10-Gauge Shotgun Talk‪s

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host, Ramsey Russell. Join me here to listen to those conversation. Welcome back to another episode of Duck Season Somewhere. I’m your host ‘RR’ Ramsey Russell and we’re back down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at Go Devil headquarters with Mr. Warren Coco. How are you Warren?

Warren Coco: Doing good man. Doing Good.

Ramsey Russell: I got a topic for you, real interesting topic for you and I’ve had this talk with some friends of mine about there seems to be a sub gauge revolution underfoot in America. I shoot a 12 gauge everywhere. Got a 20 gauge, got a 28 gauge, I’ve got some different gauges I sometimes shoot the day in day out. I shoot a 12 gauge and I was surprised to learn that someone that has killed as many ducks and hunted as hard and long as you have, shoots a 10 gauge. You shoot a 10 gauge mostly down in the marshes, is that right?

Warren Coco: Down in the marsh. And I’ll do the same thing in Black River when I learned a long time ago you in Africa you got to do to Africans are doing. If they don’t want to do right, I got something going to make them happen. I’m going to make it happen because it’s going to reach out and touch them.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about, how long have you been shooting? I know you got some 10 gauges stories.

Warren Coco: I’ve been shooting since for about my place in hackberry. That’s been since ’99. About in 1998, when I was in no Duck line. We didn’t have anything in the woods and I went down the river to go hunt and I was just so frustrated and didn’t have any ducks, wouldn’t kill anything anywhere. My buddy, my fishing buddy had six and I caught on that trout with, he called me, I was like, I’m going to hunt with Jim Rob, his counterpart, he worked for Johnston’s. This old rings, senior rings and what’s the cap and gowns rented those caps and gowns. And his counterpart in Lafayette, Louisiana had a leasing gate on Louisiana, Rice country. He said he’s going to hunt with Jim and so you want to come go and hunt with his sales and buddy and gate on rice field. I said I might as well. I said, I ain’t killing nothing nowhere else. So we took off, we loaded up, went over there to hunt and they got this big sporting goods store in gate on, Louisiana. If you’re ever down there, you need to stop look at it’s a G and H seed. They’re actually a seed company, but they got a sporting goods store there and they got a full line of everything. But before I left, my friend Jimmy Nugent. And I called him, I said, hey, I bought about 10 gauge I’m going to hunt gate on and make it shoot some geese because he had told me a story about, there were goose hunting over there by sweet Lake one time and his friend who was a friend of mine also Stewart bates bought 10 gauge and they were goose hunting, shooting speckled bellies. So they come up and shoot, the baby is hitting the wings. Stewart come up killed two of them with 10 gauge and shooting steel shot. So I called him and I want to see if I bought it 10 gauge. Well we might go goose hunt. I said, well, I ain’t going to take you, take your guns no, I ain’t going to take you all going, no, no. So I didn’t get the gun from him. So we started G and H seed and we bought some bismuth and 12 gauges I’m shooting 870 pump. Ed bought some also. And I look at the guns behind the counter, I asked the guy, I said man you got 10 gauges? He says, yeah, I got one here. Let me see it. Well, it was a gold hunter 10 gauges auto gold hunter, but it had 32 inch barrel and a wooden stock and I said, well, I ain’t what I want. I said, I want a wooden stock and I don’t want a 32 inch barrel. I said, that’s all right. So I went on and hunt that evening. And got a few blind first ducks come by boom. That was about $5, which bismuth. It was like $4.50 I think whatever it was. And we shot that, we played that bismuth with that real quick. It was gone. Well the next morning we got in the blind and we were actually in a better Ed and I was actually a better blind and Jim was with his friend, another blind, the guy had the lease and where they’re hunting, it was a great day of cold front come through and I hadn’t seen, this is a 98. I had not seen pin tails like that since the early eighties in Hackberry. I mean it was solid pin tails. We were north of White Lake Preserve, which is the state wound up with after the Amoco buyout. That was white Lake Club. But anyway, pin tails are coming out of there. We’re shooting, we shot a few geese and we’re shooting 12 gauges and the guy had the lace, he kind of got a blind with us, he had a 10 gauge brown and bps pump. He got the blind with us. I didn’t think much about it. We’re sitting there, pair of geese flew by I did not even reach for my gun. He jumped up and killed both of them. I said, Lord have mercy. And a little while later speckled belly flew by he jumped up, killed. I never reached for my gun. It’s too far. I said, man, that thing that killed him on. So yeah, he’ll kill him. You said you want to shoot at us here, let me shoot that thing. About 10 minutes later, green head flew by about 65 yards and I stoned it and it was a perfect day to hunt. We’re starting to blind all day because you were going to kill a full limited geese because you killed so many of them. And we were sitting in the blind and I said, what times that store close? He said they closed at 12 o’clock. And it was 12:30. I said they just lost a sale on 10 gauge. Exactly I go buy that gun right now to sit here the rest of the day with that 10 gauge. So, anyways what I said man, how you shoot this thing, this thing will beat you to death. He said, oh it’s after about a week of hunting. He said you get used to it. I get a headache first weekend and after shooting it, a few days I get used to it and don’t buy them anymore. I said, well I don’t want no pump. So then when I came back to Baton Rouge and I went found one. I bought one, and I was so impressed with it.

Ramsey Russell: What did you buy, if you don’t mind?

Warren Coco: I got a Gold Hunter 10 gauge at the synthetic stock, 30 inch barrel and then I had a customer had one a little short guy. He couldn’t handle the gun is too big for him. So you want to sell it? I bought it I paid about 950 for that gun. The first one I bought. Then this customer had one I bought it for $600 with three cases of shells. So then I found in a pawn shop. I bought for one of my nephews. I got one from the binding ripped for my other nephew then I bought me another one and I think I had four other came up for sale friend of mine, found bought and shot three boxes shells through it. And I bought it for about 1200 with three cases of shells. So I got a spare I ain’t never shot yet but I keep two at one hunting camp and two at the other hunting camp. And why you guys shoots such a big gun? I said because it kills. I said this thing that 10 gauge with number 2 steel is equal to a 3 inch led in a 12 gauge and so I got 3.5 shoot. So I said I ain’t same. I know 3.5, 12 will not kill him as far as a 3.5, 10. I said I can kill a duck or goose at 70 yards and if you really want to get mad at him you bought him a long green bullets and you kill them at 85.

