EP 479. Lake Pickle

 

Enjoying Work-Related Hunts & Personal Hunts

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I’m in Rankin County meeting with my fellow Mississippian hunter conservationist, long time in the industry for such a young man, Mr. Lake Pickle. How are you, Lake?

Lake Pickle: I’m fantastic. I got a break that I didn’t ask for this morning from waking up at 04:30 because it was raining. So I got to sleep a little bit more than I have been for the past 12 days. So I’m feeling energized, feel good.

Ramsey Russell: You’re a turkey hunter?

Lake Pickle: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Thank God I had enough, you say you got a break from getting up at 04:30. That’s like your hunt, not a company hunt, am I right?

Lake Pickle: A little bit of both.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Lake Pickle: Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, because we’ve been doing at onX, we work with so many people and so I had, let’s see, we’ve been going, see, me and Jordan Blissett did, went to Florida when that opened and then when Mississippi opened, we had THP came down and we did some youth hunts, 2 weeks, I think it was 2 weeks ago now. Clay Newcomb was down, hunted with him around.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Lake Pickle: Yes, sir. Clay’s become a very good friend. We had a incredible hunt, really fun hunt. He shot a turkey on the first morning, actually and then some, we had some buddies, me and Brad Farris and some buddy of ours went down and hunted on the river last week. But, yeah, it’s like it’s work related hunts mixed in with personal hunts. So there’s not a lot of days where I wasn’t going in the morning.

Ramsey Russell: I saw something the other day, a post you made, tell me about your earliest introductions to turkey hunting.

Lake Pickle: Oh, man.

Ramsey Russell: That was a really good story.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. So a lot – This part of the story I’ve told to some folks before and they thought that I kind of was being a little hyperbolic, just exaggerating a little bit, but I’m telling you how this happened. No one in my family turkey hunted. My dad would tell you that, the reason my name is Lake is because my dad is an obsessed bass fisherman.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Lake Pickle: That’s where that came from. So my dad will tell you I mean, he’s starting to get into turkey hunting now or back then. But he was not a turkey hunter and so I caught glimpse of a turkey hunting video. It was a Primo’s Truth video and I watched this video, the turkey goblin and the hunter makes these sounds and the turkey makes the sounds back and my little ADD mind was like, that just sounds a lot more fun than deer hunting. I don’t know how else to put it. So we had a very close family friend, I’ve called the man Uncle Robbie my entire life. He’s not my biological uncle, but he is my uncle, one of those deals and so Uncle Robbie turkey hunted, has two sons. One of them is my age, Daniel and then his younger son, David. He was like a year or two younger than us, but found out we wanted to get into turkey hunting. And pop reaches out to Uncle Robbie and one morning, Uncle Robbie, my dad, myself and his 2 sons. So 5 of us, when 3 of the 5 are under the age of 12, go to the woods and like I said, that was my first introduction to turkey hunting. We were standing on the edge of National Forest and uncle Robbie owed, this turkey just roared from the top of this tree and I can – Like all those memories stick with you, but that particular one, I mean, I could show you where my feet were, I could show you what direction I was looking, I could take you to that spot right now, it just stuck with me so well.

Ramsey Russell: Left a mark, didn’t it?

Lake Pickle: Yeah. And that was just the day one. But what I was talking about telling that story I posted about on social media is I cannot tell you really, I can’t tell you how many mornings and days uncle Robbie would come and pick me up and throw me in the truck with Daniel and David and we would go out and we’d go turkey hunting. And again, at the time, me, Daniel and David are thinking we got good odds, but Uncle Robbie’s got 3 kids under the age of 12 dragging them through the woods and I mean, looking back at it now, it’s like he knew that the chances of us actually killing a turkey were microscopic, just from having that many kids. But I don’t think he cared. It wasn’t about that to him. It was about introducing us to it.

Ramsey Russell: About getting you boys out there.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. And that always stuck with me, always, always. I’ve always been so appreciative of that. Because he was just a selfless man and I always wanted to somehow repay that. This spring, I say this spring, it was like 2 days ago, it was this past weekend. I invited him to come hunt this spot on the Mississippi River that I have access to and I got to watch him shoot a turkey. And I’m going to be honest with you, he shot that turkey and when went out there and picked it up and came back to him. I don’t know what happened. It was just, my eyes started leaking. I couldn’t help it. It was just too much.

Ramsey Russell: And everybody thinks we’re out there just shooting stuff. Where are you from, Lake? You grew up right here in Wright County?

Lake Pickle: Brandon, Mississippi.

Ramsey Russell: Brandon, Mississippi.

Lake Pickle: Yes, sir.

Mississippi Public Land Duck Hunts

Ramsey Russell: Did you, I can understand the turkey, I can understand the deer, but how did you get into waterfowl hunting?

Lake Pickle: Well, we were talking about uncle Robbie earlier, it kind of started with him too. The Mahaffeys took me on my first duck hunt on some public land here in Mississippi. And same kind of deal. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I deer hunt some, especially the Primo’s years. I deer hunted a lot. But it wasn’t a joke, I am very ADD. And so the whole just sit still in this stand and watch how it shakes out, it just wasn’t as conducive of a style of hunting to me and so I knew of the Mahaffeys going on these duck hunts and there’s dogs, there’s calling, there’s just so much more pieces and parts that could grab my attention more and that just, I was like, I want to try that and so they took me and we were on the edge of this slough and there was a group, it was probably, it was up in the morning, I want to say 09:30, 10:00 a.m and I would say probably 8 to 10 mallards came and just did the deal just perfect. And sun was up, it was pretty day and I had never seen that before and I was waterfowl hunting when that happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so I was 15.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: And I still remember the sun hitting the green on those mallard heads and just falling into those decoys and uncle Robbie being uncle Robbie, did not even reach for his gun. He just told me, Daniel and David, when they got in there it was, he laid it out for us. Don’t shoot, don’t even go for your gun until I tell you to shoot all that stuff and we’re just watching it and all and they get in, I mean, they’re coming into the decoys and he says, shoot them and all 3 of us emptied our guns and there was no ducks on the water, not one.

Ramsey Russell: But nonetheless, a duck hunter was born. Yeah, probably 3 of them.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. Oh, man. Like I said, that’s one of those memories that sticks with me and I didn’t kill a duck. I tried to, but I didn’t kill them.

Ramsey Russell: It’s funny how when you look back in the past season, the past life, that the memories that stand out weren’t the birds puffing. If you think about the most indelible and memorable moments of your life in the duck blinds or hunting something, it really wasn’t that contact. It was something else and when I think of ducks, some of the most memorable are the ducks decoying, the ducks working, the geese working, that’s what – looking up snow geese, snow goose hunting can be so aggravating in spring down south. But the consolation is, even on a bad day, you’ve got all those birds just buzzing around like that kick beehive right above you, just out of range, but that’s okay. What a spectacular sight that is always.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. And I remember, man, as we got older as me and we started getting driver’s license, we started being able to have the opportunity to go and try it on our own. And uncle Robbie would still go with us, but he still him and my dad both, there was that, get out there figure it out, go out there, learn, figure it out for yourself, get your feet up under you. And we had, man, so many good memories from that, there was a particular piece of public out there that we just tended to magnetize to. I don’t think it’s because the duck hunting there was more spectacular than anywhere else, that’s just what we were most familiar with. But, man, we left a lot of boot tracks on that place, just figuring it out and learning to call ducks and yeah, there’s so many fond memories and honestly, a lot of them go back to that Mahaffey family, they’re very special to me.

Ramsey Russell: Here in the state of Mississippi, man, we got some great duck holes around and real iconic pieces of property. But public land hunting is – We’ve got some at times in certain places, certain times it’s some very good hunting opportunity for waterfowl and a lot of other things and I cut my teeth figuring it out on duck hunting on Mississippi public. And it pushed you to be a different caliber of hunter. You couldn’t just go sit back and wait, you had to go after them, you had to play a game and it’s again going back to some of those memories, Lake, some of my fondest memories are on public land.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And getting beat by another team, getting beat by the ducks, I just come with the territory, it made me matter, so to speak. It made me realize, I got to step up, I got to do better, I got to do different, I got to play a different game.

