Ducks Unlimited Podcast

This episode blends waterfowl and big game stories as Tim and Sydney Wells share their experiences from Illinois to Texas. Hear about hunting ducks, chasing mallards, and the adrenaline rush of rattling whitetails. Packed with practical tips and memorable stories, it’s a must-listen for hunters of all kinds.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Harrison
DUPodcast Outdoor Host

What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?

Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.

Matt Harrison:

On today's episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast, we have special guests, Tim and Sydney Wells, and we're gonna be talking about hunting conditions, duck hunting stories, deer hunting stories, the whole nine. Trust me, you don't wanna miss this episode, so stay tuned.

VO:

Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brazier.

VO:

I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Hemphill. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.

VO:

Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.

VO:

Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.

Matt Harrison:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your cohost, Matt Harrison. And today, we have joining with us two very, very special guests, and those guests are Sydney Wells and Tim Wells. How are we doing y'all?

Tim Wells:

Fantastic, buddy. Just doing doing great down here in Illinois.

Matt Harrison:

We're doing good. We got snow, which we love when it comes to hunting season.

Tim Wells:

We've had a rough go of it. It's been a drought here for the last ninety days. The ponds are, you know, three, four feet low. The ground is has been like dust. So we can tell you that we're we have welcomed 10 inches of snow, and we're so happy to get it.

Matt Harrison:

When did it start snowing up there on your guys?

Tim Wells:

I see. The big snow came two two to three days ago, and it's been spitting ever since off and on. So we got eight to 10 inches now with another couple inches in the forecast in the future. So we got a long way to go though to fill our ponds and get the river up to where it needs to be where we've lost a lot of water, but hopefully, we're gonna get it over the wintertime and into the spring. But more than that, for the duck's sake, we hope that it's snowing like crazy in the Dakotas and up in Canada.

Matt Harrison:

I know it. I know it. So have y'all been focusing more on deer, ducks, or what, Sid? You've been out there a good bit. I know you've had a lot of travel lately, but what have you been focused on?

Sydney Wells:

Well, we're usually are always focused on the deer. When the ducks get here, Tim only focuses on the ducks. So when ducks are here, Tim's like, alright. You're fend for yourselves. We're I'm duck hunting solo.

Sydney Wells:

So we we had a good early season. I killed a deer the first week of November, which is always great. That's a relief when you get a deer tagged, and I've been chasing whitetails, of course, through the rut. But now that the mallards are finally here in Illinois, we got an early snow. Last year was a great season.

Sydney Wells:

This year I think it's looking to be a good season too. We haven't had a season like this for a couple years because we usually don't get any snow anymore. So

Tim Wells:

Yeah. This early freeze brought a lot of mallards into our neck of the woods. So matter of fact, I killed four the other day with my bow. To do that, you gotta have a lot of ducks. You know?

Tim Wells:

So Wow. We're pretty excited. We're gonna shoot ducks this afternoon, hopefully, and we got an overcast sky, 27 degrees, and holding about 50,000 mallards right against our cliff here. So Oh my goodness. We got the food and the patients.

Tim Wells:

So if there's 50,000 of them, there's gotta be eight dumb ones over there somewhere that's gonna get us this afternoon.

Sydney Wells:

Yeah. This this season has been fun so far. You know, we in Illinois, we open up late October. Jack, our my producer, Wisconsin opens up a lot earlier than that, and they have been hammering the Mallards. He shot over Thanksgiving break, I think, a seven man limit, and they hunt every day and just hammering them.

Matt Harrison:

Wow. That's incredible. She won't shoot them with

Tim Wells:

the bow with me too often, so I finally bought her a four ten, and she broke down and started hunting ducks with a four ten with me, and we've been we've been having a lot of fun. You know, the cool thing about hunting with small gauges, four tens and 20 eights, and I hunted with you, Matt, in the timber with the 28, and that was cool. That set that fire in motion for me, but we went to four ten doubles, and it is you have to be patient, and you've gotta let them birds get in there tight. But, man, it's so exciting when you you do let them get in there tight. A lot of birds get away that you don't shoot at that you normally would have killed, but when it happens and you pull in a, you know, four or five mallards and they come in there and you knock two or three of them out of the bunch with a sword, You don't even hardly hear your gun go off next it's pretty awesome experience, and we're kinda getting into that.

Matt Harrison:

As far as the four ten goes, and this is a little bit more of a specific question, but what would you say that range that you feel comfortable with shooting at it with a four ten? Like, is it twenty, thirty yards, or what's the furthest shot that you've been successful on with the four ten with ducks?

Tim Wells:

I'd say you're right. You know, we we usually don't shoot at them at 40 yards. You know? We want them in there decoying close, so we shoot them at 20 yards, and we stretch it out sometimes and kill like, gadwalls are a pretty weak bird and but a mallard, you know, big old mallard red legged drake, he can hit. So if he's 40 yards high flaring and you're shooting at his butt, you're liable to cripple it.

Tim Wells:

So we try to we try to shoot at a fight, you know, right in the hole. Yeah.

Sydney Wells:

This is my first time shooting a four ten at ducks, so I definitely like them doing nice and close because otherwise, I'm gonna be whiffing that. It's different with that 20 gauge. When you change to a twenty twenty eight, then you're like, oh my gosh. Wait. I gotta kinda aim different now.

