Latest / DuckFellas Podcast / Three‑Duck Limit Debate & North Dakota’s Promising Fall Flight

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Three‑Duck Limit Debate & North Dakota’s Promising Fall Flight · DuckFellas Podcast

3:01
Welcome back to the Duckfellas podcast, episode 32.
3:06
This week, it's hosted by just old Zach and Tyler.
3:10
Starting to get real lonely in this chat. Yeah, well, Cade has an excuse tonight,
3:16
for once. He does. He does. A decent one for once.
3:19
Yeah, yeah. He's doing his Knoxville Nights podcast, and can't blame the guy for doing that one.
3:26
Nope. Nope, not at all. Speaking of Cade He had a good week this week at the
3:33
track Took the points lead back And there's only two more races left in the year,
3:39
Yeah I mean if he can keep it together Two races It'd be pretty hard for Hard for him to get passed up,
3:44
I mean if If he can win This weekend It,
3:48
That'll It won't lock it up Cause knock on wood Nothing bad happens to him But
3:53
it'll Make it pretty I mean all he's gotta do is make an A main and finish the
3:57
race at that point. Which... So...
4:01
No, I'm kidding. I mean, he hasn't missed one yet. I mean, other than last week for the 360 shootout.
4:10
Yep. No, hopefully keep her together. Be nice to see Cade hoist it up.
4:16
Yeah. No, that'll be... That'll be awesome. Honestly.
4:20
But this week, this weekend, was the Delta Expo. What a great time that was.
4:29
That was super great. Yeah. It was a fantastic time.
4:33
Just a long weekend, which I feel like everybody that was there kind of expected that.
4:39
Yeah. I will say next year, I'm pretty sure we'll be going down to Kansas City,
4:44
which we'll touch on that here a little bit later.
4:47
But I don't think we're going to party as hard on Friday night.
4:51
No no that was that made the whole weekend just rough,
4:56
it did yeah i don't know if i want to want to go that hard either night next
5:01
year not no i don't know i mean it was i'd like to have fun we had fun but we
5:06
did it was real it was fun it wasn't real fun,
5:12
no but it was it was a good time ran into a lot of good vendors met a lot of good people so,
5:18
yeah absolutely it was it was really cool to kind of interact with some people
5:21
that i've never met and they knew us so you know that was that was actually
5:26
pretty cool it was kind of kind of cool to see somebody stops and grabs you,
5:31
and wants to talk to you out there.
5:34
But we'll get back to the delta expo here what kind of touch these two first
5:39
things are some things we're going to talk about a little bit later to have
5:43
a little over halfway through the podcast here but the first one is,
5:46
minnesota's got a three duck bird limit that they're looking to have and i don't
5:53
know if they're doing it next year,
5:55
but they're looking for feedback on that to see what people's ideas are on that,
5:59
yeah i couldn't see when they were trying to implement that,
6:02
it's not going to be this year because the digest is already out no i didn't
6:06
know if like this like next season or if they're gonna if it'll be three years
6:11
or what when they're gonna try to do that so,
6:14
i mean i've got my opinions on it but i'd like to i'd like to see some other
6:17
guys if they've got got opinions on it,
6:20
absolutely i'm sure we might have a a few opinions in here tonight about that
6:25
but also north dakota just freshly released their fall flight forecast and how,
6:32
the duck brood is doing and looking. Looking good.
6:37
According to that, it's looking good, which we will also get to a lot more detail on that.
6:41
We'll say according to that, but it's a different rep.
6:44
Right. And then probably the most wild one that I've seen this week,
6:49
and the first person I've seen say something about it was Mr.
6:52
Bill Smith, good friend of ours here that's always in here every now and again.
6:58
He posted a thing, and it's—DU just responded to it today on their page,
7:04
and it said, don't drain the duck factory.
7:06
I see there's a proposal out there that would allow drain tile to lower water
7:10
levels by up to a foot on protected wetlands, which that could be absolutely
7:15
detrimental to the prairie pothole region.
7:18
I mean, there's a reason it's in a protected wetland.
7:24
But yeah, but it's protected. But still, I mean, even if they did go to drain
7:29
that a foot, I mean, a lot of these potholes are only six inches,
7:32
eight inches a foot deep.
7:34
That's when I should have said the wetland. Like I don't, I can't imagine that
7:39
when we introduced any sort of protected wetlands, we were talking about damp soil.
7:44
So, I mean, if you're going to drain it all out, I feel like that,
7:46
you know, you're going to defeat the purpose there.
7:49
Yeah. I mean, I would say as a vast majority of us water fowlers.
7:55
We're very much against drain tile. I mean, it has a purpose,
7:59
but it is killing our potholes. I mean, it's murder to Iowa's prairie pothole
8:04
region. It's not even a thing anymore.
8:06
It has, and it sucks because you can't, I mean, I completely understand why
8:11
we have, or why they're getting put in place, and I can't blame anybody for taking advantage of it.
8:19
Well, no, if I was a farmer and my whole survival relied on getting as much
8:23
crop as possible out of the ground. I mean, I get it.
8:28
I don't know, there's got to be ways we can protect it and supplement these
8:31
farmers maybe a little better than we do now to have wetlands on their property.
8:35
I know there is such a program out there that does that.
8:39
There is. And then, you know, other things, you know, just there's a lot of them.
8:43
You got, I mean, if you have the, obviously the wetlands, you know,
8:48
I've said it on here multiple times, stuff like buffer strips where,
8:51
because that all relates back to all wildlife.
8:53
And like I said, you can't blame a farmer for trying to make his living and
8:56
get his max amount of profit.
8:58
Because the world knows corn and beans ain't worth a shit hardly anymore.
9:01
So you got to get every cent you can. But if we could compensate,
9:06
like you said, compensate better or introduce programs where we could pay them
9:09
more for certain things, I think you'd see a 180 in Upland and Waterfowl.
9:17
100%. I mean, that's pretty easy to figure out on that one.
9:24
The main thing we can do right now, I've seen, is you can go to the federal
9:29
register page for this topic and you can leave comments on there and,
9:36
concern your opinions or voice your concerns and opinions to help prevent this
9:41
from happening. Shut up.
