Ep. 646: The Future of American Duck Hunting

Steven Rinella https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork talks with Karen Waldrop https://www.ducks.org, Ryan Callaghan https://www.instagram.com/olcal406/, Randall Williams https://www.instagram.com/randall__williams/, Brody Henderson https://www.instagram.com/brodyjhenderson/, Cory Calkins https://www.instagram.com/cman_calkins/?hl=en, Phil Taylor https://www.instagram.com/philtaylor25/?hl=en, and Corinne Schneider https://www.instagram.com/corinnesschneider/?hl=en. Topics discussed: Everyone’s pintails; harvest information program; duck energy days; complicated waterfowl regulations; draining wetlands; the amount of Ducks Unlimited work done north of the border; a reminder that waterfowl migrate; the Duck Stamp; wetland before golf course; Waters of the United States https://www.epa.gov/wotus; the important-for-ducks-zone; if you don't want to clean it, don't shoot it; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Steven Rinella?

  Holy smokes, I've been running around in some Zamberland boots and my God, are they comfortable? Damn, out of the box, ready to wear. I can't believe I haven't done it before. And the hunting tradition, right, has always been about knowledge and skills handed down from one generation to the next. Whether it's field memories with your parents or sharing the experience of a first hunt with your own kids, that shared connection is something the family at Zamberland Boots truly understands. Since its founding back in 1929, three generations of Zamberland family bootmakers have refined their craft in the mountains of northern Italy, maintaining a tradition

• 0:44Steven Rinella?

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• 1:24Steven Rinella?

  and Coyote Camo. To explore Zamberland's handcrafted hiking, hunting, and work boots, visit zamberlandusa.com. I get sent all kinds of products and snacks, and the truth is, most of them come and go. Every once in a while, though, I find something I keep reaching for, and Wiley Wallaby is one of those things. I first tried it because someone just handed me a bag and said, "This isn't like any other kind of licorice you've had before," and they were right. Wiley Wallaby makes authentic Australian-style licorice that's incredibly soft and chewy. It's not like that weird, tough, waxy, cheap junk you get. And it doesn't have that artificial taste that turns a lot of people away from licorice in the first place. It's one of those products that's hard to explain until you've tasted it yourself.

• 2:10Steven Rinella?

  I keep some in my truck, I keep some in my fish shack, I keep some in my camper. They've got more than 10 flavors. And whether you like classic flavors or something a little different, there's probably one you'll end up keeping stocked around the house. Plus, it's made in the USA by a company that's been committed to quality and hometown values for over six decades. If you haven't tried Wiley Wallaby yet, pick yourself up a bag. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping. And you can try it yourself. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Cold mornings spent outside and long days of hard work can really take a toll on your hands. Whether you're outside cleaning fish, digging around in your garden,

• 2:52Steven Rinella?

  or grinding through a long day of your day job, your hands take a beating. That is why. O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream is an essential part of any daily routine. It provides guaranteed relief for extremely dry, cracked hands with a concentrated, unscented formula designed to deliver serious hydration where it's needed most. Here's the best thing about this stuff. It doesn't leave your hands all greasy. I've been using it. It's like, I've always looked for sort of the right hand cream. My hands get kind of cooked at our place up in Alaska for some reason. This stuff, you put it on and your hands are ready to work. Your hands are not greasy, they're not slippery. It works really good. A little goes a long way. Make an O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream effective, dependable, and economical.

• 3:37Steven Rinella?

  For hands that work hard every day, it's great to have something that works hard for them. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It really does really work. Keep your hands hydrated, comfortable, and smooth all season long. Visit okeefescompany.com. That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands, it works for real.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  This is the Meat Eater Podcast, coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case underwearless. We hunt, the Meat Eater Podcast.

• 4:18Steven Rinella?

  You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. Joined today by Karen Waldrop. Am I saying that right?

• 4:43Speaker 03

  You are.

• 4:44Steven Rinella?

  Chief Conservation Officer with Ducks Unlimited, and more important to me, I'm joking about that, big time squirrel dog.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  I am.

• 4:53Steven Rinella?

  Squirrel hunting dog hunter.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:56Steven Rinella?

  How do you say that?

• 4:57Speaker 03

  So squirrel hunter with dogs?

• 4:58Steven Rinella?

  Squirrel hunter with dogs, I like that, it's clean.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Yep, it's clean.

• 5:01Steven Rinella?

  How'd you get into that?

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Oh goodness, it was in college, and I was, I went out with a buddy one time and fell, absolutely just fell in love with it, and it's-

• 5:11Steven Rinella?

  Was the buddy a guy or a girl?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  It was a guy.

• 5:13Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  And it was, what I love about it is, you can go out, it's like well after deer season, and everything else is over, duck season, you can still go out until the end of February in most states, and-

• 5:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, how'd you get a shirt that says "It's usually squirrel season"?

• 5:28Speaker 03

  It's, oh my gosh, it's always squirrel season somewhere. You can get a spring squirrel season, fall, winter, it's great.

• 5:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you can normally go squirrel hunting.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  You can normally go squirrel hunting.

• 5:38Steven Rinella?

  So you got turned on to it, but that's like a whole commitment to get the dogs?

• 5:41Speaker 03

  It is, yeah, so I, I got into it right away, got my first dog, and-

• 5:45Steven Rinella?

  In college?

• 5:46Speaker 03

  A Tringfeist in college, and-

• 5:48Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Had her for seventeen years, and she hunted hard for about ten, she was-

• 5:51Steven Rinella?

  That's who's on your phone?

• 5:52Speaker 03

  She was awesome, that's who's on my phone still, it's terrible.

• 5:54Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Not my kid, not my other dogs, my dog is the dead-

• 5:58Steven Rinella?

  Your dead dog is on your phone.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Dead dog is on my phone, yeah.

• 6:00Steven Rinella?

  Uh, where'd you go to college?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Uh, well that's a long story, and I don't-

• 6:04Steven Rinella?

  I'm just curious, like where, where you were at, where you were at that made it plausible-

• 6:08Speaker 03

  I was at University of Georgia at the time, but I started at Florida State, went to University of Georgia, got my bachelor's and my master's there, and then went to Clemson University for my PhD, and then University of Kentucky for my postdoc.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  See, oddly enough, your reaction was the same as a friend of mine who was asked not to return to college.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  That's right, I did not leave college.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Very different endings there, it really said-

• 6:30Steven Rinella?

  We'd prefer if you didn't come back to college.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Yep, didn't want to get a job, enter the real world, just stay in school.

• 6:36Steven Rinella?

  But you were brought up in Kentucky?

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Actually, I was brought up in Florida.

• 6:40Steven Rinella?

  Oh, okay.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Kentucky's where we raised our family and was there for a long time, so, but I was born in Mississippi. Yep, born in Mississippi, raised mostly in Florida.

• 6:50Steven Rinella?

  I understand.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  North central Florida.

• 6:51Steven Rinella?

  But then you spent a lot of your career in Kentucky?

• 6:53Speaker 03

  Yes, so actually, when I was working on my PhD at Clemson University, I was working on the elk restoration project for Kentucky, so we came out west, grabbed fifteen hundred elk from a bunch of western states and started a restoration program. And that's why I actually went to Clemson was to study the elk restoration work in Kentucky. And so, I went to Clemson for the professor and then did all my fieldwork up there.

• 7:20Steven Rinella?

  Did you know I later killed one of your elk?

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Did you really? What year did you come out?

• 7:24Steven Rinella?

  Man, a long time ago.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  I had to have still been there. I actually, I remember it now.

• 7:28Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, a long time ago. That was fun, man.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  That was a lot of fun.

• 7:31Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  It's not...

• 7:32Steven Rinella?

  Hunting elk in the hardwoods seems so weird, dude, to see an elk standing in hardwoods.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  And, and let me tell you, it's steep. Like, it's not, it's not forgiving country. I mean, you're used to this out here, but it's, east Kentucky can be pretty rough to hunt an elk in.

• 7:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you're hunting elk in hardwoods and we were finding hen of the woods mushrooms.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Pretty fun.

• 7:52Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it was super fun.

• 7:55Steven Rinella?

  So, reason I was asked about where to col- so you would, as a college student, move around with that little squirrel dog?

• 8:00Speaker 03

  I did. She actually was, we would camp out on reclaimed coal mines, so the elk came into east Kentucky because there's a lot of coal mining. So, the reclaimed coal practices actually makes it really conducive for elk and elk habitat. So, that's where the elk came into, plus it's out of horse country and cattle and everything else. So, she would, when I was doing all my fieldwork, I camped, lived in a tent for about three years. And my dog, it was me and my dog camping out in my tent for three years. And so, since it's almost always squirrel season.

• 8:34Steven Rinella?

  You just squirrel hunted your asses off?

• 8:35Speaker 03

  I just squirrel hunted our asses off. We ate a lot of squirrels. She and I both.

• 8:40Steven Rinella?

  Uh, you got new ones to replace the dead one?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Of course, I do, yep.

• 8:43Steven Rinella?

  How many you got now?

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Well, I only have two right now, but um, I've had, I've had quite a few at any one time, but uh, but she was still probably the one that, you know, is the bar, right? And all the others have to, have to match up to it. I've got one right now, um, his name is Oakley. He's about four or five years old and he had a good season last year and this year is gonna be, it's gonna be knockout. He's, he's a, he's a killer.

• 9:06Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's exciting, good. Uh, uh,

• 9:11Steven Rinella?

  you'll appreciate this, this is a listener feedback, but it has to do with Kentucky.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 9:15Steven Rinella?

  So you have some subject matter expertise. This guy in Kentucky, uh, writes in and he was, he was kinda underwhelmed. I can't tell, I, I would think he'd be happy, but it seems like he's not happy. I can't tell.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  He gets happy at the end. He's just kinda like.

• 9:29Steven Rinella?

  He's happy at the end. He took hunter safety, which, and, and in Kentucky, there's a field day requirement.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:38Steven Rinella?

  It seems like, like there used to be not that, and then it kinda got a lot of field days and then COVID happened and it kinda got a like lot less field days, but he had a field day in Kentucky.

• 9:51Steven Rinella?

  And he goes down there to do the field day and in the end, what it amounts to is him waiting in line.

• 9:59Steven Rinella?

  And he goes 40 miles, starts at 9 a.m. He thought he'd be there till noon.

• 10:09Steven Rinella?

  He, when he gets there, they tell him to get in line.

• 10:14Steven Rinella?

  They give him some earplugs and some eye protection.

• 10:20Steven Rinella?

  They hand him a 22, he calls it a little pea shooter. They give him a single 22 long rifle round and a pea shooter, and he's supposed to put that round in the pea shooter, flip the safety and shoot a target that's 10 yards down range, rack the bolt, and he's passed.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:42Steven Rinella?

  And he's wondering, is the reason, is it more, is there more to it out west or less to it? It's not a west, east thing.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Not at all.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  No, it's a state by state. Some states have made it state law where, you know, you don't have to have the field portion of it.

• 10:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  And in Kentucky, they've, they've kept that and it really depends on your instructor that you get. So your, you know, hunter ed instructor, some of them, they'll bring out every different type of weapon and let you shoot them and muzzleloaders and shoot multiple times and, um, but then others, it's the requirement, can they safely shoot a pea shooter? Can they safely shoot a 22 racket not pointed at anybody? Put it back up safely, meet that check, you know? So it just really depends on the instructor that you get.

• 11:25Steven Rinella?

  I feel that they could safely do away with that safety part.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:29Steven Rinella?

  The field day.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  The field day. Well, if you think about it, a lot of them that, most people, not all, but most of them are either somebody that's a kid that's been hunting with mom and dad, uncle, grandparents, somebody for a long time before they come there, or it's, you know, an adult that's getting into hunting, a young adult or older adult. And they've been going with their friends for several years because you have in Kentucky and several other states where you can hunt, if you're like an apprenticeship. So if you're hunting with somebody else, you know, you can go out. So they, that's where they're getting their hunter safety training.

• 12:00Steven Rinella?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  They can probably pass that field part.

• 12:03Steven Rinella?

  Uh, so to answer your question, um, no, it has nothing to do with

• 12:08Speaker 03

  No.

• 12:08Steven Rinella?

  west, east. He wondered if it has to do with it, Kentucky's more flat.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 12:15Steven Rinella?

  And it's not like difficult to, to traverse?

• 12:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 12:19Steven Rinella?

  Um, but no, cause in Idaho, it's all online.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 12:23Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, there's a, there's a big stir amongst, um, the hunter is education instructors. Uh, cause this last like 10 years has seen a lot of importance put on hunter's education and then, um, out of convenience.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  And, and starting with a lot of the COVID protocols, just you can just bypass Hunter's Ed basically entirely. Like Montana is a great example. We require Hunter's education. We don't require Montana Hunter Ed education. So I don't want to, I don't want to get my kid down to a class. I don't want to take that time. Let's just hop online.

• 13:02Speaker 05

  Kids in Montana have to take it and they have to take a field.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  They don't. Not Montana has that education.

• 13:07Steven Rinella?

  You can do, you don't, you can do other states.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  But I'm, I'm saying if your kid, if you live in Montana and your kid takes Hunter Ed here, they have to do a field day.

• 13:16Steven Rinella?

  Yes, but they could bypass it by doing, I don't want to give dirty secrets.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  No, that's the thing.

• 13:22Steven Rinella?

  You can bypass it by having your kid do a different state online and Montana accepts it.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Online Texas, 20 minutes.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  And so.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Versus all that hassle.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Well, but also they, a lot of people say it's a barrier, right?

• 13:35Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Like they say it's a barrier to get people into hunting and so making it easy where you don't have that field day, but.

• 13:41Steven Rinella?

  But if you're doing, if your kid does the two-year mentor program,

• 13:46Steven Rinella?

  like that's two years of field time.

• 13:49Speaker 05

  If, if he's got a good mentor.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:52Steven Rinella?

  Okay, but the mentor has to be someone 21.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. Or is it 21 or 18?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  18.

• 13:58Steven Rinella?

  Is it 18? So the mentor's got to be of good standing, licensed and 18. I'm saying if, well, yeah, they could never go out. But if you go out and do a lot of field time and it's a lot of exposure, that's going to like supersede what.

• 14:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, but you know.

• 14:16Steven Rinella?

  It's very, it's very, I get very impassioned about this subject.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, it's like, yeah, this is not specifically saying, Steven Rinelli, you don't know how to teach your kids in the way that, right? But every year, we also have this big other to do of like, oh my gosh, the people who misbehave while hunting are jeopardizing all these awesome programs that provide opportunity for hunting.

• 14:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  It must be our hunter's education program that is failing. It's like, well, I don't know. Nobody has to take the hunter's education program. So why are we gonna beef up that?

• 14:53Speaker 05

  Get out of field day. So like, it's like getting a driver's license without taking a driving test. Like, come on.

• 15:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, and you shouldn't be able to get a driver's license if you just drive with someone who's 18 in the car for a couple of years.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  Let it, give it a try.

• 15:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, he's been driving.

• 15:10Speaker 06

  He's been watching his dad drive for years.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  I did a hunter's education in Missoula and, you know, like the Missoula hunters or the fishing game facility out there is big. Out on Spurgeon Road. And so that's where they did the, the field course out there and they had all sort, I failed one portion of it because they had adults that would come up to you and be like, hey, can I see your gun?

• 15:37Speaker 05

  Oh, Lil.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  And you're like, yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 05

  Like secret shopper kind of.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And they're like, well, you know, you shouldn't just let anybody come up and

• 15:48Speaker 06

  It's a trap.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was brutal. Um, but yeah, they had, you know, because there was like,

• 15:55Speaker 04

  it's relatively hilly, you know, so they're like, do you carry your, how do you carry your gun in this situation? Stuff like that. And it's like, absolutely not mistakes that I don't see adults making. And I don't every single season say, hey,

• 16:12Speaker 04

  point at this way, you know, to adults.

• 16:16Speaker 06

  I did, uh, I did my hunter's ed in Ohio and it was actually like a very substantive class. We had to drive a long way to do it.

• 16:26Speaker 06

  But then at the end of it, I got the card and it was written on like in pen, you know, just on like the card that said Randall Williams and whatever date. And probably a year after I did that, the date and my name had rubbed off the card.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 16:43Speaker 06

  And I don't know if there's any other record of it, so I rewrote my name and tried to remember.

• 16:46Steven Rinella?

  That doesn't look fraudulent at all.

• 16:48Speaker 06

  And so now whenever I buy a license online, like in Idaho or something, and it's like, enter your, the state where you took it and what dates, and if you have an ID number, and I'm like, oh, I hope they don't catch me, because I'm just sort of making this up based on my, uh, my, my clearest recollection of being 17 years old and.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Well, if you want to have more dirty secrets out there, there's no standardization for Hunter's Education. So if you type in 12345.

• 17:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, right. Well, that's what I feel like I'm doing.

• 17:18Steven Rinella?

  That's a great point, man. That's a great point. Because the numbers are still like, what?

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Right. Because like Montana's numbers, right? It starts with like a letter and then, and then the date and.

