Flyway Connections Podcast
Welcome to Flyway Connections, where new and veteran waterfowlers come together to share in the lifestyle of chasing cupped wings. Whether you’re in the blind or counting down the days in the off-season, we’re here to keep the passion alive and the waterfowl conversation going. Dive into the stories, tips, gear talk, and traditions that make the waterfowl community what it is. This is more than a hunt it’s a connection.
Flyway Connections Podcast
Seth Roussel
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Flyway Connections is brought to you by our partners who keep us chasing birds all season long. We're talking about DOW Outfitters in Arkansas, delivering unforgettable guided hunts in the heart of the flyway. RMC calls from the duck line to any world championship stage. They just work, designed to allow you to grow to your full capacity. No fancy marketing, no gimmick, just quality sound and craftsmanship. And they say you can't polish a turd. Small shop, big sound. And also, Hunt Repellant is a DEET free, scent-free, insect repellent made for hunters, fishermen, or anybody who wants to enjoy the outdoors. Remember, DEET is dead.
SPEAKER_01We're without Chris today. He's out there uh coaching some football, football to start for the high school he's coaching. But we have no stranger to the podcast and good buddy of ours, Seth Russell. Hey, Seth, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_03I'm good, man. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01Not too bad, brother. Just ready for the season to start.
SPEAKER_03Me too, man. It's uh it's three three-quarters of the way through August. I've already started making a list of everything I got to get done. Unfortunately, you know, you always got to pay a bunch of money before the season even starts. So making that list, racking up the the the uh the bill of what I've got to pay before season starts, but man, it sits right around the corner. I'm I'm looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and are you guiding this year?
SPEAKER_03I am gonna guide. I'm not gonna do as much as I did last year. Last year I went full time and I've always wanted to do it. And I finally got to go do it and see what it was like. And happy to say I did it, got to see it all. And uh this year I'm going back to part-time. Part-time.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, people don't realize, even like for the part-time guides, how much you spend up front before you start making money.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Yeah, like when it comes, I mean, you got you got gas bill, all this, all the, like I said, all the gear you got to get. Shoot, I've got to get a new set of tires for all the driving I do during hunting season. So you rack up a pretty good bill before the season even starts.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. What was it? Well, we joke I'm uh where I work at now is I used to have 37s on my truck. And then I can't actually tell one pen 35s back on that. Oh pen 35s back on it.
SPEAKER_03I was I was talking to my guy today. He said, What kind of tires you want? I said, I need some ATs, but I need the best ATs that are good for driving four hours one way to uh to a hunting camp.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell everyone usually teal season, like guy teal season down here, that just that gets me into the out of the negatives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. If we didn't say when they went from the um the 16-day teal season now, we dropped to an eight day, I'm like, oh bro, I'm not even it's like guiding now. I'm still in the negatives.
SPEAKER_03See, I'm not even I'm not even guiding for blue wings, man. So if I go blue wing hunting, I I'm all out of pocket on that. That's just bloody hunting still.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is and then you know, you get your guiding in Arkansas as well. Arkansas, you know, they get us out of staters.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01I go that's $700 thinking. I'm just thinking off, like, oh that's $700. You're already swiping. Y'all think very highly of yourselves. Uh-huh. That's right. Uh, but you know, for this uh you know, for this series that we're doing, this is gonna be episode two of our military series. Man, kind of give us a background about how'd you got into hunting and you know, you're you know, you're you're a navy guy. How'd you get in the Navy? What made you want to serve in the Navy? And how did waterfowl even, or did you even waterfowl hunt while you're in?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I grew up born and raised here in Shreveport, Louisiana, man. As far as I know, I'm at least a fourth generation duck hunter. I don't know how much further it goes back than that, but I know my my great-grandpa uh early in the early 1900s was duck hunting, and he showed my grandpa and so on and so forth. But I want to say my dad, I grew up with two older brothers and all of us, my dad started taking us when we were roughly four to five years old. So I grew up as early as I can remember going duck hunting with my brothers and my dad, and we go to the same spot. We had the same blind. It was a little bit different back then, man, because I remember back then you could, and this was just early 2000s and not even that long ago, but back then on just hunting on a local public lake, you could meet up at the boat launch and you had all your regular guys that had all their blinds out there. It was no, it wasn't a draw system, it wasn't a permit to have a blind, you just built a blind out there. But everybody met at the boat ramp, we had a bonfire, sat there and talked for a little bit. And uh, you know, when that time hit, it was like, all right, it's time to go out to the blind. We go out to the blind man. And uh the funny thing with all of us is everybody knew each other on the lake. Everybody had their blind all spaced out accordingly, and we all carried two-way radios. And it was a fairly big lake, but also still small enough that we would talk to each other uh and say, hey, there's some ducks over here. Hey, you know, Mike, they're flying towards you, or hey, so-and-so, there's I see some ducks flying your way, be on the lookout. And so everybody would talk to each other and help each other on the lake that way. And um grew up hunting on that same lake. And uh when I was about 12 years old, my dad got in an accident, paralyzed from the neck down. So shortly after that, hunting with my brothers, and then I turned 16. And once I turned 16, man, and I got a truck, it didn't stop. I had I had a little John boat that I had plugged probably about 30 holes in with some JB welds, and I found myself a battery and a trolling motor, and I thought I was king of the lake, man. And I was I was going. Me and my uh me and my buddy, we would, we would go all over the lake and hardly not kill anything because I didn't really know what I was doing yet. I was 16, didn't didn't have any know-how in the game yet. And but man, I was full of fire, and I would watch, I grew up watching Duck Commander videos with my brothers and my dad, and I would watch those videos the night before and just think every morning we're about to smack them just like that. Sure enough, we'd go zero, and I'd go back to watching a video and think, hey, tomorrow's the day. All right, tomorrow's the day. I think there was one year when I was 16 or 17, we had 10 days in a row. It was Thanksgiving break. I want to say 100 like nine or 10 days in a row, and killed maybe two ducks out of all those days I hunted, and it didn't matter. I was the very next day, hey, we're gonna go back, we're gonna smack them just like I'm watching on these videos.