9:44
Yeah, I haven't read much into that, Bill. I know you sent it over today and
9:47
I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. Yeah, I haven't gone too much into it either.
9:53
I read Bill's post. Bill Smith goes really in-depth. If you don't follow Bill
9:58
Smith and you don't know who that is, look him up, give him a follow,
10:02
add him as a friend, whatever it may be on Facebook.
10:04
He knows this stuff very early. He's on top of this stuff all the time.
10:11
But, I mean, Trent here said, he's like, what about all the chemicals that are
10:15
dumped into the waterways? And that's one of the things that I will was brought
10:21
up for that still hasn't been funded, that we're still fighting in Iowa today.
10:26
I will. And, I mean, a little different, right? We're talking tile versus runoff.
10:31
But that buffer strip bill that they got shot down, I mean, that was there to
10:36
help keep chemicals out of water.
10:38
You know iowa's nitrates level or through the roof again,
10:42
not trying to blame a farmer for making his buck you're trying to plant every
10:45
every acre you can but if we can compensate and get that buffer strip you know
10:49
that would at least help obviously it's not going to help with with water,
10:53
and the tile drainage and everything like that but as far as chemicals get in
10:56
the water that would help significantly if we could pay him to keep buffer strips
10:59
in there you know that's what it was introduced for but got shot down pretty quick.
11:04
I mean they still bring it up all the time It's just there's always something
11:07
stupid that's in there that the other side doesn't like.
11:11
I know last—I think last time we got brought up, we got shut down pretty hard,
11:14
and that guy got some not-so-lovely emails and Facebook messages.
11:19
So it might make him back here this year.
11:22
Yeah. Well, I think it's going to be all dependent on—sorry.
11:26
It's going to be all dependent on this election coming up. It's definitely going
11:31
to make it swing one way or the other and do your research.
11:34
I'm not going to judge you for who you vote for but do your research and make
11:37
a make a conscious decision,
11:39
yep absolutely I mean it's it's a big one I mean it's the first change we've
11:43
had in a while and it's you vote the right way a lot of things go in your favor
11:47
you vote the wrong way a lot of things might go against you I mean just make sure like you said Zach,
11:51
do your research make sure you know who you're voting for this election season and,
11:56
who vote for you thinks it's going to be the best.
12:00
But moving on, we'll kind of go into some, we'll kind of recap this Delta Waterfowl
12:05
Expo that we went and experienced for, I think it was both of our first time
12:09
at that. It was. It was pop the cherry for both of us.
12:13
I think it was a good time. It was, I will say there's a lot of good people,
12:16
but it was also just slightly underwhelming, I think, for what my expectations
12:20
were, just as far as numbers coming to the door.
12:24
I didn't see a final count of numbers, but it never really felt like it was super packed.
12:29
Like obviously Saturday was busy you know but you didn't have that I guess I
12:33
expected like Iowa to your classic busy to where you're you know turning sideways
12:37
to walk down aisles and fighting crowds and,
12:41
yeah I would definitely agree with you on that I don't I don't know,
12:45
I feel like Iowa kind of failed a little bit on that like us waterfowlers and
12:49
people that enjoy the outdoors of showing up I mean,
12:53
sure I know there was people that traveled from all over the place to come there
12:56
so to see the people we did in there and then also not see as many people as we've seen like it's.
13:04
I don't know. I'm just kind of disappointed in the whole show.
13:06
I think Delta did a great job at trying to put on a good show,
13:10
I will say. I would agree, yeah.
13:12
I think there was some top vendors that skipped out that sucks.
13:17
There were some vendors I was looking to see and kind of check out some of the
13:20
new stuff that weren't there. And that was kind of disappointing as well.
13:24
There was a couple big names in the game that I really expected to be there
13:27
and have some cool stuff. I mean, obviously, there was some cool vendors and
13:32
big vendors that had some cool stuff. But yeah, like I said,
13:34
there's a couple of big hitters that I expected to be there that weren't.
13:38
You know, I wonder how much of an effect it has on the show.
13:43
Well, this had on the show was that the Ducks Unlimited Expo,
13:47
holy cow, being this coming weekend, affected the turnout.
13:54
Not just people traveling to the show and vendors, but just all around.
13:57
You know what I mean? Yeah.
13:58
No, absolutely could have. and whether it makes a difference.
14:01
They're going to be in Memphis this weekend, right? So maybe instead of the
14:06
southern crowd that is going to travel up here for this, maybe they're just
14:09
going to say, hell, let's go.
14:11
It's a four-hour drive to Memphis the weekend after. Yeah.
14:16
I mean, if I'm being honest and I live down south and that expo was the next
14:21
week and I'd probably go to that one rather than drive, you know,
14:23
maybe 10 hours compared to five.
14:25
Right, right. No, I would have to agree.
14:28
But we said, I mean, there's still some guys that traveled a long ways.
14:32
Absolutely. Like, who do we sit down with?
14:35
The Filthy Spoon podcast. Yep.
14:39
We actually did a podcast with those guys. We did a couple good old boys from Northern California,
14:44
you know, everybody looks we sat down and talked about it a little bit but everybody
14:48
looks at California is kind of,
14:50
with your nose in the air but man you get north Sacramento and they're about just like us you know,
14:56
absolutely I mean honestly California gets a bad rap because of the major cities
14:59
and southern Cali but once you get north of like central Cali I mean it's they're
15:04
no different than us most of them for the most part I'd say the diversion is
15:08
the same as it is here you know between,
15:11
different points of view Right.
15:13
But yeah, we did get to sit down with them. Like I said, the Filthy Spoon podcast.
15:18
Make sure to check them out. Give them a follow. Listen to a couple of theirs. See what you think.
15:23
Absolutely. I'm sure they'll be posting ours.
15:26
I don't know when it'll be. He didn't say when it'll be, but they'll be posting
15:28
that sometime between now and the end of the year probably.
15:32
What am I doing? I have no idea.
15:35
But yeah, so there was a lot of great vendors there. It was a good show all in all.
15:40
But I will say A little bit disappointing I had a great time Getting to catch
15:45
up with Jeff Foyles and Cole Foils So that was pretty cool.
15:50
Went and got his filthy spoon hat But no You gotta represent I was just Talking
15:57
about Catching up with Jeff Foyles and Cole Foils How that was a great time
15:59
Getting to catch up with them I brought my calls Great for you I spent more money What?
