Former Federal Wildlife Agent, Lifetime Mississippi Duck Hunte‪r‬

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell, join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome back to another great episode of Duck Season Somewhere. I’m in Mississippi, my homeland on an absolutely gorgeous fall afternoon. For the Deep South any time the wind blows out of the north and the humidity drops and its 75º in the afternoon, it is just wonderful. I’ve got a really, really cool guest today former Mississippi federal agent and importantly, a lifelong Mississippi duck hunter. How are you today?

Warden: I’m good. Thank you appreciate it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’ve sure enjoyed visiting with you this afternoon and heard some wonderful, wonderful stories about the real good old days here in the state of Mississippi. Tell me, how did you get into duck hunting?

Warden: Well, my dad was an avid hunter of just about anything that moved and he started me out when I was probably about 5 years old, and initially it was squirrel hunting and I remember following behind him in the woods at night with him having the only flashlight, terrified that something was going to come from behind and back then they didn’t put you on milk cartons they just said that you disappeared somewhere. But anyway, then he decided that I needed to be introduced to duck hunting and boy, that was a whole lot of years of some really, really hard work because my dad, my motto today is ‘work smart, not hard’ I think he is was the opposite. I think his, was work hard, not smart and after every hunt I’d come out with just about the same thought on my mind that there has got to be an easier way of doing this. And my dad,

Ramsey Russell: Real duck hunters are always trying to figure out a better, more efficient and smarter way of doing things. Put me on timeline, when in Mississippi history would we have been talking about?

Warden: Well, I was born in 1951. So this would be the first duck hunt, probably at 6 years old. So 1957.

Ramsey Russell: What was that first duck hunt like, do you remember?

Warden: Miserable. We’re from the Delta area in and around the Yazoo City area and my dad had a lot of contacts. He had one of the local tire stores and dealt with all the farmers and knew just about everybody and they would tell him where good places where to go and I remember probably the one I’ll never forget is when we are headed out of there one morning and we’re going down the highway and we’re just all of a sudden we just pull off the side of the road and there’s nothing but just bean fields for as far as you can see. And I said, what are we doing something wrong with the truck or something? He said no we’re here. I said where is here? And it was just daylight. It wasn’t that, I guess because of my age it wasn’t that being out there at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and going in the dark, it was right at daylight. But anyway he said, you see that cypress tree which looked to be every bit of a mile away from where we stopped. And I said yeah, and he said, well my good buddy told me there’s as a pothole right under that cypress tree and had a lot of ducks in there, and that’s where we’re going. And I said, how are we going to get there? We’re going to walk.

Ramsey Russell: This was even before there were 3 wheelers isn’t it?

Warden: Oh yeah, this was when there was still, there’s almost pre mule and hunting equipment for little kids in the 1950s practically didn’t exist. I mean the stuff that the kids have today in comparison, I mean they would look at you as if you were crazy, if you ask them to wear what you were wearing back then. Had boots on, 20 pair of socks on, just so they fit for the smallest pair of what are the red ball waiters back then? The old rubber waiters and then a couple of belts on to keep them from falling down around your knees and if you’re from the Delta, you got to know about gumbo. Gumbo will stick with you longer than anybody you’ll ever know. And when we started out cross that field, after just a few yards, I had the equivalent of a basketball size clump of gumbo on each boot and it was take a step and drag a leg and take a step and drag a leg. And that might have been 120 miles as far as that tree looked to me. But we finally got there and we killed ducks and he said, well look, we got our limit, we can get out of here and go and I wasn’t that anxious to go, not because I wanted to shoot anymore or get another duck. I needed to rest to make the trip back to the truck.

Ramsey Russell: How many ducks did you all kill? Because that have been, what would have been a limit back then? It doesn’t matter does it?

Warden: I don’t know. I knew very little. I mean that was my first time. I knew practically nothing other than what he was telling me to do. But all I can remember is that the gumbo and how far away that tree was and how long it took there and to get back. But again, that was my first inclination of there’s got to be an easier way of doing this.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never experienced gumbo mud like here in the Mississippi delta. 5% of the time, it’s got cracks in it, fall off and break a leg in one of its cracks. 5% of the time, it is nice and soupy and it doesn’t stick anything and 90% of the time it just sticks to everything, you can’t get it off and it sticks to your boots and you just start walking. A 5ft man is 10ft tall when it gets to the duck hole. That’s just how it is.

Warden: Even with the best four wheel drive truck, you got the best tires, it’ll feel your wheel wells up and eventually you can’t even turn your turn your wheels. So you better pointed in the direction you’re trying to get out of there in and hope not to make any turns, but it was a mess.

Ramsey Russell: But even after that first duck hunt, you decided you like that duck hunting?

Warden: Yeah, I didn’t like going back to the, a matter of fact, we never went back to that Cyprus tree again that was, maybe that was one of my conditions. But yeah, we went a lot of different places and did a lot of things and I think, I mentioned to you earlier that we were talking about decoys that he had one dozen of a Cyprus star foam type decoy that weighed practically nothing. And then we took half gallon milk cartons and coated them in roofing tar and put them on stringers with weights on them and we threw out milk jugs in the water. Just solid black milk jugs along with a dozen mallard star foam decoys that we had. And I’ve still got those decoys today.

Ramsey Russell: Really? You think they’d still kill a duck? Those milk cartons, I believe they would.

Ramsey Russell: I think they would too. I think, we talked about this, there’s a new this and the flocked heads and all these different things and the latest decoy and greatest decoy and pretty much like fishing. People used to catch fish on a lucky 13 and now there’s 5000 different kind of fishing lures at the local sporting goods store. And I think if you just went out with a lucky 13, you probably catch just as many fish as you would.

Ramsey Russell: Put it in front of the right fish. I think you would. I think that one thing that has stayed the same with duck hunting from back in those days to now is, just stick to the fundamentals. Make it easy for a duck to come in, make your spread look like ducks and I mean Ducks flying 40 mph. When he’s passing around a circle and getting closer look, he’s flying 35 mph. He can’t just laser beam, look it’s either eyeball blank on a decoy. He can’t see that. All he can see is motion down there, it looks like decoys.

Warden: And hunting back then you didn’t have, I mean, it was a lot simpler because you didn’t have all of the temptations that you have today. You didn’t have all of these new things coming out, about the only changes that were happening back then was to change in clothing and it was a long, long time. Even when my son started hunting in, Born in 83, about 1986 or 87. It was still a problem finding waiters for, and we’re talking, 20-30 years later. And so they hadn’t made a lot of changes but today, man, there’s every time you turn on the commercial, there’s a new this and a new that and I don’t know, it’s just.

