Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
Speaker 1: wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
Speaker 1: conserving both. Big shout out to onex Hunt for their
Speaker 1: support of this podcast. I'm your host of Lake Pickle.
Speaker 1: On this episode, we're going back to a topic that
Speaker 1: we recently discussed on this show, the notable decline of
Speaker 1: wintering mallards in the lower portion of the Mississippi Flyway.
Speaker 1: We just did an episode on this back in December,
Speaker 1: and it got quite a bit of feedback, so much
Speaker 1: so that it's earned itself another look, which is great.
Speaker 1: And when we dive back in this time, we're going
Speaker 1: to be hearing about this subject from folks just like you.
Speaker 1: The hunters, the duck stamp holders, the folks that are
Speaker 1: out there in the marshes and muddy backwater every single
Speaker 1: chance they get. The folks that love to duck hunt
Speaker 1: more than they love the next breath they breathe. It's
Speaker 1: time to learn what those folks think of all this.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in before we meet our first diehard duck hunter.
Speaker 1: Allow me to set the stage a bit. The format
Speaker 1: of this episode is going to be a bit different
Speaker 1: than many of the other Backwoods University episodes that you
Speaker 1: may have heard in the past. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and say I can't take credit for this idea.
Speaker 1: Steve Ronella actually prompted me to do this before we
Speaker 1: ever officially launched this show. He called it Bar Biology,
Speaker 1: and the premise was to go around to local hangout
Speaker 1: spots for hunters and get their honest opinions on different
Speaker 1: sorts of wildlife issues, deer management, wild turkey declines, law
Speaker 1: or regulation changes, or in this case, the decline of
Speaker 1: the Mallard duck. And while I didn't go to any
Speaker 1: bars for these interviews, Mom, just so you know, I
Speaker 1: did seek out ardent duck hunters that love waterfowl and
Speaker 1: love hunting them. Some of these folks I've known for
Speaker 1: a long while, and some of these folks I met
Speaker 1: for the first time the day we were court of
Speaker 1: the interview. Hearing from a wildlife biologist is great, and
Speaker 1: believe me, if you continue to listen to this show,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear from more of them. But I also
Speaker 1: think it's extremely important to hear what the average hunter thinks,
Speaker 1: the citizen scientist, the common man. What does he have
Speaker 1: to say what does he thinks going on? What's their
Speaker 1: opinions based on their experience out there? Well, let's find out.
Speaker 1: Our first duck hunter has been hunting in the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Delta for decades, and while I had not had the
Speaker 1: pleasure of meeting him until this interview, I had heard
Speaker 1: of him in several duck hunting circles. His name is
Speaker 1: Jim Cruz. He's a lifelong duck hunter and an author
Speaker 1: of a book called Amid the Cypress. I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: Jim's office and on the walls hang several framed pictures
Speaker 1: of successful duck hunts that took place throughout the years.
Speaker 1: I want to start this conversation off hearing about one
Speaker 1: of these very photos. What about this one right here,
Speaker 1: the top one on the on you right.
Speaker 2: That top right, Yes, sir, that was just for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: Remember that was opening day of two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: That's a picture of my wife and me and my
Speaker 2: dad and one of our girlfriends were along and we
Speaker 2: had killed a limit of mallards and gadwalls in very
Speaker 2: short order.
Speaker 1: That looks like a pretty great hunt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a super hunt. My dad was a
Speaker 2: passionate sportsman, he grew up in a time when duck
Speaker 2: hunting really was the hunting that was available. He lived
Speaker 2: in Memphis, hunting the Mississippi Delta in eastern Arkansas both
Speaker 2: and that's what he did growing up, And by the
Speaker 2: I guess the nineteen sixties, he had gained access to
Speaker 2: some of the property along the Mississippi River that we
Speaker 2: still hunt today. Well, as I grew older, I had
Speaker 2: a friend move in next door. He was a little
Speaker 2: bit older than me. He was old enough to drive.
Speaker 2: I wasn't, but he was nice enough to tag along
Speaker 2: with a younger or a little younger guy tag along
Speaker 2: and hunt. He loved a duck hunt, so I got
Speaker 2: into that. So we spent many, many, many years hunting
Speaker 2: ducks together, and other things too, but tons of duck hunt.
Speaker 1: Right, So you're pretty much whole origin of duck hunting
Speaker 1: started in the Mississippi Delta.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, the great majority in Mississippi Delta.
Speaker 2: But I've hunted ducks in every flyway, Atlantic, Mississippi, Central,
Speaker 2: and Pacific. I've hunted I don't know how many states,
Speaker 2: a lot, and then several other countries as well.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Waterfolon is a big part of life for my family
Speaker 2: and me.
Speaker 1: We'd established that Jim Cruz has been duck hunting for
Speaker 1: a while, there's no question there. Before we start talking,
Speaker 1: Mallard declines, I want to get a better understanding of
Speaker 1: what duck hunting means to him.
Speaker 2: The things that still stay with me. We had, I
Speaker 2: guess my first duck hunts. My father and some of
Speaker 2: his friends had a lease on what's now the famous
Speaker 2: York Woods in Tallahatchie County, and that those are really
Speaker 2: my very first duck hunting memories. And what I specifically
Speaker 2: remember is the sound of those wings overhead, that whistling
Speaker 2: in the darkness as we waited for the sun to
Speaker 2: come up, which incidentally I can't hear anymore, but I
Speaker 2: still remember how that sounded, and the colors on those ducks.
Speaker 2: Somebody had shot a drake wigeon with that bold green
Speaker 2: iridescent stripe on his head, and I just remember picking
Speaker 2: up that duck and thinking out I was holding a miracle,
Speaker 2: and you know, as I want, but I remember that.
Speaker 2: I remember the smell of the wet burlapp that we
Speaker 2: used to camouflage the boat, smell of the outboard motor exhausts,
Speaker 2: These just things that come back to me. This was,
Speaker 2: you know, probably my first season. Yeah, stopping and getting
Speaker 2: potato logs and chicken nuggets at the gas station in Charleston.
Speaker 2: Just everything about it got to me and never got
Speaker 2: out of me.