SPEAKER_01So when you got the bug, you get the bug.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, I was ate up with it. Uh so yeah, grew up doing that, hunting locally. Uh, never really went out of town much, other than my brother hunted at a camp in South Arkansas. I'd go to every now and then and actually get to see some real good hunting, killing mallards and teal and all that kind of stuff. And then, man, so I was 17, uh, and my sister was teaching at the high school that I was still attending because she's 10 years older than me. So she was a teacher. And I remember being halfway through my senior year, and she asked me, Who, what colleges have you sent your transcripts into? I said, I haven't sent them into anywhere. And she said, Well, you were supposed to start doing that last year. And I remember my response being, Well, there's this Navy recruiter here. I just saw him earlier. I think I'm gonna go talk to him. Because if I'm already late on that, I don't even want to go to college anyway. Let's go see what he has to say. And my dad was a Marine. I had two grandpaws that were both in the Army. One was in World War II, one was in uh Vietnam. Uh, so it came already from a line of of men being in the military. And originally I wanted to be in the Marines because my dad was in the Marines. That's how I grew up. I grew up with a Marine. So uh my mom wouldn't sign on the Dodge line for me at 17. She told me she wasn't gonna do that, and I had to wait till I was 18. So the day after I turned 18, I went and signed. And I came home and I told my dad, Dad, I joined the Navy today, and he was looking at the TV, never looked over at me or anything, and just went, You should have joined the Marines. And that was the answer I got from dad that I joined the Navy. What did you do in the Navy? So originally I wanted to go in and be a corpsman and be stationed with Marines. And of course, recruiter gets the best of you sometimes, and plans don't go accordingly. And uh if if anyone that served asked me what I did, I usually lie and say I was a gunner's mate. I was not a gunner's mate. I was I was uh military police, I was security. Oh nice. Let me tell you, man, I hate it. I hated it. I wish I wish I would have done just about anything else other than that. Um, I'm not gonna talk badly on it. I I I enjoyed my time in the Navy. I was I was uh but yeah, I was security. The funny, funny story is so my mom was very against me joining the military. And the whole time my job in security in the Navy, you a lot of times your first duty station is gonna be Bahrain, and you're gonna get over go over to the Middle East, which Bahrain is definitely not a war zone whatsoever. It's very westernized, very you live out in town when you first get there, all that kind of stuff. But she was very adamant about it. She did not want me to join because she she kept telling me, you're gonna go to the Middle East, you're gonna go to the Middle East. I go, No, I'm not going to the Middle East. I'm joining the Navy, I'll be on a ship somewhere. So in A school, as you're, you know, learn your MOS and all that kind of stuff, you you go through the OC spray course because you carry OC spray, at least stateside. Yeah. But you got to go through the OC course. So you get sprayed and then you go, you know, tackle somebody and put somebody in cuffs and all that while you've been sprayed. And let me tell you, man, when I got sprayed, they tell you in class there's a 1% chance that it doesn't affect you. And when you get sprayed, they spray you on the forehead. And for a split second, you think, hey, I'm one of the lucky one percenters that this isn't gonna help. So I took a few steps and I was like, all right, it's not hitting me, man. I think I'm okay. And all of a sudden, it felt like my eye blew out of my socket. It hurt so bad. I'm not even gonna downplay it, man. It was painful. And uh went through the whole course at the very end, you face you face what they call the red man. It's a guy in a big red padded suit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And he can put his hands on you, punch you, whatever he, whatever he wants to do. And you have a baton. And uh, I made the mistake. They said, uh, when you get to the red man, we want you to get fired up. And I got a little too fired up. I got to that red man, and he was about 10, 15 feet away from me. And I said, I want you, MFer. And I yelled it, and I closed my eyes, kind of rubbed my forehead, and by the time I opened my eyes back up, the best I could, he was on me and he was piecing my face up, man. One, two punches on my ass. And the instructor finally had to say, Hey, all right, all right, all right, back off. And I had to take him down and uh wrestle on the ground, put him in cuffs, all that kind of stuff. And anyway, you go get your face washed off, everybody goes to the course. Well, that same day, right after those C course, they take you into a classroom and they tell you where your first duty station is going to be. And all the high achievers get, you know, top pick. I was definitely not a high achiever. I was I was a C average student through high school and I carried that right into the military, baby. I came in with my professional pair of skates and I wore them proudly. Yeah. So, of course, if you don't get first picked, those guys go to like Sigonella, Italy, and Rota Spain or whatever, Sudobay, Greece, and then all the leftovers, man. They've got plenty of ballots to send your ass over to Bahrain, and sure enough, they hit you. And I was one of the ones that said, You're going to Bahrain. And man, I wasn't worried for myself. I was kind of excited to go over there. And uh, because you're 18, you want to be a war fighter. I joined the Ron Branch for that, but uh, as I found out. But, you know, I wanted I wanted to go be in the action, and so I was kind of excited about it. But then I remember, crap, I've got to tell my mom that I'm going over to the Middle East now. Yeah. And so uh ended up going to Bahrain. I was there for two years. It was a good time. It was hot as hell, man. 127 degrees, I think, was the hottest I ever saw. And it was not dry heat, it's humidity. Because if you don't know Bahrain, Bahrain is a man-made island right off the right off uh Saudi Arabia. So extreme humidity, extreme heat. But um, man, that was that was where I went first. Did two years over there, then uh went over to Suda Bay, Greece. And Suda Bay Greece was just, man, it's beautiful over there. It is absolutely unbelievable. The most blue, clear water I've ever seen with mountains in the background, good food. I made, you know, of course, any anywhere in the military, you know, you make such good friends, they become your brothers, man. And yeah, and I I really enjoyed my time in. But while I was in Pseuda Bay, Greece, I actually hit up, um, I kind of kept up just a little bit with contest calling. I didn't know all the ins and outs of it. I didn't really know all the different divisions within it. Uh, but I knew that I I liked meat calling from what I had seen on YouTube. So I hit up Rick Dunn with Echo Calls, just because that's what I happened to have. I had an Echo Calls. That's what I was using at the time. I said, hey, this is who I am. I'm in the military right now, but I'm getting out in 2019. And when I get out, I want to get into competitions. Can you help me? And I remember he emailed me back, and I thought that was just like my big break. I it was like a I so uh a superstar might as well email me back, and he Rick Dunn emailed me back and just said, Hey, when you get out, you hit me up, you come to the shop, and we can get you figured out. And so I had that email on hand. I did my year at Sudobay Grease, ended up blowing my knee out, and I had six months left. So I basically the my last six months, I was just rehabbing, had surgery and rehabbing my knee. And uh got out of the military. And I want to say about a year after I got out, or shortly thereafter, um, I remembered that I had hit Rick Dunnup and I said, you know what? I I think I want to try this contest thing out. And there was a local contest coming up about an hour and a half away from me in East Texas, at back down south. So I hit Rick Rick uh.
SPEAKER_01Was that in the mini at the time?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know what? Um that was it was it right before COVID, 2020?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was during COVID.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that I was at that contest. That I didn't no, I did compete. Joey and Landon, that's the first contest Joey's won. Was he one of juniors that year? Really? Yep. Oh yeah. In Winnie, Texas with um it's when um Shureshaw put it on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that was that was my first contest. So I went up, I drove up there uh to Echo Calls, sat down with Rick Dunn and Jonathan Morton, and they just sat there. Man, I didn't, I knew I'm not even gonna say that. I didn't know how to blow a duck call. You know, I blew a duck call, but I didn't know how to blow a duck call correctly. And I had called a few ducks, but nothing to write home at write home about at all. So sat down with them and all we did was we did the basic quack. And he sat me down. I sat there for probably a good three hours just talking to those guys, going over how to put correct air presentation into a call over a basic quack. And uh eventually they sent me on my way and Rick told me exactly what to work on. He said, Hey, work on the quack, draw it out, do this and that, and just work on air presentation into the call. And that's what I worked on and eventually went to that first contest, and I got third in the novice. And from there on, I was hooked, man. After that, it was it was it was like a head high that I had never never gotten before. It was it was so much fun, and uh the feeling that I had just being up there on a stage, it was I was hooked from the get-go on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I remember that contest. Um uh Seth Fields was there. Yeah. Yeah, small world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was that was my very first contest, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Man, so you yeah. So with you, how was it being you know, because I was stationed stateside the whole time, you know, all over. Yeah, I I spent a couple years in the Middle East, uh closest to bar I did do two weeks in Qatar, which Qatar was pretty nice, but most of it was um Iraq and then Afghanistan. But when I was over there, I gotta come back and go duck hunting. How did it feel like being stationed overseas and not being able to duck hunt for so long?
