EP 532. Mississippi Duck Season Opener Traditions

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MoJo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I am at Mississippi Duck Camp, which is kind of an annual tradition for us. We all gather here no matter where in the world we have been, man. We show up this weekend for the opening day of Mississippi Duck Season, which, crazily enough started on Thanksgiving Day. Usually, it’s the Friday after, but it started on Thanksgiving Day today and here we are. I got to see my two favorite duck hunting buddies, Forrest and Duncan. Your best hunting buddies are the ones you raised. I got to see them, miss like they were somebody else’s kids. Duncan especially. Duncan, what’s up with you?

Duncan: I don’t know. You missed the only mallard that came in today. I remember that for sure.

Ramsey Russell: The only mallard that came in this weekend.

Duncan: Yeah, this weekend. And I also remember a single wood duck coming in, landing on the water, and you cutting across everybody and saying, “Let me have it,” and missing him three times.

Ramsey Russell: No, you did not. That is a lie.

Duncan: That is the absolute truth. We never even found it.

Ramsey Russell: That is an absolute lie.

Duncan: As you were out looking for that wood duck, I doubled on two gadwalls.

Ramsey Russell: Now, I do remember that. I think you had some help on that duck.

Duncan: No.

Ramsey Russell: You shot both of those. The only two ducks you killed this weekend. And you doubled. Nice shot. Nice shot, Mr. Duncan. Nice shot. You know, I have been a member of this camp for 24 years. You’re 27, and you’re 25 now.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So what is your earliest memory at all of this camp?

Duncan: Oh, spreading millet out of the back of the four-wheeler with the Honda Foreman, with the little hopper sitting on the back of it.

Ramsey Russell: How old do you think you were?

Duncan: I don’t know. Three or four, probably. One of my earliest memories.

Ramsey Russell: Make it sound like you were raised a Hebrew slave.

Duncan: Well, pretty much.

Ramsey Russell: You were probably just getting in the way.

Duncan: Probably, but yeah, no, that’s one of my earliest memories.

Ramsey Russell: What are your earliest memories, Forrest, of even just being at this camp?

Forrest: I really don’t know. I mean, I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: You were three years old when I joined it. And I’ve got a coffee mug, Duncan’s drinking out of that coffee mug, Mr. Ian gave me. It’s a picture of you. You’re three years old, asleep in the front seat of my truck. It’s one of the first times Ian and I drove around this property, just looking at it, going well.

Forrest: I think one of the first memories I remember was you got your new truck, and you were so excited. It was a four-wheel drive, and you wanted to take it out in Ramsey’s Hole to test it out. And you bottomed her out.

Ramsey Russell: No, I wasn’t testing it out. I was going through it, taking a shortcut, not realizing it was as wet as it was. That was 2005. It was a 2005 Chevy, and it was six months old when I sunk it to the axle, right there in the duck hole.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the first time you remember duck hunting here? I mean, do you remember the time you teal hunted here that time?

Forrest: I don’t know. I mean, just snippets.

Ramsey Russell: Funny what you remember when you’re absolutely a child, you know, single-digit age. I can still remember stuff when I was two or three, but not much of it. I just remember what you all first time being here was. Because now it’s just like home. It’s home away from home. But what are you all earliest memories of coming here at all and of your first duck or duck hunt? You don’t remember?

Duncan: I don’t know. Mine’s probably somewhere, probably in the Island Blind, in Duck Hole.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Duncan: I just remember spending a lot of time there, like us always hunting there, me, you, and Forrest.

Forrest: Yeah, I don’t remember specifics. I just remember being wet, falling in, having clothes dragging my knees.

Ramsey Russell: We were talking about somebody today. We were talking about daddies today, you know, wanting to be comfortable, keeping their kids dry. To which Duncan said, “You never worried about keeping us dry.”

Duncan: I remember tripping and falling and punching a hole through skim ice with my bare hands.

Ramsey Russell: Son, you would fall in the parking lot, if there was an inch of water, you know, it didn’t matter what we did, you were gonna fall in.

Duncan: And we stayed out there for, I mean, had water break through the ice, water gushed in through the waders, sunk up to my elbows, probably in mud, and just got picked up by the back of my waders and just kept on walking. Yeah, and we’re just sitting there sniffling, trying to keep quiet.

Forrest: When we were building that new Island Blind, we were talking about the blueprints and starting to lay it all out. And Ken said, “Well, you know, we can’t have the front wall higher than three feet tall. We have so many kids on.” I said, “Man, times have changed. Me and Duncan just stood up on the benches or didn’t shoot.”

Conservationist: The opener reminds us that every duck matters. We hunt to preserve, not just to harvest.

Ramsey Russell: But you became duck hunters. Do you remember? Because you were, I mean, six, and it was the best season ever because this entire property flooded. I mean, the entire property. You could boat all over every bit of it. And there was still about a thousand acres of corn north of us they didn’t harvest before it got flooded. And half the ducks in the state of Mississippi were right here in this bottom. And we were going out over to the Pepper Shaker Complex in a boat. Do you remember that morning? I got a picture hanging in here, and you were about this tall, and we were going to let you shoot first. But the deal was, you either shot, you got the first shot. But the ducks weren’t just landing and swimming, they were coming over and presenting themselves and you got the first try or me and Ian were going to shoot. Do you remember that morning?

Forrest: Bits and pieces.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Duncan: I remember crying. That’s about it.

Ramsey Russell: It broke my heart, kind of. Because you started crying because you couldn’t get up. You couldn’t wrestle that gun up in time to shoot.

Forrest: I couldn’t wrestle my jacket down flat enough to get my gun to my shoulder, was the problem.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it was big enough for you.

Forrest: Well, it’s still too big.

Ramsey Russell: It’s still too big for you, isn’t it? Yeah. For anybody listening, you know, the way to buy kids’ clothes is to go ahead and buy them an adult large. They’ll grow into it no matter how big they are. Yeah, but you know, it’s like my thoughts were, you know, if I coddle you and you wait your whole life for a swimming duck, you know, what kind of duck hunter you gonna be? You got, if you’re gonna be a duck hunter, you gotta learn to get it up and get going and get those shots in. And you did.

Forrest: I do remember knocking a green wing down that morning.

Ramsey Russell: You did.

Forrest: Didn’t find him. I do remember knocking him down.

Ramsey Russell: Swam across that bridge for the dog to get to him.

Forrest: Yep. Half Mile Hole, huh?

Ramsey Russell: That would have been Half Mile Hole at the time.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. It sure would have been.

Duncan: To add on to how much you believe in hand-me-downs, the top, the Merino wool top that I’m wearing right now is yours from the 1990s.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Yeah. That’s not even Merino wool. That’s Patagonia.

Duncan: And I’ve been wearing this since, I don’t know, I was 13 and it was too big for me, and I finally grew into it.