Ramsey Russell: What do you call a long green bullet?

Warren Coco: Heavy shot. Now Mossy Oak contacted me going to shoot video. This was not long after that. But I still all the newer guns I have aluminum received a little bit lighter in weight and they kick a little more. But that first gun I bought at a steel receiver just heavier, it didn’t, they kicked him, like a little less, little more than 1112 gauge. It didn’t kick back at all because the gun is so big and heavy. Well I went to Saskatchewan shoot video with Mossy Oak and went up to shoot Canada geese and I bought some bismuth with me. And this is what I learned about this before. There was no such thing as heavy shot this time, this was way back. And I brought some bismuth with me and I shot Canada goose and stoned him and when I walked out to pick him up it was 80 steps. I got to that goose and I killed him dead when I shot him. But that 10 gauge will reach out and touch them where nothing else does. Now with all these new shells, a heavy shot and as he got the boss shells that puts a whole new picture on everything for everybody. This is a different ball game now.

Ramsey Russell: Have you ever shot boss shot shells?

Warren Coco: Never have. They just came out as first I heard of them here several months ago.

Ramsey Russell: We know they haven’t been out very terribly long, but we talked about this over supper last time I met with you and my buddy Brandon and Ricky over boss shot shells, heard the story and said, well let me send you these last two boxes. They completely sold out their entire inventory when they came out with this 10 gauge shell. And everybody’s been shooting the 12 gauge, like for the last 30 years we’ve been shooting steel shot, You got to shoot a three inch magnum, you’ve got to get that speed, you get to balance the equation of lead and weight and everything else. And somebody gave me a box of these a couple of years ago and it was two and three quarter inch copper plated five. And I’ve never looked back. It is close to the good old days of shooting a two and three quarter inch lead shot as I have experienced in the last 30 years. And inside those shells, we brought those 3.5 inch 10 gauge shells. And he asked what size you want us to? Well, he’s down tomorrow shooting ducks, just get some number five. There’s about 400 pellets, two plus ounces of shot. There’s about 400 pellets. That’s going to be a massive swarm. And each pellets going to hit about like a number of five lead. So that I’ll be real interested to hear your report on that and I don’t know what you’re what size choke I might ask you in a minute you’ve been shooting with steel shot or with heavy shot or with whatever you’ve been shooting. But remember back in the old days, we shot at least modified, but maybe even a full choke factory full with lead. And that’s what you want to do with these shells. No more of these improved cylinder. Unless they’re going to be just from a distance of this room, you want to get it choked back down. And I’d even say take a few of them and back off here in your big yard and shoot at 40 yards with a modified or improved modified and just see what you like on a 30 inch pattern board.

Warren Coco: I generally shoot a modified with steel because you shoot the 10 gauge for distance. You’re not shooting and trying to shoot stuff up decoy, a lot of times, I’ll hunt with 20 gauge modified steel three inch, 20 gauge four shot. If we’re shooting teal, Well, I don’t really care to shoot that with a 10 gauge and I’ll shoot, I got a little 20 gauge 85. I’ll shoot old style gun and I’ll shoot that a lot of times. But back to steel shot. I shot steel shot before most of your listeners was born. Back in the 70s. This was background high school. We’d go hunt. They had an experimental deal Roxanne refuge and I didn’t have a place. I hunted at the mouth of the river at that time was in the east zone and Roxanne refuge was on the west zone. And that experimental deal, steel shot went on the market. There was no such thing as steel shot. But they had it there to buy. And can I tell you it was the absolute worst shotgun shell ever shot in my life.

Ramsey Russell: You might as well just been picking up sandbar gravel and throwing at them.

Warren Coco: What was killing us so bad is we were crying about how expensive it was. And it was about $5 a box. But at that time we could buy a heavy load two and three quarter Remington shells for $3.15 cents a box of pack sack. I mean, we never paid more than $3.15 for a real good shell. But we shot that steel shot and I think about 25 yards about the furthest you could knock something down. It wasn’t dead, you had to chase it down, and it wouldn’t kill him. I mean it was just the worst stuff we have ever shot. And steel shot evolved, it got a little better, a little better. When we filmed the Duck Man, I was shooting reloads and somebody said, well you ain’t, so I ain’t trying to save money, I’m trying to get better shells. The guide reloading specialist to come up with some recipes and I was shooting number six steel two and three quarter and 870 pump and a five Brownlee and hunting in the woods, shooting them at 10 to 30 yards. It was no problem. It worked great. And those reloading shells I shot were absolutely fabulous. Well that was back in the early 80s, mid-80s and then things have evolved, the shells have gotten better, everybody’s making better shells. And with these boss shells looking at these with the power they’re going to pack. Like if I was hunting in the woods, I don’t think, I’d be like you talked about all these new guys hunting these smaller gauge, I was shooting up by the 20 gauge. I got a friend of mine hunts on the river. He’s got laying off Mississippi River below natural and he’s hunting in the woods there. He’s got a pound, but the floods and all he shoots, he shoots a Benelli 3 inch, 20 gauge would have a shot and this would suit his needs perfectly.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you all’s place up there on the black river where we met you camp up in North Louisiana. Most of the duck hold they are long but they’re narrow. How long have you ever shot 35, 40 yard over the water?

Warren Coco: It depends, like what I said when you’re in Africa, you got to do it the way Africans are doing. A lot of times they don’t want to work well, they are tough, they don’t want to get down in there and if they don’t want to get down in there, I’m going to reach out and touch them with that 10 gauge. And everybody saw that’s crazy. Shooting that far is that’s the only way you can kill them. That’s what you got to do.

