Ramsey Russell, Duck Hunting is More Than Just Ducks

Todd Helms: Hey gang, welcome to another episode of the Wingman Podcast and I am fortunate enough to have Ramsey Russell of getducks.com with me today. We’ve tried this a couple of times, Ramsey and we had some technical difficulties, we ran into a few snags, but here we are, we’re on together. We had some phenomenal conversations started and I’m hoping we can pick back up where that left off. But I want to say thank you for being on the podcast with us and give us the short spiel about who Ramsey Russell is? And who Get Ducks is?

Ramsey Russell: Hey, I appreciate you all having me. And I think the reason we’re having technical difficulties is because my wife is the brains and I’m the good look. And I can tell from looking through the screen, you probably got somebody just like that.

Todd Helms: It’s the same thing over here brother.

“I really did kind of start down the rabbit hole of international wing shooting collecting species, collecting the North America not the 41 but the big list close to 55 or 60. And then I realized beyond those borders there’s a whole world full of waterfowl species and I have been fortunate enough to collect a bunch of them on 6 continents.”

Ramsey Russell: Oh man, anything more than a smartphone and I’m lost. But I don’t know where to start. A lot of people – I’ve told my story a lot, getducks.com has been around for 20 years and right out of college about a really bad hunt. And back before the internet was really the internet just kind of research around through magazines and television and found an outfitter up in Alberta went up there and hunted with him, instead it was awesome. Came back and next year with more people, then next year with more people. He called me aside for cold beer and said, hey, I’d like you to be my booking agent. I’m like, what the hell is a booking agent? I’m a forester with the US Federal government. And he said, well I want you to sell my hunt and man, I was right on my way in a federal career as a registered forester and a certified wildlife biologist. I never dreamed that midway through that career I would hit a crossroads and decide going to this thing full time. And I tell you something very importantly, I learned is that this business commands full time. Somebody asked me the other day, they said, one of men I went to high school with, he was a kid then, he asked me, he said, this get ducks thing, keep you busy, is it a full time job? And I go, it keeps my wife and I are busy for 8 days a week. We never leave the office, we’ll look around at the desk and I say baby, its 2 o’clock at night, its 02:00 AM ready to go to bed, let’s buy the stopping place. But that brings up a good point. I grew up duck hunting, I love to duck hunt but 20 years later getducks.com. The web page, the total package has becomes so much more than just duck hunting, it’s almost become a life purpose it consumes me. But that’s what we do. And I’ll tell you something very interesting is, I really did kind of start down the rabbit hole of international wing shooting collecting species, collecting the North America not the 41 but the big list close to 55 or 60. And then I realized beyond those borders there’s a whole world full of waterfowl species and I have been fortunate enough to collect a bunch of them on 6 continents. But I grew up hunting just roughing just standing crotch deep in button bushes or huddle up in the blind, in the mud that kind of hunting just down and dirty. And since doing it I’ve realized chasing those species around the world with the different cultures and the different creeds and the different colors and the different religions and the whole bowl of wax is so much more to it than just species. How I grew up hunting crotch deep in the button bushes, wow that changed hunting them. As you chase ducks around and hunted win in Rome type ways, it just changes, it’s different and the worlds a lot bigger than our own backyards, Todd. And it’s like, I’ve shot them in the mornings and the afternoons, in flooded timber and emergent marsh and all these different habitats. I’ve shot them at night. I’ve shot him by light. I’ve shot them over bait where it’s legal. I shot them with electronic calls where it’s legal, with live decoys where it’s legal. I’ve jumped shot them. I passed shot them. I shot them at 16,000ft elevation. I’ve shot him 400ft below sea level. One of the most humbling experiences was on the Bering Sea shooting Eiders. Not a huge fan of sea duck hunting, it just doesn’t vibrate but you’ve got to go there to get those species.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: One of the coolest place is Mongolia, we’ve driven for 6 hours on tire tracks through this wide open wilderness where most people go to shoot horned animals chasing bar headed geese and ruddy shelled ducks and it’s just the craziest thing. We stopped for lunch and there was this refrigerator sized stone and had some flowers and stuff around it, right in the middle of nowhere. I mean, absolutely in the middle of nowhere. And in both Mongolia in the middle of nowhere and on St. Paul Island in the middle of the Bering Sea, I’ve never felt so insignificant relative to the universe because you’re just out there. And my host pointed to that stone said, that’s a headstone. This is like a massive rock. I go a headstone for who? He goes, nobody knows. It’s over 2000 years old. I go, you’re kidding. And he goes, and what’s so interesting is that particular stone isn’t found in Mongolia. It’s nearest sources about 1500-2000 miles from here.

Todd Helms: So they hauled that thing in?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, for who?

Todd Helms: That’s crazy.

Ramsey Russell: Isn’t that crazy? A lot of my clients collect birds and collect species and I respect that because I kind of do too. But I’ve got a tiny little game room. It’s actually a little living room with chairs and a TV and a bar where we just hang out at camp and it’s just too bitty. I tell my kids all the time when I die you all just bring up a big dumpster and dump it all in there and start over it’s too much. I just realized one time somebody, that bar headed goose, that red crested pochard, that capercaillie, that’s something else. And as I start telling the stories about those birds, Todd it’s always comes back to people, that particular person or that particular place or those people in that place or the way we hunted over those crude decoys of those handmade boats or barefooted in ice water, I mean it’s just always something different. And that’s really and truly what compels me about what I do and seeing the world. It’s really just not the species and its way beyond the numbers game. I don’t count ducks, I shoot a lot of ducks in the course of a year because I normally hunt. When COVID is not around, I may hunt 200-225 days a year but I have no idea or even interest in how many ducks I shoot because to me the numbers, just the numbers almost cheap in the sport.

Todd Helms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s kind of sort of who I am and where I’m coming from.

“One of the things that I’ve seen – obviously, I’ve watch quite a bit of your YouTube stuff and listen to podcasts. And one of the things and it resonates Ramsey is one of the things that you’re talking about is – the headstone for example, people might go with you and think they’re collecting ducks but they’re collecting a lot more than ducks.”

Todd Helms: One of the things that I’ve seen – obviously, I’ve watch quite a bit of your YouTube stuff and listen to podcasts. And one of the things and it resonates Ramsey is one of the things that you’re talking about is – the headstone for example, people might go with you and think they’re collecting ducks but they’re collecting a lot more than ducks.

Ramsey Russell: They’re collecting experiences, man.

Todd Helms: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: They are. Everybody says, we all get it. Everybody you talk to in a Safari Club type environment. Oh, heck yeah, there’s guys that are chasing trophy animals and I mean, big record animals and I respect that man, because that’s taking it to another level. You know why I don’t collect trophy game animals is because – somebody asked me one time, he said, man, I can’t believe you’re not a trophy hunter and that truest sense because you travelled 6800 miles from home to shoot a certain species of bird. And I go, yeah, but the difference is this, the first one is kind of special, the next hunt is just like the first, they’re all red crested pochard, they’re all bar headed geese and they’re all rosy billed pochard. You know what I’m saying? They’re all the same.

Todd Helms: You shot one drake mallard. You shot them all.

Ramsey Russell: Shot one and you shot them all and I want to shoot a million more. But I’m just saying you shot one and you shot them all.

Todd Helms: The ways you do it are different. Like you’re talking about all these different places you go and I grew up a lot further north than you, but probably hunted ducks pretty similarly. You talk about standing in knee deep waist deep water and hunting flooding’s and here and there and real similar circumstances. So that when I get a chance to hunt mallards or whatever in a different setting, whether it’s pit corn out here in the west or who knows, big marsh stuff. That’s special. But the duck is still the duck, it’s the way I’m doing it, it’s who I’m with, it’s the experience that makes it.

Ramsey Russell: The next great hunt is closer than you think. I have been fortunate to travel all over the world, I’ve got a lot of other places I want to go. But I do believe a man could commit himself to hunting just in the continental 48 and if you look at – take Reel Foot Lake versus Oregon, versus Mississippi versus Arkansas, versus Michigan versus Maine. Just the different, as I’ve noticed the difference. Double reeds versus single reeds versus metal reeds the different cadences of the mallards. If you’re hunting sea ducks, if you’re hunting diver ducks, if you’re hunting puddle ducks, if you’re hunting in the timber, if you’re hunting in the marsh, if you’re hunting in the flooded ag just a subtle little different. Plus the fact we’re blessed with so many ducks, geese and swans. By the time you ferret out the species and go into the little localities and ferret out all the different techniques and the different styles and different little – almost like colloquialism, it’s endless. And I’m fascinated by it. And man, when you fall off into some of these areas that are just steeped and this history and this heritage of Chesapeake Bay or Tuckerton New Jersey, it’s incredible. It’s just incredible. And I don’t know what it is that compelled me about it. I tell people all the time, I feel a lot like I’m walking through the pages of old school National Geographic magazine but with a shotgun and hickory.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And I really dig it, I just get into it.

Todd Helms: Oh, it’s cool and it’s fun to talk to you about that because you’re guys that’s done things that have maybe a lot of other guys aren’t going to get a chance to do or would really like to. And it’s all, there’s things that are on their bucket list. But can you talk about that history, that culture, you’ve been all over the place? You and I dove into a relationship and it kind of felt like relationship at the time and a conversation about how we do things here in the US even conservation based versus in other places.

