Greatest Retriever Stories Ever Told On The Podcast

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore sitting in the Duck South Studios in Oxford, Mississippi. Happy Independence Day to you guys. You’re probably out watching fireworks tonight. I’m sitting behind a computer putting together another mixtape episode of The End of The Line podcast. Yesterday, we focused on some of the greatest stories told on Mondays with Rob. Today, we’re going to go on a little bit more serious note. Look back on some of those great waterfowl hunters that have been on the podcast, but not so much them, but their dogs. There’s been a lot of great dog stories told on this podcast. I told Pat Pitt a long time ago when we were doing the series with him, never will feel the 100% satisfaction of a great waterfowl hunt without a great dog standing beside you or sitting beside you should say. Get a lot of request, let me start off by saying this to introduce this first clip, I get a lot of requests, a lot of emails, a lot of messages, hey blah-blah, what’s the episode I want to go back and listen to it. One of the most requested episodes that I get a message about is Justin Harrison, better known as Gator to a lot of people from the old msducks.com days and his dog Gauge. The story that moved a lot of people when they heard it. It’s been spread out, told to a lot of people hey, you need to go here this and man, it’s a good one. Let you listen in, pick up that day where Justin tells the story of Gauge.

“I didn’t get into duck hunting until the mid-90s when I was in college. Some of my fraternity brothers, some of baseball teammates they were from the Delta from Louisiana, from South Louisiana, we had a big New Orleans contingent at Southern.”

Justin Harrison: All right, so I bought Gauge in 2001, he was born September the 14^th, 3 days after that infamous day and paid the money for him. I had been out in Colorado interning out in Westminster, which is a northwest suburb over Denver from the summer from May to about the end of August pharmacy stuff working with Walgreens and I saved up, I managed miraculously to save up money, I’d wanted a dog. And I’ve been duck hunting for – I’m 41-42, whatever 76, I don’t even know now and I’ve been duck hunting, I say off and on for 30 of those years and that’s not really fair. I mean we were going and shooting wood ducks and stuff like that in south Mississippi sloughs and that was fine but that’s not true duck hunting. I didn’t get into duck hunting until the mid-90s when I was in college. Some of my fraternity brothers, some of baseball teammates they were from the Delta from Louisiana, from South Louisiana, we had a big New Orleans contingent at Southern. And I just saw these dogs and everything and I was like man, one day I’m doing that. And so I made my mind up when I went out to Colorado, I’m going to have my fun and I did but I managed to put enough back for a puppy. And Gauge wasn’t nothing like, you could look on this pedigree and I think there were 3 or 4 master hunters but nothing like you would see today but it was what I could afford. And I called Mr. Granger down there in the south Mississippi and I went down there and something’s happened and I realized that was the puppy I wanted. Got him, brought him home. After saying that you’re going to have to remind me what the question was Rocky, sorry. Like I start remembering stuff with Gauge and I don’t know how to talk about him. I put him down August the 15^th of 2017 and I’ve not talk anything about him a day. I don’t know. But I was given a dog and I’m sorry if this sounds broken up because it is. I was given a dog – the good Lord smiled on me because I didn’t deserve Gauge and Gauge didn’t deserve me. I was a shit head. For most of his life, I was a turd because I was young and I didn’t know nothing and you can tell me nothing. And when I bought him, I bought the dog without even knowing what I’m even thinking about it, it’s the last time I ever did this, I did something without researching the something. And I bought him had him paid for and then started researching and in 2000 which was when this was or 2001, I’m sorry Richard Walters water dog was still a go to. I don’t understand it, I’ll never understand it. And it was like you do this this and this you pick your dog up after 49 days and brother I was adamant about it. I told Mr. Granger, I said I’m not coming 49 days not coming. The stunning thing I’ve ever heard of in my life, now I’ll look back on it. Oh sure that’s not a bad benchmark but if you’ve got your child being delivered around there or a vacation or something like that, this pup can stay there for a little while. Anyway, do you want to get into this right now? Because this is one of those circles I was telling you about. This includes Raggio, it includes everybody. And it ends up at Mr. Sam. Let’s do it. Okay.

Rocky Leflore: Listen I think a lot of people that are listening to this podcast have those relationships with their dogs like you’re talking about.

Justin Harrison: Everybody does. And I see them, now I’ve got – I’m old enough now, I’m in my 40s, I have parents, my best friend’s mom died this week. And it’s like you’re seeing things that you’ve held dear for so long, go away. Anyway, Gauge and I got started with a very auspicious start. It was Thanksgiving, I was loading my truck, I had him on the back of the truck. Everybody rides around with the dog in the back of the truck right every freaking redneck you’ve ever met, don’t do it if you’re doing it. Well, I just had him up there packing my truck up and I walked inside and the dude just decided he was going to follow me and he bailed off the trucks with the tailgate up –

Rocky Leflore: So, he’s not 3-4 months old?

Justin Harrison: He was born in September and this is yeah, I picked him up LSU Weekend, that’s the only LSU game I missed my whole time at Oxford, I know Jeff that pains you to hear. It was that weekend I picked him up, it was like I picked him up October the 22^nd or something like that. I’m loading up for the holidays, he bails off the truck, lands wrong breaks his front right leg snaps it. I’m inside like a complete shit head, he’s outside, holding his leg up, I run out, I take him to Dr. Lee Pain at Oxford animal, Lee fixes him up, castes them up.

Rocky Leflore: Actually the best animal or dog canine bone doctor probably in South.

Justin Harrison: Lee is great and a lot of people don’t understand or maybe you do Lee is competitive with his dogs too. So, I mean he gets that side of it. I mean these dogs are ultra-athletes and I don’t think anybody realizes that. I don’t think anybody outside of the dog world realizes that. Man, you’ve got to watch their nutrition, you’ve got to watch them, they’re aggressive not towards people, but I mean, if they see an opening they’re taking it, so that’s what they’re trying to do and I don’t think we give them enough credit. I mean these dogs are, they’re insane with what they can do and what they can learn. I mean how many dogs have you heard that have learned to pull the rope on the refrigerator in the deer camp and bring their owner the bud light. I mean they’re out there and that’s just simple stuff. I mean these dogs are learning to take hand signals at 300 yards. So, he broke his leg, he was out that whole season and being the young idiot that I was, I thought I was going to take a four month old dog, move him to duck hunting. It didn’t happen, thank God. And next year rolls around and we had been training with the good Mr. Walter’s handbook. And we get almost through this season, well actually it was through my season I was fixing to have some tests really pick up and was not going to be able to hunt anymore. And Gauge’s with me, we’re on an unnamed WMA in Mississippi, North south Central, piss on new people that one of them and we’re couple of ducks short of a limit. And to come in a couple of mallards shot of a good drake and 2 come in and I shoot 1 stone dead and one falls further away there’s dozens and dozens of people that have heard the story you’re about to hear. But a lot of people from falls having. The cripple falls and start swimming away and I could a – and number one Gauge was broke, which he always did that year.

Rocky Leflore: He was a puppy.

Justin Harrison: Well yeah, but I hadn’t done what I needed to do and I don’t want to get into all the training philosophy and everything, I just can’t tell you what I did. I couldn’t pull him off the dead bird, the stone dead bird to get the cripples. The cripple got away across deep water that I couldn’t get to. So, the bird died at some point, I don’t know and I can remember walking out going there’s got to be a better way. So, I posted on MS Ducks that story and Travis Bruce, Goose Bruce, who does not get enough credit for bringing people to the dog training world. Travis is still, I think he likes golf and Memphis State more than anything now. And Travis what man? Why? But Travis brought more people into the dog training world and had fun with them. I know because I’ve been at the hunting Tess with him than any human being I’ve ever met. He was the greatest ambassador for the hunting retriever club that I’ve ever seen and he never got the credit he deserved ever.

Rocky Leflore: Hey Justin, don’t you have pictures from Gauges last hunt?

Justin Harrison: I do. And I’ll never forget that hunt because it’s full circle, I’m glad you brought that up. Did you have a specific question or do you want me to –

Rocky Leflore: No, I want you to walk through that last hunt real quick.

