Ramsey Russell Worldwide: Utah Duck Hunting with Chad Yamane

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of the Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore in the Ducks South Studios in Oxford, Mississippi. Joining me today double R. It’s good to be back from Thanksgiving, Ramsey, how are you?

Ramsey Russell: I’m glad to be back. I’m good, but I’m having make an honest living this week. This is one of them hell weeks we have around the office where we’re getting ready, packing stuff for convention and getting all the media put out building web pages, it’s like just make it happen to make an honest living all of sudden at a duck hunting but I’m happy to be here Rocky, I needed to break.

Rocky Leflore: So, you and Forrest are about to hit the road, correct?

“I have been wanting to do that for several years. I have shot mottled ducks in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas never shot the one down in Florida and it’s a totally different subspecies. And to me a little lighter and never do those 2 subspecies home ranges overlap but it’s a little lighter colored and I think it’s just a real beautiful duck and I just want to scratch them off my own personal life list, I have been putting off for years.“

Ramsey Russell: We are. Next Tuesday, he finishes up exams at State and I’m going to scoop him up, round one unknown and we’re going to run up to boot hill Missouri for 5 or 6 days and hunt some outfitters and associates and then we’re going to jump down to Stuttgart and hunt some really nice green tree reservoir stuff. Wow, is that guy running a great operation, I think it’s going to be one of the great ones. Then we’re going to finish up out on the Oklahoma Kansas line and I ought to be home late on the 23^rd early on the 24^th. We try to do that every year, get out of school and we’re just going to make a run of it, you know its Duck Season Somewhere. If the ducks ain’t in South delta Mississippi and they’re not, go find them somewhere else. But I’ll tell you the hunt, I’m excited about Rocky is Saturday morning, I’m going to fly down to Orlando and of all places in the world to go duck hunt, who flies into Orlando Florida but I’m going to be picked up by a long-time friend and client and we’re going to go to some private property he hunts and we’re going to target the Florida mottled duck. I have been wanting to do that for several years. I have shot mottled ducks in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas never shot the one down in Florida and it’s a totally different subspecies. And to me a little lighter and never do those 2 subspecies home ranges overlap but it’s a little lighter colored and I think it’s just a real beautiful duck and I just want to scratch them off my own personal life list, I have been putting off for years. But condition to the South Delta Mississippi, what a great time to go chase that and I’m really pretty darn excited for that just a long way to go to shoot one duck. Hopefully we’re hunting two mornings, hoping we all shoot two. I’m excited for that.

Rocky Leflore: Florida, I mean there are some awesome – I mean Florida’s most forgotten place in duck hunting, but there are a lot of teal lot of ring neck, mottled ducks, whistling ducks, Mexican whistling duck, and tree whistler, whatever you call it.

Ramsey Russell: There’s 2 whistling duck, there’s the fulvous whistler and there’s the Black-bellied whistling duck. And the Black-Belly whistler is the same as we have got from here to Guatemala, all along the gulf coast area, same one that have moved up since Rita and are using desk boxes as far north as – heck, I have seen them up around Chula and willow break and just all throughout the delta now. They took a plus and it kind of started coming up here but that fulvous whistling duck to me in terms of the North American 50 or 41 or 50 or more depending how you count your subspecies, I call it 50, that fulvous whistling duck to me represents the toughest one. It really does because they do breed down in southwest Louisiana, southeast Texas out in that Gulf coastal area but they’re gone, they’re there in September before you can hunt them and then they’re gone. And we every once in a blue moon, we all luck into 1 or 5 down to Sonora or Sinaloa Mexico or something like that but generally not. Generally they’re gone. I really think the birds go into probably Guatemala, if I had to guess and I can’t confirm this, they go to very far south Mexico or maybe into Guatemala Central America, those fulvous do, except for the Florida population. And for guys that are chasing them, I think Florida offers the best chance to knocking off your mottled duck, Black-bellied whistling duck and the fulvous whistler and you pick up every now and then, pick up some really nice late season blue wing teal, the problem is they’re just really a lot of your outfitter down there, I know several of them, they just don’t run at a scale like these boys out in the Midwest do they don’t do that. They just run, a dozen or 2 dozen people a year and go into very select habitat for those birds are knock off 1 and collar done. But that fulvous whistling duck for North America to me that’s one of the toughest of the North American species to get. I’ve shot them and bet your butt if one flies over I’ll shoot another one down there. But no I’m not – I’m going down there for that one subspecies and I was told there are some ring neck, there are some teal, there are some other birds buzzing around, so it’ll be a duck hunt but I’m specifically going to target that one big drake Florida mottled duck. That’s just – if I can get that bird on scratch him off the list and call her done. And then Tuesday, I’ll come home on Monday and regroup and Tuesday Forrest and I’ll hit the road till by Christmas Eve.

