Ramsey Russell GetDucks.com

Andy Shaver: Boys and girls, we got a new sponsor, J2 Ice Ripper. If you want to keep your hunting hole open, you need to look no further than the J2 Ice Ripper. It’s a priceless tool, when your favorite waterhole is locked up with ice, don’t let Mother Nature put a halt to your season any more. Go to j2outdoorsllc.com and you can buy the badass ice ripper or as we call it, the pond heater. We’re excited to have them on board. We know a lot of our listeners hunt in conditions that sometimes will lock up their hole, so the ice ripper is something that you need. So go to J2outdoorsllc.com buy you an ice ripper. And right now they have a stimulus package going on, so right now you can get the ice ripper for $550, that’s a $100 off, this thing normally run $650, going to be one of the biggest sales that they have going on this year. So you better go to J2outdoors.com and jump all over this stimulus deal. All right, this podcast is brought to you by the one and only Stanfield hunting outfitters. It is not too late, actually, it is prime time to start looking at this fall and winter and when you’re booking those out outdoor adventures, waterfowl hunts, please look us up stanfieldhunting.com. You can call us, you’ll even get to talk to Jeff 940-658-3172 –

Jeff Stanfield: Who answers his own phone.

“That’s one thing that bothers me, when outfitters post on Instagram the books are open, motherfucker, the books are always open. If somebody wanted to send you a fucking check, you’re going to take the checks.”

Andy Shaver: Answers his own phone. The books are open, I don’t know. That’s one thing that bothers me, when outfitters post on Instagram the books are open, motherfucker, the books are always open. If somebody wanted to send you a fucking check, you’re going to take the checks. I don’t blow smoke up my ass, the books are open for 2020, 2021 fuck off.

Jeff Stanfield: No, I did not book some hunts until – I mean, I got the date stamp but I didn’t jack with invoices or anything.

Andy Shaver: But they act like you can’t book a hunt.

Jeff Stanfield: I promise you they’re going to take your money.

Andy Shaver: You can book a hunt whenever, don’t give me that bullshit. Don’t give me that –

Jeff Stanfield: Books are open.

Andy Shaver: Books are open, 2020, 2021 fuck off, you can book a hunt any time of year. If you want to book a hunt for 2030 we’ll sell it to you. Oh, this podcast is also brought to you by Dive Bomb Industries, the best silhouette on the market. Divebombindustries.com. Dive Bomb Industries on Instagram. They’re the best, they’re what we use each and every day, silhouettes, silhouettes socks the way to go. No more full bodies, it’s a thing of the past go skinny, think skinny when you think this waterfowl season. Divebombindustries.com and they can hook you up. We’re also brought to you by Boss Shot Shells. Bismuth hits like a freight train. Turkey season’s coming up. You can get the boss Tom

Jeff Stanfield: 410, 28 gauge 2012s

Andy Shaver: Well, any of that smaller gauge load, they’ve actually got a contest going on, it’s a photo contest. It’s a 410 challenge. Go get the Boss Tom 410, roll your Turkey up with the 410, take a nice picture and go to their Instagram they can explain it to you. But it is a fun little challenge and it is one that I will be participating in. Got some 410 loads sitting on the desk over there. Bossshotshells.com and obviously it’s not too late to start stocking up for this waterfowl season, bismuth hits like a freaking freight train, it’s the only way to go. I use it each and every day. Bossshotshells.com. we’re also brought to you by Lucky duck. The 2 x 4 blind is a game changer because most waterfowl hunters are a little bit over nourished The Lucky Duck 2 x 4 fits these over nourished guys easily, 4 of them with plenty of elbow room to spare. Put a heater in there may be a little cooker, I don’t know what you got going on in your hunts but it’s a game changer. So, if you’re in the market for the best blind out there that a waterfowl hunter can use, go to luckyduck.com and get the Lucky duck 2 by 4 blind. They’ve also got turkey decoys, they’re kind of a one stop shop over there and they’ve got some great products. So, go look them up at luckyduck.com. We’re also brought to you by Pacific Calls, the boys up there, know what they got going on. The best spec call that I’ve ever blown. They’ve got a hell of a lesser call if you’re into that sort of thing. And they’ve got turkey calls, they’ve got diaphragms, they’ve got box calls, whatever you’re looking for. The boys at pacific calls can hook you up, go to pacificcustomcalls.com. Use the promo code BHP25. Save yourself some mullah, some green and you can save 25% at checkout by using our promo code BHP25. Save some money. Go to pacific custom calls, get whatever you’re looking for this year. My favorite, the Looking Glass Duck Club. Mr. Logan Piatt.

Jeff Stanfield: Who’s going to be sponsoring our next big giveaway, which will do sometime in May or June sometimes May or June we’ll be doing another one will be a 5 man 2 days goose hunt lodging and meals at The Big Honker lodge with Logan Piatt and Andy Shaver.

Andy Shaver: You can’t get into the duck club, but you can definitely get some nice apparel. They’ve got a cooler out right now. They got jackets, they got hoodies and all of them are the same. They’ve got the old boy with the scope on a shotgun and rifle trying to shoot those ducks. Love it. Hence the name, Looking Glass Duck Club. Look them up on Instagram at the lookingglass.com. Pretty simple to find. Last but not least we’re brought to you by the best wine on the market. Texas wine, William and Chris wine and High Texas grapes.

Jeff Stanfield: You’re under quarantine. Have them ship your case of wine.

Andy Shaver: That’s right. Quarantine makes no difference, when you’re a boozer, you’ll figure out how to get it to you. They’ll ship it to you. Williamandchriswines.com. Go through their collection. I’m a fan of the Skeleton key because I eat a lot of red meat because I’m a fucking American and that’s what you’re supposed to do. Red meat and red wine go together in case you didn’t know Jeff.

Jeff Stanfield: That’s what I’ve heard.

Andy Shaver: So, skeleton key is my favorite. Try them all, you decide williamandchriswines.com. All right, this episode we’re joined by the legend himself Mr. Ramsey Russell. The man’s been everywhere. I don’t know if there’s a piece of dirt on this earth that he hasn’t been too, been everywhere. Seen it all, done at all. Great guy, we really enjoyed having him on. We did have some technical difficulties in a few spots. I think it’s around the 40 to 50 minutes mark somewhere in there. I don’t know, whenever he’s talking about Romania is when we kind of had some glitches, so basically what he was saying, is he had booked a hunt to Romania with one guy and then right before he was supposed to go, another guy started emailing him, telling him to bring the money and it’s a great story, but when setting the story up, we had a couple glitches, so I was just going to clarify that. Great guy, we really enjoyed it, we hope that you guys enjoy it and we appreciate everybody tuning in. So here he is, Ramsey Russell.

Jeff Stanfield: Right into our intro.

Andy Shaver: All right here we go, 3, 2, 1.

Jeff Stanfield: Boom and this is Jeff Stanfield with The Big Honker podcast, I messed that all up –

Andy Shaver: How’d you mess it up?

Jeff Stanfield: I screwed up my whole intro that I normally do.

Andy Shaver: I didn’t notice it.

Jeff Stanfield: And who are you?

Andy Shaver: I’m Andy Shaver with The Big Honker podcast.

Jeff Stanfield: And who do we have online with us today?

Andy Shaver: We’ve got Mr. Ramsey Russell, getducks.com. How are you, Ramsey?

Ramsey Russell: Man, I’m well as to be expected during the zombie apocalypse or whatever’s going on, yeah, I’m glad to be. I’ll tell you what, I’m bored.

Andy Shaver: It is a crazy time right now.

Jeff Stanfield: Man, if I lived in Jackson, Mississippi, I would have been tornado chasing yesterday.

Ramsey Russell: No, look, I talked to you all a couple of weeks ago, I don’t get that go out and look for tornadoes, come on, man.

Andy Shaver: It’s like looking for a rattlesnake.

Jeff Stanfield: I was tornado chasing the day I talked to you.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like picking up a rattlesnake, it ain’t like looking for one, that ain’t me man.

Andy Shaver: Jeff’s all about it, but I’d rather stay at home and watch paint dry or something.

Jeff Stanfield: Okay, Ramsey, tell me where you’ve been lately?

Ramsey Russell: Say again?

Jeff Stanfield: Where have you been hunting that lately? Tell me the last place you got to go on before this all started.

“I got back from Azerbaijan on February 22nd and thought I was home for 2 months because I hadn’t left home since but I thought I was leaving Thursday heading to Argentina through June. And those plans have been temporarily interrupted.”

