EP 474. Ducking Roadtrips and Red Ruddy Ducks

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I’m reaching way, I almost said Minnesota, to Michigan. It’s all the same, man, to us guys, down here in the deep south is all the same. But anyway, to my buddy Heath Hoogerhyde, heck of a young duck hunter, been around gaining some ground, I’m sitting here looking at him on Zoom and he got a wall full of birds. Heath, you’ve got a whole lot more species than I had when I was your age, I can tell you that right now.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. Obviously, I got introduced to the waterfowl world and soon after realized that there’s more than mallards and wood ducks like I said and yeah, it just opened up more. So the adventures, so traveling to one I’ll never forget is my harlequin. I killed my harlequin in Washington the year before they got away, they did away with the one per season.

Ramsey Russell: They did.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, so I went to there, I went to Washington twice, in the first year I just had nothing was going our way, not really any opportunities to do it. So I said, well, I’m coming back. So I went back the next year and within it couldn’t have been 2 minutes of me laying in a layout boat and legal shooting light that I had 3 drakes land in the decoys.

Ramsey Russell: Golly.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, yeah, that’s a bird I –

Ramsey Russell: Didn’t have to lead them very far. You don’t have to lead them very far when they’re swimming in a decoy.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Well, no, I had, they landed so close, I had to let them swim away. I had to let them get a little further so I didn’t blow them up. But yeah, it’s a cool thing about all the taxidermy and stuff is you bring somebody down here that’s either new into waterfowl or knows what they’re doing and they start asking where’d you get this bird, that bird and every single one has a different story, a different adventure, a different way of how it went down, which just opens up room for conversation and it’s awesome. So, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Well, how old are you, Heath?

Heath Hoogerhyde: I’m 29. I’ll be 30 in December.

Ramsey Russell: It’s all downhill after that, I hate to tell you.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: I’m surprised, honestly, I’m surprised that you’re not out turkey hunting this morning. My son Forrest is a huge turkey hunter, he’s a duck hunter, he’s a deer hunter, he’s a huge turkey hunter. I don’t know where he got the bug, he didn’t get it from his daddy. But I’m surprised you’re not out turkey hunting because you all have got some good hunting up there in Michigan, man.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. It’s kind of overlooked and I actually, I’ve talked to your son a couple of times on Instagram.

Ramsey Russell: Forrest, yep.

Heath Hoogerhyde: And yeah, we’re not open yet, otherwise I probably would be in the woods with this laptop trying to talk you.

Ramsey Russell: When does the turkey hunting season in Michigan open?

Heath Hoogerhyde: This year is April 20^th. So we –

Ramsey Russell: You all still got a wild – couple of weeks?

Heath Hoogerhyde: 13 – Yeah, 13 days, but who’s counting?

Ramsey Russell: Forrest is actually, I talked to him this morning, he’s in Central Missouri passing through, doing a solo hunt, he got drawn to hunt in Iowa.

Heath Hoogerhyde: That’s cool.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. And he takes it to the extreme and I see a very similar approach to how I do some of these duck hunts. He’s really taken it to an extreme, he likes to hunt public, he likes to get down and dirty, he likes to get close and personal. He doesn’t use that I’m aware of, he doesn’t use anything other than turkey calls, him and camo and shotgun and turkey calls. He don’t want, no decoys, none of the little things you crawl behind, none of that stuff.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, that’s the most fun way to do it. I mean, where I took it, I have probably 4 or 5 properties that I take it really seriously on, 2 of them I have ground blind set up for my dad, who’s going to be 65 in 2 weeks and then my wife who wants to be comfortable or my nephew, who can’t sit still, but I would rather sit up against a tree with no decoy and try and fool him that way and that’s how I shoot my bird every year. But, yeah, there’s something about it and it’s not easy cause I’ve had times where a Tom will come in goblin from 300 yards out and you hear him the whole way and as soon as he crossed the hill, he doesn’t see the decoy and you got 1 second to kill him. And I’ve made it happen a couple of times that way, but it just makes it more exhilarating. You got to be on your game, you got to be facing the right way, there’s a lot that can go wrong. So when it goes right, it’s just that, that much better.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: How and when did you get into duck hunting?

Heath Hoogerhyde: To shoot, 2000 – I want to say 18 or 19. I just had, somebody that I met and he was like, hey, do you want to try this? And I said, why not? I’ve always, I grew up, my dad was a big deer hunter, I never did really anything else but small game like rabbits and squirrels and stuff like that. So I knew hunting, I loved hunting. But obviously being introduced into a completely different realm of hunting was fun and I hunted, I remember the first time I hunted was the late split of the season that I started. So it was like, I hunted one time that whole year and I was like, this is awesome. Too bad I can’t do it again. So obviously, the whole year leading up to the next season, I was just geeked, I was trying to learn and figure stuff out and figure out how it goes and obviously doing it on your own and having some friends that have done it for a little bit and learning from them, it makes it difficult. So, like, killing 2 birds a hunt was, that was awesome. It was a great experience and I started to gain traction and really learn how our ducks act, the weather, everything that goes into it, that can play a factor in a hunt and ran with it. And now I’m the one bringing people out, which is, it’s so enjoyable for me to show somebody that’s either newer to it or never done it and just watch them. The whole hunt, I barely picked my gun up I let the dog retrieve and watch them. But, yeah, I kind of ran with it. So it’s probably I think last year was my, I want to say 6^th full season, like, it was the full season I hunted.

Ramsey Russell: What was that first hunt like? I’m assuming mallards, wood ducks, Michigan?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, it was all mallards, late season mallards. It was cove off of a main river and it was a riot, I mean, we had birds around the whole time.

Ramsey Russell: Did you even own a duck call at that point?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No, I had a shock shotgun and I think I even borrowed waders, because I didn’t have waders. So it was like one of those things you just, you’re not immersed in it yet, you don’t know what gear you need and all that kind of stuff. So borrowed waders and then we just hunted, I mean, we sat up early, I got the experience of setting decoys and the winds at our back. We’re going to set the decoys like this, give them a stopper, all that kind of stuff in the preparation and then I think we shot, I think, 5 or 6 birds that day and my first mallard ever was a banded mallard drake. Yeah. But the kicker with that is, I had no appreciation for it. So, like, I killed that bird and they’re like, oh, dude, it’s banded, like, congrats and all this stuff and I’m like, what is a band? Like, I don’t know what that is, what it represents or why it’s there. So it was awesome, but at the same time, I had no idea what it was. So learning, that’s how we track migration, we try and figure that kind of stuff out, was pretty cool, too, all in one hunt so it was pretty action packed. It was a good time and obviously made me want to go back for more.

Ramsey Russell: So you left that first hunt, went, got you a duck call.

Heath Hoogerhyde: I mean, shoot, that was a while ago. Probably and I probably blew it in my truck for way too long, until the next season trying to figure that out, too. But, yeah, I mean, it’s like getting a diaphragm call for turkey hunting, trying to figure it out, trying to figure out the tone. I think, personally, the best thing to do is listen to live birds.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: And then try and you’ll learn a lot or like, turkey hunt, listen to a live hen, everyone knows the clock purrs and all that kind of stuff, but go listen to a hen and try and mimic them or same with the mallard, there’s the feeding chuckle and the hail calls and all that kind of stuff. But you’ll learn a lot from just listening to actual nature, just let them do their thing.