• 17:30Steven Rinella?

  It's not like a social security number.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  If you go to California, they're completely different.

• 17:36Steven Rinella?

  It's odd that Cal with no children has such an in-depth knowledge of, um.

• 17:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 17:41Steven Rinella?

  Not just knowledge, but opinions about, uh, Hunter's Safety Program.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Well, because you know.

• 17:46Steven Rinella?

  Just a concerned citizen.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  I participate in the program. People want to.

• 17:49Steven Rinella?

  Because he's like, it's one of these people that's gonna shoot me someday.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Exactly. Or, you know, it's like the giant pile of human feces and toilet paper next to the sign-in box at Block Management. Right?

• 18:03Speaker 06

  That's just someone on their way to work.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Right. We're not.

• 18:06Speaker 06

  You have no proof that's a hunter, you know?

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Big chip on my shoulder is I, I feel if you're an Hunter's Education instructor out there, you are doing, uh, the Lord's work. Absolutely. You're taking a lot of time, um, for those children who have, uh, parents that are willing to get them to those classes. Uh, to, uh, make better, uh, first-time hunters out there. And I think it's incredibly important.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, I think a lot of the people out there making mistakes are ones that are just, you know, they're not paying attention to the fishing game website. They're not reading the regulations. They're not, you know, it's like, we need to find a completely different mechanism to reach out and educate these people because they're not tapped into the traditional information lines.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  But I think if you like, take those hunter safety courses and you maybe have let fewer of them and you take those best instructors and you make it where, okay, so if you're not somebody, you know, a 12-year-old that's 13-year-old's been hunting with dad a whole bunch and knows everything really well, then maybe you can kind of opt out by taking a test or different things, but make it to where it's more than just going out, driving, you know, for a couple hours and shooting a 22. Like, make it fun, make it interactive, make it educational to where somebody doesn't feel like they just wasted their time.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, if there's a driving portion, there should be a deer on the side of the road.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  And your instructor jams on the brakes, skids sideways on the dirt road and goes, "What do you do?"

• 19:38Speaker 03

  See, interactive and fun.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 19:45Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you know what was making me nervous yesterday is, speaking of gun handling, and they didn't, I had no problems, but I took two, my kid who's a freshman in high school and his high school buddy, we went out in layout blinds.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:57Steven Rinella?

  That was stressing me out. Cause we had a guy on the podcast one time that blew the middle toes out of his foot in a layout blind.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  I had a guy not long ago that was hunting with us that shot the end of somebody else's barrel in the layout, because they didn't, they didn't keep with that, you know?

• 20:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's like-

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Shot the end of the barrel.

• 20:13Steven Rinella?

  That was stressing me out, man.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:15Steven Rinella?

  No one did anything dumb, but it's just a lot going on. You're like, okay, like, you're gonna burst out of this box.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Well, that, yeah, we had-

• 20:24Steven Rinella?

  Have no idea where anything is and burst out of this box and start shooting, but-

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Don't, and don't shoot the dogs. Don't shoot.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  Right, and that's, yeah, layout blinds are, yeah, they're stressful for sure. But, you know, we just hunted with a group, big group of folks, and on day three, one of them finally spoke up and was like, "Now, what do you mean by shooting lanes?"

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Right? And it just, it, man, adult men, it takes time.

• 20:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  To like, be like, okay, this is a safe group to ask questions.

• 21:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  He's like, so let's say there's duck all the way down here. You don't shoot. I'm like, there's five other hunters down there.

• 21:08Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 04

  It's like, oh, interesting how you people do this.

• 21:12Steven Rinella?

  I've been working on that trait, that trait of men, where now when someone tells me something, and they go, you know what I mean? I'll say, I don't know what you mean.

• 21:24Steven Rinella?

  Or they'll use like a technical term about something, like with a vehicle, that I, maybe I'm not tuned in on. And, uh, you know, I'll say like, uh, I'll be like, explain the, um, turbo. And you're.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Right. Actually, I don't know what that.

• 21:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I'll be like, right? And normally you go like, oh, right on. I'll just say, I don't understand, but that's fine.

• 21:49Speaker 07

  I don't think.

• 21:50Steven Rinella?

  I'm not putting it on you.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:51Steven Rinella?

  But I'm not gonna tell you I understand.

• 21:53Speaker 06

  It's, but it's.

• 21:54Speaker 07

  I think people do that, but I can, yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 06

  It's a very male thing to do, especially talking about vehicles.

• 22:00Speaker 07

  Guys, just own up to your lack of knowledge.

• 22:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. Although I, I got over it when I, working, uh, construction and working like with a Finnish carpenter and he would just ask me something. He'd be like, get me this. And I, it was like, the first week, I would do three trips and get him the wrong thing the first two times. And then the third time and bring him what he wants, you know? And then all of a sudden it was just like, if I, I'm gonna save myself and save him a lot of, uh, frustration and anxiety. If I just clarify things right off the bat.

• 22:30Steven Rinella?

  Sure. Uh, I'll say this about hunting with kids and layout blinds, like at that age, their reflexes are so fricking fast, man. They'd shoot the geese before I could get my box open. How are they so fast? And I'm like getting so slow. Man, they're fast. They're just like wired fast. Uh, we're gonna do one more bit of feedback.

• 22:51Speaker 07

  That's fine.

• 22:51Steven Rinella?

  Can you hang tight a minute?

• 22:52Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 22:53Steven Rinella?

  Oh, plus there's this.

• 22:54Speaker 07

  This is.

• 22:54Steven Rinella?

  Randall, this morning, he comes in all.

• 22:58Steven Rinella?

  We've, we've found over the weekend, the greatest free range Christmas tree ever found by man.

• 23:04Speaker 06

  And by we, he means his family.

• 23:06Steven Rinella?

  My family. The greatest free range tree.

• 23:08Speaker 06

  Mine did not.

• 23:10Steven Rinella?

  And Randall's judgment, he's like talking about, oh, I got a real booner. Tell me all about where he went, how snowy it was and how rugged it was and like. And he shows me a tree and he tries to sell me on the fact that only like half the tree's there.

• 23:25Speaker 06

  Cause that's.

• 23:25Steven Rinella?

  It's like one of those trees that was nestled up to his neighbor.

• 23:28Speaker 06

  I think.

• 23:28Steven Rinella?

  So it didn't grow any limbs on that side and look, it just put it right against the wall.

• 23:34Steven Rinella?

  It comes with a flat side.

• 23:36Speaker 06

  You know, you know.

• 23:37Steven Rinella?

  It comes with a flat side.

• 23:38Speaker 06

  You know what I don't like doing is, is decorating the backside of a tree.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Well, you don't have to.

• 23:43Speaker 06

  If I want to look at all my ornaments, I like my trees to have sort of a.

• 23:47Steven Rinella?

  Flat wall.

• 23:48Speaker 06

  Fade, fades to black.

• 23:49Speaker 05

  Typical.

• 23:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Maybe he's on to something.

• 23:52Steven Rinella?

  They had a weak, they had a weak left side.

• 23:54Speaker 06

  It doesn't, it doesn't stick out into the room as far. It goes right up against the wall and you don't have to waste your precious ornaments on the back end.

• 24:02Steven Rinella?

  On your way up, were you telling your wife like, what we're looking for is a half tree?

• 24:06Speaker 06

  Do you rotate your tree every few days?

• 24:08Steven Rinella?

  No, I trim that, no.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  So you can appreciate all sides of it?

• 24:10Steven Rinella?

  I trim that, I, I flush that backside up with a shear, but I don't look for one.

• 24:15Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 24:16Steven Rinella?

  I don't look for one with.

• 24:17Speaker 06

  So mine, well Randall's permit was for a management tree. Mine, mine didn't need, mine didn't require modification.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I think he's on to something. I think it's gonna be like the new thing. Everyone's gonna be trying to grow these flat trees.

• 24:30Steven Rinella?

  Totally.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  Especially, you know, if, if we had a smaller house, I'd want one that fits into a corner. Just two, just a right angle, two flat sides, just slide it right in there.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  If you think about the ornaments you put on the back are all the ones that, you know, the kids might've made or that, well, actually those for me go on the front, sorry kids. Other people's kids, right? Or just like the really old crappy ones. You put those all in the back. So you see all the.

• 24:56Speaker 06

  We haven't accumulated yet enough ornaments as a family to, uh.

• 25:01Speaker 05

  You can cap some ours.

• 25:02Speaker 06

  Have some castaways.

• 25:03Steven Rinella?

  Yes. Yeah. I know, I know a way to fix that in a hurry.

• 25:09Steven Rinella?

  And all you gotta do is stop trying to make it not happen, which is have, uh, having children. La- last piece of listener feedback. This is a good one.

• 25:20Steven Rinella?

  This fellow says this, uh, his name's Logan. I recently ran into an issue with a new neighbor hunting the property next to the one I have permission to hunt. Says everything around here is privately owned land. He's clarifying that. While I generally try to stay on good terms with the folks around me, this new neighbor decided to place a trail camera on the fence line facing the property I hunt. I'm sure that the only reason for doing so is to monitor the deer activity on my side of the fence. Well, you remember that Robert Frost, uh, he was the poet laureate?

• 25:52Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:52Steven Rinella?

  He had that, he had that fences. About the two neighbors that get together every year to like, to reinforce the fence between their properties.

• 26:00Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:00Steven Rinella?

  Good fences make good neighbors. But he's kinda dogging on them.

• 26:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:05Steven Rinella?

  Um. Anyhow, I normally wouldn't care who puts cameras where, but the fact that it's placed less than five yards from the fence and pointed directly on the trail I use to get in and out of my bowstand really bothers me. He's wondering, should he moon the camera? Should he give it the camera the finger? Or should he get a big taxidermy deer and start jutting it out in front of the camera now and then? To create the illusion of a giant buck in the area that isn't actually there.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  I personally like option three, but I'm kinda a sprayer.

• 26:43Speaker 07

  Lastly.

• 26:44Steven Rinella?

  Or, um, he might grab his own camera and point it back at that camera.

• 26:49Speaker 06

  Hmm, that's what I'd do.

• 26:50Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 26:51Steven Rinella?

  I would do, I would do. I would hold all those and I would say to the guy, maybe say to the neighbor, do you mind not aiming your camera? Um.

• 27:04Steven Rinella?

  Do you mind not aiming your camera like deliberately onto my place? Cause I walked through there and it bothers me. I remember Doug Dern, he had, they had a place out there and there's a, a neighbor had this wood lot and there's this huge sign painted on plywood that said, uh, do not shoot into these woods. And Doug wanted to put one on his side and said, do not shoot out of these woods.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Doug's place is, man, if you climb up just about any tree stand and look hard enough, you can find a little bit of orange sticking out of somewhere. Yeah. You're like, whoa. Crazy, crazy. And some stone faced people out there too. Like they don't even, they're like, no, you don't exist. I'm just looking at the 25 yards between me and you and that's it. It's wild.

• 28:02Steven Rinella?

  Another thing this guy could do is put a tarp up.

• 28:05Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  Build a brush pile right in front of that camera.

• 28:08Steven Rinella?

  Privacy screen. Yeah, that would bug the hell out of me, to be honest with you.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would definitely call for sure. But, you know, there's always something good that you're going to get out of a conversation with the neighbor. But yeah, all the funny things that you could do would be awesome. Just, yeah, have a little screen that you put up there and have like a deer, you know?

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Have something that'll trigger the camera every five seconds.

• 28:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, a little windmill. That'd be good. Something that just gives him like so much noise that he'll never get through it to find you walking around.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  Kills the battery within two days.

• 28:38Steven Rinella?

  So when he pulls his card, it's like you have 3,000 images, you know?

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Just a CD spinning out of a drawer.

• 28:46Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean and they'll get years and years of use out of

• 29:31Steven Rinella?

  Visit weathertech.com for your holiday shopping today. Holy smokes, I've been running around in some Zamberland boots and my God, are they comfortable? Damn, out of the box, ready to wear. I can't believe I haven't done it before. And the hunting tradition, right, has always been about knowledge and skills handed down from one generation to the next. Whether it's field memories with your parents or sharing the experience of a first hunt with your own kids, that shared connection is something the family at Zamberland Boots truly understands. Since its founding back in 1929, three generations of Zamberland family bootmakers have refined

• 30:13Steven Rinella?

  their craft in the mountains of northern Italy, maintaining a tradition of handcrafted construction durability and performance for the toughest conditions. Each Zamberland boot combines exceptional materials, patented technologies, and the latest innovations from partners like Vibram, Gore-Tex, and Boa. Because a quality boot is an investment in your feet, Zamberland hunting boots are resolable with original outsoles, keeping you comfortable for a lifetime of use. Zamberland's wide range of hunting and hiking boots is available at zamberlandusa.com and select retailers, including the newest drop, the lightweight, full-protection, 8X6 Boa

• 30:57Steven Rinella?

  and Coyote Camo. To explore Zamberland's handcrafted hiking, hunting, and work boots, visit zamberlandusa.com. You know those snacks that disappear way faster than you planned? That's Wiley Wallaby Licorice for me. I tossed a bag in my truck for a recent trip and before I knew it, it was gone. I ate it, my kids ate it, my wife ate it, we all love it. What sets it apart is the texture. It's authentic Australian-style licorice that's soft and chewy, not hard and waxy like most brands. They've got more than 10 flavors to choose from. I love that it's made in the USA by a company that's been doing things the right way for more than 60 years.

• 31:39Steven Rinella?

  Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping and try some yourself.

• 31:49Steven Rinella?

  Uh, here's what we're not gonna talk about, cuz this, people do this all the time. Some hosers in, where, Netherlands, where are this at?

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Sorry, what they, that buddy of mine that we were talking about the other day, he's got all the grizzly bears and wolves and stuff on his camera. You know, things that just set cameras off. Uh, this is an observation that I made. He's like, yeah, this camera, this squirrel, keeps setting it off. And he starts like going through and through and through, see him there? See him there, see him there, see him there, see him there? And eventually it dawned on me, I'm like, you know, this squirrel's giving this guy a lot of enjoyment.

• 32:26Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Netherlands, sorry.

• 32:33Speaker 07

  The authors are from Germany.

• 32:35Steven Rinella?

  I don't care where they're from.

• 32:36Speaker 05

  I believe he left up with hosers in the Netherlands.

• 32:39Speaker 07

  And the editors from Columbia, the research is based in Germany.

• 32:42Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so these hosers in Germany have determined,

• 32:48Steven Rinella?

  they've done a map where they look at, the more wolf attacks there are in an area, the more the area's prone to vote right wing.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  Far right.

• 33:02Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 33:03Steven Rinella?

  Aren't you kind of saying, um, rural people tend to vote far right? Cuz Ian Fraser did the same thing in the US, where he's like, the more wild hogs are in an area, the more you're likely to vote Republican. But

• 33:24Steven Rinella?

  every election you prove this over and over again, that generally, I mean, there's many, many exceptions, but generally, rural areas generally vote right, urban areas, it's generally true, urban areas generally vote left. So I feel like you're just finding new ways to say the same thing. It'd be like, the further apart houses are.

• 33:46Speaker 06

  The more pickup trucks there are in an area.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  The more squirrel hunters.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  This is based on livestock attacks too, right?

• 33:52Steven Rinella?

  Not human. Yeah, but I'm just saying, it's like another way of our, it's another way of expressing, like, I'm guessing that wolves attacking livestock is happening in rural agricultural areas in Germany. And those people are voting different than people that are in Munich. So, great work, guys.

• 34:13Speaker 06

  Well, maybe they're having trouble identifying rural areas. So they found a new indicator.

• 34:19Steven Rinella?

  What would be the epitome of ruralness? And some guy's like, I guess it'd be like a fucking wolf attacking a cow.

• 34:26Steven Rinella?

  That feels rural to me.

• 34:30Steven Rinella?

  All right, Karen, how are ducks doing? In general, in the United States of America?

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, so our North American waterfowl population is, so I don't know if you guys follow, you know, when US Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited, it's a big day when the breeding population survey and habitat survey comes out, you know, it's always a fun day to see.

• 34:50Steven Rinella?

  I bet.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a big day, right? You look for that every year. It's kind of like Christmas. But so what we saw for this this year, I mean, numbers are still down, but they came up so for the first time in 10 years, waterfowl populations went up about 5%. So of course, that's going to be, a lot of that's going to be dependent on the pond surveys too. And there was a lot of difference in pond surveys in the prairie pothole region. And I'm sure all the listeners know that or understand that waterfowl, you know, for for waterfowl, for breeding, the prairie potholes is like 60% of waterfowl nests there. And then a lot, 25, 30% or so in the boreal and in wet years, you have a lot more in

• 35:34Speaker 03

  the in the prairies and the prairies of US and Canada. And so the surveys-

• 35:39Steven Rinella?

  Can you tell people basically what you're talking about when you talk about the prairie potholes?

