HPOutdoors Episode #79: Ramsey Russell of GetDucks.com

Josh Palm: This week’s episode of the HP outdoors waterfowl podcast is proudly brought to you by Southern Oak kennels. Southern Oak kennel specializes in importing, breeding and training British Labrador retrievers for the American wing shooter. Visit southernoakkennels.com to learn more about upcoming litters, available retrievers and gun dog training. You are listening to the HP outdoors waterfowl podcast, episode 79. This week on the show we’re joined by Ramsey Russell of Getduck.com. We talked with Ramsey about his experience chasing ducks around the world. All right, welcome to the 79^th episode of the HP outdoors waterfowl podcast where your on-demand audio source for all things waterfowl and waterfowl hunting. Check us out at HP outdoors.com. You can find us across all the very social media platforms, Facebook, twitter, Instagram. Can also check us out on anywhere, you can find quality podcast content, iTunes, Stitcher, iHeart radio, Spotify, all the good ones out there. We would like to thank gunner kennels for supporting this week’s episode, man’s best friend, deserves man’s best kennel. Check out their G1 series of kennels and accessories at gunnerkennels.com. We’d also like to thank Off Grid Food Company. They’re the premier provider of health conscious, whole food crafted backcountry foods for the hardcore outdoorsman. We’d also like to thank Mount Airy waterfowl club in Warsaw, Virginia. Thank you to the companies that support our show, and we encourage all of our listeners to support the companies that support what we do. Joining me this week as he always does Dan Hruska. Dan, what’s up man?

Dan Hruska: Not much. I’ve been running around trying to get my tire fixed actually my wheel. I was actually driving around taking pictures of spoonbills, which our guest is, I think quite a fan of, but yeah, so having a ton of issues and just running around getting all that done but besides that excited for the conversation tonight, and I’m glad to be talking to you.

Josh Palm: Yeah, it’s exciting to talk to someone who’s had an experience and opportunity to hunt ducks around the world and you know, be on many hunts that most would call a hunt of a lifetime and sort of have that as your business and something that you get to do all the time. And we’re excited to be joined this week by Ramsey Russell. Ramsey, how’s it going, man?

Ramsey Russell: Man, it’s going good, glad to be here. How you all?

Josh Palm: We’re great. I know, many people that are listening to this show this week are probably digging out of snow. You know, we’ve had some crazy weather across the country, but I assume down in your neck of the woods everything’s pretty good. Starting to warm up, feel like spring.

Ramsey Russell: Everything’s fine. Fish are biting, it’s already in the 80s. Re-boil crawfish every night, its life is good, down south right now.

Josh Palm: Yeah, I know Dan was sending me pictures of snow this week. So I’m sure he’s a little bit jealous of what you got going on there. But you know, we’re excited to have you on this week. And you know, we wanted to talk a little bit about sort of what you got going at Getducks.com and sort of just, you know, the process of not only planning but also going on a hunt somewhere overseas or on the other side of the world, and just sort of all the things that go into that experience, and you know, things that, if guys are interested in pursuing something like that, things they need to be aware of and consider and things like that. So kind of before we get into it, maybe tell us a little bit about Getducks.com. What it is, what you do, sort of just for anybody that’s listening that’s not aware of what that, what your service is. Give us a little bit of a rundown as far as what you got going on there.

Ramsey Russell: Sure. You know, we started technically in 2001. We incorporated in 2003. I was still a forester and biologist with the federal government. And right after college I got my first real job, I had a little money growing up hunting down the south and I wanted to go and shoot real Canada geese, not these resident birds. I want to go shoot real migraters. And one of my good friends, I’ve been hunting with him 30 years now, he was also a major professor in college. I talked him into going to Canada with me. We booked a trip from the world’s foremost outfitter and it was complete unmitigated disaster. It was, you really can’t make this kind of stuff up. And I’ve worked very hard. I was young. I had a family. I had to dig deep to pay to go with all. And we flew up in Saskatchewan. And the first morning there were two of us and four guys from Michigan, super guys. Thank goodness. Really nice guys. They put us with. And we all sat there when everybody else was leaving. I suppose we’d been six of us and right at the camp it was 30. We were all sitting on the front porch watching everybody leave and everybody was going down the road. And at 8:30. 8:30 AM in the morning a drunk Indian guide come whopping up and to pick us up and go hunting. And that was really kind of the highlight of the week. That’s how it started. And that’s pretty much how it finished. And except for the fact that was 1998, it was the first year they had the conservation order season. And we were sitting in a field. I’d bet snow goose had landed in there since Adam and Eve. Millions flying over us, but there wasn’t any sign. And one of the boys from Michigan, had just gotten back to the green break. He unloaded his gun and took off in about trucks had another of those geese and just disappeared over the horizon running, you know, and about 45 minutes later here comes the Indian guy truck with him driving, come sliding into spreads that grab decoys. Let’s go off animals go, let’s go. We all jumped up, grabbed a few decoys. I swear it was 50 winds up, and we drove into an entire section of snow geese and in about an hour we killed 50, and we decided to get the heck out of dodge because up above us was about half a mile but the geese were going big roose lake into like a hell damaged barley field. And we saw that hilltop, he said look, let’s get out of here, we killed enough today. Let’s come back, first thing in the morning. This is kind of true. I want to watch that dream away lean up on that Indian guide and say, I will slit your throat, bury you in a hole nobody will find joint at our cabinet in the morning and a time to get out of here. My God, he was a real time. And we got out there and it was in 71 minutes we shot our 120 snow geese. It was unbelievable. And then the outfitter moved everybody else in camp, our field we found everything was going on with, there’s only field he has, he moved everybody else in camp through the fields until it was gone. That was our one good hunt. I came back with my tail tucked thinking, you know, boy it has a lot of money for that. And I started doing some research, started calling around and finding, just talking outfitters and this was kind of pre-internet, internet was around, but it isn’t what it is now. There was no google. You just had to go kind of bumble around till you found something. I found something up in Alberta, the guy’s name was Jeff Klotz of Alberta flyway outfitters. He later described it as the most unrigorous interview he ever had in bar. Two hour of grill and he said it’s like, somebody put a lamb on and beat me with rubber hose asking me questions. And we booked the trip and I got three buddies to go up there with me. We drove, they were older man, we drove, we got a great hunt. It was everything a hunt should be, everything you want it to be. The following year, I’m going to say 8, 10 people went, following year, nearly two other people went, not with me but through us, just hey, man you all check this hunt out, they saw our picture and what not they went. And that year, the outfitter, he kind of kept shopped out in the garage just where they staged and did their things and he said, hey Ramsey, come out and have a cold beer with us. And I stepped out that night after dinner and seeing him and all of his staff. He said, look, I want you to be our booking agent. I said, what the hell is a booking agent, I’m a federal biologist. He said no, all I want you to do is bring some hunters our way he said, we’re looking through this, you know, booking agency over here and they’ve got 88 circular going out and you brought more hunters and they did. But more importantly just you’re talking to these people, they knew what to expect, how to pack, they took care of my staff. And then point to the staff, and his staff nod their heads, he said, you know, they cut cards on who wins to take the Mississippi boy because there’s such good clients. And so you know, just okay, we kind of hash it out inflamed just of it. Heck man, you know, what the heck, I’ll send you some more hunters. I certainly wanted to come back. And from there, you know, in 2001 or 2002 from there, it kind of started growing that’s been 99 or 2000, and in 2001 I’d always wanted to go to Argentina. A friend of a friend kind of deal I went, and that guy who was not in the business full time, he was just kind of doing it. It was a decent hunt, I won’t complain about it. But there were some major errors. And I came back and some associates wanted to go down there to following year, and I tried to get in touch with the guy in Alabama. He never answered his phone calls. I called the outfitter directly, realized that this guy jacked up the price of couple of $1000. And I came home and you know, I told my wife, I said, you know this is the crookedness, this isn’t play the world should be, this is not. People work too hard man. Time is money and money is money, you know, this is not the way it should be. And still part time, way part time you know, because again I had a full career with the federal government and a major job, you know, responsibility and stuff. And we started just, we came up with Getducks.com. You know, just a way to reach a few people for Alberta, reach a wider audience on this thing called the internet, whatever that was or wasn’t it. I was doing a little habitat consulting as a biologist. Duck habitat type stuff that’s kind of how we started very humbly with a free website and a friend had put together. And time progressed and you know, just kind of grew organic and I can remember one day, you know, if you google or searched, I