Latest / DuckFellas Podcast / Duckfellas: Feathers, Fast Boats & Blind Banter (Episode 1)

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Duckfellas: Feathers, Fast Boats & Blind Banter (Episode 1) · DuckFellas Podcast

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This is the Duckfellas Podcast, your weekly dose of waterfowl wisdom,
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blind banter, and hunting stories that might just be mostly true.
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Hosted by Tyler, Cade, and Austin. Three fellas chasing feathers and some good times.
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Do us a favor and hit that like and or subscribe wherever it is you're listening to that.
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Awesome. Hi, I'm Tyler. Joined by Cade and Austin.
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We'll get into a little bit of intros of ourselves here at first.
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I guess we'll start with me because they didn't want to go first.
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Losers. Someone's got to do it. Might as well be you. Why has it always got to be me?
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You're a fearless leader. I'm feared.
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Basically, myself, I grew up hunting the Mississippi River, southern Illinois.
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My whole family's done it, dating back to my great-great-grandpa.
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And it's just something we've always done. And pretty much if you didn't do
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it, you were kicked out of the family.
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More or less have been at times too anyways. So, but yeah, still kicking at
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it and been doing it my whole life.
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I'll go on to Cade. I was going to say, who's next now?
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You. Pookie goes last. I'm Cade. I'm Pookie goes last. Pookie.
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Pookie good boy. I'm Cade Higday. I have grown up around the Des Moines area
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and live in Knoxville now.
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I actually had to look back today and figure out when I started waterfowl hunting
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and it was 2014, which actually kind of surprised me.
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It feels like it's been a lot shorter of a time than that.
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But yeah, season 12 and yeah, excited to actually get some birds here.
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It's still mid to late October here and shit's kind of going slow.
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Last but certainly not least, I'm Austin Little.
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I don't have to look back at how long I've been doing this.
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This is my second full waterfowl season,
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and I just got lucky enough to become friends with my other two hosts here for
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the podcast, and they have taken me under their wing. You're welcome for that one.
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Good pun, good pun. Yeah.
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Ha ha thank you someone has to be funny in this group of three guys oh is that
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all you got I don't think that was it buddy it'll get better don't worry we're
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looking forward to that good,
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I guess now we'll just get into a little bit of what we want to get out of the
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show and kind of who we want to reach and what we want to do I mean for me It's
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kind of neat just to talk and share hunting stories.
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I enjoy looking back on the seasons we've had, you know, we,
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us as a whole, we haven't been hunting together all that long.
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And really it's our second full year, basically hunting together,
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but we've hunted together throughout the past.
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Me and Cade off and on, since I moved to Iowa eight years ago,
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then Austin, you know, he likes to tag along like a leech during the week when he's not working.
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But it's always fun to talk to people and meet people. I enjoy meeting people
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and taking new people out.
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And hopefully we can get to know some people from this.
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What about you guys? What are you guys looking to get out of this?
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Kind of the same thing. It'll be interesting to see like kind of who we could
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get on the show and talk to.
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I know like Austin was mentioning earlier, it was kind of a joke about getting
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some of the conservation officers and like the Corps of Engineers guys on.
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But I feel like if we could actually land a couple of those people and kind
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of have them talk through why they do some of the things they do,
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it'd be really informative for some of the people that don't know.
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I can agree with that. I definitely look forward to getting some guests on here. Other than Austin.
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Right. I respect that decision. Yeah.
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So really for me, I mean, last year being my first full waterfowl season,
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pretty unconventional, I would probably say for someone's first full waterfowl
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season, I got the opportunity to hunt a bunch and kill a lot of birds.
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So that was pretty cool to do.
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Got the opportunity to hunt with quite a few different people, mostly out of the boat.
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So I'm pretty spoiled in that aspect as well, too.
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I don't like being cold. Don't ever really have to worry about that. Yeah.
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Yeah, that's really where I'm at with it.
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Yeah, but you're pretty much professional now since you got the Sidco Waiters this offseason.
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Yeah, so I would call myself a semi-pro.
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I'll give you that. To the field. Yeah, but, you know, maybe someday people
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will think of me in the same tier as Beach and Hig Day, so.
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Oh, man. I'm widely hated.
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I don't know about... I don't know if you want to reach that.
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Well, one way or the other, I mean, your name is still in people's mouth,
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whether they love you or hate you.
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I won't dispute that there's probably a lot of hate going on.
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It's all on fun. We know you for sure live rent free in one guy's.
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That'll happen. That will happen. It will indeed.
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Uh, you guys ready to jump into this thing? Might as well. Might as well get into it.
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All right. So anybody that knows us, and if you don't, we'll kind of inform you here.
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We kind of have like a more, more aggressive style to how we do things.
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And obviously Tyler spends a lot more time with it than I do,
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but we're all passionate about it.
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And Tyler just gets the chance to eat, sleep, and breathe it for at least a month every year.
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So let's kind of go into what we think or what
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like classifies like an aggressive style of
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hunting what goes into that for me the aggressive styles you know personally
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is hunting public ground and just the competition of you know hunting next to
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people all the time and you got people they either are trying to set up close
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to you or you know you may scout a spot for
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a couple two three days or a week even and then
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you show up the next morning and there's somebody there and all that
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time you spent trying to find those birds and pattern them
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is pretty much wasted you just got to go
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to the next line and try and see if you can kill them somewhere else which we
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have been very successful doing that in the past last year i mean last year
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was pretty pretty easy to kill ducks where we hunt it was like probably one
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of the better years since since about seven eight years ago probably now.
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And it also goes into the calling. Like we're, we get pretty hard on them at times.
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We'll scream at them to get their attention, but you also got to know when to back off too.
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And notice that the ducks just ain't liking it.
