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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.
Chris Jennings: Hey everybody, welcome back to the ducks on the podcast. I'm your host Chris Jennings joining me on the show today Once again, a repeat guest Rusty Creasey the manager of the coca-cola was rusty. What's going on, man, man?
Rusty Creasey: Not a lot kind of my kind of my slow time just still uh Still kind of catching our breath from a long 60 days, but, uh, just, uh, enjoying this old Arkansas weather. If you don't like it today, hang around a day or two and it'll be something different.
Chris Jennings: So that's right. It is shifting back and forth on us for sure. Uh, you know, and before we get into, you know, what you're currently doing right now, I really kind of wanted to talk with you. You know, like you mentioned, it was a long 60 days. It was a long 60 days for a lot of hunters in the Mississippi flyway, especially down there in Arkansas. You know, how did your season shape up? How did you feel kind of going into it? And, you know, what was, what was the, the end theme of that whole season?
Rusty Creasey: So, you know, the anticipation this year was, I would say, maybe as high as it's ever been because we were obviously about to have a dry year. Our food plots did well, the crops in the fields around us did well, and man, we were honestly on cloud nine and couldn't wait for it to get here. And then, you know, we got that Early push of ducks around Halloween right there, the last of October. And there was a lot of ducks around. So if you had water right then, you had ducks. But then it kind of lost a lot of ducks before duck season. And I'm not going to lie, the first split for us, it was honestly a letdown. We held ducks, they were really, really active like snow geese. They all wanted to be in one spot, wanted to be together. And it just happened to be they wanted to stay in our rest area, we don't hunt, and really they did deviate. And our first seven or eight days of season, You know, by some people's standards, it might have been okay, average at best, but for ours, it was well below average because we just didn't see them. And once that initial early morning flight ended, it was pretty much over with. I mean, we were shooting. And, you know, I don't put a lot of emphasis on harvest numbers because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, normally we have a big group of guys and you, you can shoot, you can just about how many people you take that first split. That's how many limits you'll shoot. If you choose to, uh, we usually, we usually try to shoot, you know, 35 or 40 getting and get out and, and just do it the next day. But man, we were. There was days we shot a dozen. I think one day we shot 15 or 20, and it was just kind of at 12 and 15, which was way off and just didn't see them. And then finally, you could kind of see a shift coming, of course, right before the split ended, or right before the first split ended. And the last Sunday there, the last day of the first split, it's like you flip the switch, and here they come out of the north, and the sky filled up, and it was all was right with the world. But up till the end, up till the end, it had been pretty, pretty slow. And then of course, you know, uh, I, I get, you gotta have the split and all, but basically those dogs got to live rent free for almost two weeks, uh, without any hunting pressure. So, so the woods filled up and, uh, they really. Really got in heavy. We had a good youth hunt during that split and then opened up December the ninth or 10th, whatever the second split, whenever it started. And, and we were, we were kind of back where we needed to be. And it was, it was good. Then, uh, December was solid. And then honestly, January, we might've been a little better than December. And then of course, here comes the freeze. Uh, and we were, and we were locked up. Uh, I think, um, I think we missed. 10 or 11 days. I mean, it was just a skating rink and ice skating rink in the woods. Uh, now we did have ducks come back after the freeze heavy and it was phenomenal, but, uh, that's kind of in a hole, the way that the season went, uh, overall, though, when we look at our harvest numbers, which we don't. Again, we're more about the experience. We want quality hunts. We want to see the show shooting ducks as a bonus, but our numbers, even with a slow start work. pretty much on average so we we would have been on above average slightly had we uh had that first split not been so rough and then the obviously missing 11 days straight that definitely hurts your numbers as far as harvest numbers but uh as far as ducks and the way they acted and this was a common theme you know I'm pretty really active on social media and I love to get feedback and I love to hear what everybody else is doing uh Man, these dogs from day one acted like January dogs, like late January dogs. And, and they were, they acted whole shy. They acted tall, shy and open weekend. We were watching seeing courtship plots. There'd be six or eight drakes in one hand. Well, on a normal year, you don't see that until, you know, the last two weeks of season, the last two weeks of January, when they, when they start get that on their mind. And it just, I honestly, I thought my eyes were, I thought my eyes were deceiving me because I know any, any of you hunters out there, anyone at duck hunts knows that, you know, you're wasting, you're pretty much wasting your breath and your time trying to call a, uh, courtship slide in. You can maybe think that you turn them and you might get them to swoop in low and, and kind of tree top and patch. You don't get them to deal just for a second, but. It was such a strange year as far as the way the ducks acted. Is that something that has kind of been a common theme down here? I know through my social media, everyone Everyone all over was seeing similar things.
