EP 597. Definitive Alberta Waterfowl Hunting Experiences

Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today way up in Alberta is Mr. Rob Reynolds, Ranchland Outfitters, one of our top ushuntlist outfits in Canada

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today way up in Alberta is Mr. Rob Reynolds, Ranchland Outfitters, one of our top ushuntlist outfits in Canada. Rob, how the heck are you, man?

Rob Reynolds: I’m doing awesome, man. Nice to connect with you again.

Ramsey Russell: When you were telling me, Rob, that you all had ice on the water this morning. Here we are, we’re recording in April and I can’t believe you all still got that kind of weather. But then you show up wearing a short sleeve shirt.

If it gets close to freezing, Canadians start wearing shorts and t-shirts, right?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. If it gets close to freezing, Canadians start wearing shorts and t-shirts, right?

Ramsey Russell: What is your weather looking like up here right now?

Rob Reynolds: So today, it’s midday, but it’s probably like plus 5 Celsius, which is 5 degrees above freezing, see that’s 38, 40 degrees.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: But, yeah, no, there’s a little skiff of ice on the ponds. I’ve got a little pond right out back in my house, and there was a pair of geese and a pair of mallards standing on the ice there this morning.

Ramsey Russell: But when do the birds start showing back up in Canada?

Rob Reynolds: You know what Canadas are the first. And ever since I was a kid, you mark on a calendar the day you see your first Canada goose, and that days was March 11^th for, I think it was maybe 8, 9 years in a row, March 11^th being the first day. And this year, right on March 11^th, you’ll start seeing a few Canada geese coming. And then, into April, we’ll start seeing some ducks and some snow geese. And we got specks and snows here right now, and the ducks are really starting to show up.

Ramsey Russell: Is being in late April and the weather still being cool, still freezing, the pond, a little skim ice, is that normal?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, for the most part. It’s holding on a little bit. The end of February, it warmed up, and we lost most of our snow. So it was kind of like a false spring early on. We even seen our first black bear coming out of the den at the end of February. Which normally they start coming out mid April. But, yeah, we lost all our snow and then in two dumps, we got 15 inches of snow in one dump and then 8 inches on another dump after the snow had already melted. So that’s just been hanging on a little bit, but it was excellent for our ponds.

Ramsey Russell: That’s good news. That’s some bright news we’ll talk about. The reason I ask about the cold weather is I collaborated with a private organization named 50 Ducks. And they were down in Mexico City, and they were attaching these geopacks, these translocators on back of these ducks. And he called me up and said, would you want to collaborate on this pintail I got? I said, yeah, man, that’d be cool.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And he said, what do you want to name it? I said, bubba. He said, well, it’s a hen. So we named it Rosa. And what was so cool is that duck has flown 2200 some odd miles real quick. It’s like, 4 or 5 days later, it was sitting on an Indian reservation, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. And now it’s sitting just outside of Bismarck, it’s been jumping around Bismarck for the last week. And we don’t know if she’s looking for a nesting site or she’s already starting to get kind of like that, or she’s just waiting on maybe the weather to break up north to fly on up. Are you seeing a lot of ducks in late April right now? And are they acting nasty or they got this little nesting thing going on?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, like for us, we’re right on the edge of the forest. And so we’re still in cropland, but the forest is not too far north of us. And there’s a lot of nesting that goes on up there. And we seeing, the birds getting aggressively, chasing and stuff in the air probably the last part of April, like so our last week. And you know that it’ll be warm up by then. But we drove by a pond yesterday, and there was one hen sitting on that pond with 6 drakes. So, they’re getting ready. For the geese, the spots that had pairs 2 weeks ago, you go by and you just see one there now. So yeah, they’re sitting on nests right now for the geese, and the ducks are maybe a couple weeks away yet, that’d be my guess.

But what we don’t know because it’s just one duck is when she’s jumping around, is she by herself?

Ramsey Russell: It’s exciting times. To me, just being able to keep up with this one duck. But what we don’t know because it’s just one duck is when she’s jumping around, is she by herself? Because that’s what you imagine because it’s just one duck with a geolocator on her or is she being chased by drakes? Is she jumping? We don’t have any idea. I mean, is she breeding age? Is she going to breed? Has she mated? Is she going to nest? Is she going to survive? That’s what’s so interesting to me is, I’ve never really kept up with a single duck like this before. Yeah, I mean, but it’s not a dog, it could die, I could get eaten by a fox or a hawk or who knows. But to me, it is interesting just keeping up with this duck, it takes it to a whole another level.

As far as these transmitters have came over the last number of years you wonder how long it is until it even takes a snapshot to validate, what’s your thinking?

Rob Reynolds: As far as these transmitters have came over the last number of years you wonder how long it is until it even takes a snapshot to validate, what’s your thinking? If it took a snapshot like an upload to a server, just like, yeah, it’d be pretty neat to see what they’re doing.

Ramsey Russell: Son, if they ever get a little spy camera or like a little bitty tiny Google camera like rides around a maps on the ground, can you imagine what we would learn about these ducks?

Rob Reynolds: Oh yeah.

Ramsey Russell: The best I’ve heard is right now there’s some research coming on, I believe it was pioneered by Ford Biological Station. One of their biologists was on here recently, Josh Osborne, talking about some of the bluebill research they’re doing. But they’ve actually put these surgical implants inside the divers and they know when he’s resting, they know when he’s diving, they know when he’s swimming, they know when he’s flying, they know it’s 3D. It’s like, they can decide, not just he’s going from point A to point B or C, but what he’s actually doing while he’s there, how he’s spending his day. It’d be like me and you, we go and work for 8 hours, we go to the gym for 2 hours, we eat for an hour and a half, I think that’s interesting stuff.

Rob Reynolds: And you don’t eat very much compared to me. If there’s only an hour and a half a day.

Ramsey Russell: I make up for it. Now look, you’ve seen my plate up there, it’s your shop enough. Everybody always says where’s all that food go? But we’ll talk about your food here in a minute. When do the farmers get started in Canada?