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I feel like that's one of the hardest parts too. Like once you can efficiently
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run a call, it's easy to overblow them. And a lot of people don't understand that.
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Yeah. I mean, it's not that hard to make a duck call sound good enough to call in ducks,
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but it's hard to know when and how to call it ducks at times because every duck's
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different and they're all going to react to the calls different other than migration days.
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I mean, you could shoot fireworks off and they're probably still going to land in your decoys anyways.
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I love those days. Yes. They're kind of fun. They're definitely way easier than
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trying to shoot stale birds.
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The stale birds make you, make you just want to go out to make breakfast and go home sometimes.
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But those burritos, those burritos hit. That's kind of another thing too,
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that goes into that aggressive style of hunting.
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Sometimes we're the first people on the lake and the last one's out. I mean...
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Once we get the boat backed in, it seems like we're pretty much not leaving
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until there's nothing flying or we're done. One of the two.
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Yeah, there's a lot of days where we go out and as long as nobody has any plans
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that day or something they have to get home and do, we'll sit out there sun up to sun down.
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I mean, I got nothing better to do during hunting season anyway,
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so I'm all about sitting out there sun up to sun down.
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Other than when Austin has to
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go to work. Yeah. Well, our significant others, at least for Cade and I,
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would definitely disagree that we sometimes don't always have better things
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to do than sit in a boat on the water during the middle of November from sunup to sundown.
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Yep, that is actually how that works.
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Just can't win them all. fortunate enough for me like I have quite a few days
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off during the middle of the week so at least those regular business hours,
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like I don't have to worry about my wife hollering at me that it's time to come
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home because she misses me I get to hunt until she gets home at least fair enough.
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Next thing we'll talk about we'll briefly touch on this stuff because I feel
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like you could have an entire episode of what goes into this and when to use it and how to use it.
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But I feel like we have a pretty general group consensus about how we feel on these kind of things.
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So let's kind of go into what we think about spinning wing decoys,
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what kind of water motion decoys we like, and stuff like that.
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I wish they weren't needed at all, but there are some days they're needed.
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Spinners for me, if I could leave them at the house, I would definitely leave
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them at the house but there are days where they're flying up there in the clouds
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or the sun and they won't look at you until you put one out and then at least
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they'll get their attention and then you can work them,
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I prefer to prefer to just leave them in the bottom of the lake.
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Especially for me, like being so new at this,
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like the only thing I know is those days that you do need spinning wings and
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like motion decoys have been getting so much more popular too.
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So it seems like everyone is just trying to add those to their spread to make them more realistic.
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And I mean, we have some here and there that we use on occasions when wind is
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low or when we think that we just need that added motion to get those stale
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ducks that Cade was mentioning into us.
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Yeah i almost feel like anymore like the
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the spinners are so popular that damn near everybody
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has two to three of them i feel
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like we're kind of going into more of like water motion
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being more important than and spinners obviously like you said tyler there's
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there's days that you can at least if you use them and shut them off when you
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get them close you'll you'll get their attention and and get them at least interested
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and then you can work them from there but But I feel like strictly running a
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spinner all the time is not quite the way to go.
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Yeah, I could agree with that. I mean, there's been a lot of days where we've started with them too.
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And we have them out there because, I mean, everybody runs them.
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And then we end up pulling them because the birds just aren't finishing right
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or they're kind of working but kind of not.
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We pull them and we're the only ones out there without a spinner and all of
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a sudden they're eating us up. We've had that happen numerous times.
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It's days like that where you just got to kind of look around them. Try things.
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Yeah, for sure. All right. So let's kind of wrap up the, the aggression here
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and we'll kind of go into some, some more laid back stuff after that.
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What do you think makes this aggressive style of hunting work for our group?
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I know a lot of other people try it and they don't quite have as much success as we do.
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Like you mentioned, Tyler, we mainly, well, we do always hunt public land.
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Like you said, we got people trying to set up on top of us and all that other
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fun stuff. but it almost always seems like we're one of at least two or three
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groups that are really getting into them. Why do you think that is?
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It's, it's hard to say. I mean, I think it's got a lot to do with hide.
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Cause I mean, there's a lot of boats that will pass either when we have to leave
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early or we're killed out and they're still hunting and you just drive past
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when you look at it and it's like, did you even, are you trying to hide?
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I mean, usually when we show up in the morning, but then we get the,
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boat, the big boat putting spot first and we go cut willows.
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We'll cut down willows or we'll find some cattails or whatever we're hunting
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in and we'll match the boat to whatever we're hunting in and try to really conceal.
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I mean, I'll sit there and cut till the shooting time pretty much.
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And just to make sure that the ducks ain't going to see us or try to.
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And so they still see us some days anyways.
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I think that's really our biggest thing is we do a lot more in concealment than anything.
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Some days, I think decoy spreads do make a difference in how they're laid out,
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but then there's days where I don't think it really matters if you have a dozen or if you have 200.
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It just depends on the day on
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that side of it, but the concealment's a key thing every day, I feel like.
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I've always thought the same thing too. It's hard, like when we go hunt with
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other groups, it's hard to kind of pound that in somebody's head,
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like, Hey, spend the extra hour and go cut way more stuff than you think you need.
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And you'll end up going to cut more. I promise. Yeah, for sure.
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What about, how about Austin? Like, look, cause you're from your perspective being new into it.
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Like what have you noticed from the past year and a half or so to hunting with us?
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Yeah. So for me personally, like sitting back and watching, learning so much
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stuff every single time that we go out, hide is incredibly important.
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And you guys being the two guys that I primarily hunt with, like some mornings
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you just don't want to do it, but it's like you have to.
