Ramsey Russell Worldwide: Ryan Reynolds and Common Sense Canadian Migratory Bird Game Laws

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Duck South studios in Oxford, Mississippi. Joining me on the other end of the line, man that needs no introduction double R Ramsey Russell.

Ramsey Russell: Rocky, how are you sir?

Rocky Leflore: You have actually been at home for one week.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. At least, I’m enjoying it too. I’m ready to get back on the road. I’m ready to get on the road, it’s duck season somewhere and I’m ready to roll, I’m rested up, clothes are clean, my wife’s getting tired of me. So, I’m ready to get on the road again.

Rocky Leflore: Does wintertime, like when you were younger the onset of fall and winter is coming and the excitement of duck season is about to open, which one do you get more excited that for now? Is it this time of the year here in North America or is it about when you’re about to head out to South America in the spring and –

“I take each day as it comes and I don’t really differentiate between that. I do get a little nostalgic the last few days not today, but the last couple of days down here in Brandon were real clear, the leaves starting to change, it’s real clear, the humidity was real dry.”

Ramsey Russell: It’s all the same, Rocky, that’s where it’s all the same. I take each day as it comes and I don’t really differentiate between that. I do get a little nostalgic the last few days not today, but the last couple of days down here in Brandon were real clear, the leaves starting to change, it’s real clear, the humidity was real dry. You know what it reminded me of? It’s about this time of year that Duncan and I, when he was a young man, he and I would go to willow break for 2 or 3 days, we do a 3 or 4 day weekend we go to willow break and we squirrel hunt. And I hadn’t squirrel hunter since I was about his age really, until he wanted to start doing this. And we would go squirrel hunting. We would park the ranger and he would go his way and I’d go mine and I hear his little old shooting going on in the distance, he would hear mine and then we look back around and meet sometimes there back at the ranger, we have our squirrels and we go skin them and that’s a mess. I don’t know, that’s a lot of work skin a squirrel for little or nothing. But we go skin our squirrels and clean them up real good. I’ll tell you what that boy could clean the squirrel now wouldn’t be a hair on it and then we’d make our annual squirrel dumplings. And that wasn’t too terribly long ago but the last couple of days it really made me think about that. And I just love that day when it’s dry like that the leaves are changing and it’s cooler then you walk to mailbox right breaking sweat or anywhere close to it, but it’s not so cold, you got to bundle up, it’s just beautiful, it’s just a perfect Mississippi day. Out in the woods that time of year just the smell of fresh leaves falling and that was – I don’t know, how I got to think about that, but that’s where my mind was the last few days. But winter’s coming and Rocky, it really is duck season somewhere and then with my schedule anymore we’re in and out here and there and yonder and it’s all the same. No, I don’t get really excited about Mississippi duck season coming or Arkansas or Missouri, its coming and it comes and it is here and all year long, I’ll sift through some stuff and get some stuff organized to where packing to go to willow break or packing to go to Arkansas or packing to go somewhere, it’s just the same as packing to go anywhere else just sort my gear and get my stuff together and go and take it all in its own context. So I guess, that’s kind of a boring answer. I just don’t really get too terribly excited because all year long anymore it’s duck season somewhere.

Rocky Leflore: Well speaking off, it was duck season somewhere about 2-3, it’s been a month ago. You packed Forrest up, you and Forrest headed up to Ontario, is that correct?

“…he said, you know what really be good is, why don’t we just knock them out quick? Let’s just get them and then we can probably be out of here before the main feed shows up. And then I can bring some clients in here in a couple of days and those geese that showed up later won’t even know we were ever here, so we said, yeah, let’s do that.”