Speaker 1: It's always fascinating to me to learn the things that
Speaker 1: stick with us so tightly that don't involve the actual hunt,
Speaker 1: like the smell of wet burlap or the brilliant colors
Speaker 1: on a duck. I feel like it's often those tiny
Speaker 1: details that add up over time and help develop the
Speaker 1: love for a particular type of hunting that I'm sure
Speaker 1: many of you can relate with. I now want to
Speaker 1: turn the conversation to what we see today. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what changes Jim has seen in the Mississippi Delta throughout
Speaker 1: his time hunting here.
Speaker 2: One of the greatest changes I've seen in the Delta
Speaker 2: is the way the land is laid out. You know,
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, we would travel Highway forty
Speaker 2: nine or Highway sixty one, depending on where we were
Speaker 2: going to go hunting, and one of my favorite things
Speaker 2: to do was look for ducks out in the fields,
Speaker 2: and I knew where every wetland was on every highway,
Speaker 2: whether they were permanent wetlands or femeral wetlands that were
Speaker 2: just low places out in fields that would flood if
Speaker 2: you got a good rain. Those are mostly gone now
Speaker 2: and you don't see the ducks on the landscape that
Speaker 2: you used to back in those days. And that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's just a product of more efficient farming practices and
Speaker 2: land leveling, and you know, goodness those I can't blame
Speaker 2: a farmer for wanting to get water off his fields
Speaker 2: so he can have them ready to plant in the springtime.
Speaker 2: But it has changed the landscape for the water. So
Speaker 2: that's a big change. I think we all read these
Speaker 2: statistics that say numbers of duck hunters are in decline. I,
Speaker 2: based on my anecdotal observations, have a hard time believing
Speaker 2: that it just seems more popular now, which is not
Speaker 2: a bad thing. I mean, it's an activity that I
Speaker 2: sure love and I can understand how people are attracted
Speaker 2: to it. But again, I read the numbers that say
Speaker 2: hunter license sales are constantly declining, so I don't know
Speaker 2: how to reconcile those with what I see. I just
Speaker 2: make that observation, right, So that's a big change. Another
Speaker 2: one that I've seen them in my own lifetime in
Speaker 2: a big way is to change migration patterns of geese,
Speaker 2: snow geese, and specklebellies, to be precise. When I was
Speaker 2: in high school, it was a big deal for us
Speaker 2: to see a flock of snows or specs. And I
Speaker 2: was hunting all over eastern Arkansas northwest Delta, and if
Speaker 2: I saw a flock of snows on the ground, I
Speaker 2: would actually put a line in my journal noting that fact.
Speaker 2: That's how special that was. And I don't know how
Speaker 2: many trips we made a bunch to Texas to go
Speaker 2: hunt snows and specs in Little Canada's Richardson's Canada's. The
Speaker 2: limit on them was five light geese and two dark geese.
Speaker 2: At that time, we would go down there for that purpose.
Speaker 2: In Texas was the promised land for geese. At that time,
Speaker 2: it looked like the Jonesboro, Arkansas area does now. So
Speaker 2: the geese migration has changed drastically from what I understand,
Speaker 2: and they just don't really get down there southwest of
Speaker 2: Houston in any significant numbers anymore. They've moved northward. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's changed, and it raises the worry that what
Speaker 2: other northward shifts are going to happen with waterfowl. That's
Speaker 2: no secret. That's a big topic among a lot of
Speaker 2: duck hunters, is or flyway patterns shifting.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that mallards have been declining
Speaker 1: down here over the past couple of years? Do you
Speaker 1: think there's less mallards that make it down here.
Speaker 2: I don't have a good answer for that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I know people who are killing mallards just like they
Speaker 2: always did, and I know others who are saying they're
Speaker 2: just not here like they used to be. So I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to dodge the question, but I just I
Speaker 2: don't have a pad answer for that one. I will
Speaker 2: tell you this. I have a really good friend who
Speaker 2: lives over in Cameron Paris, Louisiana, which historically, I don't
Speaker 2: know if it still is, but historically was the number
Speaker 2: one county in the United States as far as duck kill,
Speaker 2: and back in time when he started duck hunting back
Speaker 2: in the eighties or early nineties, they killed tons of mallards,
Speaker 2: tons of pintails, tons of specklebellies. I've hunted down there
Speaker 2: now five consecutive opening days and I've seen two mallards
Speaker 2: and all those trips, a little handful of pintails and
Speaker 2: a few specks here and there. Now they still get
Speaker 2: plenty of gadwalls, plenty tel spoons, but they don't the
Speaker 2: mallards and the pentails just don't get there in any numbers.
Speaker 2: And of course that's a lot of folks over there
Speaker 2: rightfully upset about.
Speaker 1: That's the big question mark, you know, like, what is
Speaker 1: it's causing that? Right, That's what a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: and even the folks and I'm talking about personally here,
Speaker 1: I've had. You know, some folks, they'll get angry when
Speaker 1: you start talking different theories. And from what I have deduced,
Speaker 1: even the folks that get angry, sometimes they get angry
Speaker 1: with me if I share an opinion, I have to
Speaker 1: do something like, look, these guys. One thing we have
Speaker 1: in common. They love waterfowl. They love to duck hunt.
Speaker 1: So even what about it, when they get angry, it's
Speaker 1: coming from a good place, and I can appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's why again it's like I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I've heard from the biologists, and so I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to gather opinions. What do you think's going on? You know,
Speaker 1: but in your opinion, there's no right or wrong answer,
Speaker 1: it's just what do you think is happening.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say this, this flooded corn phenomenon is not
Speaker 2: something that's been going on for decades and decades on
Speaker 2: a widespread basis, And that is the huge ticket item.
Speaker 2: Are all these private flooded corn reservoirs significant enough to
Speaker 2: affect migration? I have friends who have some, and I've seen,
Speaker 2: you know, the roost flights there, and you wonder, are
Speaker 2: all these ducks coming in here? Ducks that used to
Speaker 2: go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was told. Well, I know that there are a
Speaker 2: huge number of duck clubs up in the Saint Louis area.
Speaker 2: That's a very historic duck hunting area where the I
Speaker 2: think it's a Missouri and the Mississippi come together. And
Speaker 2: from what I understand, every club plant's corn. And one
Speaker 2: logical conclusion is that if you have thousands of acres
Speaker 2: of corn, you could affect the migration to some degree.
