Latest / DuckFellas Podcast / Numbers Down, Stakes Up: Ducks, 30-3 Debate & Habitat Worries

Transcript

Numbers Down, Stakes Up: Ducks, 30-3 Debate & Habitat Worries · DuckFellas Podcast

0:00
Nope. There it is. Got it. Welcome back to the Duckfellas Podcast, episode 36.
0:07
Move right along. Yeah. Coming closer to that 50 mark.
0:13
50? Yeah, we'll have to do something a little cool, maybe, for 50s.
0:18
Yeah, hopefully when we get to that point, we can mix up a few things,
0:21
do a couple things different. Yeah. Add something special.
0:24
Yeah, absolutely.
0:27
How's life out west?
0:29
Not really out west, kind of like northwest. You're further west than Iowa.
0:34
No, but this really isn't the west. I mean, it's North Dakota.
0:37
I think, pretty sure Wild Bill Hickok was from North Dakota.
0:43
Yeah, I mean, I guess. I wouldn't know that for sure, but you might.
0:45
That's pretty western. Okay, well, you got me. All right, then. You win.
0:51
How's it going? That's a really good one.
0:53
It's going good. Just up here for work. Hopefully, we'll be finishing up this
0:57
week up here and getting out of here.
1:00
Yeah. But nothing goes as planned.
1:03
Is that where all the birds are at? Because they're not in Iowa.
1:08
I wouldn't say all of them, but there is a good amount of birds here.
1:12
There's definitely some here. Obviously, this weekend was teal opener, right?
1:18
Oh, you're too big of a bitch to go. I went and shot doves. My fat ass did not
1:22
want to get in waders when it was 100 degrees.
1:25
Yeah, I know a couple guys that did pretty good up north. A couple guys did
1:29
pretty decent around home here. But it seemed like it was only a couple out
1:33
of the 30 or 40 I knew that was going.
1:37
Yeah, it's just so warm yet. I mean, we're finally getting to cool off now from
1:43
here on. It looks like it trends down. And I know up here, we start getting
1:47
temperatures down in like the 40s for lows in a couple days here.
1:51
So, and highs, I think, next week in the 60s. So, teal are going to be on the
1:55
move. And if they haven't started moving already, like in the past couple days
1:59
from all the storms, then it'll be any time now.
2:02
I was going to say, between the cool down and, I mean, around here,
2:06
I think we're projected like seven days of rain out of the next 10.
2:11
Weather actually happens is one thing, right? But yeah, I mean,
2:15
there's pretty nasty one going north of us right now.
2:18
We got the warning for 70 mile an hour winds and tornadoes and everything else.
2:22
So get your porch beers ready.
2:25
I'm saying go out there and get your kites ready. Go fly those.
2:28
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to hold on to my patio umbrella and see if
2:31
I can marry Poppins that shit.
2:34
I think you're safe.
2:37
It's a lot of ground pressure. Anything I'm holding on to.
2:44
How was your guys' couple days of dove hunting you went? It was good.
2:47
It was good to dust the guns off a little bit. You know, we scratched.
2:52
So Friday, we scratched out a two-man.
2:56
It was a little slow, but I have to imagine part of it was just the heat.
3:01
Just like ducks, you know, if it's hot, they're going to stay where they're
3:03
at. So I think they flew a little bit in the morning, and we had to get until
3:05
about 11, and it kind of shut off. So I bet they just went to hang out in a tree somewhere.
3:09
Yeah, I mean, it's just so freaking hot. I mean, I can't, I don't even want
3:12
to be outside, let alone imagine a bird doesn't want to fly around too much when it's this hot.
3:16
Yeah. Yeah. So that's, and we tried again Saturday morning. I mean,
3:20
we scratched eight, right? But holy shit, at 730 in the morning,
3:24
it was, we were both sweating bad.
3:27
So, oh, well, we got some, we got some dove poppers coming, right?
3:31
At least got to dust the guns off. I got to, that 410 I got from the Delta banquet,
3:35
got to get some shells to rid a little bit. Hell yeah. How'd it shoot?
3:39
It shot good. I was almost ready to stick it barrel first into the dirt.
3:44
Well, I mean, that's about that's just the guy. I mean, I don't ever know you
3:48
to be a very good shot at all.
3:51
Wow. That hurts. Just go ahead and twist that knife while you got it in my back there. You can.
3:56
No, it's, I don't know. I'm just not used to it, I don't think.
4:00
I mean, my 12, the 12 I usually take for dove, I have a little tighter pattern
4:03
on. And I just think I was shooting behind him.
4:07
Right. Well, that's the first time shooting since what, goose season last year?
4:12
Yeah, since January 10th.
4:13
That would be the first time pulling the trigger.
4:18
Not many people are going to
4:19
pull the gun back out of the case and just be spot on from what they were.
4:24
Yeah, good little warm up. Got Pukki out of the house a little bit.
4:27
It was good to see him in the flesh.
4:30
Yeah, I'm glad he got out and surprised he made it out. He's been a little hermit.
4:35
You know what? I think it just comes with territory. Absolutely. Now, but...
4:42
What, uh, you heard anybody out, out in your area doing good or hunting at all?
4:47
Up here in North Dakota? Yeah. No, I haven't seen anybody hunting.
4:52
Some guys are, I mean, I've seen some of the locals out killing doves and they're
4:55
doing pretty good on doves. I mean, there's a ship pop of fucking doves around
4:59
here. I mean, they're everywhere.
5:01
What do you think? Kill them anywhere right now. God, I wish we got doves like that.
5:06
I mean, there's years where we get into a good mess with them,
5:09
but I would like, like Like if I could just do like opening weekend where you
5:13
just had two light out days, I'd be, I'd be like, yep, done for the year.
5:17
Well, I mean, we get doves like that in Iowa, but normally when we get the doves,
5:21
you're already burnt out from dove hunting. Cause really it's only like you
5:25
go four or five, maybe six times. You're like, all right, well that was fun, but let's move on.
5:30
Well, it's a little different too. I think the doves move through so much faster
5:33
than ducks do. So it's like, if you hit it right, you can have a stellar hunt.
5:38
But if you don't, you might be a day later or a day early. Right?
5:42
Yeah, that happens. But...
5:46
I got to go goose hunting the other day. I was going to say,
5:49
you're going to talk about you knocking the dust off a little bit?
5:53
Yeah. You know what? I didn't shoot bad, surprisingly, but most of my shots,
5:59
well, my first shots were six of them landed in the decoys.
6:03
So, I mean, I killed two and Ellie.
6:08
So, we'll just start it off with this. I didn't bring anything with me up here
6:11
to duck hunt or goose hunt with, except for my gun and my calls.
6:15
So I bought a dozen decoys at the store the other day. Which,
6:20
field proven or pretty tough?
6:21
Not really field proven, but highway proven, yes, they are pretty tough.
