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The Gear That Changed Duck Hunting Forever · Last Stop Waterfowl Outdoors Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 2: All right, y'all, so let's get it.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Last Stop Waterfowl Outdoors Podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Jacob Robury. And as always, we say
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: it every time we get together.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Guys, it's good to be with y'all this week, talking
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: waterfowl hunting as we're getting close to the season kicking off.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: For a lot of us, a lot of us, seasons
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have already kicked off. And I hope if that's the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: case for you guys, you are doing well. Your season's
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: off to a good start. I can tell you it
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: is dry here in South Louisiana. We're in a drought.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people out there, you guys
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: are in a drought right now. And I'm interested to know,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: are you off to a good start if your season's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: already open? Because if you have water, From what I'm hearing,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: if you have water, you're off to a pretty good start.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are seeing birds if you have water.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I have some reports. I've talked to some people, and
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: guys are off to a good start. It's going to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: be an interesting duck season, I think. I know they're
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: calling for this Super El Nino they keep talking about,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: which is supposed to be some of the coldest weather
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that we've had in years. Seems like they say that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: every year. For us here down south in the bottom
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of the flyways, it don't seem like we get cold
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: weather now until February, maybe January when we're lucky, if
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: we even see truly cold weather, what we consider freezing
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: cold weather.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: But, you know, who knows?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Only time will tell. I can tell you it's definitely
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: not wet so far. Like I mentioned, we're in a drought.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: A lot of people don't have water. We talked about
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: that last episode. But if you do, it seems like
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you do have birds from what I'm hearing for those
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of you have opened up. So all I know is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to get going here in the boot.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We open up.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: One of our zones here in about a week and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a half, two weeks out, and then the other zone
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: follows the week after that, which I'll be partaking in.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But I'll be able to get my youngest son, Hudson,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: on a youth hunt before that, so kind.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Of get a little scout trip out of that. Looking
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: forward to it. But, hey. No matter what, it's here.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It is the best time of year, in my opinion,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm fired up, and I know you guys are too.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So in the meantime, until I can get out there
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and hunt, actually do some hunting, then I can at
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: least talk about duck hunting, and that's where you guys
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: come into play.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And you get to join me on this.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Episode because we're going to have a little fun on
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: this episode like we do every week talking duck hunting.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And I figured, I said, hey, this is something when
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking for topics, I'm trying to be creative
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: for you guys. And I said, hey, I said, what
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I want to do an episode on is gear. And
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I love gear episodes. I have said that numerous times
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: through the years, all the seasons. We're now in season
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: 10 of the podcast. And I have always loved gear
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: episodes that are centered around duck hunting gear.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of us nowadays, we're gearheads. We
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: love it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to kind of give a throwback and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: do an episode on some of the iconic gear, not
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: just modern gear, not just stuff that we see nowadays
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that's on the market when you walk into a sporting
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: goods store or you shop online like places like Rogers,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Max Prairie Wings, Bass Pro, Cabela's, all these places online. Yes,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that is part of it, definitely, the modern stuff. But
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: what about the OGs, the OGs when it comes to gear?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And I said, I'm going to put together a list
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of gear that was kind of revolutionary in the world
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of waterfowl hunting that kind of shaped the modern day
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: age of waterfowl hunting gear. And I'm going to throw
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it back for you guys on this episode with some
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: older stuff that I'm going to talk about and mention.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And then we'll kind of lead into some of the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: newer stuff. But a lot of this stuff on this episode,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: name brands, products that you're going to hear. We're going
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to talk about the gear that changed duck hunting forever,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, some of the brands.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And look, that list could be a mile long. We
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: all know that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: There's going to be brands that when you guys are
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: going to listen to this, you're going to say, what
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: about this, Jacob? What about this name brand? What about
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: this product? And hey, look, I'm with y'all. But I
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: literally sat down, brainstormed kind of my list of what
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I think was revolutionary gear when it came to changing
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the duck hunting industry and kind of where we are
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: today in modern society, what's got us to this point.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And I went back way back, and I started looking
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: at products that were just groundbreaking, to be honest with y'all,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: And that's what we're going to talk about. So we're
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: going to jump into it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to kind of fly through these pretty quickly
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and just have a little bit of fun, and you
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: guys let me know if you agree, if you're familiar with.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Some of the products.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Hell, I'm an older duck hunter, and I didn't even
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: have an opportunity to use some of these products on
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: my list that I put together, but I know what
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: impact they had on the waterfowl hunting community. So we're
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: going to kind of go in some sort of a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: chronological order as far as when these products were released.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And I'll throw some dates at y'all that may surprise
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: you on some of these. So the first thing that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I talked about that I wrote down that I look
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: back at the dates on it when I put all
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: this stuff in the order was Berber wax jacket, the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Berber wax jacket. So this was in 1894, guys. This
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was way before any of us listening to this were
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: even a thought of being alive. But 1894, a wax
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: jacket from Berber hit the market and was available for
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: waterfowl hunters to be able to use, which kind of
