Mike of Black Timber Calls

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_03 1:22

Hey Mike, how you doing today? Not bad. I'm doing pretty good. Um, you know, waiting on uh duck season to kick in. Um you know, I don't know about you know, I know you're on the East Coast, and uh, but I'm 82 days away from uh our early September teal season.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Yeah, I mean our our residence season uh starts September 1st. Um so it's really not that really not that far away.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Yeah, so for Mike, the viewers, hey Mike, try to introduce and give us a little background about yourself.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Yeah, so I grew up in a little town called Winfield, Maryland in in Carroll County. Um my dad got me into hunting. Um, I would say, you know, I started going with him when I guess I was like eight, nine years old. Um and it was primarily whitetailed deer hunting. Um and then I guess I think I passed my hunter safety when I was like 11 or 12, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, sometime in middle school. And uh it wasn't really, I mean, my dad liked waterfowl hunting and and a couple of the farms that he was members of. Um, they had you know waterfowl hunting also, but like I said, it was primarily deer hunting when I was going with him. And it really wasn't until I got into high school and got my driver's license that I reached out to a buddy of his that had like a little 25-acre farm about 15 minutes from where I grew up, and I got permission to goose on on his farm that I really got the bug. And um I would say if I was you know 90% deer hunter, 10% waterfowl hunter, up until that point it pulled a complete 180. And uh it was just me, it was just having that freedom and and and inviting my buddies to go hunting with me. And um, you know, it's for us, it it was it didn't really matter if we shot one or twenty. It was just you know going and chilling with the buddies and having a good time and learning.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

So yeah, I mean, we always talk up here on the podcast that for me, dude, duck hunting's a team sport. Uh, I just think it's it's always better, but it's way better to duck hunting in a group. Uh now I've I have duck hunting by myself, and sometimes it is pretty peaceful, but there's something about you know when you're hunting with the boys that just that just gets you.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Yeah, no, it's awesome. And and not that I'm necessarily the most accomplished waterfowl hunter ever, but for me, you know, like with work and family and and life and everything else, I I I genuinely enjoy you know going out hunting in the morning and just drinking my coffee with my cousins or my some of my best friends and just watching the sunrise and and uh um just you know taking it all in with me, you know, my you know, my cousins, my family, my dog, all that.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

So yeah. So man, there's so much I want to get into because like I said, uh like we talked offline. What uh Atlanta Flyway guy just introduced and um you know for the for the guests, I have another guest on. It's uh my buddy Bo, my youngest son. You guys see him all the time on on the Instagram with me. Um man, I don't know, Mike. You do you have kids?

SPEAKER_04 4:58

I do. I have a uh a six, a six-year-old little girl, and my fiance has a three-year-old little boy.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah, man. I I tell everyone uh that my best hunting partners call me dad. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely I uh they have definitely uh matured me in uh successful hunting.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

Yeah, my my daughter hasn't quite gotten the bug yet. I'm not trying to like push it on her or anything. She goes, she'll go, you know, two or three times a year with me, but most of the time that involves my some of my the guys that I'm hunting with bringing their kids and them beating McDonald's in the blind and just messing around with each other, not even paying attention to the hunting. But you know, it's awful. You know, that's not the hunting thing, it's definitely not something I want to push on her. But if she wants to go with me, she's gone turkey hunting with me a couple times in a blind, you know, her. But as she gets older, when I first, you know, started taking her when she was like five, it was more like if I get 15 minutes out of her, I'm cool with that. Yeah, hopping in the truck and getting out of here, but it's it's incrementally getting to be more and more and more time she wants to spend there. So hopefully things are trending in the right direction on that front.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

So get into the calls. I definitely want to get into the calls. So how how did you come about with uh Black Timber?

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Yeah, so um I met Trevor at the North Carolina calling contest. That would have been 20 2020. 29 20 20 one 2020 or 2021. Um just through some from RM. Um, I drove down there to compete. It was the first ever contest I went to. Um I got smoked. It was a humbling feeling going down there. I mean, I was calling against guys like Chandler Martin, some Trevor, Seth Fields.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Um, I feel you, buddy. I've donated tons of money to Seth.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

I'll get up to go blow like like we have one coming up this month or this next month, and I know Seth Domingo, um, Seth Roussel will be there, Horse Cardall, um, Hayden Richard, and I'm always like, you know what, man? I'm just here trying to donate. You know, I'm just donate money to the buddies.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Yeah. Um so like the volume of callers wasn't quite there, but the quality of callers, most certainly, you could take that group of guys and they're gonna land top five just about anywhere they go anyway. But uh oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

