MOJO’S Duck Season Somewhere Podcast
EP 454. Duckboats Renaissance
Back in the internet stone ages way before social media platforms, old-school do-it-yourself duck hunters from around the world gathered in online communities known as duck hunting chatrooms–sharing local traditions, exchanging ideas, swapping hunts. It was almost like discovering fire! Decades later, Duckboats.net still exists and is thriving like a most-popular Smalltown, USA coffeeshop. “The best duck boats stand out at the boat ramp but vanish in the marsh,” says duckboat.net founder Eric Patterson, when we started talking about constructing and using various type duck boats deployed throughout North America. More than just duck boats though, this old school community covers an everything-under-the-sun broad range of waterfowl- and life-related topics. Today’s conversation meanders through the most interesting things found while hunting (y’all ain’t goin to believe what he found in Alabama), public land hunter harrasment, duck hunting then versus now, chatrooms versus social media, and the good, bad, and downright ugly things wrought by the internet.
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EP 453. Skelly Woods
“I’d known about it forever,” says John Williams, speaking about a large, diamond-in-the-rough bottomland hardwood tract along a river in Oklahoma, “And dreamed of owning something like it one day.” He cut his teeth duck hunting Oklahoma public lands and followed his father’s footsteps into realty, forging his way into recreational properties before it was really even a thing. That dream property finally came for sell. He’s since spent decades learning the property, developing it into the largest hardwood wetland in the state, fine-tuning management, and instilling in his sons the same love and appreciation for it that he himself feels. We cover lots of topics you’ll appreciate whether you’re a landowner or, like myself, still dreaming.
EP 452. The Feather Thief
Is it true that “man is seldom content to witness nature…he must posess it?” What is it about beautiful feathers that so obsesses some of us? Truth is truly stranger than fiction, and some stories you couldn’t contrive in a lifetime’s worth of imagination. Kirk Wallace Johnson’s The Feather Thief is prime example–a child prodigy flutist becomes a world-champion salmon fly tier, breaks into British Natural History Museum, stealing hundreds of rare bird skins worth millions of dollars in the fly-tying underworld but irreplacably priceless to the scientific community. Anything for those beautiful feathers! For fame? For money? Told masterfully, Johnson’s investigative story explores man’s obsessive instinct to harvest–and to collect–nature’s beauty. It’s a story as old as time.
EP 451. Cape Barren Goose Hunting in Tasmania
Rare in terms of the extremely small geograpic area they can be hunted relative to earth–and trust me, it’s one helluva long trip just getting there from here–Cape Barren geese are also regarded as among the world’s largest goose species in the world. While the coals for lambchops are getting hot, our Tasmanian bucket-list host, Rockjaw, talks about growing up on remote Flynder’s Island; Cape Barren Goose habits, agricultural conflicts and hunting techniques, ways to eat ’em; and about other unique hunting and fishing opportunities in his tiny corner of the world between the Tasman Sea and Bass Straight. There’s a reason there’s so very little crime or antihunting there. He briefly explains that, too, like only Rockjaw can!
EP 450. Carter’s Big Island: Location, Location, Location–and Commitment
After a mallards-galore Kansas timber hunt–and I’m talking mallard flocks spilling over the treetops like tossed dice into the coffee-colored opening surrounded by thick ice–Carter’s Big Island father-son team, Roy and Drake, and I visit about their singular 74-day objective: to put fluttering greenheads in front of client guns. It doesn’t happen by accident either. It’s all about location, location, location and an unwavering, year-round commitent. Covering topics to include the season results, the daily grind, guide expectations, shooting greenheads-only, duck calling, property development, habitat management and their pass it on or lose it philosophy, as much is learned about who they are as top-shelf mallard producers as who they are as people you’d probably enjoy sharing times with in the blind.
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EP 449. Old School Functionality That Fits Our Lifestyle and Lasts a Lifetime
Form or function? Because long before waterfowl hunting clothing became a conspicuous corporate camo fashion statement, generations of savvy duck killers chose practical, earth-toned natural materials that kept them warm, dry and concealed while lasting generations. And because history repeats itself, it seems that the entire hunting industry is suddenly trending from latest-greatest patterns to good old-fashioned solids again. Except for Tom Beckbe. They remained loyal to old school functionality from the get go. Tom Beckbe’s founder, Radcliffe Menge, and I catch up over cups of hot coffee, discussing why old school tendencies are resonating among today’s duck hunters, form versus function, natural materials, duck hunting here and there, and new products.
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EP 448. Five Minutes: 300 Seconds That Changed My Life
Five minutes isn’t much time. But 300 seconds probably seems like an eternity when your life depends on it happening. A duck hunter from Minnesota, Jack Zimmerman joined the Army to serve his country. Returning with no legs and damged arms after stepping on an IED, he has no regrets. Shaping himself into the best new version possible, he encourages others to do likewise through his actions-speak-louder-than-words approach to life. He continues waterfowl hunting with an appreciation like never before. In listening to Zimmerman’s detailed stories, you’ll appreciate his sacrifice as an American soldier and be inspired to prevail through your own life struggles.
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EP 447. Form Follows Function at Voormi
After a thousand-plus wears, Voormi’s High-E Hoodie and other products like the 2-pocket hoodie and base layers, have become essential, must-pack staples while waterfowl hunting worldwide. Highlighting the many reasons that I now love and rely on Voormi gear, founder Butch English does dives deep into the substrate-driven functionality, meaningful design and purposeful innovativeness of their core technology. At the heart of it all? Yep. A duck hunter from Missouri that knew from experience that there was plenty room for gear improvement. So he did.
EP 446. Is the Mallard Migration Shifting? Or Is Something Else Possibly Happening?
In December’s “Where the Hell are the Mallards” (EP 434), Dr. Michael Schummer described waning migrations of “Halloween mallards,” that subset of North American mallards that fly to their southern overwintering haunts in mid- to late-October regardless of wintry temps and snow cover. He promised to climb down that rabbit hole with Dr. Phil Lavretsky if given the chance. Today, Drrs. Shummer and Lavretsky go deep into that briar patch! See, while it’s easy to explain weak migrations in the absence of a real winter, other factors are likely influencing our percetions that fewer mallards are flying south or that the mallard migration is shifting westwards. Do. Not. Miss. This. Conversation!
Related Links:
EP 27. Just a Mallard? Think Again.
EP 233. Are Waterfowl Migrating Like the Good Ol’ Days?
EP 344. Mallard Rockstars
EP 400. Participate in the New duckDNA Program
EP 434. Where the Hell Are the Mallards?
Ep 445. Building MOJO
“All I knew is that nobody was going to outwork me,” says Mojo founder Terry Denmon in describing his abrupt departure from federal government employment decades ago to become an engineering consultant that did not yet even have one single client. Many years later, a new fangled decoy concept dropped into his lap and while it’d be easy to say that the rest is history, it wouldn’t tell the entire story. Today’s episode is more about working hard, thinking outside the box and never quitting than it is about the world’s most recognized namebrand waterfowl decoy, with plenty pearls of wisdom about succeeding in the outdoor industry, other businesses and just life itself.
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