EP 333. East Texas Timber Duck Hunting

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Duck Season Somewhere. Where today is duck season in East Texas. Right about time you think you’ve seen and done it all, you find yourself shin deep in flooded willow oaks in Piney Woods, Texas. First time I’d ever done that and pretty fun hunt. Joining me today is Mr. Michael Simms. He’s up first. Mike, how’s it going? Enjoy this morning?

Michael Simms: Yes, sir. Glad to have you in the neck of the woods here.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about East Texas duck hunting, because what I learned today while you, Brent and I were out scouting. What I learned today is, I have been up and down here, I interviewed for a job here a long time ago when I got out of college, right up the road and I knew there was a little hardwood resource, but its Piney Wood Country. And one of the deciding factors, not that I got offered a job, but one of the considerations I had or trepidations I had about coming this part of the world is the one on nearby duck hunting. Not, apparently, there’s not a tremendous amount of it. But you all do have some good duck hunting. Did you grow up duck hunting around here?

Michael Simms: Yeah, not really grow up, but pretty hard of course, I was about 17. Hunted around here a lot lakes, you got Lake Fork, Tawakoni, Palestine, few rivers.

Ramsey Russell: Sabine River.

Michael Simms: Yeah. Sabine, Sa-bean depends, I guess, where you’re from. I think everybody says it different, but it can get good like most places, but, yeah, there is some timber here. Not much public timber here, but it can get good, depending on how the weather plays out, which is anywhere, I guess.

Ramsey Russell: I asked you today, why somebody that would have something like what you had, because that was a beautiful hunt, we had this morning. We’ll talk a little bit about it. Why you hunted so much public land because you do hunt public land around. I’m not looking for geography, but you hunt a lot of several states in public land. You’re kind of the man, aren’t you? I mean, you like public land hunting?

Michael Simms: Yeah, man, I do. I like it a few reasons. Main ones is I like hunting with my buddies and it’s hard to find, especially around here, size of properties and stuff, especially the woods, to go 3, 4 days hunting back to back and have a decent hunt with 5, 6, 7 guys or so. It’s hard to do that on a private place, not blow it out public –

Ramsey Russell: Here in East Texas.

Michael Simms: Right. Public, I mean, you can hunt thousands and thousands of acres, move 80 miles this way, that way, scout, cover a lot of ground, so you’re able to hunt a few days back to back on decent hunts with several buddies of yours and not blow out your private land that you have. Save those for those early Monday, Tuesday morning hunts.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the states you travel to hunt public?

Michael Simms: Man, I’d be lying if I told you.

Ramsey Russell: I mean private information you don’t want to share?

Michael Simms: No, not necessarily. I think a lot of people know that waterfowl, it’s the south, obviously, Arkansas in that area.

Ramsey Russell: Do you stick with floated timber?

Michael Simms: Yeah, we try to.

Ramsey Russell: That’s kind of your thing.

Michael Simms: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve hunted open stuff and hunted open stuff this year, but like I was telling you earlier, I think I’d rather shoot 5, 6 mallards in the woods and 20 out in the open lake or something, hunting a little beaver slew or oxbow with some trees in it. But if I can find some in the woods it just like the sight this morning, just standing there watching the fog, the trees, you know something about it special.

Ramsey Russell: You go to places like Arkansas. Which is it’s a part of the Mississippi Delta, the big Mississippi River Delta, formed by the Mississippi river and its tributary, it’s big areas. That’s why the timber is so big. But here, like the river you showed me today, how you pronounce it, Sabine. I’ve seen parts of the world back home, Mississippi, we call that a creek, but it’s a small floodplain.

Michael Simms: Yeah, it is.

Ramsey Russell: And even when you add up the whole area, a lot of post oak country around here, a lot of pastures, a lot of pine trees. When you add it all up, it’s really not a tremendous amount of area that you can put a lot of pressure on. That’s why you have to hunt it so sparingly.

Building Rest Areas: A Call to Action

So yeah, if they had a resting area for the ducks to hold numbers, I think it’d be a way different ballgame around here.

Michael Simms: Main thing is they don’t have any rest areas. No refuges here. Hell, I can’t tell you where the closest one is to us, maybe Richland Chambers. I think DU or someone built that years ago, it’s on the Trinity River, but that’s a thing I wish people would get involved. To build here there’s actually 2 great spots on the river. You could do it for birds to rest as they’re coming down this way. There’s nothing to hold the ducks. There’s no agriculture, just some pin oaks, maybe some millet someone planted, vegetation stuff, but nothing serious to hold ducks like Arkansas, Oklahoma, agriculture land. People always say they stop north of the Red River and I think they do because there ain’t much food here. So yeah, if they had a resting area for the ducks to hold numbers, I think it’d be a way different ballgame around here.

Ramsey Russell: Is most of the duck hunting in East Texas, is it timber? Because you’re right, I haven’t seen a lot of agriculture. It’s hay production, cattle grazing.

Michael Simms: Two things, Ramsey, is the size of the ground here it’s not big plots like you would see in Arkansas, Oklahoma, bigger land. You don’t see that here. And another thing, I think is probably the soil is a little different.

Ramsey Russell: More upland.