Ramsey Russell: Some of the technology has been good. I know, I sure appreciate warm waiters on cold mornings versus them all red balls. I know having children. I have still got the first pair of waiters ever bought my oldest son. I bought them I guess four or five years old and it’s got a foot about five inches long and they never leaked. They were little neoprene waiters and they come up and the top of would come to his chin and then they got handed on to his little brother and by the time his little brother quit wearing them, they top of them would fit around his waist and you could pluck those straps, like a guitar string and then my daughter wore them. And then we still got them. Like I keep telling everybody, but I remember back in the old 60s and 70s, everybody’s parents would bronze cast their baby shoes. I keep wanting to bronze cast those waiters and just to have them. But some technology is good. Tell me about growing up. Okay so you went on your first hunt and back in the good old day, you walked a mile without a three wheeler. What was it like hunting growing up in the Delta back in those days? Back in the 60s, I guess they’re the good old days. What was it like?

Warden: I mean it was fun and it was just something you did just like if you own a place out in the country and you walked out in the woods and you went squirrel hunting, it didn’t seem to be all of the big preparation and everything that we do today. Because you didn’t have as much stuff that you had to prepare for. You didn’t have to get this ready and that ready. It was just a matter of grab a gun and some decoys and put some clothes on and go.

Ramsey Russell: It wasn’t a lifestyle or an obsession passion. It was just what you did.

Warden: It was just what you did. Exactly. And you were talking about the waiters when I finally got to a point after I got married that, I could afford, this is when the Neoprene waiters came out and I could have, I just had to have a pair because that was the latest and greatest in what everybody was going to. My wife was pregnant with our son and I had decided that I was going to buy these waiters come hell or high water and I was going to have to keep it secret. And especially with a kid coming. So I had found them in the catalog. I had circled them with a pen on the description. I had taken a yellow highlighter and did all this kind of stuff and we were, I was taken off that afternoon from work and we were going out to buy some baby stuff and I had meant to order them the night before, I called them in on the phone and I forgot and it was a sale going on. So I had to make that call. So I was in my kitchen and I was on the phone, it might have been might have been Cabela’s or one of those, I can’t remember. But anyway, I got the lady on the phone and I said you I want to order these waiters and I was whispering just about like this because I had to be quiet because my wife was in the back of the house getting ready. So the lady kept saying sir you’re going to have to speak up, I can’t hear you. And I said look I’ve got a problem here, I can’t really talk that loud and I said we just got to work through this and so I’d whisper and she she’d try to repeat everything I said and so having to talk louder and louder and louder and I was really concerned. So we got down to the prize and I probably never paid more than $50 for a pair of waiters ever back then. And I think these were $149.95 was the price. And I had told her what catalogue goes in what page it was on the stock number. But she kept asking me all of these questions about everything that should have been right in front of her. And finally she said, and that prices and I said its $149.95 and just sir, I cannot complete this order unless you speak loud enough and I said its $149.95 and she said, sir, I’m going to have to hang up on you if you don’t get this right. And I said, all right, it’s $149.95. And from behind me I heard $149.95 for what?

Ramsey Russell: Busted.

Warden: And she looked down and there’s a catalog open circled, highlighted with a yellow highlighter. And she said, you just go ahead, you get them, you just go ahead and get them. But I’m going to tell you what one of the things we’re going to look forward this afternoon is a stroller and we ain’t coming back until we find one for $149.95. And I’m going to tell you in 1983 that was a hard bill to deal. That stroller had radio tires, a Bose sound system in it, convertible top heat and air.

Ramsey Russell: Wives don’t play fair sometimes.

Warden: And when people would ask me when they said me, that was a nice waiters, you got on what you pay for them? And I said $389.95 it was two 149’s.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a good story. But how did you go from Mississippi duck hunter to Federal game warden?

Warden: When I left Mississippi State and I guess it was early 70s. I went into Sear’s management program and went to Memphis for training and ended up opening a mall store in Columbus. And I was hard lines merchandise manager. So that meant I was over hardware and sporting goods and auto center and appliances, anything that pretty much wasn’t clothing or cloth related. And back in the 70s it could have been, Mississippi and nationwide they had a national hunting and fishing day and it was always in September and it was just a one day deal and just about every shopping center and every mall around would have an indoor outdoor event where guys would come and that would be kind of like the Canton flea market kind of thing that goes on now and so we wanted to participate in the mall and a friend of mine told me about a guy that because I was in the bow hunting a lot and told me about a guy that was a tournament archer and a bear archery representative and so I contacted this guy and it turned out that he and his wife were tournament archers and they could put on an exhibition that, just about rival. None. I mean it was amazing what they could do. So we set up a place out in the mall in Columbus and had bales of hay and a big wall of hay put up, had some targets put up and he and his wife came and to draw a crowd and to sell bows and arrows and all that kind of stuff we had them shooting. And he could put a ping pong ball on a golf tee and you might think well I can shoot a ping pong ball off tee maybe a lot of people could, but all you do is knock the ball off the golf tee the only way you cannot do that is to put that arrow dead center in that ping pong ball and he never missed, nor did she. Then he took balloons and like somebody making balloon animals, he blew up one balloon really, really big, and then he blow up another balloon, a little smaller inside of that one, and then another one little smaller inside of that one and it was just a whole layer of different kind of balloons and put them on a stick and from about 30 yards away he’d take out the biggest balloon first in the next balloon after that, and the stair step it all the way down to the last one. And this guy was unbelievable. So we hit it off really well and kind of, he lived in Clinton and we kind of, he taught me a lot of stuff about archery and we visited with his wife and his daughter and just became really good friends. Well, he called me one day and said, man, let me tell you what’s about to happen in Mississippi. He said that the government is buying up a lot of land and they’re going to open four new refuges and they’re going to be one right outside of Yazoo City and well, actually two in two different directions. Hillside was going to be one, panther swamp was going to be the other one. And then Morgan break up at Chula and then, Matthews break up at side and just south of Greenwood. And he said they’re going to be staffing them, and he said, I’ve got the inside scoop on how to make application and all of that for that purpose and he said you interested? And look, man, I had been an outdoor kind of person all my life and at Sear’s I was wearing a three piece suit and a tie every day and man, I was like a just a fish out of water. I was in the wrong place. But it was a living in what I was doing. So I said, man, I’m in what do we need to do? So it was really odd. I had interviewed for jobs before and got and filled out applications and stuff like that but back then in the 70s, the application with fish and wildlife service was pretty much a test you had, that application must have been 15 pages long. They wanted to know everything you had ever thought about doing in your life, much less what you’d actually accomplished. And at the end of it rather than somebody just reviewing it and saying, we’re interested in this guy, they graded those applications just like a test score and the way their process worked is they start with every how many job positions they’ve got. They start with the high score and they call them first and if that person doesn’t accept then they go to the second and the third and down the list like that. Well, it was a very unusual situation and so anyway, I was very concerned because I’ve never done anything like that before. But lo and Behold got a call that I had been accepted. This guy called me and said we’re in. I said we as in both of us. And he said yeah we’re in. And he said, he was going to go in as assistant refuge manager. And this was something else about the fish and wildlife service in the 70s. Nobody, the people that came on board for those jobs with the Fish and Wildlife service all came in with job categories. There was a refuge manager, there was assistant refuge manager, there was a game biologist, there was a forester. I came in under construction. There was another guy that had expertise and explosives and we had to blow many beaver dams and things of that nature and then if you came in initially as law enforcement, you probably transferred from another agency or another location or refuge within the service because when they advertise for these openings, they didn’t advertise like in the clarion ledger. They went out through the Federal Register and people all over the country that wanted, that were already with the Fish and Wildlife Service that worked in different areas, could have what was called an open ended applications so that every time a job opening came up, their name automatically went on the list with their test score. So you had a lot of people come in wanting in that position. But when they were actually called, once they found out where the location was, it was a matter of whether they wanted to come there or not. So you had a whole lot of people on the list that actually never had any intention of coming in. So for me in my position and construction, I came in and I was number three on the list. The other two people were ahead of me were already in the Fish and Wildlife service and didn’t want to move to Mississippi. So lucky for me. But that’s how we got started and then after you had been in the service for a while, they would come to you and ask you if you were interested in law enforcement, which would give you a pay raise as well. Now, the thing about hillside, panther swamp, Morgan break and Matthews Break is that those hunting lands had never, they had been private land, they were not public land, they were not federal land and people had been hunting at Panther Swamp and in hillside for 100 years. They had deer camps there and they had duck camps there and they had all of this different stuff that was going on. So the first year the refuges were not open to the public because they had to be prepped. We had to put up the boundary signs. It is 56 miles around the original panther swamp. That’s more than that now with all of that they’ve added in past years, it’s 32 miles around hillside. And of course, most of Matthews Break was posted in the lake, on boundaries in the lake.

