What Might Maryland’s HB 911 Say About the Future of Duck Hunting‪?

Ramsey Russel: I’m your host, Ramsey Russel. Join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome to a special episode of Duck Season Somewhere. A little bit of controversy brewing. It’s something how the drama around duck hunting abates during duck season, but all times in between, it seems anymore, especially in social media, you see a lot of drama playing out. I’ve always felt that the future of hunting is not threatened so much by Anti-hunters here in America. As it is by us hunters getting along with each other. And I don’t know that there’s a real animosity or anything else specifically going on. Maybe today’s guest can explain something a little bit differently than that, but I think it’s a very-very pertinent topic that all of us duck hunters need to listen to. If it was not in your immediate backyard, ask yourself when something like this could be in your backyard. Leading off, today’s panel is Mr. Chris Williams. How are you today, Chris?

Chris Williams: Russell, I’m great, man, I appreciate you having me today.

Ramsey Russel: Oh. I’m proud to have you. Introduce yourself, if you would, to our listeners.

Chris Williams: Chris Williams. I live in Princeton North Carolina Russell. And into delta waterfowl for going on 11 years and I’m the regional manager here at Delta Waterfowl in the Atlantic flyway.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. Are you a duck hunter?

Chris Williams: Yes, Sir. I’m a proud duck hunter.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. Tell us briefly about your introduction into duck hunting? What are your origins? How did you get started? Who’d you hunt with?

Chris Williams: Man, that’s a funny question. Russell, I didn’t grow up a duck hunter. I probably started hunting when I was late in high school, maybe 16. My brother-in-law, he duck hunted. I always grew up fishing and being outdoors with my grandparents. But my dad was not a hunter. But I got introduced to duck hunt by my brother-in-law and we went a couple of times and little no success, but that wasn’t what it was all about. It’s more about the experience and the journey getting there. And I just made my way on through even during my military time to teach myself how to duck hunt and here we are. I guess you call it 24 years later and I love the duck hunt, and that’s what I get to do [**00:04:57] days of the year.

Ramsey Russel: That’s all very interesting. I’m a late start duck hunter myself. I did some hunting in high school. I didn’t start duck hunting until after I was in college with some friends. And it’s like finding religion for the first time, you know? And tell me this, Chris, how did you go from 16-year-old introduced to duck hunting? What was the path that led you to working for delta waterfowl?

Chris Williams: Well, that’s a great question. You know, it’s always been one of those things being self-taught. And I always had a great love of history and digging into exactly what I was getting myself into. Whether it be baseball or whatever it may be. And throughout my time in the military, in my travels, I got sick quite a few different things and meet people from different regions of the country. And so, that always brought a new conversation along. Then fast forward to get out of the military. You know, going to the corporate world and with a Fortune 500 company. And worked there for about 10 years. I’ve always volunteered. That was one of the things that I always tell everybody a lot of times, there’s one thing that my family, that I’m proud of. Their military service and having a sort of a servant’s heart if you will. And so, I always volunteer and I was a volunteer at Ducks Unlimited. I volunteered with Delta Waterfowl. And it was just one of those things, that’s sincerely volunteering at the local level and doing grassroots things was what led me to finally being employed at Delta waterfowl one day.

Ramsey Russel: Well, Chris, when you talk about being in the military, what did you do in the military?

Chris Williams: I was actually a military police officer by trade in the military.

Ramsey Russel: Okay, good deal. And where did you go from the military to connect into Delta water fowl?

Chris Williams: Well again, when I got out of the army, the next place I landed was working for PJ Food Service which is a subsidiary of Papa John’s. And they’re basically the food service and distribution of Papa John’s. And so, I worked there and during, while I was there, I was continuing to learn about duck hunting, and continuing what to learn what I wanted to do and started a family and all those kinds of things that came together, and volunteered at the local level, and just learned what the organization was about, and really took hold of the conservation and local aspects of it.

Ramsey Russel: You had told me earlier that it was a great job you had, working in corporate America papa john’s distribution. You learned a lot. You made a good living, but it wasn’t quite the life you wanted for a young family coming up.

Chris Williams: It certainly wasn’t. Since my wife, she’s a beautician by trade, owns her own hair salon. And she’s done that ever since she got out of school in her early twenties and to a point, we’ve gotten to, that took place in our life where we had one child, my oldest son. And he was, coming around 4-5 years. And we were expecting, our second child, and the traveling and the things that I had to do at that point. It just wasn’t it and there was nothing wrong with that. That place of worship for lack of better terms. But it was a decision that I made for our family and my wife and I discussed it at length and it was the best decision probably that I’ve ever made on that front.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, well, I’m glad it worked out. I’ve always said, we all, everybody listening, everybody I know, we got to make a living, bills to pay and kids to raise, but life is just way too damn short not to make a life. We got to have a life. And so anyway, I appreciate your introductions, Chris. Let’s get down to the heart of today’s conversation, let’s kick this off. I don’t know anybody better to explain what’s going on out on Susquehanna flat with a proposed bill, Maryland House Bill 911? What’s the gist of that bill right there? What is that bill proposing, that is definitely going to affect hunters in that area, but being a precedence for possibly affecting hunters elsewhere too? What’s going on here?

Chris Williams: You hit the nail on the head, Ramsey. I mean, I’ll dive in on H.B.911 real quick. But on the front end of the situation, you’ve got, always love to use the word precedent and transparency when I have conversations like this. And we have got a precedent that could be set and it might not be so transparent at the current time. But to H.B.911 is a proposed bill as you set up on the Susquehanna flats. And currently, in the state of Maryland, you can public water hunts anywhere in the state where it’s legal within their local guidelines whether that be 400 yards from shore, 800 yards from shore, whatever the case may be. But one of the bigger things in the state of Maryland a lot of people don’t realize is that me myself, I hunt quite a bit in Maryland, and I have to have a Maryland state resident that is licensed in my boat the whole time with me. And they’ve done that to, and I agree with it, they’ve done that to sort of keep things of an even kill, from people running them out the state, and just that another, which is a whole other topic, but point to it is, that there’s a lot of measures in place now to keep things of an even kill.

Ramsey Russel: And to mitigate the total hunter participation. I mean, to kind of keep it even kill. I guess what you’re saying is, not let things get blowed up out of hand with people from 20 states hunt the same water body.

Chris Williams: Most certainly. And what you’ve got in place now with H.B.911 is, it is simply in my opinion, a grab on the public resource system because as of right now, you and I could pack up during duck season. We could ease up there. We could meet with a buddy of mine that lives in Maryland say, hey, Jim Bob, do you want to go hunt the flats for four days? And he says, heck, yeah man. And we could take my rig and my decoys and my two lay out boats and we could put them over and we could have us a grand old time. And that’s perfectly legal. Well, now this bill’s proposed that it would outlaw scull boat hunting, which is one of the oldest arts there is. And frankly, one of the centerpieces of the Susquehanna flats. And then getting that history a little bit, if you like later on. But basically, this bill says that the only way that you’re going to hunt the Susquehanna flats is by body booting with your feet on the natural bottom.

Ramsey Russel: All right, let me read a summary of what this bill is. So, everybody trying to keep up what you’re saying. I understand what you’re saying, but I just want to read a summary that’s put up on the Internet.

Chris Williams: Okay.

Ramsey Russel: Maryland House Bill 911. The summary is, establishing that a person may hunt wild waterfowl in the waters of the Susquehanna flats while standing in water on the natural bottom, only in areas designated by the Department of Natural Resources and prohibiting a person from hunting wild waterfowl in the Susquehanna flats from a boat that is drifting, being scold or anchored in areas designated for hunting wild waterfowl while standing in water on the natural bottom. So that basically says, if you ain’t body booting, you can’t hunt here. Is that right?

Chris Williams: That’s exactly what that says.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, that’s what I mean. I’m sitting here thinking, you know, like we recently did a podcast with a team of Brothers Up there and have a grace and we talked about traditional hunting methods. We talked about body booting and I did not know that body booting was invented on Susquehanna Flats, but it was. But when you think about hunting waterfowl, when I think about hunting waterfowl there at the cradle of North American market hunting with all those decoys and all that heritage, and culture, and carvers, and boats and styles. I think of layout boats, I think of sculling, I think of hunting hunkered up in a boat, hunkered up against the bank with my long lines out. And this bill which has been imposed by the way, by democrat named Delegate Mary Anne Lisanti. She seems to be the sponsor this thing, says no, no, no only if you body boot. Well let me play devil’s advocate with you here, Chris. Or would we can still get the duck on it. So, what if you can’t hunt some of these other ways? What does it matter? How is that going to affect you? How it can affect other people? Do you think?

Chris Williams: Well, personally, I mean, you know this is not an opinion piece here. This is just a flat-out fact. When you get to the segment of your question right here, you’re getting to a point where now you’ve eliminated Chris Williams, bringing his 15-year-old, his 12-year-old and his 10-year-old up to the Susquehanna flats to blatantly and generally one of the finest places, the waterfowl in history has ever brought to us. And then couple that along with the fact that maybe someone that’s older in their time and couldn’t get out there and body boot or maybe somebody has a medical condition that couldn’t get out there and body boot you now eliminated that whole segment of the population of being able to enjoy that public body of water.

Ramsey Russel: Being sponsored from a democrat. That seems highly, what do you call that highly discriminatory?

Chris Williams: Very much so, but that goes to the unintended consequences that a lot of folks that probably have been behind this bill or pushed it or however you want to call it, didn’t think about it.

Ramsey Russel: I mean, I’m sitting here thinking, we’re at a crossroads. The reason this topic interests me is because you’ve got apparently various segments. This lady, this Maryland delegate did not just conceive this herself. She doesn’t strike me as being a avid duck hunter on Susquehanna flats. Some of her constituents have come to her and encourage her to pass this bill or present this bill to the house. But I’m just sitting here thinking it’s at a time, and of all things at a place, but it’s at a time that we need more hunters’ participation in in some places than we need less hunter participation. Your organization, my organization, the future of hunting. Guy leaves, State D.N.R. Budgets and it all just commands that we hold the line and bring more people effectively into our ranks, not discourage them. And let’s talk a little bit if we can about body booting itself. Like I said, the Joe brothers came on and explained it, and I’m going to tell you, I have done it on up in Canada one time in waiters, in chest deep water and it was perfectly, utterly miserable hunting. It’s effective, but it’s cold. And where I was hunting, there wasn’t a lot of tide, you get a little swell coming off the lake. So, the water line went from your belly button to right about an inch or two below the top of your waiters. But Susquehanna flats, which is, for those y’all are one of what Susquehanna flats, it’s where the Susquehanna River comes into Chesapeake Bay and it’s a massive flat that historically had a lot of water celery, and eel grass, and preferable of submerged aquatic foods, and lots and lots of divers, lots of canvas backs, lots of black ducks which ain’t a diver, but lots of scaup, lots of redheads and quite a few puddle ducks to include, Black ducks, and swans and Canada geese. It’s a real special place in the annals of American hunting history, and body booting was developed there. But it’s tough and especially when you’re in an area, this guy and I think, I remember them telling me, they were like a three ft tide. That means you and I will get there and be knee deep or crotch deep and three ft ain’t much despair on top of waiters. So, they don’t just wear waiters. They wear very specialized suits. And are you familiar with all this, Chris?

Chris Williams: Oh yeah, I know it all too well.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, it’s an effective way to hunt. I mean stand behind those big swan decoys, and you know the divers and puddle ducks come in to feed among the swans that are kicking up food, while they’re sitting there feeding on the bottom, foods floating to the top so these other birds can eat. But it’s not for the light hearted. I remember one of the stories somebody told me, so I met somebody up there, and Havre de Grace, and he was telling me that when he was a young man and he’s about my age, so, we’re talking 30, 40 years ago when, when he was a young man, a lot of the older generation would recruit the future generation into the fold. And it was a good system because the older men do what they were doing, but they needed them strong, healthy back to help this. This is a lot of gear. It’s a lot of decoys. It’s a lot of big gear to get out and establish a massive spread. It takes a lot of manpower, takes a bigger boat than just a boat what you might otherwise go out and hunt, and it takes a lot. And what he explained to me and I saw this while I was up there, what do you explain to me is just, and he said, you know what, now I’m the old man and I ain’t got no strong back. He said too many people up here have quit. And we also recently did a podcast talking about scaup that may be one of the future schedule, but we’re talking about blue bills. The blue bill limit being just one, well one blue bill in an area that’s got a lot of blue bills. That’s not a big incentive to bust your butt and get out and hunt at all, let alone a real heavy lifting type hunt. You know, it seems like we need more incentive, not less incentive. And I’ve always looked at, just imagine when you and I got into hunting back in the days, Chris, and a lot of guys my age got into hunting, the barrier to get into duck hunting wasn’t ginormous. I needed a couple of dozen decoys, made some cheapo flambeau or something. Maybe some hand me down decoys, maybe some pop bottles, a shotgun lead when I started, which could have been a squirrel or rabbit shot, didn’t steel shot, which is a little bit more expensive and complicated, and a new gun to go with that. But when you look at it now, I mean especially when you become specialized into something like we’re talking about with a massive spread plus the big stick ups, I’ve got to stand behind, plus the boat to get all of that gear out of the field, plus the little boats to tend it, to get hunters back and forth from the big boat plus-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus. Now I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that those diving suits, they’re using body boot and cost way more than a top end pair waiters because they’re survival suits. I mean, we’ve all of a sudden created a barrier that just the average guy, is really going to be discouraged from duck hunting at all. And I mean, what do you think about that?

