EP 517. The Dirty Bird North Dakota Waterfowl Hunting Experience

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast where today we’re reaching way up to North Dakota to my longtime UShuntlist Outfitters, close personal friends and buddies, Matthew Piehl and Nick Marcy with Dirty Bird Outfitters. Guys, how the heck are you doing?

Matthew Piehl: Good.

Nick Marcy: Doing good, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: Good. Man, I don’t even know where to start with this conversation because we talk all the time, but I’ll start with this right here, just reintroduce everybody. You all can take turns, Matthew, Nick Marcy, introduce everybody to who you are, where you’re from.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, no, I’m Matt. I from eastern North Dakota, grew up in western North Dakota. I’ve started Dirty Bird, I think we’re on our 10^th year, going into our 10^th year here. Started it as a tax write off and it grew into a business that allowed me to leave the oil field and allowed me to do a lot. We started strictly in Arkansas and Nebraska for snows and we’re originally from – Well, I’m originally from North Dakota, Nick went to college here and stayed here. But we got our North Dakota license just so that we could cross the border in the spring. So we didn’t have to stop and get stopped in South Dakota and we started guiding in the fall. And it’s just kind of taken off ever from, ever since there.

Ramsey Russell: So you talk about it being tax write off, that sounds like something a serious duck hunter from somewhere North Dakota would start just as a way to expense a lifestyle. Does that kind of – I mean you grew up duck hunting and goose hunting and as you started doing more, you said, I’ll start a little business and be able to expense this. Is that kind of really truly how it started? You’re just being an avid waterfowler?

Matthew Piehl: That’s exactly how it started. I mean I was in my mid 20s, mid to late 20s, kind of. I worked in the oil field 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. So my 2 weeks off I was somewhere, I was gone somewhere. There was one stretch of time there for multiple years, the only timeframe, the only month or months that I did not waterfowl hunt was June and July. And I mean I remember the phone call like it was yesterday, it was, shortly after you and I had met and been to Mexico, I’d been to Mexico and whatever. I remember calling you when my first kid was coming up to being due and I knew it was like the last time that I could probably even chance at going from a full year of every month of shooting some type of waterfowling. I talked to you about Arkansas or Argentina being able to split June and July, I didn’t get, I didn’t care if I shot one bird in July, I just wanted to shoot. But my son was due August in August and I think at the last minute, I think I just had to decide, I don’t think, I think it’s a good idea for me to be gone. But I mean, that’s kind of, my background. All my entire days off was chasing waterfowl for the most part so –

Ramsey Russell: When did you start hunting, Matt? When did you start hunting?

Matthew Piehl: Probably 11, 12 time frame. I didn’t, waterfowl hunting per se, I grew up in western North Dakota, so, we shot grouse, we shot pheasants, coyotes, stuff like that. When I was in high school, the amount of waterfowl hunting I did was there was 2 weeks a year where we would go meet, go up to Minot where my grandma lived and we would meet my cousin and my uncle and we would hunt waterfowl for 2 weeks. But like, that was the highlight of my entire year, for that time frame, the amount of waterfowl hunting we had around home was – you might be out, might be able to go sneak up a stock dam or something like that that had some ducks in it, but we never had that part, just doesn’t catch a lot of the flyaway, there is some geese around there, obviously. But until I got to, I would say probably college, where I really kind of – I mean, I did more waterfowl hunting than I did college, that would explain why –

Ramsey Russell: I think a lot of us can relate to that. How did you evolve or how did you go or how did you end up from, typical Midwest jump shooting ponds and past shooting a few birds to being a serious decoying waterfowler? Because when I met you down in, well, we hunted in Mexico and dude, you were a serious waterfowler. I mean, you were a grown man then, not a little boy, but you were serious, I mean, you and I would get out and arrange those decoys, get the Brant decoys just right, work them in just right. And the times I’ve hunted with you, which has been numerous up there for ducks, geese, swans, everything up in North Dakota, I mean, you all put on a heck of a percent Production, man, I mean, it’s a real freaking deal. What was your transition, Matt? From going to just a young guy in North Dakota where just jump shoot pond to do whatever, to boom. This whole approach to what we all think of as classical decoying waterfowl.

Matthew Piehl: Probably, some of my early hunts by myself, like early decoying hunts by myself, whether you’re 15 years old doing it or whether you’re 25 years old doing it or 20 years old or 35 years old, probably the first time I think a person like truly deceives not one bird, not 2 birds, but deceives every bird or everything that you’re trying to do. Personally, I think that’s where it probably clicked, where the light switch went like this is how it should be done. I mean, I can think back to one hunt, I was hunting honkers north of mine up by myself and I just remember landing hundreds and hundreds of birds. And even after I had shot my birds, I just remember continually landing birds. And I think that’s probably any waterfowl hunter, I think if you get to that or do that and that’s not your thought process afterwards, I guess then I don’t – Is it hunting or killing? I guess, I don’t know.

The Evolution of Waterfowling Perspectives.

Argentina, Mexico, to name 2 off the top of my head, there’s such an abundance of birds that you don’t have to play quite the game, we play to shoot a bunch, but it’s all about the freaking presentation.

Ramsey Russell: It’s just an approach to waterfowling that I think, go through stages and phases we all get to and I always find it fascinating on how people arrive to that same conclusion. The older you get is more about the presentation, we go to some of these places, Matt. Argentina, Mexico, to name 2 off the top of my head, there’s such an abundance of birds that you don’t have to play quite the game, we play to shoot a bunch, but it’s all about the freaking presentation. If you’re coming from hunting like you and I and Nick do, where you want those birds belly up, coming to you, right? It’s just no fun to shoot them 35, 40 yards flying away, it’s all about that presentation. And I don’t care where I’m at, go to Argentina, we shoot a bunch of birds, I want them in the decoys, I want them doing right, I want them to present themselves, that’s the show that last week, boom, they set up, that’s the freaking show right there. And they come in and they’re right there and they’re vulnerable, that’s what I want and I made it happen. They had the whole world full of sky to fly through, but I got them right there vulnerable, set up on a tee, ready to bang, boom, right there in my lap, that’s what I want. And I think that’s what we all want.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah. No, I agree with you. And I mean, Nick can attest to it too. I mean, we, being snow goose guides, obviously with the state of where the snow goose hunting has went, where it has to be this massive pile all the time, it has to be this – some of my most memorable snow goose hunts haven’t been probably over 100 birds. But the fact that, you decoyed adult snow geese into 10 yards or you pulled them off their line, which is not easy to do with snow geese like those types of moments I think are really what I guess I live for anymore. I mean, I’d rather go shoot adult snow geese at 10 yards than shoot a couple hundred juvies personally, don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun, it is. But I just, I guess I enjoy the game more than I enjoy the rest, you know what I mean?

Ramsey Russell: I’ve hunted with some people, especially as they approach snow geese, The White Brothers out in California, they do it the white way, buddy, let me tell you what. They’ve got a very limited population of snow geese in that valley, they don’t want to bang into the big flocks and they’re very patient, and they just want them presented right, they want them vulnerable and it’s got to be a smaller flock that’s peeled off the main body. They’re just not going to fly, shoot into a big flock for the entire year and then I’ve hunted with my buddy Jake Dahl up in Alberta, him and Spencer. Buddy, they hunt exactly like what you said, they want to shoot adult birds, they’ve got the decoys, they do the scouting, they play the game and they hunt them a lot. But to them it’s not anything to do with numbers, it’s got to do with those adult birds presenting themselves. I think that adds a whole another layer to this whole thing of ours. Nick, what about you? Now, I’ve hunted with you and your people before. You’re not from North Dakota, you’re from where? Minnesota.