Ramsey Russell: I would suggest just having shot a lot of boss shot shell in the past couple of years if you’re shooting a modified choke with steel normally, I would suggest back in all 40 yards and putting up a 30 inch buy some odd piece of cardboard and just try your improved modified. I believe you’re going to be shocked and I believe, I can’t wait to see a picture that pattern because I believe it’s going to be just proliferate with holes in it. It’s a heck of a load and I’ve just gotten and you’re right steel shot has come a long, long way since 1991 when it became mandated, these manufacturers have stepped it up. They’ve done better. But it still doesn’t have the killing power of lead, it just doesn’t. It’s like what was the density of the weight? If 36%, 37% to lead you got to really hop that thing up with speed and compromise your patterns because you’re trying to shoot 17-1800 feet per second and knocked my feelings loose to do it anymore. And I was telling somebody the other day, until I was 19 or 20 years old. I never owned a shotgun. Never saw the need on the shotgun with a three inch chamber. Every gun in the house it was a two or three cartridges.

Warren Coco: What I’m saying with us, we hunt, and we killed all the pin tails in Hackberry. We shot two and three quarter shells. We go by, do a little bit cheaper set up by a super X shells were by a duck and pheasant load, which is the same shell. But the casing wasn’t any good for reload like the super X-shell and so we’re buying shells $5 a box and getting a top load and it’s just and we shot six shots with anything bigger than six shots. The problem I got with steel shot shooting these twos pellets to be a tear everything up. You can run if you get a real pretty bird that as you want a mallard. He’ll be running because you shot him with those twos. Well if you’re shooting him with sixes you’ve got less chance of damaging him than you do with the two shots and you got to go to the bigger shot to get the mass to carry the distance. That’s why you have to go to larger pallets. I just love shooting six now then 5 shot and lead. That was a long distance shot. And we loaded some of those and you they would carry but I think you’re and they really carry.

Ramsey Russell: I think you going to be impressed, what I hear a lot of times and you’ve alluded to it several times now about when you are in Africa, you’ve got to be African is, I hear a lot because any time you get off into the premium, not just, I mean look I saw somebody posted a picture of the day on Facebook or somewhere, Walmart was selling shells for $5 a box that had a $2 rebate like last year’s inventory. So they had $3 box tied up. I’ve never heard anything good about that brand of shell. But everybody would jump and say, well I only shoot them over the decoys, I only shoot them at 20 yards. Well that’s where I want to duck to, that’s where they’re vulnerable. But let’s face it, I mean I got a lot of money and time and tied up in this duck hunt. And I think I can hit a duck at 35-40-45 yards if he presents some shells right, does that mean that went on? I know he’s not over the decoy. Don’t shoot. No, I’m probably going to shoot, I’m probably going to shoot and I want that edge. And the way I look at it, Duck hunting is expensive. If you’re hunting and pop falls back 40, or traveling down Louisiana let alone driving and got a dog and gas and a duck camp or a lease and food and licenses and waiters and gear and equipment and lights and something breaks. I mean it just goes on and on. You know what? A couple 100 more dollars that gets me down to that critical link of the trigger pull is going to give me an edge. I’m all in. I mean, I’m so far deep into duck hunt right now. Shooting a better shotgun shell just ain’t, a deterrent for me.

Warren Coco: I got a great story about the cost of shells. You’re going to love this. I got, when I started hunting hackberry guy who got us lined up over there, guy I met training dogs, Bart Grebes [**00:21:21]. He was American sportsman club had at least from James live where we were hunting and my friend Jimmy Nugent, he signed up my dentist who became, my dentist Johnny Barksdale live over there hunting and one day they were hunting, Johnny and my accountant it was my accountant now Randy Obamacare’s ever hunting with Bart. And this is a place we kill 30 ducks every day. I mean it was a 10 duck limit every day and they were hunting with Bart, one day and then every time ducks coming over the decoys, Randy and Johnny would jump up, they’d unload six shells 3 apiece and god, you all shoot too much Johnny says, hey man, I came over, I joined this club. It cost me $2,000 a joint. This is back in like 77. He said, I spent $2,000 joined this club. He said Bronco, I got out there, and I spent $12,000 buying it. I got a $500 buying shotgun. I’m going to spend about $200 coming over here this weekend. He said, I didn’t come here to save shells. He said the shells of the cheapest part of hunting. He said, I didn’t come here to save them.

Ramsey Russell: That’s exactly right. Get back on the shotgun model. Tell me some more 10 gauge story Warren, I know you got them.

Warren Coco: Well, it’s just a distance of that will kill them. I mean we were, I went, friend of mine, and Bob Adair who’s got the guy shoots a 20 gauge in the woods. He called me up one day. It was opening weekend and come that day with the opening weekend was over. It was like Monday, he come and say, look, he said hunted weekends. It was shot pretty good. He said snow geese hitting my field in the back, my rice field in the back. So I’m going back up there to hunt, so he goes come with I said, I’ll go with you, said the Green Hill is going to be in there too. So we went out there that morning and in the sky turned white when they got up they cleaned up the field was solid stubble. When we got there that morning, solid stubble on Sunday we got that, I think it was Tuesday, Wednesday morning. It was solid water. They didn’t clean it out. So we got in there and we share picked a limit of green heads, eight green heads and four speckle bellies. I mean it was absolute part of the country. Had a front it come through. I mean they’re working and they’re working great. And I’ll shoot my 10 gauges shooting steel. And now I saw what the weather is going to do is we’re calm. All real calm next day. I said in birds ain’t going to work like they did today. And I said I need some long green bullets. I said so we’re about 9-10 minutes from my camp at Black River. And I had some heavy shot over there. So we’re going to take a ride. So I’m going to get some heavy shots. So we went over there, got that heavy shot, come back next morning and then ducks and geese did exactly what I said. We went from shooting 30 yards to 60, 70 yards, 80 yards and we shot eight green heads and speckle bellies four the second day, but would have been for that 10 gauge, couldn’t have done it. That’s why I say when in Africa you got to do what Africans are doing it. Just use that little extra at 10 gauge gives that little extra edge. If they don’t want to act right, you can make them act right.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. A lot of people say that shooting ducks at 60 and 70 yards is not supporting, its sky busting and I hear that all the time. But if you look at the definition, just me judging on thousands and thousands of comments on the term sky busted, let’s say any time it comes up. It’s highly subjective. My thoughts always been it’s not sky busting. If the birds are falling.