Chris Williams: Well, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I mean, I’ve seen it, you know, for many years I’ve experienced that, I’ve been up and hunted the flats body booting. And it to your point it is not for the faint of heart. But at the same time, it’s a tradition of the way things were done and the way they’re still done and it is very effective. And you’ve hit the nail on the head once again, you need young backs and strong minds to, get that rig out and get it picked back up. And if we want to tie this to the bill we’re discussing, my issue with the bill we’re discussing is that, to the gentleman’s point, and I don’t know who it was and that’s for later consumption, but to the gentleman’s point about needing young backs and letting the older generation put those decoys out and carried a heavy load. This bill passes, we hadn’t invited any young folks to our crowd.

Ramsey Russel: No, we’ve discouraged them.

Chris Williams: That’s exactly right. We have shut them out, is what we’ve done. We pushed them off to the side for our own personal gain or whatever the case may be behind this situation, instead of inviting them to our group and encouraging them to be involved.

Ramsey Russel: What are you hearing among your ranks, the Atlantic flyway? You cover a big geography with Delta waterfowl. What are you hearing initially? What is the feedback? What is the buzz going around Chesapeake Bay in particular, up in that area in general?

Chris Williams: That’s sort of a twofold answer because I get it from all angles. And what I mean by that is, there’s a lot of people and that’s what we’re, I’ll say for Delta. We’re very blessed to having a wide, wide range of members and volunteers and donors that support this organization. And as I like to call it is our Delta family. And my phone lit up like a Christmas tree on Sunday evening and Monday over this whole situation. And I have not had one person call me and tell me, I love this idea. To that accord, I’ve had folks call me in in from North Carolina, from Virginia, from Delaware, from Pennsylvania, from wherever it may be. That might take a two- or three-day trip and put money in the local economy and Havre de Grace, tell me, guess what? This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life because they’re telling me I need to stay at home. And that is the end result of what’s being proposed. And I haven’t talked to anybody. Frankly, that was a concerned citizen and concerned water fowler that thinks this is a good idea.

Ramsey Russel: No. Well, in your personal opinion, I’m thinking you’re opposed to it.

Chris Williams: I’m 100% opposed to it. And I’ll speak on the record for Delta waterfowl. We are in the process, probably as we’re recording this segment today, providing a letter to the committee, the subcommittee that will be hearing this on February 19^th. In opposition, we provided a letter to Ms. Delegate Lisanti to that same accord. And we’ll have an action alert going out later on the day hopefully to our Maryland membership to contact their local legislators and who it might be with their opposition as well.

Ramsey Russel: What do you think is at the heart of whomever proposed this legislation? I mean, what do you think that the origins of this? I mean, maybe they haven’t thought about some of the stuff we’re talking about or maybe whatever. But I mean, because I’ve got a thought in my mind, I’m not going to play this card just yet, but I’m just asking, what do you think they’re thinking? What if you just had to guess what they’re thinking? What do you think they’re thinking?

Chris Williams: I’m tired of seeing people on my body of water. Yeah, that’s what, nine times out of 10. And I’ll give you a quote from a dear friend of both of ours, our senior Vice President of Delta waterfowl here, in the second that will sum this up pretty well. But you know, there’s a lot of selfishness amongst our rank and file. And I will admit that. There’s some places I go to Hunt, and I think, man, I wish that fellow wasn’t close to me. That doesn’t give me the right to call my local Senator Legislator and tell them that I wanted to figure out how to get him away from me. And to the point who I was speaking before, John Devaney. I’ll never forget this as long as I live. We had a meeting several years ago. Each one of our regions, throughout the state where we have our country, where we have a regional director, we have regional meetings with our volunteers every year. And we put that on it. So, thank you and to let them know what Delta is doing and a progress report and so on and so forth. But we have those meetings for our volunteers every year in each segment of the country. And I had John here in North Carolina. And this was right about the time that we had a mallard reduction on the Atlantic flyway and that was a big concern. And there’s a lot of talk about, you know, APGC and it’s not another. And John made the comment. You know, somebody offered a question about overcrowd, and John Summed it up very, very specifically and he is 100% right. And I use this line all the time. And it 100% pertains to what we’re discussing. 10, 12, 15 years ago, we had 100 hunters in the size of a football field. Now we have 100 hunters in a place the size of a shoebox. And that is why, you hear the adage all the time. Oh, there’s more duck hunters than there ever were. Well, the numbers don’t lie. And that’s not the truth.

Ramsey Russel: Right.

Chris Williams: The reason that perception is out there is because we now have 100 of us standing in the size of the shoe box, instead of the size of a football field. Because of issues like these legislations that have been passed to limit the access for hunters.

Ramsey Russel: That’s right. And that said ways perfectly into what I’m sitting here thinking. The fact that any duck hunter myself, you, anybody listening, wants all the ducks for ourselves doesn’t make us evil people or bad people. It just makes us human. I mean, look, this ain’t 1800’s, but I really don’t want you down there a 100 yards away or a quarter mile away or wherever them ducks can hear you shoot. I really don’t want you down there shooting at the wrong time when my ducks are working. But that’s just the world I’ve lived in my whole life, and on public land and private land. And I have come to the opinion at the ripe old age of 54, that a lot of the disappointment, that duck hunters vocalized when describing duck seasons or duck hunting days or that they expressed in social media, I really truly believe that a lot of that could be summed up, not with too many hunters, not with two little habitats. I know there’s a long algorithm of reasons, the landscape and the ducks and stuff are changing. But in a word or two, I think its hunting pressure we were putting. And I just think all the time about my grandfather who was my toe hold in the duck hunting into this thing we do. He was a duck hunter. He shot one deer in his life. Two deer actually that I know in his whole life. And he was a duck hunter. But he didn’t skip little league games, he didn’t skip meetings at work, he didn’t skip going to work, he didn’t skip Christmas holidays, he didn’t take vacation or center vacation around duck camp. That was just something he did when the rest of his life allowed. So maybe he went 12-15 times in entire, in a busy year. And I bet from talking to some of my uncle. I bet he didn’t hunt 8-10 times a year. But he was a duck hunter and a serious duck hunter. Camp cook at the camp didn’t need if he wasn’t there. And now there’s a lot of folks like me, like you, that jump around and hunt and hunt. We were passionate and it’s our life. That’s what we do. It’s what we love to do. It’s what we pull our time through, either volunteer efforts or habitat workout on our properties or travel. And if we save money and we want to go hunting and I get it whole. Boy, do I get it? But then you go somewhere like Mexico or Argentina or some far flung corner of the Earth outside the lower 48, and you see that they’re about as many ducks of what you might see on any given day in Sac Valley, California, Arkansas or Delaware or Chesapeake Bay. But you kill them because they’re not pressured at all. And then, I’ll throw this guy. I know you and I talked about this earlier Chris, that you go out to places like Sack Valley, California where predominantly the clubs and all of the public land resources are hunted sparingly. Shoot days they call them. Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, that’s it. And with ginormous amount of pressure with a mile long and I’m not exaggerating by one pickup truck length, a mile long sweat line. 600 people swarm that area. And the average take on a Wednesday or a Saturday when the ducks are in, exceeds public land hunting anywhere else I’ve been by two or threefold hunt. So, let’s just say hunting pressure. But there’s got to be a way, don’t you think I’m asking? There’s got to be a way to mitigate hunting pressure without disenfranchising future hunters, without disenfranchising our fellow hunters and without a divisive legislation that divides us. Because all of us hunters in the same boat, we’re fighting the same fight for the future of hunting. There’s got to be a way, don’t you think?

Chris Williams: There’s got to be a way and it’s not just one several metric, that’s the catch. And do I have all the answers? No. Does Ramsey Russell have all the question answers? No. But to something else that we talked about, you know, we’ve got to work together. I find myself fielding phone calls and answering emails. Probably 65-70% of the time that are homegrown issues. And what I mean by that is, we’re working against each other, we’re working against our own team. And this is to me, with this H.B911, is 100% that we’re working against ourselves. Another fine thing that we deal with, here on the Atlantic flyway that a lot of people in the Midwest and the Western United States look at us like we have four heads when we bring this up, is the Sunday hunting issue. And then that’s a primary example of where frankly the state of North Carolina, the state of Maryland and several others are missing opportunity in my opinion. Because let’s take the Susquehanna flat. Since that’s our discussion piece here, let’s take the Susquehanna flats on the Saturday morning. I saw it three weeks ago on the last day, at two weeks ago. Excuse me. On the last day of duck season, there were 25 boats in the parking lot at the landing. Well, guess what? There’s a reason that those 25 boats are there on Saturday morning because they work from Monday to Friday. Their children were in school, they had something else going on. And the only day of the week they had to hunt was on Saturday. Well, now, if you tell me that we can hunt on Sunday, that crowd right there, probably dispersed just to half of what I just said.

Ramsey Russel: I don’t know now. I’m not arguing at all. I like your logic. But it could be that they’re both days. It’s not just Maryland. Just for folks that don’t understand this, this is an anomaly to us. Folks listening from the south, there’s about a 10 or 11 or 12 state area hub up in that part of the world that does not hunt on Sundays. And crazily enough Rhode Island, tiny little Rhode Island does hunt on Sundays. But that’s crazy, man. I mean, no Sunday hunting. That would really to your point that would cut most working folks season in half right there.

Chris Williams: Yeah, I mean, it cuts their season in half. It’s like we say, its 100% increases the opportunity and the access for a Monday through Friday worker to get out and enjoy what we fight so hard to keep.

Ramsey Russel: Chris, any parting shots, anything you’d like to say, the listeners about House Bill 911? Good, bad, ugly? How to weigh in on this? How it might affect them?

Chris Williams: I couldn’t. I can’t paint a pretty picture here because there’s not one, unfortunately. But I will tell you that, to many of the conversations that we’ve had this far, I don’t see anything good here. I think it’s a personal play on a personal agenda. And the time will tell where that lays. But I just ask you, all of the folks, listening today, especially if you’re a Maryland resident, contact your delegate, your local elected officials of letting them know that you’re not in favor of this and you’re not in favor of them taking your public waters or public waters away from you and your access away from you because the precedent will be set. And, as I told somebody else the other day, the unintended consequences of this bill passing could lead us to not hunting at all on the Susquehanna flats two years from now. If this goes through.

Ramsey Russel: Oh yeah, I won’t disagree with that at all and I’m going to pick apart just a little bit of what you said. Because, I was young at one time too. How again, if I feel if I’m sitting anywhere listen to this year and I feel strong about this, I feel strong to support all hunters in Maryland as it exists right now. What can I do from Mississippi, from Tennessee? What can I do especially if I’m in Maryland? What should I do? What actions can I take to have a voice to exercise my American right to have a voice in this. What can I do?

Chris Williams: The easiest way is either one, they can you can feel free to reach out to me, my email is CWilliams@deltawaterfowl.org. You can pick up the phone and call me at (919) 538-7874. Or just, simply get online and google, Maryland or M.D. 2021 HB911. And that will pull up that deal and for those that aren’t familiar with the way the legislative calendars and websites work that will literally bring you up to that that piece of legislation and it will show on there on how to contact your representative on there. And you can literally go right on there but if you want to contact me, as soon as our action alert goes out, it will be ready to go and you can simply walk through that process and it will go directly to those folks that need to hear your opinion and your voice.

Ramsey Russel: And there are, I’ve seen them. There is at least one petition online.

Chris Williams: Yeah, there is.

Ramsey Russel: That you can be opposed to this. And when you tell somebody, and people have heard me rail on the system, I guess, in the past about, call your congressman. Man look, we vote those people in office, you’re not going to talk, you’re not probably, not going demands, not going to answer the phone, but you’re going to talk to some of his staff, and his staff is going to take notes and they are going to pay attention to what you, the constituent are asking them and they will follow up.

Chris Williams: 100%. It’s like, I tell everybody all the time, John Devaney will tell you this and anybody that’s handled these situations, from any NGO for that matter. The only way they don’t hear your voice is, if you don’t pick up the phone or if you don’t send that communication.

Ramsey Russel: I mean, we tend to feel in political situations, we Americans even tend to feel powerless in the system that we don’t have an actual voice. But we do, first, we vote and then we elect. We elect voices that reflect what we’re saying. That’s right. And they don’t. Your words don’t come out of their mouth unless you call them or write them an email. That’s right. And that’s just the way America works. And so, anyway, Chris, I very, very much appreciate your time today. Folks. You’ve been listening to Chris Williams and I ask you one more time, Chris Williams, Delta waterfowl. Ask you one more time to say you’re email address or anybody listening can get on that action, email. what is your email address?

Chris Williams: Just my first initial CWilliams@Deltawaterfowl.org. Don’t forget the org. A lot of people think it’s dot com and it never gets to us but CWilliams@Deltawaterfowl.org

Ramsey Russel: And you’ll probably have something somewhere on your web page about this issue.

Chris Williams: We probably will, once it gets posted up.

Ramsey Russel: All right folks you’ve been listening to Chris Williams, Delta waterfowl. Stay tuned. We’ve got more input coming up.

Ramsey Russel: More than duck hunting. Get ducks. Is the lifestyle we all enjoy. It really is, always Duck Seen Somewhere. Check out our caps, t shirts, hoodies and more at our new getduck.com store. That’s getducks.com/door. Thank you for listening to, and for supporting this podcast and remember life’s short. Get done. Mr. Jeff Coats, A.K.A. The world-famous pit boss. How are you buddy?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Ramsey. Good evening man. I tell many people that I’m just another guy. man. So, it is what it is.

