Monday Beers Ep.81; Shawn Stahl And The Off Season

On this week’s episode of Monday Beers Podcast the guys sit down with Shawn Stahl to break down his season and everything that went into it.

From the highs to the grind, Shawn recaps how his year played out in the field, what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons that carry over into next season. The conversation rolls into the off-season too — covering what he’s focused on right now, how he stays sharp, and what’s already in motion for the year ahead.

It’s a solid mix of real hunting insight, behind-the-scenes talk, and the mindset it takes to stay consistent year after year. Grab a cold one and tune in. 🍻

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Oh, is that why you were warning us that you push the button so we wouldn't say something stupid? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I just I just waited. I was just guessing there might be one episode. I don't have to cut anything out.

SPEAKER_06 0:11

No. No.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

It's not a chance. Go ahead and say it.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

No. I probably shouldn't say that. I don't want that to be recorded anywhere. No, no, we will have to cut that part out. I have it recorded. Oh God.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Well, the first five minutes is gonna have to be cut out at this point. What would you would you oh when is your wedding?

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Uh we're gonna do it last I heard March sometime next year, and then apparently it's changing again. So she's having cold feet? Yeah, maybe. But no, the day the day that we were gonna do it, the uh church was already booked for a wedding that day, so we're having to switch our dates around just a little bit. So But I still want to try to do it in March. But she she has sorry, I'm having to take a lot of breaths, guys. Uh she uh she she has like s uh pollen and shit allergies mess her up real bad, so she doesn't want to get married when her allergies are bad. Well, I mean that's yeah, I get it. I get it. And I mean seeing how mine are right now, yeah, maybe it's not the best idea. So I mean Yeah, but it's April. Yeah, but see, she takes medicine for it every day. She'll take one of those uh like claritons or something, and I haven't taken anything for mine. She's got allergies?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah. Uh I just thought maybe she was allergic to beer because every time you have about two, she gets swelled up.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

It's either beer or hem.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

It could be either.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

I'm gonna take the latter on that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

How was everybody's weekend? Man, it was good. We got to hang out quite a bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, was that this weekend? Easter weekend. Yeah, we did quite a bit. Yeah, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, yeah, you came over to my turn. Saturday feels like a turn, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

See, that's an awesome weekend when you say, What'd you do this weekend? I hung out with you. Well, see, remember that?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Actually, no.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah, like by the end of Saturday night, my shirt was off, and he was he was talking to some.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I missed all this. Uh and then we had the cream. We had to get a driver to the gas station because he ran out of beer, and it was only like 10 o'clock. He was like, I gotta go to the street.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

No, we ran out of beer at 8. Oh, it was eight. Yeah. Yeah. We ran out of everything at eight.

SPEAKER_05 2:35

Everybody else left that. Sounds like poor planning to me.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

I mean, I thought we had enough, to be honest with you, but it was like Colton got to my house at probably 9 30 that morning. And well, my wife was at work. I had nothing to do, right? And it was and it was raining. It was raining all day and days.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah, I couldn't do anything. I was planning on going fishing, but no.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So instead of poor planning, you were just very efficient. Yeah. More or less, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, we we did like what y'all do, get daydrunk. Oh, we got the older you get, the more it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Oh, yeah, we were we had by 10, 10 30. I mean, in bed, asleep. So I mean, we had, you know, I left your house at like nine o'clock. Yeah. So you got home by 10, but the time we all went to bed. Yeah. I mean, hell, it was pretty it. Hey, we get we did it right, I think. Yeah, no, it was a fun day though.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Because Thomas was there. Thomas. Yeah, we got the we've actually got to all hang out, other than the podcast. Yeah, like first time at the time. That was the first time. That was the first time at a very long time.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

That yeah, it wasn't something actually going on, I guess. Well, I mean, it was a birthday party from a little sister, so I mean, but yeah, we just we just showed up. Crashed in. Well, I mean, it was it it was in the shop behind my house. Well, I mean, we were the last of the party there. I was gonna be there regardless.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

No, we might have been the reason everyone left. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

That that yeah. All the other the same people, they yeah, they definitely got out of there in a hurry. Pretty much everybody left there at like six, oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

5 30 or 6. And then there was a couple people still left, and then after that it was like just us, and we had the TV going with the uh March Madness has been UConn, Illinois. That was Final Four, yeah. Watched that, and everything. It was a good time, I think. Yeah, it wasn't bad. Wasn't bad. Nobody slept.

SPEAKER_05 4:25

Did anybody watch the ballgame last night? I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah, I did. I did. Well, well, I wanted to watch. Me and Maddie ended up going to open season for like uh just a little while with some of uh our friends and uh that were in town and sat up there and watched it for a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 4:43

Yeah, Jimbo texted me last night. He says, I'm rooting for your team. I said, You're watching hockey? That's what I said. I said the frozen fours next weekend, buddy. The frozen fours.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

This is making sense to no listener right now. So let me do the intro real quick. Hey guys, if you are tuning in here for the first time, hit the the like, subscribe button, whatever you do. Uh keep up with us on our Instagram. Uh and you can always listen free on iTunes, Spotify, and uh Buzz Sprout is absolutely free, and it's linked right there in our Instagram page. So follow along with us. Um we got we got a guest back with us today, and some of y'all probably recognize his voice, but we'll introduce him in a second. Uh hey guys, uh, we post these every Sunday so you can listen with us on Monday because we are those guys that drink beer on Monday, and we call ourselves Monday Beers. Not Monday.

SPEAKER_05 6:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

It's just gonna get the oxygen flowing, you know.

SPEAKER_05 6:12

Yeah, uh fake the shapes out a little. Yeah, it's uh good job.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Now we can introduce what happened to some people very familiar, or actually a lot of people very familiar voice, uh, but you see him most of the time because he is a co-host of the RT TV show, and he has been on here before. If you've listened long enough, it is Mr. Sean Stahl. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 6:37

And if if you don't remember it, it didn't happen. That's code.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Hi, Sean. It's very nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

Yep, first time. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Good lord. Well, how was your season this this past year? Pleasant. Pleasant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Kind of all over the place. I felt like you had a lot of luck for the It's not luck. Oh, here we go. There it is.

SPEAKER_05 7:03

It's a calculated risk. Yes, I agree. Okay, it's all calculated. No, you gotta run into them.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, no, but I meant like you had a good season where most people may have been complaining about the weather and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 7:17

Uh knock on wood. I've had a the past two years, I've had great seasons when a lot of people didn't have good seasons. And it had had to do with being mobile, being in the right place at the right time, a little bit of luck, but calculating things out, looking at moon phases, looking at weather patterns, and trying to be in the right places at the right time. And being d diversifying. And I I used to just feel goose, feel goose, feel goose. Got the express boat now, it's all set up. We have a water option now. You know, we can go places, we can ride the snow line, we can look, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Do you own a bunch of lakes, I guess? Lakes, rivers.

SPEAKER_05 7:58

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

So I didn't know.

SPEAKER_05 8:02

Yeah, but it's a 20-foot express boat. We build a hard top blind on it, so it's aluminum skin, got the blind grass on it. So I can, if we do cross the border, we don't have to worry about having natural vegetation. It's artificial, we don't have to take it off. Uh blend in just about anywhere. Just it's another option. You know, it's it's gotten so difficult in places to get permission on land anymore. And there's a lot of public ground, especially up in Michigan. You know, you got all the Great Lakes. Yeah. Yeah. You can get a boat on, you can go hunt, you can hide.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Do y'all hunt those a bunch? I guess. I mean Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Yeah. Yeah, we do. We hunt a lot of the other ducks. What is that?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Diver ducks up there on that?

