EP 503. Father-Son Experiences and Making a Difference

 

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I am joined by father and son, Jamie and Lane Roberts from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We ain’t going to talk football on today’s episode, I guarantee you. Guys, how are you all today?

Lane Roberts: I’m good.

Ramsey Russell: Good.

Jamie: I’m great, Ramsey. Glad to be here.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Yes, sir. You know, I asked you this when we first talked, but anytime I think of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I do not think of that university over there. I think of Dreamland Barbecue. Lane, have you ever eaten at Dreamland?

Lane Roberts: A few times.

Ramsey Russell: A few times. My son’s girlfriend is over in Birmingham right now going to school, finishing up school, actually. And he don’t pass through Tuscaloosa either without stopping by dreamland Barbecue, it’s just nothing like them nowhere, is what they say. And I’ve been eating there for over 20 years now.

Jamie: It is some very good barbecue.

Ramsey Russell: And they do it the old way. They don’t smoke them. They grill them, cook them over live coals. That’s how I grew up cooking them. I just wondered, if you all had ever eaten there back in the day. Now you go in there like any other barbecue joint. They got coleslaw and potato salad and all kinds of good stuff. But back in the day, when I stopped by, there weren’t but two items on the menu, and that was half or whole. She’d come by and say, “What you want?” and there were only two answers, “I want half a rack or a whole rack.” They bring them big old St. Louis-style ribs, spare ribs, we call them down here. They bring those spare ribs sitting just like a soup. It’s in a big old plate with just two or three inches of barbecue sauce. And they bring a stack of Sunbeam loaf bread to dip it in. That was it, that’s the meal right there.

Jamie: Yeah, they have a menu now. They used to not.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I still don’t need the menu. I know what I’m getting.

Jamie: That’s right.

Enjoying all the Alabama Outdoors Has to Offer

What is hunting like around Tuscaloosa, Alabama?

Ramsey Russell: Back in the day, it’d be a whole rack. And today, it’s just a half a rack. That’s about all I can handle anymore. You all are duck hunters, I know, but I wouldn’t have put you all on the map as duck hunters. I’d have said, being from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, you all were probably deer hunters. How did you grow up? What is hunting like around Tuscaloosa, Alabama?

Jamie: Well, you know, we just like being outside, taking in all the outdoors has to offer. I guess most people come up deer hunting. An old man got me into turkey hunting once, and two friends of mine, Kevin Ennis and Scotty Gray, got me into duck hunting. And it’s just some wood duck shoots. Not much to it, not much excitement for some people. But it’s all about the camaraderie of being together, and that’s kind of how I brought Lane up, just being outside and enjoying everything the environment provides.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Lane, I’m sitting here looking at the video screen, and you’ve got a turkey hanging over your shoulder. Did you shoot that turkey?

Lane Roberts: No, those were my dad’s turkeys.

Ramsey Russell: Do you turkey hunt yourself?

Lane Roberts: I do. Yes, sir, I do.

Ramsey Russell: Have you killed one yet?

Lane Roberts: I’ve killed a good few of them. I don’t know how many. I killed my first turkey at six.

Ramsey Russell: Really? How old are you now?

Lane Roberts: 14.

Ramsey Russell: 14 years old, man. And you’re a duck hunter? Are you a deer hunter also?

Lane Roberts: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about your first hunt.

Lane Roberts: Duck or just in general?

Ramsey Russell: In general.

Lane Roberts: Well, the first hunt I remember was when I killed my first turkey. I remember sitting in a blind with just a little, I can’t remember what kind of gauge it was, but it was just a little shotgun. And my dad said, “Put the bead on him,” and I pulled the trigger, and he was dead.

Ramsey Russell: That was it. What about your first duck hunt? When and where did you do your first duck hunt?

Lane Roberts: Well, I was pretty young. I was just sitting on a platform with my dad and my char dog Max. He’s an eleven-year-old black lab. I was just sitting there and watching my dad shoot ducks, and then, I don’t know, it just sparked something in me that I just wanted to keep doing what he was doing.

Ramsey Russell: Was that in Alabama that you all were hunting?

Lane Roberts: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the duck hunting like over in Alabama, guys? Mostly wood ducks, I’m guessing.

Jamie: Yeah, it is. You know, we live on the Tombigbee, well, not far from the Tombigbee River. I mean, there’s a lot of people that get some greenheads and some different ducks, but, you know, we’re just three miles inland right off another river. We never see any greenheads come through there. Its divers and wood ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, ring-neck ducks, I’m guessing, by divers. Yeah

Jamie: Yeah, Mergansers.

