle, like Yucatan jungle. That's right, Yucatan jungle. And you need a little precipitation so that the cantors start to sing.

But if you go too late, like in May, now you've got all the young birds, Jake's fighting and everything's torn up. You want to go mid to late April. And you can hunt them, of course you know a real true turkey hunter from the south doesn't

want to he wants to call them in and interact with them and bring them in and isolate is just he's more like a game bird than a turkey you bushwhack them well if you can but but some yeah you bushwhack them you know and everybody said well you know sneaking up on a turkey shooting him out of tree doesn't sound like much sport i'm like this is not like shooting an eastern turkey in a pine plantation after rain people that say that kind of stuff it is i know but it is you know i can remember uh crashing through the you know my guide was as quiet as a shadow and i'm walking behind him sound like a kid rock concert coming through the woods. And I woke the turkey up. And he motioned to me to be still and cover up my watch so the reflection wouldn't show in the jungle.

And then he vanished, and it was pitch black dark, and I can't see him anywhere. But I can hear, and it's so silent, I can hear sweat coming off my nose and hitting the floor. And he was gone. And when he came back 15, 20, 30 minutes later and appeared, I almost screamed. It scared me to death. I hadn't heard him.

Where'd he go? He had gone up ahead of the trail to get all the twigs and everything out of my way so I could walk up to that turkey. He had to manicure your path? He manicured my path, silent as a ghost. But we also hunt around fruit trees. They got these big sapote trees, and the natives know where they are. Think of it like a fig.

Yeah. And they grow occasionally out in the jungle, and everything in the jungle eats it. So the male birds will spin around. They know where they are, too. They're looking for the hens, and they're spinning around looking. So sometimes you're in an elevated blind, like a very comfortable little hammock, waiting on those animals to come in, or sometimes you're hunting near water to ambush them. Yep.

And they will sometimes, some of these outfitters down here will turn on male calls that emulate the isolated. Electronic calls. That provokes them to start calling and become rivalry. Remember, they're like game roosters. I don't know that the isolated turkeys ever assemble in male and female, like the eastern to the merriams. I don't think they do that. I think they stay off to themselves and fight. And so sometimes they'll get those calls going to initiate them.

They use an electronic call or a mouth call. Electronic call. And I'll tell you, one favorite my favorite hunts ever in the world was hunting an isolated turkey and back on the road on the jungle you're saying you've only killed 10 turkeys but one of them was one of these two of them were isolated man you got it all backward it's just i take it as it comes but you know really i think i just take it as it comes you know but i do like i like the hunt. That's what appeals to me. You know, you were fixing to tell me another isolated story.

Oh my gosh. It was, so the guy turns on the electronic call, the outfitter turns on the electronic call, and I'm following my guide through the wood for about a mile, and we're stopping. And he's walking with the caller. No, no, no. The electronic call's sitting on the road. Set it up. And the cantor, they call it the singing bird, starts to sing back in.

The cantor is the turkey. Is the turkey. They call it the wahalote or no? No, there's no cantor. Oh, that's interesting. So we get back here in the woods. You know what a cantor is in? No.

At a synagogue? No. Hansi? You're not Jewish, are you, Hansi? No, but don't they like lead the prayer, basically? Yeah, like a cantor comes up and opens the Torah. You know what that is, Hanski? I do.

Do you want me to explain? You know what the Pentateuch is? Wait a second. Just say no, because he's just trying to prove that he knows more about... Is the Pentateuch the thing that hangs on the door that you like spin? No, it's the first five books of the Bible. Oh, my gosh. That's good to know.

Yeah, I think a cantor comes up and opens the Torah, the scrolls, and starts singing out of there. Yeah. So it's one that sings. Oh, why am I asking Hansi? Corinne, this is right in your wheelhouse. No, you're kind of too much of a heathen. Go on. The canterbird.

Once they use that electronic call to get that bird initiated, I'm a mile in the woods and my guides, I can see I can't hear the whistle, but I can see him whistling and now he's making the hen call with his mouth. Oh, really?

And the bird starts getting closer and we're walking kind of towards the bird, and about that time he lets out that sound they make, that gobble. We sit, and we're like in a little hole in the jungle where a tree had fell, and it's sunshine and heavy grass. I'm sitting down facing this way, and the turkey is so loud now, it's making my eardrums rattle inside. They're vibrating, so I know he's close. The guy had laid down on his belly.

All he's got is a camo shirt. He pulls it up over his head. And about the time my eardrums are rattling, he starts pressing me on my back. And this bird's just hammering? He's hammering, and he's right here. Do me the noise. You can't imitate that. Come on.

I can't imitate it. Do it again. That was pretty good. Okay, ask me to do a noise. Ask me to do an impossible noise. I know, but I can't do an oscillated it again. That was pretty good. I'm not going to. Okay, ask me to do a noise. Ask me to do an impossible noise. I know, but I can't do an oscillated turkey. It's a rattle. It's a. Here, I'll do a turkey's gobble. Rattle.

No, it's nothing like that. It's not like that. It's more prehistoric. So this bird is hammering right here, and he's pressing on my back. Say he's more like a. More like a machine gun, a mechanical machine gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's right here.

And this guy's pressing on my back. I'm saying, does he want me to shoot? I mean, maybe it's not... If that turkey had kept coming, he'd have been right on the end of my gun barrel. And about this time,

this jaguar roars. No! Oh, yeah. From way off. And the bird shuts up. And I can hear him, deaf as I am, walking away. Well, I don't speak Spanish. He doesn't speak English.

We get back to the road and ask the interpreter, what was he saying? What was he doing? He said, from where you were, the turkey was eight feet away. He was down under the cover and could see his spurs and see his feet. And he was right there and he was scared that you weren't going to be ready when he stepped out.

He'd been right at the end of your gun barrel. We didn't get him that day. We came back the next morning and ambushed him. Oh, man. But that was the hunt. That was the memory. Yeah. You'll love it.

That makes me want to go real bad. Yeah. When we were kids, we played World War II. I feel like we'd go like, That's it, right? You see why I can't imitate that? Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

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So one of the benefits of having an extremely talented engineer named Phil is that Phil will now insert the noise. So you can't hear it and you can't do it and I don't know what it is, but Phil is playing it right now. Perfect. Seduction. Lodge seduction. don't let it happen no i think i think on that particular isolated turkey hunt you really want the tent camp experience and and the guys with the lodge is no offense but they'll say oh we're only 10 miles from the jungle that's a long way and just

because it's 10 miles to the jungle doesn't mean it's not another 10 miles in the jungle go into the jungle stay in the tent and and have the experience it's just it's just to be immersed in that culture in that that environment is just monkeys swinging through the trees in the afternoons and the maybe the jaguars roaring and walking along and you see all kinds of mayan antiquity everywhere it's's just amazing. Oh, I'm in. I am in. 100%. Yeah. Corinne was saying you had a near-death experience as a kid.

We did. I was involved in a home explosion, pretty obvious, when I was almost 16 years old. Had a bird dog that had torn up the back doors and was painting it, cleaning the paintbrush with some gasoline. Oh, I'm going to back up. I understand. What did the bird dog that had torn up the back doors and uh was painting it cleaning the paint brush with some gasoline oh i'm back up i understand what the bird dog do scratch torn the doors up scratched the paint oh you were you got assigned to your folks wanted you to repair it yeah it was my dog and uh so so we went and went and painted uh painted the doors and uh gasoline with gasoline and the pilot You're using it as a thinner.

Of course. And a pilot light ignited the gas fumes. And what's so crazy is I can remember it. Well, I can remember the door opening in the garage and my neighbor coming in and my mom was shrieking. And I remember pacing up and down around the driveway waiting on the ambulance to get there. And I can remember the ambulance ride to the hospital

and telling my mom to call my bus tables at Shoney's at the time. I remember, hey, you better call Andy and tell him I'm not going to make it today. But you were a mess. Apparently. But you don't see that. I just remember that. And I can remember being rolled into the ER. Can we go back to the explosion for a second?

Sure. Think of it like the— So the room is Sure. It was like, think of it like. So the room is full. It's not that it caught the cannon fire. Nope. It defumes. Ignited. So everything in the air around you.

It was like the combustion in a carburetor. Boom. That's what it was. My neighbor across the street thought me and my brother were in a fight. He heard me hollering, thought we were in a fight. He couldn't hear my mother hollering. So he come over to break us up. It wasn't that. Did you guys fight a lot? Well, we were in a fight he couldn't hurt my mother hollering so he come over to break us up it wasn't that he just well we're brothers of course we did you know don't know brothers yeah yeah and uh but anyway i can remember i can remember uh

rolled into the er cutting the clothes i can remember him cutting my clothes off and i remember this nurse putting a piece of ice in my mouth and how good that tasted. That's really the last coherent thought I had for six months. Six months. Yeah. Because then you were out of it. Yeah. I was out of it. But, you know, it's not like some television show where they load you up with painkillers.

And no, you just tough it out, man. Those painkillers and all that stuff slows down growth and where you aren't burned, they need to skin to cover up where you were. They flew me down to Galveston, Texas to a Shriners unit. Happened on May 17th and I came home, started back to school right after Thanksgiving. A complete and utter mess. You know, I think to cope with that, humanity has places down beneath consciousness. And I really kind of crawled into a hole, I think. It's like I kind of sort of knew what was going on, but I got into a place to where

I needed to be for a long time. It's like I know from having revisited that burn unit that the lights were always on. It was 24 hour surveillance in that little unit with whatever it was, a dozen rooms. But I just remember it being dark. It's like I was in a dark room the whole time. And, um, maybe a year after it happened, you know, you're sorting through those memories of what was real or what was a dream or what was going on. And I, and I told my mother, I said, I just remember, I just

remember like, like this, this hospital room and all these bright lights before it got dark and people buzzing in and lights going off. And, and, and, and I could, and i could see my body bucking when they put them paddles on it oh you were that gone and i looked up at her and she was crying she says how do you remember that that's the night they brought you in you died huh and they uh they had told they had told my parents i spent six weeks in icu been a few weeks in ic in Jackson, Mississippi, while they were looking for somewhere to send this guy. And it was bad. It was 70-something percent and had died the night I was brought in, 8% chance of survival.