Tim Wells:

You know, kind of a misconception, though, about a 28 gauge or a four ten that, oh, you know, it doesn't kill them as well. It's if you're a good shot, which it's harder to hit them, but if you're if you have perfect lead on a duck, you can kill him just as high with your four ten as you can with a 12 gauge. The only difference is with a four ten at 25 yards, you've got a circumference of about 14 inches versus 25 inches with a 12 gauge. So the four ten strings your shot a little bit more, but not too much. And if you're on him, you you kill him.

Tim Wells:

You'll kill him. We went to smaller shot. It gives us a denser pattern, and anything under 35 yards that you're shooting six steel at them or bismuth or tungsten, you know, you're gonna put the whopping on them, But it's all about the lead and being patient and let them get in there tight.

Matt Harrison:

How do you go about choosing what you're gonna shoot that day? So do you just wake up and say, ah, today's a good four ten day if you know that they're gonna be in there real tight? Like you said, today, y'all got 50,000 mallards in y'all's area. So is today gonna be a day that you grab a four ten off the the gun rack, or what are y'all shooting today?

Tim Wells:

It kinda depend on on where we're hunting. You know? Are we hunting over decoys in the water where we know the birds are gonna be focused right in on us? Or, you know, if we're going out in the field, that's a little rougher because the birds may be working the decoy spread, but they may be circling wide, you know, so we may shoot the 28 gauges at them that day. But Sydney, she she always goes back to that 20 gauge in the end, but she's pretty good shot with her four ten.

Tim Wells:

Just

Sydney Wells:

I think if the conditions are right, like you said, it depends where we're gonna hunt and also the wind. If we know it's gonna be a lights out, I'm like, alright. We could do four tens. And especially since we've a lot of ducks in the area. But, otherwise, yeah, I like to keep my 20 gauge on my hand.

Sydney Wells:

You know?

Matt Harrison:

So, Sydney, you would you would never try to shoot four tens out of a coffin blind like we did. So,

Tim Wells:

like Oh

Sydney Wells:

my gosh. Yeah. If we can hit that again, yes. We should actually get four tens considering that we're 10 yards in front of our face. That was insane.

Sydney Wells:

Yes. I was a

Matt Harrison:

couple groups that I was like, they may hit us. Like, when we lean up out of our coffin blinds, they literally might hit us.

Sydney Wells:

And Utah. Yeah. Utah was that was an experience like no other. I would definitely take a four ten. I can't believe that those just black, what, cutouts.

Matt Harrison:

But we were Silhouette cutouts.

Sydney Wells:

Yeah. Those black cutouts worked so well. There's just a shadow, looks like, from a distance, and they just came right in.

Matt Harrison:

I'll never forget. I don't know if you were able to see some of that content, mister Tim, from that hunt, but I remember pulling up out there, and they started to stick up exactly what Sydney's talking about. So there's these cutout silhouettes, and he's like, we're gonna hide in them, and we're gonna get in these black sleds, coffins Yeah. And we're just gonna lay down in the middle. I'm like, there's no way this is gonna work.

Matt Harrison:

Like, these there's no way. They were like, I'm telling you, you know, there's no trees around. So they were like, these birds are a couple feet off the water. So, you know, they're eye level with you. You know, they're not up picking you out.

Matt Harrison:

So they were like, they see these black silhouettes, and they think that's a group on the shore. And sure enough, this group of 200 teal would just buzz you, and then we would just lean up. Yeah. It was great.

Sydney Wells:

That would have been a four ten day for sure.

Tim Wells:

So we got kind of a cool little announcement we can make. I filed my patent for a new decoy. And, Matt, I got a question. The most important thing you need in a spread of decoys?

Matt Harrison:

Motion.

Tim Wells:

Motion. So what do we all wish we had on water when we have decoys out there?

Matt Harrison:

Motion.

Tim Wells:

Motion. And the only way to get that is with a jerk string or some kind of elaborate setup. Right? Correct. Well, I patented, and I have my first prototype that we're gonna try tomorrow, which I know is gonna work because it's been tested in the lab over and over, and they're like, okay, Tim, it's time to film over the new decoy that you'll sell next year, but we have a decoy now.

Tim Wells:

You throw it out in the decoy spread, it locks the GPS signal, and it swims in a 20 foot circle all all afternoon for you. No strings attached, nothing caught in the moss, and that's the new decoy that we're gonna Wow. Here. And so excited about it.

Matt Harrison:

What type of battery system does this

Tim Wells:

eight hours, swim it for eight hours. Wow. If it pops into a log or another decoy, it backs up, turns around, and goes back the other way. But it it just stays in within its GPS coordinate, and it just swims around in circles, not necessarily in circles, just random like a duck, making ripples on the water. So you buy yourself three or four of them, throw them out, you can go from 50 decoys to a dozen and probably triple your odds of success.

Matt Harrison:

Wow. I'm eager to see that.

Tim Wells:

A lot of these public walk in hunters are gonna just they're gonna love it because they don't have to carry in 200 pounds of decoys. They can have a sack of decoys and three or four of my swimmers, turn them on, throw them out in the spread, and hammer away.