Rocky Leflore: I was leaving my mom’s, it was probably September. There’s some old cotton warehouses right beside the gym, anyway for years and years now they’ve been storing corn and beans in those old warehouses, don’t use put a couple of them for cotton now it’s probably six of them out there but I was coming through in September and I guess they had either proper corn off or beans or leaving with it, I’m not sure. But I bet there were probably – it was probably 100 or 250 Black-bellied whistling ducks just standing out there on the gravel.

Ramsey Russell: And that was back in September?

Rocky Leflore: Yeah that was probably, it was probably August, September.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. One year – we always have a flock or two small and I think it’s just like a big family cohort. August, September you’ll see them in places over at willow break. But man, let me tell you this, if you see them in November you might as well go golf because it’s going to be one of the seasons. I don’t know why I know that but I know that. The year I saw them in November pre flood event, it was much of a duck season, the bird didn’t push them out good enough and everyone sees that one good anywhere here or there. But it’s a – they’re an interesting bird. I wish over time they would – I would love for them to start maybe hanging around provided that they just became adaptable and started staying that’ll hurt duck season, I would love to see them during big duck season because they’re a good bird to eat, they’re fun bird to hunt. I really enjoy them, I know in part of the world we go to Mexico, South America that we get into whistling ducks pretty good, I love them. I really think they’re a lot of fun to hunt. And man, once the flock of whistling ducks gets in the wheelhouse, they have got those long legs and long necks and they have got relatively short fat wings in the dirt tad awkward. I mean, I hate to say it, but once those birds commit to the decoys, they ain’t going nowhere quick like a teal or canvasback or I mean they’re not going anywhere quick. So, once they get in the wheelhouse you kind of got them. You know what I’m saying. You kind of got them.

Rocky Leflore: You know, from a weather perspective, talking about the season overall and talk about what you’re seeing those whistling ducks. This season is reminding me Ramsey from a weather perspective of the – and looking ahead over the 10-15 day forecast, this reminded me of the 14, 15 season, I don’t know if you remember that year, where it got real cold in the early November, like it did this year. And it’s kind of been mild ever since. December was kind of mild and wet and then January, the Great winter of 2015 set in, it was cold.

Ramsey Russell: It could be Rocky, I have no idea. I just know that, I’m hearing credible reports of ducks all around us. Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana. I’m hearing very credible reports of ducks and right now it just seems to be a vapor lock. I know some folks that have ducks in Mississippi, but it is not a lot of folks.

Rocky Leflore: Have you talked to anybody that’s still in Canada because there’s a couple of places, I have talked to people that there’s ducks back up there again.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. And that’s never a good sign. But it is what it is. I’ll take what the duck god brings, I duck hunt. But boy, I was up here in Missouri a few weeks ago with Iyra and we hunted in 7 degree weather. That’s not, but 8 hours drive from here it felt like halfway across the world. And I was thinking holy cow, it’s going to be one them winter, isn’t it? No, it ain’t so far. Remember we got real cold here about that time, the front hit all the way down here. So, I don’t know Rocky, I’m just going to take what the duck season brings and travel and work and do what I do.

“I think Utah is one of the most unappreciated forgotten states when it comes to water fowling. I think it is Rocky. And I did not know that when I went out there I recorded 5 conversations. “

Rocky Leflore: Hey, coming up today, you had another conversation while you were in Utah and we’ve got what, 2 more after today, which really gives you a great perspective on the waterfowl hunting in Utah. I think Utah is one of the most unappreciated forgotten states when it comes to water fowling.

