EP 598. Treasure Island Missouri Duck Hunting

Joining me today is Mr. Marshall Pearson with Treasure Island Outfitters. Marshall, how the heck are you man?

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Got a great story for you today down in South Missouri, God’s country, some of these folks are calling it. Joining me today is Mr. Marshall Pearson with Treasure Island Outfitters. Marshall, how the heck are you man?

Man, doing pretty good. It’s been a crazy spring so far, but starting to get a few things done.

Marshall Pearson: Man, doing pretty good. It’s been a crazy spring so far, but starting to get a few things done.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I hear you man. Let’s start like this. Where did you grow up and how did you first get into hunting at all?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so I grew up in a western city, small town north of Jackson there, got into hunting from a young age. My granddad was in a duck club in Arkansas when I was kindergarten, first grade. Kind of got out of it as we started playing sports and got into that scene but really kicked back up late in high school once I could drive, really got into the duck hunting side of things and always knew, never really liked deer hunting that much, enjoy turkey hunting, we don’t have the best spots to go and duck hunting is just something that really caught on from a young age.

Ramsey Russell: What’s a favorite story growing up there in Tennessee, hunting with your granddaddy or your people? What’s a favorite story from your childhood? Do you still remember your first duck?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, I can remember my first duck. It was me and my dad another guy, he had told the other guy that they were going – we had tried a couple of times and I wasn’t successful. And he said, first bunch that comes in, I’m going to call you –

Ramsey Russell: How old were you?

Marshall Pearson: I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Santa Claus youth model 870. I tried a few times, but with no luck. And he said, first bunch that comes in, we’re just going to let Marshall shoot. It’s probably 10 or 12 mallards, came right in the whole little buck brush swamp hole. And I shot 3 times and wing one down, you should have seen dad running after it. I think he got a little wet getting it. But that was my first duck. Yeah, I can still remember that.

Ramsey Russell: So that’s a good daddy right there. That’s a sign of a good daddy.

Marshall Pearson: I can remember he didn’t want to shoot the cripple. He wanted me to get over there and shoot, he didn’t want to have nothing to do with it, he wanted me to be my first duck. So, that was it.

Ramsey Russell: And it was a mallard. Was it a greenhead?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. That was just luck, that wasn’t for me, I was just shooting into the bunch. I didn’t know what I was shooting at.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Have you got any favorite memories hunting with your daddy or your granddaddy?

Marshall Pearson: Man, growing up, we would go to Arkansas, kind of a strange story. I never went to school on Friday, probably for the first, till I went to third grade. We always left Thursday night to go to Arkansas, so I never had to go to school on Fridays, that probably ain’t the best way to go about it, but that’s just how we did it. So we’d go and we’d hunt Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and come home and I’d go back to school Monday.

Ramsey Russell: What kind of duck club were you in over there growing up? Was it timber? Was it river bottom? Ag fields?

Marshall Pearson: They had some bug brush sloughs. And I can’t even remember where it was, I was so young. Mostly rice fields, small pits, there’s water in them all time, muskrats just your typical Arkansas rice field. Some guys from Jackson, Tennessee ran on it and we got in on it. So did that till I think mom kind of got on to dad that we were hunting a little too much, that’s kind of when we cut back a little bit, but yeah.

Ramsey Russell: How did those early experiences shape your approach to outfitting today?

Marshall Pearson: Well, I always looked at. There was a guy that ran the club there and I can remember like one of the first times I went over there, he had a whole rich and tone duck call. It was a single loop lanyard, he took it off his neck, put it on mine. I just always looked up to people kind of in the waterfowling industry and thought, that that’s somebody I want to be like, I didn’t know then that I thought I was just going to have a job that would allow me to hunt a lot, not actually hunting to be my job. Yeah, kind of just always thought highly of people that. And I don’t know why, I mean, we’re just same old people. But that’s just kind of who I wanted to be like, I guess you could say with certain people that I saw in the hunting community.

Ramsey Russell: That makes perfect sense. What do you think you want to be when you grew up, a firefighter or something like that?

Marshall Pearson: No, my dad is a firefighter, actually. I thought I was going to be a farmer, I got ag business degree, worked for a farmer in high school, college, I worked for a cotton farmer there in Tennessee and that’s kind of what I thought I was going to do, but got into the outfitting side of things and it took off. So that’s two very time consuming careers, kind of had to choose one or the other.

Ramsey Russell: When did you leave Tennessee and jump over to Missouri?

Marshall Pearson: So, I’ve been in Missouri probably 4 years now. My wife, she was in optometry school in Memphis. So we had to leave home base anyways. And so I was going back home in Memphis and Missouri for a while. Then probably about 4 years ago, I kind of made Memphis and Missouri home base, it’s only about 80 miles from each other.

It ain’t that far, is it?

Ramsey Russell: It ain’t that far, is it?

I never thought she’d live over here in the Boot Hill, Missouri, but she did an internship over here and loved it

Marshall Pearson: No, it’s not too bad. And my wife just graduated. I never thought she’d live over here in the Boot Hill, Missouri, but she did an internship over here and loved it. And we bought a house last year, so it’s officially home base now. Even though we already had the lodge and everything. But now we’re here for good.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll be darn. That’s a great story. So what inspired you to establish Treasure Island Outfitters in the Missouri Boot Hill?

Marshall Pearson: So, yeah, working for another outfit there, a lot of guys in this area that, and there’s a lot of outfitters, not just Missouri, Arkansas, everywhere, they’re just doing it as a hobby to pay for their hobby. And that’s all fine and dandy, but I kind of took it as approach, like, man, if you really take care of these people, they’ll take care of you and let’s do things the right way. And we’ve always, even from when we were small and didn’t have much to put in the business, we made it the best that we could by doing things the right way, even if that meant spending more money on something or leases or having the right equipment or, but I never wanted guys to come hunting with me and say, man, we could have had this, there’s not many people that have said that. So in my 5 years of having Treasure island on our own, it’s grown substantially from what we thought it would be. But that’s kind of how we started off with it, anyways.