Chris Jennings: Is that what you kind of heard as well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, just from, like you said, even from the opening weekend, it seemed that the birds were shy about everything. I mean, where I hunt is predominantly fields and those birds can get levy shy. And it happens every year, but this year it's like they were levy shy when they got here. And that's, that was a little, that was a little bit interesting. Um, you know, and I'm sure you talk to a lot of, you know, other club managers kind of just comparing notes, but you know, one thing that was interesting to me is that like talking with Jim Ronquist and he's like, yeah, you know, this place over here had a banner year, the best year they've had in decade. And this place next door. Had their worst year like literally a mile two miles apart. Uh, did you hear any of that? Where it was just like kind of scattered throughout arkansas where some guys had it and some guys just didn't No, I 100 agree.
Rusty Creasey: Uh, it was feast your famine a lot, you know, and and I know I know of little tracks around that in little places that people duck hunt that They may not kill anything, November, December, then in January, they get there and January is their good month, you know, and it's kind of, and you're like, why is that? And I, I thought again, that it was something where maybe weather related, or I thought it was the, the water and a drought and all that, how would it all tie it in? And finally I reached out to a biologist and he, he said, so here's, here's what we think's going on because they were. Because I put this out when I put it on social media talking about how the ducks were doing. I had people from California to East, uh, East Tennessee, West Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, all across the board, everyone was seeing the same thing. So, all right, well, now it's not just a region. It's not just us in Arkansas. It's across the board. I'm like, all right, well, It's got to be something happening up North. And Biologist told me, he said, Rusty, the Drake to hen ratio is either three or four to one, three or four drakes to one hen, which is all out of whack. He said, that's one reason they're competing for a mate. They're, they're worried that they're not going to have a mate when it is a mate, when it is time to breed. So they're already getting on their mind. And he also said the molting. And again, I'm not a biologist, a scientist. I'm just a country boy with a duck call. They, they said the molting process and the, they had like a mild year up North and that the ducks were in physical, the best physical shape that they've ever been in. And with that being said, you know, this is not politically correct. And I'm going to do my best to, uh, to say this to where you ain't got to edit this podcast, but basically, basically what, basically what it boils down to is, uh, They had women on their mind. They were in better shape. They were in better shape. So they had breeding and hens on her mind. All right. Well, we all know that guy that we're buddies with who, uh, who may have him a girlfriend and you're telling him the whole time that she's crazy and to leave her alone. But guess what? He's got it on his mind and he's not going to listen. So, all right. So let's think about that in a duck terms. If he's chasing that, he and everywhere she goes, you can be the best doc caught duck caller in the world. You ain't changing his mind. He ain't going to act right. And honestly, that's about a, uh, country boy, common sense terms, as I can put it, is that when a man gets a woman on his mind, there ain't no changing it. There ain't no telling him what to do. Well, that's the way the ducks act. They had one thing on their mind, and it was trying to get that hen and make her his own. So that's 20-something years of hunting. That's no college degree. That's just about as simple as I can put it.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, that's just observation, really. But, you know, one thing that does, you know, with you saying that, no matter how good of a caller you are, you're basically just making all these people who are terrible duck callers feel good about that. I see what you're doing there. Like oh, that's why I didn't kill any ducks this year because this is why Rusty said it's not because I'm a terrible No, not at all.