don’t even know that Google’s exist back then, if you searched keyword term Argentina duck hunting or something like that, we were on page 254. I mean we were nonexistent. And I said, well dang, you know, I talked to a few friends and everybody, another good friend of mine and now lives in Dallas. Chris Campbell’s, his name. He, for some reason took up the calls and help us build a little bit nicer web page and do some stuff, wouldn’t accept my money. Just get it out of good of his heart. And about that time we cook along, we were selling a few hunts and things were going okay. And then I’ll tell you this, I come up in a whole lot of consulting. So I was working a federal government job 40 hours or so a week. I was consulting on the weekends and I was setting up duck hunts and using leave time to go scout duck hunt because you know, how in the world could I really honestly put you in a Chevrolet pickup truck, if I’ve never driven it, if I don’t know what’s under the hood, how the world can I, you know, describe something like that to you accurately and honestly, and so we were scouting and since 2001, since the 1^st hunt in Saskatchewan, it’s such a disaster, put through somebody else. We realized that we have to put boots on the ground once the boots on the ground and once we’re working with that outfitter we have to continue going with because there are multitude of reasons an outfit can fall apart. And I’ve seen them fall apart because they could quit because of divorces because of business dealer, lost leases. I mean just drunk in this. I mean kind of the ways, some business that that might be good, don’t stay good. You know, that’s just the way it is. And I never will forget, back in 2006 or 2007 or 2008 when the whole big mortgage crisis started to implode, mortgage market started to implode, economy started to dang globally. I may remember that actually a lot, some of your listeners do. Scary time. Real scary time. And at the time I remember I had a Motorola razor, the telephone. And I had probably 15 people filed under the word ad. I had never bought an ad. I’ve never done an ad. Ads are expensive. And yet I had, all these people calling, want me to buy an ad in this magazine, buy an ad in that magazine. I couldn’t understand or remember boy, I’m non-existent on the internet. I just in the relationships on chat rooms that preceded social media. And I just gave it why all these people calling me and I finally put two and two together, you know, when a lot of guys that might have been, you know, the average client in this industry is 50-70 years old, flat on his career. He had a stick with a pen, sold his business, he retired or he paid into a mortgage long time, he can draw against a little bit of activity going trip, take life on vacation or something. And when things get sideways an economy like that old people going  well when people quit going and spending money, people could advertising. Bingo that’s what it is. That’s why those people are calling me because all these other “booking agents” out here in the world on advertising. They want me to advertise and take that place and you know, I talked about it and talk to my wife about it. We looked at it and nothing, nothing in our business model or business at the time make any sense. Financially on the numbers by the numbers, you know, none of this made sense, I’m telling you, but we said, you know, this is our chance. This is an opportunity because if we’ll invest in ourselves, we know we’ve got better model because we’re personal and we take this serious, and we spend the money to go look at the place and nail it down, and we know what a hunt should be. We know what people are looking for the first time. And we know we could do this, but boy, took a lot of money that time. And we really went all in and built a new web page, get out there and started working with some marketing types and stuff like that. And just pushed all the chips in. It’s like I told somebody one time, you know, you’re not all in till you’re staring at the ceiling 2 o‘clock in the morning, you get up, walk your bathroom and by because you’re all in. You’re all in, you can’t get no more in it than that. And when you’re scared dead and but my thoughts were, you know, if the economy doesn’t ever come back and it’s the end of the world then it doesn’t matter. But if it does, we’ll stay up there where we need to be in front of people and that’s kind of how it started. We are a booking agent. You know, if you want to travel somewhere international, you call us and we arrange the trip. Why not just go to a magazine if you don’t like, I mean, the great thing about the internet today is if you they’re talking to you on a smartphone, and I have more power at my fingertips, answers more quickly at my fingertips then George W Bush did when he was sworn in off on his first run. That’s amazing to me. The times we live in anybody can find anything on the internet, so why not do it that way. And I’ll tell you why, because what you learn, like I learned right out the gate going to Saskatchewan on that horrible hunt that time. What you learn is that anybody can be anything on the internet. And that’s the problem, is money is too hard to come from and really what we see 15, 17 years now and in the business is not money being the limiting factor really, really was a limiting factor is time. And you know, wasted time, wasted money on the wrong trips. And I get this question a lot, is Argentina’s great? Sure man. I mean, compared to an average day in the Atlantic flyway. Yeah, anywhere in Argentina is great. You know where you can shoot dozens of birds instead of two or three. But let’s get real here, just imagine being from Argentina and booking a trip to the United States, because the United States, let me say it, put a record right now. The United States blessed with not only best hunters on high dirt, but they’re blessed with an amazing resource. Some odd species of waterfowl, and just all the different types of hunting, and places, and methods, and traditions throughout the United States we can hunt very blessed but just imagine if you will. When I say the Argentina is a big place and not all hunts are great. Just imagine this. Imagine you come from a foreign country and you’re going to hunt in the United States just like you see on cable television, you know, sitting there and in your home, back where you’re from and you go to Kansas, or you go to Montana, you go to one of the amazing places with a seven mallard limit. You go to Kennedy shelves versus you bought a hunt, that’s a little bit less sounds good because it’s America right? But it’s in central Alabama or central Georgia. You follow what I’m saying? Not all hunts are created equally and that’s what we saw after 15 years. 15 years of going to Argentina as long as eight weeks and just going outfit, outfit, outfit, where when I go to the largest hunting shows in the United States of America, I know and recognize and have been to the lodge of every single one there and don’t represent. Yes because I found that hunt. If you want the final form of vacation, well by all means go with them. If you want to shoot the hell out of ducks call me because we’ve got these, that’s what we specialize in is real duck hunts. Now Argentina, Mexico started with Canada we’ve moved it over to US hunt list. Mexico and Argentina are our specialties is just our thing is what we’ve done a lot about. But it’s funny how we set out to kind of redefine this industry of what we do in this industry and yet the client began to change us because now, you know, we’ve been compelled further and further off the beaten path. And you know we’ve got one of my favorite areas down in Argentina for example, is so remote and so far, that after 15 years of running around that country, I just couldn’t even believe something as wild existed a 130 square miles of wild marsh like God intended. And it’s got ducks in at 365 days a year. There are more ducks than you’ve ever back. And it’s very difficult to get to. So you better just own up. It’s going to be a long drive. Drink a few beers, they only follow while you can, but when you show up in this duck paradise from there. You know, we get a lot of phone calls from the guys that are doing the collecting North American collection and I dispute that there’s 41. 41 is a good start. There’s nothing more than 41 species around here now in case it comes down to it. But what about the guys that have done it? What about the guys that are running around the world? Well, you know, I bagged 100 species, 100 bases of birds around the world of waterfowl. And we attract those kind of clients. We get phone calls all the time from people that say, you know, I’m after a bar headed goose, where can I find one. Well, you know, that’s a good question, let’s go find one or I’m after, you pick a species. In our latest conquest, I really took years to really put this thing together but we got it and I believe it’s going to be from the response we’ve got. I believe it’s going to be a really, really popular hunt. It is a little country called Azerbaijan. I had to look it up on the map, I didn’t know where Azerbaijan was, do you? Well it’s right on the line between Asia and Europe, its right on the east side of the, west side of the Caspian Sea north for Iran east of Turkey, south of Russia. But it’s not Muslim, its eastern bloc Russia and it’s the most, one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. We found all kinds of Holy Grail species. Red crested poachers, ferruginous poacher, a lot of tough ducks, more Eurasian wigeons. I’ve shot a lot other places I never dreamed existed as such density as a place like that. And so somebody once described me as the Christopher Columbus of duck hunting. One of my clients that he comes from some of the blue chip type agency from back in the day, he says Ramsey, how do you find all these places. I mean you’re digging up hunts that everybody else, is just sat on their hands and didn’t even think about no one exists. And I’m like, well, you know, my clients are driving me that way, my own passion is driving me that way. And that’s just what we do. I mean, Argentina is great, but let me tell you, we’ve got clients that have been Argentina 10 times and now they’re looking for greener pastures. That’s a long answer and a whole mouthful. I’m sure everybody on that listening didn’t fell asleep on that.