Ramsey Russell: I think, that’s one of the most surprised observation, I made. Now look, I predicate this statement by saying this, going back to Tuckerton, New Jersey to Chesapeake Bay, to the market hunting to the whole thing, since then we Americans have elevated waterfowl hunting to art form.

Todd Helms: Yeah.

“Most people don’t, to the extreme would be Mongolia. You show up in there, the staff of 10 and they know where the wetlands are, so they know where the ducks are, you’re hunting them in April by the way.”

Ramsey Russell: Because the decoys, clothing, the boats, the motors camo, the ammo, the whole bowl of wax everything is state of the art and nobody, no other culture does duck hunting like Americans. When you go to places like Argentina that do it well, when you go to places like Mexico that do it good, Australia really does it well, they borrow from that. Most people don’t, to the extreme would be Mongolia. You show up in there, the staff of 10 and they know where the wetlands are, so they know where the ducks are, you’re hunting them in April by the way. And it’s not a trigger pulling contest, its maximum 30 species or 30 ducks. And so you don’t really waste your shotgun shells on mallard and pin tails, although I have because given the chance to hunt mallards and pin tail that had never been shot at who can pass that up.

Todd Helms: Yeah, no kidding.

Ramsey Russell: And that was a real interesting story how we set up on those birds. But to the extreme you show up, there’s 8 of them, they got a pair of binoculars and one pair of rubber boots, no waiters, no decoys and no nothing. And they point there you are. And so you’re 7000 some odd miles from home and if you didn’t bring it you ain’t got it. Everybody brought a few decoys, everybody brought a few calls. I brought of course a mojo, a dove because they travel easy and that works just as well. And we scout and we put together and we hunt, we notice what the birds are doing and we start putting together plans for the different species. Russia, fine example. I’m going to hunt the White Sea in May for eiders and so I knew them Russians didn’t know how to hunt, so I brought long lines, I brought out eider decoys and we were going to troll out there on the White Sea and I step onto this little speedboat, this little metal speedboat, he speaks, no English, I speak, no Russian, thumbs up, thumbs down. And what I learned is that don’t always mean the same. When I see thumbs up, I’m thinking, hey that’s fine, that’s good.

Todd Helms: We are good to go.

Ramsey Russell: I mean not that at all. So, I get on his boat and I’m saying, hey, I’m trying to explain in hand signal, we’re going to help, we’re going to let these decoys, he’s nodding his head and give me the thumbs up and he puts the freaking throttle to the metal and off we go, I’m hanging on for dear life. And I guess the decoy stayed in the boat. I never saw them again, but that is not how they hunt eiders over there. They hunt eiders as fast as they can. And I never will forget, it was my turn to shoot, I’m holding a double trigger Russian collision that cost over and under in my right hand, I’m hanging onto the old ship bar with my left hand. My legs are spread pressing up against the gun walls so we hit them waves, I don’t come out the top and it’s like the world stopped down to slow motion. We’re Evil Knievel over a 4ft wave, I’m looking over the gun barrel holding it one hand and that’s where that eider turns to his left and looks like what the hell is he doing? And I’m suspended between air right eyeball level with him when he rolls boom, we hit the water turn back around and go pick him up, that is not America.

Todd Helms: That’s true, running it going. That’s what that is.

Ramsey Russell: That’s James bond Russian eider hunting man. There is nothing like it and right about the time – and I just never forget the guy holding his thumb up and nodding his head like he understood perfectly what I meant about things first.

Todd Helms: Yeah, no.

Ramsey Russell: But the interesting thing, this brings up your question about conservation Todd. Nobody else does what we do. Russia for example, it was my host over in Russia, I asked him and it’s a broken English translation, but we’ve belabored the point over vodka. Russia man look, when you’re up 20 kilometers from the Arctic Circle in May hunting capercaillie and sea duck, it’s like 2 or 3 days into it, somebody said, what time is it? He looks his watch and goes 10 o’clock and you go AM or PM? He tracks out it. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you eat 3 meals a day, you hibernate, you get to go out and hunt about 6 hours when its daylight and you lose track of time and your whole diurnal system gets turned off. But they’re all 3 meals, breakfast lunch and dinner, you don’t know which is which but there’s vodka and so it’s everything you heard about Russia, they drink vodka. So, one of the meals we were sitting down, I just asked Lexi I’m like how does this work? And what he explained to me is how it works is, in big terms the government just basically gives responsibility to the hunters because surely the hunters are not going to shoot themselves out of house and home. Europe has got laws, it’s got bag limits and it’s got some steel shot or regulations like that but there’s no bag limits on waterfowl, its bag limit free waterfowl. Argentina there’s bag limits but there’s grey area and it’s accepted but universally outside of the United States in Canada, let’s say outside the North American waterfowl, Mexico, the United States, Canada, they don’t have what we’ve got. They don’t have a system, a North American conservation plan, they don’t have that. They don’t have surveys, they don’t have harvest data, they don’t have band recoveries and they don’t have scientists and biologists, if you look at our form of conservation here, we enjoy in the United States, you’ve got the several agencies in the US federal government, you’ve got the state agencies, you’ve got universities doing research, doing studies, galore plus you’ve got NGO’s like Ducks Unlimited and Delta waterfowl and countless more. It just a matter of scale and just look at what those 3 do. And I know from talking to people around, some people don’t like some of the NGO’s. I don’t like these guys. They don’t like those guys. They don’t like what they do. Let me tell you something, what they do is incredible. The federal government is doing a lot. Our federal government USGS, US Fish and Wildlife Service with the refuges with the sanctuaries, with the habitat, with the set aside for nesting grounds. You’ve got Ducks Unlimited, pouring tons of money from the nesting ground, clear into the wintering grounds, the staging areas in between. You’ve got a tremendous amount of economic activity and scientifically based interest going into wildlife conservation and General waterfowl. Did you know our waterfowl in the northern hemisphere they migrate? Guess what? In the southern hemisphere they don’t migrate.

Todd Helms: No, they don’t. They just hang.

Ramsey Russell: Argentina, Peru, Africa, Australia and New Zealand they’re nomadic, they might shift 400 or 500 miles because it rained. I don’t know how they knew it rained 500 miles away but they do. They might shift a little bit, find habitat but they don’t migrate like ours do. So you can’t just manage a migrating bird at one point on the trajectory. He’s got to be managed the entire way. That’s a tremendous amount of effort. I mean to me it’s a teamwork synergy and accomplishment that really is should be the envy of the world. Do you know the 4^TH pillar conservation is? In my humble opinion, one of the biggest and that’s us hunters, man. Because you look at the Pittman Robertson act, federal tax comes in spending. You look at there’s a lot of sales tax programs, look at hunting license sales, look at the entire economy. I hear people say all the time and I know you’ve heard this too Todd. Well now commercial hunting, all this commercial activity and all this junk that’s just what’s killing hunting, baby. Let me tell you what, without that monetary value, without that commodity value, there’s no value at all in wildlife. And so they’re going to be just relegated to the butterflies and songbirds that nobody cares about really. I look at the value of commodity value of hunting wildlife pro sports. We hunters are recreationally enjoying this wildlife resource, same as we recreational enjoy watching college football, watching pro sports and that recreational interest in those regards has generated a multibillion dollar economy. Politicians, they say one thing money that’s political relevance, money. And right now the best I can figure out Hunting generates about $7 billion dollars to our economy. On the one hand, that’s a whole lot of money. On the other hand, considering the New York City public school district Annual budget is 22 billion 75 billion nationwide really is not too much. You know what I’m saying? $12 trillion dollar economy,

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: 25 billion is nothing. So but it’s important. And in addition to that $75 billion dollars that we’re spending. We’re still going to ducks unlimited bankers or delta waterfowl bankers were still spending money on raffle tickets and stuff we don’t really need. But we do it for the ducks and on top of that may just think of the on private lands and I know it’s a lot different in the Deep South and Wyoming. But this time of year down here in the Deep South there are millions of acres being planted or to Jap millet to corn to beans, to managed for morsel management. That are intensively being managed fuel water, sea fertilizer spray time going into wintering, waterfowl habitat on private land. That all of society benefits for, we American hunters demanded. And it’s scary to think that in other countries like Argentina they’re clueless as to what they really have, their absolutely clueless. I don’t know. And the only saving grace you got is the fact that you have so negligible hunting pressure relative to even Wyoming.

“2 years in a row and we throw up our hands like What are you doing? And we’re all upset and you’re telling me that there’s whole continents and the rest of the planet that don’t have a clue and they don’t.”

Todd Helms: Right? Yeah. And we’re up in arms, I made a blog post about 2 weeks ago when it was announced that they weren’t going to do another survey this year. They weren’t going to be able to do spring counts due to Covid. 2 years in a row and we throw up our hands like

What are you doing? And we’re all upset and you’re telling me that there’s whole continents and the rest of the planet that don’t have a clue and they don’t. So I guess if it’s hunters that are propping it up here in North America with our dollars and with our Pittman Robertson money and supporting these NGO’s like ducks unlimited and delta. Does there come a point when we’re loving these ducks too much? Does there come a point when we could become our own worst enemy?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I know what you’re saying. And I think we could, I asked John Devaney of delta waterfowl and he gave a very scientific answer that I can’t repeat. I just can’t articulate the way he did John is a very good communicator. And I asked him about this is the 2^nd year because of the pandemic that they aren’t able to go up and survey and do the counts. And they’ve changed that model a little bit and that’s a saving grace. As you know the season’s most of the seasons have already been set based on last year’s survey. So it’s set like a year in advance. You assume there’s a little time lag. And the great thing about wildlife management, whether you’re talking whitetail deer or even if you’re talking forest management, if you’re talking any form of wildlife management, generally speaking, it’s not really snapping the fingers and it’s over. It’s a slow response. You got a little elasticity there in the population. It concerns me that Canadian borders are shut and they won’t let us but they won’t let my smart American scientists come up to count my ducks. I like to know what’s in the bank account wiping my debit card.

