Life’s Short, Get Ducks Part VII: The Waterfowler

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore and today on the American soil back with us, Mr. Ramsey Russell. What’s up bud? Are you glad to be back?

“Yeah, I’m glad to be back. I was home for two days, now, Forrest and I are down in Houston fixing to go little old hunting show and fixing to get set up for it and meet with some friends down here and but I’m glad to be back on American soil, everybody talks English and I was tired of shooting ducks when we left and glad to be back man.”,

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I’m glad to be back. I was home for two days, now, Forrest and I are down in Houston fixing to go little old hunting show and fixing to get set up for it and meet with some friends down here and but I’m glad to be back on American soil, everybody talks English and I was tired of shooting ducks when we left and glad to be back man.

Rocky Leflore: That’s something that you’ll rarely hear from you as if you were actually tired of shooting ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I mean six weeks was enough man. Now, I still got some clients down there and I told you all that place we were hunting was a tad dry and it was a good enough season, but not a great season but boy, the ducks have gotten back in the swamp and those guys are shooting ducks, like we’re used to hearing about people shoot ducks. I’m getting reports daily and they’re having a big and rich time son, they’re having a good time down there right now and but we shot a lot of ducks, man, six weeks of doing anything day after day is enough and I got work to do so I’m glad to be back.

Rocky Leflore: Hey, before we jump back into your story Ramsey, I heard an interesting little fact. Before we jump back into Life’s Short Get ducks, you were present the day that Pat Pitt had his heart attack, correct?

Ramsey Russell: Yes. I actually was. I hope everybody’s listening to Pat Pitt story, I really do. Pat, I consider him a very close friend, I consider him my mentor and without sound it’s just absolutely corny in many ways, Pat Pitt is kind of a hero of mine. I’ve known the man 20 years, I hunted in his camp for 10, he and I traveled all over the world together for a long time and but anyway, yeah, I was there. In fact my two sons were there, Forrest and Duncan were probably 10 and 12 years old, of course they love Mr. Pat. Let me tell You a story, Forrest was 8 years old and I’d have been scared. Now, I’m going to tell you what, that boy loved to read so much and love stuff like that so much, I’d have been worried had he not been so athletic and just mean as a snake on the football field but I remember one Christmas when he’s 8 years old, we got this big old bird book, he found that bird book, it must have been a big as cinder block full of pictures of birds. And he got that for Christmas and by time we got the L’Anguille lounge that day, he had memorized a lot of bird names and I had told Pat one time well, Forrest want’s to learn bird taxidermy, he’s like, well, he’s 8 years old, he won’t pay attention, he’s too young to learn blah. Well, I never forget sitting there watching TV and him and Pat got to swapping scientific bird named, I bet you don’t know the scientific name of a BlueJay, I bet you don’t know the scientific name of the Mockingbird. I mean for 30 minutes them two little Forrest and Pat were going back and forth with scientific names on birds and Pat come up to me in the kitchen a little bit later said, you ought to bring him up here this summer, I want to teach him taxidermy. And then in that very day Patrick who was working for a taxidermist in Alabama at the time took up with Forrest and started teaching how to skin birds. And Gosh, I bet for the next 9 or 10 years Forrest would basically just move in with Pat. I mean, like the son picked up Pat’s boys were up and gone and little old Forrest would come up there and then they would do taxidermy and for a while Forrest was doing taxidermy, I mean start off at $25 a bird and got about $200 a bird before he realized he want to make more money doing grass cut and whatnot and so, my point in saying all that was my boys became close with Pat and as a member when we would go up there and hunt. And we’ve been hunting one morning in the Riley blind and at the time there’s a lot of ducks around that field, the mallards had moved in and it also –

“Let me say this, what you’re about to hear is a full outsider point of view. You heard Steven’s point of view, sitting in the blind across the field from Pat.”,

Rocky Leflore: Let me say this, what you’re about to hear is a full outsider point of view. You heard Steven’s point of view, sitting in the blind across the field from Pat. You’ve heard Patrick’s point of view, you’ve heard Pat’s point of view, now you’re going to hear from somebody that was sitting at the clubhouse as this is happening and this is pretty –

Ramsey Russell: We were sitting in the field Rocky, because we had come in, the boys and I shot a few ducks that morning, it was kind of iced out and we knew the ducks would get back in that field that evening as we were eating lunch, Pat said, well, you all going to go back? I said, yes sir. He says, well, Patrick and I have got to go put a sleeve in that dog box that had started leaking and I said, okay and so, we pulled up to the field and Patrick was on his way back out, the sleeve had been a little too big to slip in, Pat needs to pick up a bird or two to finish his daily limits, so he was going to ride it out and that wasn’t going to take long, I mean, there were mallard working and you all hear and see Pat calls duck, I’m telling you what he gets in this little quacking to the ducks, this little finishing call he’s got. It was kind of interesting. It’s always been interesting to watch Pat work ducks, those duck working in high and boy, you can set up, you hear them calling to them and he pick one off when they finished, so we knew it weren’t going to take long. So, I’m sitting there boys and I are sitting there visual Patrick and by that time my phone chirps and its Pat, and before I can say hello, he hung up and then Patrick’s phone rings and he talked to his daddy, he hung up and says, daddy wants me to come get him, he says, he ain’t feeling good. I said, okay. He says, he didn’t sound right. And so Patrick unhooks the bike, which is very, very unusual that Pat would ask for a four wheeler to come get him, I can’t tell you that. There’s four wheelers would be present on site is just unbelievable at this camp.