Nick Marcy: Yeah. Grew up in Minnesota, I’ve lived in North Dakota now for this is 14 years. Originally moved out from Minnesota for college and went got my degree from Valley City State and just never left.

Ramsey Russell: Never went back.

Nick Marcy: Started working for North Dakota Game and Fish in the summertime and started doing this. Doing the guide thing for something to do in the winter and the fall. Now it’s the end of whole –

Ramsey Russell: What was it like growing up, you and your people growing up? I’ve hunted with you, your dad, your brothers. What was it like for you all growing up out in Minnesota? How did you all hunt?

Nick Marcy: So grew up, we floated the river and jump shoot. Jump shoot ducks off rivers or off ponds, that’s kind of the way my grandpa grew up duck hunting, but we used to have wild rice on the rivers, so jump shooting used to work out pretty good. Once I got into high school, I kind of taught myself how to decoy. My dad and his buddies would decoy ducks a little bit, but nothing crazy. And once I started doing it a little bit, that’s the only way I wanted to kill him anymore. I didn’t care to pass shoot them or jump shoot, I should say. I don’t mind pass shoot every now and again.

Ramsey Russell: Is that where you really got into it when you moved out, when you moved to go to college out in North Dakota? Is that when you kind of rounded the curve on hunting? And did you spend as much time in a duck blind as you did in the classroom?

Nick Marcy: Oh, yeah, for sure. Duck hunting has always been a big deal for me. I grew up in a family of deer hunters, actually. And I can remember being 16, sitting in the bow stand and watching ducks fly by, thinking, what am I doing here?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: Ever since then, my dad still doesn’t understand. He doesn’t believe that I can come from a big game family and like chasing waterfowl so much.

Ramsey Russell: I get it.

Nick Marcy: I grew up with things that can fly.

Ramsey Russell: Me and you both. I wish deer flew, that make it real sporting with archery. How did you 2 guys meet?

Matthew Piehl: I’ll let Nick go on that one.

Nick Marcy: Well, the way I met Matt was would have been my last year of college, I just finished up, didn’t have no plans. I actually finished my college in the summer, coming into the fall, didn’t have no plans for anything. And one of my good buddies had – I can’t remember if he was buying decoys or selling decoys to Matt’s buddy Dewey, but there’s money being exchanged and my buddy Jeff didn’t know this guy. So he’s like, hey, you want to ride with me? So we went up there and made the exchange little bar in North Dakota, sat down, had some beers and then Dewey was telling us about his buddy Matt was starting a guide service and was looking for 2 guys that were young guys that were ate up with snow goose hunting and that’s pretty much all me and Jeff did in the springtime is ran each other in the ground. I would go to class a minimum enough to take tests and any other time I was chasing snows. So we’ve started pretty much said, yeah, we’re in and had a dark and so –

Ramsey Russell: Matt, did Dirty Birds start as a snow goose guide because both you and Nick are eat up with white birds.

Matthew Piehl: Yep. No, we started as a snow goose guide. Yeah, that was really where it all started was doing snow goose stuff. Like he said Dewey’s the one that – he was my main guide when we first started and I mean the whole thing was a bar napkin idea. We were hunting snows and down around Oaks, North Dakota, eating dinner one night and I was at the stage in my oil field career where I was managing a rig, at the time I was looking at going consulting for an oil company and I kind of made the comment that when I go consulting, I’ll probably need more of a tax write off, we should do something. Well, I never did wait for the consulting day, I mean, I turned down quite a few consulting jobs, but we ended up starting it. And originally, we were just going to do Central Flyway, we weren’t even –

Nick Marcy: we weren’t even going to go to Arkansas. We’re going to do Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas.

Matthew Piehl: Yep. And then I was at work, I think I had switched rigs or something that spring and I was in Dewey had called me and said, hey, can we go to Arkansas? And I said, well, I mean, we don’t have any clients, but yeah, let me see what I can do, and this is in the days before Facebook ads were, you just didn’t have money into them or anything like that. We ended up with, I don’t know, 10 days worth of clients or something like that down there, enough to make it worth going down there. Nick always jokes around that for the first year he didn’t even know who I was because I was so busy. Like I said, I think I got switched rigs or something, I didn’t meet, Nick and his buddy Jeff worked for me, I didn’t meet them until South Dakota that year. So it’s definitely the beginning of it all was kind of about as botched, but about as perfect as it could be to end up to where it is today. We went to Arkansas on a whim and I mean, we’re probably out of all the snow goose outfitters in Arkansas, we’re probably one of the long standing ones. Not a lot of people probably realize, we’re going into our 10^th season down there.

Ramsey Russell: You all been at it a good long time and I think it’s important. That’s why I knew you all originated initially focused because both of you were so passionate about snow geese, I knew that’s kind of how Dirty Bird Outfitter started. When did it transition into a fall season also was that just spring clients asking for fall hunting opportunities up in the Dakotas?

Matthew Piehl: There was a little bit of that, but we originally got, I originally applied for the North Dakota outfitter license so that we could jump the border in the spring because we always had to stop in South Dakota and whether it be migration, whether it be weather, whatever, it always seemed like every year we had some type of carryover client because we couldn’t continue on or whatever, so the opportunity came up to get our North Dakota license. And so, I went and tested out and took it. and North Dakota, there’s a bunch of not – I don’t want to say hurdles you have to jump through, but you have to test, you have to – they require you to be insured, which we already were insured, but they require a bunch, whereas it’s not like Arkansas, you can walk into the Game and Fish place in Arkansas and buy a guide license. North Dakota, you have to do a bunch of stuff. So originally –

Ramsey Russell: I tell you what, there’s an increasing sentiment that a lot of states ought to be that way, you know what I’m saying?

Matthew Piehl: There is.

Ramsey Russell: I heard a conversation the other day that I tell you what, you asked the North Dakota state biologist how many outfitters there are. If you have some of these other states that are getting clobbered without staters and guides and stuff like that, they have no idea.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, no, I know everyone. They know Every one of us. And the nice thing about that is there’s also a level of a working relationship with them. Even just going like, going to this spring, now, this last spring, there was a US, was it USGS Nick or US? There was a – I got a guy testing for some bird flu stuff.

Nick Marcy: He was with the Department of Ag.

Matthew Piehl: Department of Ag.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matthew Piehl: But he originally got our name and our number from the Game and Fish.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matthew Piehl: So, I mean, like I said, there’s a working relationship there where you go down to some of those places and I know exactly what you’re saying. They couldn’t tell you who’s guiding, who is.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I want to ask you a question, not to put you on the spot, but I want to ask you this question. You operate in North Dakota, where all of your peers, your other outfitters up there are licensed. You go to states, you all named a half dozen a little while ago, you’ve been to other states that you operate or that you hunt where the outfitters are not licensed. Can you draw a stark contrast between professionalism or any other aspect between licensed versus unlicensed outfitters? Can you speak off the record and say, man, these guys don’t have any skin in the game. They haven’t done anything, they haven’t applied, they don’t – they haven’t paid, they haven’t been to any training or whatever the process is. I mean, can you tell a difference?