Josh Palm: Oh, I’m sitting here just dreaming about all these ducks flying around and that, you know, heading down to just, you know, taking that long truck ride to see all that. But one of my questions that came up, you know, the your initial hunt was such a blessing in disguise when you look at, you know back 17 years or so how that one horrible hunt that you went on the first time is pretty much catapulted you to where you’re at. But I wanted to know like, you know, you’re going to all these places like you said, you go to these shows and there’s all these outfitters there and you know, would you recommend them? Yeah, maybe one or two, but not all of the ones that are at that show. So I’m kind of wondering what your ratio is, and kind of what is the Ramsey Russell guarantee that kind of, how do they pass your test of going there and you’ll take clients there.

The client experience comes first. This is your trip of a lifetime. My obligation is to deliver and move mountains – Ramsey Russell

Ramsey Russell: Boy, that’s a, hey, listen you better take a deep breath and settle in, this is going to be a long. That really is a very good question because you know, on one hand, let’s just not beat around the bush, it’s all about ducks, okay. This is, we’re duck hunting and nobody that I’m aware of is going anywhere Azerbaijan or Argentina just to watch the sunrise, just to eat the food and experience the culture, now those are the real big major benefits of world travel. And I really get into what I call the national geography of the experience, but at the end of the day, it’s about the hunt. And you know, what I would tell anybody in business is, you know, I’m talking in terms of international because that’s what I do, but I’ve got extensive relationships with people throughout the US. I’ve hunted extensively throughout the United States. I think I like a dozen states maybe, from having shot of water fowler and all those six Canadian provinces over the years. I’ve been at it for a long time guys. And I would say, you know, take some of this conversation and ask the question who you book a hunt with in the United States. And it doesn’t matter if they’re charging $750 a day for a la-di-da hunt for $150. And let’s make a quick stop, we’ll take out for more than hunt, it’s all the same. And you know what I look for personally back up. It’s all about the duck, no doubt. But I tell people I’m very secured by this. I had hard friendships and relationships over this issue. People that were helping me in the past because I could not get them to understand that we’re in the duck hunting business, but it ain’t my duck hunt, it’s your duck hunt. I’m in the hospitality business. I’m in the people in the communications business. And if I go on and hosted a hunt with you, if I’m hosting that hunt, that hunt is not about me. I’m there to increase your enjoy, I’m not there to kill your duck. Follow what I’m saying? A lot of people in this business and whether there duck guides in six states, United States or in my industry, they don’t understand that this is all about client experience. The client experience comes first. This is your trip of a lifetime. My obligation is to deliver and move mountains. Now, I can’t control how, I can’t control migrations. I can’t control airline cancellations. There’s a lot of things I can’t control and the honest pursuit of migratory bird species, but there’s a lot of things I can control. And what I look forward to, Argentina, I’m going to use this as a case study of what kind of talk about here like I feel very strongly about that country. What I hear more and more and more at the shows on the phone talked duck hunters 365 days a year. What I hear is they’re tired of the Argentina chisel, and that’s just a slick entrepreneur that subcontract everything and Oh no, we have bird, come shoot, to spend money if we killed birds. You know hat I’m saying? It’s a hustle. You know what you want to hunt with is a duck hunter that truly wants you to kill birds that takes pride in you shooting birds because I mean, let’s face it, a five star experience. You want to stay in a five star hotel there in every major city in the world. Okay. And they’re all the same. You’re there to shoot ducks to experience it, to weigh waist deep in a marsh, more ducks than you’ve ever seen or to put your hands on a species that exist. And just that small geography, that’s what you’re there. That’s why people traveling. The lives and the wind is just all BS man. It’s just trimmings, it’s just spoken, there’s in the context of duck hunt. And what it takes to pass my muster, number one is, we’re looking for superior wing shooting experience. That’s it in a nutshell. I’ve got clients that have saved for years, work second job and saved and dedicated themselves to go on this trip with their son who graduate. They wanted something super. And I’ve got guys that can drop of a hat, jump on a private plane and come swooping in and they’re all the same. They’re there for quality duck hunting period, okay? And what passes my muster is superior hunting, but then we get into the other play, you know, client hospitality, making guys feel good, doing what you say. You know, we’ve got four outfitters we work with down in Argentina. The nearest one is five years. I’ve got a five year relationship with that outfitter, some of them I’ve got a 12 year relationship with. And just put in the context of dating first day, how do you know anybody, okay? First day, man, she can tell you anything and you believe it, it’s on, it’s the first day, 12 years later you trust that woman, you follow I’m saying? And it’s based on, its credibility is born. And you’ve got a whole another level of trust to hand people off and have trust in that right there. I’ll go on the sideline and say this, one of the most popular destinations in in Argentina, it’s in the province of Santa Fe is on the Paraná River. You’re flying, you go up one of those areas, you’re flying the Santa Fe, you drive an hour and a half to San Joaquin. And I went there once and it was okay, you know and I was sitting there talking to him, the fact that he had a DC. Smoking his big old cigar, man he has some good cigars, and like my great hunt, we’re going to do this, do that, you know. Yeah, I will never come back. He said why? And I don’t remember exactly why but the way it was attitude of the guide, it was the way they were set up, it was details getting in and out. It was a mediocre shooting, you know a little bit here, a little bit there, it was just something, it’s just okay, it’s a duck hunt, it is okay, you know. And three days later he calls me, I’m in one of their prairies and he said, let me buy you a dinner. So, I met him down an Italian restaurant for dinner and he said, Ramsey, I thought it was a great hunt until you left. And the next day I get in the blind and every single thing you said I saw. He said, but I hadn’t seen that till you said it. He said, I would never go back to the guide because you are exactly right. The guy’s attitude, you know, and they calling me is having a step folks a work, it was just, I mean you are right, you are exactly right. Well, you know, a few years later I go back and not to this outfitter to another outfitter. What you got in that region, I mean, I’m telling you half of every time outfitter advertised is right here in this hub. It’s like a 10 or 15, 20 mile stretch of river road and the biggest onto you, it’s got a different name brand, different cook and a different operator and you go to the next biggest on different name brand, different cook, blah different advertising program to work. What they’re all doing is they are all contracts like a roofing contractor business. They’re all contract to the same river team that the guy that is fishing in on the public river when they’re not duck guiding or they’re all contract into the same rice farm. So they might not be shooting at rice field but once a week but there’s 10 other outfit are shooting at that rice field. Okay? And it just mediocre hunting and I went to second time, for the third time I went. I told the guide I’m not interested, I don’t really want to go back there, blah, I went up there and saw him he was very persuasive I went saw. Now, on that particular trip. I was out there in the rice field hunting, we shot our 20 ducks or whatever, you know. And my bird boy was wearing a Get duck cap that I had given him five years and I realized right then what the racket was up in that area and that’s a typical Argentina model. And consequently, you know, are we trying to find the silver lining, consequently I told Marta, we hired her 10 years ago. She’s been a godsend for us. Boots on the ground, babysitting and taking care and providing a tremendous amount of continuity and organization to our team down Argentina. She kept telling me about this place in Santa Fe. And I said Marta, I will never ever go back to Santa Fe. I don’t think, you can have all that. No, this is different. I promise you this is different. And I had a couple of real Winston clients they were up in convention went down for a spring hunt kind of exploring the rice field depredation hunt and jumping around playing ABCD and we ended up at this place 130 square mile marsh. And after that first hunt I was out there and it was a little unnerving for my guide because at times I was just sitting not shooting, just staring off all the ducks as far as I could see was this marsh and ducks chasing it, and he said, seniore, you okay? Yeah, let me go and watch it. I still came out with a bunch of ducks, a bunch of ducks and way more than ever shot that other place in Santa Fe. And when I came out, Marta was waiting at the lodge as well, how was it? I go, I want my ashes scattered in this marsh when I die. I’ve been over this godforsaken country, I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never seen anything like this and to this day, every time I come out of that marsh I’ll say the same thing, I want my ashes scattered in this marsh and it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. And you know that’s the, you’ve got to ask the questions, you’ve got to build a track record, you’ve got to, you know it’s like, if you have never been to Argentina or someone you know has never been to Argentina and comes back from their first trip and tells you how awesome it is, understand it’s in the context during the perspective of having hunted wherever else they’ve been hunting besides Argentina, it’s going to be great. I’m going to say this man, 20 ducks are awesome come on. But it ain’t, no, it ain’t the real Argentina. It’s a chisel. And it’s not real Argentina and when I go and I meet with these outfitters, I’m looking at what I represent right now. It’s not in the book. All of my outfitters understands, I find somebody better than he’s gone. I have found nobody better than for some of them 12 years. And they constantly deliver, prime example, let me tell you what’s going to happen in Argentina this year. They’re in a 30 year drought. And we were in a bad drought in the Deep South horrible, there weren’t anywhere for the ducks to go yada. We got all the cold weather we needed to steer and get the bird needed because there was nowhere for the birds to go. And Argentina is in a drought like that this year and talking around a few outfitters I know, but don’t work with, I know what they’re problem is, I know what they’re doing, how you doing, what’s going on? Yeah, si seniore. Everybody, just like opening day, you know, opening day every duck guide in America is a rockstar but up today and if he’s not, you’re in trouble. But opening day man, dumb birds coming in to die, it’s on the average day that the real good guides stand out. I mean, if you’re expecting shoot a limit every time you get in a blind in United States of America, I’m sorry, you’ve been watching too much television. They’re great days. There’s really bad days, but most days are average days. We go out and hunt, and we work, and we do what we do and that’s what guides do is they put you in a situation. They work hard, they change what they can to make work. Down in Argentina when I talk about average mediocre, I’m talking extremes in weather because most of the country of Argentina, it is like the prairies of North Dakota or hunting in Canada. It’s a breeding ground. The bird, there’s no continental migration in Argentina. Oh yeah, few birds will come out of brazil, the geese back when you can hunt them would come from Tierra del Fuego up into the, one of those areas, southern tip of one of the areas to the agriculture. But there’s no continental migration like we think birds coming from the arctic from Northern Canada and coming all the way down the gulf coast that does not exist. In Argentina duck hunt combo what those birds are doing, they’re breeding everywhere, okay? You shoot a lot of local birds but you are also shooting birds that are there shifting or transitioning or just basically they’re nomadic and the bouncing around, finding resources, food, water, habitat. One of the last outfitters, I just did that really just sensed the deal for us, about 5 or 6 years ago they had a very, very wet year. I mean, Noah built an arch wet year. And I looked at a couple of new operators and they just weren’t hitting on that. I mean, they weren’t hitting on anything. And there were my outfitter shooting 6 to 5 ducks per man per day every day. Oh, you needed a four wheeler to get his clients in, he bought 4 wheelers. Oh, you needed a boat? He went and got a boat. Can you just sit back? Oh, sorry senior, what to do much water? No, he wouldn’t make it happen. And I can remember what you’re going to see this year during this drought, if you’re going to hear stories from guys in the, no, maybe nothing guys went the first time and don’t know any better, but some guys know that ended up driving two hours from the lodge to get to a duck hole and shoot some ducks. Well, it’s all the water they had and so maybe they shot a bunch, maybe they didn’t, you know I’m saying. And then they drove two hours back in two hours in another direction to find for water. And I’ve seen it before, you know, and I hear people on planes and I thought people that shows, you know, and that’s what’s going to happen in a dry year. Let me tell you this on 130 square mile marsh, 10 minutes from any duck blind on there. I mean, you know, 10 minutes from where you stop pushing to the marsh you’re there and then my other outfitter down in, one of my flagship outfitters down there, he got over five dozen hole locked up right now, full of ducks. He’s been working for the past three months securing the deal exclusively in additional to that he’s got three major marshes, big bodies of water that won’t have a shot fired over because that’s where the duck stay when they’re not coming to his pond to eat. And it’s a real big distinction. And if you don’t, if you don’t know, if you don’t have a basis for comparison, call somebody. Let me say one very important thing about this. We do not book hunts, we used to, back in the day, we used to book hunts in the intercontinental in the United States and Canada but we don’t anymore because for me to help you find somebody to hunt ducks with and pick a stay or call them and come up. You know what I’m saying. All I’m doing is swapping money and the dirty middleman, you know why my company had existed and continues to grow to succeed it is because we bring a valuable service at no additional cost to the client. When you started going to Argentina and you’re talking to do stuff like flying, and passports, and firearm permits and transfers. You’re dealing with the Latin American foreign country and a foreign currency and you want to go to the best hunt you can afford the first time not the 5^th time. You know, that’s a pretty valuable service. A lot of our clients are very, very surprised to know that they love us for, the fact that my wife and I answer the phone when it rings and if we don’t, we’ll call you right back and we tell everybody all the time call us before during and after your hunt. Don’t be stuck in an airport. Don’t be this hard if the man ain’t got your favorite groundwater. If there’s a language, there’s something going on, call me to fix this stuff, that’s what we do. We provide a service and we started getting beyond Argentina. We’ll take Mexico for example addition to all that. Now, we’re starting to talk about migratory bird import law. Bringing birds that it had to be compliant. You have to talk back and Fish and Wildlife service getting into your taxidermist so you have those pretty cinnamon teal on your wall. Now, let’s go, start talking about Azerbaijan and Russia and Pakistan and New Zealand and all these different countries have all these different rules and laws and everything else, and that’s what we do for people. You know, it’s like I said earlier in the program money, you know. Yeah. It takes money at the end of the day, what we’ve learned is our market declines that are buying all these hunts really and truly, whether they’re safe for three years or they got money to buy three trips a year is irrelevant. You know, time is the limiting factor. Time to do the research, time to go scout hunt, time to put together all the details. They call us, we discuss options, they say that’s where I want to go. We take care of all the administrative, we take care of all the travel. You just follow the instructions. You show up at the airport, your staff is waiting on you and everything falls into place, turned clean. It is after all the vacation and that’s what we do.

So let me ask you a question here because I have to imagine for a guy doing it for the first time… planning the hunt of a lifetime for my son.