Hunting the Tombigbee River Waterfowl 

I’ve hunted that Tombigbee quite a bit, and at times we would shoot mallards, a few gadwalls, a lot of resident Canada geese, lots of wood ducks, and at times, a few divers, canvasbacks, ringnecks, things of that nature.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. You know, I’ve hunted that Tombigbee quite a bit, and at times we would shoot mallards, a few gadwalls, a lot of resident Canada geese, lots of wood ducks, and at times, a few divers, canvasbacks, ringnecks, things of that nature. But, you know, it’s funny how I’ve got a lot of friends and associates and myself grew up hunting in a part of the world where there were a lot of wood ducks. You know, when I really got into hunting in Mississippi, it was wood ducks near home. And it’s crazy how so many people, that’s kind of their duck hunting experience. But to a lot of people listening, or to a lot of people around the world, wood ducks are not a common species. It’s a species they really want. In fact, I was telling you all before we started recording, I was drawn several years ago by some friends of mine who live on a little island nation of Malta, smack out in the middle of the Mediterranean. Illegal though it is, they all collect species. One of them has over 900 species of birds. They don’t collect just waterfowl, they collect birds. One of them kind of specializes in raptors. And prior to them coming to the state of Mississippi to hunt with me, was the complete understanding they couldn’t shoot anything but waterfowl and game birds. Bald eagles and everything else were off-limits to them. But they came to America, went and shot king eiders, then came down to Mississippi for a week and wanted wood ducks. And that was their most prized possession on earth, the wood ducks they shot. Came halfway across the world just to shoot a duck that people in the deep South take completely for granted. That’s crazy, isn’t it.

Jamie: We shoot some beautiful wood ducks and kill some banded wood ducks. We got one a couple of years ago from Fergus Falls, Minnesota. So we kill a band about every year. The neat thing with wood ducks for us is that we deer hunt leased land, and there’s not a whole lot we can do for the habitat to change it or improve it for other ducks. But we can have a positive impact by putting up duck houses, and we’ve seen a tremendous impact with that through the years as far as helping the population.

Do Duck Houses Work for Drawing in Ducks?

But you can really impact a local population of waterfowl.

Ramsey Russell: I think it’s a great idea, especially us guys in the Deep South. Why don’t we plant or put out more nest boxes? Why don’t we? Because, you know, we know those birds are going to be here. If you look at the behavior of wood ducks, your juvenile males, your hatch-year males are going to disperse from where they’re hatched. The females are generally going to stay. The adult birds are generally going to stay. But you can really impact a local population of waterfowl. So regardless of what old man winter brings down or what they’re doing, habitat-wise, up in the upper flyway, we can impact, we can increase more ducks in our natural surroundings by putting out nest boxes. And I recently had, you all may have heard, recently had some of the California Waterfowl Association folks on here. They’ve got an aggressive of all places, California, has got an amazing wood duck nest box program and have produced over a million wood ducks. And if they can do it in California, I know we can do it here in the Deep South, you know, no doubt about it. Lane, I know that you’re real active in scouting. And that used to be a real, real big deal back in the day, and it doesn’t seem to be as big a deal today as it was, say, in prior generations. But what inspired you to join the Boy Scouts? And what’s motivated you through the scouting journey?

Lane Roberts: Well, for me, my scouting journey really just started on a school night one day where they were handing out little flyers for different Cub Scout packs. And I brought it home to my dad and showed him, and I said, “Hey, one of my friends is doing this. I want to do it.” So we went to the open house for it one night, and I just loved it. I just loved the things that they were talking about doing, the things that I was going to get to do in Boy Scouts. And I just really sparked something in me to just keep doing it. And once I got into Boy Scouts, I really just looked up to all the older scouts, and they were basically like role models to me. And that just made me want to keep going, aspiring to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. And that just motivated me from an early age.

Ramsey Russell: Well, how old were you when you started Cub Scouts, and how long did it take you to get through the Eagle Scout program?

Lane Roberts: Well, whenever I joined Cub Scouts, I was about seven, seven and a half. And, of course, this was seven years ago, and then for maybe two or three years, I was in Cub Scouts. And then whenever I got to Boy Scouts, I was just going fast. I wasn’t taking really any time off. I was taking most of my time to do Boy Scouts, and that’s just where I had to drop baseball, I had to drop soccer, I had to drop basically everything else. All my other after-school or just every other activity that I was doing to focus on scouts.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. You know, Jamie, it’s been my experience that scouts, it may be your son, Lane, going through the process, but it really, truly is a lot of times a family event. It’s not just the son going through it. It’s the dad, too. Were you a scout?

