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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
The skinny side of underrated.
Jerad Henson:Almost sounds like a politician answer.
Mike Brasher:That's right. The skinny side. It's yeah. It's almost like the no.
Mike Brasher:No. Yeah.
Katie Burke:Let's leave it. Let's leave it. Okay.
Mike Brasher:Was that enough debate?
Kayci Messerley:That was that was plenty. Matt, you carried us there.
Mike Brasher:Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks on the podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brazier. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.
VO:Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.
VO:Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
Mike Brasher:Hey, everybody. Welcome to this year's special Ducks Unlimited podcast Thanksgiving episode. I am gonna be one of the hosts on this episode, Doctor. Mike Brazier, and I'm very excited to be joined in studio by three people and remotely by another. I have to my right a special participant here.
Mike Brasher:You've heard from her before on previous episodes, Casey Messerly. Casey, welcome.
Kayci Messerley:Hi. Glad to be here.
Mike Brasher:On to my left, doctor Jared Henson, regular on the podcast. Great to have you here. Happy Thanksgiving.
Jerad Henson:Thank you, Mike. Really happy to be here.
Mike Brasher:And then down the line a little bit, Katie Burke, you're back from travels to the Easton Waterfowl Festival. Happy Thanksgiving. Great to have you with us.
Katie Burke:Happy Thanksgiving. Great to be here.
Mike Brasher:And then we have a mystery man joining us remotely from, I believe, Magee, Mississippi. Did I get that right? Mister Matt Harrison. Matt, great to have you, man.
Matt Harrison:Great to be on here with y'all. I'm super excited to be able to share a little bit of time and talk about some awesome things with you all.
Mike Brasher:We are recording this episode on November 24. That means that, I mean, November is the month when most of the states here in Lower 48, and I guess probably Alaska too, have some portion of their hunting season open. A few folks haven't opened yet. This past weekend was the opener for Arkansas. Saw a lot of folks getting out a couple of weeks ago.
Mike Brasher:I think it was the opener in Louisiana. So all those Southern states are joining those Mid Latitude and Northern States and getting out and enjoying the resource and getting into the hunting. So obviously that's one thing that a lot of us are gonna be thankful for here as we enter the season, but we wanted to take this opportunity like we've done in years past to share some of our thoughts, share some things that we're thankful for, and sort of welcome you into some of what we think about this time of year, and hopefully you can reflect as you're listening to it and be thankful for some of the same things or different things as well. We've got a few things that we're gonna cover here, but before we get into some of the other aspects of what we wanna talk about, we're gonna go around the table, and we're just gonna ask folks what they are thankful for, and so I'm gonna start with Katie Byrd. Oh, great.
Mike Brasher:One or two things that you're thankful for this season, you know, and a lot of times when people ask this question, they say, okay, we know you're thankful for family and friends and all that kind of stuff, so set that aside. I'm not gonna put that constraint on you though, so whatever you wanna do. Put
Katie Burke:it like, I'm not gonna put it, but don't do that also.
Jerad Henson:You you read between
Mike Brasher:the lines. So
Katie Burke:yeah. I think about, like,
Kayci Messerley:the way I used to go to my Thanksgiving with my in laws and we would do this
Katie Burke:and have a huge family and it's like, okay, what are
Kayci Messerley:you gonna say that's gonna no one's gonna judge you about it?
Mike Brasher:Yeah. How are you
Katie Burke:gonna do this? There's a lot of pressure to this question. So I'm gonna try to say something different than, like, duck season, but as well, because I found out that's gonna be a popular one. I'm thankful for the podcast because last weekend, when I was at Easton, I stuck around and I got to go interview some carvers. I went to their homes, to their shops, to their studios, and got to sit inside their studios and see how they work, and, you know, I wouldn't be able to do that if it weren't for this, so that's pretty cool.
Mike Brasher:Unexpected benefits of additional work. Exactly. That's right. Sometimes those happen. Sometimes they do.
Katie Burke:They turn out pretty cool, so, yeah, I'm thankful for that.
Mike Brasher:No. I would say, I suspect all of us that have the opportunity to share some of our time for this for this platform would have experienced something along the same lines, allowing us or requiring us to do different things, but they end up being things that we that we enjoy. So no, that's pretty cool.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. That was a good one.
Katie Burke:I don't always get to go do that, so that was pretty cool.
Mike Brasher:Well, we look forward to hearing what you
Katie Burke:talked You'll get to see it.
Mike Brasher:See it? Okay. You'll
Katie Burke:You'll get to see it. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:Alright. Doctor Henson.
Jerad Henson:Oh, coming at me now.
Mike Brasher:What about this dude over here in the right? I suspect you're gonna say that you're
Jerad Henson:I am I am gonna mention that. That is gonna be and and the thing I'm I'm grateful for this this year is the opportunity to spend time with with friends and family in the outdoors. And I say that because I got to have a wonderful opening morning of duck season. We didn't we didn't end up with a whole lot of ducks, but I did get to have my dad and my son, Tristan, in the woods with me for the first time this year.
Mike Brasher:And and Tristan is the little dude over
Jerad Henson:Tristan is my yeah. That's my six year old. We took his four ten out and we hoped for a cooperative bird. We didn't get any cooperative birds, but he did smoke an empty shotgun shell So that was floating on the he got to test fire a little bit, but but we had a wonderful time. You that's y'all heard me say this a bunch that I love watching the world wake up from a wetland.
Jerad Henson:That is my favorite place and I'm thankful for that, but I got to share that with friends and family and and stuff this weekend. So that's my
Mike Brasher:That's awesome.
Jerad Henson:My thankful thing.
Mike Brasher:That is awesome. I'm gonna mix it up here. Matt, I'm gonna go to you right now of coming to Casey here after that.
Matt Harrison:Well, first off, of course, you know, friends and family, I know we've we've mentioned that. I know doctor Jared just shared about his experience getting to spend some time in the duck woods with with his family. So, of course, this time of year, you're just you still take a step back, and you're thankful for your friends and your family. But really and truly too, this past weekend, I got to also chase some ducks, and I was telling one of the people there one thing that I'm truly so, so, so blessed with is a great work family. And I truly mean that.
Matt Harrison:I'm not saying it because we're sitting here on a podcast for Ducks Unlimited. I'm not saying that just to, you know, make the DU employees listen to this smile a little bit, but I truly mean that. Just thankful for a place that we work for that has an incredible mission, that has people that truly care about you as a person and have, you know, a place that I truly wake up, love going to work for. So, you know, having a place to work at like Ducks Unlimited is truly a drew dream come true on top of just truly an incredible blessing. So one thing I am truly thankful for this time of year, of course, is my friends and family as well, but also a place to work at like Ducks Unlimited.
Mike Brasher:That's very well said, Matt. I think we would all echo that. The people that we work with, the people that support us, our volunteers, our leadership, it's it's yeah. I share that. It's it's enjoyable to come into work and to experience, you know, working alongside people that share share share our same interest, share our same passion, that get fired up for the same things, and and those differ a little bit across the range of all the folks that we work with, but at the end of the day, we're wanting to help leave the world a little bit better than we found it through our conservation.
Mike Brasher:And so, yeah, thank you for that, Matt. Casey, do you have anything to be thankful for?
Kayci Messerley:No. No. I'm just kidding. No. I would I would echo to start with, like, what Matt said, not only do does the DU family, you know, make it pleasurable for us to come into work every single day, but even further than that, we've I've gotten to have so many new experiences that I've then gotten to take home to my family that hasn't had those experiences as well.