Ramsey Russell: Yes, we did. And we’re working with Ryan Reynolds up there with our US hunt list and I had hunted Ontario several times. We did a podcast last year about hunting down in Southern Ontario around Kings have also been up around Mitchell’s Bay up in that area hunting before, it’s compared to out west the limits a little more moderate. The limit is 5 Canada geese instead of 8 Canada geese like out west, the duck limits 6 like Mississippi instead of 8 like Saskatchewan Alberta but it’s a really incredible place to go. And I had not really hunted this part of Ontario, but talking to Ryan extensively and doing my background research and everything else, it really is a pretty phenomenal place, like a lot of the geese that come through that area, it’s a natural funnel, okay? You got the St. Lawrence River kind of runs up there to the Arctic and you’ve got the Ottawa River and you’ve got this land in between them and it’s a fertile river valley of agriculture. Well, anybody’s ever been to Canada says, well, yeah, it’s a lot of agriculture out there, but this is different. It’s different because there’s a lot of corn, a lot of soybeans. It’s just a lot different than Western Canada. There’s no canola, none. And canola is skirt, it’s terrible for waterfowl, there’s no canola and it all kind of revolves around the dairy industry. And so we were going to Canada goose hunting there and all of those geese, there’s no local birds to speak of. If you go out there in the summertime, unlike Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta driving around you see those local breeding pairs and their offspring you don’t see that in this part of Ontario, it could all the birds or migrated back up to the arctic and these are all the birds that are coming to Delmarva, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, parts of Pennsylvania, probably parts of New Jersey. They’re what they call the Ontario, but they’re not huge ginormous, I’m just making this up 12-15lbs, I know there’s no 15lbs Canada geese, but they’re not them huge big ones, but they’re big Canada’s, they’re just not that big. And I got to tell you, I was so glad Forrest went on this trip with me. I still like to get him out the western Canada because he’s young, would love to see all that but right by the time I think I’ve seen it all, I can’t say that anymore. I mean, every trip I go on is something entirely different and I mean all and this was one of those experiences. We were looking at Canada goose feeds for big Canada, I’m telling usually when you go out west, a big Canada goose feed would be 300-500 birds, these feeds were in the thousands within a 35, 40 mile radius, we were seeing 5000 geese here, 7000 geese there, 5000 geese over yonder. It might be 5 or 6 of those feeds in just a small little area. Big Canada’s, that’s a big feed for Big Canada’s and all 3 mornings were just unbelievable. It was just truly unbelievable, remarkable in some sense and probably one of the most memorable things, I had posting those little Instagram photos, little video clips and stuff on our storyline, I got a lot of inboxes and one guy asked me one time, he said man, as much as you travel around the world, how many times do you get to see something like you posted this morning? I wrote him back, I’m 53 years old and I have never seen nothing like I saw this morning because the field we were hunting was 2-10 acre little squares, 20 acres. And as we drove in the morning by the barn coming through, you couldn’t really tell its dark, we’re putting out decoys and setting up the blind you really couldn’t tell the scale of how – what you were and could have been a section field like we’ve hunted that day before. But it started get to get light, I realized, oh this is just a 20 acre field, trees lined oak trees, maple trees lining all around the whole in the fencerows along the edge of it. And it was such a big feed and Ryan had clients coming in, it was 4 of them, 4 shooters and he said, you know what really be good is, why don’t we just knock them out quick? Let’s just get them and then we can probably be out of here before the main feed shows up. And then I can bring some clients in here in a couple of days and those geese that showed up later won’t even know we were ever here, so we said, yeah, let’s do that. And one thing I really enjoyed about all 3 of these days though is that we kind of sort of took turns shooting, it wasn’t literally like one shot per volley, but at no time did you not know who shot what. It was either me Forrest or Ryan or me or Forrest or it’s just “boom boom” everybody know who shot what and I love that kind of hunting. And Rocky, we were done on Canada geese, it’s like shooting time came and went 15-20 minutes after shooting time, we saw a pair of wood duck fly just apparently across the field. Then we heard a goose, we climbed into the blind, nice comfortable panel blind, all backed up into a tree row and some geese came in and worked and then 3, maybe 4 volleys but in 3 volleys I was done with my 5 geese, it was just over that quick. And before we could – oh and they said there were some white birds on this thing and so sure enough the very first volley, it was 3 volleys on Canada’s and one volley on snow’s because lo and behold, it’s very uncommon in Ontario to get like geese, lo and behold the first birds in that morning was about a 5 or 6 pack of white geese and it was crazy because Ryan said although we’re definitely it the dog was going out to get him, he goes that’s definitely greater snows. I said no, that was Ross geese. I know for a fact that was Ross goose I shot and the boy on my right said, I think it was just regular snow geese. And as we brought in those birds it wasn’t – I don’t know 5 or 6 brought in, we had a greater snow goose or Ross’s goose and sizes in between that was crazy. They never shoot Ross’s geese out there. And as we are coming in, we’re looking at those and talking about those were, here comes the rest of Canada geese and then 3 quick volley “boom boom” we’re done on Canada geese but before we can reorganize, go get the truck and get everything strapped up loaded up and gone, we didn’t even get out of blind before here they come. I mean somebody opened the gate and here comes a flock of 20, comes a flock of 50 before we knew, we had 1500-2000 geese swarming this little bitty 10 acre field in front of us, swarming like it was – Rocky, it’s like I never imagined. We’ve done, we were unloaded, we sitting out there just watching and they just pass over and some start to land and then more would work in land, here comes some more and they work and just come right over the blind, come right out front, come right at us and they all started settling about 2000 geese settling right in the decoys, right in front of us. He sent his dog. Well, he got a good dog. He said his dog, he said whatever go and the dog just ran out there and the geese just kind of parted ways and got up, flew around and we jumped out real quick, snapped a few pictures, grabbed up the decoys, loaded them up and by the time we got out to the blacktop road just quarter mile away, geese were already coming back in that field. I told Forrest that, we might could have gone to another province and you could’ve shot 3 more geese, I can tell you this, big Canada’s you might live your whole life unless you come here again you’ll never see another thing like that. Yeah, you’ll never see that again. I’ve never seen anything like it. These weren’t game birds, these weren’t resident birds, these were wild arctic Canada geese and it was astounding. Rocky, it was utterly astounding.

Rocky Leflore: You and Ryan got back to the lodge and you all kind of recorded up Ramsey Russell worldwide.

Ramsey Russell: We did.

Rocky Leflore: Actually, things that have changed in Canada lately, correct?

“And as I understand it once those birds are processed, I go to my hunting camp or I go to the hunting lodge and I breast them and I skin him out and I put them in the freezer once those birds are frozen and my possession limit terminates at that point I can’t go up there for 20 days.”