Justin Harrison: The last hunt. Okay. I’ll never forget this as long as I live and every time I think about it and my voice kind of cracks, I hope everybody understands. So, if you remember the hunt, I told you where I got started with everything. There was a bird that 2 came in and one went out and we never got it and Gauge had gone years without breaking Rocky and Jeff, I mean years. I mean, he just learned the game. He just learned that if I see it, I’m going to get to go and if I don’t, dad’s not going to let me go. And if I can digress for one second, Ramsey and I – the funniest year I ever had hunting was in 2008 or 2009 and Ramsey and I hunted otters. It’s when I was introduced to L’Anguille, Ramsey and I hunted, otters in off Plymouth Massachusetts. And then I took him to a place that I hold dear for 7 straight days. And somewhere along those 7 straight days, I don’t know what to do – Ramsey looked at me and said, you talk to Gauge like I talk to my kids. And I was single at the time understanding and all that and certainly didn’t have kids. And I said, well, I mean that’s just kind of the way we communicate. It’s the best way. Anyway, so the day I retired Gauge, he was 14. He had hunted 14 – I mean it’s hard. I mean, I knew he had lost and I knew he’d lost a lot of his hearing. I’d never seen him on a long retrieve. Rocky, we’re hunting a lot of the ponds and if I knew it didn’t happen. I just wasn’t going to put it in a lot of mess. We’d play the wind, picked the birds up, you know the pond I’m talking about. And one of my great friends, I’ve hunted Alaska for sea ducks and the harlequin, Chris called me and said, hey, we’ve got birds up at Rosewood, up north Indianola, right around Indianola. And I said, okay. He said, come on. he said, well, kind of plan on hunting Gauge and he said, bring let’s go. And man, it was a hard freeze. And we broke ice and we broke a hole up and we were hunting flat water and after the first few birds, I would send Gauge and I could just see in the way he react, it was like, I’m tired of this. And it’s the first time I ever saw that dog, not like peel out to go get a bird. And there was 3 of us and we were 2 birds short on a limit. And I had already sat there looking at it. It was such a definite thing. I had walked all the way back to the car, which wasn’t far to my truck and grabbed the dog stand and we were hunting on the bank in the trees. I mean, we weren’t wet, but I picked, I brought the dog stand by and put it up on a tree so he could just get off the cold, muddy ground. I can just tell, Rocky. I could tell we were saying bye to something. And 2 mallards came in, I don’t even remember who shot. I don’t know that I did, hell Jeff seen me shoot. I probably didn’t hit him and one fell dead and one fell swimming away and for the first time in forever Gauge broke and he brought that bird back – let me back up. He brought but he stopped on the whistle and I gave him a hand signal and he picked up the cripple and he came back and he handed me the bird. I looked down at him. I told him, I love him. I’m sorry. That’s a tough one to remember but he brought it back and I looked at Chris and I think we have some off ducks left or something and I said Chris I’m going to take my dog back to the truck and you all – we had a couple of more, I think – we had a couple of more off ducks and Chris and Alex knew actually what was going on and they’re like yeah man go. And Gauge and then I walked back and I was talking and then it’s kind of like, when you retire you would like to live life a little while. But most times when people retire – I don’t think people appreciate work enough. Most times when people retire what’s the first thing you frickin happened? My technician retired a couple of years ago and I said you’ll be dead within 6 moments. Sharon don’t do it. I mean kind of the way things happen and you don’t really get to enjoy anything because people don’t realize how fun what they’re doing right now is. Anyway, I’m spilling my soul out. Yeah, that might be the whole world I guess but I don’t mean to but Gauge was great dog. He was never ever a good hunt Tess dog, ever. I’ll never say that about him, but he was a damn fine hunting dog that I think anybody would have enjoy it. And Rocky and Jeff, honestly, man, I’ve been kind of gone for a while and the milk is on the floor and I hunted one time this year and that was only because Law dog go Alex asked me to go with him. Beautiful hunt didn’t kill a damn thing, but it was a great hunt, it was timber and I just haven’t. And Trapper’s 12, I mean and he’s deaf. We shoot over these dogs, we don’t realize what we put these dogs through.

Rocky Leflore: Another one that’s talked about a lot is the episode we did with Pat Pitt and Patrick and Stephen Pitt when we talked about their dogs. This first clip, you’re going to hear about why – not only Pat but his sons think that it’s important have a good retriever on a waterfowl hunt. Mr. Pat stretching over your whole water fowling career. Look, I know that you’ve had some good ones, but is there one that sticks out more than any of them?

Pat Pitt: I thought you were going to say that today and it is physically impossible for me to – it wouldn’t be fair to the dogs I’ve had for me to name one. Ace was a great dog, a week after I had my heart attack or 9 days or whatever were, I was in the duck pit with the dog the last day of the season and he picked up his 7000^th bird. And 2 years later he picked up number 8000^th for me. But I’ve had dogs that were blue ribbon, blue blooded that would do anything that I ask and even more. I’ve got one right now that blew a knee out and we put a knee implant in him, which was something new at the time several years ago and 10 days later he was hunting, once we got the stitches out. And the other dog I’ve got right now, I don’t know his limitations because he amazes me with some of the marks he makes and some of the blinds he runs. I mean, I’ve had 8 dogs. I mean, starting with the dog, it was given to me by a doctor in Chattanooga that was out of milo kennels out of a field champions, male and female that I didn’t know anything about training. I was throwing a tennis shoe over the neighbor’s 4ft fence and he’d jump it and pick it up and jump it and come back and he tried to retrieve a deer for me out of the Tennessee River one time. I mean, it was kind of on the job training and I’ve had to Chesapeake’s that were super phenomenal dogs. I’ve had father son dogs, the only puppy that other than one Chesapeake that I ever raised out of a dog, I had named Lucky that was qualified all age. That was as good as a dog as you’d ever want to hunt. And his son Clipper came along and he’s buried in front of one of our duck pits. I can’t – in my mind go on record as saying, I like this dog the best because it wouldn’t be fair to the other ones and when I get to wherever they are, 7 of them are going to bite me. Each dog has done things special. I learned to hunt with one dog and I’ve been with these dogs that have made retrieves that just bring tears to your eyes and seeing the heart that these dogs have had is special. And I’m not copping out on the question, that’s the best I can do.

Rocky Leflore: No, I think that was a great answer. Patrick, you said it best. And last week when we were – after the podcast was over with you said it best when – and I’ve heard Tony say this, I think you said in that video about rough, all duck hunters are guaranteed one good dog in their lifetime. How’s the saying go Patrick?

Patrick Pitt: It was something along the lines of – you only get one good dog. And I don’t believe that to be true, that’s what we were talking about because it’s up to you to get that good dog. That is saying is, it costs just as much to feed a bad one as it does a good one.

Rocky Leflore: That’s a great saying too.

Patrick Pitt: So I mean that’s why, dad was missing before we started recording tonight, but he’s given away and sold dogs that have made great dogs for other people, but they didn’t make a great dog for him. And everybody’s got their own caliber personality, everything that they’re looking for in a dog. And if you can continue to find that you can continue to have great dogs because like that said, I mean, he’s had 8 and I’ve been alive for 7 of them and I can remember hunting with 5 of them. So, I mean some of the stuff that he’s talking about like, I can picture in every one of those dogs.

“I’ve been blessed to have a woman my wife that is nominated for sainthood by several people and 8 good dogs. And like I say, if I set my fights and expectations high and if the dogs don’t measure up to that, I find them a good home.”