Speaker 2: So for what it's worth, I know in one of
Speaker 2: your prior podcast episodes, you'll touched on the global warming
Speaker 2: issue a little bit and made me think I really
Speaker 2: ought to take the time to go back through my journals,
Speaker 2: which go back all the way to nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: and I have every hunt written down from then to now,
Speaker 2: and I would be able to tell you the days
Speaker 2: we were frozen up on a day to day, year
Speaker 2: to year basis. That would be It would be interesting
Speaker 2: to look at that and see what truth was versus
Speaker 2: remembered perception. Sure, we've had very hard freezes in the
Speaker 2: last few years, just like the ones that everybody remembers
Speaker 2: in the good old days. So you know, by the
Speaker 2: same token, I hadn't broken any ice this year. We've
Speaker 2: had a lot of cold days, but I hadn't had
Speaker 2: to break ice yet.
Speaker 1: What about locally, You know, you've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time hunting around the Mississippi Delta, even between you know,
Speaker 1: your family land that you still hunt to, maybe some
Speaker 1: other local places around there. What have you seen Have
Speaker 1: you seen any changes over the years through there abound
Speaker 1: abundance of mallards.
Speaker 2: I would say our mallards have pretty much stayed about
Speaker 2: the same now. Number wise, they're up and down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, some years are better than others that's just
Speaker 2: duck hut. But percentage wise, I think our mallards about
Speaker 2: like they always have been. Personal observation on specific places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't go out and just there are
Speaker 2: no mallards. Yeah, some days there may.
Speaker 3: Not be mallards. But overall, if.
Speaker 2: I look across the course of a season or ten seasons,
Speaker 2: I'd say percentage they're about the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like hearing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because again, some folks that you know, they're ready
Speaker 1: to wave a red flag like, yeah, this is bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that, and I know people I have
Speaker 2: friends who who feel that way.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the future of duck hunting.
Speaker 1: Do you think we have an optimistic future?
Speaker 2: I think we have to be optimistic. If we're not,
Speaker 2: what do we have left?
Speaker 1: I like that answer.
Speaker 2: You know, I can say for myself, as long as
Speaker 2: I am able and have the opportunity to hunt those ducks,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be going out there and trying for them.
Speaker 2: My approach has always been if I'm not here in
Speaker 2: this office behind this desk and duck seasons open, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be hunting ducks. And it's been that way for decades. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and without regard to the weather. I'll be out there
Speaker 2: every second I can get there.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, speaking candidly here, this was such a
Speaker 1: fun interview. I love hearing from guys like Jim. You
Speaker 1: can hear the deep appreciation and respect for waterfowl and
Speaker 1: waterfowl hunting in everything that he said. How cool would
Speaker 1: it be to go back and look through some of
Speaker 1: those duck hunting journals he mentioned that go all the
Speaker 1: way back to nineteen seventy six. I also was interesting
Speaker 1: by some of the potential factors he listed off for
Speaker 1: what could be affecting these negative changes in hunting quality
Speaker 1: or mallard abundance. Changes in agricultural practices, whether potentially or
Speaker 1: the perceived boom of flooded unharvested corn. That is definitely
Speaker 1: a hot topic these days, and I have my own
Speaker 1: opinions on that, but this episode is not about my opinions.
Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed hearing from mister Jim Cruise.
Speaker 1: I know I sure did. But now it's time to
Speaker 1: move on to our next duck hunter. My dear friend B. C. Rogers,
Speaker 1: a lifelong duck hunter owner of Wren and Ivy sporting
Speaker 1: and travel gear and an all around good guy. How
Speaker 1: old were you when you started duck hunting.
Speaker 4: The answer to that question, there wasn't a beginning, because
Speaker 4: my mom and dad have always duck on it, and
Speaker 4: they duck on it together when I was born, and
Speaker 4: but you know, starting in the seventies and so we don't.
Speaker 4: People have asked me that question a lot of times.
Speaker 4: I don't have any memory of not going.
Speaker 1: You don't really remember life before duck hunt No, I
Speaker 1: mean I remember when I was able to take my gun,
Speaker 1: a gun myself.
Speaker 4: I was seven, a single shot four ten. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: took a BB gun before that. But I don't ever
Speaker 4: remember not going to the blind Yeah, and my kids
Speaker 4: running ivy, don't. I mean, I mean, I literally have
Speaker 4: pictures of them where you're they're in Papoosa's. Yeah. I
Speaker 4: have also a picture of Wren. She's the oldest, and
Speaker 4: she's in that baby beyorn thing you wear in the front,
Speaker 4: zipped up in my hunting jacket. Of course I can't
Speaker 4: shoot because I got a babe with like little camouflage
Speaker 4: cups on her ears, you know, like yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: and the same way. Of course, back then, my dad
Speaker 4: was a smoker when I was a kid, and he
Speaker 4: would tear off cigarette butts and stick them in me
Speaker 4: in my sister's ears because they weren't the earplugs like
Speaker 4: he would tell, smoke a cigarette and tear the filters
Speaker 4: off and stick them in our ears.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't have I think I probably killed my
Speaker 4: first duck when I was but I don't have a
Speaker 4: memory of starting hunting.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to assume here would that have
Speaker 1: taken place that all that would that have been majority
Speaker 1: happened in the Mississippi Delta.
Speaker 4: No, one hundred percent of it?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, at our family place that we've had my entire life. Yeah,
Speaker 4: in the blind that my mother and father and I
Speaker 4: will go to tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And they're seventy eight and seventy six.
Speaker 1: That's pretty dad gum awesome. To start duck hunting so
Speaker 1: early that you can't really remember the beginning, and the
Speaker 1: memory of his dad using cigarette butts his ear plugs
Speaker 1: for them as kids, BC taking his own kids to
Speaker 1: duck hunt, his infants and papoosas and Camo earmuffs. And
Speaker 1: to know that he took his parents at age seventy
Speaker 1: eight and seventy six the day after I recorded this
Speaker 1: interview with him. Man, what a story. This guy has
Speaker 1: some history with duck hunting, with the Mississippi Delta and
Speaker 1: with their family hunting land. Let's dive in more. People
Speaker 1: talk about Man, the duck hunting in the seventies and
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. Talk to me about some of that,
Speaker 1: some of the ebb and flows that you saw with
Speaker 1: the changes in numbers perceived from where you were hunting
Speaker 1: that spot.
