Ep. 661 - Season Recap: Epic Hunts, Avian Flu & Conservation Wins

Ducks Unlimited Podcast: Season Wrap-Up Live Stream

Hosts: Dr. Mike Brasher, Katie Burke, Matt Harrison
Location: Ducks Unlimited HQ, Memphis, TN
Presented by: Purina ProPlan & Bird Dog Whiskey

🔹 Episode Summary

In this special live-stream wrap-up, the DU Podcast team reviews the 2024-2025 waterfowl season! From epic hunts and migration trends to avian flu updates and new hunting tactics, this episode has it all. Plus, we answer listener questions, preview off-season activities, and share key conservation insights.

🔹 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Best & worst hunts of the season – Personal stories from Mike, Matt & Katie.
Duck migration & weather trends – How warm fall & late cold fronts impacted hunts.
Avian flu update – What waterfowl hunters need to know in 2025.
New hunting strategies – Motion decoys, pulsators & hand-carved decoys.
Off-season tips – Training your retriever, gear maintenance & turkey hunting.
Conservation & research – Duck DNA Project results & upcoming DU events.

🔹 Upcoming Events

DU Expo: August 1-3, Memphis, TN → CLICK HERE!
DU Banquets & Events: Find one near you → ducks.org/events
DU Careers: Internships & jobs → ducks.org/jobs

🔹 Follow & Subscribe

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Listen now & get ready for next season!

Creators & Guests

Host

Katie Burke

DUPodcast Collectibles Host

Host

Matt Harrison

DUPodcast Outdoor Host

Host

Mike Brasher

DUPodcast Science 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.

Mike Brasher: Welcome in to the Ducks Unlimited podcast here in Memphis, Tennessee, our national headquarters. I am Dr. Mike Brasher. I am joined here to my left by… Katie Burke. And to my right… Matt Harrison. We are joining you live from the Ducks Unlimited podcast studio that is sponsored by Purina ProPlan and Bird Dog Whiskey. And we are live and somebody has their phone on. That's not mine. We are live. We're going to have fun with this. We are here with our end of season review. What is, what is the day? I don't even know. Today is the 11th. And so duck season is over. I think all of the duck seasons have come to an end, right? veterans, you had youth the past couple of weekends, and there's still some goose seasons going on out there. But we do this episode every year where we kind of come together after the season and just sort of do a recap of a variety of things. Some of it will be like how our season has gone, some of our experiences, some of our favorite memories. We'll also talk a little bit about how the season, our understanding of how the season unfolded across different flyways. One of the other things that's kind of in development right now is our season and review report that we put out, all sorts of maps and graphics associated with temperature and precipitation, stream flow, and other just sort of narratives about how the season how we heard people experienced the season. So but we're we just we decided let's let's do this live thing this time. This is a new thing for us this season have been a lot of changes and a lot of new developments innovations here for the Ducks Unlimited podcast and some of the other work that we do back here in the audio video space. So we'll talk about some of those. And I guess the other thing that I would say, what we want to let people know that if you have questions, if you want to add some commentary, submit your comment. I think we have some people out here in the back that are kind of monitoring that. We'll try to get the questions to us. We'll do the best to answer those questions or interact with you. We're wanting to make this kind of fun. and engaging and something that you'll enjoy as well. I also did want to say that we miss our other co-host, Dr. Jared Henson, who was scheduled to be here, but the, I don't know, some, whether it be the flu bug or some sort of illness kept him- Some type of bug. He's got kids in daycare. They just get sick. Kept him whole. Personal experience. So, Jared, if you're out there watching, we miss you. We wish you were here. And if you have anything to add, you know how to use the comment feature as well. So, Anything to add from your standpoint? We don't really have a solid plan here, but that's fine. Like I said, we'll have fun with it.

Matt Harrison: Yeah, I'm just excited to kind of be gathered together with the other hosts of the DU podcast. We don't get to hop on a lot of podcasts together a lot of times, so it's great to be able to Join y'all in studio and I'm excited to talk a little bit about the seasons We each had individually kind of some of the things we got to do But also like dr. Mike said a lot of the new things going on at Ducks Unlimited some of the new things we're testing out here in the studio and also some of the kind of the programs we have going on that we We started this year that I'm super excited to talk a little bit about but I'm just excited to be here and talk talk all things ducks Katie same Yeah, it's gonna be fun to talk about how every seasons went y'all went more places than me.

Katie Burke: I kind of stuck it around home. But yeah, it'll be fun to talk about that. And then I've got some fun things to announce later for the GCM.

Mike Brasher: Yes, you do. So that'll be exciting. Big announcement. Okay. We're going to start out. I'm just going to ask you your favorite memory from this season.

Matt Harrison: Favorite memory. I'm going to have to go with, it was me, my brother. My friend Trent, my brother Michael, and an older gentleman that we took, older in age, he's around 80 years old, and kind of had to boat him up to his spot, kind of had to take care of him a little bit. And Bluebird Sky, we were not expecting to have a very good hunt, but when I tell you, it was just one of those days, nothing crazy where Ducks were everywhere, but it was just the right amount at the right amount of pace. Beautiful bluebird sky. I mean, we shot some ducks and it was just a great time being able to spend it. Anytime I get to hunt with my brother, it's always fun, but it was almost one of those hunts where you go into it, hey, if we shoot a couple, it's going to be a great hunt. We're excited, but it turned out to be a great hunt. Had a lot of fun and I mean, it was just one of those that in the moment you're like, I don't want this hunt to end. I wish it would drag out a little bit longer, but it was such a fun hunt and it'll be one that I look back on for a long time.

Mike Brasher: Do you hunt with a dog very often?

Matt Harrison: Just about every single hunt I went on this year, we had a dog with us. I mean, and my friend- Your dog? Not ours. Our dog just recently passed away this past year, so we didn't have a dog this year to hunt with, but our good friend Trent Camden has a very good dog named Cash, and Cash is a go-getter. Is that C-A-C-H-E? C-A-S-H. Oh, okay.

Mike Brasher: So the money Cash, because he's money.

Matt Harrison: Money Cash.

Mike Brasher: Is that it?

Matt Harrison: Money, cash, but great dog and that just makes the hunt even better when you have a dog there and one that- A good dog. Exactly. One that I mean is a hunter and his dog, Cash, is very much so a hunter. So what would be your top hunt that you got to experience this year?

Mike Brasher: My most memorable hunt has to be the one- I was like, we're going to use the same one. Do you want me to pick a different one?