16:04
I spent some money too Sheesh Got a new shirt Hey I got a red one.
16:11
But no, it's awesome. They're always fun to talk to. I brought my calls with
16:15
me. Told Cole, I was like, hey, I need some new reads. Need them tuned up a little bit.
16:20
And he tuned them up, no problem. We sat there and bullshipped for probably an hour.
16:24
And it was a great time. I enjoyed talking to them, for sure.
16:28
Yeah, and speaking of Cole, third, right?
16:32
Third place, yep. Third in the double read calling competition. Good for him.
16:37
Yeah, he did a hell of a job. I wish I would have been there like we had planned
16:40
on to watch. I know, we had some things come up, missed it, but.
16:46
That was one I was looking forward to. Wish we could have been there,
16:48
but yeah, I had to take care of a couple things. Yeah, I think his name was,
16:52
well, it was Anderson Calls or Mike Anderson from Anderson Calls,
16:56
something like that, that he took first place.
16:59
I watched the routine, listened to it. It was a hell of a routine. Guy did a great job.
17:02
Cole did as well, and I can't remember who got second, but honestly,
17:06
they were all great callers.
17:08
Which is to be expected, right? I mean, yeah, at a national expo like that,
17:12
it would be, you'd think.
17:14
ZB's supposed to be out there competing, but somebody chickened out.
17:18
I was definitely a little disappointed
17:20
that old ZB didn't make it in the competition. Honestly, ridiculous.
17:27
Chris Phillips was asking, were you, like, did you forget you were burning a
17:30
pizza and that's why you didn't take off real quick? Bacon for a BLT, actually.
17:35
There it is. I did have to run that out of the oven, too.
17:41
No, we got to meet up with Brett a couple times. Talked to him all weekend off
17:45
and on. He had a booth there. If you missed him, missed out on seeing some really
17:48
cool mounts. Shame on you.
17:51
And you missed out on entering the raffle. Yeah. Sticker raffle,
17:55
$5 sticker. Gets you $500 off a mount. He did it twice.
17:59
He was only going to pull one winner, and he pulled two. Did he pull two? I've seen the first one.
18:03
Yep. He pulled two winners. So that's, I mean, hats off to Brett.
18:06
He's an awesome guy. If you're looking to get a bird mounted, hit him up.
18:11
He's just awesome to deal with. And he does great work. I would say his mounts
18:15
are exceptional. Picked up my two mallards from him.
18:18
So if you were walking by there's two flying mallards behind him there those
18:22
are both my birds so fantastic work and fantastic dude 100.
18:28
And one guy we got to talk to quite a bit was mr joe heinz and joey dyer so
18:33
that was that was really cool we met turkey got to talk to turkey hang out with turkey at the,
18:38
the second night the appreciation night yeah for the expo appreciation yep,
18:42
we had a great time good talks good laughs he once again he tuned my goose call up because i use his call,
18:47
for goose hunting and yeah he's straight up just awesome guy honestly yeah both
18:53
super good dudes got to talk to yeah i talked to dyer quite a bit saturday night,
18:58
yeah super good dude trying to
18:59
hopefully we can get together this fall or something hang out a little bit,
19:02
yeah no i'm kind of hoping that we can make something work in november or something
19:06
to get on a hunt or two together i know we talked about trading some hunts and
19:09
we'll see if that works out hopefully so,
19:12
who who else was there that the sitka had a booth obviously and they had a rain
19:18
booth you could go in you don't some don't judge the rain booth okay,
19:23
i got in the rain booth you had to you had to throw on their waders and a wading
19:27
jacket go in the rain booth and take a picture and you got a pop-tart holder
19:32
and a t-shirt how was it how was that experience Well, to be fair,
19:38
it was a little awkward when a grown man stung another grown man to smile while
19:42
you're standing in the rain.
19:44
Um, but hey, I got my Pop-Tart holder and that's all I wanted.
19:50
Did he tell you to say cheese? Yeah. He's like, are you ready?
19:52
Smile. And I'm like, dude, just take the picture. I'm like, come on.
19:56
Embarrassing. I wish I'd have known you were in there. There's a reason I did
20:01
not tell you. There's a reason I did not tell you where I was going.
20:05
I really wanted to do it just for the Pop-Tart holder because those things are
20:08
pretty cool. They are. They're impossible to find.
20:11
But I didn't want to be embarrassed by doing it in front of a bunch of people.
20:17
I definitely would have taken a picture and thrown it on the Duck Falls Facebook
20:20
page if you would have been in there.
20:22
By all means. You had to if it would have happened. That's what I mean.
20:25
I wish I'd have known you were doing it. So I could have taken a picture of you and posted it.
20:32
Oh, good times. But yeah, got a t-shirt, got my Pop-Tart holder for the four Pop-Tarts I eat a year.
20:41
Four? Yeah, that's about all. I'll get a box and I can't quite finish them.
20:44
They're dry and Pop-Tart.
20:47
You got to put them in the toaster and then put a little butter on them,
20:50
on the brown sugar cinnamon ones. I'll make sure to...
20:53
Can we get a toaster in the boat this year? That runs off propane? No.
20:59
Skillet fried it is. We're always out of propane. Game fried Pop-Tarts.
21:02
We are out of propane all the time.
21:07
But I did I did stop by when they were doing their podcast Saturday afternoon.
21:12
I don't know what you were doing but I popped over there and listened to it
21:16
for a little bit and it was kind of neat to listen to the podcast they were doing live. Which one?
21:22
I don't remember which one it was. It was a Q&A one. Oh, okay.
21:27
That was neat. And the cool part was I can't remember his name from the Filthy
21:31
Spoon but He was actually on their podcast while we were recording a podcast
21:36
with their other guy. I can't remember either one of their names.
21:39
Yeah, if you guys are listening, I'm so sorry.
21:42
So that's pretty cool that we got to do a podcast with them.
21:45
And one of them was on Delta's main podcast. That'd be awesome to one day to get on that.
21:50
That would be. He was up there with some big hitters. He was a good old boy, too.
21:55
It was so funny. He'd come back over from that. He's like, I felt so weird.