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: It’s more of a pine site. The landscape is predominantly pine site.

Michael Simms: Yeah, they say a long time ago they had a lot more crops here and stuff, but I don’t think I can think of any corn or anything around here. Probably hour and a half, of course Canada or somewhere they have some corn, but, yeah. So there’s nothing. And there’s a lot of hunters around here, which is a good thing. But for ducks, I mean, few days they’re getting shot, they’re rolling.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about your first hunt back when you were 17. Do you remember you got into?

Michael Simms: Yeah. Well, my first hunt, my granddad, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I’ve deer hunted, but I do remember that. But one that was really on the lake with buddies. I went with some guys I went to school with and they grew up hunting with their dad and stuff. We thought we had it going on, little thin aluminum boat, 20⁰, 30⁰ cross that big water is hunt on a point, shooting divers. I didn’t even know what the hell the duck was, if it was over limit, under limit. But caught on pretty quick –

Ramsey Russell: Went with your granddad?

Michael Simms: What’s that?

Ramsey Russell: You went with your granddad?

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, did you all hunt something like what we hunted today, a little flooded timber? The river out of his bank or was it an impoundment?

Michael Simms: We hunted a Sabine river where we went today to scout and he actually passed away hunting. Had a heart attack by the nature preserve.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Hunting ducks or deers?

Michael Simms: Yeah, hunting ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Can you tell that story? Were you with him?

Michael Simms: No, I wasn’t with him. They were at hog hunting the night before or something and the next morning, him, one of his guys, buddy of his, they were out. He had a heart attack and that’s kind of all I know. I think I was in – I don’t remember what grade, but –

Ramsey Russell: Did he kill any ducks that morning? Do you know that?

Michael Simms: No, I don’t remember. Just my mom telling me the story and all that.

Ramsey Russell: Did you all kill any ducks that first duck hunt you went on?

Michael Simms: I think we shot 2 or 3.

Ramsey Russell: Mallards.

Michael Simms: Wood ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Wood ducks.

Michael Simms: Yeah, but I didn’t really get into it until I went around some buddies that have done it growing up with their dad. And then each year just built up. I’m almost 40 now. But I probably been hunting timber hardcore for about 12, 13 years. Every year hunting the woods and every day I learn something new. It’s just experience. A lot of people don’t get to have that. If they did it one time, I think a lot of them would appreciate the timber paired to a lake or something like that. It is different when you’re hunting real timber and experience a duck hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Green timber.

Michael Simms: Yeah. Angel winging down, I mean, it’s special to fool a migratory bird to do that. It’s awesome.

Ramsey Russell: I really didn’t know what to expect when Brent invited me over to hunt East Texas. I knew he had what he calls some woods. I knew he had some ducks. Seeing and believing, I just didn’t realize until this morning. We walked off into that impoundment shin deep water maybe and little dry patches, round little logs, round ducks could come in and land and there were thickets they could go into and logs they could crawl up on and dry off and pray. There were plenty of acres. There was willow oak. I saw some water oak, few red oaks and it was just a really nice impoundment. But I guess I just didn’t expect to see so many mallards and all we saw a few wood ducks and a lot of mallards.

Michael Simms: I can’t either. I mean, I’ve had this place 2 years. I’ll be honest. I scouted before you came up or whatever and Brent said, you’re coming and I went out and scouted a little bit and heard some ducks. Didn’t see a whole lot. And the place hadn’t been that great since I’ve had it. It’s only been 2 years and this morning I’m going to bring you every time I go hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, please do.

Michael Simms: We were consistent, ducks after ducks. I mean, it was an awesome morning.

Ramsey Russell: It was a lot of traffic this morning over the hole, wasn’t it?

Michael Simms: It was. They were smart, but we figured out a way to fool some. And it was an awesome hunt. Just laid back, good gentleman style hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Well, there was enough traffic that even the ducks that wanted to go elsewhere or something, we just couldn’t coax them. I don’t know if because of the wind or whatever reason. And then I noticed too, that a lot of the pairs, even if they worked, it was the drake that was responding to the calls, not the hen. She was just kind of being in tow. But we saw several 3 packs that were a hen and 2 drakes, 4 pack a hen and 3 drakes. So it’s getting that time of year. They kind of got other things on their mind and going and hanging out with a bunch of folks, so to speak. I think like some of the birds went down into the thick spots right off the bat. Not the open spots, the thick spots. Those pairs did they wanted to be to themselves, seemed like.

Michael Simms: It’s like you said this morning, I mean, it makes sense. Sometimes you got to think like a duck, mating time. Usually, I feel like when they do a lot of the calling, they want that girl, the hen and stuff. They try to pair up and when there’s 3 like that flying together, I think one of them is like a wingman type deal.

Ramsey Russell: I think they’re competing for.

Michael Simms: They are. But I don’t know, I’ve seen it, this time of year where you just barely touch a note of that call and they’re locked up, winged down. And sometimes it’s like this, I wish I don’t know, I guess, makes it more fun. They worked every time on a call, but I didn’t think, I thought we’d shoot a few this morning. Sun came up. It is a different ballgame.

