Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Prairie Update, Duck Fat, and Misinformation (Ep. 717)

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Prairie Update, Duck Fat, and Misinformation (Ep. 717) · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:03
  Mike Brasher: Hey everyone, join us on today's episode where we connect with Doctor. Scott Stevens and we hear about some habitat and hunting updates from the Prairies. Scott spent a fair bit of time here the past few weeks hunting in Saskatchewan. We hear how those trips have gone, and then we hear about some of the things that he's got planned, and then we just talk about a few other things that I'm sure you'll be interested in waterfowl, waterfowl hunting related. Stay with us.
• 0:32
  VO: Can we do a mic check, please?
• 0:34
  Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast.
• 0:36
  I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Hemphith. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.
• 0:50
  Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.
• 1:16
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• 1:38
  Mike Brasher: Everybody. Welcome back. I am your host on this episode, doctor Mike Brasher. It is October, and I am excited to announce to everybody that's listening that our guest on today's episode is none other than That's right. It's Doctor.
• 1:59
  Scott Stevens, joining us from parts up north. Doctor Scott Stevens is our senior director of Prairie and Boreal Conservation Strategy in this time of year. He is also one of the go to people for updates on hunting, migration, habitat in that super important area that we'd like to call the Prairie Pothole Region. Scott has lived in the Prairie Pothole Region for how many years now, one part or another?
• 2:26
  Scott Stephens: Well, I'm outside it right now.
• 2:29
  Mike Brasher: But Is that I did not realize that.
• 2:31
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Western South Dakota is not in the Prairie Pothole Region.
• 2:34
  Mike Brasher: I don't keep track of exactly the geographic location of where you live. I mean, the specific area. I just know South Dakota
• 2:43
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I am outside of Duck Country now.
• 2:45
  Mike Brasher: But Alright. Before that, can you go along with me here? Before that.
• 2:49
  Scott Stephens: Before that.
• 2:52
  Mike Brasher: Winnipeg's not even in the I'm
• 2:54
  Scott Stephens: gonna It's it's technically outside, but, yeah, I didn't have to drive too far to get into country there.
• 3:00
  Mike Brasher: Okay. Well, what if I say doctor Scott Stevens has lived in proximity to the Prairie Pothole Region for how long? Two decades?
• 3:11
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Two and a half decades.
• 3:13
  Mike Brasher: Ever lived in the Prairie Pothole Region? Yeah. You did when you were in Bismarck.
• 3:17
  Scott Stephens: Well, Bismarck's technically outside. Right? Yeah.
• 3:20
  Mike Brasher: Is it? This isn't going the way I planned it. Actually, I didn't plan it, so that's probably the way you'd expect it to go. Bismarck is not in the PPR. It's right outside it.
• 3:31
  Scott Stephens: Well, it's like right along the Missouri River. Right? So so you gotta go a little bit east to get in glaciated stuff.
• 3:41
  Mike Brasher: Okay. So back to my other question. Have you ever lived in the Prairie Pothole Region?
• 3:52
  Scott Stephens: Good question. May maybe not now that we dive into the technicalities, but I've spent plenty of time there even though I'm not living in the Prairie.
• 4:00
  Mike Brasher: I just I just took all the credentials that I thought you had and flushed them down the toilet.
• 4:05
  Scott Stephens: You did, and you didn't you didn't know you were going there,
• 4:08
  Mike Brasher: did you? I sure did not. I mean, I I thought I was on something good there, but, anyway, that's kind of the way it goes whenever we get together on these types of things to just sort of off the cuff, talk about the fun things that are happening this time of year, which is something that you know a lot about and have spent your your entire sort of independent and semi independent life taking part of, and that is this sort of annual tradition of chasing all the birds, chasing the ducks and geese. And so you've been doing a fair bit of that lately. Right?
• 4:39
  Scott Stephens: Yep. I have had a a few trips to chase birds, and yeah.
• 4:45
  Mike Brasher: So Whereabouts? Give us give us the locations where you've gone. Not not the not the coordinates. Can't do that.
• 4:51
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I've I've been in Saskatchewan for a few weeks now. Like, I think if, you know, over the past month, if you determined your residency based on where you've spent the most days, it would probably be Saskatchewan. Do get I'm gonna go back tomorrow.
• 5:04
  Mike Brasher: Did you get a visa before you came back in? I did not
• 5:08
  Scott Stephens: get a visa.
• 5:08
  Mike Brasher: You go back into The States. Your citizenship is still staying.
• 5:11
  Scott Stephens: They took my passport.
• 5:12
  Mike Brasher: Did they? Okay.
• 5:13
  Scott Stephens: They were like, welcome home.
• 5:14
  Mike Brasher: K. Alright. Well k. So you've been in Saskatchewan a fair bit. You're going back to Saskatchewan.
• 5:20
  Have you hunted stateside yet?
• 5:22
  Scott Stephens: I have not hunted ducks in South Dakota yet because I was in Saskatchewan for the opener here.
• 5:29
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. And then for your teal hunting back in was that yeah. Think you were in Manitoba there. K. Give us the rundown of how habitat conditions were over that time period and then across those different areas.
• 5:46
  And I think you know, tell us if things have changed at all.
• 5:50
  Scott Stephens: Not for the better. I was gonna say, what what is that quote about me being a dark cloud in a ray of sunshine? Yeah. Conditions are not great.
