LIFE’S SHORT GETDUCKS: SOUTH AFRICA WINGSHOOTING

“Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Duck South studios in Oxford, Mississippi. Joining me today, recording on Tuesday, this time on Thursday, Ramsey, you will be sitting at the other end of the world, correct?”

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Duck South studios in Oxford, Mississippi. Joining me today, recording on Tuesday, this time on Thursday, Ramsey, you will be sitting at the other end of the world, correct?

Ramsey Russell: Yes sir, I’ll be in South Africa, Rocky. Finally, I’ve been home long enough, I’ve done got antsy, I’m ready to move again. We’re going to the Dark Continent, South Africa. And I’ve been there twice. I’m really looking forward to this trip now.

Rocky Leflore: Now, South Africa, I’m trying to think of who – I saw pictures from – they were waterfowl hunting in South Africa last year. Was it Jim?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, Jim Crews and Allison and took their Children down to the Republic of South Africa to bird hunt. We’ve been running a hunt down there since 2012.

Rocky Leflore: I didn’t know that.

“I woke up one morning and thinking to myself, man, I am in Africa, I may not come back. Who knows? I really ought to shoot something, it’s Africa.”

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, check it out on 6 continents, South Africa is one of them. We duck hunt, we’ve been down there – my first trip was in 2011 maybe just scout the place out and it’s wonderful. It’s not just duck hunting now, it’s wing shooting, it’s paradise. The particular hunt they go on, we shoot ducks, we shoot geese, we shoot guinea fowl shoot doves and pigeons we hunt the Franklin over pointers, day to day, big adventure and it’s wonderful hunting besides all that, you’re in Africa, it’s really kind of cool. You’re driving down this road freaking them little blue ball monkeys go running out across the – baboons or you drive along, you look, the old trees are draft peering down at you or you’re easing out along and some of them guinea fowl hunts there, coming up the guinea fowl to drive over the freaking springbucks squirting out across the line, it’s an adventure. And I looked at – and the first time I went, scout out that hunt, I joined a team, I think they were out of Dallas somewhere out of Texas sports and they were doing a big old plains game hunt and then they came over there and hunted where I was hunting for a week. And we bird hunted and there were some dandy guys now, a little intimidating because there I was my old hunting clothes, mostly wax cotton and man they were stepping out every morning looking like the cover of an orbit magazine catalog or something. But we had a really good time and throughout the week I noticed some of them were stepping out and coming back with a zebra or coming back with a critter. I woke up one morning and thinking to myself, man, I am in Africa, I may not come back. Who knows? I really ought to shoot something, it’s Africa. I love to shooting bird, but this is Africa. I mean, maybe I ought to go out and shoot something. I talked to Nathan Asque who helped me set this hunt up, a lot of you all know him through Bullets Safaris, he does really good plains game hunt over there. As a matter of fact he’s hunting 5 countries, he hunts a lot of countries, dangerous game and everything else over there. I called Nathan at breakfast that morning before we went out, go pass shoot spur winged geese and I asked him said Nathan, if I want to go out and shoot an animal. And he told me about some of the animals that were available nearby, but he said, but what I would recommend you shoot would be a black wildebeest because they’re really big right here. They’re really good animals and they’re cheap, that’s what I recommend you go hunt. So, I don’t remember what everybody was going to hunt that afternoon, it wasn’t something that I – doves or something like that and I decided to pass and I told the boy one of the sons at a place where I stayed, hey, will it be okay to go out after lunch, shoot a black wildebeest. He said, oh yeah mate, we’re going to grab one. So, I think he had a 30 aught 6 bolt actions. Some of you all might know or not know but I used to – back before ducks, I used to really like shooting critters. Went down those ranches down in Texas and had virtually nothing to do to exterminate antlerless deer, that’s kind of my job description. We had plenty to do work wise, no planting food plots and fixing windmills and hanging barbed wire fence and all that kind of stuff. But other than that we were 30 miles behind a locked gate, hit the blacktop, take a left you’re 60 miles from Mexico take a right, you’re 30 miles from the nearest wide spot on the road called Garrido Spring, I mean your virtually in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing to do but I ran around the ranch and shoot deer, antlers deer. And we used to like that, didn’t make no money man but I’d spend my afternoons reloading bullets, drinking beer and reloading bullets and go out and shoot them. And I won’t say how many deer I shot those 2 semesters, but it’s a bunch, whole bunch. It was intensive whitetail deer management, trophy deer management. And I had not done that a long time. Shot a few deer, couple of meat deer, something like that, take the boys hunting but I just hadn’t have a big deer hunt. So I’m down in Africa, we decided we’re going to go out to this – it’s all high fence, now don’t get me wrong, this is not Lion King Africa, maybe Tanzania or something, this is South Africa and it’s kind of like South Texas, it’s all high fenced. I mean everywhere, the whole country of South Africa is high fenced but not 100 acres, think 30,000 acres, 70,000 acres, a 100,000 acres of these massive game farm ranches. So, we go out to one and we’re fooling around hanging out and I think the herd knew and he told me, he said there’s a really good bullet here, I want you to shoot. And it comes stampeding bias and I saw him, he stuck out like a sore thumb, you knew which one the big daddy was, so off we go walking. 