How To Pick Your Next Waterfowl Guide Like Ramsey Russell

“Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Duck South Studios in Oxford, Mississippi with me today. And today we carry on with part 2 of our conversation with Ramsey Russell, as he sits in a gas station somewhere in the middle of Argentina.”

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Duck South Studios in Oxford, Mississippi with me today. And today we carry on with part 2 of our conversation with Ramsey Russell, as he sits in a gas station somewhere in the middle of Argentina. Today we talk about Ramsay’s US hunt list and how it relates to Get ducks, how he brought some of the guides in, that he uses on the US hunt list and how he picked him. How to choose – and it gives you an insight on how for you to choose your next guide in the US. So, let’s continue with that interview now.

“Man look, we used to work with the lodge, we used to work with an outfitter and kind of a handful real hit or miss hunts down Argentina but one year we got like 10 or 15 client survey one from a guy that brought his own gun but the guns were such junk and this one oldest and best companies that charges $1,500 a night or something, big la-di-da lodge and real expensive and the guns were so bad that a client that brought his own gun was complaining about how bad his experience was because I would talk at the table. And so we actually cut and pasted those answers and surveys and sent it to the outfitter and guess what, the next year he had the same guns.”,

Ramsey Russell: And I would invite anybody. I’m very proud of our testimonials. We get a lot of testimonials from client, we get a lot of emails, we get a lot of stuff like that talking about these hunts and we figured out, I used to send out this little email about a – kind of like when we got back from hunt I send out this little email. One guy booked a hunt one time to go to Uruguay back in the days we were chasing down hunt over there, we finally gave up and just hunting worth a crap over there coming to Argentina and have a good time. But anyway, I sent my little questionnaire to this guy and he calls me he says Ramsey, I used to work for coca cola, I don’t know if you know this, I basically work with coca cola and what I did was consumer surveys and if you don’t mind I can help you, I’d like to help you make this questionnaire better. I said, well by all means help me. I’d love to have that. We sent out so now ever since then we got a real questionnaire, we got it built into a little survey on online that we can send to people and it consolidates the data and it looks and everything and like when you look at something, every single hunter that goes with us we send a post hunt survey. Did you have a good time or the hunt was successful? Did you kill enough bird? I mean, some say you ask it three different ways to get the right answer and then we go into everything about us, everything about the outfitter, everything about the hunt, everything about the lodging and so if we get a comment, man, the guns were crap, my guns hung up or the meals were no good, hey, I take it importantly this guy wasn’t happy with something I need to follow up but what I look for, when I’m able to see a trends. Man look, we used to work with the lodge, we used to work with an outfitter and kind of a handful real hit or miss hunts down Argentina but one year we got like 10 or 15 client survey one from a guy that brought his own gun but the guns were such junk and this one oldest and best companies that charges $1,500 a night or something, big la-di-da lodge and real expensive and the guns were so bad that a client that brought his own gun was complaining about how bad his experience was because I would talk at the table. And so we actually cut and pasted those answers and surveys and sent it to the outfitter and guess what, the next year he had the same guns. We said, no we’re done. And we just moved on and started working with other people that do what they say. Rocky, talking about this US hunt list, I’ll tell you, my core mission is ducks season somewhere, ducks all over the world, foreign trips. I feel like a dirty middleman, if I book your trip to Oklahoma or Kansas or Texas, that’s exactly what I am, a dirty middleman. If you call me and I take your money to send you to Texas I’m just a dirty old middleman, I brought you no value. But because the internet is what it is because people do become overwhelmed, when you go google Texas duck hunting, you start reading all the different web pages, become a little, who I decide in Arkansas real big and I mean you go google Arkansas duck hunting, you go to 200 web pages of outfitter, you don’t know who’s who and people will rely on us for a referral and I feel better. If I spend that US hunt list outfitter and I’ve worked with that US hunt list outfitter, I don’t want booking, but because so many of my hunt, my guests that go internationally will go on domestic hunt and because so many guys that follow us on social media or that we know will go on small hunts like that local wise, domestic hunts, we feel good being able to refer them to somebody that would at least take their business seriously and I’m going to say this now, in North America, in the Continental United States of America I do not tell anybody you’re going to shoot a limit guaranteed. And when I hand off my brochure to show and that customer puts his hands on it starts taking I pinch it and when I look at him, I say I’m not guaranteeing your limit but I guarantee you these guys are going to do what they say. They’re going to value your business and that’s really all you can ask for in America right?