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: revolutionized it at the time. Because Berber started waxing cotton
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: jackets in that year of 1894, long before any kind
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of breathable fabric existed that we are familiar with today.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Any of those, which a couple of them on this
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: list we're going to talk about. These jackets, they were heavy.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: They were stiff, guys. There wasn't nothing super comfortable. And
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: they had to be re-waxed to stay waterproof. And that's
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the whole, some of you that may not even be
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: familiar with waxed hunting.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Clothes may say, why were they waxed? Well, it was
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: for waterproofing.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: There was nothing before that time when this jacket came
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: out at the time that was truly waterproof. There was
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: nothing that you could go out there and duck hunt
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and keep you completely dry and keep the moisture off
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: of your body. Well, in 1894, when this jacket came out,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that revolutionized it. It's kept you dry.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: It was waterproof. But they actually kept hunters dry in
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a way nothing else did at the time. That was
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the big thing.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: They might have had other little things that could somewhat
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: keep you dry, but that jacket revolutionized it in 1894
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: whenever they came out with a waxed jacket for waterfowl
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: hunting that they could go out and use. The second
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: item that came to mind goes without saying, the Browning
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Auto 5. 1903 is when that came out. It was
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the first successful semi-automatic shotgun that was designed by John Browning,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and it was geared towards waterfowl, not just waterfowl hunting,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: but a lot of waterfowl hunters know the A5 from
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Browning as being a waterfowling shotgun, right? Some of us
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: have A5s still in our collection today. They've been passed
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: down to us through generations in our family of waterfowl
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: hunters or just hunters in general or.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe gun collectors.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You might have not been a hunter, might have been
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a gun collector. And the A5 is one of the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: most solid design semi-automatic shotguns to ever hit the market.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And it revolutionized waterfowl hunting. It had that famous humpback
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: receiver that you guys are familiar with. When you see
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: an A5 or an Auto 5, you just know the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: A5 design is unlike anything that was out there and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: still to this day is extremely recognizable. It stayed in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: production until 1998 and became the duck gun for generations, y'all.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It was a duck gun for generations of waterfowl hunting families.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And it ended production in 1998. But that gun, like
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I said, is still passed down nowadays. It's family heirlooms
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that they passed down to A5. And it's just an
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: iconic piece of waterfowl hunting history that revolutionized waterfowl hunting.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The next one that I came up with on my list,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it's a duck call. In 1904, the PS Olt D2
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: model duck call.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: So Philip S.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Oates, he started making that call in 1904, guys, and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: it is an iconic, iconic duck call, if you're familiar
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: with the Oates D2s. It was developed, like I mentioned, 1904,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and it was a hard rubber. It settled on a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: hard molded rubber. Because wood swelled up. That was the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: issue with it at the time. Wood would swell up.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And it changed the tone of the call. It was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: just different from anything that was out there at the time, guys.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: The D2, it became one of the most popular duck
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: calls ever made. You see variations of other calls built
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: off of the D2. There was nothing like it at
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the time. It was just different. It sounded different. It
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: looked different. It was just a different piece of equipment
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: that was available to be able to attract ducks that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: nobody else had come up with before. A lot of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: hunters filed down the inserts, kind of creating that, what
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you know nowadays is.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That cut down sound.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So they were able to file down those inserts in
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: that call, kind of shape the sound to what they wanted.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of your modern day cut
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: down calls came from and that tradition came from. was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: from that old PS old D2 call. So that call,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, revolutionized duck hunting because it was unlike
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: anything else at the time.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And you can customize it to get different sounds out
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They cut it down. get you a different tone on it,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and it was different. But it was an awesome call
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and still highly collectible today. Another item that revolutionized duck hunting,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and it's even specific to duck hunting as a tool,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say, but the Stanley Classic vacuum bottle, Thermos.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: That's another one. Thermos is a name brand. A lot
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of you have a Stanley Thermos in the duck blind.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But in 1913, that's when Stanley's classic bottle hit the market.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Way back in 1913. William Stanley, well, William Stanley Jr.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I should say. He was the junior in the family.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He built that first vacuum thermos in 1913. So before that,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: all they had was glass vacuum flask.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: They were real easy to break.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Just didn't have the durability that you could get out
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: of this new bottle that was developed by.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Stanley in 1913. And it kept any of your liquids.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: So all your coffee that you love to bring to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the duck blind with you, it was able to keep
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: coffee hot all morning in a boat ride, a paddle in,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in your blind bags. You could keep coffee hot all
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: day because it had vacuum seal design on it. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: hot coffee in the blind became part of duck camp
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: culture at that point, guys, in 1913.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: It was durable.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You could bang it around the blind and you didn't
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: have to worry about it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And nowadays, you.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: See everybody, the popularity of all these Stanley cups and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: these Yeti cups now and all this.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, Stanley's been doing this since 1913.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: They were the OGs when it came to durable vacuum
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: sealed bottles. that kept beverages hot. You could throw some
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: soup in it, bring it to the duck blind, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it kept it hot all day. So yes, that's an
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: item that a lot of us carry today, and it
