The Five Stages of the Hunter

The research-based Five Stages of the Hunter accurately defines a hunter’s attitudes afield and towards the resource. Brent and Cason share their journey through the stages and tell some entertaining stories from different parts of their career. They also dive into the need for companies to progress past the “Limiting Out” stage in their online branding and social media, serving as a mentor to young hunters.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Standard Sportsman podcast. The show features trending topics, touching all aspects of duck and goose hunting in an effort to motivate others to leave the resource better than they found it. Hosts Cason Short and Brent Birch are lifelong Arkansas hunter conservationists, delivering thought provoking discussions with engaging guests before, during and after duck season. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now let's jump into today's show with the guys.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Standard Sportsman. Cason Short joined as always with Brent Birch. Brent, we're staring at another hurricane, more rainfall. What's what's happening on your side of the state today?

Yeah, waiting on rain a little bit. I've got some millet that could probably use a little sprinkle. I don't think we're gonna get a whole lot. I know we talk about the weather a lot on here, but it plays such a role in everything. And just like our last episode, we're in such better place water wise than we have been the last few years. It's hard not to talk about it. So thankfully, the hurricane, though, stayed to the east. That could have really wrecked some stuff in a lot of ways. I know a lot of the rice is gone, but not all of it. And still got a lot of people with beans out there and things like that. So farmers have it hard enough as it is, as you know. So avoiding a hurricane is pretty substantial plus. For sure.

I'm glad that stayed east and just continued to shift east. Some of the earlier forecasts had us get in a bunch of rain, but I don't think we're going to get a ton. Although like we talked about in the last episode, it'll be interesting to see what this increased moisture does for the rice that is out there and starting to try to re-head.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll help it, I would think.

Yeah, it's got to.

Yeah. So more food, the better. I know some people maybe don't agree with that. But man, we need it because we want to feed what we get. And who knows what we get this this season, you know, as far as population of ducks in the state. We were we were talking through some graphs that I kind of ran through some numbers here and in Canada. And I don't want to unveil, you know, that quite yet, because I'm still kind of fine-tuning the numbers and everything, making sure it's all buttoned up. But it was incredible how pitiful how pitiful the duck counts were in the state in Arkansas last year, compared to going back to I believe it was that what the numbers I was looking at was back to 2009, because that's when Arkansas Game and Fish Commission changed the transects that they fly to do the aerial survey. So they've been on the same one since 2009. So it's apples to apples, going year to year. And man, it was bad, bad how few ducks we were holding. Not only at the end when the Game and Fish reported it was the lowest since they started flying those transects in 2009, it was the lowest late January count they've ever had in that timeframe. And it wasn't great in the middle, and it wasn't great at the beginning. I mean, it was just a tough year attracting or pushing ducks this way. And we obviously all remember extremely warm, extremely dry, and that's what you get.

Well, I don't know, we got cold weather, and I was told that if it got cold, ducks would migrate. I was promised that.

Yeah, yeah. And for note, I know we mentioned it before in the show, no, we recorded our lowest late January count, and Missouri counted their highest. Those ducks didn't move with that cold front. Did not move.

And maybe I should dial about the sarcasm a little bit there, but I know there's a ton of factors. And that's what you and I try to, that's the point we try to get across when everyone talks that it's just cold weather, that that's what it takes, and that's why they don't migrate. There's a lot more to it than that. It's kind of how the stage is set, and it has probably as much or more to do with population and abundance of food. And we get into that a lot, we talk about ag production, you know, there's better habitat, more food available in the north and less in the south. Combine that with mild weather, lower populations. They don't need as much food to survive because there's fewer of them, and it's more of it available. So it's all a driving factor. It's not just one thing.

No, yeah, and you can't forget about pressure. If they find a place they can eat, sleep, and not be shot at, or at least not shot at as much, they're not going to leave. I mean, wild animals are adaptive, and that's kind of what we're seeing too. But you're right. The point of all that is, it's not just one thing. It never is.

And the eating, I think a lot of people will look at that. It's really high on the list. To me, it's pretty low. If they've got good sanctuary, they're not burning calories. And if the weather is not there to make them have to burn calories or survive, they don't have to go eat as much. I mean, as managers, we focus a lot on what food do we grow. That's what you and I just started talking about, right? Started the show talking about food. And all of that is, if not, if not tertiary, maybe lower on the list to, to a duck's needs. I mean, what they need is a place to not get shot at.

That's right. Yup. Yeah. Their, their goal when they wake up in the morning is not to get killed. So, you know, it's, it's one of those things. And, and everyone is pretty clear. Arkansas is pretty heavily on the pressure part. It's pretty heavy. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what, what kind of push we get. And hopefully some of this, this stuff will provide a little more resource. I did notice on the news this morning, they talked about the how many acres took advantage of the incentive program that the Game of the Fish had as far as early flooding, late, you know, leaving water on after the season. There was a release related to that headed into this season. And so that, you know, making a little, making a little bit of progress. And I hope the more the word gets out that this is available, because this was somewhat of a test run with not, there's more, hopefully more dollars down the, down the road to do this on a grander scale that people did take advantage of it. And so maybe slow, but surely we'll start building back some of those habitat opportunities for ducks when they're here in the state, which will help everybody, public, private, doesn't matter. For all the white-tailing turkey hunters out there, Sitka Gear has launched a science-backed and field-proven methodology that's the new benchmark for concealment in greener seasons. Sitka's new cover pattern utilizes the principles of optifade concealment in tandem with patterning and coloration that disrupts the vision of deer and turkey in densely vegetated environments. To see the pattern in action and gear in the cover pattern, visit sitkagear.com or your local Sitka retailer.

Ducks dogs work hard. Help ears perform at his best with Purina Pro Plan. Outstanding nutrition with real meat as the number one ingredient, Pro Plan Sport is made to feel hard working dogs like yours. For increased endurance, joint support and muscle tone, it all starts with Pro Plan Sport. Yeah, that'd be great. I actually met with our private lands biologist yesterday. He was doing a site visit on our project there. He told me he had 20, I think he was trying to do 20 site visits yesterday. I don't know that they're all winter flooding. There could be some other practices that he was checking in on. But I thought that was a good sign that there were that many, that there were that numerous. It's a, I'm excited, I mean, hats off to the Game of Fish for this one, because I think it could really help a lot of things. I started laughing a minute ago when we were talking about the abundance of food and what that would mean. And I had forgotten about how many times we're going to hear about ducks being nocturnal now because the food's out there. You know, that's why we can't kill them because there's too much food.

Yeah. Good luck having them even here if there wasn't.

Right. I mean, look, I'd rather be fat and happy and next to me than non-existent like they kind of were last year.

No, yeah, for sure. I mean, you can't do much about 70 degree day or, you know, a 60, 50, 60 degree night where they just sit and sit for the next day because they don't got to eat. I mean, that's not really because there's abundance of food. That's because they don't need to. They don't need to eat. A lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot of people, there's an opinion that corn is just, this unharvested corn, the ducks just sit in there and get fat and happy. Well, a big reason they sit in flooded corn, they'll do the same thing. They'll sit in coffee beans that have no nutritional value at all. They sit in there for the refuge, protection from raptors, all of those things. So, I know of some very, very high-end, super successful, historic clubs, they even run into the issue with getting ducks off their own rest area when they get rafted up in there and the weather doesn't make a move. It kind of comes with the territory and corn will do that. After they eat it out, I mean, they could wipe out all the food in there, they'll still go in there to sit there to stay below that cover, the thermal cover, everything comes with it. So, you know, it's kind of, like I said, it comes with the territory and it's tough. You know, we didn't used to have corn back in the day that everybody remembers and it's out there now. I haven't seen as much corn on the landscape this year, even in some, what would be traditional kind of rest areas for some clubs, but you know, it's a component that wasn't there back when everybody remembers the quote unquote good old days because nobody was growing corn, not in the Delta anyway.