Matthew Piehl: Yes and no, I mean, you can tell which – I mean, there’s a lot of outfits out there that are, probably you consider fly by night. What we have kind of seen throughout the 10 years in our time span with all that is, they don’t typically last very long. But for reasons, whether it be, the way they work with customers, the way they work with landowners, the way they work, the way they work in general. North Dakota, it seems like if the outfitters put in the time to test out, put in the time to have, put the skin in the game with it, like they’re all in, like whether it be their customer satisfaction, whether it be the way they run their hunts, whether, typically, for the most part, it’s probably a better. It seems like it’s a better – I don’t want to say always better run, but they put more into it, I guess you could –

Ramsey Russell: Well, you just say to me that if somebody has to go through the process of becoming a registered or licensed outfitter, that if I drew from 2 pools a bucket that isn’t a bucket that is, that possibly the ones that are, it’s going to be a more professional approach to it, which is not to say you have to be, because I know lots and lots of outfitters, a lot of them listening right now. But I know a lot of outfitters work with a lot of outfitters that run professional top notch outfits in states that you don’t need licenses.

Matthew Piehl: Yep. But I bet you –

Ramsey Russell: But every outfitter I know can tell you about the fly by nighters they have to deal with.

Matthew Piehl: Yep. And I bet you each one of those outfitters you’re talking about that are listening that do run professional companies, if they were told you need to have first aid and CPR, you need to have this level of insurance, you need to come take this test, every one of them would go do it. It’s kind of like it’s been brought up to us before, oh, what if, this state goes to this? Well, then we’ll go do it, like that’s where we operate, that’s what we’ll go do. The one thing that’s nice is we don’t have, up here and there’s become more throughout the years, but we don’t have, outfitters stepping on each other’s toes left and right. Now we control a very large area of land up here, but still, we don’t have –

Ramsey Russell: You all really do the times I’ve hunted with you, you all cover a big old chunk of North Dakota.

Matthew Piehl: We do, yep. Yeah, we do.

Ramsey Russell: Nick will drop a pin and it could be 10 minutes or it could be further.

Matthew Piehl: Well, he’ll drop a pin or he’ll tell you go down to this road and then turn left at that red barn and then turn left at that old church and then, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, then you’re done that.

Nick Marcy: Its North Dakota, you got to navigate by landmark.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Go by the cliff. Well, changing subjects, talk about habitat conditions, water, crops, migratory bird numbers, because, the big story this spring we were talking a lot about the spring and summer was how dry the prairie pothole region was. But you all – man, I started getting reports May, maybe in May or maybe early June, but man, you all started catching some water, didn’t you?

Matthew Piehl: Yeah. No it was.

Ramsey Russell: From what you could see running around you all’s neck of the woods? I mean, could you all see birds coming? Did ducks and geese hatch out? I mean, were things changing? Could you see the change?

Matthew Piehl: Nick would know more than I would on this one because I and during the summer, short of taking the dog for a run, I drive the same road every day back and forth to the gun range still. Nick would know more, but as far as water conditions wise like June came along and well, even late May, I’ve never had to pump so much water off of trap fields stuff like that, the bit of land that we rent out for farmland, they had to come back in and replant due to washout. So we had a lot of water and especially in the eastern part of the state, as far as where we hunt. Nick will be able to tell you more on that right now.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the scoop, Nick? Was it too little, too late for increased productivity and what’s going to look like this fall?

Unpredictable Winter Weather Impacts Waterfowl.

I mean, there was no snow pack when we got up here this spring for spring snow geese. The snow geese were here the earliest I’ve ever seen them in North Dakota by the house because there was nothing to stop them.

Nick Marcy: We got rain when we needed it, for going through a winter that we didn’t have a winter. I mean, there was no snow pack when we got up here this spring for spring snow geese. The snow geese were here the earliest I’ve ever seen them in North Dakota by the house because there was nothing to stop them. And like Matt said, I want to say it was mid to late May, we started catching rains and then it just never stopped raining for about a month it seemed like. But we didn’t get it as bad as the East. We got rains to where our crops are good, we didn’t get the rains to where they washed them out and they had to replant. So crops look good, we had a lot of young, there’s a lot of little ducks, quite a few little geese. It kind of recharged all that rainwater recharged all the temporary wetlands that were out in the middle of fields and stuff. Things that guys got to dig that they got to dig up the last couple years now, but, oh, kind of got a fresh start on them. We’re sitting way better than I would have thought we would have after coming out of that winter. Last winter we didn’t have a winter, but there was no snow –

Ramsey Russell: How does the habitat, based on the last 10, 15 years of being out in that neck of the woods hunting, what does it look like to receive and hold and hunt migratory birds and ducks that ducks and geese that are fixing to come down.

Nick Marcy: I would say we’re looking like we were probably about 4 years ago right before we went into this dry cycle. We’re probably not to where like when we were flooded out a few years ago or few years before that, but it’s good. There is some rather large duck feeds for as early in the season and it’s a lot of young ducks.

Ramsey Russell: That’s good, that’s good to hear.

Nick Marcy: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: When did you all see as a kick off, Nick?

Nick Marcy: So I will be running our – We got youth weekend this weekend so kids can hunt Saturday, Sunday, then the following Saturday, September 21^st, it opens for residents for a week and then September 28^th is when it opens for everyone. So season – the fall season is here.

Ramsey Russell: You all are here, man. You all are getting all the last minute touches ready and clients coming in and everything else. It’s here, boy, if it youth weekend opens up, opens that’d be the mid-September is when we’re recording this, that’s incredible and then here come the birds. One thing I’ve always found interesting is when you jump across the border into Canada, you hear this bad mouthed a lot from people down south that don’t understand, but shooting brown ducks because the birds haven’t molted out yet like what we used to see them in the deep south wind up. North of Canadian border, you can shoot 8 mallards and when you jump into 8 mallards, either 6. When you jump down in North Dakota that same week, they hold you to the hand limit and its still brown ducks. I never will forget one of the first times I hunted with you, Nick, it was boy, there were ducks coming in like I ain’t never seen, they were all brown. But once you focus and you got these flocks, we’re talking about presenting yourself. Once the ducks start presenting themselves and you’re watching, that’s all whispering up and down the A frame, we could pick those drakes. It’s really, if you just pay attention, you can see those drakes, looking at – I look at the bill color. What features do you look at for selecting drakes from hens early season?

Nick Marcy: Try and get him as close as you can say, like you said, bill color or that brown chestnut.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: That’s like the first color that drake will put on. But the only thing you got to watch out there is like an old hen mallard will have that same coloration.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Nick Marcy: That if you listen to them as they work around, if you can hear that there’s a lot of drake’s whistling in one part of the flock or something, you can kind of focus in there. But a lot of times we’re getting them so close that you can tell by their bill color.

Ramsey Russell: And that same morning, that we did that, there were a lot of pintails, we limited on pintails one apiece at the time. And I mean, most people were choosing drakes, I mean, you can. To me, a pintail is almost as easy to pick just because the drakes are so much lighter than the hens.

Nick Marcy: Greg pintail, he starts putting out white on way early, I mean, when season first opens, you can tell a drake break from a hand on the pintail pretty easy, right? In my opinion, at least.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. And when you say it, I’ve always said, usually by mid October, which is pretty darn quick man, it’s about 2 weeks after the early sea – after you all’s non-residents can start to hunt up there in late September, but usually by mid-October, you start seeing enough color. They’re still molting, but I start seeing enough color in those drakes, I can really pick out the drakes. Isn’t that pretty fair, 2^nd or 3^rd week of October, soon after it opens and same things be set up in Canada, I mean, boy, by mid-October, you can really work over the drakes if you want to.

