Arizona Small Game Hunting, Duck Tacos and More, Part ‪2

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to another episode of Duck season somewhere I’m still in Arizona. Today’s guest is part two John Odell Arizona DNR. If you listened to last week’s episode. I know you’re just as fascinated as I am. I mean here we are, smack in the middle of The Sonoran Desert and where three other deserts converge and it’s some of the richest small game hunting in the United States. High biodiversity, surprisingly good duck hunting at times, good species diversity. But anyway, thank you all for joining us again, John how are you?
John Odell: I’m awesome.
Ramsey Russell: Good. You know, last week we ended talking about the about Arizona duck hunting and I definitely added that to my bucket list. I can tell you the next first day of September that I’m not traveling somewhere, I will be in Yuma.
John Odell: Come forward. I can tell you honestly that is my Super bowl. As a biologist as the migratory game bird coordinator for Arizona that day is my super bowl.
Ramsey Russell: It is like the dove and to me dove hunting is such a tradition of people and you know, it’s like I’ve always said my last meal supper type hunt in the world would be opening day of dove season. It’s hot in Mississippi .It doesn’t matter. It’s just that the pageantry, the people, the food, the tradition, the ritual of it.
John Odell: And I mean, I think people experience this in, different ways in other states. Like I’ve been to opening day of deer in Alabama. That was amazing. Like I was blown away at what that looks like it entails, you know, people in the woods and, and deer drives and I mean just like I was overwhelmed, like I thought it was one of the coolest things. And so you know, if you’re in a state, I mean there’s something that goes on that’s kind of a cultural phenomenon in hunting for you. Maybe that’s the opening day of pheasant in South Dakota. We all experience it. Just a little different here in Arizona for me, man, I’m telling you what September like, you can feel it’s electric in the air down here and not only like just, you know, hyperbole, it’s literally electric, like we’re in the middle of monsoon season, so we have these crazy lightning storms, major rainstorms, you know, going on and the humidity is high and the cicadas starts really buzzing and that’s all to me like signals, it’s coming September 1 is coming, you know, like this is the build up to the whole thing because and guys literally, we’ve gone through the summer here, there’s not a lot of reasons to drag you out of your air conditioned house in Arizona in the summer and you know, other than you can go fish and get out of the lake or whatever, but like, you know, for the Diehard Hunter, they look forward to September 1st, so bad because man, I get it, go out, bust out the shotgun, it’s going to be warm, we know it, you know, make sure to dress comfortably, put on some sunscreen, we’ve had some hot days, sometimes the doves are even cooked before they hit the ground. But you know it’s the day and September 1st, it’s always been the unofficial start of the fall hunting season. We have a few, like we have pronghorn hunts that start maybe in August or whatever but like this to most people like this is the unofficial start for the fall hunting season. So they just can’t wait for that day, you know to arrive and you get together with friends, you go shoot a bunch of birds, clean them up, you know throw some on the grill, make some poppers, just enjoy that time because it’s Labor Day weekend too. I mean that’s the whole thing. September 1st has been the opener in Arizona and California for over 100 years that day has never, it has always been September 1st. I’m not man enough to suggest changing that opening day, it’s the first day that we can open you know any migratory bird season across the country according to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. So, you know we have stuck to September 1st even before there was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It was still September 1st.
Ramsey Russell: A lot of the same things could be said about the opener in Mississippi. I swear, I was a teenager before I realized that Labor Day weekend was a federal holiday, that it was not the Monday we get out of school to go shoot doves, it’s just my tradition. And I was in Texas one time during one of their openers down around El Campo and it was, I just thought there was a lot of dove hunters around the double quick from Mississippi. So I went to a Bucky’s in Texas on 04:30 in the morning opening day, and when I read somewhere facetious or not that the largest armed militia on earth was Texans on opening day of dove season. From what I’ve seen, I believe it. And now, right by the time I think I’ve seen and done practically everything there is, I love what I love about my job is what I love about this duck season somewhere rolling around and meeting people like yourself. All of a sudden I found out that the greatest dove hunt in the United States, if not the world, is right there in New Arizona. I’m like, okay. I’ve got to go, I’ve got to experience that.
John Odell: I will say, I mean, I’ve watched the Argentina Cordova. That’s epic. I mean like that’s beyond great stuff. But you know, I mean if you’re a port working guy, you know, I can save you a lot on plane fare.
Ramsey Russell: People have asked me before how have you been to Cordova by so many times and shot those numbers of birds and then get so excited about sitting out in the swelter in September 1 dove field to shoot 15. And I’m like, it’s completely about context because now look, if you like to pull the trigger, I mean pull the trigger till your arm falls off, go to Mexico, go to Argentina and have a great time. But at some point of time to me it ceases being enjoyable and it becomes more like work. Go lift a cold beer, just lift your empty arm 1500 times and tell me how that feels. Now imagine a 7 pound shotgun and pulling the trigger at some point of time after the first couple of hunts it becomes work. Whereas going out and shooting 15 ducks and for real and here in North America, here in the US where we have a lot of dove like Yuma, Mississippi and Texas and other places. It is a huge social aspect, the grills, the cold beer, I’ve been to duck hunt that have live music in the evenings and it’s almost like a celebration of hunting. And I was talking to Matt McCormick up in Bozeman the other day and most people and I celebrate New Year’s Eve like everybody else. But my official New Year starts Labor Day weekend. That’s when hunting season starts. It starts with the dove hunt and it runs you know all the way through spring, snow if you let it or somewhere else in Mexico or something. But then you come in to fishing and golf or something. And then hunting season start, my year starts with Labor Day. It all steps centers around that Labor Day weekend. I’m glad that I came to Arizona just to find out about Yuma, Arizona.
John Odell: You know honestly I may seem a little biased and partial and all that stuff because I worked for the state and all that, but like legitimately there’s cool stuff to be had here for sure. I mean like I feel spoiled in a lot of aspects of what I get to experience and do and all that. You know, basically, you know, I hunted today in a T-shirt, a lot of the other play, I was just in Northern Nevada last week. Bird hunting up there and I was bundled up six ways to Sunday. But you know today I was like, okay, I was a little chilly down the water. But you know, it warmed up and we’ve got comfortable.
Ramsey Russell: You’re allowed to be biased because you’re small game manager and you steer a lot of these programs here in Arizona. And you know, to me it really is important, small. I mean I know there’s sexy, big Boone and Crockett white tail and sheep and elk and the true rock stars of the industry in my world, beautiful ducks, which are small game. But you know when you really sit back and look at hunting overall, I would bet almost everybody listening is nodding her head going, Yeah, I started with small game, I started with squirrels and rabbits and doves and you know, it’s a gateway and it’s a perfect, it’s warm as the perfect way to introduce young people into hunting. There’s a lot of places to go almost for free and small game hunters, public land opportunities. You just need a small game license not a big game license or auction tag. It’s just a great way to get into hunting.