No, to your point there about them consuming the food in it, I would almost argue that the majority of your true sanctuaries that are out there, private, public, whatever, really aren't about providing food as much as they are providing the sanctuary. I mean, if your density is not high enough that they've consumed all the food in pretty short order, then you're not really serving that many birds anyway.

Yeah.

Now, maybe that's a little different for us, but the majority of the time where our birds rest, it's not because they're feeding in mid-December, it's because they're not getting shot at. They have long since cleaned up the food that's out there.

Yeah, that's right. Especially if the geese get in there. Yep.

And then that's the pattern. Where they're going out to go feed and how we kind of set the table through the year dictates how we hunt and where we hunt. But the sanctuary is there to not get shot at.

Right.

I think a lot of people, and still, I mean, if you can have food in it, that's great. That's an extra bonus. But I think a lot of people look at their sanctuary, oh, I've got to grow this in. I've got to have all this food. This is, you know, they're going to come here. They're going to eat. They're going to stay. In all likelihood, they've consumed all the food in pretty short order. It's the fact that you're not shooting at them that's keeping them there.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pressure is a significant thing. Oh, yeah.

So we mentioned something just a second ago. It's kind of a segue to today's topic. You know, we mentioned that I'd rather see birds than not. You know, I'm like Chokes. I just have to see them. Right. Which kind of kind of gets into what stage of hunter you and I are in. They get off my lawn stage. I don't know if that's really one of them, but an old guy stage. But yeah, we want to talk about that today and kind of dive into it. We reference it a lot. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but we thought we would get into it and kind of go through these stages and maybe share some old war stories about some of our not so pretty stages we've gone through.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. At a point now where I can firmly say I've experienced all of them. That's where you see some of the division in the sport. If people don't even realize these stages even exist. Now, they should because I think they teach them in Hunter's Ed. But back when you take Hunter's Ed, it goes in one ear out the other. You're just trying to get test pass so you can get your first license and then you go on your way. But depending on what age you were when you took the test. I mean, I took it back when I had to have a license at 16 or whatever it was way back in the day. But I believe it's a real thing. I just wrote an article about it in Green Head, the magazine that just came out, I don't know, a month and a half ago or whenever that was. But I've heard another podcast, the E! Podcast had an episode, but they barely talked about it because they had a guest on that had an alternative way to look at it. And it didn't really relate to The Five Stages of the Hunter. He just had a different take and applied some things in some different ways. But this one, I mean, it rings true and to me it's pretty clear. You're able to very clearly distinguish what phase you're in or if you're got one foot in one and one foot in another. There's not a lot of gray area which which I think makes it applicable.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I just fully jumped on here, kind of read through them again real quick. Just to kind of polish up before we started discussing it. And man, I can look back, I mean, I can see still pictures in my mind of every one of these stages and what age I was, what I was doing, actions. I mean, like it's completely, for me, it's completely relatable. Now, again, depending on how old you are, what stage you're in, you may not relate to all of them, you may not be there and it may not apply to you at all, but it's pretty darn accurate and pretty neat to look at. And then probably for you and I too, pretty neat to kind of reminisce back. I mean, there's no, I said, I'm going to go through some not so pretty stages and maybe that's not the right way to look at it, but definitely, you know, I look back at the approach and motivations I had for hunting at certain times in my life. And now in that latter stages, I kind of think, well, that wasn't the best look for me, you know, but I think you kind of have to go through most of them to get to the end, if you get to the end. They're almost required reading, so to speak.

Right, right, right. Well, you know, just a little background on what we're talking about, in case you haven't heard of them. A lot of people have, like I said, it's typically part of a state's hunter's ed. It's part of that education component of that. But what this is, it's Five Stages of the Hunter, that a couple of behavioral scientists from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse came up with in the 70s. Now, it was a really small sample size that they interviewed, but it was a combination of deer hunters and duck hunters, waterfowl hunters. They interviewed them and got all this feedback. Through their research, they came up with these Five Stages. It's been around obviously since then, which just stood the test of time, so to speak. Sometimes you see some lists that include a sixth component, but I think the sixth really melds into the fifth. But yeah, you're talking about memories. For that article I wrote, I went back through time and found photographs that I thought from my hunting career that fit into each one of those stages. I think they were all dead on the money of where I was at that time as far as in this lineage. The key thing about this, and it's important to understand, is not necessarily, you don't necessarily go in sequential order. You could bounce around. You could skip a stage. You could never get out of a stage. You may complete stage one and move into stage two, and you may never get out of it. So there's not a direct correlation to the older you get, the farther you get along in the stages. But it kind of, for me it kind of worked that way. It might be personally, and I've seen it for others, but I've seen others stall in a stage, and it's just what and how important waterfowling is to them. That's part of why they maybe stall. They don't advance to those other stages. It just depends. But part of it starts to be when you have kids, and your priorities kind of shift and stuff like that. So, yeah, it'll be kind of fun to talk through these things. And I think it'll be thought provoking for our listeners to start a process of kind of evaluating where they are and then what they're seeing, too, on social media, because we talked about this in the advisory council meeting a couple of weeks ago, that social media is playing a big role for a lot of our hunters in serving as a mentor. And I'm not sure some of those things that we see on online actually benefit a person to advance through these stages and make their way and kind of grow as a hunter, because they get stalled out by trying to emulate what they see on social media or what they believe. This is the way it's done because they've kind of gravitated towards a certain account or a group of accounts that kind of, I don't know if glorify is the right word, but they kind of meld towards a certain way of how they believe duck hunting should be. And I don't know if that's always the right messaging because social media, regardless of what you're doing, not just hunting, it should never be a mentor. That I'm clear of.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we'll definitely, that's an interesting view. And I agree with it, but when we get to the limiting out stage, I think that's one we can definitely compare or relate that to. But let's start with the first one before we get sidetracked a little bit there. We'll start with the shooter stage, and I can relate to that one easily right now, because I've got three of them itching to go, you know, teal season, whatever they can. And I mean, for most hunters, this is your, this is your earliest stage, you know, you're measuring success by just getting shots off. You know, you're new to the sport. Everything is exciting to you. It's, it's about being out there and getting shots and kind of getting better at what you're doing. And it's a, I mean, I can look back 40 years and probably some of my fondest memories are really coming out of that stage, you know, tag along with my dad. You know, I remember making mistakes, gun safety, while, you know, also you remember all sorts of little details out of that stage, but it's so, depending on what age you are as you go into it, it's kind of really a pure and innocent stage of hunting. And like I said, some of my, I mean, I'm hunting my grandfather, my father, tag along when they used to have to carry me, you know, from the truck to the blind because I didn't have boots tall enough to wade through the water, just, I don't know, good early stage and watching my kids go through it now is pretty great as a father.

Oh, I have very vivid memories of being in that phase. And that's kind of probably where, where you're going to either go in on this sport and make it a thing, or it's going to be a kind of a passive thing. Not saying that you can't grow passion later in life, and not saying you can't come to this day. It doesn't necessarily mean you, you, some people didn't grow up maybe with a dad or a granddad that duck hunted, or their friends didn't duck hunt, but you come to it later in life, and everybody is in this stage. Nobody opens the door and jumps in a duck boat, and knows everything there is to go out there and get after them. It's not necessarily an age thing, but typically most of us that are in the sport and have been for a while, it did happen during this shooter stage. It's very introductory piece of it. But man, yeah, I've got great memories of hunting at Crockett's Bluff, which is a pretty famous place on the White River here in Arkansas. It was a corporate club. We hunted somewhere separately, but when my dad was a banker and he would have to entertain clients, and that's what they did with this lodge. So they had guides and these grown men were doing big business talk or playing poker and stuff. When I was a little 9, 10, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 year old, I didn't know, I didn't care about anything they were doing, but I got to tag along with those guides and became completely fascinated with everything they did. I wanted to learn and they all blew back for this whole cut down, reversing the old, they were all doing this. This is in the 70s, mind you. I had no business at nine years old, trying to blow an old, but you're damn sure I went and bought one or got my dad to buy me one and tried to learn because that's what they used. These guys that were guides, but my dad kind of turned me loose with them. That's where my affection for this, which is blasted however many 47 years later, that's the roots of all that. I didn't know how to call a duck, I didn't know how to, why you set up the way you did. I just showed up in the blind and when they said, shoot, I shot. That's what the shooter stage is. You don't have all the perspective and experiences and knowledge to do much past that. Man, just some awesome memories.

