Azerbaijan Duck Hunting, Life’s Short GetDucks

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell, join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome back to Duck Season Somewhere. I have got a great podcast today. I’ve got our buddy Jake Latendresse, live from Guntersville, Alabama. Well, he’s over there filming right now and we’re here to talk to you about Azerbaijan. How are you, Jake?

Jake Latendresse: I’m good Ramsey. I just got to Alabama and it’s always nice to come back to the south. Especially, this time of year when it’s starting to cool off. The humidity is low and I can deal with it here.

Ramsey Russell: You hit it just right because it is, some fall in the air this morning. Like, nothing I’ve ever seen.

Jake Latendresse: Yeah, it’s beautiful. I mean it’s absolutely beautiful. I’m actually wearing a vest.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. Well, how long are you going to be there filming?

Jake Latendresse: I’ll be here till Sunday morning. So we start this. This isn’t the end. We have back-to-back events. So typically, since they start practicing on Mondays for these tournaments on the Bassmaster Elite circuit, if they have back-to-back events, they will start the first event a day early which would be Wednesday, and then end on Saturday, which they normally have championship Sundays, but anyhow, I’ll be here filming until Saturday, and then I’m flying out Sunday morning.

Ramsey Russell: That’s fantastic. Back to Colorado?

Jake Latendresse: Yeah. I mean, COVID canceled all these Bassmaster events. So they rescheduled everything from spring and early summer to late summer and early fall. I mean, it’s literally like Bassmaster, then I go to the HRC grand in Paducah next weekend, and then it’s two more back-to-back. I got a Bassmaster Elite in Chattanooga, on Chickamauga and then, I go up to the Bassmaster College National Championship in Paris Tennessee.

Ramsey Russell: Travel safe.

Jake Latendresse: I’m literally booked until mid-February right now.

Ramsey Russell: That’s good. I’m proud of you man. But I know, you’ll still have some time to go out and do some duck hunt and I know you.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, I’ll be guiding at Prayer Rock so that’s part of my busyness.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve had a lot of people asked me, they’ve seen some of these Life’s Short GetDucks things we’ve done. And they’ve known you and they like your work and your photography and stuff like that. I said, well, he’s also a hunter. Oh, really? Oh yeah. One of the stories I tell them, that we were down at Obregon, it was late afternoon, I was tired of shooting. I wasn’t hitting to do too well to doves. Anyway, I handed you my gun and you went 14 for 15. I’m like, give my damn gun back.

Jake Latendresse: There were a lot of doves, and you had I think, we were shooting number nine shot or something.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, or blanks. But no, you did good man. It was, you grew up. I mean you’re Southern Duck Hunter, Southern Hunter.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, I grew up hunting. I started hunt when I was three years old. And the only reason I got into filming is because, I remember telling myself one time that, I got to figure out a way to make a living in hunting and fishing, so that I’ll never not be able to do it. And I figured this back in the early 2000s. And I figured, if I go get a camera and start filming, I can start making a living doing that. Then no one will ever be able to say, you can’t go do that because that’s how I make my living. So here we are, 27 years later.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, Well Jake, we all appreciate you. I guarantee you everybody keeps up with your work, greatly appreciate you. Which brings us kind of the point is, how today episode is about this Azerbaijan short film we’ve got coming out. And I learned way back, when on the very first trip we did down in Australia, you are a hunter, but you’re a cameraman and how you see the world over the top of a shotgun. Wow. You know, to get Jake take on a location, how he sees it and analyzes it and presents it through a lens, provides just a real nice perspective. The world is used to me talking about duck hunting destinations. It’s what I do, but you come in with a fresh perspective, which I think of, is through the lens. And I’ve seen the rough draft of this Azerbaijan show and it’s just so killed and hit dead on what we were trying to cancel it. Part of, we shot some ducks, but that’s really just a very small part of that overall experience. Isn’t it?

Jake Latendresse: Yeah, I didn’t really know what to expect. Hell, I don’t even know where Azerbaijan was.

Ramsey Russell: Nobody does.

Jake Latendresse: And much less know, that ducks were there. And when you get there, you fly into the Caspian Sea, and Baku and you just start seeing. I mean, it’s the largest freshwater lake in the world and then you start thinking about it. And one of the perspectives that I got from you, early on in our friendship Ramsey, was how you go about your business, doing what you do, and that is ultimately finding deltas and marshes and exploring them and exploiting them and creating opportunities for the locals in these different countries to make a living, doing what we do. Bring in Western hunters into their world because there’s more obviously, better economics here. And you bring these people to them and all of a sudden, you’ve got a niche and a thriving situation and going to Azerbaijan, having been to Mexico, Argentina and a lot of different places with you already, Azerbaijan was different because it almost seemed stoic. The people there, they’re very friendly, but they’re very stoic and they’ve got stone faces. And you know it’s a lot like Russia in that sense. And so you start exploring and watching these people and then you get to the duck hunting areas. And the conclusion that you draw is this is like their life. This is even more their life in terms of survival and sustainability than it is for us in America. We hunt for fun. I mean, anyone that tells you, we’re hunting for food. That’s an old cliche that they use against anti-hunters. But the truth of the matter is, that’s really not the truth. The truth is, we hunt for fun because we can. It’s entertainment, it’s part of our heritage. And we go after as many as we can, and the biggest things that we can kill. And over there, they shoot coupes, they shoot all, every duck that comes to the decoys, they shoot them and they take them back to these markets and they sell them. And that’s where you really open your eyes and you open your heart to these people, because of the way waterfowl hunting is ingrained into their life, not just their lifestyle, but their survivability and sustainability and it’s just a really interesting perspective.

