Ira McCauley, Locust Grove Duck Camp

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell, join me here to listen to those conversations. It’s Ramsey Russell, getducks.com and duck season somewhere. I’m sitting at a pretty cool camp, look around you got rusty tin wainscoting and my favorite picture in the camp, old black and white picture, probably somebody’s grandmamma now but a lady wearing nothing but hip boots and a duck cap and a shotgun right above the bar. Alright getting heavy. We sound some dude just because we went out this afternoon and shot ducks and came back and drown some ice cubes with some brown water. And my guest today Mr. Aaron McCauley cooked and reverse their [**00:02:57] rib eyes and some kind of shrimp concoction that is to die for. I had never shot a duck in the state of Missouri until this afternoon. Thanks to Ira. What’s going on Ira?
Ira: My old man, just favorite time of year.
Ramsey Russell: Favorite time of year. Tomorrow it’s going to be cold day with beautiful 65 degrees and clear. Tomorrow’s going to be cold. It’s cold out there when I went out there to let the dog out. What’s tomorrow going to bring in terms of ducks around here? What’s going on this time of year in Missouri?
Ira: Well, like I said before, in a normal year which we haven’t had one for a while. We don’t get our first good push to mallards to where we can shoot several mallards until our Veterans Day front. We’ve already had three veteran days’ fronts before now. But tomorrow, full moon, big north wind, ice cold temperatures. Low tomorrow night is supposed to be like 12°-15°.
Ramsey Russell: Maybe some snow?
Ira: Man, that’s cool, an inch of snow. It’s going to shake things up. I hate to say goodbye to early migrants, but I bet their birds are gone tomorrow and we’ll probably looking at nothing but green heads from here on.
Ramsey Russell: We’re looking forward to seeing some of those early migrants down in Mississippi. Maybe we’ll have a good opener this year for the first time ever.
Ira: You send them back our way.
Ramsey Russell: Today was awesome because we got up this morning, I drank a bunch of coffee, cleared our heads and then did a tour, a big tour, big pass of the Missouri River Bottom. That’s a pretty day, what amazing country you’ve got up here.
Ira: Man, it’s a disaster this year, Ramsey. I mean, all the flooding, water everywhere, broken levees, sand, trees. I mean some of these huge tracts farm ground are and been farmable for like, I don’t know, three years, you know, they’ve got to get major equipment in there and get all that sand removed, get all the trees removed. I mean fix the levees and the core is alright told us next year’s and be the same thing. So 2020, the cores are full of water. They said you just expect the same kind of deal next year. Devastating to the farming communities in the Midwest. I mean, the amount of water comes down that river, the levees a lot of money and be fixed and it’s probably going to be whole lot of farmers that just don’t even get a crop in, again.
Ramsey Russell: Devastating farmers, devastating for habitat managers. We’re down river of you, I’m dreading the thought of it flooding like it did last year on us down to South Delta. It’s going to really hurt from feeling to be. That South Delta goes underwater like that again, it really is. What’s going on in this part of Missouri that they’re so dead gun many ducks? What is it about this part of the Mississippi to fly away do you think?
Ira: I mean, I think that we’re just right staging area for them. You know what I mean? Like come and we’re just in a good location, there’s several rivers come together, we’ve got the food for them.
Ramsey Russell: What all rivers is that?
Ira: We’ve got the Grand River Grand, there’s two grand in Missouri. You got the South Grand down by trimming Lake and then you got the north ground which is one that comes through here. It flows into the Missouri River right around Brunswick Missouri. And so that’s kind of where our stuff is. We’re in the Golden Triangle, we’ve talked about this before, but the Golden Triangle is bordered on the north by Fountain Grove Swan Lake there about five miles apart. And then you got Grand Pass, which would be southwest of there may be as the crow flies 20 miles. Then you got Dalton cut off, which is a big oxbow lake off the Missouri River, which is another 20-15 miles east of Grand Pass. So those four areas make up the Golden Triangle and there’s just a whole lot of ducks that stage in our area. And I think that in today’s world we’re just kind of in the latitude where a lot of them come early and stay late, I mean they never leave. The last time I remember being short on ducks here, it was probably 2009. I think it was a really cold year, man. We had some huge snows and that’s the only year that I remember thinking, man, they’re just not very many ducks around.
Ramsey Russell: You know, I saw something interesting today right here down the road in Sumner, we go to this little bar, goose hunting capital of the world, which I never thought of this. And it reminded me of earlier this morning, we were somewhere off one of the river bottoms. There were some odd looking towers in the woods. I remember seeing those. What was that all about? I’ve never seen that before.