Pat Pitt: Well, my side of the coin too is, everybody should have one great dog in their life. I’ve even upped the ante on that. Everybody should have a good woman and a good dog once in their life, I have been blessed to have a woman my wife that is nominated for sainthood by several people and 8 good dogs. And like I say, if I set my fights and expectations high and if the dogs don’t measure up to that, I find them a good home. And I’ve got to thank Chris Akin in Bono Arkansas for training, I guess 4 of these dogs the last 4 I’ve had. And Chris knows how to match up dogs to an owner. And I’ve been buying finished dogs, I don’t have time to raise a puppy because I got to go hunting and I would tell Chris and say, look, I’m fixing to have to retire a dog or I got one that’s not going to make it till next year or whatever. And he gets on the road to find me what he calls a dog that likes to duck hunt as much as I do. And he’s been real good at it. That’s all I can say. And he has trained the boy’s dogs too. He trains Josei and in a lot of boom and they’re dear to these guys and they think just as much of them because you become a team with a dog. It’s just like, I don’t care if you got a bird dog that you like to hunt with or whatever, I think labs have more personality than any of them. But you become a team and the dog depends on you to put him in the direction of a bird on the blind. The dog depends on you to be able to kill the duck for him. And you depend on the dog to keep you from having to swim the water or the way the mud. The only time I’ve hunted without a dog in the last several years, every duck I killed in a muddy bean field, I crippled and had to run him down myself. Now, the fat guy running across the bean field, it’s funny for about the first time, but when it gets to number 6, it’s not nearly as fun anymore. But I just refuse to hunt with a dog. And like I say, we have people come into the LLDC and they’ll bring their dog and it’s like, yeah, I can throw a dummy as far as I can and he can get it every time. That ain’t even the tip of the iceberg, I don’t like a dog breaking, I don’t want to see something going on out of the corner of my eye when it’s dangerous, number 1. But I don’t want to see a dog get hurt, but you’re out there and if you’ve got a 30 minute or a 2 hour window to kill ducks, you don’t want to spend half that time messing around with a dog that won’t mind, that won’t handle, that won’t mark, that won’t do anything. Because we’ll run two dogs at a time and we’ll have a flock of teal come in and sometimes kill 8 and 10 of them and 5 minutes later we’re hunting again because every bird is picked up and we hadn’t got out of the pit, so that’s what I demand and expect from a dog.

Rocky Leflore: True or false. A duck hunter will not understand the maximum satisfaction of a duck hunt until they have a good dog.

Pat Pitt: True.

Patrick Pitt: No, that’s definitely true.

Pat Pitt: That’s a no brainer.

Rocky Leflore: I fully agree with that. Man, I had one good one – I’ll say this and I’m not going to tell my story, this is you all’s time but I had one awesome dog. And at the dog that followed the awesome dog, he was great. I mean, if we grade them out, the first one was A plus and the next one was A minus. But man, I had a connection that dog knew what I was thinking, I knew what the dog was thinking. I could watch that dog. One of the key things to all this crazy face mask, face paint world that we live in now, you don’t need it, just keep your head down and watch your dog’s eyes is all you have to do.

Pat Pitt: Yeah. I know Stephen’s dog Josie was a classic example of that, the closer the ducks would get, the lower she would get in the dog box and she would back up in that dog box as far as she could kind of like loading and F14 into a catapult. She was sitting on G waiting on O and I can remember watching her eyes light up as the birds got closer and if I lose duck, when I know they’re in close, the first thing I’ll do is look where my dog’s looking. And I tell people that are hunting with me, if you don’t see the ducks that we’re fixing to shoot watch me. I’m watching them or my dog, one is watching them most times both of us. But yeah, I think it ought to be against the law to hunt without a good dog personally. I’m going to say or at least an average or better dog. I mean, there’s a lot of dogs that will get the chicken don’t get me wrong, but until you hunt with one that’s polished that knows as much about it as you do, you’ve missed out on 50% of what waterfowl hunting is all about.

Rocky Leflore: And that first segment with the Pitts, you heard how important a retriever is to waterfowl hunting to – how important they are to the owner and hunter and handler themselves. Moving into a little bit of a more serious note with the Pitts in the same episode, they talked about some of the most iconic and last retrieves of dogs that just stick out in their minds. There’s some great stories, these next 3 segments are why this is one of the most requested and most listened to episode of The End of The Line podcast.

Stephen Pitt: My 21^st birthday, a good friend of ours, Larry Redmond had wanted to give my dad a dog and dad was like, well I really don’t need a dog, but since you’re going to have a litter of puppies, I want you to give it to my son Stephen. He’s like, well sure, you’ve done so much and I just want to give you a little bit of gratitude. And I said, well that’s nice. So, we were in the South Dakota turkey hunting when we get a phone call from Larry and says, well I hope you want a female and we just kind of laughed and Larry said, well that’s all it was born, was one female lab. So, I got her back then on my 21^st birthday. So, we’ve been hunting not that long and this year was our last hunt and like, I told you earlier was the hunt I kill a merganser on and we hunted out there just me and her together on that last day of duck season this year and it was tough knowing it. I mean, just sit there at the opening day of duck season, I got to hunt with her and I kind of told myself, I’m going to hunt as many days as I can take her and I hunted her this year I think all but two days that I went just and I kept saying – I don’t think she’s got it I’ll let her sit it out but 13.5, almost 14 she went with me every hunt this year. And like Patrick said towards the end, some of those hunts where we had good hunts and her she was stiffing up and I’d have to pick up out of the pit, run her down. But that last hunt it was really special and just be able to share it just me and her, just sit there in the pit and having a conversation with her and thank her. But it was special, I can’t and she’s not like, dad said, she’s done so many special retrieves and it’s never been like you said or you can grade the dog A plus, A minus and she was definitely my first one and it’s going to be talked tough to be her from my first dog. But she definitely she didn’t – for a female, she definitely didn’t – not your typical female. I mean she’s more of a male in how she acted in her driving her speed and how she was built. I mean she’s built more leggy dogs like actually more like a looks like a male almost because a lot of people would think that’s what she was but she was special for me. She still be here today and I’m thankful I got to do it last time and know it’s going to be my last time. That’s what I always told Patrick and dad is like I just want to know that this is going to be her last hunt so I can set it up the way I want it to happen. And I was lucky to the conversation because I’ve had friends who I didn’t get to realize that that was going to be the last hunt and they just kind of look back and wish I could have done something different. But just knowing that this is her last duck, I’m going to be sure this was going to freezer for dad to mount it. And dad’s got quite a few mount for me on that hunt because actually he’s going to do for 4 the last – Actually 7 ducks she picked up are going to get mounted. And I’m going to do them on the dead out for me. Well, 3 more did not want them separate. So, just a little special for me and her both just to remember each other of.

Rocky Leflore: Well speaking of last retrieved Mr. Pat, having the dogs that you did, I’m sure that you remember a couple of them their last retrieves.

Pat Pitt: Well, Ace’s 8000 wasn’t his last retrieve but when I decided to that he wasn’t going to be able to go anymore. He had the heart but didn’t have the wheels. And matter of fact I took him to the same pit that Patrick had hunted a lot of them on her last hunt. And it was a morning where it was windowpane ice and a stiff wind blowing and ducks were hungry looking for open water and I got in there and I killed a couple of green heads early and he labored so hard to pick those birds up and a dog that used to run like a Ferrari was, like a VW beetle or something and it broke my heart to see him go, trying to do what he knew to do at the speeding used to have and not be able to and I didn’t shoot the limited ducks that day. The 3^rd green head that – I don’t know, if it was a pair or a single, the 3^rd green head came in that hard north wind we had, I didn’t get out in front of him enough and shot his landing gear out and just barely wing tipped him and he fell 2-3 levies over. And of course I marked him. He was a hell of a marking dog. And I could have sat down and read war and peace by the time it took that dog to go get that duck, find it crippled and bring it back. And I mean he got back to the pit and stood there and held a duck and I took it from him and I said, that’s it buddy, we’re going home. So, I’m headed back to the duck camp with my 3 mallards and I’ve got that last duck mounted along with his 8000^th duck and that’s just one of many. But that one really stands out in my mind because I quit when I did out of respect for him, because I felt like I was punishing him and it wasn’t like he wouldn’t go, he would run in front of a train for me if I asked him to but out of respect for him. I was happy and he was proud and we went back to the camp house and he got to warm up in the boot room and whatnot. And it’s just little things like that stand out in your mind. I mean there may be little to some people but their paramount to me.

