Ramsey Russell – Hunting Ducks Across the Globe!
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On today’s episode, Elliott and I are joined by Ramsey Russell, GetDucks.com. We discuss everything from his Duck Hunting Travels and much, much more!
Jordan Fromer: Hey guys, I’m Jordan Fromer I believe in hunting hard, hunting smart and having a fun time while doing. And shooting limits well that’s just the icing on the cake. I revel in the journey just as much as the successes it brings. From ducks to dogs to decoys and guns we’ll be talking tactics, strategies and what it takes to get the job done. Load up and taking this is the Duck Gun Podcast. What’s going on folks, welcome to another episode of the Duck Gun Podcast real quick before we jump into it, let’s give a big thanks out to our partners first, I would like to give thanks to Gunner Kennels keeping man’s best friend and your best hunting companion. I know you’ve got a lot of friends you hunt with but let’s be real our dogs are best hunting companions bar none. So, make sure you get the kennel that is the best in the market 5 star crash test rating. The pattern is the double rotor molded walls on the kennel. These things are hefty heavy duty, all the time they’re posting testimonial videos and pictures of accidents where the dogs have survived the kennels, honestly have survived as well which is amazing. So like I said, a 5 star crash test rating and you got to do your best to keep man’s best friend protected and our dogs, the amount of work and time we put into them not only they are our best hunting companion, but they’re an investment as far as all the work we put into our dogs. So make sure to check out Gunner Kennels. And use code duckgun10 at checkout for 10% off.
Elliot: As if you’re like me, one of the things you do during the offseason is you make a few purchases that is going to upgrade your waterfowl hunting gear. If you’re looking to do that, I would suggest looking into an A frame, layout pad, a gun stand and all those things you’re going to find at HTR innovations. The product code is duck space gun, that’s capital DUCK GUN. And my favorite products probably, I know I love the layout pad, but that A frame now that I’ve started using one, I will never not have and A frame. So, if you’re looking to upgrade your gear. HDR innovations is where you want to go and check these things out.
Jordan Fromer: Also, we would like to give a big thanks out to our friends over at Banded. They’ve supported us in the podcast the whole last year and Elliot and I have been rocking a band gear all season long. And we can tell you that we are in love with their breathable 2.0 waiters. Once you get away from the neoprene, go to breathable, you’ll never be back. Stiff cold weather doesn’t affect them the same way. Not only that they’re just more flexible and as Elliot has pointed out many times in the most vain way possible, you look like a stud when you wear the breathable waiters compared to neoprene. So not only that, they got a ton of other gear pretty much anything you need as far as camo, decoys, dog training equipment over there at banded.com. So it’s Banded Avery and green head gear, so check them out. All right, let’s go ahead and jump right into the podcast. What’s going on folks, thanks for joining me on another episode of the Duck Gun Podcast. I’m Jordan from Duck Gun Chronicles. Got my co-host of co-host alongside me tonight, the freshly trimmed bearded man, Elliott from Freelance Duck Hunting. How are you doing tonight, Elliot?
Elliot: I just got – you’re right. I just got done with my first COVID-19 wife haircut. She didn’t do too bad. Look at that, not bad.
Jordan Fromer: Oh yeah, I think it looks better than when you do it.
Elliot: I have never done it.
Jordan Fromer: What do you mean? Oh, you get it at a barber, right?
Elliot: Yeah. My barber Sam, Sam is a girl. And I’ll tell you, my mom told me though – my mom’s not really happy with how it’s longer on the chin and she was talking trash about it. She’s like and that Jordan’s wife just needs to talk to him about that beard.
Jordan Fromer: Believe me she does more than I would like to admit.
Elliot: I’m like Jordan likes this beard, it’s cool, let it go. I thought it was funny though.
Jordan Fromer: My wife keeps threatening me saying that she’s going to cut it in my sleep.
Elliot: So she really wants you to cut it?
Jordan Fromer: Usually it’s like after like pokes her in the face or something or like –
Elliot: Yeah.
Jordan Fromer: You’re going for the hug and its statues gets a face full of beard.
Elliot: Well, the thing I like about yours though is that it’s trim around your mouth and it’s normally not right now, but normally it’s short on the sides and it’s just everything under the chin so I could handle something like that. I can’t handle it when it’s all over my mouth. We talked about that last time. So, I could handle yours if I wanted to go that route.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. Well, we’ll see how long it lasts. But, well we’ll see. I might be trimming it up at some point. So, just don’t tell my wife yet. I don’t want her to get excited because it’s like a commitment issue, it’s like that.
Elliot: Yeah, if you were to trim it – I was watching old videos of yours that day, I don’t watch a ton of but I went back I was watching some old ones and your beard was shorter than mine is now on some of them.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: It was pretty short. There was a lot of that old stuff that I haven’t seen, I didn’t realize.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. I don’t know, if I’ll go back that short, but we’ll see.
Elliot: Yeah, just a little trim. So I don’t even know what it is we’re talking about today. Normally we chit chat and stuff when we get on and we get on the phone now, it’s like bam we’re rolling. Here we go. I don’t know, what we are talking about.
“So wife’s vehicles in the shop and so she’s driving my truck, I’m working from home right now just because I had operation a couple of weeks ago, so ever since then I’ve been working from home non-essential work you got to do it at home.”
Jordan Fromer: We’re shooting from the hip tonight. But man, it was a hectic day getting to hear him. And so here’s the story for you and I don’t know how much my wife would appreciate me sharing this story, but you know what? Going for it anyway. So wife’s vehicles in the shop and so she’s driving my truck, I’m working from home right now just because I had operation a couple of weeks ago, so ever since then I’ve been working from home non-essential work you got to do it at home. But anyways, so she’s driving my truck and I’m actually standing on the porch when she gets home today and man, she just comes flying up the driveway. I’m like what is going on? And she jumps out of the truck and starts walking in the house. And like as soon as she open the door, I get a whiff of something. And she had gotten sick like –
Elliot: Did she crapped her pants?
