Why Does March 1 Feel Like it was Twenty Years Ago?

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line Podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore man, it’s been a long time being on this bike but joining me today Ramsey Russell, Mr. Kim Ira McCauley had to throw that in there Ira?

Kim Ira McCauley: I’m sure they appreciate that.

Rocky Leflore: I have to say this before we get started. I have enjoyed those videos on Instagram.

Kim Ira McCauley: That’s cool perspective.

Rocky Leflore: The kind of the kill shot, I guess it’s kind of been around that shot people have been posting them to social media as it pertains to haul, that’s been around for a while. But kind of the shot Kim like what you’re posting on the Instagram to me, it is so cool. I’ll tell you what’s cool to me is, seeing the lead sometimes that it takes to kill these geese and ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah.

Kim Ira McCauley: And it’s interesting too because sometimes I miss them and I gave them too much lead like I’ll miss and then I’ll shoot again and kill it or kill one right next to it or whatever. And I was leading bird too much and then other times you’re behind them, even though you’re way out in front of them.

Rocky Leflore: Let me ask both of you this, speaking with pertaining to the shot camp, when you’re out shooting – now, let’s just – I mean, wing shooting, is it a feeling to you? Or is it aiming process for you?

“For me it’s totally a feeling. If I’m aiming, I’m shutting an eye and lifting the head. I’m going to, man.”

Kim Ira McCauley: For me it’s totally a feeling. If I’m aiming, I’m shutting an eye and lifting the head. I’m going to, man.

“Now, if I think about it, I’m going to miss, it’s purely instinctive. But I do find myself on those longer shots normally I’m going to start in front of the bird and swing and again, I think it comes from experience and just kind of sort of how it feels, on how far you are in front of that bird before you – where you poke in front of before I go.”

Ramsey Russell: Now, if I think about it, I’m going to miss, it’s purely instinctive. But I do find myself on those longer shots normally I’m going to start in front of the bird and swing and again, I think it comes from experience and just kind of sort of how it feels, on how far you are in front of that bird before you – where you poke in front of before I go. That’s the only way I can shoot a far bird is to start in front of them. But it’s purely instinctive, I think everybody’s instinctive shooter, whether they know or not.

Rocky Leflore: I agree with you. Being a guide and having so many

different levels of shooters coming through and hunting and taking and you’ve probably seen this a million times are Ramsey, but you’ll have somebody that tries too hard, tries to aim at a bird and they’re going to miss. It’s just like you’re saying it’s instinctive, it’s a feeling and it’s because once you start getting into the aiming a lot of times you end up missing.

Ramsey Russell: The guy I see like that is the guy that ducks are moments are out there too far to come in, but they start mounting the gun and getting their cheek down and I’m like, there’s no way you can do that, I can’t do that, right? I might snug my stock up to my shoulder. But if I didn’t go any further than that, I’m going to miss that bird. You can’t just start swinging dead weight.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah, even sporting clays which I do quite a bit with my older son, I shoot better without my gun mounted. So just call for the bird, bring the gun up as I’m moving my body and pull the trigger. Then all those kids are starting with their gun mounted, calling for the bird and that’s the way they shoot it. Man, if I do that, I just end up riding it too much, you know what I mean? I don’t shoot as well. The other thing I’ve seen and you guys both been guys have been around and all that stuff but I see it on the duck side and the hunter’s side is guys that are in the game, so I’m talking about trap shooters or skeet shooters they’re methodical game players, right? So they do say okay, this bird picked the 1ft lead or a 2ft lead, 3ft lead or whatever. They’re not instinctive shooters, sometimes but not painting with too broad a brush, but like a hunter is, you know what I mean? So, I see some of those guys that’ll break 99-100 trap targets every time, come out and they can’t hit a duck saved their life just like some of these dogs that are, and hey, I’m not knocking the dogs, I mean they’re highly talented in their own games for sure. But our old meat dogs that go to the same hole and chase same ducks every day and they know what those ducks are going to do, it’s a lot different deal than a dog that spends 95% of the time playing its game, which is either the hunt test or field trial or whatever. I think there’s a lot of similarities there where hunters and hunting dogs are different than shooters.

Rocky Leflore: Well, stepping away from shooting I guess we need to do a little house cleaning real quick. But let’s start with Ramsey, I want to say this because it’s been December since we’ve done a podcast episode, but something that Ramsey and I communicated a lot about through my absence in this long period of time was Ramsey, you got a new podcast off the ground.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah boy, I mean Rocky, you wound me up like the energizer bunny and hopping down the trail I went. And we talked several times when I was right in the middle of recording a lot of those podcasts. And I know you’re stepping off in a little bit slightly different format, which I think would be an absolute hit I plan on turning into. But we just took off, we worked with Ben Page who you know, Fowl Front Podcast, he’s producing it for us and putting it together and giving us a lot of good intelligence council and I’m just recording conversations with friends and with colleagues, hunters and conservationists and different folks I run around. And we launched a couple of weeks ago and that’s it Duck Season Somewhere is what we went with and it’s been a lot of fun. I really do enjoy participating on this podcast and others and I just enjoy that conservation buddy. Let me tell you what the last 2 or 3 weeks with all that’s going on in the world, the world being completely upside down. It’s been a godsend, it’s just to have something to do. So I’m enjoying it, you all tune in and take a list of Ducks Season Somewhere.

Rocky Leflore: You should have been able to knock a few episodes out for sure.

