“Old Enough To Call Your Own Shots Now ” with Ramsey Russell

“All right, today I’m joined by Ramsey Russell, the founder of getducks.com. A world traveler, a passionate outdoorsman, a waterfowl hunter and a man dedicated to helping people navigate through their experiences on 6 different continents and as I have just found out an avid, conversationalist as well.”

Ben Page: Welcome to the Foul Front Podcast, a part of the Waypoint Outdoor collective. I am your host Ben Page and this is your source for hunting outdoors and conservation conversations in an eclectic and sometimes unorganized fashion, I appreciate you coming by. All right, today I’m joined by Ramsey Russell, the founder of getducks.com. A world traveler, a passionate outdoorsman, a waterfowl hunter and a man dedicated to helping people navigate through their experiences on 6 different continents and as I have just found out an avid, conversationalist as well. An Entrepreneur, a family man and Mississippi native. How’d I do on that intro there, Ramsey?

Ramsey Russell: Very good. I feel like I have known you my whole life Ben.

Ben Page: Awesome. Well, I suppose we ought to start it off with kind of what you do for people?

“I didn’t like it at all. And as I started piecing things together, I said, there’s a better and more fair way to do business. And as someone like myself that wanted to travel, that was wrestling with some of these issues, that’s 2 strikes right there.”

Ramsey Russell: Thanks for having us tonight. You know, getducks.com started as just a hobby. An outfitter in Canada asked me would I bring him hunters and sure, how that started though is, right after I graduated college I was broke, I was starting a family, I was doing this and I always wanted to go to Canada to shoot those little Canada geese, the little tines I call them. Always wanted to do that, I always want to shoot some snow geese. And a friend and I booked a trip through a big agency and it was an unmitigated disaster. You can’t make up what a comedy of errors that hunt was and I have worked hard for that dollar, I mean I really had. I had saved and had gone on this trip of a lifetime and it was a disaster. And got out – and this was before the internet is what the internet is today. This was back in AltaVista type days. It wasn’t – a yahoo type day, it wasn’t near what the internet is today. And I did some research and I found an outfitter who later described it as, it’s like the FBI and IRS and paramilitaries swarmed up in the driveway and interviewed them all at one time. Because we were on the phone about 2 hours, me asking a whole lot of questions about his hunt. And I showed up with 3 buddies and we had a great time, name is Jeff Clause, Alberta Flyway Outfitters since retired. But it was magical. It was everything we wanted in a hunt. And the following year, maybe 10 or a dozen of us showed up. The following year, 25 people I knew went up there and hunted with him and he called me out to have a cold beer in the garage where he and the boys hung out, he said Ramsey, I would like to ask you to be my booking agent. I’m like, what the hell is a booking agent? I’m a forester for the US Federal Government. And he explained, well, do this and do that. He said, look Ramsey, my guides want to take your hunters. Man, they show up, they have packed right, they tip good, they know how to call, they know how to shoot, they are easy to get along with and they cut cards. I mean, they wrestle in the front yard, see who get to take those Mississippi boys and so that’s kind of sort of how I started. Getducks.com started with me a forester with US Federal Government sending hunts to a guide in Alberta and it kind of sort of grew out of – surprisingly and accidentally almost I would say. But shortly thereafter I wanted to go to Argentina. To this day it remains one of the – to me one of the best wing shooting or duck hunting experiences on Earth. But I wanted to go to Argentina and I teamed up got invited to go with somebody who kind of said, hey book some hunts and do this and do that and I couldn’t get in touch, because I some guys who wanted to go and I couldn’t get in touch with that boy. So I called the outfitter direct and with that phone call became a realization that things weren’t what they seemed, that it just – I won’t say it wasn’t fair, I’d say tantamount criminality. I didn’t like it at all. And as I started piecing things together, I said, there’s a better and more fair way to do business. And as someone like myself that wanted to travel, that was wrestling with some of these issues, that’s 2 strikes right there. I said, there’s got to be a better way of doing this and that’s kind of how it started. And I tell – you and I were saying earlier and I have told this before, but since those days since 2003, when we incorporated to sell Alberta and then later Argentina and then some other US hunts back in the day, since that time the internets exploded. And it’s incredible to me that anybody on Earth that has a smartphone and a couple of bars has more information readily at his fingertips in an instant. What’s the capital of Rwanda? I mean anything.

Ben Page: All right.

Ramsey Russell: You got that question at the snap of the fingers right there on your phone, on the smartphone, google it boom, it’s there. So anybody can find anything on the internet and yet our business model has continued to grow since then, because the downside of it – especially in the interest of social media where everybody can create anything for nothing is we all know whether we have ordered something or we bought something or we have gone somewhere or a service or a product, we all know that things can be in our represented online differently than they really are. You know what I’m saying? If you could find anything on the internet but the downside is anybody can be anything on the internet and so it’s a minefield. And I finally wrap it up with – I have got all kinds of clients, I have got clients across the whole economics spectrum and I don’t care if you’re that guy that has to save money, like regular folks to go on a trip every few years or you are that guy that money is no object and you go on 5 trips a year, at the end of the day money is money and time is money. But the greatest limiting factor really is time. And time misspent on the wrong trip or trip that didn’t satisfy your objectives or whatever is wasted money. I mean, so it’s time and money. And we just learned a long time ago that money, that time was a big limiting factor. And so really we organized trips, the right trip. For example, I have got a selection of hunts down in Argentina and they’re not the same, in fact they are distinctly different by design. So, if somebody calls and say, hey, I want to go to Argentina, a lot of times nowadays because of the details on our website, a lot of people call and say yes sir, I have been looking at your website and I’m interested in Rio Salado or I’m interested in La Paz or whatever. They kind of narrowed down to what their focus is and then they call and ask a few questions. But if somebody just called me and says, hey I heard about you and I want to go to Argentina we’ll take my son next year when he graduates high school, I have got a lot of questions for you. Because duck hunting is not like light bulbs, everybody that buys the light bulb expect the same thing on-off, that’s all the light bulb does on and off. We all expect the same thing as long as it goes on, as long as it goes off, we’re happy. Duck hunting is highly subjective very subjective. We all want a little something different. You and I sitting in a blind, we describe it later that morning over breakfast different. We remember different things. You like shooting all those mallards, I just seen and shot 6 ring necks. You follow I’m saying? It’s a little subjective. And so I have got questions for you. I need to know, what are your expectations? What are your objective? And I have got just a whole litany of questions. I had a client call today and he says, well I have got some questions for you. I said, great, I have got some questions for you too, having read your email. And we swap questions and we found just the perfect hunt and just what he was looking for, I’m certain. And I think one reason being that, my wife and I – and I’ll tell anybody she’s the brains of the operation, I’m just a duck hunter. She’s the business end of it in terms of administrative and organization and details, she’s a detailed person. I’m a kind of a big picture, she’s a microscopic person so we complement each other very well in what we do because it is a very detailed business. Organizing your travel is just very detailed, everything’s got to be perfect. One number wrong on spreadsheets and you’re sitting there waiting on a ride to a lodge, everything’s got to be lined up, everything’s got to be perfect. A lot of moving pieces. And I think one of the biggest differences in what our agency does versus an outfitter, consider this. You’re selling an Argentina duck hunt and I’m using it for example, you selling Argentina duck hunt and somebody comes up and ask you about Argentina duck hunting, where are you going to point them? You’re going to point them to your hunt, that’s how you make a living. See Senior, I got the very best. Oh yeah we have got the grey birds and the black bird. Yeah. Man, well I’m all in on selling you my hunt and the distinction is duck hunting is not one size fits all, especially when you start going somewhere like Argentina. Maybe you want to shoot a lot of doves, maybe you want to shoot doves on afternoon and shoot a bunch of ducks. Maybe you want a full combo, maybe you want to be convenient to the airport, maybe you don’t mind driving further, you see there’s a lot of little nuances in this. And where I feel like I have an advantage and this is the fact that we have been down there for 18 years, I have been down there for long at 8-10 weeks knocking on doors and putting boots under a table and in the marsh and looking and seeing what everybody’s got. And so when someone calls me and we begin to define their budget, their ambitions, what they want to do, how long they want to go what time of year they want to go, I can look at a portfolio of hunts and reconcile it best on their behalf, I work for the client, not for the outfitter. And trust me, in situations like Mexico or Argentina that we have selections, the outfitter don’t like it, I mean they are the best. But I know that they’re the best for some people, not for everybody. So that’s kind of what we do and it’s not just, hey call me up buy a duck hunt, there’s a lot of blind corners and dark alleys. There’s airfare, there’s passports – in a lot of countries you’re dealing with bird import. There’s a lot of –

Ben Page: Oh, Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: A lot of little details on this and we’re able to provide guidance and a lot of directions.