Ramsey Russell: We can scratch out and break out some of that. I mean, there’s a lot of information you just threw at it. And you know, the Caspian Sea is the draw. And it’s kind of what led me to that part of the world and for years, for a long time, one of these days Jake, we’re going to go film a Capercaillie hunt up in Russia. But as I got into Russia and started shooting some of those ducks up there, on the western side of Russia, a lot of people started asking in my own thing. Because Russia and that part of the world over there, it is kind of getting into Asia, it is Eurasia. But you start picking up Asian species and I kept hearing about the Volga River, Volga River Delta. And it just took a while networking over there through resources and this call, will get another call, another email and I finally tracked down the Volga River hunt. And you shoot a lot of the common species that as you shoot here. We’ll get into that. I know there’s one species that surprised you, where all he’s found. But as I tracked it down, I nailed it down and said, alright, boom I’ve got a Volga River hunt way down towards the southern end down towards the delta, down toward the mouth of the river. And I finally found it and that hunter to take place mid to late October. And number one it’s a fly away State. So it be like, going to South Dakota produces a much of birds or let’s say, hour, they catch birds, they shoot birds coming through this, the north American Flyway. But there are Flyaway state and it’s not the wintering ground. So a lot of times, when you go to hunt some of these Flyway areas, it’s all a matter of time. And okay, so we’re going to go way the heck to the other side of the world, we’re going get entrenched and go plan a hunt on the Volga River. In best case scenario, we time it perfectly and we’re there when all those species are coming through some of the species, we can’t kill anywhere else in the world. When they come through there, but its October, so they’re going to be pin feathered. We go shoot from garden either pin feather. They look like brown, blue winged teal. So that was just kind of like, that’s not going to work that. Now I would like to go there and hunt just to experience that. But it’s not worth, it’s just not worth, that there’s no trophy potential to do that. Just do that as an organized hunt. And I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It took me a while, to just let this percolate. And one day, I’m driving down the road, I’m thinking, well, snap, it’s a flyway corridor, where the birds going? So I pulled out a map and found the Volga River and chased it down. Where does it go? It goes into the Caspian Sea, the largest freshwater body on earth. I said, okay, there’s a starting point to Caspian Sea. Now working to hunt around the Caspian Sea that led to Azerbaijan. And it’s funny.

Jake Latendresse: That’s Christopher Columbus stuff right there. I mean, when you navigate, you find a spot that you want to explore. Because you know what’s going to be there because of the environment that you found on the computer or a map or whatever it is. And you go there not knowing, for sure what’s there. But thinking, well, there has to be, just has to be. I mean, so that’s really the fascination that I have with what you do Ramsey, and how you go about it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that is what we do. Kind of the Christopher Columbus stuff man. Look, they’re ducks all over the world, you just got to find them. And the hardest nut to crack for me right now, has proven to be Asia, true Asia, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, that part of the world over there. I know there’s ducks. Oh, I know there’s ducks, I’m not going to find anywhere else. The problem is, so far, we’re running into firearm possession, tourism, hunting legality. And even if those things line up, boom, getting ammo. I mean, it’s a real tough nut to crack. But that’s the last place I want to blaze into, is going to be true Southeast Asia. That’s proven to be a pretty tall hurdle. Tell me about, maybe like myself, you were shocked going into back who for the first time because I was shocked. Let me just lay this out for everybody. So you understand, I’ve been to Pakistan, you’ve been to Pakistan, Jake. You know, a lot of people listening probably wouldn’t go to Pakistan because of the negative news, media, negative press coming out. I mean, Azerbaijan is Muslim. Just like Turkey, just like Pakistan, just like a lot of that part of the world over there anywhere. Any world you see, that little crescent moon with a star in it, that’s Muslim. And so I really want to do my research, do my leg work, do my homework, talk to some people, make sure everything’s fine. And my research background into Azerbaijan led me to understand that every woman could vote legally, before French women could. That was kind of surprising.

Jake Latendresse: We need to preface this back up a little bit and preface the fact that, when we went to ride out, not that far out of town, where the little village that we were in, where we duck hunted out of. There was one point where we drove to this pond, that had a bunch of divers on it. We’re going to hunt and we were literally like, not even a mile from the Iranian border. And so people need to understand it. It’s right on the edge of Iran, it’s a different part of Iran. It’s not the mountainous Himalaya look that you might think of or the desert. But it’s a really and you kept telling me, I wish you could see the mountains because it was really hazy and cloudy and the mountains were covered up. So I never got to see those. But that was one of the highlights for me just being able to look at that town, across that border. And think man, that’s Iran and we can’t even go over there right now.

Ramsey Russell: No, it’s Iran and I’m sure you get down that fundamentalist part of Iran way beyond the border there. It’s probably, pretty scary for a westerner. And I know, my host over there and I got to know them, would tease me a little bit about it. I don’t know if they like them either but it’s funny you should mention Russia, because Russia occupied Azerbaijan forever. I mean, like I think, they gained their independence. Remember in Baku, we went up to that monument, that shrine to the martyrs. And that was all those folks that died, that became martyrs in gaining their independence from Russia. Russia took over the country and occupied them during World War II because they were a major source of petroleum, for fuel, for oil. And they still are a very prosperous oil country. And it wasn’t until, I mean, really the 90s, not too long ago that they gained their full independence. And I know, that sitting in the village around 05:00 in the afternoons, I don’t remember having heard this in Baku, the major city, but out of the country where we are, I hear the prayer music that I’ve heard elsewhere. I’m sure you hear in Iran, that you certainly hear in Pakistan that you hear elsewhere in a Muslim country, you hear that music and they are Muslims.

Jake Latendresse: Both places like Pakistan you hear that. No matter where you are. They play those things that loud enough over their speakers, through towns and villages, doesn’t matter where you are, when that’s playing, you can hear it.

Ramsey Russell: And I’m sure, there’s extreme conservative Muslims in the country because there’s extremes everywhere you go. But I just noticed, it’s like, you see women in town at the grocery. Some dress just like my wife and your wife, just like regular people would. Say blue jeans and form fitting sweaters and not the great big robes that they wear in real conservative countries over there. And they’re friendly, and they talk and a lot of them do speak some English and I was just a little confused. I finally asked my host over there one day, I said, what’s the distinction between Iran and here? I don’t understand. And he explained that, because Russia had occupied them, religion is a form of politics. So Russia, kind of ruled them with an iron fist. And in doing so, the conservative Muslim, Iranian Muslim faction that it kind of ruled religion in that little country forever. They were just vanquished and it released. And in my words, not his, they kind of became back row Methodist, kind of more liberal form of Muslim. So they’re not radicalized, they’re relaxed. And let me tell you, how this manifest into a major difference. We were sitting in camp several years ago. First time we went and one of my guests said something like, Ramsey, you just don’t act the same at night when you haven’t had your tidy. Yeah. I said well, yeah, I didn’t bring any. I just don’t think its wise idea to bring any to a Muslim country. Let somebody tells me otherwise. By the time our host popped up and said you want a whisky to drink? I said yeah, he said. I said, can you get one around? He goes, yeah. I said where? He goes to the grocery store. So we go a couple of blocks to the grocery store and there’s two aisles of alcohol. Brown, clear, any flavor, any make or they got a whole road dedicated vodka because it’s near Russia, right? You get finest selection vodka you’ve ever seen. But I got everything else too. So they’re Muslim but they’re not. If that makes sense and I can tell you what, you’re not going to find a bar or a dance floor or alcohol for sale in Pakistan. They’re very conservative.