Oh yeah. I remember, for me, tag along with clients or grown men, being a little kid, I had to have all kinds of boosters and stuff to get me up where I could see, get eye level with everybody else. My only mechanism to be effective was to be the first one to shoot. Because if I was slow, there wasn't a lot left to pick from. That's probably where I honed my skills at being pretty quick, picking up birds and shouldering a shotgun. But I would bet for most of us, probably particularly for you and I, when we talk about the good old days and what we look back on, I'm willing to bet these are the memories that you're drawing on. I wonder if some of that is, I don't know that it's necessarily bird counts or any of the things that we talk about all the time on this podcast, as much as it is the pure innocence and early love of the game. That's probably what makes those memories so fond. If we could really dissect that and see what made the good old days so good. But that would be, that's my hunch anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was different, obviously, back then. But I have pretty clear memories of these days, even though as long as they were ago, they were. I don't ever remember them talking about limits or how fast they killed them, or what kind of boat they had, or what camo they wore. And if you'd look at the pictures, you'd be pretty clear. Nobody gave a damn about what their outfit looked like. I mean, there was nobody out there styling and profiling. It was a mix of army surplus gear and some wax coats and some stuff like that. Rubber boots and hip boots were very, very popular back then. But the sport has morphed into something different, good or bad, that just wasn't proud. I never even remember my dad being around his friends going, man, how many did y'all kill this morning? Oh, we shot 45 by 8 o'clock. Whatever brag there is. You just went and hunted. Of course, you wanted to have success. I'm not saying that they, oh, look, we stumbled into 40 ducks this morning. It wasn't that. But it wasn't the culture. I guess that's the way to say it, but it wasn't the same back then. Now, of course, you didn't, and you still took pictures. I mean, I got piles of pictures from back then with dead ducks. I'm not saying that didn't happen, but it was a personal memory.

Right. It was for you.

It wasn't for all your followers. Well, yeah, yeah. And there was back when I wrote the Grand Prairie Book, I can remember that on the tables in there, they had, of course, back then, you didn't have a photo gallery online or you didn't have pictures on your phone. Obviously, you had photo albums. And there used to be these photo albums that every time I would go down there. And I hunted to this place until I was in my early 20s. So long time, long history of pictures. And there were used to be four or five, six of these photo albums full of, you know, over the eras where the hunt pictures, people around the lot, whatever. And when I started writing the Grand Prairie Book, I desperately tried to find that, those photo albums. Cause I know the guys that have that club now and own that lodge. And they don't know what happened to them. They gave me a couple of leads and some people that might end up with them. Well, that person had died and their widow did not know if he ever had them. So a bunch of dead ends. Man, I wish so badly I could put my hands on those things again, because that was just a cool era in so many ways.

Yeah. I wonder about that. I mean, I've got hard drives and images galore, but rarely ever do we print anything out anymore. And maybe one day my kids will go back and they'll want to print those stuff. Maybe we'll come back to a stage where having a photo album is a cool thing, but that's not something we really do right now. I mean, we may put it on a smart TV and run a slideshow, but we don't print a lot of stuff out.

Well, don't come to my room at my camp. My walls in my room are covered with photos over time.

It's pretty cool. Sometimes it kind of saddens me to edit it, move it to hard drive and then it's gone. It's like it doesn't even exist anymore. So that's a good way to keep up with those memories.

After each season, I print them. I use a product called Mixed Tiles, which is pretty cool if anybody is ever interested in doing that and printing photos. I've turned a couple of other people on to it. They see my room and they're like, oh man, how did you do that? Because they're all the same. It's not different size frames. They're printed differently. They're all identical and my wall is just covered in them. I don't know, it just creates a lot of memories that, in most of these, you won't see them online because I rarely post a quote unquote pile picture on social media. I just don't feel like I need to do that unless it's something super special. But yeah, my walls are covered in them. So I don't let them go to a hard drive and get put on the back burner. And you'll come back around to, especially as your kids get older, you'll come back around to a lot of those, I suspect.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, they're taking care of it. They're backed up and secure and all that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

But look at you and I going down memory lane about little days as we go through stage ones.

Yeah. You're right.

Right. It happens. I mean, it's just, I don't know. It's a really, it's probably where you start to hone your skills. You start to pick up on the things that you appreciate and particularly as we move into stage two here. This is where you learn. I think in the shooter stage, the people you're around, the mentors you have really shape what this road is going to look like for you, what this path is going to lead to. Which really brings me into this next stage, so the limiting out stage, right? Now we're just motivated by feeling that limit. It's no longer about getting off shots. We measure our success on how many we kill. And to your point earlier about social media, you and I didn't grow up with that. And buddy, when I went through the limiting out stage, I was serious. I've joked before that we didn't have to clean any ditches out on our farm or spray any chemical because I walked them and crawled them and slid up and down them so much, chasing, daggum, snow geese. I mean, there wasn't a weed in them, you know? And that was that was bad. We couldn't kill seven of them. But I mean, I was consumed by it. Had had to kill a limit, had to kill all of them. I could just blood thirst and had a lot of thing fun chasing birds, you know? It's not a bad stage. I probably spent more time in that stage than maybe any other so far. Maybe not, but definitely looking back, you know, early you, teenage and so on, that was a big deal. And I wonder, to your point, that's when you and I, or I had really good mentors. We certainly didn't have social media. I wasn't doing that because I saw someone else doing it. I just wanted to kill them. So what happens now when you have all of these outside influences? How much more impactful is this stage on a hunter's future? And how long does this stage last now? Probably can't measure that, but we'll be interested to see.

I think that's the key, is how long does it last. And not that you can't get, and you know, we'll talk about these other stages later. Rest assured, I still like to kill them. I mean, I might have a different... That's right. If I didn't like killing, I might be a bird watcher. You know, so don't misconstrued that. But I have other areas of all this that I enjoy now, which will make sense when we go through these. But yeah, I mean, that limiting out stage, that's when you start to know that, man, I can actually shoot a little bit. I can actually play a role in whether we get them today, or not, maybe you start calling, maybe you gotta say so in whatever area you go hunt, maybe you gotta say so in how you put the decoys out. I mean, you're playing a more active role in the hunt. So you want the prize at the end, which is the limit. I mean, that's the goal, is to, everybody shoots their allotment, and we all get to high five. So, and that's what's played up on the social media, obviously, I mean, we all see it. There's way more accounts dedicated to showing off, you know, how many of they killed, and maybe not as focused on some of the other things that add up to, how do you, how'd you get those ducks even to be around, in year after year and sustain this whole deal. It's kind of the right here, right now, we got them today, and here I can show it to you. And that's, that's a phase we've all been in. I mean, I've definitely been in the same kind of bloodthirsty, we got to kill, if we don't kill them, I'll sit out here all day until we kill a limit. And, you know, I'm not doing that anymore. I've graduated past this phase, but I would think most hunters have been there, and I think the key is how long does it last, because you have to understand, you cannot be in the limiting-out phase and have this sport perpetuate itself. Hunters have to graduate and start contributing and playing a different role in this whole holistic deal that is waterfowling. They're just more to it than just the kill part. And the sooner people understand that and kind of graduate, to me, the better off ducks are going to be and the better off geese are going to be and the better off our sport is going to be.

