On Louisiana Bayou with Dale Bordelon

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell, join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome back to Duck Season Somewhere, from Louisiana. Have you noticed that I’m back home, kind of, I am in Louisiana just kind of my home away from home. No more on the road for now, we will be. And I’m really, really glad to be down here with my buddy Dale Bordelon who today’s guest. Dale, how are you?

Dale Bordelon: I’m doing fine man. It’s good to be back on.

Ramsey Russell: It’s hard to complain about anything after that supper we just had down here in Rayne Louisiana. I don’t know about you but the one thing I miss when I travel is southern food, especially when I’m coming back from Mexico. I like Mexico food Dale but I like southern food. That lady asked me tonight that I want spicy shrimp or regular boil shrimp. And I said spicy I mean whatever, what kind of, I didn’t know they made two kind of shrimp. Well, what they did is she boil that shrimp and then they come out with a bunch of red pepper on it. But it was no paprika on, that was pure [**00:04:43]. And it was good. It was good.

Dale Bordelon: Then you just had some good fried bass at my house.

Ramsey Russell: Has some fried bass at your house and that was good. Yeah. I think you and our buddy Jim Cruz talking about fried fish the other day. Jim fishes as much as more than anybody I know. And y’all got talking about that fried fish and I told my wife, I said, we got to eat some fried fish this week, and I show up at your house and eat something. That’s pretty good.

Dale Bordelon: I told Jim, I think I drive all the way down Mississippi just for play that. It looks so good. That fish is very good. We love it. We eat it all the time.

Ramsey Russell: I guarantee you, I probably don’t have a single friend that is this practice that cooking fried fish as Jim Cruz. He got that beautiful, like right there in the backyard, I know he fishes every day.

Dale Bordelon: Well, I’m going to take him up one day on it. He better having some fish when I drive up there.

Ramsey Russell: Y’all go catch him. I just want to show up and eat them. I don’t care nothing about catching them right now. How’d your duck season go Dale?

Dale Bordelon: It was pretty good. We started off in the teal season at Catahoula Lake. I hunt private property. But I also hunted a lot of, we hunt all over the place, public land I mean, but I hunted Catahoula Lake for about 40 years and some years is better than others. But this past year and my boy found a spot and he was killing his limit every day or every time they went.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t know y’all hunted at Catahoula Lake. It ain’t far from your house.

Dale Bordelon: No, it’s about 20 minutes. But he found a spot and he was killing his limit, and I said why are you killing those ducks out? He said Catahoula. I said, boy you must have a hard hole because usually there’s a lot of people and you do good one day and it’s not consistent, but he was killing every day. So he took me on several hunts but we end up killing a good a couple of hundred teals out of that spot.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Dale Bordelon: For the whole season. He hunted a lot, and he took me and my best friend. And him and his buddy found it. So they both kind of rotated, he take me then that his friend would take his daddy. And so we had a good start to duck season, and the big duck season was very good. We had about maybe 10 days, two weeks span. It was slow but we had so many wood ducks in the woods and our woods was flooded. So we hunted that on a slow days. And we did very good with the wood ducks. So overall and at the end those the duck started, you can see them from the blonde, they’re congregating in the woods and the rings, and we’d watch them, and then we had to split up. Three or four of us were hunt three different places and maybe move twice in the morning. But we ended up killing our limit doing that. You got to move with the ducks.

Ramsey Russell: So y’all had a good duck season. I mean, you had good duck season. What mostly species did y’all shoot? Wood ducks and what else?

Dale Bordelon: Shot a lot of wood ducks. Probably 70% of our duck killing was grey ducks. A lot of great ducks, lot of teals, gray ducks and teals mostly. Not many mallards, very slow the last couple of years but we killed a few but not a whole lot. A lot of grey ducks, lot of teals. And look, from way back, I’m an old teal hunter. I’ll put wood ducks and teals in my freezer. And that’s about all I keep now. And so I don’t want killing a messy teal every time I go. They’re fun to shoot, they’re good to eat. So I can’t complain. And then I got to hunt with my two boys and my best friend, and my money can’t borrow something like that. Well bless mine. It was good.

Ramsey Russell: One thing I know, of course, I was traveling all over and keeping up with you on social media, it looks like you spent a lot of time hunting real old school, hunting out of your hand-carved canoes, and your old decoys and stuff like that. Was that just an illusion on social media? Or did you really hunt like that a lot?

Dale Bordelon: No. I hunt like that all season. And as I get older I’m hunting like that more and more.

Ramsey Russell: Why?

Dale Bordelon: My biggest sport is duck hunting. But this is a Louisiana deal and pretty much I grew up, the old people hunted like that and it’s very important to me to hunt. It’s just very enjoyable. It took me two months to build a dugout and to hunt pilot and put ducks in it that I killed. It’s just very rewarding. And over decoys I carved and my duck calls, it just takes a hunt up to another limit.

Ramsey Russell: Does it change the overall experience for you to hunt like that?

Dale Bordelon: Well, years ago I used to have to kill everything I saw. Now if I hunt with my old boat decoys I don’t have to kill too much to make a good trip. I’m going to tell you this year, I left the camp and a pilot about a mile to an old duck hole. And my old pirogue and my boy is going to pick me up in the big boat. He was at another spot. And I went and I killed with my homemade decoys. I killed my three wood ducks, no big ducks, but it was so enjoyable. I called my boy and said, look, don’t come pick me up. I piled all the way back to the account, which is about a mile and just kept looking at the wood ducks, my old 97, more decoys and I had a big smile on my face. Money can’t buy something like that. It’s the experience.