Rocky Leflore: Well, Patrick you had a good story that you were going to tell, I’ll let you go into that.

Patrick Pitt: Yeah. My first dog was a Chesapeake and I’m kind of like dad on his first dog. I learned as much from him as he learned from me. But my second dog dad bought me a 14 month old lab puppy out of Chris Akins dog Boomer who had just won the 2003 Super Retriever Series. And her name was Lady Boom. At the time, he bought her 14 months old, she weighed 30lb. She was a little bitty fireball. I mean she was wide open all the time and she lived with me in college, she lived with me when I moved to Alabama to work for a taxidermist, she knows that her and I for a long time and that you’re talking about the dog that you spent – I spent 15 years with her. She made her 15^th birthday and a month later I had to put her down. But 2 years ago I made her final hunt with her and leading up to it, I told dad I want to go somewhere just me and her. And I know dad wanted to hunt with me, I know Stephen wanted to hunt with me but I told them both I want to be by myself, I want to be just me and her. So, I was able to pick a pit the last morning of a duck season and go by myself. It has been one of the slower pits, but I knew I could go in there by myself and kill a limit of ducks if everything lined up like it was supposed to. And get out there with her just a few minutes after shooting time, I killed the spec and she picked it up and a few minutes after that I had a flock of teal hit the decoys and I tripled and she picked all of them up and then we sat there for a little while. And I could have killed the shoveler, but I didn’t want to because I could not let that dog last up to be a spoon as much as I killed my fair share of them and I’ll shoot the next one in the decoys, it don’t bother me, but I couldn’t do that to her, I wasn’t going to make her last duck spoon. So, I killed a green head – an hour goes by and I killed a green head, so got 5 ducks and a goose, I’m waiting on that last duck and working a pair of mallards and they come around downwind, just like they’re supposed to, hit the hole and I killed a green head and I send her, and of course I’m choking back tears as I call her name again. And at that point in time, I really didn’t even have to call her name because she was about deaf. She almost couldn’t hear. And most of the time she still – she stayed a little dog all the way through at the end of her hunting career she only weighed about 50 pounds. I just reach over and put my hand on her stomach and just shove her out of the dog box, picked her up one handed and set her out because she’s having trouble jumping and she couldn’t hear, but she knew if I put her out it was time to go. So anyway, I’m choking them back and get her out and the duck has fallen about 10 or 15 yards from the levee and then when she got to it, it rolled over and flopped to the lake. So, I lost it in the rice stubble there against the levee and of course at her age that duck was a lot faster than her. But when it hit the levee, it stopped and she picked it up and as soon as she stepped up on the levee I saw something flash and I was crying. I couldn’t believe it at first and she took about two more steps and I could see it shining big as day. She brought me back a band for her last duck. I had not killed a banded mallard in like 5 years. I was on a serious drought.

Rocky Leflore: Dude, that is awesome.

Patrick Pitt: Yeah, I couldn’t have scripted a better final hunt with me and her.

Pat Pitt: You couldn’t write a better script.

Patrick Pitt: She made well over 4000 retrieve for me in her career. Because I don’t get to hunt like that, I’m not retired yet. But the last duck she brought to me was a banded green head.

Rocky Leflore: Wow man. What an ending story to a great career.

Patrick Pitt: No, it was incredible.

Rocky Leflore: And the Pitt’s can tell a story about a dog. Just like Justin Harrison’s episode and Guage. One of the other most requested and most listened to episode is the episode with Steve Horn. It’s an episode that I recorded back last year, back in the spring. Steve had a duck camp right down the road from my lodge, Mossy Oak Outfitters for years. And him and his dog Tess were on a hunt right at shooting time, but his dog was shot on the hunt. Now, speaking from the vets, husband and hunter’s point of view, there was no way in the world this dog was supposed to make it. But it’s an amazing story, I’ll leave it at that and we open that story up right now with Steve as they head out that morning on December the 14^th, I think it was 2009. It’s an amazing story you want to stick around for this one, here it is.

Steve Horn: And so that particular morning, it was a Sunday morning December 14^th, we all driving from Arizona up here. We of course got up a little bit earlier than normal and got up there and got situated just parked on the pond levee here at where the fish ponds are and then we’ve got another 260 acres of CRP that’s close by and we all loaded up and went over to the woods. And at that particular time to, we were all flooded. And one thing you can depend on in the delta appears whether weather or not to be dependable nor know if you’re going to be flooded from one year to another and that’s just – at this particular time there is – at this particular time we were going in and out with boats, it was about a mile run back in there. And we were either walking, pulling mud, walking down the levee and putting the decoys etcetera in the boat and getting all set up, we broke into 2 different groups that morning, Brett and his bunch went north of where we were hunting and I got –

Rocky Leflore: What was the weather like that day, Steve?

Steve Horn: Great question. It was really overcast. It was dark and it was one of those mornings that you knew that if you ever got in here and got set up, you’re gone wax, it just wasn’t even doubt about. It was a little mist in the air, it was cloudy, it was low cloud cover.

Rocky Leflore: That’s right. I remember that now. I remember it being

a low cloud day.

Steve Horn: Just about the time, you would hit them 2 or 3 times, they just lock up and fall in there because they were looking for a place to go. And we had one of those mornings started and we got in there about – it was way before daylight and so by daylight and shooting time which was about 06:30 as normal, ducks started coming in there and we started pounding them. And duck came in and I will have to give you a little heads up, if I pause it’s because I to this day have trouble telling the story or talking about this. But duck made a swing. I remember just like now. The duck came in behind us made a swing to the left of me which was the south and broke back around and when I dropped the duck and when I shot the duck it hit the water and big old green head hit the water and I looked at him. A friend whom I was hunting with and I said shoot that cripple but don’t shoot my and I didn’t get it out of my mouth. I was going to tell him don’t shoot my dog because Tess had broke. And that’s why you need a steady dog number one, if you – you need a steady dog. But anyway she broke and went for the duck and the person that ended up shooting her thought it was just looks like a duck had coming through the water, we got a cripple shoot the cripple we all do it. But this just happened to be my dog.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah. And I’ll say this Steve, I will say this right here. For anybody that would sit there and say, well, should have made sure of what you’re shooting at. Look at the first shooting light, it happened to me. My father in law shot my dog on the first set of ducks that came in, the dog had been sent, we have knocked 3 ducks down. Father in law, I told him to shoot a cripple while – and I thought that he had saw and he saw me send the dog. When he ended up thinking that the dogs head in the early morning light, low cloud day. He was 55 years old, starting to lose his sight, hearing aid, blah- blah, shot across the dog. I’m not trying to out story you anything, I’m just saying, don’t act like I know what’s going to come from this man. The guy should have been sure of what he was shooting at.

Steve Horn: Well he was. He was sure, what it was. Went to him and the way he saw it and the way the weather was – and I’m telling this is not like a bright sunshiny bluebird day. I mean, this is overcast misting rain and it’s already poor light conditions because it was 6, it couldn’t have been pass – the dog was shot at 06:40 in the morning. I know the minute it was shot.

Rocky Leflore: So, probably 5 minutes after shooting time.

Steve Horn: Yeah. It was just barely getting light enough to where you could pick a duck out and know if it was what it was and shoot it.

Rocky Leflore: Well, my point in all that was just don’t stick your nose up in there or whatever and sit there and say the people that are listening to this and say, oh this wouldn’t happen to me, bullshit. It can happen to anybody in these conditions.

Steve Horn: Absolutely. And that the big word here is accident. It was totally an accident. Nobody, I don’t think that you’re duck hunting with, if you send your dog to pick up one of the birds or your birds, nobody’s going to say, hey, I think I’m going to shoot your dog. I mean that’s not what’s happening. I mean it was a pure accident, but I got to tell you something, the guilt that those people carry for shooting your dog or shooting an animal is unbelievable. The guy that I was hunting with quit. I mean, he just almost for a year and a half, 2 years he just didn’t wanted to go. And that’s not how that needs to work out. Look, accidents are accidents and that’s what this was. And fortunately, when we get to the end of this, we can say some good stuff that came out of it.