Ramsey Russell: Marshall, something you said just really strikes a nerve with me is that a lot of guys, and it is what it is, but a lot of people in that part of the world and Arkansas and around are seasonal duck guides, rest of the year they got to do something else. And I mean, I don’t mean just like a guide working for a company. I mean, a lot of company owners, it’s just a hobby. It’s a hobby that kind of got out of hand, they found a way to monetize it, but then some of them are full time, and that takes a whole another level of commitment. For example, the reason I think it resonates with me is because that’s how getducks.com started, an outfitter up in Alberta after the book hunts and I started this company, getducks.com and I still had a regular job, 40 hours a week, sometimes more, working for the federal government. And at some point in time for me, as it grew and got bigger, I just realized it’s really not fair to offer a service to somebody but them get the leftovers of my time.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: If a guy’s on the road and trust you me, if somebody calls on travel day, it’s never good. In other words, if you’re supposed to be traveling somewhere to go hunting, I know that, but if you are and you call me, chances are you’re not calling me to tell me you found the coldest beer, the best piece at the airport or found a good deal on something, you’re calling, tell me something’s come off the rails, you’re stuck, there’s been a flight cancellation and it really ain’t – What’s the guy paying for, if I’m stuck in a government meeting or just going to call him when I get off real work. When did that come about to you? Was there a particular moment when you were working with others that you just said, wow, these people deserve my full time attention.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So from the old business and then when we started, I mean I had a, what you would call a real job when I first started, but it’s just gotten to be, I think, where people are in it as a hobby and they look up on a good spot and then they say, well, I’m going to charge these guys 200 bucks, 250 bucks and I don’t really care what happens after they get there, and that’s all fine and dandy and I get it, I’ve been there. But that’s not the service that I wanted to provide. I’m in a, I guess I hate to call it a have to because I mean that’s more like your job, but it is a job, we have to provide a good experience to keep the lights on around here. So, a lot of these guys and we never had to do that in the early ages and at the other business we could have folded up anytime, just been hunting for buddies and that’s what a lot of these guys are. And more power to get all the money you can get, but if you wonder why guides some guys get a bad reputation and stuff like that, it’s because they don’t have to and they can just, they don’t care what other people think. And however many people were running through, I don’t want a single person to go, oh man, this could have been better, that’s never been the goal of Treasure Island.

Ramsey Russell: You climb around social media enough or you’re in this industry long enough, I’ve seen it all. I mean, going back to 35 years ago, going down to parts of Texas and around the country, the guys you’re talking about that are just running $250 a day, $300 a day or more, just daily hunt, meet us at a restaurant, do this, do that, well, we took you out, they’re just running through the motions. And once you’ve been on good hunts where people are bent over backwards, okay, you can’t wave a magic wand and make everything thaw out or make the wind blow or change all the variables that you can’t control. But you can do everything to control what you can. And a human being can just see the difference in this guy’s doing everything he possibly can versus, well, I’m just getting the dog and pony show.

Marshall Pearson: For sure. I’ve been on myself, I’ve been on some great hunts that are just day hunts where they drop us a pen, we show up and it, I’m not knocking anybody that’s doing it that way. But you definitely aren’t controlling everything you can control when you’re doing it that way. And that’s what between me and all the guides that work for us here, that we know that no matter what the situation is, no matter what the conditions are, they’re going to know that we’re all in. We don’t have many other options with this has to work. And maybe the ducks don’t fly that day, a lot of times they do, we wouldn’t be in business if they didn’t. But I think people can tell the difference. And when you get guys that want to come back on a return trip, even after, say, they didn’t kill their limit every day or anything like that, that lets you know, solidifies what you’re doing.

Ramsey Russell: That’s when you know you’re doing it right.

Marshall Pearson: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: I tell you what, you just said a mouthful there. How did you go about selecting -? Like, we all know that the boot hill of Missouri is increasingly a great place to hunt ducks and geese. I mean, it seems like for the last 15 or 20 years, that freeze line hangs right there, further up there towards your area than say down around Stuttgart or down around Vicksburg, Mississippi. And man, those birds are keen on that area. But how did you go about selecting that location and then how did you go about building your operation from the ground up?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so the location is always, it’s just the sheer number of waterfowl. And like I said, I’ve done it in Arkansas as a kid, but hunting over here in high school and stuff, I saw just the number of ducks and geese traveling to Big Lake. We’re right north of Big Lake National Refuge, Wildlife refuge or whatever and it can hold up just a crap ton of ducks, I don’t know the numbers, I don’t put them out maybe once a year what they’re holding. But you could just tell the number of ducks that come through an area and you can kind of say, okay, if we get in the right spots or make things happen the right way that ducks are there. You’re not having to shift a fly away and get lucky and the ducks be there. So our area as far south as you can go in what you call the bottoms, south of Kennett, Missouri, up around Wardell and then south, is very pressured. We get a lot of bad negativity on social media and stuff. It’s overly pressured. We’ve taken that approach and being an outfitter, we’re able to, is that we can take out 3 or 4 or 5 fields and only hunt one. So you’re taking all the birds that all 3, 4, 5 pits would be shooting into and only one group’s getting to shoot at them. And that’s how we’ve had a good bit of success. And that’s not rocket science. You take a block that’s killing a 1000 birds, and then you put 5 pits in it and they’re only killing 200 apiece and everybody’s griping, well, you take those 5 out, now you got a good spot again. And not knocking the farmers, but that’s tough for a normal guy to go out and lease 4 or 5, 6 fields and only hunt one of them, and because most time if you have a club and they rent 5 fields or they’re hunting 3 of them, well, that’s the same, just leasing them all out individually. So that’s kind of where we’ve been fortunate enough to, as our business grows, to put the majority of the money back into the land and leases. A lot of land is leased around here and just being competitive on the leases. And now everybody says, oh, you got to have relationships and this and that. And you do. When we first started, you’re scratching and clawing to get anything you can get, and you’re just making the most out of what you got. But as a business grows, and if you’re being here full time, I mean, that’s a huge, people seeing you in the summertime out there, cutting your yard, doing little favors here and there, that goes a long way with landowners. That’s kind of what has given us the leading edge, I would say.

Relationships are important no matter what you’re doing

Ramsey Russell: Relationships are important no matter what you’re doing. I mean, it’s important at home, it’s important at work, no matter what your field of study is, it’s important in business. I mean, the whole human experience is about relationships, and it’s take and give in relationships, you can’t just take, you got to give back, that’s part of being in a relationship. Now, how far north are you all from Arkansas line?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So out the lodge window, you can see Arkansas. I mean, some of our fields border the Arkansas line, some of the properties do. So we’re about as far south in Missouri as you can go. We’re off the Mississippi River a good bit. We’re probably 15, 20 miles west of the Mississippi, so we’re not right there on the river, we’re not really catching those ducks. But right north of Big Lake, and we might be spread across 25 miles to the north. I don’t know, it’s a lot of spread out flyway there.

Ramsey Russell: That’s good to hear. What challenges did you face during the initial stages? Now, you all were formed in 2020, is that right? That’s when you all formalized?

Marshall Pearson: That’s right. That’s whenever we broke off and started our own business as Treasure Island.

Ramsey Russell: What challenges did you all face during the initial stages, and how did you overcome those challenges?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so I think, obviously the budget was a big challenge from not knowing what we were going to have when we broke off. Obviously we were guiding before, and a lot of my team was. So we knew we had some customers going in. So that was a little bit of an accelerated start. But not having the property and not quite knowing, going from working for somebody else, I don’t care how good you are at your job, whenever you start and do it on your own, there’s going to be some challenges that you face between the team. At the old business, a lot of my guys had got it at the old place as well. But when we swapped over from me being the boss and me having to pay for everything, that created some challenges. And I’ve got a partner, business partner in on it too. Me and him, we had to work things out. And I would say overcoming those things, the biggest thing was everybody’s got to be on the same page as long as everybody’s look in the same direction, as far as your team and your customers and a lot of these guys bought into to what we were doing. And 2020, 2021, I don’t know if you remember or not, was one of the worst duck seasons. I mean, that’s been one of the worst Missouri duck seasons I’ve ever had or duck seasons I’ve had. So you go from shooting a 1000 birds of blind or 800 birds of blind to 300 birds of blind, those guys are scratching their head like, man, we wasted our money with this guy. But we gave some discounts and stuff like that. Get these guys back for the 2021-2022 season. Like, hey, give us one more shot, just do this and that next year, we got them good that next year and that’s kind of what has accelerated our business into what we have now.