6:26
They didn't even make it out of town, and they flew out of the bed of my truck.
6:29
And, dude, I'm not kidding you. Those things were tumbling, and there was decoys
6:33
bouncing down the highway.
6:36
You just imagine being in that truck and seeing the rear view,
6:39
and you're just like, mother.
6:42
I wish I could have recorded it because it was absolutely hysterical after I
6:46
got the decoys picked up off the highway.
6:49
Yeah, that's definitely something to laugh about when it's over.
6:51
I mean, I was watching my...
6:53
Because I got the camera in the rearview mirror and I was watching in that and
6:56
all of a sudden I just seen the box just go and out of view.
7:00
And I'm like, oh, that's not good. And I look at my mirror and I just see it
7:04
tumbling on the highway. And I'm like, oh no.
7:08
Yeah. I was like, son of a bitch. These are brand new.
7:12
Come to find out, DOAs, which I've had them. I don't mind DOAs.
7:16
They're not my go-to decoy, but I like to mix them up a little bit too in the
7:19
spread and have different brands of decoys. And I'll tell you what,
7:23
they held up pretty good from going from 60, 70 mile an hour down the highway
7:27
to nothing. To a dead stop.
7:31
You know, that's good. Yeah, and it is nice, like I said, having a mix of decoys.
7:36
I mean, I think, well, I've got a couple dozen lessers I like throwing on the
7:40
spread, too. I mean, just because it makes it look more realistic in my mind.
7:44
Well, honestly, I run mostly lessers nowadays because they're so much smaller, compact.
7:48
You can run more decoys, and you can carry more decoys. And I don't know.
7:52
I don't think having the Giants or, like, the regular-sized decoys really benefit you any.
7:57
I don't know. Personal opinion on that. everybody's got their opinions but i
8:00
don't think it's a bad thing to have like some different sizes mixed in with
8:04
your spread but i think if you have an all lesser spread i don't think it makes
8:07
a fucking difference could just be me no no probably not,
8:11
see um you go i was gonna say but moving on anyways so i didn't have anything
8:17
with me bought those decoys i bought,
8:19
one of those burlap tarps like like a camo mesh one you know you can buy like
8:24
for turkey hunting yep but bought one of those and i bought a gun rust stick
8:32
gun stick to you know shoot yeah yep,
8:35
and i used that i hooked that thing on the barbed wire fence and then i put
8:39
the gun stick in the middle and held up the middle away from me well it worked
8:44
you know okay like they were definitely seeing me when it got light enough out but,
8:50
i shot to that first group about six of them landed in decoys I pulled up shot
8:54
two and Ellie just mowed the whole fucking thing down.
8:59
Dude, ripped it, ripped it off the fence, took the gun stick down.
9:03
Just, she was ready to party. She was never seen a dog so happy.
9:08
Yep. She's like, we're back.
9:12
Yeah. She was jacked. But. Hell yeah. I mean, for only having a dozen decoys
9:17
and I only ended up getting to hunt for like an hour.
9:20
And I had a lightning thunderstorm and everything moving in on me.
9:23
But that ended up going just south. But I called in to work.
9:26
So I killed four, lost one in the beans.
9:29
Standing in the field, couldn't find it. That sucks. But all in all,
9:35
I couldn't be happier with killing at least a few geese.
9:38
Yeah, it's nice to get a few under the belt for the first time.
9:42
Yeah. I mean, both times I shot.
9:45
So the second group I shot into was a group of three. I went two for three both
9:49
times. I knocked down two geese out of three shots. So that ain't bad.
9:52
You didn't mind about that?
9:54
No. No, I'm not mad about it. I was a little mad about the first group because
9:57
I felt like I should have killed three. with three shots when they were landed
10:00
in the decoys. But I also jumped up, they jumped up, and I started shooting.
10:05
It wasn't like I started shooting with them standing on the ground. Right.
10:10
I've said it before. I think they're harder to kill if they're standing there
10:13
than if they're off the ground.
10:16
They're staring at you? Oh, yeah. It always seems like every time they're in
10:21
the spread, we're like, all right, let's knock a couple. By the time they get
10:25
up, we'll knock a few more.
10:26
That's like when they're standing there I'm like I swear to god I just watched
10:30
that whole pattern go around that goose and then it'll get up and start flying
10:34
off son of a never makes me want to kick a fat kid.
10:39
Evidently, our YouTube video got taken down. This one?
10:44
Evidently. I'm looking right now. Somebody just sent me a screenshot of it.
10:48
Let's see. Let's refresh. I wonder whether it was probably something I said.
10:53
It did get taken down. That's...
10:56
What the heck? Whatever.
10:59
That is interesting. Huh.
11:03
Don't know why YouTube's not working. I have to figure that out.
11:05
Well... But we're on Facebook.
11:08
Yeah. Technical difficulties on the YouTube side. It says we violated community
11:12
guidelines, but I don't really know what guidelines we... I don't even said
11:14
anything bad in this one yet.
11:16
Not yet. Not even close to bad. I know. I don't get it.
11:22
I don't know. Whatever. Losers.
11:27
Fairies.
11:29
I will say, I haven't heard many guys doing very good during the opening deal.
11:35
It's been pretty slow from what I've heard.
11:38
I mean, not obviously. It's opening weekend, so you're going to have guys that do alright.
11:42
I think Brett from Woody Creek, I think he had a pretty solid weekend. I think he did alright.
11:48
I think I saw that he did pretty decent. Three or four maybe.
11:52
I don't think it was that many. I thought he Maybe it was just shy of a three
11:58
is what I saw. Anyway, either way, better than most.
12:01
I know Griffin went out Monday and said it was a shit show the whole morning.
12:06
So I did better than Griffin on Monday morning.
12:09
Well, I mean, usually how our early teal season goes is usually opening day,
12:14
you can kill a limit if you put your time in and find them.
12:17
And then Sunday, Monday, Tuesday usually suck ass. I mean, it's usually pointless
12:22
even going out those days.
12:23
So i didn't even go out all weekend yeah i will say too there's a fuck ton of
12:30
ducks up here like the duck numbers look freaking crazy which is wild speaking of duck numbers,
12:39
we just looked at the most recent numbers right yeah you got that pulled up
12:43
or i have it pulled up on the on d's page yes for the 2026 numbers and this
12:50
was as of six seven days ago whatever it was when they released this?
12:54
I think about seven days ago. Yeah, so...
12:57
Yeah, they're saying, you know, change from 2025. They're saying our mallards are down 11%.
13:04
Went from 6.5 million to 5.8. Gadwell's down 3.
13:10
Widgeons are down 8. I hate to see that. I hate to see the gadwall go down.
13:14
That's one of my, they're badass birds, man. I love the gaddies.
13:19
Yeah. You will be stoked to hear this one.
13:22
Spoonies are up 19%. I know, I knew you were going to say that.
