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From Iowa to Alaska: Building a Fishing & Duck‑Hunting Paradise · DuckFellas Podcast

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Welcome back to the Duckfellas podcast episode 33.
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This week we are joined by Mr. Josh Batter from Wild Strawberry Lodge in Sitka, Alaska.
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Josh, thanks for joining us.
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Thanks for having me guys. Excited to be here. Thank you. Yeah,
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yeah, we've been looking forward to having you on. It's kind of kind of neat coming from Alaska.
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Yeah absolutely it was something i really wanted to do saw you guys refer that
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from the homeland there felt like that'd be the perfect connection us iowa folk
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got to stay together no matter where we end up and,
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yeah i'm just super like i said super excited to be here and talk to you guys
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kind of about what we do and who we are and and all the awesome amazing hunting
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opportunities we have up here where we're at,
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yeah so can we start with how how'd you end up in alaska from from iowa.
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Oh, well, pretty, pretty long story. I had a career in sales for the most part.
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And I kind of had an annual thing that I went up to Alaska and did a fishing
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trip, you know, with some buddies and kind of started small, you know, just me.
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And then it went to two and three and four and then five, you know,
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and then the trips got longer, went from three days to seven days to 10 days.
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And then it was like, I don't want to go back to work anymore.
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So a buddy of mine who I worked with, we had a pretty good gig and we were able to save up some capital.
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And we just kind of decided one day that we could do what these lodges and places
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were doing that we loved so much.
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And that we literally, from the moment we left, I had 51 weeks of depression
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going back to the real world of a job and someone telling me what to do all the time.
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And I just I didn't want to live like that anymore and I wanted to take the
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shot on myself and you know if it didn't work out at least you know we tried and,
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and I've got a pretty awesome wife that has always just been like okay let's do it you know,
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so that's that's a that's a huge part of that but so yeah this long story short we,
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found a broker that was listing businesses for sale in Alaska that were specifically
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to lodges and things of that nature and we,
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hunted for about two years And we just wanted whatever the one we did to feel
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right and the right place, the right time, the right people.
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And I think there's also just a sixth sense kind of thing that comes with that,
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you know, recognizing, you know, it's like, I'm supposed to be here.
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You know, I was meant to find this and that's what we found.
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And here we are, this is our third season. And that's awesome.
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I love it. That is wild. You said you're from Iowa. What part?
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I'm from a little town called Lamoni. It's on the Iowa-Missouri border,
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I-35, little Grayson University is there, a small college town.
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It's about 1,000 people or so.
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Yeah. I actually, when I was moving to Iowa, I almost bought a house in Lamoni
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or just north of town. Yeah. Wow.
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Been there too many times. that's where my sister went to college and leon rodeo
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is not too far from there oh yeah.
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So i live in la villa now so it's a little further south than that i'm used
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to not quite that far yeah but,
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no that's awesome i'm glad glad to hear it's working out because yeah you got
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to bet on yourself we got to take some chances if nothing changes nothing changes type thing right,
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yeah absolutely that's that's that's just kind of way i felt it's like corporate
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america will always be there if i want to go back right and which i don't but,
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oh and it's passionate about people and,
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and fishing you know and and those two things i kind of realized it's like,
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when i wasn't working i was either fishing thinking about fishing online shopping
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for fishing or you know how it goes and,
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there's a certain point it's like i have to figure out how to get paid to do this,
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like it's gonna to drive crazy but i own a fishing lodge i fished the least amount i did,
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i always joke with the customers like i fished more in the corporate world because
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i had a great job and i could write my own schedule we had a cabin down on truman
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lake in central missouri and i was a big crappie guy,
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and when live scope came out you know it was like a 12 year old the porn side
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i could you know I couldn't get away from it.
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It's like the moment I, and I was like, Oh my God.
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Oh yeah. And so that's all I did.
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Now, did you, before you went up there, did you do much waterfowl hunting in Iowa or did you just?
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No, no, that's crazy thing. Not at all. So not, not once.
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I've got some friends that, that do a little bit in our hometown.
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We've got a lot of fields around us. We have a lot of Canadian geese and I guess
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we do have some wood ducks and probably some owls that come through there,
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but I never was into it. They were always frustrated.
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They would maybe hunt five or six times and maybe come back with one duck.
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Maybe get lucky and know where a pair of wood ducks were on some farmer's pond
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and go you know go whack them but it was not a very big part of our community,
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and when i bought the lodge i i always loved just going to safari club but i was a safari club member,
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i dug some limited events if anybody invites me to a banquet like hey man i
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got a couple seats you want to come like i've done delta water i've done them
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all i love going to those things you get to go have some beers with like-minded
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people and bid on stuff that you don't need and maybe go home with a gun.
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So they had an event in sitka and we had been here like three weeks,
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after buying the lodge my dad was in town helping us with remodels and i saw
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it on a facebook ad and i clicked on it it's like hey we got a table for 600
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bucks i was like you know what i got three or four deck cans that are here right now working hard for me,
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one of them's a big time waterfowl hunter and he was guiding in kansas and tennessee
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a little bit and he came up to to learn the deckhand trade and actually now
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he's got his captain's license we'll talk more about him later but.
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I said hey let's just buy the table so we bought the table and went down there
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and the guy that was running the event was from kodiak and he was an outfitter
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and i won two guns that night and,
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i went up to talk to him at the end and he kind of started asking about the
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lodge and i said why don't you come over for dinner tomorrow so he came over
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for dinner at the lodge and,
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he said you're missing out he said i'm i'm solid booked i'm turning people away
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and you and there's no one on baronoff island that does any duck hunting seriously
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there's a few people that'll offer it along with their uh sick of blacktail transport hunts,
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but nobody like says we're gonna go duck hunt we're gonna go i'm like i don't
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know anything about us and he's like you don't have to they're everywhere,
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so we bought an overnight vessel very soon after,
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a little bit impulse on that one.
