Duck Hunting Pop Quiz

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell. Join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome back to Duck Season Somewhere, it’s a Sunday afternoon, cold beer time. With my buddy Bigwater and our
Friend Iron grip, otherwise known as Ryan Bianchini. Good to have you all here man.

Bigwater: It’s good to be here.

Ramsey Russell: Bigwater, what’s up with you and this Covid stuff man, why? What the heck? This is a whole another, twice you don’t dodge the bullets so high.

Bigwater: Twice Ramsey. I tell you what

Ramsey Russell: That’s why, I hit you up with that microwave for you, walked in and squirts the office with some Clorox.

Bigwater: Ramsey sees young and we got to get,

Ramsey Russell: I washed my hands three times since you’ve been in my house.

Bigwater: Yeah. I washed them more now. Yeah, you know got work, side by side working by him for the last three or four days a couple of weeks ago. And then he came down with it. And I was real close proximity, so instead of waiting the two weeks and quarantining, I just said do hell with it, let’s go get the test right now. Let’s see what this is all about. The media is so screwed up Ramsey, you can’t even get a true picture of what the test is like. Last time I had heard, I said, all right now, when they do that swab, they hit your brain, they almost jiggle the judge [**00:02:44] that stuff up in your jelly up there, they got to pull it out. Well, once a lady did that. It was nothing to it. I was like that’s it? She goes, yeah, that’s it. And I said, well, that wasn’t bad at all. I was over here widen up on the chair getting ready to get in. It stopped already with nothing to it. So anyway, the test came back, I did two tests and the first one was the blood test, so I have not previously had it. And then the second one, the swab came back about 72 hours later, which is about as good to turn around as you can expect right now and it was negative. I’m all in the clear but it was a close call.

Ramsey Russell: Third time’s the charm.

Bigwater: It’ll be exposed again. I was kind of hoping that I might have said, well you’ve got the antibodies maybe I’d already had it. But I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Bigwater and I talked about you several weeks ago. His first time on here, we’re talking about the time I went to Ohio. And you and Biggie there flirt with that anti-hunter over there on the other side of the dove field.

Ryan Bianchini: I heard that one. I remember that story well.

Ramsey Russell: Can’t take Bigwater anywhere.

Bigwater: I saw her she’s now on Antifa. I saw her she was marching down there.

Ramsey Russell: I bet she is Antifa.

Bigwater: She’s Antifa for sure.

Ramsey Russell: What are your thoughts on all this mask and stuff you were saying it’s a safety supervisor, Ryan?

Ryan Bianchini: Yeah. The fact that having to an employer, forcing employees to wear masks arbitrarily is kind of what it is at this point without doing any type of air quality testing and knowing what contaminants you’re protecting against. Is there Covid in the air? Is there arsenic in the air? Whatever. The type of PPE that you’re required to wear is dependent on what you’re trying to protect against. So, Target telling all their employees to wear a mask and then putting it on and wearing it for 8 hours or 12 hours and breathing and getting all that condensation in it and then going home and it gets mouldy and then they put the same mask on the next day. They’re going to run into more problems at the end of all this. And I think they realized just making people sick, with just other ancillary issues.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Wear a mask, don’t wear a mask. You need to wear a mask, you don’t need to wear a mask. I don’t know what to believe anymore. And I don’t wear a mask, I wash my hands religiously. I don’t wear a mask, but while flying, you have to wear a mask.

Ryan Bianchini: Yeah. I think it makes some people feel better, and that’s kind of the society we’re in right now.

Ramsey Russell: Feel good, health care. B, what’s the latest on the blue bill season coming up? I know the folks, look, I’m going to tell you all here in the state of Mississippi blue bill hunting is a very, very minority sport. Bigwater late incharge.

Bigwater: Yeah, it is. Well, the sad thing is, Ramsey is honestly for the most of us, for a lot of us is the most consistent gunning that we going to do are on these catfish ponds for these blue bills. And just when we thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse with Covid and with all this stuff going on with the riots and everything. Then I find out that, this the sculpt numbers being down that, they were going to modify. The way I understood, is that there is going to be a modification on your number of blue bills that you can shoot and it was supposed to be. I was under the assumption, I was prepared that there was going to be a decrease from our, the numbers from Scott [**00:06:29] by the way, the limits have varied a few years back. You could shoot two, then it went up to four, settled in at three for the last 8 or 10 years. So it’s been all over the place, and I always prepared. I knew there was going to be a reduction in what we could shoot, but it was supposed to be, I read that the first 15 days of the season only one bird. Okay, that’s fine. And then the next 45 days two birds. So I accepted that. That was the option that Mississippi Flyway had. And then I read our season bag limits released here a week or two ago in the state of Mississippi and they had gone with just one. And so I called over to the office.

Ramsey Russell: Is that the entire country?

Bigwater: No, it’s just missed each state. The Mississippi flyway as far as I understand, the Mississippi fly away, you can go with that hybrid option.

Ramsey Russell: Which is what?

Bigwater: Which is one for 15 days or two for 45 days. But there is some discussion amongst the powers that be that in order to simplify things and that’s something they said that hunters had asked for was a simplified.

Ryan Bianchini: Routine, season or whatever.

Bigwater: Yeah, they just decide opted to go with one for the entire season. So the bad thing is that, that’s when you can shoot three and you can take five guys and shoot 15 birds. That’s a good hunt, you can’t complain about that. I mean, the reality is, I would love to go shoot big ducks every day, but we just, we don’t have that, I don’t have that at my disposal to go shoot big ducks every day. There’s places, I mean look at what we’ve been into the last two years, we’ve had record back to back 100-500 years, floods. Your camp, what’s the timber loss going to be on your camp, at minimum ballpark.

Ramsey Russell: Who knows? Half?

Bigwater: Half your WRP timber that was planted is going to be gone because we’ve been and so we haven’t had the ability to shoot big ducks. So we’ve got to make, when you’re given lemons, you make lemonade. So we’ve been shooting bluebells on ponds and that’s kind of what we like to do, and now that it’s down to one.

Ramsey Russell: I’m not ducks snob. And I like to shoot bluebells. I mean they’re fun to shoot the decoy, they come in or consistent like you say average day in the South Delta especially you go out and five of us shoot 15 birds for a group bag and ain’t bad. And chances are you’re going to shoot a canvasback or five and some shovelers or something else come in, they’re going to be just gone. What do you all shoot a lot of bands up where you hunt?

Bigwater: Yes, we do. That’s the other reason. Yes, we did. Ryan was with me, I took Ryan a couple years ago. He came up, brought Riley up there and one of my neighbour shot a band that day. I think, I would say over the 15 years I started hunting the fishpond 15 years ago. And I bet you over that 15 year period we average a band a year or band in a half a year. Not quite too.

Ramsey Russell: On Bluebills.

Bigwater: Just blue bills. Yes sir. One year we killed four off the ponds, so it’s a band of year.

Ryan Bianchini: I did the honest thing that year I brought Riley, we went picking up ducks, he was 4 or 5 I think. You know what? I said, come on let’s go pick up some of these ducks for these guys. They’ve been out here shooting. We got there late and he picks one up, holds it up like that and kind of grab it by the feet. I said look on that bird’s leg right there. Look he said what is that? That’s a band man. I said like put those on so they can see where the birds fly and everything told him all about it. He goes, man. So I mean we get to keep it? I said well we didn’t I know we didn’t shoot any birds. All the birds we shot landed over here. This is over here where these other guys been shooting and we brought it back to one of you all shot this bird we could easily said, Yeah. We picked up this bird that we killed.

Bigwater: It was slick as your head. Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: It was bald.

Ryan Bianchini: There wouldn’t let it.

Bigwater: My neighbour, I brought him, he ain’t duck hunted in nine year, 10 years and he shot it, we didn’t and Ryan went picked it up and I cussed right afterwards. I was like Ryan that dude don’t give a shit about duck, why did you keep that man. But it was nothing the material, the metal was just,

Ramsey Russell: where do most of those bands come from the Mississippi delta?

Bigwater: Pool 19 in the Great State of Illinois.

Ramsey Russell: Illinois?

Bigwater: Yes sir. They must right off the river, the river right off the big river.