Ramsey Russell: Well, speaking of which, I’m sitting here gathered, this has been the era that it was, not only were those lands formerly private. I know that right here in the state of Mississippi, I believe it was Yazoo, they’re around Swan Lake. That property was condemned. That was the federal government saying, hey, this is great hunting, we’re going to take it. It wasn’t negotiated, it was adversely possessed and it was so contentious in the state of Mississippi when that happened, that was the very last property they ever adverse possessed and in the country. But I’m just imagining as you all got started, converting it from private hunting camps and personal use and private properties to federal refuge, it may have been a tad contentious.

Warden: It was very, it was a big problem. Every structure that was on those lands camp or anything like that had to come down, and that’s kind of where my part came in. Every fence had to come down. It had to convert back to natural to a natural state. And we had a lot of town meetings. And I would say almost none of them were friendly. And one of the things that they were kind of adamant about back then is, and this is no slide against state game wardens. But state game wardens have those positions pretty much for life. They’re very local to the community. They know everybody, they know your dad, they know the deacon at the church and all this kind of stuff. And they didn’t want you to have that kind of relationship with fish and wildlife service at all. They didn’t want you, I mean, they didn’t want you to forcefully be just a pain in the rear end, but it was kind of like there’s a new sheriff in town and their new rules and this is the way it’s going to be and it’s kind of a my way or the highway. And I was in my late twenties and I mean, I guess somebody in their too late twenties today would think they’re all grown up. You are far from all grown up in your late twenties. So it was a real eye opener for me and I knew a whole lot of people in that area. I mean, I’d lived my entire life there as well as three other people. We had a staff of originally of eight and four of the eight were locals which made it even harder on us than we had a refuge manager that came out of Rhode Island, that in itself was an issue old boy. His opinion of Mississippi was horrible. He thought we were all barefooted and we didn’t have paved roads and all this kind of stuff. And he thought everybody was after to do some kind of harm to the refugees.

Ramsey Russell: Major PR problems. I can see that right now.

Warden: Yeah. And it took a while, but they wanted us to make a statement when we started and there was not going to be any, well, we’re just going to give you a warning this time. You are not in a state violation. You were in a federal violation. And when you were talking about doves and ducks, you were also in violation of Migratory Bird Act. And there were hefty fines and they were arrest and you would not go before local JP, you would go before a federal magistrate in Jackson. And there are occasions where you were not issued a written ticket, you were handcuffed and taken to Jackson. And so it was interesting. And for me the reason, I made jumping ahead a little bit here, but the reason that I eventually left chose to leave the Fish and Wildlife Service was, I was a young married guy and think about it. Everybody that we approached had a gun and a young married guy in his 20s, my wife pretty much thought, everybody’s going, I mean he’s going out in the middle of the night, he’s going against guys that have guns and that was a big problem.

Ramsey Russell: How bad was it? How bad was the migratory bird violations back in that era?

Warden: Well, there were, I know fines that went into the over $10,000.

Ramsey Russell: Wow, that’s a lot of money back then. There’s a lot of money now. Good gosh.

Warden: Seized vehicles and seized guns and a lot of stuff like that. And there were some that even spent jail time.

Ramsey Russell: My goodness. So how long were you agent with the federal government?

Warden: From mid-70s to right before my son was born, he was born in 83, so about 1982.

Ramsey Russell: So over 10 years. I know it’s a mandatory retirement at 20 years. You know, they don’t let law enforcement go more than that.

Warden: Well, they back then in order to reinforce that not becoming friends with anybody or that kind of thing, they would only let you stay at your original or at any location from a period of around 6-8 years, then you’re going to have to move. And for me they don’t, when they decide that they’re going to break you up and move you to another location, they don’t ask you where you want to go, they tell you where you can or want to go. And for me it was Mississippi Sandhill Crane just around Gautier Mississippi and I went down and I visited with those guys and right out of the gate, the refuge manager asked me was I married and I said yeah I am, and he said so you’re just, how long you’ve been married? Not very long I’m in my 20’s. I just kind of getting started and he said well I’m going to tell you, he said we’ll go through all this and I’ll tell you everything you need to know but pretty much I would strongly suggest this only to a single guy. And I said well that wasn’t an issue where I came from. And he said yeah it’s a different situation here. Back then they were just starting the layout of I-10 across southern Mississippi. And they had pretty much plotted out where it was going to go. What counties it would go through, what part of that county, what road intersections and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of people in the area anticipating the traffic that would be coming down I-10 went and purchased land that was going to be at an intersection where they could put a gas station or a restaurant or grocery store or something like that. Well and then the federal government kind of mess that up for them. The fact that I-10 was going to go through Mississippi Sandhill crane refuge and the federal government wasn’t going to let that happen. So basically you had two federal agencies arguing. You had the Department of Transportation building the interstate and you had US Fish and Wildlife service dealing with the refugees and Fish and Wildlife Service won out. And they had a route, parts of I-10 around that, which what happened was that those people that bought all that land bought the wrong land. You know now the place where the gas station was going to be a pasture and not anywhere near the interstate. So he said the problem that we’re going to encountered down, he said, what is your wife do? She’s an elementary school teacher. She won’t be able to get a job. So what do you mean? I said she’s well, she got a master’s and well experienced and all this kind of stuff. He said they’re not going to hire if they know that you work for us. He said if you go to the grocery store, they may not sell your groceries. He said we live on the refuge down here and we have our gasoline brought in. We’ve got above ground tanks and how we keep our vehicles and all that kind of stuff running. And he said, we do not have a good relationship with the community down here at all. And he said, if that’s what you said, if you think your marriage is strong enough and that’s what you guys want to do and then you’re well qualified to do it. But he said if I were you, I’d give it a lot of thought.