Ben Page: Yeah. It’s the difference between buying a Walmart suit and a custom tailored suit.

“But Mexico is really – Argentina represents more bang for the buck. Even though you’re going to spend more total money going to Argentina, it really represents a whole lot more bang for the buck.”

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, but there’s a lot to be said for Walmart. And Walmart fits my budget and takes a lot of different directions. Even back in the fishing section. But yeah, I mean there’s something for everybody and there’s a place and time for everything. And so that’s kind of how we started with Canada and Argentina and one of our real strong destination is Mexico and I really avoided Mexico for a while. Not because of anything you might have read in the headlines or anything like that, no. I have been going to Mexico since 1989 as a tourist back when I worked down in Texas driving across the board and spending time. I love Mexico, I love it, I love Mexican people, I love the country, I love everything about Mexico, but the reason we didn’t add it until later, I say about midway through the life of getducks.com, the reason we didn’t add it because really and truly yes, going to somewhere like Argentina is more expensive total budget. But Mexico is really – Argentina represents more bang for the buck. Even though you’re going to spend more total money going to Argentina, it really represents a whole lot more bang for the buck. Mexico’s a little expensive, it’s up there, I’m not saying it is too expensive, I’m just saying, apple to apples. You shoot a lot more birds and get a little bit more for your dollar even though you got to pay more money for airfare to go to Argentina. And where we really started shifting to Mexico was, I truly do believe – I get asked this all the time. We got to ask this in a question answer thing in social media, the other day while we were down in Africa was, where’s the first place I should travel? Everybody in a car said Mexico. Time is good, then conflict with American seasons. It’s familiar species. It’s species that North American’s species they’re familiar. We get it –

Ben Page: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And you can bring your wife have a good time. Bird import is easy. It’s a lot of different reasons everybody ought to think about going to Mexico. You get a nice suntan while you’re down there, it’s warm whatever. But Argentina is still one of the best hunt, there’s no doubt. But the reason we started going to Mexico is, I had an increasing client base and one day I was sitting around over cocktails with some friends and clients and they were asking about going somewhere and doing something and I was pushing Argentina, he says man, that all sounds good and fine Ramsey, but I’m a business owner and that extra 2 days travel, I need to be at the office. Wow, snap boom that made sense. And that was really where we realized that money – again when I say time’s a limiting factor. You start looking at business owners and managers and people in that kind of workflow, it wasn’t money, they go to Argentina, it was the time. They didn’t have the time to go to Argentine, they needed to be at the office. There’s a lot of businesses where if the boss man’s gone business don’t roll.

Ben Page: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Man’s got to be there and so that’s how we started. And from there Argentina, Mexico, Canada is kind of in place and we coasted but then something strange kind of happened. It’s like in one hand, we were steering it and exploring and finding and doing and then it kind of took a life of its own because I would categorize – and every duck hunter and every client is a stand-alone individual, every single one of them. You really can’t lump them once you get down to the nuts and bolts of this service industry and it is a service industry, it’s a hospitality business hunting in general. If you’re an outfitter or a guide or a booking agent this is the hospitality business man, it’s all about service. Bringing true value to the customer beyond which they’re actually writing a check. I mean it’s all about value and customer service is long lost on too many industries nowadays. But we work for the client bring service, we do this, it’s a hospitality industry and – God, I lost my thought train sorry about that guys. But it’s a people business and that’s what we try and never lose sight off, totally lost my thought train there for a minute Ben.

“Well, I know you were talking – you talked a little bit about South America, Central America, what are some of the continental differences in wing shooting between Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia?”

Ben Page: Well, I know you were talking – you talked a little bit about South America, Central America, what are some of the continental differences in wing shooting between Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia?

Ramsey Russell: Every destination is stand-along. You have got to take it. You got perspective in duck hunting, we all know what duck hunting is in American standard, in American terms but it varies hunt to hunt. And I just remember what I got lost saying was that, if I tried to group our kind of client Get Ducks client into 2 broad categories. I have got trigger pullers, guys that are just going to have fun shoot and just have fun and collectors. And between the 2 that’s where we started to go beyond Mexico, Canada and Argentina. That’s how we ended up in 6 continents. And it’s a combination of both, it’s the collector – primary they say species, but I know what they’re really collecting are experiences. Those birds are just place holders for experiences and they’re chasing new experiences and new hunting adventures. And really it’s like, we weren’t really steering it, the market was coming to us. What about Red Crested Pochard? Have you ever been to Asia and hunted? Have you ever done this kind of thing? And so we began to explore. And that leads right into your question because all I do, all day every day is talk to duck hunters and duck guides and I love it. It’s so rewarding. I’m telling you that most rewarding aspect of my career and my life, my job are the people. I love talking to duck hunters, I love it. And believe or not guys I listen as I talk, but when you go into a new location to hunt, you’ve got to roll with the punches, you got to take what the day brings. There’s no different going to Azerbaijan or Mongolia, then it is going to wherever you’re going to duck hunt opening day this year in your home state with your friend. Maybe it’s going to be great, maybe it’s going to be cloudy, and maybe it’s going to be sun shining, maybe the ducks are going to come in like it’s opening day or maybe the weather or the lack of shadows or no maybe they’re going to act funny and you have to adapt, you have to move. I had a person come up to the booth in Safari Club International last year and man this guy lives and is an outfitter in one of those enviable parts of the world that they don’t shoot nothing but green heads and lots of them, 7 a day. And he’s got a piece of property and they put a whooping on those birds. Mallards, all mallards, there’s a lot of species of ducks out there but mallards. And the reason mallards really define duck hunting, especially in America is because all the rules that we typically associate with duck hunting are written for the mallard, heck mallards wrote the rule book. Calling and hiding the decoy placement, wind direction and – I mean think about it. That’s their A game right there, is the mallard rule book. Well, so he says to me, he says, I want to go down here at the Argentine, I want to do this but now, I’m going to tell you, I want them to act like mallards. I want them paddle down the decoy. And I said, well great, there’s no mallards in South America. Okay, that’s what I got to tell you about, you won’t shoot orange feet down in your decoys, 15 yard chip shot, there aren’t any mallards. And you hear little bit of them kind of rules and the basics of it but you’re not hunting mallard, you are hunting Rosy Bill Pochards, you hunt a different kind of Pin tails and Teal, not mallards. Now, I have shot very fortunately I have been fortunate to shoot mallards on 4 continents. If I’m thinking right Africa they don’t have it. There are mallards like ducks on all the continents except South America. You have got like this greater mallard complex. You have got the mallard to Black Duck to Mottle duck right here in North America. The Mexican Mallard down in Mexico is also North America and they quack and you can play that mallard rulebook on them to an extent. You get down to Australia, you got the pacific black duck. Same in New Zealand, New Zealand has mallard of course that were brought in. There in Africa last week, yellow billed ducks, eastern spot bills over in Asia. And they will all – you can play the mallard game with those birds but then you go to different extremes and all those rules are gone. I mean there are birds – there are waterfowl species, you can’t use conventional methods. The pygmy goose, he’s not going to come into decoys, that’s not his nature, that’s not his habitat. The white back duck in Africa, they’re not going to fool around like that. That’s just not their thing –

“Yeah. What’s it like taking that playbook into a new field as it were? What’s it like the first time you, yeah –”

Ben Page: Yeah. What’s it like taking that playbook into a new field as it were? What’s it like the first time you, yeah –

“And let me say this, American duck hunters are the best in the world. We are the best duck hunters. We are the most serious duck hunters.”