Ramsey Russell: The thing about 2020 was that struck out at me when I was meeting with you, man, that was the year of the pandemic. That was a tough year. I mean, people were scared shitless. I mean, staying at home, not knowing if we had a job, people in my business were really scared. And there was all these travel advisories, you couldn’t go into a restaurant without wearing your mask or whatever. From a perspective of a hunting outfitter, was that good or bad?

Marshall Pearson: So I would say, for your type of business, it probably wasn’t too good. We were getting a lot of customers that were taking out of the country trips. And I got to book several of those guys because I would say it flooded the outdoor market. And a lot of these guys in the US, that I’ve talked to will say the same thing, because if you were ready for it, it boosted your business a little bit. But on the flip side, whenever it got time to come down and hunt, a lot of these guys got scared. I didn’t lose many groups, but I did have a few that first year. And especially when every dollar counts that first year, you got a few groups back out, and you’re like, you’re scratching your head. How are you going to make this work? And we were building a new guide house, and the prices, everything. We quoted the building and then doubled it, what it cost to put up just because, I mean, when you’re planning something in March and then don’t start building on it till June, that’s how quick the prices went up. So, that was a challenge for sure.

Ramsey Russell: So it was a boom, though, in terms of a lot of guys that might otherwise have been traveling internationally, were traveling somewhere. They had the time, maybe they were working remote, had a little more flexible schedule, and maybe they got some PPR dollars or what? I mean, it seems like throughout North America, tit was kind of at least a temporary explosion and people hunting locally or traveling a state or two away to hunt.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, I would confirm that because just from the sheer amount of calls and texts, emails that we were getting on that very first year with no traction. I mean, if that was to happen again, which I hope it doesn’t, I mean, it would just be.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, me and you both, we could agree on that. So how’s your operation evolved since you all started in 2020?

Marshall Pearson: 2020, we didn’t have our own lodge, we were using a third party lodge. We built our own home base in 2022. So that was the 3^rd year we thought that would be like the 10 year plan. Just as that second season we had a super good season, we built our own lodge. We sleep 24 at home base now and then we sleep 24 at a third party lodge right down the road too. So we’re talking about 50 to 60 guys a day roughly. And from the start we never thought, we thought we’d just be a 2 or 3, 4 group a day kind of operation. But kind of going back to the land deal, being able to have more land and to do that you got to run more customers. And so that’s kind of the approach we’ve taken it. Kept it affordable, we haven’t jumped up into the, what some people might call the big leagues. We like the customer base we’re in and as long as we get to keep making money and keep doing what we enjoy, then we don’t see the point of trying to risk that and go up in price too much.

Ramsey Russell: Well, what inspired the name Treasure Island? Because when I hear the word Treasure Island, I’m thinking of an old book from back when my childhood about pirates and buried treasure. Where did Treasure Island come from?

Marshall Pearson: So anybody that’s been through southeast Missouri, there’s 4 or 5 drainage ditches in the beginning drain the swamp out. This used to be a whole big swamp area, big timberland and stuff and they put these drainage ditches in. Well, come as you get down south, one of them breaks off and then comes back together, the elk chute ditch and all the land in between those ditches, it’s not an actual island because you can get to it and there’s highways right across it. But all that land in between is called Treasure Island. Thought I was going to have a shot to hunt a lot of that area, it turns out I didn’t. It’s not as good as I wanted it to be and didn’t have the access that I wanted to be. I do still have some spots on the actual Treasure Island, but that is just an area real close by.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it’s a great name, by the way. I like the name, it’s very easy to remember and it says a lot. There’s gold buried around there somewhere, should I say green gold buried around there somewhere? I like it.

Marshall Pearson: We get mostly positive remarks on the name, but some negative. The guys going off their wives are wondering where they’re going to Treasure Island or something like that. But yeah, it’s worked out pretty good for us.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, what are the type of hunts you all offer, such as the habitats?

Marshall Pearson: So we hunt out of rice and bean. Most of our ground here is a precision grade, so zero grade. All of our hunts take place out of turn rows in the levees, we don’t go out in the middle of the field, so you’ll be dry on one side, flooded on the other on flooded on both. And we also got into, we’ve got some flooded timber land, it’s not the true Arkansas oak trees, but it’s a big buck brush, tupelo, willow swamp that’s flooded by the St. Francis River, we’ve been pretty fortunate for that property, it’s pretty fun to hunt out there.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me more about hunting this swamp. The flooded timber, and hunting in the trees, the pictures are beautiful. Hunting in trees is always a nice deal. Are you all hugging the trees or big blinds or what?

Marshall Pearson: So most of the time it’s in a big blind. We do have some opportunity to hug the trees a few of the guys get to, but it’s just tough taking customers out and hugging a tree, I mean, in a swamp, guys falling in. So most of the time you’ll get in the boat, you’ll boat right up to the blind, the guy will put you in the blind. You’ll be in a comfortable millennium chair sitting there and it’s trees all around you. It’s willows and tupelos like I said, some people go, well, this isn’t really timber hunting. Well, it’s in the trees, and that’s timber to me. Yeah, it’s super fun hunt. I’d say we probably kill 75% mallards out there, a lot of teal. But just a unique experience for when you hunt the pit and you just drive out on a side by side and it all looks the same. You get to see a lot of waterfowl in the field, but whenever you’re in the woods, I mean, that feels like a place like this is where we should be duck hunting.

Ramsey Russell: What species do you all mostly shoot when you’re off in the woods or off in the trees versus out there in the fields. Is it a change in species?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, I would say the number drops a little bit from mallards to more puddle ducks. Now we can kill any given puddle duck on any day, in the fields we’re killing a lot of pintails along with the mallards, a lot of green wing teal, gadwalls, shovelers, wigeons, especially early in the year, but a lot of pintails and that’s going to help us. The pintail –

Ramsey Russell: That 3 pintail limit’s going to be a boom for you all, isn’t it?

Marshall Pearson: I mean, we’ve got some farms that if it’s a sunny day and the wind’s blowing, you’re going to get your pintail limit every day. So it’s going to be fun to see. You got an 8, 10 man pit, you pull 30 pintails out there, that’s going to be something different than when you can only kill 8 or 10.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. And versus the trees, do you tend to shoot more mallards off of the trees, gadwalls more off from the trees than you do out in the fields?

Marshall Pearson: A lot of mallards and gadwalls in the woods and a lot of teal out there, I don’t know why, I don’t know, it’s just good teal habitat. A lot of green wing teal, which is kind of unusual for the woods, but it’s real fun. You get a big group of teal come in there and they can’t get out quick enough. So a lot of times we’ll get to shoot at them twice. They’ll come in, you’ll volley on them, reload, and they’re still going out, you get to shoot on again. And I don’t know why, you don’t see very many teal shoots in the woods, but where we’re at, certain times of the year we can get on them pretty good.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the speckle belly goose hunt like in you alls neck of the woods?