13:26
Let's go. yeah spoonies are thriving yes some hollywood's in the spread and,
13:34
wow they're just so beautiful when they come to iowa during season two i love it,
13:38
yeah but man there's a lot of a lot of upset people about these numbers,
13:43
and it's all right so just continuing down the list right widgeon and green
13:48
green wings they're saying they're down eight percent blue wings are saying
13:52
downs are down 11 percent pennies are saying down 11 percent,
13:57
redheads are up one percent the cans they're saying are up 13 percent and,
14:04
same with scalp 13 percent increase so,
14:08
you know one thing ended on scalp what's crazy is a lot of people are saying
14:13
i didn't realize this but i think the limit on scalp is pretty low isn't,
14:17
it you know like two or something like that i'd be lying if I told you,
14:20
I mean, I can't, I can tell you on one finger how many times I've seen a scout.
14:25
Yeah, I'm not sure on it, but I think the limit's lower on that.
14:28
I mean, not that I don't have a potential to, because I don't ever shoot them.
14:31
But a lot of people are saying, like, asking, like, why is the limit on these
14:35
so low? But, like, you can kill
14:37
six gadwalls, or you can kill six shovelers, or heel, or any of these.
14:41
And the scout is the second most abundant duck on that list next to a mallard.
14:46
I was going to say, they're second to the mallards, and we're treating it less than that.
14:50
Right. If that's the case, I don't know. So if somebody does know, let me know, but...
14:55
I don't know. Overall numbers are down 2%, and that's obviously taking all those breeds.
15:04
Anyway, taking the average of all those. So we're down from 33.9 million to
15:08
33.4 million is where they're saying we're at.
15:12
That's a lot of birds lost, 500,000 every year, or a year.
15:16
And again, we're saying we've brought it up here before. I don't know how truly
15:20
accurate those numbers are.
15:23
Well there's i'm sure and i know there's better ways i've been i've been told
15:27
there's better ways to do it but they're they have to keep doing it the same
15:29
way they do it otherwise the long-term average is going to be way off yeah yep
15:34
it's gonna be way off either good or bad,
15:36
yeah they have to stay consistent with with their findings or how they're getting
15:41
these numbers right but i mean i would assume they're taking,
15:44
a body of water that's x acres and there's x number of ducks and this body of water, right?
15:50
And we're going to multiply this by there's 47,000 of these bodies of water,
15:57
and if we take that average, I mean, I would assume, but I don't know.
16:01
It sucks to see the numbers down.
16:04
Again, habitat, nest predators, it's all something needed to take into account.
16:11
One thing that a lot of people are upset by is that oh my gosh,
16:16
I just, I was messaging a guy back that said our YouTube was down as well.
16:20
I told him to go to Facebook.
16:22
Lost my train of thought. But, well, numerous things guys are upset by.
16:26
But like this one for the Adaptive Harvest Program, right?
16:29
For, it's what's the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service goes by to set our season dates.
16:34
Yep. And we are, I haven't looked too much into it. I was going to look more
16:39
into it. And then I got sidetracked earlier with work.
16:43
I'm pretty sure we are within the guidelines of being on a 30-3 duck season, right?
16:48
Yeah. And there's been talks of it behind the scenes the past couple years,
16:54
and I know a couple people that have relayed the info to me that between DU and Delta and the U.S.
17:00
Fish and Wildlife and all the flyaways, there's been discussions of it,
17:04
but we haven't made an act on that.
17:06
And at some point, how much do you think money is playing a game of why we don't
17:12
change that stuff nowadays,
17:14
money and politics it's everything man i i i truly believe that and as much
17:19
as i would i don't want to say hey it's not the right word to use right but
17:22
it's the one that comes to mind as much as you would hate to go to a 33 30 and 3 season it's,
17:29
it's almost something that when we kind of start doing this declining trend,
17:34
you just need to i mean if you have to eat shit just take big bites and swallow right like do it up front,
17:39
because if you let it go too long then instead of a 30 and three it can just
17:44
get cut off completely for five six seven eight years or whatever right to try
17:48
to help help let them come back and you know we better just mitigate that by
17:51
taking a little less each year right.
17:55
I mean it's a it's a resource right and we're at you know at some point,
17:59
are we over abusing the resource maybe i don't know and another thing that people
18:05
have been told this is where i was going this beginning was that you know once
18:08
we got water back in the prairie potholes and,
18:11
you know the nesting habitat and that got better because they were they were
18:15
pretty dry for we had three or four years let's say yeah,
18:18
but last year north dakota south dakota and like minnesota started looking pretty good.
18:25
And this year south dakota like northern south dakota is pretty dry this year but,
18:30
but that doesn't affect as much as North Dakota, Canada, and Minnesota.
18:35
And North Dakota and Canada are looking phenomenal this year and looked phenomenal,
18:39
and we're still seeing duck numbers go down.
18:42
And they've always told us that hunter harvest has nothing to do with bird population.
18:50
At one point, do they come back and say, okay, yeah, maybe it does play a small
18:53
part? Because if it didn't play a part of it, why do we have limits in the first place?
18:59
Well i mean i think i i it's a hard god how do you word that right like it's
19:04
hard to argue that it doesn't but it's also hard to argue that it does and i
19:07
think that is purely based on,
19:10
the conjunction of habitat and water and nesting grounds right like,
19:15
if we have one that's if the if all that stays consistent and solid then maybe
19:20
it really doesn't truly hurt it that much but when this starts going down then
19:23
it really you know then you really start seeing that that decline And we lose
19:28
nesting ground every year.
19:31
We're losing it. And it's from
19:33
as far as just drain tile and cities and just all that stuff going in.
19:39
It's expanding. People are expanding and wanting to farm more ground because,
19:44
it hasn't gotten any better for farmers price-wise for anything.
19:48
And I don't blame them. I get it. But maybe we do more incentives to not drain
19:53
these wetlands. and I know that there's programs out there that are working
19:56
on that and doing everything they can to prevent the draining of wetlands.
20:01
But like you said, whenever they originally figured that harvest doesn't have,
20:05
you know, a factor into it, the potholes were way more abundant than now.
20:10
So now you're more on a level playing field. So you're hunter harvest right
20:13
here and everything's equal. So now you're hunter harvest. I feel like it's
20:17
playing a way bigger part in it than what they tell us. I would agree.
20:22
I would agree. You know, and maybe even more than they think or realize,
20:26
right? Maybe there's going based off these numbers that have always traditionally been accurate.
20:30
But things change and you got to change that with the times right so like you said,
20:35
we're losing we're losing some of those prairie pot hole whether it's wetlands
20:38
the tile you know farmers ripping everything out to get everything they can
20:42
again not trying to bash on a farmer he's got to make his living right right
20:47
and that's where as a state or as a,
20:50
you know if that's a federal thing a state saying whatever we need to work on
20:54
getting getting these farmers like hey all right don't rip up all the syrupy
20:58
and turn it into crop don't rip up this wetland.
