EP 450. Carter’s Big Island: Location, Location, Location–and Commitment

 

Are There Still Mallards in Kansas?

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s duck season somewhere podcast from frozen Kansas. Thawing out Kansas, I should say, where today we all shot a few beautiful greenheads coming in like we’re supposed to, like you dream of, thanks to today’s guest, Roy and Drake Carter of Carter’s Big Island in Kansas. I’m going to start with this question, Roy, tell me honestly, I know you bashful, and I know you shy. Tell me honestly what you thought when you got that text from him this morning and I asked you, are there still any mallards left in Kansas? Did all your mallards leave? What was your initial reaction?

Roy Carter: I just thought, oh my God, because everybody I talked to just had a splendid shoot, and I thought, where is he? How could this be messed up? What in the hell?

Ramsey Russell: There was no cuss word said.

Roy Carter: Oh, a little bit. Then they said Dave was kidding because the first thing, first thing I got was I seen in a text this morning when I joined into the group organization at around 06:00 or so was, where’s everybody at? I’m here, but there’s nobody around and I thought, shit, it’s dark and it’s foggy and Drake setting up people. Then I thought, well surely everything would be fine, and then I got that one after getting all the other pictures from everybody hey, we’re done, we killed 34. I thought, what in the hell? That was a good one. You got me.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you didn’t hit me back with about 7 or 8 text, all excited stuff, and you knew you’d gotten got pretty quick. I asked your boy Jacob said, what do you think? You think I ought to send him? His text goes, yeah, mess with him. Send it to him. Leave that to your son in law.

Roy Carter: He knows me because a normal person stops at one text, I get more emotional. You might get about 5 texts from me, but just consider it 1. No, a wonderful day. I like to have everybody have a good time. That’s the reason I started sharing this with other people back in 1986. One I was broke. Two, I could see I had something special and a lot of people. It’s like, you guys are tearing it up on the ground. You mean, with all the good production and habitat, this slash water we got, the ground was froze. Then we got a half inch of rain, and it looked like we got 3 inches of rain, and every ounce of it ran off into our impoundments. So that duck woke up that morning, and he knew he had fresh water in the shallow ends. I drove around and I seen him resting. There wasn’t tennis shoe hunters anywhere, and they’re still in the fog, wonderful. I love the fog. If you’re a duck caller because you know somebody don’t know what they’re doing, they’re just going to really scare them. Anybody that sounds like a bunch of ducks in the fog, hangs them on a tree quick.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Roy Carter: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: We had a wonderful hunt, and there’s no photo, none that I can take on earth. That will do how beautiful that spot was today in the fog, with the heavy, thick ice and the black water. About a quarter acre of black water right in the center, you all cut out and kept open. Just those trees just look like dark shadows painted in the fog, and the birds were like you say, I would say visibility was 200 yards, maybe. Jacob just kept trolling. He called it trolling, and out of the blue, he’d whistle, and we’d start yanking the jerk cord and getting ready, and here they come, just spilling over like dice tossed out of a tumbler into the hole on top of us. So, you got a lot to that, but a part of me just wanted it to be blue skies and sunshine because you got some shadows and you got all that stuff, and it’s just magic, I think, in the timber. The fog worked, too. Tell me this, either one of you all Drake, Roy, how many groups did you all have out today? And how did everybody do?

Shooting Limits: Best Kansas Waterfowl Hunts

Drake Carter: We had 4 groups out today, typically we just run 2, but today, we had a little extra company, but it worked out good. Everybody shot ducks. Everybody shot limits.

Ramsey Russell: A lot of mallards.

Drake Carter: All mallards. A few pintails, a few ring-necks. I think you guys killed in the woods, but for the most part-

Ramsey Russell: I’m from Mississippi, and on my particular camp, Ring-necked, if we had to have a logo, an accurate logo of our bread-and-butter duck at Willow Break, I’d call it a ring-necked. I ain’t passing one up, especially when they low and slow over the decoys like them were. They weren’t whooping through at 50 miles an hour. They were pretty slow, and I couldn’t pass him up.

Drake Carter: It’s a bonus duck, so if they come in, we’ll shoot them. I think we had a group of 4. They hunted another spot in the woods. I think they killed 20 mallards, and then we were in a flooded cornfield right next to the refuge. We had a splendid shoot in the fog. Couldn’t see them, could hear them before you seen the actually, and they came right in. We needed a little bit more wind today, but all in all, it was a good hunt.

Ramsey Russell: I got to just say the story about this morning because I screwed up, and now my son Forrest, if he’s listening, he probably ain’t, but if he is, he’ll say, you do it all the time dad. I’m going to say 20 minutes, 30 minutes, after we got the blind, the Louisiana boys, moose and company had got the percolator going. You could smell coffee but it wasn’t quite ready, and he had stepped to the back of the blind to answer a business call, and Jacob whistled, so I started yanking on the line. He was standing outside so he could see the ducks all around that blind and I started yanking on the cord about 5, 10ft from my gun, and here come a pair of mallards fluttering like a moth in front of a candle, just fluttering. It’s like you could almost reach out and grab them. I just said the word shoot, that’s what my answer. Shoot that bird and buddy, let me tell you what you have to lose twice.

Roy Carter: No. First time they’d seen a greenhead in 10 years old.

Ramsey Russell: Jacob on the outside, so quiet and non-volatile and calm.

Roy Carter: He was getting at your ass.

Ramsey Russell: There was 30.

Roy Carter: Yeah. Welcome to Kansas. Welcome to Carter’s.

Ramsey Russell: Right behind him, low on the deck. Let me call the shots next, and I said, Jacob, it’s all on me. I said the word shoot. It’s all on me.

Roy Carter: Don’t feel bad, brother. I’ve done it before.

Ramsey Russell: Later in the morning, I called it like a karma. I’m going to tell on Jacob, he got greedy, like we all will. I’m going to say the first glimpse was 5 or 10 mallards circling. We’re calling, we’re chuckling, and on the second path, their flock had doubled. On the third path, the flock had doubled again. It was a sky full of just circling that hole. Nothing attracts ducks like working ducks, and all of a sudden 15, 20 of them got [makes fluttering sound] just down the escalator, they come into the hole, start landing. He’s quacking still. Boom, here comes another pair. Boom. Here comes 5 more, and still they’re the flock above us. I guess he’s trying to land every damn one of them.

Magical Mallards Over a Frozen Timber Hole

You all were spoiled with that, Roy.

Roy Carter: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You better believe if anybody had said anything resembling the word shoot, the damn sky would have exploded. About that time, those birds on the water left and took the other birds with them, and we all sat there looking at each other like, what the heck did we just do? It’s like having your cake and eating it too. I’m going to say 20 minutes later, we were done with a full limit-

Roy Carter: Too many ducks-

Ramsey Russell: But we got to it like one of the boys, moose recorded it. 2 minutes of working magical mallards spilling over into that frozen timber hole. So, it’s like having your cake and eating it, too. You all were spoiled with that, Roy.

Roy Carter: We’re real spoiled. See, I didn’t know where he is at. When I freaked out, I thought you was with Drake hunting up there on Cole’s hole, and-

Ramsey Russell: You better watch out because now I know that you’re that easy to mess with you-