Jordan Fromer: No.
Elliot: Oh dang it.
Jordan Fromer: A dream come true for you, for anybody crapped their pants. No, she gets these really bad headaches and it’s not like the first time it happened and then she gets nauseous. But I don’t know if it was like driving the vehicle and shaking too but she tossed the cookies right in the duck truck.
Elliot: Oh, no.
Jordan Fromer: It was like on the seat on the floor board splash upon the spin –
Elliot: Why couldn’t she get the window down that had to go through your mind? Why didn’t you get the window down?
Jordan Fromer: I haven’t had time to ask her yet. So, since then I’ve just been taking care of Brooke, letting her take it easy, she actually just slept for like a few hours pretty much right up until the podcast now.
Elliot: Is the truck cleaned up?
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, she just cleaned it up.
Elliot: You still made her clean it up.
Jordan Fromer: I offered to clean it up, I said hey – she said she was going to clean it up and she’s like, I know you don’t want to, I’m like well I know you don’t want to either right now. And I’m like where does it need cleaned up? I’m just like, I’m trying to ask her in the nicest way, like how was the truck?
Elliot: Yeah, I don’t remember as your interior vinyl or is it cloth?
Jordan Fromer: No, it’s leather. So yeah, it comes out, everything came off good.
Elliot: Thank God that wasn’t some kind of cloth.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. Just driving around the duck truck every time you get in you get a swift whiff of puke, that’d be great.
Elliot: Poor Heather.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. So, I mean she’s feeling better now. Actually just ran to the store right before the podcast and got her sprite and try to help ease the stomach back into it.
Elliot: It’s been a rough time at the old Jordan now. Forgetting your last name – Fromer household.
Jordan Fromer: Oh well, it’s part of life, right?
Elliot: Yeah, it happens for sure.
Jordan Fromer: It’s all this quarantine everybody being cooped up and everything, so quarantine is getting to everybody.
Elliot: Yeah, I’m loving the quarantine still accept that we’re burning so much brush and stuff out here. And I’ve already had 2 back surgeries and I did so much picking up stuff that I wrenched my back and I’ve been out of commission for the last couple of days that kind of sucks because it’s so nice weather and we’re doing so much work out here just getting the place looking nicer. But I’m kind of out of commission.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, well I guess that’ll do it.
“I’ve always kind of hated manual labor, but it’s like what I’ve realized with myself and it’s this way with everything in my life. If I don’t want to do something, I’m not motivated, I’m like the laziest person in the world but if I’m motivated to do something, there’s nothing lazy about me.”
Elliot: I’ve always kind of hated manual labor, but it’s like what I’ve realized with myself and it’s this way with everything in my life. If I don’t want to do something, I’m not motivated, I’m like the laziest person in the world but if I’m motivated to do something, there’s nothing lazy about me. So, it’s like working around. Since we moved out in the country in September there’s so much we can do out here with chainsaws and just to make the place look cooler. And I’m so motivated to do that, it’s like that and waterfowl hunting are the 2 things that it’s like there’s no laziness involved, but if I don’t want to do it. Oh my gosh.
Jordan Fromer: No, I hear you. It’s like the difference between like, if you want to work on getting your duck boat ready or something or like rushing in your blind, which normally don’t want to do it. But like when it comes time to do it man, it’s like you can get gun hold about that. But it’s like I don’t want to mow the grass, not really.
Elliot: No, I hear you. But we’ve been having a great time out here getting things done.
Jordan Fromer: Awesome. Nothing like getting that in the off season because you won’t have time once duck season comes around.
Elliot: I know.
Jordan Fromer: That’s always in my mind.
Elliot: Unless we have a second inflow of COVID around, September 15th through about Thanksgiving.
Jordan Fromer: Elliot you can’t hope for those kind of things.
Elliot: I never said that I hoped. I never said that I hoped that. I said if, I didn’t say I hope.
Jordan Fromer: I know. But –
Elliot: Just saying if.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, okay.
Elliot: Well, here is the scenario that we could be looking at. Okay, all right, so they open up all businesses, right? And then everything’s going great. The economy takes back off. Everything’s wonderful, but COVID kind of starts rearing its head, August early September. So they decide, hey, you know what? I really think for the next couple of months we should just elementary schools, we should have them stay at home and do virtual learning. So, everything’s perfect except they just protect the Children.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: And then I’m off for September and October, November, how about that?
Jordan Fromer: Well, I guess you found a way for it to happen and be guilt free.
Elliot: I would like one duck season or I didn’t have to work. Oh my gosh.
Jordan Fromer: I mean, your dad’s there he’s retired.
Elliot: Yeah, he is.
Jordan Fromer: That’s the dream.
Elliot: That’s the deal with me.
Jordan Fromer: I’m just saying. I mean it’s not – yeah.
Elliot: So, you’re saying in 30 years I might achieve that goal?
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, that’s probably for all of us, right?
Elliot: Of course he retired. I’m eligible to retire at 59, which is 13 years from now. But being eligible to retire and being financially able to retire are 2 different things.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, that’s what the thing about life, right? You work your whole life, save up all your money so you can retire and then you’re so old, you can’t do anything.
Elliot: Yeah. But it’s a good life. I shouldn’t complain, I’ve got a good life, got a good everything. I mean, I’ve got so many blessings in my life, I shouldn’t complain. It’s hard not to be like that. Like we move out to this place here in September and I just love it, right? I mean, I am so happy out of this place and then we take walks down the road and you start looking at the other houses and if you’re not careful, you start man, I wish I could live in that house. It’s like as soon as you get something, you’ve got to fight that bug of what I want now and not being content with what you’ve got. So, that’s when I when I feel those emotions. I’ll say it verbally to my wife, I’m like okay. It’s ok to say wouldn’t that be great? It’s just where’s your heart at with it. You know what I mean?
