Life’s Short, Get Ducks Part I: Ramsey Russell Foundations

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to the End of the line podcast. I am Rocky Leflore and sitting in the Duck South studios with me today, Josh Webb. I was always quite down, give you a great opening when I said Josh Webb.

Josh Webb: Yeah, I don’t ever understand why you do that.

Rocky Leflore: It’s that studio voice. If I got a real microphone doing this, it’d be awesome.

Josh Webb: Yeah, I mean if we have equipment for what we actually do two, three times a week, yeah, you’re right.

Rocky Leflore: What are you talking about man? They got a wall in here, amplifier, one of those things you put your three fingers on it once and slide up and down. They got all that good stuff. You have to make a trip up here to the studio and look at it, show you how it work.

Josh Webb: Yeah. Well again, it’s one of those I believe it when I see it. I mean, I’m never coming in the same place twice.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah, you’re in a different place every time we record. Guys look up in the next 15 minutes, Ramsey Russell will be joining us and do the first chapter in the life’s short Get Ducks story. We’ve already heard the first chapter, any thoughts or teasers you can give to anybody?

Josh Webb: Oh, see I’m sorry there again. See, we don’t have legitimate equipment and I was on mute and I was steady talking. The people would just understand my frustration with technology one of these days. Teasers man, I don’t know, I mean, one thing about it, a lot of people know the Get Ducks story, they know, they might know Ramsey personally, they might know some of the stuff, but there’s so much to him and I mean Ramsey loves to talk and I mean it’s just what, and he’ll be the first to tell you that’s what he does for a living, but you can tell and even as simple as the stories were that were told, you know, in this first part, it got to him. You know, he was going back and reliving stuff from when he was extremely young, I mean 4 and 5 years old, and you know, he had to take a deep breath a few times, that’s what all of these –

Rocky Leflore: I’ll give you one the band story. That’s all I’m saying. The band story, you don’t listen to anything, just listen to the band story and listen to the turtle story, both great, and it reminds me of childhood, took me back to being a kid.

Josh Webb: Yeah, you know, and I think that part of it is going to be I won’t say a surprise, but it’s going to give everybody listening an extra connection to it because it definitely did not, the timeline didn’t go as fast as we thought it might in the first part, and I don’t and I think that’s going to be the same forever, I think it’s going to be the same for everybody, is they’re going to see that Ramsey actually slowed down and talked about things in such great detail for so long ago that you made I mean, it’s just I don’t know, I mean, I’ve got a lot of thoughts about it, but it’s just so good, I’m not saying it’s completely different than what somebody might think it’s going to be, but he goes into such good detail, it doesn’t matter how old you are, it doesn’t matter where you come from. I mean –

“That’s what brought my love of hunting about is my dad having a huge dove hunt every year and the entertainment and the fun that I saw that it brought my dad, you know, and I kind of spoiling the story here, but Ramsey talked about the dove hunting as a kid generating his love for hunting and that’s how my story begins.”,

Rocky Leflore: I wasn’t going to jump in there and trying to crush his story, when he was telling me, listen but he is, the crazy thing about it that I was going to tell you is my story and his story match up so well, because that’s what I started out doing. That’s what brought my love of hunting about is my dad having a huge dove hunt every year and the entertainment and the fun that I saw that it brought my dad, you know, and I kind of spoiling the story here, but Ramsey talked about the dove hunting as a kid generating his love for hunting and that’s how my story begins. And there’s other stuff as Ramsey tells that I’m sitting here thinking, gosh, dope man. Ramsey is 10 years older than me but our stories really match up. Because I did a lot of the same things.

Josh Webb: Well, and that’s what I was saying. I guess, I was saying that in a roundabout long form way a second ago, but that’s what I mean by is, I don’t want people to not listen or to tune out quick thinking, well, you know, he’s whatever 50 years old, he’s so much older than me, we don’t have much in common or we’re in completely separate worlds, as far as what we do for a living or what we enjoy doing, the story, and that’s one thing with all these stories is it shows how people are just people. People are you know, so many people are the same, even though we all have our differences but man, it’s just yeah, I mean, the band story, I mean, that’s one cool thing about this is seeing how different things are or how people look at things so different now versus 40 years ago. And that goes into the band story that everybody will hear, that goes into the turtle story, which is one of my favorites. And I mean, it’s just there’s so much, it’s so good. I mean, it is so good.

Rocky Leflore: He’s coming up here in just a minute but, hey, one thing I want to talk to you about surprise you with something. Well, let me say this. You know, I had a doctor, tell me one time that duck hunted with me, he said, you want to lose 30 lb. stop drinking anything sweet and just drink water. Well, I started that, I swear I’ve gained 50 lb.

Josh Webb: Get all the water weight now.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to take drinking cokes every day. Mountain dew. Anyway, look a couple of posts that have popped up in the Duck South group before we go to this interview with Ramsey, that really surprising to me and I think you’ll have an opinion on this and we’ll see. Yesterday, King Van Damor which is a friend of ours who said in this podcast called hey, because of charging it for six days, six day duck hunting in Canada but if you go, number one, if you go through and read that post to six days of hunting morning and afternoon, so you’re actually getting 12 hunts out of the whole deal.

Josh Webb: Right.

Rocky Leflore: I think it was maybe 8000 for the hunt, something like that.

Josh Webb: I think that’s right. I didn’t read much into that post. Frankly because, yeah, it was yeah, it was 7000 or 8000.

Rocky Leflore: All right. There’s one, there’s posters made today about the whole Sitka. The new waiters is coming out, people, somebody made a smart comment about them being overpriced, which they got a lifetime guarantee on them. You know, somebody Logan Dillard made the, oh my God, I got to tell you this before I let you talk. He made the absolute most genius comments to that. I’ll see if I can find it real quick here it is. So, you know, the guy made a post about $1000 waiters, $900 waiters and he says the same guys griping about $1000 waiters are holding $1000 phone in their hands that they will trade out when it hits two years old. Get real folks.

Josh Webb: That’s the truth.