Marshall Pearson: So the speck hunting in my mind has went down in our area. We’ve never held as many geese as Arkansas does. I mean I would say not even a quarter of the population. You come through here and you see 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, there’s over a million on the other side of the ridge in Arkansas. And the reason for that is they go down west of us and then I think they turn around and they come back on our side. And so we do some speck hunting, we’re pretty successful when we do it, but we definitely pick and choose our days on when we want to do it. We’re hunting migrator full body spreads because like I said, the pressure is a lot more. You can’t find a feed and get permission without it being close to somebody’s duck pit. And so a lot of the farmers won’t give permission during the year. So, we run big migrator spread and on sunny windy day we can get them pretty good. But a sunny windy day is a good duck day too. So it kind of depends on what the customers want to do and if they’ve had a good duck day and they want to go shoot geese, that’s fine, we’ll go try the geese out. So definitely it’s a fun hunt. But from when we first started hunting over here 10, 15 years ago, nobody in the country could blow a speck call. If you could just blow one halfway decent and you had out 2 or 3 dozen full bodies, I mean you could get them in every single pit over here. And it’s not like that anymore. You got your better goose flyways and you better have somebody that can call pretty good to kill them.

Ramsey Russell: Tell anybody listening what they can expect during a typical 3 day Treasure Island hunt.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so typically, you’re going to get 2 days in the fields and one day in the timber, that’s just how we do things. Everybody wants to hunt the timber, so we just share the love and make sure you get one day in there 2 days in the fields. We’re averaging anywhere from, we were down a little bit last year, but I like to be in the 15 to 20 bird per hunt range. So that means you’re killing 30 one day and then you’re only killing 5 the next. You know that’s all going to be weather dependent. But that’s just kind of been our average over the last couple seasons. And I would say 3 years ago, 2020, 2022, 2023, we had a stellar season, we were over 20 birds per hunt that year. But I would say in that 15 to 20 can be average expected. In the afternoons, we used to do afternoon goose hunts, we used to guarantee that we don’t anymore. If it’s something the guys really want to do, then we can make it happen. But that’s just kind of an addition most time in the afternoon guys are skeet shooting, hanging out the lodge. We will hunt in the afternoon, duck hunt in the afternoons if we have to, but we don’t like to. We’d rather the fields rest, but if we got one field that’s real high and you didn’t have a good shoot that morning, we’ll take you out there that afternoon or something because it’s different ducks every day, you’re not hunting a feeding duck, you’re hunting a traffic duck. So there might be 50,000 fly over a pit one day and there may only be 500 fly over tomorrow, you don’t ever know, it’s just the weather conditions and the pressure and stuff like that, what’s happening. So our motto is kind of get them while you got them. And if they’re flying good on this pit today, don’t mean they’re going to be flying good tomorrow. So get as many groups of there as you can.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. What are your favorite weather conditions? That’s one of those variables you can’t control, but for the perfect day for Marshall Pearson is what?

Marshall Pearson: Perfect day for me I would say would be sunny, mid-30s, south wind, south winds always better, I don’t know why for this area. And it seems like that goes for a lot of people down south, I don’t know why, but ducks like to fly into the wind. South wind pretty stiff 10 to 15 over here in the flatland, that’s pretty good wind. So you can get when it gets above 20, that’s a little too high. But I would say, it’s not a guarantee when that happens, but if you got the ducks and it’s going to be a pretty good hunt. Another one that you know probably isn’t too favorable against most people, but it’s rain. If it’s raining and that wind blowing, I mean it’s not a guarantee, but it’s almost every single spot is going to have a good hunting rain.

Ramsey Russell: So ought to be a lot of green wings at least out there in those fields.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, man, I don’t know what it is about the rain, if it makes them fly lower or they’re dumber or what it is. But typically we see, and ducks hitting fields in the rain, that’s all over the country, that’s not just in Missouri.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Marshall Pearson: Rain’s guaranteed, now that’s not my favorite way to hunt them, but it’s usually pretty successful.

Ramsey Russell: Marshall, Treasure Island emphasizes the all-inclusive experience. Elaborate on the accommodations and amenities that come along with the all-inclusive experience.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So with all-inclusive experience, you’re getting two people per room, no bunk beds, nothing like that. Private bathroom, so that’s a big deal for guys, you don’t have to share a bathroom with your neighbor, you don’t have to go out in the hallway with, get dressed, do that. Whenever you get in there, you’re there. And that’s a huge deal for guys. The meals are fabulous. Anytime you go anywhere on vacation, the most talked about thing is usually the food. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a hunting trip at the beach with your family, just anywhere you go, the food is something you remember. And so we’ve done a good, our team has done a good job on preparing good meals. And that’s something that any of our customers will say, the food’s going to be pretty good.

Ramsey Russell: Well, what am I going to eat there with you?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So we can eat anything from filets to, we do smothered pork chop, that’s pretty unique. Chicken wings is actually, we smoke chicken wings all day, throw them in the fryer right before we sauce them. And that’s a pretty big hit for guys.

Ramsey Russell: I bet it is.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. Smoke queso. I mean, just things that you wouldn’t typically cook at home for your family. A lot of smoked meats and stuff like that for guys to have. And we do fried fish once a week, fried crappie and that’s a big hit because a lot of these guys, don’t catch crappie or even know what crappie is really. So that’s a big one. We’ll do shrimp bowls, we’ll do a little bit of everything. But all good meals. And then for lunch the biggest hit for lunch probably crawfish etouffee, we do that once or twice a week. Just crawfish over rice with the sauce, and we do cheeseburger sub sandwiches, just a lot lighter lunch, but we do a heavy breakfast in the blind and then a heavy dinner at night.

Ramsey Russell: What do you all cook in the duck blind?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so all the blinds are equipped with Blackstone griddles. Typically, we do breakfast burritos, everybody does that. And then we’ll do sandwiches, bacon, egg and cheese or sausage, egg and cheese, pork chop, egg and cheese, some kind of sandwich and then we do a pancake and bacon day. And that’s pretty unique because you can’t cook pancakes everywhere. But on Blackstone, it’s pretty easy to do. And on a good day and we shoot our limit, we’ll come back to lodge and cook breakfast. But most of the time we cook about 08:30 AM, 09:00 AM, and it’s kind of the middle way of the hunt, kind of say, hey, we’re wrapping this up. But in our area, the hunting is not just first thing, we might kill 5 ducks or 10 ducks in the last hour. Say we’re hunting till 12, we might kill 5 or 10 from 11 to 12, you don’t ever know. So that’s something a lot of people don’t realize when they come hunting with us is, they think it’s in the first 30 minutes and then it’s over. This is a traffic duck and you might have 50 bunches go over you, none of them look. And then all of a sudden you get 5 bunches in, now you’re close to a limit.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I would have thought like offering you all trees that, oh, yeah, we could shoot them right off the crack of dawn. But I would expect mid to late mornings when especially the big ducks are going to try to come in just to set up.