Ramsey Russell: We shoot, I have not shot one, but clients shoot a lot of sculpt bands in Obregon Mexico. And I’ll bet a half dozen 12 a year we pick up shooting canal pass shooting blue bills and they all, every single one of them come from Montana. Every one of them.

Ryan Bianchini: Are they’re not banned them in Canada or them?
Ramsey Russell: That, I don’t know, like they’re banned in a lot of them in Montana somewhere. They sure are. And I’ve seen those bands it get just worn smooth, smooth off.

Bigwater: Looks like that.

Ramsey Russell: My client sent me a picture of a band the other day, a cinnamon teal down in Mexico. And it was odd. And I said, well most of the cinnamon teal we shoot down in Obregon come from Utah. I mean I’d say everyone, I’ve heard a band recovery on came from Utah. I said it probably came from Utah and I know a guy who got the entire North American database on his computer, sent it to me, I’ll send it to him and he’ll and I sent the boy a picture of the band and told him what the number was missing two digits because it’s worn. He said, that’s a weird when I don’t think it came from Utah and I said why? He said, well it’s a number six size band. They put size four and 5 on cinnamons four on the females, five on the drapes. That size number six. And look at the picture, which I had totally not looked at leading to a band expert. It was overlapped, it wasn’t flourished, the ends were overlapping and so it was a pin tail band or wigeon size band on cinnamon teal. He said that tells me that came from somewhere else. That doesn’t band a lot of teal maybe Idaho, maybe Canada, maybe somewhere. And they didn’t have a teal band.

Bigwater: They just put whatever they had.

Ramsey Russell: And he said the only band I can get to correspond to it goes back to 1968. And I doubt very seriously that bird, that old, oldest cinnamon teal records 10 years old. He told me. So, that’s a great mystery where that bird come from. Well, still I had of the story and the guy out of a band of cinnamon. I had a client one time sent me a picture of his taxidermy. Taxidermy of cinnamon teal, I talked to a group out of text yesterday. Number 1 reason people want to go to Mexico shoot a cinnamon teal. I had a client one time send me a picture of a taxidermy bird that had a band. And I go. Man, you didn’t tell me you had a band on that cinnamon teal you shot. And he goes, I hate to say it, but I didn’t know it until the taxidermy sent me a pic where that band come from and he go, well it’s on the duck’s foot. How do you not know? Good things. That’s the one who said to the taxidermy on there. Yeah. Isn’t that crazy?

Bigwater: Yeah, wow. Yeah, that’s what, I’m going to show you. Ramsey, this is the coolest thing we ever shot on the fish pond for a band,

Ramsey Russell: Wow! Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, where is he from?

Bigwater: Look at the band.

Ramsey Russell: Old, it can be well, it’s got that tannic acid on it stained real bad. Do you know where he came from?

Bigwater: I do not, I don’t really, I don’t know. I know,

Ramsey Russell: I bet he came from Louisiana.

Bigwater: He was shot on the world famous black democrat duck club.

Ramsey Russell: World famous?

Bigwater: Black democrat duck club in Morgan City, Mississippi. Boy from Greenwood shot him about 16 years old.

Ryan Bianchini: You know what people kill on one of those?

Ramsey Russell: Paul Lake is banned in a lot of those down Louisiana and there’s, I saved most of most of that conversation for another future podcast. But they’re getting big, they’re getting, their population is expanding big time. They use nest boxes, there will break and throughout the Mississippi Delta, now since hurricane Rita, we see a lot of them. And matter of fact I was talking to ride, hey dale [**00:15:28] and they got all kinds of duck calls down there now, but they come out with a black belly, whistling duck call because it’s becoming a big sport shooting those birds.

Bigwater: Yeah. I see him traveling through Louisiana all the time. How far north are they expanded their range present day?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know, if anybody’s listening if you all are from Tennessee or North of Mississippi.

Bigwater: I know it’s north eastern of the Arkansas. I know that

Ramsey Russell: Are they?

Bigwater: Yeah, they’re all the way up. I saw that last week on a Facebook video with somebody, some biologists up there. Did it?

Ramsey Russell: How far north do black bellied whistling ducks breed guys? If you all see in North of Mississippi, North of Arkansas, colorado’s, I’d like to know that, that’s a million dollar question, their population is doing well, very well.

Ryan Bianchini: Now, they indigenous to North-America. They are?
Ramsey Russell: I think of him as a coastal species, at least in the U.S costal species. Texas, Florida, Louisiana. I’m sure they get out west, make around New Mexico in the southwest. I’m sure they do. And we see their breeding populations down in South America. I think they’re southern terminus for the northern subspecies probably around Guatemala because their so called endangered there. Are they endanger? Could have hunting doubtful. They’re probably danger because they that’s just their southern range. Which is why they’re sith, there are sithed species. You cannot bring them back from Mexico without a sithed permit, which is just bizarre. But that’s the way it is. And I was telling you all pre show we were talking about this how, for years down in Argentina, up in northern Argentina, we were shooting black bellied whistling ducks at times out in the marshes. And they were always doughty look and they’re always just a weird molt. That’s weird because down in South America, most of those species have a continuous molt, it’s like 12 months a year. You can pick up a bird, it looks like a green head. You know what I’m saying? It looks like a wintering bird because they just, they continuously molt year round. But maybe because it’s got some North American influence or something. I’m thinking it’s always just dull looking. I was going through my bird book just reading up on them last year. I travelled with a ducks of the world because you can imagine. And I realized there was a southern black bellied whistling duck that had a grey mantle and a grey chest, it’s a little bit different than ours. So you learn something every time.

Bigwater: You don’t end up looking the same, fully plumbed.

Ramsey Russell: Totally different, totally different.

Bigwater: Your knowledge of the geography of birds is amazing. Ramsey and I wanted to pick your brain a little bit. And just show off.

Ramsey Russell: And I never did well in pop quiz, Bigwater. But go ahead. I couldn’t cheat.

Bigwater: Well, let me tell you some softballs. First off, so when it comes to the United States, how many states have you currently hunted in the roughly?

Ramsey Russell: Upper 30. Upper 30 – 40. Yeah. Have to look to my list, but mid to high 30 probably.

Bigwater: All right. Let me ask you about some areas that I’ve been curious about, just kind of some off the beaten path stuff and see what you kind of, maybe expand people’s horizons a little bit on where all you can hunt ducks in this Great United States of ours. I hear you talk about Salt Lake City area and the Great Salt Lake a lot.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable. The Great Salt Lake marshes are some of the most amazing duck history and duck habitat and duck hunters. I’ve ever been exposed to.

Bigwater: Utah, the most the sleeper, what’s the word sleeper’s state?

Ramsey Russell: It’s a sleeper. Yeah, I think, well, unless you know about it, I mean if you know about, you know the history, Jack Ray was on one of our future episodes, our previous episodes talking about the history that stretches all the way back in the market gunning days and back when they were still passenger pigeons and Kankakee swamp and all these just unbelievable places where there were still market gun in canvas backs on Chesapeake bay, the shot gunners of the world. Those world travellers even back then recognize the Great Salt Lake basin as the bainia of wing shooting in the world. And to this day, it’s one of the most basic places I’ve ever hunted in the United States and I love to hunt all the different little nooks and crannies. Well we’re fixed to be empty nesters and I might, I never thought about leaving the state of Mississippi, but I would strongly consider moving to Utah.

Bigwater: You know, I got to looking at it Ramsey. So, if significant weather comes to Utah and pushes those birds out south, I started wondering is, if they move south, they move into states like, Nevada, I mean maybe not Nevada, but Arizona, New Mexico, can you talk, can you touch on those areas a little bit?

Ramsey Russell: That’s the reason I’m not hunted yet is, New Mexico Arizona, Nevada, it’s on the short list. It’s pacific flyway. Utah is in the pacific flyway. That’s a major breeding area for a lot of their species. I believe that if the Great Salt Lake were to vanish or go the way of the Kankakee swamp disappear, it probably collapse the entire pacific flyway. It probably would tank, but a lot of those birds go to California and further south and the desert areas, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona they’re high on my list. But it’s just going to take, I’ve got associates over there that have invited me and it’s just going to take some time to go over there and hunt. I just want to, I want to experience hunting in the desert like that. Mexico is a desert where there’s water, there’s ducks

Bigwater: Yeah, and not much pressure.