Ramsey Russell: Well, we’re going to have sunshine tomorrow, I like, we were talking about at dinner. I like how you just kind of warm things up with a good hunt. Brent and I are really expecting a lot tomorrow. No pressure or nothing.

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I know you’re just easing us into it, like a grand finale tomorrow of some sort.

Michael Simms: If we shoot them tomorrow, you’re going to have to stay. I mean the chances of that, the weather, the water situation and having that many mallards in the woods, it’s unreal.

Ramsey Russell: How often can you hunt? Like we’re talking about some smaller floodplains, smaller impoundments, not as much water around. Especially now when, according to Brent and you, you all caught a lot of birds during that continental freeze, the whole south did. But it’s like the minute it thawed and warmed up, the duck started getting thin for everybody, especially with his full moon.

From Scout to Swoop: Ducks and Thawing Timber

It was freezing cold, perfect duck weather, bluebird, north wind. They just disappeared the next day, like you said, when it thawed.

Michael Simms: Which is odd. Usually, I try not to hunt timber when it’s locked up. I mean, I’ve done it too many times, it never works out. A lake, river, open water all day long, every time I hunt the woods, break ice, open a hole, they know. You might see 1 or 2, like the scout, hey, go check on the woods, is it unlocked yet? But they don’t even come look. They know when it’s locked up. But this year here at home, me and Brent hunted. It was freezing cold, perfect duck weather, bluebird, north wind. They just disappeared the next day, like you said, when it thawed. Where are they at? Are they coming back? Hunting here, when it’s a hard freeze, cold front and then it switches to a south wind next day, bluebird, it’s lights out, but it took a few days. And looking at my log, half ass log, I keep or kept a lot of the good hunts around here, it was 55⁰, 62⁰ south wind, so you never know.

Ramsey Russell: That’s kind of what we’re getting into tomorrow, isn’t it?

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Now I am really expecting big things.

Michael Simms: Yeah 15, 20 miles an hour gusts. That’s kind of why I want to hunt that bigger hole, but kind of, might be good, might be bad. They didn’t want a big hole today.

Ramsey Russell: No. They were coming into some of the thickest spots of it. We had the most opening was kind of out there where we put the decoys, but they were coming in on all sides of it.

Michael Simms: Yeah, but if it’s 20 miles an hour gusts tomorrow, they don’t have a choice to get down. They’re going to have to get in a big hole. That’s the only reason I want to hunt this spot. If the wind is not strong, we might shift over to that tighter stuff.

Ramsey Russell: Will you still use a pull string if the wind is big up in that timber? Just to give some splash and boat?

Michael Simms: Oh, yeah. Only time I don’t use a jerk rig if there’s a lot of trash in the woods. And I’ll throw decoys around the trees, just kind of kick water as long as you can hide good. But 9 times out of 10, jerk rig. And I know you love using mojos, telling us. And I like using them too. I think I got in the habit of the ones I have probably 14, 15 of them. Not mojos, but I don’t know what they are.

Ramsey Russell: Whatever, spinning wings decoys.

Michael Simms: Spinning wings, I have them. I never get them out. It’s just something else to carry.

Ramsey Russell: You were saying? Yeah, that’s what you were saying. I asked you, was it like one of these philosophical things or electrical device diversions, aversions. But what you said was as a public land hunter, it’s just something else you got to carry. Sometimes you’re having to really kind of hoof it in a little bit. Today we didn’t. But a lot of times you are.

Michael Simms: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I think there’s something to be said, don’t you, Michael, about just kind of getting back to the roots, being pure. Just this purity. It’s like in a lot of ways, less is best.

Michael Simms: Yeah. And it ain’t all about how many you kill. Yeah, it’s good go buddies.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t say less ducks. I meant just less technology.

Michael Simms: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Less gear.

Michael Simms: No, I know. I’m just saying you got the water shakers, mojos, all these things they have out, which is great. But like you said, it does feel better. Just go back, just jerk rig and that’s it. And when you kill them like that, it just feels better, like we didn’t have to have any of that. We still fooled them even though they all didn’t work like we really wanted them to. But we got them decent enough to make it happen. On private, I don’t mind putting all that stuff out, I just hunt so much public. I’m in a habit. When I grab my stuff, I don’t even look for it. I know it’s already in my bag. My stuff stays in my truck. So I wouldn’t have been mad if you brought here that awesome mojo you’re talking about. Heard good things about it. I’m excited to use one.

Ramsey Russell: I want to ask, what is Back Down South clothing? What is Back Down South and tell me, how did you get into a product line like that? I’ve heard it. I’ve seen you, obviously, online. But how did you get into that?

Michael Simms: Man, I tell everybody it’s short and sweet. You work a corporate style job long enough and hate it bad enough.

Ramsey Russell: What job were you working?

Michael Simms: UPS.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Michael Simms: Driving a brown truck, just full throttle. You don’t get time to drink coffee. Wake up, it’s 08:55, you’re running. You’re sick, not sick, it doesn’t matter, you have to go. You’re timed. You’re on a clock. You’ve got to go. Sure, you see them, hey, how’s it going? They’re in the truck, already gone. It’s just brutal on you, they make good money, good benefits. But, man, there’s more to it. I love duck hunting, love my dogs, like most people and had a little outfitter deal on the side. And that’s kind of how the idea of T-shirt clothing was even thought of, I had shirts made.