Katie Burke: No, I can do a different one after that, but that was mine.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. And so that hunt was where we took… So for the past couple of years, we have hired some conservation science assistants, sort of a 12-month intern type of program that we started a couple of years ago. And this year, we happened to sort of advance the hiring for the person that's going to come in. like for the third year of this. So we had, and still do at this moment, have three assistants with us. Ray Moore, Katie Tucker, and Casey Messerly. And they're helping our conservation department with a variety of tasks and none of them had hunted.

Katie Burke: Katie had.

Mike Brasher: Had she?

Katie Burke: Yeah, Katie with her dad.

Mike Brasher: Well, I mean, prior to coming to work for Ducks Unlimited. Oh, no, no. I don't think so, no. Wow. Katie's father grew up, well, Katie's father hunts and duck hunts. And so that was one of the cooler things that whenever I first met Katie's dad, he came by to do a tour and learned that he duck hunted and I think goes to DU banquets and And it's interesting that when Katie started working here, all of a sudden she's like, I want to start hunting. And so her dad was just enthused by that. So that's a, that is probably, well, it is the, it's one of the most rewarding parts of getting to bring new people into Ducks Unlimited and share with them things that mean so much to us. So that was one of the things that I set out to do this year is make sure that we, well first, ask if they wanted to try hunting and all three of them, Ray, Katie, and Casey, indicated that they did. So they did their hunter safety, all that type stuff. And then, of course, you have to have have to find a place to go, right? And I talked to you, Katie, about that. And you agreed to host us as a group there at y'all's property. Your dad, your mom, very gracious host, and the hospitality is wonderful. And so, yes, you agreed to do that. And you never know exactly what you're going to get when you're going into something like that. And I believe leading up to that, It had been pretty slow. You had a lot of wood ducks, you said.

Katie Burke: Yeah, we've had wood ducks all year, crazy amounts of wood ducks all over our property. Our property is split up into different sections and about a couple miles apart, but all sections- Covered in wood ducks. Covered in wood ducks, which saved our year, saved our year. So we knew we would at least get to shoot wood ducks, which is not ideal for first time hunters. It's still fun. It's still fun, but it's not easy.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, it's not easy.

Katie Burke: It's not easy. So, we knew we'd have that, but that's not the fun part.

Mike Brasher: Well, I remember earlier, like a few days prior to him, maybe it was a Monday of that week, a few days prior to going down there, you texted and said, we have ducks. I think I said, we're slap full of ducks.

Matt Harrison: Get here quick.

Mike Brasher: It was, to kind of cut to the chase, it was one of the better hunts that I had been on in terms of the number of birds that we saw, how close we were to them. Now, they were very difficult ducks of a type. They were very difficult to hunt for anyone, but especially for first time hunters, because not only were they wood ducks, but there were green wings in there as well. And we're talking big flocks of green wings.

Katie Burke: We shot every species of puddle dog that we get that day.

Mike Brasher: No way. In one day?

Katie Burke: In one day.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. Also, shout out to Dan Thiel, our executive secretary, chief operating officer of Wetlands America Trust, who was there with us at that time. And he got to spend some time with our assistants. And that was another special event for them and Dan as well, seeing the young talent that we've and were able to attract to ducks on them. But yeah, getting to share that with them, seeing the number of ducks that they did was really, really cool. And it's also, and I have to tell this story, like a week and a half later, I was able to take Katie and Casey hunting again. Ray was unable to join us, but I told him, we went to some Corps of Engineer property down in Mississippi. And I said, now let's Let's calibrate, let's recalibrate. We're probably not going to see any ducks. If we do see some, they're probably not going to be in shootable range. So let's just kind of, and so they're like, you were bringing me, bringing us back down to reality, right? And I was like, just let me know. It's not always that way. And so sure enough, we didn't fire a shot. We did see two ducks. as we were picking up decoys, of course, right? And this, we had decided to pack up early because we saw nothing. But anyway, it was another great opportunity to share that.

Katie Burke: I mean, it was the best hunt that I had all year. And we hunt this, we picked a hunt, probably wasn't the best spot to hunt that morning, Matt, but it was the slew because we knew We had first time hunters, so they just kind of come down the pipe all day. You know exactly where they're going to come in. They're going to do the same thing every single time. And it was nonstop, like all morning.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Katie Burke: Y'all spoiled them. Yeah, it was fun. And the thing that was so fun at that, he knew it was going to be good. And I haven't seen this in a long time. That day, you caught dad and I on the gravel road watching him. We were like, you know, sitting out like a mile and a half away from the hole, like on the gravel road, and you could just see him all night just pouring it. And you're like, oh, it's gonna be good.

Mike Brasher: And it was. It was great. And a lot of shooting. And your dad was, I mean, your dad is something else to go hunting with. He's like, we're here to shoot. You know, we're here to shoot. You know, we got lots of birds. And so that was, It was super rewarding.

Katie Burke: We made fun of you real quick. You handed them very few shells. And we were like, what are you doing? Don't make fun of me any time.

Mike Brasher: I don't typically hunt with a shell belt. I had extra boxes. They didn't run out of shells. So I had some more.

Katie Burke: Well, okay. But you got first-time hunters there. Like, you don't give them six shells for their six ducks.

Mike Brasher: I gave them more than six shells. To be clear, I gave them more than six shells. He gave him like 10. I did not. I gave him a box each and I just… Moving on.

Matt Harrison: Moving on. I do have a question about y'all's season.

Mike Brasher: Hey, before we do that, I just do want to… So we have a couple of comments and shout out to Aiden Miller, a new hunter who is watching the live stream. So thanks for joining in. Hey, Aiden. There was a question here about any youth hunting adventures, introduction of new hunters. We've talked about some of that. Any others that we can kind of… Uh, bring to that, we'll try to do so. And then another question up here that came in first, we'll talk about, uh, trends in migration. We'll get to that a little bit later on, but yeah, so you were going to.

Matt Harrison: Oh yeah. Regarding just y'all season, I hadn't really gotten to talk much to y'all about the season that y'all all had. But what was kind of, how did y'all season go as in a standpoint of like, example, the beginning of the year, we started off really hot. Like, I mean, it was a very, very, very good first part of the season. And then the certain area we were hunting, which was with some private ground. Once we started getting later in the season, the numbers were not even close, but there were certain areas that just held a very high concentrated number of birds and stayed that way. I don't think I've ever seen them stay in this certain area on public ground for so long. Now, there was some big time- On public ground. On public ground, and there was some big time farmers around the area- So, we're talking about Arkansas? Arkansas, but I mean, how did y'all see it? I know that, Katie, you hunt a good bit of private ground. Dr. Meyer, you hunt a good bit of kind of, you know, balance a little. Dr. Meyer, wherever. Yeah, wherever. But did you see what was… Now, where's your place at, Katie?