Kayci Messerley:My nephew just the other day had his first Dove Heart and he's the same nephew that won't eat chicken nuggets at Chick fil A, so it's a very exciting and new experience. But outside of being grateful for family and DU as a wonderful workplace, I would have to say our loyal companions that follow us everywhere, make sure to sneak them some turkey this Thanksgiving. I know I have my dogs that will be having their third Thanksgiving coming up soon, so they're getting plenty of turkey this season.
Mike Brasher:That's awesome. Thank you, Casey. And, yeah, a lot of the experiences that you've had have been made possible by so many of the partners that we work with. You know, the Dove Heart that you referenced came from our experience with doctor Phil Overetsky out at the University of Texas El Paso. We went out there to visit with him and his lab, and people would have heard the podcast that you and Katie recorded with Phil recently, and those type of experiences, people again, an extension of Ducks Unlimited.
Mike Brasher:They are not some will be volunteers, some are they're all members, but yeah, in this larger waterfowl conservation science management realm, there's a lot of people that welcome you in, share things with you, and it's a big thing to be thankful for, and I'm glad you've gotten to experience that. I guess it's my turn, and so I would echo everything that you said the others have said. I'll do something a little bit different, well, so friends, family, coworkers, a very understanding wife to how much travel I do for work as well as hunting and everything in between. I also am very thankful. I think they've heard me say this many times.
Mike Brasher:One of the things I'm thankful for, one of them is sitting right next to me, Casey. Casey Messerle, Katie Tucker, and Ty Scherro. This past year, we've been able to keep them on and have them really leading our duck DNA and our wild turkey DNA project, and it has been a huge asset to, well, to what we do, but to me personally, giving me the opportunity to step away from some of the worries and concerns and having people that are so capable and so competent to do that, huge thing to be thankful for, and I am every day. The other thing that I will mention, and this sort of is a little bit of a public service announcement, but also something to be thankful for, is to let folks know that we should all be thankful that the government shutdown is over because that means our friends at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, and the Bird Banding Lab in particular are back at work, back up and running. I actually got an email last week from Doctor.
Mike Brasher:Tony Sellis, he wanted to just thank us for our continued support of what they do, but also have us share with folks that if you ran into any issues reporting a band during that month, month and a half, They are they're working through their backlog of issues. Most of those things most of the submissions, I think, worked the way it was supposed to, but he said they do have a few issues, they're working through those, so he wanted me to relay that they're working on it, and they'll get those things taken care of as soon as possible. So thank you to USGS Bird Banding Lab and all of our colleagues there that are helping us out. Jared, do you have any issues with I mean, you do some I guess you still do a little bit of bird banding.
Jerad Henson:I still have a master banding permit.
Mike Brasher:Did you hear of any issues associated with
Jerad Henson:any of that? Not with what we were doing. And for me, though, it's kind of like my off time of year, so I didn't have any major issues with that. Not not anybody I know of. I am I will say thank you.
Jerad Henson:I know I know it's not kind of in that line, but also some of our federal partners. I'm also kinda thankful that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the refuge staff were able to keep refuges open to keep opportunity for people across this country throughout that shutdown.
Mike Brasher:Alright. The next part next segment for this episode is gonna relate to gear. It's Thanksgiving, but the next holiday in line is Christmas, a time when a lot of us exchange gifts and celebrate that season one way or another, and so we wanted to sort of offer up some gift ideas from our perspective. We have in the Ducks Unlimited magazine a couple of issues each year. One is a gift guide that is in the most recent issue, November, December issue, but then if you go back to, what is it, the July, August issue, there's also the gear guide.
Mike Brasher:So we've got the gift guide and the gear guide, and both of those issues are great places to get ideas for gifts for waterfowl hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, recreationists of of different types. There's great ideas in there. So we're gonna go around the table again, and we're gonna going to ask for some gift ideas. And let's see. Who do I wanna start with on this one?
Mike Brasher:Matt, are you are you ready to start? You got your gift ideas in mind?
Matt Harrison:I got some gift ideas in mind.
Mike Brasher:What would you recommend? Like, if if someone is listening to this and they have to give it get a gift for someone in their life who is a waterfowl hunter, who connects with this space that we operate in and play in, what would you recommend people get them?
Matt Harrison:Absolutely. As a duck hunter, you know, we're always looking for things that can help help us get a little bit more of an edge and always looking for little things that we can either put in our blind bag or, you know, keep in our our waiter pocket or such. But I tell you what I what I got this year that I really like, and I was a little hesitant on buying it because they're easy to lose, but that is a headlamp, a really nice headlamp. And I got one from Drake Waterfowl. They just came out this this past year with a really, really nice headlamp, and it's very durable.
Matt Harrison:It's one that you can tell is gonna last a very long time if you take very good care of it. So I was a little hesitant though to buy it because we all know headlamps are the quickest thing to just just disappear. So I I went ahead, though, got me one, and I've used it this past weekend, man. It's incredible. So, you know, if you're looking for a really good headlamp out there, Drake Waterfowl just came out with a really, really good one that you can go on their website and just type in headlamp, and it'll pop up because they only have a few options.
Matt Harrison:So that's one that I highly recommend that you can get that's not gonna break your bank and is also one that, trust me, a duct cleaner will be very, very happy that you got them as a a high quality, nice headlamp. So that would probably be my number one choice if you're looking for a nice gift, either throw in the stocking or even a wrap and put it on that Christmas tree because I love mine.
Mike Brasher:A hunter or anybody that that does anything. Well, I don't know. Just anyone. You can never have too many headlamps. You can never have too many flashlights.
Mike Brasher:I mean, that's my motto.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. We literally have a bag of them.
Mike Brasher:I think Rebecca did
Katie Burke:some briefs.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Another flashlight or
Kayci Messerley:you yeah.
Katie Burke:Also, where kids because kids cannot, like, hold flashlights
Mike Brasher:Oh, yeah?
Katie Burke:Throw those headlamps just around their neck. Ah. Yeah. We use them all the time, camping and everything.
Mike Brasher:Good deal. We love headlamps. Great suggestion, Matt.
Matt Harrison:I'm gonna keep it keep it kinda a little bit, you know, smaller here as far as, you know, gift. And one of those another gift would be, you know, again, sticking with drape waterfowl. They're an awesome partner with us. But, also, they just came out with a new rain jacket that I am in love with because as we all know, a lot of people may claim that, hey. This is a waterproof jacket.
Matt Harrison:And you get out there and it starts raining and it's 45 degrees, and you're like, this jacket isn't waterproof at all. So they just came out with a really, really, really nice rain jacket as well that I'm very, very, very impressed with. Drake has done a phenomenal job on really, really, you know, cracking down on sizing, really doing a good job of fit. I talked with Jim Ronquist about this not long ago. Said, man, y'all are knocking out of the park.
Matt Harrison:And, you know, I I went out, bought this jacket, and I absolutely love it. And this one's one that is a little bit more expensive than, you know, the headlamp, but it's an incredible investment because you know as well as I do when you're out there and it starts raining. You're like, why have I not invested in a good rain jacket? Because I am miserable, and it takes away from your hunt tremendously. So you can go in there on the Drake website again, type in BMF, Drake waterfowl jacket, rain jacket, and it'll pull up.
Matt Harrison:And if you're looking for something that it would make a duck hunter extremely happy, make sure you go and check that out. Those are two products that I highly recommend and that I both personally have that I'm thrilled to have for this upcoming duck season.
Mike Brasher:That's a great suggestion, Matt. You know, one of the segments that we're gonna have when we come back from the break is, a a fun, overrated, underrated. I would say that a a a great rain jacket, vastly underrated. A vastly underrated.
Katie Burke:You don't need it very often, but when you do Yeah.