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Those are the best buys yeah with with plans to start to get a transport license
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which we did so we can do big game transport services and to do what got it
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guided waterfowl but the whole point was,
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we wanted to build more revenue for the company even though it was already very established.
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We bought a fishing lodge that had been started by a lady and it was 33 years.
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And like 80% of our clients have been there 10 to 20 times. Some people come every year.
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And we're like, how can we get a little more revenue? Well, we got to get on
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the shoulders of the season. So what can we do in April?
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What can we do in September and October? Because when the fishing's gone,
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the fishing's gone and the weather gets.
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Not great and pretty big seas so so yeah we kind of just ran with it did it
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and we're like all right this fall i was like the only thing i know to do is i need media so,
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i invited my four or five buddies up and i'm like hey come up to alaska let's
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go smash some ducks i've never done this before i've never run a long line but
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i'm gonna buy this stuff and we're gonna do it,
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uh they came up that september we did it and then we came back in november and did it,
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and last year was our first big year with clients and went really well this
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year we're offering hunts from the alaskan legacy which is the overnight boat also,
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we're doing some out of the lodge if people don't want to stay on the boat and
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the boat has a four person minimum and it's like a six day trip but so yeah
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that's kind of how it all took off and i'll tell you guys,
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the point i'm getting at i fell in love.
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And it was like when i when i first saw alaska at 31 years old i was upset that
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i had lost out at least 11 or 12 years of my adult life that i could have,
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because if i would have been like some of these boys at my lodge here that found this place at 18,
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i would have never went home ever so yeah we the first time those birds came in to the,
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to the decoys i can't tell you it was pure ecstasy for me i mean it was,
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i was a pheasant hunter when i was a kid back when there were birds and i would
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relate it to that like when you get a nice rooster you know dog points it and
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it jumps out four feet from you you can almost feel the feathers you know,
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and the and the air going against your face when it flies in front of you and
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i would relate it to that i was never really a deer hunter i always did bird hunting with my dad so
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i don't know it's just like i was like i can't believe i haven't been doing
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this, you know, and it's, it's a job. It is, it is.
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Nobody likes some acorn cow hunters anyways. Yeah. And, like,
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they spend a lot of time back home, man. And,
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they struggle. And those mallards are so scared. If they hear a car door slam
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four miles away, they're not going to land. And I see all these guys in painted
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faces and dug in burrows in the ground.
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I got clients to sit in blue jeans and smoke Marlboro 100s on the rocks and
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the burrs will land. Oh, this is my kind of party.
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Yeah they're you guys are getting to shoot them before anybody else does they've
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been sitting there all year,
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vacating these birds have never been shot at the most of these birds have never
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seen a human other than just like a boat like a like a commercial boat you know
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going by maybe a couple guys on the back deck like,
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when they when you shoot at them they look at you and they're like appalled
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that you did that they're like i can't believe like they're they're so mad at
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themselves that they've been cool,
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this bitch yeah it's trying to fly around the fucking rocks have got guns yeah
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and we have lots of resident birds too we have some that don't even make it
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down to oregon in the west coast like do
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we have resident harlequins here we have and we have tons of puddle ducks but
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nobody's paying me to come up and shoot mallards i could take you back in a
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bay where there's 400 mallets in December or October, November, December. Pintails.
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And i'm not kidding you guys like sometimes thousands of them
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they're harder to hunt back there because you gotta gotta go really early and
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almost like belly crawl back there because they're the end of these big bays
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and they're you know it's like dead grass but it like goes on for miles so they're
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pretty smart they they know they can go back there and there's
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really no predators here bears aren't gonna catch a duck,
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so but same with the geese i mean i've seen some bays with 1,500 geese.
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And sometimes when they make the mistake and come past us, we make them pay.
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But for the most part, the guys are after the divers and those are kind of out
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more in the rougher water on the outside.
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What's your guys' most common birds for people wanting to come up there and hunt?
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Well, the number one thing that people want, my little friend here,
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I was going to say it had to be a Harley. Yeah.
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This is a Harlequin Drake. It was shot in November of last year and we take him to the trade shows.
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That's he's kind of my, my little puppet. And it's funny working the trade shows.
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I can't tell you how many guys have ran their baby stroller into the person
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behind in front of them walking because when they see this thing back to the
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me and the life scope thing, it's like, no, yeah,
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no, they'll, they'll run right into their wife. They'll, the wife of like,
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what kind of like, what are you doing?
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At least 10 guys every trade show. They don't know how to act.
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They see it and they're like,
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Honey, that's a Harlequin. Hey, boy, look at that.
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Your daddy wants one of them. Well, I'm here to tell you that Alaska is the
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last state that non-residents can shoot a Harlequin.
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It is over in Oregon. It is over in Washington State. They are just doing a
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draw now in Washington State.
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Now, you might be able to get some up in Newfoundland or Maine.
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I don't think so. I think they're a West Coast bird. So as far as I know,
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we're the last state you can get a Harlequin as a non-resident.
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You can shoot four of them, which I think is very generous.
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But to answer your question, the Harlequin, the Barrows GoldenEye,
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we have the Barrows up here, and they're in the tens of thousands of them.
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I've had 40 Drakes come to a spread once with no hens.
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I mean, they are wave after wave after wave.
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You'll shoot your seven and then you'll have to watch 500 more come to your
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decoys before lunch just a barrow's golden eye jesus,
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have long tail old squaw yep which you can shoot in the great lakes and on the
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east coast but there's still usually a pretty high bucket list for people,
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we've got right yep that's the teardrop yeah yep,
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really pretty there's they're purple they're green depends on which way the
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sun hits them ours are very kind of purplish and then,
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got buffalo head which those a lot of people have buffalo head we have the common
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scoter that's the one that looks kind of like the clown it's got the yellow beak,
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and we also have the white wing scoter so five of those are usually on if the
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waterfowl hunter is trying to do the top 50 ducks or whatever it is, five of those are.
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On that list.
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And Sea Ducks, they're like the top five. I got five out of the top like seven.