SPEAKER_05 8:45

Yep. Yep. Pretty much everything but mallards. Really? Because we're mallard to shot some long tails last year, cans, reds. What is this? A lot of bluegills. Old squaw. Pheasant of the sea, an old squaw. Yeah, uh, they call them long tails now. Be politically correct, but old squaw. They just they got a long tail on them. Huh. Yeah, John and Blake and Rusty came up.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

I'd like to do that again. It's pretty fun. It maybe um be a little more prepared.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

Oh, was that when y'all were sitting in the that Skeption thing? Yeah. Five miles offshore, just bobbing around like those little one-man boats. Yeah. You hang out here with us, six decoys on the end of the boat. We're gonna go about six miles away, and yeah, you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And we um we celebrated the night before we got there, so it was just making it worse.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Accidentally typed in old school fuck.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Did your picture come up? Beat me there.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Oh gosh. All right. My lord, sorry about that. Yeah. Were you able to get to do a bunch of hunting up in uh Canada?

SPEAKER_05 9:54

Not a not a bunch this year. One one quick trip and that was it. Um starting to get more limiting up there as to how many days you can go up and do stuff. And uh so no, we didn't, you know, we didn't spend a lot of time up there. We tried to go up this spring, but the weather, you know, normally I'd be up there right now on the rise.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Is that due to their government?

SPEAKER_05 10:14

Yeah, they're they're starting to limit us to, you know, some provinces are two five day licenses. Some you gotta draw for a seven day. Wow. Yeah. It's getting it's getting harder and harder to freelance to do the old school freelance stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, because once you get up there, you gotta go up there and find where you're gonna hunt, see if you can even get permission to hunt it.

SPEAKER_05 10:35

And that to me is fun. Like that's part, like uh the hunt actually is just a culmination of everything. The fun part is figuring out the whole puzzle. You know, not just putting the last piece in showing up, you know, on the hunt. And from what I've heard stories of, and I'm sure you've witnessed it, like if you're good at it, you actually build relationships with landowners and stuff out there and friendships and that's the hard part with all the restrictions that are ever since COVID coming on, is you know, I've been going up to some places long enough, this dates us, but I've been going up there where I've seen young kids grow up to be adults and have kids, you know, and I talk to them on a weekly basis, some of these people, and consider them really good friends, and now you're limited in how much time you can spend up there. Uh it kind of sucks. You know, and it it going up there, like the places that we go are not necessarily like what I would consider waterfowl meccas, uh, but we have built enough relationships up there with farmers and friendships and stuff. We we can get on land, get permission, we know the area, and you know, uh a lot of it would be like just being able to hunt around home, but being able to hunt the whole county, you know. Uh but yeah, it's just it's about the friendships and relationships and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Are they pretty big landhold owners up there, like like large sections of land?

SPEAKER_05 12:04

Uh most of the time, yeah. Yeah, they the typical farmer own a quarter section at least. Wow, you know of like a county? No, of a section of land, so like 180 acres. Oh, so that's not that's not that big. No, I mean compared to here. But compared to here, okay. But the main rest it probably is.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was thinking more like they all own like a a section or something.

SPEAKER_05 12:26

Typically, yeah, but you know, some of the smaller ones a quarter section, but some of them own five. I mean, one property owner, he owns fifty sections.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

So, I mean so probably not much difference than here, probably. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

That's interesting. I would I would have never guessed that. So uh I know a little bit some of your off time and stuff just keeping up with you since you know all year and everything, but uh can you I I you went to the Bassmaster Classic over in uh what was in on the Mississippi River? Tennessee River. Oh, the Tennessee River. How was that?

SPEAKER_05 13:01

That's fun. That was really cool. Like I kind of I'm a fishing nerd kind of deal. It's just you do this, you work for in the hunting industry for a living, so you still like the outdoors and you want to do things to like charge your batteries, you know. So I like to fish. Yeah, no, I'm gonna. And I kind of got out of fishing for a while, you know, like growing up. I fished all the time, like three, four nights a week, you know, and and then got out of doing, you know, just got out of playing. I used to play, you know, rack hockey league. I used to golf on a golf league, I used to, you know. You used to golf? Used to fish, oh yeah. Yeah, used to do it all, but I mean, then you get going and you're traveling and you're doing all this stuff, and then you're it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I know it's crazy. I tell people all the time, like my second favorite thing to do is fish. Uh I hadn't fished in three years. Yeah. Just because I mean, you know, it's just crazy. Like you just get so busy, but it's cool. You fish when we're doing a TV show, probably, yeah. Wow. But just it's a release because it has absolutely nothing to do with work. But you still, like you say, get to get outside.

SPEAKER_05 14:01

It's my opinion, it charges your batteries. Yeah. And I'm still thinking about work and you know, the wheels are spinning, and I'm Yeah, but nobody's nobody's to bother, nobody's there to bother you.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

You can think freely while you're out there.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

I I've kind of gotten into it lately. I mean, I'm not like good at it.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

I well, I suck at fishing, yeah, but I like going.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

But I I've really enjoyed like just going. I I'm with you, it just definitely recharges you.

SPEAKER_05 14:25

And I didn't realize how bad I sucked until a couple years ago when we had all the express guys up here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

And they're just well, my thing is like with everything, I'm either all or nothing. And so like I don't want to go like three times a year. You know, like I'm either just not going away. And when I just happen to be in a certain time in my life with everything that's going on, I just there's other things I need to be doing, you know.

SPEAKER_05 14:48

As my as my wife caught says it, you hobby hard or you don't hobby. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Yeah. I had a good time with her at NWTF. It was good to see her. That was don't talk like that about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

What I mean, what happened like that?

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Sean, don't worry, he didn't see her.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

I thought you guys went to get pizza.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah. That's why it took us so long, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

So that's why it was called right here.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

No, but that was good. That was the last time I'd seen well, her for sure, since the NWTF before. Maybe even the last time I'd seen you since before. Oh, you just forget about it. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

He's been down here every summer.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Did you see him up here? Did you come last summer? See him up here? No. No, he didn't come last summer.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah, he did. Yeah. He comes every time to do TV interviews and stuff.

unknown 15:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Uh I think y'all are taking advantage of my poor memory. Or medication. Or medication. One of the two. Something's gotta give, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:51

I think it's the lack thereof. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

You don't take the blue pill before work.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

You don't? How else are my pants gonna stay up? Tell everybody I work really hard. You know what I mean?

unknown 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Yeah, he always says, I like work, can't beat it.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Colton was just saying how bad it smelled in your room. Bro.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Figured out. Yeah. I had popped some popcorn, like two bags that day. And I burnt both fucking bags. That it was not this big. Yes, it was. It was burnt popcorn. I swear to God it was. Because I did it again. Burnt popcorn.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

Hey, dude wipes are cheap, man.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

I got dude wipes in there. Oh yeah. I do. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah, I mean, if though if that was somebody I could ever get sponsored by, yeah, dude wipes. Give me fucking dude wipes. I I use those some bitches like they're going out of style. Not the mint. No, no, no, no. The mint makes it okay. Let me tell y'all a story about the mint dude wipes. And I mean, everybody out there listening probably knows this too, but like, it was a cold morning. Cold morning this past up season. And we had just got done setting up, and I was hooked up to the goose trailer, and I was like, all right, I gotta go down here before the customers get here. Like, I'll be back. Like, everything's set up. Y'all don't need me for a minute. Okay, I'm gone. I go down to the very end of the field. I mean, no longer, and I just get my drawers pulled down, you know. Had to go. Hanging on from Deer Life to the back of the trailer. Or the side of the trailer. And then I go to wipe with those dude wipes, the mint ones. It was like putting what what what's that uh fire and ash?

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Icy hot.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

You didn't like it? Dude, it was like mint ones? It was like it was like putting icy hot on my asshole fresh. Dude, no, not when that cold air hit it. Oh boy. You won't talk about God dog, man.

SPEAKER_05 17:57

I thought you were more cultured than that.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I mean, that's about as bad as you ever had someone put icy hot on the toilet seat? You actually experience anything.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Dude, you don't need when you got friends like that. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Worked on the phone.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

So you just admit you sit down to go to the bathroom? To take a shit.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

No, he stands up all prime-wise and shit like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Or like taxing on the side of that trailer, the hangman, as I like to call it. Where is this going?