Todd Helms: I hear you.

“But at the same time I really do trust the system. I trust the system. Big wheels turn real slow.”

Ramsey Russell: It bothered. So Trudeau open your borders. But at the same time I really do trust the system. I trust the system. Big wheels turn real slow. Especially when you got all those moving parts we talked about and I’m a little impatient sometimes. But I trust them. You know what I’m saying?

Todd Helms: Sure, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: I know so many of them, I went to school so many of them and I trust them. I just trust them. I know they know what they’re doing. If anything they seem to be a little extra protective. You know what I’m saying? If you look at a lot of policy in terms of say, blue bills. I mean there are more blue bills than ring necks but you can shoot 1 Scott 6 ring necks. So some of those regards, they are extra protective and they take little baby steps to be sure. And that gives me comfort. That gives me comfort, and look at the Deep South hunter. It’s not like we’re killing a whole bunch of them down here in the Deep South the last few years and one thing I noticed and now I’m getting back onto what you ask. I was in a state meeting not too long ago comprised of state federal NGO In the state of Mississippi. All the agencies, all the little NGO’s were there talking about waterfowl and wetlands conservation in the state of Mississippi. And I was just a bystander, I’d love to go to those meetings. I was invited to provide perspective. I don’t know what perspective I can provide but I’m proud to be there. And some of the state guys, we’re talking about from public land, a very popular place in the state of Mississippi. It shot twice as many ducks as normal this year because the habitat quality was so excellent and there was a line of stand by hunters to get in and they were turning down 5 or 6 parties a day and still those guys were coming back and one of the biologist for the state said, you know to a lot of people talk to, they are just proud to have somewhere to hunt. That’s how important these public resources are. And I asked the question, I said, I would like to see a survey or if they were surveyed formally. I’d like to see if the average person you’re talking about favourite quality over quantity. And that’s a question I find myself, I finally asking myself Todd and I think it’s a question a lot of us wrestle with at some point in time. The question I’m asking you the listener, do you favour a quality duck hunting experience quantity. In other words, would you rather go out 10 days a year and shoot mirror to your limit for 60 days a year and shoot one or none. That’s a fair question.

Todd Helms: I think so –

Ramsey Russell: I’m getting of the age. And I’m not going to stop 122 states last year, a bunch 150 days just traveling around hunt with friends and acquaintances and meeting new people in camps and getting a sample. But I hear this sitting in a duck blind hundreds of people a year. I just hear this murmur, if there aren’t as many ducks at the duck hunting is slower or whatever. And it just all the hunters, I know we’re proud to be there and they’re good people and they’re putting a lot of money into conservation. But they’d like to go out and shoot a few more ducks, wouldn’t we al. I mean, let’s face it, I don’t care how old you are if you duck hunt nobody’s out there just watching sunrise.

Todd Helms: You’re right.

Ramsey Russell: You know what I’m saying? We want to shoot something.

Todd Helms: Yeah. I mean there’s differences between being as mad at them now as when I was 16 or 18 years old. A limit used to mean a lot more to me than it does now, but at the same time like you hit the nail on the head, I didn’t go to watch the sunrise. Okay, I can do that from my front porch with a cup of coffee in my hand. But I’d rather do in a duck blind before I can kill a couple of ducks in a day. That’s awesome.

Ramsey Russell: But in the last few years it’s just started to gnaw

At me. As you hear the conversations especially in the south about decline and my words not, you hear decline in hunting quality. It begs the question why? Well, there’s a lot of reasons why hunting has changed since the good old days of the 60s and 70s. There’s a lot of reasons in the Mississippi if you live in valley with the Delta. It’s a whole long algorithm full of inputs and reasons, different crop types, different water distribution, different water quality. There’s many different reasons but something’s changed. I interviewed my uncle, my 75 year old uncle the other day. It’s hard because I, you know, my grandfather, we didn’t just sit around and watch television that wasn’t his generation. He liked to sit around the kitchen table and tell stories 40 years later. Todd, I wish I had recorded him. I wish I had and I still remember a lot of them. And so I just reached out to my uncle and was talking to him about him growing up in those good old days in the 50s and 60’s and early 70s with my grandfather and we talked about them going to camp and a lot of cool things like that. And that generation didn’t hunt like we hunt not only has the habitat and water distribution and maybe the climate and the weather and the crop types and a lot of different things changed since then. We modern hunters that have elevated duck hunting to art form. Man, we are passionate, we are serious. I’m not the only one that missed

Little league games or holidays or took schedule my leave at work around duck hunting. I’m not the only guy that does that we all do that. And maybe I live in an echo chamber because of the nature of my business to get duck but every single person I talked to on the phone doesn’t just hunt their backyard. They hunt many places. In the United States and abroad. And we all do practically every duck hunter I know has been or it’s going out to the Central Flyway or further up north or over to the east coast, over to the west coast. Trying to get as many days as humanly possible because in Mississippi deceiving opens the Friday after thanksgiving Close around January 30^th. But if I could kick off and head north to Canada and the northern tier, I can start at September. You see I can add days to my overall years and I love it so much.

Todd Helms: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: We love it. But something else has changed in the 70s and it’s like we had this old market hunter on our and look at my market hunter. I mean Market hunting back in the 60s and 70s down in Louisiana and he was a very good storyteller. But one thing he pointed out was back in the 60’s before a lot of the hardwoods in Louisiana, Delta had been cleared. He knew where some duck holes were. All his neighbours knew where duck holes were. There were lots of places that ducks could go and not get hunted and it’s increased technologically. It’s increased. So we’ve got a passionate hunter. We’ve got technology that we’re not walking in anymore. We’re not riding a little 110 Honda 3 wheelers anymore. We’ve got 1000 rangers and Polarises and we’ve got all this stuff that our motor fact, we’ve got mud motors and long tails and all this technology and there’s hardly a square inch of the landscape that we can’t access, that we do access. We’re passionate and it’s –

Todd Helms: We’re better at killing ducks,

Ramsey Russell: Better at killing ducks. There’s really fewer and fewer places that there’s more pressure. I think there’s more pressure put on the United States Ducks than there was back in the 60s and 70s. And there’s fewer places that Ducks can go and just do ducky things. And I got drawn into a conversation on another podcast

About corn up in Illinois. And the behaviour of ducks around the corner and doing this and its short stopping and all right. Here’s my question, corn is grass, Jack Miller is grass, Rice is grass, and Sprinkle top is grass. Are you saying we should just ban flooded grass? Well, no, I don’t think about that way. Okay, but those ducks are getting in that corn and you can’t kill them, that the way they’re behaving around that corner coming in and leaving and doing this. And I’m like, well, probably more to it than just corn because I stand in flooded Cornfield is not 200 lb of corn dumped in front of your blind. I’ve done that down in Argentina and it cover its habitat value. It’s place because if I’m hunting 100-160 acres corn field and I’m shooting in a pit blind, I’m shooting 40 yard radius. I’m covering an acre, I’m a foster, and I can figure that out. I’m recovering an acre of the hunters. That means there’s a 159 acres of dense cover. A duck can get into and feel safe. Maybe that’s it. I talked to some of these biologists that are looking at the satellite data on these on duck movements and stuff and how these ducks are behaving coming nocturnal staying on refuges. It’s like the big myth the observation, antidote observation come in a myth here in the Deep South. It’s all the ducks don’t show up till February because Todd we’ll go out to different properties and can’t hardly buy duck during season. A week after season closes its walled ducks,

Todd Helms: It seems like it happens here too.

Ramsey Russell: But they didn’t show up. They just all of a sudden there’s no 4 wheelers, there’s no guns, there’s no hunters. Now the ducks can just show up and they feel safe so they’re just coming out of hiding. And I think, it’s a very challenging time for a wildlife manager especially state and federal. I think it’s really a trying time for us to its hunters on how do we move forward. Let me ask you this, if you got young Children, there’s so many competing interests for Children right now. A kid is only going to go out and suffer through the duck hunt because if you are not killing no ducks day after day after day, it really has no much fun. They’ve got to have those good days. They got to have those quality days kind of hook them in what we’ve got to balance that, we’ve got a lot of pressure. And I see in places out west California, Utah come to my mind sanctuary. Those clubs and those properties and those state and federal, they’ve got real inviolate sanctuary years those birds can get into and that they’ve got spatial sanctuary, geographic areas and they’ve got temporal sanctuary to where heavily hunted properties, in other words, a lot of public use is a multi 1000 acre sanctuary that you can’t go into and then they only shoot it 2 or 3 days a week. It’s crazy man. I mean that much hunting pressure on those Wednesdays and Saturdays those shoot days. But the quality is good. It works.