Josh Palm: So let me, ask you a question here because I have to imagine for a guy doing it for the first time for sure. And just listening to everything that you went through that I mean there’s so much to unpack and there’s just so much to kind of think about if I’m trying to plan the hunt of a lifetime and let’s just use the example that my son is graduating from high school or college and I want to take them on that trip of a lifetime. And I’m thinking about where I want to go and stuff. How did you even get to the point where like you decide, you know, Mexico or Argentina or some other place. I mean like what are some of the kind of things that like you would direct somebody if they give you that scenario that I just said.

Ramsey Russell: You know, thankfully nobody asked me something open ended that. I mean because you know, I say this all the time and again, you know the reason my wife and I answered the phone it is and I’m answering your question but I’m leading up to it. The reason my wife answer the phone because we can’t, you can’t hire somebody for a paycheck that will take clients as seriously and personal as they need to do. The reason I walked out of a federal career 16 years into it is because I realized that when somebody is going on a hunt, at the time it may have been just Oklahoma. Now, we don’t book in the United States, especially on a foreign trip. It requires my full time attention. And what I’m getting at is, you know, we’re experienced enough, we are well travel enough, we’ve done this long enough. We’ve been through the highs and the lows, the good, the bad problems and Lord, I mean, you know, it ain’t the outfitters. But you know, I tell you what scares me it’s not the outfitter or an airline, it’s some of these clients, which has just completely unrealistic expectations or not enough experience in having traveled. So just the basics of travel, where to check the guns through or something like that. And you know, all that is to say is this, from somebody who decide where to shoot the reason we guessed it because buying a hunt, especially a hunt like you’re talking about bringing a high school graduation father is going to trip lifetime to anywhere, you know, that’s a far more personal experience and buy a Silverado pickup truck for a shotgun. I mean, it’s as personal as buying a home maybe more. You know, it’s a very, very personal experience and why people go where they go. I don’t know. You know, I’ve got clients that want to go have a trigger pulling vacation. Let’s go, Argentina, Mexico. I’ve got clients that want to get their hands on a specie, hunter species. They got, just got their heart set. You know, what the number one most requested species day in day out, number one, most requested species is a cinnamon teal. We got plenty of them but you know, they just, they’re dying to get their hands on some little bird they saw or just to experience something and something different. I’ve got clients that are very, very well-traveled decades and I described them it’s almost like my passport stamp collector. And beyond the ducks, there is a lot of cool stuff. I remember walking through downtown Amsterdam one time very, very long term client, we’ve become very close friends. I watched his Children grow from, actually 8 or 9 years old into grown man, himself and family. And we’re walking through Amsterdam about this time he burst out laughing and stopped. Okay. He say, Ramsey I’ve seen the whole damn world duck hunting with you. He said, I just can’t believe it. He said, I have seen everything in the world but I’m duck hunting. You follow what I’m saying? It is so much more than just a hunt. It’s a very, well I think, what I would tell anybody, you know, where do I want to go on a trip of a lifetime? I think for the average guy like myself, I wasn’t in this business, very average guy, there are so many good and wonderful opportunities right here in the United States. Okay. There’s a lot outside the flyway outside your home state. There’s a lot of good people, it may not even be outfitters. You know, the internet makes the world a small place, everybody are very good people, a lot of very good outfitters, a lot of cool species and different hunting experiences right here in the United States, you can literally get in a pickup truck dive 8 hours from where practically, anybody listening to step into something different that you’re going to love and at the end of the day, daddy, I’ve got a 16 year old daughter, an 18 year old son that just going to US Marine Corps, 20 year old son. And we all grew up hunting and fishing together and what I learned really and truly, kids spell love TIME is spending time with them and that’s, and you couldn’t, I’ll get a little sappy here because I love to pull the trigger, but I’ll say this right here, when my oldest son was a senior in high school, it was a very tough duck season in Mississippi, it just, it was terrible. And we spent a lot of time sitting in the duck blind talking. And as he was fixing to move out of home and go to college and obviously in a whole new different life facing with all the custom to, since he was born, you know, I realized that there was those moments between the volleys that really matters the most, you follow what I’m saying? It’s just the better sharing that time and there’s nowhere that I had maybe, you all have, but there’s nowhere I found that I can have the kind of heart to heart and good and fun and non-politically correct discussions that we all want to have. I’ve never found anywhere better than just a duck blind. And so where somebody wants to go and what they want to do, just depends on what their expectations are, what their goals are, what they want to walk away with how much money they got to spend, that’s just in a nutshell. It’s a big world out there, big world and lot of places to hunt, you know?

Dan Hruska: Yeah, I think that last comment hits some for Josh and myself, you know just talking to Josh and I think this year might

be the year that, we get his son out or Josh gets his son out for the first hunt and you know, I spent a lot of that time, not in a duck blind but in a deer stand with my old man and you know, a lot of life lessons comes from that and like you said it gets sappy, I mean that’s when you get down deep and really learn who your, either your father is or your son is and a lot of life lessons there for sure.

I’ll show you a guide that really plays golf. Everybody gets that. And what I’m learning in duck hunting… race, politics, religion, money—none of that matter.

Ramsey Russell: You really do. It’s one of the, it’s really truly hunt with my kids. You know, I’ve got a hunt so much with clients and with guests and things of that nature that you know during, when I’m home during our season. You know, I’ve got one close friend, the guy with the schedule at that time and my sons and that’s really it, I just hunt by myself sometimes in the end of all but you know, I don’t have to entertain them and I don’t have to talk, we can talk about what we need to talk about or not, and just we know what everybody’s going to do and it’s a very rewarding experience. And I’ve been taking my Children probably since they were too young, certainly too young to shoot but that was fine too. You know, when you take a child to a duck blind, it really ain’t about you, it’s about them. They get cold, they get wet. I’ll tell you the story, I took my younger son could have been three years old and just blustery cold hunting rice field in Washington county Mississippi, and he wasn’t quite in school and my five year old kid was maybe kindergarten, what’s going to be right? So I take them out and drive the four wheeler right to blind, put them in there and say don’t move. And I literally drive 100 yards away put the can and come that field across the duck field quickly candidate this black, dark water now foot deep and I’m nearing the blind. I can hear a commotion, I hear splashing and something like, what the heck, you know, when I get there my youngest it’s hanging over the side of pit line wet to his belt, wind milling in the water just splashing, having the best time of life. And I think a flock of teal come in or flock of shovelers I shot real quick, got a couple of birds and that was it because by then his lips were blue and teeth’s shatter, you know we’re still talk about that and just it’s those little moments and you know what, I didn’t get 6 duck, what four more ducks have been, who cares? You know, it’s the fact and I just, I treasure the time for my kids and now that I’m older, now they’re older they’re hunters. I mean, they’re hunter, they are shooters and man I’m going to tell you I’m 52 years old. And I’m not going to say my 20 year old can out shoot me but I can tell you this he can fire off three shots before I shoulder my gun. He’s quick. He got those young reflexes last time I took him to Argentina for senior trip, and we were hunting a pothole and before it even got lighted up my old eyes to really see the birds that I want to shoot as there was 20 on the water. And they were just getting started and but you know, it’s a, that brings up a good point guys, Dan is, we’re talking about, you know, hunting with family and hunting this and I’ll tell you something I really learned and I think a lot about this is you know think about going to Mexico to different countries, you know hunting different species, sea ducks, let’s say sea ducks, these ducks, I just wrote a story for California waterfowl and it kind of, I don’t know where I was going with it, but it kind of formulate organically and just, you know, you think about what we do in the state duck hunt and again I’m going to say American duck hunters just the serious ones are the best duck hunting on earth. We as a country have elevated every aspect of the duck hunting to part on, the calls, camo, the guns, the ammo, everything. It’s absolutely art form. You know, we were talking earlier about Gunner kennels, if you think there’s anywhere else in the world, there’s something of that quality exists for retrieval to be in your crazy, those are fine kennels, you know what I’m saying. But there again, it’s a byproduct of that American water fowl mindset that demands the other best and we are the best duck hunters. You know, there’s no doubt in my mind, I’ve seen them all, we are by far the best water fowlers in the world. And but what I’ve noticed is, you know, we all kind of grew up, you think about it mallards are the king. I mean, they kind of wrote the rule book, it’s like old buddy of mine, I started hunting with him in the college, he said, you know, mallard calls, mallard decoys, mallard ducks, it’s all about the mallards. And that really, you know, to a large extent it really is, of course you all, you got to duck, but then really the mallards came, but you know, he not only plays by the rules, he wrote the rulebook, but what I’ve seen is at the end of the day they’re all just ducks. And part of the challenge, part of what compels me is figuring out that and hunting that duck and setting that duck, you know, getting them set up and getting them right and it kind of honoring sports and doing it. And I think as you expand, and you start hunting different habitats and different types, different setups and different species, it makes you a better hunter in your own backyard. The property we hunt in Mississippi is mediocre. It’s not a great duck hole, we kill ducks, but it’s not, it’s certainly not the best in the state of Mississippi in the Deep South. It used to be a farm, very, very low marginal Ag land, milo and soybeans cleared out of hardwood back in the 60s and 70s and has since been put back into hardwoods to restoration programs, you know, through the USDA. I didn’t know this until 10 years after we joined that, my grandfather killed his last duck on the thought and I was just going through some maps and recognized the landowner on the property map from back in the 70s and realized that was where he had last hunted, my Children since killed their first there, but it’s tough hunting, it’s not, you know, it’s just not easy hunting. One day, couple of years ago, I was out there hunting with a member and it was that day. Buddy, let me tell you what, we drew the ace. We went where I wanted a little pothole, I want to go, the wind was howling at the north, it was clear to bell. So get the little skin mice on before I showed up, just enough for a duck to stand on them before he fell through. And as I’m pushing my little tray out there to put the decoys and clear the ice a little bit. He didn’t even back and of course he was sitting in the trees, there were gadwalls and teals just landing all around me and I knew it was that day. I mean it’s that day, you know, just, we got set up and we’re watching duck, just come in and come in you know, come in and leave, it was just beautiful, mesmerizing and shooting time came and he pulled the trigger and I don’t know if it hit or miss but it didn’t take any time to shoot 6 ducks like that. And opened up my coffee thermos and took a seat aside David Chilton. And we were waiting on birds coming stuff like that he said, Ramsey, I just got to ask you this question. I just got to ask this question, I hope I don’t offend you. I said, what is it David, he said, you know, will you say that the hunting here is mediocre? Yeah, I’ll say that. I’ll say, I certainly hunted a lot better places right here. You know, I’d agree with him, average day. You know, especially you know, all the client you got, all the places you hunt and all the things you do as part of your visit, you know, wow, Why do you hunt here? Why do you always showing up to your duck season? You get two of these run around. And that’s pretty easy question for me to answer guys because I said you know if I want to go down to Argentina and shoot 50 ducks in an hour and a half, man, I will not do that anyway. I don’t know, if I want to go shoot 65 ducks, man, and if I want to go here and go there and do this, do that. Well, I’ve got a script, you know the hunt a lot different and the rules are a lot different. What they’re allowed to do and not allowed to do yada-yada changes, you know, but here where I grew up hunting, how I grew up standing deep in the water in the button bushes and playing by the rule because at my camp, you might only come out with two duck, but you might come out with a limit but let me tell you this, you ain’t coming out with ducks if you ain’t playing by the rules, and I mean concealment and calling and shoot straight and pay attention because you’re sitting there playing on your phone and that’s like gadwalls comes racing through and you don’t get a shot at them, that maybe your limit duck or your only duck. You got to respect the sport, you’ve got to play. And you know what? I really like that. I really like having to earn that duck. I like having to go out and place those decoys just right to get that bird in there. And I want him because that’s what it’s about. And it doesn’t matter where in the world you sit, that’s what it’s really truly about. That’s what, you show me a duck hunter, that doesn’t get that. I’ll show you a guide that really plays golf. Everybody gets that. And, what I’m learning in duck hunting, over and over is all, I said this before, now I’ll stop on my long ramping talk but you put a Muslim consultant, a Mississippi guy, a businessman from Dallas and a Firestone tire flipper from Indiana. You put those four men in a blind right there. I’m going to tell you this, race, politics, religion, money none of that matter. So that time being at least they’re duck hunters, they’re duck hunters. And that’s what I truly love about what I do.