Ramsey Russell: You will enjoy this podcast because we talked a lot about goose hunting, there as compared to Western Canada, Ryan also does some work out west and what the differences are about this and where these birds are coming from, it kind of really goes into depth about some of the stuff we just talked about, but Ryan is a board member. There’s 10 board members of a NGO called Wildlife Habitat Canada and they’ve got – I think 4-5 permanent employees now. But that board he goes through who’s who and what’s what on that board. They’re comprised of hunters and non-hunters, government folks, biologists, delta waterfowl, outfitter in the case of himself and what they function as they’re not a government agency, they’re non-government organizations but they work closely in association with the Canadian government to spend their duck stamp dollars. It would be kind of like there were a private group in the US that work in conjunction with US Fish and Wildlife Service to direct the federal duck stamp dollars into research or habitat or whatever the case may be. And I had become aware while traveling out in Canada previously and talking to some people had become aware of some legislation coming down the pipe in Canada. Canada and the United States and Mexico and then there’s Russia and Japan but those 3 especially Canada and US are partners in the migratory bird treaty act. These laws and these rules these migratory birds laws about transportation and tagging and possession and plugs and lead and steel and all these rules are not just a US thing they’re all a part of the migratory birds convention in which Canada and Mexico are partners. And I think it’s very interesting that exciting utilization of the birds that are being killed and hunter recruitment and hunter retention that Canada has proposed pretty significant changes to parts of the migratory bird treaty act as it pertains to tagging, possession and transportation. A lot of the topics we heard discussed in the Ryan Warden and Jeff Foils podcast. And I was just out there minding my own business in a duck blind or goose blind one morning when Ryan started talking about that. I said what do you know about this? And then he goes, wildlife habitat of Canada was involved with this, that’s us. He said, matter of fact as an outfitter, I was very instrumental in proposing some of these things. So they’re towards the end of podcast we kind of ended and we talked about this legislation and I’m not sure, as my understanding that it may have been packed. I know that as recently as late September early October it was ending, the comment period was ending. And the only discussion with a few of the things in there about the indigenous peoples, some of their laws pertaining to them the first Americans they call them, there’s a little bit going on but in terms of some of the tagging and youth initiative and some of the stuff they were doing in this act, it seemed to be a go. And I know that in upcoming weeks I’m going to regroup with Ryan and several other board members hopefully delta waterfowl, hopefully environmental Canada, I’m going to meet with several of the board members and we’re going to discuss, do a worldwide podcast specific to those changes in the tagging requirements. And as I understand it for example and this is what I mean as I understand it when I go to Canada right now and I tag my bird and I do everything, let’s say, I go up there on a 4 day trip, I understand it and I could be wrong, but as I understand it, I’m allowed by law to possess 3 daily limits. If I go up there for a week to hunt in Canada, I better be eating some birds and we do. I travel up in Canada, we had a lot of goose and duck. And as I understand it once those birds are processed, I go to my hunting camp or I go to the hunting lodge and I breast them and I skin him out and I put them in the freezer once those birds are frozen and my possession limit terminates at that point I can’t go up there for 20 days.

Rocky Leflore: That makes a lot of sense.

Ramsey Russell: It does. Most duck hunters listening to this probably if not right now, then certainly in March they’ve probably got more than 18 Mississippi ducks sitting in their freezer. Of course, in your domicile at home, the way I understand it, your wife and kids, kind of transfer and everything else you can have that. But I just found you can look it up, it was a Canadian gazette or something. I looked it up the proposal and read it and I found it fascinating and I really found it interesting because we’ve all heard about people haven’t dumped going to Canada maybe they’re outfitters, maybe they’re freelancers, maybe they’re clients, I don’t know, you just hear this stuff on the internet. I’ve heard of people dumping birds, you don’t have a big shoot and they dump them, that’s deplorable. It’s horrible. That’s horrible. It gets hunting it gets all of the black eye to a non-hunter and anti-hunter that were out there just killing and not utilize. Well, most of us like duck and goose, the locals up there, if you process the birds and clean them and pick them, you can give those birds away they love them. But the whole premise of hunting is eating what you kill. And in their proposal for this legislation, they believe that some of the laws, the way they were presently written, the way they’re presently enforced discouraged for utilization of that resource. Look it up and read it, it’s very interesting. But I hope to get these guys, I hope to revisit with Ryan and the board and go into greater detail about those proposals and what they mean and why they thought it important to propose them and push them being changed. I just think it would be especially in light of those previous podcast we’ve heard on The End of the Line podcast, I think it’d be very interesting. Of course, what does it mean in terms of changes for the US if anything, are we going to change it?

Rocky Leflore: Hope so.

Ramsey Russell: Are we going to do something differently? I can tell you this boy, everybody knows this just because you could – if they change old tagging requirements and those laws about the way you process birds, yeah, good luck coming through US customs next year with head and wings not attached not tagged and birds fully processed or more birds than you can possess. I mean, I think it’s going to be a while before US customs catches up and let alone our management agency changes are laws too. But it’s going to be interesting, it’s just interesting times, I found it fascinating. But anyway, it’s a good podcast with Ryan, he’s a great outfitter Forrest and I had a wonderful time hunting with him and just seeing that part of Canada for what it is and it was a really good hunt and a really interesting subject. Anybody listening that’s been out to Western Canada, they going to enjoy listening, hearing the distinction between this part of Canada and Western Canada it’s very different.

Rocky Leflore: We’re just about out of time for you and I but Ramsey, be careful, I know you’re heading up this weekend, so be careful while you’re on the road. Supposed to get really cold, I’m sure you’re probably going to run into some weather somewhere as you head north. Thank you again buddy, I appreciate you getting these podcasts while you’re out on the road but let’s get to that interview with Ryan right now.

Ramsey Russell: Hello, this is Ramsey Russell getducks.com, where it’s duck season somewhere. And I am in Ottawa Ontario, Canada got done this morning with the most spectacular Canada goose hunt I think I’ve ever been on. I’ve seen a lot of the little geese, the cacklers and things, those big flocks and mobs snow goose like as they are out there in Western Canada and I’ve hunted big Canada’s from east to west, but I’ve never witnessed what we saw today here in the Ottawa Valley. 6,000-7,000-8,000 Big Canada’s swarming us like a kicked beehive. I’m hunting with Ryan Reynolds, Ryan’s Outdoor Services resident here in Ontario and very knowledgeable guide. Ryan, why were there that many geese? What in the heck is going on that – I mean, somebody asked me today, as much as you travel, how many times do you see something like that? And I go, I’m 53 years old, I’ve never seen anything like what I saw this morning.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah. This part of Ontario is probably the best kept secret in Canada for water fowling for Canada geese. We don’t have the specs and all that kind of stuff like the west does but we have the Canada geese. They all come off the tundra, Northern Quebec and basically the agriculture land and the tree land bottleneck them all right here and we are their first staging ground for the migration. And we’re just lucky enough to be where the crops and the trees bottleneck to put them all in one spot. And I’ve been lucky enough to hunt all across Canada and all the different flyways. And I’ve said it for years, this is the best kept secret for Canada geese because there’s nowhere else that they congregate like they do here.