Ramsey Russell: Not probably not much pressure. Well, it’s like Steve combs was on here several months ago, and duck hunting is just not a big thing. You’ve got such a big game hunting opportunities there in that part of the world. And in upland bird opportunities. Not many people duck hunt like they do here at home.

Bigwater: What about, have you got the Vermont Lake Champlain on your list? Have you hunted there yet?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I have not, I have not hunted the Atlantic parts and the eastern parts of the Midwest that scratch some off my list this year. The only time I ever have been through that part of the world was on a cross country bike ride 30 years ago.

Bigwater: We’re going to talk about that.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, we’ll wrap up talking about that, but we actually Ferried across Lake Champlain and I knew then and talk to the ferry captain, everything else about the golden eyes and some of the birds they shoot up in that part of the world.

Bigwater: Finger Lakes.

Ramsey Russell: Finger Lakes up in New York. Yeah.

Bigwater: Yeah. So, I was wondering about some of those Northeast states, about if you were going to knock New Jersey off.

Ramsey Russell: That’s going to happen this year, we’re going to do a, I do these loops and kind of self-hunt, hunt with friends.

Bigwater: So you got that mid-Atlantic on that

Ramsey Russell: That’s hard on the list man, I believe this year we’ve been going up basically from Mississippi to Wyoming Central Flyway, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri on up into Canada, I still doubt, I may not go to Canada this year but the northern tier. And this year I’ve got a hankering, I’m been talking to some people and basically leave Mississippi and go to Michigan. I’ve got to invite to hunt some young friends up there that do layout, boat hunt and I’ve layout boat hunting, but I really never done classic great late layout boat hunts. We can tie that in with some goose hunting

Bigwater: Was that pumpkin sea boat?

Ramsey Russell: Pumpkin sea type little boats out there shooting long tails and things of that nature, but I’m kind of heading towards Michigan and probably going to stop by and pick up Indiana, I’d like to hunt some of the western Kankakee swap, 1% left on some private land there in Indiana, probably stop by and see some friends in Ohio, I’ve got an invite with several friends in New Jersey, New York, and I don’t know what, I haven’t just studied amount laid it out yet, day by day what we’re going to do, but I can tell you, we’re going to run as far up into Vermont, New York probably try to pick up Chesapeake bay, which I’ve hunted before. Delaware, which I’ve hunted before. And the 1920, 21, 22 of December, Forest and I we’re going to hunt, if we get drawn with swan tags, we’re going to finish in North Carolina, swan hunting, which I’ve hunted there before. But I want to hunt some friends over there, send his little heinie homes, he got honey do stuff. Do you know what I tell you what you start getting serious about girls change crampy style. He’s coming home on the 19th of December and I’m going to stay over and bear hunt. I’m a bear hunt, Hyde County this year and then I’ll come home for Christmas, Bear hunt.

Bigwater: Bear hunt. There’s many better places in North America, the black bear hunt

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievably yeah, I’ve got so many clients and friends out there that have talked about the bear hunting. I’m just going to hunt, from a blind, I’ve got some clients over there that Bear hunt with dogs, but that sounds fun. I mean that’s like old Faulkner type, big would South Mississippi, bear hunting, collier and where you’re falling and all that bull. But man, look, they talk about getting up in them tickets and it really sounds to me a lot more like a Mississippi hog hunt only you’re using a short barrelled gun instead of a buoy knife because you’re beating through dog hair, thick and your feet from that bear, that doesn’t bother me. It’s the getting there, you better be in some kind of shape, now to bear hunters I know back home or one of the former line-backer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, I mean he’s still in good shape. His boys are in good shape. I’m like, I don’t know if I hang with you man, that sounds like work

Bigwater: Is this Hyde County?

Ryan Bianchini: Ticket somewhere in North Carolina.

Ramsey Russell: We’re going to hunt in Hyde County.

Bigwater: Kill big bears there too.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what they say. They say the largest bears in North America come from North Carolina?

Bigwater: How much does a large bear weigh?

Ramsey Russell: Don’t quote me on this, but like I’m not a trophy hunter, I don’t want to shoot a cub. I shot bear before and I’m not going to shoot a small bear. But their threshold out there is 500 pound 600 pounds is really like a world record type bear. I shot a great bear of Saskatchewan 20-25 years ago, it want to try to climb a tree with me. And it was spring bear and it was 375 pound, it’s a big bear, but he looked like wilt chamberlain. It wasn’t big. It was just long and boy, I can’t imagine a 500 pound bear.

Bigwater: So you anticipate a close encounter?

Ramsey Russell: No. I anticipate racking one off in 300 mag and putting across Arizona and touching it off, you know? Yeah,

Bigwater: That’s interesting.

Ryan Bianchini: Do they sit over bait there as well?

Ramsey Russell: I think so. I got invited to go out this past year to Washington State. They don’t hunt over bait, but they’ve got a lot of who knew they had a lot of bears in Washington State and it was, I got invited to go deer hunting, but he said the chances to be shooting a black bear better than 50% man dial me in. And yeah, I mean

Bigwater: White tail deer hunting there as well or as,

Ramsey Russell: White tail deer. And that’s something that everybody I know that had bears in their backyard North Carolina or Washington or wherever they just kind of sort of Alaska, they don’t really bear hunt, because a lot of work, it’s just not something they’re into and they say it’s delicious, I have eaten it and it’s good. And I tell them all, if I live somewhere I could shoot bear like you all do. I have like an Elvis Presley green room only bear hide instead of green shag carpet. I’m going to shoot one every year. Why not? Yeah.

Bigwater: Yeah, that’s what the in the old days the pioneers would hunt bear for themselves to eat and hunt the venison for to go back and sell. But when they,

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know why it fascinates me about that black bear history and it’s just, we’ve got a few here in Mississippi at one time when we got into willowbreak their in South Delta. I never will forget old T. J. Panic. I’m up in stuck guard doing something for somebody and T. J. Call and I could tell he had about a dozen beers,

Ryan Bianchini: Caught one?

Ramsey Russell: Caught one in hole trap. Said how do I let him go? I said, how many beers you had? You know, don’t open that cage door and we call fish and wildlife to put a collar on them and weight him. It was the heaviest weighing bear in the state of Mississippi at the time, big old male. And for all the years, for five years after that date it never left. Within a few miles of us went across the river really over them. Big woods across the way and one year they climbed up a cypress tree down in a hollow cypress tree darted him while he was hibernating and put a geo track in collar. And that bear ended up, the oldest live bearing the state of this. It went from the biggest, they caught bigger, but he went to the longest lived bear, Mississippi. That bear ended up walking over towards late George Wildlife management area four or five years ago and died. I mean, it has been over a decade after we collard.

Bigwater: How was he when you caught?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t, No idea

Bigwater: What is the lifespan of a bear?

Ramsey Russell: In the 20s and 30s

Bigwater: I bet. What was it? Was it like old? So it was about 03, 04.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. 02, 03, 04 Remember that.

Bigwater: Yeah. And it was already a full grown,

Ramsey Russell: It was full grown big bear in the state of Mississippi. That stuff just fascinates me. And it’s like, I read a book recently about Colonel Bobo up in north Mississippi for whom bobo break was named after and reputedly he back in the days after the Civil War turn of the century, He killed over 350 black bears in a single year in the state of Mississippi. And the reading about those accounts how those guys hunted, turn those dogs’ loose packs and packs of dogs and bus through cane thickets on horseback. I don’t forget one graphic detail talking him, talking about a piece of cane went up. His son’s nose kind of like that swab you talking about like Covid, I have to stop and pull it out and get up and go after them dogs. I’m like, man, that’s a tough son of a gun, won’t bear. I got that. I ain’t into that.

Bigwater: I wonder, it makes me think with the population expanding on them. Like we talked about the black bellies, but black bear, the in Louisiana, parts of Louisiana close to where my other family lives, there’s already, they have to put locks on their garbage cans out when they put them out and a friend of mine that I’ve talked to has pulled into his driveway at night at 11:30 at 12 o’clock at night and seen two or three bears in his front yard. So it’s kind of like, is there going to be one of these days?