Ramsey Russell: Man. That play book has got all kinds of hand scratching and doodles in the sidebar. When you start chasing species which in my way of thinking, my personal way of thinking what compels me is not ‘X’ species is where that species takes me and the game that he plays. You’re not playing the mallard game anymore, you’re duck hunting but you’re playing on his set of rules. And for a guy like me or you or anybody, it’s the whole challenge is figuring out that game. That’s the whole thing and that’s what I love about it. Now, I promise you all I could have been throwing that briar patch of shooting nothing the rest of my life green heads over decoys. I mean, I would suffer through it and I’m being facetious. But at the same time I really enjoy getting out and playing with the different species and where they take me. And the Pygmy goose, the African Pygmy goose is a prime example of species versus experiences. When you think of Africa, the word Africa evokes to most people Lion King images and the Serengeti and desert and Lakeisha bushes and giraffes and zebras and rhinos and elephants and lions roaring and this whole wild kingdom experience and it is all that. Most parts of Africa at least Southern Africa get about a foot of rain a year, an average year not much, so it’s very desert. It’s dusty beyond anything you have ever seen. But it does get water. There is water, there’s rivers and where you find water you find waterfowl. And the yellow billed duck, which is very mallard like double white wing bars, it quacks, it decoys, the whole 9 yards, not a mallard but it’s close enough. And the red billed teal, a very beautiful little bird reminds me of a white chip pin tail in its own way. They’re very ubiquitous throughout – they’re generalists, they’re ubiquitous throughout the whole country everywhere you go, you see them a little potholes and stuff. The Egyptian goose, which is really a duck, you see him anywhere around grain. All the big pans they call it or the dams and there’s grain nearby, you’ll see tons of those birds there but that little Pygmy goose, it’s like holding a double quarter pounder, weighs 9 ounces and he’s tiny bout the size of a green wing. It’s a perching duck but they call them a pygmy goose. And that little stubby beak he’s got is for clipping. It’s like little clippers, little hand clippers and he specializes on lily pads, that’s what he eats is just water lotus. He eats the little shoots, he lives in that environment where now think about it – I’m in a practically a desert environment and I’m chasing a bird that lives in old ox bows that have lily pads that takes you so far off the beaten path in Africa to find that bird that now you’re seeing a whole different part of Africa than what you would have otherwise – That’s it. Well, you’re very hyper focused part of Africa, that’s where it is. Hunting that little bird was a lot more like big game hunting then duck hunting. That’s where that rule book, you just fold it up and put it in your back pocket for a later day, it’s just you got to. We had gotten – and we were down in Zulu land. We had knowing what we were interested in those birds outfitter had detailed a couple professional hunters out who had hired some local villagers to beat the bushes and try to find some of these birds and thankfully there are only 2 of us hunting when we showed up because they found 2 pair, 4 of them about 2 hours away, it’s about a mile and a half, 2 mile long ox bow. And we got up that morning and drove, it was a huge adventure. We got up on the main road, we’re going – we just about 30 minutes from there. And the local villagers had thrown all these boulders and logs and stuff out in the middle of the road, they didn’t have water so they were protesting, well, there was no getting through that. So we drove back down the mountain, stopped in town got gas and asked for alternative route – man we went through an old road and another path that – you have never seen a road – I guarantee you that road never seen a road grader because it was all rocks, it’s all big stones. I mean it just you couldn’t grade that road if you tried it. I know I’m not filling it out just being in the passenger side of that ride. Finally we made it there late, delegated getting there at 8:00 AM, we were there at 10. Well, the scout had seen him 4 days in a row at about 08:30 in the morning. And falling off that desert environment down to the bank of that ox bow binoculars shotgun, we started glassing. And you want to talk about finding the proverbial needle in a haystack a mile and a half oxbow full of lily pads and we’re looking 4 double quarter pounders it was feathers. That’s kind of what it was like. So we’re down there glassing and we’re looking and boy, the bird life was amazing, there was a lot of white faced whistling ducks, they’re these beautiful little flycatcher just the bird life was amazing and everything, but the birds we were looking for. There were no crocodile or hippo we were assured as we were walking along and it was just kind of like being in Mississippi. The temperature was close to 90°, very humid, so the heat index was higher. There were familiar plant compositions, coffee weed, kookaburra and vines and morning glories. And so we spent – I don’t know better part of an hour down there, glassing and never found. So he said, well let’s get back to the truck, we’ll go over to the other side, we’ll get up on a high vantage point, we’ll look down and maybe we’ll get lucky. And we were glassing and glassing about giving up, in fact outfitter said, man, I think that roadblock did us in. We should have been here 2 hours ago, that’s when they’ve been seeing was at 08:00 AM. Well, you know, maybe they’re in here eating and now they’ve flown off to the river, who knows? And Jake Latendresse was filming for us and he has set up a camera just to do some B-roll over the big lens and he said, is that them over there across the way? We all turned our binoculars over across the lake, sure enough there were 2 pairs there they were. About 100m from where we had just walked in. So now we got to go all the way back around, walk all the way back and figure out how to get up close to them and it’s like luck, the stars lined up. Those 2 little birds were sitting there glassing and picked up 2 pair, picked up and flew directly across that ox-bow and land right down to base mount down below us. And it’s a little heroin and adventuresome them. Because there was nothing but solid loose rocks and sand and gravel as we split our way down a half mile and snuck up on them and finish the deal. But that’s how you hunt some of those birds is, it’s not the whole seduction and artistic seduction of bringing birds in, you’ve got to take the hunt for what that bird is and what the habitat offers and where your limitations are. And just in the whole cultural context of it all. And let me say this, American duck hunters are the best in the world. We are the best duck hunters. We are the most serious duck hunters. We are the most passionate water fowlers. We have elevated every single aspect of duck hunting to art form. The firearms, the ammunition, the science that goes into ammunition technology, the decoys, the camo, the gear, the blinds, the ATVs, I mean everything. The motors and the boats, you could go on forever. Anything involved with duck hunting, we have taken to a level far beyond what any other culture in the world could imagine for going after a duck, they don’t have it. And it’s a spectrum, but generally at best, it’s a mimicry of what we do. I would say Australia best reconciles with the American mind-set that the duck hunters they’ve got are good duck hunters, they’ve got calls, they’ve got decoys, they scout, they set up its mud motors and whole works, flooded timber, I identify more with an Australian duck hunter than practically anybody else, at the other extreme to go to Mongolia. There’s no duck hunting culture. They’ve got birds. They’ve got species that don’t exist anywhere. A bar headed geese, Ruddy shell ducks, Common shell ducks, other species, swan geese, I have never seen them anywhere else in the world but Mongolia and they organize – remember they’re nomads, historic nomads. I mean there’s 33 million head of livestock, 3 million citizens not a single strand of barbed wire because the land belongs to everybody. Remember, the whole Genghis khan thing those people just – they moved, they followed the great, they herd, they graze and they chased the herds and they migrate on horseback and that’s kind of their culture, not duck hunting. So we show up Mongolia one time to hunt and chase these bird, god, what an amazing country and everything else and we get to where we’re going and he points go there they are out there on that little water out there and we’re going to scout look for more stuff too. So there’s 10 people and one of them had a pair of new boots. That’s it. And knowing what we were kind of getting into, I had suggest we all bring a few decoys and we all bring a few tricks in our bags to figure – and we all be ready to roll and we were. And with that, I mean, the one sack decoys you handed us, I don’t think if you gave me the rest of my life I could have untangled those. They were so tangled, I was just throw the whole sack in a bonfire. And all that, but they were just a high hodgepodge of decoys about two dozen decoys that other clients had brought over the decades and had ended up in a Croker sack and it’s like they had just melted and bonded together. It was impossible. I dumped it out on the water full dark and I just realized we’re not going to hunt over these decoys today and we all broke out. We all brought 3 to a half dozen decoys, so we had enough for a perfect spread but you’re 6500 miles from home, there’s the water you look at it 15 minutes for a dark, you talk about it at dinner, you talk about it again over coffee for breakfast, you show up and you hatch your plan. Nobody’s ever hunt swan or geese before. Nobody ever hunted the shell ducks before. There were mallards and pin tails and Eurasian wigeons and you’re Eurasian green wings and another bird, but that’s not what we were there for. They don’t know what to do with ducks that you don’t want to take home because they don’t eat ducks, there’s nothing whatsoever about their cultures ducks. They know how to find them, find the water. But other than that – so you don’t shoot really a bunch of mallards and stuff like that. You’re there for certain things and that’s what you key in on and you have to just put – it took us a few days to figure out those common shell ducks weren’t coming in. They were feeding on a mud flat about a half mile from this one place we were set up to hunt, there’s no way to access them at all. I mean they were half mile through waist deep mud. They could walk on that mud, we couldn’t. There was nowhere to hide if you could. It was just mud soup. But we finally figured out what their flyway was. Every morning daylight they were coming up to go somewhere, they were coming right down to a certain little thread of string, there was one little stretch and we took turns intercepted them. Just one morning you go after them, next morning me and him would go after them, next morning he would go after them, we all got our common shell ducks. Believe it or not, I took a mojo, a small mojo like a dove mojo because it packs easy and those swans’ geese were eating it up. I mean, they would see that thing from a mile away and we just started waffling coming into it. But that was so rewarding was putting the pieces together, that’s what the challenge was. Now, Mongolia, they got the bright idea that 2 of us, there are 4 of us in camp, 2 of us should go to a north camp, go up there and scout it look at it, we had about a week, why not? So we drove 6 hours. I mean there are 2 tire tracks for 6 hours through the Mongolia wilderness step country. And we stopped at lunch next to this rock. This big stone about as tall as I am and square like a refrigerator just out in the middle of nowhere and we stopped and we’re eating our little lunch whatever and there was like some flowers and blue bonnets and things around at the bottom of the rock, so I asked, Gala whatever his name was I said, what’s up with this? He goes, oh that’s a headstone. I said, really from – he said, that thing is a 1000 years old. I said, what? He said, yeah. He said, do you know that rocks – that stone doesn’t even exist in Mongolia, it must have been brought in from 1000 of miles away. Whoever it was and nobody knows was very important, probably Chinese or something and Emperor or something that happened to be here a long time ago. That’s just crazy stuff you’d see. And so we ended up going up North, higher up in the mountains, beautiful 10,000 acre valley of barley and wheat. We scouted for most of the day and there’s nothing up there but Ruddy shell ducks were still ice, the lakes were frozen primarily and the migration would just further south where we come from. And we decided as we were leaving that afternoon drive back to camp we decided, well, it’s too early for up here. We’ll retreat, go back to where we started and we’ll finish up there, there’s no problem. As soon as the sun starts coming up, we can see those tire tracks cutting through the country. And as we were leaving, there was a little area, probably 5 acres with knee deeper shadow of water, it’s just a little low lying area that had collected some snow melt. The water was open because the sun was sitting at just the aspect such as sun was hitting it, it was wall to wall mallard and pin tails. And we sat there and glassd it from about a half mile away Ben, and we got to talking John and I said, John, good and well, those ducks never ever heard a duck call, have never heard a duck call. And we’re watching and it was beautiful – this was in April. You know how beautiful those birds were in April?