And they told my parents he'll lose his right arm and both his legs if he makes it. What was, when that happens, like, let's say you had died. What was the, what would the autopsy say? Had you, like, taken a – was it just reaction to having so much in your body burned? It was just burned trauma. So it wasn't organ damage. It was –

No, it was just burned trauma. I mean, you've got 70%, 80% of your body, I guess, is an open wound. And it's just trauma. It's just shock trauma. And I'm sure it affects other vital organs. I think if you have heart disease, it affects other organs. And I'm really still no medical expert in it. All I try to do is get back on with my life when it was over, you know.

How old are you now? 54. 70% of your body? Yeah. Have you had a lot of plastic surgery? No. No. No.

No. I don't know. Nothing. None of the make you look better. I wasn't a good looking guy to start with. Just I think she's I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 some odd skin grafts. Oh, God. Then.

And a few functional surgeries afterwards just to get me back on my feet where I had some mobility, and that was it. Once I had the mobility, I was off and going like the Energizer Bunny. Hmm. You married? Oh, I am. I've been married for 26 years this August.

Three kids. Started dating her in 1990, the year we had a little love letter contest going when I was biking across the country. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Did that change your career path, I'm guessing? The girl or the?

No, not that. The injury. Yeah. I know what that does. You know, I think it did. No, being close to death. Yes, I think it did. I never had anything like that happen to death. Yes, I think it did.

I never had anything like that happen to me. I've never even been super sick. But I know that when I meet people that had that, they have a better, well, I guess it can lead both ways. I have been fortunate to meet a handful of individuals who've had very serious near-death experiences. And then they wind up living life. to the absolute fullest very deliberately exactly take shit for granted very good very good word choice and you know i think like like a lot of 15 to 16 year old kids i had no purpose no sense of purpose in life i mean who 15 year old kid you got one thing on your mind and, uh, but yeah, you know, it's after it happened and that's what, man, you know, lots going on with a young man at 16 years

old in terms of personal identity and where you're going and what you're thinking. And, uh, I think it did change me. And I know, I know having gone through that and having come from that place that I wanted, um, I wanted to really live. I wanted, I wanted to, I wanted to really live. I wanted to get the most of the second chance. And I knew that at that tender age that this is a second chance. This is borrowed time. And there's a lot I wouldn't have done had I died then that I've now since done. You know, see what I'm saying?

And I kid around. You say, what do you like to do? Introduce yourself. I say, I kill ducks. And I do like to shoot ducks. But what I think of is, you know, I don't, I've shot the species. I don't collect them. I collect experiences.

That's what I like. So I think, I think it really, I think it's probably the most life defining moment of my life. I think it's very definitive in having gone through some trauma like that. Were you already a duck hunter when that happened? No. I grew up with duck hunters. My grandfather, who was my mentor, who was a duck hunter. That was at that age. That generation didn't take children hunting. They didn't take five and six years old. Oh, maybe carry the duck blind on a warm day, but you weren't hunting.

You know, his duck camp was a man place. And when you get up to be 13, 14, 15 years old, then you start duck hunting. And right about the time I was getting into that phase, he retired. His health failed him, you know. And so I missed that part. I heard stories.

I saw the ducks, claimed we ate duck. We did all that kind of stuff but but i just missed it and you know uh get it through through uh at right after high school he died my senior year right after high school i did duck hunt but it was just jump shooting wood ducks or scouting for deer and before you flush up some mallards you know they're gonna come back so you run go get your shotgun and wait on them went down to south texas i wanted to be a deer biologist i wanted to be you know jim kroll or harry jacobson that's why i went to mississippi state university and we show up on this 107,000 acre ranch free range uh growing trophy white tail deer and a funny thing happened you know that became a job description shooting antlerless deer

and all this kind of stuff. But every time the wind blew out of the north on Thanksgiving on, those stock tanks would fill up with ducks. And that began to kind of reconnect me to my roots. And then when I was in college, I got invited to go to Arkansas and duck hunt some flooded timber public. The limit was two mallards. And that was all she wrote. I never looked back. It just something happened. and I loved it.

I remember those days of being very young when they had the point system, and you weren't allowed like five, seven mallards like you are now. What's the point system? Yeah, can you remember it well enough to explain the point system? It came down to them like game wardens carrying thermometers around and putting thermometers and ducks anuses and whatnot i don't know i don't know about that they may have because you could tell this there was a problem you'd get into about the sequence and what you shot in which you shot your ducks how is how you count you had you got 100 points

it was a value system based on the the value of those ducks to the federal government or whoever was keeping count you go shoot till for points, pintails for 10 points, mallards for drakes for 25 points. A hen was 100. So, you know, you accidentally shot 100 off the bat, you were done. That's got to be what it was. So maybe I'll chance that he didn't see me, and I didn't do this, but I heard about it.

And, you know, maybe i would shoot her first that's my hundred points and you're like well i don't want to shoot yeah because you couldn't go you could go over as long as you didn't start over you couldn't yeah you could yeah i could shoot three 25 point birds and then shoot a hundred point bird and i was done but if i start off with a hundred point bird i'm done that's what it wasn't so they would want to know this is just the first couple years i hunted ducks right they would want to know, this was just the first couple of years I hunted ducks. Right. They would want to know, or at least, I probably wasn't even, I don't even know what year they did this. We could find out really easily when they switched from the point system.

But it might've been that I was so little that I wasn't even hunting, but I was just with my old man. Right. But remember, there was always this fear of like, you couldn't, don't risk. If you got a hen, mallard, don't risk because they'll put a thermometer in there and tell which of those ducks have been dead longer. Right. And that was what kept everyone in check. And when I actually started duck hunting there in Arkansas, it was right after this adaptive harvest management had started. And it was a restricted management regime, and the limit was two mallards.

The limit was two mallards that year. And I couldn't, I'd say it's early 90s. Didn't matter, boy, girl, or what. Mm-mm. When you were doing the Texas work, that was, but you worked for the Forest Service, but you also did Texas whitetail work? Yeah, we got all our whack. No, I was in college, and co-opt down in South Texas,

about 60 miles from the Mexican border on a fast ranch, man. A couple of Texas oil barons owned 107,000 acres. Is this like down in that, what's that famous county, Yanni? Demet LaSalle, Webb County. No, we're thinking of the one we know, the famous county we know about, Maverick County. That I don't know about. That's right.

This was down around, this was Dembele-Sau, Webb County area, the brush country. And just a couple of oil guys had some land, and they had hired a biologist who then turned around and hired some of us college kids to co-op. Paid a whopping 500 bucks a month, but it was paradise. It was great. Best 500 bucks a month ever made. Man, those oil guys own a lot of land. Own a lot of land.

Something about it. Yeah. Do you blame them? Are they interested in it before they become oil guys? Or something about being an oil guy makes you want to buy a ranch? I don't know that. I couldn't tell you. I think.

Do you become an oil guy because you want to buy a ranch? Or does, you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I get what you're saying. Or does it come with being an oil guy? I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. If I could have every ranch ever bought by an oil guy, I'd have a hell of a property. Oh boy, would you?

Yeah. Guys are some land buying land buyers. You told me a little bit about this, but I'm still tracking how you got where you are today. That you did some hunting with an outfitter. I hunted with an outfitter. I got out of grad school and made a career in the federal government. That was it. I was a forester.

You went to graduate school? I did. Forestry. Mississippi State University. And got an undergraduate in wildlife, which at the time was forestry. Because wildlife management is a byproduct of forestry of civil culture. Then, then got a graduate degree in bottom land hardwood civil culture at Mississippi

State University, landed a job doing a lot of restoration work in the Mississippi Delta with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was there for a period of time, went to USDA. It was in that period of time early on that, hey, all of a sudden I had a job I wouldn't have broke college kid anymore. I could afford to go to Canada. So a couple of buddies and I did. And we got just, it was real bad. And I can tell you the year was 1998.

You went up there to hunt. I went up there to hunt. The year was 1998. And I know that because that was the first year you could shoot 20 snow geese. How old are you? 54. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm an old man.

Can't tell. But anyway, even though we had a break, break. So we go to Saskatchewan. We back up and go to Alberta. Just to hunt. Just to hunt. We booked a hunt because we wanted to go to Canada to hunt. You know, myself and a major professor.

Then we went to Alberta and started hunting with another outfitter and, uh, just like paying clients, paying clients, man. Yeah. Just paying clients. We had jobs and, uh, and that turned into something. It's like, it's like I came up there and a few

more people came and a few more people came. And I remember the third year I was up there, 25 clients came to that outfitter. Out of your word of mouth. Out of my word of mouth. And, and. And he realized you're like the pied piper of duck hunters that's what he said what he said he just said hey come out here and drink a beer with us he comes out and and all the staff is sitting there he sees no ramsey all these guys come up there and hunt with us from mississippi and whoever you talk to

and man they know how to hunt they know how to shoot they know how to tip the guys they're pleasure to be around my boys are always cutting cards or flipping coins see who gets to take these guys and all the guys are nodding their heads and he says why don't you be my booking agent and i'm like what that what the heck is that mississippians i have no idea what that is but yeah it sounds good and uh and so you know so how do you so were you were you just you were just socializing the fact that you had good yeah that's that's all it was we're just you know showing fact that you had good hunting. Yeah. That's all it was. We're just, you know, showing pictures and having a good time and socializing that we were having a good time. And people started going.