Jerad Henson:Yeah. You are
Mike Brasher:absolutely thankful for that technology that when it you know, for in one that works.
Jerad Henson:Oh, yeah. Right.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Great great ideas there, Matt. Katie. Alright. You ready now?
Mike Brasher:Can we do this?
Katie Burke:I was ready to begin with. I just you weren't following the rules.
Mike Brasher:You're right.
Kayci Messerley:We were given instructions. Alright.
Mike Brasher:Katie was a rule follower.
Katie Burke:I am not, actually, but
Mike Brasher:You are today.
Kayci Messerley:I am today.
Mike Brasher:We're thankful
Katie Burke:for just like to give you a hard time. So I'm gonna go off the, like, typical thing because I'm a girl, so it's not a lot of stuff for women out there, but I did get a couple things that I really liked last year and one of those, which was really random and I don't even know how they found out about this, but it's by DSG outerwear, It's a women's brand and they have these flip top mittens, but they're liner inside, so, like, you flip the lip the top over, like, you know, like, all the flip top mittens are, but inside, the fingers are lined in, a really thin liner material, so then your fingers don't get exposed. And they're made for women, so they're small and like because that's a big problem when you have to wear men's gloves. They're like, you're you can't use you can't shoot very well, so I end up not wearing gloves because, you know, I gotta be able to shoot good. So that's an important part.
Katie Burke:So these are really great. But DSG outerwear makes them and if you have women that hunt in your life that have cold little tiny fingers, this is for them, which I'm pretty sure all women's fingers are cold if they're like mine.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. So you I mean, I I I know it's still difficult to find a lot of the apparel that that's ripe, that fits for for women, but has has it gotten a little bit better?
Katie Burke:Yes and no. I mean, I would say, like, in the bowhunting world, yeah, but in waterfowl, I mean, not really. I usually wear men's smalls.
Jerad Henson:That's what my wife has found. Yeah. Can find stuff for bowhunting, but not.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Like, I bought actually, I and I don't can't recommend it, but I just got in the mail.
Kayci Messerley:I just tried it on. I haven't worn it yet, but
Katie Burke:I got, like, from Drake, the McAllister, like, waterfowl sweater.
Mike Brasher:Yep.
Katie Burke:And I put it on. It's nice, but I haven't worn it, so I'm not gonna give a full review yet.
Jerad Henson:Okay. Fair
Katie Burke:enough. It's nice, but I got a small, like yeah. Because but I just get a men's small. So, yeah, there's not really there's a market out there for women waterfowlers if anyone wants to jump on it.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Kinda makes you wonder, like, if you how much of a hindrance is that to the experience and wanting
Katie Burke:to go back,
Kayci Messerley:you know, kind of
Mike Brasher:feed on one another.
Katie Burke:I think you just have to find a workaround. So I shop I either get men's smalls or I go to, like, REI or any, like, hiking store
Mike Brasher:You just get a dark
Katie Burke:and get black or brown.
Mike Brasher:Yep.
Katie Burke:And that's usually what works best for I
Mike Brasher:think that's a great idea.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing that's kind of made it difficult is everything's gone more online too, so,
Katie Burke:like Mhmm.
Kayci Messerley:Typically, the way you deal with a problem like this is you go and you at least try it in person. Yep. But now that's harder to do as well.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. I think one stuff.
Jerad Henson:I was just just gonna say one of the big breakthroughs, though, the past years has been in waiters, not necessarily women specific, but much more size specific waiters.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yeah.
Jerad Henson:So the way that all these new waiters are going, like the new Drake waiters, those types of things, they're in a inseam length and then a jacket size, and so you can actually get waiters that fit different body types much
Katie Burke:better, though. Would say, like, though, my big complaint is the ones that do that are so expensive. And this is a me problem, not a everybody problem, but I'm not easy on a waiter. Like, I'm I run around in that thing, and I break my waiters all the time. So, like, I don't wanna pay a lot of money for waiters because I know I'm gonna be hard on it.
Katie Burke:I'm not getting dragged up to the blind and set out.
Mike Brasher:So if anybody's looking for gift ideas for Katie, get her a waiter patch kit.
Jerad Henson:Yeah. That's it.
Katie Burke:And then my other one is really random, but this is a specific duck hunting thing. Okay. You know when you finish well, even before you hunt and then after you hunt, you have, like, all your clothes on and you have big thick socks on, and it's very few shoes you can put on when before you have your waiters on and after your waiters, and it's a, like but you don't wanna be uncomfortable, you don't wanna be tight. So Teva makes this, like, slip on slipper, like, it's bottom slipper. They're called, like, the Teva Terrain slip ons.
Katie Burke:They are awesome for just that reason. They're like putting in a putting on a house shoe that has a like, a hard bottom that you could, like, wear into, like, a gas station or somewhere if
Kayci Messerley:you wanted to if you had to pull off your waiters and put something on, but they're also, like, house shoe appropriate so they can walk around there nice and cozy.
Mike Brasher:So they're okay. So they have some insulating
Katie Burke:pockets in them. They're, like, on top. I was
Mike Brasher:gonna say just you could just throw on your crocs and do the same thing. Yeah. They don't necessarily have
Katie Burke:These are, like, warm weather crocs. These are, cold weather crocs. Cold weather crocs. Weather
Jerad Henson:fleece line crocs.
Katie Burke:Yeah. They're very nice, and I love them.
Mike Brasher:Now do you have to buy do
Katie Burke:you And they're a little more stylish.
Mike Brasher:Do you buy upsized to accommodate the thick socks? It's fine. Okay.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. I we I usually get
Katie Burke:a half size bigger anyway because I'm I don't know. I think as a runner, that's just, like, trained in your brain to always buy a half size bigger. It's a thing. Yeah. So But I love them.
Katie Burke:I have them, like, three years and I, like,
Kayci Messerley:want new ones because they I've already, like, torn mine up, like, because I wear them everywhere.
Mike Brasher:And so they were Tivas?
Katie Burke:Tivas, and they're called Terrain slip ons.
Mike Brasher:Terrain slip ons. Actually, can't
Katie Burke:And they make them in men's and women's, but I love them. They're perfect for exact that's a very specific duck hunter problem. Yeah. Like, what you wear after you take your waiters off.
Mike Brasher:Alright. I'm gonna go right here.
Kayci Messerley:Oh, wait. Have one more.
Mike Brasher:Oh, wait.
Katie Burke:I'm Oh. I'm gonna self promote and say you can also buy the Candagoose book from Ducks Unlimited.
Mike Brasher:Oh, you could do that. Yes. Good.
Katie Burke:Good. It's a great Christmas gift.
Mike Brasher:Yep. Where can they find that?
Katie Burke:It's on our website and we can have it in the show notes.
Mike Brasher:And okay. But if they go to ducks.org, Yeah. Candagoose
Katie Burke:You just search ducks.org, the Candagoose book,
Kayci Messerley:and it will come Okay.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Cool. Are you ready? An
Jerad Henson:awesome book and a great coffee table piece too.
Mike Brasher:A beautiful,
Jerad Henson:beautiful pictures and great stories.
Mike Brasher:It is phenomenal. Great job. Are you ready?
Kayci Messerley:As ready as I'll ever be.
Mike Brasher:Okay. Go for it.
Kayci Messerley:As a new hunter and somebody who is from the South and used to warm weather and humidity and can handle that very well, just about anything that'll keep me warm in the blind is a big win on my part.
Mike Brasher:So if you're a new hunter, yeah, so this is what we're talking like, getting getting geared up Mhmm. From the start. From the start. You you place a premium on warm clothes.