Ramsey Russell: Apparently you did. You didn’t go down.

Warden: Yeah. I just had not a lot to gain and a whole lot to lose.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll tell you what that’s a sad way to doing business. I mean you’re managing and I’m not judging nobody. I’m saying you’re managing a public resource but it really kind of take a partnership with the public, to do something like that. I just can’t imagine those days federal government coming in saying, yeah we’re going to take this duck hole and make it ours.

Warden: Well, after the first couple of years in those four refuges were called the Yazoo complex at the time. And the relationships got better. I don’t know if it was because half of us were locals or not or the ones that weren’t adjusted to the situation but it got better.

Ramsey Russell: It got it got better because I know a lot of fish and wildlife service staff throughout the state of Mississippi and just known to be just super good people that went to school like I did at Mississippi State with wildlife and just had interest of the resource of mine and became active pillars of their community, deacons and everything else. But boy, what a terrible time to be in law enforcement with all that going on. Changing gears just a little bit. Let’s talk about your being law enforcement, there during that time with those hefty fines and some of that stuff going on, were you still duck hunting? As a duck hunter. How did, how is it, how did you balance that? And I ask that question because I’m just reminded of a notorious federal agent that I worked with briefly super guy, I love him to death, I really did have a tremendous amount of respect for him. But I don’t forget one time I just became aware he didn’t really like duck hunters. He didn’t duck hunt himself. And I said, well, why not? He goes, man, he scowled at me. He said, I’ve never met a duck hunter, that didn’t lie to me. I’m like, wow. That kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, wow. I mean, its truth. When they saw him. He was the man he’d been watching. So when he came in and let it whereabouts be known he had them. Of course they lied. No, we didn’t shoot over the limit.

Warden: I know this guy personally, he was in at the same time we were, but turns out years and years later in my work that I do, we crossed each other and he was in a couple of classes I was teaching. Ran across each other again. But he took that new sheriff in town very, very seriously. And the first thing before I ever met him, I met his reputation long before I ever met him.

Ramsey Russell: His reputation is still notorious. You still hear stories about him kind of like the wide erp, type stories. He was sent there to clean up that part of the world and he did. At least I believe you did. But let’s talk about you a little bit. What are some of the experiences the stories you’ve got from that era in federal law enforcement? I can’t imagine.

Warden: Well in and starting out once everything was established and our offices were built and all the fences came down and that kind of thing. We had, we started really developing more because we’re talking about year, year and a half of doing that before we even saw people on the refugees. So, rumors were going and people were anticipating, well, they’re not going to tear my deer camp down there. I’m going to do all this kind of stuff. And there were other law enforcement involved in getting some of those people out of those deer camps in places and even though their land had been legally purchased, they still thought they had hunting rights and could come in. And I remember one of the situations was with, and we were primarily there for migratory birds. I mean, we had deer hunting and we had dove hunting and we had squirrel hunting and stuff like that. But we’re primarily there for ducks and geese. And but we had to deal with deer hunters. And back then deer hunters hunted deer with dogs and they had deer dogs and they turn them off, put them out in some parts, some area and then have guys on the other side of the woods or whatever and the dear would, I mean the dog could run through the woods and chase a deer out the other side and they shoot at them. Well on a federal refuge, you can’t have dogs at all. So we had problems with dogs running through the refuges all the time chasing deer and all this kind of stuff. So finally, they, we got an order and we started, had order to start constructing dog pens. So we were making pens to house dogs. So we started catching the deer dog. You might as well have started catching the guy’s wife, or his kids. And there was a, actually there was a warning the first time and then fine started after that and they increased in $25 increments, like 25 for a second, 50, 75, 100. And then there was a cutoff point of thinking about after about four or five times of catching their dogs. And it was a little bit of us softening a bit because normally if this has been happening a couple of years earlier, there would have been a one strike and you’re out kind of thing. But there were some pretty close heated situations when you caught somebody’s dog, it wasn’t so bad when they had to come to the headquarters to pick them up and they have been caged and they had to pay the fine and that, it was when you had caught them and then they showed up minutes later expecting you to just give the dogs back to them, which we were ordered not to do.

Ramsey Russell: What you all do then?

Warden: We took them back and caged, we had cages on the back of the truck and put them in the truck and took them back to the headquarters,

Ramsey Russell: They would come and pay the fine to get them out.

Warden: And, but I had an interesting situation that occurred and again, they wanted to make a statement and we ended up arresting a guy that I went to high school with. We were on hillside and we, if you’ve ever been on hillside, one side of hillside, the north side coming off Highway 49, is a levee that runs all the way to an area called Howard Station, which is kind of in the foothills coming out of Lexington. And, the boundary lines go along the side of the levee and they’re clearly marked and you can’t cross those lines. We had all kind of publications put out, we had a little hand out deals that were given out at town meetings and stuff like that, maps and all this kind of stuff. And we’re driving along there and there are some guys off to the right off of the refuge, rabbit hunting with dogs with beagles and they’re over there, they’re doing fine. We’re just kind of walk, driving along watching them. No violation. No problem because they’re not on the refuge they’re on private land. Well then the dogs, can’t see the signs or don’t read the signs. And the dogs come up the side of the levee cross over the top and go down into the refuge. As soon as they started up the levee, they’re actually on the refuge because the levee was on the refuge. And, we got four guys coming up and they got shotguns and come up on the side of the levee and like I said, one of the guys I went to high school with. So we try to be nice and say, look we don’t, number one, we don’t have a rabbit season on hillside. Number two can’t have dogs on there knowing that we’d pick your dogs up and you have to pay a fine. But what we’re going to do is if you will just put your guns down over there and go catch your dogs and get back on the other side. We’re cool with that. And so three of the four guys did that set their guns down. The guy went school with standing there just holding his but he was just standing there. Well, they go down there trying to catch the dogs and the dogs, they holler and the dogs come back to them. Well, one of the dogs jumps a rabbit right at the base of the levee and the rabbit comes running up the side of the levee with the dog right behind it and we’re standing there looking at the rabbit and the dog and all of a sudden boom, boom, three shots. And it’s the guy went school with standing there next to us with a shotgun shooting a rabbit on the refuge. And my partner who was the guy that got me into this to start with, in just about the blink of an eye, my school friend was laying in the gravel road with his face in the gravel being handcuffed. And he got a free ride to Jackson to a federal magistrate. And he was, at the time he was working for a sporting goods establishment. And when they found out about all this, he wasn’t anymore.

Ramsey Russell: Over a darn rabbit.

