Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Meet Wade Shoemaker: A New Voice on the DU Podcast (Ep 785)

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Meet Wade Shoemaker: A New Voice on the DU Podcast (Ep 785) · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:05
  Wade Showmaker: Hey, folks. Wade Shoemaker here, the newest member of the podcast team here at Ducks Unlimited. So please come join the conversation. I I can't wait to hear from you. Stay tuned.
• 0:23
  VO: The following episode of the DU podcast features a video component. For the full experience, visit the Ducks Unlimited channel on YouTube, subscribe, and enjoy. Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, Doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, Doctor Jerad Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU Podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 1:39
  Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I am one of your hosts on this episode, Doctor. Mike Brasher. I'm joined in studio by Doctor. Jerad Henson.
• 1:47
  Jerad, great to have you.
• 1:48
  Jerad Henson: Mike, great to be here. I'm excited about this one.
• 1:50
  Mike Brasher: I am too. Sitting in between us is a brand new face and voice to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. We're really excited about this Wade Shoemaker. Wade, put her there, man. It's good to see you.
• 2:02
  Good to have you.
• 2:03
  Wade Showmaker: You, Good to see you.
• 2:04
  Jerad Henson: Great to have you here.
• 2:05
  Wade Showmaker: Thanks, man.
• 2:06
  Mike Brasher: Wade is going to be a, a new host for the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. He is going to be a person that you hear from and see, on for the video episodes that we do, probably more than the traditional host you're accustomed to seeing, and we are all really excited about that. Wade is going to be helping bring new information, cover new topics, bring a different perspective to some of this. And yeah, we're here to make that introduction, to give Wade an opportunity to introduce himself to you, the audience. Jerad, you know Wade a little bit, and you'll have an opportunity to talk about some of that relationship.
• 2:44
  But Wade, I wanna give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to our audience. Who are you? Where do you come from? What excites you about this opportunity?
• 2:52
  Wade Showmaker: Oh, man. Yeah. I really should've probably thought about this because I knew this was gonna happen. I just didn't put much thought into it, but I'm Wade. I live in North Louisiana and passionate about waterfowl, about ducks, and traveling and chasing them.
• 3:05
  I love it. I've been married since 2011. I'm 40 years old on the nose, and I've got two boys. One is nine and one is seven. My nine year old will be 10 in August.
• 3:18
  And, yeah, man, pumped about this opportunity specifically just because of this organization, I think, synonymous with duck hunting across the country globally even. And even people that aren't familiar with duck hunting, a lot of them are familiar with Ducks Unlimited, and to be able to be a part of an organization and help spread a message or I don't know, advocate for a message is is it means a lot for for me as somebody that cares about the sport and everything around it as a whole and not just pieces of it.
• 3:45
  Mike Brasher: We've been we've been working on this idea of bringing a more regular host, an outside host, to the podcast for quite some time, and the way we went about this was just sort of among the existing host and staff associated with the podcast, we just brainstormed different ideas, different names of people that we knew, and yours is one of the first that that Jerad thought of, he knew you, and so I want you to talk a little bit about how you know Wade and how, you know, you you were a big advocate of of his, and so I know you're excited to see this come to fruition and and as we all are.
• 4:19
  Jerad Henson: Yeah. So Wade and I have a common friend, a mutual friend, somebody that was a fronny brother of mine that I've known for over twenty years, really, really close friend, Matt. And Matt has known Wade through through the industry for
• 4:32
  Wade Showmaker: A decade, probably. Decade. Yeah.
• 4:34
  Jerad Henson: Matt's a super super nice guy. So Matt Matt thinks highly of Wade and talked about him being a great person, a great duck hunter, someone to really be So and so so I had a great impression on Wade before all of this came to fruition. And then also last year during the sleet storm and ice storm, I got to share camp with Wade. Oh, you did? I think he Okay.
• 4:57
  Mike Brasher: That was over at your place?
• 4:59
  Jerad Henson: At my place. Okay. Yeah. So and we had absolutely fantastic duck hunt that it was our it was the highlight of my season, no doubt, because it was not the greatest season for for a lot of us. We had a fantastic I mean, we Two days were really,
• 5:12
  Wade Showmaker: really good. Yeah. Third day wasn't bad. When we were he let us stay there even after he left. He's like, yeah.
• 5:16
  I'll just roll with it. And we were like, are you sure? Because you don't know me, you know, like,
• 5:20
  Mike Brasher: and Put it
• 5:21
  Wade Showmaker: And he was like, no. Go for it. He allowed it and, yeah, it was it was incredible.