Ramsey Russell: Finally grew into it son, you’re a man now, not a little boy. You’re talking about the Island Blind. One of the first times I remember us hunting the Island Blind is, it wasn’t, there wasn’t even a blind there. It was just button bush still before the water killed it. And we were just sitting in the button bush, and you two boys, you weren’t shooting, Duncan, Forrest was. And a bufflehead came out of nowhere, and I missed it. Before I could get the second shot off, Forrest killed it. You remember that. You do remember that, don’t you?

Forrest: Got him out in my living room.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I wonder if that’s your first duck now. We mounted your first blue-wing.

Forrest: Yeah, it was one of my first ducks, though.

Ramsey Russell: One of your first ducks. What do you remember, Duncan? What do you remember? Because one thing I, one of my favorite memories of Duncan at Willowbreak, again you all were just young, and we were hunting over at the Reagan Blind, and it was just all kinds of underwater cypress knobs. I’m like, “Don’t trip. It was cold. Don’t trip.”

Forrest: That was a pepper shaker, is where that was. I remember it.

Ramsey Russell: Pepper shaker.

Duncan: It was with a bunch of Forrest baseball friends.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I mean, every time we hunted, no, this was just us, because every time we hunted with Duncan Russell, he got wet.

Duncan: No, that was in Mallard.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Over at the Reagan Blind on the North End. And sure enough, I took my hands off your shoulder, and you took two steps and went all the way in.

Duncan: Yeah, I bobbed like a cork and went underwater.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Duncan: And then got picked up and sat back on the stump. We didn’t go back in. It was probably icing over.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, Lord have mercy. When do you all remember the Thanksgiving traditions? Because it’s kind of, it’s become a long-standing Russell tradition. I mean, now your fiancée comes over, everybody comes. It started with just a couple of families, and now there must have been 30 people there the other night. I mean, it was a nice big potluck dinner. When do you all remember that tradition starting?

Tradition-Bearer: We’ve used the same decoy spread since the 1950s. It’s not about change—it’s about respect

Duncan: I mean, I remember still doing it at Langill, but I don’t remember starting it.

Ramsey Russell: We would go up there. We would go up there to Arkansas for the week, and then when we got out of that camp, we just started coming over here and doing it.

Duncan: Yep, that’s whenever we started doing it with the Monsieur.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Yep. That’s it. That is, that’s a long time ago.

Duncan: I guess it had been 15 years ago or so.

Ramsey Russell: Speaking of the Buns, what are you all’s earliest memories or favorite memories of Mr. Egan?

Duncan: Well, one of them, I was just thinking about this.

Ramsey Russell: You all have known him as long as you all can remember this camp.

Duncan: I caught a beaver in a snare, and somebody texted you while we were duck hunting. And I mean, I was probably, I don’t know, 10 or 11 years old, and texted you and said that I’d caught one, you know, sitting on the side of the road alive in the snare. And I was absolutely fired up. Never been more excited in my life. And about an hour later, Ian comes putting along on his four-wheeler and sees this beaver just sitting on the side of the road, thinks it’s his lucky day, and blew about a 3-inch hole straight through it with a shotgun. He walks up, and it was still sitting in the snare. And he just left it there for me. Didn’t even pull the stake out.

Ramsey Russell: Just left it.

Duncan: Yep. And then came back and apologized in advance for it.

Ramsey Russell: What’d you do with that beaver?

Duncan: I think I threw it away.

Ramsey Russell: But, you know, I was sitting over at his apartment yesterday. We were drinking coffee, and I noticed right there on one of his coffee tables, he’s got a round beaver pelt. And I know that was one of yours. You were kind of an enterprising fur trader back in the day.

Duncan: Yeah, I think he has a beaver over there, I don’t know, maybe a possum or a raccoon or something that came from Willowbreak.

Ramsey Russell: Probably a possum.

Duncan: Yeah, I know he’s got a possum over there.

Ramsey Russell: But in a time and age that beaver pelts are probably bringing five, southern beaver pelts are probably bringing $5 at the fur trade, Duncan was getting $25 for every beaver he trap because the duck committee would pay you. Then you were skinning it.

Duncan: And people would want to get them tanned, so they’d give you another 20 bucks or so.

Ramsey Russell: So you were getting 50 bucks per beaver hide.

Duncan: I was talking to Carlos about that the night or the night before. I was cleaning a deer for somebody about how whenever I was in, you know, middle school, like eighth grade, I’d come over here for the week and I’d make eight or nine hundred dollars between skinning deer for people and catching beavers and everything else, which, I mean, was pretty good money for a full-time.

Ramsey Russell: Pretty good marketing ploy because you were skinning deer for $20. But then on your little Folgers coffee can that they put the money in, you had a big old sign that said “Tips Appreciated,” and most people, that’s where you made your money, was in tips.

Duncan: And then, yeah, me and Ethan were laughing.

Ramsey Russell: For the record, if I’m gonna shoot that doe tonight, I’ll give you $20 to skin it. No tip.

Duncan: Price has gone up since then.

Ramsey Russell: I’m sure it has.

Duncan: But, yeah, me and Ethan were laughing about that Thanksgiving night a couple of days ago. Because every single Thanksgiving, we are always late and got to go take a shower because we’re cleaning deer for people. Because nobody wants to touch their deer on Thanksgiving night. They just want to come back and drink a beer. You give me a wad of cash, I’ll gladly clean it.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, there’s always a need at camp for deer skinners. I mean, there always is. Yeah, most people don’t want to fool with all that.

Duncan: I mean, I can remember cleaning, I think six or seven was the most I ever cleaned in a night whenever I was, you know, 13 or 14.

Ramsey Russell: The Delta’s opener teaches patience. You’re not just hunting ducks—you’re hunting history.

Ramsey Russell: That’s one thing about this camp. It’s duck hunting, but it’s also deer hunting. It’s mostly deer hunting. I mean, golly, there’s 30 people signed out to go deer hunting this evening. And what are some of you all’s earliest or favourite memories deer hunting at Willow break?

Duncan: I remember the biggest buck I ever saw out here came out at number two, chasing a doe, and I missed it. You gave me four shots or four bullets in my .270. I missed it all four times. And it was, you know, so heavy in rut that it didn’t even notice I was shooting. It just kept trotting around the food plot chasing this doe, and then just walked off. And I was out of ammo.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of your deer stories Forrest? You got plenty. I mean, we can or cannot talk about this year, but go ahead.

Forrest: Probably the first one I remember around here was hunting Honey Hole, sitting under that saw tooth. And I believe I also shot all our ammo with that .243 in the red dot.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, you did.

Forrest: Probably shot about a brick of .243 before we finally connected with one.

Ramsey Russell: When did you kill your first deer? I don’t remember. You’ve killed so many. I don’t remember your first deer without a reminder.

Forrest: Not at Jody’s camp.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. Sure did. A doe. That’s right. You sure did.

Duncan: Killed mine at Van Duncan with your granddad’s .308.

Ramsey Russell: You sure did. I’d forgotten it was that .308. I forgot about that. But you all still sure killed a lot of deer since then, Forrest.