Warden: Over a rabbit. Standing there in front of two of us after we told them put their guns down and they couldn’t shoot rabbits on the refuge just to blame. So for my partner that was the statement that needed to be made. And but we encountered we’ve been running the borders, checking the refuge signs and stuff in the middle of the summer and catch guys deer hunting in the summertime. I never shot anybody. I shot at some people. You would be amazed when a and we had 357 Magnum Hollow points and you’d be amazed when one of those hits a tree next to a guy, how quick he’ll stop running, how quick he’ll put that gun down. But I did get peppered but a shotgun a couple of times. And that’s just really somebody running and shooting back over the shoulder. In our training and this was a surprise to me. They said that the people that you need to be concerned about aren’t the outlaws, they aren’t the big game violators. He said, those guys know the rules, they know the loopholes, they know, that ain’t their first rodeo. Said the guy, you got to worry about confronting in a situation like you would find yourself in is the deacon of the church.

Ramsey Russell: Oh Yeah. Somebody got something to lose.

Warden: Somebody who’s got a prestigious reputation in the community that if it came to light that he was head lighting deer or killing over the limit in ducks and stuff like that, that they’ll panic and that guy will shoot at you much faster than a guy that knows otherwise.

Ramsey Russell: My goodness. Did you ever run across any migratory bird violations? Gross over the limit, stuff like that?

Warden: Oh yeah, man. People can get very creative on where to hide ducks. of course, I guess the most inexperienced one are the ones that always stuff them down in the bottom of the decoy bag with all the decoys and then knowing that’s like the first place we’d look, but the real creative ones, we had in some places you had to go in and canoes or Jon boats and stuff like that to get back to some of the swamp areas and when you’d have a, on a Jon boat, you have a pedestal seat mounted on one of the seats in the Jon boat with just a round disk with like 30 screws in it and a little swivel seat to run out board. All those 30 screws if you looked at them, kind of close, none of them look like they had ever been touched. But half a dozen of them were almost wore out from being screwed in and screwed out and you take that off and under that hollow seat where that seats mounted is where they put the ducks.

Ramsey Russell: What took a good eye to notice something like that?

Warden: Well, it wasn’t from, we would get communications from other people that would say these are things to watch out for, back in those days, today every trucks got some kind of fancy mac wheel on it back in those days, a fancy truck had a regular rim and a pie plate hubcap that just went over the lug nuts. And they were about 4 inches, some of them, 4 inches thick or so, they dress them down and put them in, saran wrap or something like that and put them in the hubcaps on the truck.

Ramsey Russell: Just want some ducks pretty darn bad. Do you recall the biggest bust you ever made with ducks? Like gross over the limit?

Warden: A business associate of my wife got invited to a duck hunt and by a large company that was in the catfish business. And he was inviting, customers in from all over the country, I guess, and they had a big duck hunt. This guy called me one night about 7 or 8 o’clock and he was very nervous. He said he knew what I did of course through my wife and, he said that there were, I forget how many people, there were a lot probably pushing, I don’t know, 50-75 people or so that were circled around these catfish ponds and the ducks were coming in and they were shooting the ducks. And he said they never picked up or one. And in his discussions with them because they fed him and did all this kind of stuff and house them. And he said they were from out of state, most of them they had no license, they had no duck stamps, they were all shooting lead shot and nobody was shooting steel. And he was worried that he didn’t want to be a part of that and if they got caught and it’s found out it could hurt him as well. So he was basically telling us what was going on. So I made some calls and the refuge manager contacted the Jackson office and we went in with a large contingency of wardens everything from using our plane. We had, it’s kind of interesting back then because when I started the big bad three wheeler that was on the market was a Honda 90 that was it. And to see three big hunters sitting on a Honda 90 you see one of those things today looks like a tricycle and then they issued us Honda 110s. So we were certainly big and bad because we had the biggest machine on the market which was a Honda 110. But anyway went in on those, we had a couple of Kaiser, well for driving military Kaiser Jeeps and just a real big raid and basically caught them all.

Ramsey Russell: My goodness. It must have been just hundreds of, probably not just duck, probably just birds I can imagine cormorants and seagulls and everything else. Black birds just all kind of stuff.

Warden: Yeah. And that guy his fine was over the $10,000. Mark.

Ramsey Russell: Was the law in place back then? I know there’s certain federal laws now that like if you abated a dove field you are responsible now they may all get tickets, but you the landowner, the host. I mean you got a taller hurdle to cross than just going out there and shoot birds. That would have been a major deal.

Warden: Well that’s just like dove hunting, you can have abated field across the highway from you and you’re hunting on the other side of the highway. You’re hunting in near proximity. You might be here, you’re hunting over the same abated field.

Ramsey Russell: Were you active? I know a lot of law enforcement in the state of Mississippi State and federal collaborating or act very active around Labor Day weekend because of dove hunting. I’m sure you saw some stuff.

Warden: Yeah. It was later on that we actually started, preparing dove fields. But in the early days, we pretty much stayed on the refuge, if we were asked by the state to assist on a dove hunt or duck hunting off of a refuge, we have jurisdiction because of migratory birds, but typically we didn’t intervene on something like that unless the state kind of coordinated it and wanted some assistance even on some deer situations.

Ramsey Russell: As a duck hunter yourself, because you’re a duck hunter first, now you’re law enforcement in refuges and you continue to duck hunt. Did you ever have any problems balancing the to reconcile the two? What am I? Did you ever show up at a duck counts may go and hit the door leaving because they said the game wardens here. I mean, did you ever run any problems like that?

Warden: Yeah. Had a couple of situations, one I hunted with a group of guys further up in the Delta. Really good friends of mine for 20 plus years and have really nice location and all this kind of stuff and they invite guests and people up all the time and they give away duck hunts for ducks unlimited and things like that. Anyway, I came in with the owner and a Hunting buddy of mine that I’ve been hunting with for probably 20 years and under this really nice cabin, we call it as the cabin was about 6000 square feet, you could drive your truck underneath it. And but anyway, there was a group of people kind of reminded me of like Neshoba County Fair when you got a politician on the soapbox and a crowd of people around them listening. But it was an attorney that had the attention of about a dozen people. And this was actually after I had left service. But a lot of times just in situations like this we would use that what you used to do kind of stuff. And this guy’s telling duck hunting stories about everything he’s shot and killed and how many times over the limit and all this kind of stuff and just going on and on and on. And we just stood there and after he got off his soapbox and came down and came over to introduce himself, of course he knew the owner and so the owner was introducing us to him and he asked my, but he introduced himself to my buddy and he told him what he did and, he asked me, he said, and your name is, and I told him and he said, and you do what? And I said actually I didn’t have to say a word the owner said, yeah, he’s federal game warden. And the guy immediately, I mean you couldn’t have snapped a finger quick enough turned to the dozen or so people that he had been talking to and said, I want you to know that everything I said to you moments ago was a bald faced lie and it was merely for your entertainment pleasure. I mean people in duck blinds have the same situation happened now I encountered while I was still with the service, you asked earlier if we if we got to hunt and yes we did. And in the early days when hillside started up, you had to come to a check station and you had to physically check in if you wanted to go duck hunting and you had to show your license and all this kind of stuff. And you were given a permit there. You had to buy your steel shot from us. 16 was the max you could take in. And they were 20 cents apiece. Well imagine if you could buy for 20 cents apiece today.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, probably I’ve got