Warren Coco: That’s right. That’s exactly right. We will hunt at Black River. The first year I planted corn and hold number five. We didn’t have a blind there, but I had corn in it and there was a better hole and Ricky lane, Tommy Kilroy and giant le pen. Also hunting that might be a little wax myrtle blind. Just some bushes stuck up there, hunting that blind. And we’ve been killing that blind and we were about 150-160 yards north of them and hole number four, that’s the hole I showed you all the willow trees and they weren’t up 10 feet at that time. And we’re hunting Joe. My nephew Joe and I would pit blind and the ducks were all gone to hole number five. They wouldn’t hardly anything coming to us. And they were over there calling and I start calling and I was pulling some of the ducks off of them and Ricky told Kilroy and Giant Le Pen said you hear him calling you all start looking, something’s coming because I was trying to pull them all of them so we can get some shooting that killed a full limit. The ducks, we didn’t kill a full limit, but we killed our eight mallards. And they had some mallards that pass over them were too high and they came over us and I’m talking that they were high and we jumped up, shot boom and kills us. Hey you know what? Oh my God! He saw them ducks falling. I mean it wouldn’t work good. It wouldn’t come. But we’re still able to kill him because of the 10 gauge, because I can’t believe you kill him. That for us that at 10 gauge will reach out and touch them.

Ramsey Russell: If it’s harder nail to drive. You got to use a bigger hammer.

Warren Coco: That’s right. You got to lay the more. Nobody ever shoots in front of a duck. They always shoot behind the duck. And then with that 10 gauge, you got to leave them twice as fun when you’re shooting ducks that far, you got to get used to that lead and I’m still guilty for not lead them far enough a lot of times making those long shots. Now, look ain’t nobody rather shoot ducks 10 yards any better than I do. And I would shoot number 20 gauge, but they don’t always work. They don’t always want to cooperate and having that bigger gun. And now with good shells and shells available like these boss, shells. Yeah, you have to shoot 10 gauge you do, you’ll be able to do just as well with that, with the boss with the 10 gauge is going to be better than the boss with 12 gauge bailed out. But you won’t be able to do 90% of your hunting that I do with that 12 gauge with those boss shells and really I want to try some 20 gauge shells also.

Ramsey Russell: My son Forest is 23 years old and we did some horse trading back when and I swapped them an old super Black Eagle three I had traded and for an old M2, he had kind of, you want that Super Black Eagle three for some reason and He got hold of some 20 gauge boss shot shield and hadn’t shot a 12 gauge since. He was just up feather hunting North Dakota with a 20 gauge. He has gone full on 20 gauge shooting number five because of boss shot shells and that just, when I was his age, I was getting bigger and bigger, not smaller and smaller. I’m saying, I mean that was the way we thought back in those days and now these guys are getting smaller and smaller. I’ve got a friend out in California, been posting videos this past week because they’re open out there shooting ducks, shooting 28 gauge and shooting them 35, 40 yards, whatever the duck will do, with 28 gauge boss shot shells. It’s amazing to see that. I mean it feels good, it’s like the good old days again and no what really hit me? I’m not people have heard me talk about this boss shot shell but I honestly just really truly believe in it. Is the number of cripples they’ve estimated there are because since steel shot came out and shooting ducks is an imperfect sport. Like hitting a baseball, you just don’t always get a solid hit. Sometimes you’re going to hit the top and bottom or something like that and chipped the ball. And even though we’re shooting a big old shotgun pattern out there same thing sometimes no matter what you’re shooting, you’re going to cripple a bird, but you’re going to cripple a lot more when you’re shooting something that’s got the energy down range to kill that bird when it hits it. And that’s what has made me a believer. I’ve actually shot this copper plated bismuth neck to neck with lead in Mexico, in Argentina and in Azerbaijan, I shall say where the guides who don’t speak English, well see that duck dying, we don’t shot a bunch of them will lead that morning, but I’ll start shooting at boss and they’re just looking over their shoulder at me and every time another they look over the shoulder like, what the heck is going on? And I’ll break out that shell and show them. And they always say the same thing. The guy in Azerbaijan was like Americano magic. They all say the same things like a magic American shell and that that makes me that really so it wasn’t just what I was seeing and thinking. It was kind of a blind test with some of these foreign outfitters that see tens of thousands of ducks a year die with lead. And I’m saying, but there’s a real big, there’s a statistic out there of the number of ducks because of the low energy that steel shot has that are being crippled. if you can reduce, I mean how many 10000s or hundreds of thousands of ducks do you have to spare the expense of dying off in the bushes somewhere instead of flying back to Canada to reproduce before you’ve affected it from a conservation level, which is what it’s all about.

Warren Coco: Well, when steel shot came out there was so much opposition against it for that reason. And I can remember. And as a judge out of Alexandra, he hunted up on cattle who like, and he was really adamant against steel shot and they were fighting and fighting. It was steel shots coming. It had to come because they were claiming that the crippling loss far exceeded the death toll from ducks eating lead. Now, I’m going to give you my take on all that because, I’ve been around for a little while seeing a lot of things. I’m very, very observant, talked a lot of people, we were losing a lot of ducks to cripple, so steel shot for the simple reason. The shells were inferior, but the steel had to go, I mean,

Ramsey Russell: The lead had to go.