Kayci Messerley:Warm clothes, anything that'll keep me semi toasty. Those gloves sound fantastic because same problem. You know? You don't want something that's gonna make it if you're not already a great tutor as it is, it I don't need any help doing
Mike Brasher:your You're talking about
Katie Burke:me, yes?
Kayci Messerley:I am talking about myself. Not putting that
Katie Burke:on anybody else here. You don't need any hindrances. I need it as easy as possible.
Mike Brasher:Do you need the base layers, the mid do you have you read up on the the value of layering? Is all that you know? Because you gotta have you can't just have one piece of clothing. Right?
Kayci Messerley:Yes. Yes. I mean, I think that's part of, like, hard part is, like, duck hunting specific stuff is more expensive, so, like, just getting your generic, like, layers figured out, maybe not duck hunting specific layers, but like Yeah.
Katie Burke:I'll give you
Kayci Messerley:a good tip on that
Katie Burke:for cheap stuff. Like, running clothes on, like, Amazon, like fleece running clothes for base layers, it's a good place to start.
Jerad Henson:This isn't one of mine, but on the base layer thing, I have gone to all wool.
Katie Burke:Have I have oh, I do. Mine's running though,
Jerad Henson:but it's wool. Yeah. Because It's if your raincoat, like Matt mentioned, is not as waterproof as it as it once was supposed to be, wool still insulates when wet. And so there's been probably two or three times when I have gotten drenched
Mike Brasher:Mhmm.
Jerad Henson:And I would probably say that the wool base layers I have on kept me from getting Yeah. Some form of
Katie Burke:They dry really fast.
Jerad Henson:They wick moisture just like any kind of performance stuff. They also don't hold odor.
Mike Brasher:Scientifically proven. You heard it here first from the scientist doctor Cherryhans. That's a
Katie Burke:good hot take right there, though. Do you wash your hunting clothes?
Mike Brasher:Oh, I do.
Jerad Henson:I do. But you have to be careful with
Katie Burke:everything that's taking a
Mike Brasher:little better. That's awesome. A great great little tidbit there. We won't count that against yours.
Jerad Henson:Okay.
Mike Brasher:Back to Casey. Okay. And then
Kayci Messerley:for those who love me dearly and want a bigger gift to give me, I would be happy to have an actual gun of my own that I could shoot.
Mike Brasher:Do you have one picked out?
Kayci Messerley:Not particularly. That's what
Mike Brasher:I need to work on. That.
Matt Harrison:Yeah.
Kayci Messerley:But I've been like like we said, DU gives lots of great opportunities to try things, so I have luckily gotten to try a few guns out. Thank you, Mike.
Mike Brasher:You're welcome. You
Jerad Henson:I'm sure he's letting you shoot the cheap ones.
Mike Brasher:No. I had to talk to you. No. But you've shot just about everyone that that we have to try. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:So yeah. We wanted to to figure it out. I think that's one of the important things that we've as we've talked about is, like, try a lot of different guns. Find an opportunity to to try different different brands, different gauges, different actions. Semi auto versus pump, you've done some of that as well.
Mike Brasher:So, yeah, it's
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. And I think, you know, as in everything I do in life, I have expensive taste, so naturally, the ones I like are on the upper end.
Mike Brasher:I have the same problem.
Kayci Messerley:And then
Jerad Henson:With guns on the side.
Kayci Messerley:Pump action shooting with the clays did not go super well for me overall.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. I mean, that's fair. But I think anyone that's trying to shoot a pump action shotgun for the first time and a 12 gauge at that would probably have that same experience. Right. So it's all good.
Mike Brasher:You gotta try it. So kudos to you for for not being for for really wanting to get in and try all of those different things. That's the way to do it. We've done the single shot. I don't if we shot the four ten.
Katie Burke:Oh, single shot.
Mike Brasher:Why'd you shoot a single shot? Well, you gotta start somewhere. So I trust him with shooting this weekend.
Kayci Messerley:He's got a single
Jerad Henson:shot four ten.
Katie Burke:Let well, yeah. Well, that's because youth guns come in like nothing. There's, like, no Shooting clays.
Matt Harrison:Exactly right.
Mike Brasher:This is shooting clays. Yeah. It was like, here's
Kayci Messerley:a gun that's gonna
Katie Burke:kick the crap out
Mike Brasher:of you. No. Look.
Kayci Messerley:Look. The pump action, the actual, like, shooting of it was fine. It was the safety was, like, hard stuck. I couldn't turn it back on, so the safety was just
Katie Burke:Pump's fine. I get why you would shoot a pump, but a single yeah. Here's a gun that's gonna, yeah, kick the
Mike Brasher:crap out of thing.
Jerad Henson:Or they're really heavy.
Kayci Messerley:Oh, they're really heavy? I was like
Mike Brasher:Four. No. Not a four ten. Four ten was really I think that's
Katie Burke:the only thing. The youth thing. That knows judgment on you. There's very few options on youth guns.
Mike Brasher:Sure. What about a 28 gauge over under? Is that okay?
Katie Burke:That's fine. Yeah. Okay. I mean, yeah, that's fine.
Jerad Henson:Need a 28 gauge.
Mike Brasher:There's no
Katie Burke:this was all adult has to shoot a single shot.
Jerad Henson:Well, I
Katie Burke:Like, there's no I mean, there's really no unless you wanna, like, I guess maybe turkey hunting, but then, I mean, okay.
Mike Brasher:I thought it was an interesting thing to try, and we did it.
Jerad Henson:Did you find it an interesting thing
Kayci Messerley:to do? Entertained and shortly it was short lived. I handed it off
Mike Brasher:pretty likely.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I'm done with that. That was fun. That was
Kayci Messerley:nice. Think
Katie Burke:done that.
Mike Brasher:Oh. Okay. It's it's my turn now. Gift ideas. So I have two things that I'll, at least right now, that came to mind.
Mike Brasher:Third one yeah. Another one is rolling around in my head. Maybe it'll come back to me. So a little unconventional, and I've never done this, but as I was looking through the gear guide, was like, you know, this is a pretty good universal gift for really any waterfowl hunter, and it has some, it's sort of it's something that hunters may not readily buy themselves. There are a lot of premium shotgun shells out there today.
Mike Brasher:Oh, yeah. Tungsten Super Shot, you know, the TSS. You always need them. And, well, and it's like, that's again, not everyone is going to buy those because it's like $50 for 10 shells or something like that. If you wanna give sort of a different gift, the one that I'm familiar with is is of course Winchester, Last Call, their TSS.
Mike Brasher:I have had the opportunity to shoot those and they are phenomenal. So if you're looking for for that type of a gift for your waterfowl hunter in your in your family or in your in your circle or friends, go with that. The other thing that I saw in in this I I don't remember if it was the gift guide or the gear guide, but I wrote it down here. It's the Caldwell Claycopter handheld thrower.
Jerad Henson:That thing looks awesome. I don't have one,
Mike Brasher:but I'm still
Matt Harrison:on has one.
Jerad Henson:One, and he's been he showed me.
Mike Brasher:And I've seen him in action and
Katie Burke:What's different from it from a regular throw hand thrower?
Jerad Henson:You know, like, the little zip helicopter little toys? Yeah.
Mike Brasher:And it's remote
Jerad Henson:It's like that, but they're disposable biodegradable little clay.
Katie Burke:Doesn't break the clay coming out? I mean, probably sometimes.
Mike Brasher:Well
Katie Burke:because you always get a bad one.
Mike Brasher:So Casey would probably get to reuse most of them.
Kayci Messerley:Hey. Hey. Traumatized.
Mike Brasher:That's cool
Katie Burke:though. Yeah. That's neat.
Mike Brasher:That's a cool one. They're rechargeable. You just let me on here so
Kayci Messerley:you can make fun of me?