Ramsey Russel: You’re just another guy but you ought to pitch long.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I’m just another guy. I’m old guy now these days.

Ramsey Russel: You can’t get no younger. Neither me, that’s for damn sure. You know Jeff we were talking earlier, because the focus of this special episode has to do, centered around having a Grace Maryland, Susquehanna flat right there in the backyard. That’s where I knew you off the internet. We knew each other for a long, long time. But about, late 90s, we actually shook hands, our paths crossed at the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum. And that’s where we hit it off. Remember that?

Mr. Jeff Coats: I do. It was there, they had two festivals back then. It was the May festival, its the big decoy festival and then they would do, they called it the Duck Fair and it was that September weekend. Early September, I recall the Duck Fair right there on the shores of the famed Susquehanna Flats.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And you know what’s so crazy is, now anybody that follows you in social media and keeps up with you and I know a lot of people do, I do, we know you as a decoy carve. You’ve been carving for decades. But when I met you, you just kind of sort of got into it and you’re doing good. But you just kind of got into it. I was still dabbling with it. But you were there, man, with some decoys.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Very kind. Thank you

Ramsey Russel: Decades later. And what I remember about that Hunt is we know well, you know, hey, I think I’m going to go teal hunt tomorrow and well, I’m going to go teal hunt tomorrow if you know, we will go and teal hunt together. And I woke up at eight o’clock in the morning, broad daylight and I overslept. The power had gone off, a storm came through, the power had gone off, knocked off all the alarms and everything is back for iPhone. And I finally called you and it done. It did knock your power off too.

Mr. Jeff Coats: It was a nasty thunderstorm rolling through that morning for short.

Ramsey Russel: It sure was. Did you grow up there in Havre de Grace?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Well, I was born in having Havre de Grace for sure. But right up the river, up the Susquehanna River, little town of Darlington, that’s where my mom is from. And that was my first couple of years and then, parents moved to a little town just outside kind of between Bel Air and Havre de Grace area called Fountain Green. And that’s, pretty much where I grew up.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, I mean you’re, obviously like a lot of the guides and the hunters and the carvers and a lot of people I encounter or have encountered up especially, around Havre de Grace. I mean, you’re not just on the water 60 days a year. Your whole life is crafted around that water just like Todd Sarauer. I mean, he got I think it’s been 300 days on the water. And then for vacation he goes back on the water to go fishing recreational. And when you meet some of the old carvers from around there, I’m thinking of Bobby Jobes. He’s a crabber, I mean that’s a very traditional thing in that region isn’t it?

Mr. Jeff Coats: It is. And they have an unlimited TFL, Total Fish License in Maryland. They don’t get those things out anymore. So, those things are kind of like gold man, the state of Maryland, they actually had a buyback program where they would buy commercial fishing licenses, because they did not want people, they don’t want more people doing it. So yeah, I’m so fortunate to have that. And in that, if you get the unlimited license. Mine’s actually commercial. I’m sorry, a fishing guys license that actually falls under your commercial fishing license. So that’s really what I use in that. The TFL is the guide’s license for fishing in there.

Ramsey Russel: Just real briefly, I’ve never asked this question. We’ve talked several times, had some great visits and never shared a duck blind together yet. But that’s coming. But we’re going to do it, there’s no doubt in it. Do you remember your first duck? What were your early duck hunting origins like?

Mr. Jeff Coats: The very first time that I shot ever was, it’s a Great Gadwall.

Ramsey Russel: Really? On the Chesapeake Bay or nearby?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Yeah, in lower hill road, was a wildlife management area, public hunting called Fairmont. And that was my very first duck ever shot. And that was especially from Harford County Man. That was journey because it’s a good 3.5-hour drive to get down there. And you want to make sure you’re there before kind of before everybody else, at least to get your spot. So, I mean we would leave at 11 pm to go on the next day and we definitely took the time to get down there. But it was a little bit of a journey to get down there.

Ramsey Russel: How did you get into divers and sea duck?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Man. You and I would not be talking this moment, if there was not a man named Donald Hughes. And Donald Hughes, I met him way way back in the day on the internet. He’s the man that taught me all about the Internet. So, in 1994, I had no idea what truly, what the internet was all about.

Ramsey Russel: Nor did any of us,

Mr. Jeff Coats: That’s the truth. And it was an old search engine called, it was Alta Vista, I will say, that’s like Google.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I got on there and I just typed in like Maryland Waterfowl Hunting and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing and all of a sudden, here’s Donald Hughes. He had his daily, he called it his daily deeds and basically, from September 1st you could hunt snow geese then till March 10th. So, from September 1st to March 10th, six days a week, unless it was raining, he hunted waterfowl. And I emailed him and just, we kind of hit it off and he was unable to get into a National Wildlife Refuge called Bombay Hook, which is just boat over there. And I was going in there. I had a mud motor, had a boat. And he was more of like, if you take me into Bombay hook and shoot snow geese, he says, I’ll show you everything I have and you can hunt anything that I have. He had leases in Maryland and Delaware and he’s the one that truly dialed me, he’s my mentor. I’ve been very, Ramsey, have been very fortunate. I think that, I’m like a master of anything but kind of, like a jack of all trades and I’ve always had somebody be the mentor and tell me and show me, what’s what for whatever their specialty was. And Donald Hughes told me, he was full of useless knowledge and man, I found all his knowledge is very useful. And I just ate up whatever he said and he’s the one who said, man, you should be guiding, you should do this, this is what you should do, and you know, 22 seasons later, it is what I’m doing.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Donald passed away in 2004 sadly. But man, I think of him basically daily, I truly, I mean all these things get thrown around and say, hey, I do that. I think this, I think that, but I mean, there is not something that doesn’t happen, that I look in the house here or I’m looking at some Landers right here, I’ve got a couple bands that he gave me and I just, thank him all often and always because again, you and I wouldn’t be talking right now if it wasn’t for Donald.

Ramsey Russel: We all wake up one step closer to the grave. But what we leave behind, is our legacy. What I’m saying, how people remember is, what we left, how we left people feeling, how we empowered them with our useless knowledge is kind of the whole purpose of things sometimes.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Exactly.

Ramsey Russel: What makes a man living to, live for eternity, is your legacy. But that’s a very good testament to Mr. Hughes there. That was very nice. And I appreciate you sharing that. You do not hunt Susquehanna flats. I know, that you hunt elsewhere on the Chesapeake Bay. But What are you hearing about House Bill 911?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Well, I have body booted before on the flats, but yes, definitely, it’s not something I do very often. I have a lot of friends who do it. And I know a lot of people that do it there. But basically, I guess, in a nutshell, I would take it as an infringement upon the public’s ability to gun public water. And that’s I guess, kind of saying it nicely. Ramsey, I’m all about the chance to go do something. I’d rather have the bag will be smaller and be able to do something more days, than be at less days and the bag would be larger. So, to me, it’s about the availability to go do something. And I think that the way House Bill it’s 911 or 0911, the way I read it, it basically just infringes on people’s ability to be able to legally gun the Susquehanna flats.

Ramsey Russel: In a way that everybody might do it. I mean that’s the thing. I mean, if the bill were to stand, everybody could go body booting. I mean, everybody that could go body booting could go body booting, but not everybody can go body booting.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Yeah, I mean, there is people, have physical limitations, right? Physical, I mean, their age is a factor and their physical abilities. Right? So, I mean, standing in 32° water or 28° water or 40° water is not for everybody. That’s not for everybody.

Ramsey Russel: I would do it. Again, But there are other things I’d rather go do. I can tell us other ways. I’d rather shoot a duck than sitting in a survival suit in 32° water.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Hey, it could be 70° water and that 70° water standing in, is not cut out for everybody. So again, man, to me, that house bill just takes away the access for people to be able to gun the Susquehanna flats.

Ramsey Russel: What do you think? I mean, where do you think this bill is coming from? I mean this this lady Lisanti, obviously she didn’t just lay in bed one day and dream this up. She had some constituents call her. Where do you think they’re coming from?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Well, I have a smirk on my face when I say this, but I’m going to be sincere. I don’t know if it’s selfishness or greed, greed or selfishness. They may be there hand in hand. But that’s what I have to think is behind this.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. And I think that all of us as duck hunters that have ever had anybody down windows or ever had anybody too close or ever come out with fewer ducks in the group down the way. You know, we may all be guilty. I will raise my hand and say yes. I tend to have, just because I’m, but greed, selfishness. Not because it’s a bad thing, but because I’m just human, I just want to go kill ducks. I get that, where that’s coming from. But yeah, I think that from what I’m hearing, that might could be one way of looking at it. You know, everybody wants to shoot more ducks.

Mr. Jeff Coats: But Ramsey I am into my 2nd groundwater drink here. But this is what I’m going to, this is what I want to tell you. This bill is not an anti-hunting bill. Anti-hunters are not behind this bill. There are hunters that are behind this bill.

Ramsey Russel: Good point.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I think if anything that grinds me in this, the worst is, that’s what it is. This is not anti-hunters. This is not the anti-establishment trying to take hunters rights away from hunters. This is on public, on public water. This is hunters trying to take away access to other hunters.

Ramsey Russel: To other hunters.

Mr. Jeff Coats: On public water. That’s the biggest grind in this. To me, right down by the hair on my arms are standing up.

Ramsey Russel: United we stand, divided we fall. We’ve got politicians to deal with. We’ve got other interest groups. I mean, we hunters are getting smaller and smaller by the way. We need all the ranks on the same team that we can get what you’re saying.

Mr. Jeff Coats: That’s the truth, man.

Ramsey Russel: How is it? How many is a percent of people that hunt Chesapeake Bay or that’s what. So, I’m asking to say and thinking out loud is, if they were to pass this in Susquehanna flats, up there with the Susquehanna River dumps into Chesapeake Bay. I mean, how easy could that just kind of spread out across the whole Chesapeake Bay into other areas. How legislating, how people hunt within that body of water, beyond that body of water into your home state? It way down here. I mean, man, legal precedence is scary when it starts a divisive tactic or infringing on people’s opportunity to go do something, it’s legal to do. It’s scary.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Ramsey. If you talk to anybody else past me, this is the word I want you to use or ask them. It’s unintended consequences. What has been put in place here? There’s unintended consequences that they have not thought about.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I would tell you. So, when you open up the book of Department Natural Resource Regulations in Maryland, it’s probably the only laws out there that are written, that are open for interpretation. So, I would tell you, if the way the bill is proposed, that you cannot bring an anchored boat, you could not bring in a drifting boat, you could not be in a scull boat. People that body boot use boats, they use drifting boats and they use anchored boats. How hard is it for somebody to spin it? That the people that are body booting in the hunting party are using an anchored boat or a drifting boat while they hunt. Are they shooting? They’re not shooting birds from these boats. But is that boat part of their hunting party? Yes, it is.

Ramsey Russel: Any sleazy strip mall lawyer or delegate you go, It could turn that thing around. I never thought about that angle. Did you?

Mr. Jeff Coats: It’s unintended consequences. My very first phone call when I learned about this bill and that’s what we talked about. That’s not what we intended. Well, you know what, that may not be what you intended, but when this gets done above. Maryland is very very liberal Democratic state. They do not like guns, they do not like hunting. I’m not going to go off on a tangent about handguns. But Maryland is hateful against gun ownership. It’s not hard to imagine that someone can spin it. That the way that bill is written, that you are using a boat, you’re using a drifting boat, you’re using anchored boat while your body booting. I can see it where they can say, the only way you can hunt the Susquehanna flats is, if you walked out there. You can’t use the boat. You can walk out there, if you want to go walk out there and hunt. You can’t. You cannot use the boat, is to take it to the extreme, is the way that bill is written to me.

Ramsey Russel: I went out there hunting with Todd and we lay out both hunt. It was too calm to really do anything but we just got to experience right there, Susquehanna flats. I lay out both. Beautiful, beautiful day. It’s all clouds, birds flying, they just weren’t really doing their thing and drove by some of those massive. And I mean there’s nothing small about a body boot spread. Driving by and say, it covers a half-acre or more. I mean, I would say if I had to load all that stuff into sleds and walk out, I’d be pulling about a ton of grit. I’m just going to say, somewhere around a ton of grit I’d be having a tow out there. That’s a very interesting point right there. Some of the other unintended consequences may be, especially since this is sponsored by democrat would be disenfranchising children, disenfranchising by age, disenfranchising by if they’re old, if they’re too young, if they’re too short. I mean, it just splintered into a million different reasons why, besides the guy that drive the loudest motor and rides too late and all the different reasons we hate about public sometimes. How it would affect just regular folks that are doing everything perfectly right? It’s just they’re too short or too tall, they don’t have enough money to invest into a diving suit or whatever. I mean, a million different people. It would affect.

Mr. Jeff Coats: This bill would take away the ability to use a kayaker to renew to go to go out and hunt on public water. It’s just the fellows that have the issue with this. You know, the saying is, it’s better to deal with the devil that you know, then the devil that you don’t know. So, if you already know that this is an issue, you just need to adjust and you just need to adjust and adapt. If the body booter’s sorry about the noise and the body booter’s have issues with anchored boats, you need to get there earlier. You need to adjust and adapt to what you’re doing because you do know they’re going to be there. It’s the devil that you don’t know much like, how the unintended consequences of this is, that you can’t after you basically, they cut their nose off to spite their face. Yeah.

