Sunday Morning Conversation About Duck Hunting With Ramsey Russell
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In this edition of The End Of The Line Podcast, Ramsey and I attempt to get back into the “Life’s Short, GetDucks” story, but we talk about his son Duncan Russell coming down to Argentina, his investigative trip to Northern Argentina, and mishap stories with flights that he and clients have had while traveling abroad to duck hunt.
Rocky Leflore: Welcome to The End of The Line podcast, I’m Rocky Leflore and sitting in the hotel room, which we call it the Duck South Studios from Buenos Aires, Mr. Ramsey Russell.
Ramsey Russell: Morning Rocky, how you doing?
Rocky Leflore: Good, how are you man? You’ve had an eventful –
Ramsey Russell: Doing good.
Rocky Leflore: You’ve had an eventful few weeks and I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to listen to Jake’s podcast or not we can talk about that before we start recording but dang, look, Josh and I just hanging on the edge of our seats.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, he’s a storyteller but he’s a good guy and that’s one of the highlights of the week is just being down here, because you know how it is when you’ve seen something a lot of times it don’t matter. I’ve been down here so many times, spent so much time down here and it’s kind of almost like having kids. You all remember, I had practically quit fishing until I had Children and taking those little boys fishing when they were babies, it was just a new energy seeing it all through their eyes again and having Jake down here Jake’s got a very, very creative eye. He’s got an attention to detail and it’s almost like seeing all this stuff I’ve seen before through his creative lens and it was a lot of fun. We had a great visit, we got to know each other well and I knew it, I knew that from that met with him in the past, I knew it was going to be a really fun trip for him and I am and we got some goodies. We’re working on a project together that’s coming down the road and there’s no doubt in my mind that I have teamed up with absolutely the right person. We hit it off and I could see us, this story line, I can see it evolving and taking the life of his own, just because he is, who he is and not I’m who I’m and we just get along so well.
Rocky Leflore: Well now, look the week before that and I know look, people don’t understand something, I know you’ve mentioned it in the podcast before one of the episodes, but Duncan is about to leave and go to the marines, right?
“I’ll tell you all a story and people that know him and watched him grow up and many duck southers did, I mean he still know, just dozens of people off this website by their old handle. Mr. Big water and Mr. Iron grip, Mr. Tadpole but so they’ll appreciate this.”,
Ramsey Russell: That’s right. And that will be the highlight of my summer. I was down here, he started off every year, let me back up every year, we host hunts one or two weeks and what that does Rocky is, believe it or not there are a lot of people that had to travel with 4 and 5 and 6 and 8 people, most people don’t. Most people have just one or two guys and you put them in a lodge, it just really works best when you’ve got a common denominator like myself and I know you, I know him, you all don’t know each other yet, but we’ll all get to know each other at camp and we fill up the lodge, we have a great time and I love it, you’ve heard me say it a million times, I love the people aspect of this trip and this summer has been unbelievable, just the stories I’ve heard. I had a guy in my camp just a few weeks ago, I had no idea, well, he’s been a client for years, he’s bought a dozen trips, let’s say, I had no idea he was the world record holder for archery kills for big game but he’s been doing it since Bear Bryant or whatever name his is, the archers day, Fred bear. He’s been shooting long bows and doing that kind of stuff since back in those days, the stories that guy could tell about that kind of stuff and now as he’s older and less mobile and of course he’s killed all them other animals, now he’s focused his attention on waterfowl species, he just collected 41 or 42 whatever that contest is, I think it’s a little low, but he’s collected it and now he’s got his eyes set on world species and just the stories. And the people and the camaraderie and I can say that about every single person I’ve met in the last six weeks but the highlight was Duncan graduated high school this year, he wanted to go to Argentina, he talked one of his little friends into coming with him, they showed up the week before Jake did and we just had a really good time, now he had been down here before when he was 12 years old and shot some ducks and we went fox hunting and we did some different stuff, but this time he’s 18 year old man fixing to join the marines and he showed up with a gear bag. He showed up ready and armed for bear and ducks just one of many of his agenda. I’ll tell you all a story and people that know him and watched him grow up and many duck southers did, I mean he still know, just dozens of people off this website by their old handle. Mr. Big water and Mr. Iron grip, Mr. Tadpole but so they’ll appreciate this. We used to have these crawfish bowls, at willow break way back when Duck South crawfish bowls and everybody show up with their kids and stuff like that, well, all the kids would disappear and everybody wondered where they were and they were all with Duncan, the pied piper, he was just that kind of guy. And one afternoon I stepped out about midway through the week, I don’t hunt afternoon, we’ve got too much work to do and I knock on the door and then Duncan stepped out and him and his little buddy left and I watched and it was him and his buddy one of the best friend from Rankin County and three guys not two, these had a guy, but now they had somebody else that they have recruited and they left walking not driving walking with two shotguns and a rifle and a bird dog and a backpack full of fox calls and everything else and said, I’ll see you at dark. And that was kind of an endearing memory to me because I said, all these years later the boy hadn’t changed a bit, he just got this energy that people follow him and but they shot ducks and they had a great time but Rocky, man, he just didn’t care. I mean, he went out and shot all the shells he could at ducks but then he had an agenda, they went out fox hunting at night, they chased this bird, you see them in the marshes, it’s called a Chaha southern screamer, it’s edible, it’s kind of like our Sandhill crane to fully granivorous, it’s a big ugly hawk looking bird and it’s got these huge fur on its wings and he has seen one when he was younger down here the first time and he said, we’re going to get some of those this time. They hunted those, they went out and shot Capybaras, they went out and hunted nutrients. I mean, who in the world, I never in my life heard of shooting down here, they went did it, but they fill the boat up with them, they just had a big old rich time. Had the time of their lives and for me, I’ve been struggling with the fact that he’s fixing to go and put himself in harm’s way in the US Marine corps respected totally, not what I want him to do, but total respect for his commitment and patriotism to doing that. His mother was actually supposed to come down here this last week and spend some time we were going to go up to Northern Argentina and look around and she stayed home because he got called up the week he came down here, he had been called up, they were like – apparently when he sign up they give you a date so here’s when you’re going, saying what it really means, between now and that date, first time we can get you on a bus within your job description, it’s time to go. And they called him and said it’s time to go and somehow another he’s a good salesman too, he talked him out of it and said, I’m going to be out of the country. So, they let him go and it’s really touch and go every Sunday a bus leaves or flight leaves, I should say nowadays it’s just any given Sunday and last I heard it’s a good chance he’ll be leaving the day I get home but I hope I get to see him off. I really do.