Jamie: I was never a scout, Ramsay. I was raised in the country and, you know, on the farm, and, of course, that was kind of my scouting, learned a lot of the same principles but without that guided program. But it is truly an amazing family event that I and Lane get into. And to my wife, a lesser extent, we’re all involved, but I tell people all the time, I got into this organization, and I was selfish. Let me get my son through it. And the more I see the positive impact in him, even more so other children and young adults, it makes me just want to keep going and leading others and watching them mature.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the things you learned from scouting, Lane? And what are some of the things you learned with your son in scouts, Jamie? And what are some of you all’s real memorable events?

Lane Roberts: Well, the most valuable thing and most influence, I don’t know what word I need to use there, but the one thing that really influenced me the most is the concept of type-two fun. It’s the kind of fun that really doesn’t really feel that fun when you’re doing it, but whenever you get through that, you realize the fun that you had.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lane Roberts: And the one that will be had.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, tell you what. Go ahead.

Jamie: Yeah, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of truth to that, and, you know, some of the things we do, you think, why did we choose to do this? And then after the fact, you look back at what you accomplished and what you learned from it. That’s those scouts and me as well. I mean, it teaches me a bunch, you know, working through merit badges with scouts. I mean, I learned more than I realized I would. But, you know, we’ve had some great experiences together, and I’ve had some experiences in the program without him. He’s had some experiences in the program without me. But I guess the most memorable moment that we’ve had, or some of the most memorable moments we’ve had, you know, we went to Sea Base in Key West and, you know, stayed on a sailboat for several nights and got to enjoy everything that life has to offer, and we learned to sail. And it’s just a bunch of different scouting experiences that wouldn’t be had without the Boy Scouts.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know, you hear it so much today. A lot of older people talk about kids today being different, not having the same value system that they had or their predecessors had growing up. And we all know there’s no denying that we’ve largely handed over our children’s moral compass to a cell phone and whatever they find on a cell phone. And, you know, that’s one thing that’s possibly missing from this day and age is just the good old-fashioned Boy Scouting. You know what I’m saying? I myself was not a scout. I started the scout process, and life got sideways, and, you know, but I remember those days fondly there in Greenville, Mississippi, being a Cub Scout, being a Webelos, whatever came next, you know, and getting out when we moved down to a different part of the state. But, you know, you always had friends. Everybody you knew was there. You were camping, you were doing things, you were building the little derby cars. And it was always something to do besides getting into trouble, you know? And it did turn it did teach a lot of good old-fashioned values.

Jamie: Yeah. One neat thing about scouting and phones is that you can’t really take away the phone, but you can travel to remote areas where the phone becomes a paperweight.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, I tell you what. I just got back from an honest-to-gosh, bona fide vacation, and it was good. It was good to largely put that phone away, you know, because in my professional life, I’m on the phone a lot. And we went on a real vacation to celebrate our 30th anniversary of being married and just didn’t hunt for that week, seven or eight days, but didn’t play on the phone much, either. And it was good to step away. I think everybody would do well stepping away. What about you, Lane? What are some of your memorable experiences? What is something you’ve done that you just remember? Was it the sailing trip, or was it going out to the mountains out west, or what?

Lane Roberts: Well, we’re actually going out to do a seven-day trek in New Mexico next year, about this time next year. I don’t know how to pronounce it, but it’s one of the two. And it’s called Philmont.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, Philmont Scout Ranch.

Lane Roberts: You’re out there for seven days with nothing but the things in your backpack on your back.

Ramsey Russell: Some of the largest pronghorn in the United States of America, and some amazing elk herds at times, are right around that camp. That’s a beautiful part of New Mexico, too. I have not been to Philmont, but I’ve been all around it. It’s a beautiful part of America.

Lane Roberts: Well, my most memorable moment in scouting is probably my first ever summer camp.

Ramsey Russell: What you all do?

Lane Roberts: This was a week-long summer camp. You were there from Monday through Saturday. And my most memorable moment of that was doing the wilderness survival merit badge. This is before I was even eleven years old. This is not a merit badge, it’s not for the light-hearted.

Ramsey Russell: What did you do?

Lane Roberts: Well, basically, you don’t have a tent. You have to bring, you basically have rope, a tarp, and a pillow, and you have to go out in the woods, build your own shelter, and sleep in it for the night.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. What if it’s raining?

Lane Roberts: You tie a tarp over your head.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lane Roberts: That’s what one of the other kids doing the merit badge did. We just built a fort. We built a little shelter with a giant tarp hanging over us in a little triangle formation of three trees. And I didn’t know chiggers like to hang out around trees at the time, so I woke up and think I found about every chigger in the durn forest. I had a belt of chiggers around my waist.

Ramsey Russell: Uh-huh. Been there, done that.