Katie Burke: So we're in Tippo, Mississippi, which is Tallahatchie County. And early season, again, wood duck population, I… Was booming.

Mike Brasher: and I cannot- You got all of Arkansas's wood ducks. There's a story there.

Katie Burke: It's crazy.

Matt Harrison: When you said that, I was like, were we hunted? There may have been one or two mornings I saw a good bit of wood ducks. Outside of that, we did not see many wood ducks.

Katie Burke: So before he got there for that hunt, I can give you exact, actually, because my dad was keeping count. So before you got there, and we hunt, it's private land. That's my family. and Dodge County. And then, so before he got that hunt, which was, when was that hunt? Two weeks before the end?

Mike Brasher: I think it was January 14th. It was late season.

Katie Burke: It was late season, yeah. So we had right under 200 ducks, and I would say- Harvested. Harvested. And I'd say 80% of those were wood ducks.

Mike Brasher: No way.

Katie Burke: It was a crazy amount of wood ducks. And that's when our season changed, was that weekend, the ducks showed up. And then we were, last two weeks of the season, gangbusters, I mean.

Mike Brasher: That's when it got cold. Yeah, it got cold and we got madder. Big ducks showed up. Right after we left, it started getting cold. January in the Mid-Continent and Eastern U.S. was colder than average, big time. January saved, many, many, save the entire season for a lot of Southern hunters. No doubt. So, yes, a lot of different stories to unpack.

Katie Burke: Well, the weekend before that, like, so that weekend before that, January 8th, is that when that cold front came in, and I had Marty Hanson here, a decoy carver that I hunted with, and Those hunts could have been great, but the weather was so crazy. Like it was blowing so hard right before that snow. It was just really hard to get under them because they were having a hard time getting down out of that. It was once they got down, they sat. Yeah. Didn't want to get back up.

Mike Brasher: Yeah.

Katie Burke: So it was, you had to time it just right, but that weather brought in all of our ducks.

Mike Brasher: I think that was, I think we hunted at your place January 17th, if I remember correctly. It was right after the snow. Because it was the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, right? Because you all were worried that we're going to freeze, we may get two additional hunts, but you weren't sure if you were going to have open water to hunt on Monday.

Katie Burke: So Monday, we, Dad and I made the mistake of being greedy. And it was- Listen up.

Mike Brasher: So I have another question here.

Katie Burke: Lessons learned this season.

Mike Brasher: Don't be greedy.

Katie Burke: Don't be greedy. So it was just Dad and I that morning, and it was like, we were watching it freeze up while we were standing out there. It was cold. And we decided to pass up giant flocks of green-winged teal for big ducks. And we should have shown those green wings too.

Matt Harrison: Rule number one, never pass up ducks. Yeah.

Mike Brasher: Um, so yeah. Okay. I got a few questions coming in here. Mr. Producer, you got your headset on, you needed to say something. Okay. Just want to make sure. Shout out to Chris Isaac. Hey, there we go. So, one of the things that we brought up here was the wood duck. A bunch of wood ducks here in Mississippi. You saw very few there. You're not the only one that I've heard share that story. Dr. Jared Henson said they hardly saw any wood ducks. And I've heard people kind of laugh at this suggestion. Some people don't think mallards eat acorns. They do. You know, it's another topic for a different time. But there was a pretty widespread report of essentially total bust in the acorn crop across a good portion of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Was that what it was like? Were you… A hundred percent.

Matt Harrison: And the main guy that we hunted with this year that's been hunting Arkansas for a long time, that was his main point. He said the acorn drop was not what he has seen in years past. And he blamed a lot of that on the acorns.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, and so what caused that, I don't know, just total bust in the Acorn production, that again is a subject for a different conversation. Chris, are you leaving? So we've got, okay, we have a changing of the guard here. Rachel, our new- Shout out, Tom. We needed to do this. This was on our list, Rachel. Yeah, we had it jotted down. A new member of the DU podcast audio video team, Rachel Bennett. Do you have a microphone? You could say hey to their people. No, she says no.

Matt Harrison: Oh, we're about to unmute it. We're about to unmute it.

Mike Brasher: Hey, everybody. Hey, there she is. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you.

Matt Harrison: We're excited to have you.

Mike Brasher: Thank you for all that you're doing there, Rachel and- Chris, too. And Chris, too. We've had Chris for a long time. He does a great job, but he needs some help and very capable help in Rachel. Um, so yes, the reason for the acorn bust is topic for a different conversation. Um, let's see, what was one of the other questions that we were talking about there? Oh, you asked how things started versus how they ended up and that really varies depending on where you are. You said y'all had some birds early. You probably had some managed, was it pumped? You had water. Go back and think about where we were at the start of the fall here, certainly in the Southern US. And I think across a lot of other areas, it was really, really dry. And so, if you had water, you were one of the few places for ducks. The other thing, and we'll We'll cover this in more detail in our season and review report. If you go back and look at temperature patterns for October, November, December, I didn't realize this until I started pulling the numbers, but those three months were some of the warmest in the 130 years of record keeping. I think all three of those months individually were like in the top five warmest across the 130 years. When you look at that 90-day period or approximately 90-day period from October through the end of the year, it was the warmest on record in 130 years. I heard December was probably horrible for you. I heard some other folks in Arkansas talking about their It was horrible. November, I think there was some cool… We had a very, very good November.

Matt Harrison: You had a good November?

Mike Brasher: And early December, but the later it got in December… I do know one of the places I was able to hunt this year, I did sort of a Midwest tour that was part associated with some DU travel, but mostly associated with taking some time to visit with a friend up in Lake St. Clair. and hunted there, but so hunted there and also hunted in Wisconsin. And that was in, was that in November, early November? I think it was early November. It all runs together now, but it was super, super warm. And it was very, very slow. Some of those Northern states and Midwest states, well, I guess the Midwestern states ultimately, I think, did pretty good. The extreme Northern states, though, I think struggled because it stayed so warm for so long. And then all of a sudden, late November, early December rolls around and we get that real strong cold front that you're talking about and thinking about, which for a lot of those Northern states really locked everything up, if I'm remembering all that correctly. That's kind of how some of that played out. What was one of the other things? You know, precipitation-wise, it was still dry across much of the southeast. One of the places where I do know it was Unusually wet was the Texas panhandle. The high plains and the rolling plains, talked to our friend Kevin Cry, who's a state waterfowl biologist out there. And they had, I want to say, record or near record rainfall in the fall. And that's a landscape that when it gets wet, there's a ton of habitat. And just to give you an example of how the birds respond to that, there are some years where you can look at the Texas Midwinter Survey. And in that landscape, the High Plains and the Rolling Plains together, they'll survey, estimate, I don't know, 100,000 birds total. This year, they were like 1.8 million birds. I mean, it goes from virtually none to a couple million just from one year to the next. It's a truly fascinating landscape from that standpoint. Wow.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's crazy.

