Ducks Unlimited Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Jared Henson and Jimbo Robinson welcome OnX Hunt marketing manager and Backwoods University host Lake Pickle. The crew dives into everything from habitat changes in the Mississippi Delta and evolving agricultural pressures to the latest OnX features like LiDAR and collaborative folders. Lake shares his journey from Mississippi kid to Primos videographer to OnX manager, and even unpacks the surprising roots of Santa’s flying reindeer. This one blends conservation insight, hunt strategy, mapping tech, family traditions, and plenty of laughs.

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Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just getting started, this episode is packed with valuable insights into the world of waterfowl hunting and conservation.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jerad Henson
DUPodcast Conservation Host
Host
Jimbo Robinson
DUPodcast 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.

VO:

The following episode of the DU podcast features a video component. For the full experience, visit the Ducks Unlimited channel on YouTube, subscribe, and enjoy.

VO:

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

VO:

I'm your host, Katie Burke.

VO:

I'm your host, doctor Jared Hemphith. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.

VO:

Welcome to the Ducks 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.

Jared Henson:

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm doctor Jared Henson. I'm a be your host today. I am joined in studio today by mister Jimbo Robinson, cohost over here for today.

Jimbo Robinson:

What's going on? And we got special guest,

Jared Henson:

mister Lake Pickle with On X.

Lake Pickle:

I was really hoping he was gonna hit that sound effect when when you said her name.

Jimbo Robinson:

There it is. There it is. We've only heard that about 400 times.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Man, it's been a while, but, you know, it hasn't been that long ago. It seems like a decade ago, but just August, we were sitting across from here in the same studio talking about the duck numbers.

Lake Pickle:

Was that August?

Jimbo Robinson:

It was August. Yeah. When they come

Lake Pickle:

out. I know. Yeah. I know. Know.

Lake Pickle:

Doesn't seem like it was that long ago, man. Boys, fall flies by. Oh, yeah. It flies.

Jared Henson:

It does.

Jimbo Robinson:

And I feel like it's all based on dates. Right? You plan on these dates in your head leading up to it, and it's like, alright. I'm through that event or through that hunt or through that, you know, whatever you're doing. Season.

Jimbo Robinson:

Right? Yeah. Mhmm. And then it's like, oh, well, guess what? Christmas is here.

Jimbo Robinson:

It is here. Literally is here.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Yeah. No. It's same deal. I mean, like, of course, y'all and everyone that probably listens to this podcast can relate.

Lake Pickle:

You know, you're just sitting here going, when duck season, the opener and the opener and the opener. And next thing you know, you're like, Christmas is here. Like, sheesh, we've got January. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

And for, you know, for Southeast down here, like, we

Jared Henson:

got a month just about. That's it. We're on third opener now. You know, almost a third opener. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

So it's wild.

Jimbo Robinson:

Lake, I like to do a fun segment sometimes called the flock shot. Okay. Really quick answers. Can't think about them long. You just gotta give me your gut feeling on them.

Jimbo Robinson:

Alright? Alright.

Lake Pickle:

You ready? I'm ready.

Jimbo Robinson:

Cue the button, Chris. Offshore or inshore fishing? Offshore. Jordan or LeBron? Jordan.

Jimbo Robinson:

Montana or Brady? Montana. Nice. Jump out of bed or hit the snooze?

Lake Pickle:

Jump out of bed.

Jimbo Robinson:

Favorite color Gatorade? Blue. Do you know the name?

Lake Pickle:

And it's like ice or something? Nice.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. We think it is. Yep. Yep. That's that's been one of stumps.

Jimbo Robinson:

Alright. Last one. Upland or waterfowl?

Lake Pickle:

Waterfowl.

Jimbo Robinson:

Bourbon or tequila?

Lake Pickle:

Bourbon. Nice. We're just gonna pull you up

Jimbo Robinson:

a permanent chair. Yeah. Man, you you you threw in the test. Yeah. You're here.

Jimbo Robinson:

You answered them, like yeah. Jordan No hesitancy. Had one LeBron in

Lake Pickle:

all of these. We've had one. I mean, like, LeBron we could go up. Mean, LeBron's great, but he's I mean, Jordan, man. The only thing where I fumbled the ball on was right out the gate when I said offshore, inshore.

Lake Pickle:

Like, I like as soon as I said that, I was like, I like inshore way better. Why did I say that? But anyway That's what

Jimbo Robinson:

your gut told you at the time. It did. Offshore has more of that. It's the cool factor is bigger than offshore. Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

But I and I'm not a saltwater fisherman. I enjoy it. I get to do it. I've done it a lot more in the last couple years than I ever have in my life, and and that in the inshore fishing is is something I never did growing up, and it is a blast.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. No. I mean, I like both of them, but I don't know. Bull redfish, that's you can't beat it.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. That fact that when you drop something offshore, though, and that rod bends

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

You have no idea what's on the end of that thing.

Lake Pickle:

That is true.

Jared Henson:

It's like, it could be a fish this big cause they pull like that.

Lake Pickle:

Right.

Jared Henson:

Mhmm. Or you could have a submarine. I don't know.

Jimbo Robinson:

One of the it all feels the same. So I'd I'd said I don't insure fish. Well, my in laws have bought a place. They've moved, retired and moved down to Florida, and for fall break, I took the kids down there. Well, as a an outdoorsman dad, I was like, alright.

Jimbo Robinson:

We're going down for fall break. I've, you know, I've I've always been told that the redfish or the big redfish are there, and and you can catch a lot of fish in the shore. Was like, I'm taking the John boat, grab the rods, the the bass rods. Right?

Lake Pickle:

As one does.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. That's all I got. And went down there, and and I've fished enough inshore to know what to to know what to do, not where to go, and but I'm one dimensional. Sure. It's a popping cork with a live shrimp, or I'm just tight lining it.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's it. Like, something hits me and it doesn't work, I'm we're gonna do it again. And I'm we're gonna we're gonna fish till we lose our all of our live shrimp, and we did it. And there's no feeling like catching your first redfish on your own watching your son do it, and and Tripp did it, and the other little boy Cole did it too, and it was awesome because I had no clue what I was doing.

Lake Pickle:

But y'all had some success.

Jimbo Robinson:

I would say, yes. Success. That's good. Successful. We didn't keep to keep any.

Jimbo Robinson:

We had none in the slot, but we caught reds and trout.

Lake Pickle:

Memories were made. Lot of memories were made.

Jimbo Robinson:

Memories were made. Boat broke down one time. Son's a really good paddler.

Lake Pickle:

Standard. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, it was but it was awesome.

Jared Henson:

A life lesson also was was learned.

Jimbo Robinson:

A lot of life lessons. I bet

Lake Pickle:

your I bet your son will remember that. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Oh, he absolutely will remember the first time we went. Yeah. Mean, it was but inshore fishing is is is where at. Speaking of fishing, I just got a random question. Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

On fishing?

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. It's On X fish is I think it's closer to two or three years old now. Still relatively new Yep. But coming along, we're proud of it. It's not available in all 50 states yet.

Lake Pickle:

Eventually, we hope it will be, but, yes, still growing.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Is it be can you all see the interactions with it growing, or how do you tell not maybe not the subscriptions, but can y'all see people marking stuff and

Lake Pickle:

No. I mean, we I mean, we just are looking I say now I'm not on the fish side. Right. So someone that works on the fish side could probably tell you a whole lot more than I could, but I mean, just the subscriber base is growing and just from, you know, user feedback, they're enjoying it and they're liking it, and some of the ambassadors that we work with on that side are are liking it so far and what what its capabilities are and what it's able to do for them.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's really cool. I just I remember us talking about it a couple years ago and that it was on the edge, and so I was just wondering how it was doing.

Lake Pickle:

So cool. It's doing good, man. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

It's growing. Well, Akewitz, we got you on here now. Mhmm. We've had you back. We had you on during the DU Expo, we kinda did a little bit of a intro to who you are Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

And a little bit of your backstory.

Lake Pickle:

Yep.

Jared Henson:

Give us that brief backstory one more time. Backstory. Okay. Since we finally have you in studio.

Lake Pickle:

How far you wanna go back? You wanna go like, when when I was a kid, I grew up

Jared Henson:

or did when I was a young boy.

Lake Pickle:

No. No. Just kinda

Jimbo Robinson:

tell us a little about how

Jared Henson:

you got to where you're at now with with On and your official title is the marketing manager for On X Hunt. Correct?

Lake Pickle:

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's and now the the one thing is

Jimbo Robinson:

well

Lake Pickle:

yeah. So marketing manager is my title. There's, like, three or four of us that have that same title, and we kinda split up some some responsibilities and things and focus on different species. But I grew up in Central Mississippi. Grew up in a in a outdoors family, but more of a fishing forward family.

Lake Pickle:

That's how I ended up with the name Lake.

Jared Henson:

That I remember you talking about that. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Yep. So we hunted a little bit, but we were the way I describe it, like, our hunting growing up was basically the opening the opening day of dove season, which everybody down here does, you know, so we'd go dove hunting. And then deer season would open up the the rifle opener, and we would hunt the rifle opener and maybe a few weekends after that, but that was about the extent of our our hunting. Other than that, we were fishing and whatnot. I got into caught interest in turkey hunting, because of Primo's Truth About Hunting videos and, caught an itch to do that and started sourcing out friends and people I went to church with growing up to see who would take me to, turkey hunting because my now my dad was fully willing to do it, but he was like, I have no clue what I'm doing.

Lake Pickle:

So, you know, we we were both like, we need to find someone that'll take you that actually knows what's going on. Bass fishing, he had it dialed. But anyway, got into turkey hunting, fell, you know, went deep in on that. And then as soon as I figured out that, you know, like, there was these new like, was like, man, if turkey hunting's this great, like, what else is that great? So I got into archery hunting deer Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

And a family that we're still we're still friends with to this day, but my my one of those things where my parents were friends with their parents, and they had two boys that were close to my age, and they were big into duck hunting. And so I was like, hey, I wanna I wanna try duck hunting. And Sickness was born. Yeah, dude. I I mean, so on just on some public slew in Mississippi, first, just by pure luck, the first duck I ever shot was a greenhead.

Lake Pickle:

Came in through some oak trees and shot him, and it I mean, I and, yeah, I was I was stuck there ever since. But hunting just was everything. You know? I mean, it just even as a kid, it was just like what I thought about doing when I got into middle school and high school and, like, spring break would come and everybody was trying to figure out beach trips. I was thinking that's the opening week of turkey season.