Mike Brasher:No. It just happens. Well, that's
Jerad Henson:a good idea.
Mike Brasher:Forget which one it is.
Katie Burke:Nobody would buy that. It's some of those things that you don't buy for yourself.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. It's yeah. It's the what did I say? The Caldwell Claycopter handheld thrower. It looks really cool.
Mike Brasher:Oh, the other thing that I was gonna say is, you know, if you have someone in your family or circle of friends that that likes whiskey, you know, Bert dog whiskey, just go with them, you know, go out and find your go to your local liquor store, just look at the different option from Burtdog whiskey and give that a try. So a little shout out to our sponsor for the for the podcast and another great idea that they that they can bring to your your holiday season.
Jerad Henson:You get the small bottles and they make good adult stocking stuffers.
Mike Brasher:You you speak from experience?
Jerad Henson:Just saying. Okay. Just saying. It's a possibility.
Mike Brasher:Any last minute additions
Katie Burke:I mean, you can always neck gaiters and socks.
Mike Brasher:To gift ideas. Yeah. You can do that.
Jerad Henson:Always. I haven't gone yet,
Mike Brasher:but Oh, you're right. You're and y'all
Jerad Henson:are y'all are hitting all of mine.
Mike Brasher:I was just seeing everybody's paying attention.
Jerad Henson:My y'all hit most
Mike Brasher:of mine. Threw me off whenever you kinda jumped. No. I'm just kidding.
Jerad Henson:No. That's fine. Katie hit one of them. Socks, that's very
Katie Burke:All the time. Every year. Every year.
Jerad Henson:It's like one of those things where as I get older, a really good pair of hunting socks is a very great gift. I generally don't buy them for myself, but, again, like I mentioned with the base layers, I love, like, a good wool sock. Headlamp, that's another one I've got. Can't ever have too many headlamps. So, Matt, yeah, I'm on board with that.
Jerad Henson:Chapstick. Little packets of Chapstick. Yep. Yep. Nice.
Jerad Henson:And you can get little ChapStick holders that will clip on your lanyard. Yeah. Every duck hunter will be a a big fan of that. And then for the people who get cold, I like a puffy jacket, like some type of not generally not down because when it gets wet, it doesn't do great, but, like, Primaloft jacket or something like that, something that's easy to pack in a bag that if I'm cold, I can throw that thing on. That's a big one.
Jerad Henson:And then the last one I'm gonna mention since I'm hunting with some younger folks, and then also my dad who's had some health issues and also blood pressure meds and he gets cold easily, a buddy heater.
Mike Brasher:Ah.
Jerad Henson:A little buddy heater that you can throw in the boat or in the blind and stay warm. Those are always
Mike Brasher:Yeah. And they I have I don't have those really for my for duck hunting, but you have a different setup than I do. You go in your boat quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:Use those when I'm deer hunting. We have
Matt Harrison:them deer
Katie Burke:hunting too. Yeah. Especially with kids.
Mike Brasher:That's a great idea. You know, the one thing that I will say is that what I'm taking away from Jared's commentary offering here on the gift ideas, that the other thing that Jared really needs is a good rain jacket because you've talked about how merino wool still helps out whenever you're wet, and I also talked about how down jackets Okay. Yes. We're good.
Jerad Henson:I I broke down and spent the money on a very high quality one. So, yes, I Good. I'm covered now. But it did take three or four attempts to get one that was worthwhile.
Mike Brasher:Good. Glad you got that taken care of.
Jerad Henson:I'm glad y'all worried about me.
Mike Brasher:That's alright. Alright.
Jerad Henson:I've only had hypothermia once.
Mike Brasher:I didn't didn't miss anybody that time.
Katie Burke:We're good.
Mike Brasher:Okay.
Katie Burke:We're all here.
Mike Brasher:Unless, Chris Isaac, you got anything to offer? Nope. He says he's He
Jerad Henson:says, do not look at me.
Mike Brasher:Burnt dog whiskey, I think, would be his his his idea over there. So, yeah, thumbs up. Okay. We are gonna take a break. And when we come back, we have something special planned.
Mike Brasher:I really don't know exactly what it is because I'm going to hand it off to our special participant and guest here, Casey Messerly, and she's going to lead us through something for better or for worse. So yeah, y'all stay with us. I think you'll wanna be part of this. Stay with us.
VO:Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
Mike Brasher:Everybody, welcome back. We're about to have some fun here. We've we've been, here at the beginning, we expressed gratitude. We went through some gear, and so now we're gonna get into a little bit of friendly debate and shenanigans of some type or another, and I really don't know what we're gonna I have some idea, but I don't I'm not gonna be the one driving this, that's probably a good thing. So I'm gonna toss it over to Casey Messerly to lead us through whatever they have planned.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna play a little game called Over Under. What we're gonna do is I'll throw out a topic, and then I'll let everybody say whether they think that topic is over or underrated, and then we'll duke it out on why after Nice. Each topic. Yeah?
Mike Brasher:Alright. So we we just shout it out? Are you gonna go around? I mean,
Kayci Messerley:would you like to be civilized?
Mike Brasher:This your this is your game. You make the rules.
Kayci Messerley:Okay. Well, then we'll start with some civil discourse and go down the line. You're
Mike Brasher:too orderly.
Kayci Messerley:So the first one is Thanksgiving hunts. Over or underrated? We can start with you, Mike, since you're next.
Mike Brasher:Thanksgiving hunts. Overrated. Jared.
Jerad Henson:Under.
Katie Burke:Katie. So this one's weird for me. I'm gonna say under, but I have reasons.
Kayci Messerley:We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Matt?
Matt Harrison:Underrated.
Katie Burke:Okay. So Mississippi doesn't open till Friday, so I don't hunt on Thanksgiving. So I don't know how to rake that. So I'd say But
Mike Brasher:you said underrated.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I know because I think of the weekend as underrated, but it doesn't really it doesn't apply to me because I can't hunt on Thanksgiving Day. I cannot hunt till Friday.
Kayci Messerley:But if you could, would you?
Katie Burke:I mean, yeah, because it would still be opening. Opening day is always underrated.
Matt Harrison:I think it's one of those things as a duck, Hunter, that we enjoy really being outside. We're thankful for we're thankful for waterfowl season. We're thankful for this time of year. It's of course, for us, specifically, it's towards the beginning of our year. So it's a time that I enjoy getting out there with my brother, with friends, family.
Matt Harrison:Now, of course, you know, we typically if we do hunt on Thanksgiving, we'll make it a little bit shorter of a hunt so we can go spend the day with the rest of our family. But I think it's something that you're combining two thankfulness things for is your friends and family on top of a duck hunt. So I think it's extremely underrated in my opinion because you're getting to spend doing two of your favorite things, friends, family, duck hunting, extremely underrated for me.
Mike Brasher:I said overrated just because it does compete with time with with friends and family. But if you have the opportunity to actually incorporate that into a hunt as you do, Matt, then, yeah, then that's great. So I was just yeah. Through our own perspective.
Jerad Henson:Yes. We've moved Thanksgiving to duck camp.
Mike Brasher:Oh oh, and in that
Jerad Henson:case We have it. Yeah. We have Vastly underrated. Yeah. We have our whole family there, and those of us that wanna slide away and try and get a morning hunt in can do that.
Mike Brasher:For me, any type of hunt on Thanksgiving would require
Jerad Henson:Yeah.
Mike Brasher:A much more investment. Taken away from that day. And so Yeah.
Jerad Henson:That's different. No.