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And I truly do think that that's why
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we're so successful and why you
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guys make me get up so early to get out
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there get up on time that is true yeah
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i was gonna say when days you show up and wake up i
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try to you know today i i've
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i've had you guys knocking at my door i've also had
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to knock at your guys's door fair enough yeah fair
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enough from somebody that is not a
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very good or should i say very good with a
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duck or goose call yet working working on
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it getting better every single day so like being able to
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sit back and listen to you guys call at birds compared to the other people that
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are hunting out there on public land like I think that that's huge too like
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just the amount of birds that you guys have seen in your life or over your hunting
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career and like how you can turn birds and.
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Basically just talk to them, like get them to do.
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It seems like you guys are just so good at getting birds to do exactly what
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we want them to do, even on the days that we don't think they're going to do that.
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There's been a lot of times like that where you're getting, takes the first
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few groups to learn what the ducks want that day, and then you kind of put the
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puzzle pieces together.
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And I mean, it's like it's like every day is different on how certain birds
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are going to work, which that can be a whole nother topic, too,
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in a day of calling techniques at birds.
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But it's always changing, I feel like.
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Oh, absolutely. If we're if we're out there and the first couple groups of birds
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don't do it how they should or how we think they should.
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It's just kind of cool to watch you guys
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like all right well clearly they don't
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like something so now we have to figure out
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what that is and fix it whether they're catching a corner of the boat or they
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don't like like maybe we didn't leave them enough room in the decoys to where
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they can feel comfortable so like i feel like we're constantly changing stuff
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on our days to continue to be successful in hunts.
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Tyler, I feel like you and I almost always start off a little bit light on the call and then...
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If anything is wrong with it, we're like, all right, we got to start hammering them.
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I always love those guys. Like first shooting light, they are just absolutely
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hammering on that thing.
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And we're just like, why? It's, it's early there.
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Like, especially the no wind days, it cracks me up. It's like,
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you don't have to be that hard on them.
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Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, first light anyways, that's when the ducks are flying
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their lowest. I mean, the soft quacks and the little hen cackles here and there
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and just a little bit of chuckle.
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And I don't like the big, fast roll and feed chuckle, but the little bit of
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chuckle here and there and the light calling in the morning is always my favorite to do.
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I hate just ripping on it at 6.30 in the morning in their face.
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Yeah, it's always weird those days that we do start off.
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I mean, like you eventually find out later it was a little too light. But it is always weird.
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Like every single time that that happens, by the end of the day,
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you are freaking wore out just from blowing a call that hard all day. It's annoying.
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Do you get your cheeks get all sore? And then like by the end of the day,
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like you can hardly blow the call. You need a tube of chapstick when you're done for the day.
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Yeah. As Austin's eating the chapstick. Yep.
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Yeah. My favorite is mint. Not eating the eggs. Noted. Sick.
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It's the first episode one time into it I just had to get it out of the way
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sorry no it's better to get it out of the way in the first one Austin than like
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the next you know anywhere I do remember,
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every single one of you guys still eating that breakfast even though there was
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no eggs in it so clearly it was not that big of a deal no it did turn out okay
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but it would have been a hell of a lot better if it had egg in it yeah,
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I think that was the earliest day we cooked breakfast last year,
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too, because we cooked it before shooting time.
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Yeah, that was the only day that I remember we cooked before the sun was up. Yeah.
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And Austin just had to ruin our mornings, like before we even got to shoot a
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duck. I'm pretty good at that, yeah.
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But we got that fixed this year, though. Your wife's going to pack lunch or
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our breakfasts for us whenever you're in charge of breakfast.
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Yeah, I know. That's, that's why I said that I would just be in charge of the
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cooler with the pans and it, that way I can, my wife even offered to do it. Right. So.
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I like it. I think Austin told her on a sidebar to do it for him so he doesn't
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get made fun of anymore for it.
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Well, that way I can just blame it on her if something's wrong.
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Fair enough. That is fair. These guys are mean to me. Can you make us breakfast?
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All right, Austin, go ahead and lead us into the next segment of the show.
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All right. The next segment is going to be hunt season prep,
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which can be way different for every single person like i said earlier we primarily,
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as long as we have water get to hunt
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out of the boat so for us is a lot of brushing in the boat brushing in the panels
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that go with the boat what do you guys think about more specifically the boat
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and the blind and how we have to brush it in.
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I think Cade skipped out on all the brush work this year. I did.
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You got this crazy thing called a job. That's ridiculous.
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We did do all the brushing during the week this week or this year,
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but it was just me and Austin this year, which is normally for me I have to
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do it on a weekend, so we can get five, six, seven people there.
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Kind of sucked. Yeah, the year before there was like seven of us,
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and I'm like, oh, this isn't that bad.
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This year being just me and you, I'm like, I'm so tired.
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Yeah, it's a lot of work for sure. I feel like it was a lot easier this year,
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though, the way we did it using more grass this year.
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Just because I don't feel like we had to use it much. We put that grass on as
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that base layer, and it covered it up so well.
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Hopefully it holds up through the year. We'll see how that goes.
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If not, I know where more is.
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There's plenty of it there. But yeah, it was an entire day's worth of cutting
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grass, cutting willows,
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multiple trips with the little boat full of whatever cattails as well, too.
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We cut a couple loads of cattails.
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And then between cutting it, getting it all back there, putting it on the boat,
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like, I mean, it was, sun was going down.
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When we were finishing up i mean what did we work on it for like was it three
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days that we took and just brushing
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the blind cut between cutting and then actually putting it on yeah,
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yeah no because it was every day that i was off of
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like i used all of my off days during
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the week between cutting brushing cutting
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more and doing the divider panels
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and kind of a different style with that this year too so i do like how we did
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that this year hopefully i think it's going to look really good and hold up
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better than it did in the years past well that's really i mean that was my hope
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with those divider panels because those things just get tossed around and slid,
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on top of the blind and like you're
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constantly leaning on them like breaking stuff off of them So I'm hoping that
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the style that we tried this year with how hard that we use them holds up for
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us maybe a little bit and we don't have to maybe continue to add to them throughout
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the season like we did in the past year.