SPEAKER_03It was pretty rough, man. I I watched, so I got the nickname, of course, mm of duck man or duck, whatever the hell they called me back then, because I carried, you know, we had our Kevlar vests, I carried a duck call in my Kevlar vest. And then anybody that ever came into my barracks room or whatever, most of the time I had duck hunting on YouTube playing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I was because I I I couldn't go do it. So the the only other thing I could do was watch it and dream about when I get to do it again. So it was it was pretty rough. Um, I wish I could say that I went to a lot of cool places while I was over there and used my leave to do it, but what I actually did was I used my leave to come back home during duck season and go duck hunting. Yeah. Every chance that I got, I don't think I ever missed an entire duck season while I was actually in the military. So I can't, I tried to come back at least, you know, for a few weeks during duck season just to come and duck hunt with my brothers and my buddies. Um, so I never I never had to miss a full season. But until until I joined the military, I never missed an opening day. So missing my first opening day, that was a little bit of a a gut shot in itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's funny is one time we were on the when I was in Iraq. This had to be 2015. Yeah. 2015 when everyone went back to Iraq when the whole uh ISIS thing kicked off. And we were walking and we were walking along along the uh the Tigris, and I heard, you know, and I was like, shit, and they're like, what are you hearing? I'm like, shut up. And I'm like, two ducks are about to pop up. And they're like no, yeah, right of the range, and they're like, oh, this was serious, what's about to happen? I'm like, I just heard yeah. No, man, I just heard something. They're like, God dang it. They all went on high alert, you're gonna listen to Doug. Yeah. And it was weird, I was thinking about it. And at the time my P. L, I mean, we had it all a lot. We were at Bragg and we had North Carolina a lot. Um, that me and him, the only time I ever got busted by the the game ones was with my PL. Yeah, the only ticket I have was with me and my PL. And I remember he was like, Hey, um he was like, dude, do we call the company commander? And I was uh I was a staff start at the time. Like, no, we know what we're not doing, we're not gonna call the company commander and let them know we just got I'm like, we're not gonna go to court, we're just gonna pay this off, and we're gonna shut up. And I'm like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You didn't see anything is what you saw.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, yeah. That's the one thing I noticed like you know, growing up so I grew up in California and I hunted a lot of duck clubs, you know, kind of the same story. Great great grandfather hunted, and we just kind of um you know, great grandfather hunted, grandfather hunted, dad hunted, I hunted. And we all hunted the same areas. I mean, almost to the same belong. Just because we're we hunted the clubs and um almost like the same, you know, kind of the same story you guys have, but in in California, the club the hunting club scene is so it's so prevalent. Like I thought in my mind, I thought I'd tell everyone across America hunted. Like you hunted with your clubs, you you know, there is some you know um public land you can go hunt, but no, it's you know I it was not like that anywhere else. So, you know, going from state to state, the like I didn't even in my mid-20s realized like, oh man, these these rules in every state change super drastically. Like on state land. I'm like, oh and like the day we got we got ticketed, I thought I was doing everything correct. I thought, you know, I wasn't even trying when the game one came up. I was like, like, whatever. Like I don't I don't care. I and you know, I was like not hiding that thing. I was like, and he knew it. And like, you know, he was like, man, you know what? He was like, you're not I was like, yeah, we're he's like, everyone makes this mistake. I mean, I was like, Oh, he might let us go. He was like, nope, like, yeah, I remember I was you know, I was turning in my like I was like, here's here's our ducks, man. He's like, oh no, this is the worst part. He was like, no, bud, think of this as the most expensive duck thing you ever had. You asshole. I was like, oh man, I don't like to think about it that way. I'm like, I'm gonna have to call my wise dude. It was almost a $450 ticket. Yeah, I was like, oh my God.
SPEAKER_03Man, so when I when I had that John boat, and I'm kidding you not, man, this this boat was all beat up. It looked like somebody grabbed it out of a of a garbage. It was my buddy's dad, he didn't use it, and I I truly had plugged, I don't even know how many holes on it. So one day, me and my buddy went out and we were gonna go scout this spot in the evening, and uh We weren't gonna hunt at all. I brought my gun and I had some decoys still in the boat because we had hunted that morning, but I didn't have my bag, which had my license in it. And then, mind you, I had a troll motor on this boat, so they treat it just like a regular gas motor where you have to have running lights and rear lights and all, and you have to have registration. I didn't have any of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we went out, scouted the spot, and sure enough, found a ton of ducks in it. And we were all, you know, giggling like little schoolgirls because we had found this great spot that we were going to go hunt the next morning. Well, we get back to the launch right as it's getting dark out, and here I am in a boat that's not registered, has no lights. I've got my gun and decoy, so it looks like we've been duck hunting, but I don't have my license. And man, I didn't have any life jackets with me, I don't think. And so Game Warren was there at the boat launch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And he got me for all of the above: no registration, no running lights, no life jacket, hunt without a license. I think it was like seven total charges. And uh he was an older guy, and something just told me I was like, man, just mention your dad, because I was on the exact same lake that I grew up on. So I mentioned who I was and who my dad was, and sure enough, he knew who my dad was. And uh he's finally he he wrote it all up as a warning. He said, Look, I'm gonna give you a warning because if I get hit you with all this, it's gonna ruin your license for quite a while.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And uh man, I he cut me a huge break. And uh, I'd like to say that I learned my lesson and I never did it again, but listen, we found a really good spot with a lot of ducks in it. So I sure as hell was out there the next morning in that exact same boat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so what's funny was my PL. So when I went to move, I lived in Georgia for a while. I was a drill sergeant. Uh my drill sergeant tour got done. I hated that time in the army. Like I, you know, everyone took, oh, you're a drill, like it was like the worst. I didn't think nothing was cool about it. It was like drowned hunting. That was like those were the two years I didn't I hunted and fished more the years I deployed than I did was when I was a drill sergeant.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so we are I I get to North Carolina, walking into the new platoon office, I'm sitting down in my PL, I see a a well a wildfowl magazine. And I opened it up and started reading in the PL came in. He was like, yo, do you duck hunt? I was like, Yeah. And he was like, sweet, because he uh I thought he duck hunted the whole time. But he just he just got into duck hunting. Now actually never even, you know, he never hunted. Like didn't grow up hunting, didn't grow up in a hunting family, grew up in Oregon. But he um got into um retrieving dogs and then just went he went full sed. Like he bought yeah, I mean he bought a five thousand dollar dog, an SB2. Yeah, at the time, like the um heck, at the time La Crosse, you know, the uh lacrosse waiters were like like like the best of the best. I mean he went just full sed. So that hunt we got busted on, that was his first hunt ever. So welcome to Waterfowl, baby. So we get that, and he's like, hey, I have this place to hunt opening day. And I'm like, all right. He's like, I've been scouting it, and he showed him up, oh, it's a it's a wild manager. So the way North Carolina works is you know, you have like your your little booklet that has all the everything on it. I was like, all right, it's opened up from this day to this day. Sweet. Well, I didn't check the actual Sug, it was Sug Mills Game Land um website because they had a di they had a different calendar. And on that calendar, they had random days throughout the season that were no hunt days. So duck season opened on a Sun oh Saturday. In North Carolina, you cannot have a waterfowl or any type of migratory bird on a Sunday. Monday, I thought regular season, um what do you call it, resumed, and it was Veterans Day weekend. So I was like, oh man, you know, we had Monday off, we're gonna go. We went, and you you drive by the game board shack to get to the little parking area. So I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. The game boards are here, and it's real nice game land. And we get in, and my first thing is to know that something was wrong was there was nobody in the parking lot. And they had a real nice gravel parking area. So we get in there and we start walking. You know, it's about knee-deep water, and we're walking in, and you could hear the ducks in the woods. I'm like, oh my god, this is it was the pr everything was perfect. So we get there, we set up too perfect, yeah. I mean, just right off the bat, like we see, we shot, you know, we shot our wood ducks, shot a few ring necks, and I was like, this is it. I'm like, oh my god. I'm like, this is awesome. But I was like, I can't believe there's no one out here. It's just it's just us two. And I started hearing, you know, someone walking through the water, and I was like, oh man, these guys are late to the party. And then I I I realized it's it's um the game board. I was like, oh, he must he must have just been bored. Well, I was shooting I had at the time uh I was using a browning over and under that I have. And remember, so this is my my buddy's first cunt ever. So he comes in, the game boards are super smooth, man. He's like, hey, can I let me check your stuff? Oh, you guys looks like you guys have been doing pretty well. He checked your licenses, he looks at my gun, he made a joke, like, hey, uh, did that gun have a plug in it? And I was like, Oh no, I took it out. He looked at my buddy, like, hey, does your gonna have a plug in it? He's like, uh no. And I was like, no, no. I was like, no, no, no, his does. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He doesn't know what he's saying. So he checks in, he's like, all right, he's like, hey, boys, everything pans out except one thing. I was like, hey, what's that, officer? He was like, You can't hunt today. And I was like, I was like, yeah, I'm right here. And then the pamphlet says subnails is open from this day to this, they just can on Sundays. He's like, but if you go on the website, there's a counter that shows our no hunt days. That's not in like the little thing today, but we had in Louisiana, little like Louisiana.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the pamphlet, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, little pamphlet. And he's like, Yeah, man, you have to go to the website. And I was like, oh. So he's like, No big deal, this happens all the time. You know, just you guys have to believe. So we pack our stuff up getting to the truck. I'm like, yo, dude, listen, you're gonna hop in my truck, and we are gonna get out of here. As we get there, I started seeing other game boards at the parking. I was like, oh, this is stuff.