Josh Palm: Yeah, I’m going to hijack something that Dan asked you before we started recording because I thought your take on it was interesting and it’s relevant to the show being, we just covered this last week in relations to hunter harassment. And I know before we started recording, you know, you said we could talk an hour just about that. But, tell us a little bit about what your experiences, you know, across the world, as you’ve gone hunting in these places where you face some, you know, opposition from local hunters and things like that. And, you know, share a story or two with us if you wouldn’t mind.

Ramsey Russell: I’m from Mississippi and Mississippi was the first state in the United States of America to pass hunter harassment laws right next door. Arkansas, you know, they were the first people in the United States to pass an anti-hunter. It’s actually convict or press charges using that law and it wasn’t against an anti-hunter, but against another hunter in public timber duck hole. Okay? I just, I see this stuff on the internet. I’m not hear words like pita, things like I said, but in the continental United States, I know that, I know, good Lord, I know there’s some wackos out there that I just can’t imagine are really human with their thoughts and actions, especially in social media, but I never had anything like that. A lot of my best clients, some of the best hunters, some of the richest hunting traditions and some of the best duck hunting that I know to exist United States Americans in Sac valley California. And we all want to think of the west Coast being crazy like that. They’ve got free of liberal laws out there regarding guns and ammo, but there’s a lot of good hunters out there. And so get back on your hunter things, I’ll start by telling you, one day I’ve got a client now, he wasn’t my client, you know, we just friend of a friend, you know, we were hunting together at camp, and just to make conversation, you know Ramsey, what about hunting nowadays? What do you mean John, what about hunting? I don’t know just what’s going on by hunt. I had a lot on my mind at that time about this very topic because some of the things that have been going on at that time and a lot of different fronts. And I told him, I truly believe this guy, you know, I believe that hunting worldwide is hanging by a thread. I believe it’s hanging by a thread right here in the United States we don’t see like they do in Australia, you can’t imagine or like Netherlands or like get this South Africa, you want to talk about a venomous form of anti-hunter coming out of South Africa. It’s bizarre, it’s crazy, Europe. It’s just the anti-hunting is rapid. But we do have a lot of problems here in the United States with regard to support hunting and the freedom of hunting as we know it. You just may not be aware of it but it exists, it exists in federal regulations that are becoming increasingly cumbersome. The President Barack Obama funded some legislation. It sounded very noble but it really wasn’t. It all cracked down on lacey act hike stuff that, let me tell you about the lacey act violation. It’s very simple. If you bring migratory bird you commit a wild life or in transportation that’s the lacey act. Lacey act ain’t black white like for mallards and no more to maybe hit. It’s not black and white like that. You better be a 400 to 500 company, your fixed going to settle for lacey act violate. I would like to tell you, thank God I’ve never had that problem. What I’m saying, it’s very scary at the political level and you know, Donald trump, I personally think I voted for him love him and glad he’s and all the great, I think he is doing good things for a lot of us but at the same time you know his appointment of the secretary doesn’t change all the GS level administrators in the federal government that can’t be fired ever that were hired or appointed under other administrations. Well, you know, I started my career with US Fish and Wildlife Service. I’ll tell you all I wanted to be going to college was just biologist a manager with the US Fish and Wildlife service, just warm and fuzzy refuge manager to make the world a better place. And I do believe that refuges have a vital importance in our managing of especially migratory birds. But you know at the time the appoint under Clinton, the head of Fish and Wildlife started these funding and doing things with bird counts that fall into seas and banding programs and different funding initiatives within Fish and Wildlife the director of Fish and Wildlife started cutting back on stuff. And when she left she was replaced by somebody her protégé that she just left under the trump administration. And you know, when she left she became the president and CEO of a non-government entity called defenders of Wildlife which is single the most litigious entities that sues fish and wildlife service on behalf of non-hunting   of costs. Okay. That’s just one thing that that’s kind of glowing all around the world around. You maybe hunting and doing things like we think we always have but I’m telling you it’s a lot of sinking ground going up at some different levels. And I’ve just seen it evolve the past 20 years. It just keeps getting more and more insane it seems like. And that’s one thing going on in terms of hunter harassment to get back on track. You know, maybe I can go out and protest at a boat ramp and give you grief or maybe I can get involved behind the scenes up in the upper echo lines of a federal agency and have far more damaging impact than I can by just raising hell of a boat ramp. Okay. Let me tell you the story on the best goose hunt that exists on earth in my opinion, since Argentina’s closing, Argentina, you can’t legally goose hunt for long time. And that’s an interesting story too. But I’ll save for later. One of the best most interesting goose hunts on God’s earth is Netherlands over in Holland in Europe. And the anti-hunters shut the goose season down. There is no legal goose season in Holland. It hasn’t been for 12 years. Now, we’re talking a country that’s pasture level, pasture agriculture, and lots and lots and lots of water ditches and lakes and reservoirs, most of beneath sea level. It’s the most perfect goose habitat I’ve ever seen in my life. And all those birds that are coming through Iceland, coming through the UK, heading in Netherland there’s a little bit far sometime you know, and . And when they shut their goose season down, the goose started staying, they weren’t getting pressured, they started sitting on field, they started eating farmer’s household. A lot of them started showing up earlier, started migrating later. A lot of them like the barnacle geese, graylag geese started taking up residency. And if things got out of hand and that’s about 10 years now, you understand, we’re not talking about multi million acre corporate farms over there, we’re talking 80 acres third generation dairy farm. That 80 acres of pasture is what keeps that man in business. And just imagine so many geese, and so many swans, and so many wigeons, they’re causing crop loss and costing that farmer money. Well, deliver government, not to offend the anti’s who have two seats in parliament. They started setting aside land. Well, if we set this agricultural land aside over here, the geese will eat there and they will pop the farmers. Do you think that work? No. Well, they started paying crop losses. And we’re talking a country about the size of North Carolina. And when that crop lost payment, hit about $50 million in 2008, they said we got to do something different. And so they started issuing depredation permits and the laws over there, Godly, I just can’t imagine. I mean, we go out to the fields with our hosts and he’s got a three ring binder with 100 pages of paper and the gun permits, this permit, this permit, this provision, this thing and this thing. Every night before we hunt, he has to file online to let the game warden know where he’s going to be hunting, how many people are going to be hunting, what’s going to be in possession, blah blah blah. You buy hunting permission over there. Like I’m going to follow him and I’m going to sell you hunting permission. I’m going to sell you, you’re going to be my hunter, you can buy hunting permission for six years or 12 years. But understand this that nobody, Jesus Christ, the king of Netherlands, nobody can hunt that property unless you the hunter of present. That’s crazy. Well, we got called, a lot of these hunts find us and we got called, we had an afternoon discussion with them about the implications of being over hunting geese, this great abundance of geese, 365 day season for a lot of caveats. No bag limit. You know, we start, we were interested, you bet your butt, we’re interested in these grey lag. I love a grey lag. All this different stuff, you know. And we’re going there hunting. And it’s like we understood that there was a lot of anti-hunting cinnamon over there. But we were told, don’t worry, you camouflage, don’t worry you get ducks had everywhere, you know. But ducks are hypocrites to leave you alone about going to get your face blah blah. And they didn’t. One night we’re out hunting in river and we got back, the police were waiting in town and somebody, one of many, walking trails around the country said that they had been shoot. Yeah, nobody being shot. We’re on the river. But they’d heard the shooting they knew we were hunters, they filed a complaint. And no big deal, the police were very courteous. The female cop was one of the most attractive police I’ve ever seen. And want to check our license and just check the outfitter’s paperwork, yada yada. I gave my passport, they looked at it. One clients headed drivers, he gave to him, old buddy. One of my client was digging and digging and digging. He said, okay, there it is. And he gave him his concealed permit. The cop looking goes conceal carry permit? You’re married with a real cowboys, aren’t you? And he goes, he goes, you’re just jealous, you can’t be. That’s a fact. We all bust out laughing and they let you know, we weren’t in trouble. We didn’t do anything. But it was, thinking about it it was harassment. And one of the craziest thing that ever happened over there is the following spring I had some clients, and in the spring you can shoot the mute swan that you want to be in the Dutch, anybody let alone anti said, go up and shoot those big old mute swan, they just get sideways, had a corner, emotional and unbelievable about it. So it’s little discrete event. But just imagine so many swans landed in your pasture that somebody from the government comes out and walks over. It looks like you got, you got, you know, you need a depredation permit because they’re eating out of house and home. You can’t use their share a mute swan because they don’t make sounds and don’t use calls. We will not use decoys. What you must do if you must go “warn the geese hunter” by placing white flags all over the field and let them know that it may be hunting out. That’s not my rules affairs. What do you think a big old white flag do to a swan maybe put in this feeding area, you know. So we go hide in ditch and here comes the mute swans and we just play later. And the farmer wants them gone. We want them gone. We’re shooting this big beautiful swans, the world’s largest swan. And we’ll get done, we get them out of the road,  middle nowhere, there’s no house, there are just barn houses. And we’re picking laying out and taking pictures, no sir, our host said, no, please, let’s load them up over here, you take a seat. Oh, come on, man, you know like, we just let’s go over here. So, it’s just me and one of the client, so the client wanted to go shoot some swans. So we went moving and we’re laying them out and take a picture about this time this little small town of Europeans and Dan pulls up this little dandy lady, little gray hair gets out and she stitches up her overcoat, she’s got her little lady shoes on, and she’s walking up the road, and she’s very quiet, didn’t said anything, you know, he asked like who is that? I don’t know. And about that time he says something, my host says something. She tried to push past him and he’s trying to stop them. And she just blow past and when she gets to the back of the van and she saw swan, she had a complete and utter come apart and you know, in hindsight, I wish I thought that my phone recorded. It was like anything. I was like shock, most of I’d like this person have a connection. I don’t understand what she’s saying.  