Ramsey Russell: I think there’s a lot. I have hunted over some of the decoys I’ve carved, and it adds a lot. But I mean I had boat paddles and the boat and the decoys. And what about this old shotgun, last time we met, you were going to shoot this old shotgun you got? Well, how did that go?

Dale Bordelon: Well, Ramsey, I will tell you. I shot that old gun. I’ve been shooting 870 for 27 years. And that was like my best friend when it comes to in the blonde duck hunting. I never shot at one time. I shot that old 97. But I want to tell you a little bit something about it. I bought that old 970 teal hunting for the Blue Wing season. And I shot some ball shells. I shot five and I shot sevens. Well I had some sevens that I took the Catahoula. And when I bought this 870 I had an old duck hunter tell me, and of course I listened. I always listen to the more hunters. Man, you got to have that 26 inch barrel. Your guns are going to balance especially with a bunch of teals, you can get on them quick. And I did that like a thousands other people have 20. And I love the gun. I shot at 27 years straight. But I had this old 97, now it comes with a 30 inch full choke. I can’t put no 26 barrels. So I got some balls shells, and I teal hunted. When I went teal hunt with my boy, it just won’t hunt, my boy is a very good shot. I made a triple with that 30 inch full choke now, triple. Four teals came, I killed three, my boy killed one. And he say, God damn daddy. I surprise myself. Going on to duck season, we went hunting. I was on the Platte River Nebraska. I met another triple, boom-boom-boom with that 30” full choke. So what I’m telling you is my experience, the 26” barrel to that 30” that’s a bull crop. I think the big factor in what happened is those balls shells. I will be honest with you. I shot them all year long. I shot some fives. I made a trip with the fives. I shot very good. But that old gun, look, that’s my best friend now. It’s made in 1915. I’m not leaving home without it with those balls shells that made a believer out of me.

Ramsey Russell: I like a longer barrel. I have had shorter barrels over the years, 26. I can make do with it, but it’s a little short. You know, I grew up, when I was belly button tall, my granddaddy give me guns as long as I am tall, chop stock, office Remington 1100 with a 28″ barrel. And any time I’ve tried to shoot shorter barrels, I’m uncomfortable. It is something I don’t know. And I feel like the older I get, like now I shoot that super Black Eagle three, although I rarely shoot. In fact, I don’t shoot, won’t shoot, won’t shoot a 3.5 inch shell. But that longer receiver makes that overall profile at that size plane longer. And so it is probably 29”. It’s like the older I get, the longer I want that size plane and the more comfortable I’m shooting. I shoot triple. I don’t think it has nothing to do with the barrel length, you know. But I tell you what now, number seven shot like them ball shots. They’ll say I grew up shooting 7.5, and it’s a real good pattern density, and that’s what you need. It’s better for them little ducks like it.

Dale Bordelon: Well, I grew up shooting, we shot lead for years. I shot 6’s and 7.5. That’s what that was our shelves. We didn’t shoot many 4’s. We shot two and three quarter ounce, and a quarter six and seven in the lead seventies and eighties. These balls shells, I just like it. I was very, very pleased, very impressed. And I’ll tell everyone that, and we had a discussion today, me and Hauna, about shooting them old guns, and that ball shell made all the difference. I’m going to tell you. It made a believer out of me. And so I’ll be shooting some more of that and that little gun. I hope she last a long time because I got plenty of plans with it.

Ramsey Russell: Brandon made me some shells for a project we had. We actually filmed it. I don’t know where the film is yet. I’m hoping it comes out soon. It’s been a long while, and I’m hoping this little project comes out. But we took this old antique shotgun that was my great granddaddies. And had a board and sleeved. So shoot more conventional loads. And to do that, I had to go from 12 to 20 gauges, old barrel with bad boards. And its chamber two and three quarter inch. And they like to make that 20 gauge and three inch. And when he made those shells, he said, well what shot size, do you want 5? And I said, man, I tell you, I think I want some 7’s, and I’m going to tell you, it’s best I have ever shot. I couldn’t miss, I couldn’t miss. I mean, we were shooting with Jim Cruz up at his place. And within 35 yards, I just couldn’t miss that morning. And I think you need to know, for folks that hadn’t shot birds with lead or lead like shells. You know, we go back to steel there. You know, we had to jump up and shot size of the 2’s and 1’s and BBs to get that energy thing going and increase the speed. But the better go back to the 1970s and turn of pattern density. It makes us all better shots to kills them birds and all.

Dale Bordelon: Exactly. We shot lead, my partner had a gun at Browning. David, my best friend, and that boy hardly ever missed man, in the 70s and 80s. And when that steel came out, he couldn’t kill a duck, to save it so he was crippling everything. So it took a lot of homework. I mean, hours and days and patterns. But, lead, you don’t have to do all that. Just like those balls shells. I picked up, there were shells with that old gun. I don’t want to shoot nothing else now. And I’m not going to, I’ll have that old gun from now on out.

Ramsey Russell: So we made it to shop this afternoon and we met with a market hunter from the 50s, 60s and 70s, Mr. Johnny Burrell. And I found it interesting that when he would buy shells, he shot 6s and 7s and 9s in lead. And I mean, for folks listening that have only shot in the last 30 years having to steel shot. That ain’t really, I mean 9s, you wouldn’t shot. Lead nice target loads. I mean that’s freaking clay target loads or whatever, you know, that’s pretty impressive. That’s what he shot. We never really got too deep in the woodpile with what kind of steel shot he shoots but or non-toxic shot. But man, all them ducks, he killed with 9s and 7s and 6s back in the day. What do you think about that guy? What you think about some of the stories, Dale?