21:02
Don't go put drainage tile in because we're going to give you more than you
21:05
would have made on crop or just as much as you would have made on crop to keep
21:08
it in a wetland or to keep that CRP or anything like that.
21:11
Well, one thing I'd like to look into and maybe talk about in an episode coming
21:17
up at some time is how much has it gone up, how much they pay for CRP to a landowner.
21:23
Has it stayed the same or has it gone up? They pay more than what they used
21:28
to because land is worth way more now than it ever used to be.
21:32
It's like minimum wage, you know? When it doesn't go up and people are making the same money...
21:37
Can't afford near as much so right if it's crp like they're not paying them
21:42
more for their crp property to put their property in crp,
21:45
they're just taking it out of it and farming it because they can make more yeah,
21:49
you know and i don't know those numbers off top of my head thankfully i don't
21:52
either i do know somebody that probably has those numbers off top of his head
21:56
and we can get him on and talk about it too but.
21:59
Because yeah i think that's something that we seriously need to seriously need to take seriously but,
22:05
You know, I mean, it affects everything. It's affecting the waterfowl.
22:09
It's affecting Upland game.
22:11
All of it. So that's definitely... Yeah, it's going to affect a lot.
22:13
And if we don't get ahead of this now, like, yeah, we're all bitching.
22:18
Duck numbers are looking worse and worse. But what are we actually doing? We're not...
22:22
Everybody's bitching about it, but it's hard to be proactive on something.
22:26
And if you're not proactive on it, then eventually there's just going to be
22:29
no saving it. Like, we'll never see duck numbers that we had back in the early 2000s.
22:33
Yeah. And, you know, that comes from...
22:36
Guys that just want to sit there and bitch and not really do anything it comes
22:39
from guys that bitch and want to help but don't know where to start and it comes
22:43
from groups you know like,
22:46
you know you got to get online do your research with delta or du or you know
22:50
iscu you know wherever it may be and just see what's going on and see how you
22:55
can help because yeah definitely one thing,
22:58
it's just like politics nowadays man there's just so much money in it that it's going to be so hard to,
23:03
I don't know if the right, fix is the right word for it, but like change the
23:07
way we do things maybe for waterfowl habitat and like just everything because,
23:15
you're fighting a lot of big money in waterfowl industry now.
23:17
Like it's there's, they control it. Oh yeah.
23:23
It's not like it was back in the 2000 to 2010 where there was very few guides.
23:28
I mean there was guides and outfitters always have been but not to the what
23:33
the extreme there is now no and you can see it across the entire hunting industry
23:37
for for those that listen that also deer hunt i mean we see it too right on how much money,
23:43
is can like they can control so much just because it's like wow,
23:47
we'd lose money if we didn't have these guys doing these certain things well
23:51
you're right but these at some point it's it's more it's about more than money
23:57
we still have to you can't make your money if your resource is depleted that much, right?
24:01
So you kind of have to meet in the middle and find, I'm not saying get rid of
24:04
outfitters, but... No...
24:07
You've got to have them, right? Because there's people that can't afford to
24:11
buy all the stuff and then take the time off.
24:14
In all honesty, it's cheaper. If you only hunt five, six, seven times a year,
24:19
it's cheaper to just go pay a guide to go do it, and you're going to have to not do anything.
24:23
You show up with your gun and camo, and you shoot some birds,
24:27
hopefully. I mean, maybe not all the time, but most guides nowadays are pretty
24:30
reputable, and as long as you do your homework, you'll kill some birds every
24:34
time. It's just a matter of if you'll kill out.
24:36
Right I mean it's hunting for a reason correct,
24:40
correct yeah I can't get rid of the guides I mean don't get me wrong there's
24:44
definitely times where it'd be,
24:46
like I think it'd be nice just to go and be like you know what I don't do shit,
24:49
I don't want to do shit I just want to go shoot some birds and drink some beers
24:52
with my buddies in the evening and call her call her a weekend right so right,
24:57
and one thing if we if we were to you know follow the adaptive harvest guidelines
25:03
and we go to a 30 and 3 how much do you think That kills it for not just guides and outfitters, but,
25:10
I mean, for the everyday guy, like how many everyday guys do you think are going to continue doing this?
25:13
Like, that's going to be the bad thing about going to that to save the duck
25:17
numbers is how much money are we going to lose to put towards wetland restoration
25:22
or refuges, which whatever, you know, whatever we're doing.
25:28
I truly, and obviously this is just based on the people I know and hunt around
25:32
and everything else, I truly don't think you'd see those numbers drop that much.
25:36
I think you'd see way less of the everyday guys that have all their own stuff
25:40
quit doing it than you would, you'd see, I think you'd see a fair amount of outfitters close up.
25:46
Think so? Outfitters, yeah, I can see, yeah, we're outfitters.
25:50
If you're established and you've got, you know, like Cypress Creek, right?
25:56
Or Cadillac Creek those big guys that have that corporate type stuff them guys
26:03
don't give a flying shit about shooting.
26:05
No they're going to make their money still but then the guys that are trying
26:08
to up and come and are going after the guys like you and me or Pookie or whoever
26:13
else they're like it's hard for me to hard for this,
26:19
that was a little excessive nobody's even here so I don't know why they're barking,
26:23
right but yeah I would agree right yeah some of the smaller guys that are catered
26:29
if you want to say catered,
26:31
to the guys like you and me or Pookie or Kate or whatever they would probably
26:35
lose some business but you get to the big guys you solve all these corporate
26:38
retreats and stuff they don't give a shit if they shoot 1, 4, 6, 12 whatever.
26:44
Think you'd see about half of them to or so because i mean they're nowadays,
26:49
half of the outfitters they're just some younger guys sometimes that just or
26:55
even sometimes they're guys that are retired like i'm just gonna take some people
26:58
out hunting here and there for
26:59
fun i think you'd see a lot of them people just quit give it up because,
27:03
it's there's gonna you're gonna lose a lot of money there you are and you're
27:06
not gonna have you're not gonna have established clients like like you said
27:09
honey break or cadillac creek or,
27:11
habitat flats and a lot of those big guys you're not you're not gonna have the
27:15
money and the people that come every year already locked in right right and
27:21
you're still gonna have you know you're gonna have your she won't call it specialty
27:24
guys right you're gonna have your sandhill crane guys,
27:27
like they're probably not gonna slow down because there's always,
27:30
gonna be somebody that wants to kill a sandhill crane or you know we talked
27:33
to strawberry point in alaska,
27:37
like yeah that i don't think that affect him at all stuff stuff like that stuff
27:41
like those guys aren't going to because you i I can still only go up and kill,
27:44
my two Harlequin or whatever it is total, you know? Right.