Lake Pickle: That same, we were probably, I don’t know, maybe seniors in high school and I can tell you the first time that we shot our limit without one of the adults present, just going out there, striking it out on our own. It was me, Daniel and a friend of ours named Nathan. But it was on that same piece of public and we thought, man, the sense of gratification and it wasn’t just like a beat our chest, wear something special. It was like a, oh, my gosh, we did it, we played it right this morning and we’re learning something. It just felt so good. It was just, I remember just feeling so thankful.

Ramsey Russell: How did you get a job? Because when I met you, you were working for Primos. How did you fall into a young man, Rankin County, Mississippi, how did you fall into Primos?

Lake Pickle: So this is the best way that I can put it. When I was growing up, I grew up on the Andy Griffith show and Primo’s truth about hunt. So Will Primos and Will is a very dear to me, very dear to me, so the way I’m about to state him, he would not appreciate because he’s a very humble man. But when I was younger, growing up, watching those videos, Will Primo was Tom Brady, Brad Farris, Jim, all those guys, they were my heroes and that’s just what I wanted to do, I can’t state it any other way. I mean some kids, when they were growing up, wanted to be an NFL football player, some folks wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to work for Primos. That’s just what I wanted.

Ramsey Russell: Not in the outdoor industry, you wanted to work specifically for Primos.

Lake Pickle: That’s where it all began and ended was right there.

Ramsey Russell: How old might you have been when you set that lofty goal?

Lake Pickle: 11, 12, maybe.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Lake Pickle: I mean, I was young. And the thing that I’m ever thankful for and as I get older, I realize how valuable it was and how blessed I was is, my mom and my dad were so encouraging. And not one time did they say, hey Primo sounds great, but you need to probably do something, you need to try that, that’s not realistic, you need to go do this. They were very, they were always so encouraging and then I had a very close mentor, guy named Keith Polk was the same way. And I was just always, especially when I was younger, I was trying to find, trying to like, plan out my route of how I would do that. But I wasn’t really getting anywhere until I learned about an internship opportunity for a show called Midwest Whitetail, they’re still around. I think they’re primarily YouTube based, but at the time they were kind of this whole YouTube semi live, quick turn hunting videos that you see now, Midwest Whitetail was really the first people to do that. They were the first people doing digitally based hunting shows and they had an internship program. And at the time, this would have been 2011, 2012, somewhere around there, if you could get some sort of professional experience video wise, in the production world of hunting side, you would have hundreds, thousands of kids my age late teens, early 20s, that wanted to do the hunting industry thing, the video thing. But if you actually had some level of professional experience, that would immediately put you at the top of the pile. And so, I managed to get that internship by the grace of God, literally and got my Chevy S10, hooked it up to a U-Haul, loaded up everything I owned and left Rankin County and drove to Southeast Iowa and was up there for 6 months. And 2 guys, Aaron Warbritton and Greg Clements, who work for THP now, who run THP now, were kind of my main mentors and supervisors while I was up there, great guys. Wealth of knowledge, super, genuine, happy to help and they helped me get started, they helped me get my bearings on how to film and learn the production side of hunting videos. And they knew how I felt about Primos, that that was like my end goal and Aaron Warb ended up running into Brad Farris at a ATA show and said, hey, we’ve got this kid that wants to go to work for you all, he just came through our internship program and he’s local to Mississippi. And Brad was like, well, give him my email address and again still at the time, Aaron calls me and says, hey, Brad wants you to email him. I’m like, Brad Farris wants me to email him, he’s just skyscraper to me. And anyway, I email him, but I’d gone back to school, I was at Mississippi state and emailed him off and on for 2 years. And he –

Ramsey Russell: What were you studying at state?

Lake Pickle: Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Because at the time, even as encouraging as my parents were, I was like, if I don’t land this Primo’s thing, I got to do something. So I was trying to get some sort of a backup plan.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, that’s smart, because they weren’t, they aren’t a fortune 500 company with thousands upon thousands of employees.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: They’ve always seen from the outside looking in like a tight little family group.

Lake Pickle: That is what it is. So I was emailing Brad and Brad was like, well, what’s your schedule? I am a full time student. I was like, I can film on weekends and he was like, man, that’s just not, it’s not going to work, he’s like, but don’t be afraid to keep emailing me from time to time, so I did. Well, we still at the – We had this, we still have it, local sports show in Jackson, the Wildlife Extravaganza, back when it was in the old trade mart. I’m sure you’re familiar.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Lake Pickle: I went there on a Sunday afternoon and again, all this is by the grace of God. I can’t emphasize that enough, because knowing Brad, like, I know him now. Brad is not one to willingly attend trade shows, just not his thing. I’d actually never seen him at one. But I walk by the Primo’s booth from a distance and I see Brad standing in the booth and I’m like, I’ve got to go introduce myself to him. I’ve been emailing him and so I walk up to him and I stretch my hand out, say, hey, I’m Lake Pickle. And one thing I’ve always had going for me is people can literally forget everything about me, but they’re going to remember my name.

Ramsey Russell: They’re going to remember your name, Lake.

Lake Pickle: Because it’s so odd.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: So when I said, I’m Lake Pickle, Brad’s like, you’re that kid that’s been emailing me about video. And I remember that day, him acting way more interested in me videoing than I expected him to. I expected a, hey that’s great, let’s talk, but he was asking me about how far along I was in school, when would I be freed up? Which I was like, man, this is – Little did I know the week prior, literally the week prior, they had 4 video guys leave to pursue a different opportunity.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: And it was on the verge of September.

The World of Modern Hunting Videos

Wilbur told me that day, he said, I’m not going to hire you if you don’t promise me that you will finish your schooling and they, at the time, I mean, I was on contract basis I was just a part time video guy.

Ramsey Russell: At this point, you’re having this conversation, what was your experience and skill set in the world of videos?

Lake Pickle: Man? I was green. I had experience, but I was green, I knew –

Ramsey Russell: There weren’t even iPhones around yet. So you didn’t have, I mean, where are you –

Lake Pickle: There was like.

Ramsey Russell: Were you like an iPhone videoer?

Lake Pickle: No, I had, I mean, from the Midwest days, we had these –

Ramsey Russell: Okay, so you had done some video with Midwest.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. So, I had, I mean, the old tree arms and the big muddy bases and the Sony AX5000. I remember the name of that camera because it was drilled into my head when I was interning up there. It was big blocky thing. But yeah, I had done and I done some editing on Adobe and so, I mean, I had some experience, but I was a rookie, I mean, green as green can be. It was – We’re talking, when I met Brad is on the verge of September, they had just lost 4 guys and they got leave to go elk hunting in like a week. I didn’t know that, but I just I didn’t – And so that was on a Sunday, Wednesday morning because school was about start back too.

Ramsey Russell: Do you know how to turn a camera on here wondering –

Lake Pickle: Yeah, exactly. Right. So we left that next morning. I left and went back to Starkville, moved all my stuff back into my dorm. Wednesday morning, it was a early morning for a college student that school hadn’t started yet and there’s no hunting in season. We’re sitting in the – Me and Daniel are sitting in the living room of our little duplex house that we had and my phone rings and Daniel goes, who in the world’s calling you at 09:00 in the morning? Again, early for a college student and I said –

Ramsey Russell: Unless its deer season.

Lake Pickle: You’re right. And he said, who in the world’s calling you? And I said, Brad Farris. And Daniel goes, Brad Farris isn’t calling you and I held up my phone and he goes, you better answer that. So I answer the phone, I run into the other room, we small talk for a little bit and Brad’s like, look, man, I’m just going to shoot you straight, I know you’re in school still, I’m not asking you to quit school, but I’m asking if you would consider maybe taking a semester or 2 off, because here’s the deal. We have an elk hunt in, I think it was a week and a half and we need some help. So I want you to know if you’d consider and he about got the word consider out and I said yes.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Lake Pickle: So I called my parents, told him I wasn’t leaving college for good. I drove down to Flora, met, interviewed with those guys and that’s when I met Wilbur in person for the first time. Wilbur told me that day, he said, I’m not going to hire you if you don’t promise me that you will finish your schooling and they, at the time, I mean, I was on contract basis I was just a part time video guy.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: Towards the end of that fall, they offered me a full time position with the caveat that I would finish school. So I started pursuing finishing my degree online, which I was able to do, I didn’t end up graduating until 2018, but I did finish. Yeah, I finished. I got that paper that says I did school. I got my diploma.