Rocky Leflore: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: You can’t guarantee a limit you, but you guarantee that this person is going to value your business and it is going to work for you and do what he can, he’s not going to just, you should’ve been here yesterday, we ain’t got no duck, so, we’ll just hit a liquor snake and go watch TV, huh? No, they’re going to keep trying to pull a rabbit out of a magic hat. Now, I learned this from an outfitter I’ve worked with for 12 years named Chris Wuji Michitoba outfitters. We booked him for many years, I think for about 8 or 9 years, 10 years we actually booked this hunt to go to Canada, we don’t book hunts in Canada anymore, we just worked with outfitters we know reputable and on our US hunt list. Call them, don’t call me but you can read all the details I’ve been there many times, I’ll tell you the story. I was in Arkansas duck camp at the time and one of the member wanted to go to Canada hunt, he wanted to go too late, just back in the good old days that it actually got real cold early and we used not run hunts up there past about the third or fourth week of October but these guys wanted to go on Halloween and hunt into November and I kept trying to talk him out of it, Jeff, I think it’s too late, Jeff, it be cold, Jeff the bear could bail on us, he finally said, look man, he said I’m a grown man, I got job, it’s the only time we could go and we want to go, I said, okay. I booked a hunt for him and in my world no news is good news, when my phone rings and the clients traveling and look anybody that calls or books a hunt with me your name’s in my phone okay? And when you call, your name comes up and say, wait a minute, he’s supposed to be at the destination answer the phone, because any client telling me he’s having a good time to call it, I guarantee you, he’s calling to tell me the airline stuck or whatever. So, in my world, no news is good news. I didn’t hear from the outfitter, I didn’t hear from him, three days came and went and on the 4^th day they supposed to be travel back home and I get a phone call from the outfitters and says, that was rough. What do you mean it was rough? He goes, Ramsey, it was cold. He said, those guys hunted their butts off. Four guys laid out in my spread for three days and didn’t even take a lunch break. I said, well how they do? He says they killed 23 ducks and one goose. Then it’s 8 a day should have been 32 a day, right? Man, my mouth got dry and my palms started sweating, I’m like, oh my gosh, this guy is a friend, I got to hunt with him up there at camp. I mean, I knew I shouldn’t have sold that hunt. I said, well, I appreciate you letting me know, he said, look, get him back up here, I’ll take care of them Ramsey, whatever we got to do to get them back up here, you let me know. I said, all right. They’re traveling that day, so I figured I’d call them the next day when they got back home, I didn’t have to wait that long. My phone rang and that client and his buddies were walking through the Minnesota airport when he called. He said, man, it was rough boy, it was cold, it was rough. I said, Jeff, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sold you hunt it was too late. He said, no, you warned us and we cleared the whole week we should have listened to it. He said, I’m going to tell you right now, find us dates, we’re going to go back with that same outfitter and we want to go back earlier next year. I said, you’re kidding. I said, I heard you shot 23 ducks and a goose. He said, well we shot at a goose, we didn’t actually kill him, we shot 23 ducks. He said, Ramsey, we laid out there it was bone chilling cold, he said that outfitter of yours never quit trying to pull a rabbit out the hat. He was on the phone, he was scouting field, he hired scouts to come in. He laid out in that field, he moved decoys, he blew his lungs out of what few birds flew over they said but you know what? We were sitting out there and I was thinking, I’ve never been so cold in my life and about this time this truck pulled up, we wondered who it was and the guy gets out of the truck opens up the patricide and brings out a 48 core nice and walks right into the decoys with it and opens it and he said it makes my mouth water just to think about the smell of cheeseburgers and fries that that guy had ordered to bring out to the blind and help us get through the day. He said, he just saved the day we were about to die. He said, bacon double cheeseburger I’ve ever had in my life and he said, Ramsey, the guy, he didn’t have no birds, it was froze out just like you said it was going to be, but we want to go back and see what this guy can do when you tell us to. Well, they went back the next year and shot with dark geese and ducks and light geese, they shot over 100 per day, you see what I’m saying? But my point is – not the numbers of birds, my point is the effort that the guide had put in and you learn as you go and I just realized nobody guarantee birds in America or north America but you can guarantee effort, you can guarantee value in the client. Now, this brings me up to a point Rocky, about Argentina this year. I’m in my favorite place. I’m in absolutely my happy place in this world. I love Argentina I won’t say it’s my favorite place in the world, the next duck hunt’s my favorite one, but I really truly love Argentina and I love this place I’m hunting, we call it Rio Salado and we found that a few years ago on kind of a Plan B C D E F adventure had a couple clients with me, I was coming down here to scout rice depredation hunts and a couple of province have them it’s real time and I’d say don’t buy that hunt unless you can fly on a week’s notice because you never know when the crops are going to come in and when the ducks are going to get in and all that good stuff. But we were down here scouting, we had plan B, plan C and we ended up in this marsh, I went out there, we had a great time and shot a bunch of ducks and I came back that was like in April and I came back that August it was dry. It hit a dry cycle at that year and I brought some clients back in August and we shot some ducks and had a good time, kind of recognize just what this wild remote place represented. And since then we have had some of the most unbelievable hunting that I’ve ever seen in the world, let alone Argentina, unbelievable, wild pure duck hunting and up to about May this year, everything was kicking along just fine and finally the drought caught up with the marsh. A wetland environment has got to dry out, like he’s got to have wet and dry periods or it becomes a lake bottom, it just becomes stagnant. And nobody likes to see a cypress break back home dried up but it’s got it, it’s vital to the long term health of that environment. Right now, we’re facing a drought and I was talking to a client on the phone that’s coming down next week about it and he burst out laughing he said, wait minute Ramsey, he said, you’re sitting here crying in the Blues it is bad has ever been and you mean to tell me you’re shooting 40 or 50 ducks a day? Yeah, but it ain’t – we’re about 30% off on the daily average right now, but we’re still shooting 40 or 50 ducks a man a day. So, I’m happy. I’m good.