Ramsey Russell: You told me that months ago and I’ve been to Ontario maybe not a half dozen times, but 4 or 5 for sure. And we shot Canada geese boy, it was really fun down there hunting around Kingsville with those Jack Miner bands. But I just really, truly wasn’t prepared on what we’ve seen here. I mean, we’ve seen 7 or 8 feeds or day loafing areas with 5,000-7,000 birds standing on it?

Ryan Reynolds: It’s pretty standard. 5,000-7000 birds and I mean in the field and when you’re talking to field, we’re not talking massive fields like you see it, unless they’re not square miles they’re 50 acre field’s type deal and they stand on each other’s backs. So –

Ramsey Russell: In the dark this morning we drove in, we filed the tire tracks through the wheat and chicken or whatever that was planted wheat and winter peas, it could have been the middle of a section for all I could tell. But as it got light I realized it’s about a 10 acre field and I just could not freaking believe it. Even after yesterday – yesterday was unbelievable, but I could not believe what we saw today. Getting in and shooting our limits our 5 bird limits of Big Canada’s plus those snows, which were surprise. And being out by 07:30-07:45 and then we hit the blacktop watching the field start to pile back in. And as I understand it right now, this area is like a big funnel, it’s a big fertile valley pinched in between the Ottawa River coming out of the arctic and the St. Lawrence River coming out of St. Lawrence. It’s a little big migration corridors that coalesced right here.

Ryan Reynolds: They coalesced right here. And you’ve got to think just south of us as well as the top of Lake Ontario. So, I mean it’s everything. It’s a bottleneck of waterways and it’s a bottleneck of agriculture ground that takes every bird that breeds on that northern tundra and puts them in a small area right here and that’s what gives us the big numbers that we have.

Ramsey Russell: If they’re an official count or in the absence of an official count wild ass guess of how many birds are in this valley right now, what would you guess? What would you say? What do you think it would be?

Ryan Reynolds: That’s a hard question because I would probably say a number that everybody would think that I’m out to lunch. It’s hard to tell. I mean, you can drive in a 35 minute circle and I can check fields that I have least indoor permission for, and you’re going to see – you don’t know how many fields you’re going to find and that’s in a small area and you’re talking Eastern Ontario has this migration of probably a 2.5, 3 hour square and it’s just covered in that entire square. So, I would have a hard time putting a number on it to be taken serious, it’s a very big number. Like there’s 3 different Ross ponds that’ll hold 50,000 number 90,000 down the road.

Ramsey Russell: If we’re looking at 6 feeds that have 5,000 or 6,000 feeds, 30,000 geese within, we’re always had in one direction, it’s not like we went in, all 4 cardinal directions covered a big circle, but just within that one little relief right there 30,000 geese –

Ryan Reynolds: 15 square miles.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, 15sq miles.

Ryan Reynolds: And that’s what you saw.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what we saw. It’s utterly astounding. I know talking to others since I’ve been here that are following the Instagram story that are hunting over on the eastern side or over on the western side or further north, they go in and set up on Canada goose feeds that have 100 to 150 birds, you don’t even look at that here.

Ryan Reynolds: It doesn’t look, its gets right over. That’s a flock.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a flock.

Ryan Reynolds: Not a feed.

Ramsey Russell: How many of these birds are breeding right here? I mean, if I had to drive down the road here this summer during what are we looking at now, are they -?

“If you drive down the roads here in the summer, you would have thought that I was lying to you that we even have Canada geese. If you’re not a golfer or a boater, you’re not going to see geese here in the summer and you’re still not going to see big numbers of them.”

Ryan Reynolds: If you drive down the roads here in the summer, you would have thought that I was lying to you that we even have Canada geese. If you’re not a golfer or a boater, you’re not going to see geese here in the summer and you’re still not going to see big numbers of them. Everything here – and I shouldn’t say everything, 95% of what we have here is –

Ramsey Russell: Arctic breeding.

Ryan Reynolds: Migratory birds.

Ramsey Russell: And these birds are staging here right now?

Ryan Reynolds: They are, this is their first stop.

“I mean, its small little farms 40 acres, 20 acres, 30 acre plots lined with woods or hedge rows and a little red barn in the corner and a silo and it’s a really big dairy industry. Is that right?”

Ramsey Russell: Yep, they come off the arctic, they’ve been eating native grass, whatever you eat up there in the arctic and they come down here and just start getting fat on all these cereal crops which -for those of you all listening, when you conjure an image of Canada hunting, we all tend to think Saskatchewan or Alberta, just section big pea fields and things that known. And if you’ve been up there in the last 5 or 10 years, you’ve seen just wall to wall Canola, which is the most noxious goose repellent and duck repelling food crop ever plant on God’s earth. And when you come over here, it’s not like that. I mean, its small little farms 40 acres, 20 acres, 30 acre plots lined with woods or hedge rows and a little red barn in the corner and a silo and it’s a really big dairy industry. Is that right?