• 5:25
  Jerad Henson: So when we were thinking about ideas for people to bring content to this platform, Mike, you do a great job of bringing science content and have for a long time. I can help with that. I bring some of that sustainability content, but we really wanted that non science, that true duck hunter, that bro science.
• 5:43
  Wade Showmaker: That's that
• 5:43
  Jerad Henson: true duck hunter that's gonna have that relationship in the industry. You have a very good perception in the industry
• 5:50
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah.
• 5:50
  Jerad Henson: And across your socials and things like that, like and that was the kind of the people we wanted to reach with our message, the way we want this platform to reach out to. Yeah. And so I was really excited when I was like, you know, let's talk about this. Let's talk about Wade, and I started asking around the office to some other people who may know you and Yeah. Everyone that I talked to was like, yes.
• 6:13
  Yes. And that was people from our events staff, from our comm staff. Yeah. So after getting that, I was like, I felt pretty good that you would be a a really good person to bring this this message, our platform to that next level and to a new new suite of listeners. So we're excited, really excited to have you here and and to bring what you can bring to this this show while Mike and I get to stay on as cohost or or guest host to to walk through some of the the complicated stuff every once in a while that may not be your your forte.
• 6:46
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah. Keep me in the guardrails for sure.
• 6:48
  Jerad Henson: But but happy to have you here to really talk through this. That.com, we'll we'll go. I know Wade wants to actually do a
• 6:55
  Wade Showmaker: I wanna
• 6:55
  Jerad Henson: do a whole deal with that. On that duck hunt because it really gets into some weather cool aspects of of playing the weather game and and things like that. And so I won't spoil too much of that.
• 7:05
  Wade Showmaker: It's good. Coldest time I've ever been on in my life in in the South Of Missouri.
• 7:10
  Jerad Henson: It was cold. Nice. Yeah. But it was a it was a great time and I got to know Wade and and hang out, and I mean, we're we're we're trapped in a sleet storm.
• 7:17
  Wade Showmaker: Oh, Maria.
• 7:18
  Jerad Henson: Yeah. You're there. It's hard to leave, so it was a good time to just sit around camp, hang out. Yeah. Felt like I've known you forever, so excited to have you here behind this desk.
• 7:25
  Wade Showmaker: Dude, I'm pumped to be here. Thank you for all that. Some of it, I'll all the way agree with, and some of it, yeah. I don't know. You know?
• 7:32
  A little skewed. There's a lot of very kind words. Thank you for those.
• 7:35
  Mike Brasher: You're welcome. So, Wade, as you as people hear you on on forthcoming episodes, they're gonna learn a lot about you personally. I'm sure you'll weave no. No. No.
• 7:43
  You'll you'll it's gonna be great. I'm looking forward to it. You're gonna weave in stories from your from your youth and things that meant meant that they were meaningful to you and that helped you along this, but I do wanna take a few minutes here for people to understand the path that brought you to where you are now 40 years old. You said forty years on the nose. That's not like today's not your birthday.
• 8:04
  Wade Showmaker: No, Lord.
• 8:04
  Mike Brasher: No. Okay. Alright. Just wanna make sure we're not gonna miss an opportunity. I know.
• 8:07
  Wade Showmaker: Be cool.
• 8:07
  Mike Brasher: I know. No. So, yeah, help people understand the path that you traveled to get to this, some of the reasoning for your love of the outdoors, love of hunting, where does waterfowl fit within that? Is it at the top of the list? Tell us a little
• 8:22
  Wade Showmaker: bit more about weed. There's a lot of ways I could go, but I'll give you the less the version I think that can fit into this podcast. Okay. So I grew up, you know, hunting at home. We were in in just South of Ruston, Louisiana, and we had some property by my grandparents' house, and me and my dad would go back there.
• 8:40
  We'd go squirrel hunting or something like that, and then we'd go do some deer hunting and stuff Would
• 8:44
  Mike Brasher: you take off school to go hunting, squirrel hunting? I heard that's a thing in Louisiana.
• 8:48
  Wade Showmaker: It is, but further south. There's actually a place down both south of me that there's a place south of me where school lets out
• 8:54
  Mike Brasher: for Roehinde's squirrel season. We lived in South Louisiana for a while, and I heard about So I was wondering if that was the same in
• 8:59
  Wade Showmaker: South Louisiana. Okay. We didn't do that. And I didn't love like, I went with dad because it was cool. You know?