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: revolutionized the duck hunting industry. What about boats? So there's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: been a long tradition and history of boats, guys. But
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the modern-day john boat, or I say modern day. Really,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: john boats have gotten crazy nowadays. They're not really the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: typical john boats I grew up duck hunting with. But
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: aluminum john boats, let's just say that. When did you
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: start seeing those aluminum john boats hit the market for
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the first time or an aluminum haul? Because you got
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to remember, everything before that was, you know, wood. A
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: lot of your boats even, you know, back in the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: day were wood before the market started seeing aluminum boats.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But DuraCraft, they were the first ones in 1945, guys,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to introduce an all-welded john boat. And when that boat
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: came out, that started changing the way outdoorsmen got to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the duck blinds, went fishing.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It was huge.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: No rivets at that time in 1945 for DuraCraft on
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that boat. Now, they did have DuraCraft models that were riveted.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: But a welded version, that was created and developed and
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: released in 1945. So Bill and Chick Ward, which Ward,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: when a lot of you guys hear that, you're going
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to say, wait, Ward?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I know that name in the boating industry. And you're right.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: You're correct on that. Because the Ward family in modern day,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: day and age, is now War Eagle boats. But they
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: were originally Duracrafts. And I knew DuraCraft as being a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: brand here in Louisiana. Because if I'm not mistaken, I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: want to say DuraCraft had a plant here in Louisiana
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that manufactured boats here. Or they may have even been
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: based out of here at the time. I'd have to
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: go back and look at that. I don't want to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: say for sure. But they had something to do with Louisiana.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I know that.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And I remember as a kid having DuraCraft boats and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: seeing them out there on the water with tiller handles.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: My grandfather actually had a DuraCraft boat. But they built
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the first aluminum welded seam john boat in 1945. I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: would have never thought it was that far back. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: some of you may be surprised by that, like I was.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And what's funny is they used a surplus of aluminum
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: from World War II to build those first welded seam
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: john boats back then in 1945. That's an interesting piece
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of history, I thought, when I started researching it. So
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they used surplus aluminum from World War II to build
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the first ever welded seam john boats, DuraCraft did. That's
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That's badass, you know? And what they did
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: was they patterned them after the flat bottom cypress wood
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: boats that a lot of guys had been using and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: hunters were already using them. So they patterned those aluminum
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: welded seam john boats After the same style of design
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: as the wood boats, but they were just more durable.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You didn't have to worry about beating them up against
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: cypress stumps or logs, all that type of stuff. They
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: were more durable. They were built to last longer. They
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: didn't have to rot out. You didn't have to worry
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: about transoms breaking because they were more durable.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: You got to Look at it.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: They didn't have these big horsepower engines that we got nowadays.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: So they weren't hanging these big monstrous anchors on the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: back of these boats. But they were getting people that
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: were using them and able to use them to the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: duck blind and back.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: They were lighter than the wood boats.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And they were easier to drag up on a bank.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: A marsh bank. Wherever they were using them, they were
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: lighter than wood.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And like I mentioned, that family, the Ward family, they
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: went on to later found War Eagle boats, which so
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: many of us know today. I actually run a War
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Eagle boat. I've had several War Eagle boats. And I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: love my boat.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Great company. Great family. Great tradition.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And they've been doing it longer than anybody out there
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in the industry.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, there you go.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: DuraCraft John Boats, welded John Boats, 1945. I would have
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: never thought that they went that far back. This next one,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to be familiar with. We're talking duck hunting shotguns.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: What's the most popular waterfowl hunting shotgun of all time?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: That's a question for you guys. What do you think
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the answer to that is? A lot of you know this.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But the Remington 870, Wingmaster. was released in 1950. In 1950,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Remington released 870, and it became the workhorse of waterfowl hunting.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: It was a pump shotgun design. It was simple. It
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: was tough.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: It was affordable. It was an absolute workhorse. You could
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: use it as a boat paddle. You could shoot ducks
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: with it. You could kill a deer with it. You
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: could shoot small game with it. Didn't matter, guys. Throw
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it in the bottom of the boat. A lot of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you know it. We all started with an 870, a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: lot of us. I still got an 870 to this day,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and it will never leave my collection.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I could pick up that gun, and I know how
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: reliable it is. And I killed many, many ducks with
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: it throughout the years.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: But I was in 1950 when Remington released the 870 Wingmaster,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: which the Wingmaster, was just the nicer design, 870. Nicer
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: etching on the wood. Might have had some ducts on it.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You know, something like that. Had a nicer stock to it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Little bit lighter. Might have had a little finish to it.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Just a beautiful shotgun. But it was a freaking workhorse.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It is one of the best-selling shotguns of all time,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the 870. And it killed more ducts than just about
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: any gun in history. from what they could track on record.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: The 870, we all know. It's hard to argue when
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you talk about waterfowling shotguns. What's the best gun to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: ever hit the market? It's hard to argue with a
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Remington 870, y'all. And I know there's been some other
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: good ones. Winchester Model 12s. Later down the road, Benelli
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: came out with the Nova. And there's other ones. Ithaca,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people talk about Ithaca. Pump shotguns, the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Featherlight Model 37. That's an awesome gun too.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I had one.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: My daddy passed down to me. But that 870 is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the king in my opinion. So getting back more on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Gear, as far as related, as