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So yeah that's i mean obviously it's just a harlequin i think is enough like
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you know i have told these guys and even on a previous podcast talked about,
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how bad i wanted to shoot a harlequin because i think they're beautiful birds
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you know uh yeah but yeah man get some of them just a,
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just a bird for you in general be cool because i mean you still would be first
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one yeah i know it's been rough it's been a rough go at it well.
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Don't come try to shoot these things these are hard to kill and they're hard
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to hit you get some practice,
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now for those do you guys like that you guys run like a tighter choke or is
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it a like an improved cylinder best for diver hunting and whatnot for just how fast they fly,
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it really depends on how you shoot so to get kind of give you an idea we try
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to get the tide and where we're sitting with about 30 yards from where they're
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going to try to land to where we're at.
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So, I have some guys that want a wider pattern so they can, like,
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you know, get them, I don't know, get a better opportunity. They also...
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Yeah, and also, like, the Mallards are big, right? These ducks are big.
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And, like, the Mallards, they
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do this, like, it's like a 747 jet slowing down. Divers don't do that.
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They come in like an f16 and they're,
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and then they just drop and they land on the water and they skid like skis and they just,
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i personally i'm like just right in the middle i i know that i'm not going to
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be able to get a 70 yard shot off but if they come within 30 or 50 i want a.
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They're very hard to kill, guys, unless you hit it perfectly in the head or
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the eyeballs or something.
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I can't tell you how many birds, this one included, he got a great shot on them,
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and he knocked them down, and they put their head up and they dive.
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And maybe they pop out 100 yards down, maybe you don't ever see them again.
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You have to count that against your bag limit.
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But they're extremely tough. I've seen a skater shot like nine times and it was still diving.
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That's why I hate shooting divers because they piss me off whenever they do their acrobatics.
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Yeah. It's terrible.
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Yeah. I don't enjoy eating them by any means. So you've got a total of four
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Harlequin you can shoot as a non-resident.
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Yeah. So, seven puddle ducks a day, seven sea ducks a day. So you shoot 14. Very generous.
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However, when you get to four, of any sea duck you're done that's annual so
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if you shoot four white wing scoters your first morning you can still shoot
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three more sea ducks that day but you're now done for white wing scoters for the year,
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the nice thing is okay they move the barrows golden eye even though it's a diver
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out of the sea duck bag into the common bag because there's so many of them
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so you can shoot seven a day and i think up to a three-day limit so like you're
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talking like 21 of those just those,
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and you don't even have to shoot a hen here unless you want a mated pair or
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something like that which is fine.
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Our clients don't even have to shoot. There are so many drakes like you can
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easily you'll have that many opportunities you can easily wait,
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and you know again shoot what you want but I've never had a client go out and
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whack three female scoters on first light like just wait another five minutes you know. Right, right.
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I've heard of that being a problem with a lot of species out there on the west
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coast of the male to female ratio and it's like pintails especially the drake
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to hen ratio on pintails is out of control,
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but I've heard that on a lot of them that way.
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We try not to shoot them. You can. I mean, I'm never upset with anybody when
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they do, but I'm just like, just wait.
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Just next wave, we're talking two minutes.
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Well, I think all of us as outdoorsmen try to kill as many drakes as we can
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over hens just because the hens are the one that lay the eggs every year. Yeah.
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Yeah, I would agree. I mean, obviously, when you're taking those pile pictures,
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you want the prettier birds for that.
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Right yeah i didn't know that alaska was pretty much the only state left you
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can kill harlequin in that that i didn't either yeah.
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Like i thought it was a little i didn't know i knew it was kind of a rare bird
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to kill but i didn't know it was getting that hard to kill yeah well and what
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worries me is you know anytime you're the last person doing something,
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you're next on the the right you're next on the list and,
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now i've talked to the a few adfg people and waterfowl and they're like these
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these populations are incredible i know it's not a population thing it's just
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a why would you right if you don't have to like,
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maybe drop it down to two or something or maybe just you know only one of those
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four can be a hen but the population is not hurting at all,
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and honestly for as big of a trip as it is to come up here and do that i think
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getting this bird is kind of what what makes it all worth it the other ones
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are super cool the scoters are awesome the the long tail are awesome,
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but we have such a mixed bag and you just never really know what's going to
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come through that's the other thing is we don't have to switch a lot of areas
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they're they're just they're just everywhere.
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Yeah, and that's definitely one that's, when it comes in, you shoot it,
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right? And you're like, oh, cool, killed one.
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But you come for one specific bird, obviously. Yeah.
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Yeah, I could see a lot of people coming for that. Like, just that one.
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Like, that's one on a lot of waterfowl hunters' bucket list is a harlequin. Yeah.
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Yeah. Now, do you guys see many speck bellies up that way? Because I know a
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lot of speck bellies come from, like, northern, northwest Alaska and stuff like
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that. I didn't know where you guys are at there. if you see many of the speckable, I guess.
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We're in southeast, so we're down by Juneau. We're on the outside.
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We're on Baranoff Island, so I'm closer to Seattle than I am to Anchorage.
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So, no, and I think there's something about them and the regulations that we
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can't, or maybe it's a speculated eider or something like that,
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that we're not allowed to shoot. I've never even seen one, but I've never seen
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one of those. A lot of people ask me about Brant.
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I think you can shoot them. I've never seen them. I think that's more of an
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East Coast thing, if I'm not thinking.
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Yeah, I know. I got a buddy in New Jersey that kills quite a few Brants every year. Yeah.
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Pretty much what I listed off is everything that we have. we do have a very
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good population of common mergansers and we shoot every single one.
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In our four and let me tell you another one almost impossible to kill and here's
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why they say i get my four every year they say a common merganser,
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will eat up to 5 000 salmon smolt in its life,
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that's 5 000 king salmon so we're in this king salmon holy cow you know we're
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not going to get too derailed we didn't talk about fish today we can do that
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another time but we're in a king salmon crisis up here and you've got these,
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birds out here eating and i'm telling you the mergansers they're everywhere
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they should they should liberate that one to like seven or ten a day there are
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so many of them and they are hard to kill
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they swim extremely fast they can dive We have caught,
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mergansers mooching for salmon with a herring 60 feet down.