Speaker 4: What's interesting with my life as a waterfowler is that
Speaker 4: because my parents took us as babies and little bitty kids,
Speaker 4: and we were always at the camp our whole life,
Speaker 4: my sister and I. I mean I was there for
Speaker 4: the end of the point system. I was there for
Speaker 4: three ducks and thirty days. I was there for the
Speaker 4: conversion between lead and steel. I like to think of
Speaker 4: myself as not a very old guy. I was there
Speaker 4: for those things and got to see him, and it
Speaker 4: gives me an interesting perspective when people when we have
Speaker 4: a little bit of a drop in population like we're
Speaker 4: going through right now. I don't get too worked up
Speaker 4: about that because a few years of good conditions in
Speaker 4: the breeding grounds and it comes right back. And I
Speaker 4: was there to see that happened. I was there to
Speaker 4: see my dad and his buddies in the early eighties
Speaker 4: not realized that it was a resource that you could overutilize.
Speaker 4: They didn't know. You know, these guys love ducks more
Speaker 4: than anybody, but they definitely shot over the limit and
Speaker 4: they didn't realize it could go away. And then when
Speaker 4: the drought happened in the late eighties in the early nineties,
Speaker 4: I guess, and you know, y'all can fact check me,
Speaker 4: but that was my memory of when it happened. I
Speaker 4: saw them realize, wait a minute, this can all go away.
Speaker 4: And I saw them get really dialed in on we're
Speaker 4: not going to overutilize this resource, and we're going to
Speaker 4: do everything we can to send money where ducks are hatching,
Speaker 4: and we're going to take care of them when they
Speaker 4: get here. I think that happened all over the continent,
Speaker 4: and it happened in that age group. You know, those
Speaker 4: guys are now all dying, but those guys that are
Speaker 4: in their seventies, sit them down and ask them about
Speaker 4: it is, they'll tell you it'll go away and a
Speaker 4: lot of people. Another thing I saw in the late eighties,
Speaker 4: I guess lots of people quit duck hunting. You know,
Speaker 4: when it went to three ducks in thirty days, there
Speaker 4: were a lot of guys you know that were you know,
Speaker 4: they were duck shooters, you know, you know, they like
Speaker 4: to eat ducks, they like to make gumbo, they go
Speaker 4: shoot some ducks. Those guys all quit, they went to
Speaker 4: deer hunting. As I'm telling you that, I'm thinking of
Speaker 4: all these guys that used to hunt with us, that
Speaker 4: they just quit duck hunting and it wasn't worth the time, effort,
Speaker 4: or money to go, you know, shoot one duck, sure,
Speaker 4: two mallards, you know, for a period of time there.
Speaker 4: I hope that we don't get back to that, and
Speaker 4: I think it's really important that we do everything we
Speaker 4: can to keep from getting back to that, because we'll
Speaker 4: lose all of this great community. I say, we'll lose them.
Speaker 4: We lost them before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you just don't want let that happen again.
Speaker 4: I really don't.
Speaker 1: What do you remember the Delta looking like back then? Oh?
Speaker 4: Man, I'm so glad you asked me that question. So
Speaker 4: the amount of land that is cleared Now you just
Speaker 4: can't imagine how much less it was. We're talking about Mississippi,
Speaker 4: how many more rice fields there were, and how fewer
Speaker 4: cornfields there were. Of course there was no maybe there was,
Speaker 4: but I'd never seen a precision leveled field. So there
Speaker 4: was grass and crop that didn't get harvested in every field.
Speaker 4: There were little swags of water that had grass, and
Speaker 4: it was a part of the field that they couldn't plant,
Speaker 4: so grass grew up in it, or they couldn't harvest,
Speaker 4: so there was standing crop in it. And there was
Speaker 4: just little pockets of habitat everywhere. If you drive through
Speaker 4: the Delta yesterday, before this good rain that we're finally getting,
Speaker 4: it looked like a moonscape. Now I've been driving around
Speaker 4: for the last two months and every field you passed
Speaker 4: by it looks like a Walmart parking lot. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's flat, there's zero water. Great for the farmers, and
Speaker 4: certainly I understand why we do that, But the Delta
Speaker 4: looked so different twenty five years ago and even fifteen
Speaker 4: years ago than it does today. And that's not even
Speaker 4: talking about what it looked like in the eighties. There
Speaker 4: was just a lot of.
Speaker 1: Habitat so you think, and this may seem like an
Speaker 1: obvious question, but I just I don't want to assume anything.
Speaker 1: So would you think that we have a habitat problem
Speaker 1: down here?
Speaker 4: We have a continuity of habitat problem? In my opinion,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of people who are spending a lot
Speaker 4: of money and effort to make their be habitat, much
Speaker 4: more so than there used to be. Duck hunters used
Speaker 4: to be much more opportunistic. You had a bunch of
Speaker 4: land that you deer hunted and turkey hunted and duck hunted.
Speaker 4: When the water backed up into your field, then you
Speaker 4: got ducks and you shot some ducks. Now it seems
Speaker 4: that it's more focused around these habitat blocks where people
Speaker 4: are really made making it perfect for ducks, which is
Speaker 4: really great for ducks, but it doesn't have a lot
Speaker 4: of continuity across the landscape. So on a really dry
Speaker 4: year like this year, ducks are going to find those
Speaker 4: places that were able to pump water and have some food,
Speaker 4: whether they grew that food or it's some moist soil
Speaker 4: or however they do it. And ducks know God created them,
Speaker 4: so he doesn't mess up ducks. No, it hadn't rained
Speaker 4: i've got water, I've got food. There's no continuity of
Speaker 4: that habitat from here to the next place that has
Speaker 4: water and food. I'm going to stay right here. And
Speaker 4: that's why when you drive around you don't see ducks
Speaker 4: trading around because it's been so dry here. Less so
Speaker 4: in other states in the Southeast and certainly in other
Speaker 4: states of other places. But that for sure has affected
Speaker 4: this year in Mississippi. In affects mallards every year because
Speaker 4: the continuity of habitat is more spaced out, and you
Speaker 4: get these areas where there's a bunch of big landowners
Speaker 4: and WMA's that are all kind of in one area,
Speaker 4: and then that becomes the duck area. Twenty five years ago,
Speaker 4: the whole Delta was a duck area because there were
Speaker 4: these pockets. There's a tupla gum break right there, and
Speaker 4: there's a cyper slew over there, and in between them
Speaker 4: are one hundred different swags of leftover grass and crop,
Speaker 4: and the continuity is what's changed.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks would say, right now, we have
Speaker 1: a duck decline that we're going through right now. Would
Speaker 1: you agree with that?