Rocky Leflore: Oh man, what is it with this younger generation man they’re and I used to be that way, maybe it’s not just younger generation because I’m not going to blame it. It’s just, you’re getting started out in life and you want to jump to step 10, but you miss, even Jake was talking about it yesterday. You missed 2 through 9. Don’t miss on those it brings you life lessons to go along with being successful.

Josh Webb: That’s right.

Rocky Leflore: Don’t miss out on them. Don’t be jealous of what somebody else has have. If I could go back and teach you a life lesson right now, you would be happy, all you 20 year olds who’s listening to this 20 to 30, don’t worry about what a 30, 40, 50 year old man has. Don’t worry about it. Just seriously you put it in the back of your mind because one of these days you’re going to be judged on what you were given and what you did with it, is the best way to put it. Now, I’ll let you talk Josh.

Josh Webb: No, Well we definitely live in the world of, what I want what everybody else has and or what seems cool is what I’m supposed to have, blah. I’m not talking about me personally, I’m talking about –

Rocky Leflore: All right, hold on. I’m going to stop because I’m going to work this question into your answer because I want to hear your answer on it. Do you think social media has played a huge part in driving people to be jealous of others?

Josh Webb: Absolutely.

Rocky Leflore: It’s a fake world we live in, dude. All right, somebody tell me one time, he said, you see that family smiling at that picture at Disney world? They just got through cussing each other before they took that picture. It’s a fake world. The unhappiest people in this world are the people that spend over 30 minutes a day on social media.

“What they don’t say and what people don’t know a lot of times is, one of that was probably a birthday present, some of that might have been a graduation gift. You might have worked and save your money for one of them or half of it and bought it, but you don’t and so a lot of times the person posting it doesn’t want to share that kind of stuff.”,

Josh Webb: Yeah, that’s right. I mean, I agree with that. What you see on social media, that’s the highlights. That’s the highlight reel. That’s, I mean seriously, I mean that’s the highlight reel. That’s what people and you know you don’t, and one thing about it too is, I mean you see people, oh whatever, we’ll just talk about hunting. I shoot this gun, I drive this boat, I ride in this truck and I only shoot this, wear that or whatever, but and so they, a lot of times people are putting that stuff on there because they know people will see it, like it, comment on it, whatever. What they don’t say and what people don’t know a lot of times is, one of that was probably a birthday present, some of that might have been a graduation gift. You might have worked and save your money for one of them or half of it and bought it, but you don’t and so a lot of times the person posting it doesn’t want to share that kind of stuff. They want to be the person beating their chest saying, look what I’ve got and look what you don’t. And then the person looking at it from a jealous standpoint goes, well he’s got all of it or she’s got all of it, I want all that and companies are for sure capitalizing on it. I mean, absolutely.

Rocky Leflore: Hey, that’s why they make so many of these vehicles at these factories every year now.

Josh Webb: Yeah.

Rocky Leflore: People used to drive cars 10 years. Dude is just swapping out cars like underwear’s now, because of this reason –

Josh Webb: I mean, and they keep doing things to where they can reach now, look business wise, yeah, I mean it’s smart. They keep doing whatever they have to do to reach a younger demographic. Now, I was telling you earlier and you died out laughing when I told you this, but it is the truth it is happening. There are companies, I’m not going to name them, but there are companies in the deer hunting world and that’s sell bows. Now, number one, it drives, it’s always been amazing to me, it’s a hot topic every year, people love to talk about its why all these archery companies come out with 2, 3, 4 “new models” of bows every year, compound bows every year. It’s just like a car, it’s just like, well there’s gone be a 2019 F150 but you can be able to get it in lay area and the King Ranch and everything else. It was the same way with these bows. There’s a, this version in a 30 inch version or 34 inch version of all this other stuff of all these bows and people are going, why are they doing that? Well it’s, number one they’re, well I guess they’re reaching a bigger crowd but they know that people want what other people have and so if it’s cool somebody’s going to buy it and then five people are going to follow them. And the companies, I mean they’re, I mean look I’m not bashing them, its smart business. So, then you look at what’s happening today, what people got to understand is, these companies are seeing it and realizing it and capitalizing on it. Look go back to the archery stuff, you can finance a bow now. They don’t have so much. It’s because look, I don’t have the money to go buy a $1500 compound bow and shoot it from October to January and then be done with it. No. Now, do I have a bow that costs that much. I do, I’ve had that bow for 6, going on 7 years now and I like to get 10 years out of one and I’ll be able to get more than that out of this one. But my point is these companies see it.

Rocky Leflore: I didn’t know that you can finance bow and I didn’t know that people did. I remember saving half a summer to buy my first bow.

Josh Webb: We’ll look and these companies also realized that, hey, okay now we’re getting to a point where you know, sales on the new bows are going down every year because it’s getting so hard for people to afford 1200, 1300, 1400, $1500 bow every year. So what are we going to do? Cool, we’ll make it where they can finance it and their kid can work the bow off with a summertime job. But it all goes back to the, well what is cool and what does Joe blow have, that I don’t have, that I think, I need because he took a really cool picture with some ducks on the log and he had a nice looking bow and had a real shiny shotgun and I got to have that. But I got to make sure mine is one step better. And I mean the companies, look smart business on their part, they’re capitalizing on it.

Rocky Leflore: Oh yeah, I can’t believe that we live in a culture of jealousy that, listen, you know my comment about Tony Van Damor, I don’t love him to death. He could sit up there in the flooded timber and somebody filming in his sleeveless, you know under amour mallard T-shirt and flex his muscles, I don’t care and get paid 2000 a day, if people what, pay him? God thank you for the United States where we live in a place that people will pay to do that. Capitalism and Jesus are what makes the United States great. I’ll say it again.

Josh Webb: I mean what is wrong with, like I don’t understand that. I mean, I don’t, this is not we are here to, this is not something we’re here to –

Rocky Leflore: What if Ramsey says on support or not support.