Lake Pickle:

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? That kind of thing. And I grew the other kind of just joke or I mean, it's kind of a joke, but part of it's true. I tell folks I grew up watching the Andy Griffith Show and Primo's Truth About Hunting.

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm. So my whole goal and, like, career goal even when I was a kid, especially with the hunting obsession, is I wanted to go work for Primos. So I was trying to figure out how to do that. When I was in high school, my grand plan was just steal the family camcorder that they used for videoing kids on Christmas morning and take that out to the woods, and so we, you know, fooling around doing that and got a had a short but when I say short, very short stint guiding duck hunts in, Drew, Mississippi in my late teens. And then I got a job as a video intern for a show called Midwest Whitetail.

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm. This was back in 2011, 2012. And at that time, like, freelance videography and photography wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now. There there wasn't YouTube and YouTube channels, and so there was there was tons of, you know, guys my age that wanted to do hunting industry stuff, but none of us had professional experience. And so I knew if I got that internship and I actually could gain some professional video experience, it would open all these other doors.

Lake Pickle:

So I landed that internship, moved up to Iowa for six months. They taught me kind of the bare basics of production for filming a hunt and post production editing and all that. Moved back home, started going to school at Mississippi State, ended up getting put in contact with Brad Farris who had worked at Primos for twenty plus years at the time. I started emailing Brad, hey, I'm in I'm in college at Mississippi State, but I did this internship program, so I actually had some videography background, blah, blah, blah. And he was very nice, and he was like, man, if we could ever fit you in, you know, send me your schedule, don't be afraid to shoot me an email from time to time.

Lake Pickle:

But I was a full time student, you know? Right. Well, just to fast forward the store story a little bit, I ended up running into bread at a local sports show, You know, kinda like imagine imagine like a DUX type show, but very local to Mississippi. Primos had a booth because they were a Mississippi brand. I saw Brad there at the Primos booth, and I was like, I should go introduce myself to him because I've been emailing and trying to get a job.

Lake Pickle:

And, one thing that's always worked out well for me, someone could forget everything about me, but they remember my name because it's so odd. So when I went up I know the feeling. Yeah. So when I went to Brad and said, my name's Lake Pickle, he's like, you're the kid that's been emailing me about video work. And, just the Lord's time and man, I went up there and introduced introduced myself to him that day.

Lake Pickle:

They had the the week prior. So, like, not even a full like, four days prior, they had four video guys leave to pursue another opportunity. So that was on a Sunday. He calls me that next Wednesday. I was moving my stuff back into Starkville, he's like, hey.

Lake Pickle:

Are you still, you know, are you still going to school? I was like, yes, sir. I actually just moved back in. He's like, well, could you consider taking off a semester? Because I need someone to film an elk hunt in, like, two weeks.

Lake Pickle:

And I was like, yes. I'm gonna do that. So At what point did you call home?

Jimbo Robinson:

I called immediately. That's what I was like. Look. Look.

Lake Pickle:

I called my mother immediately. The other thing too is so I called my mom, and I was like, I promise I will finish school. I promise. The other thing too is when I I'd never met Wilbur in person, so I had to I I still had to go to the office, and I had to interview and all that stuff. They ended up, you know, offering me a position that day.

Lake Pickle:

Will, when I met Will, we sat down, and we talked about some stuff, but he ended up saying, he said, I'm not gonna hire you if you don't promise me you'll finish school. So I

Jimbo Robinson:

said, yes, sir.

Lake Pickle:

I'll pass it. He did. He did. That's awesome. So, yeah, that all dude, I was at Primos for just south of ten years.

Lake Pickle:

I was there for nine years and some change. And and things changed. I mean, those are some of the most fun years of my life. I got to Yeah. See a lot of cool stuff.

Lake Pickle:

I got to meet a lot of cool people. Just great great fun years, man. Kinda set me up for everything else I've been able to do, but a lot of stuff changed there. Will, Brad, Jimmy, all those guys kinda stepped back, and Primos had been sponsored by Onyx, Onyx Hunt. Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

And that's how I kinda got to know those guys, and they ended up approaching me about a job. And at the time, I'd had no plans on leaving, but they offered me a job, and then I was dating. Now my wife, Lacey, was like, you know, a video full time video person. The travel was a lot and not that my I mean, I still travel a good bit, but it's it's nothing compared to what I did when I was full time video. So moved to On X, and I that was 2022, I think.

Lake Pickle:

And, yeah, been there for be four years in April. That was doing social media and digital marketing forum, then I got moved to the marketing manager role. Been doing that for a little over a year now. And, yeah, that's On X, and then the the I get the MeatEater thing. They're also right.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Yeah. So MeatEater how did that start? Oh, well, met Clay Newcomb because, because of Will Primos. So, I was already a big fan of what Clay was doing with Bear Gryce.

Lake Pickle:

I mean, I don't know if y'all listen to that show, but I I I I mean, Clay's just a he he was doing a podcast in a way that I had never heard anyone do one before. So I was I was a huge fan of that, and, it was the first, like I don't know. In my head, that was the first, like, true southern spin on MeatEater that I'd seen, so I just I don't know. I liked it. And, Clay came down and turkey hunted with me and Wilbur, and we just became buddies, and he came to he got to where he would come down and turkey hunt every spring, still comes down to turkey hunts every spring, but he hit me up out of the blue, and was just like, hey, would you ever be interested in doing a podcast for MeatEater?

Lake Pickle:

And I was like, I mean, yeah. You know what mean? Right. Right. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Which I had been a little background, I had been doing podcasts at Primos for, like, seven years at the time. So I had, you know, I had been in the podcast space. But, yeah, we started it took a a long time just because, you know, there was, some proof of concept stuff and figuring out what we wanted the show to be. But, yeah, Backwood we ended up calling it Backwoods University, and it started in June '25. So yeah.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. Oh, and I can see how that takes a little while because some of those episodes, you've got a lot of background work to

Jimbo Robinson:

try to

Jared Henson:

bring in to for the content that you're you're putting on those episodes.

Lake Pickle:

That's been the biggest learning curve, man, because, I mean, like, we the the STL podcast that that we had going before that, I mean, it was kind of kind of just a, you know, like a conversational style show, kinda like what

Jared Henson:

we're doing here. In here.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. And there's still work involved with that, absolutely, but the yeah. Like, Backwoods University and Bear Gryce is just, like, very research forward in the way they structure the shows, and so there's just time involved. But

Jared Henson:

It's like an interview plus narrative

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Type episodes.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Yeah. Which is is funny because when I was in high school, like, English class was my least favorite class. Like, I hated writing. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Still kinda do. But now, like, I find every episode I'm writing because I gotta write scripts and stuff for, like You

Jared Henson:

have me both, and I ended up with a science degree and had to write science papers. Yeah. Yeah. Like, dang, English.

Jimbo Robinson:

Would mean Caught up to you. On a microphone when I was in high school and college was a massive fear of mine. Oh, yeah. Me too. At Wofford, as a senior, you have to share life lessons or something that's impacted you while to the football team during spring cramps.

Jimbo Robinson:

All the seniors take a practice at the end of it. And I remember I was a senior. I had been on this team for for four years. I was injured at the time, but, like, I knew these guys were my brothers. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. And I was still nervous, and I was like, oh, this is terrible. Like, I'm speaking in front of guys that I've, you know, I've been in camp with for a week and a half, two weeks at that point, and it was still nervous. So, you know, it's amazing what just having to do something as part of your every day, you just kinda becomes, you know, something you and you realize, man, I wonder if I'd have spent more time doing this in college, what it would have led to.

Lake Pickle:

Right. What

Jared Henson:

what, like That comfort level and yeah. Because you realize you're not obviously, we're not terrible at speaking on a microphone because No. Somebody gave us a microphone to speak into at this point. But Yeah. But yeah.

Jared Henson:

No. I had the same thing. Like, I was Yeah. I took a I took a decrease in a letter grade in a class so I didn't have to give a final presentation.

Jimbo Robinson:

You're, like, worth A 100% it was

Jared Henson:

worth it at the time

Lake Pickle:

for me. That's funny.

Jimbo Robinson:

And he still got the d r in front of his name. I mean

Jared Henson:

It's true. That that's not necessarily a measure of intelligence.

Lake Pickle:

That's more of

Jared Henson:

a measure of your perseverance.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Passion. Yeah. You passed. You're there.

Lake Pickle:

You got a PhD. Has

Jimbo Robinson:

anybody ever asked you what you what you made in college?

Jared Henson:

What my GPA was?

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Jared Henson:

People have.

Jimbo Robinson:

Really?

Jared Henson:

Yeah. I had a lot of fun and yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

And and I Nobody's ever asked me that that that that meant something. I don't wanna tell them. Nobody's ever asked me.

Jared Henson:

When I so when I applied to my PhD program, that one was funny because I knew the adviser. Like, he'd already invited me to join his lab and all this. So it was that was a done deal. He's like, I'm gonna need your undergrad transcripts. And I go, yeah.

Jared Henson:

But that's not gonna change anything. Right?

Lake Pickle:

You already said we were cool.

Jared Henson:

I said and I'd already had class with him. We've done well and all that. But, no, I had a lot of fun in undergrad.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. There's no base minimum for this program, is there? I hope not.

Jared Henson:

I'm at the base minimum. Yep. Wasn't a four point student. We'll say that.

Lake Pickle:

I know I wasn't four point o, which, I mean, all I had did was a bachelor's of science degree, which which I had to that's the funny thing too, man. So, like, I I left college. Like, I left the Starkville campus to go to Primos, and originally, I was supposed to be a contract videographer just for that fall. They were they need they they because they had those guys leave, they were like, we need someone to get us through elk, deer, and duck season. Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

And then in the spring, I

Jimbo Robinson:

was supposed to go

Lake Pickle:

back to school. We get to same kinda same time of year as now. We get to, like, Christmas, and I'm like, I don't wanna go back to school. And, Brad and Jimmy, all of them were like, how can we figure this out? And so we started looking at online school, which I I was a wildlife science student in Mississippi State and had, like only had, like, a it's three semesters left, a year and a half.