Roy Carter: Well, so here’s the deal. The boys send me this video, 2 minutes because I didn’t chew the night before Jacob said, well, Roy, you’re going to chew my ass, and I said, what’s the story? We was down in the big hole or in the woods and had a 5 pack of mallards, could have killed. I said, how many drakes? How many hens? Mallard tells me nothing. He says, kills there was two swimming in the hole and with two drakes and a hen swimming in a hole and two drakes 5ft above. I said, well, and you had spinners going, and I said, well you messed up. You should have killed them. You had spinners going, and he said, but God you should have seen the group overhead, and I said, what was the vibe of the blind man? What was everybody’s consent? And they loved it. They were hunters, and I said, shit then you did the right thing. You got to know your customers. Was they wanting that group more or are they new to the sport and they want to hurry up and kill. They’re maybe in phase 1 or 2 still, and I want all phases, pass it on or lose it. It covers a lot of areas, but with that being said, I didn’t put my reading glasses on. So, I seen that video and I thought, holy shit, he proved me wrong. These ducks were landing in the ice hole in the timber, ice so tall that the clients are walking on it. It’s 4 inches thick, and they’re taking a bath and they’re dipping and diving and they’re hopping up on the ice and they’re fluttering up and coming back down. He’s got that big group above, and then I have a guy reach out to me that makes the blinds that are in the background because I’m still in my own world looking, thinking about tomorrow’s hunt and thinking about how we’re going to set it up better for next year, and where we got to do some imprint as soon as season’s over and the whole schmear. Joe Harris that makes blind spot reaches out to me, says, hey man, can you see if I can get permission from Ramsey Russell to use that photograph? I’m like, what are you talking about? So I stopped the car to side the road, and I pull up that picture, and I look, and there’s Ramsey standing in knee deep ice water in a hole, and all these mallards are lined up. One of the most epic shots I’ve seen all year. We had 4 groups out today. They limit out. There’s Ramsey, and it looked like Char dog.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: Sitting right there, and I thought, that son of a bitch, because I just seen the video, and I thought, well, that’s fucking epic. Wouldn’t you know, Ramsay’s up on a goddamn green field, and not that there’s anything wrong with green fields dude, but it’s like shooting a rifle and shooting a bow.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: I used to mess around, try to kill them or hit him with my hat.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot of traffic. Jacob was telling me on a ride out this morning, short ride from where we parked. He come and picked me up in the buggy, and we riding out, and he said there was a lot of traffic right there. He said, yesterday they didn’t kill, but a couple of ducks before lunch, and then after lunch, they limited because it took them a little while to get sorted and figure out what the ducks wanted, but there was a lot of traffic, and then talking to him and Drake, I realized that, because in the dark, that impoundment could be a 1000 acres, but in reality, it’s about 13 acres.

Roy Carter: It’s not here.

Ramsey Russell: You got that hole in the middle, and it’s 100 yards from the river, so there’s your corridor. Where were the ducks feeding Drake? Where are they headed?

Drake Carter: Well, I’m not real sure.

Ramsey Russell: The whole world is ice. I mean, lord have mercy driving a bulldozer on that ice, Roy, it was thick as cinder blocks. Where are these ducks going and coming to?

Drake Carter: They’re coming off the river. They’re about half mile south, sitting on the river.

Roy Carter: It’s got unique characteristics about it that I would like to talk about it just as Drake’s done.

Drake Carter: They just fly right over that spot you guys were at. I’m not sure where exactly they’re feeding that. Probably a cornfield somewhere, probably a dry field. There is some standing corn and impoundments that’s got covered in ice right now and they’ve been hitting that too. Just landing on the ice and eating the corn off the cob there. That’s just traffic spot.

Ramsey Russell: I can’t say every single duck. Certainly, every single duck we kill, but most of the mount that course, in that blind looking out the porthole a little bit through cover, I would say almost all the mountains I was aware of, they wanted in that spot. They peeled off whatever that flyaway was, and they wanted in that spot. It’s not like we had a bunch of decoys, maybe a couple of dozen and they, by God, wanted in that spot.

The Wonders of Hunting the Neosho River

Drake Carter: I think they’re also trying to hide right now. So open water inside them trees. I mean, that’s just-

Roy Carter: They’ve been fighting that current, and that’s that river sea, and that’s what I want to-

Ramsey Russell: What’s so unique about the Neosho River that you’re talking about?

Roy Carter: The Neosho, at this present time, that piece of property right there has got 2 miles of riffle. I’ve shot snows on there for years and typically, when the river’s down to below 100, 150 cubic feet per second low, when they’re not running water out of John Redmond, the whole river freezes up except for the riffles. Then the ducks get a lot of pressure on those riffles. Those are sacred holes that, when it frees up, every redneck in Neosho County knows a riffle that their daddy killed ducks on January, and I mean kill a lot of them. If you look @roycbi, if you go to my Instagram post, you’ll see, February 11, and it’s thousands of them. 100,000 mallards on the riffle mixed in with specks and pintails, and you’ll see the old a shit duck fly by every now and then, but mostly Mallard. So, you guys basically were in between 2 refuge. Well, you were right beside one, and you’re right below. You’re about 5, 6 miles south of Neosho waterfowl game refuge. Even though it’s frozen up, they’re standing on the ice out there with the swans. That’s why I said, don’t let Ramsey shoot a swan. I was joking of course.

Ramsey Russell: I know a Swan boy.

Roy Carter: I know. I was joking, but they’re up there, coming off the refuge right across where the other group’s-

Drake Carter: We’ve seen over 100 swans and they flew 10ft above us all day long.

Roy Carter: Just honk out. Yeah, it’s quite-

Kansas Waterfowl Numbers

What the numbers were this year during the mid winter waterfowl count for waterfowl in your part of Kansas?

Ramsey Russell: I think Jacob told me this morning a lot of ducks. You’re talking about 100,000 ducks. Are you aware of a midwinter waterfowl count? What the numbers were this year during the mid winter waterfowl count for waterfowl in your part of Kansas?

Roy Carter: No, I’m not, but the end of that story, our river’s running.

Ramsey Russell: I’m sorry.

Roy Carter: I’m glad, in that story, our river’s running about 2/3. A 3rd bank full. Somewhere around 1300 cfs. So, there’s open water in spots that there normally isn’t, and they can’t be hunted and pressured everywhere. Then also with all the landowners in the area, we found this year that we’re holding a lot more ducks, all winter long. They show up here and they put-

Ramsey Russell: How many ducks would you estimate you all are holding in this region right now?

Roy Carter: Boy, I’d hate to have a bunch.

Ramsey Russell: There’s got to be an official number somewhere. I can’t believe you don’t know, and the reason I’m asking this Roy, is I told Drake last night when he called to tell me where I was going to hunt. Arkansas, Louisiana, for example, midwinter waterfowl counts took place in December, and it was like all time record low numbers because it was 54 degrees in Edmonton. You all always kill Mallards, you all always kill ducks. Some years better than others, you got to deal with the wind and the weather and everything else that affects duck like everybody else, but lord have mercy, this year, you all stood out. Every day you’re posting up pictures.

Roy Carter: Instagram’s new. If I’d had Instagram 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have had to sell an acre.

Ramsey Russell: I was meeting with Mike Schumer on a previous podcast, where the hell are the ducks? And he was showing the stream flow of the United States of America, and whereas most, and I mean all but a sliver was in a deep drought from parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, all the way down to Texas. [overlapping speech]in good shape, and Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas this year had ducks and diesel kills ducks, and habitat kills ducks. Carter’s big island, you all had a banner year this year. You all had a big year.

Roy Carter: I’m thankful, don’t get me wrong, because I’ve had bad years too. I can remember in the 90s where it was a 2 duck limit, and it’s hard to sell hunts on 2 duck limits, but still, it was wonderful. My grandfather, they had to put punt guns on the front of the boats to get the ducks off the river, back behind the house to get them. If you guys follow me once again, I filmed at least 75,000 to 100,000 mallards feeding and standing corn on the Carter farm on January 19th. It all makes logic, and what I’m saying by this is when it ices up, and not just the frozen ice, but when our water goes hard, it’s a step stool for these mallards on standing corn. When we have an ice storm, as we had, the one thing that Mallard knows is he can go out, he can land in that frozen duck lake, and he sticks his old head up under that husk of that turnt down ear, and he’ll actually start where he left off yesterday. You go out there and ripped up a husk, and you look, they’ve got the bottom half of it ate off.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: You’ve seen it, haven’t you, sir?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: They’re locked on that. I spoke with the game warden. I’m not sure how much I’m at liberty to say, but I was watching where these ducks have been going, and there’s one old gal that done went out there and hit a little lake up yonder to the northwest, then went up to Omaha, Nebraska, and then went back towards Squall Creek, which the liberals won’t let us call that. It’s Lois bluffs or something now, and then came back and lit in St. Paul, but not only in St. Paul, lit right on top of the spot where the bait pile was, where they caught and banned her and put a backpack.

Ramsey Russell: He remembered where it was talking to old Mac sharp down at straight Lake. He was telling me a story last year because Doctor Osborne and Bowles come in and trap ducks on them after the season.

Roy Carter: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: He has seen ducks where they had a pole with a piece of ribbon a piece of survey tape, where they were trapping last year. He’s seen ducks come back and hit that area the following year, hit that area and work it. Won’t see if there’s any more corn in there that they left off at spring. That’s crazy, isn’t it, that a duck can remember that?