Rocky Leflore: Huge deal.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, it’s a big deal. And so as Patrick is heading down to go get him, me and the boys get out and start suiting up, Jeff Stalin’s, who was going to join us that afternoon, he pulled up, so we all started walking to the pit blind and about halfway to it, I see the four wheeler coming out, Patrick driving, Pat back on the deer rack, Ace, Pat’s dog was running behind and that kind of struck me as odd for a moment because that just struck me as odd and that bike ain’t just crawling through rice fields son, it is parting the water just going so quick and Ace can’t keep up and he’s falling further and further behind and finally he just breaks off at 90° and starts coming to us. He sees us coming up to the blind, he starts coming towards us. And I’m telling you right now, all I’m thinking is, what in the heck is going on because number one, that Ace wasn’t on the bike, number two, that he can’t keep up, the bike’s going so quick. Number three, there ain’t nobody stopping to call him back up, that’s what’s going through my head, something going on. And I can tell you right now, if I’m ever in a bind, I want Patrick Pitt driving the truck because that boy was moving like the speed of light and they get to the truck and you think something’s going on, they need to take off, oh heck no, he puts it reverse it comes flying back down the turn road, steps out of the truck and hollers, Daddy’s having a heart attack watch Ace and then they disappear in a flash of dust and mud, they’re gone. Well, I pick up my phone and I called Gordon Shaw AKA Gordon Gecko from the old MS Duck site. He think, he’s probably at camp that afternoon, I called him up said Gordon, where you at? He goes, I’m at Kroger, which is right across from MEA and Jonesborough. And I said, Pat’s having a heart attack, he says, I’m headed to the hospital right now, let him know and he hangs up. Boy goes over to MEA, well MEA apparently the cardio staff whoever had just done some kind of heart surgery or something and they were on hand, they were still at the hospital when Gordon come busting in and tell them we got a heart attack victim coming in and that’s why when Patrick come into the parking lot on two wheels with his daddy, the cardio staff was sitting on the curb waiting them. Well, we’re walking to the blind and we get up on the little old levee the blind’s in and Ace runs ahead from us and jumps in the dog box and I got Delta and she climbs in there too. I heard Pat talked the other day about his dog Ace, and I’ll give you my perspective of a dog name Ace. I would describe maybe Delta kind of like a Silverado pickup truck, Ace was a beast. That was the most powerful dog I have ever laid eyes on, I’ve ever laid hands on. If Delta was a Silverado, this dog was a jacked up four by four with a big block motor and a lot of engine and a lot of go. He was the most perfect dog for Pat Pitt I’ve ever seen because this dog had one direction forward. Most powerful dog I’ve ever seen. And well here I am in a pit blind with Ace and Delta and they hunted together years, there weren’t going to be no problem with that and we crawled in the blind and I think to call Steven because I know, he’s seen everything go on but you don’t know, he didn’t know what was going on, I called him and said he answered the phone, I said, hey, have you talked to – how do you tell somebody, I couldn’t. I don’t know, how to say, hey, your daddy is in – I don’t know how to tell it. I said, hey Steven, have you talked to Patrick? No, I said you need to call him, why? I said, you just need to call Patrick, okay? He’s with your daddy, they’re head to the hospital, please call your brother. The next thing I know, man, let me tell you what, that boy can move, he covered the ground to his truck quicker than you can blink your eyes, he was gone. And well we’re all and –

Rocky Leflore: He had to run it out too. He didn’t have a –

“You hear these folks saying, yeah, I want to die while I’m duck hunting boy, no, you don’t, no sir. You do not want to be in a duck blind like that and have that kind of incident happened.”,