Ramsey Russell: I got back from Azerbaijan on February 22^nd and thought I was home for 2 months because I hadn’t left home since but I thought I was leaving Thursday heading to Argentina through June. And those plans have been temporarily interrupted. Now look, when we were in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan is over on the Caspian sea, up around Turkey and Russia and Iran and we were eating dinner in the city of Baku on February 21^st and that was when Iran got sealed up tight. Now, we’ve been hunting about 8 miles from Iran and that was kind of a big deal to – because we’re hearing about this pandemic or just this swine flu or this bird fluid just whatever they were going to make this thing to be. But man, when they sealed off Iran coming and going and we had just been right there. In fact one of the wetlands we shoot for divers, if you get up on the old levy, you can look about 2 miles to the south, I guess that’d be and there’s Iran. And when they started talking about sealing off that border, coming and going because of this coronavirus that kind of got my attention and now I had to go back through all them airport and on the planes and it was no big deal, but I can tell you, I washed my hands and boarding people a lot more than normal coming back home, but still not dreaming this was going to be what it’s turned into.

Jeff Stanfield: Oh hell no. What was the hunting like?

“But their hunting message are a lot like stepping back to the late 1800s man. Those guys play for keeps, they got just incredibly good eyesight, they can see a bird a mile off and if they see a bird, they assume that he might come into play and they go into game mode.”

Ramsey Russell: The hunt was good, it’s in the northern Hemisphere and they had a winter very much like ours, it got a little bit cold, but not as cold as it needed to be. We shot a lot of teal, wigeons, some pin tails, shovelers, gadwall, mallards shot some common pochards, shot a couple of shell ducks, but we didn’t really get into the red crested pochard, that’s a big hearty diver that comes out of Russia down the Volga River delta and it didn’t get cold enough to push them down again this year. But I mean, it wasn’t as good as it could be, we should say, I didn’t shoot for about 12-15 ducks per day. You know what I’m saying? But we weren’t there just to duck hunt, we were there really to shoot some of those species, you’re just not going – those red crested pochards are something else. But I got to tell you now as a as a hunter, I think you kind of – you know what really gets me about this hunt because I absolutely love that location Azerbaijan, it’s real old school. We meet our guide staff at the lake, it’s about 100,000 acre impoundment. We meet them way before dark and we step off in these little old bitty boats about the size of a Prow, I mean 12ft long, a foot and a half wide, but skinny on both ends and you sit in that thing and I weigh about 175lbs and I sit in that seat and I don’t move too far one way left or right and the boy in the back, he stands in the back and he pushed polls us just 30 minutes off to wherever we’re going hunting. And good blinds, good old school blinds and lead shot and put some decoys out, of course we use mojo and they use electronic calls over there, which are very helpful, there’s a reason they don’t use them over here. Like you know how gadwalls act on, like they act back here in the states, shoot son, you put a call on them and watch what they do, they turn inside out. But the hunting pressure is because now look – break your guide might likely be a market hunter. And there’s places outside of town that you know when the ducks are in because there’s little kiosks, little roadside stands just slap full of ducks that they shot that morning, sell them to the public. So, those birds get pressured. You got to play by the rules, you got to hunt. But their hunting message are a lot like stepping back to the late 1800s man. Those guys play for keeps, they got just incredibly good eyesight, they can see a bird a mile off and if they see a bird, they assume that he might come into play and they go into game mode. I mean, they go into absolute game mode every single duck because truth matter is when you play for keeps and you play by the rules, the more chances you get, the more ducks that are going to act dumb and come in and so they act like that. I’ll tell you, it’s the kind of hunting this year because it was warmer because the birds were a little stale, those birds gets – you got to be hitting, you got to hunt and I’ll tell you if you go and you just act like it’s opening day Arkansas and you take it or leave it just playing on your phone or doing something like that in the duck blind, you probably aren’t going to come out with as many birds. But if you’ll sit there face down wind and pay attention, chances are you’re going to have a good hunt, and I like that. I respect that.

“Well, everything sounded good about it, but I can’t see my big gas in that little old boat, that’s kind of what makes me nervous.”

Jeff Stanfield: Well, everything sounded good about it, but I can’t see my big gas in that little old boat, that’s kind of what makes me nervous.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know how much – I have to, I have met you Jeff. I come up here and busted your balls there over in Dallas. You don’t know if you remember that? I didn’t ask you about, want to shoot wood ducks and I don’t know if you know who he was like, oh no.

Jeff Stanfield: I realized that later. So, Ramsey what was the accommodations? Man, where you stay and stuff, it’s just amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Its real nice accommodations. The place we stay at a nice 6 bedroom home and it’s got a toilet, you know their local culture is a hole in the floor, but they have toilets for us and it’s just as nice and comfortable as it can possibly be and it needs to be comfortable because I tell you, it does sound like much, but it’s 10 hours in the future. And usually when I get there the whole first week, you’re just kind of – you don’t really sleep 8 hours, you sleep 4 hours, get up and go hunt until about noon and then come in and sleep 4 more hours. I sleep in 4 hour cycle and usually coming into the 2^nd and 3^rd weeks from there with a bunch of clients, I’ll kind of come around and get back on their time. But the accommodations are very nice, you know what’s so crazy? And I’m from the Mississippi Delta and one of my hometown, Greenwood, Mississippi is self-proclaimed long staple cotton capital of the world. Still got the billboards as you come into town, cotton capital of the world. And in that little village we hunt, it’s a sizable little village, I’d say it’s about 10,000 people when you’re coming in, they got a great big old sign, big old sign up over the double lane road coming in with 2 big cotton bolls because it’s a lot of cotton in that part of the world. And that reservoir that we hunt is about 100,000 acres. But at times a year they use it to draw up to irrigate for different agricultural crops. So, it’s a lot of ways, it’s so similar to hunting at home. But of course the difference can possibly be. I was coming out one year talking about market hunting, I was coming out last year I think it was, we were coming out and there was a boat up ahead, I shot about 6 ducks weren’t no great morning mallards and gadwalls and I think I shot a garganey that morning. But we were coming out and there was a local in front of us kind of standing up, pushing that Prow and going and look, guys like us westerners don’t go stand in them little boats, you’ll bust your tail but they can do it. It’s like a second foot for them and they’ll step in that boat and just go with it and as we come up on him, he was talking to my guide and they knew each other, they were talking about it. But I noticed he had about the same amount of ducks I had, but he had a two shooters side by side gun. But I got to noticing his ammo belt and in his ammo belt has unspent cartridges were hand loads. And what I mean is they had crimped it like he didn’t have a reloading machine like we would back home, like we grew up reloading shotgun shells basically, they just poured the powder, poured the shells, put a little wax in there and you could tell how the wax was closer to the end on some of them than others and I mean by an inch that the load and the powder varied greatly. And he would not let me take a picture of him but I did take a picture of his shells and kind of his gear and stuff like that. But I just marveled. We Americans have elevated duck hunting to absolute art form. Tell me one piece of equipment that we have is not the best it can possibly. But I mean, the decoys, the camo, the shot shells, the guns, everything is rocket science art form.

Jeff Stanfield: Waiters.