Jamie: Lessons learned.

Ramsey Russell: Lessons learned. I’ve not hardly found a way to keep the chiggers off of me. I used to cruise a lot of timbers through chigger country and tick country, and it just took a lot of DEET is what it took. Oh, I hate getting chiggers. What does it take to be an Eagle Scout? I mean, so you go through, what are the scouting steps? Like, where did you start? Was it Cub Scout, then Webelos, then Boy Scout? And then what’s the process to going all the way through Eagle Scout?

Lane Roberts: Well, the process is once you get in the Boy Scouts, that’s basically it. Once you get put in the troop, that’s when that journey starts. For most people, that’s really an average of a four-to-six-year journey. But I was lucky enough to be able to go to every summer camp and every winter camp for at least two or three years.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Lane Roberts: And the way that really helped me was I got all the merit badges that I needed, and then all I really needed to do was leadership.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Lane Roberts: And my Eagle project.

Ramsey Russell: Jamie, that took a big commitment on your part, too, didn’t it? I mean, to go to all those scouting camps and everything else, that is a family commitment.

Jamie: Yeah. The way it kind of works is once you join Boy Scouts, Its Scouts skills, you’re learning different skills, whether that be knives, knot-tying, or lashings. You advance, and then you get to a point where the only way to advance is by having leadership within the troop, whether that be patrol leader, Lane was chaplain aide several times. And then its merit badge and service related. You have to have so many service hours for every rank advancement. Then you get to the point where you’ve got all your merit badges, you’ve got all your leadership, and it’s all about leading an Eagle Scout project.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Jamie: But it’s been fun. The journey has been fun, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

Ramsey Russell: You know, Jamie, I think I read one time that every U.S. president or most U.S. presidents, since the Boy Scouts were founded all the way up, I can’t remember if it was until or to include Bill Clinton, every one of them had been an Eagle Scout. It was something crazy like that. When you started looking at the number of famous Americans or titans of industry, Fortune 500 types, that really credited a lot of their background to the scouting program, it was mind-blowing.

Jamie: Yeah. A lot of astronauts as well.

Ramsey Russell: Probably all the astronauts.

Jamie: Yeah. We went through something in an Eagle Scout ceremony for another scout, and there’s a little script we read. It goes through the presidents, the U.S. Congress, and astronauts, and that’s when you actually realize how many successful people were involved in scouting. It’s humbling to be in the same company with those people.

Ramsey Russell: That reminded me, it seems like another scouting activity was building those rockets that you ignited. Is that still a thing in the Scouts?

Jamie: I think it is. They did something, there is some merit badge that involves that, but a lot of safety factors have reduced some of those things now. But we haven’t done anything like that.

Ramsey Russell: Are firearms still a part of scouting, or have they ever been?

Lane Roberts: Oh, yes. That I know, there are three merit badges that involve, well, only two involve firearms, but the other one is archery.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Lane Roberts: The two that are involved with firearms are shotgun shooting and rifle shooting.

Ramsey Russell: We were talking about Eagle Scouting and what the qualifications were to become an Eagle Scout. Do most scouts finish their Eagle Scout or even start that journey, or do they cap out before it gets to that?

Lane Roberts: Well, the Eagle Scout fraternity is very small. I think the percentage of people that enter scouts is in the single digits.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Jamie: You know, Ramsay, here in the past several years, a lot of people aren’t doing scouting anymore. I tell people you got to treat it like a sport. There’s so many travel sports like volleyball, baseball, and sports are just really taking up all of their time. So it’s really hard to do sports. You have a scout that starts at ten or ten-and-a-half, eleven, and then they do it for a couple of years. Then they get involved in sports and have to kind of choose something, you can’t do better than, it’s just difficult. Sports takes away a few, and then you’ve got someone just trucking along and advancing. They get to sixteen and start smelling the fumes, the perfume, and the gasoline.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jamie: And of course, that pulls them away. If you don’t have everything done by the time you’re eighteen, you’re done. People think, “I’ll leave for a little while and then come back to it.” So it’s not the people aren’t enjoying the program or getting anything out of it, they just find things that pull them away. That’s why it’s ideal when you can get a scout to Eagle before their sixteenth birthday.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know, it’s all about life skills. I mean, as a dad, so much of raising children is wanting them to have good life skills. You want them to be busy doing something, hunting and fishing included, that gives them life skills, being around people, social skills, safety, practical stuff. You want them to have good life skills when they get older. I know there’s a lot of life skills that come out of sports, but I’d have a hard time arguing that it would be better than preparing them for life to do whatever they’re going to to do for the next 50 or 60 years, that sports would outrank scouting or something like that, in terms of just building lifelong character. Let alone skills.