Rusty Creasey: That's definitely why they they acted funky. They had they had other things on their minds, you know, it's just Again, man, we know we've all had that friend who who struck ignorant and started chasing one and all you can do is let him let him make his If we let it run its route, then you might talk to him after the fact, but until then, you're wasting your breath.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. No, that's a, that's an interesting, uh, insight there. And just, you know, something that, you know, some people may not really think about sex, especially with the ratios. Um, I'll have to talk to Dr. Mike Brasher about that, bring it up and just see what he kind of thinks there and, uh, the molting process and, and, you know, with it being warmer, it makes kind of a little bit of sense as far as, uh, Um, you know, the early courtship flights and things like that, but, uh, no, I mean, I think that's a, that's a pretty rational thought.
Rusty Creasey: Yeah. He said, you know, they were, they were in great physical shape. They were, they were healthy. So they wasn't thinking about, I'm going to get fat. I'm going to feed up, uh, kind of deal. It's more or less. All right. We got a, oh man, there's a shortage of, there's a shortage of hens and I'm in good shape feeling my oats. So let's go ahead and nail us one down to where we ain't got to do without all winter. Again, that's, uh, uh, that really, from what everybody, and I put that out there the best I could to where it was a PG 13 and a lot of folks, a lot of folks kind of agreed with that on social media. And again, it was all across the board. He wasn't just here in Arkansas.
Chris Jennings: Now, did you have any one particular day throughout the season that really stood out to you? Maybe, you know, I don't know, you know, maybe it was just some cool experience that you guys had or just something that really kind of stood out from the 20, 23, 24 season? Because a lot of dudes I talked to are like, yeah, it was okay. Nothing great, but it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. And so it's just kind of like almost like blah. And I'm like, man, you had to have some good days in there. You kept going.
Rusty Creasey: We did have some good days. Now, here's the frustrating part. We were getting enough traffic that we let's just say we had one morning we shot let's just say 50 ducks or whatever the number was and you're like and I'm talking to one of my good friends he's like you do understand you're sitting here complaining but you shot 50 today I'm like yes I know I said but I saw enough I saw enough ducks and worked enough duck to shoot 150 I said but you had to sort through it was so frustrating because you had to sort through so many groups of ducks before you finally would get a group that would that would play ball and that was that was the deal it was like you you had a good hunt but you still felt like it wasn't i mean you're like man you know it was like you worked your tail off but as far as things i saw this year one deal that was really really cool but really harsh at the same time you know we had the big paris and uh Pretty much thought all the ducks had left and went south and went to the rivers and whatnot, just abandon us. And, uh, but I knew I could hear them in one little old spot. And, uh, so I didn't bother them. I left them alone and they kept one opening one little spot open and it was in the main beach where the water's deeper. And it was approximately maybe a 40 yard by 40 yard square. And I don't know how many ducks that would hold, but I'm certain it was black. But they stayed here the entire 10 or 11 days that we were froze up. And what was unique was the the levee around the woods, I planted with wheat every year. I sow it with wheat right before rain. It's pretty and deer eat it. It just makes things look nice. These ducks, they were starving so much. You could draw a line from where the ice line, where it was thawed, where the ducks were. If you followed that line of ice up on the levee, there was a perfect line where these ducks at some point during the day would come up on that levee and you couldn't find a twig, an acorn, a piece of wheat, a piece of grass. The vines had every leaf stripped off of them, but these ducks were doing everything they could to keep from starving to death. And they, that levy, that levy looked like you had had a garden rake and just raked it. It was just mulched and nothing there to eat. And a duck will eat anything when he's hungry. And, but, but you, so you go 40 more yards to the other land where the hives started. And it was that perfect line, that perfect stretch of levee that they kept the water thawed just below it. I guess they would walk up there and eat, eat, eat, and then get back in the water. And I found probably no less than a dozen feather piles to where, you know, it may have been a bobcat, it might've been an eagle, a chicken hawk, whatever. But they had a field day on those ducks when they would come out to feed. Because I mean, they were hemmed down and they were fighting for survival. We're all hunters, but we hate to see ducks struggle to survive and to live. And hey, I don't blame people for hunting them during that time, like Hunter Rivers or whatever, but it was a pretty hard year to be a duck in 23-24 duck season between the big freeze we had, all the farm ground worked up and turned under.
Chris Jennings: The drought, yeah.