“I’m going to say that going into the marines just graduated high school, this was his last chance being kid and to be hunting as a “kid”. I mean, because I’m going to tell you they’re going to turn him into a man in the marines in which he’s part of that, don’t get me wrong, you know what I’m saying?”,
Rocky Leflore: I’m going to say that going into the marines just graduated high school, this was his last chance being kid and to be hunting as a “kid”. I mean, because I’m going to tell you they’re going to turn him into a man in the marines in which he’s part of that, don’t get me wrong, you know what I’m saying? That was the last rock and that will stick with him when he gets to be 60 years old somebody’s going to ask him, man, you went to a lot of places which one do you remember the most? That hunt that week, I guarantee you it will be his number one answer.
Ramsey Russell: I think you’re right, Rocky. I see it and it’s not just the hunting part, I’ll tell you something funny. He and his buddy roomed with Feday. Feday is one of our hosts down here and uncle Feday is what the boys would call him and this is pretty funny. He comes in there one night, of course I’m going to bed about 10, 11 o’clock try and get up the next morning and kids and young folks stay up and talk to uncle Feday and staying up and they want to do this and do that Feday, come in there and had a big old chew to back in his lip. I said, oh, the boys had talked to him into taking, come on Feday it’s nothing man, you love it, it’s good. Well, they knew and I knew, you know how that ended, right? Well that’s all Feday that big old chew on the back, I started laughing and I said, well, how do you feel? And he was – you could tell his head start to swim a little bit, he didn’t know what he was in for. So I went on the bed, I started getting text, I’m in the bathroom, I’m not feeling good, I’m sick, I’m this, I’m that. He said, I can’t believe I was nice to those kids and they did this to me. And I started laughing and I said, well, don’t get mad, get even. And so the next night I went to bed and Feday’s idea was to sit on the front porch and smoke some cigars. He brought some cigar, Duncan, he’ll smoke a cigar now and I guess going to join the marines, you smoke cigars and they drank a few beers and did this and did that, well next night I got up, I couldn’t get Duncan up. It was 05:00, I started to get angry, what the heck coming out here, you can’t get out. I mean, he was out like a light at 05:00 truck was pulling up at 05:05. I got in the truck a little angry, I can’t believe my young and slept in, stayed up two nights carrying on and slept in, I got in the truck there, he was on the other side of trucks fallen asleep, somebody help me to get him in the truck and I looked at Feday and he gave me a thumbs up and says, don’t get mad, get even Ramsey. So, he got even all right, he sand bag Duncan next day and when Duncan would get up and go do something Feday just pull more drink off, more alcohol offer to drink until he had him so they hit it off and made a good lifelong friendship over that. It was good because now the legal drinking age down here at 18 years old, you all, it’s not 21, it’s 18. So, he was perfectly legal and they had a good time and he just absolutely had a good time, I couldn’t have been prouder to be down here with him and see him off and you’re right. Just a few weeks ago, we had a gentleman down here that did very, very well in professional life but he started off in the military, I think he became over in Vietnam, he was very active, civilian military, which says spoke to me, but that’s kind of, and we had a long talk and he said, son he’s going to leave and the boy is going to come back like a man. He’s going to have a whole different, the way he stands it’s going to be completely different and it’s going to be the best thing he ever did. And so we couldn’t be prouder Rocky, I really couldn’t be proud of my son for doing this. But as a daddy, I’ll just say it, as a daddy, especially one’s been through some of the stuff I’ve been through, it’s very humbling. It is scary.
Rocky Leflore: Well, I have to ask you jumping back into the story, a little bit easing back into it. Are you still getting calls, texts emails from people? Because listen, on my side of it, I’m just telling you now and I’ll tell it to everybody that’s listening, the numbers are outrageous of the people that’s listening to it.