Todd Helms: Right, I saw that exact thing here. We got a little least down on the river and we got a bunch of ducks early and it was like you said, they were nocturnal, the weather was warm, they were feeding at night, you could get them as they were coming back to the river first thing in the morning for about an hour and it was hot and heavy and it was great. And we had they really wanted to be in that one little spot. And we only shot it. I think we shot it maybe one day a week. Ramsey, I mean it was like Saturday. You could go down on Saturday and shoot it and not shooting into big groups shooting pairs and singles, you know whatever would decoy. Kind of trying to save those ducks and let them let them have that spot. And some pressure started to come from the other side of the river that we don’t have leased. And it started to come more often than what I wanted to see it wasn’t anything I could do about it because it was what it was. But man, those ducks were gone in the course of a week. They were they were just not there. And the ones that did stay and tried to use

It completely different. Almost impossible to shoot.

Ramsey Russell: Well you got to remember, I’ll tell you the story way back when a quarter century ago I was working with US Fish and Wildlife service in the north delta of Mississippi. I was a forester did a lot of biological work too on a refuge complex that covered the entire north delta and one time ducks unlimited called and said they’re biologists called. Our biologists said there’s a cohort of duck using you all sanctuary at the homey refuge. 3 of the hen mallards have radio transmitters. I would have said back then that would hop off into one of the bean fields of rice fields nearby. That’s where they were using. Just something very local. It’s like if you lived in a big school, it’s like if I walked out my front door and I drove a half mile “boom” and the grocery store arrived. That’s what I kind of thought. And do you know Todd that every one of those ducks, the band associated with that cohort and those hens that died 45 miles away and Stuck Guard Arkansas. 45 miles they were roosted. And this little buck brush timber area, they would get up at daylight 11 miles west across the Mississippi River, fly into the mouth of the White River and flying north up the White River through just millions of acres of habitat to go to certain rice fields and Arkansas. And that really started changing everything ever thought about duck behaviour.

Todd Helms: You’re kidding.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. I mean how many people blue calls at those

Ducks as they were flying and at that meeting, I was telling you about that wetlands meeting a few weeks ago, there’s a property up in North delta, Mississippi called York woods. Probably, the crown jewel of Mississippi in terms of management and effort and everything else. Very low hunting pressure, very elite landholding right next to it. A mile maybe is a cold water National Wildlife Refuge part of the complex. I used to work for these two inviolate sanctuary and I can remember Flying surveys back in the day and looking down and seeing 50 to 60,000 ducks just on that 1500 acre complex. Okay. They were sacked and they’re good. And the refuge manager and one of the guys, one of the biology and they got to talking, with the crowd the other day and they banned ducks on York woods. And they do some band surveys and some transmitter survey. And what they have determined is mallard sitting a mile away on cold water refuge do not use cold water, York Woods. That’s a mile away, Brazilian mallards but they don’t overlap just that mile. They they’ve got their own distinct little follow Paths for this area feeding areas. And that kind of blows my mind. So what that says to me is I read the South delta report where I hunt and all of a sudden we get a slug of new birds. That doesn’t mean they’re all have equal chance of coming to my property. Just a select few that have been there and used it for whatever reason. You see what I’m saying?

Todd Helms: I do.

Ramsey Russell: It’s just starting to change the way I think about ducks.

Todd Helms: They’ve learned the same thing with mule deer. Out here with the mule deer migration you’ve got dose that go back to the same, they go back to the exact same place as summer range and then winter range year after year they follow almost to the step, the same migration routes. And if those dose get eliminated, you lose those does then you’ve lost a whole bunch of box that would winter and follow the same migration. You’ll have ranges with fathers, sons and I mean whole lineage of mule deer bucks in the same summer range. And in the same range and you will see different age groups. Well, there’s a good chance they’re all related. And the dough that brought them, there is fawns is just down the hill. A 1000ft and that’s where she winters or that’s where she summers. And then obviously during the rut they dispersed and they go all over the place and do things looking for other looking for deer looking for dose those summertime ranges, you can literally shoot out an entire genetic group of mule deer. If you hunt them all on that migration route and because you’re shooting them, they’re all related. Its nuts. And we’re seeing the same thing with ducks. It makes me wonder and I’d be interested to hear what you have to say on this. But it makes me wonder how important then not shooting hens becomes.

Ramsey Russell: The biologists say it’s statistically doesn’t matter. I don’t see how I cannot,

Todd Helms: That’s me.

Ramsey Russell: But I’m not that kind of smart biologist. I was always more field oriented habitat more oriented than I don’t understand it. But we’re starting to see some stuff like, right now there’s a movement underfoot take the pin tails. Look Todd, if I’m having a just a wonderful day in life is going to good. All I have to do if I want to get my teeth kicked in on social media, I have to do is hold a limit of drake pintail from Mexico. And you would think the sky is falling because all those hunters that go to Mexico are killing too many pin tail this watering on pin tail has been demonstrated back since the 70’s that No-till farming practices is a big culprit of pin tail. You know what I’m saying? They’re short grass prairie nesters got a long neck up periscope around. And so much of the short grass prairie has been converted to agriculture and a lot of prairie soils, there’s No-till farming. So you come into a farmer drives up this spring and he’s looking at last year’s party stubble and pin tails use it. They nest in it. And so there are a lot of eggs. I know a lot of farmers are trying to avoid them. And I’ve seen contracts to put change, shoot the head off. But the eggs can’t fly away.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And so there’s millions of eggs being disturbed under that. That’s what they say. There’s a movement underfoot that after 30 years of conservative pin tail harvest management, pin tail really aren’t responding and booming and you go out to places like California and for every 6 to 10 drake pin tails you see and there just gazillions of them you see one hen. And right now the continental, the lower 48 limit is one. There’s a movement to increase the bag limit to 3 pin tails no more than one hen. Because when you’ve got that kind of sex race so skewed as I understand it. So not all hens lay eggs equally. They kind of stressed out,

Todd Helms: They’re have got too much pressure on them,

Ramsey Russell: Too much pressure on them. And so there could be some things like that. Who knows there’s so much some waterfowl have been studied so much and yet the more I listen to biologists and listen to some of these conversations record some of these biologists, it’s almost like the more questions I have. I remember this back in the early 90’s. I want to be a deer biologist. That’s why I went to Mississippi state wildlife program. I want to be a dear biologist I want to be the next doctor dear. And I ended up down on a south Texas ranch, 60 miles from the Mexican border. 107,000 acres of just free range whitetail deer, trophy management galore. And I guess it’s around early October because we were doing helicopter surveys. The monarch butterflies came through and I don’t mean just a bunch of butterflies I’m talking about, it’s a real dry environment. You

would pull your truck down in this little shady area where the soil was wet and butterflies could lick the soil and get water. And there were so many butterflies you couldn’t see that little ram on the hood of the truck a little dodge. I mean you couldn’t see nothing. It was just millions of butterflies and as you read and study about the little bugs a little bit. It’s hard to believe it, but it takes generations for the monarchs to migrate from Mexico to Canada and back. And yet their progeny will show up and lay eggs and the same spot on the same bush.

Todd Helms: It’s unreal.

Ramsey Russell: That their ancestors had. That just blows my mind.

Todd Helms: I know.

Ramsey Russell: And along those lines I heard this story from Doug O’Brien, he was telling me the story he had banded a wigeon and associated landowner he has called and his little boy had shot that wigeon within 7ft of where it had been banded 4 years earlier.

Todd Helms: It’s interesting as you say that,

Ramsey Russell: 7ft.

Todd Helms: That’s crazy. So woodcock growing up where I did, we shot a lot of grouse and a lot of woodcock, a lot of rough grouse and a lot of woodcock. And the local university and one of their biologists, one of the professors there started a woodcock banding project and lo and behold route hunting woodcock and kind of in the area where they banded them. And my dad shoots the dog goes on point walk in flush, dad shoots this bird dog brings back and it’s got a band on it and its bright shiny silver band. It turned in numbers on it. Same thing it was like 30ft 35ft from where they abandoned it. And they ended up, I think probably partially because of that they ended up closing hunting down in that area. You couldn’t hunt anymore because they were killing all their banded birds before they had a chance to migrate and they couldn’t gather any info on them. But that’s unreal that the bird would just stay right there. But I mean we see it with Canada geese on golf courses in the Midwest. They don’t leave, they band them in the spring as soon as they’re big enough to hold the leg band on and then they’ll come back the next year, right to the same spot.

Ramsey Russell: We’re going through some old photo albums with my uncle. My granddad Passed when he was 72 years old and his entire hunting career back during the good old days bows down to 2 photo albums and 5 or 6 dozen little square baseball card sized photographs greedy as can be. And I have found some records and some notes of what he called Goose club. This is the central delta of Mississippi go out of lake Ferguson, go down the Mississippi river in a boat, a big boat. I think of it like a gulf coast boat and they were digging the sand bars and they would camp for 2 weeks and the budget I found would be like 10 lb of butter, £20 of flour. Just a real camp military expertise camp and wearing rubber waiters and Air Force flight suit for camo and warm. And just back in the good old days. But they, his passion. And if you talked to Hank Burdon, I interviewed a bunch of Mississippi historian. That generation were goose hunters, man, they were goose hunters. Never, there was a interior population of geese flew that far south and on into Louisiana time, but by the early to mid-60’s my granddad and that generation were driving up to Cairo Illinois to shoot Canada geese. And now you talk to the folks around Cairo or Ballard county Kentucky. There’s very few geese because –

Todd Helms: Kelly powers formula that’s has same thing.

Ramsey Russell: But here’s something interesting. Now a lot of people say, I don’t like to work global warming and it sounds too alarmist. Let’s face it, the average winter temperature is warmer now than it was then.