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If you didn't have old Carl Ramrod driving that boat, they wouldn't slide around as much.
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Who's Carl? You.
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I don't know what you're trying to say here, but I'm not liking where this is going.
23:27
Sorry that I like to go fast.
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That's true. There's nothing wrong with like going fast. It's just you don't
23:34
just like going fast. You have to be the fastest.
23:40
I mean, there's that. If you're not first, you're last.
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That is true. Dude's a huge Ricky Bobby fan. Dude, I got the Fig Newton sticker
23:49
on my windshield installed the other day. Epic.
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All right. What else do we have with hunt season prep?
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What do you guys prefer? You guys obviously doing this a lot longer than me.
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I mean, there's a ton of different things that people use to brush in their
24:08
stuff, whether it's boats.
24:11
Blinds, layouts, and such between fake grass, real grass.
24:16
Like what have you guys seen that works the best, looks the best,
24:20
and maybe holds up the best?
24:22
It's kind of, I mean, holding up the best, I feel like your synthetic grass
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probably does a little bit better than your real stuff because driving down
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the highway, and I mean, you're at highway speeds when Tyler's driving the boat anyway.
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But i feel like the i i personally like more like doing the real vegetation
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because that's what's in your area that you're going to be hunting sometimes
24:48
i've seen like i've seen a lot of times that when people brush their whole boat
24:53
with fake grass and then they just go stick it,
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in whatever's around where they're hunting it sticks out like a sore thumb and
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it's like at least cut some of the real stuff and put it on there and try to make it blend in,
25:06
but do you have a big yellow boat next to some green willows?
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Yep. That does tend to happen quite often. Brand new synthetic grass.
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That's just bright yellow.
25:17
Couldn't even put some brown spray paint on it to at least make it look a little bit used.
25:23
Looks like a school bus out on the water.
25:27
Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that. Kate, I got.
25:32
All depends on your boat situation too if you're talking like brushing boats
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i mean obviously if you're hunting a smaller boat and
25:38
you have a your smaller motor on it you're gonna want
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to go with mostly synthetic or just fake
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stuff because it's so much lighter and lucky for us we
25:47
don't have to worry about weight because we need more
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weight to make it run better especially in
25:53
the little boat now yeah but i mean you can't you can't beat a natural vegetation
25:58
vegetation hide i think if you you're using ditch weed or fragmiety or cattails
26:05
or willows i mean and me personally and we mixed it all this year in it and
26:09
it's the first year i did it that way to begin with,
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and it it just looks the most natural and you can fit in any scenario i feel
26:17
like because you got a little bit of everything on there and it almost looks
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like a big beaver mound up out there in the Marsh. A big one.
26:26
Yeah, that kind of leads me into the next thing.
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Would probably best suit Tyler. I was going to talk about what boats that we
26:36
use, and they both just happen to be yours.
26:39
We use ones that float in water and have motors.
26:44
Big, big motors.
26:47
So I got two of them. I got the Havoc 1756, and we, up until this year,
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had a Boss 75 on it, which was always the talk of the town wherever we went
26:58
with that, because there's just not many of them out there.
27:01
And it was a cool motor, but I hate service drives.
27:04
It's just, they don't, I like to go fast and they don't go fast.
27:07
No matter what you do to them, I don't care. They don't go fast.
27:11
Even when you build them up, as soon as you put a load on them and you load
27:15
them down, you're either going to blow it up or it's going to slow way down anyways.
27:20
Or both. Yeah, that too. So
27:22
now that boat got a 115 on it this year and I'll
27:26
let you guys talk about that for a second here on how that
27:28
runs that thing freaking rips we
27:33
went out yesterday and finally got the the break-in period well partial break-in
27:38
period done and we were able to if we could run it wide open we would have but
27:44
little little rough conditions yesterday at 50 freaking three miles an hour
27:51
and it starts lifting the boat out of the water.
27:52
I kind of said that was enough. Chicken.
27:57
You know, it was just really nice getting the opportunity to be out on the water
28:03
and kind of, I know we're talking about hunting prep right now and seasons in
28:09
full swing has been for a couple of weeks now,
28:12
but our season really has yet to come.
28:15
So we're still kind of in our preparation right now before Tyler gets home for
28:20
when we're really in our full swing.
28:24
Daddy's coming daddy's coming yeah that
28:28
that boat is uh freakishly fast
28:31
and will also be the talk of the boat ramp just not for how loud it is anymore
28:38
yeah no i'm you guys got me so jealous right now just talking about it and sending
28:44
me pictures and videos and i haven't really got to run it like that yet you
28:48
guys have got to open it up and i'm just sitting here wanting to go fast,
28:52
yeah i feel on things fun for sure and kind of like we were talking before we
28:57
started once we get a load of decoys in that thing and get some weight in it
29:01
it'll be even better i think.
29:04
Yeah that that'll definitely help it just it's a really light boat for a 115 with a lot of motor,
29:11
yeah yeah yeah no it was it was nice to get it out work some of the quote-unquote
29:18
i guess kinks out of it from the first time that Tyler and I had it out and
29:22
just put some hours on it and get it broken because that thing,
29:27
I feel bad for that thing.
29:30
Come next week, it is going to be used and abused by its owner.
29:36
Yes. Yes. I don't, I don't know why you guys got to just say,
29:39
I'm just going to abuse everything.
29:41
I'm just going to use it the way it was meant to be used. I was in the boat
29:46
the day that you got laughed at for having an outboard and boxcar.