Rusty Creasey: It was there, but you add all that together and, and man, I've, I've said it multiple times. It was a, it was hard to be a duck this year for sure.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, no, I mean, we saw a lot of that now when that freeze hits, like I said, we're predominantly hunting rice fields. And when that freeze, a freeze like that hits, we're done, you know, we're done within the, I know guys are saying, Oh, put ice eaters out there. And yeah, it's three inches of water, man. Like you could put. It doesn't matter what you put out there. Within two days, you can drive a ranger across the field on the ice. It freezes hard, it freezes quick, and that really puts those ducks in a situation. Now, we have a couple of big ditches around our farm where you can catch some stragglers trying to hold on, but yeah, it is tough to be a duck during those times. And like you said, once they're caught in that like a small confined area like that, I mean, that is, like you said, bobcat, everything, coyotes, everything is coming out to the dinner table there because then they know they've got them trapped.
Rusty Creasey: Absolutely, absolutely. So, I mean, I felt sorry for them. Our rest field actually opened up a little bit. We had a 50-acre rice field that we didn't flood until the 1st of January, and so there was still some fresh water, fresh food there. Obviously, it was froze up, but some of the rice was actually above the, which now we only had 10 acres of standard rice. We didn't leave the whole 50, but some of the heads of rice were up out over that waterline. So they could walk around on the ice and feed. And once they found that, and it was just starting to thaw, you know, they were in our rice field probably three to four days before the woods thawed. And it was, man, it was so cool to see them just because, I mean, again, I felt sorry for them. And to sit there and watch them and hear them feed And I'm like, man, they're finally, they're finally getting their bellies full, you know, after roughly 10 days of pretty much hardly anything to eat. And, uh, so, uh, we could have hunted them, could have shot them in that field, but man, sometimes you gotta, you gotta think about the big picture and the resource. And that's what I said, you know, we're going to let them feed up and when the woods stall and they want to come back to the woods, we'll shoot some there. But for now we're fixing to let them have it and, uh, let them get healthy again.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And that's tough too. I mean, we talked about the beginning when we started this, you know, 60 days, you know, really now, you know, thinking back is basically about 49 for, for most people because 10, 11 days during the freeze. And, you know, so you, you're already, you know, limited on your days and then you get limited again. It's, um, it can make for some pretty frustrating times during duck season when you get now the guys out on the rivers hunting that big water where that's not frozen. That's a different game. Um, You know, they, that I know a bunch of guys over there in Arkansas that were at a heyday during that freeze. So again, like you said, feast or famine.
Rusty Creasey: Yeah, I know people that would, that aren't great duck hunters and aren't great duck callers, but they would take two decoys and put out in like a, let's just say a lay down out in the white river where the decoys would hang up in the current. And they would sit there standing on the bank and blow their duck calls. And they just had, some of them will swim the river, some down the river, some of them would just fly in and land. I mean, it was, it was duck shooting. And again, you know, Hey, I get it. Had I not been part of several good hunts, I might have been standing on the bank with them, but I just kind of let them have it at that time. And honestly, I could climb the tree and bow hunt a deer for a little while. I enjoy hunting in the snow. So that was a nice little break.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, that's cool. Well, you know, kind of, we've, we've gone through the season, the, uh, you know, last season and now, you know, especially here at DU and walk around national headquarters, we're all kind of looking at next season and there's a little bit of, um, hesitation there just because of the dry conditions in the prairies, right? Canadian prairies, especially. But what are you doing this time of year? I know you're, you're really good about sharing what you're doing. Um, on the farm there with Instagram and that audience and, and kind of talking people through some of your habitat management stuff. So what are you doing at this time of year? I mean, what time of year do you, are you dropping water? And then when are you getting in there? You know, are you just out turkey hunting right now or in crappie fishing?