Ryan Reynolds: It’s big here.

Ramsey Russell: Its big here, the dairy. And so a lot of the crops are corn, which is cut for grain to feed the world commodity market along with the soybeans or mostly to cut his silage and feed all those cows that got to produce milk.

Ryan Reynolds: It is, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That makes a huge difference.

Ryan Reynolds: A lot of the corn’s cut for silage for milk production as well as picked for green mix and everything like that that they need for mixing into feed and whatnot. There’s a very big cash crop market here as well, like you had mentioned, but dairy is huge here. So, we don’t really have wasted agriculture like you take right now this year our crops are a little bit behind, so there’s still a lot of crops standing, but these geese still have access to feed because they’ll go to alfalfa fields, they’ll go to winter wheat fields. There’s not really a wasted ground of agriculture that they can’t feed on here.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it’s incredible. And as I understand it, like this morning we were hunting, what a mile maybe from the St. Lawrence River?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, we were a couple miles from St. Lawrence. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. And then you’ve got this other major tributary, we’ve crossed the bridge every morning river.

Ryan Reynolds: The Rideau River.

Ramsey Russell: The Rideau River, we cannot spell like Frito rito, its spelt French kind of version. And then you’ve got the Ottawa River not too far and is that where these birds are roosting primarily and just big stretches of river?

Ryan Reynolds: Just big stretches of the river and gravel quarries. Gravel quarries hold a lot of birds here. It’s one of the biggest, one of the biggest Ross spots actually.

Ramsey Russell: It’s just the perfect environment for lots of big Canada geese. I’ve got 2 major river systems for them to roost on, I’ve got gravel pits and lakes and stuff for them to roost on and I’ve got a whole lot of hot crops that they can get fat on them.

Ryan Reynolds: A lot of them, endless.

Ramsey Russell: And where do you think these birds are going from here?

Ryan Reynolds: They go straight down the eastern shore, they end up in Chesapeake Bay.

Ramsey Russell: All right. Delmarva, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,

Pennsylvania?

Ryan Reynolds: Pennsylvania, yeah. The Finger Lakes in New York are the next big stop for these birds when they get froze out of here, the Finger Lakes are the next big stop. When the Finger Lakes freeze, it pushes everything on down.

Ramsey Russell: I know you all don’t shoot a ton of bands but some of the bands you have killed in the past. Where did those birds originate?

Ryan Reynolds: Quebec.

Ramsey Russell: Quebec.

Ryan Reynolds: A 90% lawn –

Ramsey Russell: Quebec, St. Lawrence heading up the St. Lawrence River, that part of the arctic?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah sir.

Ramsey Russell: This morning as we got out there your scout who joined us talked about seeing some white geese and yesterday I met with a young man West also a local guy talking about, I think he’s 30 years old. He was saying just in his hunting career more and more white geese, the greater snow geese starting to spill over from Quebec.

Ryan Reynolds: You could say spilling over as an understatement. I started hunting this flyway, I started guiding professionally in this flyway, this is the 16^th season 16, 10 years ago even, when you saw snow geese in this part of Ontario. We were on the phone, we were calling people and I guess what I just saw –

Ramsey Russell: He said the same thing.

Ryan Reynolds: We got to figure out what rooster on, we’re going after these things, there’s snow geese in town and that was a big deal every year for the last time going to say 10, maybe even 12 years, few more and now it’s full. By the middle of November, we’ll have 500,000 snows in town and what they really do, what I’ve noticed the most from them showing up, we never used to lose Canada’s until the St. Lawrence River froze solid all the way across. You could skate across and that’s when we would lose our candidates. Now, we lose our Canada’s before freeze up because these snows have moved over so far when they show up to town, ‘A’ we know that we’re done getting our Canada’s the snows are the last of the migration to come through.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, that’s interesting.

Ryan Reynolds: On top of that, they will follow the big gatherings of Canada’s, they’ll go to the big feeds of Canada’s in the field, they will get in on them and they’ll push the Canada’s out and they do not co-mingle here what so ever. And those big greater snows will push the Canada’s right out of town. And we’re probably in the last 3-5 years, we’re noticing that we’re losing our Canada’s probably 3 weeks earlier than we ever used to in the past because those snows are moving over –

Ramsey Russell: That’s around mid-November.

Ryan Reynolds: End of November, 1^st week of December.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the weather like that time of year?

Ryan Reynolds: It can be variable. We’re usually getting into our winter, there’s snow on the ground and it’s cold, all the little gravel quarries and stuff like that the smaller rivers froze up, it’s all the big stuff that’s left which used to hold the Canada’s and then the snows moved to those Ross and the Canada’s bounced. They don’t stick around at all.

Ramsey Russell: For those of you all listening, we’re talking greater snow geese primarily. And there is a distinction all these snow geese we’re getting down the Mississippi and central flyways, Ross geese, lesser snow geese, these birds are – I say a big greater could be 30% again their size. They’re big and I know in the past we have hunted them on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, at one time the population was shot down to about 3000 up around the area called Cap Tourmente, which was established way back when as an outpost to feed the city of Quebec, which is the first establishment in North America. And they love geese. Now, remember they got a lot of French origin, they love geese and they shot them practically into extinction and the federal government set up this refuge and I think if I’m right, they sense built back to nearly a million some odd bird, their population doing the same thing the rest of snow geese –

Ryan Reynolds: They’re out of control.

Ramsey Russell: They’re out of control.

Ryan Reynolds: And they are very aggressive bird when it comes to feeding. Like we all know that snow geese are aggressive feeders as it is but these greaters are on the level of their own.