Josh Webb: Yeah, that’s what I’m getting to. I’m not here to say good or bad on anybody who’s charging $300 a day or $1500 a day. I don’t care, if you’re making it work in your business model and it is a business model, it’s not something just go stick cash in your pocket and just go do whatever all day long and hope that your clients are happy. Yes, and that’s what Ramsey said, it’s right there along with everything that me and you have talked about, you know, look, I like a Corvette, I’ll drive a Corvette but I can’t afford to buy it. So what? But I’m not mad at everybody that can I don’t, I mean, hey, if you can go up there and buy a brand new Corvette good on you. That’s awesome. I’m not going to say, well I hate you for being able to do that or let me scratch you never do that. I mean, I don’t care.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to honk at you in my 2010 dented up Chevrolet yell, pay bill at you.

Josh Webb: Yeah, I mean also and that’s the thing if they don’t care if they want to charge $3,000 a day, I don’t care. Why should you care? Because you’re mad because you can’t, I can’t afford it, I can’t and I mean, and I know that there’s probably some people going, well you’re Rocky, talked about going up there, yep, that’s right. Me and Rocky went up there and spent two days with him in August while he was working his butt off trying to prepare for teal season and dove season up there. We just happened to catch him at a time when we could go see him and sit down and eat supper for two days really and truly we were probably in his way more than anything. I can’t afford to go up there and hunt. I’ll be the first one to tell you that, I can’t. But if some, whatever. If I worked for some company and they’re going to pay for a corporate retreat and that’s where we’re going. I’m going sure I’ll go, I wouldn’t turn it down. I wouldn’t turn down, you throw me the keys to a Corvette this weekend either. But I don’t understand why people are so, and that right there, it goes into the same thing. If that happened Rocky, you say that right there. That’s what I was talking them into go. Me and you know that we – you couldn’t afford to go up there and hunt but I mean you were up there and we hunted, we put a picture and I’d be like, well there they are habitat flat, they’re hunting, they can do it. But what you don’t know is, if I go up there, yeah, I ain’t paying for it. Somebody, is going to have to be really nice to me and be willing to pay for my trip and that’s not the only place like that. There’s tons of them.

Rocky Leflore: Understand, I think that there are people that are, I think that on the financial means, I think people compare where they’re at in life versus where other people are, not in the jealous sense, but in the sense of and I can’t afford that, how do they afford it? Just tell you something, there are a lot of people in this world that make a lot of freaking money. $800 for 3 – $800 a day for 3 days, $2400. That is Jack crap to some people. They laugh about it. That’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Josh Webb: But look, here’s the thing to, would you, I mean and that again, social media is the highlight reel. That’s the highlight reel. What you don’t know is, the dude putting up pictures from wherever some swanky place, whether he’s deer hunter, ducking, whatever he very well could have been sitting there sticking cash in a shoe box for the last three years, waiting for the opportunity when he could afford to go, you all know that. But why does it matter to you what they freaking charge? Like, I don’t care because if somebody wants to go and they’re going to have the experience, they pay for. Jealousy factor is ridiculous.

“The people that post the most in social media are usually the unhappiest people in life, in real life. They live for like and they get their approval through that.”

Rocky Leflore: Hey, let me inform somebody else. I’ve read up a lot lately about social media and the people in the social media world like I said, if you spend more than 30 minutes a day, it’s a proven scientific fact that you are more likely to be unhappy with your own life. Number two, give you another one. The people that post the most in social media are usually the unhappiest people in life, in real life. They live for like and they get their approval through that. Anyway, we jumped way off topic. We got to get with Ramsey because that’s what people came here for and I know that that’s what they want to hear. So, Josh, I guess we will talk with you again on Sunday when we record episode two before Ramsay leads to go out of town.

Josh Webb: Yeah, I just really hope everybody, Yeah, I know we went off some bumpy dirt roads there, but I hope everybody really does listen to this story following Ramsey because it’s phenomenal.

Rocky Leflore: All right. Well keep drinking water, keep losing that weight, buddy.

Josh Webb: Yeah man, we’ll do.

Rocky Leflore: All right guys, like we told you at the beginning of the podcast, we’re really, really fortunate and excited to be able to not sit just like you sit back and listen to Ramsey Russell story but to be the ones to get that story and Ramsey, thank you for being here today, bud.

“No, man, I appreciate you all have me Rocky. I listened to your podcast pretty religiously and I love the story and I think mine’s pretty unremarkable to be honest with you, but I’m proud to be here.”

Ramsey Russell: No, man, I appreciate you all have me Rocky. I listened to your podcast pretty religiously and I love the story and I think mine’s pretty unremarkable to be honest with you, but I’m proud to be here.

Rocky Leflore: I don’t want to hear that at all because we spent, Josh, how long do we spend on the conclusion of Jake’s episode yesterday talking about Ramsey’s story?

Josh Webb: Oh yeah, the last 10 minutes. Yeah. And his reaction, I think is a lot of people’s reaction is, you know, they’re really, really looking forward to hearing it. And we’re very thankful that, you know, you want to do it here.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah, very appreciative.

Ramsey Russell: I’m glad to be here.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, let’s start off with this. You’ve never, unless asked in the past, you’ve never really told a lot of people your complete story. Where you came from, things that happened in your life, but to get to where you are today, man, you had to jump a lot of hurdles and go through a lot of crap.

“I’ve got one of the personalities that just almost tunnel vision. And I know a lot of my closest friends or people I’ve talked to, people have gotten phone calls at 2 o’clock in the morning back in the day, you know later in life, I know they would say the same thing.”,

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you know, life is pretty good about throwing things in your path, you know, and you just have to hit them head on, and not be worried. I’ve got one of the personalities that just almost tunnel vision. And I know a lot of my closest friends or people I’ve talked to, people have gotten phone calls at 2 o’clock in the morning back in the day, you know later in life, I know they would say the same thing. You kind of just look at the task at hand and take 1 ft. at a time and life ain’t always easy, but it ain’t always easy for anybody, you know, and there’s things that come around and you just step over them and keep going. I saw watching some television show the other night, I’m bad about binge watching when I come home burn out from the road, I’m not going to crawl up in a set of headphones and binge watch something. I was watching something other day, aunt Polly on Peaky Blinders, she said, you know you just shake the hands with the devil and move on and that’s the way life is sometimes.