Ramsey Russell: Well, look man, you don’t send me down the trail and I would go on and beat the bushes and I figured out if I ran one a week I had 3.5 months of podcast recording a little episodes and conversation and heck, I was going to come up in a few weeks one we had sitting there at his camp in Missouri and it’s all over the board. It’s got something to do with duck hunt, but it’s all over the board. Man, once I kind of started focusing and paying attention and looking for those opportunities, it’s just crazy some of the conversations I’ve had since then. And what’s so kind of weird like a time warp right now as I had those in place. All right, we’re going to run them once a week and I’m going to get on with my life because understand I got in town on February 22^nd supposed to leave on April 22^nd longest stretch of time I’ve been home in 4 or 5 years. So, I needed something to kind of carry through when I was in those places, we didn’t have connectivity. And well, glad I got scratched with this COVID stuff and so now I’m kind of running 2 or 3 a week and so it’s different it was then, back when the world was normal as it’s now and you can’t not have a conversation with somebody today, anybody without COVID or CORONA or something coming up or Tiger King, one of them 3 subjects is going to come up in a conversation right now. And that may be one of the most bizarre things I’ll remember about is this period of time with COVID-19 is Tiger King. It just put it perfectly into context. That was the craziest thing I have ever seen in my entire life was Tiger King. If you ever wondered what those carnies at the fair do when they’re not at a carnival, they’re somewhere on a big cat farm. I can tell you right now, that’s where they are.

Kim Ira McCauley: Or in Southeast Kansas. I watched that 1^st episode of that and I was like this is carter’s big island all over again.

Ramsey Russell: It was so bizarre, I could not watch. I ended up bing watching the whole thing. I was like this is a train wreck, I can’t quit watching. It’s like being picked up and put into an alternate universe of a complete something different about reality of life that I’ve ever seen. I’m like holy cow, this is unbelievable.

Kim Ira McCauley: I’m glad I came to duck camp, we don’t have any TV up here so that’s good.

Ramsey Russell: Godly, was that crazy? And there were parts of it that weren’t funny that I would laugh till I cried. Like when he’s sitting there, the man is literally campaigning to run in the 2016 presidential election and a tiger grabbed him started dragging him off, I was recording, you cannot laugh, it was funny. But I appreciate the shout out Rocky, Duck Season Somewhere and we’re enjoying it right now. And there’s some real – the next episode it’s going to continue on in Utah and it’s really episode I’ve been looking forward to air and I listened to the interview the other day and it really – for those that are interested in the market gunning in that era of time in America, this is really going to going to drive home. It was just Godly man, that part of the world back now, is unbelievable. But then to hear about flocks of ducks getting up off the water be described in a time that people knew what lots of ducks were. They were still market gunning around the country that there were still passenger pigeons numbering in the millions and for people to describe a flock of ducks getting up sounded like 5 freight trains converting at one time, just really kind of put that in perspective. And I met a guy, he’s a historian, very knowledgeable, done a lot of research in that area and he started describing some of those events and some of those times and he’s written books and done stuff and its real interesting. And then on a timeline of sanity we were at convention back in February and from to think back then, it was like to think back 15 years from now just to go back to the 1^st week of February with the market doing what it’s doing and consumer confidence and people feeling good. It was just different then than it is now. And it was just insane, it was like Mardi Gras, it was so much excitement and so much energy going on at convention and one day – Martha and I would get to the booth at 07:00, 07:30 in the morning, I would record an episode with somebody and then until people started walking into the shows and then it was just – it’s like you look at your watch, it’s 09:00, your first customer comes in the booth and 15 minutes later you look at your watch and it’s 04:00 PM. They come on the loudspeaker 05:00, 05:30 say the show is ending at 06:30, 07:00 o’clock you’re leaving because you’re just swamped. And a guy comes in my booth and he said, oh yeah, I’m interested, I need an African black duck and a yellow bill. You come to the right place, man, we are right man, we got Africa, we got those species and he was, no I need tissue samples. And I’m going to tell you all right now, an hour later when that guy started talking, my head just exploded with some of the genetic research in world and US mallard like ducks that he’s been doing and what his data suggest could be going on with mallard migrations and mallard populations in the eastern half of the US versus the Western. I’m telling you, my head literally exploded. And of course we recorded a podcast the next day and he’s coming on in a few weeks. So it might be some people are interested in listening too, I don’t know. My mom says it’s pretty good, she listens sometimes.

Rocky Leflore: Now, to be following with Ira, network, puppies, snow geese, Mexico talk a little bit about – because you’ve been chasing snow geese hard but where this gets interesting is you almost got stuck in Mexico because of the whole coronavirus.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah. I mean like we were talking about earlier, it’s just amazing how quickly everything escalated with the coronavirus. And I’m not the most politically correct guy all the time, so I’m like, hey man, I’m going to the motherland of corona, I’m going to take it, I’m going to beat it on its own turf and all that. Maybe tongue and cheek comment.

Rocky Leflore: Yeah, set the stage Ira. So, when you left to go to Mexico, what was the news kind of surrounding coronavirus until and until you proceed to when you left to come back home?

“Well, I mean, nobody had talked about doing any – just even the phrase social distancing or any of that was you just started to hear a little bit of that. But nobody, at least nobody I knew I ever talk too really thought that it was – I couldn’t have both eyes open to say, hey, this is going to be us here in a couple of days.”