2, 3 miles, maybe hot and blazes. Africa’s one of them places, it’s cool in the mornings 40° and then when that sun comes out, it bakes you and it may only be 78°, it feel great in the shade step out in that sun and it just beats down on you. That humidity ain’t, don’t make it weather like it does around here but still it’ll get up to 70°, 80°, 90° you’ll break a sweat, we’re walking and walking. Finally, I mean where they at? As we were walking along and see this little animal called a blaze buck, and I said, well, crap, what is that? And he goes, I knew it was a blaze buck, I go, is that a good one? He goes, yeah, that’s a pretty good one. I said, well, screw them wildebeest, I’m going to shoot him, let’s go to house. The minute I pulled the trigger, we hear the thunder of hooves and there goes them wildebeests, well now we see them. We leave him mark him down the blaze buck we go a little bit and out there about 150 yards that big old herd of wildebeest looking at us set the sticks up, shoot our tripod there standing up fully, you just probably get up on it. And it’s very stable, I couldn’t believe how stable it was. But as I’m looking, I see that bull, he steps out kind of towards the end and on the edge of the herd, but I mean, he’s right between me and the setting sun exactly between. I mean, when I put my scope up the sun is like just coming right into the glass. So, I hold my left hand way out, I find shade and knocked the glare off of it, I’m good and stable and now understand I just kind of offhand shot this blaze buck with a bar 30 ought 6. And now this is a little bit longer shot, so I’m getting into – triggers are different. Like my 270, I shot that little Ruger 270s since practically right after high school. My old right trigger fingers is boulevard got all fused up my own little short stubby thing so I bend it at the knuckle, the main knuckle on the fence knuckle, it don’t creep like a regular finger. And I noticed in junior college, when I was styling that gun end at the further out I got the more that gun would creep to the right and I realized it was just the way my little finger was pulling the trigger and that’s back in the good old days, I knew a gun smith, went to him and he filed away on the internal trigger and got it – but when I say it’s a hair trigger, zero creep, 2.5lbs crisp as can be. And a lot of grown men that have borrowed that gun, it unnerved them to shoot it. My wife and daughter can shoot it because they don’t know any better. And then on the other hand, my 300, it’s a standard trigger and I’ve shot it enough now for 25 years but it’s like when you bear down, you really squeeze it’s got a pretty good creep in it. But you feel that creep stop and you’re just a breath from that gun going off, it’s perfect. A barge gun, you don’t have that triggers shoes. I’ve got my hand shading the scope and I’ve got it dialed in on that wildebeest. The interesting thing about African animals, I’ve learned is their heart ain’t where a white tails is. You kind of aim low a little bit behind that front boom down into the heart. I think where African animal is, you go right up front legs, his profile to you in between his brisket and back dead center mass where those hearts are on those African animals. Every one of them. All the plains game center mass, right up from the front leg. And they’re just sitting there looking at me, I start squeezing try not to pay attention to a strange trigger I’m just squeezing and right before it’s too late to take it back. I noticed through the glass she has to just wait the gun went lock. A little bit to the right on him, a little far back, I heard. I knew it off the herd goes. He wasn’t laying down like a buck but he was gone. So, hunter said did you get him? Yeah, I said you didn’t hear it? He go, I heard something, I go yeah, I think I got a shot. He shifted his weight right before that gun went off. Now off we go in hot pursuit now we walk another 2.5-3 miles. And we finally catch up with him, herd sitting there looking at us 100 yards away we come around that little peel, little rock pile, whatever that was. He ain’t hanging around this time, they all look at us, he starts trotting away but he’s in real slow motion, he’s hurting. That boat went in, I’m sticking it up, I got it, he’s 100 yards, he’s 150 yards. I’m sitting there getting leg done to get my gun off all boat, and he gave me a play by play going through his range finder. It was roughly 175 yards that were about 175 yards, this whole thing, he doesn’t gain the steam. He’s kind of going now. He don’t propel them self forward, he gets out there about 225 yards. I’m finally set up, I put it on, boom shoot, he tumbles. And that boy looked back at me go, he says, holy cow, he said, Mr. Russell, I thought you said you couldn’t shoot a rifle, he set it up perfectly Rocky. You know, not many people know that I shot a lot of bullets down in Texas and Mississippi back in the day, a lot of them. And he set it up so perfectly, my favorite Hollywood line ever was Tom Selleck in Quigley down under at the end of the show you remember he had that little pistol fight with that guy and shot the bad guy. The guy said, I didn’t think you could shoot a pill, he said, I didn’t say I couldn’t shoot one, I just said I didn’t have no use for one. I threw that line at that guide and he burst out laughing, he’s seen the movie too. And so I got a couple of big game animals and we continued on bird hunting. And I really had a – it was such an amazing trip. Africa is an amazing, it really is an amazing country. It is more animals and birds and upland and waterfowl diversity and animals and critters, it’s like going to Disneyland for rifle and gun enthusiasts. It’s a target rich environment and you know that –

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, you’re flying to Johannesburg, right?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. That’s the only bad thing about the whole trip.