Rocky Leflore: Steve, let me ask you this. So, it happens, did the dog yelp? How did you know because – how did you know what had just happened?

Steve Horn: When I said, don’t shoot my and the gun went off the dog –

I’m sorry?

Rocky Leflore: You saw it, you saw his grief.

Steve Horn: Oh, I did. The dog came straight up out of the water. I mean, just like, it had stood up on a log under the water just came straight up out of the water as fast as she could and yelped. And of course I need to sit on the God, you shot my dog. And I went tearing out there to pick her up and somebody had gotten a boat and started bringing a boat over there to her and I had scooped her up out of the water because I didn’t wanted her to drown. But she was still flopping and fighting, paddling and trying to maintain balance and all kind of stuff. I finally scooped her up, got ahold of her and scooped her up and the guy had the boat right there at the same time and I put her over in the back seat of the boat at the very transom of the boat laid her out and she had the vest on. So, I took the vest off, of course, she was still and going into shock. I had taken several years ago – taken a CPR course when a dive rescue the scuba dives, and I took a CPR course and I tell you, it’s the same set of circumstances in the dog as it is pretty much with the human, they get trauma, they’re going to go into shock. And obviously this dog was – she shot in the head, and I can’t figure anything out what’s going on. I stripped the vest off of her and start heating up her body and she’s struggling breathing and I’m thinking that – and I started giving her chest compressions. Because I couldn’t really tell if she was going into – having a heart attack or what the real issue was. But after I finally started doing the chest impressions, I felt of her chest had a really strong heartbeat. So, I knew that then that the injury wasn’t part of her body, that it was more in her head. And I picked her up to try, she seemed like she was struggling breathing and I picked her up, got her head up and started doing mouth to mouth on her and I hate to give you the grisly details. But when I got her mouth up to my mouth and I was blowing through her nose, man blood just shot everywhere out the side of her face and everywhere because she had so many holes in her cheeks and in her jaws and you weren’t going to close that up and get air in her. But I also noticed at that time she was pretty much just breathing on her own, so that wasn’t a problem. And she did continue to go steadily into – go deeper and deeper into shock. But I took my coat off and there was another couple of guys threw jackets in there and we had her all wrapped up and kind of had her warm when we got her in the boat and got situated – of course the hunt was over with. I mean everybody’s within that, everybody just destroyed, everybody that morning. And we finally walked her out which took us – I don’t know how long it took, it took an eternity to me.

Rocky Leflore: So, you rode the boat – you had to ride the boat back to where your camp is now, where you all had parked, right?

Steve Horn: No, we were just coming out of the CRP. The CRP was flooded. So, the water ran up on my south property line, which is a levee over there. The water kind of ran up so we didn’t have a motor on the boat, we were just using the boat kind of sled stuff in and out. I mean it wasn’t really deep enough to run a motor. And I’ll tell you this, Brett Mosley is the one who pulled that boat out by the way. Brett was an athlete. He played baseball up at Delta State and strapping boy. And man, he got to hold that boat and we went out. I was so devastated, I didn’t really – I didn’t know what was going on. So, they took control of the situation, they got that boat, got us headed out and Brett, best of my recollection, Brett Mosley drug that boat all the way up there to where we can get to a vehicle. And we got her loaded up and got her back over here to where we had parked on the levee. And my brother got in the backseat and of course I was driving, he got in the backseat and had her – and he was holding her in his lap with the jackets and stuff. And she was still – I mean, her eyes were – from what I’ve learned from your wife and some other people, when you have head from your eyes do certain things, well hers were not going from side to side I don’t think, I think they were flickering up and down. I mean constantly. There was no focus, nothing that. The eye was constantly moving up and down, they were dilated, I mean it was all kinds of head trauma going on. And Larry and I just grabbed her up to in the truck and man Brandon Harvey had said – I told him I said, Brandon I don’t even know a veterinarian up here and I need to have some – he said, you need to call Roane Leflore that’s Rocky – Roane, they’ve got Mossy Oak Outfitters down there. So, Roane is a veterinarian, I will get her on the phone and tell her you’re coming. And so they told me where the clinic is and they handle the phone calls to her and Larry and I just tore out to go to Greenwood Dr. Johnson’s office I think it was, and it didn’t take us long to get there. I do remember one silly thing I did, we got up there about Quito and I was running about 110 and I had just gotten a brand new dog kennel and that sucker looked like a Spaceship coming out of the back end of that truck, I just have to look up. It flew up in there, you don’t want to go 110 mph with plastic dog chair in the back of the truck. And for some stupid reason I guess, I hit the brakes to go back and get the god damn dog carrier. I mean, you never know what you’re going to do in a panic, I got down there and I drove – all I had to do was drive by because there wasn’t much to pick – there wasn’t anything left to pick up. And turned around, I got to Roane and they had everything ready for us. And I don’t know if you remember this or not but that was that morning they got broken into. And they’re receiving cops were there – Yeah, police were there man, Roane had called all the staff and they all were fully staffed on a Sunday morning and this had to be gosh, quarter to 8, 8 o’clock maybe by the end, at the most. And we got to the clinic, I carried her immediately in there. They put her in that exam room that’s right there behind check in and she had already had warm conferences working and had drips set up. I mean Roane was incredible. I will never forget her.

Rocky Leflore: Well, Steve when you brought her into the clinic gather on the table, I hate to ask this if you were – even if you remember this because you can tell it from somebody’s eyes, their body language. What was Roane’s initial reaction to seeing Tess?

Steve Horn: The best of my knowledge she was very intent on helping that dog, I can tell you that. She was very serious. She didn’t show any emotion while I was standing there, while she was working on Tess, there was another lady in there I think. Ms. Mary does that sound right?

Rocky Leflore: Yeah.

Steve Horn: A lady that worked for her. And then there was another guy that was in there and I guess the greatest thing about all this is, is that Ms. Mary is the one that started praying for my dog right there. And Roane kept her composure and continued to work on Tess. She set her up on a double drip. She had a drip in both front legs. She had given her – I think she had given her some probably pain meds I don’t remember everything that Roane did, but I think what got Roane is that, we were all out or I was with my brother we were out in the lobby we were like, she said, I got two grown men crying like babies out in my reception area. And it got to her eventually, I mean she got emotional about it but that was fine. Because she had gotten Tess warmed up by then. She had put all – we had her in layers and layers and layers of blankets. They had done everything that they could possibly do and then what she was doing was setting us up because she kept telling me, she said, I don’t really have everything here that I need, you’re going to have to take the dog to Mississippi state, if anything positive is going to come from this and she said, I’m not going to give you a good prognosis on this. She said, Tess is hurting bad.

Rocky Leflore: Did she do an X-ray on Tess’s upper body, head before going to Mississippi State?

Steve Horn: No, I don’t remember her doing that. No, as a matter of fact since it’s steel shot, we get graced by our illustrious federal control government that we can’t shoot the lead steel shot. Once you get the steel shot, if it’s in their head they can’t do anything, they have to – I think we ultimately got out of it, we couldn’t do the MRI because it’s metal and of course those magnet would kill her immediately. So, we finally got her over to the state, we did a CT scan, I think of some kind that didn’t have that negative effect that that MRI would have had.

Rocky Leflore: I think one of the most telling parts of this story is, when they bought that X-ray or that back in the room, they told you how many pellets was in Tess’s head, her upper body.

Steve Horn: Right. Well, what happened is that when I left Greenwood – and look you can’t plan for – I don’t care what you do, you can’t plan for this, you can do some preventative stuff but I mean I got the Wynonna and I was out of fuel. So, I had to stop and get fuel on the way to Mississippi State and I still made it there in about an hour. And I had decided that morning that if anybody had gotten behind me around me or whatever they were going to follow me to the vet school and they could write me a ticket or put me in jail or do whatever they wanted to do at that time but I was not stopping that truck until I pulled up and they had her out and inside that building. And when I got there Dr. Brian who I think was a classmate of Roane’s was waiting down there.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah, Christine Brian, she’s an awesome vet.