• 5:59
  Mike Brasher: We we rewrote part of an article, though, that's gonna be coming out because we were very pessimistic, and somebody was did some sleuthing and was like, yeah. We've had some rain in certain parts of the of North Dakota that have improved
• 6:13
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Conditions. Well, it's it's dry again. What? Like, soil moisture is dry.
• 6:17
  Like, I I know we also said, oh, there was some rain in Saskatchewan. There was some flooding in Saskatchewan. Well, I covered a big chunk of Saskatchewan, and it's still dry. Still very dusty. Soil moisture is not very good.
• 6:31
  So
• 6:31
  Mike Brasher: But
• 6:32
  Scott Stephens: we are we are not in great shape.
• 6:33
  Mike Brasher: I'm I'm gonna so Katrina Terry was we tried to get her on this episode because I wanted somebody to balance out My pessimism? That your pessimism, the dark cloud that you were gonna be bringing. Katrina, however, was not able to join us because she took off early today as she is entitled to do and and happy for her to do that because she is out scouting right now as we record this, and sounds like she's gonna be camping and then trying to shoot some birds before the end of the day here.
• 7:09
  Scott Stephens: So But she shoots upland birds too.
• 7:11
  Mike Brasher: So She does that.
• 7:11
  Scott Stephens: She could be chasing those guys.
• 7:13
  Mike Brasher: I think she's probably I
• 7:14
  Scott Stephens: don't know if she's chasing ducks or not.
• 7:15
  Mike Brasher: She's Do you? I bet she is. We we could make up that story for her.
• 7:21
  Scott Stephens: Well, in in Saskatchewan, I found ducks. It's just, you know, the wetlands that we hunted were semi permanent wetlands, and there was two or three feet of mudflat between any what used to be emergent vegetation. So, you know, that is not ideal conditions for semi permanent wetlands. There were still ducks using those. We harvested good numbers of ducks.
• 7:43
  But, yeah, wetland conditions were not great, and there was zero seasonal water, which, you know, as we talk about stuff, that seasonal water is really the engine of duck production. So you can see all those wetlands out in the fields. You know? They're grown up in kochia or they've been disc because they were wet and they're What is kochia? Get kochia?
• 8:08
  Yeah. Kochia is a is a weed. Oh. It's like, yeah, tumbleweed kind of stuff.
• 8:16
  Mike Brasher: Like, is it native?
• 8:17
  Scott Stephens: Well, yeah, I'm sure it's native, but it is definitely a a weed species. Okay.
• 8:23
  Mike Brasher: I'm gonna take another run at at trying to find some favorable habitat conditions in your narrative. So when we rewrote sort of a portion of our article, it's going be coming out, it's like 2025, Status of Waterfowl. Yeah. We painted this picture of optimism that maybe, kind of given recent moisture that had fallen across parts of the prairies, and the other thing that we can say right now is that essentially the entire Prairie Pothole Region, if you look at it on the North American Drought Monitor, it's out of drought. It's out of, what do they call it, meteorological drought.
• 8:58
  Right? Right. So it's out of that.
• 9:00
  Scott Stephens: So so we have had some precipitation. So I think that's a soil moisture thing. Right? Like, we're out of we're out of drought. We haven't had Is this below normal precipitation.
• 9:10
  Mike Brasher: But Is the soil moisture condition getting to a point where if it were to if it were to get super cold right now, you're gonna get a frost seal? It's not no.
• 9:20
  Scott Stephens: No. Not based on what I saw. Like, dusty, dry, cracks in the ground. Like
• 9:27
  Mike Brasher: And you drove?
• 9:28
  Scott Stephens: Not good.
• 9:28
  Mike Brasher: You drove from South Dakota to Saskatchewan? Yep. K. Well, I'm gonna be up there next week. I'm going up to a, not for hunting, but for a conference.
• 9:39
  You're going up for hunting. I'm going up for a conference. We are gonna try to get out and drive across the prairie one day, so I'll Oh,
• 9:49
  Scott Stephens: I'll get out. Rested in what you see.
• 9:51
  Mike Brasher: Where are you located? I'll get out, and I'll kick the dirt a little bit and see if I can get some dust to fly or if it's kinda kinda mucky. We're gonna be in Saskatoon, then I think we're gonna take a drive down towards Allen Hills. Check that out.
• 10:03
  Scott Stephens: So I was in the Allen Hills, Allendana Hills.
• 10:06
  Mike Brasher: And it's dry? Dry. It's been a long time since I've been been there. I have heard I know some people that have gone back there hunting the past couple years. I used to hunt with there seven, eight years ago, last time I was was there, and they said some of the conversion of of what remaining grass there was, you know, over even that short time frame is pretty dramatic, you know, a of a lot of areas that were of the the few areas that were in grass are now in cropland, and so that type of pressure is still still happening even in that landscape.
• 10:42
  So
• 10:43
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. That that continues, unfortunately, and and drainage of wetlands too. So yeah. I I would you know, hey. When when the report turns and, like, it's wet, you know, I will be glad to come back and tell you a story about you know, I had to haul the decoys in with a sled because we had to walk in the fields because it was so soft and wet that, you know, we nearly got stuck on the gravel roads.
• 11:07
  Yep. But that ain't the case right now.
• 11:08
  Mike Brasher: Got stuck on the gravel roads there in how many years?