Ramsey Russel: If anybody listening, especially anybody from Maryland feel strongly about this proposed bill one way or the other. What are some ways that you’re aware of Jeff, that they could do something, voice their opinion, take action.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I don’t have the link memorized. But there is a petition out there I had under. You’ve been posting it up, I posted up on Instagram and social media. It’s out there. It’s easy to find it, just go on Facebook or Instagram HB0911, and that’s what they search, it will pop up for him easily enough. They can go and sign the bill. And I think anybody in Maryland just needs to reach out to the state delegate until their state delegates that they’re opposed to this House bill. I believe its house Bill zero, I’ve been saying 0911.

Ramsey Russel: That’s the way it’s posted. You’re right. It’s House Bill 0911. Maryland House Bill 0911. And it wouldn’t hurt for anybody to sign the petition.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Anybody can sign the petition.

Ramsey Russel: Anybody can a petition. And so, well, Jeff, I really appreciate your coming in. You a lot of good one liners, brought a lot of clarity, straight to the point, just like I’d expected the world famous Pit Boss duck capture. No doubt, no doubt about it, son. Captain of the largest, the world’s largest sea duck boat. Am I right?

Mr. Jeff Coats: That’s what Steve called. He says the world’s largest sea duck boat, no doubt about it.

Ramsey Russel: There’s no doubt about it, Jeff. How can people listening, on the off chance, they’re not keeping up with you already? How can people connect with you on social media? I know, I keep up with you, that you will be continuing to bright updates on this topic and many other interesting topics such as your decoy carving and things like that. How can people connect with you on social media?

Mr. Jeff Coats: Yeah, Ramsey, thank you very much. It’s just pit boss, P. I. T. B. O. S. S waterfowl. You type that in, and pretty much pop up everywhere.

Ramsey Russel: So, alright folks, you have been listening to my buddy, Jeff Coats, Pit Boss Waterfowl. We’ve been talking about Maryland House Bill 0911 and its unintentional consequences. I think we have to thank you. I think the biggest point that you brought up, it’s better to deal with the devil you know, instead of the one you don’t. Man, that is no truer words that have ever been spoken.

Mr. Jeff Coats: I mean again like you know, you know what it is, you just need to adapt and deal with it. Right?

Ramsey Russel: That’s right. That’s exactly right. Thank you, Jeff.

Mr. Jeff Coats: Ramsey, Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Ramsey Russel: Yes Sir, bye.

Ramsey Russel: On the line right now is Ryan Davis. At spare point, Maryland. Ryan, how are you today?

Ryan Davis: I’m doing great Ramsey, how are you?

Ramsey Russel: I’m doing fine, I appreciate your time. You know, this is a very controversial subject, House Bill 0911. It’s a very controversial subject. I’ve been talking to a lot of people. I’m not even on the forefront like Delta Waterfowl and somebody’s other folks. And it seems like, a lot of my day to day has been spinning around this right here. And I appreciate your coming on to kind of give us some context because you’ve hunted up there for a while, haven’t you? I mean you’re born and raised hunting on Chesapeake Bay.

Ryan Davis: Yes, sir. I was born and raised hunting here, started hunting right around the area to where I live and then branched out my horizons and started traveling more and really got into the body booting aspect of it and been hunting up there for years pretty hard now.

Ramsey Russel: When you say you branched out and got into body booting, how did you initially start duck hunting in that area? That’s a big body of water?

Ryan Davis: I got an invite from a friend of mine’s uncle and he was like, hey, would you? He knew I was a deer hunter and he said, hey, you want to try to duck hunt? Because my father never duck hunted or nobody in my family really duck hunt. And I was like, yeah, absolutely, I’d give it a try. And I went out first morning. Within the first five minutes of shooting like a flock of canvas backs, letting the decoys and shot two with one shot a pair of breaking a hand. And ever since then it’s been pumping through the blood. Pretty serious.

Ramsey Russel: I’m going to tell you right now. Ryan. Anybody that starts their career doubling on a pair of canvas backs, I can see where they’re absolutely hooked on it for life. That would sure be a treat. And I know that canvas backs and those other big water divers, canvasbacks, redhead, scaup, that’s a pretty big thing up there on the Susquehanna flats and Chesapeake Bay, isn’t it?

Ryan Davis: Oh. Absolutely Sir. That’s probably one of the main ducks. We shoot our blackheads, our scaup. And redheads get here whenever they want to come down from up in New York, and up on the great Lakes and the camps, back to the same way. And shoot when it gets cold up there. It’s pretty common for them to show up not long after they start getting some ice up that way. And it makes for some very impressive shooting up there when they get there.

Ramsey Russel: Well, this particular house bill seems to favor body booting and exclude from Susquehanna hunter flats, part of Chesapeake Bay, other conventional hunting methods. And you’re a body booter?

Ryan Davis: Yes sir.

Ramsey Russel: What do you think about? Well, let me say this. Describe to the listener. We’ve had somebody come on before and talk about body booting. But let me and you talk about body booting. I body booted one time. But tell me and the listeners what body booting is and what it means to you?

Ryan Davis: Body booting is, besides the history that it’s originated here and have degrees from the market gunners and all that and everybody that got into it, it’s nothing like it man, when you’re standing eye level and you’re hidden in plain sight, essentially behind a piece of plywood, it’s painted up and you’re blending in, and you’ve got ducks whipping by you from all directions. You go to keep your head on a swivel. You never know what can happen. You can have a flock of blackheads come in two minutes later, take a pair of black ducks 20 minutes later, take a flock of like 10 wigeon. And then after that, you can take 100 canvasbacks, for 100 redheads to the face. It’s just so unique man. And that’s what really makes it impressive to people who don’t really get to see that, that often. They don’t really grasp it, that you’re standing in the water all day long freeze until your bones are cold essentially.

Ramsey Russel: I don’t like cold bones.

Ryan Davis: That’s the name of the game, especially when it gets cold, but you never know what’s going to happen. And I think that’s what makes it so special behind the heritage of it.

Ramsey Russel: I don’t know if I told you this. I went body booting one time on Lake St. Clair and the average water depth is about belly button deep. We were hiding behind some big stickups. Safer canvasbacks and extremely Canada goose decoys. We had some long lines for canvasbacks, but there’s these rollers coming in off Lake St. Clair. So the water went from belly button high to by the top of my waiters. Had to hold my gun out of the water. It wasn’t like something to put it on. I basically just kind of, like had to cross my arms and hold it shoulder high. And still, there were, made these big ice sickles forming on my elbows and it was cold and it was miserable. Naga thinkers. The crazy things we duck hunters won’t do to duck hunt. I mean we’re nuts for doing this kind of stuff. But you know, I do know what you’re saying because the canvasbacks we shot, were coming in at eyeball freaking level. I mean, I’m there, right there in my face, I’m right there in the decoys with them. And it was memorable. You got any good stories like it. I mean the crazy things we duck hunters do. I’m thinking, but you do it all the time. I did it one time and I’m still talking about it 20 years later.

Ryan Davis: There’s a fear that I’ve got, that stick out. I mean, you never know when you’re up there. You could have ice flows coming out of the river, that are as big as a truck flowing by you and you got to be smart about it. But there was one particular time this season, that we went out, we finally got some cold, and the weatherman was a little bit wrong. And you have zero protection out there at any given wind that’s kicking up. It’s like you said, then waves get on, slap you in the back and you really feel it into your core. We had a good Northwest wind. Finally got some cold was down in the real field was in the single digits. And we had first light came around, got that up pretty early and taking a couple of black ducks and everybody’s taking waves to the back as we were waiting for a shooting time. And everybody’s guns were freezing up because the water was getting on them and locking their gunshot, and getting up in the tube, and then the action and the receiver and everything.

Ramsey Russel: And fun.

Ryan Davis: Single black. Yeah, it sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Ramsey Russel: I’m standing in a single digit weather getting slapped in the back by waves and my gun is as useless as the ice cube, but go ahead.

Ryan Davis: And everybody is as good as the boat or at that point of time. We’ve been sitting there and killed a couple of ducks. And then single black duck comes down the pipe. Everybody’s guns are frozen up, guns go off, everybody’s frozen up. And the black duck actually, it ended up being banded and down.

Ramsey Russel: Your gun goes off.

Ryan Davis: My gun goes off and one other guy’s goes off and he could only shoot one time, his tube was frozen. His shells were frozen into his tube. So, he had one shot. And the gun goes off and guy goes out, retreats like, man, things banded. It was a pretty cool experience, man. It goes back to what you were saying, there’s only certain people in the world and that’s a duck hunter that’ll stand in freezing cold water just to kill a duck.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. With a single shot or no shot shotgun. You’re still out there hunting because you’re duck hunter.

Ryan Davis: And then guys were standing in the red trying to fill all the guns out. I mean one guy even left his up on the boat and it took hours. Thought he probably had a quarter inch around the ice all the way around that guy on the entire.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. It must have felt pretty good to shoot a band of black duck and I had to flip quarters for it.

Ryan Davis: Yeah

Ramsey Russel: I’ve made it worse and all the while. Describe how much work goes into. I mean, describe a rigged. I mean, how much are we looking at here? How many dozens of decoys? How many V boards? How much equipment? How much weight would you think it weighs? I’m thinking that this is, when I was up there this year with Todd Sarauer, I would describe those body boots spread is covering a half-acre. I mean, it was massive.

Ryan Davis: Yeah, I would say we run, we’ll take two boats up there, and my buddy Grady has a 23 ft duck water. And usually everybody, every passenger loads in that boat. Besides, I’ll keep one guy on the boat with me for safety reasons, just in case something were to go wrong. And all the decoys and stick ups and v boards get loaded in my boat. And we run, I’d say anywhere from 650-800 singles, all rig singles, a couple v boards to break us up. And we run about 16-18 Tangle Free Swan floaters with us up there.

Ramsey Russel: Wow.

Ryan Davis: It’s a pretty big rig. I’ve got a 24 ft Carolina skiff, that’s 80 inches wide. And the only thing is it’s a console in a gas tank and that thing’s pretty chock for. You can barely move around in it.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. And how many, how big this is, this doesn’t sound like a hunt that just you and one person would go try to do by yourself?

Ryan Davis:  No, absolutely not. I mean we’ve got a core group of guys that we hunt together. We hunted up there all together. And we have, actually have a group message to gather and we call it the flat squad. We go up there and hunt together. That’s our home tariff pretty much. And we all figure out a plan. We figure out what’s going on, who’s going to bring breakfast? Who’s going to bring lunch? And who’s going to bring the grill, and the propane, and heaters and all that stuff, man. We just go out and that’s our getaway to have fun. Whether we don’t kill anything or we kill a whole limit, full limit of eight guys. That’s what we look forward to every year, man. It’s a good time.

Ramsey Russel: Ryan, what do you think about this proposal? I mean, you’re a body booter and I’m just assuming that the people that sponsored this legislation to favorite body booter and feels like they’ll be at some kind of advantage. But what are your thoughts on this bill? What do you think about it, having been born and raised there?

Ryan Davis: I’m completely against it. I don’t see anything. I don’t see anything good coming out of it. For one, you’re taking away rights to a public land from the people, from the average hunter, which is usually your 9-5 worker and Saturdays with their day to hunt. And maybe that’s the only style of hunting they have or they can’t travel or they don’t have the means to body boot. And you’re taking away something from them. And I think that’s just opening up, that’s the chance to open up Pandora’s box and really sets forth some new regulations and laws that are going to favor us, like other countries, like you and I have talked about before, like Australia and stuff like that. You’re opening up the doors to something you might not want to see. Actually, that’s something you definitely don’t want to see. And it’s a very scary thought.

Ramsey Russel: Laws over time have a funny way of changing from their initial or original intent and perverting into something that affects everybody in a way they didn’t expect. That’s one thing. And when I start seeing hunters become divided and I have observed in social media that as the weight of anti-hunting presses down on Australia hunters, they rather than unite completely to fight the enemy. They are beginning to splinter among themselves. United we stand, divided we fall. And that’s what, you know, is the outside. I’m from Mississippi not Maryland. I don’t have a duck and y’all fight. But it does concern me, because you know, Chris and I talked about precedents, you know, something can happen somewhere else. Well, somebody gets an idea and they bring it somewhere else and it starts to become pervasive. Where do you think, Ryan, that the people, whoever they are, and I can’t find anybody go on the record as saying, oh yeah, I’m all for this thing. But who, where do you think they’re coming from?

Ryan Davis: If I had to guess off the top of my hat, it would have to be an outfitter for sure. They’re seeing an inflow of people and they want it, they want it to themselves and their selfishness. I think, it’s going to come back and shoot them in the foot.

Ramsey Russel: That’s the same word. Everybody else keeps using this, selfish and I think all of us duck hunters are human and all of us got just a motorcar, myself in the sentence. But we can’t lose sight of the big picture, can we?

Ryan Davis: Absolutely not. It’s like you said earlier, United we stand, divided we fall. And if we implode within one another as hunters, you’re giving the anti as the upper advantage. And it could end up, it could end up seriously bad for everything. And not just here in Maryland. Like you said, it can roll over to other states and they can use this as a footnote to what we want to propose. Well, they did this in Maryland, so why can’t we do this here? And it just becomes slippery slope and we’re all in it for the same thing. Man. We’re here to shoot ducks. Have a good time. Make memories with friends and family. And I think that’s what a lot of people do in sight of the big picture. That what it’s all about. It’s not about killing ducks or there’s pressure on ducks. The pressure is everywhere now. It’s nothing new. It’s not just here, it’s everywhere.