21:58
I don't know what they had me doing up there, but I'll take it.
22:02
I loved it He seemed like our type of people They both did Old boy wearing bib
22:07
overalls And this hat And drinking a Coors Light That part I kind of judged
22:11
a little bit But good for him There's nothing wrong with a Coors Light,
22:16
Okay. Get over it. Grow up. But yeah.
22:21
Let me ask you a question. Out of all the booths there, let's take away our
22:24
friends. What was your favorite booth at the expo?
22:28
With just looks and everything. Oof.
22:32
This is going to sound bougie because that's what's geared towards.
22:35
The decoy booth, they had them chairs set up and they were pouring everybody
22:40
whiskey if you came over and hung out with them.
22:42
So I was able to sit in a leather chair, have a bourbon, buy a sweatshirt and
22:46
a hat super i mean a couple of guys right were for from the des moines chapter
22:50
at delta so we knew them but uh brad brad,
22:54
i think it was brad was the uh owner he was there looking dapper,
22:58
camouflage pants leather leather coat that was a that was a good looking booth,
23:03
it was it was really clean looking honestly yeah yeah but well put together
23:07
little small you know what i mean a little smaller dude tried to give them a
23:10
shout out too it's you know obviously your big guys were there that had some cool booths like,
23:15
i mean like or not i thought combat water files booth was kind of cool some beyond signs and,
23:20
hey you know mojo was there obviously had a giant spread those big guys always
23:25
have kind of cool booths and stuff but got to shout out the little dudes well
23:28
speaking of mojo i will say and big guys,
23:32
i'm highly disappointed in what lucky duck brought to that expo,
23:37
Oh, yeah. I mean, they had a big space filled with nothing. Right.
23:44
Well, Mojo, Lucky Duck didn't bring anything, and Avian wasn't there.
23:49
Now, obviously, Avian's, you know, some guys look at it and turn,
23:52
and that's fine, but I'd like to see their motion decoys.
23:56
You know, it would have been cool for them to do what Mojo did and have their
24:00
motion decoys out before you see them in action.
24:02
Well, and I was actually hoping to see Avian's decoys there because supposedly,
24:08
their splasher, their little butt duck splasher, whatever the heck it's called,
24:12
they made some improvements on it and fixed that water sensor switch that last
24:16
year they had a ton of problems with that wouldn't shut off.
24:19
Supposedly that's fixed this year, and they came out with a couple different
24:22
models. I think, well, I know one's a black duck, and I think the other one's
24:25
like a pintail, maybe, or something like that.
24:28
So I was hoping to see those there, and I was highly disappointed that they weren't there.
24:34
I was too. I'd like to talk about a couple of those big hitters that weren't
24:37
there. And I don't, I don't, I mean, I don't understand why,
24:40
but you know, too strong.
24:42
Well, the other one, the other one that I was really surprised that wasn't there
24:46
is JT calls. And he's, I mean, he's all over the place.
24:50
He's always, and he's hell easy. That's deer class. He wasn't this year,
24:53
but he even goes to the deer classic. So I'm kind of surprised he didn't have a booth there.
24:56
Only reason I can figure is because of the Ducks Limited Expo next weekend.
25:01
And that is closer to home for him, I believe, because I believe he's from Indiana somewhere.
25:06
So I think Memphis is a little bit closer for him.
25:09
I'm not 100%. I know he was at Squad Fest last weekend, which was in Missouri, St. Louis. Right.
25:14
And then skipped out this weekend. So I wish I kind of knew why.
25:18
I mean, I feel like there was more space in the expo hall for some booths.
25:23
The main room was completely full. The main room was, but...
25:27
The second room, I feel like there was room for more.
25:30
There's still a lot of people there. I mean, it was awesome. Yeah, there was.
25:34
A couple, yeah, talked to a guy about some decoys. Pretty cool silo decoys, I thought.
25:42
Yeah, he kind of roped us in on that, didn't he? That was selling one-on-one. Hey, you guys hunt?
25:49
You guys goose hunt? I instantly said no. Nope. Perfect. Come check these out.
25:54
And he still explained them all to us. So, I mean, hats off to the guy.
25:57
He seems super nice. And actually, like you said, those silhouettes kind of
26:00
seem pretty cool. I mean, it's a flat style.
26:03
Yeah. I got his card here. I don't know what the name of him was. Flat up or?
26:08
Yeah, something like that. Something like that.
26:12
But yeah, essentially, instead of your silo this way, your silo's this way.
26:16
And it has a, you know, the print is the top of the bird. And then your stake
26:20
is actually the beak that goes down to the ground.
26:23
Reversible. I think it'd be kind of a cool addition to any spread if you're on any silos at all.
26:29
Another one that is a big one that wasn't there that I was pretty disappointed
26:33
about was Apex Ammunition.
26:36
Yep. I mean, that's what I prefer to shoot. I switched to them,
26:41
I think, three or so years ago now.
26:45
And I have never had a problem with their shells. And I was really looking forward
26:49
to talking to them while they were there. And they weren't there.
26:52
And Chris Phillips just said it top-down decoys. Top-down, that's what it is. Yep.
26:58
But no, I mean... Higdon wasn't there. Go ahead. No, it's just disappointing.
27:04
Some of those big guys weren't there. I'm trying to think of more. Was Higdon there?
27:09
If they were, I didn't see them. If they were, I don't think I... I didn't see them.
27:13
I mean, I can't remember. They might have been with somebody in somebody's booth, maybe.
27:18
But I know Bo Brooks wasn't there. Nope. I don't know.
27:24
It was a good show, but I do think next year in Kansas City,
27:28
I think they have a better chance at having a little bit more show out on that
27:33
one, I would say. I hope so, right?
27:37
A little bigger city, but maybe a little close enough south that we're going
27:40
to get some of these guys.
27:42
That's what I'm kind of thinking. They move three hours south.
27:46
They have a better chance at more people from Texas and Oklahoma,
27:49
Arkansas, Louisiana coming up compared to that extra three, four hours for people
27:53
driving. I mean, nowadays with fuel costs, that makes a big difference. It does.