Forrest: Yeah, a few.

Ramsey Russell: Was that buck over at Horseshoe, was that your first rack buck?

Forrest: No, I killed that one right there in Pike Field.

Ramsey Russell: You killed that? That’s right. Let’s tell that story. So, there was a buck. We’ve got, it’s got to be a, what’s it got to be, 18 inches or 22-inch main beam, 18-inch wide, 22-inch main beam. And that buck was borderline. Nobody would shoot him. Everybody was scared it might be a half-inch too, too little.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And everybody saw him. And finally, old Mel Coxwell, who is a member now, watched that deer for an hour as a guest. He watched that deer for an hour. And he came back and said, “That deer’s legal. I guarantee that deer’s legal.” And it had been bitten in the foot by a cottonmouth. I don’t know if you remember.

Duncan: I remember that.

Ramsey Russell: And his foot, his one foot, was about twice as big as the other one. I dropped you off, I believe that was my .270.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I said, and it was water all around it, water starting to come up, and I knew if he got out of that food plot, we wouldn’t find no blood. I said, “Do not let that deer out of the food plot. Don’t let him get out of the food plot. And don’t shoot him unless he’s got a big old swollen foot.” And me and Duncan went a quarter mile north, half a mile north, and hunted up there at that up on Harvey’s Lake. And we just got settled in. I heard, bam, bam, bam. And Duncan goes, “Is that Forrest shooting?” I go, “Ain’t no way he shot that bolt action that quick.” About that time, I get a text message from you, and every single word is misspelled like one of them puzzles, one of them memes on each other.

Duncan: That was back whenever we had the flip phones, though. And you would have to tap a button four times to get to the right letter.

Ramsey Russell: Every single word was misspelled, but it basically said, “Big buck down.”

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What happened that day, Forrest, when you killed that first rack buck?

Forrest: Well, there wasn’t too much to it. I got up there and was asleep in about five minutes, and woke up, and he was standing in the middle.

Ramsey Russell: With a bunch of does.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And you saw that big foot?

Forrest: Nope, didn’t see the big foot. I saw a rack, and the gun was out the window. And I shot him. And I mean, he didn’t take us, I mean, he was maybe two steps from where he was standing. I shot him again and rolled him, and I think he was dead the second shot. And I shot him again just for good measure.

Ramsey Russell: Jim’s grandson shot a big old buck this morning over on Thorn field and smoked him. I mean, heart shot just right there in the sweet spot. The first shot at 200 yards and still shot him twice more.

Duncan: It took a couple more. Yeah, I just got done, me and Ethan just got done cleaning it. I had one in its, right behind its shoulder, one in its neck, and one back in its guts.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that had done it. I bet, I bet the gut shot was the last one. Because he was buck fevered out. How old were you and Ben, when you shot that buck, Forrest?

Forrest: 13 or 12.

Ramsey Russell: 12?

Forrest: Probably.

Ramsey Russell: You know, It’s crazy to hear in Mississippi, I turned you loose at 8, 9.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Here’s a deer rifle. Here’s a bow and arrow. Call me if you need anything. And there are still parts of the country I go to, just on this recent road trip, that you got to be 12 to 14 years old before you can even take a test to be a hunter.

Duncan: Nah, that’s such a shame.

Ramsey Russell: Some countries, you gotta be 18, and you know, nobody’s gonna do that stuff when they’re 18 years old.

Duncan: I remember you picked me up from school whenever I was in third grade on my birthday to get out of school early. And we were driving down the road, and you reached in the back seat and put a shotgun down, you know, barrel down in the front seat with me. That was my birthday present.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Happy birthday.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: When was your first rack was over at Johnny Mac’s camp.

Duncan: Yep, it was.

Ramsey Russell: And then you shot a buck over, you shot one buck over here. You’re the doe killer.

Duncan: Yeah. I almost didn’t tell you that I even shot that buck that year because you told me that you saw it. And I went over there, and it was kind of lightly raining and freezing cold. And I saw him walking down this, like, you know, little mowed-out road or whatever through the grass, and he turned broadside. I shot and got down from the stand and did not find a drop of blood anywhere. Walked all out in the woods, couldn’t find anything, and was just absolutely destroyed. I was like, man, I just missed it, like I finally had a shot.

Forrest: And Duncan didn’t find blood, then it means he didn’t believe.

Ramsey Russell: He got eagle-eye, I will admit.

Duncan: And yeah, I was just absolutely, like, I was on the fence the whole ride back about whether I was going to even say that I shot or not. And then finally, we were sitting there at the lodge, and I was like, “Yeah, you know, I shot at that buck.” And Ben Walker brought his dog over there and turned it loose, and it ran 30 yards into the thickest spot right there on the side of that little dirt road.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it’s hit or miss. And let’s face it, as hit-or-miss as you are with a shotgun, I’ve rarely seen you mess with a rifle. The first time when I made up my mind, you know, I can remember my granddaddy, he’d be sitting there plucking doves, sitting on a bucket and coaching me, you know, from a distance, saying, “Don’t shoot, it’s too far,” whatever, you know. And one time a dove was coming in, and, boy, I was in it. I was locked in. I heard him say, “Don’t shoot, it’s too high.” He kept reminding me louder and louder, and up shot, and the dove fell. He never said nothing else again to me about shooting. And we were sitting in the thorn field in that little black box, and a doe walked out at 04:45. I mean, we still had an hour to go to hunt. And a doe walked out 200 yards. Let me shoot. Let me shoot. Let me shoot, Daddy, let me shoot. No, no, it’s too far away. Let me shoot. Let me shoot. Let me shoot. Let me shoot it. Let me shoot it. And finally, I said, all right, well, son, you’re gonna miss it, but, you know. You know. And you got on my knee with that light .270. You shoot that little Ruger and smoked it at 200 yards. I never said another word. So, I mean, I am, I would be kind of surprised if you, in fact, did not hit that buck.

Duncan: And I went 14 for 14 that year with that .270. Whenever that year that I shot that Buck.

Ramsey Russell: That’s back in the year that we would come over here this week for Thanksgiving week. You all would get out of school or either I’d check you out. I can’t remember. But we’d come over here for the entire opening week of deer season. And it was like being in a pet farm. And we’d see. I can remember us all texting who was going. You know, we decided to try to see who’s going to kill the most does that day or that week between the three of us. I remember one time when I saw that buck you ended up shooting. I shot three does that afternoon and that same. And that buck still came out. And I think one of you all shot a buck. All I remember is we were driving that little old red four-wheeler, the three of us with four deer. Duncan: That’s what I was just about to say. I remember sitting on top of deer riding back in because we’d have two on the front and two on the back.