Lake Pickle:

That's all I had left. And the and but I I I ended up they had a they had, like, this distance education program that kinda was built for folks that had a situation to be like they have something pop up, a career opportunity, something. But they were like, we don't typically allow wildlife students to do that because there's so many, like, labs and hands on and stuff, but they let me do it because I was far enough through the course.

Jared Henson:

So And you had a job in the field.

Lake Pickle:

Right. And so they but I I can only take, like, a class a semester. So I ended up I was on track. I was supposed to graduate in 2015. I didn't graduate until 2018 because I was just doing, like, one to two classes.

Lake Pickle:

Yep. But I got it. I got that piece of paper that says I did school.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's it. That's it. You answered the question. My next question will be, did you finish school? I finished it.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yep.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. It took forever in a month of Sundays, but I I did it. But yeah. No one's ever asked me what my GPA I don't even remember what my GPA was. I know I can confidently say it wasn't four point o.

Lake Pickle:

I know it wasn't that, but it must have

Jared Henson:

been It's good enough.

Lake Pickle:

It must have been fine. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Well, that was, like, when I was finishing up, it's kinda the same thing. I had gotten a job, and I needed to finish out my last semester. And, like, I went to talk to my committee for my PhD and all of them, and they were like and I was going to graduate, but they were just like, we don't have any questions. You you landed the job. Like, you're there.

Jared Henson:

That was the goal was to make sure you had the credentials to get the job. Well, you skipped a step. You got the job, and so, yeah, we're gonna sign everything. So

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

So it works out.

Lake Pickle:

It all works out in the wash. Yeah. I I mean, we're here.

Jared Henson:

So while we're on that topic with with the meat eater side and your podcast Mhmm. Got any new good episodes that you're you're about to

Jimbo Robinson:

Dude. You wanna tease?

Lake Pickle:

I I will. So all of it had been so, I mean, we do biweekly episodes. I don't honestly, right now, I don't think I could do one every week just because they're so research intensive. Yeah. So we had the had the Mallard one two two Mondays ago.

Lake Pickle:

This upcoming Monday is three days before Christmas. And so it has been the most interesting interview I've done because I I was talking to my my poor wife. She has to listen to me, you know, like, nerd out on these different topics at some point, but I was so I was like, what can I talk about for Christmas? I wanna so I interviewed a reindeer biologist in the High Arctic of Norway. Nice.

Lake Pickle:

Did you now this is not a joke here. Have any of y'all everyone's heard I mean, Christmas Santa Claus. Right? Yeah. So I'll send you.

Lake Pickle:

I'll throw this out here for you. So in Norway, there's there's reindeer. They call them reindeer, same thing as caribou, tomato, tomato. Right? There's a indigenous people called the Sami people.

Lake Pickle:

I'm going somewhere somewhere with this. Okay. They have been domesticating and herding reindeer for thousands of years. Mhmm. And before, like, way back when, in the winter, the way to get around was a sled pulled by a reindeer.

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm. And these Sami people would have these wooden huts, and they would let the snow pack around it because it created more insulation. So the only way in and out was through the smoke hole, the chimney.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

So and the only person that moved around that time of year was whoever their shaman was. So you had this older guy getting pulled around by a sled and a reindeer that would climb down the chimney, bringing medicine and the current news. That's where the origin of Santa came from. Then hold on even further. This is where it takes a twist.

Lake Pickle:

Did y'all know that the whole story of reindeer flying came from some of those people in taking magic mushrooms?

Jared Henson:

I can see that.

Lake Pickle:

That's true story. Can

Jimbo Robinson:

see it.

Lake Pickle:

You can look it up. It's a true story.

Jimbo Robinson:

Did y'all play Christmas trivia recently and lose or win? No. Because you should.

Lake Pickle:

Magic mushrooms, man. That's where that's where flying reindeer came from.

Jimbo Robinson:

What? I'm not gonna ask about Halloween then.

Jared Henson:

Well, I guess one of the questions I have too on that is, what time of year do caribou shed their antlers?

Lake Pickle:

I don't know. Did you did you know?

Jared Henson:

So the thought is I don't know this for certain. Not a reindeer biologist, so please don't don't hold this against me, but there's a pretty good likelihood that that time of year, those

Lake Pickle:

They wouldn't have them?

Jared Henson:

Probably are all female reindeer.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. So reindeer also reindeer is the only cervid that both the male and the females have antlers. Jimbo, you wanna weigh in on this reindeer conversation? Did not know any of that. So

Jimbo Robinson:

I'm my kids are gonna probably ask thousands questions on the way home about reindeer.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. You have a podcast to listen to now.

Lake Pickle:

See what saying. My but Lacey has to listen to this all the time, my poor wife. When I get on when I get on a podcast topic, it doesn't stop until it's over, and then I move on to

Jimbo Robinson:

something else. I get that sometimes. I had a I've I've I've completely lost my train of thought there. I was about to ask something about On X, but was on derail. Does On X follow Santa Christmas night?

Lake Pickle:

He there's a I he probably drops waypoints, but, you know, imagine if you had a Santa tracker

Jared Henson:

on NORAD. Can we can we get On X to hook up with NORAD?

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. That

Jimbo Robinson:

would be

Jared Henson:

I think there's a a really good skill set there that for a GIS scientist to pull that together.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm. Uh-huh. I used to know one.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. I do apologize. Yeah. Thing. As soon as I got down the reindeer reindeer train of thought we can talk about, I mean, the mallard one

Jimbo Robinson:

that came out. Though. Yeah. It is cool. That's a great story.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, dude. Yeah. I'm tell look. It it's one of

Jimbo Robinson:

those things. Like, I've got a lot.

Jared Henson:

Sharing that knowledge now. I've had a lot

Jimbo Robinson:

of funny things. Yeah. Like, that's awesome.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Oh, dude, I nerd out on that stuff, and it's one of those things, like, I I'll get too in deep and realize, oh, I'm the only one that's this excited about this. You can talk about something normal.

Jimbo Robinson:

But yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. We can talk about that Mallard one, the one that came out two Mondays ago. Y'all know James Calicut? He's I do. Do you know James?

Lake Pickle:

I don't.

Jared Henson:

I know James. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

But he wrote an article, him and Mark McConnell, and I think the third author was Mike Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. It was Schumer and

Jimbo Robinson:

yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. But they had this title they had this article titled Where Have All the Mallards Gone? It was focused on Mississippi. Mallard declines in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Yep. Which is, like, not the happiest topic to talk about, but it was It

Jared Henson:

was a real topic.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Mean, real coverage. It's one

Lake Pickle:

of those things that's like, you know, if some if you wanna get sad about the sun setting, it doesn't change that it's happening. Right? You know?

Jared Henson:

Like, it's happening. It's it is. There's no way around it. Climate's changing, habitat's changing, habitat's changing. Habitat's changing.

Jared Henson:

Right.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. So talking about at home, man, and I I mean, I'm talking about just the Mississippi Delta. So if anyone out there, you know, that that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the whole flyaway. I'm not talking about the Central Or Pacific.

Lake Pickle:

I'm talking about the Mississippi Delta and duck hunting down there. And it's yeah. The habitat has changed. Anecdotally, we talked about that. There were there's stretches that I would drive, the same stretches I drove when I was in high school where you saw some form of wildlife habitat, even if it was on somebody's private ground, if you saw a flooded crop field that had some stubble left in it.

Lake Pickle:

These days, it's zero grade and it's dry. Very dry.

Jared Henson:

You know? Very dry. Yep.

Lake Pickle:

And then climate change, and we were I was talking to James about that one. I was like, man, it's one of those things you you almost don't wanna say that word because some people are like

Jared Henson:

The knee jerk reaction. Farmers not gonna argue that things have changed. Mm-mm.

Jimbo Robinson:

I don't think anybody will.

Jared Henson:

At this point. I mean, everybody sees it. Things have changed. Mhmm. And one of the things I've noticed in Mississippi, and and I don't know if they've talked about it specifically in that article, I've talked to James about it, but as soon as you started putting bushel counters in a combine

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

That changed how farmers saw a puddle of water on a field. Yeah. Everywhere. Through the winter, especially Mississippi. Everywhere.

Jared Henson:

Especially with soybeans. Mhmm. Because it really, really impacts soybean production. Yeah. And so I I talked

Jimbo Robinson:

to rotating has become so big and prevalent?

Jared Henson:

That's part of it. That's one of the reasons why a lot of farmers don't wanna even put boards in something anymore. Mhmm. If they've got soybean grass, it's like, oh, man. When I was cutting last year, I mean, I watched my my bushel count go down 20% when I hit the edge of the duck hole.

Lake Pickle:

So and and the

Jared Henson:

other conversations like that.

Lake Pickle:

The other thing too, talking about that, is it's so it's a it's a sticky subject. Right? Because you don't ever like, the farmer, that's his property or its property they leased and that is direct He's in

Jared Henson:

it to make livelihood.

Lake Pickle:

Tied to how he makes That's a it. You know?

Jared Henson:

So it's like blame him.

Lake Pickle:

No one No.

Jimbo Robinson:

You're making a business decision. Well, and that's what

Lake Pickle:

I wanted to try to go into that and be like, don't I I never wanted anyone to think that I was, you know, like, demonizing what the farmer was doing. You know? That's not that's not my intent. But it's like, if you wanna highlight factors, you can't not talk about that one.

Jared Henson:

That's it.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. That's all there

Jimbo Robinson:

is Well, to efficiency. Yeah. I mean, you take rice efficiency and and you just flip it a little bit to rice, and the combines have gotten better, computers and technology have gotten so much better. There's not so much food. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Right? There's a lot of factors, but you you can't complain because you're

Jared Henson:

not gonna put Can't blame the farmer.

Jimbo Robinson:

You own a retail store, you're not gonna put something down on sale below where you're gonna lose a lot of money on that one section of your store every year.

Jared Henson:

Yep. Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

Because it's gonna wash the profits you make in other places.

Lake Pickle:

And the the parallels there that I I try to draw is, like, people and preaching the choir, talking to y'all, people seem to get more more stirred up talking about ducks than they do about well, the parallel I tried to make was I did a I did a episode on bobwhite quail. I did a whole series on bobwhite quail earlier.