27:57
Especially if anybody's you know them guys are pulling trailers and shit like
28:01
that so yeah um we did run into we brought up apex and reminded me did run into
28:06
that old boy pattern prose and i don't know what you thought but i thought it was a killer idea,
28:13
guy take he'll take oh yes box the box of either 12s or 20s and then he'll throw
28:19
three of each shell or different shells in the box so you buy one box of 25 or 50 bucks,
28:27
granted it's an expensive box but instead of buying six,
28:29
boxes at 30 or 35 or 40 dollars a box,
28:33
he'll send you that box of this mixed bag of shells sorry so you can pattern
28:36
them and then they does the choke tube rental,
28:39
sends you through i thought that was really cool yeah and then uh yeah you pay
28:44
him you rent them you send them back and if one if you like the one he just
28:48
charges you a little bit extra whatever it was to cover the cost of the choke
28:51
tube and you send the other two back yeah i mean.
28:55
It's an awesome idea when we stopped and talked to him for a little bit and
28:58
he was telling me about that it's like why didn't I ever think about that like.
29:03
Who wants to go buy five boxes of shells to try and pattern them?
29:08
And then, yeah, say four out of the five don't pattern worth the shit out of your gun.
29:12
You throw those away and then you're out. You know, that's a hundred bucks.
29:15
Four boxes of shells. Easy. Yeah.
29:18
So, yeah, that was a good, that was a cool one. He was a good dude.
29:21
Yeah. Yeah, it was. I think he was from North Carolina or something like that.
29:24
He was from the East Coast.
29:25
I was thinking Alabama. Either way. No. He's down south. Pretty sure he was
29:30
like a little farther east, but could be wrong.
29:32
So Griffin and Trevor here both said that Higdon was there and their booth was only two foot wide.
29:38
Probably why I missed it then. Yeah. And there was a couple of booths like that that were just tiny.
29:43
You know what I mean? Like whenever you see that stuff and you think about it,
29:48
you hear about it, it's like you think of this big booth with these big companies
29:52
having all their stuff there and not just having it all there to show,
29:55
but also having some there to sell you.
29:57
There was a lot of people there that didn't bring anything that could sell you,
30:01
and you had to order it and they would ship it to you. It's like, oh, okay, yeah.
30:05
I really didn't want to do that. I kind of, I miss the old days where you go
30:08
to somewhere and you could buy something and walk out of the store with it that
30:11
day rather than order it. Well, and I'm an impulse buyer.
30:14
It's like, if I'm sitting there looking at it, I'm like, oh,
30:16
that'd be sick. I'll buy it.
30:18
But if you're like, hey, go to the website and order it, there's a 98% chance I will not do that.
30:23
No. Because I'll go home and I'll think about it and be like,
30:25
nah, I don't need that right now. Yep.
30:28
Maybe I'll order it later. I'll order it. I'll order it and get a little closer
30:31
to season. Then it gets closer to season. Well, or then it gets to be seasons
30:35
here. It's like, well, fuck it. Maybe next year. I don't need that. Bye-bye.
30:41
Yeah. Great show. Like I said, next year, Kansas City, July 23rd through 25th.
30:49
So, hopefully that one's got, again, I think it's going to be a great turnout,
30:53
but hopefully maybe a little bit bigger players there. A little higher numbers for attendance.
30:59
Well, and it might help out that we might actually have a boost that one,
31:02
so maybe that'll help attract some more people there.
31:04
Oh, yeah. I'm sure about 1,500 people will come through that door.
31:07
I just want to talk to Tyler and Zai.
31:10
Who wouldn't? We'll get our Pokemon cards for Pookie if he shows up to the expo.
31:16
Ooh, that's a good idea. Giving out Pokemon cards. we'll go through and hide
31:21
one somewhere in a show. You should bring it to us. You get a signed set-cub-up plug.
31:26
Absolutely. Sick. But no, I mean, it was a great time.
31:30
Definitely look, hopefully next year we can make it down there.
31:33
Maybe even have a booth. Kind of see how things go.
31:36
You know, even Trent here, Trent's like, you got to have show specials.
31:42
Luke said L&M Custom Blinds wasn't his L&M Custom Blinds.
31:48
He built a blind for Brett this weekend, so that's why he's saying L&M Customized. Oh, okay.
31:53
And then Chris, he said you had to order Gerber rigs because they really didn't
31:57
have much there on Sunday, but they did have quite a few there on Saturday.
32:00
The whole table was full.
32:01
So maybe they just ran out of what they brought, maybe.
32:05
I don't know. They could have, but yeah.
32:08
Again, rigs are something that if I'm in the moment, I'll buy a couple dozen
32:13
so I'll make sure I've got them.
32:14
If it comes season time, I'll be like, I'll just run these same kinked up ones
32:18
that I've been running and it'll be fine.
32:21
Well, right here, I kind of want to yell at this guy right here,
32:24
Brett Billsmith. He said it was a good show, he thought.
32:28
Now, you were here in Des Moines and at the show and you didn't get a hold of
32:31
us until us you were there?
32:32
And don't lie, you didn't think. That's terrible.
32:37
Ban that guy right now. I do want to say, I'm not trying to say it was a bad show by any means.
32:43
It was a good time. Yeah. And there was a lot of stuff there.
32:47
Like, if you didn't go, you definitely missed out on something pretty neat that
32:51
doesn't come around very often.
32:53
But for what we were expecting, it was not as many people and not as good of
32:59
a show. Like, there was a lot of stuff there, but the lack of people that showed
33:01
up was, I thought, not very good for what should have been there. Yep, I would agree.
33:07
Let's move on let's get into some of this stuff we got on top here get into
33:12
I'm going to start with little North Dakota.
33:18
Fall flight forecast yeah so this just came out today from North Dakota it's
33:26
pretty promising a little bit exciting kind of it's kind of what we thought
33:30
was going to happen this year with,
33:31
water like them getting a lot of rainfall last year halfway through the year,
33:36
and that rainfall continuing through this year.
33:40
So the duck brood numbers are up 55% from 2025, and North Dakota Gimmin Fish
33:46
migratory game bird biologists expect a fall flight of ducks about 9% higher
33:52
than last year, which is awesome news.
33:55
I mean, you could take it with a grain of salt to a point. You know,
33:58
obviously they know more than we do about it, but these are all estimations,
34:03
but that's still exciting either way you look at it.