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the prairie potholes are going to be, you know, in southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and then into the US prairies of North Dakota, Montana, the eastern part, north of Montana, the northern and eastern part of North Dakota, eastern part of South Dakota, and goes down into Minnesota and a little bit into Iowa, but most of the wetlands are gone there. But that's the prairie pothole region. And it is, it is a critical landscape for waterfowl and for Ducks Unlimited and another waterfowl enthusiast, it's like the priority landscape for federal and state partners as well. But so the, what we're seeing this past year with pond counts is it's, it's a-

• 36:23Speaker 03

  Pretty diverse and dynamic landscape. So the US prairie potholes were wetter than they've been in the last 10 years. So they actually had a big increase, like a 50% increase from last year. But then the prairies in Canada were the driest they've been in 30 years. And so just shows that dynamic landscape and they were down. So overall, the pond counts was like 4% higher than last year, right around the long-term average for pond counts. And so you take those two things and that's how the seasons are determined. As far as how the population's doing, well, for the central Mississippi flyways, you look at the pond counts and then mallard population, and that determines what the seasons are going to be.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  So we look at that every year to look at what the seasons are going to be for the following year. So waterfowl populations, you know, there's a little bit of good news. Mother Nature's been helping us out a little bit. It's still, we've been in a long-term drought. It's going to take years of good weather at the right time, right amount of moisture, you know, cold up north, get a lot of snow, snow cover, and then some good rains to keep that, to keep that going. But, you know, potholes, it's a normal cycle. Like, we have, you know, every however many years, 30 years, whatever it might be. You know, remember the 80s were really bad, but, you know, droughts are important for wetlands to recharge themselves. So while we don't like it as waterfowl hunters, and it makes us nervous,

• 37:49Speaker 03

  you know, we should be coming out of that drought cycle and hopefully seeing some increased populations. But we'll see. You know, the problem with the, the only problem with when the water came in the prairies in the US, it was after a lot of those early migrants came through. So a lot of your mallards and everything, so they flew over because it was dry and they went to the boreal, which it's great. The boreal landscape is kind of like, it is good to have that because it does provide a lot of... Nesting and production opportunities, but typically waterfowl don't produce as well up there. So the reproduction's not as well because the habitat's not as rich and invertebrates and everything that they need for laying eggs and it's just not as productive of a habitat for waterfowl.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  But it's pretty darn good and it's vast, so it's good to have. But typically what we see a lot when waterfowl fly over the prairies is not as many young birds in the bag as far as the ratio of juveniles to adults in the harvest information reports and everything else, that it's not usually, that ratio is not as many young birds. But we were seeing from biologists were saying that those birds that did stay in the prairies or that came later, man, they had great habitat. So we should have really good production and they were actually seeing that, a lot of young birds coming out of the US prairie potholes. So it's a mixed bag.

• 39:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Is it that if a duck's coming from, he goes south for the winter and he's flying up, he's not like a salmon where, he doesn't know exactly where he's going.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know. They have done studies.

• 39:33Steven Rinella?

  She, I guess.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  Well, she, transmitters and showing birds coming back like so close to where they had been previous years, right?

• 39:42Steven Rinella?

  But you said they would shoot past.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. If there's no water, they'll shoot past, yeah.

• 39:45Steven Rinella?

  I see.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  And find another place, yeah.

• 39:47Steven Rinella?

  Got it. So they want to kind of go where they came from.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  They want to go where they come from, so.

• 39:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  It's pretty neat.

• 39:52Steven Rinella?

  It is.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  There's actually, just to do a plug for it, the movie Wings Over Water, I don't know if you've heard of it yet, yeah? It's been out a couple of years, it's an IMAX, it's really geared towards kids, so, but not just kids, but it's talking about the prairie potholes and it's not just waterfowl. It follows a duck, follows a sandhill crane and a yellow warbler and shows their migration from south all the way up to the prairies and the importance of prairies and all the landowners there and farmers and ranchers and why the prairie pothole region is so important for all sorts of species of birds.

• 40:30Steven Rinella?

  What's the major thing besides that water level? What's the major thing that drives duck up and down? Drives duck numbers up and down in the United States?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  So, I mean habitat, right? So, it's all tied to habitat. And pond count is a good way. Of course, it's been going on since the mid 1950s. And it's the longest running waterfowl population survey. It's missed two years because of COVID. But other than that, longest year, longest survey. And so, it's a good indicator. The more wetlands that are on a landscape, which is what waterfowl need for in the grasslands, surrounding grasslands, so for nesting and everything as well. And then for brood production and brooderering. But the more wetlands and smaller shallow wetlands are preferred over, you know, I'd rather have 100, you know, 1 acre wetlands than 1 100 acre wetland because they're very territorial as well.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  So, the more water you have on the landscape from wetlands, the better production you're going to have for waterfowl. And it follows it pretty closely. You can see waterfowl populations up and down, up and down, and it being with the previous year's wetland production.

• 41:39Steven Rinella?

  Got it, got it.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  So, wetland conservation, Ducks Unlimited, that's what it's all about. And our priority landscape, of course, is the prairies. That's our number one priority landscape. We work all throughout North America. We have a lot of landscape conservation priority areas that are important for waterfowl because wintering habitat is really important for waterfowl, too. You have to get those, you have to have enough energy and carbohydrates and everything that they need for fat storage and everything else to make it through those cold winters and be able to come back up north.

• 42:09Steven Rinella?

  But now that you hear about people say like changing agricultural practices will really impact.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah, like so there's a study, we actually just finished using.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Band return, so from the 1960s until 2019. One of our biologists, Dr. Mike Brazier, along with Dr. Webb with the Missouri Co-op Unit, and then also US Fish and Wildlife Service, looked at bands from 1960 to 2019. And we looked at three different species of birds, mallard, pintail, and blue-winged teal. And then looked at different sub-populations of where they came from, whether it was Canada and the boreal, Canadian Prairies and the boreal, US Prairies, and then the Great Lakes and eastern Canada. And then looked at different months, October, November, December, January. So, getting to your point.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  So pintails, if you looked in 1960s, pintails were all along the coast in the winter. Rice in Texas was big. So, all those pintails in January in the 1960s and 70s were all there. Now, in 2019, in 10s to 19s, that population shifted. You could see in January, bird band returns to Arkansas, the Mississippi, Luvia Valley, where the rice is.

• 43:29Steven Rinella?

  What?

• 43:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really cool. It's on our website, but part of that study was actually in the last magazine, too. It's really neat. So, looking at those.

• 43:40Steven Rinella?

  They just found into rice production. And now that all that rice is down in Texas and Louisiana.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Right, on the coast, yep. Still a lot.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, the Californians are super happy because they can shoot two pintails a day.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no. No, no, no, it's one right now.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Oh, I thought it was switching.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  But next year, next year it'll be three.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  And both the Mississippi, Central, Atlanta, all four flyways will be at three next year, not this current year. I have to be really careful.

• 44:05Steven Rinella?

  What happens? Why is it going up?

• 44:08Speaker 03

  So, US Fish and Wildlife Service, again, okay, there's adaptive harvest management models for all sorts of different species, and we could spend a lot of time going into it. It's really cool. We could geek out in the science of it, but... You know, pintails, like you said, Pacific flyway, they're seeing so many pintails. Well, the thing is, they get their pintails not only from Alaska, but also from the Canadian Prairies and US Prairies. And where those pintails aren't doing as well... We have a lot of pintails in Montana in the spring. Oh, yeah. It's super cool. Heck, yeah, you do. You should. And so, what it is, they mix. Whereas mallards, they have, you know, the mid-continent mallards, the western mallards, eastern mallards, they don't really, they stay in their flyways. Pintails, it's a little bit different. So, they've been restricted to one.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  But, the reason for looking at it is trying, it's an experimental three, I don't know if they're calling it quote-unquote "experimental season," but it's a three-year trial season. And if the numbers don't drop below, I might get this a little wrong, let's say, I think it's 1.2 million, that will be open for three birds. If it gets below that, it'll drop to two, one, or closed season, depending on where that population is. And so, this year, from the breeding population survey, it's over the 1.2 million mark, or whatever that is, it's around there. But, the reason they're doing this is they're trying to really see, what are the effects? Is there an effect of shooting three pintails on the population? We try to set our populations, we, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited is not

• 45:35Speaker 03

  part of it, I should make that clear, but US Fish and Wildlife Service and biologists try to make sure that it's, you're not having the additive impact of mortality in hunting. So, what they want to see is, is there an impact from harvesting three birds on that population? Or is it not additive? Is it compensatory, that hunter-harvest? Do you mind walking people through what that means? Yeah. Your job, Steve. Additive, just so people understand additive and compensatory. Yep, yep, yep. So, if it's additive mortality, those birds would have made it back to nesting and had a successful nesting and had more production the following year, if it's additive from that harvest.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  And if it's compensatory, then it's, those birds wouldn't have made it anyway, too. A certain number of birds aren't going to make it back to breed because of their life cycle. Got it.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  And that's like, when I go love hunting in California, and you do see... It seems very consistent that you see more pintails than anything else. And so, of course, you get more complaints about only being able to kill one pintail

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  per day.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  They're just flying over you, just sitting there flying over you.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:50Steven Rinella?

  And they're myth because what's going on is that that all those Sacramento Ricefield pintails are all hanging out in Arkansas now?

• 46:59Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. No, this is different flyway.

• 47:03Steven Rinella?

  Well, I thought you were saying they shifted over. What the hell are you talking about, lady?

• 47:08Speaker 03

  So, no, so the birds coming from the Canadian-US prairies, some of them will go down to Arkansas, some of them will head over to California. And so, it's not distinct where they come from. So, in other words, the birds, the pintails in the US and the Canadian prairies, aren't doing as well. The ones up in Alaska are doing well, but they might, they all come down into California. But some of these from Canada are coming out.

• 47:34Steven Rinella?

  So, the Alaska ones aren't going to Arkansas?

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 47:37Steven Rinella?

  I understand now.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  But you always have to tell those California folks, it's like, well, they're not California pintails. They're kinda everybody's pintails. And me in Montana, I can shoot one per day, and we're growing them. They just end up here.

• 47:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Yep, that's the thing about waterfowl. It's, I mean, it's pretty impressive to understand how US Fish and Wildlife Service and the states, because they have part of that through the flyway councils. And when I was in Kentucky, I was on the Mississippi Flyway Council, and manage waterfowl populations for everybody, because they are a migratory species. And, you know, the amount of, of time and effort to, that it takes to determine the models that are going to be best for those waterfowl populations to sustain them and to not cause harm to those populations. It's a pretty important job that the service does. And that survey is, is critical. And the reason, one of the reasons why we can make it happen, and, and also hunters, right?

• 48:39Speaker 03

  With, with your Harvest Information Program, doing the HIP survey every year, answering the US Fish and Wildlife surveys, all of those things are critical to help manage that, that population of birds.

• 48:49Steven Rinella?

  Have you ever done an honesty check on the HIP survey? Has anybody ever done that?

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, actually, yes. So... Here's

• 48:57Steven Rinella?

  I give it straight on mine.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Right, so here, so here's

• 48:59Steven Rinella?

  But I can see them being like, wow shit, I must've got forty.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, you know, do you want to, like, you've got some hunters that, well, I don't want to tell everybody that I'm killing a whole bunch of birds, you know?

• 49:09Steven Rinella?

  So they put down zero. You got other guys that want to look like they're getting more than they're getting.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  But here's the thing about it. If we don't have the correct survey information, then, you know, we're, we're, we're not doing our part as hunters, right? That, that science part of it. So what was happening in Kentucky, I'll give this example. We had some of the worst hip survey data results because what was happening, if we think, is everyone was going to the Walmart to do their hip, to buy their license, right? I'm just saying Walmart, sorry. Any hunting store to go buy their license and, um, and the kid-

• 49:41Steven Rinella?

  I've bought more than a few at Walmart.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Right? Well, I didn't want to pick on Walmart, right? It could be any place.

• 49:45Steven Rinella?

  It's a great place to buy a license.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it is a great place. Walmart's great.

• 49:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, get your sliced deli meat, your AA batteries.

• 49:51Steven Rinella?

  Deodorant, pick up a hunt license.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  I just didn't want to, I didn't want to say it was Walmart employees were not doing a good job. So, but, you know, got the eighteen year old behind the counter that's selling the license. And they get to the hip survey and they just go zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Here's your license, right? And they don't ask them, are you a waterfowl hunter? Are you a migrant, are you a dove hunter? Are you this? Are you that? They don't ask them, they just go blah, blah, blah. And, and so then-

• 50:14Steven Rinella?

  He's just trying to get them to take care of it.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  You don't know as the hunter that you're not complying with the law and you're not, you know, doing it right. You're thinking, you know, everything's fine. You get your license. Well, so our data in Kentucky was terrible. So what they, what we did is we instituted, it was a law that you had to go online. You could no longer at point of sale, even if you bought your license point of sale, you had to go online and do your hip survey. And so then our data went from one of the worst in the country to one of the best, um, that we're providing the service to.

• 50:41Steven Rinella?

  But how do you know it's good or bad?

• 50:44Speaker 03

  So there are, there are ways you can, you can fact check year after year after year of like certain hunters, you know, to see if it's pretty normal. Oh, they killed, you know, twenty, twenty birds here and zero here and twenty there. So you can kind of see-

• 50:57Speaker 04

  Randall's not, still not killing any birds.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, that poor Randall. Uh, he tries real hard though, doesn't he?

• 51:04Steven Rinella?

  Ever hear that goof on Randall? Let's all have a laugh about Randall's survey.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  Poor Randall.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  I got a question on the hip surveys. So-

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Last year would be a good example, I guess, or still this year, I guess, but hunt in Missouri,

• 51:22Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  Hunt in California.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Yep, gotta do it twice.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  You gotta do it twice.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  Yep, and that's another thing people don't know. It's an education thing.

• 51:29Steven Rinella?

  Shit, I didn't know that.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  Is the expectation that it doesn't matter where you are, you're filling out the number of birds that you got in aggregate.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  In that loca- no, in that state.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  Specific to that state.

• 51:44Speaker 03

  Yep, yep.

• 51:45Steven Rinella?

  God, I'm getting better.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  If you need a takeaway, folks.

• 51:47Speaker 06

  You might have to retract that statement earlier about always filling out your hip survey.

• 51:52Speaker 03

  Well.

• 51:52Steven Rinella?

  Well, my intentions were pure.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  When you buy, well, so it should be, if you buy at point of sale, they should ask you.

• 51:59Steven Rinella?

  But I didn't know they were asking about that, but you know what? I don't know, if I go somewhere, I just never, I didn't know that. Like, I didn't know if you, if you go to Alaska and hunt for a day.

• 52:08Speaker 06

  Every time you buy, like, you gotta do it.

• 52:11Steven Rinella?

  All, all in, whatever you've been up to.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  Oh, collect.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, collectively, right? Yeah.

• 52:17Steven Rinella?

  It's not all in.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  No, because they'll do, they'll take it state by state and roll it all up.

• 52:22Speaker 06

  That's not clear. They should fix that.

• 52:24Steven Rinella?

  They should definitely clear that.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  Well, you know, we are trying to.

• 52:26Steven Rinella?

  What's hip stand for, anyway?

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Harvest Information Program.

• 52:29Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  And so, we're actually, we're actually trying to help state fish and wildlife agencies and trying to collect the most accurate data, working with US Fish and Wildlife Service to, in order to do that, but.

• 52:41Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 52:42Steven Rinella?

  Oh, what was your question about? Oh.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  No, that, that is it. It's like, are you filling it out for your harvest information in that specific state?

• 52:50Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  Or are you saying, this is me, this is what I did last year?

• 52:55Steven Rinella?

  You might later, later today, you might send an email to the higher-ups in, in the hip program and tell them that they should clarify that point.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  And it would create incredible efficiency. Did you hunt Missouri last year? Nope. Okay, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Yep, and so then, of course, you know, if you just go there one year and hunt, you don't go back for a couple of years, right? So then, you're not. Collecting whatever, but they have, they've got all sorts of data management behind the scenes to figure out things like that. Um, so they, they work through those things. They, uh, it's, it's a pretty good system, but they are working on improvements to the Harvest Information Program. So we can collect the best survey data possible.

• 53:35Steven Rinella?

  What, let's say you're a hunter, we can move on from the hip survey, cause I don't think.

• 53:38Speaker 06

  Well, I want to know who kills the most snipe.

• 53:41Steven Rinella?

  Cause that's always. When I lived, when I lived out in Seattle, I was hitting big snipe numbers. Those good pinnails, a good snipe. Now, for those years, I really liked it cause I could get in there. Cause normally you gotta just skip through all the coots and rails and snipes. You're always like, uh, just gotta go zero, zero, zero, zero. But I got to hit some snipes.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  That's pretty cool.

• 54:04Steven Rinella?

  Felt good, man. Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 06

  The kid at Walmart was duly impressed.

• 54:10Steven Rinella?

  Back up, back up, back up.

• 54:13Steven Rinella?