Ramsey Russell: I just never will forget coming down the camp road with the beams of` that four-wheeler, the head beams hitting the road and all them legs bouncing, kicking, looked like a soccer game or some kind of monster with all them legs kicking in the headlamps on the shadows. It was just, it was surreal. But that was back in those days. But Duncan, you were a different deer hunter. Forrest would get off serious stuff. I can remember, you know, his first, his after he shot that snakebite buck. His next buck was over at Horseshoe. What happened then, Forrest? Not the racks hanging back in your room.

Forrest: Yeah, yeah. That was before the wall of education, so got to keep that one. But case mistaken.

Ramsey Russell: I had to pay the fine.

Forrest: Yep, I did have to pay the fine. I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I know because there were about four bucks chasing those in and out of a thicket. And a big one stepped in, a little one stepped out, and you smoked him.

Forrest: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: And so that’s when the text started.

Forrest: Very little one.

Ramsey Russell: The very next year, I’m duck hunting with Van Tyler and Ian. And you’re sitting, and I hear you come by at 8 o’clock in the morning. You don’t sleep in. You go to a food plot. You’re just right there by me. Boom. We heard the whop boom go off finally. But preceding the whop boom, you were texting me, trying to send me pictures through your scope. Is it big enough? I’m like, I don’t know if it’s big enough. You know, my granddaddy always said, you got to be smarter than a dog to train him. And I’ve realized that kids will do the same thing. He’s trying to put me on the hook, saying, oh, yeah, yeah, it’s big enough. So if it wasn’t big enough, he’d say, well, you told me it’s big enough. You played it fine. But that was a big deer. That was a good deer. Where’s it mounted at?

Forrest: It’s at my house.

Ramsey Russell: It’s at the house. You know what I’m saying? And then in that same food plot two or three years later, I had been bicycling, just bicycling around the trails and stuff. And the biggest buck I’ve ever seen in my life at the time jumped out of the creek and stood right in front of me, looked at me for 20 seconds, then jumped back in. I told Forrest, “That’s the closest thing to a Boone and Crockett buck I’ve ever seen on this camp.” And every single deer blind on the property had a hunter in it but one. When he got up at 02:45 from his nap, went down, signed out, went to the blind, and killed about a 160-inch buck sitting right there, you know. And then that’s when the real snobbery kicked in. You know, he’d see a, you know, little, little, little 130-inch, 18-inch. “Ah, that’s not quite big enough,” you know. Duncan, on the other hand, first deer that showed to duck his nose out was dead. He was back. You’d be back at 07:45 with a doe. Get to the blind at 07:30 and come back 07:45. What about the time over by Pepper Shaker? What were you doing when you shot that doe? Having your morning constitution?

Duncan: Oh, yeah, no, that was on the. Was that at Pepper Shaker?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Duncan: Or on the levee.

Ramsey Russell: I thought you were at Pepper Shaker. Where you signed out for? Who knows?

Duncan: I can’t remember which one of the, where it was, but yep, pants down, 60 yards.

Ramsey Russell: You just stayed in your squat mode and shot your deer. Finished up, got your deer, and came back.

Duncan: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Just in time for coffee. What are some of your favorite duck hunts you all remember here over all the years? I mean, you all whole lifetime here. What are some of the, like, standout memories?

Duncan: Definitely that one of me, Forrest, and Derek over on the Shoestring.

Ramsey Russell: Oh my gosh, you told that story yesterday in the blind. Tell that story.

Duncan: Well, Derek’s never been known to give much of a shit, you know, whenever it comes to confronting other hunters or anything like that. So me and Forrest were, you know, going as, I guess, his guests.

Ramsey Russell: And I wasn’t here.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So he took you all. You all were dependent hunters. He took you all.

Duncan: And so, yeah, there was somebody up on the North Pothole.

Ramsey Russell: He got the lowest draw.

Duncan: Yeah, got the lowest draw.

Ramsey Russell: All the good spots were gone.

Duncan: So we went to Shoestring. We were like, well, I mean, we’re going with you. You know, it’s not like they’re about to pin us to the board for it. I mean, we were, like, middle school or so, and we went in there, and it was an absolute barrel burner. Like pintail, mallard, and gadwall only. And, like, you know, probably a three-man limit in, I don’t know, what, 20 minutes or something. And yeah, the people up at North Pothole were few.

Ramsey Russell: When the ducks want to be in that door spot and there’s nobody else around, you’re going to kill them. If anybody gets in that middle spot, you’re going to shut down the whole place because you’re downwind and I’m in a north wind.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s exactly what Derek did. It was mallards and pintails and green wings.

Duncan: It was definitely a top-10 duck hunts I’ve ever been on. And there was a group of five hunters or six hunters that, you know, drew the best card and went up to the North Pothole.

Ramsey Russell: The hot spot. What about you, Forrest?

Forrest: Oh, I don’t know, probably Christmas Day a couple years ago. Just me and you. I don’t think the camp had shot a duck in two weeks. And we went up to the pit blind, a duck hole.

Ramsey Russell: You were in high school, I think. Oh no, yeah, I do remember that Christmas Day.

Forrest: Yeah. And, I mean, it was just perfect. Just pairs of gadwall, just as fast as you could reload.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, we were all the way back in Brandon by 10 o’clock in the morning. I do remember. I forgot all about that. I brought a Christmas hat to wear for a picture. Good gosh. You know, that Christmas hunt, to me, has become kind of something because everybody else is at Christmas, and we come over here and ain’t got a draw. We just go to a great duck hole and go have a good time. Last year, I didn’t kill but four, but it was fun. Last year, you had a broke foot, Forrest. That kind of put a damper on things. You didn’t do much duck hunting.

Forrest: Not much at all.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got that picture. You went to Ohio with Duncan carrying you on his shoulders.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a brother now.

Forrest: Yeah.

Duncan: Hell, I did it in Big Hole too.

Ramsey Russell: You did.

Forrest: A lot of suffering for very few ducks.

Ramsey Russell: A good opener setup isn’t about luck—it’s about knowing the wind, the water, and the rhythm of the land/

Ramsey Russell: This year, so far, I drew the top draw the first day. We used to draw cards. We used to cut cards. And then it became so familiar. Everybody drew their favorite card. Ian always drew the two of diamonds, which is a low card. But, you know, there kept being some members, they’d always throw out the same queen or the same ace. So we swapped, went to poker chips. Now it’s every man for himself. But I got lucky and haven’t been over here. Ain’t no scouting to do, whatever. You know, we went to Duck Hole. I mean, how many opening days did you ever go, hardly anywhere but Duck Hole. That was just kind of our place.

Forrest: Not Many.

Ramsey Russell: Huh? Not Many.

Forrest: Not Many.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, there were times we went up there to Big Hole.

Duncan: It was one of the two every time, though.