Dale Bordelon: Oh look, he’s an old hunter. He’s a real deal, and I heard a lot of stories from the local people about him. I didn’t really meet him till today. I knew his grandson, but he market hunted years ago when I heard that they sold ducks, and he’s got some very interesting stories and that’s the podcast. Nobody wants to miss. It’s unbelievable.

Ramsey Russell: We had him out this week, episode one. And episode two come back on Monday. But give the listeners a hint what that’s like what I would call a modern day market hunter. And it’s really kind of amazing that a lot of his stories took place in my lifetime. Because when I think a market hunting Dale now, I think back late 1800-1900, I don’t think 1970s. I mean, my gosh Elvis Presley was on the stage singing in Hawaii back when some of these stories happened. I was a youngster in Greenwood Mississippi when some of these stories happened. This man was down here shooting ducks like that. But give these listeners a glimpse of, we got the modern day Market Hunter, what about the guy we’re going to meet with?

Dale Bordelon: Mr. Burrell was a market hunter and sold ducks. And you’re going to hear a story. I’m not going to get into all that. He’s no today hunter. He don’t do it no more. But he’s still living. So ducks market hunter. Tomorrow, we’re going to meet grandson, his grandpa was a real market hunter around 1900, and his stories. And he was hard [**00:19:57]. I’m not going to tell, you, don’t want to get into it.
Ramsey Russell: Give them a hint. Now you don’t tell them a little something. This man we’re going to meet with us up in the 70s.
Dale Bordelon: He’s 70 years old. That’s the grandson.

Ramsey Russell: And we’re going to talk about his granddaddy who passed when?

Dale Bordelon: Florian pie Sean pond, they called. Grandpa died in the 60s. But he shot for the market hunt. It’s either 100 or 200 ducks a day.

Ramsey Russell: In Louisiana?

Dale Bordelon: Yeah, by Lake Arthur. And he hunted for a company that had to bring 2,000 ducks day to the French market. They hauled them out by boats, parked them in ice, put him on the train, hauled them to the French market. He hunted for these people and he was such a good shot Remington and federal hired him to do expedition shoots all over the United States. Breaking 100 out of 100, and he did all this. They tell me that these big shots would pull up with five or six guns. This man had a model 12 and he would dress, you know, not fashioned. They said, who’s that fella? Well at the end of the tournament they knew who he was. He was well known. The president of United States hunted with a Babe Ruth. You’re going to hear all this on one of these podcasts. Here is the biggest, well known market hunter in south Louisiana around early 1900s. He had a call, he had a big [**00:21:36], he was such a good shot, he was tough. He ran barefoot in the marsh. He hunted out a dugout pirogues. He made his own CAIN calls and his own decoys. He’s an auto amount, I have to say because I’m doing the same thing. That is what I’m trying to preserve.

Ramsey Russell: But you know what I’m curious after meeting with Mr. Johnny. I mean, first thing he said was all them old boys that he grew up around way after this gentleman Champagne shot that model 12 could held more shells, and I bet that’s why he shot that model 12. But that is the dependability.

Dale Bordelon: That was the best going at the time. And they did help seven shells. And when you’re shooting that many ducks in the water, for cripples finishing out the.

Ramsey Russell: But what must have been like shooting 200 ducks a day back in America at the turn of the century? I wonder, if he didn’t pass until much later after the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. I wonder, if he ever just settled in to the pond system or something like that? If he just kind of, his always continue, kind of it did a lot down here.

Dale Bordelon: Well, I think after the treaty you can kill 25 ducks a day. And that’s what he done. Him and his brothers had a big club that they open and they did hire themselves out but there was so famous, they had everybody want to come hunting. Now at this era from what I understand, the whole migration came down South Louisiana, down South Louisiana was the Arkansas and Missouri in those days. So big sports would come down south to hunt and old Pie Champagne would host him and take him hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, you ain’t going to want to miss the episode so dig in. Changing gears on you. Man, I thought you didn’t got all fancy and up when I come up here to your cypress cabin today. And around back you don’t built you a new little workshop. I’m like wait a minute. They were getting all up in the old man. What happened to old pole shed he was carving in last time? But that ice storm got you didn’t it.

Dale Bordelon: Yeah. Well, I was working at my open shop that garage, and it was not closed down just on two sides. And I worked in that a year. And of course like anything else is getting bigger and bigger, making calls. And I have a lot of Cain calls, and I’m trying to get them out. And my list gets longer. And I’m getting them out but it gets longer and longer. So I decided to build, behind my Cypress building, another shop. But I’ll put multiple vices, and I range where I can speed up my operation. And while it was taking me around a couple of hours to make a call, three hours, I kind of speeded it up a little bit. And I’m doing all I can, and I’m working seven days a week trying to get these calls out. But I built me a nice shop with air condition heater. And so progress is picking up. But yes, I was sitting in my house talking to a friend and we had ice storm.

Ramsey Russell: Folks up north don’t understand when the south gets cold like that because they get snow and it’s pretty. We were talking to a buddy of mine on drive down here, Dale. He’s talking about how beautiful the powder snow was up the steamboat in the skin and all that kind of. He don’t understand, they don’t understand what happens when we get that kind of weather down here. It’s ice. It ain’t snow, its ice. It ain’t pretty, its ice.