Steve Horn: Christine Brian. That’s right. She met me at the door with a gurney and said, we’ll start taking care of her immediately and of course we had the drips still going, Larry and I monitored to see drips all the way over there and there wasn’t any much change but by the time we got Tess there, got her on the gurney and got her inside Dr. Brian went back there and made an evaluation and basically came back and said she’s probably not going to make it through the night but we’re going to try, we’re going to do everything we can. And she told me, we’re starting mannitol which I guess I’m saying that right that was a long time ago but it was a drug to keep – her brain started swelling and so they started the mannitol and trying to get her calmed down with that. Tess is blind in her left eye, she couldn’t walk. She could not maintain balance. She had a right to left head tilt. In other words, her head was cocked to the left side blind in one eye, couldn’t walk. I mean it was like she had talsy when she walked and she couldn’t walk, she laid down, she didn’t get up to about two days later. But anyway they got all that started in about the 3^rd or 4^th day Rocky, they said, they shut up a – and I can’t remember if it was the first day, second day I lose track of time. But anyway they went in and did a CRT and found out that she had 26 pellets in her head and those are 26 black cloud pellets. And she was shot on the right side of her face because she was swimming like I said left to right as you’re in the duck hole, so she was shot in the right side of the face. And one of those pellets somehow or another made it around and ricocheted off of something and it went right down through the middle of the two center lobes of her brain and lodged right in – when you feel the smart or not we call them on the back of the dog’s head?

Rocky Leflore: Yeah.

Steve Horn: About an inches in front of that, one of those pellets are still there, it’s in the middle of her brain. And the neurologist over in Atlanta, I think you see they were consulting with or maybe Birmingham, I can’t remember said, as long as that pellet doesn’t move, so far so good. But that’s one of the pellets that could have dropped down to her brain stem and it could have done something to her spinal fluids that would have killed her instantly anyway. So anyway, with all that being said, she had 26 pellets in her head and I’ve got a dog laid up in a kennel at Mississippi State.

Rocky Leflore: That’s absolutely amazing to me, 26 pellets.

Steve Horn: Black cloud.

Rocky Leflore: We did not say this and I don’t want to reverse this story, how far was the shot when it happened? How far was Tess from?

Steve Horn: Oh man, 20 yards.

Rocky Leflore: Very close range.

Steve Horn: There’s 200 and something pellets I think in a black cloud and she got 26 of them. So, here’s where the good news starts. We get her over there, get her up in the kennel, Dr. Brian and them were taking care of her, of course all the med students, babying her or pampering or watching her 24/7. And I get that was on the Sunday, I called my best friend who is Dr. Baxter Kruger and he’s not a medical doctor, he’s sole doctor, he’s got a PhD in systematic theology from King’s College in Aberdeen Scotland and he is absolutely my best friend. And I called Baxter and I said, Baxter my dog has been shot and I said, Tess has been shot and didn’t say my dog, Tess has been shot and I want you to go with me tomorrow, don’t you lay hands on my dog, don’t you pray for my dog I want my dog to die. And he said, not a problem. What time we’re leaving? We all bailed out 07:30-08:00 that morning. I got up there and they welcomed us and took us back to where she was. She was in one of those huge big kennels, they’ve gotten nice facility over there and it was big enough to actually get up in there with her. And they had a couch in there. I mean, it was a nice situation, I mean where all the dogs were kept and students were all, observing stuff and so forth. He got up in there with her and laid hands on her, petted her and prayed over and talk to her. And that afternoon man, she got better.

Rocky Leflore: That’s what I will say from that point on, there was a drastic change in Tess’s health.

Steve Horn: An incredible change. She constantly gotten better from that afternoon. At night, she kind of started waking up a little bit and she actually pulled herself up into a sitting position, wasn’t steady, but she pulled herself up into a sitting position and started drinking a little water and that’s what they were really looking for was for her to show some signs of – when she was laying there, initially she could, because Tess, she was responding to her name, she couldn’t really do anything and then later that night she began to drink a little water, respond a little bit better. The next morning she was sitting up and was still unstable, but she was getting better and she got better. And so believe it or not 6 days later I took her home and that would have been December the 20^th, that was 5 days before Christmas, which was one of the best Christmas present I’ve ever received in my entire life. She was still very unsteady, but she was walking. She was up, she was walking Dr. Brian said, the best you could possibly have is an outcome here is you’ll have a good pet. And I said, well I want to pet, you do whatever you need to do. I said, do not put this dog down and do not jeopardize her. And so she said, well I’m going to tell you she’s probably not – from the looks of, she’s not going to be able to hunt again and she’s probably just going to be a pet. And I said, well can I breed her? I mean, could we possibly get some other puppies off of it? Because I think she’s a fantastic dog and she said, well, we don’t know right now, we just have to wait and see. And that’s basically when she told me about that – if there was any possibility the pellets moving in her head and particularly that one when it was in the center of her brain that could drop to the brain stem. So, with all that being said I got her home and she was wobbly, she was slipping around and we’ve got some concrete floors and some wood and stuff and she didn’t want to go up and down steps. She was blind in her left – still blind in her left eye and she still had the head tilt. And so it was kind of like, nursing an old person back to health when they can’t walk, they can’t see and I think she was – I don’t remember her having trouble hearing but that was enough to deal with. And as time went on and we did what they told us to do, she got where she was walking better, her head began to straighten up and I was back in the bathroom not that really put toys, but I was in the bathroom and I got to look at her and she was blinking her left eye. And I thought if you can’t see your eye, you’re not going to blink. And so I went and I got a cotton swab and I actually got an eye patch and put over her right eye and my Tess loves a decoy, a dummy, she loves anything, she put in her mouth, she’s going to go for it. I mean, that’s how – she’s a broke dog. So, I put that patch over eye and I stuck something in front of her mouth and she went around there and like, okay, I know what I’m supposed to do with it and bit it. And so she finally got full vision as far as I know, she got full vision, she may need a pair of glasses, she’s never told me she did.

Rocky Leflore: She might need some contact.

“Rocky, 3 weeks later I was back at Derwood strains and she was picking up a Speckle belly geese, 3 weeks. I hunted with her before the season was over, I hunted her of the last 10 days of the season I hunted.”

Steve Horn: Yeah, she might need some contact. But other than that, I called Dr. Brian, I said she’s seeing out of her eye. I said, I cannot believe this. Rocky, 3 weeks later I was back at Derwood strains and she was picking up a Speckle belly geese, 3 weeks.

Rocky Leflore: Really?

Steve Horn: I hunted with her before the season was over, I hunted her of the last 10 days of the season I hunted. And she was just happy, she could be like, nothing had ever happened and has been that way ever since and that was 9 years ago. Yes Tess, she’s 10 years old. This past June. She’s 10, almost 10.5. So, you figured that out it was 9 years ago and she’s out there in the kennel now.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to leave you with one more story. I thought that that was going to be it, but couldn’t have a dog podcast without including this story because a number one selling country music hit was derived from this next dog. And Ramsey Russell tells the story so well the dog’s name was Jake and here’s the rest of the story.

Ramsey Russell: But the crazy thing about meeting this guide, Mike McBride was his name, he was tall, he wasn’t quite a big tall as Justin Martin. Let me tell you guys something, you see him on TV, he looks like a big old boy. When you meet Justin Martin in person, it’s like that guy on the green mile that everybody just looked straight up in the air at, he’s a big guy. This guy wasn’t that big, but he was tall, I’d say 6’4 and remember I’m a duck hunter from Mississippi. I meet this guy, he got a long mullet down past the shoulder blades, permed up, blond beard and in the early morning –

Rocky Leflore: You got to respect the man that’s got – duck guide that’s got a mullet.

“He got long hair and it’s all wavy to me it looked like a perm, maybe it’s natural curl, but I’ll never forget, I couldn’t help but notice he had a diamond earrings, diamond stud as earring. And just first impressions, super guy, heck of a duck caller, but first impressions was boy, you ain’t in Mississippi no more.”