Todd Helms: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: If you want to hear the words global warming over and over and go anywhere in Alaska and they’ll manual, they’ll wear you out with it because they’re seeing real time changes in terms of fisheries, in terms of hunting, in terms of just water and everything else they’re seeing and experiencing. But I believe, practically speaking that we humans try to compress everything in a human lifetime 70 for some odd years, but earth has got geological timeframe millions of years. And there’s a carbon cycle that just exists, point in case all those glaciers that are melting up in the arctic didn’t exist when Arizona was the bottom of an ocean. I’m powerless. Look, I’m powerless to change that if all of America quit driving cars today India, Pakistan and china’s going to still be driving. So we humans are powerless against that. So let’s worry about something else. But you know something interesting, we’re talking about some of these migrations are changing birds coming down. Here’s something interesting. I noticed in the last few years Black bellied whistling ducks are coastal species. And after back in 2005-2006 hurricanes Katrina and Rita, lot of coastal marsh damage, lot of upward wind. And beginning then I started seeing black bellied whistling ducks nesting using wood duck boxes and everything else up in the delta of Mississippi. I never saw them before then.

Todd Helms: Interesting.

Ramsey Russell: And this year I was at camp for about a week and my son had been out looking at some public land. He came and said I found a good shoot for tomorrow. Why don’t you and Mr Ian and I got a couple of buddies coming, we’re going to go in there and hunt tomorrow. And I said okay so we have to plan, we’re going to meet and park and walk a mile in. And it’s been a while since I did that on public land. But it was worth every bit of it. But he told me, he said there’s a lot of whistling ducks. I said really? He said man, there are a ton of black bellied whistling ducks in here. Now, usually in my lifetime I turned 55 last week. Since you see these black bellied whistling ducks in Mississippi delta. But usually around mid, late September when the blue wing start coming through those birds are gone.

Todd Helms: They’re gone.

Ramsey Russell: They pushed back down the coast, they go back for the south. And we went to that whole about Mid-January, I’m going to say around Christmas, early January. We went in and we shot half limits of black bellied whistling duck and did the podcast, big Walter and I were talking about it and my inbox blew up with people from Wisconsin Indiana, Ohio. I got a picture this morning, a video from a buddy of mine more a pageant in Delaware, an iPhone video of a pair of black bellied whistling ducks nesting in Delaware. Those birds are expanding, their population is expanding. And I told my son, I said, it’s going to be crazy is possible that decades from now. You’re walking out of the woods with your son and you’ve got another 12, whatever black bellied whistling ducks away from these strap

Todd Helms: In Wisconsin.

Ramsey Russell: You tell you tell my grandson, I can remember my daddy shooting his first ones when he was 55 during the Ducks in Mississippi Ducks. So he could have shot him down the coast

Before, but then become a bread and butter duck. So there’s bound to be different kinds of changes. And it’s very interesting to see.

Todd Helms: That’s such a solid point because I remember when I first moved out here and saw green wing teal in January and I’m like, what are you little turds do doing out here? And we’re not lousy with them. Like Utah can be, we got lots of them and the blue wingers and they go through Labour Day weekend, we always get a push at them. And I wish Wyoming had an early teal season because there are some marshes that do fill up. You could get some good shoots. But I remember I was jumped shooting ducks on a little prairie creek over in North-eastern Wyoming and that’s all we had didn’t have a lot of ducks in there. And it was December like it’s about Christmas time and I’m walking along jump shooting mallards. I mean that’s what there was mallards and it was hard to be quiet. There was a real small creek anyway, jumps shoot. I weighed into this walk into this corner to pop out and this pair of birds gets up and I knew they were ducks, but it never registered in my mind what they were because I hadn’t seen teal in the snow like that before. And as they’re flying away I went, those are green wing teal. Well, I was ready for him the next time and I was able to kill the drake. But now I mean they make up pretty regular place on our bags during the day.

Ramsey Russell: To me green winged teals are one of the most ubiquitous North American species. I’ve shot them all the habitats in all the states from the opening day through the late season. I mean literally from Delaware, in Maine and New Hampshire clear over to Utah, California like you say Deep South, far north and then and there really anymore they seem to be and I’m just purely anecdotal. But the habitats I hunt and when I’ve hunted, they seem to be more abundant. I see more of them maybe than mallard.

Todd Helms: Yeah. I guess you have.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a good problem to have because I sure love green winged teal.

Todd Helms: Oh, yeah. Not only are they funded, are they fun to hunt? But there’s very few things that cook up in a frying pan, like green winged teal does. It’s a simple salt, pepper and butter. And it’s like, that is all you need. I had of course working here with working here with Eastman’s, they’re big game. That’s been their whole life. And the last couple of years I’ve been able to get them out on some hunts and they really enjoyed themselves. I remember like actually killed a green wing teal one of the first times I took him out and he said, and I said, dude, you got to eat that bird. I said, the rest of these are, they’re all good birds, they’re all eat, but that was special. And I said you got to do something, just do me a favour and do this with it, he took it home and he called me that afternoon and he said, yeah my girls, I was like I got one little nibble and my daughter’s ate that thing up so fast. It was,

Ramsey Russell: You want me to tell you something funny? From coast to coast, north to south and in the United States of America Canada and Mexico but everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Netherlands, places like Mongolia. That’s their favourite bird to eat.

Todd Helms: You’re kidding. It’s not just us,

Ramsey Russell: And we show up in some of these camps, we always want to eat ducks and it’s not like we go through and tell them what to cook. We just say, we’d like to eat some ducks and when they serve them that night it’s always green winged teal.

Todd Helms: That’s the flaming you all in the duck world. That is crazy.

Ramsey Russell: There fat.

Todd Helms: Yeah, they’re fatty, they’re just good little bird. But and I really like growing up, we had a ton of wood ducks and we could only shoot 2, but you go out and hunt a beaver pond for ducks and you shoot your to drink wood ducks like, no problem. And there’ll be 1000 or 1500 wood ducks come into that pond and you’re sitting around waiting for like a black duck or God forbid a mallard or something. But that’s, we had more wood ducks that we had anything else. And I always scratch my head, you’re young and you don’t understand things but I always scratch my head man, why can’t we shoot 5 of these like we could everything else walk because that’s where all the wood ducks were at that time of year. But it’s crazy. I did a turkey hunt on the Yellowstone River on a jet boat 3 weeks ago, 4 a month ago, maybe the amount of wood ducks flying up and down the Yellowstone River blew my mind. I mean you expect to see a handful here and there, but we

Probably saw in that day, but way back we saw a couple 100 wood ducks flying up and down and they’re all paired up,

Ramsey Russell: Isn’t that crazy?

Todd Helms: Getting ready in those big cottonwoods that are hollow and they must leave real early because you don’t hardly see them out here in the fall every now and then somebody will get one this time of year, they were everywhere.

Ramsey Russell: Speaking of wood ducks, I was out in California pin tails, mallards, speckle bellies, teal, that’s what was on my mind. And I actually went on a hunt down the butte sink on the river for wood ducks. And I was hunting with Brian Huber geologist who worked for California waterfowl association. He got to tell me about their wood duck box program in California and it requires about 600 volunteers, because wood duck boxes have to be service. You have to put pine straw and clean them out. That pine straw, wood chips.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And they have produced a million wood ducks. But that nest box program has produced a million wood ducks and that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen was hunting those woods. The last bird on earth I expected to target –

Todd Helms: In California,

Ramsey Russell: in California. But they’ve got a bunch of them in place.

Todd Helms: Yeah. Oh and they’re fun too. I mean nothing screams to the decoys like they’re just kamikazes,

Ramsey Russell: How many Shovelers you all got out in Wyoming?

Todd Helms: Early lots.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah,

 

Ramsey Russell: You looks like a Shovelers killer to me now.

Todd Helms: Shoveler killer? Sure. Shoveler eater. No, we actually had a hunt 2 years ago, 3? Maybe 3 opening day with a guy had a problem with his irrigation and flooded a bunch of his corn and it flooded it right to the ears and holy that doesn’t happen out here. We don’t have a flooded corn but what we did that day and I’ll bet you probably half the ducks we shot were shovelers or we could have shot, it was unbelievable. And you’ll go by pawns in the spring and man, those northern shovelers are everywhere and you see them big clown looking breaks, and they’re cool looking bird. I remember the first time I ever shot one. Ramsey we snuck up on this little beaver pond back in the Opium. And we looked up, we were like, oh there’s teal. And we popped up and we hosted, I don’t know, not to limits but we shot a bunch of them and dog starts bringing them back and I’m looking like, oh, there’s shovelers, cool.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I’ve bled from there. There are parts of the world. They call them Ramzillas and that joke is called on such that down in Mexico, they got some of the places we hunted over gone, they’ve got Ramsey blinds but they got one Ramzilla blind. When I show up, I go to it and if we shoot 20 ducks, 19 of them are going to be shovelers.