Jake Latendresse: Oh, it’s underground to find alcohol. And I mean we did, but its moonshine, literally moonshine and it’s horrible.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jake Latendresse: They like it, but it’s horrible. But I mean, you can find it because it’s illegal and someone doesn’t adhere to the fanatic religious standards. And there’s always a rebel in every country, right? And so, we did find alcohol there, but you had to hunt for it and you had to know the right people or you weren’t going to find it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it’s one of my favorite jokes in the Deep South. The bible belt of America, the deep south. You get four Baptist in a pickup truck. You know what else you got, a fiat that’s under the seat. Go look what I’m saying. I mean there’s a lot of troops of that. And I don’t see any difference. But one of the most striking things when we first arrived to Azerbaijan was Baku, the city of Baku. The skyline, the buildings, the sidewalks, parks, the cleanliness, I know I went for a shoot about a six-mile hike one day, maybe a day before y’all got there and just was walking around looking and there was a huge, like this whole health food types. Not health food, I shouldn’t say that. But whole foods like, real nice wines and cheeses. It’s all kinds of good stuff, but its right across street from the Ferrari store and which was right next door to the Astra Martin. And none of those, let alone all of them exist in the whole state of Mississippi. And here I was, just right there in one little part of town, and it was everywhere. And you see these massive buildings and one of my favorite parts is downtown. The heart of downtown is what they call the old city and it’s surrounded by this old wall, this old fortress wall, that’s 1200 or 1300 years old. And then you walk inside, go through those gates into that part of town. Its very tourist street, but it’s still very fascinating because it’s all those cobblestone streets that 1200-year-old pavers, its all buildings and stuff.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, it’s got that medieval Ireland look to old school castle, walls and they’re still standing and you can’t help, but when you walk through the arches or walk under one of those towers or whatever it is, you can’t help but wonder what it was like way back when 1200 years ago.

Ramsey Russell: I got an idea. Because somewhere in there and I have to look forward to find it. When our host takes us around, we always pass by there and he always explained it to the new group guys because it’s in a very language which is similar to the Arabic. You know the way they write. But it’s an old pub or bar, this is the area of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves and Sindbad the sailor. All that on that Caspian Sea. This is where all that went down, right here in this part of the world. And one of the more cheeky little tourist shops outside, as you’re walking by, it’s a sign advertising flying carpets. And all of the little street vendors have a lot of the little oil lamps like, you’d expect to rub and a genie come out.

Jake Latendresse: Yeah, like Aladdin.

Ramsey Russell: Like Aladdin. That part of the world, it’s just so freaking interesting.

Jake Latendresse: It’s so cool. I mean, just that in itself. Just that, when you start thinking about that. Because when we’re kids in America, these are cartoons. And these are things that we think are mythical or fictional because we watched in cartoons, and then all of a sudden you’re there and you’re like, wow. It puts a completely different perspective on what you thought in your childhood and you’re looking at these lamps. And it’s like you said, these street vendors that are selling magic carpets and it’s just that it’s really, really fascinating. It’s one of the coolest places I think I’ve ever been. Because it’s so far off the beaten path. So to speak, I mean, there’s Baku and there’s a lot of economy there, there’s a lot of money. I suppose its oil money and gas money. But you get out in the countryside again, it’s just fascinating, takes you back in time. It’s like getting into a time capsule and going back to, you’re probably going to talk about this in a little bit. But having scratched through all this stuff developing the video and the documentary that we did, it takes you back to your fundamentals and makes it almost made me feel guilty that I have what I have. $1000 a pair of waiters, $500 Bordeaux jacket, a $30,000 video camera. And I mean, we’re riding in Russian jeeps. I remember, I don’t want to give too much away but the opening scene to the video is makes me laugh. Because you’ve been to a lot of places in the world duck hunting. I’ve been a lot of places in the world doing different things. And you’re like, I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.

Ramsey Russell: Oh no, I had never. That was my second or third trip over there. And we were hunting with that guy that day took us to a new part of the lake and it’s like 100. They showed me on a map one day, how it full pool. That reservoir is 100,000 acres. Now some of it may be natural, but it is a big dam, it is a big lake. They do have some structures in there. It’s really a massive agricultural storage aquifer. Because they irrigate for primarily cotton and other crops around there. And when that thing is full of pooling and clicking good, it reaches way back up into the cover and covers 100,000 plus acres. And he had brought us into another that I’ve never been to. We’d always kind of gone in off that main dirt road up in the front down towards the south. He brought us in, from the north end and I didn’t know where the heck I was. But I was having to check fillings when we stopped the way. That Russian jeep was running through the back end back there.

Jake Latendresse: That was a bumpy road.

Ramsey Russell: God that was an adventure.

Jake Latendresse: That really was. And when you get to your so called boat ramp. I mean, they have places that people gather to go duck hunting just like, I’m not going to say barometer or something like that, but that’s where the people go. You get there and there’s more people than just your crew that’s going out to go duck hunting. There’s market hunters there and every boat is different. They don’t have express boats. They don’t have excelled boats. They don’t have mud motors. I mean, they’ve got 10 cans and they’ve got aluminum handmade boats that are literally nailed together and little nine horse or fifteen horse old. I don’t even know Russian or whatever motors outboards on these little things. And it takes you back in time. And it reminded me, when I was a little boy going back to the fundamentals leaky waiters, like galvanized tire patches on their rubber waiters, their hip boots. They were wearing hip boots. I mean, when’s the last time you really saw a group of duck hunters wearing hip boots.