Ramsey Russell: One of the two every time. But, I mean, Duck Hole, to me. That’s where I want to start my season. And somebody said last year, after Ian died, they asked, you know, said something about building a blind for Ian. You know, like, I’m like, let’s rebuild the island blind. I ain’t gonna say it was his favorite place, but he hunted. He’s the only person that hunted it, the only person that brushed it, the only person that hunted it. I would go with him. And I hated every waking moment of being in that blind because it was a piece of scaffolding with a lumber first seat. And when you sat in it and the water’s full, and you sat in it sitting down in that blind, and you had to sit down or you weren’t hidden. Water was at your belly button. You couldn’t put your hands in your lap because there was water in it. So you’re sitting in the water in that miserable, wet, cold blind, which is where, incidentally, “Nice shot, Mr. Ian” was coined. Right there in that blind on that exact location. One of you all tell that story, for those had heard it.

Duncan: It was about that 160 buck that Forrest killed, wasn’t it?

Ramsey Russell: He knew where something like it. You all been watching it.

Duncan: Forrest had been watching, had him on camera and everything else. And, you know, I mean, we knew Ian wasn’t about to go start spilling our spots and stuff like that, but he would always mess with us about it. So he said, you have, you know, if you don’t want the word to get out of where this buck is, then you have to say, “Nice shot, Mr. Ian” after every time he shoots a duck. And the very next time a duck came through.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah boyzz.

Duncan: The very next time a duck came through, he was the only one that shot. And he aired out on it, missed it.

Ramsey Russell: Shelled out on a flock of ring neck.

Duncan: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Didn’t cut a feather.

Duncan: Everybody said, “Nice shot, Mr. Ian.” And then it just snowballed from there.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like so many things in his life, it just stuck, wasn’t it? It was the mud factor playing on him.

Duncan: Thought that he finally was about to start getting congratulated on a shooting, and it just absolutely bit him on the ass.

Ramsey Russell: Talk about that blind you built there for us. That’s a fine blind, man. That’s a nice, I just hate he ain’t there to be comfortable and enjoy it.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a really nice blind you all built there.

Forrest: Yep. Finally built it up tall enough we can pull a boat in behind it when the water does get up. And you can’t walk out there. I don’t know. It’s nice. Not a piece of scaffold anymore.

Duncan: No.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you know, you were three years old when you joined the camp. Now you’re 27, 28, whatever. And you are the head of the blind committee because apparently you are the only human being in our camp that can square things up and remember to pour concrete in the post. You know, I can build a duck blind and just, you know, it was just gonna be all caddy wampus. It’ll keep you dry. It’ll keep you hidden.

Forrest: I wouldn’t say its square, but its square enough.

Ramsey Russell: It’s square enough. It got a little boat blind back there behind it, you know, because water will get deep there at times. So we decided to go there. And God, I knew the minute we got there, that’s the only place I wanted to go. I just wanted to go to that island blind as a token of friendship to Mr. Ian. See what, It was nice. They had a nice blind, shot some ducks. There’d been some ducks on that hole, somebody said, but the wind was hard out of the north. And they did exactly what they do on a hard north wind. They didn’t want nothing to do with the middle and went right up to the north. Always do the upwind advantage. I always do the upwind advantage. I knew it. But how the heck are we ahead, Five, six people plus three dogs in the button bush, you know. So we went there. We had a good day. We shot plenty. What did we shoot 17, 18 ducks? It was a bunch of gadwalls, shot a redhead. You know, that was why Ian hunted that blind, “Nice shot, Mr. Ian” that morning. The reason he wanted to go to that blind on that day was because there had been some redheads out there. You remember that?

Forrest: I do.

Ramsey Russell: And he was already paddling back after the “Nice shot, Mr. Ian,” because he whiffed on the ring neck. He had already taken the first load of stuff in his canoe because you couldn’t walk back to shore with that deep water. He had already boated back and was on his way back when a big, beautiful apple head.

Forrest: No, we were still in the blind. We had all cased our guns, and his gun was cased, stuck in the brush on the top of the blind. And it came right through the decoys, and everybody scrambled to pull guns out and get loaded. It came back around. I mean, it came right over the decoys, and I smoked him. Right at the end, he was putting his shell in his gun. He didn’t say a word. He stuck it right back in, right back in the case, and started loading up.

Ramsey Russell: That duck is mounted too.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, boy.

Forrest: I mean, as proud as you get.

Ramsey Russell: That’s not a big duck for us. That’s a special bird.

Forrest: Redhead we saw after he’d been watching them and trying to kill him.

Ramsey Russell: Canvasback are not a big bird for us either. And the only four canvasbacks that I can remember killing, five. Five canvasbacks killed in 20-something years here. Ian’s involved with every one of them.

Forrest: Yeah, One on Christmas we killed.

Ramsey Russell: One year up in the pit. I could not believe it. They just come floating. And the pit is shallow. They should have been off in that deep water where the island blind is. And they just came headlong into us, and we killed them all. The most famous canvasback story, even with 20 yards to the left, foam in his ear so he couldn’t hear nothing, you know. And those four canvasbacks came through, one drake and three hens. And, man, you could tell by the way they disappeared behind us. They fixed to come right back in and put the brakes on. And we said something to Ian about, you know, waiting on the drake, and that first hen around the corner, and he smoked it.

Forrest: Best shot he ever made.

Ramsey Russell: Best shot he ever made. And we never saw the drake again. Yeah. Oh. Oh, Mr. Ian.

Forrest: That same morning, we shot that canvasback. We lit about 20 gadwalls in the hole, and Ian shot the one duck that peeled off his side, a hen shoveler. Knocked out nine gadwalls and one shoveler.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, Ian. I see it. All right. Well, we talked about. I wanted to ask you all some of your first and favorite memories of Duck Hole, because that’s where we hunted. The next morning, we went to Pintail, knowing there wouldn’t be any big ducks. But it’s filthy with wood ducks. And it’s so funny that whoever named that hole Pintail. I have never in my life seen or shot a pintail in that little hole. It’s nothing but button bush and mole soil. But what are some of the favorite memories You all have got of having hunted that over the past 20-something years? We’ve had some good memories, I love that blind. It’s kind of weird.

Forrest: We killed a limit of mallards.

Ramsey Russell: That time.

Forrest: Yeah.

Duncan: That was also the time I punched a hole through the skimice.

Forrest: Honestly, some of the best hunts I’ve ever had out here were in Pintail, like, when the mallards came and went, and it was just,

Ramsey Russell: Oh, my gosh.

Forrest: It was just, I mean, mallards like, I’ve never seen on this place.

Ramsey Russell: That was the last week of season, and we literally had to break ice all the way to the pit blind there. The only time I ever hunted that pit blind.

Forrest: Yeah, me and Ian hunted it. I think it was the last day of season later. I mean, shot eight greenheads.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Forrest: I mean, just coming out of the stratosphere. That’s where they wanted greenheads.

Ramsey Russell: They let the kids shoot them.