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yes sir. No, man, look, L’Anguille lounge, if I didn’t learn but one thing hunting them boys up here is – when you bring a machine into the field, you just scared the heck out of ducks, man, if you just take your time and walk in, you climb into a blind those ducks are all around you, they may have flown a little bit out of your way a little bit, but you hadn’t disturbed them they’re right there in the field with you, so we all walked in, which is were no big deal. We walk into the blind. So man, yes, Steven had to go, so he had to run and I say he ran a half mile to his truck and to get back from where he was on north end of the field. And so now I’m in the blind with Jeff Stalin and my two boys with my two boys start bawling like babies, I mean they’re crying son because they’re friend Mr. Pat Pitt had a heart attack and it ain’t good. And Mr. Jeff Stalin, very spiritual person, he put his arms around my boys and he said let’s say a prayer and we pray for Pat. You just kind of felt spirit into that pit blind and the boys quit crying. He said, all right, now let’s do what Pat would want you to do, let’s hunt ducks. And I don’t think we limited that day or finished our limits quite, but we shot a bunch of ducks. But the craziest thing about it was is, you drop a mallard 15 yards from that blind and Ace wouldn’t go, I had them both up in the dog box it was a little tight but man, they’re both hunting dogs, they got along just fine. Ace wouldn’t budge, I’d trying to alternate them Ace wouldn’t budge. Heck no man, he’d look at that duck, but he didn’t know what to do and he knew how to fetch a duck, he just didn’t, he’s daddy wasn’t there and he didn’t know what to do. So, we finished up shooting time, got ready to leave and he jumped out with us and follows up the levee about 10 yards and it ain’t like we were strangers to this dog. We’ve known him for his whole life, but he’d been at L’Anguille, he knew us and we got about 10 yards about that blind, that dog went back and got in the dog box and I went around through my coat pockets and what not till I found a lead and I had to put him on lead to walking back out he did not know what to do and he was absolutely bewildered and fortunately we got word that Pat had come in and been stabilized and was in good shape was going to live. But yeah, that was probably one of the most memorable hunts in my life. You hear these folks saying, yeah, I want to die while I’m duck hunting boy, no, you don’t, no sir. You do not want to be in a duck blind like that and have that kind of incident happened. It was a real scary, real sobering moment for all of us and but he pulled through, it was a good deal.

“I think it’s just so cool to have another perspective on that because if a guy that’s sitting to wait to go to the blind and when you get to the blind, Steven told his side of it last week and you’re watching Steven, you make the call to Steven, you watch Steven run out what a perspective on all sides of that story.”,

Rocky Leflore: I think it’s just so cool to have another perspective on that because if a guy that’s sitting to wait to go to the blind and when you get to the blind, Steven told his side of it last week and you’re watching Steven, you make the call to Steven, you watch Steven run out what a perspective on all sides of that story.

Ramsey Russell: Yes sir. It was a real sobering moment for our hero, our mentor to our fearless leader to have been there when that happened. It was a bad deal but it’s like the stars of the universe is absolutely perfectly lined up. Patrick was there with a four wheeler, there were apparently no red lights, no police to even to pull them over when he was driving like a bat out of hell up the highway. The cardio team was on hand, Gordon had gone and notified the hospital, they were waiting on the curb and everything just fell into place perfectly. They always say, when it’s your time, it’s your time. Well it wasn’t his time. Any one little thing could have happened because in that level, in that moment, seconds mattered and every second mattered. And every single thing that could have gone his way did. And I’ll tell you something funny because anybody knows Pat will appreciate this. They just got a long standing policy, you don’t shoot hen mallards and hen pintails up in the L’Anguille lounge and days later the very next day or two, I can’t remember which now after this happened, myself and Forrest and Duncan and another member and his son went to – I believe they called that reservoir blind to hunt. We shot some ducks and had a good time, it’s kind of tough with no wind and it was foggy but we shot some ducks and heard Pat was doing okay and everything. The very first time I talked to Mr. Pat Pitt after his incident, he calls me up and his first question, how many hen mallards did them boys shoot? He didn’t care about nothing else, but how many hen mallards had died when he was in the hospital instead of own watch. You can’t help but love someone a guy like that but anyway, boy, I was thankful it worked out. That was a real stressful time and I just never will forget being in that Pit blind and my boys crying about Mr. Pat and Jeff saying that prayer and we all felt better for it, you know what I’m saying? And then Jeff was dead on, he said, boys that’s Mr. Pat, he’s in the Lords hands and the Lord’s going to take care of him, now let’s shoot duck, Mr. Pat wouldn’t want you boys crying, he’d want you all killing ducks. I’m going to get a little choked up thinking about that conversation but it was the truth, that’s exactly what Pat would wanted. And man, when I heard Steven and Patrick say the other day that –

Rocky Leflore: There’s so many significant things in you telling that story that are significant at the time. The four wheeler in the field, have the boys shot any hen mallards? There’s so many significant things in that story that unless you – and I’m not going to sit here and say, I know Pat Pitt best in the world but listening to the story and becoming friends with him over the last little bit, a lot of outsiders won’t understand how significant they are.