Ramsey Russell: No. And that’s how they go. They don’t really get off in that water thing. Help it. We talk about that in a documentary because you got pretty good cell phone signals sitting out in that marsh. And one time I was goofing off, hunting kind of slow down, I was waiting to ride back to ramp. So I opened up my phone, started google earth, and then I was 6800 miles from Brandon, Mississippi sitting in that duck blind, 6800 miles. But kind of what you’re dancing around is saying, what strikes me about this location, I’m enamored with it is, it’s not the distance, the physical distance. It’s almost like climbing into a time machine. And by the time you get out to that little community that we hunt, it’s like you’ve gone through time back to another era of duck hunting. They had some new boats this year. They were the same little wooden skiffs. I’d say 10 – 12ft long and a foot and a half, two foot wide. Looks like a pirogue. It made out of pine, unfinished, unpainted sometimes. And at least the new ones were. I think you told me, you paid $40 US for those boats. And I’m just trying to figure out, how I could get a couple of them home. But they cock them with mud, they’ll reach down the clay and just cock it to keep the water out with mud. And you sit in there and get loaded up and they start push polling in the dark. And they all got headlamps, if they need to do something with their hands. But when they’re going across that water in the pitch black, dark or full moon, they want those lights off for the same reason I do. When you throw a Q beam on the world, all you see is that light band. But when you take it off, you can see that silver shine on that water and you get your bearings and you know where you’re going and it does spook. And that’s really one of my favorite parts of the entire day. Especially when there’s a lot of ducks in that marsh. It’s all I hear, after the boats kind of break out and go their different ways. All you really here is just that push and the little sweeping of the water, as it is that boat lunges with the pushes, brush sweeping up on the sides. And because there’s no environmental noise, like an outboard, let alone a mud motor, you can hear the birds and just the birdlife, the coots, the Martians, the wigeons, the mallards, you can hear all these birds. You’re going right through them in pitch-black dark.

Jake Latendresse: And you got to mention, if you like in it to anything in America, it would be like a hedge maze in the shining or in the movie, the shining or a corn maze on Halloween. But it’s flooded and your push polling and a pirogue through this massive maze of thought this grass is probably 6 to 10ft tall.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah. Oh no. I would say it’s 10 to 12ft tall easily. And I think it’s phragmites. I think, I would call it cane because it’s joined like that. But I think its invasive phragmites. When I saw a bunch of frag out in Utah last year, I realized, that’s what it was. And it’s like a rat maze and I don’t know where I’m at. I can tell you right now, I’m sitting in that boat, try not to move so quickly to tip it over. And he’s pushing and sometimes there will be a fork in the trail that forks to five or six different ways and he knows where he’s going and they’ll open out into this opening. And maybe that’s where we’re going and maybe he’s moving on and I love it. I don’t know, it’s just something.

Jake Latendresse: It is amazing.

Ramsey Russell: It is amazing.

Jake Latendresse: When you fly drone over it, you say 100,000 acres and it doesn’t really register. I mean, I send the drone up and I’m looking at this on my screen, on my phone screen, my monitor and I’m just going, holy crap. This goes like even with a drone is high 500ft, you still can’t see the end of it. It just goes on. It’s like looking at the edge of a planet Earth from a satellite and there’s nothing there, it just keeps going. And so when you paddle, when you push pull or motor into one of these holes, it’s amazing how many places you go around the world, like we have, I have with you, anyway. And it’s interesting, how many places that we go to, remind you of South Louisiana. One place or another. And this is one of those places that does. And when you get up there, it’s like looking over the bird’s foot of the lower Mississippi and just goes on forever and you push. Like you said in the video, they know where they’re going and there’s a target location where ducks tend to congregate. So they go to these places and it’s literally just a hole of pond. It’ll be like a bull frog hunting in south Louisiana or south Texas. You come up in this pot and this little opening and you throw your decoys out, you push up into that tall grass. And all of a sudden you just disappear because it’s so tall and it’s so thick, that once you push the boat in, even in a little pirogue like that, it’s not tipsy because there’s the grass is so tight on both sides. It’s really interesting, when you look at it on video, which you guys, everybody else get to see don’t look at it like, it’s just another duck hunt. I mean, you look at the people, the equipment and the way they go about things. It’s truly an adventure. And if you go in there just to shoot hundreds and hundreds of ducks, that’s not your place. But if you’re going there for a cultural interesting experience like no one else has ever had, Azerbaijan is it.

Ramsey Russell: That’s exactly right now. Mileage varies in terms of duck numbers. There’s year, there are a lot of birds there. There’s years, there’s not and they’re in the Northern Hemisphere. And it’s subject to cold weather up north as hunting in Mississippi Louisiana. And the reason we go there is for specific species that we’re not going to shoot anywhere else, but we shoot other species too. And getting back to the way those guys hunt, they don’t have all of the modern day, they don’t have access to max fairy wing catalog or Cabela’s or any of that. They don’t have that kind of access. In fact, several years, I’ve been over there, one of the head guides that kind of organizers at one of the big organizers over there has been sketching out trying to get pieces. They got access to the internet and they see these hyper drive mud motors we’ve got over here. There’s no way humanly possible that they can afford it, let alone import it. By the time, they pay the import fees, they’re really looking at some expensive money. So they’re trying to build one. And he was showing me this year a couple of pieces that they’re trying to fabricate that they need to build their own hyper drive type mud motor. They want it badly. But they’re having to start from scratch and build it because I don’t even know what one of those motors cost Jake $20,000-$30,000.

Jake Latendresse: I think, a 40 horse somewhere 38-40 horse is probably about, I think they’re about $12,000.

Ramsey Russell: That might as well be $1 million. They can’t afford that.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, you know, your buddies in Australia had a couple exported in. And I remember talking to them about it. And I remember thinking, holy crap, A) you’re doing really well B) you really wanted one of those. Because I believe they paid $40,000 or $50,000 for one of those boat motors.