Ramsey Russell: You bring up a good point. Before he even got the offer out, you said yes. I mean, when opportunity knocks, you’ve got to step into that opportunity. Win, lose or draw, you’ve got to be ready for it.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. I had a very good friend of mine, a guy named Wyatt Adams, a very successful man. He told me and I think it was actually a piece of advice that he got from his dad. And he said, he told him, he said, in life, you’re going to get an opportunity at 2, maybe 3 home runs if you’re lucky and you got to swing at them.

Ramsey Russell: Got to swing.

Lake Pickle: And that was one of them. You have to. And like I said, I mean, I just knew, I mean, that was everything I wanted in my, in the entire time that I’d been alive, that I’d started to get aspirations and ambitions, that is what I wanted to do. And so when he offered me that, I had to jump on it, didn’t have a choice.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Now, what did you end up doing with Primos? Like, what were your job responsibilities? It wasn’t just filming, was it?

Lake Pickle: It started out well –

Ramsey Russell: That’s a tough life, Lake, I’ve heard it being an outdoor cameraman is one of the shortest lifespans of a career of all time.

On the Job Experience

If it was elk season, I might be gone for a month and a half but I didn’t want it any other way. I mean, that’s just all.

Lake Pickle: It puts some miles on you, that’s for sure. When I started there, but, man, I was 21 when I started at Primos, I was 21 years old. And that was a funny thing, too, until Jordan came on 2 years later and Jordan was close to my age, but for the 2 years that I was there, there was me, the 21 year old kid, the next oldest person was into their 40s, so there was a large age gap and so if there was ever a trip or something, I mean, they would just, all right, send the kid and I’d be – If it was elk season, I might be gone for a month and a half but I didn’t want it any other way. I mean, that’s just all. I mean, I thought I had the world by the tail, but it was filming and then we had that place on the river that we called cottonmouth where we deer and duck hunted and there was hanging stands, putting up cameras, planting food plots, brushing in duck blinds. I mean, just land stuff, hunting camp stuff. So there’s a lot of that and filming as it went on, Primos didn’t have an Instagram page when I started and I was like, we need to have Instagram page. So I started doing social media and that snowballed to where I was doing all the social media, that snowballed into doing YouTube and 2017 we started the Speak The Language Podcast. And so at the end of it, I was still filming, I was doing some in front of the camera stuff, I was running the podcast, I was running social media, I was running the YouTube channel. So it was – You end up wearing a lot of hats. But again, I was happy, I loved my time as a full time employee there. Those guys are like family, I was hunting with Brad 4 days ago.

Ramsey Russell: But when you were young and doing that kind of stuff and wearing all those different caps, were there any hunting caps on your head at any time?

Lake Pickle: Yeah. There definitely was, man. They started letting me hunt on camera, I think 3 years in and you would have thought, I’d been handed a golden ticket. I just, I couldn’t believe it, because – So, yeah, they started letting me hunt and shoot some deer and they would involve me on duck hunts, which I loved and then turkey season, so they started, Primos had been around for so long, they had seen kind of the trial and error of throwing these younger guys in front of the camera too quick and just the problems that can stem from there, so they made me earn it.

Ramsey Russell: Like, what kind of problems?

Lake Pickle: Basically vanity. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: Just kind of getting the big head.

Ramsey Russell: Everybody wants to be a rock star.

Lake Pickle: Everybody wants to be a hero, yeah. And when I took that job, obviously, I’d be lying through my teeth if I said me getting to hunt on camera one day didn’t run through my mind, but I didn’t know if that would ever come or not and so when they finally extended that opportunity, again, it took me 3 years, but it was necessary. I never once was like, man, I deserve to hunt just because I didn’t feel that way. But when they offered me that opportunity, I just, I was blown away by it. I think waiting that long just made me appreciate it that much more.

Ramsey Russell: Growing up, ranking kind of Mississippi and your uncle taking you out on all those experiences, deer, ducks, turkey, how did taking it to that next level, going in a professional with that group of serious hunters, Primos, how did that open up your world? How did you begin to evolve as a human being and as a hunter? Because that’s almost like here’s what I’m getting at, Lake is, on the one hand, it’s like steroids, but on the other hand, I think that the reason Primos was such a force of nature in the outdoor space was because they stuck to their roots. They stuck to ducks and turkeys and deer, elk, which a lot of Mississippians make that drive. But really true, they kind of stuck to their wheelhouse even a lot of their hunts were not international. It was Mississippi cottonmouth or up there, other parts of the delta. They were just really sharing their home with the world. But still, for a young man from Rankin County of Mississippi, that must have just been, it opened up your world.

Lake Pickle: It did. I would have thought if someone asked me before starting at Primos, if someone asked me if I was an adequate hunter, outdoorsman, I would say, yeah I think that I could hold my own weight, you get in the woods with guys like that and here’s the thing what they were doing at Primos was part of a business, sure. But another reason, I think and you kind of alluded to it a little bit, sticking to their roots, part of the reason that Primos was so successful is they were so authentic, they were so authentic. And so those guys, Brad, Wilbur, all the rest of them, you take and I believe this to my core, you take the camera, the production, the spotlight, whatever you want to call it, you take that out of the equation. Those guys are still hunting, they’re hunting as hard as they can. The difference is what you can pair with the authenticity that the show and the business opened up for them is that allowed just ample amount of time in the woods and time in the woods, I tell folks this all the time because there’s all you go to if someone wants to learn about hunting today, there’s so many sources, there’s YouTube. I mean, you can google how to blow a duck call, how to turkey hunt, how to elk hunt. There’s educational resources all over the place and they’re great, absolutely use them, consider the source, but absolutely use them. But I tell folks all the time, if you really want to get better at a certain pursuit type of hunting type of calling, whatever, nothing ever is going to replace getting out there and doing it.

Ramsey Russell: There’s no shortcuts to experience. And that’s just one of them things that you just, it takes time, it just takes time. Whether you make them bourbon or planting a garden, it takes time and there’s nothing you can do to shortcut that process and like we said earlier those failures, those days, you come back without a strap, you got beat by somebody else, you got beat by the ducks, you just got to keep on doing it over time.

Lake Pickle: And it was very quickly, honestly, because the first trip I did was an elk trip and having no, having really no bearing to pair up with elk hunting. I didn’t really, it was when we got in the deer woods and started duck hunting, stuff that I had done before that I had some familiarity with, that’s when I would hunt with Brad or Will and be like, man, these guys are different. I mean, I realized I’m hunting with a man that has done this a lot, that has seen a lot, that has been through a lot of experiences. And I started trying to become like a sponge, trying to learn, because there was just, there was so many things that they would do that I started to learn just in terms of hunting and becoming a more consistently successful hunter, it’s not the big things, it’s just all these small, incremental things that Brad would do, setting up for a whitetail hunt that you wouldn’t think would be a big thing added to your chances of success. But when you start adding all these little bitty things that he was doing, everything to particular pieces of cover where he would hang a tree stand, brushing out quiet entryways so he could walk in more quiet. I mean, just all these small, tiny things that’s what added up to more consistent success and that opened a lot of doors for me. Just strictly hunting with those guys and trying to learn and gain from their experience.

Ramsey Russell: What was it about those guys that kept them so genuine? Unlike a lot of people that fall off into the outdoor space and become, quote, celebrities and want to be and begin to act like a celebrity, what was it about them that kept them so well grounded, do you think?