Rob Reynolds: Nothing really gets started where I am till between the 5^th and 10^th of May. So there’s planting already going in southern Alberta already. But where I am, yeah, May 5^th to May 10^th is the start. There’s risk of, the ground not being warm enough by then. That’s why our growing season’s so short. That’s why you don’t see a lot of corn up here. The number of frost free days from say May 10^th to September 5^th is not enough days really. So yeah, that’s why we don’t have corn. But there’ll be a few weeks away from planting and yeah, we’re looking forward to another season. It is nice to, like in the winter here where I am, there’s no birds at all. Like, when the winter is minus 40, there’s nothing. And the spring comes and it’s just like the fall migration only reversed and it’s best time for a waterfowler. This is the hope. Like a farmer, he plants a seed, well, we want to see all them nests and that’s the hope for a good fall. Conditions up here look perfect. We’ve been dry for the last number of years, but like I said with that extra little snow – I got one dugout behind my house that I kind of use that as the gauge, that’s my rain gauge and my water level gauge. And I’ve seen that even last year it went, it was full, but then by summer, the warm summer, and it was dry, you know that pond was as low as I’ve ever seen it. But I’m happy to say even right now that it’s full again. And yeah, it seems like moisture creates more moisture.

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Rob Reynolds: So when you’re dry, you’re good and dry. Like it’s tough to get out of it. But I’m hoping that, the moisture trend continues like, we’re on track for.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a glimmer of hope. And I got a text from a friend going up to Saskatchewan yesterday to spring snow goose hunt. And he was, I guess he went in and kind of on the south east side and drove up to the west side. But he said, man, it looks better than it’s looked in the last few years. He was shocked because I’ve been hearing doom and gloom and all of a sudden I’m hearing, hey, this is better than we’re expecting.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, no, even I saw the annual delta nesting ground map. For the last number of years it was yellow and some red, critical areas. But it’s green and blue in a lot of areas, especially where I am. And yeah, we’re upbeat and hopeful for fall.

Ramsey Russell: Well, let’s talk about last season, Rob. Last time I saw you, I was there with Ryan Yarnell and the boys and we had a great time as usual. But it wasn’t easy, you know what I’m saying? You made it look easy, Caleb done, made it look real easy. But it wasn’t easy, because it was dry. What is it about the dry fall that makes the duck and goose hunting so much more difficult than in a wet year?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. Sometimes it’s maybe just concentrates the birds a little more. We do have a lot of, we’re wet in this area historically. Like there’s some regions in Alberta where they’ve got a few giant lakes, but no small lakes. Where we are, we got a lot of little, small lakes. But them little small lakes and them ponds, they were gone. Like there was cows grazing out and through them and it kind of maybe pushed them, pushed the birds maybe to the bigger roosts. You had mentioned, or we were talking about Canola, I kind of like having Canola around. It doesn’t do much for a bird hunter, but what it does is spreads the birds out a little bit. If you got a big thousand acre block of peas, you kind of concentrate the birds right there and there’s not too much room to move them around because they’re congregated there. But Canola really does separate, the birds and spreads them out a little bit. And maybe that come back to your dry question, maybe that’s what we dealt with last year is maybe just them being spread out a little bit too much and maybe a little congregated in certain areas. So yeah, for the result from last year, I thought the number one takeaway for me was that it was a late snow goose migration.

Ramsey Russell: Yes.

Rob Reynolds: Like, historically the snow geese are through me and past me, by the middle of October. Well, one of our best days of the season was into November. We filmed it with MOJO actually. Our mutual friend Terry and Chuck and actually Terry wasn’t here, but Chuck and the crew, we got on an incredible snow goose hunt and it was in November, like a good two weeks later than history for them snow geese. But that was kind of the biggest takeaway from last season.

Ramsey Russell: It did seem like a late migration throughout Canada. It was just a lot of the lot of the die hard snow goose people were struggling, myself, I mean, I love to shoot snows up in Canada. And it was very tough, like considerably east of you all, we had a problem, what I call stabbing them. You’d scout and say, all right, there’s 5,000 here, 10,000 here, and they’ve been here, and we put them to bed and we’d show up the next day and see them a mile and a half away. And it’s like they were walking real quick across those fields and then hopping around. It’s like they were in that part of Canada over in Saskatchewan last year, the grain production was just off because of the drought, because of untimely rain or whatever, lack of rain. And so it’s like the birds were, they knew where they wanted to feed, but there wasn’t enough feed. And they were just jumping around and it was just hard to just stick them, it’s like trying to pin a grease – I think they were just hitting those fields and feeding them out so quick or so discontented with how much their feed was that they fly off the roost and just forget all about that field we put them to bed on and go somewhere else. And it was maddening. I tell you what it was, it was like getting beat up every day.

Rob Reynolds: Maybe as technology gets better, these combines are getting way better too. Like there’s not the feed getting left behind like in years past. Like, you hate to say the farmers, are doing bad thing, but they got to get better. And you know the economics of farming, they got to take everything off they can, but they’re getting really good at cleaning the fields completely bare.

Ramsey Russell: They really are. I miss the days and I’m going to tell you right now, and it seems like just yesterday, but it’s been 10, 15 years. But I can remember when most of the fields we hunted in Canada were swathed.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And you let a rain fixing to blow in, the farmers start panicking, they start calling everybody, everybody they know with the shotgun to compute that field, to keep the ducks off the swath. And it was easy to hide. There was a lot of grain. The birds knew where it was. But farming has become more efficient worldwide. And I hunted one swath field this year and the specks were in there thick over in Saskatchewan. But that was the only field I’ve seen in a long time that was swathed. Swathing is where they’d go and like, cut it and fell it and stack it in the middle and then take a combine and come down the swath. And it left a lot of grain, but now it’s way more efficient than that.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. Them windrows, swath rows is deadly to hide a layout blind in. You completely disappear. But all the feed is just piled right up in them rows them ducks and them geese get on them swaths and they start marching down the row and it’s easy picking for them. But yeah, the way they’re straight cutting them crops, they’re not swathing near as much anymore. I think, it helps ripen the grain and dry the grain in them swath rows. But a lot of them are spraying and it speeds it up same way. But yeah, I’d love every field to be swathed.