Todd Helms: Oh,

Ramsey Russell: I’ll tell you something funny is godly, I’m making story quick. First time I hunted with mojo down in Argentina myself and the late Mike Morgen who I’ve known since I was 19 and Terry Denmon and we went out and shot a bunch of ducks. All kinds of species down in Argentina and after we got done, Denmon said, well Ramsey, give us a rundown of what we got here today. And I started naming them off with wigeon, Speckle teal, White cheeked pintail, brown Pintail, Rosy bill poacher, red Shoveler, something whoa. He looked at the camera said, I’m from Louisiana ladies and gentlemen, I did not shoot a shoveler. Well, I became a running joke. Mike was my home boy from Mississippi. So few years later we went out to Texas. Denmon couldn’t make it. So he sent me and Mike and man, we shot mallard, we shot pin tails hunt them in the field, the river with the late JJ Kent. And he come into us on the 3^rd or 4^th morning said, man, I have got a hell of a good shoot lined up. The problem is there’s nothing but shovelers and Mike and I looked at each other shrugged and said, well that’s fine with us man. Boy, let me tell you what it was nothing but shoveler. We shot, there were 6 of us in the blind. We shot 6 limited ducks, one green wing. He just got mixed up with the wrong crowd, I’m afraid.

Todd Helms: Yeah, exactly.

Ramsey Russell: The coldest hours popped him. We dug in they named that episode. Well, we sent a picture to Denmon with all those shovelers and he texted back. And he said, I will never let you two hunt for mojo again without adult supervision. And I thought he was kid. I told this story at Mike. I thought he was kid. He wasn’t kid. He never sent us on assignment again. They named that episode spooning crocket.

Todd Helms: Oh, perfect.

Ramsey Russell: It was the most watched episode of mojo ever.

Todd Helms: Perfect.

Ramsey Russell: This became a running joke. And I finally talked

Denmon and he’s going down to Sonora and we were going to target in December, Target Mexican Mallard. Like I said that their own species, but they’re mattered like part of that 13 species mounted complex. And in that regard, they represent to me one of the most under exploited mounted resource in North America because so few people down there were really put out the decoys and call to them and they’ll work great. So I talked them into going and I’m sitting in a deer stand one day thinking about this and a buddy of mine, Jason Chula thank you from Indiana. He’s a world class, world champion decoy carver. Now, I mean just the real deal. A little side gig. You could send him in a used mojo when he would refurbish it into species they didn’t make. I had this idea. And I reached out to him and social meetings that I want you to make me shoveler decoys. He said fine. I said, well I want to put teeth on it. He said, what do you mean teeth? I said, like teeth and man, he started crawfish just a little bit, he did. And finally said, and I want a gold tooth in the middle of a smile and man, he just come unhinged. Finally said, look, this is a practical joke on our mojo. He said, I’m all in. So 2 weeks later it arrived in my house. Boom. I put it on a plane, take it down to Mexico. And when I did the little film, little iPhone film kind of showing it off. I stuck it out there in the dark and Terry didn’t know what I was doing just putting the mojo out. But as I did, the little film an extra magnet had gotten under one of them wings to where it was capitated real bad,

Todd Helms: Oh, Jesus.

Ramsey Russell: And that just made it even funnier. The thing went viral. And 3 days later Denmon catches me in the airport. We’re

Fixing to part ways. He says we’re going to make that spoon. Denmon said I’ve had 50 phone calls. The office has got 50 phone calls.

What is a Ramzilla and when are we going to produce it.

Todd Helms: I wondered about the backstory on that one because that bloom up.

Ramsey Russell: Here’s the funny thing. I’ll take that Ramzilla that little because it’s small decoy and carry it far flown places. Put it in the bag. Other countries don’t get it. I take it to Azerbaijan, Pakistan wherever. They don’t get it because to them shovelers a duck, they see that teeth and then it’s just lost in translation. It’s not a smiling mallard, it’s not a Hollywood, it’s not a bologna snatcher, and it’s just a duck. They don’t get it. The Australasian shovel in Australia called the blue wing shoveler is protected. That’s their preeminent trophy species is a shoveler. That’s the bird they all prize. And so end it funny how a shoveler just got this notorious reputation and I wonder how that started.

Todd Helms: I don’t know. There’s a bird here that we get a turn of that exists to a lesser degree. And that’s the car common golden eyes and holy smokes. I mean –

Ramsey Russell: Shell crackers, I have heard them calling. 

Todd Helms: Dude and there are sporting bird. I mean they dive bomb, they bust decoys like nobody’s business. They’re fast, they’re pretty bird. They’re super plentiful here at certain times,

Ramsey Russell: I love them.

Todd Helms: When it gets so cold. But for a guy here that wants to shoot mallards and it’s like you get a bunch of dudes from your neck of the woods that never get them and they want to shoot them. They come all the way out here and shoot them and they’ll shoot of those things and be happier than happier than a pig and poop and I’m going alright, I thought we’re here to shoot mallards. But they won’t.

Ramsey Russell: No, I don’t know man. Mallards are the duck of the North American duck hunting world. I Think about the whole culture evolves around mallards, mallard calls, mallard decoys. They behave right, they do right, they do good. And you start climbing down a rabbit hole like we started off talking, that’s where the past shooting jump, shooting speedboat and everything else comes from. Not all birds behave like I’m going to Africa in several weeks to follow up with a hunt down there. Cape shell ducks, white back ducks, a lot of species aren’t going to decoy. You’re either going to spot them and find them and jump shoot them or you’re not going to get a shot

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: When in Rome but mallards make the world go round there’s no doubt about it.

Todd Helms: That’s true.

Ramsey Russell: And shovelers do too don’t think I don’t shoot my shovelers here.

Todd Helms: We just don’t get a ton of them and they’re here. But by that they’re only here for, our first split, our early split and then they’re gone and you don’t see them. You might see him a little bit, but for the most part they’re gone. So you don’t get a lot of opportunity at them. But they’re cool bird. And there’s times when that’s all you’re going to end up with on those early hunts.

Ramsey Russell: A lot of clients, in fact, all the clients go to Mexico and not all of them. Most of clients go to Mexico and they’ve got this ideal of shooting a green wing because look in February those birds are,

Todd Helms: Perfect.

Ramsey Russell: They want to shoot a green wing, blue wing cinnamon and do a little trio mountain. It’s a beautiful mount. The whole North American little teal mount and one little mount. But you know the truth matter is that green wing kind of an oddball on that mountain. And a few years ago, American ornithological society that names these birds and speciates them. They reclassified a lot of species from the genus and odds into a genus called spatula. Now you’ve got shovelers and cinnamon and blue wings and garganey over and over in Asia and a lot of other birds. About 8 of them classified under spatula. And it really makes better sense because you want to see a pretty mount. Look at the cinnamon, the blue wing and the shoveler and say a dead mouse. Look at their wings. They’re nearly identical. It takes a biology library experience to see just the wing and know what it is.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And so it really makes better sense. And when you start thinking about a shoveler as being first cousin to a blue wing. Okay, A little more political in.

Todd Helms: I’m going to use that one. I’m using that one. It’s like, well, he’s just another part of the blue wing he’s all he is. And he needs love too.

Ramsey Russell: It really is.

Todd Helms: Oh man,

Ramsey Russell: You all get a lot of swans. They’re in Wyoming.

Todd Helms: No. They’ll pass through, you see them occasionally here and they stay in that pacific flyway more than anything and they stay east of us more in the Dakotas. Like I said, you get some, you see some, but not that we don’t have horrible numbers. That come through. That’s why we don’t have a season in Utah and Montana do. So,

Ramsey Russell: My life lives right now. I’ll continue traveling and doing what we do as the borders open with this pandemic thing. But,

Todd Helms: You think you’re going to be able to go to Canada this year?

Ramsey Russell: Man, I say right now. I say flip a coin heads you do, tails you don’t. But really and truly the best if you believe the politicians, if they don’t move the goalposts but at least I heard talking to Ryan Reynolds, one of our US hunt list outfitters. Just last week we recorded beginning in June, they’ve got three 21 day phases for vaccinations. So, and I understand it. 1^st phase, 2^nd phase, 3^rd phase will put them at around 75% population vaccinated. That would put them at August 17^th and they said that if they achieve that. And here, I am saying if they don’t move the goalpost, if they don’t move any blah blah, that they might start opening. So there there’s a chance uh there is a chance it will open. I’m not going to hold my breath you know. And from a client perspective, I know this, the average guy can’t find out on August 20^th that he’s going to be able to redeem his September 7^th hunt. He’s got to make arrangements at work. He’s got to buy airfare. So at best only the latter half I think we’ll be able to redeem it.

Todd Helms: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: But guys like me and you are a guy like me. I mean shoot, let me find out the borders opening that little white truck will be heading your son.

Todd Helms: Yeah. Now, it’s interesting to hear you say that I put together a little blog last week about Canada open or Canada not. So what there’s lots of opportunity right here in the United States that you can take advantage off. And –

Ramsey Russell: Thank you. That’s a great point because I asked Ryan this, think about this man, all these guys were going to Canada crossing the border passports, declarations forms the whole ball of wax strip searches if you ground cross the wrong border. And like I said the next great hunters closer than you think right here in America. And I wonder how many people are going to want to go up to Canada to shoot 2 more ducks. I mean when you can hunt them. I mean North Dakota, Utah, I mean the United States has got great hunts going on that time of year. The Canada goose hunting man, there’s a lot of states right now because the president can’t. New York, Wisconsin, North Dakota 15 bird limits. I mean that’s a heck of a hunt man.

Todd Helms: And they opened in late August.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

“If you’re going to spend money on an outfitter or you’re going to spend money on a hotel or this and that. There’s folks here in the US that could use that money too.”

Todd Helms: And I talked about some of that stuff Ramsey. If you’re going to spend money on an outfitter or you’re going to spend money on a hotel or this and that. There’s folks here in the US that could use that money too.