Forrest: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Just a mallard. You know, what’s so weird about that blind is it’s wrung. The center of it is just wrung with button bush, and it really shoots well in the north wind, but the blind is on the south side. I don’t know. I’ve always shot it that way, and it’s just, It’s weird. One of the first hunts I can remember, one of my favorite hunts, Duncan, it was just me and you, and we shot limited, mostly ringnecks and mallards. But then we came to camp two weeks later, and nobody, zero people at the time were duck hunting because there were no ducks. First guy I talked to, he said, “Nope, there ain’t no ducks. There’s not a single duck on this property.” I said, “Well, Duncan wants to go duck hunt. We’re gonna go.” We walked into Pintail, and in the dark, nine mallards got up and left. And it was cold. It was bad cold. It was cold, cold, bitter north wind, snow, sleet. And rather than getting in that old blind at the time, it wasn’t very, it was just that old scaffolding blind. We went and put two little dove stools so the water was up to our belly buttons in the coffee weeds. And I put, like, six decoys. One of them was about 30 yards this way, and one of them was 30 yards that way. Just didn’t look like nothing. No spread. And we called to them, and I told you, “First pass, we got to shoot them.” And we shot eight of those nine greenheads when they came back. And the rest of the story is, I sent Duncan to go get so cold. And I sent Duncan to go get the bike. And I heard you singing above the wind. It sounded like you were just happy singing. And as you got closer, I realized you weren’t singing, you were cussing me. “Daddy, I’m cold. I want to go.” You were mad as a hornet.

Duncan: That’s the hunt I was talking about, where I tripped and just both fists punched a hole straight through the ice and went up to my elbows in mud.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, but look at you now, man. You’re a duck hunter. You’re a duck hunter. You ain’t got no regrets, do you?

Duncan: No.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t coddle you all.

Forrest: No.

Ramsey Russell: Which one of you all shoots the best?

Mississippi Guide: Generations of hunters have marked their calendars for this day. It’s in our blood.

Forrest: Oh, anybody can tell you that answer.

Duncan: I’m not much of a shot with a shotgun.

Ramsey Russell: All right, first or favorite memories? Hunting Big Hole. That’s where we hunted today. And big brother decided, no, no, no. Shooting a few ducks wasn’t good enough for him. He’s gonna go. He’s gonna go shoot, he’s gonna go deer hunt. So he left here at 5:00 this morning, torn out with his buddy and went to shoot a big buck. And we went. Duncan had it. Duncan had a hunch to go to that location, so we went. Man, we had a good hunt this morning. Best hunt in the last three days.

Duncan: Yeah, that was probably the best hunt I’ve had the past, you know, two seasons since I started duck hunting again.

Ramsey Russell: It was a good hunt. It was good, but you couldn’t tell. There was no wind.

Duncan: Yeah, it was just slow and steady.

Ramsey Russell: It was clear as a bell, which I like clear over here better than cloudy. I like clear, but I want just enough wind like, like we did see for the first time in three days. I saw my first mallard this morning. But they were working real high.

Duncan: They just didn’t have any wind.

Ramsey Russell: And they look high and they look high, but there wasn’t no wind to steer them. And they just talked themselves out of it. It didn’t surprise. Who shot the shoveler?

Duncan: No, Ethan. Ethan shot it.

Ramsey Russell: Ethan shot it.

Duncan: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Who shot the blue wing?

Duncan: Ethan shot the,

Ramsey Russell: The good teal, because there were six shots at him.

Duncan: Yeah, I know that. Well, yeah, I mean, I missed it smooth as, you probably shot four foot over his head while he was on the water.

Ramsey Russell: There were two or three times in a row we went to the shoot for opener. I do remember that, back when it got cold. It seemed like cold, like it was morning cold. And one particular morning, Ian Munn, there were four of us, and Ian limited before we did. He was just that spot real tight right there in the throat of it. And he limited before anybody else. Did you all remember that?

Forrest: Had some good ones there.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, we’ve always had. You and I had good ones.

Forrest: Good ring neck hole.

Ramsey Russell: Great ring neck hole, son.

Forrest: One time we went and shot 36 ring necks in about 20 minutes.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: who was that? Me and you and somebody.

Forrest: I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: I think Ian and Ben went had gone over to that other little pothole, and they came in after we were done because that’s when the sisters were both in their prime. Old Coupe dog and Stormy. And you know, for all they are and all they ain’t, I have never seen two dogs root a duck out like those two. Especially Stormy. That dog, just tireless. I remember that morning, If it’s the same morning, I’m thinking of, a lot of ringnecks. And we left with one shy. And we said, well, when we get down there to the levee, we’ll let the dogs out. And they found it. You remember that? Yeah. Boy, I tell you what, that big hole, the ringneck capital of the world, that’s something I hadn’t seen a lot of here in the last few weeks.

Duncan: No, we don’t really kill too many ring necks anymore. Probably killed. I’ve probably been on hunts where we killed a total of four or five since the last opener.

Ramsey Russell: Another tradition we’ve started doing here. We eat a big potluck dinner on Thanksgiving night. And then the next night, we go up to Doe’s Eat Place. Forrest, you’ve been up there three or four times now.

Forrest: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That was your first time last night, Duncan.

Duncan: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the review?

Duncan: Oh, man, it was good. I mean, anywhere you can go to get a steak that’ll feed two dudes and a lady, too. I mean, can’t really beat that.

Ramsey Russell: Number one poor house steak in the world.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What’d you think about the gravy?

Duncan: That was great. I was kind of thrown off because you kept saying gravy. So I was picturing a bed of fries with, you know, white gravy poured over the top of it. But I would really. I’d call it, you know, beef tallow over gravy, but it was good.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what it is. They not only put those steaks and catch all the fat rendering off those steaks, they put chunks of beef fat onto that broiler and catch it, too. And when they serve a steak, and it’ll cover a plate, any steak they’ve got will cover your entire plate. The last thing they do is lay along some of that beef tallow on top of it. But I always get an extra bowl. I want to pour it on top of my French fries, too.

Duncan: Yeah. No, yeah. I mean, that steak, I mean, me and you both ate it until we were full, and then mom ate it until she was full, and then we still had, you know, a chunk of meat left on the plate.

Ramsey Russell: You can’t eat it all.

Duncan: No, I mean, it’s probably £4.

Ramsey Russell: Is it worth the hour and a half drive up there?

Duncan: Yeah, definitely.

Ramsey Russell: What do you think, Duncan, this season you’ve been handling a new dog. Talk about hunting Pepper. How’d that come to be?

Duncan: Oh, well, whenever Ian was sick, they went through, and he decided, you know, what he’s gonna do with this or that and everything else, and he gave me his Benelli shotgun and asked me if I would hunt Pepper. So I really enjoyed hunting her. She definitely, what, you know, makes me go duck hunting every weekend.

Ramsey Russell: She’s a good dog.

Duncan: Yeah, she’s a super good dog.

Ramsey Russell: Best dog he ever had. I mean, that dog, she reminds me of Char. And the fact that she lives for one thing and one thing only, and that’s to retrieve.

Duncan: Yeah, I never have any. I mean, it doesn’t matter how crippled a duck is, I mean, I can walk out there and three hours later and send her on it. And that thing can be fully alive, just barely unable to fly. And she’ll come back with it, every time.