Ramsey Russell: He got long hair and it’s all wavy to me it looked like a perm, maybe it’s natural curl, but I’ll never forget, I couldn’t help but notice he had a diamond earrings, diamond stud as earring. And just first impressions, super guy, heck of a duck caller, but first impressions was boy, you ain’t in Mississippi no more. This is my duck guide this morning and I don’t think we have duck guides like that Mississippi and Arkansas. So well Mike, what do you do when you’re not duck guiding? I’m a musician, he says. I play gigs man and he starts playing air guitar, like bass guitar just mentally file up, well probably played at a local Ramada on Friday night. That’s just my impression. We get in the truck, he says, we’re a little bit earlier for where we’re going hunting today, let’s go to camp and we’ll get sorted. We go out about 15-20 minutes, we go to the little staging area there on the farm we’re going to hunt. It was a little mobile home, very clean, very well kept, very well located and Rocky, the thing about it is, when you think of – when you’re in Washington DC in that area, if you’ve never been, you are in an ocean of humanity. And once you get over to the eastern shore, even though there are quite a few folks as compared to Mississippi with state a population 3.5 million people or probably less than that. When you get over that part of the world, it’s surprisingly – the eastern shore of Maryland is surprisingly a lot of agriculture. Yeah, it really is. Nice houses, nice landscape but its agriculture, you got to be careful deer running out from the road at least you did then. We get to this little old trailer, I’m just getting my boots on and looking around and he got to stacked – neatly stacked and den of his guide house, stack of wooden and cork decoys. Beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I’ve never put my hand on a working decoy like that. I’m from Mississippi, we used this cheap old plastic and pop bottles if we needed them. I’m marveling at them. And he starts telling me about – because everybody – remember that’s where the ward brothers from there, that’s were all of those old Havre de grace carvers are, all right there on the eastern shore, it’s huge culture in that part of the world around Chesapeake Bay, where all the market gunners came from. He described it way back in the good old days when he was a little boy, he and his dad had bought them from just a local no name carver for $5 bucks apiece. And like a lot of those guys when they came out with those newfangled G-whiz plastic decoys – a lot of more boys just went and burned the more heavy waterlogged things they had and the only ones you see now that are being auctioned for a fortune are just ones that – nobody ever got around to get rid of. They got stuck in a barn or in the attic or out behind something else in the garage or somebody just kept them for sentimental reasons. I remember him telling me, he wished he had them all. But he had a reasonable pile of them. And so we go out to hunt on this narrow little creek, swan creek and it was bone chilling cold. You know, that kind of front that hits kind of like this one that hit. Remember how windy and blustery it was yesterday, the day after that kind of real deep Arctic blast comes through and it’s bone chilling cold, but it’s still – the wind hadn’t laid down yet. It’s just blustery and you don’t want to hit your hands with a blunt object, they’re so cold that kind of day. And we go out and it’s windy and we go out to this little creek and the whole creek, as far as you can see is lined with phragmites. It’s kind of like a cat tail, but it’s longer and taller, more slender and more brittle. And we set out a few decoys, plastic decoys, not those nice family heirlooms which we hunted over the next day under the threat of being killed and buried on the farm, if we shot a low bird over and we did not. And we’re sitting out there and we’re shooting birds and it’s just a magic day. I can tell you it was a better morning than it would have been wherever I would have been hunting back home. I did know for a fact. It was me and Mike and another guest or one of his buddies, I can assure you it was a whole lot better mallard action than anywhere else I would have been hunting that morning, I was confident of that. And we were shooting mallards, do not shoot hens he says, there’s too many mallards. We will get our mallards, we’ll wait it out just pick our shots. But the craziest thing about those mallard were they would – it’s like, you know how you got to read those birds and some birds want loud, some birds want it quiet, some birds want to do this, want to do that, it was weird because it was big flocks of mallards, Rocky. It was fairly big flocks of mallard and its like if you got quiet part of the flock would drag the other flock away. So, you got loud. Well, now the other part would come in but the other part would fade. It was maddening. They would hang just out of range and you just calling and calling, kind of like my gosh, what did I do? So, it wasn’t just a chip shot shooting, he had to call them. He had a real fast. He kept telling me these bird don’t like that southern drawl. They don’t like that southern drawl, they want to hear my call. And what I found out I shot 3 bands that morning. When his dog came in with the first band, I’m like holy cow. Well, it said Remington farms on it. I’m like, what the heck is Remington farms? He goes, that’s a DuPont duck man. What’s the DuPont duck? Well, DuPont is a big old agro-chemicals corporation somewhere up there and they outgrow bazillions of mallards. It’s like they just – maybe they still do it, maybe they did it. But at one time then apparently to propagate the wild bird population Dow chemical, who is not a duck hunting company would raise a bunch of mallards on their property, as the birds grew up, they would just kind of venture off. And what it was is, they had mixed in with the wild mallards and the DuPont ducks liked the loud and fast and aggressive, but the wild ducks with whom they were mixed did not. They were mixed and they were pulling each other, see what I’m saying?

Rocky Leflore: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a little frustrating. But it was nonetheless, it was a very awesome hunt. He had a one eyed yellow lab named Jake that had put his eye out on a piece of phragmites when he’s a puppy, kind of walk around like Popeye or ran around like Popeye. Awesome dog. Man, he would get up in the phrag and it’s real dense like cat tails, we dropped one across the creek, man he would hit that water, swim across that creek, swim all up in that mess and come back out with that mallard never missed a beat. And we had a lot of fun that morning. Well, some of the young guys listening may not remember this, some of the old guys may not remember it, but Bill Clinton was in office back in those days and put all the politics, anything you think about democrat, republican and all this crap going on, just put all that aside, back then conservatives been like him. But the country was being run by very conservative house and senate. So, had no choice but didn’t be a moderate and really and truly it was good to be a young American, getting out of college and building a family and building a home in that period of time, regardless who’s president. And like I said many times, put all the politics and put all the Hillary and put all that – forget that part story at the end of the day, duck hunters are duck hunters. And around that same period of time that year before, I showed up to hunt here, Bill Clinton, former governor of Arkansas who you got to figure is probably a duck hunter. It hadn’t crossed my mind that he was a duck hunter until it was all over CNN and major news outlets, Bill Clinton went duck hunting. He went duck hunting somewhere up there on the eastern shore. And oh my gosh, it was all over TV. It was like live for hours. And the most endearing image I have of that spectacle was him literally sitting on the side of the back bed of the truck, just sitting in the back of a truck, sitting up on the side like anybody would and him holding a single hen mallard. That was it. The president went hunting, shot a single brown duck. And somewhere during the lull in the volley we got to talking about that and I said Mike, Bill Clinton hunted up here somewhere President of United States and he goes – Mike talks like a rock and roll. He talked like a musician, man. Man, Bill Clinton, did it right where you’re standing, right here. I said, you’re kidding. He said, no man. He stood right here, he hunted right here and I was his guide. I said, that’s incredible. You guided President Bill Clinton, a powerful man in the universe? He goes, you’re dang right. I’m sitting here looking at this pile of green heads, I go, you let him shoot a hen. He’s like, he’s President Ramsey. I’m sitting here looking at all these ducks, we got all these birds have been flying especially since there was no southern accent calling in the blind, I can’t believe you took the most powerful man in the universe duck hunting, he’s going to come out with a single hen mallard. And he said, well let me tell you something, he said back at my trailer right there on the road, he said, everybody, every news agency in the world was right there, piled around. He said, man, the trucks and vans and RV’s and they had them big satellites and there was people milling around and writing on note pads and they were just everywhere. They’re milling around everywhere. He said, up and down for miles, up and down these woods were men talking in their sleeves and trench coat. He said F-14 tomcats flying everywhere, man, that man was guarded like nobody else. And I hope the black helicopter don’t kick my door in 5 minutes Rocky and take me out for saying it. But according to the story, he said, that man shot everybody’s duck, he shot everybody duck. He just want to come out with that brown duck to show the world, so they don’t get mad at him for being a duck hunter. That moment in time I realized, you know what, I want to hunt with the President of the United States next time he goes hunting. And I was young and impressionable and all I can think is, wish I hunted with Bill Clinton. And so anyway, I didn’t hunt with Bill Clinton. But years later, I know this story dragging on, but you got to think Paul Harvey rest of the story, we’re talking about the most famous celebrity I’ve ever hunted with. Years later, I’m hunting up there with Chris Wujcik in Michitoba, Chris talked me into coming up to do a snow goose hunt. I didn’t want to, I was hunting with L’Anguille at the time we were doing a lot of spring snow goose shooting, creeping and jump shooting birds. And let me tell you what Steve Pitt, Pat Pitt they wrote the book back in those days on how to save the tundra and I was right there with them. I mean they wrote the book on how to save the tundra and we were having a good time. And by the time we got done running those ditches and doing everything involved with, I didn’t care if I ever saw another snow goose for a while.