John Odell: I want to just touch on something real quick for your listeners. Because you and I, we all know who Ramsey Russell is. You know, we’ve, seen the highlight reels, you know, he’s been all over. I mean like he’s my hero. Like I want to go and hunt all these places he’s done and the species and all that stuff. So there isn’t a whole lot that Ramsey hasn’t seen, you know? And so here I am. I get this grand opportunity, which is kind of backwards. I think I figured I’d meet Ramsey because eventually I’d save up enough and, he’d be taking me hunting like an Oregon like that. But my, I get the chance. He’d always come and wanted to visit a bunch of states and hunting. And so you know, if you were given the chance to take Ramsey Russell hunting for ducks. Where are you going to take him? And I struggled with this and because, and then I started to think about it, I said, you know, he’s seen the great flights. He’s seen, you know, probably some of the best spots in hunting all around the world. And I said, you know, where am I going to take Ramsey? That really exemplifies Arizona. You know, that kind of gives them a taste about it because we don’t you know, not every day is a limit. It’s not going to be full straps, you know? And so to me, the place that I’ve taken them right here on the salt river and right outside of phoenix, it’s, it’s not far away and, and this is my home water. You know, it’s the quickest way for me to duck hunt. I can drive 30 minutes and boom I’m there on the water, I can shoot a couple of ducks for the very first early flight and still be back at work. And it’s kind of my, you know, I’ve had great days. I’ve had not so great days, but it’s my home water, it’s like, here’s what it is. And it’s open to public land. I mean, I can’t tell you how many hunters of Phoenix, know the salt, you know, some of them love it, some of them despise that some of its like well you know, where’s your good duck hunt tomorrow? Okay, we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s just go to the salt. You know, it’s just a quick access point into that. And so, you know, to me I thought you know, that really was the best place to take Ramsey to see some Arizona duck hunting. You know, there are a lot of cool places here in Arizona to hunt ducks, but this is what the regular guys do, you know, this is where the regular guys go and this is what they’re going to see, you know, in terms of a species diversity and you know. We didn’t have Taj Mahal accommodations, you know

Ramsey Russell: That’s exactly how I hunt at home. I do hunt some private land at home, but you know, I cut my teeth on public land, I do believe that public land hunting makes you by necessity a better hunter. You know what I’m saying, it’s just and you know, we do have some out of the water blinds there at camp. A lot of people have children and stuff, but I’m just very comfortable sitting deeper, waist deep in the bushes and Hiding and just kind of immersing myself into the environment. That’s what I’m used to and to me that immersive experience is the experience, and you know, I tell people all the time , you’ll find out, I love to pull the trigger to shoot ducks, I love to shoot ducks. But it’s not the end all be all, you know, John the difference in three ducks and seven ducks or six ducks and seven bucks or whatever the limit maybe in your area, it’s just literally three or four or five dead ducks you can count on your fingers. And that really isn’t the end all, be all in terms of my experience and how I feel about the people I hunt with or the hunt in the environment, it’s just that the hand, you know, I play an A game, you play an A game, you know, I go out there and I do the best I can with what I’ve got to work with some days, the duck wins and I can accept that it’s the overall experience, and even when I started chasing real crazy species, bar headed geese or red crested poachers or whatever the case may be. It’s really not about the species, I do want to lay my hands and reduce that bird to possession. But in hindsight 2020, it’s not about that bird, it’s about where on earth that bird took me what I got to see and experience because of the birds and that’s just kind of how I process it.
John Odell: I think, you know, fly fisherman for many, many decades. Fly fishermen have, you know, really, when you, read a lot of the books and literature about fly fishing and stuff, you know, a lot of these guys really do talk about, you know, I hate trout, I don’t like trout, I love the places they live and so because the trout frustrates them and everything else, which they love fly fishing. Trout frustrates the heck out of it but they just are astonished by where that takes them, what canyon, what sites they get to see. And that’s really the bottom line of duck hunt. I mean as I’ve gotten older and thought about this, one of the most amazing parts of duck hunting to me or any water fowling, but I’m there to see the sunrise for another day and sometimes I’ve even seen the sun sets on that same day and I’ve done it in the company of really amazing people where we get to have, all kinds of talks, but we get to share in our successes we get to get to laugh at our failures, you know, and you just need to talk about life.
Ramsey Russell: I’m not there just to watch the sunrise. Nobody hunting is, but I feel extremely blessed to be above ground and doing what I’m doing and standing where I’m standing with the people I’m with and get to experience that. I truly do and getting back to fly fishing I had this observation this summer. Did a little non hunting related tour up through Montana and we stopped somewhere to get gas and stretch your legs and air out a little bit somewhere around the Madison River and all up and down the river were fly fisherman. Some of them were just froth in the water. Look like they’re throwing popping bugs out there for blue gills, and some of them were just very artistic. They were loading it up. They were catching these little five ways, way out there and I just sat there watching them backlit by the sun and it just said that I almost became hypnotized by the process of this one particular fisherman that was just drawing it. He’d get it out he mend it, mend it, he started loading back up, start getting it going. And I mean I sat there for 30 minutes you know, just stretching my legs and whatnot but watching, he never caught a fish, he never got a strike. And really I just I realized, you know, it’s for that guy sitting knee deep in that environment. He was in his happy place. It was all about that ritual. And I think, I understand young people because I was there, I was trigger happy, bloodthirsty. And I’m not anymore, I’ve progressed, I’ve just aged, I’ve changed, I’ve mellowed like a wine or something and really intruded to me. It’s a lot of it’s a higher level when it becomes more about the ritual and the process than just about to kill now. Which leads me to another conversation. We were talking this morning about eating ducks. A lot of people don’t like to eat ducks. You know why do you think that is?
John Odell: Probably the number one mistake that most home cooks make is over cooking. Not only ducks, but any given meat. You know, and that really it pulls a strong flavor out of it. And to the American palate, the way we’ve kind of been conditioned over the past 50 or more years. The domestic meats we eat, whether its beef, pork, chicken, all that stuff when you actually get down to the brass tacks of it, those meats are very bland. And they’re all uniform.
Ramsey Russell: I guess we’re talking fast food mostly.