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: what we need as waterfowl hunters, guys, the next thing
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: on my list that revolutionized waterfowl hunting and built modern-day
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: gear when it comes to waterfowl hunting was from a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: little company called Hodgman. And if you know that name,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you probably know where I'm going with this. Neoprene waders.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: In 1950... Hodgman introduced the neoprene waders. They're the ones
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that are pioneered or credited with pioneering the neoprene wader,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and it changed the game for duck hunting. They made
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: some of the first manufactured waders back in the 1850s.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Old rubber, hard rubber, would crack cold, didn't insulate, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Hodgman continued to Innovate their technology and introduce those neoprene
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: waders in the 1950s. So neoprene at that point really
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: started to take over duck hunting. When Hodgman released neoprene,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: by the 1970s, that's really when I remember it taking off,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: my daddy telling me about it.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: You look at duck.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Hunting history, neoprene in the 1970s really started exploding. Because
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: up until that point, it was all heavy rubber or
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: canvas waders, pretty much, if people were wearing waders. And
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in the 1970s, when it really started to boom and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: neoprene started to show up more and more in duck
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: blinds for waders, it started replacing all that heavy rubber,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: all that canvas with something that was insulated. It would
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: keep you warmer. It was flexible that you could move
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: around in it a lot easier. And it just made
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: it easier to hunt. That's the safest thing I could say.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: It made it easier to hunt, guys.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So yeah, neoprene waders. A lot of us look at.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Neoprene waders nowadays and we're like, ah, we want breathable waders.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: That's the new technology.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And hey, without neoprene waders, we probably would have never had.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Breathable waders come about.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: So yes, Hodgman, thank you for introducing those neoprene waders
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: in the 1950s. Because you revolutionized the duck hunting world
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and made it better for us to hunt and stay
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: out there longer in tough conditions. The next item on
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: my list, we kind of flopping back to the gun
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: side of things, was an interchangeable choke system on our shotguns,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on our duck guns.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was right around 1959. It was the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: late 1950s. I'll say that. I know that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Winchester released the versatile choke system. And their versatile system
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: in the 1950s, that was the first screw-in choke system
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: hunters could actually use, guys.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Before that, it was fixed chokes.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So if you wanted a modified, you went out there
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and you bought a shotgun, it was a modified barrel.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: That modified barrel was on that gun. You couldn't change
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: to a full choke. You couldn't change to an improved cylinder.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: You couldn't change to a long distance extended choke like
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: we have nowadays or a decoying choke. You couldn't do that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Until those late 1950s, when you started seeing that Versalite
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: choke from Winchester. Nothing that I'm aware of, as far
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: as I know, they were the first ones to innovate
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and kind of release it to the waterfowl hunting community.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: So before that, you lived with whatever chokes was in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: your fixed barrel.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: After that, one gun could do all the work of
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: several guns.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And that became essential later down the road, y'all, whenever
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: steel shot arrived. That's when it really became essential, which
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: was much later down the road.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So who would have known?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: So steel shot, for it to be effective later down
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the road, you really had to have a choke system
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that was interchangeable to dial in your gun to whatever
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: you were shooting as.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Far as ammunition goes. So yeah, interchangeable chokes.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: That revolutionized the duck hunting gear industry back in the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: late 1950s. And Winchester is credited with doing so. The
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: next item is one that's near and dear to my
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: heart because it's originated right here in my home state
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of Louisiana. And that's the Duck Commander duck call. We
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: all know the stories. If you're a duck hunter, you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: know the stories. You know Phil Robertson, the duck commander.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And that duck commander call, we've heard Phil tell that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: story many, many times. Phil designed his first duck call
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: in 1972 in Louisiana. And he patented the reed system
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that same year that he built that design.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: He knew.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: If you listen to interviews with Phil Robertson, he says
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: he knew he had something that just sounded different than
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: what was out on the market.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: That's what he believed.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And a lot of us must have agreed because we
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: went out there and we bought those duck commander calls
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and you started seeing all that hard work that Phil
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: talked about where he was going to small sporting goods
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: stores to try to get his duck calls and later
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: on down the road his DVD, or not DVDs at
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the time, VHS tapes when the Duck Commander video started
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: coming out. He was going door to door at sporting
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: goods stores trying to get those calls in stores and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: eventually grew the Duck Commander business into what it is today,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: which is a multi-million dollar company. In that first year,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: he said he made 500 to 600 calls in that
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: year is what he estimated. And the start of a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: company that turned duck calling into a culture on its own.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: That's what he says out of his own mouth, out
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of Phil's mouth. He's been credited as saying. And boy,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that is nothing that you could argue because he built
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: it into a dynasty. And now his kids have it.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: His grandkids are involved. Their husbands and wives are involved.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And you see what it is today. And other companies,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: also followed in Phil's footsteps with Duck Commander. And eventually,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you see what it is with the duck call industry nowadays, guys.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: But that first call design from Phil Robertson in 1972,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you can bet your butt, it absolutely revolutionized the duck
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: hunting gear industry because it was different and it became