Ramsey Russell: No, I’ve always said this, everybody needs to listen to that podcast. The Water Fowler podcast. I’m telling you, it’s so significant at so many levels of what he’s done and what he’s accomplished and where he’s been, boy, I got so many Pat stories but I’ll tell you this Rocky, his collection of birds is profound. It’s unbelievable and every time I’ve ever been to his shop, his studio, initially as the birds, the first few times I went there and walk through it was the birds, the diversity, the species, the collections and then it became more because way beyond the birds on the wall is just a collection of memorabilia and history that it would rival any museum on earth. And every time I’ve been in there, I see something or discover something that I hadn’t seen before and it’s all got a story. Every single thing you put your hands on in that place has got a story to it. But I’ll tell this story because just kind of dovetails with some of the stuff we talked about down in Argentina, US hunt list or something, it’s not the bird collection, it’s not the memorabilia, it’s not even the stories that really, I appreciate most about my friend Pat Pitt, is his mentality. And I say this a lot and I talk about it a lot because I hunt with a lot of different people that pursue it to my business, I hunt with a lot of different people and this is something how Pat I think profoundly influenced me. It wasn’t the stuff and it wasn’t the stories and it wasn’t the memorabilia, non that kind of stuff, what it was, was his attitude and it is an absolute play for keeps. I cannot and I have not been to that little old camp house since they redid it. Back in the day it was this little white house and I’ve heard they redone and made it into the crystal palace of the grand prairie but I’ll never forget there was a piece of cardboard onto which and there will be written in magic marker was a quote and right there by the door that you walked from there in the kitchen kind on your way exit in the morning and it said, it was a little quote that said, “when times are tough and flocks are small, take your time and kill them all” and that’s kind of what I’m trying to say is, I can’t imagine that things still ain’t hanging somewhere in that camp house, I’d frame it, hang it up because it just to me it defines my time hunting around the world with Mr. Pitt is, Pat plays with keeps. And I think that any duck hunter, especially in this modern era where limits just flocking in left and right like we’re down in Argentina is not a given. You’ve got to go to a duck blind anymore and you’ve got to honor and respect the sport. You got to pay attention to the fundamentals of duck hunting anywhere you go and you’ve got to duck hunt. Because that next duck maybe banded, it may be your only duck of the day or it may be your limit duck of the day, you got to duck hunt and that’s one thing never cease to amaze me is, no matter what the ducks were doing, what the weather was doing, anywhere in the world we were standing together that man plays for keeps. He is duck hunting and he is capitalizing on every single opportunity that presents itself and I think that any duck hunter today, it could use that to their advantage and that’s one thing I learned in my times hunting with Mr. Pitt, is you play for keeps. You don’t play on your phone, you don’t lollygag around, you don’t not hide, you don’t do this, you don’t do that, the more you stay attuned to just the fundamentals of duck hunting and what you’re there for the more successful you’re going to be but the man absolutely played for keeps. Talking about shooting good together, I give you one fine example the other day I listened to Pat talk about his dogs and bad dogs and well, he and I had gone to Quebec to look at a greater snow goose hunt together and we regretted leaving our two dogs at home because this particular guide, we were with that morning just had a terrible dog and not that you really needed a dog that walk out there and pick up the snow geese, well anyway, Pat and I come into camp alone and there was a small group in camp that was filming a television show and the brothers that run the show are just absolutely top class, top chef type people run a really, really nice program, but the host at the time was a little egotistical, just a little hard to be around you all know what I mean, when you go to camp there and there are just personalities that looked full of themselves. Well, Pat and I just regular folks, we just get on anybody and so the next morning we get put out in this field with them and the cameras are by command on the star of the show. And as we were watching birds and kind of cognizant of the setup Pat and I were talking on our little low end, like the step Children off there to the side about the birds ought to be finishing off our side, don’t you think? Yeah. Well, when the flocks were set up that morning Pat and I being respectable folks that we are, we didn’t just up shoot the lead part of the birds coming in, we would shoot, wait to the lead bird that got past us and we start bringing up the rear in the middle of the flock when they call the shots to shoot and there’s a lot of white birds falling down in front of me and Pat in case you don’t know this, let me tell you, greater snow geese when things are right, they finish. They decoy a little bit more like Canada goose than a snow goose and when it’s happening, it’s a really good hunt. And Pat and I were doing our part man and we could hear the conversation going on with the television show and everything else about what great shots they were and this and that another somewhere there in the morning, Pat and I just started shaking them bacon like, we’ve been shooting together for a long time and we just started working over the geese. I mean, 4 or 5 or 6 came in, there wasn’t no birds left over for the people on the far right, the one guy, well the following morning, lo and behold they didn’t want to hunt with me and Pat again, so we go out to this river and there’s just little cove set up around to put them on one side and put us on the other and again, there’s an energy that happens when you hunted together and when you know each other. You don’t have to call the shots and say take this side and take that side, you just work like a well-oiled machine together. And that morning was no exception. I remember one flock kind of killed off the river and come through the cove just, I mean, they eyeballed our spread we’re locked up coming right and when that team over there aired out at about 60 yards and they shouldn’t have done it, they should have stood down the birds were obviously working us not them and they got, that guy aired out on that bird didn’t hit a feather, just bounced them but he bounced him right over us and just we stood up, just started raining snows. I cannot remember what Pat said, it wasn’t ugly, it was just typical Pat, making a commentary man, those guys wouldn’t even talk to us at dinner that night. And which didn’t bother me a dang bit, you know, I’m saying? That old show host his ego just couldn’t hurt, it just couldn’t withstand hunt with me and Pat. I just hate to say it but he couldn’t and now that was probably one of my favorite hunts we did together because we just really had a good time hunting those snow geese.

“I’m going to tell you something, I would hate to get the scraps left over after you and Pat because there’s going to be nothing but a bone left.”

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to tell you something, I would hate to get the scraps left over after you and Pat because there’s going to be nothing but a bone left.

“But both he and I have hunted to get along enough, in fact I remember one of our first trip down to Mexico it was the same thing, it was me and Pat and another guy from Georgia that had hunted together, we’ve hunted together before. And those flocks of brants was set up, nobody said take them, nobody, nothing, we just all let into our zones and pile them up, you know what I’m saying?”