Ramsey Russell: Waiters, gear, equipment, cortex the whole works man. Even over your daddy or your granddaddy’s generation here in America, it’s just light years beyond what it was. But then you step back over into a country like that, that they’re shooting a lot of times homemade yells and homemade decoys and I mean, what they pass off I brought a – we were boating by one day and I saw some homemade decoys off in the bushes and my guide didn’t understand – that particular guy, didn’t understand my hand signals if I wanted to go get them, he kind of shrugged it off. We got to ramp and have my turkey and I said, hey, tell him I want to go get some of those decoys and they’re like, oh yeah, he says you don’t want them, they’re just trash. I said, no, I want them, trust me, I want them. So, we went back and I got a couple of them from the client and I, and this was market hunting, it was cheap. He had gone out and taken just some old Styrofoam, just pieces of foam he had found at the landfill or blown off, wrapped it up with black disk queen, like a Christmas present and then wrap the plastic to hold it on there, taking like some copper filament off like a coil and wrapped it up. And then just taking a piece of a sandal for a head and it didn’t look like – it looked really kind of like something out of a serial murderer. It reminds me of like a Max, somebody like Bundy or somebody would have worn it, they had pellet holes on them because he had landed ducks in them. And this year I was hunting, and you’ll like this story. You’re always early. They hunt like we do, they get there early, but I don’t know if it’s just a whole lifetime of being conditioned to legal shooting hours that my eyes are like they are or just old age, I’m 53 years old. But we get to the blind and waited off into this little spot he built this low lying cedar, I mean waist high cedars he built this blind and I sat down and he touched me on my shoulder and pointed up and said shoot and I missed, its pitch black dark. It’s been an hour before I could see to shoot. I’m like, shoot what? And I can’t remember the word for gadwall, but he turned on the music to gadwall and as I’m looking, my eyes are getting adjusted and I see this darker shadow than the darkness out in front of me getting closer and realize it’s a gadwall boom, miss. And he scolded me, I’m like, it’s too dark. So, I handed him my shell, I loaded, it’s pitch black dark, he never took his eyes off the duck, he would spin around in place. Well, I’m sitting here watching him because I was like, man, this guy’s things came out. He was serious. And I there on about the 3^rd pass he shouldered the gun shot and I heard that duck fall about 40 yards away, stone cold dead. And he handed me the gun back, I said no, you keep it, you go ahead and keep it for about another 30 minutes. But after he left to go do something later that morning, I could see to shoot and the ducks kind of played out, it was about 11:00 or 12:00 and I looked down the shore of this big massive reservoir pond we was hunting in. I could look through binoculars and make out some decoys and I got to thinking, I wonder if that’s homemade decoys. And he wasn’t around and I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I walked down there to check them out and what they were, were just random pop bottles, 2 liter or pint sized whatever Coca cola, Pepsi whatever, but they had put like a dark blue or dark brown or dark black sock on it to cover it up and give it color and anchored it, but it ain’t something I choose to hunt over. But whoever spread that was Azzurri hunter that was his spread and trust you me, there was enough holes in the bushes and I can tell you he had to shoot and he killed ducks over it. And I just kind of appreciate that, it’s just interesting to go back in time and see how it is and hunt ducks real fundamentally like that.

Jeff Stanfield: Now, I’m assuming you give the guide the ducks or did you keep them or eat them at the lodge?

Ramsey Russell: The outfitter keeps the ducks. The guides will ask, they will ask for ducks, but we were instructed not to let them have it, I’ll give them a couple. Don’t get me wrong if they ask, I’m going to give them a couple but you have to give it to them before you get back to the car, before the straw bosses around or something like that because they took them in their bag or took them in their coat and I don’t know they say they eat them, but if I had to guess they’re probably taking them and selling them. They probably get a dollar or 2 for them and I bet you they value that dollar or 2 more than they do that duck. But now I will say this, I mean think about it, if they’re selling ducks on the side of the road like they sell boiled peanuts in the Deep South, you got to figure people are buying them, people eating them and I don’t mean just one little shop, I mean maybe a dozen of them. If the ducks are in there may be a dozen and a half little roadside kiosks selling these fresh picked ducks. And I asked her host one time I said, do they eat them? And he goes of course we eat them. And what do you think their favorite is? Green wing teal, that’s their favorite. Green winged teals are their favorite. And when we ask for them to cook duck for us and we eat them once a week at least they choose the green wings and they do them just like they do in parts of remote Argentina where we eat them. They whole pluck them and then they butterfly and they cut the backbone out and split them to where they lay flat. Salt, pepper, maybe a little seasoning and grill them and just like Argentina or Mexico we have to communicate to them. Please don’t cook them well done. If they got to be rare, they got to be rare to medium rare or tastes like – but otherwise it’s very good. And the food over there is where – the food is like shish kebab, it’s the home of the shish kebab to read stuff like shish kebabs and lamb and the food is good. I enjoyed, all of the clients enjoyed a lot.

“See when I picture that area I think of rocks and dirt and mountains, is that what it is?”

Jeff Stanfield: See when I picture that area I think of rocks and dirt and mountains, is that what it is?

Ramsey Russell: There’s some hills and there’s some mountains way off in the distance across over in Iran and that begins the formation of like what they call the Caucus mountain range that goes into Turkey. And they’ve got real mountains, but where we are its pretty flat around Baku it’s very hilly, but out where we are in the country, it’s flat and it’s like the cedar bushes will be knee high, it’ll be knee high bushes and then out in the marsh, some of the cattails and phragmites will be 15-20ft tall. And you’ll get off – I mean, them boys know where to go and I have no idea because we’ll fall off into a rat maze of boat trails often in that phragmites is, I mean it’s just as wide as that boat and then there’s nothing but a little headlamp and you’re going in looking ahead and you’ll come to a fork in the road that go to 5 different directions and he takes one and we’ll come out into a little pothole and a little hole where he knows where he wants to go. And again, they will push that P-row they won’t let so much as an inch stick out of the cover and they’ll wedge it up in those phragmites which are a lot like little bamboo or Roseau cane down Louisiana. They’ll wedge it up in there where you can stand up to shoot and they’ll put them decoys out and if the wind changes, they’ll pull the boat out and they’ll pile across to the other side and they’ll wedge it back up there again. So if the wind can change 180° and it doesn’t matter they’ll just move that boat, leave the decoys and you’re in perfect position to play the wind. But they don’t always get up in them potholes. It’s like this time where I had the best shoots was, it was like hunting over on the west side of Utah at the Great Salt Lake up in those marshes where there’s a lot of this – oh gosh, there’s just little plant about knee high that’s got a fine seed the birds would eat and they would build a blind up around there might be a piece of button bush sticking up and they’d build a blind up against it to where they could take it into the cover, but all the cover around you wasn’t but maybe as tall as your shin – a bull rush, it’s what the name of that plan is. Alkali bull rush. It must have been just a thousands of acres of it and that’s where a lot of the teal and the wigeon wanted to be. And so we’d get off in there and have some good shoots at times.

Jeff Stanfield: Is it all Eurasian wigeons?

Ramsey Russell: All Eurasian wigeons. And the first time I went I had shot a dozen Eurasian wigeons around the world over the years but the first time I went year before last, I shot 25 Eurasian wigeons in one week. And this year I brought home 5 or 6 real good drake wigeon. It’s like of course I’d bring one or two of them home but they were so good, I just couldn’t not bring them home, I would give them away or give them to a taxidermist or something, they were just too nice, not too.

Andy Shaver: So, how do you go to ask the guy if he’ll let you take his picture? Do you just hold up your camera and why wouldn’t he let you take his picture?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know. That’s a good question. Maybe he was wounded or maybe he was anti-Western. I don’t know, they’re as friendly as can be but for whatever reason he was adamant about not taking his picture and sometimes people are like that and sometimes they aren’t. That’s anywhere in the world you go but that man would not – he just did not want his picture taken. I don’t know, he looked pretty mean, so I wasn’t going to take a picture, let alone post on the internet for all I know, who knows why, but he didn’t want his picture taken. But it’s just interesting to me looking at the cover – Hey, here’s a quick question what do you think those guys especially, but what do you think their favorite “duck” is? It’s a coot. If they see a coot they will beg you to shoot that, I’m like, I’m not shooting because they want to eat it. Like you know around here when I talk about hunting pressure around here, you’ve been out duck hunting and you’re motoring back up to the boat around and you see a bunch of coots over at the boat ramp, they just kind of swim off with your head bobbling and they swim off into the cat tails. Argentina same way nobody fools with a buddy when they see coots, they go into stealth mode and tap you on the shoulder and tell you to load your gun because you look pat and they’ll go into stealth mode push polling and trying to get close enough to shoot those coots. And if those coots so much as hear them paddle touched the side of the boat bumps, they’re gone. I mean they fly looks like you’ve been shot at. Oh yeah, that tells you how much hunting – But you know, it made me wonder as serious as they are about eating ducks and hunting ducks that they like to eat coot more than anything, it makes me wonder what am I missing out on not eating coot, probably nothing. But it makes me wonder.

Jeff Stanfield: The gizzards.

Andy Shaver: I think nothing. I got to say nothing.

Jeff Stanfield: I’ve been told Coot gizzards is the best there is.

Ramsey Russell: I used to hunt with a friend of mine down and he’s from somewhere down around Metairie Louisiana, we would hunt down river, he called it, which is south of New Orleans down around Venice. And he used to tell me that, there at the end of season, they would kind of just get in and with their P-rows because in that part of the world, you always pack a P-row in the boat because coming or going, you’re probably going to need it. And of course they stand in them, it’s very similar hunting to what we do in Azerbaijan. But they would go out at least once a year, him and his buddies and they would shoot limits of coots just flat shoot them, get them hemmed up and flat shoot them because his grandmother made a gumbo and she would only use coot gizzard. He said, the best gumbo you’ve ever had but she said she would not eat anything but coot gizzard, I still not eating coot or coot gizzard.

Jeff Stanfield: Me neither.