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: an iconic call that they're still making to this day
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in 2026.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You can still get that same design. So thank you,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Phil Robertson.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The next item on my list, we're kind of flopping
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: back to technology as far as clothing. I remember hearing
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: this word and didn't know what it was when I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: was a kid, but Gore-Tex. in 1976. Now, I was
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: born in 1979. That tells you all my age right there.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And I don't remember hearing about it that early on.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I was too young to remember it. And I was
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: surprised to find that Gore-Tex material, the technology of Gore-Tex itself,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: had been around that long.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't think it had been around that long.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I just remember Filson and Companies like that with the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: wax canvas stuff being waterproof.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Or you'd have some of.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: This clothing when I was a kid, they would say
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it's waterproof, and then you'd wear it and you'd just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: get soaked. It wasn't waterproof. Or you had PVC rain
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: jackets that you'd sweat your butt off in because it
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: didn't breathe. It might have kept you dry on the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: outside from the rain, but you sweat to death on
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the inside. And then that little thing called Gore-Tex, that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: technology came along. It actually is created with discovery in 1969,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't released on the market until right around
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the late 70s.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: And he called it Gore-Tex fabric. That's what it was.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Bob Gore was the designer.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: He was the inventor of it.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And that's where you get the Gore in the name
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: because they pay ode to him.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: And it was called Gore-Tex fabric.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It was introduced in commercially in items in that late 1970s,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: right around 1976, 77, somewhere around there. And the deal
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: with it was the pores were smaller than a water
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: droplet but larger than a water vapor molecule. And there's
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of science that goes into that. But what
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: it equated to was that rain stayed out while sweat
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: on the inside would be able to escape. So exactly
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: did the opposite of what I told you all those
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: previous waterfowl, or I say waterfowl, waterproof, PVC raincoats would
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: do to where they'd keep you dry on the outside,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: but you'd sweat to death on the inside.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: You ended up wet. Either way. But when Gore-Tex came out,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: it changed it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: You stayed dry on the outside, and it was breathable,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: so you didn't sweat to death on the inside.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: So you stayed truly waterproof with.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: A breathable fabric that had been created and innovated and
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: brought to market for duck hunters to be able to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: use in the duck blondes, on the boat rods. In
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: early season, when it wasn't quite as cold, you could
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: still keep yourself dry if you were caught in a storm,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: but you didn't sweat because it breathed. So yes, Gore-Tex
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: was absolutely huge when we're talking about fabric. And still today,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: you see Gore-Tex on almost all the major brands of
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: clothing that's out there for waterfowl hunters. If you look
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: at the tags on those jackets you buy, they'll say
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Gore-Tex on it. Just a truly incredible product that was
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: designed and revolutionized the duck hunting gear industry. Another iconic
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: name brand, Mossy Oak. A lot of us know Mossy Oak,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: especially down in the South, we know Mossy Oak. Southern
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: company based out of Mississippi. And Mossy Oak Bottom Land
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: in 1987 revolutionized the industry. So before Mossy Oak Bottom Land,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of your camos for you younger guys used
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to be just like splotches. It was just like, almost
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: like paint splotches thrown up on clothing. Or like you'd
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: see the old army gear that I used to pick
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: up at the army surplus stores where my dad would
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: get for me.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: It was just, it was splotches. There was nothing to
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: really mimic nothing.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't tree barks that looked like certain
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: types of tree bark. It was just splotches, dark color
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: patterns and shapes. Well, in 1987, when Mossy Oak Bottomland
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: came out, they designed a camo that actually looked like
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the flooded timber, not just generic woods, so to say.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was badass.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And everybody loved Bottomland. And a lot of us today
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: still love Mossy Oak Bottomland. I love Mossy Oak Bottomland,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the original Bottomland design.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: It went away for a few years.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Then it got brought back because of the nostalgic factor,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I guess. And it's one of the best-selling camouflages to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: ever hit the market. When it came out in 1987,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: it just changed the way or changed what hunters expected
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: from a camo pattern. It was patterns that were built
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: for a specific place you hunt, not just like a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: one-size-fits-all camo. That print wasn't just a one-size-fits-all for everybody.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: It would match certain surroundings. And that was revolutionary for
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: It was iconic. And it still to this day is iconic.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Mossy Oak Bottomland deserves a spot on that list,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in my opinion.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: In the early 90s, a little thing came into play
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: called steel shot. Lead shot for waterfowl was phased out
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: starting in 1987, 1988, somewhere around there. And then it
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: was banned nationwide. excuse me, in 1991. And I remember that.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I was young enough to remember hunting with my daddy
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and we shot lead shot for years when I was
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: coming up real young hunting with him. I was shooting
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: lead shot out of a 410 for a brief period
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of time. Then my daddy bought me a 20 gauge
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and I shot lead shot. And then I remember my
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: daddy talking about steel shot.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: We had to have new shells.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: So that was in 1991, that mandate, and that law changed.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And steel became the only legal load that you could
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: waterfowl hunt with at that time.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: And you had Winchester, you had Federal, you had Remington.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Those were the companies that started producing steel shot, the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: first generations of steel.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Shot that ever hit the market.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Still changed everything for duck hunting when it came to
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: your firearm and the way.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: It was used against ducks.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Unlike anything we had ever seen in history, because we