Lake Pickle: I think, Will, So Will was such a mentor for Brad. He was such a mentor for a lot of people. He’s a mentor for me and I think one thing that Brad and Will have in common, there’s in life, people that you come in contact with. There’s people that want to see you win, there’s people that are okay if you win and then there’s people that don’t want you to win at all. One of the things and I would, I think, if I had to guess I think it had a lot to do with Will’s family, with Brad, I know because Brad, it was, I think a lot of it had to do with a direct influence from Will. Will Primos, I have never been around a man that wanted to see others win more than him, Will wanted to see you succeed, Will wanted you to grow, Will wanted you to be a better hunter, Will wanted you to be a better cameraman, Will wanted you to be better at business, he wanted you to win. So he was constantly, I mean, constantly trying to excel and push up the hill, the people in his circle. So there was one time and this is not – this will tell you the kind of person that Will is. I was still early twenties, probably 24, 25, something like that and Will at that time, Will had started, he still had an office up at the main, but he’d started to pull back a little bit, started to spend more time at home and he came up to the office one day during the week and I saw him briefly. I mean, we talked for a few minutes, then he had to leave. And during that time, I had some sort of, like, small drama going on, like with the girl I was dating or something. Saturday morning, it’s not hunting season, Saturday morning, I get a phone call and it’s Wilbur, not uncommon, I answer the phone, like, hey, Will and he says, hey, can you, I got some stuff going on at the house that I need some help with, you mind riding over and helping me? Like, sure. Not uncommon, I don’t think anything of it, so I ride to his house, pull up in his driveway. I’m expecting, because when I’ve done stuff like this before, I see Will in his backyard, working on his garden, in his flower bed, something. Will’s not in the yard, I’m like, it’s odd. He must be inside. So I walk, I knock on the door. Wilbur opens the door. He’s still, he’s not in yard work and clothes and he’s like, hey, come inside, at this point, I’m like, what’s going on? And I walk, he’s like, hey, you want some coffee? I’m like, sure. So he goes and poured me a cup of coffee. He goes, all right go into, he’s like, you know where my office is, go in there and sit down for a little bit, if you don’t mind. I’m like, okay. And at this point, I’m like, what is going on? He doesn’t call me over for a meeting on Saturday. So I sit there sipping coffee. At this point, my wheels are spinning, wondering, what has he called me over for? And Will comes in there, he shuts the door to his office, he sits down and he said, I’ve known you for a while now, I know you, when I saw you at the office this week, something was bothering you and you’re my friend and I didn’t like you seeing, I didn’t like seeing you that way. So you and me are going to sit here and we’re going to talk through it until we figure out what was bothering you. True story.

Ramsey Russell: No, I had a government supervisor tell me one time. He just broke people into 2 categories. There’s butchers and bakers, anchors and sales and that’s the truth.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And there’s a lot more anchors and a lot more butchers than there are bakers and sales. You’re just in the work and the more you get out there into the public spectrum, the more you realize that, we were talking earlier this morning that you’ve kind of grown hardened to a lot of the social media comments and stuff. You have to, don’t you?

Lake Pickle: Man, there’s never going to be a shortage of negativity as much as I hate to admit that, people are going to be negative, people are going to be jealous, people are going to be just outright mean to when I was younger, it bothered me a lot especially because, again, when I started kind of getting in front of the camera, the Primos thing, to call that fame would be laughable. But again, from a kid that was born and raised in Rankin County, just being an average kid, all of a sudden you have some eyes on you. It’s just, it’s different. It’s something that I had to learn to try to navigate and in those days, social media comments or YouTube comments, they would really bother me. But again, a Wilbur thing, Wilbur would say, consider the source and move on. So if it’s Wilbur giving me a critique, I’m going to listen to it.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Lake Pickle: But if it’s some dude on social media that can’t spell –

Being in the Outdoor Industry

The outdoor industry is an entirely small, it’s a tiny microcosm in the great scheme of things. But for that reason, it seems to be a little cutthroat.

Ramsey Russell: It’s something about human nature that makes some people sales and some people anchors and what I’m reminded of, I don’t know where I heard this, but it is I believe, a universal truth. If everybody you know, if all of us were just to throw our problems down in a pile, chances are no matter how successful you appear, how much fun you appear, whatever, chances are you’d probably reach for your own problem and put it back in your pocket before you grabbed anybody else’s. I mean, it’s just part of human condition. We all got our struggles and we’re all doing the very best we can. That’s what I think. We’re all just doing the best we can, but we all got problems and it ain’t no sense and when I see people in those social media circles doing that, like what you described, I see them almost projecting their problems. And I told my daughter, who recently started working with us, I said sometimes you’re going to call people they’re having a bad day or whatever don’t ever shoulder their problems. Just be polite, be courteous, move on, circle back. Because that’s just, I don’t know, something about human nature that way and the outdoor, maybe because I’m kind of sort of in the outdoor industry or work with a lot of you folks that are in the outdoor industry. The outdoor industry is an entirely small, it’s a tiny microcosm in the great scheme of things. But for that reason, it seems to be a little cutthroat.

Lake Pickle: It definitely can be. And like, it is a, you can’t, I mean, you can’t screw anyone over in this industry, circles too small.

Ramsey Russell: The hunting community nationwide is a small circle, believe it or not.

Lake Pickle: Yeah, it really is. I mean and you, I mean, in which you shouldn’t screw anybody over anyway, but you’re just, you’re not going to make it very long if you do, because there’s just, everybody knows everybody at the end of the day, if you start digging far enough, degree of separation is pretty small.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a small world. I’m going to change the subject, another post you made all these years you’re filming with Mojo and you, excuse me, Mojo, sorry about that, with Primos and you had, I know you did a lot of elk hunts, but you had the opportunity recently to go out and shoot your first bull. Talk about that experience from a Mississippi guy that started up 11 years old. I wanna work with Primos, this is my goal in life. And you hung your wagon to that star and you went through the motions and you got behind the camera and you did all this good stuff, which I’ve always wondered about cameraman Lake, how do you? If you’re really a hunter and not a videographer, that’s got to be something that you never get, that you’re always filming from behind, finding a camera instead of drawing back on, but you’ve had the opportunity to do that. What was it like after all those years, going back and drawing back on your first bull?

Lake Pickle: Well, man, so honestly and there were moments like that for sure. I mean, there were – I can remember moments the younger, like when we’d be duck hunting and everyone had limited out and it’s just been a great morning and in the back of my head I’m going, man, it’d be nice if I could have that shotgun for a minute, of course there were thoughts like that with elk, for me, it was so unworldly that the first exposure to it, I was just happy to be there because I couldn’t believe that I was seeing it. I mean, you come from here, the biggest game we have to pursue is a whitetail deer and the first time I go elk hunting, there’s these 1000 pound bull elk with these giant antlers on their head, running, slobbering, bugling 20 yards of you and it’s just, man, it’s sobering. It’s the only thing I can say. I mean, the funny thing, the first elk that we called in on that first elk trip, thank the good Lord, a lot of guys out there, they’d refer to it as a raghorn, just means tiny bull, young bull be the equivalent of seeing, like, a year and a half, 2 and a half year old buck. To me, I thought he was ginormous and thank the good Lord he was a raghorn, because that video would have been non usable, I was shaking so hard, man, it’s comical, because I did manage to hit record, but I’m telling you, you all be like, did you all try on the earthquake effect? I mean, the whole footage is just shaking. I mean, because I just was, I was like, it’s so big.

Ramsey Russell: How far was he?

Lake Pickle: 30 yards away. I mean, young one. And he just came in there bugling like he owned the world and I was just, oh, my God and that honestly, again, I think the elk tag was offered to me 4 or 5 years in and that got really quick, because then there’s the – I mean, at that time, I had been able to film a lot of them and see a lot of them and so I’d grown comfortable in that. But in a little bit, when they were like, hey, you’re getting an archery elk tag this year. It was like, oh, man, that’s awesome. Oh, good grief, I better not mess up, it was just a little bit of –