Because I was an avid duck hunter by then back home. People knew, man, this guy likes to hunt a lot. And I guess they found some credibility in that and started going. And you were at that time, you weren't getting like a cut of the action. No. No, it was just, no. So when he first tells you, well, go round up some more guys and bring them up, at that point he's saying that he's going to give you a kickback.

Well, let me give you a commission. Let me give you a commission for doing this. And that inspired me. Well, how do I meet more people than I just personally know? Come up with a webpage. And I was doing a little bit of waterfowl habitat consultation, a little, uh, uh, conservation easement work at the time. I was writing baseline reports on as a side gig.

I needed a good idea. I needed some way to reach people. So I came up with this idea, get ducks.com. And at the time it was, that's a good URL. There was two clicks. There was two clicks. Click, go to Alberta,ta click call ramsey about habitat work and that was it oh get ducks was like go get ducks or make ducks yeah that was it

that was it was just man it was a long time ago almost 20 years ago now steve it's uh we've been incorporated since 2003 and that's a long time ago when uh you know i don't i don't i'm not trying to ask like how much money made but like in percentile points back your first deal your first deal 10 was the was the was the that's what they did yeah you know i'm saying and i'll tell you i tell you uh i think part of the reason if we if we go go there uh that's not to what we're talking about, I want to make this point because I really, for some reason, I've been a, quote, booking agent for nearly two decades. But I despise that term. And because there's so many, I've got so many clients right now that had gotten in a bad way with a, quote, booking agent, unquote. But they heard enough

about us they called and they booked a trip and we took care of it and everything was good and they said holy cow man i'd sworn them off till i met y'all you know so i don't know what else to call it but a booking agent but but that's what we are but i hate like a good booking agent i hate the standard and i'll tell you a very uh like i don even know enough to know this. I don't know. That's a shoddy industry. I think it is. Is it shoddy in all guiding, like fishing, hunting, big game? Is it shoddy because, like, waterfowl is shoddy? I had a guy tell me recently, a very big waterfowler, that's his life's passion.

He even studied ducks, big waterfowler. He was saying that he feels that his segment of the hunting world is the most corrupt segment of the hunting world. When it comes to just killing and cheating and killing and cheating and wasting and not using your stuff, he has a very dim view as a waterfowler. A career waterfowler has a very dim view of waterfowlers, which was surprising to me. He's like, the things I see come out of my community are worse than things I see come out of any other community. I hope it's cleaning up.

I like to think it's cleaning up because I can remember, Argentina is a very big destination for us, and I can remember 15 years ago let's say one of the primary questions that somebody inquiring about argentina would ask and i mean one of the top questions would be how many ducks do i kill and all these years later it's one is oh they might ask but it's not it's not it's i've i think i have seen and perceived uh at least with a lot of people that I deal with, a change in the hunter's heart. I really think it's shifting more from a quantity to a quality. I believe that.

I think there's probably a lot of issues. Anytime, and I wouldn't say just duck hunting. I think that anytime you take a public resource, be it elk or waterfowl and involve money there's room for corruptness i wouldn't i wouldn't hang that on waterfowl though i think one of the things that leads to is that it's hard there's a lot of bad days um and then now and then you get yourself into some situations that are just so good. I've heard it and seen it. It's so good.

And you're like a mountain lion that gets into a pasture full of alpacas, man. Like you just can't. Well, it's like a lot of. They can't turn it off. I understand it. But big game hunters, you know, a guy will drive from Mississippi or whatever out to Montana and camp and hunt elk for 10 days. If he doesn't get one, that's hunting. But it seems like sometimes guys want to go duck hunting and they just expect an auto limit because they're not hunting in their backyard.

And that's not reality. You know, ducks don't just fly on command. There's weather and migrations and skill sets involved. Did you have any kind of moral crisis where you said, this guy comes in, you're young, and you got a job, or you're starting out as a federal employee. Presumably, you're not making a presumably you're not making like some obscene salary and all of a sudden you can uh get a kickback get a cut for bringing people in did you have to decide like you know

what i'm gonna do i'm only gonna book people for really good trips or did you make a mistake or did you just have a moral compass and that's always just served you well you know i i think that um i think it's about i would i'm gonna say a moral compass i had no compunction about selling hunts or selling consulting services or doing something like that and uh none whatsoever it's just it's just that you know even today all these years later my my first obligation is not to the outfitter i've got a very good credible working relationship with an outfitter anywhere in this world. But he's not my first obligation. The client is.

Yeah, I can see that being – that's a good way to view it, man. You don't work for the outfitter. No, I work for the client. And they're buttering everybody's bread. And, you know, you work – Yeah, I like that. I can understand that viewpoint. Thank you. But at the end of the day, that's why we're willing to, and it was very difficult back when it was early, especially back when I was still working for the federal government and doing this thing part-time.

It was very difficult to spend money out of my pocket and go on these destinations. And not every destination you see is every destination we've been on. We've been on 10 to 1 ratio that just didn't work out. That just, this is not what we're looking for. This is not what we want to be a part of. But it took that commitment. Because I feel like if you're going to trust me to go on a duck hunt, then I recommend that I need to be able to speak personally to it.

And, you know, it's just like a retriever, just like a blue tick hound. Those relationships and that working relationship builds over time. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so I go and hunt with your camp. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're a good hunter. Let me sell that hunt. That's not near what it's like 10 years, 12 years down the road working with that outfitter. You know what this outfitter can do in the good years and the bad years.

Because ducks don't, there's weather, there's different conditions that ducks don't fly. You know, and I always say, man, opening day, everybody, every guy in the world is a rock star on opening day. It's the tough days. It's those days that ducks aren't doing what you want them to do. The clients may be a little disappointed that the best of the outfitters dig hard. What I say about a best waterfowl outfitter, and I think the same might be said anywhere in the hunting industry, is the good outfitters, when you're killing half as much, they're working two or three times as hard, not half as much.

They're working harder. And you can build those relationships only over time. Tell me a story about an outfitter that you checked out and it didn't work out. Oh, boy, Romania. We went to that that was just the first one that popped to mind yeah give me an idea what like uh the not custom what like what not cutting the mustard looks like well you know we went two or three two or three months back and forth and emailed you kept wanting me to come over and hunt and we finally got it

sorted and steve i've got- Like the expectation being clear. The expectation- He's like, come check out my lodge and bring me clients. Yes. But just getting to the initial visit point was, I don't know, awkward, tenuous. But we were going to Sweden that year. I was going to swing through Amsterdam and check out Netherlands. Netherlands is a great hunt.

And I've got a group of clients that just have been on some of these regular hunts, Argentina, Mexico, wherever, and now they want to go do real Ramsey shit, which is to say, I want to go somewhere you haven't even been. Let's just figure it out together. And I like that because now it's not just what I see in this outfit, it's what the client sees too. And they're up for everything. So me and a client show up.

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. Yeah. They use you so much and they get to a point where they're like, I want to go with you to check something out. That's it. Okay. I want to be on the first. And then you make clear with them that like, well, you know what that means, right?

Like I haven't checked it out. But they're real hunters. Yeah. I mean, they're the clients that all guides want to hunt with, you know, because they're there for the adventure and the good time. And if you go home with no ducks, they're happy. And that's that kind of client. So we're in Sweden.

And the next morning we're going to pick up, fly to Romania. And I get an email in Romanian that is not from my outfitter and it's saying something I have to go google translate which is kind of imperfect and I gathered that he's not going to be there but everything's everything's in place I go I don't like this idea andott and i talk we have a drink we talk some more and say yeah let's go check it out and uh so we go back and forth and all i can understand in google translate this is the guy's brother or brother-in-law or somebody so we we show up and we decide we're going to check this guy out we'll just see who our ride looks like we'll just make a gut instinct call and like if you if i if I said the word Romanian hit man, what would you think?

Because that's exactly who met us. Some guy looks like Yanni. Yeah. Our guy meets us and we get to talking and we start indicating to him, we're stopping right here. And he hands us a phone. Now this guy's speaking a little broken English. It's the guy that wrote me the email.

I'm the guy's brother-in-law. And I'm saying, well, where's the outfitter I've been talking to for two months? And he's like, well, he can't make it. Something's up. I said, is he in the hospital? No. Is he in prison?

No, no, no. He's just at the police station. I said, oh. So long story short, we make our way to the van. And I realized the minute make our way to the van. And I realized the minute we get out to the van that this is like a legit rental transfer van. I said, okay. I still take a picture of the license plate to send to my wife and say,

I'm getting in this truck right here. If you don't hear from me in 24 hours, you know, call Interpol, whatever. What we found out, he's just a real guy. He drives us just down the road, introduced his brother. And it was just, that was all an adventure. The reason it didn't work out, the food was great. The host was great. The guys were great.

The duck hunting was just terrible. It was just terrible. I mean, we shot 13 ducks in three days. There was no, there was just nothing to it. It's just an overshot resource. And we've been, you know, we've looked around in different places like that and sometimes you run into places that just there's just too much hunting pressure and you know in parts of the world like that there's no they hunt ducks hard in romania they hunt ducks brown bears there still that i believe they do but they but

they hunt ducks their ital Italian clients hunt ducks hard. There's no bag limit. You know, and so they just, in places, they shoot too many for it to sustain quality. What are the ducks they have there? Mallards, gadwalls, shovelers, Eurasian greenwings, Eurasian wigeons. You know, a lot of the birds we hunt, one of my favorite places to go right now is a little country called Azerbaijan. Uh-huh. Between the Caspian Sea and Turkey.

And how we found it is there were some species kind of in that Eurasian area over there I just wanted to encounter. I kept hearing about the Volga River coming through Delta, the Volga River coming through Russia. And as I began to explore it and talk to some resources over there, it's a fall hunt October. So even if you go over there, even if you time the ducks coming through right in that part of Russia, you're just dealing with brown ducks. Go shoot a bird of a lifetime on red-crested poacher, and he's brown. Just because they haven't gotten their mature wings yet. They haven't hit that plumage yet.