Ramsey Russell: The snow geese were late last year, but how were the mallards and Canada geese? The big Canadas and little cacklers and mallards and ducks, how were they last year? They seem to be pretty darn good.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. So I’ve been outfitting now in Alberta for over 20 years. And when you got a few years under your belt, you can see slight changes. But you know what, where we are, we’re so far north, it’s very consistent. Like, it’s amazing how the migration is similar from year to year to year. Even before the season opens, our season opener is September 1^st and a few days leading up to opener, man, where are all the birds. Like, and it’s like we kind of lack a little bit of faith, but just like that September 1^st comes and we’ve got the birds. Like, we’re sitting there watching fields of geese of 200 before September 1^st. And the hunters we have opening day, how many birds do you think you saw? Oh, man, we saw over a thousand for sure, and it’s really like, yeah, it’s amazing how the calendar works and as predictable as we are. So that’s maybe the long story of your question on the ducks and the geese, it’s been very predictable year after year where I am.

Ramsey Russell: Some of the best hunts I’ve had, and I should say some of the most memorable hunts I’ve had with Ranchland have involved snow geese. It’s just like a couple of years ago we were out there, it was cold, cold for a southern boy, I tell you, it was cold, wind blowing good, and the snows were supposed to be gone. We were going out to shoot darks and ducks with a few snows, but snows just showed up and showed out. And this past year, Caleb took us to a hilltop and I’m going to say we either limited or shot most of a limit, I don’t know which, and it doesn’t matter. It was just the epicness of it all. We were on a very high point and the way the birds would come in and could see us from a long ways and sometimes they would disappear down below the hill and then pop up, they were right in our lapse. And it’s not the volume, it’s the quality of that experience with those birds. And there were a crowd of us. I think Yarnell brought 5 or 6 and let me mix in, so there were 7 of us. And it was such that, with all the people at play, nobody was shooting at one time. Somebody on that end was filming or I was using my phone or running the dog or doing something, but it was just absolutely spectacular. And thing I like about those kinds of hunt, Rob, it’s very rare, it seems rare that you really, that most hunters really have the luxury to just put their hands behind their head and watch. And I didn’t think about reaching for the gun because you know you’ve either shot and shot enough or shot plenty or you’re going to get to shoot again but you just get to enjoy the moment.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And that to me is what spells out hunting up in that far north in the headwaters of the migration, it’s not the number of birds, it’s just the quality that enables to where you can just sit there and smile and watch your buddy shoot or miss or hit or whatever, and just enjoy the moment and just see it.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, I know. Sometimes, we don’t stop and like, as a guide, we often take it for granted because we see it day in, day out. But as I’m getting older, I’m not super old, Ramsey, but I’m getting older enough gray hairs to know that I need to start appreciating all the sights, that we maybe take for granted. And sometimes it isn’t about the numbers, it’s about the memories of each different flock how they do it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, did you all have any experiences this year? Because 2 years ago, I hunted with you up there, and we were on the X, we were in the center of an X and every mallard in Alberta, it seemed like, was coming from, I mean, you could see them to the east, you could see them, just materialized. And here they were coming straight to us and you didn’t have to call, they were coming in. You remember that morning, Jingle Bells with the duck call?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. Caleb was Jingle Bells, the light snow falling? Yeah, I remember that morning. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Did you all have any mornings like that this year? Is that a pretty common thing up in Alberta?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, it really is. like, as far as the duck migration goes, like, you were there in October. The big volume of ducks start coming through in October, we kill a lot of ducks in September, but they’re in smaller groups. You still only have 3 shells in your gun, so a big group often gets, kind of wasted with too many birds. But yeah, like October, we start out on our ducks, smaller flocks of 10 to 15 in a bunch. When October comes, now 75 to 150 in a bunch. And the results are still the same. But maybe the wow factor a little bit is more impressive in October. But yeah, we get a witness that from start to finish, for 2 months.

I posted that video of Jingle Bells on the Internet, and it about broke the Internet, it went so viral

Ramsey Russell: I posted that video of Jingle Bells on the Internet, and it about broke the Internet, it went so viral. I posted out, like, on Christmas Eve and it did well, it sure did. People like seeing that, who doesn’t like just seeing that?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And again, here I am recording instead of shooting, because you can.

Rob Reynolds: Well, because you know that the next group behind them is going to do it the same way.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. I want to ask you a question, I want to talk about this topic because last time I was there at your lodge, I was saying goodbye, I wanted to try to record you for a podcast but you had a, I think it was football or soccer one had a sporting event and I had to hit the road. But the reason we didn’t record a week or two or month after is because you got real busy with deer season. I love shooting waterfowl, that’s my thing, Get Ducks and Duck Season Somewhere and everything else. But I’ve got a bucket list trip on earth, I’ve actually got two of them and one of them is to shoot a whitetail and or mule deer in Alberta. Tell me about your deer hunts up there. Because that’s what I’m saving. I want one of those chocolate horned beauties that Alberta produces. Tell me how that’s going to go down, Rob.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, so our “specialty” is our waterfowl. But I’ve been taking big game hunters here in Alberta for, as long as I’ve had the outfit as well. So our archery season, we can do archery hunts in September and October and our rifle season is the month of November. So yeah, really 3 months overlapping some waterfowl season. I have some hunters that come and we’ll bird hunt in the morning and deer hunt in the afternoon.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: But yeah, our rifle season is November. We’ve got a good sized ranch that my wife’s family has and a lot of Alfalfa fields, a lot of transition areas, a lot of big bush areas. And we’ve got a number of mule deer and whitetail just right up close. We’re actually in the process of building a new lodge and last night I drove by and maybe within 50 yards of the lodge, there were a bunch of mule deer walking around. So it’s kind of a nice place to live. We also take a couple archery moose hunter as well.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, so that’s during early season. Best time to come for that would be probably late September when they’re really responsive to calling.

Ramsey Russell: I’m saving my pennies. No, I’m not exaggerating. This is bucket list stuff for me is always, I mean, since college I’ve wanted to deer hunt in Canada, but it sounds like hunting with you all, it’s going to be a little more familiar to how I would hunt down here. In other words, I may be hunting a feeding area or hunting some areas where I can watch them come through the woods to a feeding area or transitioning in a blind, I’m not going to be – one of my biggest fears, I’ve heard those stories of the guys getting way up in the woods in Saskatchewan and they drop you off at an hour before daylight and they pick you up an hour after dark and you’re literally looking, staring straight ahead down a 10 yard cut and you may be there for 5 days and before a deer passes. Rob, I’m going to tell you what, if I have to do that, I’m going to probably turn the gun on me myself in day two. But if I could sit out there and look and see other things and I think I’d be all right. I mean, you’re not talking about putting me down a shooting alley, are you?

