EP 604. Committed to the Call

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today we’re going way the heck up to New York to meet with my buddy Jason Williams, who is committed to the call. And it starts like this. How many of you all have ever felt that the outdoors and the duck blind is your church? We’re going to dive into that topic today with Jason. Jason, how the heck are you?

Jason Williams: I am doing good, man. Just looking forward to spending some time together.

Ramsey Russell: Another day in paradise, isn’t it?

Jason Williams: Yeah, that’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Now, where in New York are you? Are you in New York the city or New York the state?

Jason Williams: Yeah, I’m 2 hours north of the city, so most people just recognize it when you say near Woodstock, that’s like the homing beacon there.

Ramsey Russell: Really? Have you been to Woodstock? Are you in Woodstock?

Jason Williams: I mean, I’m 15 minutes from Woodstock, so I’ve been there quite a bit.

Ramsey Russell: Do some of the locals still talk about the concert there in Woodstock?

Jason Williams: Some of the locals are still at that concert there.

Ramsey Russell: They never went home, did they?

Jason Williams: No, they did not.

Ramsey Russell: Still ain’t got the gas money to get back home. That’s funny, that is freaking hilarious. Hey, tell me this, what is your background? I mean, where did you grow up? What was it like growing up near Woodstock, New York? What did you do as a kid?

Jason Williams: Well, it’s funny, like, most people, even around here, I don’t think they realize we’re more country than we are city, but there’s more trees than there are people. But I grew up in an area called Kingston, which I guess was the first capital of New York, right?

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Jason Williams: And it was. I grew up on midtown Kingston, I think it was a lot more rough than I even was aware of because as a kid, you don’t realize your surroundings too much. But looking back, sometimes I drive through there now, and I’m like, oh, it’s a good thing we got out of there, you know?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jason Williams: But my father was a janitor, my mother was a hairstylist, ghey did their best that they could to, split that schedule up so that at least one of them was home with me and my brother. But for the most part, we ran the streets. The deal pretty much with my father was get home before the street lights come on and if those street lights come on, he had a whistle that you could hear the other side of town.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jason Williams: If you heard that whistle, time was up, you’d already overextended your welcome.

Ramsey Russell: When would this have been in the 70s or 80s?

Jason Williams: I was born in 1977.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, last of the good old days. So what were you all usually doing when the street lights came on? Catching crawfish or racing bicycles or what?

I fell in love with the outdoors through fishing, and that was my escape

Jason Williams: Honestly, man, a lot of the neighborhood kids, it was almost like back then, you could be on the streets, now it’s like nobody wants their kids to go out and play because they feel like it’s too dangerous. But back then, we were doing everything and anything, and I think we made some, at one point, we’re making battle carts out of shopping carts that we borrowed from a local grocery parking lot, and we do jousting with that. But my father was always a good man, he was an alcoholic man, and he had a little bit of a closet drug addiction. But at the same time, he always made good to take me fishing, that was like a big thing for me. And he would even take the neighborhood kids fishing, too, because he still understood like, a lot of them had nothing where we had next to nothing, but they had nothing. And so I fell in love with the outdoors through fishing, and that was my escape.

Ramsey Russell: What would a boyhood fishing trip look like up there where you grew up, around Kingston, New York? I mean, was it like Andy Griffith?

Jason Williams: No, it was much less complicated. Yeah, it was kind of probably like a little bit Andy Griffin, actually, now that I think about it, like, we didn’t have a boat or anything like that. Most of the time, we just look for an access along the main road and get down into some rocks and just catch catfish, you know? Well, we go get herring from a local sea market or something like that, because it really didn’t charge nothing, it was like a dollar and some change for a piece of bait, we cut it into chunks, and we’d be catching catfish for hours.

Ramsey Russell: That don’t sound much different to Mississippi now, bank fishing would cut bait.

Jason Williams: There you go.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, for catfish. Did your mom or daddy cook them when you caught them?

Jason Williams: Honestly, no. We would throw them back or we knew somebody who would take them. We drop them off to an older gentleman who would eat anything you gave him, catfish, eels, whatever you had in the bucket was taking it.

Ramsey Russell: When did you get into duck hunting, Jason?

Jason Williams: So duck hunting started when I was 17 with my uncle. He was always a big hunter and I don’t know if I kind of touched on it when we spoke briefly. Like, we kind of had the Red Rider BB gun, real life scenario growing up, my father had an old BB gun. I don’t know if it was a Red Rider or 99 champion. And he used to disassemble it when he left his house so that one of his 5 brothers wouldn’t get a hold of it. And what happened was one of them did get a hold of it, put it back together, and shot himself right in the eye.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Jason Williams: And he literally shot his eye out.

Ramsey Russell: His name wasn’t Ralphie, was it?

Jason Williams: No, that was Timmy. So that was a strike on my father’s side, on my mother’s side, my uncle, when he was a kid was shooting a shotgun shell, with a BB gun, he was shooting at a shotgun shell, live one, hit it in the primer.

Ramsey Russell: That’s probably what he was aiming for.

Jason Williams: Yeah, he got it. It’s a nickname shooter. And that thing flew, a piece of shrapnel or something in that shell flew out and hit his sister in the cheek and lodged in there, sat there, so she got older. She couldn’t get it removed because it was near an artery or something. And so that was strike two, on my side, really, there was not much in my favor to get around firearms or anything like that in general. But my uncle, he always had all the guns and stuff. And my parents would be like, if he ever brings those out when you’re at his house, get out of the room, they were very against that stuff. They didn’t even want me having, like, toy guns that shot, plastic BBs and stuff like that. And I was dead set on it, man. I think probably and as most people know that are listening to this, some of us are just born to be a certain way and do a certain thing, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop us, it’s just in there and we’re going to push towards that no matter what, or maybe fate brings us towards that no matter what. So what ended up happening was my aunt on my mother’s side was dating a guy, and he took a liking to me, he pushed my uncle to bring me out. And finally, my uncle finally caved and brought me out and introduced duck hunting and boy, you want to talk about a drug, that was it. I had my first hit of duck hunting on that day, and I couldn’t get enough ever since.

Ramsey Russell: Jason, where did you all go duck hunting? Tell me about that first duck hunt. Like, what was a setup? Where were you all? Where were you all hunting? What were you hunting for?

Jason Williams: Yeah. So what I noticed, I hear from my friends down south, a lot of people have to either own land or lease land in order to hunt. And up here, believe it or not, one of the most liberal states, it’s funny, some of the laws are a little more lax. Like, we have the Hudson River, it’s public land, that’s miles and miles of do whatever you want, duck hunting. And so my uncle had taken me out, he had a boat, it was a small, it might have been like, I feel like it was a 9 footer, it was probably 12 footer with an enclosed front on it. And he brought me out, they had a blind, we ended up going on shoreline in his blind, which was, throughout the years known as this a wonderful spot. Every hunter has their stories, and my uncle was no different, he tells the tales of these ducks raining from the sky and all this crazy numbers. And so anyway, we get out there, it was freezing, I had nothing, like I said, we came from next to nothing, a lot of the times my clothes were, because my dad was a janitor, my clothes came from the prior class of students at the school that, we’d open up the lockers or he’d have to clean them out every summer, and I’d inherit their clothes. So just to give you an idea, the kind of money that we’re dealing with, I had kind of like, those bibs, it was an old real tree, bibs on the outside and blaze orange on the inside, that’s all I had that was warm for me.

Ramsey Russell: I think I had a pair just like it growing up.

Jason Williams: They were good, back then, they were the thing. But for deer hunting. But I had that and a pair of rubber hip waders, and way under prepared for what I was about to endure, we went out here in the freezing cold New York winters. And man, I remember driving there in the boat, just being completely enthralled by everything that I saw, it was just everything from getting up early to the ride to the boat launch, to the ride from the boat launch in that boat, under complete darkness, you’re guided only by moonlight, that was mind blowing for me. And we got to the spot, it was freezing cold, I jumped out of that boat, and with those rubber waders, my feet were already frozen, before we even started, I jumped out of that boat and it sent a shock up my heels, like somebody stabbed me in the foot. And I’ll tell you, I was so cold, I was running up and down the beach in the dark that morning just to get ready to hunt. But I was ready, and looking back on, it’s still one of my favorite memories, we were hunting at the time. So in New York, we’re at the top, obviously we’re at the top of the map here, and we get over 20 different kinds of birds. So on any given day, you can shoot anything. And so this spot in particular, it was kind of more like a diver spot, we were hoping for buffleheads, we were hoping for goldeneye, stuff like that, my uncle was always after those. And so I’ll tell you, to be honest, man, I hunted that whole first season with him, and the only bird I got was a hen hooded merganser.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, joy.

Jason Williams: But to me, I’m like, man, look at this, it’s not a woodpecker, so that’s good because at first I was a little concerned, but that was the best bird in the world, that’s all that mattered to me, is I finally connected, it was a flying shot, a low driving shot across the water. I got to see my other two shots I missed with and the third one connect. And again, like those are things that when you’ve never experienced them before, this is amazing, and then here’s this bird that’s like the most beautiful thing because I got it, that was what it was all about.

Ramsey Russell: So did your uncle and his buddy, did they kill any ducks?