• 11:12
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. A number of years. I I will get the Facebook memories from that time.
• 11:17
  Mike Brasher: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Scott Stephens: But I I forget how many years ago it was. Yeah. There was, you know, six inches of wet snow when I was in Saskatchewan probably seven or eight years ago, and it's like we were in four wheel drive on the main gravel road grid.
• 11:30
  Mike Brasher: Now I did see something just yesterday. I don't think this was a Facebook memory. I think this was, like, right now, they got snow across parts of Saskatchewan. Right?
• 11:40
  Scott Stephens: They did get some snow.
• 11:41
  Mike Brasher: And they got some rain. There was that system that came up, and there's some rain that dropped across Southeastern Saskatchewan, Southwestern Manitoba, and then in the Dakotas.
• 11:48
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. But the ground is thirsty is what I'm telling.
• 11:51
  Mike Brasher: But it's helped. It helps. Kinda give me a little bit.
• 11:54
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Right? Like like like I said, I I will be the first guy who will be overjoyed to bring back a glowing report. A glowing report is not available right now.
• 12:04
  Mike Brasher: There you have it, folks. That is the dismal report of the status of the Prairies from doctor Scott Stevens. It's still dry and dusty up there, and we need a lot of rain. What what well, this is true. This is all true.
• 12:18
  What about what about the ducks? What did you see in terms of that? Did you were you successful? You did we talked about this on a previous episode we just recorded earlier this week. People will hear about later on.
• 12:29
  But you were able to do some selective shooting, and so there are birds. Yeah. Shoot some young birds. Did you shoot some old birds?
• 12:36
  Scott Stephens: Some of both.
• 12:37
  Mike Brasher: Some of both.
• 12:37
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. Duck numbers were pretty good despite the fact that water was limited. I mean, there are sometimes when that's an advantage when you're hunting. Right?
• 12:47
  Yep. But, yeah, we hunted let me think about this. We hunted twice in the field and twice in the wetland. Is that right? Yeah.
• 12:59
  Was up there for four days. Yeah. Something like that. Twice in the field, two times in wetlands, and yeah. Did well.
• 13:07
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. You shot well?
• 13:11
  Scott Stephens: Shot okay.
• 13:12
  Mike Brasher: What do what do you shoot? You shoot a 20 gauge or 12 gauge?
• 13:15
  Scott Stephens: I took both. And the first day, we were hunting a wetland, and I shot the 20 gauge, and, yeah, I did pretty well. We came out with, I think, 23 green heads and one gadwall.
• 13:27
  Mike Brasher: Who shot the gadwall? I You're not gonna out that person.
• 13:31
  Scott Stephens: It wasn't me. Yeah. It was a guest that we were there with, and it's like, oh, you know, if you wanna shoot a gab, well, that's cool.
• 13:39
  Mike Brasher: That's right. Right. It's okay. I'm good with that. Yeah.
• 13:43
  And and so then you shot the 12 gauge subsequent day?
• 13:48
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. We had a little more wind. Let me think about this. Where'd we go? Oh, the next day we hunted cranes.
• 13:53
  You don't
• 13:53
  Mike Brasher: have a one shot that's your notes together for this episode, dude.
• 13:56
  Scott Stephens: I I don't have my notes together.
• 13:58
  Mike Brasher: Tell you really what we were gonna talk about.
• 14:00
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. First day we hunted ducks on water. Did pretty good. I mean, done with 24 ducks by, like, 09:00, so that was pretty good.
• 14:08
  Mike Brasher: Yep.
• 14:09
  Scott Stephens: So the friend that we had along had not hunted sandhill cranes before. We found a field that had, like, a thousand sandhill cranes in it. Okay. So that was tantalizing enough that I tracked down permission. You know, it's it's always interesting when you're getting permission in in Saskatchewan or the Canadian Prairies.
• 14:32
  I I had the guy's number from previous year, told him that I'd found some cranes. Could I get permission to hunt those? Yes. Sounds good. When are you going?
• 14:40
  And it's like, well, we were hunting ducks the next day, so it's like, plan to go Thursday. Well, on Wednesday afternoon, he text me, oh, another guy stopped. He may be out there too. It's like Oh. Yeah.
• 14:52
  That was not that was not what I was excited to hear. Most of the time, they will not do that. Like, if you're going Thursday, no one else will have permission for that same day.
• 15:01
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. But he thought it was gonna be he thought it was a more the more the merrier type of thing maybe.
• 15:07
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. He must have. And it was a it was a big field. It was like a half section of wheat, and there were cranes in there. What did
• 15:12
  Mike Brasher: you tell him?
• 15:12
  Scott Stephens: I think
• 15:13
  Mike Brasher: When he said that, what did you say? He was like,
• 15:15
  Scott Stephens: oh, okay.
• 15:15
  Mike Brasher: Well, thanks for letting me know.
• 15:17
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I said, thanks. We'll, you know, we'll we'll work it out. You know? Made made tried to make it easy on him.
• 15:25
  It's like we'll work it out.
• 15:26
  Mike Brasher: So He could have just been trying to maximize the probability that he actually gets, you know, some some sandhill crane, you know, shared with him. I don't know if you do that. Sometimes you do that, right, say thank you to the landowner that gives you permission to go hunting. You'll say, here, I'll share some of the harvested game with you. Especially with sandhill crane, it's certainly that's what I would do.