Ramsey Russell: I think it is Rocky. And I did not know that when I went out there I recorded 5 conversations. I went out there to hunt and threaded along with some other invites ended up staying about 10 days and I realized a day or 2 into it that it was much better, much bigger and more multifaceted than I had initially thought. And so diverse and such a rich environment still, there’s so much public environment. So, last time we talked to Jessop Boden about kind of ducks unlimited conservation perspective, some of the issues going on. Today we’re going to talk to Chad Yamane. I have known Chad or known up Chad 20 years since way back in the old every day. He’s just always been around. I have always known him. He’s always been a great duck hunter. He’s a firefighter by trade and runs up a kind of a small guide business and I don’t mean small like nickel and dime. I mean just, he’s not full time all the time running thousands of bed nights into it. But let me tell you what, he’s got the right gear to get way back there to the back. He knows that region like the back of his hand. He’s a duck hunter himself. His specialty is swans. So, if a man wants to shoot a swan, you get drawn to Utah and it might take a few years to get drawn, he’s your go to guy and he can put your on ducks too. But I knew him from way back when and he said, hey, let’s go duck hunt, I said great and we showed up at a public boat ramp. Rocky, there were 15 trucks with empty trailer behind it at the boat ramp when we got there, it was daylight, you can see with naked eye and that’s way he planned it. He said, don’t worry there ain’t going to be nobody where we’re going and there wasn’t. We drove about 30-40 minutes with that airboat going and it was bracing cold that time of day in the high desert. Rocky, going out there on that shallow water where we were never will forget that water was so slick out in front of that boat it couldn’t have been inches deep and it reflected like a mirror and the sky was real cloudy and blue with grey and white clouds and beams of sunshine. And if you look out ahead of boat as far as the human eye can see across the open water, you literally couldn’t tell where heaven ended and the water started. It was most a surreal experience I have ever been into. And we drove just way out there and we started seeing ducks boiling up and just out down below us, maybe a mile, man it was just like every duck in the world was boiling and like a beehive boiling. And he pulled up in, we found some cover and there were 3 or 4 buddies and we threw our decoys out, grabbing those teals and shoveler decoys, they’ve been Texas rigged, handful at a time, we’re tossing them out there and they broke out a few Mojo’s and Chad reached up under his seat and he said Ramsey, this thing has been in my shop for 2 years and I broke it out just because you’re here. And he broke out of Spoonzilla stuck it right out there in the spread and we commenced to whooping ass. I mean, it was so many ducks just coming through often enough in 3 to 5, 6 to 10 and 12 and we got this real tight cover, it’s a worthless, terrible plant called Phragmites except that it makes the best blind cover you’ve ever been into. She just kind of cut a trail in there and we all got our little cubbyholes, no ducks couldn’t see nothing if you weren’t careful, you couldn’t see out. But you have to get your cubbyhole just right. And it was such a – bird from left, bird from right, we took turns shooting. On my end a flock 5 come in and guide say, you shoot the front bird, I’ll shoot the – you shoot the right, I shoot the left or whatever, and when the birds came here from the other side, we didn’t even shoot hell you couldn’t see them through the Phragmites as they shot. And so everybody knew who killed what, it was crazy. But man, we just sat there and then I’m going to say in 45 minutes or an hour we all had our birds and wow, it’s a 7 bird limit but what I’ll never forget, is Rocky, this land is so flat over water. All those boats that sat at the boat ramp, all this public land, we just had a spectacular hunt and never heard another gunshot. And you hear a gunshot from miles, it seems like up there. We never heard a gunshot and that’s just blew my mind. If you drove up to a WMA here in the Deep South and there were 15 or 20 empty boat trailers, that’s going to be a fun morning, we didn’t even hear a shot and we were there for a couple of mornings and what’s so interesting though, is Chad – we talk about the duck hunting there that time of year. We were hunting, there was this little knee high plant didn’t look like much, it’s called Alkali Bulrush. They were just hundreds or thousands, I don’t know as far as human eye can see, I have no idea. There’s no scale like an oak tree to judge distance by us. I mean, as far as human eye can see, we just stand to this little knee high thing called Alkali Bulrush and that’s what a lot of those birds are feeding on. They might be rafted out on big water person coming in at that time of year to feed on this Alkali Bulrush seat make a real fine seat. And then later in the year, like now I talked to Chad about something this morning, a lot of birds, there’s a lot of ice in places and the birds are starting to transition and they’re going out to a different part of water, where they’re feeding on Brine Shrimp nearer to the actual Great Salt Lake, Brine Shrimp and Brine shrimp cysts or eggs and that’s where he’s keyed in right now. But the Great Salt Lake basin is so vast and so diverse that, just talk to one person about it, just gives you one perspective, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. So we talked about big conservation issues, what’s going on and why it’s vile and why it’s important with Jessop. Then we talked to Chad Yamane Fried Feather Outfitter today about kind of his glimpse at that time of year, how he set up, how he operates, why he hunts like he does and stuff like that and there was puddle duck, teal and shovelers and thinking about all we shot. And we just shot shovelers just because we didn’t have to – we could have stuck it out with green wings, kind of funny shooting shovelers over spoonzilla. And then next we’re going to talk to a biologist who was a hunter himself that really does some really big things habitat wise, out in those areas. And then the next guest is going to be Tony Smith who is a diver specialist. And it’s like, I’m going to say 10 miles across water where we were hunting with Chad, we hunt with Tony, now the water’s waist deep, got Pond Sago Weed, Sago Pond Weed they call it. You got the divers coming in, we’re going to wrap it up, we’re going to end it with the cherry on the – icing on the cake cherry on top, talking to historian and I’m telling you all after you’ve heard these other 4 podcast and kind of just got this overall picture, when this man brings it home starts talking historically about the market gunning and the history of recreational duck hunting and stuff like that on this region is going to blow your mind. It’s going to blow your mind like it did mine. So bear with me, I hate spend so much time in the state of Utah but you can’t just tell the story. You can’t walk into Kroger’s and go to aisle at 11 come back out and describe aisle 11 and everybody know what’s inside of Kroger’s like. I mean, you got to walk the different aisles and see the different perspectives and that’s kind of what we try to do in the Great Salt Lake, so I hope you all enjoyed this. Chad is a really interesting guy. I’m going to try to draw for swans in the state of Utah, I think it might take me a year or 2, maybe 3, but when I get drawn us, who’s I’m hunting with the he posted something up the other day, mostly Tundra swans, Few Trumpeter swans. But he shot one the other day, one of his clients did is called Bewick swan, similar to a Whooping swan, but it’s not, it’s a freaking Bewick swan which is a European bird. I mean, it’s like other people said there’s no fence in the sky. Man, you want to talk about once in a lifetime, I mean, go to swan hunting and shoot something like that is pretty amazing, it’d be like, being out there and shooting common shell duck or something that came over from Europe that’s a big deal to shoot a prize like that. I just want to go out there and shoot just a regular white swan. But anyway, hope you all enjoyed today’s podcast.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, thank you again for knocking these out while you’re on the road because there’s a lot of interesting, a lot of people following them. We will get to that interview now.