Nick Marcy: Yeah, no, I would say that’s pretty fair assessment. Normally that by the 2^nd week October, the old mallards got green on their heads enough to where you can tell when they’re working in.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: It’s like it almost happens overnight. You’ll start seeing them first couple green heads in the flock and it’s literally within probably 5 to 7 days, and it seems like everything’s colored up for the most part.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. What are you looking at in terms of leg bands? Now, we’ve had this conversation before and I love it, but first time I met you, Nick, is somebody that has shot a whole lot of mallards like you all do out in North Dakota, I asked you about band, you shrugged, so we don’t shoot the band, I ain’t got advance. We got one that year, every time I hunted with you, we got one when I had that old yellow dog. But it really isn’t, for some reason, you all are in kind of a band like, they’re not just a tremendous amount of leg bands, is it?

Nick Marcy: No. Last fall was actually probably our best fall for shooting duck bands. I think we – What do we end up with Matt? We had 2 pintail bands, mallards –

Matthew Piehl: 2 pintail bands, 2 mallards. One of them was a –

Nick Marcy: Backpack.

Matthew Piehl: One of them was a backpack.

Ramsey Russell: Where was it from?

Matthew Piehl: Grand Forks, actually.

Nick Marcy: Grand Forks.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Matthew Piehl: Yep. Ground forks. So both, the funny thing about both was – believe both those mallard bands came out same field, which we’ve shot that general area, I suppose, over the last, oh, 4 years, we’ve shot. I would probably say that general area is where we’ve shot majority of our mallard bands. I mean, I think Nick shot 1 or 2 up north, but I know one –

Nick Marcy: You killed one off the lake.

Matthew Piehl: I killed one off the lake. We killed 2 other ones back behind the farm and then the 2 last year. I mean, it’s just that goes to show that for us to shoot mallard bands anyways or duck bands is pretty, not exactly a common thing for us. The fact that I can look back probably 3 years in my mind because I’m not a person that really remembers a whole lot and I can tell you we shot so many here or there or whatever. And the funny thing is, most of them have probably been from birds around the state that have ended up there, I don’t know, I mean, I know 3 of them for sure are all from different band locations around the state.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’m going to tell you what I miss that old chicken dog, Nick, she was a band magnet and I don’t pick up near as many bands without her. Char is a great dog, but she don’t sniff out those bands like that chicken dog would.

Nick Marcy: Doesn’t have the magical touch?

Ramsey Russell: Doesn’t have the magical touch.

Matthew Piehl: I think I’m on a different role. My old mojo, he never – It was very rare that he brought any in. Now, my yellow dog, Arthur, he’s got a lucky horseshoe around him.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I like those kind of dogs myself, I like those kind of dogs. You all hunt and up in North Dakota, we shoot – you all shoot ducks, you all shoot geese and you all shoot swans. Let’s talk first about the duck and goose hunt, what’s a typical hunt? September, October, I guess you all season runs on up into early November in North Dakota for the typical fall season. Would that be right?

Matthew Piehl: Yep. So we were in on the eastern part of the state where we run with the lodging and meals, we run right into the middle of November. We’re around enough big chunks of water that, out of the years we’ve been at that lodge, I think there’s only one year I had to leave a day early. I had to head out to some open water one day early, but other than that, there’s been more times than not that we’ve actually probably been able to stay there longer, like stay till Thanksgiving time frame, if we wanted to, just because stuff hasn’t been froze or there’s just still been plenty of birds around. And last year, when we left to head west, it was, I mean, there’s probably more ducks around when we left to head west than there was, 2 weeks prior, that’s just –

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matthew Piehl: It was good. Now, 2 weeks prior, there was a bunch of ducks, but they were definitely stale, tough. I’ve never blown my duck call so much, just the sheet –

Ramsey Russell: This year that winter didn’t come, that’s the problem. Just no ducks hung around and you all got to hunt untypically, but you all got to hunt ducks like we hunt down south. Ducks that know the drill and that makes for tough, that made for tough hunting, say the least. When you all have these clients come in during that time frame for you all ducks and geese. I know we sent a lot of folks over there to you because it’s such a great hunt, but what would you say most people are after? Or would you say – is it fair to say that most southern hunters anymore are after the Ducks instead of the geese or vice versa. Me personally, I like to go north because you all have so many geese, that’s kind of my – We don’t have the goose hunting culture down here, so I’m attracted. The ducks are going to come whether we hunt water or fields, it seems like the ducks are always around those feeds, but I’m excited for the geese. What are most of your clients expectations when they show up?

Matthew Piehl: Most of our clients are looking for ducks, looking for a field duck hunt. There’s very few times where we can’t provide a good field duck hunt, that’s just kind of what the prairies of North Dakota are known for, I guess and what we can offer. We do have the occasional clients that, that want to come in and shoot geese, but it’s more guys that want to shoot ducks than anything.

Ramsey Russell: I get that. Nick, when you’re out there scouting, are you looking for a goose feed, which necessarily implies ducks or are you looking for a duck feed? Are you looking for a good combo? How do you. What are you looking for? And how do you decide this is going to be tomorrow’s banger?

Nick Marcy: I normally try and find, if I can, I’d find a straight duck feed. Most guys are happy shooting their ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: And then I don’t have to clean their geese when we’re done.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: I have a rule that Canada geese are only meant to be shot if there’s snow on the ground.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: Outside of that, you just let them fly. Just don’t want to deal with something.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like skinning a deer a lot of times. It is a lot of work cleaning those big Canada geese. There’s no doubt about it. No doubt about it.

Nick Marcy: In the fall, I’ll get excited, like if we get, find some specks mixed into a feed or something, then, yeah, I might try and hit that up or if we got the right snows around, maybe try and shoot a few snow geese here and there. But ducks are just so much easier, everybody has a good time, they’re all happy when it’s done. A lot of people come in and say that they want to shoot mallards, but I’ve never heard anybody complain when that flock of wigeon drop in the decoys and you call the shop. They’re just happy to shoot.

Unusual Dry Field Hunts: A Unique Waterfowling Experience.

I’ve hunted with you all over dry fields or sometimes Nick, it might be just a little bit of flash water out in front of us or around us, but it’s dry field feeding and I have shot, oftentimes shot wigeon, pintails out there in the field with you.

Ramsey Russell: It’s interesting you say that because it’s a lot of the times I’ve hunted with you all over dry fields or sometimes Nick, it might be just a little bit of flash water out in front of us or around us, but it’s dry field feeding and I have shot, oftentimes shot wigeon, pintails out there in the field with you. I can remember the one time who shooting – You remember those ducks were coming off the water and doing one a days and they weren’t coming off till about 02:00 in the afternoon. But it was really and truly, I think one afternoon on Hamburger Hill we called it, I know for a fact, mallards, pintails, wigeons, green winged teal, we shot some ring necks, we shot some shovelers, it was crazy. Those birds just were coming into those decoys, it was crazy the number of birds we shot. I know a ringneck duck wasn’t commonly shot in a dry field, but we shot a pair that afternoon and a lot of green wings and we shot some shovelers, very atypical of doing something like that. Let’s talk about the swan hunting because North Dakota is a great destination to go and check a swan. You all are a great outfitter to swan hunt with, that’s where I got my North Dakota swan hunting with you all, Seth took me out, we had a great hunt. It used to be you could buy a swan tag over the counter, has it still changed where you’ve got to apply now if you want a shot of getting one?