• 15:48
  I might even put if I had if I wasn't a hunter and if I owned a field up there in in Saskatchewan, but I liked sandhill crane, you know, and had a bunch of I might even put up a sign and say, come here to hunt sandhill cranes, and the more the merrier.
• 16:01
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. You could do that. So
• 16:04
  Mike Brasher: I wouldn't do that.
• 16:05
  Scott Stephens: So we got up early. It's like, okay. I wanna have choice of where I wanna be in the field, so we were out there way early.
• 16:12
  Mike Brasher: K. Yep.
• 16:13
  Scott Stephens: And then nobody else showed up. Oh. So that was good. I I think the other guy that may have stopped, there were some white geese in that field. Like, when we first saw it, they kinda went somewhere else.
• 16:24
  So I think that may have been what the other party was interested in was white geese.
• 16:28
  Mike Brasher: So hunting sandhill cranes like that, were you past shooting, or were you did you have some decoys you're trying to bring them into?
• 16:35
  Scott Stephens: We had some decoys out. We had a a frame blind set up in the field, all grassed up. Had decoys out. We also put out some dark goose decoys. And, yeah, like, most of them weren't trying to land in the decoys, but they were close enough to pull down out
• 16:55
  Mike Brasher: of the sky. Were you using were you sort of deploying your Sandy O'Crane mouth call?
• 17:00
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah.
• 17:03
  That was that was bad. But
• 17:05
  Mike Brasher: That was yeah.
• 17:06
  Scott Stephens: Do do you Yeah.
• 17:07
  Mike Brasher: Do you call? I feel like we've had I know we've had a portion of this discussion before.
• 17:11
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. We have. So my personal challenge is that I am not able to roll my
• 17:17
  Mike Brasher: arms with my tongue.
• 17:18
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. And that's what you need to do into the crane call, you know, into a diver call. Yep. And so, yeah, I'm sort of disadvantaged and I can't do that. I do the best I can.
• 17:31
  Mike Brasher: Yeah.
• 17:32
  Scott Stephens: We shot 15 cranes, so it worked out okay.
• 17:34
  Mike Brasher: So there's three of you then. Three of us. Yeah.
• 17:36
  Scott Stephens: Yep.
• 17:37
  Mike Brasher: Did you alright. So I tell you what. We're gonna take a break. I think mister producer, good on taking a break. We need to do that.
• 17:44
  We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back. Got a few more questions for you. Stay with us, folks. A habitat and hunting update from the Prairies with doctor Scott Stevens.
• 17:58
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
• 18:14
  Mike Brasher: Hey, everybody. We are back, with Doctor Scott Stevens. We're talking ducks, cranes, geese, That's right. Dry soil and other things from up in the prairies. Okay.
• 18:26
  Did you you you went crane hunting. You went duck hunting. Did you bring some of those birds back into the state? Yeah. Okay.
• 18:34
  Did you have any issues with any importing any of those birds? That's something we've been trying to keep track of the past few years and been working with APHIS to try to ease some of those restrictions. We were successful in doing so a couple years ago, and I think we're still under those same type of guidelines that you gotta follow in order to bring birds back in. But you said everything worked well this time again. Right?
• 18:54
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Every everything worked fine. There were no issues. Actually, nobody even looked at them, but we had them properly packaged. I I think I I text you the the sort of cheat sheet that they give you when you arrive at The US border, and there were a couple things on there that were a little bit of a surprise to me.
• 19:12
  Like, I think you're supposed to have your boots washed off of all the mud.
• 19:16
  Mike Brasher: Yep. I remember that now.
• 19:18
  Scott Stephens: You tell them that. Technically, you're supposed to have birds individually packaged in a ziplock.
• 19:23
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. That's right.
• 19:24
  Scott Stephens: I tell you. I did not do that. I had, like, three widgeon in one Ziploc bag, but it was labeled as three widgeon. They were unfrozen, and, you know, we could have broken those apart and showed anybody that wanted to look at it.
• 19:37
  Mike Brasher: Yep. I remember we did that one time, and, yeah, I had I think it's a bit of a crapshoot on who you get, which border crossing agent you get.
• 19:45
  Scott Stephens: Yep.
• 19:46
  Mike Brasher: And he we approached the the border, and we're declaring all of our stuff and had had some harvested birds, and I think I had them in like a gallon bag or maybe even a two gallon bag, and I, you know, might have even had like a daily limit in each of the three bags that I had, and he was like, oh, no. We gotta pull each of those out. And of course, they were they weren't frozen, and so they're just waterlogged, and and Right. You you look at pull the wings out, and and that dude couldn't identify what they were. You know?
• 20:14
  I had to kinda do the identification. Well, right, but it was sort of
• 20:18
  Scott Stephens: You could have told them anything you wanted.
• 20:20
  Mike Brasher: Kind fun to identify them and say, yep, that's what this is. Yep, that's what this is. Oh, yeah. This is a canvas back, and this is a redhead, you know, of course, it doesn't look any different to anybody else that doesn't know about it. Right.
• 20:29
  But that was, yeah, whenever I learned that technically they're supposed to be in individual bags, but whether anybody really calls you on that, I guess, just depends on who you get and how they're feeling that day.
• 20:39
  Scott Stephens: Right. Yeah. Which, you know, we had gallon bags too, and it's like, could put four widget
• 20:45
  Mike Brasher: Sure.