Ramsey Russell: Mr. Ramsey Russell, getducks.com. Where it’s Ducks Season Somewhere and I am still in Northern Utah, around the Great Salt Lake, the Great Basin, they call it, North of Salt Lake City and what an amazing place it is for a southern hunter to come up and experience duck hunting. I’m here today with my guest today is Chad Yamane. Chad runs a business that specializes in swan hunting here in Utah, friedfeathersoutfitter.com be sure to check them out. But that’s not most of the subject day. Chad is a very savvy duck hunter up here in the Great Basin and he has showed me some pretty amazing stuff. With an airboat getting way back off the beaten bushes and Chad this morning we woke up at 07:00 clock, we stayed up too late having a good time eating and drinking and we got to the boat ramp at 08:00 clock, it’s been daylight an hour and nobody was in a hurry, we just went through the boat, we got everything done, double check the plug and cranked up the air boat all 750 horsepower of it and off we go to the far side and I’ll be honest with you, I was pretty shocked. Is that common that you all hunt like that here?

Chad Yamane: Yeah, that’s pretty common for us. I mean, a lot of times I’ll meet someone at 08:00 clock in the morning at the gas station and we’ll fire like you say, fire that up and get out there on the water at 9 or 10 o’clock and an hour later you’re done with your 28 birds and smoking and joking.

Ramsey Russell: By 9 or 10 o’clock at home we’re done, we’re eating fried bacon back at the camp house win or lose. It seems like most days, but that’s a real common thing.

Chad Yamane: It’s pretty common. We have this mid-morning flight here and since birds like we talked about earlier transitioning back and forth from those loafing areas to the feeding areas and yeah, that mid-morning flights just, he’s usually pretty spectacular for us.

Ramsey Russell: I guess you’re born and raised here in Utah, Northern Utah, how did you start duck hunting? Who’d you start duck hunting with?

“I got the bug when I was – I grew up on a farm here in Northern Utah and I remember sneaking down the ditches trying to shoot the geese as they were coming into the fields and stuff like that. And then I just had friends, good friends and their dads were gracious enough to let me tag along and go out with them and 12 years old you could start hunting back then and I just got bit by the bug and just been chasing hard ever since. “

Chad Yamane: I got the bug when I was – I grew up on a farm here in Northern Utah and I remember sneaking down the ditches trying to shoot the geese as they were coming into the fields and stuff like that. And then I just had friends, good friends and their dads were gracious enough to let me tag along and go out with them and 12 years old you could start hunting back then and I just got bit by the bug and just been chasing hard ever since.

Ramsey Russell: So, what was a progression from ditches to state of the art airboat? How did you go from that?

Chad Yamane: I think that’s probably most of us, right? As duck hunters, you’re trying to always get better and using better technology and trying to improve your game. And I remember buying those old Henriette and goose decoys from back in the day, buying some second-hand ones and starting to try to decoy the geese instead of jump shooting them and doing different things. And you just try to improve your game and then you realize that if you want to be a player in this area and get to the spots like we get to today, you have got to have an air boat. And we have mud boats too, we have spots that you can’t run their boats, so outside of dike units is where you can run airboat here in Utah, we’re outside of a dike unit that’s why. But like the other side of the dike where we’re at today is an impoundments and we couldn’t legally run inside of that. So we have to take your mud boats on that.

Ramsey Russell: So you know that? I see people walking in, people long tail motors, mud motors, airboats, it’s a very diverse habitat.

Chad Yamane: Very extremely diverse here in Utah. And we are very fortunate with our public grounds and in our WMAS that we have here. If you’ve never been anywhere else in the world and you don’t understand how bad it can be, I mean we are so fortunate, so lucky here in Utah that we have, what we do have.

Ramsey Russell: Now, I would tell anybody in Utah listening to this podcast to stay where you’re at, don’t move anywhere else because you all are blessed with high quality duck hunting. This morning, we got to the spot, we made a big pass out in that mud flat looking around. It didn’t seem to be the number of ducks we saw yesterday, but there’s still. I know when I looked up to the south, it was from east to west and as wide as my peripheral vision would go a cloud of ducks, which was a special in and of itself. And then we picked the game plan, we set up and we likely split shot tons of the green wings. Is that one of the prevalent species that you target here?