Ramsey Russell: No, there wasn’t much but a bone left. But both he and I have hunted to get along enough, in fact I remember one of our first trip down to Mexico it was the same thing, it was me and Pat and another guy from Georgia that had hunted together, we’ve hunted together before. And those flocks of brants was set up, nobody said take them, nobody, nothing, we just all let into our zones and pile them up, you know what I’m saying? It’s just that well-oiled machine and as a group of hunters two or three or four, how many ever people you got in a blind, the whole name of the game is getting limits and making numbers and keeping up with your own bird according to Fish and Wildlife service but at the same time you don’t – to fully capitalize on the situation in this day and age when ducks and geese set up everybody needs to work together not work against each other. And that’s one thing I really enjoy about hunting with Pat, we knew how to work together.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to say something, it’s kind of funny that you bring up shooting because shooting has been a topic that we’ve been talking about lately in beginner hunter mistakes. Shooting your shots correctly. And Ramsey, overall across you with the people that hunt with you, I’m sure that your percentage because you have a little more upper clientele, the percentage goes up because these guys do a lot of shooting, the guys that hunted with me, that percentage was lower because it may be the only time they hunt all year.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I don’t –

Rocky Leflore: One thing that you talked about. Well, let me tell you, one of the things that you talked about was how well of a shot choice that Pat thought you over all those years.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I mean –

Rocky Leflore: Always, and you all worked as a team, it was all one motion. You knew Pat, Pat knew you and that’s why when you got together as hunters, the percentages went way up because you knew each other, you very experienced together, you knew when to shoot and when not to shoot, it all came with the experience that’s kind of very important.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a luxury that comes with hunting with people. And hunting a lot together and both being kind of the same presence of mind and one thing I hunt with a lot of people, I get to see a lot of people that I don’t normally hunt with shoot. For example go to Mexico or go to Argentina, one thing I noticed right off the back is, those ammo speeds down there, they’re shooting lead in those countries, they’re shooting two and three quarter inch shells and the feet per second is a lot slower. And I’ve got clients now Rocky, your age and a little bit younger that have never shot lead shot at ducks their whole lives, their whole crew hunting careers, they have been shooting steel, which is faster. And they get down to some of these trips of a lifetime and they don’t realize that they’re not shooting 1500, 1700 ft. per second at duck, they’re shooting 1200 ft. per second and they’re shooting behind these birds and you got to adjust your lead. And then you put two or three guys in a blind that have not hunted together a lot or have never hunted together and a flock of birds sets up and you want to make numbers, well to make numbers, everybody’s got to do their part and you can’t all shoot at the same ducks, you got to pick your zone and his own, everybody got to shoot their zone and everybody’s got to shoot well. And now listen, I don’t keep count of my birds, I don’t matriculate duck numbers, I just don’t do that personally, it’s not important to me, but unlike a lot of other different hunting types, hunting species, ducks are a numbers game. Because you’ve got limits four mallards, no more than two hens, one pin tail or two pin tails or two redheads and six ducks a day or seven ducks if it’s pacific flyway, it’s a numbers game and so you do kind of kind a little bit, so when you start going to other places, Argentina. I’ll keep an average, I’ve got an idea of what the relative performance of this particular place is, where I could tell you, I’ve got a lodge down there to shoot 65 ducks a man a day or I’ve got another place where we’ve just been all summer, we’re averaging on average, we’re shooting 60 or 70 ducks per man per day. And but that’s not an equal type thing because I would ask anybody and here’s something I’ll tell you about a conversation with Get ducks. A guy calls up and it ain’t the first question they ask and if it is, it worries me. But somewhere along the way, when we’re starting to talk about going here, going there, the question comes up, how many waterfowl do you normally shoot a day? Well, a lot of places we hunt, like down in Argentina, they give you four boxes of shells or six boxes of shells and so kind of how I answer, I can tell you. Well, at this particular place we’ve been averaging, 70 ducks man a day, but really and truly what I say is, well, how good of a shot are you? If I give you 100 shells and you shoot them, how many ducks are you going to kill? Now, I don’t mean no, well, wait a minute, the ducks are flying 45-50 yards, the ducks are flying left to right at 35 yards, no, if you shoot a 100 shells at ducks, how many are you going to kill? I can tell you this right now, Pat Pitt leave all the Brandon, Mississippi and fly 38 hours straight, miss a connection and skipped lunch and then drive 10 hours not having slept for 70 hours and stepped out and put them in a duck blind, if that man shoots a 100 shells, he’s going to have something to show for. I’ve been with him too many times and I’ll say the same about myself, I know what I can turn out on average shooting 100 shells. And what I’ve seen is the average guy down in Argentina is going to run somewhere 35 or 40%. A lot of guys, because a guy that goes all that far to go hunt ducks, he’s usually above average shooter, you’re right, he usually above average and he’s probably going to turn out more than 35% and but at the end of the day, you’ve got to hide, you got to hunt, you’ve got to shoot, you’ve got to capitalize on them shots and it all boils down to what is your skill level because some of us are going to shoot more than others. And some of us that shoot a lot are going to shoot more than others. And we all have good days and bad days and baby, let me tell you what Ramsey Russell can miss with the best of them. And boy, can I miss a duck? But at the same time I know how to shoot ducks when it comes to hunting with somebody that you’ve hunted with before a lot of times that’s how you make number, you put two or three or four guys in a blind that have hunted together, nobody calls the shot, take them. Nobody says that it’s yours, you’ve hunted together and you work like a well-oiled machine and you just hear that rustle or you see out of your peripheral vision movement and you come up and if 10 ducks in front of you all, everybody knows what to shoot, everybody knows what ducks they kill mostly. And that’s how when 10 birds set up, three guys stand up and kill them all. Because if three of you stand up, you all shooting the same two ducks, they’re going to be five or six ducks get out. You can’t make numbers that way. Everybody got to know their part and work good together and Gosh, I ain’t hunted with Pat for a long time, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7, 8 years, I guarantee you if he around a pit blind right now and six ducks set up, I’d almost bet the house ain’t one of them going to get away. I don’t even have to think about him calling the shots or vice versa we know when to shoot and I know which ducks he’s going to shoot, I know which ducks I’m going to shoot and that’s a luxury. You got to get out of that mindset of it all being about you, you got to work as a team when you duck hunt and that’s just kind of how it is. It all goes back to what I’m saying, play for keeps. Play for keeps attitude, you know what I’m saying?