Ramsey Russell: One thing I learned listening to ducks is especially one particular hunt, probably about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, hunting in the Netherlands and we staked out live mallard decoys and he put a little wooden stake in the ground and tethered a pear per stake. And I’m going to say we put out 2 dozen, I had a yellow lab at the time, chicken dog and I walked around, boy, I was like, this is going to be crazy. And having live ducks everywhere, flapping and moving, when the dog comes running through, God knows what, he’s probably going to hurt one of these dogs, one of these ducks and so I walked her around and sure enough as mostly geese started falling, she just ignored the ducks and I don’t know how she knew, but she knew, but the thing about it is, Heath, is every duck had a different, I mean, sound like a hen mallard, but they sounded different, my accent, their accent, you know how it is. Different voices, you just recognize a human voice out of 100s, 1000s, you recognize a different one and ducks were the same way. And what was so interesting is sitting in the blind, in between the valleys, is if something flew over, they were just kind of bugging around, preening and doing what ducks do, sitting around. And if a plane flew over, if a bird flew over, if a duck or a goose flew over, one of them would see it first and then it all chimed in. So it was kind of like watching beagles, you got a beagle that strikes a rabbit and then they all start packing up, barking. I even threw my hat, I even took my hat one time and threw it, boom, over the flock. The first bird that caught its eyes, out of corner of its eye, boom, it started quacking, they all started quacking. And I’m like, wow, that’s pretty interesting and I mean, but I realized it wasn’t a lot of feed, chuckle, it wasn’t a lot of – it was just a little chatter, a little bit continued chattering and then quacking. Some of them had a 2 or 3 notes, some of them had a 5 or 6 note, some of them were real deep, some of them were real light. I don’t know if it made me a better duck caller or a worse duck caller, I really don’t, I’m not fancy when it comes to duck hunting, now, I just make a sound that sounds kind of like a duck. But then again and I’m not a boy, I’m not a duck calling instructionalist or anything else, but in that same trip, it’s a lot of resident birds and one particular hunter with a pair of mountains working a ditch about 200 yards away and I started calling to him and my host was like, you’ll never get them in here and I just started car honking, highballing don’t sound nothing like a duck at all, but they pick up a little bit and kind of look our way and then go back to where they probably born and raised, wanted to live and I just stood on it, man. And anytime I’d let up off that car horn, they turn and fade back into the ditch. So I literally highballed them, not wild mallards, but these European ferals and highballed them all the way into the decoys. And we killed all, well, we killed the pair and we killed up the one they picked up along the way. So, anyway, it was interesting, hunt, I agree with you entirely to listen to ducks is what I’m trying to say, I guess.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. I mean, it’s educational for sure. And you can duck call all you want, but some birds know where they want to go and some it’s, that’s another thing, I mean, find the x. Everyone asks how you kill birds, scout, that’s half of it, my wife will ask why I’m scouting for ducks or turkeys or whatever and it says, because I want to kill ducks or turkeys. You know what I mean? You got to know what they want to do and then just persuade them in, essentially.

Ramsey Russell: That’s really the secret location. That’s 90% of the battle is just being where that duck has been and wants to be and feels comfortable, then hiding to where he thinks he’s alone again or they think they’re just like it was. My buddy, Mr. Ian, was the master at not calling. He called so sparingly it was, what’s the point even carrying a call? Half the time, it was in his bag, tucked away, probably in a zip lock. That generation carried everything in a zip lock and only if he needed it did, he pull it out. But he didn’t go to the hunt and put on his call like it was an essential tool, it just wasn’t and he killed ducks.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, well, if you’re on the axe, I don’t think, in my opinion I mean, you don’t need to call. If they want to be there, they’re going to be there even just setting decoys is going to help you. So there are hunts where I know it’s, I mean, if you’re hunting, let’s say you’re on the river and you got permission on one side, but they want to be on the other side, then I would say, okay, you’re probably going to need to call a little bit to persuade them, but if they’re wanting to be right where you’re sitting, set decoys and let them do their thing, there’s hunts where I don’t call it all. Yeah, because I know they’re going to want to be there.

Ramsey Russell: Well, there’s times I know for a fact that, because I’ve got a duck call and I just I like to call, I know for a fact I’m screwing up those birds working. You can’t stand it, it’s like every time and every time I screw it up, it’s calling too damn much. Once the birds are kind of hooked up, no matter how, leave them to freak alone, let them get in there. It’s kind of hard to do sometimes when you got a call in your hand.

Heath Hoogerhyde: It is. Well, normally, if I know I’m going to be on the x and I scouted the spot and all that, I’ll leave my duck calling in the truck just because then I can’t, you physically can’t. So, yeah, that’s kind of how I combat that, because you’re not wrong. If you have a duck call on your lanyard or whatever it may be or where it’s sitting and you see birds, naturally, you want to call at them, but sometimes it does negatively for you. So I just leave it in the truck if I know I’m on the x.

Ramsey Russell: You seem to have the same trajectory that a lot of duck hunters that I know, myself included, you go out and you have a great hunt, numbers weren’t that important, but you went out and had a great hunt, you enjoyed it and it opened up an entire new world. Not just literally speaking, but figuratively speaking, it was like, wow, there’s this duck hunting thing out here and there’s these ducks and there’s this whole new thing. At what point was it that the world appeared bigger than your own backyard, bigger than Michigan? I’m sitting here looking at your wall behind you and that’s a lot bigger than Michigan.

The Beginning of a Waterfowl Adventure: Discovering Harlequin Ducks in Washington.

But it was one of those things where I started researching birds and actually figuring out that there’s more than one species or 2 species or whatever and the harlequin was my favorite, just off of appearance. So that opened up Washington and in Washington, we shot wigeon, we shot pintail, we shot snow geese, harlequin, surf scoters.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, there’s this wall over here is all my sea ducks and then there’s more over here, but I think it was, I think the first trip I went on was the harlequin. Because after I started realizing – yeah, first or second. But it was one of those things where I started researching birds and actually figuring out that there’s more than one species or 2 species or whatever and the harlequin was my favorite, just off of appearance. So that opened up Washington and in Washington, we shot wigeon, we shot pintail, we shot snow geese, harlequin, surf scoters, what else do we kill there? My Barrow’s goldeneye, I killed there. So, yeah, I think it was just and then obviously, after you go on a trip, you meet new people, you start new relationships, you think, well, I could do this for all of them. So since then, it’s always been, what am I – I have a family at home, I own a business, so I can’t just go for months at a time, but where’s my next trip going to be and how am I going to connect with somebody to be able to go on that trip and be immersed in how they waterfowl hunt? So after Washington, it was just what’s next? So, Michigan’s nice because I think I’ve shot my wood duck that I have mounted my mallard, my black duck, my goldeneye, hooded merganser, buffalo head, common merganser and oldsquaw all here. Like Michigan is if you travel or if you go on the big lake or all the inland lakes, have divers, you can shoot quite a few species here. But then it was just putting other pieces together like Massachusetts that’s for brant, I got my brant, my common eider, my white wing there. California, another awesome state for variety, that was lesser bluebill, canvasback, ringneck, ruddy ducks and I still have a handful at the taxidermist. But it was not only going on these hunts for these specific birds with the people you meet throughout it. And some of them, I mean, my buddy from Florida cabin, I talk to him every day. He’s a big turkey hunter, too, so we kind of just keep the conversation going and it’s just cool to be able to meet those friends that you have that you probably would have never met any other way but for waterfowl hunting or turkey hunting or whatever it may be. So, yeah, after that one adventure, it was, what’s next? Where else can I go?

Ramsey Russell: Why the 41? And I’m assuming you’re chasing 41. It’s really, I count 58, but, I mean, for now, you start, you went from mallard and maybe black duck, wood duck, harlequin duck, that’s kind of a jump and for a first sea duck hunting, kind of, especially. But why do you think you’re a chasing the slams?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Honestly, it started with just being that it’s difficult and I even take it a step further. I try and make all my trips late January, so they’re full plumage, they’re perfect representation of the species to go on the wall, there are plenty of species that I’ve killed that I don’t have mounted. But it started with a challenge like, can I do this? How am I going to do it? Mapping everything out and then, like I said, just meeting the people along the way and having friends that you normally you wouldn’t have had if it wasn’t for it, but I would say what keeps me going back is just that challenge, because you’re not wrong. Once I’m done with the 41, it’s going to be I want to go get a Pacific eider or a Eurasian wigeon or a Aleutian teal or a Mexican mallard or all these different birds.