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: all know, we've all heard the story. Well, when I
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: say we all know, you may not know, but I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: could tell you I was there when lead shot was
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: legal and there was nothing that cut through waterfowl like lead.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: It was unbelievable.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: The difference to see Lead shot and go from lead
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: shot to those first generations of steel shot.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Because I remember my daddy, my.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Grandfather, my old uncle Gervas, who was one of the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: heroes of mine as a kid growing up, coming up
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: duck hunting, because he taught me a lot. I remember
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: them cussing steel shot. They absolutely hated it.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: It was garbage. It was shit.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: They were talking Cajun French. my old Uncle Gervas and
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: my grandfather cussing steel shot.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: They hated it.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: They were going through more shells every time they'd hunt
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: because it just simply wouldn't kill them like the lead
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: killed them. But it had to be a start when
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: that first generation of steel shot loads from those companies
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I talked about was released.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: In order to improve the.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Industry later down the road and get it to where
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: steel shot is today. Without that in 1991 and those
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: first generations of steel shot, we wouldn't have better steel
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: shot nowadays, y'all. Hell, maybe we'd still be shooting lead.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: We wouldn't even have to worry about it, right? Man
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: can only hope, huh? Some of you out there are
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: probably telling me I still shoot lead.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Y'all know y'all. Y'all know y'all do. Some of y'all. Oh,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: green jeans just ain't caught you yet. I know all
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: them tricks. I know some of y'all.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: They had somebody that was telling me they knew somebody
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that was reloading their own shells. Labeling them is still.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they knew or this is just word. Well,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: how do you say it? What's that word I'm looking for? Folklore,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: old folklore.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Basically that somebody had heard through somebody that somebody reloaded
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: their own shells, labeled it as a steel shot, but
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: they were packing them with lead pellets. I wouldn't doubt it.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I would not doubt it. But boy, if you get caught,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: heaven help you in that instance.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, look, those first generations of steel, they sucked.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: But like I said, we wouldn't have been able to
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: make the advances in steel shot to get to where
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: we are today.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Without those first generations.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: So in 1991, steel shot revolutionized the duck hunting gear market.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And boy, I remember this one really well. A lot
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: of you will.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: In 1999, 2000, right around that time frame, the Mojo Mallard,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the RoboDuck, the flapper, whatever you call it, because I've
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: heard all those names. But when that decoy, the original
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Mojo Mallard spinning wing decoy hit the market in the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: late 90s, early 2000s, you started hearing hunters talk about it.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Hunters started calling every spinning wing decoy a robo-duck at
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that point. Or flappers or whatever they called it. But
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the robo-duck's the first.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Name I remember. That decoy changed the game, y'all.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: It was just plain stupid what it would do to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: waterfowl as far as attracting them. That spinning wing flash,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: that white on those wings, like landing ducks, and it
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: could be seen from a damn mile away. those birds
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: could see it from way up high and it just
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: made it unfair it made it unfair my family didn't
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: start hunting with them until a little later but I
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: had an uncle of mine who had one and we
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: used to rice field hunt in Evangeline Parish And they
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: had that thing in Whiteville, Louisiana and a rice field
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: blonde when I was a kid. And I'm telling you,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: it was like mosquitoes trying to get around that decoy.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: It was bringing them in from all over the damn place.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: It was unbelievable.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: And I remember as a kid looking at this decoy
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: because I'd never really seen anything like that before. It
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: had these big, gigantic metal wings on it. The body
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: was huge. And if I remember right, I think it
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: had a huge battery. It wasn't no like self-contained battery.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: on these first ones that were out there. And you
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: had to pack a goddamn suitcase to get this thing
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: out to the blonde.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: It was big.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: And them wings, I remember them wings spinning on that thing.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: And when sunrise hit, my uncle, he said, y'all just
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: sit back and watch this show.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: He says, it's going to be crazy. And boy, he
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: wasn't lying. It was fucking stupid. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking of it now and it's getting
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: me fired up because I remember seeing it as a kid.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: That's the first time I'd ever seen it. And I never,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: after we hunted with him, I really, not everybody had them.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: So you started seeing them get produced later on, Mojo,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: some of the other companies. It sparked the fair chase debate,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that. And that still follows today.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: motion decoys and what people think about motion decoys nowadays.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: There's still a lot of debate out there on whether
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: or not spinning wing decoys should be allowed to be
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: used on public grounds. Some states outlawed them for years.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Some states kept them legal like us here in Louisiana.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's always been a big debate whether or
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: not it was fair. And although a.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Lot of people don't want to use them now, they
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: say they've lost their touch. There's still a time and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: a place to use them. I guarantee you that. So yeah, 1999,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: late 90s, 2000, that first spinning wing mallet from Mojo
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: came out. You talk about revolutionized the duck hunting gear community.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And that's why I got it on the list because
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I saw it in person. And a lot of you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: did too. The next item on my list, the Mud
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Buddy Hyperdrive. So look, y'all, Mud Buddy released the Hyperdrive
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Surface Drive in 2003. And there's still debate on who
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: created the first Surface Drive or released the first Surface Drive.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Let me say that.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: But if you look into the facts, you kind of