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They bite a hook from a pole, from a fishing pole.
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That's wild. That's insane. And they're still like, why would you not want to,
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like knowing where they're at with the king salmon, why would you not be like,
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hey, we should up the numbers of this.
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Yeah. You know, see if we can't help stop a little bit. Not that anybody wants
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to shoot a merganser, but.
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But I personally have a personal vendetta against all mergansers now after this past season. Yep.
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I got smoked by one in the morning on the boat ride. He came flying through
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the boat blind. Everybody else ducked.
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I have some reason to just sit there and watch it flying in the face.
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That's wild. So what is your season there?
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It opens September 1st, and it runs until December 1st or November 30th.
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And then for some reason, it closes for 15 days. And then they open it back
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up from December 16th to 31st.
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And I asked them why they did that. And they gave me some like,
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well, we have to have a closure somewhere. And when we had it over Thanksgiving,
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people complained because they were home for the holidays. And I'm like.
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Well, I think they should eliminate that. November and December is when you
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get the birds to look like this in that color.
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Yeah. September and October, the Harwicklings are going to arrive,
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the ones that aren't year-round residents, which we do have some,
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but the majority of them arrive, and they're brown.
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They change very fast when it gets cold and when the snow flies.
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So we don't even sell, well, we're still fishing seven boats a day until the 20th of September.
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Okay so we don't even sell a trip until the middle of october all the way past
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thanksgiving because you don't want to have these guys come up here and shoot
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their harlequin and they're they're you know yeah yeah,
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they change fast but the full plumage the colors man i just i can't explain
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it to you guys just seeing that on the water or in the air and it's not just
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the harlequin those the scoters get that bright orange a lot of the ducks with
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the white the the uh the uh,
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Barrow's GoldenEye, you can see that purple and green shimmer in their heads
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when they're flying and the sun's out.
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It's incredible. It really is. That's wild.
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It's crazy how much longer you guys get for a season, though,
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in the Pacific Flyway compared to what we get.
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Yeah. It's definitely a much different scenario. But when you're talking about
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people being mad about their season being closed through Thanksgiving,
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I know Illinois just had that.
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They changed their seasons this year and they had a big problem with a bunch
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of people being mad because they were going to have a split i believe during christmas time,
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and everybody threw a big fit because that's when kids are out of school and
24:52
it's their chance to go yeah and hunting so they ended up changing all that
24:56
around where they avoided that split around christmas just for the youth and,
25:02
people that are off work yeah.
25:05
Yeah, I'm not sure why they close, but they have for two weeks,
25:08
they close and you know, that time of year too, it's the, the seas are getting
25:12
pretty, pretty, pretty big, usually that time of year.
25:15
So it's usually a great time to pull the last boat out and kind of like,
25:21
I don't want to go duck hunting in eight foot waves in a 14 foot Lund.
25:29
I mean, Tyler would. That would be something exciting to me.
25:34
It's an adventure just going every day, guys. So whether you go from the lodge
25:39
or whether you're out on the Alaskan Legacy, just getting up and getting your
25:43
waders on and getting into those skiffs and driving across the pitch black and the ocean,
25:49
and then when you finally do beach, the guide has to go check for brown bears.
25:55
You know it's like that was a question i had is how often you encounter bears
25:59
while sitting on the bank waterfowl hunting all the time,
26:02
really yeah good thing i can run faster than zach we're on our way yeah yeah
26:07
no that's not me i mean if i totally go out let's not you know that's what the lord intended,
26:12
no or seal uh sea lions stealing your ducks after you shoot your harley and
26:16
the sea lion comes up and grabs it and swims away and i'm like well that counts
26:21
sorry oh man dude that would be tough that would that would be rough,
26:26
yeah it's it's happened.
26:30
So usually not that often because you're shooting a lot but they're curious
26:34
they come over and look at the decoys sniff around them a little bit you know,
26:38
you ever had them come just take the decoys,
26:41
no they've never pecked the decoys they've they've stolen birds though yeah
26:45
or what we think they go sniffing around and then we go over there and the bird's
26:49
gone and right luckily it was never a harley i think it was like a merganza or maybe a skater but,
26:56
yeah you've got that in november we have our biggest bore tides of the year
27:01
it's always the first week and that's like our prime time that's our best week,
27:06
and we have like 13 and a half foot tides every six hours for you know four
27:11
times a day up down up down so,
27:14
just i mean to put in perspective i broke it down the other day for a friend
27:18
it's like a foot for every 26 minutes or something,
27:23
dang holy so you anchor your ski you know you drop guys off you go get on the
27:29
spread you anchor the skiff and like waist deep water come back in 45 minutes
27:34
and it's almost on the beach. Damn.
27:38
I've seen a buddy of ours here, Chase Sanders, commented and said bald eagles
27:43
swipe down and steal borrows all the time.
27:46
They stole eight of them from this fall.
27:49
I wonder if it's that shimmer, if that bird specifically, is it just a shimmer of the head?
27:55
Bald eagles eat an incredible amount of ducks. We have, right outside our lodge,
27:59
there's a big rock right in the bay in the harbor and it's like 30 yards from our lodge and,
28:06
the lady we bought the lodge from her daughters still work with us they grew
28:09
up there they call it kill rock,
28:11
and the eagles sit up in the tree and they wait for the ducks and the mommy
28:15
ducks and all the ducks just to start swimming out they come down and grab them
28:18
and take them over to that rock and they rip them to shreds i've seen it and
28:22
it's like every two or three days.
28:26
They eat a lot i mean it's i bet you over a hundred ducks die on that rock every
28:32
year just when i love love you chill the fuck out.
28:37
Yeah those dogs are you know a big part of the ecosystem up here yeah yeah so.