34:06
It gives you some hope for some better numbers, whether it actually turns out
34:10
or not, whatever. But if you can go into the duck season with a little hope
34:14
or luck on your side with that, then great. Absolutely.
34:21
Yeah, so what we're saying here, yeah, so mid-July water index,
34:25
you know, we just talked about what kind of rain they were getting last year
34:29
or late last year and then this year.
34:31
So 2026, mid-July, it's up 36% from last year. Well, that's crazy.
34:38
That's a lot. Yeah. We're saying, you know, additional, you know,
34:44
precipitation in the Delos Lake area created excellent wetland conditions,
34:47
which, yeah, I'm sure it would.
34:49
What also says there the far northwestern got considerable rainfall which when
34:55
we were up there this fall northwestern North Dakota was dry like there wasn't
34:59
very many potholes left up there it was so dry I wasn't up there with you remember I wasn't invited,
35:05
but just cause you're not cool enough to go on trips yet,
35:09
understandable it's hard to argue with that logic get your shit together and
35:13
we can figure that out obviously you're not gonna go this year either cause
35:16
someone decided to try and have a kid,
35:18
right before duck season yep well I still might go I'm not having it.
35:27
That's true but yeah might be difficult on this fall.
35:34
But yeah, so like temporary water was abundant in a lot of areas this year.
35:39
North Dakota's long-term duck production.
35:41
So it made a big impact and it's allowing them ducks to have more water and
35:48
places to spread out, get away from predators, and also not just be so crowded.
35:53
I mean, when there's a lot of birds on one marsh, your production numbers are going to be way lower.
35:58
Yeah, yeah. And if you want to talk about, I know it's not probably something
36:03
you love to hear, but if you want to talk about what kind of birds where they're
36:07
seeing the highest percentages, right?
36:08
Like obviously, mallards aren't listed, I know, but Gadwall compared to 2025, Gadwall's up 97%.
36:17
Pintail's up 76%. Redheads are up 76%.
36:21
And they're saying that that is the, for redheads, the highest recorded in the
36:25
62 years of doing the survey.
36:28
That's wild that Gadwall had a notable increase of 97%. It's a lot of Gatwals.
36:35
And I will say, whenever they implemented the three-pintail limit this past
36:41
year, after having some down years, I was like, okay, well, that doesn't really
36:45
make much sense when the numbers are down.
36:48
But, I mean, from all the reports I've been seeing, it's been nothing but positive
36:52
on the pintails this year in numbers-wise.
36:55
Yeah. Yeah, I think every, you know, we looked at a few of them,
36:58
and I think all of them have been positive growth for this year.
37:02
Yeah, I mean Yeah, my favorite duck had a little bit of a down year again I
37:06
think, I can't remember what we said I think it was up from last year Yeah, shut up,
37:13
I run a lot of coots over On accident They just don't get out of the way They're dumb.
37:24
But yeah. Blue wing teal though, and blue wing teal and gadwall.
37:29
So that's pretty cool. It didn't, what does it say here?
37:32
They were all blue wing teal and gadwall were the most common broods recorded
37:35
during the survey. So that's what they've seen the most of, nearly 53%.
37:40
That's a lot. It is. Get that early season target practice going.
37:46
Good for them though. I mean, that's, yeah, hopefully we get to see some more
37:49
gadwall. I mean, I feel like we haven't seen as many gadwall.
37:52
Like last year, I know we didn't see near as many Gadwall as we did the year before.
37:56
No. I mean, yeah, because I think two or three seasons ago, it's like I couldn't
38:02
keep them out of the spread.
38:04
They were coming in from all directions. And yeah, last year,
38:07
a couple groups, but nothing major.
38:10
No, like the year before, not this most recent one, but the year before,
38:14
me and Pookie were out a lot, just me and him.
38:15
And there was a lot of days where he could have killed our limits of Gadwall
38:19
in no time because they were just everywhere. I remember one day,
38:22
it was really foggy, and that's all you heard was gadwalls flying over,
38:26
just meh, meh, meh, meh, meh.
38:29
I like a good gadwall. I mean, I honestly enjoy shooting gadwall.
38:32
They're a lot of fun. They're really annoying when they do gadwall shit.
38:38
But sometimes they can be a major pain in the ass to work, like a pintail. Yep.
38:43
But if they went in there, man, nice six or a gadwall.
38:49
They do it pretty cool. Well, they do it similar to a mallard, honestly.
38:52
And I mean, they're a similar bird to a mallard, but it's always fun shooting,
38:57
gadwall. It's fun shooting ducks in general. I don't really care who you are.
39:00
Yeah. Other than redheads and canvas back and, you know, all the fiber ducks.
39:08
Yeah, and I think, you know, you get a nice Drake gadwall. I think they're a
39:12
good looking bird, too. I think they're underappreciated.
39:17
Absolutely. Before we jump into the Minnesota stuff here, I wanted to,
39:22
while we got some people listening, make sure if you're new here that you click
39:26
the subscribe button, follow button, so you don't miss any of our live updates.
39:29
And if you're listening on your preferred podcast destination,
39:32
make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes that come out.
39:36
We're getting close to some waterfowl seasons kicking off here.
39:39
I mean, we're about just over two weeks away, so things are going to be starting
39:43
to get interesting. We'll start having more and more hunting stories come out
39:46
and whatnot. That's when I'm going to get real fun.
39:50
Do some lives from the boat.
39:52
Well, we're pretty far away from that yet, but we're, that was bright.
39:56
We're getting close to some early goose seasons. I think North Dakota is August
40:01
15th, so that'll kick off. Not a lot of people go up there for it. It can be a lot of fun.
40:07
It would be. I like, I like to get early, I mean, around here anyway.
40:11
You find a nice cattle pond for an early goose. Man, we just do it dirty and dumb.
40:17
Yeah, and let us know. Let us know if you're heading to North Dakota.
40:19
Share, I mean, let us know how your hunt goes. Share, I mean,
40:22
if you had a good time, let us know.
40:25
I like hearing all the stories of a trip that either goes good or bad.
40:29
Sometimes the bad trips are the funnest.
40:32
I think I've told more stories about bad trips than I have good ones.
40:36
That's because you've had a lot of bad ones. Kill it numbers.