SPEAKER_03Like, oh, one of these is gonna be an asshole.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'm like, throw the ducks in the truck and let's get out. And like, you know, they're like, hey, hey, uh, can you guys come over here real quick? The vehicles? I'm like, well, yeah. So they have like these little computers in their on their truck, they're already printing printers in there, and then they're already printing the tickets out. I'm like, oh god. I was more worried about their they were gonna confiscate our shotguns. Like, I did not want to lose around over and under. They were cool about that, but he was like, hey man, just don't even worry about it. So they're the most expensive duck dinner you've ever had. And I was like, that's like rubbing salt in the wound. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Did they at least let you keep the ducks?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they did. That's what he told me. Oh, that's the most expensive duck dinner you've ever had. Yeah. I was like, yeah, yeah, you're yeah, you're damn right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I can't wait to go clean this ringneck. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I can't wait to tell my wife to like, hey Ben, this ringneck and these three wood ducks cost me $450. Oh, yeah, it was you know, in my butt, you know, and you know what, but that that hunt hooked him. He's actually like for someone who's got hunting so late in his life, like he he's actually trained dog, he's actually, yeah, but he went full send and still hunts to this day. He moved back to Oregon, great, um, real good waterfowler. And um yeah, I always give him shot, like, dude, you go in re you know, there's some guys that just it they just get it. He was one of them. He hooked on hunting just clicked for him. Yeah, yeah, but that day I was like, oh, we screwed up. I'm like, yo, but we're not telling the boss. But we're just gonna pray this doesn't hit the bladder. I didn't want to explain to the battalion commander and the sergeant major, uh, we got tickets hunting. That's what that's it for. Yeah, not even like a cool DUI story. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03We were just misinformed, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So military being an MP, I always ask guys that are MPs, what's the wildest like MP story? Because MPs have wild stories. Because you guys have the police up the service members, and yeah, you know, um America's greatest. This is so America's greatest advertising. So I was asked, you know, what's the wildest NP story you have?
SPEAKER_03Oh man. Um shoot. The first one that kind of pops in my head is when I was in Bahrain, and mind you, I was just a little E3 man, didn't know anything, but somehow I had found my way into a position of a supervisor role. So I was I was the supervisor of one of the ECPs, an entry control point into the base. And uh I want to say it was either my first night as uh as the supervisor or pretty dang close. I was pretty new to it. And um, I can't remember all the exact details, but uh essentially over the radio it it came out that there was a possible suspicious package uh on the bridge that connected the two bases. You had NSA one and NSA two, and then you had the bridge that connected the two. And uh they found a suspicious package sitting on the bridge, and you had to shut down the entire base. Every ECP had to shut down, and you had all these protocols that you had to follow. And here I was just a little E3, uh, not knowing all the details of what was going on, other than we knew that there was something going on on the bridge, and we knew that they had EOD uh en route to it. And so I had my ECP shut down, but I also had all these EOD guys that were on call that were coming in at the same time that I had to vet and make sure they are who they say they are and then let them through. And at the same time, I had E7s and E8s and E9s trying to get out of the base that is now shut down that I, as an E3, could not let out of the base. And so you got all this going on. Yeah, you were the hero of the day on that one. Oh man, they I was not a they were not a fan of me at the time. I was I was a motivator and they were gonna let me hear it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so yeah, so all this is popping off, and we're all shut down. I've got, and this is we're on night shift, so I've got all these all these drunk sailors that are trying to come in that I'm not letting in, and they're cussing me out and letting me know exactly what they think of me. And of course they see, they see in in our NWs, I think they called it, uh, as a as an E3 and below, you just don't have insignia. You have nothing. It's just blank. And so they see I have no rank, and then they just they really set it off on me. And so I'm sitting here telling them to back up and shut up and all this, and and all this is popping off. Well, eventually my patrol supervisor rolls up and he is uh a hard charger. Let's just keep it at that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And very um, he's always worried, he's always thinking of the worst case scenario. So he comes up to this ECP and it's almost like out of a movie, man. He comes up and he just looks off in the distance, doesn't even acknowledge me, and he just goes, Something's not right about this, just something's not adding up. And then I'm kind of like, I was keeping pretty good calm, but then all of a sudden I'm thinking, because in my ECP, it's just a big open city. So if somebody wanted to get up in a big building and snipe me, just like as if I was guarding a gate in a 007 movie, I'm as good as dead. So I they've got a clear shot on me and about five others. Or if they want to bum rush the the base, I'm kind of screwed there too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so kind of gets me on edge. And anyways, we we go through the whole deal, and it ends up just being somebody had left a bag, and you had a GNC on base that sold energy pills, and in that container was a grenade container. And so that was sitting in the bag, and it had headphones that were wired, and some of the wires were hanging out of the bag with that in it. Yeah. And so, yeah, it pretty looks pretty damn suspicious when you first look at it. And uh, that's what it ended up being. And uh that was my, like I said, I want to say that was my first night as a supervisor, and uh it was a warm welcoming. And uh later on, of course, my my chief at the time, my E7, called me on my cell phone and was like, Hey, do you have a bunch of chiefs and senior chiefs and master chiefs sitting at the gate? And I was like, Yeah, they're all sitting here. He's like, Yeah, just go ahead and let them out. And uh sure enough, like the next day or whatever, next time we were on on patrol, they they came out and they were like, uh, by the way, the CO wants to give uh Seaman Roussel a uh a Bravo Zulu. Good job on handling the situation the other night. Yeah, that was that that was uh that was definitely a story that has always stuck out to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, dude. I'll tell you, I've known some MPs and MPs in the army, we kind of give them like being an infantry dude, we you know, we give them shit. Oh yeah. Nine out of ten is our fault. When I lived in the barracks, I was like, we were just savages.