John Odell: Well not only fast food, but I mean stuff you get from the grocery, like it’s this weird thing that when you go to the store, every cucumber is roughly the same size and the same shape. You don’t get like heirloom tomatoes, you have to go to a farmer’s market for, and you can’t get those like going to look at the Roma tomatoes at your local grocery stores. But they’re all identical. And it’s the same with our meats, the chickens are raised to a specific age and then they’re slaughtered. So every time this is the reason why Gordon Ramsay can give you the perfect way to cook a steak. You know that it’s, you know, whatever temperature, three minutes per side into the oven, whatever temperature for however long it’s because it’s going to turn out the same every time. When we’re out there and we’re duck hunting, you might shoot a one year old mallard, you might shoot an eight year old mallard you know, where is that mallard been eating? Is he been feeding out of the corn fields, has he been in the rice fields of California? Maybe he’s been roughing it, somewhere out in the Great Basin desert or something. All of those factors affect that animal. And so the one thing it is, you can’t almost cook them, cook every animal the same way and for the same amount of time. I mean that’s the whole thing. You not only do you have to understand that cut of meat or whatever, whether it’s just a simple duck breast, but spend that time in the kitchen with it. You know, one of the great examples for people who barbecue, they’ll understand this completely. There’s a thing that happens when you’re barbecuing meat, that slow roast, that the meat all of a sudden hits a stall temperature as it’s coming up and it stays there for a while for some unknown reason, and it will sit there for a while and eventually it kind of like it just gives up and then the temperature finally rises to where you’re trying to get. And, you know, for barbecues that makes total sense. And so sometimes that happens a wild game. I mean, you might have an eight year old mallard that’s going to need a little bit extra time in the pot or you know in the oven until it finally becomes tender, versus you know, something else you know, we were talking about squirrels earlier. Fried squirrel and gravy is the quintessential dish for squirrels. It’s known the world over I think. What no one tells you about that dish is that you need to use younger of these squirrels. If you’ve ever used old squirrel. But that’s the one secret, like every recipe I’ve ever seen for it never tells you use younger of the squirrel only. I’ve cooked it before and I’ve had old squirrels and I’m like, man that stuff is like leather. It’s not good. And I think, you know, to really do quality things, you know, you just have to take each. Wild game is imperfect. It’s an imperfect world with imperfect meat, you know that it may take five minutes, it may take fifteen. You know you just have to really pay attention to it I think a little bit more. But yeah, too many people I think, the biggest mistake I always see is over cooking, you know with a duck, honestly you really don’t want to go more than about medium. Medium well, would be almost too far.
Ramsey Russell: On the number one most complaints I hear people say they don’t like duck as it taste like liver? And that’s usually a sign to me that they overcooked it.
John Odell: Yeah. That strong flavor. But there’s another aspect to because of how bland our palates have become with just the American diet, people now associate strong or different flavors with bad taste. That it tastes bad because it’s stronger, it’s bolder you know I mean some of the things that aren’t kind of normal. And that’s not actually true, that’s your tongue is reminding you what flavor it is sometimes, you know.
Ramsey Russell: That’s a very good point. I might have talked about this before, but I love watching Andy Griffith and one of the episodes, Aunt Bee was trying to put on airs and impress, one of the Opie’s playmates and Andy went through the roof when he realized he came home for lunch and she was cooking goose because that was the, crème de la cram, impressive meal. That was the Christmas goose. And I’m thinking, that was back in the early 60’s and that was a symbol of really good eating how to eat a goose. And since then, you know, since then a couple of things have happened in America and I’m just free streaming here. It’s just interesting to me. But, one fast food proliferate, the average guy eats fast food or sandwiches or something, multiple times a week. And I read that subway was banned in Italy because based on analysis, their bread did not, did not even qualify as bread in Italy. It was sugar because of the sugar content. And you know, something else happened with the USDA food pyramid and healthy heart scheme and all these other BS, they started to remove fat from practically everything. It’s on all the packages, all the labels and what they did is to give, I mean with no fat, there’s no flavor. So to give it flavor, they added sugar. It doesn’t pick a product on, an island and you know, it, yogurt or ice cream or Hamburg, all this stuff, it’s just sugar instead of fat and you know, I’m the complete opposite. I like meat, I love fat and especially duck fat and I just wonder if in the last several decades of this trend, if it’s just somehow kind of sterilized American’s taste buds?
John Odell: Very possible. I mean, you know, we certainly know that, table salt had to be iodized because it was chemically produced and they added iodine because there wasn’t enough, iodine in our diet. Well, guess what I mean like when you eat natural sea salt and those kind of like the old days we used to get salt, kind of the same thing. Why does bread have to be enriched? You know, why does your sandwich loaves have to be an enriched form? Like why isn’t it naturally that way? I mean look at all the gluten allergies that are around now, gluten intolerance or gluten allergies and celiac disease and all that other stuff. You know one of the things they actually I don’t know you know for sure that this is the actual cause but a lot of people blame industrialized bread making for removing the grains and the good parts, you know creating white bread. Just doing that removing those things that were important for us.
Ramsey Russell: Those go and sit on the store shelf for a month. Like you go to some countries like the Netherlands, you don’t go to the grocery to get bread, you go with the baker. You don’t go to the grocery to get meat, you go to the butcher, you don’t go to the grocery to get cheese, you go to the cheese making place, the dairy place and they go buy bread by the day, good fresh bread, the next day you need bread you go buy bread, just a little bit of bread for the day.
John Odell: Well, that’s the way European model is. I mean they go shopping every day every.
Ramsey Russell: Every day. Well, it makes a difference. The food is just unbelievable.
John Odell: Yeah, for sure. You know, we’ve gotten away from that. We’ve become like hoarders for, especially during this pandemic, you see it with toilet paper and another other things, but you know, it’s like we hoard stuff at home to be able to feed us for a week or two weeks until the next paycheck or whatever like we just, we’ve run out of time, in our daily lives to spend. I mean, Michael Pollen, who is a really incredible writer and thinker and talker on this subject. I mean he talks about that. He says, you know what, you can eat all the junk food you want, but you’ve got to make it all yourself if you like literally make everything, we’ve gotten so far away from cooking at home. Like the amount of time, I think he was talking about one time, he says at one point, the average American family, a meal the amount of time is spent eating was like 20 or 25 minutes. Cleanup took four minutes. He’s like, you can’t do anything other than crush up a pizza box in four minutes when it comes to clean up. You know if you, if you cooked your meat like a good pot scrubbing and all those other things you know and, so there is a real big link to just health and wellbeing mentally, physically, all those things when you look at other countries who spend more time, you know family units cooking those kind, I mean that’s the whole, you know, you hear about Italian grandmothers, they live in the kitchen, that’s their home, you know it’s the heart of their home and people love to gather there and smell the smells and taste the taste and you know kind of enjoy that stuff and now it’s okay, we got to grab McDonald’s on our way to the soccer game and you know, I got to go pick up the medication and you know, I mean whatever it is.
Ramsey Russell: Eating has become a matter of convenience and you know, that’s one thing I do like to cook, I do spend time at duck camp and I’m not a chef, I’ve got a very small repertoire of recipes or dishes that I cook, that I would describe the soul food or something, Duck camp deer camp food. But at home during Co-vid, my wife and I cooked a lot. We went through the freezer, we got back strap, we got ducks, we got this, we got that, we made chili, we’ve made gumbo. We just, we didn’t want to go out, we didn’t want to go the grocery, we just very sparingly and we started cooking a lot and it wasn’t a 30 minute process, it was, we have to, we sat at home and we chopped and we stirred and we cooked and we sautéed and we washed the pens and we load the dishwasher and it might take an hour and a half, two hours.