• 9:04
  And then it was at my grandparents' house, so I could go eat, like, monkey bread in the morning before I went out there. You know? Yeah. But if everybody knows what monkey bread is I don't. Okay.
• 9:11
  I we'll we'll Google it or something. There's a whole lot there. It's delicious.
• 9:15
  Jerad Henson: Cinnamon sugar, like biscuits in a Bundt pan. Like a funnel
• 9:18
  Wade Showmaker: cake funnel cake kind of thing, but better. Yeah. That's the best way to put it. But but, anyway, we did with deer and squirrel and all that, and then at one point, my pepaw, my he ended up leasing a rice field in Northeast Louisiana, but only for a season and only because his buddies did. Right?
• 9:34
  And and the people he liked, and they were I mean, they were man, that was late nineties, early two thousands, that was like heyday for Louisiana, right, Northeast Louisiana. It was nuts. And I say that from stories I hear from other people because I didn't experience it that way. Neither my pepaw nor myself knew how to blow a duck call, had no clue about decoys getting set out. All we knew is decoys are out, there's a hole in the ground you get in, and you get in there and wait.
• 9:59
  Right? So we had guns loaded, we had ducks there, and that was it. I don't know how many ducks we killed. The only one I remember is one Mallard that that he swore I killed, and I can promise you I did not. Right?
• 10:12
  I promise you I didn't. And but he swore I did, and I got a picture of me holding it up, you know, and he made me kiss it and all this stuff, so it it was awesome. But fast forward away from that, I did a lot of shot a lot of wood ducks off the creek behind their house, and we would jump them and shoot them, you know, it was it was pretty cool then, and then I turned 19 and went on my first, like, I would say, real duck hunt, and it was on some public ground south of where I live, and and, man, we shot one green winged teal the whole day. I had to borrow waders that were plastic. I had to borrow steel shot.
• 10:43
  I didn't know that was like something that had to be taken, and, yeah, they were like, we got you. Just put warm clothes on. You know? I was like, okay. So I went.
• 10:51
  And the boots I had for the waiters were my own. They were already too small that I had to pull up over waiters, like, waiters stocking foot waiters that was way smaller, some of toes that like this, and I don't know if you're gonna see that, but that's what they look like. But but, anyway, we shot one duck, and it's freezing cold. I'm I'm I'm hating life, you know, like, loving it, but hating, like, every part of my body. Too fun.
• 11:16
  Buddy. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we got there.
• 11:19
  The duck died. Again, I I'm an adult, well, arguably, debatably an adult at 19. Right. And this one duck dies, and it's my buddies with me, two buddies, Cody and Alex. We used to call him Rainbow.
• 11:32
  We don't call him Rainbow anymore now that we're older. There's a lot of reasons for that probably, but, man, we got out there, and they looked at me and said, no. You got it. You shot that duck, and I thought I did, and I'm still not sure if I did or not, but looking back, I thought I did, and I went and got it, and when I picked it up, it was the most I don't know. It was like one of those revelations you have when you look at ducks.
• 11:53
  You're like, holy cow. Like
• 11:54
  Mike Brasher: It wasn't banded. No. No. No. I thought that's what you were gonna tell me.
• 11:57
  Wade Showmaker: I would. I'm glad it wasn't. Yeah. Looking back, and we I can cover that another time, but, like, it was fully plumed out. It had spots on the chest, every color, and I just thought that's what they were.
• 12:06
  I didn't think that's you don't kill them all the way
• 12:09
  Mike Brasher: like that. Was about the bird.
• 12:10
  Wade Showmaker: Oh my gosh, man. And we got back to the truck, everything thawed out, and I was like, this was terrible, like, can we go tomorrow, you know, and I loved it, and and dude, from there, I think that's the it's really hard to get past that story without giving a few details, but like, I got a little older, I got married in 2011, and then not long after that, for something, I saw that the industry was a thing, you know, and, like, able to jump in, like, be on a staff or something like that, and and I reached and I and I applied for a pro staff for a company and got it, and I was like, oh, this is wild. Like, I'm on a pro staff, you know, and but I it didn't like there wasn't a whole lot to it, but I ordered some decoys from them, and then I ended up getting on another one with another company, and and I realized quick that they're this is about network more than anything, you know, in that on that level and and to fast forward to how I got to where I'm at now is just like when I realized it was about the people you can meet and the experiences you can have through that network, it just it clicked with me, and and I just was like a madman, and Instagram had just come out in 2011.