Ramsey Russell: What about Stormy Forrest? Dog’s had a great career.

Forrest: Yeah, she’s been a good one. She’s starting to phase out of hunting a little bit, I think, probably.

Ramsey Russell: At least 10 years old.

Forrest: Yeah. Beer last year.

Ramsey Russell: She’s hunting her butt off.

Forrest: Yeah. Yeah, she’s done good, but she’s starting to, definitely starting to feel. Feel her age finally catching up with her.

Ramsey Russell: That’s the saddest thing about a dog that wants to retrieve is the desire never stops, but their body just won’t keep up with them.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You know?

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I hadn’t walked into the camp house yet, and she didn’t greet me at the door. You left her in the last couple of mornings. Then I open the door, I trip over. She’s about deaf. Is she?

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: She knows somehow we’re out there.

Forrest: Yeah. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: She heard the buggy come up or something.

Forrest: I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: Want to come see what we’re doing?

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What do you think? You think you’ll get some more hunts with her, won’t you?

Forrest: Yeah, I’ll probably just save real cold mornings like this. I’ll probably leave her, you know, hard mornings climbing up. Climbing up on high, high blinds like we’ve been hunting.

Ramsey Russell: That’s where you struggle.

Forrest: Yeah. Just save. Save the easier mornings for. Get her a few more.

Ramsey Russell: That was your first real lab. What are some of your favorite times with Stormy?

Forrest: Probably the proudest I’ve ever been over was when we were in Delaware.

Ramsey Russell: I’m just fixing **:00:55:50. Yeah.

Forrest: And we sailed that hen mallard. I mean, probably 150 yards. There was cattails, and I mean, you can’t line up a dog and work them through that. So I just sent her as far down the canal as. And when she hit the bend, I cast her over, and she was gone for 10 minutes. And I mean, if she’s gone stay gone.

Ramsey Russell: **:00:56:14 I couldn’t even see the cattails roughly.

Forrest: Yeah. I mean, you got to where you couldn’t hear, I mean, she was gone. And Murray said, son, if that dog comes back with that duck, I’ll feed her a steak tonight.

Ramsey Russell: His filet mignon.

Forrest: Yeah, sure enough. I mean, we shot several more ducks. She was still out there, long gone. And finally started hearing her panting, and here she came back with it.

Ramsey Russell: And I told Murray when he said, I said don’t make that bet. The dog ain’t coming. Dog either ain’t coming back or is coming back with that duck.

Forrest: Yeah, she handles fairly well, but you really don’t have to handle. All you got to do is get her downwind,

Ramsey Russell: Get her nose on the ground.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: If she knows that duck and her sister were just like it, if they know that duck is there, they’re just doggedly gonna do it. Like, I sprinkled Cooper’s ashes this morning where we hunted there at Big Hole because with the moltens one morning nearby, we sailed two ringnecks, just wing-tipped them. And the second one was, the first one was kind of one of the first ducks, and the second one was towards the end of the hunt. So I said, well, I’m gonna walk over there and let the dog try to find one of them ducks. And she took off into the flooded plantation, and here she came back with a very much alive ring neck. But instead of, like, you know, coming up the hill or doing anything, she just handed it to me and turned around two steps ahead of me.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So I just said her name. Off she goes, and with me sitting there listening, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash. She just ran clear out of sound. Then I heard her coming back. She had that second ring neck. But then, you know, the morning I think of that, I think of those two ring necks and that duck hole when I got Pat Gregory to make me that urn. But then you remember the time we were hunting down in Venice?

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And the dog disappeared right by the channel. I thought she got off on that river. I’m like, “Oh my God, I’ll never see my dog again.” She was gone 20 minutes, and I was panicking. We couldn’t get out. There wasn’t no phone signal. I mean, the dog was gone. No boat, no nothing. That dog is gone. About the time Forrest said, “I think I hear” and she came up about a hundred yards downstream on another side of the clump of brush. Here she came with that ring neck. What a dog will do is just unbelievable. But, you know, I don’t even think she made it as long as Stormy. I think nine seasons is what I got out of Cooper. And then by then, she was just so tired. You know what I’m saying? And by the last, 11, 12 years old, Good Lord. I felt bad just watching her get up in the morning.

Forrest: Yeah. She’s still in good health. You can tell it wears on her a little more. Sleeps a lot longer, and I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: Think about an old dog. They want to sleep, they want to eat. It’s like they earned it.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You know what I’m saying? That we all do. We earned it. Yeah, we sure did. What’s the rest of the season look like? I mean, Dunk, Forrest, you don’t kind of transitioned off into deer hunting.

Forrest: Yeah, I don’t know. Duck hunt when they’re here and deer hunt when they’re not, I guess.

Ramsey Russell: You still gonna hunt Mississippi public any?

Forrest: Maybe a little bit. Depends on what it’s looking like, I guess. Not a ton of water right now.

Ramsey Russell: No, it’s some kind of dry. Duncan, what about you? I know you’ll be over here hunting Pepper.

Duncan: Yeah, just duck hunt in the morning, you know, go catch catfish on Eagle Lake or deer hunt in the afternoon. One or the other. Depends on the weather.

Ramsey Russell: What’s this camping trip thing you got planned for us? Want me to come sleep? You know, you call it camping, but really what you mean is sleeping on a sandbar.

Duncan: Yeah, no, that’s camping. You don’t need a dang space heater and all that. Yeah, no, it’s my favorite piece of public land. It’s way up the river. It goes on for miles, and nothing but sandbars and, you know, you go off in the woods, and it’s rolling white sand and big cypress trees.

Ramsey Russell: And deer.

Duncan: And deer. Yep, lots of deer. Nobody really hunts it. You know, it’s about a, I don’t know, 40-minute drive and a 30- or 40-minute boat ride to make it worth it. I mean, you got to get at least a couple hunts in, and to do that, you got to stay out there. So, yep, that’s about my favorite place to hunt.

Ramsey Russell: And you can’t shoot a rifle?

Duncan: Nope. It’s down the barrel. Muzzleloader or archery only. Or you can shoot a shotgun with slugs.

Ramsey Russell: But no buckshot.

Duncan: No buckshot. I don’t which, you know, I can’t. I don’t understand that, but whatever. I didn’t make the rules.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Who’s gonna win the big doe room? We got a big doe contest this year.

Duncan: I’m in the lead right now, but I don’t think 127 is going to do it. I know somebody killed a 140 yesterday, but they hadn’t put money in the Pot yet, so it doesn’t count.

Ramsey Russell: No, it don’t count.

Duncan: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Well, they lost out. So everybody who wants to participate puts in $25, and whoever shoots the biggest doe by December 22nd drags the pot. T hat’s a pretty good idea. I like that idea. I like that contest.

Duncan: Yeah, I know. I wish we did a couple of them.

Ramsey Russell: Since we’re all on doe patrol this year, thanks to Mr. Deer Hunter.