Rocky Leflore: Where? I would take it all the way back, where did you grow up? What was it like hunting wise and everything when you were coming up your hunting, who are you hunting with? What did that scene look like? Your family? And I want to know about the family that you came from.

“My dad and uncle were big hunters with my granddaddy growing up. Not big in a way that we are today because times have changed. I mean they really have, I think that the generational gap, you know but back in the old days, nobody was passionate hunter.”

Ramsey Russell: That’s probably the most unremarkable part of the whole story because you know, I looked at kids like my own and a lot of these guys I know that I’m friends with now and I see on the internet and stuff, you know, when they started hunting when they were sucking a pacifier and I did not really, I just didn’t, it’s not how I grew up, you know. My dad and uncle were big hunters with my granddaddy growing up. Not big in a way that we are today because times have changed. I mean they really have, I think that the generational gap, you know but back in the old days, nobody was passionate hunter. No, it wasn’t a lifestyle, it wasn’t a live and breathe and think about it. I don’t believe my uncle and daddy and granddaddy even thought about duck hunting this time of year, I don’t think they did, you know, but it’s what they did together growing up and I’m born and raised in Mississippi and there’s been sometimes we’ll talk about later. I’ve tried to get out or thought I wanted to get out and but didn’t I’m 52 years old and I’m here in Mississippi born and raised. But if you’re from Mississippi you get what I’m saying, you got the Delta, which is a demographic hunt to itself and then you got the rest of the state. I think that’s a pretty fair summary and I’m a Delta guy. I was born in Greenville, Mississippi on the banks of Lake Ferguson, right there at King’s Daughter hospital. And my grandfather who was, way back when from Itta Bina grew up in Greenville. My daddy and family grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and then part of the family was from Greenwood. So my childhood I grew up in Greenville but spent a lot of time over in Greenwood with my mother’s side of family. And but it’s all delta. And I think it’s real different than growing up in South Mississippi and in the piney woods, you know over in central Mississippi. I think, you know when you’re from the Delta, just the whole mindset and your origins and so you know gumbo mud sticks to everything. I think it gets in your blood. And so that’s where I grew up was in Greenville. And, you know, my fondest memories as a very young kid weren’t hunting, it was just fishing or houseboat or doing something on Lake, on the banks, you know, on Lake Ferguson. That’s how I remember growing up. It was all around Greenwood, Mississippi.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to throw you a left handed slider. When was the last time you were in Greenville?

Ramsey Russell: It’s been a while. Daddy died, my father passed, I think it was 10 years ago. A year or two later, I took my kids back up through there and just gave them the grand tour. I don’t know what we did, where we were, what we did that day, but we just, we ended up in Greenville and just to spend a Sunday on the road and went up and just walk through some old stomping grounds and show them kind of how I’d grown up where I lived and you know, where I went to school and we went and paid respects at the cemetery there’s a family plot there in downtown Greenville. And just gave them a good backdrop of where I was from and what I do and what I did and show them some things and it’s been a while, you know, it’s like I tell people all the time Greenville Mississippi I grew up there in the 70’s it’s a good place to be from and I know a lot of folks still live there but small part of me is glad I do not.

Rocky Leflore: That’s what I was going to ask you. I would have to designate Greenville the most changed town in the state of Mississippi.

Ramsey Russell: Oh it is. You know, I was reading a book and I’ve seen it on MS ducks and Ducks South and talked about a lot, it’s called Rising Tide, I believe it was the name of it bout the great flood of 2007 and I was reading that book, it’s very interesting book if you’re from Mississippi. And you know, at one time before my time I can tell you Greenville, Mississippi before that flood in the 20s was like the cultural epicenter of the Deep South. It was, what New Orleans kind of represents today in terms of culture and refinement, the place to be. They had their own Mardi Gras type balls back in those days and there was just a lot of agricultural based money, a lot of economy out there and it was really, before that levy broke north of Greenville and flooded that whole area and wiped it out. It was something to see. And then the politics change and everything changed and you know, it just became what it is a Delta town, a Delta city with a lot of problems. I read somewhere in the last 5 to 10 years, that the highest per capita homicide rate in the United States of America, Greenville Mississippi owned that status at one time. You know, it’s a change town, like a lot of places time goes on and things change.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, you did do some deer hunting though, back to the, coming back around.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, look, I’m going to say this, I’m going to back up just a minute. And you know, I grew up reading a lot and I read a lot of William Faulkner and just a whole bunch of books when I was a kid. I wasn’t really a bookworm. I did play a little bit of sports until later, but I did like to read, I think everybody of my generation did. I think all my friends just, we read books, man, we have two or three channels and you have to get up, walk across room to change it and find one that wasn’t fuzzy and so maybe we did more reading back then these kids that they did, but there’s a quote, I want to say this just because I know Rocky, you and I, and Josh have talked about this story off and on. And it’s going to be more than more than one podcast as we progress and go along into it. But there’s a quote that says, William Faulkner once said, he said, ‘the past is never dead, it’s not even past’ and you know, that say a lot. And I think that really, I think that everything that I am, everything that you are and everything that anybody is really reflect on their past and in good ways and bad, you can try to change history. We can start tearing down statues and everything else we want to, but at the end of the day, you know, we are our past and I think a lot of who I am, what I do really goes back to having grown up in the Mississippi Delta and the people and the influences in my life back then, not the least of which is my grandfather Russell. And I’ll say this, you know, it’s all about timing and things and you know, a lot of what Faulkner was talking about in that book about the past not being dead and not even being passed, he was really kind of talking about, you know, in that particular stories, talking about redemption for past deeds and you know, I told Josh, excuse me. I told Jake one time as he and I were talking about this project he and I are working on, I told him, I said, you know, going out discovering and doing all this kind of stuff is Getducks.com is building and we didn’t build Getducks, we’re building Getducks. It’s an ongoing process because we did that, it’s been a lot of self-discovery and a lot of just, I can see where starting in Greenville Mississippi to now, it’s been just one step after the other, one step after the other missteps, back step forward step, it’s just a current progression. So just, I didn’t, it was important me to say that, you know, past never dead, we are our past and I’ll say this, I did not grow up like my kids hunting. I did not, I did not grow up like my Children hunting. Getting back to that time and deal, my grandfather, I’ll talk about a little bit was an old school Delta attorney. He, one of these modern day lawyers, I called. There wasn’t all that that high fangled tort and all that kind of stuff, you see now, it was just, you know, he made a living like an honest lawyer just doing deeds and land disputes and things that nature right there in Greenville Mississippi some characters, he had his clients in the past. Now, I think about it, you know, we’re kind of influential in what I do and some of my friends and stuff like that and my up bringing’s but he would just, his health had started to decline and his life had changed. His financial situation had changed, things had changed in his life to where when his first grandson came along, he had buying large didn’t hunt like he used to and some of the hunting he did do was just because I was around his kids were around his grandkids. And so –

Rocky Leflore: Were you all hunted deer?