  Not so fast.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Me down. And then, oh, I should also mention, so when you do that hip stuff, so that just puts you in a category. So that puts Randall will be in the zero to whatever category you would be in the, the max category, right? Um, I was pointing to Steve, by the way, everybody, brownie points. But, um, so, once they do that, then they select a certain number of people from that, from that, that grouping. And then they send out the more intricate survey. So that's, so the individual one doesn't really matter as much. That puts you in a group and then that's when you get that big survey. And they made it online last year. It used to always be paper.

• 54:51Steven Rinella?

  For years, I got roped into that.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:53Steven Rinella?

  All the wings and.

• 54:55Speaker 03

  Yep. And so then that's when they ask you a billion questions.

• 54:58Steven Rinella?

  Those people. I was into it for a year or two, but after a while I was like, good lord, man.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Yep. And so they'll figure out, like, they'll ask you, which states did you hunt in? So you'll get that information that way.

• 55:08Steven Rinella?

  How do you get picked for that? That got to be a lot.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's a, it's a random, it should be a random generated in each of those categories, but they don't have as many in that top end category that you find yourself in. So.

• 55:19Steven Rinella?

  No, I was in, I mean, I'm the elite snipe. I do a lot of like, you know, my geese numbers, I'm usually in the zero. To tenner.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:27Steven Rinella?

  You know, ducks, I get, I'll climb up into the 20 to 30 now and then, but I'm not a big waterfall guy.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's a waterfall.

• 55:33Steven Rinella?

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• 56:16Steven Rinella?

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• 57:01Steven Rinella?

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• 58:25Steven Rinella?

  the right way for more than 60 years. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping and try some yourself. Here's a waterfowl management question to move away from hip surveys. People will point out, like, I think it's widely understood that there's some kind of arrangement between states and federal, right? You can be duck hunting, you can get checked by a fed, but feds don't check you when you're deer hunting. And but there's also like this, uh, there's like an international component.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 59:03Steven Rinella?

  But does that have any teeth? Or first, can you explain like, what is the international component? And it doesn't have any teeth? Like, meaning would Mexico ever be like, damn it? Um, we're not getting any ducks down here. You need to change your bag limits. Or would we just be like, mind your own business? Like, what would our attitude be?

• 59:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and it takes Canada, US and Mexico. Now, this is from a habitat standpoint, right? The NAWOMP or North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and try to identify what are those most important places for habitat and structuring it that way. But then from a, from a, an enforcement, um, so you, all three have their own regulations and laws and how they set that up.

• 59:46Steven Rinella?

  And they don't cooperate on those laws.

• 59:48Speaker 03

  No, and so if you think about it, in Canada, everyone's like, man, how come you can shoot so many up in Canada? But when they cross that line and into the United States, you can't.

• 59:56Steven Rinella?

  How many can you shoot in Canada?

• 59:58Speaker 03

  I'm trying to think of what the.

• 1:00:00Steven Rinella?

  Like, is there anything, like, we're at seven right now in Montana. Is there anything more than seven in Canada?

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, absolutely.

• 1:00:07Steven Rinella?

  More than seven.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  On ducks?

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  So it's eight, I think, in like Saskatchewan.

• 1:00:12Steven Rinella?

  And do they have the three day possession limit?

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  I'm trying to think of what their possession limits are in Canada. Not sure, we need to look it up.

• 1:00:20Steven Rinella?

  But there's an eight bird limit there.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's an eight bird limit.

• 1:00:24Steven Rinella?

  You don't like that?

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  Saskatchewan. No, I'm trying to think of what it is. But you can harvest more birds in, in Canada. And, but there aren't as many hunters up there. So you have a lot more waterfowl hunters in the United States. So we're going to have a much higher impact. Same with Mexico. Not nearly as many waterfowl hunters in Mexico. So their daily bag limits can be higher in Canada and Mexico.

• 1:00:48Steven Rinella?

  Cause the pie's not getting cut up into as many.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  So this is the AI overview. I, I.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  I'm sure it's right.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  I don't, I'm not sure if it's right, but, um, eight per day. This is ducks. With four being pintails.

• 1:01:01Steven Rinella?

  Ooh. Take that, California.

• 1:01:04Speaker 04

  Dart geese, eight per day with no more than five being white fronted.

• 1:01:08Steven Rinella?

  Wow. So that's double our geese.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot. White geese, 20 per day.

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  Not as much pressure.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  It's fairly close.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  And a much shorter amount of time, too, you know?

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  Five sandhill cranes per day. That's a lot of meat.

• 1:01:21Speaker 07

  Is white geese, uh, snow?

• 1:01:23Speaker 04

  Snows, yeah.

• 1:01:25Steven Rinella?

  Normally lately when people say they're moving to Canada, they're making some kind of bitchy comment about the election. But you'd be like, no, I mean, cause ducks.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  Well, this, yeah, I was gonna say, this might make some of those Californians make good on their promises.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  Oh, giant mule deer and ducks? Come on.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Can't go wrong.

• 1:01:43Steven Rinella?

  Uh, how is it that, uh,

• 1:01:50Steven Rinella?

  how, how does it come to be that different states have different regs?

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:55Steven Rinella?

  Like, like, how, like? How do they weigh that out?

• 1:01:57Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:01:57Steven Rinella?

  We're like I said, right here, I don't know what it is in other places, right? Right now, I mean, for years it's been like, there's all kinds of restrictions, but like, you're allowed seven ducks. And then we have all of those like, uh, no more than blind. So yeah, seven ducks, but no more than two can be a hen mallard. No more than on a pintail.

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, there can be huge discrepancies. I remember a season or two where you could kill seven ducks in Montana. But if you were in, uh, Stuttgart, Arkansas, waterfowl capital of the world, you could shoot a duck.

• 1:02:33Steven Rinella?

  A duck?

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  A duck.

• 1:02:34Steven Rinella?

  A duck?

• 1:02:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's how like, I can't remember the exact situation, but it was like very, very dire over there. Yeah.

• 1:02:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:02:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. How's that all, how's that all divided up?

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  So I mentioned briefly earlier, the flyway councils. And so because they are migratory and international and, and everything, you have the, the federal regulations and then you also can have state regulations. So whatever the feds come up with, with, um, you know, you can have like next year, three pintails. And you're in the liberal season, states can be more restrictive than the federal rule, but not less restrictive. So a state like Arkansas can make the decision because they have a ton of hunters there, putting a lot of pressure. They can be, they can be more restrictive trying to keep more ducks in that area.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Um, but then there's also packages that, that come with the liberal package and you can have a certain number of zones and splits in your season and everything. But there are federal regulations of if you have, you know, one split and two zones, it can only be this and that. So that in each, in each area and each flyway is different and I don't know them all, but so it is a state and federal. And that fly, the flyway council has one state representative from, or one representative from each state on the Mississippi flyway, Atlantic, all the flyways. And they serve as a vote for, you know, we as a flyway, do we agree with these particular regulations for our flyway? And then that goes up and goes back to the feds and it finishes that system.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  But then a state can take what was in the federal register and then they can make the decision to, you know, take their packages. However, they want to and be more restrictive.

• 1:04:18Steven Rinella?

  So Arkansas could come home from that meeting.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:21Steven Rinella?

  And they were pushing for greater. Restrictions, didn't get them, but they can come home and just impose greater restrictions at home.

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  They're, it's their commissioners or their board, however they're set up, that vote on their regulations. Each state, again, is different how the regulations are set. Some might be from a legislative set, some of it might be from a official wildlife commission. And so they vote, they take typically what you, what you want, system to work correctly, is the biologist, the waterfowl biologist will give the recommendation to that board and say, look, this is what we think because our green tree reservoirs aren't doing well, or this or that, whatever reason they might have had. I don't, don't know that situation, but, and we think this is our recommendation. But sometimes, commissions will make their own decision and it'll be contrary sometimes to what the biologists think, to err on the side of caution or something.

• 1:05:10Steven Rinella?

  Man, what were the conversations in Arkansas when it got as bad as one duck a year? People had to been like, just complaining.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you know, it's a big, duck hunting is very social compared to a lot of other uh, hunting activities, right? So a lot of folks getting together in, in blinds and, and yeah, you can only shoot.

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  Duck camps, yeah.

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that was where you really saw the rise of, um, you know, like cooking and accoutrement in fancy duck blinds because you had to make more of a day out of it.

• 1:05:42Steven Rinella?

  Because it wasn't just all shooting anymore.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Right, yeah, yeah. Um, and then, yeah, so then, and then we saw, you know, then you see like your, um, duck hunters that really want to keep hunting ducks, see them traveling a lot more when their, their home water restrictions get, get tighter. And they're searching out those liberal, uh, regulations, right?

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  And then you're putting a lot of pressure in that area and you know, do you have enough, uh, you know, uh, nutrition, duck energy days, enough, uh, habitat to support.

• 1:06:17Speaker 04

  Duck energy, I really want to get into because I was trying to explain that to somebody because it, that's fascinating stuff. But, uh,

• 1:06:23Steven Rinella?

  That's how much you energy get from eating a duck?

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  Well, it is superfood, man. It is, yeah, big, we cooked up a couple, we were haking our butts off over the Thanksgiving weekend and I took big rice field ducks and cooked them up in the camper and, yeah.

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  Good stuff.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Oh, so good.

• 1:06:39Speaker 07

  So that's what duck energy is?

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Uh, no.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:06:42Steven Rinella?

  Big duck energy.

• 1:06:45Speaker 04

  Uh. But like state like South Dakota, right? That's where it's a it's a major recreational traveling tourism economy for hunting. And in order to try to balance out that pressure, right? They you have to draw for a specific week.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:07Speaker 04

  As a non resident to go, which we've we've done in the past. It's well worth doing, super fun. Um, but yeah, waterfowl complicate or waterfowl regulations. Um, I can get pretty darn complicated, right? And it's like, okay, you can only shoot five. Uh, we were just in Kansas. It's like you can shoot five mallards and an odd duck. You're like, okay, well. What do you consider odd?

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  That one had one eye.

• 1:07:38Steven Rinella?

  So I interpret that as it's a six duck limit. No more than five can be mallards.

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:07:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then and then, uh, I think it was two hands. As well, so or mixed in there.

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  And then if you're hunting public land, it could even get more, you know, complicated because they might have specific regulations for that wildlife management area or something too. So it's it unfortunately, I think sometimes people get really nervous if they're new to waterfowl hunting, there's a lot that could maybe try to keep you from waterfowl hunting. So that's where apprentice and going with friends is so important because they're going to know the rules and keep you safe.

• 1:08:17Speaker 04

  There's a WMA in Arkansas that we were right next to. And God, I want to say you could only have. Was it 12 shells in your possession?

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, they'll limit however many shells you can have.

• 1:08:32Speaker 04

  I love because it's like an anti sky busting type of regulation.

• 1:08:36Steven Rinella?

  Sure, man. You got every every shot, dude. You shoot a lot different then.

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  Don't waterfowl that duck.

• 1:08:41Speaker 05

  Bring a single shot. That'd be a good program for that.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you don't want you don't want all your ducks leaving that area, right?

• 1:08:48Steven Rinella?

  No kidding. Limit your shells.

• 1:08:50Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:08:50Speaker 04

  I loved it.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  A lot of them do it.

• 1:08:51Speaker 05

  I wouldn't.

• 1:08:52Speaker 04

  After my Wyoming hunting experience, I thought that would be a good regulation to have for rifle hunting too.

• 1:08:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I had a trapper. I had a trapper recently tell me that when he, the guy that taught him to trap, he said the most valuable lesson he ever gave me is he says, I treat every trap like it's my only trap. If you treated every shell like it was your whole shell, dude, you'd shoot it. It'd be a lot different experience.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I want to know what the psychological impact would be even on a, on a, somebody who's a fantastic shot. If it's like, okay, here's your five.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Speaker 04

  Right? Just like how that would change.

• 1:09:29Steven Rinella?

  That'd actually be a fun game to do, man.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  It would.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, everyone will start yelling at each other. Why didn't you shoot? Why didn't, no, why didn't you? Oh, I don't know. It was a little too far. Oh, you waited too long. Yeah, all these ducks would be flying by and everyone would be mad.

• 1:09:41Steven Rinella?

  That'd be weird to have conversations like, why didn't you shoot rather than why did you shoot?

• 1:09:48Steven Rinella?

  Cause that's the normal conversation. What the hell are you doing?

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  So, uh, end of the season, around here especially, right? Like my goal, one of my recurring hunting goals is always to like, end the season with my maximum possession limit of ducks. So I can carry through.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  Feel good about it.

• 1:10:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Steven Rinella?

  So your freezer's got 21 ducks in it?

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I want it, want them all to be fat, you know, like, um, that, that would be like the, the way to hit it perfect, but, um, and you typically, you're like, okay, cold weather, the ducks are going to be putting the feed bag on and, and, but you can time, your timing matters to where it's like, okay, all of a sudden there's a ton of birds in, but they just got there and they're really skinny.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Versus, um, if the birds have been there for a few days, you want to get them right before they head out. Because that's when they're at maximum duck energy, maximum fat.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  You have fed them well.

• 1:10:52Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah. And then, so can you go into that? Cause that's super fascinating, like how fast they burn those calories.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  They definitely do. And, and like, again, I was talking about that North American waterfowl management plan. There's different plans that, that waterfowl, um, managers use and they have a lot of state and regional requirements for like, I don't know, it might be 400 million duck energy days in the Mississippi Aluvia Valley is what's needed to sustain. Those ducks, so a duck energy day is the amount of energy that one duck needs for for one day, right? And so a duck energy day and how much like an acre is by like the acre. So it's like how many duck energy days are on this acre of land and providing how much energy? So if you had a thousand ducks and you wanted them there for one, one day, you need 1,000 duck

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  energy days in that one acre. So.

• 1:11:45Steven Rinella?

  In the form of what? In the form of whatever?

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, the high, well, and each, and they'll do it by groups of species, by dabblers or different, different individual species.

• 1:11:55Steven Rinella?

  You're not talking about like spreading food out.

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  No, it could be like water celery or soybeans or.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Speaker 06

  But it's the caloric.

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  It's the caloric, yes, exactly.

• 1:12:04Steven Rinella?

  Some kind of food, whatever, regionally, like regionally available food.

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  That's right. Yep. And so how much? And so they have targets. So 110 days, I think, is what they typically keep for what they want to provide the food for ducks, you know, in Mississippi Luby Valley, for example. And so then you have to have in that whole area 400 million duck energy days to be able to support the waterfowl population that you're expecting to come into the Mississippi Luby Valley. Or a lot of states will do it as smaller regional areas, too. And they might do it for wildlife management areas, different things like that for what are the deck energy, what's the requirement of the duck energy days to make sure those animals have, and you know, lots of carbs, lots of other things to store that fat for their, you know, migratory journey north as well.

• 1:12:53Speaker 06

  So it's, it's analogous basically to like a grazing unit. If you're thinking in terms of like cattle.

• 1:12:59Steven Rinella?

  Cow calf units.

• 1:13:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's like an AUM, basically, like what is this, what can this landscape sustain?

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  Right. What can it sustain? What can that, and it's by the acre. So what can that one acre, and how many ducks can it support for that, that time period?

• 1:13:13Speaker 06

  I was curious about this when you were talking about the variability in migration routes earlier and talking about. If there's no water in the potholes, they go up to the boreal.

• 1:13:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:13:25Speaker 06

  And when I think about animal migration, I think about the like caloric tax on the animal. Especially when you talk about big game or the thing about like salmon. You know, like it's something that I hadn't really considered in the waterfowl realm. But considering that their migration route could vary by hundreds of miles.

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:13:47Speaker 06

  Season to season.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  Imagine.

• 1:13:49Speaker 06

  Kind of striking.

• 1:13:50Speaker 03

  And then of course, you know, what kind of condition are they in when they get there? Now, they are feeding along the way, obviously. And depending on the species, you know, they'll start switching over maybe to invertebrates right before they get there to the, you know, to the nesting areas and to the prairies or whatnot. So they'll shift their diets and everything based on the type of food they need. But you want them to have in some of those southern states, that high energy food, carbohydrates to get them, to get them there. But yeah, so it puts a tax on them when they're not, when there's not water in the prairies. When wetlands are gone, you know, I think in the prairies, I mean, depending on certain areas, it could be as high as 90% of the potholes or the wetlands have been lost. But in a lot of the prairies, you know, over 50%.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  50% of the, by the mid 1980s, you know, 50% were lost, which is why the North American waterfowl, one of the reasons the North American waterfowl management plan started was in, it was 1984, but in the mid 1980s, you know, a half of all the wetlands had been lost. Of course, the United States in the lower 48.

• 1:14:56Speaker 05

  How much does like agricultural food sources offset that? Like, is there?

• 1:15:03Speaker 03

  It's important.

• 1:15:03Speaker 05

  Like, is it possible there's more ducks now because of agriculture than there was, say, 200 years ago when the middle of the country wasn't covered in corn and soybean? And like?

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  Well, I could go back as far as the 1950s.

• 1:15:15Speaker 06

  Let's not do 200 years ago, but pick a number, like pick a known number. Cause that's a good question, right? Like there's more, like when grain prices are high and everybody's producing grain.