Andy Shaver: I haven’t either. I cleaned a bunch of coots one day though we had a bunch of guys from –

Jeff Stanfield: Louisiana.

Andy Shaver: We had a bunch of guys from Louisiana, south Louisiana too. And we were duck hunting and this is one of the few times in Texas that I was hunting an iced over duck hole and when the sun came up we had busted ice all morning –

Jeff Stanfield: It would not step the night before.

Andy Shaver: And and it got cold enough, it iced up. So we busted ice all morning sun comes up and we see out about 40 yards there is a perfect circle about 15 x 15 and it is full of every coot that was on that pond.

Ramsey Russell: They got a shot at it, didn’t they?

Andy Shaver: Well, oh my goodness, the duck hunting was slow and the head guide said, hey do you care if we go shoot those coots? I’m like sure, I don’t really care. And they stood with their toes in the water and they just shot almost everyone, we shot a limit of coots. What’s the limit 15 per person?

Jeff Stanfield: I think it’s 100 something.

Andy Shaver: Yeah, we shot a limit. Whatever the limit of coots is, we shot it and we cleaned every one of them.

Ramsey Russell: I’d be. And do you pluck them or breast them out or what?

Jeff Stanfield: We breast.

Andy Shaver: Well, we took the gizzards is what we did. I think we breasted them and took the gizzards out. Because they were adamant that they got all the gizzards. But it gets better than that. We shot a limit of ducks that morning also because we shot ruddy ducks.

Jeff Stanfield: Yeah, it was a trophy hunt, Ramsey, a trophy hunt.

Ramsey Russell: I see that.

Andy Shaver: So, these guys they left, it was their last day they left, on their last day they shot a limit of coots and limit of ducks full of ruddy ducks. And I’ll tell you what, those coots are some vicious looking bastards their feet are disgusting.

Jeff Stanfield: I don’t know why we didn’t get a good picture of that that would have made a great group picture.

Andy Shaver: It would have but they were tickled, they got a bunch of gizzards to take home.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a coot down in the Andes Mountains of Peru, I’ve shot them before and probably could have COVID, we’re not going to make it down there in July we were going down to film a mountain and coastal Peru hunt this year, Jake Latendresse and I, it’s possible we’ll go but we won’t know until we know. But one of the trophies, now you get off in the mountains, the Andean mountains and years ago I shot a pair of Andean geese at right at 16,000ft elevation according to the GPS or the Alzheimer’s, it was on up there. But also in one of the mountain lakes, probably not quite that high, we shot a, what they call a giant coot. That coot weighs 3-4lbs. It’s the biggest thing. It is as big as a goose. And Peru is just one of them countries, every year you have to read what they call their hunt calendar to see what is legal. When I shot those birds, they were legal and what is not, there’s been years in between that for whatever reason they just don’t make the list. But I’ve always said I would love to bring back one of them giant coots and put it on the bow of a boat with a bunch of little coots, park it at the boat ramp, just leave it right at the boat ramp in Venice there at the launch and just back off and sit down and watch and you’ll see what folks have when they come by and saw a 3-4lbs coot sitting on the bow. Don’t you know, they have a fit?

Andy Shaver: Oh yeah, you make the paper.

Jeff Stanfield: You show up one day and they’re here. I’ve never seen a big flock up in the air ever.

Ramsey Russell: They say it, I have to go back and find it. But I’ve read that coot are one of the highest flyer that they’ll fly 20,000ft, 25,000ft and the rumor is they fly at night and that’s why you just wake up one morning and your duck hole is covered with them. They show up. That’s what I’ve heard.

Andy Shaver: That has to be it.

Jeff Stanfield: I’ve never seen one flying in a flock.

Andy Shaver: I’ve never – I mean you’re talking to 3 guys here that waterfowl hunt quite a bit and I’ve never seen a coot migrating in. So, it’s got to be at night and it’s got to be high altitude.

Ramsey Russell: Got to be.

Jeff Stanfield: I want to ask you a question, since you’re a man of importance. Is it a gallinule? How do they pronounce that?

What is that? I see them all the time, Texas has a season on them even I think now, down south.

Ramsey Russell: It’s rails. Mississippi has a season on rails and gallinule also. And on some of the property in Mississippi, the only gallinule we see is the only thing near that is like in the spring like this time of year, we might see some of them purple gallinule coming back through, they’re the Rallidae family. But I have seen in the fall seen sore rails, little bitty sore rails coming through and we’ve eaten, made stew and gumbo and whatnot out of them. But I’ll tell you this a couple of years ago, I’ve got some clients over in coastal Georgia and they said, man, you got to come down and go rail hunting with us. I said, it’s kind of like a snipe hunt I’m supposed to come hold the bag? I mean, really he said no, seriously, you’ll really enjoy it. And so I actually took a little 28 gauge over and underwent did this hunt with them and they were real specific about the weekend because the tide has got to be right. They want the tide to be high to where there’s not a lot of dry ground, there’s not a lot of ground for the birds to hit the ground and run, they will run and these were all clapper rails. I think the limit was 8 or 10 apiece, I can’t remember which, but there were 3 of us and they took turns push polling, we took turns shoot. But they would get off and once somebody would push polling, it’s a pretty big boat and you sit in the front and as you’re just push polling those little rails, jump up, flush, I got to tell you it was fun, but I could not believe they were good eating. I made a gumbo with some of them and I think we fried some one night just made like fried nuggets one night there. They were good. They were good eating. But you’ve got to be down in that coastal habitat with that marsh grass and you got to know what you’re doing. Like I would see some of these birds even at high tide you would be – you hear them out there just making the noises like kind of like coots, making that little noise they make, like a Martian and we’d be push polling and sometimes they would slip off in the water. If I’m lying, I’m dying, they would slip off in the water and it’ll be just their head. But it looked like a deer swimming, just their head would be above the water. They were sneaking and hand them up and get up to them to make them jump up and fly. But you might follow out this little place where you can push pole and follow that grass down to a point, that point would stick way out in open water and you would be 15 yards from the end of that point thinking, well crap, I can’t believe there’s nothing in it. But you go another 5 or 10ft and there might be 15 of them start coming out of there like a shooting gallery. I got to tell you, I would go do it again. It was that much fun. I really did enjoy it. Talking about some of the funny stuff we eat and eating around the world, doing stuff like that, one of the things we started during COVID just a little bit boring. I started a little podcast myself called Duck Season Somewhere, it’s mostly just going duck camps around the world and talking to clients and talking outfitters and talking to people while we’re traveling. But since we’re home bound right now, we’ve been just talking about some other stuff. And we got talking about food we eating and reminded me earlier when we’re talking about eating coots and coots gizzards, have you all ever eaten anything on a duck besides just the duck? I mean, have you ever tried the liver or the gizzards or the hearts?

Jeff Stanfield: I have a personal preference that I don’t even eat a duck.

Andy Shaver: Jeff’s not a big duck eater. But no, I’ve never eaten anything other than just the basics.

Ramsey Russell: Deer heart and beef heart for that matter is pretty darn good. Down in Peru they eat one of the specialty dishes called elichucose, which is beef heart and sliced up seasons a lot like fajitas. It’s like a fajitas seasoning and I grill it and I think it’s very good. I’ve had it with liver and onions, kind of like a cooked liver with onions and sautéed in butter and I like deer heart. But I was up in Canada this year and actually I tried it one time, coon ass up in Saskatchewan many years ago. He was making – you know how they make a gravy, kind of make a gravy and with the whole duck, but he had saved the hearts and put them in there and they’re pretty darn good. And he makes a heck of a roasted speckle bellies if you want. But those little hearts for just little poppers were unbelievable. And it’s a good size, it’s a lot bigger than a duck heart. But it was very good. I think I’m sure Canada goose and snow goose would be just as good. But you clean them and marinate them and Italian dressing or whatever, little Worcestershire or soy sauce, put that piece of chestnut and then wrap it with bacon and skewer them up on a big long shish kebab stick and it’s good. It’s a good little nibble.

Jeff Stanfield: Now, what – let’s go back to – how do you say it?

Ramsey Russell: Azerbaijan.

Jeff Stanfield: Azerbaijan, what kind of tip do those guys make a day? And I’m assuming American money they love.

Ramsey Russell: We tipped them $20 a day.

Jeff Stanfield: And that’s probably big money for over there, isn’t it?