SPEAKER_03 18:29

I know we got a little off topic here. Sorry about that. We always have those. We always have those. Spin off.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Spinoff. Anyways, uh, the unflavored dude whites are the best.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

The unflavored ones? You eat them? Sounds like it.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Unflavored. I mean, I've hunted heard of edible underwear, but it's like I should say. Not edible whites. I mean.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Hey, at least it was somebody else and not me this time. Yeah, I'll take that. That's a dub. That's a dub in my book.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Oh Lord. Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Sorry, Story.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Ask him a legit question this time. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

How much weight does that add to that? How much weight does that blind add to that?

SPEAKER_05 19:17

Not as much as you think. It's all aluminum. Uh like if you put one of us on each corner and all one person on all each corner, and you can lift it up.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

You'd probably pick it up one person if it went so big and awkward.

SPEAKER_05 19:32

A couple people. Yeah. Interesting. I mean a few hundred pounds, but not easy, I think.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Only twenty.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

It's twenty foot long.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

You haven't seen the video of it being built? It's solid.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

But like does it sit like low in the water? The boat? No. No, it just like the brush hangs off whenever he gets ready.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

The uh blind sets on top of the boat and folds up.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

I I understand how it works.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

And what are you asking?

SPEAKER_03 20:01

What I'm asking is how how is there there's weight limits on boats. So if you're adding if you're adding a couple extra hundred points. Oh no. I'm just I'm just adding okay.

SPEAKER_05 20:16

So I mean that that's just like when it says five people, twelve hundred pounds, that's a suggestion. Oh, it's 115 max, that's a suggestion. I was wondering how it worked. No, it probably I'm not I'm not gonna answer that. That's a good idea. Oh my bad stuff. Oh, I was just asking.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

I'm I'm legit curious. Uh I didn't know if it like sat lower in the lawn.

SPEAKER_05 20:39

No, you I mean a little bit, but you wouldn't notice it. And then it's distributed out pretty good. So and the boat drafts okay, so you don't notice what does that mean? It's a pretty big boat, yeah. It's 20 foot, 96-inch beam, so it's yeah, it's a big big boat. Yeah, what is it? Honestly, though what's that? What is the draft mean? How much water is it?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Oh, it like whenever you're whenever you're driving, it like raises up.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

All right, cool. Or you're honestly though, if I if I had to do it all over again, you start, you know, you had all you build something for the first time, and you're always like, well, whether it's a house or you don't buy a car, whatever, there's things you do different. I would actually get a bigger boat.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Than than you have now, or like well, I feel like once you get that big, you're there.

SPEAKER_05 21:23

Like But I mean, like you think about it, like like look at you dirty minds. Yeah, it's you. I'm looking at you, yeah. It was John, bro. But look, think about it. When you go, when you're driving around here and you look out in the field.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

That wasn't me.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

I know. But you think about you drive around here and you look around the field and you look at blinds. Yeah, the first thing you notice is the little ones. The ones that are they put it that that make the super long ones, they look more natural. The bigger they are, the more natural they look.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Well, that's you know we were saying that about blinds in the field, good button too. Like I mean spick hunting, like the bigger they are, it's it's crazy because you would think that would not be the case. No, we're hiding.

SPEAKER_05 22:07

Looks less like a spicy. It's more inconspicuous.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

So that oh that was another question I had. Uh so when y'all are up there goose hunting, because that's a lot of the time what you're doing, it in it like Canada hunting, honker hunting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:21

Um yeah, I've done more duck hunting than anything. Oh, okay. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

So what do y'all normally hunt out of? Is it panel panels? Panelines, okay.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

Panel blinds in an open field most of the time out in the center of the field. And again, I'll carry three sets of panel blinds with us, and it doesn't matter if we're hunting with four or twelve guys, we put out all three sets. Okay, okay. Just the bigger the better and more natural it looks. And we've gotten to the point now where we cut, when we get to an area, we'll cut brush, cut trees, and we we call it a tetonker. It's one of those slides that you hit into the ground and punch holes in the ground and put trees up. And then I went as far as I took and bought some hog panel, the shorter, not the tall, the shorter stuff, and I cut it the same width as a panel on a panel blind, and I put three of them together and I zip tie them so they still fold, and then we'll put grass in it, but not a solid wall, right? Yeah. But so you can kind of see in and see through, and then you can take and you can make them straight, you can make them jagged, and you can set them around a blind. It kind of feathers and changes those hard lines 100%, because that's what you see is them hard lines, and that's what gives up a boogeyman. And that also creates shadows, because you know, like if there's a say there's a well head in a field and you got brush and trees or willows or something growing around it, when the sun comes up, it doesn't make a hard shadow on the ground, right? It diffuses through there and it's soft and whatnot. These blinds make a hard shadow. And we've because of that, we try to hunt so the shadows behind you or beside you and not in front of the blind, because that'll spook birds more than anything. But now with doing this with the trees and stuff, we put them out in the shadow line and get it in front of us, we can get that sun back behind us. Because you know, I mean, if you can make them fly into the wind and into the sun, you're gonna fool them more times than you would, you know, with the sun, you know, in you know, facing in your eyes, and you're gonna shoot a whole lot better too. So we've had a lot more success, we've upped our success rate quite a bit doing that. And when you're filming in them blinds, I mean you're in the middle of nowhere, so you can't move. People people think you can get away with doing this and that, and we've flown drones around enough to look in there, and that's why a while back, you know, we did a deal where guys would wear black, guys would wear camo. And in them blinds, you think the camo you you wouldn't see it, but you actually see it because you're looking in them holes in them shadows. The black doesn't appear. So in reality, if you wear like a black face mask and a black hat, black jacket, gloves, you'd blend in better into that hole. It's not really the hole that spooks them, it's not that shadow, it's the emotion inside that. And it's it's exasperated big time if you're not blending into the shadow.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah, because you can you can have a blind, like I see them a lot of times around here, just a skid blind sitting in the middle of a rice field. If nobody's there, there's ducks swimming inside inside the blind. Like they don't care about the structure, it's the what's moving inside moving.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

The boogeyman, yeah. And the cattle panel trick, like we've avoided using panel blinds for that. But like I'm not a fan of the hard lines that they put out there. And I've never thought of the cattle panel to kind of break up that hard line and add a little more to it.

SPEAKER_05 25:34

I can send you some pictures of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

You're putting it like say like three feet out in front of the blind or something like that. And then making another wall basically.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

It depends on the day and where the sun is is the shadow is hitting.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Which makes a lot of sense because like whenever you have a fixed blind, like whenever we brush our fixed duct blinds, it's not just brush strapped straight to the blind. You have brush like four feet out in front of the blind. You know, you are tapering on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, and it might not be, I mean, it'd be four foot out in front, but it's still not straight. You might have one that's four foot out in front of it, and then a little to the left, it's two foot out in front of it.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

See, I think that's that's interesting. Like when you talk about, you know, you learn stuff even when the older you are or whatever. You know, I never thought about, and Travis with Goosebusters were t was telling Heath at one time, both of us, that um they don't set up with the sun at their back because of the shadows.

SPEAKER_05 26:28

That and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I never thought of that because like duck hunting, if you're in a pit, I mean this is how we've grown up, the sun doesn't, you know, you're flashback. If you're in timber, it really doesn't matter because you got all these shadows with the trees. But um and then also in your reservoir, you got you know taller. So it's never really I never really thought about that until we started hunting on A-frames. How much of a difference?

SPEAKER_05 26:50

When and once he's said it and you look, you're like and we never did either until we just started doing those putting stuff out and cutting trees.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

And it's and it's also the birds getting more educated. You have to learn those things and learn new tricks to you know fool them again.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Prank them, John.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Oh yeah, that looks good.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

So I had uh we we had asked this question a while back, just with all of us on the podcast, but like knowing how much he actually does do hunting or ghost hunting and outdoors and everything. Uh Stahl, what was your favorite memory from this past uh hunting season? Or even a couple of them.