40:40
You walked right into it. Walking into that one. Dang. Shit.
40:46
Dang, dude. Anyway, on to Minnesota. I'm done with you.
40:51
Yeah, so Minnesota is considering an alternative three-duck bag limit.
40:56
And obviously, South Dakota and Nebraska have already introduced this or offered
41:03
it. Yeah, I don't know. What are your thoughts?
41:06
Well, my first thought is, is there going to be a restriction on hens for mallards,
41:12
canvas backs, I think redheads are what, two in the Mississippi Flyway? Yep.
41:18
Are they going to restrict that stuff? Because how do you give somebody an option,
41:24
to shoot three birds of any sex or species of duck, but then a guy that wants
41:29
to kill six ducks is held to these stricter guidelines?
41:35
Right. Because I think we did see Minnesota when they introduced it,
41:38
it would have been three of any species and any sex, right?
41:44
Yeah. So on this line right here, it says under the new proposed system,
41:47
hunters would choose between the two daily bag limit options before purchasing
41:52
their license, which Nebraska, I know for sure does have this because I go there often.
41:56
But the standard bag limit is the six birds with additional sex and species
42:01
restrictions, as every other state has. and the Mississippi flywood, and all the flyways.
42:07
And then the alternative would be three birds of any sex, any species, of any duck.
42:14
Just have at them. Burn them to the ground. Kill all three mallard hens. Fuck it.
42:19
I mean, I would think, I could be wrong, but I would think the majority of guys
42:23
are going to go six, right? More birds.
42:26
And just follow the guidelines. But that was advocate. And obviously I don't
42:30
know, with Nebraska already offering it, how many guys,
42:34
again, keeping honest people honest, about how many guys are going to say,
42:37
I got the three, you know, I'm doing this three pack and end up shooting six ends.
42:42
They'll hide, you know, hide the three if you get caught with three or shoot
42:45
your three and that stud Drake that just happened to fly in at last minute type deal.
42:50
I mean, I.
42:53
Yeah. So, like, here's one of their quotes from the whole thing that,
42:59
for the reason why, it says, waterfowl numbers have declined significantly within
43:04
the past 20 years due to many factors, which, that's been a known thing.
43:08
I mean, duck hunters are a dying breed. It's been dwindling away.
43:12
Public access has been dwindling away.
43:14
But the many factors include varying bag limits for certain species and sexes
43:21
of ducks that complexity may be a barrier to new or inexperienced hunters,
43:27
said the migratory game bird consultant, Nate Huck.
43:31
Duck identification can be difficult and could prevent potential hunters from
43:35
getting into waterfowl hunting.
43:38
Now, that, I just don't agree with that.
43:42
I mean, anybody that wants to get, like, I remember growing up as a kid.
43:45
I mean, it could be different for me. I grew up, I grew up waterfowl hunting.
43:48
I didn't have a choice but to like it.
43:50
If I didn't like it, I'd have been kicked out of the house.
43:53
Right. Yeah, I'd have been sent to the home.
43:56
But it's not that hard to, especially with modern day technology,
44:03
to learn a duck identification chart.
44:05
Right. And, you know, I didn't grow up doing it like you did.
44:08
So i will tell you you know i'm still behind where you are on identification,
44:13
there's definite times where i'm like kind of squinting up and i'm like,
44:17
i don't know you know or i'll ask you what it is like you but i'm learning you're
44:21
right you still have to figure it out like,
44:24
well and that's part of the challenge right part of the fun in it for me because
44:27
i mean i'm not perfect i can't i don't know all the time what every duck is
44:32
coming in and sometimes i just don't shoot because i'm I wasn't sure what that was.
44:35
Right. And you know what? If you shoot a rainbow teal, sometimes things happen. No, don't do that.
44:42
Everybody's got to learn you know this is it's,
44:46
we're kind of circling right back into like a participation truck thing like
44:49
oh is it hard do we need to make things easier for you grow up learn the ducks,
44:54
i mean that's that's almost exactly what it feels like it feels like,
44:58
they just think duck hunters are too fucking stupid to know how to what not
45:02
to kill and what to kill which i mean to a point we might be a little bit,
45:06
a little bit slow but i feel like we can figure out a bird i mean you're gonna
45:10
make mistakes every if there's if there's somebody that's been doing this for
45:14
more than five maybe or ten years you know,
45:19
not many people can say they haven't made a mistake at some point and if you
45:23
tell me you haven't i'm probably gonna call you a liar you're not gonna call
45:27
you a liar you just are a liar 99 sure,
45:30
and odds are if you're getting into it you have somebody that's been doing it
45:34
longer like i'm not saying it doesn't happen but I would say the majority of
45:38
the time it's, you know, like me, it was a buddy that said, Hey, let's go.
45:41
And I was like, ah, sure. I'll give it a shot, you know? So then you're with
45:44
guys that can identify these ducks.
45:49
But I don't agree with, you know, and the other thing is, I don't agree with
45:52
being able to shoot three hens.
45:53
You want to complain about bird numbers, but we're going to up the limit on
45:57
how many hens we can shoot?
46:00
Well, you know, they do say that hunters don't have an impact on the population, which, that's wrong.
46:08
I mean, you can't tell me we have zero impact on population.
46:12
I will say, I do believe that hunter impact on population is relatively small.
46:17
Well, I'd say it's very small.
46:18
Compared to mother nature herself and also man-made disasters as in draining
46:23
wetlands and eliminating wetlands in general.
46:26
I will say that's, we are below that and probably predators.
46:31
I will say we're down below that too, but it's still there. Like there's still
46:37
a lot of waterfowl hunters out there and not people that just hunt one state that travel and do it.
46:42
So, you know, say a guy from Minnesota goes out and hunts 10 times and kills
46:48
30 mallard hens himself, by himself.
46:51
Yep. That's as many as we could do with a six-duck limit in a 60-day season.
46:56
He can do that in 30 days now.
47:00
That's kind of wild. I mean, you know, obviously look at the lesser, look at the pintail.
47:05
The one bird limit. They'd only kill one. So now we're just going to take that
47:08
and be like, ah, you know, a group of four does it right and kills three of the hens.
47:14
Well, you know what I mean? You took, you're tripling the damage to the birds like that.