“Yeah. Now, like you said, it’s easy to fall in that like one thing I used to do a lot and I think, is it definitely – it’s a negative kind of practice. It’s like anytime you see like a huge power ball, lottery winning, you’re like man, this is what I would do with all that.”
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. Now, like you said, it’s easy to fall in that like one thing I used to do a lot and I think, is it definitely – it’s a negative kind of practice. It’s like anytime you see like a huge power ball, lottery winning, you’re like man, this is what I would do with all that. This is what I would do like buy this and do that and buy this and invest in that and buy this and be set for life and it’s like any time I see that, that’s the kind of mind-set. But it’s like unrealistic, somebody’s going to win.
Elliot: It’s okay to dream. I think, it’s just where’s your heart going to lie on it.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: Do you buy lottery tickets by the way?
Jordan Fromer: I don’t. Like once or twice when I was younger, I just think because the fact he could one of my buddies was like, well let’s go buy some lottery tickets and I’m like okay.
“What I think is the stupidest thing and it’s just – so we’re talking about sheep last week, this is totally sheep baby, right? So let’s say the lotteries at 10 million or 10 billion or I don’t really pay attention to it, I don’t know, but it’s normal, crazy astronomical amount you could win.”
Elliot: What I think is the stupidest thing and it’s just – so we’re talking about sheep last week, this is totally sheep baby, right? So let’s say the lotteries at 10 million or 10 billion or I don’t really pay attention to it, I don’t know, but it’s normal, crazy astronomical amount you could win. But then no one wins it for a while and it’ll go from like, 50 million to 100 million or 100 million to a billion, I don’t know what the difference is. And then all of a sudden everyone is running out and buying these things, right? Everyone’s talking about everyone’s buying, I’m like what in the world is the difference in my life between 100 million and 200 million? I mean it’s both like just filthy rich. It’s like I’m not going to buy those dumb things when it’s at a 100 million, I’m not going to run out and buy it because it’s gone to 200 million it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it’s so much money, it’s stupid how people are like, Oh, I wouldn’t buy a lottery ticket of 100 million, but 200 million, let’s all go in. It’s like come on its stupid, you’re not going to win.
Jordan Fromer: That’s like the people that only hunt when there’s a lot of birds.
Elliot: Yeah, I think you’ve got some of those people in your life I’ve heard.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, mostly the guys out in Kansas.
Elliot: No. I’ll tell you it’s a matter of how excited I am when I go on that hunt.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. I mean you really don’t have to worry about that out in Kansas though because you just have a lot of birds all year around.
Elliot: Did you watch season 1 and season 2. It was pretty bad. But yeah, that’s rare. We do pretty well. I’m blessed by the state, I’m blessed by it. It’s a wonderful state. I wish that I had more time to do upland game hunting honestly I’ve been thinking about that lately. Someone asked me on Instagram about if I would ever upland game hunting, I just started thinking about upland game hunting in the past we used to hunt over Brittany, springer spaniels or not Springer spaniels with Brittany Springer I think the springer. Anyway, they are awesome little pointing dog and I miss upland hunting. I really do.
Jordan Fromer: You know Georgia will be great at that.
Elliot: Should be great at flushing.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, it’s still fun to have a flusher.
Elliot: I know it is, but it’s like I have to just hunt every pretty much every chance I get to get in my 30 hunts in a year and I am not going to sacrifice a waterfowl hunt for an upland game hunt because in my part of the story –
Jordan Fromer: When went out though and the flyways collective there was so many pheasants and in the next weekend would have been an opener and there’s like – I mean, I remember on the day we hunted with Titus in the A frame and I heard one and then I heard another one, I looked behind us and it was like the sun was just like cresting over the hill and I see this pheasant, it was like picturesque going across right behind us, I mean like probably like 75 yards and it just flew over that little island we’re sitting on. Do you want me to say which wildlife area was that?
Elliot: Rather you didn’t.
Jordan Fromer: But I mean it literally was like with the sun behind it and it landed right there. I’m like, if it was pheasant season I could have got chief went over there, he would have flushed it and I would have killed, it would have been so cool. It’s like things like that or places like that, it’s like you could do like combo where you hunt like in the morning where it’s super-hot and then like go try to kill a few pheasant maybe just one or two that make my day. I mean I don’t know about you but –
Elliot: No, that’s true. Actually the last time that I tried to pheasant hunt was out at that same area and we walked one field didn’t flush anything and we hadn’t shot our limit that morning and I just like come on let’s go duck hunt. I don’t know, when there’s waterfowl in the area, I’m just laser focused. Now, if I knew some quick draws to hunt, I certainly would do that. But out there, those places where you’re seeing those, those are not easy walk, since it’s really thick visitation and that’s hard hunting in there.
Jordan Fromer: I mean there’s a lot of bird in there because I remember when I was trying to get chief, we had landed a couple mallards on the other side and he kept getting super birdie and I knew he wasn’t on the mallard and I’m like he has to be on pheasant scent because there’s so many pheasants out there and he was like so excited because he loves pheasant hunting. We’ve done it, put and take, the farm style because we don’t have wild pheasant. But I couldn’t get him to – I’m like there’s no bird there, I know what you’re trying to go for chief, let’s get back over here where the mallards down. So I know there’s got to be some around where you can get to.
Elliot: Yeah, I’m sure you’re probably right. I don’t go that direction that far into the state normally during pheasant season.
Jordan Fromer: That’s true.