Chad Yamane: Our bread and butter is those green wing teal and the Northern Shoveler. I mean those green wing teal are here all season long. I mean, they’ll stick up until the very bitter end in January for us along with those shovelers. So, where we’re at kind of today we’re up in those grasses, those green winged teal are up there feeding on that grass, they’re going to transition out to the Brine Shrimp Eggs here in November, December. And that’s when we’re getting out onto the salt, actually under the true salt on the Great Salt Lake.

Ramsey Russell: So, that’s a good point. Today, we were in more of a freshwater marsh area north of actual salt.

“Yeah. So if the lake is high, where we’re at is brackish water, like the further south we would have went from where we are today, we turn into brackish water and eventually just saltwater, we are pretty fresh too, because that’s where the Bear River jumps in on us, right? And so that’s where it’s all fresh water for us today. “

Chad Yamane: Yeah. So if the lake is high, where we’re at is brackish water, like the further south we would have went from where we are today, we turn into brackish water and eventually just saltwater, we are pretty fresh too, because that’s where the Bear River jumps in on us, right? And so that’s where it’s all fresh water for us today. But yeah, it will just turn into salt.

Ramsey Russell: The Bear River’s what’s feeding that fresh water into that and they’re coming in to drink. And I’m trying to think of the name that grass, it’s just everywhere, thousands upon thousands of acres.

Chad Yamane: The Alkali bulrush.

Ramsey Russell: The Alkali bulrush.

Chad Yamane: That’s got a little seed head pot on it that they’re eating.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s what those teal are eating?

Chad Yamane: That’s what they’re finding. It drops into the water and they’re just feeding on that Alkali bulrush.

Ramsey Russell: And later in a year, they’ll go out to the salt and feed on the little fairy shrimp?

Chad Yamane: Yeah, the brine shrimp.

Ramsey Russell: The Brine shrimp and their egg or cyst somebody call them?

Chad Yamane: Yeah. There’s just transition out to there and then that’s what they’re going to feed on the rest of the winter. We’re going to catch those teal in the winter moving – we’re not catching them feeding, but they have to have fresh water, so they still have to go to the fresh water. And there’s some spots where we have fresh water that dumps into the lake from different rivers and we’re just targeting them on those freshwater sources. So they’re out feeding, we’re setting up on the fresh water and they’re coming into the fresh water to get that fresh water.

Ramsey Russell: How does hunting them out there on the Great Salt Lake different than what we actually did today? I mean, is it different hunting techniques?

Chad Yamane: Completely drastic and I’m going to get you back out and we have to go do that. What we call the traditional teal hunt, Utah teal hunt. You set up out there in coffins, we have these little black coffins, it looks just like a coffin block, it looks like a coffin and you’re lying in it just without a top on it basically. And we’re running about 300 black silhouette decoys to just mobbed out and block in it because – and it just works. I mean, when you’re 500 yards away from a duck, what do you see?

Ramsey Russell: Black confetti silhouette decoys, spray painted black.

Chad Yamane: Which is why we get the black core blast, that’s like the signs are made out of and they just shaped like a duck and we stick 300 of those in the ground, throw some spinners out and about 10 dozen teals floater got front just to really truly finish the birds and that’s how we gun those out on salt. And we’re in sheet water, 2 inches of water.

Ramsey Russell: Well, they’ve been like – I noticed today, even in that area we were in, it was like that kind of out there with the birds are wrapped in front of us. So you could have gone out there and set –

Chad Yamane: Yeah, and I was talking with some guys about that. If they get Ed shy on us where we’re hunting them on the edge, we’ll just go out there and we’ll coffin them, we’ll just go out there in the middle and set up and catch them transitioning back and forth.

Ramsey Russell: When you’re looking for a feeding area, when they’re feeding on the brine shrimp or the brine shrimp eggs, are you just kind of driving through the airboat and scouting? Like we did today to see a concentrating the birds or something that tips you off on where that resource is going to be, that the birds are going to come into.

Chad Yamane: Yeah, you’re going to find those huge rafts of birds, but just doing it so long and been growing up here knowing the spots. I can tell you exactly where every freshwater source dumps into that lake right now. I can try to navigate you there blind. It’s just you get on those freshwater sources and you’re going to be golden.

Ramsey Russell: Talk very briefly about the swans? Because I was north of where we hunted a day on some property and started seeing some swans and I saw some Tundra swans, you can hear them and then I heard a Trumpeter swan. But that’s apparently a pretty big deal here in Utah. Is this concentration of swans in this basis?