“Now, and it kind of brings me and I don’t know, if we’re allowed or because you just stop me if this is not allowed to be talked about in this podcast.”,

Rocky Leflore: Let me ask you this, I think that’s the thing that people don’t – and I don’t want to go into great detail because it’s going to go along with the Get duck story as we reach later chapters in the story but I think, the thing that people don’t understand is people don’t just become a part of Get ducks and let’s take it from the US hunt list perspective if ABC outfitter calls you from Montana says man Ramsey, I want be a part of Get ducks. Now, and it kind of brings me and I don’t know, if we’re allowed or because you just stop me if this is not allowed to be talked about in this podcast. You’re not a middleman, they’re not paying you a percentage of the hunts of people that come through Get ducks number one, they have to be approved. You got to go hunt with them, you’ve got to see what they’re all about or somebody that works for you goes and hunts with them or multiple situations, you go hunt with them and you send people that you know and trust and come back and give you the story on that outfitter. Now, that’s just part of the story. You just don’t let them join up, you just don’t let them join a part of Get ducks and you don’t take money from their hunts. The biggest part that you do is number one, you put your name on the line, number two, you help them and that’s what I think is the coolest concept about Get ducks is and we talked about this in length off of the show about how you understand marketing and you helped get their name out there because it is a good place to go to.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s in a nutshell. Ducks migrate and hunters sooner or later find themselves migrating too, different species. There’s these things, now man, there’s a big thing it seems like everybody’s chasing the North American list and some people say 41 some people say 50 you can count all kind of which ways. I’ve kind of got my list spelled out on the North American list there and getducks.com and go look at some kind of see how I count them. But nonetheless everybody wants a new adventure. Everybody wants to see new patch, new ground, new species and in America man, of all the places in the world, you can hunt all the difference species, I don’t think there’s anywhere outside of the United States or North America that you can have such diverse hunting conditions and hunting traditions and species and I really think you could spend your whole life hunting around the United States and never run out of options and just all that kind of stuff that comes with it. And I’ll tell you kind of how they start Rocky, we were way back when booking hunts in the US. And then we got real big, it grew and it grew and grew, do you know that getducks.com has grown as a business. We have grown since inception. We have grown, now when I left federal government and put all in about 10 years ago, it rocketed off, it took off. I mean, Ramsey Russell’s full attention, 80 hours a week going at it and it just went through the roof. And the one year that we didn’t grow a lot was back during that big mortgage card house failed.