• 20:45
  Scott Stephens: In a gallon to block bag, two mallards. You know?
• 20:48
  Mike Brasher: Did you just bring the wings and the breastplate back as well?
• 20:52
  Scott Stephens: We did. You did. Okay. We had the hitch tool, so we used that to clean the birds that we were bringing back. We we did we cooked some there, which they were really good.
• 21:02
  So yeah.
• 21:03
  Mike Brasher: Alright. So you're going back to Saskatchewan next week. What are tomorrow.
• 21:11
  Scott Stephens: Tomorrow.
• 21:11
  Mike Brasher: Oh, okay. And what are the temperatures looking like? I've I've I've taken a peek at them. I think it's gonna be down in the upper twenties for low temperature someday next week. What are you planning for?
• 21:25
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I'm I'm taking my I'm taking my real winter coat, my my camouflage hunting coat. You know? I since it's it's not the official sponsored brand, so
• 21:37
  Mike Brasher: I won't They won't say it. Right? Good.
• 21:39
  Scott Stephens: Appreciate that. Won't say it, but
• 21:40
  Mike Brasher: it's wheels turning. I thought that's what you were Yeah. Yeah. Contemplating.
• 21:45
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a thicker insulated coat, and I will take that. Like, to date, I've just been hunting in sort of a fleece hoodie, camouflage fleece hoodie.
• 21:54
  Mike Brasher: K. It's been kinda warm, kinda mild, that type of Yeah.
• 21:59
  Scott Stephens: It was very warm and mild when when I was there on the most recent trip.
• 22:03
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. I think, yeah, things are supposed to cool down a little bit, and so that's a good thing. Maybe get some of those birds moving a little bit. And how long does that season run-in Saskatchewan? Does it go, what, through?
• 22:16
  Scott Stephens: Probably until December.
• 22:17
  Mike Brasher: You think so?
• 22:18
  Scott Stephens: Like, technically yeah. Like, physically, it doesn't ever last that long. Like It
• 22:23
  Mike Brasher: can't run that long, can it? Because they have to still Sure
• 22:26
  Scott Stephens: it can.
• 22:26
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. But they have what's their season length? They have to have a season length. I don't they're in
• 22:31
  Scott Stephens: the Alright.
• 22:32
  Mike Brasher: They're in
• 22:32
  Scott Stephens: the You want you want me to look this up?
• 22:33
  Mike Brasher: I want you to look it up because they're in the Central Flyway, like Mississippi Flyway, but I don't know if but that but that those regulations only apply in the states Right. Because harvest regulations are set separately between The US and Canada, but migratory bird treaty act kinda sets the frameworks within which seasons can be set. That's a good question.
• 22:58
  Scott Stephens: Here. I've got it.
• 22:58
  Mike Brasher: Okay.
• 22:59
  Scott Stephens: I've got it.
• 23:00
  Mike Brasher: How many days do we get in Saskatchewan? Ducks. Let's Let's look for ducks.
• 23:04
  Scott Stephens: Hunting districts. There's two districts. Buy your permit online. Consult the blah blah blah blah blah. Cranes.
• 23:12
  Okay.
• 23:13
  Mike Brasher: Got
• 23:13
  Scott Stephens: it. September 1 to December 16.
• 23:16
  Mike Brasher: It runs continuous. Yeah. September?
• 23:20
  Scott Stephens: Eight ducks.
• 23:20
  Mike Brasher: October.
• 23:21
  Scott Stephens: Eight dark geese, five sandhill cranes, 10 coots, 10 snipe.
• 23:26
  Mike Brasher: So Knock yourself out. September 1 through December what?
• 23:29
  Scott Stephens: Sixteenth.
• 23:30
  Mike Brasher: Sixteenth. I don't know what I don't know what the basis of that is. It's interesting.
• 23:34
  Scott Stephens: Shoot them if you got them. That's the basis out there.
• 23:36
  Mike Brasher: I guess.
• 23:39
  Scott Stephens: You you know you know what the you know what the whole
• 23:42
  Mike Brasher: Canadian Somebody is doesn't know the answer to this, and they're probably screaming at their at their radio, and that's fine. Give me a call. We'll get you on here to explain how all this works.
• 23:52
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Well, you know how it works. Like, they translate the regulations to French every year, and it's like, go shoot eight ducks. That's the way it works in Canada.
• 24:00
  Mike Brasher: A little bit more sophisticated and thoughtful than that. But but Well,
• 24:04
  Scott Stephens: but there's no It's like eight ducks, eight geese.
• 24:08
  Mike Brasher: But it's informed by it's informed by analyses and data and all that stuff.
• 24:13
  Scott Stephens: And there's smart guys, you know, up there. Jim Leifler.
• 24:17
  Mike Brasher: Yep. Yep. Frank Baldwin.
• 24:19
  Scott Stephens: Frank Baldwin. Yeah. Got we got lots of colleagues who who make sure that but
• 24:23
  Mike Brasher: I'm gonna see those dudes next week, actually.
• 24:26
  Scott Stephens: But the percentage of the total North American harvest that comes from
• 24:30
  Mike Brasher: small.
• 24:31
  Scott Stephens: The Canadian side is pretty small.
• 24:33
  Mike Brasher: That's not what I hear that's not what I hear down here, though.
• 24:36
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Well, you get misinformation down there is the challenge.