Ira: Yeah man, back in like the 70s, early 80s, the Canada or the Sumner area, swan legs zone, the whole eastern prairie population of Canada geese came here and they came like mid-October. They don’t come here anymore. I’m sure they’re at Minnesota where they went or whatever now, they don’t come here anymore and we still get plenty of hawkers, but they’re not that part of the population but they had a quota that was like 15,000 to 18,000 geese and they’d shoot them fast and you can only shoot one or maybe two some years a day. But it’s all almost all passion, not much decoying. So these guys would build blinds way up in the trees so they can catch a few extra.
Ramsey Russell: Like a deer stand.
Ira: Yeah. And I mean it was like the Wild Wild West back then, like, you can read some of the old literature and talk to some of the old guys, hell they’d cut each other’s trees down, light them on fire, it was a Wild Wild West out there.
Ramsey Russell: Like blinds on real foot like Canada geese or something like that, that’s crazy.
Ira: You know, I can’t imagine now. It’s just, now everything is about the ducks around here. Back then there was no duck hunting, it was all about the Canada geese. The wild Canada geese was like a miracle of nature. The wild Canada geese would come and man people came from all over, come shoot Canada geese right here in Sumner reserve and now everybody goes to Kansas City to shoot geese, you know what I mean? So it’s just a different world for sure.
Ramsey Russell: Change up the topic. I should have eaten good here. You told me last night, usually first night when you get to camp you cook a big old pot of gumbo.
Ira: Almost every week. Yeah because then if you’re hungry gumbo, breakfast, lunch or dinner, it doesn’t matter, you’re hungry, you come in, you freaking heat some up and you’re eating, two minutes later, you know, we’ll make it warm.
Ramsey Russell: I’m good for lunch today but there’s even having that shrimp, oh, god with that shrimp was good for dinner. Tell me how you made that.
Ira: Oh man. It’s pretty easy, so chop up an onion, put in with some butter. Put your onion in there, throw some mushrooms in there, cut some little cherry tomatoes in half, so put your onions in there and put your mushrooms in there, put some garlic in there and then right when it’s all kind of getting soft and you take, oh for the amount of stuff we’re doing tonight, tablespoon and a half. You don’t want to use too much flour, you don’t want to be too thick. And you put that in there, you’re making a roux but you’re not browning it like you do a roux a gumbo, you know, it’s a white roux.
Ramsey Russell: Thickening up a little bit.
Ira: Yeah, so you let that get hot, you make that flour hot. And then that’s what allows when you add moisture, that flour that are a little bit of particles, but it’s like popcorn. So if you get it hot and then you add your moisture, it just explodes and that’s what makes it a good thickener like that. So I put that flour in there, put my tomatoes in there and then added whole cream to it and put some old bay in there, a little bit of Tony Chachere’s in there, Cajun seasoning and then put on the whole cream. Let that all you know, let my shrimp summer in there. There’s a little thicker than I wanted to add a little milk to thin it back down some, it was that buddy. Now if I really want to get fancy, then I’ll put some cheddar cheese in there, like sharp cheddar, make some little toasted bread, eat that over toasted bread. Oh God, that sounds good.
Ramsey Russell: That sounds good. If you got any left, we can eat that for breakfast tomorrow.
Ira: Yeah, we’ll eat some. Yeah. And then the other thing, like at home, we grow lavender in our garden and I’ll take that lavender. I don’t know if you guys have never done it, but lavender with fish or any kind of seafood is unbelievable.
Ramsey Russell: I have never had lavender. I don’t think I’ve ever used it as an ingredient.
Ira: Oh man, that’s good. Yeah.
Ramsey Russell: Really?
Ira: Yeah. With seafood, it’s really good.
Ramsey Russell: Tell me more about Locust Grove. Tell me more about your camp house here. I did not realize it’s been around so long but this was like a proving ground of Moammar[**00:11:59]. I did a lot of equipment test out there we hunted this evening.
Ira: Oh yeah, so there’s a ton of history at our little camp here. I mean this was before we had a large rap tap flats where clients stayed here. My dad cooked at our house here. When we first bought this house, it was moved here in the seventies. It used to be, oh shit, 10 miles away there. Okay, so they brought it over here, they moved the whole house but the original house was from that post to that wall. That’s it.
Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah.