Mike Brasher: So let me think. Well, let me look at one of the questions here.

Matt Harrison: And also, while you're doing that, if you're on live, if you have any questions, comments, concern, be sure to drop in the comment and we'll get to you as soon as we can.

Mike Brasher: I get a couple of questions here about avian flu. We can go ahead and tackle those.

Katie Burke: I got a really funny story about avian flu that happened this week.

Mike Brasher: Oh, really? Do you want to tell that first?

Katie Burke: This is great. This is really off topic, but it happened literally this week. So my husband is like a web developer. He builds websites for road races. So nothing to do with anything.

Mike Brasher: And one of his… Like running on… Yeah, run.

Katie Burke: So one of his employees, they were on a staff meeting and she's like one of these people who like saves any sort of hurt animal. And she found a goose under a car and took it home.

Mike Brasher: Does she have poultry?

Katie Burke: No, she doesn't. But she took it home and I was like, As soon as he told me, he's like, I did, I thought about you. She's like, that thing has bird flu. Like, what are you doing? And she called a vet. And now, guess it has bird flu. Oh, no way.

Mike Brasher: Is it a Canada goose? It was a snow goose. A snow goose. Under a car?

Katie Burke: Under a car in New Jersey. And she took it home.

Mike Brasher: Yeah.

Katie Burke: You know, I did. Nursed it back to health. And she, I was like, yeah, it has bird flu. That's the only reason it was under a car in the middle of New Jersey. Yeah. Um, and so she's called the vet and now the, um, Oh, who is it that does like disease control?

Mike Brasher: APHIS.

Katie Burke: Yeah, they're calling her every day to check on her symptoms.

Mike Brasher: Oh, okay. USDA Animal Plant Health.

Katie Burke: She said she can't go to work. Yeah, she's not allowed to go to work.

Matt Harrison: Did they take the bird? Surely they took the bird, huh?

Katie Burke: They took the bird. Yeah, they came and took the bird and got rid of it. But yeah, she's getting calls. She has to stay home in quarantine.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, I did see something the other day.

Katie Burke: So don't pick up snow geese that are randomly in the city.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, there's a flare up of avian flu, I think, in the Northeast. Yes, there have been some new developments associated with avian flu. Oh boy, there's been in the news a fair bit here lately. We think we're to start. So a few weeks ago, if folks are really interested in this, which obviously you're asking questions, so you are, so we appreciate that. I would encourage you to go back a few weeks and find an episode that we recorded on the Ducks Unlimited podcast with three either, well, I guess all of, well, one's a human health expert and the other two sort of wildlife disease experts. One is Dr. Dave Stalneck with Southeastern Wildlife Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, Dr. Richard Webby, human health expert, avian flu specialist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, and then Dr. Jen Ballard, she's the state veterinarian for Arkansas. And so we had those three on a discussion about some of the latest developments. And at that time, I think that followed sort of an outbreak among snow geese, a real prominent outbreak among snow geese and white fronts in Arkansas and Mississippi and some of them in Louisiana and some of these mid-south states and a few other, you know, central plain states as well. Their report to us was that, for the most part, our understanding of the effect of avian flu on wild waterfowl populations, let me just say, hasn't really changed that much. Yes, it's causing mortality. No, we don't think it is at a level that is threatening the sustainability or the population level of any species of waterfowl. There are a few species for which it's reasonable to be a little more concerned. Common eider, for example, dusky Canada geese that may be facing other sort of population issues in general. Whenever you have a small population size in any kind of wildlife species, you have to be a little bit more concerned about these kind of disease events. There have been, obviously, over the past year, substantial reports in the media about avian flu infecting dairy cattle. That was a big development over the year. And we were hoping that was going to run its course, but we learned just this week that a new, I think it's a new genotype of avian flu has been detected in dairy cattle. The original genotype, the only genotype they had been detecting in dairy cattle, they thought was the result of a single spillover event dating back about a year, which we thought was maybe just going to be some accidental transmission and maybe There wasn't going to be any kind of ongoing, any new introductions of avian flu into those dairy cattle. But the detection of this new genotype, D1.1, is what they call it, suggests that there has been another introduction of avian flu into dairy cattle, which is not what our disease experts wanted to see. That means that there's yet another kind of spillover event into dairy cattle. At least they think that's what it means. Still, the threat to humans remains low from the standpoint of… Just don't pick up snow geese on your car. Well, yeah.

Katie Burke: And take them in your house. Take them in your house.

Mike Brasher: It remains low, both from the standpoint of the probability that we would contract it, because the primary means by which ducks or geese or chickens or whatever will give it from one individual to another is through feeding and drinking out of the same water that they're defecating, that they're pooping in, right?

Katie Burke: Just makes sense why snow geese have it. Yeah, exactly.

Mike Brasher: And so for humans, the greatest threat would be if we were able to sort of inhale viral particles and that's not… So number one, the virus isn't adapted to be readily transmissible that way right now. And so… For humans to get it, it's still pretty difficult. There are some situations where we're at an elevated risk. If you work in a poultry facility, if you work in a dairy facility that you know has avian flu circulating, you're at an elevated risk. Waterfowl hunters, this is a message that we've heard a couple of times from these experts, waterfowl hunters that use a mechanical plucker are at elevated risk because when you're using a mechanical plucker it is aerosolizing the particles and all that kind of stuff and the viral particles could be part of that and so you could inhale those and the deeper and more that you inhale the greater the risk of actually getting the virus in you and then developing the disease. They advise If you are using a mechanical plucker, wear a mask, but more importantly, do it in a well-ventilated area. So it's not saying that if you use a mechanical plucker, you're going to get avian flu or anything. We're just talking about situations in which you might be at elevated risk. Your interest in kind of taking precautions around these situations becomes more important if you have an underlying health condition or if you're on up there in age. You know, the same thing, it goes with seasonal flu and anything like that. So just be smart about some of that. If you do get it, Most of the evidence right now will suggest that the symptoms are still pretty mild for humans. There have, however, been 60 or so documented cases, some of which have been severe. There was a case of, I think, a pretty severe case affecting maybe a teenager in Canada here recently. And one, I think, over 65-year-old man in Louisiana actually died after contracting avian flu uh here about a month ago a month or so ago and that was this new genotype the d11 so yes there's some new concern out there from what we we've heard they still and this comes from talking with dr um richard webby at st jude they still have not seen any of the genetic mutations in avian flu that would give them significant concern about the gene, about the virus's ability to easily transmit from human to human. It's fascinating listening to these folks and talking to them and learning how much they know about which genes to look for that will code for certain transmissibility things. So that's the avian flu thing. People hear about avian flu for a variety of different reasons right now. If you have any follow-up questions, drop them in the comment box. I'll look here and see if any of those have come through. But anyway, that's kind of a high-level overview of where we are with avian flu. Ducks Unlimited is remaining engaged in those conversations, and if anything changes, we'll bring those discussions and information to you. Matt, here's a question. that I will toss to you. Did you try any new hunting tactics this season? If so, how did it go?