Dale Bordelon: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And ice way stuff down. So go ahead with your story.
Dale Bordelon: I was sitting on my recliner looking out the back window towards my shop. I’m afraid I was talking to a friend on the phone.

Ramsey Russell: He was telling you a story.

Dale Bordelon: He was telling me a story, I forgot what it was. Yeah, he lost power and had click order in his front yard. He was telling me a story about his power going out. And I was watching Austin, I’ve seen my shed just fold in half. My shed is 30 x 30 and I got to wang 22 x 30. But the 30 x 30 part, it’s a very rude, it just fell in.

Ramsey Russell: You are saying earlier today it was slow motion.

Dale Bordelon: And fell in slow just like slow motion.

Ramsey Russell: So slow different that for a minute you thought your eyes might be playing tricks on you.

Dale Bordelon: I said George my shed just fell in. And he continued telling me about his story. I said let me call you back. I got more things to worry about. And I got so much stuff. The first thing I was worried about was my dugout. So I went out there, me and my boy, and I pulled one out lean to but the other two was all right. I put a block where I couldn’t fall no more but I didn’t get none of my boats hurt. So that was the main thing. I can replace a lot more but I can’t replace one of those dugouts.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. No way, man. I mean, gosh, that would be irreplaceable. That’s irreplaceable.

Dale Bordelon: Yeah. So I got a messy clean up now, but it’ll be all right.

Ramsey Russell: You told me a story today. Every time I think that dugout I think of you after hunting and you swamp. You don’t just make mallard call. You make wood duck calls, Teal calls. We’re sitting here looking at that wood duck call. And you got to tell me a story about how you’re seeing wood ducks land out there and how you call them in a little bit.

Dale Bordelon: I’m going to tell you, I hunted a ring. The first time I hunted this ring I killed my limit of wood ducks and two grey ducks. Now we got a good, it’s a good duck hole, rang in the woods. And I went back a week later, I didn’t kill nothing. There was a lot of wood ducks. But I see him skirting that hole, not because we shot him in that ring. There’s multiple rings are all around us that people hunt those wood ducks heavy. So they learned not to pass over the ring, but I’ll watch them, they pass around it, and there was lighting in the wood was about 100 yards. I said, man, I said this curtain some [**00:27:54] rings. So the next time I came, that’s when I powder my dugout pirogue. And I went about where they was going. And I got in about waist deep water. It’s full of cypress trees and duckweed. I made me a wood duck call out of bamboo. And that sucker sounds, man, you talk about like a wood duck. So I just get against a tree and when they come, I end up killing five limits on the row doing this. If I didn’t kill them early, which most of the time I did and it one time I did, but as it get light you see them swimming throughout the wood, and cypress trees is thick. I just, I blow that. I wish I had the call with me. I just, but I make a sound, they do this on the water.

Ramsey Russell: Try to make it sound.

Dale Bordelon: It goes, “whooo”, but you got to do it in that wood duck call “meaw”.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I’ve heard them ducks do that when they’re sitting on the water. I watched a bunch of wood ducks this year. I was sitting in a deer stand and they slew next to me, and it was just full of wood ducks. Forrest and I will go down there and shoot them sometimes better in the morning when they’re trading up and down, if you don’t know anything else going. But all these years I’ve heard these wood duck buzz and coming through the trees. It’s only the hen that makes them noises.

Dale Bordelon: Yeah. And the little male makes a whistling peep. It’s like “pssss – brssss”, and my little boy can do that so good, and he kills a lot of wood duck. He’ll walk up in the woods with a face mask and don’t bring a wood, he just does that with “pssss – brssss”. But it’s not like that. It sounds just like and boy, they come swimming. What I find about that call I told you about, you can’t sit down and keep doing it. I’ll do it one time. If I see him, I do it one time, maybe twice. 9 out of 10 they are coming to you. They’re coming to that noise.

Ramsey Russell: They swim to you all the way to you or do they hop up and fly sometimes.

Dale Bordelon: No. The first time I’ve hunt, I’ve seen some wood ducks 80-100 yards just by crossing the in and out. And I did “whoooo”. And it took about 15 – 20 minutes, I’ll watch them, here they come.
Ramsey Russell: Well, it called a hen and the drake.

Dale Bordelon: They all come. Well, when they started coming, the whole bunch comes. But I killed my limit doing that. I did that several times. Now if they’re flying, I’ll just “peeeeep”. But when they’re flying it’s hard to kill. I like to hunt them in the mornings on a clear frosting morning. If you know why they are leaving, you get why are they going. Not why are they landing, I’m saying. But why are they leaving out of your woods? And we go and split up whatever about 50 yards 80 yards apart. And we do very well like that. But we bring our wood duck calls and blow. They’re not going to come by and land but they’ll fly towards the vicinity of your.

Ramsey Russell: They gets close enough.

Dale Bordelon: Oh yeah. It only lies 30 minutes to hour at the most. And I love those hunts, man. But wood duck don’t fly good at the morning. Then they’re going to hang tight to widely and they’ll leave throughout the morning. You can’t pin point them. You got to have a cold clear morning to do that. And you can be very successful.
Ramsey Russell: It is in the daylight where they’ve been feeding, they are coming into getting thick and lay up.

Dale Bordelon: Right.

Ramsey Russell: That’s exactly right. Well, your call business is booming. You’ve got to get all this new stuff going and you’ve got a bunch of orders.

Dale Bordelon: I got a bunch of orders

Ramsey Russell: How overwhelmed are you?

Dale Bordelon: Well, I got a whole lot of orders but I’m very happy, and I’m going to tell you something.