Ramsey Russel: There’s too many people in the world. It’s too much pressure on the United States on ducks, you know, and I get it. But we’ve got do something besides push people out of our ranks. We got to get all better work together. And you know, speaking of that competition, I was just sitting there thinking when I hunted over Susquehanna flats, I was with Todd Sarauer, we were hunting out of layout boats and we weren’t up in the flat, we were off and like a little trading corridor. And I mean to me, if I were sitting in a single d well weather with waves hit me in the back, I wouldn’t want those ducks wrapped it up out there. I want somebody out there pushing around and doing some stuff.

Ryan Davis: No, you’re exactly right when, if you take away that, especially the divers and stuff, they’ll sit out on that deeper water. And if you give them somewhere to sit, they’re just going to sit there. Necessarily, it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing. They can get them bumping up and you can kill your ducks by that. If somebody sets up near where they were at, and get them moving around, it can benefit everybody man. And it’s all for the hunters to stick together. Like we’re just talking about it.

Ramsey Russel: It’s probably not like everybody. Oh well, this law gets past, it’s probably not like everybody’s going to pick up their toy box or their toys and go to another sandbox. Yeah, I mean, I bet some of them are going to get into the game of body booting and now they’re going to be more body booters up on the flat.

Ryan Davis: Absolutely. And if you’re a normal rig, if they’re spread out 800 yards to 1000 yards apart, now you’re at 400 yards apart. Now you’re really competing with gunshots and flaring ducks off each other and stuff like that. It’s just a slippery slope that can be avoided. It can be 100% avoided.

Ramsey Russel: Ryan, I appreciate you coming on tonight and give a little context of this discussion. I get up there and we got a lot of mutual friends and I look forward to meeting you one day and sharing a cup of coffee or a cold beer and maybe getting a bite to eat or maybe even jumping in the rig with you.

Ryan Davis: Absolutely Sir. Welcome up anytime. Looking forward to it.

Ramsey Russel: Thank you Sir.

Ryan Davis: All right, take care Ramsey.

Ramsey Russel: Mr. Andy Shank. How are you today?

Mr. Andy Shank: Yes Sir. I am fantastic Ramsey. I’m happy to talk to you.

Ramsey Russel: Good. I’m glad to be on the phone with somebody. You know this House Bill 0911 has called from rankers, called from real sensation up in your neck of the woods.

Mr. Andy Shank: It absolutely has. For some of us guys, it takes us a lot to get us riled up. But when you see something like that, it just every single direction you look at it, it all circles back to 1,2,3,4 guys, greed and selfishness. Self-centeredness I think is how I look at it.

Ramsey Russel: Selfish and self-centered. Those kinds of descriptors keep coming up in this conversation. And, hey, we’re all duck hunters. Want to shoot a bunch of ducks first and foremost. But at the end of the day, we all go to get along too well. I think everybody agrees with that. All my listeners I know, do. Tell me this Andy, let’s give a little background. Who is Andy Shank? Where are you from? What do you do? How are you involved in Chesapeake Bay?

Mr. Andy Shank: Okay. So actually, I live in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Okay. I’m 39 years old. I have a 12-year-old son. I have a seven-year-old daughter and I’m married to a beautiful wife. So, I am tied to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. My in-laws have property and a house down on the Chesapeake, the upper Bay. Chesapeake city area. I have two different houses, one with a huge farm down on the Northeast River, another one with property down on the Elk River. I’ve kind of grown-up boating. My first experiences with the Chesapeake Bay would have been probably full in a little small sailboat out on the flats before I ever knew what duck hunting was.  Yeah. And as I got older, I got into duck hunting. I had an uncle that was a duck hunter, heard stories of duck hunting. My father-in-law was a big duck hunter. And I got into recreational boating down there. My wife and I bought a boat. We really got into recreational boating down there. About 15 years ago, we really started getting into duck hunting and as my son has started to grow up, that has given me a desire for it, that I never really thought that I could have. The older he gets and the more I see his passion for it, you know, at five years old, this kid was willing to get up at 2:30 in the morning and I’m not exaggerating, I’ve had him up at 2:30 in the morning on long cold boat rides at six years old and he wouldn’t complain. I mean he wouldn’t sleep the night before. So, you know, these are all reasons why saying, the only way that we can hunt out on the Susquehanna flats is the body boot. It’s almost like discriminating against certain hunters.

Ramsey Russel: Wait a minute, back up, because you hit on a lot of high points for this right here. And, somebody was saying previously that, and I didn’t know this. But in Maryland you have to be accompanied by Maryland residents to duck hunt on your from Pennsylvania. But your in laws, your family are hunters themselves, your father in law, Ardent hunter. So y’all hunt together.

Mr. Andy Shank: So, we hunt together.

Ramsey Russel: So, basically what I got evicted, your father-in-law, the son in law, absolutely, and the grandson. We got multi generation in a duck blind.

Mr. Andy Shank: We got multi generations in the duck blind. And that is a big thing for us as a family. I mean duck hunting is huge for us. My father-in-law has gotten back into duck hunting because of my grandson and because I am. We are so into kids, he have to do that.

Ramsey Russel: Kids, he have to do that. Crazy kids, you have to do that man. And everybody’s heard my opinion of how kids spell love. T. I. M. E.

Mr. Andy Shank: I agree. What better?

Ramsey Russel: What better way, what better freaking way, what better place in the year 2021 to spend time with your children or grand grandchildren than a duck blind?

Mr. Andy Shank: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ramsey Russel: Well, tell me this. You’re a body booter though. You were telling me you do body boots.

Mr. Andy Shank: I do. I do body boot. I have. Yep, we have our own body booting rig.

Ramsey Russel: You know, talking to Ryan and some of these other boys. I’ve done it and whoa, that takes some dedication and commitment. You know it’s a big spread. The taller the water gets, the better you’re heading. But the deeper, the closer you are to question your waiters are freezing to death.

Mr. Andy Shank: It is not an easy endeavor. It’s not. And that is why I said, it’s almost like discrimination against certain duck hunters. Not everybody can, or will be willing to go out there and body boot.

Ramsey Russel: We’ll talk about that a little bit Ryan. I mean excuse me and tell me a little bit about why you feel like, if there were laws passed that favored body booting at the exclusion of everything else, who would it disenfranchise and how would it affect you?

Mr. Andy Shank: Absolutely. So, I’ll start off by saying body booting is, it’s incredible. I don’t want anybody to think, I’m saying body booting is not a good thing. I think I love it. I enjoy it. I think every duck hunter, want to try it, if they’re capable to do so. It is, when you’re talking about being immersed in the elements. Layout boat hunting is one thing, but when you’re literally standing in the water and you are a decoy, okay, it’s something to be. It is just a fantastic thing to try. But with that being said, put yourself in three ft of water, when the water itself is 40°. It’s 25 or 30° outside. You continuously are dipping your hands in the water even if you’re trying it or not. You know everything’s getting wet, stuff’s freezing to you, you’re standing in sand or mud. You know that’s creating a little hole under you. It keeps getting deeper, it keeps getting deeper, you got to move yourself around a little bit and you’re standing for hours. You know, you can’t sit down on a tree, you can’t sit down in the duck boat, you can’t take a break. The only way you can take a break is, call whoever is attending for you or walk back to your boat, that you have stashed 300 yards away. You know, if you got to take a piss, you better be able to hold it or you’d better be able to call somebody quick and get them. It’s just physically demanding. So, I go to my 11-year-old. There’s no way that he could go out there and body boot. First of all, he’s too short. The tide is going to be over his waiters at a quarter to mid tide.

Ramsey Russel: A good roller bowl them over. You probably don’t weigh £70.

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly. And you know how kids are. They want to get out there, but unless you have a couple heaters around them, which we’re able to do in the duck boat or in a blind, they get cold quick. You know, they try, it doesn’t matter how big their heart is, they get cold. And you don’t want to give them a miserable time. You put them out there in the body booting rig. No matter how tough the little guy thinks he is, he’s going to lose it in an hour, he’s gone, he’s done.

Ramsey Russel: I mean if he’s miserable, if children are miserable, would they want to go back?

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly. So, if you say, hey, you guys are allowed to duck hunt out there. But the only way that you can do it, is the body boot. It’s kind of like tone a deer hunter in public woods. You guys can hunt out there. But the only way that you can possibly do it, is by doing it in a standing climber stand. You know, it doesn’t have anything to do with leaving a tree stand up overnight or anything like that. But the only way that you can hunt is to use a climber stand. How are you going to get that specific with rules and regulations? It just doesn’t make sense.

Ramsey Russel: It doesn’t make any sense at all. That wasn’t absolutely no sense at all. This would greatly disrupt your family time. The way you hunt now with your children, with your father-in-law. Can you see any upside to it at all? I mean, we all agree. You and I have talked about this. There’s, too much hunting pressures. Too many people in the world. It’s too many people on Chesapeake Bay. There’s too many hunters. And pick any private or public property in the United States of America, there’s a lot of hunters. We all got to get along. But do you see any upside to it?

Mr. Andy Shank: You know? And I’ve been thinking about that. Because I’ve been thinking about, how are these guys pitching this? What is their argument. And the things that I’ve seen. I saw one said, We’re to equal the playing field equal. Well, that’s your job as a hunter. What do you need to do? When I look at going to public ground and I want to equal my playing field, I’m going to set up better than somebody else is going to do. I’m going to scout harder. I’m going to go out earlier. I mean, there’s any number of different things that we all have to do as well.

Ramsey Russel: We live in America a capitalistic society. Competition makes you better.

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly.

Ramsey Russel: You know, and I’m a public land hunter. I cut my teeth on public land.

Mr. Andy Shank: Yeah.

Ramsey Russel: And it made me better, to get out and compete.

Mr. Andy Shank: To answer your question, there’s not a single thing about this, that that I would see being beneficial. I think it circles around. If it passes, I think it circles around and I think it bites somebody. I think it bites somebody right in the ass. I think it’s all about somebody trying to eliminate competition or if it’s somebody that, that’s their hometown, born and raised in Havre de Grace or whatever. I think they’re sick and tired of seeing new people come in there. You know, if one spends, if somebody spends enough time at a specific piece of property on public ground, they start to get this illusion that it’s their own,

Ramsey Russel: Oh, boy, go there.

Mr. Andy Shank So, they start to get this illusion.

Ramsey Russel: They begin to take ownership in a public resource.

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly. And I think that’s what happens down there. You see it everywhere, but it happens down there specifically. So, they’re trying to take measures to keep other people out of there. Because they know they know whoever’s behind this knows how physically demanding and how specific body booting is. Okay. They know that you have to take a couple Saturdays out of your life and you have to make your body booting stick ups. You have to make your rigs, you have to be willing to take the time and the effort to do this. And then, you need, a lot of times you need multiple boats to go out there because you’ve got to transport four or five guys that are going with you. You’ve got to have hundreds of decoys. You got to have 3-4-5 stickups that take up half a boat itself. So, they know that they’re limiting the amount of guys that are actually going to do this. And I think it’s just selfish and self-centered. And I think it’s going to come back around to bite them because you give the opposing party, you know, anybody that opposes hunting, you give them an inch and they’re going to take them off.

Ramsey Russel: Well, what’s so interesting, I’ve been on the phone all day talking about this topic with various and sundry people. Nobody, not one person, has come out and said, oh, I sponsored it. I’m behind it. I called the representative. Nobody. And I had one person, I shall not name them. One person flatly said I ain’t talking about it until the bill passes, that’s all this. And I’m like well, wait a minute man. You’re fixing to effect a lot of people. If you are the guy, you obviously got an opinion forward. I mean why can’t you talk about it?

Mr. Andy Shank: Yeah. Well. I think they know that they’ve. I don’t know if, awakened a sleeping giant is the right. I don’t think that’s necessarily the right thing to say, but it’s kind of the context that I’m going for, because they’ve created something that was bigger than their own greed now.

Ramsey Russel: Well they have kicked a sleeping dog. Because hopefully everybody listening, it sure is a reminder to me and has been every conversation I’ve had around this topic so far. It’s been a reminder to me, that, if it can happen there it can happen anywhere. You know, it can happen in my backyard. Somebody person or persons could somehow legislate me out of how I want to hunt and how I hunt, how I hunt with my kids. I mean, we think to ourselves always, the anti-hunters. Oh, it’s people, that disagree my life. No no no no no no it’s people that that duck hunt but won’t offer themselves.

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly. We have enough opposition from the anti-hunters. I heard Jeff Coates talking about it the other day and he’s a great guy. You know I heard him saying, we’re a small community which we are and I agree with him 100%. So, we have enough opposition from anti hunters that, once we start bickering amongst ourselves and we start fighting with each other and trying to. And that’s never ending. This is America, that’s always going to happen. I’m not being unrealistic about the fact that people are always going to fight with each other. But once we really inside our own little small group are fighting and going against each other, we’re done.

Ramsey Russel: We don’t be up and you’re right. We don’t have to all think like, we don’t have to use the techniques, we don’t have to be carbon copies of each other. But at the end of the day, we all kind of need to be pointing in the same direction down range.

Mr. Andy Shank: Exactly.

Ramsey Russel: If we can just get along well enough to agree that the targets down that way, then maybe, we can stand together and succeed in preserving this thing of ours. That’s the way I look at it. Andy, I sure do appreciate you coming on here, man. I really do it. If you really bring a lot of context and hit home, you know, it does affect people, it affects everybody.

Mr. Andy Shank: Yep.

Ramsey Russel: You know, one thing I’ve the unintentional consequences as Pit boss described it. A monumental, that, the way laws can change and become perverted or are subject to interpretation, it could affect people. It could end up turning around and biting the people behind this bill, and the buttocks. I mean, firmly and they don’t even see it coming. But Andy, thank you so much, and I know you’ve got a busy weekend. I know you’ve got a busy weekend in your personal life. But I do thank you for taking the time and coming and sharing your perspective on House bill 0911 in Maryland.