• 1:15:25Steven Rinella?

  And all these farmers are switching to grain.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Steven Rinella?

  Um, that doesn't make up for all that lost ground?

• 1:15:31Speaker 03

  No, no, because waterfowl need.

• 1:15:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they gotta be able to breathe.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  And if the wetlands are gone.

• 1:15:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  And, you know.

• 1:15:37Steven Rinella?

  You have all the grain in the world.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  And that time of year, they're feeding a lot on invertebrates, right? Cause they're trying to, eggshells and everything else and that protein. So they're really moving to protein that time of year. And that's what wetlands are just, they are just wonderful little soup.

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  So there's not like around here, like there used to be a lot of wheat production around here? And it's a lot of those fields are getting covered up in condo, like is that a concern?

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And so we work a lot, you know, cause we want agriculture on the landscape and because we don't want it to turn into condos and this and that. And so we work with NRCS, USDA NRCS, and we work with landowners and farmers and ranchers to develop programs, both with federal partners, state partners, and then we have our own programs because we want to keep ranching and farming on the landscape and then working to keep wetlands and important grasslands in that landscape on there, right? Whether it's through incentives, through education, because soil health practices, a lot of soil health practices and other things that we can work with landowners and farmers to improve.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  It's gonna be better for them economically, they're gonna have a better crop. It's gonna help with, you know, sedimentation, runoff, all of that. And then it's also, you know, putting in cover crops and other things for waterfowl is beneficial again for them and then also for wildlife. So there's a lot of practices that we can work on with farmers and ranchers. So we, we want them on that landscape and they're, they're critical, critical partners for us.

• 1:17:15Steven Rinella?

  There's not a lot of duck energy in condos.

• 1:17:18Speaker 03

  Not a lot of duck energy in condos, no.

• 1:17:20Steven Rinella?

  When, when you talk about losing half of our wetlands, can you, can you?

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  Being drained.

• 1:17:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, put some numbers around that, like start, what's the start, like what's the starting point? You're not talking about European arrival in the new world, like there's like.

• 1:17:34Speaker 03

  No, no, since like a lot of development in the US, right? And so like the Mississippi, you know, Mississippi River Basin, I think it's estimates of almost 80% been lost of wetlands. And if you think about it, you know, flooding along the Mississippi.

• 1:17:49Steven Rinella?

  Over the last what, just ballpark it.

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  I'd say. What would be the year mark? I mean last.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Like post-World War II or something? Yeah, you know, nineteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, you can say. What percent? Like, in the Mississippi River Basin, like eighty, eighty percent. But what, I think a number I read, you know, by the mid nineteen eighties, I believe a number I read is that like fifty percent in the lower forty-eight were lost. And think about it, you know, draining a lot of wetlands to, for building, for. For farm ground. Can be for farm ground, it can be for, you name it. I mean, it's. Reclamation districts, right? Everything. So they're constantly under attack and people don't understand the, not everyone understands the importance of a wetland and, and that they can provide so many other things other than just waterfowl habitat and habitat for lots of other,

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  you know, fish, bird species, everything. But also it helps with, you know, flood attenuation if you're talking along the Mississippi River.

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  It helps with a storm resiliency on, on shorelines. It helps with, uh, clean water filtration. I mean, they are, they are nature's kidneys, they're nature's, uh, sponges. They filter out phosphorus, nitrogen, all these, you know, and then they also help store water during heavy, uh, rain events to keep from flooding issues. So wetlands are really important to people and wildlife.

• 1:19:14Speaker 04

  And that's what, uh, when I started hunting Saskatchewan and Alberta a long, long time ago, I haven't been up there in years for, for waterfowl, but, the amount of DU work, uh, north of the border.

• 1:19:28Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:29Speaker 04

  Which was interesting too, because also you, you would hear from people like, "Oh, I don't, don't contribute to DU because they just spend all my money in Canada."

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:19:38Speaker 04

  Right? But like, that's where.

• 1:19:41Steven Rinella?

  They spend all my money right where all my ducks come from.

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. So, until the mid nineteen eighties, we did not do work in the US. We did only work in the Canadian, in the, prairies in Canada.

• 1:19:54Steven Rinella?

  Seriously?

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  Because that's where the majority of waterfowl were. And it was in the mid eighties, again, that waterfowl management plan that I was talking about, started looking at, okay. Well, we need to start, and not just Ducks Unlimited, but federal, state, provincial partners, everybody coming together and saying, we need to look at all of these important landscapes. And there's a lot in the US as well. So, we started work in the US prairies in the mid 1980s. And then, of course, other priority landscapes from there, and also down into Mexico. So, that really didn't start until the mid 1980s. But like you said, putting the most money we can into those highest priority landscapes, which is going to be your Canadian prairies, US prairies,

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  the boreal, but there's other critical landscapes as well that we just were talking about as far as the importance of wintering habitat as well. So, it's a lot of great programs out there. And I should go ahead and make a plug for hunters, that every time you buy that duck stamp, that duck stamp goes to protecting, permanent protection of wetlands in the United States. And there's a major portion of those dollars that go into the US prairies. And so, that $25 stamp, you're protecting, putting a permanent easement on a piece of property, on land, that is held by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It's part of actually the refuge system.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  But we have now, through this program, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, JV, the Joint Venture Partners, and others have secured protection of 30% of the breeding pair habitat that's necessary. So, that's pretty impressive. 30% of that nesting important, critical habitat through duck stamp. So, hunters are doing their part. We always say hunters pay for conservation. I mean, this is a very clear point A to point B. 98% of the duck stamp sales go right into on-the-ground conservation easements. And so, anybody, any enthusiast that buys a duck stamp for art or other purposes, just because they like them, they are putting that money towards conservation on the ground.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  And it's made, I can't think of another group of species or species of that size where we have been able to protect that large amount of. Through some, through an effort like that.

• 1:22:12Steven Rinella?

  The guy that painted this year's duck stamp was sitting right in that seat you're sitting in.

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  No way. So I judge, I was the judge for last year's duck stamp. Yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Yep, yep. Super nice guy. There's five judges, so I was one of them, but yeah, cool.

• 1:22:27Steven Rinella?

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• 1:23:12Steven Rinella?

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• 1:24:40Steven Rinella?

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• 1:25:24Steven Rinella?

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• 1:25:59Steven Rinella?

  How does Ducks Unlimited preserve, save, protect wetlands? I mean, do you guys, is there a lot, do you have a lobbying arm that does policy? We definitely do. And then you also have like...

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  On the ground.

• 1:26:13Steven Rinella?

  Like on the ground money, like money spent. What like explain those different ways.

• 1:26:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, will you, sorry to jump in, but will you also say like um the the public ground and private ground, like what the kind of the split is.

• 1:26:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:26:28Speaker 04

  Almost like a where where where the money goes type thing lobbying, public, private.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Yep, so we have um we we get a lot of public dollars um that we apply for, whether it's the North American Wetlands Conservation Dollars, that's a those are wetland dollars that um it was enacted in nineteen eighty-nine to help support that waterfowl management plan, so we get a lot of money through that, but we also work a lot with NRCS, but and US Fish and Wildlife Service to work on refuges, US Fish and Wildlife Service, we work a lot with state agencies on public land, um but we now have about four hundred conservation staff, so Indux Unlimited, um about four hundred staff are are biologists, scientists, GIS, uh I've got a lot of engineers, engineer techs, all doing this work on the ground,

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  so on the ground habitat work on private and public land. Um from a public land perspective, in the last several years, we've probably uh had conservation practices over, oh, maybe close to six hundred thousand, um yeah, about six hundred thousand acres on on public land, so on national wildlife refuges, state agencies, and a lot of those are more intensive projects, those are going to be your your water uh wetland enhancement, wetland creation, um.

• 1:27:51Speaker 04

  Rehabilitation.

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  Rehabilitation.

• 1:27:53Speaker 04

  Pulling out drain tile.

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  Or or you know, building, you know, some of that uh infrastructure, and so you can have manipulate water levels and everything else, so there's a lot more work that goes into it. A lot of the work that we do on private land is going to be more your technical assistance or the money with that we apply for with USDA, NRCS, um to do farm practices that benefit co- you know, conservation practices on farm and things like that, so it's a lot more on the private land, it's a lot more of working uh with farmers and ranchers and things like that, um is is more that. Those types of acres. And the first part of your question, though, I was trying to go back to you real quick. You were talking about...

• 1:28:36Speaker 04

  Lobbying.

• 1:28:37Steven Rinella?

  Lobbying.

• 1:28:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are the different things that we do?

• 1:28:40Steven Rinella?

  I mean, like, how do you influence, how do you influence the loss of wetlands?

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  So, a lot of that, we have a group of folks that are policy specialists. We have some in DC, and then we also have some regionally, because there are going to be regional instances as well, that we're going to have these policy experts. But we work a lot with policymakers on, farm bill is a big one that we work, what we work on, to make sure that there's conservation practices in there. Another one is to ensure that we have complete, full funding for NACA, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. It's enacted, and it's about $50 million a year for that. So they, they work really hard to ensure that we have those types of dollars available to put on the ground for conservation.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  So they spend a lot of time working on that. And then, our teams in the field, they are constantly looking for new funding sources or new partners to work with, because the more partners that you work with, the better. Like, with NACA, they've now, through North American Wetlands Conservation Act, I think it's 32 million acres have been conserved, not just by Ducks Unlimited, but 32 million acres have been conserved through that program, and it has spent $2 billion. But, it's a one-to-one matching program, so it requires, for every dollar spent, a federal dollar, it requires a non-federal dollar.

• 1:30:05Speaker 03

  And so, there have been over $5 billion raised to match that $2 billion, to put those 32 million acres on the ground, and it takes a lot of partners. I think through that program, there's over 6,000 partners that have participated in that program. So... Every, our, our teams are constantly looking for federal, non-federal, nonprofit, you know, local organizations to partner with to get that habitat on the ground. It is, it is a daunting task to conservation in general.

• 1:30:36Steven Rinella?

  And what's a, what's a way that it might happen? Meaning, let, uh, let's say I'm a farmer.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 1:30:40Steven Rinella?

  Okay, and I have a thousand acres and I have some wetlands.

• 1:30:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:43Steven Rinella?

  And I'm like, man, I also love to hunt ducks and I like to make money on my farm. And I come and, and I come and say to DU.

• 1:30:50Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:51Steven Rinella?

  Um, how can, how can I be of assistance or what can I do? Like, what measures are of at someone's disposal?

• 1:30:57Speaker 03

  They can put, uh, lots of things. Everything from permanent protection, putting a conservation easement on that property. So that it's, you know, always in whatever that is as far as the number, percentage of wetlands and grass and everything.

• 1:31:09Steven Rinella?

  And you guys help with that process.

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  And we help with that process.

• 1:31:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:11Speaker 03

  And those easements are held by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And those were some of the duck stamp dollars I was talking about earlier. Um, other things might be, well, you know, they might be interested in a conservation reserve program where they take out, and that's through NRCS.

• 1:31:25Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:25Speaker 03

  Um, and so they take out a certain percentage of, of their, uh, production and they put it in, they plant it in grass or in something else. And so they might do that. Or, um, so it's like a rental payment. Or they might do EQIP, EQIP, EQIP. And they might do, um, rental payments for, not rental payments, they might do, um, different, uh, cost share to try to improve their property for the conservation values on there. So there's all sorts of different farm bill programs.

• 1:31:55Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:56Speaker 03

  That they could be interested in. And so our team will walk through all these different programs that they have. And again, Ducks Unlimited has a lot, is a lot of programs as well, that as long as they're doing these activities and we're cost sharing for those, those conservation activities, um, as long as they continue to do those, we're in that like annual year to year contract. But that permanent protection is the best thing we can do. And, uh, we are, our Director of Operations in the Prairie Pot Haul Region, Johan Walker, he's always saying, alright, we've got to slow down the pace of conversion and increase the pace of protection. But there's lots of other tools, you know, in between that we can use that, that benefit

• 1:32:37Speaker 03

  farmers and ranchers and help improve their, what they're getting out of it, but then also for, for wildlife and water fowl as well.

• 1:32:46Steven Rinella?

  Is currently the number one risk to wetlands, uh, crop land conversion?

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  In the Prairie Pot Hole region, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:32:55Steven Rinella?

  Okay. It's a landowner, a farmer is incentivized by prices, whatever, to convert, to increase and convert land to ag.

• 1:33:06Speaker 03

  Yep, and so that's why-

• 1:33:06Steven Rinella?

  And you have a way to try to soften, um-

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:33:10Speaker 04

  It'd be the same thing, like, uh, sorry, um, Ducks Unlimited, um, Farm Bill programs, NRCS, uh, they are gonna also try to make sure that that farmer knows the available incentives-

• 1:33:26Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:33:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 04

  To not produce crops on, uh, intermittent wetlands.

• 1:33:31Steven Rinella?

  So it doesn't need to just cost.

• 1:33:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:34Steven Rinella?

  Ways to make it that it doesn't just cost the landowner.

• 1:33:36Speaker 06

  You can do the right thing for wildlife without affecting the bottom line.

• 1:33:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, because a lot of times, the wetlands, even though it might be dry, might look dry that year, kind of a thing, that, that's not going to be your most productive soil for, for crop. It is going to be your most productive for, for wildlife, but not necessarily for crop. Those are usually not the same thing. And so, the education and working with them, and a lot of, of our farmers, they love seeing the ducks on the landscape, and they love being able to help, and it's like, okay, you gotta help my bottom number.

• 1:34:04Speaker 04

  You just gotta get them to love that as much as driving in a straight line.

• 1:34:09Speaker 03

  Having a straight? Yeah, well, think about it, it's a pain in the butt to go around that wetland. You're driving this big equipment and everything, it's a pain in the butt to go around those wetlands. So, yeah, we have to find ways to incentivize landowners to want to keep wetlands and certain grasslands intact. And, um, there's, there's lots of ways to do that, and, um, it's, it's through these great partnerships, our federal and state partnerships, and partnerships with the landowners that make it happen.

• 1:34:36Speaker 04

  What do you, what do you think about, uh, uh, North American Grasslands Conservation Act? Do you think that's- Getting towards a workable state, something?

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting because it's, it's gone back and forth, back and forth. And I know there, a lot of it's being modeled off of.

• 1:34:52Speaker 04

  Notch, yeah.

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, off of NACA and what works necessarily in this program, will it work here? And so I think it's, it's definitely evolving and becoming something that, I mean, it's critical. There's lots of grassland species that, that need protection and you can see, I mean, the three billion bird report, right? You have a lot of species that have been declining, you know, since the 1970s and a lot of them are grassland species. Now, NACA, there's a lot that goes into grasslands as well through, through NACA funding. And when we look at some of those priority landscapes that we want to protect, a lot of them, we look at duck pairs, right? How many breeding, how many pairs of breeding ducks are going to be in that landscape? And we want to target the, the highest numbers, you

• 1:35:37Speaker 03

  know, the highest, the 100 duck pairs. But with that come like 15 to 20 different other grassland bird species that use that same landscape. So it's not just one thing that we're looking at or the other. So any, any kind of conservation funding opportunities that we can provide that have these great public-private partnerships associated with them for conservation, the more of that that we can get, I think the better off we're going to.

• 1:36:02Speaker 04

  And that's where like some of the social cost of using wetland comes in because most people are like, well, wetland is only a wetland if it's wet.

• 1:36:14Steven Rinella?

  Yes.

• 1:36:15Speaker 04

  And then also that fringe area around the wetland with the grass, like there's a lot of waterfowl species that, that nest in that.

• 1:36:24Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:36:24Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:36:25Speaker 03

  And how far are they going to go?

• 1:36:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:27Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  But it's like, well, it's not wet.

• 1:36:29Speaker 03

  Conservation is not a simple, it's not a simple thing and it, it really takes a large group of people, kind of pulling in the harness together to make it happen.

• 1:36:40Steven Rinella?

  You know who I think deserves a little credit? I make, I make a lot of jokes about, Golf, well, very famous golfer sat in that seat.

• 1:36:48Speaker 03

  Really? Which one? My husband would be jealous.

• 1:36:51Steven Rinella?

  The Butcher, Brian the Butcher Harmon. Um, anyways, you know who deserves some credit is the golf course by my house?

• 1:36:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:58Steven Rinella?

  It's a duck factory.

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:37:00Steven Rinella?

  All those little ponds they made.

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:02Steven Rinella?

  Every one of those ponds, and they have like some great nesting success. Every one of those ponds full of chicks all summer.

• 1:37:09Speaker 03

  Do they?

• 1:37:09Steven Rinella?

  Fake ponds.

• 1:37:10Speaker 03

  Do they put a lot of like edge around that pond? Do they, are they shallow? Did they, did they do that specifically?

• 1:37:17Speaker 05

  That golf course is probably a wetland before it was a golf course.

• 1:37:20Speaker 03

  That's what I'm wondering. That's where I'm wondering.

• 1:37:23Steven Rinella?

  There's a lot of springs, these are like spring, there's a bunch of spring fed ponds. And they do, they kick off a lot of ducks.