Jason Williams: I don’t want to, I mean, I can’t really recall. It was like 30 years ago. I’ll tell you, I don’t remember a whole lot of birds being killed in that first season, I just remember that one and it’s a possibility that that was the only one. I don’t know, I mean, the spot, I think over the years maybe the food source had depleted and it wasn’t really as good as what I had heard.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that happened around the world. Well, when you look back and think about that, I mean, was it a case of they were passionate die hard duck hunters or were they just trying to indoctrinate the kid into duck hunting? It’s kind of like I’ve always said, kids spell love T.I.M.E don’t matter what you’re doing.

Jason Williams: Right. Well, that’s true too. I mean, obviously there’s something like, now I’m 100% mobile hunter, wherever I hunt, wherever the boat goes, wherever the birds are at. But back then, it was strictly that blind with my uncle. And I mean, it was like a palace. So I think maybe as someone that young, you also want to make sure that they’re comfortable. So maybe you had to do with that because he had a stove in there, he had everything you could ever want in that place, so you were rain proof. You go in any element, where now I’m fully exposed to everything, and it’s always more about getting to the mark than it is about how much I have to endure to get there.

Ramsey Russell: He was obviously a very important mentor of sorts in your early development, who was he? What did he do for a living? What kind of human being was he?

Jason Williams: Yeah. So my uncle, he was a wild man. I mean, that side of the family was, it’s kind of known as more of a wild side of the family.

Ramsey Russell: Wild how? Like they weren’t Buffalo Bill fans or something, were they?

Jason Williams: No, you hear the stories through the grapevine of rumblings and people getting in trouble all the time and certain names tend to pop up more than once, but he liked to cause a little mischief. I think maybe my mother told me a lot of the story, so maybe she was –

Ramsey Russell: You got me curious now, Jason, we don’t fell down his rabbit hole. What kind of trouble? Fast cars? Pool sharking?

Jason Williams: Mischief. Like, I hear stories about huffing gasoline in the shed and throwing firecrackers at my mother. Obviously, like I said, I’m hearing it all from her, she got the brunt of it, stuff like that along those lines. I heard stories that, him dropping a shotgun in the water and diving out of the boat in the middle of winter naked to go retrieve it, stuff like that. There always seemed to be a story floating around my uncle, and even from other people that I worked with. Like, my uncle also was a janitor at the time, you’d hear stories from his friends about that stuff. Like I said, they used to call him Shooter.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jason Williams: And there’s actually one of the stories in the book I wrote is called Hip Shooter, and it references him. So I’ll tell you, hunting with him at the point where I got this is a guy who had two shotgun shells in the gun. It could hold 3, we’re allowed 3 up here in New York, I don’t know if you guys are allowed, probably same, because it’s federal, right?

Ramsey Russell: That’s federal.

Jason Williams: But he’d only put two in the gun, and a lot of times he wouldn’t even fire them and I’d be on him. I’m like, man, birds are flying past, I’m shooting, you’re not shooting anything. What’s going on? He goes, I’m being selective. So I hear all these stories about this amazing shooter and all this. And I said, I’m wondering when this is going to happen. So there was a day we had built a blind in this little swamp as a flooded timber swamp. And it was a phenomenal blind. And it sat at least 8 foot off the water. A lot of the times you’d shoot birds as they passed over you, and then they’d hook around to the back of the swamp and then fly back underneath you, you get a second shot down onto the water. Anything treetop height was within range here. And so we took him there one night, and we didn’t have enough seats, and he’s sitting on a decoy bag, what was left of the decoys. And he’s just kind of hanging out, and we’re talking, all of a sudden you just hear this bang go off, and I look, and here he is with a shotgun on his hip, and he just blasted this teal that none of us even saw go through. And when we went to retrieve that teal man, it was completely, I mean it looked like someone hit a pillowcase. He took it right from the hip. And I said, okay, there’s the shooter I’ve been hearing about. As we get older, I kind of understand now too, having gone through it, 30 years of it myself, there are certain birds that you’re looking for and maybe it’s not about the kill anymore, it’s more about the experience. And sometimes for me now it’s more about even just introducing people to the, I guess you would call it a sport for me, it was like a way of life, it’s a life, it’s a different life when you enter that water.

Ramsey Russell: What’s a typical duck hunt look like for you today?

I gave my life to Christ about 11 years ago and ever since that day, I’d have to say that coming alive inside, I also have an appreciation for life a lot more

Jason Williams: These days? I will say the same thing. Like for me, a lot of it now is about getting other people out there, and I will also restrain myself. I mean, I gave my life to Christ about 11 years ago and ever since that day, I’d have to say that coming alive inside, I also have an appreciation for life a lot more. I place a higher value on taking a life as well. So a lot of birds I’ll let pass now, just like my uncle did back then when I couldn’t understand it. But a lot of it now is allowing the people that I take with me to have their opportunity. I also want them to have a good time, it’s more about the smile on their face, about the connection that they’re making than it is about me. And don’t get me wrong, I still get excited and when something runs from a pit bull, the pit bulls got to chase it sometimes.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I understand that.

Jason Williams: I may not want to swing on, but if it hits that right pose, I find myself pulling the trigger once.

Ramsey Russell: The fangs come out.

Jason Williams: It does, it happens.

Ramsey Russell: Are you hunting flooded timber? Are you hunting out there on Long Island Sound? Are you hunting the Hudson River?

Jason Williams: Yeah. So primarily I hunt the Hudson River. Like I said, I probably run about 30 miles of it depending on where the birds are, I guess. Like I said, I’m 100% mobile. So if I know the birds are moving south, I’m going south. If the birds are moving north, I’m moving north. So it’s big water, you’re not going to throw a rock and hit the other side it takes a good probably 10 minutes, 15 minutes to drive across this at 30 miles an hour sometimes depending on how brave we want to be that morning. But there are times I’ve seen waves, 4ft, there’s times I’ve seen an 8ft wave out there, it can be anything and everything.

Ramsey Russell: Gnarly. Are you targeting like divers, mergansers? Are you targeting black ducks, Canada geese? Are you targeting the next bird that comes in? I mean, what do you focus on?

Jason Williams: For me, I’ve moved over, I’m actually doing that carnivore diet, so anything that I can eat. Right now, for me primarily puddlers, I like to shoot mallards, black ducks, teal, wood ducks. I love blue bill, I don’t know why a lot of people say blue bill tastes funny, maybe it’s because they get down to salt, they start eating down there, maybe they taste different. I think blue bill is one of the best tasting, most tender birds I’ve shot. I love them. So for me it’s about, some of the other guys, it’s about the trophy, I taught myself taxidermy years ago so I can also help them out with that if they’re looking to get a bird done, I usually just do it for whatever it costs to get the bird done. But like I said, everything and anything comes through here, over 20 different kinds of birds. So our first season, we don’t have a teal season like some people do. We have a 9 day first season which during that season primarily you’re going to see blue wing teal, green wing teal, ruddy ducks, mallard, sometimes black ducks and Canada geese. Now Canada geese are here all the time, we have a September goose season, it’s a nuisance season for us where we’re allowed to shoot 15 birds per person per day. We can have electronic callers, we can have 7 shots in the gun, we can hunt an extra half hour past sunset. So that’s a great season. If you’re a meat eater then that’s a wonderful season to have. So that’s our first season. The second season is kind of like when the migration really begins. So after that point comes some of the first birds you’re probably going to see on opening day, you’re going to see black ducks, wigeon, gadwall, you might still see some pintail held in there. Depending on where you’re hunting, you’ll get the redheads, you get everything, just about everything starts to come down. Then later on, you’ll get your buffleheads, your golden eyes, your canvas backs. Like I said, we have a crack at just about everything, it’s just that not everything is full. A lot of them are in the eclipse phase or are not fully bloomed. But like I said, it’s like Forrest Gump, like he said, life is like a box of chocolates, that river is the same way, you never know what’s going to fly down that thing. We shoot old squaw, we shoot sea ducks, we shoot surf scoter, white wing scoter, common scoter, they’re all there too. Yeah, it can be amazing, there are days when you hit it, right, that sky goes dark and you can get birds all day long.

Ramsey Russell: You just got to be there on those days, that’s the secret, too. You talk about the box of chocolates, and I get asked a lot, what’s your favorite duck hunt? And they want a spot on a map. And my favorite duck hunt, and this is God’s honest truth is, my favorite duck hunter is the next one, because it’s like an unopened Christmas gift. It’s like biting into a mixed box of chocolates, you don’t know, it could be one you spit out, it could be one you love, it’s like that. You are sitting there in the dark and it could be a blind, you’ve never hunted before. It could be a blind, you’ve hunted a million times, and it’s just something about being there, and I hate being there late, I don’t want to be late on a duck hunt. I got to have time to get loaded up, to be a few minutes away, so I can just collect my thoughts and take it in. And that’s that period where you’re kind of looking at the sun coming up or whatever the day is opening up into, and it’s just like an unopened Christmas gift, wonder what’s in it. And I really do cherish that, I like not knowing.

Jason Williams: Right. I think one of my favorite parts of duck hunting is being in the dark and that stillness and just hearing the wings whistle by. Or there’s a bay on the river that we hunt, I’m not going to give the name because I don’t want everybody in it. But it’s almost like a concert that goes on in the dark when you’re in there. There’s mallards here, there’s geese there, there’s whistlers over here, there’s wings flying, there’s that tearing of silk as they fly past you in the dark sound, everything’s there. And I think honestly a lot of the movement, as you know a lot of the movement happens pre-legal shooting time, and I think that’s probably one of my favorite parts of the hunt, just knowing that we picked the right spot and that they’re all around us whether they stay there or not, we were there.