Mr. Andy Shank: Listen, I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about it. It’s something that’s near and dear to me and my family.

Ramsey Russel: I got one question for you. I just thought of.

Mr. Andy Shank: Yes sir,

Ramsey Russel: What do you intend to do about it?

Mr. Andy Shank: Well.

Ramsey Russel: I know, I just put you on the spot with that question. But have you thought about what can you do or will you do? Call the representative, call your representative, you get your father in law to call his. Sign petition.

Mr. Andy Shank: I’d be happy to call. You know, I’d be happy to. Yeah, Father in law [**01:32:27] representatives down there. I’d be happy to do whatever I can. I mean, whatever representatives I can talk to, you know. I’m just an average hunter that has a passion for the Chesapeake. I spend a lot of time down there. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to really speak on it and I appreciate the opportunity to speak on it with you. But like I said at the beginning of our conversation, I’m not a guy that usually gets brought up about a lot of stuff, but when I see just self-centered and selfishness like this going on in something that is such a big part of my youth, which is duck hunting. I’m going to do everything I can to prevent losing it.

Ramsey Russel: Amen.

Mr. Andy Shank: So.

Ramsey Russel: Amen. Fight the fight Andy

Mr. Andy Shank: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russel: Thank you for coming on and I greatly appreciate you.

Mr. Andy Shank: Absolutely. Thank you Ramsey.

Ramsey Russel: And of course, this conversation will be moved without my buddy Todd Sauerwald, black duck outfitters. Todd, how are you today?

Todd Sauerwald: I’m doing well, Ramsey. How are you?

Ramsey Russel: I’m fine. Appreciate you all. I know you’re busy working this time of year. The duck season was tough this year, but y’all, did good this year, didn’t you?

Todd Sauerwald: Yeah, we did well. A little bit more of a challenge than normal, but you know, for a moderate than normal, what are we found out pretty well.

Ramsey Russel: Forrest and I had a good time. We sure did. And you’re just on that episode, just recently aired and did really well. And so I know a lot of our listeners are familiar with you. But you know, here we are talking about, and to my knowledge, this issue didn’t exist just a few weeks ago when you and I were hunting together. But here we are talking about house bill 0911 that kind of has a guy like yourself firmly in the crosshairs.

Todd Sauerwald: Yeah, for sure. On the negative side over a little bit.

Ramsey Russel: You know, the bill is favoring body booting only in Susquehanna flats at the exclusion of scull boats, and layout boats and other methods that existed since the market hunting days in Chesapeake Bay. And I just recalled, it’s a beautiful, beautiful morning. And man, all those clouds of ducks that were out there on the bay as we were driving into hunt. And me and you and force went layout boat hunting right there in Susquehanna flats.

Todd Sauerwald: Yep.

Ramsey Russel: And what a beautiful morning. Todd, what do you think? How do you feel? What is your initial impression? How do you feel about this bill?

Todd Sauerwald: Well, to begin with, I feel like Maryland, come to hunt with Maryland, you’re already coming to a state that has extreme restrictions even for residential people that are here. As far as residential shoreline, the estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay offer hundreds and hundreds of miles of shoreline that are horrible. But when you have residential houses and stuff like that, owners have the right to, well, this is our property line and stuff like that. Or there’s their shoreline which prevents anybody from being able to hunt the adjacent waters, their shorelines. So, I mean, right off the bat, that kind of stuff really makes it limited to waterfowl hunters that are hunting Chesapeake Bay. In my opinion, Maryland’s not the place that you need to put even more restrictions on. Anybody that does diver hunting, which is what Maryland’s predominantly known for your offshore hunting. I mean, you’re hunting out of layout boat, you’re hunting out of offshore waterfowl blinds, you’re hunting all out of boat blind, you’re anchored up. I mean, we don’t do too much drifting, but you know, all the laws are all the processes that this law is trying to prevent is what most Maryland residents are acclimated to doing for water fowling.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah, I mean, not just acclimated recently. Acclimated for a long time.

Todd Sauerwald: Oh, for a very long time. I mean, that’s even nationwide. I mean, when you go diver hunting, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to be in a hunting boat, anchored out with a blind on it. I mean, that’s just what people do. That’s how it’s been done for a very long time.

Ramsey Russel: What are some of the major downsides of this proposed legislation? They shouldn’t do those restrictions but what can you see happening some of the intended or unintended consequences? How could it affect? I’ll tell you what I’m thinking here. Here’s what I’m getting at is, you and I were there middle of forest, we’re hunting together, we hung out with some locals, we had a lot of cool conversations. And it just struck me as odd, everywhere we went, a lot of the traditions and a lot of the hunting. I know that the proponents of this bill think there’s too much hunting pressure, but what I saw, seem to point to a market decline in hunters participation in this region.

Todd Sauerwald: Right. And I mean, I feel like that’s exactly opposite of what we need nowadays. So obviously hunting, the pressure is going up. But you still want to get everybody involved. I mean, that’s a tradition that gets passed on from generation to generation. And what this bill is kind of trying to prevent is, kind of how history took its path of waterfowl hunting. I mean, like them guys did back in the market going today, sculling boats and drifting out into the decoy rigs when the birds landing into the decoys. I mean, I just don’t see the restrictions. I don’t see any benefits from the restrictions that they’re trying to implement. And they’re really trying to base it around the body booting fact. Whereas the majority of the time, the guys that are hunting out of layout boots and hunting out of boat lines and stuff like that, 9 times out of 10 aren’t even in the same extreme vicinity as the guys that are body booting.

Ramsey Russel: But I was just thinking that same thing. You know, we’re not the same boat ramp. And we were so far off the flats. I felt like that I could hear some shooting a little over here, a little over there, but we were off from big water hunting.

Todd Sauerwald: Yeah, I mean we were in 8 to 10 ft of water. We were pretty well off the flat. And I don’t think, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think we were even within maybe three quarter, maybe half or three quarters of a mile of another rig in general.

Ramsey Russel: We were out there, but I can see where those birds would want to have rafted out there, where we were and how it could. There could be some win-win advantage to having guys laying out where we were with the birds on the raft and having guys inside where they want to feed and loaf. I mean, I can see some advantage in having. I mean, that’s a big piece of water, Chesapeake Bay, in a mud puddle. That’s a massive body of water. And even if everybody showed up on the same day to go play in their own respective ways, no ducks got square miles. They can sit up without being bothered.

Todd Sauerwald: Yeah. I mean there’s plenty of water, plenty of tributaries. You know there is a little more pressure in certain areas and stuff like that, and it does drive the ducks off, of some of the hunting areas. But I mean, I don’t think the flats is becoming one of those areas. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, I don’t know. But I don’t think that this bill specifically will prevent that if that’s what they’re looking to do.

Ramsey Russel: No, I don’t think so either. Todd, I appreciate you coming on. Go ahead, go ahead.

Todd Sauerwald: No. I’m just trying to compare it to kind of, some of the sea duck and diver hunting that we do. You know, I want a day that it’s not hot and ready. I’m hoping that rigs are going to be hunting around us. I mean keep the ducks from resting up to 300 yards from you because once you start getting a couple 100 ducks you ain’t going to compete with lot of decoys.

Ramsey Russel: No. it’s everywhere I’ve been. You know, you kind of want the whole world to yourself but you need some pressure to keep birds moving.

Todd Sauerwald: Agreed. Especially if you don’t have the weather that’s for sure.

Ramsey Russel: If the ducks are sitting there, ain’t nobody shooting nothing.

Todd Sauerwald: Exactly.

Ramsey Russel: You know that’s a fact. Well Todd, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come weigh in on this, we always appreciate having your own and probably one more time, you know, Forrest and I sure had a good time up there hunt with you and we’re going to be back.

Todd Sauerwald: Hey you guys are welcome any time I’d love to have you.

Ramsey Russel: Thank you very much, Todd.

Chris Williams: Alright, Ramsey yourself, Thank you.

Ramsey Russel: Grady Hearn, Maryland, Chesapeake Bay. How are you this morning?

Grady Hearn: I’m doing well Ramsey, how are you?

Ramsey Russel: I’m doing good. I’m doing good. Grady, you’re a body booter? You body boot?

Grady Hearn: Yes sir. We do a lot of it. I pretty much have a group of guys, we regularly go with, every Saturday and usually a couple times during the week. Just a group of 6-7 guys. And we’re up there quite often throughout the hunting season here in Maryland.

Ramsey Russel: It’s a small world because we were talking before the recording that, when Todd and Forrest and I were layout hunting way off the flats out in the bigger water. You actually saw us with binoculars, you knew who we were.

Grady Hearn: We saw. I know Todd’s boat pretty well and I saw him putting out there and I knew you were in town. At the time you guys were headed out, we were in the water setting up our rig, the body boots on the flat and saw you guys pushing out towards the edge of the bay and edge of the flats and going to set up your rigs. I actually looked through binoculars. I could see you guys pretty well.

Ramsey Russel: Always marveled at what a small world it is. It is always small. Well, tell me what, let’s share some thoughts on House Bill 0911 as proposed up in Maryland right now. What are your thoughts on it? How could it affect you?

Grady Hearn: So, my general thoughts, I believe, it came up in conversation last week. I got it, sent to me in a group chat of guys. The same guys I hunt the flats with, and everyone was saying, hey, what do you think about this? And with any conversation we have in that group, I tend to take the side that no one else does, just for the good sake of some constructive conversation. So at first, my original thoughts when I’ve just read the general paragraph that summarized the bill, I said, hey, what’s so bad about this? I said, we body boot and that might take some pressure off the ducks. And, maybe it sounds a little selfish, maybe not. But who doesn’t want to kill more ducks? So that was my original thought on the subject, and then things started to get a little deeper and deeper in conversation and my opinion definitely swayed in a certain direction to kind of opposed it actually.

Ramsey Russel: Why? That’s a good point because, see what I’ve learned in the last couple of days, talking to people, getting input, digging around, trying to get perspectives. What I’ve been led to believe is that this bill originated from hunters that are looking strictly at their own self-interest. But it is hunters. So, as I step back from this situation, I’m in Mississippi, this Maryland. But if I step back and look at it, I think to myself, if I body boot hunted on Susquehanna flat, whether I thought of this or not, whether I could afford or not, I could see an upside about, hey, this could benefit me, this could take some pressure off. This could increase my hunting quality out here. So I can see that side. Yeah, I can see that side.

Grady Hearn: Exactly. And originally that was my thought. I read the summaries like, okay, yeah, not too bad. Then we start to get deeper in conversation and I came up with my final conclusion. And this is what part of my original thought was, you know, I don’t think it’s selfish to want to kill more ducks. Have less pressure and less competition, that part of it. And I don’t care who you are, you can always wish for that. That is the common theme here in Maryland. Every time you ask someone how they hunt ducks, if they are public land hunter, it’s always crowded. You know, that’s like one of the first comments every time.

Ramsey Russel: Every public land hunter had just heard you say that. No matter where they’re sitting, no matter what state in nine states, they’re not in the head going. Yep. Too many people. Yeah, so we all agree with that.

Grady Hearn: So while that was my first conclusion about it, I don’t think that’s all that was. I think that’s all that some of these people who push this bill and wanted to get this thing up and running, I think that’s maybe all they had in mind when they were thinking about it originally. I don’t think they thought about future consequences or consequences it will have other hunters with, maybe not the opportunity to body boot there, maybe they live right there. They don’t have time to travel and go hunt on the eastern shore 2.5 hours away. That’s what they do. They go out there and they sit in the boat. So yeah, that might take away some opportunity from other people. And I think whoever got this thing up and running, I don’t think that was a thought, like you said, I think they were thinking about themselves and how it will benefit them. And I’ll also say that, I think that anyone for it or at least the people who started this thing, I think that they’re probably someone who makes a living up on the flats. And with that in mind, if they make a living doing it, I can see where they’re coming from. But it’s a little thoughtless. So what I kind of got to myself was, I think that getting this thing up and running was a little thoughtless, and pushing this bill didn’t have anything in mind for the future of hunters, and what the future consequences this could be in the state of Maryland. And the reason I came to this is because over the years here in Maryland, and I’ll name a couple of examples, but there’s just been constant stripping and stripping and stripping of public land opportunities. Down Deal Island, a place I grew up hunting a lot, it’s been regulated and regulated again, and now you got to put in for a lottery, you can’t just go hunt there. You got to put in for a lottery and you might get drawn, you might not. And that’s just one of the examples that got stripped away like last year. They put tough regulations on it as far as you could go hunt and win. And then, another big thing that’s driving people are these public blindsight drawings in Maryland, not public rather, but blindsight drawings in Maryland. Each county has a blindsight drawing. So, in this blindsight drawing, you can go there, you put your name in, if you’re number gets drawn, great. You got to pick two spots, pay 20 bucks a spot and they’re your spots for the year. So that gave people a sense of, hey, you know, I don’t have to go to this public land and rush out there. I have my own little blindsight, I can go to if it gets good, and that’s great. But two years ago, guess what? They eliminated numerous, at least in Baltimore County, where I am. They eliminated numerous and numerous spots in this blindsight drawing and just eliminated these areas. Say, hey, you know, this one’s off the map now. We can’t hunt these. You guys can’t draw all these. So there’s so much land that could be open to the public hunter in Maryland. But is it? I mean, Department of Transportation and when thousands and thousands of untouched land. And guess what, they’re not in the blindsight drawing or at least most of them are. So the reason I came for being against this is, our opportunities on public land. It seems to me like they keep getting stripped away.