27:49
I would, yeah. I'm scared with the 30 and three on the sex, like,
27:55
drakes versus hens. Like, if we go to three, it doesn't mean,
27:58
I don't think we should change it to where all of a sudden you can shoot three Susies.
28:02
No, in all honesty, I think, and this is just my thoughts, I think it would
28:07
go, like, on Mallards-wise, it would probably go down to...
28:11
Two and one. two and one roughly maybe maybe three and one but i mean three
28:17
and one would still help because you're getting rid of you know one hen,
28:22
one hen and also maybe one drake being killed but it's either gonna be two and
28:27
one or three and one i would assume or maybe maybe even could be no hands at
28:31
some point and if you kill a hen you'd be like the points program or if you
28:33
kill a hen you're done you can't kill anything else you can know.
28:39
It's getting windy. Yeah, I would agree. That wouldn't be so...
28:43
I kind of like that points program. If we do go to a 30 and 3, I don't hate that.
28:48
I don't hate it. I think it'd be good for the duck numbers. I think even if...
28:53
While nature recovers from the drought and finishes recovering from it,
28:57
I don't think it'd be a bad thing to go to.
29:00
I would almost prefer it, if it's going to help us in the long run,
29:02
to recover duck numbers and get them back to what we've seen.
29:06
Back to our long-term average.
29:08
Above you know that'd be way a lot more be a lot cooler just for the the ducks to rebound and,
29:14
hopefully it'd be a lot easier to suffer now and prosper in five years then,
29:21
string this out for five years and then realize that we got to quit altogether
29:24
for three years or right yeah it could be shut down season altogether or you're
29:29
on a 30 and 3 for 10 years you know or something like that or even even something
29:33
more strict but it's going to be longer if we don't do it,
29:36
i mean we've seen duck numbers trend down for what the past four five years
29:41
I don't think we've maybe we've maybe seen a little tick up but it's like a one percent,
29:45
and and then only years we get the one percent up tick the year after we drop
29:49
six percent so it's one step forward two steps back right so some point if we
29:55
don't do it sooner than later and make the gut call to,
29:59
shorten this shit up and you know.
30:02
Do something it's gonna it's gonna get worse before it gets better unless we
30:06
get ahead of it and we're at the line now i think to where we won't be ahead
30:10
of it if we don't do it almost now you know within this next year yeah.
30:16
I would agree like i said get ahead of it and hopefully that means our kids
30:20
that you know they won't have to do the 30 and 3 you know me and austin's kids
30:24
and by the time they're hunting it's like yep we're straight back to where we
30:27
were at when we were kids it's 60 and 6.
30:31
Remember so i mean i was i was pretty young in the 90s but i went hunting for
30:36
quite a while in the night like with my dad like all the time in the 90s i didn't
30:39
i started shooting i think in 2000 i think i was seven started shooting,
30:43
but he always talks about how bad the hunting was in the 90s it was awful like
30:48
they'd go out there and they wouldn't see anything or they wouldn't kill ducks
30:51
at all like it was just terrible duck numbers were down wasn't any good and finally,
30:58
I think that was when they were on the points program or something like that.
31:00
Then it finally started doing better. Then in the early 2000s,
31:03
late 90s, we went back to the liberal limits.
31:09
He always talked about how bad it was. It got really bad for a while whenever
31:13
they were doing the market hunting.
31:14
Market hunting was huge there in the 70s, 80s. Yeah, I think.
31:20
What was that? Do you remember them?
31:23
I was reading an article about it. Cannon guns, they would stick on the front of boats.
31:27
And drive up to duck floats and just blast them. It's like, oh,
31:31
at least we're not doing that anymore.
31:33
Right. And, you know, Jared here, a buddy of ours, he said, like,
31:37
if they actually took harvest numbers or had better ways of tracking harvest
31:42
numbers, maybe we could have better science behind it.
31:45
And I agree completely with that. We talked about that after season,
31:49
I think, last year, maybe a couple times this summer, that there's got to be
31:52
a better way to track our harvests than what we do now.
31:56
And that's not going to affect our long-term average for ducks.
31:59
No, no, it's, it's, it's going to help if anything, right?
32:03
Like if we had a card box, like we talked about it at the boat ramps,
32:08
you know, obviously you're not going to hit private ponds, right?
32:09
But the main boat ramps of these major lakes, how many miles you kill,
32:14
how many teal, how many pintail, you know, and it's not like they're trying to trap you.
32:19
You could leave it anonymous to where they just, all you have to do is put,
32:23
this is the number of this type of duck.
32:25
Well, I think you could even do it where if there wasn't cards,
32:28
you could do it like how we do the hip number now, where you click 10 or more
32:33
or 1 to 3 or 5, whatever the heck it is.
32:36
1 to 3, 12 or 5 to 15 and 15 plus or something stupid.
32:42
Yeah, but you could do something on the hip deal where you just get on it every
32:47
day that you hunt and you select 0 or you killed whatever birds,
32:52
you know, and put that in and then click submit for that day.
32:54
And even if your name is still on it it's going to the state,
32:58
and they could just not release that info like it could just be,
33:01
you know it's private info only for the state and the federal government for
33:04
the u.s fish and wildlife that's it exactly and it you're not going to get everybody
33:09
like we talked about when we talked about this six months ago you're not going to get everybody to.
33:14
You know complete it and do it every day but you're going to get the people
33:17
that actually do care about it that will do it and it'd give the government
33:21
or the DNRs a better idea of what harvests actually are.
33:26
Yeah, absolutely. And for the biologists because these biologists seem to believe
33:30
that harvest doesn't matter.
33:33
That's a fact.
33:36
I don't know. It's a lot of things. It's really aggravating.
33:39
If you sit back and think about it and you listen to some of the things that
33:42
are said and it's like, that don't even make sense.
33:46
I just like saying deer harvest doesn't matter. Right.
33:50
And that's wild because they monitor deer harvest way more, right?
33:54
And it's probably a little easier because you have to have a tag per animal, right?
33:58
So it's a little easier for them to notice that. But,
34:01
we've also seen guys, you know, especially in Southern Iowa where the disease
34:05
hit really hard and they're like, I'm not shooting any does off these farms
34:09
because I've seen the numbers crash so bad that I don't want to take any more
34:12
of the breeding population away. Right.
34:16
Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's one of those things. There's not much you can
34:20
do other than send enough emails and complain enough to where,
34:23
and not just complain on Facebook.
34:24
Like I'm saying, like type up an email to your local DNR person or to the U.S.
34:29
Fish and Wildlife or Delta and stuff like that and get some people,
34:34
you know, actually listening or paying attention to what's going on.
34:37
It's not good what's going on. No.
34:42
I really thought this year we were going to have better numbers than we did.
34:48
With the better water and everything else, I thought we were going to as well.
34:53
I wasn't expecting to see a million more mallards, but I was expecting to see
34:57
maybe a 1% or 2% to 3% uptick in numbers overall. I don't know if I was expecting
35:03
an uptick, I was just expecting closer to Eden than 11%.