Ramsey Russell: What do you do for a living, Jason?

Jason Williams: So now I’ve been New York State Corrections Officer for 17 years.

Ramsey Russell: In New York City?

Jason Williams: No. I’m about an hour north of the city is where I’m at, I’m in a maximum security jail down there.

Ramsey Russell: Is that Rikers that you hear about on TV?

Jason Williams: I know where Rikers is. That’s a city jail. But this is a state prison, so this is called Shawangunk, it’s more of an Indian name really.

Ramsey Russell: What in the world led you to get into – you called yourself a corrections officer, that same as a prison guard?

Jason Williams: Yeah, same thing.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Jason Williams: One is more professional the other one’s a little more functional.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. What led you into that line of work?

Jason Williams: Oh, boy, that was never an intention of mine. It’s funny and still there’s some times I’m driving up there and I’m still asking myself how I got there. But like I said, it wasn’t something I planned on. I went to college, I have a business degree, I almost have a degree in industrial and organizational psychology. I always planned on being in psychology, but that’s the way life unfolds, man. I was running rampant too. I had my wild times before Christ and I have an older daughter now that, I had before I was married and at that time I was working as a janitor or I’m making like $32,000 or something, it was not much. And I had this little tiny cottage of a house, a 300 square foot house that my father sold me. And it wasn’t going to work out between me and her mom, so it really wasn’t a choice. It was, I can work two jobs the rest of my life, which I was working at Gander Mountain when they were open, selling firearms, I love that job, that was great. But in addition to a full time job and then starting to raise a child, like where it didn’t work out with me and her mom. So the decision was work every day, all day, the rest of my life, or find this one job that could pay me the two salaries combined. So at that point I decided that, having my daughter prosper was more important than preserving my own life. I’d heard the prison stories, I knew nothing about prison except that you could get killed there. I said, you know what, I have to provide for my daughter, doesn’t matter what it is, this is where we’re going. so I had a couple friends who told me, they had been in it, they said, look, come to where we’re at, put that down as your request, hopefully you’ll get there and we’ll be able to help you out. So there I went and that’s where I have stayed ever since.

Ramsey Russell: Jason, bear with me because I don’t think I’ve ever visited with a maximum security correctional officer, prison guard. I mean, I’ve seen Shawshank Redemption a million times. I’ve seen some of those HBO series and stuff like that. Is it as bad as they say? I mean, the life inside, is it really that bad? I know, I don’t want to go just from hearing them stories, but I’m saying, just how bad is it?

Jason Williams: Well, so we’re kind of like sworn to secrecy, when you take that job, you actually sign a contract says you won’t talk to the press or anything like that. Which is one of the kind of the things we ran into and there was a strike recently, everyone’s out there on strike and the newscasters are asking what’s going on? And they’re like, you got to go talk to a retiree, we can’t tell you.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Jason Williams: Without really getting too crazy into it, I can tell you that some places are worse than others.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jason Williams: So the way that things used to go and when. So at the place I’m at, we’re closer to the city, so a lot of your crimes happen down in the city. So it used to be that when somebody was committed an offense, they’d get shipped. If it was, a prisonable offense, they’d get shipped north. So they go all the way up by the can of the border and we call frozen brain country. And then they slowly trickle down through the system till they get back to the prisons that are next to the city. So by the time they got to us, what’s the word I would use? I don’t want to say institutionalized, but they were familiar with the way that things work. So all that still trying to find your place and still trying to establish your reputation in prison kind of like petered out by the time they get back to us. And again, like, when I started, things are so different in New York now, when I first started, the inmates who were there, we have a little about 500 inmates. They said we had the worst of the worst, but that was last stop. They weren’t going to go home, a lot of them were going to die there. So, like, some of these guys have natural life, it’s 99 years, 99 months, 99 days, there’s no getting out. Like, so in the beginning, that’s how it was. Eventually I knew every inmate in that jail by name because they all stayed there. So occasionally you get one or two new guys in and it was almost like if you were well liked by the rest of the prison population, the inmates would corral them in. Like, if they stepped out of line with you, you really didn’t have to do a whole lot, the other inmates would be like, hey, man, come here, let me talk to you. Because this is our house, it’s running the way that we like it, we don’t want that messed with. So back then, it was a much calmer atmosphere than it is right now, things are on the upsweep right now. So again, our place, it’s still prison, no matter what, it’s prison. But I would say comparatively to some of the northern jails, where these guys were originally getting their first experience, ours was fairly mellow. When I first got there, it’s funny to say fairly mellow, but there’s my story. 3 weeks in, so 3 weeks off of on the job training, we had someone get stabbed to death out in the yard, so it’s still prison, no matter what. And so I think we get paid more for what we might have to do where I work anyway, as opposed to what we often do.

Ramsey Russell: Well, let me ask you this, I respect that you can’t, I mean, it never occurred to me when I asked the initial question, but I respect that you can’t talk to the press, you can’t air this stuff out, you can’t get into the sorted details. But is it a fair enough question? Can I ask that, when you talk about in your facility, a lot of people are there serving a life sentence, there’s no way out. I mean, can I ask you what kind of crimes they might have committed to have winded up in that shape?

Jason Williams: Sure. I mean, it’s whatever you can imagine. I can tell you some stuff without giving names, but I remember, we do a thing called the Go Around, where you go around and you write down pretty much whatever they want to do for the night, so from 3 o’ clock to 11 o’, clock, as an afternoon officer, you’re going to go around and do this thing, you’re going to write down, hey, what do you want to do from 6 o’ clock? They’ll say, I want to go out and watch TV or I want to go to the yard, or I want to do TV, yard, whatever they want. So I’m going around doing that and the one guy was like, yeah, he goes, give me parking lot porter. And I’m like, brand new on the job, and I’m like, yeah, I don’t think we had that, because you see saying, let me out. But come to find out that guy that had asked for that had, how do I get in this one? He had a boyfriend and his boyfriend cheated on him, he killed the both of them, cut their heads off, and then proceeded to have relations with their dead bodies.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. Well, be careful what you ask for.

Jason Williams: Yeah, we have worst of the worst, they’re in there.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. Now, having said that, I don’t need to hear no more, but trust you me, some things you can’t unheard.

Jason Williams: We don’t know, it’s better we don’t find out anyway. Honestly, I try not to find out.

Ramsey Russell: Right, I can get that. So is working in that environment, because you’ve referenced 2 or 3 times now about finding Christ and becoming a Christian, is that environment what led you to becoming a Christian?

Jason Williams: In a way, yes. I don’t know if you can hear me because I see your videos locking up, can you still hear me?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, go ahead.

Jason Williams: Okay, all right. So in a way, yes, because sarcasm, for me, I think, was a way of life in there. And I would get compliance with people by the end of sarcasm. And the inmates actually appreciate when you have a quick move in mind, I think, and they kind of like send people to test you because they just wanted to see what kind of messed up thing you’d say in return, how quick your brain was moving. And I was really good at that, man. I was a slasher back then. Like I said, I was a business major, psychology major, so I know how the mind works. And mine was quick back then, I don’t know how it is, in these later years of my life, but I’d shocked them a lot. And coming from midtown Kingston, I had a little bit more of a background with some of the things that they were involved in. So I think they were almost happy to have somebody in there that could interact with them on that bull. But like I said, I was good at it and only fostered a nasty attitude. I think as things would go on in there, things that happen in prison, it makes you colder and colder to some extent, because you’re experiencing. It’s not a job, it’s a different life, it’s a different world. When you step through those doors, you’re in a place where the rules have changed, where it’s not that things are any more acceptable there, it’s just that it doesn’t matter. They’re going to get away with whatever they can get away with. You’re going to see things nobody should see. You’re going to get involved in things that nobody should have to do, and that’s going to affect you.

Ramsey Russell: That jungle has its own rules, doesn’t it?