Ira: That was the whole house with a little bitty laundry room right there. We have screened in porch over there. So we built that bunker room back in like 2007, 2006 maybe. And Aaron and I would do continuing education hunts for veterinarians. So we would host veterinarians, drug companies would pay all the costs associated with it, would have a continuing education race, veterinarian would come and we do a little meetings where we have to have 10 hours a year. And so the costs were underwritten by the drug companies and we charged top dollar and we had great hunting, you know, and so that was kind of the start of. That got the wheels spinning on the whole habitat Platz thing. Like, you know, we’re charging major money for these guys to come, just to try to underwrite some of our expenses, you know, cover some of our costs and they’d stay in that bunker room where you’re staying. And we’d cook for them and have big time. So then we started having to have flats. Well I’d move out of here when we were hosting hunters, I’d go live in a daggum, freaking rat hole. And my dad would sleep upstairs and he was the cook, so he’d cooked for the guys and all that. We take them hunting. And then Tony had, we talked about this before but Tony had snow you steal. And so we started it all right here, yeah.
Ramsey Russell: That would have been in 2000.
Ira: Would have been, we built our lodge in 2009. So the years before that, so 2006 – 2007 – 2008.
Ramsey Russell: The place really does have a lot of history and shows.
Ira: Oh yeah. And then on the Moammar side. Yeah, man. So like when we went to the ground today and you were looking out over that big flood of bottom up, a lot of his public ground, right? All walk in hunting. So I mean, I wanted to build some tools that would make it easier for me to get on my crap out there. Making a more enjoyable hunt, more fun. Like tonight we were hunting, we’re freaking win and bringing buckets were on her knees and stuff. No man, I want to sit there and I want to be able to see what was going. I want to watch those birds. I want to take in the whole experience and shoot them close. And so that’s why we started building those boats and all the other stuff was so that we could have go to public ground and really excel on me just freaking, they have a great experience on public ground and be comfortable in these situations that were difficult situations. I mean, going in, get away back in there and then hunting and cover that was pretty poor a lot of times, but Locust Grove allowed us to really home some of that stuff because I mean, we have a lot of ducks here, we can come and go as we please, we can take a ranger out, we can do it, just a lot of the headaches of some of the public stuff set getting up to in the morning, heck, I’m going, I’m going to 5:30 or like today, we don’t even hunt until this afternoon. So it just allowed us to do a lot of stuff, you can’t fly drone on public ground. I mean we put that drone up there and see, okay, what’s this look like, what’s that look like, what’s the guy sitting on a bucket look like and all that stuff, you know, and so we just did a whole lot of our product testing right here on where we’re hunting sacrament on luck scrub.
Ramsey Russell: That was a heck of a hunt. You know, we walked in and I mean, mallards was right out there we’re hunted down south and it had been 2000 or 3000.
Ira: Apparently to damn many because they kicked her ass.
Ramsey Russell: Oh boy, no to sell 35 decoys and 300 calling to them, not having much sweet talk. It was very, very difficult, but they were such a tease. They would act like they were listening. And then right before they got into the strike zone they would just say screw you and they will back off into the flight and go land. We’ve done a great shoot, I thought. I wish when those 150th parade teal was coming over and you were trying to kill those mallards. I wish I just jumped up, started shooting.
Ira: You did.
Ramsey Russell: Well, I did the first time. But I felt embarrassed enough. I didn’t do it the second time, y’all started catching up, wouldn’t you?
Ira: Yeah.
Ramsey Russell: That was a good, really good hunt. We had a good time this afternoon.
Ira: Yeah, we had a couple that did good at. Got a little variety pack, I mean it was a beautiful afternoon to be out there. That’s for sure. The wind, the game weather, man, it sounds very good Wednesday afternoon, I mean there is a feather would have dropped straight down until about there then, you know.
Ramsey Russell: The little dog cash did really, really good. You said that was her seventh hunt and I was just astounding, rock steady. She marked birds in the front and the back because nothing really just got right where you want them. But I was very impressed. I mean I would be very pleased my little dog was half that good.
Ira: Yeah. Thanks man. She’s doing excellent. I had the Higman boys here last week and you know my old dog Sadie died. I was like, oh, my gosh. I mean I had no idea what to expect. I mean I don’t know if she’d break if she wouldn’t go. I mean she never hunted before. I know, it might not even pick up a duck and she had great so she didn’t break for five days. Fifth day she broke. Oh, abducted and landed right in front of her there. We didn’t shoot it. And she took off and I just kind of shocked, you know, I’m scrambling around. She was already there. So I was like, all right, well I’ll be ready next time. So the next upcoming, I said, you shoot this duck. I’m having finger on the button. So sure enough, he shot and she broke man, I hit that button, she back in that rig lab and I was like, we haven’t had any breaking as said.