Nick Marcy: Yeah, I haven’t seen the real numbers come out yet, but there was people that got turned down this year. So, I don’t know how many people applied to how many tags they gave out, but there was people that got turned down.

Ramsey Russell: That was one of the downsides of the pandemic is preceding the pandemic, I never took the time to go chase a swan. It was after the pandemic I decided I wanted to shoot a North Dakota swan and I had to apply because, people couldn’t go to Canada during the pandemic, so they went to North Dakota or South Dakota or somewhere else. And if they’re going to buy a license, they might as well buy a swan tag in case one flies over and the rest is history. Am I right?

Matthew Piehl: You’re 100% right. It still kind of, I guess puzzles me is, we’re past that, obviously, where the gentlemen that – or the groups that were going to Canada are probably going back to Canada, maybe some of them are staying in North Dakota, realizing that the hunt quality in North Dakota, during their time frame is just as good as it would be in Canada, but the fact that we went from such a – I mean, I think the one year, not too far before the pandemic, I think there was like 300, 400 licenses left over.

Nick Marcy: Yeah, there was a year – 400.

Matthew Piehl: So to where we’ve now had years where there’s 500, 600 people not getting drawn.

Ramsey Russell: For swans. Yep.

Matthew Piehl: For swan.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matthew Piehl: But so where did all that come from? That’s what puzzles me is – yeah, I got it, I understood it during that time frame because people couldn’t go to Canada. But now that Canada opened back, we were obviously hoping that once Canada opened back up in that sense that the swan lottery would kind of go back to what it was. I mean, it just hasn’t, I guess that’s just part of it. Most people –

Ramsey Russell: I think what’s driving it is so many people are wanting to collect the North American waterfowl species or waterfowl hunting experiences or both.

Matthew Piehl: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: I think that’s what’s driving it. I mean, I’ve had people, I’ve had waterfowl hunters say, why would you shoot a swan? Well, it’s the largest legal waterfowl in North America, it’s a beautiful regal bird that’s hunted totally different than – whereas when Seth and I go out to hunt in North Dakota, we’re setting up totally different than what we would set up. You all were setting up that same morning to shoot ducks and geese with the. With the clients. Totally different setup. So you get to see a whole different part of North Dakota, so to speak and experience a whole new species, I love shooting swans, I really do. I wish there were more places you could hunt them. I love swan hunt.

Matthew Piehl: They’re fun, they’re fun bird to shoot, once you – I mean, you decoy one and it’s a whole different experience.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, totally different.

Matthew Piehl: Not a lot of people realize, I always tell people, yeah, until I met Nick, I’ve shot plenty of swans in my life, but until I met Nick, had I ever decoyed one? No, I definitely snuck up on a lot of them.

Ramsey Russell: Well, Nick, when did you shoot your first one? Did you shoot that back in your college days? You get out to North Dakota, fall into waterfowl heaven and say, wow, I’m going to shoot one of these big white birds, is that kind of how that came about?

Nick Marcy: The second year that I lived in North Dakota, I got a swan tag, though the very first year I lived here, I did not have a swan tag. There’s also the one and only time I’ve ever seen a neck colored swan in my decoys.

Ramsey Russell: The one and only time. How do you all typically swan hunt? And if you were going to explain to somebody listening about coming to North Dakota to swan hunt, how they typically hunted, what’s the application process and how many days? I would say, you’re crazy if you go up there and allow just one day, you need a couple at least or 3 days really to fall into the swan because they’re different. Am I right?

Nick Marcy: Oh, yeah. So the way the application works is lottery opens up normally mid to late July and then closes early August. Game and Fish gives you about 2 to 3 week window to apply for tag. The way our swan hunt kind of works, I would recommend a 3 day, that’s kind of what we push people towards. We’re hunting them on normally smaller bodies of water surrounded by bigger bodies of water. You’re trying to catch swans coming in to feed, just through the years of driving around, we got a couple places that like historically we can go. You’ll probably shoot a swan fairly easy, but you just never know us. I call it swan time, when you’re swan hunting, a swan’s not like a duck or a goose. He doesn’t get up in the morning. He might get up at noon –

Ramsey Russell: Day sleep.

Nick Marcy: He might get up at 2. You wait on him to get up and move around, that’s the toughest thing with them because in the early days I did make some mistakes of sit there most of the day and clients being like, hey, well can we go get something to eat? Yeah, let’s do that and then come back to the decoys. Swans sitting in the decoys.

Ramsey Russell: To your point, you’re exactly right, it requires a commitment because they don’t get up to crack a dawn, they sleep in, they do their thing and we went out to a Great Lake. Seth and I did, we had our ducks lickety split and then the wait began and we were sitting in water. It was cold for Southern boy, especially, not for Nick Marcy, but for a Southern boy, it was cold. And I can’t remember what Seth had done, but the first bird to come out and look up and here he comes and he was borderline too far, I missed him, I’m thinking and boy, I was sitting there pouting and feeling bad because this was now after lunch and that was the only bird I’d seen and I missed him, just took a borderline too far shot. And they’re faster than they look unless they got their wings back and their paddles down and I was sitting there pouting like, well, I blew it, I got one day to do this and I blew it. And there directly we look up and here comes a bunch of them, they finally woke up, here come some pods and one pod pass, 2^nd pod pass, boom, 3^rd flock dumped right into the decoys and we were done. It was just about 03:00 in the afternoon, but that was a wonderful hunt, we had a great time doing that. Do you all get a lot of calls for coming swan hunting?

Matthew Piehl: We do. it seems like it’s kind of a scattered thing, like last fall, I had a ton of calls and I told guys – at the time, we weren’t putting anybody on the books for swans quite yet, but, get back with me. I talked to a couple of them this year and they either didn’t apply or whatever. We tend to get more calls after people start applying, which the tough part on that for us is you’re either already full or we’re already scheduled out for duck hunts during that time frame. I kind of tell everybody, if you’re looking for a swan hunt, your best time is to book is in the spring and yes, the lottery is not out at that point in time, but if you do not get drawn, we will either move you forward or we will then transition you into a duck hunt. I think of all the years since the lottery has kind of turned into what it is, we’ve had 2 clients that haven’t been drawn. Other than that, most guys have gotten drawn, but it kind of seems like it’s – we do get a lot of calls on it, but then it kind of quiets down, people And I know people are waiting to see lottery results, whatever, but by that time, it’s usually too late, whether it be duck hunts that we have scheduled in or whether it be other swan hunts that are already scheduled and it’s just usually too late –

Ramsey Russell: Well, I mean, even if they would call up, say, hey, I’m making an application, I’d like to come hunt, I’d like to make it to pod, I’d like to get some dates going. If I don’t get drawn, maybe I could punt it down to a future season when I do get drawn. And I can understand, I’m sure you all get a lot of phone calls from guys that call in August, September, hey, I got drawn and I want to come for a day while I’m out there already. And I can’t imagine how hard – I mean, it’s impossible to run an outfit and then cater to an individual going for one day. For a bird, that can take a couple of days.

Matthew Piehl: In our swan hunts, we’ve transitioned into with our swan hunts, it’s a minimum of 3 days just because it is a trophy bird, so that’s, one part of it. The other part of it is we don’t want, obviously, somebody to have a bad taste in their mouth over whether it be, they came one day, they saw one swan, missed it or they saw 2 swans, they didn’t decoy. Well, they’re a bird that there might be just a couple around one day and there might be hundreds around the next day, that’s just how they are.