And it took me a while for it to kind of go through my knife drawer and figure this out. But I finally got to wondering one day, where does the Volga River go? It goes to the Caspian Sea. And so we began to research that area right there. And we found- Trying to catch the ducks later in the year. Where are they going to overwinter? Instead of of going here let's catch them in the wintering grounds and and about three or four years ago we began to put together a little tiny country

called azerbaijan and it was a very amazing hunt and i bring it up because to me it's um on the one hand you think of okay i'm gonna I'm going to fly 6,500 miles from home. It's distance. But sometimes the thing I love about this job is not just distance, it's time. It's almost like I'm stepping into a time machine and going back, because these guys are so fundamental duck hunters. They still market hunt over there. A lot of my guides are feeding their families or their communities with the ducks we kill. And they are game on, absolute grade A duck hunters.

The good ones are. And they're hunting the delta of the Volga River. Well, that would still be in Russia. We're way further south down in Azerbaijan. In fact, I can put you on a map. The wetland we've been hunting the past few years is eight miles from Iran. Okay. And one of the wetlands we've been hunting the past few years is eight miles from Iran. Okay. You know, and, and one of the, one of the wetlands we scattered this year standing on this, this lake levee, I can look down and see, uh, see the border crossing for Iran.

And, uh, so it's Baku, if you look it up, beautiful. Uh, we're hunting about, we're hunting four or five hours from there. And what's it look like where you're at? It looks, it looks strangely like the Mississippi Delta. You know, I've got family in Greenwood, Mississippi, which is the long staple cotton capital of the world, self-proclaimed. And pulling into that little village, and I can't remember the name of it, but pulling into that little town for the first time, when you come into Greenwood, Mississippi, every entrance,

every little two-lane highway coming into the city, there's a big bulletin board with cotton balls on it and going into that little town we're hunting there's a big banner over the over the entrance with two cotton balls so really it is to be so far for home from home it feels so much like home and just turn to the habitat. Then everything gets different. Is it similar in latitude? Similar. I'm so close to pulling up me a map of the world. Pull it up and take a look at it, man, because it's a, I think, I think it's, I think it's

going to be a little bit further north of our latitude. Ever. Azur. A-Z-E-R. Azur. A-Z-E-R-ur A-Z-E-R B-I I'm digging in here man

J-I-A I'm digging in Oh I had to look it up On the map the first time too I just want to help I want to help people Get where we're at I'm trying to find

I'm trying to steer people In from Lavia So If you go to Turkey If you go up to the confluence of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, and then shoot a little off over toward the northeast, that's Azerbaijan. On the Caspian Sea. Which is not a saltwater body of water. Northeast. That's Azerbaijan. On the Caspian Sea. Which is not a saltwater body of water.

Believe it or not, the Caspian Sea is the largest freshwater body. When you stand on the banks, it's like looking at the Gulf of Mexico, but it's the largest freshwater body on Earth. And that town, Baikous, it's out on Little Peninsula. Yeah, and it is such an incredible city. It's like you walk around town and you walk by a Ferrari dealership and a Lamborghini dealership. We don't have those in Mississippi. Is it remote, though, the parts where you hunt?

Yeah, it's just little farming communities we hunt. It's like the basin we've been hunting the past few years, as I understand it and as I perceive it to be looking at it, it's like 100, thousand acre at full uh capacity agricultural storage reservoirs what it is it catches a lot of watershed uh seasonally and uh and then they use it to irrigate fields around and uh and you can just tell by the by the uh by the habitat you can tell by the cover type that it is it's ephemeral at times at least parts of it are and um but it's but it's just amazing.

And what made me think of talking about that when you started asking about species is, you know, one of the most iconic waterfowl species in America is the mallard duck. But that duck's found everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, that there's ducks. And everywhere that you hunt them, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, they're a trophy. They're the prize, just like they are here.

They're the big duck. Big duck tastes good, lots of them. They do. But what do you think, Azerbaijan, they're a trophy. They're the prize, just like they are here. They're the big duck. Big duck tastes good, lots of them. They do. But what do you think, Steve? What do you think the number one favorite duck in the northern hemisphere of all the countries I've been to that have them? What do you think the favorite duck on table is? Green-winged teal.

Every country I've ever been to that has green-winged teal, that's the one they want. That's the one you want. That's the one they want. And's the one you want. That's the one they want. And we eat a lot of them over there. But what I'm going to say about Azerbaijan, I went there to find red-crested poachers, tufted ducks, common shell ducks, phrygianus poachers, things of that nature that you're just not going to find anywhere else that I have found yet.

And when you're saying poachers, you mean like the family of... Yeah. That's their common name. Yeah, bluebills, canvasbacks. That's right. Their genus would be a thea, but their poachers is what their name was. And they were just these really cool species. Don't ask me how –

Oh, so it's not – okay, because I know that word to be basically all your good-tasting divers. Yeah. Okay. Well, the diver duck, the poacher family. Yeah. But we went over there looking for those specific species. Red crested poacher was just a real unicorn species for me.

But what I loved about it was we shot a lot of Eurasian wizards. We shot a lot of Eurasian green-winged teal. We shot a lot of mallards, gadwall, shelpers, pintails. And those mallards are just like our mallards. Just like ours. Wah! Oh, you call them in. I don't leave home in the northern hemisphere or hardly anywhere without a mallard call. Mallard's is just like our Mallard's. Just like ours. Wah! Oh, you call them in. I don't leave home in the northern hemisphere or hardly anywhere without a Mallard call.

Mallard call, you know, I used it down in Argentina to call in Rosie Bill Poacher just by growling into it like a, like a, just you growl into it like it would call for scop or redheads or anything else. And it was so crazy because hunting, the first time I hunted in Azerbaijan was just amazing. I just amazing i didn't know what to expect right here in this little blind it's well built i'm by myself my little adil my bird boy and uh and he's good eyes and uh the first time i saw those red crested poachers i didn't see the orangish head i just i saw the black bird with the white wing bars that instinctively reminded me of rosy bill poachers down in Argentina, same genus. And I grabbed my call and growled into it, and they heard the call, and they just right into the decoys.

Oh, yeah. I don't know. To this day, I don't know what the Azerbaijan word is for red-crested poachers because every time he sees one, he makes a sound. I deal a grab my call and call to him. We're in these tiny little P-Row looking. You got enough room to see it, your decoys, your blind bag, your shotgun. He's standing in the back push poling.

Through the marsh. Through the marsh. Those boats they use, I think of it like a 12, 14-foot-sized P-Row blind bag. It's everything we need in that little boat. And off we go, and it's silent, and it's stealthy, and you hear the ducks and the bird life around you when you're going. And if you push it far enough in the weeds and get it in that cane just right, it makes a great shooting platform.

But the guides don't speak any English, and I've learned that Google Translate, it's good for yes, no, hungry. It don't work translating for us having a conversation. And this year, one of my clients was saying, man, I'm just really disappointed this guy doesn't speak English, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go, you're a duck hunter, and he's a duck hunter. And you don't need that. We don't have a conversation like this, Steve. I mean, you know what to do as a duck hunter.

Yeah. like it steve we can just i mean you just you know what to do as a duck hunter yeah man you know my life is a crayola box of colors and cultures and creeds and races and religions but in the times i see them we're all just duck hunters yeah and that that's one of the most beautiful things about what we do to me is just to meet a guy and form a guy in adriabal, a guy in Argentina, and they're real hunters. And this relationship forms. But no spoken word, no common word, just hand signs and sick. We know what to do. And that's just a very rewarding aspect of it all. When you're traveling like that, like when you're going into customs and stuff.

Oh, boy. And they're like, what are you doing? Like, I'm here to hunt ducks. No. I mean, boy and they're like what are you doing like i'm here to hunt ducks no i mean no heck no what are you doing i'm a tourist yeah i'm a tourist i mean do they have you hunted ducks in countries that have no regulatory system no hunting licenses oh not that i'm aware not that i'm aware everyone has some form of regulatory system but no yes yes they do but but i do i do say and um and i've talked about this before you know america canada uh well the north american model australia new zealand there's a lot of parts of the world that are black and white man we in america are blessed with black and white. The laws, and they're sent out and they're published,

and we all know, we all know, if we can read, we know what the laws are. But you get into other parts of the world, it can be gray. It can be gray. You know, some of the infights I've been on, you know, I'm to a point right now, there's places in the world I'd like to go hunting

down in Southeast Asia. I know to go to North Korea, I'm probably probably gonna have to know somebody pretty high up the food chain to get into north korea and feel comfortable about it but i'd love to go and now you think they got good duck hunting in north korea i bet they do yeah i bet i bet they're somewhere they got some good ducks and got some species we're not gonna find anywhere else you know but but you know it's gotten to the point as i get invites i get contacted by people you know, but, but, you know, it's gotten to the point is I get invites, I get contacted by people, you know, I've, I've just got, you know, two or three fingers worth of questions I've got to ask is hunting legal? Is the species legal?

Or is me holding a gun? Believes you can't hold a gun. You can't, you can't hold ammo. There's countries that that's a real big deal, you know? And, and, and so I started asking these questions. I've been invited, you know, come to Japan. I got invited to come to Japan. There's no legal hunting.

I've been invited to go to Turkey. There's big game hunting. There's not bird hunting. I've been invited to go to the Bahamas. The Cuban whistlers and the white-cheeked pintails are protected. You can't go there. You know, you're talking about the grayness of laws. We would go spearfish in the Bahamas.