Ramsey Russell: One day there will be, I can remember several years after we caught that bear at willow break walk into a deer stand. Just one particular stand is one of the closest stands we’ve got to camp, but it’s a pretty long walk in just down the trail. I know it’s raining and I stopped right in the middle of the trail was a bear track. That’s the first and the only time I’ve ever seen a black bear track in the mud in the state of Mississippi. Remember those stories my granddad talked about when they see a deer trap back in the day and everybody could come down and look at it. I’m thinking, one of these days. It could be a bunch,

Ryan Bianchini: Yep. I’ve walked on the trail in Berwick and look down and see the bear track right there.

Ramsey Russell: I like it. I’d like to know one day we’re going to have bears like they do in North Carolina to go hunt.

Bigwater: Well, we’re heading that way.

Ramsey Russell: Very long.

Bigwater: For sure. We’re heading that way.

Ramsey Russell: Have you ever been to Elvis Presley’s house?

Bigwater: No, but I did stop in the one Elvis Presley Graceland too. At a holly springs, specific for that guy. He just died a couple of years ago at Graceland too. We’re talking about,

Ramsey Russell: Jerry Lewis?

Bigwater: No, some dude up there, can’t remember his name, but we were drunk, remind that. We went in there and I remember everything in there was his whole house was a tribute to Elvis. You know, just Graceland too. At a holly springs

Ramsey Russell: If you ever go through Memphis. I think they do have concealed carry, you ought to be armed in that part of town anymore. They you all everybody ought to go through Graceland. It’ll just blow your mind.

Ryan Bianchini: I tried to convince my wife it was born

Ramsey Russell: The King of rock and roll. Had a smaller kitchen than mine.

Bigwater: What? In Graceland?

Ramsey Russell: A big house, small kitchen, swimming pool. It’s the smallest swimming pool I have ever seen. It’s a concrete pond. It was not one of the fibre clad job. Just concrete with a diving board. And but he really did have a room. I think it kind of the jungle room. It was wall to wall ceiling and floor. Green shag carpet. And that would be me. If I could hunt black bear to be all black bear hide.

Bigwater: That would be neat. That would be neat for sure. So we’re going to go on from bears. I want to get back on the duck for a minute. I want to ask you

Ramsey Russell: Hey, you all brought some beer.

Bigwater: The 41 species are so roughly they’re about in North America waterfowl species, correct? In that neighbourhood.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, no, I dispute that. It’s a very, very dated resource. Back in the 40s, Frank Bell wrote ducks, geese and swans of North America, to me, I recognize that if they go to, now he does recognize you’re raising wigeons and barnacle geese and a few other birds. But if you go through it to include speckled bellies subspecies, let’s just say there’s two, not four and the Canada goose subspecies, there’s closer to 60s and I really 40, all the different variations of 41 waterfowl that I’ve seen in North American, they really kind of makes sense from a contest point. Because they’re absolutely doable. But really and truly so are most not all, most of the North American species, you still often. Tooley goose out in California, which is a subspecies respect. That would be a reach. You know what bothers me about the 41? This, the most obvious thing, two most obvious things about a list of 41 ducks, geese and swans or waterfowl they call it. Number one, there’s a Sandhill crane on there. Now, the only people I know that actively hunt Sandhill cranes are waterfowl. Because your decoy and you call them in yada yada. But if you’re going to put a Sandhill crane, why not put a coot? Why not put a gallon? It’s not a duck or goose or swan. That’s the one thing. Second thing to bite. It just bothers me. This is all personal. Never mind the fact, I don’t think it ought to be a contest because to me it’s a personal quest of adventure seeking. But it bothers me that they’ve got a blue goose and a white goose, they’re are the same thing, only different colour Moore’s. Well, if you’re going to count blue and white, why not have interphase. Which is most of them are now. Because of the breeding range. But you do have the mid-continent population of snow geese, the lesser snow goose. And you’ve got the greater snow goose. You’ve got Atlantic Bryant and you’ve got grey belly and you’ve got pacific brant black belly. I mean at least break it out like that. And even if you don’t go the whole five subspecies, I believe one of them may be farcical of the riders, at least break it out pacific and America. Why would you take a shortcut? I mean it’s a quest. I’m going to interview a guy up in Sumner, Mississippi. Former mayor of Sumner, which is one of two county seats in the free state of Tallahatchie County. And years ago we were at a catfish flock night. We’re at a rotary dinner at the country Club there in Sumner. I bet you’ve been big water. And he got up and introduced the guy comes around the world yada yada with fried catfish listening to D. E. A come in and talk about different stuff, rotary club is very interesting. As I was leaving, this gentleman introduced himself. He said, would you like to come see my waterfowl collection? And I’m thinking to myself, I’m thinking very respectfully. I didn’t know this guy combatants and I think of myself, green wing, wood. You know, Tallahatchie County. Catfish kind of smiled knowingly and said, you ought to go there and take a look at you might be impressed. I said, all right, I will and he’s going to give me a ride back to the lodge so why not go. This little man had every single North American, every single sub species and species of North American Waterfowl that you could shoot back in the 60s. You could have blown me, a taxidermy left something to be desired. But even back in the 60s, this guy knew about all the different subspecies and to go now to barrow, Alaska or somewhere crazy, would be a, ST Paul Island would be a daunting task. This guy was doing it back in the 60’s and there weren’t guys an operator, just him and his brother in law was getting dropped off and they were going hunting. Big water: This is a hard-core Mississippi.

Ramsey Russell: Stellar sighters and all of them. Atlantic. He knew the difference in Atlantic, American and pacific common items back then. So why don’t we break him out now? So that’s where I stand. I just, I’m not a contest guy. You know, to me as a duck hunter, I want to chase all them little nooks and crannies, the different states, different flyways, the different species, the different life history. Why am I limit myself?

Bigwater: How does, when we talk about get ducks, the clients that you have, the guys that come hunting with you? How many guys, your average client are they more interested in a volume shoot where they know they’re going to get after them or they are you’ve got for every 10 people you get, how many are marking those? How many species are there worldwide? Have you ever been asked that question?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Now we really get complicated because I believe, I’ve got a friend that is very close to having photographed all of the major waterfowl species of the world.

Big water: And what number is that?

Ramsey Russell: 167 species. But then you’ve got subspecies. You know like we’re talking about and I get baffled by the subs. We look at Canada geese for years. I counted Canada which are big and capital, which are smaller. Seven subspecies of Canada’s and four subspecies of kayakers. But then when I go back to my bill rose book, I’m not carrying calipers, I’m not measuring bill lengthen, torso length and things of that nature. But I know where I hunt and you start looking at the primary migration corridors. I believe there are two Canada and capital, two Canada goose subspecies that I know for a fact, I have a shot and that would be both of them are big Canada’s. It would be the pacific and the dusky and giving a chance to shoot one legally. I want to shoot them. I want to hunt. I’m not really not even sure if you can hunt a dusky anymore, but I’d be willing to take a chance and do whatever I had to go and hunt one dusky Canada goose. And I’ve seen him before they earned their name. I mean just you can lay them out and it got just a very, very beautiful buff coloured, gold is sheen, just a tannish, barely that sticks out more than any of their dusky coloured

Bigwater: So what are you most of your guys?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know

Bigwater: How would

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know. I think most of my clients, I would describe 100% of my client hunters, just duck hunters. And duck hunting is so subjective. Big water, there’s guys that might not be collecting birds, but I know they take notes and they can tell you the species. And I’ve got guys that collect birds that are out there duck hunting like I am And I talked to a lot of younger guys now but younger, I mean in their 30s and 40s that are avid collectors and I’m convinced that in the next 20 years they’re going to be like old Ramsey and they’re going to say I ain’t really collecting birds I’m collecting. They got they they’re experienced collectors. I would describe my oldest experienced collectors. I can’t answer that question.

Bigwater: I don’t know. What would you rather do a volume shoot or would you rather go after targeting specific species?