John Odell: Or you make plans for tomorrow nights dinner, we got to start this now if we’re going, make sure to pull it out of the freezer, so it’s thought out so we can do this.
Ramsey Russell: Exactly right. And I think there’s a lot to be said. And we both realized how much we had kind of missed that and you know, we did a lot of that in college, we were both college kids, we did cook it, we couldn’t afford it. And we did a lot of that back in our college days and, that’s maybe where we learned to cooking. And I guess I’m bringing the subject up because I do share, I think it’s interesting to me, I like to eat duck and I spend so much time in duck camps around the world that I tend to eat duck a lot, you know, it’s not just a seasonal thing, it’s all the time if I’m going to go to a foreign country, I want to eat duck, I want to eat duck, like they cooked duck, I want to eat the species they eat, I just want to sample, I want experiment and I really do personally enjoy eating waterfowl, but only well, properly prepared waterfowl but I don’t like eating overdone duck anywhere.
John Odell: Well, you know, one of the things that I’ve noticed as well, I mean a lot of these, and you know the famous or celebrity chefs and all that stuff. Chefs for five star restaurants and James Beard Winners and stuff. You listen to him in interviews and every once in a while you’ll catch it, someone will ask them if you could only pick, you know, one thing to cook and eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? And I mean I’ve heard it from people like Anthony Bourdain and all, I don’t, they all say duck. They legitimately say that duck is the pinnacle meat for them to prepare because when it’s done, you know, properly or even close, it’s amazing, it is a wonderful, wonderful thing and you know that’s always kind of stuck with me because that’s the other thing, you know, we talked about it earlier you know what’s funny I think that that a lot of Americans don’t know or understand, I mean you know market hunting in the latter half of the 1800s in America was for a reason most people in America, we’re eating game. It was the most prized things. Like people weren’t going to the market to get cows and chickens. Like if you lived on a farm you had some and maybe that would supplement because you had other things going on like, oh well we’re going to kill some chickens because you know, we didn’t get dear this year, but people went out to eat wild game. They went to the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, they went to high end restaurant. I mean the reason why market gunners were paid a good deal was because people were in search of these meets those wild game, whether bison, ducks, you name it. And you know, conservation comes in and changes the game and makes that illegal. So now the only way to get the best quality meat that even chefs today say this is what I want to cook for the rest of my life. If I only have one choice is to be a hunter. The only way you’re going to get wild duck. I mean very few exceptions, like wild salmon or something like that that are brought to market. The rest that you have to be a hunter to acquire this meat, you cannot buy it, no matter how much money you have in your, Warren Buffett cannot buy wild elk, they can’t buy Ramsey’s wild ducks. He has to go buy a shotgun and buy some waiters and show up in the duck blind with you to get it. And to me that’s a very amazing, you know, kind of aspect that I think it’s overlooked by us hunters as well, like that. We’re eating like kings.
Ramsey Russell: You were saying earlier this morning, some of the most expensive meat, it was Waldorf Astoria was wildlife.
John Odell: Yeah, the number one of the most expensive meal in America ever served was a half roasted rare canvasback duck. The Waldorf Astoria was they, it was 1895 and I mean it was a week’s worth of wages just to buy half of a roasted duck.
Ramsey Russell: Two weeks wages for you and your wife each have a half a duck.
John Odell: Yeah. You’re going to have to work two whole weeks. Imagine a meal today, you know, whatever job you have and that was actually, I think that was a carpenter’s wages in New York City at the time. So you know let’s say you’re a tradesman or whatever it is, I want you to imagine having to work two full weeks and taking that paycheck just to take your wife out to one dinner and all it was half a duck.
Ramsey Russell: I hope my wife listening to this. So next anniversary when I take when I roast mallard or canvasback duck, she’ll appreciate it.
John Odell: Sure. I mean it’s astonishing but you know like, it’s these kind of things are important I mean to know and understand about you know the history and where we come from and all that stuff. I mean wild canvasback ducks from the Inland from the interior of the country still to this day or some of the most fantastic tasting birds, I think I’ve ever experienced, you know they eat wild celery on the breeding grounds and you know it’s I always joked that maybe that’s like pre stuffing your duck.
Ramsey Russell: But the flavor is truly in the fat and I just, you know, I breast peel back the skin, breast a lot of duck make a lot of dishes like that. It’s convenient, we do shoot a lot of ducks at times but really and truly the better quality ducks, the teal, the canvas backs, the mallards, the pin tails, the wigeon. I like to hold pick those birds. I like those birds hold pick, I want that fat and at a minimum I’m going to pluck the breast and keep that fat intact because the recipes, I like to cook that fat, you know when I make a gumbo, it’s not duck meat that goes in there it’s the duck and the fat and the whole base of the route the stock, he’s got that fat in it that rendered fat, and to me that just gives it a sublime flavor. That’s the starting point of a great meal, it’s the flavor and fat and I guess I’m turning this kind of into a cooking episode. I hope everybody enjoyed it. But I guess, I am because, I get a lot of inboxes and text. I’ve gotten some emails in the last couple of weeks about certain recipes or certain things I posted up about cooking and I believe that, I believe it’s a proper tribute to properly cook wild game. That’s why we hunt it, I know we hunt for fun, but I think we do hunt ducks and everybody ought to have at least one really, really good duck recipe. At least one. We also have several, but there will be at least one that anybody would like. I think it’s just a proper tribute to it. It’s like, I was describing to somebody the other day, I said, you know, I get some of these inboxes about some basic things and it’s like, I don’t know that it’s not that people don’t know how to cook duck. Maybe it’s cooking itself is becoming kind of a lost art, and if you’re used to throwing a frozen piece on 350 degrees for 18 minutes to go from there to properly cooking duck, it is a quantum leap, start with something basic like steak, but I mean it’s a quantum leap and you know, so when we started talking about cooking this morning I said you know what, I’m going to ask this guy about this, it’s a great topic, you know, what is your favorite way to eat duck?

John Odell: Okay, hands down. So I haven’t traveled to as many countries as you have Ramsey, but I feel kind of rather worldly. I’ve traveled internationally and done some stuff and actually took cooking classes in a number of countries like Tokyo and Paris and all other stuff and I will say that one of the things to me for duck, that ducks and geese that are just kind of, it’s always been my favorite has been confit duck leg confit or confit geese legs. And so what that is and it relates to your topic about fat. So what it is skin on legs that are cooked in duck fat completely submerged in duck fat. It’s a French technique, you cook it at very low temperatures for a few hours and it becomes just, mouthwateringly it just melts in your mouth.