“All right, so a lot of people are thinking about this as they listen to us talk about South Africa. One of the things that’s going on down there not – and I’m asking is the media over blowing what’s going on down there with these kind of revolutionaries coming in and taking these the white landowners property.”

Rocky Leflore: All right, so a lot of people are thinking about this as they listen to us talk about South Africa. One of the things that’s going on down there not – and I’m asking is the media over blowing what’s going on down there with these kind of revolutionaries coming in and taking these the white landowners property.

“I don’t know, I’ve talked about this, I stay a breath of things like this, right now, it is still a very safe and stable, very light country it really is. And besides that, a lot of the landowners that a lot of these actual hunts take place on are native land owners.”

Ramsey Russell: No, I don’t think it is. Right now South Africa hasn’t been quite as susceptible to it, that’s happening over in some other countries, I hear some places like that and buddy, the media is not really going into depth about what’s going on over there that apartheid thing they kicked off was not good. Because you got to understand European countries moved into South Africa over a century ago. It was colonized by different parts, different countries, different European countries and developed and agriculture. I mean, like the place we were hunting where Jim Crews went that farm was 3^rd generation Dutch farmers and politically slowly but surely it’s going to be taken apart probably not South Africa is drastically or as abruptly as it was done, I believe it was in Zaire where President ran on a platform, it wasn’t worded this way, but it’s like redistribution of wealth that sound familiar to anybody. He ran on a platform right there and basically just said, you old landowners, white landowners can’t own businesses in my country anymore and you can’t own property in my country anymore. And the government just condemned all. And do you know that that country was the bread basket of Africa. Some overwhelming amount of agricultural exports came from that little country in Africa and now they’re neighbors because all land owners moved out next door and set up shop. Now it’s the new bread basket of Africa. I don’t know, I’ve talked about this, I stay a breath of things like this, right now, it is still a very safe and stable, very light country it really is. And besides that, a lot of the landowners that a lot of these actual hunts take place on are native land owners. I mean they are a different color. They’re not all just white landowners, it’s a very diverse land ownership. Even preceding apartheid. There were a lot of folks who did well. I shot a spring buck a couple of years ago, we went spring buck hunting on the Vice President of South Africa’s property. It was next door to the property we were hunting a massive land holdings. So, I know there’s a lot of stuff going on, what the future holds is anybody’s guess but right now it’s still safe and stable. And going down that first time to Africa, I had a really cool time. I shot a lot of neat species but I didn’t get them all. I didn’t get near, I didn’t really scrape much at all of what I went down there for. There’s a bird down there probably one of the most you generic waterfowl species called the yellow bill. And it’s one of the – it’s very similar to the mallard. It’s part of what I call the mallard complex. Which you got the mallard, you’ve got the American black ducks, you’ve got the mottle ducks, you got the Mexican mallard those are familiar species here in the US. You go over to Asia, you’ve got the eastern spot bill. You go down to Australia, you’ve got the pacific black duck. You go to South Africa got the Yellow bill. Heck yeah, I’ve got a mallard call packed both times here they come and call them in. But there’s a lot of cool species, a lot of teal, a lot of cool species down in Africa. And I was going through a waterfowl of the world book just a little bird book, I travel with. I was going through the other day making notes and catching up with it and everything else and of the hunt able species and I’ll never get them all but of the hunting waterfowl species that aren’t endangered, that aren’t threatened, that aren’t extinct, that aren’t protected or something. I mean really and truly the last big frontier for me was scratching off a bunch of birds, not for the collecting purposes, but just for the experience purpose is down in Africa. And that’s what we hope to accomplish this year. I’m working through two new perspective partners. The first stop we’re going to will be – they’re going to pick us up in Johannesburg that’s the worst part, I disperse, I just hate that city. Just imagine Tchula Mississippi, the size of Chicago that’s Johannesburg as far as I’m concerned. That’s got some beautiful area, it’s got some beautiful areas, but I didn’t lose nothing in Johannesburg. But once you get out it becomes very beautiful and the countryside and the habitats and the mountains and it’s just gorgeous. But we’re actually going to head south over a period of 6 days, we’re going to make 3 stops. Geese in the morning, ducks in the afternoon, driven guinea fowl, pigeons.

“How far is the drive from Johannesburg?”

Rocky Leflore: How far is the drive from Johannesburg?

Ramsey Russell: How far will we drive?

Rocky Leflore: Yeah.

“In fact I will tell you from personal experience that I would literally drop a duck up on a fence post and let it sun dry before I paid a South African taxidermist to mount another bird. It’s horrible, beyond horrible and nothing’s right about it.”