Ramsey Russell: The road goes on forever and the party never ends. It’s funny how likewise, I would go from here to here and my first big trip away from home was South Texas. I just wanted to go shoot geese, so I shot some geese and from there, it just kept going, well I want to go to Canada, shoot a little cackler geese or I want to go here and shoot something else and finally, I guess I did kind of sort of formalize it, formalize a list and well, how many are there? What is there? So I kind of began chasing that list in no particular order. It just take it as I could take it as I came to it, whatever have you like that. But it’s funny, I was kind of chasing a slam, but I wasn’t, that’s weird, isn’t it? But it’s a slippery slope cause it, I’m going to tell you, it’s not just the United States, Canada, North America, it goes on and on and I get in conversation now about parts of the world that I’m really kind of sort of starting to give up on being able to access, just because of the political climate and endangered species and firearm rules and everything else but they’re that what I call real Asia, I’m really starting to give up on and it’s just going to take, I think it’s just going to take bumping into the right somebody. That’s what it’s really going to – It’s going to have to be a real right somebody to clear those political hurdles and feel safe and legal and all that good stuff. But so from 41, are you following? Are you doing like an awards program or are you just chasing it? I don’t do, yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: No. Yeah, I’m just doing it. I didn’t see the point and I think it’s like $5 per bird, I didn’t feel the need to pay more money to make it official when, I mean, you can see I have the birds, I have pictures without all the birds that type of thing. Yeah, no, I’m not, I’m kind of just doing it by myself, I’m not doing the whole, I think it’s UWA or something like that where you can check in each bird. So no, I’m not doing that, but I have pictures of every single birdhouse and obviously stories behind each one and how it went down and yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Kind of before I even got to 41, I became aware of subspecies and that became important to me. And it’s like, when you follow, I get these 41 lists, I do, because it’s practical, it’s attainable, its finite okay, boom, I can do it. But it’s not really what, it’s not really an end, end all, be all, I mean snow geese, blue geese, those are just color moors, you got greater snow geese. You’ve got, you said brant, well, you’ve got Atlantic brant, Pacific brant and depending on who you talk to, there’s either a third color morph or a third subspecies. Then there’s a European one and it’s just, what I’ve seen is like, going brant hunting in Long Island Sound versus brant hunting in Puget Sound or down south of Mexico, it’s brant hunting and one of my favorite species to hunt are brant. But at the same time, it’s totally different, even though I’m on the water with the decoys calling to them the same, flagging them the same. However, it’s a totally different cultural backdrop and now I fell down off into that rabbit hole, it’s not that I’m chasing those cultural backdrops. It’s just where that little duck or that species or that bullseye, for lack of a better word, takes me, that gold, it’s where that gold takes me, I should say instead of a bullseye, it’s where that gold takes me. One time, I was walking through a big European city, just walking along with some clients, just sightseeing outside the duck blind and one of my clients, one of my long term clients, one of my oldest long term type clients and he just bust out laughing, I go, what is it? He goes, man, little did I dream that following you around the world, hunting these birds, I would see so much of the world beyond a duck blind and I’m kind of – I’m into that part of it, too. Like, you alluded to going to California or going anywhere outside your backyard, you meet these people and you fall into a – it’s duck hunting, but it’s different. They’ve got different little – it could be a different mallard cadence or mallard type call or single reed versus double reed. Heck, parts of Tennessee still blow a metal reed or just a different cadence or just something subtle and something different about how they hunt them. Parts of the world just core flooded timber, parts of the world flooded cypress and swamp marsh, dry field and I want to experience all of it.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. It’s unique. Like Florida, it was massive flooded area of managed by a waste company and you go in at gates open at like 04:00 and you’re there. You’re trying to get to your spot and there’s gators and that was part of the reason why Florida, from the beginning, it was Florida. You got to know, either know somebody or go with a guide, because I’m not messing with gators in water. You know what I mean?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I do.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, exactly.

Ramsey Russell: But when did you go to Florida?

Heath Hoogerhyde: It was mid January this past year. I had to go down there for some of my customers for work live up here, but they winter down there, so they have homes and cars and all that kind of stuff. So I kind of just made it one bundle trip, family vacation for 2 and a half weeks and then I hunted for 3 days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday with my buddy and he was only 2 hours from where I was staying, so I just drove there and stayed with him for the weekend near Okeechobee. Yeah, like I said, it’s just the first morning, we were sitting in a little dinky canoe and he’s like, yeah, see the eyes over there? The gator? No, thank you. I’m going to get back in the boat. I mean, it’s like a coyote. They’re more scared of you than you are of them. But at the same time, I don’t feel comfortable standing in a bunch of water with gators.

Ramsey Russell: What did you go specifically to hunt down in Florida, ring necked ducks?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No. Black belly fullness and then I wanted a blue wing for the wall so I’ve killed blue wings, but nothing crazy in that. I honestly, that was probably the most, the blue wing I brought home is probably the craziest, best representation of that. I mean, his white mohawk goes almost all the way back down the back of his neck.

Ramsey Russell: So you posted a picture and talked about that in your social media page. And I appreciate that because a lot of people, when they want a mature blue winged teal, they’re thinking the purple head with the crescent and that the best of the best has crown, that white crown like that and that was spectacular, the one you shot.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. And that was one of those, hey, he’s at like 45, 50, might as well shoot and so he’s in great shape, too. But, yeah, it was the whistlers and the mottled that really brought me down there which those in itself watching black bellies dump into a decoy at first light is a site for sore eyes, too. In the morning, we focused on those, it was left and right, I mean, they were everywhere. So it was a fun experience watching those things decoy and then the mottled gave us a run for our money, there was, I think it was the first morning, Friday morning, we had one fly right over and I just wasn’t, I feel like I was too immersed in just watching everything play out that I looked up –

Ramsey Russell: Dropped the guard.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I was like, there’s a drake mottled that I just watched and then I realized, like, I should probably shoot at this thing. Well, by that time, he was too far away and somebody else killed him in the group. But that was the only chance I had until the last day, about an hour left and we were trying to jump. Yeah, we were trying to jump shoot one and they kicked up well before I even got there, I mean, they kicked up for no reason, they weren’t spooked or anything. So I marked where they went and just kept trudging along. Next thing I know, Dylan and Kevin, the guys I was with, start wailing on their mallard calls and I’m like, well, there’s probably one flying somewhere. So I just got on my back and they flew right over at about 45 and I dropped the drake out of the pair. But, even just –

Ramsey Russell: How do you know it was the drake?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Just size, I mean, I deal with black ducks. With black ducks here, it’s kind of the same premise and I’ve noticed from just watching black ducks fly and now watching mottled ducks fly, that typically the drake’s in the back, but just seeing the size difference between the 2 giveaway, it was a dead giveaway and I mean, just the grind to get that bird made, that bird probably top 5, one of my favorites, along with just them just being so underrated, you don’t hear anybody saying, oh, I can’t wait to hold a mottled duck, but then you hold one.

Ramsey Russell: I know.

Heath Hoogerhyde: And you see the fine details in them, a lot like black duck.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, exactly. Very subtle.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So. Yeah, it’s very subtle, but they’re gorgeous birds.

Ramsey Russell: The Florida mottled duck may be one of my favorite is one of my last ones, went down hunting with friends, went down for 2 or 3 days and just to shoot mottled duck, nothing else, there was nothing else to shoot, it was just mottled ducks.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And just watching them work around and picking a shot and we had some sunshine. So, yeah, the size and being sure it’s what you want it to be and it was an amazing trip. Tell me about the fulvous, because the fulvous, to me – the fulvous whistling duck to me, is far and away, my opinion, the toughest of the North American species to get, just in terms of opportunity. I know there’s guys down in Southwest Louisiana, I know there’s guys in Florida, but it’s just little bitty bites of the landscape that those birds are going to be around during duck season and I’m an old, much older guy than yourself, maybe twice as old and in fact, I am twice as old and I just down in Mexico, shot my first North American fulvous whistler.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I saw him a mile away, there were buzzing around. There was gazillions of black bellies but they told me, they said, there are a few and we saw a flock a half mile away and we saw something else and very striking in flight, but a pair. We finally got a pair to get close enough and it was a poke, but we killed, I killed them both and was very proud of it. But it’s a tough species and that to me, the mottled duck, yeah, for sure, the Florida mottled, but also that fulvous, man, that is the trophy in North America, the hardest of the 41 of 58, I think there is to get.

The Challenge of Chasing the 41: A Waterfowler’s Quest.

And the day we focused on fulvous was not easy, I mean, we had a group of probably 20 or 30 coming right at us from, they were out in front of us, but that’s part of hunting public.

Heath Hoogerhyde: I agree with you 100% and it comes down to, like you said, the limited opportunity. But you talk to anybody chasing the 41 and more likely than not getting it I had people reaching out that I’ve hunted with and I know very well saying, oh, you got them all in one trip? Like, that’s unheard of. And the day we focused on fulvous was not easy, I mean, we had a group of probably 20 or 30 coming right at us from, they were out in front of us, but that’s part of hunting public. We can see these guys just sky, I mean, they’re a hundred yards off the water, I mean, there’s no business in shooting at them, start sky blasting at them and then those birds didn’t come in and my fulvous, I had one shot opportunity the whole time I was down there and it was literally, I had to just been a God thing, like, hey, you should probably, I started checking behind me a little bit more because I’m like, well, I know we’re looking at this water, but there’s flooded little pockets all over behind me and I looked back and I saw it, like you said, they’re striking in flight. You can tell it’s fulvous. So I whipped around and he was all of probably 60, so I put the lead on him that I thought I should put on him and I was shooting that specific hunt. I bought and patterned TSS and I just liked how tight it was at further distance so I shot him twice and then he did the old lock up and coast and I soon –

Ramsey Russell: Mayday.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, and I mean, in those swamps, you’re like, there’s no way we’re going to find this bird and sure enough, one of cabin’s buddies was hunting 150, 200 yards, it would have been north of us and it died right in their spread. Yeah, he’s sending me pictures.