“And to correct you on the introduction, I’m not sitting in a hotel, I’m down here too much to afford hotel, they’ve got a bunch of apartments down here and I’m just sitting in a low 900 square foot apartment that I can get for about half the price for a hotel room. When you’re spending 10 or so nice throughout a month or 6 week period of time, you got to be resourceful and it’s just nice to get a little kitchenette here and stuff like that and good Wi-Fi, most importantly.”,
Ramsey Russell: That’s very humbling to hear. I’m honoured. But yes, I am getting text, I’m getting comments, I’m getting a few emails, a few inboxes in social media because what’s happening now is like you just take the last four or five weeks now, we’ve been in a hole in the ground, there’s no Wi-Fi, remember I to talk to you from a truck stop, two hours away a few weeks ago and here in Buenos Aires there’s plenty of dead gum Wi-Fi. I mean, everywhere you go in the world, every store, every restaurant’s got Wi-Fi, good Wi-Fi too. And to correct you on the introduction, I’m not sitting in a hotel, I’m down here too much to afford hotel, they’ve got a bunch of apartments down here and I’m just sitting in a low 900 square foot apartment that I can get for about half the price for a hotel room. When you’re spending 10 or so nice throughout a month or 6 week period of time, you got to be resourceful and it’s just nice to get a little kitchenette here and stuff like that and good Wi-Fi, most importantly. But yes, a lot of these clients that have been coming through this week have heard about the podcast, we’ve been talking about bits and pieces of it when Jake was here especially, I was sitting there talking with some guy and he’s like, don’t listen to Ramsey, listen to the podcast and they’ve all gone home and listen to the podcast and shared it, so it’s been pretty – I couldn’t believe you said you thought some people would listen to it. I figured it would be 2 or 3 of you all listen to it? But I had no idea that there will be that many people listening.
“I’ll tell you this. I’ll tell you the one that surprises me from a statistical standpoint, we’ll get into this a little bit the story a little bit in just a second but I’ll tell you this.”,
Rocky Leflore: I’ll tell you this. I’ll tell you the one that surprises me from a statistical standpoint, we’ll get into this a little bit the story a little bit in just a second but I’ll tell you this. After the story about the fire, the story about climbing out of the rabbit hole, you know what still leads them all, is the very 1st one. It’s the very 1st one. It’s the one about catching turtles. Your foundational principles that were established when you were young, that one still leads, the fact, and listen, I know that it was out there, it’s been out there two weeks longer than part three and part four which were integral parts of the story but it’s up there.
Ramsey Russell: Good to hear. I mean, everybody was a little boy, everybody remembers their childhood and we all got started some kind of way and I guess that’s what resonates among listeners, it’s just their own wonders years, how that kind of dovetails with their own wonders years, that’s all I can figure.
Rocky Leflore: Hey, let me ask you this, one thing, I wanted to ask you before we jumped into it, you’ve been going down there 13 years? I have that number, right?
Ramsey Russell: 17 years. I’ve been coming to Argentina for 17 years.
Rocky Leflore: 17 years. Do you still find something new or is it the same old every time you go?
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I find something new every time. It never ceases to amaze me just about the time I think I’ve seen and done it all, you just, something else happens and I was supposed to been off last week, no clients and I was just going to – rather go home and fly back down here, spend all that money, I’m just going to relax and catch up on work and work on the web page and stuff like that over Wi-Fi and instead, I got an invite to go up to Northern Argentina. Now, everybody hears about Córdoba, you can’t hardly give away a Córdoba dove hunt anymore. And there’s a lot of different reasons Córdoba is not what it was, it’s still a much better dove hunt than the best of hunt in the state of Mississippi but it’s not a fraction of what it was. It it’s been overshot, they’ve had some reproduction problem with the bird populations, they have some agricultural land use changes, just like Patrick and Bradley were talking about with duck distribution back home is affecting their doves down here. There’s a lot of changes that have happened in Córdoba in the past 10 years and I had a client, a really nice good client forever, never went to Córdoba, he went to Córdoba for one time about 15, 20 years ago and then he started hunting up in Northern Argentina, another agricultural kind of beaten, this way off the beaten path and I always said one day I’d go check it out, I was contacted several weeks ago I think, I was actually down here when I got the email and the invite to come and meet with them and I had a week off and airfare was real cheap just to go from here to there for an hour and a half flight, so I went up there and of course they lodge me and fed me and entertainment me everything else to go shoot doves and pigeons. When you talk about pigeon hunting, the folks back home, most of us just relate to maybe going out and shooting a few of feral pigeons around the silos or the barn or something and wild pigeons in Argentina and elsewhere are really and truly, if you’ve ever done it before, people that have done it before, people that did it, that’s a real high on their thing to do list and it’s tough to find pigeons aren’t doves. They got lower reproductive success, they’ve got more specific habitat need, they need a lot more cover to breathe in, they need a lot of agriculture nearby and they do not take the pressure that doves will, they just don’t. And so it’s kind of hard to get on. And this client told me if I ever got the chance to go up there Salta, the guy he was working with, I just would not work with him, I met him 15, 16 years ago and I don’t trust him any thicker any further I could pick the truck up and throw it and but there’s a new team and they’re very well educated, very well connected. I couldn’t believe one of the family members is a federal magistrate and so they’re all by the book and this that another and they invited me to come up and I did and I was just picking Argentina and Martha a phony lady we hired about 8 years ago that works for us on a couple of hunts down here, she has family up there and she told me you’re going to love it. I said really? She says, oh you’re going to love Salta, much different than anywhere you’ve ever been. So, I flew into Salta and man, I mean within the first hour and a half, two hours, I loved it. It’s right on the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It’s a higher elevation. They got the beautiful trout streams cutting across the country. Salta, the city is just absolutely clean and beautiful. And we went north of there a few hours to this little community about the size of Brandon, Mississippi maybe smaller and I don’t mean like just part of Brandon, not Reservoir Brandon plus downtown Brandon but just say about the size of downtown Brandon. I just had a really good time and after three or four days of pigeon hunting and got tired of shooting those things limit was 200 and they were decoying birds and just magic of pigeon hunting is, it is like duck hunting with crocs on I mean that’s just really the best way to describe it. You’ve got to be concealed, you can’t just kind of be standing out there on a bucket like you might shoot dove, you got to be perfectly concealed you shoot lead fires because we were shooting Peca’s duras which are every bit as big at a green wing teal. These are big tough birds and they’ll decoy and it was just a lot of fun, of course I shot some doves that flew over to just to get warmed up and then the following day they shot dove –
Rocky Leflore: Do they eat them?