Jason Williams: It does. And they say that, you’ll start sitting in corners at restaurants, you’ll start counting the people that are in there, and sure, that absolutely can happen. You also start treating people in the public as if they’re incarcerated, I’ve seen that happen, and that can’t happen. But you almost lose this idea that you were also a civilian, and I think I got to, about my 6^th year in, I was about as nasty as I was going to get, and it was around that time that I was married, I was about to have another daughter, and my wife and I were talking about right and wrong. And I had a strong sense of right and wrong, obviously we work as an officer, right and wrong is. But we had discussion and she was like, we really should have our kids go to a place where they can learn right from wrong. And that’s to us, that’s what church was. Like, I hadn’t been to church since I was 12, and I was now in my 30s, and it was kind of funny to me for us to have that discussion saying we want our kids to know right from wrong, and the place to do that is church, but yet we’re not there. So it’s kind of funny in that way. And so we ended up going, my parents had been trying to get us to go for a while, they’re talking church people language, I don’t know this stuff, I’m a correction officer and I’m sarcastic. Like I said, I’m dead inside. And they’re like, you got to come to this church we’re at, and the spirit’s really alive there. And I’m like, you got spirits there? I was like, what are you in a cult or something? Like, I don’t understand what you’re talking about now. I don’t want to go there for all these, the time that they had been going there. And then finally we decided we were going to go back and that we went to that place. And my idea of God at the time was church services. And you thought that if you were a church going person that you were going to heaven. So I had no idea that there was more than that, I just thought that was it. And so we went there and I was making fun of the people, I’m going to be honest with you. And for the people who are watching this, I apologize and I will to this day, I’m actually ordained as a minister there now. I’m sitting there and I’m watching these people and they stand up and sing. And I’m like, okay, no big deal and then they’re raising a hand and I’m like, all right. And then he got two hands up and I’m like, all right, that’s a lot. I’m telling my parents, I’m like, hey, one hand is fine, two hands is too much, this is crazy, and nowadays I think nothing of it, but back then this was shocking, this is something different that I had no meter for. And as the pastor would be speaking, I’d get into what he was saying at times and I’d be laughing and sometimes I’d be crying, he did on a nerve or something. And like, I think a lot of people experience, it almost was like this certain the sermon was for me on those days and it started to tool on me, honestly, it started to work on me. And I remember one guy in specific, he was preaching one night and I’m in the back row like always, they say you can, I don’t know how true it is, they say you can tell a person’s relationship with God by where they sit in the building. And I was way in the back, which was definitely indicative of my relationship with the Lord. And this guy’s speaking and he had said something and it was like I went from the back of the room straight to the front. And now, instead of daydreaming in between what he was saying, I was 100% locked in on everything. And I remember going to him afterwards and saying, I don’t know if this is something that happens or what, but I want to let you know that I was kind of like out in the left field and listening here and there and all of a sudden I felt like some invisible curtain dropped and I was right there with you. And this guy, he was something else. He looks at me and he goes, yeah, he goes, that’s what we go for, we’re hoping for that to happen every time. And I’m like, all right, he just left it at that and kind of walked off, and he was that kind of guy. Come to find out years later, this guy has touched so many lives, so many pastors have come out from underneath this guy. And back then he was probably one of my least favorite guys to talk to because he was probably the most like me, the most hard headed. If he was going to push, I was going to push back and we were just going to have that kind of relationship. But it was that night where something truly did start to change. And then I got saved, I didn’t know I was getting saved. Like, it was almost like, I was the blind man and he was leading me because I was too blind to see where I needed to go. And someone had asked me, this guy who I’d seen when I was a janitor, he used to buy us pizza, he was a shop teacher, and he’d always get us pizza over the summer, and he’d pray for us and stuff like that, but I really wouldn’t not hear, I just want to get the pizza. So he ends up being one of the elders at the church there, and he’s speaking one day, and he goes, hey, anybody who doesn’t know Jesus, and you feel like you want to know him better, raise your hand. So I’m like, all right, that’s true, I don’t know him at all. So I raised my hand. And then at the end of what he was saying, he called everybody who raised their hand up front, which I did not know what’s going to happen, I probably would have kept my hand down. So I went up there, and like I told you before, I was cold and even though I knew this guy previously, I’m looking at him and he hasn’t said anything yet. And being the kind of person I was, I look him in the eye and I go, well, do you want to say something, or do you want me to talk? What a jerk. And he goes, no, I’m just waiting for the right words to come, I’m going to talk. And so he did. And as I’m walking back to my seat afterwards, my brother’s there, and he goes, so, how was it? And I’m like, how was what? He goes, well, you just got saved. And I’m like, I had no idea what that was. He goes, yeah. So, all right, I don’t know. So, like I said, I am completely not against anything that’s going on, but almost not really aware of what exactly it is. And not long after that, my father got baptized, he gave his life to the Lord. And there was these guys in the tank, they were just, again, that church people, happy, they’re so joyous and just smiling and, like, they dunked him under the water, and he came up, and they were so excited about what just happened, the joy on their face, like, these guys really think that they just did something, like, they really, truly believe that this just happened and are so happy. And I’m thinking, at this point in my life, I have my life together pretty well, I got a house, I’m married, I got a kid on the way I got a good paying job and all of a sudden, like, man, this thing just hit me that said, I’m empty inside, I have absolutely nothing like what those guys have and I need that. And I just kind of told, this God that I barely knew, like, I’m afraid of you, I’ve seen people get crushed by you and I know that’s what’s going to happen if I don’t come to you, I’m ready to come to you now, I don’t want that and I will give you everything I have for whatever it is you’ll have for me. And I never uttered that word, but that was my heart and that was the conversation I was having with him in my spirit. And not long after that, I gave my life to the Lord and he made good on all of his promises. Shocking the transformation that come, even to this day, I tell everybody, like, if you’re not completely shocked by the person that you’re becoming, like, if you don’t look in the mirror and say, wow, how did I get here? Like, I’m not sure anything’s happened.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I say I grew up, we went to church as a child, we went to church on Easter and around Christmas, I mean that was really – and I hated church as a child because I always had to wear brand new shirts and dress up clothes, and the shoes were just terribly uncomfortable, plastic payless shoes, going to church and being around a bunch of kids that went every day, I was odd man out, my brother and I were. But I did find Jesus and I did find spirituality. Let me tell you, there’s zero atheists in a burn center, I can tell you that for a fact. But I developed maybe my own relationship. And as I found my faith, I would go to sermons and take apart everything the preacher was saying, well, that can’t be true. I mean, come on, let’s get real here. But I struggle with that going through, especially going through college, when you learn a little bit of science, a little bit of botany and a little bit of biology, that can’t possibly be true. But too many life events in my past gave me a very solid conviction that whether the way it’s practiced or preached at a particular church, you agree or you disagree, my personal conviction is, it’s just a matter of fact, I know there’s a higher spirit. But I did grow up, as I got into high school, I did go to a church that, it was just one of them churches. The preacher described us all as fellow strugglers. We’re all fellow strugglers, everybody listening is struggling with something. Nowadays, my problem, Jason, is struggling to go to church because I’m traveling so much and I’m sea duck hunting on Sundays. And that’s why you hear a lot of duck hunters say, this is my church, I feel close to God here. And I think that’s okay to feel close to God as long as that spirit’s in your heart, you can be close to that, anywhere you’re sitting, you can be close to it sitting anywhere and you should be close to it sitting anywhere. And where beyond nature, out in the great outdoors, be it Montana or on the ocean or on the Hudson River or in a cypress break in Mississippi or on the top of a Peruvian mountain, or anywhere that you can find wildlife. Where is it more manifest than right there in the moment outside? I mean, so get into that. I appreciate what you’re saying, before I went off on that, the struggle, we’re all struggling. But so, you accept Jesus and you become a Christian, is it harder or easier for you to practice your Christian faith as a correctional officer?

Jason Williams: Well, you know there’s a lot of turmoil in that in the beginning, I was trying to figure that out myself. And I will say that the Lord did make it a lot easier because I was a housing unit officer, relief officer, so I’d have 68 guys on one housing unit, and then the next day I’d be on a different housing unit with 68 different guys. And what ended up happening at 9 years on the job, I got a bid that I should never have got. So I ended up working in the kitchen and I went from having 68 guys on a regular basis to having about 12 guys. So we whittled it down and put me on the second floor correction, which kind of runs, it’s almost its own world up there, there’s almost different kind of rules, but you’re up there with one other guy, you got to run the show, so things are more at your discretion in that way. He put me with a very hard man. I mean, a guy that everybody said they can’t with. And to be honest with you, being a new Christian, I didn’t have the restraints that I have now, as time has gone on, I’ve matured that the edges have been rounded. Back then I could reach back and grab that ugly looking rabbit and pull him out of the hat real quick. And that’s prison life, you do have to react to things, a lot of it is gut, you’re moving on your gut. But so, one of the first days I worked with him, I ended up snatching him up, I grabbed him, having a bear hug, and I walked him, I grabbed him from where we were in the middle of the kitchen, I walked him into his office and I put him on the ground. And I said, what do you want to do? And he kind of just backed down and we worked it out that day. And as time went on, he saw me start to – I think it was within two weeks, honestly, he started to see such a drastic change in me that he goes, listen, I don’t know what that is that’s going on with you, but I want that. And I said, well –

Ramsey Russell: That’s what this nasty prisoner said to you.

Jason Williams: This is an officer.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, an officer. Okay.

Jason Williams: Yeah. And I said, okay. I said, well, you know what, I don’t know that I can give it to you. I said, but I can tell you how I got it. So, here’s this guy, we’re almost, I wouldn’t say enemies, but we’re working frenemies and he now wants to be giving his life to the Lord. So within 2 weeks he started to do that. And then as time started to go on, the inmate and even the officer were going, what did you do to this guy? And I said, I didn’t do anything to him. I said, he’s trying to get with Jesus. I said, so if you see any change at all, that’s what it is. They go, wow. I go, this is a guy I didn’t want to be around before, but I think I could even work around him now. He’s like, he’s drastically changed. And I’ll tell you, it was amazing what God was doing because the inmates were coming to me talking about the Lord. There was one guy and again trying to curb how much I can give you. He was a big time gang member and now in prison, just because a person goes to church doesn’t necessarily mean they’re Catholic, and because they go to the mosque doesn’t mean they’re necessarily practicing Islam. But sometimes the gangs have to put certain guys in certain places in order to have power there. So this guy, he’s well known, he’s probably one of the 3 top guys, power wise in the prison. And he comes to me and he says, I want whatever you have. And I said, well, I don’t think you’re going to get it going to the place you’re at. And he said, I understand that. He goes, I see it, I want that. And that’s the kind of thing that kept happening. We’re probably not supposed to be creating converts in prison, I’m sure I lose my job over that. But doctor from the whole other side of the jail called me one day and he’s like, listen, this inmate told me that if I want to find Jesus, you’re the guy I need to talk to. And this was just happening day in and day out. The inmates were coming to me, even the guys who were Nation of Islam would come to me and they’re like, hey, we need to have a talk, and I’m like, well, you upset a Christian, you get prayer, I said, you upset one of you guys, I’m not sure what happens to me, what do you think. And no, they tell you, I could have a conversation about it and we talk. And this was just the kind of stuff that was going on, it was very drastic. Like you said, how was I able to have that Christianity in prison? I would say that God made it okay.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I mean, the Apostle Paul was a murderer.