Yeah. Well, to add to that a little bit, I think maybe this is why the verbiage, you know, harvest doesn't matter. Maybe it bothers me a little too because it, I think it gives maybe an excuse to stay in this stage longer. And that's not to say that if everyone stays in the limiting out stage, we're going to kill every duck and go extinct. That's not what I'm saying. Be clear about that. I just think it's the mindset. If your mindset is always, you know, that you have to prove yourself and you have to show everybody how much you can kill, then we don't have conservation dollars. We don't have that side or that aspect of that hunter that we need to protect this sport. So I think the messaging, you know, harvest doesn't matter, harvest doesn't matter. Let's hunt them till they're, you know, till we're blue in the face. I think it's, it's, it's lending itself to maybe shifting the duration of this stage for hunters as they go through it.

Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting point. And I, I think there's some validity to that. I think also the limiting out stage kind of equates to if it flies, it dies. You know, that, that whole mindset that it doesn't matter what comes in. Let's, let's shoot every one of them if we can.

Yeah, all the damn brown ducks you see piled up in these pictures. Just so we do limits.

That's right. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's kind of mind blowing to me. It's mind blowing to me to see even, okay, semi pass up there in Canada because some of the ducks haven't, they haven't molted over to their, you know, to their regular colors and I couldn't tell, you know, I was just shooting. Okay, that fair enough. But when you see these pictures posted on social media in December, when there, when there are no, I mean, you can tell a Drake from a hand, Mallard, Clear's Day and, you know, awesome hunt this morning, got them all by 740, you know, 715, eight man, and there's a bunch of brown ducks in the pile. Okay, I know if you're in that, you're in that belief or that mindset that harvest doesn't matter, shooting hens doesn't matter, there's two in the limit, that means we can shoot too. Well, if the hunt was so damn good, why didn't you take another extra, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes and pick out Drakes to finish out versus piling up all those brown ducks? Now you could say, well, you know, we got out of there faster and didn't pressure the ducks that were just coming in later in the morning, we got out and all that. Problem is a lot of this group is not getting out of the woods, they're staying and taking pictures, they're piling them up cool on the log, they're riding around their boat, you know, all these other things. So that doesn't quite jive to me, but we as a hunting community, regardless of what the limit says, and you have to put some level of faith in the things that you and I talk about in this show, the Mallard Hen needs a break. Plain and simple. And just because you're not hearing a sign to say it, it's because maybe you're not in the right channels, because there's a component of the science community saying, Mallard Hens are having a really tough time, and there's not enough of them. And you're starting to hear talks of sex ratios, being so out of whack and everything else. So, say all that to say this, that's another piece of that moving past that just plain, let's limit that stage. If it flies, it dies stage. And moving on to these other stages will make you, or will show some level of understanding that it can't just be it flies, it dies. If this sport is going to be around a while, and this resource is going to be around a while. So, I'm not saying everybody that's in the limit out stage is shooting everything, because I see, I hear and talk to plenty of people that, they're shooting Drakes at all costs. And I think most hunters do, but those days that the hunt was supposed to be so awesome, maybe take a few more minutes and pick out the ones with green heads. Because last time I checked, said it before, last time I checked, they don't lay eggs.

That's right. Well, you know, side note on this, I think once again, if you go back to the shooter stage for you and I, when we're honing our skills, we're learning the sport, there was a lot of messaging out there about passing on hens. And it obviously left an indelible mark on you and I, in terms of how we view things now in our later stages. And again, that brings me back to my concern and worry about this. You know, it doesn't matter. Harvest doesn't matter. Shoot whatever you want. What these young people that are coming into the sport now, what are we going to have for a sport 40, 50 years from now, when they're hopefully in their latter stages, are they going to not care about hen harvest because they didn't hone that skill? What's that going to look like? You know, as we shift this narrative. So just a little cause for concern there.

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Interesting, as we move into the trophy stage, we talk about it. I kind of changed my game a little bit as I went through the trophy stage. I really got into deer hunting, kind of still on the waterfowl, but I guess never really. I mean, Drakes were great and all that, but maybe you can touch a little more on the trophy stage for waterfowl, but that wasn't a real huge stopping point for me.

Yeah, well, I think what and I don't think it is for anybody because this probably more applied to the deer hunters that they interviewed. You're not going to shoot the, you know, the two year old six point. You're going to go, I'm going to pass on that when I'm waiting on the five or seven, five, seven year old 12 point. I mean, you're more choosy about which deer you shoot. So because in our world, waterfowling world, unless you're chasing a true trophy bird, say you were going to shoot eiders in some random place you've never been before. Or in our case, I mean, we're somewhat spoiled because we have so many of them, thankfully, and knock on wood they stick around. But, you know, there's parts of the country, where you can't shoot a speckled belly. So, you know, this, you know, I'm at the stage where I'm going to start traveling and going, trying to add species to my deal. No different than a turkey hunter going to shoot Rio Grande's here, Easterns here, all that. So, but you really, in waterfowling, you really can't pick out a trophy unless, unless it's something that's really obvious. I was fortunate enough, it was probably 20 years ago, maybe, yeah, somewhere around there. Now, it was similar to a 12-point walking out of the woods and it's right there in front of your stand. This was a lone, you know, always call it albino, but it's got another term. But it was a speckle belly. Yeah, yes, that. So it was a speckle belly. So you see it at a distance and you think it's, it's coming in by itself. It was, it was by itself. But then it started yodeling. And this is before it really started. We really started hunting speckle bellies, you know, did not have a call on my lanyard, none of that stuff. But you knew the sound that they made. And that sucker tracked across the field and came right to our duck decoy spread. And shot and killed it, fell, you know, fell crippled out in the middle of the field, dog went great retrieve, all this other jazz brings it back. And sure enough, that sucker was a speckle belly. So that was one you could, you know, on the fly, you could see once you heard him yodel, okay, that's a trophy, that is a trophy bird. You know, you hear hunters talk about, you know, I saw that band or I saw, you know, that group, there was a band in there, that does happen. But, you know, it's even harder once the group comes in to pick one out. I relate it more to some trophy, you're at a stage where some trophy things happened and they kind of meant a lot. I had a conversation with a guy yesterday, and we were trading kind of some band stories on geese. And, you know, my kind of claim to fame, and on at least in that is I killed two band of speckled bellies out of one group. And they were sequentially numbered. And then you get the numbers back. And of course, it was obvious to me, one was bigger, one was a little smaller, that they were a pair. And they got, and so I was like that's a, that was probably a family group, because it was like eight or 10 came in, you know, dog goes out, you know, drop, we kill them, but the dog goes out, gets the first one a shot, comes back banded. Oh, awesome, you know, high fives, all that. Send the dog out to get the second one. It comes back, it's banded. And so, and then I look at the numbers and the numbers are sequential. So you're automatically going, okay, these were, this was a pair. And sure enough, you report the numbers and they were banded same day, same place. And one was a male, one was a female. So those are kind of, and to me, those are kind of trophies in the waterfowling world. And you see it a lot. I've seen some polls and stuff put out there. Would you rather kill a limit, kill a band, or kill a hybrid? Because we run into those periodically. We've got a handful of hybrids mounted that my dad or one of my sons or that I've shot. We shot one of those goofy hermaphrodite hens. My son did four or five years ago, I guess it was. Anyway, that's the kind of, to me, waterfowling, that's kind of the trophy stage. And that's not something you're really mentally set out to do, but they start kind of meaning something. I guess you can go band hunting on those Canada geese. They come in, they get on the ground, and you can see those big bands. But that really doesn't happen a lot with, it doesn't happen with ducks, and it rarely happens with speckle bellies. So, I don't know. And then you get all those resident geese that are banded that people go out and hunt and kill a dozen of them in a morning. I guess that's a trophy. I don't know.

I don't know. So I'll tell the story as it relates to what we're talking about in Trophy. Back in the point system, I was not there for this, but there, I've talked to people that were there and they will attest to the truth of it. My father was guiding a group and hunting with guys. And during the course of the morning, which again, to explain, Mallards are 25 points. So four drakes is your limit. He saw before he shot and told everybody as a dog went to retrieve it, but he saw and killed a limit of Mallards that were all banded and saw every band beforehand and claimed it. You know, hey, that one's banded. You know, here comes the dog. And sure enough, it is. I would say in terms of trophies, that's a pretty, that would be, I guess, a pretty big one to see that and be able to not miss.