SPEAKER_05 27:35

I'm old, man. I forget about yesterday. Uh favorite memory from the last season. Uh I don't know, man. We have so much fun. Just like it's just fun. The crew that that goes with us, I mean, even if the hunting sucks, we still have fun. Right. Uh I guess you know what was fun. One of the coolest deals last year, it was right before we went to Maple Ranch. I went down and did three days. Uh, Connor, who who uh does all our editing for our show, yeah, he came over and filmed a hunt. Uh Phil brought his grandkids down to Kansas, and we hunted with an outfitter over there, frontline outfitters, and they pretty much just let us go do whatever. But taking taking his his two grandkids, well, three, four basically, it was four kids, and they were all, I mean, two of them were three were kin, one wasn't, but they're all like grandkids to him. And Phil's son, and and then a couple people that worked for Phil, uh, took him out on a hunt, and just to see the look, they had never done that before. And it was a day we had, well, what the first day it poured rain and we got soaked, but we shot the fire out of the ducks on the water.

SPEAKER_07 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:51

And start out, the wind's blowing in your face, but a front's coming and it twists and goes 180 on you, and then starts snowing. And that, but and then the next day it was blowing just like 1520 out of the north, and we were getting we were just on a water hole that had 25 ducks on it the day before. But we were on the flight line in North Wind, and we were calling honkers from the heavens and groups of mallards down, and I mean they shot and shot and shot and missed and crippled and missed and dogs half dead. The water, the ponds freezing up on us, it's free, you know, it's cold. And we get they get done, and they're like, Man, that's the best. And I'm like kicking, I'm like, I'm out of the blind, I'm soaking wet, you know, try trying to get all these cripples, fell in, did all this, and they're like, Man, that is the best hunt ever. I ain't never had anything like that. And just, you know, to see that, that that's probably lasting on me from the season to put things in perspective of what it's really all about. And it's showing, you know, taking kids out hunting, taking people out that don't get to see some of the things that we get to see and how we get to, you know, do things and showing them new stuff.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Isn't it funny how that like those miserable conditions that you'd be mad any other day and you were a little frustrated just to turn around and see those smiles?

SPEAKER_05 30:04

This little kid says, Man, that was the that was the best hunt I've ever been on, and I don't know if I you know, and I can't wait to go and tell all my buddies. You know, I mean yeah, it's just yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

That is that that is a dang good memory from this season, I'd say.

SPEAKER_05 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Well, and also just seeing somebody's reaction to something that you would overlook sometimes. Oh, a hundred percent. That that's probably like we already talked about some of our best moments, is just having somebody in the blind that reacts better than we do to something that's mediocre, but to them it's amazing because it's the first time they experience it. You know.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

I mean, we d I think I missed out on that episode y'all said all that for your favorite uh favorite hunt of the year. I wasn't here for that. Oh yeah, yeah. But you did mention it, Jackson, uh the hunt with Forrest. That was probably one of the that's probably the top one. Just to see his reaction, getting to hunt. I mean, it was his dog's first goose hunt. I might have said that on the last one we did with him. But to see his his reaction and how excited he was and to see his dog work and like that was that was I I was pretty bummed out about the hunt that got lined up. I'd said we were gonna go on an afternoon hunt, and I was kicking around like this isn't gonna be a good hunt. It's I mean, I didn't have high hopes for it. We uh I think we didn't go out until late that afternoon. It was late. I think Jackson said we only killed two. We actually killed four, so we almost polished off our limit. Um there was just three of us.

SPEAKER_05 31:42

So the worst hunt all year is the one you don't go on. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

That's true, yeah. That was like uh right after I I went on a hunt with my buddies um at just a straight up buddy hunt out of my uh buddy's plantation, and we had killed nine that morning, but it was so badass because they were literally landing three feet in front of me right before shooting hours, and then the next day they go out and they killed a nine or a ten man, and I was just but I had to guide that day, so I was like, I can't go. I was like, Yeah, you gotta be kidding me. That just goes back to Trey always saying that I'm bad luck in the woods. I mean, that's what that goes back to, honestly God. I mean, I was just like, you gotta be kidding me, dude.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

I hate watching them land right before shooting time because that only means one thing for me. They ain't gonna be there after shooting time.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Yeah, I almost let Brooke go get it.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

I think I think they should allow us one duck before shooting light, because if I find that one that's got the watch on and knows when shooting time comes up, I'm killing him. He's telling all the rest of them to leave. Yeah. Teaching a lesson.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I think my favorite hunts were just any of them that we had in those trees planted this year, like we actually had more success hunting in there, and so it's just kind of cool to to be able to do that, you know, growing up here and not us not having timber, and now we're we're close to 20 years on those trees. So that was pretty cool. But uh probably the my favorite was um so Reese and Heath went to one hole one morning, and Angie and I went to another in the um timber. And like after about maybe nine, ten minutes, I get a text, we're done. Oh my god, Reese. And Angie had to she had to be somewhere that morning. I can't remember. So we had to leave before eight, you know, to for her to leave. And um it may have been by 7 30. I don't know. 7 38. Anyway, so um, we were like, at this point when they text us, I don't even think we fired a shot yet. Like we hadn't even already seen anything. And you know that the trees aren't that big. I mean, that's crazy. Maybe 300 acres, you know. Um and so anyway, we get a couple that come in and we shoot, like if three came in, we shoot three. You know, and then everything that just started happening, and Angie's like, we got two minutes and I need to leave. And so, like, I think we'd like like three ducks. Yeah, and um three ducks came in and we shot all of them, and you would have thought we'd have won a national championship. Like we were hype. I was like, We got it, I don't care what anybody says. They may got it quicker than us, but we got it. Yeah, hell yeah. I just remember like we were hooping and hollering, like it was a big deal, and we killed eight mallards. I mean, it's not that big a deal, but uh we didn't want to go back after Heath and Reese had gotten be like, no, dude, we didn't get it.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Yeah, that would have been just straight bragging rights for them, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:50

How's that doing? Are they starting to use it and are you just ducks?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

It was cool. This year we had a lot, a lot more successful hunts in there. Um and we got like three or four holes that we kind of move around to.

SPEAKER_05 35:04

Are you starting to get our groups coming in or is it singles and pairs?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Um we had some groups, not I mean, man, it seems like everything, yeah. Yeah, is is singles. I mean not singles, but pairs and stuff. But um, we've had some some decent groups, but not like big big groups. Yeah, you know. Um maybe eight to twelve, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Um, a lot of the private was the videos you see of just like groups falling in, it if you look, if you watch the video, they're very it's very dark.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Well, it's right before and it's not them hundreds of hundred duck groups like it used to be. But um no, it's been it was fun. And you can see that they're starting to use it. We just still got to figure it out. We gotta thin it out a lot. Uh we still haven't done any of that. I think they said we got we could harvest some of the trees out of there now, but um, if we want to get like any kind of return, we probably need to wait two or three more years. Yeah. Uh so I noticed I think that'll help a lot.

SPEAKER_05 36:03

I noticed driving out to the reservoir. I mean, because you know I come a couple times a year, so I I notice the bigger changes as opposed to just seeing them every day.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

But it was really cool because I bet we had may maybe a half dozen or more decent hunts out there.