Jason Williams: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: A lot of the women that came to find Jesus body on day 3 may not have been just up going, aunt Bees, you know what I’m saying? They may have been women of the streets or something to that effect. I mean, there’s a lot of people in the Bible that were like myself, perfectly imperfect versions of human beings. You know what I’m saying? That’s how I describe myself. I’m as perfectly imperfect as he ever made.

Jason Williams: Sure. Well, he comes to make the broken beautiful. He tells you right in the book that I didn’t come for the ones who were perfect, for the ones who were righteous, I came for the broken. So, I mean, hey, we’re the guys.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jason Williams: So I will say this, you have a very strong sense of right and wrong, it’s magnified as God’s spirit comes to reside within you, I would just tell the inmates, I’d be honest with them, like, hey, you guys are over here talking to me and some of you guys are saying that you’re trying to do the right thing, then it’s either do the right thing now or tip your hand. You’re either going to show me who you are and you’re going to live that, or you can just show me that you’re not that and I’ll find out.

Ramsey Russell: Go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Jason Williams: That’s just the way it played out. They would find it had a much more firm footing on what they could and couldn’t do and that I was expecting them to live up to whatever they claimed.

Ramsey Russell: In a very tough environment, prison, correctional facilities, tough cookie prison guards who probably themselves were shaped by that environment. Prisoners that are deservedly there. And all of a sudden you have this aura to where people are sensing around you on both sides of the fence that Jason, he’s giving off this new aura, this new feeling. The question I’ve got is when people think of Christianity and religion, they think of church. Church, be it a time constraint, I’m duck hunting on Sundays or I’m traveling too much, or they just don’t for whatever reason, I mean, but so I’m asking this question. When people think of this religion, they think of church, I’ve got to go to church, I’ve got to wear a suit and tie, I’ve got to listen to this preacher, I’ve got to sit up, stand down, go through the whole matrix of it all. But what I always felt like I got out of church the most being a part of a church, Jason, was not so much the sermon as it was being among those fellow strugglers, the men’s group, the men’s breakfast, the raffle sales, the Sunday schools, all that program beyond the sermon, just being one man sharpens another. Do you believe similarly? Is it as much about the sermon or as much about just the participation among all the people?

I want to bring you back to the field when you’re not in it, and that’s what this whole book is about

Jason Williams: I mean, you got the right guy for this question. I’m kind of like beating a broken drum here with this one. Like, I fully believe and I find that the Bible backs up that church itself is not a place and it’s not a time, right? And oddly enough, it’s Peter who says this, right? So Peter’s talking to Jesus, he says, who do you say that I am? He tells him, you’re the Christ, the son of the living God. And he goes, on this rock, I’ll build my church. A lot of people go, oh, that’s Peter. But the way I see it, it wasn’t Peter, his name means stone, doesn’t mean rock. So when Jesus said, on this rock, I will build my church, I think it’s more like a proclamation of faith in that moment, like upon that rock that you recognize that I’m the Christ, I’ll build my church. And then later on, it’s Peter who writes that the church is built of living stones, right? And so it’s a spiritual building that Jesus himself is building, right? Because Jesus said, I will build my church, he didn’t say, you guys are going to build church houses. I will build my church upon this rock which the Bible says he’s the cornerstone, which would make sense, upon that rock, the base stone, the foundation was the prop, or the apostles and prophets. And then there’s these living stones, that’s people who are filled with the spirit of Christ that are built into this spiritual house. So it’s one living stone upon another, that’s the biblical definition of what the church is. Now, a lot of people don’t want to hear that, a lot of people can’t hear that, because I feel like they’ve been traditionalized or institutionalized into, you got to come on Sunday, otherwise you’re backsliding or you’re a church hopper if you go to some other place. But the truth of the matter is, if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re in the church, you’re a brick of the church, and it doesn’t matter where you are at what time, you are there. So Sunday services, you won’t hear me call, I usually won’t hear me say, I went to church. It’ll be, I went to Sunday services or I went to the church house or something along those lines. Because the truth of the matter is it’s an empty building until the church fills it. And when the church leaves, it’s just an empty building again. That’s what I think a lot of us don’t grasp. And we go to these places we go, wow, I don’t like church because these people are messed up and XYZ. But when you come to the realization of the biblical definition of what a church is, you start to realize we should have never called it that. It’s a necessary place, and it’s a gift and a bonus to be able to go to these places and worship the Lord and find people who, some of them are in Christ, but the vast majority, I’d say probably 80% or better, are not. And when you realize that these are hospitals for the sick, or places where you can meet Christ or places where you can learn about Christ, but they’re not the church, it’s a lot easier to go, well, I got hurt there, but it was by a person who was damaged and was looking for Christ, just like me. You don’t start to blame things on the church anymore when you realize that most people are not part of it. Like, they call the American church the Devil’s Lullaby, because you think that you can go there and you sit in the front and you sing or whatever, and you think you’re going to heaven when you probably just got yourself a new seat in a building on your way to the same destination. One of the guys that, I’m in a ministry online called Waterfowlers for Christ, he did a picture a long time ago that says, religion is a man sitting in a church house, I’m sorry, It’s a man sitting, yes, in a church house thinking about hunting. But relationship is a man sitting in a field thinking about God.

Ramsey Russell: Boom.

Jason Williams: Really, that’s what it boils down to. At the same respect, we don’t want to lose the whole idea that you better have that relationship because it can’t be an excuse for not going to be with fellow Christians on a Sunday. One of the stories I wrote in that book is called Hunting with the Heathens. And I pulled no punches with my close friends, they know it, especially correction officers, they need a different level of truth and they’re able to handle sarcasm and more direct hits.

Ramsey Russell: You’re saying they got thick skin. Your friends have thick skin.

Jason Williams: Sure.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I bet they do.

Jason Williams: And Jesus treated people the same way, right? It was only the Pharisees that he ever really hit with anything, everyone else, he’s like, I forgive you, go and sin no more. But these guys are like, hey, you guys should know better, here’s this. You guys are like whitewashed tombs, you fix the outside of the cup and inside it’s empty, kind of stuff like that. So I hit my friends the same way, it’s not uncommon for me to say, oh, you guys and your heathen humor. Or I carry a book of matches in my pocket I get from the store on my way to work, because these guys think nothing, farting in the room. But I call it prison for breeze. But it’s not uncommon for me to flick a match at them and go, hey, does that smell like home to you? Because sometimes you got to rattle them and shake them up a little bit. So it’s important for us to know that a lot of the times I’m hunting, I’m among non-believers, right? So either I’m on a ministry mission, either I’m there to show them Christ, or I’m just hunting with them, it’s not productive. I can’t say, well, I didn’t go on Sunday to the church services because my church house is the field. If I’m not having anything to do with God while I’m there either. So, yeah, there’s the whole, church isn’t a place or a time, but you also have to remember, we can’t use it as an excuse to just not go because we really, truly don’t have a relationship with the Lord and we just don’t want to be there. I’ll just say like, it’s almost like God gives you enough rope to hang yourself. It’s like, okay, you say this, you want to go out and hunt, go ahead. But in the long run, make sure that’s what it is, otherwise it’s on you.

Ramsey Russell: I was saying that a lot of what I got out of church, and I love your definition of church, I love that definition of church.

Jason Williams: That’s the Bible definition.

Ramsey Russell: I love that definition. But a lot of what I got out was the fellowship and there’s a lot of parallel. I spend so much time in duck blinds with a lot of different people and oh yeah, we all get rowdy and raunchy, man. I mean, it’s the last bastion of political incorrectness on earth that I can say and do whatever the heck I want to, right? I mean, that’s the duck blind, that’s part of what’s so great. But it’s also that fellowship. And you hear so many people, I hear so many people talk about what they love about duck hunting as compared to deer hunting or something, it’s the fellowship, it’s community, it’s the social. You wrote a book, Committed to the Call, a 365 day waterfowl hunters devotional. And first question about this, what compelled you to blend daily devotionals with the life of a waterfowl hunter? Was is it the fact that we’re all in a duck blind instead of church? Is that what compelled you to do this?