Roy Carter: Most of the ducks move in a northwest fashion or from the northwest to the southeast just as our rivers flow. There’s not a lot of craziness going on from what I can see in the studies. What I watch from Doctor Cohan’s another good one, and then Doctor Osborne.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

The Art of Holding a Duck

A duck has got to have somewhere to go that he don’t get shot at if you’re going to hold him all year long.

Roy Carter: My new thing is trying to get more rest areas up and down these major flyways.

Ramsey Russell: We need what-

Roy Carter: Why is your pop so good? We got a rest area.

Ramsey Russell: I say it’s not a popular thought is because there’s a lot of people out there. I see it, I hear it.

Roy Carter: That don’t get it.

Ramsey Russell: But they believe the refuges are the problem.

Roy Carter: They don’t get it. They don’t understand.

Ramsey Russell: Expound on that point, Roy. A duck has got to have somewhere to go that he don’t get shot at if you’re going to hold him all year long.

Roy Carter: Well, let me get a cold one here.

Ramsey Russell: Another cold Diet coke.

Roy Carter: Another cold Diet coke. I’ve seen a study that Doctor Cohan did, and it was over there. He’s from Memphis, Tennessee or something, and it was in correlation to the fact that they had 4 refuges on it on a chain. If we had one here at Neosho, my dream is to get one down around Chetopa. The state owns a lot of property down there, but it’s never, to my knowledge, been pumped. It’s been dry. It’s already purchased by the state, but what it basically does is gets these ducks flying from one spot to the other during the daytime, and then you have the opportunity to traffic that duck. Some of us took the short bus to tack into school. You know what I mean?

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Roy Carter: I’m always looking for that green head that took short bus, and that’s what happened.

Ramsey Russell: I like a dumb duck.

Roy Carter: Yeah. I like a hen that circles and brings me a green head. There’s nothing better than that duck flying over. We try to refrain from it, but that’s just the way it is, and that’s a great topic that way we’re going to jump into.

Ramsey Russell: Shooting drakes only to me, with my eyesight is much easier on a bluebird day than a day like today. If you pay attention, look up through the brush, you see the larger bird, you see the colors on the swing. It’s that 2nd, 3rd shot that a brown duck’s going to get it once you start grabbing everybody in our blind day, and I think most duck hunters in the universe are locked into that Drake on the first trigger pull. It’s that 2nd, 3rd shot that a brown duck going to get clobbered. We killed 4 this morning out of, out of, I guess that was 6 limits. We killed 4 brown ducks.

Roy Carter: Yeah because they-

Ramsey Russell: I guarantee you they’re wrong. Nobody shot one on the first shot. I guarantee you they didn’t.

Roy Carter: Right, and that happens. Obviously, you don’t want to make it to when I first started hunting and was in high school or grade school, if I recall. So, this would have been in the early 80s, late 70s. It was a point system in southeast Kansas a hen Mallard was 100 points, and a Mallard Drake was 20 points. So, you killed 5 drakes, but if you shot the hen Mallard first, you were done, and some would say, I’ll go ahead and shoot him. Well, guess what? The officer had a thermometer up there. He’d stick a thermometer up her ass, and then he’d go check those drakes.

The Joys of Shooting Drakes

…I would bet the farm that every hunter listening to every duck hunter in the world chooses to shoot a Drake.

Ramsey Russell: I see.

Roy Carter: It’s pretty interesting concept, and I know here at CBI, and I don’t want anybody mad at me. If we get a limit of hens on the string and we cannot afford to shoot no more hens, you’ve already proved to me that you can’t sex them, and we can’t risk it. We’re probably going to have to think.

Ramsey Russell: What are your thoughts on shooting hen mallards?

Roy Carter: If you’re going to hunt next year, I just assume you do not shoot them. It’s just that you can see all the studies you want, but in my world now, unless our numbers are great, a flushing pheasant’s tougher to sex than a mallard. I’m a duck caller, so I can already tell you what the duck is, and I’ve did this all my life for a living. I can tell you what it is and what sex it is from half mile away. So typically, I want my guides to get beside those people that are having tough times and say, did you hear that chirp? That’s hen, see that curl? and they fly different. A hen’s structure is different than a drake.

Ramsey Russell: As somebody who hunts with a lot of hunters, Roy, I would bet the farm that every hunter listening to every duck hunter in the world chooses to shoot a Drake.

Roy Carter: Yes, you’re right.

Ramsey Russell: When possible. I don’t know anybody that will choose to shoot given a chance, and he can tell the difference. A hen ringneck or a hen mallard or a hen pintail or hen anything.

Roy Carter: Is there a statue to limitations where a guy like me can tell a story.

Ramsey Russell: I guess, yeah there’s a statue of limitations. I hereby grant you a pardon.

Roy Carter: One time when I was hunting with outlaw Bobby Joe Willie down on the black swamp, everybody’s shooting drakes, right? Bobby Joe wants you out of the hole, and old Roy was a band collector, so I knew everybody’s shooting Drake, so I just shot all Hens that day.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I see.

Roy Carter: I’m not really proud of it, but maybe my ego just made me spout that off. That’s a duck story if I ever heard one. It’s true too, and it’s neat because I met people from that hole in marshes I went and hunted with. What was his name? Davy Crockett? Help me here.

Ramsey Russell: I remember who you’re talking about.

Roy Carter: Snap Charles. I went and hunted at Snappy Charles’s place and the guy that pumped the water out of the pit, that Doug Henslick and I jumped in and Doug shot a banded pintail that day, was a guy that hunted with us and was running the dog in the strap. They had a cable running through the timber, and he had drakes on one side and hens on the other, and everybody had their straps, and they loaded them up. There’s hell about 10 of us.

Shooting Hens: A Controversial Topic in Waterfowl Hunting

You’re a repentant hen killer now.

Ramsey Russell: I love mallards. I’ve shot hens. I shot one this morning. Again, 2nd, 3rd shot. Greenheads make more beautiful pictures. Where I get bogged down in the hen. It ain’t science. I’m not going to science. I’m not scientific or smart or scholarly enough to argue the population dynamics of hens versus drakes. Whatever have you like it? But it’s this, the single most abundant duck in North America is a mallard, and we got a 2-hen limit and all the other ducks, and there’s ducks out there. Pick one canvasback, pintails are struggling. They don’t have no hen limit. On one hand, maybe there is an argument to it. Maybe quit killing hens. All the birds will be more.

Roy Carter: Well, the punchline to that one Ramsey, like I said.

Ramsey Russell: Not all hens lay eggs.

Roy Carter: I was a banned whore at the time. So whenever they said, who shot this hen? Roy did. Well, it’s banded, nobody claims them.

Ramsey Russell: You’re a repentant hen killer now.

Roy Carter: Yes, I was a band-whore.

Ramsey Russell: Changing the subject, Drake, how’d you all season start? Right now, there’s ice. There’s some open water. You got fog because it’s starting to warm a little bit. It’s 43 degrees outside, but how did you all start off this year? because when it was so hot, when you got an outfitter shooting snow goose limits on December 18 in Alberta, the migrations off. How are you all doing? Do you all still get Halloween ducks? Halloween Mallards?

Drake Carter: Yeah, our mallards. I mean, not a whole bunch, but some of them showed up like they typically do middle of October, but for the most part, that first couple weeks, I mean, we had some mallards here, but with the warm weather and just no wind, full moon, they were nocturnal from the get go.

Ramsey Russell: They got stale quick.

Drake Carter: They got stale quick. We shot a bunch of teal and a bunch of gadwalls early on. The teal saved the day.

Roy Carter: No wood ducks this year.

Ramsey Russell: Really? Is it because of the Drought or.

Drake Carter: No. They were here, but we just didn’t kill any. I think we’ve killed 3 wood ducks all year, but a lot of teal early on. A lot of ducks early on. We were doing good, just not a whole lot of mallards until probably right before Thanksgiving, and then we started shooting a bunch of mallards. Still shooting a lot of teal too, but it started off good. The whole season’s been good. I can think of a couple days where it got really slow, but as soon as it got slow, it picked back up again. We did a new push.

Good Duck Hunts Don’t Happen By Chance: A Day in the Life of an Outfitter

I know you putting in the hours, but what does a day in the life of somebody like yourself look like?

Ramsey Russell: That’s good to hear. How does your day start and end Drake? I know this time of year, I know this good duck hunt and good duck hunting do not happen by accident. There’s 0 chance, and you made a comment just a little while ago before we started, I’m ready for season to be over, and you look tired. I know you putting in the hours, but what does a day in the life of somebody like yourself look like?