Rob Reynolds: So we have a bunch of different tech. We do have that option as well. Like, we do have a bunch of tower blinds and we put a propane heater in there, because November, it’ll be oh yeah, 20 below zero during rifle season. But yeah, like a lot of times we’re in the truck and we can check Alfalfa fields at the right time and then be mobile and position ourselves and for a good opportunity. So it’s not always that stuck in a tower blind hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Do the whitetails and can mule deers use the same habitat?

Rob Reynolds: A little bit. But there’ll be a lot of areas where I know that, okay, this is a mule deer spot and this is a whitetail spot. But there’s a little bit of overlap, like we’ve got a pretty big major river system that goes through our area and you know the mule deer like that south exposure hill side to bed up on and sun themselves. It seems like the whitetail like a little bit more bush.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what I would think. So if I come up there to deer hunt with you, I need to let you know I want a mule deer, I want a whitetail.

Rob Reynolds: That’s right. It’s one or the other permit. And nice thing about Alberta is you don’t need to put in for any draws, the outfitters have the tags already and they’re a guaranteed tag that, that we own already with the government there’s a limit on non-resident allocations, non-resident permits. So yeah, we’ve already got them permits, we just need to put your name on it. So no draws needed, just talk to an outfitter and we put your name on a whitetail or a mule deer.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’m coming up there to hunt. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot or something about a certain situation, I’m coming up there to hunt deer. But I did have a friend one time send me a picture of his setup and it was literally as long as my hall. It was 10 or 15 yard cut in the trees in a dark forest and I’m thinking, and he sat there for 5 days and didn’t pull the trigger, I’m like, dude, I couldn’t do that. I’d have to move up or do, I’d have to have just a little bit more visibility, I might get claustrophobic looking down the hall for 5 days.

Rob Reynolds: You know what, I sure like deer hunting. But man bird hunting, you can talk, you can stink, you could do anything, you don’t have to be quiet. It’s an interactive sport too.

Ramsey Russell: That’s why I like it, Rob. I’m a talker, I like to interact, I like the social aspect. But I can’t go duck hunting, goose hunting with you and come back one of them chocolate horn beauties. What would be a reasonable expectation if I come deer hunt with you? And I’ll tell you the story a long time ago, I went to Mexico, I caught a deal of a lifetime on a trophy Mexico hunt and I had been guiding down in South Texas and just boy, this was a deal. And before I left, I wrote the numbers 150 on the palm of my hand and I said, the first 150 inch whitetail that sets out in front of me, I’m going to pull the trigger. It happened 20 minutes into the hunt, they tried to send me home. I stayed there in Mexico for 5 days and that deer I saw in the first 20 minutes of hunt with the biggest deer I saw for the remainder of the week. So I did good. Maybe Muy Grande would have been there, maybe there been a 200 inch deer, but who knows? I shot the first 150 and I never saw another deer over 140. But what would be a reasonable expectation in Alberta for a guy come up there and hunt for 5 days?

Rob Reynolds: Do you know what, we do a 6 day trip, Ramsey, and we like to tell everybody that you should have an opportunity at a 150 class or better.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: Like when you’re fishing in a pond, there’s only so many monsters, and as you get reducing in size, there’s more availability obviously, that’s why trophies are called trophies. But you need to pass up, if you’re really holding out for, a bigger buck, you got to pass up some 150s. And that’s where the, if you only have a limited number of days, you’re kind of rolling the dice. But we tell everybody you should, in 6 days you’ll see lots of deer, but you should have an opportunity at a 150 class whitetail or better. And on the mule deer side, you should have an opportunity at a 170 class mule deer.

Ramsey Russell: Stick it out, get lucky. Yeah, pass up on the little ones.

Rob Reynolds: There’s, obviously they’re bigger ones, but there’s a lot of smaller ones too. And it’s the law of averages. When I first got into this business, Ramsey, the one guy told me he was another outfitter, I met him at a show and he says, you ever get them guys that want to, can you guarantee me, like a 180 whitetail? And the one guy, this outfitter, he said you know what I tell him? And it’s probably the best way I’ve heard anybody explain it. He said, yeah, he says, I’ll guarantee an opportunity at a 180 class whitetail, but you got a book right now for 7 years.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: If you do 6 days, over that period of time, you should have an opportunity. Or conversely, if you do, the whole rifle season, book it for the whole month, your odds are up. It’s just hours in the field.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. People that want guarantees need to go to high fence. I want the real Canadian experience. I’m just curious. I just throw it out there. I mean, besides the antler size, how big? Like, what would be the average body weight of a mature whitetail in Alberta?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, quite easily. You’re dressed, you’re getting whitetails over 250lbs to 300lbs on the hoof. Some of the mule deer are 400lbs.

Ramsey Russell: You are kidding.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, he sent me a text. Well, just seen my first, just seen my first doe and it looked like a cow moose coming down the trail compared to our deer back in the southern states. But yeah, we got bigger body size. They have to have a significant layer of back fat to survive, our winters. We usually get a stretch of -40 every winter for about a week and that’s hard on the critters. They need to be bigger to survive. That’s what I tell everybody I’m not a small guy either and I just tell everybody that I need to bulk up for the winter too, Ramsey, what do you think?

Ramsey Russell: That’s right, I get that. I mean, everything’s bigger up north. A big whitetail back home would be 240lbs, 250lbs undressed, live on the hoof, that would be a monster whitetail on my club. I must ask one more question about whitetails because this is a duck hunt show. But what’s the largest whitetail, largest scoring whitetail, largest scoring mule deer, you all shot in your history?

Rob Reynolds: So we had one that just cracked 200lbs on a whitetail.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable.

Rob Reynolds: And one just at 200lbs for a mule deer as well.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable.

Rob Reynolds: They’re not around everywhere, but we got them. A couple years ago, we had a neighbor take a 212 white tail. There was one killed last year, it’s well over 200. And it was shot like within 3 miles of one of my stands. So we’ve got some big ones, that’s for sure.

Ramsey Russell: They’re there, but they’re big for a reason.

Rob Reynolds: They’re doing it for a living.