Matt Harrison:

Wow. So I know that you said it's been tested and stuff. Have you and you said tomorrow y'all are gonna test it. Have you hunted over it yet, or will tomorrow be

Tim Wells:

first time? First time we're gonna put it in a hole and and let her swim and shoot ducks over. Wow. Yeah.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome. Sid, what do you think about that?

Sydney Wells:

If it kills ducks, I'm gonna be really pumped.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. Well, I tell you what. The first time she water swats one with my prototype up, decided I'm gonna be

Matt Harrison:

Oh, man. Hey. You're gonna get some of that, especially on some of this public ground. You may if it's too realistic, you may have some people,

Sydney Wells:

there's a dog out there. Shoot it. Before you know it, the game wardens are gonna be using it. You know how, like, they had those fake dummy deer that are gonna use prototypes?

Tim Wells:

Yeah. They all have to put it in her truck. That way she don't get caught.

Matt Harrison:

So so was there anything and I know a born hunter, and you've probably all you're also a businessman, so I'm sure you're out there. What could I make to create something like this? But was it was there initial time you were out there that just dawned on you like, hey. A GPS, you know, decoy that would swim? Was there something that just hit you all at once, like, that's what I'm gonna do, or how did this come about?

Tim Wells:

Frankly, I just am I was just shocked when I found that no one had patented it. So because, I mean, it's a simple idea, a GPS, you put it in your decoy and tell the decoy, don't leave this area and I want you to swim around. So and we all if you're a duck hunter, you're all you know, on a calm day, you're looking at your decoys sitting there motionless and you're saying to yourself, that's probably gonna scare the ducks more than draw them in. I'm like and one day it dawned on me and I was like, I wonder why nobody's done that. I was like, like, I was sure somebody had, you know.

Tim Wells:

So did a patent search and woah, and then nobody had. And so I filed the patent and next thing you know, I've built a board so it controls the duck and his movement. And, you know, he you hit go, and off he goes.

Matt Harrison:

You're gonna make a lot of people that's that, you know, that jerkcore, poor guy in every group. You're gonna make that guy really happy.

Tim Wells:

Well, I hope I make enough money that I can afford Sydney's wedding this spring. You know?

Matt Harrison:

Yeah. By the way, that's coming up. You excited, Sid?

Sydney Wells:

Yeah. Yeah. I hope he makes a lot of money too so he shows up.

Tim Wells:

No kidding.

Sydney Wells:

Yeah. I know. That's that's in May. It's gonna be here before you know it. But

Matt Harrison:

Are you still in the planning season, or you got a lot of it nailed down? Or

Sydney Wells:

Well, see, he proposed not this past August, but the August before, and that was ready for hunting season. So I was like, I can't plan a wedding during hunting season, so it gave me plenty of time to plan for a wedding. So we're pretty much just on the countdown now.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome.

VO:

Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.

Matt Harrison:

Well, let's talk a little bit about y'all's area as far as duck hunting goes. I know that we spoke a little bit about it at the beginning of the podcast episode, but mister Tim, I know that you've been out a good bit this year. Know that Sid mentioned that y'all's season started at the October. What have just kinda been your thoughts so far on the season? I know y'all got great conditions right now, as y'all's mentioned, holding a lot of birds in y'all's area.

Matt Harrison:

But has this been a season that you were expecting as far as numbers wise, or has it been a little down or better? What have you kinda seen in y'all's area so far this year?

Tim Wells:

I'd say the success rate in this Central Illinois area hunting flyway along the Illinois River is probably 50% better than normal for this time of

Matt Harrison:

the year.

Tim Wells:

Right now is when it usually kicks off. You know? This is when the flight usually arrives just after Thanksgiving and progressively gets good, and then it's really good about the last day of season. Then after that, it would have been phenomenal. But we're seeing the influx of birds now because of this unusual weather like everybody else might be.

Tim Wells:

I guess Wisconsin is just now closing and probably just right on time because they're shipping all their birds down to us now, and they're probably seeing a big flight of the birds leaving here already because the puddles are freezing up, A lot of the flooded corn that the clubs have and that the state has here in Illinois are freezing up and will freeze up tonight and tomorrow because it's gonna dip down to five degrees. So Wow. Hold on Arkansas and Mississippi, boys, Tennessee, they're coming. They're they're the waves of them coming. But for the next four or five days, these heated lakes, like the Powhatan and Power plants up around Chicago and the one that we have a club next to here, they're holding several 100,000 birds, and we probably got 40,000 birds, maybe 50 right right against us.

Tim Wells:

So it's gonna be phenomenal hunting while it lasts.

Matt Harrison:

Well, now how long in y'all's forecast do you see it staying froze up or in y'all's area?

Sydney Wells:

Well, I just checked the weather, and next week, it's actually gonna warm back up. So it'll be high thirties, forties, maybe

Tim Wells:

long as it stays in that mid thirties, you know, we'll hold we'll hold bucks till the end of season. But the Canadian geese are next, you know, they they they stay no matter how cold it gets, they'll stay on these big lakes and then they'll keep acres and acres of water open, so that's always good. But the mallards, you know, it's a roll of the dice, but if Sydney's right and it's to hover around the freezing mark, then the ducks will hold a big portion of them, but you know, we'll lose some. All the gadwalls seem like they're gone, the green winged teals left, I've seen a few shovelers this morning, but about the only thing we got left are some of the divers and mallards. Wow.