Ben Page: Oh, Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I said, Gala, we would like to hunt there in the morning as fog leaves, he said, really? I said, yeah, we would like to hunt there if it’s okay. And so we drove down of course birds flew away, we drove down because look after the cows and the Ox and the camels and the sheep and the goats and whatever else those nomads were grazing, it was down to bare dirt. It was still kind of hadn’t got growing season yet, grass hasn’t come back, it was just bare dirt. And we wondering how we are going to hide. I said Gala, what about that? We stopped everyone around. They called a Russians and the Russian called them. That’s how those people live up there in the mountains. I said I remember seeing some live duck do you think you would have a couple of bales of hay. He said, yeah, I’m sure he has some hay. I said do you think he sells a couple of hay bales? He goes, well he might, what do you want it for? I said well, we’re going to use it to hide. And he said, yeah, I’m sure we can talk him into it. I said well how much does he want? I don’t know, Ben something like 50,752 Mongolian dollars. I’m like good gosh. How much is that? 6 bucks. I’m like yeah, let’s go buy a couple of bales. And I know to this day he and his family are wondering what those two Americans that didn’t have any livestock with them wanted 2 bales of hay but we paid him and we went back and the next morning the day light –

Ben Page: They are still telling stories about that, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: They’re still telling stories but what we did is we just – that’s all we had. I mean the layout blind would have been great. We didn’t have it, it’s all way back home in America. So what we did is we just busted open the hay bales on top of us and put her pack behind our head and had our decoys out front and we hunted. And we shot some mallard and shot some pin tails and shot a couple of pairs of ruddy shell ducks just because and I stood up this time to get beaten down south and I waved and our guide has been sitting upon top of the mountain there about a half mile or so away and just watching and he came in that morning – now understand they don’t have a duck hunting culture, they hunt ibex and things of that nature. So he’d been sitting there watching this all morning and he came up and he said that was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I got what he goes, he says the birds would come in and they would get right above you all and all of a sudden they would pop their wings and their wings would stop flapping and it would begin to circle. And he said, and they would try to land right in front of you. I go, yeah, isn’t that great? And I pulled my call out, his eyes got big, he’s like – then he looked down at the duck we had laid out and they were all drake and he says, what are the chances that only drake would come in? He said, that’s amazing. I said, no, we were choosing drakes. He goes, why? I said because it’s not trophy hunting like shooting your ibex, but what’s the point shooting hen in April, we’re in Mongolia. We don’t need to kill a bunch. We’re not hunting for me. So we made a sport of it. And when I put it in terms of ibex, I saw the light bulbs switch he got it. He had never been exposed to that. But all of a sudden having watched us work the ducks and get them close and shoot just the drakes a light went off, he got it. And there’s a little bit of joy in that, that was a very – we shot the bar headed geese, we shot some of these bucket list species we went for that took working outside that playbook. But to me, one of the most memorable hunts was that. Show me somebody –

Ben Page: Do you get a sense of being a pioneer like, shooting ducks in ways that they haven’t been shot there in locations that aren’t typically hunted in that manner does it, you ever get a sense of like Pioneerism or like Frontierism, I should say?

Ramsey Russell: A little bit, kind of like exploring new horizons. And

It’s such a digital world and it’s such a – I mean it’s been – boy, I love to read stories or watch documentaries about the Gold Rush, the Western Expansion of America or the Discovery of America and I love that kind of history, let’s face it man, it’s the year 2019 the world has been discovered. It’s not like then, would have been wonderful though. Can you imagine like in dancing with wolves. Can you imagine being Lieutenant Dunbar and going and hunt the North Platte River for ducks back in 1850, well how cool would that be? Those days are over.

Ben Page: Yeah. 