My brother goes there quite a bit. And you can just use a sling. You can't use like a gun, you know. But he did a lot of work because he never could get the straight answer. So he works and works and works to get like the regs, right? Like what are the rules? There may not be any. Well, there are

but when you express them to the people down there they're like there's no such thing as that rule right like dude i'm telling you i'm looking at it right here like here's the rule like no man you fish where you want man that just creeps off it's like it's your rule dude like i'm telling you you cannot on these certain islands you cannot spear fish within whatever, 200 yards of shore or something like that. And they, like, almost act, like, hostile to the idea. And, like, how big a spiny lobs are supposed to be. No, man. You keep what you want, man.

Nobody's probably enforcing it down there. No, they're like, dude, don't even – they don't even want to go down that path. I'm talking about there being rules about this shit. You guys got to borrow a gun everywhere, right? No. Some places you have to – you know, Peru has some weird issues where you can't bring guns, and we use theirs. But like Azerbaijan, am I saying that right? Yeah.

No, no. It's as easy bringing a gun into Azerbaijan as it is Canada. Really? Yeah. It was as easy bringing firearms into Pakistan as it was in Saskatchewan. Your own ammo, your own gun into Pakistan. I cannot remember if we got the permit for ammo. Where you run into a problem bringing your own ammo is weight restrictions and airline rules.

If you can get a permit for the firearm, you can get a permit for the ammo. But where you run into problems is airlines allow 11 pounds. Right. And then they've got restrictions on just how much your gross poundage can be bringing bags anyway. So that gets a little iffy. But bringing guns was, you know, the craziest thing about going in. The part, I just want to clarify, like, the part that I would wonder about with guns is, like, that some countries, I could just picture countries having not enough demand from international travelers trying to bring in firearms. Have they ever bothered to set up a system by which it's done? Like, doing it in Mexico, we do it every year, but it's done like doing a mexico we do it every year but it's a nightmare i mean they

put together a system but it's a very very clumsy system that takes how long do you have to start ahead of time yanni uh well yeah we just turned in our information for next january's hunt and it's it's uh you know and hope it doesn't land on a bureaucrat's desk and get stuck. We did it in June. Yeah. So in June, laying the groundwork to bring a gun into Mexico in January. I don't know how our clients do it in parts of Mexico where we fly into Hermosillo, but if you can give me that information within two weeks, three weeks, our outfitter will get the permit for you. The guy we go with, he runs a extremely tight ship he's very organized and doesn't like surprises no no surprise nobody likes surprises now that when you're traveling hunting nobody likes surprises

you know speaking of uh i had a client one time that was one of those clients that wanted to go do real real stuff so we were going to Mongolia. And as I was talking to them, I said, well, you might just want to meet me over there because I think I'm going to stop in China. They've got to send me a two-hour visa. I don't need to get a visa permit through the consulate. And I'm going to stop there and go see the wall of China, which was built to keep the Mongols out of China. I want to go do that too.

And we're both fine with firearms. So we were talking to the guy over there that arranged this. And we'd gone back and forth for months, like I say, to get this firearm and all this kind of paperwork going. And I call him as I'm going to the airport. I'm fixing to leave to go to the airport. I don't have my firearm permit for China. It's just a little temporary pass-through permit.

And I call him up and say, I need this paperwork just to have it he goes no no no you don't need it mary wayne's gonna meet you with it i said yeah yeah i get i get that she's gonna be our tour guide she's gonna have my paperwork but i i've been i've been through this this show before i'd feel comfortable just having it on my person and we went back and forth and finally i said you know i'm not boarding the flight without my permit ding ding ding ding ding it comes over the factory scene and as we're coming in through if we're coming in through the uh temporary visa line it took forever three hours and the lady knew to ask us did we have any paperwork and i'm showing every piece of paperwork i've got to

include my firearm permit she goes you're bringing guns yes guns? Yes, ma'am. That was it. She sent us on through. And we get, and there's our guns, and there's our luggage, and there's everything else. And I read my text. It says you're supposed to meet Mary Wang in baggage. So we just start proceeding towards the exit, and we've got all our luggage. And I'm sitting there just looking at the guard or whoever he is, the guy at customs, looking at the computer monitor of everything coming through x-ray, he may have been slumped in his chair a little bit. And the minute he saw guns, boy, did he get straight. And he started talking loud, and everybody started talking loud.

And I just got off. We've been traveling for 30 hours, and I'm just kind of watching the situation unfold. And somebody comes out of the back, followed by a crowd of people coming out of the back, all talking louder than that, coming my way and looking at the picture on the screen. And I tell the guy, I said, I don't know how this is going to go. So they very politely heard us up, and they're all talking, man, and they carry us back to

this little tiny room, smaller than this studio, smaller than this little room here. And it's got two school desks with a steel bar where they could put a steel bar across your lap and lock you in. I'm like, boy, don't sit down. You know, and the room. They got a what? They've got this little chair. Like a little jail chair.

Like a little jail chair. Well, they didn't ask us to sit, but the room is getting more and more and more and more people. And they're all trying to, and they're shouting. And you sit in the chair. Oh, I'm not sitting in the chair. No, I'm saying, but just, I'm trying to understand the chair. I'm doing anything but sitting in that chair.

One sits in the chair, if one were to. And they swing a bar over and they throw a lock on it. And they lock it. And you're just stuck in your chair. They lock it. And things are getting insane. And I'm not going to lie to you. I'm on the verge of cracking a sweat.

Like, this shit's going downhill quick. Because these people are, I mean, going at it. And I'm trying to. What kind of gun you got with you? Benelli. Got my shotgun. Got my ammo. We've got a rifle.

Just a little rimfire rifle. And I'm trying to get over here to get my hands on my permit. I can see it. They got the gun case open. And, boy, they getting agitated. And I'm trying to get my permit. I mean, it's like they're breaking into Kung Fu dances and everything. You know, here's a guy in our country with a firearm.

Trying to get at his stuff. And finally, I just make a dash. I grab my paperwork. I throw it open. I give it to the guy that's yelling the loudest, and he says something loud, and just this hush falls over the room. And somebody comes up, and what do you know? They speak.

And I used to go, do you have a translator? I go, yes, sir. He said, call her on the phone. So I called Mary Wang, and she comes back there, and the minute she walks in, it all starts again. And everything gets calm, and she says, everything's fine. The lady that lets you in through the 72-hour, she was supposed to notify the police and notify TSA,

and she did not. I said, so what now? He said, oh, she's either going to jail or she's fired. I said, no, I mean, what about us? And he said, oh, we're going to be here. We're going to be here a while, so what now? He said, oh, she's either going to jail or she's fired. I said, no, I mean, what about us? And he said, oh, we're going to be here. We're going to be here a while, so settle in. You know, we were there for four hours. We ended up, from the time we landed in Beijing with those firearms,

over that one misunderstanding until the time we exited to go to the hotel was nine or ten hours. And I asked the client, how you like this? How you like this part of the job? So then you roll out into the streets of Beijing, and you got a semi-auto shotgun with you. Oh, heck no. You leave them at the airport.

Oh, okay. We gave them, we put those in police custody. They locked them up under lock and key, and we signed for them. Now we're in the streets of Beijing. And, you know, I was told you before going to China that I love Chinese food. I would have said they know it. Egg Foo Young and Spring Rolls. Nah, I've been

to China. I like Peking Duck. You like American Chinese? I must. I do not like the real thing I found out. Because of what? I don't know. You know, if we go to some restaurant and Mary just clambers on and on and on and on about the, about the pork something at this particular restaurant. So we all open it and say both of us and her order this, this dish.

And I take a bite and it tasted kind of like, tasted kind of like that old brown stink bait smelled. I said, I didn't. Like old fermented stuff. Something. And I, I, I drank a little cocoa and try it again. I'm like, boy, I don't like this. I found out. And everything I tried over there was just but the peking duck i lived on peking duck

we found a restaurant with peking duck and we ate a duck every night because you like ducks i do like duck and if wild duck tasted as good probably or had as much fat content as peking duck they they'd likely be extinct. You know you're saying that everywhere you go, you got like some of the same ducks keep popping up, like different versions of the same ducks. Do ducks act like ducks? I mean, it's like people that hunt ducks the world over. They do. Decoy spread, blind calls.

Do you ever go somewhere and they just hunt ducks where they have no, they have a completely different way they hunt ducks? And you have to be like, you know what works good, you know, is to put out decoys and build a blind. No, it's kind of the way the game's played is with decoys. So people figure that out the world over. That's the way they figure out the world over. But I'm going to tell you, as somebody that's traveled and seen

and hunted around the world, on the one hand, I believe that American hunters are the most passionate, the most dedicated. We have elevated every aspect of duck hunting to art form, to camo, to guns, to ammo. I mean, everything. Everything is state-of-the-line technological art. elevated every aspect of duck hunting to art form, the camo, the guns, the ammo. I mean, everything, everything is state-of-the-line technological art. And you really don't need that to shoot a duck.

You really don't need some of that to shoot a duck. And I go back to Azerbaijan, the fundamentals, where they're hunting not with us, but for themselves to feed their family. They're literally hunting over pop bottles, over soda bottles. Paint it up. Black paint.

I found a spread this year that was nothing but old Clorox bottles, different bottles with wool socks over them. And just put out. And they put them out in the right place in the right formation and hunt them at the right times, and they kill ducks to feed their families.

And they're just very, very traditional hunters. It's like hunting way back in time. And I really, and it's like, you know, I've got a 22-year-old son, my oldest, 20-year-old son, my youngest, but they're at a totally different stage of the game. And I can remember, you know, they're really,'re at a totally different stage of the game and i can remember you know they're they're really really at a dip a different motivation at that age than i am at an older age now and uh to me a lot of clients or a lot of duck hunters the merit or the the

breakover point whatever the the metric of a good hunt is a lot of trigger pulls and to me the more i get into it it's like the fewer trigger pulls if the limit is seven ducks out here in montana the closer i can get shooting seven times and killing those seven greenheads the better that's how it is to me you know so i'm saying it and which which brings up a good point that duck hunting is so subjective it's a very subjective experience the four of us go jump in a duck blind and we all want maybe something a little bit different out of it do you uh do you find that like motivations to hunt are similar everywhere you go like meaning

i was struck a couple times that i've been around hunting with people from very different cultures and faraway places where there's a palpable excitement. Yeah. Fishing, whatever. People get excited. Yeah. When it's good, it's good. People like it. There's an enthusiasm.