29:49
I remember how that worked.
29:53
They weren't laughing. No. After, uh, after, afterwards.
29:59
No, it's, that, but it's, it's always been a topic, mud boaters and outboards.
30:05
There are scenarios where I think you need them, but I just don't like them.
30:09
I like to go fast and I can get, I mean, how often have we not been able to
30:13
hunt? because the water was too low and we couldn't get, I said we couldn't
30:16
get the boats there. Not very often.
30:20
Usually just in the beginning of the season. It's like the first week or two,
30:23
and then the water's up where we need it and we're good to go.
30:26
And that's the thing too, like you do it right with your outboard stuff.
30:29
You put nice jackplates on them and you're able to go a lot more places than
30:33
like a standard outboard would be able to go. Right.
30:38
The jackplate makes a world of difference. If you don't have a jackplate on
30:41
it, I mean, yeah, an outboard is somewhat useless in a lot of scenarios.
30:46
Unless you want to walk the boat in 200 yards or whatever it ends up being,
30:51
we don't walk the boat in but we can get about anywhere on plane but I have
30:57
walked the boat out a couple times yep yeah sometimes you just send it a little too hard,
31:04
you no way.
31:07
We'll get it I guess getting off the little boat we'll move into the big one
31:12
that that is my baby that is a I had it custom built six years ago now.
31:18
It was either six or seven years ago.
31:20
I think it's six, but it's a 23-foot plate boat.
31:23
And I got originally a 200-horse Mercury, but it is now pushing about,
31:28
I think it's 343 horse on it now.
31:33
So it'll get up and move that boat. And I'm excited to see how well it moves
31:36
with that blind on it because I haven't ran it with that blind on it yet.
31:40
Yeah, what was it before you did that last update to it? Like horsepower?
31:47
It would have been like 260, 270 roughly. Actually, I think it was closer to
31:51
260 because it was the throttle body.
31:53
I upgraded to the bigger throttle body. And then this year I did the tuning.
31:59
But when it was, I think I got, wasn't it like 73? I said I got out of it this
32:04
summer when I did the tuning.
32:06
It was right at 70 something.
32:09
That was about an eight mile an hour faster than I've ever had it before.
32:13
I think I've had it like 65-ish before I did the tuning. So.
32:17
We should gain five mile an hour, hopefully, in the blind, which will put us
32:21
mid-50s and clip in 60. Hopefully 60.
32:27
Don't get it wrong, people. He does other nice upgrades to his stuff that don't just involve speed.
32:35
Like the big boat got new headlights this year that are insanely bright,
32:41
and it got new carpet in it, which is very, very nice to have that new carpet as well.
32:48
Well, you got to be able to see when you're going 60.
32:52
The problem is, is you, you, you really got to plan ahead when you're going that fast at night.
32:57
Yeah. You got to know where you're going before you really go.
33:01
Otherwise, those headlights really not fun. Yeah.
33:05
It doesn't matter if it's three in the morning or high noon.
33:10
Those boats run at full tilt. Always.
33:13
We'll see how Austin runs that little boat the first time he runs it.
33:20
Especially on one of those like 25 mile an hour wind days. Yeah.
33:24
Yeah. So back there just getting soaked. Those will be the days that I try not
33:29
to race you and I just suck up in behind you.
33:33
That way. That'll be your best option. Yeah. That way I don't have to visit
33:37
a chiropractor every single day.
33:41
It doesn't ride that rough in the back though. When you're back there.
33:44
It's just in the front. Yeah.
33:46
You guys said that the, that tiller torque was all, not all out of it,
33:51
but way more manageable after you guys adjusted that tab on the bottom of the lower unit.
33:56
Yeah, it's way better now, which I didn't run it before we adjusted it,
33:59
but the way you guys talked about it and how it would spin a death circle at
34:03
idle. Yeah, it's way better. Yeah.
34:07
You, you did not want to let go
34:08
of the tiller handle before cause you were instantly making a right turn.
34:12
Yeah, it doesn't do that anymore. It's a lot more fun to run.
34:16
It, uh, yeah, you can now run it longer than 10 or 15 minutes at a time and
34:22
not feel like you need your shoulder replaced.
34:27
Are getting old yeah coming
34:30
from the oldest one in the group that's crazy i just
34:34
had to get it out on you first before i knew attack was
34:37
coming eventually on me so there's only one of us in our 30s
34:40
in this group and it's not kade and i nope you
34:44
are closer than me though i'm creeping in creeping
34:47
in we still got some time yeah you just had a 10-year class
34:50
reunion you're getting old too i feel it
34:53
don't get me wrong i feel it i would
34:56
say you look like it but right now i can't see you so i
34:58
can't i couldn't tell you yeah you guys think that
35:01
the camera doesn't work i just don't want you guys to see me
35:04
did your
35:07
spray tan get messed up today or what it did yeah i'm
35:10
gonna have to talk to the wife about that one she's slipping you
35:14
have just straight up thrown your wife under the bus this entire
35:17
episode yeah well they they
35:21
liked this idea to start their
35:23
own podcast too so if you guys get the chance like go
35:26
listen to that because i get thrown under the bus a
35:29
couple times in that i haven't i haven't listened
35:32
to it yet you need to send me the link for it i'll have to do that yeah i think
35:36
really to wrap up this hunt season prep i'll just finish out talking about the
35:42
other things that like we personally have to prep for whether it's I mean shoot
35:47
we got a lot of new stuff this year so I'm really excited for that.
35:53
We're mostly done, about ready
35:54
for Tyler to come home. We got the hours knocked out on the little boat.
35:59
The stove for Mr. Burrito is cleaned. The Burrito Bandit. Yep.
36:05
The Burrito Bandit. I like that. That has really blown up in the past year.