Ramsey Russell: Now, what was so crazy about this morning, we’ve gotten there, shooting time came and went, the bird was still roosting, saw a few ducks so well let’s get in the blind just in case, we were waiting on those geese to come back and it was quiet still, windless and I did not hear the snow geese at all.

Ryan Reynolds: No.

Ramsey Russell: I heard and I really didn’t expect them to find a needle in a haystack, there’s only 6 of them coming. But somebody said there’s those geese and there was the first customers of the day where these 6 white geese coming right in and it was crazy how there were 4 shooters in the blind and we all saw something different. I knew I had killed Ross goose and Ryan like no, we don’t get Ross geese here and somebody else said, no those are greaters, I definitely got a greater, somebody was like snow goose to me by the time the dog gets back we got all 3 –

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, we did have all 3.

Ramsey Russell: How odd is that?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, that’s very odd. And if we get Ross Geese around here, I am yet to see one. That’s probably one of my first Ross to see in this flyway.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, personally. And I’ve been – like I said, been guiding professionally here for 16 years. I would probably say that was a first for me in this flyway.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that’s good, I feel good. Man, we’ll get a speckle belly in the morning.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, now that would be something. We may as well keep it going.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, let’s keep the streak going. Look, I’ll take just going back and shooting those Canada geese exactly like we did today. Ryan, I know that you work also professionally out in Saskatchewan. How would you compare or describe hunting here, which primarily the big birds versus setups and hunting styles and techniques or whatever strategies out in Saskatchewan? What would you –

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, it’s hard to compare them because it is night and day, its 2 different beasts. One thing that I have probably learned the most about being a professional guide and being lucky to hunt all across Canada and into the US is that just because you can kill a bird in one spot doesn’t mean you can kill a bird everywhere you go to hunt those exact same animals. They act different they’re everything. Saskatchewan year, you’ve got a mixed bag, I mean you’ve got snows every day, you’re going to see your shooting lesser, you’ll get into the big geese but those are your residents, they fly different, they roost closer to where they feed. They don’t roost 2 miles away, like lesser do, they don’t fly at the height that lessor’s do. So you have to be a little more picky on – you have to be more particular on your scouting to know what you’re going into the field after. These guys here, you’re going to hunt them, your conventional big Canada way. Nice big pocket give them a runway, hope you’ve got some wind at your back or the side, you can channel them and most of the time they’ll play by the book and do it. Where Saskatchewan is more boils down to your scouting because you’ve got to know whether you’ve got your lessers or your specs or your big boys in the field.

Ramsey Russell: Windless day is usually the kiss of death. And yesterday we didn’t have much wind and the wind with 2 mile an hour wind we had was coming from the opposite direction of what they had forecast. But hey, those birds at their own peril got close enough those decoys, they died and today we showed up and it wasn’t any wind, I would say at all. But boy, I guess just being exactly where the birds want to be trumps everything. We were exactly where they wanted to be.

Ryan Reynolds: There is no question about it.

Ramsey Russell: Like every big Canada goose in the universe wanted to be right there 20 yards in front of the blind.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, typical day here, I usually like to explain it to guys is if you want to sit there and see what it feels like to be attacked by Canada geese.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what you said this morning.

Ryan Reynolds: You’ve pretty much come to the right spot.

Ramsey Russell: I thought yesterday was a great hunt because I love to shooting, I love all these birds, all the species in their own right but I just the older I got and I realized, I really do like big Canada geese, big migrater Canada. Back home we’re hunting park ducks or park geese, I should say, we didn’t fly off a country club might come in or if they do come in, they all come in at one time to get one volley but to hunt these big daddy’s, it’s just something else. I just can’t get enough of it.

Ryan Reynolds: It’s the best kept secret. I tell everybody that I’ve hunted here, I tell people that I talked to at trade shows and everything, it’s the best kept secret. Our limits are only 5, you’re not going to shoot 8 ducks at the same time, like out west and you can’t compare it to the west. It’s a totally different ballgame, but it’s something that needs to be experienced in my mind because it’s just the scenery alone of it, is it’s the best kept secret. It’s something to see.

Ramsey Russell: What I’ve learned that I find so interesting about you personally is, you run a top notch outfit right here and I’m going to tell you everything from the food, lodging, the organization, the trade of the equipment that’s all great but you’re skillful caller, which I used to tell people and maybe I’m just hunting with the wrong folks, maybe 10, 15 years ago I would just hunt with the wrong folks in Canada because I would tell people 2 things they don’t know how to call, then you’ve got a whole lot of birds and just remember guys, we don’t go to Canada to eat, we go to shoot geese because we’re from the south and we know how to cook, but the food up here is amazing. And let me ask you, what is your calling background? Because that’s what really kind of caught my interest and we started talking last year, what is your calling background?

Ryan Reynolds: I am a little bit of a perfectionist. So, when I got into waterfowl hunting when I was 14, 15 years old, I got myself a cheap goose call and instead of locking myself in a room with a guitar, learning how to play it, like every other teenager, I locked myself in my room and learn how to blow a goose call. Because I wanted to be able to do everything that could be done on a goose call, so that’s my musical instrument. I will go out on a limb and say that I perfected it. I’m quite confident in my calling ability to the point where I started – I was lucky, very lucky that I was around some very good callers in my early guiding years, so I had good assistance to in direction to be able to expand on my already home skills. And then for the longest time, I pretty much wanted to create my own call to just say that I killed a limit of geese with something that I had created and that was the goal. Fast forward –

Ramsey Russell: Take it to a whole personal level when you start making a call from scratch and you’ve never done just to interact with a wild bird hunting. That’s really –

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, I wanted to take it to the next level –

Ramsey Russell: Take it to the whole new level.