Ramsey Russell: They’re only two in the country. And they’re putting them to good use over there, Glenn and Trent. But these guys cannot afford it, they can’t and there’s no way. There’s absolutely no way they could do stuff like that, but they want it. But without it, they’re stirring what they’ve got and doing what they can. And they’re sticking strictly to the hard bold fundamentals of duck hunting. And what just blows my mind about it is, it makes me a better hunter to be exposed to them and to hunt with them. And what I’m trying to say is like, we get up into that cane, we get up into a little duck hole. And those guys, sometimes the body of water is very big or whatever like that. But a lot of those guys have their own little place over in there. They kind of like, if you crawl up into bio meter, you got your own favorite couple little duck hole. And you know, we like to back your hand. These guys know where they’re going and what the wind’s doing and how they’re going to play it. And I’ve hunted with some of these guys before and his tight little, you can’t shoot across that, maybe its 100 yards wide. You can’t shoot across that little hole you’re in. But the wind will start off here on one side. The wind is just like you want it. But then, the wind shifts. And without moving the decoys which are out there about 35-40 yards, they push it out of the cane, push across the whole set up in another little slip boom. You’re back. Now the wind is perfect again. You haven’t changed the decoys and they’re hunting. And I’ve just noticed when they push those boats off into that cane, they don’t leave an inch showing they are everything, all the details to take care of perfectly hidden, perfectly cameoed, perfectly steady, so you can stand up and shoot. And I’ve done that down Louisiana before where you take a pirogue and you needed to get through those shallow water areas. But then when you push it off into the grass, you stand in it and it’s perfectly steady. And that’s exactly how they hunt. And the most striking thing I’ve seen is first off every single duck they see. They never quit looking, they don’t play on their phones, they don’t dick around, they’re looking. And when they see a little flick on the sky that, I might have to squint, maybe it’s a duck. No, they know it’s a duck, their eyesight is king and they go immediately into hunt mode. Every single opportunity that flies through that sky, a mile away or 40 yards away, they go into game mode. And they know that the more they roll the dice, the more it’s going to pay off. They know, they stack the odds in their favor by trying to play a super clean game for every single time. And I’ll tell you something, this year that happened to me is we walked, there is one area we went into and my guy, this year, I got really excited, I could tell he was just the way he was talking and acting. And we had to walk a pretty good bit, crossing pretty dry monkey ground to get back there and it was shallow water. And it was an hour before Mississippi shooting time when we got set up. And I could hear birds flying around me. I could hear those gadwalls talking. And he was telling me to load up and shoot. I’m trying to motion to him, pitch black, freaking dark but I loaded up. And I’m looking kind of, sort of see some blue water out there in front of me and kind of sort of to the EC just it’s a little bit fainter light and about this time, these two gadwalls pitch in. I say, they were gadwall, that’s what I can hear. But these two shadows kind of come in and boom, at the first shot I missed. And after that, the muzzle blast, I couldn’t see nothing and off they fly. And he was in hand signaling, you know what the heck you missed? It was right there. I’m like, man, it’s too dark here. You shoot. I handed him the gun and sat down and his fangs came out. And that guy could see. And I could hear the birds and with them, talking and hear their wings. I knew where on a 360° circle around the blind they were. And he was like a turd, just perfectly still, just but spinning and keeping his body a tune with them ducks. And I would look up and I couldn’t see him Jake, I’m telling you. I don’t know if his eyes are just that much better than mine or if a lifetime of legal shooting here in the States has just corrupted my vision to work. This guy watched those birds and on about the 3rd pass, he up and shoulder that gun and shot. And I couldn’t see the bird fall, but I could hear him splash dead on the wedge. When we were out there hunting, we would get to that hunting area well before daylight and there would be shots throughout that marsh.

Jake Latendresse: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And I had wondered, what are they? I just I

Jake Latendresse: Just shoot them when they can.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what they got. I just imagined, until I saw that this year. I imagined that, what they were doing is, they could hear the birds land and they shine them with a light and shoot them because they’re hunting to eat or to sell.

Jake Latendresse: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what I assumed they were doing. No hell, no here and the year you were there. It may have been you were there. We were pushed spelling out, and it brings up a very good point. Our guy has got some nice decoys. And every year I go over there, I bring more decoys. I try to bring like ring neck decoys because it makes some of the poachers over there, a redhead decoys with common poachers. The tufted ducks look on the water, a lot like our scaup and blue bills do, I bring teal decoys. Just whatever we can fit to bring over there. We try to bring a couple of dozen years to add to their armada of decoys. But some of the decoys I’ve hunted over there, my guide may not want those store bought. He may want to use his private Gini sack full of decoys, which will be 30-year-old plastic decoys that he spray painted. And that means literally orange or black or something. And one day, we were piling through there. And I can’t remember who I was with, it wasn’t my regular guide. And there was a bunch of just these ugly, ugly, scary looking decoys kind of brushed up in the grass and I kept pointing to and want to go pick one up. And he just kept waving me off, nah, no, no. So we get all the way back to the boat ramp and I asked him, how is it man? Why wouldn’t he let me pick up those decoys? And he asked him in this area, and it goes well, because they’re trash, they’re just homemade, crude, homemade. And he says, they’re trash, they’re not good enough for you. I said, yeah, they are. I want to go get one and the guy is like really? I’m like, yeah. So we hopped in a motorboat and went back over there to where it was. And what they were is, it’s like, he had gone out to the land field and gotten some Styrofoam and foam and just it feels to me on the inside pressing that plastic it feels to me like, it’s that foam insulation like, maybe come off a building project and he wrapped it with black plastic like this queen, just wrapped it like a Christmas package. And then took some wire like would come off of electric coil, this real thin, I don’t know, 20-gauge, 30-gauge wire, and then wrapped it like with twine and that’s how he kept the plastic on. And then he had just a little piece of that plastic string, little plastic twine, like bale hay within a spark plug. But those were going. And the one I chose to keep, had pellet holes in them and they kill birds over these things. But it was just taking trash. Nothing. Rendering something that looks like decoys and putting it out and play in a tight game to get wild heavily hunted birds into his decoys to kill. And a lot of the ammo they’re using over there. We were coming out one day and I don’t know. I shot a half dozen eight birds. Well let’s go ahead more than I did a few more than I did. And we were pushed by and they were talking in his aerie. He had an old side beside gun and he had his leather gun belt laid out. And I noticed as we come and by that there were hand loads and what he had done is, he had put a new primer, put the powder charge, maybe a little paper wide or something, party shot load and then capped it off with wax. And I could tell by looking at some of the wax was closer to the, and it wasn’t crimped at all, it was still open. And I can tell you this, the charge and the load varied because the wax seating was highly variable.

Jake Latendresse: Like shooting a muzzleloader.

Ramsey Russell: Like shooting a muzzleloader.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, all these things you’re talking about Ramsey, the decoys remind me of pictures that you might see in the book, The Duck Hunter’s Bible. Old black and white photos or even Native American decoys that they use, where they pile mud up on the edge of the ice and then put a stick, standing up in the mud that looks like a head. And it’s so primitive and it’s almost like if you bring them too much, you’re going to corrupt what they did. Because the experience is the old school, the innovative ideas and creativity even though it’s very primitive. And again, you go back to the old cliche, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Well, they don’t go to the store or they don’t have a choice in whether they’re going to buy rhythm right or Dakota decoys or tangle free or whatever it is. They’re like okay we got to go get some material, there’s some Styrofoam on the side of the road, let’s go get that, carve that up. Like, make it look as best decoy as you can and then wrap it in plastic bags, so it’s black and then you hold it on with copper wiring. It’s like, you don’t want to corrupt what they do because that’s part of the experience. I mean, they may want to be more civilized than they are and they just don’t know it, because it would make their lives easier from a tourism and the perspective of someone that both of us that appreciate the values that kind of old traditional methodology brings to the table is what separates it from everywhere else did you go duck hunt.