35:08
Yeah, that would have been cooler. It sucks seeing that number.
35:13
If they drop 1%, it's like, okay, but like if this year they're 1% and the next
35:17
year they're up 1%, like everything kind of balances out type deal, you know?
35:22
But yeah, if we are for dropping 11, climbing to drop in 10,
35:26
climbing one, you know, eventually it's going to be where you have under a million mallards.
35:32
Yeah. I mean, we're down to, we're less than 6 million now. So we're,
35:36
we're getting pretty far down there. And I believe in 2012 or 10,
35:40
we were around like 12 or 14 million.
35:42
So we were, you know, 10 to 15 years ago, we had, over double the Mallards we
35:47
do now. Actually, I think at one point, almost triple.
35:50
So that's wild. It is.
35:54
Glad I got two on the wall, so if they ever take it away, at least I got two I can look at.
35:59
There you go. You can tell your kid that's what Mallards used to look like.
36:04
They were genetically engineered by the government to spy on us,
36:07
because most words are fake anyway. Oh my god, could you imagine?
36:12
We'd be fucked. Every Drake Mallard is fully plumed, has three curls,
36:18
and they're all just absolutely beautiful and just dumb as rocks. Oh man.
36:23
We'd be cooked. Yeah, it'd be a bad deal.
36:27
But moving on from that, if anybody has, if you're listening to this podcast,
36:31
wherever you listen to it at, whether it's on Apple, Spotify,
36:34
you know pod bean any of them,
36:37
shoot us a message tell us what you think about that or your thoughts i mean
36:40
we everybody's entitled to their own thoughts some thoughts may be wrong there
36:43
is wrong answers in this and there are right answers and there's also thoughts
36:47
that are good thoughts that could be right could be wrong,
36:50
and there's also thoughts you should probably just keep to yourself,
36:53
yeah but go ahead and tell us them anyways because it's always fun to see those
36:57
ones it is and speaking of comments do you think that guy ever finished counting
37:02
the fibers in his carpet it or is he still working on it.
37:07
I'm curious I really want to know the final numbers on that I forgot all about
37:12
that he's probably still counting them my guess,
37:14
yes yeah it would take a while a couple hours after work to work on it so like
37:19
I mean I'm just looking around this hotel room right now and this would take
37:22
me probably a few months and that's a pretty small room yep,
37:27
yeah.
37:30
But no, seriously though, reach out, tell us your thoughts. I mean,
37:34
we're always open for, I mean, we have our thoughts, we have our ideas,
37:38
and not like between Cade, Austin, Zach, and myself, we don't agree on everything.
37:44
There's things we disagree on. So we still, we'll just tell each other we're
37:48
stupid, but we still listen to them.
37:51
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I do want to take a second out of that and
37:54
give a round of applause to all these duck hunters.
37:57
Because when they sent that petition around for, you know, don't drain the duck
38:01
factory, you guys, all of us signed it, you know, obviously a bunch of other
38:06
people signed it and that's what has to happen.
38:08
Like when, and when any of these get proposed, you have to email it in and it
38:13
just sucks that, I mean, it's good that that one made the national coverage
38:16
it did, right? But there's a lot of these that don't and that's what it's going
38:19
to take is all of us sending emails like we did because they put a stop to it.
38:23
Well, there's going to be more of those things. come out. It's going to continue.
38:26
It'll never stop. It's just going to get worse.
38:28
Yeah. It's not like we're not 20 years ago where we don't got to worry about
38:32
that shit as much anymore.
38:34
They're coming after all of hunting.
38:37
There's more people that hate hunting now than ever.
38:42
Look at Oregon. We're trying to ban it all together. Can't even kill chickens. Oh, fuck.
38:48
You ever owned a chicken? The fucker will kill itself if it's too hot out.
38:52
Speaking of chickens, How are your chickens doing? We're all alive.
38:56
We're all good. That's good. Got six eggs today.
38:59
Hell yeah. They are done with the shit though.
39:02
Did you see, or did I ever send you the link about Kansas limiting non-resident hunters?
39:09
Yeah. Yeah. Now that you say that, I've kind of forgot about it,
39:11
but I did read through that when you sent it over.
39:13
Yeah. That's interesting. That's wild. It's, you know, and it's, it's crazy.
39:20
I mean I get why they're doing it And I get why South Dakota does their thing But.
39:28
How can they limit non-residents from hunting federally funded land?
39:33
I can see private land or whatever, something like that.
39:39
But when it's federally funded from the federal duck stamp tax dollars,
39:44
how can that state tell you, you can't come hunt here? Or you have to be done by noon?
39:50
It's tough because you look at it from other aspects of other animals.
39:54
It's like you got to take care of your residents.
39:56
But like you said this is a federal thing not not a state thing so it's like,
40:01
waterfowl are different than deer on that like i do get deer and i understand
40:06
that because deer they don't really fucking migrate they might take a walk and walk 50 60 miles but,
40:14
for a little stroll a nature walk that's about it.
40:19
But they ain't migrating thousands of miles right yeah i don't know it's,
40:23
not not a single state owns any of these birds i mean they might they might,
40:28
raise them there might be some birds hatched in their state,
40:31
and just like deer i mean but they the deer stay in the state for the most part
40:36
95 of your deer unless you get down to southern like on borders those deer obviously right yeah,
40:43
yeah but you don't see a deer from northern iowa say ah fuck it i'm going to missouri,
40:48
user first off he's an idiot second off down 35,
40:53
i don't i don't know it's tough like if you're gonna do it i feel like yes i'd
40:57
make it for everybody that's that's hunting the state right yeah i mean if,
41:03
yeah and south dakota's done their draw where you got to draw for a license
41:07
for years and it it sucks and it's a pain in the ass and i mean i get it but
41:14
at the same time i'll just do what North Dakota does.
41:17
North Dakota just tells you, all right, you can come hunt here and you can hunt,
41:21
the same rules as all residents hunt, but you have to pick between these six
41:25
zones and you can only hunt five days at a time.
41:29
Well, seven. There's seven day licenses. Oh, that was five.
41:32
But I think you can't hunt the same zone twice now. And it's constantly changing.
41:37
North Dakota's trying different things. They're trying to make it fair for everybody. Yep. You know?
41:43
I will give them credit on that. I think they're doing their best to try and...
41:47
Because there's a lot of people that go to North Dakota to hunt.
41:50
Oh, absolutely. I think they're trying to solve a problem that's there and make
41:55
it better for everybody involved.
41:57
But like South Dakota, where they have a draw, and if you don't draw,
42:01
you just can't hunt there. It's like, hmm, that's kind of fucked.
42:04
That part sucks. I do... Yeah, I don't hate the NODAC thought,
42:09
right? Like, get a license and... Because can't you really do it twice?