Ramsey Russell: We’ll probably end up cumulatively 6 to 8 hours south by moving every 2 or 3 days. And I’ll say this, I love shooting those ducks and geese, but I’m going to tell you this right now, Rocky, I would go to Africa just to shoot those guinea fowl. That was the most fun wing shooting I have ever done. And you know what I’m talking about? I mean, you see them out there in the country, some of these farmers keep, it was like a watchdog of the farm, you know where these guinea fowl, little black and white little speckled birds run around with ugly blue and red head. And we went out there the first time, those boys will – staff and the helpers run out, you will get a line and they’ll jump out ahead in the cover and make like a big old pursing, just start kind of closing in. And I remember one drive we made back in 11 or 12 when I was down there, you can see hundreds of these birds beginning to assemble out in the big – kind of in the center, that little human person they were making and then they started driving them towards us and I was shocked if you had told me that a guinea fowl could fly 50 mph, I was shocked. It was like cannonballs coming over the shooting line when they started flying, it was fun and they eat good. It was fun. I mean, those son of a gun coming right over and I know, the first half dozen or more that flew over me that first shoot I was shooting a foot behind him, I was just shocked. very susceptive, got short wing, big bodies and they don’t appear to be flying as fast as they are, but they are. And it was just a riot. I had so much fun doing that. So we’re going to make 6 days of that, geese and ducks, Franklin, probably an afternoon of pigeons, driven guinea fowl, I’ve told them the one thing we do not want to shoot is doves. They’ve got 3 species of dove and you go out and hunt them just like you hunt doves everywhere in a grain field, set up little blinds and shoot doves. Laughing dove, Turtle doves, some other kind of doves, just dove hunting, we don’t want to do that. And shooting waterfowl over decoys, shooting geese and way they decoy those geese, we’re shooting Egyptian geese and spur winged geese. Spur wing goose is the largest or second largest goose in the world and ugly boy. Maybe that big magpie goose in Australia is uglier, but not by much. I mean just born ugly goose. And they got these big old gnarly 2 inch spurs on their wings but how we hunt those will again be on the form of shooting line down the stretch, usually over a big reservoir and we’ll be decoy them peanut field normally. But the decoy will be behind us 100 yards, big profiles and that’s just so when the birds are coming up off that lake to feed to zone in on those decoys and begin that ascent right over, it’s usually 20-40 yards high. And don’t knock it till you’ve tried, I know people like to shoot birds paddles down where it’s just like shooting a poster hanging on the water, like shoot the TV and you’re dead, this is fun. I really like that kind of shooting. Very challenging and its fun. But we’re going to end up on that 6 days down near the country of Zulu land, which is another province in South Africa. And there we’re going to jump over and meet another outfitter for 3 days, that hunt is going to be less decoying no geese and more jump spot and stalk type of stuff. We’ll pick up a lot of species on the classic hunt but then we’re going to visit another outfitter and he does decoying hunt. But there were really going to be more specific, target specific of what we’re hunting and how we’re hunting, it’s going to be more of an acquisition hunt for clients. And the hunt we’ve been working on for years but the real downside and again, just a reminder I don’t collect species but my clients do. And one of the huge downside historically of hunting in South Africa for birds has been that the export paperwork is in the hands of the local taxidermist. And the outfitter we’ve been working with for many years successfully, that taxidermist is not going to just rubber stamp and ship those skins to American. He’ll do that with big game for some reason but not with birds. And they mount good animals, paying good hides in Africa, they do not mount good birds. In fact I will tell you from personal experience that I would literally drop a duck up on a fence post and let it sun dry before I paid a South African taxidermist to mount another bird. It’s horrible, beyond horrible and nothing’s right about it. It’s not repaired properly, I seen them rot years later, it’s just horrible. So several years ago one of my partner outfitters approached me and we sat down and had dinner and talked and everything else and I was very interested in this program he’s got. But I told him, I was like, Mike I’m interested on one condition, he goes what, I said, I want to legally bring the birds into the United States, I want them to be exported. I do not want to leave them in Africa nor do my clients. I said, show me the paper work, I’ll come visit you. 2 years later, he comes by and we sit down at my booth, pulled out a dossier, here’s how it is. Here’s how it’s laid out. You’ve got a taxidermist onboard blam-blam, he says, we’ll skin them, salt them, leave them. Boom. He’ll ship them over to the United States and you’ll have them mounted in the state. Okay, I’m coming to visit. And state to state, province to province, they call it provinces, it changes a little bit. In Zulu land, we’re actually going to be able to bring the birds home and in in baggage and we’ll have all the export document. Because they’re the government and the taxidermist in the provincial government they’ll do things differently. You go to all the different countries you go to, they all got a different way of doing things. And what we’ve decided we’re going to do is because of species diversity and different opportunities and blah-blah, our new South African hunting package is going to be one the other or both outfitters working cooperatively because let me tell you this Rocky, we’re flying Delta Airlines we’re flying out of Atlanta and South Africa is a long way. It is 16 hours on a plane flying out of Delta. First 12 hours ain’t bad. You watch TV you take a nap, maybe eat a snack, let me tell you what buddy, that last 3 or 4 hours. I’m okay, I’ve been sitting on this plane long enough. That last hour is the worst because you know it’s coming. You see on the map the plane’s about to land but it just won’t get there quick enough, that’s a long way to go. And I was going to go over there and scout, we set this hunt up back in January, I was going to go over and scout and I had a client ask about it, I said, sure you’re going with me, come on with me and he’s been to Azerbaijan, has been to Mongolia, has been to Pakistan has been to a lot, he likes that new kind of stuff, he likes doing real Ramsey stuff scouting and laying things out. And then I had another client joined us and then Ryan Bassham coming being Sitka and Jake Latendresse is coming