SPEAKER_03Like I never I never had many issues with other Navy guys, like at least American Navy guys, other than just drunk guys coming in. If it was a little bit past curfew, I was one of those that was like, hey, hurry up and get your ass in, and I'm just not gonna say anything. But I'll tell you who I did have issues with was the British Navy. Really? Those guys were the most fun people to drink with, but if I was working, they were the most just pain in the ass guys to deal with because they they did not have a limit, they just drank until it was it was time to stop drinking. And most of the time that never actually hit it.
SPEAKER_01It happens, yeah. Weird words. So we had we didn't we did some, but A Sega do a lot of training with the with the Brits and the Canadians, but the Brits, you know, usually after we do a training event here with our brad, we'd have like a night where we'd go hang out with them, they'd barbecue and we'd go get some you know some beers. But they would say like their like wording is so wild, like one day one dude he was drunk and he kept saying he was pissed. I was like, Well, who are you pissed off at, brother? Like, why are you so pissed? He's no, I'm just I'm just really pissed right now. Like, dude, that was his I guess when they get drugged to call it either getting pissed or being ming monged. Yeah, like brother, I don't know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, half the time I didn't know exactly what they were talking about, but sometimes they'd buy me shots like I was a woman, and I was okay with that. So I'll take the free drinks all day long, baby. Bring them on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, we worked with them quite a bit. The Canadians, uh the Colombians I've worked with, um the Latvians. I don't even know what that country was at, but they were here. Yeah. Don't drink it in mind. Yeah. Uh the Germans, the Germans, the Brits like to drink, and the yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they get rowdy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so we would meet up at a at a bar called Dublin's, and you could bet that all the Brits are always gonna be there, and they would be absolutely hammered. Yeah, and they were they were fun to party with, but yeah, dealing with them when I had to work, I'd have I had flip-flops thrown at me. I had cuss words that I ain't even ever heard before said at me. Are you insulting me right now? Or I don't know what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's funny. Yeah, yeah. Being with military and then being with like the other countries is is what they're oh yeah, yeah, and their cultures, their drinking cultures are just like it seems like that part of Europe, like the like the Germans and like the um Brits. We had some Irish guys. You know, those dudes could uh it's like when they come out of the womb, just yeah, they're built differently, that's for sure on that side.
SPEAKER_03I'll tell you another funny, funny thing is when I was in Bahrain, so we had the Bahraini police that were on guard at all the ECPs with us. And I remember they carried like these Uzi guns. I don't, I don't remember exactly what kind of weapon it was, but it was it was like a compact SMG. And um one day I went up to him and I was like, hey, is is that thing actually even loaded? And he laughed and said no. And he pulled out this Ziploc bag with all his rounds in it, and they kept an empty gun with a Ziploc bag full of rounds, just no accountability whatsoever. I was like, Well, I'm just not gonna count on you if shit's ever shit ever hits the fan then, because you'll be dead before you get that thing loaded.
SPEAKER_01It's like it's like the week on the other guys. Here's a whistle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Blow the whistle, someone in the gut will come and help you. If you get shot, then I know I'm next, so I better duck and cover. That's what you're yeah, that's what you're useful for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you some of them, yeah. The Middle Eastern countries are that was yeah, that they're interesting. Um watching, you know, we've seen videos of them doing jumping jacks.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. Yeah, monkey bars, the monkey. The boys on the monkey bars, they tear them up.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, this is yeah. Uh we used to do that's 2015. We were doing um we're training them to go up and do the good fighting Mosul. And so we're trying, you know, we're training. We had this dude, this fat Iraqi uh army guy. And um he drank whiskey. So Iraq's a really weird country. It's like it's like Muslim. Like they're real, they all drink, they all kind of do that. It's not like you know how it is a Saudi Rabbi or Qatar guy, because Qatar is pretty strict and all the saying. We this dude looked like Wario off of Mario Brothers. He had the big mustache, curly mustache, and dude, you would be you would look over, and this dude would be drunk, like in formation tram. Like you just give me your gun. Not today, brother. Like, we are not doing this. Yeah, he'd have said he had that big, huge long mustache. I'm like, dude, this is oh wild. Yeah. You dude, are you okay? He'd be he'd make spinning, he's like, like he's dizzy.
SPEAKER_03He's like, yeah, hey, somebody get this guy a chair and some water, take his weapons from him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's because you're drunk, brother. Like, yeah, yeah. You keep trying to have fire water, yeah. No, give me, yeah, give me your gun. Oh, dude. We had one dude saying we because we would do accountability of all their weapons, and I'm like, dude, where's your gun at? He had a 249. He's like, Oh, I sold it. Oh bro, me sold it. He's like, Yeah, I sold that thing. I was like, oh I would be under Levin Worth at that point. I was like, with you, and then it was all the American issue stuff because we did it, we they called the NATO package, so they were giving them all of our handy down. So yeah, I was like, Oh man, our taxpayer dollars pay for that. You know, we were selling them some bizarre in freaking Baghdad, like, yeah. Yo, and he was straight smooth about it. Like, he looked at it, he said whatever he said in Jipper Daver, and the freaking interpreter was like, Oh, oh, he sold that. And I was like, Oh now, you gotta go down back to your like my botanic commander, like, oh yeah, so I guess uh they're missing one.
SPEAKER_03Hey, you got another one of those? I I need a new one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because he sold it. Like, geez. Yeah, you you might want to see that that's gonna be on the on the back pages, but if you want to get one back, find that thing on Craig's Craigslist. Um, when you got back, did you move straight back to um Shreeport when you got out?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, unfortunately. Uh it's no secret. I don't want to be here, but here I am. Uh yeah, man, I I I missed my family, um, missed my missed my friends. So, yeah, as soon as I got out. So, what happened was actually while I was stationed in Greece, I came home on leave. And while I was home on leave, that's when I blew my knee out. I tore my ACL, my MCL, and uh had a stress fracture down my tibia. And so they kept me home, didn't send me back over. And originally they wanted to bring me back to Greece, and then from Greece sent me to Germany to have my surgery and all that. And knowing what I know now, I wish I'd have done that, but unfortunately I stayed in Shreeport. Yeah and uh they they stationed me at the the active reserve station here in uh Bozier City, which is right next to Shreeport. And so I finished my time out there, and then from there, just I've been here since I got out.
SPEAKER_01Now, so when you got out, Aussie then you I mean, how'd you get into guiding?