Ramsey Russell: I took the skin on duck legs and I put them in a pan and I fill it up with duck fat.
John Odell: They got to be covered and usually what I add to it as well as I’ll add shallots, some slice up some shallots and I’ll slice and I’ll actually cut up or just open up garlic bulbs to help season that fat because you’re going to use this fat multiple times. It’s not just the one that you don’t throw it away after you’re done, but it sits in a very low temperature oven, 200 degrees. So you’re not boiling the fat. This is this is just a real slow cook and it just breaks everything down into this beautiful, it becomes ultra-soft and tender and usually actually what happens beforehand is a curing process, so you cover that leg or that piece with some salt and some different herbs and spices and all that stuff and let it sit in that usually overnight so that it soaks in before that cooking process takes place. It’s an old preservation techniques, so people would do this, they confit and then they put it in jars and then they would cover it with fat and allowed to come to room temperature because that fat would create a seal and protect it from rotting from decaying, and so at any time you always had confit, you know, duck or goose legs laying around. Now, when you’re ready to eat it, you pull it out of that fat, you get a pan searing hot and you lay in that pan and you crisp off that skin just on that, you’re not worried about it, because it’s already fully cooked that meat. What you’re trying to do is crisp up that skin, serve it with some roasted potatoes or something.
Ramsey Russell: Crisp it under an oven or in a skillet?
John Odell: I usually do on a skillet I think some people have done in an oven before. But you know, goose legs are really good for it because there’s a whole lot of meat, domestic ducks have way bigger legs than wild, you know? And so duck legs tend to be a little bit different, but I’ve confit a lot of, I usually get a pile of duck legs. I just saved like all my legs from any ducks that you know like you were talking about you like your breast out. I get mad at my friends who breast out birds, I’m like you say you know I’m watching rip out breast, I said put that duck right here as soon as you’re done taking those breasts, I’m taking every one of these legs and I’ll build a whole bunch of them. Just keep them in the freezer until the end of season and then I’ll do like some confit and I’ve used that as taco filling just after the cook, I just shred it and beautifully seasoned, thrown in some tacos, it’s just got a lot of multipurpose things that it can be used for. But when you have a perfect. I’ve eaten it in Paris several times. A lot of like I said that a beautifully crisped, buttery, tender, soft, meat there’s just, there’s nothing like it in the world.
Ramsey Russell: You can cook a lot of them and then store them and then bring them out later after they’ve been kind of confit and just burn up the skin and enjoy them.
John Odell: Yeah. Or even like I said, even if you don’t have the skin a lot of times the ducks that I end up using don’t have the skin on, and so what I’ll do the confit and because it’s usually so tender as soon as they come out of confit, I’ll just strip it off the bone because no sense, and just, you know, really stack in a mason jar and then cover the top with some of that fat, and then I can just store in the fridge and it’s just they’re just you know, ready to go anytime and I can just pull it out and I love to reheat it and crisp it up in a pan. Like I said, all that nice shredded meat, crisp it up in a pan, you know, add some seasonings, throwing some cilantro, some onions and stuff. You have great tacos. I make probably my favorite. I’ll give you this secret trick to John Odell’s ultimate confit duck tacos. So you now, you know how to confit and you’ve got a confit meat. What I do is I take flour tortillas and I use a muffin tin upside down and I put the taco the soft flour tortillas in between the things, so they’re kind of looking like a taco. It’s making a Taco, you know in there and I bake them in the oven at about 350 until they are brown and crisp up because I want that flour tortilla crispy. I put in that duck meat and I make this sauce and just like you, it’s kind of soul food. It’s how you feel when you’re cooking because there isn’t a specific recipe. What I use is I use fig preserves. And I use a canned chipotle pepper or two, just to give it a little bit of spice, throw it in the food processor, blende it up, I want it real fine and pull it out, squeeze it up over that duck taco meat, you know at any other toppings you want and just absolutely delicious. It just, they’re superb tacos you know, everyone who tries in my mouth, you know, they’re always, it just tastes like magic in my mouth, you know and it really does. You know, and if you add more chipotle pepper it can get spicier if you don’t, you want a little bit of that sweet side with that fig, it’s fantastic.
Ramsey Russell: You had an interesting philosophy. You’ve got an interesting philosophy on when cooking, we were talking about our friend Hank Shaw the other day and several other chefs and you have an interesting philosophy on when that chef them and that elevation of cooking kind of became prevalent among a lot of people in America.
John Odell: Yeah so a lot of the new hunters, the new guys coming into hunting, have a real strong cooking ethic. Like they’re willing to put in a lot of work for a meal that I think a lot of older hunters who maybe don’t have those kitchen skills or don’t have, they don’t feel as comfortable in the kitchen, as a lot of these, these younger millennials and stuff coming in. And what I noticed that happened was the reason why, the turning point in everything was September 11 2001. So you know we all know twin towers came down, the terrorist attack happened, hit the pentagon and all of our stuff. How that translates to food is an actually interesting story because for those who were there and remember that time period, it was a scary time like, everyone was just kind of on edge, like was there going to be another one? America was pulling together? It was really great. But the news kind of got overwhelming because we were just glued to our TVs every day, what’s the new threat level? What’s happening at Ground zero cleanup? What are they finding any people or what are we learning about these terrorist and stuff? And people just really at some point had to tune out just for their own mental sanity and what they did is they actually tuned into the only channel that wasn’t about bad news or any of the other stuff and it was Food Network. You actually can see, if you look at the TV ratings for Food Network right after 9-11 about two weeks afterwards the network ratings started to climb, as people started tuning into this which is understandable, you know like there’s only so much bad news you could take or feeling, scared and you don’t know what’s going on. But a lot of these were parents protecting their children from all this bad news because that’s all it was on the news at that time. It was always on the TV. And so you have an entire generation of kids who came up literally glued to food network. And if you really think about it we didn’t have celebrity chef. I mean like really the first early celebrity chefs that I knew of was like Julia Child you know who was doing all that other stuff. But then there’s this explosion of all, like there’s Rachel Ray and Bobby Flay, I mean like now there’s like tons, like we know a ton of chefs names like well, I don’t think my parents knew anybody but Julia Child as far as a cook. And so and that happened because of this whole, you know, drive to food network and all that stuff. So there’s a bunch of kids and, and well now adults who are, trying to come at, you know, where’s my food coming from? And they want to make better decisions about, you know, if they’re going to eat meat, you know, they want to be able to make sure it’s the most ethical meat they can and so they are coming to hunting from a food side. And they’re willing to put in extra effort into their meals, so they’re learning better cooking techniques and all that stuff. Instead of just the old school, you know, Campbell’s cream of Mushroom soup or maybe marinating it in Italian dressing or something like that. I mean they’re really doing some high end cooking and it all stemmed from September 11th, changing the way we watch TV or these kids and stuff and really coming up and so I’ve often been very, very impressed with their willingness to really invest themselves into ingredients and into learning things to be able to cook better. And that’s, you know, we talked about with Hank, you know, was a trained chef, I mean he started in an Ethiopian restaurant, you know, worked his way up on to sue chef and really has those abilities and skills and you can see it in his recipes I mean because I know people who have introduced to Hank and the whole wild game cooking world, they’ll look in that book and they see listening, there’s ingredients there that they have never heard of in their life. You know, or never even thought about it and then what’s going on. I actually had a boss who, when he first started with me, I introduced him to the wild game cooking world, which was really kind of fun because it’s like totally foreign to him. He didn’t have a whole lot of kitchen skills, he can cook decent quail and stuff like that, he does okay, but he’s like okay, like this is a whole different level and so I said, if you’re just willing to trust me, so he bought buck moose and you know all the deer and venison stuff and literally started going recipe by recipe through there. And he said his only complaint was that there were some recipes that had an ingredient that’s the only like time he’s ever used that ingredient and so he has to wait till he cooks that dish again. But he was very impressed that he could do that with wild game and he had no clue that he could make it taste that much better, just by going through that. And hank to his credit, Hanks recipes can seem very complicated and require a lot of time and all that stuff, but every one of them has been tested by people who don’t have, chef Gordon Ramsay level skills, you don’t have to be master chef material to make these, you know like if you literally follow you know his advice is you know he offers tips in there. If you maybe you don’t have this ingredient, you have to substitute something else. We were talking about today, you know like my favorite thing is instead of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, substitute duck fat for your butter once. Just make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and put duck fat instead of butter in their game changer.