Warden: Yeah, but 16 was the max you could carry in and then so you could leave and you could go out and you can hunt till noon and you come back. Well, after a year and a half of covering those refuges and putting all the boundary signs and we had an airstrip and we had a plane and we did flew over and did duck counts and so we knew that those refuges like the back around. Knew where every duck was going on any given day. And there were times when not we’d always leave. One person would stay back at the station just in case somebody gave it up or had a problem and came back. Of course we all had radios, but some of us would leave and we’d go out and go shoot a limit and come back before the first duck hunter ever got back to the check station. Now, it was that easy to do. And particularly with hillside, there were times that I would have rated, I mean, I’ve hunted in other states and been to Arkansas a bunch of times and I thought hillside was better than any place I’ve ever been. And I know it’s changed a lot now, but back in those days it was unbelievable how good it was. But at the same time was talking about, it’s a public hunting place. So no matter where, how good a place you find and what you’re going to be doing, you couldn’t put a permanent blind up, you could do some temporary stuff, but you couldn’t go in there with a hammer and nails and build duck blinds and leave them in there. Everything had to be torn either natural or torn down and taken out when you came out. So it’s easy if you’re listening, if you’re sitting up on the levees and listening and know where all the shootings coming from to figure out that man, they’re tearing them up in that spot back there. We got to scout that out and we got to find out how to get there. And so we had people start to follow us in and it was fine and they could come in and hunt nearby or something. But what they started doing was to the birds have got to fly into the wind, to land. So they’d get into the wind ahead of you and you’d call the ducks and they’d cut them off and they’d shoot him. And it was a surprise to some of them when we confronted them and we all had badges on anyone, but that situation started while I was there and it went on for several years, even after I was gone.

Ramsey Russell: Now are we talking about the famous hole?

Warden: The 130 hole.

Ramsey Russell: The 130 hole. break it, it’s interesting because I met you through a mutual friend of ours and you started telling me the story and I’m like, I know a lot of people involved in this story. I know most of everybody involved and I’ve actually many years later hunted this very spot and so by all means, let’s tell this story because I know a lot of folks listening, I cut my teeth on public land in the state of Mississippi and most everybody I know has hunted public land and many people continue to hunt public land. And, so I’m sure public land hunters listening today can relate to anything you’re about to say about down winding and races through the swamp to get to the spot. Did this particular hole have a name? Did it ever have a name before this story?

Warden: No. I mean, it was a well-known spot for us because of all the places on hillside that we would fly over and count ducks and see where they were and where they’re moving certain parts of the day and stuff like that. This place always without fail, always had ducks. And you could, we would sit on patrols in the afternoon, we’d sit on the levee and just about dark, the ducks would start coming into that spot and they would come in by the thousands and they will go, I mean you could sit there and plain as day, see where they were going. So it was one of those areas that we did a lot of investigating on and it basically turned out to be the spot that I found.

Ramsey Russell: It wasn’t feed they were coming to.

Warden: No, they were coming in there to roost and rest. Because what would happen, you could go in there, you could get in there as early as you wanted to in the mornings and you might kill a couple of ducks right at daylight. But as it started to approach, like seems like always about 5 minutes before shooting time those ducks started getting up and coming out of there and by the time it was legal shooting time, 99% of them were gone. And you’d say what I mean, what is going on? All these ducks in here, been in here all night, we saw him coming here this afternoon before and there were thousands of them where did they go, well, they were basically flying out to feed, but all you have to do is just sit there and wait for about 8 or 8:30 and they started coming back in waves in about 30 minute increments still coming at noon. Of course you had to be done shooting by 12:00 noon. And honestly, I believe that you could have gone in there with no duck call, no decoys and limited out every time you went in there. They just, it just seemed like it did not matter. They were going to come to that spot.

Ramsey Russell: Describe what that hole, I don’t mean where on a map at it, but just describe what that hole looked like back then.

Warden: Well, when the Corps of Engineers, there are a lot of creeks and little ox pose and stuff that ran through the refuge. And when the Corps of Engineers built the levee system there and cut off a lot of those and coming off the main levee on hillside, one of those little sloughs went back banked hard to the right when a couple of 100 yards turned again a little bit to the left and started a pretty quarter of a mile run, but in that little elbow there off to the left hand side, was just a natural opening, just a natural hole.

Ramsey Russell: Surrounded by cypress, tupelos?

Warden: No trees, no buck brush, no trees. The trees were about with boundary along the slough going in, there’d be trees all in the slough. But the actual hole itself, there were no considerable willows and buck brush, but it just had to seem to have a natural opening in it and they’d come into that opening and then they’d swim out into the buck brush and over into the slough and kind of span it. But it was kind of like that was the airport, that was a landing spot and that’s where they wanted to go. And it was kind of funny because one situation that could, it really never turned out to be a real serious problem and always admired this guy, especially being in my by now, early 30s. There was a guy that I swear he could have been my grandfather age wise that every morning that we were there had a canoe and he would push it down the levee and he’d go back in there and he’d get right next to us, we’d be in there ahead of him, but he’d get right next to us and we talked back and forth to him. I swear that guy must have been in his 70s or 80s and he’s always by himself and I was kind of worried about him that he was out there at that age hunting by himself, but he would, he get his ducks and then he’d leave and he never raised his voice, never hollowed, I mean, but he was going to be there. So it just got to a point where we knew that, we might have to stay 30 minutes longer, but just let that guy kill his four ducks and be gone.

Ramsey Russell: So how the hole earned the name 01:30 hole?

Warden: Well if truth be known, it ought to be called the 12:30 hole. Because the earliest time that I ever had to get in there to get ahead of this group of four, which by now probably most people know their names, I’m not going to mention any of them. But the earliest I’ve to get ready in there to be ahead of them was at 12:30 in the morning. And that was not from putting in off the levee at 12:30 that was being back there, set up at 12:30 in the morning. And then you had to sleep in the boat till about what? 6, 6:30 something like that, whatever.

Ramsey Russell: That’s never a good night sleep.

Warden: There ain’t a no warm place in a boat. I don’t care how many clothes you got on. But yeah, it just I mean, it didn’t start out that way. It started out with them trying to get there. It was a matter of whoever got to the whole first was the one that was going to have, the glory spot and it was race to one Saturday, it might be at this particular time, the next Saturday will be 30 minutes earlier, and it just kept backing up and backing up and backing up earlier and earlier and earlier.

Ramsey Russell: Did you ever at any time during this, I suppose this stretch for seasons? Did you ever just show up? And it was just like banjos playing? And it was, they were unloaded and you were unloaded? It was just a flat out race to the bank?

Warden: Well, I figured out something the only way you could get back to the hole back then was by boat. You could have walked back there, but it would have taken you a couple of hours to maneuver to get back there. So you had to go by boat. And I had a Coleman canoe at the time a square back 16.5 ft. canoe that and it’s made out of material called RAM X and it’s kind of soft and that those sloughs going back in there were full of down trees and cypress knees and every kind of obstruction in the water you can imagine. And the group of four had a metal Jon boat with an outboard, thinking that was the quick boy, they could just blaze back there and they spent most of their time trying to get to the hole getting off of a cypress knee or log or something that they ran up on where this little canoe that we had would just roll over that like butter on a hot biscuit.