• 13:11
  Jerad Henson: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Wade Showmaker: Something like that and I was like, dude, this is it, you know, and I just, to the best of my abilities, met everybody that I could and through that realized that I really liked people and I liked community and I loved the way things meshed together and understanding how other things didn't and here we are. I mean, that's that's the highest level overview I can do.
• 13:31
  Mike Brasher: Well, if you're a person that says personal relationships and that networking means a lot to you and you recognize the value of that, you and I are getting gonna get along in this spot. Yeah. I know that. I know that for a fact because we I was talking, think it was Bill Cooksey not too long ago on an episode, and that was sort of the focus of that. It's like it there's a lot of technology out there that makes our lives really cool and can really help with some decisions and things of that nature.
• 13:53
  But at the end of the day, the things that we're able to accomplish, at least in terms of meaningful progress, especially in the conservation fields, because the relationships that we have with people in the same extension, you know, is is the way is that case in in the hunting industry as well as you've talked about. So That's true. Excited to hear to hear you say that.
• 14:13
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah. Very cool. Well, I'm glad I I'm glad I didn't leave that out then. Golly, dude. That's right.
• 14:18
  Yeah. But that is that's my heart, man, community and people, and just seeing those things come together and get accomplished things. I think that's that's always the goal because the goal's always bigger than what's in front of you, you know?
• 14:37
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
• 14:53
  Mike Brasher: You know, you you mentioned that you love to travel to hunt.
• 14:57
  Jerad Henson: What I was gonna ask.
• 14:58
  Wade Showmaker: Can you
• 14:58
  Jerad Henson: tell us a little about? Like, because that's one of the cool things about DUs. Not just nationwide. We're we're continent wide.
• 15:05
  Wade Showmaker: That's wild. And, like,
• 15:07
  Jerad Henson: so having that that love to travel and hunt to see it from from not just, you know, Stuttgart, Arkansas. Yes. I get in trouble for that Yeah. For being a little biased on on just that Arkansas viewpoint. So so having that broader viewpoint, tell us a little
• 15:21
  Wade Showmaker: bit about that. Oh, just, like, travel?
• 15:23
  Jerad Henson: Travel? Like, your favorite places to
• 15:25
  Mike Brasher: Where have yeah. Where have you gone?
• 15:26
  Wade Showmaker: I've been all over. Not crazy like a lot of people. You know? And and truly and I have to tell you, like, the, like, the bias toward Arkansas, like, I really like to hunt at home. I mean, if I can be honest, like, that's where I started, and
• 15:38
  Jerad Henson: Yeah.
• 15:38
  Wade Showmaker: We got a camp. This is another tangent, but we got a camp out on a lake at home that my pepaw, we built in, like, 2012 and started building it over the course of the summer for the simple, like, obviously family hangout, but we put a duck blind on the lake that it was there, and the the wildest part about all that to me is pepaw had the blind and did those things. My dad didn't duck hunt, but now since 2015, we've had we have family duck hunts every year, and that's a decade. That's the only tradition I've ever had in my life, you know, and and that means a lot to me. So, like, the traveling, like, at home is by far my favorite place, and and I have a a thing I'll say I say about it, and I'm not gonna say it here, but at home is where I like to lose, you know, because I know I know I can figure it out later or not, but I'm doing it with people that I care about and I love, and that's the main thing for me.
• 16:25
  But travel wise, to get to your point, sorry that it took so long to get there, but travel wise, man, I've I've hunted the farthest I've hunted other than, like, Northern Alberta. It's been a thing. That was incredible. That's awesome. I've hunted Lower Klamath in California.
• 16:42
  That was several years ago with some pals, and that was a project for for a company that we did that was really, really cool. Lower Klamath was the first national wildlife refuge at Teddy Roosevelt ever signed a new existence, and that's why we picked it. Yeah. So very cool. I don't know a lot of those facts, but I love that one.
• 16:57
  Jerad Henson: It's cool facts. We have a bunch of projects wrapping up at Klamath right now.
• 17:01
  Wade Showmaker: Oh, I've seen a
• 17:01
  Jerad Henson: lot of
• 17:01
  Wade Showmaker: progress there. It's it's super cool to watch that because they they were it was the beginning of the whole water thing back then, you know, and now there's so much positive coming out of that area now. It's so cool. Yeah, man. I mean, I've been over there.