• 24:39
  Mike Brasher: You think so? Yes.
• 24:42
  Scott Stephens: Not grounded in fact.
• 24:44
  Mike Brasher: I don't know. What if the data are wrong? I mean, that's one of the hypotheses that's out there. You can't believe the data. It's gotta be more.
• 24:50
  Gotta be more.
• 24:50
  Scott Stephens: Always leave with the If you can't believe the data, like, where does that leave us? That's my question.
• 24:55
  Mike Brasher: Man, that's that's a fair point. Fair point. Okay. What else do you have on your calendar here in the coming months? I know late January Well,
• 25:05
  Scott Stephens: I go ahead. How about this? I have a question. Yep. So so this was a interesting phenomena that we noticed when we were there.
• 25:13
  So I had arrived what day did I arrive? October 5?
• 25:19
  Mike Brasher: You saw the northern lights. That is a fascinating phenom no. You didn't.
• 25:23
  Scott Stephens: No. No. Well, we saw some northern lights, but that's not what
• 25:26
  Mike Brasher: I wanna talk to you about.
• 25:28
  Scott Stephens: Phenomenon. We had the supermoon Okay. When we showed up. Okay. Right?
• 25:33
  Full moon, like, I I I don't I don't actually recall what the definition of the supermoon, but we had a supermoon.
• 25:40
  Mike Brasher: That's when the moon in the table gets a little bit bigger. Moon takes a breath. Gets a little bit bigger.
• 25:46
  Scott Stephens: I I don't think that's it. That's more of that misinformation, not grounded in fact, but there's somebody on here who knows what the supermoon is. Anyway, full moon, and the interesting thing was, like, you know, how usually when you're out there hunting, like, half hour before sunrise, like, birds are moving. Right? Yep.
• 26:04
  Like, nope. Not this trip.
• 26:07
  Mike Brasher: What it was
• 26:07
  Scott Stephens: Like, ducks not flying until well after sunrise.
• 26:10
  Mike Brasher: Was it warm? Warmer?
• 26:12
  Scott Stephens: It was warm.
• 26:12
  Mike Brasher: Do you think it's a temperature related thing?
• 26:15
  Scott Stephens: And the other thing was the ducks seem to be going from water from roost water to other water before they flew to the field.
• 26:24
  Mike Brasher: What do you think is going on there?
• 26:27
  Scott Stephens: My hypothesis, like, not grounded fully in data would be No.
• 26:33
  Mike Brasher: You're just at the observation stage. It's fine?
• 26:35
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. Generating hypotheses. Yep. My my thought was, okay.
• 26:39
  It's warm. They don't need a ton of calories. They may be going to the water to get more nutritionally balanced diet of some of the aquatic plants there. But, yeah, not a big calorie demand when it's 60 degrees, you know, for daytime highs and forties at night.
• 26:56
  Mike Brasher: Yep. So this time of year, the birds that you're shooting, have they started to pack on much fat?
• 27:02
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Some of them well, I mean, it's a mix. Right? Like, we would say there's a distribution of birds, but, yeah, the the mallards and pintails that we harvested were were acquiring fat.
• 27:13
  Mike Brasher: Okay. Here's here's
• 27:14
  Scott Stephens: what kinda the mode they're in.
• 27:16
  Mike Brasher: Here's a question for you. So last week, we pulled a package of ducks out of the freezer, one mallard, one pintail, and
• 27:24
  Scott Stephens: Yep.
• 27:25
  Mike Brasher: The fat on the pintails was that pearly white. White. Just wonderful. Yep. And then the mallard was it was more of a yellowish color.
• 27:34
  So up there, up in the prayer, it's just been a while since I've done this, I think I know the answer, but I wanna wanna get your thoughts here again, what your observations are. You shoot a fat pintail and a fat mallard out of the same field in Saskatchewan, are they gonna have the same color fat?
• 27:51
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. If they're feeding on the same thing. So the white fat is more of a pea based, like, protein. Mhmm. I say protein, but, you know, the fat is obviously fat, but they're they're eating peas.
• 28:05
  I've seen pheasants have white fat when they're eating soybeans. So Okay. That's where I was headed with that protein comment. And the yellow is more indicative of wheat, barley Really? Those kind of cereal grains.
• 28:19
  Mike Brasher: Corn also be Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
• 28:21
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I think corn would be a yellow type fat too. K. And then you That's been my observation. Yeah.
• 28:27
  Because in Western Saskatchewan, you know, you're shooting white furrowed geese, ducks that are feeding on peas, and all of it's whitish fat.
• 28:35
  Mike Brasher: And it's lovely. I would so then I would imagine if, you know, pintail is eating on rice, that's gonna be a white fat as well. White front's Yeah.
• 28:44
  Scott Stephens: It's a good question. I would
• 28:45
  Mike Brasher: I think so. I think it almost
• 28:47
  Scott Stephens: has to be. I'm less I'm less schooled than that. You should be paying attention when you're shooting rice harvested birds. I
• 28:53
  Mike Brasher: don't get that many opportunities to shoot rice harvested birds these days.
• 28:57
  Scott Stephens: You don't know that guy, Manley?
• 28:58
  Mike Brasher: Well, I do, but he's pretty stingy with the invites.
• 29:01
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Well
• 29:02
  Mike Brasher: I I I have shot
• 29:04
  Scott Stephens: how to help you there.