Drake Carter: Typically, I wake up at 04:00. I got 2 to 3 groups going out every day, so I got to make sure all my guys are up, make sure they know what they’re supposed to do, make sure everything’s taken care of. Clients, they got to know where to be, what time to be there.

Ramsey Russell: You got to put your hands on everybody.

Drake Carter: Everybody. Yeah, and I got to coordinate with everybody.

Ramsey Russell: What time are you getting up to do that? What time’s that kick off?

Drake Carter: 04:00. Yep. The last couple days, that alarm’s been going off, and I’ve just been hitting the snooze for about 30 minutes now.

Roy Carter: We got it just. We got drive to the end. I’m retired. He’s going got daddy’s job. That’s what I like about it.

Drake Carter: So, when everything froze up, like yesterday, I didn’t hunt. We had 3 groups out yesterday, but I was just running around, making sure everybody had what they needed. I was putting ice eaters out, fueling up generators, just delivering food to people, just making sure everybody was good and clients were happy.

Ramsey Russell: What time do you eat supper, and what time do you go to bed?

Drake Carter: We usually meet up at my parents house. All the guides go there. The guide house right now, the water has been shut off. It froze up. So all the guides are taking showers at my dad’s house.

Roy Carter: I’ve got a big family.

Drake Carter: Yeah, we’re all just a big family. So, we eat supper probably 8:30, 9:00 o’clock. I usually try to get to bed before I’ve eaten.

Ramsey Russell: Your mom was cooking before. They’re eating good. I know they’re eating at your house.

Drake Carter: Yep. We had, what was it? Meatloaf, I think, last night.

Ramsey Russell: I think that’s what we had when I ate at you all, some fine meat loaf of that, mashed potatoes and all that good stuff.

Drake Carter: I’m running on 5 if I’m lucky, maybe 6 hours of sleep every night and it’s just wake up, do it again, 74 days.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what it takes. I’ve met a lot of young guys over the years that the client’s like, come on, drink a beer with us man. Clients are on vacation when they come here. Come on, Drake, stay up, drink a beer with you. You can’t be that guy. This is 60 day make or break.

Roy Carter: Oh, you can, but this is what you’ll look like.

Ramsey Russell: Well, right.

Roy Carter: I’ve been sober since-

Drake Carter: None of them.

Roy Carter: We don’t want to go there. Boy, it’d have been a hell of a podcast if I was still drinking, though.

Ramsey Russell: It ain’t a long-term professional guide future and trying to live like the client and the guide, that’s a short-

Roy Carter: No shit.

Drake Carter: That’s what’s good about the team we got. None of them drink during season, and that’s not a rule. That’s just a personal choice that they all make, and I don’t drink anyway, so it works out. By the end of the day, man, we’re ready to go eat a hot supper and get a shower and go to bed.

Ramsey Russell: That brings up the next question is my humble opinion. I believe I would say this about any US hunt list outfitter I’ve got is the staff is good, and if they’re not, they ain’t around long. What is you all’s protocol? What is you all’s expectation? How do you all go about finding good guides? Everybody wants to be a duck guide till it’s time to do real duck guide shit, which you sleep 4 hours for 60 days, and ice eaters and chainsaws and what the heck ever goes into making these hunts happen? How do you all find to put together such a great team?

Drake Carter: They just find us, honestly. We got Jacob, my brother-in-law. He’s been part of the team since the beginning, and you’ll never find anybody that can outwork Jacob. When I wake up in the morning, I always text everybody, are you up? And I don’t even have to text him no more, because I just know he’s at my parents making coffee, and he’s going to be there. Then this year, I got Charles Crawford, who is Trey Crawford’s son.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll be damned.

Roy Carter: He’s a hell of a cook too. If you’re a good blind cook, you don’t ever get no days off.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: If you’re a good blind cook.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Right.

Drake Carter: Everybody that wants to be a guy, they’ll send you the sound files and stuff. I know how to blow this call. I don’t care about none of that. You don’t even have to blow a call.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Drake Carter: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: You really don’t.

Drake Carter: No. You just got to know how to work. Work hard and work long hours.

Ramsey Russell: My old buddy, the late Ian Munn, he had one of the ugliest clunk. It looked like a call made out of a 2 by 4. I swear to God it did. It was just like a big, heavy, ugly call that he rarely used, and when he did use it in close proximity, I couldn’t stand the sound of it, and he rarely called it, because me and the boys or anybody else would call. One day, I was 100 yards away trying to find a cripple that’s swimming off, and he blew that call, and all he would do [makes call sound-quack, quack]. That’s it. No feet chuckle, no nuance, no nothing, Quack, and it was the most amazing mallard sounding call I had ever heard, and I told him, you need to blow that call more often, but he didn’t. I said something to him. I mean, we hunted for over 30 years, and he shrugged, said, it just wasn’t a part, really and truly of his necessary arsenal. How he killed ducks was patience. Put the decoys out, go where the ducks want to, be still, be quiet, and kill ducks. Duck killing for him was always a last resort. He wasn’t as proficient as none of your staff, but he could get the job done.

Roy Carter: Oh, and they’d all land, too.

Ramsey Russell: They’d all come right over to decoy, and he’d look up from drinking his tea or looking down at his feet or petting his dog, and there’d be ducks fluttering over his decoy, and he’d kill him. He was a great duck hunter that rarely blew a duck call.

Roy Carter: In a good duck spot.

Ramsey Russell: Well. He worked hard to find the scout and go to the best place he had available to him, and by God, he had the patience of Methuselah. He’d wait it out and when I knew he was getting sick, I just knew that, and he was one of them kind of people. It was so amazing. I knew the man for 30 years. We duck hunted together, and he never said anything about his health. I later learned that he didn’t want to be the buddy with cancer. He didn’t want to be the daddy with cancer. He didn’t want to be the club member of the treasure. Nobody with cancer. He just wanted to be, and so, really and true, the last time we hunted was about this time last year. It’s actually New year’s day, now that I think about it, and it was one of them kind of days that we shot some ducks about half a limit, he was ready to go, which was okay. He must be tired, and it wasn’t like him, son. You better pack a lunch with that man, cause he would wait a duck out, and he was ready to go. Even as we were leaving, taking pictures, there were mallards falling in, because we had a late mallard flight. He was still ready to go, and I should have known right then, something’s wrong with my buddy, but he didn’t let on. I just thought of that. Hate to take it off that alley, but anyway, what’s the secret to Carter’s Big Island Roy? What is it about this part of Kansas, this part of the United States that forever that your folks had to put punt guns, battery guns on the front of boats and chase them off of crops and stuff. What is it about this area?

Roy Carter: That’s an interesting question, and there’s several things. One of the first state lakes in Kansas was built just a mile and a half west of the big island, and then it’s just the river bottoms, the grain, the oxbows, and, and the Neosho River, the largest river that starts in Kansas, it starts right below Nebraska, so it comes from the corn belt. These ducks have changed. I read and study and everybody, especially the people down that live southern to me, they’ve just changed all around. I learned, it’s terrible English, but Jim Gannot taught me more about the mallard than any other human on the face of the earth. He basically summed it up as they used to migrate. Now they eat their way south. You’ve heard this before, he was with the McCollums. His dad was a partner on 2 square sections of flooded timber in the 40s and 50s with the McCollum family in Stuttgart, Arkansas. This man hunted over live English call Mallards. Yes. They called him grumpy Gannot. So, if you don’t know who Jim Gannot is from Chanute, Kansas. You know who grumpy is?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: What a man. So, anyway they eat their way south, like I said earlier.

Ramsey Russell: That landscape of what they’re eating and where they’re eating is changing by the day with agriculture and everything.

Roy Carter: Yes. We hear the glory days and my good friends up at Habitat Flats, they shot a lot of shows talking about the glory days, and the glory days are now and where I’m at, when I was a little kid, Dean Smith ran the Neosho Waterfowl Management Area, and it was documented that one record time, we had reached 120,000 ducks, mostly mallards. Then when they built 4 rivers, Mr. Gannot’s, they short stopped some of our ducks, and it’s right over yonder, across the line in Missouri you see, and we dropped down and maybe to 40,000, 60,000 was the count. Now, please don’t flood the area. The area is pressured enough. I’ve seen we’re holding at peak numbers now. We’ll get up to 150,000 and 200,000.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Roy Carter: Mostly mallards now. There’s a lot of geese, and there was a lot of tail mixed in. Trust me, I’ve been looking at that refuge all my life, and I know what I know, and I’ve always told the boy, 120,000 mallards you can walk across that some bitch never touch water.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Best Waterfowl Hunting in the United States

…we want to build a duck lake right here, and he said, well. And it was where the 2 rivers meet, the confluence on the islands.