Ramsey Russell: I see. I’d have said from that store right there, maybe you thought of outdoor apparel just because you saw so much outdoor apparel come through the UPS truck, but it had something to do with a guide business.

Michael Simms: Well, that’s how the shirts, clothing in general, came to mind. I had some shirts made. I was actually giving them to some clients, spread the name and all that. Wasn’t a huge deal. We actually hunted on freaking public land, guiding stuff. It was pretty brutal back in the switch cane days, but, yeah. So that’s how it was, my idea if I could make money for shotgun shells, that’s kind of my goal. And we got busy and had to pass clients off during Christmas, which is peak season UPS. And over time driving that truck, man, it’d be nice to be off this day or this day. And over time, just kind of worked to it, really had shirts made. Then I did a trade show, had a few others.

Ramsey Russell: What was your first shirt? When did you make that? What was the design?

Michael Simms: Man, it’s kind of a crazy deal. The shirt was actually Foul Friends was the name of it. Some stuff happened to some good buddies, kindergartener, I used to hunt with Duck Drama, we’ve all been through it. And I made this shirt because it really upset me so bad. These dudes pissed me off. It was 4 duckheads, Foul Friends, because they weren’t good friends. And that was one of my best selling shirts. Sometimes I’ll bring it back a year and not do it, but I had 4 duck heads and those 4 were some of these dudes. And my goal was to sell the shirt as much as I can. And back then it was Busted Feather Guide Service and then I changed the name to try to create an actual company to sell to anyone. And then we started doing more designs off that. I think I had like 4 or 5 designs before I thought I could maybe do something. And then I got in homework, research, trade shows, markets, wholesale.

Ramsey Russell: Did you ever dream it turned into something?

Michael Simms: No.

Ramsey Russell: I was shocked. You live in a relatively small little town, perfectly small little town out here in East Texas. And I think I saw the population, 6000.

Michael Simms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve got a really nice retail store and you got more than just a T-shirt or two in there now. You’ve got a lot of designs, a lot of caps, a lot of T-shirts, a lot of hoodies.

Michael Simms: Yeah, we got an outer way.

Ramsey Russell: When did it break free and start to grow? And when did it become more than just a little hobby and how?

Michael Simms: About 5 years ago. 4 and a half or 5 years ago is when I look back and go, this is a business. When I quit UPS, had stock, 41k, I knew it was either you got to make it work, it’s too late now. So I took the chance and just hit it hard.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot of folks listening, young people that want to be in the folk industry, the outdoor industry. That’s what I’ve always said is, well, you can go to work for some corporate entity or you can just find and bring value to the market and bring something. Did you kind of see yourself maybe being that guy or was it just an idea that started with a T-shirt, Foul Friend?

Michael Simms: No. Man, believe it or not, like most people, I think everybody has a dog, whether it’s a Labrador, any dog. We all love our damn dog. So that’s kind of really the foundation of it. One of my dogs, Chief, which is still alive, he’s the logo, the mascot of the company.

Ramsey Russell: That’s why you got the Indian head.

Michael Simms: Yeah, his name’s Chief.

Ramsey Russell: I saw those T-shirts. Yeah, beautiful.

Michael Simms: So that’s one of our original designs we did. But anyways, we loved our dog so much and the logo of the company is just kind of a side deal for fun. And one thing after another, a year passes and we’re selling to retail Cavenders, I think was one of our biggest accounts starting out, which that changed a lot.

Ramsey Russell: They were buying the T-shirts?

Michael Simms: Yeah, back then we just did, I think, shirts, hats, hoodies, maybe we didn’t have any out. Well, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing anyways. So I had to learn as I went. But I do remember this. This is the best part about all of it real quick, is when you’re at UPS in Tyler, Cavender’s warehouse, corporate headquarters in Tyler and if you were a driver at UPS, you never want to be left in the building and have to deliver Cavender’s bulk stop. You have to take 3 or 4 trucks full back and forth.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Michael Simms: They’d be lined up on the blue belt Cavenders. You’re like, oh, God, that’s going to be a great day. Not really. Well, so I’d always get stuck because I didn’t have seniority to be full time yet. A year passes. I started this company. I’m doing it out of my house. I quit UPS. Had boxes made by them with our logo. I got UPS trucks backing up to my house, Back Down South boxes are sitting on the blue belt. Somebody’s taking my stuff to Cavenders. So I thought that was pretty cool. It just kind of happened. It played out and over time, trade shows, talking to people, we just kind of who we are, natural, as far as the company, who we’re selling to, what we want to do and freaking 9 years later, I guess we’re here.

Ramsey Russell: I saw you were talking about your outerwear and I saw some hoodies and I saw some caps and I saw your outerwear. And it’s not what I call a corporate camo pattern. It’s an old school camo pattern, your old school camo pattern. Why old school camo? I mean, that’s obviously speaking to a big part of your market, which represents the waterfowl hunting market. It’s a lot of casual wear, some hunting stuff, but all the camo is this old school. Is that like a nod to your granddad? Is that what inspired you to come up with that old school pattern or why is that important to you?