28:44
You know, we're talking about you getting your waders on or you're staying in
28:47
the boat or you're staying in the lodge.
28:49
So how, like when you hold it, the Alaskan legacy, right? Is the big boat you're, you're sleeping on.
28:54
Yep. How big of a boat is that? Like, am I, am I covering up with burlap and
28:58
a 16 foot lawn or is it like. It was 14 foot.
29:03
Oh yeah. Pick it out on the website. I guess I don't, maybe I,
29:06
I guess I could probably pull a photo here, but it's 52 foot catamaran.
29:10
It's purpose built for Southeast Alaska.
29:13
It was built for a bear guide for imprint of POW years ago, and we got our hands on it.
29:20
It sleeps up to six guests plus two crew.
29:24
We have a big kitchen area, a big dining room, big back deck.
29:27
We just got done fishing off of it before we had, I don't know,
29:31
five or six trips with groups that came up and did some fresh water,
29:35
did some salt water. We had a group from Field and Stream come up and shoot
29:39
some stuff. They did some steelhead fishing.
29:42
So it's got two skiffs that come down with a with a crane it's got the lowers
29:47
two skiffs down and it's a lot of fun i would compare it i tell people it's
29:52
like it's like camping out here yeah bring it around honey,
29:56
she she wants to show you,
29:59
hi guys hi oh my lanta okay i think that that's the one that's was on your logo
30:07
or on like what page is your website or something like that yeah yeah man.
30:11
Yeah that's the like that's that's the alaskan legacy that was so,
30:16
you know the nice thing about that boat you're you're there right so they,
30:22
go drive out last year we went a lot further away than we're going to do this
30:26
year last year we're about 80 miles from town which is like an eight hour drive at 10 knots,
30:33
and you have eight hours of daylight that time of year seven and a half or eight.
30:36
So, but the nice thing is you, you wake up at dark and you're just a skiff ride
30:42
over to where you're hunting. And there's so many birds and the populations are so high.
30:48
We're talking like you're, you're skiffing maybe three or 400 yards,
30:51
right? Flat, calm water. We try to get, try to play the tide right in the weather. Right.
30:56
But that time of year, the reason why we booked that five or six day trip on
31:00
the legacy is because one of those days, if not two, you probably can't and leave the boat.
31:07
It's just there's there's once a week there's a big storm that comes through,
31:11
in florida they would call it a hurricane like if you look at the weather and
31:15
you look at the windy app which is like an app that i live on for for fishing in for yeah.
31:21
I use that app for all time for work sometimes just like in november or december
31:26
just scroll up in the the the gulf of alaska and then drag it you know five
31:31
or six days along and it's just one after another,
31:35
but it's Alaska, so nobody calls it a hurricane.
31:38
When it hits landfall here, you know, the mountains tame it out a little bit,
31:41
but you're going to have rough seas for a couple of days. So I always tell people
31:44
like come up for a week, you're going to pay for a five or six day hunting trip
31:48
and you're going to hunt probably four, maybe five of those days.
31:52
But we're able to days that we are able to hunt, we get two hunts.
31:56
So we get a morning hunt, we come back, we warm up, switch rain gear because
32:00
yours is going to be waterlogged we usually have some soup and sandwiches chili
32:05
dogs or something for lunch try to warm everybody up and then about,
32:09
love it we go right back out and we hunt until dark so you're getting two three
32:14
to four hour hunts or two like two three hour hunts,
32:19
days that you can't so if you only got to hunt for those days,
32:22
you still got you have eight chances to kill the bird you want to kill for sure
32:27
and there's going to be lots of birds killed every time i i can think of one
32:31
time we went for three hours sit and we only got maybe a dozen birds that was like worst ever,
32:39
that's pretty solid not sitting sitting no longer sitting eight hours.
32:46
Right and it's oddly warm too like one thing i'll tell you so we're in southeast
32:51
that time of year we're 45 degrees in rain,
32:55
it's always colder i my house my my winter house is in kansas city,
33:00
or was uh we're currently selling it but it's always colder in kansas city
33:05
in november december january than it is in sitka because the ocean keeps it
33:08
warmer and it just kind of hovers at the coldest time of the year around 35
33:12
38 degrees they don't have a big influx and temperature like you see in the midwest
33:18
like we never have those 30 40 degree swings like you guys have in three days,
33:22
ever and from night to day right now we're going from probably 60 as the high
33:28
at in the middle of day and probably 55 54 at night
33:31
so it doesn't fluctuate a lot so last year i had a couple groups of these south
33:35
carolina guys come up all they ever shot was wood ducks and oh my god they They were a lot of fun.
33:40
We had two groups of them. They went through like a case of ammo between the four of them.
33:44
But they come bundled like they're going to Siberia, right? Because it's Alaska.
33:51
And it's .45 and rain.
33:53
You just have to have really, really good rain gear and probably two sets of
33:57
it. Because even if you sit in it the whole time and you're dry,
34:00
after you sit in it for six hours, even your raincoat saturated on the outside.
34:06
What kind of rain gear do you guys use? What's your guys' go-to on Reingear? So I'm a Kuyu purist.
34:12
My business my business partner loves sick of stuff but he's had to have his
34:16
waiters repaired like four times i've never had a problem with mine,
34:21
i've seen a lot of first light i've seen a lot i've seen everything i've seen
34:25
guys with just the cheap stuff they bought at roger sporting goods and liberty right so,
34:30
i've seen a lot of waiters fail though a lot of the cheaper ones the frog togs
34:35
and stuff like that not not to bash them they make some great stuff but i i've seen some but um,
34:41
i'll just i'll just say it this way you want a seven to nine hundred dollar
34:46
pair of waders to come up here and you want a four to five hundred dollar jacket
34:49
you want a real mine's called like the storm quest or something you want a real rain jacket,
34:55
right now you said you have the kuyu waders i do how do you like them i've i've
35:01
seen i've seen them i've never seen them in person.