Jamie: The adults see that side of it, but I don’t think the scouts really understand the skills and social skills they’re building throughout the program. You see it when one of them matures, and they may have been gone, and then you see them talking in front of people, leaders in the community, and that’s when you realize the impact this program has on young people.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I agree. Lane, what inspired you to build and install wood duck nest boxes for your Eagle Scout project? How did you come up with that idea?

Lane Roberts: Well, for me, it was just riding around at our hunting camp. One day I asked my dad, “Hey, what are those boxes sitting out in the swamps?” He told me what they were, and I just said, “Huh.” Then, when it came time to think of an Eagle Scout project, I said, “Hey, Can I do those boxes we see at the hunting camp?” My dad said, “Sure, why not.” So we started working on the paperwork to make sure it was okay with the committee chair—I mean, not the committee chair, the representative.

Ramsey Russell: Representative, yeah.

Lane Roberts: Representative, sorry. For PARA, which is the organization that owns the park where I installed the boxes, the lady’s name is Ms. Adrienne Clacker Collins. She was super helpful throughout the whole thing and just super nice about everything. When it came time for the Eagle project, she rented us a pavilion where we could assemble our boxes and do everything. When it came time to start the plan, it was a lot because, me being twelve or thirteen, this was a lot for me to think about. I was just trying to get all my thoughts together. Luckily, I eventually slowed down, thought about everything, and we got all our materials and the plan together. After that, it was smooth sailing. All I had to do was commit, start the project, and make sure everything went smoothly. The day of the project was probably the most stressful thing about it. I started pretty smooth, but then, in my world, everything started going wrong. I didn’t know what to do. People were getting off track. But eventually, I slowed down, thought about everything, and after that, it was just smooth sailing.

How to Put in Nest Boxes for Waterfowl

We checked the boxes, and in the last one, we found eggshells and feathers. That’s how we knew it was being used.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Walk me through the process of planning and executing this project of yours, these nest boxes.

Lane Roberts: Well, the process of doing it was like, sorry, I’m just trying to think. What do you mean by that, like the process.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, how did you decide how many to build, how to build them, and where to put them, all that good stuff?

Lane Roberts: Well, we actually had two friends my dad talked about, but one was Mr. Kevin Ennis, and the other was actually also an Eagle Scout, Mr. Ray McFaul. They came out and helped me find good places to put these boxes and helped me think of the numbers and where to put them. We eventually put out three or four. We planned it. We got a map, put it into my digital Eagle Scout workbook, finished the plan, and submitted it to my scoutmaster, the representative for PARA, our committee chair, and the Eagle board. Everybody approved it. After that, we started the part where you get all the materials. What I was just explaining the plan, that was the proposal, this is the plan. The plan is where you outline how many you’re really going to make, where you’re going to put them, and what you need to assemble them. That was probably the hardest part and the most expensive part. One neat thing about this project, Ramsay, is that you can’t do an Eagle Scout project on your own property, and you can’t do it on scout property. So he wanted to build these boxes, and I was like, “Well, where do you want to put them?” Thankfully, in Tuscaloosa, in Northport close to the airport, there’s a local wetland park where a lot of people walk. You can go out there, there’s lots of geese, and Lane’s like, “Hey, I can put my boxes here.” So that’s what kind of started it. Keep going, Lane. I just wanted to give him a little backstory.

Lane Roberts: Yeah. So going off what he said, we were out there, and I was like, “Hey, I can put my boxes here.” We eventually decided this is where we’re going to put the boxes. Then we went through the proposal and the plan. We got everything planned out, how much help we were going to need, and I actually ended up getting too much help. Too many people arrived at the project, so we had more people working on it than we needed.

Ramsey Russell: Well, how did you manage to supervise all that extra help, Lane?

Lane Roberts: Well, we eventually put the extra people in groups that needed more help. I made sure everyone was getting a turn at doing something, so no one was just sitting around twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing. I made sure everyone was doing something and staying engaged to feel like, “Hey, I’m not just here to be here.”

Ramsey Russell: Sounds like you needed a loud horn just to get everybody lined out and stuff.

Lane Roberts: That would have been nice. That would have been real nice.

Ramsey Russell: You talked earlier about when the plans got awry, when it wasn’t going as planned, exactly. What other challenges did you face with this project, and how did you overcome those problems or those challenges?

Lane Roberts: Are you talking about the day of the project?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, I mean, throughout the whole process, because honestly, this is a big project for a 13- or 14-year-old, you know what I’m saying? And let alone a grown man. So I’m just wondering what challenges you had and how you got over them all.