I’m probably being cussed or something. And outcomes my host with his notebook and they started a heated discussion, heated discussion, you know, they are pointing paperwork. And finally he points over my shoulder to a farmhouse, back across the field. She shuts up, kind of turns around on the heels, get in her car and drives off, I’m like what in the heck just happened there, huh? And so the host goes, oh, just the anti’s, you know? And I said, well what did you say to her that made her shut up like that and leave? He said, oh, very simple. I pointed to the farmer’s house, I showed the permit, I pointed to the farmer’s house and I said, if you don’t want us hunters here shooting this swans, go write him a check for his crop. I’m sure he won’t need us hunters. And at the idea that you’ve got to get scare in the game. Oh, well she’s gone there. Okay. Anti-hunters are only committed for the law if they ain’t paying for. You see. And that’s what the same thing could be said in Australia is just one of the most incredible place. I’ll be there in just a month, going back with Sitka and Ryan Bassham to do some filming, some media. Jake Latendresse is going to come there. Just an incredible hunt. But you know, again anti-hunters. And it just, it defies everything we know, you and I and the guy’s list and know about conservation. You know, I learned in school, and I believe this to be the best definition of controversial flies, dukes. So the latest period, for the longest duration. Very wise. Okay. But the key word is use. And I don’t say this about elephants, about lion, about ducks, about any national resource, natural resources is this. If it doesn’t have a commodity value, if it doesn’t pay, it don’t stay, period. Okay? You know the reason wildlife exists, the reason waterfowl exist in America like it does in any wildlife species, any game species exists because we hunters are willing to pay whether it’s a guided hunt or willing to invest in conservation organizations or willing to pay excise taxes or special tax, investing clubs, investing habitat or do something. That’s what keeps that waterfowl value. And I hate, you know, if you want to talk about, it can be a little out of here to talk about a mallard duck like he’s a tomato. But at the end of the day, it’s true, it’s a renewable resource. And there is a commodity value attached to it worldwide, and in that after, it will seriously, that’s what infuriates me about these anti-hunters. But I’ve had encountered and let me tell you part two of the Dutch story. You know, I was just somebody over there hunting as far as she mean. And that fall, we had gotten a magazine writer over there. I had written some stories, and we published some stories about hunting in Netherlands. Well, would it occur to you that Dutch anti-hunters read sporting classics or some major magazine in America? It would never occur to me that they pick up, oh buddy, let me tell you what I woke up on Christmas morning and have been tagged or re-shared or something on somebody, and my life turned upside down. I deleted 50 people, I’ve blocked 50 people. I was, I mean it was at 2 o’clock in the morning which is 9 o’clock in the morning Amsterdam time. My phone was ringing, the reporters were like oh hello sir this is so and so from the Amsterdam times. No, they were jumping right in for the throat, writing for the judges, who are you, where you hunt, who are you hunt with? What are you doing in my country? Blah blah. I mean jumped on. Okay. So we’re in the news. I was getting from overseas, and the links from my host over there. Oh don’t worry, don’t worry, this will blow over, you know, well then it went to the national newspapers paper, and then it was on the local news, and then it was on the national news you just imagine Tom Brokaw calling us by name, Ramsey Russell Getducks.com commercial hunting in my country. Well it, I felt like I was being nailed to a cross, you know, and I won. It was unbelievable what was happening, and my outfitter was like don’t worry, it’s fine. And man, let me tell you what, when somebody is writing you messages, and emails, and stuff like that on coming on to your social media platform and threatening your life and the life of your Children, it’s very hard to stay quiet. It’s very, I mean, we’re just going to kill with a wooden shoe, you can’t even hold guns over there, get real. But seriously, you’re going to threaten my life and the life of my Children over a goose, over natural resources. And I was talking to my outfitter and I was, boy I was fuming and he said, well, what would you say, Ramsey? What would you say to them if you did talk? I say, I tell them my country killed 10 million birds a year, if they don’t like it they can write a check. He got so quiet. I thought the call had dropped because Ramsey, can’t say that every, every reporter in Netherlands is your front door Marseille. No, they won’t. I live in Mississippi and we have the castle doctrine, you don’t threaten his life where I put on its death in the front yard. That don’t happen where I’m from. And so we had to calm down in about a month later when he called, he said Ramsey, we need you got to take that off the web site, you must take it off because he was sitting watching, he’d heard that the animal party, the parliament was meeting and kind of like the C span shows, you know, watching congress and stuff was meeting. And he was sitting in the den of his home with his wife. They were smoking cigarettes and drinking a glass of wine, and see what was going on in politics. And the one of the Parliament members stood up and said and called for him cessation of all commercial funding in Netherlands that Ramsey Russell Getducks.com must cease in his country. The Royal Dutch hunting Association, we had a pretty good relationship at the time. They were hot on us want to know who we were hunting with and we have researched them for two years. We had conversations on the phone. We have traded emails, they didn’t care. But now that the politicians were at them, they care. Okay. And you know, that was just a very, very sobering moment. Now, the flip side of it, there’s no negative publicity. But after that all we started getting calls from Romania and Sweden hunt and all kind of the far one place wants to come back their country. And that’s turned into, I mean Azerbaijan, Pakistan that all turned into a very, very good business for us, at the same time it was very, and there’s no reasoning okay. If you want to talk to me of this call and that called this and this matter, whatever. I’m all ears man. I mean, I don’t know everything. I can be persuaded. There’s no common ground with an anti-hunter that is purely emotionally invested. They have, there’s nothing about controversial. About six months after all that a ball, my phone ring, you know, unknown number. Believe or not I’ve got a few numbers, a few clients that calls from an unknown number. Sometimes when you use calling cards, outfitters in another country comes up unknown numbers, and I answer it. A very polite magazine editor from the Netherlands and he wanted to discuss. And I said, I have nothing to say, I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk about this click. He calls back, and I’m starting to get hot under the car. I told you I don’t want to talk. But he’s very, very calm and very, very level headed for anybody out of out over there. I understand that for all the hype of this better going on. I wrote, I got the newspapers, wanted to talk to me, I talked to. I wrote a detailed letter not speaking to them, the accuser, but to the general public. So I never forget one comment on a newspaper story suggested Ramsey Russell, the Prime Minister’s, wait a minute, we’re spending all this money on geese, here the guy that’s actually bringing paid client over here to shoot him. Yeah. Make him Prime Minister. But like everybody constipated. It was just the vocal minority. And here comes this magazine editor called me, I want to do a neutral piece on. And before I knew it, I had just let lose. I just let loose on. I just told him everything I thought about it. And I said, you know the level of hypocrisy that exists over this issue it’s just mind blowing because I know, and you know, and the anti’s know that the hunters are killing enough of your geese. You all got them stepping on the throat where they can’t really shoot them like they need to be shot. And one thing I learned as is once goose populations get out of control, there’s no carb with hunting point in case the mid-continent of population of snow geese. The only decreases in the last 1998, 20 years that we’ve been shooting those birds in the spring conservation are the only notable decreases in that population has been segments of our populations that are sitting on nesting grounds that are so far deteriorated, it’s already began to affect their productivity. hunting, spring hunting out plug, different plug, electronic call, no limit hunting is not curbing of the geese, resident Canada geese, same thing. The geese over in Netherlands, the grey lags, the barnacles that have taken it residence, the same thing. So what the Dutch are what they’re doing if they’re going out one of these are flightless, they’re building these big long drift net funnels, they’re walking the geese into these shoots, capturing them, gas in them with carbon monoxide then digging a hole and bearing them incinerating. No trophy potential, no birds being skinned, the word trophy anti’s hate, and no utilization no longer, you know, just killing them. And it’s like I ask this reporter I said, you know, you’re not paying for the anti’s are not paying they’re sitting and making accusations and ending the masses with their vocal minority, cloud mouthless but they’re letting the taxpayers pick up the bill. People that are paying for this. So the taxpayers and the farmer that owns 80 acres that is losing his livelihood over this issue, not the anti. So they’re not going to knock on the door and write a check for hunter don’t show up. No, sir, let somebody else pay for that. I want my life, but here’s the big problem. You’ve got that many birds existing every now and again, the Netherlands have a major bird flu outbreak, millions upon millions upon millions of polture have had to be exterminated. Duck season, goose season close, you know, blah blah, I can’t say it but what happens when those birds there’s not just resident bird, you still have a migration coming in, joining the resident birds and flying all the way back to the artic. What happens when those disease begin to spread, it’s not going to spread just to geese, it could affect all manner of wildfowl, all manner of bird life. It could be burden on the arctic that turns or something that catch a disease coming from this event. Who is responsible for that? That’s the scary thing. Not the Dutch anti, not the Australian anti’s, oh heck no. I believe that, Australia and the Dutch, and believe it or not, South Africans there’s a lot of it, it just blows my mind with the hunting economy and meat economy of South Africa that there’s so much livid anti-hunting cinema that comes off the front. You know the whole feats of a lion spectacle. A legal hunt, a completely legal ethical hunt. The best we can tell it was Dutch and European anti’s that kicked that whole campaign off. And what they did utilizing social media. Again, there isn’t somebody sitting at a boat ramp cussing you for hunting, this is somebody using social media and just creating the myth. I mean, you remember Cecil the lion when the dentist from up north just hunt lion, he had a radio collar on and his name is Cecil or some liberal United Kingdom graduate students named his science project Cecil and first of who names a lion Cecil, why not Lito? Not something tuff. Cecil, come on. What? It was sign, nonetheless, it was a wild lion hunted legally and ethically, but that end with the story they got told, spread all around the world in social media and before the truth came out, everybody had brought it, turned against Dennis, a major hunting organization finished interest themselves instead of embracing him. That’s anti-hunting and that’s a scary, scary tactic that we’re all going to deal with. And the last thing that I kind of advice to entirely listen to me talk, but you know, here in United States again, bringing it home, it’s really not even the political circus that’s going on. You know what bothers me about, what worries me the most is the divisiveness and a fractionalization. It is happening among our own banks. It’s hunters against hunters. It’s your sky busting, you’re not hunting over a decoys you shoot shovelers, you don’t shoot enough mallards, you just shoot hens, you jump shoot like white geese or all the different ways and that. It’s all just doing is, you know, the united we stand, divided we fall. Just continually fractionalized among our own life. And I’m going to put this in perspective, I’ll ask you, how much money do you think hunting generates in America? It’s a lot.