Warren Coco: That’s right. The lead had to go, what happens when people don’t understand, like my place in hackberry, it’s got a hard clay bottom, that steel shot, that lead shot when it falls, this thing right there and then ducks picking it up. And I never realized how much they’re picking up to like somebody showed me how to look for lead in a duck’s gizzard, you cut it open, you open your wash it, lead is not going to be a perfect round ball, it’s going to be a flat sliver because that gizzard, its grinding it up, it’s going to be a long gated, flat sliver in there and I started looking and I was shocked how much lead shot I would find. The problem with lead shot if you keep shooting it. The problem is compounding. You’re adding more every year. You’re putting more when you, when you shut it off when you shut the lead shot down and shoot nothing but steel. The problem is decreasing, it’s getting less and less because the ducks are consumed in a certain amount of it and you are getting less and less lead out there than if you had kept shooting it. Your problems compounding. Now with the steel shot is lessening the problem. We did have a lot of cripples, A lot of people have learned how to shoot steel shot, some of Manhattan, but the boss shells and the premium shells, heavy shot boss and all this is, it’s going to help a lot on a crippling aspect of ducks. But people got to do like you to take ethical shots. Don’t, if everybody was hunting like we hunted and mop on the woods, you don’t need a long bullets.

Ramsey Russell: Know your patterns, take ethical shot, make clean kills that’s the boss way. So yeah, you’re right about that. It’s funny you should mention about the lead shot because we just had a guest on a former federal agent, lifetime duck hunter from Mississippi that with around back in the heyday of it all when the whole big conversion took hold and he was told he was speaking of that just the other day and he was saying it was, when you cracked open those gizzards the it’ll begin to I think he used the word ulcify inside it wasn’t processing. It’s like it was getting in that gizzard and then gumming up the works. A duck, we chew our food, we mechanically chew it, then we swallow it and it goes into chemical digestion. A duck does it backwards, he swallows it goes through his stomach, and then it goes through mechanical digestion if I remember correctly. But anyway when he was telling us. They would they would sample of ducks back before the advent of steel and there’s just a tremendous amount of ulceration. And he said and the duck would be way much lighter because ah his gizzard shut down because he thought but it gummed up his works to where he thought he was full. But he was literally starving to death. And it was just killing thousands of them.

Warren Coco: The guy James Blower who I started hunting in Hackberry was an agent for Louisiana part wild fisheries. And they would go to all these picking houses and gizzards and cut them open and checking them looking you know, Mike documenting how many ducks had lead shot in them. He said they cut open thousands of gives her she said he never found a lead shot in a green winged teal.

Ramsey Russell: Oh really? I wonder why?

Warren Coco: He said they don’t pick it up. That’s what he observed. But he also told me they had sculpt that they cut the gizzard it open somewhere around New Orleans East he had 52 pallets in his gizzard

Ramsey Russell: Oh he died.

Warren Coco: Yeah he was going to, he would have died but because you consume that much lead there’s no way that bird would live. And yeah all these younger guys they never had the chance to shoot lead so they don’t know what it was like they don’t know how far it was. Unbelievable how far you could kill a duck.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I’ve seen the same thing warren we’re talking about, I mean it’s been 30 years. I was a very young man. I was my son’s age. When steel shot became a mandate. And now you’ve got for 30 years you’ve got this marketing in this culture and this necessity to shoot a 3 inch for 3.5 inch magnum shell out of 12 gauge. And for generations, my granddad and my dad and myself, we all shot two and three quarter inch. Because we had something that would pattern and something that had the energy to kill. When we went to steel the pattern to become better to performance become better. There’s no doubt that those changes have had progressed in the last 30 years, three decades worth. But you still have to balance what is it? Energy? Energy time’s mass equals’. Energy equals mass, times speed. So you got mass, the weight of it and speed. That’s how you determined to knock down energy of something like that physically. And if it’s much lighter than lead, we used to shoot now you’ve got to increase speed to balance that equation. And so but so when you go back to these shells like boss or something like that it’s okay, you’ve got the energy instead of the speed and really all that three shell does in a 12 gauge, it doesn’t add speed, it adds more pellets is what it does not. That’s all it does. It’s really not more speed. But those steel shots are cranked up now it’s gosh, I depend so long since the shot steel shot, but I was always trying to find, you know 1300 feet per second, which is kind of the speed I’d always shot. And now you go to anywhere looking steel shot. You saw 1450, 1500, 1600, I think 1750, 1800 feet per second. I mean to pull the trigger or something like that. I’d like to get kicked by a mule. It’s not fun. It’s just not fun. Especially if you shoot ducks a lot, to shoot those ramped up speeds and to go back to something that’s throwing 1300 feet per second and delivering the energy down range is just it’s a lot to be said for that. And the older I get less recoil, I like,

Warren Coco: Oh exactly. That’s why I never bought that pump 10 gauge

Ramsey Russell: That would have broke you.

Warren Coco: I think it’s really I mean, when you if you shot duck over here, you’re two inches shorter after you pull the trigger. That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: I can remember hunt with a guy one time that had a shooting 3.5 inch magnums with a pump shotgun. I thought he lost his mind but some high duck come in and he was swinging and twisting and it’s like between the recall of that gun and him twisting. It’s like he was a wood screw getting sunk into the mud. He finally fell over on that third shot

Warren Coco: Yeah, you’re going to get out of balance when you’re twisting like that. Especially gun and kicks that hard. But yeah, the Gold Hunter done kicking here is hard but the aluminum receiver’s does kick a little more than all steel. They don’t build one all steel anymore. But it’s a heavy gun. When I went to Canada shooting those geese, I shot some bismuth and I shot, I had some steel shot also. We’re shooting big pills or shooting like BBS and stuff like that. And after I went and we were the first time I’ve ever gotten a lay down blind when it was finished the blinds. And after I made that goose hunting trip, I said, if I ever come back to this again, it won’t be with this 10 gauge. I couldn’t get up fast enough because the gun was too heavy. You need to lighter gun. You need, like a three inches, 3.5, and 12 to shoot those geese with stay away from the 10. It was too big and heavy. I couldn’t get up fast enough. Now little young guy weighed about 60 pound less. He wouldn’t have a problem. But my size, my weight, my age, you can’t get up fast enough with that heavy gun, you can’t just, and it’s just uncomfortable to get up with. And that’s one thing I learned that if I ever go back, I ain’t going with a 10 to shoot those. Give you some going backwards. Now if you’re in a pit blind, it has been a different story. But laying that finisher blind, getting up to shoot. It’s tough, it’s just a lot tougher than being in a pit blind. Or let’s say if you stand next some trees, but geeks don’t generally fly by trees anyway, so you can’t do that

Ramsey Russell: When, changing the subject when did you all see we’re getting close to your season opening down here, aren’t we?