Ramsey Russell: Duck fat is the food of gods. Also roasted potatoes with duck fat.
John Odell: Yeah anything, any potato, any starch cooked in duck fat is a superior.
Ramsey Russell: And a recipe that I don’t have yet have but I will hopefully meet Hank maybe this January and I’m going to hit him dead up for this. His wife Holly was telling me one time about eggnog especially with bourbon. But he uses duck fat makers and I’m thinking okay, that is just taking it to a whole holy level. If you’ve got an eggnog with duck fat in it, I’ve got to get this recipe.
John Odell: Yeah, Hank and I are definitely big fans. I’ve known him for several years now and we really do talk about our love of using duck fat in our cooking, as a fat because fat isn’t bad for you. Like fat is actually necessary. We actually do require like animal fat as human beings and some former fashion and for a long time we’ve gotten away from it where you have, you know, vegetable oils and Crisco. I mean they’re, substitutes, and they’re not, the real thing. I mean we as an individual species were meant to eat animals and have some of that fat.
Ramsey Russell: They don’t have the flavor or the vegetable oils don’t have the flavor or the nutrition of animal fat.
John Odell: No, actually I know the BBC, the British broadcasting company published an article and actually noted pork fat, Pork fat lard is one of the top 10 most nutritious ingredients on the planet in terms of what your body gets from it by eating it. When you talk about, caloric intake, amino acids, anything like it is in the top 10 of the list.
Ramsey Russell: Well that makes bacon right on time, and I like bacon. And you know I was doing this road trip, I was just saying with a close friend of mine and we went to go cook with Africa, where’s your bacon grease? Who doesn’t have bacon grease in her kitchen coffee can of it? You know, I mean, you don’t get rid of bacon grease. It is the basis of nearly everything I cook.
John Odell: Yeah, I think part of that though, like there’s a definite southern heritage. And maybe even an older generation thing, I remember bacon fat always being on our stove there in Montana. Two of my grandmother stove my mom stove. It was always there when needed.
Ramsey Russell: It’s needed for practically, everything in my repertoire of cooking requires or I want bacon grease, it may be a tablespoon maybe more is a flavor, it’s a grease, it’s the secret corn bread. It’s just got to have bacon grease in my world.
John Odell: For sure. There’s a lot of fat. I mean, that’s the great part is if you start, if you can do one thing cooking wise, if you want to experiment and understand, you know, just a little bit more about cooking or whatever do fat substitutions. Just, I mean, it’s something easy to try, you know, instead of butter, use vegetable oils sometime, or you know, maybe use olive oil, or use duck fat or use chicken fat or use beef tallow or you know, whatever it is, like I said, just substituting duck fat for butter in Kraft macaroni and cheese, Blue box Kraft macaroni and cheese. I guarantee every kid in America has had at least once. As a grown up, you will enjoy Kraft macaroni and cheese with that duck fat, I mean it’s like it’s a game changer, and so have those things where you do, all kinds of god, but having a real butter again. You know, salted butter unsalted, but I mean if you can understand that one area you’re cooking will improve, you’ll develop taste for things. I think that’s where Hank and I kind of sit it probably use like you know, how can I sit there, and duck fat is a major, like I cook, I cook some chicken recipes with duck fat. People look at me like you’re doing what I’m like, yeah, I’m putting duck fat in my chicken recipe. That’s a personal flavor profile for me that it gives it a depth and a richness and I just love it, it’s a virtual agree and the fact that I can collect it my own in the wild as a side effect of duck hunting. I am grocery shopping, not that’s what it should be boiled down to, but by God, I’m going to get a great duck get something to eat. But, I also get a little bit of duck fat off a lot of ducks that I can render their fat off.
Ramsey Russell: Folks, the flavor is in the fat. I’m going to change subject while I got you John, and kind of, it’s getting late. But I wanted to ask you about your involvement, complete change of subject, I want to ask you about your involvement in the pacific flyway waterfowl management stuff what is your role? Because I know I don’t completely understand and I’m thinking maybe a lot of my listeners don’t understand about how the season that they see expressed on the back of their bag limit card comes into being, you know what I’m saying, and I know you’re very, very instrumental, and I know it takes up a lot of your time on the Fly Way Counter Flyway Committee, what’s all that about?
John Odell: So basically, we have the four flyways, you have the Pacific, Central, Mississippi and Atlantic. We’re all basically structured the same. So what you’ll hear is about, you’ll hear, at different levels, you’ll hear counsel is the top level for the States, and the people who are on the council’s every state typically has represented, you know in a council. And for their respective flyways, so like my boss who’s the terrestrial wildlife chief is my council member. He’s the one that does the final voting and all those things because what you have to understand these decisions like can be policy level decisions for an agency, and so I’m a step under him where I’m the migratory game bird coordinator of the waterfowl biologist. I mean you have a representative for each of your states that that is that person. And what we do is we’re the science arm. So our job is to dig into the science and the numbers. You know, the population counts, the surveys, we coordinate a lot of things within our own respective states, but then amongst other states as well. And so we developed the recommendations based on the direction of our agency. Like when I go, I’m the representative for Arizona. So when I sit in the room with the 11 Western states and the Canadian Wildlife Service and US Fishing and Wildlife Service. I have a responsibility to my state and my hunters and what’s best for them. But I have other responsibilities to Neighboring states regional. The flyway we’re one unit we have to operate that way. You know I have to look out for my hunters but I also have to look out for my flyway and then I also have to look out internationally.