to film it, so we’re going to have a nice team. I probably could have got 1 or 2 more clients that had asked about it. But because it is exploratory, I just didn’t want to bring too many people. Now I’ll say this, I talk long time about shooting that animal. Shooting that animal over in Africa Rocky, that black wildebeest, it kind of kicked off, very nostalgic feeling something, some little rumblings. And I do deer hunt in Mississippi in afternoons, we don’t duck hunt in the mornings. We duck hunt, we don’t duck hunt the afternoon we duck hunt in the mornings and you sit around and drink, tell lies and cook or go deer hunting till dark and then sit around and drink and tell lies and cook. And so I go out and deer hunt some, enjoy it. And next week sometime I turn 53 years old and on my 50^th birthday I ran across something – I’m all in on ducks and birds, but I ran across something a deal going on down there to hunt and I can tell you all this for guys who want to just go shoot plains game, Kudu and blesbok and Impalas, springboks and things of that nature, man Africa’s cheap vacation and you don’t dare go on the right hunt and not take your wife. Because it is fine, fine as frog’s hair fun, it is a good vacation. Fees are good, the accommodations are beautiful, right around high racks and want to like sightseeing, get off and track some animals, trouble picking back up, it’s just a real fun scenic vacation. And my wife and I went on my 50^th birthday just caught a heck of a deal, we thought and it was a good deal. And I went over there and hunted just the two of us. And we shot some animals and had a great time, didn’t bird hunt a bit. Because I bird hunt a lot Rocky, but for vacation, believe it or not, I don’t want to go shot gunning on vacation time. All my clients go duck hunting for vacation, I want to do something a little different going over to Africa and I really had a good time. You know, my wife had never shot an animal 4, 2, 3 years ago we went over there and she shot three animals, drop them dead in their tracks with that same little 270. We went out to practice with it in the States. She’s a good shot. And we had a great time and we said, if we can ever do this again, it would be great to bring the kids back. And just resting around we found a really good deal just really affordable. And look we ain’t rich people, we’re just plain old middle class people like everybody else and we’ve been saving for this thing a while, but it really was free airplane tickets, we had plenty of miles for that, so we’re going to take our family over there and Forrest and Parker, Anita and myself are going to go and just spend a few days preceding the bird hunting park and shoot some critters really looking forward to it. Looking forward to my kids. Looking forward to watch Forrest knock some animals down. He totally better be sharp, I’m gonna shoot him first to give him a hard time. But before we’re going to do that and it’s a lot of fun. And I’m going to tell you all this, I can’t believe this but if whitetail deer tasted half as good, I mean if they tasted half as good as most of those plains game over there they’d be extinct. Warthog man, you know I like wild hog around Mississippi, it’s all right. I’ve eaten plenty of it since going all the way back to my Texas days. I’ve eaten plenty of wild hog over two years. I ain’t eating no Warthog, are you kidding? I ain’t eating warthog. Wild hogs, one thing but a warthog that ugly looking thing. First time I ever had it they had cued it, smoke it and brought it out with little pineapple on top like a like a pink Easter ham. I could not believe how succulent it was. You start talking Evelyn and Kudu and a little wilder beast and golly sable, which I can’t afford a sable, we can’t afford a cape buffalo. All of them are unbelievable how good they are, it’s unbelievable how good those animals are. And so, well we’re gonna go have a good time for a few days and then they’re coming back when I drop them off at the airport, I’m going spend the night in a little cheap hotel. And then the following morning, Mike’s going pick me up, we’ll go to the airport and receive Jake and all the clients, everybody’s coming in on the same flight, same delta flight. They’ll land about 05:30 PM, we’ll get them through customs and wake up the next morning and go pass shoot geese and shoot ducks. I’m really looking forward to it Rocky and now that we think we’ve got the taxidermy shipped to the US for American taxidermy figured out, I really think – it’s not important to me, but it’s real important to a lot of my clients. They are collectors, they collect experiences like myself, but they also collect little pretty to put around the house. And now that we’ve got it figured out in terms of sheer diversity of species, god I can’t even begin to rattle them all off. 2 species I most want over there, I want the cape shoveler, did not get a shot last time I duck hunted over there, both these guys have got them. I want a cape shoveler. There’s 4 shovelers in the world. Northern shoveler here in North America. Red shoveler down in South America. Australasian shoveler that you can still hunt in New Zealand and the Cape Shoveler. And if I can close the deal on the Cape shelter, I’ll have the world shoveler slam. I don’t collect birds, but it has something to say how many people have killed all the shovelers in the world. And then there’s another species that really probably doesn’t mean much to anybody, but it’s called a Southern Pochard just a plain looking. It looks a lot like a hen ring neck or a hen redhead only darker. And the only reason it means something to me, it’s because two of my favorite species in the world are the rosy bill pochard down in Argentina and that red crested pochard over in Azerbaijan. And there’s 3 poachers in that genus Netta and the 3^rd one is the southern pochard. And if I could just boom-boom shoot those 2 ducks, I’ll be happy. And I’m looking forward to shooting Hottentot teal and red bill teal, I really want to get in some African black ducks. And of course those yellow bills because they work like mallards and that’s my adventure, that’s what I’m looking most forward to. But at the end of the day Rocky, it’s like a client wants to describe. I’ve got this, I’ve got good food, I’ve got good lodging, I’ve got good memories, I’ve got this this raw adventure, I’ve got this species diversity and besides all that, I’m in Africa. Whole big tradition, no matter what you hunted that day, you’re back at camp, take a long time for that red sun set and it’s just every African camp you go to what they call a sundowner. They’ve got a big fire going because remember it’s starting to cool off better have your jacket handy, start to cool off and you grilling duck poppers and little snacks and having a cold beer or cold drink around the fire and just watching that old sky turned blood red, another end of a perfect African day. But yeah, that’s where I’m heading next.