Jared Henson:

You did that when you had Mark on

Lake Pickle:

that one. Mark on that one and and Wilbur Wilbur Wil Primoz was on that one. And I when we started talking about the habitat and the changes in agriculture, I was like, look, at the end of the day, we shouldn't be surprised by this because we talked about how part of the reason we saw such severe bobwhite quail declines was because changes in agricultural efficiency. That's not that didn't just happen in Yep. Outside of the Delta.

Lake Pickle:

That same agricultural efficiency happened inside the Mississippi Delta as well. So that's habitat that was there and it's now gone. The other part of it is it's like what you hear people say at home, just, you know, like duck camp talk or boat ramp talk, whatever you wanna call it. It's like, man, I just really think that we need to have better habitat on the Mississippi WMAs. And look, I want WMAs to have excellent waterfowl habitat.

Lake Pickle:

Of course, do. I want all of our public land to have excellent waterfowl habitat. But here's the other example I make. Mississippi is roughly 90% private land.

Jared Henson:

Yep.

Lake Pickle:

Right? So let's take that 90% average and let's apply it just to the Mississippi Delta. If we if our WMAs, and let's just be generous, it's not quite this much, I don't think, but let's say 10% of the Delta is publicly accessible and huntable land. Right? If they had the best habitat that could be, that means 10% of the Delta would be excellent waterfowl habitat, and the other 90% Well, that's it.

Lake Pickle:

You know what mean?

Jared Henson:

And and we have this conversation a lot.

Jimbo Robinson:

In the last few years and and, yes, Jared and I have talked about this. In the last few years, there have been some private landowners that have more money than than probably all of us will ever have in our lives Mhmm. Unless, you know, you invent something. Yeah. Speak for yourself, man.

Jimbo Robinson:

I'm on a

Jared Henson:

rocket ship.

Jimbo Robinson:

That a boy. Good for you. My rocket ship is tied up in two kids and a wife and a well But

Lake Pickle:

I kid.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. They people wanna talk about refugees holding birds Mhmm. Refugees holding birds and the habitat. They complain when refugees do hold too many birds, and they never leave it because they have all the food they need. And then they complain when there's terrible food in there, and there's nothing for them

Jared Henson:

to eat. They're And not holding birds.

Jimbo Robinson:

And they're not holding birds. So it's like you're never gonna win there. Oh, wait. Yeah. But then there are private landowners now that I and I know two of them very well that are have basically just made their own refuges inside of their private land, and every single person that hunts around them will tell you they 100% benefit from it.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. And so it's like, all right, then don't complain about that 10% that you're talking about, right, that needs better habitat. Let's, you know, let's just be thankful that there are guys that are doing these because I can't imagine what it would be like if these guys weren't doing it.

Lake Pickle:

A thousand percent.

Jimbo Robinson:

I'll put the put

Jared Henson:

the the doctor hat on since I don't get to do it all the time, and I'll put it on right here. I mean, when when you think about it, when you look across North America, that's that 90%

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

When you look down the major flyways and especially when you're outside of the West, right, look down the Central Mississippi flyways, 90% of the habitat for waterfowl is private land. Mhmm. So you can extend that statement you made to Mississippi Mhmm. Up and down that sideway. We physically cannot, even if we did it perfect, can't provide enough habitat for our waterfowl populations by only working on public lands.

Jared Henson:

Yep. Yes. We wanna work on them. Yes. We wanna keep them open.

Jared Henson:

The other issue is is if the only land that's available and the only habitats available is hunted and has high pressure on it, ducks don't stand it very well anymore.

Jimbo Robinson:

And that's They move,

Jared Henson:

so you've gotta have those sanctuaries, gotta have those places, because as soon as you start to burn them out of an area, they leave. They got wings. They're, like, quickly there. Use them. They're yeah.

Jared Henson:

Especially with older ducks, like, I'm gonna say, because we had poor production past two years. Yep. You got smart ducks. Mhmm. They adapt to a safe pattern real quick and don't break it until they have to.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah.

Jared Henson:

So you get two or three days of good hunting, when you get a change in that pattern, then they find a new safe pattern. They're not gonna handle it anymore.

Jimbo Robinson:

I will say, I think duck hunters are becoming more resilient as well. I the complaining is is not what it used to be. No. I think guys are realizing it, that it's it's all weather driven, and it's different, and and and things are different. And and

Lake Pickle:

The ones that I try try to have some conversations with, and I don't wanna like, when I say they're complaining, I don't wanna I'm trying not to draw that in a negative light. It it all comes from a good place.

Jimbo Robinson:

You know what

Lake Pickle:

I mean? Like, they're passionate about it, and they want it to be better. Better. Know? Absolutely.

Lake Pickle:

A lot of that comes from guys that are younger than me, usually like like guys in their twenties. And I and again, I'm not demonizing them either. Like, I'm glad they're out there hunting, frankly, but that's the ones that I hear a lot of, man, just in in Mississippi, they talk about, like, man, guys up to the north of us that are farming for ducks. And I'm like, you're looking at that the wrong way, man. Like, just like you were saying, I was like, they're creating habitat.

Lake Pickle:

What would you rather it be? Like, would you rather it be more like this, and then there's less reason even more for ducks to come I mean, like, you you

Jimbo Robinson:

You gotta push them out.

Jared Henson:

That's it. Like, you gotta have a stepping stone from get to point a to

Lake Pickle:

point b. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

And the example that, you know, I've heard people talk about is ask spec hunters in Texas what happens when you when you stop having habitat that specs want. I mean, yeah, specs want Louisiana. Sorry. Not Texas. Both.

Jimbo Robinson:

But yeah. But as when they when you stop having habitat, they they move. Mhmm. They move to Arkansas. Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

And that that flyway shifted drops up and down 40, and you can see it.

Jared Henson:

What's cool on that, though, is if you look at some of the GPS studies on the White Front, they fly from the Arctic, and they will go almost straight to Louisiana coast. They still go back. Yep. And they're there for a day or two, and then they bounce back up to Arkansas because the habitat's not there that they're looking. They go back north.

Lake Pickle:

But they they, like, remember that it should be?

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, that would be So people are like would passed genetically?

Jared Henson:

That's that statement of you're short stopping geese or you're short stopping ducks. In fact, the GPS data shows they're not short stopping. They're going there first, not finding what they want, and they're finding better habitat north. No.

Jimbo Robinson:

Is that genetically passed?

Jared Henson:

In birds, it's a weird thing. So in ducks, we don't know how much of it's genetic, but it is definitely a learned feature where they'll learn from parents or or or something like that. They follow landmarks, they can go find those places again. Hen mallard's wild. I mean, she can go find the same nest in North Dakota within five feet every year.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. And some ducks do that. You mentioned this before, kinda we got to talking, you were talking about people trying to influence ducks on the the wintering grounds. Post duck season, they'll fly corn on trying to get ducks to imprint to to certain clubs. This is after duck season's over, and they're trying to provide food for ducks, and they're trying to get them to think about it and remember it.

Jared Henson:

There's a reason to do it. Ducks can remember places and go to and from those places.

VO:

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

Lake Pickle:

It's a changing landscape, literally. The thing that that from my conversation with Calicut, that I was intrigued at is he was like like, I would say, just anecdotally, I would say I think it's factual because the the the term James used was sticky, talking about the Mississippi Delta. He's like, is the Mississippi Delta as sticky for ducks as it once was? And he said, I I doubt that it is. He now he's doing more studies to have data to prove that.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. From my point of view, I would be like, I think it's a factual statement to say that it's not as sticky as it once was.

Jared Henson:

We we've talked to a couple people that I've I've worked with in the past that own some big properties, big farms in Mississippi that duck hunt, and they put out fantastic habitat. And he was like, how can I get more ducks? And so he's asking me for some tips, pointers, and I was like, what did the habitat like, you wanted to go back to this time frame, early two thousands. There were more ducks then. But what did your habitat what does your farm look like?

Jared Henson:

What did your neighbor's farm look like in that time frame? Turns out after the conversation, there's 25% of the water on the landscape now that there was at that time frame. If you don't have the water on the landscape, you're not gonna attract ducks to a large area

Lake Pickle:

like you used to. What you can do, and I I did this just two days ago because I was I I hunted in Arkansas, what, I got back just yesterday, but I I had to take a you know, driving through the Delta, middle of duck season, and I'm just looking at all the zero graded dry fields, you know. And I so what, you can go and look, pull up pull up an image of the Mississippi Delta, or even if you're not from the Mississippi Delta, you know, wherever anywhere in the flyway, really, you could probably do this. It might not be as as stark of a difference, but you go back to somewhere where you can pull, like, nineteen eighty imagery

Jared Henson:

Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

Dial up to the nineties, go to the two thousands, and you just watch the water and the habitat just blink out Yep. Into where there's just, specs and fragmented, and you're like, man, it's really not when you look at it like that, again, it's not a happy fact, but it's a fact. Right. You know, it's not as it makes the question not as big. You're like, oh, I kinda see what's going on here.

Lake Pickle:

The question is how in the world do you fix it. Right?

Jimbo Robinson:

Do you know when the first zero grade field was?

Lake Pickle:

Oh, when? Coming in with some trivia. No. When is it? When was it?

Lake Pickle:

1968. Are you serious? Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

Do you know where it was? Mm-mm. A little town called Humnok, Arkansas.

Lake Pickle:

You knew that.

Jared Henson:

Was that on the

Jimbo Robinson:

No. You've seen the sign.

Jared Henson:

Oh, I've been in Humno. I know where Humnok is.

Jimbo Robinson:

The sign on Highway 13?

Jared Henson:

Yeah. Luckily, I got to farm was that on?

Jimbo Robinson:

This was I got to hunt that farm my entire life. Mhmm. Yeah. Now I'm sure that a form of zero grade hunting has been around probably, but if you ask anybody in Arkansas who the original zero grade farmer was, they will all tell you it was Leroy Isbell, and he got tired of rotating crops. That's how it started.

Jimbo Robinson:

And he said, if I zero grade my field the story goes or how I've heard it, if I zero grade my field, I can grow rice in that field every single year because I don't have to disc it under. And I can run the rotation of burn however they they redo the soil every so years. So the story goes, they're sitting around a coffee shop, and they said, you cannot you can't do that. And he goes, well, yes, I can. They're like, you'll never get a, like, field level.

Jimbo Robinson:

It's impossible. And he goes, alright. And he and apparently, he whoops out one of those flip tape measures. My grandfather had it. I remember when I was a kid, but he did con own concrete business.