Kim Ira McCauley: Well, I mean, nobody had talked about doing any – just even the phrase social distancing or any of that was you just started to hear a little bit of that. But nobody, at least nobody I knew I ever talk too really thought that it was – I couldn’t have both eyes open to say, hey, this is going to be us here in a couple of days. And so, my only thoughts and my only concern on the front side was man, I mean what if we get in the plane with someone that has it, you know that could be bad because at the time Mexico wasn’t reporting any cases and the US really wasn’t reporting any cases, I mean there were maybe a positive in New York and whatever and buddy at the pod days that we were there, we went from that to travel ban between the US and Mexico and all of a sudden posting pictures you’ve been on Spring break is definitely on pool and any sort of tongue and cheek comments you may end up hanging from the highest tree if you make another one of those. So yeah man, I mean, as we all experience it’s just crazy how fast things change. When we got down there it was business as usual, they were vacationers everywhere. The airport was crazy busy. The resort was crazy busy and 2 days later there were maybe 20% of the people left. Yeah, buddy. And then I’m like okay, either we’re just going to get a VRBO for 15 pesos a day in the middle of nowhere and stay here or we’re getting on that plane and getting home and dealing with whatever happened and I got home. Even before I got home my employees were like hey, we don’t want you coming back to work for 2 weeks because you went to Mexico and I’m like man, wow isn’t that crazy? If I would have even remotely thought that was a possibility on the front side, there is no way I would have gone. 5 days later they’re telling me, hey, you can’t come to the office for 2 weeks and I’m going, yeah, that’s probably a pretty good idea. Not because I felt like it was likely that I had coronavirus, but dang sure I wanted 20 of them to be there versus the one of me to be there. So, yeah, been hanging out with snow geese and the kids.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, you make a great point. It’s like, the 1^st of March was 10 years ago.

“But I was sitting there with clients and we’ve heard about CORONA first one thing or another, bits and pieces of it since January right, since it broke out in China. But sitting there at dinner, I remember the date because of coming home that night and my outfitter said holy cow Iran just sealed its borders, we were right there against Iran. It just sealed its border, no coming and going because of this COVID-19 outbreak.”

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I was thinking about this, as a matter of fact, I talked to my brother a couple of days ago and he shrugged it off, he don’t care. But I told him the story. My daddy back in the late 70s, early 80s had a Ford Pinto, you remember them little old pieces of crap cars? He had a Ford Pinto and this is a whole different time and place. I mean, it’s just a whole different era because a lot of times he sent me and my brother down at the quick stop to get him a pack of cigarettes and I wasn’t old enough to drive, I didn’t have a driver’s license, but we could run down there and buy a pack of cigarettes for them. And we just like kids are apt to do, we just Jill flirt around. I never will forget, I remember one time anyway, we were hauling butt through a neighborhood and my brother whose left handed sitting in the passenger seat, he reached down the middle between them 2 seats and grabs the parking brake, leans it back buddy, he was flying down the road in that little Pinto like kids, like fools and he grabbed that parking bright womb and damn near threw himself through the window. I had a steering wheel to hang on to but we come to a screeching halt. “Wham” from what we experienced this whole year to now, crickets. It’s just like wham somebody pulled that parking brake in the travel industry. And now on February 21^st I will eat dinner in Baku, Azerbaijan. To this day it’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. I absolutely love parts of that city. It’s just incredible. And we had a great duck hunt. You had to play for keeps, it was a good season. But I was sitting there with clients and we’ve heard about CORONA first one thing or another, bits and pieces of it since January right, since it broke out in China. But sitting there at dinner, I remember the date because of coming home that night and my outfitter said holy cow Iran just sealed its borders, we were right there against Iran. It just sealed its border, no coming and going because of this COVID-19 outbreak. Coming back on the plane, being in that big international airport there in Istanbul and stuff like that, I kept my distance, I didn’t get up in nobody’s face. I don’t know where they’re from, what their nationality was and I had a whole pocket full of these little bitty SCI hand sanitizers, you carry in your pocket at conventions because all you do is shake hands, tickling my hand with them things. Got home and man went to the Eagles concert, God dog man, I was so glad we drove to Dallas and went and watched them play, sold out right there Maverick Stadium and kidding with folks oh, don’t you be coughing on me now, kidding with folks didn’t think nothing about it. And then the following week, I mean, look for March is just like a lead time for us. Okay, we’re on the backside of convention, dates are booked and we still pick up some phone calls and fill a lot of stuff but we have got no clients traveling mostly in March so it’s just kind of quiet. But I was still selling hunts that 1^st week, I got back. I mean “bam bam” every day. Next week started trifling off and then it finally sunk in with the media with the hype, with the news reports, with the not knowing. Hey, this may be different than bird flu and SARS and MERS and pig flu and everything else that might be something to this and this could affect me. And week before last it felt like this big dark clouds. I mean God dang the stock market plummeted and the phones grew silent, the emails grew silent, the news is bombarding you and it’s different times, you know what I’m saying? And I’m not fearful. I don’t believe in the sky is going to fall but I’ll tell you this right now. I’ve got clients that were supposed to go to Argentina this year that are sitting in China, they’re in the manufacturing industry and they’re sitting in China, they are not going nowhere. I’ve got a client sitting in Baku, he’s a helicopter instructor, he is not going nowhere and you can’t get out. I know a lady stuck in the Central African Republic, she can’t go nowhere, she’s stuck. and I’m glad to be right here in Brandon Mississippi. I’m really glad to be in America period. But man, what really is so scary is, I talk to people from Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Azerbaijan, Netherlands, Sweden, which is an exception Argentina and man, everybody is their feet are nailed to the floor, their boundaries are sealed tighter than a frog’s hiney and planes are not flying and the whole world is just on lockdown. Even in here in the US just like we were talking before the show, Nebraska just sent out an email saying, no non-residents come to Nebraska unless you already bought a ticket or bought a license. But no turkey hunting. Turkey hunting closed otherwise to non-residents this year. And we’re starting to see that kind of stuff and it’s just a little daunting, you wonder what’s what? We sent out an email week before last just to get ahead of it because it was crazy. It’s like in one week I got 9 or 10 phone calls that book trips and I got 4 or 5 phone calls like, hey, this COVID stuff going to affect us our travel plans? And as we started doing a little research here’s what we knew, we sent out an email blast everybody in our email list. We sent out an email blast kind of head this thing off. And we said, here’s what we know boundaries are sealed, quarantine, international quarantines planes are not flying American airlines, then Delta, then somebody else cancelled 75-90%, I think 100% of the international flights. But now we got 6-8 weeks a lot can happen in 6 to 8 weeks. But if this affects you, don’t worry, go take care of your family, take care of your business, take care of your health and take care of yourself, don’t worry about this hunt. That hunt will be there. We spent that week speaking to all our outfitters, New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Argentina and just built a contingency plan and we realized that this is no fault of anybody. Nobody, is just backing out and changing their mind like cancelling dinner. This is a big deal. And what we’re going to do is just we’ll reschedule for later in the summer or a later year, we’ll carry that, we’ll credit it just carry it through, so just relax. That hunt’s going to be there and you know what? After all this crap we’ve been through just in the last couple of weeks, we want to see you in a duck blind and have a good time and we want to be right there with you and having a good time. So just relax. But that’s kind of where we are right now, Rocky, just in a holding pattern like the rest of the world, but man it’s global.