Ramsey Russell: Probably pretty good money, yep. Over there, they’re big into falconry, we get into the coffee shop, therefore sheikhs sitting around with these falcons on their arms with hoods on them and we get on the bus to go make our flight and half the bus has got sheikhs and our guy in Azerbaijan later described them as middle class sheiks, I said, what do you mean by middle class? And he said, if they were real sheikhs they’d be flying private. But the whole back half of the plane going into Baku that night was middle class sheikhs, they had a seat for themselves and a seat for their falcons and they don’t care anything about shooting those birds. There’s a bird over there kind of like a partridge bustard, apparently it’s protected. I’ve seen them. They’re beautiful game birds. But they hunt those birds with their falcons that’s their thing is falconry. And I was talking to a lady at a convention one time and brought that up and she said it’s funny you say that because my ex-husband lives in Doha and trains falcons for sheikhs. There’s enough of them buying falcons. He makes a heck of a living raising falcons for these guys to buy and go out bird hunting with.

Andy Shaver: Have you ever done the falconry?

Ramsey Russell: No, that’d be boring. I’m not saying, I wouldn’t like to go sit and watch it but no, I like the way we duck hunt just fine.

Andy Shaver: It’s different. We had a guy on the podcast that does it, different cat.

Ramsey Russell: Well you know just the time requirement the people I’ve talked to about those falcons, it’s not like, you want to take your wife to the beach for the weekend, you’ll put falcon in the vet, you can’t do that. Those birds require 24/7 care. I mean, if you own a falcon or an eagle or whatever, you’re just all in, you’ve got to take care of that bird. Hey, now I tell you we were in Mongolia one time and we weren’t in this part of Mongolia, although I would love to see this because over in parts of Northwest Mongolia, they hunt wolves with golden eagles and that’s a big deal. They hunt wolves with golden eagles, falconry.

Jeff Stanfield: Yeah, I’ve seen the videos.

Ramsey Russell: I saw a meme one time, it was like some girl carrying her golden eagle on and she’s riding a horse and got this eagle and of course you’ve got a wolf coat on and a wolf hat and all this stuff as you ride along and the meme says something like you might be a badass, but you ain’t badass, like wearing a wolf coat caught with your golden eagle bad. And I’m thinking well that would be kind of cool to see. I’ve seen videos of it and we’re in downtown Ulaanbaatar and they had a big department store about 7 stories high and we said, well let’s go up there and shop because on the 7^th floor there was like just local stuff, local Mongolian stuff you might want to buy for a souvenir or whatever like that. We went through there and looked at it and some of those was pretty things bizarre. Some of the artwork from back in Genghis khan days were downright pornographic. I mean just absolute pornographic. But when you talk to yourself, this is thousands of years old worth of artwork, this is bizarre. But they had a lot of these like fur hats, like a Russian type hat, you see it’s made out of fox or made out of mainstream, made out of beaver, made out of whatever and then it had a whole bunch of – I mean piles of wolf hides, just tanned wolf hides and a bunch of fur coats. But I don’t mean fur coats like your wife would wear to go out to the opera or something. I mean, like functional fur coats, like these people wear fur because it gets -50 over there. Okay. And one of the coat racks had a wolf coat on and there’s like a bathrobe, like a big old bathrobe, you just kind of put it on and close it and tie it with a belt and like that wolf hunter with the gold eagle would wear. And so I put on, I grabbed one of them fur coats and put it on and I put on that wolf robe and I handed my phone to somebody said, hey take my picture and before he could focus and take my picture, my glasses started fogging up, it was so hot. And before he took 2 pictures and we laugh and cut up and I got out of that robe, I had to go out go down the elevator and outside to cool off I was so hot. It was the warmest thing I’d ever put on.

Jeff Stanfield: Did you buy it?

Andy Shaver: No, it was $300 and I said, you know that’s crazy as heck to buy $300 but that would be a pretty cool thing for the game room. And our host said, you can’t bring it back to the States, the US forbids because it’s wild caught wolves, it’s a wild caught – every wolf hide in there had been trapped or shot or caught with a golden eagle and it was just – I don’t know, a US Fish and Wildlife provisions against bringing wild caught wolf hide from Mongolia into the States.

Jeff Stanfield: What was the duck hunting like in Mongolia?

Ramsey Russell: What was the, what like?

Jeff Stanfield: The duck hunting, like?

Ramsey Russell: We go to Mongolia about once every 2 or 3 years and it’s not a duck hunt, like we duck hunt. Now, last time I was on your podcast, we talked about, we stumbled, we were out scouting up in the mountains and found kind of like a wetland where the snow water had built up in this little flat spot, we had a heck of a mallard and pintail shoot and that was kind of crazy because there’s nowhere to hide, we literally went out and bought a couple of hay bales from shepherd to hide in. We just busted them up and laid under them and sprinkle them around to cover us up and had a pretty nice mallard, pintail shoot, probably birds that had never heard of duck call or been shot at before. But you know that kind of hunt is, it’s in April like literally right now. The first 20 days of April that season is open. It’s one of the only places in the world you can spring hunt, but you’re not over there. It’s a finite amount on your license that you can shoot 30. But the reasons you go there are for not mallards and pintails, it is for a common and ruddy shell ducks and swan geese and bar headed geese and maybe see a garganey, maybe see a tufted duck, maybe see some Eurasian wegion, but it’s a straight up absolute like big game trophy hunter collection. And they are the people have zero basis for what we call duck hunting. From where we have been hunting for a few days off to the north, you can see this formation, this hill like a triangle here, you can just see it, you can see mountains in the background, but this was always within sight and as we drove by it when we scout, we drove probably an hour and a half when we got near it and it was like a big old Indian mound, the state of the Indian mountain, you see in the Deep South maybe as tall as a 1 story house and maybe a little bit taller about the same size, the average 2000 square foot house, but just tall and all around the base of it were horse skulls and ribbons and flags and end up on the top of the big tall pole somebody stuck up with a blue flag and then I walked up the trail to get to see what it was, there were all kinds of horse skulls. Painted horse skulls and horse skulls were ribbons on them. And I asked guide, I said, guide, what the heck is this? He said, well it’s a monument and it’s where for thousands of years – because remember now this is Genghis Khan Culture. These people were like at one time the most fierce calvary in the world. And they were horse people and they still are, that’s what I’m trying to say, they still are. Well over the eons, they had stacked up these stones to make this monument.

Andy Shaver: What’s the most disappointing place that you’ve been to?

Ramsey Russell: There’s plenty of dog hunt, you know what I mean? I mean, right here in the US there’s plenty of lousy hunts if you don’t know who you’re booking with, right? Would you agree?