Lane Roberts: Well, the challenges I had, not including the day of the project, was just throughout the process of getting this workbook, ready so I could start my project was managing scouts and school, that was the main difficulty for me, because school was a big thing. I’m in my first year of middle school, about to be in 8th grade, and I’m all over the place with homework and scout meetings. It was a long process, but eventually, around the middle of the school year, everything started to calm down. That’s when I could really get a good flow going for the project.

Ramsey Russell: You put this in a public area that a lot of people walk or lot of people from Northport and Tuscaloosa interact with. How did they react to your scout project?

Lane Roberts: Well, the public hasn’t really seen it, but the last time we went out there, we saw some wood ducks. One surprised me because I didn’t know it was there. We checked the boxes, and in the last one, we found eggshells and feathers. That’s how we knew it was being used.

Ramsey Russell: How did that make you feel to know that your scout project had a direct and meaningful impact on conservation in your local area?

Lane Roberts: It made me feel good. It made me feel like I didn’t just do that to do it.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Don’t you think that as a hunter yourself, you kind of owe it to the resource to do something, to give back? It can’t be all take, can it?

Lane Roberts: No, it cannot. I mean, it really felt good because those ducks will go, Lord knows where, they’ll go across the country, come back, go somewhere else and eventually somebody will kill them.
Ramsey Russell: Maybe, or maybe they’ll just produce more babies. Here’s a question I have, Why is conservation like this important to you? You could have chosen to do anything for your scouting project, but you chose something in wildlife conservation. Why is that important to you? Why is it important to a 14-year-old child to be involved with conservation?

Lane Roberts: Well, it’s because my dad and I are big hunters. At the time, I had just had probably the most exciting duck hunt of my life.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about it.

Lane Roberts: Well, we were in a little swampy area, and I was standing on the bank where there were a lot of trees. I had shot a few, and my dad and his friends were shooting most of them. But then a group of ducks flew by, and as soon as I saw them, I said, “Dad, can I shoot them?” He said, “No, they’re too far.” Well, it was too late. I shot the boss shells, and they flew all the way. Just glided to that duck, and I saw him drop. And you could hear the joy in my dad’s voice and he was surprised.

Jamie: He was sky-busting, and it was working.

How Younger Generations Impact Waterfowl Conservation

They can just start to appreciate wildlife and what it does for the ecosystem.

Ramsey Russell: It’s not sky-busting if they’re falling. That’s what I’ve always said. It’s only sky-busting if they’re not. What do you think other young people like yourself could do in the world of conservation? And what difference do you think the younger generation could make in waterfowl conservation?

Lane Roberts: I mean, they don’t have to hunt or build wood duck boxes. They can just start to appreciate wildlife and what it does for the ecosystem.

Ramsey Russell: Amen.

Lane Roberts: We really don’t realize how much animals like ducks, deer, and turkeys do for this ecosystem, how healthy they keep it.

Ramsey Russell: Hey, man, are there any other conservation projects you’d like to be involved with or that you’d like to see implemented? Let’s face it, Lane, you’re off to a great start, and you’ve got your whole life in front of you. What other conservation projects would you like to be involved with?

Lane Roberts: I mean, just going on some different duck hunts. I really want to go on some bigger duck hunts.

Ramsey Russell: Like what?

Lane Roberts: Like, just going to different states and duck hunting, like my dad does.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. But what about some of the other conservation projects? Like, not just hunting, because hunting is conservation. Hunting is conservation because, as you’ve proven, a lot of hunters, not all hunters, but a lot, will put their time and money back into the resource. Are there any projects or initiatives or anything else along those lines you’d like to be involved with in your own backyard or elsewhere?

Lane Roberts: I mean, not off the top of my head that I can think of, but really just try and build some more duck boxes, not just for wood ducks, but for ducks in general, so they can reproduce and raise more ducks, and this cycle repeats.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. What did you learn about wood ducks? Did you learn anything about wood ducks or waterfowl in general related to this project?

Lane Roberts: Well, I realized that they don’t just fly randomly around the country. They fly in a pattern.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lane Roberts: It’s like they have a built-in GPS that tells them where they want to go.

Ramsey Russell: Have you come across any nest boxes yet, where other species have used them? Like, I know in the Mississippi Delta, black-bellied whistling ducks, which are cavity nesters, like to use wood duck nest boxes, as do hooded mergansers. Even screech owls will sometimes get in those nest boxes.

Lane Roberts: Well, I haven’t seen that yet. I mean, we don’t even know if it’s wood ducks that are using these boxes.