• 17:13
  I hunted the Eastern Shore last year in the Susquehanna Flats. That was man, that was a bucket list thing. That was so cool doing some body booting. Well, Minnesota, we've got, you know, we've got Cal and Joey in Minnesota. You guys know those guys?
• 17:26
  Yeah. They're like brothers of mine in real life, and I've hunted with those guys several times and love them, love going up there and doing that. The whole central flyaway of the South Dakota, I've hunted all those states and spent a lot of time in Texas, and and I mean, we could we could go in circles about it, man. It's all over, and it's it's I love every bit of it, and every bit of it's got its own special thing, but favorite place ever is at home, and if I'm not at home with my family, I'm in woods that are flooded and I'm leaned against the tree.
• 17:54
  Mike Brasher: That's awesome. Yeah. And a lot of those travel experiences that you've had, I'm guessing, have been within the last ten or so years.
• 18:00
  Wade Showmaker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fun. Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:02
  Mike Brasher: And so what I was gonna say is that's a time period when duck populations have been, you know, struggling because of the prolonged drought. We've got a lot of good things to talk about with regard to recent rainfall across the Prairies, and we need to get somebody on to talk about that and give us an update. But so, yeah, you've you've experienced those places at a time when when duck populations are are a little bit depressed. Yeah. And given the right amount of time and right kind of weather conditions when they return to the Prairies, like Yeah.
• 18:32
  Hopefully, this is the start of something that's gonna continue for a few years. That's what I'm hearing. If that's the case, then, you know, you have to take it a year at a time and you need more than just one big shot of rain. But right now, we're we're getting to a place where it can serve as a useful base going going forward. It's just amazing to talk to people up there and they talk about that soil moisture deficit and how it just takes so much rain to, you know, to to overcome what they've experienced over the past several years.
• 18:57
  But anyway, not to get off on that tangent. No.
• 19:00
  Wade Showmaker: Love can I can I say something about that? I look at that. I love that part that I started out when it wasn't great.
• 19:05
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 19:06
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah. Because I never knew I never got to hunt it and see it at its peak. Right? So, like, I've appreciated it, and I know that the appreciation love I have for what it is is what it is. It's not this heightened hope that it comes back.
• 19:18
  Like, I do hope it does, but I'm not living on that. I'm living on just, you know, the downturn, honestly.
• 19:24
  Mike Brasher: That's a really unique perspective and observation because people are are added to the hunting community every single year. They get their start during a different time frame of, you know, frame of reference. Yep. The pat those that have come into the into the hunting community over the past seven to ten years have been, have have done so during this time of of lower duck populations, and so those folks, once once the populations begin to go back up, which they will, their perspective and hopefully their experiences are gonna be pretty cool, you know, to see see what happens there.
• 20:02
  Wade Showmaker: I'd love to see that.
• 20:03
  Jerad Henson: And there's some a lot of cool stuff I think coming out in the near future on on kind of how that all works. The magazine's gonna be doing some cool stuff there, so excited to see some of that stuff too. So there's some some cool things there. So I was just gonna come back to that that cool aspect of your travels is like Yeah. You have a really holistic viewpoint of hunting across the continent.
• 20:23
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah. For sure.
• 20:23
  Jerad Henson: That's something that we're excited to have you share. Right? Let's go. You're not just, you know, Mississippi Flyway centric. You've seen some you've seen the Pacific Flyway.
• 20:31
  You've seen Eastern Flyways. You've seen those other areas and can speak to that. And I think that's gonna be really cool. And you've seen the different techniques, the different cultures associated with those and bringing that to our our our listeners.
• 20:43
  Wade Showmaker: Even scouting, like Yeah. It's totally different in certain places. It it is the same but different. It it's yeah. You're spot on, dude.
• 20:50
  Mike Brasher: So Well, good deal. So we're not gonna make this episode too terribly long. I did wanna get some thoughts though on, like, you're gonna be are you gonna be coming back out for DUX?
• 20:59
  VO: Yes.
• 20:59
  Mike Brasher: Like, people that would be interested in meeting you, people that know you already and and wanna meet you. I mean, you'll be you'll be around all week or just certain days?
• 21:07
  Wade Showmaker: I'll be around probably Thursday through Sunday. I'll get Thursday through Sunday. Happens and you guys say, hey, Wade, like, come on.