Kim Ira McCauley: Ramsey, your season never ends.

Ramsey Russell: Never ends, dude.

Kim Ira McCauley: You got people going somewhere all the time and you are really lucky.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right, but not knowing what’s what. We’ve actually built contingency, we’ve actually had talks with Mexico, with Alaska, with our fall and spring, just to get ahead of it just to make sure everybody’s on the same page, I personally think this thing is going to – I think we’re going to be in a different place in June, July than we are now. But heck everything I know fitting the slam full brand new stuff can about this stuff, but I’m just guessing, I’m thinking looking at the curves on other countries that have been through this stuff that we’ll probably passed us by June, July and the world hopefully will regain some normalcy. But we’re thinking ahead.

Rocky Leflore: Taking you back to – go ahead Ira.

“I don’t know what you believe coming out of China. But I do know from talking to my people that we deal with on the production side from I mean our factory there, they’re up and running full capacity and they’re expecting stuff to be pretty much on time. I mean there was a delay that was predicted and announced right when they had their big deal going on, whenever it was in end of February or whatever middle of February, but now they say they’ve been up and running to full capacity for a while now and that things are not going to be delayed.”

Kim Ira McCauley: I don’t know what you believe coming out of China. But I do know from talking to my people that we deal with on the production side I mean our factory there, they’re up and running full capacity and they’re expecting stuff to be pretty much on time. I mean there was a delay that was predicted and announced right when they had their big deal going on, whenever it was in end of February or whatever middle of February, but now they say they’ve been up and running to full capacity for a while now and that things are not going to be delayed.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve been hearing bits and pieces from that. But I’ve talked to some other folks in the outdoor industry that seemed to be on time to go and then I’ve talked to other industries and what I’m hearing and you certainly know a lot more about it to me. But what I’ve heard is that a lot of – one thing I learned in this whole last 2 or 3 weeks is a lot more about globalism and the global economy than I probably did it right there. I mean, this whole supply chain thing, how it works back and forth, you know what I’m saying? And it’s like there are a lot of companies that get their product out of China that predicate their orders based on their standing orders on the US side. Well, with all the economic doom and gloom going on, a lot of them cancels have since been ordered. And it has been cancelled. Therefore there’s a lot of folks I hear standing around and manufacturing plants in China with their hands in the pocket because they have got nothing to turn out right now. So, I don’t know, I know this in my industry I predict and like I say I don’t know nothing about nothing but I suspect that in 3, 4, 5, 6 months a year from now there’s going to be a lot of people in the hunting industry, especially in the guide services that probably is not going to be among us anymore. I think a lot of you Johnny come lately fly by nighters are going to fade. And I’ll tell you like in my world of what we do, I have been getting a few texts and telephone calls and in boxes, communications asking what our policy is with regard to impending cancelations? If they’re not clients and most of these inquiries are not, I’ll ask him back. Well, here’s our policy but what are you hearing? And just like I know from having worked in Latin America for a long time buddy, let me tell you what, there’s a lot of folks around the world right now, a lot of folks that book trips to Mexico, Argentina that are just SOL because they’ve already been notified. “Oh no senor no we have no money, you no come you don’t get hunt”. That’s exactly what they were told or they’re going to have to pony up half again as much money or something like that. And I’m sitting here thinking, boy, I read a paper the other day, Saskatchewan just in their spring snow geese and bear hunt and then trying to throw some projection into how it could affect the fall bookings, the number of hunters coming in the fall that are not booking right now to come in the fall because job changes, career changes, income stream changes uncertainties. It’s probably going to cost that one problems alone nearly $130 million. That’s just a projection of how it could affect the hunting industry. Well man, if you’re that outfitter that has a lot of overhead, debt and you don’t have got no income stream, guess what? Probably it is not going to be there to follow in year. So people say, well, this is not really affected me, I’m 30 years old and I’m in a low risk class and this that and another man, it’s affecting folks. I know folks that is affecting right now badly. Us? I’m slow, we’re going to be around at the end of it, I guarantee you. Getducks.com. We saw 2008 collapse as an opportunity that’s when we ponied up, pushed in our chips and bet the house.

Kim Ira McCauley: Anything habitat plants, same thing.

Ramsey Russell: Same thing. That’s right, same thing. Well, for us instead of being home 2 months, I’m going to be home 4 or 5. I have nothing to do but work on the web page and catch up and get things done. I’ve been putting off because they weren’t important and record podcast and keep on producing these short films that we’ve already got in the cane. Yeah, I’m going to keep up, I’m going to take care of my clients. So, I’ve got a client base to build from the ashes if that’s what it takes we’re going to keep on. But I think that, when the smoke clears when we look at this thing in the rear view mirror and I’m speaking just in my industry but also some other industries. I think that we’re going to see the world in a whole different place than when we went into it. I really believe that, you got to save for a rainy day and a lot of folks have not in this industry. And man, I even heard how its affected hospitals just okay we got to make room in the ER for COVID patients that may come in and overwhelm us. So cancel all your elective procedures. Well, what’s the staff doing sitting around to say pick a hospital in Mississippi that is not overwhelmed just yet? But they can’t allow their elective procedures. What are they doing? They’re laying them off, they’re sending them home. That’s crazy.