Elliot: It’s typically teal and stuff. So in fact that day after you’re talking about Thomas had a pheasant we’re standing beside each other, just come and take his head off. I mean it was –
Jordan Fromer: Oh we saw him all day, he had that one fly straight across the creek or river, whatever you want to call that. It was probably creek, right?
Elliot: Yeah.
Jordan Fromer: It flew right across straight at him and he could have killed it.
“Yeah, I certainly would like to do. Maybe you’ll visit this year we should meet up out there and plan a 2-3 day hunt and camp like in November or something and put that on our checklist.”
Elliot: Yeah, I certainly would like to do. Maybe you’ll visit this year we should meet up out there and plan a 2-3 day hunt and camp like in November or something and put that on our checklist.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, that would be a very tempting.
Elliot: Because you were talking to coming around Kansas maybe a little bit more in that late November zone or December. I think you were saying, weren’t you? That you were going to come a little earlier?
Jordan Fromer: I can’t remember to be honest, what I say.
Elliot: When you’re here last time you’re like, because you typically 2 years ago you’ve come in late January, so you were talking about coming when there was no ice so we can hunt marshes and stuff like that.
“I mean I would like to hunt there all year if I could. There’s so many different ways to think about how to do it as far as to get what you want because it’s like, I would love getting the multi species that you kind of get in the late October part of the season.”
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. No, I would like. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean I would like to hunt there all year if I could. There’s so many different ways to think about how to do it as far as to get what you want because it’s like, I would love getting the multi species that you kind of get in the late October part of the season. But also I’d love to come when you’re pheasant seasons in and get on some wild pheasant because that’s kind of like a goal mine, I’ve never shot a wild one. And usually the reason I come in January is because I’ve burned all my days up and all, the year refreshes and you have your new vacation days. And then to my duck season has been out for usually about 3 weeks, I’m really getting the itch. So, that’s kind of how that all comes about. But there’s not really bad time to come in on thinking.
Elliot: I certainly would like to do. I would like to get back out and do some upland, it’s just a matter of – if I had a lot more time off I would certainly. And my uncle owns a farm in central Kansas and my cousin’s still up and hunts there sometimes.
Jordan Fromer: There you go, that’s your golden ticket.
Elliot: Yeah.
Jordan Fromer: Speaking of different types of hunting. So, tomorrow is Indiana Turkey Season, it’s the opener. So, I told you my surgery is tomorrow, right?
Elliot: Yeah, not good timing.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, so I went out and scouted this morning for Turkey, so me and my dad went out. So, here I think I need to jump a little head to make this makes sense because my surgery is at noon and I got to be to the hospital by 9:30 and shooting light is at 6:30.
Elliot: Are you really going to do it?
Jordan Fromer: Yep, I’m all packed up. I’m all ready to go.
Elliot: oh man, you stuck.
Jordan Fromer: I got like 2 hours or less to bring a smack down on a gobbler, so that’s the plan. So we went out and so first thing happened, I called up the farmer where I’ve been going for the last 3 or 4 years just to kind of double check, hey can I still turkey hunt out there? And he’s like yeah, go ahead. That’s fine, go out to that field. Oh by the way, my son’s going to hunt that field too, it’s like, so what you’re saying is I can hunt it, but like there’s going to be 2 people in there. So that was kind of like my plan A because every year when I go out there we see turkeys, hunters shot one there, there’s always tons of jakes there, my dad shot one there. So like with the surgery and not knowing kind of how I’m going to be after. I’m like, I’m going to shoot. I’m out there to fill my tag pretty much. I’m not going to be picky, I’m getting out there for a fun hunt and all that. So anyways, that was plan A that kind of got shut down by him saying that his son’s going to hunt there. And I don’t want to be in the same field because either one of us is going to screw up the other, you know what I mean? And I don’t think his sons ever turkey hunted. So now we’ve got like someone who’s never turkey hunted in the field and supposedly he’s going to have a call that you know what I mean? You have no idea what’s going to happen. He could just start like screeching like trying to do his box caller or whatever maybe it’s terrible and he just scares the birds away and I’m like I got one shot, so I’m not going to go there. So, I really have 3 properties I can hunt. And one of them is the farm where the hunting holes on where I have access through. But he lets a lot of people hunt out there. So my dad actually went out there the day before, sat in the truck and listened and he said he heard two gobblers. So we went out there this morning, checked it out and someone was already there scouting. So it’s like okay, we’ve got this other farm and it’s a big farm but still it really can hold maybe 2 groups and that’s it out there you’re just sitting in the 2 different fields on the opposite side of the lane. But we get out there were scouting towards where he heard them and we see the guys out there too and so they’re looking to set up the same way, so we ended up talking to them and they’re like yeah, we’re actually out here last night and we saw another group scouting and they said they were sitting on the other side of the lane, so we’re scouting on this side of the lane and so it’s like, all right, we’ll have at it, we’re out of here. So scout number – so that’s Plan B was a bust. So we start driving, I have one of the last place to go scout and check out, it’s where I shot my Jake last year where I crawled through the woods. I’m a belly, got right up there and shot at Jake. So that was plan C because it’s never really produced in the morning anytime I’ve gone out there, I’ve never shot anything in the morning. The only time I ever shot anything actually was that Jake. And they always come through there, it seems like they walked through there in the evening and if you’re just kind of in the path you can get them. So I’m like, I don’t have any hope but we need to go look at this and see if by chance there’s any there. So, we’re driving into this field and it’s actually like 2 miles away from the other farmer whose son was something in the field, so we almost get there and we’re about three miles away and all of a sudden we see just this huge flock of turkey. I mean huge for Indiana standards. And it was 16 turkeys with 6 toms and they are big like big boss toms. They all had the long like 10 or 11 inch beard and all that and so they’re all just standing right by the edge of the road. So I get up real quick on X and look and lo and behold it is the farmer whose sons hunting in the other field, it’s his property.