42:14
What? Or that's Canada, or the Canada is what I was thinking of.
42:18
No, North Dakota, you only get two seven-day periods in North Dakota unless you choose.
42:22
So there's two licenses you can choose where you can hunt two zones at the same
42:27
time, two different zones at the same time, but you only get one seven-day license.
42:31
Or you can select one zone, hunt that zone for seven days, and then you can
42:35
select another zone or maybe even select the same zone I can't remember,
42:38
and you can get two seven-day periods. Okay.
42:42
Hate that like no i mean it's it's not in all honesty,
42:47
after seven days of being up there and you're up there usually for nine to ten
42:50
time you do all your driving and scouting beforehand yep you're wore out like
42:53
i'm pretty much ready to go the fuck home after those seven or 14 days right and it's like,
42:59
i don't know i feel like you know the out of state going to canada is definitely
43:03
going to decrease and maybe that's their goal but it's like well if i can only
43:06
hunt for four hours of light. I don't want to fucking do that.
43:12
Yeah, especially if they get rid of daylight savings time, your hunting hours are not even shorter.
43:19
You lost an hour or two. Yeah, I don't know.
43:22
I mean, I guarantee you that it might not be next year, but probably the year
43:26
after, you'll start seeing where either they bring it back because they've lost so much money.
43:33
I mean, look at how much every state, and every state should,
43:36
but look at how much every state jacks their non-resident license or,
43:39
or anything up, you know, it's like, which you should, again,
43:43
take care of your residents first, right?
43:45
You got to put money into conservation, but I'm curious on if they lose enough
43:49
of it or so much of it in two years, you're like, all right, this is a terrible idea.
43:53
We need to go, either go to what NODAC does or go back to just, you guys can come hunt.
43:58
I'd rather see these states raise the price of their hunting license more than
44:03
restrict all the Don residents from either being unable to hunt,
44:07
period, or any of that shit.
44:09
But, like, for me, when I'm going to go on a hunting trip, the last thing I
44:12
really worry about is the cost of the license. I'm worried about everything else.
44:16
Yep. Like, I don't really care. Like, if I want to go there,
44:19
I'm going to go there. I'm going to pay $150 or $300, whatever it costs for the license. Yeah.
44:26
Like the necessary evil, if you will, right? Like, again, don't care.
44:31
You know, I've been Minnesota bear hunting.
44:33
Hey, also, you have to buy this $150 license for, okay.
44:38
What am I going to say? Get bent because I don't want to spend another $150. Right.
44:44
And I mean, at the same time, it's like, you know, people will be like,
44:48
well, you're kind of pricing me. I ought to be able to go on a trip.
44:50
I mean, yeah, I get that. But at the same time, like they have to do something.
44:53
And I'd rather them raise the price on it than limit.
44:56
The days you can hunt there or just hours or even if you even can hunt there.
45:01
Because all in all, every time you, I, or anybody else that waterfowl hunts
45:05
buys a federal duck stamp, you're helping fund all these wetlands and areas in all the states.
45:12
Right. That they build. I mean, you're not just helping your own state.
45:15
You're helping ducks nationwide. Yeah.
45:20
I don't know. I get the, I mean, I do get the pricing, you know,
45:23
pricing people out of a hunt. Um, shit's tight anymore, right?
45:25
Living, living is expensive, but I think I would still almost rather,
45:30
you know, instead of saying every year we went to NODAC now it's, or Kansas, sorry.
45:34
You know, if now I don't even want to go at all because I only get half my hunting
45:38
time. Whereas I would rather just go every other year and get my full hunting
45:43
experience versus still being able
45:45
to afford to go every year and getting half of what I used to pay for.
45:48
Right. And you know, No, whenever you're limited on time like that.
45:52
It's like North Dakota has goose.
45:56
You can't kill geese after noon or 1 o'clock every day except for Wednesday and Saturday.
46:01
Wednesday and Saturday are the only days you can kill geese all day.
46:06
And it's like, well, you kind of like, all right, well, let's try and kill our
46:10
geese in the morning and then go duck hunt in the evening or whatever.
46:15
But when you're a non-resident, you're limited.
46:19
You have to just shoot whatever comes in. You can't sit there and go,
46:21
all right, well, we're going to try and kill our mallards today and do like
46:24
what a lot of us do and skip on teal or shovelers or gadwalls and shoot the
46:30
species you want to shoot.
46:31
Or if you go to Arkansas or Louisiana, say, because you wanted to kill a big, drake bullpenny.
46:38
One until one o'clock, say they enforce that noon bullshit, then it fucked.
46:44
And you're only there to kill one bird. You're not there to kill all the birds.
46:47
You're just there to kill that. You want a trophy. Exactly. It's bullshit.
46:52
And even Bill's here, he said, send them half the federal stamp money then. I mean, that's an idea.
47:02
That's what they should get, technically, if they want to limit guys that come
47:05
in or limit people to certain areas.
47:08
You know, that's just, Arkansas does a similar thing, but all the federally
47:12
funded properties, non-residents, I think, have the same guidelines as residents.
47:18
It's all the state funded ones that are different, but the ones that are federally funded are.
47:23
Which is fair. That's fair. That is fair. That's, you're staying between the
47:27
mustard and the mayo, right? You're staying right in your lane of,
47:30
all right, we can't say shit here because we don't front the money.
47:34
And that's absolutely fair to say on state ground, we're going to say that you
47:38
can only hunt until noon or 1 o'clock or whatever, right? Right.
47:43
I don't know. It's wild times. I mean, it feels like there's way more hunters
47:49
now than there ever was, but according to numbers, there's not.
47:51
But there are way more hunters now that travel than ever before.
47:56
Yeah. I would agree with that. I
47:59
mean, that's and I don't even have a big little pool to pull from as you.
48:02
And I'm just saying in the past five years I've noticed that.
48:06
I mean, you don't even have to, you didn't have to travel back then though.
48:10
In the early 2000s, you could just kill them, you know,
48:13
state most of the time. You just had to wait your turn until the birds got there.
48:15
The weather almost always got right, which climate change and global warming,
48:20
we're all going to die soon.
48:22
All these fucking flooded cornfields are shortstop on the docks.
48:29
Had to throw that out. Yeah, always.
48:33
And Bill's absolutely right. He said it's only going to get worse if we don't stop this shit.
48:39
At some point, people got to put their foot down and really say something and not,
48:44
just on fucking facebook like we said earlier like we said with the whole perry
48:48
powell thing right like people started sending emails and look what happened
48:52
yeah we're gonna we're gonna face it again but this could be,
48:55
any of these bills if you raise your voice and send the emails and,
48:59
or you can or you can call that senator's office or whoever the dnr officer's
49:04
office and leave them voicemail that they might not answer your phone if they
49:07
realize why you're calling but you can listen you stupid prick we don't like
49:11
no don't cuss I don't I'd be.