Rusty Creasey: You're not too far off base. I try to bass fish once a week and my youngest daughter plays high school softball so it's a busy time of year for me. Fish some and watch high school softball. I quit turkey hunting, I used to, but these kids are only young once and you only get so many ball games. Uh, once, once she's out of school, I'll get back in the turkey game. But, uh, it's all as far as, as far as around the woods, man, you know, we, after season went out, we flew some corn in just to honestly fat. Yeah. You want to imprint some ducks, but obviously on a year like this, it's important. You want them to get fat and, uh, have some fat to make it back up North. And oh, by the way, remember where you come from. So we did that, but I'm going to say around the 20th of February this year, I pulled the plug and. And we can have most of the water off in about five or six days. And because obviously, you know, the health of the trees is the number one priority for us. We really, we wait as long as we can to put it on, which is still a little earlier than I'd like to. But unfortunately, the way our water system is, that's what we have to do. We don't hurt any timber that I can tell, and it's been done that way for 50 plus years. Once the water's drained, I'm cleaning out pipes. They've got one stopped up, but basically our bar ditch has got a lot of water in it. They've got some beaver dams. My brother, he owns a track machine excavator. Next week, we'll walk around. We'll dig beaver dams out. There's been some high winds. We've got a tree or two down. It's levee maintenance. It's getting that last little bit of water out of the ditch, cleaning the beaver dams out and the pipes out. Then, I guess I'm, let's see, it's April the 4th. After that, you know, uh, sometime in around the first week or the rest of this month, I'll be getting equipment ready. Uh, this, uh, Cedars four-wheeler to four-wheelers to the mechanic gear stay and just getting them serviced and ready. And then in the month of May, you know, I'll start planting some rice in the woods and, uh, our farmer this year, he's going to plant our rice in our rice fields outside of the woods. We've got another track of property that I plant some corn and beans for the deer on. This is pretty slow. Back before the kids got old enough to to be playing high school sports in the spring. I would have hunted about five or six different states, turkey hunting. I love it and was eat up with it. But man, I got to take care of my girls and be present when I can be because they're going to grow up before I know it. But it's just kind of maintenance, keeping the water off the woods, keeping pipes cleaned out. keeping your levies ready. And, and, you know, not everybody thinks about that. You know, they don't even guess that come hunt, you know, you notice we rode two miles in this ditch and you didn't hit a log and there wasn't no limb slapping in your face. You know, that doesn't, that doesn't just happen. Yeah.
Chris Jennings: Uh, the woods isn't naturally manicured.
Rusty Creasey: That's for sure. No, that's right. That's right. Well, what's this, what's all these weeds in the holes? That's rice. You know, that, that didn't, that didn't just grow on its own. So, uh, yeah, man, a whole lot of movement, a lot more goes on behind the scenes. And you know, that's what I've tried to show on social media. Uh, I feel like at times, you know, us private guys, private landowners to kind of get a bad rap from the public and I get it, you know, and yes, some of them, I stand from jealousy and they think we're holding the ducks or whatever, but it's, uh, I try to show people that, you know, you don't just buy a piece of property and then it happens. There's a process and there's a lot of, there's a lot of moving parts to make it what it is.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And it's year round.
Rusty Creasey: I mean, it is, you know, in a year like last year, you know, if it wasn't for the private guys having that early water, having that food, a lot of those ducks want to went on South of us, you know? So, so basically, basically the private guy, he holds the ducks and yeah, we, we shoot our first year and we hold a bunch, but like, Once the river systems get out and all this public land is flooded, well, the only reason that there's ducks in the area is because private people kind of held them around. So I get kind of the resentment, but I hope people will see the big picture and that, you know, we're all in it together. We're not shooting tame ducks. We're all shooting the same ducks. And we're just holding them in the area until the, till the rivers get out and you get that lighter water. And then we all start sharing them.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. How much do you guys get impacted when those rivers go out? I know where we hunt and I'm a little bit further West of you, but where we hunt, when that river goes out, like our fields become pretty, you know, we get usually a two or three day period where it's really, really slow.