Katie Burke:Sure. Leave Thanksgiving dinner and go to a dunk camp.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. I think there's some factors in that question.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. And I think that's that's what we're hearing a lot. Like, if you're able to go out with the family, then maybe it's underrated to you, but when it requires you to separate from the
Katie Burke:family I
Mike Brasher:will say depends on which family
Katie Burke:No. No. No. I wanna speak for the people, like, they're normally cooking as a as as a mom and, you know, woman who helps my mom. We like y'all to go away.
Katie Burke:Really? Yeah. And then come back closer to time. You're in the way. Get out of the way.
Kayci Messerley:Well and So that's the more like, if you're going out in the morning
Mike Brasher:Can you talk to Rebecca?
Kayci Messerley:Well, depends on
Katie Burke:if you're helpful. But if you are not helpful and you're like my dad who's, like, in there picking at stuff, go away.
Jerad Henson:That's the nice thing for me is, like, you know, I'll cheat on my electric smoker, and I'll set the turkey and everything good to go before we go to the hunt.
Katie Burke:No. No. If you're helpful, that's different. But if you're just
Mike Brasher:A lot of it is going to it is gonna depend on the time investment required to actually do the hunt. Right? Like, for
Kayci Messerley:me Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:I can't go even an hour away to do a hunt, not at least not easily, you know, so I have to go a little bit farther. So Right. Did we get Matt? Yeah. He did.
Mike Brasher:I'm sorry. I'm catching up.
Kayci Messerley:You're on the struggle bus today. I'm not.
Mike Brasher:It's good to hear you're in charge of this.
Kayci Messerley:Okay. So for our next one, vintage camo, over or underrated?
Jerad Henson:Underrated. Yeah. Underrated. I like my I like my but here's here's my caveat is I love my wax canvas like old school McAllister's gear. Like, love it.
Mike Brasher:Do you? I don't have any. So
Kayci Messerley:Must be nice.
Jerad Henson:Love it.
Katie Burke:I'm gonna go with I feel bad. As the historian, this is probably the wrong answer. Yeah. But I'd say overrated. Why?
Katie Burke:I think this has to do with being a girl again. None of it fits me.
Mike Brasher:Like,
Katie Burke:you think they didn't make stuff now. They definitely didn't make it.
Mike Brasher:Well, we're just talking about the pattern. Are we talking about the gear?
Katie Burke:Wearing wearing the gear.
Kayci Messerley:But you can't use
Katie Burke:it. Yeah. Wearing the gear.
Mike Brasher:Okay. Matt.
Matt Harrison:I'm gonna fall I'm gonna fall right there in the middle, not choose. I would say this. I would say ten years ago
Kayci Messerley:Top out. Rule break. Nope. That's not allowed.
Matt Harrison:Okay. Before I answer
Mike Brasher:They made me answer face to
Matt Harrison:Ten years ago, I would say most definitely underrated. Now a lot of people, a lot of businesses, a lot of companies, they have realized that, like, hey. We've really gotten away from our wax canvas, our, you know, old school camo. So they have really started pushing again. A lot of your brands have started ramping those patterns and those, you know, certain lines, now a lot of people wear So I would say I wouldn't say it's overrated at all because, like doctor Jared said, I love my Macalester stuff.
Matt Harrison:I still wear it to this day. I have a wax canvas jacket that I wear. I have a wax canvas bag that I still use today. So I would still say it's probably a little underrated. Now I don't say that.
Matt Harrison:I would say it's it's not extremely underrated, but it is still a little underrated. But a lot of people have realized like, hey. This is cool stuff.
Katie Burke:Oh, yeah.
Matt Harrison:And a lot of people wear it now again. So on the on the skinny side of underrated is what I would say.
Mike Brasher:The skinny side of underrated.
Jerad Henson:That almost sounds like a politician answer. That's like
Mike Brasher:the skinny side. It's yeah, it's almost like the no. No. Yeah.
Kayci Messerley:Let's let's leave it. Let's leave it. Let's leave it.
Mike Brasher:Was that enough debate?
Kayci Messerley:That was that was plenty. Matt, you carried us there. Okay. Over or underrated Calling contest.
Mike Brasher:I'm not going first.
Katie Burke:Oh, I don't know if I have an opinion.
Kayci Messerley:You have to lead by example.
Mike Brasher:Calling contest. Over or underrated? Well, so I think I mean,
Katie Burke:wow. That's that's hard one.
Mike Brasher:It really is. It
Matt Harrison:it that is.
Kayci Messerley:Does anyone have strong opinions on this? Can I say can I say something? Yeah. Go for it.
Matt Harrison:I don't wanna inter I don't wanna interrupt doctor Mike because
Mike Brasher:I know
Katie Burke:he's answering you.
Jerad Henson:Yeah.
Matt Harrison:But I wanna add in this note. I will say it's underrated because here's why. A lot of people when they're watching or listening to a DuckCon contest, they're on their phone. If you go to one live and you hear these guys call, you're like, holy cow. Like, this is unbelievable.
Matt Harrison:It's almost same way as a concert. Right? Like, you see 100,000 people at a concert. You're like, man, that's really cool. But if you're there, the experience is even cooler.
Matt Harrison:I would say the same with the DuckCon competition. When you see these guys up there running a flawless note without messing up once as a a caller myself, not on the competition side, like, you know how hard it is to do one cadence without messing up. And these guys run thirty seconds, minute, however long it is, and it's flawless without any hiccups. And you're like, how did he just do that? So I would say, personally, it's underrated because when you go and listen to it, you're like, that's remarkable.
Mike Brasher:So that that's great, Matt, and and I thought you were gonna say something that that popped in my head as you as you just started to talk. I will say underrated because as you as you talked about, I don't think most people realize the amount of work that goes into that in getting to that level. And if there is a way that you could meet, like so I'll take my wife as an example who doesn't really hunt and she doesn't have an appreciation for understanding of the calling and any of that kind of stuff, and that's fine. But when she goes to a calling contest, it's the same thing over and over and over from the routine standpoint, from the the the rules that they have to follow, what they have to do, and that's great. But it doesn't it doesn't really, I don't know, it doesn't differentiate for the average person the amount of work that goes into that.
Mike Brasher:Now here's a radical idea, and I will be stoned for even suggesting this, if maybe if there was some alternative type of calling contest that stuck with all those standard routines but then incorporated freestyle in some way.
Kayci Messerley:Are you doing, like, the thing that people do with the Olympics or, hey. Just let's have all the people run
Katie Burke:and have the average guy out there running
Kayci Messerley:next to him so you can see how basketball You know,
Mike Brasher:it could be like you could have, like, how do they perform on the standard routine? How do they do on the freestyle? And then you kinda combine and that's, again, that's probably heresy, but but anyway, I'm trying to think how can you get the sort of the the average person to appreciate the level of skill and amount of time that they invest in that?
Jerad Henson:If you're a duck hunter, pick up a J Frame style duck call and try and do what they're doing.
Mike Brasher:Oh, I know.
Jerad Henson:Yeah. Like, it's it's amazing, and I I will weigh in with a strong
Mike Brasher:opinion here. To the freestyle.
Jerad Henson:I'm a I'm an arky, and, you know, we don't do
Mike Brasher:I think math.
Jerad Henson:Decoy collecting, and that's not a big thing in Arkansas. It's all duck calls in Arkansas, and the end of this week is the duck calling contest Oh, that's right. In Mack's. Yes. So world championship duck calling contest.
Jerad Henson:If you can go listen to a Main Street routine, you can hear some guys do something with a duck call, but that is very difficult to do. So the history, the tradition, the control, the talent it takes to actually do that, I think that's just part of our waterfowling culture. So I definitely think that it's it's underrated, especially if you've never been to it and seen it in person. I'll agree with Matt a 100%
Mike Brasher:on that.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I think it's underrated. I would say
Jerad Henson:it's underrated. It is a really cool aspect of waterfowl hunting. It goes back to the the art, the skill, kinda all that. It's almost like a musical instrument. That's the way they're playing.
