Duck Season Somewhere

Anything can happen while duck hunting. Greer Smith probably isn't the only person the get stuck while hunting near Venice, Louisiana, but watching ducks fly overhead and wondering where they'd originated sent his life into a new orbit. "There's a growing need for awareness," says Greer, who grew up duck hunting in Georgia. Quitting his day job and putting plans into motion, he started 50 Ducks in...

While growing up on a farm in rural Missouri, his dad had predicted he'd become a newspaper reporter. Probably because he intuitively knows the value of a story. Sure enough, Andrew McKean's colorful career eventually took him to Outdoor Life, where as the long-time hunting and conservation editor, he's drilled into issues that affect wildlife, wildlands, and people. An incredible storyteller, McK...

Between chasing waterfowl and promoting Voormi , my buddy Ryan Yarnell aka Tex aka Redbeard sees as much of North America through a truck windshield as I do each year. Every now again our paths cross and we even get to hunt ducks together. In between roadtrips, Yarnell and I catch up, talking about Voormi's new bibs and rain jacket, this past US duck season, driving the highways and byways, our hu...

We all know duck habitat when we see it, but what do ducks "see"--how do our beloved mallards experience and utilize habitats at the landscale level before, during and after hunting season? Could understanding this make us more productive hunters, better habitat managers and long-time conservationsists? Nick Masto (that's Masto) is a duck hunter and recently completed his PhD at Tennessee Tech usi...

How has hunting changed in the United States since yesteryear--and why? Whether private or public lands, is it as easy to gain access? And how does the increasingly non-hunting public view hunters and hunting? Award-winning writer, public speaker and recurring FOX News guest, Gabriella Hoffman and I race through a list of ongoing need-to-know topics from right here in our back yard: roadkill legis...

Back in the internet stone ages way before social media platforms, old-school do-it-yourself duck hunters from around the world gathered in online communities known as duck hunting chatrooms--sharing local traditions, exchanging ideas, swapping hunts.  It was almost like discovering fire! Decades later, Duckboats.net still exists and is thriving like a most-popular Smalltown, USA coffeeshop. "The...

"I'd known about it forever," says John Williams, speaking about a large, diamond-in-the-rough bottomland hardwood tract along a river in Oklahoma, "And dreamed of owning something like it one day." He cut his teeth duck hunting Oklahoma public lands and followed his father's footsteps into realty, forging his way into recreational properties before it was really even a thing. That dream property...

Is it true that "man is seldom content to witness nature...he must posess it?" What is it about beautiful feathers that so obsesses some of us? Truth is truly stranger than fiction, and some stories you couldn't contrive in a lifetime's worth of imagination. Kirk Wallace Johnson's The Feather Thief is prime example--a child prodigy flutist becomes a world-champion salmon fly tier, breaks into Brit...

Rare in terms of the extremely small geograpic area they can be hunted relative to earth--and trust me, it's one helluva long trip just getting there from here--Cape Barren geese are also regarded as among the world's largest goose species in the world. While the coals for lambchops are getting hot, our Tasmanian bucket-list host, Rockjaw, talks about growing up on remote Flynder's Island; Cape Ba...

After a mallards-galore Kansas timber hunt--and I'm talking mallard flocks spilling over the treetops like tossed dice into the coffee-colored opening surrounded by thick ice--Carter's Big Island father-son team, Roy and Drake, and I visit about their singular 74-day objective: to put fluttering greenheads in front of client guns. It doesn't happen by accident either. It's all about location, loca...

Form or function? Because long before waterfowl hunting clothing became a conspicuous corporate camo fashion statement, generations of savvy duck killers chose practical, earth-toned natural materials that kept them warm, dry and concealed while lasting generations. And because history repeats itself, it seems that the entire hunting industry is suddenly trending from latest-greatest patterns to g...

Five minutes isn't much time. But 300 seconds probably seems like an eternity when your life depends on it happening. A duck hunter from Minnesota, Jack Zimmerman joined the Army to serve his country. Returning with no legs and damged arms after stepping on an IED, he has no regrets. Shaping himself into the best new version possible, he encourages others to do likewise through his actions-speak-l...