Rocky Leflore: I felt that one.

“What I needed to do was let you build a relationship with that outfitter from the first phone call. The reason kind of part of what we be doing in Get ducks help navigate everybody around dark corners and blind alleys and get them in and get them out, okay. But a lot of that’s critical in my relationship with that person.”,

“But I asked him, but as I said, well, there’s a lodge? He said, really? He said no, they walked in and introduce themselves, they got squared away and they kind of walk around the place and looked and asked for a hotel and they went and stayed in a hotel.”

Ramsey Russell: And the economic crises, everybody felt it but we still grew. Now, I’m talking 20-30% growth a year is what we’re doing and since Trump got elected, it is just unbelievable. What he’s done and you can tell in terms of consumer confidence and people feeling good about going places just in the volume of phone calls that we’re getting right now, it’s unbelievable. And but anyway, we started off with a MS Ducks guy named Harden Philips, Webbed foot that, I love to his heart, helped us build a web page, very simple web page and we went from there and somebody else has to step up a little bit. And right about the time that mortgage crisis hit, we realized, because I had about 20 people filed under ad gal my phone at that time, my phone kept ringing, people wanted me to buy ads I’m like, I’m nobody. Why people calling me? How they find me even? Why they want me to buy these expensive ads in this magazine. And what we realized is because a lot of people weren’t spending money to go on trips, a lot of people weren’t advertising in magazines, they were looking for new meat and I thought about that and I said, here’s my chance to get in the game and so we really invested deeply. We believed in ourselves, we invested in ourselves. We saw an opportunity and we went full in and on web page stuff on search engine optimization and all that kind of stuff and I’m getting to the answer Rocky, but this is important and we did it. And so say, a little bit after that as we were developing this model that we’re operating under now in terms of online, we consulted with some people down in Dallas and they, man did they know their stuff and they did all kind of witch ways on our website and they came to us one day in a meeting and they said, you have a very, very interesting website and what we find so interesting about it is the traffic that comes through there and it’s not so much just the volume of traffic coming through your webpage Ramsey, it’s the quality of their behavior once they get on your website. I said, what do you mean? He says, let’s just say, you’ve got 150,000 unique visitors a month, it ain’t quite that now, for a lot of that user ability has gone to social media and things of that nature how people operate today and it’s fine. But he said, what we’re seeing as we break it out is how people are coming to your web page and it’s almost like they’re reading your web page for the recreational value and they pointed out some trends how people would come on our web page and read 4, 5 or 6 pages, like a little lunch break, let’s say and then they come back a few days later, they pick up where they left off and they keep going and come back a few days later and keep up, it’s like, see we’re talking tens of thousands, 100 thousands of people were coming to it and that was kind of interesting and kind of insightful and then they asked the question, the business side of it, they said the question is how do you monetize that? I don’t know, I sell duck hunts for a living, don’t ask me. But we gave it some thought. Now, some of you all may remember, kind of the big push in life that got me off the federal government, that really was the straw that broke at the camel’s back, that really, this and this were lining up, I was fixing to leave and go to work myself, we’ll get that later, way later in the podcast but I got offer for a job to be editor of a magazine and it was ill fated. It just didn’t have the back that it needed, it didn’t have the preparation that needed but let me tell you something, I got to be editor of a really nice magazine for a few issues it lasted and it gave me a little insight kind of like you go to a restaurant you eat, but this was the opportunity to go back in the kitchen to see how the chef work and see how the restaurant worked and so one day around that time, I got a phone call from a guy down in Texas and he didn’t say, I want you to book my hunter, could you book my hunt or how did this work or not? What he said is, how do I advertise on your web page? He used that word kind of out of place but it made me think and around that time somebody else calls some guys out of Kansas called and they wanted to work with us. And I did not want to take on with any US hunts, we had kind of pared down and pared it down International was kind of our thing and at that time I had recognized that me sending you to pick a state was just dirty middle man, I brought no value to you. What I needed to do was let you build a relationship with that outfitter from the first phone call. The reason kind of part of what we be doing in Get ducks help navigate everybody around dark corners and blind alleys and get them in and get them out, okay. But a lot of that’s critical in my relationship with that person. And if you’re going to book a trip to Arkansas or Kansas or pick a state you need to build a relationship with that guy and not with me with him. You need to ask them questions, you all need to develop a