Ramsey Russell: When is the rut in Alberta?

Rob Reynolds: I would say if you put an X on November 15, that would probably be maybe the peak part of the rut. But we were talking about the snow geese, later or earlier and whatnot, that can fluctuate even that peak rut maybe a week and a half or so, but that would historically, November 15^th is probably peak rut for all deer.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s talk about Ranchland Outfitters waterfowl program some more. You all cover a ginormous area, Rob. I mean, through some very strategic partnerships, you’re essentially hunting from the boreal forest all the way down to Montana. I mean, it’s unbelievable. How does that progress? Like, a guy called you up, I want to hunt September 1^st, or a guy called you up, and I think you told me last time we recorded you all can go into December.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, just before Christmas.

Ramsey Russell: Walk me through what it’s like hunting that large of an area. That is massive.

Rob Reynolds: Well, scouting is obviously key. We put the miles on, but yeah, as a migration starts, the north location starts obviously earlier than the others. But we keep track of where they are, and we’ve miled out vehicles, I don’t know how many vehicles that we’ve miled out over the last number of years, but it’s just windshield time and you got to track them. Like when you’re no different than finding them big whitetail, the really primo waterfowl spots, you put in the time and it’s not, you’re not going to find it off the highway, you got to find all the nooks and crannies and soften the spots that are overlooked, have the best reward for, even for waterfowl as well.

Ramsey Russell: How many trucks per operation might you have scouting at one time? Like, I mean, they’re the unsung hero of the operation. We show up and we hunt with guys like Caleb and yourself and then at dinner time, man, here come the unsung heroes. These are the guys that have logged those miles and have done that time, and then they huddle up with the guides about, all right, here’s the game plan, but how many trucks might you have running? If you had to guess how many miles a day your scouts and yourself drove?

Rob Reynolds: When I pay the fuel bill, I almost choke. You almost think that there’s a leak in some of them fuel lines dripping down the gravel roads because you’re going through so much fuel. But no, you know what, between a few of the different outfits here that, that we have, we’ve got over 20 trucks on the road. And we put in our kilometres, it got to be up around 750 kilometers a day just running truck.

Ramsey Russell: Per truck?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Man, they are putting in the time. They try to get out, like those boys leave I don’t ever see them till later in the day, they must be leaving early and going out and sitting on a roost and then just following and seeing where these birds are going.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. But it’s the consistency that is the key. Because there’s a time in the fall when the birds change their patterns. Like early season, they’re predictable. They’re going to feed here and they’re going to roost here, and they’re going to go back to that same routine every day. Sometimes later as the season goes, they’ll even feed in one field in the morning and feed in a different field in the afternoon. Well, if you see them in the afternoon in this field and go back to that field, chances sometimes they’re over in the other field because that’s their routine. So the consistency of scouting is the key. And I like to have all the guys on the road, even carry a day timer, hey, where are the birds in the morning? Where are they in the afternoon? And numbers and you can see how feeds are growing and you can see, how things are changing. But consistency, day in, day out, watching the birds react is you know how you’re going to get a good hunt. Because you can tell even when you drive by how relaxed they are, how aggressive feeding they are. You can sense if they’re new birds coming in, if they like certain spots and fields, and that’s all key scouting, when you’re trying to find that exact pinpoint of the X, that’s all the factors that go into it.

Ramsey Russell: Rob, is there any set of conditions building on that? Is there any set of conditions you drive by, and for the first time that you’ve driven by that field, you have no idea how many times those birds have been in that field, but you drive by for the first time you lay eyes on that flock in the field, you say, I’m going to shoot it tomorrow? Is there anything you’re looking forward, it says that field is ready or do you have a strategy for keeping eyes on it till it builds and builds and builds? I mean, what is the approach to something like that?

Rob Reynolds: Yes. Some locations, you don’t want them to feed certain areas out. So, you try and manage even your farms to, you can shoot them a little bit earlier in some spots because hey, that there’s not a lot of feed in that field or there is a lot of feed, but yeah, I don’t know. I would say you can tell how aggressive feeding they are. And even when you drive down the road, you know how many heads pop up when you drive by to see how spooky they are in relationship even to the vehicle driving by. If they don’t really even pay attention to you watching them because you got to give them credit that they could see you, if they’re not spooked, sometimes that’s part of the factor. If you get within a mile and they wake out and flying all over the place, helter skelter, it might not. It’s kind of a wild card hunt because they’re a little bit spooky, there might have been some, a little bit pressured birds that would be, that’s my read.

Ramsey Russell: I had a guy tell me one time, and we were watching some snow geese and his approach, he says, you drive by and you see a thousand snow geese, it’s the same flock coming in. And then one day you drive by and they’ve doubled. He said, the next day I’m hitting them. And I’m like, really? And he pointed that out, that was snow geese. But it was like the same little flock hitting it, it’d be here and then one day you drive by and there were twice as many. All of a sudden, they found some more friends. He said, that’s when I know it’s building and I know it’s time to hit it. And then another time, and I don’t scout for a living, but I’ve spent a lot of afternoons scouting with people like yourself. We were scouting and I was scouting with some kids, and there must have been 15,000 or 20,000 snow geese, but they were all 100 yards from the road, feeding towards the road maybe 100 yards away. And I said, I guess we’re going to hit this marsh. He said, no, this field is over. We should have hit it today or yesterday. I said, what do you mean? He said, man, they’re almost done. He said, by sunset, they’ll have this field fed out and they’ll be somewhere else. And we drove by the next day, one nary a goose in that field, they had moved. But he knew that he had seen them enough that, like you say, he could read the behavior of those birds, read where they were in the field, where they had been in the field, and just know from studying them what the play was for the next day.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, even when you’re watching them, historically, there’ll be a time, during the migration of fall anyways, there’ll be a time of night, as soon as it gets to X o’ clock, it’s dark enough that they can all jump up and two or three waves and they all head back to the roost all together, historically, that’s how it is. But sometimes you can watch an hour before dark, you’ll even see a flock leaving and they won’t go back to the roost, but they’re just gone looking for something else looking for something better. Those are all factors how committed they are to a spot. You like to see everything just kind of eat as long as they can, hard as they can, and get back to the roost. And those are little extra tidbits that you’re looking at. And numbers isn’t always it. Like, if you got a 500 birds using a field versus 3,000, a lot of people would just take the 3,000, but the quality of how they’re coming in and how they’re spread out, even flock sizes, that’s another thing when you’re looking, when you’re scouting, how many flocks do you see come in? like, were they small groups, pressured birds will come in couple huge bunches all at once. And it makes for a pretty impressive, if they do it right, it’s pretty impressive. But you only got maybe two or three flocks.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Rob Reynolds: So it doesn’t matter. I much rather, smaller bunches, dribble in rather than mass chaos.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, to say it that way reminds me of hunting resident Canada’s down here in the deep south. I mean, you go find a field with 300 or 400 on it, and that’s great until they all come in at one time, you get one play, maybe two and that’s it, and it’s over. And what is the smallest like the smallest flock you’ll target? I know, you probably got a larger threshold for snow geese than for Canada geese, big Canadas. If they’re doing it right, you don’t read just a whole lot to hurt them.