Ramsey Russell: Do you still make a molded calls? Because those are size of this can be.

Dale Bordelon: Yeah, duck season. I didn’t make no bamboo calls for about two months because of the molded calls I couldn’t keep up. So through the hunting season I made my molded calls. I’m still making some, it’s slowed down enough where I can get on my bamboo call. Every day I’m making calls, bamboo and molded. I work at night. I’m staying there. I have to get these orders out, I’m way behind, and I’m telling you, I had two men come from Larose Louisiana. Larose, Louisiana, that’s so close to Grand Isle. I mean 100% dugout Cajun community. One man was 85 years old, his boy was 60. They come all the way, they bought a cain call from me. Those man used to have a dugout when he was at my shop. Now this is a French speaking, Frenchman. He left my shop. He was so happy and his boy called me the next day and said daddy was so happy because it’s like you’re preserving the heritage, and he grew up like that. And the boy said, I want to take you Tyler Rose  when I have that caving, I forget that it’s a festival. He wants to go, and he came and I ride with him and we will go all over spending. So that is what makes me do this most of all this cain calls. I keep saying, and people going to get tired of hearing it, it’s my heritage. But that’s what it’s all about. That don’t mind to make that remark about me. It made me feel good because how he felt. So I’ll get to hear that. I had a man come from Lake Charles, very nice fella. He bought a couple of calls, bought me some bamboo and offer that I can go cut some bamboo. It’s just, you don’t get nothing good out of it. So it’s a good relationship and it’s a Louisiana thing and I love it. I love making these calls. I never get tired of it. I want to pass the heritage around, and I think I’m very thankful all the orders of having the people that want them. Makes me feel real good.

Ramsey Russell: The thing I like about a truly handmade call is you can you can tune them to sound how you want to but, call to call, because you make it 100% handmade. They all kind of sound different. You pick them up and blow them a little bit. It’s like we’re sitting there going through your bucket, you had me want to blue and like I broke out my bill for what you want for. I want this shot just like it is. I want to call it just like it is because sounded, it was the perfect volume and the perfect pitch of a mallard duck. And I’m glad to have this call, Dale.

Dale Bordelon: I appreciate it.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I mean I didn’t come here to buy a call. I don’t need a call but I blew that one time and said how much you want for it.

Dale Bordelon: But Ramsey, I want to tell you something, I want to tell everybody this. I had a very good call maker, come spend five hours with him a week before last.

Ramsey Russell: Who was it?

Dale Bordelon: His name’s Farrell Carpenter from South Louisiana. He’s a retired boat captain. He’s a call maker. Very, very humble and very fond gentleman. He comes spend five hours with me. And I want to go see his shop and I want to go visit him.

Ramsey Russell: Where’s he at?

Dale Bordelon: He lives in between the Larose and Golden Medal, down there. But he makes calls, he’s on Facebook, he’s a very fine fella. But me and him was talking, I said Farrell, you know something, and he was always making calls and he was asking questions. I don’t have a lathe. I have a wood lathe, I made wood calls, that’s how I got started. But it wasn’t my thing. And I stopped making calls for a while, I started making these cain calls. I couldn’t keep up, I quit. And that’s why I had to mold it out to make knock and do a bunch. But now the older I get, I really want to do this, I got back into it and I knew it was going to be a big task. I ready to tackle that task. I ready to do that the rest of my life. That is part of who I am and that’s how I’m going to die. But Farrell came to my shop, I said Farrell, you know something, we was talking, I went to folks, and I watched that Mr. Lejeune made a call in front of me, a cain call. But they have a lathe that cuts. What I’m trying to say is me and Farrell was talking, they do a lathe machine to work. I don’t do no machine to work. Farrell said, if you want you can get your lathe like for the egg, the small barrel to cut the angle to bevel into the big barrel. I could get a lathe and get a choke and man, I could spit them out. I said, man, but that would be nice. But you know the bad thing about it, it wouldn’t be handmade. So I’m not going to go that route. We were just discussing, and I could take shortcuts, I’m not going to do it. When I make a call, I have a homemade knife that I made out of a Paspa two  blade. I personally made it. Heat treated it, sharpened it, head treated, that’s what I use. I cut it and I’ll show you this afternoon, and I fall it down to where it fits good. But that’s 100% handmade. That is what this is about. And that’s why it takes. When you get a call from it, they’re going to have a knife mark on it, you’re going to see that, you’re going to see it. But that’s how they have done it. And I’m sticking to my heritage and that’s how I’m going to do. So it’s just, I’m not trying to mass produce, I’m trying to get to where I’m a little faster, but you know.

Ramsey Russell: But you got a lot of order to keep up with, Dale.

Dale Bordelon: I sure do.

Ramsey Russell: Hey, sleep is overrated man, one or two nights a week would be good to go.

Dale Bordelon: I guarantee you. But I went yesterday and I found me some bamboo. Friday. I cut me some bamboo, I borrowed to the house, I cut it up and now it takes a multi drawer. I always have to keep about your head so I don’t run out. Now I have a fella, he bought me a sample, Saturday, from Lake Charles. He offered to, you know, gave me some bamboo, and I’m going to go in a couple of weeks when he’s not working, and I’m going to cut, it’s a good bamboo, it’s a clumping bamboo. That’s what Fox uses. River cane, clumping bamboo was the two best bamboos, the most popular bamboos that was used. River cane South Louisiana because it’s native to Louisiana. Clumping bamboo was not native but it was also used for making duck calls. So I use both of them. And be honest with you whatever I can get because I have a lot of orders to fill so I have to get what I can. But it’s all good quality stuff. Either one.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about some of these I’ve noticed in and find greatly interested in a lot of these short films you’re doing, I’ve seen. You started a small little video series online, and I love them. I think it tells a lot about this heritage, a lot going on, speak to that just a little bit Dale.