Jamie: Yeah. A couple of different species I’ve seen use them are raccoons and snakes.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah. That’s why those predator guards are so important because they like those nest boxes too. I’ve learned from experience that if you want wood ducks in your nest boxes, you have to service them every year, clean them out, put new wood chips in, and ensure those predator guards are in place. We talk about, I alluded to this earlier about how a lot of older folks look down at the younger generations and say, well, you know, they don’t have a lot of the ideal or a lot of the conservation ethos or a lot of stuff makes them different than some of the older guys. These kids aren’t learning what we should have. And because, like we talked about, there’s so many different things that young people today are becoming involved with other than hunting and fishing or growing up in the outdoors or interacting with wildlife. I mean, just in the last few minutes, I’ve learned a lot about Lane and a lot about the younger generation and a lot of advice that older people could take about giving back to the resource. Boy, you know, scouting seems to align more with hunting and conservation than maybe sports or other activities young people spend their time on. What are your thoughts, Lane or Jamie, on how scouting aligns with hunting and conservation?

Is Active Wildlife Conservation a Responsibility of Hunters?

Both involve taking a resource, sometimes renewable, and using it to your advantage but also preserving it for future generations to enjoy.

Lane Roberts: I mean, the way hunting and scouting align, the values of conservation are similar. With scouting, there’s conservation, like, don’t pick up rocks or things you see on a hike because they could be food or shelter for an animal. With hunting, it’s about respecting wildlife. Some people call themselves hunters, but they just shoot things.

Ramsey Russell: All take, no give.

Lane Roberts: Yes, sir. That’s what they do. They see an animal, like a deer on the side of the road, and shoot it without thinking. All they think about is saying they killed a deer.

Jamie: Some people don’t realize that the ideals of scouting align with hunting. Both involve taking a resource, sometimes renewable, and using it to your advantage but also preserving it for future generations to enjoy.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a responsibility, isn’t it?

Jamie: Yes, definitely.

Ramsey Russell: Both of them, scouting teaches responsibility, and active wildlife conservation is the responsibility of hunters.

Jamie: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. You know, it’s interesting that, of course, we say it all the time, hunting is conservation. But, you know, isn’t it kind of odd, the relationship between duck hunting and conservation, on the one hand, we hunt for fun, for sport, to feed our families, traditions, and culture. But on the other hand, there’s that give-back part, which I think many people don’t see that, how can you love an animal and then hunt it? They don’t see the time and money that go into conservation. Lane, are a lot of your classmates in Tuscaloosa hunters or fishermen themselves?

Lane Roberts: Well, you can’t see that a lot of my classmates are most of them deer hunt because most were born and raised in Tuscaloosa.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lane Roberts: One of my friends recently moved to Albertville. He’s kind of like me. His dad was in scouts and almost became an Eagle Scout. He and his dad hunt a lot. They have a hunting camp near Auburn, sometimes we’ll just randomly start a conversation, and we’ll talk about hunting for 30 minutes to an hour. And whenever we kill something, we’ll say, hey, how is it? How was your hunt? How was your kill? How was it? Hey, that’s a nice deer. Hey, that’s a nice turkey. And sometimes it’s rare, but sometimes we’ll each have our phones and we’ll be honest. We’d be on a solo hunt night. We’d be like, hey, where are you right now? I’m in the woods. I’m in the woods, too. And we just go back and forth, text and chatting for a little bit, and then we put our phones down, and one of us would kill something, and one of us would praise the other for and congratulate the other for getting it for having a successful hunt. And it’s just friendships like that that I really love, because you have the same activities and hobbies that you wouldn’t really think many other people would have like that.

Ramsey Russell: How does a 14-year-old scout from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Lane, how do you see the future of duck hunting evolving in Alabama and the United States? What do you say for the future of duck hunting?

Lane Roberts: I hope that duck hunting will grow, and more people will see the fun in it. Like you said earlier, putting the phone down, going outside, and have fun. I see that it can either evolve in a good way or a bad way.

A Good Outcome for Duck Hunting

Lane, what do you think young hunters can do to ensure the good outcome for duck hunting that you described?

Ramsey Russell: How can it evolve in a good way, and how can it evolve in a bad way?

Lane Roberts: I mean, the way it can evolve in a good way is, like I just said, more people will start to get into it. More people will start to see the good in conservation and start to help really grow the duck population. The way it can devolve is if people grow distant from it, pushing it off like, “Duck hunting is not that fun anymore. I’ve done what I wanted to do, it’s not important to me anymore.” And it just slowly devolves into basically nothing.

Ramsey Russell: I see and hear a bunch of grumpy old duck hunters like that today who are ready to throw in the towel because they don’t think they’re killing enough ducks like they used to. I hear their complaints.