SPEAKER_05 36:18

They're gonna they're starting to get pretty tall.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

The trees are and um it's it's it's it's cool. And it's rewarding too just to see.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

I mean, it's been 20 years since something you've been working on for that long and finally seeing what you want it to be.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Uh so and whenever you do it, whenever you plant it, you're like, is it gonna be produced?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Well, you know, what's what's odd, not odd, but um I guess we kind of planned it this way. But so where we planted the trees was our best field hunting. Oh, okay. But it was also the most marginal farming, and that's usually a lot of there's a line, you know, like a lot of the marginal farming is what is good hunting, you know, because I mean you got all the weeds and everything else. So so we did we planted it in trees and it's been I mean it's it's been decent. But you know, this whole year we still we didn't hunt, we probably didn't hunt half our spots because we didn't have enough water this year. And you know, that's crazy. Like we never went to the shallow hole, we got the all the original names. We didn't go to the middle hole shallow hole in the reservoir, or um we did we did build a new uh blind in Fuller's two years ago and we hunted it this year. It was okay. I still don't think we're on the X there.

SPEAKER_05 37:33

But um You did hunt Fuller's the I mean not the the new one.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

But the second yeah, the second one at the prairie at the prairie reservoir? Well, no, not that one. Like if you go to the main hole, if you go south. Remember that one year we went and it was I mean the corner, yeah. This is kind of in between there, but way closer to the main hole, I think. Um but we're still not on there. I mean, we shot ducks there, but how about the prairie reservoir?

SPEAKER_05 37:58

How'd that go?

SPEAKER_00 37:59

I don't know. We never had water on it.

SPEAKER_05 38:01

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Yeah. But it looks good. We uh last or two years ago we planted a lot of willow stakes, so we got a lot more willow trees coming up. So that's pretty cool. We should have I wish we would have planted more this year, but it got warmer quicker than we could get out there and plant them. Well, I think once they start shooting out buds or you can't really I mean you can plant them, but you need to keep them wet, wet, wet.

SPEAKER_05 38:27

We really need to do the rain dance this spring. We need some baby ducks.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

That's that's the biggest thing that the lack of rain and everything taught me this year. Like I mean whenever you have your bad days, you kind of go to you know, on a on a normal season, you like for me on a bad day, you know, like oh well ducks have been using this, but we don't know if they're gonna come back. But it was like for three I mean, three quarters of this season, it was like, can we hunt those 50 ducks? And it's you know, like, but I did learn I learned I learned very quickly early in the season, like, which we're averaging four to five guys in a blind today, and then with a guide, you can kill your limit out of that if you do everything right. Right, yeah. You have to do everything right. You can't mess up a single group that comes in. Like, you can kill a limit out of that. But it was mainly.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

That's we're cut up north, buddy. Yeah, but we had You might see 50 ducks in a day. Really? But oh, some places, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

But the bad thing was, you know, you well, uh it's it's a good thing. We made the right call, is we had we had fields that had more ducks in it. It's just we didn't know when we were gonna get new ducks. So we had to go to manager pressure, stay off of so it it taught me a lot this season about like I don't need a lot to produce what I need, you know. And and I think it was a good thing for us this season.

SPEAKER_05 39:52

Hope's having good shooters too.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

That yeah, there were some days I was like, Y'all have like which I also shot a lot this year because I was like, we don't have many opportunities, like we gotta we gotta get what was the overall vibe from duck hunters coming in the shop this year? Pretty low, I feel like because of public shooting grounds had sold.

SPEAKER_05 40:16

And it's really had an effect on the rest of the fly in the surrounding neighborhood states, too. A lot of the guys that would come here and lease, you know, from the uh Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, they're now pushing further. They're into Oklahoma and Kansas and Missouri and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Which I'd be honest with you, I mean, like for Arkansas's economy, people are gonna say that's bad, but for our resting of ducks on public shooting ground, it's probably not a bad thing. I mean, uh, because I I think I think Arkansas does need a little bit of a relief for a little while on public shooting ground. Luckily it's a hard, it's a hard yeah. You want people to come back.

SPEAKER_05 40:58

Managing hunter opportunity and uh and maximizing, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a teeter-totter, you go one way and then you come back the other, and it's hard to find a balance.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

You you could tell the ones that had a really good day, or uh that were like you know, happy and giddy and stuff, and then you know, and then there was uh other people.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

I would say it was it yeah, because there even days that I thought was poor for everybody in the state, there would still be people in here that had good days. So I think it was average.

SPEAKER_05 41:30

And sometimes though, and you get to the tougher times, you gotta buckle down and try harder and figure new things out. And I mean, in the end of the you people say it sucks, and but it'll make you a better hunter.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 41:45

You know, having to work for it and the if then but if that, you know, that kind of but I mean instead of just getting comfortable going to the same old hole, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Well, there's no difference in like the freeze that we had the last two weeks of season. It was not it was not our average freeze. Like it was so harsh. Like we we were running ice eaters, we were running four ice eaters, yeah, because we were like, oh, this always works. And it did work for the first two days, but then the holes weren't getting big enough, we weren't having a big enough showing. We had to switch over to running wells to get a bigger showing of water, and then we had to move some blinds to get on that opening.

SPEAKER_05 42:23

People always say, Oh, the ice eaters, ice eaters, them wells do a whole lot better than the water. You're pulling warmer water water up 54 degree water out of the ground.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Not only are you moving it, but you're warming it.

SPEAKER_05 42:32

Yeah. Um yeah, it got pretty gnarly around here. I I had to run my dog to uh Louisiana and drop him off at the trainer. And I had to wait an extra. Well, I was gonna come down here and then you canceled, he canceled because of the weather, and then I had to wait another however many days. They had I-55 south of Memphis closed.

SPEAKER_07 42:55

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:55

Yeah. So I when I brought him down, I waited. So this that storm happened on the weekend, and I had to wait all the way to Friday. What the season ended on a Saturday, right here? Yeah. On Friday, I got up at like three in the morning and drove. And once I hit Memphis, I had to take back roads almost all the way to Baton Rouge.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

I was about to say they didn't get that cleared up until like almost two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_05 43:19

I damn near ran out of gas because they were out of power. You know, you get down there around Monroe and it was out of, they had no power in the gas stations. If they were open, they didn't have gas. And then you get on them roads, and thank God. I mean, I'm used to driving on snow and ice-covered roads, yeah. But they were pretty for even me from up north, they were pretty gnarly. The only the best part of it was is nobody else was on my dumb ass.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

I mean, that's one thing. Whenever you get that kind of weather down here, it is slick. We don't have the infrastructure to endometric. It's downright slick because I mean it's it was ruthless.

SPEAKER_05 43:57

They were like three to four inch rut.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Oh yeah, that's the way our highway was next to our lodge. It was yeah. Like if I mean it was all compacted and you had like this perfect like uh railroad track of ruts. Yeah. But it was so deep it was bottoming out on, you know, like two hill drive vehicles and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 44:17

It's like you just let off, I mean, you didn't have to hold on to the wheel, it'd just keep you in them.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

It was interesting for sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

It threw me go speckle bellies this year were a little odd for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

It was, I mean, you hope not.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Everybody's chasing them.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Especially here. Tarfan. That is it. And I think it was ten times worse this year because ducks are so sparse because of weather.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

And so so many people are chasing more people are chasing specs because that's what they had.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

And afternoon. It was just changing what they do.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

We try and we try and just mainly morning hunt. No one really wants to afternoon hunt. But there were a couple of days where I mean the morning hunt produced nothing. And it was well, they were sitting here yesterday. We better hunt them today, if so, because they weren't sitting for more than two days. Um and our mornings it was instead of them coming in groups like normal over the years, you know, normally you'll have a group of fifty come in and then a hundred and twenty come in and then fifty more. It was like all at once. You better have shooters in the blind, and that was all she wrote. I mean, you might have some stragglers get a group of twenty come flying through or something like that, but it wasn't it's like the whole roost got up at one time, come to where they were feeding.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Well, that's their defense mechanism, their safety and numbers.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Or safety and numbers, or like, but once you shoot into them and they move to another field and sit down, you're done.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Like it was I got burnt for three afternoons straight at one time. And there was a group of guys that wanted to go spec hunting, but they wanted to duck hunt. So I was like, well, I gotta go duck hunting in the morning. They wanted to go spec hunting. I literally rushed them on their duck hunt. I was like, we gotta finish this up. And luckily I have some customers that do hunt actually, and I said, if y'all want to kill specs, like we can't even eat breakfast. We gotta go right back and go on. So I figure out where they are midday roosting, which I may have burnt myself a little bit, but it wasn't the actual roost. It was just a midday roost. And I went midday and we hammered their. I was like, Y'all aren't burning me today.