Ramsey Russell: I guarantee you,

Todd Helms: And it’s like, I kind of broke it down from moving early in the season in that Northern Tier states with waterfowl and upland because I mean there’s no reason you couldn’t go to the northern Minnesota or northern Michigan or Wisconsin and hunt early geese in early September and in the afternoons when you’re done hunting geese, go hunting grouse and woodcock. Why not?

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Todd Helms: Or go walleye fishing or I mean the possibilities are endless. And I kind of talked about that, good grief come out west and hunt mountain drops and do some fly fishing for trout.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Todd Helms: There’s so much to do and then I kind of followed it all the way down through in the months, I talked about obviously we think hard about January about November, December, January even in the February out here. But there’s so many opportunities from where you’re at Texas. I’ve got an itch to hunt cranes in Texas for some crazy reason, probably because I grew up with ridiculous numbers of Sandhill cranes in the east end of the UP that we couldn’t hunt. And I want to hunt cranes some fierce and I will, I’ll pull it off. But, Ramsey Russell: Well, thanks to Covid and there’s one silver lining of the whole experience from my standpoint. Can’t travel, couldn’t go to Canada, couldn’t go to Argentina, couldn’t travel around.

Todd Helms: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And I just realized there was a lot of United States I had not seen and none of the conventions were going SCI was not happening, Delta club was not happening, no shot –

Todd Helms: No shot show,

Ramsey Russell: Man, I left home on about, I started teal hunting I’ll say the 11^th September, 12^th September whenever it opened in Mississippi went down to Texas Louisiana, came home changed gears, headed north, got home for thanksgiving day the day after I left, Saturday afternoon after thanksgiving, come wheeling back in on Christmas eve was home for a week in Mississippi hunt with my kids Left to go to California and 2 days later went to Mexico, I mean man, I killed 150 days cover 100-122 Something states. And my life list changed because I want to go. I realized that there’s a lot of United States. I haven’t hunted. Well I’m down to each state 49 I can hunt and I want to shoot ducks there right and experienced it man. And it’s so rewarding to climb into a blind and just go hunt a little beaver pond. An hour, go hunt a martial, go hunt public land or go just to see your slice of the world, your little slice of the pie of American duck hunting is so rewarding and now I’ve added another one. I think that you can apply to draw to hunt swans. You can either buy them over the counter Reply. But I think non-reds can hunt nine states. You can hunt swans in 10 states and Man, I want to scratch this one off in all 10 states that I can and to hear the conversation. I think swan opportunities may open up some of these other states and the upper Mississippi flyway may have a swan season soon. You know I was hunting with some guys in Alabama last story on that big whirlwind tour. I come through northern Alabama and we went out to this little property right next to wheeler refuse private land and it was steal want the glass that deep 6″ deep look like a mirror. So steal now with a decoy carver and a historian and a biologist and we go out their kids and we shot a pair of mallards, I’ll tell you. And that was it check killed a duck in Alabama. And about this time these Canada Geese started working over the refuge and they broke out calls and they called them and they weren’t going to land this little bitty pothole we have and give us a flyover about 30 yard time. Obama shot one and my host just went nuts. He’s like, man, you guys, that’s unbelievable. And I go, well, it’s just Canada goose’s, I’ve been hunting here 5 years. That’s the first one we shot. And he said Ramsey when we get done, I’m going to show you something. And I said why? You’ll appreciate this. I said, okay, so we go park the truck and over there by where we parked the truck up front. There’s little storage shed and we open it up and there’s this mountain, this pile of these homemade silhouette decoys and I’ve heard of the lost flyway of Alabama before on this property. Right on the city limit cater Alabama was this club they were hunting, it used to be a goose club to cater goose club and the number one rule was those decoys I was looking at, got stuck out in the fields around the blinds on opening day and never left. And he was telling me that gravel road we were parked on, he said, you’d come out here when the geese were in and it never gets guys sitting in trucks, heaters running, smoking cigarettes, whatever, waiting on their turn to get in their pit. You shoot. The second rule was when you get your two goose limit, get out

Of it and let somebody else do it. Now those geese don’t come there anymore. But you know what’s happened is the greater Sandhill crane population, Alabama, God bless Alabama man. They worked with fish and wildlife. They got these biologists on board and they have created a lottery system for residents only right now to shoot Sandhill cranes or Sandhill cranes have moved in have exploded and are occupying the same ecological niches those Canada geese. So now this whole new culture is evolving. I mean it, we could sit here and whine and complain about the lost opportunities and how life is different than my great granddaddy. And then there are new opportunities coming up that we can avail ourselves with. You’ve got to find a silver lining. We got to see the glass half full. You know what? In this day and age, you got to love duck hunting for what it is, and for what it is not. And at the end of the day, it really is not just a stinking pile of dead ducks. It’s so much more than that. You get it and the folks listening get it.

Todd Helms: And I’ve got 2 little girls that are ate up with it. They want to go as often as they can and I bring home birds. My 3 year old doesn’t let, I have to wrestle them away from her to get them cleaned to be able to cook them up. She just fascinated with him. Just ate up with it. And in fact I just got back from a turkey hunt last weekend when I’m doing turkey hunt with my oldest and I think your point about there’s going to be changing opportunities, the opportunities are going to continue to exist, especially if we continue to follow the model we have and continue to work together and create the future for it. So that my kids, your kids, your grandkids are, those future generations are going to have ducks to hunt and places to do it no matter where that might be. And so the stories, because that’s what duck hunting’s about. It’s about stories, it’s about people and places in tradition and heritage. It’s about stories that those stories continue on. You have a YouTube video about an old colt hammer gun.

Ramsey Russell: Oh boy.

Todd Helms: And I bet I’ve watched it 2 or 3 times. My dad, I sent the link to my dad because my dad’s he’s an old shotgun guy. He was all stoked. He just got his to parker’s back. He’s got a couple of parker VHE’s, 1 O 12 and 1 O 20. He just had the wood refinished on. He was sending me pictures. I said, you’re going to love this video. And he did, he ate it up. But thought that was cool. He’s going to order some business shelves for us so you can shoot his partners. But that’s what it is. That’s what it’s always been to me. I grew up reading jean hill stories and I wanted to go to see the east coast. I remember going to the waterfall museum in eastern Maryland when I was in junior high and what an impression that left on me and growing up in the great lakes. There’s a rich history of, especially diver duck hunting that goes back. It’s old and it’s the boats and the decoys and all that stuff and there’s guys that are still using hand carved decoys. That’s what it’s about, and that’s one of the things I appreciate about talking with you. It’s no matter where in the world you go, that’s what you’re after is that story. It’s not necessarily about the ducks. The ducks are the vehicle to get you to the story.

Ramsey Russell: Do the conduit. You’re exactly right now. I think every one of your listeners is nodding his head right now. They get it. I mean, that’s really what some of the younger guys, you got to go through that stage and that phase.

Todd Helms: You go through those phases, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: But there’s no numbers in and of itself, Get Duck is not fulfilling. It doesn’t create purpose.

Todd Helms: Not wanting.

Ramsey Russell: It’s that tradition from and that’s how you’re going to represents to me how the land changed and how technology changed and how we as duck hunters from my great granddaddy to now have changed, how we humans have changed because of technological advancement. But you take duck hunting worldwide, even in Russia, Mongolia, Argentina, the world, it’s always bows down to just that fundamental. That fundamental duck hunting, that tradition, that fundamental, that value, that intrinsic value of that can be passed on. Get ducks can be passed on those values of conservation and hunting and ethos at all that can be passed on. And that’s what’s so important about it. And the older I get and I’m not an old man yet. But the older I get the more it hits home to me. And I just feel like there’s a lot of false narratives and the outdoor world. And let’s face it, a lot of these young people today, they don’t have the benefit of a dad or granddad to take them out and pass that tradition on. They’re kind of having to find themselves like –

Todd Helms: Or who grew up in it,

Ramsey Russell: They’re having to find themselves in the dark and they need some real leadership besides just buy my product. They need real leadership. So that’s where we try to do. And I would invite, look, I really appreciate you all having me on your podcast.

Todd Helms: Oh, anytime.

Ramsey Russell: I like talking about the story. I like to hear the story of duck hunting. We started a podcast ourselves. Right in the pitch fever of Covid. We had times so we started a podcast called duck season somewhere. I invite anybody to come listen to it. But it’s not so much me talking is having guests on everything from historians to biologists as we travelled around the United States and Canada and we travel around the world talking to those duck hunters. And trying to capture that conversation that I’ve heard so many times that this duck that practice’s another religion has darker skin lives in a different part of the world, different culture, different everything. He’s a duck hunter. And here we are in the pitch black dark different worlds apart in terms of culture and language. But we communicate perfectly with just a few hand signals.

Todd Helms: Thumbs up.

Ramsey Russell: Yes thumbs up. We’re speaking and let these Russian, and you better hang on baby when that speedboat comes down. You better, hang on.

Todd Helms: Oh yeah. You’re good unless these reactions.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you’ll be glad they got vodka back in the boat. I promise you needed to settle your nerves.

Todd Helms: No kidding. Oh my goodness. You know it’s funny you say that because our Facebook page, the Wingman Facebook page is pretty successful actually. We’ve had a couple of videos with monstrous views and I would dare say that half to the majority of some of those videos. A couple of videos are from Asia and from the Middle East.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Todd Helms: And I have a ton of followers that like everything I post and they’ll comment and I got to translated it because I got to hit google translate and copy and paste because I don’t know what they’re saying so. But they’re hunters.