Someone catches a big one. That's enthusiasm. Yeah. Oh see that all do you always see that like here comes a flight of ducks and people are like yeah there's a little an electric feeling when yeah yeah yeah especially when you're hunting with a crowd of folks it's just you feel it you know how everybody's sitting here we're all talking and socializing and the one time you really need to be still in a duck blind is when there's ducks flying and we're sitting here talking having this conversation there's ducks flying. And we're sitting here talking and having this conversation. There's ducks and everybody starts break dancing, looking for their guns and getting ready.

Yeah, there's excitement. And it's just, it's an energy. And I love it. It's just, there's an energy to that right there. Everybody's proud. I see them, I think, with older duck hunters, way more experienced duck hunters and stuff like that. It settles into a quiet proud. I can say that you know uh

over in azerbaijan this year and this this is this is the kind of hunt i like just personally speaking is when when the ducks are difficult there aren't aren't the gangbusters full of ducks that you're expecting and you're in a blind by yourself. And this year in Azerbaijan, maybe we were shooting a dozen, 15 birds apiece, but it took utter focus. It took absolutely keeping your head in the game the entire time. And ideal, he went back 50 or 60 yards from where I was hitting in this little blind by myself, and he would just whistle loud. I'm looking. I'm looking downwind, and I'm as focused as I can humanly be.

When three ducks come in, it's not just, okay, there's three ducks. Let me shoot one or two. How do you make the play to kill them all? You're focusing. The numbers are tumbling the whole time. First pass, no, no, no. Second pass, now they're coming in. Now I'm going to run the table on them.

It's just that focus. You know what I'm saying? He's playing a real, what I call a real clean game. Call the ducks, get them in close, make ethical shots, knock them down, and just really go all in. And it's like, Steve, back when I was an archer, let's say fly fishing, because I was watching some guys on the river fly fish the other day. And what I think about it is how fly fishing is really not

about getting grease hot and eating. It's an art. It's a ritual. It's a process. Am I right? I mean, those guys are really getting into it. Why else would you go out there and whip the water forever? You're not going to eat a big dinner.

But seriously, it's something about that hypnotic thing and that art form and getting better and laying that laying that fly better and when when i did bow hunt way back in college in the days with a well no compound bow it was it was never about uh whacking a stack as many i could i mean it's like every time i drew back the the dozen deer i shot in my life every time i drew back that string creased a smile because i owned that deer. I'd played that game, and he was right here, and it was just a matter of letting the air go and watching it. And duck cunts like that too.

I know to a lot of people, duck cunts, just a bunch of buddies out there just letting loose as much ammo as possible. But I think there's a ritual to it from the decoys and the placement and getting the birds in and calling to them and speaking their language and having that negotiation to coax them into that range that you own them and that there's something pure about that to me there's a big big portion of my enjoyment from duck hunting that comes from and i'm not going to put some arbitrary percentage on it but um anticipation is just i mean everything from come june like washing off my decoys from last year and like scrubbing them down and making them anticipation. Exactly. Is just, I mean, everything from come June,

like washing off my decoys from last year and like scrubbing them down and making them look nice, whether that, you know, not shiny, but nice. You know what I mean? Yeah.

To being in that holding pattern and waiting. Is it, is it the second pass or the third pass? Is it the first? Am I, am I screwing up by not going on the first pass? You know, that's the,

that's that, those, those split second moments of joy are instrumental in my satisfaction with the sport that's that's what keep that's what keeps that energy and that enthusiasm and that vibration coming on you're watching that bird and i mean like down the deep south where we hunt a lot of gadwalls gadwalls kind of work in in reverse order their corkscrew is getting further away you better get them on the first pass if you can because the second third and fourth pass are usually going

to be further away they've talked their self they've talked themselves out of coming in you know but but sometimes they do and you and you're you're trying to find which duck do i watch which duck is bringing the flock in and focused on them and just, but that's what keeps it great. So what if you don't kill every duck? That's okay. Do you ever, presumably you get a lot of clients who were wanting to tick off lists. Yeah. What's your relationship to that motivation? I mean, you got to, you know, you're in business, you got to take the money,

but do you ever feel like it's, like the motivations aren't quite quite what you wish they were no someone's just ticking off numbers no you know in this day and age and honey because this is coming from a guy who's just saying i want to get a isolated isolated so i can become a no you know world why why somebody hunts and for that matter how somebody hunts you know the uh we kicked off the episode talking about hunting with hounds there's people that are opposed to it there are peers that don't think we should hunt with hounds i disagree i think we should hunt and so why why somebody hunts or how somebody hunts or what motivates somebody into different parts of the world is really kind of their business as long as it's legal and ethical let's go for it but you know that that whole species thing just like on the one hand i did

kind of i did kind of find myself wanting to shoot a different duck than I shot, hunt a different bird because you were asking about duck hunting and duck hunting styles. You know, all of hunting, all the fundamentals of duck hunting is predicated kind of on hunting mallards, but not all ducks are mallards. They don't play by the mallard rule book. And then you have to figure it out. You have to adapt from your rule and figure out something a little bit different.

Hunting divers is different than hunting birds that come in high which is different than hunting geese which is different than hunting some other species okay and and so you but it's still the fundamental game but every species you start start having their different little rules there's a lot of guys that want to collect as many duck species as they can and i see a lot in young guys now you you know, because there, there's people out there that say they're chasing the, uh, the North American slam. I don't believe it's 41. I believe it's closer to 60, probably around mid fifties, high fifties than 41, but whatever

you're chasing, chase it. Go for it. I need to add up where I'm at now. Yeah. Go for it. I mean, the chase never ends, but, but seriously But seriously, what we found out is really and truly, as we began to meet that kind of hunter that wanted to chase off the beaten path into different speeds, that really kind of drove us.

It wasn't kind of like the cart before the horse. Who's driving who here? The client's coming in and having those conversations. What do you know about shooting bar-headed geese? Well, I need to find a bar-headed goose, which led us to Mongolia. Now, I'll tell you, I think that most collectors that I know, I think at some point in their line,

they're going to realize they're really not collecting a bird or a trophy or an animal. They're collecting the experiences. And that's just placeholders for that experience. I agree with that. What, so I can't remember, was it 188 countries or something on the planet? I don't know.

Sub 200 countries. How many countries have you hunted ducks in? More than a dozen. Oh, more than a dozen. I'd say 25 or 30. 25 or 30, maybe more. Maybe 35. Who's got it right and wrong?

Who's paying attention to ducks in a way that they're playing the long game so they got ducks in 100 years? America. Really? I think so. Because nowhere else on earth that I'm aware, Australia's trying. Australia's doing a great job. But nowhere else in the world do we have crunched the numbers like they do here.

Do the surveys, do the breeding counts, do the pond counts. I mean, America's trying. And maybe it could be said that hardly anywhere else in the world do we have the pressure, the hunting pressure for ducks. And it's not maybe just the total number of people hunting. But, you know, I think of my granddad who got me into this thing. Maybe he hunted a dozen days a year. Maybe. Man, how many people is hunting 12 days a year now?

A lot of guys are hunting way more than that. Hunting, going to Canada, going to Kansas, going to Mississippi, going to Alabama, chasing these ducks. There's this passion. There's this obsession. We're not only hunting them harder, but we're doing it with that elevated art form worth of equipment to make us more efficient hunters. I would like to see.

I really do believe that here in the U.S. we're playing the long game as best we can. We've got a lot of science and a lot of money behind the research and genetics and management and harvest. I don't see anybody else really doing it. The advantage they have in places like Argentina, they've got just a minuscule demand for hunting, minuscule hunting pressure, I should say. Do you feel that we're making any big mistakes as a country around duck management no i don't i i would i would um i believe the numbers i'd like to see i'd no i don't believe we're making any mistakes. How many clients do you have that run around telling you ducks don't taste good? A lot.

How many times do you hear that? It's just so widely held. You know, and I hate that. You know, Steve, I saw, you ever watch Andy Griffith? No, I don't know what you're talking about. There was an episode. I watch it because, you know, dying nights, man. Oh, yeah.

Well, I love it. Him only getting out, go out with one bullet and shit. Yeah. There was an episode. Opie was friends with somebody that was apparently wealthy, and he came over to play with Opie, and Aunt Bea was putting on airs. And Andy come in and goes, is that goose? And to put on airs and to impress this young rich kid,

she had cooked a Christmas goose. I was there thinking, man, that wasn't but back in the 60s. And that was a big thing. Oh, and that was regarded as like an opulent. Well, in Christmas Carol. In Christmas Carol, exactly. Dickens. That's right.