Ramsey Russell: What prompts them to typically push down into North Dakota. What is it? Is it a big front? Is it a little front? Is it a calendar date when you all start seeing swans coming in?

Nick Marcy: I would say a calendar date.

Ramsey Russell: They’re calendar migrators. It doesn’t take a weather event.

Nick Marcy: They’re around the 15^th of October, you’re going to start seeing swans no matter what.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Nick Marcy: If you get some, I mean, like a big cold front, it might push some down earlier, but definitely a calendar bird. We normally only run swan hunts from October – I think the earliest we’ve ever filled one is what we shoot one last year, Matt the 12^th of October?

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, it was pretty early.

Nick Marcy: And that group couldn’t, we couldn’t fit them in any other time. We made it happen, but that’s about the 15^th October –

Ramsey Russell: No pressure or nothing. Nick.

Nick Marcy: November 1^st.

Matthew Piehl: Now, if we had Seth on this, his teeth would still probably be chattering with how nervous he was. Yeah, he did a great job, he got it done. And like Nick said, we have some spots that year in and year out we know are going, there’s going to be birds there, but going into, especially coming into a situation where you’re almost probably a week early, plus, it was warm, so he was nervous, like I said, he did a great job, made it happen. He was short of people either missing their swans or just pretty much, we’ve had a couple guys just opt out on not like they wanted to go duck hunting, they, swan hunted for a day or 2. The rest of the people in the group, whereas people in the group tagged out and they wanted to just go duck hunting. We’ve never had anybody leave here that hasn’t at least had –

Nick Marcy: Opportunity.

Matthew Piehl: The opportunity to take their swan if you know.

Ramsey Russell: That’s good. I’m changing subjects now, but how is your – last time I was there, you all had just moved into your new lodge, amazing meals you all had the father, that’s father, the mother, daughter team cooking, it was great, I loved it. How’s that working out for you all?

Matthew Piehl: It’s working out really good. It’s great, it’s home away from home for brought all of us, plus home away from home for a lot of our clients. They Kelly and Dean and Calvin and Mara and Wyatt, they all kind of make it seem, the boys will come in from farming and talk to clients and sit there and BS and Dean will come in and tell stories about his elk on the wall and that a lot of what we’ve heard from everybody is it feels like they’re coming – Feels like they’re going home for lunch and dinner after their hunt and that’s going into – We were at a stage where we needed to cross the bridge of whether or not purchase some land, build a lodge, do something because it’s just where we were with this, and he came to me and said, hey, we kind of want to do this or we’re wondering if this would be something you’re interested in and it couldn’t work better for the fact of my plate is already heaping full. I don’t know that I could put another side dish on my own plate, so the fact that there’s a lot of stuff there that I don’t have to take care of. But we have that partnership of having that lodge and having that relationship, I mean, they’re family to us just as much as we’re family to them. And so it works out really good.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. I love it. I’ve been up there way back in the day, we stayed in hotels and ate out and had a great time doing that, but at the same time, boy, it’s a lot to be said for just coming home, going back to my bedroom, taking a nap, getting up, eating lunch, whatever. Yeah, it just made a huge difference, I think the lodge experience is wonderful, I sure do. Let’s transition finally into snow goose because Dirty Bird Outfitters, you all do some snow goose feed, you all do some snow goose hunts up north, but you also do a you wrap up your calendar year, so to speak, down south in Arkansas shooting snow geese, you all been there for a long time. And snow geese are an interesting species to me because like a lot of listeners, like a lot of people I meet while hunting in Canada to Mississippi, snow geese is oftentimes reviled as a sky carp or something, I hate that word, but I used to say it myself. It was just – and it really and truly I can remember going way back young into college back in the 90s, going down to Texas, back when Texas was the place to go to shoot them out on the Garwood prairie, limit was 5 and it was wonderful. And then all came back, conservation order season and man snow geese went mainstream because all of a sudden, you’ve got this abundant resource that has in a lot of places no bag limit, on those days you run out ammo or something like that on those rare days, I should say. Since 98 it was invented, I’ve had 2 or 3 of those days that we either limited because Canada does put a limit on it, but we either limited or we just we had those wonderful shoots. But I’ve had not to say I didn’t have a lot of great snow goose hunts I’ve had a lot of great snow goose hunts that did not involve anywhere near a limit because it’s such an amazing bird. It’s so funny that since 1998, having hunted so far and wide throughout North America, how snow geese, which is to say snows and rosses and blues, have become almost a favorite species up in Canada. I don’t think there’s a better waterfowl species to eat in the spring and the fall than a snow goose. They’re easy to clean, they’re delicious to eat, I love them. Getting up in the prayer where you all are same thing and it’s just – We all talk about the presentation, well, whereas if I go out on a duck hunt and I don’t shoot nearby the limit, probably didn’t see much going on out there. But one of those memorable hunts with you all down in Arkansas, I’ve had several, but one, we went out to a feed, it was clear as a bell, not a breath of wind. And that is not the day you want to hunt snow geese.

Matthew Piehl: I know exactly what this one you’re talking about.

Ramsey Russell: We put out about 15 acres. I’m exaggerating, but we put out one heck of a lot of decoys and most of the flocks that flew over stalled out there at about 70 yards, 100 yards just floated, looking down at us, 50,000 eyeballs. And of those, we did shoot, I think we finished with about a dozen or 15 birds. But that was the morning I realized that as a pretty wholesome constellation tonight pulling the trigger a lot is to look up and see that spectacle of all those geese just hovering, I never get tired of it. It’s one of those things, I never ever get tired of it and if you go, if you sift through enough of the chafe of days like that the weather doesn’t cooperate, or for whatever reason the geese don’t cooperate, you eventually land into those days that you never forget, where every goose that comes over for whatever reason wants to dump into the decoys. And on that same hunt, I believe it was another hunt I was with you all, we had some guys that wanted to quit and I regretted inviting, to be honest with you. And one day it was freaking raining and they didn’t want to hunt the rain and sure enough, when the birds came off into the feed, they by God didn’t mind the rain and we all watched it from the truck, and never mind Matt kept saying, we need to wait them, we need to wait out, I’m telling you. And sure enough, there was nothing and once they started dumping in, it was too late, you know what I’m saying. And then the second hunt was with them same boys, they wanted to quit again and get on the road and I fought tooth and nail to stay with it. We got set up in this little – it was like a little narrow funnel.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah. Little triangle field.

Ramsey Russell: We were sitting in the trees, which was weird and we shot some birds and well, that’s it we want to go, I’m like, man, I think we ought to stick it out. Nope, we got to go, we got to drive. And off they go, they were media group or something and they had to go. And boy, that afternoon, you all had a team come in, put them in that field and that was one of them hunts they never forgot. Yeah, I mean, they limited on birds and it was just – You could just about shoot across that whole little triangle. They limited on birds, they shot several bands and I’m like, gosh, it’s worth waiting for sometimes.