Ryan Bianchini: I think, I’m with your own experience. You know what I mean? Like, I’m sure you can have a great time hunting high volume system but

Ramsey Russell: Give me six boxes of shells and put me in a place that I can lawfully shoot them. I’m not matriculating my numbers. I don’t keep don’t keep a log of the body count. I’m a duck hunter, I’m going to shoot them. But the older I get put me in on Big Black Democrat Duck Club with three Skull. And to me the ideal is more about three plays, three shots, three skull. Play a perfect game, as a duck hunter. I want to, I’m just speaking me personally, I want to play as close to perfect as I can. I’m all in the decoys, placement to set up, the species and just play it as close to a perfect game as I can.

Bigwater: Yeah, that’s kind of where we’re all get as we get a little older. I feel like,

Ramsey Russell: It’s a quality thing

Ryan Bianchini: I remember us hunting back in the day where, if we couldn’t get 50 days out of the 60 day season, it was terrible right? Bad time. Now, It’s is it going to be cold? Is it going to be sunny?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Call yourself. But you go when you can, you just go when you can we’re all working now, times changed

Bigwater: We’re going to Canada or not.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t think so. You know I’m a duck hunter, so I’m optimistic and the last I heard The dates for Canada for non-essential travel is July 22, now I’m hearing possibly august, I talked to an outfitter yesterday that he believes it’s just it scares me but he believes what he’s hearing that Canada may prohibit tourist until June 2021, and that’s going to be catastrophic. It’s going to be catastrophic to waterfowl guides. It’s really going to be a I think a bad thing for me personally, I love to go to Canada to anybody that wants to go to Canada and it’s just Covid I don’t know, but we don’t know right now, I’m sitting on August 1st. What are they going to let me do in August 1st? Unlike my outfit and clients and my client that go to outfitters in Canada, I’m flex, let me find out. They’re going to open it on October 17 and on October 14. That way that white Chevrolet is going to be pointing north and slicked back. But I don’t know, I’m just taking it day by day, like everything else on the flip side is, you know, we had a real uptick in Mexico interest because right now as we speak, several tourism drives Mexico the 15th large economy in the world. And with safety protocols in place right now and a lot of the major tourist ports, they are letting tourists come in without quarantine via commercial air and cruise ships work, essential travellers crossing through the ground borders but the ground border too close for non-essential travel. Talking to all of our outfitters and resources down there. We believe that Mexico is going to be fully open. Business is normal with mask or whatever protocols they’ve got in place within a month. So we’re expecting and I believe everybody is expecting from Mexico to be full steam ahead this year. Canada Diffie. The later more with every little extension their season open September 1st with every little extension. I think we’re losing odds. It’s going to be open for this fall.

Bigwater: Alright. Ramsey as the duck expert in this room, as the expert for us guys sitting down here in America, if there’s no hunting in Canada, tell us about what our season is going to be like?

Ramsey Russell: If we get cold weather and the birds migrate, it could be good. There’s going to be a lot of half your birds that aren’t shot in Canada. You know John Devaney knows the numbers, he knows the numbers and it makes no sense to me, it defies everything I think I see, but fewer Ducks die now in Prairie Canada than they did back in the 70s. But with no harvest by American hunters, that means there’s going to be a quarter million 300,000 birds that didn’t get shot this year. That could make the way further south. We don’t know, I can tell you if it’s 70° on Christmas Day in Saskatchewan, it ain’t going to make a hell of beans difference and the woman trend.

Bigwater: So, we’re still in the same boat weather, weather.

Ramsey Russell: It’s all about the weather, I think it is. But you know, when it isn’t interesting to me, when you agree that for the past 2-3 years here in the Deep South, we’ve had a withering migration. I mean it’s been warm and it really showed, especially in the mallard harvest, I think in Mississippi didn’t help with all that backwater flooding and just half a million a mud flat throughout the South Delta, which affects not only the South Delta, but all the Mississippi and surrounding areas. But for the past three or four years again going to Mexico, I tell you what, when that whole trend started and southern duck seasons seem to go to hell it just shock me to go down to Bavallen , Obregon, Sonora and shoot ducks. Teal, cinnamon, blue wing, green wing, shovelers, gadwalls, pin tails, wigeons, which is not as many as peak times a bunch, photo period migrated. So many of our ducks just migrate on the calendar instead of major cold front. A lot of the hold back but wait on intimate weather. But a lot of them just come on with the front. So it’s just $1 million dollar question. What is going to happen? I don’t know.

Bigwater: What is our farmer’s almanac say?

Ramsey Russell: I’ll be out there hunting regardless I mean, but who knows?

Ryan Bianchini: I can’t tell you how many teal I saw in September and Saskatchewan, still just hanging out there

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know the past few years. It just blows my mind about blue wing teal. They really are one of my favourite species, but it blows my mind that that migration is strung out from Mexico to Canada in September, it’s like, the last few years I’ll be up in Canada. You don’t shoot blue wing teal in grain fields or big bodies of water. You got to find a little bit out of the way potholes and it just blows my mind. I’ll go up there and shoot a limit six duck or eight ducks or blue wings and eating the board or shooting blue into Mississippi and my buddy down in Texas and Louisiana shooting limits of blue wings that are migrated. I mean that’s literally coming out, that just blows my mind.

Bigwater: It goes further than that. I was asking you earlier pre show about some off the wall places Ramsey and those are our blue wings that show up in the northern portion of South America. Right?

Ramsey Russell: I believe so. Yeah, I mean it make perfect sense. We do have that real remote place we have in Northern Argentina one most shocking things, you think you’ve seen and done it all. You walk into a lodge and remote Argentina near the blue wing teal mallard on the mallard. I’m like, that’s a funny story. We get told like, we get a few of those. I’m like its crazy. I said do you ever see bands on them? I’m tapping my wrist like a band. He goes, no, we’ve never seen a band because if you had a band on one, you know it came, where it came from. And that next morning. It was my first morning ever hunt, Rio Salado. It was amazing. Shot a bunch of ducks, but half the morning I spent just looking left or right, but all the ducks as far as human I can see just trade around. We shot a pile of ducks and my bird boy picking them all up. And I said something to him by the neo. Do you see any bands? I did see the ring teal band down at one time. There are ways. I always just look for a piece of metal and he goes, si what really? Are you kidding? Si he starts digging through, picked up a ring teal, a neo ring and well It was disappointment. But I have had clients shoot blue wing teal there. Had some clients in Florida. Some very good friends, very good clients that were there the year before last that shot some blue wings, beautiful blue wings. Well my outfitter says, and I am not disputing. He says, he believes there is a small breeding population of blue wings way up there and Formosa up against the Brazilian board. He believes that. But, if you look at migrations and there are a lot of shorebirds, very small birds. And think about those shorebirds are coming through migrating same time. The blue wings are coming through Mississippi Louisiana. And those birds will start the arctic and go all the way down to some of them down to Tierra Del Fu ego and then come back in a single migration. So it makes sense that maybe some of those blue wings over flew a little bit. I don’t know. But if we ever killed one with a band will know. They don’t band at all recounted all down in South America. But if we ever find U.S band on one, we would know.

Bigwater: What was the story though with your ring, with your rain tail?

Ramsey Russell: It was a ring teal. And I was asking about a Neo which is Spanish for ring. They don’t call it a band.

Ryan Bianchini: It wasn’t a band, it was a ring teal

Ramsey Russell: In Argentina that time when I was hyped up about bands and I asked my bird boy Neo, he goes si, si and pull out a Ring teal. Yeah. But in Uruguay years ago I did come across a banded Ringed teal

Bigwater: And what was the story behind it?

Ramsey Russell: Picked it up by the pile and it didn’t have AV. That had some mob C E M A E. And when I got back the sat down on my computer and google it, in it come up kind of like our fish and wildlife, like a pies and wait till I got back home here to Mississippi and google it and print off the form And I don’t understand Spanish but I can kind of get by, and I couldn’t get by. I couldn’t, I’m like this ain’t no Spanish words I understand. So I printed off the form and went over to see somebody at the regional office there in Jackson fish and wildlife service and asked him and he’s like, I am, hey wait a minute. Hang on a second, he ran down the hall and brought somebody with me said, you know why we don’t understand this. It’s not Spanish. It’s Portuguese. Really? Come out of Brazil’s. So we literally filled it in online and send it off. And the biologist that had abandoned that bird, Brazil wrote me back and wanted to know specifically where Uruguay I shot and I was the first hunter to ever report in 20 years. One of his leg bands. I didn’t keep it on a female. I had a pair of ringteal mind and put it on a break.