Kim Ira McCauley: Another thing that scares me and Rocky, you can tell me, I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but like my brother and I we’re still, our office is still up and running, but some of our employees have had things happen in their lives like 4 kids and the day-care shuts down and they have to stay at home because there’s no one to take care of the kids, that’s just one example. And so let’s say this bailout says okay, you need to pay this person and you need to pay this person and these people are eligible and the clinic is still up and running and there’s still a demand on the consumer side, I’m a little worried that some of my employees who are great people and not lazy people, but still people are people and they’re saying, well, hey, so, and so’s at home are getting paid and so on so’s at home getting paid, why am I going to work and getting paid when I could be at home too? And I’ve still got a business, but we’ve still got the consumer demand. I’m a little worried about losing employees from the bailout.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Kim Ira McCauley: Have you thought about that?

Rocky Leflore: Well, we lost –

Ramsey Russell: We? No.

Rocky Leflore: Well, we lost one of ours because of childcare. She left because she no longer had childcare.

Kim Ira McCauley: Right. Yeah, which I mean that makes sense and all that, I just hope that the people that can work and could work choose to come to work versus choosing not to come to work. You know what I mean?

Rocky Leflore: I’ll take you back February 22^nd. February, the 22^nd may not mean a lot. But I remember at that point coronavirus was a small blip on the news cycle. Maybe one story every hour cycle, per show they were spending on coronavirus and at that point on February 22^nd the biggest story that was out there was an American cruise line that had to dock in Japan. Do you remember the story? It had a lot of retired seniors on this cruise. And I just remember they were talking about because it was Americans involved at that point, there was somebody on the ship that had corona and it started spreading through the ship, they docked right off of a city in Japan. And so I get to my story. I’m bringing my father in law home from – we’ve been at a 4H show and anyway, I was bringing him home because he was sick.

He was coughing, pneumonia like symptoms at this point. But he wasn’t feeling just real bad, so he wanted to stop and eat some catfish and I said, sure I’m kind of hungry, with me and him and Wilson we stopped. But like I said, it was a big story because Americans were involved and this whole time we were in this catfish out and my father in law’s coughing and hacking and coughing and hacking table about 20ft away. It was us and another table in this room and these people kept staring at every time my father in law coughed, they would just look at him. Finally, he got enough. He said, listen, I’m just going out to the truck. I’m going to go – you all finish eating, I’m going to lay down out of the truck and whenever you get done eating, we will leave. So it just irritated the piss out of me. These people just staring at my father in law every time he has cough. So, he left and we got done eating and Wilson and I were walking out, I stopped by their table and I said, well, I apologies for my father in law, I just picked him up

From Memphis airport, which we were just south of Memphis. I said, I just picked him up from Memphis airport, he just flew back from Japan had been on a cruise over there. And that was February 22^nd, imagine saying that shit today?

Kim Ira McCauley: Oh man, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, I’m posting pictures of my kids on the beach in Mexico, not really realizing that people are like locked down in the US and since the 3 days that we’ve been there and I got people going, you are a thoughtless individual for daring to post something like that. I’m like, man, what in the world’s going on? It changed fast.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I did get a meme the other day. It makes you feel any better. I did get a meme the other day from Mexico about in the absence of hand sanitizer, tequila is a great hand sanitizer and it’s a good medicine to drink. If you’re feeling bad. So that ought to make you feel better.

Kim Ira McCauley: I should have stuck my hands in my mouth then.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rocky Leflore: I want to ask you all something real quick. Alright, so right now, according to the coronavirus counter, we’re sitting at 185,000 cases. We’ve had 37080 deaths from the coronavirus right now.

Let me ask you a question, just opinion over under. Do you think that by the time this thing’s over, say May the 1^st, not over because they will still be cases here and there. I’m thinking May the 15^th somewhere in there. Hey, do you think that we will break 10 million cases by then? Do you think it will be over or under? No, just in the US. We’re at 185,000 right now. Do you think by May the 1^st, as this thing dies off May the 15^th that we will be over under that number?

Kim Ira McCauley: So that’s 4-6 weeks from now.

Rocky Leflore: Alright, let’s just say 6 weeks

Kim Ira McCauley: Now, you know it’s hard to say because how do you know how many tests are there even?

Ramsey Russell: That’s what I’m sitting here thinking that’s going to be the limiting factor. Is how many people can be tested or will be tested or will have got it and not been tested because it didn’t affect them, I don’t know. I don’t have any count.

Kim Ira McCauley: But if they get that at home test kit, that’s a fast test kit, I’d say a lot of it boils down is, let’s say that your allergies flare up next week which they do every year and you got to call you feel crappy and whatever. Is it corona or is your allergies or is it cold? And if there’s an at home test that you can get for free or cost $5 and you want to know and it’s quick and dirty and easy. I can see the number being over 10 million if you got to go to the hospital and get tested, I don’t think it will be because most people are probably not going to go get tested.

Rocky Leflore: What do you think Ramsey?

Ramsey Russell: I have to be idea. Rocky. I mean, and that’s what singularly bothers me the most about this situation is not knowing and I’m not alone. Nobody listening knows and unfortunately, I don’t know that most folks better in the note at the high governmental level, the health of official. I don’t know that they don’t and I think, I hope that we’re all sitting back here going, holy cow, we sure overreacted on that. But I don’t know. I’m going to say that because of testing, I’m going to agree with him to say we’re going to be, I think we’re going to be under. That’s what I think.

Kim Ira McCauley: So, let me put one quick little twist on it right now. So Rocky, what do you say? The number one is 180,000 cases.