Ramsey Russell: That I agree entirely. Some of the staff have camo, some of the guys got real jobs like, maybe they’re policemen or maybe they’ve had some clients in the past leave them a coat. They they’ve got camo. But a lot of them are just wearing tan coach layers, green, navy, yellow.

Jake Latendresse: Members only jacket.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Members only jacket. But the way they hide in that natural cover or they will build some platform blinds, are extremely well hidden. They don’t need camouflaged underwear because they’re hidden.

Jake Latendresse: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, they’re using the environment to their advantage. And a lot of times they will set up with the senator back in a favorable wind to give them those advantages. Speaking of those decoys this year I did find another market hunters spread. It was still out and the shells look pretty fresh. I pulled out my binoculars, I could see a spread and I blasted initially an early light to make sure it wasn’t ducks, it wasn’t. And I could tell, it was decoys after I watched it for a long time. And after the hunt, was waiting on my guy to walk back. And I just want it must have been a couple of 100 yards, 200 or 300 yards down there, and I walk the shoreline to get to it. And when I got there, it was literally Clorox bottles and pop bottles and just bottles. And they were covered with wool socks like, old navy and brown and black wool socks, and tied with string of spark plugs. And I walked up to the little blind, little shallow blind. I could tell they had built back there on the shore and just looked around. It was really fresh holes. And it just amazes me that if they are making their living and feeding their families and having successful hunts over just real primitive setups like that. You know what I’m saying? It just blue.

Jake Latendresse: Like you said earlier, these are, I mean, let’s say two years ago, when you and I went they had a mild dry winter. So the ducks were they hadn’t my they have the same problems we do. Like down south, all the ducks trump in Missouri still. Because you haven’t had a big cold front push enough ducks down or whatever it is. And they have the same problems, ducks holding up in Siberia or Russia and so they’re hunting stale ducks sometimes and they’re harder. I mean you’re talking, for those of you that are listening to this and just imagine these are, it’s the same deal. You may want to go there obviously, you’ve got your exotic birds that you can’t kill anywhere else. But you’ve also got mallards, you’ve got gadwalls, you’ve got wigeons, you’ve green winged teal. And they’re extremely stale because they’ve been hunted over and these are market hunters them every single day. They’re very difficult to kill at times and these guys do it because they know where they’re going, and they know what they’re doing. And even though they’re using primitive equipment and way less amenities than we have, they’re still doing it. But I definitely noticed that, when we were there that, these guys are hardcore and this is difficult duck hunting and I’m not saying this to scare people off. But it’s part of the experience, as part of that thing that you take home with you. Because you might bring a couple of ducks home for your wall. But what you really bring is a lifetime of memories that most people just aren’t ever going to experience. I mean, I know this is getting redundant. We’re beating a dead horse here. But it was a really, really fascinating duck hunt because of what it means to those people.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you’re talking about hunting pressure it’s like, nobody at my camp or nobody I know of north of Louisiana pursues coots. So normally when the coots show up around our place, if we’re hunting on the north end, those coots will kind of drift on down to the south end or get away from us. But if you walk through them, they don’t just fly in terror. They just kind of, swim off in the bush. You come to the boat ramp, Mississippi and scoots around it. They just swim off and kind of flip flop around, get up in the cover anywhere in the world I’ve been. Over in Azerbaijan, that’s what those guys want to eat. If a coot swims by there, begging you to shoot it. So I’m not going to sell it, they want to take it home and eat. And it just blows my mind how, a coot 100 yards away, if he so much as hear the knock of a paddle on a skiff, they fly like they’ve been shot out of a cannon. They’re flying for their lives. So there are heavily pressured birds over there and you’ve got to bring a tight game. Speaking of species, you mentioned that you got mallard, which are a big prize over there. You’ve got gadwalls, you’ve got Eurasian wigeons, you’ve got your Eurasian green winged teal, those are the real, you’ve got shovelers. Those are the very common species. Mallards are big prize or not as abundant as the other species. Then you run into some real interesting stuff like red crested poachers and common shell ducks for richness, poachers, tufted ducks. I’ve seen marble teal gardening. You know, you’re running some really cool species over there that you’re just not going to find anywhere else on earth. And that’s the big prize you go for. You shoot everything else that comes in, but you’re over there for those up. If I did a common poacher, if I didn’t say that which behave just like our redheads, that’s kind of what you’re after when you go over there. And it’s a very very interesting hunt. Talking about the decoy. I thought of this when we were talking about the decoys. They do like, and they love spinning wing decoys, and no matter how late in the year it gets or how stale it gets, they put those spinning wing decoys out. They’ll move them, they’ll move them into cover, they’ll move them around and put out more, they put out less. They’re moving a little bit away from the decoys, but they believe in the attraction value of it. But one of the first times I hunted, in fact the very first morning I ever hunted over there, I had brought this really, one of the new mallard mojos and stuck out in the decoys. And my guide kept asking about it. But google translate doesn’t work to have a conversation. At least in the Syria doesn’t. It’s like one word hungry. Yes. No, that’s about it. But to have a conversation we just couldn’t hit. So we were paddling back and we were way out in this marsh and he kept saying something important that decoy and then he started making, where you drag your fingers over your thumb, making that money signal. I’m like, oh heck, here we go, here we go, going to get a shape down for a tip or something. And he was carrying on. And I was just like, shrugging them off and he took out some bucks and we’re doing this, and pointing to me, point to him and I kept saying no. So finally, I called the translator and said, I have no idea what this guy is asking me or saying, but it’s kind of making me uncomfortable to be honest with you. And he talked to him and I got back on the phone. He says, how much money did he show you? And I said, I don’t know whatever it was. And he goes, well, that’s about $3 US and that’s every penny he’s got to his name and he wants to buy that mojo. He is willing to pay every penny he’s got, which is nothing in American, you know. But he wants to buy that mojo. And I said, boy tell him, I will give it to him after the hunt. And I did.

Jake Latendresse: And he now, he kills more ducks than anyone.

Ramsey Russell: You are right. He pulled that mojo out this year, 3 or 4 years later. He pulled it out this year and it looked exactly like it did, when I gave it to him. I mean, he takes extremely good care of that decoy.

Jake Latendresse: He probably puts under armor on that. I’m sorry, under armor all.

Ramsey Russell: Armor all.