Ramsey Russell: Go ahead.
Rocky Leflore: Do they eat them?
“I’ve been to Cordoba many times just pursuant to what we do down here and so I go out to dove hunt one morning and there was just massive – got to be three by three sections big soybean field broke up a little bit with a few tree lines, every quarter section or half section or so and then a major roost down below it and there was this little just, our blinds were set up in the middle of the field kind of next this little depression and you can tell by the tracks and what used to be mud and by the vegetative community it was like a real wet spot that had dried up.”
Ramsey Russell: They eat them, yes they do. It’s funny how nobody really in the country of Argentina cares about doves, a lot of the bird boys and I think they give it many of them to orphanages as well take them, but probably child abuse if you feed a kid doves 365 days a year but the pigeons, they absolutely love. Like my bird boy, if you want to “bird boy” was a grown man that runs a grocery store downtown, runs a butcher they sell, ambre sausages and some cheese and chickens and beef and different stuff like that. I actually went by his shop one day to visit, that’s where they bring all those pigeons. They bring all those pigeons in and process them and then give them away because everybody, the farmers, the locals, the people, the churches, I mean everybody eats the pigeons and one night we went over to my host house and we had a massive barbecue. I mean, I was like, who in the world you all are cooking all this food for. Because they’re about 10 of us and they had enough food to feed an absolute army. All kinds of cuts of beef and ribs and brisket and they fired up the old asado grill, the paria and got it going and part of it was the dove, pigeons and they were delicious. Now, let me say this folks down here, you got to really kind of tell them not to overcook your meat because they like their meat done. You’re going to a steakhouse, you don’t just assume they know how to cook a steak like to do back home because they don’t, they overcook it, they like their meat overcooked. And you think about that if you’re in a very rural community or you don’t have the whole modernization that we’ve got back home for cooling meat and all that good stuff, you figured it might not be as good as ours, right? So they want it well done. So, yeah the pigeons were good. I really and truly I couldn’t believe how good they were. They picked them and they butterfly them and the seasonings they used down here whether they’re cooking steaks or ribs or anything, it’s all kind of the same, it’s coarse salt, maybe some garlic, little rosemary, just a very simple season, but a lot of salt and then they grill it. It’s funny how to me, you hear so much about their steaks in Argentina and as compared to USDA Prime back home, I sometimes think it leaves something to be desired, it’s not as tender. You will not get, no matter where you’re go, I have a really nice steakhouse last night with an outfitter and it was as good as steak as you’ll get but still not quite as tender at a steak back home and the reason is down here they grade their beef and their meat flavor not for tenderness. We grade ours for tenderness, not for flavor. Their beef is primarily grass fed so it’s leaner cut and it’s amazing how just something as simple as coarse salt grill it just right, it’s some of the most flavorful steak I’ve ever eaten in the world. It is very, very good. And those pigeons were right there with it and I talked them, they actually had a few ducks on hand, a Brazilian teal, the Brazilian duck did had gone out and shot in the creek somewhere and I talked him into plucking those and butterflying them to, we grill those out, they were just man, that’s a really good duck to eat. It’s one of the favorites up here in parts of Northern Argentina is what they go out to shoot to hunt. So, long story short I didn’t eat breakfast the next morning, I was full of the text deal but the pigeons were really good. I went up there to that part of Argentina and just had a really good time, everything was so clean as compared to Buenos Aires, everything was nice, the people were friendly, they had some interesting cultural traditions. I mean, like I’ve been coming down here forever and I’ve never seen tamales well up there in that part of Argentine, they eat tamales and it’s not exactly like our tamale but it’s very similar, it’s just different. Oh, I love this, trust me, I love the way they eat steak because they eat steak with eggs on it. Eggs for some reason up in that part of Argentina is huge to them. They don’t eat it for breakfast, they do not eat an egg for breakfast but they eat it for lunch and dinner and so when I order steaks at a restaurant one night out they come with a nice medium rare filet mignon with two fried eggs over easy on top of it, let me tell you what, that’s a fine way to eat a steak right there and like when you wanted to go to the grocery store to get groceries but when you want fruit you go to the fruit stand or vegetable to go the vegetable stand or bread go to the baker and I was sitting around this little fruit stand, it didn’t look like much, I don’t know how in the world they make a living doing this. We were cooking out that night, we bought a bunch of veggies, a lot of fruit, a lot of stuff, just whole couple of big sacks full of it. I bet that would have been $35, $40 worth at Kroger back home and it was like $6 and it was all just brought in, little local farmers and local people will grow it and bring it into the market, sell it. They had a whole big stack of eggs sold 2.5 dozen at a time, these brown farm eggs and I asked how much they were and every about 89 cents for 2.5 dozen eggs. I would be heart driven living there. Yeah and it was clean, it was nice, it was friendly the people over there. And my host is an American that had come down here to hunt and met a lady and hit it off and came back down here, they end up getting married several years ago now he’s got two kids and he’s living here and he’s the only green go in town and they love him. I mean he’s like a celebrity almost the only green go. And so I could see after spending a few days there what his allure was. He said, I love this part of the world. He said, I love it. And for the first time in 17 years, if I were going to move to Argentina and I wouldn’t but if I were that probably be somewhere like I go, I really liked that part of – not many ducks to speak of, that’s the only downside but a lot of dove, a lot of pigeons way more than Cordoba way closer drives and I was saying something I love dove hunt, you know that I used to dove hunting where on your fields but I don’t like doing it too much, I get a little bored when you got that kind of volume flying, it just after a while it gets a little old. I’ve been to Cordoba many times just pursuant to what we do down here and so I go out to dove hunt one morning and there was just massive – got to be three by three sections big soybean field broke up a little bit with a few tree lines, every quarter section or half section or so and then a major roost down below it and there was this little just, our blinds were set up in the middle of the field kind of next this little depression and you can tell by the tracks and what used to be mud and by the vegetative community it was like a real wet spot that had dried up. Well, with the hunters coming in and stuff like that, they brought a tanker truck in and dumped a bunch of water to hydrate and get a little shallow water and when the doves started coming and started off slow 8 o’clock it was cloudy and it was windy, there were a few doves beating around like a Mississippi dove hunting something but man, when those doves started coming in to that field – I actually quit shooting for a minute to video it and take some pictures and stuff, it was just astounding because at one time all these loose flocks of 150, 200, 300, 400 dove just kept racing back and forth across the field, they began to assemble almost. It looked like one of those big dragons they pulled on a Chinese parade, that column of doves at one time was stretched, it had been over a mile long, stretch from one end of the horizon to the next and it was just undulating and moving and see them like this coiling like a snake here there in yonder and then it busted, exploded almost like a firework infraction line and then they were just freaking flocks of doves going everywhere and it’s like I remember – you’ve ever been on a boat? After an hour and a half of shooting and I’m pretty calm and cool and collective in that environment because I’ve done it I usually what I do, I settle in so I’m going to shoot, I’m just going to look this way and I’m going to shoot these doves that are coming on this position or I’m going to shoot this one or I might shoot that one and then I shoot a few boxes and I’m done and man after about an hour and a half, two hours in that blind it was like stepping off of a boat like I’ve been offshore all day fishing and I stepped out the blind on rubber knees, rubber legs from just having spun around in delirious almost from just having spun around with all those doves I mean they were coming from all directions and it was extremely exciting. I really had a real good time. I was done in an hour or two hours I had all I wanted but it was a really fun way to break up this trip was just going and doing something completely different than seeing something completely different like that.
“You spend a lot of time going north and from Buenos Aires, do you ever go south?”
Rocky Leflore: You spend a lot of time going north and from Buenos Aires, do you ever go south?
Ramsey Russell: No, I don’t, I have been. When you go south of Buenos Aires, I’ll put it to you this way, our top lodge down here in terms of client traffic and everything else is south of Buenos Aires. They set up somewhere between 2 to 5 hours south of Buenos Aires and the reason I give that range is because and I love this about this outfitter and his handful but I love this about this outfitter, he manages very well number one. But number two he will start scouting and looking at the water conditions and the duck conditions early in the spring, April earlier than that heck March, this year he was flying helicopter surveys and survey and horizon for where the ducks are going to be based on water and then he’ll move. And so I’ve been working with this guy for 8 years and he’s been in six different lodges because you know there’s so many freaking vacation Polo estates scattered about the Buenos Aires province, it’s very easy for an operator to find somewhere to stay, the hard thing to do is and I see this time and time again these operators that push all in on the lodge and build all this around it and then they turn dry and they don’t have ducks for two hours from themselves, what this guy does is find the ducks and set up shot. So, he’s south of Buenos Aires and when you go much further south than him now you’re starting to get into the goose country and the first trip we ever took down here in 2001, it was geese. I mean the Magellan geese and ashy heads are the absolute positive number one goose hunt on earth. The way they work, they come in low, but whereas every other goose species I’m familiar with in the world, sleeps in and doesn’t come off roost until later in the morning you think about being in Arkansas rice field crack of dawn, you’re shooting ducks, the ducks are working and then later come the specs or later come the snows, they’re going to be behind the duck same could be set up in Canada when you’re hunting Canada geese or over in Sweden when you’re hunting Canada geese and barnacles, those birds come off late not Magellan’s buddy, no matter what the winds doing, you want to be looking towards the sun when the sky starts to color because you’re going to see wave of these birds coming in 5-15 yards off the deck and just coming in. And that was the first hunt I did and it was shortly after that when we got into Argentina down here, shortly after, I think Rocky it was 2005 or 2006.
Rocky Leflore: I got to interrupt you real quick, my wife just walked into the Duck South Studios before she goes to church. We’re recording this on Sunday morning and she has a Get duck’s T-shirt on right now as I was recording.
Ramsey Russell: Good for her. Thank you Roane.
Rocky Leflore: So anyway, back to Magellan geese real quick.
Ramsey Russell: It was the best goose hunt on God’s earth and they shut it down around 2005 or 2006. Now, I’ve heard since then there are folks, I get asked about a lot, hey, what about the goose hunt? We don’t do goose hunt because it is prohibited and it’s no ecological justification for it. Trust me the big word was where there was a dangerous species mixed in with them. Look, we’re sitting in a country that doesn’t have a biological survey, they don’t fly aerial surveys, they don’t do any of that kind of stuff, they don’t know what they got, it was purely political. And when you realize that queen of Netherlands is Argentine who has close political ties to a lot of political circles back here, it makes perfect sense, in fact, it makes more sense than anything in the world. But back in 2005 or 2006, they closed the goose hunting. So now we go 4-5 hours south wherever this operator is located, when you go a little bit more to the Western Argentina from where I’m sitting, you really start running out of duck habitat and running into doves used to get out too far west and so now you’re going north. The lodge, everybody thinks all I do is sit in a duck blind all the time down here, well I don’t and I was telling you this before the show. There’s real work to do. So, the plan was this morning I was going to get up and receive a team of writers and some corporate sponsors at the airport and by this time we should have been 3 hours north of Buenos Aires heading to a very remote location that we hunt up north and right about that time I was threatened because we tell everybody anywhere in the world, if you travel outside the United States before you’re flying, it’s a good idea when you’re flying inside the United States, when you’re leaving a hunting trip, go through your pockets, go through your waiters, go through your equipment and remove all loose ordinance. Get all the loose shotgun shells and ammo out of your pockets and put them over here, you don’t want complications going through airports and so I got a call last night about 30 minutes before the flight went home, I had a client, he was just bombing me, I had a great time, we had a great time, we loved it. Shoot, man, they found four cartridges in his pockets, they pulled him off the plane, he was scared he was going to miss his flight and all that good stuff. We’re trying, we’re sitting on pins and needles hoping he makes his flight and he did, they got him on the flight and off he goes, and we’re right in the middle of all that, I get a call, American Airlines coming out of Dallas was late. Supposed to leave at 8 o’clock last night, be here at 8 o’clock in the morning with the time change and all and then I get a call, they’re leaving at 8 o’clock this morning, they’re going to be here at 8 o’clock at night. Now, when I receive them, we got one heck of a long drive to go through the night, which is good because we can sleep but still it’s a long drive and just having to work through all the logistics of – we hired a guy down here that receives clients and helps them through an armed with firearms. We got to get him lined up to receive these guys and then we got to get our driver on deck. He’s got to make plans because now he’s got to drive all the way through the night and so it’s just sometimes the best laid plans for factors beyond our control like American airlines will put a stick in the spokes. So, that’s how I spent my night and that’s why I’m able to talk today instead of driving but when they get here, we’re going to drive to a very remote location –
Rocky Leflore: And that’s got to get stressful for you. Because you’re director of all this, directing traffic per se, I mean, that’s got to get stressful for you trying to coordinate all this.
Ramsey Russell: It gets stressful. Well, fortunately it ain’t just me Rocky, the brains of the operation is my wife Anita, I’m just good looks and then we’ve got other resources such as Martha down here and so we all work as a team and the most important advice I could give to anybody that whether you’re going on vacation to Disney or going to see your mom and daddy over thanksgiving or flying halfway across the world to shoot something most important advice I could give you is just pack a healthy dose of good attitude and patience because for factors beyond your control, something’s going to happen, something could happen. Got to just roll with the punches, just take a deep breath and there’s no sense yelling at somebody at the airline, she just works there, just do what you got to do and hope and I will pat myself on the back for this and Anita and Martha, hope you’re working with the right support staff that actually cares and I can’t leave out the most important part of this equation, which is Cherie Bassham over in Dallas, Texas. She’s been doing professional travel for 40 years, she’s a part of our travel staff, so now you’ve got three experts plus Ramsey working on your behalf, so that when you do get here, maybe it ain’t the time you were planning on, but everything’s going to fall into place and go on. So, when these guys get here tonight, we got an ice chest loaded with big, tall ice cold beers. We’ve got a few bottles of brown water, we’ll have some soft drinks and we’re going to have more food than their better eat for every minute of the ride and then they can sleep and eat and get caught up and start relaxing because the mars soon we hit the ground, we’re going to be moving and that’s just part of it. Rocky, these airlines are so big, I use this example all the time, it’s crazy because in my business, a service oriented business, in your business and Josh’s business and Jake’s business. Jake and I talked about this because it’s a service industry and but the airlines are so big. I think somebody told me one time that the total sum of Airline economy accounts for something like 8% of the gross domestic product of America, which I find unbelievable, but nonetheless to say it’s huge and they’re so big. It’s almost like this when you fly, it’s almost and if you’ve flown in the last six months more than once or twice, you’re nodding your head going, yep, he’s exactly right. Here’s how it works. It’s like I go to McDonald’s and I stopped at the first, I’ll order a big Mac and coke, please go to second window. So you go second window and pay them and the way an airline works, like when you go to third window, they open up say, we ain’t selling big Macs, they shut the window and walk away, that’s how big an airline is. I mean, you got people with schedules and everything else fixing to fly down here last night, 8 o’clock and I say, no, we’re not going to fly tonight, will fly tomorrow morning. So, 500, 600 lives disrupted and they’re going to fly tomorrow morning, that’s what you got to deal with. If you’re going to fly unless you’re going to drive your car everywhere and even then you got to deal with highway closures and different problems like that, mechanical failure but if you’re going to fly, you just got to accept it and what we look at it as an opportunity because that’s something we learned a long time ago, Rocky people aren’t buying hunts from us, they are buying scouted hunted things that, but that’s not where our business begins and ends, we provide a service, we provide value to people and it is stressful and cumbersome, like I had to cancel dinner plans for an hour and a half last night while sorting all that, which was no big deal because in Buenos Aires the restaurants don’t open until 9 o’clock and isn’t that crazy our doesn’t shut at 9 o’clock at night and these guys don’t open and get cranked up until 9 o’clock at night. But anyway we really have realized that, when airlines or something go a foul that’s really where we earn our keep that’s how we, that’s a huge value that myself and Cherie and Martha and Anita can work together with the outfitters to bring something to some of the value to these clients and that’s the way we look at it. I mean it’s kind of crisis mode but if you sit back and think to yourself. This is what we do. This is what we do because we care better than anybody else. That’s just part of it, man. It’s the life we set out for ourselves.
Rocky Leflore: How often does that happen in the trips as you do with the airlines? I’m saying something out of your control.
Ramsey Russell: Oh, almost always. Truthfully, it happens. I can tell you this, it happens. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too much but like this would be the 4th or 5th time since May to that particular American airline flight has done that. Now, we’ve had just lots of groups come through on that flight, mine included. They went three straight right before I came to board to plane and doesn’t come down here and mine flew just fine most of them do. And but it happens. Things like this happens. Sometimes it’s weather delays sometimes snow or ice or thunderstorms or something. But I mean truth matter is I mean ask yourself I know it’s inconvenient but if somebody’s saying that plane all night fly to somebody looks at it, do you really want to be 30,000 ft. up in that son of a gun and I don’t want to be sitting there trying to sleep or watch TV and pilot up front freaking out because his lights are going off heck no man, I want to get there on time but it happens. And I’ll say this, this kind of gets into something it’s a free country and the old motto, the customer is always right. There’s a lot of truth to that, there’s no doubt but as a professional that deals with this, sometimes the client ain’t right. Sometimes they aren’t man, we have a very good working relationship with Cheri Bassham at all world travel and the great thing about calling her is she has handled so many clients to every single destination we go to. She knows just what questions to ask? Are you bringing guns? Are you bringing birds back? Are you doing this, doing that? I mean just depending on the locations, she knows just what to ask, she knows just where they need to be. And the whole way that airfare is modeled now is this. A travel agent like her is going to charge you a little bit of premium 40 whole dollars, you know $40 in the grand scheme of things ain’t nothing and here’s why. We’ve all been to airports and you show up and there’s 50 more people than there is seats on the plane, there’s a big standby list and all that good stuff man, the airlines have got it down to the path, they know what they’re doing. And when you go online to airline.com, WWW. American or continental whoever.com and you buy that ticket, let me tell you as a matter of fact they can and they will and they do over sell those flights because statistically speaking and your statistic when you’re dealing with an airline there’s a chance you’re not going to make it for some reason and they are going to over sell and then they got a whole line of pay tickets waiting on you. And you don’t got to sit on that plane, well, don’t worry you’re in the system, you’re in the airport, you’ve already gone through the nightmare of TSA you can sit here another 5, 6 hours while we figure it out that’s just the way they work. And Lord help you if you go to Expedia or orbitz one of them crazy places, the third time not the 1st, not the 2nd and 3rd it took me 3 times of going all the way across the country or the world and walking into a hotel that did not have my reservation because I booked it through Expedia before I said screw that. I mean this ain’t a good place to be and their plane tickets are junk man. They sell the plane tickets and the seats on the plane for cheaper than you can buy at the americanairlines.com but they sell the tickets on the plane that nobody that the airlines can’t sell, nobody wants those crazy itineraries and they dropped the ball because they’re a third party so just be aware of that. Now let’s step up again. You call americanairlines.com they will over sell the flight. Well, here’s the deal when you get online all over selling flight when you call americanairlines.com for example the lady you’re talking to for an hour and a half cannot, her system will not let her put you in an oversold flight but guess what? They’re going to charge you 25 or 30 more dollars then you could have bought that ticket for online. Versus we got this relationship with a professional travel agent all she does is this for the last 40 years of her life and she does a very good job you call her and for 40 bucks you spend 10 or 15 minutes on the line. Boom, she’s got you taken care of. And then most importantly we tell everybody this, when your flight gets canceled or your flight gets delayed or it comes off the rails or anything like that, don’t panic just halt butt to wherever you need to go in that airport to get in front of line proceed to the counter and while you’re doing that text or call us and we monitor it not Ramsey but Anita and Martha and Cheri they’re all looking at flights and that they know what’s happening. Countless of the times that Cherie and Anita will contact me, I can tell this famous story, I was sitting in a duck blind one day in Mexico we were hunting Brant and I got a text and it was telling me that the client with whom I was sitting next to his flight had been canceled or changed the flight supposed to depart the following day. And as he got done telling the story, I said, Sam your flight has been canceled and here’s what – they’d already worked ahead on him and said we suggest that he leave, he skipped the afternoon hunt and leave at 4 o’clock or spend an extra night and won’t be able leave to 4 o’clock in next afternoon. And so he said well what do the girls say? And I said, well what they suggest is, yeah tell him to book, I trust them completely. And so he didn’t break a sweat. Well, there was another person in camp who – and here started off talking about this a minute ago – Penny wise pound foolish I call, well I don’t want to pay no extra money I want. Well she had gone and book her own flights and 3 or 4 or 5 of the biggest mishaps and cross threadedness of my career in dealing with clients getting them places or people that had taken it upon themselves to do their own stuff. Here’s a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist or whatever a realtor or whoever and whatever their job description are, they ain’t travel, they give their ticket affairs to somebody else’s secretary or nurse or somebody to go book or they just decide they’re going to vacation want to be fully exploratory and just figure things out themselves as an adventure. It’s all fun and games until it comes off the rails. And man, this story I’m telling you is one of those situations. So, this girl had booked her own. And so the lodge at 9, I said, hey I just want to let your flight has been changed, I hadn’t heard anything about it. I know, but Cherie and Anita called and let me know we got Sam changed up and you’re on his same flight, I understand, so you might want to take a look into it and make arrangements if I can help you, let me know. She calls Delta. And Delta partners with aero Mexico. So that was the part of flight that had come off the rails with aero Mexico, they had changed. And she booked it off through Delta. Well, she went upstairs and spend an hour on the phone with Delta and came down and boy, howdy, did she shine herself at the dinner table embarrassed the heck out of me, it really made me angry because she said, well, I just know I’m glad I booked my own ticket because Sam going to miss a whole hunt tomorrow and that flight ain’t cancel and I don’t know what you’re talking about but you all aren’t travel, you all need to get your stuff together. I mean, I looked across at Sam, Sam just laughing. I mean kicking me on the table laughing and it embarrass me Rocky. And so the next night we get up Sam and I had a cocktail and before he left he got on the plane and we came in, when I went hunting that morning, came back in and have a cocktail he got on the flight to leave, he was gone and I was sitting there and talking to the lady’s husband. And I don’t know where the heck is she at? So, I said, well where’s your wife at? He started looking at the ground. So where’s she at? He goes, she’s upstairs talking to Delta, we just got a text about five minutes ago that the flight have been canceled something. He said, I don’t know what we’re going to do. So there Rocky, I mean, if they just let the professionals handle it, everything would have been smooth. Sam didn’t want his work, he didn’t want to spend an extra night down in Mexico. He had a job to get back to, if they just let us handle and do our job and I told him, I said sir, we don’t duck hunt for living, we do this for living, this is what we do. We take care of you all’s travel, this is what we do. And it all worked out. We come from a night in the house and got them all squared away because that’s what we’re going to do. We can’t be butt heads like they were, we got to be decent people. But after all that work Rocky, after all that stuff, we do still, the best laid plans come off the rails because the airlines or the weather or for factors beyond anybody’s control and all you can do at that point is cope with it and deal with it and continue forward. And be thankful, hopeful that somebody like our staff and Cheri can pull this thing together to get the most out of it and that’s what we really do for a living. I mean, I really don’t just sit in a duck blind. We really do have a lot of little important things we have to do.
Rocky Leflore: Well, hey look, we just have a couple of minutes left. I know that you were coming home leaving next Saturday and are you excited thinking about coming home?
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I really am Rocky. The more I travel the more fonder appreciation I have for home. Absolutely can’t wait to get home, can’t hope to see Duncan off. Can’t wait to see my other two young’s and see my wife and get settled back into to the regular home routine for a little bit and of course it won’t – I get home on Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday, we’ve got to run around and go to storage and warehouse where we keep our stuff in and get our show stuff together. We got Mississippi wildlife extravaganza coming up the weekend after. There’s also a Houston show, I’ll be down in Houston Texas with some associates, Quack Rack and lifetime decoys, a bunch of others, we hub up down at that particular show and so it’ll be just back to the real world and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll tell you what I’m not looking forward to is the heat. I’m sitting down here in 50-60º weather because that’s one of the big advantages of staying in duck season somewhere is it always feels like duck season. And I understand you all having some pretty serious heat out there. But I’m born and raise in the south, I don’t mind sweating.
Rocky Leflore: Yes, it’ll be warm back up by the time you get here. The high Monday and Tuesday in Oxford, Mississippi it’s 85 and 86. So we had a cold front coming through yesterday.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, I’m looking forward to that then. I’ll tell you this, one thing I tell you, I’m looking forward to when I get home is, my wife doesn’t even ask anymore what I want to eat when I come home. What do you think I want to eat when I get home? You can’t get anywhere else in the world to speak of.
Rocky Leflore: Shrimp?
Ramsey Russell: That’s a good one. If its crawfish season, I definitely go eat crawfish, but what I’m hungry for is, when I get home, I’m going to eat one them big 1 pound Hamburger, just a homemade grilled hamburger with onion and tomato and pickle. They don’t have anything – they just don’t do that kind of stuff anywhere else in the world to go. Nobody big homemade good burgers, like we do. That doesn’t sound too fancy, but that’s it. And the other thing I’ll eat the next night is good old sticky barbecue ribs and chicken with potato salad and baked beans just good old basic food because you just can’t get that kind of good eating anywhere else in the world. I’ve been eating world class steaks and I mean, they practically every part of cow down here set the moo. Sweet bread and ribs and steaks and I had tongue a couple of times and it’s delicious, sounds terrible but it’s delicious. I’m ready for some hamburger and ready for some barbecue when I get home. That’s what I look forward, that’s what I’ll be eating a week I get home, we’ll be barbecue chicken, potato salad and beans and big old homemade hamburger probably the same size and food fit for a real king, right?
Rocky Leflore: Yeah. Well Ramsey, I know that you’re looking forward to that. I hate that we’re going to miss each other at the extravaganza because I’ll be there a couple of days but go on and finish this week –
Ramsey Russell: Come by our booth, Rocky. I mean big water will be there, I’ve got a real good friend and client and Chris Giris will be holding down the fort for me if Duncan’s in town he’ll be there but I hope you’ll come down and help hold down the forts and say hello to folks that’d be coming by.
Rocky Leflore: Yeah, because I know a lot of old MS Duckers will be by there and man I want to be there to shake their hand and talk to all of them. So, I’ll be there for a couple of days. And big water and I are good buddies and we’ll have a good time at your booth, I just hate that you won’t be there.
Ramsey Russell: Yep. Big water ain’t never met a stranger.
Rocky Leflore: All right, Ramsay look, be careful the rest of the week and I guess next time we’ll talk you will be in a 601 area so that’s a good thing.
Ramsey Russell: You dang, right. Thank you Rocky, I enjoyed it.
Rocky Leflore: All right, folks we want to thank all of you that listened to this edition of The End of The Line podcast, powered by
ducksouth.com.
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