Jason Williams: I would say, again, God was leading the blind man, I didn’t know I was going to do this, I hunted ducks, I was in a Facebook group called Duck Whacker Nation, and I had met a kid there who needed decoys. And it seemed like he didn’t have a lot in this world. So I had a bunch of these decoys that I could send him, I told him, I’ll send them to you, don’t worry about it. And he ended up sending me like this little tiny wood duck whistle man as like a token of his thanks. And we had sort of a little relationship, not nothing big, just a couple interactions here and there. And when I gave my life to Christ in the church, I posted a picture of me and my whole family up front and he saw that. And so this guy who also had no relationship with the Lord at the time, he reached out to me, goes, listen, he goes, I see you gave your life to Jesus, I said, oh, yeah. He goes, well, I did too. He goes, just recently, he goes, and I really feel like God’s asking me to start this ministry called Waterfowlers for Christ, is that something you think you’d want to help with? And I was like, man, I don’t know. If you’re asking me, I have to assume that God’s asking me, I don’t really know how he operates, I’m going to assess, whether I want to do it or not. So it just kind of went from there. We’re trying to figure out how we were going to make this thing work. And it was crazy because just from a couple photos with scripture verses on, and I think we might have been one of the originals doing that. This group grew 100 people, 500 people, sometimes a thousand people a day. And it just kept growing and growing, we’re trying to figure out how to keep them entertained. And so he was like, I think that we should all be writing these devotionals once a week, at the time, there was like 10 of us as administrators. And it was like, okay, well, I’ll pick Saturday. So I would struggle to try to do that, to make us relevant. And at the same time, what I didn’t realize was, like, it started as a story, right? We all know duck hunting. So pretty much all of these are stories I’ve lived. And I’m telling you about a good time in the field. And then I would struggle with, how can I link this to the Bible? And I’d find, like, a couple keywords, and I’d search in the Bible app and like, oh, this has something to do it and I’d add that to it. And as time went on, God just kind of matured me in that, and I would do one a week. And it went on for 9 years, people started going, hey, I’d really like to have this in a collection, like, are you ever going to put this in a book? And I heard it over and over for a couple years, and I was like, yeah, I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking maybe, I’ll pick like 20 of them. But I started doing it, I realized I had over 400. And so really, again, in keeping with that same theme of almost being the blind man led by Christ, I didn’t know I was doing it. I was just telling you some story.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, but I was just going to ask, was there a defining moment in the marsh, in the blind, maybe in the dark with the whistling wings around you, when you knew that this book, those 400 things you’d written had to be in book form to share with other duck hunters?

Jason Williams: Yeah, there was. It came to that moment, when all those people – all of a sudden, out of the blue, a whole bunch of people asked for this thing. And for a while, it had been quiet. I’d get one here and there, and then it just kind of went silent for a long time and said, you know what? If this is what I’m going to do, then, I want God to make it apparent to me. And so all of a sudden, within one week, I’m getting flooded with, hey, you got to do this. So here’s what happened, and this is crazy, this is a crazy story, I don’t know how much time we have. So I had been taking this guy hunting, he was a correction officer like me, we’d been going hunting pretty often. And so one day we’re driving out to the field, and he looks over at me in the car and he goes, I want you to know that because of what you’ve been doing, me and my whole family are going to give our life back to the Lord. And I said, oh, really? He goes, come on, man, we both know this was never just about duck hunting. And I’m like, all right, well, if you say so. I was just trying to live the Christ life in front of him while we did what we both love, and that’s really what it comes down to. I love duck hunting, I was going to do it. I was going to be good at it because I loved it, and that’s what this is about. If I love Jesus like you love fishing, you’re going to tell me a fish story. I have to tell you about Jesus because I love him that same way. So we’re hunting and I’m sure once in a while he’d hear something about Jesus. So anyway, time goes on with this guy, and one night, he walks into the arsenal where I now work, again, god whittled it down, I now have no inmates at all, I work in an arsenal. I have another bid that I should have no business getting with the time I have on the job, completely done with all population and everything. And he walks in there and he goes, hey, listen, he goes, I was cleaning out my stuff, and I came across this book, let me qualify that first, someone had asked me for a devotional book. They said, oh, you guys do all these things about waterfowl, anything about deer hunting or any – I said, I honestly don’t know, I said, I’ll ask the other guys in the group and see what they come up with. Well, one guy said, yeah, there’s one called the Look at Life from a Deer Stand. He goes, and then some other one, I’ll get back to you. So this is the night before this happens, right? I never heard about this book in my life. And not to give him a plug, but hey, it’s a good book, I guess. The next day, this guy walks in the arsenal, he goes, I’ve been cleaning out my stuff, and I came across this book that I really feel like maybe would help you out, what you want to do. And I said, well, what is it? He goes, I don’t know, they give you, like, a story about hunting and then like an encouraging word. I said, is it a devotional book? He goes, I don’t know, maybe. So he goes, it’s in my car. It’s like, okay. So I said, I’ll meet you in a parking lot tonight. We get out of work, walking across the parking lot, we get chit chatting, about things, he ends up giving me the book and we’re still talking, I never looked at it. So I drive home, it’s an hour drive for me in the dark and all of a sudden I get my driveway and I go, oh, I forgot about that book. And I’m looking at it and it’s on its back. And I go, what are the odds that this is that book? Could it possibly be? And I reach over and I picked it up, and in my iPhone light, there’s the title, right? I Look at Life from a Deer Stand. And it was like, that was it. I said, it’s not even just the big things, like, you see everything, every little thing. Like, what are the odds of picking this book out of every book that’s ever been written that I’ve never heard of in my entire life? And you put it in my hands in less than 24 hours. And I was like, in that moment, I knew, like, this is what’s got to get done. Shocking. I don’t even think mathematically what the probability of something like that would ever be, but he did it. I would say it was probably about 12 hours, honestly, because it was from the night before to, midway through the next day. So shocking. And I bought a ton of those books, I hand them out all the time, and it just became a part of what I want to do. Matter of fact, even when I started to look for a format for this, I ended up using the same format that guy used. So what you’ll see in that book, if you don’t mind me holding it up, I got my little, you see my mallard curl there, my book mark. So they’re short stories, you’re going to read this story in probably 3 to 5 minutes because I know that the attention span is not really there these days, but you get right here at the top, here’s your Bible verse, right? The rest is about hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Well, do me a favour, Jason, pick one out that would be apropos to this podcast episode. Can you put your fingers on one? Read the verse and then give us a 2 second summary of the 5 minute read.

Jason Williams: Yeah, I’ll just pick the one that I had bookmarked. So this one, it just said it’s called Freshwater Shark. So the Bible verse at the beginning is, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death, on them, a light has been dawned. So this particular time, I’m hunting in that flooded timber spot and that duck blind that I told you is about 8ft above the water, I’m with a buddy, and we keep seeing what looks like a shark’s fin and it keeps coming up out of the water like this and going back down. And I’m like, this spot is about 3ft deep max, there’s no salt water here and how do I keep seeing this black fin come up and disappear in the water? Like, what is this? And it kept happening over and over again. And finally, I said, you know what, I have to know. So I got out of the blind, I got in the john boat, rowed myself over to it and come to find out what it was, was this huge snapping turtle and what he was doing, he was mating. He’d get on top of the other turtle and then he’d slide off sideways and the shell would go down, look like a shark spin. And I said, wow, I never would have known that if I hadn’t gotten out of my boat or out of the blind and went to go see it. And that’s pretty much in short in a page and a half is, what I’m telling you is, hey, don’t take people’s word for what Jesus is, go see for yourself because you’re going to find out that what you’re looking at isn’t what you thought it was, and it’s just simple stuff like that. It’s just straight to the point, like I said, you’re going to get a lot more imagery, you’re going to get a lot more detail because I want to draw you in, I want to give you the full experience you’re going to get, the times where you have the wood ducks coming in under the shadow of darkness, gliding through that night. You hear that sizzle of the wings and then the shush of the feet across the water and everything just settle back into complete silence in the dark as you’re trying to make out these shadowy figures. So I’m going to give you stuff like that too. I’m going to give you, I’m going to bring you back to the field when you’re not in it, and that’s what this whole book is about. Like it’s no different than you or me driving down the street looking at every side pond. We’re still looking for that thing we love, even if it’s not the season, and that’s what I try to do with this book more. And it’s simple, I’m not going to beat you over the head with religious stuff, it’s going to be to provide a bridge for you, much like you do when you take other people hunting, you want them to do well. You want them to see what you see and to love it the way you love it. And so what I’m trying to do is give you the stories that you already know, it’s the stories that you already experienced to make clear to you what you may not have been able to understand before.

Jason, your book covers 365 days, one full year of hunting and reflection. What did a year of living so closely with your own faith teach you about life in the context of duck hunting, I’ll ask?

Ramsey Russell: Jason, your book covers 365 days, one full year of hunting and reflection. What did a year of living so closely with your own faith teach you about life in the context of duck hunting, I’ll ask?