Yeah, no kidding. That's unbelievable, actually.

Yeah, it's, I mean, I would never not believe my father, but there are other people that attest to it as well. So I saw back when we used to only have like two or three days to hunt Canada geese, when we had migrators in the state there at the tail end of it, I saw one time when my grandfather comes in, feet down, see the flash and boy is a little kid. I'm like, oh, watch this. I'm going to kill this band. Three shots later and that goose is still very safe and very much alive.

Yeah. I've only had one or two that I saw them as they came in. I killed one when I was 13 and then I went like 10 years without shooting another one. Then got on a roll and added them up since, but my dad, and this is field hunting. My dad, when I was probably in my early 30s, so it's been 20 plus years ago, he killed five in one weekend. Five banded drakes in one weekend. Our theory was, okay, these ducks must have all traveled together. One or two might have been banded the same place, but they were all from different places. When they were banded was different.

All that.

I mean, crazy.

That's cool. Yeah.

Crazy. But those are trophies that we can relate to in the wildfire world, but you don't really target them necessarily, unless, like I said, you're doing that traveling kind of thing.

Right. Yeah. Most of those are kind of trophies of the moment, you know, like you're not.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

I mean, unless you're targeting park geese and you scout all the bands and figure out what hole they're going to be on.

Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right.

That's a little different.

But I think it is a step of maturity though, a little bit that you've kind of, you know, maybe the hunts last long or you're willing to go other places and shoot something a little different, that kind of thing.

Well, and particularly on the big game side, you're starting to recognize what it takes to create trophies. You know, that there's maybe not so much on the waterfowl side, but maybe so. I mean, if you're having to go hunt kings or whatever your choice is, you realize, look, there's a certain area that this happens and there's a reason that it happens. It's not just, you know, blood lust killing. There's some thought to it.

Yeah, appreciation of the sport a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to me, even even with a big game in waterfowl, to me, the trophy and method stage sometimes really overlap. I felt like particularly deer hunting. When I started the trophy hunt, I really got into the method of it to just wanted to go hunt, did not care about killing a deer with a gun of any kind. And I think you see, you probably, this is my guess, I think you see more method hunters in duck hunting than you do trophy hunters. You start looking at the sub gauge, sub gauge culture, non, not going to use the spinner, there's a lot of mythology that goes into waterfowl hunting.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Because yeah, the trophy stage, it's kind of old, somewhat it's kind of always there. I mean, you may shoot a band when you're in the shooter stage, because I've seen it happen. I've seen people that probably don't even know where that band is. We had a, I'll tell a quick story on that and then I'll move on. But this is how lucky it is. We took, at the time, one of the members of my dad's club was married to a woman in the University of Arkansas, Razorback. Phil Goldkicker was her nephew and he was from Florida. He grew up in Florida and had never been duck hunting. He came and hunted and he killed two in one weekend. You're trying to tell me? He probably has never duck hunted since. To be clear, nobody did local banding back then. These were ducks that were banded in the Dakotas or in Canada. They weren't banded on the premises. I mean, this was legit and I bet there's no telling where those things are now. But anyway.

Look at you and I making trophies out of different types of bands now. It wasn't banded here locally.

Right.

But I get it though. I mean, when I was younger, you know, I talk about Canada Geese a lot, I guess because that was a big trophy for me. You know, when we were younger, my kids still get excited about Canada Geese, although they're totally different now. But if you, you know, you saw a guy that had a couple Canada Goose bands, it was like, dang, that's really cool. You know, now, you know, you sent me some real other day about how long was too long for his lanyard. I'm like, dude, I don't care about how many part geese you put on that damn thing. It does not impress me.

Yeah, yeah, well. We're gonna float your boat, that's right.

Yeah, that's right, yup, yup. That's why they make different color M&Ms.

That's right. But yeah, the method part, and this is something that starts, to me, I think it starts building when you're in the shooter. It could be, it could be start with, and it gets back to your mentor comment, the shooter stage, it can be in that limiting out stage, it can be in this, this kind of odd for waterfowling trophy hunter stage. But you start building this, this piece where you want, you want to have, like I said, a role in the hunt. And so you start, you know, pay attention to what ducks like decoy wise, what equipment you're using, how you're gonna use it, how you're gonna call. This is where you really understand how to hunt them, not shoot them, not kill them. This is the stage where you learn how to hunt them. And that's what, to me, this is a crucial stage for you having more success afield, especially as you start trying to do it on your own, or you get out from underneath your dad's, or your granddad's umbrella, or maybe you start hunting a different place with your buddies and you start having to make some decisions on your own. You're just not going, you're not waking up in the morning, dad says we're going to the XYZ hole this morning. Maybe you're playing a role in where you go hunt and how you're going to hunt them, which side of the hole you're going to set up on. Start paying attention to wind direction and how many decoys you put out. All those things that make up a hunt, but the more you understand that and you develop that methodology and you start paying attention to what works and what doesn't, that's when you start to add up successful days of field that you played a role in, and that's very satisfying. And I'm sure you were the same way. I was fortunate to grow up in a situation where my dad started letting me make some of those decisions. And I learned to call, be pretty proficient with the call when I was a young teenager, to the point where he didn't pick his up when we hunted and started that. We would scout together and like, where should we go in the morning? You know, and all those kinds of things. And that accelerated me to become more in love with the sport than just being the guy that shows up. And you just tell me when shooting time is, when can I load my gun? And you tell me when to take the shot. And that's where a significant amount of passion comes from.

I think we've said it that it's possible to be in more than one stage at any given time. And I think it's worth pointing out here that in this stage, I can trace this stage back to even into the limits, the killing stage, all the way through. I think that method stage may be the largest, for me, may be the largest stage that I've been through. It goes way back. What shot you take, when you call, and particularly, maybe more particularly with waterfowl hunting than anything else, it's very encompassing. And I think, too, depending on what you focus on, as far as these methods go, really kind of shape how you enter into the sportsman stage and what kind of, you know, conservationist slash sportsman you become. You know, if your method is maybe more focused on, I guess all methods are really focused on killing, because that's kind of what we're doing here when we're hunting. But I don't know if I'm making sense. I feel like depending on how you focus your methods kind of drives how you finish out and round out these stages.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense for sure. And I'm seeing it with and you may you may be experiencing the same. You know, you grow up hunting with a group of buddies, and you kind of, you know, kind of round into who's this guy's awesome at, you know, this guy's awesome at calling, this guy's awesome at putting decoys out, this guy's knows how to get point A to point B via boat, you know, whatever it is. Everybody's got to get out their role they fit in. But what has been interesting to me a little bit, as I've gotten older and gotten to the stage where you're not really telling, you're not going to go out there and tell somebody how to duck hunt, at least not the guys I hunt with. They've all been hunting a while and all have their proficiencies, deficiencies, all that like we all do. But what has been interesting to me, with the explosion of speckle belly hunting in the state, which is something I decided, I'm going to figure out how to hunt these things, I don't know, it was probably 15 years ago. Population really started to build, especially where we were hunting. And the number one reason I try to learn how to hunt, was we were dead in the water during a full moon. And the geese weren't nearly as impacted by the full moon. So I was like, I don't like having four or five days stretches where I might as well not even go, because the mallards, it's not going to happen. It's just that full moon's got them goofed up. So I've gotten pretty decent learning how to hunt them, how to scout them, how to understand what they're going to do here and there, even though I have plenty of days where it doesn't add up. I'm not saying I get them every day because I don't. But to have my friends now that are my age, we're in our 50s, and some of them just like to show up and shoot. So even though they're at a duck hunter stage, they're at a different level as a duck hunter. But when you take them speckle belly hunting, they're almost back to the shooter stage. Because they haven't gotten to a point where they either want to understand and play a role in the... Now, they probably hover between shooter and limit out, because they do like... I mean, everybody likes to shoot them. That is one of the markers, is whether you get them or you don't. So they're probably sliding between those two. But they really are just showing up, load their gun, and when I call the shot, they stand up and shoot. So there's nothing wrong with that. They don't either have a place that is worth their time to figure out how to hunt speckled bellies, or that's not where their energy is. But they like going. But then you got other ones that probably, wherever they hunt, have an opportunity, and the questions are just, it's almost like they're reverting back to that shooter stage when you're an 8, 9, 10 year old kid asking questions about dad, why do the ducks do this? Or why are they in this field today? Or why do we put the decoys out this way? How do you call them? When are you calling them? You know, all the things you ask when you're a little kid, I'm seeing it with 50 year old Ben trying to figure out how to hunt speckle belly. So it's kind of interesting to see how that works, because they're all at a much later stage, duck hunting wise. But goose hunting, they've had to revert back. So that's kind of an interesting perspective.