Forrest: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So you know how many deer I have seen you pass on?

Forrest: Oh, yeah, I passed dozens bigger. But I don’t know, he got me.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, did you get buck fever?

Forrest: I did. I did get buck fever. But, you know, I will say I wasn’t watching him in a food plot. I don’t know, went out there to hunt a doe, and second deer to come by, he stood up out of a bed, and, I mean, caught a glimpse of him, and he looked like a SOB. Stayed there in the sunshine and walked behind a tree, and, I mean, it was just then or never. And I thought he was old enough, and he was a year shy.

Ramsey Russell: When you called me, after all the deer I’ve seen you pass on, even the camp record for the longest time, the only reason you got him shoulder-mounted is because Hack had sawed off the horn before you changed your mind and said you wanted a Euro mount, you know, and after all the big deer I’ve seen you shoot, like you’re whispering on the phone, “I don’t know if he’s big enough” All of a sudden, I know he’s gonna be big enough. I mean, I’ve seen you shoot. He’s fine. And when you showed me a picture of that deer, son, I ain’t going to lie to you. I’m like, oh my gosh.

Forrest: Well, in my defense, I did know his rack wasn’t going to be, I knew his rack wasn’t going to make it, but I was confident in his age, and it didn’t pan out for me.

Ramsey Russell: That’s deer hunting.

Forrest: It’s different with a bow, too.

Ramsey Russell: That’s deer hunting.

Forrest: Bow gets me going.

Ramsey Russell: What do you think it’ll be like bringing your own kids here one day?

Forrest: I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it too much, I don’t guess.

Ramsey Russell: You have thought about that, have you?

Forrest: Not much.

Ramsey Russell: The Mississippi opener isn’t just a hunt—it’s a rite of passage. Families pass down blinds, stories, and the quiet discipline of waiting for that first flight.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, because here I am. You all were babies, one and three years old. And here we are now. And what’s so weird is, you don’t think about this kind of stuff when you start off at a place, but you go out to a place like this morning we were hunting. And everywhere we’ve been this weekend, I think about, you know, all the different times and memories I’ve got of hunting that place over the past 25 years. Seeing it change, seeing the woods grow up, seeing the blinds change, the habitat evolve, the memberships come and go, and just all the great times you have with people. You know, the times I’ve spent in those locations with you all, with Mr. Ian, with different dogs. I had Delta, then I had Coop, now I’ve got Char dog, Stormy, Pepper. You know, I mean, there’s been a half dozen or more dogs over the years. It way more than that. One time, Briar was hunting out there, if you all remember him, you know, and it’s just funny how you connect to past times just by standing in a location in a duck hole. That’s what blows my mind. So when I think about the future, it’s kind of hard to think about what’s it going to be like in five years or what’s it going to be like in 10 years. But it sure is connected to the past, which is why, you know, this kind of weekend is so important to me.

Forrest: Yep.

Duncan: Yeah. I mean, I’ve thought about, definitely how the woods are, you know, whenever we started hunting, it was pretty much an ag field with freshly planted oaks.

Ramsey Russell: Can you remember that?

Duncan: I mean, I remember the oaks being much, much, much shorter than what they are now. I mean, now they’re really nothing to speak of still.

Ramsey Russell: This property was cleared in the 1960s from hardwoods to agriculture. And then 25 or 30 years ago, it was planted back in trees. When we bought it, you could see for miles, you know, because the cover was all waist-high but now the trees are.

Duncan: Yeah, yeah. You know, another 30 years, it’s going to be like hunting timber.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it is going to be. We’ve already got. We’ve got a unit over here. We can’t pump it. We’re totally at the mercy of weather. We’ve now got a big unit that when it floods, it’s going to be. It’s over there where Forrest talked about. He started crying. It’s going to be a flooded timber hole.

Duncan: Yeah, it’s crazy to think about.

Ramsey Russell: I just, you know, like in the dark the other day, the first day, just driving out in the dark, for the first time this season, it just, It’s so different even than it was last year.

Duncan: Yeah, just much more. I mean, I went squirrel hunting in the WRP in October, which, I mean, even whenever I was in high school. You weren’t doing anything in that because you couldn’t see but five foot.

Ramsey Russell: Those oak trees were belly button high when we got into this camp. And now they’re producing acorns.

Duncan: Yeah. Well, now you can walk on. Now you can walk under them.

Forrest: Yeah. Open, full closed canopy. I mean, hardwood timber now.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, cuz like yesterday when we shot those wood ducks, a lot of them had acorns in them. And I’m sitting there thinking, I mean, it’s possible they were sitting somewhere on us that we don’t know about. Eating those ac. They could have been sitting up there on the alligator slough.

Duncan: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Eating acre. And it flew over. I mean, who knows where they come from, but that’s how we’re gonna be one day. The deer herd sure has changed too.

Duncan: Yeah, a lot. I mean, like that buck we saw this morning driving out to duck hunt. I mean, you didn’t see those just walking around, you know, 15 years ago.

Ramsey Russell: See them everywhere now.

Duncan: Yeah, now. I mean, hell, people see those about as much as they see does or spikes. Just, you know, good 115 young bucks.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it’s just about time to go get in a deer stand and I’m about ready to do it again. I enjoy it. This has really become my favorite weekend of the entire year. And you know, think about being in a big camp. There’s always drama. Always. There ain’t no drama this year. But anytime you take 30 families and put them together and tie in hunting and fishing, they’re bound to be drama. Some kind of drama, but it really ain’t, you know. And besides all that, I was telling somebody just the other day, you know, every camp, every collect you put three people in a pickup truck. There’s drama. But I mean, you know, this is my drama. I’d rather deal with the devil I know than the devil I don’t. Because my people I’ve known some of these people here for as long as you all are old, you know. That’s a good camp, isn’t it?

Duncan: Yeah, it is a good camp.

Forrest: It is.

Ramsey Russell: Can you imagine not having it?

Duncan: No, I couldn’t imagine growing up hunting solely public or, you know, something like that. I mean, we killed the out of ducks out here.

Ramsey Russell: We have. And this morning, we sure did, didn’t we?

Duncan: Mm.

Ramsey Russell: Anyway. Well, boys, I enjoyed it. I’m glad. Glad to be here with you. And I guess you all can listen to me. Kill a doe. And Duncan, I guess you can skin a doe. That’s the least you can do for me. Skin my doe. Shot your ducks.

Duncan: There’s a price on everything.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, I guess the price is supper last night. You can’t beat me doing that kind of stuff, son. That’s the way it is. I’m always built in. Ask not what you can do for yourself, but what you can do for your daddy. That’s a good motto to bake, anyway. I enjoyed it, folks. Thank You all for listening to this episode of Mojo Duck season somewhere, Mississippi Duck Camp opener. Hope You all are having a good season. And one good thing is we got a whole lot of season in front of us. So fingers crossed. It’ll only get better. See you next time.