Matt Harrison: Not so much new hunting tactics as in something we have never used, but for example, Arkansas passed a law this past year that you can now use mojos on public ground and stuff, so we were able to implement that, which we did think helped, you know, tremendously in our hunts. We used a lot more motion this year, yeah. We did too. a whole lot more motion than what we normally do. I saw a bunch of stuff this year just from content creators and a lot of big time waterfowl hunters. A lot of people now are focusing way more… You'll see some people, man, they'll throw out six, seven dozen decoys. If that's your cup of tea, by all means do it. You know, you go look at a raft of ducks, you know, it may be 20, 30, whatever it is, but they're all moving. You know, as much movement as you can, whether they're feeding, whether they're, you know, just resting, they're causing ripples. So we really focus this year on using a good bit of, you know, pulsators, mojos, any type of spinning wings or anything like that. There's actually some new development out too that I saw this year of, it's this coolest thing ever. It's where you can like, it's a triangle and you hook these ducks up on a battery and they swim. And then they'll dial for a second and they'll swim again. And it's, I mean, it's unbelievable.

Mike Brasher: With AI, I shudder to think where we'll be in five years. It's kind of like a Roomba. You know, you know there's somebody who's already thinking about it. We have a Roomba. We have about six of these Roombas that maintain some proximity. But, you know, it's like, hey.

Matt Harrison: Did y'all try anything different?

Mike Brasher: Jerk cord. I mean…

Matt Harrison: I noticed your right shoulder was a little bit buffier this year, Dr. Mike.

Mike Brasher: That was not a new tactic for me. Did I try any new tactic for me? That's a good question. I've never been asked that question.

Katie Burke: I will say, though, we always use pulsators. We call them butt squirters, which is probably not the correct term. They're the hardest things to maintain. Pulsators are.

Matt Harrison: They break. You gotta keep them charged every day, like as soon as you get back. And then they get clogged.

Katie Burke: But they work, they're magical.

Matt Harrison: They work.

Katie Burke: But yeah, now we got like six of them things going. That's a Ronald. No normal decoys.

Mike Brasher: So when y'all go to a fancy hotel and it's got a bidet,

Katie Burke: You know, we call it a bidet. Okay, okay. But you could also use that.

Mike Brasher: I know, it's like if your dad goes into the dinner conversation later that night, he's like, you know, we've got the butt squirter in the bathroom, you don't think a decoy. Nope, that's what we think of a decoy.

Katie Burke: But I would hate to ask Ronald what his name for a bidet is.

Mike Brasher: You know, my dad's not the most… What is a bidet? It's a butt squirter.

Katie Burke: A bidet is…

Mike Brasher: I don't even know what a bidet is. Are we still on or have we been cut off yet? No, we're good?

Katie Burke: I'll explain the bidet to you later. Okay, let's see.

Mike Brasher: Where did we- Oh, new tactics.

Katie Burke: I will say I've hunted over carved decoys, but this, I hunted over Marty's carved decoys. And this I found to be interesting because his decoys, they just have a weight. They don't have a keel on them at all. And all plastic decoys have keels, but his are just flat bottomed and they have the weight there. And they moved in the wind so much better.

Matt Harrison: I've heard that. Really?

Katie Burke: Yes. I was so surprised.

Matt Harrison: Why do you think that is? the non-resistance on the bottom part and it just can float more water.

Katie Burke: The way he weighs, he weights it and then it just you can tell like the thought went in to the habitat and what he was doing and he he built it that way and it moved so much better.

Matt Harrison: I wanna ask y'all a personal question here. This is a little off topic, but just talking about decoys and everything. Are y'all a firm believer, so like, y'all have all been around a long time. Some people, your decoys can't be touching. You know, some people believe like, look, don't put them in real tight. They gotta be spread out, make sure they're not touching. What is y'all's?

Katie Burke: I'm a decoy minimalist, I would say.

Matt Harrison: Are you?

Katie Burke: Yeah, I'm a, let's throw out a dozen and

Matt Harrison: I'm a firm believer of like- I still don't like them touching. I still don't like them touching.

Matt Harrison: Really? I don't like them touching.

Matt Harrison: Okay, is that because you think it's gonna hinder finishing ducks or do you think it's just like, you just don't like them touching? That's a Dr. Mike preference.

Mike Brasher: Do you think it's a- So I carry a tape measure with me and I go out there and I make sure they're, each one is like 18 inches apart. I do not.

Matt Harrison: I know you don't, but- I've never actually thought about it. Oh, people, I hunt with this guy, no name calling, no name calling. When I tell you, I have no joke seen him go out there, look at a decoy, let's say my two phones here and this cup.

Mike Brasher: I'm sitting right here, man.

Matt Harrison: Let's say, no, no, not Dr. Mike. I've seen him go out, let's say these are three decoys and they go.

Mike Brasher: So that only works if the decoy is shorter.

Katie Burke: But he could do that, but if the weight's still on the same spot.

Mike Brasher: So that's, yeah, I would prefer, I'm not, I don't have a problem with them being close. Some people don't like them being close because ducks actually do congregate pretty close in some situations. Especially if you have a lot of decoys. You can get them close. The problem with that oftentimes, though, is sometimes they will be banging up against one another. That's the thing that's difficult to control, is getting a large number of them close together, but so that they're not just kind of all like, in some cases, if it's windy, banging. Whether that noise makes any difference, I don't know. But yeah, we always… I don't know. I just wonder.

Katie Burke: I separate them, but I've never like… I've never thought very hard about it.

Matt Harrison: People do, I promise.

Katie Burke: I agree. I'm sure they do.