SPEAKER_03So my brother was at that camp in South Arkansas, and he wasn't a guide for an outfitter. It's a it's a hunting club, and he Got hooked up with this guy that had a membership out there that didn't really know, you know, how to call or set decoys and didn't really care to do it himself. He just wanted to go out there and shoot and and hang out with his buddies. So my brother was a guide for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And they they hunted every day. So he did all the legwork. He set the decoys, did the call and did the, you know, clean the ducks the whole, the whole nine yards, and and just stayed with this guy, and he would take him and his buddies. And so I grew up around that, going get going and getting a hunt there every now and then. And uh eventually had a new member that came on, and my brother mentioned my name to him. And this was in 2021 or 2022, I want to say. Um, and so that's how I originally got into it is I started taking this doctor and some of his buddies, and we we would go hunting at this hunting club. And at that same time, that's when I started getting into contests. And so while I was doing that, um I also met Ken Eason, who has just opened up so many doors. I'm so thankful for him, man. He has absolutely been a blessing to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so I started blowing Ken Eason's calls, the Lanyap, and started having a lot of success with it. And it's a funny story how I got hooked up at Straight Lake. So it was at uh Delta Waterfowl in Baton Rouge in 2024. And I told Kent he knew who Max Sharp was, who was the founder of Straight Lake up in northeast Arkansas, about an hour outside of Stuttgart. And uh I told him, hey, I want you to introduce me to Max Sharp. I just want to talk to him. I would, it was that was the top place on no matter what, I will drop anything that I have to to get to go be a guide at this place. And so he introduced me to Max Sharp. Me and him hit it off really well, super great guy. And um of course, later that next day or either that day, I went and I won that double read contest at DJ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I remember that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I remember that. So I won that contest, and shortly after Max found me and you know, dabbed me up, was super excited for me, and gave me an invite to come up to Straight Lake and just check it out. And uh a month later I came and checked it out. He introduced me as the new guy that was going to be up there, and uh man, I started I started hunting there, and that place is just absolutely magical. It's you got pretty much everything that you could see in Arkansas duck hunt up there. You got rice, you got corn, you got pits, you've got skid blinds, you of course you got plenty of flooded timber out there, and it's it's an absolute magical place. It's it's uh duck hunting like you would only ever imagine in your dreams. That's the best way I can put it. It's it's absolutely insane up there. And of course, it still gets slow just like anywhere else, but man, when it's good up there, it's it's about as good as it gets.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember that I was standing next to Kent when uh you did first when you blew in the first round. Um Joey was there, he actually blew in that one as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I when I heard your first your your first routine, I after the first time I looked over at Kent and I shook his hands like y'all just won. You guys just won this one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, man. That was that was a crazy contest. Because I'll tell you, even now, even with some of the success I've had, man, there's never been a contest that I won that I think that I'm winning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's always, hey, I'm doing, I've blown my routine well, but I I mean, I'll some I'll be somewhere in the top five, but I probably won't win. And uh like I've told other guys, man, I've come to I've come to learn that you're gonna win some that you should have lost and you're gonna lose some that you should have won. And so there it there's in contest calling, there's you should not get bent out of shape, you know, if you lose, because it's gonna happen. It's it's so subjective. It's gonna happen where you there's gonna be contests that you thought you sounded better than everybody, and you take, you know, fifth place, or sometimes you might not even make third round.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's just gonna be one of those things that happens. So sometimes you just gotta take the good with the bad and and chalk it up as just go have a good time, cut up with the guys in the bullpen, you know, make friends, make, you know, make good connections in in in the industry and who eventually become good friends and and you know, just go have fun with it. As corny as that sounds.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah. Oh, you won't be right. I, you know, I've been blown Nicotas in about two years, but I tell everyone, I'm deserted donating money to y'all. Yeah, I'm deserted donating money. It might as well go to you guys. But yeah, it is. It's it's nice. One, it keeps even if you're not winning, it keeps you sharp on your duck call.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Again, it keeps you um and it keeps you in tune with duck hunting. It's yeah, I can still talk duck hunting, see the guys, you know, everyone in July. Yeah, we you know, July, June, you know, super missing it. Um you know, this past weekend was gay on and um we actually went bull, we fished reds that day. Joey woke up and uh he was like, I want to go blowing it. Because he's actually getting ready to leave for basic as well. And uh he was like, Man, but I'd rather just go fishing one more time a few more times before I ship out. I was like, all right, let's go. And we went and we caught a bunch of bull reds. Um but yeah, it it is it's a good time to to keep up with everybody. And you do, you make a lot of a lot of connections.
SPEAKER_03It it is it is truly opened. I mean, shoot, it it got me into uh uh one of the you know top hunting clubs in what I would say probably in North America. Yeah. I mean, it it's an amazing place, and that's all because of contest. And the whole reason I wanted to get into contest is because I wanted to get into guiding. Yeah. And I saw that as the gateway to get into guiding. And of course, now I've I've gotten to where I want to be on the guiding side, and I'm kind of getting to where I'm gonna start slowing down and eventually get out of it just because I I've got kids that are gonna be, you know, getting to the age that I want to start taking them and be more worried about getting them into it than I am caring about seeing, you know, yeah, what I want to see. I've I've seen what I've wanted to see at this point.
SPEAKER_01I'd say everyone, having having kids changed my perspective of what a good duck hunt is.
SPEAKER_03100%.
SPEAKER_01Being 41 years old, my duck hunting success is different from 25-year-old me.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Not having, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Even 2020, 2021, I was still hunting some public land and and going up there to South Arkansas at that hunting club, but I was I was very headstrong on killing and and you know, shooting as many as I can. And now I am very on the very on the page of saying, you know, I want to go and I want to see ducks do it right. And sometimes I might shoot, and a lot of times I might not shoot, because that's that is not what's important to me anymore. It's just a good, successful hunt going out there with with good people. And man, seeing some ducks do it right, it's almost some people are gonna make fun of me, but I'd much rather see them do it right and just not even shoot into them, just watch them sit on the water sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And then you have some clients in town, you know, they want to shoot sometime, and I get it.
SPEAKER_03They want it. They they wanna they got three shells in that gun and they don't want to unload it.
SPEAKER_01So they unload it and nothing falls.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes uh I'd say maybe a little bit more than sometimes. Nothing fell, buddy. They say, Do you shoot? No, I didn't shoot. Good, good shot, man. You hit that one right there. I saw you hit that one sitting right in front of me.
SPEAKER_01You know, I have a shotgun. I'm I sometimes I'll guide it with um a browning uh BSP because it's a bottom eject. And if I know I did I guide some guys before, I'm like, oh bud. Because yeah, it doesn't kick out like, oh brother, you you nailed that.
SPEAKER_03I gotta, I gotta, I'm mostly on with a 20 gauge now, but every now and then I gotta I gotta bring that 12 gauge out when I know I'm gonna need it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I use I um nine times out of ten, I'm I'm either using the um I have an older beretta that I'll use or a um SX4, but when I when you I'm trying to be sneaky, then when when the when the BSP comes out, you know that he's trying to be sneaky.
SPEAKER_03A boy doing a hip shot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it bottom checks, you know, you didn't gonna kick out or nothing. No, I never even picked my gun up. What are you talking about? Oh yeah, it was it was a good time. I enjoyed my time hunting in um guiden, Louisiana. I'm not Louisiana and then Guyden in um uh Arkansas. I was young me and Force we both got over there at DLW's, yeah. And yeah, I tell I tell everyone Arkansas hunting in Arkansas is such a the duck hunting culture there is just it's it's there. It's you know, from you know, going to Max's, going to uh uh DW's, but it's even like some of the little mama pop's places up there. Um yeah, Arkansas lives, breeze, and it just has that duck waterfowl is part of that culture, and yeah.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Man, I I say it like this. Here in here in Shreeport, everybody either becomes a crackhead or they go work at the paper mill. Up there in Arkansas, it seems like just about everybody goes and becomes a wildlife biologist. It is it's crazy how much, like you said, in the culture they really are. It's yeah, especially in that Stuttgart area, the Northeast Arkansas area, those guys, it's it's crazy because growing up here in Shreveport when I was a kid, it was hard to find other guys that duck hunted. Uh, but up there, it's like it's just second nature to them. It's part of their culture. It's it's what they do, is they they all hunt.