After a thousand-plus wears, Voormi's High-E Hoodie and other products like the 2-pocket hoodie and base layers, have become essential, must-pack staples while waterfowl hunting worldwide.  Highlighting the many reasons that I now love and rely on Voormi gear, founder Butch English does dives deep into the substrate-driven functionality, meaningful design and purposeful innovativeness of their cor...

In December's "Where the Hell are the Mallards" (EP 434), Dr. Michael Schummer described waning migrations of "Halloween mallards," that subset of North American mallards that fly to their southern overwintering haunts in mid- to late-October regardless of wintry temps and snow cover. He promised to climb down that rabbit hole with Dr. Phil Lavretsky if given the chance. Today, Drrs. Shummer and L...

"All I knew is that nobody was going to outwork me," says Mojo founder Terry Denmon in describing his abrupt departure from federal government employment decades ago to become an engineering consultant that did not yet even have one single client. Many years later, a new fangled decoy concept dropped into his lap and while it'd be easy to say that the rest is history, it wouldn't tell the entire s...

Back in the Big D and met with my buddy Brandon Roy, who cooks the best damned steak in Dallas. Because he's posting sumptuous smoked meats daily, was surprised to learn how much he really cooks. We blaze through a bunch of good-to-know, expert griller topics including various meat selections and smoking the perfect brisket, covering differences among social media platforms and dealing with vegan...

We all know that waterfowl sanctuary is an essential component to managing overwintering waterfowl, but is all waterfowl sanctuary created equal? What are the different sanctuary types? Which do mallards prefer? How quickly do mallards respond to Arkansas duck hunting disturbances, and how does their behavior change? How might private landowners and managers adapt to provide more hunting opportuni...

The landmark 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson featuring Robert Redford should be mandatory viewing for every red-blooded American, and was based on a book entitled "Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver Eating Johnson." But who was he really, and was his name even Johnson?  From the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Nathan Bender tells us all about this part-man-part-myth historical figure. Where'd he come fro...

Kind of hard to complain about killing Wyoming greenhead limits when the temperatures are in mid-60s, but that's not always the case. Seasonably warm weather made for hit-or-miss waterfowl hunting in Wyoming, but the show must go on--you don't know unless you go, right?! A waterfowl hunting guide for 35 years, JJ Randolph is also a world-class storyteller and human being. He talks about starting W...

The quote above door reads, "Back to the New West. The Wild West I leave to you."  While many people have traveled since forever to Cody, Wyoming, to discover the Wild West, many came to disappear or to be reinvented. From the Buffalo Bill Center of the Wild West, Mckracken Research Library, Eric Rossborough provides entertaining accounts of some colorful personalities that did just that, explaini...

It's a balmy 12 degrees outside, but inside a blind the size of some small homes, burning heaters have things toasty. We're fixing to throw steaks and eggs on the griddle, too!  Hunting guide Duncan Abram talks about Minnesota goose hunting, describing how he got started honker hunting, why its a pretty big deal here, why they run such big blinds, what's his blind breakfast specialty, and much mor...

Y'all can chalk today's episode up to interesting things I've never, ever before heard about in goose camp. Or anywhere. According to Elroy Belgaard, vikings--and we're talking real deal Lief Erikson stuff here--visited Minnesota more than a hundred years preceding Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of America. There's plenty evidence to include rune stones, moring stones, and other stuff. Why wer...

We're about 20 miles from the historic Gettysburg Battlefield, the waterfowl hunting has been tough even by Pennsylvania standards, but we got it done. Ramsey meets with long-time friend Nate Metcalf and Jason Cramer to talk about Pennsylvania duck and goose hunting. No differently than bs'ing in duck blinds the world over, we get into some interesting topics to include historic homes, indian sex...

Hunting from an open water blind wrapped in Christmas-smelling evergreens, we were surrounded by hundreds of longlined blocks to include many of Doc's hand-carved "Cleveland-style" decoys, lines worth of Pat's own functional art, and even Coop the Chicken Dog's urn decoy thrown in for good measure--because you can never have too many decoys hunting divers on the mighty Mississippi River!  Picking...

Growing up deer hunting, dove hunting and fishing with a couple brothers in West Alabama, Sara Burkhalter was just one of the boys, which we talk about in depth. Inspired by her duck hunting husband, their first black lab, and what she percieves as a dramatic shift in the way our children are being influenced by modern technology, Sara interupted her day-to-day job as a contruction company owner t...