Rocky Leflore: Oh yeah. I bet a lot of times when you were hunting with Pat or at L’Anguille in the same blind with him. Let me ask you this because this has been something that’s come up, Mark Edwards talked about it last night in the tips podcast, tips and tactics podcast but I’m going to bet, I mean, you all are both caller but you’re watching or when you were in the blind with Pat, did you watch his hand to see when he was putting down that call with his right hand or letting it go because –

Ramsey Russell: You just kind of sense that I don’t know, I never really did. We would look through the panels and kind of get a watch or in between calls whoever was leading, usually Pat would – there are 2 o’clock coming this way, he kind of just talked to him between breaths and keep everybody posted and but when you got to stand up move and it takes more than just a split instant. When it’s time to shoot, there’s movement, there’s just a moment of putting the panels down or standing up and mount your gun and so you just, you sense it, you hear it, you feel it and you just all kind of move in unison, nobody had to say take them. The only time I remember Pat calling the shots really like that, was if it was a pair of mallards or a single that wasn’t for everybody to shoot at he called the name, he might say Forrest, once you shoot that duck or something like that, you know I’m saying, but we all just kind of moved as a unit and that was – Rocky, I hunt so many people during the course of the year and I love it, I love the people part of it, when it’s time to duck hunt back home duck season in Mississippi when I’m at home, when I’m at willow break when I’m hunting man, I be very little hunting outside of my kids and a few close friends that I’ve hunted with a long time. For that very reason. There’s no entertaining, there’s none of that, it’s just when you’ve been hunting with people like your kids and your close friends for so long, it’s just a whole new – it’s just different. And that’s really – when I’m at home, I really don’t choose to hunt with a lot of other camp members or people I hadn’t hunted with a long time, I do enough of that during a year and I love it but when I’m home, I want to be home and I want to hunt with my people. I know, Forrest is 20 years old, he killed his first duck when he was 5, I know when he’s going to shoot, I know when he ain’t going to shoot, we just, it’s instinctive, you know I’m saying, there’s a lot of enjoyment and just a lot of relaxation and fulfillment in just being over hunt with people you’ve been hunting with a long time. And when me and Forrest and Duncan and Ian and Sam and several of us, when we’re hunting together and a flock of ducks set up man, it’s rare that we’re tripping on each other, we all just kind of know who’s going to shoot what we all know, which duck, when Duncan’s going to shoot, but he’s going to shoot first and we followed every time, we know he’s going to be the first to jump. And I heard a story the other day I was hunting down with Ian. Ian is a buddy of mine, we’ve been hunting together for 30 years, maybe 24 years since I was in grad school that’s where he and I met, he was a professor there at state we became friends and duck hunting buddies and I think we’ve shared 20 something Mississippi openers together and every single opening day my kids have hunted Mr. Ian has been there. But we were talking about this other day, just play for keeps mentality, there’s a lot of times at camp that we just don’t have a bunch of ducks and we were pretty decent count for South Delta Mississippi, we have a good time and everything else, but here’s what I mean, it’s like, I remember one year last year, “were no ducks” Forrest and I went out to a spot, we saw 13 ducks that morning, 13 ducks came in that morning, we came out with our limit. We had 13 ducks we saw that entire morning and we killed 12 of them and we could not have done that have we been shooting at the same duck, had one time accidentally, we shot the same duck, we’ve come up short of limit. And he and I worked that way together. I don’t even worry, I don’t even think about it, we don’t even discuss it, it’s just purely instinctive, if a pair of ducks comes in, nobody says call, nobody call, we don’t. Forrest don’t say shoot them or take them, we just shoot, we just know. And man, I hope that everybody could enjoy having a hunting partner like that, it surely make duck hunt a lot better, a lot more enjoyable.