Jimbo Robinson:

He flipped it out. They got this table in this coffee shop completely level. Everybody agreed that table is level. He grabbed a pitcher of water, dumped it on the table, and all the water ran off. And he said, water runs gravity will pull the water off this field.

Jimbo Robinson:

And that's how he started it. And he did one, and so there's a sign on Highway 13 that says Leroy or I think it says rice has been grown in this field for sixty eight consecutive years. So that's just a little fact you're talking about. Zero grade. No.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. I know I hunted there my entire life. Yeah. And so there every field that that we hunted growing up was zero

Lake Pickle:

grade. A zero grade field. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

It didn't really blow up, I think, until they had better survey technology and and dirt moving

Lake Pickle:

Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Equipment. Because

Jared Henson:

they all used water by gravity. Really, really took off and and went across that. And zero grade can be fantastic for wildlife

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. If you've got waterfalls. If

Lake Pickle:

you've got a water habitat

Jimbo Robinson:

on it. Yeah. I mean, in the Isbel farm now is one of the largest sake rice farmers in The United States, and and they got all kinds of cool stuff going on over there with rice. But anyways, just a small fact.

Lake Pickle:

You see, you know what I want someone to figure out? You know how we have, like, conservation programs like CRP, CSP, all that good stuff? I want a conservation incentive program that'll incentivize a farmer to take a field that he wasn't gonna do anything to, no water, no nothing, and incentivize him just to put water

Jimbo Robinson:

on it.

Jared Henson:

They've done some stuff like kinda like that in the past. It didn't work? They did the funds ran out. Some of the BP money Mhmm. Did some of that.

Jimbo Robinson:

Oh, yeah. That that did that to they did that on a lot

Jared Henson:

of farms. Yeah. They were trying to keep keep the ducks from going all the And way all waiting birds from going to they were trying to shortstop ducks from the Gulf Coast because of that oil spill. Yeah. I'm not saying it didn't shortstop ducks,

Jimbo Robinson:

but it did put

Jared Henson:

a bunch of habitat on the ground. Yeah. That's what I want. And so Well, you see there are programs

Jimbo Robinson:

like like this.

Jared Henson:

Like in Arkansas, there are programs like w rice where they are incentivizing farmers. But as part of that to be more efficient with groundwater use, you have to catch surface water. Yeah. Right? So they're encouraging them to put boards in and leave habitat for for wildlife, but it's gotta catch surface water.

Jared Henson:

You can't pump it.

Jimbo Robinson:

You'd be struggling this year.

Lake Pickle:

You would be Everybody would be. Be in a bad place this year.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, and and it's dry. We all keep talking about habitat, you know, and and and not and having rest fields, and I think that's people are seeing that this year. They're having great hunts. Right? But the resting period and the amount of times that you have to leave, you know, you can't hunt that field every single day.

Jimbo Robinson:

You can't hunt that area every single day. You'll you'll lose all your birds. Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

So the edges. You can't and it's hard to hunt the edges when it's one field that's got water. Right. You know? So, yeah, you gotta be real careful.

Jared Henson:

You can burn it once, maybe twice a week. That's about it.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Then you gotta let it rest. Yeah. But yeah. No.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. That was that was an interesting one though, You know? And it's just it especially for a duck hunter, it's just the top of everyone's mind this time of year.

Jimbo Robinson:

This makes you think more and more. It is. Makes you and also makes you, you know, feel good about, you know, kind of the sport as a whole because there's people that are looking into it. Right. Not just what you're doing or what we're doing or or anybody.

Jimbo Robinson:

Everybody there's people that are that have such a passionate interest in waterfowl that there's studies being done like this that show us what we can do to help.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. That's what Callicutt said, man. He was like, man, I get called a moron every week. He's like but the way I look at it is he's like, again, it all comes from a good place. He's like, at the end of the day, I'm just happy there's people out there that care that much.

Jimbo Robinson:

You know? To call me a moron. Is that what you're saying? To call them more. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's awesome. That are

Lake Pickle:

yeah.

Jared Henson:

They're that passionate about overfile that they're mad at you because you don't Right. Saying what they want to hear. Yeah. Exactly.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's yeah.

Jared Henson:

We hear that all the time. I mean but on on the other side of your your story, we'll we'll we'll talk about the the OnX side.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

What's known on OnX world?

Lake Pickle:

Probably, man, the biggest thing, and and, yeah, you were talking about this earlier, probably the most, like, new feature or whatever, there's two of them is, like, collaborative folders.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

I think I mean, I I would say everyone's figured that out yet, but a lot of folks are catching on to it.

Jared Henson:

So if you got

Lake Pickle:

a club or Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Something like that, you can share all your pins with if you want to. Yeah. With your club mates. Not your pins.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, club pins. Right. Right.

Lake Pickle:

You can create specific So we've had so we've had folders for a while, and a folder is like for for example, like, say you've got a a duck club in the Mississippi Delta. It's 1,200 acres. It's got, you know, it's got some blinds, like some set blinds. Obviously, it's got a road system, all that stuff. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

And what you could do is you could take that entire property, the boundary lines, all the roads, all the blinds, you could put it in a folder, and we we've had that capability.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Where we took it a step further was like a collaborative folder. So now if that if that same duck club has five members, you could take that those markups, that that road system, all those blinds, everything, and you could put it in a folder, and you could add all five members into that folder. And where that gets handy is if, say, I'm a club member. Right? And I'm like, hey.

Lake Pickle:

This blind five a I'm just making you know? Say, the five a blind, I moved it. I moved it 60 yards that way, it needed to be moved, and I moved that waypoint to reflect the movement of that blind. Yep. Everyone who's in that collaborative folders gets that update.

Lake Pickle:

They see it. Yeah. The other thing is is like if you add, like, a I know a buddy of mine, he had, like, his his kid and a buddy in there or whatever, and you can you can change whether somebody's a viewer or a contributor. So, like, if you have your, you know, somebody who's not even a club member or whatever, and you don't want them to be, like, adding stupid waypoints or whatever. You make it where they can see the changes, but they can't add anything But all the, you know, all the key members, they can yeah.

Lake Pickle:

I know buddies that, like, there's a road through the club that it's an accessible road, but during the season, that's like that drives right through the refuge of their club. So they don't want anyone driving down that road jumping ducks off. So now if you look at the map, that road's marked black instead of white like the rest of it is. You know? And so you look at it, you go, oh, yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Don't drive down that road. But anyone who looks at that collab folder can see that. Mhmm. That's been super handy. Or if it's just a group of guys that hunt the same public, and they can keep tabs of the same thing.

Jimbo Robinson:

It is the best my opinion, it's the best feature, the news feature that that OnX has recently for for Duck Clubs. And some examples where it is very, very handy for our club is we have 16 members, and we have 10 who live a long way away. Mhmm. Right? Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

They come down for three days at a time, four days or five days at a time, and they go home, they come down, and you do it once or twice a year, maybe three times. Well, the six guys that are, you know, that go a lot, you don't have to be there. Yeah. It's like, okay. Here's the folder.

Jimbo Robinson:

Here's the farm. Right? Especially if you get a new farm or if you move something like you're saying, here's the folder. In in in an iris, where you park access. Park, field access is marked, the blind location.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, two it's almost exact. My son was commenting on the way in. You know, we're on a new farm, and and I had been on this farm 13 times at least. Mhmm. I had never been when it was dark, and it looks a lot different when it's dark and foggy, maybe raining a little bit.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yep. And I was like and I, you know, you can't stare at a screen and drive a a side by side at the same time. It's so bright. But so Tripp was watching it for me, and he's like, alright, dad, here comes your turn. Here comes your alright.

Jimbo Robinson:

Left. And then I was

Jared Henson:

like, yep. There we go. Left. And

Jimbo Robinson:

then Nice. Alright. Left again. Left again. And we came right to it, and I was it is awesome.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mean, that is an incredible feature that people can use that, you know, will help an entire group of guys with the club.

Jared Henson:

One of the cool features that Lake pointed out at DUX to me that if you wanna add something really cool to that, you can add the best wind

Lake Pickle:

Oh, I got it.

Jared Henson:

Oh, yeah. Wind directions on each blind. Because some of them, you can hunt all the to you.

Jimbo Robinson:

But some of them you. Yes. Some of those Dom members. Well, the other thing less Yeah. Less directionally sound.

Jimbo Robinson:

Okay?

Lake Pickle:

The other thing is it's so like, so that's called optimal wind. Yeah. You can set that. Wind on waypoint. That's been a feature in On X for years.

Lake Pickle:

But the problem is a lot of people, like, anything wind related, folks go, oh, that's for deer hunters or elk hunt, you know, something where they're, like, smelling you or whatever. I'm like, no, man. Like, that's where if you're like, okay. This blind works best on a west wind. Okay.

Lake Pickle:

And then it height it says west wind. It's green. That means the wind's good. Okay. Cool.

Lake Pickle:

We'll go to that one. Right.

Jimbo Robinson:

But it's an awesome feature.

Jared Henson:

That it is.

Jimbo Robinson:

Especially for for younger when we were growing up, you you had to know your directions and it compass. Like, it wasn't as digital as it is now.

Jared Henson:

And you're trying to figure out how the birds are gonna work? How many of y'all watched your dad or grandfather take a q beam and put it under their chin and watch their their vapor from their mouth drift with the wind, and they're like, we gotta set up on this side. I

Jimbo Robinson:

remember Like,

Jared Henson:

that was

Jimbo Robinson:

And I watched that every morning. And I thought he smoked for my entire dunk hunting life. No. He carried a pack of cigarettes. He lit one every morning so he could

Lake Pickle:

see exactly which way the wind No way.

Jimbo Robinson:

Absolutely. He didn't have because, I mean, they didn't have wind puff or wind Yeah. Packs back in the day. And he dropped milk leaves. Right?

Jimbo Robinson:

He he didn't

Lake Pickle:

just wanna, like, buy some, I don't know, like, some powder or something. He was just like, nope. I didn't think he wanted all the baby powder. All the Marlboro. It's a

Jimbo Robinson:

lot hey. It's a lot more manly to have a pack of cigarettes in your blind bag than a than a, you know, a thing of baby powder.

Lake Pickle:

I don't judge. You know?

Jimbo Robinson:

And I'm you don't wanna waste gold bond or anything like that, so who wasn't gonna do that?