Ramsey Russel: We need, more opportunity not left and we need more opportunities not left. We’ve talked to people in the last little bit, they got kids, they got older in laws that don’t have the time and inclination, we talked a lot of body booters. But I tell you what, everybody can see, everybody agrees, no matter how they hunt, everybody agrees that we need more opportunities not left. And I have learned a lot about, Maryland does have some very restrictive, very restrictive laws already.

Grady Hearn: They do. And I’ll tell you what, I mean, we went up there, let’s call it five years ago, I’d be up there on Wednesday and Thursday body booting on the Susquehanna flats. You go up there now, and we do with maybe one other group of people, probably someone who guides up there. They were making a living doing their thing. But now, you go up there on the Wednesday or Thursday, you’ll still see four or five groups of people. So what we have? We have an increase in hunting pressure. We have an increase of people taking an interest in hunting, which is great. That’s what we want, right? But what’s happening is with that increase in people trying to get out in the field and hunt water fowl. We also have a decrease in opportunity of where you can go. So the more we stripped latest opportunity, really, it kind of backfires on itself and everywhere gets more crowded.

Ramsey Russel: When you were talking to your team of folks, your text team, I call it. We’re sitting there, discussing this. Did you ever ask yourself? Now just bear with me, did you ever ask yourself? Okay, these guys, whoever these people are, they want to regulate the other hunters so that they can body boot. You know there’s going to be some spillover. Some more body boots. I mean, not everybody is going to go somewhere else and do something else. They’re going to get in the body booting game. And somebody was telling me the other day, one of our guests was saying, when the tide is up, there’s not a whole lot of flat up there to hunt. The geography becomes very small. So now you’ve got maybe more body booters in the flat, regardless of tide of more body booters out there hunting more spreads, closer spreads, more competition in the body booting game, not just in the overall game. So that leads me to wonder myself, if these people are willing to reach out to their legislators and exclude or disenfranchise other hunters. What might they do in the future to regulate me out? They’re body booting too? I mean it’s a slippery slope around here.

Grady Hearn: It’s a very slippery slope. And what I’m still kind of confused about and trying to read up on more and ask people questions and it’s hard to find answers. It reads in the bill, a person must hunt wild fowl in the areas of the Susquehanna flats, while standing in water on the natural bottom, only in areas designated by the department. So, what does that mean? So, at first, I’m thinking to myself, okay, they’re trying to regulate people hunting out of boats, right? But this says, on the natural bottom, only in areas designated by the department. So, okay, Does that leave it pretty open? Can they put out there, with numbers on them and tell us where we can stand in the water? That’s what I don’t get also. I’m a little confused.

Ramsey Russel: That’s getting, I mean that’s going to get dicey there and I’m going to tell you.

Grady Hearn: I’m a little confused about it. I mean, people read the general summary of the bill and it reads more about people like, the natural thinking is, can’t hunt out of the boat anymore, you can’t lay out boat hunt, blah blah blah. You scroll down and read the actual bill, it says, only on the natural bottom in designated areas by the department. So, what is that going to mean? So, is it really going to end up these people, who wanted to make it less crowded? Are they then going to get limited to where they can and can’t hunt when they’re body booting, even if it’s shallow enough? I mean, right now, it reads that you got to be 800 yards from the shoreline. And so, that’s really your only limitation out there, other than if the water is too deep. So, it’s a tough fine line. Like you said, a very slippery slope of, does this bill just leave it open for more and more regulation in the future.

Ramsey Russel: And then the pandora’s box is open. And it’s now in the hands of politicians, that probably don’t duck hunt out there or duck hunt at all to decide how you do, what you do. I mean, it’s just craziest, craziest thing I’ve seen.

Grady Hearn: And the conversation is a lot bigger than Maryland. I think, as we both know, as we’ve talked about, it’s a lot bigger than what’s going on right here. And that’s why a lot of other people are getting involved in getting up in arms about what’s going on here with this bill, because it’s not just about this small place, it’s not just about the Susquehanna flats. It extends to a much larger and larger realm of things.

Ramsey Russel: And right here, you’re dead on. You know, I can see, as a Mississippian that has no dog directly in this fight. I see where rules and laws begin to just sprawl across the country. As people say, hey man, they got rid of competition. What can we do out here in our backyard?

Grady Hearn: Exactly. And like I said, my biggest argument that why kind of, I do oppose this bill rather, is just because we need more places to hunt, not less. And I see it when we go out west, I mean North Dakota, they’re trying to pass Legislature now. We go there every year. They’re trying to pass stuff that, if land isn’t posted right now, you can go on and you can hunt that farmer’s land as long as it’s not posted. That pretty much is them saying, hey, I don’t carry hunts here right now. They’re trying to pass something that you have to ask everyone for permission. And the guidelines are getting tighter and tighter and what we can and can’t hunt out there. And not even that, you go down a little bit further south of there. And if you ask the farmer to hunt their land, they expect payment for it. They 100% expect you to pay them to be able to hunt their field for one day, which what I do and I don’t agree with, at the same time. But the reason is, more pressure and things are changing. There’s more pressure out there. These people realize, hey, we can make people pay us to hunt right here. So, it’s getting tougher and tougher to hunt anywhere, whether it’s public land or private land. And the guidelines are just getting strict and strict. And I think, adding something like this to the next year in Maryland isn’t really what we need right now.

Ramsey Russel: Amen. great. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts. You’ve been body booting for a long time up there, you’ve been duck hunting Chesapeake Bay for a long time. I really value your perspective on what your thoughts are on this up here.

Grady Hearn: Thank you. I appreciate it. And thanks for having me on.

Ramsey Russel: Yes Sir, thank you very much.

You know, there’s two sides to every story, heads and tails and I’ve got the other side of the story today. Mr. R.J Keenan and Larry Dougherty, both from Maryland. How are you gentlemen?

Mr. R.G Keenan and Larry Dougherty: Doing well. Good. Well, thank you. Thanks for having us. Obviously, we wanted to get on here and talk to you guys, you know about kind of what’s going on in our little part of Havre De Grace. So, we’re happy to be here.

Ramsey Russel: Now, y’all both from Havre De Grace.

Mr. R.G Keenan: Oh yes, so my, my address. Larry’s and Blair, you can speak for yourself for your little bit of background of Harford County.

Larry Dougherty: Hey, thanks. And yeah, I’m born and raised in Havre De Grace. I used to tease that I moved away from have degrees in my mid-twenties when my uncle was the mayor, I poke him in the ribs and tell them that I moved back and vote for you, if you lower those taxes. But I live on the other side of the river. You know, still just up from the flats and still, a member of the decoy museum and all the other good stuff that have a degree sponsors about the traditions of waterfowl.

Ramsey Russel: Very good. Well obviously, You’re all duck hunters. Tell us a little bit about yourselves. R.J, You go first, born and raised. How did you get into hunt? How long you’ve been hunting Chesapeake Bay? How long you been body booting and give us a little background?

Mr. R.G Keenan: Sure. So, I started hunting out of a kid, really moved and sort of body booting. I don’t know, about 13 years ago or so. It’s a start with Larry and, and some others in the area. And it kind of flourished from there. Obviously, I live in Havre De Grace boat, stays in the water and Havre De Grace year around. And so, going out on the flats is just really part of my life and then my hunting. My winters is, getting up, driving to Havre De Grace and driving down the hill and hopping on the boat and going out and try to shoot a couple of ducks.

Ramsey Russel: Before the show. You were telling me you’re not a guy, you’re not an outfitter, you’re just born and raised in this area. You love the duck hunt and body booting, which was invented there. And Susquehanna flats. That’s kind of your preferred method of getting close and personal immersed in the resource with these ducks.

Mr. R.J Keenan: That’s absolutely right. If I’m not body booting, I’m not duck hunting. I don’t have lease, isn’t even sure. I don’t have ponds to go to in Harford County. If I want to go shoot a dock, that is my only way to do that, is to go out and stand in the water and hide behind a stick up and try to shoot the duck.

Ramsey Russel: Yep, get a sun tan at the same time. Do you?

Mr. R.J Keenan: I’m sorry,

Ramsey Russel: I’m being facetious. Yeah, I said you’re not getting a suntan while you’re sitting out there either. That’s, a pretty tough hunting.

Mr. R.J Keenan: Now.

Ramsey Russel: Go ahead Larry. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Larry Dougherty: Hey, thanks Ramsey. Yeah, I appreciate it. So, I was born and raised in Havre De Grace. My old man moved there in 1960, started helping out a local waterman and running boats and checking nets. My family never hunted before that. And kind of my old man from running boats and checking, that’s all-winter rockfish and the whole scene and you know, in the Upper Bay, the guy he was with need somebody to run a boat. So, while everybody was shorthanded, so that got my old man into it. Probably about the early mid-sixties is about when he started going and having never hunted in his life. He was not quite ready to jump into the ice. We kind of got turned in one day when the ducks are flying good. So anyway, the story he always tells me is, he kind of, he liked it. He kind of got more into and about that time he was turning 18 and Vietnam was going on and of course, he was kind of the latter end. So, the draft was changing a bit. And it just so happened that he got his draft ticket and he was preparing to go over and he got a phone call from, I don’t know what they call those guys, Draft Agent Recruiters, I don’t guess you weren’t being recruited. But he was being offered a, hey, if you leave now, six months before your date, we can get you home six months earlier. And it just so happened that was in the mid-summer and my dad said, no. You know what, I want to spend one more day back here, Body booting ducks on Susquehanna flats. I’ll go, I think it was February or March state. So, we got one more ducks season going well, very, very next day. That’s when the national news came out and announced a lot of my dad’s number wasn’t called and the recruiter was actually trying to get them to volunteer to go. All right. So, that’s kind of how my old man got started in it. And I honestly, can tell you, I have memories. I couldn’t tell you the first day. But I remember being, oh man, I’m 42 now and I had a gizmo backpack when I was in kindergarten and that was my hunting backpack that was still full of stacks, gloves and cocoa. And before I was old enough to shoot cripples, my job was to sit on the tender boat and identify ducks because typically the guy running the boat didn’t have as good enough, I’ve as a six-year-old sitting next to him. So, then I kind of grew up as everyone kind of comes through the ranks as a cripple shooter on the aluminum boat. Eventually one day I got on a calm day, in a warm day, when the water was about knee deep on everybody else. They took me into a suit and threw me in and I think, I was about nine years old that day. I got a picture of it right here in my shop for the first time. I got in with my old nick.

Ramsey Russel: You go way back. Well, what has changed since the days you hunt with your daddy Larry? What’s changed such that a group of men got together, started talking around decoy shop, started talking out there and spread. What happened out on the flats of Susquehanna? That the Susquehanna River flats? That y’all decided, something needs to be legislated have things changed? What’s going on up there?

Larry Dougherty: Sure. Well to be honest with you, just like anywhere, Duck hunting went up and down in the time that I’ve been here. I mean, honestly, I was say, 15 years old and there wasn’t any grass, there wasn’t any ducks. And I like RG said, I didn’t know where else to go. I pieced together a rig and recruited my cousin about the same age, somebody else running back. We’d go out there and set a rig and try to kill 1 or 2 ducks. And then, we’ve had a lot of really good years of grass coming back and that brought the duck’s back and just a great success story. And you know, it’s wonderful. But what has happened in the last, I’m going to say plus or minus three years, it’s kind of been building is that, because it’s public waters and because it’s unregulated public water the duck numbers have come back. And of course, so is the hunters, right? So, at this point in time, the thing to know about Maryland law is that for body booters the law is that you have to have your feet on the bottom and the 400 yards from shore, along Susquehanna Flats and some of the waters down the adjacent counties, just down the bay or feet on the bottom and 800 yards in the rest of the day, more or less. And what that does with the natural topography of the Chesapeake Bay that severely limits the spots that you can actually practice body booting. Right? So, the place of bodybuilding was born and raised and stuff going on a flat out of necessity where the average depth of about 4 ft over about 30 square miles with all these sandbars where Susquehanna River hits the bay, sediment falls out and creates these sandbars. And what has happened now with the increase, kind of unregulated, free for all that is today between boat blinds, layout boats, body booters and even, I don’t know what you call a guy in a kayak that kind of goes out and sets a rig. I guess, I don’t know, that’s kayak hunting, if that’s layout hunting. There’s what ends up happening is, there’s only a small percentage of area on the Susquehanna flats that a body booter can actually adhere to the law and stand on the bottom. From, I mean, high tide perspective. The flats is a much bigger area with trenches, ditches, drop-offs, gradual slopes, but there’s a small percentage, a small area of sand bars that you can actually stand on the bottom. And what has happened, sorry to get long winded on your question here. But what has happened is that there’s so many other techniques that are coming in and setting up in those areas that are 3 ft deep and less, such as lay out their boats etc. When the law also states each rig has to be 250 yards from each other. You kind of end up out of space, particularly on your weekends and holidays, your typical heavy pressure days. And there’s been many times where in the last couple of years, this year particular, when I have a 10-year-old who is just getting in, he got into boot this year, killed his first duck, a real proud dad moment. There’s been several times where I’ve had basically, either not been able to lay out or have to lay out knowing that I have about an hour and a half before I get run out of the tide and when the sun comes up here is these other types of techniques or other types of hunting, another such as layout that’s etc, that are sitting in the only water on the flats that a body booter can stand.