Speaker 4: I don't think there's any way to disagree with.
Speaker 1: That, just just making sure, yeah, I making sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I am not a duck expert. Most of what
Speaker 4: I can tell you is anecdotal. Sure, it's my observations,
Speaker 4: but I don't subscribe to the idea that I can
Speaker 4: judge an entire flyway by the three thousand acres. I
Speaker 4: pay attention to my little place that I get to
Speaker 4: hunt and the three thousand acres that surround it, and
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people do that. I think
Speaker 4: that's very dangerous. But there's no question that we have
Speaker 4: a measurable percentage less ducks right now than we did
Speaker 4: at the peak, which wasn't very long ago. So something
Speaker 4: that's a challenge right now is that the young and
Speaker 4: when I say young, people who can still actively duck hunt,
Speaker 4: were duck hunting at the peak of the population, and
Speaker 4: they weren't duck hunting in the eighties and early nineties
Speaker 4: when we saw those big declines. Those people who have
Speaker 4: been here long enough to have seen the big decline
Speaker 4: and see it come back are less reactionary than these
Speaker 4: air quote newer people who started hunting at the peak
Speaker 4: of the population and now they're seeing sixty percent of
Speaker 4: that is what I'm hearing and they're thinking, oh, man,
Speaker 4: the sky is falling. I don't subscribe to that. I
Speaker 4: think that we have to continue to do the things
Speaker 4: that we're doing to make sure that when the weather
Speaker 4: can conditions cooperate in the breeding grounds, that we're ready
Speaker 4: to take care of those birds. You don't change, you
Speaker 4: make sure that you got it ready for him when
Speaker 4: they get here.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate BC's perspective and attitude here because of
Speaker 1: his literal lifetime spent duck hunting. He's seen declines before,
Speaker 1: He's seen the good and the bad. He's seen duck
Speaker 1: numbers and duck hunters go down and rally and be
Speaker 1: able to recover, and man can I sure appreciate his
Speaker 1: optimism and his message of stay the course, keep the
Speaker 1: habitat here, because when things do change back for the positive,
Speaker 1: we need to be ready. Before I wrap up with BC,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I ask him about some
Speaker 1: of the topics that you hear come up these days,
Speaker 1: the alleged shortstopping of the migration or the shifting of
Speaker 1: the migration, the flooded cornfield topic, etc.
Speaker 4: Now, certainly I hear those opinions that are not science
Speaker 4: based in many cases, what is science based is that
Speaker 4: in our lifetime the freeze line was three or four
Speaker 4: hundred miles further south than it is now, and that
Speaker 4: happened in mid December. That's not opinion. You can look
Speaker 4: it up. So when everything is frozen and covered in snow,
Speaker 4: ducks have to go past it, and when it's not
Speaker 4: frozen and covered in snow, they stay there. That duck
Speaker 4: is only going to migrate as far as he has to,
Speaker 4: and if it warms up, he'll go back. So the
Speaker 4: idea of short stopping, I think that that's people saying
Speaker 4: that they've created a lot of habitat in an area
Speaker 4: that didn't have habitat. I don't know that that is
Speaker 4: statistically true. That habitat was there, it was frozen and
Speaker 4: covered in snow. Now is there a lot more habitat
Speaker 4: throughout the flyway? That's probably true. But you have to
Speaker 4: decide as a waterfowl or do I want to kill
Speaker 4: more ducks or do I want want there to be
Speaker 4: more ducks and a healthy duck in Missouri. I'm still
Speaker 4: happy he's there. I would love to see him land
Speaker 4: in my decoys someday, But if he's not healthy, he's
Speaker 4: never going to do that, So I'm never going to
Speaker 4: be upset about somebody making happy, healthy ducks north of me.
Speaker 4: I think that's short sighted because I want there to
Speaker 4: be more ducks, and when the weather pattern changes again,
Speaker 4: which it almost inevitably will, they'll be more ducks. You
Speaker 4: don't change with the weather, keep the plan, make sure
Speaker 4: when they get here in February. It can be very
Speaker 4: frustrating for me and all of my friends when you
Speaker 4: go three weeks after the season is closed, or on
Speaker 4: Easter morning and all your duckholes are slammed full of
Speaker 4: mallards and you didn't have a great season. But I
Speaker 4: like to try to think to myself, Yeah, but they're
Speaker 4: going to be really happy and healthy when they're headed back.
Speaker 4: So it's just a mindset. If you're unhappy because they
Speaker 4: are not ducks in your specific spot, it's important for
Speaker 4: you to expand what you're looking at. Are you looking
Speaker 4: at your one duck hole that's you know, forty acres?
Speaker 4: Are you looking at your county? Are you looking at
Speaker 4: your the delta, your state, the entire Mississippi Flyway? Because
Speaker 4: what's most important is are there is there a healthy
Speaker 4: breeding population on the entire landscape. Now we can get
Speaker 4: into the venutia of why there's ducks here and not there.
Speaker 4: But the most important thing is that there are ducks.
Speaker 4: And we're still in a liberal frame work. Even though
Speaker 4: the duck numbers are down forty percent. That tells you
Speaker 4: how great it was fifteen years ago. Because we're still
Speaker 4: in the liberal framework and we're down forty percent, that
Speaker 4: says to you there are plenty of very healthy breeding
Speaker 4: population of ducks and every species, and they're gonna let
Speaker 4: us continue to hunt them. That should be more important
Speaker 4: than the forty acres.
Speaker 1: That was some good stuff, and I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: him directly here. He said, the most important thing is
Speaker 1: that there are ducks, and frankly I agree. I hope
Speaker 1: every duck hunter out there would to hear from our
Speaker 1: next duck hunter. We're gonna have to hop a state
Speaker 1: line and head over to Louisiana. Wade Shoemaker is one
Speaker 1: of those guys who can pretty much be described by
Speaker 1: how much he likes to duck hunt. And also, in
Speaker 1: the name of getting some different perspectives, I thought it
Speaker 1: would be important that we hear from a Louisiana man
Speaker 1: about this Mallard decline subject as well. Here's Wade.