Jared Henson:

So that's really important in the summer when you're trying to brush blinds.

Lake Pickle:

Right. There's a guy that listened to this that really enjoys smoking that's offended that guy was wasting all those cigarettes for that long.

Jimbo Robinson:

Jacking up the Client demand. And he was always like asked him one day. I was like, what's the cheapest ones? He's like, I don't know. I just buy these every time.

Jimbo Robinson:

I'm like, I think those are like Marlboro lights.

Lake Pickle:

But what did he do after I mean, like, takes

Jimbo Robinson:

He would put it out and put it in his bag.

Lake Pickle:

I was about to say is, like, it takes two seconds to figure that out. So he's like, keep it lit going. I don't know what to do now.

Jimbo Robinson:

Like, no. You put it

Jared Henson:

out and

Jimbo Robinson:

move on.

Lake Pickle:

Anyone want this? I don't smoke.

Jimbo Robinson:

But it just stayed in his blind bag. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it's it's a steady smoke stream.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. You could see the swirl.

Jimbo Robinson:

Instead of your breath, you could see your breath for a very faint

Jared Henson:

If it's cold enough.

Jimbo Robinson:

If it's cold right. But for him, it was he could see where it was going and drift out, and then it would see if he's swirling it. I mean

Lake Pickle:

That's pretty crazy.

Jimbo Robinson:

I thought it

Lake Pickle:

was No. I'm making light of it.

Jimbo Robinson:

That's better than being creative. You know?

Jared Henson:

That's you're hunting the wind, and that's the important thing because that's a lot of lot of especially younger duck hunters or or novice duck hunters don't understand is how critical the wind is to your success. You can be in the right spot and have the wrong wind, and it can be the difference between two ducks or limited ducks. This morning If you're shooting them in the face or shooting them in the butt.

Jimbo Robinson:

This morning, I was on a hunt, and two of the we had two younger guys with us, and and I set up into the wind. Mhmm. And it was crosswind, but slightly into us, and they kept looking at me, and I'm like, I know. This is not what we're supposed to be doing, but this is where they have been sitting.

Lake Pickle:

This is

Jimbo Robinson:

where they are right here. There's a gap in these trees right here, and I'm pretty sure, you know, by that they are coming through this gap and dropping in, but this is where they've been every single day. And so it worked out for us, and we had to work them over us, and they dropped in, and they kinda came in sideways, but we were able to, you know, spread the decoys out enough to make it work. But they kinda looked at me when when we got done, were like, it actually worked. And I was like, sometimes being on the x is more important than the wind

Lake Pickle:

in general.

Jimbo Robinson:

You know? It it not always. Yeah. Most of the time, that does not work. Very sensuous.

Jimbo Robinson:

See these doing this every single day.

Jared Henson:

If you're in timber, you're gonna make sure you're gonna get them close shots.

Jimbo Robinson:

We weren't in timber. We were on the edge of a field, but it was it was it worked. And and but the wind also has to be right. It can't be blowing 16. They're not coming

Lake Pickle:

over that and dropping the net. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

So lot of factors, but

Jared Henson:

It's true.

Jimbo Robinson:

The wind is your friend.

Jared Henson:

That it is.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. It should be your friend. Don't make it your enemy. No. No.

Jimbo Robinson:

It's easy to do that. It is.

Jared Henson:

I learned that lesson as a duck hunter and a deer hunter.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. So what x in the On X world is is LiDAR's new.

Lake Pickle:

Love it. Talked about that.

Jared Henson:

Love it. We were talking about that earlier, especially this year with a dry year where Mhmm. Where three inches of water makes a difference. You can kinda see some of that variation on some of those LiDAR layers, and it's it's fantastic.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. That's something we wanted in there for a while. We finally yeah. LiDAR and collaborative form.

Jimbo Robinson:

So talk about for the listeners that don't know, talk about what LiDAR is.

Lake Pickle:

The best way, like, the best way, basic terms I can describe it is you've probably heard y'all out there listening, you've probably heard at some point, regardless of what you're talking about hunting, someone's probably said to you, you really should learn how to read a tope a topography map, you know, like or topography is really important. Even in even in Delta stuff, like in some like like, the slightest variances make the difference between there's water there and there's not water here. Right. You know? Imagine like, LiDAR is like topo, but you don't have to know how to read it, and it's on a like, it's extremely elevated detail.

Lake Pickle:

You know? You're not looking at lines and going, that looks like there's kind of a ridge or a bench there. LIDAR highlights all that so you can I mean, you can see where the slightest slightest terrain change is? You can see where, like, an old channel is from, like, you know, from, like, a tributary or something. I mean, but you can see just every little detail, every little nuance change in the actual ground, which makes a big difference on where water goes or water is when you're having an extremely dry year.

Jimbo Robinson:

Right. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

I mean And being able to find it. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. And most topo maps are at best five foot elevations between the lines. Right? Right. And LiDAR can pull out three to six inches of of elevation change difference.

Jared Henson:

It it can be good enough, and and I've seen this on some of the On X maps I've looked at. Some some areas have better LIDAR than others. It's what's available, what data's available.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yep.

Jared Henson:

There's some areas you can see four wheeler tracks running down a road.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Like, you can see the two track. That's how much elevation detail

Jimbo Robinson:

And and and y'all both said in dry year, that makes a huge difference. That difference in that topo map and the LiDAR map is

Jared Henson:

Big toe.

Jimbo Robinson:

When you're running And also

Lake Pickle:

you're running a boat, it

Jimbo Robinson:

can run-in two feet or run-in six inches or 10 feet, you need to know. Yeah. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

And a high ear. What I tell folks to do if they if I'm, like, not you know, if I'm at, like, talking to them face to face, can show them. But if y'all are, like, listening to this and you want to see for yourself, go to, like, the Rockies or something. Pull up your map and go to, like, go to a mountain. Okay?

Lake Pickle:

And then switch your maps over to Topo and look at what it looks like on the Topo lines, and then hit the LiDAR button, and you'll go, oh, that's what it does.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. You'll, oh.

Lake Pickle:

That's the most basic way to be like, that's what it does. I understand. And then you can figure out how to apply it to a much flatter landscape. Because to your point That's it. Our topo maps, you know, if you're in if, know, for Turkey hunting or something when you're in an area that has more terrain, our our topography maps work fine.

Lake Pickle:

But for trying to use it to in the delta or something, if you turn Topo on, it was just like there's no lines there. Right. It's all very flat.

Jimbo Robinson:

You still have to have some common sense. Yeah. For sure. Let's put that disclaimer You in cannot use the map for exact if you if you accidentally rip your motor off. It's not on X's fault.

Jimbo Robinson:

Well There's gotta be a little common sense played into

Lake Pickle:

this as well.

Jimbo Robinson:

And I

Lake Pickle:

go ahead. No. I said but, yeah, I I I do agree. But, yeah, the the LiDAR is is can yeah. It just can help you so much, especially just get in there and play around with it, and you'll you'll figure it out.

Jared Henson:

Well, one of the questions that I had, and it's something we would point out is we're talking about some of the big features that don't access. Mhmm. Foundry markers Mhmm. LiDAR topo, all that. What's your advice on people, like, give your disclaimer on accuracy of that information?

Lake Pickle:

The accuracy of, like, the boundary lines?

Jared Henson:

Boundary lines or your, like, your position, GPS position. Right. Like, how

Jimbo Robinson:

is it

Jared Henson:

five feet, six feet?

Jimbo Robinson:

Is it?

Lake Pickle:

No. So it is it is it is exact as the US government will allow us for it to be. Yeah. Okay. So, like, it's either it's like 20 to 30 feet

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Within distance. Right. You know? So if you're ever looking at something and especially like some places, you know, there's there is no old fence or there's no boundary line paint, and it says you're 10 feet away from the boundary line, you know? Use caution.

Jimbo Robinson:

You're in the gray area.

Lake Pickle:

Use caution. Use caution. Yeah. And like said, that's not that is every, you know, consumer and GPS

Jimbo Robinson:

thing.

Jared Henson:

No. It's not an On X thing. Yeah. It is just it is an artifact of the data.

Lake Pickle:

Legally, that's as close as we're allowed to get. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, like, 20 to 30 feet somewhere

Jimbo Robinson:

in there. There's a lot of deed lines that used to run off that too from apparently from back in the day. From you know, I've heard some crazy stories about lines, property lines.

Jared Henson:

Oh, yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

That his property is that's on my property. It's like, well, that's been on your property forever, forever, I guess. I mean, and so that's

Jared Henson:

I can't it surveyed.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Surveyed. Surveyed in in the old purple, but Mhmm. It you know, I tell people that all the time. They're like, hey.

Jimbo Robinson:

How close is this? And I'm like, well, you are you're visibly in their property. Yeah. Like because when you get to North Dakota, it's a huge deal. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because those roads, county roads, I mean, and I use OnX. It's it's it's my number one search when I'm in North Dakota hunting, but it is you know, it says County Road, and you drive down that road, and then, you know, it goes to a private road and and but you can't you have to understand the mapping where you are as a whole because there are lines that are that are a big deal. And it's like, well, it says on this map, on the OnX map that I'm on their property, and I'm like, you're there there's no way.

Jimbo Robinson:

Right. There's also a common sense factor that comes in.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, there's common sense always.

Jimbo Robinson:

And that's what I had to talk with some young guys is it's a respect thing. Don't be that close. Like, don't put it into the hands of somebody interpreting of where you are. Yeah. Be be smart about it.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Well, like, yeah, ethically and legally are are both very important things. Absolutely. Right along with common sense.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. I agree. Be don't be the next real on TikTok of dispute over that.

Lake Pickle:

No. It's not

Jimbo Robinson:

worth it.

Jared Henson:

It's not a good

Lake Pickle:

luck Yeah.

Jared Henson:

For anybody.

Lake Pickle:

And it's like, you know, I don't want I don't ever wanna do anything that would get myself in trouble, that would get, you know, give hunters a bad name. You know? It's like if you like you said, it's my goal is never to be how close can I get to this property line? You know? That's not the game It's not

Jimbo Robinson:

worth it.

Lake Pickle:

That's not the game I'm trying to play.