 

Roy Carter: The last 3 years has been the most consistent bird numbers, even last year in the drought. I think it’s because we were actually an oasis in the middle of Kansas. A buddy of mine, John Sluter described it. He come from St. Louis. He drove over here. I met him in the Cache river bottoms.

Ramsey Russell: I met some boys from St. Louis hunt with you all this morning.

Roy Carter: Yeah, sportsmen’s from all over the area. Not the area, but the United States, and it’s a gem. Why they’re here? Good management, good crop, and then now our big ticket is, I scream this, I stood on my soapbox in 1991, I believe it was, and said, if we can hold and when the Dublin I was pushing, I was on the steering committee of the first WRP program, and if we could all give back more than we take away and that’s how we ranked 1st out of 126 or 128 applicants in the state of Kansas. But, hell, we’re on an island. It’s an actual 3500 acre inland island, and the ducks are imprinted. They are just like that Mallard that flew up yonder and come right back. These same ducks are hitting the same. When I had my stuff leased out to habitat flats. The hole that they were grinding them on is the old McCool oxbow. That’s the first place I ever shot a Mallard. That’s the first place that was ever hunted with a decoy on the big island. First place a duck mine was ever built. It’s an old oxbow.

Ramsey Russell: You still hunt that area?

Roy Carter: I do. I developed a lot of that and sold some to Mister Doug Henslick and then sold some to Mister Barrett Satterlee.

Drake Carter: Where you guys hunted today is just right across the river.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, really?

Roy Carter: Yes. We’re at the end of where it all started. In 1986, I had 2 guys, Eddie McCain and Eddie Landorf. Landorf won the world in 1970, 1969. Wasn’t my idea, or Mike’s, or dad’s, or Steve’s, or Ed’s, or grandma’s or Donnie, you know, Raymond. It was their idea. They brought a map over to the Neosho refuge and pulled it out, put it on the hood, Mister John Seloski was running the refuge at that time, and they said, we want to build a duck lake right here, and he said, well. And it was where the 2 rivers meet, the confluence on the islands.

Ramsey Russell: What 2 rivers?

Roy Carter: The Neosho splits and creates what’s actually known, and that’s where the name’s from, is Carter’s big. It’s not Carter’s big Island, but the big island. It’s a 3500 acre inland island. I’ve been told it’s the largest inland island west of the Mississippi. So, it splits up where Pearl island is on the north end, right below the refuge to the southwest, and then it comes back together right exactly where you was hunting today.

Ramsey Russell: Location. That’s the short answer of why there’s duck. Location.

Roy Carter: Yeah. You’re not going to do much good duck hunting if you don’t have no ducks around, but the whole area is private. There’s some opportunity for the public, don’t get me wrong, but it’s pretty sewed up. There’s not an underground aquifer that you can’t drill a well that’s going to pump your field. We’re in between Noolgal and the Ozark, so we don’t have irrigation here unless you got water rights out of the river, it’s easier said than done. You’ve got to go through a permit process and pay your fees, and-

Ramsey Russell: That’s a big deal out west, isn’t it? A real big deal. Somebody told me the other day that you all cannot even drill recreational wells. That’s illegal in this part of the world, right? Holy cow.

Roy Carter: Everything’s got to be permitted, so when you look at this, we’ve got all these landowners, that wasn’t here in 1991 when I was trying to get everybody. We were all going broke, and we wasn’t making any money off that damn acreage down there that kept wanting to grow lily pads and what-

Ramsey Russell: Coffee weed.

Roy Carter: Yeah, and I call it watergrass or Sawgrass. But nutsedge and all that shit, 240 won’t kill it, roundup won’t kill it. So, you ain’t going to grow no corn there. If you really topped it off and made it easy was we went bankrupt in 1986, and I thought, well, and that’s exactly when them 2 guys showed up; God’s been dropping his shit off at my doorstep all my life, and I’m not a preacher, but when I get in a tight pinch, I always think, I wonder what he’s going to throw, what bones he going to throw me next and here they come. Hell, I’d done retired and was out of the hunting business. Then along come Drake and his passion and Jacob, and then we’ve got, as Drake mentioned, Charlie. Then I’ve got a gentleman from New York, that hard worker. Now granted, sometimes it’s a Yankee and most of my southern clients are, but he’s a good guy, don’t take anything personal. Then I got fisher Nolan and Captain Matt. This has been like the 3rd year we got a team.

Ramsey Russell: You got a heck of a team.

Roy Carter: Got a hell of a team.

Ramsey Russell: I know just about all of them. Yeah.

Roy Carter: If they’re not real personable. It’s just-

Finding the Best Waterfowl Outfitters

How do you develop a winning team in this industry?

Ramsey Russell: I asked Drake and I lost my thought train thinking about Duck calling and all that good stuff with Mister Ian. But what about you, Roy? What are you looking for? You’ve got a good team, but let’s face it, a good team’s hard to put together today. Finding help appears hard for anything. What are some of your criteria? What are you looking for? How do you find these people? How do you develop a winning team in this industry?

Roy Carter: Wonderful question. First of all, it’s just like the military, which I am military trained, as you know. It’s a big joke around camp. When somebody thinks they’re badass, they’ll look at me and say, well, fuck, Roy went to basic training when he’s 17, he’s the man, and I try-

Ramsey Russell: Gomer Powell wasn’t even on TV when you were 17 Roy.

Roy Carter: Gomer was gay. I’m Sergeant Carter, but with that being said, that’s where I got the nickname the commander. I don’t want somebody that knows it all, that’s old. I need somebody young that I can teach and train and I don’t need an attitude. Once they start running off clients, I run them off.

Ramsey Russell: How do they run off clients?

Roy Carter: Running their mouth.

Ramsey Russell: Because this is a people business, people first and foremost.

Roy Carter: Yeah. They need to keep their mouths shut. Listen to Drake. That’s why Drake never says much. I never shut up. It’s perfect. That’s why I don’t get around the clients.

Drake Carter: That’s exactly right.

Roy Carter: Yes. So, I just do my live CBI, politically-

Drake Carter: But he’s mostly off in his own little world, and I kind of just run the show.

Roy Carter: Yes.

Drake Carter: He’s on the group’s text message and everything, just freaking out most of the time, and everybody just don’t really know what to say or how to respond. I’ll just tell them, hey, just let him do his thing. Do what I told you to do. We’ll be fine.

Ramsey Russell: You all are father and son. You all are 180 degree complete opposites. Polar opposite. Which makes you all so perfect at a team. It really does. From outside looking in, you cover all the bases.

Roy Carter: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: You ever have to get on anybody’s ass about working for you?

Roy Carter: Yeah. If they’re lazy, we don’t want them. If they sleep in bed with the enemy, we don’t want them. You’ll have moles come over.

Ramsey Russell: Really.

Roy Carter: We kill so many ducks that people will send moles in to see what we’re doing.

Ramsey Russell: Are you kidding me?

Roy Carter: No. We kill our ducks legal, and that’s a harsh word, kill. Harvest, I try-

Ramsey Russell: You harvest. I got in a conversation like that with somebody in academia and he said I gave him a presentation. You really ought to use the word harvest. I’m like, you harvest soybeans, you kill animals.

Roy Carter: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And we as hunters got on that word, boy.

Roy Carter: That’s right, because the liberals are taking enough away.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. I’m sorry, but we hunters, we kill wildlife, sustainable. We manage but we kill it. We harvest soil, beans and corn and timber.

Roy Carter: I love it.

Ramsey Russell: But go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Roy Carter: No, I love it. That’s just exactly how it’s been, and our team right now is on top the game. I’ve always had a good team. I really have and then I’ve had bad apples and I’ve been conned and this and that, but man, right now we’ve got just a fine team. We really do and you can tell when they click, and if they don’t click, they get kicked out. That just out, you’re not happy if we ain’t happy.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Roy Carter: They’ll leave. I’ve tried not to burn no bridges because I got to cross 3 of them to get to the island.

Ramsey Russell: How’s his approach to dealing with problem employees? Different than yours right? Or do you just kind of defer it off to daddy, let Commander Carter.