Ryan Reynolds: That’s exactly and I wanted to take it to the next level and check that box. Fast forward, you probably skip a couple of details. Next thing me and a buddy are starting a waterfowl call company.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, of course.

Ryan Reynolds: We launched it in Canada, we’re lucky enough to get into Canada’s largest –

Ramsey Russell: What year would that have been in?

Ryan Reynolds: 2013 we launched it. We were 9 months old and we got ourselves into Canadian tire, which is Canada’s –

Ramsey Russell: Kind of a big deal.

Ryan Reynolds: It’s kind of a big deal. There’s never been a Canadian made call company that’s gone mainstream before. We wanted to do it at a mainstream level. We wanted to make everything right here in Canada because that wasn’t being done.

Ramsey Russell: So what would they have sold at Canadian tire in the past. What kind of duck calls? American made?

Ryan Reynolds: American made, Primoz, night inhale, flambeau, Duck Commander, great calls but all American made. So, we basically wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before. We kept going with it and we were lucky enough to get into the box stores to the point where we had achieved being Canada’s largest call manufacturer. From there we’ve come up with different calls each year, we’ve grown, we’ve won Canadian championship titles with those calls, we were the first Canadian made duck call to make it to the worlds in Arkansas 3 years in a row. One of those years actually made it to the second round,

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Ryan Reynolds: So we made a main street called that had –

Ramsey Russell: That ain’t too bad for Canadian boy now.

Ryan Reynolds: Not too bad at all.

Ramsey Russell: You didn’t perfect that southern accent that were listening forward or it was judge listening forward.

Ryan Reynolds: We’re not big enough boys up here. We don’t have the lungs, right? You get down to that world stage and there’s some big boys down there.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, or deaf ducks.

Ryan Reynolds: Little bit of both.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s great. So I mean, Canadian waterfowl that Canadian capital –

Ryan Reynolds: Capital waterfowl.

Ramsey Russell: Capital waterfowl. To me it’s just an amazing story.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, I appreciate that.

Ramsey Russell: Because I’ve been through some of these tire stores, some of these different places, I love to going to sporting goose stories and things when I’m up in Canada in different countries and I just always noted there were just a big absence of Canadian waterfowl called. And back in the day for so long and now it’s different. The outfitters today you find some good ones but to me get started this industry coming to Canada back in the day hunting with a Canadian guide that had a big long flute that could call about like me. I mean just make it to wit call but there’s no big dumb bird to come in. It didn’t matter but now you got to step up your game and play.

Ryan Reynolds: There’s a lot of really good water fowler’s in this country that are from this country lucky enough for the sport and for the conservation end of things. There’s a lot of people getting into water fowling, it’s a great gateway to get youth into it, which we all know as being duck hunters. If you get a youth into waterfowl hunting, they can be active, they can talk, they don’t have to sit there and be quiet and all this kind of stuff you can keep them warm and it’s a great introduction. You pull the trigger a fair amount even if you’re not that experience. And that is really starting to show tenfold because there’s more competition as a water fowler in our country, in our area and –

Ramsey Russell: That’s really kind of a good thing though.

Ryan Reynolds: It is because some people might frown upon it, but I look at it as a good thing because we need to youth to be into the sport or were dead on our feet really.

Ramsey Russell: It is. What is it like to grow up in Canada as a waterfowl hunter? You know what I mean? Is it a big cultural thing?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, I don’t think it’s as big of a cultural thing. It wasn’t, I should say as big of a cultural thing when I was growing up, I think it’s becoming more of a cultural thing. Lots of guys always deer camp where I’m going to deer camp for two weeks, that’s my hunting. Feed the pond for the month of August and I’ll shoot ducks with the buddies on opening day and it’s more of a party the night before and there I duck hunted and now it seems to be more guys wanting to do it the right way and learn about it and be educated about it and credit it to or discredited to the social media abilities of people wanting to be –

Ramsey Russell: Communicating and getting people excited about it. And getting impassioned. Speaking of which I know that you’re also a board member of wildlife habitat Canada.

Ryan Reynolds: Yes, sir. Very Fortunate thing.

Ramsey Russell: It’s not a government agency.

Ryan Reynolds: No, we work with the government. We collect –

Ramsey Russell: But first it’s a private –

Ryan Reynolds: It’s a private entity.

Ramsey Russell: A private entity that manages or actually puts conservation dollars on the ground via.

Ryan Reynolds: We are a grand administration.

Ramsey Russell: A grand administration. Okay.

Ryan Reynolds: And what we do is we take the proceeds from the migratory bird stamp. We decide what the migratory bird stamp is going to be each year. We take care of that. We take proceeds from the migratory bird stamp. And it all goes back into wildlife habitat conservation.

Ramsey Russell: How many people are on in that? You’re a board Member?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, I’m a board member. There’s 10 of us that are board members. We have a director, we have a small office staff that runs everything from social media communications and networking, communications right down to meeting with the government.

Ramsey Russell: Chef Andrew runs the social media, right?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, but the Chef at the lodge is the communication –

Ramsey Russell: Wildlife Habitat Canada it is comprised of 10 People.

Ryan Reynolds: 10 board members and I think we’re up to 5 or 6 everyday staff.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. And this is just mind-blowing.

Ryan Reynolds: We are the voice for duck hunters. And I’ll tell you a little backstory –

Ramsey Russell: How many of 15 people are actually hunters?

Ryan Reynolds: It’s increasing from what it used to be which is why our brand is growing, why we’re starting to be more involved and be seen as something which all back to in a second if I can. But to answer your question, I believe there is 5 of us that are very passionate, dedicated everyday hunters on the board.