Warren Coco: Our Coastal Zone opens the 2nd Saturday of November. And our, I call it my northerner East Zone, opens the 3rd Saturday and then we’ll run a couple of weeks and we’ll close down. Both of them are close together and then we’ll open back up right for Christmas to run through, coastal zone running through about the third week of January. And each zone run through the end of January.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a pretty nice place you get to open.

Warren Coco: Yeah well we get like 67, if you hunt both zones, we got like 67 days plus the teal season till season wasn’t much for me but we just come off best teal season States had in 25 years. I mean ain’t lying.

Ramsey Russell: But those blue wings made a show in this year even up here in Mississippi where they generally skip across like a stone like Andy Griffith show potato tossing a stone. We had a good teal season this year.

Warren Coco: I heard a lot of reports, a lot of birds I went, but this was right after the storm and water was high and we don’t never do much in the coastal marsh where I’m at, but once every five years we’ll kill them. We hunted for about an hour and quit, went to work on the camp because I need to get it repaired and thank God I did. I got fixed just in time for the next storm will be ready for it and I survive the next one because of all, we built everything more screws and more storm clips and I’m ready for about a category four now. I got everything. I got everything screwed, shooting tattoo down. I ain’t going nowhere now.

Ramsey Russell: Have you got a lot of work besides you camp packing. You got a lot to do to get ready for duck season.

Warren Coco: No, I just got a little maintenance. I got to replace all the hog wild on my boat hide where I parked my floating blind. I just got to replace that and grass the blind will be ready to go throughout decoys. I don’t have a lot to do.

Ramsey Russell: You know? When we did our tour earlier, I saw those floating blind and I was pretty darn impressed, took some pictures of it. That’s a heck of a nice design. Did you make that in mind for the marsh or did you make that in mind for something like you want a pair in the willow tree?

Warren Coco:  Well, we built blinds like that in the swamp at Mariupol, that same configuration, but they were built out of wood and a permanent structures. And when I built the first one, this was before I had a press brake and equipment that I have now. I got somebody had been the hull for him and I built it and I had a wooden house on it and hunted whether it brought it. I got the least down there for Miami cooperation south of little corn Island. In fact, Jim Flores who owns a little corn island. Now at least in those Miami sections that I leased one of them. I don’t want to build, we got that lease, we didn’t keep people one year, and we didn’t kill any ducks. And I said I’m not going in here and build a bunch of duck blinds. I’m going to be a one and we’re going to push it over live with the mud boat and we’re going to hunt it and then we believe we’ll pull it back out. I got the big mud boat, 400 small block shovel and it’s like a tugboat. So we pushed it over the blind and got in there. We hunted, I’d have a nine horse go devil on it and we put around with it. It had a wooden house on it. And after that first year we pulled it out and its shops I bought in the woods and I left it down at my power for several years hunted out of it there until ducks played out. In fact, I made one of the best hunts, whoever made out of that blind the last day of the season, we kill a black duck out of killed limit mallards. And every duck I saw fell out the sky from like 400 yards, just dropped straight in on the whole where we’re at is just a picture perfect hunting. And finally brought it out and then I had no ducks and I brought that thing down the river to my friend jimmy bias camp and had other camps there and I never forget he was kind of embarrassed all those guys said that blind won’t work down here. He said it’s too big, can’t kill pin tales out of blind and he didn’t tell me nothing, that’s what everybody thought that. Saw it. And he didn’t say nothing but he thought the same thing in the way he hunted down there. They 100 years past they had a duck boat was like a p rock and it cut Willows and they put them around and they had spud holes in their hunt out of that and it didn’t completely covered with a kind of broke up the outline. They’d hunt out in a big open bay ponds kill them ducks! Well, his wife had a friend coming and her husband want to go duck hunting and it’s just a chore. Jimmy was getting old. And that guy was old to hunt out. That small boat was just a chore. So he decided to brush that blind up. So I’m going to take that blind and hunt with it. And another friend of mine of Dan Luke, the guy in mined these ducks. His brother that is Dave Luke tiger, Dan called me. He said, well, jimmy, pop the cherry on your blinds. I mean he brushed it, hunted out of it. I said, really? I said, how’d that go? He said, jimmy to my friends. Jimmy told me said, I’ll never hunt off appear again. They brush that thing and they wore them out. He said he crank up, leave his camp, go out there and throw out two dozen decoys. Put four spuds down, Shoot lemon ducks pick up, and come in. He said it was the finest thing. So I had a roof on it. Well he didn’t like the roof. I prefer the roof because you can hide better especially in the woods. And it just fits in the woods well. He said something about cutting it down and said jimmy do whatever you want to do because I don’t build me another one. What I got now when I got its all-aluminum at the time. I built out when I have the equipment I have now and I built a house out of wood when he cut it down maybe like a little profile that we build now. And he hunted out of it. They loved it. I mean it was absolutely fabulous. And then I thought the thing was lost in Katrina. Jimmy fell off a camp was roof got killed right for Katrina came and I thought when Katrina came it took the camp, took everything they had down there. I thought the blind was still down there. I thought it was lost and sadly called me one day his wife. Look I got the blind appear so we’re not going to use more and get it back to you. I said I thought that was gone. So no, no it’s up here Joe Francs and Pell Chase said alright. So I got back from them and I sold to a state trooper bought it from the assault to him. But I designed the thing with the roof on it like the blinds ahead in the woods and when I built my one hat. But I wanted the same thing with the roof on the reason I like to want a roof on it. It fits in my marsh because I have Roseau cane that’s 10 feet tall. So the blind you go there and talk to blind and you brush your rose owes all right and make it look just like another island. It’s right next to it. So it’s not out of place. And what I like so much about it. I don’t like hunting in the rain and you sit in this thing, you’re totally drive that hard roof. And we got mosquitoes. We got mosquitoes till January 31. If we get a cold front we won’t have any. But it warms up. We got mosquitoes and the thing about that that blind without roof on it. You put two thermal cells in there in about two minutes. You ain’t got no more mosquitoes. They’re gone.  Because the wind can blow the thermos l smell out of the blind and it takes care of mosquitoes. It’s done. And over with it’s just more comfortable hunt out of and you can hide better. It just and then also we got top roll it down, tie it down every time getting blinds totally dry. It’s just more comfortable way to hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you. There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable while you duck.