Chad Yamane: Yeah. So, we’re one of the very few states in the US to get a hunt on their 7 states I think is what it is, we get a swan season, so we’re fortunate.  We have a huge amount of tags probably second to maybe North Carolina in tag numbers, I mean there’s 20,750 tags given out every year. So, huge number of swan tags given out, we’re very fortunate and we get a huge population that swing through here on their migration. Peak numbers 50,000 swans and it’s a lot of fun. I mean, if you have never experienced decoying a swan having a 20lbs bird in your decoys, it’s a sight to behold.

Ramsey Russell: They’re not eating the Brine shrimp are they?

Chad Yamane: No, they’re freshwater birds. They all loaf every once in a while out on the salt, you will see them out there loafing if they get pressured out there but no, if you see them on the salt, they’re just out there during the day, just loafing.

Ramsey Russell: Do you hit those same areas with the airboat. I mean, is it same technique, we did this morning?

Chad Yamane: For swans?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Chad Yamane: Completely different. So, that’s where we have our mud motors because now we’re inside the impoundments, those freshwater impoundments. And we’re running the mud boats in those freshwater impoundments setting up in there. We’re catching them as they’re transitioning out to feed in the afternoons and setting up a big swan spread and we’ll shoot them over the swan decoys where they’re coming out looking for the different grasses and bulbs and roots that they’re feeding on.

Ramsey Russell: That’s amazing. One thing that surprised me this morning was, it was very high quality hunt and I did not hear another shotgun. I didn’t hear anybody else, didn’t see anybody else until we got real close up there to the boat ramp and there still wasn’t but 4 or 5 trucks. Is that usual or?

Chad Yamane: It’s pretty kind of usual for this spot. You can go somewhere the WAMS that we have, we have a couple of them that just any day of the given week, you’re going to have 10, 15, not airboat but just boat trailer park in the parking lot at any given time and that airboat just opens up so much more for us, right? I mean, we passed a couple of spreads going out this morning that they can only get so far before they run out of water and we’re able to go out in that couple inches of water and get out there and that’s where the birds are. I mean, you got to get to where the birds are. And so, that’s where the airboat comes into play and that helps tremendously to get away from it. It cuts back. It’s a huge expense but at the same time, if it’s something you love and you want to do, then it’s worth the investment.

Ramsey Russell: It just seems like millions of acres. I mean, as far as I could see when we were out there where we’re hunting, for miles, I would say those mountains were miles away and all the way to the south horizon and in north, I could see nothing but marsh, millions of acres.

Chad Yamane: Yeah, millions of acres. I mean, the Great Salt Lake is huge. And we’re not in a desert Ramsey. I mean, the only reason we have any waterfowl is because of the Great Salt Lake. So, it’s a huge resource for us. You wish your legislators and your people that represent you could understand that a little bit better at times. But if we didn’t have that lake and it dries up, we’re not going to have waterfowl, there won’t be waterfowl.

Ramsey Russell: Well, speaking of which have you seen since you were 12 years old? And I know when you’re 12-20 something years old, you really don’t pay attention this kind of stuff. But have you seen a change in the amount of wetlands or the amount of habitat or you have seen any changes since you started hunting?

Chad Yamane: Huge changes, right? Yeah. Growing up, I grew up on the farm and all that farmland is now under houses. We used to actually have a kind of a goose migration through here in Utah, we had the agriculture forum and I just don’t think we see that anymore. Those birds don’t have the agriculture, so they sure stopped us a lot anymore. Idaho has that still with the river system and the food source, the corn. We don’t have that anymore. I think we have lost that migration. We definitely are losing – there’s houses now where when I was in my teens, you just never thought of building a house –

Ramsey Russell: Because it was swamp.

Chad Yamane: It was swamp. Yeah and you just knew that if the lake – we have this high water year in ‘83 and those houses, if it ever happened again they would be underwater, they literally be in the Salt Lake.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Have you lost any favorite duck hole since then? Is there anywhere you ever look back and say, man, I wish I could still go back to that place but there’s a neighborhood there?

Chad Yamane: You know, not so much come to housing and stuff like, I mean my goose fields are all gone, they’re now houses are huge problem we got is that invasive frag. That’s sucky weed is horrible and it sucked up all of our wetlands and we lose probably more wetlands to that, we have some managers out here doing some amazing things. I know you spoke with them, but that frag is what’s eating us or marshes up.

Ramsey Russell: Everybody I have talked to in the last week that I have been out here around the Great Salt Lake has talked about phragmites and it’s like everybody he’s trying to get rid of. Now on the flip side, one huge benefit I see of it is, it is a readymade duck blind.

Chad Yamane: It’s all, it’s good for us to hide.

Ramsey Russell: I mean you no longer, you don’t poke your eye out or something, you just step right into it. You have got one of the best duck blinds I have ever been in.

Chad Yamane: Yeah, that’s the only thing, it’s truly good for that is it’s a height and that’s about it. But I lose a dog for a couple weeks every year to it.

Ramsey Russell: They get cut or?