49:15
But yeah I don't know good conversations right like I said a lot of conversations
49:20
we had opinions or thoughts or anything like that and you don't want to put
49:25
it on a on a Facebook post you can message any one of us directly,
49:29
yeah if you have something that you want to say but you're too shy or you just
49:33
don't want to be called out online just tell us what you're thinking and Yeah, fuck it. We'll say it.
49:38
Yeah. If it's really dumb, we'll screenshot it, put it on Facebook, call you out anyway.
49:43
I mean, depends on what it is. Well, it happens to be like pretty blatantly dumb.
49:49
Look at this fucking idiot. Look at this moron. It's kind of like you yesterday
49:54
whenever you said I spelled ridiculous wrong. Yeah.
50:03
That one right now but yep yep yeah that's you he did but no,
50:10
good talks and good talks you know more good talks to be had so well what's
50:14
your plan you going you're going to go teal hunting this weekend then since
50:16
the weather's going to be cooler are you being a faggot this weekend again,
50:21
i don't one doesn't change because i go duck hunting that's always i,
50:27
would i would like to get out maybe shoot some teal i'd really like to get on So, you know,
50:32
that one private pond, we were sitting there Friday and just a bunch of woodies
50:37
just dumped into that pond. I'm like,
50:41
rainbow teal, about to catch it. I wonder how many rainbow teal died this weekend.
50:48
I don't want to know the numbers there. Bet you it was quite a few. Yep.
50:55
I was talking to one buddy of mine and he said that, he's like,
50:57
man, I was watching these guys. There were...
51:03
All I kept seeing come out of the hole was wood ducks and stuff like that.
51:06
I'm like, hmm. You think they were doing that? I'm like, nowadays,
51:10
I wouldn't put it past anyone.
51:13
Nope. There's too many people that aren't honest, if that's the right way to
51:19
go about that. Don't give a shit.
51:22
Maybe don't know. I think it's more of the don't give a shit or don't care part of it.
51:27
Because, I mean, it's not so hard to do bird identification nowadays, right?
51:32
It's everywhere. You get a Woody, comes in, right out of the legal light,
51:36
and you squint, and all you can see is wings moving? I get it.
51:40
Yeah, other than that big fat tail on the back end of it. No. Nope.
51:46
They don't have those. Nope, and they sound the exact same as Teal when they're
51:49
flying, too, so I don't. Oh, yeah.
51:53
Oh, yeah. But, no. I mean, hopefully all you guys that are listening can get
51:59
out there and kill some Teal this weekend, because I do think,
52:02
I think it's going to get good this weekend.
52:03
I think we'll have a good little push here.
52:06
Might be a little wet and froggy, but I think there's a good push of teal coming.
52:10
There's a ton of teal up here in Nodak to come. Perfect.
52:15
Perfect. I love it. Yeah, I do want to get out and might get the dog out, like I said, on that.
52:19
Just that private. I've got that blind already built, so it'd be nice to get
52:22
the dog out there for the first time of the year.
52:25
The thing's still standing? The blind or the dog?
52:30
Blind. Yeah. Yeah, we looked at it. It still looks solid.
52:33
It needs a little brush around it, but other than that, I mean,
52:37
the woodies were landing in it in the pond with it there like that,
52:39
so I don't even know if we really need to brush it in or if we're just used
52:41
to it at this point. They're probably just used to it.
52:44
I figured you built that kind of like the stepbrothers built them bunk beds,
52:47
so I kind of figured it would have fell over by now.
52:50
I did, but I did one crucial step, and I buried the posts.
52:56
And this right here is another thing right here.
53:00
Skeeters are off the chart. I, God damn, I hate them things.
53:05
Dude, I don't even want to hear about it. When I went out goose hunting the
53:07
other day, I got tore up from the flora by mosquitoes.
53:11
I was about ready to just go suck start my 12 gauge at one point.
53:15
I'm very glad Griffin remembered his termosal on that Duff hunt because I think
53:20
that's the only thing that saved us.
53:21
So you can see him like out front. They wouldn't come close,
53:23
but they were just like buzzing right in front of your face.
53:26
I'm like, I'll just send you a Snapchat tomorrow of my truck.
53:31
It is completely covered in mosquitoes.
53:34
Oh God. From driving around up here.
53:37
I wish we did like Agent Orange, those dumb fuckers.
53:42
I don't even know they're good at the fusion hardware. I don't think so.
53:45
I think they're useless.
53:47
What do they do? Bite you and piss you off? That's it? They take my blood?
53:52
Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.
53:54
Taking blood samples. Yeah, not enough. They're taking blood samples and giving
53:59
it to the government. Oh, shit.
54:04
Bill, I hope you and God do have a conversation about that because yeah, we need more spiders.
54:10
Maybe more dragons. Did you know that the mosquitoes like number one predators of a dragonfly.
54:15
Really? Yeah. Apparently they just eat the piss out of them.
54:19
I had, I had one hanging out in my lap the other day when I was running the
54:21
crane the other night, a dragonfly, not a mosquito.
54:25
I was hoping that was the case. I was like, uh, cause one, I would love to have
54:28
hang out. Like if they could just follow me around and eat every mosquito that
54:32
ever came near me, just get a couple pet dragonflies. Yeah. Yeah.
54:37
Yeah. They're, they're a major predator and actually the only reason I went
54:41
down that rabbit hole is because somebody invented a hat clip with a dragonfly on it that sat right here,
54:47
and they made this deal like oh mosquitoes don't bug you now and i'm like there's
54:52
no way that's the case and sure shit like one of their number one predators is dragonflies,
54:57
maybe we need to do a study in the if dragonfly numbers are down because yeah
55:01
like bill said the mosquitoes are off the charts and there's dragonflies are
55:04
slacking so maybe maybe it's a water thing This all, it's all coming together.
55:10
We start getting low on water. Our dragonflies are going away.
55:13
Mosquitoes are on our eyes.
55:15
I need to look up what dragonfly habitat looks like and what they thrive in.
55:20
Yes. And I'm just going to start planting that everywhere.
55:25
Get you a little dragonfly army to protect your farmstead from the mosquitoes.
55:29
Imagine me in a little butterfly cage out there. We just open it up,
55:32
let them fly around the boat.
55:34
That'd be pretty cool, actually. Give them like a whistle and they all scurry back into their cage.
55:38
Go to get to the boat ramp and pull a bird cage out of your back city or truck.
55:41
Everybody's like, what the hell is that for? It's my dragonflies.
55:46
If you don't know, you don't know. That's fine.
55:51
Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up this week, don't you?
55:54
You got anything else no i don't besides uh anybody that's going out you know
55:58
this week in between now the next,
56:03
damn it boy,
56:06
i think you muted your mic that sucks oh no there it is oh it's too straight
56:13
don't be getting the blind with your buddies and uh life's a garden dig it bye bitches.