Rob Reynolds: Right. That’s what I said, counting flocks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: Like say a flock of 12 comes in, proficient shooters, if they do it right –

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Rob Reynolds: If they’re right in your grill, how many of them – you’ve got 3 shells in your gun, everybody should be able to get 2 to a flock.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: Okay, so our limit on geese is 8, so you need 4 flocks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: Right?

Ramsey Russell: Maybe 5 or 6 just in case somebody chokes. That’s right. That’s all you need.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. The way they’re spread out is definitely a big importance when you’re scouting.

Ramsey Russell: You run a massive operation, you’ve been in business a long time. Do most southern hunters come up or do most hunters come up, do they want geese or ducks?

Rob Reynolds: Everybody loves ducks. But when we get them big geese, even them cacklers, you put on a pretty impressive show, everybody likes the geese too. We can make both pretty spectacular. But yeah, I think if you surveyed everybody, it’d probably be about 75% want ducks as the first. When I’m talking to a prospective hunter, when the first question they asked me, when’s the best time to come?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: And I reverse the question back on them. I say, we can get our ducks and our geese pretty much every day, but if you had to pick one, what would it be? And if they say geese, I’d put them into that September, that earlier season slot. If they would say October as their number one choice, all of them say, we want both. But if ducks are number one choice, I’d put them in that later slot. The numbers of per flock go way up and you start getting coloration, starting the 1^st of October.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I asked that question not to pick on anybody or put you on the spot, Rob, but born and raised a duck hunter from the South my trip, my initial trip to Canada, I wanted the ducks. That’s just what I wanted, dry field ducks. And a strange thing happened after all these years, heck, yeah, I like to shoot ducks up there. But truthfully, if I had to choose one or the other, I want geese. White, brown, big, little, I don’t care, I like geese because I don’t have that down here. And what I’ve seen is usually when you get on a really good goose feed, ducks are coming. I mean, a lot of the ducks are attracted to a big goose feed, I don’t know why. It seemed like they would be bullied out of it, but ducks show up to goose feeds. I always wonder if it’s just not the geese scratching or doing something or disturbing the soil that makes it more accessible for the little ducks, I don’t know.

Rob Reynolds: We’re dry field duck hunting, which not a lot of people get that opportunity in the south to shoot them in a dry field. So maybe that’s why there’s a little bit more favoritism towards the ducks. But yeah, we’ll rarely shoot even any water. We’ll shoot ducks right in the dry field, just like with it – it’s kind of funny because you’ll take some new hunters out and we’ll have gone out in the morning and shot all our geese in the morning, okay, we’re going to go for ducks this afternoon, yeah. So we go back out in the afternoon and we pull into a field and they said, okay, what kind of spread are we setting up for these ducks? Well, we’re setting up the same Canada goose spread.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. And they’re like, we got our geese already. Hey, don’t worry, they were on a duck hunt this afternoon and you and I both know up here in Canada, we only need one duck decoy, it’s a Spinning Wing MOJO.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, just put them down there in the pocket. Rob, you mentioned this new lodge and you unfurled the plans on top of Lori’s desk when I was up there this year. Tell me about this new lodge you got. I can’t imagine topping what you got already, but tell me – I’m excited about this new lodge that’s under construction.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. So before we had little farmhouses set up so each group would have their own little area and we ate at a common location. But the typical American plan lodge is, everybody together. And that’s kind of maybe what we’re missing a little bit. We wanted to get a little bit more efficient in having everything all together because there was a little bit of driving between spots. But yeah, at the main location of Ranchland we’re building a new lodge, it’ll just be over 13,000 square feet.

Ramsey Russell: How many bedrooms is that?

Rob Reynolds: There’ll be 15. 15 bedrooms and 4 extra guest areas in the lodge. And we’ll eat there, and we’ll have a number of fire pits and lots of stuff for everybody to do. But enough space that everybody kind of has their own space and not stepping on each other.

Ramsey Russell: Man, I’m telling you what, I love those kind of layouts to where I can go mix it up with people or I can kind of break out over here with my crowd, I love that layout. I love that. Well, you told me when I was up there, and I love this. Somebody asked me, I think you asked me, what do you think if you like back up to your door or do you want to come through -? Man, I love backing up to my door. It’s like in the old hotels, I love that. You know what I’m saying? And because I can back up, I can walk 5 feet to feed char dog in the back of the truck or something, so it’s just very convenient to do that.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, each bedroom will have a door into the hallway that leads to the main area, the dining hall, great room, but each room will also have their door outside, like motel style and there’ll be mud rooms on each end. And we’ll have some dog kennels, and yeah, we’re really looking forward to it. It’s like I said, I’ve been in business for over 20 years, and what we’ve done so far is it’s been good, but I’m thinking with this move, we’re trying to take it to the next level a little bit more.

Ramsey Russell: One of my favorite aspects of Ranchland, I love the way you all broken it out, but I’m very excited for this new lodge because one thing I’ve always enjoyed is you all run an impressive, unbelievable buffet, just an unbelievable buffet. And we can do a deep dive in that, man. And then we break out and we go back to our spots, to our little homes and visit and do what we’re going to do. But I love being there at the dining room. I always meet people, sit down, I’ll be sitting there with my crowd, but then I’ll start talking to this crowd over here and get to know new people from Tennessee or all over the world to come in there. And I love being able to mix it up and meet new people and hear new stories.