Roy Carter: It’s the other way around or we wouldn’t have a team.

Drake Carter: Yeah, he’d ran them all off by now, but like he said, we got a great team. We got a young kid, Dawson Stegman.

Roy Carter: That’s right.

Drake Carter: Who does the photographs and everything for us, and I hired him on this year just to be the cameraman.

Ramsey Russell: He’s doing a great job, by the way. I hadn’t met him yet.

Drake Carter: He’s gotten lots of compliments, but it turns out that not only can he run a camera, he knows how to work. So, a lot of the time, I have to tell him, hey let the guides do the work. You try to capture it on film. He wants to hop in there and get all the work done.

Roy Carter: It’s all pedigree, Ramsey. It’s all pedigree, son. I mean, hell, look at Drake, it’s pedigree. Look at Trey Crawford’s son.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: Look at Corky Beesner’s grandson, if you get it. Good people. I’ve been around here now, it’s 8-generations. We must not be stealing from the neighbors.

Ramsey Russell: You bring up a good point about people and pedigree whatnot like this, because we’re talent parsons.

Roy Carter: Yeah. Hold on to your wallet.

Ramsey Russell: No, this is freaking real America, dude. When you walk into a best western and there’s a Heinz57 barking from behind the counter. 1 minute because she’s with the owner, and then the next minute you come in and this dog is in its place on one of the couches in the lounge. I’m like, I told her, I said, I’m at home. I like this.

Roy Carter: Yeah, Dogs are welcome.

Ramsey Russell: I like this, because so many corporate America hotels you go to around the United States, you tell them you got a service animal, and they’re like we don’t let them here. Now, you come in here and you got a Heinz57 dog making itself at home with its bone on a piece of furniture. You’re like, all right, I’m at home. I like this. I just feel like it’s real America. Some of the things you said.

Roy Carter: It’s the last to the frontier.

Ramsey Russell: There ain’t a lot of woke ass attitude around here.

Roy Carter: No.

Ramsey Russell: It’s so funny. I went to Oregon this year, and you get outside of Portland, and it is loggers and fishermen and I mean oyster people. It’s just real connected to nature like here, but buddy, you get within that hour hub of Portland and it is the most woke ass, pronoun intensive, purple haired, part of a world-

Roy Carter: Needle users living underneath the bridges we lit.

Ramsey Russell: It is unbelievable.

Roy Carter: We lit there to turn around and hop on a plane or to go to Alaska.

Drake Carter: That worst I’ve seen was Anchorage. It was zombies.

Roy Carter: That was bad.

Ramsey Russell: Alaska is another great example of, you will talk about living in nature-

Roy Carter: Most of that’s beautiful –

Ramsey Russell: I mean real, but my lord it’s parts of them cities and parts, that stuff is just a continuation, you got California, Oregon, Washington, Anchorage, British Columbia and parts of Alaska. It’s something about that west coast and the people I know out there are just like me and you, Roy. They live in a real America, but those cities on that west coast are just off the rails, man. I don’t understand it.

Roy Carter: Outnumbered.

Ramsey Russell: If I’m offending anybody listening, I don’t think I am, because you all are just like us. Some of those big cities, we all know it are just off the rails. I don’t think Alaska is a West coast exception. When you get around some of them cities.

Roy Carter: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Some of the management attitude or whatever out there.

Roy Carter: Yes. When they get into these electoral votes and population and everything, they ought to have to pass an aptitude test for one, to make such a big decision to vote for a president.

Ramsey Russell: I think you ought to have a job and have to pay taxes.

Roy Carter: That’s a very good statement. Yes, that.

Ramsey Russell: If you ain’t got no skin in the game, how do you get to vote?

Roy Carter: Yeah. If you don’t have a job. That makes a lot of sense because, and they really pulled a hell of a deal off there, but we don’t want to get into politics. Stock market was up today, and I think it’s because Trump’s kicking ass so much. Think about it.

Ramsey Russell: They.

Roy Carter: And they all knew what that con was going to play. The biggest transfer of wealth was the COVID virus. Hell, even an idiot like me sold all of the FAANG stocks and bought Moderna, docusign, Zoom and all that shit and hit a hell of a lick.

Ramsey Russell: Hit a lick.

Roy Carter: I’m a farm boy from Kansas. Come on, man.

Ramsey Russell: All right, but we got to take 10 full hats off just for a minute and finish this up. Let me say we were talking about this 60 day season.

Drake Carter: 74.

Ramsey Russell: 74.

Roy Carter: Boom. Welcome to the Central.

Building the Perfect Duck Impoundment

…we’re going to do a lot of moist soil management, and we’ll do a slow draw down on our woods. 

Ramsey Russell: Welcome to the center. 74 day season. 04:00 a.m. putting your hands on everything all the time. 74 days go-

Roy Carter: We’re thankful for them and we hope that doesn’t shrink because there’s plenty of mallards that looks like.

Ramsey Russell: Drake sleeps 3 or 4 hours. Daddy sleeps 8 to 10, I’m guessing. But anyway, the season ends, maybe you sleep in just a little bit, but I know from keeping up with you all Roy, the season don’t really end. What do you all do between the 74 day stretches to make this happen?

Roy Carter: We got behind 8-ball.

Ramsey Russell: Like today where we hunted a 13 acre impoundment I could tell that levee just freshly seeded. That’s a brand new area.

Roy Carter: Everything gets a lot of work going on.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s what I want to talk about.

Roy Carter: I told my buddy Goose Laura, I’ve got behind the 8-ball again. I’ve got about 3 different projects going. We’ve got to finish up a pipe at Mr. Busher’s product, our project, get some seeding done there again, because it don’t always work the first time it’s ever going. We’ve got a new project northwest of town that we’re working with the NRCS on. I’m trying to be patient. I’m a lot better at turning the key on a caterpillar than I am going into one of them government buildings and signing papers and waiting on people. So, we got a project that I’m actually going to get some government help and they’ll pay me $3 a cubic yard to move this dirt.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: I’m excited about that. What else, what do we got Drake? Cleaning everything else up too.

Drake Carter: Cleaning everything up and then getting everything put away and then just draining water.

Roy Carter: Stair stepping water

Drake Carter: Stair stepping.

Ramsey Russell: Soil management.

Roy Carter: I’ll probably go clean out some green bins or something. Get Jacob to haul her at. We’ll maybe do some imprinting, but we’re going to do a lot of moist soil management, and we’ll do a slow draw down on our woods. We’ll get that off immediately. We will probably start drawing down that slowly, maybe here in the next couple days, actually, on some of the embalments. Then there’s always the paperwork process on these new ones. If it’s a new one that we’re trying to seek, get water rights, we’ve got it. We’re in the middle of that application. We’re doing floodplain surveys and we’re maintaining brush piles for the eastern spotted skunk.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Roy Carter: Yes, on the endangered species list.

Ramsey Russell: Did not know that.

Roy Carter: I mean, it’s all kinds of shit.

Ramsey Russell: What about habitat, Roy? I know you’re busy when it’s hot, not cold out here, doing a lot of habitat. What are some of you all’s habitat improvements? How do you all create good habitat?

Roy Carter: Right. We do the moist soil, and then we do a lot of crop farming as well.

Ramsey Russell: So, got to have it all.

Roy Carter: Got to have it all. I like the meat and potatoes. I love all these new names, but it’s hot feed the corn and everything, and I hear it gets a bad name, but not really right now. That’s why this area, southeast Kansas, is holding so many mallards. When I was hunting, I hunted slick McCollum’s place quite a few years back, and it was real fun. We went west Max Prairie wings. Rick and Tony hadn’t moved out there yet, and about 3 or 4 miles, and then we took a left. As we took a left, there was a flooded cornfield right there and the mallards were just pounding it. So, there is flooded corn in Arkansas, too. That’s 15, 20 years ago. So I’ve got corn when I can keep a deer out of it. Some of our small spots, that’s tough. I was really educated, and I thank you for the introduction to Dr. Rick. I didn’t get to hunt with him that day, and the hunting wasn’t worth the shit, and Dr. Rick then told him the hunting wasn’t worth the shit.

Ramsey Russell: Rick Kaminsky talking about one of my mentors.

Roy Carter: Yes. One of the smartest guys on-

Ramsey Russell: The man forgotten more about moss oil and duck habitat than most people alive can remember.