Tim Wells:

So

Matt Harrison:

Now do y'all you said, you know, y'all hold a good bit of geese. Do y'all chase geese a lot too, or do y'all mostly stick to ducks?

Sydney Wells:

We stick to ducks. I mean, if the geese come up I have a friend, Dakota. He loves geese. And if when he calls, I'll bring my trailer full, that's when we goose hunt. But it's mainly ducks.

Sydney Wells:

Mean, I we like the geese on a little bit. They'll fly over and, you know, we'll try to decoy them in. But other than that

Tim Wells:

Yeah.

Sydney Wells:

It's it's all ducks.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. We used to beat the geese up heavy, but we after you kill so many of them, I mean, there's nothing like an Old Myler Drake locked up coming in, so we'd like that.

Sydney Wells:

It is fun, though, to shoot geese here because, you know, you got about a 50% chance that it's banded by your local up Yeah. We were out with a Central Illinois boy, and they got a whole lot of bands. You know where they're coming from.

Matt Harrison:

You know where they've hunted a lot of.

Sydney Wells:

Last year was really fun. We had a goose come in, a solo, and Jack shot him, and I think he was 17 years old from Canada. That was an old Wow. Yeah. That video went super viral.

Sydney Wells:

So that was pretty cool.

Matt Harrison:

Now, Sid, did you kill a band banded one duck last year, or was that year before last?

Sydney Wells:

Banded one What's the banded one last year. Yep.

Matt Harrison:

Where was that one from?

Sydney Wells:

That one, I can't remember. I think that one was from Minnesota.

Matt Harrison:

Oh, wow.

Tim Wells:

First Canadian goose I ever killed, they had a band. I was in or Alberta hunting mule deer, and we were along a river and there was a steady flight of geese back and forth. And I told the the guy that got that was guiding me, he had never hunted with me before. I said, I wanna take a shot at these geese. He goes, you gotta get your license and stuff.

Tim Wells:

So the next day we got my license, went back out there, we hadn't seen any geese. Finally, on the last day, here come a flock of geese down the river, and they were out flying out over across the top of the river. You could wade the river. It wasn't real big river, but these there are seven or eight of them. They're coming down along.

Tim Wells:

They're They're a little too far to shoot at, but I let I said, watch this, and I pulled up ahead of this the lead goose and, boom, shut that arrow out across there, and it was zipping out across there. Blop. It nailed that about the fifth goose in line, man. Rolled him out of the flock because splash. He flopped in the water.

Tim Wells:

He had that arrow sticking out of him. It was a beautiful thing. You know? And the guide was like, oh my gosh. That's gotta be the best shot I've ever seen.

Tim Wells:

And the goose floated over to the shore, and I got him. He had a band on his legs, so that was pretty exciting. I never told the guy I was shooting the one in front. I I let him think that's the one I was shooting at, we called it good. Anyway, that's my first band of bird.

Tim Wells:

Since then, they banned a lot of them here locally, and my son, now Clint, he loves shooting geese. So he'll go out in September when they have their early goosies and come back with a handful of of bands that he shot. You know? The whole family got sacrificed for the bands that morning. You know?

Tim Wells:

But Oh, really? I was more into hunting deer. But once in a while, we'll we'll when we're hunting mallards, you know, obviously, we kill a lot of geese that come into our spread while we're hunting mallards.

Matt Harrison:

So We

Tim Wells:

got some speckle bellies now. We didn't have speckle

Matt Harrison:

Oh, really?

Tim Wells:

Long. The speck speckle bellies are Wow. But the you know, the speckle bellies, they get to you guys in Arkansas. They work right in, and you guys hammer them. I mean, it's like an easy bird for y'all to hunt down there in the rice fields and so forth.

Tim Wells:

But calling in a specabelly in Illinois is virtually impossible, really hard to do. And if anybody can tell me why, that it'd be interesting because a specabelly is the smartest bird in the world when you talk about killing him here in in the Central United States and Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, these areas. But once he gets down south, why they decoy so well once they're there, it's just beyond me.

Matt Harrison:

Wow. That that is neat. I I'm kinda like y'all are. I I don't really chase geese that much. I I just don't have that, you know, eagerness to get up and chase them.

Matt Harrison:

I've been a couple times, and I tell you what, it is about three times more the amount of work to chase geese than it is ducks because a lot of people, especially when you talk about the South and Arkansas and and such, you know, those guys are putting out astronomical amount of decoys. They're dealing with that gumbo mud that's, like, six inches deep, and it's it's a lot. Like, a couple times that I've been, it was raining in the mud and all the decoys. I'm just like, how do y'all enjoy this? But, man, they eat up with it.

Matt Harrison:

And to each their own, you know, I know that a lot of people enjoy it. But what do y'all mostly hunt where y'all are at? Is it foot of corn? Is it dry fields? A little bit of both?

Matt Harrison:

Where do y'all kindly mainly stay in?