Ramsey Russell: But really by chasing some of these experiences and chasing some of these new adventures, it is a little bit like that. We have brought to market some hunts that people wouldn’t even conceive. I mean, South Africa is a prime when I mean – some people know that bird hunting there but let’s face it is known for animals. But the bird hunting in South Africa quality and quantity rivals, Mexico and Argentina, it’s right there in the top 3, done right but yeah. Pakistan, who’s ever heard of hunting ducks in Pakistan? You think of Pakistan, you think of up there around the Afghanistan border all the mountains and rocks but look at that on the map. Man, the center of Pakistan is a green valley called the Indus River. It’s full of ducks, all those ducks migrate through there, it’s a corridor, it’s amazing. Azerbaijan is really one of my favorite hunt right now. And never mind the fact we’re hunting within a dozen miles of Iran, it’s fine, it’s safe, it’s stable, it’s fun, it’s good, I love it. And how I found it was, we kept hearing about the Volga River in Russia as we explored it and did some work, did some research, we realize it’s kind of flyway area. The birds are not – they’re traveling down the Volga River out of Siberia and other part of Russia in the same way birds coming out of Canada North Dakota traveling through South Dakota or Iowa, it’s a fly way. So even if we went hunting Eastern Russia on the Volga River in October and we timed it right, they wouldn’t be pretty. And I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer it took me a while to think this through, but one day it just happened to dawn on me, where the heck the Volga River go, it goes to Caspian Sea. So, there starts my search for Azerbaijan. We wanted to get into some of those Asian species and experience some of that stuff that can’t be done anywhere else. And believe it or not mallards and pin tails and Shovelers and Gadwalls, Eurasian green wings, Eurasian wings are the big bread and butter ducks over there. Then you get in a lot of cool stuff like the Red Crested Pochard and that’s a really cool species and a lot of fun to hunt, is a diver. Call them in like you would any other Pochard diver and they decoy wonderfully when they’re around but that’s kind of how that started and that’s what compels me personally is not the species. I don’t collect species, I collect experiences and adventures and memories and that’s what – like I say duck hunt is very subjective and, but that’s what personally compels me. If you asked what my favorite hunt was, I would tell you the next one. That’s my favorite duck hunt Ben is the very next one.

Ben Page: Very poetic. So out of all in just the same way that you probably culturally shocked your guide there in Mongolia. What’s the flip side? What’s some of the biggest cultural shocks that you have experienced in all your travels?

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I tell people everybody wants to be Ramsey Russell until, it’s time to do Ramsey Russell shit. Have you ever seen that meme? You see those kind of meme to say it’s like 6 pictures and it’s like what your mom thinks, you do what your wife they do. Yeah, it’s a lot like that. And there’s been some cultural shocks. Pakistan would be the largest cultural shock and I had a very good time there. I shot more ducks one afternoon in Pakistan than I have shot anywhere else on earth and I quit shooting because it was 90 something degrees and I was hot and I wasn’t feeling well. Anyway, I got something I called amoebic dysentery, I don’t know what it was but it was bad and I quit. And I’ll tell you a cultural shock was this, we’re staying with a very prominent Feudal lord. Britain colonized a lot of country, India was one of them, it’s under British colonial rule and I don’t understand all the intricacies of how that works but I know enough to say generally like this, they would come in and whatever with the economy but they would appoint, they would give prominent families positions of wealth and power to kind of help govern their sovereignty, they did the same thing in Africa back in the day and a lot of countries did. But they did that over in India and after World War 2, they had to let those empires go because they had to go back and build Great Britain. I mean, Germany just bombed into obliteration. And so one of the last things they did politically was they seated, they negotiated a treaties of sorts between the Muslims and Hindus. Hindu stay in India and the Muslims went to a little corner of India carved out and now called a Pakistan, that’s how that all works, that’s where the Muslims went. And those feudal lords retained their power and their wealth and that’s how that country works. And so when we were invited to come over, we were going to be the guest of one of the feudal lord and it was amazing, it was a palace, a compound and there was a Bengal tiger man, I have seen a lot of game rooms in my life, but I have never seen a Bengal tiger mounted, let alone the markhor and everything else. And that was very impressive. He had the most incredible gun collection I have ever seen. I’m talking these handmade Purdy’s and Holland and Holland but they weren’t art, they were firearms. He used them, they had been used and they had scratches on the wood and barrels and stuff, so he was hunter. And so we went to that environment but in terms of cultural differences, I’ll never forget this it’s like, we showed up to go duck hunting first afternoon and there were 120 staff members and they were wearing – I don’t know what you call that – it kind of looks like medical scrubs, all different colors that they wear in India, baggy pants, baggy shirt, there was orange, there was blue there was purple there was green, I mean it’s all kinds of colors and there were the age disparity would say 8 years old to 70. And they’re 120 of them gathering around decoys and as I got out of the truck, I was introduced and 7 or 8 of them grabbed up a bunch of supplies, chairs and ammo and all kinds of stuff and down the path they go, I’m right behind him, that’s my guide staff and they kicked off their sandals and rolled up their pants and out they go throw out decoys and there really wasn’t big tall coverage, like these little bitty cedar trees about 4 feet tall or less and there’s an old man, the old man was in the blind with me. And I don’t know what he would say, but whenever there was a duck around, he would say something, I could barely hear him, of course I got old duck hunter ears, it’s almost like he whispered and in a snap of a finger, the 7 other guys would just vanish. And I mean just like man wearing bright blue or bright purple garb just absolutely vanish. And he vanished to get right in those cedar trees and just one long cedar tree might hold two of them boom disappeared. And duck hunt is not a perfect sport, sometimes you sell them and if I sell the duck and it’s hot, maybe waist deep water and duck fall out there about 90 yards swimming, they didn’t come back without him. Didn’t lose a single bird. We didn’t speak the same language, but we communicated to them that we might want to keep – some of the clients may want to keep some of these birds, please don’t cutthroats, halal them. And I ask and that old man would – when a new species came up he would present, he would hold it out and look at me, if it’s something I didn’t want or whatever I shake my head and boy they did their process of halaling it. And before you even do it, I mean, we were there to shoot ducks, so if a seagull flew over or something else flew over they would indicate, no. Not knowing if I knew or not because maybe some people don’t know and a pelican flew over. Big white pelican and them boys they appear from somewhere they have been hiding and several of them were indicating for me to shoot this pelican. I’m like, no. Because they are not going to kill something they are not going to use or eat and they were pointing, they were saying shoot that pelican, so I shot him. And boy, they went out there and got him and drug him up whatever and I couldn’t figure, I said, Godly, surely these guys aren’t eating that darn pelican. And I later asked my host what they would do with it and he said they used the oil – I guess back in his old land they would use the oil off that bird for rheumatoid. They rub it on the joints, if they had pain in the joints or something, but they didn’t freaked me out, now all this was fine up to this point. So we’re staying up in the compound, we’ve got like an apartment or suite on the compound and that’s where the 4 or 5 bedroom for each of his clients were staying there and what freaked me out was there were staff that would wait on you. And so one day I stepped out of the shower it is hot as blazes, I took a shower and I’m toweling off, walking around my room butt naked and get ready to get dressed and by the time one of them bust in, he got a platter of food, I’m like, yeah I’ll be out in just a minute go on and so I turned around and I realized he’s following me. I’m like, what the? I looked at him, he just followed me with his food, this platter of food. I’m like, hey, I finally walked to the door and open up say get out. He don’t speak – I’m like, leave, vamanos. And I kind of ease him out the door and shut it, well, I kept happening. Okay, that kept happening. And finally, I say something to my host I said, look one day I’m walking around – and outside the compound I can hear the mosque music going and it’s very beautiful at that place, I was walking around just taking pictures of the compound, I mean it was beautiful garden, a beautiful lake, the sun and the artwork was just real different and I wasn’t in Mississippi no more. And outside the wall, I could hear that mosque music, you know what I’m talking about that man’s singing, now I look behind me, there’s a little old man following me and he’s got his hands pressed together and he keeps like bow and bow and I’m walking and taking pictures and this guy’s following me and I’m like, I started getting paranoid like is he telling me to that it’s prayer time not to do nothing. Am I breaking some kind of etiquette taking pictures during prayer time? I don’t know. And he finally walks off. So finally I say something, I say, look, I’m tripping here, what’s up with you guys walking in the bedroom and follow me around and me tell them to leave and here I am butt naked trying to get dressed, I mean what’s up with this? I don’t get it. He got real confused look and he goes, who are you talking about? I go them guys right there, those guys with the food. He goes, Ramsay, they are servants. I don’t care who they are and I’ll come out and eat when I get dressed and he said, you don’t understand what I’m saying to you Ramsey they are servants, there’s nobody, there carpet. I go, huh? He said, they don’t see you, they’re servants, they’re carpet under your feet, they’re nobody. And I’m like, wow, that’s a little hard for an American to get his mind wrapped around.