report, it’s very critical and so I was thinking if I could just figure out a way to put peanut butter and chocolate together. And so what we did is we kind of thought it out a while, a little along while I kept thinking, I talked to my attorney, I talked to another attorney. I talked to a financial advisor, I talked to some outfitters, I just gave it a lot of soul search and thought and I said, I get it. Here’s what I’m going to try to do. And I understand everybody listening, I don’t solicit nobody. I don’t solicit an outfitter in the world for anything, especially US hunt list. When people call me and they do, we’ve got about 5 big hunts fixing to be added to US hunt list, as soon as I get home, I want people to call me because if they know what we do and they’re aware of our web page and our brand and our social media and all that good stuff and they’ll call me and they ask about being a part of US hunt list, it’s only because they recognized value to them in what we do and that’s the phone call I want. And sometimes as we talk about it, doesn’t makes sense to their business, it’s sometimes we talk about it, it doesn’t make sense to our business because trust me there is a little bit of fee involved but there ain’t nobody paying me nothing Rocky that can’t be just left. There ain’t nobody paying me anything that is changing my life or my livelihood, my business and my reputation is Get ducks. Argentina, Mexico, Azerbaijan so forth and so on, six continents worth and I don’t need the headache and I sure don’t need the liability to come and work with wrong outfitter. That’s explicit. Now, understand what I’m trying to explain here and what it does monetize that relationship without it being passed onto the consumer. If a hunt is worth $250, it shouldn’t be $300 because they’re working with us, it should be $250 because the outfitter has found an administrative relief in working with us and that’s the value we bring to the outfitter, we create awareness. I worked with an outfitter one time, it didn’t work out long term, that’s fine, he’s a good guy, but he’d been in business 30 years and when he calls me up, he’s talking blah blah I hung up, I said, 30 years this guy has been in business, so I called a mutual friend of ours, I won’t say no name but he’s a good close friend, a well-known celebrity. I said, man why does this guy want to work? I mean, he said, well he’s been in business 30 years, Ramsey after 30 years, you kind of get while it down in your own ruts. He just needs your help kind of work outside them Russkies wallet down in that made sense to me and he did. I mean, Rocky, you in business forever doing outfitting and you do everything you can to develop new business leads. You get all these clients coming back repeat hunters but eventually what I’ve seen is, there’s two kind of repeat hunters that come back forever, that’s the clients we all want, is repeat hunters. One they just wake up one day and say I’ve seen all of the Mississippi Delta, I want to see Arkansas, I want to see Kansas, they just want to see something different finally or two they just get old and tired and they fall apart. So there’s hunter attrition and once you’ve gotten dug into these ruts on marketing yourself and working the longer you go the deeper the rut, it helps to have somebody like us that had a lot of reach and we do have a lot of reach. I mean, boy, I’ll tell you what we work with an outfitter in Canada one time – here’s a funny story. Working with an outfitter one time doing goose hunts up in Canada and I had a guy call and leave a voicemail. He had kind of a funny English accent and before I could even really answer it I got an email from him, he was from Lebanon, Muslim. He wanted to go on this hunt. They wanted to go on a hunt like they had seen on satellite TV, they wanted to go on a real goose hunt like they’ve seen on TV and I called our outfitter up, he had dates, yeah, I’ll mix them in, I said, no, you can’t do that with this team. And I respect everybody’s religious beliefs that’s their business but I said, no, you can’t do, you can’t mix this team with some good old boys from south Carolina that dog ain’t going to hunt, I said, you need to have another crew for them. He said, well I could do that Ramsey, but I said, don’t worry about that. So, he quoted me a price, I called him up, I told him what the price was boom the money was wired that day. And so they were just outfitter and he got to take some true Muslims for duck hunting. You don’t mix people in together, don’t mix that kind of religion with people, I mean, because I’m going to tell you right now, they might be halaling that goose, they walk into to his lodge – this is funny, they walk into his lodge, and I talk to them afterwards, they had a great time. They had a wonderful time, is everything they wanted to be. They wrote that in a hunt survey. But I asked him, but as I said, well, there’s a lodge? He said, really? He said no, they walked in and introduce themselves, they got squared away and they kind of walk around the place and looked and asked for a hotel and they went and stayed in a hotel. So, in addition to paying a premium to have their own group, they went and stayed in hotel. I said, was your dog in the lodge? He goes, yeah, he was laying right there on the porch, he said, okay, that’s why. They ain’t no sleeping no dog, that’s just how they are. They ain’t sleeping in the house with a dog and I thought that was hilarious. The guide dog was in the house and my God, they won’t sleep with dogs and but they had a great time. We have a reach.