• 1:37:29Speaker 03

  Huh.

• 1:37:30Speaker 04

  When you see that little white ball go high in the air, it's worth it.

• 1:37:39Steven Rinella?

  Did you guys weigh in on, did Ducks Unlimited weigh in on this, the, the sort of political ping pong ball of, uh, WOTUS, Waters of the United States?

• 1:37:48Speaker 03

  Waters of the United States, so.

• 1:37:49Steven Rinella?

  Can I, can I, can I take, try to, can we test my ability to explain this? Okay.

• 1:37:54Speaker 03

  Go for it.

• 1:37:57Steven Rinella?

  The United States, the federal government declares like sovereignty over certain waterways. Um, meaning like, like for instance, if a private landowner owns both sides of the Mississippi, they can't say, no more shipping up and down my river, right? Because the, the US has jurisdiction over the waterway. And there's a political ping pong about, um, how far up a river into non navigable or barely navigable water, does the US have jurisdiction? And could there be a thing where US jurisdiction extends all the way up into the headwaters in the wetlands? And they could exercise, the federal, the federal government could exercise

• 1:38:41Steven Rinella?

  some management rights over marshes and wetlands that form the rivers.

• 1:38:48Steven Rinella?

  So extending up the Mississippi beyond navigation, but up into the sources of the Mississippi, and use that as a way to preserve wetlands. And when I say a political ping pong ball, is it seems to like always be in the news of a new administration interpreting it differently. One administration be like, oh, no, it goes all the way to the marsh and the next administration. No, it ends at navigability. And it seems to be always in the news. It's never quite resolved.

• 1:39:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:18Steven Rinella?

  This is a political hot, this is a hot issue. What's been your guys' attitude about this conversation?

• 1:39:24Speaker 03

  So what we've been trying to do is working with the states on what their wetland regulations and laws and rules will be. Because that's really where it, at the end of the day, because you're right, it's gonna, it's this ping pong, back and forth, back and forth. But if you're working with the states and working with the, you know, the landowners and those rules in those states, that's probably how we're going to be able to, to kind of get through this as far as.

• 1:39:49Steven Rinella?

  So you can take action now that doesn't get done or undone.

• 1:39:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:54Steven Rinella?

  Every time the political winds change.

• 1:39:56Speaker 03

  That's right. Yep, because states have their own, you know, regulations now, especially with the latest change.

• 1:40:02Steven Rinella?

  So you, when I was talking about lobbying earlier, Ducks Unlimited will, will at times try to influence regulation about wetland development.

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, we work a lot more, I'd say, on the funding for wetlands conservation and, and from that standpoint, and so.

• 1:40:25Steven Rinella?

  So you spend more time with the carrot than the stick?

• 1:40:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, a lot more time with the carrot than the stick because it gets, gets you a lot long, gets you a lot further. We've, you know, in the last five years, developed an ag strategic plan. If you look at everywhere that is important for waterfowl, if you take our landscape conservation priorities and I put that map down in front of you, and then you took an ag map in the United States and you laid that over it, it's almost exactly the same.

• 1:40:49Steven Rinella?

  It's like if you take wolf attacks on cattle.

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  Talking about earlier, exactly. More rural people. Yeah, so, so it's, it is critical that we have strong relationships and partnerships with, with. With the ag and ranching.

• 1:41:04Steven Rinella?

  So metro Chicago doesn't pop up on your

• 1:41:07Speaker 03

  No, not too much.

• 1:41:08Steven Rinella?

  You're important for Duck Zone.

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:41:10Speaker 04

  I'm sure there's a strong DU chapter there.

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  There's a lot of strong DU chapters there.

• 1:41:15Steven Rinella?

  That's a good point about, it's an interesting point about the need to,

• 1:41:21Steven Rinella?

  the need to have the ability to work with agricultural interests. When you, if you, yeah, you're right. If you look at like where birds are coming from, it's agricultural landscapes. So I imagine if an organization was just sort of perceived as being vehemently anti-ag, you might wind up having a hard time to work in ag country.

• 1:41:44Speaker 03

  Might be hard to work in ag country. So, you know, there are, there are disincentives that I think are important to, to keep, you know, and incentives that are important to keep. And I think it's a balance of those two things to ensure we get that right outcome. So there are, there are disincentives in place that like Swamp Buster and everything else that are important.

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  But what that is, is it's, you know, keeping, if, if you're a farmer and you're in farm bill programs, right? And you're getting something from a, a farm bill program, you can't plow under a, a wetland or drain a wetland. So that's type, a type of a disincentive, but then incentives for some of the things I was talking about with conservation reserve program or equip or wetland reserve easement where you're putting your land permanently in an easement protection or, you know,

• 1:42:36Speaker 04

  Well, there's, it's like, there's not a necessarily like a one size fits all

• 1:42:41Speaker 03

  Never.

• 1:42:41Speaker 04

  deal too, because between like the state and the federal programs, you could have the ability to leave that intermittent wetland alone most of the time. But you could, you could take hay off of it, you could graze it, but at certain times of year that, that fit in

• 1:42:58Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:42:59Speaker 04

  with the breeding nesting program.

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  Glad you brought that up. And it's not a one size fits all. I mean, that's a really good point. And, and so each state is going to be different. So North Dakota, South Dakota, what programs are available, what's allowed, not allowed.

• 1:43:13Speaker 04

  And sometimes it's your flyaway too, right? Like if you're in an area that's trying to bring back Sand Hill Crane.

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:43:19Speaker 04

  Certain properties along that flyway are gonna pay more for all these programs.

• 1:43:25Speaker 03

  Yep. And the great thing about these programs, and even in easement, you know, they're voluntary, of course, but if you put an easement on your property, the landowner can still use the land. And it's, but then it's that being able to be there for habitat, for waterfowl and other species for generations.

• 1:43:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, a buddy of mine, big farmer in South Dakota, he, like, it's the most awesome feel-good story ever. He started just getting into these programs because it made more financial sense than, than trying to farm this stuff.

• 1:43:57Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:57Speaker 04

  And he's like, "Yeah, we remove the diesel fuel, or we remove the seed costs, the nitrogen costs, all these costs to farm something marginal to not get a return, but we also don't have to turn our steering wheel."

• 1:44:19Speaker 04

  Started picking up a couple of bucks for different things, saw some, some good improvement, saw crazy stuff happen, like, all of a sudden they had prairie chickens on the ranch.

• 1:44:30Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:30Speaker 04

  And it's like, it's because we were in this state program, oh, super cool, that, you know, incentivized native grasses. So you saw good drought tolerance increase, fire tolerance increase. And then the other cool thing that they saw increase was just family interest in the farm. Because it's like, well, 20 years ago, there was nothing else to look at other than the row you were hoeing, basically. And now there's like deer running around, there's lots of birds, there's raptors, all sorts of wildlife increase.

• 1:45:12Speaker 04

  And the interest level from, you know, the, the small family members, who don't really care about the, the financial part of things, they're like, "Oh, this is a cool place to be."

• 1:45:22Steven Rinella?

  Yep. But then you get one of those guys drives around pissed off all the time. "They're paying them not to farm!"

• 1:45:29Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:45:30Speaker 03

  Well, it's, it's the farm, farm the best and leave the rest, right? But I love coming to the prairies and listening to the stories, you know. So cattle and, and ducks go really well together, and they both need grass and everything. And so I come, I love coming to the prairies and listening to the testimonials of some of these folks that... You know, drained a wetland years ago with their great grandfather, but then are putting it back and they love the family interest and the kids are enjoying it, but then, you know, or some of them that decide, I'm gonna, we're going into ranching and they convert, you know, from farming, from crop to, to ranching and takes a ton of money for them to do it and they're probably losing money and not always in the best spot, but then

• 1:46:12Speaker 03

  there's programs that are available to help them out or putting in practices on that working farm that are going to protect wetlands. And so it's, it's pretty fun to listen to the testimonials, just like you were just saying to your buddy that, um, of, of what happens too, when they, they join some of these programs.

• 1:46:30Steven Rinella?

  I got two quick, uh, Ducks Unlimited banquet stories for you.

• 1:46:33Speaker 03

  Oh, I love these. I can't wait.

• 1:46:35Steven Rinella?

  One time I was in the market for a new fish finder.

• 1:46:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:38Steven Rinella?

  And I was able to buy a, I was buying it anyway, buying it anyway, but I was able to buy a thousand dollar gift card to, to Bass Pearl Shops for $700.

• 1:46:49Speaker 03

  Isn't that great?

• 1:46:50Steven Rinella?

  It was like I basically bought a thousand dollars for $700.

• 1:46:54Speaker 03

  Don't you love it?

• 1:46:55Steven Rinella?

  My other story is this.

• 1:46:55Speaker 04

  And you had a bottomless beer for $10.

• 1:46:57Speaker 03

  And you got a bottomless beer.

• 1:46:59Steven Rinella?

  My other story is this, my buddy Ronnie was at one of those and he was drunk and he was bidding on something, but he was, in his mind, he was buying what was up next.

• 1:47:06Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:47:09Steven Rinella?

  So he's looking at what's up next.

• 1:47:11Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:47:11Speaker 04

  He's like, I can't believe nobody else is going after this.

• 1:47:13Steven Rinella?

  Bidding and bidding and then he wins and his buddy's like, what the hell you want that? Cause they're like in another state. He's like, what you want that picnic table for so bad?

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:47:24Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:47:25Steven Rinella?

  He's like, no, I was bidding on that.

• 1:47:27Speaker 06

  That'll happen. That'll happen.

• 1:47:30Speaker 03

  I love our banquets and, uh, really get so many supporters through them.

• 1:47:34Steven Rinella?

  Oh, man.

• 1:47:35Speaker 03

  And people come in. Well, they come for the party, but then they stay for the ducks, right?

• 1:47:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. It's like a carnival for adults.

• 1:47:41Speaker 03

  It is. It's a lot of fun.

• 1:47:44Steven Rinella?

  Is that still functioning good? Like?

• 1:47:46Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:46Steven Rinella?

  Cause COVID probably killed it for a while, right?

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  You would have thought, man, our, that team, they are absolutely incredible. Um, David Schusler, he's the chief of that, that team. They pivoted so fast. They're like, okay, guys, we're gonna be shut down. I'm thinking, oh, we'll be shut down for a couple of weeks and all come back.

• 1:48:02Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  He had different ideas. So they went to all this online stuff almost immediately.

• 1:48:08Steven Rinella?

  Did they really?

• 1:48:09Speaker 03

  Like, and everyone's sitting at home looking for something to do. And we had all sorts of different interactive ways for people to to join online. And then as soon as we could go back outside, they were setting up big tents and, you know, going state by state. They, I don't know if they slept much during during that time, but they were actually able to to keep our our um event system rolling. And then we had our major donors. Uh, I I cannot tell you how important our volunteers and our major donors are. Like, I was talking about all the match for all these programs. Like, I think we had one hundred and seventy six million dollars in in public dollars last year.

• 1:48:43Steven Rinella?

  Did you really?

• 1:48:43Speaker 03

  Our team uh brought in. But that takes a bunch of match and our our donors are incredible that uh and how our philanthropists that give. But then also, everybody that goes to an event and the money that that first dollar comes in an event and the dollars that they spend there, how that goes to conservation. It's a it's a pretty incredible uh organization. It's been a lot of lot of fun the last five years and um looking for many more. But I didn't realize before I came to work for Ducks Unlimited, that passion that is with all of those volunteers, with the staff, with our our major donors. And they really came through in COVID. Our major donors stepped up like they never had before to make sure that Ducks Unlimited was going to be able to make it through it, so.

• 1:49:28Steven Rinella?

  My uh my friend Mark uh here in town, he he he made a rule a couple of years ago that uh he left a lot of people hunt on his place, but you can't hunt his place unless you're a DU member.

• 1:49:38Speaker 03

  I like that. That's great. He's got something there.

• 1:49:42Steven Rinella?

  No, I know. And which reminds me, I took a, I gotta make sure my kids are still up because I kind of extended it to my kids, but I gotta make sure I didn't violate his rule because we went out there for the.

• 1:49:53Steven Rinella?

  I better double check.

• 1:49:53Speaker 03

  I can sign him up.

• 1:49:56Speaker 04

  That's why you just gotta get that lifetime membership right on.

• 1:49:59Speaker 03

  I have to have a membership form right here now.

• 1:50:01Speaker 06

  You'll never have to worry about it again.

• 1:50:03Steven Rinella?

  I did like, I I did lifetime at Turkey Federation. I did lifetime at Rocky Mountain. Elk Foundation, but I should do my lifetime at DU. My next lifetime should be DU lifetime.

• 1:50:14Speaker 03

  Well, you know, or, or you can just annually, you know, support.

• 1:50:20Speaker 04

  That's the caveat of the lifetime membership.

• 1:50:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz.

• 1:50:23Speaker 04

  A lot of people think they're done.

• 1:50:24Speaker 03

  No, no, you're, there's, there's no lifetime membership. It's, it's, you're never done.

• 1:50:28Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. How much do you guys get? How much public money from all you guys' efforts?

• 1:50:33Speaker 03

  I think last year it was around a hundred and seventy-five, seventy-six million.

• 1:50:36Steven Rinella?

  Man.

• 1:50:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Our, our team spends a lot of time writing a lot of grants and it's, like I said, it's diverse. We don't just one type of, of funding. And that's, that's something that we all need to be thinking about are what are those, um, funding opportunities? Like, like all the other benefits that wetlands provide. What types of, of funding opportunities and streams can come from that as well? Because we need to be able to diversify. Unfortunately, we probably aren't going to have as many hunters sitting around the table in however many years. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but how do we get other people to understand the importance of, of the conservation work? Because I, I do think, you know, sportsmen are, are our first conservationists.

• 1:51:19Speaker 03

  And so how do we encourage other people to have that same interest in the, like, whether it's turkeys or mule deer or National Deer Association, whoever it is.

• 1:51:29Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's a lot of interest cuz there's only a million duck hunters.

• 1:51:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:51:33Steven Rinella?

  You, you guys did a hundred and seventy-five million public dollars.

• 1:51:36Speaker 03

  But yeah.

• 1:51:37Steven Rinella?

  What's that?

• 1:51:38Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, as far as duck hunters, you know, and how many members we have, there's probably more duck hunters. But you're right.

• 1:51:42Steven Rinella?

  What I'm saying is, it's like a lot of, it's a lot of per, like.

• 1:51:46Speaker 04

  Capital.

• 1:51:46Steven Rinella?

  Cuz you know how many duck stamps get bought.

• 1:51:48Speaker 06

  I, I was gonna say, like, I've, you always hear people talk about, oh, anybody can buy a duck stamp. I'm curious how many.

• 1:51:56Steven Rinella?

  I bet it's five people buy them that aren't duck hunters.

• 1:51:58Speaker 06

  Well, that's my suspicion, but I'm wondering if you have any insight into that.

• 1:52:01Steven Rinella?

  Well, Max Barter buys one for his dog.

• 1:52:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, there's people that buy multiples.

• 1:52:06Speaker 03

  I buy several, yeah, I buy multiples cuz I want one to keep and then I want one that I've got a sign.

• 1:52:10Speaker 06

  I buy multiples cuz I forgot I already bought one.

• 1:52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, or I lose them, or, yeah, that, that too.

• 1:52:15Steven Rinella?

  But I, I think it's prob, I mean. There are exceptions. I feel like it's probably a pretty clean.

• 1:52:21Speaker 03

  I don't know because there, I was really surprised when I did the duck stamp judging last year, which I thought was like the coolest thing ever, by the way. I didn't realize how cool it was. But there were a lot of art enthusiasts that were kind of like chiming in on the online thing. I went and looked at it later.

• 1:52:35Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  That are not hunters. No, I don't know what the percentage is.

• 1:52:39Steven Rinella?

  So we'll count all 10 of them.

• 1:52:40Speaker 03

  We'll count all 10 of them. But it is, I mean, it is, the majority is going to be hunters and have been doing it, you know, for, since what, the first one ding darling in 1934? Should have that off the top of my head. But it's mostly going to be your duck hunters.

• 1:52:58Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you've got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean and they'll get years and years of use out of a set.

• 1:53:43Steven Rinella?

  Visit weathertech.com for your holiday shopping today. Holy smokes, I've been running around in some Zamberland boots and my God, are they comfortable? Damn, out of the box, ready to wear. I can't believe I haven't done it before. And the hunting tradition, right, has always been about knowledge and skills handed down from one generation to the next. Whether it's field memories with your parents or sharing the experience of a first hunt with your own kids, that shared connection is something the family at Zamberland Boots truly understands since its founding back in 1929.

• 1:54:20Steven Rinella?