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: look into what's out there available. Mud Buddy, a lot
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of people credit Mud Buddy and the Hyperdrive as being
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the first Surface Drive.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: To hit the market.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: There's other people that say, no, it was Gator Tail.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: which is a Louisiana company right here. Kyle Broussard, his family. Kyle,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you listen to the Gator Tail story. Kyle tell you
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: he developed the plan for the Gator Tail in college
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: for a project he did, which is where that concept
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: came from.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Who actually brought it to market first? I don't know.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Mud Buddy is who a lot of people credited to.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: But it was right around 2003.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: So Glenn Foreman in Utah, invented the first working short
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: tail belt drive mud motor in 1999. That's who's actually
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: credited with creating the concept, that design of what we
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: know as a surface drive. And that was in 1999.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: And he released the hyperdrive, like I said, in 2023.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: So several years later, and that's where the surface drive
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: market came into play. The surface drive design, it put
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: the prop at the water surface, unlike the long tails
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: that came before it. It was on a short shaft,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: so it was a faster design motor, and it was
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: way more maneuverable than any long tail that guys that
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: were duck hunting had used before. And then you look
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: at the timeline, and in 2004 is when Gator Tail
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: supposedly released their surface drive. And it set the standard,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I can tell you, in Louisiana.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I know that for a fact. Before that, the king.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: In Louisiana was Go-Devil Warren Coco with the long tail,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: which completely changed the duck hunting market. But when we're
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: talking about surface drives, which is what a lot of
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: us use nowadays, still got some long tail OGs out there.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: But that surface drive in Louisiana, it was gator tail
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: in Louisiana.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: That revolutionized it here.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: But the Mud Buddy Hyperdrive, a year before, put that
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: surface drive market on the map. And that's who changed
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: waterfowl hunting gear when it came to motors. And like
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I said, I could not go without saying before the
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: surface drive, Mr. Warren Coco over at Go Devil, who
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: now offers surface drives, he offers long tails, but he
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was the OG designer in the late 70s when he
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: opened up Go Devil Manufacturing.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: And when he.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Introduced those long tail mud motors that were so popular
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: overseas in Asia, which is where those concepts had came from,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: And he started putting that on the back of a
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: John boat.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Or an aluminum boat rig set up.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: He absolutely revolutionized the waterfowl hunting gear market because for
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the first time ever, you could take those boats, you
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: could get to those ducks where nobody could get to before,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: unless you walk to it or paddle into a spot.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: It made getting to the duck hole much faster.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: With a lot less work, manual labor work involved in it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: And that's why he.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Is still to this day credited as changing the outboard
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: market industry when it comes to waterfowl hunting with the.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Creation and release of the Go Devil longtail.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Because there was nothing like it before anywhere in North America.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't being used for waterfowl hunting until he
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: released it through his company, go to have a manufacturer.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: So yes, once again, another revolutionary item that changed the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: duck hunting gear world.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: We're getting close to the end, y'all. I got a
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: couple of more. This was a decoy. A lot of
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: you know. We had traditional decoys for many years. We
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: all know that.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: But motion decoys started making some noise, or this motion
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: decoy started making some noise around 2010, 2011. And that
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: was the Higdon Pulsator. And the Pulsator, in my opinion,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: is one of the best motion decoys to ever hit
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the market, besides the Mojo spinning wing decoy we talked about.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Because it took motion decoys to another level. The pulsator,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: it was a butt-up feeder. It looked different than a
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: spinning wing decoy. It sat in the water. It looked
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: like a duck. It had a 750-gallon-per-hour bilge pump and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: a built-in timer on it that allowed that bilge pump
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to suck in water and kick it out that pipe
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: on the back of that duck to look like a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: feeding duck that was diving, feeding on bottom. That first generation,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: I remember I had some of the first generations of them.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: They had that big, heavy battery pack with a cord
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: attached to it that went to the decoy. And that
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: thing was as badass then as it was now with
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the modern day versions that they got out there. And
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: them ducks, I can't tell you, I've used pulsators for
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: years since they've been out, guys. And them ducks would
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: decoy and they'd sit right next to those pulsators. It
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: put ripples and a splashing motion in the decoys. It
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: just looked real, you know? So on those dead calm days,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: or you had some of those birds that had been
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: weary because they got used to seeing all those spinning
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: wing decoys, it put natural looking motion on the water.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Ripples on the water on a calm day. It put
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: motion just on the water as compared to everything else
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that had been motion in the air with spinning wing decoys.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: And it revolutionized the water motion decoy industry when.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: It came to duck hunting.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: So I had to add that to the list because
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the Higdon Pulsator, in my opinion, was and still is
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: one of the most revolutionary decoys ever. that was designed
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: and just flat out attracts ducks. It's an awesome product.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: It really was. So that's why I have it on
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: the list. And the last one, nothing too flashy.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: But the last one I'm going to talk about, y'all,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: that I think deserved the spot on the list was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: from a company called La Crosse.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people know La Crosse.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people know La Crosse from the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: knee boots, the Granger boots, the old green Granger boots.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Your daddy had them. Your granddaddy had them.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: You had them.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Everybody, especially if you were here in Louisiana. I grew