Rusty Creasey: You honestly, you echoed about what I was going to say, you know, you notice, all right, let's just say you're shooting 35 or 40 a day. All of a sudden you get a two or three inch rain and the bio gets out, the cash gets out, and here comes the flight. Well, all right, the next day you don't see the volume of ducks and you shoot a few less. The next day you shoot a few less and you see even less ducks. And like you said, after about three or four days, all right, well now it starts kind of picking back up again because Yeah, they like the fresh food and the fresh water, but again, it's hard to be a duck with all the things against them. Well, there's not a whole lot of places a duck can hide anymore. So they, they go out to that fresh food, fresh water, get their bellies full, but then in turn, they get your butt shot off and realize, well, man, we had a pretty good over here because there's not near as much pressure over here on this spot or that spot. So now they start coming back and it's, and I think, you know, Lack of pressure is an arrest areas is is just as big a key if not bigger than than food because adults gonna find something. So if you got you got water and you got rest, I think that's that's a huge and I think that's why they come back from. From some of those public areas and, and river systems is just because, you know, it's, it's hard to add, you know, these days.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And there'll be, you know, 75 trucks and trailers sitting at the boat ramps along the white. And that, you know, gives them two or three days to check over there and then they bounce back. So it's always interesting. I'm just always curious about how you guys, you know, with a specific club like that get impacted, um, just cause you guys do have a pretty good rest area and, you know, you have some, there's some groceries out there for them, but man. It's hard to be beat when that river goes out and they all just rush out there.
Rusty Creasey: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you, you hold your. You hold your little core bunch, they all don't leave, but you definitely see a lot less ducks and get a lot less traffic. And you know, we don't, where we're at, we don't get a lot of traffic. We get ducks that are using the area, either, uh, the woods I manage or the woods adjacent, or maybe my neighbor a mile away. We all kind of share our own little old nest egg of ducks. So we're not shooting like migrating ducks. So when, when they leave, it affects us all right there.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. Did you guys shoot any, uh, black ducks this year?
Rusty Creasey: I think we shot maybe two, maybe two. Hmm. I think maybe a couple, not, not many.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. I just, I was just asking cause I talked to several different people and they're like, yeah, we shot, you know, two or three black ducks this year and we never have done that, you know, at this place. And, You know, it just seemed like I heard five or six different people bringing that up. And I didn't know, I assumed it probably was impacted with the drought and the, you know, thing, those birds maybe got shifted around a little bit. Um, but I was just curious if you guys did.
Rusty Creasey: Right. We will usually shoot two or three a year on the high side, you know, but not, not very often, you know, it's always a, it's always pretty cool when our group buzzes you and you hit them and you see a black duck, you mean you're. Then you're pretty quick to to cut him before the other ones Uh, that's that may be one of a few times a guy shoots first when I call the shot I try to go and cut him out of the group I know he's I know he he just uh, it always makes for a pretty picture when you got a big black in there Yeah, or you got three or four guys shooting and the only one that falls is that black dog Cause everybody saw it.
Chris Jennings: So just, you know, to wrap it up, you know, you're going to, you're basically going to be fighting beavers and, and probably some snakes. I know that's probably gotta be a pretty snaky process in those boat lanes for the next month or two, at least.
Rusty Creasey: Yeah, it's a very snaky process. You watch every limb you grab in a beaver dam or a pipe and you watch every step you take. Yeah, it's a bad day to be a cottonmouth back there most days, I'll just tell you.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, I bet. Well, cool, Rusty. This has been great. I'd like to bring you back on sometime probably later in the summer and kind of go through, we kind of went through all of your spring and kind of looking at planning and how you're doing that maybe sometime during the summer. Uh, we'll bring you back on here and just kind of talk about what you're doing in the beautiful Arkansas summer. Uh, once that heat kicks in and, uh, kind of, kind of reach out to you and see what's going on there.
Rusty Creasey: Uh, man, I'd love to, I'd love to do it. I appreciate you having, having me on. It's always a pleasure and love to speak to like-minded individuals and, uh, yeah, just, just let me know when I'll be glad to.
Chris Jennings: Awesome. It's been great. I'd like to thank my guest, Rusty Creasy, the manager of Coca-Cola Woods, for coming on today and kind of talking about his, well, first of all, his duck season, then also what he's doing during the off season now and how he's kind of focused on habitat management. I'd like to thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for putting the show together and getting it out to you. And I'd like to thank you, the listener, for joining us on the U Podcast and supporting wetlands conservation.