Marshall Pearson: That’s right. And it’s a loafing farm, so that’s a little bit different than the fields. But first thing in the woods, in the woods is more defined than it is in the field because you’ll have your early morning scramble, it’ll be teal and you’ll kill a few mallards, and then it lulls pretty good for hour, hour and a half. And on the real good flying days, it won’t. But it lulls and everybody’s kind of sitting there twiddling their thumbs at about 08:30 AM, 09:00 AM when the sun’s in the hole and everything, they crank back up pretty good because they’re coming in there to loaf and they’re not, there is some food in there, but they’re not feeding in there, they’re coming to get comfy for the day and get out of the elements and that’s when we bang up on them pretty good.

Ramsey Russell: Do you all tailor the experience for different types of hunting groups?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So that’s something as being a guide, you just have to read your group, and especially the guys that have had good hunts in the timber, they want to hunt there every day and we just can’t do that. We’ve run too many guys, we have to have to let everybody get a day in there. But definitely, I mean, we’ve had guys come in track chairs and all kind of stuff. We’ve got handicap accessible stuff and some guys can’t get down in pits, we’ve got blinds on the field roads and stuff like that, they can get in. So, that’s a big deal to guys that you don’t have to be stuck in the same hunting environment every day. We change hunting setups and different guides every day. So you’ll be with a different guide and a different blind every single day.

Ramsey Russell: What’s a tip you have Marshall for ensuring that each guest feels welcomed and well cared for during their stay at Treasure Island?

Marshall Pearson: So I feel like Treasure Island and not just me, but all of my guides have seen me starting off and then now implementing. I mean, just get to know the guys. These guys are just normal guys spending hard earned money to come on a vacation and just to make them feel, like part of the family. I mean, I know that’s kind of cliché to say or something, but that’s really part of it. I mean, we care about their daughter’s soccer team and what they’re doing and we talk to these guys all year, and it’s not just me now and that’s kind of the cool thing of what it’s grown into. My guides have gotten to know the customers and they’ll text back and forth in the summertime and how’s it going, how’s the fishing, how’s the turkey hunting, how’s baseball? And I think that’s really what has gotten people to buy into the Treasure Island Outfitters, and that’s kind of what has made us unique, I would say.

Ramsey Russell: We talked about the all-inclusive experience, but one thing that I like about working with you all is you all have got something for everybody. You all have got a hunt only, a guided hunt only and you’ve even got a do it yourself. Talk a little bit about those two options for people that may not can afford the all-inclusive experience but still want to take their kids on a good hunt?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. And that’s where it’s come from, having as many properties as we do, we can’t guide in them, we can’t guide in all of them even if we wanted to. There’s just not enough people to make it all go round. So good spots that we’ve started with and the self-guided deal is pretty successful. Like I said, if one pit’s doing good, they’re all going to be doing pretty good. So it’s something for you to get out there and get to enjoy it. And it’s not as catered to as the all-inclusive package. But some guys don’t want that, it’s not about the money. Some guys just want to do it on their own and blow their own duck call and run their own dog and stuff like that. And we’re a great place to do that. Would you rather, spend your money on a whole season lease and go out and it might not be successful or spend your money and know you have somewhere good to hunt and just depend on the weather, whether it’s going to be a great day or good day.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about your team at Treasure Island. I mean you’ve talked a lot about your guides, come up there and hunt, I’m going to get to meet a lot of them, hunt with a lot of them. Tell me about your team. How do you select your guides and maintain a high standard?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So me, I have a partner, Austin Moore, we’re 5^th grade buddies, we’ve grown up together, never thought we would be business partners growing up, never thought we’d even be doing this. But he helped me guide some at the other outfit and for nothing he never got paid, he was just kind of my backbone when I needed him to. And so we started Treasure Island together, we struggled at first and we’ve got to figure it, we’ve got a pretty good system now. He handles all the self-guided, he handles all the food at the lodge, so he’s excelled in things that I don’t excel at and I don’t have time to do. But as far as our team, a lot of these guys have grown up with us and it’s kind of fun to, it’s kind of a unique experience is that, we do have some outsiders that have came in that become part of the group. But most of our guys have changed their lives or their living so they could guide for Treasure Island. As we needed more guys, it always seemed, man, we need 2 more guides, how we’re going to find it? Well, one buddy saying, hey, I’m willing to take off all winter and do this and do that and now we’ve got a couple guys on full time staff, that just makes me and Austin’s lives easier to, we got a lot of duck blinds to get ready. So as far as choosing the guides, we’ve had some that we’ve hired and that don’t cut the mushroom we’ve had to let go. But you’ve got to understand that, it’s not just about you and you having successful, enjoyable hunts and you don’t deserve to have as much as the guy that’s been here 10 years, when you’re first starting out. And that’s kind of been a growing pains for us, weeding through people. But all the guys are great duck hunters and all the customers can see that. And they’re going to put their experience first and that that’s a big deal for us.

Ramsey Russell: Have you seen where everybody wants to be a duck guide until it’s time to do real duck guide shit? Have you ever seen that?

Marshall Pearson: I’ve had a few that like to nap in the afternoons with the girlfriends and stuff like that. And there’s no nap time. Man, these guys get here first of November, they’re here till mid-February or into February if there’s no goose garden. And it’s all day every day. And I know it’s tough, I do it too. But it’s from the moment you wake up until we make our guides go to dinner and hang out with the clients. So it’s from 04:00 AM to 09:00 PM and you might get an hour break in there for lunch or something. But there’s always something to do in the afternoons. If you don’t have nothing to do, you can look for something as big outfit as we have, there’s something to improve on and a pit that needs more brush and pit needs pumped out or decoys be moved or something like that.

Ramsey Russell: Something needs hosing down, something needs sorted, something. I mean, I tell you what, duck hunting is tough. I mean, especially like the scale you all are running, something’s always broke, something always needs touching up on.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So with the team, we’ve got a kind of a team of mechanics and they work on the stuff all day. Then we got a team of brush cutters and they work on the brush every day and we got a team for decoys and they work on the decoys every day. And that’s something that we struggled with at the beginning, but now as those guys, the higher level, senior level guys, I don’t have to get on to somebody if somebody’s not working, they’re going to let them know. Everybody knows duck guys are pretty gritty and pretty hardnosed and that’s been something, they’re hard workers. If somebody’s slacking, they’re going to let them know, that’s for sure.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. Can you think of a story that exemplifies team Treasure Island’s dedication to client satisfaction? Is there one story that just stands out?