Jimbo Robinson:

It's not worth it. Well, you know, on on on the event side, you know, y'all were a huge, huge sponsor of our calendar program. Yeah. And there's a lot of new memberships that were given out as part of the Ducks Unlimited calendar program. Where raffles are legal in states that we can do calendar raffle program, disclaimer, there is they're they're a huge part in onXs and every one of them and and lots of memberships given.

Jimbo Robinson:

So thank you for that.

Jared Henson:

Thank you all.

Jimbo Robinson:

That was a huge deal for us in events.

Lake Pickle:

No, man. I mean, speaking candidly here, it's like we that we're, you know, definitely a newer partner with with DU, but that was not a decision that was difficult for us to make because, I mean, it just lined up so much with what Onyx does and believing in access and creating habitat, creating opportunities for people to go out and hunt. And so, yeah, I'd heard that from multiple people at at DU that the calendar program worked out really well, which is awesome.

Jimbo Robinson:

Well, and I think people so that collab folder is not just I mean, it's brought in our club. It's my dad. I had to download it from my dad.

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm. I had to

Jimbo Robinson:

buy his membership. I had to he bought his membership. I had to show him how to use it. My dad. And now he's like, this is where have I been?

Jimbo Robinson:

I'm like, dad, I've telling you this for years. Yep. He loves that part of the on farm stuff because he uses it the way my dad's a little bit different. I mean, my mine I feel like mine is constantly a science. Right?

Jimbo Robinson:

Okay. This win, this day, this, this, and this. I keep it in my head. I just kind of know it. But for somebody that doesn't do it like we we do, you know, that's a big part of being able to mark a spot, show that optimal man, make some notes in it, and your saved waypoint is a huge deal for him.

Jimbo Robinson:

Oh, yeah. Others.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. Especially these people that

Jimbo Robinson:

are just now getting into the sport. Use it as a tool like we used to use journals. Use it almost as a journal for yourself.

Lake Pickle:

See, I'm glad you said that too because, like, another talking about taking notes, waypoint notes is and and basically, like, a waypoint for dropping a pen, essentially. Yeah. You can go in there, and you can change the icon. You can make it look like a duck or a black or

Jared Henson:

whatever. Purple, blues.

Lake Pickle:

Change the color, all that stuff. There's a section in there where you can add a photo, and you can add notes. Mhmm. And that has been in there for, I don't know, well well before I was here. Right.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. And talking about, like, the note section and waypoints, like, dudes, on my on my club at home, I'll be like, this is 9 West. Two years ago, we had a really good hunt on this day. It was this was the temperature. This was the wind direction.

Lake Pickle:

This was the wind speed. We killed this, this, this, and this, the ducks did this. So it's like you really do almost have a journal.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

And so for days, like and like I said, if I if I go to my club and I pull up and I already know that these three spots work good on this wind, but this one, like, really lines up with those conditions. I'm like, I wonder. You know, go back in there and have another good hunt. I'm like, sweet. You know, those those journals are helpful.

Lake Pickle:

Blowdowns. Blowdowns.

Jared Henson:

Helps a lot.

Jimbo Robinson:

Great. Yep. You know, I I had a lot of we used to hunt a block of woods, and I had a lot of blowdown notes in mind of, hey, great blowdown. Obviously, the wind. The big the wind was huge there.

Jared Henson:

Which direction was

Jimbo Robinson:

the was the because it was where did it fall? Right? And so it was this is the optimum wind. This is, you know, this tight hole, too much wind, tried to hunt it on this much wind, too much, and so those are great notes that and I don't know if people can see that in the collab folder. I've never looked at anybody's notes yet.

Jimbo Robinson:

So that would be great

Jared Henson:

for helping other people too. I hunt a very dynamic river system Mhmm. That doesn't have any type of infrastructure on it. So we're flood dependent. Right?

Jimbo Robinson:

And

Jared Henson:

so we we keep water level notes. Yeah. Right? So this this depth, this these these holes, things like that to help us figure that

Jimbo Robinson:

stuff that in my notes section of my phone. Did you?

Jared Henson:

Yeah. I've actually started changing a

Jimbo Robinson:

new phone. Uh-huh. If it wasn't in the The cloud.

Jared Henson:

Cloud vault. Yeah. It's gone. Yep. That sucks.

Lake Pickle:

No bueno. Yeah. No good. So now

Jimbo Robinson:

got it forever. Yeah. So I've

Jared Henson:

done that. I've actually started changing mine. I put them in the title so I can filter.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Because you can filter waypoints.

Lake Pickle:

Well, that's I mean, that's That's why you

Jimbo Robinson:

have the doctor in front of your name.

Jared Henson:

So I'm a kind of a data nerd too.

Lake Pickle:

Well, I tell I tell folks all the time, it's like the funniest example I can give is during during spring turkey season, if I have a spot that I've never been to, but it looks like a spot where I wanna go and listen, I drop a blue the color blue for me means I've never been there before, and a rabbit has big ears. So when I see a rabbit, that means it's a spot I haven't been to before, and I wanna go listen for a turkey there. Does everyone have to do that? No. That's just the way I do it.

Jimbo Robinson:

So like We all have those. Because I have I have green mallards where I've shot or I have green ducks. I'm I don't know. They may be they may be canvas packs. I don't know.

Jimbo Robinson:

But I have green ducks if I've had a good hunt there. Yep. I have purple if I've had a a decent hunt, but I think there's a lot of potential factors didn't play in my to my and I have a red spot where I just haven't had the best of hunts, and maybe some other people have, but it just hasn't worked out for me. Mhmm. So I use three different colors with the ducks.

Jimbo Robinson:

And I do the same thing with with deer sometimes. Yeah. Lots of I've seen a lot of deer, and then I put notes in deer hunting.

Jared Henson:

Me too. Like

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. This day, this conditions, saw a lot moving because I I feel that deer move similarly every year.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. Mhmm.

Jimbo Robinson:

I put timing.

Jared Henson:

One of the fun things that I do, and I I know we're gonna focus on waterfowl, and and I do the same. Like, if it's a known hole, like a club hole or something like that, I use a green dot. If it's a blowdown or something a little more natural, it's a red dot. On the deer side, when I'm east scouting or things like that, that's a purple deer. Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

Though I know that's where I wanna go look. Yeah. I need to get boots on the ground to it. But I'll go through, and as I'm walking, I mark every fresh rub, every fresh grape. And it's really, really cool when you zoom out on all that.

Jared Henson:

You'll see travel corridors

Lake Pickle:

Oh, yeah.

Jared Henson:

Appear immediately, and that's a really cool little feature. Like, when you be able to you can take that landscape view of stuff.

Jimbo Robinson:

Don't tell don't tell too many people that if you hunt public land.

Jared Henson:

Cool feature.

Lake Pickle:

So Yeah. No. That's okay.

Jimbo Robinson:

That must have played into your factor

Lake Pickle:

this Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

That was a great dough you killed, and that was probably a tropical dough.

Jared Henson:

Magnum dough. Magnum

Lake Pickle:

sized dough. Yeah. No, man. That's what we want people doing. I I mean, like, there's no cookie cutter way to use the hunt app.

Lake Pickle:

We there's Make it your own. Yeah. That's the way that it's built, you know, with, like, for if we want people using that however it makes it more efficient

Jared Henson:

for them.

Lake Pickle:

That's what we're at.

Jimbo Robinson:

I like getting with a bunch of guys that use it and talking about how they use it That's it. Because I learn something new every time. Yeah. Like, that's what's fun. It's like, oh, I've never thought of that.

Jimbo Robinson:

And we used to do it with Google Maps. Mhmm. Right? Back in the day, Dave, we used to do it with Google Maps, but you couldn't see it, and then you had the handheld you had the handheld GPSs forever.

Jared Henson:

Got two different devices. That's the thing. That's what the the greatest thing for me with with On X, the way that I'm using it, is I have the ability to have all the mapping features, pull that offline into a handheld GPS

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

That's super user friendly

Lake Pickle:

Mhmm.

Jared Henson:

And just go.

Jimbo Robinson:

I taught a younger person something But carry a battery battery bank. Absolute oh, yeah. Absolutely. By the way limited event. We lot of those events have battery banks in them.

Jimbo Robinson:

We do. So if you don't

Lake Pickle:

if

Jimbo Robinson:

you need a battery bank or call doctor Jared Henson, he has a lot of battery banks.

Jared Henson:

I don't

Lake Pickle:

know why.

Jimbo Robinson:

I'm just kidding. But one of the things I was about to say is what I think a lot of people don't realize is that Apple CarPlay. Oh, yeah. So I taught a younger person that, and it was like I was so excited because they teach me how to take cool pics on the phone or to do this. I was like, you didn't know that?

Jimbo Robinson:

They were like, no. And I was like, yes. Bingo. Don't have to look at your phone while you're driving down the road. Uh-huh.

Jimbo Robinson:

You know? And so, like and I mean, like I said, North Dakota Yeah. It's a huge deal for us up there because we get so excited, we're like, posted electronically. Right. That's a it's having it as an Apple CarPlay feature

Lake Pickle:

Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Is awesome.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. No. That's that's the that feature's probably two at least two years old now, but that's been a that was a big one for us because it's it's helpful for exact for a lot of reasons, but yours is that you just highlighted, you know, definitely a big one.

Jared Henson:

Well, out west, got the same thing.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have too many distractions now, so being able to pull it up pull it up and not look at it at four in the morning, you know, when Yeah. When everybody else is doing the same thing on the road that you're doing, they're all looking at their phone or you know? So it's it's it's that's an incredible feature.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm. Yeah. That's a that's a great one to use. I haven't I'm not as good with the directions on there, like the driving directions on it yet, but, man, it is there's so many cool things, and, I've learned a couple things from y'all on that I don't do. I don't I don't think I use the colors and the scouting things enough.

Jimbo Robinson:

I'll mark it and just put like, leave it as a color Mhmm. And then kinda and then I'll go back and say, what

Lake Pickle:

was that? Yeah. You forget what it was.

Jimbo Robinson:

Forget what it was.

Lake Pickle:

Yep. See, I I I used the hunt app

Jimbo Robinson:

But I like the bunny ears.

Lake Pickle:

For oh, it's great, dude. I used it for, like, four years before I worked there. This is when I was at Primos or whatever. And if I marked anything, it was the default name, which is like a I forget what it says, it gives, like, a number and a date and time. Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

And then it's just a red X. And I had, like, four years worth of just red X. And I like, finally, I was like, I don't know what anything is. I could look at the date and go, okay. I dropped that in January, and it's, you know, in, you know, a wetland.