Rocky Leflore: What is the price comparison say going to Argentina?

Ramsey Russell: About the same. It’s the same, yeah, it’s about the same Rocky. We stick in there, we’ve been doing this long enough. I know, there’s people in this world that just want to spend conspicuous amounts of money. I mean hey, you can spend $1,500 a day down in Argentina if that’s your thing, that ain’t my thing, it’s not my client’s thing, there’s a sweet spot in there and just about all the hunts in the world that we deal with are pretty much around that sweet spot of so much a day and all in. But really and truly the package is very comparably priced too Argentina. The difference is going to be that airfare. That airfare is going to run you about $400 or $500 more flying coach, it’s a long flight. Argentina is – leave Dallas and let’s leave Atlanta whole thing ain’t going to just do apples out, leave Atlanta Flight, that flight leaves about 08:30 and show up, 9 hours later, which is perfect. Couple of beers and 5, 10 mg to Ambien and you’re out like a light, you wake up when they start serving breakfast, brush your teeth and the plane lands 30-45 minutes later. Africa is 16 hours that’s haul son. And so it’s going to be a little more expensive ticket. And we’re all flying coach and as much as I travel, I do air miles and I just refuse, I don’t know if I’m too cheap or what, but I just refused to spend miles on upgrades. You know, Rocky, one time they placed me up first class on a big international flight, one time, I don’t want pride or something, but I felt funny sitting up there. I’m not a first class kind of guy in terms of flying. I mean, I’d probably ride duct taped to the wing if I could save a little money on fair right back in the men’s room lavatory, they sell me a cheap ticket back there, I just don’t. A lot of my clients will fly first class, that’s just not my style. I’m happy to be back there with us, regular folks. And I sleep just fine and I watched TV the whole time anyway. That’s one thing, it’s like you’ve heard me talk about going to Azerbaijan and going to some of these Australia and New Zealand when you start getting halfway across the world of nothing, really nothing you can do, but just mustered out. And I warned everybody that’s never been to Africa before this trip, I said, look, you’re going to get there, sleep and do whatever you think you need to do on the flight over, but I promise you your first couple of nights in South Africa, you might have a few cocktails and eat enough dessert it knocks you out momentarily, but I promise you at 02:30 AM, you’re going to be staring at the ceiling, the first couple of nights. It’s just your time is so far off. And at least every time I’ve been halfway across the world, I’m staring at the ceiling at 02:30 at night. And then after a couple of 3 or 4 days starts to sink in and you develop a little bit of habit.

Rocky Leflore: Good night, man. What a traveler. I mean, it’s unbelievable that we are able to be a part in here about these travels and visualize these hunts through you in this podcast.