“I’ll say this from a – you talk about a value perspective and I’ve told you this many times. One of the reasons that people want to be a part of Get ducks is, not only that they want to be associated with Ramey Russell and Get ducks itself – I’ve spend a couple of seconds on this but from an SEO perspective man, Get ducks has a reach when it comes to google and I know that these people have to be approved by you before they go up there but man, the reach that you get by being a part of Get ducks, the value it’s way more than what you’re charging these people what they’re getting.”

Rocky Leflore: I’ll say this from a – you talk about a value perspective and I’ve told you this many times. One of the reasons that people want to be a part of Get ducks is, not only that they want to be associated with Ramey Russell and Get ducks itself – I’ve spend a couple of seconds on this but from an SEO perspective man, Get ducks has a reach when it comes to google and I know that these people have to be approved by you before they go up there but man, the reach that you get by being a part of Get ducks, the value it’s way more than what you’re charging these people what they’re getting.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I say you this Rocky, I think you’re right. When we started talking to the bean counters about this model, they all told us we were way cheap, well I said –

Rocky Leflore: Well, you think about this, what the average outfitter pays just for paper clips in between 5 to anywhere from $5 to $2,000 a month.

Ramsey Russell: That’s it Rocky. But here’s something I’ll tell you to take it a step further is, we recognized working with outfitters for all this time that, what may be the apparent value or the market value for this service is one thing, what is the actual value is something else. Because let’s face it, a lot of your good outfitters in North America have a real job too. They’re firefighters or they got other careers or they’re seasonal workers, maybe farming or something like that, they do this part time and they don’t have the annual cash flow that makes sense if you start talking “real advertising dollars” take it from me buddy, it hurts real advertising hurts. It half of all advertising is wasted if I could just figure out which half, you know what I’m saying? But it’s big check and it’s a big expensive value and start talking to magazines and TV shows and everything else but also it’s like I told those guys, I said, you all aren’t – I’m going to give credit where you all aren’t. You all don’t see the value that the right outfitter in take a step and brings to me. And it’s this, I have got clients that buy multiple hunts a year International, let me tell you something about my client, if they’re going international like those new guys are, they’re also hunt in a lot of domestic because that time and money thing, you know I’m saying? To them it don’t make sense to find to a big camp for a 60 day season, if they can only hunt 10 or 15 days and it doesn’t make any sense at all of them to them, it makes real good financial sense, go elsewhere and shoot ducks and have a vacation type hunt. And so that’s a big deal, so we give value to that but in addition to the online thing, there’s something we do like, good luck trying to get into Safari club international show in Reno this year or any year or good luck trying to get into Dallas safari club, it ain’t happening buddy, those doors are closed and you’re the one out and we’re in and not only in. But we’ve built a very good reputation for what we do and who we work with there. And so do you know the number one – I give away a 22 page of catalogue, I’ve got a brochure for every hunt in the world that we do, we’ve got of course media and TV and then come in and talk and I’ll tell you anything about any hunt. But the number one given away brochure at those big show with – I mean look, Rocky, you have a hunting show in Reno or Las Vegas, you got to understand something son, everybody at that show has flown to that show. They have come from all parts of the world throughout the United States. They have spent money or a private airplane or first class or coach, whatever they’ve come to that show and bought a hotel and bought bills and pay big bucks to get in the front door because they’re buying hunts and it’s a very premium market. And they’re coming in there and the number one most given away brochure of the year is that US hunt list because everybody, we give one to everybody whether they want or not but everybody comes in, I’m saying 25 or 30% of the people we meet at shows, Oh, they’re interested in Argentina but they also want to know about – I went over to Arkansas that time everybody in Kansas or hey, I moved from California, I want to shoot some mallards and I mean, they’re instant something close by too and that is just amazing the reach we build. You know I’m saying? But it’s how we try to work and in today’s final