Bigwater: What you do with that back

Ramsey Russell: Just hanging, it will break.

Bigwater: That’s amazing. 1st hunter ever report one of his bands from Brazil to Uruguay

Ramsey Russell: And what’s the point in banding bird if you don’t have a hunting base to report him.

Bigwater: Yeah. That doesn’t sound like that’s going to be,

Ramsey Russell: It doesn’t sound like a very productive program.
Bigwater: What was the distance between where it was banned it and where you hunt.

Ramsey Russell: You 1500 miles maybe? That’s interesting that you know it’s interesting. And there are some parts of the world it’s aggravating, Argentina. They don’t band a lot of birds but I do know hunters in Uruguay and Brazil, they don’t have any hunting whatsoever in Brazil. But they used to and I’ve talked to a lot of Brazilian hunters and a very few argentines I know like Diego Muñoz if anybody has ever killed a band to be him and he has. On the whistling ducks and the rosy bille, because there’s really no continental migration in South America, but they do move, they do shift for hundreds or thousands of miles. I don’t think of that bird coming out of Brazil being migration like from Canada, Louisiana. But they do move they do dispersed looking for food resources. And so I find myself glancing and looking and kind of sort of hoping one day I’ll find another Easter egg.

Bigwater: That’s neat. Did they do any kind of other population studies like we have our fall flight index? They don’t have nothing?
Ramsey Russell: Nothing, nobody else in the world does what North America does count ducks and come up with population models. Nobody Australia Field and game, Australia is making a very good effort. They just started banding birds one banding location completely salt funds out of donations and stuff. They’re trying very hard. Their government officials will go out and do survey, but because of the anti-hunters down there, subject to a lot of bias and it would be really, really good. In fact, I had talked to somebody here in the states about going down to Australia with me and trying to get them linked up and let those two brain powers talk about what it would entail to set up more of a formal survey so that the hunters in Australia could come up with some very good credible American type data to combat the anti-hunting politics with. Numbers don’t lie. I mean they do but they don’t.

Bigwater: No, that make a lot of sense to especially help hunters.

Ramsey Russell: John Devaney and I were talking. It just blows my mind if I just absolutely was a sadist and I just needed to have my teeth kicked in, I post pin tail limits of Mexico on the internet and it just incenses people one of the craziest times I’ve ever been just and I don’t get a lot of that crazy talk on our social media channels. Because of an anti-hunter. They get one chance to see my way. I mean I block them. It’s just that simple. But most of the people we have run interference within social media are hunters. And don’t forget, hope he’s listening, but he ain’t. Posted a picture, it wasn’t a crazy amount of Pin tails it was limits 15 a day, 30 Pin tail drake. We did good. We picked up our ducks, we shot drakes only. And this guy just went ape shit. apeshit and that’s my page. He goes [**00:58:55] Well before I lambaste him, I go and take a look at his profile and his signature says it’s all fun and games until the possum cop shows up. I don’t really sound like a conservationist to me. So, but I write very intelligently. Like I try to come, not speaking to him. I’m speaking anybody else reading about no teal farming and loss of small ephemeral wetlands up in Canada and why since the 70s there’s been a drastic pin tail decline. And, I spent a lot of time writing that rebuttal and at the very end I couldn’t stand it. Before I posted it, I put. If you don’t like that at the next possum copy. Man, he just went off. But I knew he’d read it so I blocked him, I don’t deal with it. But my point being they do some surveys in Mexico, but they don’t survey a like we do but they do some surveys, but they don’t, there’s so little hunting pressure relative to America. I would guess. I think people who know like john would agree to some degree that there’s probably more pin tails at one a day shot in opening week in the Pacific flyway, then shot in Mexico in an entire year. I mean its a little hunting pressure. So, but you got to wonder, I have to wonder what does the future hold, what’s Argentina? Some of these country is going to be like 20, 30, 40 years down the road. If they don’t get off their pocket begin to start counting and modelling and coming up with some idea of what they’ve got, who knows?

Bigwater: Yeah. Well, let me ask you this Ramsey, while I’m thinking about it here. When we talk about South America and of course you talk about going down there, everybody talks about Argentina. But if there was one state or one country down there that you could get into maybe whatever reason does anything jump out at you?

Ramsey Russell: No, I do want to just for my own edification go down to southern parts Patagonia, parts of Argentina, do a little kicking around duck hunting, mostly, when you get down there toward the tip of Argentina, you run into the flightless ducks, the steamer ducks and things of that nature that are protected. And that would be fun. I’d like to see that part of world, part of the world that I’m looking at hard right now. It would be more into Northern Africa. Clear up Egypt, there’s no ducks in Morocco. I’d like to go shoot the doves in Morocco. The truth matters, I want to go to Morocco. You know back on, what was that guy to walk to the door and a bull whip, raiders of the lost

Ryan Bianchini: Indiana Jones.

Ramsey Russell: Call me crazy. I want to walk through one them open their hot markets and see some guy with cobra’s coming up out of basket and then go do a little hunting. I’m talking to an outfitter in Central Africa right now. I’ve talked to some resources they kind of come and go is a little scary. But one of the most compelling places to me right now is Egypt and then south, because the Nile River runs north, going to the headwaters of the Nile River between the white and blue forks of the Nile River is a major wetland in Sudan. It goes into southern Sudan, which is getting pretty dicey. But Sudan would be a pretty cool place to go and hunt. It’s really interesting because what you have there, you have a lot of Eurasian species overlap with African species. And that would just be to me a real cool place to hunt. I mean, you might share Eurasian wigeon on one hand, the next flight, be something like a little pygmy goose that would be a real cool place to hunt. I’m looking hard down in Southeast Asia, but there’s so much humanity and there’s so much politics. We start shifting now. I’ve been invited to go to places in the world and I have to ask real important questions. Now I have to know is the species endangered. Then I have to ask is the species protected? Is hunting even legal? Is gun possession even legal? Can we get firearms if we can possess the guns? I’ve been invited to the Bahamas. No, you can’t possess a firearm there’s a non-resident, you couldn’t get ammo if you could. And the species I would be interested in hunting are strictly protected. What’s the point? That’s not who we are. I’ve been invited to go to Japan from and I’m like what? There’s no hunting in Japan, there is. But there ain’t. Philippine, they’ve got rice fields and Philippines with these Filipino duck which are one of the mallard like 13-14 mallard like ducks in the world. I’d love to hunt them, guess what they’re endangered. No. Now I do think one day I may get to a point, I would personally love to go to the Philippines with a videographer and a duck call and no gun. You know this year convention I got invited little affair is to go to Brazil and the guy kind of somebody he said he had a permit four days.

Bigwater: What is the deal in Brazil?

Ramsey Russell: Hunting is prohibited period end of discussion. But supposedly he had government permits to come in, deprivation permits to hunt during the right season. There’s a lot of parts of the world, even in parts of Argentina that the birds behave a lot like they do in Mexico like it’s so wild the way they plant wheat in Mexico in November and December and then a gravity feed it with water, well that water has got to go somewhere, it pulls in the field and it starts to run off into these ephemeral weapons. But when that water is coming over in those fields get muddy, those Mexican ducks land on the mud and walk right down those seed rose eating wheat. Then they fly that where the water is collected to lay up during the day and you’ll shoot them. And they got they got wheat spilling out of their guts. And same way in Argentina, you’ve got a non-recognized way of harvesting rice when that rice starts, the flag is very vulnerable if they go and swap it before and then run a combine over is very vulnerable to crop depredation and they have depredation seasons there. Well, this guy and invited come to Brazil and I blew him off and said, there’s no hunting in Brazil, I’m not interested. And he said no, no senor, I’ve got the permits. I said fax them to me. Don’t worry about translating. I got people that translated just fine, fax me the paperwork and when I can read it and have it checked by a lawyer and government officials, the embassy, It is perfectly legal. I’m on board. I’ll come with you. I ain’t seen it since I’m saying it’s just real, you start getting far off, too far off the beaten path, just become very, a lot of grey area that I’m uncomfortable operating in.