Michael Simms: Man, I’ll be honest, I think its a few reasons, really. But one is, like you said, I never heard anybody say, I don’t like that camo. Newer camo, which is all kinds of digital camo, this camo, that. It might not be this guy’s favorite camo, but anybody can relate to old school camo. It’s just in all of our roots, it’s been around. If it wasn’t with you, it was with your dad. If it wasn’t with him, it was with your granddad. We’ve all seen it. Most of us have wore it. It blends in with almost anything we hunt and people can relate to it. And the most important, it brings value to them just deep inside. And they think quality fabrics, technical fabrics, it fits right and it has old school vibe and feel to it. I feel like it can’t go wrong.

Ramsey Russell: I think the whole world of duck hunting could use a healthy dose of old school in more respects than just camo patterns. I like it. I like the old school patterns. I do. Now, see, when I was a young man that was the only school was old school.

Michael Simms: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s the only choice you have with something like that.

Michael Simms: Yeah, I see a lot more people using it. And that’s another thing. You get into custom digi patterns, you start chances of trademark and all that jazz, hey, that camo looks like ours or this. You can do shapes, colors, old school, it’s been around for, who knows how long. It’s nothing there. It’s just natural, just Camo. So I think it’s a good all around lifestyle hunting. Everybody can relate to it. And it does look good where we live for sure. A lot of green browns in it, which here it’s green here, pine trees, that kind of deal. But, yeah, we’ve done good with it.

Ramsey Russell: Your little business, you work out of your home now you got a store now you got family members that work full time with you and they’re busy. I think that’s what I call the American dream, man.

Michael Simms: Oh, yeah. People that want to do it, all the props to you and you can make it happen.

Ramsey Russell: But make it happen. I was going to ask you one more question, I forgot to ask you about flooded timber. I was looking at some drone footage. You were showing me some drone footage. And I love to look down on those mallards swimming in that environment. They’re always moving and just that bright white. How white they look swimming around like little water bugs. But you pointed out something and I noticed it’s just real muddy, where those ducks are is real muddy. And where they’re not is real clear. I think those ducks probably stay there, don’t you?

The Art of Decoy Placement: Mimicking Natural Patterns

I mean, 12 decoys line right back. Well, bird’s eye view you see it, you see real life, what they look like, how they’re set up, the mud how it is, I mean it’s night and day.

Michael Simms: Oh, 100%. If you go out, we walk in from a bank, throw out a dozen decoys or whatever and you don’t go out there and set them up, set a jerk always. I don’t think I’ve ever not. I walk around circles every decoy because if you just do a straight line throwing decoys and straight line back, they’re going to see that. And just think how many of those they’ve seen from Canada all the way down. I mean, 12 decoys line right back. Well, bird’s eye view you see it, you see real life, what they look like, how they’re set up, the mud how it is, I mean it’s night and day. I mean muddy that water up and it just looks real. So, I try to make it look realistic as you can. I think it does help, cloudy for sure, sunny, but yeah, it’s a cool thing to look at for sure. But yeah, it’s what look 20 foot deep compared to the mud.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it does. It’s just black looking it. No doubt. All you already see it. The water is so clear, you can see the dark leaves on the bottom of the water, versus where they’re sitting. Just them sitting there swimming in that shallow water. It just muddies up the water.

Michael Simms: Oh Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: But Michael, I sure appreciate you and looking forward to hunting in the morning.

Michael Simms: Yes, sir, me too.

Ramsey Russell: And I’ve enjoyed East Texas, I’ve enjoyed meeting you. And you have a website. What’s your website? If anybody wants to contact you.

Michael Simms: Yeah, man, it’s just backdownsouthclothing.com, website, Instagram and that’s it, man. We got a lot of stuff out and appreciate you having us on and can’t wait to take you another day in the East Texas timber.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Mike. Brent Wood, man, I am glad to be here at W Pine Ranch. I told you, it’s a Piney Woods. And there your ranch’s name W Pines.

Brent Wood: W Pines Ranch, yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: But, boy, I tell you, you’ve been talking about me getting to come out here and visit with you for a couple of years now since we met down in Mexico. And I’m glad to be here, it was a very pleasant surprise.

Brent Wood: We’re good. I’m glad you had a really good time.

Ramsey Russell: Have you done like Michael, have you done a lot of hunting here in this part of the world?

Brent Wood: I didn’t actually grow up in East Texas. I’m from Fort Worth. I live in Dallas. We bought this place in 2017, so we’re going on 6 years.

Ramsey Russell: Is that when you started hunting in this East Texas area?

Brent Wood: Well, yes, this part of East Texas. I actually started hunting with a good friend of mine, Jeff Van, over, who you’ve met down in Mexico. He’s come down a couple of times with us to your outfit down there. And when we were in college, we would go to a place his father in law used to work for Temple Inland for years and he had a, I think it was 15,000 acres and it was just lots of piney woods and hardwoods and a lot of that stuff was off the river and it would flood. And we grew up going down there, just south, I guess, that’s southwest of Diboll near Lufkin Texas. And that’s kind of where I got my start as far as East Texas hunting, wood ducks, mallards, hooded mergansers. So that was kind of my introduction and that was back when I was 19, so that was, jeez, 22 years ago, 23 years ago.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, been a while.