SPEAKER_05 46:40

You know, and that's like down here, there's so many groceries for them. They can eat just about anyway. They mean they just gotta pick where they want to eat where they want to eat. But there's actually like running around with Hoot a couple years ago and we were filming that stuff and and just listening to them talk, and he's like, Yeah, this is where they are tonight, but they're not coming here in the morning. Like, huh? How do you know that? It's gonna get cold and it's gonna get frost and they're gonna do this, and they won't be able to get into the beans, and uh right, they're gonna be on that green. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

I mean, you know, there's a there's a good method to what they're doing. Yep. Yeah, no, I for sure. Like, even on uh in our area, it's uh whenever it rains, that's the only time they go to rice fields. Whenever there's moisture on the dry, that's the only time they go to rice fields.

SPEAKER_05 47:25

That's like that's local knowledge stuff that you don't know if you're not from around here, you know. Yeah, it was interesting to pick up.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

I mean, that's like one of the farmers that I hunt with a lot, he plants a lot of cover crop during the winter. Helps with his spring readiness and all of that. And normally those green fields hit pretty good through the entire freezing ice. They didn't through the entire for the first half, I would say. And then it was sporadic. I don't know if it was thawing out enough for them to get in. I didn't pay close enough attention.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

I know for like two weeks down here.

SPEAKER_05 48:04

Well, if we ever do figure them out, they'll be extinct. I should that's probably why we can't do that now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Uh I I do have one more question for you, just for you've used all your zones. Yep, you're done. Bonus round. Go ahead. I'll give you mine. All right, bonus round. So uh, you know, I I know a lot of people that that uh have watched RN TV and stuff throughout the years, they they know who you are and kind of what you do and everything. But for the people that you don't, what is like a uh here coming up, I guess, so to speak.

SPEAKER_05 48:36

Uh what is your off season look like coming up here before right now it's getting TV shows put together and getting them sent out. There's uh a couple that are that I'm gonna have that are gonna be pretty intricate. So I'm gonna have to go through and kind of help Connor and pull and get every all the right clips from different days. I I'm doing a dog episode that's gonna be heavily involved with the trainer of the dog I'm using now, Tesh. And we're gonna be talking about getting you know a dog and bringing them up and the reasons for and we're gonna be pulling out just different stuff. So that's taken gonna take quite a lot of time getting that and uh wrapping up a few uh sponsor contracts, that kind of stuff. Uh getting the TV shows going. We start airing in June, so dealing with a network, getting run order schedules done like that, and then also lining out you know, all the boosts that we have for the shows coming up, and there's just paperwork's got to be filed. You got put in for scheduling to load and unload and share all the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

And thinking about hunts for next year already. I mean, it's quite a bit.

SPEAKER_05 49:41

Well, and start playing, and I'm I'm at some point here, start planning around and then tuning calls, you know, a bunch of quack edge stuff, get all that stuff going, and then start working shows in July, and then hunting season's coming. Couple of cool things. I mean, I'm gonna try I want to try to do some different things this year coming up.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Um as far as just doing filming wise, hunting, filming wise, punch-wise, just something try something different.

SPEAKER_05 50:05

I I always try to new places or new faces or something, you know, try to I just something different changing up, and we've got an idea for this year, and we could be Hero or Zero. Um we're gonna go way far. I mean, where you and uh K-Pok came up in a northern Ontario that one time. We're gonna go further north. We're gonna go up into the Shield, Canadian Shield Lakes area, where there's no grain, no nothing, and get the migrators as they're coming off Hudson Bay and they got to stop on these lakes. So we're gonna go up there and we may you know it's a timing deal. Go up there around the 5th of September, and they could already be there and start coming through then, or we may have to wait a day or two on them.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

So and it could be a hero or zero, but well, hearing you say that, whenever you say hero to zero, do you believe that there's enough story in just trying to do it? Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 50:59

Yeah, even if you don't kill, yeah, there's a story in it. And no, we're gonna. Yeah. I mean, I no, we're gonna.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Oh, I know, I mean, I I I know you're you're just like me. Like, if I go do something, I want to show killing.

SPEAKER_05 51:12

I'm playing to win. I mean, I might be a bunch of bullfrogs and walleye, but what's the thing?

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Just for like the listeners' aspect, like because we we know it. Like if you're on a production side of stuff, if you're on the video side of stuff, you understand how much work is goes into it. Like you just a lot, a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_05 51:28

Have you ever watched the story drop, the Kiefer brothers, where they go up and they just drop, they get dropped off in Alaska, and I know what you're talking about. And they just start floating out, and the story just kind of cut. It's I'm we're not copying them, but it's a similar scenario. Like, you're going, the story is the unknown. Like this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to do something that nobody that I know of has done. We're gonna haul a boat up to a Canadian Shield Lake and try to shoot migrators over water. And I don't know anybody that's done that. And like, maybe there might be a reason nobody's done it. You know, but I mean you always gotta try to look for the next bit, like and also a new challenge, too. A new challenge, field hunting, everybody's field hunting, that's why I got the boat, you know, to try something to try to have another option and do something different.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

And but the the challenge is is teaching our viewers something new.

SPEAKER_05 52:21

Yeah, and I'm I'm not going in blind. I've got some intel. A buddy of mine, his family has a cabin up there, and we'll go up there and stay up there. They have a fishing camp. There's room for you know enough all of us to stay. They have boats there, so we can, you know, I'm I'm gonna take my boat to hunt out of, but you know, we could run around and scout and and watch stuff, and you'll hear them. You'll know at night they're coming through, you know. And when they start doing that, they they stop on these lakes. They might meet, you know, the the they're coming down on the north wind and the wind may switch, and they just stop. They stop to rest for a minute, grab a little bike to eat and and or just hang out on the lake and chase minnows or whatever for four or five days. They do see them during that time frame on the lake. They see thousands fly over, they see them on the lake and try it.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

Yeah, I mean that sounds pretty awesome, actually. Sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to try out for sure. Uh so uh with with the shows coming up, how many are do you have lined up for this year?

SPEAKER_05 53:17

Well, yeah, we do 13 every year. Yeah, 13. 13 originals, 13 re-airs, yeah, starting basically the first of July.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

Maybe I feel like I should know that.

SPEAKER_05 53:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Well, it goes by I was about to add here.

SPEAKER_05 53:31

Well, it goes by quarters. There's four quarters in a year. Yeah. There's thirteen weeks in a year, or thirteen weeks and a quarter, and twenty-six times two is fifty-two, so there's fifty-two weeks in a year. So we air third and fourth quarter. Okay. Okay. And we usually do like six originals, six re-airs, then seven originals, seven re-airs. So there's in both quarters, there's some new content.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

Okay. I was wondering because I know you go to a lot of them that like, you know, we all go to the big, big shows.

SPEAKER_05 54:04

He's talking about something different.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

I don't know what the fuck is that.

SPEAKER_05 54:07

He's talking about he's talking about Delta and DU and we're talking about the TV show. Bro, hey, what the fuck? Earth Earth Jackson.

unknown 54:15

What?

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Are you talking about R and TV or are you talking about shows?

SPEAKER_02 54:18

You seen that squirrel over there?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Shows. Show going to shows.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

We're talking about the Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

We're talking about TV shows.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

I wasn't. You didn't catch on to that deduction and everything? Yeah, no, I caught on to all of that.

SPEAKER_04 54:31

Uh let me go. Let me go.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

I was just like listening to you. That's all I was doing, man. I mean, yeah. What?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

No, we do not go to that many shows.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

That's why I was like, damn. Reass your question, man. Well, like, how how many shows do you go to a lot more of the shows than we do because you're up to the show? I do have more of it.