I mean, you mentioned some world champions just in the and that, you know, those two guys you you know, you're blown against.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Yeah, I mean, Lee Williams was there calling in the open goose, so he's a world champion in Easton. Um, so yeah, I met Trevor, and him and I just kind of hit it all from there. Um we ended up calling in the Team Live Duck in Easton together that fall and took fifth place together. Um and him and I have just been really, really good friends ever since then, dude. Uh, you know, he he come he would come down when he was living in Millingtonsville, he would come down to um my family's beach house and spend the weekend with us. And uh, you know, I tell you what, dude, if you want to, you know, win me over, just be like a solid, decent person. But if you really want to win me over, be good to my daughter. And and and and my daughter calls him Uncle Trevor, and they you know, he's just awesome around her, and I thought that was cool. Um so we uh I went to I didn't compete in worlds last year. I had an accident on my on my boat with don't have to cover that, but I broke three ribs, and uh I didn't quite have the air to even run a call at that point, so I scratched at Easton, but I went to see everybody and watch everyone and support them. Um and it was I think it was Friday night after the first two rounds, you know, Trevor and I were talking. He's he had all but you know, just been done with Black Timber. He's running a sporting clay range down in Texas now, just doesn't have the time for it. And um, I was like, dude, if you're gonna just kind of let Black Timber fall through the wayside, why don't you let me pick it up? And I'm not you know, I I had never done that much with him, but I had gone and you know spent time in the shop with him and rounded off blanks and just seen like the process. And I had spent time with Stump down in his shop in North Carolina watching him make duck calls. So, you know, in no way, shape, or form was I uh professional callmaker, but um I'd been around it enough to be dangerous, I guess, or have a have a grasp of what exactly it entails. And uh, you know, we talked about it, um talked about it some more on Saturday, talked about it some more on Sunday, and then Trevor went back to Texas, and um, I think by that Wednesday or Thursday we had a like a contract finished, and um that was it from there. I think Trevor just wanted if he was gonna do something like that, I think he wanted the company to go to somebody that he trusted. And Trevor knows how I am with every endeavor I've ever had in life. I I give it 110%, even if I don't, I might not be the best at what I do, but I give it as you know, my full effort. So, like I said, I think he trusts me with his baby. Um and then so from that point forward, it was just getting everything set up to you know get the business up and going. You know, I got my went and found a um a CNC guy, um, you know, doing all the back end stuff with the LLC and the bank accounts and the the uh uh the website, getting the website built, deciding what products I'm gonna offer. Um I discontinued the duck call lineup. That was primarily out of respect for Stump from RM calls, just because I had spent so much time in the shop with him down there, and I can say with just about 99.9% certainty that I know as much about the ins and outs of his stump calls as anybody. And I didn't want to be put in a situation where you know I would take what Stump has shown me about his calls over the past five years and then implement that into Black Timber's lineup and compete against him.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yeah, that's real stand-up. Um because it is hard because you know you have your own vision, but you there's mentors that teach you something. You can't ever unlearn something, you know, when you're taught, right? Like, you know, so yeah, man, I that that is good. I mean, like we were talking offline, like man, I've done a lot of calls. I have you know, yeah, I there's a lot of call companies I I like, and you know, I have my call shelf and I'll hunt you know other calls from time to time. But I tell everyone, there is something about a cold weather fan that I just can't man. I have one that stopped tuned for me 2018, yeah, about 2018 in this shop. And I mean, I it's it's a call that I compete with, and I use the word competing very loosely. I think it's a call I use to donate money with. And then it's like you know, I love hunting, it's a call that love to hunt, and um yeah, there's just something about his calls and that cold weather fan that's so such a versatile call. I could use it, you know, in the timber in the field, it gets loud and I can you know cut it down, and then don't even get me started on his 410. Yeah, I mean, you know, I have an Ebonite 410 that I absolutely I mean, I'll I'll tell everyone when when when I blew Ebonite for the first time, it's uh yeah, it's a game changer.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Ebonite's a really, really cool material, dude. And and it's expensive, but it is cool and it sounds good, and it's like virtually indestructible.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Yeah, and I used because I hunt in um pit lines a lot in the in the rice field. So when I'm hunting, a lot of times when I'm looking around, I'll have a lot of my calls will bump against a metal.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Yeah, and and I've broken some calls. I had a you know, I had a uh an OTP that I uh I broke and I know still still listening to NP's gonna, man. That's another call that I have. So that's probably one of my favorite hunting calls, is is an OTP. Yeah, you know, I ended up purchasing you know another one, and I you know, and I hunt with that OTP all the time. I'm a little more careful with it because I know it's harder, harder, harder to get. And guys, that price on an OTP is going up and up and up. But that's a you know, I absolutely that's one call that guys have you know, some of my buddies are like, Hey, yeah, we'll go with ATM right now. I'm like, listen, bud, nah. Yeah, yeah, nah. And then you know, I've bug stumped for a while.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

I'm like, just just bring it back, bud. Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't know if that's happening, but I mean he offers a very solid lineup of calls from top to bottom. Yeah, like if you can't find an RM that I'm not gonna say there, you know, you you you will find one that fits you, but if you can't find one that you can at least take hunting and be successful with, there's something you're not doing something right.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I I mean heck, that that's how I feel about the cold weather fan. If you can't you know, that cold weather fan, I've never seen some I've never heard someone to my face say, Hey, this thing just sucks. Yeah, yeah. But with the goose calls, you you know Maryland is known for yo, goose hunting, Eastern Shore, and it's a super cool place. You know, that I kind of want to get here a little uh get later on in the podcast, but well, what goose calls are you offering?

SPEAKER_04 15:44

So um right now I have seven calls. Um I uh on top of discontinuing the duck calls, um, I took no ownership or whatever you want to call it of their uh black sheep of Stump and Trevor's black sheep model, but that's that is an RM product. So and that's between him and Trevor, and I was like, look, you guys take that and roll with it. You know, I had nothing to do with that. It has Stump's name on it, so um you know, you guys keep that one. But the of the seven calls, I have the the overload, the amp, the live wire, the power surge, the short circuit, the circuit breaker, and the the flute, which is called the shockwave. Um and between those seven, I'm plenty busy enough, you know, with that.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

So yeah, yeah, seven, yeah, seven different use calls. I'm like, yeah, yeah, plenty busy.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

Um right now, so I mean, a part of getting all of this, you know, when I was talking about like getting the company up and going, is I when I went and got a new hooked up with a new CNC guy, you know, he had to go and remap out all the designs. And it's been a slow and tedious process because there were certain things that Trevor was able to do with his customs that weren't being recreated on the CNC side of things. And I told my CNC guy, you know, when we were first going through the designs and internal bore designs and all the stuff, he was like, Well, we can do this, or it's gonna call or if we try to if we try to recreate this, what you what what what's going on on the custom side of things, it's gonna be an extra four dollars a call. You're gonna have to buy this extra tool, you're gonna have to do this with you know for his CNC machine. And I'm like, I don't care. Yeah, this is what I want. Um you know, it's like I'm in the position, I didn't go and purchase Joe Buck's call company that he runs out of a six by six shed in his backyard.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

So and no one up until you know the whole everything came out about me purchasing the company, nobody knew me or heard of me or whatever. So, you know, I'm in a position where I need to go and recreate and and produce as strong of a product as a person that's an eight-time world champion and champion of champions. Right. Um that's like, you know, the a couple people have talked to me about producing like a polycarbonate lineup for you know a more affordable call, and that's just not in my business model right now because, like I said, I'm in a position where I need to prove to the world that I'm creating just as good of a product as Trevor was.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

So um, sorry, I went off on a little bit of a no, no, that's all good, man.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Yeah. Um, but yeah, so going back to it right now, all that I have on the website is the overload and the amped. Um I will have the live wire and power surge hopefully in stock on the website by August, September. Um and then the uh the flute I'm also gonna bring back this fall. It's crazy, dude, of all the things that Trevor accomplished with that overload and for as great of a haunting call the amped and the live wire are, and you know what what they've done for themselves. The shockwave flute has been the thing that I've been you know called about the most or people ask me about the most.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

So um definitely getting that back out there. Um but yeah, it's just it's a slow and steady process.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

So you know, you getting this this this calm company, and you know, you grew up hunting, you know, you grew up, you know, you got into waterfowl hunting. Obviously, you know, eastern, you know, Maryland guys are I mean, they're down there just known for sea ducks, black ducks, and you know, big honkers. Um, who was somebody that like like coming up in the you know in your hunting and calling? I know you said you did you just you know you've kind of done like me, you've done some competition calling or donating. Uh I do more donate, you probably do way more competition calling than I do. Um, but who were some of your mentors coming up like call-wise? Like, you know, what did you blow before coming up?