Warren Coco:  No. That’s the bigger blind we build, we put an engine on and I started building, I had a market for a smaller blind that’s a sixteen by eight that line. And then the small blind like you saw in the shop is what we call twelve by five. It’s got the same type house little narrows, the house is only eight foot long instead of nine foot. He’ll hunt three painful comfortably with the other Hunt four. And this made more for hunt like farm ground, smaller powers, no motor on it, bring it out there, set it up, drop the spuds or put the jack up legs down jacket with high lift jack pen it was like standing on the ground solid as a rock. But you saw him there Black river when you came, and once I park them now don’t move. There are four feet underwater on the river, floods never moved.

Ramsey Russell: I got a few places. That’s when I saw those sitting here in the shop. I just we’ve got a couple of places that would be very handy for us. Because I like to hunt. I grew up hunting sitting in waist deep water, knee deep water and I don’t mind that. I like it.  But the older I get, I do like sitting and I hate hunting in the rain, I hate hunting in the rain. The roof makes better

Warren Coco: The someplace and I do like hunting or Fred Parnell one of my first customers. He’s, world champion duck caller before I was born. He died of A. L. S. Lou Gehrig’s disease. Time flies. It’s probably in 10 years ago. And Fred hunted, he had a place over that man shocked they’re releasing right there. It’s now Joyce Wildlife management area and they were hunting is a big wax myrtle thinking this was all timber that was cut back, turn of the century. But here’s him by hunting that whole, they hunted head a little, it was a little Winchester pump, little small 14 pump with him and fellow had a Mexican, Indian, from Yucatan was his guide that they brought him home. Was his hunting companion from the time for 40 years. Volley is still here now there was a great guy, But Fred would he had those guns Teflon coated, he would leave them in the blind, he wouldn’t bring them out and they come out to go devil he hunt with that for. But they were hunting the hose like 10 yards across everything. They were chair picking them green heads in the heyday. He was bragging about them 10 to 14 shelves. I dump a whole box in my pocket so I can lose them in there. They’ll take up any room and then shoot at 410 and killing mallards with that 410. But they were, I mean they were close where they were hunting them at. And he’s got, I got stories on him. He’s so funny. I’ll tell you about the first story with Robo Duck. Did I tell you that? Yeah this is a great story that, this when it first came out you couldn’t get one was not available. And now Fred was hunting on up there north. They had him and Mr. Barton had run of the mill on Saint Catherine while before it became a refuge. And then they were set up to buy the place. And Mr. Barton backed out a deal last minute for road access. And Fred got all set and I said to myself I said Fred why didn’t you buy it? But anyway they got another lacy was a school board section north of Ophelia. This is in Mississippi, this is the hottest duck hole Mississippi on the lower river high river. It was nothing. And my friend bob Adair went out their wedding and they’re riding on a four wheeler that morning. That Fred had that Robo Duck and head under his arm and they ride out there and bubbles. Looking at this man. You sure hugging that duck says don’t worry about that duck. They got out there for daylight and sitting on the edge. Just break their hunting with the whole Vole, walked out there with that robot duck through the decoys out and stuck that pole in the ground, put the Robo Duck on, turned it on its before daylight. He came back on the bank where they were set up to hunt and Fred told baba. He says I’ll say one of them $400 before you see it work. After you see it work they’re going to cost you 500. He says well I don’t know about that. So they’re sitting there. He got daylight. The mallard come by and hit the call. That mallet hint come in and hovered over that decoy and hovered and hovered and she took off. They called her back, she come in and hovered and hovered and lit right on the side of it. And Fred said how many you want? He said I’ll take two at 500.

Ramsey Russell: I got to tell a story. But before I had ever even seen a mojo spinning wing decoy. I’d heard about him. You couldn’t buy him, you couldn’t find him. You couldn’t see them

Warren Coco: We had to make them. You could buy one.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly. And I was sitting in a duck blind with a buddy of mine from Mississippi now deceased. We were in Washington state, just public land hunt and just got out there and we were killing ducks. There’s no doubt about it. But we I’ll just sit in the blind one day between volleys describing to him. And he didn’t he didn’t really register say one thing enough, but we’ve been home about a month, six weeks. And he called me up said man, I think I got what you want. I made this decoy and he had taken just a plastic floating decoy and cut the bottom out and put it on top of a motor, those radio control fast racing little machine cars and handed me the joystick and you pull the trigger out or back and it would just those wings would go so fast, you think it’s going to shoot off in there? And we didn’t know nothing about speed and flash and everything else. And I took that I got drawn to hunt, not to be National Wildlife Refuge back in the day with a friend of mine Mr. Ian and want to hit buddies and I put it out in the decoys at daylight. This tight little timber hole and they wore me out, they laughed and they snickered and they poke fun and we hadn’t seen a duck, it’s just that things out there doing its thing and I didn’t learn by then that leaves about medium range and put it up and just flashing and about that time for even saw a duck. One of the wings come loose, he just glue them on. One of wings come off and flew off. I want to try to find it three foot of water, couldn’t it was gone. I’m the butt of their joke. It’s a slow duck hunt man, they’re just wearing me out about it. Until that first flock of ducks come over, it was like at one arm is just waving a man, hey you all come on in here because every duck that passed over flew right on top of that mojo at homemade spinning wing decoy. And before the hunt was over they were out there with the tape measures, measuring and taking it off and trying to, trying to figure out how to make one themselves. But that changed duck hunting. Spinning wing decoy but back in those days it really a duck had never seen