Ramsey Russell: Good thing they didn’t clobber it when it came in.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. Well, when you watched him fly away, I mean, everybody’s seen it, I’ve seen it with pheasants a lot. They just they’re flying, they’re done. So, yeah, he started sending pictures and I’m all geeked up, I’m like, no, I want to go over there and get them because, yeah, they’re gorgeous, too. I mean, the intricate details in that bird is mind blowing and you don’t know that and I mean, you can look at as many pictures as you want, but actually holding the bird a perfect example of that’s a harlequin, once you hold that bird and you realize what it is, it’s stunning. So, yeah, the fulvous was a tough one. I’m glad I got it, I’m glad I got all 3 because I definitely will hunt with cabin down in Florida again and just chase whatever he wants to go shoot, we’ll go give him hell. But, yeah, fulvous, I agree with you on that one, it’s a difficult bird because of where you have to go, a lot of them, the STA’s are kind of like, that’s where you need to be. I got lucky in the day we used my draw, the day that I killed the bird. And I probably would have never even known that there was a, you had to put in for all these draws unless it was for cabin and us planning it all out and yeah, it was a riot. But I think my favorite hunt, just in terms of experience down there was the black bellies, just because it was left and right there right in our face, the whole hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah. Describe the type habitat that those whistling ducks were in. Don’t put me on map because I don’t want to give away somebody’s favorite duck hole, but I want to talk about that emergent habitat, because I have shot gazillions of fulvous whistling ducks, some in Africa, a lot down in South America, but they’re not just across the landscape, man, they are very hyper focused on a certain habitat, describe that habitat you hunt in.

Heath Hoogerhyde: I mean it was –

Ramsey Russell: It’s not easy to walk through.

Heath Hoogerhyde: No. There was, I mean, vegetation. I mean, every step that you take –

Ramsey Russell: Aquatic vegetation.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, you’re hiding me in it because you can’t get your life in it.

Ramsey Russell: Deeper water.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, it was probably, I mean, I’m 6’1. It was probably the high thigh to waist deep.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: And it reminded me because once you realize these birds want to be in one specific spot, like the especially the whistling ducks, it reminded me a lot like a wood duck. Like, you go to your traditional wood duck hole and typically, I mean, for us, it’s small water type and it was a lot like that. Like, once you find that vegetation and actually, the day we hunted that spot, the night before, they put more, the waste treatment plant or whatever, put more water in there so Kevin was explaining that typically the vegetation would you see it on top of the water, like, you would see a little bit of it on top of the water. So that’s why those birds know, like, hey, this is where I want to go, but the day we went, it was not on top of the water and it was almost tough to paddle through just because there’s so much of it. But, yeah, hiding in the tule patches and having that in the water, that’s how I describe it.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, the places I found the most fulvous whistlers, its aquatic vegetation, very thin to walk through or paddle through and it’s almost like if they were a coot, they could walk on it, but they’re not. So they kind of sink in a little bit, they don’t really, can’t walk in it, but it’s thick enough, it seems like they could and that is their habitat. And I think it’s maybe the reason we don’t see those fulvous so many other places because there’s so few places in the United States that that habitat exists anymore.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%.

Ramsey Russell: That’s interesting. Tell me about, you ever killed a ruddy duck?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve killed a lot of them, but I never killed one like yours.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I killed my first one, actually, the year I went to California here in Michigan, I killed one on a river and yeah and then California, I was telling my buddy that I hunted with down there, I’m like, dude, I would love, not even like a full red ruddy, the starting to bluebill, a little red in it and he’s like, there’s like, 0% chance. Like, we’re just going to have to get lucky and sure enough, we were scouting one day, we had, I think we’ve 5 birds short of our limit for the day. So we were just we were going to go back, I got the birds I wanted, I got my shoveler, I got the nice green wing, I checked a couple off so we were just going to go back and hang out, start a bonfire and just chill, and we were driving and he saw a coyote out in the field that he has permission to hunt and he’s like, well, let’s go try and kill this coyote, all right, whatever. So he shot at a couple times, missed and this coyote, if it wasn’t for the coyote, we never would have happened, brought us right to this slew, it’s private land so we got our binos out and we were just kind of checking things out we were done for the day and saw that white crust on the side of the face, which we thought was a hooded merganser with its hood down until it was like a movie when they just turned perfect and the sun hits them just right. And we both dropped our binoculars and said, that’s a red ruddy duck. So we sat there long enough, my buddy’s like, if we sit here long enough, either the farm manager, somebody’s going to come talk to us. I’m like, all right, let’s just sit here, we got nothing better to do. And sure enough, the farm owner came up, he’s like, hey, what are you guys doing? We explained and we showed him a picture of a red ruddy, because that’s what we saw. We showed him a picture, he’s like, oh, they’re all over back there, I’m like, what are you talking about? And in my head, I’m like, these things, like in Michigan, you’ll see them in the spring, you don’t see a red ruddy –

Ramsey Russell: Never seen a red ruddy during the open season?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No, I haven’t either. So we saw that one and it was like, let’s try and see if we can do this and so that guy came up, he’s like, yeah, you guys can have the rest of the day. Well, by that time of taking our time, not thinking we were going to hunt again, we probably only had an hour. So we both grabbed our guns, there’s tooly patches all the way around this little slew and then there was opening, so you could sneak right up to the edge of the opening, kind of check it out and see what’s what. I turned that first corner and I was just, my jaw hit the floor because I saw probably 10.

Ramsey Russell: All of them red like that.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I mean there were some that weren’t red, obviously, but yeah, I mean, a solid 10 of them just read and not, they might not have been fully pitch red like a perfect specimen, but like off initial sight, like you get 2 seconds, you just see red at all, any red. So I just shot one and started freaking out and we retrieved it and I mean, it’s a stud, full plumage and everything. So the slew kept going back so we just kept doing our thing and we ended with 3 that were perfect, like perfect birds and then one that was probably 80%. But that was a day that I went to bed, I posted the pictures and went to bed and woke up with probably 80 to 85 direct messages on, what the heck? What’s going on?

Ramsey Russell: I wish I knew why that particular area had such an abundance of, I don’t know, real old or something, I mean, it might be a function of age. Why would, I can understand if one of them was an outlier, but to have a collection of them that’s just wild. I saw one down in Mexico in March that at 80 yards could just flying by had some red. Looked like he had just a little hint of rust on his back, but it could have been algae or who knows what, some iron deposit, it didn’t strike me as anything like what your birds were.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I would love to know why. Part of it, I think, like the slew that we went to and we’ve got permission on isn’t hunted so like, no, there’s no pressure there. So my thought was these birds probably come here all the time, every year and stay here. Bother than that, I think in my head thinking of it, it has to be age, it has to be just that they were so mature that they molted and came into full plumage sooner because it was January 26 of that year that all 4 of those were shot. So I would love to know like a legitimate scientific answer and actually I have them back from the taxidermist, they’re right over here, I’ll just show you because they’re beautiful, my taxidermist did a heck of a job.

Ramsey Russell: Oh man. Did he? That’s beautiful.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That is really nice.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, we made enough room that if I’m ever lucky enough to go shoot another one, I can put one on there, because in my opinion, that’s probably the biggest unicorn I have down here and I have some cool, I mean, I have a double banded brant, first brant I ever shot, I have a banded trio of mallards. But those, I mean, not many people have a red ruddy duck in their collection.

Ramsey Russell: No, not literally.

Heath Hoogerhyde: No. Exactly and that’s the crazy thing so I think we even turned on our, once we realized what was there, we turned on, like, our location. Typically, I don’t have my location on, so if I send a picture, you can’t see where I sent it, but those ones we did, because I’m like, they need to know. Like, this is what happened cause sadly it’s – Yeah and I posted it on social media and then you get all these people that are, there’s no way you didn’t shoot that legally, this and that –

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, here come the Internet police.

Maximizing Opportunities: The Impact of High Band Numbers on Hunting.