Ramsey Russell: I was unbelievably impressive how she performed this evening. And she’s such a happy dog. It’s just, you can train a dog, but you just can’t, good dogs are just born who they are. You know what I’m saying. I mean, you can train a dog, but I don’t want to get you so far. Dog got to have that kind of attitude.
Ira: Yeah. And you know like tonight, I mean she’s so fun to have a young dog because you see all the light bulbs coming on. So like her, definitely her weakest point has been that, you know, everything’s been taught. So like you’re not really teaching them to use their nose so much when you’re training them, like, okay, here’s how to go back, here’s how to go over, here’s how to do and swim by and not cheat the bank or whatever, but they’ve got to learn a lot like how to hunt dead on their own. You know what I mean?
Ramsey Russell: How to find that bird?
Ira: Yeah. And so she didn’t have any experience doing that really, you know. So like in the beginning, I mean she swam right past the duck, she’s checking every decoy, you know, going up and bumping it and oh, that’s not duck all that. But I was watching tonight and she’s really starting to figure out how to use her nose. Man, she get down when a quarter. Like even if we had a couple strong cripples that I didn’t shoot just because I wanted her to like find them, you know what I mean? And figure it out. So I was watching her, every day she figures out a little bit more how to use her nose and how to be a duck dog. I mean, you can train them a lot of stuff but then some of that stuff, it’s just experienced man, they just got to figure it out. So it’s fun watching all that stuff light up.
Ramsey Russell: Are you a mallard purist?
Ira: Oh hell no, God no, absolutely not. I’ll shoot anything. I’ll shoot the ring neck. I don’t care.
Ramsey Russell: Next duck over the decoys.
Ira: Yeah, like tonight, the only reason I didn’t shoot when you shot at those teal was there were so many ducks in there. I just kind of wanted them to settle just a little bit before it ripped into some but God no, I’ll shoot anything. Yeah. Honestly, I embrace the variety because so much our season, we don’t have it. I mean like the majority of our season all we are shooting is mallards. It’s like if I see an odd duck, I don’t care what it is, you’re going to shoot it because you’re probably not get another chance.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Looking at your logbook tonight. That’s what you were saying about this time last year after this point after this front, this Veterans Day front really all just kind of settled in the mallard limits. Not much else.
Ira: Yeah. I mean, you’re hoping to get an odd duck.
Ramsey Russell: Don’t come in that far patch, I guess I could suffer through shooting nothing but mallards.
Ira: Yeah, I mean I love shooting mallards but I mean, I’ll shoot anything, I don’t care who the merganser, it doesn’t matter me, Joe gets so mad, I shoot all that stuff, he’s like, what that’s disgusting. Why would you shoot that? That is disgusting. I’m like hell, send me another disgusting when I pull the trigger. No shit, no.
Ramsey Russell: No. It’s a pretty darn and I’m looking forward to hunting in the morning, I really am. It’s just the opportunity to hunting in snow and I hope that front will come on in.
Ira: Well they’re still saying it’s a snow hunt, blow. And something’s going to change man, we got a full moon, I mean tomorrow hundred percent full moon day, it’s the veteran day front. I mean it’s always a big mover man. I mean things change on that Veterans Day front. This year we’ve had several fronts and the ducks have been early again. But we’re going to pick up much mallards I’m sure. And probably some geese, you know, I haven’t seen the geese at all. Yeah, I mean our biggest problems can be carried out where we want to go.
Ramsey Russell: We want them all over the bottom of day. And I didn’t see any geese but I did see, I saw more swans than I saw geese.
Ira: Yeah. And there’ll be a ton of them coming. They usually don’t get here until, well we’ll start, I mean we have 500 crossed road by thanksgiving. So what do we see today? 40 – 50 something like that.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, at least.
Ira: There’ll be a bunch more showing. I would expect to see some geese migrating tomorrow. We just need to figure out if we want to hunt like a big migration spread, like the big black spread, bunch honker decoys, mallard decoys, full bodies all out there in a zero grade pit, or we want to go to heaven, shoot them there, you know. So I might count my chickens before they’re hatched. But it does make a difference on time. We go that piddle, takes a little bit set up. We go to having all we do is walk in there 2.5 minutes before shooting time, press play and start blowing your duck hole.
Ramsey Russell: It’s kind of hard to beat that, you know. Barry and I are just along for the ride wherever you decide we’re happy, we’re happy campers.