Rocky Leflore: There’s 185,000 cases.

Kim Ira McCauley: Okay, so let me ask you this. If there’s 185,000 cases, how many people do you think have it or have had it that did not get tested. I would say that number is at least 10 times the amount of documented cases. At least 10 times.

Rocky Leflore: I think there are a lot of people that had it in February and early March that did not. And look, when you start talking about asymptomatic, the people that just had a very mild form. That even thought it was just a spring allergies for some people. I think there’s a ton. Yes, if you counted all of those numbers. Yes, I think you’re over.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah. I don’t think we’ll make it on confirmed cases. I doubt it.

Ramsey Russell: No, we won’t make it on confirmed. That number will be lower. But the real scary number, the number I’m watching for is bricks and policy projected on camera the other day, that around April 15^th it could be as many as 2500 to 3000 deaths a day. On the April 15^th, 2500 Americans are going to die because of coronavirus.

That’s 911. And if they hit, if they say, if they’re saying it could be as high as 100 or 200,000 Americans die at the top of the curve on this thing. Just think about 3000 people 2 or 3000 people dying for a couple of week’s straight every day. What kind of this thing. But we don’t know. And that’s the craziest thing. And another thought, we’re watching Italy. Oh yeah, they got 2500 people square mile or whatever, they got an older generation, they got this, they got that.

I don’t know man that I’ve got an outfitter, I’ll stay in touch with daily down in Argentina, just I stay in touch with him all the time anyway. And his dad is a physician retired in Spain. And boy, I’m getting real time feedback from Spain and they’re seeing some pretty scary numbers over their health system, which is not the American health system. It is socialist universal healthcare type situation, but nonetheless they’re being overwhelmed. And man, if fosse and bricks are right, if on April 15^th 2000-3000 Americans died because of COVID. And the mortality could be as high as 100-200000 from where we are right now. You’re looking at a long stretch of body counts like that, that’s going to be, I don’t know what to think about all that, that’s going to be scary. If it comes to pass, if it doesn’t hallelujah. But if it does, Holy cow. You know what I mean? That’s hard to get your mind wrapped around.

Kim Ira McCauley: Don’t they say that 275,000 died from the flu?

Ramsey Russell: I’ve heard numbers around 70,000 died from the flu in 2018 Lee Chose and I were talking yesterday for recording coming up this week. And he knew the number, I couldn’t have told you this. But in that big ask US conflict called Vietnam 58,000 died for comparison, wow. Now we’re bricks and false year or saying between 100 and 200,000 potentially. And they said this was yesterday or 2. I mean this is not pie in the sky out there. When the sky was following a couple of weeks ago there trying to get it, hemmed up looking at projections if everybody doesn’t settle down. And I’m going to tell, I said this before the show and I’m going to tell you right now. I’ve always been proud to be an American as compared to the rest of the world because of the freedom, the sheered freaking rock and roll freedom that we enjoy in this country. The prosperity, the science, the fact that ford motor company’s and now GM with a little bit of encouragement from the president and all these companies, these major world tightened blue chip companies will step up to the bat and crank out manufacturing to get some of these medical products out there. It is it just the commerce and the money that goes into research and production and all this stuff. We feel great but at the same time, you know one of the best ways to this whole social distancing thing and breaking the chain and to flatten the curve and all that stuff, boy that’s kind of hard to impose on a truly thankfully free country like America. I mean the American cowboy man, he lives in every one of us were free. You go when china goes and says get into your apartment, they scurry like freaking mice to getting their little cubbyholes and a half since the 1^st emperor and they can they can control this thing. South Korea, they can control it because those people respond they don’t enjoy the freedom that we do. I want to go to grocery store, I’m going to grocery store if I want to go ride my truck and go to the beach and go do this and go turkey hunting, go duck hunting. What I’m American and what is just so freaking frustrating to me right now is the fact I don’t know. You all are business owners, you know what I mean? We work our tails off to control the controllable, we can’t control the uncontrollable but we control the controllable and right now. Nobody freaking knows really what’s going on with this thing. But I do know it’s affecting everybody in the world right now. Somehow, and that’s what’s so frustrating to me about it. I mean, let’s just say that that their predictions of 100-200,000 mortality is right. Let’s say it’s wrong. Let’s say its half wrong. Okay, 50 to 100,000. That is still like a major war conflict in mortality from something that none of us had really ever heard of until about 20 or 30 days ago. That’s crazy.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah, crazy.

Rocky Leflore: There’s a couple of things that bother me about this. The reason that I asked you about the over under on how many confirmed cases you think it would be is. Do you think back to 2009 when the swine flu was running wild? There were 70 million cases in the US. And it killed from baby all the way to a 100. It didn’t matter who you were or what you were. It killed a lot of people. And thinking back, I remember it being on the news, but I don’t remember the fear that the media was trying to instil in people.

Ramsey Russell: It wasn’t politicized like it is now.

Rocky Leflore: That’s my question to both of you all. That’s my

Question to both of you. 2 of the biggest things that bothered me about the media. They’re trying to scare the hell out of people and some people, you’ve got to scare the hell out of, don’t get me wrong.

But then on the other side of it, what really ticks me off is these, got your media spot lighters that ask the president questions to try to get him. Now listen, I like Donald trump, I think he’s been overall, he’s been a decent price. He’s been great for the economy. I think he could stay off twitter list. But man, the hate that the media has for that man. And what they’re trying to do politicizing the moment. I think the moment is bad, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that, but the way that they’re handling it, some of them geez, man, their hate for the man overrides any preservation of countries.