36:11
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so we have essentially new heaters now.
36:17
I mean, all the parts in them will be new, which is nice for me because I get
36:24
cold all the time, and I hate being cold.
36:27
You really enjoy the wrong sport for hating to be cold. I know. I know.
36:33
I mean, I got these nice new waders this year, though, with over double the
36:38
insulation for my feet. So I'm really hoping that that makes a difference.
36:44
Yeah, but you do know that the rest of the waders are uninsulated, right?
36:48
I do. Yeah, which is not a problem at all. My legs don't get cold.
36:53
It's my feet. Twinkle toes.
37:01
I've never seen a man show up to a boat ramp with just a blind bag full of the
37:06
hot hands and the freaking toe warmers.
37:10
Dude, those saved his life last year, though. Yes, they did.
37:14
I get a new pack of them every single year for Christmas.
37:20
My family knows that I get cold. They never let me run out. Very thankful for that.
37:26
Weren't your old waders leaking too? They were, yeah, actually on both legs
37:31
they were leaking too and with only 600 grain boots, and I'm like, not ideal.
37:38
Especially once they get wet too. That makes it way worse.
37:42
Yeah there was a couple there was a couple mornings putting decoys out where
37:48
I was just absolutely hating my life with how cold I was,
37:53
I remember there was one day I even specifically asked the boat owner if he
37:58
had enough propane for the day.
37:59
We made it about an hour and a half with propane and heat. And then I was worried
38:05
Austin was going to freaking die.
38:07
I was a popsicle. Yeah.
38:09
Wasn't that during goose season? Yeah, we were all dressed for heaters.
38:14
Yeah. I know. I'm a busy guy, dude. I have a lot of things going on.
38:18
You said it had enough propane, though.
38:20
I forgot that Austin uses a gallon a minute.
38:25
That's fine I would have offered to bring A whole nother propane tank That I
38:30
had sitting in my garage All you had to do was say something You're like no
38:34
it's fine I have plenty We in fact had not plenty,
38:40
We should honestly just leave a spare one in there Well I plan on it Put it
38:45
on the front I did that a lot last year too though During duck season And it's
38:49
just goose season's a whole different, it's really a whole different game compared
38:53
to duck season on preparedness.
38:55
Yeah. And it's either 20 below or 40. Yeah.
38:59
Yeah. So we're either fighting as thick of ice as the boat will break or we're
39:04
out there staring at ducks landing in our decoys all day and no geese. Yeah.
39:09
Well, do you guys think that I missed anything or anything that I didn't bring
39:13
up hunting season prep that we do or you think that people should do?
39:20
Everybody's going to be different on things they should do. I mean,
39:22
it just depends on how, what they're hunting, if other it's kayaks or layout boats, all that stuff.
39:28
So, I mean, I think we got it pretty good there. Not everybody gets the luxury
39:32
of hunting out of a Cadillac on water.
39:36
A super yacht on steroids.
39:39
Hear you guys complaining. No, I'm not complaining at all. I thoroughly enjoy
39:43
it. I love the party barge.
39:48
I suppose that'll roll us right into our next one, the hopes for the season, Tyler.
39:55
What are your hopes for this season? To kill ducks.
39:59
Plain and simple. Just to kill ducks. I mean, just straight wax them.
40:04
No, I mean, I always, when it comes to the expectations for hunting season,
40:09
and I always have high expectations for it.
40:11
The fact of the matter is you're limited to what Mother Nature gives us.
40:15
I mean, like this year, the month of October, it's been chilly,
40:20
but there just hasn't been much of a migration yet.
40:22
There hasn't been no weather in Canada yet to really push them out of there and get them moving.
40:27
I mean, even the guys that are in Canada are saying that they're not moving.
40:31
They're just living their best life up there on the tundra.
40:35
Can't say I blame them. Like you said, it's been cool, but not cold by any means.
40:39
And you kind of need some weather to push birds.
40:42
We're just now getting into the thirties at nighttime. Yeah. So.
40:47
Well, that's, I'm in Michigan and we haven't, and we got our first frost like last night.
40:52
Last night was the first good frost we've had up here. And that's,
40:56
to me, that's crazy. But.
41:00
If we're basing it off of last season, that's going to be a hard one to beat as a whole.
41:07
Because last year, pretty much every day we went out, we were killing double-digit
41:12
ducks, even if it was just two of us.
41:14
Me and you've talked a bunch, Austin. I think last year we killed our limited
41:19
ducks every time we went out, just me and you, except for once or twice, we said.
41:23
Yeah, I believe it was twice. and one of those times was because of the puppies.
41:31
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that.
41:35
That damn dog.
41:37
I'll tell you what, though. She's a trooper. She retrieved a goose and then
41:41
10 minutes later went into labor and shit out a puppy.
41:44
In the back of the boat. Yeah.
41:47
Yeah, me and Austin both started packing up very quickly.
41:51
Yeah. I think that's the fastest I have ever ran a boat in my entire life was
41:56
going back to the ramp that day.
41:58
Wasn't that like your first day ever really running a boat in general?
42:02
It was, yeah, and I don't think I had to run your little boat with that boss
42:07
on it that hard any other day. No.
42:12
So that was an exciting day. But no, we had last year, I mean,
42:16
even the weekends, the slow weekends, because generally the weekends are a little
42:21
bit slower unless you get a good push of ducks on a Thursday night or a Friday.
42:25
Even the weekends were always consistent. I mean, we had some slow ones,
42:30
but it was very few bad days.
42:32
I can count the bad days on one hand out of the whole duck season last year.
42:36
And I think I hunted probably 40 or 45 days of our duck season.
42:40
And I mean, it was hard to beat. I feel like it's going to be hard to match even.