Yeah, that's neat. And I hadn't, I think I've seen some of that certainly, and maybe just didn't recognize it as such, but that's, that's cool to think about how you can kind of revert back unknowingly.

Interesting for sure. You've had to have seen it with some of the people you've taken and some of the shows that, you know, you've done there, they're on, on your farm. You've had to take people that, that don't, maybe they didn't even shot one before. And they may only be concerned with just shooting one. And it's, and that's when it kind of slides into that trophy stage. Because for them, to shoot a barred up Speckle Belly, that's a trophy. You may say, oh, man, don't let the dog get that one. Let me go pick it up. I'm gonna mount it. That kind of stuff. I still mount them. And I've been fortunate to kill my fair share, but I've still, if I get one that I think is cool looking, I'll still mount it. So that's still a trophy to me. So you can, you can kind of rewind a little bit depending on the situation.

Oh, yeah. You want to see a group of hunters turn into trophy hunters real quick. Let a real nice straight pen tail start flying around or, or. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. No doubt.

As a guide, one of my least favorite things is to see mature pen tails because, man, they could be in the next county and every client I've got is looking at them like, what are you going to do? I mean, they're in a different zip code. I'm not doing anything right now. But a lot of pressure to try to kill those trophies when they see them.

Yeah. Well, and you're right. Those things will get picked out. I mean, yeah, we've all done it. I mean, we've seen thousands of pen tails, but one comes through there with that big, long sprig and you lose your mind over it. And then, yeah, a black duck in Arkansas, it's like on a bright sunny day, especially field hunting or in kind of an open environment, you can't miss them. I mean, you can see them clear as day and same thing. Everybody goes bananas. And you rest assured that group comes in, that black duck is gonna get some steel thrown at it.

Oh man, we were, so we were hunting with a bunch of new hunters last year with DU and Barstool Sports. And this big, beautiful pen tail comes sailing through right in front of the blind, and Matt Harrison and I are watching it. Like, oh man, watch, they're gonna, this is gonna be so cool. And I'm pretty sure everybody missed it. And Matt just about died. He goes, did you see its tail? It was just wiggling and stuff. I remember so long it was just shaking as it flew by. That trophy lived another day, but it was fun to watch.

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. And see grown men turn into little kids over some. But it's no different even if you think about it, deer hunting, that trophy buck walks out. I mean, people can't shoot their rifle, can't even sight the thing in because they're shaking so much. So we've all done it, totally get it. And it's kind of fun. That's kind of the part where you kind of take this wider view of the sport and go, there's so much more to it than that random pile of dead ducks. Because if you're any kind of hunter at all, you're going to do that a bunch over your lifetime. So who cares about the brag that you've got to put out there, that, man, I'll pile them up by 7.15 this morning. I mean, who cares? Save that memory for yourself.

Yeah, that's what I, being able to get that excited about, let's say, a pintail Drake, something that I have seen more times than I can begin to count. But to watch other people get that excited about it, to even get that excited yourself, to relive all those emotions there in a split second, I think that's what makes our sport so special. And as we shift into the sportsman stage, I think that's what makes me want to share it with so many people. Like, man, you need to, if you don't understand what we're doing out here and how cool it is, you need to come check it out because it's really, really, really special. So that's, I think, you know, as we get into this, this final stage and I guess I'll ask you that. Do you think it's safe to say this is the final stage? I mean, you can obviously revert back, as we just said, but I guess it is. Would you say so?

Yeah, and I think the sportsman's stage is also, it's a very content stage. That word equates to when you, if you Google it, you Google the Five Stages of the Hunter and you go read the description of a sportsman, you're at a very content point in your waterfowling career or your hunting career. You know, you've had the big pile of ducks days, you've had some trophy days and now you're at a point, and this is what I was referencing early now with your kids coming along here younger. My boys have already been through it because they're a little older. But this is where you even step back. I mean, there's days and I even do it now. Going back to these speckled belly hunts where I take buddies, there may be days I don't even if it's if it's good and got some good shooters with me. I don't even love my gun. I'd just rather sit there, call them and call the shot and let them have at them. You're not at that bloodthirsty stage. Now, if we get in the pit that day and we're struggling to kill some, I'm going to jump right back in. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, you're at a content stage where you still like to get them. Just like I said, the verbi in the show, I still like getting them. I still like Days We Limit. But I've had a lot of satisfaction in days where we came up a little short, and maybe even felt more gratified that somehow we grounded out X number of mileage on a day it was not set up to be that good. Somehow we made the right choice about where we went, how we set up, and I would have never in a million years thought we would do as well as we did, and walked away short of a limit and completely gratified with that. Completely good with showing someone new. I obviously take people, Specklebelly and Henning, all the time that don't get to experience that very much, and get a lot of gratification out of having a really good experience for them, a field, and obviously with younger kids too. I've got friends that got kids at your age, and maybe don't hunt as much as we did growing up and things like that. But to get them out there in that part, that's where that sportsman piece comes into play. That you're content, you still like shooting them, but you've shot enough that you're not just going to live or die off, whether you shot a bunch of ducks that day. I think it also spills over into a lot of the conservation, and understanding the resource, fighting for the resource. That's why I'm confident. I've been in the sportsman stage for a while now, and I don't see myself backpedaling on that. I might jump back into a trophy stage when I see a black duck. I might be a limits guy when the speckle bellies are just being unbelievably good. I can revert back, but I don't think I'll ever lose touch with the sportsman stage based on where I am and how I think about this sport.

Yeah. I think it's a stage where you can appreciate all of the other stages and exist maybe in all of them at the same time. I think it's just an overall appreciation for what we do. I'll tell this story real quick. Some of you that know me know a little bit about my father-in-law and his battle with cancer. He got one hunt with us last year. He was getting ready to start, I think, third or fourth round with throat cancer. It's been regulated to 20 gauge due to chemo and radiation and surgeries. We get out there right before the big cold front and we had just an amazing duck hunt. Wasn't over super quick, so we got to enjoy the time of it. We all, including my kids, his grandkids, killed their limit. We were in that limit stage and look, we go hunt and the more you get to shoot, the more you're going to enjoy it. That was a part of that hunt that we got to appreciate. It wasn't the only driving factor there, but it made for a great hunt. Killed some trophies too. I think we limited out on pintails too which is uncommon, at least for us. There was the trophy aspect, there was the limit, the morning, the cold front, everything that was going on, getting to share it with him. As that road progresses and as his battle goes on, it's getting a little tougher for him. I don't know that we'll get to hunt together this year. That very well may be the last time that we'll get to hunt together. Through three or four different stages of the hunter right there, maybe all of them if you count my kids being there. That, I guess in this sportsman stage for me, I can appreciate every single aspect of that hunt and the different stages that we experienced and were there in the whole thing. And it's just one of the looking back at it. And it's still fresh and a lot going on with that story. But maybe one of the most memorable hunts that I'll ever have. So I think that's kind of what the sportsman stage is. Because you get to this point where you understand the game, you understand the significance of everything that's going on, and you have just a heightened appreciation for it. And that's where you really start to pour yourself into protecting the sport. Or fools like you and I start a podcast talking about it.