Mike Brasher:So That's why I'm saying this freestyle idea.
Katie Burke:You can even get into, like it's it's cool in that if you can also I don't think a lot of the people know the history of the calls behind it and the people who made those calls and there's certain calls that have won more than other calls, like, it's it's a lot to it. So it's yeah. I'd say underrated. Now, do I want someone who won a deep calling contest in the duck blind with me?
Jerad Henson:It's a different style
Mike Brasher:of calling.
Jerad Henson:It's a
Katie Burke:different thing.
Jerad Henson:Right? Yeah. Because they're dang good.
Katie Burke:It's a
Jerad Henson:little bit of a
Katie Burke:different little too much.
Mike Brasher:Well, depends on who
Jerad Henson:they are.
Katie Burke:Depends on who they are, but some of them call a little too much.
Kayci Messerley:You could definitely over call a duck. Okay. This next one, I'm gonna say, this is not me, you guys. Don't come after me.
Mike Brasher:Over You didn't make the question. Is that what you're saying?
Kayci Messerley:Correct.
Jerad Henson:Okay.
Kayci Messerley:Over or under But
Mike Brasher:you agreed to ask it.
Kayci Messerley:Correct. Also accurate. Yes. For the sake of science. Okay.
Kayci Messerley:Over or underrated Mallards compared to divers. If your dog doesn't have a camo vest and a name like Drake or Scout, you're doing it wrong.
Mike Brasher:Nah. It's underrated.
Jerad Henson:If I think did I do that right?
Katie Burke:Well, the vest is a re there's a reason for
Mike Brasher:the vest.
Katie Burke:The vest has a purpose.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. That's fucked up. That's like it's like, do you how about do you do you agree or disagree with this statement? So if I disagree, what would I say? What's the
Kayci Messerley:Then it would be overrated. Overrated. Do you need a little cue card?
Mike Brasher:Let's see. I do.
Matt Harrison:I'm in the same boat you're in, doctor Mike. I'm over here thinking.
Mike Brasher:Sorry. Can you alright. Let's do this again. Can you can you read?
Kayci Messerley:Okay. For those that are struggling, is it over or underrated for your dog to have a name like Drake or Scout?
Matt Harrison:So if we say it's overrated, we're saying
Katie Burke:That they can name him other things.
Kayci Messerley:You can name your your dog princess.
Mike Brasher:Uh-huh. Overrated. Absolutely. Princess isn't isn't overrated, but
Katie Burke:yeah. Yeah. Overrated. My answer is overrated.
Jerad Henson:I agree. Yeah. Be more original with your dog names.
Katie Burke:Yes. Oh. Sure.
Kayci Messerley:I prefer a nice human name to a fur dog. I find that very entertaining. Mine's Max. Pretty easy. Apparently, that was the 2025 dog name of the year.
Kayci Messerley:I bet Max. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:Twenty five five not over yet, Is that because of the Grinch?
Katie Burke:Same dog?
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. Yeah. What?
Matt Harrison:Is that because of the Grinch?
Kayci Messerley:That's a good question. No. Mine's because he's a big puppy dog. That
Mike Brasher:was so good. Exactly.
Kayci Messerley:Okay. Next. Okay. Over or underrated, cooking duck wrong should be a ticketable offense.
Jerad Henson:A 100%. Abs absolutely. I I'm stealing a line from Matt on
Mike Brasher:that one. If you
Katie Burke:do you agree that if you
Kayci Messerley:cook Doug wrong, someone should be big mad about it?
Katie Burke:Just don't use the words over an underrated distilled Yes.
Kayci Messerley:Too much. It was too much.
Matt Harrison:It's underrated that somebody wouldn't be upset.
Mike Brasher:That's right. Yes. Let's
Matt Harrison:wave it if somebody miscooked
Jerad Henson:a dog. I'm just gonna quote Matt like I just did. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Jerad Henson:Yeah.
Kayci Messerley:Okay. For the next one, agree or disagree. The best blind
Matt Harrison:Casey, don't let him don't let him change.
Kayci Messerley:I'm just getting bullied out here left and right. It's okay. Over or underrated. The best blind is a canoe and a thermos. Okay.
Mike Brasher:I I can handle this one.
Kayci Messerley:You get it? Yeah. You get it.
Mike Brasher:Okay. The best blind is a canoe and
Matt Harrison:that's it's overrated.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. It's overrated. Overrated. Overrated. Yeah.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. You seem like you need help. That's all.
Matt Harrison:I don't know many people at all that hunt in just a canoe.
Mike Brasher:No. Yeah. Don't hate it.
Matt Harrison:Well, we're so
Mike Brasher:you gotta get the canoe to the water somehow.
Matt Harrison:You gotta drag us
Mike Brasher:out sometimes.
Jerad Henson:That's right. Yeah. We're too southern for that statement. So I think if you're Northeast or some other areas like that, you might
Kayci Messerley:More minimal blinds. Maybe not a canoe specifically, but, like, having
Mike Brasher:some minimal and stand by a tree.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I was like, I'm more of a stand by
Kayci Messerley:the tree kind person. Okay. So
Matt Harrison:I think we would all agree no blinds
Kayci Messerley:So more men are
Matt Harrison:the best.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. No blinds. How about some really comfy blinds,
Jerad Henson:though? So
Mike Brasher:Canar for one? I don't know.
Jerad Henson:Think you're So right to I think Mike's going to
Mike Brasher:anyway. So
Kayci Messerley:Like, what if I say no? Yeah. What are you gonna do?
Mike Brasher:I'm gonna do it anyway. So why I So So do you prefer permanent blind or a no.
Kayci Messerley:Wait. Over or underrated?
Mike Brasher:I know. How do I do it? Permanent blind is better than a mobile blind. Over or underrated.
Katie Burke:Than a mobile blind? Yeah. Does a mobile blind just have to be my two feet?
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Katie Burke:Yeah. It's overrated. Go where the ducks are.
Jerad Henson:If you have that ability.
Mike Brasher:Matt? Yeah.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. I don't know.
Jerad Henson:I bet it's really common.
Mike Brasher:Because see, the the the permanent blind comes with the breakfast. It can come with all those other You're right.
Katie Burke:No. I I see the benefit. If you have the luxury of that, that the ducks will show up at said stage like, said blind, but that's not
Jerad Henson:It would be underrated. It would be underrated. Yeah. But for me, it's overrated because I don't
Katie Burke:it's overrated.
Jerad Henson:Overrated. So I
Mike Brasher:don't know.
Jerad Henson:But if I do get that opportunity, I do appreciate it.
Katie Burke:I I
Mike Brasher:do enjoy
Kayci Messerley:it. Very it's very nice.
Mike Brasher:So technically, the way I should have done that is just said permanent blinds, overrated or underrated?
Jerad Henson:Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Katie Burke:Yes.
Kayci Messerley:There you go.
Katie Burke:You learn it. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:You got there. Overrated or underrated.
Kayci Messerley:Thanksgiving hunts should be invite only.
Mike Brasher:Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Harrison:Yes. Okay.
Katie Burke:So I hope no one that I, like, am family with hear this, but yeah.
Mike Brasher:For sure. Like, all hunts should be invite only.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. That's what I was literally just thinking. Like, you should never invite yourself on a hunt. Yeah. Whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Thanksgiving
Mike Brasher:or Christmas or holiday. That's a close script.