SPEAKER_05 54:55

I'll do three to five. The problem, I mean, not the problem, but the issue is a lot of the shows happen at the same time. Like, we'll have a couple of them. We'll have Game Fair and Rod and Rogers will be at the same time, you know, you're at the same place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

Because we we look at a lot of shows every year that we want RT at, but it's like it contradicts with a lot of stuff that we're doing.

SPEAKER_05 55:14

Other shows, and if it's financially feasible to go to, and if it's in areas that we can get access, and there's just other because I know there's one up there by you.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

What it's in Oshkosh. There's that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:27

That's the Wisconsin waterfall. The Point Malay festival is in the east side of the state. Okay. That's usually you got several regionals and it's it's just so crazy to me, guys.

SPEAKER_03 55:38

Like it's growing up here, I thought the only type of waterfowl show there ever was was the Wings over the Prairie Festival. For the longest time.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

I have never been to the Point Malay show, and that's like a that's like a long running. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_05 55:52

And it's kind of it's it's kind of turned into more of a flea market, but there's there's a lot of old stuff. You'd probably you'd enjoy it. I just uh the area, like you do a lot of decoy collecting. There's a lot of decoy. I mean, you know, I'm not telling you you don't know, but um, and then there's a museum up there uh that they have also uh at the Metro Park there. It's pretty cool. Yeah. A lot of there's a lot of waterfall history in the east side of from Saginaw Bay, Lake St. Clair, Western Lake Erie Basin, tremendous amount of waterfall history.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

Yeah, that is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 56:26

I mean, I kind of ri I mean John um probably knows more about it than I do, actually, but they would rival different parts of the country, you know, the eastern shore of Maryland and other areas.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

Because that's where they hold the the world champion goose calling competition, isn't it? Eastern Maryland, yeah, yeah, Maryland, yeah. So what year was that that you won? I know we've talked about it the last time. 2000. 2000.

SPEAKER_04 56:47

Wow. Yeah. 26 years. What up, Unc?

SPEAKER_05 56:55

What's up, Uncle? 2000?

SPEAKER_01 56:57

2000 doesn't seem that far.

SPEAKER_05 56:59

No, because I lost 10 years. I've there's 10 years gone there. I'm not as old as I am. But yeah, so yeah. You need to you need to expand a little bit, like read books. Get out, come out. I'll show you. There's other ducks besides Mallard's.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

No, I I know. I know. I like to kill the weird stuff. I can tell. I mean, like killing Mallard.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

We if we could keep Jackson straight on verbiage, we should put him on an episode just like that. There'd be amazing. Because his personality in the blind and how pretty good he is about. Yeah, he sees it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:39

Yeah. It's like a whole new color palette to him.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Jesus Christ. I mean, now that you put it that way, yeah, kind of. Like, I mean, could you uh we'll take him to a couple rainbow seats.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

I mean, like that that time we went out to John's for the Monday Beers episode, that was like you were like I had I think I had well I love being out there at John's place because I, you know, I always watched it on TV and shows. But your just your reactions out there were like prices.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

But any day I get to go hunting, I'm like super giddy no matter what. Like I'm just happy.

SPEAKER_05 58:10

But even for us, though, the the crew that I run around with, we're totally different on a duck hunt than we are on a goose hunt. We are so schooled and so mechanical when it comes to a goose hunt in a field. Everybody's got a job. Yeah. When you pull in, the trailer door comes down, nobody talks, they just like little ants, robots just going up and I mean, we play music now on the turtle boxes, so they I mean there's something going on. Yeah, but duck hunting every day, I mean, it's like you're in a different body. You might be in flooded timber with the boat, or you might be in a cattail slough or a river or wide open water, you know, open water lakes and clear. It's all different. And I mean, when stuff happens, like you're you just like him a little bit, just giddy about stuff and just fired up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

Yeah. I mean, we're we're about the same way. Like when it comes to goose hunting, everyone's got their job, you know what your job is, and you get on it. It's like like work almost. You're just going through the motions of setting up, and I mean still enjoy every minute of it, but yeah, you get on a duck hunt and it's there's a lot more cutting up and masking and we can we can like on a goose hunt.

SPEAKER_05 59:22

We get up there and we shoot three quarters of the limit, we're kicking the dirt, and it's sucked and died. And it didn't. But then you go on a duck hunt and you shoot like ten or twelve, and it's like bah best dive in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

Oh man, do you see the dog go halfway across the lake? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:36

You know, it's like put it in perspective, brother.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

You know, yeah. I would say though, I feel like ducks are a little bit more forgetting giving in that manner. Like they're a little bit more sporadic, so things don't seem so like structured.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

Well, I think the big thing he's not gonna do, though, is like his goose hunting is like his number one thing. Right. So like duck hunting's like fishing. Yeah, I mean it has but it's a little release, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:59

Yeah, oh a hundred percent. Yeah.

unknown 1:00:02

Release.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:02

Yeah. Do you need a dude wipe?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:08

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Trey Trey might need one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Do you have the coffee flavored?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

No, I agree. So because I'm the I'm the opposite. Whenever I nail a spec hunt, because I've was primarily duck hunting until I started to figure out speck huts. But whenever I nail a speck hunt, I'm like, I'm like, I did it. I did it. I did it. You know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

Well now, I I I don't know. I'm kind of with you, especially after this last year, like goose hunting primarily. It did get monotonous, kind of thing. Like when we get there, start setting up, everybody has their own job. And I mean, like, if we don't have the turtle box going, it's definitely quiet out there. And you're just like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Lucky y'all.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

It's kind of like you being at work if you can't watch your laptop exactly movies.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

We operate in silence. Yeah, but see, like I mean, most mornings we do.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

I mean, especially when you're except for the cracking of jokes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

That's always certain groups of customers that I can play music and but whenever you guys. Yeah, but it only takes us like 20 minutes set up. So we just take the customers out. Yeah, I mean, if if that. I think who's hunting. It don't have to be a lot. A lot of people like are scared of it because they think it has to be this big adventure of setting out like it's it's finally decoys.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

And it goes back to like what Saul was saying earlier about getting in the right place. Like I had so many people come up to me ask, like, I need to learn some tips and tricks. Is there a chance you can take me and show some? I was like, There's no tips and tricks. We get where they want to be. I control some.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

We we get where they want to be and which is hard for some people, especially in this area. You can't get permission anymore anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

We're fortunate enough to be so spread out. It's not necessarily that we've got a lot of ground to hunt, it's that it's so spread out if we can't get on if we can't get on the X, we can get close enough to the X, and that's when you put on a little bit bigger of a show.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Actually, sometimes. Like this year, I was operating off like two dozen decoys because I felt like every time I put out a big spread, they freaked the hell out.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:27

Because it's it's because that's what everybody else was doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

And everybody's running skinny decoys and they're starting to recognize them too.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:35

It's just uh it's a it's a evolution, it's a revolution, not an evolution. They don't get so much. Well, a lot of people have conditioned smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

A lot of people, whenever they're setting up that many decoys, they cramp them all together because they don't want to walk halfway across the field. Or they don't know how to spread them out properly to still attract them to the sound and get them in a killboard.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:57

No rhyme or reason to it. And I got to wrap up.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:03

Yeah, hockey. I'm I'm turning the hockey game on right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:10

The beer's gone.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:11

The beer's gone. The beer's gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Hey, uh one thing I forgot to mention though, this week is the uh Boykin Spaniel National Championships. My boy Rating. Really?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:23

Is that why he was over there in South Carolina? I was wondering. Yeah, I'd seen his interest. Is that where Churron, South Carolina?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

It's um gosh, no, it's Jasmine, can't it? No, it's um where the Boykins were started. Um it's not Charleston. It's um huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:42

Is there a way you keep up on it, or it just protects you and lets you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

He's won the novice, so it'll be interesting to see. Camden, South Carolina. Camden. Camden.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:53