Josh Palm: Yeah, it’s a lot.

You’re fighting amongst yourselves, we’re just going to last forever. And that’s why I say it’s hanging by a thread.

Ramsey Russell: If you added all the ammo, and the decoys, and the fuel, and the leases, and the guided hunts, and the clothing, and the boots, and the camo, and binoculars, and scopes and rifles that, get that. And I think they’ve even got a fact where you know like if I spend money this local economy and it changes hands a couple of times. You know, how that that counts. If you add it all up, its $35 billion dollars a year. And let’s get serious here now. 35 billion here. 35 billion there, pretty soon we’re talking real money. Okay. But consider this. Just consider this by comparison in one fiscal year, the New York City public school budget is $22 billion. One city in America is $22 billion. So what is public school budget in America relative to that? It is worse. 35 billion, if you really start looking at the gross domestic product of America. If you really start looking at all the motive airlines, and construction, and industry, and the total American economy, if all of hunting ceased to exist tomorrow, it wouldn’t even be a speedboat, it would not even, it wouldn’t even register on the Richter scale. It be nothing. If you took away at $35 billion from a multi trillion dollar economy, it would not even register it doesn’t even matter. Yet here we are in a very precarious position. But at some point in time, at some point down, let’s face it politics is all about money. At some point in time we become financially irrelevant to the politicians. I believe it’s already happening. But at some point time we come completely irrelevant, and yet here we are on social media, and it just around the world in general beating up on the other guy because of the difference. That’s wrong man. We have got to get our stuff together and pull together because the world is against us. It doesn’t make sense economically. Nobody’s hunting to feed their family. We’re not subsistence hunters or sport hunters. The world takes umbrage to the world trophy, you know. And here we are fighting amongst ourselves, we’re just going to last forever. And that’s why I say it’s hanging by a thread.

“We’re not subsistence hunters or sport hunters. The world takes umbrage to the world trophy.”

Dan Hruska: Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to mention on our last episode when we were talking about hunter harassment. I think Josh you mentioned when the first things, most of the stories we got they weren’t anti-hunters, they were hunters, you know, you took my spot or something of the sort, you know, getting in each other’s face or threatening with a gun, something like that. And it really does put it into perspective when you start throwing those numbers around.

Ramsey Russell: You’re right. I mean it’s very scary. I got, we talked about it and I feel very, very strongly about getting Children involved about recruiting new hunters. It doesn’t bother me. You know, I don’t, I know personally I just I don’t understand a 35 year old man, let’s say that’s never been duck hunting. That also looked up, I grew up hunting with my family. So I don’t understand that person. But believe me I’ll do everything I can get him in that duck blind and goose came into our blind. And you hear a lot of people say they just post this up on your page one day. Let that conversation go. You see it all over the internet times on social media but about new hunters and about you know, too many hunters or the opposite. You see the statistics coming out of fish and wildlife service about fewer hunters to which everybody replies, and that where I hunt is more and more every year. That’s scary. I saw a threat, nice thread about delta waterfowl over in Arkansas had started a program where they were mentoring and taking young hunters out, what a noble program. And the question was very innocently asked, somebody ask the question where will they hunt? And somebody said, well they’re going to take them, they are going to go over here to that. That’s not my question. Not after this event but if you’ve hooked that child or his daddy where will they hunt afterwards, where will they hunt forever? Where will they go to hunt? Because hunting land becomes absurdly expensive. So public land had become extremely crowded. You know, you come to some public land, in the state of Mississippi and you see license plates at 5 o’clock in the morning, five states. You know, want the crowd into a 2 – 500 acre break. You think every duck call on earth “quack-quack-quack” behind every tree getting after, you know, and it has created, you hear about sky busting, you know? Well I’m telling you man, there’s a guy behind every tree, good luck getting stuck in the hole, you know, and working in me and I mean, but where are people going to hunt? There’s not enough property? And what’s so scary about this is that we’re losing property, you know, and I’m from the Mississippi flyway, so let’s talk about that, you know, back in the 60s and 70s agricultural practice for such, waterfowl management for such, the core engineering had only done so much at the time. And, you know, 20 fish burger, Mississippi Delta National Forest was a vast soybean. The margin of land that flooded at least temporarily or during the wintertime. And you know, one of the old wildlife Mr. Abbott duck hunter. And I would never want to describe counting 250,000 mallards between Vicksburg and Delta National Forest. And now that ground is primarily weapon and reserve program, hardwood trees that maybe in 100 years would be a nice little, little flooded habitat times. But right now it’s not. It’s a vast loss of habitat. And then the land that our agriculture duck, I talked farmers from back in the 60’s, 70s, you know, back in those days of early generation bean they start combining, water come in, they believe it, then they come back after spring when the water went down and get the rest of maybe not get as much. They would have gotten the ball particularly stressed about what the ducks had they. Well, now a lot of that land is, now we’re looking at third generation, fourth generation soybean genetics that locked. I’ve literally seen sprout or rot on the stem after 30 days of moisture during the winter, let alone on the water and have absolutely no nutritional value. We’ve now got a landscape of agriculture at least in the Deep South that is all about roundup ready back in the old day 60s and 70s you sprayed and you did some stuff, you did a whole lot of natural and they let some vegetation is out there actually crop was gone stuff, those are gone barren mud soil now. You know, with losing land. I’ll just consider this Northeast Louisiana, Morehead parish Louisiana, Northeast Louisiana, not this past season the one before, 66 pit blinds were pulled out of agricultural fields in one county in Louisiana, and it is a good duck county. One can’t why? Why would it pulled out because those farmers have realized that to get in this fall, and plow that soil, and prepare for next planting season while it’s dry to prevent, you know, water sitting on the field, it may do a lot of things, but it also compacts the soil that the increased productivity of soil combined with a month early start took about $150,000 for a perfect set of $15,000 up there. That’s it. Where are people going to hunt? That’s a real problem. We’re facing society here. You know, in some of the Midwest where you hunt dry field mallards and geese, great. Lot of us don’t do that man, we need any duck holes we need water. And I think that’s just a real problem facing future hunting in America anyway. Its where is everybody going to hunt?

Josh Palm: Yeah, it’s definitely a challenge that you know, I live 30 miles outside of Washington DC. So it’s you know, it’s challenging to find places to hunt and it’s even more challenging to get new people introduced the sport because the places that you do get to hunt, you know, you’ve earned your way in thereby fostering relationships with people and landowners and things like that and they don’t want big, you know, big groups of people. So it’s not like you could just say if you find a buddy or two that are interested in going, oh yeah, I can bring him, you know, and you get next thing, you know, they don’t want groups of 5, 6, 7 people half the time, it’s hard to even talk them to let you in bringing in a second guy to help you carry decoys and gear and stuff. They just you know, they’re so protective of it and everything and it is definitely a challenge that I don’t –

Ramsey Russell: Legal, it’s not on your property and get hurt. You know, there’s a lot of legal liability. I get the information out of goodness your heart come hunting 50. I tripped on a piece of barbed wire across the crossing on your fence and blow my foot off. Guess what? So you can get sued. I don’t say I’m going to sue, I’m just saying that mindset people will sue you. Even though your own, you’re just trying to be nice and speaking of this, I got to say that the United States, it reminded me of this. I worked in Washington DC. I was on detail with the former service from times about six months. And looking back I can’t believe I thought that I really did enjoy that experience of different levels and I’m normal to pretty high level, and really just real fast paced, intense focus. And I loved it. And you asked me a job, I said yes, but I need to go home and get the comparison and came home. It’s hunting shooting and never looked back while I was up there. Dove season came and that’s one thing I love it. If I had a flight, the last supper type hunt. I’m working with the opening day of the season. This I don’t hear the fire shot house started my early memories and time with family and friends use more than does. I’m very excited that a local barber I had bad divided by the authority in this team. I mean, stop the diner and get ready. I can’t believe a black box shotgun. I met him and we drove south of DC. My in law is right in the, Fairfax County, I think in the north Virginia. We drove by north to south, beautiful. Still fixed up. It’s kind of on the nose strips and guns and stuff for hunters over there, getting daylight of people. If so many hunters as a dog would come over treetops, you never had a chance to get more people start shooting. Eventually somebody might make a 50 yard shot, you know, only in the beginning. But that’s not the most memorable part. What’s most memorable part was about 8:00 clock all of a sudden I heard some bugles blowing, I stop and was looking and they like trumpets and bugles and the clap of horse hoof. And about time Karen job started going off. There’s a stiff, I finally couldn’t stand it. I walked out. Of course my, let’s see what was going on next door and it’s a civil war reenactor. I think I’ve seen it all now, you know, I might hear definitely middle up civil war on the back. Civil War reenactor.