Sydney Wells:

We got a little bit of both, Matt. So it just depends on what they're working. You know, earlier in the season, we were hunting the dry fields. Then when it got cold, flooded flooded corn, and now it's all it's all iced up. So we got a ice eater out and just have a a nice hole that we're hunting and put our decoys in the in the field.

Matt Harrison:

How many decoys do y'all run most of the time? I know it probably kinda varies depending, but not many. Very

Sydney Wells:

Not very many. A dozen, a couple dozen.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. Wow.

Sydney Wells:

Not very

Tim Wells:

But you can't beat 25 you know, the new Bass Pro decoys that we're hunting over that I just got them Canadians. I put out two dozen Canadian decoys, mixed them in with the zinc decoys, and, boy, he's got some beautiful decoys. Two dozen Canadian decoys, and mallards pour right

Matt Harrison:

in on them. Wow. That's awesome.

Tim Wells:

She wants she goes with all her dive bomb decoys. You know? It's back and forth. I gotta treat my sponsor nice. She's gotta treat her nice.

Tim Wells:

You know? They love her decoys too, though. Oh, father daughter battle. We're hunting over Sydney's decoys. I'd like to scrape them across the the the ground when them mallards come in.

Tim Wells:

You just unload across the ground and on the water. But, you know, when it's my decoys, we shoot them in the air. You know? But Sydney's it's just the other way around, boy. Oh, that's funny.

Tim Wells:

Big shot in the last couple weeks. You know? I've seen some ducks that were swimming fast when she nailed them.

Sydney Wells:

I mean up. Stop talking.

Tim Wells:

It was impressive.

Sydney Wells:

You're so annoying. Oh

Tim Wells:

my gosh, man.

Matt Harrison:

I love it. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. So when does y'all season go out, waterfowl wise?

Sydney Wells:

I think it's Christmas Eve is usually when it goes out. So it should be the twenty fourth. So next year, Illinois is split. So we have our split, which we're very excited about. I can't remember.

Sydney Wells:

I think the split's around Thanksgiving time, and so our season will be pushed back a little bit, which I know a lot of people are excited about. Mhmm. Now,

Matt Harrison:

Sid, I know we're currently working on a trip, but are you going anywhere else to chase ducks? And mister Tim, are you as well? Are y'all just gonna pretty much stay local chasing them? Or y'all got any cool trips planned?

Sydney Wells:

Well, I got a couple cool trips. This weekend, I'm going to Missouri to hunt with the dive bomb guys. I have a couple coworkers coming, so and they're one's from Florida and one's from New York, and one has never killed ducks. Another one says he has killed ducks, but we'll see if he actually has. So that would be pretty fun.

Sydney Wells:

And then Roy Carter invited me to come into Kansas recently, so I think I'm gonna go try to do that. And, really, the next couple weeks, I'm just trying to hunt home. Nothing beats being at home and hunting in January. I'm sure we'll both be in Arkansas. We hunt in different places in Arkansas, but we both try to go down there and maybe bring our bows.

Tim Wells:

In January and try to kill some sea ducks. Haven't done that before. So I'm Oh. They think that you can kill them with a bow there. They're pretty they come right in on a string.

Tim Wells:

So we're gonna give that a try. Wow.

Sydney Wells:

And have we got time? Matt and I, hopefully, will be in Washington with Matt Judy.

Matt Harrison:

That'd be fun.

Sydney Wells:

The witch king, everybody likes to call him. I thought I killed a storm widgeon last year, took a picture, posted it, and I had so many people in the comments being like, CC, Matt, Judy. And he's like I'm like, what the heck? I guess he had a storm widgeon class that he posted about. Like, that's not a storm wigeon.

Matt Harrison:

He's got a doctorate in storm wigeons.

Sydney Wells:

Yeah. Exactly what it was.

Matt Harrison:

Oh, that's awesome. Mister Tam, so you're planning on heading to Massachusetts? That'll be a fun trip.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. They got black mallards up there. I need a couple big old drakes to hang from the top of the man cave ceiling, so I'm hoping that we get into them.

Matt Harrison:

Now are y'all planning any other deer hunting trips? Are y'all kinda kinda done? We got a buddy

Tim Wells:

and was covered up with deer. We may go hunt with Kevin, and outside of that, we every year before Christmas, we end up in Texas with brother Buck. We do our rattling thing down there, and we get these bucks come running in that's it look like they're a 190 inches, and we shoot them, track them down, and find out that they weighed a buck ten, and they're only a 130. But it sure is fun hunting them.

Sydney Wells:

It's awesome.

Matt Harrison:

Is that an adrenaline rush or what?

Sydney Wells:

It is

Tim Wells:

the ultimate rush.

Sydney Wells:

They're coming from all different angles. We are we have a bow hunter, the cameraperson, and then a couple twenty twenty yards behind us is the rattler. So they're rattling nonstop because, you know, those big deer like to come downwind, and it's awesome.

Matt Harrison:

So walk us one of y'all walk us through that a little bit because I know that there's probably a lot of listeners that aren't deer hunters, and there's some that are. But, you know, rattling in deer, that's a unique you just you kinda gotta know what you're doing to do that. Like, you talked about being upwind, and you gotta really, really be on top of it. I feel like I've never personally done it. So kinda walk us through a little bit about what a scenario would look like as far as rattling one to end.