• 29:06
  Mike Brasher: I'll make sure he gets this episode. Right. But then I can't make sure he listens to it. But anyway, I I'm trying to think. I yeah.
• 29:15
  I haven't shot many pintails out of that field. I've shot some white fronts, and, yeah, they always have the great that sort of light colored fat. And then, of course, you can get Mallards that have sort of the pinkish reddish fat. Those are that's gonna have a bit stronger flavor to it, you know, probably been eaten. What's more more invertebrates and things of that nature, you know, so or they just are in poor guess some of the times I see that also is when maybe they're they haven't.
• 29:45
  It's not as as I don't know. Not in as good a shape, you know, so I don't
• 29:50
  Scott Stephens: mean The skin has more of a reddish color if you fucking them.
• 29:54
  Mike Brasher: It it does, but then there's still a little bit of fat in there. Maybe it just hasn't really taken on I I don't know. Just kinda not fully informed on all this physiology and fat deposition and what makes all of it up
• 30:06
  Scott Stephens: right now. Seems like we have more questions than answers to this episode.
• 30:09
  Mike Brasher: We do.
• 30:09
  Scott Stephens: I don't know. People are gonna do you think that'll hurt the ratings?
• 30:12
  Mike Brasher: I don't think so. I think they'll probably enjoy this. It makes for fun conversations. We we can get about we can get some of the answers right, but then what we also kind of hope we're doing is is sort of enticing people that are very well versed on these topics to reach out and say, hey, I can help you out.
• 30:31
  Scott Stephens: There we go.
• 30:31
  Mike Brasher: And so d upodcast@ducks.org, subject line, I wanna be on the show, and and then we'll
• 30:40
  Scott Stephens: Subject line, let me let me correct those idiots who were talking last week.
• 30:43
  Mike Brasher: That's right. Then we can we'll get in touch with you, and you'll see what we can line up. So okay. What else? What what other kind of hunts do you have going on coming up?
• 30:54
  Scott Stephens: Pheasant season opens here in South Dakota. It does. You know? Like, they don't migrate, so you don't have to worry about, you know, has it gotten cold, any of those things.
• 31:01
  Mike Brasher: Does Ulu does she is she a good quartering dog? She help you out with the pheasants?
• 31:07
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Ulu is figuring out pheasants, although, you know, like, we didn't chase many upland birds when we were in Manitoba. So she just started working on that last year when we moved here.
• 31:20
  Mike Brasher: K.
• 31:21
  Scott Stephens: You know, the the previous dog I had who was a young dog when I was in North Dakota was very good at pheasants. She would actually kind of false point pheasants.
• 31:30
  Mike Brasher: Oh.
• 31:31
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Just kinda cock her head and be like, boss, it is right here. And then you would tell her, okay. And usually, she would pounce and the bird would go up.
• 31:39
  Mike Brasher: Oh, okay. That well, that is a that's a fantastic skill to have there in your pup.
• 31:44
  Scott Stephens: It is. Yeah. That's highly beneficial.
• 31:46
  Mike Brasher: Well, so the pheasant season in South Dakota runs through when?
• 31:52
  Scott Stephens: Runs through the January, I believe. Yeah. You coming up?
• 31:56
  Mike Brasher: I am coming up to South Dakota. I'm gonna be there for the South Dakota State Convention. Want me to they want me to say a few words about something.
• 32:06
  Scott Stephens: I guess they didn't take my advice though.
• 32:07
  Mike Brasher: It's probably not gonna be a discussion about the nutritional components of fat in ducks and geese.
• 32:14
  Scott Stephens: I I think we already had an exchange on this where it's like, okay. You we should go chase a pheasant with you. We did. Now you'll have to bring your warm clothes because
• 32:22
  Mike Brasher: I can handle that.
• 32:22
  Scott Stephens: I know you're a little thin blooded, and it can be cool that time of year.
• 32:26
  Mike Brasher: I am thin blooded but thick skinned. Otherwise, you and I would not be friends. So, yes, I will be coming out to South Dakota. Sounds like I'm probably gonna have to come up a couple of days earlier. Should I bring my 20 gauge, or would my little 28 gauge if I've got if I'm shooting some bismuth do?
• 32:43
  Either one of those will work I don't have shoot I don't have to shoot nontoxic for pheasants, do I?
• 32:48
  Scott Stephens: Nope. Well, depends on where you're hunting. If you're hunting on
• 32:52
  Mike Brasher: The state area.
• 32:52
  Scott Stephens: State or federal areas, you have to use nontoxic if you're so lots of walk in areas that are available. Okay. And you don't have to shoot nontoxic there. But, yeah, lots of great nontoxic alternatives these days.
• 33:05
  Mike Brasher: Bring a combination. Now do you notice a difference in sort of the killability, if you will, of pheasants early season, late season? Have they kinda put on
• 33:14
  Scott Stephens: Oh, yeah.
• 33:15
  Mike Brasher: Yeah? So okay. So I probably need to leave my 28.
• 33:18
  Scott Stephens: No? No. I I was thinking more killability and with respect to how well they behave and how close you get to it.
• 33:27
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, still, that has bearing, though, on what which gun I would bring.
• 33:31
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. No. Either 20 or 28. Like, the main challenge is you need to put the payload in the right spot on the bird is usually the issue. So That's the issue that I have.