Ramsey Russell: Man, we didn’t hunt deer. He wasn’t a club member in the delta back in those days. We fished a lot, a lot of brim fishing man, I used to love the brim fish and still do. I still would rather just drown a bunch of crickets over brim beds than anything else. And I just, I love it, you know. But I grew up dove hunting and you know when I was about 5 or 6 years old, he would go out dove hunting. Labor Day weekend and I swear on a stack of bibles. I was probably 13, 14, 15 years old before I realized Labor Day weekend was a Federal holiday. I thought it was the day we got out of school to go dove hunt. And until that, that’s all I knew we did was on the Labor Day weekend. We went dove hunting, we hunt Saturday and Sunday and Monday and in different farms in the delta and they were big events. I can remember, you know, you pull up at noon, the hunt didn’t start till noon and we might get there at 10 or 11 o’clock and the man would go off and talk and man, those kids would run around with other kids and roughhouse and just swim and do all kinds of stuff. You know, and then we started dove hunting and that was how I started was just dove hunting in the delta and as much world and everything I’ve seen in the last 40, some odd years since then if I had a last meal kind of hunt, if the Good Lord said, you can go on one more hunt before you die, that would be it. I would want to go back and dove hunt. You know, and to me and then we’ll get into this later too. This speaks for another story. But I realized years later in a situation I went through just how important that experience was to me and not just the dove. Now look, man, I love to pull the trigger, anybody that knows me and shared a blind with Ramsey Russell knows how I like to pull the trigger. I’m not a trigger burst guy. I’m not out there, I’m not anywhere to go watch the sunrise. But when I think back to those days on those hot dusty dove fields with my grandfather and Mr. Phil, his associate and my father and uncle and a lot of those old timers, I just really, I really value how important the family aspect was. You know, just being around those people in that setting. And you know, the whole process of riding and bronco out. He raised springer spaniel forever. That’s a pretty interesting story when, oh my grandfather, he was stationed down in Laredo, Texas during World War two. He had a friend and I believe that man ran Greenville lumber company back in the day. He was stationed over in Europe. There was a letter and I thought I saw that letter one time I’ve tried to find it recently, I can’t put my hands on, but there was a letter he had written to my grandfather that said he was over in Europe and had found the perfect dogs for them to hunt with back home. And somehow I know they got some paperwork going or did something and that man showed up after the war with a couple of springer spaniels from Netherlands from Holland a couple of springer spaniel puppies and that have been back in the late 40’s that he came back to Greenville Mississippi with those two dogs of two puppies and I was 13 or 14 years old. We were hunting in Inverness when the last of that genetic got run over the dove field, a doctor and his son come flying by, we’re just a middle a wheat field and he comes flying by with a, that one of six wheel, I don’t remember what you call those things had six wheels and two stick, you steered with but come running down to turn roe and run over a dog called half and that half dog was my dog. It was a dog that my grandfather had given to me from the last letter I was in dogs. And we grew up with Springers and my job as a five or six year old, you know as a child before I started shooting at about 7 or 8 was to, I mean was to fetch doves and I try to outrun that dog, you know, and pick up those doves for my granddaddy and you know, that and I never did, but I tried, you know, that’s what these young kids did and but I, that’s how I grew up with dove hunting and not very much, I’ll tell you this, not very much at all. We go usually that one big weekend and sometimes we might go out, you know, another Saturday or another Sunday afternoon and go shoot dove somewhere. That’s how I grew up hunting was just dove hunting and until, I was probably 12, 13 years old and my mother’s cousin on her side of family over on the Greenwood side of near side and I met him at a Christmas, you know our family get together at Christmas over in Greenwood and all the families, all the aunts and uncles and cousins, you never really saw too much, you know that all get together and go house to house and you re in touch and I touch base with that man and who took an interest and said, hey, you know, we ought to go deer hunting. So I started deer hunting when I was in junior high school and shot my first deer right off the back and then couldn’t hit crap was a dear miss son of a gun, ever walk face of earth for years afterwards dove hunts how I got started and to this day, I don’t, you know, I’ve been to Quebec I’ve been to Mexico and I’ve shot doves all over the world Peru and everywhere else but still and Rocky, you know this, and heck we all three kind of met, talk for the first time on a dove field of Rockies. I love the dove hunt, I love that Mississippi dove hunt, I love that 15 bird dove hunt it was 12 back then its 15 now, but you know it ain’t like Quebec, it’s not like some of these other places, you just shoot up the endless streams of doves coming over you, you got to kind of make it count, but you out there with your kids, out there with your friends and your family and there’s usually a barbecue involved somewhere and I just, I really love that experience.