Ramsey Russell: Well you were saying, you were showing me that boat earlier this evening. You were saying that you could the way it would bend.

Warden: You could watch it go across the bottom, like a bump in the bottom of the. Just watch a cypress knee go from one end of the boat to the other and we just ran a mint code, a trolling motor pulled a little mechanism out that would keep it from kicking up and just kind of put it in there, very much like today’s outboards.

Ramsey Russell: That way, if you hit something wouldn’t break off it just bend a little bit.

Warden: It just pop up out of the water and sling water and drop back down and away. You have to hold it the whole time. But man, I could be them back there 15, 20 minutes before they could get back there.

Ramsey Russell: That’s that working smarter, not harder, again.

Warden: And the other thing we did as we had to continue to get there earlier and earlier we would get there first, go ahead and low, put everything in the boat, get everything ready, put it in the water, go back up and sit in the truck and then when they came down the levee and their lights are shining, it didn’t matter even if you fell asleep and they woke you up when they pulled up, they still had to unload and get all their gear and all that kind of stuff. All we have to do is open the door, walk down the levee, getting the boat and go and we were there. So they never, hardly ever. I mean there was a time or two where maybe if we slept late or some kind of delay happened along the way, they might get there first. But we even tried making friends. It took a long time to even get to the point where we finally got to a point where it got so bad that we would call each other during the week to say whether we were going or not and honestly you couldn’t even trust them on that.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that ain’t really an indictment against somebody. That’s just ducks do stuff like that to people.

Warden: You tell them you’re not going and then, you know now that the other side’s going and you just got to get there earlier.

Ramsey Russell: I mean don’t trust me. Don’t trust me to give you the hole, if I know to be a bunch of mallards there tomorrow morning, I may say anything, I’m only human.

Warden: These guys loose lips, sink ships. They bragged about what they’ve done and even, I don’t know if you were a duck hunter and you’ve been in a swamp, you know, that voice and sound carries over water a long way. And they would talk about how many over the limit they had, they would talk about shooting with lead shot and stuff like that. And they were doing that even when I was still there and they got arrested a couple of times and then later on, it was just a matter of a phone call being made and they would be watched the next time they showed up. And I finally got to the point that I had met the guys in Greenwood, I was telling you about and started hunting with those guys and after that I’d probably only been back to hillside three or four times. Honestly haven’t even ridden through the refuge in and probably 10-15 years.

Ramsey Russell: I was thinking earlier during your story is probably being, gosh, I bet it’s been nearly 20 years since I was there. And I know the first time we ever talked about this, you were describing it as being just open and water with brush around it and when I hunted there, it was just rife with submerged aquatics and not lily pads but water primrose and highest type stuff. That refuge unfortunately was, and I’m sure I’m going to get some hate mail put mentioning that refuge online. But that refuge actually was designed as a sediment basin. It was designed way back when by the core to catch sediment eroding off of the hills and it and they knew when they designed it from my understanding, I was in kind of hardwood management back in the day when I learned all this, but they knew there was a timeline that, okay, it’s going to be filled with sediment will start doing hardwood reforestation, it’ll be up and it won’t be wetland it’ll be filled with soil. And I want to say, somebody over there told me that it was running half a century ahead of schedule. So much sediment coming off in pills. So just in the time that, you were chasing out through there and racing to get that duck hole, between the time of that time I hunted it a few times. It was about filled in. The water was, you didn’t want to step out of boat. It was kind of silty in place and stuff like that. It was bad.

Warden: It as well as I knew the area every single year after I had left and was still hunting there, I would go in a month or two ahead and scout and it had drastically changed every single year. There are two major creeks that feed Hillside, one’s called Danny Gusher and the other one’s Black Creek. And the magnitude of the water that comes out of those hills. And it is like you said it is silt, I mean it looks like chocolate milk coming under those bridges. Yeah, we used to have to have to put charges in logjams. It came down through there that were tremendous. Something like you’d expect to see in a logging operation somewhere where they’re trying to move logs down river, that kind of stuff. So I’m not surprised that I wouldn’t be surprised today if you could go in there with a tractor and plant it.

Ramsey Russell: It would surprise me a bit if we walk in there and there was a hardwood force there. That really would surprise me a bit. It’s just that, that place was ephemeral in the grand scheme of things. It was a paradise back when you were telling the story. It was very good hunting when I hunted it. And like you said 0.8 noon things got right. That’s when those mallards were coming in from wherever they’ve been feeding and but I’d be shocked to learn that, hole even exist now. I would be shocked and I wouldn’t recognize that if it did. You know what I’m saying? That’s very, one of the most interesting things talking about the origins of that refuge was that you had to buy shotgun shells from the staff when you checked in. I guess that way they knew, it was steel shot and you weren’t sneaking in some. But who came up, I guess if you’re assuming full mallard limit, maybe a couple of odd ducks who came up with 16 shells. I wonder was that assuming a 25%. Death ratio?

Warden: That was actually, I don’t know because that was actually in place even before I came on board. I went to Mississippi State as well and I duck hunting at Knox Bay forever. And I lived up there after I graduated state. And when I would go to Knox Bay and you’d hunt under that permit system drawing that they had, you had to buy your shells from them and it was a 16 shell limits. So that was in place, even before hillside and panther swamp and those were even opened up. So I guess it was just a fish and wildlife service because I really don’t know that you could back then. I don’t think you could actually go to a store and buy them. Honestly, I don’t remember, I don’t remember anybody having them.

Ramsey Russell: Now that you say that, you’re right because you couldn’t buy steel shot at retail, until the 90s. Until the early 90s.

Warden: And see this was in the mid-seventies.

Ramsey Russell: So fish and wildlife had enacted that role on fish and wildlife service land preceding that. Okay, that makes perfect sense. But still the 16 shells, it’s almost like on public land, that’d be huge. Heck on private land, that’d be great. Here’s your 16 shells, go get your ducks or come back instead of just sitting out there, shoot three or four boxes. Like folks did probably make it a little bit, you probably play the game a little bit hard.

Warden: You didn’t shoot three times if it wasn’t necessary.

Ramsey Russell: Would they buy it back if you brought bullets back at the end of the hunt?