Jamie: From my perspective, one thing Lane has seen while hunting different farms is that some farmers think they can’t have both farmland and duck habitat. Beavers are a duck hunter’s best friend. But you have different organizations with different conservation practices, like Ducks Unlimited, that manage habitats and show you can have both duck habitat and farmland. Working together and communicating is ultimately going to help both the farmer and the duck hunter be successful.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right, that’s right. Lane, what do you think young hunters can do to ensure the good outcome for duck hunting that you described?

Lane Roberts: They can join groups like NWTF, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, and the Get Ducks podcast.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Thank you very much. Have you got any advice? Well, let me ask you this, what are your future goals in scouting and conservation? You’re 14 years old, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’re an Eagle Scout, what now?

Lane Roberts: My goals as an Eagle Scout are to help other scouts in my troop who want to become Eagle Scouts, helping them when they think it’s impossible. I can tell them how it was for me when I wanted to give up and quit trying to get Eagle Scout. I also want to help my troop grow, not just in numbers, but as a family, growing closer together to the point where it feels like everyone is related, like you could call everyone your brother.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. You know, you talk about never giving up in scouts. I mean, that parallels life in general. Never give up. And with duck hunting, never give up. Oh, it’s a drought. Well, we’ve got to produce more habitat. Don’t give up. It’s 11:00, and I haven’t shot my limit. Don’t give up. You know what I’m saying? That “never give up” mindset is good advice. What other advice might you have for scouts or for young people or even for older people, interested in becoming involved in waterfowl conservation?

Lane Roberts: Just don’t kill ducks just to kill them. Actually shoot them and get something out of it. Try your best to get something out of it and think, “Hey, I’m doing something good.”

Boy Scouts of America and Waterfowl Conservation

Ramsey Russell: Amen. Do you have a favorite duck recipe? Do you know how to cook ducks yet, Lane?

Lane Roberts: No, sir. I do not.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that needs to be one of your next projects. Every duck hunter’s got to have some pocket recipes to impress all his buddies around the campfire.

Lane Roberts: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Any closing words, Lane? Jamie?

Jamie: No, I mean, I’m just appreciative of the impact you have on the little guy for duck hunting and conservation, and I’m thankful to be part of a community that wants to do everything they can to preserve this wonderful sport for families to enjoy. I want people to think about this upcoming duck season, and of course, it’s duck season somewhere, and to consider taking their kid or a kid to enjoy it and pass that on, because that’s really the only way we preserve this great sport, by getting more people involved and increasing funds from licenses, and hopefully our states will direct those funds toward duck hunting and habitat preservation.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’ve learned a lot from a 14-year-old scout named Lane today. I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration and encouragement. If everyone listening built even one or two duck nest boxes and put them in their backyard, what a different world we’d have. And I really, really think a lot about the Boy Scouts to have produce mindset like this. You know what I’m saying? Probably everyone listening should consider getting their kids involved in scouts. It’s easy to look back, I was that young kid once, and my granddaddy didn’t like my long hair or my attitude at Lane’s age. But what I’m trying to say is, all older generations look back at the younger generation coming behind them, wondering about their responsibility and what they’re going to do and wondering what happened to kids today in America. Well, maybe they need more Boy Scouts, or more Eagle Scouts out here in the world looking to make it a better place. How big is scouting in your area? Is it a big activity, holding steady, or declining?

Lane Roberts: It’s kind of up and down. A lot of churches where scout troops would normally meet have started to drop them because they don’t want to get into a lawsuit.

Jamie: Well, Ramsey, locally, a lot of us were fell under. We all have charter organizations, and I’ll answer your question just a second, but just wanted to clarify what he said. A lot of us fell under Methodist churches, and of course, the Methodist churches has been going through a lot of transition.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, that’s the truth. Yeah.

Jamie: They felt it was easier to drop some things. There are different reasons, but quite a few Methodist churches in this area dropped the scouts. We found different chartering organizations, but you would think scouting is extremely small in this community, considering how much is going on and how many people are here. Tuscaloosa is actually a small area that serves a giant population with the outlying areas. But you go to scouting events and realize just how big it is in the area. So it is thriving, and we’re adding to the community all the time. I’m proud of Lane and the other Eagle Scouts from our troops, watching them grow and mature.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Well, I appreciate you all coming on. I appreciate you all sharing your story. Lane, congratulations on becoming an Eagle Scout. Thank you for your small part so far in waterfowl conservation. I thank you. And folks, thank you all for listening to today’s episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. You’ve been listening to my buddies Jamie and Lane Roberts from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, good old-fashioned American values, the Boy Scouts of America transition in the waterfowl conservation. See you next time.