Elliot: Beautiful.
Jordan Fromer: I know. I’m like, yes, like this might be exactly what we need. So call them up and he told me, I just gave permission somebody else on that field.
Elliot: Oh my gosh, 0 for 3.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. So I’m like shoot. So we ended up going checking out the last field and we were driving by and we’re going through the gravel road and looking through the field and I don’t see them at first looking and actually my dad spots them. He’s like, oh there’s some turkey riding on the crest of the hill. And sure enough there was and so we look and then we have to drive on the other side of the road get a little closer again, we look and it’s 6 hens. It’s like, you got to be kidding me. So, we’re actually about to leave, we actually go, we pull UAV and go by another field, come back and no joke 2 toms they walk across the road while we’re gone and into that field. So, this was about 8:00 or I think it was 8:05 when we saw him in the field. And so like I said, shooting time is at 6:30 and my cut off is 8:30. So if these turkeys are like a little late tomorrow, then that’s where we’re going. So, if they’re late like 8:30, I’m going to have to leave because I got to get to the hospital for my surgery.
Elliot: Well, hopefully you’ll get one. Obviously you’re making a video, you have to go clear into the surgery with the video wear you’re GoPro during the surgery.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, I’ll try. I’ll see what they say. I’ll be like, I’m trying to document this. Is this all right?
Elliot: Well, I hope you get one tomorrow.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. Now, the perfect scenario would be both those come in there about 8:00 me and dad are sitting in the blind and we double up and so the weird or the funny thing is last year when I went out there, I don’t know if you remember watching the video or not, but there’s this big tom with a flock of turkeys and there was 3 jakes with them and I had to belly crawl in there, I kept calling and Belly crawled, then I called a little bit and belly crawl and I got to about 30 yards to the edge of the woods and I could see him. And finally all the Turkeys walked in the woods towards me. I just laid down on my belly in the woods and the whole flock of Turkey just walked, they all walked towards me. And it’s so thick in there, I couldn’t keep my eye on the tom and so I know he was somewhere in the woods next to me, but I was just sitting there. It was the last day, like last hour of turkey season and I hadn’t closed the deal yet. And I had those 3 jakes, they’re just standing there and they’re literally – we’re like eye to eye like 10 yards and they’re just like moving their head side to side. They’re looking, they can see something laying there that they don’t know what it is, but they know it’s something. And I’m like, you know what? It’s the last day, the last hour, I’ve hunted hard this season and I don’t want to eat my tag, so I pulled up and shot one. One of the 3 jakes. So the 2 turkeys that are in there, I’m almost positive they’re the 2 jakes from last year because they have the full long beard that like a very mature tom has, it’s like a 5 or 6 inch that’s curving over just a little droop to it. I’m like those are probably the 2 toms from last year.
Elliot: Well, you got a decent shot at getting one then tomorrow.
Jordan Fromer: I feel okay about it, yeah. So I don’t know either way it’ll be fun. My 2 hours it’s kind of feels intense. You got your 2 hour challenge going for the turkey.
Elliot: So, you guys out your seasonal open for like 7 days, right?
Jordan Fromer: No, it’s 2 weeks.
Elliot: 2 weeks. Okay. So you could still get in a few hunts on the back end.
Jordan Fromer: I’m hoping so. I’m hoping that I can get that last weekend or something.
Elliot: I bet you will.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, that’s my story.
Elliot: Well, I have done no preparations for turkey hunting whatsoever. So I don’t think it’s going to happen this year.
Jordan Fromer: I thought you said you were going with Aidan.
Elliot: Well, I was supposed to go with Aidan and that was this past weekend but then my nephew was getting married but it got cancelled. So, I didn’t think I had any obligations but then my sister made this thing where everyone’s got to drive by and honk and hold signs and stuff at their house. So I kind of – I couldn’t really – I tried to get out of that but then I talked to her on the phone and I could tell us something I needed to attend.
Jordan Fromer: That’s a portrait for turkey hunting.
Elliot: Yeah, 2 hour drive. But it was actually pretty cool to – they came out and like danced in the street with everyone their friends was standing around at a distance and everything to support them and stuff. So it was actually pretty cool. But we’re supposed to go back to Central Kansas and I could still do that if I wanted to. I mean it’s still open so I don’t know, I need to talk to Aidan and see that’s what I need. I need a partner that does the scouting that just wants me to go along. I wouldn’t even have to shoot them. I would like to just go and film it. I’m doing so much stuff around here and my motivation is not the same as waterfowl and so, I don’t really have any flocks located. I know some areas on public land but I just don’t have the motivation to really get out and dig into it.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: It’s just doesn’t quack.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. Now, I hear you.
Elliot: I wish, I wasn’t like that so much. But waterfowl just does it. It’s just waterfowl that’s all I can think about.
Jordan Fromer: Sounds like you’re getting a little bit of duck depression finally.
Elliot: Yeah, I’ve been watching more videos and I’m missing it pretty good.
Jordan Fromer: So I’ve been editing, so I had a few videos I didn’t get to last year just because like you said, our schedule is just intense going through duck season getting out all the videos. And I can’t remember this year I had my record for a number of videos I put out in a season. I think it was somewhere around like 34 or somewhere in the low 30. So anyways like I said that’s a lot of content to get out but I ended up missing like 3 or 4 hunts that normally would have posted just because going on trips trying to stand time schedule and all that and staying in line with all the flyways guides when we went out to the flyways collective. But it’s kind of funny because that’s really the thing that kind of tripped me up on the duck depression because I’m watching hunts of my favorite places, birds zipping around and they’re just dropping and chief making retrieves and I’m like that’s when you start missing or you see like a bird coming and just perfect and it’s just like you get the same like excitement level except for you’re not there. And everyone’s like dang. Yeah, I’m ready for that again.