Josh Palm: Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, I’ll tell you what Ramsey we’ve had you for about an hour and 45 minutes, 40 minutes or so. And I mean, I appreciate all your time for sure. And I’ve enjoyed listening to your stories and your experiences and I just, I feel bad keeping you so long. Dan, is there anything else you have a last question you wanted to ask Ramsey or anything before we let them go?

Dan Hruska: One question before you go. Super simple. You hunt all over the world. What trigger are you pulling? What guns are you carrying out to all these, on all these hunts?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know, oh, you know, yeah. You know it was quote not expecting is like, what’s your favorite duck? What’s your favorite place to hunt? That’s two questions I could ask them about. My favorite duck placed next to the decoys and my favorite hunting the next duck hunt. That’s really the truth matter. But, I ask you right now. I sure I like EAGLE-3, I’ve got a couple of them. I love Benelli shotguns and I’ve got over nine. I grew up shooting Remington. I Love Smooth Action of Remington 1100. But it’s just when you are, look, I’m not talking bad about any gun out there. Whatever works for you, shoot. And that’s what I saw. You shoot whatever works for you. Benelli works for me. And you know, I’ve had, when you’re 6800 miles from home in the middle of, and you drop your gun in two ft of muck or something, you know, you need a dependable gun, and Benelli is just worked flawlessly for me. I shoot it well. I point it well. You know, we talked previously about everything in America being is elevated, ammunition is the best in the world. And I know every now and again it might be a problem, or something like that. But we’re talking one out of millions of shotgun shells in America which is faulty or bad. And you start counting around the world you are dealing with, you know, you are dealing with junk. I have had ammo that I think is half inert filler in the powder charge. And I have seen all the different makes on the ground. And I confess equally well with any gun’s owner, I promise you that, but you know to me the Benelli, those 30 rounds and will function under those conditions better than anything else. It is simple. It’s as simple as sweep in the action and do the different things. I’ve had this tremendous amount of success. And they’re all the countries, you know, importantly you just can’t, you think I’ve done all the time? Let me tell you, we have got a great gun laws in America. It’s other countries that are real bad. But when I can bring my gun I bring Benelli. It just never fail. I’ve been shooting Benelli, I’ve been shooting Benelli since then. And I think I got rid of it. I got to find. When I was young I needed some cash and and I sold my head Benelli. And I regretted it ever since. But without that gone through and have bunches of Benelli’s and just felt pretty good. They’re just a very good feeling. And I heard a lot about the Hi, Hello, this is a matter of fact. And you know I just couldn’t be happy with it.

Josh Palm: Well, there you go. I think that was the last question I had for this round. But yeah, like Josh said thank you for your time and just the experience and knowledge.

I look back, get into the top… there is no top. You know, if I want to give the top amount, there is no top of that. It’s just building and building a better brand.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you all. I really appreciate what you all doing. You know I’ll tell you this. I would like to meet at some point. You know, I’m so passionate. It’s like all I’ve done 15 years, just this kind of stuff, you know. And I really, I always think of a million things I wish I had touched Tony. You know, I’ll tell you all this because you all building a business, you are not building a plant. You know, right now and what you all would do. And I think you all got a good thing going. And I would appreciate it and to be committed to it in the state, of course. I think you’ve got, you have some great people come on. You’ve got a great subject matter. You all hitting podcast. Even old guys like me, you’re driving down the road who are listening to it and listen to you all. And so, you know, don’t quit. I think you’re really on something, but I’ll say this and I just, you know, I hope that in the future, maybe I’ll think that about what we’re going to say, script our questions, you know, kind of an idea where the meeting will go. But, you know, I’ll tell you this, my wife and I worked very hard to build this thing. And, you know, I look back, get into the top, there is no top, you know, if I want to give the top amount, there is no top of that. It’s just building and building, a better to build a brand. The top keeps changing, the rules keep changing. And what’s learning is the plan. That’s where life has, funny, that’s what it’s all about is the plan. There’s no top. You just keep, just keep doing what you’re doing. And keeping what you love, what you’re good at. And it will work out through it. And you know, I’ll tell you this, my wife and I talked all the time. We could not have done it without the help and support of a lot of people that I’m very thankful. Just influences and clients and people that took time in their life for some reason to build that first I had no idea what he did it and are currently performing other people. Mentors and industry of metal on the base that is just imported their time and their wisdom. And even to this day, one question, I would love just one thing I’d love to tell people about my business is my favorite duck is the next one, my favorite hunt is the next one. But you know what I personally loved when I look back at how many people I’ve met over the years and experiences, what I love about his business and most of the, the fondest memories are not the ducks, it is not the places, it is to people, it’s always people. And I felt bad saying about being the people, you know, there was a function of being old or something. But you know not everybody, I didn’t find it nice. Not everybody that deal with is nice, not every client I have is a nice person. And I have outfitters complain about some people as hard as I worked your clients, sometimes I had to, it just not worth it. But what I realized in dealing with that is like, you know when we were children, its Santa Claus is coming. I remember being a kid just excited and just you know, for a start around thanksgiving, Santa Claus is coming, Santa Claus is coming, Santa Claus is coming, and you’re just excited like a child for Christmas. And what you got, and I guarantee you 10 years later you don’t remember what you got on that Christmas. But now as adults with mortgages, and problems, and family, and barking dogs, and nagging wife, terrible fosters and just life, you know what we see is, I just imagine that a lot of these guys that are building these trips of a lifetime of his vacation hunts. No. They’re sitting at their desk and just for two seconds they can think about Santa Claus is coming. And I get to be a part of that, and it really hits home when I look back through photos of smile in faces. Guys that are somewhere and they’re happy place that I was able to put them then the time their lives just that little escape. And I told them out there at one time we were talking about a client, we just let go this guy, this guy, you go home as somebody else. You just . But it’s like I told Jago that time, I said, Jago, you know if you think this guy, this guy is in his hat place, this is his vacation. This is Christmas morning for him there really fake it. If you think he’s miserable now, how would you like to be back with him at home or at work? Can you imagine how this guy must be. But to be a part of that and now that I look back and look at half dozen people I’ve known, you know, I had a client, 44 years old, his wife and child, and career, and he gives his first hunt is only hunt ever like this. He came home one day with a headache and – oh, he left went to work with a headache, he came home, wife said, how do you do? He said, my head’s just killing me. And before supper he had fallen through the state and died due to stroke. You know, I’ve had clients, importantly suffered from depression. You know how miserable what the man has been in his life except when he was duck hunting first time in Argentina before he put a tag. You know, or clients that were so powerfully influential in our lives that turned out just getting us into places that we couldn’t get. You know, in terms of events, organization, their circles that just went peacefully asleep one night and never woke up. And I look at that, I think about that in how personally and fortunate I am to be a part of those people’s lives. And there’s a, we’re all in it to make a living. But you know, its end of the day, there’s a lot of personal reward that comes from being a part of people’s lives like that. And I love it. I really, my wife and I take it very, very serious. But in the context of building a business like we’re talking about, y’all, you know, countless are the people that were indebted to that. We look back, gosh, I’m so thankful that that person, you know, at that time he helped us, you know, because they did help us maybe for no benefit of their own. They just took the time. You know, young Ryan there, you know, Ryan’s got his own thing. He’s got a family, he’s got, he’s got a career, he’s got his trophy expeditions but still. You know, there’s been times that he takes out of his life to help us and that’s what this whole thing is about. So, you know, I love what I do that are chasing the dream. The American dream is not to live in trump type. The American dream is chase and that’s what you two got to do it. So I can tell, you know. I appreciate y’all. I think y’all can be a part of it. I really respect what you’re doing and anything I could do to help you out with that.

Josh Palm: Well, I certainly appreciate you saying that and taking the time again. I can always make time for somebody that likes to, you know that talks passionately about people in waterfowl hunting and shares a lot of the same values that Dan and I do. So we do appreciate you coming on and all the kind words and we do encourage anybody to check out Ramsey’s operation there at Getducks.com and just see all this stuff that he’s got going on. And you know, he’s touched on his website a couple of times. But the amount of information that you have on there is incredible. I was looking through as we were talking here tonight. I was looking through the different areas that you have in the different the write ups about them, and all the information that you need to kind of look into that sort of stuff. So if that’s something that you’re considering or would like to do one day or whatever. That’s a great place to get a lot of information and, you know, Get ducks is all over social media Facebook, all that stuff. So you can definitely check them all out there, and you know, again, I appreciate you giving us so much time and sharing so much your insight and your experiences with us in our listenership. I know you work a busy schedule in all over the world and things like that, but hopefully we’ll be able to catch up again, you know, one day down the road and catch up, and see what you got going on. But I think we’ll probably leave it here for tonight. And again, thank you so much for coming on. Dan, you got anything else here before we wrap up?

Dan Hruska: No, have fun with Ryan and Jake. And I’m excited to see that project because you know, Jake does amazing work.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you very much and hope a lot closer to home at least Virginia or Maryland or Virginia and Mississippi. I hope three of us could share a blind one.

Dan Hruska: Amen to that.

Josh Palm: But for tonight we’ll go ahead and put a bow on this one. Ramsey Russell: All right, thank you.

Josh Palm: That’s going to do it for episode 79 of the HP outdoors waterfowl podcast. I’d like to thank Ramsey Russell from Getducks.com for spending a few minutes with us here tonight. We’d also like to thank Mount Area waterfowl club in Warsaw Virginia, gunner kennels off grid Food Company and this week’s elite sponsor of the show, Southern oak kennels if you need to catch up, but in the past episodes you can do so at iTunes, stitcher, Spotify wherever you’d like. We always appreciate a five star rating review on ITunes as well for Dan and I’m Josh till next week see you.

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