Kayci Messerley:So holiday hunts are special.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Absolutely.
Kayci Messerley:Yeah. Okay. Last one. If you're not cold, wet, and slightly miserable, you didn't go on a real hunt.
Katie Burke:False. That's like that's regional. That's a regional thing. Yeah. That's just False.
Kayci Messerley:Jared's brawl experience.
Katie Burke:Oh, not
Matt Harrison:being warm. I've that's that's called thirty four years of experience at this point in the Duckwoods.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Nope.
Jerad Henson:This week.
Katie Burke:Bluebird and cold is the way to go.
Jerad Henson:But that's, you know, chilly Yeah.
Katie Burke:Close to days. I want sun. Yeah.
Matt Harrison:Yeah.
Jerad Henson:Sunshine, windy, and cold. Preferably. Preferably. Yes. And hopefully nobody goes for one of those muddy water swims.
Jerad Henson:I've done that. That's where I end up wet more than getting rain done. Stepping a beaver run, something like that.
Mike Brasher:One final thing here before we go, we're gonna go around the table real quick and we're gonna offer up a memorable Thanksgiving experience that we have. It could be good, it could be bad, whatever the case may be. We'll keep these quick. Matt, I'm gonna go to you first.
Matt Harrison:Unfortunately, the experience I'm gonna share was negative and bad, but I'll never forget it. We were hunting Thanksgiving morning. We're kinda in a little cypress slew. I had just started out my photography business, and I had invested in, let's just say, a very expensive camera, $7,000. And I was taking some pictures out, you know, normal day, typical day of hunt, but I was snapping some photos out there, Decided that it would be a good idea to set my camera on a bag that I thought had a firm bottom underneath it, but what I didn't know is the bag that I had set it on was not stable.
Matt Harrison:I set my camera on top of the bag, turned around. Next thing I hear is kadoosh. Turned around, looked, and my brand new camera that I had just invested in was taking a lovely Thanksgiving swim that I retrieved, and let's just say it did not work after that. So that was a memory that I wish I could erase, but thankfully and if you're listening to this and you have a camera or anything expensive that you hunt with, get insurance on it. Thankfully, I had insurance on it, was able to get a new one.
Matt Harrison:So all ended up being okay, but my heart was broken Thanksgiving morning due to losing my camera.
Mike Brasher:Did you lose many good photos? I did. Yeah. Some. So Alright.
Mike Brasher:Yep. But Well, I hope you do not experience that again ever in your life. But I suspect you've learned from that. I have. Alright.
Mike Brasher:To make sure I don't forget him this time, I'm gonna go to Jared.
Jerad Henson:Yeah. Mine's not, like, one specific memory, but it's kind of a compilation. But every year, we would go on a duck hunt in the morning, and then I'd go to my my mom's parents for Thanksgiving lunch. And I remember an epic nap after that lunch on the couch at my grandmother's house. Epic nap.
Jerad Henson:Been up since three in the morning, full belly full of turkey, and just hanging around, and there was, you know, three or four of us in there that had gotten up a little early to to duck hunt. Just remember that kind of the chaos of Thanksgiving going on around us and not a care in the world.
Mike Brasher:It's a wonderful yeah. It's it's, for so many of us, a wonderful time of year, and it's almost here again.
Katie Burke:Katie. I don't have a specific one either, but we do the same thing every year, especially now that I have my own family. So that's actually pretty special to get to kinda make some new stuff with your family. But we are the crazy people who run on Thanksgiving. We do a turkey trot.
Katie Burke:And
Mike Brasher:Is this an organized turkey trot or just your We own
Katie Burke:do an one. Okay. Because we do Thanksgiving here and then we go to duck camp. But I do a turkey trot and my kids
Kayci Messerley:I run with my kids now, which is super fun. So I run with them and like we they have a
Katie Burke:team and we have a team and we compete against each other, but we let them win. And then we go to Thanksgiving and always, we always head to Duck Camp to get ready for opening day, which is always exciting. Casey?
Kayci Messerley:So mine is actually from back when I was an undergrad, I had to work because we had captive animals. So I was the person who stayed. And so I decided I was gonna make my first like baked turkey of my life because my family fries turkeys, that's what we do. So I obviously didn't have that option in Rebel. My
Mike Brasher:Yes. But
Kayci Messerley:I didn't have that option, so I decided I was gonna try and bake a turkey and so my boyfriend and I were baking this turkey, spent all day on it, get it, it's fine. It was it was an okay turkey but that was about it. Went to go lay down and the fire alarms in my apartment go off and so I'm watching my roommate's cat and my my own cat and they don't get along. So I have to grab both cats and run down 20 flights of stairs with the two cats because the fire alarms are going off. Turns out someone had forgotten to turn off their oven after also baking a turkey and burnt down, like burnt their whole room.
Kayci Messerley:Like, got it on caught the room on fire, whole room burnt.
Mike Brasher:So Sounds like a faulty oven.
Jerad Henson:Not your not your room.
Kayci Messerley:Not my room. Not your Okay. That was my biggest fear. I didn't do it, someone else's problem. But reminder before you take that couple hour nap after Thanksgiving, make sure you turn your oven off.
Mike Brasher:Make sure you don't have a faulty oven. You should be able to mean You're
Kayci Messerley:a faulty oven. Whole room was burnt.
Katie Burke:So was like, my husband doesn't need to hear this story because I forget to turn the oven all the time.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Make sure you turn that oven off. If the oven is doing correctly, it shouldn't happen to you. Still You
Jerad Henson:should probably also run the self cleaning thing on it once a while to make sure it doesn't have any large combustible.
Mike Brasher:Take notes. Take notes. Mine was odd, I didn't take. Okay. So mine, not hunting related, as sort of alluded alluded to earlier, the hunting on Thanksgiving Day wasn't always a big thing for us.
Mike Brasher:Mine was, I may have even mentioned this in a previous episode, but it is the most indelible memory from Thanksgiving. We had family come in from Indiana, from all across Mississippi and even Tennessee and other places wherever they may have been living. The thing that was really cool about our Thanksgiving is that my maternal grandparents lived a block away from my paternal grandparents, and so we had both sets of families come in, and so for my brother and I and my mom and dad, we had a situation where we would start at one house, I think we would do the traditional Thanksgiving at my mom's parents, and then we would walk a block away to our to my dad's parents, and we would do different meals. The one and you'll probably think this is crazy, but it worked in this situation. At my my dad's parents, our traditional Thanksgiving meal, which I would not be able to do now, is chili or was chili.
Mike Brasher:So very unusual, especially for Mississippi, you know, it's like, but it was a chili Thanksgiving that we always, always did. So that was that was a memory that I look forward to every year because of all the family that came in and because of just a full day of eating and sleeping and listening to people snore, grandparents and uncles snore in the recliners. So we miss those days. So, well, we appreciate everyone out there for joining us. We hope whether you go to a duck blind or go to your duck camp and hunt on this Thanksgiving Day or Thanksgiving weekend with your friends and family or whether you're just doing the Thanksgiving meal at home.
Mike Brasher:We hope you have a wonderful time. We thank you for joining us on this episode. We are grateful, obviously, for your support throughout the year. We're about to enter this more extended holiday season where we get to spend even more time outside with friends, with family. We appreciate all of the support that you give to our mission.
Mike Brasher:We appreciate you supporting Wetlands and Waterfowl Conservation. We do encourage you as you get into this this season to, look for different ways that you can get involved. Go check out ducks.org/events to find any events near you. Have a great time. Enjoy the resource.
Mike Brasher:Spend time with friends and family. And with that, a special thank you to all my colleagues here around the table and Matt Harrison joining us remotely. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
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