Duck Season Somewhere Ramsey Russell

It's something we know intuitively--waterfowl need water. And they mostly eat seeds, right? But has transforming natural floodplain ecosystems that sustained migratory waterfowl for millenniums into monotypic, agricultural landscapes somehow altered our understanding waterfowl habitat preferences (versus availability), habitat productivity, and essential wetlands complexes? Personal duck hunting experiences worldwide combined with known, species-specific migrational and distributional changes and a gut feeling that, well, having ample supply of a limited resource has its advantages have me rethinking seed mentality as an approach to waterfowl habitat management. Wildlife Biologist Kevin Nelms and I sift through superior benefits of mimicking emerging wetlands to attract and hold wintering waterfowl. Duck hunters, club members, public land hunters and habitat managers--everyone will appreciate this honest discussion.
 
As USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Wildlife Biologist in the Mississippi Delta, Nelms has spent decades designing and developing numerous private-lands waterfowl impoundments. He’s worked extensively with private landowners throughout the region, improving desirable waterfowl habitat conditions, enhancing duck utilization, even putting together a handbook that's considered a must-have staple for waterfowl habitat management (see related links below for your own PDF copy). Contact Kevin Nelms at kevin.nelms@USDA.gov.
 
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Related Links:
Wetlands Management for Waterfowl Handbook (PDF)
Managing Moist-Soil Impoundments (YouTube)
 
Other Need-to-Hear Habitat Episodes:
EP 125. Wetland Management for Waterfowl Habitat 1/3 EP 127. Wetland Management for Waterfowl 2/3 EP 129. Wetland Management for Waterfowl 3/3 EP 175. Wetlands Management for Waterfowl: Fall Considerations EP 235. Waterfowl Habitat Management: Producing Desirable Moist-soil Vegetation EP 237. Waterfowl Habitat Management: Controlling Problem Plants EP 245. Waterfowl Habitat Management: Planting Agricultural Hot Crops EP 254. Waterfowl Habitat Management: Good Intentions, Bad Ideas, Mismanagement  
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Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com
 
 

"How do I pay Mother Nature to make wild animals instead?" asks Brant McDuff from Brooklyn, New York, who grew up shooting shotguns, didn't start hunting until recently, and is fervently spreading hunting gospel via speaking engagements, hunter's ed courses and a fresh-off-the-press book. Yeah yeah, hunting is conservation. But coming from outside the cradle-to-grave hunting community, Brant brings fresh viewpoints to include venison diplomacy, preservation versus conservation, natural fiber versus synthetics, meat versus something else, virtue signaling versus land ethic,  wildlife disturbances and rewilding nature from mountain cyclist/backpacker (I may have used the catchall word "granola") as compared to hunters, social media representations, stigmatized words like trophy and hunting, and more. Ninety-six percent of Americans do not hunt. What now?    
 
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Check out Brant McDuff's book: The Shotgun Conservationist: Why Environmentalists Should Love Hunting
 
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Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com

Ricky Mathews is a fearless force of nature when it comes to doing right by Mississippi's treasured wildlife resources and the people, like himself, that enjoy hunting and fishing.  Using what he calls "reporting muscle" to "speak truth to the power," his hugely popular SuperTalk Outdoors radio program oftentimes crashes meteorically through controversial topics, like the ones he describes candidly today. For most of us, hunting and fishing is part of our cultural identity. It's who we are. We need to ask ourselves--we must insist in knowing--how much of our wildlife management policy is science-based versus politically motivated? And how might those political influences be purposefully self serving? Implications can be long lasting, far reaching, and detrimental to the greater good--whether in Mississippi or your own home state.
 
 
Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com
 

Smart as he may have been, nearly everything ol' Grandad taught about fair chase hunting ethics originated in the late-1800s when yesteryear hunters formed the venerable Boone and Crockett Club. Their forever vision didn't stop there. Backbone of the North America Model of Wildlife Conservation, Boone and Crockett helped set aside millions of acres in perpetuity, brought hunters-as-conservationists into mainstream American conciousness, worked to establish the world's most enviable collection of wildlife-minded legislation, and formed other wildlife conservation organizations to include Ducks Unlimited. Tony Schoonen and Luke Coccoli colorfully describe 137 years of roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-'er-done milestones that transformed America into an amazing place to hunt wild animals. Beyond coonskin caps and record books, our ancestors realized we were "borrowing from future generations," and did something about it. Do we have what it takes to continue what they started? Listen and let us know your thoughts.
 
 
Related Links:
Boone and Crockett Club https://www.boone-crockett.org
 
 
Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com

"I grew up on Andy Griffith and Primo's Truth About Hunting," says Lake Pickle while humbly describing his specifically singular dream job--to be a Primo's cameraman. When opportunity knocked, he opened the door, never looked back. He talks about important influences, encouraging conversations, paying dues, learning the ropes, finding his way in the outdoor industry, experiencing parts of the US much different than his own back yard--to include his thrilling first elk hunt--giving back to the resource, swinging for the fences, and why he can't imagine ever leaving Mississippi. Good stuff.
 
 
Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com

Fellow Mississippian, Aaron Carter of Boss Shotshells, and I take it to the plug discussing Arkansas speckledbellied goose hunting, our favorite waterfowl loads and how "compensation science" still influences waterfowl shotshell preferences decades after non-toxic ammo was mandated for waterfowl hunting. Running through our own favored tried-and-true gauges, shot sizes and chokes for ducks and geese, we then cycle fluidly through need-to-know BOSS Shotshells happenings to include why buffered Warchief payloads deliver superior patterns downrange, why new steelshot rounds are hitting the market, and how cutting-edge biodegradable wads are better for producing tighter patterns and a cleaner hunting environment. Whether a long-time Boss Shotshell customer or shopping  alternatives to high-recoil compensation science, this epsiode'll have your trigger finger itching.
 
 
Visit MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Sponsors:
 
MOJO Outdoors 
Benelli Shotguns
BOSS Shotshells
Ducks Unlimited 
Flash Back Decoys 
HuntProof Premium Waterfowl App
Inukshuk Professional Dog Food 
Tetra Hearing
Tom Beckbe
Voormi
GetDucks.com
USHuntList.com
 
 
Please subscribe, rate and review Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com