Rob Reynolds: The hunting community is really small. Like, it’s amazing that sitting down, talking to people, hey, where are you from? Well, do you know this guy? Well, sure I do.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable. And we all got something in common, birds of a feather flock together. So, I mean, no matter what, you can walk into ranch land and know everybody just saying hello in conversation, how’s the hunting going? Because they’re all goose and duck hunters like yourself, and they’re all having a great time and they’re all eating good. I’ve got to talk about the food, what are some of the most popular items on you all’s menu? Because, I mean, first off, it seemed like regularly you all got the smoker going. Ms. Laurie or whomever got that, I mean, this year it was most succulent brisket I’ve ever had. It was unbelievable. I’ve had pork ribs, I’ve had brisket, all kinds of good stuff.

Rob Reynolds: We like the smoker, for sure. We do a number of different things. All our guests get to have some duck poppers, goose poppers. Did you try the cranberry with sauerkraut and onions? Yeah, we do it a number of different ways. But I was told by someone early on when I first got started, you can control one thing, if you can control the food, and the hunting’s good, things will come together. But we really like to over serve you in the food department.

Ramsey Russell: Well, thing about it is some people like some stuff and some people like something else. And the thing I’ve always appreciated about it, like, I’m an egg and bacon guy for breakfast, but, man, you all put on some cinnamon rolls and all kinds of all kinds of stuff down there on that one end of the bar, you know what I’m saying? For guys that they want to get their sweet tooth on. And it’s just unbelievable. And I love the selection like that. What would you say would be one of the client favorites? I mean, you’re sitting there at dinner mixing it up. What would you say just hands down, the one or two menu items you just couldn’t part with because of client popularity?

Rob Reynolds: It’s kind of funny you say that because like up here in Canada, we have a lot of Ukrainian farmers and a lot of Ukrainian people, their ancestry is Ukrainian. But it’s funny because a lot of the Americans, they don’t appreciate the Ukrainian food. So, we’ve tried it a few times and it’s never been as much of a hit as just a traditional American style potatoes and Caesar salad and lasagne. Like, it’s kind of the go to most reliable. But yeah, like on our farm, I raised some beef cows too and we’re getting a nice sizable herd of wagyu. So we’re going to be serving wagyu steaks a little bit more often now. So, yeah, we’re kind of hard done by.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’m an adventure eater, it’s not for everybody, but that’s one thing I’ve enjoyed is, the pierogies. I like those pierogies. And this year, one of my favorite things that I ate was a – I would describe it as like a chicken fried duck nugget with sauerkraut.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And that was very – and some locals had made the sauerkraut, it wasn’t like from down at Piggly Wiggly, this was real made stuff. It was amazing. And sauerkraut ain’t for everybody, but boy, I think I ate just that that night, it was so good. Who’s large and in charge on your menu items?

Rob Reynolds: Oh, that’s 100% my wife. She’s spoiled hunters for years and years. So, I best stay out of the kitchen. And a lot of times I don’t even ask, what’s on the menu, because I know it’ll be good. So she’s in charge of that 100%.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I just know I love the day, the afternoon when we come up there and we start regrouping, get a cup of coffee or a diet Coke before we go out in the afternoons and I smell the smoker going, I always have to take a peek. I know you’re not supposed to open it, but I always have to take a peek, see what’s going. Brisket, ribs, and all kinds of good stuff.

Rob Reynolds: Did you get in on our Saskatoon pies this year?

Ramsey Russell: Yes, I did.

Saskatoon is a wild berry that kind of grows everywhere

Rob Reynolds: Saskatoon is a wild berry that kind of grows everywhere. It’s kind of like a high bush blueberry and it’s pretty popular. We make a lot of Saskatoon pies. So that’s probably a top requested item for desserts.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You are going to have kennels there at the new lodge, and that’s one thing I’ve appreciated. Rob, a lot of outfitters have gotten away from inviting guests to bring their retrievers. And it’s not overly complicated to bring your retriever to Canada, especially if you’re driving, it’s pretty darn right simple. But what is you all policy on retrievers?

Rob Reynolds: We don’t mind bringing a dog, if you’re coming up with your own group, you can bring a dog. Like when I’m booking trips, if you got a group of 6, you got your group to yourself. Any less than 6 and there’d be a chance of mixing a few guys in with you to make 6. And if you got your own group of 6 and everybody’s your buddies, because your buddies can tell you if your dog ain’t really performing. However, if you’re mixing a group, it could sour an experience. And I’ve seen that firsthand, so that’s why I do it that way. So that’s really the only, policy I have on dogs.

Ramsey Russell: The guides have great retrievers. This year, Yarnell and I were running off opposite ends, running both of our retrievers and I think it adds a lot. Like you say, if a group’s coming up there and they’ve got a couple of retrievers among themselves, boom, that’s going to add so much more to their experience. And if they don’t want to fool with a dog, you don’t need one. But I really like that policy, I got to tell you.

Rob Reynolds: But I’ve had guys, also too say I got a really good dog, he picked up 80 ducks last season. And I’m thinking my dog this morning picked up over a hundred in one morning, like so sometimes it’s a little overwhelming for a dog just on volume and number of birds falling and number of guns going off. So, yeah, it’s up to your own discretion.

Ramsey Russell: You bring up a good point, Rob. It really truly is, that’s why I bring up the talk of bringing a retriever, especially a young retriever or an inexperienced retriever. Like, I’ve hunted over, over the years with “meat dogs” have owned a bunch of good ones and they go on the shop or maybe, I had one of them to kind of read your mind. He’d know when I shoulder my gun it was time to go and off he’d go. But it’s really not a good environment for a dog running on autopilot. You really do need a dog because a lot of times the volley comes in, I’ll send the dog, but you got to be able to call her back in, get her down, get her back in the mud hut, because here comes another flock. And at some point in time, and I try to tell everybody this, you’ve got to ask yourself, are you willing to trade off, running your dog for this? Because there’s going to be trade offs, and I think it does take a seasoned and experienced dog to do that.