Bigwater: Well, I’d like to look inside your brain and see what all those kind of behind the scene Ramsey stuff that you talked about doing. Everybody wants to be Ramsey, but

Ramsey Russell: Everybody thinks they want to be Ramsey until it’s time to do Ramsey shit. Like the time I went to Belize and no doubt saw the biggest flock of blue wing teal I have ever laid eyes on

Bigwater: And what got you to believe? How did you get what?

Ramsey Russell: An invite to come and scout.

Bigwater: How do you go about getting an invite? How does that happen? Somebody in boxes you or what?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, somebody contacts me. I’m good, but I’m not God and really and truly as our reputation has grown, we get people find us. I’ve been invited and we’ll follow up one day when I can just lay it out on a map and just make a big spin. I’ve been invited to all those former little, those little bitty countries over in former eastern bloc soviet union, along the Hunan rivers, been in Romania

Bigwater: All those stands. All those stands not Pakistan.

Ramsey Russell: Pakistan, Serbia’s and Croatia, the I.A countries, I’ve been invited all of it and I think it’s got possibility not for great duck hunting, but for a nice duck hunting experience. Yeah, I’d like to go look at that area. It’s possible. It could be, it could be pretty decent. But we’re all we know they find us. So we got invited to go to believe this was years ago. It have been a decade or so ago, we show up and I got to admit it’s kind of cool. It was about an hour out of the capital city you flying to and it was after the jungle and

Bigwater: Sits on the sea, Right?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Right on sea, it’s got a real

Big Water: The gulf. Is it the gulf?

Ramsey Russell: No, the pacific side. I believe that maybe to go. But I just know it’s a close, it’s a pacific side, but it’s a real close coral reef. That’s why that’s the hook and pull the fishing and diving. We were of in a jungle, we’re of in the boondocks. And that night some locals came in, they were bluesy and black. They were black and they came in and introduced themselves, they’re very nice, they are very important, they seemed very knowledgeable and the plan was, they were going to be a kind of a cool place. Just imagine sleeping at Gilligan’s hut. It’s kind of what the little place we were staying was fixed up as it’s very nice. I never forget that night somebody I was there kind of scouting with had brought a predator call. He turned on one and predator calls and out of nowhere come a freaking, the lady that served up, a young girl that served up had a butcher knife side of a machete come shrieking out of the kitchen. I thought she’s going to kill somebody and stab the table that night and grab that machine and threw it down and started stomping on it. It’s just in real Jamaican type accent, started yelling at the guy saying, have you lost your mind? There are cats in these woods that kill people. You don’t do that. That kind of got my attention. Jaguars. So the plan was, these guys are going to pick us up the next morning. So I’m thinking daylight before daylight right? No, I showed up 10, 10:30 no guns, no nothing. We get in a boat crank up, beat up outboard. We start pushing across the motor dies. No problem man. You start push pulling. I think we all be pushed pulling back toward the truck because the motor’s dead. Now we go the other way and we get off of some low tides, stinking mud, chin deep, slogging through. It’s hot. We’re slogging through mangrove and I’m about to lose my temper. And about the time I hear like a jet taken, you ever sat at the Memphis Airport jets take off what it sounds like. I look over my shoulder and 20,000 blue wings. I’m thinking, okay, this may have been worked. This is something. What I come to find out, you dig deeper, you start peeling the layers off of it. You can’t possess firearms in Belize every little village, there’s two or three people that are market hunters that provide meat for the village and they have guns. I don’t forget old Charlton. I got to know these guys went fishing, we had a really pretty good time is very, very big adventure for something never panned out. Charlton had a Sears and Roebuck over and under 22 long rifle over 14 and by about as loose as, I mean it’s a sock would rock every which way, no sites whatsoever on that smooth barrel. He had a hose clamp with some surgical tubing and he pulled back like a slingshot and put behind a hammer of his gun. I said Charles. Well, no offense, But you can’t hit shit with that gun, I’m telling you right.

Bigwater: I’d have been praying. He shot you in front of the boat

Ramsey Russell: They were good people. He go no man, I can hit anything. I said, there ain’t no way I’m looking down at it means like I’m looking down the got my the stock gun is cocked to the left. I’m looking down the side of the barrel. I’m like, there’s no way you’re going to shoot, he said, he gave me 10 counts. You put it out there, man. I said, how far go how far you want? I laid out there about 25 yards cock and have pulled a rubber band back cock, the hammer Shop pissed, it down the road. Put another bullet, shooted down, bound up, hit it at 40 yards ago. I’m impressed. But he was great. He was explained to me, he was grandfathered. And they got to talking about. When them boys weren’t guiding or market hunting, they cut wood at the jungle. Got one of the jungle woods, I can’t remember the name of the right.

Ryan Bianchini: Charcoal.

Ramsey Russell: No. Mahogany. They cut mahogany and they all carried like one of them had a briefcase, one of them had like a little purse. They all had just whatever, they have for the little Phil sack because they go to the jungle, they go on a hunt for weeks and everywhere you went they have this little briefcase just like a little convention briefcases.

Ryan Bianchini: Ditty bag.

Ramsey Russell: I said, Charles what you got in there. And he started taking stuff out. He had like mono filament for when they went fishing, were out there throwing rods and reels, they’re hand lining. I ain’t okay, you can throw it no more two foot. I’m going to catch something boy out fish me. I’m going to tell you just hand lining. And he showed me this powder, I said, what’s that powder for? He goes any snake venom? They began to talk about those fer-de-lance snakes extremely venomous. We know around here we got cotton mouth and timber rattlers and copperheads, they’re all about three foot long, fer-de-lance to get three foot long, but he’ll get 7-8 foot long. And one of the brothers was telling me Charles, his little brother who would looked like a line-backer. He’s much for, looks like he’s been cutting mahogany wood his whole life. Show me a scar on his leg. And he said well that’s snake hit him, not clear off his feet. But I watched while stepping there and believe I ain’t till we’re walking through the jungles and looking and I saw my first jaguar tracks offer in the jungles. I’m going to tell you to reach down and put my hands on that jaguar track and just kind of cold and kind of like that bear track. And I said what do you do with this? He said they put it in water and give it to you and it makes you puke and makes you get diarrhoea and it makes you sweat whatever that was, what’s in there you go just jungle herbs and said Ramsey, this part of the world, we ain’t got doctors. So his brother got bit by a fer-de-lance cutting wood and said his leg swelled up so big it wouldn’t fit his pants and all they need to do it, open mouth nowhere was put it in a drink of water and give it to him and he just started screaming out of every hole pour on his body. But he leaves alive the next day. So he lived still got a scar on his leg. There was no duck hunting there. There is, but there’s not because of regional and custom laws. That’s kind of where we start looking some of the far flung places that we’re continuing to look and discover, that’s something we have to really dig into. Tt’s a lot of grey area. But in my world there is no grey area. If I’m going to send a client somewhere, you got to be able to hold that gun, get the ammo, shoot the birds. It’s got to be legal. There’s no grey area what I’m saying. So that’s kind of where we are scraping straws right now. That’s a heck of a pop quiz you give big water.

Bigwater: Good, with all these places that you’ve been, let’s talk about where you’re getting ready to go now. How many, after you got burned after that, you took a cross country trek on a bike to raise money for the burns, is that correct?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Bigwater: There about and you’re going to relive some of that this summer, is that right?