April 9th through the 11th. Yeah, yeah. Well, I had seen uh I can't remember his name off the top of my head. His trainer? Yeah. Tim. Yeah, I I had seen him over, he had posted an Instagram photo and he was over there. I was like, heck yeah, man. I was like, that's awesome. He had his family and stuff with him and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

So and like everything else, I'd say this is the last one I'm doing with a dog and trial. Because at some point you're like, you gotta let them be dogs and come home.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:24

Uh it's addictive though. I I said that another one I got now, I kind of cut on until he's he's running.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

Yeah. It's addictive, like even uh like my dog got injured this year. And it's like, you wanna you wanna see him like you wanna give him that time to get better? But I was like, there I was like, well, he told me just not to put her in the water. Maybe I could take her dry ground hunting. You know what I mean? Like I knew she'd be okay. Like I I I gave her her days to be okay, but I I did take her dry ground hunting before the actual ten days.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

This could be a whole other podcast, but um this is the first dog I've ever had that's ran trials at all. And the differences I see in ones that run trials and ones that don't, it's it's interesting. In what way? Just uh hunting-wise, you know. A little more dialed. I'm not gonna say either one's better than the other. It's just different, you know, like you can see um so like rowdy is probably like you take uh Ziggy. Ziggy had more natural instincts because he wasn't trained, I think. Not that he didn't have them inbred in him. I mean, but like he just would go find stuff where sometimes Rowdy is wanting direction, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:43

He wants to play with he's playing for a team. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

So it's a little different. I mean and not one's worse than because there's both good and bad about both. Um so there's a lot more mechanics to a dog who is like and rowdy's the smartest dog. I've ever owned, which can also be good and bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

I can see what you're saying. River.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:06

I mean, you think about it, some of the like a lot, some of these dogs we have, you shot it, you go get it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Oh, seriously. I mean, they'll go, they'll go three, four hundred yards through all kinds of stuff and come back and give it to you and be like, do it again, boss.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

But it's so funny. Like you see that dog that just has a lot of character or like maybe self-trained. Like my dog's definitely that. She, like on those frozen days, whenever it would like the ice was breaking on her those first couple days, and she finally she turned around and looked at me like, no, don't fuck yourself. Like, I'm going out there, bro.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:43

Like, there's no there's no, but kind of what you're talking about, you can train a dog and train a dog and train a dog, and it's just like you can practice free throws all your life, but until you play in a game, you the more games you play, the better off you are, the more you learn stuff, the more you hunt that bruck brush hole, the more you know where them cripples go. Because they all kind of go the same way. You know what I mean? And they learn that. The more they do that, the more the more they play them games, and all that training does is just give you the tools that if they do mess up or they do do something, that you can correct it. Correct it or give them direction. That's what the training does.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

I mean, that that's the craziest thing. Anytime you get a dog back from a trainer, that first season is still training.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:34

Some of the best I mean, some of the best things you can do for a young dog is take them s snow goose hunting. Not with a bazillion people shooting them, but them white birds and that fall out long. Yeah, that they can see and they can mark and they learn to use their eyes because they can use their nose. Dogs are born to use their nose.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:51

It allows them, if they can see it that distance, it pushes them to go that extra distance.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:56

Because most gun dogs that don't go to formal training have a hard time going more than about 30, 40 yards. Yep. And you know why? Uh-huh. Because that's as far as you can throw a bumper.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

I mean, and that's just not a limitation, you know, it literally took me well, what is this? This might be the third season with my dog. I saw the difference this season that she finally had enough times that I walked out there and pushed her further on those fields, and now that finally this season she'll keep going.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:26

You know, if I'll start getting to a point where they ignore the birds in the decoys and go to that long one further.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

And that's like you know, one thing that's this is this is so ghetto what I'm gonna say, but um, so like I had Ziggy, Jake, they were both boyconds, and Taco. Uh Jake's a dog named Taco. Yeah, and uh Jack um Jack, I don't even know who Jake was. Jake. Jake was not a hunter. He just wore capri plants, capri pants, and smoked cigarettes and hung out of dials. Yeah. But uh Ziggy and Taco, Taco had so much predator drive, it was sometimes almost too much. But like I could let them out at the cabin and would not have to worry about like if they run off or whatever, they were gonna go run down a levee, kill something, bring it back, and they'd leave it at the doorstep and then wait at the garage. They do that when you let them out. Like, like with uh Rowdy, like I'm afraid to leave him out because like if he gets wind of something, he may chase it, and I don't know. I know it sounds weird, but like I don't think he has the survivor skills, if that even makes sense at the other two. Like the other two, you're like, and part of it's too because you probably invested so much money in getting him trained.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:40

Well, they're doing he grew up in a different environment, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

But you know, I'm I'm telling you, Ziggy and Tycho would go out and they'd come back. Taco looked like he had been mud everywhere because he was like his head buried in the uh trying to grab something out of a hole or whatever. But they would always like dang near every time kill a coon and they would leave it at my front door and they'd go back to the garage. I mean, they were just oh for sure. But they were just they had so much predator drive, and that's what made Ziggy good without training, because once he got going a certain way, he was gonna find it. I mean, like he was gonna find it.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:18

I remember him climbing a tree one time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

And Rowdy, Rowdy sometimes he's like, he'll go out there so far and then he looks at you and you're like, dude, you gotta, you just gotta figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

You know, yeah, I definitely I definitely see it a lot, like with customer dogs that come. Because you see dogs that some customers hunt a lot, and you see that dog that but might be highly, highly trained, go on signals and stuff like that. But then you also have a dog, he can't feel trial dog, match hunter, but never hunts. Yeah, you're not gonna do that. But they'll they'll just run a straight line right past something and never use their nose. And you probably even see it sometimes too. All the time. But it uh you know, a dog that is well trained, that hunts a lot, and you let them sometimes you have to let them make those few mistakes because they'll prove you wrong. Oh, I will tell you this story.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

They'll prove you wrong about Taco I was talking about. He really did have the most predator drive of any dog I had. And so we were hunting on the Fuller farm down by that um uh prairie reservoir, and we had shot a couple ducks. We were hunting a field there that fell at the end of the field, and so shooting over is over. So I'm taking him down there just to go try to find the ducks, and all of a sudden a bobcat comes out of that swamp, and that dude takes off running, and he tackles that bobcat, and you can just hear it. I'm like yelling and hollering, and uh Taco comes running out. He got a couple scrapes, you know, on his head, but you see that bobcat dragging his uh back leg like he done beat that bobcat up. Taco wait no joke, and he would stare at you like this, like a mass murder. Like it would make you nervous. Like he was just sitting there. Was he a boy? No, he was a laugh.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:02

Oh he'd sit right there and just look at you like you knew he was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

You had a serial killer for a dog. My dog is pissed right now because we got ducklings in the house. Oh and she is beside herself. She said, What? Because mom is tending to the ducklings trying to raise them, and she's like, What the fuck? Y'all taking care of something that I go to. That's the enemy. Oh, she's pissed. All right, guys. I guess we're gonna close this one out. We're getting better be about that time. Uh thank y'all for listening in, stall. Thank you for being here. Well, even though you had to be here for the TV show. If y'all don't watch the TV show, watch RT TV. Like the longest running waterfowl show.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:50

Yeah, probably the second longest running waterfowl show. But probably it's great. Sports and channels.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:57

I grew up watching it. It's a pleasure to be amongst these guys that I grew up watching, even to this day, even though I work here. You know, still haven't ran me off yet. So Jackson's story. All right, guys. Who wants to uh yeah, who wants to close that out with a toast?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

I think I I I think I think Stahl's got it on this one, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:20

You know any good toast, bud?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:22

I don't. You do get it, get it, guy. Here's to the Yankees. We love 'em. What? Can we can we toast that was directed at me? I mean, we all right. I guess we're gonna have to win another one.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:39

I am a Yankee fantasy.

unknown 1:13:42

I like that.