SPEAKER_01Or they will become a crackhead in a snow goose.
SPEAKER_03They're all those guys are crackheads. So I think those go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_02If you're a snow goose guy, you're definitely a crackhead.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, this last year uh we had a buddy uh Levi, he's been on the show, he guided with horse and all of them. And we would go on TikTok and just look at all like the random guys that you're you know, you see when they get on the arguments about snow goose hunting and all. Oh this year was like the best of just like social media. I'm like, one, you guys are really like getting oh, like you guys are really getting incriminated on social media. I don't know if you know how meta works, right? Yeah, this is all a database.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, you gotta I I've learned uh yeah, I've I've learned I'm not I'm not an outlaw at all, but I've learned there's some things that I just not gonna post anyway because sometimes perception can be reality. I don't need I don't need the law seeing what I'm doing sometimes.
SPEAKER_01But I see, I mean I was watching guys argue about like you know, if I see you in my area, those are my white geese. I don't know, it's like threatening somebody for some cell or snow geese, like bud, that's not not a good look, buddy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that is I'm not hey, February hits, and uh I'm very over it by that point. I'm not even tuned into what's going on in the waterfowl industry anymore after it's over.
SPEAKER_01Uh dude, this is my first year. I actually um did some I mean I did pretty decent snow goose hunting down here in Louisiana, and um, we shot a call we shot a collar. Really? I was I was hunting with Nate um from that falling tide uh TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and uh his brother shot a um a what do you call it? A uh a collared um a snow goose.
SPEAKER_03Oh man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and yeah, so it was pretty neat. And it it was you know for Louisiana's uh snow goose only killed 15, and I was like, Bernangona I was like, all right. And uh it's funny that tell guys, you know, um some of the guys at DLW, they'll they'll stay around they'll snow goose hunt. I'm like, listen, when you see those snow goose hunt on uh TV, that's like five days worth of hunting, right? Yeah, did they only show you the other four days where they shot one snow goose? I've been five hours.
SPEAKER_03I've been invited on a couple of snow geese goose hunts the uh last couple years, and those guys are like, Yeah, I've got two cases of shells, we're gonna go wear them out. I'm like, man, something tells me I don't want to take part of that. And sure enough, they're like, Oh, it was BS, man. Nothing ever really flew. We killed one goose. I'm like, I'm sure glad I didn't go take part in that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And that's that's really been my uh, you know, in time about snow goose on it. It's like, you know, you you watched the whole like oh, triple digits and all that, and it's like, oh, we killed four geese. All right, like this was definitely like, you know, I'm shut through mud for no damn thing.
SPEAKER_03Y'all can have that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so yeah, this year we put out a permanent spread. We didn't do two, I think a snow goose on three days during the conservation season, and the best day was we killed every day, but the best day was 15.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, it was I would say I would call that a good day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But those guys that go around there, we're gonna chase them, like oh bruh. Like, yeah, you yeah, you were all when they're like, we put 50 dozen full bodies. I'm like, yeah, you're yeah, you're a crackhead, bud.
SPEAKER_03Man, I got I got called weird this past season uh where I was hunting at uh in central Louisiana, north central Louisiana. They uh when the freeze came, there was, I don't even know how many ducks just sitting on dry land because everything was so froze up. Yeah. It was about nine or ten o'clock at night, and these they were gonna do a guide hunt on this dry field the next morning. And they were like, man, we're gonna go brush all these panel blinds. It was nine o'clock, nine, ten o'clock at night. So, no, y'all have that, man. I think I'm gonna sleep in tomorrow. Um and they went out there and the the they jumped up a bunch of mallards, they never came back and they killed a bunch of teal. And I tell you, I like killing teal, but I didn't mind sleeping in that morning missing out on a teal shoot over dryfield.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so this year, did you get to hunt with Roland any? I did. I got to hunt with Roland one time, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We had it was during it was during the freeze. It was uh it was a good hunt.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Roland's always a good time.
SPEAKER_03He he's out there, man. I love Roland. He's got it's never a dull moment, no, dull moment with him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he is a good dude. He keeps you laughing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, 100%. He he will keep you entertained. If you're if you're gonna, if you're not gonna kill anything, he is the best one to be with because he will keep everybody entertained.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, that's why I tell everyone when they're like, oh, but really guys, like it's more than this hunting. You one, you have to be almost like a stand-up comedian.
SPEAKER_02You do.
SPEAKER_01You have to be a good storyteller, you have to be able to read your clients because some jokes and some stories are definitely not every blind, it's not the same, brother.
SPEAKER_03You gotta you gotta fill it out because I'll I'll go as far as y'all do. So you I gotta know where the limits at. What are y'all gonna say first and what can I say? Yeah. Before I ever start giving me that the weird side of it. Because I'll get a whole blind rolling. I just gotta know how far I can take it.
SPEAKER_01Especially you know, it comes from the military. We have dark humor sometimes. Yep. I have dark humor, it's little all right.
SPEAKER_03I had a uh I had a buddy that I was that so up over there in Louisiana, you hunt with two guides to a group, and one of the guys, every time they'd ask him what he did for work, he'd give him something different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03One time he told this crew that he was a fluffer for the professional adult entertainment industry. And the funniest part of that story is they believed it, and he never told them any different. They went home believing that just awful. And they they had a kick and they had a field day with that.
SPEAKER_01Hey, you want you want to try my duck call? Yeah. Anyways, hey, you want to blow this duck call?
SPEAKER_02Nope, no, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_03Uh so yeah, man, you definitely, when you're guiding, you will have those slow days, and you gotta figure out how to uh keep those guys entertained. And sometimes you're just gonna have those guys that are only worried about killing, and there's really nothing that you can do. But sometimes you'll you'll have some good guys that understand how it is, and it's not always gonna be just absolute jam-up days. And if you can, if you can make good friends with those guys and and you know, like like we said, entertain them and and make good relationship with them, then it it they chalk it up because it is what it is, and it's gonna be a good time no matter what.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I and I tell some people that when in the arc, oh you know, we want to go up at an arc on my guilds. We're gonna go buy a hunt somewhere out there or you're gonna come, you know, come with book a hunt while I'm guiding. If you're coming out, say at least you three days.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because you know, I'm gonna tell you, the first two days may not be jammed up.
SPEAKER_03You might get one one good day out of those three days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh uh book three days. If you're gonna come all that way, just book three days.
SPEAKER_03Yep, 100%.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it it it's we I will say I got the guy for a really good place down here in Louisiana, uh Spoonbill Avengers, probably around here for ducks is uh man. Um I'm using Garden on the Facebook I think. Yeah, he runs a really good shit. Like he has a he runs a really good guy, so it's real organized, real um real so that dude is superbly organized over there. Yeah, but even then, yeah, even then, you know, the duck hunting, you need to be slow sometimes. And um you have guys that come, you know, they'll come from like East Louisiana, northeast Louisiana, and like, oh but like the rice fields aren't as jammed up as you think they are by mid-December. Like, you know, everything again they get shot up pretty dang fast.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Especially down here when you have we have three um three refugees all within like an hour of each other that you that are um no shoot, you can't hunt at all.