thing, I’m going to tell you why I do proof these guys. Now, if a guy would call me up, I’ve had outfitters come to me through referral of clients that have hunted with them and come back and the client is calling me and said, hey, I just want to let you know, you need to work with this guy, boy, the outfitter calls me and like, hey, I just had a whole bunch of your clients and they were telling me about what you do and I like, I’m interested in working with this, so I call the client and check on them. And so the way time it is Rocky, I may not have time right now to go check on Wyoming outfitter but bet your butt I have researched them and I know who they are and I know what they do and I know their dog trained and I know the guys that have hunted with them from Mississippi and we talked and then when I go out there and meet them I prove it. But at the end of the day during a hunt in the world on getducks.com or US hunt list that I haven’t set foot on because it’s my baby, that’s where it’s got to be.

Rocky Leflore: Well, I tell you what’s going to be great about – as we continue the story, when you get back from Argentina, I think one of the – because this is a learning process for you and there had to be, I’m not going to say missteps but failures that taught you okay, that’s how we’re going to do it better next time, your success –

Ramsey Russell: But that’s life Rocky. That’s just not a hunt consultant, that’s life, that’s business, that’s marriage, that’s raising kids, it’s everything because it’s like there are missteps. But what you got to understand about life and business and raising kids and marriages and everything about life is that, it’s not static, it’s not, it’s always changing and you’ve got to keep that’s why us sending to our international clients a post hunt survey and keeping our hands on the pressure, keeping our hands on the systolic pressure or pulse’s what I’m looking for. Keep our hands on the pulse of what they see our clients see, now it doesn’t really don’t make a damn what Ramsey thinks about a hunt, it’s what you think. At the day, it don’t matter what I think about the hunt, it’s what my clients think that’s what’s important, that’s what’s got to change. And countless in the 17 years we’ve done, there’s countless are the outfitters that we don’t work with anymore, they were great, they were awesome until something changed. And man, I have seen hunts go off the rails because the cook quit because the guide developed some form of addiction because two partners split up because a guy lost land because the weather change or the climate changed. I mean, there are parts of the world, man, nobody know this better than Bradley Ramsey and Patrick. We’re talking about the changes in agricultural use and there are places in the Mississippi delta throughout the Mississippi alluvial valley that have changed because the land around them has changed over the years and so yes, there are missteps, there will be missteps and I’m going to say one final thing about it, is go back to that human subjectivity and I meant to say this earlier, but people, it’s a people business. People are different and people want different things, it’s a very subjective experience. And Rocky, there’s some pretty difficult people in this world. There’s some people, you ain’t going to make happy. I get to see people in my business and it’s like they’ve got a hole inside them that they try to fill with dead ducks. To me, I love to hunt, anybody’s ever been around me in a duck blind knows Ramsey like to hunt. I love to shoot, I love to hunt ducks. But when I look back after 17 years of both personal and professional hunting is the people that I remember, is the people and the times and the laughs and the stories and the food and the camaraderie and the good times and bad times and that has been a very defining moment for me but I deal with people that I believe if they shot every duck on God’s earth they’re still unhappy little Children and I wonder don’t they realize that life is short. Don’t they realize that at some point in time they’re going to die all that stuff and all the numbers and all that crap means nothing, it’s the impact and the effect they had on people, that’s all you’re going to leave behind you and I had this talk with several people outfitters about people, about clients, they show up and they’re so miserable. They want the best, they demanded is I’m going to kill most ducks, there ain’t damn thing you can do to make them happy. And it’s tough for an outfitter, it’s tough for a booking agent and it’s tough for everybody. But here’s what I explain to somebody one time that I believe in my heart be true, I said, when we were Children, we believe in Santa Claus, Christmas has come remember how when you were a child and you believe in Santa Clause and how excited you became at the moment of morning that man with red suit coming down the chimney, giving everything you wanted, remember that?