Ramsey Russell: Don’t miss.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. Don’t miss, don’t make a bad shot, don’t fumble and man, I found, they told me, like, in May, I think. And I think I started shooting my bow, getting ready the next day.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Lake Pickle: Just because I was like, if there is a mess up, if there is a miss, it’s not going to be because I wasn’t prepared. And then they tell me, not only am I getting to hunt, but they tell me, like, Wilbur’s going to call for you. And I’m like, I’m sorry, what? Like, who’s – Wilbur’s going to do what? And again, and there’s like, I mean, this is like, 5 years in or whatever and there’s still a part of that kid in me still. But there it was, a larger voice in my head that was going, how in the world did you even end up in this situation, boy? Like, how in the world did you get here? But yeah, I’m like, all right, Wilbur’s going to call it up, better not mess up and so I practiced, I got to where I was shooting every day and then a month out, I was shooting twice a day, every morning, every afternoon. I was getting ready again. I was like, if there’s – I mean, because screw ups happen, I mean, they just do. I mean, the elk can do something funny, you can hit a limb. But it was not going to be because I wasn’t prepared, so I was practicing nonstop and we get out there and thankfully, the best, I tell people this all the time, the best advantage that I had as far as being able to keep it together, not screw it up and I realized that the blessing that I had here was those 4 years of filming, prior to that. It wasn’t the first elk that Wilbur called in, was not the first elk that I’d ever seen before. At that point, I had been exposed to a lot of bull elk in bow range because of filming. So that was very advantageous. However, it is still a different thing when you’re holding a bow and one of them walks in there. And thankfully, I killed on the 3rd day, I think 3rd or 4th day. And so we’d had some encounters with some younger bulls and some bulls where it just didn’t work out, they didn’t get close enough, stayed behind a tree, whatever. But I had gotten to have a few reps in the book holding that bow with an elk coming in just to kind of get a little bit more settled in, because, again, the first morning we had an elk kind of get close and I was just like, oh, my gosh, it’s happening. But we found this herd elk, it was a herd bull, a couple cows, a couple satellites and they had bedded down on the side of this mountain. And we, Primos had haunted that place for so long. They knew with this wind, we can circle around, we can get close to them and kind of the tactic, essentially, is get really close, as close as you can without making a noise and then start calling, especially with bugles and that herd bull will kind of, if it works like it’s supposed to, will kind of react like, who’s this bull encroaching on my cows and that’s kind of the play and that’s what we did and a young bull came in first, that, don’t get me wrong, I would have shot, I was full drawn on him, he just never gave me a shot and he ended up kind of figuring out something wasn’t right and he runs back into the herd and Wilbur’s bugling the whole time. What happened looking at it in reverse, what happened when that younger bull comes running back in there and the wilbur’s back there bugling, that herd bull, that kind of just fired him up even more, because he thinks that young bull just got run off by this other bull, while I look up the hill and here comes this herd bull just trodden down towards me, bugling. And in my head, I was like, it’s happening, I just knew. I mean, just the way he was walking the lane he was coming down, I was like, this is it and one thing, a huge part of archery, elk hunting and one thing that Brad had driven into my head, the crucial part of getting that done is when you draw back, you can’t draw too early, you can’t draw too late because that’s a lot of movement, getting that bow back. And there was this big ponderosa pine that had fallen over about 8 foot up and so it gave me a little bit of an obstruction. And the elk walked, his head went behind that ponderosa pine. He was about 50 yards closing and when his head went behind that pine, I just drew my bow back and he walked and I mean, I made the shot, but at the same time, he gave me a layup of a shot, too. He walked, got full broadside and I had to mouth call in. I thought I was going to mu, to try to stop him. He stopped and bugled on his own when he was dead in front of me, broadside at 25 yards.

Ramsey Russell: Golly.

Grateful

The saying I like to say is, I’m like a turtle on top of a fence post. I didn’t get there without help.

Lake Pickle: And I remember Brad telling me about drawing back on elk, when they’re that close, he says, when they’re that close, you don’t really necessarily even put a pin on them, you just put the whole ring on them because they’re so big. Yeah, I mean, I remember feeling that because I’d drawn back and I was following him and I’m like, my entire sight pin covers his heart so it just kind of changes everything. But I remember I was about to stop him and then he stopped and bugled and I was like, thank you, Lord and yeah, shot him and he went 70 yards and tipped over. And they had to edit out several minutes of my reaction just because I was –

Ramsey Russell: Adrenaline dump.

Lake Pickle: Oh, dude, it wasn’t I mean, I didn’t say any bad words or anything like that. They were like, Lake, we just have to cut some of this, we don’t have the time for it. I mean, I was just in awe of it, I couldn’t believe it. The original cut, I think I still have somewhere and my parents have it. And then Jordan, Brad will have it because they like to rip me about it from time to time. It’s like just laying on the ground, like.

Ramsey Russell: Golly, a very emotional experience.

Lake Pickle: Oh, dude. Yeah. I mean, again, it was like Wilbur comes up there and hugs me and says, you did great and all that and I’m like and again, there was one of those moments of, how in the world did I even end up here? How did this happen? What did I do to deserve this? But here I was and was thankful for it, still thankful for it.

Ramsey Russell: When did it ever sink in? This 11 or 12 year old child that wanted to hang his wagon on the star and specifically work for this company and do something. When did it ever dawn into you in your career that I did it or did it ever seem like, boom, a goal achieved?

Lake Pickle: It took a while. I mean, because it stayed surreal for the longest time and I don’t know if there was ever a particular moment where it just clicked, I just think over, because again, I was there for a little over 9 years before moving to onX. And that’s like, I still do stuff with them but I think it was just over time, I just kind of looked up one day and it just felt, I mean, still thankful for it the entire time. But instead of it feeling mostly surreal, it just kind of felt like I belonged there. I just was comfortable there, they were my family and that’s when I was like, man, I did it. I didn’t do it on my own. I tell people when they ask me about Primos or any form of success that I might have obtained. The saying I like to say is, I’m like a turtle on top of a fence post. I didn’t get there without help.

Ramsey Russell: You just did your part. You’re born and raised in Mississippi and the more I’ve traveled and the more I’ve been around, I love, there’s a million places I love to be when I’m there, I can I think of Washington state out on the peninsula, I think of Montana, Wyoming. Golly, man, even out on the east Atlantic Flyway, there’s just places I love to be and I got asked a question one time. Have I ever traveled anywhere or been anywhere that I would consider leaving the state of Mississippi for? No. I just, I really can’t imagine my permanent domicile being anywhere other than where it is, in Mississippi. And I’m telling you, man, there are places, there are times like, I can remember going Anchorage, Alaska, one time. It was 00, it was cold as can be, but I talked to my wife and she’s like, what? I said, man, if I had come here when I was 19, I may never have gone home, but now I’m not 19. Mississippi is my home. Have you ever been anywhere that you would consider? Man, I’m going to move here. I know onX is in Missoula, what a beautiful part of the world.

Lake Pickle: Oh, it’s great, man. I tell folks all the time, which and I’ll elaborate on this, but the first time I went to Montana is I tell folks, you don’t go there and ask yourself, why does everyone move here? I mean, you kind of – I mean, it is beautiful.

Ramsey Russell: Especially in the summertime I don’t know about the -500 winters, but in the summertime, it’s pretty nice.

Lake Pickle: Well, if anyone could ever convince me to move to Mississippi, they would need to ask me during our summertime. But to your point, you were talking about had you been to this place when you were 19? Maybe there was a while where, I mean, I didn’t have a set place, but I considered it, I considered just trying life elsewhere. And this is actually a conversation that my wife and I had within the past year. It was just like, we travel, we love to travel, we travel a lot. Work lets me travel a lot, I travel with my wife a lot, it’s just something that we like to do, I love Missoula where onX is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. But Mississippi is home. It just is, it’s home and that’s where I’m based, it’s where I’m rooted, it’s where I want to be, it’s where I want to call home.

Ramsey Russell: I think so, too. It’s what I know. It’s what I’m familiar with. We are blessed beyond measure in my world. Like I was telling you one time, a friend of mine came from Utah to North Mississippi recently and was going on and on about the first opossum he ever saw.

Lake Pickle: A rare sighting.

Ramsey Russell: I’m like, well, too bad you didn’t see an armadillo, but seriously, I mean, the thing, you travel and you see this great stuff and experience it in the moment, but it ain’t home. But it’s crazy how to hear him tell me about seeing that opossum. It’s sometimes easy to forget home. The things we just take for granted, a cypress break.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Just imagine being a grown man hunting a cypress break for the first time in your life. Because even to this day, as many times I’ve hunted them and that’s probably my favorite habitat on earth to hunt. It’s always something like walking into a church or something, when you walk into a cypress break, it’s something holy about it that. Golly, I just, but it’s easy to take for granted, too.

Hunting Turkeys on Home Turf

And I and like, don’t get me wrong, I actively hunt turkeys in other states, love doing it, but nothing will ever top hunting them here at home.