When he wakes up and he's in a better mood, after the ghost of past, present, and future comes and sees him, he wakes up and sends the kid down to go get the goose. Now he'd be like, I don't know what the hell you'd send him to get now. Big old ribeye. Yeah. Well, that's what we do. But I really do. I like duck, and I wish – that's one thing that excites me about y'all's program

is y'all get people excited about eating and how to cook and how to prepare and how to do all this stuff with these birds. And, you know, I think it's become a lost art. That's really and truly why I think more waterfowl aren't eaten. It's just a lost art. People don't know what to do with it. And if you ever had bad duck one time, that's going to last a while. I think that – I mean, I've had a ever had bad duck one time yeah yeah that's gonna last a while i think that i mean i've had a lot of bad duck but then it's it's not that hard it's like pretty easy well no

it took a long time but once you once you learn how to cook and you cook it really well for a decade or whatever it just seems simple because you learn like a couple basic rules that's right and then it's really good and then you get annoyed with people who don't see that it's good and you kind of forget the fact that you ate a lot of shitty duck over the years like now i just now i like know what to do like i know i can look at it i know what kind of duck it is i know what you can get away with that duck i cook that duck it's And now I'm like, ah, people are so stupid. But I'm like, well, wait a minute, because I've cooked some bad meaning,

typically, like grossly overcooked. Yeah, I think that's the biggest mistake is overcooking. Unless you're overcooking it in the right way when it becomes okay, but not overcooking it the wrong way. You know, one of my favorite recipes, and I would tell everybody, how many times have you heard cream cheese jalapeno wrapped with bacon? You could probably put a dog turd like that, and it'd taste all right. But it gets old, and it's like, I'll tell you a simple recipe for cooking duck

that I think anybody would go over big time is duck breast. If you're going to breast a duck, go ahead and breast a duck. Soak it in olive oil with copious amounts of Cavender seasoning and sear it on both sides. What kind of seasoning? Cavenders. It's like a Greek seasoning. Okay. I know that stuff.

And just hit it a couple of minutes on each side of the hot coal. Kind of has like some green lettering, green and red lettering on a white bottle. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just Cavenders Greek seasoning. And it's just, but it's rare. You know, one of my favorite ways to really get soak it in olive oil yeah just put it on the table in the ziploc bag with olive oil and and that uh that

seasoning in there and i think that i think something about oil helps it penetrate that meat you know and um but it's just great it's just it's good and it's simple and it's easy just don't overcook it cook it rare and i was telling somebody And I was telling somebody one of my favorite ways to cook duck is chicken fried. I mean, if you want to get rid of a bunch of duck quick, chicken fried. Simple. Walk me through that. Take your breast portions. Tenderize it.

Like beat it with a hammer or the meat mallet. I use the back of a knife. Boom. Tenderize it. Soak it in milk. Season it. Dredge it in flour. Hot oil.

And I like to make a couple of dipping sauces. My favorite is what we call Jezebel sauce. I got it from somebody over in Arkansas, but it's vaguely. Remember that band, Gene Loves Jezebel? No. They have a song, Jezebel. Go ahead. No, it's good.

Anyway, Jezebel sauce, a dipping sauce uh equal parts of orange marmalade apple jelly and really good coarse ground horseradish and uh hold on say that again

because I got a brand new horseradish patch that is going insane boom equal parts equal parts of horseradish

orange marmalade so shred your own horseradish I buy it out of a jar you buy prepared horseradish prepared but it's got to be

the good some of them are weak I like the strong one of our guys that works with us Byron he made me Growing horseradish. I buy it out of a jar. You buy prepared horseradish. Prepared. But it's got to be the good. Some of them are weak. I like the strong. I'm with you, man. One of our guys that works with us, Byron, he made me some prepared horseradish. Then he gave me the roots and I planted them. And man, that stuff is like a jungle already. That's pretty cool.

It's a very prolific plant. I'd like to have some. That's just the way to get rid of a lot of duck quick. I think we owe it to the resource to learn how to cook one good dish anyway. Don't you? Tell me one more time, man, because I'm all hung up on the horseradish. All right. So prepared horseradish, marmalade. Orange

marmalade, apple jelly. So take the jars, take the jellies and put them in your microwave just to get them to where they're liquefied enough you can mix them. Yeah. Put in your horseradish, shake it up. Maybe put in a big dollop of yellow mustard. Is this apple jelly or apple butter?

Apple jelly, not apple butter. Yellow stuff, apple jelly. And then do what with that again? Liquefy it, get it in the microwave, get it warm where you can mix it. Orange marmalade, same thing. You can mix them. Put them in a jar. Put your horseradish in.

Shake it up. Yeah. It's excellent. And the next day is going to be even better. That's when everything kind of sits down. Oh, but that's your dipping sauce. It's a dipping sauce. You're not soaking the duck in there. Oh, no way.

Soak duck. If you're going for chicken fried duck, soak them in milk. Oh, that's your dipping sauce for chicken. Okay. I thought you were laying out a whole new recipe, but I'm all excited about my horseradish package. No, it's good on anything. That dipping sauce will be good on anything.

Really? Yeah. Look at that, Yanni. Should I give you some of my roots, man? Sounds good. Not quite yet. Our garden's not ready to accept plants right now. I don't understand.

We just don't have a garden ready to plant it. You've had a garden for years. Yeah, but every year it keeps moving and it's just not right. So this year we actually don't. Your garden got up and moved. We don't have a garden planted. You're trying to fine tune.

Yeah, and so this year we're actually, we're back in there with the mini X and it'll be. Oh, you're going. It'll be ready next year. You're going next level. Yeah, but I brined and smoked a bunch of ducks the other day. Absolutely. And man, did those come out good.

At first, I did one hole next to a pheasant, and that was so good. I decided to do more, so I pulled out. I had some, what do they call it when we do it with the breast and the thigh and the leg together? Airplane? Something like that. Oh, boy. And you smoked them like that. I didn't know there was a name for it.

I call it the thing I stole from the University of Montana Wild Game Cookbook. There's a name if you get a chicken that way. Spatchcock. No. Oh, okay. Anyways, doesn't matter. And I had some mallard breasts.

And then there was two, I don't know, Gadwall or something other, Ringnecks maybe, something random that had just come into the spread that I ended up with at home. And there was two scoter breasts with the skin on. Where'd you get scoters? North Carolina a couple of years ago. So they had been in my freezer for a while. And they all got the same treatment, brine,

throw on the smoker and the mallards are just eating just so good. Just fantastic. You know, I gave him a little mastodon, light dust and mastodon seasoning on there. And I get to the scoter and man, I'm feeling it. And I'm like, man, it's just like, it's like squishier, like softer. Even though I cooked in the same amount of time, I cut it open, and it's just beautiful, like mid-rare inside, but just tender. And that nice, like there's like a nice fat cap, and then the skin's all crispy from the, because I did a really hot. Scoter fat.

Scoter fat. And, I mean, just touching the two, you'd be like, man, I'd rather eat that scoter. Because you can just tell. You know how you can touch meat and tell it's going to be tender? Yeah, but I'd be looking at it

and thinking about that skin on there, man. Well, yeah. I don't think... It wasn't just the skin. It was kind of like that bear that you had that one time that when you brined it and smoked it and it tasted like you were eating smoked fish.

Yep. Same thing with that scoter. I mean, it just tasted like a fish. I wasn't there. That's all they ate. And I'm no Dr. Duck, but I can tell you that a lot of that fish was laid up in that skin. And if you'd have been here, if you hadn't been playing hooky, you'd have heard from the meat scientist about why that is oh why that

fishiness is in that fat and what fat does and how it functions but you don't know i don't know i haven't listened to that podcast yeah so to cook so to cook scotland liked it but yeah tell me tell me tell me what you do i'm asking i'm asking i'm asking the expert show to cook that skodder. I'm not a skodder expert, but if I had to come and cook a skodder. Get the fat out. Oh, I would get the skin off there. Any of those fish-eating ducks, I would get the skin off. Yeah. Hansi says he, because I ran this by Hansi earlier too.

And Hansi, why don't you tell them what you told me? Oh, I try to avoid smoking diving ducks. I feel like it just, it makes it, if it's already fishy to begin with, it's just going to like enhance that fishiness. I feel like it just. Makes it into smoke fishiness. Yeah, it just makes it like that much more. Nasty. Bad.

I don't know. I like to skin, I like my diver ducks, like skin them, you know, put them in. I love making meatballs like my diver ducks Like skin them You know Put them in I love making meatballs Out of diver ducks I mean it's like You know Mixed with some pork fat You know

It's like a little guilty But I think it goes great We used to take some divers The divers that weren't that great And Skin You know Pull the skin off them

Cut them into very thin strips And put like Fajita seasoning on them Yeah And do it Likely Like serum like that And then you got your Peppers cut them into very thin strips, and put like fajita seasoning on them. Yeah. Do it lightly, like serum like that, and then you got your peppers and onions and salsa. At that point, it's just stuff to eat. Yeah, it's just like little tiny bits of meat. It's stuff to eat that's good.

And you're like glad you got them. It's better than buying some stupid junk from a grocery store. Yeah. I just never look down on them. I'm not shooting scooters anymore. What about, have you ever had, you ever used waterfowl for hamburger? Making a burger? You've had venison and bacon burger.

No, man. I've never made a duck burger. That's a good idea, though. It's great. Oh, it's great. Yeah. And get the bacon ends. So you're making like a bacon burger.

Put some cheese in there. Really? Oh, it's good. Duck meat burger. like a bacon burger, put some cheese in there. Really? Oh, it's good. Duck meat burger. Oh, absolutely. I'll do that. Absolutely. Any duck.

Well, not sea ducks maybe, but the other ducks, yeah. So you work all over the world. We've been talking about that, but I want to hit on something real quick just for people who might become interested and want to deal with you a little bit and associate with you. Do you help people book trips here in the here in the u.s you know in the united states here what we do steve is uh the short answer is yes and no because because what we do is with long-term relationships we just don't have the the time to book your hunt to say oklahoma you know i'm saying and really truly that really does crowd me as a middleman that really makes me kind of pushes my middleman boundaries if you're calling me to book

a trip to oklahoma but i've been to oklahoma and some of these states on our u.s hunt list we call it canada and the united states and i've been to these guys just like i've been elsewhere and i know they're going to do what they say they're going to do no guarantee of duck limits every day but they're going to do what they say they're going to do. No guarantee of duck limits every day, but they're going to do what they say they're going to do. And we put you in touch with them on our website, their name, their contact information. I really feel like. And you don't pull anything out of that.