Chad Yamane: They get cut or they get – we call it swamp foot, I call it swamp foot or marsh foot is what we call it. And they’ll puncture their foot and then just the bacteria and stuff gets pushed up into there and then they’re on antibiotics for a couple weeks and it’s swollen and they’re healing and it’s never a good thing. But waiters and all sorts of things just ruined.

Ramsey Russell: You know, something else I have heard, especially last night we had probably a dozen people here telling war stories and what not around here is, on the one hand, we have been talking about this airboat that gives you a lot of access and you can just fly out there to some of these areas but it’s not just easy. You can’t just go Willy Nilly, you can’t just have an airboat and say, all right I’m going to go hunt Great Salt Lake. You got to know where the heck you going and what to drive into and all that good stuff.

Chad Yamane: That’s a huge part of it, knowing your limitations, I mean that’s always it. But I mean, what you saw today, we had a rookie driver at the wheel and about bad as stuck –

Ramsey Russell: They are not talking about me folks, they’re talking about my buddy Justin Bodly who was practice driving and drove us right up in from what you call it? Crack dirt or something.

Chad Yamane: Yeah, that cracked mud, we call it cracked mud. It is where dried out and it’s cracked and you get stuck on that and you’re going to be there for a little while digging yourself out.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I mean, you had told me all that yesterday and I was sitting there kind of dozing until I saw that mud getting bigger and I’m like, what is he doing? And he drives right up in, it was hard to slow down, I’m like, oh Lord have mercy. We fixing to get stuck. How did we have gotten out of that?

Chad Yamane: We would have been digging into some water back to the boat to get out of that.

Ramsey Russell: That would have been fun. We’d still be there, wouldn’t we? 

Chad Yamane: We would still be there.

Ramsey Russell: Have you ever spent the night out there getting lost for stuck?

“We would still be there. I have been fortunate that I have not and that’s the thing is that the airboat community is small enough and you have numbers on speed dial because – and you’re going to help each other out because it’s not a matter of when, it’s a matter – not a matter of if, but when you’re going to get stuck or broke down out there.“

Chad Yamane: I have been fortunate that I have not and that’s the thing is that the airboat community is small enough and you have numbers on speed dial because – and you’re going to help each other out because it’s not a matter of when, it’s a matter – not a matter of if, but when you’re going to get stuck or broke down out there.

Ramsey Russell: It happens doesn’t it?

Chad Yamane: Yeah. I mean you’re running out there, you’re going to get stuck or break down and you’re going to need help to get back in.

Ramsey Russell: You make it look easy, but it can be a real – it can go from easy to real tough real quick.

Chad Yamane: Oh yeah, exactly. You can go from a nice, but we had a great easy hunt this morning and it could have went from fun and an easy hunt to ugly and muddy and wet and I’m not 100% after last night either. So, it wouldn’t have been good that way.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a little brown water last night looking around here to lodge. In honor of Mississippi boy coming up guys, they brought some Maker’s Mark and then they had some Canadian whiskey and we just had a contest of South versus the North and had a real good time this morning.

Chad Yamane: Not sure who won.

Ramsey Russell: What else would you – how else would you describe hunting up here? What would you like to tell anybody listening that just like me for example, when I first came up here, I know you all had duck hunting, I have kept up with you about 15 years Chad I have been aware of since old Avery pro staff, but I had no idea about the history and the legacy and all the rich habitat up here.

Chad Yamane: Yeah. It’s pretty spectacular like you’re saying, I mean, who would have thought one of the biggest duck clubs in 1901? You know west of the Mississippi all that stuff is right here in Utah. It’s a pretty neat to see some of the old pictures and I don’t know if you had a chance to – if anyone shown any pictures when those guys used to take the train out Farmington Bay, I mean just by the thousands they drove and would go out and hunt ducks. So, it’s pretty rich history. And when you think of duck hunting history, you don’t think of west of the Mississippi you think –

Ramsey Russell: I think Chesapeake bay. But that history existed out here, that’s what blew my mind. There was an old market hunter that shot 4022 ducks in 50 something day’s about years ago and that’s just astounding.

Chad Yamane: And it’s all just because of this – like I say it’s a Great Salt Lake. And it’s a pretty cool national treasure that we have out here. And we’re pretty well kept secret. I mean, as far as water fowling goes, the western states, we have a pretty good, we’re pretty fortunate, we were really lucky. Liberal bag limits 107 day season. We have it all.

Ramsey Russell: 7 ducks.

Chad Yamane: Yeah. Today, you always hear about the glory days are right now and we’re definitely enjoying them.

Ramsey Russell: I think the good old days are now Chad. I really do.

Chad Yamane: They are.