Lake Pickle: Very much so. Well, going back to turkey hunting, Jordan, Blissett and I – and I still, I travel for turkeys all the time, I love travel for turkeys, I love hunting them in different terrain, I love seeing new stuff. But we started, I don’t even know when it all started, it’s when we were at Primos but we would always say it’s not, the spring is not complete until you, till you get a home bird, it means. And I and like, don’t get me wrong, I actively hunt turkeys in other states, love doing it, but nothing will ever top hunting them here at home. And again, talking about where I was last week with Brad and those guys, we were on the Mississippi River. Flock of turkeys roosted over a cypress break, I mean and just looking at them hearing them and watching them pitch out of those trees and strutting through the yellow tops, I mean, it’s just, that’s the ultimate for me.

Ramsey Russell: No matter how far and wide I duck hunt to your point, it’s just something about being in a duck hole. I’ve hunted a long time with people, I’ve hunted with a long time and shooting ducks, it’s just, it’s a whole different aura at that point, it’s not just shooting ducks. It’s a ritual that speaks to your inner self by just being home like that. Can I ask you about the reel you posted recently? Since we’re talking about Mississippi, you posted a reel that struck a chord with me and can I ask you about that reel?

Lake Pickle: You can, I believe, make sure we’re on the right page here. You’re talking about the –

Ramsey Russell: Well, a recent, not too recent, not the most recent, but a recent commissioner meeting.

Lake Pickle: Yes. Okay. Same page. So and putting my own self on the chopping block here, up until very recently, I have not been as educated I think as I need to be on stuff that goes on inside this state, which I should be for as much as I love it and as much as I care about wildlife and honestly, what clued me in to start paying more attention to the commission was a lot of this CWD stuff. But I started digging through old commission meetings because they are public, it’s all public knowledge, it’s posted on YouTube, everybody can see it and I watched this meeting and I wasn’t even looking for waterfowl stuff, I was looking for more CWD stuff and I see Houston Havens, who I have all the respect in the world for.

Ramsey Russell: Tremendous amount of respect.

Investing in Waterfowl Conservation

Whatever waterfowl problem they think we have, you ain’t going to fix it with farm raised ducks. 

Lake Pickle: Yeah. He is our state waterfowl biologist and he’s given his presentation for, these are the funds that we made from the state duck stamp. And then what goes forward is he presents where he thinks those funds should be allocated and part of that money, I think he said roughly 40%, was going to go to habitat work, up in around Manitoba breeding and nesting grounds, waterfowl. And this commissioner, in short, basically says he doesn’t agree with sending that money out of the state. He doesn’t know why we’re sending money to a “doing air” hatchery in Canada.

Ramsey Russell: Hatchery.

Lake Pickle: A hatchery in Canada. But here’s where it even gets worse. He holds up his phone, like very condescendingly and he goes, I’ve just done this little bit of research in a short time and I’ve learned about this hatchery that Tennessee has going and they generate 125,000 ducks a week. Wouldn’t our money be better spent if we build a hatchery here in Mississippi and just turn these birds loose as soon as they can fly? And my jaw is on the floor. Not, I mean –

Ramsey Russell: I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.

Lake Pickle: You and I can both laugh about it. It’s so absurd that it is laughable but you take that part out of it and it’s like and here’s the thing. You know this, but all your listeners might not if they’re – our commission has 5 members, 3 votes is all you need to completely change a Wildlife Policy in Mississippi and this dude that is pushing for us to have a duck hatchery here in this state that you and I care so much about has one of those votes and I was appalled. I’m like, you one, there’s complete no understanding of how waterfowl works because he thinks we’re sending money to a hatchery in Canada. He doesn’t know that’s where ducks come from. Wild ducks –

Ramsey Russell: Wild ducks originate.

Lake Pickle: Wild Habitat, but no bump all that. We want to build a farm duck hatchery and just release them into the state and let’s not even, implications, no, don’t worry about the implications, just turn them loose. It was embarrassing. It was and yeah, I mean, I try not to get too fired up talking about it, but I will get fired up talking about it because it’s like, are you –

Ramsey Russell: It’s an upsetting subject to me, the whole fear of biopolitics because everybody thinks their crow is blackest and everybody thinks their child is the best and everybody thinks their dog is, whatever, the best. But, boy, I tell you what, I’m proud of the state of Mississippi. And as somebody that interacts with a lot of biologists nationwide, man, I could not possibly be more proud of the people that I personally know and respect. A lot of them going back to Mississippi state days that are driving, born and raised in Mississippi and continue to manage our blessed resource and truth of the matter is, by the time you get a 5 year degree in wildlife, you could have got a degree in anything and gone into any field. These folks chose to commit themselves to natural resource management and they are the science and man, we live in an abundance. I mean, just as I was your age, the abundance we have in deer and turkeys and things of that nature, public land access because of that department. And it’s just almost unfathomable to me, Lake, that a political appointee has that much power over the science, over the management, over the knowledgeable people.

Lake Pickle: Well, there’s so many things that I had a problem with it on just at the face level value of making that notion is like, are you kidding me? But at the same time, it’s like you have someone as educated and as experienced as Houston Havens. What should happen seeing that whole commission, with the exception of Billy Munger. Billy Munger the rest of that commission, I don’t know if they have any, any plausible background in wildlife or waterfowl and so the correct response would be Houston Havens, you know more about this than we do. Thank you for your presentation. The suggestions that you laid out is what we are going to do because you’re the biologist, not us. That’s how that should have gone, but instead he disrespects Houston’s proposal and wants to build a hatchery. I just couldn’t, it’s astounding.

Ramsey Russell: It must have really been a slap in your face and sensibilities just because we spent a long time talking about the corporate culture, so to speak of Primos. You’re talking about a man, an iconic personality that had done so much for conservation and the outdoor world that surrounds himself, hires people, invest in people, with the understanding that all ships rise in a tide.

Lake Pickle: Right.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s the whole, that’s the key to success. I would like to think I’m the dumbest guy in the room and I don’t even have to try hard for that Lake. But I feel like I can always learn and I can always improve and that’s what you rely on experts for.

Lake Pickle: You rely on experts and I’ve never seen anyone in life get too far with a near sighted point of view and trying to fix whatever duck problem, waterfowl problem, that individual commissioner or the 2 commissioners that voted on that notion. Whatever waterfowl problem they think we have, you ain’t going to fix it with farm raised ducks. You going to call some –

Fixing Habitat Problems on Every Flyway

Ramsey Russell: I am going to tell you what, the world of waterfowl has got a lot of problems, but that is not the fix. We’ve got a lot of problem, I mean, from habitat and drought and everything else, we’ve got a tremendous amount of problems in waterfowl right now, we’re going through some very challenging times. That ain’t the fix. That is just not the fix. I mean, we need to go back to the root problem, which I think is habitat.

Lake Pickle: Habitat. And like you and I were speaking earlier for, like, habitat is more than often the answer. But it’s not a popular answer, because habitat is by no means an easy fix.

Ramsey Russell: Now and it’s the one we got the least control over. And I mean, going into my backyard to my camp, to my property, to this, to that and becoming active, okay, that’s something maybe I can influence. But a lot of the habitat problems exist flyway wide, continental wide, conversions of habitats to an alternative use, be it concrete or row crop agriculture or something the loss of grasslands. Somebody told me just the other day on a podcast, 2% of the native grasslands in North America remain. 2%, that’s crazy.

Lake Pickle: Well, man, when I was doing the Speak The Language podcast, we did a whole quail series and they were talking about – it’s pretty much most of the people that are alive now in Mississippi, Mississippi residents, they know Mississippi as this loblolly pine dominated landscape. And not to go off down that rabbit hole, but just to your point, you go look back historically at how much prairie and grassland we used to have just in this state.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Lake Pickle: And again it’s, you want to point to these or you want to try to find fixes like hatch and ducks because it’s a quick fix, but it is not a long term fix. All you’re going to turn do is cause more long term problems. The problem is with habitat and every, I’m sure you too, every biologist that I talk to about ducks, about quail, about turkeys, habitat is always king.