Matthew Piehl: Sometimes they make you put in – I mean, that’s for as many bad hunts as I’ve had, which any snow goose hunter, if they tell you they don’t ever have a bad hunt, well, then they don’t hunt snow geese, because they happen, I mean, they’re a very intelligent bird. But the hunts that you get that they work the right way or they work the way you want them to or that makes up for every bit of it. But yeah, sometimes they make you put in the work to get to that point, though. That’s for sure.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t mind it, though. And I’ll be honest with you, you all are the type outfit that makes the “the work easy on the clients”, because normally we sleep in, get up, fix a pot of coffee, eat a sweet roll or whatever, drive to a pen and there’s 5 acres of decoys waiting on us. So I mean, that makes it easy. Now all we got to do is sit and wait and I don’t know what it is about snow geese I love, but especially in the spring when those birds are coming through, it is so freaking – It’s like pulling a slot limit handle, ding, ding, it either happen, the stars line up or it don’t. There’s no predicting when I book this trip, there’s no predicting what the wind’s going to be, what the weather’s going to be, what the migration is going to be. And one of the biggest almost hunts ever is I was scheduled to come up there and hunt with you all the first week or so of the season and I showed up big time. Boy, I tell you what, I could have played hockey on my patio down here in Deep South and there was no getting there, and the clients that were hunting with Nick couldn’t leave. Nick, what happened when that happened?

Nick Marcy: Got a lot of geese in about 7 days. A lot of geese.

Ramsey Russell: And my buddy Nick kept wearing me out, make sure he knew what I was missing. Yeah, I got all the pictures. When you all hunt these snow geese, it’s been 98, it’s been almost – It’s been a long time, 20 something years. It’s been a long time since this conservation order has been established. Is the anticipation of the average guy showing up, is it still that once in a lifetime experience? I mean, do you feel that pressure on you.

Matthew Piehl: With some clients? Yeah. In the media world we live in today, I mean, every outfitter lives and dies by media, that’s just how it is. It’s a great thing. You want people to see how you’re doing, you want people to see the realistic ness of it all, but at the same point in time, there’s those people out there that are showing every YouTube video that they put out is a hunter bird shoot or that, so you get a lot of that still, but for the most part a lot of our clients, I mean, we still do get new clients, don’t get me wrong. But a lot of our clients have hunted with us, they know what to expect or they’ve hunted with somebody else and they know they want something better than what they have, but they also know that, they have expectations. I think a lot of people, they continue to strive for that 100 bird shoot. The ones that – those guys that come in wanting to shoot 100 birds and but still are happy with their hunt, those ones that aren’t the ones that bother me one, it’s the guys that we get that, want this, multiple 100 birds shoot and we shoot 90 birds and it still wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t a 250 bird –

Ramsey Russell: Multiple days of those big bag shoots does happen. It’s just the stars have to line up, there’s no predicting. And it’s like I have sat in a blind and not fired a shot for 2 days and on the 3^rd day, it happens because something changed, the bird showed up, the weather changed, something happened and you got to go with the flow and to me, the risk is worth the reward. But at the same time, I really think that we have gotten, I think that snow geese have spoiled us, I really do. All these years, since 98 or 99, since this – I think it spoiled us, I think seeing all this social media has spoiled us. And I was hunting in Canada last fall and there was a bunch of us, it was 9 or 10 of us, which is easy to hide in the white. But just for whatever reason, the birds decided to feed, hit a new feed. Some of the flocks that first flew over decided they wanted to go hit a new feed and started pulling a lot of birds off of us and I think we shot about half a limit, so say, 10 apiece, that was one hell of a shoot, are you kidding? Because the birds we shot were decoying, I mean, in your face. But still there was disappointment because it wasn’t 20 apiece and I’m like, man, I can remember going all the way down to Katy, Texas, back in the day to shoot 5 on a good day. And I’m sitting here looking at, man, I just shot twice that many and they decoy, it was wonderful.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, that’s where the level of success, I mean, you talked earlier about, like, the stages of hunters where your level of success, what you consider success changes. I mean, you look at, okay, so you look at North Dakota’s early Canada goose season, I remember when it was 5 and then it was 8 and now it’s 15. we could go out there and shoot 5 geese and apiece and that was unreal, that was awesome, it was crazy. Now you go out there and you didn’t shoot your 15, but you shot 7 or 8 or 10 like, that’s still an amazing hunt. That’s the inflated limits on a lot of that stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy them at times, yes, but I still think, like I said earlier, some of my best hunts, I probably haven’t even been close to limits.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matthew Piehl: The limit doesn’t – but it’s the same thing with snow geese, some of my favorite snow goose hunts. obviously, spring in Canada is great. Spring anywhere, but Canada has a limit and when it comes across, I mean, I’ve had days up in Canada in the spring where I’ve shot 10 or 15 birds, but it’s been 10 or 15 birds right at my boot bank.

Ramsey Russell: Right. Those are the days you remember, those are the birds you remember. Nick, have you still got your retriever, your lab?

Nick Marcy: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: What’s his name?

Nick Marcy: Jack.

Ramsey Russell: Jack, what a beast. What a big beast that dog is. That dog’s unbelievable, I’ve seen him, he’s a big lab and had more hunt than any dog I’ve ever been around. I mean, I never forget one time we dropped a duck or a goose and I don’t know, it had to been 4 acres of cattails and he didn’t come out without – He went up and walked up in it and came back out 20, he had hit, he had sniffed every blade of grass in 4 acres until he found that duck and I’ve seen him do that so many times, I forget, how old is he now?

Nick Marcy: Well, he turned 7 in April.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah.

Nick Marcy: This will be his next season on him.

Ramsey Russell: Good.

Nick Marcy: Still going strong.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, I’m glad to hear that, folks, both of you all, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed this visit about the snow geese, about the swans, about you all’s program. One of the last questions I want to talk about is, with the so called economic downturn, how are bookings right now? Because, let’s face it, man, for the average guy, groceries and gas and lumber and tires and everything is costing a bunch of money right now. The interest rates are high, but we were talking about this before we got started, Matt, I mean, is it affecting bookings?

Sustaining Hunting Traditions Amid Challenges.

But I mean, I completely get it and understand it, it’s the one thing about this industry and this, it’s still a leisure, whether you want to call it a luxury or leisure.

Matthew Piehl: Our books are looking really good for this fall. Overall, has it probably affected some of our groups? Yes, but that being said, we still, our books are still looking good, Arkansas it’ll be interesting to see what our books end up like with Arkansas. But I mean, I completely get it and understand it, it’s the one thing about this industry and this, it’s still a leisure, whether you want to call it a luxury or leisure. So I think people still try to put some money towards that, but there’s no doubt that probably in some sort of way, our books have been affected by it whether it be, I guess I said before, some of those groups that we’ve had in the past that would rent out the whole lodge, we haven’t seen them in a year or 2. And that’s a financial thing, obviously, whether it be because the company’s not doing it anymore or they don’t want to get, I mean, they all can’t get together, not that 4 or 5 of them couldn’t get together and get a group, all 12 of them couldn’t get together and get a group. So I think in that sense, yeah, we have. But I still think there’s – as of right now, there’s still enough people that treat it as a leisure or luxury or leisure that they can try and put some money aside for it. The other thing is you go out and you go out and spend a bunch of money and drive around, haul a trailer, do this, do that, rent a place or you just stick that money into finding an outfitter that already has everything scouted out, already has all the permissions, your food’s already made, your birds are cleaned, there you go.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I agree. I hear that from a lot of people, I think, when I was a very young man, an older family member, he told me, he said you got to prioritize your life. He said, no matter where you work and what you do and you need to set a little bit aside to enjoy life because it ends quick and that’s just kind of life short get ducks, that’s kind of what it’s about. We all work, we all raise families, we all pay bills, we all do stuff, but life’s too short not to do something you want to do. And I would say our bookings are really good right now, it’s just but we do see a few certain areas, certain groups fall out when it’s like this. And I was just curious, how the economy is affecting you and others. The last topic I forgot to ask you all about and then we’re done, last topic you all’s season runs late and then you all do, unless it’s the winter, the winter forgot to show up for. You all freeze out in your fall area and you all move and you all got a special hunt you all have invited me on several times to handle better work it out. But you all also continue hunting, you move west to go hunt Canada geese. Talk about that late Canada goose hunting, how’s it different? What are you targeting? Just how cold is it and why is it so special?