• 21:13
  Mike Brasher: You know? Yeah.
• 21:14
  Wade Showmaker: But but, yeah, Thursday through Sunday, and, yeah, I'll be around. And you
• 21:18
  Jerad Henson: were at DUX last year.
• 21:19
  Wade Showmaker: I was, and and which, by the way, like was awesome. Huge win.
• 21:23
  Jerad Henson: It was a good situation. Dude. Yeah.
• 21:25
  Mike Brasher: Got lots of exciting things to talk about with DUX, and so stay tuned for for all those messages and advertisements and lots of tons of vendors. It's gonna be another great time. Glad you're gonna be here for that. Yeah. You're here now.
• 21:40
  We're recording this here in mid June. You're recording some episodes, and people are gonna start hearing you on the airwaves. I'm not gonna ask you to reveal any secrets about who you've got coming up, but I'm yeah. We just wanted this opportunity to introduce you to the audience. I'm excited to hear the different topics, the different perspective that you are gonna bring to this.
• 22:03
  I think it's gonna be fantastic. As Jerad said, we're gonna stay involved. Katie Burke is still gonna stay involved with some episodes. I think Matt Harrison may have some opportunities to do a few things here. I've got
• 22:13
  Wade Showmaker: really funny story, not about Matt, but Matt will appreciate it. Uh-oh. He know he knows exactly what the story's about. When he hears this, he's gonna be like, I bet he's talking about this. And he's probably absolutely right.
• 22:23
  Yeah. Ready I'm ready to talk about that.
• 22:26
  Mike Brasher: So a lot of the a lot of the voices and a lot of the stories that people have become accustomed to hearing, you're still gonna hear those voices, but you're gonna hear a brand new perspective, fresh content, which, again, super excited about for a whole host of reasons. One of which is, as Jerad said, that's gonna allow us to do a few other things and maybe focus more on some of the topics that are more in line with the type of stuff that we do on a day to day basis, whether it be science or sustainability or the conservation, and then we'll bring you into some of those, and just excited to see how this is gonna evolve. Yeah, it's great to have you on the team, man.
• 23:06
  Wade Showmaker: Thank you, man.
• 23:06
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. What else do you anything else that you wanna share with the audience here before we go?
• 23:10
  Wade Showmaker: Man, I I really don't have anything to add. I think you guys covered it. I I am I'm super stoked to have, like, you guys as a resource and to have the things that I that I do use bro science for, like I just use, like,
• 23:21
  Mike Brasher: deductive like term bro science.
• 23:23
  Wade Showmaker: It's it's a weird thing, but it's true, But you I I just I I make decisions and I I draw thoughts off of my experiences and the people around me, and I try to be unbiased, and I always like to bring different sides of it, but I've never been able to go to the source, you know, and to be able to have something I can look up and have research that's already done that chat or cloud or Google can't give you, you know. I love that because I think as much as an AI driven world that we've got going into, I think it's gonna be a large help, but the actual dirty hands and boots on the ground are gonna be what get us through, and to have that here and be able to touch it and see it and give it to whoever needs That's I'm super stoked to be a part of that.
• 24:03
  Mike Brasher: And that's ultimately what it's about is getting this information, getting the the the knowledge, the excitement, the, you know, shared experiences around waterfowl conservation, waterfowl hunting, all the different pieces of that community. Mean, that's what this platform is is for is to share that that information, to communicate, to connect with the people that make us who we are.
• 24:24
  Wade Showmaker: Yeah. I agree with that. That's good.
• 24:26
  Mike Brasher: Awesome. Jerad, good?
• 24:27
  Jerad Henson: I'm good. I'm good. This is a lot of fun. I'm excited to see where this is gonna take us and the content that Wade's gonna bring. So I'm happy to be a part of it.
• 24:35
  I'm glad to have him on the team and look forward to
• 24:37
  Mike Brasher: seeing where this takes us. Yeah. All right. Okay, folks, that's gonna wrap it up for this episode. Thank you for joining us.
• 24:45
  A special thanks to my cohost, doctor Jerad Henson, and our brand new host of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, Wade Shoemaker. It is fantastic to have you on board. Thank you for doing
• 24:55
  Wade Showmaker: this. You.
• 24:55
  Mike Brasher: We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the great work that he does. We also thank you, the listener, and the viewer for staying with us on this, for spending your time supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
• 25:09
  VO: Thank you for listening to the DU Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 25:31
  Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay tuned to the Ducks.