Elliot: Yeah, me too. It helps working Georgie so much that it’s really fun to do that. And I’ve been going through my old videos and just pulling out highlights because I’m going to make like a early season, mid-season and late season highlight videos. I’ve got a whole list of videos I’m going to make trying to do it more like you did last year where August is a bunch of videos and so I’ve been working on that and watching the videos and editing them and stuff. So, I’m certainly getting back in the – I’m missing it.
Jordan Fromer: Getting back in the swing. I think we said this last year too, but we need to have a tally or like – not a tally, but a countdown like when we start the podcast, it should be like it’s March 21st and we have 190 days till Duck season or whatever it is.
Elliot: For real.
Jordan Fromer: So, I’m not sure what that number is. But it’s not anytime soon, that’s for sure.
Elliot: Not anytime soon. It’ll come faster and I got a lot of fun things between here and there. I’m sure you do too.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, I’m trying to count now. What are we looking at like 4 months and 10 days or something like that?
Elliot: Yeah, my mind would be – I think my guess is waterfowl early teal. Trying to see, I haven’t looked at the dates but let me peek at it real quick. June or I guess September, I’m guessing early teal will be on the 12th second weekend of September is my guess.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: And so about 4.5 months.
Jordan Fromer: It’s a long time away. So, I haven’t been able to do my dog training here lately just because the operation now the surgery. But also I shouldn’t say I couldn’t, because I could do it in my backyard but it’s like I got spoiled started going to the HRC events and it just feels like the yard work that I do is so small compared to the stuff I got to do with them with the live birds and running super long blinds and now it’s like I have lost – it’s almost like spoiled me to like regular backyard training. Like it’s ruined that for me. So I need to get my mind right, I’m like I’m just going to have to do in the backyard until we can start meeting again in June or whenever it will be. So it’s definitely putting a big damper on what I thought I was going to be able to accomplish this year. So I don’t know, I just got to get my mind right and get back into the steps of doing it by myself because I’ve been not working at it like I should be.
Elliot: What is your number one goal for chief for next year? Do you have one?
Jordan Fromer: No, I don’t really. I mean, I just have the list of things. I mean I want to get them to stop breaking. And I want them to do lines without cheating. Like blinds out to like 100 yards or something. And then there being able to whistle sit in hand signals. So if I can do that, I’ll be golden.
Elliot: When you say without cheating, what do you mean by that?
Jordan Fromer: Oh, I guess staying on the line even when it comes to water like, you know how they’re not supposed to like cheat the bank or whatever –
Elliot: Yeah, got you.
Jordan Fromer: You’re supposed to go straight the whole time. But I mean he cheats banks hard. If he doesn’t go the full distance, he’s just started to where it’s somewhere where he’s confident like in a flat field he will run out. I mean close to probably passed 100 yards on a blind. But if there’s a bunch of brush and all that, like he’s cheating all over the place not breaking through the brush line and all that kind of stuff. So it’s kind of getting past that and I think that’s just repetition and a confidence thing.
Elliot: Now, if he’s doing that and running the bank, how do you break that? What’s the steps to break it?
Jordan Fromer: I don’t know for sure. I know that you can use like a long line to help get on this line and force them instead of like going along the bank to pull them to make them go through the water. And same thing if you’re going through brush, like a lot of guys I’ve seen, so again I don’t know, I’m not the expert. But I’ve seen like if their dog is supposed to be going on a line because they’ll do blinds and the goal is not to have like a bunch of hand signals. Like even in the test you’re only allowed a certain amount of handles. So, but when we’re just out there practicing to make them, to force them to go, the whistle sit them, make them whistle sit and push them through that brush, hand signal through it and trying to get them to force to go through that brush instead of cheating around it. If there’s like a big clump of weeds or whatever because if you’re sending them on a line, that bird could be right in those weeds and if they just cheat around it, they’ll miss it. So,
Elliot: Yeah. So in the pond back to what you said about backyard training? I was just thinking today how fortunate I am to have made this move because my last house was in town, I just had backyard. But out here it’s like I step out my back door, you go 50 yards and there’s our pond right there, it’s not big, but it’s big enough to do any water work I want to do out there and then up past our property there’s a huge field, it’s not ours but we can train back there. So I’m so fortunate to be able to have those things. I don’t know how I would do the same things I’m doing with her if I lived in my last house. And so with the pond work the other day, I was talking to my dad about this. There’s times that she goes out, I throw the dummy in, she goes out and gets it and by the time she goes out and gets it, she’s closer to the far bank. So she’s swimming, getting out of the bank running back. Now, I know they’re not supposed to do that. I’m not sure why. I mean if it’s faster for her, if she’s right by the bank right there where it’s like 10 yards and she can swim 10 yards and then run back to me, versus swimming 50 yards back to me. Why do people want them – I understand going out, but why do they want them doing a straight on the way back? If the dog has a faster way of doing it.