Ramsey Russell: It’s disrespect. And I watched some girl the other day. I mean, look, he’s in front of the camera. He and his staff are on the camera every day right when we started a podcast that came on to Fox news and their own but they’ve got the media pool at about half mass. You know what I’m saying? That they just letting just very few people come in there. But what strikes me is you’re one of the few that caught the break that got to sit in front of the president and some of the smartest people, his staff in the world talking about this issue and you’re going to waste your question. I’m saying who and your staff called it the Kung flu. Really? That’s just sheer disrespect. And like I’ve said before, we teach our children to say yes ma’am and no ma’am, because if they don’t respect others, they don’t respect themselves. I see a person like that waste McCall and trying to politicize this and make a fool of themselves on national television. And NBC is the worst. I don’t think they have any respect for him because they don’t have any respect for themselves. And truth matter is they don’t respect their listeners and the people that are that are gobbling up their so called news because they’re feeding us a bunch of junk sort of what we need to know. I don’t care about your politics. If you’re a performing arts, if you’re an actor, I don’t care what your politics are. Get on screen and pretend to be somebody and entertain me for a few minutes. I don’t care about nothing else. Likewise, in a situation like this, all I want is the facts that, I don’t care about your politics, I don’t care what you think about my president. I just want the facts. In otherwise it is not news, its entertainment. And that’s what too much of this new cycle has become is entertainment not news. That’s why we didn’t hear about swine flu under Obama is because let’s not politicize this when the great one is in office.

Kim Ira McCauley: I don’t know. I think a lot of it boils down the control and money and that’s why the hate Trump is because he doesn’t need anybody’s money and you’re not going to control the guy. And so all the other politicians not just on the democratic side but you can pick them out from a mile away. The ones that need to control. And the ones that have the dirty money on their hands, you can see them from a mile away and they’re scared to death of trump because he just has no need for, he doesn’t need to play that game. He’s not going to play by their rules and they scared him to death.

Ramsey Russell: I agree entirely. It’s a shame but you know that the scary thing is, I was listening to Rogan podcast. He had epidemiology on their show talking about this thing way back.

Rocky Leflore: It was great Podcast.

Ramsey Russell: Everybody needs to listen to it. And he started talking about the CWD. And just a lot of these other things going around and made a lot of sense. But one thing he was said that I do remember from that podcast one of the details he likened this COVID- 19 to was Christopher Columbus visit initial visit to the new world. By introducing the smallpox to native communities they had absolutely no immunity or built in exposure to that. And that was what the governments the world governments reacted to when this novel COVID-19 thing blew up was it could affect humanity like the smallpox did. Well, here’s what I’ve learned if I hadn’t learned nothing in the past month is you had that big Spanish flu outbreak about 100 years ago. And it wiped out from millions upon millions of people on planet earth. This could have been the big one. It’s not but it could have been and what I’ve learned is there wasn’t a world government hardly on Earth that was prepared for the big one. For all our technology and everything else. I mean our government agencies are so big. They can’t respond quickly because of red tape, because of bureaucracy, because of this, because of that, because a personality conflict they just can’t respond quickly. And it’s kind of scary. So you know the unknown. If the big one hits, now if the big one were to hit next year or the following year after this COVID-19 deal. Who the hell’s going to listen to NBC? I’m not.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah. And when our politicians can’t get something passed. And I don’t know, I mean, I’m still not sure exactly what this Covid bailout is going to amount to, but it takes them 3 or 4 days to get on the same page over things that are totally unrelated to it. Man, that’s just a travesty, isn’t it?

Ramsey Russell: That’s the way America, that’s just the pork up there. You know what I’m saying? Everybody ran to grab their pet project, get a little funding for it. But one thing what, I don’t know anything about economics either, except just my own personal the world. But man, when you start talking, that there’s 2 something trillion dollar folks Tantalus. But on top of that with another 4 trillion that the fed treasuring whatnot, to float things and make things and manage things. I mean, $6 trillion. I mean and yesterday dollars you think about the amount of government spending like that that happened during World War II. That amount of government spending created after World War II. And as it started to cycle back in and trickle down into the American economy, it gave birth to a burgeoning and thriving middle class that did not exist prior to that right here in America. I mean, you know what? So I’m optimistic just what little I know, looking back through the filter of time, that sooner or later I know there’s going to be a tomorrow. I know the sun is going to ride. I know we’re going to be normal again. And man, when all the trillions of dollars trickled back in to the economy, we’re going to have a, I do believe a lot of what trump says that I think the economy is going to explode. I mean, I think it’s going to ramp up like we’ve never seen before. That’s what I personally think.

Kim Ira McCauley:  I got a quick question for you guys. Have you guys picked up any habits that you didn’t have before? Since you’ve been on lockdown?

Ramsey Russell: Closing watching bizarre Tiger King Movies? Not much.

Kim Ira McCauley:  Well, I don’t know if this was good or bad, but I’ve become a damn day trader.

Ramsey Russell: Oh boy.

Kim Ira McCauley: I’m addicted to all that stuff and never had them before. Last me in a couple of weeks. How it’s working out.

Rocky Leflore: I’ll tell you this man, I wish I had a lot of money to

buy a lot of oil right now. Because imagine what oil is going to be a year from now. It’s going to be triple, the average price is $60 a barrel and we sit at $20 right now. The money that’s going to be made there which people that have invested in the futures market.

Kim Ira McCauley: I’ll tell you to pay for that.

Rocky Leflore: I got to ask you all this. Did you get into the TP

Hoarding? Get into the toilet paper hoarding when it first started because everything that I can find out about the whole toilet paper deal of course people knew they were going to be locked at home. But I kind of go back to the guy that did the calculations. I mean you would have to take what do you say 68 ships a day to be able to go through the toilet paper. That the average amount of toilet paper that was ordered by each person. So did you get into the toilet paper hoarding?

Kim Ira McCauley: No man that was going on. And we were in Mexico we bought some toilet paper and had more farm and we had no PPE issues or hoarding issues.