But I’ve only ever shot, the funny thing is, too, I’ve only ever shot one banded mallard that I knew was banded before I shot it.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Freight train. And it’s just, yeah, it is what it is, it’s nature of the beast. But then you get to talking to people and I know a guy on the east side of Michigan that shot are fully red ruddy in October on Lake St. Clair. So it’s like, it has to just be age and how they mature but that’s a whole other thing that social media is just the amount of people that chime in that normally would never talk to you. So I get it all the time with the banded mallards, they just banned a lot of birds in my area and I hunt a lot, so, I mean, we shot, I shot 9 – I shot 8 mallard bands last year and I shot one Canadian goose band. But I’ve only ever shot, the funny thing is, too, I’ve only ever shot one banded mallard that I knew was banded before I shot it. And I was scouting a couple of my river spots and I saw this little pond on somebody’s property, they probably had 25 acres. So I saw a pair of mallards and I was like, didn’t think anything of it, I’m going to keep scouting, I’m going to do my thing, I came back through and one of them, the drake and the hen, were both standing on a log and the drake was first. So I was like, why not just get my binos out and check them well, sure enough, the drake was banded. So I was like, well, I got a little time, I went up to the house and this pond is like, there’s nothing around it. So, I mean, I’m on my stomach once I got permission, I’m on my stomach trying to crawl up to this pond. And sure enough, I didn’t really think about shooting both of them, I was like, I’ll just shoot the band and get out of here. Well, when I shot, I hit both the birds and I went pick the drake up and then the hen flapped her way out right into the middle of this pond, I mean, it’s probably only 25 yards wide, 35 yards long and I mean, it’s all mud. I mean, I had to grab a big old stick to try and retrieve this hen and I finally, I hit her one time with one of the attempts to pull her closer to me and she flipped over and she was banded, too, so I killed 2 of them, 2 bands in one shot. But bands are bands, I’d rather they just come with hunting a lot. If you’re in an area where they banned quite a few birds.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a lot of luck to that stuff, too. On the one hand, it should be just statistical. The more you shoot, the more you get and I’d say that to an extent, but it’s got a lot to do with species, got a lot to do with geographic regions, it’s got a lot to do with just plain old luck that I don’t have really, I’ve had some dozen bird years, but I’ve also had some zero years, especially since the pandemic and they didn’t ban so many. And you know what the counterbalance to that is, is the further your chases take you, the crazier the species, the – internationally. Boy, your band, odds go down relative to the number of birds you kill, they’re just parts of the world I like to hunt, they don’t band very many.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Argentina, I’ve killed one in South America out of gazillions and gazillions of birds, I picked up one. It was actually in Uruguay, not Argentina and Africa, a young lady shot up, God dog. First band she ever killed was a hot and tight teal and none of the outfitters, none of the guides, nobody had ever even seen a leg band on a bird before, they’d heard about it. But yeah, nobody had ever even seen one, that was crazy, I sure don’t have that kind of luck, I could fall into a barrel of big blow pop, lollipop come out sucking my thumb. That ain’t never going to happen but anyway, but, on one hand, I’m not driven by bands, but it’s all always cool to pick one up.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, it’s, I mean, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s not like you’re going out with the thought of, I’m going to kill some bands today, but you’ll never have a frown on your face when you pick one up, it’s always exciting.

Ramsey Russell: They must have banded a tremendous amount. I mean, way more than fathomable of Pacific brant. But they haven’t done it in a long time because, man, I’ve been on hunts back in the day that I think we’ve picked up 9 or 10 in a single hunt.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. That’s crazy.

Ramsey Russell: And still the clients are picking them up. People are picking up the brant bands, but the last 2 tarsus bands, I personally shot a couple 2 or 3 years ago. Both had barnacles growing on them, from 2008 so they’ve been sitting out there a while.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. That’s really cool. My brant was – my Atlantic brant was double banded and I think 12 when I killed it. But then I picked it up and one of the bands, I mean, the last 3 numbers, you can’t even read it. But I figured out that in O9, I think it was, they did the two different types of metal. So they put them both on the same day to see which would last longer, so I can definitely tell which one lasted longer because the one that wasn’t tarnished and worn to crap looked like it was put on the day before.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Like it was mint. But yeah, that was cool because that actually came from that band page on Facebook. One of some people chimed in and were like, this is why this occurred which was cool. But yeah, I still need my Pacific brant.

Ramsey Russell: You’ll get him, I got faith in you. Tell me about this bird over your right shoulder, I’ve never killed one of those, a mandarin duck.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Oh, that was a wood duck hole in Michigan.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. And it’s shocking too, because once it happened, everyone and their mother, I mean, it was a ridiculous amount of people reaching out, like, oh, I’ve seen 5 or 6 in this area or I’ve seen a couple on my pond and this and that. So I think it’s just band escapees that have survived in the wild, because obviously they’re still wild birds. But, yeah, a lot – one person said there’s no way that migrated from East Asia or – I’m like, yeah, I’m not, I’m not dumb, I know that.

Ramsey Russell: But because they are in the aix genus, I mean and use the same habitat as wood duck, I wonder if ferals could get out in the United States and began to go feral like these Egyptian geese. You’ve shot Egyptian geese down in Florida, hadn’t you? I mean, those birds just kind of taken over the joint and I wonder if wood ducks could get out, were there any indications of a cut toenail or a band that showed that he had, like, escaped recently or maybe he could have been an offspring?

Heath Hoogerhyde: I think from the more research I did, I wish there was a band because that would have been nice just to see where he came from when he was hatched or whatever of that nature. But I was told, like, typically aviary birds have the clipped nails. And his nails were just as long as any other wood duck I’ve ever killed. Like, they weren’t clipped at all. So I think, I mean, there’s rumors that say there’s a wild population in California, I think if there was enough release that they would just become wood duck, I mean, they would thrive like wood ducks do and I think it would become more prevalent that they – I mean, you hear of a couple shot every single year and that’s just from people that use social media.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, like, how many are actually shot per year? That you don’t hear of.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a very interesting bird to me. That’s one reason I’d like to get way deep into real Asia, the heartland of Asia, to hunt those birds like that but they’ve got to be, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn there are feral populations however small of this bird, all it would take is enough of them getting out.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. I mean, it’s like wood ducks here, early season, like, start of our season until probably, first weekend of November. I mean, wood ducks are everywhere and we actually just got done putting up wood duck boxes in one of our spots or obviously breeding, but for them to lay their eggs. But yeah, I mean, I would see them being able to survive just like any other bird, especially in places that are heavy and wood ducks, I would assume they probably have the same habitat that they like to be in. But yeah, that’s it, that’s another one in –

Ramsey the Mandarin Duck: A Living Piece of Wildlife History.

He said, but now Ramsey, he’s old as Methuselah, he’s not long to this world, he’s blind in one eye, he’s been pinion winged. And when I opened a croaker sack and took him out, it looked like a wood duck in the summer.

Ramsey Russell: They’re very closely related and it’s like I’ve got one mounted. But it was a captive reared bird somebody gave me and still a beautiful mount. But the same guy gave me a live one and he gave it to me in a croaker sack. He said, well, I know you got that little pond in your neighborhood, you can turn them loose in. He said, but now Ramsey, he’s old as Methuselah, he’s not long to this world, he’s blind in one eye, he’s been pinion winged. And when I opened a croaker sack and took him out, it looked like a wood duck in the summer. It was just a, it looked like a wood duck, just a mangy old wood duck and I put him back in a croaker sack and took him home. And I pitched him loose on this pond I’ve got and he did what – you know how wood duck will dive under and you kind of see the swale with her swimming? And he got out there about 20 yards and got back on top of the water and he just puffed, shook off and turned into a freaking, we were all like, whoa, look at, I mean, boom. He turned into a freaking mandarin, it was amazing. His problem was he liked to sleep on the, I live in a little residential pond, like asleep on the bank, he was blind in one eye. He liked to put his good eye on the water. And I could, I’m not a quiet person and I could just about walk up to him at times and put my hands on him. And he looked so funny when he’d jump up scared, he looked like Woodstock on Snoopy, just with that one wing trying to fly for his life, would kind of tumble head over heels into the water. But finally, a house cat got him, house cat was a little bit quieter than I was and finally got him. But still, it was an interesting experience for months just to go out there and look at a mandarin duck on your pond.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, we see there’s one river, by me, that we see a lot of bibbed mallards, like the full white chest. And I would like to, I mean, is that just a domestic duck?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. That’s a game farm strain of duck, I’ve shot one.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Okay.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I’ve shot him. He came in with a pile of mallards many years ago down in Texas, he came in with some mallards and –

Heath Hoogerhyde: Okay.