Sydney Wells:

Well, it really depends on the situation. If you're on the ground, if you're in a tree, what state you're in. Here in Illinois, we like to go October, early November. You wanna make sure you're playing the wind. You don't wanna be hunting in a field or area where those bucks can come be from behind you and really catch your wind.

Tim Wells:

When you hit the horns together, Matt, in Illinois, it's like you're hunting a different well, you are hunting a different species versus hunting Texas. So in Illinois, typically, you know, we have them run-in on us occasionally, but it typically takes them fifteen, twenty minutes to show up. And you can tell that you've actually rattled him in because he'll come walking in with his hair all blown up or his ears back or just kind of stiff legged when he's coming in, which indicates he's coming to establish dominance or maybe to fight, but it takes him twenty minutes to get there because I've rattled them in Illinois before and killed big deer that in the distance in the timber I could see them stand for five minutes staring directly towards where I had rattled from, and for some reason it just clicks and here they come. Now when we go down to Texas, it's like as soon as you hit them horns Here they go. Because they're coming.

Sydney Wells:

They're hauling. They're not sneaking in either. They're running as fast as they can.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. They'll run-in, see you, run back out before you can suck an arrow at them, and then you hit the horns, they run back again and do it again. It is crazy. Really? It is literal if you're in the right right section of Texas, it's unbelievable.

Tim Wells:

Sydney and I have rattled in maybe thirty, forty deer a day down there, and we're hunting South Of San Antonio probably an hour, and that whole region around there, genetically, those animals respond to the horns. And it man, it's super fun. We're walking low fence, wild deer, setting up in, you know, the the desert where you don't see a lot of deer sign where you're setting up, but you crack them horns and they come out of the woodwork. It's unbelievable. Wow.

Tim Wells:

That's hard to kill like that though. I mean, you you know, we're just deer hunting when we go down there. We got tags and we got a week to hunt or three days to hunt or whatever, and if it's looks like it's halfway mature, we shoot it, you know. Then we usually come home with bags unfilled, but we sure have a blast doing it. Then we'll set up our predator call and hunt coyotes and foxes and do that kind of thing while we're down there, but that's always a fun trip.

Tim Wells:

There's nothing like Texas. Gotta love it.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome. Well, I wanna be mindful of y'all's time, but before y'all go, I want y'all to share each one of you the coolest, most memorable, most adrenaline rush hunt that you have ever been on. It can be from any year, any animal, anything, but what hunt sticks out to you the most that you are either most proud of, just the most adrenaline, whatever. It doesn't matter. Just the hunt that pops to your mind first that you can share with our listeners.

Tim Wells:

So when Sydney looks up in the air, I know she's trying to think of something, but I know mine. My my most memorable hunt was there was this button buck and he was coming down through the soybeans, okay, envision this, it's early October, they're still green, the beans are. I'm seven years old, I've got my fiberglass recurve, maybe 30 pound draw, I think at the time it was supposed to be 40, but I think dad let me get away with 30. I had a wooden, I had three wooden arrows that my grandpa had built out of just wooden shafts, he painted them black and green for me and put aluminum siding, he had cut out v's out of them and put somewhat of a sharp edge on them, those were the points on all three of the arrows with rooster feathers on the tail. And I'll never forget standing in the edge of that timber looking at that button buck as he made his way down that bean row slowly but surely, and the closer he got, the harder my heart was pounding.

Tim Wells:

And the moment that I finally realized it was time to shoot, he was like six yards in front of me, head beating on the beans, and when I came to full draw, that bow was shaking and shivering in my hands, and it was 70 degrees outside when I can still to this day, and it's been what has it been? Fifty fifty some year fifty seven years, and that arrow left that bow and I can still see that arrow arching above the the beans and coming down and plop, hit that buck right in the center of his stomach, and he took off running out across there, and that was the most adrenaline rush, bow hunting thrill of a lifetime that stuck with me the rest of my life. And I've, you know, I've had some encounters with grizzly bears in my spear, had a big brown bear stand up and his I was in a tree stand about 10 or 11 feet off the ground, and when he stood up under my tree stand, his head was about a foot under the platform and I'm holding a spear and he's looking left and right for me.

Tim Wells:

And that was an adrenaline rush, and I had a moose come in that caught my wind and instead of running, it made him mad and he started ripping the tree upright that I was hiding behind, you know, that I spared, but nothing compared to that first whitetail with my bow. That's awesome. And I'll never forget, couldn't find the deer because I'd shot it in the gut, you know, and my dad helped me look. And so the next day he said, hey, you don't need to go to school anymore, you need to find that deer. So the next morning he told me, you walk down the creek where he went into where we last tracked, you walk down there and look.

Tim Wells:

And so I walked down the creek, and I was walking along there, and I looked up ahead of me, and I seen the I seen the fletchings of my arrow sticking up above the the grass a little bit. And the closer I got, I seen the the outline of the that deer's belly. And when I got in tight on him, I had another arrow ready to shoot him. And I got in tight, there was my dead buck laying there, you know, a button buck. And right where the arrow was sticking, I'll never forget where that arrow was sticking in his stomach, there were little bubbles just bubbling up out of his stomach, you know, and it was the most oh my gosh.