Ramsey Russell: Yes, 30 years ago this summer, 1990, I was 24 years old, had my whole life in front of me down the damn old man and my college roommate, now we couldn’t be more polar opposites. He’s a college wrestler from Rochester New York. I’m a redneck from Mississippi, been through a burn centre, chicken legs, all that mess. But we both bicycle and we were roommates in college and had a place out there east of campus, we room together and he got to tell me about this bike ride he was doing, I’m like, man, it’s not so much fun. I mean, we’re going to start in Bar Harbour, Maine and ride out to Washington State all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t bicycles, I’m like. But it’s like kind of like that and we did it and we always talk back then. I mean, he got the landscape very similar to forced and in fact, he’s actually giving forth a lot of advice. He was in the same program there at state and we all stay in touch. But we’re just totally different people and he doesn’t hunt still, he’s not anti-hunting, he just doesn’t hunt. So we got to talking during all this Covid mess and we’d always talked about doing a reunion ride, one day we were old men and just off the cuff. I said, Yeah, man, around 30 years, we need to go do that. Well, I have my math wrong. I was thinking I had 10 years or so to go ready and put it off, he wrote back to hell, yeah, let’s go this summer. I’m not busy, you’re not busy, let’s do it. And I’m going to tell you, man, I mean number one, we ain’t got time or inclination. I certainly don’t have the legs anymore to ride 5000 miles across America, but he lives in Denver, so I’m going to fly out to Denver next week. We’ll get the truck, going to drive up through Wyoming in Montana. I’ve got a lot of clients, got a lot of friends. He’s got a lot of friends instead of just riding all day every day. We’re just going to ride to a spot camp, stay in a hotel. And I told him, no, I ain’t ramen noodles every night. Like we didn’t, we broke college kids. I’m aware. I made a big meal in the morning, the proper meal at night. I ain’t eating ramen noodles and dry beans and days and days are over. I could eat a jar of peanut butter day and be fine back in those days. Not anymore. And what’s going to go out and ride And I think, but I got to say, man, 30 years ago, who would have dreamed When I was 24, all I’ve done, I’ve seen, let alone all this Covid bullshit who dreamed. And man, how the world has changed since February, how my personal and professional life is just kind of in a limbo. And I don’t forget we’re going up to Montana, we’re going to start around both and we got some friends do some riding around Yellowstone, a little bit higher elevation in the Mississippi, so little acclimation, I’m in shape enough to do this. I just need to get acclimated. But the highlight of our ride that summer was going over the continental divide. Everybody told you we should’ve ridden from west to east. We rode from east to west. We got lucky, we didn’t have westerly prevailing winds. We call a lot of good tail winds at trail.

Bigwater: What altitude are we talking about?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know how big Logan pass is, but I know that we’re going to about day 8,9,10. We’re going to stay somewhere around east glacier. Get up next morning. He’s like, it’s no big deal man. Its 15 miles. I got no better man. I got GPS technology type stuff to look at on Google and 35 miles at the top. It took me 3.5 hours when I was 24 years old, pedal up. Probably going to take me longer this time. But the more I got to thinking about it, like man for a college wrestler in a fit guy like that right across the country, a bike, it was just easy for him, man. Some of those mountain climbs, we did four hours, five hours, the further west you got the slower to grade and the longer declined got, I had to dig and find places. Had to find places. I didn’t know I had to make a climb. I’m at a point now 30 years later, not knowing what the next year or two or five is going to be, post Covid. I need to find that place. I feel like I need to find that place again. And so I told him I said look go up to the top, go hike, go do whatever, forget about me. I’ll be up there when I get up there. But I’m going to make that climb and then we’re going to drop down and instead of going west we’re going to go east and we’re going to kind of head out through the head east of there. We got we got some friends we’re going to stay with and cabins and go fishing and do some stuff like that. It’s going to be a two week bike ride. And I’m thinking about doing a podcast. I’ll tell you all this. Don’t ask me why this ain’t my nature. But last night of that 60 day or whatever bike ride we did back in 1990, I was sitting at a picnic table somewhere and I wrote myself a letter because I’m going to tell you after going through all that shit in the burn centre. I felt like I had these dragons on and when I completed that bike ride, I felt like I can remember thinking there is nothing that I can’t do. If I set my mind to it, I can do it. I don’t know what compelled me, but I sat down one night over a little candle and I wrote myself a letter. From Ramsey to future Ramsey and I mailed at home. My mother opened it and then she realize that it wasn’t for her she taped it back up and curtain outside, we’re going to do this bike ride, I called her. I said, I know there’s a needle in a haystack, long shot. Any chance you can find that letter? And she goes, Well, there’s two places I can go look by, Gosh, you found that letter. So it’s going to be interesting.

Ryan Bianchini: Remember what you wrote yourself?

Ramsey Russell: No, I have no idea. 30 years ago. I can’t remember what I had for lunch day before yesterday, but I’m open it up. I’m opening up on top of moss passing. Read it, maybe do a podcast around it. But that’s kind of like, Ramsey before Get Ducks. I’m saying it’s a whole different time and place. But I tell you, I do look back 30 years and I see where that adventure wet my appetite for kind of what all we’ve been talking about today.

Bigwater: So you’ve been riding the bike here lately? Training for This?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, But I mean, I went to a bike shop, get smooth, tired putting on my 35 year old mountain bike while they were picking out, we’re picking up the tire, doing everything. I got to browse around a bike shop, man, let me tell you what technology has changed in 30 years. My bike is a dinosaur

Ryan Bianchini: Probably weighs about four Times more than your bike.

Ramsey Russell: Oh my God, I can pick up those bike from my pinky finger and the gears have changed in the brakes and I’m like, the price. I’m still riding a $500 bike from 30 something years ago, the bike I rode across the country was a touring bike, I put fenders on it and panniers and like little saddlebags. These bikes today are state of the art and I go out here biking out here in the country and get tech from my buddies, people I know around the county and it’s kind of embarrassing some out there peddling and listening to podcast and busting hump, write a couple of hours and I get passed by the biking folks that were like the tights purple and pinks and long skinny helm. That ain’t me man. I’m out there wearing advisor and headphones and my khaki shorts and my shirt, kind of drip, sweat better than cotton and just enjoying life man

Ryan Bianchini: Sitting like tractor seat on your bike.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I mean, who knew there were so many bikers in Rankin County. I’ve had four of them passed me. Yesterday some lady about my age, some little lady my age or older just come sweeping past me, that scared me man interrupt my podcast.

Bigwater: I tried at father’s Day, I went up to see that, weekend I went to see my old man and I was going to get a little exercise in and he had a bike and I got on a bike for the first time in about 15 years. I ain’t kidding. And I said, I’m going to go ride for an hour because I walk for an hour. I thought I could ride for our about 15 minutes into that ride, my whole Yoda region down here was known as the North Pole. I was hurting so bad coming down my ham hocks here, that I was like, my God almighty! And I gave up when I got off that bike and it will be, that may be the last time I ever get on a bike again. I don’t know what it is.

Ramsey Russell: I do a lot of at the time when the waters off this time of year, I take that old mountain bike over the camp, we’ve got 18-19 mile trail. It’s so crazy because oh dear god, they don’t hear you coming. They don’t know what you are. Don’t step out, cocked their head like what the heck is that? You ride, the matter of fact forest killed him. In mid-160 class buck. I know if you get the first time thing jumped out on me a scared me to death. He jumped out and I scared him. He scared me. He stopped, looked at me a minute, he jumped back off and push. I think I just saw a big steer on camp force when I turned killed him. And of course, when you see them, redneck members of our drive around, they see me, they stop and give me the same look like what the heck is up with that bicycle. I love to do that. And have a good, but now the first time I started doing that years ago, I had just a typical little bitty bicycle seat. The first day I went ride and it felt good. The second day I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t sit and recline on my butt, so bad. I want to bike store. And I said, you got the old lady seats. What do you mean? I want? The biggest pattern is heaviest basically I got, I put a john Deere seat on my bike. That’s, I’m going to weigh as much the bike does. But I sit in comfort. I’m fearless on that thing.

Bigwater: Well, most of the time I’m jealous of you, but I can assure you as you’re paddling on that hill, I’m going to be jealous at you.

Ramsey Russell: The great thing about going up a hill is what motivates me is from the top. It’s all downhill. Anyway, I’m glad you all came over. I’ve enjoyed a couple of cold beers

Bigwater: And I was glad to get Ryan Bianchini over here. I hadn’t seen him. He’s off all the time.

Ramsey Russell: Good to see, I agree.

Bigwater: Between Morgan City and the gulf here. I told him I said, why don’t you surprise Ramsey. Let’s have a little gathering of the old school people here today.

Ramsey Russell: Are you now going to leave here and be the official state of Mississippi, Blue Bill lobbyist? I think you need to

Bigwater: Houston havens better watch out.

Ramsey Russell: You hear that Houston. Thank you all for listening Duck season somewhere. We enjoyed it. And we’ll see you soon.