42:47
Like you were saying, there was a lot of days that, yeah, we might not have
42:51
shot our four or five-man limit, but we were damn close to it so and that was on the weekend days.
42:59
Not normal right well and half the times that we didn't kill in it just partially
43:04
our own fault for either calling shots wrong or just shooting like crap yeah
43:08
and i know there's been days where we don't have our guns loaded when geese
43:13
come in it's crazy yeah we could have had a limit that day,
43:17
or or one of us only has one shell in a gun whenever it's their turn to shoot the single,
43:24
And then you whiffed said shell.
43:26
That's because I was panicking. I warned you guys. I yelled,
43:30
I only have one shell as I'm pulling up. You did.
43:34
That's honestly probably one of my favorite memories of last year.
43:39
Of all the ducks we shot and all the good times we had out there,
43:42
I feel like Tyler consistently loves to just let us shoot at the singles.
43:49
And when we miss, it's just constant banter back and forth.
43:53
So to have a little get back in Tyler from that day was priceless for us.
44:00
Yeah, that hurt. That stung.
44:03
You held on to that one for like a month, dude. Yeah.
44:07
I mean, hey, we all miss, but I just hate being the one that misses the single
44:12
because then you get picked on.
44:14
It's more fun to pick on everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't hit anything
44:17
that day. That was why I had my gun unloaded.
44:20
I know, and then a good, I can't remember how many it was, but it was a good-sized
44:23
group of geese that came in, and me and Austin were like, oh,
44:27
what's your gun? And you weren't next to your blind bag.
44:30
I think we still dropped like three or four out of it. I think we did still
44:33
drop four out of it, and we very easily could have been done for the day on that pass.
44:41
Not the way I was shooting that day. I probably would have not dropped one.
44:47
Never know. I mean, I had those days too, though. Austin was there the one day
44:51
we were shooting all them gadwalls and teal.
44:54
And I could not hit the broad side of a barn that day.
44:58
I think we spent three extra hours out there that day. Three hours.
45:03
Because it was just me and you.
45:05
And it was bad. It was bad. That's probably the worst. That's honestly probably
45:09
one of the madder times I've seen you.
45:15
Well, guess what? That last teal that came in, he really got the wrath. Yeah, he got wrecked.
45:22
I made up for it but no i mean like i remember it was it was probably six years
45:28
ago now i think it was like one of the first years i had my big boat these are
45:32
the first year of second year,
45:34
we were supposed to go to north dakota and i used to always
45:37
love going basically this coming week this week
45:40
here the halloween week in north dakota and they
45:43
got a foot of snow they got a foot of snow covering both
45:47
Dakotas and I mean all the way down in Nebraska dang near so we changed our
45:51
plans and we went somewhere else and we just you couldn't hit it any better
45:56
when we went there and that whole year was just crazy cold and this year is
46:02
the total opposite I mean I'm outside in t-shirts this year still.
46:08
It does tend to be like that this year. And I normally, I mean,
46:13
like you get the colder days that are actually cold.
46:17
Like you need a coat to go outside and then it might warm back up again.
46:20
But we haven't even had the cold days at all.
46:23
Yeah, we haven't either out here where I'm working right now.
46:26
It's been, I feel like it's been abnormally warm. But then you look at the,
46:30
you watch the news and you see what the average temps are.
46:33
And we're actually averaging right at the average or lower. so it's like just
46:38
goes to show how inaccurate our seasons are I feel like how early they start
46:43
compared to when they probably should,
46:46
well we can either have our water on time or cooler temperatures,
46:51
earlier but we have our water on time this year and mother nature just does
46:57
not want to cooperate with giving us any cold true cold fronts this year to push some birds around,
47:05
Not yet. It's coming.
47:07
I feel like we're going to get a... I think when the weather turns,
47:10
it's going to turn quick.
47:12
Yeah, for sure. All the signs that I've seen and noticed for the trend this
47:16
year has been... I feel like we're in for a rough winter.
47:19
We might be moving to hunt fields earlier than normal. Because water might freeze up.
47:25
On that topic of water, get into like... How do we feel like...
47:32
Areas managed for, they do manage it for waterfowl hunting to a point.
47:36
So like the core, the core brings, draws the water down in this,
47:40
usually in the spring after the reverse migration's done and the birds are on
47:44
their, already out of here.
47:46
They bring it down to about two feet, two and a half feet below winter pool.
47:50
So the cattails and grass and millet, that stuff can grow up.
47:55
How do we feel that they've done with managing that?
47:59
I know it's, it's hard to manage because it's a flood control lake,
48:01
but with what they've been dealt with.
48:04
I feel like, I mean, when we were getting all the rain that we needed to bring
48:09
the lake up and they just kept letting it all out, I'm like,
48:11
can we at least hold a little bit back?
48:13
So when we don't get rain, like right now, we still have some water,
48:16
but they timed it out about right. I feel like we're up not quite to where we
48:22
want to be, but at least have enough water to get around where, where we want to hunt.
48:26
And yeah, like we were just saying, we're just waiting on birds now, which is boring.
48:32
I'm glad I'm still working.
48:36
Austin, you got anything over there? Did we lose him? We may have lost Austin.
48:43
Shots. Well, the show must go on.
48:49
Is he back yet? I don't think so. It'd be nice if you had a camera,
48:52
you could see him. I know.
48:55
Been staring at a black screen for the past 50 minutes now.
49:00
I mean, we're getting close to being done here anyways, but I wish he'd join
49:05
back in before we're done.
49:06
I do wish, I wish they would do, I know it's the core, which I just found out
49:13
last year, we're not required to send water downstream to anybody.
49:16
It's just for strictly flood control for Des Moines.
49:20
But I do wish they could do a little bit better on it.