Ben Page: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: They weren’t staff, they weren’t employees, there were servants, biblical servants. And like back to my field staff who I came to really like and appreciate, I didn’t eat after them. But one day that little boy, 8 years old, he’s going to be the old man and it’s they’re servants. And that was culturally – Pakistan was the most – it wasn’t the religion, it wasn’t that, it was that part of it that was way different.

Ben Page: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Anything I had ever experience. That was very different. But I loved it and I’ll go back. I know Jake and I have talked about going back, I have got a couple of clients that want to go back. I just want to put a few more people together and get – it’ll probably be another year or 2, probably 2 years, we’re going to try to go back because it really was an amazing hunt an amazing area very different. Azerbaijan very culturally different. We’re out there in a little P-row, push polls and our people have great ammunition, good firearms and a whole room full of mojo that we’ve brought over the years. They get it, the blinds are built well, but then you run into a whole subset of people. Now even though it’s – Well they sell ducks on the side street like boiled peanuts in the Deep South waterfowl for sale, so they’re market hunting. And some of the things you may see that the way these guys hunt, there’s some of the best serious – they are the real market hunters, these guys are killers.

Ben Page: Right.

Ramsey Russell: I mean just stone cold over nothing. I mean, I brought home a decoy, they thought I was crazy. One of the decoys we hunt over, we hunt great decoys over there. It was a market hunter’s decoy. It was literally like a piece of foam and some black viscuine and wrapped up with some copper wire, they were very crude looking and I was shock to heck and back they were disposable because he just made them with whatever he had on hand for free and then his ammo, were holes uncrimped and he put the powder and put the charge and put a little wax on top and tamp it probably a 1000 feet per second but boy did they kill them ducks. Because its money in a poor country.

And so that was astounding. And I always feel like I learned something, I want to learn something I like visiting with these people. And I’m going to tell you one thing about duck hunting in Azerbaijan I learned. I am American, I’m a patient probably ties bolt like a lot of people, they aren’t. I might have to squint and imagine that dot is a duck but if they see a duck, they go into game mode. There’s no half measures. When they push that P-row in the grass is perfectly hidden, is perfectly stable, so you can stand up and shoot everything is perfect. They have got blind situation, they put the decoys out, if the wind swaps out of the grass, you go P-row across the other side of the pocket, you’re back in it again now the winds right and the sun’s right now, the decoy never moved. They make a game plan, but every duck they see it might be a mile high. Every duck they see they treat like a possible candidate for the decoys. They go into play for keeps mode every duck they see. They don’t relax. Relaxing, playing on your phone, they don’t play on phone when they are in the duck blind, they’re hunting and their game on. And it’s a real serious intensity and I gained from that, I love being around that.

Ben Page: Yeah. In line with kind of that last question, what’s the biggest “oh shit” moment you have had?

Ramsey Russell: Oh I don’t know, the first one to come to mind, I wasn’t in a duck blind. We were going to Mongolia and a client and I decided we were going to stop over in China because neither of us ever been. If you’re there for 72 hours or less you don’t require a visa. And we decided we want to go climb the wall of China. I mean it was built to keep the war and Mongols out, Genghis khan out of their backyard. So that offered a little bit of cultural context to the whole experience. And we landed in Beijing and we got a little 72 hour visa line probably took 2 hours to go through there. And when we came up in broken English she’s asking, do we have any paperwork? Well man, we gave her everything but our library card. And at one point of time she took out our gun forms, oh you have a gun. I go yeah, fold it back up and hand it to me. Well when I booked that hunt, my Mongolia guy had set up – this travel guide set up Mary Wayne come get us in Beijing and tour us around. I had called him up right before I left for the airport said, hey do you mind sending me my firearm permit, my temporary transit permit or whatever for firearm going through China, he goes no you don’t need it Mary Wayne is going to have it, he said, well I get that but this is my first rodeo I just feel comfortable having it. They said no relax, it’s all taken care of and finally I said look send it to me, I’m not getting on a plane without it. Well he faxes this thing and it freaking speaking Chinese for all I know it was a restaurant menu. I don’t know what it was, it was all Chinese Mandarin and I couldn’t read it but I folded up and put it in my bag, made a copy put in my gun case I forgot – Well it took us so long to get through that in transit line by the time we got clear across the Beijing airport to baggage, it was 5 acres of bags been pulled off conveyor belts and we walked right up tires and there they were there’s my suitcase, there’s my gun case, there’s his suitcase, there’s his gun case, we put it on the instructions I had received was Mary Wayne will meet you right around baggage. Well, Mary Wayne weren’t there, so we proceed towards the exit, she’ll find you don’t worry. We get all the way up that X-ray machine, where you put your bag on X-ray machine for exiting customs and we’ve been traveling probably for 24 hours, I’m going to say, I don’t know we did it for a while and I’m just sitting there kind of coasting and just watching the guy who’s watching the screens on X-ray stuff goes through and man, you should have seen how straight his back got when he saw that firearm. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been to China but there are billions of people in China and they’re all trying to be heard, they’re very loud people. And he got straight jumped up and started talking, I started talking loud and then he left and went back to a room and came back out and there’s 15 people behind him and they’re all trying to over talk each other and I look my client and go, Huh? I think he’s excited about that gun, I don’t know. And they come talking and they grab our bags and they indicate for us to follow him and we go back to this little holding room and there’s steel desk no chairs, there’s 2 steel chairs and this bar – like if you were sitting at chair and they could put a bar across your lap and lock in and that’s it, that’s all it was. They put our gear up on that desk, I’m thinking boy, I’m not sitting in that chair and as we were sitting there and these things unfold and it goes from 15 to 30 to 35 to 40 and I felt like a sardine and people just piling in and they’re talking and trying to out talk each other and everything else and I know what’s what and well I’m trying to get to my bag, my little carryon bag to grab my permit and they’re like breaking into kung Fu fighting mode and everything, I mean they’re freaking out and I’m trying to reach through my bag, I mean, they’re beside themselves and I finally make a break, just reach over grab my permit, whoop it out and the minute that he snatches it from me, the minute he reads it you can tell okay, it’s calm and somebody, they start to calm down because apparently it said something about having a firearm in China, in the whole room, all 50 or 60 or whatever there is, they start to calm down and one of them speaks a little more English then other one he says, do you have a translator, you’re supposed to meet somebody? And I said, yeah Mary Wayne, he goes, can you call her? I said, yeah, I’ll call her and ask where are you? I go, you don’t want to know where I’m at right now, Mary the question is where are you? And I put him on the phone her and she come back there and the minute she walked in it all started again. I mean no, they’re all yelling and I don’t know what’s going on. I just know – and finally everybody calms down, she said well everything’s fine. She said, did you show your gun paperwork to a lady at the visa station? I said yeah, she said well she’s either going to jail or she’s fired. He said because she was supposed to notify the police, the police supposed to notify airport security. And I said the good news is everything’s fine, everything’s good, the bad news is we’re going to be here a long time because now it’s got to go up to change back down they got to meet and talk and we got to go to turn in your guns. So we ended up being from the time we landed to the time we walked out of that airport, we were there for 9 hours and that was one time – that was some of that real Ramsey Russell shit. And now guess what? We don’t go through China to go to Mongolia, we go through Seoul Korea.