Jason Williams: Yeah. So the idea is, and the truth is we’re alive, we’re animated, we have a type of life, and if it was Greek word, it would call bios, it’s like an animate form of life, you’re living and so your heart’s beating, you’re functioning. But there’s another type of life that the word talks about in Greek it would be called Zoe. So it’s the God type, it’s an eternal type of life. So a lot of people get eternity and eternal life confused. We think it’s a, again, a time and a place. One day I’ll get there and I’ll be with God. But what he’s telling you is I’m going to give you my spirit, he’s going to come to live inside of you and you’re going to have this eternal type of life, you come alive inside. You’re going to be reborn. You’re almost going to come back and see things through the eyes of a child. You’re almost like a raw nerve. So what I would say is when I came alive inside, I experienced waterfowl hunting on a level that I never had before. My eyes were new, my ears were new. Like, there’s a level of appreciation for it and a depth to it that I never had before. I was about numbers for the longest time. Let me see how many I can kill, whack them and stack them, no days off kind of thing. And I even taught myself taxidermy to justify the bloodlust. Well, if I say that I’m going to stuff these birds and I can put 50 in the freezer and not feel bad about it, that was all I was about, and I think a lot of other hunters are the same way. Look what I did, look how I connected, I’m a good shot. But when I came to Christ, things changed. It became, and maybe even through taxidermy, like this vast appreciation for the detail, for the artist behind it all the sunrises, the sunsets, which you even see like the cover of the book, you can see it that well. This is one of my hunts that I was on, this is a September goose hunt. Look at that sunset, like, that blew my mind that day. If nothing else happened that day that was worth just being there where before. I don’t think I really even noticed it. I might have thought it was neat looking, but just to give you an idea of like, how things drastically changed, I never cried, right? I was cold, I was a cold person. My parents accused me of shooting my dog with a BB gun. My own dog that I love, because he came back to the house with BBs in his butt one night and they’re like, did you do it? That’s the kind of person they thought I was, I didn’t do it, but they thought at least the people around me closest to me thought I was cold enough that I could. Like my wife knew me as a cold person, I didn’t show any emotion whatsoever. And so when Christ comes and lives inside of you, you come alive. And after I gave my life to Christ, I’m walking down the sidewalk one night and I’m looking at the moon and I am in shock, like, so there’s a full moon, I think 33 years old at the time, I’m looking at this moon, I’ve seen it for 33 years and I’m never thought anything of it before, but now I’m so blown away by the enormity of this thing that I’m just stuck there looking at my wife, who had just given her life to Christ not long before that, without me saying a word, goes, wow, it’s like, I’m seeing the moon for the first time in my life. And I said, that’s crazy, that’s how I feel. And so I didn’t know what it was at the time, but things like that would happen to me often. We went to the zoo and I saw a rhinoceros, and I can’t believe this enormous, amazing, powerful creation that I’ve seen, I live by the Catskill Game Farm, that’s like a common thing to see these kind of animals. Now all of a sudden, I’m looking at this thing, and I can’t get my mind around it, and I’m like, what? Why do I care so much? And I didn’t have someone to tell me what was going on at the time. But looking back, I realized, hey, you really are born new, like, you really do have new eyes, you have new hearing, new everything. You are literally like a little child experiencing the world through the eyes of a child, it’s like wonder all over again. And it’s life. It’s a life that you didn’t know you needed to have. And like I said, as a correction officer, I was nowhere near this stuff. And nobody told me this was supposed to happen, this is just what occurred for me. And looking back on it, I get it. Like, wow, this is something you can’t live without. You can go through this life and never encounter this thing, and you’re really missing out on how beautiful everything can really be, the depth of it and all that. And I would never, ever want to go back and see it any other way, honestly.

Ramsey Russell: Jason, how has this devotional and the life that inspired it, your walk with your newfound faith, how has it shaped your understanding of what it means to be a man of integrity, especially in the field? Has it changed your behavior in the field or the way that you perceive, not judge mentally, like, oh, I’m better than him, but people’s behavior while hunting?

Jason Williams: Well, I’ll say, yes, it definitely does. And one of the things that’s beneficial to me is that I’m usually the captain. I’m the guy with the boat, so pretty much everywhere you go, I’m bringing you. It’s almost like, I have a little bit more say on the rules there, because you may not make it back to the boat anyway. Yeah, but like I told you before, a lot of what I do right now is trying to bring other people into that world of duck hunting. And so knowing that it’s wrong, but also knowing that you shouldn’t have that what most people would call a religious spirit, like, just kind of hammering people all the time, I’ll make it about like, hey, listen man, you’re kind of new to this, let’s do this right. So like, there was one time I was bringing a guy and we were goose hunting, and then even with the half hour extended shooting time of goose season, sometimes the geese still come in within a little 60 seconds, most of the time it’s within the last two minutes. And we knew that, we sat all night, I said, look, it’s going to be like the last 60 seconds, it’s going to get crazy, that’s just how it is. So nothing happened, right? My alarm’s going off on my phone to tell me it’s time to stop, we start unloading the guns and then the geese come and they fly over us and he looks at me and I look at him and I go, we’re not going to do it. And back in the days, my alarm’s still ringing on my phone, it might be 8 o’ clock, but we still got like 60 seconds till it’s 08:01, we took those birds, where now I’m like, hey, listen man, this was about the experience, let’s learn it right the first time, and then that way you can carry that force, into the next few things. And I see that the same thing with other guys, like I told you, I wrote the one called Hunting with the Heathens, there are times that I can’t do it and I’ll tell them, guys, hey, listen man, I can’t go with you guys, I need to get among the brethren for once. Like, I’m going to go round up a few guys from the church house and get them to go hunting that day and just have that fellowship and truly just be able to really let loose as a person who’s full of the Lord and talk with other people and have that connection out there with them where it really is about the guy, the one who created it all. And for me, that’s a recharge, that’s a fresh breath before I can go back into, almost tolerating, the stuff with the other guys. But it has drastically changed me. Like I said, I have much more respect for life and for taking a life. That thing, that animal out there that you’re about to rip the life away from was going to continue to have a beautiful existence until you decided to take it. Now, I have to have a certain amount of Thanksgiving for that. So whether I decide to pull the trigger or not, I now understand, like, hey, this didn’t have to happen. That didn’t have to be here for me, I didn’t have to make that decision, so at least I can do is be thankful for it. I’m not one of those guys that thinks Mother Nature, I thank the one who created Mother Nature.

Ramsey Russell: Well, one of my biggest struggles, and I’ll ask you, do you ever struggle with hypocrisy, teaching values or talking about values that you may not always live up to? That’s one of my biggest struggles. And I’ll tell you this, I was hunting with some people, I’ve got a faith, Jason, but I don’t talk to people about it, you know what I’m saying? I didn’t write a book about it. I struggle with it. I mean, to me, my relationship is right there in my heart, my head, and I struggle a lot with it. And mostly because I feel like a hypocrite so many times. And for example, I was up hunting with some boys in North Carolina, and we were going out, we had been swan hunting, we were going out to the bay to get into a scissor rig and try to shoot some blue bills or whatnot. And we riding out, and my host was like, man, you ain’t nothing in real life, like, you’re on your podcast and your social media. I go, man, I’m exactly who I am. I mean, it’s fully transparent. He said, no, you ain’t nothing like that. I go, how so? And he goes, well, he started repeating some of the words had come out of my mouth, he said, you don’t ever say that on your podcast, you don’t ever use those words. And I’m admitting as the most perfectly imperfect human being God ever made, I could hang with anybody you’ve ever met in that prison facility on language, I’ll tell you that right now, I’ll just admit it. But at the same time, I struggle with the fact, how can I say I’m a Christian when I am so perfectly imperfect? And I do feel like a hypocrite because of my language or some of my actions, like killing a lot of ducks. So how do you reconcile all that, Jason?

Jason Williams: I’m not real big, I can’t hear you right now, but I’m assuming you stop talking. I’m not real big for remembering Bible verses, I try to read the whole word. But there’s one in Galatians that I think it’s 5-17, it talks about that the evidence of the presence of the spirit is the struggle. So that’s called conviction, what you’re experiencing, which tells you that there’s a spirit present, otherwise there would be no struggle at all. I call it the struggle is real. So there was a man I listened to a long time ago, he said, I may not be able to show you perfection, but I can show you – I mean, there’s nobody perfect but Jesus, and I think we should strive for that, absolutely. I think we should be growing towards that every day, the Bible says we’re being made into the image of Christ every day. But at the same respect, you have to realize we are dealing with things, there are things that got to get whittled out, and the world never stops teaching, that was our Father, before we gave our lives to the Lord, the world was fathering us so that we would grow up and look like our dad, look like it, that’s what happens. When I was growing up, I used to say, I’m not going to be anything like my dad, I’m just like him now, because you were fathered by him. So the Bible explains to you that God is your true father. So you’re supposed to be growing up to look like him, but at the same time, the world is still looking at you and saying, hey, I have open arms, come back to me anytime you want. It never stops teaching and never like, it is always after you. So another story I wrote in that book is one that’s called Farts in the Duck Blind. So it was after Thanksgiving, and my uncle was there with me, this was his duck blind back in the days. And the day after, it was a tradition, we had to hunt Thanksgiving and we’d hunt that whole 3 days period there, which I hunt as much as I could. And the day after, everybody ate that Thanksgiving turkey and potatoes and brussels sprouts and whatever else they could shovel in, and these guys were letting it loose in the duck blind. I mean, your eyes were burning, you could barely breathe in there, they’re opening the door to get out, get fresh air, because they’re just letting all the hot air go. And I don’t know why God gave me that one, but it was, hey, you’re immersed in this on a daily basis, right? You don’t think that that’s where you’re at right now, this world is not your home and it is never stopping trying to saturate you with that. Just like, you would be smelling it stuck within that invisible mist that those guys are letting go from their inside. The world is the same way. And when we realize that, it’s very easy to get caught up in that, it’s very hard to take a stand, and we can stumble. I think it says, a righteous man falls 7 times and it’s not even talking about stumbling, right? It’s getting up again, though, that matters. And I think the biggest part of it, Ramsey, is being honest. Like you just said, hey, look, I know I’m not supposed to, I’m not where I would like to be, but I know I’m not supposed to be where I’m at, right? So I messed up here, I’m being honest with you about it, I know what I am. So that I think it’s a big deal, you have that conviction within you like, everybody who has God’s spirit does. Just saying, like, man, I know it’s wrong, so why do I want to keep doing it? And then you just pray it through, lord, help me out with that, you know what I am. There’s no such thing as a locked door with God. We all think we have this key to these invisible doors, and we’ll let them in the rest of the house, but not that room. I think when we realize that there’s no such thing as a locked door with God, and we’re honest and we say, look, I know you already see this, and I don’t want it, but I don’t feel like I’m incapable or I’m capable of fixing it, so it’s got to be you or nothing. And that’s the gospel message is the whole thing from the beginning, with the Jews trying to do, the 10 Commandments and all the other laws was, hey, guys, you can’t do this yourself, it’s going to take me, and then it’s the Great Commission. I’m going to come alongside of you, and we’re going to do this together, that’s what it’s all about, it’s a surrender of, hey, did you ever get to the point where you realize you’re not capable, and then just be honest about it, and then he’ll work with you. Like I said before, I’m not perfect, but I am redeemed and there are certain parts of me that look different than other people, and they see that. And I think a lot of the times what we think they see coming from us isn’t really what they’re seeing. Like, I don’t think that I even realize how much I’ve changed. But when I’m around other people, they’ll often say, like, hey, you’re not like any of the rest of us, you’ll get things like that, like, man, I’m sorry, I get a lot of that, I’m sorry for cursing, I didn’t mean to say that. I’m like, why, when you’re around me, are you sorry for it? Which means you know it’s wrong, but any other time it’s fine, so would you walk out of the room and it’s cool again, like, you’re being a hypocrite either curse around me or don’t, but understand it’s not me who’s watching you, it’s him, and he’s there all the time. So if you feel bad around me and you think that I have the spirit of God in me, it’s just going to take a few moments of you sitting down and thinking through, like, hey, I wouldn’t do that if God were in the room. Now, again, that’s for everyone to figure out in their own walk with him. Like, I always tell people, hopefully we’re on the same path, just sometimes we’re at different bends. I may be around this bend where you’re still on that bend, or you may have been past me in this area, but I might catch you in this area, that’s really what it’s all about. I mean, none of us are going to make it without Christ anyway. You can get up there and tell them everything you did, and if he’s not standing there saying, I knew you, you’re done anyway, it’s all about who you know, and if you let him know you.