Ramsey Russell: Because pacific flyway you all like the only fly way that does have to coordinate with other counties.
John Odell: All the other flyways have to coordinate with Canada and we do have some you know back and forth with Mexico. But the Pacific is unique because it’s the Pacific Rim. I mean a lot of we get birds from Alaska that go over onto the Asian continent fly down all the way China, Japan, and those kind of things. But we have partners from other countries. Vasilis who’s our Russian counterpart who works on snow geese issues on Wrangle Island in the Arctic Circle, an island there, Russian own island where snow geese breed and grow and stuff. Some of those birds come to the United States, some of those birds also stay on that side. And you know we have to work with him, he does an awesome job. You know, working on the island for a few months every year, and so he has to kind of relay information to us, what he thinks is going on, because you know, we all know we’ve got a real, burgeoning snow goose population in a lot of the country, the pacific has kind of not seen the brunt of it, like the Mississippi or the Central has at this point. And so we’ve kind of learned along the way, how to better manage and stuff and take advice of what’s coming and what to watch out for. But we have complications, Japan would like snow geese returning regularly and in good numbers, and some of those birds come from Wrangle Island, but a lot of those wrangle island birds end up in central valley California. And you want to talk about some eaters, snow geese will eat you out of house but large snow goose populations also have impacts on ducks and where their wintering and their food resources, and so there’s a balancing act, you know, some people are under the misconception that, some species can be unlimited, that you can never have enough. We actually know that’s not true. There are a number of species that, originally, when America was worried about we got to bring them back, we’ve got to restore them, they set floors, like pie in the sky goals to, if we could just get the population above here we feel good about it or any of the other stuff and then the reverse happened like they reached that goal, which is awesome. I mean, we’re all standing on the shoulders of those giants who came before us and now new issues arise. You know, we see it with the rocky mountain population of Sandhill cranes. The guys couldn’t even imagine having cranes over 17,000, just that population, 17,000 birds. That’s not much in terms of when we talk about duck numbers like 17 million of mallards and things like that. I mean we’re just talking 17,000. And all of a sudden new issue started crop up because once we started getting too high, about 21,000 in the breeding grounds, they were actually destroying farm fields in Idaho. And you know, this is nuisance issues, and issues that we have to solve, and so, we set a cap a ceiling now of like we don’t want the population over 21,000. And when it is, we’ve set triggers in place for us to respond and increase our harvests to bring that number back down into alignment where we’re not destroying someone’s livelihood with cranes eating up, their farm fields and all that stuff, the local family farm, but also, kind of meeting those issues back and forth. But the thing that you have to understand is that the Flyways are all in all of the states are interconnected through the flyway system and it’s a system that works. We’re all individual, 50 individual states, collectively working, regionally, flyway wide and those kind of things, but also nationally and working with the Fishing and Wildlife Service to make things happen. And there’s a process there. And really we do use the best science available to make decisions on how we do stuff. And so, like if you’re mad that, like I can’t believe, the bag limit for this species is this or I’d like to hunt till February 10th or whatever it is, like it isn’t just your state that can make that happen or that only affects them. It affects all of us. You know, you have to go outside those bounds and I think it at a larger scale.
Ramsey Russell: The Continental population of waterfowl and their management is a lot bigger than your home state. And you know, we talked about this briefly this morning. I can remember back when Trent Lott was in power, Bill Clinton was in office and all the southern duck hunters wanted an extension. I think the season ended around January 15th or 17th or something like that. We all wanted an extension. The ducks didn’t show up till after the season. We needed two more weeks. We needed to go longer and through some political crafting, if I remember correctly. He actually got that extension written into the national budget and it’s a piece of port and you know, that was 20, some odd years ago. And to me looking back, I was young, I was trigger happy. I wanted to shoot more ducks. I wanted a longer season. The ducks didn’t show up, I felt like, but now what I’ve learned after all these years, it was a mistake, in my humble opinion, it was a mistake because, I have witnessed very, very, very little marginal return on that extension. I see mallards pair bonding and we know when I see a strong pair bond formations and when you see pairs of mallards that are indifferent because they’ve moved on to another life cycle. They don’t want to be around a bunch of decoys, they don’t want to hang out with a bunch of guys. They want to go off and do ducky thing, kind of hold hands and kiss and start courting each other. And at some point in time, my thought has evolved to where I’m thinking that’s two weeks that the ducks can have instead of me out there frustrating myself with stale ducks, with pressure ducks, with ducks that are entering a new phase of their life cycle requirement. Maybe I need to go on snow goose hunting or go do something else or get on with my fishing season and let the ducks be ducks and make more ducks. And that’s just my two cents on kind of what you’re saying.
Ramsey Russell: Because after that happened now, the Northern states got longer seasons, The Western states, everybody’s got more seasons. You know, any biologist will tell you bag limits don’t kill ducks. Days kill ducks.
John Odell: Absolutely. That’s the number one the more days that you spend, the more ducks will die. And it’s seen over and over again. But, you bring up an important point, the fact that it was political and then it came from Congress in those changes. This is where things get really tricky. You know, people want and they want it now, we’ve kind of been spoiled in that. And like I said, the Flyways a process. I mean you’re talking about coordinating 50 individual states and Fishing and Wildlife service all getting on the same page about something. Some states take more convincing than others, I mean, granted it comes down to votes and you might, it could be in the Pacific, it could be a 6-5 vote, 6 states approved, 5 against. Those are just kind of the way that the things roll on some issues. But saying that like what you need to be concerned about more is when it gets political like that and it gets into Congress because any time Congress opens the Migratory Bird Treaty Act forcing changes, if the science tells us like right now the season for ducks ends January 30, that’s the latest we can possibly go. Because of what happened with the Land Act that that just recently passed. There was a piece of legislation attached into the Land Act, and they used kind of veterans as cannon fodder in that, to get senators to vote for it when it was on its own. And all of a sudden, and then it got wrapped into the Land Act. And Land Act was really good. It just, it had this one kind of hitch in it about extending us to the 31st. Well, the problem with that piece of legislation going through is because Congress got involved and did that instead of allowing the flyways a little more time because actually all of us didn’t have a problem with going to the 31st at all. What we wanted was something to be able to justify doing it. You know, even if it was just an opinion survey of hunters, if a couple states had done a survey of their hunters that said yes, we would like to go to the 31st instead of ending the last Sunday in January like we have. So that way we get a few extra days that would have been sufficient enough for us to justify and say, yup, okay, we can do that because couple days either way wasn’t going to, destroy all ducks in North America. But Congress got involved in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and it became a loss. So, now if the science tells us that we should or could, you know, push duck season into February now, it now requires an act of Congress to change that season instead of allowing the state’s, the authority and the power that they have in the relationship and the working relationship we have with each other and Fishing and Wildlife Service, who could have just changed it without any fanfare, or any problems, we now have to if we want to make that change okay here, we may call it justification we now have to take it to Congress.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well good luck with that if they’ve got budget or anything else.