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Uh I I grew up in the heyday of ground zinc and foils. Yeah. That was it. And then, you know, so the the the first call I ever had was an Eastern Shoreman, Sean Mann Eastern Shoreman. Um that was my dad's hand-me-down. And then the first goose call that was was that I it was like a Christmas present that I got was a Sean Mann Shorty SS. And you know, it's like every other kid growing up in the hunting world. It's like, oh, I I want to try this call, I want to have one of those calls. So it went from and and trust me, Sean Mann makes an awesome goose call. And it was really, really cool. Um, you know, that the guy that whose goose call I was using lives an hour and a half away from me on the eastern shore, right? So um really, I can't really say for any good reason they're all great calls, you know, like in Maryland, you know, we have Sean Man, we have Bay Country, and now the continuation of Black Timber. And for anybody that's listening to this, if I'm not if you're a callmak and I'm not bringing you up and you're out of the state of Maryland, I genuinely apologize. But those are you know what I think of when I think of Maryland callmakers. Um, but you know, I would you know my next Christmas present was a moneymaker. My next Christmas present was a straight meat honker. And you know, then I went and bought uh um you know like a triple crown. Everybody wanted, you know, of course, Hunter with what he did with the triple crown. Everybody, you know. Yeah, but I would say, you know, I I grew up watching the fall, you know, the Fallen Skies DVDs. Um grew up watching, you know, some of the the Zing stuff, and and you know, I don't I don't know how how old you are, Joe, but YouTube became a thing my freshman year of high school.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

What year was that?

SPEAKER_04 22:35

That would have been oh the fall of my freshman year would have been 2005.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

All right, so right, so yeah, we're about the same age. Yeah, I graduated in 04.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Yeah, um, so you know, it was then once YouTube became popular, and I was watching all these like short films or videos on on YouTube. But yeah, I would say the the guys that I I don't I would you know I don't know if I looked up to, but the ones that I had a following of was you know, foils in this eight day, and then um zinc and grounds.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah, foils. I mean you can't yeah, back in the day those guys were I mean, and there's still they still are the you know the man, you know, Aussie Hunter took over after um him his passing. Yeah, but you know, even when I had like you know other goose guys on, it's always so cool. Um when you look at you know Tim. And yeah, I mean I tell everyone, you know, Tim is like I mean, I can you know I love watching just you know some of his old stuff and like just a history about about him and how his company, you know, he's had his hand on so many callers. Yeah, you know, you you look at some of these great call, you know, goose callers, and you start peeling back the onion, and you know, Tim's at the center core of it.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Oh yeah, and I was it was it uh was it Shen that made that short film?

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Yes, it was Shen.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

Dude, it was so good. It was I never had the the chance to meet Tim, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

But yeah, same with me.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Uh we've had Hunter on the show, and he's you know, such a good, you know, just like we were talking about trap, uh Trevor, such, you know, there's some guys on calls that are you know are just freaks on that call.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Um but going, you know, we know you have a short read, you know, you know, you have a short um short read line, then you have that flute. On your short reads, you know, do you have ones that you know are they all big honkers or do you have some that are cacklers or lessers?

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Um yeah, so I would say the overload and the power surge are gonna be more of like your deep goose big honker calls. Um the amped, if I'm not mistaken, Trevor actually designed as like a lesser call, um which turned into just an awesome hunting traffic call for winning on that side of the bridge. Um the live wire, it's funny, the live wire is probably one of the most intricate designs of a call to reproduce, but it's really geared towards an easy-to-run for as intricate for as hard as it is to recreate, it's designed to be an easy-to-run goose crawl and just like a great hunting call. Um the circuit breaker falls kind of on the line of like uh more towards like a competition style call. Um and then you have the short fuse, which is the it's it's a it's it's it's all of like that big, but it's just a super high pitch, quick, responsive call. And then like I said, you have the flute. But yeah, I would say the overload and the power surgery more of your deeper big honker style calls, and then it just goes all the way down the line.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Yeah, and what made you keep in the flute? You really don't see man, flutes are kind of weird now. We're I think we're we're all with ducks and geek yeast, we're in like a weird stage of hunting where you know when you know when I grew up you know, hunting in the mid-90s now, like um old school camo was was just becoming old school. Yeah, yeah. Cabellas used to own that pattern. Yeah, uh, neoprene was kind of the hotness. Um, it's funny you say that.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

I'm not trying to cut you off. I'm sorry, I remember when um Drake came out with that like old school camo pattern, and I went and bought a jacket, and my dad was like, What is this? And you know, he grew up, I think it was the Columbia brand that that that he he still wears to this day. And um yeah, I brought one of them jackets home, and he was like, of all the easily, you know, camouflage had come so far to that point that then all of a sudden it became cool again to wear the the old school camo.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Yeah, well, you know, so I really deep dived in that camo because I am a sucker for it, right? My great my grandfather, my great-grandfather wore it, my dad wore it. I know it was I got a bunch of handy-down stuff with it. Um, heck man, my first set of waders were Cabela um hand-me-down, um, old school. And then the first ones that I bought that I paid for with my own money in uh junior high were old Neoprene Hodgman. And I remember them, those cost me 80 bucks. And I thought, you know, that was you know, to think now how much waders cost, yeah. I'm like, man, I really wish like the new the new stuff was 80 bucks. Yeah, but deep diving into that old school stuff, I didn't know that it was actually used in the it was the a Pacific Theater camo for World War II, and that's what the the Marines in the army were wearing when they're doing the beach invasions.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Gotcha, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

And they called it like they called it frog skin camo back then during during during the war. So, you know, for me, I I think that's still cool. Um, I like wearing it because there's a little bit of military history with my military background, and my you know, and kind of paying homage to my um my dad, my grandfather, my great-grandfather. But yeah, that you know, yeah, it's you know, to go back to what I was saying is you're starting to see you know, olts come back, you're starting to see the D2s and the ducts cut downs come back and recreating those. You're starting to see the and speckle belly hunting and snow goose hunting, you're seeing the old alts coming back there, and guys are even bringing back the old or bringing back or and recreating the old A50 flute that old used to make.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, the let me tell you, I'll be straight up, the the flute was something that was like at the bottom of my list when this all went down. Um, and then I got control of the uh Black Timber Facebook and Black Timber Instagram, all the social media stuff, and then you know, it came out to public that I was the new owner of Black Timber. And I would say for every message I got about, you know, hey, are you is this call going to be available? What's going on here? What's going on there? You know, when can I get this? If it was like, you know, one message for overload amp, lag wire, circuit breaker, whatever, it was like two or three for the flute. And I'm like, what is the you know, in my mind, I got Sean Mann with the Eastern Shoreman right on, you know, like I said, an hour and a half from me, one of the best, arguably the best flute ever made, and people are messaging me about the shockwave. Um so when when I started getting all these questions about it is when I designed the decided to move it from the bottom of my list to you know one of the next calls up for the the CNC line.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