Marshall Pearson: I don’t know a certain story. Anytime we freeze up, it’s really hard on the team because I mean we’re up, there’s somebody up all the hours of the night. It may not be your guy the next day and you may not see it and still may be locked up some. But there’s somebody running ice eaters, checking generators all night long and we had it nailed down this year that we needed to check generators at 10 PM and at 3 AM. So there was a crew going at 2 PM checking them, and there’s a crew going at 3 AM checking. Because when you go out that morning, whether you’re going out first thing or later in the day, they got to stay running all the time. That’s hard on your people and hard on your equipment.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a good story. That’s a good example right there, Marshall. How does Treasure Island Outfitters engage in conservation and especially habitat management? Because I know you work with a lot of these landowners and do a lot of stuff. Heck, you were talking about, you got a background in some of this kind of stuff.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So the farming practices over here, especially the last couple years, man, we’ve been hunting dirt. Everybody’s wondering, what kind of fields are you hunting? But, like, it has been so dry probably the last 3 years, these fields are getting turned over and there’s hardly no food out there. So something we’ve been able to do that’s kind of unique is we started putting water on a lot earlier than what used to be in the past and catch some of those early ducks. And I think since we started doing that, probably the last 3 or 4 season, we’ve had great 3 or 4 openers, and that it narrows down to nothing but having water early, that’s no food or anything. So, farming is tough for guys right now, they got to get every dollar they can get out of an acre. So, as far as people farming for ducks and stuff like that, that’s not a huge thing around here because the land rent is so high and it costs so much to do it. But over on our river farm, we’ve got some food plots, it’s enrolled in a wetland reserve easement, so it’s in WRE so we can have food plots and you can’t have any commercial crops out there or anything like that. So definitely have some food out there, like I said, it’s more for loafing, so that’s more pressure management out there as don’t hunt every side every day and stuff like that give them a place to rest. But here in the fields, everybody knows they’re feeding at night, everybody seen the radars where they’re picking up off big lake at night, coming out to the fields, going back in first thing in the morning. The biggest thing you can do is just pressure management. Get the people, it goes from nobody being down here all year long to it looking like a highway down here on opening morning.

Ramsey Russell: And how do you manage pressure? How do you manage pressure? Because that pressure is, that is such a success killer from coast to coast, north to south.

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. And it’s tough to do when you’re running a big outfit like we’re doing because you want everybody to have good hunts, and so when you got a pit, you’re going to put them in there. And like I said, we try not to hunt afternoons, I know guys that offer full day hunts and that’s fine, do what you want. But you’re hurting yourself by doing that. And we can tell the fields that we let rest even though there’s decoys out. We may have 50 dozen decoys out there, but if you don’t hunt that field 2 or 3 days and those ducks aren’t getting called out and then you go hunt there, you can tell a difference. So, just having the ability to manage some of that has been a big step forward for us. As like I said, when shots go off, every little thing hurts from somebody else calling at them to somebody shooting at them. But if a teal sweeps a block of water and they don’t get shot at, they’re going to go to another block of water till they don’t get shot at. So we’ve to implement a few areas where we don’t want at all. Haven’t seen huge success in that because there’s still somebody driving through there even though there’s nobody hunting there, it’s not technically a refuge because they’re still getting messed with. But as our operation grows, that’s something we hope we can implement a little more.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Can you recall a particularly memorable hunt or client experience that stands out? I mean, you’ve been doing this for 4 years, you’ve got a big operation, you’ve had a lot of clients, I’ll be trying to think of a memorable hunter experience for you personally as a guide. You might have a funny or crazy client experience. I ain’t never met a duck hunter that doesn’t.

Marshall Pearson: I mean, we’ve been pretty blessed with some really good customers. One thing that sticks out in my head that maybe always will, it was December 10^th, 2021. I can remember the day we had a huge tornado come through the southeast. And I can remember that day it was like 32 degrees that morning or something. And cold day, it was foggy, fog lifted, we killed our limit. We were on the woods and we go through and we didn’t know. We ate dinner and they’ve been talking about this tornado, kind of like they been talking all spring talking these tornadoes up. We didn’t think nothing about it. It’s freaking December, ain’t no tornado coming through here. And I can remember sitting in the lodge, this is before we built our place. And we’re all sitting there and the guys go and man, I haven’t text my wife on this whole trip, but I better text her and tell her I love her. We’re getting pillows over our heads and that really sticks out with me. Those guys keep coming back and they’ve been coming back ever since. In our lodge, we’ve got a storm shelter now, so we’ve got a big concrete room we can put everybody in if that ever happens again. But that’s one, out of many. I have tons of friends off this guiding deal and stuff like that, that I would never imagine that I would have. I would say I’ve got more friends through the outfitting deal than I had before. And so, yeah, it’s definitely that. I can tell story after story on that.

Ramsey Russell: Well, what stories have clients shared that highlight the uniqueness of hunting with Treasure Island Outfitters?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, we get a lot of what not to do story or horror stories is what I call them, of these guys coming and they’re just, had horrible experiences elsewhere.

Ramsey Russell: Elsewhere you mean. They’ve had bad experiences elsewhere until they come to Treasure Island.

Marshall Pearson: That’s correct. Yeah, they’ve had bad experiences elsewhere and they didn’t know maybe some – I mean, I’ve had guys that like, man, I would never do a guided hunt again. We tried it out one more time and then they love it. And it’s a lot about, just like I said, fellowshipping with the guys and getting to know him in the lodge and hanging out, having a drink with them after the hunt, that’s a huge deal. And so that, I would say that’s something the customers really harp on with us.

Ramsey Russell: Do you feel like a lot of your friendships and some of these stories and memories and your relationships with these people and hearing about how some of the bad experience they’ve had elsewhere, do you feel like it continues to influence your approach to guiding and outfitting?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, for sure. And starting out, we’re just trying to make things the best possible. And so we look at some things that people do and, oh, yeah, we want to do them that way. And then we look at other, I mean, even successful outfits and I’m like, no, we’re just not going to do things that way. We’re going to do things our way and it’s going to work or it’s not. And we’ve changed over the years. It’s a trial and error game, and that’s what I love the most about it. It’s very similar to farming, you try something one year and it works great, and you try it again, and then you try something and it doesn’t work. And that’s how everybody says, well, how did you get to do this? Well, I tried something else, it didn’t work before, now I’m trying this, and it does work. So a lot of trial and error, I would say that’s how we’ve kept it going for the most part.

Ramsey Russell: Have you become a better duck hunter since you started this?

Marshall Pearson: I don’t know if our hunting is just getting better, if I’m getting to be a better duck hunter. I would say, looking back as a kid, I definitely, I want it just as bad as anybody does right now, but I would say, man, what I thought I was back then to what I am now, the image has changed a lot. But yeah, I would definitely call ourselves better hunters. And like I said, we’ve got a lot of what not to do experience, so we can handle our own pretty good during duck season.

Ramsey Russell: Do you all leave your decoys out all year?

Marshall Pearson: We leave them out all year at most of the spots. We do pick them up at some places, but we’re running big spreads.

Ramsey Russell: You’re basically running traffic, so you can get away with that.

Marshall Pearson: That’s right. 500 to a 1000 decoys, a lot of motion, a lot of flash, everything’s wired to the pit. Yeah, so we can get away with that a lot. Does it hurt us some? Probably so. You get a couple days of rain or a couple days of cloudy weather where ducks are using the field, it may hurt us a little bit, but for the grand majority of the time, and we’ve had people tell us, man, I wouldn’t do that, well, you can’t pick up 800 decoys at 10 spots every day, you know what I mean? So that’s just what you got to do.