Ramsey Russell: I hope the next time we meet – I hope while I’m down there, I would really love to just get together paint the picture for everybody. I’d love to get my guide and Jake and Ryan and myself, maybe a client or 2 if they’re up for it, they’re neither one of them big talkers but we could do another little roundhouse, everybody share their experience about what they’ve seen and what they think and what’s so alluring about it, just kind of paint the picture. That’d be a fun little description. But Rocky, I’ve said this before, the good old days are now. To me the good old days now. So many of us think about the good old days and we think of our granddaddies and our daddies back in the day. And a lot of days back in the 60s and 70s man they were on 100 points system. But even then I know my grandfather Russell passed my hero, past at 1984 about a week for my high school graduation. He duck hunted, it wasn’t a passion, it wasn’t a lifestyle. It wasn’t all of these qualifiers that industry media throws out as quantifying hunting, it wasn’t any of that to him, went out with his buddies and duck hunting in the duck camp. They cook, they ate, they hunted, they did a lot, but it didn’t define his loss, he just was a duck hunter, bird hunter, goose hunter. And I would love so bad and drive up to Greenville and see him today tomorrow and ask him what he thought about what I’m doing, what we’re doing, what my clients are doing because I know that back in the mid-80s he could not have conceived of just going to the Jackson Airport Boarding a flight and waking up the next day in ducks somewhere in this big beautiful world of ours 365 days a year. I know that it’s not cheap but you know what? It’s really not – It really is – if you look at these packages, we do to include that airfare, it’s not – you don’t have to be a 1%er, you really don’t. You might have to save your money a little bit, you might have to pick through your budget, you might have to put on the goal but it is affordable. It’s really not. We all work, you don’t work just to pay bills. There’s got to be a prize for all your hard work. Take care of your kids, you take care of your family, you pay your bills, you buy your house, you do your stuff, you build your career and you may have got to reward yourself. Life’s too short not to reward yourself a little bit once in a lifetime, whatever, you know what I’m saying. But it really is doable. It’s within the reach because Rocky, a lot of people might think that my clients are 1%ers, some of them are, most of them aren’t. Most of them are just regular folks like me, middle class. They just save and prioritize and going a few trips. And I think having been there a few times pinning the results of this exploratory trip, I really think that Africa can be one of those big destinations for people. The shooting volume is decent. It’s not Argentina but it’s decent. It’s Mexico and the species diversity and the taxidermy and adventure and the fact that it’s an excellent place, excellent place to bring your wife, excellent place to take your spouse. They will love it. They will. My wife loved it. I even let her shoot a couple of animals, but she loved it besides that. It means nothing to go ride an elephant down in Africa, like we went to a little park and that’s one thing I was going to tell you that time, I took my wife, they started talking about this little elephant park a few miles down the road. And so we took the morning off, drove down there and they came out and gave a little 30 minutes presentation about the elephant conservation and everything else very interesting, I hate to tell you all about our great-great grandkids ain’t going to probably see wild elephants, it’s just a conflict between a big animal with a big home range and a huge appetite versus a burgeoning, explosive population of humanity. They need a big chunk of area and they’re getting smaller and smaller, but I’m not going to get into all that and it turns out that 5 or 6 or 8 elephants they had, they brought out were all orphans. The oldest elephant they had was 20 years old, which is about half grown big. I’d say, he’s 8, 9, 10ft tall at the shoulders, but he’s half grown. They max out their size around 35, 40 years old. And then of course they brought them up, you petted them and did everything but another craziest thing I saw, they were talking about how good the elephant can smell, how good the memory, they’re supposed to be one of the 2^nd or 3^rd most intelligent animals on earth mammals. Second maybe humans, probably more smart than a lot of humans, very intelligent animal. And so there must have been 20 or 30 people in the crowd standing around looking at these animals and kind of get to talk. And he said, hey, I need some of you all to step up. He pointed about 5 or 6 of us, we stepped up and he pointed me, he said, take a shoe off, I took my crock off and held it up and that elephant started touching it with his trunk. He says, say your name, I said, Ramsey. He says, say your name again? I said Ramsey, he said, say your name the 3^rd time, I said, Ramsey. And 8 of us did that. They took our shoe threw in a pile about 5, 10ft behind that elephant. And then threw about 8 shoes and crocs and whatnot back in that pile. And he said, get Ramsey’s shoe and he spun around took his trunk stumble through picked up that camo crocs brought back and handed it to me. That’s pretty cool. They’re smart animals and they’re real family oriented. Like they were saying that they bond because they come in as the orphans, just baby orphans, they bond with their handlers and sometimes they don’t work just 24/7, he’s got to have a day off his family or two sometimes an elephant will be pounding good. It’s bond in there and if they get upset, get in a bad mood, they’re big animals and they can be a little unruly so they have to call the handler to come in and show them everything’s cool. But one thing you don’t see in South Africa anymore are rhinoceroses. Nobody like, the guy we hunted had items, 150,000 – 200,000 acres. And I asked him, I said Christopher, are we going to see any rhinos? He goes, Good Lord, no, you will not see a Rhinoceroses on anybody’s property down here anymore. Ramsey, he said they’re all under protection. They’re all in certain areas literally being protected with machine guns. He said, so dangerous would it be for me to have a rhinoceros on my property this day and age. He said the money that the bottomland poacher gets for that horn, it’s chump change compared to, but it might be two years equivalent income for him, he’ll kill everybody on this ranch to get that rhino, everybody. He says, so they’re all gone. He said it’s too dangerous to have that rhino on us. And he got to tell me – we got back that evening to eat supper with everybody and the reason I went off the road elephants, saw the elephant and went to a little cheetah farm and man look petting them cheetahs, they probably raise from kittens. And petting them was like petting a big old calico cat, I mean they didn’t hardly open eyes. You know, they were so docile. We came back and Anita actually went out that evening, we had a couple of hours and we went out and shot an impala. She went and shot an impala. And we came back, we’re eating dinner and Christopher said Ramsey, you all went to the elephant park and I said, yes. And he goes, do you remember which elephant you rode or you all saw? I said, yeah, well yeah, I don’t remember his name, but it was the big one. It was a 20 year old. He goes, let me tell you a story about him. He said the last rhino just 2 years ago before we got rid of him, we had some poachers come in and poach one of our rhinos. Rocky, this is horrible. They go in and just shoot these things with collision has cause. They don’t just die. I mean, they just butcher them and then when they finally find them living or dead, when that animals are subdue enough, they saw that horn off and leave it there to rot. Off they go and he says – and I could not believe how staff there could track an animal. I mean, it’s like its hard baked earth with a little film of dust on it, track on top of track just a rot of hooved animals. I will never forget one time walking, trying to find a hartebeest, that guy would stop, he’d look at those tracks and he pointed a long bony finger to the right or left or whatever. I’m thinking myself – I’m looking down at them tracks going, he’s lying, he’s just walking around like he’s tracking just hoping we walk up on this thing. I mean, there ain’t, no way must be 200 hoof tracks of square foot. I fell right up to him, them guys can track you hear me? They can track across this hardwood floor, they can track. So Christopher when that rhino got poached to the law of the land down there is a poacher is the lowest of the low, they don’t even get a short piece of rope hung, they get killed on sight. He brought in all the trackers, they couldn’t find these guys, but they knew they didn’t leave somehow or another, they knew they were somehow on that property running a cold camp just waiting to slip out. And he called that elephant farm and all the trackers just was drawing straws, couldn’t find them. He called down to that elephant farm and they brought that 20 year old 22 year old elephant that Anita and I had ridden, they brought him down and they took him to the kill site of that rhino and an hour and a half that elephant trailed those poachers 3 days old, 3 days that Rhino been sitting there rotting and they turned that elephant loose and in an hour and a half, he struck up a 3 day old trail and lead right to those poachers camp where they were killed on sight. That dang elephant tracked them, 3 days old, tracked them right to that poacher’s camp. That’s just unbelievable. And hey, we’re going to have fun. But isn’t that kind of cool, what you learn and see when you reach out around the world. But I believe the good old days are now. The fact that we can just – it just blows my mind and you just go step on the plane, you fly coach and land anywhere in the world tomorrow. My granddaddy couldn’t have – he couldn’t have conceived that. But anyway, Rocky, I’m looking forward to it son.