Roy Carter: Yes. I know I probably come off arrogant to some ears, but I know a lot about mallards and a lot about the farming and everything. Say that guy has forgotten more than I know, so I did some reading and studying and we did a lot of that Chiwapa millet, and I liked it because-

Ramsey Russell: How did it do?

Roy Carter: It did wonderful, and the reason I say that, and we killed a lot of ducks, you see.

Ramsey Russell: Where were you able to find Chiwapa-

Roy Carter: Specialty Seeds.

Ramsey Russell: Specialty Seeds, Mississippi. That’s right.

Roy Carter: You’ve seen our instagram. So, the reason I went with it, man, is it’s 120-day instead of 60. You can grow it when you ought to be growing.

Ramsey Russell: Got a good ridge of spine.

Roy Carter: Yes. Then it’s perfect for many things. It doesn’t hit the army worms. It’s done by then, when you get that infestation in September and then you can plant it in late May or early June when you still have rainfall. June’s our wettest month. We get 5½ inches in June. Our typical annual rain falls 39½ to 41. So, with that being said, I’ve got planting it when I ought to be planting it, 120-day maturity, get my work done, get the hell home instead of praying for a rain on August. If you’re in southeast Kansas, plan for a rain on August. You got better luck with a snowball in hell. Then I’ve went past the army worms on it. I mean read Rick’s deal, just Google.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I know. Did you put any fertilizer on it?

Roy Carter: Yeah, because here’s another deal. I want mine tall and rank and falling over because Roy has his little fairies-

Ramsey Russell: It’ll lodge like corn, because it gets big, but it won’t completely melt down like Jap millet. It still have vertical structure to get up in there and hide and lay up, get around them.

Roy Carter: I found in my studies that the blackbird is afraid to forage underneath there due to predeterization.

Ramsey Russell: Did not know that.

Understanding Mallard Behavior

They’ll wipe you out, and also where you hunted today, sir, when I first started advertising, 1986, actually 1991, because we had a 5-year lease from 1986 to 1991, but the DUs marsh right across from me, right north of where you was stopped all hunting at 01:00 and then the multi-thousand acre feedlot to your south, which with a good south wind you can smell, didn’t allow any hunting.

Roy Carter: He’ll hit the skin of it. This is my theory, hypothesis. He’ll hit the outside because blackbirds is a huge concern on milo millet. They’ll wipe you out, and also where you hunted today, sir, when I first started advertising, 1986, actually 1991, because we had a 5-year lease from 1986 to 1991, but the DUs marsh right across from me, right north of where you was stopped all hunting at 01:00 and then the multi-thousand acre feedlot to your south, which with a good south wind you can smell, didn’t allow any hunting. So that’s another reason that traffic line’s there. You got the Neosho river, you got the refuge, you’ve got a feedlot. Along with feedlot comes blackbirds, and when a mallard shows up, first thing they do is they follow the blackbirds or the wood ducks to figure out where the food’s at. I don’t ask if you think that’s truth, I tell you that’s truth, because I’ve watched it all my life. It’s not question, and see, that’s where I come off weird. I’ll tell people what a duck just thought, and it sometimes they’ll think, that-

Ramsey Russell: How much you fertilize that Chiwapa millet.

Roy Carter: I think we only put about 50 units down.

Ramsey Russell: Of nitrogen.

Roy Carter: Of nitrogen. Yeah

Ramsey Russell: It’ll grow seed head like a Pringles can.

Roy Carter: Oh my gosh. Yes. I put on a lot of-

Ramsey Russell: It’s an amazing plant.

Roy Carter: It’s a great plant and it works with the soil. Another thing about it is when we was talking earlier about that black gumbo, this shit likes water. About 20 years ago, I had some Jap millet got flooded. The river come out and pull 2 behind Mallard Manor that I sold to Satterlee, and that millet was underwater and I thought, I just lost that shit. It looked better when the water went off, and you get to reading. Where’s this shit come from? It’s jap, comes from over there.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: But it’s like walking around.

Ramsey Russell: It’s got webbed feet. It likes it.

Roy Carter: Heck yes. That’s so. It likes to be flooded whereas corn and all the other stuff doesn’t. So every-

Ramsey Russell: Did you like that Chiwapa millet better than corn or do they both have their place?

Roy Carter: Both have their places. Okay, Chiwapa’s further early it’s not as hot, and that’s what, our managers there at Neosho Waterfowl with all these landowners that’s got these 100-acre flooded corn impoundments around, and it used to be one, now it’s many. It goes on for 10, 15, 20 miles up and down the Neosho valley. They’re on a budget there at Neosho, so they do a good job with aquatic vegetation. I know a lot of people cuss them, but here’s what I’m thinking, and I know this to be true. Even when I was young, hunting a big hole, and that’s a world famous hole, it didn’t really get good until they ate the refuge out, and the refuge was farmed by the Newbery family, which still farm on the island today and they’re very good farmers and friends of my family for generations. So, it was good crops and they left a third and 2/3rd and so the ducks knew what stripe and fields meant. So, I did all my fields and stripes in. Well, then if you think about it, everybody’s going, meat and potatoes, hot food, and now they’re doing that 4500-acre refuge. They still put out some corn stuff, but mostly aquatic vegetation and millet and everything, and the reason that’s a refuge is because it was too damn wet to be farmed in the first place. So, every spot has a rhyme or reason if you’re willing to listen to Mother Nature and let her tell you what belongs there.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I agree. You talk to any of the habitat biologists, I don’t care if it’s Rick Kaminsky, Kevin Ams, whoever you talk to. So much of the landscape now because of agriculture is just a monotypical, sterile environment. Waterfowl have different life needs, different life cycle requirements throughout the season. Whether they’re just freshly arrived, they’ve been here a while. They’re pair bonding. You got to have a little bit of everything, and you all got enough property spread out. You’ve got the timber, you’ve got the cover, you’ve got the feed. You’ve got a lot of things going on, plus you got sanctuaries nearby within 12 miles of any duck hole you hunt. So, you’ve got the perfect storm.

Roy Carter: Yes, and it’s unique because I sold a 1000-acres, and it was wonderful, and it still is truly wonderful. They said that we’re going to go ahead and keep this enhanced and feed the ducks and the wildlife and everything, pretty much wildlife philanthropists. That allowed me to have the equity to go fulfill my passion. I love farming, don’t get me wrong, but it’s hard for me to just sit in one spot so long nowadays. I sit on dozers and this and that, so that’s what unique about Carter’s. When you come and hunt with us, I can promise you that if you come choose to come back next year, and we hope you do that, you’ll be hunting over the money you spent with us last year.

Ramsey Russell: Moose been hunting with you 5 years.

Roy Carter: I’ve been growing the new CBI with these good young lads and my kids and like, my young men. It’s really special because we’re not stuck in one spot. We were able to go where okay, if the wind’s out of the east, I bought a farm that’s for east wind. If it’s a nasty day, I got a farm for nasty days. We know where we’re going to hunt according to what the weather’s going to be and what the date is on the calendar because of where the ducks have been hitting traditionally over the last, I don’t know, 50 years.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you’ve got a hashtag. You’re talking about the tradition and carrying it on and the new CBI, but you’ve got a hashtag, pass it on. What does that mean to you, Roy?

Roy Carter: Pass it on or lose it is very important to me as far as Carter’s, but it has nothing to do with Carter’s. Pass it on or lose it.

Ramsey Russell: Meaning what?

Roy Carter: I started that hashtag for the sportsman. If we don’t pass on the love and the sport of waterfowl, we’re going to lose it. It’s that simple. Think about it. If you do not take a kid hunting, they’re not just all of a sudden going to say, oh, I’m going to go duck hunting today, and if they do, they’re going to fail so bad that they’re not going to ever go again. If we don’t take new people to the sport. Then there’s other ways of promoting that. Even the people that don’t want to kill a bird or something, maybe take biologists with a camera. The best hunts are before the gun can be shot and when the limits over and the gun is set back down.

Ramsey Russell: Well, to your point this morning, I started off morning talking about that karma payback, and we shot limits of matters. It was beautiful. The habitat, the terrain, the ice, but the most endearing memory is going to be that flock that came in and left, and not a shot was fired.

Roy Carter: Not a shot was fired. That’s what I mean by the best ones. That’s the show, and that’s what’s so special about here at Carter’s. Guys, it’s a lot to do with location, but it’s more so to do with the people you’re dealing with and the knowledge behind it, because we can take this team anywhere across the country and successfully harvest mallards.