Ramsey Russell: I was a toilet paper hoarder before it was cool because I probably got it at 68 crap today. I probably got a lifetime supply sitting at camp because I would go to Sam’s and say I wonder if I got any toilet paper over there. And I would buy a big old thing of it. The big old and now I hardly got room in the bathroom, store it off but we got plenty here, I can tell you to, I’m going to say we hoarded. But yeah, I will pick up a little bit of extra. You don’t know where this thing is going to go.

Rocky Leflore: That’s the –

Kim Ira McCauley: Worst case we’ll go back to leaves and T-shirts.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Rocky Leflore: That’s kind of the last point that before we go. With this whole social distancing if you were to go back in the time machine to February the 22nd and use the term social distancing you’d be like what? But anyway, now when all of these places are dead, yet you walk into a Walmart or the grocery store and it’s like a packed concert in these places. I know people are staying 6t away from each other, but jeez,

Ramsey Russell: Now, I don’t have been in the grocery store, I went to the grocery store right before this thing for before it felt serious. We heard about the run on things and Anita and I had gone out just stretch your legs a little bit and I said, hey, let’s run through, let’s go in there and just check it out and we walked into the little local grocery store and man, it looks like it’s been ransacked. And I said, hey let’s buy a few groceries, we bought a few groceries and then we drove a little bit, let’s go check out Walmart. Holy cow man, there wasn’t anything but that fake on the meat counter. I mean it was all gone and that was strange. It was very strange. And it made me feel different about this coronavirus outbreak. You’re going for a hurricane hits. You don’t see no milk or bread, but seriously to go down to a Walmart superstore and see meat counters, bear and no dairy products and stuff like that for America, it just felt different to see bear coverage and bare shelves in a major grocery store. And I haven’t been to a grocery store since.

Kim Ira McCauley: Tonight, we’re having a wild turkey and tomorrow night we’re having fried crappie and the next night we’re having duck and then we’ll probably be back to having wild turkey again at some prolly household. So we’ve been eating at our freezer a lot.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I was just fixing to ask because of the Ira McCauley house owned by wild turkey. Do you mean the meat or the beverage? Well. Both.

Kim Ira McCauley: Hopefully a little bit of both. Okay, a little bit of both.

Rocky Leflore: Well, I’m glad that we got together because none of us are doc. Well, I was a doctor but I thought it would be pretty neat to put an idiot, a world traveller and the doctor all veterinarian, all on the same podcast together to just talk about some of the things that were going on. I thought it would be fun to hear two unique perspectives about what’s going on. So thank you all for being here today.

Kim Ira McCauley: It’s great to talk to you guys. I feel like, we live in Missouri. So I live, there’s a nice lake right there we live

and in the wintertime, the only place that I socially interact with all my neighbours at the office. But then in the summertime you see everybody every day or every other day because we’re all down at the lake hanging out and drinking beer and fishing whatever. And so I kind of feel like summer time is here again. It’s good to talk to you guys. And when I get off here I’m going to go scout tomorrow’s snow geese today.

Rocky Leflore: And you were telling us before we started there’s still a few straggler, juvie hanging around that you’re chasing.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah, there’s maybe 1500Ish right around 1500 here. But they’re 1500, let’s say that, I don’t know, 500 of them fly. You’re going to get 2, 3, 4, maybe 5 Good goes at him, but it’s worth doing.

Rocky Leflore: A lot of fun.

Kim Ira McCauley: And I’m talking about early when the hordes here. It’s hard to have a bunch of sticks together right to the boot bags, the diesel. These are the ones that will well you’ve seen like some of the shot cam clips from last week kind of beating, there’s the dirty ones.

Rocky Leflore: Well it’s going to be a lot of fun. I think that we are not getting back to your story but kind of the reason that we haven’t really jumped back into it there’s been a couple of things before we go with the podcast. The podcast, just a quick update number one. The only complaint that we ever had about really the end of the line. We have a very loyal listening base, a large listening base that listened to the podcast every day. The only complaint we’ve ever had is a problem with quality. Let me just get through the couple of house cleaning items real quick. But we’re going to a digital format where we’re recording it. No, a voice over IP through the internet, make it a lot clearer instead of the way we’ve been recording it in the past. But also we’re going to a live show format that allows you as the listeners to participate. So we’ll have a segment at the end of each podcast as some of the issues that I’ve been working through that you’ll be able to participate in the podcast. You’ll be able to call in, ask your questions about that particular, what we’re talking about, you’ll be able to listen to it live, participate as the show goes along. We’ll have a call in number that you’ll be able to call in and ask questions too some of the stories that we may be doing, such as Ira. We’ll finish up iris here in the next few weeks, but I think it’s going to be an interesting format. I think it’s going to be, we’ve grown to the place now that like I said, we have a large following that being letting them be a part of the show. I think it will bring a kind of interesting take to it. So, that’s all coming up sometime in the next couple of weeks. So, Ira like I said, we’re going to finish this up, me, you and Ramsey, and I think it would be really cool for some of the loyal people that have used your product’s, been following you for years, bringing them in and letting them ask you questions.

Kim Ira McCauley: Yeah, I’m down,

Rocky Leflore: So, we’ve got a couple of more new stories that are coming up and course this Mondays with Rob. It’ll be a lot of fun. I’ve just been trying to work out the technicalities and I want to thank all the people that have come aboard, that are going to be as sponsors of the podcast. There are products that I believe in, that I used that I think that they will see a significant increase in their business from being a part of this podcast. So thank all of you. Ira, Ramsey thank you again, interesting podcast here and like I said, a couple of perspectives from your positions had a lot of fun jumping back into. Like I said just like riding a bike. But thank you all Again, we want to thank all of you that listen to this edition of the end of the line podcast by ducksouth.com.

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