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: up in rice country. Everybody had a pair of damn
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: lacrosse green boots, the Granger boots. And I remember when
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: they got really fancy, they came out with an insulated
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: pair of them, and my daddy bought those.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Boy, that was more expensive. That was high-tech redneck at
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: But the one that really, in my opinion, kind of
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: changed the duck hunting community was the.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Lacrosse hip boots. That's right.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Not your full wader, not your regular knee boot, but
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the hip boots. Because me growing up in rice country
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: and all the farmers that had pit blondes and hunted
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: rice fields, or you hunted shallow water back sloughs in
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Louisiana and across the flyways, you didn't want to have
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: a full pair of waders on necessarily. Didn't need them,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: but you needed something more than knee boots. Well, the
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: hip boots, that's exactly where they fit in. Lacrosse, how
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: long have they been making boots since 1897? And like
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I said, the hip boot design was the perfect fit
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: between waders and regular old knee boots. It was perfect
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: for hunting rice fields and those backwater sloughs. When you
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: didn't need chest waders in that flooded agriculture, that's where
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: them lacrosse hip boots came into play. It let hunters
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: move fast in shallow water. which is exactly how a
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: lot of your ag areas in duck hunting works. You
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: shot a bird, you could jump out there. You didn't
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: have to worry about whether or not the water go
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: over your hip boots. You could get out there, go
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: pick up that bird, retrieve it, get back to the blind,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: go back to hunt.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: It was the perfect combination, y'all.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: And it's something that oftentimes gets overlooked. A lot of
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: you guys that's listening may not even use hip boots,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you it was a staple here
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: in Louisiana.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: When I was coming up as.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: A kid and it still is to this day, especially
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: in the duck hunting ag community. So that's why I
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: have it on this list because it's one of those
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: little unicorn kind of hidden things that people don't necessarily
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: think about, but it was so iconic in the duck
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: hunting gear world that it changed the game for a
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: lot of people.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: The old lacrosse hip boot. Pretty cool. Boy, they're a
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: lot more expensive than they were back when I was
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: a kid.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all priced a pair of lacrosse
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: old knee boots nowadays.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: They were way more now, more expensive than they were
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: back then. Good Lord Almighty.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there you have it, y'all. That is my list.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: And yes, I know there could be way more. I
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: could go on for days. Like I said, it could
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: be a mile on this list. But that is some
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: of the most iconic waterfowl hunting gear that changed duck
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: hunting forever, in my opinion. And I'm sure y'all have
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: your ideas, some that I didn't touch on, some that
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: I missed. And I'd love to hear what y'all have
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to say. So if you got something that changed, truly iconic,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: that changed the duck hunting world forever, when it came
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: to gear, y'all do me a favor and drop it
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: in the comments or hit me up on social media.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Let me know you listened to this episode. And This
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: is something that maybe I didn't touch on because this
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: is such a cool topic. I love gear-related episodes like
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I told y'all. And I know you guys do because
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: you ask for gear-related episodes quite often and for me
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: to do those episodes. So the listenership is always great
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: when we have these gear episodes because, hey, they're fun
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: to talk about, man, whether it's new gear, old gear
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: like this, a lot of the stuff on here. None
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of the gear that we got in today's modern day
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and age of duck hunting would be possible without all
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: this stuff coming before it. And it blew my mind
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: when I started looking into this as far as some
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: of the dates that this stuff dated back to.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Really crazy.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: It kind of blew my mind on that stuff. But man,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: some of the technology has been out there since what
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: we said when we started off with the wax jacket.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: That was 1894.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: So yeah, guys, it's a freaking, that's amazing. That that
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: technology was around back then and it just kept evolving
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: through generations to where we are now in the duck
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: hunting gear community. And to see, you know, to know
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: what prices were back then versus where they are now,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: it's really, it'll freaking blow your mind, you know?
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Let me know if there's some items that you think
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: revolutionized the duck hunting gear world forever.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: But these, in my opinion, this is my list I compiled.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And without going too long, I think this pretty much
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: sums it up from the way I've seen it through
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the years and kind of how it's evolved. But you
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: guys let me know what you think of it, my
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: list that I put together. This was a lot of fun.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I hope y'all enjoyed it, man. I hope you enjoyed it.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I thank you for your time, spending time with me
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: talking duck hunting today.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys as always. You know that. And
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: we're getting close. I'm getting pumped up. You're getting pumped up.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I know it.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: If you ain't opened up, it ain't going to be long.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Just remember, thank the good Lord above for the opportunities
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: you get to go out there and hunt every day.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Take a child out with you. Introduce them to the outdoors.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Get them out from in front of those Xboxes and
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: those PlayStations. Get them outdoors. Get them in a duck blind.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Get them in a deer stand. Get them on the
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: water fishing. We're going to be much better off as
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: a society. I promise you. Y'all stay safe out there.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: May God bless you and your families. And I hope
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: y'all have a great season wherever you are. Until next time,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: my name is Jacob. This is Last Stop Waterfowl Outdoors podcast.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: We'll see y'all again soon. And thank you for listening.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Y'all have a great one.