Um you know, and I I think it's just like what you were saying, it's it's it's like not like a fad, but it's just trending right now. You know, people want to and let me tell you something, dude. If someone that is good on a flute can be just as, if not more effective in the field than a short read.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's something different that they're hearing. Um, even like, you know, and then then the speckle belly realm, I you know, I you know, I blow half cuts. Uh-huh. Um, I know a lot of guys, you know, that's kind of like an older, an older thing, but I like to blow the half cuts still because it's something different. Everyone's blowing uh their version of a 5-8 or 3-4, and you're starting to see these other half cuts, you know, the retro runs come back, but you know, with acrylics and the and the newer plastics that come out, um, you know, if you look on some like, you know, there's certain days where I'm blowing two different two different spectacular half cuts, uh a big boar half gut and a um more of like the original small boar half gut. And I feel on some stale days that just that sound and those pitches of that smaller uh those smaller guts make the geese react a little different from time to time.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

It's funny. I uh I joined a new a new club uh in Queenstown, which is like just on the other side of the Bay Bridge from me last year. And um it was like the third or fourth time I was going hunting with those guys. I was in a group of like seven or eight of us, and um the guy that runs the club, his father was hunting with us, and we had a first group of geese come over us, and and two notes in I heard him down the end. I was like, Oh man, he was running a tube call. And uh after the you know, they they didn't do it for us, but after they they were gone, I I yelled down the blind. I was like, is someone running a tube call down there? And Jeff was like, Yeah, that's my dad. I'm like, dude, that I I don't even know what I was thinking, but I was talking to you know that his dad is I I don't know how old he is in his 70s or so, but I was like, dude, that's straight gangster. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

Yeah, I you know, I think it is still pretty. I think some of those things I talk are still are still just as effective, or at certain times even more effective because it's just it's something different than uh you know, they they just don't hear. Um you know, I don't know. I like to say that I know what I'm talking about. Those those birds kind of you know don't care if it's a duck, goose, a gadwall, a mallard, a wood duck, a speck, a honker, snow, they'll show you up at every hunt. No, they'll they'll make a fool of you, but I like to think it's sometimes bringing back older tactics or you know, it's just something that they don't hear very often, and it kind of almost makes them react just out of curiosity.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

Yeah, I do a lot of public hunting. I have an uh 18-foot prodigy with a mud motor on it, and I do a lot of uh for me a lot. I I would say if I'm fortunate to hunt 25, 30 days a year, that's about what I get to do. Um which is like half the season.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yeah, so that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

Not bad, yeah. Um but you know, there's you know, especially on the public side, it's funny, you know, I you in my experience where I go on the eastern shore, um you're gonna have your your birds like you know, in your first 20 minutes, 30 minutes of the morning, and then you hit like a little bit of stale time, and then right about like 9:30, 10 o'clock, when everyone else starts giving up and heading back to the ram is when the birds start flying again. They hear the boats getting out of there, and they think it's safe to start moving again. And they're really less the the least amount of calling you can do and the least amount of decoys you can get away with is best there.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Yeah, so yeah, uh man. Like I like I was saying before, like you know, just the Atlantic flyway guys really interest me just because you know the time I I lived in North Carolina, I got to hunt that. And man, I I gotta tell everyone, hunting there, I think you guys get uh you guys get crapped on a lot, right? People talk about all the Atlantic flyway. They think of sea duck hunting, uh you think of Jeff Coates and all that. Yeah, but it's you know, I had I really had a big appreciation for it. Uh, I you know I hunted like you know, inlet of um North Carolina and the coast uh a little bit, but you know, when you start looking up and down that you know, the flyway from the lowland of um South Carolina all the way up to Maine, you guys have a real robust waterfowl culture that I think that that people take for granted sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

Yeah, and it's a lot of history and a huge variety of birds, which is cool. So, like I went hunting in Arkansas, I think three or four years ago with um Cypress Crossing. I don't know if you've ever heard of them or not. Yeah, and and we shot a black duck while I was there, and the guide was like doing backflips. I think he said he had been in business for uh like 25 years or something like that, and that was the third black duck they had ever shot. And I'm like, man, that's like every other bird for us here.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

Um, but you know, it's it's it's really from one side of the state to the other. You have you know, we shoot mallards, wood ducks, um black ducks, you know, gadwall, pintail, legion. Depending on where you go, there's gonna be a denser population of those specific birds. But um, yeah, I mean, and and you know, Maryland, you know, we have our canvasbacks, redheads, uh, blackheads, bluebill, whatever you call them.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:24

You know, and those birds have have a lot of history here going back to the days of market hunting.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Yeah. The king of ducks, yeah. Canvasback, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Yep. So, like I said, it's cool. You know, you can hunt literally from the ocean all the way to western Maryland and have there's I I think Maryland is is really, really an awesome state for an outdoorsman. I mean, there's opportunity for you to pursue something pretty much year-round here.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Um, the turkey population's coming back awesome too, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

So, yeah, and then you know, like I've talked to some people in like the outer banks and even up in Delaware. Uh, you guys are actually having a pretty you guys have pretty good spring snow geese at certain certain times.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Yeah, no, they were great, they were good. I mean, from what I saw, I don't I don't really mess with the snow geese that much. It's just not my my deal. Um, getting up at 11 o'clock at night and going putting out you know, 2500, which doesn't quite tickle my fancy. But um, but yeah, we had an like I said last year, we had an awesome push of birds. It was really good. I mean, everybody I knew that was hunting was having some good success and seeing a bunch of birds, so it was cool.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Yeah, and we're kind of talking offline. You're you're saying that you're in a euro, you're kind of starting to see certain areas that are kind of you know producing more birds than you know that they used to. Yeah, you're trying to say, you know, even like New York and Pennsylvania, which people don't think of those as um hot spots for waterfowl that are used that are they're actually doing pretty well nowadays.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Yeah, they're definitely getting better. Um, you know, we we were talking, I'm sure, you know, that uh the whole impoundment debate is probably for you can probably fill an entire podcast with that. Um but just you know, with our with our winter patterns being warmer here and the the evolution in crops and stuff like that, I think that you're gonna continue to see unless you know something changes with like last year's winter was about as cold as I can remember, but um I think it's just like we were saying, like North Carolina was it, and then it was you know, Virginia, Maryland, and then you know, now it seems like New York and Pennsylvania are starting to pop off. It's just slowly going north and north.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Yeah. I mean, is that snow line? I mean, are you guys having a later snow? Have you noticed?

SPEAKER_04 38:55

Yeah, I mean, dude, it was cold here through, let me think. Maryland's weird, dude. There, I mean, there's you know, like I said, we have a place in Ocean City, and there's some years where we're out on the boat, Memorial Day weekend, and it's 90 degrees, and there's some years like this year, it was still like 70 degrees Memorial Day weekend.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Um, like I said, it was cold and it stayed cold here for a while. I mean, I would say any more like last year, um it was it was cold, cold through mid-March, end of March. Yeah, it finally got warmer.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

But you're you guys having um white December and the white Christmases and all that?