Rocky Leflore: Man, that’s a long trip, be careful. You come back and then you head out to Argentina and then you’re back for about a week, right?

Ramsey Russell: Yes, I’ll be back. We get back in about mid-June and I’ll be home for 7 or 8 days I think 7 days land on Friday and leave on Friday and then it’s going to be a drive down to Argentina and we’ll be going back to Rio Salado, looking forward to it. And it is wet and it is unbelievable. I had some clients that went last year.

Rocky Leflore: Probably different year. Because it was dry last year.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve said it and I hate to see – we’ve seen those droughts here in the south, where your favorite oxbow is bone dry or soup mud and you’ve seen those drought where these breaks dry up. But you’ve got to have that, a wetland has to have dry periods for the soil to oxidize and everything to do its thing to stay productive. And last year that marsh just dried up, hardly nothing ducks were far and few between relative to Argentina and vegetation restored itself soil oxidized. It caught a big deep breath and man, I’ve got a couple of clients that were down there last year and they enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what they wanted. And we were talking few months ago, I almost said it’s wet and they trust me, they’re good clients and both of them, they hunted yesterday morning got more ducks than they’ve ever shot one of them go to Argentina every year for a month, more duck than they’ve ever shot. They both books for 10 days next year based on the first morning. This morning I had 3 more clients show up. They sent word they wanted to come for the same 10 days based on one morning. It’s unbelievable what a difference a year makes. But I’m going back down there to film. I just want to film a wet year. We got a real nice program down there last year. I want to film a good wet year not just tons of crazy, but we don’t make a kill fest film. We just want to go down and film a wet year and all that good stuff, show the marsh is wet. Then we jump down to Las Flores several weeks with clients. I’m going to jump back up to La Paz, which is a combo hunt joined some good friends and clients and I’m going to finish up with Rio Salado again and come on home. In fact, I’m not even coming home, I’m going straight to Houston Texas for Texas Trophy Hunter event. But yeah, I’ve been home Rocky, I’ve been home for 6-7 weeks and it’s time to hit the road. I got a lot of need to do stuff home done at home, but now I got a lot of need to do stuff on the road. I got to do so at that time of year again.

Rocky Leflore: Well, bud be careful, we’ll get together. I’ll be texting with you while you’re down there. Thank you again, Ramsey. We want to thank all of you that listen to this edition of The End of The Line podcast powered by ducksouth.com.

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