SPEAKER_02Oh shoot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, Carrie Can and Perry, you can't shoot at all. Laugh ising you only shoot like 10% of it. Only 10% of it's not audible. The rest of it's just you know it's funny because every year you see guys get busted and they're like hunting in the pools. It's like, oh yeah. I tell them like you're the first dude that the warrants already know you're going out there. You think you're the first dude to sneak up there and try, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're just they're waiting for somebody like you to come on out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I don't care how sneaky you are. Yeah, you know, they're flying drones nowadays. Like it's 2026, you're getting oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, you are getting caught. Yeah. So before we get off, um, you know, and it was great having you on. We want to ask, you know, here uh we call it our the duck hunting EDC, like every day. And every day, all duck hunters, you're gonna you're gonna carry a shotgun, you're gonna have your your chokes, and then you're gonna have your lanyard. So what you know, I know you're talking about your 20 gauge, what's your go-to shotgun and uh choke combo?
SPEAKER_03So I've got a uh 20 gauge uh Explore X400 Beretta. Uh just got it last year, actually. So last season was my first year hunting with it. Um I'm just running just a standard manufacturer choke out of it right now, but I do want to get uh an extended choke. I just probably gonna get that before this season. But right now, that's what I've been hunting with. So that's usually my everyday gun. Um, but uh at Straight Lake, there's a rule in the timber that you can only use a 28 gauge or smaller. So most guys are either using a 28 or a 410 in the timber. You can't use a 20 or bigger. Um, so usually if I'm not using that 20 gauge, then they've got club guns there, and I'm grabbing a uh X400 28 gauge beretta there. So most of the time I'm always shooting a beretta.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_03And that's that's the same thing. Manufacture choke out of those. I I do beretta is probably my favorite gun. I used to uh use a Remington V3, and I love that gun forever. Um, but I don't really care for like a slim, uh, skinny shotgun. I kind of like something that that is a little bit bulkier. So Beretta has that feel. I just like the way that it should. Yeah, I like everything about a Beretta shotgun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. How is it hunting with a 28 gauge? I've hunted once with a 28 gauge. Um uh a buddy of my had it for um TLC's in the SB328-28.
SPEAKER_03It's shooting with a a real small, you know, shotgun like that, it's a little bit harder, but also, I mean, when you're in the timber like that, they're finishing pretty dang close. So it it's fun, man. It's it's hard to explain. It makes it harder, but also having a little bit more of a challenge is what makes it a little bit more fun. Because shoot, when they're landing that close to you and you got a 12 gauge or even a 20 gauge, you you're possibly blowing those ducks apart. So yeah, when you're using that 20 gauge, it it makes it a lot more fun. It's it's you don't even you hardly have a kick at that point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh but I mean, if you if you square up a duck with a twenty eight gauge at at a you know close enough distance, it's still gonna kill him just as good as any other shotgun is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's what I noticed when you said you know the the recoil, it was almost early. I'm like, oh, this is oh, you know, it's almost like a squid load.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It's like you're shooting a cap gun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's what I noticed. And even though y'all, especially for you know, usually those SV3s that usually have a little thumb toolbells inertia, and it was I was like, oh, it's nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I'm still gonna shoot a 12 gauge, but then you're loading those little 28 gauge or 410 shells, and I don't know what it is, but I just feel like a badass every time I'm carrying those little shells with me. I'm about to shoot him in the face and five yards away.
SPEAKER_01Now being a competitive caller and a guide, and then what's on your lanyard? I you know, do you switch do you have your go-to calls or is there a certain setup? I know you're guiding different different areas, so like do you have is your timber setup way different than your when you're hunting the rice?
SPEAKER_03So I I keep the same the same calls on my lanyard for the most part, no matter where I'm at. So I'll either I'll have a on my lanyard, I'll have my dog whistle, of course, and then I'll have a seven-in-one whistle for pentail till and whatnot, widging. And then I carry a J-frame, which is usually going to be an Easton Lanyap, uh, on one side. And on my other side, I'll carry some kind of cut down. That usually changes. Sometimes it's been a Rolling Thunder, sometimes it's been a Seth Fields cut, but it'll be some kind of cutdown. Uh, and most of the time, 90% of the time, I'm just using that J-frame call, just because it sounds like a duck and I can hit some good licks on it, and it works just as well. Um, but every now and then I will keep that cut down just to hit like a real hard feed or just really, you know, holler at them if they're real far off, just to just to grab a little bit of attention. So that 10%, I'm I'm using that cut down just to get attention. And once I've got them, I'm most of the time going right back to the J-frame and and using that all the way to finish.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You you getting any speckle baits a lot there in uh Arkansas?
SPEAKER_03So this past year was the first time that I've actually ever called in and shot specs. And man, it's pretty dang fun. Yeah, I got I got hooked pretty fast. We were I found a field up there in northeast Arkansas that had a bunch of ducks and a bunch of specs that were all sitting in the rice. And um, so we've only got probably two dozen spec decoys total, and only a dozen of those are floaters. So I only came out there with my duck decoys and about a dozen floaters. And I found out real quick that ducks are specific. You know, how they're gonna work and finish is specific to the decoys, but not as specific as specs seem to be. So I told the guys when we were setting up that morning, hey, you know, throw the specs directly behind the blind. I think I told them just behind the blind, but where I'd seen the specs all sitting at was in rice stubble right behind the blind. So that's where I wanted my spec decoys at. Well, they threw the specs probably a good 40 yards behind the blind. Oh, dang. And so when all these specs started coming over the tree line, they were coming perfectly to us, but then they would skirt off to the edge like they were going to go to the spec decoys back behind us. And after a few groups, I started noticing, okay, they're sliding just out of range and kind of going towards these decoys behind us. And sure enough, man, I picked those decoys up, I moved them directly to the front of the blind, and they came directly over the blind just like I needed. And we ended up shooting our limit of mallard, uh, all Drake's and our limit of specs that day.
SPEAKER_01Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03And it was just, it was, it was some of the best hunting I've ever seen that day, man. It was it was absolutely phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you it's something about speculable nut in it. One and it's a day, they were the way they work is just so so awesome. And you know, when they start come, you know, they it looks like they're they're they're toading melons. Yeah. They're just all bold and bowed up.
SPEAKER_03It's the, I'll tell you what it is. It's the, it's it's the drama of you're having a conversation with them. At least this is how it is for me. It's a drama of you're having a conversation with them. And so I'm making sure that I'm saying exactly what he wants to hear because if I start saying something he doesn't, I'm probably gonna lose him. He ain't coming, he ain't coming back. And so it's just having that little bit of drama of like, I better say exactly what he wants to hear. I'm just gonna talk to him all the way until he gets in here so I can shoot him in the face.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's almost like turd cutting with you know with the vocalization conversation you guys have, you know, you have back and forth of the goose.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And it's a little bit, because I mean, with duck hunting, yeah, you can hit them on the corners, you hit them here and there, and you know, if they're coming, then they'll come. But with specs, it's like you've got to have you've got to know what you're doing. You've got to hit them exactly when they want to be called at. And uh, I don't know. It it there's something about calling it specs. Like I said, I just got to do it for the first time this past year a few times, and it it's it's different and it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, brother. But man, I it's been awesome having you on. I really appreciate it. Um, for everyone, hey man, thank you for your service. This you know, definitely, you know, thank you for the time you did in the Navy.
SPEAKER_03Um thank you for yours, man. This is yeah, I pre I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01But man, hopefully this year we can leak up and do a hunt.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. I'm buddy hunting. Uh after guiding all last year like that, I'm gonna get back to buddy hunting. So let's make that happen.
SPEAKER_01I said, I have my lease down here. You're you're just your three hours and just head three hours south.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. You know where to find me.
SPEAKER_01But for the viewers, hey, thank you for tuning in. Uh, like our buddy Chris always says, let the honor off failure.