Speaker 5: I would tell you that we killed more then not
Speaker 5: knowing what we were doing. I want to say more,
Speaker 5: but we killed a lot more than we should have
Speaker 5: not known what we were doing than we do now, you know,
Speaker 5: even knowing halfway what's going on. I mean, I can
Speaker 5: tell you just in the last ten years, people would
Speaker 5: call that I'm friends with it. I met over the internet,
Speaker 5: you know, for the most part, and we would compals
Speaker 5: and we met each other other places. But they wanted
Speaker 5: to come hunt and they'd never killed a Mallard or
Speaker 5: something like that, you know. And I said, well, if
Speaker 5: you ever come down, come on to go hout and
Speaker 5: we'll for sure get that, you know. Well, now I
Speaker 5: don't really tell them that anymore. I'm like, look, we'll
Speaker 5: go and we'll try, you know, but like, we don't
Speaker 5: know where the water is gonna be, we don't know
Speaker 5: what the weather's gonna be like. And used to, it
Speaker 5: didn't matter. Used to, You're gonna go shoot some, you matter,
Speaker 5: shoot a lot, but we're gonna shoot some. And now
Speaker 5: and now I don't. I mean, I'm optimistic about it,
Speaker 5: but I'm also realistic that it the likelihood of it
Speaker 5: is way way less than it used to be. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we shot, we shot some this year, a few, but
Speaker 5: like last year, year before last, we didn't hardly shoot
Speaker 5: what we did six, eight, ten years ago, you know.
Speaker 5: And this is a lake like it's a floating blind
Speaker 5: that stays there with decoys out the whole year. You
Speaker 5: basically are running traffic or waiting on a flight day,
Speaker 5: you know, and even on the days like the flight days,
Speaker 5: it's just not what it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we know that Wade has seen and felt
Speaker 1: the effects of less mallards making it down to the
Speaker 1: lower portion of the mississipp Flatway. No surprise there. I
Speaker 1: now want to know what he thinks is causing it.
Speaker 5: I think it's climate. I think it's pressure, and I
Speaker 5: think it's development. I think those are the three things
Speaker 5: that play a larger role than any of it. You've
Speaker 5: got to you know, it's not I mean, dude, we
Speaker 5: run over a snake today on the road. I asked
Speaker 5: my buddy Hunter, he's filming. We're on boat Ram two
Speaker 5: or so. We were filming and we were just going.
Speaker 5: We weren't filming at this point, but we were going
Speaker 5: on the road and Hunter was beside me, a camera guy,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, did I just run over a snake?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: I thought it was a stick and then I saw
Speaker 5: and he's like, I think you did. So we got
Speaker 5: out to look at it. Sure enough, snake and it's
Speaker 5: what January the ninth. So that plays a role.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: Birds aren't gonna come down for a summer vacation, you know,
Speaker 5: They're going to roll out and go back home where
Speaker 5: they're comfortable and do their thing or back towards that way.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 5: I think pressure is a large piece of it you've got,
Speaker 5: And this is like no shot at anybody, Like I'm
Speaker 5: not trying to knock anybody doing it because I hunt
Speaker 5: as near days as I can. Everybody does, and I
Speaker 5: can't blame them for it, you know. But on top
Speaker 5: of that, you've also got an exponent of outfitters than
Speaker 5: you did twenty years ago. I don't know about thirty
Speaker 5: there probably wasn't hardly any, you know, but now you've
Speaker 5: got them everywhere. And I get asked a lot of like, hey, well,
Speaker 5: where should I go with when I go here? And
Speaker 5: I'm like, well, dude, there's so many in that area that,
Speaker 5: like I can't I can give you a couple guys
Speaker 5: that I know, but there's so many I don't even
Speaker 5: I can't keep up with them. So and I'm just
Speaker 5: giving you a very high level of that, Like I
Speaker 5: don't want to get real granular with it, but it's that.
Speaker 5: But then also I think it's development. And I'm going
Speaker 5: to put this together, but development and lack of management,
Speaker 5: and I don't know where that blame lies, but I
Speaker 5: think that's a big part of it. And it's crazy
Speaker 5: because the development part, you can't stop. That's progress, right,
Speaker 5: Like you've got to build buildings, You've got to create jobs,
Speaker 5: you've got to keep moving things, and people build houses.
Speaker 5: There's more people than there was now and they've got
Speaker 5: to live somewhere. So I think there's a lot more
Speaker 5: concrete than there used to be. There's a lot more
Speaker 5: buildings than there used to be. And just like local
Speaker 5: i'm where I live, solar panels are a big thing,
Speaker 5: and I consider that part of development, right, I think
Speaker 5: solar panels or whatever that is, whether whatever it does,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to get into that because I don't
Speaker 5: have it. I don't know enough to talk about it, right,
Speaker 5: but I do know that it takes away from a
Speaker 5: field that birds used to go hang out in and
Speaker 5: eat and whatever they do. So that's a big part
Speaker 5: of it. And then right up the road from all
Speaker 5: these solar panels that have been put in by where
Speaker 5: I live, there's Meta just bought two thousand acres in
Speaker 5: a very important part of where birds fly over. It's
Speaker 5: a Meta AI facility. And then I was told a
Speaker 5: month or two ago that Google just put a bid
Speaker 5: in on another large piece of property over there. We're
Speaker 5: talking northeast Louisiana. Dude, ain't nothing out there, like you know,
Speaker 5: farms and all this stuff, and like lowland anyway, you
Speaker 5: get what I'm saying. So, and then the lack of
Speaker 5: management part is just like on the public land that
Speaker 5: we do hunt, you know, like Dode. We used to
Speaker 5: go hunt these holes and all these all these things
Speaker 5: at home. You go in and say, in a hole
Speaker 5: and you shot ducks because it was a hole. But
Speaker 5: now you go in those places and they're either growed
Speaker 5: up with coffee bean that you can't even get in
Speaker 5: a hole anymore, there's buck brush all over it or whatever.