Ramsey Russell: And you all do that. You all don’t just hunt here. You all do your own little road trip. You and Drake and Dougie fresh, I call it.

Roy Carter: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You all hit public.

Roy Carter: Oh, yeah. I hunt with Doug because Doug likes to take pictures and won’t load his gun. He’s the toughest man to kill a duck with. They’ll be flying, and he’ll say, let’s just sit right here and watch them. I said, you sit here and watch me kill him, okay? And I grab it, and I grind and I go, the old Roy comes out. That’s what I’m getting at, guys. I have, and this sounds terrible, but to 95% of the sportsmen out there, I forgot more than you’ll ever know about killing a mallard, because it’s all I’ve ever done. I’ve set and watched and studied them. I’ve hunted them without a gun in my hand during the split and flooded timber. I’ve washed them. They can smell you. They get downwind of me, and I had them by the thousands swimming around me. They’d flutter back up. They could smell me.

Ramsey Russell: They’ve got hygiene product for that condition, Roy.

Roy Carter: That’s why I don’t deer hunt no more.

Ramsey Russell: Drake, you’re a new daddy. Am I right?

Where Does an Outfitter Hunt for Pleasure?

You have got to be first. You got to be the best or are you going to come home duckless. That’s just how it is.

Drake Carter: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: What does passing on or lose it mean to you now?

Drake Carter: It’s just about-

Ramsey Russell: You grew up in this?

Drake Carter: Yeah. Passing on the tradition. Like he was saying, if I was fortunate enough to have a dad, that took me duck hunting and taught me everything he knew, and so there’s a lot of tradition behind it.

Roy Carter: I wouldn’t let him hunt our property because you do not hunt CBI property for pleasure. It’s a business. Never.

Ramsey Russell: Where do you hunt for pleasure then, Roy?

Roy Carter: I go out, kick the public’s ass. I blow that horn.

Ramsey Russell: You like that too? I’ve always felt, and I will go to my grave believing that successful public land duck hunters are the epitome of great duck hunters. It’s hard to truly believe that.

Roy Carter: It’s hard to set and watch things.

Ramsey Russell: Watched my own boys grow up, because I cut my teeth on public Atlanta. That’s all I had, and it’s still some of the best hunting in the United States of America is good public land, and seeing my boys go out now and succeed on public land makes me proud. You’ve got to be competitive. You’ve got to scout. You got to play a clean game. You got competition. You have got to be first. You got to be the best or are you going to come home duckless. That’s just how it is.

Roy Carter: That’s life.

Ramsey Russell: That’s life.

Roy Carter: That’s life.

Ramsey Russell: It is.

Roy Carter: Pull your head out, liberals. That’s life.

Ramsey Russell: Sometimes the ducks win. Sometimes life wins. Sometimes the other guy wins. You pull yourself up and go back at it. You learn from your mistakes and get better, and I think that’s why public land duck hunting makes you better. Would you agree?

Roy Carter: Oh, hell, yes. That’s why I learned to blow a loud call, was hunting the refuge. You can ask-

Ramsey Russell: Can you ever be too loud? Do you ever have to get quiet?

Roy Carter: Oh, yes. Like in that footage that you guys, when you lit those ducks in the hole there. I mean, yeah, you wouldn’t want it to be Bobby Joe Willie, right then. That part was done. I’m loud at ducks when they’re far off and I aim my barrel in front of ducks. Then what I love now is the purity of duck calling starting to come back, and what I mean by that is there for a while, anybody could blow out a duck and scare them with a mondo and they’d come into the decoys, but they’ve heard this Mondo gig for a while and it’s starting, I noticed, to get back to the old kids that know how to blow the j-frame. I didn’t even know what the fuck a j-frame was until, like, 5 years ago. When you learn to blow a single read Arkansas style duck call your first note is a hell call [makes call noise]. When you get that open up.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly.

Roy Carter: Then you do 2 of those, then 3 of those. Now you learn to try to soften that up after you can get 5 of them straight.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Roy Carter: That’s how you learn to blow a duck call.

Ramsey Russell: That’s exactly right. Drake, how can anybody listen and get in touch with you all? Tell everybody where they can connect with Carter’s Big island.

Drake Carter: You can go to our website at www.cbihuntclub.com or you can check us out on Instagram @cbihuntclub and then Facebook, it’s just Drake Carter on Facebook.

Ramsey Russell: And Roy Carter.

Drake Carter: And Roy Carter. Yeah, @roycbi on Instagram.

Ramsey Russell: Totally different account.

Roy Carter: Yes. He’s not responsible for his old man statement.

Drake Carter: He gets a little bit out of hand.

Roy Carter: It’s what people want to hear and it’s what they need to hear in today’s society. I was telling a law officer this morning in conversation.

Ramsey Russell: With the blue lights going with-

Roy Carter: No. I was speaking to him and with that being said it, it’s just me. Just the way it is. It’s the way I throw it out there, but you go to @roycbi, I do a bridge report and the bridge report gets a little political. I do vote Republican and I think that’s what’s so neat is this world is so messed up and it’s gotten so West coast politics that it’s so obvious. I think we’ve seen it in the polls and I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, but it’s still the greatest country in the world.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Roy Carter: It’s sad because these kids don’t realize it and that’s where my heart gets broke. Something you’ll see on @roycbi, is I sent a deal here last week. It was a question to American Young Adults. What do you think of a human being wearing the American flag on their shirt? And they thought it was racist. They thought it was a Trumper. They were like, that’s one of those. Would you ever wear that? No. Absolutely not.

Cloudy with a Chance of Ducks

Ramsey Russell: Who would have thought, in 1984 or 1994, for that matter when Bill Clinton was there, who would have ever dreamed that we’d get to a point that the american flag was racist?

Roy Carter: And they won’t.

Ramsey Russell: Or that somebody could identify as a cat. Meow, and there’d be a litter box in a nurse’s school.

Roy Carter: You know why? Because they skip school. They don’t realize this. The melting pot. This is the most non racial country. The whole basis. They need to go educate themselves. It’s terrible. Just a bunch of dumb punks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Roy Carter: Yeah. I won’t have it on the island. I may have sold some of it, but I still live there, and there’ll be no gray area around me.

Roy Carter: No wokeness.

Ramsey Russell: No. The gray is strictly the bad one to get with the good because good don’t want with the bad. Follow the 10 commandments, it’s that simple.

Ramsey Russell: What we got planned tomorrow? Drake?

Drake Carter: Oh, shit. I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out, though.

Ramsey Russell: Probably another scout got to go look.

Drake Carter: Probably another timber hole.

Ramsey Russell: I’m in.

Drake Carter: They’re in the timber, so-

Ramsey Russell: Don’t throw me in that briar patch.

Drake Carter: That’s probably what we’re going to do. I like watching them come down through them trees.

Ramsey Russell: You know, I’ve always said, I would say that the number 1 question I ever get asked about is flooded timber, because everybody’s seen it on TV and really, truly, that Arkansas stuff, there’s some great private property in Arkansas, but a lot of stuff you see and hear about is public. You take a timber hunt like today, we shot limits, but if we’d only shot 2 or 3, all 2 or 3 of them landed in our lap, and that’s the magic-

Roy Carter: Yes, and on my-

Ramsey Russell: You go to a rice field, shoot 2 or 3. Well, we just shot 2 or 3 ducks. You go to the timber and shoot 2 or 3 ducks. They landed in your lap, and that’s the whole thing about it.

Roy Carter: You want to know what the magic is to me? It was on a day that any other hunting club probably would have said no, you’ll have to stay home, we’re froze out, but not at Carter’s. That’s back the know how-

Ramsey Russell: I even asked you, Roy, on the drive over, you were talking about the timber. I said, are you sure? Because it’s going to be cloudy.

Roy Carter: You boys from the south. I just start getting slobbering at the mouth when things freeze up. I’m going to kill them. It limits their safety holes.

Ramsey Russell: Well, thank you all both. It was a pleasure to have both of you mic’d up at the same time. Thank you all for this morning. Thank you all for tomorrow morning already. I’ll tell you right now. Folks, you all been listening to my friends Roy and Drake Carter, Carter’s big Island. Check them out on the resources, or go to ushuntlist.com and check them out. Contact them directly. I’m telling you, it is like one of little out of the way places in North America still, that they put the time and the effort and the habitat 365-days of going into a 74-day season. Thank you all for this episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast from Kansas. We’ll see you next time.