Ben Page: Did you see The Great Wall?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah we did. And I have got to tell you, I was ready for it. I thought I was ready for it. I want to take pictures and I want to see this thing is very iconic, you can see it from outer space. And I looked at google and I was looking at all the photos and it’s an optical illusion because I know a few stretches and the stairs and stuff but what I imagine was this rolling, undulating stone sidewalk until I got to the bottom of it and looked up and I realized it’s all stairs. Now, there might be a little side – the part we walked for about 8 miles, but there might be a few little 10 foot sections of smooth or non-stair area, but the rest was stairs. And I just wasn’t expecting and I’m like, okay, well this is fine. But I go Mary, how far are we going up these things? She goes, we’re going up to the top. Well, I could look up there about a half mile and I can see a guard station, one of them little rook looking guard station and I go, okay, well that’s not too bad. Well from there, I looked up there were 5 more to the top. Well, by the time I got 3-4^th one I was all in at that point I was ready to go and those stairs, they are not all 8 or 12 or whatever inch I mean, one might be 3 and one of them might be 2.5 foot stair the stairs, it’s like climbing a mountain stairs. But it was really kind of a cool experience, I got to tell you it really put China into context and as a precursor to actually going into Mongolia and the whole Genghis Khan thing. It was a really cool experience. Now, I will say one final thing about China, if you had asked me prior to flying into Beijing did I like Chinese food? I said I love it. Man who don’t like egg filet mignon –

Ben Page: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: Spring rolls and chop soup. I mean yeah, I love it. No, that is not Chinese food, that’s Chinese American food. We went to Beijing and Mary Wayne carried us in one restaurant man, she bragged and bragged about pork something that was the best dish this restaurant famous for it, we all ordered it and I took a bite and I just hit me wrong, I said, man this tastes like that old brown stink bait smells. I know and so I drank a little Coca Cola and took another bite that was it, I said man, that one I wasn’t imagining nothing else that was it. And luckily about 2 blocks from the hotel, we found a restaurant that made Peking duck. And if wild ducks tasted like Peking ducks they would be extinct. It’s like eating butter and for 3 nights I eat Peking duck and didn’t eat nothing rest the trip. I tried a little bit, I tried this, I tried that, I’m like no, I am eating Peking duck. So, I don’t guess I really do like real Chinese food but it was very interesting culture, interesting place that might – that was probably the biggest “oh shit” moment I had was that oh shit.

Ben Page: Yeah, that’s quite the one too. I know you got to get going here shortly but I do have just a couple more questions that I wanted to ask you. The first one, the one that I really wanted to start off with but I think that – you’re here, you have done a lot of interviews on podcasts and you have written a lot about it but you say that your grandfather got you in with dove hunting, right?

Ramsey Russell: He did, he sure did. My grandfather Russell, he was a hunter and raised my daddy and my uncle to be hunters. But they just in adult life they really didn’t hunt a lot, my dad didn’t but my granddad did. And hunting on a Mississippi dove field, first is just rambunctious grandchild 4, 5, 6 years old trying to beat the dog out to pick up the birds and things of that nature and that’s kind of how I got started. And later back in those old days he had bought a Remington 1120 gauge, 28 inch barrel. Remington is kind of a heavy gun. 1100 is kind of a heavy gun relative to say Benellie Montefeltro, it’s a heavy gun. Back in old day he just chopped the stock off and took it to somebody saw the stock in half and re-glued the pad on stands a little bit so it fit. Boom, there you go son, that’s your gun. But put one shell in and after I got 10 minutes coaching practice on lead the bird put me off in a part of the field that no matter what it couldn’t hurt nobody.

Ben Page: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I learned to shoot. That’s how you did things back then.

Ben Page: I just wanted to ask you then to because obviously something stuck and something about that’s really important to you. If you don’t mind sharing, what’s your fondest memory of your granddad when you guys are out hunting?

Ramsey Russell: That’s as a easy question because we were hunting over in the Mississippi Delta and this might have been one of the last years, I remember him actually hunting. His health failed him soon thereafter, but I remember he was a great shot, he really was a very good shot, maybe he shot a box of shells to get his 12 bird limit back then, maybe not even a box of shells he and his old law partner, Mr. Holland Fells were just wonderful people, wonderful shots. And I can remember he was on top of a little short lake levee picking birds, he was done and I hardly got started. My daddy was just across the ditch ways and he was probably almost done with his limit. So, I was just sitting right there below the levee and a dove flew over and I obeyed my granddad, I loved him. That’s just a generation we were in yes sir, no sir and you did what you were told to do, that’s just the way that relationship was. But I remember a dove flew over and I saw it and I starting to mount my gun and I could hear him saying, no, the birds too high, no, don’t shoot, it’s too late, I was already in the zone, that’s one and kill that bird, I felt bad. I mean, I kind of disobeyed him. He said don’t shoot and I did. But I killed that bird and I went and picked it up and brought it up there to him, he said, well I reckon you’re old enough to call your own shots now. And that was just a real indelible moment, I remember with him. He was trying to coach and try to do best, but I guess at some point in time in a young man’s life however young, you got to make decisions on your own. But that moment just flew up when you asked about that, I’ll never forget that. And I never will forget, I never saw the man breast anything. We were always last in the field leaving in the evening it’s because we picked our dove by gosh we picked them, the whole thing. When he cooked them, he would cook them various different ways, but he wanted the whole bird and the same with ducks, he would never breast a duck, we whole picked. That’s just the way that generation was the way he was. He never would fillet a fish, he just scaled the whole thing where the catfish you skin them and if the bass you scale them and if its brim scaled them, you didn’t fillet any stuff like that, it was against his religion. Now, those are two things I remember most about him.

Ben Page: That’s great. Well, thankfully that he left such an impression on you and got, you started fired up so that so many people could experience all these, all the things that you’ve given to the hunting world and many different people.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you Ben. Dove hunting – the downside of ducks season somewhere as I spend a lot of time – tomorrow’s the first day of summer and I leave for Argentina, it’s wintertime down there. So the heat doesn’t get any better. The older I get, the more that old southern heat wears on me. But it’s just something about those days, that is just something about that dove hunt, how I got started with him and Holland Fells and my daddy, it’s just something silly about it. I woke up years later in a burn center and it dawned on me at some point time that it was Labor Day, something on the TV, it was Labor Day and I realized that, parade or something and it was the most gut riching moment all I’ve been through and everything else but what I realized in right then in that instant was that for the first time in my life and I was 16 years old, I wasn’t in dove field. I mean, I would tell you kind of tongue and cheek that I was probably about that age and I realized Labor Day was a national holiday, I thought that was just the weekend we went dove hunting Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And when I was younger because my dad really didn’t hunt a lot and my granddad’s health was deteriorating, he didn’t hunt a lot. I mean really there were probably years through that time period that dove hunting those 3 days constituted all or maybe half at best, but my entire hunting year and I really just – I vowed that given a choice, I would never, if I ever got out of that place, I would never miss another opening day of dove season. And I don’t, I will not. I mean we may not have a great dove field lined up, it don’t matter, we’re going. Well now my Children are older, one son is in the US Marine Corps stationed in Okinawa and the oldest one is in college, he comes around and with all of us, I knew how it affected it growing up because last September, my youngest son was at boot camp on Parris Island and we were communicating through a little online app, he kind of write letters and he wrote me a letter and he said, I know what this weekend is and I hate I’m not going to be there with you all. And that’s just our thing. And it’s kind of like the old man is touching my kids threw me through our habit, it’s just something profound about that dove season. And I do like – I heard a podcast other day they were talking about last meal what would you choose? And I think it be bacon wrapped dove breast on opening day with my family that would be what I would go for.

Ben Page: It kind of circles all around, we were talking a little bit about finding in the pre-interview here, we’re talking a little bit about finding the light switch and I think if a lot more people viewed that as their light switch, they find it a little easier.