Warren Coco: When it first came out when I saw that thing we couldn’t get in and I hunted with bob, went out to hunt with bob and we hunted on hold the cost school bus pond at Faraday. And me and my friend around the corner Ryan Whitaker, he’s wanted, told bob about hunting man, shack where to hunt down there and we went up there to hunt with him man, he was fussing and said, you all absolutely came the worst possible day to hunt because it was foggy, which was not good. Muggy no wind. We went out there that morning and hear that Robo Duck and we shot full limited green heads on that little hole, little hole out in the corn field was just a bunch of old scrubby old trees. one of my best stories when a rubber duck we were all, I was down there picking up alligator eggs of the local island and the guy who’s the president of the club, I’m trying to remember his name I think of in a minute we got to talking his local islands, big Duck hunt club. But my friends Ronnie Wicker had egg deal or pick up the alligator eggs can go in and pick up eggs saying like we’re sitting there and got talking about hunting and all this out and I said me talking about other Robo Duck was before mojo ever existed. The first one was a Robo. And he said, yeah I got something at the shop, you want one call office and send you on, I had bought some swap deal with a guy probably a duck and now he said yeah I’m going to Canada so I’m going to take that thing with me. I saw that’s going to work. So he gets up there, gets the Canada. He got up there and he walked out there with that thing. Yeah, no he said I walked out there and I stuck that thing in the ground, they were all picking at me, tease me laughing at me and I had a thing turned on and when I turned it on a flock of birds come, they said get down. He said, I lay down on the side of it. He said they were laying right on the side of me. They said, it’s just unbelievable is how well it works. And but anyway, here dog, a guy called before I got that, I got my story, little bit mixed up. I had a guy caught, he went up there with Robo Duck, but before he told me that guy was up there and our guide calls, hey man, he said, you got them ducks like this thing. What’s Carlos [**00:55:25] god says hell. He said, would you send one? I got customer coming, Paul Michael Haney, that’s what the guy with Tabasco, he’s coming up here this week. He said, could you send one to him so he can bring? I said sure. So I sent there, I said, and I can’t think of my guy’s name. I said so, so that’s a yes. So tell me about the Robo Duck. And that’s when you tell me about the story. He had to get down on the ground. They were shooting the ducks, them laying on the side, decoy spinning to them. Ducks were landing on the side of on that dry ground with that Robo Duck running. It’s unbelievable how well. And I said one of three things is going to happen. Something’s going to happen because we’re going to kill either we’re going to kill them all. Oh, they’re going to get used to it or they go outlaw. One of those three things got to happen because it said the duck population can’t take this because people that could never kill a duck killing limits. Plus of ducks with that Robo Duck and Arkansas outlawed for a little while. But thank God they got used to it now. That’s him in Canada. It’s like day one.

Ramsey Russell: It was all those young birds never seen.

Warren Coco: Yeah they’ve never seen it. But when they get down here yeah I’ve got several of them. We don’t want to put them out. I haven’t used 15 years.

Ramsey Russell: I still use them. I know I’ll tell you if you’re not using yours I’ll take them. I still use them but I use them differently than what I used to use. I just stick them out and hold shoot birds. And even down in Argentina I’ve been to some places where they bait, I mean baiting is legal in places they bait a lot and they still use the mojo. And I asked, I asked 1 time, I said, why you do, I mean the ducks are coming into this bait. Why are you using a spinning wing decoy? He goes, it’s like camouflage. I said, what do you mean the ducks are looking at that? They’re not looking over here to the left where the hundreds of moon pie in them. [**00:57:15]

Warren Coco: I saw that the first year we had them was the first year I had hackberry when I bought it 99, which was a great duck year for us. And my friend Jimmy Nugent was with me and I never forget that morning, a cold front come over because it had teeth on. It was a big black line, a big black cloud coming and those ducks were coming and we had that, we had a big float blind, I built it, I pulled my boat into and had a hole cut out in it. and after we shot 11 we stood up and then ducks were coming and we’re standing up, I mean from my waist up out of the blind just standing there, both of us and the ducks would come in and they would focus on that decoy and they wouldn’t look at us, they’re looking at the decoy coming straight to that decoy, the land and they wouldn’t look at that once they focused on that Robo Duck, they wouldn’t look at nothing else

Ramsey Russell: Everybody and hope they beats me up on this this part right here because we’re about to wrap up this episode. But a lot of people talk about spinning wing decoy, having lost its effectiveness, like it used to be, but maybe it has, but I tell you something else has changed is the wings, they’ve gone to this more realistic. It’s a little shiny as a little, this little that and I’ll tell you what I personally do. This is every, spinning wing decoy I have is flat black or flat green on one side and flat white on the other. It’s still got that market strobe effect and I think it pulls them into the longer distance and you’re not going to close the deal on every duck with, I got to mojo or not. I’ve never hunted anywhere on God’s Earth that I closed the deal on every single day to come by workable. Sometimes they just don’t come in and, but I think it does pull them from a long ways and, I think a lot of these ducks you get up here about 150, 200 yards high and just spinning and bugger on out. I don’t think they were coming in to where I’m set up anyway. I think that, I think that that motion just caught them and they saw it, they come over. But statistically speaking, it’s just a game of eyes. How many more ducks got to come over and look at you before. Some of them close the deal. You said, I’m saying, I mean if more ducks come over, I’m going to close the deal on more ducks.

Warren Coco: We killed 10 ducks. We have to see thousands. You’re not going to kill every duck. You see, no I have had some hunts. We saw very few and kill most all of them. But those hunts are far and few twenty. It’s not often that happens.

Ramsey Russell: Warren, I appreciate you coming today. I’ve enjoyed another great visit with your folks. You’ve been listening to duck season somewhere. Mr. Warren Coco, Baton Rouge Louisiana, go devil motors tune in next week.