Ramsey Russell: The Muslim world are, you wouldn’t believe, do you know that the most ducks that I’ve ever shot and baited. The most ducks I’ve ever shot in a single hunt was in Pakistan.

Todd Helms: Really?

Ramsey Russell: Pakistan and mostly green wings, Eurasian green wings. But it was unbelievable. Those guys are serious man and very serious hunters.

Todd Helms: Right. Yeah, it’s kind of blew my mind. We put up, I don’t remember what it was. We did a pheasant video where we told the story of ring neck pheasants and how they came to the United States and how a lot of states use them as a hunter recruitment tool and Wyoming included. And we went out and we shot some birds with, we had some kids along. It’s cool video. I never in my wildest dreams, I expected to have 6 million views on Facebook.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. That’s awesome.

Todd Helms: But it does. Yeah, and I would bet the majority of those views are from Asia and from the Middle East and I didn’t see that coming. But yeah, cool stuff hunters are hunters, water Fowler’s bird hunters are bird hunters wherever you go. And those stories, that’s one of the things I like about your podcast is its stories. When you turn it on and it’s just dudes talking about hunting ducks and about the stories around it. That’s cool. That’s where I’m at in my phases, we talked about those phases where when you first start out you want to get 8 duck, no matter what it is, you’re going to get 8 duck. And I look at Nebraska and I think South Dakota went to choose your limit this year. You can choose whether you want in a traditional limit for you. And you had to stick by, you could have 4 drake mallards and Yada or you killed 3 ducks no matter what they are, what species, what sex. But that’s it. You get 3 ducks.

Ramsey Russell: What would you choose if you hunted in Nebraska?

Todd Helms: I choose that 5 because I feel like I could still pick and choose what I wanted. But if I had kids with me or people new to the sport, I’d be like, man, choose the 3 because then you’re going to get to just shoot at a duck. We take kids all the time. They don’t care what they’re shooting. They just want to pull the trigger and kill a duck.

Ramsey Russell: Is that rule limited only to a certain age bracket?

Todd Helms: I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s aimed at hunter recruitment across the board, not just age and the idea being. We talked about it at first you just want to shoot a duck and then you do that for a little while and it’s like, okay, now I want to shoot a limit of ducks. And then that turns into, I want to shoot a limit of all green heads. And then that goes into, I want to shoot a limit of all green heads with over and under shotgun. There’s different ways of doing it becomes about the method and then it pretty soon becomes less about killing the ducks or the way you do it. And it’s just more about being there and if you get a couple of ducks that’s great. That’s kind of where my dad’s at right now, I don’t get to hunt with him much but he comes out in the wintertime where my best day in the blind last years with him and we shot 3 ducks you have 2 drake mallards and a great green wing teal.

Ramsey Russell: Real life happens between the volleys,

Todd Helms: That should be on a T-shirt.

Ramsey Russell: It really does. Because duck blinds are the least woke places on earth. I can talk about anything, and how little do you really talk about ducks or duck hunting in a duck blind. It really hit home. I remember back in high school there used to be these bracelets WWJD. What would Jesus do? I never wore one but let me tell you what I had kids and I wanted one WWAD. What would Andy do because my kids will throw you curveballs. Maybe your kids is not old enough yet. I scratched my head many times going to right now.

Todd Helms: My oldest is started,

Ramsey Russell: But by the time they got in high school especially because they got junior senior level of high school you see with sports and girls and studies and iPhone and just all the modern day encumbrances, you just don’t see your kids as much as you think you would and before we’ve been a duck playing together and we had those conversations you wanted to have and you needed to have and it wasn’t forced, it just came organically.

Todd Helms: Do you see we did it that father, kid, mostly girls did a goose hunt, figures going and 2 years ago and 3 little girls, 4 years old and one of them was a guy Mr big game himself calls me 2 nights before he’s like got a favour to ask. I said, what’s up? He said, can I go goose hunting with you on Saturday? And I said, well yeah, absolutely, of course you can do, so let me on Saturday. He said, well there’s a catch, I got to take Cora going to take my daughter. I said perfect, she’s friends with my oldest daughter. And then we got another guy in the office who has a daughter the same age, so we just took all 3 of them. And then another guy brought his son who was 14 at the time, never killed a goose. We went down there and Ramsey is exactly what you said. It wasn’t about the birds and there were lots of birds and we killed more than we need more birds than we really needed to kill him. And we didn’t kill a limit, but we killed, we have plenty of fun is what I’m trying to get at but that’s not what it was about, it was about an hour into the morning and the guy looks over me, he’s like, this isn’t about hunting, this is just a coffee club with shotguns, that’s all this is and donuts. And I said, you’re damn right. I said, that’s a good, and he’s like, well, if I had known that I’d have been coming along the whole time.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I guarantee you.

Todd Helms: But it’s not like an outcome where it’s high stakes, where you’re going to go out and you might get one opportunity at the animal. You’re get the specific animal you’re after. So you missed a probably on geese wait 20 minutes, there’ll be another bird or two come through. And our kids were running around, they’re all wearing bright pink snow suits and it doesn’t matter. You got them in a blind and good grief. It was about chocolate milk and donuts and coffee and having a good time and they killed 15 or 20 geese and those kids still talk about that hunt to this day. And one of the things that guy said was, it strikes me that if you don’t get them out there at that age continue that on through, they’ll never take to it because they get too many competing factors later on as they get older.

Ramsey Russell: They do. And I’ve said this a million times, but I

Believe it to be true as a daddy. Children spell love TIME.

Todd Helms: That is so true.

Ramsey Russell: And I just don’t think um if there’s a better place to spend that time with Children than the outdoors, I don’t know where it is.

Todd Helms: No, I completely agree with you. And we’re blessed where we live because we can have a big backyard here in greater Yellowstone country. There’s places I don’t take them because of the local wildlife. I don’t want to have a problem with about 4 year old and an aggressive bear. But otherwise I mean my gosh what better place to raise them and I have some friends down in the south Georgia and Alabama. They come out here and it takes them a little bit to adjust to just let your kids go and we’ll be up in the mountains and it’s like nothing’s going to bother them here. Just let them go run let them go play, let them do their thing. There’s no they’re not going to get kidnapped out here. They’re not that bad is going to happen to them, and it’s pretty cool but you got to start that early and that’s part of what it goes back to with duck hunt for me that was the time to spend with my dad.

Ramsey Russell: A paradox we were talking about hunting pressure earlier in the paradox is this it’s a foregone conclusion that our Children are going to hunt or be introduced to hunting. But still hunter participation is declining,

Todd Helms: Overall.

Ramsey Russell: And what we need is what somebody coined the term adult onset hunter, we need these. Think about this.

Todd Helms: I agree.

Ramsey Russell: Think about this guy, an 8 year old kid is going to

Be 20, it’s going to be two decades before he can meaningfully contribute to that economic benefit.

Todd Helms: Right, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: Their 30 year old sitting next to you that I would just like to go out and share a blind, he can contribute now if he gets eat up with it. The paradoxes where are they going to hunt? How we’re going to get along? How we’re going to manage hunt?

Todd Helms: And then that was kind of what I was getting at with, are we hunting ducks too much? With that question is it, are we trying so hard to make it? I don’t think we are,

Ramsey Russell: I think we hunters can get along. I really, truly in my Heart of Hearts.

Todd Helms: I do too.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll tell you something very interesting when I first started Get Ducks .com first started going to Argentina, say 18 years ago, one of the first questions and this is a very small sample size antidote observation. Only one of the first questions, one of the top questions how many ducks can I kill? And now we’re booking many more hunters and that question might eventually be asked,

Todd Helms: Sure.

Ramsey Russell: But it’s all about the experience. And I see that as a kind of like a value system or something evolving in the American hunter, that quality over quantity. And I think truly, in my heart of hearts believe that we hunters collectively, the majority of us can work together with the NGO’S, with the state and federal agencies to Come up too Prepare future hunting in a meaningful way. I got faith in not all of humanity but in the hunting segment of humanity the folks I know I’ve got the utmost faith in our and us to fix this thing.

Todd Helms: I hear you. And we’re blessed here. Like I said, we got a big backyard to play –

Ramsey Russell: Hunters don’t eat tide pods.

Todd Helms: Yeah, pretty much. No, I completely agree. But well dude, we’ve been talking for almost 2 hours. So that’s a good chunk of time and I’ve had a great time visiting and chatting and we need to get you out here and I think you said Wyoming was on the stage and killed burden.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’ve hunted down the southwest, but there’s a real good chance always bringing through your neck of the woods this year. I’m going to do, we did that North American tour last year and I just enjoyed that. The only problem is this year, conventional shot show will be going on. So that will be a little bit of a stick in the spokes. I plan on traveling from September through the end of January lesson except that couple of weeks and I will be coming through Wyoming sometime and then I’m going to turn on the recorder and we’re going to have your conversation.

Todd Helms: Sounds good. We can absolutely do that.

Ramsey Russell: I would invite anybody listening to check us out Duck Season Somewhere. Social media at Ramsey Russell Get Ducks on Instagram, stay in touch. It’s a very organic and we’re not a production, it’s just organic.

 

Todd Helms: You bet. No, that’s one of the things that I like about yours is it’s just stories, it’s organic, it’s raw, it’s real. I like it. But Ramsey,

Ramsey Russell: I appreciate you all for having me.

Todd Helms: Yeah, thank you for jumping on woodson.

 

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