Ramsey Russell: Jason, when you imagine a hunter reading your devotional, what do you hope or won’t that they feel in their gut?

Jason Williams: I want them to feel the same thing that I do whenever I hear a good hunting story. I want to be brought back to that moment, I want to fall in love again, and then I want to be able to create that tiny bridge that says, because you know what this is, because you know what I’m talking about intimately on this a level that only a duck hunter would know, you can now understand this little verse over here where maybe you wouldn’t even have looked at it before. Let’s be honest, most people are never going to read the Bible cover to cover, right? I think we talked about this privately. I’ve read some study that said 97% of people claiming to be Christians have never read the Bible cover to cover, that means 3% actually read it. So being honest about it, most people are never going to pick that book up, it’s just not going to happen. So maybe you’ll read this book about something that you love and see something in there that doesn’t intimidate you. Maybe it’ll trigger you to read a little bit more, maybe it won’t, maybe one little verse is enough for you, I don’t know. But pretty much what I’m looking for, honestly, I don’t care about money, I don’t care about notoriety, I just care that it’s out there and that something might happen, that one person might change like I did, and it only takes one, right? That’s what it was all about. Jesus left the 99 to get the 1. I don’t know who that one’s going to be, but I was out there, so it’s almost like I’m just throwing it out there, it’s in the spread.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. It’s a great book, and I wonder how many – like so much of whether it’s in the pro-hunting, conservation, waterfowl science, or the topic we’re talking about today, one’s faith, a lot of times we’re the preacher preaching to the choir, it’s hard to get outside that. And I just wonder, I would encourage anybody listening that that is developing their own walk or their own struggles, have their own questions that, like myself, don’t have time to become plugged into a physical church community because of travel, because of hunting, because of lifestyle, whatever. I mean, I don’t know why you wouldn’t just pick up this book, just read for two seconds a day. I mean, really and truly, it doesn’t take long to read a lot of these pages. I thumbed through a bunch and read some, and they’re very well written and they’re very relatable. Because you’re talking about duck hunt, you’re sharing a lot of your duck hunts with the people of your past and your friends, and I appreciate that. I just wonder, how do you get somebody to pick that book up. If I can get it, if they go to church every Sunday, but how do you get it just to pick it up and say, well, I want to walk, because I feel like, and I’m speaking for myself, not people around me, but I feel like I’m searching, and it’s been manifest in a bunch of different ways, but I feel like I’m searching for a closer, a deeper meaning in life than maybe what I currently experience. And my hope is that your book will bring me one step closer in that search.

Jason Williams: I hope that it does. I mean, like I said before, I am a straight shooter, not just in the field, but in the book, too. And sometimes I come across as a little harsh, but I think one of the most important things that people should realize, and if you read the preface of it, I’m telling you, hey, listen, the copy or the title of this is A Waterfowl Hunters Devotional, if you look at where the apostrophe is, this book is my story. Now, it’s also your story, but first and foremost, these are lessons that the Lord gave to me. So I’m talking about me. Now, I don’t want anyone to take it personal if they get hit, in the pump station, I’m not trying to criticize, I’m telling you how I feel, and I’m telling you that this is what I need to work on. If you can familiarize yourself with that, or you can understand that and you’re willing to internalize that, then that’s your thing, that’s a great thing, as for how God’s going to get it out there, it’s going to be him or nothing at all. But he’s going to use people, and he already is using people like you. So where you might not feel that you’re right where you want to be or that you’re looking for this deeper relationship, you did allow me to come on here and speak to you about this. So one way or another, the Lord has his hand on you in that way. There’s some other guys who have done podcasts as well. I haven’t personally reached out to anyone that wasn’t recommended to me. Other people have stepped up and said, I love this book, I want to put it in other people’s hands. I’ve had one guy come to my house and drop off $2,000 cash, he said, buy as many copies as you can, I want you to have them on hand, which you can see some of them behind me.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I see them.

Jason Williams: So, $2,000 because he believed in it. Recently another man reached out to me, said, look, we came into some money, and I want to do some, they call, tithing or charitable contributions, and I’m going to give you a thousand dollars, I want you to buy as many copies of that book as you can and get them out there. Like, that’s not me, that’s got to be the Lord. So if this book is worthy of being out there, it’s going to get out there. And like you said, there are certain things that happen around you that kind of give you the tip, like something’s happening, things are pulling together right now. There are different things happening around it that are saying, this has got to happen. So it is in the hands of some very notorable people. I won’t give any names, I’m hoping that they actually read it, and that it does make its way out there. Again, I don’t care about, it’s not about money. I almost don’t want to put it out there because this is me showing you me, this is a vulnerable aspect of who I am. It’s near and dear to my heart. So when someone writes back to me and says, I think you’re a hypocrite, or I don’t believe in what you have in that book, that hurts. So I almost would rather not put it out there. And I put it out there because I felt like it needed to be out there.

Ramsey Russell: Jason, how can everybody listening connect with you in social media? And where can they find a copy of your book?

Jason Williams: So anybody can find me on Facebook. My name is Jason Williams, you’ll see the same picture, I make sure that I keep this picture on the book here, you’ll find that as my Facebook page, I’m never going to change that, it’s going to stay the same. On Instagram, you can look up Waterfowlers for Christ, you’ll find me writing on there. Matter of fact, if you don’t feel like buying the book, you can read one a day on there, I post one every single day, a different one as we go through the book. There’s also Facebook groups and stuff like that that are the same title as the book, Committed to the Call, where you can go ahead and reach out to me and if you want to talk to me about something you read, that you want to understand better or that you think you got something from it, I’m always there. Like, I will answer you back, I’ll talk you through it, if you felt like you had a disagreement with me, I’m happy to explain my side of things. I’m happy to just connect with people, I don’t ever want to be one of those people that, gets to the point where I’m distant from others. I want to be able to interact with everyone. I don’t know that that’s always going to be the case, but it’s going to be my intention to always be available. So you can find this book on any digital source right now, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, I think, even Walmart, carrying it digitally so you can order it on the Internet. Local people, I’m going to be doing a book signing at Barnes and Noble on July 13^th in Kingston, New York. I’m going to try to get to as many different local bookstores as I can and get them to carry it as much as I can. And then this fall and this winter, I plan on trying to get to as many sportsman shows as I can. If I have to travel, then my wife already is aware of that, she said, hey, we’ll all go. So, I want to get there, I want to do those things. Like I said before, I do taxidermy, I plan on going to some competitions next year, maybe we’ll have a book there. I’m not going to bring it to any car shows or anything, but we’ll have it. If anybody wants it, it’s out there. I don’t know what more to do other than I’ll get on as many podcasts as I can, get that out there as well. But if you want it, you can find it. It’s out there, there’s the very first month on pre orders, we sold, I think 300 before the book was even available, so people wanted it. There’s 20,000 people following the Waterfowls for Christ Facebook page, so there’s an audience already for all around the world.

Ramsey Russell: Good deal.

Jason Williams: It’s out there.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Jason. I appreciate you coming on and telling your story. I appreciate you sharing this with me and with the listeners, I really do. Thank you very much.

Jason Williams: Yeah, 100%. And Ramsey, just like anybody else, man, you’re welcome to contact me anytime. If you’re flying around the world and you want to talk about something I wrote, I’m happy to reach out to you.

Ramsey Russell: Message received, I appreciate you all. And folks, thank you all for listening this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Committed to the Call, a 365 day Waterfowl Hunters devotional. Go check it out. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for. See you next time.

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