Speaker 5: It is just crap, dude, Like I mean, there's a lot,
Speaker 5: a lot better agive to describe it, but to sit
Speaker 5: in the place and it's not good. There's holes that
Speaker 5: we can hunt anymore, and then there's sanctuaries or revenue
Speaker 5: no hunt zones that aren't no hunt zones anymore, or
Speaker 5: they create no hunt zones that are literally just a
Speaker 5: tennis match of just like back and forth over the
Speaker 5: hunt zone. Yeah, you know, and I'm going on a
Speaker 5: rabbit track, like I'm going like way off now. But
Speaker 5: the birds we used to hunt when you only had
Speaker 5: one part of that refuge, they had plenty of room
Speaker 5: they could hang out, but as the water rose up,
Speaker 5: it would force them to go somewhere else and use
Speaker 5: the rest of the refuge and create more opportunities for hunters.
Speaker 5: And at the end of the day, the goal is
Speaker 5: to have more ducks. But if you have people that
Speaker 5: aren't enthusiastic or excited to go hunting anymore, then you're
Speaker 5: gonna lose the funding that pays for those things that
Speaker 5: helped create more ducks. Yeah, anyway, that's a domino thing.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think it's climate, I think it's pressure,
Speaker 5: and I think it's development with lack of management. On
Speaker 5: the other side, is you've got private landowners who are
Speaker 5: managing the crap out of their stuff, and it shows
Speaker 5: like that's why they got ducks.
Speaker 1: You know. I feel like a lot of what Wade
Speaker 1: is saying aligns with what we heard from our previous guests,
Speaker 1: climate habitat losses, and he also brings up a good
Speaker 1: point about hunting pressure. Could that be a significant factor
Speaker 1: moving forward with Wade? I feel like there's one specific
Speaker 1: topic that I just have to bring up, especially with
Speaker 1: him being a Louisiana resident. Earlier this month, Louisiana Senator
Speaker 1: John Kennedy called upon the US Fish and Wildlife Service
Speaker 1: to study the impact of what he referred to as
Speaker 1: unfair legal baiting, otherwise known as a flooded cornfield and
Speaker 1: its alleged effects on waterfowl migration. Some of you have
Speaker 1: probably heard of this already because it's a hot topic
Speaker 1: right now. Want to hear Wade's take on this.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say, like I have a really hard
Speaker 5: time of telling anybody, anybody what they can do with
Speaker 5: the property they own. You can talk about flooding the
Speaker 5: corn or whatever other extreme you want to talk about,
Speaker 5: when it comes to ducks and food. You know, I
Speaker 5: have a hard time saying they can't do something on
Speaker 5: their property because they own it right now, as long
Speaker 5: as everything they're doing with whatever they're doing is legal
Speaker 5: when it comes to shooting those birds, like, don't go
Speaker 5: crazy and go over your limit every day. But if
Speaker 5: you're shooting your limit, that's why there's a limit, right,
Speaker 5: So I guess mine is if you got it and
Speaker 5: you're doing it, more power to you, Like I, you know,
Speaker 5: sure you might shoot ducks when I'm not or hold
Speaker 5: ducks when we're not, but like you're holding ducks and
Speaker 5: feeding ducks, dude, like, thank you, but they're you know.
Speaker 5: The downside is, well there's a lesson we're not gonna
Speaker 5: shoo as many because they're holding man and I don't
Speaker 5: have a problem with that. But Kennedy man and I
Speaker 5: generally like enjoy listening to him talk because I think
Speaker 5: he's one of those guys is no none sense and
Speaker 5: likes to say things. It's honestly pretty hilarious if you
Speaker 5: listen to some of the things that he lets come out.
Speaker 5: But I think he's got some people in his ear
Speaker 5: that's telling him things and he's just trying to appease.
Speaker 5: Maybe he believes it I don't know, but I think
Speaker 5: it's an appeasing thing. But also I think it's kind
Speaker 5: of short sighted. If I can say that you're looking
Speaker 5: at a thing that's been developing over thirty years and
Speaker 5: early two albums Louisiana, I was shooting three to four
Speaker 5: million birds on the harvest report, and now we're shooting
Speaker 5: under a million. That's a you know, two plus decade decline.
Speaker 5: And corn's not what caused that over two decades. There's
Speaker 5: several things that come into that come into play there,
Speaker 5: and I say, I call it short sighted because there's
Speaker 5: obviously other things. But also, man, I didn't see anything
Speaker 5: in his letter that talked about what we would do
Speaker 5: as a state to help improve what happens when we
Speaker 5: get them. If we want to force people to hey,
Speaker 5: to quit doing what you're doing because you're doing really good,
Speaker 5: we have to also say you can trust us with
Speaker 5: the resource once we get it right. And that up
Speaker 5: to the lack of management side, Like you've got saltwater
Speaker 5: intrusion down here, You've got you know, development, you've got crops.
Speaker 5: There's a bunch of sugar cane down there now, and
Speaker 5: it's like, dude, ducks don't eat sugarcane, but they did
Speaker 5: eat what was in that field before you plant sugar cane,
Speaker 5: you know. And I'm not mad at a farmer for
Speaker 5: chasing a commodity. You got to you got to get paid.
Speaker 5: I'm not, But I mean, let's let's look at ourselves first,
Speaker 5: like what can we do to be better if we're
Speaker 5: expecting these people to change what they're doing, you know,
Speaker 5: let's change what we're doing first, and then let's let's
Speaker 5: let's talk about what we can do collaboratively to make
Speaker 5: sure we all have that opportunity.
Speaker 1: Right, This topic brings out a lot of different opinions.
Speaker 1: I know that, y'all know that. I think what's important
Speaker 1: to keeping focus here is that we as a hunting
Speaker 1: community all want good duck hunting and most importantly, healthy
Speaker 1: waterfowl populations, regardless of how our opinions may differ. For
Speaker 1: our final interview of this episode, I want to introduce
Speaker 1: y'all to my good friend Jay janis a man who
Speaker 1: helds from the Mississippi Delta and loves ducks and duck
Speaker 1: dogs as much as anyone you could ever hope to find.
Speaker 1: If you hear some odd background noise during any of this.