Rocky Leflore: Kill every white devil alive.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, we took it to fleet level. We posted it, we post some pictures on the internet one time that just broke open World War 4 on the internet, just some pictures that just disturbed people especially the guides. You know that were trying to decoy, the clients wouldn’t show up, they see the pictures like, I never seen these many birds. But anyway, Chris Wujcik called me up and invited me to come up there for snow goose hunting, spring snow goose hunting. And I’m like man, I don’t care if I ever see another goose right now. That’s a long way to go, I don’t think people will be interested blah-blah. And he said, Mr. Russell, I guarantee it would be the best spring snow goose hunt you’ve ever been on. I said, well I take that pretty seriously because down here south guaranteed goes a long way. He said, I understand. He said, if you’ll come up here and hunt with me, if the 2 or 3 days you hunt with me to check me out, if they’re not the best decoying snow goose action you’ve ever had I’ll reimburse you for your plane ticket and we part ways. I said, I’m coming. I flew up there, I brought 5 or like 3 boxes of 3 inches steel ammo on a plane that’s 11lbs and I went through my stores a little cash and then pulled out 3 boxes of steel 4s, they’re snow goose hunt. We’ll see how good that hunt is. We’ll see how good that guarantee is. That’s all I needed. It was the best snow goose hunt, I’ve ever been on. The main migration that passed through weeks ago, had a few old birds holding out, nobody was hunting them, nobody would disturb them, it may not be but 250-300 of them, but they’ve been sitting there for 2 or 3 weeks. We used get in the morning and just lit him up. It was spectacular. It was awesome. And kind of word got out because the way we were publicizing ourselves Pre-Facebook on the internet, on chat rooms and I got contacted, Get Ducks was young and we had to take advantage of opportunities back then. And I got contacted by somebody that was related to an outdoor television show sponsored by Beretta, I believe. And so we’re scheduled to go up there and film this show with them the following year or two, whatever it was. And I get up there with some clients and the hunting is tough. Its hard north wind blowing, it’s the first week of May, hard north wind blowing and the whole migration has stop just waiting on the wind to lay down they’re all down around Devil’s Lake, which not too terribly far, just a few hours flight, the snow goose flaps to get on up that part of the world but they just sat, the migration ceased in the face of that north wind. The client and I shot a few birds. It wasn’t bad hunt but it just wasn’t a hunt, I had experienced. And the company has sent a whole bunch of full body decoys that they had to hunt over and I don’t know how Sean Mann found us. I don’t know how he drove up on us that day. But where we had been hunting there seems to be some goose activity before we load it back up the trailer, just Chris and I, we decided let’s pull out these darn full body decoys and assemble them. Well, there we are twisting heads on and punching feet, the bodies and getting everything sorted and get everything back, well up comes a rental SUV and out steps Sean Mann, Sean Mann goose calls. And I don’t know if you ever met him, but Sean is just such a nice guy. He’s such a good guy. And no pressure or nothing he says but you all got any geese around here, I’ve been driving around all day and I ain’t seen nothing. Chris and I have been kind of worried, because we got a TV show coming but there aren’t enough geese to make a TV show, thank God, they’re going to be there 4 days. I said, don’t worry we’ll kill someone, don’t worry. And it was slow the first 2 days, I can tell you that right now and we end up going back out that same field and myself and Sean Mann and Chris and a couple other people related to the show or Beretta or something, it was just that kind of hunting where you’re laying out in the field as long as you can stand it. It’s raining and the wind is out of the north, it’s not raining like frog choker, but it rained enough, you got to kind of squint because it won’t fall in your eyes all day long. We may have shot half dozen birds. It’s terrible. Sure, didn’t make much of a TV show the first couple of days like that. But that day laying out the blind just yet, a lot of time to talk with the people you’re hunting with. And I learned how Sean Mann got into making those geese calls of his. He’s a musician and as I remember and I may be wrong because it’s a long time ago and I remember he played the clarinet in high school. And a lot of the same air qualities and tongue in the notes and doing things and his interest having grown up in the eastern shore out there around the Chesapeake Bay and geese is a big thing out there, the Canada geese and that just kind of parlayed itself into a goose calling business, world championships and everything else. And somewhere along in that conversation, I heard him say he had a drum collection, goose caller, musical instrument, drums. I’m like, oh you got drums, he said, yeah, I played drums man, I played gigs man and all them years later. Just the way he said with that with Eastern shore broke something to the effect I play gig man, drum. Drums, kind of played a little air drum, it’s just boom, it’s just like Deja vu. And so I just said, there’s a reach, I haven’t seen this guy before since it is a reach. But you know, a guy named Mike? He goes, yeah, he’s our bass guitarist. He comes over every weekend man, we play music. He’s our bass guitarist. I go, like wow, that’s incredible. Hunting with him, started telling the story and everything else. And getting up to the most – for me most famous celebrity I’ve ever hunt with. And I got kind of quiet, he says when you hunted up there with him, what dog did he have? I said, he had a one eyed yellow lab and he kind of chuckled and go, yep, old Jake. Yeah, that was him, Jake. He said, well that’s a great dog, boy, I go sure he was. Well, let me tell you kind of rest story and I know Mike didn’t tell you this because getting bragged and won’t say nothing, it’s just life as a musician, he said but Mike is also a songwriter. Did you know? He said no, I just knew he played bass guitar sometimes and he said, yeah, he wrote songs like a lot of musicians and he sold the song. He said, there’s 2 ways to sell a song, sell a song for a little bit and keep royalties or you sell a song for more and you take the money up front. And he said, when you sell it like that, a lot of starving artist type might have to do that sometimes, whoever you sell it to kind of owns everything. So, their name in credit may just disappear. He says, but he wrote a song about that dog, you hunted over. I said, really? He says, yeah. He said, and it went all the way up to the top of the billboards. I said, what is it? He says, he wrote a song called Feed Jake. He’s been a good dog, my best friend right to the end. Pirates of the Mississippi bought it and sold it all over the radio. So, when people ask me sometimes they do just like you did, hey, you hunt with a lot of people who’s the most famous person you’ve ever hunted with? The answer is it wasn’t a person, it was one of the most kick butt labs one eyed, I ever hunted with and one of the coolest hunt I’ve ever been on, in a part of the world that was unexpected. Seeped in history. Dog that fetch duck for president, Bill Clinton and everybody on his security detail and it lives forever in the annals of country music history. I thought about that. You know, I always think of that when I think about fame, the coolest thing is, the dog didn’t know anything about fame, he was just a duck dog. He just did his job. He fetched ducks, he did what he wanted to do. But isn’t that cool, I actually hunted with Jake, of the song Feed Jake.

Rocky Leflore: All right, guys I hope you’ve enjoyed today and talking about our best friends, these animals are our best friends. Justin Harrison said it so well, we understood what these animals go through every time we put them out there and we would treat them so much better respect them so much more. They go through hell for us. Thank you again for tuning in to this edition of The End of The Line podcast, powered by ducksouth.com.

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