Ramsey Russell: It would be. I see it and I get it – I’m 53 years old and I can remember being the age I looked at folks my age thinking they were old folks, so I see it. I have got a 22 year old son, I have got a 19 year old son and they’re my best hunting partners, they’re my favorite hunting partners are my kids. I’ll say it and wants to say it again, your best hunting partners are the ones you raise. I love hunting with my family but we’re in different phases. And I can remember I think being at that age, but what a hunt constitutes to me now a successful hunt and enjoyable hunt is totally different than a young person, especially in light of all the social media success, everybody limited out and got this and got that and shot a band and you can wear on your little bit well, let me tell you all about social media, it is not real. It is, but it is not. It’s a snapshot of reality. Point in case, smiling family sitting at Disneyland, you ever been to Disneyland? I know you got a 16 month old child, you’re going, let me tell you how that work, they’re on your Facebook page is going to be this beautiful picture and you all are all smiling, the family’s happy, like you having the best time in the world. Because you are but just 60 seconds before that picture was taken the mama saying you better hush, I’m going to give you something to cry about, quit crying. I mean, it’s long lines and it’s hot and it is not perfect that smiling shot, it’s just a glimpse of the overall thing. Hunting is hunting. And I have been blessed to hunt a lot of different places and hunt a lot of days in a year and there are those days that they have duck gods smile and you can do no wrong and everybody’s a rock star and the ducks are just lining up to come in and die. And then there are those days that the other side that you are not going to kill a duck, no matter what you do it’s just not going to happen. It is not in the cards, it’s just the ducks are down, the ducks are stale, there’s no wind, there’s no shadows to hide in, it’s just one of them day. But most days I have found most days are somewhere in between. Somewhere in between is that big, 80% in between and that’s just fine. You know, what I’m saying? You’re getting to do something you love, you’re getting to hunt a beautiful renewable resource, hopefully share time with friends and family and guy’s life’s too short, if you don’t like your hunting partners find some new ones because that’s what it’s all about. I love to duck hunt, I love what I do but being people part of what I do is the most enjoyable part. I love every duck hunter has stories. And I get to spend time in the blind with so many people and I get to hear their stories and I get to see them at their best moments and the people but the duck guides, we work with, the hunters – I get to be a part of the best parts of their lives, the happiest part of their lives and I get to see them at their best. Good duck hunts, whether it’s in your backyard or halfway across the world, they don’t happen by accident, they don’t. Little bit of luck because the weather is good, the migration zone and the rest is effort. Your part, the scout’s part, the guides part, your buddies part, it’s how the game is played. It doesn’t happen by accident, but no matter what you do sometimes, it’s just not going to be that “limit” it’s just going to be duck hunting and that in of itself is very rewarding. But getting to see good guides, good operators last year, one of my very favorite places on earth to hunt down in Argentina, it is the most wild and remote place I have ever been. It’s 130 square mile marsh, on a good year it’s 10 hours from the airport, 10 hours, not 9 hour but 10. This year because the roads are wet coming in, we’re going to be in 4 wheel drive, it might be 11, 12 hours getting to the lodge, that’s okay. Once we’re there, we’re in that kind of place, I want my ashes scattered when I die, that kind of place. Hunting by myself, wild ducks in a wild place and it’s magical. Last year was a drought and we were shooting about half the number of birds we normally shoot, but it was requiring a monumentous effort on behalf of the staff to scout and to find those birds. You see what I’m saying? It didn’t happen by accident and I appreciated that. And I would ask anybody, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the resource and we owe it to our kids and to our fellow hunters to respect the hunt for what it is. Those ducks, they aren’t put there just to prop up our egos, you what I’m saying? They’re really not, we’re all hunting because it’s fun, it’s a recreation. It’s not to fill our refrigerator we all eat them, it’s a recreation but enjoy it for what it is, every moment of it. There’s a lot of satisfaction if you’re only going to shoot one duck because that’s just what the day brings make it the best, it’s a lot of satisfaction to me if I’m only going to shoot one duck that I owned that duck when he came in. That we negotiated an agreement there on calling and decoying and how he come in and execute the shot. And as a southern duck hunter, you got to have the faith of a mustard seed or else play golf. I mean you got to have that faith, what I’ve learned is, I don’t belong to best place on – My camp is not the best duck hunting property on earth it’s not, but it’s perfect for me because there’s no cheating if the ducks are down, you have got to play for keeps, you got to play by the rules. I mean you have got to be hidden, you have got to pay attention, you have got to know, like tomorrow morning going duck hunting great. I can’t make a plan for where I’m going to hunt, what I’m going to do based on the weather because I got to go draw. I might get the first draw, I might get the 5^th draw. So playing A B C D E F G H I J, I got to be prepared for depending on who’s going to draw what but that’s fun.

Ben Page: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And then once you get that whole okay, here’s the hand I have been dealt, how am I going to play this? And one day a friend, a fellow camp member, we were out there hunting and it was magic. We went just where I wanted to go, the weather was perfect, it’s just tight little hole, maybe an acre of water surrounded by willow trees. It’s in about a 40 acre impoundment with just one little corner. And then when it was hard out of North West it was clear to bail and the gadwalls love that spot and especially in that wind in those conditions and how we set up and it was just – as I was pushing my little sled out, we don’t drive in, we walk in and I sledded, put a little sled behind me with my decoy and I was pushing a little skim ice out of the way and gadwalls was all around me and when I can hear a gadwall they’re close and they’re landing on the water and landing on the ice all around me and I’m thinking, oh boy, this is it. And I get the decoys, just like I want them in that spot and I get back and I have got 5 minutes before shooting time and I unzip my jacket, I’m cooling off and the ducks just fogging in and I’m like pouring in, this is what it’s all about. You go and you go and boom, there it is. And I’m done and I break out my coffee thermos, I’m waiting on David to finish up and the volley, the interim between the volley kind of stretches out a little bit, which is perfect because you get time to visit. Life happens between the volleys. I mean, let’s face it, man. Getting to talk. You get to talk about things you don’t talk about in regular world, you can talk about in a duck blind. David asked me. He said Ramsey, I got a question for you. Yeah man, he says, it is a great hunt this morning but it’s a great hunt, it’s a great morning, oh yeah, it’s wonderful. He said, well, don’t take it wrong. But he says, this isn’t the best camping on earth is it? No, it’s far from it, I’m sure. And then he goes why do you hunt here? He says, you hunt anywhere in the world if you want to, what fires you up about hunting here? And well, my granddad killed his last duck on that property and my kids killed their first duck that’s for start. I said, David, if I want to go shoot a bunch of ducks standing knee deep in corn, I’m just going to Argentina do that in certain places if I want to do this, I want to do that. But I said, what I like about hunting where I hunt is just the raw game. There’s no cheating. If you’re going to shoot a limit or not, if you’re going to hunt and play – you have got to play for keeps, you got to be hidden right, you have got to know where you’re going in the dark, you have got to set everything just right. I have been hunting there for a long time, I know those things, but you have got to honor the sport and you know what, you may not come out with 3 ducks but if you’re sitting there playing on your cell phone when that flock of gadwall flew through, you might not come home with any. You got to stay focused and play for keeps. And I like that. We don’t have a lot of blinds, we have a few take the kids too or go get too if the wind is just right in the ducks in that area but mostly how we hunt it’s just how I grew up hunting, standing waist deep in the button bush of the willows just immersed in it and I love it. That to me is real duck hunting. That’s what I really like about is that game and it doesn’t take 6 ducks. I mean let’s face it guys, 3 ducks here and that’s not going to change the course, history is not going to change who you are, it’s not going to change your life. It’s not how it – and I’m all about getting that limit if I can but the same day it’s just 3 ducks, sometimes the ducks win and that’s okay. I can accept that as long as I did my best I can accept that.

Ben Page: I really appreciate you coming on Ramsey and I feel absolutely blessed to have gotten so much of your time as you’re probably putting off packing to talk to me. And I really –

Ramsey Russell: That’s okay. And look I’m very flattered and humbled that you all had me on here and find what I have to talk about interesting. Thank you all very much.

Ben Page: Absolutely. And I know I speak for all the listeners, we didn’t get to all the listener questions, but I’m sure we’ll chat again someday soon.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Ben.

[End of Audio]

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