35:04
I love them it's the only item they don't give us a discount in our guide program,
35:09
so it was really hard it was really hard for me to spend money for for that,
35:13
but they have been amazing so their their boot built in,
35:17
i have both kinds of waders i have a lot of.
35:20
Fly fishing waders that are sims that are you know the the booty and then the
35:26
boot on it right the boat the boot gets wet but,
35:29
i really like the cu ones if they have a built-in thermal layer in the boot
35:34
so they're like a pretty warm boot and then pretty flexible and i'm a pretty
35:39
big guy i was actually even a lot bigger i've lost a lot of weight in the last year,
35:43
so everything up here in the zippers all all totally waterproof as an area i
35:50
can put my hands in right here.
35:52
So they've just been good for me i know everybody has their own flavor but you
35:56
got to have really good green gear that's a must and if you just come up to
36:01
you know to visit your normal shotgun's okay you're gonna be cleaning it twice a day,
36:06
but this place eats guns the salt water and we had so many guns fail we were
36:12
running tri stars they couldn't they couldn't last like two days,
36:17
and i ended up getting a browning a5 and that has yet to fail me,
36:23
and but but like you hit the rocks you it's just it's rough it's so it's just
36:28
pouring you know some days and like you're you know putting loads in you can
36:32
just look down and see the water dripping,
36:35
inside the inside of part of your gun you're like is this even gonna shoot like,
36:40
right yeah that's one thing i will say browning makes one heck of a gun because
36:44
we we pretty much all shoot browning or winchester and it's i mean it's so they
36:48
don't really let you down in any scenario. Yeah.
36:53
I've been happy with it, and I've seen all kinds of stuff. I've seen all kinds of guns.
36:58
My favorite shotgun is just what Dad gave me, just the old 870 Wingmaster,
37:02
just the F-150 of the shotguns.
37:05
Yeah. And it's been a great gun, but it couldn't handle it up here.
37:09
I didn't even bring it because you want Cerakoted. I mean, it's just the rust.
37:15
Is I've got a 45-70 I bought for bear protection. And my first year I came up here, I went camping.
37:22
And we went off and on the boat on the saltwater.
37:27
And I came home and I put it in the safe and I didn't think anything of it.
37:29
Came back to get it three months later. And on the barrel, there's a rust spot
37:34
that's my three fingers grabbing it.
37:37
That's right, we're just my hand touched. I had saltwater on my hand and I grabbed
37:42
the barrel. Wow, the hand of the guy. That's wild. Whatever.
37:46
Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was like maybe 60 days.
37:51
That yeah crazy well let's uh let's talk a little bit about your your guys's
37:57
fishing part of it here yeah,
37:59
tell us a little bit i mean obviously it's that you said that time of year where
38:03
you guys are hanging and banging and going at that pretty hard right now how's
38:06
what all do you guys fish for,
38:08
yeah fishing's been great the cohos are in silver salmon are in so july and
38:13
august are prime time we're booked out to like 2029 right now in august.
38:19
But you know the lodge the lodge was kind of started as a king salmon lodge
38:23
and that was like may and june and then you know co-host season got here and that was just kind of,
38:28
a bonus but now it's kind of flipped the script because king salmon's been difficult
38:32
we're one of the only places you can even retain them right now they're pretty
38:35
much shut down everywhere else in the states,
38:37
you can keep some down in washington on the west coast it just depends on when
38:41
and where and if they're absolute kings or if they're natural kings,
38:45
so we're we're i would call us a multi-species so you're going to get your rockfish
38:50
you're going to get right now yellow eyes open we got ling cod when they're
38:53
open we've got nice trophy halibut with a program called gaff we have,
39:00
normal halibut right now i think we're like one under one a day under 34 inches
39:05
for for charter fish we can catch black cod here which there's not a lot of
39:10
other places in alaska you can do that you have to get out to like 16 1700 feet to do that
39:15
and use electronic reels so we've got a we've got a good mix we've got all four
39:19
species of salmon we can get sockeye salmon that's usually on the alaskan legacy overnight trip,
39:25
but we kind of do it all combo species and guys go out every day we run seven
39:29
boats they're six pack boats.
39:32
So, you know, 42, whatever that is, clients go out a day and they get as much
39:36
as they can and they fish multiple species in multiple spots.
39:40
They leave the dock at 530 and they're not back till about four every day.
39:43
Dang. So, so of those fish, what, I mean, personal preference question, right?
39:48
Which one, which one is your favorite to catch? I mean, which,
39:52
you know, I feel like guys can go up there and they, they want the multi-species,
39:55
but kind of like it's a duck thing, right?
39:58
I feel like some guys are, you know, you're a hardcore fisherman and go up and
40:00
go, I want to catch a king or a steelhead or whatever. Yeah.
40:06
Gosh, yeah, there's so many. I mean, steelhead's pretty amazing. Probably halibut.
40:11
Before the LiveScope era of my life, I was always a bottom fisherman.
40:15
I loved catfish, ran trot lines a lot as a kid and as an adult.
40:20
Trying to figure out that big flathead, trying to outsmart him,
40:23
you know, catching bait days in advance.
40:26
Making a bait tank in my backyard full of bluegills and,
40:30
my wife remembers that she's shaking her head i mean i've done all that ratchet
40:33
stuff i use an ibc tilt and a bunch of lava rock with a with a bubbler and add
40:39
the bullet and everything,
40:40
yeah i've done it i've done it all so for me the answer is how but they're the apex predator,
40:46
and they're they're very interesting to target and we have huge ones here we
40:52
have three and four hundred pound fish that are out there eating other fish hole,
40:56
uh i love this fish with live bait by live pink salmon you know 12 pound fish
41:01
put it on a hook and send it down and you know when that thing gets swallowed it's,
41:07
it's all it's game that'd be fun that's cool we have salmon sharks i've never
41:12
caught one i've seen we have two or three clients a year that get them i really
41:15
like to get one of those those are really gnarly.