Ramsey Russell: And the more I’ve learned about mallards down around Houston, Texas, on the Katy Prairie, it probably was some captive rear genetics, but every – I went for him because he stood out, he had that white.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t know anything about game farms or bibbed mallards or camel khakis or anything else back at the time. I just knew a different looking duck but anyway, I thought it was interesting, the thing that gets me get back on that mandarin duck is there are vibrant populations of feral mandarins over in the UK. Yeah, there really is, but they’re not technically legal, I’ve actually got a trip scheduled this fall and talking to my host, I told him, I said, no, I just, I don’t want to shoot one, if it’s not by the book, I don’t want to go there. But we are going to go back in there one afternoon and get there well ahead of time and put my iPhone up. Well, yeah, I would like to see him come in, it’s like, you can shoot African pygmy geese, you can’t shoot cotton pygmy geese or green pygmy geese, both in Australia. And it was a consolation to shooting them, it sure was fun just to see them this year. I mean, just, they were everywhere. We were off in the marsh hunting the other birds and it was a good consolation just to raise up my binoculars and see them out there flying, see their behavior. Likewise, I don’t think they’re technically classified as a shell duck anymore, but back in the day, their common name was radjah shelduck, kind of a black and white with the, had a bill a lot like a common shell duck and had a white eye, very interesting bird, very beautiful in photos. And again, protected in Australia on the same wetlands those little pygmy geese were but it was a huge bonus just to be there and see them. I’ll never get to shoot one only shell duck of the world I’ve not yet shot, but it was, I’ll take it and I don’t have to mount.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, you get to save some money there. But that’s part of the fun of any bird, just watching them do what they do. I mean, there’s nothing, in my opinion, I I’ve shown a lot of stuff and been fortunate enough to watch a lot of birds work, but there’s nothing like a mallard just coming down from the heavens in a small hole, just backpedaling. So it’s fun to experience all different types of birds and how they work.

Ramsey Russell: How many species have you shot into the collection now, into the slam?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, shoot, 30, I want to say off the top of my head, I’m going to look at my phone quick. I want to say 36 I’ve killed, yeah, 36 I’ve shot and I have 32 of those mounted. So, technically speaking, I don’t really count them as done until I have a perfect drape for the wall. And I think greater bluebill is one of them, just because it’s hard to get a fully plumed out one during our, when our season ends in first week into December –

Ramsey Russell: I think for a lot of people, not to interrupt, but I think for a lot of people, I think it’s a tough species to get, period. I do. Most people listening don’t have them in their backyards.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. There’s certain spots in Michigan where we can go to the bigger inland lakes off of the Great Lake and shoot them. Same with redheads, I actually shot my first redhead ever last season and when he was coming in, he looked gorgeous. I mean, big old redhead and the breast cut from the black, but when I held him, he just wasn’t the one. But it was still, it was exhilarating just have one in hand. Wigeon, I’ve shot wigeon in Florida, Michigan, Washington and California, but just never that perfect green coming, almost hooking back.

Ramsey Russell: Washington, Oregon, California.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Southern Oklahoma, Texas. You’ll get him, you got to get down there that time of year.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yep. You get those good ones. Then there’s one more, oh, red breasted merganser, which is a tough one.

Ramsey Russell: That was one of my last ones, that was a tough one and I killed him in, of all places, killed him in Mexico, have shot several down there, on some of those bays, coming off the Sea of Cortez, it’s not really the blind you want to be in, it’s kind of close. It’s an inlet and it’s further shots.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Not going to be the top blind that day, but, by God, those red breast mergansers and they’re a sporty bird.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Oh, yeah, they are. They’re quick.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, they’re quick and take a hit.

Heath Hoogerhyde: We get them here. But I’ve just never shot a very nice piano keyed drake on his side pockets and –

Ramsey Russell: Piano keyed. Good description.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. I’ve just never shot a perfect one. I’ve shot them and it’s funny because we’ve shot stud hooded mergansers in October, whether they were pin feathered or not, their coloring was perfect and same with we shoot a bunch, if we go to the right spots in Michigan, you can shoot a bunch of common mergansers, too, nice drakes, but it seems like that red breast, honestly, I think the red breast merganser might be the last of the 41 I have to mount just because of the full plumage aspect of it. So I think I’ll be done with the 41 before I have every one mounted.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, yeah. Let’s just know the adventure –

Ramsey Russell: What are your priority species then? Right now.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Right now? Shoot. I’m just, I still have to decide if I’m going to go to St. Paul next year or do, I was going to do Texas for crane, wigeon, redhead, spend a week there and just travel throughout the state to get a bunch of birds, I would love a Texas mottled duck, too. And then hopefully, if we do it right, a Mexican duck. But I’m thinking, my kids are, I have a 2.5 year old daughter and a going on 6 month old daughter. I keep getting drawn back to St. Paul just because of the time of life I’m in and being a dad and husband, I have, I can do it next year. My wife’s not going to be pregnant and I’ll be able to do it financially as well. So it’s like, I might get that one, do that one next season because everything else I can do within the states and it’s not going to, I mean, that trip is one that’s planned out not only to go there, but the travels there and the travels back. So I’m thinking probably king eiders next year, then Texas to hopefully get close to finishing everything and then I’m going to put in for my swan tag in North Carolina next year as well, which I didn’t draw last year, so hopefully I draw this year. But, yeah, swan will be hopefully a weekend trip just because of – I think we can get there in roughly 12 to 14 hours, somewhere in that realm. So if we left Friday night, we could probably be there for the hunt Saturday and then hunt and come home.

Ramsey Russell: You got an interesting Instagram profile, hhoogs –

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: For anybody listening.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And banded mallard, golden eyes, cinnamon teal, ruddy duck, family, mallards, wood ducks and then, bam, Lamborghini, Ferrari. I mean, that makes you different.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, that’s a whole another –

Ramsey Russell: Because you’ve obviously got, doing what we do at all, let alone traveling around, collecting hunts, collecting experiences. It takes time and it takes a little money, but it takes time and money.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What do you do for a living for a young man with an up and coming family? I think it’s an interesting career you’ve made for yourself and did it have anything to do with duck hunting when you got into it?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No, it didn’t. I own a company called Hoogs Customs. Essentially, we do anything automotive related in terms of aesthetic appeal. So we do caliper painting, we do detailing, obviously, ceramic coatings, PPF, wraps, tint, you name it, we either do it or we have somebody that can do it. And that started in 2017 in my apartment garage, I did, I graduated from a university with a degree and then did the whole corporate job for a lot of while –

Ramsey Russell: What were you doing? What corporate kind of work were you doing?

Heath Hoogerhyde: I was working in an office at Meyer corporate, which is a mid – kind of a Midwest, like superstore, kind of like a Walmart, but mainly in the Midwest –

Ramsey Russell: Sounds miserable.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So they got – Yeah, it was not fun. But I did that for probably 6 to 8 months and while I was doing that, I was buying and selling trucks just because I knew enough about the market and the vehicles that I could buy a truck and flip it and make some money, make some profit. But then I took it a step further and realized all I’m doing is making these vehicles, these trucks, look better. Like, simply put, I’m cleaning them and making them look better than what they were when I bought it. So that was back when Facebook marketplace would let you put ads out for services and I did just an ad for simple stuff, detailing work, interiors, exteriors, painting parts of vehicles. And I did right in my apartment garage and I probably went a solid 4 or 5 months of waking up at 04:00, working out for an hour, going in the garage from about 05:00 to 07:30 and then going to my 09:00 to 05:00 and coming home and doing the same thing over again. And I got sick of it and my wife is – She was my fiancée at the time, is super supportive of what I do now. But even then, I mean, I barely saw her during that window because I was just like, I was trying to make something happen. And so I quit my corporate job and went full in at age 21 and grinded it out. There was weeks where I’d work 100 hours and never really said no to anyone, whether I knew how to do what they were asking or not. And it kind of became a well versatile business where we can pretty much do whatever you want done and with that came getting in with bigger customers, with bigger collections. That’s why occasionally you’ll see the Lamborghinis or the Ferraris or the Porsches or whatever you might –

Ramsey Russell: You’ve got clients. You’ll go in to a garage full of these fancy cars and do what? Clean them and collections.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, we have a big collection in West Michigan. The owner has pro shoot – He buys and he sells so many of them, brings new ones in all the time, but he’s probably got around 20 or so Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches. He has a ton of the old school defenders, the Land Rover Defenders, just a bunch of obviously higher end cars and once we got in with him, it was a snowball. It was his buddy called me and then his buddy called me and then this and that and then I’ve shot, I’ve made my own introduction to collections in Chicago and I mean, we’re talking a $40 million car collection, that we get to go down and work on. I mean, the last one, 2 of the last posts I had about cars were a Porsche 918, which is, that is my first time ever seeing one in person because they’re so rare and then a Pagani Huayra that people probably don’t even – They’re like, what did you just say?