Ira: Yeah, it’ll be fun either way. Even if we, in there have been days where I thought, man, tomorrow’s the big day, we get a huge migration. Sometimes, if it’s been like stale and you just get little bitty western north wind, man, holy crap, here they come. But other times when you’ve had several strong fronts in a row, you get to know when it’s like, well tomorrow’s going to be the day and then nothing really happens, you know what I mean? But I do think with full moon, the time of the year and the intensity of this front, I think tomorrow will be a big game changer.
Ramsey Russell: I think it is, I just stepping out a little while ago, the temperatures drop, the winds picked up big time, but when we expect this afternoon is finally blowing out there. So I think it’s 6.5.
Ira: It wouldn’t have been fun to wait another week or 10 days for, we’ll take it tomorrow. That’s fine.
Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, I’ll be happy tomorrow. Money teachers both get sure enough cold. You better keep this water open up here, you think.
Ira: Oh yeah, I mean we got with, well like, well discharges enough to hunt. It’s not like you’re going to have hundreds of thousands of birds sitting in your daggum. I see that hole, for God’s sakes. I do think that’s common misconception in the south. They’re like, well, hey, they’re delaying the migration with, I see, is that, that’s absolutely not the case. You know, you might be able to kill a couple of ducks overnight.
Ramsey Russell: Right. It’s just enough open to keep the decoys floating to keep them moving.
Ira: Keep you clean hole, you know, but nothing lives there. But you know, it’s just, it’s the time of the year. Like I keep having to remind myself, even though we’ve had so many ducks here. I mean I’d still, you know, the rhythm of the migration always kind of wants to be the same. You know, you got your calendar migraters, migrate on the calendar. You got your weather migraters, migrate on the weather. So I’m sitting here and I’m thinking, okay, we got a bunch of mallards around and blah blah blah, but we still don’t have any geese, so that’s normal. We had a bunch go through early. They never stop. They just leave, they go straight to the Arkansas, Louisiana.
Ramsey Russell: You said that day you said it was almost like a two stage goose migration that the snow special. The first initial push will just pass on through.
Ira: Yeah, they might stop.
Ramsey Russell: In your case, later birds.
Ira: They’re the late birds and ones that wait here.
Ramsey Russell: And they will stay here?
Ira: Yeah. They don’t leave.
Ramsey Russell: Backs and snow [**00:25:24].
Ira: Yes.
Ramsey Russell: And canvas.
Ira: Yes.
Ramsey Russell: They’re not something.
Ira: Yeah
Ramsey Russell: I think it would be nice to me to come up here one day if those swans keep building up and they start having a swan season.
Ira: Man, I would sure think so. I remember back 20 years ago you might see 5 or 10 trumpeter swans in a year and it was like, oh, golly we saw pair trumpeter swan today, it was so cool, bye bye. And now I mean they’re literally everywhere like, when I could go for a drive and a three square mile area from here and see 1000 trumpeter swans.
Ramsey Russell: I wonder where they come from, maybe Minnesota.
Ira: I don’t know man, there’s a bunch of.
Ramsey Russell: I’ve actually heard Minnesota maybe opening a swan season because they’ve got so many now, that’s just up to fly away. When did y’all season end up here? Because you know it’s like in my mind sitting back home, I don’t think Missouri being a long ways away, but I’m 10, 11 miles north from Brown, Mississippi. And you’re staying, how late y’all stay open up here?
Ira: So we hunt, so like our lodge here where we’re sitting right now is in the north zone, okay. And so we’ll close, oh I don’t know around the first of the year, maybe a little bit after. And then we’re with our lodge at the grand, it’s in the middle zone. So this year it’s going to close 12 days later than that. So it will close like you know, mid-January 12, 15, somewhere in there. You have a little five day split. They open a week later, they have five day split, so.
Ramsey Russell: A boot hills must be another zone altogether.
Ira: Well the boot hills, weird man, the boot hill, most of the boot hills in the middle zone. So they opened Saturday, but there’s a very small part of it’s in South Zone. And the South zone goes until the very end. It goes till whatever it is, January 30 or something right around there.
Ramsey Russell: I appreciate you having me up here and I appreciate you talking about duck hunting duck camp. Everybody is listening to the innovative podcast. I’ve learned a ton about you, listen to that podcast, participate myself, I learned a ton more just being up here with you. But I just want to have a good duck hunt camp visit with you. That’s what it’s all about.
Ira: I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we’re not as drunk as we were last night, goddamn.
Ramsey Russell: We might remember this in the morning.
Ira: Shit! I hope so.
Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening. I’ve been with Ira McCauley up here in some of the Missouri. Check it out @iramomarsh on Instagram. Check it out @ramseyrussellgetducks. Again, thank you all for listening.