Mike Brasher: I do. I will say late in the season, I am a decoy. I'm a decoy minimalist kind of anyway, but late in the season in January, I hardly ever take more than a dozen decoys. Yeah. And that was the case again this year. And I'm, you know, I put a little pair here and a pair over there and a group of five drinks. Then you pull out your tape measure. I had a really rewarding last day. This is kind of shifting gears. I had a really rewarding last day. I did the same thing last year as I did this year. I was able to go back to Mississippi where I grew up, where I hunted growing up. It happened to have rained the night before, and it rained enough to back up some creeks and raise the river and put some water in one of these bottomland soybean fields. It's tough getting back in there, but I went out there that morning. I didn't get out there before dark because I had to wait across this ditch that was flowing pretty good, and I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to make it, but I did. So I got out there and shot a Mallard Drake and a Greenwing Drake that morning. I should have shot a few more, but I wasn't ready for them. And it was sort of an awkward shot and all that kind of stuff. And I shot horribly with my 20 gauge. That ain't like you. My 20 gauge, I was totally off that day for whatever reason. And I was so frustrated to end, because I whiffed three times on a Drake Mallard that came in with a pair. And I was like, oh, that's going to haunt me. And so I can only stay out there until like 10 a.m. because I had a work thing I had to get back to, get on a meeting that I couldn't miss. So I went back to the house. I'm staying with my mom while I'm down there in Mississippi and did my call. And we finished the call early. And I'm looking at the clock. I'm like, I can get back out there. I can get back in because I was planning on going deer hunting. But I'm like, I'm a duck hunter. I gotta go. I gotta go back. And so sure enough, I packed everything up and got down there, trudged out through the mud, got set up. And then I had been passing on a lot of wood ducks thus far because most of the time they were coming in as pairs. Last day of the season in January, the majority of those birds are already prospecting for nest, if not already starting to kind of establish. And I'm not going to pass judgment on anybody if you're shooting a drake or hen that time of year. But you're hunting by yourself. But I'm like, I'm going to be a little more choosy today because I want to be. And so I passed up on a lot of pairs of wood ducks, and I had a group of five or six drake wood ducks come in. And so I'm like, I'm going to take one of those. I had my 12 gauge, one shot, and it was down. And so then later on, had some more Mallards working or had no, I had one Mallard working and it came right over, worked beautifully, called at it and it came back and right over about 30 yards up one shot and dropped it. And that's like, I probably had an overhead shot. I probably had like another. 20 minutes to go in the day, and I said, no, I'm done. I'm stopping.

Matt Harrison: So that was beautiful.

Mike Brasher: Definitely was the gun the first time, but beautiful way to end, very rewarding thing, a way to carry myself through the off season. I do have a question here about what are some things that duck hunters can do during the off season? What do y'all do?

Katie Burke: You can collect decoys.

Matt Harrison: I'll tell you what I'm about to be doing. Yes. Gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble. It's about that time. It is. Which, okay, just talking a little bit about that. You just said you're a duck hunter. You're through and through. You've grown up duck hunting. You actually showed me a video not too long ago of young Dr. Mike Brasher talking about, which I think we should show that at some point. Anyway, you didn't grow up turkey hunting, but you recently took it up. And I do want to say this. This is not to brag. This is not, we didn't plan this. This ain't me just trying to make him feel good. But Katie knows, and anybody listening, anybody that has ever turkey hunted knows how difficult turkey hunting can be. It is a big time challenge, especially if you hunt in certain areas. They're high-pressured, smart, educated birds, and it is tough to harvest one. It can be really tough. Now, there's some times that it's their morning to give it up, and you're in the right spot. It's just the perfect morning, but that hardly ever happens. Not only went, I think, did- I killed a turkey. You killed one with Dr. Mike there, but then you went by yourself. I did. And killed a turkey. And killed a turkey his first year ever going, a Mississippi turkey. It's like, what's the big deal, right? Okay, now, but a Mississippi Eastern Longbeard, that's a tough turkey. You go ask a lot of people where the tough turkeys to kill are, they'll tell you Mississippi Eastern is one of the toughest birds to kill. Hands down. That's beginner's luck. Beginner's luck. That's a cool story though. Tell us just a little bit about how that went.

Mike Brasher: Oh boy. So do you want the full story? Yeah, give us the shortened full version. Okay, the shortened full version was that I had been there, had gone in that morning and hunted with another guy who knows that area. Well, I knew the area. This other guy was a much better turkey hunter and a caller than I was. And so we were like, let's just go, you know, see if we can figure out. He had hunted there in the past and it was like, yeah, let's go do this again. So he had to leave, I think, by mid-morning, 9.30 or something like that, and I was there for the day. And so we had walked around. I knew the area. He was the turkey hunter, and so we were kind of a good combination. And so when it came time for him to leave, we kind of navigated back to where we had parked our vehicles. I said, I'm going to go back in. I'm going to, I'm going to take my binoculars because whenever we had been in there, the other thing I kind of, bird watching. That's right. I had heard all these birds that were chirping. I was like, I don't recognize that one. Or no, I thought I did recognize it, but I couldn't see it. So I wanted to go back in on the binoculars and I said, another answer to the hobby, what you do outside. But I said, but. I'm taking my gun too. So I have binoculars and a gun and all my turkey gear, right? So I'm still donned, still have all my turkey gear on. And so I go in there and I'm looking, I think it was like a Kentucky Warbler. It may have been a Wilson's Warbler because I'd seen the Kentucky Warbler. I know that matters. It's a detail you were wanting. I think it was a Wilson's Warbler that I actually found and did see. And so I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there up here and all of a sudden I hear, I hear the cop.

Katie Burke: And if you hear a turkey gobble at 10 in the morning, it's game on.

Matt Harrison: Game on. He's looking.

Katie Burke: Yeah, he's looking.

Matt Harrison: He's looking for old Henny in a bush.

Mike Brasher: So I was like, okay. We're back in hunting mode. So, binoculars, you go back in their holster. And this bird was close. And so I go back up. Did your heart start pounding? Oh, gosh, yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. And so I go back up the road in the direction where it was and it went maybe a hundred yards. And I just had the little pot call, you know, a slate pot call. And I'm not really good with it or anything like that. But, you know, it's not too complicated, right? Especially if you have a turkey that's, like, super excited. And I don't mean to make it sound like turkey hunting is not difficult because This bird was, he was fired up. And so I just did a few simple strikes on the slate, and he went at it again. And so I'm like, I'm trying to figure out, and there was a ditch, pretty big ditch, creek, between me and where I thought he was, and it turned out I was right. He jumped the creek to come to you? Well, I say that.

Matt Harrison: That's impressive. A lot of people are like, you can't cut him across.