Jake Latendresse: He’s probably got a place at the table and ate dinner at night.

Ramsey Russell: What did you think when we drove by and saw those kiosks with them hanging those ducks on. It’s like, you drive by, it’s like, you’re selling boiled peanuts on the side of highway in Mississippi.

Jake Latendresse: Yeah. So filming them, looking through the lens, I found it really fascinating because you’ve got a kiosk. And I said, a kiosk, let’s just say you’re driving, you made reference to the fact that this little village or this town reminds you a lot of greenwood Mississippi and it does. There’s a lot of similarities there. And you’re driving down the road, cotton fields on one side and housing units with walls around them on the other and it’s a lowland, it’s just flat lowland. And these kiosks are built, there’s wooden kiosks, I can’t even describe it. They’re just little, handmade, rough cut, out of rough cut wood. There’s no frank, customary framing involved. They just nail, they just make a box with rough cut two by twos and then they put chicken wire around it. They’ve got ducks for set live, peeking ducks, chickens, little piglets, all kinds of stuff to its livestock, is what it is, and poultry. And then they’ve got a bar like a clothes line hanging off once the front end of it. And they’ve got ducks and coots hanging by their feet that they killed that day. They’re totally fresh, they’re selling them on the side of the highway. People study same and that there you can tell that’s the featured item that they have in their little kiosk stores are these fresh wild ducks because everything else is set back. And these ducks are hanging off the end of these hangers off of these kiosks. You look and you’re like, wow. There’s green winged teal, there’s a gadwall, a mallard and three coots hanging there. And that’s to me, when we stopped and filling those kiosks, Ramsey. That’s what made me really, truly appreciate where we were, because of the value that those people have on the waterfowl, the coots and the ducks, its food, its sustainability. I mean, it’s not because they have to, it’s because they like to, and there are enough poor people there. The poverty is deep enough that some people probably, can’t afford to go down to the market in Baku and buy beluga, caviar, which is where that comes from and cheese and crackers and salami or even chicken. So I don’t even know what they charge. You know what they charge for a duck?

Ramsey Russell: A couple of bucks. You know, it varies. Some of the birds, like the red crested poachers and the common shell ducks, the two biggest prizes over there, the locals don’t like to eat them. The green wings and the mallards and the gadwalls and the shovelers, that’s a big deal to them. And I think, it’s a couple of bucks product or a couple of bucks, per abrasive ducks. And you go back and watch Aladdin or read Alibaba and 40 thieves, you don’t think of those people as being duck eaters. And I asked our host one time I said, this is legal? And he goes, no. I go, but they’re selling it right here in front of God and everybody goes, well, these people have been eating duck for 2000 years. They’ve been eating for 2000 years. It’s their customers or tradition and it’s not legal. But when you get in other parts of the world like that, it’s a gray area. It’s got to be enforced and the locals don’t enforce them. In fact, I’ve been there when the police come by and pick up a couple of ducks and it’s not to be frowned on. You know, it’s their custom, it’s their tradition. They value that resource and they eat them. And I don’t know, I just think that’s the craziest thing.

Jake Latendresse: I remember we had.

Ramsey Russell: Green wings.

Jake Latendresse: I had green winged teal for dinner one night. And I love doing that. We go to different places, whether its big game or waterfowl or whatever we’re hunting. I really like when we go to places and eat what they eat. And then eat what we harvest, just to try it, to get a feel for their cuisine and how they cook it, their culinary arts. And it makes you feel like, you’re a part of it when you do that. I mean, pretty special about being able to eat teal that you just shot in Azerbaijan, cooked the way they cook it.

Ramsey Russell: The Azeri food. And in terms of foreign destination, it’s some of my favorite food. I do not like Indian and I do not like Pakistani, which is like Indian. I don’t like that at all. There’s some places in the world, I go to curry Russian, at least something to be desired. It’s nice. They haven’t elevated beyond carbohydrate and protein and fat, just nutritive value. Some of the countries we go to, not to say it’s bad, but it’s not great food. And I really really enjoy Azerbaijan foods. A lot of goat, lot of sheep, a lot of beef, lot of kebabs and they’ve got these, I’m not a big bread eater anymore, but I’m going to tell you this, there’s two places on earth, Life’s Too Short, Skip The Bread and down in Argentina out there on that remote place Rio Salado, they’ll bite bread in those big mud ovens. And I’m going to tell you right now, until you’ve had fresh Italian loaf bread coming right out of the coals out of the oven with or without butter. It’s the finest thing you’ve ever had. And then over there, they use that flatbread, it looked kind of like a real thick lofi peter.

Jake Latendresse: Like Naan.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, like exactly what it is. But they literally stick it to the side of those mud walls, of those oven walls and bake it. And it is unbelievable where they take those ducks very similar to that Rio Salado. They love green wings and they a butterfly them. It’s like they cut the backbone out and press it flat and then cook.

Jake Latendresse: With feet on.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, with the feet on.

Jake Latendresse: Because that’s how you pick them up like that. You don’t need tongs or a fork. Grabbing feet on and that’s how you pick them up.

Ramsey Russell: Grab a duck foot and it’s delicious. We finally got them. We finally, this year got them cooking it. A lot of these foreign places, especially when you get off in the remote areas that don’t have a sophisticated tradition of refrigeration, they want to overcook their meat and they like all their meat well done. And we finally got them in both locations to ease off on that. We wanted more like that medium, medium rare and their ducks are well done. And the ducks they serve us, a little more medium, but it’s just so simple. It’s basically, just salt, pepper, maybe a little something they use in everybody and grill it. And it’s just amazing how good it is.

Jake Latendresse: I mean, I don’t want to get away from Azerbaijan. But one of the great meals that I’ve ever had on the international scene was the Brazil ducks that we ate down in Rio Salado cooked in one of those mud kilns. And I forget how many there’s like, I don’t know, 2 dozen birds that they cooked in that mud oven. And when we sat down on that table, they put a big tablecloth out. I mean, they served everything on wood plates like cutting boards. And I remember eating that Brazil duck that they grilled, that they cooked that day. And I was just like, man, I could live. I could have that sushi and rib eye for the rest of my life and be really happy.