Rob Reynolds: I would say, I’ve had pleasant experiences, but I’ve had difficult ones too with the dogs. So if you want to bring it, it’s up to you. But if you want to enjoy the hunt, the shooting side of things too, by all means, we got dogs. And in a dry field too, they’re pretty easy to see. It’s not like, out on a pond or in the marsh grass or anything. Fields are as flat as a pancake, you can see them down birds pretty easy and pick them up pretty easy.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. To which I would add, for experienced animals, for great dogs, it really is an amazing place, the Perfect place to really make a dog even better. If you’ve got a dog that in your normal hunting life, you’re only running 100 yard blinds or shoot, you can run them to the horizon. I mean, that pea field you’re talking about, you can see that white bird sitting out there 300, 400 yards. And the dog build confidence doing it. A lot of those you wait till after the hunt run, they’re not going anywhere. It really is to me, I think that some of the best dogs I’ve had that will handle out to the horizon is because they hunted out in prairie Canada up there in Alberta, it’s just a perfect place to run dogs like that. Rob, I’ve enjoyed it, man. I’m looking forward to coming and seeing again this year. You’ve got me excited about a little bit more moisture than I was expecting. I’m hoping they make a bunch of babies.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. We’re hoping for good nesting success. And it seems like the predator numbers are down too. Because that’s all a factor as well with coyotes and all that. But it seems like the predator numbers are down, so we hope big nesting success this spring and summer. So look forward to seeing all them young birds and look forward to seeing you up here. And maybe even we’ll have to talk a little more about that chocolate horn dream bucket list you got.

Ramsey Russell: I may have enough pennies saved this year to put a deposit on it, that’s my goal. It’s a bucket list hunt and I want to come up there, but now we’ve started talking about those mule deer, that’s what I’ve got to decide now is when am I going to put a deposit on. But I think a big old chocolate horned whitetail would be just amazing. Rob, you’re on our US hunt list. Everybody listening, go to ushuntlist.com and look at our Alberta outfitter, Mr. Rob Reynolds at Ranchland. But tell them how else they can connect with you?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, website ranchlandoutfitters.com we got an Instagram, Facebook page or they could just call my cell, numbers on the website and be happy to take calls, talk bird hunting and I’ll put you in a great spot to enjoy some of the hunts that you’ve even experienced, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: I know you talk to a lot of hunters when would you say your peak bookings are? When are your peak bookings? Like, I’ve spent enough time at your lodge, I know as people are leaving, they’re saying, hold my dates, I get that part, but when would you say, like, the time that you’re just slamming it with people calling, new people calling getting their dates locked, June, July?

Rob Reynolds: Sorry, I’m missing like, the booking time?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Like, what would you say, when your phones are just burning it down, people ready to go to Canada.

Rob Reynolds: You know what, January and February. It seems like just after the fall season closes, especially if it’s not been a very good season, people start thinking, hey, what are we doing for next year? And that’s typically when the busiest bookings happen. January and February.

Ramsey Russell: I would agree with that. It used to drive me crazy having to go to some of these shows like Safari Club in January, February, but that is when people are booking. And people will call all the time, you call me 365 days a year and ask me when should I think about making reservations, my answer is now. I mean, a lot of our hunter booking a year or more out. And I know you all’s the same way.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. We’re not taking too many new hunters every year because the repeats keep on coming back every year. And there’s a lot of groups that, maybe not every year, but they’re every other year. But yeah, that’s when most of our bookings happen. And towards middle summer, it’s very unlikely to maybe even have a spot for this year. So, it’d be the following season. But there’s always changes and cancellations. Phone up the outfitter directly like myself and see how approachable he is. Sometimes when you can connect with somebody on the phone or not, sometimes you might not get a good feeling from a guy when you’re talking to him. So, make contact. Sometimes a text and or an email for an inquiry is maybe a little impersonal, I enjoy when guys pick up the phone and call me directly and then you get all the skinny details. And I can put you in the right spot where you want to come. And some guys, this is a bucket list trip even for birds, we’ll maximize to get you in the right spot.

Ramsey Russell: I get asked a lot, from especially younger guys that have, not as well traveled and stuff, that they’ll ask the question, where should I go first? Mexico, Argentina, I’m like, no, you need to go to Canada, that’s where my path started. My path specifically started right there in your backyard 30 years ago, hunting in Alberta, going to the headquarters. Because if you’re an avid duck hunter that’s never traveled outside your backyard, go to the headwaters, hunt familiar birds in a new environment with great people, and then you get to follow them around, you know what I’m saying? You’ve hunted down south, now go up north. And then, for whatever reason, get tired of that, start stretching your wings and flying other flyways or elsewhere in the world, you know what I’m saying? But I just can’t. Everybody listening cut their teeth on North American birds, mallards, pintails, Canada, snows, go up there and enjoy the best of it. What about Delta Waterfowl Expo that’s coming up real quick. It’s here in a few weeks, they’re in Oklahoma City, Delta Waterfowl Expo. Am I going to see you all again this year?

Rob Reynolds: Yeah, you bet. Yeah. Saw you last year down in Baton Rouge, but this year in Oklahoma. Oklahoma City will be down there and yeah, we’ll catch up with you down there. Maybe not as good a food as Louisiana.

Ramsey Russell: You’re not going to be Baton Rouge for food, but I think Oklahoma City will be okay, we’ll find us a steakhouse if nothing else. Rob, I always enjoy that time of year. And I would invite Everybody listening, number one, come to Delta Waterfowl Expo, come by getducks.com, say hello, and I guarantee you we’ll be within talking distance, we were last year. And if we’re not, I’ll walk anybody over to meet you. Because to me, that is the perfect time to meet somebody, stand eyeball to eyeball and communicate. And even if you’re not going to go for a year or two, go meet the guys and start talking about this stuff and you really get a good in depth and it won’t be just yourself, it’ll be several of your team members there.

Rob Reynolds: Yeah. We’ll introduce ourselves and show you some pictures and we’ll have pictures of this new lodge when it’s finished and yeah, no, it’ll be a great time, look forward to seeing you and all the other duck hunters down in Oklahoma City in July.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Rob. As normal always, I appreciate you coming on, I enjoy visiting with you and I appreciate you a lot. Thank you very much.

Rob Reynolds: Thank you, sir.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, Ranchland Outfitters in Alberta. Check out the web page, go to ushuntlist.com or come to Delta Waterfowl Expo a few weeks and say hello to us both. See you next time.

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