SPEAKER_04 39:40

Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Yeah, yeah, that's such a big debate. Uh, I know, you know, the impoundment thing was huge when I was um living in North Carolina, right? Some guys are for impoundment, some guys were against. Uh, you know, there was refugees that had impoundments. Um one of the big ones I would always try to pull was a um a draw lease, uh draw and uh Sug Mills in North Carolina. And it was it was impounded, you know, there was I think 13 different impoundments, and then two lakes that um was one was on the north side, the other one was on the south side of those impoundments. Yeah, and you'd pull them and you you'd get access to that impoundment for I think two days, two hunts. And uh then every time we went, we had a great you know, obviously a great hunt. Um, now everyone knows when you make habitat and you have habitat with you know that with pressure that's managed on some of these hunt um traw hunts, you know, they only get hunt once a week, yeah, twice, you know, twice a week, you know. Food, water, guaranteed water, and low, low hunting pressure. Obviously, yeah, I mean it's a no-brainer, your duck ain't gonna be, you know, pretty jammed up.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

Yeah, I was gonna say the the management of the impalments is becoming like a key thing, at least here for sure. I mean, there's guys that I know that are buying farms on the eastern shore of Maryland and putting impalments on them, and they're just gonna imprint those birds and not hunt them for two or three years, not hunt the impalments, just let them birds learn that you know the food's there, the water's there.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

What are they using as food? Are they using moist soil or is it bag?

SPEAKER_04 41:19

It's not, I haven't seen that much moist soil. Most of it is is corn, um, millet.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

Millet. Now, are they are they actually are they leaving the corn and millet standing? Or are they are they are they actually farming it and just letting it grow?

SPEAKER_04 41:37

Yeah, it all depends on you know if it's worth their time or not.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Yeah.

unknown 41:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Yeah. I mean, and corn is such a big, you know, a big debate. And uh, I'm I'm about to have a a uh a guy that does banding research here later on this week, um on the podcast. You know, he's a neutral guy, and you know, I've had biologists, some you know, I've had uh brash, Dr. Brasher on, I've had Dr. Schumer on, I've had Mark Merchant on that, you know, and with all of their different opinions. And I mean you're starting to see it. I mean across really the Mississippi flyway, you know, with the corn stuff. And um man, I'm glad uh I'm glad that we're we were pushing for a um a study done to kind of like to not necessarily prove someone right or wrong. I kind of want it just done for peace of mind to start unifying hunters. It's almost like it's so counterproductive watching waterfowlers at the end of the day that share the same passion, but just one little thing separates them. It's kind of like, man, like 10, 20 years on the road, we're gonna shoot ourselves in the foot.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I I feel like most people's issues with impoundments. I mean, if everybody, if every hunter had the the means to have an impoundment, I'm sure they would.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Um it's just I think it's just slowly becoming like a rich man's thing. Not rich man, I don't like that term, but you know, like the guys that are that have the money to do it. And then there's you just have guys that can't afford it, which is you know, like I talked to Trevor's dad, um, a pretty decent amount, and they his dad has a farm on the eastern shore, and it's a huge, I mean, it's not just the cost of planning it, but the cost of maintaining it and keeping, you know, he has um sickadeer on his farm, so he has an electric fence around to keep the sickadeer out of it. And then, you know, you have other guys that like we were talking about the snow geese, dude. Snow geese can live can wipe out an impoundment in in days.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

You let them get in there. Um I know I know a guy that has a caretaker that lives on his farm on the shore, and that guy's job is is when the when the geese show up. To not let them destroy the impoundment like that.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, well, you hear a lot of people it's uh death by a thousand cuts for everything. But yeah, you know, I have my opinions, I have my thoughts about what's going on here in the Mississippi Flyway. Um, and I'm that's definitely for another podcast. But I will I'm kind of glad that yes, we are gonna get, you know, we're pushing towards studies done. Um, you know, whatever this whatever the outcome of those studies, I hope everyone just kind of unifies around them and says, all right, here's our new baseline, this is how we make it better. But what I don't want to see is us lose this tradition that we have because we are um we're spending more time fighting against each other than working towards a common goal.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

But to get onto a more lighter topic, men. So we were talking, and you know, we're talking about hunting and getting and shotguns. You're a sub gauge guy.

SPEAKER_04 45:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

And sub gauge guys fascinate me.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

Yeah, yeah. Um, so that started, let me think.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Maybe 10 years ago now or so. It I wouldn't say uh well, I bought you know, I grew up hunting, I grew up hunting with whatever ammunition I could afford, right? Yeah and then on a whim one day I decided to buy uh what was that stuff called? It was uh Heavy X, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. And dude, I was I was like crunching geese at like 45, 50 yards. I'm not talking like winging them, having to run them down 200 and 200 yards, you know, catching sailors and stuff like that, like crunching them at 45, 50, 55 yards.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

Tungsten does it.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

And um, and then I guess I don't know when boss first came out, but I was like one of the early guys on the boss train, and I just saw what that stuff did, and I was I was uh down on the eastern shore um at a gun store one time, and they had a Beretta A400 um 28 gauge there, and I was like, man, that would be a cool gun just to you know like shoot dove with or whatever. Well, I couldn't help myself. I ended up buying a ball a case of boss 28 gauge. Is uh I shoot two and three quarter inch number sixes out of that gun, and um with a with the factory full choke in it, and same deal, dude, just crunching birds like big honkers with it. And uh, you know, I'm I'm 6'1, like 275, and it's just funny. My you know, all my buddies give me a hard time going up to the goosebinder and A-frame with a 28 gauge, and they're all like you know, all 12 gauge, 12 gauge, 10 gauge if they can when crazy.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

But um 6'6 punt gun.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

I had yeah, yeah, I have a couple 10 gauges, and they're fun to shoot too, you know what I mean. But um, for for me, it was you know, especially with like hunting ducks, public land, Maryland. Um you can hunt where I go two days in a row, and one day see three birds, and the next day shoot you and you know, you and two or three buddies shoot 14 by 8 30 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Um, so for me, it was always I'm getting my third shot off with my 28 gauge about the same time that I'm getting my second shot off with my 12 gauge because the recoil is so much less, especially with a gas-driven beretta like that. Um so I just felt like I was ducks per volley was better with my 28 than my 12.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

And it just it just manifested now. Um I have a uh I have a uh Caesar Garini over and under that I shoot dub with. Yeah, uh, I bought uh a Mossberg SA28 that I shoot my turkeys with. Um yeah, and it's it's all I need. Like I said, it it's it's funny. All my buddies gave me a hard time for it, and then they saw what I was able to do with that. Now all my buddies shoot sub gauges.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Sub gauge, yeah. Matt, for me, I mean I still shoot 12 gauge. Um so what I tell everyone for me, I like 12 gauge or 20 gauge because me and my sons were all hunting. Yo, dad still sons other hunters, yeah. So uh it was easier to buy this one gauge. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

But you know, it's funny that you say, I mean, I picked up uh an older gun last year, uh Beretta um the the A391 Eureka. Uh and that you know, for a gun that's from the 90s, that is such a good shooting gun. Yeah. I I shot that and I you know, I'm usually hunting when it comes to Waterfowl, I'm hunting my SX4. I have a Browning, um a Browning pump shotgun that I don't know what. I just love it and I shoot it really well. Yeah, uh, and they're you know, and they're heavy and there's no recoil for a pump. Um and then I bought that. I'm like, golly, for a gun that's like you know, 30 something years old, that gun just it still runs like a Cadillac.