Ramsey Russell: I’m right there with you. I’m right there with you. This year we did something, we were getting close to the end of this folks, but we went back to Baku this year and some of the clients wanted to take home a rug. They wanted to take home a carpet. And we have been talking about it in camp because a couple of years ago, a client or somebody talked me into going to a rug museum, a carpet museum in Baku. A carpet museum. That’s a crazy thing I’ve ever done. And it was freaking unbelievable, how for centuries, the local custom in that part of the world has been hand looming these carpets. And it may take for just one, that would go like the four years, just say a 3×6 footer. It may take some lady and her daughter, six months to loon that, and how artistic and intricate and the materials and stuff it is. But that was a very, kind of a cool experience for me. Heck, I got a cheap one, but just so cool. But like you walk into this store, this dark damn kind of store, this carpet store like, right off Sinbad and 40 thieves. Me walking the store, and they just start. There’s all these rugs and carpets rolled up, just rolled up tight, like a little pipe standing up. And once you kind of point to a size you’re like, they just start whooping them out on the on the floor until you see one you like. Different colors, different textures, different patterns. And it was so funny, we had this client there, and you know what Michael say his name. Sometimes he ain’t got a filter, he’s going to say what he wants. But man, he got there, started negotiating, and then he jump out and go to another store and come back in there and we’re on to figure out. And the guy booted him out of the store and said, you leave. You like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld. He said, he had to leave. He was driving too hard a bargain and kicked it right out over the alley. Said you must leave, you must leave.

Jake Latendresse: He was giving it all. I had the same kind of experience in Pakistan. And so one of my friends went to Pakistan. He was actually on a tower in the Himalayas climbing on 9/11. And when it all went down. And anyhow when he came back, he brought a duffel bag full of carpet, small, bathroom and kitchen size rugs back from Pakistan. Just like Azerbaijan. This is the real deal. These are tightly woven silk and wool mix. Some of them are blended. Some of them are wool, my silk. And the thread count is like, when you go to a millionaire’s house. I mean, that’s where these rugs end up. And I remember, he came back with a duffel bag full of rugs and he had him in his house, and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So when I went to Pakistan, I took an extra lightweight duffel bag with me in my luggage. And I said, well, I’m just going to buy them there, because they are 10 times cheaper. You know an 8000. I’m not just talking about rugs, front door rugs. I’m talking about, in four areas or whatever. Or dining room rugs that might cost $8000 or $10000 or $12,000 in the United States. You might be able to pick one up for $1000 bucks or $1200 bucks in Pakistan or Azerbaijan or whatever. The small ones are even cheaper. So I brought the duffel bag with me and I brought like, six different rugs back with me. And to this day, they’re my most treasured items in my house besides, my dear heads in my studio downstairs. Because they’re just so beautiful and they’re so tightly woven and they’re all handmade and like you said earlier, they do literally, take these women and children six months to make one run. So detailed.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Sometimes, some of the larger ones much much longer. It’s like, he showed us a rug like, every rug that we bought and I think everybody bought one. And I was kind of, I think, I paid $200-$300 in mind. It was kind of contemporary. It was a very nice, it just where I wanted to go. But some of the guys paid more. But he showed us a rug like every rug we bought, they had to take outside and take a picture of the rug and send it to somebody to get an export permit. And I was asking just about that custom and he said, well, some rugs you can’t export and he broke one out. And I think, he said, that rug was 400 years old. It was made in Iran. And you could immediately, it may have taken years for whoever made that, to make it. Very very intricate, and detailed picture on there. But he said it was very very old. But I want to say, that would have been $15,000 or $20,000. But he said, you can’t export it because of its provenance and it’s historic. It’s literally an artifact. It’s just historical artifact and they’re not going to let you take this out of the country. You know what I’m saying? But he showed it to us and it was like, wow. I mean, I’m no millionaire and certainly couldn’t have afforded that. But if I could, I would like it. It’s a piece of freaking art. I don’t know, it’s just, we say this all the time Jake, the duck hunting over there can be amazing. The species are amazing, the fundamental hunting style, the food. But man, when you put it all together, that’s what compels me so much about this international duck hunting is the total package, the complete experience. You know, ducks are just a very small part of it. In so many ways, I feel like, I’m walking through the pages of national geography with a shotgun and waiters. And there’s one person you didn’t meet, like when we went over there to film, that I wanted you to meet, but he was in jail, for not paying alimony or something. If you ever met this guy, he is such a character an extreme character. I hunted with him something this year. But you know, we can rent and use legally electronic calls in that part of the world. It’s part of their custom. And it’ll drag on you a little bit, once you turn it on like. I know some of the times we were hunting together, we had on green winged teal because they were plentiful. Maybe we put on wigeons or it will attract those birds closer. But a lot of those local guides cannot afford to buy or rent an electronic call. And whether you’ve got one going or not, a lot of those guides will subsidize it with their own mouth calling that they have perfected. And one of the best mouth callers over there was the guy that was in jail and we didn’t get to film him. It’s pretty darn amazing. I posted up a video and probably, going to post it up again here soon, of him put on electronic call and he went through the whole species repertoire. Call him by mouth and it was nothing short of amazing and haven’t seen him and experienced him calling in those gadwalls and shovelers and green wings and wigeons strictly by mouth is pretty dang amazing.

Jake Latendresse: I mean it really is. Again, beating another dead horse. It just takes you back to the fundamentals and the basics and the old school tactics and things that most of us don’t even know about or think about. But when you see them doing it, you go, well, this had to be what was going on in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In fact, I got a book from John LoMonaco a few weeks ago and I ended up buying another one. It’s called the Water Fowler’s Scrapbook. There’s two editions. There’s volume one, volume two and they’re all old photos from back in the late 1800s and early 1900s of duck hunters. And the interesting thing is, most of the photos come from like, Sacramento valley and the North Platte River in Oregon. And it’s really, in their market hunters and you look at their equipment. You go dude, that’s Azerbaijan, it’s the same damn thing they’re doing. They’re like 100 years behind in Azerbaijan. I want to emphasize this, re-emphasize this again, you don’t want to change it. You don’t want them to have 10 mojos and a mud motor and 10 dozen fully flock decoys, because it just spoils the whole thing. Because you’re not going there to shoot ducks, you’re going there to do species collect and have fun and shoot some ducks. But you’re really going there for the experience, the adventure and the humbling experience that it is. And it takes you back into your great grandfather’s era when he was doing it. And that’s what it reminds you of.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly. That’s the note I’m going to end on, Jake. I really appreciate you coming on board and help them describe this hunt to everybody. Folks, the world is a whole lot bigger than our backyards. It is a big, wonderful, amazing world of Duck Season Somewhere. You’ve been listening to Jake Latendresse, described Azerbaijan duck hunting. Thank you all for listening. See you next time.