Jordan Fromer: I just think that there’s too many situations where it’s not going to be that cut and dry and I think that becomes a habit because it used to be the same way with chief when he was young. If he was at the other side of the bank, he didn’t want to swim back, he wanted to get out in the bank and sometimes he couldn’t even get back, so it would be his habit. He would grab it, he’d go to the nearest bank and go over there and it’s like a river you have to come back across and then he’s over there struggling to find a way back and you can’t. And then I’ve had even worries doing that running back and forth. He drops the bird and then I finally get him back, in the water coming back, well, now he doesn’t have the bird. So it’s like that’s some of the young mistakes that he and I made together. But I just think that’s part of it. There’s too many kind of unknowns because like you think about the places you hunt compared to your backyard pond if they’re going to the close bank as a habit, instead of swimming back, I mean for me I can’t think of a scenario where it’s going to be quicker for them to get on the other side of the bank and run back most of the time, that’s going to be a hindrance and then you lose track of your dog. You just want to back as quick as possible. And I think in a hunting scenario that 90% of the time that’s going to be the case where that’s the quickest way back and also you’re not going to lose sight of your dog, you’re not going to lose sight of the bird, your dog’s holding, which they shouldn’t be dropping anyway. But that does happen especially going through the brush. And then maybe you shoot a burden now you don’t know where they dropped it to even send them back to get it. And there’s just so many, I think scenarios where you could run into issues. But again, I’m not a pro, I’m just kind of thinking about it and for me I’ve always made them come back. Once I ran into a few of those issues to start with.
Elliot: Well, what I had decided in talking to my dad is that for the time being I would just be careful where I threw the retrieves at, so she wasn’t tempted to do it because it’s at this stage in her development I don’t have anything in the repertoire to stop her from doing that. So I’m just going to –
Jordan Fromer: Can you get to a place where you have the long line and it’s just like a few times of doing it. Like it really, I mean chief figured it out really quick and for me, I used the E-collar. He would go to the other bank and I’d be like here and he’d start keep swimming the other way here and then you give him the correction with the E-collar and real quick. He’s like, oh that means come back and as soon as he learned it, we almost never had it again. It was like maybe 2 or 3 times max and then he never did it again.
Elliot: Well, after talking to Chris Jobb in last week and you guys haven’t listened to this and you haven’t heard our podcast with Chris Jobb and then we did about an hour on E-collar was fascinating. I thought it was just fascinating stuff.
Jordan Fromer: Well, then they’ll probably hear it before. They probably listened to it before this one.
Elliot: Yeah, probably so. But I’m a little reluctant too because Georgie is technically still in the E-collar training, so I’m a little reluctant just to start nailing her for every single thing. I think she’s doing wrong because I just want to make sure that she’s fully understanding, you know what I’m telling her to do and not telling her to do.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, you’re right.
Elliot: I’m a little reluctant just to go crazy happy on that. But I guess to give the listeners a little bit of an update since we had Chris on. Chris was saying that I needed to go back and clean some things up in my E-collar training and build mental toughness through, running her through all cycles of the shock collar because I was just using 3 and hadn’t even hardly gone above a 3 and Chris was saying, I need to condition her to 4 or 5 as high as she’ll go build mental toughness and be able to stop her in her tracks when she’s maybe chasing a rabbit into the street or breaking into the decoys before people have shot of those kind of things. So I’ve gone back and done that and it’s gone – I can’t imagine it have gone any more successful than it’s gone. I mean I’ve taken a clip up to a 7 which is the highest setting and then back to a 3 on multiple things here, he’ll place and I mean she’s handling all of that stimulus great. She’s not once tried to break on me like Chris was saying sometimes they’ll try to flee. And she’s showing a little bit of stress through some of it, which I think is from what Chris said, I think getting to the point where she’s dealing with some stress is probably is a good thing. A little bit of teeth chattering where I can just tell she’s feeling stressed from the situation but she’s still being very compliant to every command that I’ve given her and doing what I’ve asked her to do. And then I made that short video and sent it to Chris to show him my session because he wanted that and I sent that same feedback to you which she was – I felt pretty encouraged about it. Because what I got from it was you’re doing good, it’s just sloppy. And if he feels like okay, he’s on the right track, he’s doing good, it’s just a little bit sloppy from a pro trainer of course it’s going to be a little sloppy for me but through that went back and I’ve tried to clean up, she was jumping on me a little too much and Chris didn’t like how she wasn’t quite screwed up on her healing so I’ve been working hard on that stuff and everything’s going great with it. I’m really happy with where we’re at.
Jordan Fromer: Awesome. Yeah, that’s great to hear.
Elliot: My mom’s pounding on my window and smiling at me, I’m like stop it. It’s not funny, it’s a podcast mom. It’s her birthday today, it’s my mom’s birthday. As far as she’s pounding on the window, there’s cake out there in the other room, that’s probably why she’s pounding on the window. She wants her cake.
Jordan Fromer: Trying to get you to get to the cake. They have to wait for you?
Elliot: They don’t have to but then I heard my wife said they were going to.
Jordan Fromer: There you go. Well, make sure you let chicken pot pie, I wish her a happy birthday.
Elliot: I totally forgot about that nickname, I need to get that going again. She’s a sweet lady.
Jordan Fromer: See, I’m not around your family enough to know that the nicknames go in and out. I know they’re going in and out of style with you.
Elliot: Well, it depends on the person. Some do like my wife has about 1000 nicknames but like Elijah, he’s one shot in and wheezy. So, I mean you know his nickname? Some nicknames don’t ever change.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah.
Elliot: Fumblmits is just Fumblmits.
Jordan Fromer: No, he was the assassin for a little while.
Elliot: That’s true. He was the assassin but at the core he’s Fumblemits
Jordan Fromer: And the purveyor of duck assassins or –
Elliot: Yeah, fumble – and I’ll just make variations of the nickname. Like fumbles will become fumble timers, fumble timer 2000 things like that.
Jordan Fromer: So, kind of talking about duck season coming up next year. So do you got to kind of like plan for your hunts? Are you going to be doing a lot of solo hunts or you’re going to have a lot of visits from Aiden?
Elliot: I don’t know. I do have some things planned out. I’ve got a couple of guys coming from the east coast who I can’t remember his Instagram handle. But I was actually –
Jordan Fromer: Virginia outdoors unlimited?