Rocky Leflore: I always say that that was the part of my dad that led me into being a guide. Entertaining people, put them on a good dove hunt was probably my dad’s favorite thing to do. But Ramsey, let me ask you this as you look back on growing up, there had to be the foundations laid into you that made you who you are today.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, there was, yeah, there really was Rocky. That’s a good question. Now, let’s talk a little bit about the duck hunting part and you know, it’s like, if you ever raised a puppy into a dog and I’ve never bought a started dog, to me it’s important to kind of just get a dog as a pub and bond with them and raise them up just right, you know a certain way to kind of get that thing going and if they don’t turn out later in life you get rid of them and get another one and I don’t, I just won’t have a dog that doesn’t fetch right? But you know, when you do that with that animal, you learn you don’t ever put that dog up whether he’s a puppy and you’re tossing socks down the hall or they’re getting older and you’re doing happy bumpers, you don’t ever throw bumpers to a dog at a point until they’re tired of it. Right about the time that dog is just ready to go get the next one, you put him up, you leave that dog hunger forward and that’s just kind of analogous to, what I’m trying to say is my grandfather did not really duck hunt too much, I called him, I was born at the tail end of his duck hunting career, but he did duck hunt, you know, he wasn’t like me, he wasn’t like our generation Rocky, he didn’t take, he didn’t believe in taking small babies out to the wagon him out to a cold duck blind. I mean I took my boys when they were babies, that’s good and bad, you know, turned out good, but there were some, there was some trial situations, you know, for him, I guess that was adult time, he didn’t take small Children. I do remember one time in Arkansas before I learned to shoot that year, you know, getting up in their duck blind in Arkansas and curling up with the dogs on a blanket and sleep in a little bit, you know, instead of whining too much, but it was cold, I didn’t shoot. But I remember the whole drama about it. I can’t tell you how many ducks were killed or who all was involved, but I remember that event and then a lot of the duck hunting experience I had was just like, you know, he had this great big old army duffle bag, not a top zipper, but just kind of side and boy, that’s where he carried his extra socks and gloves and equipment. He had matches and cigarettes and Duck call, that’s where he kept all his possible that he would just grab that bag and go to duck camp, he was ready to go to blind, right? We go through that and look through that some a lot, of course decoys and waiters and all the gear around the boats and stuff around his house and those kids would rummage through and look at and fortunately, still got some of those decoys, but like really the duck hunting experience, I remember growing up was, when my uncle would come into town because he served in the Air Force. He would just sit around the kitchen table and them telling stories about duck hunting and the times they fell in and got wet, at the time they shot the duck or didn’t and just their spirit, their stories, their experience, their growing up and wanting to do that because I’ve never done it. I’ve done that one time, you know, but it never really gone out and shot ducks and that won’t to do that. And here’s a funny story, I do remember about my grandfather and my granddaddy was old school and even on the dove fields we didn’t, man, I was in high school before that I never heard of breasting the dove. We picked them son of a gun. He cook them whole doves and he sauté them down and cook them down in a skillet. And it’s always good. Just a rich brown gravy of morsels of dove in it. And you poured over your white rice, you know, and ate like it, that’s how I remember him always cooking doves but we never breast and we whole picked them and he whole picks his ducks too, that was just, you know how he grew up. He grew up very, very simple and humble beginnings and just utilized those animals completely clean them and did them. But even the giblets, I can remember one day, there’s a funny story, I think a lot of modern hunter, a lot of conventional guys, these internet types could relate too. As I can remember, I was just tall enough to look in the kitchen sink while he was washing those mallards setting the giblets aside over here and you know, get everything done and I can remember seeing something shiny, on one of those ducks feet. And I said, you know, what’s that on that duck’s leg? And he says that’s a government tag. And this is back in the 70s when they were band in a lot of birds on the wintering grounds as well as up in Canada and doing a lot of stuff. But you know, he just threw that government tag out with the rest of the bird, you know, the feet and the feathers and things that nature, he didn’t care anything about the band. And later, much later in life as I got to kind of understand what they were about. I asked my dad one time I said, you know, you all didn’t keep those bands of stuff, he shrug and said no, he said, it was just a piece of metal, somebody put on a duck’s foot, you know, they saw them, you know, they just they didn’t think anything about, they just threw them away with the rest of bird. Never called a man, I can remember sitting there watching my grandfather, you know just, I was sitting around one day and him cleaning out his billfold like you do, you know, you open up your billfold, you pull out all the stuff you don’t need, you put all the good stuff back in and you know, he throw always hunt license every year, throwaway his duck stamps every year.  He was just a practical person. You know, boy, I’d love to have all them old, duck stamps and hunting licenses as his, you know, just the memorabilia, but I did not, now I’ll tell you –

Rocky Leflore: Hey Ramsey, let me ask you this. So you got the hunting side from your grandfather. Look a big part of who you are now, you’re also an entertainer. You’re an entertainer to people. So that foundation had to be laid somewhere back then to want to entertain people. So where did that come from?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t have any idea. I really don’t. I think we’re just, sometimes some of us are born with a personality, my grandfather was, he was valedictorian of his little old school in Greenville and grew up, like I say, just very, very simple, simple poor beginnings and apply himself in school and went to college and became an attorney and took care of his family. And but he was, boy, he had a lot of friends, you know, like growing up, you know, he made a lot of house calls. I can remember him picking me up as far back as kindergarten and we spend the night there at his house on Main Street in Greenville and on Saturday morning we get up at the crack of dawn, might go fishing just for a little bit, not much. And then he would call on clients throughout the Delta, you know, within an hour of Greenville. But we just go to different farms and different properties and a lot of men sat there and drank coffee. I’d run around farms, you know, do different things, you know, but I don’t know where I got that gift for Gab and that entertainment thing you’re talking about. Now, let me tell you about growing up in Greenville. It’s kind of an interesting story, I think, you know, the creativity and maybe the entrepreneurship. I remember some of those origins looking back.

Rocky Leflore: It’s another great one.