49:24
I wish they'd finish this work on our dam, so we wouldn't have any more excuses
49:29
of why they're keeping the water a little bit lower than normal.
49:33
Not bringing it up when they should bring it up. Yeah, but we know how this works.
49:37
I'll just find something else to have a reason why they can't bring it up or
49:41
can't take it down or whatever.
49:43
Yeah, no, they are professionals at figuring that out. Oh, yeah.
49:47
Oh, I think he's back. I am. I am back. Sorry.
49:51
Oh, you're good. We were saying it would have been nice to be able to see that
49:55
you weren't there anymore. I know.
49:57
I know I thought about texting you guys, but then I'm sure you would have found
50:01
some way to make fun of me.
50:03
For it did you disconnect or did you just leave the chat no i had to use the
50:09
restroom did everything come out okay yeah it did thank you for asking just making sure.
50:15
You're lucky you can't see me right now so we
50:19
were talking about the water levels i'm i don't know if you were here for that yeah
50:23
yeah no so i mean i only missed like probably
50:26
30 seconds or so like i heard you guys talking
50:29
about the water levels i feel like i don't
50:32
necessarily have too much of
50:35
an opinion on it just because i'm so new to this the
50:38
only thing that i ask is that there's enough water
50:41
back there to get the boat around that's about
50:44
it pretty much i mean i could i concur with
50:47
that that's the easy way to put it right yeah
50:50
yeah straight to the point i like it austin yeah
50:53
yeah i mean sweeten give us
50:56
water and give us it now yeah they have
50:59
it so why don't we just keep it yeah we're
51:03
close to our winter pool they won't bring it up that next that last
51:06
six inches that would be very very
51:09
nice yes indeed it would it's amazing
51:12
how much that makes a difference in areas just that little bit of water and
51:17
not necessarily or at least from what we were talking about yesterday going
51:21
back last year and looking at the lake levels not necessarily to get into places
51:26
but to be able to get back on plane and get out of them quicker yeah.
51:34
Where it's at now, we can get everywhere we want to go anyways.
51:38
It just might take us a little bit longer to get back out. And that would be
51:43
where a mud motor would come in handy, is getting back out of the place.
51:46
But it would take us a long time to get there.
51:49
And a long time to get back. Yeah. I feel like the time that you lose trying
51:54
to get back out, you make more than enough getting back to the ramp. Yeah. I could agree.
52:03
We'll just keep going here we'll briefly touch on this because I think this
52:07
last thing is a whole topic and argument in itself with not just people in ARIA
52:14
but people up and down the Mississippi Flyway especially.
52:18
Refuges that's a widely debated thing refuges aren't a bad thing you do need
52:26
refuges the problem with them is when they plant food in the refuge.
52:32
There should not, in my opinion, I don't think there should be food in a refuge.
52:36
But do you guys think, or how much do you guys think having numerous refuges
52:41
around you when we're hunting?
52:42
Because like where we hunt, well, there's essentially three because the big
52:45
open ocean is a big refuge for them.
52:48
But having two other ones, how do you guys think that affects us hunting-wise?
52:54
I agree with you on the food thing and both of ours have food in them.
52:58
So that's kind of a gray area.
53:01
Like you said, we could get into a whole freaking debacle on that one.
53:05
But to avoid that, the birds have to have a place to rest.
53:09
If they don't, they're just going to find somewhere else to go that they're
53:12
not getting shot to shit every single day.
53:15
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, really just to piggyback off of you guys,
53:21
I agree exactly with what both you are saying. but it never fails as soon as we get stale birds like.
53:30
Towards the end of November-ish, depending on weather or the very last week
53:35
of the season, there's about three or a handful of spots that you can go check.
53:42
And it's just birds are absolutely piled in there because they know they're safe. Right.
53:49
Yeah, I kind of want to keep it minimum on those because I haven't told you
53:54
guys this yet, but I do want to try to get my dad on here at some point.
53:58
Because he works with a lot of big groups up and down the Mississippi Flyway
54:03
on refuges and the changes that could or potentially happening.
54:08
So we'll keep it short on that. I'm going to try to get him on.
54:12
He'll talk for way too long on those topics. So we can keep it short on our side for now.
54:19
Bring in the OG killer, the real Papa Deitch. Oh, Jesus.
54:25
We'll see. He's not much of a talker. sometimes. But when he gets going,
54:29
he'll go. So we'll see if we can get him on here at some point.
54:33
I think you'll have to just give him a phone call and not tell him that he's
54:37
on the show and just let him rip.
54:41
That would be funny. He would have no idea. Yeah. The problem is the things
54:45
that he might say may not be the best.
54:50
Yeah, we're definitely going to have to put that in the title or the intro.
54:55
If you try to spring that on him and surprise him that maybe younger listeners,
55:01
should not tune into that one.
55:04
Give it the little explicit tag.
55:09
I mean, do you guys have any more, anything else that
55:12
you'd like to add as we come to a close here and in
55:15
this first episode of many more
55:18
to come hopefully i don't think so i feel like pretty much everything we kind
55:23
of made a list as a group before we even started this thing but we have a lot
55:27
of topics that will be damn near a whole show so we don't want to have like
55:32
a two-hour long show every time and try to keep it a little shorter than that.
55:36
So I say we save as much as we can for, for later episodes. I would agree.
55:45
Short and sweet, straight to the point. I love it.
55:50
No, I agree. I mean, going forward, hopefully we can keep these,
55:53
you know, between that 45 minutes to an hour marks, kind of my goal,
55:57
unless other than the times we have a special guest,
56:00
which will be from time to time, hopefully here but on
56:03
that note i think that pretty much wraps us
56:06
up here and i don't see much
56:09
more else we got to go here as uh
56:14
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56:22
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56:42
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56:47
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56:55
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