  Three generations of Zamberland family bootmakers have refined their craft in the mountains of northern Italy, maintaining a tradition of handcrafted construction, durability, and performance for the toughest conditions. Each Zamberland boot combines exceptional materials, patented technologies, and the latest innovations from partners like Vibram, Gore-Tex, and BOA. Because a quality boot is an investment in your feet, Zamberland hunting boots are resolable with original outsoles, keeping you comfortable for a lifetime of use. Zamberland's wide range of hunting and hiking boots is available

• 1:54:59Steven Rinella?

  at zamberlandusa.com and select retailers, including the newest drop, the Lightweight Full Protection 8-Ax 6 BOA and Coyote Camo. To explore Zamberland's handcrafted hiking, hunting, and work boots, visit zamberlandusa.com. I get sent all kinds of products and snacks, and the truth is, most of them come and go. Every once in a while, though, I find something I keep reaching for, and Wiley Wallaby is one of those things. I first tried it because someone just handed me a bag and said, "This isn't like any other kind of licorice you've had before," and they were right. Wiley Wallaby makes authentic Australian-style licorice that's incredibly soft and chewy. It's not

• 1:55:42Steven Rinella?

  like that weird, tough, waxy, cheap junk you get, and it doesn't have that artificial taste that turns a lot of people away from licorice in the first place. It's one of those products that's hard to explain until you've tasted it yourself. I keep some in my truck, I keep some in my fish shack, I keep some in my camper. They've got more than 10 flavors, and whether you like classic flavors or something a little different, there's probably one you'll end up keeping stocked around the house. Plus, it's made in the USA by a company that's been committed to quality and hometown values for over six decades. If you haven't tried Wiley Wallaby yet, pick yourself up a bag. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping, and you can try it yourself. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

• 1:56:30Steven Rinella?

  You know what Cal and I are gonna do? He doesn't know this yet, but when we retire, I got a couple of things on my list.

• 1:56:37Steven Rinella?

  That I'm gonna do with my retirement project.

• 1:56:39Speaker 04

  We're gonna get you a dog?

• 1:56:41Steven Rinella?

  No, I'm gonna try to establish a, I'm gonna try to establish a universal blaze orange requirement of a hat.

• 1:56:50Steven Rinella?

  No more than a hat. A hat.

• 1:56:53Speaker 03

  A hat.

• 1:56:54Steven Rinella?

  Orange hat.

• 1:56:54Speaker 06

  I've seen quite a few Montana hunters out there already are on board with that.

• 1:56:59Steven Rinella?

  A hat, not, because, because when you're wearing a vest and you're trying to change your clothes, it's just too much. It's a hat. A hat's great. See that hat? Orange.

• 1:57:08Speaker 04

  I know, the hat's got the same issue though. It's like every time, I'm always turning it up.

• 1:57:13Speaker 05

  When you get cold?

• 1:57:14Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:57:14Speaker 03

  Yep, putting something else on.

• 1:57:16Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna write a book about how it's okay to hate Shakespeare.

• 1:57:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:57:20Steven Rinella?

  Um, and then I wanna, then, then I wanna work on, um, uh, Cal and I wanna work on a, a public service thing to get the waterfowling community to take field care um, of their ducks more seriously. They are, as you demonstrated today, they are exceptionally generous with their conservation dollars, but I think that as a group, I have, like, as a group, I can't think of a more egregious, and I'm like, I liked, I hunted ducks yesterday. Geese and ducks. I can't think of a more egregious group of people when it comes to, um, utilization of the resource.

• 1:58:03Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:58:03Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:58:04Speaker 04

  Well, you remember the dinner?

• 1:58:05Steven Rinella?

  It's just, I can't think of a more egregious group, a more generous but egregious group of people.

• 1:58:11Speaker 04

  Uh, the dinner that we had when we, when we came out for the, um, uh, the survey release two years ago, like if there's just more of that going on, like people are like, oh, here's my recipe. Here's what I do. More of that type of sharing? That's pretty darn limited in the waterfowl community.

• 1:58:30Speaker 03

  In the field? Or are you saying once they, they don't eat the duck?

• 1:58:33Steven Rinella?

  Utilization of.

• 1:58:35Speaker 05

  You gotta like, explain.

• 1:58:37Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:58:37Speaker 05

  Come on.

• 1:58:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:38Steven Rinella?

  Well, okay, for instance. Well, not for instance, here's the thing that I could.

• 1:58:41Speaker 04

  Looking for ways to use the duck.

• 1:58:43Steven Rinella?

  I couldn't believe that our state did this. Our state used to have salvage, we have salvage requirements in this state. Okay. Many states have salvage requirements. They actually lowered the salvage requirement. Meaning on a mallard sized bird, you were required to keep the thighs. You're required to keep the breast meat in the thighs. And one day they all of a sudden said like, you know, you know, like now it's okay just to throw that in the garbage.

• 1:59:07Speaker 04

  The, gotta keep the breasts. Don't have to retain the thighs.

• 1:59:10Steven Rinella?

  But I'm saying like, like among, I think it's triggered by a bunch of things. Um, there's the, there's the strictly enforced, and I'm not saying you should get away with it, the strictly enforced possession limit thing.

• 1:59:26Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59:26Steven Rinella?

  Where people like, if you're out hunting ducks for a week, but you can only have three days of possession. I think it inspires a lot of people to try to find ways to offload ducks. And there's just so many stories of guys looking off bridges and there's hundreds of snow geese carcasses. Like, it's just like, it just, I, like, as a community, I think the waterfowl community as a community um, is, is very poor about utilizing the meat from the birds.

• 1:59:54Speaker 03

  And I have not seen, witnessed that.

• 1:59:56Steven Rinella?

  Like not wanting to do any kind of work.

• 1:59:58Speaker 06

  And you shouldn't feel compelled to, uh, to agree with him on this.

• 2:00:01Speaker 03

  No, no, no, I'm not going to.

• 2:00:03Steven Rinella?

  You don't need to.

• 2:00:03Speaker 03

  I have not seen that. However, what I will say, no, I haven't, honestly.

• 2:00:07Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 2:00:07Speaker 04

  You should read the comments. I'll, I'll pluck a duck and put it on Instagram and you should read the hateful comments. About how, how much time that it takes. They're fazed that, that someone would take the time to pluck a duck.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  Why do they care if you pluck the duck?

• 2:00:24Speaker 04

  It, I, it affends them.

• 2:00:25Steven Rinella?

  It's the internet.

• 2:00:27Speaker 03

  Oh, oh.

• 2:00:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:00:29Speaker 03

  Not, that doesn't make, but you know, there are things that I think to your point of recipes and this and that, we do a lot of stuff in the magazine and online.

• 2:00:37Steven Rinella?

  Always in the magazine.

• 2:00:38Speaker 03

  We could do with our, we could do with probably with our podcast.

• 2:00:40Steven Rinella?

  I'm not blaming, I'm not blaming DU for this. I'm just saying like someday I want to do like a public service thing about like how ducks ta, it's gonna be called ducks taste really good.

• 2:00:49Speaker 04

  Legs and wings.

• 2:00:50Speaker 03

  Well, you know, there used to be the old joke of, you know, the best way to cook a goose, you know, you put it on this cedar board and then you throw it in and then you keep the board, right?

• 2:00:57Steven Rinella?

  Eat the board.

• 2:00:58Speaker 03

  Yep. So, which is totally not true. I have eaten some damn good.

• 2:01:04Speaker 03

  Geese and some damn good ducks over the last however many years of my life. And it is in the preparation of it and everything else, just like, I mean, you know, I hear a lot of, you know, even deer hunters, well, there's a lot of stuff they got to cut through on the, on the shoulder. So I don't keep the shoulder meat, you know, oh, hold on a second. So you could do this, you could grind it up. So there's all sorts of things that we could all learn from each other. If maybe we had that better community of here are things that you can do. I mean, squirrel hunters, a lot of squirrel hunters are like, oh, it's a lot of work to, to, you know, clean a fox squirrel. They're so much harder than gray squirrels. I'm like, well, then don't shoot the damn fox squirrel.

• 2:01:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:44Speaker 03

  You know, if you don't want to clean, don't shoot it.

• 2:01:45Speaker 04

  Go down to the butcher shop, spend $60 on the nicest ribeye steak you can find.

• 2:01:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:50Speaker 04

  And then cover it in hair and bile and let it sit down.

• 2:01:54Speaker 03

  Yum.

• 2:01:55Speaker 04

  And then tell me what you think of beef.

• 2:01:58Steven Rinella?

  I mean, you know what, I regret, I regret, I regret bringing that up and acting like that's your problem. I feel like I ruined the whole show.

• 2:02:04Speaker 03

  No, you did not.

• 2:02:05Steven Rinella?

  I want to reapproach it.

• 2:02:06Speaker 03

  I'm just saying it's probably, you know, but.

• 2:02:08Steven Rinella?

  I want to reapproach it. I want to say this, I want to have Phil remove all that and it'll just be me saying that, man, a well-handled duck.

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  Is damn good.

• 2:02:19Steven Rinella?

  Is just really good.

• 2:02:21Speaker 03

  It is.

• 2:02:22Steven Rinella?

  Is really good.

• 2:02:23Speaker 03

  Yep, it is, it is phenomenal.

• 2:02:26Steven Rinella?

  And when you take geese breasts and make pastrami,

• 2:02:31Steven Rinella?

  it's really, really good. That's all.

• 2:02:33Speaker 03

  That's all.

• 2:02:34Steven Rinella?

  Take all that out, Phil.

• 2:02:35Speaker 04

  Reuben sandwich.

• 2:02:35Steven Rinella?

  It seemed like I kind of ruined the whole show, didn't it?

• 2:02:37Speaker 06

  No, no, no, no.

• 2:02:40Speaker 03

  No, just picking on duck hunters, that's all I'm saying.

• 2:02:43Steven Rinella?

  No, but I was praising duck hunters.

• 2:02:45Speaker 03

  I'm just teasing.

• 2:02:45Steven Rinella?

  But I was praising them about the, how generous and dedicated they are.

• 2:02:51Speaker 04

  My litmus test is though, like when somebody's like, oh yeah, you like to hunt ducks? Well, you should come hunt. I'm like, cool, how do you cook them? Seriously.

• 2:02:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:02:59Speaker 04

  And, and to this day, one of the best duck hunting connections I've ever made was from that exact conversation. Guy being like, well, this is what we do. And I was like, okay, we can talk more.

• 2:03:08Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:03:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. So.

• 2:03:11Speaker 03

  Duck is really good.

• 2:03:12Steven Rinella?

  Far be it from me to stereotype, but I'll tell you, you want to see some, the ones I know, the Cajuns are some duck eating.

• 2:03:20Speaker 03

  Yes, they are.

• 2:03:21Steven Rinella?

  Duck preparing sons of bitches, man.

• 2:03:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:03:24Steven Rinella?

  I mean, they eat the beak.

• 2:03:29Steven Rinella?

  That's, uh, that, see, I'm trying to go positive.

• 2:03:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:03:32Steven Rinella?

  I'm trying to be like DU and go carrot, not stick.

• 2:03:35Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:03:35Steven Rinella?

  Trying to go positive.

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:03:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Ruined the whole show. Was that bad, Phil? When I brought it up, did it seem like, like, kind of deflated everything?

• 2:03:44Speaker 04

  Uh, well, there have been, uh, occurrences in the past that I think you probably should have had that reaction to. I don't think this is.

• 2:03:51Speaker 06

  I actually think, I actually think saying that you're.

• 2:03:53Speaker 04

  Phil's going, this? This time? This was the one?

• 2:03:56Speaker 06

  Calling this the eighth, for the eighth time, saying that you've ruined the show, I think is doing more.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  Christmas is coming up, oh my god.

• 2:04:06Steven Rinella?

  Just to dig the hole deeper. As we were on the way down here, Cal and I were talking about this issue.

• 2:04:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:04:12Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah, that was the.

• 2:04:14Steven Rinella?

  That's what I came in the room with it on my mind.

• 2:04:17Speaker 04

  Um, you know, there's just like.

• 2:04:19Steven Rinella?

  An anecdote. Someone had shared an anecdote with Cal.

• 2:04:21Speaker 03

  And I wonder if it's a local thing that you're seeing here.

• 2:04:24Speaker 04

  There is, yeah.

• 2:04:24Speaker 03

  I think it's a local thing, like, I, I promise you, I hunt mostly in the south, um, but I've hunted other places as well. And I, I don't see that. I see it as like, everyone comes back to the duck camp and what are we gonna have? It's gonna be duck. I mean, you know.

• 2:04:39Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 2:04:40Speaker 03

  And it's cooked a hundred different ways.

• 2:04:41Speaker 04

  But I think it's regional cultures, right? And there's, you know, like, you, you know, it's like people who don't have the experience or they're trying to get into it and they don't already even do what, um, a lot of us would, would. You know, they're, they're preparing things out of the box versus, uh, cooking something, you know, they're, they're very instruction based. Like, they have a very hard time grasping any sort of bird.

• 2:05:08Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:05:09Speaker 04

  Right?

• 2:05:10Speaker 03

  Last time I checked, everybody wants to be like Meat Eater and they want to, you know, I mean, I'm, all joking aside, you guys do a really good job of bringing that to the table, right? Um, literally to the table as far as. You know, the, that importance and that full cycle in what you do. I think, you know, you, Ducks Unlimited, other people like that, whatever the game species is, um, talking about that, that importance of being off the landscape and, and it, uh, providing that, that wonderful protein that we all crave so much.

• 2:05:41Speaker 05

  Excellent.

• 2:05:43Steven Rinella?

  That's good.

• 2:05:43Speaker 03

  See how I?

• 2:05:44Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:45Steven Rinella?

  Made a positive.

• 2:05:46Speaker 04

  Saved your ass.

• 2:05:47Speaker 05

  Carried it.

• 2:05:48Steven Rinella?

  No, it's good. Uh, we were talking about the other day, what someone needs to make an invention of is that, uh...

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  Besides the flat tree?

• 2:05:56Steven Rinella?

  Oh, besides...

• 2:05:57Speaker 04

  I already invented that.

• 2:05:59Steven Rinella?

  Is a machine, if you could come up with this, is if you machine, you put ducks into...

• 2:06:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:06:05Steven Rinella?

  And you turn the machine on, and in the morning, you got duck sausage sticks waiting for you on the other end.

• 2:06:10Speaker 05

  Good luck with that.

• 2:06:12Speaker 03

  I like it. I'm trying to figure out how you make that happen.

• 2:06:15Steven Rinella?

  Like, you wake up in the morning and just that machine's shut down, and it's just, you get just pepperoni sticks.

• 2:06:21Speaker 03

  Man, let me tell you, I am the most popular person at Christmas right now because I have a lot of, of duck sausage, and it is so freaking good.

• 2:06:29Steven Rinella?

  When Cal and I were talking, we were talking about this very thing, and I was saying like, it doesn't matter, any idea about whether you like ducks or not, um, everybody likes pepperoni sticks.

• 2:06:42Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:06:43Steven Rinella?

  So, if you go duck hunting, get all your duck breasts, put them in a pile, and make a bunch of pepperoni sticks.

• 2:06:47Speaker 03

  They're damn good.

• 2:06:48Steven Rinella?

  Cause like, everybody likes those.

• 2:06:50Speaker 03

  Put, you know, put a bunch of, you know, honey in there, make them sweet.

• 2:06:55Steven Rinella?

  So then at the end of the duck season, you got, you got 20 pounds of pepperoni sticks. You drive around, eating.

• 2:07:01Speaker 03

  Eating.

• 2:07:02Steven Rinella?

  Do that.

• 2:07:03Speaker 03

  There you go. They make great Christmas gifts, everybody wants them.

• 2:07:05Steven Rinella?

  There you go. Pepperoni stick. Yeah.

• 2:07:08Speaker 04

  You wanna get crazy, put them in a pickling, Brian, afterwards?

• 2:07:11Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I never heard of that.

• 2:07:12Speaker 04

  Oh, dude.

• 2:07:12Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 2:07:13Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:07:14Steven Rinella?

  Pickle pepperoni sticks?

• 2:07:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. Pickle, pickle the sausage afterwards.

• 2:07:17Speaker 05

  Extra salt.

• 2:07:18Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:07:19Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you're right, cause like, in the old days, you'd go into a bar and you'd have the sausage in the pickle jar.

• 2:07:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Good stuff, man.

• 2:07:26Speaker 05

  Stick your whole hand in there.

• 2:07:29Steven Rinella?

  Since I quit drinking, I forgot about that.

• 2:07:34Steven Rinella?

  And the really good bar would have eggs in a pickle jar. They'd have sausages in a pickle jar.

• 2:07:39Speaker 04

  Turkey gizzards. The Missoula Club.

• 2:07:41Speaker 03

  Did you not have chicken feet and stuff like that?

• 2:07:43Steven Rinella?

  That's not where I grew up.

• 2:07:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:07:44Steven Rinella?

  No, no. We ate a lot of smoked stuff.

• 2:07:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:47Steven Rinella?

  But pickling wasn't huge in the Midwest.

• 2:07:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:51Steven Rinella?

  No. Um. Great. What else? Is there anything I didn't ask you about?

• 2:07:57Speaker 03

  I don't know. There's all sorts of neat things. We could play this game all day.

• 2:08:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, probably a lot of things I didn't ask you about. But is there any like super pressing thing that I should have brought up?