Matthew Piehl: Yeah, we move out into western North Dakota along the Missouri river area, we move out in middle of November, so kind of that late November, early December into right before the Christmas time frame. The Missouri river itself holds, I mean, Nick could probably tell you numbers, but the amount of Canada, giant Canada geese that they winter, can be kind of – You wouldn’t think it and the hunting around there, you’re hunting corn fields, you’re hunting bean fields, whatever, just depends on snowpack, obviously, what we have going on. But as far as late season Canada goose hunting goes and even duck hunting, it’s probably some of the best in the country. I grew up out in western North Dakota, so that’s kind of where some of that area is a lot of what I hunted in college. There’s massive bodies of water, we also have done some hunting out of some big boats for ducks on the river and stuff like that. So we kind of offer a little bit of everything out there. The one thing we don’t offer out there is meals and lodging, but it’s kind of back to that small town, North Dakota feel. Hotels, Airbnb, stuff like that, bar and grill food. Every small town out there has a bar that probably cooks one of the better steaks you’ve ever had in your life. So I mean, that’s where we end up at the end of our season up here and everyone –

Ramsey Russell: Are those migrator Canada is that just that migrate south and stall that region?

Matthew Piehl: Yep. You’re looking at ones out of the big out of Saskatchewan, stuff like that. Once again, we don’t shoot a lot of bands out there, but the bands that have been shot throughout the years by other people or by us typically come from central Saskatchewan.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Matthew Piehl: So, quite a while back, they did that. I think it was Regina had had a program with some red tarsal bands and now they’ve been shot, kind of all over the place in the Central Flyway, but there has been a couple of them shot around that area along with, I’ve shot a couple duck bands out there that have come from central Saskatchewan area. So I think that’s kind of your late birds and a lot of them that might be as far as they make it, really.

Nick Marcy: Yeah, most of them is the farthest south they’re going to go is probably here.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: If it gets super cold.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. How cold is it, Nick? I’m sure regardless you’re out there wearing gym shorts and cowboy boots, but how cold is it?

Nick Marcy: Excuse me?

Ramsey Russell: Like how cold is it when it gets right?

Matthew Piehl: It’s cold enough, he wears bibs every now and then.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Nick Marcy: It’s probably, I mean on a normal winter it’s probably 20 to 30 below with the windshield some days, below zero, but –

Ramsey Russell: Surely you got haters for clients.

Matthew Piehl: We run heaters. We have a big trailer blind, it’s 24 foot trailer blind, it’s essentially a pit blind on wheels. You’ve hunted out of them with hunting with tough tower in them. So we have one of those that we run out of out there, that or we also have a 24 foot sea arc boat that is fully enclosed. So the biggest thing is to try and keep people comfortable in those situations, but for the most part, a lot of it when it is that cold, it’s kind of the same situation as when it gets cold out east. We might go sit out, we might go set the decoys out, but until we see a bird, you’re probably going to hang out in your vehicle.

Ramsey Russell: One a day feeds.

Matthew Piehl: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: I give Nick a hard time about that Nordic blood of his and anybody listening don’t know him, the coldest hunt I’ve ever hunted. It’s like when you step outside, it’s like somebody beating you with aluminum bats, it’s so cold and windy we get and Nick calls and says the feed is on, we go to Hamburger Hill. I’ve got on every shred of clothes I’ve had and I’m comfortable, but I brought my layers. Meanwhile, Nick sitting there with uninsulated cowboy boots, warmups underneath, warm ups only and whitey tight, he’s probably covered with Carhartts and a hoodie, smiling and laughing and cutting up and ice growing in his Viking beard and just completely oblivious to it all. Nick, that was a cold day and that’s just another day to you, man, but I just Remembered it being an extremely cold day.

Nick Marcy: Yeah, it’s pretty cold, but it’s not like how it gets out west. Out west throw some days up, your eyes might freeze shut, but it’s going to be some awesome hunting.

Ramsey Russell: We got to go get those geese.

Matthew Piehl: Yeah. Nick’s trying to scare people away. No, like I said, we try and make it as comfortable as possible. I mean, any one of us, if you catch any one of us on a day where it’s probably cold to most everybody else, we’re probably in a flannel and maybe flannel line jeans at the most or flannel line field pants at the most and rubber boots. And Nick can probably attest to this, I mean, the coldest I’ve ever been hunting wise isn’t up here, it’s down south.

Nick Marcy: Yeah. Arkansas.

Matthew Piehl: It just down there with the humidity, it eats you to the bone versus up here it’s a dry cold. But I mean, it feels like your face is getting bitten by a thousand snakes or whatever but its –

Ramsey Russell: It’s funny you all say that because I almost right out of college, I got offered a job in Jamestown, North Dakota. Reason I didn’t take it, because it only lasted a year and I got offered a permanent position elsewhere. But I never forget the project leader asked me, are you sure you want to move up here? What’s old Southern boy going to do up here in the winter? How are you going to fare? And I said, probably better than you do down here in the summer. And he laughed and he said that the coldest he had ever been in his life, born and raised in North Dakota, the coldest he’d ever been in his life was in the state of Mississippi. He said it wasn’t 45 degrees, he said that humidity got into my bones and I couldn’t shake it.

Matthew Piehl: I tell people the same thing. Cold as I’ve ever been in my life is hunting in Arkansas, hunting specks in January in Arkansas. I remember it like it was yesterday. And it was cold like, I mean, it was cold, but I just obviously wasn’t prepared for it, for one. But yeah, just cold.

Ramsey Russell: Nick, have you ever been cold like it.

Nick Marcy: Yes, in Arkansas.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, good. I hope you were miserable.

Nick Marcy: I’ll never forget the first year I went to Arkansas, saw it was pouring rain and it was 28 degrees out.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Nick Marcy: And I looked at the clients that we had and I said, I went to college for a very long time and all the schooling I’ve had, it should be snowing right now. Yeah, we should just be done, we should be done. That was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Nick Marcy: I’ll take 50 below zero before I go back and sit in something like that.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll get up there to see you soon, again I’m going to try to kick over, I love hunting Spring snows with you all down in Arkansas. And hopefully next year, my calendar is going to open up, I’ll get to come up there and revisit you all in the fall. I’ve sure had some great hunts with you all over the years and I guess the times in North Dakota, I’ve hunted with you all, we have shot a few specks, we have shot some snows, we’ve shot the bigs, we’ve shot the little Canadas and a whole lot of ducks and I’ve shot my swan, my North Dakota swan with you all, it was just an amazing hunt, always good time. I love hanging around with you 2 guys, we always have a good time. Usually I’ll skip a hunt, go scout with Nick if I can and just get to see some countryside and have a good time. But I appreciate you all taking the time to come on today and tell us all about Dirty Bird Outfit and you all hunting program.

Matthew Piehl: Absolutely. Thank you for having us on.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nick Marcy: Yeah, thanks for having us, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, you all been listening to my buddies Matthew Piehl and Nick Marcy’s the Viking from Dirty Bird Outfitters in North Dakota and also down in Arkansas, where they actually get cold. Check out Dirty Bird Outfitters on ushuntlist.com or go directly to their website, Dirty Bird Outfitters. See you next time.

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