Brent Wood: It’s been a while, yeah. But so, didn’t necessarily grow up hunting in East Texas, but I’ve definitely done my share here, for sure.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve done a lot of hunting from Canada to Mexico and parts in between. You’ve chased a lot of ducks in those 22 years, but you chose to set up shop right here in East Texas, for reasons I discussed with Michael and you were telling me today in the truck, it’s a really great area, but it’s a little bit of a lot of good.

Brent Wood: You’re right.

Ramsey Russell: It won’t take it every day.

Brent Wood: It won’t. We’re not in a central flyway, necessarily or Mississippi flyway. We’re kind of a unique pocket in between both. Texas is very unique, we get a lot of Central Flyway birds in the panhandle through the Red River, down through Wichita Falls. And then obviously, we’ve got a lot of coastal hunting down in Port Mansfield, Port Aransas, Port O’Connor, different types of birds. And then, when you get kind of further east, you get closer to the Mississippi Flyway and that’s where the mallards, the greenheads and all that comes into play. It’s just a special place. We can’t hunt here every single day and bang out the same timber holes or the same marshes. You’ve got to be real respectful of it. Just kind of take it real easy. But when the birds are here, we’re fortune to get cold weather up north and they get pushed down here. They don’t typically go much further than here, so it can be really good.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. When you bought this place, was the flooded timber and the stuff that you showed me today on our tour, was that all intact? Did it come like that or did you do a lot of development to make it happen?

Brent Wood: No, this was a blank canvas. I mean there was a –

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Brent Wood: Yeah, there was a little bit of a marsh. We’ve got a creek system that flows through and there was some good habitat, but nothing like what we’ve done. It took us 2 years. We bought a bunch of equipment. We brought in a bunch of hands, big tractors, scraper pans, excavators, dozers, track hose. It took us 2 plus years to get this thing dialed in. We brought in a lot of concrete, built spillways, impoundments. We had to clear out an entire section and we made some timber holes. We’ve got some duck ponds here at the WP that we plant millet in, we plant some corn. So, no, it wasn’t like you saw 6, 7 years ago. We put in quite a bit of work.

Ramsey Russell: What impressed me, so, I mean, really kind of work what impressed me, is you got to go down that road, go across that road on the levee and there’s a lake, like a fishing lake. Are the fishing there? Yes, we got good fishing here. And I saw the boat and then we kind of made a big loop and went on the other side of that, where all the flooded timber are. You could stop, we could hear matter to the right, matter to the left. Saw some flying, saw some wood ducks. As we came out and you had pointed to me as we crossed the lake, you said, yeah, I just lift this up and let water out. And I thought, okay, well, it could just be that to manage the water levels on the lake. But what I didn’t realize is you got, in the summertime or the growing season, you’ve got this, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7 acre lake, fishing lake at a lake pool. And then as fall approaches, you shut the riders and it raises up, I’m going to say, a foot higher, maybe 2 and pushes way the heck back up in those woods. That was amazing. And it really takes the way that drain comes through there, you might catch a 2 or 3 inch rain and catch all the water you need in that little wetland.

Brent Wood: Yes, sir. So the everyday lake that’s there all year round is about 20 to 22 acres.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brent Wood: That’s about the size of that lake. And then what we can do is we put in a kind of a pipe culvert system that allows us to shut some gates. And what that does is it actually raises the water 3 feet and that 3 feet will push an excess of flood, an additional 55 acres of flooded timber. And obviously, that’s where the mallards want to be. That’s where the acorns are. That’s where the pin oaks, the habitat that those greenheads really need, they endure. It was cool. When I say a blank canvas it really was, but the topography on the hills on the east and west were kind of already set up. What we had to do was just build a really big dam and palm it on the north side of the property. And then we had to add spillways, because the amount of water that comes through here is incredible.

Ramsey Russell: When you see 2 concrete spillways.

Brent Wood: Actually, we’ve got 3.

Ramsey Russell: 3. I remember seeing 2 of them, though.

Brent Wood: Yeah, one of them looks like a damn basketball court, it’s so big or looks like a parking lot. But I’ve actually seen that when the waters come through here and you can’t even walk across of the water’s running so fast.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Brent Wood: There’s just a lot of water that comes through here. We’ve got Van City Lake that runs through Village Creek that comes down and it’s an incredible amount of water. But the first year I was here, I actually didn’t own both sides. My neighbour, Justin Lynch, who’s become a real good friend of mine, he actually owned an additional 206 acres and the original ranch was about 320. And about 9 or 10 months later, I made a deal with him to buy the additional property. I kind of knew what we wanted to do with that lower marsh, swampy area. That really wasn’t good for anything. You can’t really farm it or cultivate it or run cattle back there. So I thought, man, this would be an incredible place to build a duck slough, a duck marsh, flooded timber and anything. One thing to another, like I said, it took a couple of years. We worked and worked and worked.

Ramsey Russell: Build it and they’ll come.