SPEAKER_04 49:44

Yeah. There's something about a gun that like for me, that was the first really nice gun I ever got was a Beretta uh Extrema 2 12 gauge. And that gun, I I I just never had a reason to get anything else. That gun just never let me down.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

Um but yeah, it's it's really it's awesome when you not to say they're not all like that, but when you get that one that just no matter what you do, every time you pull the trigger goes.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

It's like why and you're put in that situation, it's like, why would I buy anything else?

SPEAKER_03 50:17

Anything else, yeah. But so funny about Bismuth. Um, the first time I used Bismuth was probably 2017 season. Okay. Uh me and Stump were actually it was me, Stump, and we were hunting up with Charles Petty up in um Arkansas. Yeah, in Jonesboro, um, right off the cache. And I actually we went to uh DW's and I seen uh now this is before Boss came out. I seen two boxes of um Kent Bismuth two and three quarters. And I was like, you know what? I've heard Bismuth, you know, back in the 90s, you know, people used Bismuth, you know, trying to you know get rid of the steel. Some guys liked it, some guys didn't, you know, steel took off because it was cheap. Um but I bought it and that you know stuff was like, I can't believe you pay you bought again. I bought it, you know, those it was it came in box of tens. I bought three boxes of it. So I had 30 shells, and it those 30 shells probably cost me 90 bucks. He was like, You're crazy, kid. I was like, Yeah, but you know, I I did it just you know, something intrigued me about it. And then that next following year, boss came out and stunt, you know, bought uh Stephon and John Perez, another good buddy of ours, bought a bought a bunch of boss, and that next year we went back up to um to Jones Builder Hunt with um Mr. Uh Mr. Charles, and he's like, You use some of this, and you know, that was just just crunching. And yeah, I you know, I tell everyone, um my favorite shot for goose from blue wing teal season all the way through you know late season spec. If I could shoot number seven, um two and three-quarter bismuth, that would be it. Now, now you might as well be shooting tungsten now. I mean, tungsten, you know, I fell in love with tungsten, but now I mean that's a second mortgage on my house.

SPEAKER_04 52:32

Yeah, with I I I bought a case of boss tungsten in 28 last year just because of everything that's going on with bismuth shortage and then them switching over to the copper loads. And um I don't wanted to try, and I was like, they they had that left in stock on the website. I was like, I'll pull the trigger and I'll just use that for like certain hunts, not where you know it's gonna go. Like not on youth day when I'm taking my nephews and my nephew icon and they're rolling through, you know, three, you know, 70, what I call three box 75 shells to get their you know, four mallards or whatever. Yeah, so um, yeah, I mean that stuff's pretty, pretty wicked too. It's like you said it's just a price point thing at that point. It's yeah it's like three dollars, three dollars or four dollars going out the end of the barrel every time you pull the trigger.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

Yeah, I mean it's it's now it's like I've priced one, it's it's over a hundred bucks a box. I'm like, uh I'm going back to steel boys.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

And then y'all, then you know, this um conundum that copper's getting into now.

SPEAKER_04 53:41

It's dude, I don't know how that's gonna rattle out. That's a really, really interesting topic right now. And I don't understand why copper plated anything is acceptable, but pure copper isn't.

SPEAKER_03 53:57

Well, pure copper isn't something new in the shotgun world. So Italy has been shooting um copper shells, pure copper shot for years now. Um and so it was like when and they consider it non-toxic. Now, granted, it's a whole different country, I got it. Right, right. But science isn't, you know, science is science here in America should be science, you know, in Italy. Uh, but uh it is definitely weird. Uh sometimes I have some conspiracy theories about it. I mean, I start going down rabbit holes of why marketing and all this stuff. I yeah, you know, I I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get too deep into that. But yeah, I I it it that kind of baffled my mind. Um so I went back to steel. Now I'm shooting um a fairly really, you know, I I've been fortunate enough to um to shoot uh a buddy of mine who he owns a shotgun, uh a shotgun shell company out here in Louisiana called Schneer Shells, which you know, they're still roughly $25, $26 a box for steel for premium steel. And and I tell guys, you know, you know, go check them out on his website. And uh, you know, he has videos of everything on his on the on the Facebook. And yeah, I've I I've been shooting that for the last three years. I've shot steel to his tungsten, his bismuth, which now he's really just dealing with steel because of the pricing, but you know, it's it patterns great. And um, yeah, that's when you know that's what I'm I've been using the last couple years.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

And um I still say there's absolutely nothing wrong with good old Kent fast steel or the federal blue box.

SPEAKER_03 55:43

So I love Kent, like you said, I love Kent. It's it it's always consistent with its um pattern, and it shoots so clean. That and Rios. Rios shoot clean too. I mean, I I shoot gas guns, so you know, and I am horrible, horrible, absolutely horrible with cleaning guns. Yeah, um, my guns kind of, you know. Um, I actually cleaned my guns the other day. Uh you know, season's over, been completely bent over, and I was like, maybe I should give these things a wipe down. And I opened up my uh my SX4 and I was like, oh god, I don't know how this thing's still cycle.

SPEAKER_04 56:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

Yeah, I was pulling out you know stubble or rice stuff out of it and just yeah, yeah, just chunks of carbon, and I was like, ah, well, you know, it that gun hasn't failed me, but yeah, uh when I you know when I do shoot Kent or like I said, that Rio, the Rio blue box, um, or the blue steel, I think it was called, those are both real clean shooting shells, and I don't get a lot of carbon buildup on it.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_03 56:49

Yeah. But I mean, so you don't hunt, I mean, so you really don't even hunt the 12 gauges at all anymore, or they're you just break them out for special occasions.

SPEAKER_04 56:59

The only time I I hunt a 12 gauge anymore is during residence season because I have a uh mag extension on it.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Mag extension.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, I uh I was using it just because uh the uh we hunt behind the house in Ocean City, and that like I would say for the most part, you're hunting the Eastern Shore of Maryland, you're hunting over water, it's brackish water. The salinity content of that water is straight up hateful. If I if anyone ever goes hunting with me down there, I pretty much make it a rule that you're not allowed to leave my house. I have all the cleaning products you could ever need and want down there. Tom, you're not allowed to take that gun and throw it in your bag and drive home with it. Three hours later, it'll have rust stain on it. I promise you. Yeah, it's not um so that that super black evil three that I have with the extension on it is that um the best? The best, yeah. Um, and then uh I guess it was like two or three years ago, I got uh the Benelli, the Ethos Cordova in 28 gauge with the best finish on it. So now I used that down there.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

So how is that best finish?