No, we just, we, we, we. So people can vet, like if people hear you and they're like, ah, you know, I got a good feeling about that guy. They, and they want to vet a duck trip. They can call you and you'll give your two cents on what your experience or what the rumor is. That's right. We've got the descriptions written up at US Hunt List, just like we do at getducks.com,

but still. That's a website, US Hunt List? US Hunt List. It's just a part of getducks.com. So people can get there by going to getducks.com. That's right. Click on US Hunt List and boom, and go take a look at it. If you see a hunch you like, you still have questions about, call me, inbox me, whatever like that.

You know, we just look at it like a value-added service and a way of working to, I kind of look at it like a gateway drug. You know, you think of a kid sitting out here in the middle of nowhere. He shot his mallards and his pintails and his gadwalls or his wood ducks or whatever. And they come to us and like, I want to collect collect i want to go do some stuff go to new england you can get the scoters the eiders the long tails go knock some real exotic stuff off and now they're heading down that slippery path and uh i want to collect and and they should be collecting those different experiences and um but yeah so so we work with U.S. hunters and Canadian, U.S. outfitters and Canadian outfitters

just to put you together. What I want to say is if you want to go to a different place in the U.S. or Canada, I want to put you in touch with them. Get in touch with them quickly because it is a very subjective. Why are you going to Canada? What do you want to shoot in Oklahoma?

Why are you going to New England? Do you want to shoot in Oklahoma? Why are you going to New England? Do you want to shoot either? Do you want to shoot scoters? Start working with that outfitter to get that thing right. You know, when we start talking about foreign countries, firearms and hunting licenses and permits and language barriers and money wires and stuff like that, now I'm coming in and bringing a whole different ballgame to that equation than I would be just sending you to Oklahoma.

Yeah, I'm with you. I got one follow-up question. Have you hunted a duck in Latvia or any of the Baltic states? I have not yet. You haven't hunted in Latvia? I have not yet. Neither has Giannis. Me and Giannis don't want to go there and hunt so bad.

I'll put something together let's go oh can you can you work whatever magic you work around the world but work in Latvia for us

maybe well here's the deal Gianni's been kicking it around for quite some time but you know he can't make it like a full time job

as e-scouting Latvia I feel like I just can't get a real solid commitment out of you as the host of the show that we're like, we're going to do it. Because I need to have it laid out. I need to have it laid out. All right.

We'll keep working at it. Yeah, in a spare moment, run the getducks.com process on Latvia. I will. I need to get over that part of the world anyway. It's bigger than just Romania, that part of I will. I need to get over that part of the world anyway. It's bigger than just Romania, that part of the world. I need to get over that part of the world. Show me your ring, Yanni.

It's a Latvian power ring. It's called a Namace. Very good. Yeah. I got another question, actually. Yeah. That's cool. I'm just curious about, like, for that boy and i mean i know

that there's like there's places that it's still practiced right i mean in the united states not like not even going out of the borders but explain what it is calling ducks and geese with your mouth like i'm not only your own vocal yeah exactly yeah like i'm not you to be a good example of it, but like, I want to, I'm curious, like what your experience has been with that. You know, like what. I know, uh, boy, Heidi, you know, the first time I ever saw a mouth calling was in Tennessee on real foot Lake. And this was many years ago. Oh, many years ago oh many years ago and they're they use these calls over there the typical traditional real foot lake call it's got a metal reed and it it's a real high pitch you know and when those

ducks start getting enclosed getting enclosed they start anking them start shouting and that that's how they finish those birds that's's very traditional, real foot lake style calling. I've seen the same thing in Netherlands where they'll ank them. They don't call it anking. They just start anking. And when you're saying this, that means that with their voices, they are saying the word ank. Ank, ank, ank, ank.

What? And calling those birds in. Is it meant to be like, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh? Exactly. It's loud. You're right. Exactly. Good job. It's loud. What? And call on those birds in. Is it meant to be like, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh? Oh, exactly. No, it's loud. You're in. Exactly. Good job. It's loud.

And I've seen you take it to a whole other level. Now, here in the U.S., I know that the guys that are hunting swans, they're probably going to call them with their mouth, especially the toned swans. Yeah. They're going to call them with their mouth. Do that call. No, I can't do that.

Come on. Just do the call. But you go over to – I can't do that. Come on. Just do the call. But you go over. I'm over here calling my ass off. Just do the call. You go over to Azerbaijan again. Those guys call everything. Now, they'll use electronic calls at times, but it's not enough.

They're subsidizing it with their own calls. In fact, we posted somewhere on our Instagram. We posted one of the duck guys over there. You can hear the electronic call faintly in the background, but he's running through all the species with his mouth, and it's unbelievable. Huh, yeah. You know?

So when you come back from Azerbaijan, you know, or hunting all over the world, is there any kind of specialness that comes with hunting where you first started? Yeah, I think I know what you're asking. And it's like the more you hunt, the more you see and the different stuff you do, it's like this thing for hunting at home. You know, it's like it's so strange and different from home, but then at the same time, it's so much like home.

And it really gives me a fidelity for home hunting just like i did traditionally at home i think that's what you're asking yeah how how we hunt ducks here is way different than how they hunt ducks everywhere else and and i you can't same as hunting those oscillated turkeys the way we started you can't paint yourself in a corner. The world's a lot bigger than our backyards. I've shot ducks. For example, here we are in Montana.

I know y'all shoot waterfowl up here, but just think about it, man. We're in the mountains. Water runs downhill. I feel like I spend most of my life in the lowest line places on earth shooting ducks. But I have shot a pair of Andean geese at 16,000 feet. No, really? In Peru. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've shot them. I've shotan geese at 16,000 feet. No, really? In Peru, absolutely. Absolutely.

I've shot them on the Bering Sea in January. I've shot them in the timber in this. I've shot them at night by light. I've shot them at night by moonlight. I've shot them with naked eyes. It's a very, you know, how people hunt around the world is very different. One of the craziest things was in Russia. We were shooting eiders on the White Sea.

And Russia has no basis, no concept for duck hunting. None. Zip. Kill the duck. That's it. That's a very practical Russian hunt. So we're going to go out eider hunting. I brought some decoys.

No, no, no. We don't need those. It was like a James Bond movie. We're in a metal speedboat. He's going as fast as he can. And we're up beside the eiders. And I've got my legs out on the boat so I don't fly out when we hit a wave, and I'm holding on with one arm and shooting with the other.

I thought you were going to say you were throwing dynamite. No, no. It was just right about the time you think you've done it all, somebody shows you another way to shoot a duck. And I like experiencing that. you've done it all somebody shows you another way to shoot a duck and you know i like i like experiencing that the the writer ian frazier he told me a really good story he spent years in siberia writing a book about siberia and he just was telling me about he finally gets an invite to go out with these guys to hunt they want to hunt some kind of seal or sea lion i can't remember what they were going for but they're like siberian inuit i can't what do they call like there's a different name for the

like eskimo eskimo or inuit peoples who live in siberia i believe they might have a different word either way he's with them and they go out and they have a bullet. There's a bullet. And they go on the most hellacious motorboat ride, you know, going through the seas. They get there. They're just getting tossed around by waves. He's seasick the whole time.

The whole time there's like seals out in front of him, but they can't shoot because they got like a bullet. And they eventually get it where a guy gets just the right shot and shoots the bullet and kills the thing and they start heading back and he's getting more seasick and he's soaking wet he's like i don't know how these people can like how can they do this like how can they even stand this kind of thing and he says high up he sees this duck like this duck crosses over the boat and it starts losing altitude and drops down into this distant bay. And he said that boat turns in that direction. He's like, no. That's why.

They went and spent the rest of the evening looking for a duck. I like to jump shoot ducks, pass shoot ducks, decoy ducks. But I follow it with turkeys, man. Exactly. I want to hunt turkeys in like leaning against a tree trying to call a turkey. Like a called in turkey means a lot more to me. Right. A lone pressured called in turkey means a lot more to me right alone pressured called in turkey means a lot more to me than

bushwhacking a turkey or ambushing a turkey or getting turkeys that just run across the field because they have never seen a decoy in their life and then they stand there for 20 minutes right like i like that turkey that comes just in after like an excruciating amount of time and he doesn't want to do it and eventually does it i like that but a lot of stuff i just take it as you get it i agree yeah no i mean it's that it's that relationship you feel like you earned it that way but sometimes birds just play different rules yeah you know oh yeah i'll take a wall i mean short of throwing dynamite in the water yeah i'll take a wall you know they're coming on bait that's great coming on bob. I'll take a wall. I mean, short of throwing dynamite in the water. Yeah. I'll take a wall.

You know, they're coming on bait. That's great. Coming on bobbers. I'll take it. You know, it's like, I don't need it. I don't need it to be as, I don't need it to be that I vertical jigged it. You know, I'll just take it. I unabashedly prefer hunting ducks over water.

That's, I don't know what it is. Like jump shoot decoys. I agree. But something about like a cornfield, cornfield, alfalfa, I just, it doesn't, it doesn't get me in the same spot. I don't know. I don't know what that is.

No. I agree. All right. Ramsey Russell, thanks so much for coming in. How, tell us how, I know we talked a hundred times about getducks.com, but how else can people find you?

Check us out on social media at Ramsey, Russell, get ducks. That's a great way to keep up, especially when the world's turning and we're traveling to keep up with where we're at and what we're doing. All one word, Ramsey,

Russell, get ducks. No, like tons on a underscore S underscore S underscore. Nope. Don't confuse everybody at Ramsey, Russell, get ducks.

And you're on Instagram and whatnot. That's it. All right. So go And you're on Instagram and whatnot. That's it. All right. So go check them out on Instagram. Ramsey Russell, get ducks. The great Ramsey Russell. Thanks for coming.

We came in with an applause. We're going to go out with an applause. Thank y'all. I'm, I'm, I'm honored to be here. Thank y'all very much. That was fun. OnXH is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

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