41:19
So it's all kind of weird stuff we had tuna come this high last year we had
41:22
albacore tuna because the water got up to like 63 degrees come all the way up
41:27
from like the west coast and there are,
41:29
not really any charter businesses out there but a lot of people that we know
41:32
are out there just hammering a dozen albacore tuna 25 miles offshore,
41:38
some commission commercial fishermen saw them called somebody and the next thing you know,
41:43
anybody's out there chasing everybody with a commercial license out there.
41:48
Anybody with a boat. And we went out one day and looked for them. I did. I'm not gonna lie.
41:55
It's crazy how fast word spreads these days. Yeah. Well, it's such a small window.
42:00
They were there for like, I think it was like seven or eight days and they were
42:03
just gone. That's kind of how sockeye salmon are. It's like,
42:05
oh, they're up in the bay. And then we get a big rain and like all the fish
42:09
pass through the weir that night and they're just gone.
42:11
Just like 20,000 like just up the river.
42:17
So but it's it's all fun and you know our lodge is is great it's great we've
42:23
got 90 year olds out here fishing we've got kids,
42:27
we can we can accommodate anyone it's a very family friendly we still have our
42:32
groups of guys that come up and like to get rowdy but we can handle anything from,
42:36
a bachelor party to a an annual family to a family reunion,
42:41
you know whatever it is or just fishing with the fam and it doesn't matter we've
42:45
got lots of opportunity for non-fishing guests too like if the wives want to
42:49
come but they're not interested in going out on the big water we've got a great staff,
42:54
and you know they take care of everybody so i can't i can't say enough about
42:57
them we've got 44 on the staff and we take care of you from door to door.
43:02
Yeah, I mean, I will say I did a little bit of looking into your guys' website
43:06
and reviews and stuff like that. And it's a very, fairly well-reviewed place
43:10
from everything I've found.
43:12
I didn't really see any negative comments on it at all.
43:15
Yeah, we've got a 5.0 with TripAdvisor, which is basically impossible with over like 500 reviews.
43:21
And our Google reviews are, I don't know, 4.6 or 8.
43:24
And yeah, if you go through there, when we went to buy the lodge,
43:28
I could only find one bad one.
43:30
And it was like some guy that lost his luggage or something,
43:32
you know, like it wasn't even enough to do with lodged. So I,
43:36
that's, and you're never going to make your, I was just saying,
43:39
you're never going to make everybody happy, no matter what.
43:41
Anyway, there's always going to be a Karen out there. Yeah. Oh yeah.
43:46
Well, we've, we've got enough business, you know, that we can even be selective.
43:50
Like we have certain standards, we have certain expectations,
43:53
even of our clients, you know, and if you come and you stiff the captain and
43:57
you don't tip them, you know you bring six people there for three days and other than
44:02
you know having a reason to come tell me the owner that something was wrong
44:05
like we you can get blacklisted.
44:08
And you know it's just like we're a family up here and everybody takes care
44:11
of everybody like four of my seven captains have been here over 20 years two of them over 30
44:17
and they have a following like these guys have people that have been fishing
44:20
with them for years and a lot of these guys don't even have any openings unless
44:23
you come in like May or early June to even fish with them but,
44:28
We, we, we have people that want to come back.
44:30
We, it's time and time again. Like I said, door to door service. We do everything right.
44:35
We take care of everything so they don't have to, they don't touch their fish
44:39
box until they get to their home airport and it comes off the conveyor belt.
44:42
We handle all the processing.
44:44
We do all of our food. The only thing that's not included in our price is airfare,
44:49
alcohol, taxes, and gratuity.
44:51
So yeah, you got it. But we'll take you to the liquor store and we'll put the ice in the cup.
45:00
Uh but now that you mentioned now that you mentioned rates what so like what
45:04
are your let's kind of go through your rates here for like yeah i don't know
45:08
your normal fishing trip or hunting trip or you know just a few what you would
45:12
expect to spend right on a your average,
45:15
your average so we sell two three and four day fishing trips so our most common
45:20
is three days fishing four nights accommodations,
45:24
it's like 3500 bucks plus tax per person and then our our i think the four days
45:31
around 4300 something like that,
45:33
our hunting trips i think i started the the lodge ones this year i think it's
45:38
like a three day four night and i did like a 2950 special on it,
45:43
the legacy is a four person you got to have four guys to play that one's 49.95
45:50
and it's six day seven night one of the nights at the lodge before you go to the boat,
45:55
that's all that's everything that's your meals I don't know.
45:57
The fishing lodge, that includes your licenses. The hunting part,
46:00
I don't include those because some guys have already, they have their federal
46:04
stamp. Most of them already do.
46:06
And it's about 90 bucks to duck hunt up here. Some guys want to deer hunt,
46:10
you know, and we're a transporter for that.
46:12
So, but yeah, so to answer your question, I mean, our most expensive trip is
46:17
five grand for about a week. And our cheapest one are two days,
46:19
like 2,600 bucks to come fish for two days. But that's all your fish processing.
46:24
It's all your food, all your transport.
46:27
We'll take you anywhere in town we'll take you to the liquor store wherever
46:29
you want to go we give you bibs and rain gear and rain,
46:33
uh rain jacket for our fishing stuff so you don't have to bring any of that
46:37
stuff nobody wants to pack boots nobody wants to pack gross you know salmon
46:41
smelling rain gear so we include all that and we take care of you from door to door,
46:46
i don't know zach likes to bring his curious george rain suit,
46:50
um yeah i'm a big yellow guy is that all right yeah we got plenty of yellow
46:55
awesome perfect god you guys have bars on the window so tyler doesn't lick them clean.
47:02
Noop is coming uh i'm curious too right i mean,
47:06
i started as a deer hunter i've been to minnesota bear hunting and i noticed
47:09
obviously you've got sickhead and and deer and bear hunting packages as well
47:13
i mean similar to you're staying at the lodge and going out every day or what's
47:17
your what's your deal there,
47:19
So we're just a big game transporter. We're not a guide. So we don't sell the
47:24
right to shoot animals. There are people who do that and it's very expensive.