That's right. And what I would like to see, and I've had some conversations offline regarding this, I would like to see more of the brands in the duck hunting world to graduate themselves to this stage. Because what are they going to do if we get to a point where ducks struggle more than they are, and the numbers say we got to cut back to 30 days, and all the things we talk about ad nauseum, because we're trying to raise every question we can and push every button we can to keep from going back to 30 days. But likely it's inevitable at some point, but how long does that downturn last? That's the trick. But you're seeing way too many, for me, from my point of view, you're seeing way too many brands engaged in a limiting out stage. And that's the only one they're in. And that's the only way they identify their branding, their presence, who they choose to endorse, influence, all these other things that represent a brand and their products, they are stuck in this limiting out stage. And I get it, that's cool. It was it was cool to be in that stage. That's when I had a lot of fun hunting and didn't have to think about much else. But but you better start thinking about some other stuff and getting getting engaged in those things because the limiting out stage is in the ability to limit out all the time and just kill, kill, kill. That's that's not sustainable. It's just not. And that's why people graduate on and have sort of have different expectations of what they get out of the sport of waterfowling. But I would love to see some more brands graduate and get out of that get out of that that limiting out stage that they've portrayed to be the end all be all, especially on social media because it's because it's simply not. It's it's there's there's more to the sport to make it perpetuate for kids and next generations or how you want to phrase it.

Yeah, you know, and I think it's important to to recognize. For for any of these brands, one, I know there's one that listens to every episode. He texted you and I as we were recording this, so I hope he's out there listening. Maybe he can change some of his branding. Not to say that it's all point, but I think we could all focus a little more on the stage and the big picture. But I think it's worth thinking about and considering when you see any of these brands, you know, A, who do they have that's running their marketing? And a lot of times it's a influencer turned content creator or vice versa turned, you know, community marketer to now director of marketing. And when you're trying to sell a product, you're selling it because it helps you kill better, right? Hide better, kill better, whatever, it helps you reach that goal. And for most of us, our first real measuring stick of our success or ability as a hunter is a limit. You know, that's, hey, look, look what I did. I killed a limit. And that's where that stage starts for us. So I guess I understand why brands, look, if you're trying to sell a product, you're trying, you want to convince somebody that it's going to help them be successful. And that's really the first measuring stick of success for hunters. Lile, that's not to try to let everybody off the hook, because I'm with you. There's so much more that we can focus on. You know, we can highlight conservation efforts. And I mean, like real word dollars, not just given product to auctions. I can think of a brand that I'm affiliated with and know those people well who raise a bunch of money in the last couple of weeks and super proud of Vanelli and their efforts there. And I think that's, you know, that's something that deserves to be talked about more than the airplay that it is getting. So, yeah, I'm with you. I'd like to see these brands talk more about the sportsman stage, about the all encompassing aspects. And it can be limits, it can be trophies. But that shouldn't be the only measuring stick we have for success. I think the ultimate measure of success for a waterfowler is, do you get to the sportsman stage? Do you get to the point where you appreciate every aspect of it, from the resource to the individual moments and details of every hunt, you know, regardless of the quote unquote outcome, I think that's what should be celebrated.

Yeah, because if you really think about it, if you're able to reach that sportsman stage, you've done all the limiting out. You've done it plenty to a point where it doesn't drive you. It's not the only driver. And I realize there are a lot of hunters that aren't consumed by the limiting out stage. It's just what has really pushed down our throat on social media. And I understand why. And why that's perceived to be the end all be all, because it looks cool. And it's part of the male, it's part of our makeup, is to achieve and puff our chest out and do all the things that come along with that. And I get it, because I've lived it. I've been in that stage. So I'm not sitting here saying, oh, I skipped right over that one, because I didn't. But you just have a better appreciation for everything that this sport is made of when you start taking that broader view of everything. And like I said, we all went through it. But the faster you get through it and move on to one of these other ones and then eventually reach that sportsman status, I promise you, it's going to be more rewarding for you. And when you're younger and you don't have kids and you're out there hunting for yourself and your group of buddies, I'm telling you that mindset doesn't last. Your priorities change. And that's what's going to help you graduate along a little bit too. If you're fortunate to have a kid that wants to take part in duck hunting, because not all of them do. Don't assume just because you do it, they're going to do it. That's not necessarily the case. That's why it plays that mentorship role, because when they do get exposed to it, do you want them to be exposed to it in a way that, man, we're killing everything that flies in the hole of the day. And that's what you're rubbing off on, on whoever is in the hole with you that hasn't established kind of how they want to treat the sport. But yeah, faster you can get to the sportsman stage, the better. And the reason I say it's better for, or not better, or a reason it's important for these brands to get past this limiting out stage, is because the limiting out stage in a lot of ways is a, we've talked about it before, a consumer or a taker. In these other stages, you're more in that investor, you're more in, you're gonna be giving some things back to the sport, and that's what makes it last. And if you're a brand that's raking money out of the duck hunting community through the sport, you sure as hell better start figuring out and be figuring out a way to give something back, because that's what's gonna help perpetuate it and make your brand sustainable, maybe power through the era when we do have to go to 30 days, or we do get a reduction in the limit, or whatever the scenario ends up being to salvage a significant downturn in ducks. If you're only in it for the take, your brand's probably not gonna survive it and you're gonna be dead in the water anyway, and nobody will ever remember who you were or what you did. So I'd like to see more turn the page and I hope some of them listen to this and take it to heart or have somebody that listens to it, takes it to somebody they know at a brand and say, man, we ought to shift a little bit. We can still be about killing them, but maybe let's think a little bit past that and give back a little bit in some form or fashion and giving back doesn't necessarily mean dollars, just to be clear. New for the upcoming hunting season, Tom Beckbe has released an entire line of their waterfowl gear in Mossy Oak Original Bottomland. Their tried and true jackets, vests and bags are available in this iconic pattern. Check out the inventory at www.tombeckbe.com and their brick and mortar locations in Birmingham and Oxford, Mississippi with stores coming to Tuscaloosa and Middleburg, Virginia this fall.

I feel like we may have gotten a little long-winded on this one, but I still want to put you in the hot seat for a second as if you're a guest. If you could add a stage to this, what would it be?

Yeah, it probably be, and this is the one you see, it's kind of a layup because you do see some of them that say it, but I definitely believe there should be some kind of conservation stage because the sportsman stage kind of muddles into that a little bit, but if more conservation mindset was involved in understanding, or maybe it's the education stage, maybe that's it, really understanding more about why we don't hunt in February, why we have splits and what an adequate split is. Because, for example, R1 at Christmas is not adequate, doesn't do anything for any duck on the planet, except three days they can't get shot. That's about the only thing it does for them. But it doesn't relieve pressure, it doesn't change their patterns, it doesn't rest them, anything. That's more for the human.

No, and for all this-

Christmas dinner.

Yeah, well, and for all this talk about increasing opportunity, here we are taking away opportunity from kids who are out on Christmas vacation.

And that, and that too. Yeah. But yeah, conservation slash education. I think that you kind of mailed those two, understand more about the game you're chasing and why some of these things are what they are, and that way you don't go into late January thinking, man, the ducks are just now getting here, we need to be hunting them in February. There's a reason why we don't do that. And not very many hunters know why. And that's a missing piece in these Five Stages. And I'm still learning. We have conversation with somebody every week where I learn something that I did not know. And I've been completely geeked out, nerd about ducks for a long time, and I learn some every week that goes by.

Yeah, I'm with you. Some of that stuff that you and I are starting to see, witness whatever conversation we're privy to, eye-opening and definitely educational.

Yeah, yeah. You got one? You got it?