Dale Bordelon: Well, I did want about the decoys, the history on the decoys. I did a little talking and I did a little segment how to carve a decoy by hand. To me it is very important to do everything by hand because you got to remember in the old days, there was no even electricity, much less a power too. Charles W Frank wrote four books about carving decoys. He went all over Louisiana and all these decoys carvers, they’re going to know who I’m talking about. He’s dead now, but I had the privilege to go to his house in New Orleans. Well any large?  I got all his book that he signed. But what I wanted to know from Mr. Charles is, you take like metal of France. He was the best one of the world known decoy carvers in South Louisiana. He was a black fellow that spoke French from the old, he died at 97 years old. Mr. Charles interviewed him, got a bunch of his stories. I wanted to know deeper than our decoys. I want to know and get into that personal whatever personal stuff I could get. What did you do when you’re waiting? What was he like? What the stuff? How often did he carve? And that kind of sets a foundation because I’m doing like those people did. All old school, all by hand. And I know, I keep you bringing it up and showing you. I have 30 decoys, a little better than 30 decoys right now. And I can proudly tell you, I’ve never had a power tool on them. I’ll use a hatchet and a knife, and arc it. And you’ve seen what decoys. They have made just like there was made in 1900. And I’m not going from there. I’m not buying no power tools. My cain calls has made the same. My pirogue has made the same. I can honestly say I am haunting like they did in 1900. Now this year as well, some of you have seen. Back in 1900, we got ice in Louisiana in 1868, I believe. That’s when it was introduced to New Orleans. Before that they use salt and slided barrels. That’s how they packed that or brine. When ice was introduced, and just after that the railroad started passing. That’s when the market hunting took off because they had an outlet for these ducks.

Ramsey Russell: They could put them on ice instead of salt, get them on the train, off they go.

Dale Bordelon: In 1910 that was three million ducks that was sold in the French market. 1910, 3 million Ducks was passed to the French market. That was a big, the booming, the hard peak in the market hunting. So what I did, I did a little research calling people asking questions and I found out what barrels they use, the top of barrels, and I ordered me a barrel to put my ducks in with ice just like they did. So now I’m hunting with my dugout pirogue. I’m hunting with cain calls. I’m hunting with handmade decoys. I’m hunting with 1897 shotgun. Now I have the wooden box to pack my ducks in ice.

Ramsey Russell: Now you just got to shoot them son of a guns for money Dale.

Dale Bordelon: Well I might get in jail. No, but what I do is I keep all my teals and wood ducks, and I have a bunch of old people. I’ll bring them the ducks and give it to them and they’re so happy. So I have an outlet for him. I’m just not getting paid for it. But I’m just about hunting 100% market hunting style, and that’s the way I choose to hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Sure.

Dale Bordelon: Whenever I kill a duck over my decoys, over with my duck calls, it’s a personal connection. It’s very personal. It’s much more than personal.

Ramsey Russell: It is a personal connection not only to the ducks but to your roots.

Dale Bordelon: That’s it. Right. Like I told you I killed three wood ducks. I park about a mile. I didn’t want nobody picked me up. I want to enjoy that hunt. I part of bike. I stopped looking those ducks. Look at my boat. Look at my gun. I was the happiest mind in my parish that morning, I guarantee you. And that’s what it makes me feel like. So I keep doing hunting like this because it’s very meaningful and I pass on that tradition on. And my boy is picking up that can call making it with me. He’s learning how to do it. Let me tell you what I’m doing for my birthday. My birthday is in July, I paddle in several miles to where my daddy’s old duck hole was. He hunted there in 1950 to somewhere in the 70s. I haven’t been there since the since 1980 around.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Dale Bordelon: I will go paddle there and my boy wants to paddle each a dugout to go look at his old ring. I’m doing that for my birthday. That’s pretty exciting.

Ramsey Russell: Is that ring still there?

Dale Bordelon: It is. I had people that tell me that hunted there in the pot. Yeah, it’s still there. I’m actually go see, I grew up there when I was a kid and my daddy killed plenty of mallards in that hole in Hayday. So I’m anxious.

Ramsey Russell: Tell that story about the gadwall that you were telling me today because Mr. Burrell was talking about, he didn’t shoot no gadwalls to speak of but because the mallards came down back in those days.

Dale Bordelon: Ramsey, my daddy used to leave the house. When I was a little boy, and we was poor and we had one space heater, it was running on gas. And I go stand by that heater crying to go with him in the mornings. I was too young course, and it was too cold but anyway my daddy will leave the house with his model 12 and with some grass sacks and go hunting. I don’t remember him bringing lunch, snacks, jugs of water. They went like just sacks and his old model 12. And he had a cartridge belt, and they’d kill a bunch of ducks. He killed a bunch of mallards and pin tails. Now when we got this place to hunt, he bought some property. It was 1986, my Daddy hadn’t hunted a few years prior to then making his fortune, but we went hunting when it opened and we came back, me and my friend David, my best friend. My dad said Dale, what kind of duck is this? I looked at it and said dad, it’s a grey duck. Guess, I never seen that.

Ramsey Russell: Never seen. How old was he?

Dale Bordelon: Oh, at that time my dad was in his 50s.

Ramsey Russell: Never seen a grey duck.