Andy Shaver: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: There’s plenty of Joe shits. Well, there’s lots of them down in Argentina too, so be aware, but we went to Romania and the Dunarea River. If I’m saying that right, it goes through a lot of countries over there in Western Europe and eastern bloc and it was the worst hunt I had. Like this story, we had been to Sweden, which is incredible. Sweden is one – I would say Sweden outside of hitting snow geese just right on that day, I would say Sweden is probably the best goose hunt on earth. Now, that Argentina doesn’t have a goose season. I would say it can be for Canada geese, barnacles and gray lags if you got the money because it’s an expensive hunt, it could be a very good hunt. But in case you don’t know this, Romania is where all of the gypsies originated. And I mean, the truest sense of gypsy, which you know, now if I have said the words gypsy hitman. He looks exactly like what you’re thinking. But the guy who had written me an email, I’m not the outfitter, I’m his brother and he will not be there to entertain you, but if you still want to come bring the money. And here’s a story I heard in Romania because I didn’t understand gypsies or didn’t think I understood gypsies, but we tell our Children stories about Santa Claus, well gypsies who have no written language, never have had a single written language, you’re either born into gypsy, you’re either born a gypsy and you learn their native tongue or you don’t understand gypsy, that’s how it works to this day. Nobody has been able to crack the code and be able to speak gypsy unless they were taught, unless they were born. And if you’re not born into it, you’re not taught and they have no written language. They don’t keep birthdates because since the dawn of time, they’ve been grifters, they’ve been hustlers, they’ve been cheats and their marauders, right? The biggest houses in Romania belongs to the gypsies. They keep their livestock on the bottom floor, just like Elly May Clampett, all their stuff because hey, you live in a culture where people steal stuff so you keep all your belongings, all your assets in your house, but not in walking one. But my host was telling me that they still gold, silver, jewelry, cash, that’s what they’re after. And it’s like an informal mafia. And so as they steal this stuff, they’re liable to go home and make the gold into a toilet into plumbing. So, break back to the story, I get this email and end up going back and forth this guy and I’m thinking, no I’m not – now you have heard the back end of Romania story but gypsy, I’m thinking I don’t know about this guy, I don’t know if we need to go to Romania with something’s going on. And he said, well we’re here, we’ve got our tickets, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we just go to the airport and meet this guy? And if this guy don’t look right or flags go off, we’ll just pass on getting in the truck with him and we’ll come home. I said, well you can’t argue with that. So that’s what we did. And when we get to where we’re going to Romania and we go ahead and buy us a couple of liquor bottles, anyway, figuring we tell ourselves we’re coming through customs through the duty, we say, we’ll either drinking at camp, or we’ll drink it while we’re waiting on our flight out of here. And when we meet this guy, we walk out, he’s got my name on the sign and he looks like a big old hook nose hitman for the gypsy. And I’m like, I’m not getting in the truck with this guy. And so I’m trying to speak English, like I’m getting a little perturbed and I go, where is the outfitter? And he don’t speak no English, so he hands me a phone and now I’m on the phone with a guy who had written me an email and I’m like, where’s so and so the outfitter? I don’t even remember his name guys and he’s like, he can’t come. So me, I will take care of you, I am his brother. I go, I don’t know you from Adam, you know where we’re going, what are we doing? What about this? What about that? And he’s like, well, where is so and so I go, is he in jail? Is he in the hospital? No, he’s not in a hospital. Is he in jail? No, he’s not in jail somehow or other in talking to this guy on speakerphone Scott and I and this hit man, we say, well, I think we’re okay, I somehow or another, we got to feel uncomfortable with it. And we get to this great big van, we get to this van, where we’re going to ride in and the last thing I do as before I walk around the side and get in a patricide as I take a picture of the license plate and text it to my wife and say, I feel about 50-50 on this deal, but just in case, here’s where I was last seen. So, we get in here and Scott, we’ve heard that we bought a couple of bottles of liquor, but Scott’s a big beer drinker, he says, that liquor really didn’t cost as much as we were led to believe it costs, let’s see if we can somehow tell this guy to stop by a store and let’s get some beer when I pull out, google translate and type beer, he gives me a thumbs up, we go in and when we start doing the conversion and it’s like buying a 12 pack of bud light back home, it’s not expensive at all. And compared to bud light back home and Scott by then – we’ve been to Netherlands, we’ve been to Sweden, he got a flavor in mind, they didn’t have but 6 bottles on the shelf there in refrigerator and he said, ask them do they got more? And I’m translating to him, they go how much more? And I said, 24 bottles. Man, you want to talk about some folks getting hurrying up, getting into action, we cleaned them out, that’s all they had was 24 bottles that brand and we get to the cash register, they’re trying to sell us window scrapers and cookies and I think the cashier would have jumped the truck and come with us if we wanted to. I mean, they were all about selling that rich Americans something. And break, we finally go to meet this guy that’s coming to meet us and up comes this freaking best looking, most expensive looking, probably the most expensive BMW sedan I’ve ever set foot in. And the guy seems well to do and he speaks good English and once I meet him we start relaxing, we go by this hunting store, that’s where we buy our ammo, that’s where we rent our guns, that’s where we get our hunting licenses, this tiny little hole in the wall hunting store and we’re cutting up and having a good time. But now I’m starting to relax and of course we’ve had a few beers. This is the year that Trump versus Hillary it was an election year and everybody in the world was talking about the election. Everybody I met in Denmark and Sweden and Netherlands, everybody I met, everybody that spoke English asking who are you voting for? Well, you know over in Europe, they don’t have fox news all they have is CNN, right? So, I would answer the question well who should I vote for? And man, they could run down to Hillary talking points tit for tat. Let me tell you what they could. Well, I’m in the BMW with my host and who turns out to be my guide brother in law who is not in prison but he is in jail until he pays a fine because what was explained to us as we bought our ammo, they gave us one case of ammo and they said you cannot have more than this amount of ammo in your possession ever. And what had happened is, he had had some Italians and he had had all of their ammo in his truck when he went through a checkpoint and until he paid the fine for being in excess of ammo possession, he was in the local lockup, that’s what happened to him. And like when we were leaving in the morning from camp it’s a very good camp, very good food, we would leave in the morning. We would always have to stop and the police would come out and we check our guns and count our ammo. And then as we were coming back from the hunt we would stop and they would count our ammo and check our guns again. It’s very police. Its eastern bloc Russia. But one thing I do remember is, I got to know my host a little bit better, the brother in law of the guide. The hunting was terrible. I’m going to tell you that right now the hunting was I think we shot 15 birds, green wing teal and one shell duck in 3 days we’re going down the road one day. And the gypsy funeral going on man, just saying that alone was something else entirely different. But you know it was interesting to me because as I got to know my host, we were walking around some downtown one day looking at some of the old churches and just eating, waiting to go to the airport and he was telling me that he and his brother and mom and daddy Romania used to be eastern bloc Russia. And we were talking about when he was in high school, the Russian government would give his family the 4 loaves of bread per month. That’s what they got, that’s what they gave them. He and his brother, his mother and his daddy were given 4 loaves of bread per month and he began to talk about how now this little building projects around town that he had done or that he would do. That was what his company would bid on. You know he was doing well, he was kind of living a good dream. He was obviously successful and I said, well why not go ahead and pay – how much tax do you pay right now? And he explained that he pays about 20%, 20-25% tax depending on how his accountant turned it in right? More if the accountant didn’t do right, so I said well why not go ahead and double that, why not do 50%? Why not just pay the government 50%? And he got a confused look on his face and he goes, I don’t understand. I said why not? It would be good for people, it would be good for the public, it would be good for the other Romanians if you pay twice as much tax and he says, well maybe you don’t understand but if I pay more tax I have to fire employees. I said, yeah so what? And he started getting kind of bowed up like I don’t understand, I don’t follow your reasons sir, why would I pay more tax, those families that I would have to fire depend on this job. I said, exactly. He finally said, so what you’re saying is you really would vote for Trump not Hillary Clinton. And he started smiling. I said seeing Lynne’s not telling you that part of the story but that’s why everybody’s voting for Trump, it’s for lower tax rates that they can grow businesses and they can do business and scale out and live the American dream. But Romania was a very disappointing hunt, the hunting itself was extremely disappointing, everything else was fascinating but that was a huge – I’ll never go back to hunt Romania. And there’s a lot of countries over that eastern bloc, I get emails and I see them on Facebook time to time. A lot of the eastern bloc countries, no, I don’t see myself going there to organize hunts like we do elsewhere in the world.

Jeff Stanfield: I got a friend of mine that went to Romania to Bucharest on some kind of deal but he told me, he said Jeff that is the coldest, nastiest place I’ve ever been in my entire life. He said everybody was dirty and he was talking about the gypsies. He said just, it was –

Ramsey Russell: I can see that, I really can see that. Health care boy, I tell you what everybody wants global health care or whatever they call it good luck with that man. It’s like this construction guy, my host was explaining to me socialized medicine in Romania. Now if you talk to a prosperous country, like New Zealand, you talk to the New Zealander about their socialized health medicine, they love it. You talk to somebody in Sweden about their social health medicine, they love it. You talk to somebody in a country like Romania about it, they’re like no way Jose. Like he was telling me, he had a tournament meniscus when I’ve had meniscus surgery before, he told me that it would have taken him 2 or 3 years to get in for basic research. So he bribed them to get cut into line and that before he went under, he gave that doctor $3,000 and said, if I don’t die over meniscus surgery, if I don’t die, I’ll give you $3,000 when I recover. That’s what true socialized medicine is all about.

Jeff Stanfield: Well, you use Sweden and New Zealand for examples of the great health care, you know what they both have in common? They don’t have to spend money on their military because someone else is going to make sure nothing happens to them. Now, I’m not saying they don’t have military. A lot of the places that have that socialized medicine, they’re like, well they don’t spend all their money on the military, so yeah, because the United States, make sure Russia hadn’t taken them over for the last 100 years basically.

Ramsey Russell: Well, now we’re worried about China, this Wuhan thing.  It’s a mess, man. I’ve never seen anything like it. Jeff, you have been in business, Stanfield outfitters have been in business forever, haven’t you? I mean, you have been in business a long time.

Jeff Stanfield: 28 years.

Ramsey Russell: 28 years. So in 28 years, I graduated high school in 1984 which is longer than 28 years ago but in 1987 there was an economic black Friday they called it in 19 – I don’t remember the night, but I do remember 2000 the tech bubble, in 2008 the mortgage crisis. Now, we are in 2020 because of COVID that has got a lid on this economy, I’ve seen downturns in this economy. When I was young, it didn’t bother me as bad and when you get older it does. But I guess after you’ve been around a while or are you seeing or feeling any effect at all during the downturn because of this COVID stuff that affects you as an outfitter?