SPEAKER_04 58:14

Is it I mean you have pretty bad, pretty bad, pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty it's cool. With the when I bought that 12 gauge, the guy I bought it from said the Benelli rep was in the store maybe a week or two prior. And um, we were actually going uh sea duck hunting in the ocean with it like the next day.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:34

The the guy um at the store I bought it from said the Benelli rep said you should be totally fine taking that gun and dunking it in the water, completely submerging it, pulling it back out, not cleaning until the end of the season. I'm like, well, I'll take your word for it, but I'm not doing that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:54

I'd like to say I'd probably, you know, yeah, you would have to force me to clean. I'm just so bad about it. And I I know it's horrible, but yeah, and we see we have brackish, you know, the brackish marsh here down in the Gulf that um there's certain guns I won't take down there. Yeah, so yeah, I have certain guns I'm I will only hunt in certain areas because of like the finish I nailed. I have some brownings with that dura tuff finish. That that's the only those are the only guns I'm gonna hunt the marsh with.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Yeah, um at the BEST or best or whatever you call it. Yeah, that's like a 25-year warranty on it.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

So yeah, I've seen that. Of zero, zero corrosion.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Yeah. That's wild. Um, it's it's always great to see companies like that stand by the product.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Oh, when when companies have that much confidence in their product, it really helps the consumer have that much con uh confidence in those products.

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Speaking of products and other other hundred things, um, you know, I'm in search of a dog here this next coming up season.

SPEAKER_04 59:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

And I heard you know to a thing about some real good labs.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

Yeah, yeah. So I got uh my uh lab just turned three on June 14th. Um he's a Southern O'Connell's pup.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Got him from Barton down in Mississippi. Um I I I can't say enough about how awesome of a program Barton has going on with Southern O'Connells right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:30

Like it's from from from front to back. I mean, um not just the the dogs that they're offering, but the service that they offer, everything that comes along with it. Um so I my dog's name's Walter. He's a Rio Fern. Rio was his dad, fern was his mom, pop. Um went down, picked him up. I had uh previously purchased the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy from them, and I think I watched starting like a two months prior to puppy pickup day. Um, I started watching the segments on Cornerstone to get like somewhat familiar with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

Um brought him home and the everything was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:21

Like the obedience went went awesome. My issue that I was having was I am uh a plumber that is a hobbyist or novice dog trainer, and I saw the potential that Walter had, and I felt like I wasn't going to get him this to see his max potential with me training him. Yeah. So I just called Barton. We talked for a while, and he was like, you know, I think it'd be a good idea for you to you know drop him off and get some formal training done with him. I'm like, okay, cool. So um I don't know how you are about dogs. I like dogs more than I like people. Yeah. I love my dog. My dog's a fan. My dog, I have a I have Walter, and then I have a uh eight and a half-year-old great dean. They go to work with me every day, they go to job sites with me, they go everywhere with me. Um that was about the tough, one of the toughest decisions I'd ever had to make was to take this. Let me think, he would have been eight or nine months old when I made the trip up to um Wally, Don, and Cody up at Great Lakes and dropped him off. And I mean, I uh I'm not assisting or anything, but I'm talking like borderline tears when I was pulling onto the training grounds to drop him off.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:46

And um him and I get out of the truck, and we go into their off Wally's office, and first thing Wally does, doesn't even pay attention to me, goes to pick Walter up and holds him like a baby on his back and starts cradling him and cuddling him. I'm like, all right, you know what? I think I'll I think he'll be okay here.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:06

Um and then I mean my daughter was pissed, pissed, pissed every day, every day for it was like five, five and a half, six months. It was is Walter coming home today, is Walter coming home today? I'm like, no, sweetie, which made it even harder on me. I'm trying to think about it too, you know, but um so you know, and then on the flip side, it was okay, so I just dropped this puppy that I had for, you know, I picked him up at uh eight weeks old, dropped him off when he was eight or nine months old. And is he it's like I feel like something that's common for people to worry about is like, is he even gonna remember me?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

Well, I'll never forget. I drove drove back up to Michigan to pick him up, pull in the parking lot, you know, I was chatting with the guys for a little bit, and finally Cody's like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna go grab Walter for you. I'm like, okay. And um the the kennel he was staying in was maybe 40, 50 yards away from where my truck was parked. And um he comes, Walter comes out of the door to the kennel, and he comes jogging over to me, doesn't even notice I'm there or anything, and then he looked at me and he freezes for a second, and then I like crouched down to be like, Walter, what's up, you know? And dude, he took off and he jumped about five feet short of me and drilled me in the chest and knocked me over and started licking all over me and everything. I was like, this is cool, yeah, this is cool. So um then I got into the the hunt test stuff with him. Um and I I grew up hunting around uh I would say eastern short of short of Maryland is 90% American lab lineage trainers and breeders. Um so I grew up around, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with American dogs at all. They're awesome. I mean, but more so dogs on like the the field trial line of things, not so much like the Hunt Test stuff. And the the the the noticeable difference between Walter being a British Labrador and the other dogs that I've been around being on the American side is he is a complete I don't I I say this in a good way, like wild like in the field. It's like he's like, okay, I know what my job is, it's time to go to work. And then I take him home and he's chilling on on the couch, taking a nap. He has that, you know, they call it the off switch.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

Yeah, he has that switch.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

100%. Like that, that's not just like a thing that people say, there is something there about. That um that's been bred into those dogs going back into shoe. I think it started over in the UK in like the like 1880s or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:09

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I watched a couple Barton and he had a couple good little documentaries about Southern Oaks. I watched. I watched one with Yeti. I think it was Yeti or Sitka, and then I watched another good episode where it's kind of the uh the say when video.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

Yeah, say when video that he did with Sitka. I've I've probably watched a hundred times now.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

I think it's also and that he did another good one with the grind. That was pretty neat.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:37

Wally and them hunt with the grind. I'm pretty sure they hunt with the grind guys every year. So they had a dog. Um oh shoot, what was that dog's name? Um Hank.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Yes, yes, Hank.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:46

Yeah, they retired. Hank was one of Wally's dogs that um they retired from the stud dog program, and he actually went to live with the own Bill from the grind now.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Um I watched those guys, yeah. They they give it to the dog as a summer.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:05

Yeah, it it's it's cool, dude. Like you watch a say when video and you see a lineup of I don't know, a dozen dogs like sitting there behaving, and you almost you know, you you think in your mind, okay, they set that up for the film, and they had to recreate that scenario 25 times to get it right where every dog was sitting perfectly and paying attention and and acting right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:29

Then you go up to the training grounds, and it's that to a T the whole time. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:36