Ramsey Russell: And it really takes those bigger spreads to get those traffic conducts attention ready to come in and stuff like that. You started off talking about, we let off the episode, you were talking about, say you’ve got a section over here or something that’s got 4 or 5 pits on it and you all narrow it down to the best one. And this is a double stage, so it’s kind of a double question. So how often do you feel like that you can hunt that best of the 4 or 5 pits? That’s the first part of that question. How many days a week can you really kind of reasonably hunt it? And the second part of that question is, do you ever shift gears and go to one of other pits to give this one a break? I mean, is it kind of like playing a chess game like it within that given area?

Marshall Pearson: So we don’t typically move pits in a complex or in a section of pits, we do very occasionally because set up for wind direction and stuff like that. But a lot of times we’re going to have our one big nice pit in the middle showing the most water, shoot it on any wind direction, stuff like that. And we want our guys to be comfortable too, that’s a big part of the experience. So would you rather go sit in a box full of water or half full of water, we pump it out or whatever smaller pit, or would you rather sit in one nice one that, no matter the brand, they’re all pretty nice. So no, typically we stick to wherever we set up, that’s where we’re hunting. Now like I say, I’ve got a 550 acre block and every year they’ll start sitting in the south end of it, we will go down there and hunt from time to time. Once they get loaded up, we’ll take some decoys and move down and hunt down there. But for the most part we’re hunting the main setup on the farm. And then as far as the other question goes on, not hunting them every day we’ve got our core 4 or 5 spots and we do hunt them probably every day. They probably get hunted 55 out of 60 days and it’s just our biggest traffic spots. They’re under the flight line most days and they’re going to be productive too when they’re under the flight line. So that’s a big deal. And then we’ve got 4 or 5 spots we hunt every day. We’ve got our timber holes, probably 2 or 3 timber holes that we hunt every single day. And then, we’ve got probably another 2 or 3 timber holes that we bounce around in and another 5 or 6, 7, 8, 10 pits that we will bounce in from time to time, depending on wind direction conditions and stuff like that.

Ramsey Russell: How many blinds do you all have, Marshall?

Marshall Pearson: Man, we hunt consistently probably 20, 25. But I mean, I’ve got control of over 75.

Ramsey Russell: Wow, that’s a big geo. So from you all’s lodge, how far – if your lodge were in the center of a circle, what’s the radius of that circle?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so we’re pretty centrally located. The lodge is more on the east quarter to go to the river, which is the woods, we’re about 20, 25 miles from there. And then we go about 20, 25 miles north, we only go about 10 miles south, just because you’re into Arkansas at that point. I mean, not even 10 miles, probably 5 to 8 miles. But just to give you an idea, you’ll never be driving more than a half hour to get to the spot.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. So what are your goals? I mean, you all have been at this for a while, you all have continued to grow. What are your goals for the future of Treasure Island Outfitters?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, so we’re taking the number of clients that I want to take right now. I don’t really want to push it too much more, but I want to increase the experience to where everybody feels like they’re having a one on one catered experience. Even though we’re running 60 guys or 10 groups a day or whatever, I want it to feel like you’re at a mom and pop operation. So with that comes more building, more structure and more a better, not a better team, but more people on a team to get one on one with a guy and to increase the hunt a little bit. Like I said before, you take 4 or 5 pits and you have one really good one. Well, you got to keep multiplying that in areas. And say in those 4, 5, 6 pits only have one, you might have 3 or 4 different landowners. So that’s 3 or 4 different land deals going down for just one section. And I think that’s coming with time. Well, I know it’s coming, we’re not hoping it happens, we’re making it happen. But there’s only so much we can do each year. And we built a new guide house last year. 2 years ago we had 13 guys in a 1500 square foot house shop building and we were two on top of each other. So we built a new guide house with a workshop on it, that was our project last year. Not doing a whole lot this year, so we’ll see what next year holds.

Ramsey Russell: Client satisfaction, business success, it’s driving the inevitable growth. You’ve got to expand, you’ve got to step up. That’s exciting stuff. When would the new developments or expansions on the horizon. What is you all’s timeline?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah. So the new lodge that we’re –

Ramsey Russell: The one you got right now still smells brand new.

Marshall Pearson: It is brand new. And we were able to, a big deal for us, we were able to purchase the farm where the timber hunting takes place last year too. So that’s been a huge undertaking for us. So developing that we were just leasing it before we leased it for 3 seasons, last year was our 4^th hunting it as our own. So developing that and making that better the best it can be now that we own it is a huge step for us. As far as right now the third party lodge we use elk shoot, they’re building a brand new building kind of for my customers this year as my business has grown, so is theirs. So we’re going to kind of fine tune that building this year and see where that takes us. As far as me having new buildings, it’s just going to depend on the properties. We’ve talked about Arkansas being so close right here, expanding into there. But there’s no plans in the works for that right now, I would say right now just making the best of what we have to work with.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. How do you envision the evolution of waterfowl hunting in southeast Missouri?

Marshall Pearson: So for us, the hunting is getting better for a lot of guys and a lot of people online, you see there’s a lot of negativity but I know there’s a couple other guys that the hunt’s getting better for too.

Ramsey Russell: And why do you think that is?

Marshall Pearson: It’s a money grab, it is what it is. The guy spending the most money or kill the most birds, and that’s what it is. And that’s kind of the way duck hunt has evolved and it sucks to say that. And there’s not many public opportunities in southeast Missouri for people to hunt. We had a season meeting back in February, they were talking about how low public success was in southeast Missouri. Well, there’s nowhere for them to go. So, yeah, the public, the success rate is going to be the lowest because there was one conservation area in the south zone, Missouri, and it’s 50 miles north of me. But the guys that are really, that are all in, like we’ve already talked about, they’re growing their outfits and they’re growing their clubs and they’re having success. And I think you kind of either you got to get on board with that and be willing to be all in or take what you can get.

Ramsey Russell: I’m going to start winding this up, but I’m going to, kind of a little more personal note, Marshall. We started off talking about your hunt with your daddy and your granddaddy, and you found yourself into this business, what have you learned about people and about yourself in this business?

Marshall Pearson: Well, there’s one thing I’ve learned, the duck hunt community is a pretty small world, number of hunters. So most of the time, especially as we’ve gotten bigger, guys have hunted with people we know, there’s always a connection somewhere, even no matter where they come from. We get a lot of guys from the northeast and they hunt with people we know. And so really, you’ve got to keep a good reputation about yourself. Don’t ever let that get too far gone the other way. But with that being said, another thing is when you’re dealing with the public, you’re not going to please everybody. And I don’t ever just say I’m cutting my losses. I go to as far extreme as I can go to make somebody happy, and make them enjoy their experience. But I think just the ducks and the team behind us, and I don’t have to do that much because everybody seems pretty happy with what the experience we’re providing.