Ramsey Russell: But it’s easy. One thing I can change is limits, shooting, whatever, that’s something I can change. Maybe that’s why people default to it, I mean and I don’t know, thank the Lord, I’m not, I’m not cursed with, I’m not afflicted, I should say not cursed, I’m not afflicted with the turkey bug like you and my son are but it is waterfowl and I see it, I hear it in the turkey world and in the duck world that maybe if we just kill a few were, do something different, but that’s not it. We need to quit looking at the symptoms and go down deep into the root problem. And we need to fix habitat at a continental level if we can. We need to really affect it, I’ve had people on recently talking about, we’ve lost almost half our CRP grasslands. We only got 2% native prairie remaining. So to the, I hear a lot of people talking about, well, the goal should be 10 million ducks, should be this, be that. Well, great. I’m going to go back to a bottle of bourbon. I want a bottle of bourbon, but if I ain’t got but a shot glass worth of habitat to pour it into, it don’t matter. I can send all these ducks, I can create all these ducks, but they exceed the carrying capacity, so we’re not going to have them anyway. Let’s go back and create more habitat to have those abundance of ducks. That’s just and I think you could say the same about turkeys or anything else.

Lake Pickle: You absolutely can. Absolutely. It’s habitat and that’s a – habitat is king. That’s what all the biologist tells me that, like carrying capacity, your carrying capacity is only so much, it’s only so much as your habitat can hold and if you don’t have the habitat for it, there’s your answer.

Advocating for Waterfowl

Because now’s when we all need to climb in the boat, start rowing together. Hold the fort, man. We’ve got to do something. We can’t just fractionalize.

Ramsey Russell: Would you have thought back being that little boy, even when you went to wildlife in college, you worked in the industry for a company like Primo for about a decade. You’re with the on the X program right now, still in the outdoor space. A lot of hunting, a lot of traveling, a lot of interaction with hunting, a lot of hunting mentality policy you affect. But did you ever envision needing to be like in the instance of that reel you posted, did you ever see yourself or just become cognizant of this obligation or do you feel a sense of obligation to giving back an affecting public mentality that way? You see what I’m saying? Because we hunters are innately consumers. I’m going to shoot my elk, shoot my turkey, shoot my ducks. I’m going to do a little bit of this, do a little bit of that. But now, all of a sudden, at a very young age, as far as I’m concerned, Lake you’ve kind of entered into the role not as a part of your job description, but just as a part of who you are on advocating certain principles. Has that got to do with just your past work experiences and personal contact or where’s that coming from?

Lake Pickle: For sure it does. It’s not something, when I was thinking 10 year old, 10, 11 year old Primos go pie in the sky, I was definitely not thinking about that. But it, do I feel obligated to do it? Yes. But I don’t, it’s not something I dread doing and here’s why, I will always speak up and advocate for wildlife every chance that I get or every time I feel that I need to. Part of the reason is for sure, because if we have to have wildlife to be able to enjoy the hunting lifestyle that we do. But that’s the obvious part of it. The other part of it, why I feel so strongly about it, is talk about waterfowl, talk about turkeys or everything else that we hunt. I really do feel like I owe those birds something, I really do. Because I look at every – I look at all the friendships I’ve made, the relationships I’ve made, the career that I’ve been able to have and I can trace that back to wildlife if I don’t advocate for them. It’s a pretty one sided relationship.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. It can’t be all take and I see a lot of this. We were talking about the difference in social media versus chat rooms or a public forum like people to people type forum and how bizarre human behavior has become, such to the fact that you find yourself just shrugging it off, being jaded to it. But I consider where either from the individual that’s crazy or comes across that way or from a group of people or from all these different segments, where is that originating? And I think it’s originating right or wrong, I’m going to step into it. I think it’s originating because so many of us have a personal identity or a cultural identity as related to those wildlife resources. And we do care about it, but we struggle sometimes to maybe organize ourselves if we’re not careful and I see this and it’s my biggest fear with what’s going on right now, with this drought and a lot of the questioning and suspects, the changing distribution and migration patterns and duck productivity ability and everything else. I look back to my granddad’s generation, that world’s greatest generation, as Tom Brokaw called them, that faced with an unprecedented dust bowl drought, rallied together as one and formed an organization that became Ducks Unlimited. And I wonder, when I see all this fractionalized among hunters over issues, can we do it again? Because now’s when we all need to climb in the boat, start rowing together. Hold the fort, man. We’ve got to do something. We can’t just fractionalize. There’s too many outside interest, be it non-hunters, they’re just urban sprawl or whatever they’re doing or anti-hunters that don’t like what we’re doing anyway. We’ve got a hole before. There’s so few of us now.

Lake Pickle: Yeah, well, I mean and this is, I’m not trying to fear Monger here, but, I mean, let’s just talk about talking about being separated and everyone in different facets and fighting amongst each other. It’s one of those things and is this something that I think would happen anytime soon? No, but let us stop advocating for wildlife. Let us stop advocating for habitat and see how many quickly these pieces of public land. You don’t think folks would love to build the new mall and subdivision for things you want to see? I mean, because again, I mean, we have something worth fighting for and a united voice is a lot stronger than a separated one or.

Ramsey Russell: United we stand, divided we fall kind of thing.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. And so it does, as far as to your point, as far as, like, me being numb to negative comments? I’d say that’s true when someone’s, like, attacking me personally because I’m like, whatever. I just, I really, I don’t care. Was I always like that? No, but now it’s like, I don’t care, but in terms of when I see somebody comment something and it’s just like this way out of pocket view on how wildlife should be managed or something like that, that still very much bothers me, when I see someone talking about habitat issues or I don’t believe this science or whatever, that still does bother me because I’m like –

Putting the North American Model to Good Use

…who’s going to drive it if we don’t guide ourselves with what is the most enviable scientific model on earth right now for managing wildlife? 

Ramsey Russell: I see it daily in a world of waterfowl. I don’t trust the numbers, I don’t believe the numbers. I’m like, come on. I read somewhere on my own social media today some elaborate conspiracy between NGO’s and the federal government driving consumerism by posting fraudulent numbers. I’m like, you can’t make this up, if I don’t trust the science Lake, what do I trust and who do I trust? Do I trust what I’m seeing or do I trust what he’s seeing? Who’s going to govern this form of management we got if we don’t have science to guide us, whether we’re talking the state of Mississippi, waterfowl productivity or continental population, deer, turkeys, whatever, policy, who’s going to drive it if we don’t guide ourselves with what is the most enviable scientific model on earth right now for managing wildlife? This crowd, what is crowdsourced funding? Somebody told me this other day, Heath Hagy described the North American model as crowdsource funding. It couldn’t be better described that way.

Lake Pickle: I’d never heard it described that way.

Ramsey Russell: And if we hunters aren’t funding it, who is? It ain’t going to be the anti, it ain’t going to be show shit to ragman sitting out and don’t hunt at all and interacting with nature. He’s not going to put his money into conserving wild places and wild populations. We’ve got to do it.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me what you’re doing now. You’re with onX. They’re headquartered in Missoula. You’re still sitting right here in Brandon, Mississippi. How’s that work?

Lake Pickle: Man, there’s a lot of negative that came out of COVID but there was some silver linings.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, there was.

Lake Pickle: Such as life and so onX is founded in Missoula, Montana. They still have, they have an office there. They have an office in Bozeman, I go up there from time to time. I’m going up there in June. Looking forward to it. Like I said, love visiting there, it’s beautiful. But I got hired and it’ll, well, it’s been to, it’s April. It’s been 2 years now. It’s crazy to think about. But yeah, I got hired there in would have been 2022 years, would have been 2022. And started doing a lot of their social media stuff, a lot of YouTube stuff here recently. Right up your alley. I’m starting to work with the waterfowl ambassadors and some waterfowl content. I love it, man. It is a fantastic group of guys. onX seems, I mean, it is a big company, but as far as, like, the team that I work with, there’s probably, I don’t know, 6 to 8 guys that I deal with daily and they’ve become very good friends and we’re kindred spirits because we’re hunters, we’re different. That’s one thing that’s been, it’s been a new thing for me because Primos all those guys are here. They’re Mississippi boys, we have so much in common, whereas a lot of those guys that I work with at onX they’re from Montana or Minnesota and they like hunting just as much as I do. But it’s different pursuits.

Ramsey Russell: Birds with feather flock together, though.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: The heart of a hunter.

Lake Pickle: Yeah, they’re great guys. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and love working there. That’s no lie, there’s a lot of freedom with the work remote stuff and it’s been great.