So I got to see that with Bardon. The first time I met Bardon back in 2017 at World and Um Stuttgart. Stump and a couple other buddies that you know that qualified. I went and they have that call, the callers bank with the night before, and everyone gets a brand of guests, and Stump and then brought me as a guest. Stump and um uh one of our other buddies. Uh Jeremy brought us as a guest, and um Barton was there with two uh black British labs, and you know, everyone's with their foods and their plates, and you know, most dollars would be in hyper overload. Yeah, and he placed them, sat them down, and they were there for I said like two hours while everyone was moving around, and they were just sitting there, just as calm as can be, until he, you know, he called, he finally called him over. I think he he uh poured him some food and let them eat. But then you know, I noticed that I know I was watching them and they were just, I mean, their heads were moving, kind of watching everybody, but they weren't, you know, some dogs would be kind of getting up and jumping around, or you know, the old get up and walk in a circle and sit back down. Just sat there and just watched.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:49

Yeah, it's it's pretty pretty awesome to see. Like I said, that the when I made the trip up there to pick him up, Cody was like, You want to hang around for a training session? I'm like, Well, I just drove 10 hours, what's an extra 45 minutes gonna do on the return trip or whatever? So um, yeah, they had probably every bit of eight to ten dogs out there on Memoirs play stands um doing exactly like what you see in the in the videos, yeah. And I thought, you know, being new, Walter's the first real hunting dog I've ever had.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

And I was about to ask that next.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Yeah, being new to all of this, it was fascinating for them to have a lineup of dogs there, and Cody would call one over, run it through like a you know, a simulated hunting training session, and then he would send it back to place and then call the next one up by name, and these dogs are in a line 10 yards behind him.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

Yeah. Um, that's so neat. And um, so what gotchae towards the the British lab, because you know, part of that part of that of Maryland fascinates me, and and I actually got to hunt a lot with these dogs over on the West Coast. And uh, we had a buddy that you know he was real big in the chesis, and I was always, you know, chesies were always real neat dogs to me. And that's kind of like you know, hunting with chesies is where I first learned about East Coast hunting when I was a kid, uh, because you know, Chesapeake Bay and all that, and you know, those dogs are real historical to that area. But what made you pick a British lab over a chessie or an American?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:30

Yeah, um, so my thing is I'm not a guide. I'm not, you know, somebody who is hunting from September 1st every day until you know, I think our snow goose season goes out like end of March somewhere. Like I said, I'm not super knowledgeable of the snow goose stuff around here. Um but you know, if I'm fortunate, I get to go 25, 30 days a year. And that means, you know, if I get to go 30, that's 335 days a year that my dog is a house pet, right? So I wanted you know, just a dog that does what I expected it, which Walter has superseded any expectation I had of him um in the field, but also just like a good, well-mannered dog um at home. And like I said, he is he is all of that. Um being straight up, the Instagram algorithm got me. That's how I just built a crossparton. Yeah, yeah, the whole algorithm got me.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:49

Yeah, and it's smart, it's not it's not bad, it's not bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:54

Yeah, he's got it going on for sure. Yeah, we were talking about that before the you know you started recording. His um his whole business is something that I hope to one day do with Black Timber, where it's it's not, he's not just another dog breeder, it's an all-encompassing product.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:12

Yeah, and he's just such a good guy. Like you see him on on on you know Instagram or Facebook, super good family guy. Um, it's almost like you look at him and you're like, dude, you're a youth pastor. Yeah, just super good dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

And a rock, yeah, and a rock.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:29

I mean, he was you know in the music, he's real big in the wait board and real big in jujitsu, and you're just like, man, you're like one of the most interesting guys in the world. Yeah, so it's super cool, you know, to see a guy from who you know is outside, you know, that has so much other interests, and so much and is is well around in other things in life that can really produce a product like he does.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He is 100% surrounded himself with the right people, the right products. Um just super, super he's got it going on for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:05

Yeah, yeah. Like I said, good things always happen to the good people, man. And sometimes it takes time, but um, when you surround yourself with the right people, you know, it um it pays dev dividends in the end.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:20

Yeah, and that's like you know, like what he has going on at the outpost, I think he calls them outpost, like that program where he has, you know, uh like home base, but then he has SOK Great Lakes, then he has SOK East, he has um I can't remember what some of the other names of them are. But you know, from a I feel like from a consumer perspective, if not knowing anything about all of the other locations that he has, somebody is gonna want to go to Mississippi to buy a dog from him.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:54

You know what I mean? Um but like I said, being exposed to the guys at Great Lakes, um I think he has it covered top to bottom where no matter where you go, you're gonna be getting a a quality dog quality product.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

Um anyone associated with the SOK name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

Yeah, that's super neat, man. Like I think I'm gonna bite the bull and give him a call and uh get one. Yeah, like he said, like I told you, my my wife's cousin, he got one and out and he ends up in Indiana and yeah, you know, I think his he named his Donnie, and super cool dog, and super, you know, like I said, he you know, he hunts maybe 15-20 times a year, most of you know, and he has you know two daughters and a son. And yeah, majority of the time that dog's going to be a family dog, but yeah, like you said, it has that that switch where it knows when um when it's time to go to work, like like people say it knows when to lock in.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:59

I train Walter at my cousin's farm. It's like uh eight minutes from my office. And um, like I said, around the house, around the office, whatever, I have a little cot here for him. He just hangs out, he'll sit there the whole time. I'll go down Route 32 and go to go to turn into the farm off of 32, and he he rides around in a gunner most of the time, unless it's like super, super hot out or super, super cold out. Um yeah. But when I go to pull down the the lane to pull into the farm, I can hear his tail whacking off banging off the inside of the kennel.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:37

In the back, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

That that's so neat. But but Mike, I you know, we're coming towards the end. I greatly thank you for coming on. Uh awesome talking to you, awesome. Um, just learning everything about, you know, man, like you said, another interesting guy. Um with the calling and all that. But for the for the guys and the gals that are looking for a honker call, you know, let them know one more time where to find them, uh, social media website. And you know, and if if they want to get a hold of you to kind of, you know, if they're new to the stuff, to kind of talk them onto the a right fit, a right call that fits them.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:15

Yeah, so um right now um my my main source of advertising is Facebook and Instagram. Um, I have blacktimbercalls.com. Um I tell everybody, please feel free to message me on on Facebook or Instagram. I try to get back to everybody same day, unless you message me at like eight o'clock at night and I'm putting the kids to bed or something like that. I'll get back to you the next morning. But um yeah, I uh the the custom calls I I'll I'll make as I have time to produce them and then I'll post them for sale on Facebook. Um, and then like I said, all the the CNC lineup you can find at blacktimbercalls.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:55

But Mike, thanks for coming on. It was great talking to you for the viewers, man. Thank you as always for tuning in and supporting us. And um, man, like our friend Chris always says, let Valor not failed.