Ramsey Russell: What would you say – because they must be interested in conservation, how would you describe the other board members? If not hunters, but surely they’re not anti-hunters.

Ryan Reynolds: No, it’s comprised of biologists that have made a career. It’s a very diverse board because it’s everything from outfitters like myself to passionate hunters, to biologists that are strictly biologists and look at it from a biologist’s point of view alone. And then there’s biologists that have made a career at ducks unlimited, delta waterfowl that are biologist’s conservationists and hunters. So, it’s a very diverse board which really helps us because we can get into a conversation and if 3 people aren’t able to comment on it, but there’s 7 other ones.

Ramsey Russell: So, that’s what I’m trying to describe it. There’s a lot of stakeholder interest whether you hunt or not, stakeholders but at least half of them are actual hunters.

Ryan Reynolds: Oh, yes.

Ramsey Russell: And what would be an example of you all, I’m assuming you’re talking about the federal waterfowl stamp for Canada.

Ryan Reynolds: Yes sir.

Ramsey Russell: And what would be an example of some of the grant you have written or putting habitat on the ground?

Ryan Reynolds: Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, University, Research grants that strictly go right to –

Ramsey Russell: Is there one that come to mind on research grant or with the university, one general top of Canada geese making –

Ryan Reynolds: Canada geese for sure. Test crops in BC on the grounds that snow goose migration on test plots for protection that was a university grant that did very well. Basically built into crop protection stuff.

Ramsey Russell: Crop depredation kind of stuff.

Ryan Reynolds: Exactly. Yeah, so I mean that university stuff that’s gone there. We get lots and lots of grants and unfortunately enough, we have to say no to many of them because we’re tapped out on the money because there’s so many great options.

Ramsey Russell: Need more money. All right, I heard some pretty – to me a very interesting topic buzzing around that person or persons in Canada had proposed new reform to migratory bird rules regarding possession, regarding transportation. Some of the stuff that we’ve had in The End of The Line podcast topics before, some of the cumbersome or maybe antiquated rules with regard to how we as hunters transport and handle and store and dispose and move our birds. Were you all involved with that?

Ryan Reynolds: We were first-hand involved in that. Our board of directors was first-hand involved in putting the proposal and all of the proposed notes together for that –

Ramsey Russell: And so those proposed changes. And when I read this proposal online and it just really struck a chord with me because the whole argument about it had to do with retaining hunters, recruiting hunters making it easier for youth hunters to come into it and then for all hunters making it easy to facilitate consumption of those birds eating those birds because in my definition of conservation it’s called wise use. Use meaning consumption and wow, that just to me blows my mind. And it’s coming from biologists and NGO people and government people that hunt and some that don’t.

Ryan Reynolds: And some that don’t. Indeed, we have a bird watcher on the board. So I mean, he has invested interest in wetland protection to be able to be a bird watcher. So, all of these great changes are coming from anywhere like you said from biologists, to an outfitter, to birdwatchers that all feel like those laws that we had were outdated and handcuffed new hunters as well as hunters that make a living from it like myself.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah or to guys like me that travel up to Canada.

Ryan Reynolds: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: It just make it may be unnecessarily cumbersome. I understand that we should not go to the local restaurant or the black market and sell these birds that they’re wild public trust.

Ryan Reynolds: They are.

Ramsey Russell: Where there’s a rule against that. So what’s the point?

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, but why make it so hard for us to be able to transport them to consume them and that’s what these laws have –

Ramsey Russell: Man, that’s fantastic.

Ryan Reynolds: That’s what we’re heading towards.

Ramsey Russell: Could you just bullet points, some of the ones – because I kind of he hauled around about it because you bullet points or articulate better may just bullet point. Some of the points that this proposed legislation is.

Ryan Reynolds: Some of the main ones would be transportation –

Ramsey Russell: Tagging requirements –

Ryan Reynolds: Transportation, tagging requirements. Those are all changing possession limit for the birds and what is counted on your possession and what isn’t counted on your possession. Once that bird hits your freezer compared to what it used to be, allowing you to have more in the freezer to be able to consume. Big changes with that coming. Those are your big ones that are going to affect every waterfowl hunter in Canada and those who travel here to hunt.

Ramsey Russell: I noticed when I was reading this proposal online that 2013-14 some of the thing had been thinking and talking about some of the stuff that at some point time they had reached out even to US Fish and Wildlife Service who is a partner in Migratory Bird Treaty Act and others. Do you have a guess of what their reaction would be to any changes along these lines or how they might cooperate or how customs would cooperate?

Ryan Reynolds: Right now, I know customs not cooperating at all. I know that our relationship with US Fish and Wildlife for this topic is only getting stronger. I wouldn’t be able to take a guess at how many years or what it would take for everybody to kind of get on the same page but I do know that our relationship with them has grown exponentially and getting close in time.

Ramsey Russell: What is important because waterfowl are neither ours nor yours, it’s a continental resource. And Mexico is a part of the migratory Bird Treaty Act Convention and even Russia because those birds are trade across right there. Guys all you all listening, we’re going to end right here but the next time I meet with Ryan Reynolds, we’re going to pull in a panel of some of these NGO’S and government people from the board and we’re going to discuss these proposed changes that may even have taken effect by the time we have this skin pension. I promise you on the heels of listening to the Follies and Warden Podcast, you would definitely want to hear some of these changes coming down the pipe here in Canada. Thank you all for listening, this is Ramsey Russell Get Ducks, you can check out these great stories @RamseyRussellGetducks on Instagram. Thank you all.

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