I do, yeah, I do. I think I may have mentioned it on here before kind of jokingly. And I don't know that it would be a stage of a hunter, but I guess because it would be the end of that. I think there should be a stage for the, I'm done, I'm not going anymore. I guess at that point, you're not a hunter anymore, but man, I can't begin to count the number of quote unquote old timers. That'll be you and I before too long, Brent. But they don't go anymore. They don't, whatever, the hunting is not as good, the people, the culture, whatever, however they remember their good old days, today doesn't stack up and they just assume not go anymore. And I think that's a group that we should care about. That's part of that R3, you know, retention. And it's not just old timers. There's people that just, they get tired of the rat race, be it social media or the for real race to get there, the kicking and screaming over who's going to hunt, competing, all of it. They just, they just check out. And that's a segment of Hunter that, that we need to pay a little more attention to, I think, because it's, we don't want to lose anybody.

Well, yeah, we should all be working to figure out how we don't end up in that spot. And you could say, oh, that'll never happen to me. You're exactly right. There are people that, they've killed more ducks than the avian flu, and they've given up the sport because of where it is, from their perspective.

Right, wrong or otherwise.

That's right. It doesn't mean that they were, you know, they just didn't have a lot of success and it's, you know, wasn't that fun or whatever. We're talking people that have killed their fair share of ducks and it's just, it's not worth them to them anymore. And another component in there that you mentioned, the price of everything. I mean, everything is through the roof. All the way down to the gas you put in your boat or in your four wheeler. So, you know, some of that drives it too. They're like, man, I just, I can't justify spending this kind of money anymore. It's, it's, it's crazy. I used to lease this field for blank or whatever it is.

They went for free. They didn't lease it. They just got permission and went. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, in our area back in the 70s, you didn't lease stuff. You just, people would let you go hunt. If you knew who it was and there were ducks there, my dad, anybody in our community would just go and hunt. Yeah. Based on stories they told, kill all the green heads you wanted to. So that aspect changed. The money aspects are really good. I think to me that kind of falls into the competition side of it. But yeah, it's a, it's a real thing.

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Well, yeah, we got to figure out how to cut that off at the pass and, and not put people in a situation where they feel like this, this is just not worth it to me. Because they're not, and they're also not necessarily old timers. I have friends of mine that have significantly curled down. I have a buddy that I would put up there, very skilled duck hunter, very skilled. And he said, this is the first time I have booked, I've put in my calendar days to go to Kansas to deer hunt because I just, I'm tired of messing with some of this stuff. Think about that. I mean, and deer hunting is obviously way more hit or miss because you can sit on stand all day and not see one or a couple of days and not see the deer that you're wanting to shoot. Now you could probably shoot something, that kind of thing. But I guess that equate to being out there duck hunting and shooting a spoonbill hen or something like that. But most guys that are going to chase them like that, they're waiting for the right deer and they may strike out. But it's worth it for them to go to Kansas and miss duck season here in Arkansas because they're tired of messing with all of it. And that's alarming, very alarming.

Yeah, it is to me. And I don't know that we can ever, I don't know that anything can be done about the cost of the sport. I don't know that you can really do, I don't know that you can do a lot about the competition on private. And if you attempt to do much about competition on public, you're going to drive competition and cost on private. It's a tough, tough thing to wrangle, to really get a grasp on. But you and I have had conversations and heard some conversations. And it's a, I think, especially on public, if you think that we can control is access. Now, is that something we want to do? I don't know about that. But I know the experience should be good for anybody that gets the opportunity to go do it, whether that be an out-of-state or who gets his his license and wants to come or a resident here, who he wants to hunt to. We can manage the experience, at least the quality of it in terms of the competition side.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the price of things is just going to be what the market can bear.

That's right.

Duck hunting goes on a big, big downturn. It's in a downturn. If it goes into a big, big downturn, well, people aren't going to pay what they pay for a lease. They're not going to pay per acre what they're paying per ground. So some of those things will level out if things change. If they don't change, if we just fire through and keep going and ducks pick back up, you're just going to see the price of everything keep going too. That's in anything. That's not exclusive to duck hunting. But it's hard for some older people that have been around a while, it's hard for them to understand because it really scratches their head that some of this duck ground in Arkansas, Premier Timber Ground that's still been in some families, they got that ground by just paying the taxes on it. Because people, it wasn't worth anything to anybody. Whoever owned it, they couldn't farm it, so they just let it go and then they quit paying taxes on it. Somebody could walk in the courthouse and go, I've seen, that's what makes the, we can't go into it here because we've already probably run over time. But you can't go into the whole Otis McCollum story of how he accumulated all that ground in the Big Ditch Bottoms west of Stuttgart by identifying that Ducks went in there and kind of going, I think I can get after them in there and I'm going to go in and get 7,000 acres worth of ground under control by paying the taxes or leasing it from the family that owns it, because they're not using it. It just sits there. Now you think about the clubs that are along the Big Ditch Bottoms and it's unbelievable. We're talking $20,000 an acre ground.

Yeah.

It's nuts.

It is, yeah. I mean, and you hear the stories all over, maybe not to quite the same success, but I think my grandfather paid some back taxes of like $10 an acre on a bunch of our ground. I mean, just.

That was the thing.

Sign me up. How much can I buy? I asked him. And he, you know, his comment was like, you could have bought it all. And of course, you know, young kids, six years, seven years old, but why didn't you? Of course, it's kind of as he responded to me, he's like, I don't think I could pay for what I did buy. You know, I never thought I'd get it all paid off. Yeah. So for that guy, you know, that bought land at $10 an acre, boy, what would he think today?

Jackpot. And you see, and you, I've seen some in our area on the Grand Prairie, I've seen some families cash out. Not just because they quit duck hunting, it's reached a point in the family that they're not in anymore. Maybe it was daughters that don't hunt or they moved off, or there's all kinds of situations. You're seeing some long generational properties hit the market because the family is ready to make that grab on something that was bought and paid for a long, long time ago. The market will bear them, in some cases, probably some generational money. For sure.

Yeah. Ready to liquidate. It happens. Man, maybe you and I should write up a Stages of Landowner because that's definitely, there's a part to it for sure.

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt about it. Well, is that a wrap?

I think so. I don't know. This one may have run long, may have wasted some time, but I think it was a good one. I enjoyed it.

Yeah.

Swapping stories.

That's right. It's fun to reflect back on those times. It's also fun to look forward. I know I still look forward to duck season. I definitely don't view it as this quote unquote season of hate that you see out there. I don't hate anything about it except if it's 75 degrees throughout December or something like that. But it's fun to sit here and look forward and look forward to my kids as they move forward. Because both of them, now they really like to kill a limit of ducks, don't get me wrong, but they've started to identify, they probably jumped over more into that sportsman stage where they start kind of, or at least my older son for sure, those wheels are turning on why some of these things are what they are and wanting to have an understanding. It's different than a lot of his peers on how they view the sport and what you can and can't do and what's good practices, what's a misstep. So it's fun to see that too. So, but yeah, I still love it. Just because you don't think I do based on what I say in this podcast. I truly still love it.

Yeah, I don't be hard pressed to find somebody that cares more about it than you and I. I think that's why we're willing to ask questions and say the things we say. I mean, look, the truth of it is, our sport's not in a good spot right now. Numbers are down, habitat's down, losing owners, you name it. I mean, what did Dave Rave say last year? I mean, look at all the things that have changed for ducks and not one of them is good. Yeah. That's just the truth of it. I'm not trying to create drama or blow smoke up anybody's rear end, but they're in a lot good right now. Maybe we can change some of that, maybe we can improve some of that, maybe we can convert more people to this conservationist side of things and protect the sport we care about. That's the goal.

Yeah. That's it. That is it.

All right.

We'll sign it off with that. Thanks to our sponsors. They've been great supporting us and helping us keep this thing going. Obviously, the listeners do too. We appreciate you all and we will check you next time.

Duck Hunting Podcast, Arkansas duck hunting, waterfowl conservation podcast, outdoors podcasts