Rocky Leflore: Hey, I know Forrest, is Forrest still in the room with you right now?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, he’s in here.

Rocky Leflore: Hey, Forrest does he shoot first? Or do you shoot first?

Forrest Russell: Man, you got to be on your toes.

Rocky Leflore: Hey, let me ask you this, as your daddy got to the age where you out of respect, let him shoot first?

Forrest Russell: Every now and then I feel a little bit bad for him and let him get the first shot in a couple times morning.

Rocky Leflore: I’m really looking forward to one thing in this Ramsey. This has been planned out for a while, but we need to do it before Duncan leaves, but it’s a podcast with Forrest and Duncan talking about the man himself, Ramsey Russell, Life’s Short Get Ducks. I think that’s going to be a fun podcast. Because I have time when Forrest and Duncan are around anyway, I can’t wait to do that podcast, when they talk about their dad.

Ramsey Russell: We better scared of that next week cause Duncan today and tomorrow he has got to go to some little 36 hour thing down Louisiana where they yell at him, kind of like a final culling process under pressure. And look, I told, we’ve talked about this a supper tonight, I ain’t worried about no drill sergeant running Duncan off, he was raised under people like me yelling at him, so he is bulletproof. So, he is sitting on G waiting on O it’s probably going to be the next couple of weeks. You ask Forrest about shooting first, I’ll tell you the story. Forrest is 20 years old now and I’m still going to say the boy can’t outshoot me but buddy, he can outdraw me. I can’t even plants to start shouldering my gun before he’s up and fired off three rounds. I mean, he’s quick as a snake and he has a very good shot, there’s no doubt about that and I ain’t saying that just because he’s here, he’s a very good shot. But I probably started taking the boys when they were too young but I did and when Forrest was maybe 6 or 7 years old, we were hunting out of a boat one time and I had his little old, 20 gauge with him and it was me and him and Ian and I told him you get first shot but now listen, here’s the way this game is played, when we say take him, you got to get shouldered up quick and shoot because I don’t know how everybody else hunts or where they hunt, I just know that my world in Mississippi, you got to take that first opportunity. I just feel like I got to capitalize on the first opportunity for a duck because anything somebody could shoot, they could change their minds, anything could happen and the ducks just don’t come back around. And it was a great day, it was beautiful day, it was a great season for us, somewhere mid-morning, Forrest started crying, he was a tiny little boy, he started crying and said, you all aren’t letting me shoot, well I had call the shot and said shoot, here’s the bird kind of setting up and he starts climbing back over, he doesn’t kill him. And Forrest was just stumbling, trying to get that gun shouldered and shoot. I don’t think you’re doing a kid any favor letting birds escape or letting birds get out or teaching a kid to fiddle fought around, getting his gun mounted. When they’re old enough to do it, they do it. And I explained to him, my son, it’ll come and that’s why I think and it did come. Oh yeah, it came, it got to where boy, he can shoulder that gun quick as anybody and that’s the way you got to be, your still and the ducks set up, it’s time to go boom, you shoulder him and get them. But that’s kind of how we raised him. We didn’t just fiddle fought around and let him blow shots or anything else, he had to learn to keep up. And now he does keep up and lead the path, he’s much quicker than I am, probably more quicker than I ever was and you talking about the calls dropping. One time hunting up at L’Anguille, I took the hope, my wife woke up one day and she said, I want to go duck hunting, I said, get out of here. She goes, no, I don’t want to kill ducks, I just want to go because you carry the boys and they talk about it and I just want to see what it’s all about. And so one thanksgiving she brought the boys up to L’Anguilleand Pat sent us to a good pit, it was me and her and parker and the boys and they were all babies, we went to a pit blind and Godly her eyes were big around as plates, she said, I had no idea the ducks got this close, she said, on TV they look like little dots and the boys shot their ducks and I shot mine and the next day we go to Brits Pitt and it’s real hard wind and a lot of the birds were trying to kind of short stop the spread instead of come in. And I will never forget that there was a pair of pin tails and they were really just, they want to sit down outside the decoy and they kept calling, they pick up, move a little bit, the wind was so hard, you know what I mean? You flinch and they decided they don’t want it, they just fall back into the wind and disappear, they can fade real quick. And I’m calling and it finally get paired drakes, you get right on the edge of the decoys and the minute I dropped my calls, most of them bits up floating, the boy done beat me to it, all I did was drop my call then get my hand on the gun and Forrest and Duncan folded them both. And little bit later, a single drake pin tail repeated and I was just calling and I look kind of out of corner of my and man, they are absolute laser beam watching that pin tail and I had to add to whisper to them between drake and said, this is mine. If you’ll shoot it, you all going back to the truck and that’s all I got a shot off of that bird is when I drop the call that time they let go, daddy shoot a bird. But anyway, that’s how them boys grew up and I’m almost scared of what they might say or might not say talking about their old man growing up with me duck hunting.

Rocky Leflore: Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s a plan for next week. I mean Forrest, you can be there, can’t you to record?

Ramsey Russell: He said, yeah, he can be here. Duncan, would probably be here too, just weren’t even when they get off work because they both work.