Jeff Stanfield: Well, I don’t know that what’s going to end up playing on this because if I think if we go back to work in the next 6 weeks, I think our economy will pick right back up some things are going to lag and but I’ve sold a lot of hunts the last 2 weeks, but we do a lot of business all over the United States, we don’t do just business. This oil thing is going to really hurt a lot of guys in Texas and I don’t have a – probably 20% of our businesses oil related and it’s going to hurt us some, but we picked up a lot of stuff globally. So that’s going to help us. The biggest drop I’ve ever seen in business was when Obama got elected. Not in 2011, September 11^th hurt but it wasn’t that bad, I mean it came. The other thing, it’s always like when something fault or something else picks up. So, when the tax went out, the oil came back and then construction goes on. But the day Obama got elected, my phone stopped ringing for about 2 or 3 months nobody had any faith in the economy. As soon as Trump got elected, it was already going but it started booming again.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, I’ll tell you what that 2 or 3 weeks I’d say – no that 2 months preceding the 2016 election with Hillary vs Trump my phone didn’t ring. I called my web guy like him online, I mean is everything going good? Because it was cooking pretty good up till then. And then I started hearing from domestic outfitters, local people I knew around the country saying, hey, is your phone ringing I’m like no, it’s crickets and the day after trump got elected. Boom, business was good. But I’ve just seen – this COVID is just this thing we’re in right now, I think it’s going to affect different parts of our economy. I agree with you, Jeff. And you and I, you’re from Texas, I’m from Mississippi were among the 30, some odd states that are fixing to open back up and get things rolling again or so we hear so we think and know and I feel pretty confident we’ve actually been selling hunts for April, which is a very slow time of year for us. We’ve been selling hunts, the last couple of weeks. March was quiet, but not when the world was wondering, many people going to die and we’re going to be sheltered in place for the next 20 months. It got kind of quiet, but now it’s getting kind of normal as a business owner, I’m never relaxed about it. I mean, you’re a business owner, I’m a business owner, you always wait for the music stop or for something to change gears, you always not comfortable. But I do worry a little bit that economy was, oh boy, was it kick in the last couple of years. And I think it’s going to – I think between oil prices and in between how the interruption of employment revenues are going to disrupt probably the guys in their 20s and 30s, especially as compared to guys in their 50s, 60s, 70s, I think it’s going to be different. I think the next couple of years, it’s going to be tougher on some people than others, but it worries me. Last time the oil got real soft, like, well, I don’t ever remember being $11.5, $12 a barrel like it is today, we had a lot of our guys, a lot of our young people that are employed in energy in Texas and the Dakotas and elsewhere, they sat on the sidelines for a little bit. And I remember it hurting bad enough me saying I’ll pay $5 a gallon at the pump for the rest of my life because I see what all does this – we need strong oil.

Jeff Stanfield: Yeah, I’m I’ve got a lot more money in the bank, when gasoline was $4 a barrel. I mean, $4 a gallon. When they’re paying $4 a gallon at the pump, I’m making money.

Ramsey Russell: Everybody is. That’s just it. We pay $4, $5 a gallon at the pump. Yeah, I know it costs you more, but you’re making more. Man, the economy is good. People are employed. When you’re paying that much oil is $60 north of barrel, everybody’s got jobs, man, everybody’s working. So, they’re spending money on whatever excites them.

Jeff Stanfield: I would be nervous if I did. And we do a lot of dove business in September and October and I’m nervous to see how that’s going to go because people are going to have to make up their mind here pretty quick if they’re going to do some of those big corporate hunts that we do and what not. But the guys in Canada that are running hunts, they don’t know if the border is going to be open, they don’t know and I know those guys have got to be really worried right now and I talked about the guides up there and they’ve had all just its cancelation after cancelation right now up there.

Ramsey Russell: I’m hearing and seeing the same thing Jeff. We’re booking hunts but at the same time we’re booking some hunt for April we got the same thing going on. We’re probably going to have to defer 100% of our hunters from Argentina, Peru, New Zealand and Australia. Most of them through may have already been, but we’re probably at least through late June probably going to have to roll them all over into the 2021 books. We’ve already talked to a lot of them, we’ve already made plans for a lot of them as do hunters call up, we’re only selling 2021 hunts under the assumption that 2020 hunters are going to be there too. That way we make sure we’re not over packed, whatever like that. But I’m hearing and seeing it, it’s going to be interesting, it’s just going to be real interesting to see how this thing plays out. And I’m talking to local outfitters and I mean by local, somewhere in the US, but they’ve had some cancelations primarily from the 30 some odd year old demographic, but not just them, others too. Not knowing what their income stream is going to be later, not knowing what they’re going to do in terms of borders, right now, I still can’t get my mind wrapped around the fact that every human being I’ve ever known on earth, all those duck guides in Azerbaijan, all the hotel people there in Baku, the folks over in Romania, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa every human being on earth I know is sheltered in place right now.

Jeff Stanfield: Yeah, it’s crazy. Absolutely.

“And you go somewhere like Australia, which I love, I encourage everybody to go to Australia because I can promise you this, it’s not a matter of if, but when. Hunting is going to cease to exist in Australia because there’s so few hunters that they’re fighting like the last folks in the Alamo for every inch they get to hunt down there.”

Ramsey Russell: Every international border I’ve ever stepped across is sealed tighter than a frog’s rectum. No coming or going. And so we don’t know. And as we’ve talked to people about moving forward into Mexico, I mean, I think I’m pretty damn certain that January and February is going to be normal. But what if they’re not? So we’ve already started making contingencies and as we sell hunts and work with groups thinking forward in the future, we let them know that if COVID interrupts travel across borders, we’ll defer it. We’ll take care of it. That’s all you can do. But on the flip side for anybody listening – hey mom, but anybody else listening, I would say, it is scary and it is an unsettling time but especially here in the United States, I would take my chances. If you’re working with the right guys like Stanfield and like many others in this country, many good solid reputable outfitters that have been around and got the wheels on them and they’ve got a reputation, I think it may also be a good opportunity for some of your listeners Jeff or anybody else to – like some of these outfitters, I know usually this time of year, the falls are pretty darn book solid, well, now all of a sudden they got vacancies, here’s your chance to get your feet under the table. We need to – I don’t mean to get off in a preach mode. I don’t mean to be preachy about this, but I’m going to tell you all about traveling. What I see beyond the species and the food and the interesting things and the gypsies and things like that is hunting. And in a lot of respect it’s very hard for us to get our mind wrapped around as Americans that hunting is hanging by a thread. But it really kind of is. And you go somewhere like Australia, which I love, I encourage everybody to go to Australia because I can promise you this, it’s not a matter of if, but when. Hunting is going to cease to exist in Australia because there’s so few hunters that they’re fighting like the last folks in the Alamo for every inch they get to hunt down there. I know a lot of the guys working for Field and Game Australia, they are a valiant bunch. They fight to fight man, they do a good thing. But as I look at places like Netherlands and places like Australia especially, but even places like South Africa, South Africa. Other countries I see, hunting is hanging by a thread and what it really starts to boil down to is, what I call political relevance and political relevance is money. Politicians care about money, they care about revenues that care about taxes, that’s what motivates politicians and political people is money. And we’re fixing to find out, I’m afraid because of the supply chain disruption. A lot of country, a lot of companies in our industry, let alone the world, just think our little small hunting industry. They’re going to have make or break years this year. Because they may not get the products that they needed time to go to market and there may not be enough disposable income over here to buy that gear and likewise hunters too. And I know money’s tight, I know we all worked very hard for our income, but for every company, Quality Company out there selling merchandise or selling a hunting service in America that falls by the wayside, that’s one that’s another nail in the coffin for hunting in America. And I’ve seen it in other countries and I think we deceive ourselves just because trump is in office now, he’s not going to be in office forever. Sooner or later, we’re going to get one of those crazy democrats that want to get – Obama was one of them that wants to get rid of this stuff we’re doing. And if we don’t have political relevance and we don’t have enough people out there hunting enough outfitter delivering it, enough people selling merchandise to generate that political relevance, we’re in trouble. So anybody listening man, you’ve still got 2 nickels to rub together when you come out the other end of this thing, book a hunt, book a hunt with one of the good guys here in the US and continue to hunt and support these guys that are selling quality products out here, keep them in business. Same as the politicians are saying about, hey, support your local restaurants by going getting curbside service, don’t forget about hunting and fishing because it’s important to us, right?