Tim Wells:

It was the most fulfilling. I was the king of the world that day. I mean, I it was the greatest thing ever. I'll never forget that.

Matt Harrison:

I love that's your favorite too because I know you've shot some monster deer, had some crazy encounters. I'll never forget the story you told me at Chuck Smith, our former president's place, that time about the wolf that you killed.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. That

Matt Harrison:

was pretty That was I mean but to be able to share with us that your favorite, most memorable hunt is that button buck when you were seven years old, that's that's incredible. Sia, what about you?

Sydney Wells:

Well, I can't top that, but he's pretty good at stormtowing. I would say one thing that pops in my mind that made me super proud as a bow hunter, especially, like, I've been bowhunting really, really hard, I would say, starting in college. Obviously, I bowhunted my whole life with him, but really on my own and trying to become a better bowhunter after like, right during college all the way through, you know, my twenties. But I was super proud of myself because usually I freak out. I have a tendency I can freak out.

Sydney Wells:

Not anymore, thankfully. I've kind of outgrown that. But a couple years ago, I we were bow hunting, and you know the Wells is we bow hunt hard, and it can get pretty exhausting, and it was the rut. And there was this nine pointer, very heavy, lot of mass. Tim and I set up at the end of this cornfield in hopes that, you know, we kill a big buck.

Sydney Wells:

Well, this this buck came out. He was rutting hard. He was scanning the field, and I'm like, oh, crap. Here we come. Well, one thing that I've done on my own, you know, my dad's instinctive.

Sydney Wells:

He's never shot a release. He's never shot sights. Nothing. So really growing up, we had to self teach ourselves how to use sights and our rangefinder and just how to become a better bow hunter that way because it's completely different than he just draws back and shoots, anchors and shoots. Same with my brother.

Sydney Wells:

He he's also instinctive. So with my bow, I really practiced a lot, shoot far distances, and be better at ranging the field, and kinda being able to guess my yardage that way, and just instinctively become a better bow hunter.

Tim Wells:

Mhmm.

Sydney Wells:

Well, this this buck came out. He stepped into 35 yards and drew back, he stopped, thunk, I hit a a cornstalk.

Tim Wells:

The only cornstalk in front of his vitals since he hit it.

Sydney Wells:

I hit it. And he ran it into the field. Well, something that, again, I was I what I instinctively told myself, and I it was muscle memory, I ranged the end of the field, which was 55 yards. So just in case something crazy happened, I knew the the ranges. And my heart was pounding, but I was pretty proud of myself.

Sydney Wells:

I kept my composure, knocked another arrow, and I double lunged him. 55 yards, my longest Wow. My longest shot. You know, he didn't know I was there. He knew there was danger.

Sydney Wells:

And if a bug doesn't see you or tell you, you know, they're like, something's wrong, but they can't figure out what and He

Tim Wells:

let out a blow before the arrow hit him too. He went like, you know, he was letting out that warning blow right before that. When when he let that out, she let that arrow rip and hit him. And the part she left out was right before she shot, she just closed her eyes and looked up in the air and shot.

Sydney Wells:

Get out of here. You are so dumb.

Tim Wells:

It was the luckiest shot I've ever seen.

Sydney Wells:

Dumb. But, you know, I didn't have any adrenaline. So that's one thing I was proud of myself. Like, I mean, I still get shaken up, especially when a buck comes in the when a buck comes out into a cornfield and you're watching him for over ten minutes, you're usually gonna lose your mind.

Tim Wells:

No. No. I think that the buck that you killed, the the six pack, she shot a a buck on Thanksgiving one time with me that it was freaking cold, and we'd been hunting that deer. He was eight years old. We'd been hunting for three years trying to kill him, and she smoked him on Thanksgiving, and she started kind of hyperventilating.

Tim Wells:

I thought she's gonna puke in the stand after she killed him because she was so cold, and then she got all that excitement going on. It was like we were both cracking up.

Sydney Wells:

I got sick from the adrenaline and being cold. It was insane, but there's a lot of proud moments. That one just, like, pops into my head just that I was so proud of myself for being composed and patient. I'm like, okay. I've I've become a better bow hunter in that moment knowing, you know, what to do and not to freak out.

Sydney Wells:

Because when you freak out, you leave it usually goes wrong. So there's a lot of good moments like that. But, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to tell. Every every deer hunt is a different story, and that's why we love deer hunting.

Sydney Wells:

He still loves duck hunting. He would love to duck hunt all the time, but I love deer hunting because every deer looks different. Yeah. It's a different story every time. No offense.

Sydney Wells:

You know, ducks. I love duck hunting, but they all look the same unless you get a band.

Tim Wells:

They do. I've never heard you talk about deer hunt, man. You deer hunt too?

Matt Harrison:

I've shot I've killed one buck in my entire life, and it was a seven point that scored probably 70. Yeah. Yep. And I shot it when I was probably 12 years old. That's about Hey,

Tim Wells:

bud. Between the '8, '7, and '27, there was a lot of seven pointers I got. I tell you what, it was if it had horns, man, and you could get it with a buckle, that was exciting. You know? That was excite the first year I shot, you know, with my shotgun, my my 20 gauge single shot, it had a, you know, a range of about 30 yards of accuracy.