Mike Brasher: I say that. He may not have been. No, you're supposed to say he was. Just say he was. I think he had to have been, to be honest.

Matt Harrison: You'll get some street cred if you say that right now, Dr. Mike.

Mike Brasher: Okay, yes he was. But actually, I honestly do think he was because of where he came from and where I set up. And, I mean, this all happened so fast. And so I think I hit the slate call twice on the road, and then the second time I did it, the dude was close. And so I had to sit down, and I had to get ready, and I'm sitting there, and I'm like, okay, I can't really use a mouth call very well, and so I'm like,

Katie Burke: It's already coming.

Mike Brasher: You don't need a callback. See, I don't know that. But I'm staying here. I've got my knee. I'm propped on my knee and I'm like, how am I going to do this if I need to? And I'm sure I look like a pterodactyl, you know, doing this right here. T-Rex. Or yeah, T-Rex, that's right. And so then all of a sudden I look up and I was like, oh, God damn it. And so I'm like, okay, just, I think I just kind of, because I didn't want it to fall, right? And I don't know, I just kind of slowly did it. But he knew something was off. And he was probably 45 yards, something like that. And so, he turned. The moment he turned, I was like, I got to shoot right here. And so, boom, I did, and he failed. That's awesome. And it was one pellet right to the back of the head that I saw.

Katie Burke: You got the lesson of watching me miss that turkey the other weekend.

Mike Brasher: Right before that.

Katie Burke: Because the morning I killed with his first hunt, I missed. And then we killed the same.

Matt Harrison: Oh, really?

Katie Burke: Two hours later, I killed another one. I actually think it was the same turkey. You think so? Yeah. Dad and I have talked about it enough times, like where we were and then where they were and the way we circled. I think we circled back on the same two birds.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. But that was exhilarating. I talked to people afterwards. It's nothing. There was no other experience. I've done a lot of hunting. Nothing like that.

Matt Harrison: Adrenaline-wise, I was telling somebody this today, earlier today, like adrenaline just true. And I think it's the, just the, you don't know where he's at, especially like- Oh, he just appeared. Because a lot of times, springtime, a lot of foliage on the trees, you can't really see, especially smarter birds like to get in some, not thick stuff, but a lot of times, you know, you'll be in a bottom or something. So they can easily slip up on you when you know that they're coming and they're hammered close to just like, where are they at?

Katie Burke: You got that one shot.

Matt Harrison: The suspense is what just gets you.

Katie Burke: You got one shot, right? So you're… Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Anyway, that's how we're going to pass up our time.

Mike Brasher: I was practicing my mouth call on the way into work this morning. Are you? Yes, I'm getting ready. Big choke, huh? No, that's right. We do have a few more questions here. Let's see, bag limits for next season. What I can tell folks is that the recommendations for bag limits have already been passed up through the flyaway count. Well, they came out last fall, the recommendations in the Adaptive Harvest Management Report, and they've been kind of circulated to the flyway councils and they're going through the regulatory setting process right now. The recommendations are going to be for an additional, for liberal frameworks in all four flyways. There is also a recommendation for a three pintail bag limit with no sex restrictions. Stay tuned for a future episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast where we're going to be talking about some of why that is and talking about how that came to be. There was also a recent article in the Ducks Unlimited magazine that kind of highlighted that. That is unless something unforeseen happens, that will be in place for all four flyways. So that's got a lot of people excited. It's got a lot of people asking questions. Our episode here in a few weeks, probably will air sometime next month, is designed to help answer and address some of those questions, bringing in some of our state partners, at least, to talk about that. There is, however, going to be a recommended shortening of the early teal season for those states and flyways that have that from 16 days down to nine days, I think. So a week shorter. I'm trying to think if there any other highlights on the no changes to the bag limits again another liberal framework for all for duck season for all four flyways is the recommendation, but I'll close this part. With what I always say. Before you go out, make sure you check your local regulations. Make sure you, if you're a migratory bird hunter, that you register for HIP, the Harvest Information Program. Another little plug here. If you hunt in multiple states, if you hunt migratory birds, ducks, geese, swans, cranes, snipe, woodcock, etc., doves, you have to register for HIP separately in each of those states. And when you're answering those questions, you answer the questions for that state. It's one of the big messages that we're trying to get people to understand and to share that information. It's a little interesting factoid sitting around duck camps, like when people start talking about some of that stuff. The other thing that I'll say, another misconception, is that whenever you're answering those questions about how many birds you harvested last year, the assumption is that they use those actual numbers to estimate the harvest. That's not true. That is just how you get put into different categories for sampling. based on those answers being an index of your hunting prowess, if you will, how many birds you're likely to… If last year, the number of birds you killed last year is a good indicator of the number of birds you're gonna like to kill this year, at least in those three categories. So, lots of good information out there on our website and other places to help understand the Harvest Information Program. Let's see, what can we do in the off-season? Obviously, retriever training, looking after your gear, your boat. Fishing. Decoy shows. Decoy shows. We all have a number of things that we're doing in the off-season, kind of work-wise, but personal-wise, we have a lot of other things that's going on as well.

Katie Burke: Lots of running.

Mike Brasher: Lots of running. You know, I will also sort of plug our Duck DNA project. It was another incredibly successful year. Thank you to everyone that participated in that. We're going to have another episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast here in the coming weeks where we talk about that in detail. We received over a thousand tissue samples from our participants. We had over 3,500 people apply. We now have an Instagram account associated with that. It's at theduckdna. We will soon have a Facebook account associated with that as well. Actually, I think it may already be out there. I'm not sure about that, but so we're trying to kind of use that to get them. Actually, it is out there. Our Facebook account is live out there now. Not a whole lot going on it right now. Just started that. But check those out, stay connected with us on the development, some of the results that are coming out of that. Some really, really cool looking birds that we've gotten through. We're overwhelmed by the response that we got from people that were interested in submitting hybrids or otherwise unique looking birds. We're sharing a lot of those photos and results with people through those different accounts. Stay tuned as we try to figure out what next year looks like for duck DNA.

Katie Burke: I submitted one this year. A hybrid. Yeah.

Mike Brasher: That's right, you did. What kind of hybrid?

Katie Burke: We don't know.

Mike Brasher: It's part of Casey's kit, right?

Matt Harrison: What's the species you think?

Katie Burke: Mallard. We think Mallard gadwall.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Katie Burke: We'll find out.

Mike Brasher: One of the other things before we get out of here, and I don't know how much longer we want to go here, but just sort of a reminder, we do have some upcoming, about five more minutes, it sounds like, we're going to try that.

Matt Harrison: So if you have any more questions, drop them in the comment clip.