Lake Pickle:

It's probably a duck related somehow, but I don't know what. I don't know if it's good or bad. I don't know what. So I now, like, if I drop a waypoint, I don't care how much in a rush or how much my ADD rain is rolling. I'm like, nope.

Lake Pickle:

Type in something. Know? Even if I don't

Jared Henson:

color Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Even if I don't color code it, I put something in that name so I know what it is, I'll go back later.

Jimbo Robinson:

Well, y'all both got me going because when I go to North Dakota, I like to scout from a certain spot that I don't bump birds or that I can see certain places. And so I have a bunch of, like, yellow x's Yeah. In my and I'm like, why not put the binoculars there? Yeah. Because that's what I I mean so while y'all talking about it, it's like, put the binoculars there because I'll look at it and go, what was that?

Jimbo Robinson:

That? Yeah. I mean, where was I trying to see? Because you can I mean, sometimes in North Dakota, you get up on a hill in North Dakota, you can see a long way? You can.

Jimbo Robinson:

So when you find a good spot to scout from, it's great, but I'm like, ugh.

Lake Pickle:

Put the binoculars. Yeah. Saves time. I know.

Jimbo Robinson:

So that see, that's why ta da. Start collabing with other on xers and bam. Yeah. You become a really good on xer.

Lake Pickle:

That's why I'm here, man. Here to help.

Jared Henson:

One of the other features that I would be remiss if I didn't mention was our public lands layer, our DU layer. The DU layer. Yeah. And that

Lake Pickle:

one gets that one gets some traction.

Jared Henson:

It it Really? It really Yeah. For us and I use it a lot when we're I'm talking to people because I I I will try to have those discussions about DU does work on public lands. Sure. Some people don't think we do.

Jared Henson:

Right. Yeah. And so that's a great way to to show them. And I will say that I talked to Nick Smith today, and he's like, our update should be in today.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, nice.

Jared Henson:

So everything will be up to date.

Jimbo Robinson:

I just updated my app

Jared Henson:

this morning. So so that layer will be be refreshed and, like so it's not old data. What I'm trying to say is that there's some new data on there showing where we're working and how we're working and check it out.

Jimbo Robinson:

I bet Nick is having to work a lot on that every as we grow to a million acres and then 1.2 this year. He's He does a lot.

Lake Pickle:

Oh, it's

Jared Henson:

just the public land. Right. Right. Because we we try and protect some of the the private land

Lake Pickle:

people.

Jared Henson:

Right? But

Lake Pickle:

That's the reason why it gets so much traction, man, is so a lot of folks, when they're going out of state, if they split that layer on, not all of them, some of them are in you know, but a lot of those are publicly accessible hunt hunting areas.

Jimbo Robinson:

Mhmm.

Lake Pickle:

Yep. So people use it kinda as like a scouting tool to a degree.

Jimbo Robinson:

As a Ducks Unlimited staff member, it's a proud thing for me.

Jared Henson:

Sure. For sure.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, like, I love getting on there. And a couple days ago, we were hunting near one, and I was like and some ducks came from that direction, and I was doing the old see that? See where they came from? I'm not saying that you know, but it's fun to just say there's not much you can say when you show somebody. In in certain areas, there's a lot of duck heads on the map.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yep. There is. And it's a proud it's a proud moment. And and, man, we I remember when that was, you know, when that was getting close to being launched, it was just such a cool cool day here at DU to see it electronically and something we use all the time.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah.

Jared Henson:

Yeah. Not just on our Habitat port. Right. We have we have our own, like, GIS system, but it's not near as intuitive. It's not easy to share with other people.

Jared Henson:

Like, this was this is a great way for us to get that message out, and thank y'all for letting us get that message out. Huge. Go pull

Jimbo Robinson:

it up

Lake Pickle:

in your hunt app, hit the layers folder, go to the land and access folder, and you see there is the ducks unlimited layer. It has the the duck head, the y'all y'all's infamous logo that everyone recognized. Flip it on, and it's all you gotta do.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yep. It's really cool. Yeah. Any more big travel hunting plans for the rest of I'll

Lake Pickle:

be hunting. I don't have any more travel, not through the season. I'll spend it I'll be down here at home, man. Like I said, I'll be doing a lot of hunting. It'll be down here in the good old Mississippi Delta, scratching out what I can.

Jared Henson:

You and me both while I'll be in the Arkansas side. But yeah.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah. I I I mean, I may end up in Arkansas, so I'm not ruling that out. I mean, that's still kinda in the Delta. You know?

Jared Henson:

Oh, it's It's all similar.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Very similar. Yeah. Yep. Do you have any more big plans, Jared?

Jared Henson:

Man, I'm I'm ex January is, like, is peak duck for me. Mhmm. Like, that's that's when my my wheels really get to turn in, and that's when we generally start to have more success. So I'm I'm excited about that, excited about the opportunity to get out there and get after stuff. Got a lot of family stuff through Christmas this week and had through Thanksgiving.

Jared Henson:

But

Jimbo Robinson:

Super pumped. I gotta I gotta take a cousin that loves duck hunting. Never really didn't know. Married a cousin of mine. Didn't know he was a huge duck hunter.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Then reached out and was like, hey, man. You wanna hit up some public land when I'm in town? I was like, we can, but, you know, why don't you come and hunt with me? And so super excited taking him over.

Jimbo Robinson:

That is cool. Never gotten home with him before, and and kids are similar ages. The girls, my daughter and his daughter. So they'll they'll probably stay home together, but Trip's super excited to go and show him this weekend. But then my January is wide open.

Jimbo Robinson:

I am so it's the first time in probably ten years that I I don't have week after week of of of hunts, and so I'm super excited about getting to do it again, you with my boy and and Yeah. With my dad and brother and and just kind of us because I feel like I squeeze those in sometimes.

Jared Henson:

Right.

Jimbo Robinson:

It's terrible to say.

Jared Henson:

Be intentional now.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lake Pickle:

That's awesome. So

Jimbo Robinson:

I I think that sometimes I take that for granted a little bit because we we get a lot of opportunities to get out there, and and we take a lot of people, and we hunt with a lot of people, and and this business is so relational and and Yeah.

Jared Henson:

It is.

Jimbo Robinson:

So to be able to share it with with the people that got me into it Mhmm. And not be exhausted Yeah. I'm super pumped about just like, hey, we're going this weekend. I have nothing leading up to this, you know, and so I'm really excited about that opportunity.

Lake Pickle:

Heck yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. And that's taken a while, and I and I've I'm really I told told my wife, I'm really excited about just slowing down and and just kind of being more intentional with with the family in January. I mean, I've got a few few fun haunts along the way, but really intentional. That's awesome. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

And as we get into Christmas, we gotta be in we us You

Jared Henson:

gotta be real.

Jimbo Robinson:

Hunters, we gotta be intentional about the family.

Jared Henson:

Arkansas does help you a little bit. They got the marriage saver split in there.

Jimbo Robinson:

Everybody wants to complain about the extra day. So Not running out Christmas Eve to try to get back to hunt the twenty sixth, especially on the north wind. That's a nice that's a nice

Lake Pickle:

little extra day. Built in break. Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson:

Built in break.

Jared Henson:

The I will say, I I didn't mention this, but last year, I took my my boss and one of my coworkers duck hunting. I think for one of one of them was one of their first duck hunts, and then Ellen doesn't Yeah. Very much. But I took her and I took Jessica last year, and we've we're trying to get another one of those on the the calendar this year again. So took them out on the the 4AM run on public.

Jared Henson:

We had a good hunt.

Jimbo Robinson:

Think that that is that is what is is is really helps this sport. I had the opportunity to take a kid on his first hunt during Thanksgiving weekend. Shot his first couple of ducks. That's awesome. And and to me, there's nothing better than watching a kid or even an adult shoot their first duck and enjoy it.

Jimbo Robinson:

And Share that passion. Share that experience.

Jared Henson:

That's it. Well, as we start to wrap up here, does anybody have Jimbo, you, Lake, got either got some closing statements or anything you wanna to mention before we jump off here?

Lake Pickle:

Man, I'm just happy y'all let me come on. This has been fun. And yeah, man. I mean, for someone who likes duck hunting, this is just a it's just such a good time of year, man. It is.

Lake Pickle:

Between Christmas and duck hunting and family stuff like you are talking about, it just it's so it's such a great time of year.

Jimbo Robinson:

So this is the best time. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to me, it's the best time of the year. And it may not be the best hunting, but it's an opportunity to take a family member or or or to share stories with family that that you don't see often. And and in my closing statement, I'd I'd like to say thank you again. I know we've said it enough, but when when we turn to On X at DU, y'all always seem to answer.

Jimbo Robinson:

Yeah. And that, you know, that just speaks a lot about ONX as a whole and ONX Hunt and and you, and we've gotten to share, you know, this studio twice now on two totally different topics. And, it's so much fun to to sit here and talk with you and and share the last stories.

Lake Pickle:

No. I'm sure.

Jimbo Robinson:

I mean, next time, I'm I'm I'm hoping that he's gonna come back, and we're gonna find out, you know, more about the Easter bunny. You know, Christmas reindeer, Easter bunny.

Lake Pickle:

You don't, man. Don't tempt me. I promise you. I'll figure that out. I'll give you

Jimbo Robinson:

the origin story. So but but, like, again, just thank you and and all of the On X team. We just really, really appreciate all you guys do for for everything at DU. And, man, in in a in a year when, you know, there's companies that aren't supporting as much, you guys are always there.

Lake Pickle:

Yeah, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Habitat conservation, hunting access.

Lake Pickle:

Y'all are about it. We're about it.

Jimbo Robinson:

So it's it's

Lake Pickle:

like we're it's like we're made for each other.

Jimbo Robinson:

Look at there.

Jared Henson:

Match made in heaven. Well, Jumbo, thanks for jumping on here as a cohost. Thanks again to Lake Pickle, our special guest, marketing manager for On X Hunt and host of Backwoods University podcast. So thanks for jumping on here. I got to thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for hanging in here and pulling together a great World famous audio engineer.

Jared Henson:

Thank you, sir. And as always, we gotta give a great shout out to the listeners. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you for listening, and thank you for allowing us to bring cool stories like this to you. Thank you for

VO:

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VO:

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