Ramsey Russell: Growth, duck guide and duck outfit and taking care of, delivering a great experience is hard work enough, but the scale like you all have, in such a short amount of time, was there ever any time you said, man, this duck thing ain’t for me. Was there anything you’ve ever done, you go, man, I don’t know about this duck guiding stuff?

Marshall Pearson: Starting out from the very first season, we had a terrible season. I was like, oh shit. I could have been a farmer and it was still a tough life, but there’s a lot of variables. But I was thinking about calling it after then, not really, I always knew this was the plan and it had to work. But we never had to do it until we built the lodge, once we built that, it was kind of a have to. And ever since then, I think the lodge increased, all of my guides and my team, that made them say, hey, we’re here to stay, we better treat this thing right, you know?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Marshall Pearson: And that’s kind of where we’ve been. No, I’ve never, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else now. And I think a lot of my guides would say the same thing.

Ramsey Russell: Has it changed your personal interest in duck hunting? I mean, like, if you’ve been going at it hard, I mean, like you all saying, man, checking pumps at 10 at night, 3 in the afternoon, and getting up in the morning with clients and staying up late with clients. I mean, you catch a day off, do you go duck hunt yourself?

I want to get them just as bad as the next guy, but it definitely takes a toll on anybody that says it doesn’t is lying, or they had an experience to the effect that we have or to the scale that we have

Marshall Pearson: I still duck on every day the season’s in, but Christmas Day. I want to get them just as bad as the next guy, but it definitely takes a toll on anybody that says it doesn’t is lying, or they had an experience to the effect that we have or to the scale that we have. But you enjoy the different things whenever you go hunt for yourself, say, like the last afternoon, I got to go out with my dad and my dog, and my mom ended up going. I didn’t really want her to go, but –

Ramsey Russell: Does she duck hunt?

Marshall Pearson: She does it, but she works for me. She cleans in the lodge, and so she wanted to go out, and that was fine. But just go out there and relax. It’s not about, I think we only killed 5 or 8 ducks that afternoon, but we had clients that morning, even on the very last day of season, and just get out there with your dog and enjoy it. You sit back sometimes and think about it like, how did this all work out? But it has. And it’s through a lot of hard work.

Ramsey Russell: So what’s your favorite duck species to hunt?

Marshall Pearson: Everybody wants to be a mallard piece this part of the world, but if I could shoot green wing teal all day long, that’s what I’d take. Because they’re easy for a guide, they’re easy to please hunters, they come in quick, get your limit quick, and I love them when they ball up and come in a big ball real low. Somebody shoots one time, they go straight up, just like taking candy from a baby. So that’s my favorite duck to hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Do you all cook much duck there at the lodge?

Marshall Pearson: We do. Austin, he’s the head cook there, and a couple of other guys, trying to think of what it’s called, they do a seared duck with chimichurri, very good. Most people that would not even think of duck, you think you’re eating filet. They baste it in mayonnaise and all kind of stuff. I’m not part of the cooking staff, so I don’t want any credit. Everybody will come around after dinner and go, thank you, Mr. Marshall. I just say, yes, sir, even though I didn’t have nothing to do with it but the buying of the food.

Ramsey Russell: So what’s the most challenging weather conditions you’ve ever guided in?

Marshall Pearson: Yeah, the freeze. Ice is definitely a challenge here. We’re hunting mostly, when you’re running the scale that we are running, 10 or 12 groups a day, and half your spots freeze up. And people don’t understand the ice. Like, I mean, if it gets below 27, 28, and the wind ain’t blowing, it’s going to be froze here, and that’s fine, a little sheet ice is fine. It gets below 20 for 3 or 4 or 5 days in a row, it is tough. And it’ll be froze to the ground, you can drive your pickup out there on the ground. We’ll have the hole open and ducks can sit on the refuge. We’ve learned they’ll sit there 3 or 4 days, but after that, they’re coming out sometime. First time it warms up, they’re coming off the refuge, so you better be ready. That’s definitely the toughest conditions.

Ramsey Russell: I appreciate you coming on today, Marshall. I really do. And I tell you what, this episode airs in July, early July and it’s hot as Hades outside. I mean, I think that’s a good note to end on talking about having to keep ice open to get those ducks in there. I think it’s a great note to end on because it’s about this time of year that everybody starts thinking about, I’m ready for some ice and some ducks over the decoys. Tell everybody how they can get in touch with you.

Marshall Pearson: Best way to get in touch, just get on online. Treasure Island Ducks. Anything you look at, Treasure Island Ducks, Instagram, Facebook, but just fill out a contact form on the email, give me a call, my cell number is listed everywhere. It goes off plenty of times a day. So I’ll be sure to get back in touch it. But yeah, the best time is summertime. I’m not doing much. Call me, we’ll chat and I’ll tell you a little bit about the operation and see if I can get you in, if not, we’ll get something scheduled for the next year.

Ramsey Russell: Have you ever noticed that putting your name out there, especially your number that like, for example, I grew up, you just didn’t call folks before noon on Sundays. I mean, it might be in church or they might be up and reading a paper, something. But man, I get calls, I mean, dead gum man, from 06:00 AM to midnight from no matter what time zone we’re talking about and 7 days a week.

Marshall Pearson: And that’s what happens when guys don’t realize that they’re calling you at 06:30 in the morning when they’re on the East Coast. They don’t realize they’re calling you 8 o’ clock at night when they’re on the West Coast. I’ve had two, well not two, the past three years somebody’s called me on Christmas Day. That’s like no, no, for my wife. I answered the first year and she’s like, you are not taking calls on Christmas Day, I don’t care any other day.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, she’ll get used to that because it’s like on the one hand you make yourself accessible so that people can contact you. On the other hand, I enjoy it. I mean, gosh, if I don’t feel like answering the call because it’s 10 o’ clock at night, Mississippi time, I’m just going to let it go to voicemail. But I have taken calls on Christmas Day and on New Year’s Day. I took a call one time at 05:30 AM Mississippi time on New Year’s Day, and I felt – one thing about the holidays I will say in our defense, even though wives don’t agree with it, is that, you think about it, Marshall, that’s when the whole family’s sitting there.

Marshall Pearson: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And they’re talking about going hunting. Man, let’s call old Marshall, let’s call old Ramsey and get something going while we’re all sitting here in the same room. So, heck yeah, I answer my phone or answer my emails and answer my text 24/7.

Marshall Pearson: That’s one of my biggest struggles is my phone during the duck season, is trying to keep up with my phone and do a guide job and lodge manager and all that. But you won’t ever hear me complain too much about my phone ringing too much. Never going to complain about that.

Ramsey Russell: It’s when it gets quiet I get worried. Thank you, Marshall.

Marshall Pearson: Usually by this time of year when everybody’s turkey hunting and fishing, they ain’t worried about duck hunting too much.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. I appreciate you, Marshall. It’s good to hear from you. Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. We’ve been chatting with my buddy, Marshall Pearson, Treasure Island Outfitters. Go check him out. He’s also on the ushuntlist.com, he is our Missouri outfitter. And whether you want to go do it yourself or you want to be wined and dined and all included, that’s the guy to call at Missouri. See you next time.

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