Tim Wells:

After that, it's a guess, but, man, I used to lay them out with that thing when I was a kid. Just loved it. I just loved it.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome. In our area of Mississippi, we don't really grow many, you know, big deer. And I know that's not what it's about, but North Mississippi in the Delta area has some really, really good deer, you know, in that parts of world. But we just never really got too big into it. You know, we did it young growing up locally and shot some decent deer.

Matt Harrison:

But, you know Carrie,

Tim Wells:

Cindy and I, as well as Clint and my wife, you know, we like to hunt big deer here at home. But, man, you know, there's nothing like going just deer hunting, you know, when you're trying to kill does or when you're we're down with brother Buck in Texas where we're just hunting deer. It doesn't care we don't care what you kill. So there's two two different types of people out there. You know, there's deer that are people that are in deer management and raising deer, and Yeah.

Tim Wells:

You know, they got their big farm, and you don't shoot it unless it's like this, and you gotta kill one that's coal or whatever. You know, we're not into that, but that's that's got its place too, you know. Those people have fun doing it, and then there's people like us that like it both. And then there's some people that they just wanna go out and shoot a deer, and they don't care how old it is. They just want some meat for the freezer, and they love pulling the trigger.

Tim Wells:

So

Sydney Wells:

I'll tell you what. I hunting in Illinois is so different because now I hunt Georgia where Ramsey's from, and it's I have so much fun in Georgia. The bucks definitely aren't as big, but there are when you see a big eight point, I'm like, now like, I love to just sling arrows. Like, I love to hunt. So being up here, we're like, okay.

Sydney Wells:

Is he mature? You know? Like, what does his, like, rack look like? Blah blah blah blah. Being in Georgia, you're like, okay.

Sydney Wells:

He's mature. He has he has a crappy rag, but I'm shooting him. And it they're smart. So it's been fun to hunt Georgia. It's completely different, but I've had so much fun hunting that state.

Tim Wells:

Thing about southern hunters, you've gotta give southern them southern boys that bow hunt credit because you come up here them southern boys come up here and hunt Iowa deer, Kansas deer, Illinois deer. They go back home and go, those are the stupidest deer I ever seen. You know? You can just get in a tree stand in Illinois, sit 10 feet off the ground. If you hold still, he'll walk right under you.

Tim Wells:

If you try that down there in Mississippi, Mississippi, that deer, you get 10 feet off the ground, he's looking at you 200 yards down through the timber, he won't even come near you. So, you know, they're definitely smart down there and over the years have been trained to look out and watch up in the trees and keep your eyes peeled, otherwise you die, and all the dummies got wiped out down there, and all the genetics are smart here now. So That's true. It's a different And

Sydney Wells:

Georgia, there's feeders people can feed. North Georgia where I'm hunting, it's different. Though those big mature bucks, they will not go to a feeder. They do. They will not.

Sydney Wells:

So we don't hunt the feeders. We like to put them out because of protein and all the supplemental feed that's important to grow babies and big racks. But the big boys, you ain't gonna hunt them over a feeder. It's a food plot or you're in the woods trying to catch them.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome. Y'all got me wanting to get into deer hunting.

Sydney Wells:

Oh, you're not. You have you're too obsessed with ducks. I know you.

Matt Harrison:

Ducks and turkeys. Ducks and turkeys.

Sydney Wells:

And turkey. Never get turkeys.

Tim Wells:

Well, it's too bad, Matt. You don't have any contacts where you can kill a lot of ducks. I know it's rough. Maybe she'll take you day. Yeah.

Matt Harrison:

I know. I'm still looking for that right person to take me on my first really good hunt. You know? Yep. I thought I had some friends that had the connections, but they still just hadn't came through for me yet.

Sydney Wells:

Well, I

Tim Wells:

can tell you, when you go with a guide and he puts out black decoys and you lay in the mud beside him, you still need to keep looking. Alright? That's one duck I've never killed, always wanted to, never killed a cinnamon teal. Have you ever got one?

Matt Harrison:

I have not. I have not. And I've had a couple chances to go to a certain place in Texas to try to harvest one, but I haven't gone. Yeah. But I would love to get one of those as well.

Matt Harrison:

I think that would be so neat of a mount.

Tim Wells:

Yeah. They're beautiful.

Sydney Wells:

Well, next year, somebody's listening. The three videos. Let us know. Four ten. Yeah.

Matt Harrison:

If you're listening and you have a way to get us on some cinnamon teal, we would love to take you up on that.

Sydney Wells:

Yes, sir.

Matt Harrison:

That's awesome. Well, Tim and Sydney, thank you both so much for carving time out of your busy day to hop on the Ducks Unlimited podcast. We also wanna thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for producing the podcast. We wanna thank Jack for being a great dog during the whole entire podcast episode. We know that y'all can't see him, but he has sat here the whole entire episode just listening in.

Matt Harrison:

Yeah. Attacking mister t. But thank you all so much for listening to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Y'all take care, and god bless.

VO:

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VO:

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