Dale Bordelon: And he killed hundreds. My daddy said they didn’t have that. Now Mr. Burrell said that, I don’t know on the recording, he told us that day, they didn’t have all that.

Ramsey Russell: They didn’t have it. He said, when you saw him, you see flock of 50, but you didn’t see him often.

Dale Bordelon: Right.

Ramsey Russell: So they come into that hole.

Dale Bordelon: Me and David started killing. When we hunted Catahoula Lake, I can see the flocks of pin tails as big as you want to see. That’s before they had to die off. That’s when the limit was 10. And mallards, we’ve been shooting bunch of mallards in the 70s. We never killed a lot of grey Ducks, but we’ve killed them in the late 70s and early 80’s because I knew what they were. We was hunting one day, David didn’t know what that was, he was hunting in a hole, and they had an old Frenchman that passed behind us. And we had shot a Great Duck behind the blind. David didn’t know what it was. And David acted, that little man pick that duck. He was in a pirogue. They come to the back to the woods. And he said, he asked to the old Frenchmen said, what kind of duck is that? That old man said, Canard [**00:49:29], it’s a grey duck in French. There’s all Frenchmen. David said, I’ve never seen that, we hadn’t killed that many. But that’s when they start, in the early 80s then we started killing them. I can’t answer for way back but my daddy never, they never killed that growing up, it was just mallards and pin tails.

Ramsey Russell: That must be some amazing time. The gadwalls now like the mallards in the south  we hunt in good years.

Dale Bordelon: I tell you what.

Ramsey Russell: If it wasn’t for Gadwalls I wouldn’t hardly shooting no bird, hardly.

Dale Bordelon: We’d be in trouble, I tell you know. And I love shooting grey ducks.

Ramsey Russell: They are aggravating.

Dale Bordelon: Yeah, but they’re beautiful to work. They work, they’re pretty duck coming in, but we kill enough. I’m going to tell you my favorite duck hunt is a teal. You know, all ways you see on TV a mallards. Yeah I like shooting miles but I think that’s way overrated. I love to get a bunch of teal and if they back on me, tight, and the blue wings are good for that, green wings too we do that. But it’s a charge to see if I could kill 2-3 in a shot. That’s what I look for. We know how they all mixed and coming. My thing is that if they’re land you tie them up, when you bunch them up, I shoot them in the water. But anyway, plus they’re the best season they got. So if I killed six teal every day I was on a paper right now. I love shooting teals.

Ramsey Russell: I love shooting green wings, and everywhere in the northern hemisphere I’ve ever hunted if there’s green wing, whether they’re common green wings over in Europe or green wings down here. It’s like the favorite duck of the people to eat. We go as far away as halfway around the world in Azerbaijan, and if we say we’re going to eat duck at night, they’re going to pick out the green wings. You get down here in Louisiana, we go talk to Warren Coco that time. I mean, Mississippi, it’s just a good eating duck. And what I was thinking when you talk about that is I have shot them not in tight timber holes but in big timber holes. Green wings getting in there. I’ve shot them in an inch deep water on the Great Salt Lake. I’ve shot them in shin deep water up on the marshes around there. I’ve shot them in heck! They love the tidal estuaries, low tide, high tide, I shoot him in such diverse conditions as green wings are everywhere. They are very, very good to eat, it’s fun to work in when they do.

Dale Bordelon: Very enjoyable. I love to hunt them.

Ramsey Russell: I like it when the flocks come in at you. Me and Mr. Ian was shooting them down in Mexico, and they put us on the whole day because it’s dry this year down around Mazatlán and the ditch, the water body we was hunting was literally 20ft wide and a quarter mile long. So we’re talking less than a half-acre surface water, and we shot 80 duck, four of us did, got a limit with a lot of green wings coming in. And look a green wing at 10ft kind of tough. You know you want them close but you don’t want them too close.

Dale Bordelon: Right. You ain’t got much of a

Ramsey Russell: What I ended up doing is leaving almost Mr. Ian in the spot, and I walked down about 10 yards, got on the other side of the Bush. And when birds come in he’s shooting, what do you think they do? They go straight up bam-bam-bam, while I can make numbers in. But in the front when they all kind of come in at you and you shoot and then they go straight up and man that’s just like a fireworks going off. It’s fun.

Dale Bordelon: And I tell you something my wife, she’ll make a gumbo with 10 teals at a time. I’m a pretty heavy eater. I got two boys, they’re pretty good at the table. So we put with smoked sausage, toss with eggs we cook.

Ramsey Russell: What kind of smoked sausage?

Dale Bordelon: I’ll use some deer. And now people say deer sausages, that not, we use Andouillette, and as deer in pork.

Ramsey Russell: Andouillette.

Dale Bordelon: Andouillette.

Ramsey Russell: I call it Andouillette.

Dale Bordelon: Andouillette.

Ramsey Russell: That’s the Mississippi phonics way of pronouncing Andouillette is Andouillette. But y’all say it right. I say it my way.
Dale Bordelon: Yeah, I guess you say it that way. That’s all I heard it, but that goes good. But we put that eggs and everything we can,
Ramsey Russell: Well, we were talking about that on the drive down. I was down in Peru, and they make a shrimp chowder off in coastal Peru. It’s kind of tomato based and shrimp. But think of it like a chowder and they put eggs off in it, and I’d never heard of that. But the next time I made gumbo I said, man, that eggs would be good. So I started cracking. I may had crack a dozen eggs and like a big pot, and that kind of post down up in there and it just takes on that gumbo flavor. But you were saying y’all grew up doing that down here. I mean that’s a Louisiana thing.