Andy Shaver: And the good thing about – and Jeff and I have talked about this off air, the good thing whenever we do come out of this and like you said, if people still have 2 nickels to rub together after this quarantine bullshit, they’re going to want to get out of the house and they’re going to want to go fishing and they’re going to want to go hunting, so we have a good feeling about, if we come out of this relatively unscathed. In Texas, they’re saying May 1^st is kind of the day that things are going to go back to normal, if that’s true, I think we’ll be okay. Now, if this drags on into late July and early August, it might be a different story, especially for the duck hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Oh boy, that would be bad. If this thing – yeah, I’m with you all. I think that for the next 40 to 50 days we can start getting normal and getting parts of people get back to work. and that’s one thing about Americans, especially us, anybody you’re listening to – I heard you all’s guests last week or he asked, you all, how many democrats listen to you? I laughed and said, oh, it ain’t very many. Everybody that listens to your show, everybody that I do business with, they want to work. They just want to work. And right now, a lot of my clients, they want to travel just, they can’t travel, but they want to work because it’s what we do. So I do share you all’s optimism, maybe because I’m a duck hunter. I’m an eternal optimist. But I do believe that if they will ease off and let us get back to work and let us do what we want to do and work, I believe things are going to come back. And I think they’re probably going to be – I think they’re going to be pretty strong. Since I graduated high school, 4 major downturns in the economy, this wasn’t really one of them. This is like a big green COVID monster trying to hold the lid on a barrel fire and trying to snuff it out. And you got the democrats of course piling on top of them trying to snuff it out too. I think if this thing will go away, it’s going to be like that lid coming off and air hitting those ashes and it’s going to come roaring back and that’s what I think.

Jeff Stanfield: If somebody would have told you on February 1^st that every airline in America was grounded, every border was closed up, oil was going to sell below 0 today, trade below 0 and the unemployment rate would be 22% you would said bullshit. You’d have thought we had a nuclear attack or something to be at that.

Ramsey Russell: No, I could not have imagined that if I were a science fiction writer. There’s no way I could have made that up. Because we go to convention, January, February we’re wrapped up with a lot of big hunting shows and it wasn’t just that business was good, it’s like the attitude of people at those shows, it was more like walking into Mardi Gras than into a hunting show. It was crazy. The energy throughout the whole economy, record unemployment in America and everybody felt good and everybody I knew was doing good. So I don’t know, hopefully it’ll be like pulling a big stick out of spokes, the wheel starts spinning like, you all say by the first week of May and if it does, I think everybody will be okay, I really do. A few people may get weeded out and I’m thinking like some of these – I became aware of some businesses or maybe some young, very young and I love young outfitters, I love the energy that young outfitters bring, but you got to admit there was so much capital in the system, so much spending available, so maybe there was some outfitters, some businesses that got a late start in the party that maybe won’t be around afterwards, you know what I’m saying? Maybe they didn’t deliver enough value after this.

Andy Shaver: I think you’re right, I think a lot of people that are like, you know what, because we run into this being in business so long, we’ve had guys that have hunted with us and they’re like, we love you guys, but we just wanted to try something different and I think a lot of people are going to be like, we’re going to go with the safe bet this year, we’re going to go with a reputable outfitter rather than throwing a dart –

Ramsey Russell: Blue chip.

Andy Shaver: Because a lot of guys are like, you know, we’ll just throw a dart and that’s where we’re at for the years. It’s nothing against you guys, you guys run a top notch organization, but we just want to see something different. I think a lot of guys are going to go with a reputable outfitter and not throw a dart into the darkness hoping that they find a hidden gem somewhere.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, it’s like when things are as crazy economically as they were, that’s what a lot of your people day trade buy a bunch of crazy penny stocks, gambling. But when things are tough, that’s when they start going back to those blue chips and those solid vanilla ice cream investments and always bear fruit. A company like you all has been around for 28 years that’s blue chip. You got to be doing something right to be around that long, I guarantee you.

Andy Shaver: We just pulled the wool over everybody’s eyes. I don’t know what it is.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t believe, I know better. I’ve been in business now for about 20 years and there ain’t no – there’s no pulling wool over people’s eyes anymore. You can’t pull wool over nobody’s eyes, but one time and maybe the old shysters of yesteryear could do it, but not today. You’ve got social media, you’ve got to be accountable today. You’re held accountable because of social media. You either take care of those clients and you do good or your time in this business is a short lived.

Jeff Stanfield: Yeah, I hope things pick up pretty fast because I don’t want to have to be selling my ass on the corner, but if I do, I hope they’re paying me by the pound.

Andy Shaver: Jeff, will make a lot of money.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a good way of putting it.

Jeff Stanfield: Ramsey, we appreciate you being on here. We’d like to get you on here and again, about 3 months to tell some more stories. I love hearing about other countries hunting. How can people get ahold of you?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, people can get a hold of me at telephone number 601-214-9737 and I’m not Big Honker podcast, but you all come check out duck Season Somewhere, anywhere you get your podcast fixed.

Andy Shaver: How are you liking that? Are you liking the podcast? Are you liking the podcasting?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Look, are you kidding? I’m just like, you all, I like to talk. And on the end of note, I’ll tell you this, I really thought, this is crazy. I thought when I walked in my house on February 22^nd, I thought I was going to be home until April 23^rd that was the longest consecutive stretch of time I’ve been home in 4 or 5 years and I was looking forward to it. And I’m going to confess, I’ll bare my soul to you, I realized about a month ago, it wasn’t that I was in risk of burning out from all that travel, I was burned out man. And it’s not – I’ll never burn out sitting in a duck blind and laugh and cut duck, shoot ducks, I’ll never burn out doing that but the travel and the being gone and being gone and the travel. Consider this, I was home, I did not know my wife had this calendar, but I was home for about 16 days between September 1^st and February 22^nd. Come in from a show and turn around in 2 days and hit the road. Come in from the road, turn around and I don’t know, 2-5 days and hit the road. Come in from convention, I might get in from – well, I mean, coming from SCI and 10 hours later leave the house, head to Azerbaijan. You know what I’m saying? It’s just go. And right now I’m prayerful and mindful. I want this economy to get going, I want everybody to start making money, I want everybody to be happy and be safe. But in terms of me not traveling for another 3 or 4 more weeks, I can tough it out. I’m kind of happy to be parked right now, had the world not quit spinning, I wouldn’t quit moving and right now, I’m kind of happy not to be moved, just me personally. But doing that podcast has given me time to catch up and I enjoy that part. You can tell, I love talking to the story telling part. But anyway guys, I appreciate you all having me on here. I listened to your podcast, you all do a great job. And I listened to, it’s one of the few I listened to all the time. And I’m always honored to be here.

Andy Shaver: Coming from a man like you saying that you listen to our podcast, that means a lot. Coming from and with your credentials. So we really do appreciate it. We appreciate you coming and talking to us.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you Andy.

Jeff Stanfield: Ramsey, you have a great day sir, God bless you and we look forward to talking to you again.

Ramsey Russell: All right, Jeff. Adios man.

Jeff Stanfield: Thank you.

Andy Shaver: Ramsey Russell, ladies and gentlemen. That man has seen, he’s lived a life. He really had.

Jeff Stanfield: He was somebody that could do a book on. The things he’s seen, the countries, he was naming countries, I had to look them up on the map. I still can’t say, I don’t know Azerbaijan or -?

Andy Shaver: He’s a great guy though.

Jeff Stanfield: He is. And just nobody speak English around him. And that’s why I was – when he was telling that picture about the guy in the boat, I thought man that had been a cool picture.

Andy Shaver: I wouldn’t do good in circumstances like that. I didn’t do good going to Canada and everybody spoke the same language.

Jeff Stanfield: You’re too nervous, you would not make a world traveler like that. Sometimes you just got to go by your heels.

Andy Shaver: I can’t do it.

Jeff Stanfield: I know you can’t.

Andy Shaver: I can’t do it. I got to have everything out there.

Jeff Stanfield: I love their attitude. Will buy 2 bottles of whiskey here and if this looks shady, we’ll just go in the bar, drink there until it’s time to catch our flight out of here.

Andy Shaver: What a life he’s lived, but somebody’s got to live it man.

Jeff Stanfield: And it was a great one. I love having Ramsay on here, can’t wait to have him on here again. You all, I appreciate everyone listening, we’ll have another one out on Friday, on Friday morning, it’ll be just me and Andy talking some shit. So, look forward to hearing you all – Look forward to having you all listen to us. Thank you all, God bless you all and have a wonderful day.

 

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