Elliot: Nope. They’re up around, I think they’re more north around New York and I was on his Instagram live one time. I said ask a question and he was like, when are we going to colab? I’m like, I don’t know whatever you want to come to Kansas and within 3 days it was planned. So I got them coming, I’ve got a few hunts planned but as far as my hunting, who’s going to be hunting with me? I just don’t know. I have no idea. I may end up doing more solo hunts. I’d like to push the boys to hunt a little bit more this year. It just depends. Aidan’s trying to apply for a full time job on a wind farm, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. Right now he’s up in Nebraska working full time at a parks and rec that’s only 2 hours from me. I just don’t know. I planned out something –
Jordan Fromer: When the getting’s getting season, you just let me know I’m only one all night drive away.
Elliot: Well, you got an open door policy.
Jordan Fromer: Well, all you got to say is there’s a lot of mallards there, may be a pin tail here and there. And I’m going to have my Kansas license like every other year.
Elliot: Hopefully that will happen. Hopefully it’ll be like they’re here. Last year that didn’t happen until it was too late.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah. And there’s so much that can change because that’s the thing. Like usually it’s like any other time I think I’ve came up for a trip or came across whatever you want to say, it would be like Thursday they’re here and I’d leave and get there and it’s like the fly a ways collective one. I mean, you told me like there was birds like crazy. We hunted Friday night, maybe that might have been my best hunt of the season. I don’t even know. It’s hard to look back and think about it. I mean but that might have been the most birds of solid season for sure. I just remember the waves at the end of it. Wave after wave. I mean not even waves, I shouldn’t even say waves. It was just like a constant flow of ducks for a long time just flying. And there’s almost never – I can count on my hand like the number of times I can be selective like oh, I don’t want to shoot a teal. Like all my other hunts is like I’m going to shoot the birds I can shoot because that might be the only birds I see. And then that hunt was just crazy. So it’s like, but then Saturday totally different.
Elliot: I’m still dumbfounded by that. There was no reason for those birds to leave. They had only been there like 3 or 4 days and I know that sometimes 3 or 4 days all of the amount of the time they need to rest but the weather stayed the same. That is just unbelievable to me.
Jordan Fromer: Well, it wasn’t even that. I mean you found him on Thursday like people – I remember you sending the pictures of your buddy like his boat just loaded like with pier clean. And like I’ve still never had like a public land, well I’ve had very few, where it’s just like that like full green and you guys can shoot 5 of them and it’s just like, yeah. And then we get there and we really didn’t have a mallard hunt. We had a good hunt. I’m not going to complain about it. I’m not going to complain because it was good even had a shot at the pin tail that I whiffed and they got told that it was a redhead even though it was a pin tail. And so I should have killed him on the first shot, I’ll take all the responsibility on that.
Elliot: But you would have killed him on the 2nd one.
Jordan Fromer: We’ll never know now. That’s the truth.
Elliot: You know, you would have.
Jordan Fromer: I think I would have. But I recently just watched the shot cam footage of that again. But yeah, so I can’t remember where I was going with all this, but oh yeah. So just let me know when the mallards are there and I’ll take the risk.
Elliot: It is certainly really fun when you can be selective and pick the birds that you’re going to shoot and till that last weekend where Tim Cochran came down the first day of that, I have never ever seen that many ducks constantly in my life and they were just all mallards. I mean it was like, there was not a single moment in time that there was not birds flying and it was like you could just turn around and see birds in every direction. It was truly spectacular. I can’t even say that, I feel like I can’t fully describe. I mean, you can kind of see when you watch the video where it’s just like wave after wave after flocks going in. But I know even still, it doesn’t quite put the picture as to what it was. It was insane. I mean it was like they’re shooting ducks. And so I go up to the milo field, I shoot a couple right there right away and I’m like, oh, there’s ducks everywhere. So I’m like, okay, well, I’m not going to – I could stay up here and shoot another more in the next 10 minutes. No, I’m just going to wander down. I don’t want this to end too fast. So wander down another 20 yards over to Aiden and Tim sit there, watch Tim fill his limit, I shoot a few more and then Aiden was like, I kind of like to finish my limit up in that milo field. So we walked that 20 yards back up to the milo field and sit there. I mean it was just like, when do you want to shoot your limit? When and how? Do you want to shoot them over the decoys in the milo field? Do you want to shoot them over? And we weren’t even hunting the X. The X was not even where we were hunting, that was another 100 yards over to the side. I mean, it was ridiculous. That was unbelievable.
Jordan Fromer: Awesome. Well, if that doesn’t give our listeners duck depression, nothing will. So, I think that’s probably a good place to wrap it up. You got any kind of last thoughts or last words?
Elliot: Nope, I would say if you haven’t listened to that Chris Jobb podcast, make sure go back and do that. We’re going to have him back on here real soon and we’re going to go all through force fetched deep dive. I am so excited to listen to him, I could listen to talk about dogs forever. He kept kind of like worried that he wasn’t fully explaining himself. I was just mesmerized by every word that he was saying.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, definitely some great – he’s one of the best dog trainers there is right now. So, definitely take a listen to that one as well on the duck depression guys. Make sure to jump over Elliot and I, our whole seasons up there on YouTube from last season. We put out some fun stuff. One of my favorite series was the chasing the openers for the Michigan and Indiana openers. So Elliot what was your favorite series from last year?
Elliot: Those last 2 Mallard Hunts there. If you go to season 5 playlist, it’s the last couple of hunts you can see mallards – something about Mallards. Those two hunts are a by far my favorite of the year.
Jordan Fromer: Yeah, so if you guys are listeners of the podcast and you haven’t taken a chance to check out our YouTube videos highly recommended. We’re not biased at all, but go over there and it’ll help your duck depression. So, I think let’s go ahead and sign off here. So I’m Jordan from Duck Hunting Chronicles, Elliot from Freelance Duck Hunting and we’ll see you guys on the next one.
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