“I mean, I guess we could have not shot a couple of shovelers, we could’ve just stuck it out one more volley and got our green wings if we wanted to. But I know that a lot of people think about Cinnamon teal and I know that it’s one of the most at this region is where most of the North American continents Cinnamon teal are hatched. “

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot of people – there’s a lot going on with the habitat with the water use, we met with somebody from ducks unlimited and landed on meeting with Rick Hansen soon to talk about some of the conservation issues out here. But at the same time it is such a rich and big habitat out here. Hey, talk about – out there we hunted a green wings and shovelers primarily, I mean, I guess we could have not shot a couple of shovelers, we could’ve just stuck it out one more volley and got our green wings if we wanted to. But I know that a lot of people think about Cinnamon teal and I know that it’s one of the most at this region is where most of the North American continents Cinnamon teal are hatched.

Chad Yamane: Yes. Born and raised right here.

Ramsey Russell: What about hunting out here? I have shot some stuff in here, but they have been brown birds, but what do you think? What would you tell somebody that wanted to come out here to shoot trophy red cinnamon teal.

Chad Yamane: I’m going to tell them to call you Ramsey. And I do, I get calls, I was just telling – like you were talking with the DU guy last night Jessop Boden, I showed him an article, the DU rans and every time it reruns, it’s the top 5 destinations in North America to go kill trophy birds and Utah’s in one of those top 5. And even in the article says right then and there, hey, October these birds are like any other teal they’re going to leave early first cold snap and they do, we have lost 90% of our cinnamon teal there’s still some around, but they’re gone.

Ramsey Russell: They are already going to south aren’t they?

Chad Yamane: From our youth hunt in September that we had, I mean, we were covered up in them. And you go out in the same marshes today and I would say 90% of our Cinnamon teal are gone.

Ramsey Russell: What happens from here, through the remainder of you all season, surely a lot of these birds we’re shooting now will go south, you all have more birds from North come in?

Chad Yamane: Yep. So, I think that’s what kind of where we’re at right now is, we’re kind of in a transitional phase where we have lost a lot of our – we raise a whole bunch of birds were not like a lot of other states and in the central flyway, especially where they are not raising the birds. We raise a huge number of birds for – that’s why we’re so important also is for those people further south of us and into southern California and Mexico as we raise all those birds for those guys to shoot and enjoy and we’ll just transition right now from waiting on our birds that have left to the birds that will start arriving or swans will start arriving and with that the new birds will come in. We’ll start seeing divers, divers are starting to show up, started getting cans our blue bills, our reds and buffle heads all those divers that the guys like getting after those, they’re just starting to get here. So they’ll just –

Ramsey Russell: It will just start pilling in, it will start building up.

Chad Yamane: It will build again and till freezes once we get that hard freeze, we will lose them all again.

Ramsey Russell: And when will that – when you say hard freeze?

Chad Yamane: Hard freeze. I’m talking, our water is locked up and we are running the airboat on top of the ice now instead.

Ramsey Russell: Really? Wow.

Chad Yamane: So yeah, we’ll freeze up hard, that’s generally anywhere from the first week of December, where you’re out on the Bear River Club, they closed down thanksgiving. They just don’t even hunt anymore because they’re ditches froze up by then.

Ramsey Russell: So what do the birds do then, if you are still hunting? They must find some open water.

Chad Yamane: As long as they have open water we’ll keep some birds here. We have those fresh water sources where like I say the rivers are moving into the lake. The teal and the shovelers will just move out to the lake because they’re fresh water is frozen. And then the rest of the ducks are just finding the open water. We have enough moving water, some warm spots that we keep some birds here keeps them concentrated, so makes them targeting them a little easier. But then we always have our January thaw and it gets tough again because our, hundreds of thousands of acres and our 1000 birds we have left, now they’re all spread out over that. And so it gets tougher again if we get that thought. But we always have the Great Salt Lake and the teal like I said, the teal and the shovelers are bread and butter at that point.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. For anybody that might want to come out here and visit you to shoot swan, what would be the best time for them to come out here and target those Tundra Swans? Excuse me. Yeah, the Tundra swans.

Chad Yamane: We can try to target a Tundra or it’s going to be a tough go at it though. I mean, in my all my years, 30 years of swan hunting, I have held one trumpeter swan, so yeah, that’s pretty tough to find those. The trumpeter swans generally typically start, they’re starting to show up right now but their numbers will get good enough for what I consider to hunt that second week in November up until the end of the Swan Hunt, which is December 10^th somewhere at that second Saturday or Sunday in December. But any time through November and December is spectacular swan hunting that just gets better and better.

Ramsey Russell: Perfect. Guys, that’s Chad Yamane Fried Feather Outfitters, friedfeathersoutfitter.com.

Chad Yamane: friedfeathersoutfitter.com.

Ramsey Russell: friedfeathersoutfitter.com. You have not hunted a more beautiful area, I have not hunted a more beautiful area than right here in Northern Utah, give him a shout @RamseyRussell.Getducks. Check out our storyline, lots and lots of pictures from up here and thank you all for listening.

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