Ramsey Russell: I can remember one time for example, my grandfather was cleaning out something and he been in World War two and he promoted up to major in the air force and he had given me a bunch of little insignias, you know, private bars and lieutenant and major leaves and just all the different little stuff, you clip on your uniform there in the military, give him. And I said, well, so I’ll just throw them away, and I said, I want it and he gave it to me. Well, I went to school and sold it and man, I’d, part of me wishes I had a lot of stuff in a box, you know that I could take open and look and say, boy that was my grandfather, you know, but he was never prouder than me coming to his house and showing them all the money I made selling that stuff at school. He just couldn’t get over it. He and from then on, if you found stuff like that, you know, he called me, I’d walk over to his house and he give it to me again and say, see what you can get for this. But now let me tell you this. If you ever been to Greenville. You know, I grew up on a little neighborhood kind of what was then towards the south end of town on favor drive right there around Bolton boulevard and I was, if you went to the west, you’d walk across this big old field, I think it’s all soccer field or something now and the little Solomon junior high school and there was a Greenville mall. The Greenville mall, maybe a half mile, maybe a mile, it’s hard to judge and child walking distances how far something was back in those day. But long Bolton and boulevard, was about a mile of this little old drainage ditch. That was my kingdom. That was, those ditch banks in between those ditch banks that water brought them turtles and sometimes snakes and crawfish and things like that, word out was, man that was my world. And I don’t remember who got me started doing this. But as far back as I can remember, I went to little old Greenville Christian school, my grandfather was the attorney there and we went to that school, but I can remember for show and tell one time taking a bunch of little old turtles and you know, catching little green turtles, bought a size of a quarter half dollar at a time. And I had found an old tray out of the refrigerator, like a drawer out of refrigerator and found a system of them, somebody thrown away refrigerator. I pull all the drawers out and turn them into tray to keep my turtles in. A little landscape bottom of sand and stones for them to climb up on. And one time to show and tell I brought it and I must have brought about 10 turtles to school and to include the little green turtles and then little old bitty snapping turtles, just hatching, snapping turtles. Snapping turtles, the ugliest as seen, I mean you got, you know, one of those green turtles, those green turtles were flying like hot cakes. I would sell them for a quarter a piece. But snapping turtles were set up for sale because they’re ugly and but what I would do is I would lay them on my desk and I wrote them over on the back when they got to long neck and they write themselves up quick so they could do tricks and that’s how I sold them for 50 cents. One day, after the teacher kind of caught on to the business thing, I couldn’t bring them into big trays no more, so I had to put them in my pocket and I just put them, I put several turtles down in my pocket and in my blue jeans and I carry them to school and take them out and put them on desk and kids would buy them. And one day I had one snapping turtle, I couldn’t move still in my pocket. And I walked in a little in the boy’s restroom over there and the janitor Mr. Willie, was in there cleaning up or something. Mr. Willie, look at this right here, you want buy it? I pulled out that little snapping turtle, he started laughing. No boy, I don’t want that turtle. He said, I want his daddy. I said what you mean, you want his daddy? And he goes, you eat them big ones sons, you can eat them big enough. He’s an old black man, you know. And I said you eat them? He said, yes sir, you can eat these little turtle – you can eat them big turtles. And he said, I said, you catch them? He said no, I get them at the fish market and oh boy did I –

Josh Webb: The Wheel started turning in huh?

Ramsey Russell: The wheel started turning. So, I mean that’s back in the day, you just pick up a phone book, look around and one many fish markets. I call one. They said, yeah, well buy your turtles and I walk down, you feel piggly wiggly in that Greenville mall and there were no shopping baskets would roll way across parking lot and just slipped right off and one disk bank. So I went after school, went down to, went down and fish me out one and one in shopping carts and pushed at home. And it’s funny back in 70s my parents never said, what are you doing with a piggly wiggly shopping cart, they didn’t think. And I found me, I had found an old, you know, like a dip in it, like a bass there, like when you catch fish and get the fish out of water, you know, your bass fish with big fish. I found me one of those and I sold it together and it busted why some might threw it out. Well, I found it and put some string on it. Got it all going good buddy. I started, mining that ditch close and I knew that big snapping turtles, he was talking about, I don’t mean big, like big back your truck and I was just a little boy. I’m talking big, you know, put a half, two ft. long, 5-10 pounders. And I would walk up and down. I spend my days and you’ll get whipped after, you know, didn’t matter which shoes I was wearing, I was knee deep in that ditch catching them turtles wearing whatever shoes I had on. And you know –

Rocky Leflore: What did you, did you have to explain that? I mean, what did you, I mean, what your mama and daddy say about that? I mean they had to catch on after a while.

Ramsey Russell: No, I mean look, I was encourage able man. I just, you know, finally, I guess all the whippings clicked into where I would find old tennis shoes went on my turtle runs, you know, but they didn’t –

Rocky Leflore: Turtle runs.