Mike Brasher: So just a reminder for upcoming Ducks Unlimited events and other associated things. That's one of the things that we can do, I guess, during the summer. Always a great time to engage with various outdoor expos and things of that nature. And we also have Ducks Unlimited banquets.

Matt Harrison: A hundred percent.

Mike Brasher: We also, so check out the Ducks Unlimited Banquets near you. If you want to figure that out, go to www.ducks.org forward slash events. Find a place near you, find a chapter near you. Volunteering is a great way to get involved and meet people that share similar interests. I have a couple of banquets on my list for spring. I'm sure I will in the fall as well. Others, Southeastern Wildlife Expo is going on. Other expos that are out there right now. And then in the fall, I think it's August. Maybe it's actually summer.

Matt Harrison: It's July. That's what I was about to ask. It's August. Sorry, August 1.

Katie Burke: August 1, 2, and 3. Yeah, that's right.

Matt Harrison: Sorry, August.

Katie Burke: My big announcement goes with that. Yeah, so for the past four years, I've been working on a project where we have this great Canada goose decoy collection coming into the museum, and it opens on August 1st, the first day of the expo.

Matt Harrison: That's awesome.

Katie Burke: Because it's all downtown, so the expo will be downtown at the convention center. The exhibit will open in the Pyramid. And with that, Mark Petrie, one of our biologists, soon to be on the podcast, he wrote a book about Canada geese, the history of Canada geese, the conservation history, the hunting history, and the decoy history. All tied together.

Matt Harrison: Fantastic. August 1st, 2nd and 3rd. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Mike Brasher: In Memphis. Yep.

Matt Harrison: It's going to be a lot of fun.

Mike Brasher: I've heard great things about the lineup of exhibitors that we've got. I don't know what the latest on that is, but I'm sure that we'll be covering that in some detail as we work up to it. We're all excited about that. I was going to mention one other thing.

Matt Harrison: Live weather.

Mike Brasher: I had another question come in here. I'm an environmental science student and was wondering if you guys hire summer students. I don't know. Looking to learn more about ducks. That's always a wonderful thing to learn more about. So thank you for that question. We don't here at National Headquarters have summer summer positions that I'm aware of. Do you have anything, Katie?

Katie Burke: I mean, I have interned this summer, but it's not environmental science. It's museum studies. So anybody out there, museum studies.

Mike Brasher: I tell you what, I would encourage anyone, that person, whoever submitted that question, to check out the Ducks Unlimited career page. Go to ducks.org, scroll down, you'll find careers down at the bottom there somewhere. I don't really know. Rachel, can you get it, see what the, can you look up the URL for that while I'm kind of rambling here?

Matt Harrison: Career page for Ducks Unlimited.

Mike Brasher: Career page for Ducks Unlimited.

Katie Burke: Yeah, because that's where you'd find those internships.

Mike Brasher: There are some. There are some. There are. Like there's some field positions, technician positions or something like that. Maybe up in North Dakota, I think, and a few other places. But always go to our career page at Ducks Unlimited. We'll get that URL here if you can. Do we have any more questions? We're challenging our team here.

Katie Burke: I can talk a little bit about youth day. So we did a youth hunt this year and it was fun. So we did, first time ever, we did all seven grandkids with my dad. Nice. Yeah. So it was not a good day, but it was fun. And my advice with taking kids hunting, is, who cares if you shoot ducks? It's about having fun. That's right. So any way you can make it fun, by even pushing in the oldest one in the water, because she was talking back, that still makes it fun.

Mike Brasher: That is great. That's a great story. You have video or photo of that?

Katie Burke: I have of them wet.

Mike Brasher: You wouldn't do that. I didn't do it. Okay, so we do have that URL, www.ducks.org forward slash jobs. J-O-B-S. So go check that out. And even if you're looking for more than those just summer intern opportunities, go check out what Ducks Unlimited has to offer and how you can get involved. I mean, there's a lot of other stuff that we could have talked about in terms of how things went in the Pacific Flyway, Atlantic Flyway. We obviously had a lot of fun here just sort of talking about some of our experiencing and answering questions. We will, I guess, we'll be circulating our season in review publication through our social media channels here maybe in three weeks or so, three or four weeks. That's where you can pick up some more information. Whether we'll have any other review of that on a podcast, I don't know. But this has been fun. It's been, again, trying new things, trying different things.

Matt Harrison: There it is. And we also want to shout out big time Rachel and Chris. Those two are literally, if you listen to DU Podcast, it is because of them two that this thing works. Because if it wasn't for them, no knock to us three sitting up here, but this wouldn't be possible. Y'all two are awesome, and we truly appreciate y'all.

Mike Brasher: I'm also on these live events, which we've done several of them now. We're doing our Waterfowl Weather Live, and we're doing this now. We have folks helping us outside the screen here. Derek Christians. Derek Mallory. Mallory Murphy, Bobby Meeks, Landon McCullough is out there. Who else? Yeah, who am I missing? Everybody, thank you. Everybody out there. Chris is pointing at some things on the screen over here. I'm not sure if he's pointing at me or whatever. Just trying to make sure we don't forget.

Katie Burke: I want to say too is like, what's been nice about this is the questions coming in. We really like send us emails, whatever. We really like to have feedback and we like to interact with you.

Mike Brasher: So, keep it up. The way we've kind of evolved sort of as hosts and being comfortable with this type of stuff, at least me, I can say. Oh, you know, I was like terrified. We started talking about even doing anything, fielding, well, it even starts before then, even fielding any kind of questions. I mean, even email or whatever. I'm like, I don't know if I want to go there. Then it's like, do we want to do live? Nah, I don't know if I want to go there. And now we're actually doing live events and taking comments and it's working out great.

Matt Harrison: And now we even got a new camera that can show you what kind of coffee Dr. Mike's drinking. Can we get to that? So now… So now we got a new camera. Nothing on there that you weren't supposed to see.

Mike Brasher: Just some scribbles and notes. Okay, we're gonna wrap it up here.

Matt Harrison: Thank y'all too. Dr. Mike, Katie, thank y'all.

Mike Brasher: Thank you for being here, man.

Matt Harrison: Jared, wish you were here.

Mike Brasher: Don't leave me hanging. Sorry, man.

Matt Harrison: Wish you were here, Jared.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, absolutely. Wish you could be here. Thank you to everybody. I hope you had a wonderful hunting season. I hope you have a wonderful off-season. Get done what you need to get done, because in just a few months, we're going to be talking about the season that is going to be upon us in the fall and winter. So take care of y'all, and we will catch you on the next episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast.