MOJO’S Duck Season Somewhere Podcast
A Duck’s Eye View of Southeastern US Waterfowl Habitat
Today’s guest is a self-described super nerd that played college ball, knew he wanted to be a biologist since childhood, and remembers falling in love with ducks when a flock of wigeons pitched into an Oklahoma farm pond he was hunting. Dr. Heath Hagy is now US Fish and Wildlife Service Waterfowl Ecologist for the National Wildlife Refuge System in the Southeastern United States. Using broad research and applied habitat experiences, Hagy works with 131 Federal Refuges, states and other entities managing waterfowl habitat resources. How does Federal Refuge habitat management compliment surrounding land uses, and why is the landscape level considered? How important are emergent marsh habitats for waterfowl, how might managers increase invertebrate biomass? What are wetland habitat complexes, why are they extremely important to how waterfowl perceive and use geographical areas? Why is habitat quality and quantity a moving target–and might there really be duck food deficits in parts of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley? What about water versus food as limited resources? How might hunting pressure have changed things in the past couple decades, and could it affect waterfowl distribution? How important is waterfowl sanctuary? At the landscape level, how is waterfowl habitat changing across the southeastern United States? Why is the North American Model a crowning achievement in waterfowl management and what makes it possible? Like a plate heavy with gravy-topped goodness, this episode hits the spot, addressing many of those duck-related topics that we hunters wonder aloud among ourselves in duck blinds and around tailgates nationwide.
Of Lion King Mentalities and Trophy Truths
While shooting barnacle geese and greylag geese together in the Netherlands decade ago, Ramsey Russell and Brian Lynn could never have imagined the ferocious battles with embittered anti-hunting crazies awaiting their respective futures. As VP Marketing and Communications for Sportsmen’s Alliance, Lynn now daily fights anti-hunters tooth-and-nail, wielding facts and advocating policy like a modern day dragon slayer. Who knew Dutch anti-hunters read American hunting magazines, and what lead to Ramsey Russell’s name being shouted by politicians in Netherlands Parliament? How could anti-hunters be described demographically, what triggers them, and what does money have to do with anything? What’s behind the Oregon Ballot Initiative, calling for complete cessation of hunting and fishing? How’d laws banning coyote hunting contests in the Southwestern US bounce through Blue and Red states alike, escalating into proposals that could ban retriever hunt tests, make breeding a sexual abuse crime, or make possessing “any wildlife” a felony? Long after most of us forgot all about Cecil the Lion, how has federal language since been appropriated to ban wildlife import – and what interests do EU and US have in Africa wildlife anyways?! This fascinating discussion is going to be a real kick in the cajónes to anyone thinking that our hunting lifestyle is a God-given right in America. It ain’t.
Related Links:
Potential Ballot Initiative in Oregon Proposes Ending All Hunting, Fishing, Trapping
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Commercial Duck Hunting Undesirable in Netherlands Newspaper Story
Where Satisfaction Intersects Experience and Expectations
Michael Brasher grew up hunting with his dad, plying Mississippi’s Skuna River bottoms with a 4hp outboard. He now remembers a first mallard propelled his life towards eventually becoming Waterfowl Scientist at Ducks Unlimited HQ. What is DU’s role in North American waterfowl conservation, and why does Brasher say “conservation without funding is just conversation”? How’d Brasher get from there to here? What are some of the interesting socio-biological observations made while researching paired versus unpaired greenheads? Why are these challenging times? How are quality and quantity sometimes at odds? What’re the greatest challenges in waterfowl habitat conservation today? What compels Brasher in his chosen career? Waterfowl abundance doesn’t happen by accident. Today’s episode sheds a little more light on the dedicated people working behind the scenes to make it happen.
Wildlife Artist Rebekah Knight
The United States’ Federal Duck Stamp is singularly the most amazing waterfowl conservation tool in the world, generating over a billion dollars since its inception. Growing up in southwest Kansas, Rebekah Knight won the Federal Junior Duck Stamp at age 15, competing ever since. How did Knight become an artist and why did she start competing in the Federal Duck Stamp contest? How does she decide which species, how does she prepare and how much time goes into it? Why does Knight describe the relatively small circle of Federal Duck Stamp artists as family? The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed removal of “celebrating our waterfowl hunting heritage” theme from the duck stamp contest recently caused a stir among hunters, but what’s the backstory, how and why do wildlife artists feel about the proposal? Federal Duck Stamps are now available, a sure sign we’re in the homestretch to duck season.
Not Where You Start, It’s Where You Finish
Before John Gordon was Senior Communication Specialist for Ducks Unlimited, he hunted waterfowl and was even a snow goose guide way back in the real, good old Katy, Texas Prairie days. Following a Memphis BBQ lunch, Gordon and Ramsey talk then-versus-now across several topics. What does Gordon do at Ducks Unlimited, what are his waterfowling origins? How’d they hunt snow geese way back when, what were the limits and how have things since changed? Who was “Dex the Wonder Dog,” why was running hunt tests kind of a big deal, and how’d he prove like only a retriever can that it’s not where you start it’s where you finish?
Landscape-level Waterfowl Conservation, Scott Stephens
Scott Stephens and Ramsey Russell went to Mississippi State University together way back when. Stephens is now Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Director of Regional Operations for Prairies and Boreal Forest, where he directs waterfowl conservation efforts over an almost unimaginably huge portion of North America–way, way bigger than the narrow 100-mile corridor bordering Yellowhead Highway that Ramsey Russell thinks of as Manitoba! Why does Stephens facetiously tell people that he “doesn’t really do anything anymore”? How bad is this year’s drought throughout Canada? What are long-term and short-term effects, and why does Stephens see a golden opportunity? Regards meaningful, landscape-level waterfowl conservation, what major industries are becoming ardent stakeholders in waterfowl habitat conservation efforts? Is this what Stephens imagined himself doing many years ago, what drives him? Plenty silver linings to consider in this informative episode.
Learn More: Escape From Medocrity, Johnny Lynch (1984)
Amid the Cypress with Jim Crews
Jim Crews has been hunting amid ancient Mississippi cypress for 5 decades, forgetting neither his first hunt nor his first duck. Having recently published his must-read duck hunting memoir Amid the Cypress, that describes memorable ducks hunts in Mississippi and far beyond, Crews and Ramsey recall times shared in cypress-studded north Mississippi Delta oxbows. What compelled Crews to write a duck hunting book? Why was Bobo Brake the apropos setting for duck hunting with Ramsey’s heirloom Colt hammer-gun? Does he recommend squeezing in a duck hunt before a wedding? How did some infamous duck hole names, like Propellor Hole, originate? What kinds of duck decoys might Crews be hunting over on any given day and why does it matter – or does it? Why does practical, old-school duck hunting styles resonate with him? How’d he end up hosting a couple Maltese hunters? Did cleaning his trusty two-shooter killing stick pass the muster in Scotland? Like gadwalls filtering intermittently into cypress timber on a blue-bird morning, this conversation between buddies is the perfect pace.
More info: Interested in purchasing a copy of Amid the Cypress? Contact Jim Crews through Facebook or call 601-859-2511.
Mississippi Hunting, True Hospitality, and Making Time for People
Having shared duck blinds in many places worldwide with Chris Gouras, I can tell y’all for fact that there’s never been a lack of good things to talk about between volleys. The descendant of Greek immigrants, he’s been around the restaurant industry since forever, and started duck hunting among true South Delta legends soon after moving to Mississippi. How’d Big John end up facing the wrong way in a Netherlands goose blind? Who were some of the colorful characters Gouras hunted with back in the good old days? What happened the morning he hunted with a former Mississippi Governor? Why does he say, “Mississippi has time for people?” How important are good eats at Gouras’s hunting camp? Who’s the fastest draw in a deer stand – Chris Gouras or Ramsey Russell? What’d Gouras’s father insist be rescued from his home office preceding an incoming hurricane, and what was he the world’s best at catching? How muddy was the drive to Rio Salado last time Gouras visited and why’s he still going back? Past, present and future times covered, all awesome, like every single time we’ve ever hunted together.
More Father’s Day Grandad Russell Stories with Uncle James
Leading up to Father’s Day, Ramsey met with his Uncle James to talk about his grandfather Russell, the one that introduced him to hunting. In addition to some of the stories he heard around the dinner table growing up, he learned a few more.
Uncle James’s Father’s Day Stories About Granddad
Preceding Father’s Day, Ramsey Russell meets with his 75 year-old Uncle James Russell who shares some stories about growing up in the Mississippi Delta. It’s been decades since the grandfather that introduced Ramsey to hunting passed. As the two of them recount family stories shared around the dinner table, Ramsey learns the origins of his grandfather’s shotgun and a lot more.
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