Ramsey Russell: I was a very precocious young man. I’d say, I didn’t get just one or two Whippings in my life. I tell you that in school or at home I, I got good old fashioned whippings pretty regularly, you know, it’s almost like I just come inside and turn around and bend over like here it comes and but I got a business going for about the three or four years, we stayed in Greenville before moving, we moved down to Byram, Hinds county. Right, before I started 7^th grade but I had a heck of an enterprise going man. I would come in with that shopping back and turn my three or four or five turtles loose in the backyard. We have little chain link backyard. I just run and I’d always find them on the shady side of house, you know, on Saturday mornings. I talked, I put them in a little shopping bags, just 1 turtle per grocery sack and till I going back with mama’s car. She put them in a trunk and we’d go the fish market and I sell them for 40 cents a pound and look man 10, 15, 20$ a week back in the 70s I was rolling off. I was rolling large. I mean, I had an empire turtle empire between selling little turtle school and getting 40 cents a pound fish market every week or so. I had an empire going and I blew every bit of it at the arcade and on coca cola’s and barbecue sandwiches from Favorite Brother. But still, you know, it was good and I loved it and that’s how I grew up.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to throw you another. Ramsey, I’m going to throw another curveball, brothers and sisters and before you answer that, what number were you in your family? As far as birth order? Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I got one little brother, he was three years younger and you know there was two of us, two brothers and Tommy just he, I don’t know, it just the hunting and fishing and outdoors and all that kind of stuff, just kind of skipped him. He just really, does little deer hunting. He go dove hunting with me later in high school and we were, us running around those days. But he just the hunting bug just never really caught him. It just never really did, when I, after I got into duck hunt much later and stuff like that. I’ll tell you funny, if you remind me to tell you funny, the only time he’s ever been duck hunting with me, it’s a good story. But it just didn’t catch him like that. You know, he maybe a little more into baseball cards as a kid and playing sports and doing that thing. I was all about just getting my feet muddy and being outside really about catching those turtles. And later in life when somebody gave me, I think my mother gave me a pellet rifle. Well, Lord have mercy man. I mean, I probably could have, you can fill up barges worth of, barges, worth a dead bird and critters I shot with that pellet rifle growing up. But that’s really kind of what I remember, my childhood is just those turtles and selling them and man I mean, it was a resource. You know what, I tell you this, there was a man, my hero in Greenville, Mississippi and I guess his name was snappers while I remember calling and I believe you worked up there at the muster shop. But there was a man in Greenville Mississippi that was my hero as a child and kind of commercial fisherman type but he would go out to those oxbow lakes now he’s grown man had a truck and boat and all that big stuff, but he would go out early in the morning late in the evening. I remember him telling me one time how he hunted those big turtles is, you know, he’d go out there, they’re real crepuscular. They move just like deer. You know when you deer hunt early in the morning late in the evening that’s when those turtles, big turtles are most active when I was hunting them, you know, I would look down now I could spot your head sticking up, it looked like a stick but it didn’t or they get off in that mud and bury themselves and leave their head up and I could spot him in that little old ditch and I’d run down and snag them up with my net, put them in my basket, take them home hose them off, let them run around the backyard. They run around the backyard until one day I woke up and my dog springer was just howling, I mean boy, I mean she was hurting bad, I went running out the back yard, one of them turtles had bite her nose and man, my neighbors were coming out of the house, my parents are coming out of house by then and I finally got that turtle off of her then I had to build a little pin to put them all in, you know, so she wouldn’t get bit again and wake everybody up. That’s the worst part of that story was the fact my daddy got woke up on Saturday morning, you know, and because of my dog howling. But this old man there in Greenville, he used to hunt the big ones commercially. He had a long piece of life kind of do it pop with big old like a nail hook he had put on there and he was telling me he’d go out and his old turtles were crawling across that mud, he would push poll up to him, he could see him run across the bubbles coming up. He knew from the width of those bubbles and how much they were, how much dirt they were turning that shadow of water in the backside of ox bows, how big them turtles were and if they were big enough and they had to be big make food with them he’d catch and even food, a little babies. I was catching little 5 pounds. He want one of the big ones, he would stick that pole and start tapping on the shell and we run out of tap. He knew they had passed and he could finagle it to where that hook would come up with that little part under the tail, a little part of bottom press plate on the bomber tail, he could hook them and then boom, break them up off the bond and pull them in the boat. And what was so interesting to me is he actually had a, he actually was missing his thumb and an index finger on one hand to where one day trying to squeeze them turtle and fit them turtle down the Croker sack, one of them got ahold of and bit it off, put his fingers in his pocket and once he got that turtle wrestled in and was done hunting, he went to the hospital there to get sowed back on, but it was too late, so he just lead the rest of his life without, I thought that was the coolest thing. You know, I just for a long time one of my biggest flex was, I wasn’t missing finger, you know, I wasn’t a real turtle hunter.

Josh Webb: That’s what I was going to say you were, you saw him as the ultimate because he has lost a finger, lose a finger.

Ramsey Russell: And what do you reckon somebody there was a man, just making it, making ends meet, you know, catching turtles, you know as a commercial fisherman. But what do you think he thought that somebody so idolized? You probably never would have dreamed that he was somebody’s hero. But he was mine. But that’s just, that’s my origins right there with turtle hunting and duck, you know when I remember, I think of those days and my exposure to water fowl, what I can remember when I was kid we’re out on real cold frosty mornings. I remember always being cold, you know that time of year, but we’d be out on the curb, wait on the carpool to come by. I can remember a lot of morning those snow geese flying over that. I really, that’s really the fondest moment was thinking about all those snow geese I know, it didn’t, have never seen one. You know, that’s back in the day in the 70s I don’t recall ever seeing white geese on the ground in the Mississippi delta. I don’t think I ever saw that. I think, I would have remembered it, had I saw acres of snow geese or waterfowl on the ground somewhere. I would have remembered it forever, but I didn’t all, I saw of snow geese was where they were flying over heading down to the coastal marsh and I didn’t know they were heading to the coastal marsh. I just knew they were flying over, they were migrating through and –

Rocky Leflore: Who would have ever known this is where we’re going to stop it. This is it. Who would have ever known those geese flying over would one day be a huge part of who you are, sitting on that curb.

Ramsey Russell: Yes sir. That one event, those snow geese really started that more than anything else, those snow geese started to pass. Those snow geese where I ended up under those snow geese one day, many years later started path, I’m on today, yep.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, that was great. We talked about the origin of who you are, who, you know, the desire for hunting. The desire to be an entrepreneur. Josh, Oh man, that’s good stuff.

Josh Webb: Yeah, it’s cool. It’s always fun, interesting to see how people grew up where they grew up and everything and I was glad that the duck hunting didn’t come to, you know, the real passion for it didn’t come to later in life, but the entrepreneur part of it came at such a young age that was fun to follow along.

Ramsey Russell: Start, we’ll pick back up, you know one thing I remember about the Delta I said this one time on the internet just, you know, these chat room back in the old days chat room around and Benny Maniscalco weighed in on it, you know, but you know, isn’t it funny how that it would be a good opening for, you know, hey, we left the Delta and one of the smells, smell is one of the most enduring it’s one of the things that will make you more nostalgic than anything else. The sight of something to feel of something, nothing will make you nostalgic like this like smell and you both Delta guys, so you know what I’m saying? But you know, one of the most nostalgic triggers that I have is cotton defoliant.

Josh Webb: Cotton defoliant I knew you’re going to say that.

Ramsey Russell: Man, I grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and nothing makes me more nostalgic than driving through the Delta when there’s cotton defoliant. I rolled down my windows to smell that when I smelled cotton defoliant. It is the craziest.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, I would agree with you man. There’s two things that always sparks memories in my mind. That smell and that’s, I can hear soul from junior high elementary or high school and that sparks memory. But look guys, we got to go, I’ve enjoyed it today. Josh, Ramsey, thank you all for being here. We want to thank all of you that listen to this edition of the End of the line podcast. Powered by Duck South.com.

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