47:20
Right. It's, I don't know. It's weird. I'm not a fan of the three duck limit.
47:25
I think you should be held accountable. You should, if you want to get into
47:28
the sport, which I hope everybody wants to get in the sport and wants to learn it.
47:32
They don't just go out, just act like they know it all, like Pookie does.
47:40
But, I mean, it's a lot of fun. And I think part of the challenge and the fun,
47:45
is learning how to identify a bird and knowing when and what to shoot at.
47:51
I mean, I remember going out for the first time by myself, and a three-pack
47:56
of large snow geese came in, and I didn't shoot, and I called a friend,
48:00
and I was like, what are these?
48:04
I was like, dude, I'm about to smoke three snows. He's like,
48:05
don't do it. Don't do it. It's not a snow geese.
48:10
Three large snow geese.
48:14
We call those greater northerns. Yep. Yep. He's like, they're making kind of
48:19
noises like, huh, huh, huh. I'm like, yeah.
48:21
Exactly like that. How'd you know?
48:25
Oh my gosh. I didn't see him. He told me not to, so I didn't.
48:30
But that's part of it, right?
48:33
It's a story I can tell, and hopefully some guys are late and be like,
48:36
yeah, I've almost messed up too.
48:39
I've been reading this next line here, trying to figure out this. Okay, so it says, an,
48:45
interesting twist is that reportedly those individuals who selected He said
48:49
the three-duck bag limit were less likely than individuals who selected the
48:53
six-duck bag limit to harvest species with lower bag limits such as canvasbacks,
48:59
hen mallards, redheads, and scalp.
49:02
And they left out a few other ones in there, but, I mean, I get their gist.
49:06
Maybe that's because there's not as many of them.
49:10
Yeah, I don't know if I buy that. I think that's just by chance. Yeah.
49:14
You ask the four 50-year-olds that just want some gadwall to throw in a crockpot.
49:21
I don't know. I'd like to hear everybody else's opinions on this.
49:25
If you're in the live right now listening to this, if you have an opinion on this, comment this.
49:30
Shoot us your input before we get off the live here. We'll be ending this here
49:34
pretty quickly, next five, ten minutes.
49:37
And if you're listening to this podcast on any whatever you listen to it on doesn't matter,
49:42
get with us shoot us a message on Facebook Instagram comment on YouTube if you're
49:47
listening there I think you can comment on Spotify,
49:49
tell us your thoughts on this I'd be curious to see what everybody's general
49:53
thoughts are on that not just ours you know because I mean obviously we're just,
49:58
two retards sitting in some chairs talking into some microphones,
50:02
right and if if you're going to give it to you know if you're going to give
50:04
us your opinion that's great and we want to hear it but also you can do it through
50:08
the Minnesota DNR as well if you're passionate enough about it to let them know,
50:13
you can say stuff until August 17th is when they'll.
50:20
So you can do that online and then they will answer your questions for the public
50:24
at a webinar on August 6th if you have time I don't have the link for that,
50:29
but if you are free on August 6th I'm sure it'll be in the afternoon Look it up for the MD&R webinar,
50:39
and you can get on there and ask them your questions live, and they will tell
50:44
them to you or answer them to you.
50:46
Go from there. I mean, obviously, if you're against it or for it,
50:51
get online, voice your opinion, let them know what you think,
50:55
because if you didn't voice your opinion and it goes through,
51:00
you can't bitch about it. Yeah.
51:03
It's just one of those things. so if you don't like it.
51:07
Talk now or forever hold your peace. If you don't say nothing,
51:11
you could have been the one person that could have helped change that from not
51:14
happening or happening.
51:16
Vice versa. Yep.
51:19
But all in all, I feel like we had a pretty good podcast here.
51:23
Really, it's been a pretty informing one. Positive one, really,
51:26
with the fall flight forecast that was released from DU and,
51:30
not DU, but North Dakota today.
51:33
So that's exciting. I've seen, I've said DU because I've seen DU put it on Facebook
51:38
today after I'd already seen from another friend of mine on Facebook that lives in North Dakota.
51:45
Yeah, a little positive note. A little hopefully some positive.
51:49
I don't want to focus on negatives, but a little positive on the expo as well.
51:53
Some positive duck numbers.
51:55
And we'll see some potential changes. So a chance for everybody to kind of make
52:00
your voice heard and give your thoughts on it.
52:02
Absolutely. Like I said, if you live in Minnesota, and you are for or against it,
52:09
don't miss out like all of us waterfowlers do and put it off,
52:12
put it off, and then you don't voice your opinion and then you're all mad about
52:16
it when it goes against what you wanted.
52:18
Yeah, and then you're on the Iowa Waterfowlers page bitching. Yeah.
52:24
I'm sure they got a Minnesota water followers page out there.
52:26
Oh, probably. I just didn't want to assume.
52:29
But I will say, I mean, looking at our numbers for the podcast recently,
52:33
we do have a lot of listeners in Minnesota. So it's kind of cool that this came
52:37
up, that we could talk about it because we got a pretty good viewership up there.
52:43
Yeah. Let us know. We're curious to hear your guys' thoughts.
52:49
What else do you got to add? Anything, Zach? You want to close it up with something
52:52
here before we get off of here? like any kind of punchlines, jokes, anything.
52:58
Well, don't let your pussy willow, don't let your meatloaf. You know what I'm
53:00
saying? Damn it, boy. Life's a garden, baby. Dig it. Just keep on keeping on. All,
53:08
right. Never doing that again.
53:14
But we appreciate everybody tuning in tonight and or wherever you're listening
53:20
between now and our next podcast.
53:22
But please make sure you subscribe on your preferred podcast destination to
53:26
keep up with all our latest episodes we're on Apple, Spotify YouTube,
53:31
Amazon Podbean and iHeartRadio and,
53:36
there's Facebook out there too, it's on we've got a couple interesting ones
53:39
coming up so keep us in mind,
53:42
yeah, I've got to confirm for next week but we could have a special guest next
53:46
week so you won't want to miss it it's a pretty cool one,
54:04
We're up to over 3,500 followers now on Facebook. We greatly appreciate every
54:09
single one of you following along for the ride.
54:13
Love you guys. Peace.