Brent Wood: Yeah, yes, sir. And in the last couple of years, it’s been really good. Like I said, we’re subject to weather up north. If it’s warm up there and the birds don’t get pushed down, it’s kind of off or not. But if we do get the weather like this year and a couple of years ago, it can be a pretty special deal.

Ramsey Russell: I can see that, mostly mallards and wood ducks.

Brent Wood: Yes, mostly mallard and wood ducks. But we get a lot of green-winged teal here. We probably house –

Ramsey Russell: Not up in the timber.

Brent Wood: No, just in the duck ponds.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brent Wood: But in the timber or in that timber area that we’ve got, we house a lot of ringnecks too.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, boy, you held back on me.

Brent Wood: Yeah, 500 or 600 ringnecks, every year we usually house a couple 100 pintails, 200 or 300 widgeons. We house a lot of mallards. I mean, wood ducks here in East Texas are just prevalent. They’re everywhere, they’re abundant, they’re local, some of them come down. But it’s kind of a typical North Texas bag, Northeast Texas bag.

Ramsey Russell: When do you get on Simm’s tomorrow about making a ringneck shirt?

Brent Wood: He did have a couple of ringneck decoys and mounts in his deck.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, I wasn’t surprised. And he is a mallard purist. But it was interesting to walk into his store of all the old 50 year old decoys on Earth, he just happened to have a ringneck decoy.

Brent Wood: Right there by the cash register.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly. I’m like, all right. You know like I always say, birds of a feather flock together. I mean, I like shooting ringnecks. I’m not scared.

Brent Wood: Yeah, absolutely. Those ringnecks are fun to shoot. So what we’ll do, every about 1^st January, I’m not kidding, there’s probably 400 or 500 that come down here. And you can’t really hunt them in the timber. They’ll end up in the timber. But they like to land on that open water. So we’ll get that duck boat out. We’ll set up the blind. We’ll kind of stick the boat in the back of a tree, set the blind up. We’ll throw 2 or 3 dozen, maybe four dozen decoys out. And the ringneck hunting here sometimes can be incredible, just incredible.

Ramsey Russell: Had you ever heard of – somebody was telling me about a real old duck club somewhere around here?

Brent Wood: Yeah, a Little Sandy.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, so duck hunting has been around for a long time in East Texas.

Brent Wood: Sure.

Ramsey Russell: Not a lot of it, but it’s got a history, a long standing history in East Texas.

Brent Wood: Little Sandy’s one of the most. I don’t know if you say the most, but it’s definitely a very old school, old money, prestigious duck club out in East Texas. And it’s only about, I don’t know, 30 minutes from here, maybe.

Ramsey Russell: Waitlist a mile longer, generations long, it sounds like.

Brent Wood: I’ve got a good buddy. He’s become a real good friend of mine. His name’s Wright Bonning. He runs a big ranch real estate brokerage company here in Texas. And I think he told me either his dad or his granddad put him on the list, when he was 18 years old. And he’s, I think number one or number 2 on the waiting list now after all these years.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Brent Wood: Yeah

Ramsey Russell: He’s still waiting on somebody.

Brent Wood: Yes, for sure.

Ramsey Russell: Is the hunting that good?

Brent Wood: It’s good, yeah. They’ve got a refuge up there. I don’t know if I’d call it a refuge, but they’ve got a roost up there and sometimes they don’t hunt it. But I remember Wright told me in past years that they can hold up to 10,000, 15,000 Mallards.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Brent Wood: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that 30 miles ain’t too far from you all I’m telling you, those birds will make that. That’s nothing to a mallard to fly.

Brent Wood: It’s nothing, not at all. Yeah, it’s just right up the street. It’s a cool place, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: There’s probably because it’s Texas, because it’s Piney Woods. Is it fair to say there may be more deer hunting. The locals around here maybe focus more on deer hunting than duck hunting.

Brent Wood: I would say so yeah. Like we talked about just a second ago, this is not a duck hunting destination.

Ramsey Russell: No, not.

Brent Wood: It’s not a Mississippi Delta. It’s not a Arkansas timber, it’s not, up in the Midwest where they’ve got a lot of pothole prairie field hunting, it’s more of a deer. There used to be a lot of turkeys out here, rios and eastern, I don’t even think in Smith County anymore they’ve even got a turkey season.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Brent Wood: Yeah, and they’ve tried, they’ve put some turkey federation programs together to try and rehabilitate turkey habitat and pheasant and stuff like that. Will it ever make, I have no idea. But as far as duck hunting, it’s not your typical everyday place to go, but places like Mike Simms has got a place like I’ve got, our neighbours over here, they’ve got a 3000 acre place. There’s a lot of big families from Dallas that have come out here and done some impoundments, done some restoration worked to –

Ramsey Russell: But even on a 3000 acre property, it’s still a very relatively small portion is even available or possible to develop any kind of waterfowl habitat.

Brent Wood: You’re right.

Ramsey Russell: Because it’s just little narrow stream beds and stuff.

Strategic Silence: Allowing Ducks to Rest and Rejuvenate

I want these things to rest. I don’t want them spooked or bugged because I want to be able to come out here at least once.