• 2:08:06Speaker 03

  No, I think we've covered a lot of great stuff. It's been fun.

• 2:08:10Steven Rinella?

  It's been educational.

• 2:08:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:12Steven Rinella?

  Because, man, um, I hate any kind of story about, you know, wildlife going downhill over the years. And it's distressing to think of all that wetlands lost.

• 2:08:22Speaker 03

  It is. It is very distressing. And so I think it's, it's obviously what we do at Ducks Unlimited. We think about it every day because it is, you know, part of our mission and our vision is to make sure that it's here for, that waterfowl are here for many generations to enjoy.

• 2:08:39Steven Rinella?

  When you crystal ball it, do you think, what's your prediction? You know, like in a hundred years, are people going to hunt ducks?

• 2:08:45Speaker 03

  Heck, yeah, they're going to hunt ducks in a hundred years. Absolutely. And we're going to have waterfowl fill the skies too. And it's because of hunters. It's because of, you know, conservation enthusiasts, a lot of reasons. Organizations like Ducks Unlimited and many other conservation organizations, we're going to have it.

• 2:09:01Steven Rinella?

  So in a hundred years, they'll be driving around eating duck pepperoni sticks?

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah, you are. And Brian, you're going to love it.

• 2:09:07Steven Rinella?

  Four pinnails, yeah.

• 2:09:08Speaker 04

  There's a great article, this came out a long time ago, you've probably read it, but there's, this guy's talking about, is lamenting living in a big city and he's missing waterfowl season. Uh, but, you know, life has him working in a big city and he steps out onto the subway platform and there's a vea geese going over.

• 2:09:33Speaker 04

  And he's looking up at this veegees and he, for whatever reasons, kind of scans the crowd out there and finds the one other person going like this.

• 2:09:42Speaker 04

  He's like, "That was my waterfowl hunter."

• 2:09:46Speaker 04

  But, you know, we need folks in the, in the big cities to clue in on stuff like this, too.

• 2:09:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So let's do, let's do a checklist. Like, if you're going, if you're a duck hunter, you gotta buy your duck stamp.

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  Gotta buy your duck stamp.

• 2:09:58Steven Rinella?

  So you gotta do that anyways. And that's like, that, that's a lot of funding for wetlands.

• 2:10:03Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:10:04Steven Rinella?

  If you're duck hunting, you should probably join Ducks Unlimited.

• 2:10:06Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 2:10:07Steven Rinella?

  Because if you go and duck hunt and you want to get ducks, if you want to get ducks, you need wetlands and Ducks Unlimited does wetlands work.

• 2:10:13Speaker 03

  You got it.

• 2:10:13Steven Rinella?

  So there's that. Um, if you like to have fun, go to the banquets.

• 2:10:19Speaker 03

  They're a lot of fun.

• 2:10:20Steven Rinella?

  Like I said, it's a carnival for grownups.

• 2:10:23Speaker 03

  And you can win a picnic table.

• 2:10:25Steven Rinella?

  Dude, you can win like a truck. I mean, how many guys you know that have been hunting their whole lives don't have guns from the DU banquet?

• 2:10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, or prance or whatever. Yeah. My silverware is Ducks Unlimited silverware.

• 2:10:36Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 2:10:36Speaker 03

  For Pete's sake.

• 2:10:37Steven Rinella?

  My old man had an Ithaca, he had an Ithaca Featherlite 20 gauge and guess where that came from? The DU banquet.

• 2:10:47Steven Rinella?

  Uh, so do that. Go to the banquets and hang out. And then, um, if you got it, if you could swing some extra jingle and you're a duck hunter, like, make some donations up above and beyond your membership. Cause the membership's pretty inexpensive.

• 2:10:59Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 2:11:00Steven Rinella?

  It's like, it's like a foot in the door, but...

• 2:11:02Speaker 03

  It's a foot in the door and it's critically, it's very important.

• 2:11:04Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 2:11:05Speaker 03

  But, you know, and it's, we leverage those dollars three, four, five times to try to get as much conservation on the ground. So our, our leverage rate on, on donor dollars is very high.

• 2:11:17Steven Rinella?

  Yep. And, um, and as you mentioned, like for a lot of these programs, it's good to have private money because it helps you, it helps you activate.

• 2:11:25Speaker 03

  Those public dollars, yeah, without those private funds, we can't go after NOKA dollars or any Farm Bill, any of those other dollars because it takes that private match as well. And one thing I'll tell you, we didn't talk about, that I know is really important to you, is, you know, from the land conservation standpoint, we do, our lands program is very robust, so we do hold conservation easements, most of, and a lot of them go to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but we do hold easements as well. But then we'll also buy land, and sometimes it's to, you know, conserve it as far as from a standpoint of restoration efforts and everything. But then a lot of it is for facilitated acquisitions for public hunting.

• 2:12:05Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 2:12:06Speaker 03

  And so, just in the last five years, just shy of 50,000 acres that we purchased and then are conveying to state, and we've conveyed to state agencies.

• 2:12:18Steven Rinella?

  For wildlife management areas.

• 2:12:19Speaker 03

  For wildlife management areas, or to US Fish and Wildlife Service for refuge for hunting. So, a lot of public access opportunities, I know that one, that's a critical thing for you.

• 2:12:29Steven Rinella?

  And that's like, that's willing seller, willing buyer.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:12:31Steven Rinella?

  You buy land, it's for sale.

• 2:12:32Speaker 03

  Yep, and it's a facilitated acquisition because a lot of times states, if they want to add it to, there's a piece of property for sale, and they want to add it to their wildlife management area, the refuge, they can't necessarily move as quickly as we can, and the seller wants to get it sold, so we'll buy it, hold it, and then convey it to the public agency.

• 2:12:52Steven Rinella?

  That's a really great thing, because I've been, over the years, I've been made aware a number of times of, like, Cal will send me something like really great strategic conservation purchases, but it's hard to be that nimble.

• 2:13:05Speaker 03

  It is, it's.

• 2:13:07Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like for sale, and then you're trying to get some agency to figure it out, and then, you know, they got to value it in a way that isn't realistic, or whatever, and then, and then, so, to have people that can identify like a real conservation hotspot, and boom, get in there and know how to make deals.

• 2:13:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:13:24Steven Rinella?

  And then have the time to then...

• 2:13:26Speaker 03

  And because, you know, we've got great donors, a lot of them are interested in that land conservation and getting it into public hunting access. And so while we're holding it, they'll help with the costs of holding that property before we can convey it. So there's, it's a, it's a really, it's a great service that we can make sure.

• 2:13:43Speaker 04

  And that's kind of a sticky thing too, sometimes with membership, right? Because we were looking at a really cool project DU was doing in Iowa. And it's like, well, yeah, we're buying the land. And then eventually, we're going to turn it over into, I think it was a WMA. But first, we're going to pull out this drain tile, we're going to do some noxious weed work, we're going to really like get it up to...

• 2:14:16Speaker 03

  Good quality.

• 2:14:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, good quality. And so you're always kind of like balancing out like, yep, we did it, but land management takes time. And, you know, sometimes membership or just the public's like, well, where's the public access? We just bought it. Where is it?

• 2:14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, or, or like, for example, with Canisnea, it's a, in a refuge in, or it's going to the Red River National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. There's a piece of property, I think it's a little over 3,000 acres. And we've had it for several years, but we haven't been able to convey it to the US Fish and Wildlife Service because they had to get an expansion of the refuge in order to then take it. So that's like a federal thing, you have to go through that. So we've had to hold it for several years before we can convey it to them. So and it's hard for people to understand.

• 2:15:06Steven Rinella?

  Can I hunt that place while you're holding it?

• 2:15:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, hunt that place. And, yeah, and so it is, it's not just an overnight sort of thing. And so to have that patience for people to realize that, hey, we might have to have it for a little bit before we're able to convey it, is an important note. But it's a, I think it's a, it's an important program. And I think it's something that's really good to be able to do for, for public hunting access.

• 2:15:30Steven Rinella?

  I got one last question for you. If God came down and he said, you can either hunt only squirrels?

• 2:15:37Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 2:15:38Steven Rinella?

  Or only ducks for the rest of your life, what would you pick?

• 2:15:42Speaker 03

  I'm going to pick ducks.

• 2:15:45Steven Rinella?

  You're just saying that.

• 2:15:46Speaker 03

  I'm just saying that.

• 2:15:49Speaker 03

  I'm just saying that, no, I'm saying that, alright, my CEO, Adam Putnam, I love the dogs.

• 2:15:56Steven Rinella?

  Let it be known that I said ducks, I'm not a hostage.

• 2:15:59Speaker 03

  I said ducks, not squirrels. No, I absolutely love squirrel hunting. It's, you know, it was, and I know it sounds funny, like, how can you be that passionate about squirrel hunting?

• 2:16:09Steven Rinella?

  It's the funnest thing in the world, man.

• 2:16:10Speaker 03

  It is a blast. And with dogs, man, you're out there with your dog, but also you can take kids, and that's my son, it was the first thing I did with my son.

• 2:16:18Steven Rinella?

  It's squirrel hunting where you get the bullshit.

• 2:16:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Squirrel, I mean, you get to sit and walk.

• 2:16:21Steven Rinella?

  You still get to talk, yeah.

• 2:16:22Speaker 03

  You can make as much noise as you want, no one's yelling at you, you know, blowing their duck call just so you'll quit talking, you know, that sort of thing. I mean, it's, it's, I don't know, it's just so enjoyable.

• 2:16:32Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, man.

• 2:16:33Speaker 03

  It's a big time.

• 2:16:34Steven Rinella?

  You know, we kind of introduced the technology into squirrel hunting, that a couple of our friends that do it with dogs, but they were slow to adopt the binocular. Do you bring the binoculars?

• 2:16:47Speaker 03

  I bring binoculars, absolutely.

• 2:16:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they were like, what? I'm like, man, they're finding the squirrel in the tree.

• 2:16:53Speaker 03

  Man, they are so good. So, I'll train my dogs to go to the other side of the tree from me.

• 2:16:58Steven Rinella?

  Spook them around.

• 2:16:58Speaker 03

  So they'll push them around, because they will hug on that tree, and then you're trying to go around, and it's going around the tree with you, you know, staying out of sight. And I'll get my dog, chase it to the other, send it to the other side to chase the squirrel around, so.

• 2:17:10Steven Rinella?

  I met, I hunted blue grouse, spring blue grouse with a woman that, it's kind of very similar, you got, they're way up in the tree, and you're trying to find them in the spring. And she would lay down on her back in the woods. She would kind of like, it was mostly on hills, like, steep country. So she'd go up a little way, so she's more like eye level with the canopy, and she would just lay on her back with binos. And she'd lay there 10 minutes, and I would just be like, got it.

• 2:17:34Steven Rinella?

  And, so when we'd go out, our friends that had squirrel dogs.

• 2:17:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:38Steven Rinella?

  Me and my, uh.

• 2:17:39Speaker 03

  They wouldn't take a.

• 2:17:40Steven Rinella?

  Well, no, but I'd bring binos, and now we would just lay there, and after a while, because my buddy Kevin, he'd always just look through his scope.

• 2:17:47Steven Rinella?

  And after a while, we got a couple of them to like give in to the point that binos are not.

• 2:17:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:17:53Steven Rinella?

  That binos are helpful for finding those suckers.

• 2:17:55Speaker 03

  They're very helpful.

• 2:17:56Steven Rinella?

  Getting at was there's no better feeling.

• 2:17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:59Steven Rinella?

  Than when you're just getting ready to walk away and all of a sudden someone's like, got it.

• 2:18:02Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:18:03Steven Rinella?

  It's that little tail hair glowing and you know, glowing on top of the branch or something. God, that's fun, man.

• 2:18:09Speaker 03

  Moved his ear just enough for someone to catch it.

• 2:18:11Steven Rinella?

  That's a good time doing that stuff. So you, you 22 or shotgun?

• 2:18:15Speaker 03

  So a lot, most of the time I'll take a shotgun. I do bring a, you know, a 22 as well, but um, a lot of the places that I might go and hunt are smaller properties. And so I'm usually taking a, taking a shotgun. But if I can get a nice clean shot with a 22, it makes it a lot easier getting that, uh, getting the shot out of them.

• 2:18:34Steven Rinella?

  I gotta hook you up with my buddy Kevin Murphy to go out with him. He's a big squirrel dog.

• 2:18:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's in Kentucky.

• 2:18:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but he rides, like he calls, he, he's got what he calls a warhorse. When he rides out, if he's hunting squirrels for real.

• 2:18:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:18:47Steven Rinella?

  When he rides out, he's got a 22, a shotgun, a baseball bat and an axe.

• 2:18:51Speaker 03

  Oh damn. And a, and a. Chop down the tree. Bubulhorn too, right? So you know Kevin Murphy? Like the Kevin Murphy, West Kentucky Kevin Murphy? Small Indian Nation. That is awesome.

• 2:19:02Steven Rinella?

  Oh no, that's who I'm talking about with the binos and stuff. Uh, he's a, he's a woodsman.

• 2:19:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:07Steven Rinella?

  One time I was hunting with him and we had a swamp rabbit going into a hole in a tree.

• 2:19:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:11Steven Rinella?

  He goes over and cuts a sawbriar. I'm not kidding you. I washes my own two eyes, cuts a sawbriar and snakes it up that hole and he starts twirling it.

• 2:19:19Speaker 03

  Like a plumbing snake?

• 2:19:21Steven Rinella?

  Pulls that rabbit back out of the hole. But what he uses that bat for is now and then if there's a squirrel in a hollow.

• 2:19:31Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 2:19:32Steven Rinella?

  He'll just come up, he'll get, he'll get the bat off his warhorse and go over there and just wallop that tree with a bat.

• 2:19:38Speaker 03

  Chases it out. And then the axe is if all those fails, just cut down the tree.

• 2:19:43Steven Rinella?

  He just has it with him, you know, he's a, but yeah, he would, he would get, he gets real serious and he, he got into riding those horses. Cause he says one time he was just hunting on foot like an idiot, you know? And he sees some guys coming up the road on horses and he said their saddlebags were just stuffed, he says just squirrel tails hanging out of the saddlebags and he thought to himself, I need to get one.

• 2:20:05Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, let me tell you, you know, you're, those dogs, they'll go up one, one mountain, like up one hill, down the other, up another, and then all of a sudden they're striking and they're like, get here and get here now. And you're, you know, hoofing it up and down, up and down. So the horse, yeah, it's not, I'm one of the idiots on foot, but you know.

• 2:20:22Steven Rinella?

  Man, you gotta hunt with Kevin because you guys have, you guys be like two peas in a pod.

• 2:20:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Kevin and I go way back, way back.

• 2:20:28Steven Rinella?

  Oh, so okay.

• 2:20:29Speaker 03

  Oh, I know Kevin. Oh, yeah. Owned him for years.

• 2:20:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Butchy bad toe. He's got all those famous dogs and.

• 2:20:35Speaker 03

  He's got some, he has some good squirrel dogs, some really good squirrel dogs.

• 2:20:39Steven Rinella?

  All right.

• 2:20:40Speaker 03

  All right.

• 2:20:41Steven Rinella?

  Well, thanks for coming on the show.

• 2:20:42Speaker 03

  It was a lot of fun.

• 2:20:42Steven Rinella?

  Everybody good?

• 2:20:43Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 2:20:44Steven Rinella?

  No, thanks so much.

• 2:20:45Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:21:14Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean and they'll get years and years of use out of

• 2:21:58Steven Rinella?

  a set. Visit weathertech.com for your holiday shopping.

• 2:22:04Steven Rinella?

  Today, when you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back, your boots aren't gear you think about, they're what you depend on. That's why Western hunters trust Zamberland. And man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamberlands. They are so comfortable and just well-built and feel great in the hills. Family-owned and handcrafted in Italy through three generations. Zamberland boots combine nearly a century of bootmaking expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit, game, and terrain. They're comfortable, supportive, resolable, and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamberland's perfected

• 2:22:45Steven Rinella?

  their craft to ensure your success. Head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season. Zamberlandusa.com. You're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these. I get sent all kinds of products and snacks, and the truth is, most of them come and go. Every once in a while, though, I find something I keep reaching for, and Wiley Wallaby is one of those things. I first tried it because someone just handed me a bag and said, this isn't like any other kind of licorice you've had before. And they were right. Wiley Wallaby makes authentic Australian-style licorice that's incredibly soft and chewy. It's not like that weird, tough, waxy, cheap junk you get. And it doesn't have that artificial taste that turns a lot of people away from licorice in the first place. It's one of

• 2:23:29Steven Rinella?

  those products that's hard to explain until you've tasted it yourself. I keep some in my truck, I keep some in my fish shack, I keep some in my camper. They've got more than 10 flavors. And whether you like classic flavors or something a little different, there's probably one you'll end up keeping stocked around the house. Plus, it's made in the USA by a company that's been committed to quality and hometown values for over six decades. If you haven't tried Wiley Wallaby yet, pick yourself up a bag. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping, and you can try it yourself. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

• 2:24:08Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.