Dale Bordelon: My Mama did it, my daddy did it, my grandma did it, and they’ve been dead for 50 years. It’s a very goes, very traditional deal. Most of the people in my piers do that along with the eating sweet potatoes. I know that’s a regional deal because they’re growing where I might but I’ve always, I never ate gumbo potatoes solid. Now they do that in Ville Platte, they do that bro bridge, right here we’re in Rayne Louisiana, they do that. I’m not knocking it. It’s just how you raised. It’s regional.

Ramsey Russell: But you do put, you were telling me you do put, you will eat like some chow chow or some pickle or something there. But do you put that in the gumbo like you make a bowl of gumbo, didn’t you put some pickle relish in there? You just put it on the side or what?

Dale Bordelon: No, my wife, we take about 10 sweet potatoes and you bake it 350. A good sweet potato that’s got a lot of sugar. It takes one hour.

Ramsey Russell: The best sweet potatoes in the world are right there in your backyard. I ain’t never seen him nowhere else like it. They sugar, they are sugar, sugar, sugar sweet.

Dale Bordelon: When you leave tomorrow, don’t forget, I’m going to give you something to go home.

Ramsey Russell: The first time I ever met you, I literally got trucks and hey man, how you doing? He said, hey you want sweet potato. Hand me a whole grocery sack full of. I am going took them home, it was getting close to thanksgiving. And my wife makes sweet potato casserole. So I called her and said, hey, I got a bunch of good fresh sweet potatoes. And when she made sweet potato casserole for thanksgiving, she did not put a lick of sugar and they were the best. She loves them.

Dale Bordelon: They are sweet. But my wife cooks in an hour around 350. Sometimes an hour and 15 minutes, depending how big they are. But the regular small about hour. Well what I do, we put rice and the gumbo in a bowl with a duck. I’ll put, I’ll take my sweet potato and I break it in half and I put just, as not appealing, in my gumbo. Then I put sweet pickles in my gumbo.

Ramsey Russell: Sweet pickles.

Dale Bordelon: Sweet pickle juice in my gumbo and a lot of tabasco sauce. Oh yeah, it takes me about 15 minutes to fix a bowl of gumbo. But we eat. My wife will cook a big, I mean a big pot full, and we eat on that for three days. It’s best to make a gumbo, put it up and you start eating that thing.

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Dale Bordelon: And look sometimes when it’s over we’ll make another, will skip a day or two and then we got another week that all the time and that went at home. But we put them teals whole in there. We don’t cut them, just drop them whole.

Ramsey Russell: Really? They fall off the bone in the gumbo.

Dale Bordelon: When that gumbo starts cooking, when it starts “blu, blu, blu, blu”, put it on a low for two hours. And that teal will cook, it won’t, I hate to eat a duck falling off the bone. It won’t fall off but it be tender. Two hours on a slow “blu, blu, blu, blu” and you’ll have to bake it, put it in your plate and it will be very, very tender.

Ramsey Russell: Peal apart kind of easy with your spoons.

Dale Bordelon: Most of the time I put it in a paper plate and I take the breast is very easy and then put it in my juice, them little eggs, man, that’s hard to beat. I suck it off the bone, I don’t waste none of that. But we cook them whole, that’s some good eating, man. Some of the best.

Ramsey Russell: Dale, I appreciate you being on today. You know, every time I meet with you, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from William Faulkner and he said the past is never dead. It’s not even past. Meaning, you know, we’re a product of our past, what I’m saying everything in the past who we’re the part of, who we are, and I’ve long since believed in this modern era that the future of duck hunting lies in its past. And I just I love to keep up with you, I love what you do and it just it speaks to me man, I like the old ways. I like, it’s a simple way of doing it. And by handicapping ourselves just a little bit, it just really connect us to those ducks, but it also connects us to our past and our past is everything. Our granddaddy, our daddies are family, that’s all about who we are, passing on those traditions, don’t you think?

Dale Bordelon: Yeah, 100%. It’s like farming. I’ve seen 30 years ago to now, they can’t make no more bigger corn barns, they can’t make no bigger trailers to hold this stuff on the road. It’s as big as it’s going to get. To me duck hunting it then got so with the technology of the spinning away, I’m not saying bad now, but electronics, how much bigger can it get.

Ramsey Russell: I think it’s kind of plateau.
Dale Bordelon: I would think so. But even if it got bigger, what kind of sport is it?
Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Dale Bordelon: Think of it. I’m taking a big step back like it was a 100 years ago, sometimes the simple things is the best things and that’s how I’ll keep it. And it’s very, very rewarding. When I can see my son jumping my pirogue can go pick up a duck, I can sign a check every time that happens. So I like the old ways, I am thankful I can do it and I thank the people that follows me. And I hope I could do that till I’m 90 years old then I’ll be happy. And I want to thank you for having me on here. It’s always a pleasure.

Ramsey Russell: Dale, I love it man. I couldn’t wait to get down here and see you. Folks, you have been listening to my friend Mr. Dale Bordelon. Check him out @BayouBeastCalls. Now do me a favor, he’s big on Facebook. Got a little Instagram account, blow him up. Write him and inbox him and encourage him to get his old time itself on the Instagram, and all you got to do is just call him or write him on Facebook and tell them you want to follow him. But his account is @BayouBeastCalls, right in the Avoyelles parish Louisiana. And folks, thank you all for listening to ducks season somewhere. Y’all heard what’s coming ahead, y’all stay tuned from Louisiana, see you next time.