Ramsey Russell: That work remote is, I mean these iPhones and computers, we’re connected as we need to be or want to be.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: It’s funny, I had a close friend that was Mississippi State University Dr. Ian Munn and he was telling me that during COVID everybody kind of went home, started working remotely and he said, you thought you would think that productivity just plummeted. He said, but the people that don’t work didn’t work and we knew exactly who they were, but the people that worked never left the office because they were working out at their homes and productivity went through the roof, man. He said it was the most, he said nobody was expecting it, but we all saw it.

Lake Pickle: I was at Primos when COVID hit and it was the same deal we, for a while there before travel bans, it was wild, man, because we were still traveling, filming turkey footage and there was a stretch. It was finally a stretch where they had shut down the Primos office and everybody worked from home and it was the same deal. I knew I had all this video editing I needed to get done and I was like, man, what am I going to do? I can’t go to the office. I’m going to have to edit from home. This is crazy. And after the first day, I looked back at all that I had gotten done at home and I was like, I may never go back to that office again. No, it was crazy. Yeah. It opened up a lot of eyes,

Ramsey Russell: Working from home for me, on the bright side is I’ve got a flexible schedule, I work 80 hours a week. I get to pick which 80 hours I want to work, if I want to work from midnight to 04:00 a.m. or 07:00 a.m. to noon. It’s just, it’s all on me. I get to choose my hours and the downside is, if you’re not careful and is you never leave the office.

Lake Pickle: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You never leave the office.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. That’s something my wife has gotten very, she’s very helpful in reminding me of that because thing and you probably deal with the same thing, too. What I do is my job, it is my job and there’s work for sure, but it’s something that I enjoy doing it’s not like I’m, again, nothing against accountants, but I couldn’t do that job. But when we’re talking about waterfowl stuff or turkey stuff or the new onX feature, it’s stuff that I’m genuinely interested in and so it’s real easy for me. And it, like, early on in our marriage, it would be like 10:00 at night and Lacey would walk in, be like, hey, are you going to stop working? And I’m like, that’s fair question. And so I’ve gotten better about that. But, yeah, you’re absolutely right. And it’s very easy to leave that faucet turned on of work the entire time.

How to Build a Career in the Outdoor Industry

You got, I knew a lot of folks in high school growing up that had big aspirations that they just kind of threw the towel in on it that I consider to be way too early. So don’t let go of it. But at the same time, don’t be afraid to work. 

Ramsey Russell: It is. It consumes you. It just pulls you in and I don’t know, I wouldn’t swap it for nothing. One of the last questions I’ve got for you, Lake, is what would you say to encourage anybody listening that might want to work in the outdoor space and build a life similar to what you have? What advice would you give them? Hindsight 2020.

Lake Pickle: One, and I’ve learned this from talking to people that wanted to get into it again as I’ve gotten older, it’s like every year that goes by, I realize more and more how blessed I was to have encouraging parents and encouraging mentors. So if you don’t have that, if you don’t have people that are in your life that are encouraging you, you just have to, you can’t give up on it. You got, I knew a lot of folks in high school growing up that had big aspirations that they just kind of threw the towel in on it that I consider to be way too early. So don’t let go of it. But at the same time, don’t be afraid to work. You got to put your head down and you got to work, you got to grind and you got to be willing to shovel poop for free sometimes, too, if that’s what it takes to get your head in the door. Because that internship at Midwest Whitetail, that was an unpaid internship. That was me at 19.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve heard that from several people in this business that just took a job that really didn’t pay you. But it was kind of like a walk-in interview.

Lake Pickle: Dude, if I didn’t have that unpaid internship, that was a linchpin that opened up all the doors, that was a vital part. I mean, there would have been no Aaron runs into Brad at Primos and that opens this door. That was huge. So, was it a big career, money making move for me? No. But it opened the door to everything else.

Ramsey Russell: Yep. And things take time, sometimes there’s no shortcuts. Just like you were saying earlier on, some of that stuff, there really aren’t any shortcuts. You just got to keep grinding away.

Lake Pickle: I do have. Before we get off, there is one story that I haven’t shared with you that I would love to share with you. So, I realize we’re on a podcast, so I’m happy to describe what we’re looking at, but I want to share this picture with you because this is probably currently, this is my favorite duck –

Ramsey Russell: Boy, what a beautiful picture. Tell me about it.

Lake Pickle: So, that’s my wife, Lacey and this was just this past January. That was her first duck ever. That’s her holding that green head up and then my dog Knox to be sitting next to her.

Ramsey Russell: And what a great name for a dog.

Lake Pickle: Oh, he’s great. I call name is just Knox because you get, it’s a little bit long winded Knoxville.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, but I like it.

Lake Pickle: Yeah. Oh, I love it and so Lacey, her and I got married and she grew up in a hunting family. Her dad hunts, but more primarily of a deer hunter I don’t think and she had, he may have duck hunted. She never did any duck hunting and she showed some interest because she’s big dog person. And so she got the idea that if you go duck hunting, the dog gets to come. And that was like, man, I would like to try that and so, again, just kind of the evolution or evolving is so we had also tried turkey hunting with her and she hadn’t done that either. And I learned some very valuable lessons taken of turkey hunting as far as, like, being a good teacher just, like, taking some things for granted that I knew because I’ve been doing it for so long and we had some hiccups there. So when duck hunting became a thing that she wanted to do, I was like, all right, I’m not messing this up. We’re going to be comfortable with the shotgun, we’re going to be comfortable in the waders that we’re wearing, we’re going to be prepared. And so, we all through the summer and early fall, we would go up to Providence and she would shoot and she got very comfortable with the shotgun. She got to where she was hitting clays really good. I mean, just, she took to it really good, to the point where I was like, man, we go hunting and some ducks come in, she’s not going to be like a fish out of water, she’s comfortable here. It was the last, I think there was like 3 days left in the season. And you know as well as anybody how wary mallards can be down here that late in the season, man. Like a gift from above, we’re sitting out there, it’s me and Lacey and then our friends Austin and Lenny Seals. And this was the wives hunt this was their hunt and across it, we see this group of mallards, a dozen of them and they may have circled us one time. I mean, just one tuck of the jerk string and a couple feed chuckles and I’m like, they’re doing it. And I mean, just, I was like, oh, my God. And they come, I mean, just as pretty as a picture, sun hitting them. And I’m telling you, boots down and I’m like and I’m just thinking. And I said, kill them and she just pulled up the gun and 2 shots, 2 ducks down.

Ramsey Russell: Golly.

Lake Pickle: Boom. Just like that, too. And I send Knox and he goes and I was ecstatic. I was hollering her, I was hugging her, I was kissing her on the forehead. Not, I mean, it was just so fantastic. And then you could just tell that she enjoyed it and it was just so much more gratifying because she was comfortable in the moment she knew how to operate the gun. Yeah. And that was the, it happened right at the end of the Mississippi duck season and this January 2024, but it was the highlight of the whole year.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I was talking to you on the phone the other day and you’ve got a turkey hunting trip coming up. I said, man you and I are blessed, got wives, let us go off and travel. But this isn’t a work trip you’re going on, This is a – talk about this trip you got coming up.

Lake Pickle: This is Lacey’s turkey trip and she hunted this past weekend. We didn’t get one, but I travel so much for work that I like to, when I get the opportunity, especially because she enjoys it. Right. And that is such a blessing because then you get to do something that you love with somebody that you love. It’s just, it’s perfect. And so, yeah, her and I are loading up and driving to a place in Texas with Austin and Lenny and a couple other couple friends of ours and we’re going to turkey hunt for a few days and I don’t plan on touching a gun, it’s all her.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Lake Pickle: I’m going to be there. Yeah, I’m going to yelp and watch it and see it, but I don’t – She’s going to be the one doing the turkey shooting.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. I wish you all the best of luck and I appreciate you coming on today. Lake, I always enjoy seeing you and learned hearing a lot of these stories from you.

Lake Pickle: Yeah, I enjoyed it, man. This has been fun.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, you all been listening to my buddy, Lake Pickle, Brandon, Mississippi, turned out all right for a kid that grew up watching Andy Griffith and Primos Truth in Hunting, didn’t it? See you all next time.