Ramsey Russell: I had never even heard of it.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. And that’s a $3.5 million car.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, my God.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So it was just one thing led to another and my competitive nature of just trying to be better than the day before has turned it into a career for me, which is awesome because I’m able to, in the winter months, like I said, I was probably in Florida for a total of 3 and a half, 4 weeks this past winter for work. But then I was allowed to hunt and had family time all at the same time. But in the winter months, when I like hunting, we’re typically slower, like, it’s just nature of the beast of detailing. But then come spring, like, right now, my phone hasn’t stopped because it’s nice outside, as soon as that weather switches at you –

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Pollen season’s coming.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So it’s, as soon as the weather switches, it’s right back to working hard. But it’s been a blessing.

Ramsey Russell: That’s the joys of being a business owner, is you can, you do work hard, but you get to make your own schedule.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. And I think even more to that, it’s just doing something that you love, like, I talk about ducks, I can go to a car show and I talk about any supercar, Lamborghini, whatever, sub model, anything about cars, the same way I can talk about the fulvous, whistling duck or whatever we’re talking about. So it’s a passion that turned career and like I said, my wife’s super supportive, my kids are at the age, my 2.5 old, where she’ll come to the shop and she thinks all the cars are mine, I wish they were. But she’ll be like, daddy’s car is so awesome.

Ramsey Russell: What do you drive? You don’t drive like, a Toyota Camry or something, do you?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No, I have, that would be funny. My wife has, she drives a Tahoe that we bought a base Tahoe and I said, here’s what do you want done to it. So we blacked it out, we did a bunch of wrap work to it, we let her build her own car.

Ramsey Russell: Great family car, too.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. I drive a Ram 1500, typically every single day and then I have an Audi R8, which has the V10 in it. So I bought that last spring and that’s been major for the company because it’s, I bought it for the business, we’ve done a ton to it just to make it ours. But going to car shows and talking to people, sadly, they kind of take you more seriously when you’re in something that they see as, like, respectable.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, yeah, it’s helped a ton with work, but I probably won’t even drive it until June just because it’ll be turkey season. I’m not going to be rolling around trying to kill a turkey in an Audi R8. I’m going to have my truck with me with all the gear, but, yeah, like I said, it’s been a grind, but it’s so well worth it in the end, in the overall picture.

Ramsey Russell: You got to look the part. I mean, that’s the thing about that Audi. I didn’t heard of V10, but you kind of got to look the part, if you’re in the professional world, you got on a sport coat, you got on a suit.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s just come for the territory. The great thing about selling duck hunt experiences for a lifetime is I can be on a convention floor and I can put on my crocs. Nobody thinks any less of me if I’m wearing crocs.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, well, half the time when I’m driving that car, I’m in crocs, that’s why I wear those 24/7 so, yeah, you’re not wrong, though. We got to the point where financially it was, it made sense. Obviously, year one, you can’t just go buy a higher end sports car. But, yeah, it’s been fun. That’s something I get to, I’m very passionate about hunting and all that, but then I get to be passionate about that all summer, so it’s fun.

Ramsey Russell: Do you have a favorite duck? Would it be, I mean –

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What is your favorite duck?

Heath Hoogerhyde: The harlequin.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Heath Hoogerhyde: The harlequin.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. Actually, my 2.5 years old is named Harlee.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, that was my idea and my debate and I won it. So she got to, my wife picked the spelling, so it’s h a r l e e. But I was like the Harlee, Harlee Hoogerhyde. That’s perfect.

Ramsey Russell: That’s cool.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I would say that’s probably my favorite, number one favorite waterfowl species.

Ramsey Russell: We talked a little bit about species and experiences and you’re traveling around, stuff like that, but you do a lot of self hunt. Can you talk a little bit about self hunting, guided hunt, swap hunting, kind of the advantages and disadvantages, because some of the hunts you’ve mentioned, you’re going to have to do a guided hunt, but a lot of the hunts you’ve done and you do are not guided, you’re self hunting or swap hunting and it’s just because they’re – social media makes it very easy to find a tribe and to swap off and do some things.

The Benefits of Trading Hunts: Cost-Effective and Enriching Experiences.

But yeah, it’s kind of, the experiences I’ve had made it to the point where I’m going to keep trying to do the traded hunts and swapping and this and that.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yep. The first time I did that, it was Washington kind of got me going on that aspect of things because I won that trip through a raffle, I donated some money to child’s medical bills, which, in my opinion, for me, it was a business write off and it was doing something beyond myself, helping someone else out that I could do with the one off chance that I went a duck hunt. And Kyle after that first 4 days of hunting together, we stayed in touch, we became friends and I went back out there the next year, stayed with him, hunted with him every day and I think I paid maybe $450 for a plane ticket. So that opened my eyes to, like, what else could you do and just trade the hunts and make it work? So California was another buddy hunt and then Florida, Kevin, actually, he came up here last season, end of November and hunted with me up here and then I went down there and hunted with him. I like it because it’s – You’re meeting a new friend. You’re meeting somebody that’s a local, they’re not paid to do it. They’re just doing it out of pure passion, which a lot of guides are, even down in Florida, a lot of the guides are great people. And I talked to quite a few of them, just shooting the crap, if you will. But, yeah, it’s just kind of, I’ve started doing it and it’s worked out for me and I’ve met some pretty darn cool people doing it. But like you said, I’m not going to go freelance St. Paul. Like, that’s not going to happen and then obviously, I’ll probably do guided for swans, just because it’s – I mean, we talked about that the other day, it’s super affordable and those people know exactly where the birds are, so it can be a quick hunt. But, yeah, like, Texas, I was going to do buddy hunt, just go travel Texas with a guy that has connections there and moves around and then if they want to come up here and kill something or have some fun, then they can. I mean, my buddy from Florida, is coming up at the end of this month, kill some turkeys, he’s bringing a buddy up so they’ll both be able to kill one. But yeah, it’s kind of, the experiences I’ve had made it to the point where I’m going to keep trying to do the traded hunts and swapping and this and that.

Ramsey Russell: I like it. Both, I think, for a lot of people and we’ve made a business of it, turned a passion into a profession, as you called it. It’s that time and money equation. Well, time is the greatest limiting factor for most people, especially, you’ll find this out in the next 5 or 10 years as those children get older. I was cleaning my garage yesterday and I’ve got some freaking hand carved decoys I made 20 something years ago that I just need to paint them, but it’s just finding the time to paint them anymore, you run out of time on things. So I think there’s a really legitimate place within North America for, even in North America for guided, outside of North America, for sure guided. Because just the dawning process of having to bring gear and scout and then some of the countries, you can’t freelance hunt. There’s just cultural obstacles doing something like that. But I think I know that as I’ve gotten older into it, I do those big road trips and 90% of the time I’m just hunting with people. And I really like to get down into the bush, I don’t need to shoot a limit, although I will, I don’t need to, I don’t have a species objective. It’s just to go and get deeper into it that I particularly enjoyed. I enjoy the ritual of duck hunting mostly anymore and one thing I’ll say is, like yourself, I forgot to mention this, but it’s important, you’re talking about the slam, registering it, paying to go into it. I’m the same way, I have shot trophy animals, I’ve shot whatever and I’ve just never registered, I’ve never seen the point in doing that. But I recently became the sub chair of Safari Club Internationals record book gang birds of the world and I am going to enter every freaking dang one of them because I don’t have ego, I’m not into that vanity thing, I don’t want the award, I don’t got room in my life to hang a plaque but at the same time, it is in that one particular instance and I’m inviting everybody to reach out to me about this SCI game bird, the world platform. In fact, Heath, I might try to recruit you onto my assistants, to come and really help me with this thing. But it’s a way, even though I got to pay a little bit of money, not a lot, it’s a way that that money is converted into pro hunting and conservation, the world’s leader in hunting, supporting hunting, advocating hunting is the word I’m looking for. Advocating hunting, advocate waterfowl conservation. So in doing that, I see a way that I can kind of pay it forward for a lot of the death by thousand cut issues we’re looking at anyway and I would ask you to take a look at that. Which brings me up, do you have any upland bird interest or – you mentioned pheasants in the past I would really have to go dig deep through the photo galleries in my list about all the upland birds I’ve shot, incidental to a waterfowl, we were out in, what was I doing? I was trying to shoot a swan out in the Pacific Flyway of Montana, scratched and 8 tag soup. But we did shoot a bunch of mallards and we got into some really cool upland birds to include Hungarian partridge, sharp tails and multiply that around the world it’s been a, I’ve managed to, I don’t collect them, I don’t mount them, but I have been able to hunt and experience a lot of upland birds. Do you see any frontiers for you in that also?