• 33:42
  Mike Brasher: Kinda like I also need to sort of pattern my gun, kinda going back to a little exchange we had.
• 33:47
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. We did have an exchange on patternings. Mhmm. Yeah. I was very pleased with some of the patternings I got out of both of my guns with some new chokes and a variety of loads.
• 33:58
  They were all, like, deadly if I can put them in the right spot.
• 34:01
  Mike Brasher: Yep. Your point was valid whenever I said, yeah. You know, you had a real tight pattern, and I said, yeah. That's good if you're on the target, and you said, yeah. That's kinda important regardless of what you're shooting.
• 34:10
  And I said, yeah. Right.
• 34:11
  Scott Stephens: If you're not on the target
• 34:12
  Mike Brasher: That's fair. Yeah. That's fair. Okay. Well, it's, you know, I guess not a I was kinda hoping for a slightly better report out of out of you.
• 34:28
  Me too. I guess I should know better.
• 34:30
  Scott Stephens: I I could tell you one, but it'd be a lie.
• 34:31
  Mike Brasher: Okay. I was hoping we'd get a report on some more better improvement in habitat conditions up there on the Prairies. I get at least we've gotten some rain. We've gotten some precipitation. That's a good thing.
• 34:43
  You know? At least we're not at least you're not like we are down here, save maybe a couple of instances here recently where we went, like, I don't know, forty five days without a single drop of rain. It's been like it was like super dry down here. Things have there has been some rain falling in a few areas, but overall, down in these parts, it's pretty doggone dry. Yeah.
• 35:06
  If you look at drought, it's down here in the Mid South and Southern states and then up a little bit into the Midwest where drought has sort of taken hold. We need some rain down here. Y'all are out of the meteorological drought, but as you said, in Still in duck drought. Yep. Still in the duck drought, still in the waterfowl drought, and need to need to get some of that turned around, so we need more of that snow that we saw fall in the past couple of days.
• 35:33
  We need some more rain, and we will probably get back in touch with you or one of your colleagues up there once things finally do lock up. Maybe Katrina Terry, that'll be her time to join and tell us how her duck season went once they're once that water starts turning hard up
• 35:49
  Scott Stephens: there. Yeah.
• 35:49
  Mike Brasher: So You know
• 35:50
  Scott Stephens: who you need to get on. You need to get on those meteorological folks who can talk about whether we're supposed to have kind of El Nino or La Nina this winter.
• 36:01
  Mike Brasher: I think we have officially entered a La Nina, and Okay. That was a recent declaration by the meteorological folks of this world. And, yes, that is something that is on my list of topics to come. Matter of fact, I probably need to send an email here this afternoon just to see if we can line something up for about a week and a half or or two weeks, week and a half from now. I'm gone next week.
• 36:25
  I'm back in the office. So it'd have to be that October because in the first week in November, I'll be heading up to Michigan for my first duck hunting of the year, be going up to Harson's Island, spend some time with Greg Soulier. We'll be chasing some ducks, hopefully shooting some ducks, but if they aren't cooperating, we will be jigging for and hopefully catching some walleye.
• 36:48
  Scott Stephens: So I'm sure he can put you on some mergansers. Like, we'll have to alert him to this episode, and I'm I know he can deliver on that.
• 36:56
  Mike Brasher: Buffaloheads are typically his
• 36:57
  Scott Stephens: his heads. Yeah.
• 36:58
  Mike Brasher: Yep. Yep. Mergansers, you know, that's okay. We give them a pass most of the time, but buffalo heads, yep. Those are cool.
• 37:06
  Scott Stephens: So So you said La Nina, like, that generally bodes for better precipitation in the wintertime for the Prairie Pothole region in
• 37:15
  Mike Brasher: general. Can. It's used yeah. It's it's cooler. The broad scale long term patterns are cooler with a chance of it being wetter up in the northern areas, but drier and warmer down here.
• 37:27
  So it kinda creates this pretty you know, on the average overall, this stark dichotomy between cooler, wetter up north, drier, warmer down south. We don't like the drier, warmer down here. I'm not the meteorologist. Not the person to tell you about all those specifics. We're gonna try to get those folks on, and we'll try to have some fun with them again like we did last year.
• 37:47
  So you wanna be part of that? You have questions for them? You can make something up.
• 37:52
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I'm happy to join. We can they they know a lot more about that stuff than we do.
• 37:57
  Mike Brasher: They do. They do. So alright. Scott, we appreciate your time. We're gonna let you get back out of here.
• 38:01
  Good luck going back up to Saskatchewan. Thank you very much for everything that you do for us. Thanks for all these reports. I don't have to tell you to get out and hunt because that's what you're going to do, but to everybody out there, life is short. You better hunt.
• 38:13
  Thanks, Scott. Take care, man.
• 38:15
  Scott Stephens: Thanks. Happy to join.
• 38:16
  Mike Brasher: A special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Doctor. Scott Stevens, our senior director of Prairie and Boreal Conservation Strategy. Always love catching up with him on these episodes. A great thank you to our producer, Chris Isaac, and everybody else that works behind the scenes on these podcasts, getting them out to you. And to you, the listener, we thank you for joining us.
• 38:36
  We thank you for supporting Ducks Unlimited. We thank you for getting out and hunting and spending some time in the field. Have a good one, y'all. We'll catch you on the next episode.
• 38:45
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• 39:07
  Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay tuned to the Ducks.