47:27
So what you can do, well, what we are is we're the hotel.
47:31
So like if four guys wanted to go, let's say do like, we call it a cast and
47:36
blast in October. So you get to go in the rivers, catch the coho salmon that
47:40
are swimming up to spawn.
47:41
Then we duck hunt in the mornings and then you can go deer hunt in the afternoons.
47:45
But we're not a guide. We're a transporter. So you have to pick the location.
47:48
You have to say i want you to drop me off over there and i'm going to go hunt
47:52
for three hours and then pick me up on the beach,
47:54
so it's like a diy type thing we also transport for bear hunters so if they
47:58
do have the appropriate tag or if they've won a a draw tag over like on kuyu
48:03
island or kupernoff or prince of wales,
48:06
which there's a lot of lotteries and they're actually pretty pretty uh pretty
48:09
good odds i think there's some that are close to 15 or 20 percent odds,
48:14
so if you do it you know four three four years in a row you're going to hit
48:16
one so we can we offer their services we're basically the hotel in the water
48:21
right so they tell us where they want to go what they want to do,
48:24
and we take them there and they hunt.
48:27
Interesting that's cool yeah especially for guys that want to do the you know
48:31
the diy thing but don't don't have the logistics of of doing all that right
48:37
so they can just one essentially a one-stop shop where He's going to take me where I want to go.
48:43
I can up for six hours and head back. You just do your business.
48:48
We're the guys that have to watch the anchor watch. We keep the water hot.
48:51
We keep the food on the grill.
48:53
We keep the freezers cold, making sure you're safe, making sure you're getting
48:57
where you want to go. We've got two skiffs that crane down.
49:00
Our guys will take you within reason and within safety reason.
49:05
They'll take you anywhere you want to go.
49:07
That's awesome. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, Josh, I really want to say thanks.
49:12
We appreciate you guys coming on. It was kind of random, right?
49:16
We talked a little bit before the podcast. You've seen one of the reels that
49:19
we posted and a message saying, hey, I'm going to come on the podcast and chat.
49:24
Yeah, no, it's been awesome having you. And I mean, obviously,
49:28
whatever we get done here, I'm going to pick your brain on a couple of questions.
49:31
So hang out and it'll auto-populate us three back together or whatever.
49:36
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you having me. I mean, look us up for anybody
49:40
out there listening and you'd be surprised. I hear a lot that you can't afford to come hunt in Alaska.
49:46
I think a lot of guys are paying this much to go down and shoot mallards in
49:49
Arkansas and, and, you know, stay in an RV or stay in guys' scouse.
49:55
You know, we're, we're, I'm not going to say we're a luxury lodge,
49:57
but we're a very nice lodge.
49:59
We'll take care of you. We'll put you on the waterfowl. And I,
50:02
And I'm telling you, it's like nothing you've ever seen before.
50:06
You've never seen this many birds and you've never seen them just cooperate.
50:10
You know, the, the video of you guys' intro, I've never seen so many guys work
50:14
so hard just to get a few ducks to come near them.
50:17
You know, it was like, like chicks in high school for me, no matter what I did,
50:21
they didn't want to come near me.
50:23
So, you know, coming somewhere where it's a lot better population,
50:27
a lot better opportunity. It's just a ton of fun and I'd love to help anybody
50:31
out there plan an adventure up here.
50:34
So I appreciate you guys. No, that's awesome. They can find you obviously on
50:37
the internet, right? Wild Strawberry Lodge.
50:40
Yeah, you guys got like Facebook, Instagram.
50:42
I'm all, I'm all over the internet. You go to the owner's page there,
50:46
my cell phone number's on there, email address, the contact's my email.
50:50
So yeah, text me, call me, send me a message. I'm happy. Go to YouTube,
50:55
look at my stuff on there. We've got some, we were on a show called Chasing the 29.
51:00
So that episode's out there on the Outdoor Channel and it's on YouTube now.
51:03
That really shows what our hunts are like.
51:06
So yeah happy happy to discuss it with anybody and help them plan even if it's
51:10
a couple years out you know now is the time to plan and get on our and get on our calendar,
51:15
yeah no how how far out are you on duck hunts just out of curiosity,
51:19
we do have some available at the lodge this this fall and then next year i've got like,
51:25
maybe two to three prime weeks open so we're already like halfway booked up
51:31
for we seem to be better on odd years i don't know why the lodge is that way
51:34
also So, but we were a little light this year, but we picked up quite a bit of bear business,
51:39
and, and deer transport.
51:41
So, and that's the thing, like the legacy, you know, there's only so much real
51:44
estate and only so much inventory we can sell because I can only take four to six guys at a time.
51:50
There's a very small operation. You know, we're, we're not looking for 500 guys
51:54
a year that want to duck hunt. I'm looking for 30 guys a year that want to duck
51:57
hunt. It's very one-on-one.
51:59
Yeah. Yeah. It keeps it more fun that way. Honestly. it does.
52:03
Get that many guys and obviously you turn to more of a number and they just
52:06
want to get you in get you out get the next guys right not at all this is very
52:10
personable we're eating meals together we're,
52:14
you know we're looking at the weather together we're looking at the windy app
52:16
like I'll go if you guys if you're willing to die we can go,
52:22
I've never been scared a day in my life willing is a very soft way of putting it laughing.
52:29
Well, I'm going to go ahead and we're going to go ahead and wrap this episode
52:32
up with the Duck Fellows podcast.
52:34
And once again, if you're tuned in, go check out Wild Strawberry Lodge up there in Alaska.
52:41
And check them out. See if you want to book a trip, fishing trip in the future,
52:44
hunting trip, whatever it may be.
52:47
It's always better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
52:51
Remember that, fellas. Yep. 100%.
52:55
Anyways, if you're not following us, be sure to follow us and subscribe.
52:59
Like follow subscribe do all the things and go check out third.