Heath Hoogerhyde: Maybe, yeah, I don’t know, maybe down the line. Pheasants here are kind of, they were obviously prevalent from what I was told back in the 90s, 80s, 90s. I typically might, I have a hunting dog, it’s a drahthaar, so she’s more known as a pointer than a duck dog. I use her for both, but we go to game farms all the time just to keep her sharp, just to keep her point and just to keep her doing her thing. I could see myself doing it in the future, but it’s not, put it this – if I went somewhere in the United States and we were hunting ducks and then in the afternoon they were like, hey, you want to go kill a sharp tail? Yeah, that’d be sweet, let’s go do it but I don’t think, at least until I’m done going down the rabbit hole, I’m going down right now, I don’t know if I have the time.

Ramsey Russell: It’s got to be consistent. I’ve not really done, but a few times in my life have I gone after upland birds. But I don’t, but at the same time going to Russia years ago, they’ve got Capercaillie, they’ve got black grouse, they’ve got hazel grouse and ptarmigan and I was there, went in Rome, why not? I may only be here once and I do like, take Mexico, for example, I do like to shoot doves because I like to shotgun. So what else am I going to do that afternoon? I can sit around and get snockers on margaritas or I can go out and shoot doves and then come back home and drink margaritas so heck yeah, I might go after those upland birds. And I was just curious it was another way to collect, there are still and there are some species, if I ever found myself in Oregon when it was open and they were around, I would kill an afternoon or a day to go chase band tail pigeons just because I find that fascinating. I love to shoot wild quail, I love to shoot the kind of quail that get up and fly in front of pointers. That’s what I like to shoot.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: If I’m going to go after upland birds, but I can’t, like yourself, I can’t just take a week to go focus on upland birds, because my heartbeat is waterfowl.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. I mean, I’ll do the turkey slam, I have the Osceola in the Eastern. I’ll eventually, I think I want to make it just a single season slam and just do all 4 in one year just because it’d be difficult and it would add to the challenge. But yeah, I don’t know about upland, it’s not intriguing right now for me, but it very well could be in the future, you never know.

Ramsey Russell: I’m like yourself. It’s, didn’t register any of them, it doesn’t matter, but it’s a personal thing, I’m down, I’ve killed 9 or 10 turkeys in my life and I need one for the world slam and that’s Merriams, which I just need to carve out time in April or May to go out with several friends that have been invited me out to their part of the world to come shoot a Merriam’s.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Most notably Ryan Yarnell, my buddy that is now with turtle box has said, hey, come out here to Montana, we’ll get to Merriam, that’s no big deal. But I just got a – Again time, right. And priority, you got to prioritize stuff like this.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, 100%. You really do. The only other thing I’ll add is I actually, when I travel, I typically get a hand carved decoy from Jon Ketchum, I don’t know if you –

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I do know Jon, yeah.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah. He’s a good guy, so typically, I’ll get decoy from him to bring with me, like Florida was mottled duck and I gift it typically to the person that took me out.

Ramsey Russell: Great idea.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, it’s been fun. I have a whole collection of them here, I mean, I got cinnamon teal, I got a whole harlequin collection just because it’s my favorite bird. But that’s another cool thing too, because every time they look at that bird, that decoy, they’re going to think of the time we had or the hunt we had when we used it or this and that. So yeah, Jon’s a really good guy, super nice and a lot of people, I know quite a few people that actually do the same thing I do. Grab decoy, bring it with them, most of them bring it home, but I just think that’s one of those, it’s cool to be able to gift somebody a hand crafted decoy –

Ramsey Russell: I agree, that’s a fantastic idea. Heath, I’ve enjoyed the heck out of it, man. This has been a wonderful conversation. I wish you the best of luck. You’re a young man, you still got a lot of horizon ahead of you. It’s going to be interesting to see how you progress going on. With the bands, a lot of the bands, you’re killing a lot of the species, the mandarin duck, the red ruddy duck, are you lucky or good? Because I’d rather be lucky than good.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, I would rather be lucky too.

Ramsey Russell: And I neither usually.

Heath Hoogerhyde: I’ve always had a lucky rabbit’s foot stuck somewhere lucky –

Ramsey Russell: Have you killed an emperor goose yet?

Heath Hoogerhyde: No, man, that’d be real lucky. No, I haven’t, I put in every year. But yeah, it’s just been one of those things, I mean, like you said, it’s just luck. I mean, I’ve killed a lot, my first turkey ever is still the biggest turkey I’ve ever killed, inch and 5, 8 spurs, over an inch and a half spurs, massive beard, he was heavy bird. But I still have yet to kill one, like, I have yet to beat that one for the biggest. There’s been scenarios where it is just, it’s the look back on it, you’re like, there’s no, like, that’s just pure, I was in the right place at the right time kind of thing.

Ramsey Russell: How did that – Emperor Goose drawing is getting powerball status and truth matter, if I could draw one or the other, I’d rather hit the powerball.

Heath Hoogerhyde: I agree. I agree with you there, but, yeah, it’s been a fun journey. I look forward to the next adventure. Eventually, you’ll have to come up and hunt with us and I have to meet you somewhere and hunt eventually.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. We’ll have to drag Forrest into that hunt, tell everybody real quick, I think you got a really cool, you got a really nice Instagram page. Tell everybody how to connect with you.

Heath Hoogerhyde: For my personal page, it’s just hhoogs and then I have my company page, obviously, it’s just hoogs_customs. My personal page, I just try and post real stuff, like, if you go back to my harlequin post, it’ll be a long essay on why redemption and keeping your head up how I felt in the moment, that type of thing and I realized social media is a great way to show off all your highlights. But I also realized there’s not everybody, it’s a highlight reel. So I will preface, don’t compare yourself to anyone on social media because you’re not seeing the bad days. I like to post every once in a while, that’s why I post one duck most of the time.

Ramsey Russell: Man, I’m so glad you said that, because it’s a God’s honest truth. Somebody asked me just the other day, somebody inboxed me the other day and was talking do you think these people kill more than these? I said, no, I think the average is the average. I said, look, here’s how I always go back to this example, a picture of your neighbor’s Disney vacation. There they are grinning like a bunch of freaking heathens, that just won the jackpot and having the time of their life while you’re working or doing whatever you do, bullshit. What that picture doesn’t show is the $15 Coca Cola’s, the hour and a half waits to ride a get a 2 minute roller coaster ride and mama threatened to whoop little Johnny’s ass within an inch of his life, he don’t quit crying and start smiling for the picture. I mean you got to reconcile it with reality. Hunting is hunting and –

Heath Hoogerhyde: Hunting is hunting.

Ramsey Russell: And we’re all just, I follow some guys on social media, just landed the world record blue marlin after 40 years, man, it just goes to prove you’re one hook set away from the world record. You’re one duck away from your next band. Some crazy species, mandarin or whatever. Who knows, man? You just got to go. You don’t know till you go.

Heath Hoogerhyde: And I mean, I keep track of the species I kill per year and how many birds I’ve killed per year and all that kind of stuff. But, like, I try every once in a while, post pile picture because it was just that good of a hunt. But, like, I try and keep it reality, too. Like, I can go through my Instagram and tell you there’s, I mean, there’s some days where it was, that was the bird. Like, I shot a band on my birthday, kind of chilling at a little river spot and that was the only bird I killed that day. So, like, that’s why you don’t see mallards at my feet and I think social media can be a great tool to help better yourself and help connect with other people, but you got to take it as it is, you see people traveling to hunt and seeing the comments, oh, it must be nice or you’re lucky. Well, you didn’t see the amount of work that, that guy had to put in to save the amount of money to go on that hunt.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Heath Hoogerhyde: So, it’s all perspective, keep a positive attitude. I try to just post stuff, either educational or a story behind something and just spread positivity, if I see somebody on my stories that killed something really cool, slide up and let them know, congrats, man. Oh, you’re so lucky and have a bitter taste about it just because they killed it and you didn’t kill it. I’ll be the first to tell you during turkey season, I have way more fun calling for other people than I do pulling the trigger. I pull the trigger once a year, but I would rather take someone else out that’s never shot a turkey or as turkey hunting. Never been successful and watch them light up after shooting a bird. But, yeah, those are the ways you can find me on social media, if you have any questions, shoot me a message. I’m really good about getting back to people.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Heath. I appreciate you.

Heath Hoogerhyde: Yeah, no problem. We’ll stay in touch.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. We’ll see you next time.

[End of Audio]

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