John Odell: Yeah, anything we made a high priority for that. And you know, so it’s tough. Obviously, I think, a lot of us are particularly fond of politics and those kind of things and I just want them as far, I want politicians as far away from our regulation process as possible, we know they probably don’t do some of the greatest things with other stuff. But that’s really the blessing of wildlife manager. I mean that we use science. Science guides us and tells us, what to do, so that way it’s more of an objective marker. In how we manage, you know, waterfowl and wildlife in general. Because it shouldn’t be political, wildlife shouldn’t be attached to a party. This is America’s rights, it’s everybody. Everyone should care, and everyone should have a part or a role in it because it is for everyone. And when we talk about it it’s an international resource, we have Sandhill cranes. We’re probably here in the state of Arizona right now who came from Siberia, flew all the way across the Bering Strait Alaska, Canada all the way down and ended up in Southern Arizona. And so that bird has some importance. Not only here just Arizona, but the breeding grounds, everything else. And we just have to be mindful that because there borders don’t matter to them.
Ramsey Russell: No fans in the sky. No customs in the sky. They just fly.
John Odell: No, they’re coming. And so it’s, I think, for your listeners and stuff to understand, you know, we really, I can’t tell you my counterparts in the flyways are rock stars. Just, I mean like some of the most amazing people and we all have kind of our own interests in specialties, or even responsibilities as it were, and so we all have to kind of come from, we have, we have a lot of strength that come together in this, in this world. I mean, managing central valley California is a whole heck of a lot different than managing Arizona. And in particular species, doves are really, really high on my priority list. Like I said, it’s my super bowl. You know, California, you want to talk about someone who’s neck deep in pin tails, you know like their fingers on the pulse of what’s going on with pin tails constantly, you know and hell I saw one, I drove through Central California a few years ago, I was on my way to the waterfowl wing B I was up in your reading and there was just a big, I think it was up by Sacramento Wildlife Refuge or something. There was a big kind of pond off on the side of the freeway. And I swear to you there was a raft of pin tails on this pond lake looking thing that was more pin tails than I have seen, doing waterfowl surveys in the state of Arizona for 20 years. Like there were more birds in one single raft of ducks, I was just like, oh my Lord! And so you know heck, Alaska. I mean, how could you pick any two more completely diametrically opposed states in Alaska and Arizona? And we’re in the same flyway, and I talking about doves and their eyes roll because they don’t does, they start talking about, see ducks and stuff. And I’m like, I don’t even like, what are those? And but we have to work together and jointly and when we do it’s fantastic that we can do that and talk over issues. And we help each other out in this process and try to make, all of us are on the hunter side without question. We want there to be as we talked about earlier, you know, the difference between big game and small game management or even specifically migratory birds. Big game management is actually managing the animals. You have a count of how many Bulls and Cows and Bucks and Doves and you know the birth rates and death rates and like particularly here in the west where we have to, we have a lottery system because our resources was more restricted. Like we know how many were supposed to take out and keeping this population that you know 30 bucks per 100 doves or you know, whatever it is. In small game and the migratory bird world, you’re not, while we are managing those species to an extent more of what we’re doing is managing hunters expectations and behavior and experiences in the field and that’s where bag limits and season dates and those kind of things like we want you to have a good time. At the same time like it’s our job to protect resources. And abide by these agreements that several states have signed and glommed onto management plans and all that stuff, and that’s why you see some of these certain duck species have sub limits within a bigger limit, here in the pacific we’ve got a 7 duck bag limit. But there’s always a kerfuffle about, being a 2 bag limit for pin tail versus of one and you know a lot of discussion that you’ve heard recently about, requesting to go 3 pin tails in terms of that bag limit and all that other stuff. And these are things like all of us agree to you know as far as working and I would just say you know really the process does work, you know sometimes there’s an outsider you may not understand or you know what’s going on. But I can tell you every one of your science representatives, the working guys and girls who make up these flyway technical committees and study committees and stuff really are just some of the best people in those positions and have a lot of strength and are on the hunter side without a doubt.
Ramsey Russell: I was asked by Steve Rainelle having traveled and been a part of you know hunting in a lot of different countries. He asked the question, did anybody manage waterfowl like we did here in America? Did anybody do a better job? And unequivocally? No, but it’s the federal government coordinated with the state government. But also it’s about to me, there’s a state, there’s a federal and there’s the NGO,’s and there’s also the hunters, all four pillars working together as a team. And I do see it some in other countries, but not at the level that we do it. You know, it takes a community to raise a child. There’s a lot of it. It’s the same thing when we start talking about a continental resource like waterfowl.
John Odell: Well and you’ve been around the world and seeing these places and these birds and all the other stuff. You know, the North American waterfowl factory that we have of producing waterfowl, it is pretty epically amazing. The prairie potholes, I would say, rival in a different way like the Serengeti, the breadbasket of these mass migrations and the numbers that are put, I mean like its unfathomable what North America produces in terms of bird numbers. To have what we have and see what we see. I mean, the numbers are phenomenal. We’re at some of the highest numbers, you know, we’ve recorded in waterfowl since they started collecting the information. I think the low was, they estimated was like 1924 or something like that. Right around the time when the duck stamp was developed, the federal duck stamp. And where we started buying refuges and stuff. And it’s come roaring back in amazing, amazing ways, and not every species is doing as well as, maybe they were in the past or where we think they could be, but it’s a great time to be a water fowler. There’s, I don’t know that there’s been a better time, you know, to be a water fowler in the United States. Probably even rivals the market gunning days, obviously things have changed and shifted, but man, I mean, like, there still are these beautiful special places around you’ve got to see him and stuff like that and they’re all places that we’ve all heard about that, you know, maybe you’d like to visit some day or see someday, you’ve got stuck Arkansas, you’ve got Central valley California, you’ve got, Chesapeake Bay, you’ve got, you know, just fantastic stuff.
Ramsey Russell: The world is full of tremendous duck hunting destinations, but we in America are wickedly blessed. We truly are, I’ve come to conclusion, and I can probably hunt, travel like I’m doing now doing these road trips and never fully experience all of American water fowling opportunities. But anyway, folks, we all have been listening to my friend John Odell, Arizona. Department, National Resources, and migratory game bird coordinator and my host here in Arizona. John, what are we going to do tomorrow morning?
John Odell: We’re going to kind of go duck hunting.
Ramsey Russell: Okay, you all tuned in. Road trip continues, the road goes on forever and the party never ends. I’ll see you all next week. Thank you all for listening.