Brent Wood: It is. It’s a tiny little sliver through here, like you said, you get some of the Central Flyway ducks, you get some of the Mississippi Flyway. It’s not your typical duck destination. But sometimes we get to be as fortunate to have these kind of setups and ducks that come through. And I like it here, it’s hard to hunt. Like you said, you can’t hunt it every day and bang it out and you kind of have to be real particular and you got to be real sensitive to the ducks and you can’t pressure on them. Even when duck season starts, we have a lot of guys that work out here and I’ll make sure that people stop down by the cabins and just say, hey, don’t go any further because I want these things to rest. I don’t want them spooked or bugged because I want to be able to come out here at least once.

Ramsey Russell: That’s really kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

Brent Wood: It is.

Ramsey Russell: Would you say you could hunt it once, maybe twice a week?

Brent Wood: We can hunt the timber, maybe once a week. And then, like I said, here at the WP, we’ve got 4 or 5 different duck ponds that we grow millet in and sometimes they’ll come from the timber to the millet, millet to the timber. And we can probably do that once a week too, but no more than twice a week. And most of the times it’s once.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Do you think why you like this area so much goes back to your formative years when you were hunting up around Diboll.

Brent Wood: Yes, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: It brings you home.

Brent Wood: It does. I’ve got some great memories. Friends of mine from high school that we would drive and drive all the way through Diboll, Lufkin, come out here and hunt. And I actually got started hunting, not real young, but maybe 14, 15. My Uncle Jim took me out as a young kid and –

Ramsey Russell: Duck hunting?

Brent Wood: Duck hunting, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about that, was it East Texas also?

Brent Wood: I’m actually trying to remember where exactly it was. And I’m sorry, Jim, I should know where you took –

Ramsey Russell: You should left all the way to the duck blind.

Brent Wood: It was somewhere around here. My dad and my uncle, they were raised in McKinney, Texas and I think it was somewhere up around there, Melissa – Anna. Somewhere in that area. But I just remember watching ducks work in, as a youngster and my uncle telling me, just wait, just wait. Keep your head down. And I just fell in love with duck hunting. And I did it a little bit through college.

Ramsey Russell: Standing in trees.

Brent Wood: No, we were laying down, kind of like layout blinds.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brent Wood: And just watching them work. And we were kind of over a pond. And I remember as a kid, every duck that flew by, my brother and dad and uncle still give me hell about it. We’d shoot, shoot and I’d look up and look at my uncle and be like, hey, man, I shot that one. My uncle be like, okay, sure you did, Brent. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I love all the different habitats. I love cypress. I love to hunt cypress. And we were talking about hunting the dry fields. Boy, the dogs especially love dry fields. They’ve never looked better. They’ve never been happier than to hunt dry fields. I love it all, the big estuaries out in Mexico, the marshes down in Argentina, which you’ve also done.

Brent Wood: Yeah, we’re sure all fit that works, the Ag.

Ramsey Russell: Today, we shoot ducks, but it’s that play, it’s when they come down and land in your lap. That’s the essence.

Brent Wood: Yeah. When anybody can pass shoot birds.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like that first flock, instead of landing out there behind us today, came in in front of where the decoy came behind us. And you could see the top, some of those oaks just kind of rocking, just knocking as they were coming through because they couldn’t get through that canopy without knocking. That’s crazy.

Brent Wood: It is.

Ramsey Russell: And it’s thrilling to see that.

Brent Wood: It is. Yeah. Like you said September, October, we get started up in Canada and field hunting to me, especially with a good dog. I’ve got a 3 year old. His name’s Rip. He’s an incredible dog and I love watching him work in the water, timber. It’s great. You’ll look over, you’ll see your dog. He’s up there looking up in the sky and you look at him and look where he’s looking and he sees birds before you do and that’s great. But watching him or watching any dog work in the field, to me, it’s just so much more fun. Like, you can see them running, they start getting on the scent and they see that bird and they kick in another gear and it’s great. It’s a lot of fun.

Ramsey Russell: What are we going to do in the morning? How far drive we got? And that’s one thing else I noticed about hunting here, these short drives everywhere.

Brent Wood: This morning we woke up, we drove 2 miles.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah

Brent Wood: We were there. We’re not driving far. We’re just driving up the street around.

Ramsey Russell: 5 minutes?

Brent Wood: 5 minutes, 7 minutes. Yeah

Ramsey Russell: I like that. That means we can sleep in a little bit later.

Brent Wood: We can, yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: Well, Brent, I really appreciate you. I enjoy hunting with you. You’re always a ball of laughs and a lot of insights on a lot of different things. But I appreciate you showing me this part of the world that I’d never experienced before.

Brent Wood: Yeah, it’s been a pleasure having you. When you talked to me a few weeks ago and said, this is going to be your first time to hunt in East Texas, we got real fired up. So I called old Mike Simms and said, hey, man, let’s show my buddy a good time and show him what East Texas hunting is all about.

Ramsey Russell: He sure did.

Brent Wood: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Man, I can’t wait till he tries to top that in the morning. But I know he will.

Brent Wood: Yeah, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening this episode of Duck Season Somewhere in East Texas with my buddies Michael Simms, Back Down South clothing and my other buddy, Brent Wood, W Pine Ranch. See you next time.

[End of Audio]

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