Speaker 1: It might be because I conducted this interview in Jay's
Speaker 1: mudroom slash storage building, and the wind was blowing pretty good,
Speaker 1: and our two dogs were playing with one another while
Speaker 1: we talked. This one's as real as it gets. I
Speaker 1: talked to Jay about his early memories from duck hunting
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties, and honestly, it pretty much
Speaker 1: mirrored identically what we've heard from earlier guests. More ducks
Speaker 1: and geese around the land looked a lot different. There
Speaker 1: was more water, more habitat, colder weather. Where I want
Speaker 1: to pick up this conversation with Jay is when he's
Speaker 1: talking about a factor that we've not brought up yet.
Speaker 3: When I moved away from here eighteen nineteen years ago,
Speaker 3: I started hunting with a group of guys in that
Speaker 3: area where I moved. And the main guy who's got
Speaker 3: the land, he does it right, and he's on the X.
Speaker 3: You know, I just so fortunate that he asked me
Speaker 3: to go. And man, we we were doing very well
Speaker 3: for many, many, many many years, like when we were
Speaker 3: killing when other people weren't killing, and he had a
Speaker 3: there was a refuge not far from him.
Speaker 1: Like no hunting.
Speaker 3: You know, the government flooded up for ducks, planted corn
Speaker 3: and all that, and I'm telling you we stood on them.
Speaker 3: We had five men, we were killing five men, mount
Speaker 3: of limits. Just it was like some of mine ever seen.
Speaker 3: I've been down here. I was like, my god, we
Speaker 3: had it good out here. Yeah, that was something. And
Speaker 3: they stopped flooding that refuge. We still killed, but it's
Speaker 3: nothing like it used to be. You know, But the
Speaker 3: last several years have been tough for everybody. But they
Speaker 3: don't see the ducks. I mean, you just don't see
Speaker 3: them in the.
Speaker 1: Air they were. I mean, was there ever any clarity
Speaker 1: as to why they stopped flowing flooding that refuge.
Speaker 3: I think there's some people involved finding out what would
Speaker 3: happened and if they're going to start doing it again
Speaker 3: and all that. But I'm not involved enough in that
Speaker 3: to even know.
Speaker 1: Because well, there's talking about ducks and the state of
Speaker 1: duck cutting down here. One thing that I do stand on,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors in there right of what's
Speaker 1: causing it. And I do hear folks, because folks back man,
Speaker 1: our refuge systems are WMA's. They need to be in
Speaker 1: better shape, they need to be flooded. One thing I
Speaker 1: do say is I'm like, I agree with that, but
Speaker 1: also you got to realize if you took all the
Speaker 1: refuges in WMA's in the Mississippi Delta, you wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: don't think you'd account for ten percent of the land
Speaker 1: mass of the Mississippi Delta.
Speaker 3: However, every little bit helps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's I don't know the why. And like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm I'm a fan of most biologists. I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of our of our wildlife department. So I
Speaker 1: don't you know, I'm not trying to throw any one
Speaker 1: of the under the bus here, but because maybe there's
Speaker 1: some legitimate reasons as to why. But if it's a
Speaker 1: waterfol refuge or a waterf o WMA, if I would
Speaker 1: be starting to ask why doesn't it have water on it?
Speaker 1: As a as a resident here.
Speaker 3: You know, let's take this situation we're talking about unless
Speaker 3: and yes, you can put weather in it and everything
Speaker 3: else on the Poe chart in there, right, but to
Speaker 3: see the decline in numbers of the ducks from when
Speaker 3: that refuge was managed to when it's not, it was immediate. Really, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was an immediate decline, and that what you saw
Speaker 3: in the air, because we would have, you know, several
Speaker 3: hundred circle like this. We called it the curse because
Speaker 3: nobody wanted to be first to come down because you
Speaker 3: were field hunting, you know, and it's tough. That's a
Speaker 3: tough environment to get a big group down.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. My conversation with Jay went on for
Speaker 1: quite some time, and I wish I had time to
Speaker 1: share all of it. But he does bring up an
Speaker 1: interesting point in terms of how some of our public
Speaker 1: lands set aside for waterfowl are managed. I've seen this
Speaker 1: topic come up a lot, and could that be a factor.
Speaker 1: I don't have all the answers, but perhaps that's worth
Speaker 1: looking into. To wrap this conversation up, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go back to Jay for something I know I can
Speaker 1: always count on him for optimism.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's amazing, man, how it's changed. I just
Speaker 3: keep thinking. Man. I do know, like two years ago,
Speaker 3: when the weather got right there for just a little bit,
Speaker 3: it got right in Missouri, Arkansas. Everything it got right right,
Speaker 3: but everything in the fields were locked up, shallow water
Speaker 3: was locked up. They still come down here when the
Speaker 3: weather gets right. I saw them on the river. It
Speaker 3: was as many as I've ever seen as many I've
Speaker 3: ever seen out there. Yeah, and I mean it was
Speaker 3: just I couldn't believe it. Yeah, you know, it's got
Speaker 3: to get better. Yeah, yeah, gotta get better, you would think.
Speaker 1: But I tell you one thing that has been encouraging
Speaker 1: every one of the every one of these duck hunters
Speaker 1: that I've talked to. Everyone's acknowledged that it's not great
Speaker 1: right now, but I haven't met anybody that's been like,
Speaker 1: this is the end. We're screwed. Everyone's still holding on to.
Speaker 3: I'm a friend of mine from North Carolina. He's eighty
Speaker 3: two now or eighty one, I don't know. His name's Ritchie.
Speaker 3: He told me this a long time ago. I love
Speaker 3: that man. I started hunting with him a long time ago,
Speaker 3: another one of my best friends here, and every time
Speaker 3: we were on a bad hunter or something, he would say, Jay,
Speaker 3: hope springs eternal in a duck hunter's heart. So that's
Speaker 3: what you got, man. There's always next year. Yeah, always
Speaker 3: next year. I like that, and uh because a lot
Speaker 3: of times next year happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, next year happens. But hope springs eternal in a
Speaker 1: duck hunter's heart.
Speaker 3: That's correct, that's correct.
Speaker 1: I like that hope springs eternal in a duck hunter's heart.
Speaker 1: I'm going to hold on to that one. That's good stuff,
Speaker 1: Jay and I think we'll end on that. I want
Speaker 1: to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University
Speaker 1: as well as Bear Grease in this country life. I
Speaker 1: cannot overemphasize how much we all appreciate you tuning in.
Speaker 1: If you liked this episode, share it with a friend
Speaker 1: this week and stick around because there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: more on the way.