Rocky Leflore: No, I was just going to say, before Duncan gets away, I think that that man – and I’ll just say this and I hate, not comparing this podcast, I will compare this podcast with that tips and tactics podcast because the numbers are, from my statistical point of view looking at it in the background, they match up really well, they’re unbelievable in the number of downloads that they have and I’ll just say this, the first podcast when Steven joined us with Patrick and Pat and we talk about my boys, my relationship with my boys, that podcast is still number one in that series and I think it’s very important because there’s so many guys listening to you Ramsey, to not only hear about the adventures of Get ducks and the US hunt list and your story, but how do you raised your boys? That relationship with Forrest and Duncan and I know we spent time raising over it, but you guys man, dude, I just hope, I have the relationship with my son. And he enjoys duck hunting the way that your two boys enjoy their daddy and enjoy hunting with him. And I want to show that through an episode.

Ramsey Russell: No difference than Steven and Patrick. Forrest and Duncan really never had a choice. They loved it, they took to it, but it’s what I did, it’s just like what Pat did and of course little boys just want to be with their daddy and go outside and hunt and do that kind of stuff so it all fell together great but I tell you something, I did not really realize this until Forrest was a senior in high school and it was tough season down in South Delta Mississippi that year. We spent a lot of time between volleys and when you think of duck hunting, all the fun and excitement of the volley and working the ducks and all that good stuff but when I learned when he was a senior in high school, when we were hunting together, you know that’s the time in a relationship in a kid’s life, that man, your son’s fixing to leave home and go to college and you’re not going to see each other, you’re going to be at the mercy of football schedules and fraternity schedules and it ain’t going to be like, it was when they were in school. And there were just a lot of important conversations we had in the quiet times. Forrest and I drove down here yesterday and we talked, but I don’t know Rocky, it’s like some of the most important conversations I ever had with my sons were in a duck blind. There was no distraction, there wasn’t any TV, there wasn’t any iPhone, there wasn’t any distraction, it was just two people sitting in a blind doing what they love to do and being together like they love to be together and you just had this organic conversation that I just don’t think we would had had we been anywhere else on earth but in a duck blind waiting on ducks. And it ain’t just the shooting to me. What’s your favorite thing about duck hunting? Well yeah, we’re all out there to shoot ducks, man, I used to have all my signature of mine, I ain’t out there to watch the sunrise, none of us are. But there is more than just shooting ducks and to me, one of my favorite parts of duck hunting because shooting ducks is just a given, that’s what we’re there for but one of my favorites part of my world of duck hunting anywhere on earth and it is the people. The people at camp the laughs, the stories, the meals, the cooks, the hard times, the good times. I’ve always felt that I get to see the best of people doing what I do. I get to see the very best of people. When times are tough, I could see good duck guys at their best trying to pull a rabbit out of hat when times are good, I get to see people living like kids on Christmas morning. I get to experience people traveling around the world and doing their duck hunt of a lifetime or shoot their price species of a lifetime. Be at the outfitters or the clients, I feel like I really get to see people at their best doing what they truly love to do and that just man, the people component has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life is just other people’s stories and what other people do and how other people react in that way adversity and tough times and hunting hard, it really brings out the best of people and I love it man. And my relationship with my Children is very tied into that, you know what I’m saying? It’s just the opportunity to be out and hunt and scout and shoot ducks and watching them grow up and now becoming very capable hunting partners of mine, my two favorite hunting buddies are my kids, again the people. It’s just been such a very rewarding part of my path in life.

Rocky Leflore: Well, I look forward to that one next week. But I’ll just kind of tell you the plan with this story as we go forward. I don’t think that from a chronological standpoint, we’re going to go in the chronological order with this story anymore and I think it’d be best to do it that way because I said, next week I want to talk with Forest and Duncan and let them have the phone and Ramsey could sit in the middle and add his two seats as need be but I think that would be a cool podcast with Forrest and Duncan like said, I admire that relationship, when I get to be around you all and watch you interact and from, I’ve never hunted with you all but from you talking about you all hunting together man, I hope I have that my son one day with my son. I’m trying to be, now. So, next week we’ll plan on that and I think the next week after that and I want you to be thinking on this Ramsey, I want to jump off into some stories as Get ducks were starting to go some and what I mean by that is, some of those rough stories, those life lessons, those business lessons in Get ducks. So, that’s the plan for the next couple of weeks. Next week we’re going to talk to Forrest and Duncan and in the next week we’re going to tell some great stories about Get ducks and those business lessons that Ramsey learned. Because you start out in business with the direction and of course you get up the road and you have detours that you have to take, get back to the main road.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Rocky Leflore: And we’re going to come listen, don’t get me wrong, we’re going to come back to college years meeting Ms. Anita, I mean we’re going to talk about all of these over the next few weeks and like I said, that’s the direction I think that we’re going to take in the next couple of weeks, I think it’ll be pretty interesting, especially next week. But anyway, Ramsey, I know you got to go set up. Forrest thank you for jumping in a little bit. Ramsey, thank you again for being here this week, we want to thank all of you that listened to this edition of The End of The Line podcast, power by ducksouth.com.

[End of Audio]

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