Warden: No, no. And, I guess maybe that might have been a flaw, but I don’t know from sitting at a station and hearing the shooting. I think there were very few of them that took any shells home with them. But we didn’t actually check their vehicles to see if they were they had six left from the previous hunt, and that give them 22 and maybe they just had an up on it. But, it was odd to me too because hillside was a place that, and we had so many duck hunters just hear about it and show up to go duck hunting. Never seen it in the daylight, much less in the dark and they just head out and they had a map. But if you hadn’t been there and you hadn’t scouted and you’ve gone out man I don’t know you might as well just sat on the levee and hope something flew over. But it was different but you know I will tell you this, the whole steel shot controversy, one of the things that they had us do at the check stations when we were doing it that way is that when you brought your ducks back we took the gizzards out of them unless you had a duck that you wanted to have mounted and then we didn’t but we had to after all the hunters left we had to sit there and take all those gizzards and we had to cut him open and check them for lead shot and count how many and keep reports on it to feed to the fish and wildlife service. And I was, I had mixed emotions about the whole steel shot thing, particularly the fact that, you couldn’t, back then in the early days, you couldn’t hit crap with those things and while they were wanting to ruin duck hunting and do that, and but people say, well, they get hit with lead shot. So does that give them lead poisoning and they die from getting hit with a lead pellet? Absolutely not. Ducks, puddle ducks, mallards in particular, or like a vacuum cleaner. They stick your head down in the water and they suck stuff off the bottom of the, that’s why you see them in more shallow water than you do like divers and not after the fish of things like that. And they suck it up like a vacuum cleaner and all of that has to pass through the gizzard. And if lead gets in a gizzard, it also ulcerate the gizzard, just like a cancer and that’s what kills the duck.

Ramsey Russell: Did you all find a lot in the gizzard sample?

Warden: The max I ever found in one gizzard from one mallard was 17 lead shot. And it was when you cut that gizzard open, it was one of the most god awful smells you ever smelled in your life. It was, I mean it was cancer magnified.

Ramsey Russell: I had one of the professors told me one time that he entered a couple of wood ducks in the cropston lab. And one of them is light as a feather and one of them was just waiting like a wood duck. And he had forced ingested lead shot into the one. And as I remember him explaining it to us, I don’t remember the word ulcerate, but that’s a good word. He said, it got in there and basically just gum the works to where it wouldn’t process food and so literally like you just plug the digestive system with that lead shot in his gizzard. So he literally starved to death. He didn’t know he was hungry so he starved to death. That’s very interesting. And I think we all agree now in a good year, 2020 that lead free environment here in America is a good thing. I think we all can agree that do the best by the resource and stuff like that.

Warden: That of course that was another big contention because when we had the lead, I mean the steel shot requirement on the refuge, there wasn’t a steel shot requirement anywhere else in the state. They could still use lead shot on private land. And they were all the time, especially in the public meetings asking how you going to know this and how you going to know that. And of course we had magnets, we could check the shells with, but when they went to the 100 points system, where each duck have a certain point and you had to shoot ducks in the right order in order to maximize the 100 points. I remember one night we’re sitting there and this guy said, okay, so I’m hunting and I killed my four, my five ducks or whatever with the point system and sitting and then I’m going to tell you I shot this one this way and that one that way and this one this way and that’s how come I got five or I got two hens or whatever turned out to be, I think hens were 70 points apiece, so if you kill two hands you were done. And so how are you going to know which one of my ducks I shot first? Reach in the left pocket of the shirt, pulled out a rectal thermometer. I said, Okay, there’s your five ducks. You shot that one 1st, you shot that one second, shot that one third, then just down the line got real quiet.

Ramsey Russell: Did you ever have to try that out in the field?

Warden: A lot of times after you just show it to them? That was it. It was like there’s no need you know because then you’re going to get him for lying to you. So you want to recant that again or you want to take that back.

Ramsey Russell: How have you seen? Because I know you continue to duck hunt these days, but since those good old days or bad old days. How have you seen it change? Have you seen a change? I should say in duck hunting or in duck hunters since those days.

Warden: It’s harder for hunters that are not involved in duck clubs or duck camps or whatever to have places to hunt. Even though there is there more public land in the last few years. But public land is fine, but if you’re going to be successful on public land, you better scout it and you better go in there with the attitude that the fact that it is public land and you don’t own it. And if a guy comes in and decides wants to hunt right next to you, he has every right to do that. And if you can deal with that and you’re all right with that fine. But I can remember, we were growing up just going kind of anywhere we wanted to was either just a phone call or it was they don’t care if you go on the land and hunt it. There was it seemed like there were more places to go, more availability and maybe I was maybe I was naive and it was, but we just didn’t encounter any real problems. So I think accessibility to land and then actually, and this is again probably an environmental thing when the hillside and pants swamping all those first open, you could go back in there in a four wheel drive truck. Then it went from a four wheel drive truck to being able to go back in there, they stopped the trucks because the trucks tore up the lanes and stuff road so bad. Then they went to the three wheelers and you can go anywhere on panther swamp in a three wheeler you wanted to, I mean no road, no trail, just wherever you wanted to go out to. And then the four wheelers came along and the four wheelers carried more weight. And even though they don’t do as much damage to their land, they do your enough. Especially now, I mean good gosh! A four wheeler now, like a 1000 weighs as much or more as a dozen one tens.

Ramsey Russell: You put four men into it. It just weighs as much as a jeep.

Warden: The three wheelers you used to could, if you got stuck, you got out and you picked it up and you set it over to the side and you went on. Now, you know if you don’t have a winch and something that which that sucker out with, it weighs so much as you might as well have been in there with a truck and got stuck. But the access started to change it got to where. Then all of a sudden there were certain trails that you could go on and the trails started out to be pretty extensive. And then they started cutting back on the trails. The trails would only carry you to a certain spot. And then you had to go on foot from there. And I’m going to tell you what my least favorite place to hunt was Panther swamp. You can get lost for days in panther swamp. It has very little access and it’s rough. Its matter of fact it would be a good place for the marines or somebody to train. Put up in a training school or something there. But so that makes it more difficult. And we talked about the expense of duck hunting now. man, I cover my buddy and I were talking not long ago said man if we were just getting started out hunting today we couldn’t even afford it because you got to, I mean there are very few places you can walk into. So you got to have some way of getting in there. So whether you see by boat or whether it’s by for and of course there’s no three wheelers anymore. So it’s four wheelers or its side by sides and you might as well be buying a car as to buy some of those items. Matter of fact someone more expensive than cars. Can’t you see all these big four wheel drive trucks all over the place? And I have one. And but I mean it mostly drives on pavement and down a gravel road to get to the place that you have to unload the ranger to go off. You know so it there’s a lot of money involved in decoys and spinning wings and all the hunting clothes and all that kind of stuff. The prices have just are just out of sight on that stuff.

Ramsey Russell: We had a guest recently describing something very similar. He’s been in the guiding business for about 60 years, 50, 60 years. And that’s one thing he pointed out was the difference in hunters now versus hunters then. He said the hunters then wearing the red ball waiters and the green coat and a mismatch camo. And they were happy, and he said now the guy and he said just the way his words were, how they presented themselves. The price tag that come with that gear and with that equipment and therefore their demand for a return on that investment. And maybe he suggested it compromises their enjoyment of just getting out there in duck hunt. But it’s all been very interesting and folks I know we ran a little bit longer than normal, but I just found this topic very fascinating. It’s not too often you get to talk to somebody that has been on both sides of law enforcement, that is duck hunted for 60 years and can share a lot of his pearls of wisdom. Thank you all for listening to this episode of duck season somewhere. It’s our time of year guys, I hope you all are in a duck blind and are going to a duck hole this morning and I hope you all are having a good season, see you next time.