Ramsey Russel: Yeah. Well, let me ask him a question. Because I don’t know. So, I’m asking is 3 ft of water up there on some of those flats you’re talking about is the reason other hunting methods are trying to hunt there is because there’s more food for the ducks. The ducks are more naturally attractive because there’s more food is, would that be why? Are they hunting there because everybody else is hunting there?

Larry Dougherty: Well, so, it’s a combination, a couple of different things. Right? So, the grass, ebbs and flows, but the grass certainly grows in water is deeper in 3 ft deep. I’ve seen it in water as far as deep as 8 and 10 ft deep. On really good years, when it grows. So it’s partially correct that there is grass and food there for the ducks but there’s also grass and food in those deeper areas etc. Now the grass will shift and move depending on water clarity. And all the other growing conditions throughout the year. And you can watch it kind of move over the years. Is it going east, west or is it going deeper or take things. But in general, it’s not necessarily that the grass only grows in water 3 ft deep actually,

Ramsey Russel: I see. Anything to add, RG?

Mr. R.J Keenan: No, Larry hit it right on the head. I mean, it’s really, the Flats is a big area. When he’s saying, there’s only certain area for us to set up in. We’re not saying that these layout boats and blind boats, etc have to be South of Turkey Point or have to be off the quote unquote flats. In the map that we’re talking about, in the area we’re talking about, there’s still a ton of room for other types of hunting. But that room is 6-7-8 ft tall or deep. And so, we’re not able to hunt there, but they certainly can. And so, it’s not kicking anybody off. It’s not anything like that. It’s just the ability for, humans are not 10-12 ft tall, we’re usually around 6 ft, and we have to hunt water in depth accordingly. So that’s really what it gets down to as far as that goes.

Ramsey Russel: How did it go from an idea? And y’all seeing, okay, we need to manage hunters differently here to delegate Lisanti proposing it. How did that all come about?

Larry Dougherty: You want to take that one, RG?

Mr. R.J Keenan: Yeah, that’s you. I broke up just a little bit. Ramsey, can you repeat that question? Just one more time?

Ramsey Russel: I’m just wondering, what the process was? Y’all it a period of time, 2-3 whatever years ago, y’all are hunting, maybe it’s getting a little crowded out there. So you have this idea, there ought to be a law. You know, there ought to be a rule, we ought to do something different. How did it evolve to the point right now that, that we’ve got delegate Lisanti proposing law?

Mr. R.J Keenan: Hey, that’s, a great question, Ramsey. I will answer that, what I have experienced too. But I am not a legislator and I don’t know the process. So this is kind of all been new to me, but I kind of walk you through parts that I’ve been a part of. About 15 months or so ago, a good friend of mine, talking through, hey, what can be done? What makes sense right in order to preserve body booting, right, what can we do? We reached out to the Maryland water Fowler’s Committee, and what that is? It’s a voting body of representatives from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources from the law enforcement side, from the legal and policy side, from their biology side, biologists, as well as representatives from private landowners, some of the big regulated shooting area gun clubs that release birds etc, ducks unlimited has a seat. And I’m probably missing a few other folks. And we reached out to them and said, hey, we’re seeing a lot of things that we’re concerned about in order to continue. You know, this is very unique style of hunting. And is there any way that we can talk to you guys and see if there’s anything that can be done? We have some ideas. So we were invited in March of, I’ll get my years all weird, but we’ll see. Its 2021, in March of 2021. We were invited to come in and put on the agenda to speak to the committee. So I accompanied the individual. We went in, kind of just gave them an oral presentation and showed them. Just some sketches about, what we were thinking about. Here’s the areas that have traditionally been body booted. We’d like to do something. Think about ways that we can preserve these areas to ensure that the body booters still have a place to go. The committee adjourned, and they discussed it and said ok we see your point. At some point later, we received a verbal from the committee member that said, hey we considered what you guys put forward, we’re in agreement, but you’re going to need to get a sponsor for this bill. And at that point in time that’s where I personally, I don’t really have any connections and no idea how to even start that process. I just said, hey, if you want help drafting legislation, sketching some maps, I’m an engineer, I can pull down G.I.S. I can help us out here. So, I kind of went away for six or eight months and then my phone rang and said, hey I think we’ve got at least one sponsor for this bill. Would you be willing to look at some of the verb is, be willing to help us out again with maps account? So, I said, sure. And then we kind of worked at, I would say, kind of in a little haste, I guess to try to get the bill through a certain date. However, this process works. And then, if I can go a little bit further, I can tell you that what happened and what got into the bill and then what is broadcast out does not reflect the intent of what we had worked on for those prior 15 plus months.

Ramsey Russel: Okay. Talk about that because what was the difference between what has been proposed by a legislator and what y’all’s intent was?

Larry Dougherty: Sure. I can start out with the intense part because that’s kind of the part that I’m the most sure up. And that was as RG had stated earlier. We were trying to identify those feasible areas that meet the current Maryland laws where body booting can be practiced. The shallowest waters where feet can be on the bottom, through your mean ties, etc. And look at what is the impact? What is the areas that we could draw around that versus the rest of the flats? And write some sort of a bill that would preserve that specific technique and style of hunting only for those areas where it can still be practiced. What happened, my understanding is, with the bill is that, when the bill was written there was no attached map that that went forward with it and it was just the verbiage that referred to the Susquehanna flats without any boundary definitions whatsoever. So when the bill gets out there, instead of talking about an area of 10 or 11 square miles that were roughly outlined in the proposed map. Naturally, so, I would have done the same thing. The public reaction was, you’re talking about the entire 30 square miles of Susquehanna flat, you’re putting a fence up and no one’s allowed in except for this specific type of hunting which is not the case and was not. Well, it was not the intended case at all. So if I can go just a little bit further, there was a meeting on Friday that the delegates sponsoring the bill had called with folks that had written in opposition of the bill, other folks that heard about it and kind of timed in, plus myself and a few other folks that were a part of drafting the bill. And I was on the call for maybe 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, and unfortunately my service dropped. I didn’t hear how the bill concluded, but what I had heard through guys like Chris Williams, who you previously talked to you on your show. Chris Williams stayed through the whole thing. And I know that Chris had proposed forming a stakeholder subcommittee with all interested parties to go back and kind of, like, what you’re saying, get the whole story, understand the intent and let’s see what can really be done because the bill has written. No one agrees to and I agree with Chris 100% on that. And that was last Friday. And as far as I’m tracking, I think that yes, the path forward at this point. But again, Ramsey, I don’t know this policy stuff and how these bills get worked. I had no idea that I never even saw the bill until everyone else did. And that’s when I looked at and said, this is not right either.

Ramsey Russel: Well, that’s what scares. That’s where I stand on it. On the one hand, we’ve got to be political, we can’t put our hands in the future by not by being political, we can’t just trust it how it happens in our benefit, but at the same time, I don’t know if I trust a politician with my future. Ain’t some saying it’s as spitballs put it, there’s unintended consequences and as it seems to be presented right now? What about Children? What about older folks? What about disabled? There are no zones, who draws those zones out, you see. And I hope, I really do agree that that it’s going to take both sides of the issue getting meeting in the middle because there’s a lot of unanswered questions that are. As an outsider, looking in way down here in Mississippi, it’s scary. And it’s not that I have a dog in the fight of Maryland out there in Susquehanna flats. I don’t, but I can see where similar situations could crop up right here in my backyard. So I’m saying and that’s where I stand on it. That’s why I wanted to raise this issue and present both sides of the coin. Because I think and believe there’s going to be other similar things happen around the United States that we hunters are going to have to get together on or it’s going to tear us apart. And that’s just a long and short of it. You know, we’re all in the same boat together where we body boot or hunt from a boat or layout, whether we hunt in Washington state or Maryland. We’re all, it’s us against everybody else. And we’ve got to have a unified front. Let me ask you all this question here. What was the public response to this bill? As y’all have experienced?

Mr. R.J Keenan: I mean, I’ll take that one, to start with a couple of things there. One is, the public response was obviously pretty core. And what I will say is, that I can’t necessarily blame them. Right? The bill came out with verbiage that was pretty poorly written, number one. And number two, with limited education and behind why we were doing this, what it was meaning, what was its intentions etc. And what I will say is that there were a good amount of people on social media who were naming names, and name calling and stuff like that as opposed to. Hey, we’re all hunters. Let me pick up the phone. Let me ask this person who I’m naming in my Facebook coast about what he really thinks or what really is going on. None of that happened. What I will say is, in the past four days, Chris Williams and I, who I’ve known for a long time as well. Even though we’re on two opposite sides of the coin here. As you said, we’ve had, I don’t know, we’ve talked maybe 7 hours on the phone in the past 34 days. And what that has led to is, if there was no name calling, there was no assumptions about what he felt, or what I thought he felt, or what he thought I felt, it was a lot of talking and coming together. Hey, we’re really on the same side of this. We all want access for everybody. We all want a great place that’s going to the flats, is going to be around for a long time. It’s steeped in heritage and tradition. How can we make this? So, it’s good for everyone and that, it will preserve the heritage of body booting and how it will allow my kids and Larry’s grandkids and all of that hunting and keep body booting. And so, I will say that Chris and I, conversation has really started out maybe on two opposite sides. And now it’s damn near where pretty much getting to a resolution and that’s what this is about. It’s not about name calling and putting stuff on social media when you’ve never met me, Larry or anybody else a day in your life. And that’s what, you know, a part of this issue has been, was the social media. Was these great call to actions about these people are bad people and they all want it for themselves. Well, I see where you might get that from with the bill. However, the intention and how this was brought about was not that at all. And so, I think that’s what I’m very excited about talking to you tonight is, explaining that. And explaining that we’re not bad people, we don’t want to kick everyone off the flats, is what some people have said to me. You know, it’s about preserving the heritage. And that’s what we all feel pretty strongly about.

Ramsey Russel: Well, I tell you, social media is like it and I mean, I’ve got strong opinions, I’m not going to say, I agree with y’all. But I respect another opinion and that’s just a long and short, you know, we’ve all got to find a middle ground, especially on public land. We all own it. It’s not just us, it’s the non-hunters and the anti-hunters that on that stuff too. We’ve got to work together on this thing.

Mr. R.J Keenan: Sure. We’re not sitting here saying it’s our way or the highway. We’re sitting here saying, let’s have a respectful nice conversation and let’s talk this stuff out. It’s not posting on social media and saying this and saying that, without having a conversation with the other side. We’re not saying that we’re making no concessions and this is how it’s going to be because this is how it was. We’re here to make it better for everyone for the future generations. It’s not some dictatorship or whatever these people think that it is. It was truly here too. You know, have people start talking about some of the issues and trying to solve them.

Ramsey Russel: gentlemen, I appreciate y’all coming on, explaining your side. I really do. And I appreciate y’all coming on and speaking articulately about why y’all did this and what you hope to accomplish from here. Just to reiterate one more time. I’m going to ask you from here, from right where it is, right now. The bill has proposed, what do you hope happened from right here? What next? What do you hope happens next?

Larry Dougherty: Go ahead R.J.

Mr. R.J Keenan: So, above all, what I hope happens next? And this is just my personal opinion is, I hope that we can come to some sort of conclusion together. And it’s not where people are pissed off. It’s not where they were making enemies or making you know this Oscars then, sort of thing. I wanted to be where us hunters get together and figure this out together because to your point earlier, and I don’t know if this was before this call or not Ramsey, but you and I talked about how the people who are going to ruin hunting, could possibly be hunters, right? So, by right, I don’t know when you say, that we’ve been talking a lot today, but it’s for us, for some people to go against other hunters and this and that again, I get it. But we need to come together just as me, myself and Larry and Chris have done in the last couple of days and come together and figure it out and have nice conversations. I mean, that’s what I hope happens in the next, let’s call it seven days, right? Where we can figure out what works for everyone? What makes sense for preserving the heritage of body booting, preserving the area that we can body boot? That’s above all. Right? It’s not this, I don’t want this person here, I don’t want that person here. It’s keeping the heritage and allowing body booters to continue practicing body booting. And that’s what I want above all is for us to come together as a group, not divided and not calling each other names but come together as a group and figuring out a solution.

Ramsey Russel: Amen. Folks, y’all been listening to R. J. Keenan and Larry Dougherty from Havre De Grace to the other side of the coin from what you’ve heard previously regarding house Bill 0911. Keep yourself abreast of it. And gentlemen, thank you all very much for coming on.

There are 2972 sq miles of public water in the Chesapeake Bay and House Bill 0911 affects 11 square miles, 4/10 of a percent. But it’s very contentious. You’ve heard both sides. How do you feel? How would you feel, if it were in your backyard? How would you feel, if it were legislating the way you hunt, where you hunt? That’s why it’s important to me to air this topic on Ducks Season Somewhere. We’re all going to have to deal with it. It’s a slippery slope. You heard the proponents of house Bill 0911 say, well, it’s exactly how we proposed to what our intent. Yeah, well, do you know her pit boss talk about unintended consequences? We’ve heard other people weigh in and have questions about it. Double arch parting shot is this, we all got to get along. No matter which side of that divisive topic, whether it’s Maryland, House Bill 0911 or your own backyard. We as hunters are all stakeholders. It’s us against everybody else. The folks up in Susquehanna flats are going to have to get together and find common ground. At some point time, we are too. I’ve been criticized in the past, believe or not, for getting a little too political at times. Well, here’s the way I look at it in life, in business and especially duck hunting. I’ve got to be political sometimes. Being Apolitical, they’re saying I don’t care, I’m not political, is putting my future in somebody else’s hands and I refuse to do that. Thank you for listening this episode of Duck Season Somewhere. See you next time.