Rocky Leflore: Oh, heck yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And now we’re adults and we know better there ain’t no Santa Claus life’s tuff. And I just imagine the regular guy paying a mortgage, working a job you may or may not like, work is work don’t matter, selling duck hunts or wherever you do for a living, work is work. And you know what I see is, I see these people and I take this seriously. Here’s a guy, he’s got a ugly wife or yelling boss, a barking dog, mortgage and debt and just weight on him, just imagine this guy slaving away at the office, but every now and then bite his pen and thinks boy, in three weeks, I’m going to be down in Argentina, in three weeks, I’m going to be in Canada, in two weeks, I’m going to be in Kansas, he just can still away and look forward to it because that’s an escape. It’s a vacation, his Christmas has come, he’s on the hunt of a lifetime Christmas is here. Well, sometimes those guys show up and they’re miserable. It’s like I told one of the outfitter one time because every now and again, Rocky, I’ll tell you, we fire people. There’s people I don’t want to deal with. There ain’t enough ducks on God’s earth to make that person happy. They’re trying to fill something in their soul that’s missing with dead ducks and it’s just impossible to be around or they’re outlaws but let me tell you what, don’t come around my business trying to be a poacher, an outlaw, nothing that we don’t want that, look at my terms and conditions, hell no. But I’ve told you an outfitter about a very difficult client, it’s like I told him I said, if he is that miserable on Christmas morning, so to speak, how miserable must he be in real life? What must be missing in his life? You kind of see that in people and I don’t know how I got off talking about that Rocky, but it was important for me. Hunting is no guarantee, man. I mean, if you want to guarantee duck, call me, I’m going to put you on 200 pound of corns and put out every day since for four months and hunted every 10 days and buddy I’m going to show you some ducks but outside of that it’s hunting, there’s weather, there’s climate, there’s drought.

Rocky Leflore: I think it’s a great way to close out these two episodes leading back into your story because all of what you just said was learned through your story and I think it’s a great lead in getting back into your story after these couple of episodes have aired.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’m going to tell you what, next week Mr. Jake Latendresse is coming down to work with me down here. He and I are working on a pretty neat project, I’m pretty excited about. We’ve been to Australia, he’s coming down here, we’re going to some other places. Jake’s a hunter you all know, he’s a hunter, but he is a gifted creative and I’m really looking forward to work with him to tell a story about duck hunting somewhere. And he’s coming down here and I hope he and I on the way back to Buenos Aires will have time to jump on the phone with you. Like I say, it ain’t what I think about Argentina’s it’s what my clients think and I think it’ll be really good if Jake could share with you, kind of what – because I know it is his first time, I was surprised that it was his first time to Argentina and I’m taking him to a pretty remote rare place, we are going to have a good time, so maybe we’ll have a chance to come back and talk to you all about some more Argentina, Rocky.

Rocky Leflore: That sounds good. Ramsay, look I know that you’ve got to meet clients, but look, thanks for taking the time because outside of just talking about hunting and there’s a lot of good knowledge and wisdom in this and especially like I said, it leads us into those next episodes of your story because you didn’t get all this wisdom from succeeding every single day.

Ramsey Russell: No way man, you learn from your failure. Hey, thank you Rocky, I appreciate it.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah, thank you, Ramsay. I want to thank all of you that listen to this edition of The End of The Line podcast, powered by ducksouth.com.

[End of Audio]

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